et Vetera Nova Fall 2021 • Volume 19, Number 4 The English Edition of the International Theological Journal Co-Editors Matthew Levering, Mundelein Seminary Thomas Joseph White, O.P., Pontifical University of St. Thomas Aquinas Book Review Editor James Merrick, Franciscan University of Steubenville Associate Editors Holly Taylor Coolman, Providence College Gilles Emery, O.P., University of Fribourg Paul Gondreau, Providence College Scott W. Hahn, Franciscan University of Steubenville Thomas S. Hibbs, University of Dallas Reinhard Hütter, Catholic University of America Christopher Malloy, University of Dallas Bruce D. Marshall, Southern Methodist University Charles Morerod, O.P., Bishop of Lausanne, Geneva, and Fribourg John O’Callaghan, University of Notre Dame Chad C. Pecknold, Catholic University of America Michael S. Sherwin, O.P., University of Fribourg Board of Advisors Anthony Akinwale, O.P., Dominican Institute, Ibadan, Nigeria Khaled Anatolios, University of Notre Dame Robert Barron, Auxiliary Bishop of Los Angeles, CA John Betz, University of Notre Dame Bernhard Blankenhorn, O.P., Pontifical University of St. Thomas Aquinas Christopher O. Blum, Catholic University of America Stephen Brock, Pontifical University of the Holy Cross Peter Casarella, Duke University Divinity School 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., Pontifical University of St. Thomas Aquinas 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, University of Notre Dame 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. Address all contributions, books for review, and related correspondence to Matthew Levering, mjlevering@yahoo.com. 2. Contributions should be prepared to accord as closely as possible with the typographical conventions of Nova et Vetera. The University of Chicago Manual of Style (16th edition) is our authority on matters of style. 3. Nova et Vetera practices blind review. Submissions are evaluated anonymously by members of the editorial board and other scholars with appropriate expertise. Name, affiliation, and contact information should be included on a separate page apart from the submission. 4. Galley-proofs of articles are sent to contributors to be read and corrected and should be returned to the Editors within ten days of receipt. Corrections should be confined to typographical and factual errors. 5. Submission of a manuscript entails the author’s agreement (in the event his or her contribution is accepted for publication) to assign the copyright to Nova et Vetera. Nova et Vetera The English Edition of the International Theological Journal ISSN 1542-7315 Fall 2021 Vol. 19, No. 4 Commentary Using Abortion-Derived Vaccines: A Moral Analysis.. . . Ezra Sullivan, O.P. 1011 Articles & Leon Kuriakos Pereira, O.P. Frozen Embryos, Unwanted Pregnancies, and Artificial Wombs: Which Options Are Morally Licit?. . . . Irene Alexander 1111 A Christian Response to Laws That Require Immoral Acts.. . . John Makdisi 1147 Religious Life as a State of Perfection. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Gregory Pine, O.P. 1181 Catechisms, Communion, and Latin Scholastic Reception of Byzantine Thought: St. John Damascene’s De fide orthodoxa in St. Bonaventure’s Breviloquium.. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Corey J. Stephan 1215 Symposium On Bound To Beatitude Fiat Lux! Anchored in Glory— No Scandals to Dread. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Sister Maria of the Angels, O.P. 1237 The Politics of Chastity. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Edward Feser 1257 The Consummation of the World: St. Thomas Aquinas on the Risen Saints’ Beatitude and the Corporeal Universe.. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Bryan Kromholtz, O.P. 1271 “Habitual” Ordering. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . William C. Mattison III 1289 Friendship with God: The Christian Call to Divine Intimacy. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Michael S. Sherwin, O.P. 1323 Godlike Instruments: Notes toward the Regeneration of Science. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Adrian J. Walker 1345 Book Reviews Visioning Augustine by John C. Cavadini. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Paul Allen 1399 The Achievement of Hans Urs von Balthasar: An Introduction to His Trilogy by Matthew Levering. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Angela Franks 1403 Autism and the Church: Bible, Theology, and Community by Grant Macaskill... . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Matthew Schneider, L.C. 1408 Jesus and the Last Supper by Brant Pitre.. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Steven Smith 1412 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 978-1-64585-183-7) is published quarterly by St. Paul Center for Biblical Theology, 1468 Parkview Circle, Steubenville, OH 43952. Nova et Vetera is distributed to institutional subscribers for the St. Paul Center by the Catholic University of America Press. Institutional subscriptions, notifications of change of address, and inquiries concerning subscriptions, back issues, and missing copies should be sent to: JHUP Journals Division, PO Box 19966, Baltimore, MD 21211-0966. 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Nova et Vetera Subscription Rates: • Individuals: one-year $40.00, two-year $75.00 International: one-year $60.00, two-year $115.00 • Students: one-year $30.00, two-year $50.00 International: one-year $40.00, two-year $70.00 • Colleges, Universities, Seminaries, and Institutions: one-year $110.00, one-year print + electronic subscription $150.00 International: one-year $135.00 To subscribe online, please visit http://www.nvjournal.net. For subscription inquiries, email us at novaetvetera@stpaulcenter.com or phone 740-264-9535. Nova et Vetera, English Edition, Vol. 19, No. 4 (2021): 1011–1109 1011 Using Abortion-Derived Vaccines: A Moral Analysis* Ezra Sullivan, O.P. Pontifical University of St. Thomas Aquinas Rome, Italy Leon Kuriakos Pereira, O.P.** Introduction: Object of This Study “I came that they may have life, and have it abundantly,” said Jesus Christ ( John 10:10), who offers eternal life through union with him by divine grace.1 In the words of John Paul II, this is the “Gospel of Life” which proclaims the inherent dignity of each human life “from its very beginning to its end”—a dignity that every person sincerely open to truth and goodness can recognize. All are called to “affirm the right of every human being to have this primary good respected to the highest degree,” for, the Pope explained, “upon the recognition of this right, every human community and the political community itself are founded.”2 In the past year (2020–2021), the biological and spiritual life of nearly the entire world has been negatively affected by the SARS-CoV-2 (COVID-19) virus, whether directly or indirectly, sometimes in devastating ways. Media provided daily updates about infection rates and death-counts, about rising debt levels, about government-mandated measures including incarceration of citizens within their homes and, more recently, the diffu* We would like to thank the many scholars—some of whom will remain anonymous—who have read early drafts of this article and offered comments on it, including Frs. Jeffrey Barnish, Jonathan Fincher, Peter Gallagher, and Denis Nakkeeran. ** Original formulation of the issue; first drafts of sections 1.2, 3.5.2, and 5, along with editing throughout the text and additional research. 1 See Thomas Aquinas, Super Ioan 10, lec. 3, no. 1396. 2 John Paul II, Evangelium Vitae [EV] (1995), §1. 1012 Sullivan and Pereira sion of vaccines for a majority of citizens. These vaccines are a source of hope for many. Camus, in his psychologically astute novel The Plague (1947), describes how citizens shut up for months by an epidemic longed to leave the confines of their municipality. For a time, guards would gun down anyone who tried to escape. But when the plague had run its course and claimed numerous lives, the gates of the town finally opened and the people jubilantly rejoined long-separated loved ones. In our day, many see the whole world like Camus’s disease-stricken town and many hope that safe vaccines will open the gates of their lockdown and provide a passport to a healthier world. Tens of millions have already received vaccines for COVID-19, and hundreds of millions, if not billions, are slated to do so. Vaccine use has provoked controversy however. For years, some vaccines have been designed, developed and produced using cells derived from aborted fetuses. Many vaccines for COVID-19 have followed suit. Large numbers of Catholics and other people of good will are in a state of perplexed conscience, not knowing what course of action is morally acceptable. Even worse, they are not receiving unanimous guidance, because some authorities have strongly declared themselves in favor of the vaccines whereas other authorities are strongly against them. Nearly the entire world is being drawn into a moral relation to the vaccines: deliberately taking or rejecting them is a moral decision. It is therefore appropriate to consider these issues in an orderly and sober manner, so that neither bodies nor souls may be harmed in this situation. For the sake of thoroughness and clarity, we address some issues found in treatises of moral theology, for many of the treatises disagree with each other, or present only partial treatments of relevant material, or include errors. The object of this inquiry is to investigate the morality of receiving vaccines which have been developed by using cells derived from one of the gravest evils in our time, namely, through the direct killing of children. Through this investigation, we hope to show that certain conditions may render receiving such vaccines morally acceptable, although receiving unethically-derived vaccines is not recommendable without qualification, and in every choice the pandemic offers the Catholic Church and all people of upright conscience a chance to recommit to upholding and defending the inviolable dignity of human life. Much of the impetus of this article comes from requests received from many different quarters to address the morality of receiving vaccines derived from illicit sources. Disagreement about this issue has created significant rifts among Catholics of good will. By the time this work is published, the decision of whether to receive a vaccine or not will have already been made by a majority of people. Nevertheless, we hope that the Using Abortion-Derived Vaccines 1013 principles outlined here can provide a model for moral decision-making in the future, and help put to rest concerns that receiving the vaccines is intrinsically evil. 1. Background to the COVID-19 Vaccines 1.1 Danger of COVID-19 As with any medical treatment, a person must have good reasons to hold that the vaccine will truly help his health, or prevent a sufficiently grave risk to his health or the health of others. That is, one should have at least probable reasons for holding that the virus poses serious risks to health. Pending evidence to the contrary, we will argue that even if the precise numbers of infections and deaths are uncertain, COVID-19 poses grave health risks especially for the elderly, and serious risks for other vulnerable people. One way to measure the danger of the COVID-19 virus is to measure hospitalizations. This gives an indication of the virus’s burden on healthcare systems, especially since downstream effects of a disproportionately high number of hospitalizations could lead to loss of care for many other kinds of patients. Numbers of hospitalizations, however, has greatly varied depending on regions (e.g., in Bergamo, Italy, the hospitals were overwhelmed in spring of 2020, but not in Rome). Also, this measure is not entirely accurate, because fear could drive a disproportionate number of people to seek hospitalizations when it is not necessary, creating a negative feedback cycle with the following elements: (1) high numbers of infections and deaths lead to negative media reports; (2) widespread incessant negative media cycles—driven by news, celebrities, governments—spread fear throughout a population; (3) exacerbated fear causes disproportionate numbers of people to seek unnecessary hospital care, thereby threatening to crash the healthcare system; (4) lack of hospital beds drives further negative media, continuing the cycle. If that were the case, then solutions other than vaccines could more directly resolve the danger of healthcare system collapse. That is, the media could make concerted efforts to avoid fear-mongering and convey the truth about the real risks of the virus. The model above suggests that the danger of COVID-19 is more accurately gauged by the deaths it causes rather than hospitalizations considered alone. On March 3, 2020, Dr. Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, the director general of the World Health Organization (WHO) said that there was a 3.4% case fatality rate (CFR) in China, making it one of the 1014 Sullivan and Pereira deadliest viruses ever known.3 Because this number was partly on account of Wuhan’s concentrated aged population and the lack of adequate infrastructure response, the WHO later published an estimated Infection Fatality Rate (IFR) to 0.23% based on seroprevalence data.4 Other evidence suggests an even lower fatality rate. According to official data collected by the COVID-19 Data Repository at Johns Hopkins University, there have been worldwide 162.52 million confirmed cumulative cases and 3.37 million deaths within about a year from the beginning of the outbreak,5 which is high compared to an estimated 389 thousand annual influenza-associated death globally in 2017.6 For the United States alone, the numbers given are 32.92 million cases and about 585,700 deaths (1.77% CFR),7 considerably higher than the lowerend estimate of 0.82% CFR based on global data.8 The IFR is estimated at between 0.1% and 0.35%.9 As of March 19, 2021, the Center for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) currently gave a “best estimate” CFR of 0.4% and IFR of 0.26%.10 The deadliness of COVID-19 becomes apparent when the relatively more viral but benign H1N1 flu, which in 2009–2010 caused a “pandemic” in the United States with an estimated 60 million cases and about 12,500 deaths (0.02% IFR).11 Likewise, an influenza Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, “WHO Director-General's Opening Remarks at the Media Briefing on COVID-19—3 March 2020,” World Health Organization, March 3, 2020, who.int/director-general/speeches/detail/who-director-generals-opening-remarks-at-the-media-briefing-on-covid-19---3-march-2020. 4 John P. A. Ioannidis, “Infection Fatality Rate of COVID-19 Inferred from Seroprevalence Data,” World Health Organization, October 14, 2020, web.archive.org/ web/20210305020849/https://who.int/bulletin/volumes/99/1/20-265892/ en/. 5 Max Roser et al., “Coronavirus Pandemic (COVID-19)—Statistics and Research,” Our World in Data, 2020, ourworldindata.org/coronavirus. 6 John Paget et al., “Global Mortality Associated with Seasonal Influenza Epidemics: New Burden Estimates and Predictors from the GLaMOR Project,” Journal of Global Health 9, no. 2 (2019), ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6815659/. 7 Roser et al., “Coronavirus Pandemic (COVID-19).” 8 Jason Oke and Carl Heneghan, “Global Covid-19 Case Fatality Rates,” The Centre for Evidence-Based Medicine, March 17, 2020, www.cebm.net/covid-19/globalcovid-19-case-fatality-rates/. 9 Oke and Heneghan, “Global Covid-19 Case Fatality Rates.” 10 Center for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), “COVID-19 Pandemic Planning Scenarios,” CDC, March 19, 2021, cdc.gov/coronavirus/2019-ncov/hcp/ planning-scenarios.html. 11 CDC, “The Burden of the Influenza A H1N1pdm09 Virus since the 2009 Pandemic,” CDC, June 10, 2019, cdc.gov/flu/pandemic-resources/burden-ofh1n1.html. 3 Using Abortion-Derived Vaccines 1015 denominated as “severe” in 2017–2018 resulted in about 45 million infections and 61 thousand deaths (0.13% IFR).12 Looking at a more granular level, the danger of the COVID-19 virus is best measured in light of individual circumstances, since fatality rates vary greatly depending on factors such as age and pre-existing conditions. Data from the CDC and elsewhere suggest that, “For every 1,000 people infected with the coronavirus who are under the age of 50, almost none 12 CDC, “2017–2018 Estimated Influenza Illnesses, Medical Visits, Hospitalizations, and Deaths and Estimated Influenza Illnesses, Medical Visits, Hospitalizations, and Deaths Averted by Vaccination in the United States,” CDC, November 22, 2019, cdc.gov/flu/about/burden-averted/2017-2018.htm. Some challenges suggest that infections and deaths have been far fewer than suggested by mass media. For example, an analysis by over a dozen experts criticized the publication upon which the World Health Organization (WHO) relied for the polymerase chain reaction (PCR) test protocols that were utilized throughout the United States. and Europe, namely, Victor Corman et al., “Detection of 2019 Novel Coronavirus (2019-nCoV) by Real-time RT-PCR” (Corman-Drosten Review Report, November 27, 2020, cormandrostenreview.com/report/). The title of the critique by Pieter Borger et al., “External Peer Review of the RTPCR Test to Detect SARSCoV-2 Reveals 10 Major Scientific Flaws at the Molecular and Methodological Level: Consequences for False Positive Results” (November 27, 2020, Science against Panic in the COVID-19 Crisis project) speaks for itself. According to the opinion of the scientists’ consortium, “if someone is tested by PCR as positive when a threshold of 35 cycles or higher is used (as is the case in most laboratories in Europe & the US), the probability that said person is actually infected is less than 3%, the probability that said result is a false positive is 97%.” Another preliminary estimate showed that the rate of operational false-positive swab tests in the United Kingdom could lead to false results well over 50% of the time (Rita Jaafar et al., “Correlation between 3790 Quantitative Polymerase Chain Reaction–Positives Samples and Positive Cell Cultures, Including 1941 Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome Coronavirus 2 Isolates,” Clinical Infectious Diseases 72, no. 11 (2020): e921). The reason for this is that the PCR test does not distinguish between virus particles, which have little effect on health or transmission, and the dangerous full-length virus. In partial confirmation of these findings, on January 13, 2021, the WHO issued a “medical product alert,” which acknowledged that in the absence of “clinical presentation” of the virus (e.g., difficulty breathing, fever, cough), the PCR is inadequate to detect the virus: “A new specimen should be taken and retested” (WHO, “Nucleic Acid Testing (NAT) Technologies That Use Polymerase Chain Reaction (PCR) for Detection of SARS-CoV-2,” World Health Organization, 2021, who.int/news/item/20-01-2021-who-information-noticefor-ivd-users-2020-05). In response to claims that the numbers of infections and deaths are irresponsibly inaccurate and exaggerated, one could note that China, Taiwan, Korea, and other countries have utilized other protocols for detecting COVID-19, but they have nevertheless reported high numbers of infections and virus-related deaths. 1016 Sullivan and Pereira will die. For people in their fifties and early sixties, about five will die— more men than women. . . . For every 1,000 people in their mid-seventies or older who are infected, around 116 will die.”13 To put it another way, 93% of COVID-19 deaths are among people aged 50 and older; 80% are those over 65;14 biological sex also matters: “8.5% of men and 4.9% of women in their 70s with no known conditions besides covid-19 died.”15 In contrast, the recovery rate of younger persons from COVID-19 is more than 99.9%: the risk of a younger person dying from the virus is far less than driving in a car.16 However, obesity increases fatality risk by 90%.17 Other significant risk factors include type 2 diabetes, chronic liver, kidney, and obstructive pulmonary diseases.18 COVID-19 has a number of complex non-lethal effects, since it “attacks the body in many different ways, ranging from mild to life-threatening. Different organs and tissues of the body can be affected.”19 For many, especially the young, the virus causes mild flu-like symptoms, such as a persistent cough and runny nose, shortness of breath, pain or tightness in the chest, headache and fever, fatigue, and a loss of the senses of taste and smell.20 For others, it can cause lung injury and lead to pneumonia, Acute Respiratory Distress Syndrome (ARDS), and sepsis.21 Sometimes Smriti Mallapaty, “The Coronavirus Is Most Deadly If You Are Older and Male— New Data Reveal the Risks,” Nature 585, no. 7823 (2020): 16–17. 14 California Department of Public Health (CDPH), “Cases and Deaths Associated with COVID-19 by Age Group in California,” California Department of Public Health, June 23, 2021, cdph.ca.gov/Programs/CID/DCDC/Pages/COVID-19/ COVID-19-Cases-by-Age-Group.aspx. 15 Economist, “Our Covid-19 Model Estimates Odds of Hospitalisation and Death,” The Economist, March 13, 2021, economist.com/graphic-detail/2021/03/13/ our-covid-19-model-estimates-odds-of-hospitalisation-and-death. 16 Insurance Information Institute (III), “Facts + Statistics: Teen Drivers,” iii, 2018, iii.org/fact-statistic/facts-statistics-teen-drivers; Insurance Institute for Highway Safety, Highway Loss Data Institute (IIHS-HLDI), “Fatality Facts 2019: Teenagers,” IIHS-HLDI, 2019, iihs.org/topics/fatality-statistics/detail/teenagers. 17 Elisabeth Mahase, “Covid-19: Why Are Age and Obesity Risk Factors for Serious Disease?,” BMJ, October 26, 2020, bmj.com/content/bmj/371/bmj.m4130.full. pdf. 18 Economist, “Our Covid-19 Model.” 19 Panagis Galiatsatos and Robert Brodsky, “What Does COVID Do to Your Blood?” Johns Hopkins Medicine, November 18, 2020, hopkinsmedicine.org/ health/conditions-and-diseases/coronavirus/what-does-covid-do-to-your-blood. 20 CDC, “Symptoms of COVID-19,” CDC, February 22, 2021, cdc.gov/coronavirus/2019-ncov/symptoms-testing/symptoms.html. 21 Panagis Galiatsatos, “COVID-19 Lung Damage,” Johns Hopkins Medicine, 2021, hopkinsmedicine.org/health/conditions-and-diseases/coronavirus/what-corona13 Using Abortion-Derived Vaccines 1017 COVID-19 causes cause blood clots, which in turn affect the kidneys, the skin (causing reddish or purple rashes), and the nervous system (sometimes causing strokes),22 also causing medium to long-term brain injury with negative effects on memory, attention, and executive function.23 Negative long-term effects of COVID-19 (also called late sequalae and post-COVID syndrome, among other similar names) on many organs have been documented “in most, if not all, body systems including cardiovascular, pulmonary, renal, dermatologic, neurologic, and psychiatric.”24 1.2 Use of Aborted Human Fetal Cell Lines Given the serious dangers posed by COVID-19, to grasp the moral import of receiving abortion-tainted vaccines, we must first consider the facts regarding abortions and vaccines in the medical industry, and then evaluate those facts from a moral perspective. 1.2.1 Abortions and the Medical Research Industry in General Records attest that abortions have been committed for millennia, but in pre-modern times the body of the aborted fetus was not used for medical purposes; it was either buried or simply disposed of.25 As medical technology advanced, however, this changed. In 1921, physicians in the United Kingdom reported having grafted tissue “from a foetus just after death” onto the testicle of a man suffering from Addison’s disease.26 In the early 1960s, Leonard Hayflick was able to obtain aborted baby parts quietly and illegally for the Wistar Institute in Philadelphia in a bid to create cell lines.27 By 1972, an editorial in the British Medical Journal reported, “The use of fetal tissues has long been necessary in virology, cancer research, immunolvirus-does-to-the-lungs. Galiatsatos and Brodsky, “What Does COVID Do to Your Blood?” 23 Andrew E. Budson, “The Hidden Long-Term Cognitive Effects of COVID19,” Harvard Medical School: Harvard Health Publishing, October 8, 2020, health.har vard.edu/blog/the-hidden-long -term-cognitive-effects-ofcovid-2020100821133. 24 CDC, “Post-COVID Conditions: Information for Healthcare Providers,” CDC, April 8, 2021, cdc.gov/coronavirus/2019-ncov/hcp/clinical-care/post-covid-conditions.html. 25 John M. Riddle, Eve’s Herbs: A History of Contraception and Abortion in the West (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1999), 64–90. 26 A. F. Hurst, W. E. Tanner, and A. A. Osman, “Addison’s Disease, with Severe Anaemia, Treated by Suprarenal Grafting,” Proc R Soc Med 15 (1922): 19–20. 27 Leonard Hayflick, “The Limited in vitro Lifetime of Human Diploid Cell Strains,” Experimental Cell Research 37, no. 3 (March 1965): 614–36. 22 1018 Sullivan and Pereira ogy, and other work.”28 The use of fetal tissue had become a point of intense discussion, because two years prior Norman St. John-Stevas had stated in Parliament, during a discussion of a proposed bill to permit more abortions, that “aborted live fetuses have been sold for medical experiments.”29 Soon after Roe v. Wade (1973), similar practices in the United States were openly acknowledged. In the words of one author: “Experimentation with live human fetuses—those with discernible heartbeats—has occurred both in utero and upon aborted fetuses.”30 The collaboration between the abortion industry and medical research continued—and controversies did not abate. The American news show “20/20” alleged in 2000 that a company was profiteering from the illegal sale of fetal tissue. This allegation led to a bi-partisan Congressional request for investigation by the Department of Justice and the Federal Bureau of Investigation.31 In 2015, secretly recorded video footage from the Center for Medical Progress showed that Planned Parenthood was making fetal tissue available to medical researchers, apparently illegally. Investigations in over twelve states were initiated, and in 2019 Planned Parenthood representatives and others testified under oath that they regularly supplied fetal tissue to researchers.32 The Charlotte Lozier Institute estimates that as of 2019, the National Institutes of Health (NIH) had funded over $500 million for fetal tissue projects through the years, with more than $100 million in 2019 alone.33 These body parts were harvested from babies who died by elective abortion or even by the act of harvesting itself. 1.2.2 Vaccine Use of Abortion-Derived Cell Lines Multiplying human cells is necessary for many kinds of experiments and medical applications, but the process is difficult in a lab: because of the limited number of times they can divide, cells eventually grow “old.” Young and fresh human cells are preferred, and it is often argued that those from “On the Fetus,” British Medical Journal 2, no. 5813 (1972): 550. “Experiments on the Fetus,” British Medical Journal 2, no. 5707 (1970): 433. 30 Gary L. Reback, “Fetal Experimentation: Moral, Legal, and Medical Implications,” Stanford Law Review 26, no. 5 (1974): 1195. 31 John D. Dingell, “Congress Requests DOJ, FBI Investigation into Sale of Fetal Tissue,” Inside Washington’s FDA Week 6, no. 11 (2000): 9–11. 32 Center for Medical Progress Staff (CMP), “Planned Parenthood Testimony on Selling Baby Parts Unsealed, New Videos Released: Testimony,” Center for Medical Progress, May 26, 2020, centerformedicalprogress.org/2020/05/planned-parenthood-testimony-on-selling-baby-parts-unsealed-new-videos-released/. 33 Tara Sander Lee and James L. Sherley, “A Policy and Funding Evaluation of Human Fetal Tissue Research,” Charlotte Lozier Institute, September 11, 2020, lozierinstitute.org/a-policy-and-funding-evaluation-of-human-fetal-tissue-research/. 28 29 Using Abortion-Derived Vaccines 1019 human fetuses are optimal. Cells taken from a baby are multiplied into many cells of the same kind. These can be further multiplied, creating lines of cells that are sometimes used for experiments. The difficulty of establishing viable cell lines—unless they are harvested in vivo—means that these cell lines almost certainly derive from an induced abortion, not a miscarriage.34 The production of vaccines has for some time involved the use of abortion-derived cell lines. This section will discuss how some cell lines used in vaccines were derived from abortions. We do this to show the human face of the issue, as well as to reveal the real practices that have been used and, in some cases, continue to be used. It has been claimed that the use of current cell lines from aborted babies is firmly established, and no new abortions are required.35 Unfortunately, this does not appear to be upheld by the facts. As we will see, abortionists and harvesters continue to abort babies so that the tissue may be harvested from a still-living child and can be used for new cell lines. 1.2.2.1 Aborted Children and Vaccine Cell Lines 1) WI-38 (Girl)—Wistar Institute, cell strain 38 This was developed from the lung tissue of a Swedish baby girl at three months gestation, aborted in 1962 by parents who felt they had too many children. The baby’s tiny organs were extracted without the mother’s knowledge or permission, packed on ice and flown to the Wistar Institute in Philadelphia, where Hayflick dissected them.36 Almost immediately cells from this child were exploited for the manufacture of vaccines, which involved harvesting additional aborted babies in order to find viruses to infect existing WI-38 cells. Doctor Stanley A. Plotkin, one of the chief virologists in the world, reported: Virus was obtained from an aborted rubella-infected human fetus. The 25-year-old mother was exposed to rubella eight weeks after the last menstrual period. . . . The fetus was surgically aborted seventeen days after the maternal illness and dissected immediately. Explants Alvin Wong, “The Ethics of HEK 293,” National Catholic Bioethics Quarterly 6 (Autumn 2006): 473–495. 35 Christopher O. Tollefsen, “Research Using Cells of Illicit Origin and Vaccines from Fetal Tissue,” The Public Discourse, May 27, 2020, thepublicdiscourse. com/2020/05/63447/. 36 See: Meredith Waldman, “Medical Research: Cell Division,” Nature 498 ( June 2013): 422–26; Hayflick, “The Limited in vitro Lifetime.” 34 1020 Sullivan and Pereira from several organs were cultured and successful cell growth was achieved from lung, skin, and kidney. . . . This harvest was inoculated on stationary WI-38 diploid lung fibroblasts, to initiate infection in these cells.37 The tissue culture for rubella virus RA 27/3 (Rubella, Abortus, 27th fetus, 3rd tissue culture explant) was so named because of the number of abortions performed for this single study.38 All in all, over eighty fetuses were used for this study on rubella alone, including WI-38 and RA 27/3.39 This cell line was used to develop vaccines for viruses including measles, mumps, rubella, varicella (chicken pox), rabies, and hepatitis A.40 It was not used in relation to COVID-19. 2) HEK-293 (Girl) – Human Embryonic Kidney cells, attempt 293 This was developed from kidney cells from a baby girl of unknown gestational age around 1972 in the Netherlands, where, at the time, abortion was illegal. The head of the lab which used the cells, Alex Jan van der Eb, recounted his recollections about the fetal source of the tissue, asserting that it was an abortion: “The fetus, as far as I can remember was completely normal. Nothing was wrong. The reasons for the abortion were unknown to me. I probably knew it at that time, but it got lost, all this information.”41 His associate Frank Graham transfected these cells with adenovirus to make them “immortal.” After 292 failed attempts, he succeeded in creating an immortalized cell line, naming it HEK-293.42 S. A. Plotkin, D. Cornfeld, and T. H. Ingalls, “Studies of Immunization with Living Rubella Virus: Trials in Children with a Strain Cultured from an Aborted Fetus,” American Journal of Diseases of Children 110 (1965): 381–82. 38 S. A. Plotkin, J. D. Farquhar, M. Katz, and F. Buser, “Attenuation of RA 27/3 Rubella Virus in WI-38 Human Diploid Cells,” American Journal of Diseases of Children 118 (1969): 178–85. 39 Rene Leiva, “A Brief History of Human Diploid Cell Strains,” National Catholic Bioethics Quarterly 6 (Autumn 2006): 443–51. 40 S. J. Olshansky and L. Hayflick, “The Role of the WI-38 Cell Strain in Saving Lives and Reducing Morbidity,” AIMS Public Health 4: 127–38. 41 United States of America Food and Drug Administration (FDA), Center for Biologics Evaluation and Research, Vaccines and Related Biological Products Advisory Committee, meeting transcription, 2001: 81 (web.archive. org/web/20170516050447/https://fda.gov/ohrms/dockets/ac/01/transcripts/3750t1_01.pdf ). 42 F. L. Graham, J. Smith, W. C. Russell, and R. Nairn, “Characteristics of a Human Cell Line Transformed by DNA from Human Adenovirus Type 5,” Journal of General Virology 36 (1977): 59–74. 37 Using Abortion-Derived Vaccines 1021 Graham later said that, “to the best of his knowledge, the exact origin of the HEK-293 fetal cells is unclear. They could have come from either a spontaneous miscarriage or an elective abortion.”43 The imprecision comes from the label “abortus” used at the time, which could mean either an induced abortion or a miscarriage. It may be noted that that Graham was willing to accept these cells and experiment on them, whatever their source may have been. Cell line HEK-293 has been used for COVID-19 vaccines produced by AstraZeneca,44 Moderna with the NIH,45 and Pfizer,46 among others. It should be noted that, while HEK-293 cells were used for preclinical or clinical vaccine response testing (e.g., pseudovirus neutralization assays used to assess the sera of vaccinated animals or people for anti-viral activity), they are not used in the vaccine production itself. Hence: the Moderna and Pfizer products that are physically put into people's arms have not actually ever contacted fetal tissue, whereas the AstraZeneca product (Vaxzevria) specifically comes from a manufacturing process requiring them. 3) PER.C6 (Boy)—Primary human Embryonic Retinal cells, Clone 6 This was developed by van der Eb from an isolated retina of a baby boy of about eighteen weeks gestation, aborted in 1985 in the Netherlands. Van der Eb chose to sample the baby’s retina because studies had shown not long before that human embryonic retina could more readily be transformed. He recounted that the abortion was elective “simply because the woman wanted to get rid of the fetus. . . . The father was not known, not to the hospital anymore, what was written down [was an] unknown father, and that was, in fact, the reason why the abortion was requested”47 Nicanor Austriaco, “Moral Guidance on Using COVID-19 Vaccines Developed with Human Fetal Cell Lines,” The Public Discourse, May 26, 2020, thepublicdiscourse.com/2020/05/63752. 44 Neeltje van Doremalen et al., “ChAdOx1 nCoV-19 Vaccine Prevents SARSCoV-2 Pneumonia in Rhesus Macaques,” Nature 586 (2020): 578–82. Note that the publication names only HEK-293 cells as having been used. In response to claims that MRC-5 cells were used in the development of its COVID-19 vaccine, a spokesperson for AstraZeneca confirmed that it did not use MRC-5 cells. 45 Kizzmekia S. Corbett et al., “SARS-CoV-2 mRNA Vaccine Design Enabled by Prototype Pathogen Preparedness,” Nature 586 (2020): 567–71. 46 Annette B. Vogel et al., “A Prefusion SARS-CoV-2 Spike RNA Vaccine Is Highly Immunogenic and Prevents Lung Infection in Non-human Primates,” bioRxiv, September 8, 2020), biorxiv.org/content/10.1101/2020.09.08.280818v1.full.pdf. 47 U.S. FDA Committee, 2000 meeting transcript, 91, 99. 43 1022 Sullivan and Pereira Cell line PER.C6 has been used for COVID-19 vaccines produced by Johnson & Johnson,48 among others. 4) WALVAX 2 (Girl)—Walvax Biotech Inc. This line was developed from the lung tissue of a baby girl in China, three months gestation, who was aborted “because of the presence of a uterine scar from a previous caesarean birth by a 27-year-old healthy woman.”49 This girl was ultimately selected from among nine aborted babies in 2009. China’s Walvax Biotechnology company has declared its intention to create a vaccine as an alternative to AstraZeneca’s vaccine, foreseeing a capacity of up to 200 million doses a year.50 Although the details of the study, still in phase I, have not been published, the inference is that Walvax will use WALVAX-2, their own cell line, for the vaccine. 1.2.2.2 Continuing Evil Methods Used for Obtaining Fetal Tissue Methods of abortion unfavorable to obtaining tissue from the embryo include surgical abortions, such as suction curettage in which the baby is sucked into a hollow vacuum tube, and dilation and evacuation in which an abortionist extracts the parts of the baby piece by piece with forceps. The death and damage done to the body, as well as the contamination risk to the fetal tissues (exposed to various bacteria), make these procedures unsuitable for tissue harvesting. In contrast, methods described by Deborah Nucatola, senior director of medical research for Planned Parenthood, ensure that sought-for organs and tissues can be obtained. In Nucatola’s words: “I’d say a lot of people want liver. And for that reason, most providers will do this case under ultrasound guidance so they’ll know where they’re putting their forceps. We’ve been very good at getting Lisa H. Tostanoski et al., “Ad26 Vaccine Protects against SARS-CoV-2 Severe Clinical Disease in Hamsters,” Nature Medicine 26 (2020): 1964–1700. 49 Bo Ma et al., “Characteristics and Viral Propagation Properties of a New Human Diploid Cell Line, Walvax-2, and It Suitability as a Candidate Cell Substrate for Vaccine Production,” Hum Vaccin Immunother 11, no. 4 (2015): 999. 50 Reuters, “China’s Walvax to Make COVID-19 Vaccine Candidate Similar to AstraZeneca’s—Media,” Thompson Reuters Foundation News, December 27, 2020, news.trust.org/item/20201227085437-yec70/. Chinese Clinical Trial Register (ChiCTR), “A Phase I Clinical Trial to Evaluate the Safety, Tolerance and Preliminary Immunogenicity of Different Doses of a SARS-CoV-2 mRNA Vaccine in Population Aged 18–59 Years and 60 Years and Above,” chictr.org.cn/showprojen. aspx?prog=55524. 48 Using Abortion-Derived Vaccines 1023 heart, lung, liver, because we know that, so I’m not gonna crush that part, I’m gonna basically crush below, I’m gonna crush above, and I’m gonna see if I can get it all intact.”51 These sorts of procedures are performed both to obtain particular intact organs, as described, as well as to harvest sources of cells that can be used for research purposes. Killing an infant born alive is illegal in countries such as England52 and the United States.53 Consequently, physicians performing abortions must ensure that a fetus is dead at the time of abortion. Hence, in these countries a physician will use chemicals to induce death in the womb (feticide), including saline, lidocaine, and potassium chloride, when the labor-inducing chemical does not cause death.54 A significant percentage of live births have been recorded for induced pregnancies in the absence of feticidal chemicals: 0–50% with misoprostol,55 1–21% of vaginal inductions with PGE2,56 8.5–13% with oxytocin,57 and 18% with prostaglandin.58 Feticidal chemicals have a negative effect on tissue quality. Research shows that fetal tissue “must be ‘harvested’ within a few minutes of delivery. . . . Drugs which reduce physiological activity need to be avoided. The fetus therefore is in as alive and aware a state as possible when being opened.”59 Such was the practice in virological research in the 1950s, Sandhya Somashekhar and Danielle Paquette, “Undercover Video Shows Planned Parenthood Official Discussing Fetal Organs Used for Research,” Washington Post, July 14, 2015, washingtonpost.com/politics/undercover-video-shows-planned-parenthood-exec-discussing-organ-harvesting/2015/07/14/ ae330e34-2a4d-11e5-bd33-395c05608059_story.html. 52 Royal College of Obstetricians and Gynaecologists (RCOG), The Care of Women Requesting Induced Abortion: Evidence-based Clinical Guideline Number 7 (London: RCOG, 2011), 6.21. 53 107th Congress, “Born-Alive Infants Protection Act of 2002” (Public Law no. 107–207, 116 Stat. 926 [August 5, 2002], govinfo.gov/content/pkg/PLAW107publ207/pdf/PLAW-107publ207.pdf ). 54 S. Lalitkumar, M. Bygdeman, and K. Gemzell-Danielsson, “Mid-trimester Induced Abortion: A Review” Hum Reprod Update 13 (2007): 45. 55 Lynn Borgatta, “Labor Induction Abortion in the Second Trimester,” Contraception, March 31, 2011, contraceptionjournal.org/article/S0010-7824(11)00057-6/ fulltext. 56 Lynn Borgatta, “Labor Induction Termination of Pregnancy,” Glob Library of Women’s Medicine, December 2011a, glowm.com/section-view/heading/labor-induction-termination-of-pregnancy/. 57 Borgatta, “Termination of Pregnancy” and “Second Trimester.” 58 Borgatta, “Termination of Pregnancy.” 59 Priscilla Alderson, “The Foetus as Transplant Donor: Scientific, Social and Ethical 51 1024 Sullivan and Pereira as reported in one study: “Human embryos of two and one-half to five months gestation were obtained from the gynaecological department of the Toronto General Hospital. They were placed in a sterile container and promptly transported to the virus laboratory. . . . In many of the embryos the heart was still beating at the time of receipt in the virus laboratory.”60 Another report stated, “tissue cultures from live aborted fetuses are valuable in the production of vaccines.”61 Dissecting live embryos continued for the following decades,62 and sworn testimony affirms that this practice has not ceased.63 The foundation Judicial Watch revealed proof that the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) had spent tens of thousands of dollars to buy human tissue from aborted children for reasons that included to create “humanized mice” to test “biologic drug products”; tissues included fetal livers, brains, eyes, and lungs.64 Emails show that the FDA’s purchases knowingly targeted babies after twenty weeks gestation— after which survival outside of the womb is possible—and that partialbirth abortions were likely used in many cases.65 The words of cell line makers themselves suggest that they continue to dissect children while they are still alive. Scientists in China divulged using a method called “water bag” abortion to “guarantee a high quality cell Perspectives,” Journal of Medical Ethics 14, no. 1 (1988): 51. Joan C. Thicke et al., “Cultivation of Poliomyelitis Virus in Tissue Culture,” Canadian Journal of Medical Sciences 30, no. 3 (1952): 232. 61 Reback, “Fetal Experimentation,” 1196–97. 62 Pietro Croce, Vivisection or Science?: An Investigation into Testing Drugs and Safeguarding Health (Massagno/Lugano: Zed Books, 1991). 63 CMP, “Planned Parenthood Testimony.” Here is an excerpt of the sworn court testimony of Planned Parenthood “procurement manager” Perrin Larton (youtu. be/lHh5IFXao-4?t=359): Q: By not alive do you mean that they were not moving? A: Correct. Q: And do you mean that they did not have a heartbeat? A: It would depend. Q: And when you say it would depend, what do you mean? A: There are, I can see hearts that are in, not in an intact POC [Proof of Conception, i.e., embryo] that are beating independently. 64 Judicial Watch, “Judicial Watch Obtains Additional Records of FDA Purchases of Fetal Tissue for ‘Humanized Mice’ Project: Agency Wanted ‘Fresh, Shipped on Wet Ice’ Fetal Organs,” press release, April 1, 2021, judicialwatch.org/press-releases/humanized-mice-fda/. 65 Edie Heipel, “Federal Government Caught Buying ‘Fresh’ Flesh of Aborted Babies Who Could Have Survived as Preemies,” The Federalist, April 15, 2021, thefederalist.com/2021/04/15/federal-government-caught-buying-fresh-flesh-of-abortedbabies-who-could-have-survived-as-preemies/. 60 Using Abortion-Derived Vaccines 1025 strain” from uncompromised tissues for the WALVAX-2 cell line.66 This abortion procedure is relatively simple, reduces delivery time, and can help ensure the baby is born alive and without any anesthetics.67 The researchers’ report that “the tissues from the freshly aborted fetuses were immediately sent to the laboratory for the preparation of the cells” may indicate that the child was operated upon while her heart was still beating.68 1.3 Moral Evaluation of Using Aborted Human Fetal Cell Lines in Vaccines Having seen some of the most salient facts about how aborted human fetal cells are extracted by researchers, from a Catholic moral perspective we evaluate the usage of these cells. We begin by reviewing principles regarding moral acts, and then proceed to consider the morality of abortion. Finally, we respond to the argument that using cells derived from an abortion is good because it can help save lives. 1.3.1 Basic Structure of a Human Act: Object, End, and Circumstances Considered from the broadest perspective, a human act is morally good “when it attests to and expresses the voluntary ordering of the person to his ultimate end and the conformity of a concrete action with the human good as it is acknowledged in its truth by reason.”69 On a fine-grain level, one can evaluate the morality of a human act by considering its three primary elements or “fonts”: (1) the moral object or end of the act itself, (2) the intention of the acting agent, (3) the circumstances of the act, including its effects.70 Each of these fonts must be good and in unison for an act to be good:71 the agent must choose a morally good object, his intention must be good, and the immediate circumstances of the act must also be good.72 At the same time, as we will see, all three elements are not equally important for evaluating the nature and goodness of the act. Ma, “Walvax-2,” 1006. Pi-Chao Chen, “China’s Population Program at the Grass-Roots Level,” Studies in Family Planning 4, no. 8 (1973): 227. 68 Ma, “Walvax-2,” 1006. 69 John Paul II, Veritatis Splendor (1993), §72. 70 Thomas Aquinas, Summa theologiae [ST] I-II, q. 18, a. 4; q. 19, aa. 2, 3, 7. Catechism of the Catholic Church [CCC], §1750. See also Surendra Arjoon, “Ethical Decision Making: A Case for the Triple Font Theory,” Journal of Business Ethics 71, no. 4 (2007): 395–410. John Paul II, VS, §74. 71 ST I-II, q. 19, a. 6, ad 1. 72 ST I-II, q. 18, a. 4, ad 3. 66 67 1026 Sullivan and Pereira (1) Object. The object of a moral act is a rationally apprehended good, that is, some existing good understood under a formality of “suitable for the agent” according to reason.73 Ultimately, an act’s object makes the act either in conformity with right reason informed by the natural law or divine precepts, or contrary to such right reason. The goodness or evil of an act is derived primarily from the object. Every act that is directed toward an evil object (one contrary to right reason) is by that very fact evil.74 To knowingly perform an act that is directed to an object contrary to right reason is to choose evil; that is, it entails ordering one’s choice only to an apparent good and not to the true good, or avoiding a true good as if it were evil. In contrast, an act directed toward a good object is a good act as such.75 Reason and divine revelation show that there are some acts which by their very object are radically contrary to man’s good and therefore are incapable of being ordered to human flourishing and ultimately to God.76 Whatever extenuating circumstances may exist, and whatever pressures may weigh upon a person, intrinsically evil acts which by their very object constitute “grave faults,” may never licitly be chosen and acted upon, and they have both temporal and eternal consequences.77 (2) End. The end can be described as that intended good towards which the agent directs the object of the act. When a person chooses to perform some particular act, he may intend to direct that act to some further end, that is, some purpose or motive over and above the object of the act. Consider a hit man who, in order to pay his living expenses, takes orders from his boss to murder someone and incinerate his body. When he takes the steps to paying his bills with fees received from his boss, he is not primarily concerned with the mediate steps, that is, the murder and incineration. Rather, he chooses the murder because it leads to his chosen end: to pay his bills. In this case, the act of murder considered as a whole is an object chosen under a particular formality—that of “work for paying bills.” The end intended by the will (bill payment) serves to unite and form the other acts that lead up to it: it is profit-furthering murder, which is different from other kinds of murder, such as that arising from anger or sadism. We are now positioned to see why intended ends—that is, “intentions”—do not intrinsically change the moral quality of the object. ST I-II, q. 18, aa. 1, 5. John Paul II, VS, §79. 75 ST I-II, q. 18, a. 6; II-II, q. 32, a. 1, ad 1 76 John Paul II, VS, §80. 77 John Paul II, VS, §79. 73 74 Using Abortion-Derived Vaccines 1027 Even if there are good reasons why the hit man must pay his bills—such as having a family to care for—those reasons do not justify the murder. Family-helping-murder remains murder. And murder is intrinsically evil: it always exists out of harmony with the moral good, with the dignity of the innocent victim, with the murderer’s dignity, and with the murderer’s union with God.78 (3) Circumstances. In the context of human acts, a circumstance is a condition that stands outside of an act, and “touches” the act.79 Circumstances thus are accidents with respect to the substance of the act as determined by its object and end.80 By definition, a circumstance is not a cause of the substance of a human act, and in that way is not properly a “font” of an act, although no act can exist without circumstances surrounding it, just as no created substance is without properties or accidents. As extrinsic to the act, circumstance are conditions joined to the act, giving it a particular quality, such as when the act takes place, by whom, by what means, and so on.81 Good effects of one’s act, along with emotions and mere wishes that do not change one’s volition or choice in the matter at hand, are also circumstances. Hence, the mere fact that an action results in good effect does not guarantee moral goodness, for outcomes do not make an object or end good per se. Likewise, one’s subjective enjoyment of an act, or a feeling of righteousness, or a repugnance upon performing it, are non-essential to the substance of the act even when they influence it. How one “feels,” or emotional state of mind about performing a chosen act, does not change its essential voluntariness and moral quality; rather, the morality of feelings should be measured by the nature of an object which elicits them. 1.3.2 Intrinsic Evil of All Abortions The object of procured abortion is directly to kill a child in the womb of its mother. As such, it is always morally evil per se. No one can, in any circumstance, possess the right to kill directly an innocent human being.82 This moral truth is known by all who have an upright conscience, for it is contained in the natural law, in God’s commandment revealed to Israel (Exod 20:13; Deut 5:17), and in the teachings of Christ (Matt 19:16–19). Some propose good ends to justify abortion—such as the “psycho John Paul II, VS, §82. ST I-II, q. 7, a. 1; a. 2, ad 2. 80 ST I-II, q. 7, a. 1; a. 4, ad 3. 81 ST I-II, q. 7, a. 2, ad 3; CCC, §1754. 82 Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith (CDF), Donum Vitae: Instruction on Respect for Human Life in Its Origin and on the Dignity of Procreation [DVit.] (1987), Introduction, no. 5. 78 79 1028 Sullivan and Pereira logical health” of the mother, financial difficulty, or, much worse, for procuration of tissue for medical purposes—but nothing can justify the abominable violation of innocent life, especially in its most vulnerable stage when fully dependent in the protective womb of the mother. Aquinas articulates a fundamental moral principle with admirable clarity: “No evil can be excused because it is done with a good intention.”83 Some point to circumstances that seem to justify abortion—such as a great need for medicines that could be made from tissues of aborted children—but this is incorrect: the evil of destroying innocent life remains, notwithstanding even the most compelling humanitarian circumstances.84 For these reasons, the Catholic Church has perennially, clearly, unanimously, and definitively taught that abortion “willed as an end or as a means, always constitutes a grave moral disorder.”85 This teaching is of Catholic faith and remains unchangeable.86 Indeed, abortion is a crime “which no human law can claim to legitimize.”87 1.3.3 Criteria for Morally Licit Tissue Donation Organ or tissue donation, whereby a physician surgically removes an organ or tissue from a donor and either transfers it to a host or uses it for medical purposes, can be a moral good, when “performed in an ethically acceptable manner, with a view to offering a chance of health and even of life itself to the sick who sometimes have no other hope.”88 The conditions for morally upright tissue donation include: (1) the procedure cannot kill the donor and the tissue cannot be necessary for the donor’s life: “living transplantation of a heart is thus precluded;”89 (2) the procedure cannot result in serious permanent injury, whether physical or psychological;90 the tissue cannot be indissolubly linked with personal identity, as in the brain and gonads;91 (4) the donor or those who legitimately speak for him must give Thomas Aquinas, De decem praeceptis, a. 1. corp. (Bibliotheque Thomiste 52, ed. J.-P. Torrell [Paris: J. Vrin, 2000]; trans. ours). 84 John Paul II, EV, §58. 85 John Paul II, EV, §62 (emphasis added). 86 CCC, §2271. 87 John Paul II, VS, §73. 88 John Paul II, EV, §86. 89 G. Laurie, S. Harmon, and E. Dove, Mason and McCall Smith’s Law and Medical Ethics, 11th ed. (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2019), 18.12; see also CCC, §2296. 90 Elio Sgreccia, Personalist Bioethics: Foundations and Applications, trans. John A. Di Camillo and Michael J. Miller (Philadelphia: National Catholic Bioethics Center, 2012), 640; see also CCC, §2296. 91 Pontifical Academy for Life [PAV], “Prospects for Xenotransplantation: Scientific 83 Using Abortion-Derived Vaccines 1029 consent to the donation, since tissue donation is never an obligation but instead is an expression of a gift of self.92 Many of these criteria for tissue donation are extensions of the famous Nuremberg Code that addressed experimentation.93 In the cases of a live birth of a dissected child, an impermissible grave moral evil is committed, namely, the direct killing of an innocent. Furthermore, criteria (1) and (2) are violated. When the child is killed first, the criterion (4) requiring consent is violated: the pre-natal child obviously gives no consent, and where the mother gives consent on behalf of the child to the donation the child’s tissue, her capacity for impartial and unbiased decision-making is compromised by her prior decision to terminate the life of the child through abortion.94 1.3.4 Evil May Never Be Done That Good May Result Significantly, some present-day vaccine researchers appear to make use of the arguments used by Nazis to justify their experiments on prisoners including Jews. The Nazi doctor Gerhard Rose, considered one of the most eminent scientists on trial, made a pragmatic argument based on positive outcomes. Rose said he came to be in favor of the experimentation on human subjects—which led to their suffering, mutilation, and often death—for pragmatic reasons: the Reich was losing more than a thousand men a day, whereas such experiments were conducted on only one or two hundred subjects total.95 The vast reduction in numbers dying on a relative basis was proposed to justify the killings. Similarly, Hayflick estimates that vaccines made from the aborted girl’s WI-38 cell line have treated about 4.5 billion people globally and averted the deaths of about 10.3 million people Aspects and Ethical Considerations (2002), §11 (available at the Vatican website, under the Roman curia). 92 CCC, §2296; see also Sgreccia, Personalist Bioethics, 643. 93 That is, (1) corresponds to Nuremberg Code [NC] no. 5, regarding the need to avoid death; (2) corresponds to NC nos. 4 and 5, regarding the need to avoid suffering and disabling injury; (4) corresponds to NC no. 1, regarding the necessity of voluntary consent. 94 James T. Burtchaell, “Fetal Tissue Transplantation Research Testimony: Hearing before the Subcommittee on Health and Environment of the Committee on Energy and Commerce,” 101st Congress, 2nd session, no. 101–135 (1990), 16–92, at 17. 95 Arthur L. Caplan, “The Doctors’ Trial and Analogies to the Holocaust in Contemporary Bioethical Debates,” in The Nazi Doctors and the Nuremburg Code: Human Rights in Human Experimentation, ed. George J. Annas and Michael A. Grodin (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1992), 267. 1030 Sullivan and Pereira globally.96 The direct implication is that the abortions as well as the use of vaccines derived from cell lines developed from them were justified because of the downstream tangible and widespread public health good results. In response, we must say that whereas the saving of life on such a vast scale is certainly laudable, this does nothing to alter the reality that the means for developing these vaccines was and remains evil. These evils include: (1) the unnecessary extraction of a child from the womb before birth; (2) depriving the child of baptism; (3) torture; (4) murder; (5) desecration of the body; (6) trafficking of the illicitly derived tissues; (7) violation of the child’s rights.97 Following St. Paul, all of Catholic Tradition insists that one may not do evil so that good may result from it (Rom 6:1).98 We have seen, for instance, that WI-38 was derived from a child who was “dissected immediately” after abortion. Treating another human being this way is horrific. The inescapable disorder of procured abortion, its character as “intrinsically evil,” entails that no end, no matter how good, and no circumstance, no matter how significant, can justify the act. No good result can transform an intrinsically evil act and make it morally licit. Even when abortion is not performed for the sake of procuring tissue from the fetus, “the use of human embryos or fetuses as an object of experimentation constitutes a crime against their dignity as human beings who have a right to the same respect owed to a child once born, just as to every person.”99 In an extended way, trafficking cells derived from abortions and using them in research must be considered illicit and should be prohibited, and one must distance oneself from the evil aspects of that system to avoid a “toleration or tacit acceptance of actions which are gravely unjust.”100 S. J. Olshansky and L. Hayflick, “The Role of the WI-38 Cell Strain in Saving Lives and Reducing Morbidity,” AIMS Public Health 4 (2017): 127–38. 97 See Don Pietro Leone, “The COVID-19 Vaccination Debate: Chains of Evil,” Rorate Caeli (blog), April 15, 2021, rorate-caeli.blogspot.com/2021/04/don-pietro-leone-chains-of-evil.html. Leone differs in detail. 98 Thomas Aquinas, Super Rom 3, lec.1, no. 269; see also CCC, §1756. 99 John Paul II, EV, §63. 100 See CDF, Donum Veritatis [DVer.], I.4; CDF, Dignitas Personae: Instruction on Certain Bioethical Questions [DP] (2008), §35. One controversy regards whether or not the cells derived from an aborted fetus constitute the cells of the original fetus. This does not seem to be the case, because the original cells of the fetus were of a finite number, and the number multiplied from them after the original extraction are of a much, much greater number (millions if not billions more). However, there is undoubtable continuity between the original cells and derived cells: formal continuity exists insofar as they share similar (but distinct) genetic structures; material continuity would exist if there were debris from the original cells that persist in the new ones. Such seems to have been the case for vaccines 96 Using Abortion-Derived Vaccines 1031 For these reasons, terms such as “abortion-derived vaccines,” or “vaccines derived from illicit means,” or other equivalents are used to signify that evil means were used to originate such vaccines, and which is wholly consistent with Church’s description of them as “human ‘biological material’ of illicit origin.”101 2. Authorities on Vaccine Use Having seen the grave evils perpetrated in developing the cell lines used for some vaccines, we can now ask whether not it is morally acceptable for an individual to be inoculated with such a vaccine of “illicit origin.”102 There are two major sorts of arguments that can be proposed in this regard: extrinsic arguments from authority, and intrinsic arguments that consider the act itself. These are treated in section 2 (here) and 3 (following). It should be openly noted that one of the great difficulties in evaluating these matters is that the COVID-19 has been politicized from its first emergence in public awareness. Most, if not all, of the information from nearly every outlet has been filtered through an increasingly all-encompassing imbalanced discourse that obstructs frank rational analysis and an honest open-minded search for truth, and instead promotes one apocalyptic narrative or another. Consequently, political, scientific, and other authorities suffer from a widespread forfeiture of credibility, and difficulties abound in assessing the accuracy of their claims. Hence, we will simultaneously argue for the following. On the one hand, the onus probandi (burden of proof) is on public and scientific authorities to make clear, compelling, consistent, and logical arguments for the measures they are taking and recommending, with only the authentic common good in mind. On the other hand, it may be reasonable for most people to receive the vaccines in good conscience based on recommendations of reliable public health authorities and the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith made from the MRC-5 cell line (see cdc.gov/vaccines/pubs/pinkbook/downloads/appendices/B/excipient-table-2.pdf ), but does not seem to be the case for the COVID-19 vaccines (see vaccinesafety.edu/Components-Excipients%20 21-0115.pdf and hackensackmeridianhealth.org/HealthU/2021/01/11/a-simplebreakdown-of-the-ingredients-in-the-covid-vaccines/). 101 CDF, DP, §34; see also Nicanor Austriaco, “Using Biological Materials of Illicit Origin,” in Catholic Healthcare Ethics: A Manual for Practitioners, ed. Edward J. Furton, 3rd ed. (Philadelphia: National Catholic Bioethics Center, 2020), pt. V (“Selected Clinical Issues”), sec. 29. 102 CDF, DP, §35. 1032 Sullivan and Pereira (CDF). It would be unreasonable to expect the average person to follow the complex arguments about the validity of the science of the vaccines, or the moral evaluation of them (including this essay). 2.1 Principles for Evaluating Pronouncements of Authority In order to choose to perform an action because an authority declares it to be morally good, one must accurately identify the type of authority who speaks, how to interpret authoritative pronouncements, and what to do if authorities conflict. These issues are treated successively in what follows. 2.1.1 Kinds of Authorities and Authoritative Statements There are two types of authorities: de jure and de facto. A de jure authority possesses administrative power or status, derived from an invested office or recognized position that confers a right to teach, to issue edicts, to command, or to influence, based on the official position held.103 A de facto authority is derived from specialized competency on a given subject matter, or expertise “in a field of knowledge in such a manner that his pronouncements in this field carry a special weight of presumption,” which is greater than the claims of a non-expert in the same field.104 God is the ultimate, overarching authority de jure as Creator, and de facto as possessing all wisdom, all knowledge, and all understanding in himself. He speaks authoritatively in natural law, in divine law, and through his authoritative ministers. The Catholic magisterium, which derives its de jure authority from Christ himself (Luke 10:16; John 13:20), teaches doctrines that, among themselves, may call for different levels of assent.105 At the highest level are definitive irreformable dogmas taught directly by the pope or an ecumenical council, and when bishops worldwide universally agree on some doctrinal matter. Statements issued by the CDF expressly approved by the pope participate in the ordinary magisterium of the successor of Peter.106 Statements issued by individual bishops directly regarding faith or morals, when in conformity of the perennial Catholic teaching, also are expressions of the Church’s magisterial authority, albeit on a lower Douglas Walton, Appeal to Expert Opinion: Arguments from Authority (University Park, PA: Pennsylvania University State Press, 1997), 78. 104 Walton, Appeal to Expert Opinion, 77. 105 CDF, Doctrinal Commentary on the Concluding Formulary of the Professio fidei (1998). 106 CDF, DVer., §18. 103 Using Abortion-Derived Vaccines 1033 level.107 Within official documents of the magisterium, there may also be statements that do not directly pertain to faith or morals.108 It should be especially noted that there may be statements of a Catholic authority that involve “certain contingent and conjectural elements” of the prudential order that may be subject to change.109 Next, there are statements from legitimate political authorities de jure. These have some compelling force in themselves, insofar as such persons ultimately derive their authority from God and have care for the common good (Rom 13:1–7; 1 Pet 2:13–15).110 Finally, there are experts who possess some authority de facto “based on a claim to special knowledge in a field of skill, competence, or factual knowledge.”111 Statements from experts are authoritative only insofar as they fall within the field of the individual’s expertise, usually recognized by other experts, in the subject matter relevant to his pronouncement. The two kinds of authority are often confused. In part, the confusion arises because individuals and institutions can embody both kinds of authority. Not a few authorities appeal partly to their de jure office, and partly to a de facto expertise. For example, a medical official within civil government may have a quantum of jurisdictional authority, but primarily possesses scientific expertise that gives greater weight to his claims. Similarly, a theologian may enjoy a degree of authority because of his position at a prestigious university, but the greater part of his authority comes from proven expertise within his particular field of study. Conversely, when a de jure authority expresses a pronouncement as authoritative as if it came from expertise, when in fact it does not, or when an expert expresses a pronouncement as if it compelled belief or obedience as if it came from some authoritative office, then a fallacious appeal to authority is being made.112 It may be noted that, from a Catholic perspective, the argument from Tradition seems to involve both de jure and de facto matters. On the one hand, perennial Tradition has a sort of apostolic authority (de jure), since it stems from the apostles themselves even though it may not exist entirely in written documents. Nor does Tradition belong to a single administrative CDF, DVer., §19; see also Second Vatican Council, Lumen Gentium [LG] §25. Jimmy Akin, Teaching with Authority (El Cajon, CA: Catholic Answers, 2018): nos. 360–93. 109 CDF, DVer., §24. 110 CCC, §2239–40. 111 Walton, Appeal to Expert Opinion, 77. 112 Walton, Appeal to Expert Opinion, 234–38. 107 108 1034 Sullivan and Pereira authority as such; but rather, it relies upon numerous Catholic administrative authorities to protect, explain, defend, and promulgate its sacred content. Yet on the other hand, insofar as Tradition contains the deepest truths as taught by Christ and handed on by the apostles, its sacred content is the substance of de facto Catholic theological expertise. 2.1.2 Principles for Interpreting Authoritative Pronouncements Within the Catholic Church, an opinion is designated as “private” insofar as it is directed to a limited number of people, or is not intended to invoke one’s expertise or an exercise of office. Hence, when a pope expresses conjecture even on matters regarding faith or morals in some non-official way, not invoking his authority as successor to St. Peter, then he is expressing “mere” private opinion, even if it is globally broadcast or widely publicized. In contrast, an authoritative pronouncement is some act of speech or word which is meant to be believed or obeyed by the authority’s subordinate on the basis of the authority’s invoked office, expertise, or both. The genre of the authority’s pronouncement, and the document or context in which it exists, must always be considered. The language used by the authority ought to mark clearly the nature of the pronouncement. As a genre, laws and commands use declarative and imperative language, such as “you must do this” and “all people will do that.” Laws and commands of legitimate superiors call for obedience when they are within the sphere of the authority’s proper power, when they are in accord with the demands of the moral order, with the fundamental rights of persons, and the teachings of the Gospel.113 In general, St. Alphonsus Liguori, citing Aquinas, Augustine, and a host of others, argues that we should give authorities the benefit of the doubt unless some manifest good reason suggests otherwise.114 Hence, laws and commands of civil authorities ought to be obeyed, except when they contradict natural law, divine law, Church law, or a prudential application of exceptions. As a genre, exhortations, recommendations, and counsels of de jure authorities use language that is conditional or encouraging, such as “you ought to do this” and “if you want that outcome, then do that,” and “I recommend that you do this.” By their very nature, exhortations and coun113 114 CCC, §2242. St. Alphonsus Liguori, Theologia moralis I, tract. 2, ch. 1, d. 1, q. 3 (trans. from this work will be our own done from the Latin edition of Leonardo Gaudé [Rome: Typographica Vaticana, 1953]). Using Abortion-Derived Vaccines 1035 sels do not compel absolutely: “a counsel is left to the option of the one to whom it is given.”115 However, exhortations by a legitimate authority of the Church regarding concrete, particular matters that are addressed to the faithful call for a willing submission, unless there are well-founded and grave reasons for avoiding action or doing the contrary: “Disagreement could not be justified if it were based solely upon (a) the fact that the validity of the given teaching is not evident or (b) upon the opinion that the opposite position would be the more probable or (c) the judgment of the subjective conscience of the individual.”116 Recommendations of experts can be considered a type of counsel. Their de facto authority is limited to the sphere of expertise claimed by the individual. As the medieval logician Peter of Spain—often identified with Pope John XXI—stated, “Any expert should be believed in his own field of knowledge.”117 Hence, to weigh an expert’s opinion, the following critical questions of pedigree should be considered:118 Expertise: How credible is the person as an expert source? Field: Is the person an expert in the field that his recommendation is in? Trustworthiness: Is this person personally reliable as a source? If the person proposed as an expert is truly an expert, as demonstrated through publications or some other display of detailed knowledge, or as recognized by other experts, if the expert is speaking within the field of his expertise, including applications of that expertise, and if the expert is trustworthy, then the recommendation ought to be weighed heavily by non-experts and can be followed when it is not clearly contrary to any known moral obligation. However, the recommendation has little to no weight to it if the person has only shallow knowledge or imprecision and not expertise, such as political opinions based on one’s celebrity status; where the person is speaking completely outside of his expertise, as when a scientist opines about an intricate point in theology; or if the person is ST I-II, q. 108, a. 4 CDF, DVer., §28 (trans. adapted). 117 Norman Kretzmann and Eleonore Stump, The Cambridge Translations of Medieval Philosophical Texts, vol. 1, Logic and Philosophy of Language (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1988), 243. 118 Walton, Appeal to Expert Opinion, 223. 115 116 1036 Sullivan and Pereira untrustworthy, as indicated by demonstrated self-interest or bias in the issue, by past lies, or by a history of incompetence. 2.1.3 When Authorities Disagree Outside of the complete and perfect harmony experienced within the beatific vision, authorities this side of heaven are surely bound to disagree on occasion. Fortunately, there are some principles to guide us in that eventuality. First, when authorities of unequal office express contradictory declarations, the higher authority prevails, all other things being equal. To apply this principle, one must know both the de jure position of the authority as well as the specific pronouncement he is making. A definitive statement from a pope or ecumenical council prevails over any other statement of a lower authority in matters of faith and morals. With respect to contingent matters solely considered from the perspective of moral authority, a papal exhortation or counsel bears more weight than non-papal exhortations. Likewise, a definitive pronouncement of the CDF, since it participates in the magisterial office of the successor to St. Peter, prevails over pronouncements of individual bishops. Pronouncements proceeding from apostolic authority prevail over those of civil authority, if they ever contradict each other (Acts 5:29).119 When applied to those within their jurisdictions, a pronouncement by a bishop prevails over a recommendation of an expert. Second, when equal authorities express contradictory pronouncements, then the situation is one in which there is no obliging law or command. To resolve cases like this, St. Alphonsus articulated the principle that came to be known as equi-probabilism: the individual has the freedom to choose between two equally probable opinions proposed by authorities or experts; both are choice-worthy options.120 At the same time, when the matter is serious, to inform one’s individual prudential decision between the two, one should employ one’s powers to a reasonable extent and consider the intrinsic arguments of the issue (as we do in section 3). 2.2 Catholic Authorities on Use of the Vaccines Given that social media can be used as a platform to publicize both personal opinions as well as authoritative pronouncements, the average person must have a means for filtering out what is less morally important in order to listen more carefully to what is more important. When Catholic 119 120 CCC, §2242. Liguori, Theologia moralis I, tract. 1, ch. 3, no. 83. Using Abortion-Derived Vaccines 1037 authorities have spoken, their voices deserve primary consideration. Here we will consider Catholic authorities against and others in favor of receiving COVID-19 vaccines derived from illicit means. Further study would be needed to address the morality of various decisions of politicians. 2.2.1 Authorities against Receiving the Vaccines We may begin with authorities who have publicly declared opposition to receiving the vaccines. The first statement, issued May 17, 2020, states: “Let us also remember, as Pastors, that for Catholics it is morally unacceptable to develop or use vaccines derived from material from aborted fetuses.”121 Among others, this was signed by: • Monsignor Carlo Maria Viganò, archbishop, former apostolic nuncio (primary author) • Cardinal Gerhard Ludwig Mueller, prefect emeritus of CDF • Cardinal Joseph Zen Ze-kiun, bishop emeritus of Hong Kong • Cardinal Janis Pujats, archbishop emeritus of Riga, Latvia • Monsignor Joseph Strickland, bishop of Tyler, Texas • Monsignor Athanasius Schneider, auxiliary bishop of Astana, Kazakhstan Other signatories included a number of doctors, including immunologists and virologists, and representatives of pro-life groups. Also signed were a number of journalists, theologians, professors, lawyers, and other professionals. A second statement was issued on December 11 by a smaller set of prelates in a document entitled “On the Moral Illicitness of the Use of Vaccines Made from Cells Derived from Aborted Human Fetuses.”122 Therein, these prelates indicate that in their judgment receiving the vaccines is intrinsically evil, that is, never acceptable on any grounds whatsoever, and specifically: “The crime of abortion is so monstrous that any kind of concatenation with this crime, even a very remote one, is immoral and cannot be accepted under any circumstances by a Catholic once he has become fully aware of it,” and that allowing for the use of these vaccines Edward Pentin, “Cardinals, Bishops Sign Appeal against Coronavirus Restrictions,” National Catholic Register, May 7, 2020, ncregister.com/blog/cardinals-bishops-sign-appeal-against-coronavirus-restrictions. 122 Bishop Athanasius Schneider, “Covid Vaccines: ‘The Ends Cannot Justify the Means,’” Crisis Magazine, December 11, 2020, crisismagazine.com/2020/covidvaccines-the-ends-cannot-justify-the-means. 121 1038 Sullivan and Pereira is “extremely anti-pastoral and counterproductive, especially when one considers the increasingly apocalyptic character of the abortion industry.”123 Similarly, on June 22, 2021 Archbishop Viganò spoke against what he called “the intrinsic immorality of experimental vaccines produced with fetal material derived from abortions.”124 A third statement comes from a document entitled “The Voice of Women in Defense of Unborn Babies and in Opposition to Abortion-tainted Vaccines”: “We will not be complicit in the modern-day Massacre of the Holy Innocents and we therefore refuse to accept any and all vaccines made using cells derived from aborted human fetuses.”125 This was signed by eighty-six women from twenty-five countries around the world, many of whom included doctors and directors of Human Life International offices, and other pro-life workers and activists. A fourth statement came in a document entitled “Statement of Conscience to Awaken Conscience”: “Even if, as a matter of general principles, it is not always morally illicit to use such abortion-tainted vaccines temporarily, in extreme necessity, and even then under strenuous protest, the use of such vaccines must never be advanced as mandatory, or as a universal duty. Because some of us in conscience believe that we are called to refuse to take them.”126 This was initially signed by Bishop Joseph Strickland as well as Catholic professors and heads of a pro-life group called “Children of God for Life.” Later, retired Catholic moral theologian Janet Smith signed the statement, along with nearly thirty-five hundred other signatories. Bishop Schneider, “Covid Vaccines.” Archbishop Carlo Maria Viganò, “About Some Declarations of Professor Roberto de Mattei which Recently Appeared at Corrispondenza Romana,” LifeSiteNews, June 22, 2021, lifesitenews.com/opinion/abp-vigano-about-some-declarations-of-professor-roberto-de-mattei-which-recently-appeared-at-corrispondenza-romana. 125 Catholic News Agency, “Catholic Women Issue Statement Opposing Use of ‘Abortion-tainted’ Vaccines,’” Catholic News Agency, March 9, 2021, catholicnewsagency. com/news/246797/catholic-women-issue-statement-opposing-use-of-abortion-tainted-vaccines.; Voice of Women Group (VOW), “The Voice of Women in Defense of Unborn Babies and In Opposition to Abortion-tainted Vaccines,” Edward Pentin Blog, March 8, 2021. https://edwardpentin.co.uk/wp-content/ uploads/2021/03/STATEMENT-The-Voice-of-Women-in-Defense-of-UnbornBabies-and-in-Opposition-to-Abortion-tainted-Vaccines-WORD-DOC.pdf. 126 Joan Frawley Desmond, “COVID-19 Vaccine Ethics: Sorting Out the Statements,” National Catholic Register, March 19, 2021, ncregister.com/news/covid19-vaccine-ethics-sorting-out-the-statements. See also Christine Ruth Pakaluk, “Statement of Conscience to Awaken Conscience,” Children of God for Life.org, mailchi.mp/7742dd12483f/statement-of-conscience-to-awaken-conscience/. 123 124 Using Abortion-Derived Vaccines 1039 2.2.2 Authorities in Favor of Receiving the Vaccines A number of Catholic authorities have spoken clearly in favor of combating COVID-19 by using, under certain conditions, even vaccines derived from illicit means. In 2005, the Pontifical Academy for Life (PAV) issued a document, “Moral Reflections on Vaccines Prepared from Cells Derived from Aborted Human Fetuses,” penned mostly by Cardinal Elio Sgreccia, which states that the use of abortion-derived vaccines may be morally acceptable by person who “are exposed to considerable dangers to their health,” on a “temporary basis,” as an act of mediate remote passive material cooperation with the abortion.127 The Academy issued another document in 2017, stating, “we believe that all clinically recommended vaccinations can be used with a clear conscience.”128 In 2008, the CDF issued the instruction Dignitas Personae, which clearly states that for serious need, and when avoiding scandal, individuals could licitly receive “a vaccine which was developed using cell lines of illicit origin.”129 In 2020, the CDF issued a “Note on the Morality of Using Some AntiCovid-19 Vaccines,” citing the documents above, stating: “when ethically irreproachable Covid-19 vaccines are not available . . . it is morally acceptable to receive Covid-19 vaccines that have used cell lines from aborted fetuses in their research and production process.”130 Recently, in an interview with an Italian television network, Pope Francis said, “I believe that ethically everyone must take the vaccine; it is an ethical choice. . . . I am signed up. One must do it.”131 Later, it was widely publicized that Pope Francis and Pope Emeritus Benedict XVI both received the Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine.132 PAV, “Moral Reflections on Vaccines Prepared from Cells Derived from Aborted Human Foetuses,” National Catholic Bioethics Quarterly 6, no. 3 (2006): 541–37. 128 PAV, “Clarifications on the Medical and Scientific Nature of Vaccination,” Pontifical Academy for Life, July 31, 2017, academyforlife.va/content/pav/en/the-academy/activity-academy/note-vaccini.html. 129 CDF, DP, §35. 130 CDF, Note on the Morality of Using Some Anti-Covid-19 Vaccines, December 21, 2020, §2. 131 Pope Francis, “Papa Francesco: ‘Il vaccino si deve fare, l’assalto al Congreesso Usa mi ha stupito,’” TGCOM24, January 10, 2021. tgcom24.mediaset.it/ televisione/domenica-sera-in-esclusiva-su-canale-5-lintervista-a-papa-francesco_27387990-202102a.shtml. 132 Gerald O’Connell, “Pope Francis and Benedict XVI Have Received Covid-19 Vaccine,” America: The Jesuit Review, January 13, 2021, americamagazine.org/ faith/2021/01/13/pope-francis-receive-covid-19-vaccine-239704. 127 1040 Sullivan and Pereira Other prelates explicitly in favor of using and disseminating such vaccines include Cardinal Peter Turkson;133 Archbishop Ivan Jurkovič, the Holy See’s permanent observer to the United Nations;134 bishops’ conferences of England and Wales135 and the United States of America136 and in the Diocese of Alberta and the Northwest Territories of Canada,137 among others. At least two groups of non-prelates publicly declared themselves in favor of receiving the vaccines: the National Catholic Bioethics Center, with specified conditions for use,138 and the Ethics and Public Policy Center,139 whose signatories included bioethicists, a professor of moral theology, and other professors, with no conditions for use. 2.3 Assessment of Arguments from Authority Here we assess the positions of Catholic authorities solely from the perspective of their authority (de jure). After this, we will consider major intrinsic arguments proposed about the issue. By hewing to this distinction, we Vatican News Staff, “Cardinal Turkson Advocates for Equal Access to Covid19 Vaccines,” Vatican News, February 10, 2021 vaticannews.va/en/vatican-city/ news/2021-02/patent-vaccine-coronavirus-turkson.html. 134 Lisa Zengarini, “Holy See: ‘Covid-19 Vaccines Must Be Accessible to All,” Vatican News, December 10, 2020, vaticannews.va/en/vatican-city/news/2020-12/holysee-jurkovic-covid-19-vaccine-accessible.html. 135 Catholic Bishops’ Conference of England and Wales (CBCEW), “COVID-19 and Vaccination,” September 24, 2020, cbcew.org.uk/home/our-work/healthsocial-care/coronavirus-guidelines/covid-19-and-vaccination/. See also CBCEW, “Update on COVID-19 and Vaccination,” December 3, 2020, cbcew.org.uk/ home/our-work/health-social-care/coronavirus-guidelines/update-on-covid-19and-vaccination/. 136 United States Conference of Catholic Bishops: Chairmen of the Committee on Doctrine and the Committee on Pro-Life Activities (USCCB), “Moral Considerations Regarding the New COVID-19 Vaccines,” December 11, 2020, usccb.org/ resources/moral-considerations-regarding-new-covid-19-vaccines-1. 137 Catholic Bishops of Alberta and the Northwest Territories (CBANT), “Letter to the Faithful on Vaccines,” December 2, 2020, cccb.ca/wp-content/ uploads/2020/12/2020_12_02_Letter-to-the-faithful-on-Vaccines.pdf_English. pdf. 138 National Catholic Bioethics Center (NCBC), “Points to Consider on the Use of COVID-19 Vaccines,” December 7, 2020, static1.squarespace. com/static/5e3ada1a6a2e8d6a131d1dcd/t/5fd3ce39e679895094d d1e49/1607716409962/NCBCVaccineStatementFINAL.pdf. 139 Ethics and Public Policy Center (EPPC), “Statement from Pro-Life Catholic Scholars on the Moral Acceptability of Receiving COVID-19 Vaccines,” EPPC, March 5, 2021, eppc.org/news/statement-from-pro-life-catholic-scholars-on-themoral-acceptability-of-receiving-covid-19-vaccines/. 133 Using Abortion-Derived Vaccines 1041 can more easily consider the weight of all arguments involved, both from authority and from the matter itself. 2.3.1 Analysis of Arguments from Episcopal Authority against Receiving the Vaccines The cardinals and bishops against the vaccines directly invoke their authoritative position as pastors of Christ’s flock. The document issued on May 8, 2020, makes no reference to other ecclesial documents on the issue, but states that receiving the vaccines is “morally unacceptable” and says that the situation “means taking a stand: either with Christ or against Christ,” with the clear conclusion that those in favor of taking the vaccines are objectively against Christ.140 On December 11, 2020, a smaller subset of prelates invoked their authority as “Successors of the Apostles and Shepherds responsible for the eternal salvation of souls.”141 Given that that this latter document was issued before the CDF’s unambiguous “Note” on the matter issued on December 20, 2020,142 one cannot conclude that it is a rejection of that note. Nevertheless, the categorical language of the December 11 document rejects the reasoning and conclusion of the CDF as expressed in the document Dignitas Personae143 (§35), which is the same reasoning and conclusion in the 2020 CDF note. The December 11 document references Dignitas Personae by name and argues that the conclusion held by the CDF is “a clear contradiction” of “the Catholic doctrine to categorically, and beyond the shadow of any doubt, reject abortion in all cases as a grave moral evil that cries out to heaven for vengeance,” and therefore “to argue that such vaccines can be morally licit if there is no alternative is in itself contradictory and cannot be acceptable for Catholics.”144 It calls the position of the CDF “extremely anti-pastoral” and declares that, “now more than ever, Catholics categorically cannot encourage and promote the sin of abortion, even in the slightest, by accepting these vaccines.”145 In view of the above, there is undoubtedly an irreconcilable contradiction between (1) the statements issued by prelates on May 7 and December 11 and (2) the reasoning and conclusion of the CDF as expressed both in 2008 and 2020. Pentin, “Cardinals, Bishops Sign Appeal.” Bishop Schneider, “Covid Vaccines.” 142 CDF, Note on the Morality of Using Some Anti-Covid-19 Vaccines. 143 CDF, DP, §35. 144 Bishop Schneider, “Covid Vaccines.” 145 Bishop Schneider, “Covid Vaccines.” 140 141 1042 Sullivan and Pereira Applying the framework for weighing authorities, when considered as a matter that concerns the entire Catholic Church, the CDF’s acceptance of a moral use of the vaccines is clearly more authoritative (de jure), thus outweighing the statements of the individual bishops. As noted previously, the CDF is a magisterial office of the Church that participates in the authority of the successor of St. Peter when teaching about faith and morals.146 Furthermore, the CDF’s document of 2008 was explicitly approved by Pope Benedict XVI and the document of 2020 was explicitly approved by Pope Francis. Although the particular conclusions about vaccine use represent contingent matters that may be subject to change, nevertheless as noted “disagreement could not be justified if it were based solely upon (a) the fact that the validity of the given teaching is not evident or (b) upon the opinion that the opposite position would be the more probable or (c) the judgment of the subjective conscience of the individual.”147 Given the CDF’s definitive note of 2020, it may be that the cardinals and bishops would now offer a more moderated version of their perspective. In conclusion, solely considered on the grounds of authority, the position of the CDF must prevail. Although there may good reasons for the cardinals and bishops to have difficulties with the conclusions of the CDF, the difficulties of the prelates on their own do not constitute sufficient reasons for individual Catholics to reject the CDF’s decision. From the perspective of St. Alphonsus, this is not a matter of equi-probabilism, in which a Catholic possesses the prudential freedom to choose between the two positions. Rather, this is a clear case of structural Church hierarchy in which the authority of one (CDF) outweighs the authority of another (cohort of like-minded prelates) such that the choice of the dutiful Catholic should be to follow the greater authority as a matter of de jure rank, which is the CDF. However, if an individual Catholic has difficulties with the decision of the CDF, he is obliged to inform his conscience further. Indeed, he has the personal responsibility to consider the issue more deeply in a spirit of open inquiry for the truth: to facilitate this, we provide section 3 below. 2.3.2 Analysis of Other Arguments against Receiving the Vaccines Arguments against receiving the vaccine that come from Catholics who are not bishops must rest on their de facto authority, that is, on expertise or some special access to the truth. Clearly their de jure authority within the Church is lower than that of the CDF and bishops in favor of the vaccine. 146 147 See sections 2.1.1 and 2.1.3; see also CDF, DVer., §18. CDF, DVer., §28 Using Abortion-Derived Vaccines 1043 Here we consider arguments solely on the basis of authority; the substance of the arguments proposed will be considered in the next major section. 2.3.2.1 Arguments ad Verecundiam The statement “The Voice of Women . . .” introduces itself in this way: “We, as women, wish our feminine cry to be heard round the world. This declaration comes from the depth of our maternal hearts.”148 It cites the CDF’s 2020 document directly, as well as the United States Council of Catholic Bishops’s (USCCB’s) 2020 document.149 It calls upon Church authorities to reevaluate their position, claiming that “statements that justify the use of the abortion-tainted COVID vaccine candidates . . . ignore the gravity and immediacy of the crimes committed against the unborn.”150 The women’s document suggests that the position of the CDF is complicit with an “immense infanticidal cult” and entails “offer[ing] this grain of incense to Moloch.”151 The women’s document, considered from the point of view of authority, offers an argument classically called ad verecundiam, that is, an appeal to “reverence” or “shame.”152 Sometimes the argument ad verecundiam is fallacious, as when an arguer shames his opponent for not agreeing with a position because the arguer has supposed moral superiority, expertise, or authority, or because holding the opposed position is considered “evil,” “stupid,” or undesirable in some way. Such arguments are little better than name-calling. Less often, arguments ad verecundiam are meant to highlight the arguer’s reverence for some good that the opponent does not fully recognize. One form of this argument at least implicitly states, “If you had the same reverence for this good in question, you would agree with me. But you do not agree, therefore you should be ashamed.” The arguer does not rely on (theological) expertise, but on some special reverence for the goods at stake. Such seems to be the case when the women state that the CDF and bishops “ignore the gravity” of abortion when they allow for the use of vaccines, implying that the bishops are encouraging people to be complicit with idolatry and “an infanticidal cult.”153 The argument seems to be that the women—in virtue of being women—possess a greater reverence for unborn children than the bishops, and therefore their position regarding the vaccines outweighs that of the bishops. VOW, “Voice of Women in Defense of Unborn Babies,” 1. VOW, “Voice of Women in Defense of Unborn Babies,” 2nn23–24. 150 VOW, “Voice of Women in Defense of Unborn Babies,” 3. 151 VOW, “Voice of Women in Defense of Unborn Babies,” 3. 152 Douglas Walton, The Place of Emotion in Argument (University Park, PA: Pennsylvania University State Press, 1992), 58–59. 153 VOW, “Voice of Women in Defense of Unborn Babies,” 3. 148 149 1044 Sullivan and Pereira In response, the bishops could try to show how they have demonstrated care for the unborn in their pro-life initiatives, or how their position does not support abortion, or that they are not promoting idolatrous cult practices. Likewise, the CDF and bishops could rightly note that their de jure authority from Christ to speak about moral matters for Catholics supersedes any supposed de facto expertise of particular doctors and activists. But shaming arguments are always difficult to respond to, especially when they are broadly sweeping, ignore proper context, or draw upon the generalized sentiment of the affected audience. The “Statement of Conscience to Awaken Conscience” also seems to employ an argument ad verecundiam as well, although of a gentler sort, insofar as it notes inadequate efforts of pro-vaccine supporters to adequately address the scandalous evils of abortion that led to the vaccines in the first place.154 In response to that, the CDF, bishops, and others in favor of receiving the vaccines, could note that they are not commanding Catholics to take the vaccines, nor stating that taking the vaccine is a universal duty. In fact, on this very point, the CDF states explicitly: “Practical reason makes evident that vaccination is not, as a rule, a moral obligation and that, therefore, it must be voluntary.”155 At the same time, because viruses spread through society and have the potential to harm not only individuals but groups, “the duty to pursue the common good . . . may recommend vaccination” in the absence of other equally effective means.156 2.3.2.2 Arguments ad Populum Another argument about vaccines seems to follow the argument scheme called ad populum, that is, an “appeal to the people” whereby an argument’s legitimacy simply rests in whole or part on the weight of popular support. On the one hand, in favor of taking the vaccines, we find an enormous, coordinated worldwide effort to recruit the populace to take the vaccines by means of celebrity and religious endorsement, as seen in the Vatican’s “Unite to Prevent” 2021 conference, which included Deepak Chopra, Chelsea Clinton, Joe Perry from the band Aerosmith, and the CEOs of Pfizer and Moderna, among others. Many other lesser events have been programmed in what appears to be a massive propaganda campaign from which governmental and business elites greatly benefit. Pro-vaccine campaigns coordinated by big business, government, and media create enormous social pressure to take a vaccine, to declare openly that one Pakaluk, “Statement of Conscience to Awaken Conscience.” CDF, Note on the Morality of Using Some Anti-Covid-19 Vaccines, §5. 156 CDF, Note on the Morality, §5. 154 155 Using Abortion-Derived Vaccines 1045 has taken the vaccine, and to hold in suspicion those who have not been vaccinated. Thus, the social benefits are real and the social risks are serious. The faithful might suspect a biased judgment rendered by the CDF in favor of the moral liceity of receiving the vaccines under specific circumstances, because of what appears to be a conflict of interest, given the Pope’s personal stance very much in favor of the vaccine and that the Vatican, through another organ (the Council for Culture), has taken vaccine manufacturer’s sponsor dollars for their conference that showcases the vaccines and distributes awards to that industry. Just the appearance of a conflict of interest could seem to compromise the trustworthiness of the moral teaching office of the CDF. As will be discussed extensively below, however, arguments from reason and the faith corroborate the soundness of the CDF’s judgment. On the other hand, the “fallacy of popularity” could arise in campaigns against the vaccines. In pointing to thousands of people who have signed the statement of conscience against the vaccines, an author says, “We, the Trasancos and the Pakaluk families, along with Bishop Joseph Strickland and thousands of voices, urge our ethicists to resist a premature ‘consensus’ about abortion-tainted SARS-CoV-2 vaccines. . . . It is our hope, therefore, that this statement and this stand will provide the pressure to keep us all on the straight and narrow path of life.”157 Such an appeal would be the fallacy of popularity if it were arguing that because everyone (or a large number) possesses a belief, therefore the belief is true.158 But Catholics know that arriving at truth is not a democratic process, determined by majority vote, even by a vote of devout churchgoers. Perhaps, then, the argument follows the more reasonable and non-fallacious argumentation which holds that “presumptions concerning commonly accepted ways of doing something can be part of a legitimate basis for concluding to an action in some cases.”159 In this case, the implication would be that the signatures of thousands of pro-life advocates indicate what pro-life advocates believe, and that is what should (or may?) be believed if one means to be a pro-life advocate. This sort of argument can be helpful: it shows that it may well be reasonable to follow their example, though it does not establish as a matter of truth that using the vaccines is anti-life or necessarily undermines the pro-life position. Stacy Trasancos, “How to Object to an Abortion-Tainted COVID-19 Vaccine,” National Catholic Register, December 21, 2020, ncregister.com/commentaries/ how-to-object-to-an-abortion-tainted-covid-19-vaccine. 158 Walton, Place of Emotion, 76. 159 Walton, Place of Emotion, 94. 157 1046 Sullivan and Pereira Another appeal ad populum regards the sensus fidei. The sensus fidei (sense of faith) “is a gift that the Spirit gives to all the faithful” whereby “the entire body of the faithful” exercises “supernatural discernment in matters of faith when ‘from the Bishops down to the last of the lay faithful’ they show universal agreement in matters of faith and morals.”160 This “sense” is “a sort of spiritual instinct that enables the believer to judge spontaneously whether a particular teaching or practice is or is not in conformity with the Gospel and with apostolic faith.”161 In other words, the sensus fidei is an estimation about what constitutes the Catholic faith: “The sensus fidei is a criterion for discerning whether or not a truth belongs to the living deposit of the Apostolic Tradition. . . . It is certainly not a kind of public ecclesial opinion and invoking it in order to contest the teachings of the Magisterium would be unthinkable.”162 This theological foundation helps us weigh the statement of the prelates who rejected the vaccines and appealed to the sensus fidei: This statement was written at the advice and counsel of doctors and scientists from various countries. A substantial contribution also came from the laity: from grandmothers, grandfathers, fathers and mothers of families, and from young people. All of those consulted—independent of age, nationality and profession—unanimously and almost instinctively rejected the idea of a vaccine derived from the cell lines of aborted children. Furthermore, they considered the justification offered for using such vaccines (i.e. “material remote cooperation”) as weak and unsuitable. This is comforting and, at the same time, very revealing: their unanimous response is a further demonstration of the strength of reason and the sensus fidei.163 The appeal to sensus fidei here is ambiguous. Recall that one of the criteria for a claim to truly reflect the sensus fidei is that it must reflect “universal agreement in matters of faith and morals.”164 However, there is no indication whatsoever of the “entire body of the faithful” being in agreement John Paul II, Familiaris Consortio [FC] (1981), §5; see also Vatican II, LG, §12. International Theological Commission (ITC), Sensus Fidei in the Life of the Church (2014), §49. 162 Benedict XVI, “Address to the International Theological Commission on the Occasion of Its Annual Plenary Assembly,” December 7, 2012. 163 Bishop Schneider, “Covid Vaccines.” 164 Vatican II, LG, §12. 160 161 Using Abortion-Derived Vaccines 1047 with the analysis proposed against the vaccines. In fact, the opposite is quite apparent, namely, that there is broad disagreement of the faithful on the matter. This appeal to the sensus fidei would also fail if it were simply a specie of the fallacy of popularity, that is, if the argument is simply equating the sensus fidei with the numbers of pious faithful consulted who reject the vaccines, and therefore concluding that the evil of vaccines is verified strictly by virtue of their saying so. John Paul II noted that the sensus fidei “does not consist solely or necessarily in the consensus of the faithful,” no matter which group one counts as the “faithful”: “The Church values sociological and statistical research. . . . Such research alone, however, is not to be considered in itself an expression of the sense of faith.”165 As the CDF noted: Dissent sometimes also appeals to a kind of sociological argumentation which holds that the opinion of a large number of Christians would be a direct and adequate expression of the “supernatural sense of the faith.” Actually, the opinions of the faithful cannot be purely and simply identified with the “sensus fidei.” . . . Although theological faith as such then cannot err, the believer can still have erroneous opinions.”166 Supposing, then, that the errors listed above are not being made, it might be that the argument takes the following valid form: • Everyone (or everyone in some group) accepts A as a true proposition. • These people are in a position to know that A is true, or at any rate, presumably have some reason for accepting A. • Therefore, A may be accepted as true.167 What would be the basis for saying that that the people consulted are in a position to know the truth about the vaccines? Because they have the sensus fidei? We have already established that the mere fact that the faithful consulted hold the belief is insufficient evidence that the belief is of the faith. But perhaps these ordinary people have a true, uncorrupted sensus fidei because of their devotion and can recognize that some action like taking the vaccine is incompatible with the faith when they see it—unlike John Paul II, FC, §5. CDF, DVer., §35. 167 Walton, Place of Emotion, 77. 165 166 1048 Sullivan and Pereira those who claim to have the faith but are corrupted, suggested by the phrase “The Lord said that in the end times even the elect will be seduced.”168 Even then, the argument is not very convincing. It does not seem that the sample of the faithful consulted was controlled against cross-contamination of other ideas (a rejection of all vaccines, for example, would lead a person to reject COVID-19 vaccines of any origin); or that the sample size was large enough and from enough diverse backgrounds to truly be representative of “the devout faithful” on the matter at hand. It could be that those who were consulted happened to be more similar than different, as perhaps belonging to groups interested in particular liturgical forms, for example. The further a matter is from the articles of the Creed, the essence of the faith especially as laid out in dogmatic definitions and solemn statements, the less it is subject to the instinct that identifies what is of the faith and what is not. Consequently, the more a particular teaching or practice regards contingent prudential matters, the more difficult it is for the “spiritual instinct” to discern accurately.169 In this light, it is reasonable to consult the faithful to ask whether or not the Immaculate Conception of the Blessed Virgin Mary is a truth of faith; but it is less reasonable to ask them whether or avoiding particular vaccines is a practice necessitated by the faith, because the latter contingent matter depends on a lot of particular information for an accurate judgment and consequently is much less clear. As Paul VI learned when drafting Humanae Vitae, consulting the faithful in matters of contingent prudential matters that deeply affect the emotions is fraught with difficulty. As was true in his time, and remains true now, the sensus fidei of the faithful, to truly be in coherence with Catholic faith, must be guided by the Church’s magisterial authority.170 Therefore, any consultation of the sensus fidei fidelium should always be prefaced by teaching the faithful that the supreme magisterial authority of the Church has declared that receiving the vaccines, under certain conditions, is morally acceptable. Bishop Schneider, “Covid Vaccines.” Indeed, as is well known, many have appealed to the sensus fidei in ways that undermine the teaching of the Church. Recently, for instance, Jesuit Fr. James Martin has invoked the sensus fidei to explain why “the L.G.B.T. community” does not accept Catholic teaching about sex and marriage. See Gregory Brown, “Sensus Fidei and Fr. Martin,” First Things, August 7, 2017, https://www.firstthings.com/ web-exclusives/2017/08/sensus-fidei-and-fr-martin. 170 ITC, Sensus Fidei in the Life of the Church,” §97. 168 169 Using Abortion-Derived Vaccines 1049 2.3.3 Analysis of Arguments from Authority in Favor of Receiving the Vaccines Starting from the least authoritative to the most authoritative voices in favor of the vaccine, the following comments may be helpful for their proper interpretation. First, it will be noted that governments, employers, and schools have all used various measures to encourage vaccination of the population. Nevertheless, the fact that the powerful have leveraged the crisis, and even exacerbated it, and implemented continually changing rules, does not prove that the hazards of the virus are unreal, nor does it prove that the vaccines are indeed good for an entire population. Our purpose here is not to provide a taxonomy of which laws surrounding the COVID-19 situation may be just or unjust, reasonable or unreasonable, but it must be insisted that natural and divine rights—of individuals and of groups—cannot be flouted for the sake of population health. A citizen should obey just laws, which are by definition reasonable: a manifestly unjust, absurd, or arbitrary law is no law at all, for it is no longer an ordinance of reason.171 Hence, there are some laws a citizen must not obey: “We ought to obey God rather than men” (Acts 5:29). The mere fact that the state is using some coercive power in favor of the vaccines, however, is not in itself illegitimate. Aquinas insists that law and the government possess coercive power by nature.172 The mere threat of punishment does not remove voluntariness, though it may diminish willingness and culpability.173 Second, Pope Francis’s comments in favor of using the vaccine, and his own example, although clearly publicized to influence opinion, did not invoke his papal authority, nor were they expressed as part of any official teaching, and do not appear to bear episcopal authority of any sort. Therefore, they retain the authority of mere private opinion and should be weighed in light of the criteria that give force to arguments from personal authority: his credibility as a source, his expertise in the field about which he is speaking, and his trustworthiness as a guide.174 Third, groups such as the National Catholic Bioethics Center and the Ethics and Public Policy Center, and the members therein, are well-known as upholding the Catholic faith, even truths that are unpopular, sometimes at great cost to themselves. Additionally, their bioethical expertise is of the highest degree. Similar here is the PAV, a non-magisterial body that never ST I-II, q. 90, a. 1, ad 3. See ST I-II, q. 96, a. 5; II-II, q. 65, a. 2. 173 See ST I-II, q. 6, a. 6. 174 Walton, Appeal to Expert Opinion, 223. 171 172 1050 Sullivan and Pereira theless deserves respect according to criteria already laid out. Therefore, the positions of all the above-mentioned groups at the very least merit to be considered as “probably true,” as de facto authorities, and given their quantum of expertise, are of higher authority than the anti-COVID-19 vaccine women’s group, but of a lower authority than the de jure authority of cardinals and bishops against the vaccines. Fourth, bishops in favor of using the vaccines are of an equal authority to bishops against using the vaccines. Even when a bishop’s moral authority, recognized through his outstanding virtue, may be greater than that of another bishop, this factor in itself does not necessarily outweigh the de jure authority of one with less moral authority. Their authority as successors to the apostles is equal, even if their virtue, expertise, or special knowledge is vastly different. Fifth, there is no additional authoritative weight to a document delivered by bishops simply by virtue of the fact they do so as a group instead of individually: even a document issued by a doctrinal committee of a bishops’ conference does not add weight to a teaching per se. However, when there is a formal union of bishops beyond mere “group” status, their doctrinal statements can have greater authority when they are: (1) issued by an episcopal conference in a plenary session; (2) approved with at least two-thirds vote of deliberative members; (3) approved with the recognitio of the Holy See.175 It follows that, according to St. Alphonsus’s principle of equi-probabilism, a Catholic in good conscience could choose to follow the position articulated by either group of bishops (in favor or against the vaccines) after a prudential consideration of the intrinsic arguments and issues that concern him in particular. However, the principle of equi-probabilism applies only to equal authorities, that is, in the absence of other more definitive rulings. Sixth, and decisively, the pronouncements issued by the CDF on the matter of vaccines in 2008 and 2020 are official and magisterial teachings that share in the teaching office of the successor of St. Peter. As such, even though this teaching in favor of receiving the vaccines is not “per se irreformable,” it calls for a willing and loyal submission.176 The CDF clearly states that receiving the vaccine remains voluntary, non-obligatory. Conditions for licit reception of a COVID-19 vaccine derived from illicit sources include: (1) there is a serious reason to receive the vaccine; (2) there See John Paul II, Apostolos Suos (1998), §22; Francis A. Sullivan, “The Teaching Authority of Episcopal Conferences,” Theological Studies 63, no. 3 (2002): 472–93. 176 CDF, DVer., 24. 175 Using Abortion-Derived Vaccines 1051 are no other equally effective options available; (3) the recipient takes steps to avoid scandal, including making known their opposition to the source of the vaccine and asking their healthcare system to make morally licit vaccines available (more will be said about scandal in section 3.5).177 2.4 Conclusion 2.4.1 Summary of Findings The conclusions from our analysis of the arguments from authority may be stated briefly: • Existing authoritative teachings by the magisterium of the Church are sufficient grounds for taking vaccines. To act morally, no Catholic need study the matter further unless he has particular qualms, difficulties, or other concerns to resolve. • Existing authoritative teachings note that although there may be good reasons for receiving the vaccines—and some authorities exhort people to receive the vaccines—reception is ultimately non-obligatory, and for reasons of conscience a person may licitly refuse to receive the vaccines. • Given the Church’s clear teaching, expressed by the CDF, universal and unqualified rejections of the morality of receiving the vaccines do not carry sufficient authoritative weight to be accepted as more probably true. Such opinions should not be accepted as more authoritative than magisterial teaching. 2.4.2 Further Concerns The argument from authority presented here is meant to clarify some of the grounds that have been proposed by various voices in favor of and against the disputed COVID-19 vaccines. For many, these arguments from authority may prove unsatisfying and unconvincing. Loss of trust for all official authority in our day is widespread, not least because of ways in which official authorities have often demonstrated a lack of trustworthiness and credibility. Hence, many people around the world are suspicious of claims from official scientific, political, and ecclesial authorities. However, this post-modern situation should not induce faithful Catholics to reject magisterial authority as such, or to pick and choose whichever authoritative pronouncements fit their fancy. To fail to give respect to 177 CDF, DP, §35. 1052 Sullivan and Pereira a more authoritative teaching threatens to unravel the entire teaching authority structure established by Christ, who gave to St. Peter and his successors primacy within the Church. There are established and proper ways for individuals, and even groups, to proceed when they have difficulties with the teachings of the magisterium. As the Church herself has taught in words that apply to bishops, priests, and laity, to theologians and non-theologians: • “Even if the doctrine of the faith is not in question, the theologian will not present his own opinions or divergent hypotheses as though they were non-arguable conclusions.”178 • “If, despite a loyal effort on the theologian's part, the difficulties persist, the theologian has the duty to make known to the magisterial authorities the problems raised by the teaching in itself, in the arguments proposed to justify it, or even in the manner in which it is presented.”179 • It is recommended that those who have difficulties with magisterial teachings should avoid having recourse to “mass media,” because “seeking to exert the pressure of public opinion” often does not contribute to rendering service to the truth.180 Although these guidelines were formulated with respect to other matters, they remain true in our time. Although as demonstrated above it is morally licit for the faithful to take COVID-19 vaccines, because Catholics in good faith have difficulties with magisterial teaching, and because many questions persist regarding the grounds for or against receiving these vaccines, and because St. Alphonsus recommend a prudential consideration of arguments before acting with a perplexed conscience in serious matters, we now turn to consider the intrinsic arguments about receiving the vaccines.181 We hope that this consideration will help resolve serious difficulties, aid mutual understanding, and promote reconciliation among those who have disagreed. 3. Reasoned Arguments Regarding Vaccine Use Arguments from authority may be called “extrinsic” because they do not CDF, DVer., 27. CDF, DVer., 30. 180 CDF, DVer., 30. 181 See Alphonsus Liguori, Theologia moralis I, tr. 1, diss., no. 57; ch. 1, no. 10. 178 179 Using Abortion-Derived Vaccines 1053 treat the matter in question. In contrast, “intrinsic” arguments treat the matter in itself; these may be called “reasoned” arguments insofar as they employ evidence, formulations of their positions, and reasoning to support their conclusions. Here we address reasons for and against using vaccines derived from illicit sources. The issues are as follows: • Are there good ends for receiving the vaccines? (3.1.1) • Is receiving the vaccines intrinsically evil? (3.1.2) • Does receiving the vaccines constitute formal cooperation with evil? (3.2) • Does receiving the vaccines constitute material cooperation with evil? (3.3) • Does receiving the vaccines constitute unjustifiable benefitting from evil? (3.4) • Does receiving the vaccines constitute scandal? (3.5) 3.1 Foundational Reasoned Arguments Given that the elements of a human act are its object, end, and circumstance, a rejection of an act as evil must refer to one or more of those elements. Here we begin by showing that there are some good ends for receiving the vaccines. Next, we evaluate the primary question, namely, whether the object of the act of receiving an abortion-derived vaccine is intrinsically evil. 3.1.1 Good Ends for Taking Abortion-Derived Vaccines There can little doubt that good ends (goals, motives) can exist for people who desire to receive even vaccines derived from illicit sources. Among serious reasons are the following: • A concern for the common good, insofar as public health is threatened by the virus; • Personal health, if a person is particularly vulnerable to the effects of the virus; • Preservation of one’s job, insofar as some companies are requiring a vaccine in order to maintain employment. Therefore, it should not be said that the intention to receive the vaccine necessarily demonstrates “selfishness” or “callousness” toward life, as if there were no good intentions for doing so. Each person should care about 1054 Sullivan and Pereira the common good, even in matters of health; and for personal health; and for the preservation of livelihood and employment. Additionally, the good ends people have for receiving vaccines must not be conflated with the distinct intentions of vaccine makers, government officials, media personalities, powerful geopolitical figures, and so on, which might be less good or even evil. 3.1.2 Is It Intrinsically Evil to Receive the Vaccines? If receiving a vaccine derived from illicit means is intrinsically evil, then by definition no good end and no circumstances can justify their reception. Intrinsic evils “are [evil] always and per se, in other words, on account of their very object. . . . They remain ‘irremediably’ evil acts; per se and in themselves they are not capable of being ordered to God and to the good of the person.”182 Some prelates used very similar language to John Paul II to articulate their opposition to using the vaccines: “For Catholics it is morally unacceptable to develop or use vaccines derived from material from aborted fetuses”; “to argue that such vaccines can be morally licit if there is no alternative is in itself contradictory and cannot be acceptable for Catholics”; and taking the vaccine “is immoral and cannot be accepted under any circumstances.”183 This is what Alexander Pruss has named the “radically restrictive” position.184 In discussing how the object of an act specifies its moral quality as good or evil, Aquinas explains: “It is evil for the soul to act contrary to reason, and for the body to act contrary to nature.”185 Therefore, whatever act has as its object something contrary to reason, or contrary to nature, is intrinsically evil. Lists of intrinsic evils may be found in the words of Christ himself, in St. Paul’s letter to the Galatians, and in his first letter to the Corinthians.186 Lumen Gentium lists a series of evils that it identifies as “infamies,” which would count as intrinsically evil: “(a) whatever is opposed to life itself, such as any type of murder, genocide, abortion, euthanasia or willful self-destruction [suicide]; (b) whatever violates the integrity of the human person, such as mutilation, torments inflicted on body or mind, attempts to coerce the will itself; (c) whatever insults human dignity, such as subhuman living conditions, arbitrary imprisonment, John Paul II, VS, §80. Pentin, “Cardinals, Bishops Sign Appeal”; Bishop Schneider, “Covid Vaccines.” 184 Alexander R. Pruss, “Cooperation with Past Evil and Use of Cell-Lines Derived from Aborted Fetuses,” Linacre Quarterly 71, no. 4 (2004): 335–50. 185 ST II-II, q. 2, a. 4, corp. 186 Mark 7:21–23; Gal 5:19–21; 1 Cor 6:9–10. 182 183 Using Abortion-Derived Vaccines 1055 deportation, slavery, prostitution, the selling of women and children.”187 When considering a vaccine as a vaccine, that is, as some biological serum that contains particles of some toxic microorganism from which the recipient can acquire active acquired immunity, it is a good for individual and public health provided that its materials truly contribute to health.188 Likewise, the act of receiving a vaccine is not bad in itself; this is something the Church has recommended. As one historian notes, obligatory vaccination is not the brainchild of some modern totalitarian government. In 1801, the Catholic king of Naples, Ferdinand IV, established a program to vaccinate the entire populations of Naples and Palermo. Likewise, on June 20, 1822, Pope Leo XII as political sovereign established through his cardinal secretary of state a central vaccination commission in order to vaccinate everyone within the papal states.189 We have called the vaccines “of illicit origin.” One cannot rightly call them “illicit vaccines” as if they could only be used for evil purposes, as is the case for blasphemous poetry, pornography, torture devices, and other items whose proper use is contrary to the good.190 In the case of the vaccines, however, the disorder comes not from the good end for which it can be used (health, etc.), nor from the fact that it bears a human origin, for tissue donation is not itself evil. Every human body is made to the image and likeness of God, and even parts of a dead body retain some inherent dignity.191 If a grave digger unearths a corpse to be used for dissection in Dr. Frankenstein’s lab, the sin—the illicitness of the act—is to be ascribed to the thief and not to the corpse itself. Using a vaccine of illicit origin, that is, receiving a vaccine shot in the arm (the usual mode of delivery), does not in itself oppose life, nor directly violate the integrity of the vaccinator or recipient, nor directly insult human dignity, nor violate a natural or divine law. Hence, one can accurately speak of “abortion-derived” or “abortion-tainted” vaccines, but such terms should always be understood as referring to the past evil acts that led Vatican II, LG, §27 (trans. adapted). Concerns about potential dangers of the COVID-19 vaccines will not be addressed here, as they are distinct from our question about the morality of receiving the vaccines given their origin. 189 Roberto De Mattei, Sulla Liceità Moral della Vaccinazione (Rome: Edizioni Fiducia, 2021), 54. 190 John A. McHugh and Charles J. Callan, Moral Theology: A Complete Course Based on St. Thomas Aquinas and the Best Modern Authorities, vol. 1, Revised and Enlarged by Edward P. Farrell (New York: Joseph F. Wagner, 1958), no. 1533. 191 Pius XII, “Discours à l’association des donneurs de cornée et à l’union italienne des aveugles” (1957). 187 188 1056 Sullivan and Pereira to the vaccine and not to the vaccine as a thing in itself.192 Accordingly, to receive such a vaccine is not intrinsically evil. 3.2 Arguments about Formal Cooperation with Evil Even though receiving the vaccines derived from illicit means may not be intrinsically evil, the action might still remain unjustified if it constitutes formal cooperation with the original evil act: “From the moral standpoint, it is never licit to cooperate formally in evil.”193 In order to evaluate what sort of act receiving the vaccines may be, here we will define cooperation and related acts, and then treat formal cooperation. Later sections will consider the other kinds of acts. 3.2.1 Definitions of Secondary Acts in Relation to a Primary Evil Act It will be useful to recall that the moral object of an act includes the physical movement (e.g., walking) and its material term (e.g., to a store) understood by reason under a certain formality (e.g., to buy groceries). These elements of an object help define various situations in which the action of one agent bears upon the act of another agent, and any difference of the elements could distinguish one act from another. However, it is primarily the relation to reason that distinguishes the object of one act from other similar acts. More detailed discussions follow in subsequent sections. Complicity with another’s act means that two or more agents by coordination provide necessary aspects for a single act to be fulfilled: “An accomplice acts as an equiprincipal or coordinate agent with another in the commission of the same sin, performing his own proper part or share of the joint act of sin.”194 Two adulterers are accomplices complicit in the same act of adultery. Three men may be complicit in a single murder: one by stabbing, one by kicking and stomping, one by shooting a victim. Cooperation indicates that at least two separate agents perform two distinct operations with separate objects, and the agents knowingly join their actions together such that the secondary agent (“cooperator”) performs some act that helps the primary agent (or “principal”) achieve a presupposed end.195 Cooperation can occur simultaneously with some action, or it can anticipate some future action. In order for one act to constitute cooperation with another, the secondary act must exert some CDF, DP, §34–35; PAV, “Clarifications.” John Paul II, EV, §74. 194 McHugh and Callan, Moral Theology, vol. 1, no. 1507. 195 ST I-II, q. 111, a. 2, ad 3. 192 193 Using Abortion-Derived Vaccines 1057 causal influence upon a distinct primary act which it helps. As Kevin Flannery notes: “To cooperate is to do something (operari) that somehow contributes to what someone else does (or some others do). Thus, if someone is to be judged guilty of immoral cooperation, he will have to have been involved somehow as a cause in the malefactor’s (or malefactors’) misdeed.”196 Given these definitions, we must definitively reject Stephan Kampowski’s claim that “one can cooperate even with past evil.”197 It is metaphysically impossible that one’s present action and intention can somehow cause a past action to take place.198 Cooperation with evil exists in two basic types. St. Alphonsus provides the basic and well-known definition: “[Cooperation] is formal which concurs with the evil intention of the other, and [this] cannot be without sin; true material [cooperation] is that which concurs only with the evil action of the other, aside from the intention of the cooperator.”199 Accordingly, formal cooperation offers formal causality on the evil act, contributing some reason for the performance of the evil deed. In contrast, material cooperation only contributes material causality on the act. Benefitting from evil is to profit from a good which is the result of another’s evil deed. It is distinct from complicity and cooperation when Kevin L. Flannery, Cooperation with Evil: Thomistic Tools of Analysis (Washington, DC: Catholic University of America Press, 2019), 159. 197 Stephan Kampowski, “Cooperation, Appropriation, and Vaccines Relying on Fetal Cell Line Research,” Catholic World Report, January 24, 2021, catholicworldreport.com/2021/01/24/cooperation-appropriation-and-vaccines-relying-on-fetal-stem-cell-research/. 198 Kampowski cites Pruss, who speaks about one kind of formal cooperation as “being ‘an accessory after the fact,’ say, by praising the agent or by helping the agent avoid the just consequences of the action.” This argumentation confuses moral causality of some present or future act with what civil law recognizes as legal culpability of obstructing justice for a past act (see Brian A. Garner, Black’s Law Dictionary, 9th ed. [St. Paul, MN: West, 2009], 16). Most civil authorities do not consider an “accessory after the fact” to be an “accomplice” of the act, thus indicating a difference in the causal relation to the primary agent’s action (Garner, Black’s Law Dictionary, 18): See also Miles Jackson, Complicity in International Law (Oxford: Oxford University Press 2015), 11: “Accessory after the fact should not be regarded as a form of complicity. . . . Even in Blackstone’s time, the crime of being an accessory after the fact was ‘always an offence of a different species of guilt, principally tending to evade the public justice. . . . ’ Accessories after the fact do not help or influence the principal in his commission of wrongdoing—they make no contribution to the wrong itself.” Serving as an accessory after the fact may be morally wrong, but it is distinct from the evil of cooperating in the perpetration of an act. 199 Alphonsus Liguori, Theologia moralis I, tract. 3, ch. 2, dub. 5, a. 3, no. 63. 196 1058 Sullivan and Pereira the beneficiary has no causal influence on the original deed, and instead benefits temporally after the original.200 Scandal, in its most basic form, is an act whereby one person is the occasion of another’s sin by advice, inducement, or example (Aquinas 1955, ST II-II, q. 43, a. 1; CCC 2284) (see 3.4 below).201 3.2.2 Immorality of Formal Cooperation in Evil Formal cooperation cannot be reduced to a person’s intention, such as an interior approval with someone else’s action. Formal cooperation is an action that assists another’s act along with the cooperator’s interior concurrence, understood as agreement of intention, with the primary agent’s evil intention in some way. John Paul II defines formal cooperation by taking into account both the object of the cooperative act and the intention of the cooperator: “It is never licit to cooperate formally in evil. Such cooperation occurs when an action, either by its very nature or by the form it takes in a concrete situation, can be defined as a direct participation in an act,” which constitutes sharing the same evil object of the act of the primary agent, “or a sharing in the immoral intention of the person committing it.”202 Bernard Häring puts it this way: “Formal cooperation in another’s sin is every cooperation which, by its inner purpose or meaning (finis operis) or by deliberate intent (finis operantis) is characterized as complicity203 in the other’s sinful action. That means that the formal cooperator places himself directly in the service of evil. Through his own intention or by inner approval of the principal sinful deed, or through a cooperation which, by its very nature, is approval of the action, he formally makes the deed his own.”204 Accordingly, formal cooperation can occur in a number of different ways, as can be illustrated by considering an act of abortion. • A nurse formally cooperates when she performs some act that concurs with the doctor’s intention regarding the material aspect of the object his act (finis operis materialiter), and hands him forceps during the abortion. In this case, the nurse’s act is not merely “handing forceps” or See McHugh and Callan, Moral Theology, vol. 1, no. 245. Aquinas, ST II-II, q. 43, a. 1; CCC, §2284. 202 John Paul II, EV, §74. 203 It seems that Häring means “help” as a coordinated but distinct act, not “complicity” as one and the same act albeit with different elements contributed by different agents. 204 Bernard Häring, Free and Faithful in Christ: Moral Theology for Priests and Laity, vol. 2 (Middlegreen, England: St. Paul Publications, 1979), 479–80; see also McHugh and Callan, Moral Theology, vol. 1, no. 1511. 200 201 Using Abortion-Derived Vaccines 1059 “assisting a doctor”; it is “handing forceps to a doctor during abortion.” That act is necessarily pointed toward helping the doctor successfully complete his own action, which includes using the forceps for the abortion. Some moral theologians call this implicit formal cooperation, because the cooperator intends the end of the primary agent’s external act, namely, the successful completion of the primary act (which the primary wrongdoer also intends). • A medical research company that wants freshly aborted tissue formally cooperates when they assist the act and concur with a doctor’s intention regarding the formal object of abortion (finis operis formaliter), namely, to kill an innocent human being. Their intent to use the tissue, and whatever help they provide (such as payment for tissue), encourages the doctor to perform an abortion successfully, which ensures they receive the tissue. Note that, by intending the formal object of the evil act, they thereby necessarily also intend the material aspect of the object, that is, the physical acts necessary for a successful abortion. • Vaccine makers and researchers formally cooperate with an abortion when they assist the act and concur with the doctor’s intention to achieve his desired end for the act, which includes making the tissue available for a researcher (finis operantis). In this case, the vaccine company would signal its intent that a researcher would utilize the aborted fetus’s tissue to make cell lines for vaccines. Note that the vaccine maker’s intention necessarily includes the successful completion of the abortion, for whoever intends the end of an action also intends the action. Intending the end of the act also counts as explicit formal cooperation, and sometimes as complicity. It often manifests itself not only in cooperation in the act by facilitating it, but also in some communicated expression that accepts the immoral act, such as documented approval. • A researcher who creates cell lines for vaccines formally cooperates when he concurs with the doctor to benefit from an effect of the abortion that characteristically occurs upon the successful completion of the act. For example, the researcher might intend that the doctor be justly paid for the act of abortion. Here too the researcher could intend that his successful cooperation with the abortion-performing doctor might contribute to advancing his own professional career. This analysis provides some significant results. We find that formal cooperation has a much wider scope than is often acknowledged. Even what seems to be a “remote” intention still constitutes formal cooperation, for it forms 1060 Sullivan and Pereira the act of cooperating such that a successful abortion is included in the intended end. One can perform a bad act, knowing it is bad, and even with some emotional repugnance for its negative aspects, but preferring to do it rather than to give up the good to which it is united. It follows that formal cooperation does not mean that the cooperator intends evil per se, but rather that he shares the wrongdoer’s intention for a good that is contrary to right reason, something that does not serve the ultimate flourishing of the acting person in that concrete situation. Further circumstances in the situation, such as serious peer-pressure on the nurse, or grave need of cell lines for research, or a further intention of helping patient suffering from a virus, would not change the essential structure of these kinds of formal cooperation. Those added layers are like accidents with respect to the substance of the act: even if cooperation were more understandable to an outsider, and perhaps garnered some sympathy, it would remain formal cooperation with an intrinsically evil act. In sum, formal cooperation with grave evil is itself gravely evil and is never licit, for by it one intends evil and deliberately acts so that it may come about. 3.2.3 Formal Cooperation and the Vaccines Kampowski has made the astonishing claim that by formal cooperation “one can cooperate even with past evil.”205 That claim unfortunately reduces formal cooperation to its intentional aspects, and overlooks that cooperation is an action with causal force that assists some present or future action to take place. Given the definitions laid out previously, receiving or administering a vaccine can never constitute formal cooperation with an abortion or cell line development that led to the creation of the vaccine. The abortion and cell line development occurred in the 1960s–1980s, and the vaccine development occurred prior to one’s administration or reception of it: one’s action in the present day (2021) cannot have some retroactive effect on past acts. Even if a person approves of an abortion and other connected evil acts, his approval does not cause those past acts to exist. A solely interior act of the will may constitute formal approval but it is impossible for it to constitute formal cooperation. Scientists who worked with the original abortion-performing doctors and the companies or foundations that funded them in order to obtain fresh tissues committed formal cooperation with the killings. Their promises of payment and support of the killings directly contributed to the killings. It cannot be said that they merely benefitted from the abortions when collaboration had to take place prior to the abortions to ensure a successful 205 Kampowski, “Cooperation.” Using Abortion-Derived Vaccines 1061 harvesting of original organs and tissue. Does receiving a vaccine constitute formal cooperation with the “abortion industry”? Directly, it cannot, for the very act of receiving a vaccine— even one derived from abortions—does not necessitate the intention that some future abortion take place. • It does not directly contribute to the material aspect of the object of abortion, that is, killing a pre-born infant or related acts (finis operis materialiter), because vaccines have nothing per se to do with the physical acts involved in abortions. • It does not directly contribute the formal object of abortion (finis operis formaliter), namely, the killing of a child in its mother’s womb. • It does not somehow contribute to the Doctor’s further intentions that he had when performing the past abortion (finis operantis). However, perhaps in some scenario a person might receive the vaccine both for the primary intended purpose of the vaccine (protection against an infectious disease), as well as for the intention of contributing to the abortion-and-research industry that led to the vaccine. In that case, his use of the vaccine could constitute scandal by somehow encouraging an abortionist’s or researcher’s intention for some future act of abortion (see section 3.5). 3.3 Arguments about Material Cooperation Many discussions about the vaccines center around the issue of material cooperation with the original abortion and related acts. On the side of justifying the use of the vaccines, the PAV has argued that, for those who need to use the vaccines for health reasons, receiving them would bear the following relations: “(a) a form of very remote mediate material cooperation, and thus very mild, in the performance of the original act of abortion, (b) a mediate material cooperation, with regard to the marketing of cells coming from abortions, and (c) immediate, with regard to the marketing of vaccines produced with such cells.”206 Later, it reaffirmed this same conclusion, saying that because the use would be “very distant” from the original abortions, there was no “morally relevant cooperation” with evil involved.207 The CDF makes the same basic argument: “The fundamental reason for considering the use of these vaccines morally licit is that the kind of cooperation in evil (passive material cooperation) 206 207 PAV, “Moral Reflections.” PAV, “Clarifications.” 1062 Sullivan and Pereira . . . is, on the part of those making use of the resulting vaccines, remote.”208 On the contrary side, Cardinal Pujats and his episcopal colleagues argue that receiving the vaccines is not justified even if the act counts only as material cooperation, saying, for example: “We see a clear contradiction between the Catholic doctrine to categorically, and beyond the shadow of any doubt, reject abortion . . . and the practice of regarding vaccines derived from aborted fetal cell lines as morally acceptable in exceptional cases of ‘urgent need’—on the grounds of remote, passive, material cooperation”; “The theological principle of material cooperation is certainly valid. . . . However, this principle can hardly be applied to the case of vaccines made from fetal cell lines, because those who knowingly and voluntarily receive such vaccines enter into a kind of concatenation, albeit very remote, with the process of the abortion industry.”209 Similarly, the women’s declaration rejects the reasoning which accepts taking the vaccines, in some cases, because cooperation with evil is remote.210 To evaluate the claim and counter-claim, we must consider the nature of material cooperation in itself, and then in relation to the vaccines. 3.3.1 Nature and Kinds of Material Cooperation We can begin by noting that some acts are mere occasions for the sin of others; they do not constitute material cooperation if they do not in some way help the evil of others to come about by some concurrence between the secondary and primary agent. Christ’s presence at his mock trial was a mere occasion for false accusations, but his carrying the Cross was a material cooperation with cruelty imposed on him. To consider the nature of material cooperation, we may return to St. Alphonsus’s basic definition: “True material [cooperation] is that which concurs only with the evil action of the other, aside from the intention of the cooperator.”211 How does a person who materially cooperates with another “concur” with the action of the other? Not through some concurrence, agreement, or intention of the end of the wrongdoer; that would be formal cooperation. In material cooperation, giving help to evil is “aside from the intention of the cooperator.” Hence, material cooperation merely concurs with “the evil action” of the wrongdoer: the action of the cooperator runs alongside that of the wrongdoer, and helps a primary agent to perform his evil act, but it is performed such that the cooperator’s CDF, Note on the Morality of Using Some Anti-Covid-19 Vaccines, §3. Bishop Schneider, “Covid Vaccines.” 210 VOW, “Voice of Women in Defense of Unborn Babies,” 2. 211 Alphonsus Liguori, Theologia moralis I, tract. 3, ch. 2, dub. 5, a. 3, no. 63. 208 209 Using Abortion-Derived Vaccines 1063 intention is distinct from the evil intentions of the primary agent. Merely material cooperation in evil involves an act whose object is specifically distinct from the object of the primary agent, but is misused or misappropriated through the evil intention of the malefactor and thus directed to the service of sin.212 It should be understood that “material” cooperation could include any condition supplied by the secondary agent (the “cooperator”) that may be used for the evil end intended by the primary agent. Material cooperation may provide more than just some physical means, such as providing information about something. Many moral theologians have noted that material cooperation may be analytically considered from different perspectives, such as the concepts of immediacy, proximity, and remoteness. The concept of immediacy denotes whether the cooperative act assists the primary act without the interposition of means or some series of means. Immediate cooperation directly contributes to the execution of the evil act per se, that is, with no series of means that stand in between the assistance provided and the evil act. Because no human act is merely physical, the formality of the act includes the fact that it directly helps accomplish some evil deed. As argued above, within the context of an abortion procedure, a nurse’s concrete act is more than “handing over forceps” or “assisting a doctor”; it is “handing forceps to a doctor so the doctor can use it immediately for an abortion.” The intelligibility of the physical act of itself necessarily points toward helping the doctor successfully complete the abortion with the forceps. Accordingly, immediate material cooperation in this particular case is a form of formal cooperation when there is no other primary intelligibility for the immediate cooperating act other than to facilitate the accomplishment of the primary evil act. In other words, when considering his action, an agent might conclude: “My action (handing the doctor the forceps) would be meaningless if it didn’t ensure the other person’s sin (the abortion). In fact, under the present circumstances, if I do this, I would commit part of the sin as well.” The concepts of proximity and remoteness together describe the relative “closeness” that cooperation has to the primary at. Hence, one can speak of cooperation as proximate to an act if it is close in time, place, or relation, such as the nurse’s help being closely (proximately) related to the doctor’s act of abortion, or as remote if it is far in time, place, or relation, like the electric company’s provision of electricity being very remotely related to the abortion. Although proposed as a distinct analytical category, the 212 Flannery, Cooperation with Evil, 36, 94; see also Dominicus M. Prümmer, Manuale Theologiae Moralis, vol. 1 (Rome: Herder, 1958), 448 (no. 617). 1064 Sullivan and Pereira concept of proximity largely overlaps with immediacy, because “relation” can indicate how one thing relates to another with respect to means, that is, its relation to causal necessity for achieving a presupposed end: the nurse’s “handing of forceps” is closely related to the doctor’s act of abortion because it is the immediate means used by the doctor for the abortion, and it is a necessary means for the particular procedure chosen by the doctor. Notice, too, that being closely related to an act in performance usually entails being close in time or place. Because immediate cooperation may be one version of formal cooperation, proximate cooperation may be formal cooperation as well; they are always illicit when they assist in the destruction of innocent life.213 Other than immediate material cooperation, other kinds of material cooperation always involve some means that stand between the act of the cooperator and the primary evil act: it is “mediate” per se. Consequently, it is not strictly necessary for the commission of the evil act, but only indirectly provides an occasion for it. 3.3.2 Moral Evaluation of Material Cooperation The conditions under which it is possible to materially cooperate with evil are the same as those articulated in what is called the principle (or doctrine) of double effect, or “double effect reasoning,” which uses four criteria to determine whether an action is allowable for the sake of a good effect even if it also produces an evil effect:214 (1) The act must be objectively good in itself; (2) The end for which the cooperator works must be good; (3) the good effect cannot be caused by the foreseen but undesired bad effect; (4) There must be a sufficiently, or proportionately, good reason to perform the act and tolerate the bad effect. St. Alphonsus gives an example of licit immediate material cooperation: opening one’s own strong-box for a thief who threatens your life or honor in order to steal your treasure: opening one’s safe is a good act in itself though the thief directs the act towards his own evil end.215 The first two conditions of the principle of double effect are straightforwardly necessary as parts of any good act. Criterion (3) is based on the fact PAV, “Moral Reflections.” McHugh and Callan, Moral Theology, vol. 1, nos. 104, 1515; Nicanor Austriaco, Bioethics and Beatitude: An Introduction to Catholic Bioethics (Washington, DC: Catholic University of America Press, 2011), 37–41; Joseph Boyle, “The Relevance of Double Effect to Decisions about Sedation at the End of Life,” in Sedation at the End-of-life: An Interdisciplinary Approach, ed. P. Taboada, Philosophy and Medicine 116 (Dordrecht: Springer Science+Business Media, 2015), 55–71; PAV, “Moral Reflections.” 215 Alphonsus Liguori, Theologia moralis III, tract. 5, ch. 2, dub. 2, no. 517. 213 214 Using Abortion-Derived Vaccines 1065 that we can foresee yet not intend evil effects that may flow from our good act. Some consequences of acts are natural, that is, they always or in most cases are the effects that come from the action type that one is performing (effectus finis operis). Thus in the case of a nurse’s cooperation with a doctor in the act of abortion, this criterion fails since the “good effect” is in fact caused by both a foreseen and desired “bad effect” since the to-be-expected effect of handing a doctor forceps during an abortion procedure is that he will use them to grasp parts of the fetus to effect the abortion. Other consequences may be merely foreseen, as when they come about not through one’s act but through the intention of another agent (effectus finis operantis): assisting a doctor to perform an abortion may (indirectly) help him pay for his new boat. In both cases, for a cooperation to be licit, the good effects sought in one’s act cannot be caused by the moral evil, for the end does not justify the means. Criterion (4) concerns a “sufficiently” good reason for cooperating, in other words, a reason that is “proportionately” better than not cooperating. There must be a strong presumption against material cooperation, for the first principle of morality is to pursue good and avoid evil.216 However, there may be good reasons and sufficiently weighty circumstances that justify performing a good act that also results in evil as side effect. In this regard, it should be noted that the more particular means that stand in between some cooperative act and the accomplishment of the sinful act, the less one needs a grave reason for so acting. In contrast, one needs graver reasons for acting given the following conditions:217 • the graver the evil end to which the act is being diverted; • the greater the dependence of the evil act on one’s cooperation; • the greater the certainty that one’s act will be used for evil; • the greater the probability that one’s refusal to cooperate could prevent the evil; • the graver the harm which may come upon the cooperator, including the spiritual harm of discounting the nature of evil; • he greater the difficulty in avoiding scandal and leading third parties into sin; • he easier the possibility of achieving the same or a sufficiently similar good could by alternative licit means; Anthony Fisher, Catholic Bioethics for a New Millennium (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2012), 93. 217 See: Prümmer, Manuale Theologiae Moralis, vol. 1, no. 619; McHugh and Callan, Moral Theology, vol. 1, no. 1519; Fisher, Catholic Bioethics, 92–93. 216 1066 Sullivan and Pereira • he more one is obliged to prevent the particular act of sin. The gravity of reasons for material cooperation with evil corresponds to the importance of the goods in question, as John McHugh and Charles Callan argue: • A grave reason for cooperation exists when, if one refuses it, a great good will be lost or a great evil incurred—such as two month’s wages or extended separation from friends and family. • A very grave reason for cooperation corresponds to the gain or retention of a very great good, or the avoidance of a very great evil—such as a significant portion of one’s possessions, a severe or long-lasting illness, or unemployment. • Even graver reasons include the contraction of an incurable disease, the loss of a hand or member of the body, and severe or perpetual imprisonment. • The gravest reasons for cooperation include “the public safety of Church or State, loss of all one’s property, death.”218 3.3.3 Material Cooperation and the Vaccines At the beginning of 3.3, we saw that the PAV and CDF argue that receiving vaccines developed from abortions could constitute justifiable material cooperation, whereas Cardinal Pujats and others argue that material cooperation in the current circumstances would be unjustifiable. For the same reasons that vaccine use cannot constitute formal cooperation with the past abortion and other actions that led to the vaccine, so it cannot constitute material cooperation with the same. However, is it an unjustifiable “concatenation, albeit very remote, with the process of the abortion industry”?219 To argue this, one must do more than to point out that the evil spoken of is very grave; that circumstance is a given. Nor is it sufficient to assert that by taking a vaccine one is materially cooperating in the medical industry which promotes abortions: because the logical fallacy of begging the question arises if one merely claims that the action is unjustifiable merely because it constitutes material cooperation. The question is whether or not receiving the vaccines in some circumstances constitutes justifiable material cooperation. Let us evaluate the justifiability of receiving the vaccines in light of the 218 219 McHugh and Callan, Moral Theology, vol. 1, no. 1520. Bishop Schneider, “Covid Vaccines.” Emphasis added. Using Abortion-Derived Vaccines 1067 four criteria listed above (3.3.2). (1) The act of receiving a vaccine is good; as we have already noted, it is not intrinsically evil, as shown in 3.1.2. (2) The vaccines would be received primarily for a good end, such as personal health and protecting others from the disease, as discussed in 3.1.1. (3) The good effect at which one aims, such as good of health, is not an effect of whatever evil might result. Clearly, protection from the virus would be caused by the vaccine and not by the industry’s potential benefit. Accordingly, one’s reception of the vaccine could be justified even if the abortion industry indirectly and remotely benefits from vaccine production and dissemination. The last criterion (4), a sufficiently weighty reason for material cooperation, deserves a lengthier treatment. First, it should be noted that cooperation requires foresight that one’s action will somehow assist another person: without that rational connection, then one’s action merely helps the other agent, but the two people do not co-operate (perform two actions that are coordinated by choice). Consequently, if a vaccine recipient estimates that her action might influence others to commit more abortions in the future, and the vaccine use is not somehow coordinated with the act of future abortions, then her action constitutes not cooperation but potential scandal, which is treated later (3.4). Second, regarding material cooperation with the “abortion industry” in general, one can apply the criteria above (3.3.2). • A grave reason for receiving the vaccine exists for many, including the potential of being reprimanded in their job and losing wages. • A very grave reason exists for those whose very jobs are at stake if they do not receive the vaccine. • An even graver reason exists for those whose health is seriously threatened by the virus. Most treatments of receiving the vaccine have omitted to discuss the case of the individual physician’s role in distributing the vaccines. However, we consider the two issues as inextricably bound up with one another, even though they are different acts. If it is moral to receive a vaccine, as justifiable passive, remote material cooperation with the abortion industry, then it must be morally acceptable for an individual doctor to distribute a vaccine as active, remote material cooperation with the industry. Often an individual doctor has little choice in distributing the vaccines, which sharply contrasts with the greater freedom of those in the industry who help create, market, and distribute the vaccines. 1068 Sullivan and Pereira Finally, whereas strict justice does not forbid reception of the vaccines, the virtue of charity may lead Christians to forego them, both to protect their own souls and to witness to the dignity of life.220 3.3.4 Moral Dangers in Choosing to Cooperate Materially with Evil Alongside grave reasons for taking an abortion-derived vaccine, one must also consider some of the moral dangers related to materially cooperating with evil. Archbishop Anthony Fisher frames the issue poignantly: “Love of neighbor might be said to ground a presumption against material cooperation in evil because we should help our neighbor be and do good. . . . Love for innocent third parties (such as unborn children) will also make us particularly sensitive to any foreseeable harm to them.”221 At the same time, it is entirely unrealistic to suppose that one can escape all material cooperation with evil.222 As Germain Grisez notes: “Some unreflective and/or unsophisticated people imagine problems regarding cooperation can (and perhaps should) be avoided by altogether avoiding cooperation. That, however, is virtually impossible and sometimes inconsistent with doing one’s duty.”223 Even Christ paid the temple taxes, though its rulers would later commit terrible atrocities on his own person (Matt 17:27). Nevertheless, it is perilously superficial to suppose that only formal cooperation poses serious problems. Grisez highlights many significant but typically overlooked negative side effects of material cooperation, even aside from the bad results of the primary evil act. Of particular concern are the detrimental consequences that habitual material cooperation may have on the soul. He notes: If material cooperation is ongoing or becomes a regular practice, it is likely to have more and graver such consequences than would an isolated act. . . . Performance, especially repeated performance, tends to become habitual; interaction with wrongdoers tends to generate psychological bonds and interdependence. Thus, cooperation often leads to opportunities and temptations to engage in further cooperation.224 Pakaluk, “Statement of Conscience to Awaken Conscience.” Fisher, Catholic Bioethics, 95. 222 See Häring, Free and Faithful in Christ, 483. 223 Germain Grisez, The Way of the Lord Jesus, vol. 3, Difficult Moral Questions (Chicago: Franciscan Herald, 1997), 871. 224 Grisez, Way of the Lord Jesus, 3:880. 220 221 Using Abortion-Derived Vaccines 1069 The result is that even when some initial material cooperation is warranted, later acts of cooperation might corrupt the cooperator. He might come to think that the evil with which he cooperates is not “all that bad,” or that it might be justifiable to perpetrate evil that good might result, or that circumstances can justify nearly any action. Thus, Grisez says, by eroding cooperator’s sense of right and wrong, “material cooperation often is an occasion of grave sin.”225 Additionally: • Material cooperation can lead to disharmony between the cooperator and victims of the wrongdoing. • Material cooperation can impede the cooperator from being a credible witness against the wrongdoing, as might happen if the Church overly emphasizes the legitimacy and potential need of the vaccines without an even stronger protest against their illicit origins. • Material cooperation can impede the cooperator from carrying out his vocation in other respects, as when a researcher’s use of illicitly derived embryonic cells might undermine his commitment to supporting life through his research.226 • Finally, material cooperation “always not only accepts a bad situation but makes it workable—and so, usually, more likely to endure and harder to overcome,”227 as has been predicted as an effect of widespread vaccine use with respect to the abortion industry as a whole. Because materially cooperating in evil can constitute the first decisive step on a slippery downward slope, the apostles commanded Christians “to avoid” those who create dissentions in opposition to received doctrine; to not “associate with immoral men,” such as one who is an idolater, reviler, drunkard, or robber; to not be “unequally yoked” with unbelievers; to “keep away from any brother who is living in idleness and not in accord with the tradition” of the Church, and so on (Rom. 16:17–18; 1 Cor 5:9–11; 2 Thess 3:6; see also 2 Thess 3:14; 2 Tim 3:2–5; 2 John 1:10–11). Following this train of thought, Fisher notes that the moral dangers of material cooperation in sin “will require sacrificing our personal preferences, our desire to get on well with others, our institutional commitments or even the great goods that our actions might otherwise achieve.”228 Grisez, Way of the Lord Jesus, 3:880. See CDF, DVit., I.5; PAV, Declaration on the Production and the Scientific and Therapeutic Use of Human Embryonic Stem Cells. CDF, DP, §§32, 34–35. 227 Grisez, Way of the Lord Jesus, 3:882. 228 Fisher, Catholic Bioethics, 97. 225 226 1070 Sullivan and Pereira The Church clearly teaches that scientists who purposely use the cell lines (or embryonic stem cells) derived from aborted children for research purposes commit unjustifiable immediate material cooperation with the distribution of the materials—and the distribution is unjust, because there must be “no complicity in deliberate abortion” and “the risk of scandal [should] be avoided. Also, in the case of dead fetuses, as for the corpses of adult persons, all commercial trafficking must be considered illicit and should be prohibited.”229 As noted above, an individual’s reception of a vaccine is not cooperation since it is less a positive action and more a passive and remote benefit from the abortion industry. In contrast, a researcher’s active use of the abortion-derived cells constitutes a wrongful manipulation of human tissue obtained without consent and even by terrible violence, which is a violation of the dignity and respect due to parts of a dead human person. Use of such cells in research also constitutes cooperation with the abortion industry, although it does not constitute cooperation with the past abortion, which is impossible. Such cooperation with the abortion industry in this case would be formal if the researcher actively requested the tissue or in any way contributed to the procuration of the tissue through abortion. It would constitute unjustifiable immediate material cooperation with the abortion industry if a researcher knowingly makes use of the illicitly derived tissue of cells themselves, because it violates the norm of using human tissue only derived from willing and informed donors. Furthermore, his use of tissues or cells creates a market for future abortions and thus causes grave scandal (discussed in 3.5). Consequently, “it is necessary to distance oneself from the evil aspects of that system in order not to give the impression of a certain toleration or tacit acceptance of actions which are gravely unjust.”230 3.4 Arguments about Benefitting from Evil Having considered the nature of cooperation, we may now address questions about what moral relation vaccine use has with respect to the past abortions, cell line development, and so on that produced the vaccines. To explain this, this section discusses the nature and kinds of benefitting from evil, it establishes moral norms for licit benefit from evil, and it applies those considerations to vaccine use. 3.4.1 Definition and Kinds of Benefit To benefit is to profit from something, that is, to enjoy the good effect of 229 230 CDF, DVit., I.4. CDF, DP, §35; see also CDF, DVit., I.4. Using Abortion-Derived Vaccines 1071 some cause. An analysis of a beneficiary’s causal relation among situations and persons shows that benefit can occur in many ways. (1) Circumstantial benefit is that which results from some circumstantial conjunction between the beneficiary and that from which he benefits. Although the beneficiary may choose to make use of circumstantial benefits, the availability of the benefits to him is purely accidental: he benefits from the weather; he benefits from finding an unclaimed buried pearl; he benefits from Isaac Newton’s explanation of gravity. (2) Relational benefit is that which results from a real relation between persons; it necessarily is more than a happenstance situation. (2.a) Some relational benefits accrue to a person from nature: a relation of natural benefit (or a natural-relation benefit) accrues to a child because of his relation to his parents and other primogenitors, as when a child benefits from his parents’ innate intelligence. (2.b) Other relational benefits are intentional (intentional-relational benefits): they accrue to a person because of some previous chosen action. (2.b.1) Sometimes a person is intentionally involved in causing a situation in which he benefits from the action of another. Benefit from formal cooperation is the good that accrues to a person who has formally cooperated with some action, which is distinct from benefit from material cooperation. Contractual benefit occurs when the beneficiary of an act makes a contract with another, or in some way promises another some restitution upon completion of the other’s action, then the two have a shared intention to be mutual beneficiaries of their respective but coordinated actions. Each has a fiduciary right to benefit from the action of the other. When the beneficiary alone chooses to make use of another’s action that the beneficiary somehow caused without the other’s person’s full choice, this would constitute benefit from intentional manipulation. (2.b.2) Other times a person benefits not from his own choice, but solely because of the choice of another. Perhaps the most common case is when a person is the beneficiary named in another’s will, or included in such a group (“my family”), such that goods accrue to the beneficiary upon the testator’s death (benefit of legal heir). When a beneficiary is not included in another’s will, nor belongs to a particular group intentionally benefitted by another (specific intended benefit) such as “graduates of this university,” then the beneficiary and the one from whom he benefits bear no formal or real relation and instead have only a circumstantial relation, resulting in general or circumstantial benefit. 3.4.2 Moral Evaluation of Benefitting from Evil With respect to the nature of the benefit, one can distinguish among the 1072 Sullivan and Pereira following: (A) formal benefit, which arises from the intentional nature of the act itself (effectus operis formaliter), such as when a king enjoys the very act of worship his subjects offer to him as a divinity, and (B) material benefit that arises from the act as some secondary effect (effectus operis materialiter), such as when a king enjoys the gold offered in tribute to his supposedly divine status. Enjoying a formal benefit of evil is never morally licit, for that would be directly to enjoy the evil itself. Likewise, benefitting from formal cooperation with evil is never morally licit: one may not commit evil with another in order to benefit from it. While those conclusions should be abundantly clear, other significant questions remain: May one enjoy material benefits of evil? May one licitly benefit from material cooperation with evil? Can one benefit from intrinsic evil deeds that one has not caused in any way, such as benefitting from an abortion—and related evil acts—by receiving an abortion-derived vaccine? A very strict position would argue that even circumstantial and material benefits from the gravest evils are illicit, whereas another position might argue that only more intentional benefits from evil are wrong, such as contractual benefits. To answer these questions, we will look to St. Paul and St. Thomas Aquinas for guidance. 3.4.2.1 St. Paul on Eating Meat Offered to Idols An understanding of benefitting from past evil may be seen from St. Paul’s famous case of eating food offered to idols. In the course of explaining the one true sacrifice of Jesus Christ, in which Christians partake through the reception of the Holy Eucharist (1 Cor 10:16), St. Paul also addresses whether eating meat that had been offered idols could constitute illicit “participation” in idolatry.231 Much of the meat available in that time was sacrificed ritually to idols and was then available to be eaten inside the pagan temple itself. This created a question of conscience for Christians, especially since they knew that Jews rejected any meat that was not slaughtered in a kosher manner.232 St. Paul makes the dilemma—to eat sacrificed meat or not—pointed by saying, “what pagans sacrifice they offer to demons and not to God. I do not want you to be partners with demons” (1 Cor 10:20). Since idolatry is a grave intrinsic evil, the question becomes: can a Christian benefit from one of the gravest intrinsic evils committed by others? The strictest, and morally safest, position would be to reject the idolatry-tainted food entirely. One might expect St. Paul to say “unequivocally Hans Conzelmann, 1 Corinthians, trans. James W. Leitch, ed. George W. MacRae (Philadelphia: Fortress Press, 1975), 174. 232 Conzelmann, 1 Corinthians, 176. 231 Using Abortion-Derived Vaccines 1073 no” to eating the food offered to demons. But he does not say this. First, St. Paul notes that some Christian converts from paganism believe erroneously that idols have power over them: “Some, through being hitherto accustomed to idols, eat food as really offered to an idol; and their conscience, being weak, is defiled” (1 Cor 8:7). To overcome such false fear of idols, St. Paul states that the idols “are nothing” (1 Cor 8:4). By that, however, St. Paul means that in comparison with the “one God, the Father, from whom are all things and for whom we exist,” the idols are as nothing (1 Cor 8:6). The implication is that, now that the Christian has true knowledge regarding God’s power over demons, he need not avoid what could be called “idolatry-derived” food. Nevertheless, we can infer that St. Paul would also say that if a person’s conscience is harmed by the eating, he should avoid the food until he can more fully live by faith. This is the principle of avoiding proximate material cooperation because of one’s own moral weakness. Second, St. Paul says that the material of the meat does not defile: “Food will not commend us to God. We are no worse off if we do not eat, and no better off if we do” (1 Cor 8:8). Therefore, one can eat the food previously offered to idols and not participate in the sin in idolatry: “Eat whatever is sold in the meat market without raising any question on the ground of conscience. . . . For why should my liberty be determined by another man's scruples?” (1 Cor 10:25, 29). In such cases, a Christian would physically benefit from an idolatrous act by receiving into oneself the material that was created through the idolatry. His life would be sustained because others committed grave evil. Nevertheless, such benefit can be acceptable. St. Paul therefore is saying in simpler language that the object of eating the food would not be intrinsically evil: when certain conditions hold, one may materially benefit from a very grave evil. Properly speaking, receiving a material benefit from an evil in this case is not cooperation of any sort, for the individual in no way collaborated or assisted with the previous evil act. Nevertheless, the fresh piece of meat as a circumstantial benefit links him closely to the grave evil deed—through in a material, passive way—which was an act of idolatry to demons. Third, as we will see (3.5.2), this legitimate action must be avoided if it will lead a good but weak person to sin. Expressed as a principle: avoid scandalizing the weak. In sum, St. Paul’s teaching about the liceity of receiving meat derived from an idolatrous act shows the liceity of passive material benefit from evil in the following conditions: 1074 Sullivan and Pereira 1. The beneficiary does not commit the evil from which he benefits. 2. The beneficiary will not be led into sin by benefitting. 3. The beneficiary does not lead weak Christians into sin by the act of enjoying the benefit. That is, he avoids giving scandal. The first two conditions, of course, are conditions for performing any action. It is the third which is most important here. As the classic Thomist Francisco de Victoria said, “Notwithstanding the interdict on idolatry, with no scandal it is allowable to eat food offered to idols.”233 3.4.2.2 St. Thomas Aquinas on Benefitting from Another’s Evil St. Thomas explicitly considers the question of whether it is morally licit to “to make use of another’s sin for a good end.”234 He argues that yes, one may do so. To prove the moral liceity of using another’s sin for one’s own good, Aquinas employs a problem that vexed many medieval Christians, namely, whether or not to benefit from a non-Christian’s usurious loan. Although the example might seem trivial to modern sensibilities, Catholics held that usury is intrinsically evil: “To take usury for money lent is unjust in itself ” (secundum se iniustum).235 Nevertheless, sometimes a person might be in need of cash and the only loans available are through usurious lenders. Consequently, charging usury is intrinsically evil, and it is by no means licet to induce someone to lend under usury. However, Aquinas makes a perhaps surprising move by saying, borrowing under conditions of usury can be allowable: “Under a certain necessity, insofar as he needs to borrow money which the owner is unwilling to lend without usury,”236 even though receiving the money clearly would mean immediately benefitting from the grave sin of the person who charges usury. It may be noted that St. Thomas follows St. Augustine in holding that it is possible to request a good to which an evil is attached, and it is possible to foresee and accept that evil will be done when good is requested, and that it is possible to reward a good to which evil is attached, all without the beneficiary being guilty of evil. To prove these points, St. Thomas first offers a theological reason drawn from St. Augustine: “It is licit to make use of another's sin for some good, since even God uses all Francisco de Vitoria, De temperantia, in Relectiones theologiae, vol. 1 (Lyon: Jacobum Boyerium, 1557), 61. 234 ST II-II, q. 78, a. 4, corp. 235 ST II-II, q. 78, a. 1, corp. 236 ST II-II, q. 78, a. 1, ad 7. 233 Using Abortion-Derived Vaccines 1075 sin for some good, since he draws some good from every evil.”237 If God can do this, so can we—provided the right conditions are in place. Next, Thomas refers to a difficult case that Augustine resolved by applying this larger principle: “When Publicola asked whether it were licit to make use of an oath taken by a man swearing by false gods (in which he manifestly sins by giving divine honor to them) Augustine (Epistle 47) answered that he who uses, not for evil but for good, the oath of a man that swears by false gods, is a party, not to his sin of swearing by demons, but to his good promise whereby he kept his word. If however he were to induce him to swear by false gods, he would sin.”238 This astonishing case, making use of another’s pact with demons, shows how confident Augustine and Thomas were that benefitting even from other’s grave immediate evil can be possible without sin. With St. Augustine, St. Thomas is arguing that there are some acts whereby one person gives another “an occasion” to do good, but which the other twists to his own evil end. The good act requested and rewarded is formally separate from the evil end which the evildoer accidentally attaches to it: “He who borrows for usury gives the usurer an occasion, not for taking usury, but for lending; it is the usurer who finds an occasion of sin in the malice of his heart.”239 Significantly, Aquinas acknowledges that “there is no active scandal on the part of the person who seeks to borrow,” for requesting money in occasions of need is good, not bad. The fact that he foresees the other will sin should not deter him from making the request, Aquinas states, because the evildoer is led to evil “not from weakness or ignorance but from malice.”240 From this example, we can derive general principles for determining when “making use of” or benefitting from another’s present evil may be acceptable. (1) The potential beneficiary cannot “induce” the potential evildoer to commit evil. Inducement would include requesting the evil as such (and not merely the good attached to the evil), performing part of the evil himself in complicity, formally cooperating with the finis operis materialiter or formaliter, agreeing with or furthering the proposed evil end of the evildoer ( finis operantis), promising a reward for the evil as such (distinct from rewarding good parts of the act), or in any way indicating that the evil should be done. Without inducing sin, the potential beneficiary fore Augustine, Enchiridion 11 (translation ours). ST II-II, q. 78, a. 4, corp. 239 ST II-II, q. 78, a. 4, ad 2. 240 ST II-II, q. 78, a. 4, ad 2. 237 238 1076 Sullivan and Pereira sees that evil will be done without having caused the evil, much as God “uses all evil for some good.”241 (2) The potential evildoer (the usurer) must independently manifest that he is “ready” to do evil. St. Alphonsus uses even stronger language, speaking of a person who is willfully “determined” to do evil, and who cannot be persuaded entirely to desist from the generic evil he has in mind.242 A sign that the potential evildoer is determined to commit an evil act would be his past performance of the act habitually and without compunction. In this case, he is one who “practices” usury regularly. It may be noted here that the fact that the evildoer is ready to do evil reduces or eliminates the possibility of scandal: one’s use of the evil does not induce the wrongdoer to do evil. (3) The potential beneficiary must have a serious good end in mind. In the case of cooperating with usury, Aquinas speaks of the “relief” of one’s own or another’s “need.” Later tradition came to describe this condition in material cooperation by saying that a person must have a “sufficiently” or “proportionately” good reason in order to justify material benefit from evil.243 Regarding the last condition, it should be noted that the criteria listed above for justifiable material cooperation (3.3.2) also apply here—but given that benefitting from evil is even further from the evil act than materially cooperating with it, the justifying criteria can be proportionately less serious. In order to distinguish a legitimate sort of benefitting from evil from committing evil oneself, some clarifications of this third condition may be useful. First, benefitting from evil is not formal cooperation, for the beneficiary in no way intends the evil that the wrongdoer perpetrates: the borrower would be quite happy if the lender did not loan with usury. However, the borrower because of his genuine need permits and does not need to correct the evil of the lender, since it is hopeless that the usurer will change his will. Second, this situation could be understood as immediate material cooperation, for the beneficiary performs no action that bolsters the wrongdoer’s evil intention, which is manifested and unchangeable. However, the borrower provides the occasion which the lender bends to his own evil purpose: even though the borrower can foresee that the lender will likely ST II-II, q. 78, a. 4, corp. Alphonsus Liguori, Theologia moralis II, tract. 5, ch. 2, dub. 2, no. 563. 243 See Alphonsus Liguori, Theologia moralis II, tract. 3, ch. 2, dub. 5, a. 3, no. 47. 241 242 Using Abortion-Derived Vaccines 1077 commit a grave sin of usury, the action of requesting a loan does not of itself demand evil. Third, St. Thomas here develops the principles laid out by St. Paul in 1 Corinthians, and by St. Augustine in Letter 47. One is not bound to avoid all circumstantial benefit from sin; nor even from contractual benefit from intrinsic evil. However, the causal line must be clear: one cannot contract evil, that is, induce any evil to be done by request, persuasion, encouragement, and so on. Nevertheless, in cases of real and immediate necessity, one can enter into a contract in which one party agrees to do evil which somehow results in a benefit that is not formally part of the evil but is so only materially. 3.4.2.3 Summary and Test Case: Benefitting from Murder So far, we have seen that St. Paul, St. Augustine, St. Thomas Aquinas, and St. Alphonsus, when considered all together, provide six principles for when it is morally acceptable to benefit from another’s evil deed, even such very grave evils such as idolatry. 1. The beneficiary does not commit the evil from which he benefits. 2. The beneficiary is not led into sin by benefitting. 3. The beneficiary must have a sufficiently serious good end in mind. 4. The beneficiary must not induce the potential evildoer to commit the evil. 5. The primary potential evildoer must independently manifest that he is “determined” to do evil and cannot be persuaded entirely to desist from it. 6. The beneficiary must avoid active scandal to third parties who might learn about his benefit from evil. To gauge the reasonableness of these guidelines, we will consider them in light of a difficult case, that of cannibalism. Since it was brought to court in 1884, Regina v. Dudley and Stephens has proved to be a touchstone for wide-ranging discussions regarding murder, necessity, jurisdiction, and so on.244 The basic facts are these. Four men were stranded in a small dinghy after their larger yacht had capsized in a storm with land more than one thousand miles away. For twelve days 244 Richard Frederick Clarke, “The ‘Mignonette’ Case as a Question of Moral Theology,” The Month 53 (1885): 17–28. See also Malcom Woolrich, “R v Dudley and Stephens: Degeneration, the Christian Mindset and Judicial Reasoning,” Ecclesiastical Law Journal 22 (2020): 15–35. 1078 Sullivan and Pereira their only food was a couple of tins of turnips salvaged from the wreck and a small sea turtle. Under the hot sun, they caught little rain, and resorted to drinking their own urine. Two men, Thomas Dudley and Edwin Stephens, argued in favor of drawing straws to determine who should die, and accept being eaten by the others, but Brooks disagreed. Eight more days passed without food or drink, so Richard Parker, the youngest of the crew, resorted to drinking sea water. This put him into a partial coma. Dudley and Stephens then agreed to kill Parker in order to eat his flesh and save themselves. The fourth man, Brooks, made no sign of assent or dissent. Dudley then said a prayer and plunged his knife into the cabin boy’s neck while Stephens held his feet. Like maddened wolves, all three tore into his body and committed cannibalism. Four days later they were saved by a passing ship. Once returned to England, Dudley and Stephens were arrested and charged for murder. As for Brooks, murder charges were dropped. Instead, he served as a witness in the trial of his fellow shipmates. After an initial hearing, the recommendation of clemency from both lower judge and jury was referred to the higher court of the Queen’s Bench. The five-judge panel unanimously agreed that Dudley and Stephens had committed murder. The sentence was death. The Queen, however, followed the home secretary’s course of agreeing to the clemency recommended by the lower court: the two men’s death sentences were commuted to six months imprisonment. Ethical discussions of Regina v. Dudley and Stephens often focus on issues regarding intentional killing and necessity, as well as cannibalism.245 Classic Catholic discussions about the morality of cannibalism offered a range of opinions. The sixteenth-century Spanish theologian Francisco de Vitoria argued that cannibalism is contrary to nature and therefore never allowed.246 However, he also cited other authors to the contrary and said it was “probable” that in extreme necessity cannibalism either was not a mortal sin, or not a sin at all.247 Over time, majority opinion disagreed with Vitoria, despite his Thomistic argumentation; the “more probable” opinion held that although eating the flesh of a human being is contrary to natural human appetite, it is permissible in cases of extreme necessity.248 See Cătălin Avramescu, An Intellectual History of Cannibalism, trans. by Alistair Ian Blyth, (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 2009). 246 De Vitoria, De temperantia, 1:78. 247 De Vitoria, De temperantia, 1:76. 248 See Paul Laymann, Theologia moralis, vol. 1 (Lyon: Petrum Valfray, 1703), 250; Francisco de Jesús Maria, Cursus theologiae moralis (Venice: Nicolaum Pezzana, 245 Using Abortion-Derived Vaccines 1079 The reasoning proposed by the Salamancan school is of particular relevance to the issue of vaccines. It held that it is not contrary to nature to make use of the human body for medicinal purposes when a sick person is near death. Citing a number of medical authors and other moral theologians, the Salamancan Carmelites explained that, in their day, the bodies of mummies—Egyptian and otherwise—were ground up and used in medicines in order to alleviate rare but debilitating diseases. Such practices in Western medicine have been documented in England, Germany, and the United States up to the early 1900s.249 The Salamancans also argued that in rare cases, the blood of humans could save the life of another person. Consequently, they concluded, if the body parts of humans may be used for medicine in rare instances, it is much more acceptable for body parts of humans to be used for food in cases of extreme necessity. In general, Christian moral reasoning has tended to agree with the Salamancan school: eating human flesh in extreme necessity has been accepted as a regrettable least-worst choice. Relatedly, aside from the dubious utility of using bits of mummies for medicines, and the particular mode of making use of human flesh for one’s health, the Catholic Church has for decades recognized that tissue transplants and blood transfusions are acceptable— even when taken from the living, provided the conditions described above, including the free choice of the donor (see 1.3.3 above for criteria of licit use of another’s tissues). It should be noted that Dudley and Stephens were not tried by the British crown for the crime of cannibalism; rather, they were tried and convicted for murder. Brooks, in contrast, was not tried. He was considered innocent by all parties, including the brother of Parker, free of legal and moral wrong because he had not taken part in the murder—even though he freely admitted to eating the flesh of the young man. The case of Brooks in this situation can therefore serve to illustrate the following moral principle: one may benefit from grave evil, even when that evil is immediate and proximate, under the following conditions: 1. Brooks did not commit the murder from which he benefitted by cannibalism, and arguably had insufficient strength to defend Parker from the murder. 1728), 64; Constantino Roncaglia, Universa moralis theologia, vol. 1 (Luca: Joseph Justi, 1833), 99; McHugh and Callan, Moral Theology, vol. 1, no. 2471. 249 See Karen Gordon-Grube, “Anthropophagy in Post-Renaissance Europe: The Tradition of Medicinal Cannibalism,” American Anthropologist 90, no. 2 (1988): 405–9. 1080 Sullivan and Pereira 2. By benefitting from the death of his shipmate, Brooks was not led into the sin of acquiescing to the killing. 3. Brooks had a “sufficiently serious” reason for cannibalism: to save his life. 4. Brooks did not induce Dudley and Stephens to commit the murder. 5. Dudley and Stephens independently manifested their determination to commit the murder, and Brooks probably could not have stopped them without risking all of their lives. 6. Brooks’s actions did not actively scandalize third parties. Rather, there was widespread public sympathy for Dudley, Stephens, and Brooks, which reflected a common recognition of the permissibility of their eating, as custom accepted by seafarers, despite the impermissible murder committed.250 It was widely recognized that eating the flesh of a dead human in extreme necessity would not lead to acceptance of murder or cannibalism in general. A similar public understanding was accorded to the survivors of the Andes flight disaster in 1972, in which rugby team members and others reluctantly resorted to cannibalism in order to survive their ordeal.251 3.4.3 Cooperation and Benefitting from Past Abortions Having applied the principles for licitly benefitting from grave evil to cases of cannibalism in extreme necessity, we may now apply them to the question of benefitting from the grave evil of abortion. First, we may recall that it constitutes unjustifiable material cooperation for scientists to use the cell lines derived from aborted children for research purposes (see section 3.3.4). The Church has also indicated that it constitutes unjustifiable benefitting from a past evil, for it would almost certainly lead to scandal, that is, more widespread acceptance of abortions for medical purposes: “There is a duty to refuse to use such ‘biological material’ even when there is no close connection between the researcher and the actions of those who performed the artificial fertilization or the abortion, or when there was no prior agreement with the centers in which the artificial fertilization took place. This duty springs from the necessity to remove oneself, within the area of one’s own research, from a gravely See A. W. Brian Simpson. Cannibalism and Common Law: A Victorian Yachting Tragedy (London: Hambledon, 2003), 81–83. 251 See Piers Paul Read, Alive: The Story of the Andes Survivors (London: J. B. Lippincott, 1974). 250 Using Abortion-Derived Vaccines 1081 unjust legal situation and to affirm with clarity the value of human life.”252 In this regard, different situations may arise that may call for different prudential responses, for example, regarding senior scientists who discover that their lab project is utilizing these materials, which is different from junior scientists who have much less influence in the issue and whose livelihoods are more precarious.253 Second, we may consider whether receiving vaccines can constitute justifiable benefit from the past abortions by considering the six conditions laid out above. 1. Receiving the vaccines does not in any way constitute committing the evil of abortion. 2. The act of receiving a vaccine does not, of itself, lead a person to assent to past abortions or other related evils: a person can coherently reject the evil which took place while assenting to the beneficial results therefrom. 3. Sufficiently serious reasons to receive the vaccines exist for many people, including grave concerns for health, keeping one’s job, remaining enrolled in school, and so on. 4. Receiving the vaccines does not of itself induce vaccine makers to commit abortions or related evils. 5. The vaccine makers and distributors have independently manifested their intentions to continue developing, manufacturing, and distributing vaccines, as seen in contracts with governments, through published plans for vaccine rollouts, and so on. 6. If scandal can be avoided in taking the vaccines, that is, if the act of taking the vaccines does not directly contribute to a lessening of respect for the dignity of life, and if others are not led to sin because of the act, then it may be acceptable. Commentary on some of the above points may help to elucidate these considerations. Criterion 2 is that benefitting from evil is acceptable only if the beneficiary avoids committing evil himself—this includes avoiding assenting to or ratifying the evil performed, rather than merely accepting or permitting it. To assent to a past evil is to be pleased with it because one judges that it was good and justifiable in some way. Although assenting to abortions and related evils can be avoided when a person benefits from 252 253 CDF, DP, §35. See Nicanor Austriaco, “Using Biological Materials of Illicit Origin,” sec. 29, pp. 3–5. 1082 Sullivan and Pereira the vaccines, there remains the danger that accepting and benefitting from evil can lead to such assent. This is because the moral dangers entailed by material cooperation with evil (see section 3.3.4) are also present when a person chooses to benefit from evil. In her seminal article on the topic, M. Catherine Kaveny presents “appropriation of evil” as a form of benefitting from evil, namely, “an action that makes use of the fruits or byproducts of a morally objectionable act performed by the auxiliary agent.”254 A comparison between cooperation and appropriation reveals significant results. Whereas the fundamental moral evil for potential cooperators is intending the evil intended by the principal agent, a parallel evil for potential appropriators is ratifying the evil of which they make use. Ratification involves an appropriator intentionally affirming the evil that occurred, that is, believing that the evil was justified and accepting or affirming it in one’s will. If another’s evil acts contribute in one’s own objectives, particularly in an ongoing manner, it is difficult not to view them in a more positive light than one might otherwise. Moreover, it is tempting to accustom oneself to the benefits that flow from appropriation. Similarly, self-deception about one’s motives is also possible in appropriation cases. Criterion 3, the need for sufficiently grave reasons for receiving the vaccines, can be weighed in light of the criteria laid out above for morally acceptable material cooperation with evil (3.3.2). Since benefitting from evil is more remote than material cooperation, the criteria for allowable benefit are proportionately less strict. Criterion 4 regards the nature of vaccine reception in itself, that is, the very act of using the vaccines for addressing an individual’s health needs: as such, the act does not cause abortions even when it benefits from them. Insofar as it might provide some occasion for future evils, it could constitute material cooperation with evil or passive scandal. Criterion 6, the issue of scandal, is the one of the chief issues of dispute among Catholics who reject the vaccines. We turn to consider it now. 3.5 Arguments about Scandal We have established that receiving an illicitly derived vaccine has no causal relation to past acts, and therefore cannot constitute formal cooperation or material cooperation with any past illicit act. However, one of the greatest concerns is that using the vaccines will encourage future evils, that is, they will create scandal. Cardinal Pujats and colleagues, for instance, have said that “any link 254 Catherine M. Kaveny, “Appropriation of Evil: Cooperator’s Mirror Image,” Theological Studies 61 (2000): 280–313, at 287. Using Abortion-Derived Vaccines 1083 to the abortion process, even the most remote and implicit, will cast a shadow over the Church’s duty to bear unwavering witness to the truth that abortion must be utterly rejected,” weakening the Church as “the last stronghold against the evil of abortion,” and that affirming the acceptability of the vaccines in some cases is “counterproductive,” especially because doing so might seem to “encourage and promote the sin of abortion, even in the slightest, by accepting these vaccines.”255 Similarly, the “Statement of Conscience” states, “The acceptance of the use of tissues derived in the past does have implications for incentivizing this industry [of trafficking in aborted fetal body parts].”256 Finally, the “Voice of Women” statement claims that evils including “the collecting and trafficking the bodies of murdered unborn babies for use in research . . . are only perpetuated and promoted by passive acceptance of a morally tainted vaccine on a ‘temporary basis.’”257 If these claims are accurate, then all people of upright conscience have strong reasons to avoid taking the vaccines, and perhaps all vaccines derived from morally illicit sources should be avoided on prudential grounds. Therefore, it is of the highest importance to our study to consider the nature of scandal in itself, and as it relates to this difficult moral issue. 3.5.1 Definition and Kinds of Scandal St. Thomas Aquinas treats scandal among the vices against charity, which is willing goods for the sake of God. Scandal comes in four basic types, and various sub-types. When the action of an agent in some way causes another to sin by example, that is per se scandal.258 (1) Per se active scandal, that is, intentional scandal, arises when the agent purposely intends to draw another into sin. This includes: (a) directly intentional scandal, also called diabolical scandal, when a person acts with the explicit purpose to lead others into sin, for example, by temptation or suggestion. This also includes (b) indirectly intentional scandal: “when the purpose of the scandalizer is to perform some action whose nature is such that it will lead others to the guilt of sin, and he is determined to perform that action, although not directly willing the neighbor's guilt that will result,” as when a manager who does not want his subordinates to steal, nevertheless takes company property while knowing that his example Bishop Schneider, “Covid Vaccines.” Pakaluk, “Statement of Conscience to Awaken Conscience.” 257 VOW, “Voice of Women in Defense of Unborn Babies,” 2. 258 ST II-II, q. 43, a. 1, ad 4. Prümmer, Manuale theologiae moralis, vol. 1, no. 606. 255 256 1084 Sullivan and Pereira encourages them to follow suit.259 (2) Per accidens active scandal, or unintentional scandal, arises when the agent’s action draws another into sin though he does not intend that to happen.260 This includes (a) when a person performs an objectively good act, that also appears good, and he has no intention whatsoever that it should lead others into sin. It also includes (b) when a person performs an act that is evil, or appears so, although the agent is inculpably unaware of the scandal it may cause.261 Scandal can also be passive: (3) scandal of the imperfect, the simple, the ignorant, the “little ones,” who are led into sin because some inordinateness of a primary agent’s act affects their weakness; (4) and Pharisaical or hypocritical scandal, “which is a fall into sin occasioned by conduct irreproachable in itself, but wrongly interpreted” because of the scandalized person’s own wickedness.262 There are three relations among the types of scandal: (a) sometimes there is active scandal in a person who acts inordinately and simultaneous passive scandal in another who is led thereby into sin; (b) sometimes there is active scandal, either intentional or unintentional, without passive scandal—as when a person does not consent to another’s inducement to sin; (c) sometimes there is passive without active scandal, as in the case of the weak who might misunderstand the good actions of another, or in the case of hypocrites who use the occasion of another’s good to justify doing evil.263 3.5.2 Scandal, Shock, and the “Yuk Factor” Common speech at times speaks of something “scandalous” in a wider sense than the narrower, more precise moral-theological meaning offered above, as when something good is shockingly enlisted in the work of evil: a politician’s affair is a scandal because he is supposed to be a moral leader. This situation implies a scandal in the theological sense insofar as the person, law, or institution which ought to be a moral exemplar in some way instead becomes an “exemplar cause” of evil. That is, when something which ought to be good is perceived as evil, that disjunct in reality, that unfittingness, has the power to shock and disturb innocent onlookers as well as to draw them away from the good when they consider imitating it. McHugh and Callan, Moral Theology, vol. 1, no. 1450. ST II-II, q. 43, a. 3, corp. 261 McHugh and Callan, Moral Theology, vol. 1, no. 1451. 262 ST II-II, q. 44, a. 7, corp. See also McHugh and Callan, Moral Theology, vol. 1, no. 1464. 263 ST II-II, q. 44, a. 1, ad 4. 259 260 Using Abortion-Derived Vaccines 1085 When considering emotional and perceptual repulsion to unfitting behaviors and realities, the philosopher Mary Midgley discusses a kind of visceral rejection of some biotechnologies which “are described as ‘the yuk factor.’”264 She argues that “this sense of disgust and outrage, is in itself by no means a sign of irrationality.”265 Rather, it is a perception of “something’s being wrong because it is unnatural” and therefore deeply repulsive to our entire person.266 Understood in the wider sense of the term, the evil is scandalous insofar as it is disturbing to the moral sense. In the debate over abortion-derived vaccines, many of the laity— despite the assurances of their shepherds that these vaccines may be licitly used—have felt a revulsion, and struggled to articulate this. This “yuk factor” felt by so many prayerful Catholics is surely a sign of their moral perception of evil, an element of the sensus fidelium which recognizes that that situation should never exist: people should not be forced, even by exterior circumstances, to benefit from a crime against the dignity of a human being. In 1732, an English prosecutor in an abortion case declared, “The misdemeanor for which the prisoner stands indicted, is of a most shocking nature . . . that I cannot well display the nature of the crime to you, but must leave it to the evidence: It is cruel and barbarous to the last degree.”267 In 2000, when Congress was informed that the tissue of aborted babies was being sold for research, “almost all the representatives expressed their disgust,” and most expressed “shock” that the Department of Justice, the FBI, and the NIH had known about this situation and had not investigated further.268 Similarly, the practice of receiving into oneself any material derived from abortions, even if distant in some way, is by its nature morally repulsive. This is why some Catholics “lament” having any connection with abortion, a connection which “should cause our indignation, sorrow, and determination to change.”269 It may be that some do not have this perception because, as John Paul II noticed, “Today, in many people’s consciences, the perception of its gravity has become progressively obscured. The acceptance of abortion in the popular mind, in behaviour and even in law itself, is a telling sign of Mary Midgley, “Biotechnology and the ‘Yuk Factor,’” in The Myths we Live by (London: Psychology Press, 2004), 105. 265 Midgley, “Biotechnology,” 105. 266 Midgley, “Biotechnology,” 106. 267 John Keown, Abortion, Doctors and the Law: Some Aspects of the Legal Regulation of Abortion in England from 1803 to 1982 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1988), 9. 268 Dingell, “Congress Requests,” 9–10. 269 Pakaluk, “Statement of Conscience to Awaken Conscience.” 264 1086 Sullivan and Pereira an extremely dangerous crisis of the moral sense, which is becoming more and more incapable of distinguishing between good and evil.”270 At the same time, this perception must be guided by the magisterium (see section 2.3.2.1), as well as by reason. Midgley argues that we need to “supplement” visceral moral perceptions “by thought, analyzing their meaning and articulating them in a way that gives us coherent and usable standards.”271 Consequently, this moral perception of the unfittingness of receiving abortion-derived vaccines may help Catholics to voice their opposition to the exploitation of human life, and to support more strongly initiatives that respect the dignity of life, even if in some circumstances receiving such a vaccine remains allowable when necessary, though lamentable by reason of its connection to abortion. 3.5.3 Moral Evaluation of Scandal There are occasions when some action might be allowable except if it should cause scandal. Similarly, there are occasions when one must relinquish some good in order to avoid scandal. This section therefore works to articulate the conditions in which scandal is never acceptable (and therefore one must be willing to lose or forego certain goods to avoid it), and the conditions that might render scandal an acceptable by-product of a good worth pursuing. 3.5.3.1 Avoiding Scandal First, it may be noted that, like complicity and formal cooperation with sin, per se active scandal is always evil: it is never morally allowable deliberately to draw another into sin. St. Paul exhorts us to “decide never to put a stumbling block or scandal in the way of a brother” (Rom 14:13). However, scandal is distinct from complicity and cooperation with evil, although sometimes they can coexist in the same act. Cooperation helps with the commission of sin, whereas scandal influences a person to evil by suggesting the sin;272 cooperation presupposes a primary agent has a will directed toward sin, whereas scandal influences the will of another to become evil by choosing sin;273 cooperation is completed with commission of the act, whereas the scandalous effects of a person’s evil deed might continue for years after his death. In sum, scandal is not said to be an efficient or agent “cause” but instead an “occasion” of another’s moral downfall: “which John Paul II, EV, §58. Midgley, “Biotechnology,” 106. 272 McHugh and Callan, Moral Theology, vol. 1, no. 1460b. 273 Prümmer, Manuale Theologiae Moralis, vol. 1, no. 617. 270 271 Using Abortion-Derived Vaccines 1087 indicates an imperfect cause, not always a cause per accidens.”274 One is therefore bound to avoid active scandal, whether directly or indirectly intentional: one may not tempt another to sin, nor perform some evil act that one knows will likely lead another to sin. Second, sometimes one is bound to avoid even morally acceptable acts that may result in passive scandal of the weak. As noted previously, St. Paul teaches that eating meat sacrificed to idols is not evil in itself—since Christ showed that food of its nature does not defile (Matt 15:11, 20; Mark 7:15–19). Therefore, in principle Christians are allowed to partake of such food (1 Cor 8:8; 10:25). Nevertheless, one should omit this practice if it leads weak Christians to think that it constitutes “acceptable” participation in demon-worship. Willing participation in demon-worship is never acceptable. Therefore, St. Paul teaches that those whose consciences are not troubled by such idolatrous offerings should at times avoid eating them nonetheless in order to avoid leading their weaker brothers into sin. He says: “Take care lest this liberty of yours somehow become a stumbling block to the weak” (1 Cor 8:9), and “for conscience’s sake—I mean his conscience, not yours—do not eat it” (1 Cor 10:29). It follows that, at times, charity obliges a person to forego or relinquish certain goods if by using them he leads God’s “little ones” into sin. The following principles may help guide these considerations.275 • Goods that are relatively uncertain or small should be set aside when the evil of scandal is certain and grave. • Good works that are of counsel only (such as pious exercises abstaining from meat on a non-fast day: e.g., one should not abstain from meat if it leads people to suppose that one has abandoned Catholicism for Hinduism), and those that are obligatory only under certain conditions (such as almsdeeds), may be more easily put aside to prevent serious scandal (e.g., one should not give almsdeeds if one is morally certain that doing so will lead a drug dealer to exploit the recipient of alms). • Goods of which one is not the owner, nor the custodian or administrator, may not be surrendered at will on account of scandal; for no one has the right to give away the property of others, nor gravely endanger the public. • If one is obliged to give a good example, or correct a sinner, or to ST II-II, q. 43, a. 1, ad 3. See ST II-II, q. 43, aa. 7–8; Prümmer, Manuale Theologiae Moralis, vol. 1, no. 610; McHugh and Callan, Moral Theology, vol. 1, nos. 1481–85. 274 275 1088 Sullivan and Pereira impede their evil—as is the case for parents, priests, or civil judges, as it were—even less can one lead them to sin by council or example.276 In sum, charity obliges us to avoid scandal when we can do so easily: one should avoid scandalizing the weak except in cases that would be gravely inconvenient.277 3.5.3.2 Allowing Scandal There are times when it may be permissible to do good while nevertheless foreseeing that it may be an occasion for another’s sin. This can be seen in light of the fact that even God knows all things and yet permits sins, and he foresees all sins that will come about and yet does not stop them—rather, “to permit sin is not evil in itself,” for God allows good to exist that nevertheless may be misunderstood and even be turned to sin.278 Christ did not actively scandalize anyone, even though his life and teachings were occasions for the sin of the Pharisees. Likewise, St. John the Baptist committed no scandal though his preaching occasioned by Herodias’s evil deeds. In discussing such cases, St. Alphonsus says that when a person is performing an act that is not intrinsically evil, that is, which can be good in some circumstances, “you are not obliged except from charity to abstain from it lest another misuse it in order to sin; for when you otherwise fear grave injury, you can licitly permit the sin of the other.”279 This is for two reasons, St. Alphonsus says: (1) charity does not oblige a person to incur grave harm in order to avert another’s sin; (2) another’s wickedness cannot transform your good act into something intrinsically evil. To reinforce point (1): goods that are gravely necessary for oneself may be relinquished to avoid scandalizing the weak, but charity does not oblige such a heroic sacrifice. Consequently, if a criminal threatens you to induce your material cooperation with his theft, and if you have a just cause for doing so, Alphonsus says, “It is not true that you formally concur with the sin of theft, for this [formal concurrence] would be the case if you positively brought your influence into his bad will; but when you contribute only those actions that the thief afterwards ill uses in order to inflict damage, your action will not be the cause of the damage but only the malice of the See Alphonsus Liguori, Theologia moralis II, tract. 3, ch. 3, dub. 5, a. 1, no. 45. ST II-II, q. 43, a. 8, ad 3. Also, Prümmer, Manuale Theologiae Moralis, no. 610.2; McHugh and Callan, Moral Theology, vol. 1, no. 1480b. 278 Prümmer, Manuale Theologiae Moralis, vol. 1, no. 610.3. 279 Alphonsus Liguori, Theologia moralis II, tract. 3, ch. 3, dub. 5, a. 3, no. 66. 276 277 Using Abortion-Derived Vaccines 1089 thief will be.”280 In other words, there may be times when doing good may be permissible despite another’s probable passive scandal, which one does not will and does not directly cause. These activities are similar to those in which the principle of double effect can be legitimately invoked, 281 namely: • One must perform an act objectively good in itself; • One must not intend to scandalize others, though one foresees scandal will likely result; • One must have a sufficiently serious reason to pursue the good from which scandal might flow. All of the considerations for weighing the gravity of matter have already been discussed (section 3.3.2). In light of what has been said, we formulate the following principles for the permissibility of performing an action despite a probable side effect of scandal: • If scandal will likely place a weak person in grave spiritual need, that is, in proximate danger of sinning gravely, one should be willing to surrender temporal goods or even forego spiritual goods to avoid scandal.282 • If scandal will not place one’s neighbor in a state of grave spiritual danger, one is not obliged to surrender serious goods, but only things of minor value.283 • If one will likely lose a serious good, then one is not obliged to avoid the potential for passive scandal—since charity does not oblige grave injury to oneself.284 • If one will likely lose a less serious good, one is still not obliged to avoid the potential for passive scandal if the scandal is fairly unlikely, or will be of a proportionately less grave sort. • One need not omit any good deed to avoid scandalizing hypocrites or the wicked. The above considerations show that when scandal is a possibility and one must attempt to weigh whether or not one may perform a morally Alphonsus Liguori, Theologia moralis II, tract. 5, ch. 2, dub. 2, no. 571 (emphasis added). 281 Prümmer, Manuale Theologiae Moralis, vol. 1, no. 610.3. 282 McHugh and Callan, Moral Theology, vol. 1, no. 1485a. 283 McHugh and Callan, Moral Theology, vol. 1, no. 1485b. 284 Alphonsus Liguori, Theologia moralis II, tract 3, ch. 3, dub. 5, a. 3, no. 66. 280 1090 Sullivan and Pereira allowable deed, one must weigh one’s own needs and interests as well as the “good faith” and relative propensity toward sin of the witness. In general, one should be more careful to avoid scandal than to allow it, since it is very difficult to weigh accurately the potential effects of one’s bad example, and knowing the character of others is not easy: “No matter how good or how bad the witnesses may appear to him, they may not be as fixed in character as he thinks, and his misconduct may be the starting point for them of a downward course or of a more rapid descent into evil.”285 3.5.4 Scandal from Using the Vaccines We are now in a position to evaluate how receiving illicitly derived vaccines might relate to scandal. It would constitute diabolical active scandal if a person were to receive the vaccine as a sign and distant means of supporting the abortion industry—a symbolic act, as it were, of “solidarity” and agreement with the evil that led to the vaccines, a signal of acceptance for similar future evils for the sake of community health or some other goal. This would clearly be unacceptable. The concerns of prelates and others against the abortion-derived vaccines, quoted at the beginning of section 3.5, are not to eliminate diabolical or Pharisaical scandal: they do not exhort abortion supporters to change their minds. Rather, the groups mean to dissuade Catholics of at least some good faith to avoid taking the vaccines. The apparent concern is that taking the vaccines could constitute: (1) indirectly intentional scandal, or (2) unjustifiable unintentional scandal. Regarding whether receiving the vaccines would constitute (1) indirectly intentional scandal, which would be morally unacceptable, it is one thing to worry that an act may scandalize someone; it is another thing to have some evidence showing scandal will likely come about. By itself, the mere possibility or fear of scandal may be sufficient to warrant foregoing a trivial act when a small good is at stake: little would be lost. However, in the absence of strong reasons or proof of scandal for an action that is seriously needed, then one may perform the action despite a tenuous possibility that scandal may arise from it. In other words, when graver matters are at issue, as in the case of the vaccine—one’s health, the health of the community, one’s employment—then some stronger reason or proof is needed to show that performing the act may likely pose moral dangers to others. It is insufficient to argue that receiving the vaccine for healthy young people would constitute unjustifiable material cooperation with the 285 McHugh and Callan, Moral Theology, vol. 1, no. 1462b. Using Abortion-Derived Vaccines 1091 abortion industry. For the action to be designated as directly and necessarily scandalous, one would need strong reasons or proof to show that such an action would likely induce (cause) doctors to perform abortions, or researchers and others to seek out abortions, or to perform some other gravely evil act, in the future. One of the strongest particular arguments against using abortion-derived vaccines now is that doing so will create a market for future abortions from which baby parts will be harvested. As Fr. James Burtchaell testified before Congress in 1990 about using tissues derived from abortions: “This research is, if accepted, going to be big business. . . . We think that this, which would not give payment for tissue but would practically double the cash flow of the abortion industry, could not help but create an increased inducement on their part.”286 Another reason that this could create inducements to abortion is that parents are more inclined to seek abortions if they believe “medical use” of their child’s tissue is possible,287 an outcome shown by various studies.288 With respect to abortion-derived cell lines and vaccines, more recently it has been claimed that “there is no necessary connection between continued use of the HEK-293 line,” from which the AstraZeneca, Moderna, and Pfizer vaccines have been derived, “and the use of fetal tissue from contemporary and continuing abortion.”289 Similarly, it has been claimed that “it is unheard of for a vaccine manufacturer to seek out new human fetal cells from a recent abortion,” because doing so would waste time, effort, and money.290 Surprisingly, the same author admits that Chinese researchers have done this very thing in 2015, although he says it was “unnecessary.”291 However, the Chinese researchers argue that harvesting tissues from aborted babies was necessary for economic and scientific reasons: cell lines are very difficult to obtain—or not available at all—and some strains are in diminishing supply; “continuous and primary Burtchaell, “Fetal Tissue Transplantation Research Testimony.” Burtchaell, “Fetal Tissue Transplantation Research Testimony.” 288 R. C. Cefalo and H. T. Engelhardt, “The Use of Fetal and Anencephalic Tissue for Transplantation,” Journal of Medicine and Philosophy 14 (1989): 25–43; Andrew F. Shorr, “Abortion and Fetal Tissue Research: Some Ethical Concerns,” Fetal Diagnosis and Therapy 9 (1994): 196–203; D. K. Martin et al, “Fetal Tissue Transplantation and Abortion Decisions: A Survey of Urban Women,” Canadian Medical Association Journal 153 (1995): 545–52.; Shizuko Takahashi et al., “The Decision-making Process for the Fate of Frozen Embryos by Japanese Infertile Women: A Qualitative Study,” BMC Medical Ethics 13, no. 9 (2012). 289 Tollefsen, “Research Using Cells of Illicit Origin.” 290 Austriaco, “Moral Guidance.” 291 Austriaco, “Moral Guidance.” 286 287 1092 Sullivan and Pereira cell lines used for vaccine production suffer from the limitation of being potentially strongly tumorigenic,” that is, they become cancerous eventually”; and the cells reach a limit to their utility after so many divisions in their production.292 It could be argued that some mediate and remote evil might result from taking abortion-derived vaccines, since vaccine usage provides some conditions for future evil, especially profits that could be used to promote more abortions. However, the likelihood of abetting future abortions is based more on estimations of general industry behaviors rather than on some cause-and-effect connection, as would be the case, for example, if interested parties (abortionists, vaccine makers, researchers) manifested an intention to perform more abortions based on vaccine use. Usage of the vaccines would not cause the future evil per se, and the individual recipient’s responsibility for that potential evil would be material and diminishingly minor. In contrast, those who made decisions to pressure such cooperation on the aggregate scale—government officials and vaccine makers—bear the weight of the responsibility of both (a) not resolving a gravely unjust situation that makes use of illicitly derived vaccines and (a) any future plans for evil that are contingent on the side effects of widespread vaccine reception. Regarding whether receiving abortion-derived vaccines would constitute (b) unjustifiable unintentional scandal, one might point to the CDF’s document Dignitas Personae, which speaks about the use of embryos for stem cell researching, saying that it “is necessary to distance oneself from the evil aspects of that system in order not to give the impression of a certain toleration or tacit acceptance of actions which are gravely unjust. Any appearance of acceptance would in fact contribute to the growing indifference to, if not the approval of, such actions in certain medical and political circles.”293 In response to arguments that such actions would constitute remote material cooperation, and therefore would be justifiable, the CDF strongly argues: “The duty to avoid cooperation in evil and scandal relates to their ordinary professional activities, which they must pursue in a just manner and by means of which they must give witness to the value of life by their opposition to gravely unjust laws. . . . This duty springs from the necessity to remove oneself, within the area of one’s own research, from a gravely unjust legal situation and to affirm with clarity the value of Ma, “Characteristics,” 999; Chen-ling Shen, et al., “The Tumorigenicity Diversification in Human Embryonic Kidney 293 Cell Line Cultured in vitro,” Biologicals 36 (2008): 263–68. 293 CDF, DP, §35. 292 Using Abortion-Derived Vaccines 1093 human life. Therefore, the above-mentioned criterion of independence is necessary, but may be ethically insufficient.”294 In light of the CDF’s uncompromising statement to scientists, one could argue that if it constitutes unjustifiable scandal for researchers to use embryonic stem cells in their research because the act would “contribute” to favorable opinions about abortion, and would undermine their duty to witness to the dignity of life, then receiving the vaccines would also constitute unjustifiable scandal for the same reasons. In response to such an argument, however, one can point out differences between the two situations. First of all, actively using the abortion-derived cells for research or profit is intrinsically evil since manipulating the cells causes a situation which does not respect the dignity of their origin, whereas receiving a vaccine is not an active performance of evil, but rather a passive acceptance of it, which does not cause the situation to come about. Consequently, scientists would be culpable of active scandal, whereas those who are pressured to receive the vaccines are less culpable of scandal. Second, the reasons for the actions may significantly differ in gravity. The gravest reasons for scientists to use the materials could include to promote saving the lives of others by developing medicines or vaccines; however, evil cannot be done in order that good for one’s neighbor might come about. In contrast, the gravest reasons for receiving the vaccines would be to protect one’s own life, or to perform some other gravely necessary action for oneself. Given all of these considerations regarding scandal, it is likely that receiving the vaccine may be justifiable for those who have grave reason to do so, since such reception is not evil in itself, and evils that might result from reception would be foreseen but neither intended nor caused directly by its recipients. 3.5.5 Avoiding Passive Scandal Because of the real and present danger that Catholics who receive abortion-derived vaccines could create scandal, potentially in ways outlined in the section above, the CDF has clearly stated that vaccine recipients have “the duty to make known their disagreement and to ask that their healthcare system make other types of vaccines available.”295 Similarly, the PAV has said: “Doctors and fathers of families have a duty to take recourse to alternative vaccines (if they exist), putting pressure on the political authorities and health systems so that other vaccines without moral problems become 294 295 CDF, DP, §35. CDF, DP, §35. 1094 Sullivan and Pereira available. They should take recourse, if necessary, to the use of conscientious objection with regard to the use of vaccines produced by means of cell lines of aborted human fetal origin. Equally, they should oppose by all means (in writing, through the various associations, mass media, etc.) the vaccines which do not yet have morally acceptable alternatives, creating pressure so that alternative vaccines are prepared, which are not connected with the abortion of a human fetus, and requesting rigorous legal control of the pharmaceutical industry producers.”296 And for people who are more vulnerable who for grave reasons must take the abortion-derived vaccines, “there remains a moral duty to continue to fight and to employ every lawful means in order to make life difficult for the pharmaceutical industries which act unscrupulously and unethically.”297 The fact that these directives were omitted in the 2020 document of the CDF is regrettable, but that does not mean that they have been repudiated. In the absence of contradictory directives, one must hold that they remain in force, for they indicate what is necessary to help others avoid being scandalized. Undoubtedly, the mass vaccine rollout by governments and insurance companies precludes the choice of most people: most are unable to choose among vaccines, and are forcibly coerced to take a vaccine. This creates an “ethical dilemma,” as Archbishop Fisher argues, for receiving abortion-derived vaccines will be “as near to mandatory as possible” in order to participate in ordinary life, to have a job, and so on.298 On the one hand, this situation reduces the possible scandal that may arise from receiving the vaccine—since it will be widely recognized that a person does so with little free choice given the coercion caused by government, big business, and general social pressure. On the other hand, this situation highlights the power and importance of witnessing to the dignity of human life in such trying circumstances, even when such witness might seem to result in small gains. A number of pro-vaccine groups and bishops have worked to eliminate passive scandal by helping people to pressure vaccine makers to change the cell lines they use, as well as to stop abortions for medical experimentation. The USCCB, for instance, begins its discussion of the vaccines by reaffirming its unequivocal support of the dignity of life, “because of this respect for the human person that the USCCB, in collaboration with other organizations working to protect human life, has been engaged in PAV, Declaration. PAV, Declaration. 298 Catholic News Agency, “Catholic Aussie Archbishop Calls for Ethical Coronavirus Vaccine,” Angelus, August 4, 2020, angelusnews.com/news/world/catholic-aussie-archbishop-calls-for-ethical-coronavirus-vaccine. 296 297 Using Abortion-Derived Vaccines 1095 a campaign advocating for the development of a vaccine for COVID19 that has no link to abortion.”299 Archbishop Joseph F. Naumann and Bishop Kevin C. Rhoades also raised their “moral concerns” about vaccines with illicit origins, while allowing for their use.300 The Catholic Medical Association, for its part, has created a letter that can be sent to vaccine makers to protest their use of abortion-derived cell lines.301 Stacy Trasancos, meanwhile, explains a number of ways Catholics can object to abortion-tainted COVID-19 vaccines, and thereby work toward the good and reduce scandal.302 The CDF clearly states that “the licit use of such vaccines does not and should not in any way imply that there is a moral endorsement of the use of cell lines proceeding from aborted fetuses.”303 Unfortunately, many voices in favor of the vaccines have not been as clear. To the contrary, not a few Catholic prelates and others have prominently promoted abortion-derived vaccine use without simultaneously speaking clearly against the evil origins of the vaccines and promoting whatever alternatives may be available. This is despite the fact that prelates and all clergy have the primary duty to give voice to the Catholic faith on the dignity of life. Although this imbalanced approach may come from good intentions, that is, to encourage as many people as possible to protect health by receiving the vaccines, the unintended side effect may be widespread scandal, namely, what the CDF has called “giving the impression of a certain toleration or tacit acceptance of actions which are gravely unjust,” and the “appearance of acceptance” of very grave evil for the sake of some good.304 Such seems to be the case as seen by such headlines as “Vatican Approves Use Of COVID-19 Vaccines Made from Abortion Cell Lines”305 and “Covid: Vatican Says Coronavirus Vaccines ‘Morally Acceptable.’”306 Likewise, Catholic bioethicists USCCB, “Moral Considerations,” §1. Nora Mishanec, “Catholic Leaders Raised ‘Moral Concerns’ over COVID Vaccines. Here's How S.F.’s Archbishop Weighed In,” San Francisco Chronicle, March 3, 2021, sfchronicle.com/local/article/Catholic-leaders-raised-moral-concerns-over-15998397.php. 301 Catholic Medical Association, “Vaccine Letter in Objection Template,” Catholic Medical Association, January 11, 2021, cathmed.org/vaccine-letter-in-objection/. 302 Trasancos, “How to Object.” 303 CDF, “Morality of Using Some anti-COVID-19 Vaccines,” §4. 304 CDF, DP, §35. 305 Frances D’Emilio, “Vatican Approves Use Of COVID-19 Vaccines Made from Abortion Cell Lines,” HuffPost, December 21, 2020, huffpost.com/entry/vatican-approves-covid-vaccines_n_5fe0fc3fc5b60d416344e522. 306 BBC News, “Covid: Vatican Says Coronavirus Vaccines ‘Morally Acceptable,’” BBC News, December, 22 2020, bbc.com/news/world-europe-55409693. 299 300 1096 Sullivan and Pereira have inaccurately declared the vaccines to be “ethically uncontroversial” and “not morally compromised.”307 When Catholics fail to do what is necessary to protect their neighbor from potential grave passive scandal, the result appears to be capitulation to a culture of pragmatism in which temporal and short-term goods are sought without the perspective of virtue and man’s final end. Pope John Paul’s words to university researchers are a challenge to everyone with this mindset: Before they can have a cultural influence, professional and ethical values should characterize their teaching activities and interpersonal relationships in the context of university life. They must give a living witness in daily life . . . in a world which will often be fascinated by [a] utilitarian and pragmatic outlook.308 As the same Pope warned, “pragmatic attitudes” are approaches that increasingly claim “full cultural and social legitimacy,” which involves a loss of faith and a “decline or obscuring of the moral sense,” even within the Church.309 At the same time, it may also be noticed that any unnuanced rejections of the vaccines would be scandalous to the extent that they explicitly reject the teachings of the CDF, and thereby undermine the Church’s legitimate authority to teach even on contingent moral matters. Although here too good motives seem to be present, calls for a universal refusal to be vaccinated where they rest on rejection of CDF teachings might not only endanger the health, employment, and education of many people—it might also bind the conscience of well-intentioned but only partly-informed Catholics, and lead them to reject official Church teaching, or to consider it optional not only on this point but in general, and thus to erode their supernatural faith. Such unnuanced positions are strongly reminiscent of the moral rigorism condemned by Pope Alexander VIII when he anathematized the proposition that “it is not licit to follow a probable opinion, even the most probable,”310 since, as has been shown, the Stacy Trasancos, “Awakening Consciences About Abortion-Tainted Vaccines,” Crisis Magazine, March 19, 2021, crisismagazine.com/2021/awakening-consciences-about-abortion-tainted-vaccines. 308 Quoted in Wong, “Ethics of HEK 293,” 494. 309 John Paul II, VS, §106. 310 Heinrich Denzinger, Enchiridion Symbolorum: A Compendium of Creeds, Definitions, and Declarations on Matters of Faith and Morals, ed. Peter Hünermann and Helmut Hoping [43rd Latin ed.], English trans. ed. Robert L. Fastiggi and Anne Englund Nash (San Francisco, CA: Ignatius Press, 2010), no. 2303. 307 Using Abortion-Derived Vaccines 1097 CDF’s position is “more probably” true on the grounds of both authority and reason. 3.5.6 The Duty to Repair Scandal Although abortion-derived cell lines have been in use for decades, the current widespread concern about their use in COVID-19 vaccines is an opportunity for Catholics to clearly proclaim the Gospel of Life in its fullness. If indeed scandal has been occasioned by any unnuanced promotion of illicitly derived vaccines, or in using hyperbolic language about their moral goodness, and also in claims about the unqualified moral evil of the vaccines, then those scandals need to be repaired.311 The obligation of repairing scandal is derived from one’s commitment to the truth, from the nature of charity, which is a desire for the good of the soul of one’s neighbor, and even from justice insofar as inaccuracy and error undermines the truth.312 There are a number of steps that can be taken to ameliorate any scandal that has been given:313 • The full position of the Church must be publicly proclaimed and explained, both the points in favor of receiving the vaccines in some circumstances and the points about the need to oppose the evil origins of the vaccines. • Any exaggerations, misrepresentations, erroneous judgments, or false statements that have been published should be retracted and removed from circulation if possible. • One should publish explicit corrections of all scandalous statements and apologize publicly for any scandalous statements. 4 Weighing Potential Risks and Benefits of the Vaccines We have said that there are a number of sufficiently grave, or very grave, reasons that “warrant” receiving the vaccines for COVID-19. However, that does not mean that receiving a vaccine in every case, for every person, is thereby justified. A warrant is a sufficiently good enough reason to allow doing something; a justification is a moral approval for actually doing it. Some deeds might be morally allowable (warranted), but nevertheless for circumstantial reasons should not be done in a particular case (not justi See Aquinas, ST II-II, q. 43, a. 7, and McHugh and Callan, Moral Theology, vol. 1, no. 1488. 312 Prümmer, Manuale theologiae moralis, vol. 1, no. 612. 313 McHugh and Callan, Moral Theology, vol. 1, no. 1492. 311 1098 Sullivan and Pereira fied). Although an action type may not be intrinsically evil (thus warranted in principle), it might be morally dangerous for a particular person or groups of persons (thus unjustifiable when those conditions hold). For instance, although it might not be intrinsically evil for an alcoholic to meet a friend at a bar (thus warranted in principle), doing so would ordinarily be a proximate occasion of sin and therefore unjustifiable except for some very serious reason, such as to escape death. Similarly, receiving an abortion-tainted vaccine might be warranted in general, but circumstances could render the act unjustifiable for some people. We have seen that the likelihood of grave scandal can negate the moral justifiability of receiving the vaccine. Here we will discuss other relevant circumstances that should be considered. It may be noted that we are not subject matter experts for what follows, but this is a valuable exercise nonetheless, for although our selection and interpretation of the data may call for revision from authorities in this field, our approach objectively schematizes the chief issues and how to evaluate them within a Catholic moral framework. 4.1 Weighing the Benefits of the Vaccines Just as food is eaten primarily for the good of the individual eater, even if the food and nourishment secondarily benefits others, as when a mother eats food so as to have nourishment to give her nursing newborn, so every medical treatment is aimed at the good of the individual, even if it has secondary benefits for others. The individual should not be instrumentalized as means for transferring medical benefits to others through a medical treatment that does not help him. It follows that the chief reason for taking a vaccine is personal health, even though the chief aim of a national immunization program for a communicable disease like measles is to eliminate it from the population and protect everyone through community protection (i.e., achieve herd immunity). Hence, a person should estimate to best of his ability whether or not receiving the vaccine is indicated for his personal health needs, and secondarily whether or not it would benefit others— especially those under one’s care, such as elderly family members, friends, or coworkers—with little risk of harm to himself. Research from pharmaceutical companies seems to suggest that, for those that for those particularly vulnerable to COVID-19—especially the elderly, the obese, and those with other serious diseases—the benefit value of receiving a COVID-19 vaccine may be high when the risks of the vaccines are proportionately lower. For those under the age of fifty who are not particularly at risk, the value of the vaccine appears comparatively low for their own individual health considered against the clear benefit for an Using Abortion-Derived Vaccines 1099 elderly population. This is particularly true of children, who appear to fare better than older people who get COVID-19. There are presently more than two dozen COVID-19 vaccines. Each vaccine has its own unique design, development, production, testing, and dissemination factors. Having already discussed their moral import with respect to origin, here we will discuss only a few of the more widely-used vaccines in order to weigh their potential benefit, which should also be considered as a secondary circumstance that affects their moral use. There is a commonly accepted distinction between vaccine efficacy and vaccine effectiveness. Vaccine efficacy refers to the results from randomized clinical trials, whereas effectiveness refers to vaccination in real-world conditions as estimated from observational (non-randomized) studies.314 When considering the value of receiving an illicitly-derived vaccine, it is noteworthy that their efficacy was originally reported as well above the 50% efficacy standard of the U.S. Food and Drug Administration,315 even for variants of COVID-19.316 In contrast, a typical seasonal flu vaccine has no greater than 60% efficacy, depending on various flu-strain factors.317 It was originally estimated that the major vaccines were 100% effective at preventing severe disease, but the various manufacturers differed greatly in crucial matters that measure the efficacy of their vaccines.318 Thus, their WHO, “Evaluation of COVID-19 Vaccine Effectiveness,” World Health Organization, March 14, 2021, who.int/publications/i/item/WHO-2019-nCoV-vaccine_effectiveness-measurement-2021.1. 315 FDA, “FDA Briefing Document: Vaccines and Related Biological Products Advisory Committee Meeting: October 22, 2020: Development, Authorization and Licensure of Vaccines to Prevent COVID-19,” October22, 2020, fda.gov/ media/142723/download, p. 14. 316 Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation (IHME), “COVID-19 Vaccine Efficacy Summary,” IHME, June 4, 2021, healthdata.org/covid/covid-19-vaccine-efficacy-summary. 317 CDC, “Vaccine Effectiveness: How Well Do the Flu Vaccines Work?,” CDC, May 6, 2021, cdc.gov/flu/vaccines-work/vaccineeffect.htm. 318 Some researchers have noted the need for standardization in measurement and reporting these matters: “With the use of only RRRs [relative risk reduction], and omitting ARRs [absolute risk reduction], reporting bias is introduced, which affects the interpretation of vaccine efficacy. . . . Unfortunately, comparing vaccines on the basis of currently available trial (interim) data is made even more difficult by disparate study protocols, including primary endpoints (such as what is considered a COVID-19 case, and when is this assessed), types of placebo, study populations, background risks of COVID-19 during the study, duration of exposure, and different definitions of populations for analyses both within and between studies, as well as definitions of endpoints and statistical methods for efficacy. Importantly, we are left with the unanswered question as to whether a vaccine with a given effi314 1100 Sullivan and Pereira reported numbers must be considered as interim and subject to revision. For example, the Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine was rated 93–95% effective in preventing severe symptoms of the original virus, but a reported 64% effectiveness against the delta variant, raising questions about future reductions in effectiveness as the virus mutates.319 4.1.1 Asymptomatic Transmission It has been argued that even if individuals will not benefit much (if at all) from the vaccine because of their relative low proclivity to experience severe disease manifestation from the virus—especially for younger people in good health—nevertheless they should receive it in order to reduce spreading the virus to others. Among other issues, this involves asymptomatic transmission. On the one hand, a computer model proposed that asymptomatic spread of the virus is up to 50% of cases;320 and presymptomatic spread occurred in 12.6% and 6.4% of cases.321 On the other hand, a study of actual cases with contact tracing found that there were no positive tests amongst close contacts of completely asymptomatic cases;322 and another study showed only 0.7% asymptomatic and presymptomatic household transmission of the virus.323 In this light, the potential scandal of receiving problematic vaccines cacy in the study population will have the same efficacy in another population with different levels of background risk of COVID-19. . . . Assessing the suitability of vaccines must consider all indicators, and involve safety, deployability, availability, and costs.” Piero Olliaro, Els Torreele, and Michel Vaillant, “COVID-19 Vaccine Efficacy and Effectiveness—the Elephant (Not) in the Room,” The Lancet Microbe 2, no. 7 (2021): e279–80. 319 Anna Nowogrodzki, “COVID-19 Vaccines: What Does 95% Efficacy Actually Mean?,” LiveScience, February 11, 2021, livescience.com/covid-19-vaccine-efficacy-explained.html; Katella, “Comparing the COVID-19 Vaccines”; Alona Kuzmina et al., “SARS-CoV-2 Spike Variants Exhibit Differential Infectivity and Neutralization Resistance to Convalescent or Post-Vaccination Sera,” Cell Host & Microbe 29, no. 4 (2021): 522–28.e2. 320 Michael A. Johansson et al., “SARS-CoV-2 Transmission from People without COVID-19 Symptoms,” JAMA Network Open 4, no. 1 (2021): e2035057. 321 Wycliffe E. Wei et al., “Presymptomatic Transmission of SARS-CoV-2—Singapore, January 23–March 16, 2020,” CDC, March 16, 2020, cdc.gov/mmwr/ volumes/69/wr/mm6914e1.htm. 322 Shiyi Cao et al., “Post-Lockdown SARS-CoV-2 Nucleic Acid Screening in Nearly Ten Million Residents of Wuhan, China,” Nature Communications 11, no. 5917 (2020), https://www.nature.com/articles/s41467-020-19802-w. 323 Zachary J. Madewell et al., “Household Transmission of SARS-CoV-2: A Systematic Review and Meta-Analysis,” JAMA Network Open 3, no. 12 (2020), jamanetwork.com/journals/jamanetworkopen/fullarticle/2774102. Using Abortion-Derived Vaccines 1101 such as AstraZeneca, a positive witness to the need to preserve pre-born children from being used in the medical-industrial complex, the uncertainty regarding the actual danger of the virus, the right of all people to not be coerced into receiving experimental medical treatments, and the low likelihood of asymptomatic transmission all seem to give sufficient justification for some of those not at risk to avoid the vaccine. This conclusion is bolstered by the fact that herd immunity from COVID-19 is rapidly approaching, since up to 1/3 of the population (of the U.S.) has antibodies from the virus, another significant portion is naturally immune, and still more are vaccinated.324 4.1.2 Other Treatments Appear Less Effective It should be noted that although other non-vaccine treatments exist, and a few have demonstrable good effects, the current state of peer-reviewed research suggests that when used alone their efficacy may be less than the vaccines currently on the market. In the case of the much-touted hydroxychloroquine (HCQ), a meta-analysis of 245 studies leads to the following results from randomized controlled trials: early treatment can lead to between 46–64% improvement and up to 72% lower mortality; because of the widespread positive effects of early treatment, the probability of this happening for ineffective treatment is low; however, only 5% of HCQ studies show zero negative effects from COVID-19 after treatment; despite these benefits, which are less than that of vaccines but not insignificant, there is substantial evidence of bias towards publishing negative results of HCQ.325 As for ivermectin, early treatment or prophylaxis has been shown to lead to 73–83% improvement, with 81–96% lower mortality; the probability of ineffective treatment (no change) is estimated to be 1 in 2 trillion, although 29% of studies show “zero events in the treatment arm.”326 Vitamin D peer-reviewed, randomized studies report between 55–81% improvement for early treatment, although only 4% of studies show zero events in the treatment arm. Hence, multiple approaches to solve the virus-related effects are required.327 Marty Makary, “Herd Immunity Is Near, Despite Fauci’s Denial,” Wall Street Journal, March 24, 2021, wsj.com/articles/herd-immunity-is-near-despite-faucis-denial-11616624554. 325 “HCQ for COVID-19: Real-Time Meta Analysis of 245 Studies,” hcqmeta.com/. 326 “Ivermectin for COVID-19: Real-Time Meta Analysis of 56 Studies,” https:// ivmmeta.com/. 327 “Vitamin D for COVID-19: Real-Time Meta Analysis of 78 Studies,” https:// vdmeta.com/. 324 1102 Sullivan and Pereira Monoclonal antibodies are perhaps even more effective in preventing symptoms of COVID-19. One study showed that the Eli Lily antibody reduced the risk of becoming ill with COVID-19 in the following eight weeks by 57%, and that the risk of COVID-19 illness dropped by 80% among nursing-home residents who are among the most at risk.328 Another study indicated that monoclonal antibodies may be successful in preventing COVID-19 infection as an alternative to vaccination for people who cannot take a vaccine or need more immediate prophylaxis either before or after exposure.329 According to the NIH, treatment appears most effective as soon as a patient receives a positive result of COVID-19 infection, but use of monoclonal antibodies is not recommended for patients hospitalized with the virus.330 Despite certain advantages of this treatment, it remains more expensive, more rare, and harder to administer to patients— making vaccination more viable for the majority of people. 4.2 Potential Health Risks of the Vaccines The potential dangers of COVID-19 need to be weighed against the potential side effects of the vaccines: the cure should not be worse than the disease. To date, all authorized COVID-19 vaccines have passed safety standards set for licensed vaccines in use, while due to their limited track record in the population, or population subgroups, safety surveillance is an important feature of learning more. Presently, the overall safety-based evidence made available to date suggests potential negative side effects could be on par with licensed vaccines currently in use for other pathogens and they are far less than the dangers of COVID-19. Rare but serious clinical entities (e.g., thrombosis with thrombocytopenia syndrome [TTS]) exist after vaccination. Hence, known risks should be evaluated on a case-by-case basis when possible, similar to how the risk of the rare but serious possibility of anaphylaxis to penicillin could interfere with receipt Jon Cohen, “Monoclonal Antibodies Can Prevent COVID-19—But Successful Vaccines Complicate Their Future,” Science Magazine, January 22, 2021, sciencemag.org/news/2021/01/monoclonal-antibodies-can-prevent-covid-19-successful-vaccines-complicate-their-future. 329 Myron S. Cohen, “Monoclonal Antibodies to Disrupt Progression of Early Covid-19 Infection,” New England Journal of Medicine 384, no. 3 (2021): 289–91, https://doi.org/10.1056/NEJMe2034495. 330 National Institutes of Health (NIH), “The COVID-19 Treatment Guidelines Panel’s Statement on the Emergency Use Authorizations of Anti-SARS-CoV-2 Monoclonal Antibodies for the Treatment of COVID-19,” NIH, June 11, 2021, covid19treatmentguidelines.nih.gov/therapies/statement-on-anti-sars-cov-2monoclonal-antibodies-eua/. 328 Using Abortion-Derived Vaccines 1103 of that antibiotic (although most people need not worry about it). Given the safety standards and studies currently in place, there is a significant probability that taking the vaccines will be of benefit to most people without vulnerabilities to the ingredients in the vaccines. Thus, it is reasonable to receive a vaccine if one is at serious risk of enduring the worst health effects of the virus, or serious negative social effects of being unvaccinated. However, the experimental nature of many vaccines raises serious questions about their long-term effects, which presently remain unknown. Every medical intervention, including medicines and vaccines, has an inherent risk. A risk-averse person would like to have zero chances of negative side effects for a vaccine, but that is impossible. Side effects can be measured in terms of frequency (more common, less common, rare, very rare) or in terms of severity (life-threatening, very dangerous/severe/ grave, somewhat dangerous, bothersome/mild). Pharmaceutical companies are legally required to disclose potential negative side effects of their products, but only recently has there been developed a standardized side effect measure in terms of frequency, intensity/severity, and burden of side effects,331 and a robust method that can predict the frequencies of drug side effects in the population.332 Adverse drug reactions (ADR) is much more frequent than is commonly known: a meta study showed that ADR is responsible for 3.6 % of all hospitalizations; it occurs in about 10% of all patients during hospitalization; and there are about 197 thousand deaths annually from ADR.333 Because of their higher potential for toxicity, some drugs are described as “high-alert medicines”—including commonly prescribed Coumadin as a blood thinner, Percocet for moderate pain relief, and different types of insulin—which can be safe and effective when taken under normal conditions but require a greater level of vigilance against potential ADR.334 Common side effects of common NSAID (nonsteroidal anti-inflammatory drug) medications such as aspirin includes: 1% to 10% increased Stephen R. Wisniewski et al., “Self-Rated Global Measure of the Frequency, Intensity, and Burden of Side Effects,” Journal of Psychiatric Practice 12, no. 2 (2006): 71–79. 332 Diego Galeano et al., “Predicting the Frequencies of Drug Side Effects,” Nature Communications 11, no. 4575 (2020), nature.com/articles/s41467-020-18305-y. 333 Jacoline C. Bouvy, Marie L. De Bruin, and Marc A. Koopmanschap, “Epidemiology of Adverse Drug Reactions in Europe: A Review of Recent Observational Studies,” Drug Safety 38, no. 5 (2015): 437–53. 334 Institute for Safe Medication Practices (ISMP), “Medication Safety Tools,” ConsumerMedSafety.org, 2021, consumermedsafety.org/tools-and-resources/ medication-safety-tools-and-resources. 331 1104 Sullivan and Pereira bleeding tendencies; and 0.01% to 0.1% (rare) anaphylactic reactions including shock.335 For over-the-counter ibuprofen, effects include: • Very common (10% or more): Nausea (up to 57%), vomiting (up to 22%), flatulence (up to 16%), diarrhea (up to 10%); • Common (up to 10%): abdominal distress, indigestion, constipation, abdominal cramps/pain, gastro-intestinal hemorrhage; • Very rare (less than 0.01%): Peptic ulcer, perforation, hematemesis, mouth ulceration.336 The above considerations may help a person weigh the risks of not taking a vaccine and potentially suffering effects of COVID-19 with the risks of taking the vaccine and its potential negative side effects. It should be noted that vaccines are always required to reach a higher safety threshold in testing, because they go into healthy people, whereas the risk/benefit ratio is inherently different in a patient with atrial fibrillation at risk for stroke and therefore is taking Coumadin. Anyone who has received a vaccine in the past knows that it is normal to experience mild-to-moderate side effects, including fatigue, muscle soreness, or even fever: these are signs that one’s immune system is effectively responding to the vaccine. The WHO notes that none of the approved vaccines themselves contain COVID-19 and therefore cannot infect the recipient with the virus.337 Normal side effects for the vaccines are similar to those of most vaccines: fatigue, headache, muscle pain, joint pain, chills, nausea, and vomiting. Common adverse effects for hydroxychloroquine, for instance, were more common than for a placebo, and included nausea, loose stools, and stomach pain.338 More dangerous side effects can occur with the vaccines, but these need to be tallied and studied with objective clarity, free from interference with vaccine-promoting agendas.339 CDC data show that anaphylaxis might Drugs.com, “Aspirin Side Effects: Common, Severe, Long Term,” Drugs.com, 2021, drugs.com/sfx/aspirin-side-effects.html. 336 Drugs.com, “Ibuprofen Side Effects: Common, Severe, Long Term,” Drugs.com, 2021, https://www.drugs.com/sfx/ibuprofen-side-effects.html. 337 WHO, “Side Effects of COVID-19 Vaccines,” WHO, March 13, 2021, web.archive. org/web/20210608100449/https://www.who.int/news-room/feature-stories/ detail/side-effects-of-covid-19-vaccines. 338 Drugs.com, “An Update: Is Hydroxychloroquine Effective for COVID-19?,” Drugs.com, 2021, drugs.com/medical-answers/hydroxychloroquine-effective-covid-19-3536024/. 339 Talita Duarte-Salles and Daniel Prieto-Alhambra, “Heterologous Vaccine Regi335 Using Abortion-Derived Vaccines 1105 occur with some of the vaccines; such responses are extremely rare: “2.5 cases per one million doses given of the Moderna vaccine, and 4.7 cases per million doses of the Pfizer.”340 For patients with a history of blood problems, the Johnson & Johnson vaccine could lead to life-threatening thrombosis events, such as blood clots or low platelet levels, but this appears extremely uncommon: as of April 2021, only fifteen cases had been reported among nearly twenty million who have received the vaccine.341 It seems that the danger was particularly acute for young women using contraception, which leads to greater blood clotting.342 Another concern is about unusually high numbers of deaths from COVID-19 as reported on the U.S. Vaccine Adverse Event Reporting System (VAERS). In response to claims that there has been an unusually high number of deaths in response to the vaccines, the CDC explains: “Over 259 million doses of COVID-19 vaccines were administered in the United States from December 14, 2020, through May 10, 2021. During this time, VAERS received 4,434 reports of death (0.0017%) among people who received a COVID-19 vaccine,” which would count as “extremely rare” and is far lower than the estimated CFR of 0.4% and IFR of 0.26% from COVID-19.343 The CDC further says, “A review of available clinical information . . . has not established a causal link to COVID19 vaccines.”344 Similar populations seem to be at risk for both virus and many of the vaccines: it is likely that some of the deaths related to the COVID-19 vaccines would have happened anyway: “35% of the people who died were over 90 years old, 46% were older than 80, and almost all were over 70 years old,” with comorbidities.345 The CDC’s investigation of mens against COVID-19,” The Lancet, no. 398 ( June 25, 2021). Helen Branswell, “Comparing the Covid-19 Vaccines Developed by Pfizer, Moderna, and Johnson & Johnson,” STAT, February 2, 2021, statnews. com/2021/02/02/comparing-the-covid-19-vaccines-developed-by-pfizer-moderna-and-johnson-johnson/. 341 FDA, “FDA and CDC Lift Recommended Pause on Johnson & Johnson ( Janssen) COVID-19 Vaccine Use Following Thorough Safety Review,” FDA, April 23, 2021, fda.gov/news-events/press-announcements/fda-and-cdc-lift-recommended-pause-johnson-johnson-janssen-covid-19-vaccine-use-following-thorough. 342 William Petri, “Johnson & Johnson Vaccine: Why It's Worth the Minuscule Risk,” Inverse, May 1, 2021, inverse.com/mind-body/restart-johnson-and-johnson-vaccine. 343 CDC, “Selected Adverse Events Reported after COVID-19 Vaccination,” CDC, June 23, 2021, cdc.gov/coronavirus/2019-ncov/vaccines/safety/adverse-events. html. 344 CDC, “Selected Adverse Events.” 345 Aude Lecrubier, “Elderly Deaths After COVID Vaccine: False Alarm?,” WebMD, 340 1106 Sullivan and Pereira reports from VAERS is from an abundance of caution, since anyone can report to the system, including the general public,346 and a study has shown that people interested in winning lawsuits against vaccine makers have inserted biased information into VAERS.347 Similar issues arose when researchers attempted to measure the dangers of the vaccines in the Netherlands based on similar reports of adverse events that followed vaccination. They concluded that a lack of clear benefit should cause governments to rethink their vaccination policy.348 However, within a few days of publication the article was retracted, as the editors explained that reports of correlated adverse effects does not constitute proof that the effects were caused by the vaccines: “The authors have called the events ‘effects’ and ‘reactions’ when this is not established, and until causality is established they are ‘events’ that may or may not be caused by exposure to a vaccine.”349 Despite the evidence suggesting that for those especially vulnerable to adverse effects of the virus it would be more reasonable to risk the vaccines than the virus, nevertheless many people are choosing not to receive the vaccines. Here Daniel Kahneman’s insights into decision-making are helpful. Kahneman notes that it would be inaccurate to suppose that when people are considering a potential risk, they consider the status quo to have a value of zero.350 For people who are not infected with the virus, and who believe they are not at high risk for adverse effects from the virus, the status quo (uninfected with normal health) has a positive value that they want to maintain. Kahneman also notes that extreme loss aversion could make people weigh losses about twice as much as gains.351 Hence, those who think they would risk losing their normal health with a vaccine will weigh not merely the statistical likelihood of whether they will be negaJanuary 22, 2021, webmd.com/vaccines/covid-19-vaccine/news/20210122/ elderly-deaths-after-covid-vaccine-false-alarm. 346 CDC, “Vaccine Adverse Event Reporting System (VAERS),” CDC, April 8, 2021, cdc.gov/vaccinesafety/ensuringsafety/monitoring/vaers/index.html. 347 Michael J. Goodman and James Nordin, “Vaccine Adverse Event Reporting System Reporting Source: A Possible Source of Bias in Longitudinal Studies,” Pediatrics 117, no. 2 (2006): 387–90. 348 Harald Walach, Rainer J. Klement, and Wouter Aukema, “The Safety of COVID19 Vaccinations—We Should Rethink the Policy,” Vaccines 9, no. 7 (2021): 693. 349 Vaccines Editorial Office, “Retraction: Walach et al. The Safety of COVID-19 Vaccinations—We Should Rethink the Policy. Vaccines 2021, 9, 693,” Vaccines 9, no. 7 ( July 2021): 729. 350 Daniel Kahneman, Thinking, Fast and Slow (New York: Farrar, Straus, and Giroux, 2011), 287. 351 Kahneman, Thinking, Fast and Slow, 288. Using Abortion-Derived Vaccines 1107 tively affected, but also how much worse it would be to lose the good they have and to experience the effects of the vaccines rather than to do nothing and suppositionally remain in a healthy state. Finally, we are more likely to feel regret for the negative effects of actions we voluntarily performed than for doing nothing. In other words, we tend to avoid doing things that we think we might regret, because we feel responsible for our actions that have bad results. In contrast, even if our chosen inaction somehow makes us more susceptible to suffering, we feel less responsible if the suffering comes from an external source to which we did not contribute.352 It seems that a similar dynamic is at work for some who are hesitant to receive vaccines. Some of these decisions reflect a widespread loss of trust in authorities of all stripes, such that many prefer to risk the virus rather than risk being subject to what could be called the medical-industrial-governmental complex. Others might not be aware of, or convinced of, the statistical analysis of potential risks and benefits of the vaccines as outlined above. Still others prefer to risk contracting the virus—especially if they think contraction is unlikely, or negative effects unlikely, and effects would not be their fault since they would not choose to get the virus—rather than being responsible for risking bad effects of a vaccine they did choose. 5 Summary and Conclusions 1. The presence of material derived from fetal cells within some COVID19 vaccines is not evil in itself, nor is it evil to use fetal cells for medical purposes, since such cells might conceivably be harvested in licit ways. The evil comes from the original direct abortions, and the subsequent use of abortion-derived cell lines in the development, production, and testing of vaccines. mRNA vaccines such as Pfizer and Moderna are touted as not being produced from such cell lines, but there is more to the story. The cell lines are involved in expression of the viral spike protein during development and its modification, and the cell lines are used again in “confirmatory testing,” which could be repeated on every batch before dispatch for use. 2. Cooperation in the evil of abortion comes in different grades: • Marketing of cells from the abortions (mediate formal cooperation) • Marketing of vaccines produced with such cells (immediate material cooperation) • Use of the vaccines for grave reasons (very remote material cooperation and circumstantial benefit from evil) 352 See Kahneman’s discussion of regret and responsibility in Thinking, Fast and Slow, 347–52. 1108 Sullivan and Pereira 3. The Church has taught that the use of abortion-derived vaccines could be morally accepted as benefitting from a previous evil under the following conditions: for grave reasons, especially for the protection of the vulnerable, and on a temporary basis. Because of the sin of scandal that toleration may court, one should use alternative vaccines if they exist and are available, and one has a duty to do whatever is reasonable to manifest dissent from the practice and to get the practice changed. The following are suggested especially for policy-makers, industry leaders, doctors, and heads of families:353 • to put pressure on the political authorities and health systems so that ethical vaccines are made available; • to have recourse, if necessary, to the use of conscientious objection to abortion-derived vaccines (i.e., to refuse the vaccinations); • to create pressure so that alternative vaccines which are ethical are prepared; • to request rigorous legal control of the pharmaceutical industry producers; • to fight and to employ lawful means in order to frustrate the pharmaceutical industries which act unscrupulously and unethically. 4. All scandal regarding the vaccines must be avoided by Catholics, and any scandal already given must be repaired, such as extolling the vaccines without descrying their origins. This can help to promote the Gospel of Life, the dignity of every human being, and respect for the Church’s teaching authority, and can induce physicians, researchers, and pharmaceutical workers to find alternative sources for cell lines for vaccines and other medicines. 5. Despite signs of media bias, scientific evidence indicates that the pandemic is real, although less dangerous than originally anticipated. Granted that precise numbers of infections and deaths are uncertain, studies show that COVID-19 can pose grave risks for the elderly and serious risks for other vulnerable people (especially the obese)—prime candidates for receiving the vaccine without fault. Non-vulnerable populations (such as the young) may want to forego the vaccines, but it is acceptable for the elderly (over the age of sixty-five) to receive a vaccine, provided there are no comorbidities (which could be life-threatening) or other counterindications. 6. A survey of some objections to the experimental vaccines on risk-mit353 See PAV, Declaration. Using Abortion-Derived Vaccines 1109 igation grounds, such as potential grave side effects, shows that scientific studies on these matters are still developing and provide no certitude as yet. Although other treatments may do good, their overall effectiveness appears lower than that of the approved vaccines and should not be considered a complete alternative to COVID-19 vaccines for grave cases. However, the effects of the vaccines should be monitored closely as they are deployed, so that their true utility, safety, and danger can be more accurately assessed. 7. Signs of governmental and broader cultural pressure to take a vaccine provides little precise information about the morality or safety of the vaccines, although the messenger is part of the message. Neither does widespread lobbying and indications of the “fallacy of popularity” in favor of the vaccine prove that vaccine reception is intrinsically evil, or even circumstantially evil. Serious potential social risks that could justify getting vaccinated include the likelihood of losing one’s job, getting demoted within a job, enduring long-term social isolation, and other similar serious considerations. However, the desire to avoid participating in what are perceived as absurd, arbitrary, or tyrannical laws may be sufficient to justify some avoiding the vaccine. All people have a right to refuse to be a test subject for the medical and social experiments surrounding the vaccines.354 N&V 354 See Nuremburg Code, “Permissible Medical Experiments”: “The voluntary consent of the human subject is absolutely essential. This means that the person should . . . be able to exercise free power of choice without the intervention of any element of fraud, deceit, duress, overreaching, or any ulterior form of coercion; and should have sufficient knowledge and comprehension of the subject matter involved as to enable him to make an understanding and enlightened decision” (no. 1). Nova et Vetera, English Edition, Vol. 19, No. 4 (2021): 1111–1145 1111 Frozen Embryos, Unwanted Pregnancies, and Artificial Wombs: Which Options Are Morally Licit? Irene Alexander University of Dallas Irving, TX In a previous article, I defended why embryo adoption is illicit.1 More precisely, it is the act of artificially impregnating a woman that is contrary to the natural moral order and renders the practice an illicit one, and not the “praiseworthy” intention to save a human life. While I do not intend to repeat that argument in detail here, in sum, my reasoning proceeds from first re-examining the underlying rationale that the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith (CDF) applies in its 2008 Dignitatis Personae and its 1987 Donum Vitae for other artificial reproductive technologies such as in vitro fertilization (IVF), artificial insemination, surrogacy, and the transfer of embryos for infertile couples (an embryo adoption of some kind), all of which were condemned in these two documents as either formally “illicit” or “not ethically acceptable.” When moral theologians listen with care and renewed attention to the underlying rationale in these documents, a single common thread emerges: the reality of what I call “conjugal agency,” namely, that licit actions in reproductive bioethics must respect the role of the spouses in being agent causes of procreation and pregnancy and that this agency must be exercised through conjugal union. The determining criteria for what constitutes a licit clinical procedure versus an illicit one emerges very clearly in these documents once theologians grasp this logic at its root. When this logic is then applied to the question of embryo adoption, it becomes clear that it is illicit for an agent other than the spouse to impregnate his wife and that, in addition, it is illicit for such impregnation to take place outside of conjugal 1 Irene Alexander, “Is Artificial Impregnation Opposed to the Unity of Marriage? A New Look at Embryo Adoption,” Nova et Vetera (English) 16, no. 1 (2018): 47–80. 1112 Irene Alexander union. For this reason, I concluded that heterologous embryo transfer and homologous embryo transfer are both intrinsically immoral (in the remainder of this article, the abbreviation “HET” covers both).2 This article is intended to address the next question that naturally arises from my conclusion.3 What then, are the licit moral options? This question is certainly not merely a theoretical one, but in many cases is a pressing and immediate concern for couples who may have used IVF in the creation of their family and now repent of their mistake, but have frozen embryos remaining and continue to pay for their cryopreservation. What options can licitly be pursued if it is true that embryo adoption is illicit and contrary to the unity of marriage? Is leaving these embryos frozen morally acceptable? Is allowing them to “thaw” and die considered murder? Does it go against the teaching in Donum Vitae §5 which states, “It is therefore not in conformity with the moral law deliberately to expose to death human embryos obtained ‘in vitro.’”4 Could artificial wombs for humans be a licit way of saving the lives of these frozen embryos? This technology is already on the horizon with the successful artificial gestation of premature lambs.5 And if frozen embryos could be saved in this way, could not other preborn infants in jeopardy be transferred to artificial wombs? Might not the arrival of artificial wombs actually solve the problem of abortion if mothers could transfer their inconveniently conceived children somewhere else? Christopher Kaczor has forcefully made this argument: “If advocates of abortion such as these are consistent, and really meant what they have said about not desiring the death of the human fetus [only the desire to be rid of the fetus without threatening its life], for at least these defenders of abortion, artificial wombs would end the abortion debate.”6 It seems on the surface that it would be a “win-win” situation, for the mother surely does not desire to kill her own child if given another alternative, In my previous piece, I was careful to demonstrate that the CDF has not formally declared embryo adoption to be illicit, but seems to intuit a problematic connection between this practice and the other already condemned practices such as IVF, surrogacy, and the transfer of embryos for infertile couples. I demonstrate with clarity what exactly that problematic connection is and responded to criticisms of this view by other scholars. 3 I am grateful to Julia Bolzon, PhD candidate from the John Paul II Institute, who encouraged me to write on this intellectually difficult and heart-wrenching topic. 4 CDF, Donum Vitae [DV] (1987), §5. 5 Tina Hesman Saey, “Faux Wombs Keep Preemie Lambs Alive,” Science News 191 (2017): 6. 6 Christopher Kaczor, “Could Artificial Wombs End the Abortion Debate?,” National Catholic Bioethics Quarterly 5, no. 2 (2005): 283–301. 2 Frozen Embryos, Unwanted Pregnancies, and Artificial Wombs 1113 and pro-life advocates may be satisfied in that the baby will at least have a chance at life. The purpose of my article is to address all of these concerns by providing clarity on the moral objects in each of these specific issues. I will first address in detail the remaining moral options for the situation of frozen embryos: (1) leaving them in their frozen state, (2) thawing them and allowing them to die naturally, (3) transferring them to an artificial womb for the whole of their gestation, or complete ectogenesis. Second, I will explain why partial ectogenesis may have a licit, albeit extremely limited role in medicine, only for problems in pregnancy which would otherwise lead to miscarriage, stillbirth, or jeopardize the mother’s health significantly. I will defend with the utmost strength and resolve that it is a grave moral evil for a physically healthy pregnant mother to remove her child from within her and allow that child to be gestated in an artificial womb as an alternative. I will explain why all people of good will and especially Christians should seriously oppose this option. The Future of Frozen Embryos I believe that there are fundamentally two reasons why proponents of embryo adoption are so vocal and insistent in their opinion that embryo adoption is licit, despite not providing strong and compelling arguments to support their view.7 The first and main reason is that the alternatives do See my critiques of Elizabeth Rex, Christopher Tollefsen, E. Christian Brugger, John Grabowski, Edward Furton, Br. Glenn Breed, and Mark Latkovic in “Is Artificial Impregnation Opposed to the Unity of Marriage?,” 74–80. See also the recent article of Melissa Moschella, who, in my opinion, successfully demonstrates that genetic parenthood rather than gestational makes a more significant moral claim; see her “Gestation Does Not Necessarily Imply Parenthood: Implications for the Morality of Embryo Adoption and Embryo Rescue,” American Catholic Philosophical Quarterly 92, no. 1 (2018): 21–48. Yet, for those who oppose embryo adoption, the key issue is not who is the true mother (genetic, gestational, or adoptive), but whether or not the act of artificial impregnation is itself morally licit. Moschella does not address the heart of the issue at all. To a difficult objection raised by Nicholas Tonti-Filippini, that in HET a woman becomes a mother “through an event from which her husband is, in effect, excluded,” Moschella replies that this concern is “based on the assumption that gestation creates a special bond in the way that wet nursing . . . does not, and that gestation in and of itself makes a woman a mother in the focal sense,” which she has taken the time to disprove. Yet the objection to HET is not at all about the specific communion between mother and child, but whether an agent other than her spouse should make her pregnant in the first place. Does this role not belong specifically to the husband? Should a technician be the one who says to the woman through the act of HET, “I am the one making you pregnant, not your own spouse.” Moschella does not sufficiently address the problem that embryo adoption by nature is 7 1114 Irene Alexander not look very good. The cry that embryo adoption “must be licit” and is the “only moral option” seems to stem from an urgency that rightly recognizes the poverty of the alternatives. Yet, one of the main reasons that I did not address the alternatives at all in the previous article (aside from lack of space) is that beginning by looking at all of the alternatives and then deciding on which one seems to provide the most therapeutic outcome is a problematic way of navigating difficult issues in moral theology. It is characteristic of a more consequentialist approach which examines the outcomes as determinative of which actions are licit. Pope John Paul II himself is very critical of this way of reasoning in Veritatis Splendor. To be clear, my remark is not to suggest that well-meaning Catholic bioethicists are functioning through a consequentialist mode of reasoning in their argumentation; I do not deny that they intend to defend moral absolutes. But on this particular issue, I do believe that it is precisely the poverty of the alternatives that fuels a more particular urgency to promote embryo adoption, over a more careful consideration of precisely how biotechnology ruptures the integrity of the natural law. The second reason why proponents of embryo adoption insist on its liceity and do not immediately see its problems concerns a deeper in-house issue among scholars in moral theology concerning how to specify moral objects in the Catholic tradition. The novel theory initiated by Germain Grisez and his colleagues considers a good moral act to be one in which the moral agent does not intentionally desire to damage any of the basic human goods. While it is clear that a woman choosing abortion chooses an intentional destruction of human life, how could something as goodhearted as adopting an orphaned embryo into one’s own body with the desire to raise that child be in any way an act that is intentionally opposed to a basic human good? Even if it is opposed to marital unity in that a pregnancy comes about outside of conjugal union, there is no deliberate intention within the acting subject to harm the marital good.8 In fact, the act of adoption proceeds from the mutual choice of the couple.9 The key issue here, however, is that Grisez’s method of specifying moral actions is his own novel yet influential theory; it is distinct from the “old” natural law theory, which takes into account the nature of the action in question, and not only “the concept of intention,” towards or against a basic human contrary to the unity of marriage, a violation of the union between spouses, not mother and child. 8 E. Christian Brugger, “In Defense of Heterologous Embryo Transfer,” National Catholic Bioethics Quarterly 5, no. 1 (2005): 95–112. 9 Moschella, “Gestation,” 46–47. Frozen Embryos, Unwanted Pregnancies, and Artificial Wombs 1115 good.10 Even Janet Smith in her commentary on Grisez’s action theory states very explicitly, “Grisez denies that reason must conform itself to nature.”11As a result, Smith states, “their analysis, especially in its terminology, in many ways resembles traditional modes of analysis; these resemblances can mislead the reader into thinking that their analysis is more aligned within the tradition than, in fact it is.”12 The embryo adoption issue has brought to the forefront of contemporary bioethical thinking an underlying philosophical divide that Catholic bioethicists cannot ignore—the analysis of the moral object by proponents of the “New Natural Law” (NNL) eschews the underlying philosophy of nature as integral to defining what a moral act is.13 The new approach eclipses something far more fundamental from the very beginning. While exploring this issue far exceeds the limits of this essay, I mention it because what follows in this essay is my contention that sound moral thinking, especially in bioethics, requires the ethicist to consider the nature of the action chosen in specifying the moral object, as distinct from a purely “first-person perspective” where a moral object is determined solely by what the agent understands himself to be doing through his own interior choice, which he then projects onto an otherwise morally neutral external act. My arguments will proceed by taking seriously the philosophy of nature “more aligned with the tradition,” as distinct from the novel theory of intentionality towards basic human goods.14 Christopher Tollefsen, “Is a Purely First Person Account of Human Action Defensible?” Ethical Theory and Moral Practice 9 (2006): 441–59. For a defense of the moral meaning of nature in the “old” natural law theory as distinct from the “new natural law” position (NNL), see Edward Feser, “In Defense of the Perverted Faculty Argument,” Neo-Scholastic Essays (South Bend, IN: St. Augustine Press, 2015), 378–415. 11 Janet, Smith. Humanae Vitae: A Generation Later (Washington DC: Catholic University of America Press, 1991), 353. 12 Smith. Humanae Vitae, 353 (emphasis mine). 13 See my critique of the NNL position on describing moral objects in “Redefining Direct and Indirect Abortions through ‘the Perspective of the Acting Person’: A Misreading of Veritatis Splendor,” Linacre Quarterly 86, no. 1 (2019): 1–19. 14 For more on this debate see: Germain Grisez, John Finnis, and Joseph Boyle, “Direct and Indirect,” The Thomist 65 (2001): 1–44; Christopher Tollefsen, “Response to Robert Koons and Matthew O’Brien’s ‘Objects of Intention: a Hylomorphic Critique of the New Natural Law Theory,’” American Catholic Philosophical Quarterly 87, no. 4 (2013): 751–78; Tollefsen, “Is a Purely First Person Account of Human Action Defensible?”; E. Christian Brugger, “Direct Killing as Intentional Killing,” Public Discourse February 19, 2013, thepublicdiscourse. com/2013/02/7486; William May, Catholic Bioethics and the Gift of Human Life, 3rd ed. (Huntington, IN: Our Sunday Visitor, 2013), 190–93; Steven A. Long, “A 10 1116 Irene Alexander There is no easy way to say it. The future of frozen embryos is bleak. The three remaining technical options for frozen embryos are as follows: Option 1: leaving them in cryopreservation; option 2: thawing them and allowing them to die, option 3: transferring them to an artificial womb for gestation. To each of these remaining options I now offer a clear articulation of the moral object. Option 1—Leaving Them in Cryopreservation Fr. Tad Pacholczyk from the National Catholic Bioethics Center suggests that leaving the frozen embryos in cryopreservation is the only currently available ethical choice, aside from the future possibility of artificial wombs. In response to those who ask him what can be done with the frozen embryos, he argues, “The simple answer is that ethically there is very little we can do with our frozen embryos except to keep them frozen for the foreseeable future. No other obvious moral options seem to exist.”15 He concludes then that, parents have an obligation to care for their children in this way until some other option becomes available in the future (maybe a sophisticated “embryo incubator” or “artificial womb” of some kind), or until there is a reasonable certainty that they have died on their own from decay or “freezer burn.” Perhaps after a few hundred years, all the stored embryos would have died on their own, and they could Brief Disquisition regarding the Nature of the Object of the Moral Act according to St. Thomas Aquinas,” The Thomist 67 (2003): 45–71; Long, “Fundamental Errors of the New Natural Law Theory,” National Catholic Bioethics Quarterly 13, no. 1 (2013): 105–31; Steven Jensen, “Causal Constraints on Intention: A Critique of Tollefsen on the Phoenix Case,” National Catholic Bioethics Quarterly 14, no. 2 (Summer 2014): 273–93; Thomas Berg, “A Revised Analysis of the ‘Phoenix Abortion Case’ and a Critique of the New Natural Law Intentionality,” Nova et Vetera (English) 15, no. 2 (2017): 365–96; Matthew B. O’Brien and Robert Koons, “Objects of Intention: A Hylomorphic Critique of the New Natural Law Theory,” American Catholic Philosophical Quarterly 86 (2012): 655–703; Kevin L. Flannery, “The Multifarious Moral Object of Thomas Aquinas,” The Thomist 67 (2003): 95–118; Kevin Keiser, “The Moral Act in St. Thomas—A Fresh Look,” The Thomist 74 (2010): 238. See also Steven Brock, Action and Conduct: Aquinas and the Theory of Action (Edinburgh: T & T Clark, 1998), 204–5. 15 Fr. Tad Pacholczyk, “What Should We Do with the Frozen Embryos?,” Making Sense of Bioethics (blog of The National Catholic Bioethics Center), June 30, 2009, ncbcenter.org/making-sense-of-bioethics-cms/column-048-what-should-we-dowith-the-frozen-embryos. Frozen Embryos, Unwanted Pregnancies, and Artificial Wombs 1117 finally be thawed and given a decent burial.16 Fr. Pacholczyk argues that once the damage has been done, there is little hope for rescuing these embryos. He argues not only is it permissible to leave them frozen, even “for a few hundred years,” but that parents of these embryos have a moral obligation to keep paying for their continued cryopreservation since it functions as life support. Fr. Pacholczyk is not alone in this judgment. Catholic bioethicist Fr. Nicanor Austriaco, O.P., also holds a similar position. Fr. Austriaco suggests to potential adoptive parents that “instead of implanting their adopted embryo into the adoptive mother’s womb, [the adoptive parents] could pay to maintain the cryopreservation necessary for the survival of their child until incubators capable of bringing him to term are invented.”17 Both of these Catholic bioethicists argue that continuing to pay for the frozen embryo’s cryopreservation is a morally responsible act, at least until something like an artificial womb could be invented to gestate them. Before one can carefully evaluate their arguments, it is important to appreciate first the rationale for the condemnation of cryopreservation as the CDF teaches in Donum Vitae: The freezing of embryos, even when carried out in order to preserve the life of an embryo—cryopreservation—constitutes an offense against the respect due to human beings by exposing them to grave risks of death or harm to their physical integrity and depriving them, at least temporarily, of maternal shelter and gestation, thus placing them in a situation in which further offenses and manipulation are possible.18 There are several condemnations of cryopreserving embryos in this passage. The first argument, presupposed from the prior condemnation of IVF, is that the embryo has already come into being apart from conjugal union and is now left “exposed.” Not only is this act an offense against marital unity, it is also harmful to the child to be willfully brought into being in a situation where the child is deprived of maternal shelter. The person is under the “domination of technology” not because technology was used in the process, but because the clinicians and consenting parties use the tech Pacholczyk, “What Should We Do with the Frozen Embryos?” Nicanor Austriaco, Biomedicine and Beatitude: An Introduction to Catholic Bioethics (Washington, DC: Catholic University of America, 2011), 109. 18 CDF, DV, I.6. 16 17 1118 Irene Alexander nology to act in a way contrary to the order of nature: a conceived embryo ought to come into being beneath the heart of his mother. Her pregnancy is the reception of her spouse’s conjugal gift. Even more damaging, cryopreservation rips the human person away from his or her natural maternal home by actively disrupting the normal process of gestation. Now that this first evil has been done, another one follows. To keep the embryo alive, it must be frozen. It is worth sitting with this image for a few minutes. Would parents ever put their young child in their own freezer at home? Doing so would be a grave crime because it would indeed “expose them to the serious risk of death or physical harm” just as cryopreservation does.19 The CDF also notes that “a high percentage [of embryos] does not survive the process of freezing and thawing.”20 Finally, cryopreservation does further damage to the child, not only by depriving him or her of maternal shelter and gestation, but by further exposing the embryo to destructive manipulation and experimentation—not unlike the Nazi’s imprisonment of human persons and their highly unethical experiments on them. The embryos’ continued exposure to being victims of great moral evil puts them at further risk. They are prisoners of war—the culture war—over the personal meaning of human sexuality and the dignity of the human person. Yet despite the destruction of “a high percentage” of embryos in the process, the purpose of the cryopreservation of embryos conceived though IVF is precisely to keep them alive for further use, or at least to preserve their lives until further decisions can be made about their fate. One of the strongest condemnations of cryopreservation of human persons in Dignitatis Personae is on the following grounds: it is fundamentally “incompatible with the respect owed to human embryos.”21 While most Catholic bioethicists see the above reasons that I have articulated as the ground for condemning the process of freezing embryos to begin with, few have reflected sufficiently on the unique abomination cryopreservation is according to the natural law. Unlike almost any other kind of technology, the process of deep-freezing living embryos causes them to be utterly suspended in their development. For example, an embryo frozen for five years, then later implanted in a woman and birthed as a “newborn” is actually a five-year-old, while simultaneously a “newborn”—odd as that sounds. That is why I am convinced that ethicists must look closer at what cryopreservation does to the human person in relationship to the CDF, Dignitatis Personae [DP], §18. CDF, DP, §18. 21 CDF, DP, §18. 19 20 Frozen Embryos, Unwanted Pregnancies, and Artificial Wombs 1119 inclinations of the natural law. According to the order of nature, the soul as the form of the body is constantly striving for self-preservation with a view to exercising his higher powers—the flourishing in human excellence. The good of the body, such as health, is ordained to the good of the soul. Aquinas describes the natural law not as moral rules, nor even as human goods necessarily, but as “inclinations” of the human person towards various ends: “According to the order of natural inclinations, is the order of the precepts of the natural law.”22 The Thomistic tradition recognizes that the moral law follows the order of nature. The natural world is not “merely physical” but follows an order that is morally determinative. Aquinas describes it this way: The human person shares the inclination to self-preservation in common with all living things; he also possesses the inclination to procreation and education common with animals; as a rational creature he possesses the inclination to know the truth, especially the truth about God, and to live in society.23 While he shares common inclinations with other lower creatures (plants and animals), he carries them out in a fundamentally human and personal way. If we look closely at the philosophy of nature here in Aquinas’s description of the natural law in terms of its “inclinations,” we can see much more clearly the evil of cryopreservation. Bioethicist Nicholas Tonti-Filippini describes the process of freezing a human person as follows: Parts of the embryo are separated by the chemical solution and, in that state, the parts of the whole do not relate to one another in any physiological sense except perhaps by being related spatially. The separating effect of the chemical solution and the effect of super-freezing means that the embryo is not integrated or dynamic in the way in which we normally consider to be essential to being a living organism.24 In cryopreservation the embryo is placed in a totally anhydrous state with a chemical solution replacing the natural hydration that normally allows the living organism to grow and develop. Therefore, it is not only the initial freezing, but the actual current state of the embryo which gives great cause Thomas Aquinas, Summa theologiae [ST] I-II, q. 94, a. 2 (trans. Dominican Fathers of the English Province [New York: Benziger, 1925). 23 ST, I-II, q. 94, a. 2. 24 Nicholas Tonti-Filippini, “The Embryo Rescue Debate: Impregnating Women, Ectogenesis and Restoration from Suspended Animation,” National Catholic Bioethics Quarterly 3, no. 1 (2003): 111–37. 22 1120 Irene Alexander for alarm. I believe that when we hold a magnifying glass up to the current state of the frozen embryos it becomes clear that they suffer a profound moral evil of an intrinsic kind by being in a state of suspended animation. In suspending the development of the embryo cryopreservation acts in a way absolutely contrary to the order of nature. Not only does it expose the embryos to various physical harm (frost bite, death), or leave them exposed to potential experimentation— even if these were not real risks—the use of a technology that causes suspended animation of a human person is an evil contrary to nature. This type of technology actively impedes and forbids the human person to exercise his or her natural inclinations towards the hierarchy of goods. There is no way in which a technology that has this effect on a human person can in any way be compatible with the natural law and the good of the human person. It is for this reason most of all, that cryopreservation is fundamentally “incompatible with the respect owed to human beings.” In order to see this reality more clearly, it may be helpful to illustrate the contrast with an adult patient on a ventilator. The ventilated patient needs assistance in breathing. The air pushed into the body of the patient assists the patient’s own natural inclination towards self-preservation; it does not actively hinder the inclination. But the continued cryopreservation of frozen embryos is a technology that actively inhibits the human being’s inclinations to self-preservation and growth. It contains the ungodly power of suspending the human person in development and therefore in time. If ethicists only look at the consequence of these two different technologies—both keep persons alive—they will miss diagnosing the precise reason for the moral evil that cryopreservation is. Ethicists must always keep in mind that the right use of technology assists the human person in restoring the order of nature whereas the “domination of technology” takes place when that order is disregarded or destroyed by the technology.25 Just as ethicists rightly recognize a great moral difference between achieving procreation through IVF and achieving the same outcome through conjugal union, it is morally significant to recognize what this specific technology does to the human person in the natural order. Cryopreservation does not merely keep the embryo alive; it traps him in a way absolutely contrary to his nature—-in a way totally impossible and unheard of in the entire history of the world until the last few decades. The injustice to 25 CDF, DP, §12. “Techniques which assist procreation are not to be rejected on the grounds that they are artificial. As such, they bear witness to the possibilities of the art of medicine. But they must be given a moral evaluation in reference to the dignity of the human person.” Frozen Embryos, Unwanted Pregnancies, and Artificial Wombs 1121 the embryo did not happen only once in his or her initial freezing. Every day of existing as a frozen human person with the natural inclination to develop while being simultaneously hindered in that development is a new day of profound and inconceivable injustice. To clarify again by contrast, the imprisonment of an innocent adult is a grave crime. He is unjustly denied certain basic freedoms. But the suspension and paralysis of a human being so that he or she can no longer function in a dynamic human way according to the inclinations of his or her being is significantly worse, indeed it is unimaginable. It is in itself contrary to the order of nature and therefore intrinsically evil. Regardless of what this conclusion might imply, it is imperative that ethicists come to terms with the reality of cryopreservation vis-à-vis the natural law. One cannot properly grieve the embryos’ situation without adequately reflecting on the full depth of their depravity. Freezing the embryos was not only immoral to begin with, but in the final analysis, their continued existence in a trapped state of being is incompatible with the natural law. I will provide one final clarification by contrast to illustrate this point. A paralyzed or even unconscious patient still exercises the inclinations of the natural law towards self-preservation, towards development, both physically and spiritually, even if there is a form of physical paralysis. A frozen embryo is not merely physically and temporally paralyzed, but the inclinations or natural striving of the human person are actively hindered until they totally cease. That is why these embryos do not “age” while frozen. By contrast, a patient experiencing paralysis endures physical but not moral evil. A frozen embryo suspended in his being is currently experiencing a moral evil unlike anything that man has created in the history of civilization. No human invention or technology has ever halted the human person’s natural dynamic striving as cryopreservation has. Injuring a human being is not the same as entirely halting his or her dynamic human activity. Toni-Filippini also makes a similar argument: Keeping a human embryo in an induced state of arrested development indefinitely does offend against the good of life. It is a quasi-living existence, lacking the characteristics such as biological activity, growth, development, and maturing that are usually associated with life. The living dynamism of the cryopreserved, anhydrous embryo is on hold. It is difficult to describe what exactly the frozen-anhydrous state is. It is not like a general anesthesia, because even in general anesthesia the body continues to function. Further, the anesthesia is only properly willed in order to block pain experience and to immobilize 1122 Irene Alexander so that surgery can be completed without muscle reflexes causing movement. Similarly, it is not like hypothermia caused accidentally through prolonged immersion in cold water or exposure to other cold environments, or the induced hypothermia sometimes used for long and complex surgery on highly vasculated areas or areas of metabolic significance in which a slowed-down metabolism would help. In each of those cases, while functions are slowed down and some are suppressed, some dynamic living activity continues. But in a frozen-anhydrous state all activity ceases.26 In Toni-Filippini’s examples one can distinguish between a medical act of slowing down physiological processes in surgery within the context of healing, from the state of totally shutting down the dynamic activity of the living being in its striving towards the hierarchy of ends in its development.27 While Toni-Filippini does not explicitly use the language of an “intrinsic moral evil,” it seems that he would agree with me in use of this term to condemn a technology that causes suspended animation of a living human person. For this reason, then, I disagree with Fr. Pacholczyk, who calls the continued cryopreservation “care” for the human embryo, and more specifically, “ordinary care” versus extraordinary, and therefore encourages parents of these children to continue to pay to keep them cryopreserved. Fr. Pacholczyk states: Some have suggested that a morally acceptable solution to the frozen embryo problem might come through applying the principle that “extraordinary” means do not have to be undertaken to prolong human life. They argue that to sustain an embryo’s life in a cryogenic state is to use extraordinary means and this is not required. In fact, however, the decision to continue cryopreserving an embryo in liquid nitrogen is not likely an instance of using extraordinary means, since the burden and costs associated with taking care of embryonic children in this way are actually minimal. 26 27 Tonti-Filippini, “Embryo Rescue Debate,” 134. For this same reason, even the cryopreservation of an adult would also be morally evil, and this may be a moral issue in the not-so-distant future. From the outside one might argue that it is just “putting someone to sleep” with the intent of rehydrating him or her in fifty or a hundred years. But in reality, the person is not “sleeping,” which is in fact a biologically active process. Suspended animation totally ceases the biological functioning of a human organism. This type of act is directly contrary to the human person’s inclinations according to the natural law. Frozen Embryos, Unwanted Pregnancies, and Artificial Wombs 1123 When we have children, we have a duty to clothe, feed, care for, and educate them, all of which costs plenty of money. When our children are frozen, we don’t need to clothe feed, or educate them; our care for them can only be expressed by pausing the bill each month to replenish the liquid nitrogen in their storage tanks. This way of caring for our children is obviously unusual, but it does not seem morally extraordinary in terms of achieving the desired end of safeguarding their physical integrity. Fr. Pacholczyk argues that cryopreservation, while “obviously unusual” can constitute a form of “care” for these children. On his view, it is not even extraordinary care but ordinary, since the burden and costs of keeping the embryos alive are minimal, and all parents have a moral duty to care for their children and provide for their needs. For this reason, he argues that parents of frozen embryos have a moral obligation to continue to pay for their cryopreservation. My reply to this argument is that the distinction between extraordinary and ordinary care does not even apply in this case, because the current state of suspended animation is an intrinsic evil. It is not “care” for the human person at all, either ordinary nor extraordinary, because care always “assists” and does not hinder the natural inclinations of the human being. Cryopreservation does not “safeguard their physical integrity” but profoundly disrupts it, even if it continues their existence. The chemical solution disrupts the organism’s physical integrity so that the parts of the embryo no longer communicate with one another as one integrative whole. That is precisely why the embryos do not age while frozen. Both those who argue that they can remain frozen because the care is ordinary and those who argue that they can be removed because the care is extraordinary are missing the essential point that this distinction concerns “care” or assistance for the human person, not fostering an imprisonment of a human organism’s dynamic animation. This aspect is what most Catholic bioethicists are missing from properly analyzing the issue. Care fosters the natural human inclinations towards life and health with the body itself actively participating in its own reintegration; “care” does not chemically disrupt the communication of the parts of the body and so entirely halt the animation of the human person. For example, artificial nutrition and hydration aid the human person towards homeostasis, with the human body itself being the own agent of its recovery by taking in nutrition towards growth and healing. Suspended animation disrupts and halts the agency of the organism. That is why the embryos do not need food or water 1124 Irene Alexander to survive—odd as that is. Similarly, even extraordinary ventilation assists the human person’s own living and dynamic striving for self-preservation, by providing air and assisting in circulation. A frozen embryo does not need air to survive, nor is his or her blood circulating. Suspended animation does not assist, but actively hinders the dynamism of the living human person in an utterly unique and abominable fashion. The conclusion from this analysis, then, is that there is, in fact, a moral imperative to remove the frozen embryos from an intrinsically evil state immediately. Every moment of their being frozen is a new moment of grave moral evil. The embryos should be immediately thawed. This process involves rehydrating them and returning them to a warm28 and temporarily stable environment, where they can resume their dynamic human activity. The object of the moral act in this case is restoration from an intrinsically evil state of suspended existence into a restored state of dynamic human existence. Unfortunately, there are no morally licit ways of returning the rehydrated embryo to the womb of a woman. Within a few days the re-cultivated embryo will die from a lack of a stable environment. How, one might ask, can this action be morally licit, if one knows ahead of time that the embryos will die? Option 2—Thawing Them and Allowing Them to Die Naturally The decision to thaw the embryos although one foresees ahead of time that they will not long survive is actually very similar to the situation of an ectopic pregnancy. Frozen embryos are actually “ec-topic” or “out of place.” Ethicists should begin to use the language of “ectopic embryos,” since it is technically precise, and because it is easier to see the ethical similarity with ectopic pregnancies. In the case of the frozen ectopic embryo, the embryo is in a place where he cannot thrive, much like an embryo which implants in the fallopian tube of a woman. Just as one is morally obligated to take action to save the mother’s life, even though one knows ahead of time that the young embryo will not survive, and the procedure is justified under the principle of double effect,29 so also does the same logic apply to ectopic In normal conjugal conception, the female body anticipates receiving a new embryo during the menstrual cycle by increasing her temperature shortly after ovulation. Her body releases progesterone (pro-gestation) to receive and nurture this new being. From the first moment of their conception, babies are meant to be received in a warm and nurturing environment. The female body anticipates and prepares for this reception. 29 That is to say, certain procedures are justified. I have defended why salpingectomy is the only licit procedure and why salpingostomy and the use of methotrexate are “direct” abortions and unjustifiable, rather than indirect (“The Error of Intention28 Frozen Embryos, Unwanted Pregnancies, and Artificial Wombs 1125 frozen embryos. The difference, as I have argued above, is that with frozen embryos there is an intrinsic moral evil of suspended animation and hence it is morally obligatory to take immediate action. The similarity is that in both cases there is a grave moral reason to take action. In both cases, one foresees and knows ahead of time that the embryo will not survive, and finally, in both cases the actions involved do not involve any direct damage to the embryo. In removing the frozen embryo from a situation of profound moral injustice and restoring him to active animation, the technician has performed not only a morally licit but profoundly laudable act, even if he knows in advance that after a short time the rehydrated embryo will not survive. Not only the intention, but the specific act of releasing the embryo from his state of imprisoned animation is morally laudable, even if as a secondary effect the embryo will not long survive. In the end, it is a tragedy, much like the loss of life in an ectopic pregnancy, but the moral act of thawing and restoring the embryo is licit and justifiable. The real moral tragedy, however, is that unlike a surprise ectopic pregnancy, technicians knew ahead of time what the process of IVF will cause. It is not merely a medical abnormality. The technicians and couples deliberately chose to separate procreation from the conjugal act, with all of its accompanying lethal effects. There is moral injustice, not in the act of thawing and restoring a human child from suspended animation to living dynamic activity albeit for a brief time, but in deliberately choosing the procedures in the first place which left him to this tragic fate. I would like to consider an important objection to my argument. In Donum Vitae the CDF states that “it is not in conformity with the moral law deliberately to expose to death human embryos obtained in vitro.”30 Have I not argued in favor of the very thing Donum Vitae calls unlawful? No, not at all. The context of this passage is addressing the specific question: “How is one to evaluate morally the use for research purposes of embryos obtained by fertilization in vitro?” The CDF here condemns the voluntary destruction of embryos used in experimental research. In fact, it condemns not only experimentation but also any “method of observation” which either “damage[s] or impose[s] grave and disproportionate risks upon embryos obtained in vitro.”31 The sentence I quoted above is the response to a scientist who might ask, “given that we already have these IVF embryos, shouldn’t we at least use them for scientific research since they will likely die anyway? What difference does it make if they alism,” National Catholic Bioethics Quarterly 17, no. 3 [2017]: 399–408). CDF, DV, I.5. 31 CDF, DV, I.5. 30 1126 Irene Alexander die through our experiments? At least they may give us useful knowledge for treating other ailments.” The CDF response is that it is morally evil to deliberately cause their immediate death even if the scientist has a noble intention of contributing to new medical discoveries. Note how different that issue is from the embryos already frozen, as well as my response. I have argued that properly respecting their dignity as persons requires their immediate removal from suspended animation to a restored and dynamic state of human existence. Furthermore, while the natural secondary result of this act will be that the embryos will not long survive, the technician does not immediately cause the death of the embryo as the scientist would in the case above. The moral difference is as clear as the difference between an indirect abortion and a direct abortion. The latter immediately causes the death of the embryo, whereas the former does not.32 Therefore, in sum, the act of thawing and rehydrating a frozen embryo is morally justifiable on two grounds: First, it actively removes the embryo from a situation of profound moral injustice of an intrinsic kind and so it is morally obligatory. Second, this act does not in any way constitute a direct abortion and so remains justifiable under the ethical and religious directives 45 and 47 in the U.S. Bishops’ Ethical and Religious Directives for Catholic Health Care Services.33 The technician is not lacerating or chemically burning the young life, or directly expelling the child from an otherwise hospitable womb; the embryo is under an ontological imprisonment caused by technology. Thawing and rehydrating the embryo is the very act that actually restores its dynamic human activity. It is not the act of restoration which is the direct cause of death; indeed, the embryo may survive even a few days, but the fact is that the embryo is in a place where it cannot long survive, just as in the cases of tubal pregnancies or hysterectomy with pregnancy when there is aggressive uterine cancer. Just as in these cases there is no direct abortion, neither is the act of thawing and rehydration a direct abortion. The embryo does not die from the act of restoration, nor from any direct damage inflicted upon him; rather he dies subsequently from a lack of a stable environment. This act of restoration is licit because it neither involves the will to destroy this life nor physically There has been significant confusion over what ought to be a clear teaching on direct and indirect abortion. See my “Redefining Direct and Indirect Abortions,” where I explain the heart of the controversy and how to clearly define direct and indirect abortion. 33 United States Conference of Catholic Bishops (USCCB), Ethical and Religious Directives for Catholic Health Care Services, 6th ed. (Washington, DC: USCCB, 2018). 32 Frozen Embryos, Unwanted Pregnancies, and Artificial Wombs 1127 lacerates, chemically poisons, deplants the placenta, or burns the embryo as other means of direct abortion do. On the contrary it removes a tiny human being from one place where morally he ought not to be and ought not to remain, to another authentically restorative place where he also will not long survive, just as in ectopic pregnancy. In an ectopic pregnancy, the embryo is in a place where he physically ought not to be, and the morally good act of saving the mother involves moving the embryo to another place where he will not long survive. Both are good acts and both are justifiable under the principle of double effect. The act itself (thawing and rehydration) is good; the good effect is intended and the undesirable one unintended; and finally, it is proportionate because the current moral evil to which the embryo is subjected is an intrinsic moral evil. Under no circumstances can an embryo—a living human person—be left in a cryogenic anhydrous inhuman state of being, much less should others be encouraged to pay for their continued cryopreservation. The embryo must immediately be restored to his natural state of dynamic human activity. To those who remain unconvinced by my argument because in the end no life is saved, unlike a typical ectopic pregnancy which at least saves the mother, I would call attention to the true purpose of the moral life and its foundation, as wonderfully put by John Haas of the National Catholic Bioethics Center in its journal’s inaugural issue: Catholic bioethics, and any bioethics that would be compatible with it, must recognize that the human person has a destiny which transcends physical existence. Death is the lot of every human being. But every human being has a destiny, an ultimate fulfillment, beyond death. . . .The only thing which would ultimately and in the final analysis do violence to the human person would be actions that placed one’s ultimate destiny in jeopardy.34 Haas aptly reminds ethicists that moral evil is worse—indeed profoundly worse—than physical evil, which includes even death itself. That is why I am arguing that the embryos should be thawed immediately. Many moral theologians have made errors in judgment by subscribing to the idea that one must save a life at all costs. The Catholic tradition has never held this position, nor could it, if we know philosophically that the good of life is not on par with other human goods, but is a necessary prerequisite for 34 John Haas, “Bioethics in the New Millennium,” National Catholic Bioethics Quarterly 1, no. 1 (2001):18–19. 1128 Irene Alexander flourishing in human excellence. The good of the body is ordained to the good of the soul. Pope John Paul II found it necessary to reiterate this point by quoting the Latin poet Juvenal in his encyclical Veritatis Splendor: “Consider it the greatest of crimes to prefer survival to honor and, out of love of physical life, to lose the very reason for living.”35 It is more human and therefore more important to refrain from grave moral evil even if it means accepting that not every human life can be saved. Haas rightly claims that the root reason for this conclusion is that the moral life finds its foundation in the eternal law of God and the hierarchy of the created ends of the human person. There are theologians today who teach that sinful actions are only those which “harm” the person. However, the Catholic Tradition has understood sin as a departure from the Eternal Law, which is the Mind of God ordering all things toward their created ends, as the ultimate harm to the human person. But one needs a long view to see this and a confidence that the created order reflects an intelligible and loving design.36 While at the time Haas wrote these words, he likely had in mind dissenting theologians who described themselves as proportionalists, his point remains perpetually valid. Whether or not one intends to “harm” is not the sole criteria for moral judgment in the Catholic tradition, nor is looking merely at outcomes. Rather, to act in a way contrary to man’s natural inclinations, as a part of the “ordering [of ] all things toward their created ends,” is the “ultimate harm” to human dignity. The eternal law is the key foundation for the moral life; that is why Pope John Paul II returned to this theme in great depth in Veritatis Splendor when he found so many errors in moral reasoning from academic theologians. Given that the technology of artificial wombs does not yet exist and what does exist is a moral imperative to free the ectopic frozen embryos from their absurd state of suspended animation immediately, the only moral choice is to thaw and rehydrate them, and to anticipate and mourn their death. This option is the only one that Catholic bioethicists should recommend as an ethical solution, since it is in fact the only licit moral option. And as I will argue in the next section on artificial womb technology (AWT), thawing the frozen embryos and allowing them to die is 35 36 Pope John Paul II, Veritatis Splendor (1993), §94. John Haas, “Bioethics,” 19. Frozen Embryos, Unwanted Pregnancies, and Artificial Wombs 1129 the only licit moral option that will ever exist for them, since there is an inherent moral problem with complete ectogenesis. On a pastoral note, Catholics in this position should seek to baptize their ectopic frozen children, with a view to their eternal destiny as beloved sons and daughters in Christ. While parents of these children will necessarily mourn the loss of the human good of a life with their children, they can still exercise their own parenthood by offering them the supreme gift of sacramental grace. By baptizing their children, they can fulfill the hopes and aspirations of every parent of faith: to ensure that their children reach heaven, where they may again be reunited with them, for parents of frozen embryos, to lock eyes with their children for the first time. For those embryos that have been completely abandoned by their parents, I advise that after the act of rehydration, either a health care worker or a volunteer should tenderly hold these tiny babies and love them in their final moments on this earth, just as parents would with their own dying child. I further recommend that a specific ministry like Rachel’s Vineyard (or perhaps a subset of this ministry), be created for IVF parents to repent and grieve this profound human loss, and to reclaim their parenthood of these children as a means to their own spiritual healing. The “special word” of Pope John Paul II in Evangelium Vitae to “women who have had an abortion” will ring true for them as well. You will come to understand that nothing is definitively lost and you will also be able to ask forgiveness from your child, who is now living in the Lord. With the friendly and expert help and advice of other people, and as a result of your own painful experience, you can be among the most eloquent defenders of everyone’s right to life.37 Upon receiving true forgiveness, they may also wish to consider sharing their IVF experience with others and so fight for the dignity of life, marriage and family. Option 3—Transferring Them to an Artificial Womb for Gestation I would like to return again to Fr. Pacholzyk’s article to express my profound agreement with him about the very heart of the issue: “I sometimes remind my audiences that [the question about frozen embryos] is not in fact the most pressing question we face. A much more urgent issue is how to stop the relentless manufacturing and freezing of new embryos which is occurring each day, with clockwork-like regularity, in every major 37 Pope John Paul II, Evangelium Vitae (1995), §99. 1130 Irene Alexander city in the United States.”38 The deeper issue is a spiritual one, a modern return of the Tower of Babel. We have a city of men striving to usurp the power belonging to “heaven,” the power over life and death itself, through their own technical power and skill. Leon Kass once observed about technicians involved in artificial reproductive technology, “he who can hold nascent human life in his hands coolly and without awe has deadened something in his soul.”39 How can the human heart be made aware of its folly? The Lord says, in Genesis, about the men of Babel: “Behold, this is only the beginning of what they will do. Now nothing they propose to do will be impossible for them” (Gen 11: 6). Artificial wombs mark the final step in the technological domination of human sexuality. Not only have artificial reproductive technologies (ARTs) substituted the conjugal act in procreation, but the creation of artificial wombs would sever entirely the gestation of the human person from his mother. I am speaking here specifically of complete ectogenesis, an artificial womb that could potentially gestate a human being from its embryonic state until approximately forty weeks gestation. Although there are no artificial wombs available for human beings at this point in human history, nevertheless, with the scientific research aimed deliberately and creating such technology, the question naturally arises: if they were available, could they be a licit way to save the ectopic frozen embryos? I will first consider complete ectogenesis, since this technology would be the final technical option for the situation of frozen embryos who would require total gestational support. After explaining the inherent moral problem with complete ectogenesis, I will provide a moral evaluation of partial ectogenesis, which involves the transfer of a fetus from a pregnant mother to an artificial womb for serious medical reasons pertaining to either the mother or child. I will defend the extremely limited role of partial ectogenesis in medicine and also demonstrate that the act of transferring a healthy fetus to an artificial womb to save him or her from abortion is a gravely evil moral act that all people of good will and especially Christians should seriously oppose. In Donum Vitae the CDF condemned the project of creating artificial wombs: Techniques of fertilization in vitro can open the way to other forms of biological and genetic manipulation of human embryos, such 38 39 Fr. Pacholczyk, “What Should We Do with the Frozen Embryos?” Leon Kass, Life Liberty and Defense of Human Dignity: A Challenge for Bioethics (San Francisco: Encounter, 2002), 10–11. Frozen Embryos, Unwanted Pregnancies, and Artificial Wombs 1131 as attempts or plans for fertilization between human and animal gametes and the gestation of human embryos in the uterus of animals, or the hypothesis or project of constructing artificial uteruses for the human embryo. These procedures are contrary to the human dignity proper to the embryo, and at the same time they are contrary to the right of every person to be conceived and to be born within marriage and from marriage.40 The CDF condemns even the “the hypothesis” as well as the “project” of constructing an artificial womb to gestate the human embryo. The statement here is rather short and could use some better distinction and explanation. For example, the only rationale the CDF provides for its quite strong conclusion is that these technologies are contrary to human dignity, particularly the right of each human being to be “conceived” and birthed in marriage. Scholars in the Catholic tradition have already distinguished various forms of AWT. Kaczor, for example, has distinguished complete ectogenesis, which he condemns as immoral, from partial ectogenesis, which he defends.41 In one sense, advanced incubation for premature infants in neonatal intensive-care units (NICUs) is one type of treatment that replaces normal maternal gestation. Yet even this technology is not exactly an artificial womb, because AWT is primarily directed towards gestation by mimicking the uterine environment itself. Incubation aims to help premature babies cope and thrive outside of the womb. Others have noted that one should distinguish between true artificial womb technology and the “research efforts that are focused on the regeneration of an entire uterus for transplantation into a woman who has lost her uterus to disease or injury.”42 Organ regeneration is not necessarily condemned here and should be distinguished from AWT. Nevertheless, most Catholic scholars agree that the CDF clearly condemns complete ectogenesis in this passage. Yet, some argue that it condemns it only in relation to “techniques of fertilization” as fostering a continuation of the original IVF rupture.43 CDF, DV, I.6 (emphasis mine). Christopher Kaczor, “Artificial Wombs and Embryo Adoption,” in The Ethics of Embryo Adoption and the Catholic Tradition: Moral Arguments, Economic Reality and Social Analysis, ed. Sarah-Vaughan Blackman and Darlene F. Weaver (New York: Springer, 2007), 307–22. See also, Kaczor, “Could Artificial Wombs End the Abortion Debate?” 42 David T. Reiber, “The Morality of Artificial Womb Technology,” National Catholic Bioethics Quarterly 10, no. 3 (2010): 515–27. 43 John Finnis, “Symposium on Dignitatis personae: Understanding Dignitatis 40 41 1132 Irene Alexander Some argue that it condemns both complete and partial.44 David Reiber argues that, at the time the passage was written, the magisterium was less aware that complete ectogenesis “may be the one possible technology that could resolve the tragedy of abandoned human embryos (while avoiding violation of the goods of marriage) [and hence] a more definitive statement of condemnation would be necessary before its future use could be completely ruled out.”45 I appreciate Reiber’s remark. Creating a technology to save a certain vulnerable population is a moral question distinct from the project of creating an artificial uterus to facilitate an ongoing commodification of human procreation. It is a unique moral question, similar to the embryo adoption debate in that a new and distinct moral question arises once grave moral damage has already taken place through IVF. It is to this question that I turn. While it is easy to see the horrific abuses that could result from fallen man having the power to gestate life wholly severed from the body of the woman, I find that no one has sufficiently articulated precisely why complete ectogenesis considered in itself is morally evil. What is the magisterium’s logic here in its root? Is it possible that such a technology could be created only for these frozen embryos so that their lives can be saved? Could it perhaps have a rightful use? For example, the ultrasound machine has many good uses. Prenatal diagnosis, while in itself good, has also been a great catalyst for abortion. Is complete ectogenesis like this kind of technology, good in itself, yet with potential for cataclysmic moral evil? Or is it, as the magisterium suggests “contrary to the dignity of the embryo” and his “right” to be conceived and born within marriage? In the interest of honestly pursuing every possible option for the orphaned embryos, I want to take seriously this option as well. In fact, I will play devil’s advocate on my own arguments at every turn. However, I do believe that the magisterium, guided by the Holy Spirit, is correct in its condemnation not only of artificial uteruses (i.e., complete ectogenesis by technical means) but also of gestating the embryo in the womb of another animal, even if this process could save an embryo’s life. There is a true moral evil committed in this act, not merely a physiological transfer with some desired benefit achieved. Christine Rosen has argued that “there is something about being born of a human being—rather than a cow or an personae on Embryo Adoption. National Catholic Bioethics Quarterly 9, no. 3 (2009): 474–77. 44 Michel Accad, “Heterologous Embryo Transfer: Magisterial Answers and Metaphysical Questions,” Linacre Quarterly 81, no. 1 (2014): 38–46. 45 Reiber, “Morality of Artificial Womb Technology,” 518. Frozen Embryos, Unwanted Pregnancies, and Artificial Wombs 1133 incubator—that fundamentally makes us human.”46 The magisterium intuits that even the use of living and organic animal wombs for human gestation contradicts the design of human nature, and the personal meaning of human sexuality. The argument that I flesh out below attempts to provide a precise explanation as to why these acts are inherently evil. Complete ectogenesis, by either machine or animal gestation, wholly substitutes the female maternal role in gestation of the human embryo. This definitive change or total substitution of the woman is what the magisterium intuits as morally problematic. The reason flows from what the magisterium has already declared about the conjugal act. Just as the rightful use of reproductive technology may not substitute or replace the conjugal act (but rather can aim to heal the pathology causing infertility), so also may one not wholly substitute the woman’s role in receiving the newly conceived life. In Donum Vitae the CDF writes that “the child has the right to be conceived, carried in the womb, brought into the world and brought up within marriage.”47 Yet for the issue of complete ectogenesis, this passage raises more questions than it solves. While one can see the general logic that it is in the best interest of the child not to rupture conception from gestation and upbringing, does not the Church also praise adoption if, after birth, the mother is unable to care for her child? This act causes a rupture between the mother who births him and the mother who raises him. It is certainly not the ideal, but there is nothing morally problematic with this plan B, given the circumstances. At the same time, the Church has never insisted that single mothers must give their children away to a married couple simply because the child has a “right” to be brought up in marriage. When a single mother keeps her child, there is no rupture between the birth mother and the mother who rears him, since they are the same; but then the child is not “brought up in marriage.” If it is true that once prior moral damage has taken place, there is not an absolute “right” to being brought up within marriage, then perhaps there is not an absolute “right” to be carried in the womb.48 Given the prior moral damage of IVF, could there not be an alternative technological replacement that entirely substitutes the mother’s gestational role? Do we not wholeheartedly applaud making artificial limbs for a child who, due to unfortunate circumstances, is missing one? Christine Rosen, “Why Not Artificial Wombs?,” New Atlantis 3 (Fall 2003): 67–76. 47 CDF, DV, II.A.1 (emphasis mine). 48 In my opinion, the language of “rights” in bioethics is much more prone to causing moral confusion than to bringing about moral clarity. 46 1134 Irene Alexander In order to see that it is morally evil to wholly substitute the mother in gestation, it is important to briefly retrace the steps of the magisterium’s logic back to its original condemnation of IVF. The spouses themselves must be the agents of conception through the conjugal act. Through that agency, they become co-creators with God. To pass that agency to someone else, creates a new relationship of technician over artifact, rather than a filial relation, because the technician really creates the child, not the parents. In a real sense, the child belongs to the technician, since the technician really was his co-creator—that is why it is such a grave evil to depart from the personal and spousal agency of sexual intercourse. The transfer of agency matters; it affects the real relationships. If we follow this logic to its natural conclusion we find that the agency of sex culminates not only in conception, but also simultaneously in the impregnation of a woman. These two realities occur together absolutely simultaneously; they flow from the very same agency. Yet, the picture is still incomplete. Not only do conception and impregnation occur together, but a third reality appears as well. At the very moment that there is conception and impregnation, there is simultaneously a new reality of maternal reception. These three, while distinct in notion, are wholly one in the order of being; they are one integrative reality. A new conception is a new impregnation, which also is simultaneously a maternal reception of a new human being. One and the same agency is ordered by nature to this single natural end. To destroy this unity (or tri-unity), even if only partially, or even if for a noble reason, is nevertheless contrary to God’s design and hence morally repugnant. From the very moment that a child comes into being, the child is given to a person. The child, is conceived from persons (the man and woman and God) and entrusted in a unique way to another person, his mother. The movement of agency to finality arrives in one beautiful integrative telos: from the agency of sexual and erotic love arises the tri-unity of conception, impregnation, and maternal reception as one real integrative whole. To see the truth of this tri-unity in a convincing way, it is important to reflect on the personal meaning of it. Conjugal union in its ordination to conception, impregnation, and maternal reception is one grand chorus of voices singing the song of creation, the song of personal gift and personal reception of the gift. Before a couple engages in intercourse, it is the beauty of the woman which first arouses his masculine response. He gives himself to her and she receives him. Her reception is also her gift to him. She envelops him in a garden of beauty and he gives her his seed, the promise that their love may be eternal and immortal, forever united in one flesh. Her body receives a new life, a new pregnancy as the reception of her Frozen Embryos, Unwanted Pregnancies, and Artificial Wombs 1135 spouse’s conjugal gift. She says to him though her body, “in receiving this pregnancy, I receive your gift. It is you who bestow a new and real relation of motherhood upon me.” That is why is it inherently contrary to the unity of marriage for anyone else to impregnate a woman, even outside of the conjugal act (perhaps, especially outside of it!). His body also speaks a language to her: “In giving you this gift, I wish our love to be immortally en-fleshed. Receive me, and by your active reception, it is you who bestow a new and real relation of fatherhood upon me.” Yet, while each bestows the gift of either fatherhood or motherhood on each other, the woman alone receives something that he does not. In one crucial respect, the gift is not reciprocal. While both man and woman really cause each other to be either “father” or “mother” to the child through conjugal relations, nevertheless, it is the mother alone who has a new and unique role in receiving the new life within her according to God’s design. There is a new reality that belongs to her uniquely that he does not receive. The father is not, nor could he ever be “pregnant.” She alone possesses the unique gift of maternal reception of the child. In fact, her body uniquely prepares for this gift every month during the menstrual cycle. His body does not. The very moment of maternal reception of the newly conceived embryo is a real and essential moral reality. She cannot be replaced or set aside without inherently destroying the single integrative whole— conception, impregnation, and maternal reception— that God designed as the single end of the very same agency of sexual intercourse. This tri-unity is the distinctive telos of sex in the natural law. All three realities are caused at once in the very same moment. From the first moment of his or her existence, God entrusts the newly conceived person fundamentally to a person. Indeed, that is why the embryo must always be “carried in the womb” and why his mother can never be wholly substituted; her maternal reception is an essential part of the one whole that is the “procreative significance.” Severing this integrative tri-unity is precisely why complete ectogenesis is “contrary to the dignity of the embryo.” With careful reflection, the reason is clear. When a man impregnates a woman, he does something more than a merely physiological act. In other words, impregnation is not simply the fusion of sperm and egg; it is an act by which a person impregnates a person, thereby bestowing new personal relations that did not otherwise exist before. Each new pregnancy bestows motherhood or fatherhood anew. The very act of impregnation is at the same time the act which by its very nature causes not only the existence of a new embryo, but also a woman’s personal and maternal reception of the embryo within her. From the very moment that the embryo exists, a new language is also spoken from mother to child: “Little one, I receive you.” A person is there 1136 Irene Alexander to receive a person. In fact, given that the embryo is a real human person, he or she is, in fact owed a personal reception. The deepest meaning of the child’s personal dignity is unveiled in this entire exchange: the child comes into being from the communion of man and woman and from the very first moment of his existence, he is in communion with her. In fact, he will bear a mark on his torso for the rest of his life as a sign of that fundamental communion with his mother at the very origin of his being. In sum, the fundamental reason why conception, impregnation, and maternal reception should be seen and treated as one moral reality is that together these three comprise the telos of sex. In the natural order the very same agency causes all three together, in the same exact moment as one integrative whole. Insofar as the Church has affirmed the moral necessity of the agency of the couple in conception as morally necessary, by the very same logic, she must also affirm that both impregnation of the woman and her simultaneous maternal reception are all one and the same telos. Just as embryo adoption is always morally wrong by virtue of the fact that it is an act that usurps the agency of the couple in bringing about impregnation, so also is complete ectogenesis always morally wrong by virtue of the fact that it is an act that usurps the natural maternal reception that is one and the same natural end of sexual intercourse. It separates the “inseparable connection” between the “unitive and procreative significance” that Pope Paul VI affirmed in Humanae Vitae. I anticipate that some ethicists will object to my argument by claiming that the “procreative significance” only concerns conception. While most scholars in Catholic bioethics agree that at least conception is a part of the “procreative significance,” there is greater disagreement about whether pregnancy is a part of the procreative significance. In fact, some are adamant that it is not. Michael Accad provides a brief summary of the scholarly opinions on this particular question. Proponents of HET have found the arguments advancing a procreative meaning for gestation to be conjectural and unconvincing. For them, conception marks the generation of a new human being, as determined by natural reason and attested by the Magisterium. Consequently procreation is ended and the rules prohibiting sundering the unitive from the procreative meanings of marriage no longer apply. Thus Williams rejects Pacholczyk’s position [procreation ends at birth] as implying the existence of “partially procreated children,” which represents an “absurd situation,” and further asserts that no Church document supports the notion of birth as a significant boundary in the work of procreation. Likewise Furton Frozen Embryos, Unwanted Pregnancies, and Artificial Wombs 1137 expressed that Pacholczyk’s proposal implies a somewhat inferior or defective status for the embryo. . . . Along with other proponents of HET such as Grisez, these ethicists view the stage of gestation as a period when the just conceived but fully human person is nurtured and nourished until such time as he or she can survive outside the womb. Furthermore, Williams has argued against the view of procreation as a process, stating that “since being and non being are mutually exclusive, procreation is necessarily and essentially punctual.”49 The main difficulty in all of these positions (those on both sides) is a common failure to see that it is not only conception that is “necessarily and essentially punctual,” but also the very act of impregnation and the act of maternal reception. Whereas both those for and against HET in the passage above view conception as the “punctual” act, and may differ about the moral meaning of the entire gestation period, my position is substantially different. An honest attention to the order of being reveals that there is really one necessary and “essentially punctual” natural end that occurs by the very same agency: it is not the single reality of conception; it is also impregnation and maternal reception. All three are “punctuated” at exactly the same moment. The proponents of HET in this passage see too little of the one robust reality woven into the teleology in nature. The opponents of it actually do see more and rightfully so, yet they extend it chronologically and fail to see the one act of “conception” to be also the very act of impregnation, and simultaneously maternal reception. I believe that my position provides significantly more clarity because it rooted in a more truthful account of the order of being. The “inseparable connection” between the unitive and procreative significances of the conjugal act is rooted in the inclinations of the natural law; this particular “inclination” is nothing other than the agency of sex towards the one integrative natural end of conception, impregnation, and maternal reception. All three are necessary and “punctuated” absolutely simultaneously by the very same agency. There is another important parallel between my argument and prior Church teaching in sexual ethics. In the sexual act, the man must give his seed to the woman in such a way that it is ordered to a procreative finality; climax must occur within her, within the entrance to her womb. If one follows the teleological logic of the natural inclination, the embryo must also be given to her from within her. This reality can only happen licitly 49 Accad, “Heterologous Embryo Transfer,” 43. 1138 Irene Alexander through the agency of sexual intercourse. If this agency is morally significant—and Donum Vitae absolutely demonstrates that it is—then any rupture of this one integrative whole is always inherently evil. We may then come to a definitive conclusion by way of a syllogism: The choice to deliberately separate the single integrative natural end of conception/impregnation/maternal reception is an act that is fundamentally contrary to the order of nature. Complete ectogenesis is an act that always separates the single integrative unity, even if only partially and even if chosen for a “praiseworthy” reason. Therefore, it is always inherently evil. An embryo must be entrusted to and only to a woman; yet once outside the womb having never been in it, there is no morally licit way to re-enter the womb of a woman without that very act being an act of impregnation, a grave violation of the unity of marriage. Nor can the embryo be given to an animal or machine, because that would violate the moral requirement of maternal reception as a key part of the finality of the procreative significance. Here we may rightfully mourn the great tragedy of dissecting human sexuality and procreation into various parts, as if one were merely dissecting a cadaver. Yet the parts are living parts, all wisely and marvelously ordered together. Once theologians see the wisdom of this order, the inherent moral problems are very clear. At the same time, it is also by first recognizing this “tri-unity” of conception, impregnation, and maternal reception that natality itself becomes an essential part of what it means to be human.50 Not only is the newly conceived embryo given to his mother in this bodily way, but once given to her, he is also then essentially from her, born from her flesh and through her flesh. Complete ectogenesis facilitates the utterly strange and inhuman reality of children with no birthdays, for they will never actually be “born.” They will merely be “disconnected” from a gestative apparatus. It is this “from-ness”—being within her womb and from her womb—that is itself the very tie that connects one generation to another. That is why infertility is so serious and so heartbreaking a matter. It is not like an ordinary illness or injury; infertility severs family lineages. Generations come to an end. The man and woman who continue to yearn for their love to be made immortal and everlasting in the flesh of a new child find themselves frustrated and often devastated. The IVF industry sought to provide a solution to their infertility (and to deliberately turn procreation into a lucrative business), but has turned the procreation of human beings into 50 By this statement I am by no means arguing that orphaned embryos are not really human. I have been quite clear about this point throughout this essay. In fact, the whole motive for writing this essay arises from my acute awareness of this fact. Frozen Embryos, Unwanted Pregnancies, and Artificial Wombs 1139 something utterly inhuman. As a final note, I would be remiss if I did not reflect theologically on the meaning of a woman’s spousal and maternal reception so as to illustrate further its procreative significance. The womb is not like any bodily organ; it is in a very real sense a holy of holies. When a virgin bride gives herself to her spouse on her wedding night, the veil (hymen) which covers the entrance to the holy of holies is torn. The blood signifies that she has entered into an irrevocable covenant with her spouse. Yet, wholly unlike anything in his body, her womb is the very place where the transcendent God “overshadows” her by bestowing within her a new immortal soul. The act of creation is anew only within her. God descends upon her, as a temple, in a way that he does not descend upon the man. In fact, one might note the three levels of the “womb” (the entrance, the womb itself, and inner chamber of the fallopian tubes and ovaries) parallel the three levels of the biblical temple. There in the innermost holy of holies, where there is complete darkness and no windows, hidden away from all human eyes, God creates immortal souls. Her body is the temple of God’s unique creative action. God loves this design so deeply that it was his supreme pleasure to manifest his divine mysteries precisely through miraculous pregnancies, beginning with Sarah, wife of Abraham (who conceived well beyond childbearing years giving birth at ninety), to Rebekah the wife of Isaac and Rachel the wife of Jacob, who both struggled with infertility. It was through a supernatural pregnancy that God chose to reveal himself definitively by giving us his son Jesus Christ, “born of a woman.” Christ did not disdain “to be born.” In fact, Jesus Christ was delighted to reveal explicitly the connection that he, as the eternal Word, fashioned between the mystery of the womb and his own Paschal Mystery, between the woman’s “hour” of childbirth and his own “hour” on the Cross. On the eve of his Passion he said to his disciples: “When a woman is in travail she has sorrow, because her hour has come, but when she is delivered of the child, she no longer remembers the anguish, for joy that a child has come into the world. So you have sorrow now, but I will see you again and you will rejoice and no one will take your joy from you” (John 16:21). At first glance the analogy seems simple: she bears new life as the result of her “anguish” and so also does he give new life as the fruit of his own “anguish.” But the details of the body in childbirth reveal more: a woman’s womb really is a sacred temple. Out of all of the moments in John’s Gospel that the sacred author finds most striking, it is when he is at the foot of the Cross with Jesus, seeing him pierced with a lance and the blood and water pouring out of his side, that he stops and tells his readers that “he who saw it has borne 1140 Irene Alexander witness and his testimony is true. And he testifies to the truth” (John 19:35). What has he seen that has prompted this strange response? For a first-century Jew, the stream of blood and water flowing from the side of the Jerusalem temple as they slaughter the Passover lamb and cleanse the altar with water would have been a familiar sight. John the beloved’s eye-witness testimony also echoes the vision of the temple in Ezekiel in which a stream of water flows from the side of the temple. John is amazed at this physical sign, which reveals to him a theological reality, that Jesus is the Incarnation of God, the true temple. We may follow Christ’s own description of the parallel between a woman’s “hour” and his own “hour” (John 19:27). When a woman gives birth—a profound moment of laying down her own life so that new life will be born—she sheds her own blood and water, a physical sign of theological significance. She is a real temple: her womb is the vessel of God’s unique dwelling in the act of creation, as well as the place of profound sacrifice. Sacrifice and divine indwelling are the two purposes of the Judaic temple, and they are the two purposes of Christ’s own body as the true and definitive temple. Yet these two realities are also found in the womb. Thus Pope John Paul II affirms that “there is a certain link between the woman’s motherhood and the Paschal Mystery.” 51 God fashioned the body of the woman in such a way that he deigned to hide the Paschal Mystery within her, within the meaning of her womb. I recall the central thesis of John Paul’s Theology of the Body: “The body, in fact only the body is capable of making visible what is invisible, the spiritual and the divine. It has been created to transfer into the visible reality of the world the mystery hidden from eternity in God, and thus to be a sign of it.”52 Are we surprised, then, that there is always a constant battle over the womb? Is not the scourge of abortion not only a grave moral evil, but an idolatrous desecration of life within the very walls of the “temple”—the “holy ground” where God’s unique action dwelt within her? The womb itself is the battleground for the “enmity” between the serpent and the woman. Remember that the CDF’s initial reaction to complete ectogenesis was total revulsion. It rejected not only the project but even the “hypothesis” of building a technological replica that wholly replaces the temple of the female body, the very sacred space in which an immortal soul comes into being and grows in communion with his mother. To conclude my remarks about the future of frozen embryos, the only ethical option is to thaw the embryos and allow them to die naturally. The 51 52 Pope John Paul II, Mulieris Dignitatem (1988), §19. Pope John Paul II, Man and Woman He Created Them: A Theology of the Body, trans. Michael Waldstein (Boston: Pauline Books and Media, 2006), 203. Frozen Embryos, Unwanted Pregnancies, and Artificial Wombs 1141 reason for this conclusion follows from the facts that I have now made very clear: continuing to keep them in cryopreservation is intrinsically evil, and complete ectogenesis is also intrinsically evil. The only option that is not morally evil at all, but is in fact a laudable act, is to rehydrate and return the embryos to their dynamic human activity, though one knows in advance that they will not long survive. If any good at all could come forth from this incomprehensible and profound tragedy—a loss of millions of human beings—it would be the stark reminder that violating God’s law to begin with through IVF never leads to joy and authentic human flourishing. The Limited Liceity and Prudence of Partial Ectogenesis The definitive moral difference between complete and partial ectogenesis is that the former wholly replaces the body of the woman, which is contrary to the natural law, whereas the latter does not. The total substitution of the woman for a machine disrupts the natural teleology of sex as ordered to the procreative finality, whereas in partial ectogenesis, that teleology remains intact. That is the definitive moral difference. The first principle for evaluating AWT must always be that the transfer to the artificial womb must take place after a natural pregnancy in a woman is already established. This first principle does not imply, however, that it is the only principle. To establish its liceity, not only must the act itself be good (i.e., aimed at a morally licit therapeutic intervention), and the intention of the agent noble, but there must be also be legitimate and proportionate reasons for why such a surgical transfer should take place. These reasons, I argue, are extremely limited in scope. Assuming that partial ectogenesis could be safely achieved, the only times that such a transfer could be morally licit are when the mother or the baby have a very serious medical pathology which puts one or both of their lives in significant jeopardy. The reason is that, biologically, it is always better for the unborn baby to gestate within his mother’s womb for the entirety of the gestation period. Even beyond biological development, scientists have barely scratched the surface of the human-psychological development that occurs in this unique communion between mother and child. The decision to deprive a child of that natural development could only be a secondary effect of treating a primary pathology, and therefore justifiable only when all of the criteria of the principle of double effect are achieved. Only the presence of a very serious medical pathology in either the mother or the child could necessitate the decision to remove the child from the womb and maintain his or her life in an artificial womb, as physicians already do now with incubators in NICUs after emergency 1142 Irene Alexander C-sections. Partial ectogenesis may even have some medical advantages over more traditional incubation which subjects the premature newborn to invasive and painful procedures to maintain his or her vital functions. Here is an example of a licit transfer. The famous Phoenix case in which a pregnant mother experienced severe pulmonary hypertension approaching 100 percent risk of mortality would be a good example of a licit use of partial ectogenesis, if that technology had been available. The “removal” of the baby from her womb would not be abortive at all, and it could be justified by the principle of double effect. The act itself would be good, since the treatment itself is aimed at treating a real pathology. The intended effect to save the mother’s life as well as the child’s is good, and depriving the child of the natural maternal womb is the secondary effect of the primary treatment. Indeed, in this case, the womb begins to become hypoxic, and no longer stable for the unborn child. The final principle is that such an act must be proportionate to the good achieved, and in this case it is—namely, the life of the mother saved as well as the child’s. Another licit example of the use of partial ectogenesis is when some pathology present in the baby or in the womb leads the woman to begin miscarrying, even when the mother is otherwise healthy. If it is possible to save the baby by surgically transferring him or her to an artificial womb before the child dies, this act of transfer would also satisfy all of the conditions of the principle of double effect. The act of transfer is good because the current medical situation poses a threat to the child’s life. It is properly therapeutic. The good effect, to save the baby, is intended, and the bad effect of losing the ideal conditions for gestation is unintended. Finally— and this is critical—to choose this very serious surgical transfer must be proportionate to the good achieved, namely, it saves the child’s life. In this way, partial ectogenesis may be able to save the lives of very young babies who would otherwise be miscarried or stillborn. The act of transfer in this case can be licit. There still remains the judgment of whether or not this type of life-saving care is ordinary or extraordinary. As the medical technology develops, partial ectogenesis might move from being an extraordinary form of care that is not obligatory, to a more ordinary one in these types of high-risk medical cases. This very fact may introduce other moral dilemmas such as whether or not one is obligated to save a very young baby, such as at six or seven weeks. Must one save a life through this transfer, with all of the accompanying long-term special needs for the child, or can one choose to allow the miscarriage to take place? Choosing the transfer can be licit, but is refusing it negligent? A virtue-centered approach to this type of dilemma will necessarily depend upon more information about the actual Frozen Embryos, Unwanted Pregnancies, and Artificial Wombs 1143 state of medicine at the time the case takes place (its risks, burdens, and prognosis) in order to determine whether certain interventions are ordinary or extraordinary. There are no other types of cases in which the surgically planned transfer of an unborn baby to an artificial womb can be morally licit. The reason for the transfer must be due to a very serious pathology either on the part of the woman (e.g., aggressive uterine cancer, severe pulmonary hypertension, or ectopic pregnancy) or on the part of the child (e.g., a genetic abnormality), or due to a serious pathology in the womb that renders it no longer hospitable and therefore no longer able to achieve its function. It must be truly therapeutic. Only when nature is “out of order” can medicine step in to attempt to restore the order as best as it is able. Only these types of cases can satisfy the moral requirements of the principal of double effect. In any other type of case, the moral object changes, and that type of transfer to an artificial womb no longer remains licit. For example, could a mother licitly choose to have her baby removed and gestated artificially if she were merely tired of the trials and discomfort of pregnancy? No. The reason is that the physical act of transfer is morally different because it is not a therapeutic treatment of a serious pathology. This situation is analogous to the moral distinction between direct and indirect sterilization, as Pope Paul VI explains it in Humanae Vitae: “The Church does not consider at all illicit the use of those therapeutic means necessary to cure bodily diseases, even if a foreseeable impediment to procreation should result there from—provided such impediment is not directly intended for any motive whatsoever” (§15). The medical intervention is “not . . . at all illicit” when the causality of the treatment is primarily directed to a real pathology and only causes another undesirable effect secondarily. For an uncomfortable but otherwise healthy pregnant mother, there is no need of therapy because there is no serious pathology. The decision to remove her child would be an act that is gravely disordered in itself because it is not primarily aimed at treating a pathology; it is primarily aimed at removing the child for reasons of convenience. Partial Ectogenesis in Lieu of Abortion For the same reason, then, it is always morally illicit for a woman undergoing a normal healthy pregnancy to choose to remove the child from her womb and have the child gestated artificially. I repeat, it is a grave moral injustice for a healthy pregnant woman to choose a surgical removal of her child when it is not medically warranted, because a pregnant mother has a moral obligation to the good of her child. This argument remains valid even if, as an alternative, a woman might be tempted to choose abortion. 1144 Irene Alexander Moral theologians cannot merely look at the consequences of actions— one procedure keeps the child alive, and the other does not—but must give careful attention to the type of moral act that is deliberately chosen by the acting persons. For this reason I strongly disagree with Kaczor’s insistence that partial ectogenesis in lieu of abortion can be morally licit. He argues that, if it is licit to surgically transfer an unborn child to an artificial womb for an involuntary reason (i.e., a medical pathology), then why not also for voluntary reasons (the decision to abort)? He argues: Does the voluntary or involuntary nature of the danger mark a morally decisive difference between the two cases? Whether the danger is voluntary or nonvoluntary caused makes no difference from the perspective of the preborn who are threatened with death. Death is just as final from a voluntary cause as from a nonvoluntary cause.53 It is true that death can be just as final from a voluntary cause as from a nonvoluntary cause. But is looking only at the consequences the right way to make a moral analysis? Pope John Paul II argues that it is not.54 According to Kaczor’s logic here, what difference would it make if an elderly patient dies from emphysema or from euthanasia? “Death is just as final from a voluntary cause as from a nonvoluntary cause.” The Catholic tradition has always condemned this form of moral reasoning as erroneous. In fact, I highly doubt that Kaczor would agree that consequentialism is a valid mode of moral argumentation, although when the stakes are high, he resorts to a consequentialist argument here. If Catholics or other persons of good will support the planned surgical transfer of partial ectogenesis in lieu of abortion, they would in fact be supporting a gravely evil act—one that can in no way be justified by the foundational principles of Catholic moral theology. But even if this were not enough (and it is), there are two further reasons why this act should be considered grossly irresponsible. (1) It exposes the child to medically compromised conditions for gestation without moral justification, which is a truly selfish act. And as a result, (2) it continues to perpetuate spiritual harm in his or her parents. Rather than giving due reverence for the design of God for human sexuality and procreation by accepting with courage and responsibility the need to gestate the child within her body, a woman 53 54 Kaczor, “Could Artificial Wombs End the Abortion Debate?,” 293. Pope John Paul II, Veritatis Splendor, §§74–80. Frozen Embryos, Unwanted Pregnancies, and Artificial Wombs 1145 in such a position is encouraged to continue to disrespect the design of God. Moral theologians cannot support this practice, but must lead the way in providing moral clarity and encouraging the practice of the virtues. The way to heal our culture from the scourge of abortion is not to find another way “out” of accepting responsibility for irresponsible sexual activity. Real love implies responsibility. Even the mere suggestion that her child could be surgically removed from her is spiritually harmful for the mother, because the underlying vice is a lack of sexual responsibility (except in cases of sexual assault). And the same is true for the father of the child. Promoting the use of artificial wombs for the purpose of abdicating responsibility continues to facilitate irresponsibility. It fosters the very same vice that began the whole destructive cycle to begin with. Repentance and spiritual healing will only come from showing true reverence to the design of God for human sexuality and procreation. N&V Nova et Vetera, English Edition, Vol. 19, No. 4 (2021): 1147–1179 1147 A Christian Response to Laws That Require Immoral Acts John Makdisi Belmont Abbey College Belmont, NC Introduction In the parable of the rich young man (Matt 19:16–23),1 the young man asks Jesus what good he must do to gain eternal life, and Christ tells him to keep the commandments.2 The young man is not satisfied and tells Jesus that he has observed them, but still wants to know what he lacks. Jesus answers, “If you wish to be perfect, go, sell what you have and give to [the] poor, and you will have treasure in heaven. Then come, follow me” (Matt 19:20–21). When this passage is read in light Christ’s Sermon on the Mount (Matt 5–7),3 it becomes clear that Christ calls each one of us to God References to the Bible are to the New American Bible, rev. ed. “‘You shall not kill; you shall not commit adultery; you shall not steal; you shall not bear false witness; honor your father and your mother;’ and ‘you shall love your neighbor as yourself ’” (Matt 19: 16–19). 3 For a sample of the numerous works on the Sermon on the Mount, see: Dale C. Allison Jr., The Sermon on the Mount: Inspiring the Moral Imagination (New York: Crossroad, 1999); St. Augustine, The Lord’s Sermon on the Mount, trans. John J. Jepson (Westminster, MD: Newman Press, 1948); St. John Chrysostom, The Preaching of Chrysostom: Homilies on the Sermon on the Mount, trans. Jaroslav Pelikan (Philadelphia: Fortress, 1967); Jeffrey P. Greenman, Timothy Larsen, and Stephen R. Spencer, eds., The Sermon on the Mount through the Centuries: From the Early Church to John Paul II (Grand Rapids, MI: Brazos, 2007); Robert A. Guelich, The Sermon on the Mount: A Foundation for Understanding (Waco, TX: Word, 1982); Servais Pinckaers, The Pursuit of Happiness—God’s Way: Living the Beatitudes, trans. Mary T. Noble (Staten Island, NY: Society of St. Paul, 1998); Pinckaers, The Sources of Christian Ethics, trans. Mary T. Noble (Washington DC: Catholic University of America Press, 1995); Charles H. Talbert, Reading the Sermon on the Mount: 1 2 1148 John Makdisi by a conversion of heart through the grace of the Holy Spirit.4 Those who listen attentively to Christ’s word open themselves to becoming the blessed of the beatitudes, beginning with those blessed as the poor in spirit and proceeding with those who mourn, who are meek, who hunger and thirst for righteousness, who are merciful, who are clean of heart, who are peacemakers, and finishing with those who are persecuted for the sake of righteousness and for Christ.5 It is not easy to open our hearts to God when we enjoy worldly wealth, power and pleasures. The rich young man who observed the commandments went away sad after hearing Christ’s words, “for he had many possessions” (Matt 19:22). Yet, Christ calls each of us to “be perfect, just as your heavenly Father is perfect” (Matt 5:48). The challenge is particularly acute when laws in our nation require us to act immorally. Not only must we refuse to do the law’s bidding, but, as Christians, we are called to go beyond the “shalt not” of the commandments and strive for the “shall do” of the beatitudes. We face a twofold sacrifice—the pain inflicted on us by a law that we cannot obey in good conscience6 and the pain suffered by us Character Formation and Decision-making in Matthew 5–7 (Grand Rapids: Baker Academic, 2004); and the recent book of my mentor and teacher who introduced me to serious study of the Sermon, William C. Mattison III, The Sermon on the Mount and Moral Theology: A Virtue Perspective (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2017). 4 In his encyclical Veritatis Splendor (1993), §16, Pope Saint John Paul II begins with the dialogue between Jesus and the rich young man and links Christ’s call to “come, follow me” with the beatitudes (§16). The beatitudes are the next step beyond observing the commandments—a step that rises to the practice of self-giving love as an interior urge made possible by grace (§§16–17). It involves a radical conversion of heart, a “holding fast to the very person of Jesus, partaking of his life and his destiny, sharing in his free and loving obedience to the will of the Father” (§19). Following Christ in this manner is “the effect of grace, of the active presence of the Holy Spirit in us” (§21). See Dietrich Bonhoeffer, The Cost of Discipleship, trans. R. H. Fuller (New York: Simon & Schuster, 1959), 70–76, for a discussion of the young man’s struggle in the face of Christ’s call to follow him. 5 The beatitudes appear in Matt 5:3–12: “Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven. Blessed are they who mourn, for they will be comforted. Blessed are the meek, for they will inherit the land. Blessed are they who hunger and thirst for righteousness, for they will be satisfied. Blessed are the merciful, for they will be shown mercy. Blessed are the clean of heart, for they will see God. Blessed are the peacemakers, for they will be called children of God. Blessed are they who are persecuted for the sake of righteousness, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.” 6 Conscience is not an application of general moral norms to an individual situation merely as an assessment used to inform an autonomous personal decision on how to act. Pope Saint John Paul II rejected this definition when he quoted the Second A Christian Response to Laws that Require Immoral Acts 1149 in our efforts to bring love where there is hate.7 Christ calls us to this task when he says that if someone strikes us on the cheek we should turn the other one to him as well (Matt 5:39).8 We should be willing to suffer not only the blow of an immoral law but also the sacrifice of self to make the situation right. This article examines five cases which involve laws in our nation that presently require immoral action and then concludes with a sixth case in which the U.S. Supreme Court recently invalidated the application of such a law to a particular contract but left open a way still to use the law to impose immoral action. In each of the six cases, the article explains the evil of the law as a transgression of one of the commandments, which, if one is to remain moral, requires civil disobedience. It then explains how the person who follows the commandment and suffers the negative fallout from the consequences of civil disobedience nevertheless is called by Christ to go beyond and be perfect by following the beatitudes. Although more than one beatitude may be relevant in each case, this article examines only one, and a different one at that, for each case. The purpose of the article is to illustrate by these six examples how the beatitudes operate on a practical basis in the concrete circumstances of everyday life to satisfy Christ’s call to perfection.9 Vatican Council in Veritatis Splendor to describe the true meaning of conscience: “In the depths of his conscience man detects a law which he does not impose upon himself, but which holds him to obedience” (§§54–55). Conscience has binding force as the application to particular cases of the law God has written naturally on one’s heart (§58–59). It is not infallible, and for this reason, in order to have a good conscience, a person must seek the truth—the objective truth received from God’s word (§§62–63). This truth is sought in the Divine Law (e.g., the Ten Commandments and the beatitudes), which cannot err. See Thomas Aquinas, Summa theologiae [ST] I–II, q. 91, a.4, resp. It is also sought in the teachings of the Catholic Church (Veritatis Splendor §64). Still, even if one’s conscience is in error, one is bound to follow it; otherwise, one would be doing something one considers evil (ST I–II, q. 19, a.5, resp.). 7 As in the prayer attributed to St. Francis of Assisi, one prays to be an instrument of the Lord’s peace and to live one’s aspiration that “where there is hate, may I bring love,” no matter the cost. 8 See John McKenzie, “The Gospel according to Matthew,” in The New Testament and Topical Articles, vol. 2 of The Jerome Biblical Commentary, ed. Raymond Brown, Joseph Fitzmeyer, and Roland Murphy (Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice-Hall, 1968), 72, which states that “the customary principle of self-defense [an eye for an eye] is rejected by this saying of Jesus; and the customary principle is not replaced by another principle of self-defense.” 9 Servais Pinckaers, in Sources of Christian Ethics, 134–67, examines several different interpretations of the beatitudes. He raises the problem that some see the 1150 John Makdisi Before starting in, it is important to set the context of humility within which Christ calls us to live a Christian life. The first beatitude lays a foundation for all the others in this respect, as we can see when Christ calls the rich young man to give up his possessions and come follow him. Blessed are the poor in spirit. Before we can hope to follow Christ we must shed our undue attachment to possessions, power, and pleasures, which give rise to the pride of Adam.10 We can begin this process by practicing “a certain measured deprivation” of these things in order to free our attention and devotion to God.11 However, there are also times in our lives when God calls us to experience a deeper poverty. This deeper poverty, which can exist in such states as illness, loneliness, old age, a bleak future, and guilt from sin,12 “keeps the poor man in obscurity, an object of misunderstanding, lack of consideration, scorn and injustice on the part of the powerful and well-off, . . . [and] causes profound psychological wounds that mark a man for life, because it attacks his self-esteem and drains his strength.”13 Like Job’s poverty, it “wounds our will and penetrates to our depths to accomplish its work there.”14 In such poverty, the poor person who is open to God feels “a strong sense of his need for God’s help . . . [which beatitudes as preaching impossible behavior but rejects this view as one based on a morality of obligation. He turns rather to St. Augustine, who finds the Sermon on the Mount to be a perfect charter for practical Christian life. Rather than a morality of obligation, St. Augustine presents this charter as a morality of happiness based on an attraction to truth and goodness, accomplished through the grace and gifts of the Holy Spirit, and aided as a way of life by the virtues. Mattison develops this interpretation of the beatitudes more fully in The Sermon on the Mount and Moral Theology, seeing an intrinsic relationship (a continuity of activity) between the qualifying conditions and the rewards of the beatitudes that explains them “as both ethical exhortations that guide action in this life preceding full entrance into the kingdom as well as descriptions of the eschatological deliverance offered by God and only fully known in the end times” (40). It is this view taken in the present article that permits a discussion of how the beatitudes operate on a practical basis in the concrete circumstances of everyday life. 10 Augustine states that “the poor in spirit are rightly understood here as the humble and those who fear God, that is, those who do not have an inflated spirit,” as opposed to “the haughty [who] seek and love the kingdom of the earth” (The Lord’s Sermon, 13–14). Talbert gives examples in the Old Testament of the poor in spirit who live with the right disposition of humility in contrast to those with haughty hearts (Reading the Sermon, 50). 11 Pinckaers, Pursuit of Happiness, 51. 12 Pinckaers, Pursuit of Happiness, 44–46. 13 Pinckaers, Pursuit of Happiness, 42. 14 Pinckaers, Pursuit of Happiness, 51. A Christian Response to Laws that Require Immoral Acts 1151 causes him to] be humble and trusting before Him.”15 He draws nearer to God, becoming like a child16 who truly listens to God.17 It is through true poverty—physical, mental, and spiritual—that God shows us the way to the kingdom of heaven. The other beatitudes taught by Christ on the mount build on this first beatitude by providing other specific ways in which we can draw ever closer to God through the grace of the Holy Spirit.18 Law Preventing Health Care Facilities from Prohibiting Euthanasia Thou Shalt Not Kill A law that requires an organization to act in a certain way is a law that requires the individuals making choices for that organization to act in that way. One cannot avoid moral responsibility for the choices one makes by hiding behind a corporate shield. One of the moral responsibilities of individuals making choices for a health care facility is to safeguard the lives of its patients from assisted suicide.19 So when a law prohibits the health facility from preventing one of its physicians from writing a prescription to end the life of her patient, it prohibits the individuals making choices for the facility from doing their moral duty. They have a choice between following the law and violating their moral duty on the one hand or following their Pinckaers, Pursuit of Happiness, 40–41. See Matt 18:3, where Christ states that “unless you turn and become like children, you will not enter the kingdom of heaven.” 17 To listen to is to obey. “Obey” comes from the Latin ob-audire, meaning to listen to. 18 The type of action envisaged by the eighth beatitude on persecution is not initiated by our own will with the help of the Holy Spirit until something happens to us, namely, that we are persecuted. Christ does not call us to seek persecution, but when we are persecuted for the sake of righteousness and because of Christ, our embracing that persecution as a way to follow Christ rests at the summit of action that Christ calls perfect and completes the path from humility through the other beatitudes. Christ said “No one has greater love than this, to lay down one’s life for one’s friends” ( John 15:13). 19 United States Conference of Catholic Bishops (USCCB), Ethical and Religious Directives for Catholic Health Care Services, 6th ed. (Washington, DC: USCCB, 2018), §60, states: “Catholic health care institutions may never condone or participate in euthanasia or assisted suicide in any way. Dying patients who request euthanasia should receive loving care, psychological and spiritual support, and appropriate remedies for pain and other symptoms so that they can live with dignity until the time of natural death.” 15 16 1152 John Makdisi moral duty and violating the law on the other. One health facility20 in Colorado faced this choice and chose the latter. In 2019 Cornelius Mahoney, a terminally ill patient, was dying from a painful form of cancer that had spread throughout his body. He requested a prescription from his doctor, Barbara Morris, to end his suffering by ending his life. Dr. Morris, who was employed by Centura Health,21 was willing to support his choice by providing the prescription. One Colorado law, the End-of-Life Options Act, gives a dying patient a right to request such a prescription, called a medical aid-in-dying medication, 22 and gives his physician the right to write the prescription for home use.23 Another Colorado law states that health care facilities such as Centura may not “limit or otherwise exercise control over the physician's independent professional judgment concerning the practice of medicine or diagnosis or treatment.”24 So the law prohibited Centura Health from interfering with the physician’s decision to provide the prescription as allowed by law. When Centura Health was apprised of the situation it violated this law by prohibiting Dr. Morris from prescribing the medication for Mahoney to end his life at home. On August 21, 2019, Mahoney and Dr. Morris filed a complaint for declaratory relief in the District Court of Arapahoe County, Colorado.25 They sought relief from Centura Health’s violation of the law that prohibited the health facility from interfering with the physician’s judgment in accord with the Colorado End-of-Life Options Act. Following the filing of this complaint, Dr. Morris was fired and Mahoney eventually received the prescription he requested from another doctor and ended his life at home on November 5, 2019.26 However, Dr. Morris did not drop the claim that the law requires the health facility to permit its physicians to write prescriptions to end the lives of their terminally ill patients at home. In this article, when a corporation or business is named as an entity facing a moral choice, one should understand that the reference is to the individuals making choices for that entity. 21 Centura Health is a subsidiary of Catholic Health Initiatives, which is a national Catholic health-care system. 22 Colorado End-of-Life Options Act of 2016, Colorado Revised Statute no. 25-48103. 23 Colorado End-of-Life Options Act, C.R.S. no. 25-48-106. 24 Colorado End-of-Life Options Act, C.R.S. no. 25-3-103.7(3). 25 Complaint for Declaratory Relief, Mahoney v. Centura Health Corp., 2019 WL 6456775 (Colo.Dist.Ct. August, 21, 2019) (No. 2019CV031980). 26 JoNel Aleccia, “Terminally Ill, He Wanted Aid-In-Dying; His Catholic Hospital Said No,” KHN, January 29, 2020, khn.org/news/when-aid-in-dying-is-legal-butthe-medicine-is-out-of-reach/r. 20 A Christian Response to Laws that Require Immoral Acts 1153 On October 7, 2019, Dr. Morris amended her complaint against Centura Health and claimed that Centura Health retaliated by terminating her for her good faith compliance with the law and her use of independent medical judgment.27 This suit is still wending its way through various pleadings.28 The Colorado law governing this case requires an immoral act by the individuals running the health care facility by requiring them to participate in the immoral act of its physician. The physician acts immorally by writing a prescription to end the life of her patient, which “by intention, causes death in order to eliminate suffering [and] constitutes a murder gravely contrary to the dignity of the human person and to the respect due to the living God, his Creator.”29 It violates the fifth commandment and “must always be forbidden and excluded.”30 Pope Francis in a recent address confirmed that “we can and must reject the temptation—also induced by legislative changes—to use medicine to support a possible willingness to die of the patient, providing assistance to suicide or directly causing death by euthanasia.”31 The health care facility acts immorally if it does not act to prevent the physician’s immoral act in this case. Germain Grisez, writing extensively on the question of cooperation with the immoral acts of others, states that Catholic hospitals having a managing arrangement with providers of evil must “entirely exclude from it the evils other parties provide.”32 First Amended Complaint and Jury Demand, Morris v. Centura Health Corp., 2019 WL 10890356 (Colo.Dist.Ct. October 7, 2019) (no. 2019CV31980), ECF nos. 171, 182. See Associated Press, “Colorado doctor challenges firing over assisted suicide,” Washington Times, October 8, 2019, washingtontimes.com/ news/2019/oct/8/colorado-doctor-challenges-firing-over-assisted-su/. 28 The latest pleading at the time of this writing is Defendants’ Motion for Certification of Interlocutory Appeal . . . and Motion for Temporary Stay, Morris v. Centura Health Corp., 2020 WL 6142008 (Colo.Dist.Ct. October 14, 2020) (no. 2019CV31980). It is possible that if the case goes to trial the court may find the law invalid, but until it does so the law stands. 29 Catechism of the Catholic Church [CCC], §2277. 30 CCC, §2277. 31 Pope Francis, “Address to the National Federation of the Orders of Doctors and Dental Surgeons,” September 20, 2019. See also Pope Saint John Paul II, Evangelium Vitae (1995), §65: “. . . confirm[ing] that euthanasia is a grave violation of the law of God, since it is the deliberate and morally unacceptable killing of a human person.” 32 Germain Grisez, Difficult Moral Questions, vol. 3 of The Way of the Lord Jesus (Quincy, IL: Franciscan, 1997), 396. For a general discussion of the principle of cooperation in the case of euthanasia, see Daniel P. Sulmasy, “Assisted Suicide, Euthanasia, and the Principle of Cooperation,” in Walk as Children of the Light: The Challenge of Cooperation in a Pluralistic Society, ed. Edward Furton and Louise 27 1154 John Makdisi Otherwise, the board members and administrators responsible for the hospitals’ administration “at least materially cooperate in [the actions of these parties] in a way that hardly can be justified.”33 Furthermore, even if the provider herself is acting with a sincere conscience, “Catholic hospital administrators are responsible for their own acts.”34 The American bishops likewise have stated that “Catholic health care organizations are not permitted to engage in immediate material cooperation in actions that are intrinsically immoral, such as . . . assisted suicide.”35 Not only is there an immoral participation by the health care facility in the evil act of the physician, but this participation can give scandal and undermine its witness to the faith. Centura Health had a moral obligation to prohibit its physicians from engaging in the euthanasia promoted by Dr. Morris, even when by doing so it broke the law and may yet have to pay damages if Dr. Morris wins her suit. Blessed Are They Who Mourn While the fifth commandment mandates the refusal to obey a civil law that requires participation in direct euthanasia, Christ fulfills the moral law of this commandment by calling us to do more. He calls us to be perfect by living the beatitudes. In this case, a number of beatitudes are relevant, but one is particularly helpful in heeding Christ’s call: Blessed are they who mourn. In this beatitude Christ calls a physician to encounter her patient in full awareness of his suffering and to mourn with that patient in a way that celebrates his life. Suffering “drains our energy and leaves us helpless when it strikes.”36 In doing so, it awakens us from a superficial knowledge of our religion, “compels us to take the Lord seriously and to yield to Him, entering into the mystery of His Incarnation, Passion, and Resurrection.”37 It compels us to listen to (ob audire) God, thus following Christ, who “learned obedience from what he suffered” (Heb 5:8). In our experience of suffering, Christ “invites us to unite our pain to His” through faith in his Incarnation and “to endure suffering and to draw from it, and from Mitchell (Boston: National Catholic Bioethics Center, 2003), 235–50. More generally, Andrew M. Cummings explores the complex notion of cooperation with evil as it developed through the last few centuries, in The Servant and the Ladder: Cooperation with Evil in the Twenty-First Century (Herefordshire: Gracewing, 2014). 33 Grisez, Difficult Moral Questions, 399. 34 Grisez, Difficult Moral Questions, 400. 35 USCCB, Ethical and Religious Directives, §70. 36 Pinckaers, Pursuit of Happiness, 80. 37 Pinckaers, Pursuit of Happiness, 84. A Christian Response to Laws that Require Immoral Acts 1155 mourning itself, a work of life” through faith in his Resurrection.38 Suffering itself does not make us happy, but it is the pathway to eternal happiness “because Christ chose it as an effective means of coming close to men and because He overcame it in His Body.”39 Suffering thus becomes “at the heart of our life, the crucible in which the gold of a new love is formed.”40 It provides occasion for the patient to mourn in his own suffering and for the physician to mourn by sharing in that suffering as a matter of love. This means wanting to help the patient to bear the sorrow willingly for the sake of, and in imitation of, Christ, respecting the fact that the patient’s life is a gift from God who made the patient in his image. Of course, none of this is possible without our first being moved by the grace of the Holy Spirit. The administrators of the health facility can live this beatitude by encouraging its physicians to mourn with their patients and by hiring physicians who have experienced, or are willing to experience, this type of involvement with their patients. It might consider sending those who are not yet experienced to a place that specializes in compassionate care for the dying. During the first year of his novitiate as a Jesuit, Fr. James Martin spent some time at a hospice run by Mother Teresa’s sisters in Jamaica. They cared for the poor, the sick and the dying in the slums of Kingston. Fr. Martin remarks that “despite their punishing schedule the sisters always seemed full of joy.”41 When asked how they could be so cheerful, they quoted Mother Teresa, now Saint Teresa of Calcutta: “We care for Christ in his distressing disguise.”42 Their cheerfulness was not only truly genuine, but infectious, helping Fr. Martin to deepen his understanding that the poor are not merely a category, but individuals—not pitiable, but dear brothers and sisters.43 To understand the poor, Mother Teresa insisted that her sisters experience poverty themselves as Jesus experienced it “in order to be true carriers of God’s love.”44 She helped people discover God’s Pinckaers, Pursuit of Happiness, 84–86. See also 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: Doubleday, 2007), 87, on the second beatitude: “Those who do not harden their hearts to the pain and need of others, who do not give evil entry to their souls, but suffer under its power and so acknowledge the truth of God—they are the ones who open the windows of the world to let the light in.” 39 Pinckaers, Pursuit of Happiness, 86. 40 Pinckaers, Pursuit of Happiness, 87. 41 James Martin, My Life with the Saints (Chicago: Loyola, 2006), 163. 42 Martin, My Life with the Saints, 163. 43 Martin, My Life with the Saints, 176–77. 44 Brian Kolodiejchuk, ed., Mother Teresa, Come Be My Light: The Private Writings of the “Saint of Calcutta” (New York: Doubleday, 2007), 233–34, quoting Mother 38 1156 John Makdisi presence in the midst of their suffering, defining suffering as “but a kiss of Jesus, a sign that you have come so close to Jesus on the Cross that He can kiss you.”45 As a training ground for learning how to put the true meaning of mourning into practice by embracing love through suffering, such a place as Mother Teresa’s hospices would be ideal. Law Requiring Businesses to Support Same-Sex Marriages Thou Shalt Not Commit Adultery In Masterpiece Cakeshop v. Colorado Civil Rights Commission,46 that commission claimed that the owner of the cakeshop had discriminated on the basis of sexual orientation in violation of the Colorado Anti-Discrimination Act when he refused to provide a custom-made cake to celebrate a gay couple’s wedding. The owner refused on the basis that to participate in the celebration of this wedding would involve him in an act that his religion proscribed since marriage is an act only between a man and a woman. He explained that “to create a wedding cake for an event that celebrates something that directly goes against the teachings of the Bible, would have been a personal endorsement and participation in the ceremony and relationship that they were entering into.”47 The U.S. Supreme Court found that the hostile manner in which the commission applied the law violated the Free Exercise Clause, but they never reached the issue whether the owner could refuse to bake the cake if the commission had not been hostile. Nevertheless, the court’s dicta gave some indication of the way the court might rule in the future and paved the way for other courts to find a constitutional exercise of state power that requires owners of such businesses as Masterpiece Cakeshop to bake the cake. The court stated that “the Court’s precedents make clear that the baker, in his capacity as the owner of a business serving the public, might have his right to the free exercise of religion limited by generally applicable laws.”48 It explained that while “religious and philosophical objections are protected, it is a general rule that such Teresa, “Charity: Soul of Mission,” January 23, 1991. Kolodiejchuk, Mother Teresa, 281–82, quoting Mother Teresa to a Missionaries of Charity sister, April 8, 1977. 46 Masterpiece Cakeshop v. Colorado Civil Rights Commission, 138 S. Ct. 1719 (2018). 47 Masterpiece Cakeshop, 138 S. Ct. at 1724. The owner had told the couple, “I’ll make your birthday cakes, shower cakes, sell you cookies and brownies, I just don’t make cakes for same sex weddings” (at 1724). 48 Masterpiece Cakeshop, 138 S. Ct. at 1723–24. 45 A Christian Response to Laws that Require Immoral Acts 1157 objections do not allow business owners and other actors in the economy and in society to deny protected persons equal access to goods and services under a neutral and generally applicable public accommodations law.”49 One state supreme court did follow this direction. The Supreme Court of Washington in Washington v. Arlene’s Flowers, Inc.,50 concluded that an exercise of state power requiring a business to support a same-sex marriage was constitutional. It determined that a florist violated the Washington Law Against Discrimination (WLAD) when it discriminated in public accommodations on the basis of sexual orientation by refusing to sell a custom floral arrangement for a gay couple’s wedding.51 The florist stated that her refusal was based on her conviction that “biblically marriage is between a man and a woman.”52 The court noted that “she believes that participating, or allowing any employee of her store to participate, in a same-sex wedding by providing custom floral arrangements and related customer service is tantamount to endorsing marriage equality for samesex couples.”53 Nevertheless, the court concluded that, even “assuming that it substantially burdens [the florist’s] religious free exercise, the WLAD does not violate her right to religious free exercise under either the First Amendment [of the United States Constitution] or article I, section 11 [of the Washington Constitution] because it is a neutral, generally applicable law that serves our state government’s compelling interest in eradicating discrimination in public accommodations.”54 Therefore, the florist was subject to damages as well as to an injunction that required her to offer gay couples on a nondiscriminatory basis the services she customarily provided to others.55 Masterpiece Cakeshop, 138 S. Ct. at 1727. The court expressed its fear that if the protection of clergy against having to perform a same-sex wedding “were not confined, then a long list of persons who provide goods and services for marriages and weddings might refuse to do so for gay persons, thus resulting in a community-wide stigma inconsistent with the history and dynamics of civil rights laws that ensure equal access to goods, services, and public accommodations” (at 1727). 50 Washington v. Arlene’s Flowers, Inc., 441 P.3d 1203 (Wash. 2019), petition for cert. filed, September 12, 2019 (no. 19-333), 51 Arlene’s Flowers, 441 P.3d at 1222. 52 Arlene’s Flowers, 441 P.3d at 1212. The florist did serve gay and lesbian customers in the past for other, non-wedding-related flower orders, and she would have been happy to sell bulk flowers and “raw materials” to the same-sex couple, but she believed that to create floral arrangements would be to use her “imagination and artistic skill to intimately participate in a same-sex wedding ceremony” (at 1212). 53 Arlene’s Flowers, 441 P.3d at 1212. 54 Arlene’s Flowers, 441 P.3d 1237. 55 Arlene’s Flowers, 441 P.3d at 1212, 1237–38. 49 1158 John Makdisi Marriage is a “covenant by which a man and a woman establish between themselves a partnership of the whole of life.”56 This union “achieves the twofold end of marriage: the good of the spouses themselves and transmission of life.”57 Chastity is “the successful integration of sexuality within the person,” and “sexuality . . . becomes personal and truly human when it is integrated into the relationship of one person to another, in the complete and lifelong mutual gift of a man and a woman.”58 On the other hand, sexual pleasure is morally disordered when it “is sought outside of ‘the sexual relationship which is demanded by the moral order and in which the total meaning of mutual self-giving and human procreation in the context of true love is achieved.’”59 It is a violation of the sixth commandment. Therefore, homosexual acts, which “do not proceed from a genuine affective and sexual complementarity,” can be approved “under no circumstances.”60 Concerning participation in this violation of the sixth commandment, the Congregation of the Doctrine of the Faith states: “In those situations where homosexual unions have been legally recognized or have been given the legal status and rights belonging to marriage, clear and emphatic opposition is a duty. One must refrain from any kind of formal cooperation in the enactment or application of such gravely unjust laws.”61 Therefore, both the owner of the cakeshop and the florist had a moral obligation to refrain from formal cooperation in the laws that required them to use their artistic talents for the purpose of furthering a same-sex marriage. Formal cooperation is to contribute to another’s act by an act in which one intends the means or the end of the other’s act.62 The wedding CCC, §1601. CCC, §2363. William E. May, Catholic Bioethics and the Gift of Human Life, 3rd ed. (Huntington, IN: Our Sunday Visitor, 2013), 85, states that the marital act “is inherently love-giving (unitive) and life-giving (procreative).” 58 CCC, §2337. In Love & Responsibility, trans. H. T. Willetts (New York: Farrar, Straus, and Giroux, 1981), 226, Pope Saint John Paul II discusses this integration as the meeting of two orders, “the order of nature, which has as its object reproduction, and the personal order, which finds its expression in the love of persons and aims at the fullest realization of that love.” Only when a couple chooses to participate in creation when they choose to marry do “they put their sexual relationship within the framework of marriage on a truly personal level” (227). 59 CCC, §2352, quoting Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith (CDF), Persona Humana (1975), 9. 60 CCC, §2357. 61 CDF, “Considerations Regarding Proposals to Give Legal Recognition to Unions between Homosexual Persons,” June 3, 2003. 62 See Grisez, Difficult Moral Questions, 873, defining formal cooperation by using “intending in the broad sense, which includes both willing precisely what is chosen 56 57 A Christian Response to Laws that Require Immoral Acts 1159 is the means to the end of same-sex marriage, and baking a cake or creating a floral arrangement specifically designed for use at the wedding is contributing to the same-sex marriage by its intention to further the wedding. It would not have been formal cooperation if the bakeshop owner or the florist had sold a cake or a floral arrangement that was not designed for the wedding, because those sales could honestly be done without intending to further the wedding, even if they knew that the cake or floral arrangement would be used at the wedding.63 But specifically designing the cake or floral arrangement for the same-sex wedding is intentionally furthering the wedding, which is the means to same-sex marriage, even if the actor opposes the end of same-sex marriage. Both the bakeshop owner and the florist in our two cases recognized this distinction when they properly distinguished between selling items specifically designed for the same-sex wedding and items that could be used for other purposes. They had a moral obligation to, and did, refrain from the former, even though in the florist’s case the law subjected her to damages and to an injunction requiring her to offer gay couples the services she provides to others. If the florist disobeys the injunction, she could be held in contempt and could lose her business.64 Blessed Are the Meek The civil penalties from refusal to obey the law are bad enough, but those in the position of the shop owners may experience further difficulty in the temptation to sin. The proponents of same-sex marriage are a vocal group, and, as shown by the actions of the Colorado Civil Rights Commission in Masterpiece Bakeshop, they can be quite hostile.65 Such hostility, combined and willing the end in view,” and then stating that “contributing to another’s wrongdoing is formal cooperation if, and only if, the act by which one contributes agrees in bad intending with the wrongful act with which one cooperates.” 63 Consider, for example, the case of a nurse assigned to assist at an abortion. It is formal cooperation for her to accede to using her judgment to select implements that would help bring about the abortion, but it is not if she were asked to prepare the patient or to adjust the lights in the operating room, since neither of these acts need be directed toward bringing about an abortion (Grisez, Difficult Moral Questions, 357–58). 64 The baker in Masterpiece Cakeshop also continues to be harassed by those who oppose his position. On June 15, 2021, a district court in Colorado ordered the baker to pay a $500 penalty for refusing to bake a cake to celebrate a transgender person’s transition from male to female despite the fact that it is against his religious beliefs; Scardina v. Masterpiece Cakeshop, Inc., no. 2019CV32214 (Colo. Dist.Ct. June 15, 2021), scribd.com/document/512130525/Autumn-Scardina-vMasterpiece-Cakeshop-Inc-Denver-District-Court-Ruling. 65 For the backlash by various groups against attempted legislation in different states 1160 John Makdisi with the punishment inflicted for disobeying the law, can lead shop owners who have disobeyed the law to feel anger, fear, prejudice and a host of other bad feelings. Like the elder son in the parable of the prodigal son (Luke 15:11–32), one can do all the right things by being obedient, hardworking, and desirous of being good, and yet foster within oneself feelings of resentment, pride and selfishness.66 If one accedes to the temptation of these feelings, one abandons love, leaving one’s good actions empty and without value.67 As Christ taught in the Sermon on the Mount, the fifth commandment, against killing, is also against anger such that “whoever is angry with his brother will be liable to judgment” (Matt 5:22). In dealing with the hostility of proponents of same-sex marriage, Christ fulfills the law of the commandments by calling us to be meek. He calls us to suffer the violence of this injustice without turning in on our ourselves. Rather, through grace and prayer we need to turn out toward those who do us the injustice, realizing that we are all sinners and that we should forgive our opponents as God forgives us.68 This cannot be done in a meaningful way without the grace of God, who makes us truly human by converting our hearts from stone to flesh (Ezek 11:19; 36:26). When we accept God’s grace, we come alive to the fifth commandment through the strength of our meekness by which we love God and love our neighbor because of God. Christ associated with sinners and other outcasts of society; the very reason he did this was his love for the sinner who is made in the image of God. Christ’s love reaches out to sinners to draw them to himself by his word and his example. In the midst of his agony on the Cross, Christ prayed to his Father to forgive those who unjustly put him to death (Luke to protect religious freedom laws with regard to same-sex marriage, see L. Darnell Weedon, “Marriage Equality Laws Are a Threat to Religious Liberty,” Southern Illinois University Law Journal 41 (2017): 229–31. 66 See Henri J. M. Nouwen, The Return of the Prodigal Son: A Story of Homecoming (New York: Doubleday, 1992), 71, describing the nature of the elder son in the parable. 67 As St. Paul says in 1 Cor 13:1, “If I speak in human and angelic tongues but do not have love, I am a resounding gong or a clashing cymbal.” The emptiness of one’s heart is strikingly portrayed in Edwin Arlington Robinson’s poem Richard Cory. Richard Cory was “a gentleman from sole to crown” who “glittered when he walked,” and “one calm summer night / Went home and put a bullet through his head.” Paul Simon’s song “Richard Cory,” from Simon and Garfunkel’s album Sounds of Silence, is based on Robinson’s poem and tells an even sadder story of people who still want to be like Richard Cory after he put a bullet in his head. 68 For a beautiful passage that elaborates this concept of meekness, see Pinckaers, Pursuit of Happiness, 55–72. A Christian Response to Laws that Require Immoral Acts 1161 23:34). Christ loves the other person regardless of their faults or failings.69 He calls us to love in like manner. This does not mean that we should not fight against the injustice. The bakeshop owner and the florist were right to oppose the imposition of a law that required them to affirm a life-detracting act. However, they were also right to remain open to doing business with the very people who sought to impose this law when it came to such life-affirming acts as birthdays, funerals and everyday living. The bakeshop owner stated that he would make cakes for the same-sex couple, just not for their wedding,70 and the florist stated that she would be happy to sell bulk flowers to the same-sex couple, just not flowers specially designed.71 Their openness suggests a truly forgiving love in which the meek are blessed. Law Requiring Group Health Plans to Provide Abortifacient Drugs Thou Shalt Not Kill A law that requires an employer’s participation in a process that leads to abortion prohibits the employer from obeying the fifth commandment.72 Christ turned the law of worldly justice that said “love your neighbor and hate your enemy” (Matt 5:43) into a law of heavenly justice that said “love your enemies, and pray for those who persecute you, that you may be children of your heavenly father” (5:44–45). Thus, he called us to “be perfect, just as your heavenly Father is perfect” (5:48). Henri Nouwen, in his commentary on this passage, explains that “once we are in God’s house as sons and daughters of his household, we can be like him, love like him, be good like him, care like him” (see Nouwen, Return of the Prodigal Son, 125). He adds that, “to become like the Father whose only authority is compassion, I have shed countless tears and so prepare my heart to receive anyone, whatever their journey has been, and forgive them from the heart” (129). It is through grief, forgiveness and generosity that one becomes truly compassionate—free to love in genuine solidarity with one’s neighbor (128–33). 70 Masterpiece Cakeshop, 138 S. Ct. at 1724. 71 Arlene’s Flowers, 441 P.3d at 1212. 72 In Evangelium Vitae, Pope Saint John Paul II states that, “among all the crimes that can be committed against life, procured abortion has characteristics making it particularly serious and deplorable” and that the popular acceptance of abortion in behavior and law “is a telling sign of an extremely dangerous crisis of the moral sense” (§58). Mincing no words about this murder of an absolutely innocent human being, he states that “procured abortion is the deliberate and direct killing, by whatever means it is carried out, of a human being in the initial phase of his or her existence, extending from conception to birth” (§58). He states that “the texts of Sacred Scripture never address the question of deliberate abortion, . . . but they show such great respect for the human being in the mother’s womb that they require as a logical consequence that God’s commandment ‘You shall not kill’ be 69 1162 John Makdisi The Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (ACA) does just that. The ACA, enacted in 2010, mandated that group health plans for certain large employers provide coverage for women’s preventive care, and directed the Health Resources and Services Administration (HRSA) of the Department of Health and Human Services (DHS) to establish guidelines for this care.73 The HRSA then issued guidelines that defined preventive care to include, among other things, certain contraceptive services, including abortifacient drugs.74 Although the administering agencies—the DHS and the Departments of Labor and the Treasury—allowed exemptions to the contraceptive mandate for certain religious employers and expanded these exemptions over the succeeding years,75 some of these exemptions still can be had only if the employers notify their insurance company, their thirdparty administrator (TPA), or the DHS (who then notifies the insurance company or TPA) that they are eligible to claim, and are claiming, the exemption.76 Upon notification, the insurer or TPA is then obliged by law to perform all payment, notice, and provision of services for contraceptive coverage through the employer’s plan.77 The moral problem with this process is that it involves the employer directly in the killing of an unborn child by the employer’s use of an insurance company or TPA that funds abortifacient drugs for its employees.78 extended to the unborn child as well” (§61). Coverage of Preventive Health Services, 42 U.S.C. no. 300gg-13(a) (2010). 74 Religious Exemptions and Accommodations for Coverage of Certain Preventive Services under the Affordable Care Act, 82 Fed. Reg. 47792–794 (October 13, 2017). Intrauterine devices (IUDs), Plan B, and ella, which are included on the list, are abortifacients because they “cause changes in the uterine lining that interfere with implantation of an already formed embryo,” thus making embryonic survival impossible ( June Mary Zekan Makdisi, “The Affordable Care Act: Does It Improve Health and Does It Live up to Human Rights Standards?,” Intercultural Human Rights Law Review 10 [2015]: 143). 75 See Religious Exemptions, 47792–835, for a history of the regulatory changes on exemptions until 2017. 76 Coverage of Certain Preventive Services under the Affordable Care Act, 80 Fed. Reg. 41323 ( July 14, 2015), 78 Fed. Reg. 39876, 39879 ( July 2, 2013). 77 Coverage of Certain Preventive Services under the Affordable Care Act, 80 Fed. Reg. 41323 ( July 14, 2015), 78 Fed. Reg. 39876, 39879 ( July 2, 2013). See also Accommodations in Connection with Coverage of Preventive Health Services, 29 C.F.R. no. 2590.715–2713A(b) ( January 14, 2019), describing the process. 78 For a discussion of the disturbing trend in the United States to mandate the immoral insurance coverage of abortifacient contraceptives by employers, see Richard S. Myers, “US law and Conscientious Objection in Healthcare,” in Cooperation, Complicity and Conscience: Problems in Healthcare, Science, Law and Public Policy, ed. Helen Watt (London: Linacre Center, 2005), 296–315. 73 A Christian Response to Laws that Require Immoral Acts 1163 To understand the employer’s involvement, it is helpful to understand how the employee, the insurance company, and the employer each participate in the immoral act of abortion. An employee’s use of abortifacient drugs under the rubric of contraception is in fact an act that intentionally kills the already conceived unborn child—an act that violates the fifth commandment and is seriously immoral. The employee not only intends the end of her act (preventing the having of children) but also intends the means (killing an unborn child), even if she does not desire the means other than to further her end.79 The intention of the means makes the act immoral.80 An insurer or TPA who pays for the abortifacient drugs used by an employee to avoid having children intends the end of its act (obeying the law) but also intends the means (funding the killing of an unborn child). The means is a participation in the killing of an unborn child, and its intention by the insurer or TPA makes their act immoral. An employer who permits its insurance plan or TPA to pay for the abortifacient drugs used by an employee to avoid having children intends the end of its act (obeying the law) but also intends the means (cooperating through its own And more generally, for the disturbing trend to coerce medical professionals into acts violating their conscience, see Wesley J. Smith, “The Medical Conscience Crisis,” Human Life Review 46 (2020): 31–41. Christopher Kaczor, in “A Defense of Conscientious Objection in Health Care: A Reply to Recent Objections,” Proceedings of the American Catholic Philosophical Association 92 (2018): 41–58, discusses why the reasons brought forward to abolish conscientious objection are inadequate, and Jason T. Eberl and Christopher Ostertag, in “Conscience, Compromise, and Complicity,” Proceedings of the American Catholic Philosophical Association 92 (2018): 161–74, show how the claims of conscientious Catholic health care providers are justified not only on religious grounds but also on rationally defensible public policy grounds. 79 Some employees may be oblivious to the fact that abortifacient drugs kill an already-conceived child. In this regard, some types of ignorance remove sin, but not if its absence would not have restrained the employee from using the drugs or if the ignorance is willful or negligent. See ST I–II, q. 76, a.1, resp., stating that a man sins in ignorance “if a man’s will be so disposed that he would not be restrained from the act of [a sin],” and I–II, q. 76, a. 3, resp., stating that a man is not excused from sin when “ignorance is voluntary, either directly, as when a man wishes of set purpose to be ignorant of certain things that he may sin the more freely; or indirectly, as when a man, through stress of work or other occupations, neglects to acquire the knowledge which would restrain him from sin. For such like negligence renders the ignorance itself voluntary and sinful, provided it be about matters one is bound and able to know.” 80 See ST I–II, q. 18, a. 4, ad 3, where Aquinas affirms that an act is not good unless it is good from its object (means), its circumstances and its end altogether. If any one of these is not good, then the act is not good as a whole. 1164 John Makdisi insurer or TPA in funding the killing of an unborn child). The means is a participation in the killing of an unborn child, and its intention by the employer makes the employer’s act immoral. Grisez discusses an analogous case with the same result. He considers the case of a Catholic hospital working with an insurer to provide a range of services including insurance for immoral activities such as sterilization and abortion.81 He states that even if the hospital intends to “provid[e] health care as an apostolate without being involved in immoral procedures,” and agrees with its insurer that the hospital will not refer its employees to the immoral services, it still “will have intended to arrange that the immoral procedures be done as a necessary means to ‘the provision of health care as a Gospel mission.’”82 Grisez concludes that “making the arrangement would be formal cooperation in the other party’s supplying them,” and would be immoral as a choice of bad means even if to a good end.83 In 2017 the administering agencies attempted through two rules to relieve employers from the need to file notices or certifications of their exemption.84 The notification process was the way in which the employers transferred their obligation of abortifacient contraceptive coverage for their employees under the ACA to their insurer or TPA. Without the notification process, the insurer or TPA becomes automatically responsible for the coverage. These rules were challenged, and in 2019 the Third Circuit Court of Appeals85 upheld a preliminary injunction prohibiting their enforcement. In 2020 the U.S. Supreme Court in Little Sisters of the Poor Saints Peter and Paul Home v. Pennsylvania reversed the Third Circuit’s decision and remanded for further proceedings.86 If the two rules become Grisez, Difficult Moral Questions, 396–97. Grisez, Difficult Moral Questions, 396–97. 83 Grisez, Difficult Moral Questions, 397. 84 See Religious Exemptions and Accommodations for Coverage of Certain Preventive Services Under the Affordable Care Act, 83 Fed. Reg. 57536 (November 15, 2018); 45 C.F.R. no. 147.132 (“Religious Exemptions”). See also Moral Exemptions and Accommodations for Coverage of Certain Preventive Services Under the Affordable Care Act, 83 Fed. Reg. 57592 (Nov. 15, 2018); 45 C.F.R. no. 147.133 (“Moral Exemptions”). 85 Pennsylvania v. President of the United States, 930 F.3d 543 (3d Cir. 2019), rev’d and remanded, Little Sisters of the Poor Saints Peter and Paul Home v. Pennsylvania, 140 S. Ct. 2367 (2020). See also California v. U.S. Department of Health & Human Services, 941 F.3d 410 (9th Cir. 2019), vacated, Little Sisters of Poor Jeanne Jugan Residence v. California, 141 S. Ct. 192 (2020), attempting to uphold a similar preliminary injunction. 86 Little Sisters of the Poor Saints Peter and Paul Home v. Pennsylvania, 140 S. Ct. 2367 (2020). 81 82 A Christian Response to Laws that Require Immoral Acts 1165 operative, the removal of the notification process still does not remove the insurer or third-party administrator from being part of the employer’s plan. As mentioned above, an employer who permits its insurance plan or TPA to pay for the abortifacient drugs used by an employee intends to cooperate through its insurer or TPA in funding the killing of an unborn child, making its act immoral. On the other hand, if an insurer, even the employer’s insurer, were to provide contraceptive coverage that is truly independent of the employer and the employer’s plan—“i.e., provided through a separate policy, with a separate enrollment process, a separate insurance card, and a separate payment source, and offered to individuals through a separate communication”87—the employer would not be a participant in the process and would not be acting immorally if its employees contracted for this insurance. The result of all this is that where the employer allows its insurer or TPA to fund abortifacient drugs for its employees as part of its plan, the arrangement, even though required by law, is immoral formal cooperation and requires the employer to disassociate itself from the insurer or TPA even if this affects the economic viability of its organization and leads to its ultimate demise. Blessed Are They Who Hunger and Thirst for Righteousness An organization (more specifically, those who run it) must avoid cooperation in the immorality of abortion because it violates God’s law that one not kill. This is a minimum requirement of God’s call to love, but Christ calls us to go beyond the commandment by truly hearing the cry of the oppressed aborted children and yearning to make the situation right by the actual sacrifice of our time, treasure, and talent in overcoming the slaughter of innocents. This yearning is the hunger and thirst for righteousness that makes one blessed. We cannot hope to develop this yearning on our own. It is an act of love moved by the Holy Spirit and penetrating much deeper in 87 Supplemental Brief for Petitioners, 2016 WL 1445914, *1, in Zubik v. Burwell, 136 S.Ct. 1557 (2016): “The government could simply impose a regulatory requirement directly on insurance companies that . . . the insurance company must make available to plan beneficiaries a separate plan providing the excluded contraceptive coverage, and must separately contact beneficiaries to inform them of the availability of that plan and how to enroll. These separate plans could take the form of individual insurance policies or of group health plans sponsored by the government. Under this regime, the government would not need to require the petitioner to supply the identity of its insurer; nor would the government or the insurer need any form or authorization from the petitioner to make that separate coverage available” (at *3). 1166 John Makdisi our souls than a mere desire to be good. We need to be open and say yes to Christ’s call. Christ calls us to give of ourselves not counting the cost.88 He says “if anyone wants to go to law with you over your tunic, hand him your cloak as well” (Matt 5:40). The cloak, the heavier outer garment protecting against cold and rain,89 was the more important of the two for the wearer. A Christian response calls us not only to give up the tunic of economic loss, but to give up the cloak of personal comfort in order to hunger and thirst for righteousness on behalf of the totally vulnerable lives who have yet to see the light of day. We need more than a worldly sense of commutative justice to accomplish this act; we need the Holy Spirit. An organization whose members hunger and thirst for righteousness against abortifacient drugs may pursue any number of possible ways to stop the culture of death taking the vulnerable lives of our children. It may offer counseling services to help mothers and fathers understand what a wonderful gift God gives them in their unborn child and how they may cope with difficulties in their lives in order to bear and raise the child. It may encourage active participation in walks, vigils, volunteer work at local crisis pregnancy centers, legislative reform, and other activities to save the lives of the unborn. It may make a special effort to offer jobs to those who need the work to support young families. It may make charitable donations to help those who lack the means to provide proper food, housing, childcare, and education for their child. It may encourage prayer. These are only some of the ways that an organization may choose to satisfy its hunger and thirst for righteousness by hearing the cry of the voiceless oppressed. Law Requiring Businesses to Pay Social Security Thou Shalt Not Steal In United States v. Lee an Amish employer claimed that the payment of social security taxes prescribed by the law violated his First Amendment Free Exercise rights and those of his employees. While the participation in government support programs does not violate most Christian religions, 90 See St. Ignatius of Loyola, “Prayer for Generosity”: “Eternal Word, only begotten Son of God / Teach me true generosity / Teach me to serve you as you deserve / To give without counting the cost / To fight heedless of wounds / To labor without seeking rest / To sacrifice myself without thought of any reward / Save the knowledge that I have done your will. Amen” (loyolapress.com/catholic-resources/ prayer/traditional-catholic-prayers/saints-prayers/prayer-for-generosity-saint-ignatius-of-loyola/). 89 McKenzie, “The Gospel according to Matthew,” 72. 90 United States v. Lee, 455 U.S. 252 (1982). 88 A Christian Response to Laws that Require Immoral Acts 1167 the Amish religion proscribes such participation based on their belief that “the church community should take care of its own members,” coming together as a community to finance disasters that occur.91 The court accepted the “contention that both payment and receipt of social security benefits is forbidden by the Amish faith [and therefore] compulsory participation in the social security system interferes with their free exercise rights.”92 Nevertheless, the court concluded that there was no constitutional violation because this limitation on religious liberty was essential to accomplish the overriding governmental interest of an insurance system that requires mandatory contributions from employees for its fiscal vitality. The taxation system would not work if there were a “myriad exceptions flowing from a wide variety of religious beliefs.”93 The court added that “when followers of a particular sect enter into commercial activity as a matter of choice, the limits they accept on their own conduct as a matter of conscience and faith are not to be superimposed on the statutory schemes which are binding on others in that activity.”94 Therefore, according to the court, “some religious practices [must] yield to the common good.”95 The failure generally to care for needy members of one’s own community is a violation of the seventh commandment. Property is a gift from God destined for all.96 While the appropriation of goods as private property is legitimate to assure security and help provide for one’s basic needs, each person is “a steward of Providence, with the task of making it fruitful and communicating its benefits to others.”97 As regards the poor, it becomes a duty. John Chrysostom states that “not to enable the poor to share in our goods is to steal from them and deprive them of life. The goods we possess are not ours, but theirs.”98 Thus, the duty to succor the poor is a mandate Daniel Kelley, “As U.S. Struggles with Health Reform, the Amish Go Their Own Way,” NBC News, October 6, 2013, nbcnews.com/healthmain/u-s-struggleshealth-reform-amish-go-their-own-way-8C11345954 (quoting Donald Kraybill). 92 Lee, 455 U.S. at 257. 93 Lee, 455 U.S. at 260. 94 Lee, 455 U.S. at 261. 95 Lee, 455 U.S. at 259. The court reached a similar conclusion in Bowen v. Roy, 476 U.S. 693, 699–701 (1986), in which the court upheld a federal statutory scheme that required benefit applicants and recipients to provide their social security numbers despite the fact that it violated the petitioners’ religious beliefs to obtain and provide a social security number for their daughter. 96 CCC, §2401. 97 CCC, §§2402–4. 98 CCC, §2446, quoting St. John Chrysostom, Homiliae In Lazaro 2, 5. St. Gregory the Great adds: “More than performing works of mercy, we are paying a debt of justice” (Regula pastoralis 3.21 [PL, 77:87], quoted in CCC, §2446). St. Thomas 91 1168 John Makdisi of the seventh commandment. The Amish realize this Christian duty by focusing on care for the members of their own community in need.99 They believe that their time and material goods are not their own, and as stewards they must share their goods with those in need in their community.100 For them, the duty is so important that while they “pay their full bill of taxes—income, real estate, estate, sales, and taxes for both public and their private schools, . . . the large majority rejects both commercial and state insurance.”101 They feel that involvement in government insurance programs “would lead to the demise of spontaneous mutual aid within their community.”102 Hence, the religious objection to social security taxes. This conflict between the governmental interest in an insurance system Aquinas elaborates that “whatever certain people have in superabundance is due, by natural law, to the purpose of succoring the poor,” and “each one is entrusted with the stewardship of his own things, so that out of them he may come to the aid of those who are in need” (ST II–II, q. 66, a. 7, resp.). Aquinas goes even further to state that “it is not theft, properly speaking, to take secretly and use another’s property in a case of extreme need: because that which he takes for the support of his life becomes his own property by reason of that need” (ST II–II, q. 66, a. 7, ad 2). For a discussion of Aquinas’s concept of private property, see Francis Feingold, “Is the Institution of Private Property Part of the Natural Law? Ius gentium and Ius naturale in Aquinas’s Account of the Right to ‘Steal’ When in Urgent Need,” Proceedings of the American Catholic Philosophical Association 92 (2018): 189–210. 99 James A. Cates, Serving the Amish: A Cultural Guide for Professionals (Baltimore, MD: Johns Hopkins University Press, 2014), 13. 100 Cates, Serving the Amish, 17. See also Steven M. Nolt, The Amish: A Concise Introduction (Baltimore, MD: Johns Hopkins University Press, 2013), 41: “The Amish believe that church members bear a divine responsibility to care for one another in times of crisis, such as the aftermath of a house fire or the need to pay a major medical bill.” Their Rules of a Godly Life states that “you must distribute of your goods to the needy, and do it wisely, willingly, and from the heart (Rom 12:13; 2 Cor 9:7)” (Nolt, The Amish, 121). They follow St. Paul’s exhortation in Gal 6:2: “Bear one another’s burdens, and so you will fulfill the law of Christ” (Donald B. Kraybill, Steven M. Nolt, and David L. Weaver-Zercher, Amish Grace: How Forgiveness Transcended Tragedy [San Francisco: John Wiley, 2007], 14). 101 Cates, Serving the Amish, 13. 102 Donald B. Kraybill, “Introduction: The Struggle to be Separate,” in The Amish Struggle with Modernity, ed. Donald B. Kraybill and Marc Alan Olshan (Hanover, MD: University Press of New England, 1994), 14. See also Donald B. Kraybill, The Riddle of Amish Culture, rev. ed. (Baltimore, MD: Johns Hopkins University Press, 2001), 277, adding that “insurance programs defy the stance of Gelassenheit—of waiting and submitting to divine destiny—because they guarantee a favorable financial outcome,” and that involvement in such programs “entails economic involvement with, and reliance on, the world—a violation of the biblical injunction of separation [which] would destroy dependency on the church and erode its centrality in the lives of members.” A Christian Response to Laws that Require Immoral Acts 1169 and the Amish interest in keeping their faith does not occur for all Amish workers. In 1965, before Lee was decided, Congress provided an exemption from social security taxes for self-employed Amish workers,103 and in 1988, six years after Lee was decided, this exemption was extended to Amish employees working for Amish employers.104 Still, “non-Amish employers must continue to deduct Social Security taxes if they hire Amish employees.”105 This last group of Amish employees may be able legally to avoid paying social security taxes by rearranging to work for their employer as independent contractors.106 However, the employer may not be obliging, in which case the employee may lose the job. This can be extraordinarily burdensome on an employee who needs the job to feed himself and his family. Blessed are the Merciful An Amish employee respects the seventh commandment by refusing to take a job that requires payment of social security taxes. If he were to take the job, he would violate his duty under the commandment to give to the needy by his encouraging the demise of spontaneous mutual aid within the community. Yet a Christian response extends beyond this mere refusal. An Amish Christian is one who opens his or her heart to embrace the very culture of spontaneous mutual aid at the basis of this refusal—truly to live mercy through the charity of real compassion for the needs of others and with a real desire to help. It is not only to give the needy their due but to feel their misery as one’s own with an eagerness to drive it away: Aquinas states that “justice without mercy is cruelty . . . [and] it is necessary that Tax on Self-Employment Income: Definitions, 26 U.S.C. no. 1402(g) (March 23, 2018). 104 The Exemption Act of 1988, 26 U.S.C. no. 3127 (providing a social security tax exemption for employers and their employees who are members of “a recognized religious sect” whose “established tenets” oppose participation in the Social Security Act program). 105 Kraybill, Riddle, 279. 106 Before 1988, when only self-employed Amish were exempt, “some businesses organized themselves as legal partnerships so the employees—owners or partners in this case—were considered self-employed and exempt,” while in other cases the Amish worked together as a “crew but kept individual records and collected their pay separately to qualify for the self-employment exemption” (Kraybill, Riddle, 279). 103 1170 John Makdisi both be joined together.”107 Blessed are the merciful.108 This mercy pertains even when the object of that mercy is a sinner. In the Bible, God’s people are compared to a faithless woman whom God betroths “with justice and with judgment, with loyalty and with compassion” (Hos 2:21), for “merciful and gracious is the Lord, slow to anger, abounding in mercy” (Ps 103:8). Christ speaks of this mercy in the parable of the prodigal son, where the father wants his children to be free to love, thus allowing the younger son to leave home and lose everything in radical rejection of the father’s love, and yet feeling the son’s sin pierce him to the heart as he yearns for his son’s return with outstretched arms.109 It is in this compassion that he “ran to his son, embraced him and kissed him” upon his return (Luke 15:20). Mercy in this sense is not pity, whereby one stands aloof from the poor person and tosses a few coins to assuage one’s concern. It is the effort to get past instinctive feelings of fear and repulsion, to feel that person’s suffering, and to hasten like the Good Samaritan (Luke 10:29–37) to give him all the help he needs.110 A shining story of such forgiveness and compassion evolved from a 2006 shooting in an Amish schoolhouse near Nickel Mines, Pennsylvania. A gunman killed five Amish children and injured five others, causing profound grief within and outside the Amish community. Yet within hours of the incident, some Amish people reached out to the killer’s family to express their sorrow, their forgiveness, and their gracious concern.111 The parents of several of the slain children invited members of the gunman’s family to their daughters’ funerals, and more than half of the seventy-five mourners at the gunman’s funeral were Amish.112 Some of the parents who had just buried their children offered condolences and hugs to the wife of the gunman at the gravesite.113 Several weeks after the shooting, members of the gunman’s family and the Amish families who had lost children gath- Thomas Aquinas, Super Matt 5, lec. 2 (no. 429), in Commentary on the Gospel of Matthew, Chapters 1–12, trans. Jeremy Holmes and Beth Mortensen (Lander, WY: Aquinas Institute for the Study of Sacred Doctrine, 2013), 139. 108 The Amish consider the beatitudes among the most important texts in Scripture. An Amish minister stated: “Forgiveness is all about Matthew 5 and the Sermon on the Mount and loving our enemies” (Kraybill, Amish Grace, 88). 109 See Nouwen, Return of the Prodigal Son, 95–96, describing the father in relation to the younger son in the parable. 110 Pinckaers, Pursuit of Happiness, 116. 111 Kraybill, Amish Grace, 43–44. 112 Kraybill, Amish Grace, 45. 113 Kraybill, Amish Grace, 45. 107 A Christian Response to Laws that Require Immoral Acts 1171 ered to share their grief and tears.114 Also, several Amish people donated to the gunman’s family to help provide relief.115 According to one report based on interviews with the Amish, “granting forgiveness was a natural, spontaneous, and quite ordinary thing” which sprang from “spontaneous expressions of faith, not as mandates from the church.”116 In other words, God moved the Amish in this case by his grace to which they said yes. Without removing the horror of the tragedy or the grief of the victims’ families and community, this forgiveness brought healing and hope to the gunman’s family despite the sadness and sorrow.117 This story of forgiveness illustrates the true meaning of mercy. A Christian response to the legally required payment of social security in a job may well be to give up that job under the Amish requirement to avoid involvement in government insurance, but it is grounded on more than the desire to satisfy a stated duty. It is grounded on the desire to cultivate a true sense of mercy in one’s soul which one sees in the Amish response to the killing of their children and which Christ calls us all to embrace. Law Requiring Engagement in an Unjust War Thou Shalt Not Kill Although mandatory conscription into the armed forces (the draft) came to an end in 1973, there is always the possibility that it will be reinstated during a future period of war. So, it is relevant to examine how this conscription to fight sometimes mandates immoral action and how we are called by Christ in this circumstance not just to refuse to fight but to go beyond this in finding other ways to promote the love of neighbor in service to one’s country. In Gillette v. United States,118 the court addressed the claim of selective conscientious objection by a soldier who did not object to war generally but only to the Vietnam conflict. The court described the soldier as “a devout Catholic, [who] believes that it is his duty as a faithful Catholic to discriminate between ‘just’ and ‘unjust’ wars, and to forswear participation in the latter.”119 However, the court rejected the soldier’s free Kraybill, Amish Grace, 46. Kraybill, Amish Grace, 46–47. 116 Kraybill, Amish Grace, 49. An indication of the way in which the Amish nurture this faith is their deferring to others, as is shown in their Christmas song, Joy, sung to the tune of Jingle Bells. The lyrics are “J-o-y, J-o-y, / J-o-y for Joy, / Jesus first, / Yourself last, / And Others in between” (Kraybill, Amish Grace, 114). 117 Kraybill, Amish Grace, 47, 52. 118 Gillette v. United States, 401 U.S. 437 (1971). 119 Gillette, 401 U.S. at 440–41. 114 115 1172 John Makdisi exercise claim and upheld the Army’s denial of his discharge.120 It is a precept of the divine law that one shalt not kill, and Aquinas affirms that “human law cannot make it lawful for a man to be slain unduly,” such as in an unjust war.121 Laws that require one to fight in an unjust war are contrary to the divine law and “must nowise be observed, because, as stated in Acts [5:29], we ought to obey God rather than man.”122 Justice William Douglas emphasized this point in his dissent when he stated that the petitioner was “a Catholic [who] has a moral duty not to participate in unjust wars.”123 Nevertheless, the court sustained the denial of the discharge and stated that “our cases do not at their farthest reach support the proposition that a stance of conscientious opposition relieves an objector from any colliding duty fixed by a democratic government,” that the conscription laws in this case “do not work a penalty against any theological position,” and that the burdens on the petitioners “are strictly justified by substantial governmental interests,” which in this case was “the Government’s interest in procuring the manpower necessary for military purposes.”124 The Army’s refusal to discharge the petitioner did work a penalty against his theological position that it is a serious sin to kill in an unjust war. The U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops has affirmed “the Catholic teaching that the state’s decision to use force should always be morally scrutinized by citizens asked to support the decision or to participate in war,” and that this moral scrutiny “can produce a posture of responsible participation in the government’s decision, or conscientious objection to some reasons for using force, some methods of using force, or even some specific branches of the service because of the missions they may be asked to perform.”125 As a result, the bishops support “the right of selective Gillette, 401 U.S. at 461–63. ST I–II, q. 100, a. 8, ad 3; II–II, q. 40. 122 ST I–II, q. 96, a. 4, resp. 123 Gillette, 401 U.S. at 470 ( J. Douglas dissenting in no. 325). To explain the Catholic duty, Justice Douglas quoted Pope John XXIII in Pacem in Terris (1963), §51, to say: “Since the right to command is required by the moral order and has its source in God, it follows that, if civil authorities legislate for or allow anything that is contrary to that order and therefore contrary to the will of God, neither the laws made nor the authorizations granted can be binding on the consciences of the citizens, since we must obey God rather than men” (Gillette, 401 U.S. at 470n2). He also cited several other texts on Catholic doctrine to underscore the fact that “a Catholic has a moral duty not to participate in unjust wars” (Gillette, 401 U.S. at 470). 124 Gillette, 401 U.S. at 461–62. 125 USCCB, “Statement on Registration and Conscription for Military Service” 120 121 A Christian Response to Laws that Require Immoral Acts 1173 conscientious objection (SCO) as a moral conclusion,” even though “SCO has not yet found expression in our legal system,” despite the “experience of the Vietnam war [which] highlighted the moral and political significance of precisely this question.”126 In this case the only moral alternative for one such as the petitioner is to disobey the law and refuse to kill. The penalty will probably be a dishonorable discharge and a serious fine and/ or imprisonment. Blessed Are the Peacemakers The proper moral response to disobey the law is but the first step to a Christian response. After stating that “public authorities should make equitable provision for those who for reasons of conscience refuse to bear arms,” the Catholic Catechism says that “these are nonetheless obliged to serve the human community in some other way.”127 A Christian response not only avoids violation of the fifth commandment, but it realizes the inherent meaning of the commandment by promoting in a positive way respect for human life, which is created by God in his image. In this way the commandment links directly with the beatitude that blesses the peacemakers.128 There are many ways in which one can promote respect for human life. One can work within one’s community to overcome injustice, inequality, envy, distrust, and pride, all of which threaten peace.129 Oftentimes one can promote respect for life through small acts of kindness, such as a smile to recognize another person on the street, a move to help a person having trouble opening a door, a calm voice to inspire others to listen to each other in a meeting, a sacrifice of time to help at a homeless shelter, or a letter to warm the heart of a friend. More directly in the case of an unjust war, one can speak up against its injustice, even if it means suffering recrimination and rejection. Dorothy Day stated in 1965 that, “unless we use the weapons of the spirit, denying ourselves and taking up our cross and following Jesus, dying with Him and rising with Him, men will go on fighting, and often from the highest motives, believing that they are fighting defensive (February 14, 1980), usccb.org/issues-and-action/human-life-and-dignity/ war-and-peace/statement-on-registration-and-conscription-for-military-service-1980-02-14.cfm. 126 USCCB, “Statement on Registration and Conscription for Military Service.” 127 CCC, §2311. 128 See CCC, §2302, stating that “by recalling the commandment, ‘You shall not kill,’ our Lord asked for peace of heart.” 129 CCC, §2317. 1174 John Makdisi wars for justice and in self-defense against present or future aggression.”130 By speaking truth to power, even just by our willingness to suffer the consequences of our civil disobedience, we can soften hearts and promote true respect for human life.131 One does this in love, not hate, by taking Martin Luther King’s advice in the civil rights movement to channel one’s resistance toward the unjust act, not the person doing the act.132 One also can promote respect for human life by mitigating the violence that others have suffered in the war, such as by caring for the wounded and the dying. Corporal Desmond T. Doss, whose story was made famous by the movies The Conscientious Objector (2004) and Hacksaw Ridge (2016), was a Seventh Day Adventist who refused to carry a weapon but nevertheless was allowed to serve as a combat medic in World War II. His bravery in the midst of serious danger in Guam and the Philippines earned him two Bronze Stars, and his heroic rescues in the Battle of Okinawa earned him the Congressional Medal of Honor. He faced the reality of suffering caused by war, reached out in compassion to live in solidarity with his comrades as he shared and mitigated their pain, and through this mercy helped to bring peace. This peace does not have the modern connotation of a mere absence of conflict but rather the biblical connotation inherent in the beatitude that defines the attitude of a person who is “ready to fight for peace, conquer it, defend it, and spread it around him.”133 As with all the other beatitudes, we cannot truly become a peacemaker without God’s grace. Dorothy Day as quoted in Mark and Louise Zwick, “Dorothy Day, Prophet of Pacifism for the Catholic Church,” Houston Catholic Worker 17, no. 5 (September–October 1997), cjd.org/1997/10/01/dorothy-day-prophet-of-pacifism-forthe-catholic-church/. 131 By one’s willingness to undergo punishment for breaking the law and by maintaining that the law is unjust in a public way, one also avoids the scandal that might otherwise occur from one’s breaking the law (Germain Grisez, Living a Christian Life, vol. 2 of The Way of the Lord Jesus [Quincy, IL: Franciscan, 1993], 879–80). 132 Martin Luther King Jr., Stride Toward Freedom: The Montgomery Story (Boston: Beacon, 1958), 91–92. 133 Pinckaers, Pursuit of Happiness, 146–48. In fact, this peace may divide people “by reason of the demands of the Gospel and the hardness of some hearts” (151). It is “a militant peace, such as is found in the Word of God, a peace which opposes sin in man and stirs up the reaction of the forces of evil within him” (152). Thus, Christ says: “Do you think that I have come to establish peace on the earth? No, I tell you, but rather division. From now on a household of five will be divided, three against two and two against three” (Luke 12:51–52). The true peacemakers are the “sons of God” who “image the only Son” and “bring to the world the peace and reconciliation which can only come from [God]” (162–63). 130 A Christian Response to Laws that Require Immoral Acts 1175 Governmental Contract Law Requiring Approval of Adoptions by Unfit Couples Honor Thy Father and Thy Mother In Fulton v. City of Philadelphia,134 the city closed the intake of new referrals by a state-licensed foster care agency, Catholic Social Services (CSS), and did not offer it a new contract because it failed to provide services to married same-sex couples. The agency sought a preliminary injunction requiring the city to renew their contractual relationship without requiring it to certify same-sex couples. It maintained that “it cannot certify a samesex married couple as foster parents consistent with its religious views”— that “as an affiliate of the Catholic Church, [it] adheres to the belief that marriage is between a man and a woman, . . . [and] will only certify foster parents who are either married or single; it will not certify cohabitating unmarried couples, and it considers all same-sex couples to be unmarried.”135 The district court denied the injunction, the circuit court affirmed this denial, but then the U.S. Supreme Court reversed and remanded for further proceedings.136 The Supreme Court in Fulton determined that the city’s action in contractually requiring CSS not to reject foster or adoptive parents on the basis of their sexual orientation violated the Free Exercise Clause of the First Amendment. Under Employment Division, Dept. Hum. Res. of Or. v. Smith, “laws incidentally burdening religion are ordinarily not subject to strict scrutiny under the Free Exercise Clause so long as they are neutral and generally applicable.”137 Although it did not reach the question of neutrality, the court held that the contractual requirement was not generally applicable because it contained a provision allowing exemptions. Therefore, the court applied the strict scrutiny test to hold that the contractual clause violated the Free Exercise Clause. However, the strict scrutiny test does not apply in a case where the contractual provision is neutral and generally applicable. Justice Samuel Alito’s concurring opinion notes that “the First Amendment’s Free Exercise Clause tolerates any rule that categorically prohibits or commands Fulton v. City of Philadelphia, 922 F.3d 140 (3d Cir. 2019), rev. and remanded, nos. 19-123, 2021 WL 2459253 ( June 17, 2021). 135 Fulton, 922 F.3d at 148. 136 Fulton, 2021 WL at *4, *9. 137 Fulton, 2021 WL at *4, citing Employment Division, Dept. Hum. Res. of Or. v. Smith, 494 U.S. 872 at 878–82 (1990). 134 1176 John Makdisi specified conduct so long as it does not target religious practice.”138 Therefore, Justice Alito concludes, all that the city needs to do to continue its behavior is to eliminate the exemption from its nondiscrimination clause.139 This would not be difficult. Justice Alito points out that the city had never used the exemption clause, so, as he tartly puts it, “if the City [eliminates the clause], then, voilà, today’s decision will vanish—and the parties will be back where they started.”140 In other words, the city may still close the intake of new referrals by CSS and refuse to offer it a new contract if CSS fails to provide services to married same-sex couples. Thus, the problem remains that the city can require immoral action on the part of CSS despite the Supreme Court’s reversal in Fulton. Social bodies involved in the placement of children have a particular moral duty under the fourth commandment “to support and strengthen marriage and the family” as “the natural environment for initiating a human being into solidarity and communal responsibilities.”141 To place children with couples whose way of life opposes the essence of marriage violates this duty. The essence of marriage is “an intimate one, requiring the commitment of the couple to a new life of unique love requiring exclusivity, faithfulness, and permanence in order to create an environment that will ensure the best formation of children in their being, identity, solidarity, and bonding.”142 This intimacy provides strength and stability to the family through its transformation of a man and a woman into one flesh embracing the fruit of their union. Not all children have the benefit of family in this fundamental sense, but it is the type towards which all adoptive placements should be oriented. Unmarried couples and same-sex couples who live as if they were married oppose the fundamental nature of family by both their example and their justifications.143 Therefore, it is the duty of an adoption agency to exclude placements with these couples, and, if the state denies the agency its license144 to operate unless it desists, then Fulton, 2021 WL at *10 ( J. Alito concurring). Fulton, 2021 WL at *13. 140 Fulton, 2021 WL at *13. 141 CCC, §§2210, 2224. 142 John Makdisi and June Mary Zekan Makdisi, “The Transformation of Marriage as a State Institution,” Intercultural Human Rights Law Review 14 (2019): 413. 143 The true significance of the family is that it is “an institution created by procreation within the framework of marriage, . . . directly dependent on the parents for its existence and functioning, . . . and a complement to and extension of [the parents’] love” ( John Paul II, Love & Responsibility, 242). 144 Justice Alito notes that “the power that the City asserts is essentially the power to deny CSS a license to continue to perform work that it has carried out for decades 138 139 A Christian Response to Laws that Require Immoral Acts 1177 the agency must give up its license. Catholic adoption agencies in a number of jurisdictions have done just that.145 Blessed Are the Clean of Heart An adoption agency that refuses to place children with unfit couples despite its being denied a license to operate has taken the first step toward a Christian response by not violating the fourth commandment. However, a true Christian response is more than just a negative; it is a positive attempt to practice justice and love of neighbor. God calls us to “make justice your aim: redress the wronged, hear the orphan’s plea.”146 Servais Pinckaers claims that “here it is a question of the interior purity which cleanses the heart,” and he quotes Ezekiel to say: “‘I will sprinkle clean water upon you to cleanse you from all your impurities, and from all your idols I will cleanse you. A new heart I will give you, and a new spirit I will put within you, and I will remove from your bodies your hearts of stone and give you hearts of flesh.’”147 It is God who effects this new heart of flesh within us through his grace and calls us to say yes to this grace.148 One way to say yes when one’s status as an adoption agency is removed is to find other ways to direct adoptive placements to fit couples. One way in which this might be done is to convert the adoption agency to a counseling center. Expectant parents who want to give their child up for adoption often need counseling just to understand the real meaning of marriage and its major importance to the growth and development of their child. The center may offer help in resolving economic, emotional, familial and other problems that may be obstacles to keeping one’s child, and help to direct expectant parents to a healthy choice of adoptive parents for their child. It may also help prospective adoptive parents—both fit and unfit—to understand the values of marriage and why adoption requires and that religious groups have performed since time immemorial” (Fulton, 2021 WL at *45 [ J. Alito concurring]). 145 See USCCB, “Discrimination against Catholic Adoption Services,” usccb.org/ issues-and-action/religious-liberty/discrimination-against-catholic-adoption-services.cfm (agencies forced to end their adoption services include Catholic Charities of Boston, Catholic Charities of San Francisco, and Catholic Charities affiliates in Illinois). 146 Isa 1:17. 147 Pinckaers, Pursuit of Happiness, 130, quoting Ezek 36:25–26. 148 Not only do we grow in love of God and neighbor, but hearing the orphan’s plea and doing something positive about it helps us to avoid the temptation to a type of pharisaical hypocrisy that “conceal[s] impurity of heart and pride beneath the outward appearances of legality” (Pinckaers, Pursuit of Happiness, 134). 1178 John Makdisi the fitness of a couple or single individual who respects those values. Too often society has reacted against “the values of marriage and of the various positive aspects and dimensions of human sexuality” because it “saw purity chiefly within the context of sin and prohibition.”149 Marriage is so much more. The members of a counseling center with the purpose of offering the help described here would manifest the beauty of the virtue of purity in the context of marriage and would come to see God in the eyes of the children they help. Blessed are the clean of heart. Conclusion We have now come full circle in discussing the beatitudes as Christian directives, taught to us by the Son, whereby the Holy Spirit works within our souls to lead us to the Father. The beatitudes infuse the commandments with life by calling us to step beyond the external world of “do not” into the internal world of “do.” Having started with the first beatitude—blessed are the poor in spirit—we find that, by shedding our attachment to the temptations of this life in possessions, power, and pleasures, we are able to realize our need for God’s help and our desire to hear God’s Word. The subsequent beatitudes form us further in our relationship to God and neighbor, incorporating God’s Word within our lives so that, totally dependent on God’s grace, we make our way as pilgrims toward God in the development of virtue. Now in the final beatitude—blessed are the persecuted—we realize the result of the grace that God bestows on us through the beatitudes. No longer are we people of this world.150 We are citizens of heaven (Phil 3:20). And because we are not people of this world, the world hates us ( John 15:19; 17:14). Because we want to live religiously in Christ Jesus, we will be persecuted (2 Tim 3:12). Yet, we find in this beatitude a kinship with the early Christians, who “exhibited a bright and exultant joy which sprang out of the very sufferings of persecution.”151 Persecution becomes the lived reality in which all the other beatitudes converge,152 and in the midst of the pain of persecution we find true happi Pinckaers, Pursuit of Happiness, 134–35. In his prayer after the last supper discourses, Jesus prays to the Father for all the people about whom he says twice that “they do not belong to the world any more than I belong to the world” ( John 17:14, 16). 151 Pinckaers, Pursuit of Happiness, 167–68. 152 See Pinckaers, Pursuit of Happiness, 175: “The persecuted disciple experiences poverty when he is despoiled; he is led to practice meekness in the face of the violence done to him; he weeps and grieves over his separation from those he loves; he knows hunger and thirst for justice when he is condemned; he has ample opportunity to practice mercy and forgiveness; he strives to keep his heart pure of 149 150 A Christian Response to Laws that Require Immoral Acts 1179 ness in our conviction of faith, cemented in love of Christ, that our hope of eternal happiness in God will be realized through the beatitudes. Joy for persecuted Christians comes from “an awareness of a new life sprung up and flourishing in the depths of their souls, a life which is beyond death, infused in them by the risen Christ to whom they have surrendered themselves.”153 In realizing the full circle of the beatitudes, we realize the path of our pilgrimage to God along which we hope to merit by God’s grace the kingdom of heaven. It is telling that the reward for the blessed in the first beatitude is the kingdom of heaven (Matt 5:3), as is the reward for the blessed in the eighth beatitude (Matt 5:10). By following all the beatitudes from beginning to end, we are constantly focused on our ultimate end who N&V is God, starting with faith and ending in charity.154 all duplicity despite the traps set for him; he seeks peace in the midst of the war waged against him.” 153 Pinckaers, Pursuit of Happiness, 181. 154 Through humility, the poor in spirit know in faith that God, who is the center of all, loves them, and through peacemaking, they return this love in charity; see Mattison, Sermon on the Mount, 47–48, 51–52. Nova et Vetera, English Edition, Vol. 19, No. 4 (2021): 1181–1214 1181 Religious Life as a State of Perfection Gregory Pine, O.P. University of Fribourg Fribourg, Switzerland Introduction Religious life is referred to in the Catholic theological tradition as a state of perfection.1 The claim may seem relatively uncontroversial, and yet it is not immediately evident that the religious state is “perfect” and therefore “objectively higher” than other states of life.2 Certainly, in the years since the Second Vatican Council, greater emphasis has been placed on the complementary doctrine of the “universal call to holiness.” Lumen Gentium stresses that grace sufficient for sanctity is made available to all the Christian faithful See, for instance Dionysius the Pseudo-Areopagite, The Ecclesiastical Hierarchy, trans. Thomas L. Campbell (Washington, DC: University Press of America, 1981), 73–78 (ch. 6). See also St. Thomas Aquinas, Summa theologiae [ST] II-II, q. 184, aa. 5–6, and q. 186, a. 1. English of ST will be taken from the translation by the Fathers of the English Dominican Province (New York: Benziger Brothers, 1948), and Latin of Aquinas texts will be taken from the Leonine edition. See also Francisco Suárez, Opus de virtute et statu religionis (Lyon: Horatius Cardon et Petrus Cavellat, 1624), t. 3, lib. 1, chs. 2–5. In general, for all texts composed in a language other than English, I have chosen to cite existing English translations if available (as stated here for ST). In the absence of existing translations, the English provided is my own. 2 This language and logic have enjoyed continuous use in the modern magisterium. See (all accessible on the Vatican website): Pope Pius XII, “State of Perfection: An address of Pope Pius XII to the Second World Congress of the States of Perfection,” December 11, 1957; Paul VI, “Message of Pope Paul VI to the General Chapters of Religious Orders and Congregations,” May 23, 1964; Pope John Paul II, Vita Consecrata (1996), §35; Redemptionis Donum (1984), §4. For a compilation of selections from papal documents that touch the theme (both directly and indirectly), see Gaston Courtois, The States of Perfection according to the Teaching of the Church: Papal Documents from Leo XIII to Pius XII, trans. John A. Flynn (Westminster, MD: Newman Press, 1961). 1 1182 Gregory Pine, O.P. in each and every state of life: “All the faithful of Christ of whatever rank or status, are called to the fullness of the Christian life and to the perfection of charity.”3 In light of this salutary emphasis in the Church’s teaching on evangelical perfection, it has become increasingly necessary to refine the language used to distinguish religious life from other states of life, especially as some voices call for the revision or suppression of the category of “states of perfection.” In the years immediately following the Council, a particular reading of the documents suggested that the category of states of perfection was to be de-emphasized.4 Ernest Larkin observes: “The Council Fathers found the categories of states of perfection unacceptable and the doctrine of holiness in the Church was rewritten in terms of the universal call to Christian perfection. . . . The category ‘state of perfection’ is by-passed and the emphasis shifted from the juridic to the vital reality of grace and charity.”5 While this interpretation and its application may seem reductive, it still has proponents in the contemporary setting. Maryanne Confoy has recently argued that commitment to the notion of religious life as a state of perfection impedes the renewal envisioned by the Council, and leads to polarization between “those religious who [are] locked into the status quo of religious life as a state of perfection and those who responded to the dynamic of renewal, [which entails an] ‘ever-reforming’ understanding of charism.”6 In light of this influential critique, it is timely to recover and rearticulate an understanding of religious life as a state of perfection for a contemporary audience, lest the doctrine fall into desuetude and our corresponding understanding of religion and charity suffer distortion. The central difficulty in ascertaining the basis of religious perfection arises from a confusion as to what constitutes perfection. On the one Second Vatican Council, Lumen Gentium, Dogmatic Constitution on the Church, §40: “Cunctis proinde perspicuum est, omnes christifideles cuiuscumque status vel ordinis ad vitae christianae plenitudinem et caritatis perfectionem vocari.” 4 The term “state of perfection” is not used verbatim in either Lumen Gentium or Perfectae Caritatis, although in Lumen Gentium the Council fathers do speak of the religious state in equivalent terms. See Lumen Gentium, §45: “The importance of the profession of the evangelical counsels is seen in the fact that it fosters the perfection of love of God and love of neighbor in an outstanding manner and that this profession is strengthened by vows. . . . Any institute of perfection [perfectionis Institutum] and its individual members may be removed from the jurisdiction of the local Ordinaries by the Supreme Pontiff and subjected to himself alone.” 5 Ernest E. Larkin, “Religious Life and Vatican II,” The Sword 26 (February 1966): 30–36, at 30. 6 Maryanne Confoy, R.S.C., “Religious Life in the Vatican II Era: ‘State of Perfection’ or Living Charism?,” Theological Studies 74 (2013): 321–46, at 331, 340. 3 Religious Life as a State of Perfection 1183 hand, religious life takes its name from the virtue of religion, which is categorized in the Thomistic tradition as a potential part of justice.7 On the other hand, Christian perfection—the goal of religious life—is bound up with charity. Antoine Lemonnyer explains: “The end of the religious life is perfection, and perfection consists essentially in charity. Charity, and more precisely the perfection of charity, which essentially makes sanctity, is thus, the sole end of the religious life.”8 If the religious life takes its name from and is patterned on the exercise of a potential part of justice (religion), in what sense is it thereby more perfect (charity)? Tomasso de Vio Cardinal Cajetan captures the apparent disjunct: “For the union to God through holocaust of oneself which the virtue of religion works is one thing: and the union to God through love which charity works is another thing.”9 The following endeavors to explain the nature of this difference as a way by which to recover the precise sense of state of perfection. In so doing, I will rely almost exclusively on St. Thomas Aquinas, his commentators, and theologians working within a Thomistic framework since the discussion of religious as state of perfection has unfolded largely within this context. In order to discern how religion and charity interact in the context of the religious state, it helps first to distill the genius and dynamism proper to each respective virtue. In the first section, I examine charity under the aspect of goal or perfective element of religious life. Then, I turn to the virtue of religion, specifically as giving rise to the act of vows. The second brief section delineates one aspect of the relation of religion to charity. Here, the focus will be on proximately dispositive causality. Religion, as the greatest of moral virtues, stands peculiarly well disposed to the advent and augmentation of charity. In the final section, I will examine religion as exercised in religious life under the influence of charity. Specifying the relationship between religion and charity at work in the vows gives occasion to enunciate more precisely the nature of religious perfection and thereby to reaffirm the enduring relevance of state of perfection as a theological category. See ST II-II, q. 80, a. 1. Antoine Lemonnyer, O.P., commentary in Saint Thomas Aquinas, O.P., Somme théologique: La vie humaine: ses formes, ses états, trans. Antoine Lemonnyer with notes (Paris: Desclée et Cie, 1926), 556. 9 Tommaso de Vio Cardinal Cajetan, commentary to Leonine edition of ST II-II, q. 186, a. 1: “Nam aliud est coniunctio ad Deum per holocaustum sui, quod facit virtus religionis: et aliud est coniunctio ad Deum per amorem, quem facit caritas.” 7 8 1184 Gregory Pine, O.P. Charity, Religion, and Vows: A First Look Charity as Primary Operative Perfection and End of Christian Life Charity is the primary operative perfection and—taken in this sense—end of Christian life. A proper understanding of the operative role of charity in securing Christian perfection is, therefore, crucial for understanding the sense in which religious life is to be understood as perfect. In moral matters, St. Thomas deploys the term “perfection” analogously. In a classic text, he distinguishes among essential perfection (sanctifying grace), operative or accidental perfection (charity—acts both elicited and imperated), and final perfection (union with God or created beatitude).10 Within the category of operative perfection, St. Thomas further details the differences among primary, secondary, and instrumental perfection.11 St. Thomas identifies charity as primary operative perfection: “Primarily and essentially the perfection of the Christian life consists in charity.”12 In another work he adds even more forcefully: “The spiritual life consists principally in charity. For he that is without charity is spiritually nought.”13 As a theological virtue, charity attains to God, the objective term of beatitude—blessedness in se. It conducts man to God as the ultimate perfection of all his faculties and person.14 In other words, charity unites man wholly to his end. St. Thomas writes: A thing is said to be perfect insofar as it attains its proper end, which is the ultimate perfection thereof. Now it is charity that unites us to God, Who is the last end of the human mind, since “he that abideth ST I, q. 6, a. 3, corp.: “Perfectio autem alicuius rei triplex est. Prima quidem, secundum quod in suo esse constituitur. Secunda vero, prout ei aliqua accidentia superadduntur, ad suam perfectam operationem necessaria. Tertia vero perfectio alicuius est per hoc, quod aliquid aliud attingit sicut finem.” See also the discussion in Jordan Aumann, O.P., Spiritual Theology (Manila: University of Santo Tomás, 1982), 78–79. 11 This line of reasoning takes it as evident that the distinction drawn in ST I, q. 6, a. 3, is an exhaustive dialectic and that therefore secondary and instrumental perfection are to be taken as species of operative perfection. 12 ST II-II, q. 184, a. 3, corp.: “Per se quidem et essentialiter consistit perfectio Christianae vitae in caritate.” See also q. 184, a. 1, corp. 13 St. Thomas Aquinas, On the Perfection of the Spiritual Life [The Religious State, the Episcopate and the Priestly Office], in An Apology for Religious Orders, trans. John Procter, O.P. (St. Louis: Herder, 1902), ch. 2: “Consistit autem principaliter spiritualis vita in caritate, quam qui non habet nihil esse spiritualiter reputatur.” 14 See A. Fonck, “Perfection chrétienne” in Dictionnaire de théologie catholique, vol. 12, no. 1 (Paris: Librarie Letouzey et Ané, 1933), col. 1225. 10 Religious Life as a State of Perfection 1185 in charity abideth in God, and God in him” (1 Jn. 4:16). Therefore the perfection of the Christian life consists radically (specialiter) in charity.15 Here for the word which the Fathers of the English Dominican Province have rendered as “radically” (specialiter), Cajetan prefers “essentially” (essentialiter) or “substantially” (substantialiter).16 This, he argues, more adequately communicates the proper metaphysical perfection of charity in the soul. Lemonnyer summarizes Cajetan’s contention: As Cajetan comments it, the expression which translates most exactly the thought of St. Thomas is the following: The perfection of the Christian life and the Christian life itself consists essentially or substantially (better than specially) in charity. Charity produces the essence or the substance of Christian perfection, being that through which is realized the union of the Christian to God, who is, objectively, his Perfection.17 Though he is careful not to reify charity, consistently affirming its accidental status,18 St. Thomas is no less adamant that charity is the “substance” of Christian perfection. Secondary operative perfection is accorded to the elicited acts of the other virtues (imperated by charity). In a subordinated and secondary sense, the other virtues (including both faith and hope) contribute to man’s perfection by ordering the powers of man’s soul and so “establishing the proper order into the means that lead to God.”19 St. Thomas refers to the elicited acts of the other virtues therefore as possessing relative perfection or perfection secundum quid.20 While each virtue has a proper perfection (religion included among them), they come to full stature in relation to charity. Jordan Aumann observes that in eliciting acts imperated by ST II-II, q. 184, a. 1, corp.: “Unumquodque dicitur esse perfectum inquantum attingit proprium finem, qui est ultima rei perfectio. Caritas autem est quae unit nos Deo, qui est ultimus finis humanae mentis, quia qui manet in caritate, in Deo manet, et Deus in eo, ut dicitur I Ioan. IV. Et ideo secundum caritatem specialiter attenditur perfectio vitae Christianae.” 16 Cajetan, commentary to ST II-II, q. 184, a. 1. 17 Lemonnyer, La vie humaine, 509. 18 See ST II-II, q. 23, a. 2, corp. 19 Aumann, Spiritual Theology, 80. 20 See ST II-II, q. 184, a. 1, ad 2: “Et ideo secundum caritatem simpliciter attenditur perfectio Christianae vitae, sed secundum alias virtutes secundum quid.” 15 1186 Gregory Pine, O.P. charity, the other virtues serve as “integral parts” of Christian perfection: Christian perfection must be considered as a moral whole, integrated by the conjunction of those conditions that perfect the life of the Christian. It connotes a plenitude that presupposes the perfect rectification of our entire moral life. But this total rectification is not achieved by charity alone, which refers only to the end; it also involves the operations of the infused moral virtues that regulate the proper use of the means to the end. Therefore the infused moral virtues pertain to the essence of Christian perfection considered in an integral manner.21 The other virtues retain a place within the integral perfection of man, a place subordinated to the command and final formation of charity. This dynamic will be at play in the interaction of religion and charity. The last operative perfection to which St. Thomas devotes considerable attention are the counsels (taken collectively), which exhibit instrumental perfection.22 He notes that the counsels too are ordered to charity by “the removal of things that hinder the act of charity, and yet are not contrary to charity, such as marriage, the occupation of worldly business, and so forth.”23 The notion of counsels as instrumentally perfect will be a major subject of inquiry in what follows. Charity as End of the Religious Life With this understanding of charity as primary operative perfection (generally), it follows that the end of the religious state is the perfection of charity (specifically). St. Thomas writes: “The perfection of charity is the end of the religious state. And the religious state is a school or exercise for the attainment of perfection, which men strive to reach by various practices.”24 This identification serves as a foundational principle of his treatment Aumann, Spiritual Theology, 80. ST II-II, q. 184, a. 3, corp.: “Secundario autem et instrumentaliter perfectio consistit in consiliis.” 23 ST II-II, q. 184, a. 3, corp.: “Consilia autem ordinantur ad removendum impedimenta actus caritatis, quae tamen caritati non contrariantur, sicut est matrimonium, occupatio negotiorum saecularium, et alia huiusmodi.” 24 ST II-II, q. 186, a. 2, corp.: “Ipsa perfectio caritatis est finis status religionis, status autem religionis est quaedam disciplina vel exercitium ad perfectionem perveniendi. Ad quam quidem aliqui pervenire nituntur exercitiis diversis.” Note that, strictly speaking, the final end of Christian life—its objective term or final perfection as described above—is God (uncreated beatitude) and our participation 21 22 Religious Life as a State of Perfection 1187 of religious life. In the sed contra of the first article of the first question devoted specifically to the religious state in the Summa theologiae (ST), he writes: In the Conferences of the Fathers (Collat. i, 7) abbot Moses speaking of religious says: ‘We must recognize that we have to undertake the hunger of fasting, watchings, bodily toil, privation, reading, and other acts of virtue, in order by these degrees to mount to the perfection of charity.’ Now things pertaining to human acts are specified and denominated from the intention of the end. Therefore religious belong to the state of perfection.25 While he will later argue that religious are constituted in a state of perfection by the fact that they are solemnly and stably obliged to means of perfection, here St. Thomas focuses on the role played by the end of religious life. The means themselves, enumerated as “the hunger of fasting, watchings, bodily toil . . .” are taken on as conducive to the perfection of charity. The religious state is principally to be understood as a means to that end. As F. Giardini explains, “The religious state is not a goal, but a way: clear, certain, sure, but only a way, a method for efficiently tending to the perfection of charity.”26 Thus, the entire discussion of religious perfection in terms of the virtue of religion (as follows) is to be ultimately referred to charity. The Virtue of Religion in Religious Life Since the Christian life (generally) and religious life (specifically) are ordered to the same end (the perfection of charity), they cannot be distinguished thereby. Instead, it is the means adopted in religious life that therein (created beatitude). Since man attains to God by charity, charity shares in the nature of end. And as the religious state pertains to this life, with the fullness of Christian life as its goal, it therefore makes sense to say that its end is the perfection of charity, always keeping in mind the ultimate and transcendent horizon of beatitude. 25 ST II-II, q. 186, a. 1, corp.: “Sed contra est quod in collationibus patrum, dicit abbas Moyses, de religiosis loquens, ieiuniorum inediam, vigilias, labores, corporis nuditatem, lectionem, ceterasque virtutes debere nos suscipere noverimus, ut ad perfectionem caritatis istis gradibus possimus conscendere. Sed ea quae ad humanos actus pertinent, ab intentione finis speciem et nomen recipiunt. Ergo religiosi pertinent ad statum perfectionis.” 26 F. Giardini, O.P., “Lo stato religioso come olocausto,” Angelicum 38 (1961): 187–99, at 192. 1188 Gregory Pine, O.P. distinguishes its efficacy from that proper to other ecclesial states. With this in mind, I will consider the virtue of religion as exercised in the religious state and then the vows (as the act of religion) which constitute one in the religious state. Religion possesses its own proper perfection as a moral virtue. For St. Thomas, religion is a potential part of justice. Potential parts retain the identifiable nature and finality of the virtue to which they are annexed, but participate it in a somehow deficient manner. As a species of justice, religion renders what is due to another, specifically to God. Religion lacks the full character of justice in that it does not achieve a strict equality of recompense.27 Religion offers due reverence and honor to God and constitutes the worshipping individual as subjected to God and his provident order. Cicero defines religion as what “consists in offering service and ceremonial rites to a superior nature that men call divine.”28 Religion thus constitutes the stable and permanent disposition out of which one subjects himself to God, chiefly as it commands acts of worship (both interior and exterior). Religious life is a stable and peculiarly intense living of the virtue of religion. The religious, one might say, intends for a wholly religious existence. Commenting on this phenomenon, Antonio Royo Marin observes, “The effort of religious . . . registers fundamentally in the ambit of the virtue of religion, but as borne unto its ultimate consequences. . . . Of itself, the religious life has the ambition of total religiosity. There is nothing—in practice, nothing ought to be—in it which is not totally and essentially religious.”29 This note of totality at work in the self-donation prompted by the virtue of religion distinguishes how religion is exercised in the religious state from how religion is exercised without. Royo Marin observes that religious are not distinguished from non-religious in that the former practice the virtue of religion while the latter do not; rather it is by the totality of their exercise of the virtue. Religious are committed by their state to a modally exhaustive or total oblation.30 Here we encounter the ST II-II, q. 80, a. 1, corp.; q. 81, a. 1, corp. ST II-II, q. 81, a. 1, s.c.: “Tullius dicit, II Rhet., quod religio est quae superioris naturae, quam divinam vocant, curam caeremoniamque affert.” 29 Antonio Royo Marin, O.P., La Vida Religiosa (Madrid: Biblioteca de Autores Cristianos, 1965), 135. 30 Royo Marin, La Vida Religiosa, 136: “Lo que distingue a los religiosos de los laicos no es el hecho de que los primeros practiquen la virtud de la religión y los segundos no, ya que ambos la practican o deben practicarla. Sino únicamente el modo de practicarla, llevándola los primeros hasta las últimas consecuencias, o sea, hasta la plena totalidad, haciendo de sus vidas un verdadero holocausto en honor de Dios.” 27 28 Religious Life as a State of Perfection 1189 first indication of the religious state’s claim to perfection. Giardini writes: “To submit totally to the service of God . . . to adhere completely to Him . . . no concept is repeated so insistently as that of ‘totality.’ All and perfect are alike: ‘that one consecrate, all of himself and all things in God’s service just is perfection.’”31 The quality or modality of the offering—specifically its totality—at once distinguishes the religious state from other ecclesial states and establishes its claim to perfection. This is a theme to which I will return in what follows. Vows Given this basic understanding of religion and religious life, we can further specify the matter by considering the constitutive act of religion exercised in religious life, namely, vows. This provides a specific point at which religion and charity will appear as closely linked. Vows establish the individual in an ecclesially recognized state by public profession of the counsels. St. Thomas explains that “‘state,’ properly speaking, denotes a kind of position, whereby a thing is disposed with a certain immobility in a manner according with its nature.”32 Walter Farrell, expanding on St. Thomas’s language of status, gives the following clarification: A better translation would be “stance of life.” The phrase is taken from a comparison with the physical position of a man standing: he stands when he is erect and quiet. . . . And it is in this position, erect and quiet, that his members are properly disposed. . . . Thus a moral state or stance will be an erect and quiet or permanent position of man among his fellows.33 Vows effectively constitute the religious life as a state and so serve as a convenient locus of inquiry when examining its peculiar perfection. When considering the efficacy of vows, St. Thomas argues that moral acts are more meritorious when vowed; that is to say, ceteris paribus, an act which flows from a vowed will is “better” than a specifically identical act which flows from a non-vowed will. The reasons he gives are instructive: Giardini, “Lo stato religioso,” 191 (internal quotation taken from ST II-II, q. 186, a. 1, ad 1: “Quod aliquis se totaliter et sua divino cultui deputet, ad perfectionem pertinet”). 32 ST II-II, q. 183, a. 1, corp.: “Status, proprie loquendo, significat quandam positionis differentiam secundum quam aliquis disponitur secundum modum suae naturae, cum quadam immobilitate.” 33 Walter Farrell, O.P., A Companion to the Summa, vol. 3, The Fullness of Life (IIaIIae) (New York: Sheed and Ward, 1940), 506. 31 1190 Gregory Pine, O.P. (1) The vow itself is an act of latria which ennobles the acts of lower virtues when it commands them; (2) the one who vows subjects more to God— not only the act, but also the power; (3) by a vow the will is immovably confirmed in the good which represents the perfection of virtue.34 Let us take these notions in reverse order. First, St. Thomas notes that the vows impose a certain obligation to doing or omitting something, committing the individual to a greater good.35 They thereby fix him in a particular state by debt of fulfillment: “Hence man is obliged before all to fulfill the vows he has made to God, since this is part of the fidelity he owes to God.”36 To some it may seem that vows only make life more perilous by multiplying the occasions of infidelity. To the contrary, St. Thomas affirms that vows perfect one by fastening his will more indefectibly on the good. Only in this sense is it expedient to vow.37 André Ignace Mennessier cites this as one of the principal benefits of the vows: “The vow, by the fact that it fixes our will—and by the effort of determination which this entails—contributes to intensifying our volitional élan [yielding] a more intense will on the part of action.”38 By arguing along these lines, St. Thomas makes clear his particular understanding of freedom. One is not freer by being equally disposed to adhere to or defect from God’s will, but rather by being more stably fixed on the good end and thereby made more perfectly fit to pursue and acquire the best means to that end.39 He explains: “The merit of a good work is increased in proportion as the will is confirmed in good. . . . He who makes a vow, confirms his will to accomplish that which he promises; and when he accomplishes the good work which he has vowed to do, its consummation proceeds from the fact that he who commits it acts from a determined purpose.”40 Confirmation in the end affords a greater share in the goodness thereof, both habitual and actual, and thereby renders action more meritorious. A will stabilized in the end tends more reliably See ST II-II, q. 88, a. 6, corp. See ST II-II, q. 88, a. 1, corp. 36 ST II-II, q. 88, a. 3, corp.: “Et ideo maxime obligatur homo ad hoc quod impleat vota Deo facta, hoc enim pertinet ad fidelitatem quam homo debet Deo.” 37 See ST II-II, q. 88, a. 4, corp. 38 André Ignace Mennessier, O.P., “Donation à Dieu et voeux de religion,” Vie Spirituelle supplément 49 (1936): 277–301, at 289. 39 See ST I, q. 62, a. 8, ad 3, and II-II, q. 88, a. 4, ad 1. 40 Aquinas, Perfection of the Spiritual Life, ch. 13: “Ad laudem boni operis pertinet quod voluntas firmetur in bono. . . . Manifestum est autem quod qui aliquid vovet, voluntatem suam firmat ad id quod vovet; et sic cum implet quod voverat, opus suum ex voluntate firmata procedit.” 34 35 Religious Life as a State of Perfection 1191 toward the goal of its perfection. To illustrate this point, St. Thomas cites the examples of God, the angels, and the blessed.41 Thus, the necessity that the vows entail is not a hindrance to human liberty, but a blessed bond leading ultimately to a more profound exercise of freedom. St. Thomas quotes St. Augustine: “Happy is the necessity that compels us to do the better things.”42 St. Thomas’s second reason for the greater efficacy of vows underscores that in the exercise of vowed agency one offers not only the act, but the faculty as well: “He that vows something and does it, subjects himself to God more than he that only does it; for he subjects himself to God not only as to the act, but also as to the power, since in future he cannot do something else. Even so he gives more who gives the tree with its fruit, than he that gives the fruit only.”43 Here again, there is a sense that vows inaugurate a total offering. Finally, for the first of the three reasons why it is more efficacious to act under vow than not, St. Thomas explains that vows make more meritorious the acts of lower virtues: To vow . . . is an act of religion [actus latriae] which is the chief of the moral virtues. Now the more excellent the virtue, the better and more meritorious the deed. Wherefore the act of an inferior virtue is the better and more meritorious for being commanded by a superior virtue, whose act it becomes through being commanded by it, just as the act of faith or hope is better if it be commanded by charity. Hence the works of the other moral virtues (for instance, fasting, which is an act of abstinence; and being continent, which is an act of chastity) are better and more meritorious, if they be done in fulfilment of a vow, since thus they belong to the divine worship, being like sacrifices to God.44 Again, see ST I, q. 62, a. 8, ad 3, and II-II, q. 88, a. 4, ad 1. ST II-II, q. 88, a. 4, ad 1: “Felix necessitas est quae in meliora compellit.” 43 ST II-II, q. 88, a. 6, corp.: “Ille qui vovet aliquid et facit, plus se Deo subiicit quam ille qui solum facit. Subiicit enim se Deo non solum quantum ad actum sed etiam quantum ad potestatem, quia de cetero, non potest aliud facere, sicut plus daret homini qui daret ei arborem cum fructibus quam qui daret ei fructus tantum.” 44 ST II-II, q. 88, a. 6, corp.: “Primo quidem, quia vovere, sicut dictum est, est actus latriae, quae est praecipua inter virtutes morales. Nobilioris autem virtutis est opus melius et magis meritorium. Unde actus inferioris virtutis est melior et magis meritorius ex hoc quod imperatur a superiori virtute, cuius actus fit per imperium, sicut actus fidei vel spei melior est si imperetur a caritate. Et ideo actus aliarum virtutum moralium, puta ieiunare, quod est actus abstinentiae, et continere, quod est actus 41 42 1192 Gregory Pine, O.P. As will appear in what follows, religion is in one sense the highest of the moral virtues and therefore most proximate to the sphere of the theological virtues. It appears from St. Thomas’s reasoning here that vows have the effect of drawing all the acts of a vowed person’s properly moral life into the more noble and dignified character of religion, and thereby into a more proximate position to the summit of Christian life. Lemonnyer speaks of this as elevating life into the sphere of a perpetual liturgy: In the religious state the virtue of religion is not confined to excellently exercising its proper acts. By the vows, especially by the vow of obedience, it consecrates, in their very source, the acts of the other supernatural virtues, moral virtues, in particular, which it raises to the high dignity and merit of works of the virtue of religion. It makes a perpetual and holy liturgy of the whole life of a religious. It is to this fact that the religious state owes its name of religious, and not only its name, [but] its proper and specific efficacy of exercise promoting perfection. The religious advances and arrives certainly at the perfection of charity through the systematic, professional exercise of the virtue of religion. The servant of God in the religious life becomes his friend therein.45 The consecration which the vows effect in turn draws the acts of other virtues into a kind of ongoing liturgical dynamism. Giardini speaks in the same vein of the life of a religious as a “perpetual act of worship.”46 Religion, as greatest of the moral virtues, elevates the whole moral life of the religious into a nobler and more dispositively meritorious mode vis-à-vis charity. Before pursuing further the subject of charity, religious life appears already as poised for perfection: Vows constitute man in an ecclesial state ordered by peculiar means to the pursuit and attainment of perfection. But, without a clear understanding of how religion is bound up with charity, it remains unclear what the quasi-perfection of religion yields. Thus, we must consider how religion is proximately dispositive to the advent and augmentation of charity. castitatis, sunt meliora et magis meritoria si fiant ex voto, quia sic iam pertinent ad divinum cultum, quasi quaedam Dei sacrificia.” 45 Lemonnyer, La vie humaine, 516. 46 Giardini, “Lo stato religioso,” 191. See also ST II-II, q. 186, a. 1, ad 2. Religious Life as a State of Perfection 1193 Virtues in Dialogue How then do religion and charity relate? One could speak of the dynamic that obtains between the two virtues in the moral organism in terms of general (or architectonic) virtues with the attendant considerations of imperation (of the acts of “lower” virtues) and further/final formation (of virtuous acts), but much has been written on these themes, and here the aim is to address directly the peculiar contribution of religion.47 The following approach will be conducted from the bottom up, as we examine the role played by religion in disposing proximately to charity. At the outset, it bears repeating that in the Thomistic tradition religion is not a theological virtue.48 Though this is clear from the fact of its subordination to justice within St. Thomas’s schema, the reasoning for the assignation is instructive. Religion properly considers the cult offered to God rather than God himself as object. Since virtues are specified by their object, religion is generically distinct from the theological virtues. Faith, hope, and charity actually modulate or transpose the reach of man’s intellect and will by conducting human acts unto God—propelling man beyond the limitations of his own nature.49 Religion lacks this power. Generally speaking, the moral virtues govern the order of man’s passions and his relations to external goods, operations, and persons. It follows that the stable and solemn exercise of religion in the religious state is a non-ultimate, albeit non-trivial, perfection. Royo Marin characterizes the subordinated but significant contribution of the moral virtues in the following way: For a survey of pertinent contributions to the conversation as concerns general (architectonic) virtue, imperation by both charity and religion, and further/final formation, see: ST I-II, q. 6, a. 4; q. 18, a. 6; q. 65, aa. 1–2; II-II, q. 23, aa. 6–8; q. 81, aa. 1, 4; In III sent., d. 9, q. 1, a. 3, qcula 3; d. 27, q. 2, a. 4, qcula 3; Thomas Aquinas, De caritate, q. 1, a. 3; Cajetan, commentary to ST II-II, q. 23, a. 8, and q. 81, a. 8; John of St. Thomas, Cursus theologicus, vol. 2 (Paris: Ludovicus Vivès, 1886), disp. 19, a. 8, nos. 19, 21; Charles-René Billuart, O.P., Sancti Thomae hodiernis academiarum moribus accommodata sive cursus theologiae juxta mentem Divi Thomae, vol. 4 (Paris: Victor LeCoffre, 1886), 542 (Tractatus de religione et vitiis oppositis); Odon Lottin, O.S.B., L’âme du culte: La vertu de religion d’après S. Thomas d’Aquin (Louvain: Bureau des Oeuvres Liturgiques, 1920); Anthony J. Falanga, C.M., Charity, the Form of the Virtues according to Saint Thomas (Washington, DC: Catholic University of America Press, 1948); Michael Sherwin, O.P., By Knowledge and By Love: Charity and Knowledge in the Moral Theology of St. Thomas Aquinas (Washington, DC: Catholic University of America Press, 2005), esp. 179–80. 48 See ST II-II, q. 81, a. 5, corp. 49 Walter Farrell, Companion, 3–4. 47 1194 Gregory Pine, O.P. Christian perfection cannot be considered as a simple form, but as an integrated moral whole through the coming together of conditions that perfect the life of the Christian. It is obviously a fullness that supposes the perfect submission or rectification of our whole moral life. And as this total moral rectification is not obtained with charity alone, which is uniquely referred to the end, but supposes also the full rectification of the means that are ordered to that end, subjecting and rectifying the disordered passions which impede and problematize the act of charity, it follows that the acts of all the other infused virtues—which are referred precisely to these means—enter to form part of the very essence of Christian perfection at least when considering it in a physical or integral manner.50 Insofar as the attainment of the end is advanced by rectification of the means, the virtue of religion contributes to integral moral perfection. But, in what sense is religion peculiar in comparison with the other moral virtues? In ST II-II, q. 81, a. 6, St. Thomas argues that religion is the greatest of the moral virtues or—as he puts it—should be preferred to the other moral virtues.51 He begins by noting that man’s end is God. Those things which serve as paths to that singular end are ordered hierarchically according as they more or less effectively and sublimely secure the end. It follows: “The nearer it is to the end the better it is.”52 Now, religion is peculiar among the moral virtues in that it directly and immediately orders its operations unto the divine honor.53 Thus, the virtue of religion is most proximate to the properly theological, giving it a kind of preeminence among the moral virtues. So, while religion is not a theological virtue, nevertheless, it should be preferred to all other moral virtues in part because its moral nobility places it in a privileged stance vis-à-vis charity. In examining this notion, Cajetan uses the Dionysian principle of cosmic continuity to speak of religion’s quasi-theological character: “Just as in nature things are so connected and Antonio Royo Marin, O.P., Teologia de la Caridad (Madrid: Biblioteca de Autores Cristianos, 1963), 81. 51 ST II-II, q. 81, a. 6, corp.: “Religio sit praeferenda aliis virtutibus moralibus.” 52 ST II-II, q. 81, a. 6, corp.: “Quanto sunt fini propinquiora, tanto sunt meliora.” 53 ST II-II, q. 81, a. 6, corp.: “Religion approaches nearer to God than the other moral virtues, in so far as its actions are directly and immediately ordered to the honor of God [Religio autem magis de propinquo accedit ad Deum quam aliae virtutes morales, inquantum operatur ea quae directe et immediate ordinantur in honorem divinum].” 50 Religious Life as a State of Perfection 1195 ordered that the inferior in its highest operation attains to the condition of the superior (as, for example, . . . the mind of man in its supreme act understands without discursive reasoning [and thus touches the angelic]), so among the moral virtues, the highest, which is religion, participates the nature of the theological virtues.”54 The contention is that religion, as the highest of moral virtues, stands nearest the theological virtues and so most closely approximates their dynamism. St. Thomas locates this aptitude in the propinquity of their respective objects and ends: “It belongs immediately to charity that man should give himself to God, adhering to Him by a union of the spirit; but it belongs immediately to religion, and, through the medium of religion, to charity which is the principle of religion, that man should give himself to God for certain works of Divine worship.”55 A complementary text will help to illumine this interrelation. When commenting ST II-II, q. 186, a. 1, Cajetan describes the peculiar nature of the causality at work in the religious state—a causality deriving from its religious character. He contends that the holocaust of religious life disposes unto the union of charity by a kind of “accessive” or “approaching” causality: The near relationship of the exercise of this sort (the holocaust of man) to perfection itself appears preeminently from the very start, because the binding holocaust of man to God of this sort, which is begun in profession, is most near [maxime proximum] to the union of charity to God. . . . And for this reason religion is called a state of perfection not formally but accessively.56 Because he premises this argument on the specifically religious character Cajetan, commentary to ST II-II, q. 81, a. 5: “Sicut in universo naturae rerum sic sunt connexae et ordinatae ut inferior in sui supremo attingat naturae superioris conditionem (in cuius signum, natura elementaris in suo supremo movetur motu caelesti, et anima in sui supremo intelligit absque discursu); ita in virtutibus moralibus suprema earum, quae est religio, participat natura theologalium virtutum.” 55 ST II-II, q. 82, a. 2, ad 1: “Ad caritatem pertinet immediate quod homo tradat seipsum Deo adhaerendo ei per quandam spiritus unionem. Sed quod homo tradat seipsum Deo ad aliqua opera divini cultus, hoc immediate pertinet ad religionem, mediate autem ad caritatem, quae est religionis principium.” 56 Cajetan, commentary to ST II-II, q. 186, a. 1: “Et quoniam approximitas huiusmodi exercitii ad ipsam perfectionem ex sui initio, quod est holocaustum hominis, praecipue apparet, quia huiusmodi holocaustum mancipativum hominis Deo, quod in professione religionem inchoante fit, maxime proximum est unioni caritatis ad Deum. . . . Et per hoc infert religionem nominare statum perfectionis, non formaliter, sed accessive.” 54 1196 Gregory Pine, O.P. of the religious state, Cajetan’s insight can be extended to the exercise of religion more broadly. In his reading of St. Thomas and Cajetan, Lemonnyer takes this tack. To refer to this “accessive” causality, he uses the language of “proximately dispositive” causality: “This union to God in his cult and service, on the plane of the virtue of religion does not constitute perfection itself, which belongs to charity. But vis-à-vis the perfection of charity, the union of religion has the value of proximate disposition [disposition prochaine] or of means par excellence.”57 Lemonnyer expands further on the fittingness of this dispensation: “It is normal that we should go to the perfection of charity, queen of the theological virtues, through the perfection of religion, which is the highest of the supernatural moral virtues, and to the intimacy of the divine friendship in charity through the familiarity of cult and service of God in religion.”58 The religious life, stabilized and solemnized by vows, establishes the individual in a wholly religious mode of life and thus, in light of the kinship of the virtues at play, constitutes him in an accessive or proximately dispositive stance to the advent and augmentation of charity. To concretize the point further, consider the interplay between acts of religion and charity. In one text, St. Thomas describes the dynamic that obtains between devotion (interior, volitional act of religion) and charity: Bodily fatness is produced by the natural heat in the process of digestion, and at the same time the natural heat thrives, as it were, on this fatness. In like manner charity both causes devotion (inasmuch as love makes one ready to serve one’s friend) and feeds on devotion. Even so all friendship is safeguarded and increased by the practice and consideration of friendly deeds.59 St. Thomas begins with a natural analogy to show how acts of two virtues can be mutually enriching, but he is careful with his language lest he be understood to have something cause itself. Charity, he says, causes devotion. Here it suffices to say that elicited acts of devotion are well disposed to the command of charity, which St. Thomas refers to in the immediately Lemonnyer, La vie humaine, 515. Lemonnyer, La vie humaine, 559. 59 ST II-II, q. 82, a. 2, ad 2: “Pinguedo corporalis et generatur per calorem naturalem digerentem; et ipsum naturalem calorem conservat quasi eius nutrimentum. Et similiter caritas et devotionem causat, inquantum ex amore aliquis redditur promptus ad serviendum amico; et etiam per devotionem caritas nutritur, sicut et quaelibet amicitia conservatur et augetur per amicabilium operum exercitium et meditationem.” 57 58 Religious Life as a State of Perfection 1197 preceding reply (cited above) as the “principle of religion.” But what of the causal influence of devotion upon charity? Earlier St. Thomas has established that devotion renders the will prompt in its service, modally augmenting one’s agency to the plane of religion: “Hence devotion is apparently nothing else but the will to give oneself readily to things concerning the service of God.”60 It effects the surrender or offering of the man to God. Mennessier defines devotion in St. Thomas as “a surrender, a conferral in which the whole will surrenders to the sovereign and transcendent Authority; so whole, so total that it must be qualified as prompt—in the fullest sense—specifying that the desire is held all the way down, even in its root.”61 Returning to the text under consideration, St. Thomas explains that charity is fed (nutritur) by devotion just as friendship (which St. Thomas identifies with charity in ST II-II, q. 23, a. 1) is conserved and increased by meditation upon and the exercise of friendly deeds (amicabilia opera). Note first that charity is not caused but fed. God is the principal author of grace and thus of charity. Devotion cannot be said to cause charity in the strict sense, but by rendering the will prompt in offering divine service, it “feeds” charity as a kind of energy on which charity can draw insofar as it approximates the volitional dynamism of charity itself. Taken in this sense, the act of devotion (and the virtue of religion) gestures toward or disposes to the virtue of charity. As John Curran observes, devotion is well-suited to offer the whole man, insofar as “morally speaking, the will is the whole man, for when the will is inclined toward God, the whole man is so inclined.”62 Thus, in a sense, the totality of devotion is seen to anticipate the totality of charity. As Curran explains further: Devotion belongs to the handmaid; charity to the spouse. This is not true in the sense that the handmaid is without charity or that the spouse can neglect devotion. But it is true in the sense that devotion is emphasized in a special way in one and charity in the other. Both are necessary. The handmaid in the Christian dispensation is already a spouse. And the spouse cannot cease to be a handmaid in the service of her lord, for her lord is God.63 ST II-II, q. 82, a. 1, corp.: “Unde devotio nihil aliud esse videtur quam voluntas quaedam prompte tradendi se ad ea quae pertinent ad Dei famulatum.” 61 Mennessier, “Donation à Dieu,” 279. 62 John W. Curran, O.P., “The Thomistic Concept of Devotion,” The Thomist 2 (1940): 410–43, 546–80, at 578. 63 Curran, “Devotion,” 580. 60 1198 Gregory Pine, O.P. Again, it bears repeating: whereas the theological virtues terminate in God as end—whether as first truth speaking, omnipotent and merciful giver of eternal life, or as divine friend—the moral virtues stand under the theological virtues as disposing means to that end and as integral parts of moral perfection. Devotion, as interior, volitional act of religion, functions within the moral organism as the soul of worship, standing at the threshold of charity’s quarters. In this light, the act of devotion (and the virtue of religion) is seen to occupy a place of preeminence in moral perfection (the perfect operation of the moral virtues). Curran writes: “Devotion does for the moral virtues what charity does for all the virtues. . . . Religion is the highest moral virtue and devotion is religion in its pure state, just as the act of charity is total perfection in its pure state.”64 So, while the offering of devotion (religion) retains a character proper to the moral virtues, we can observe that it stands peculiarly well-suited to advance one in caritative perfection. Charity, Religion, and Vows: A Second Look Having considered one aspect of the relationship between religion and charity, it remains to examine how this dynamic is played out in the context of the vows wherein the exercise of the virtue of religion acts as proximately dispositive to the advent and augmentation of charity. The Evangelical Counsels Any formal investigation of the vows must account for the counsels to which they bind. The evangelical counsels serve as efficacious means which dispose the religious to the attainment of perfection. In what follows, it will help to set up a comparison between precept and counsels, to show how observance of the counsels “surpasses” observance of the precepts. Precepts and Counsels—Common End The end of Christian life is the same for all the faithful—namely, God and the growth in charity which secures our share in that end. All men are equally bound or commanded to attain to perfection understood in this way: “You, therefore, must be perfect, as your heavenly Father is perfect” (Matt 5:48). All are equally called to the first and greatest commandment enunciated in the Old Testament and reformulated by Christ in the Gospels as the double love command.65 This precept is identified by St. Thomas with charity and growth therein: “Primarily and essentially the 64 65 Curran, “Devotion,” 579. See: Deut 6:4–7; Lev 19:18; Matt 22:37; Mark 12:30; Luke 10:27. Religious Life as a State of Perfection 1199 perfection of the Christian life consists in charity, principally as to the love of God, secondarily as to the love of our neighbor, both of which are the matter of the chief commandments of the Divine law.”66 All are thus bound to pursue charity, and the precept is enjoined upon all: “Now the perfection of Divine love is a matter of precept for all without exception, so that even the perfection of heaven is not excepted from this precept.”67 Now, a problem arises in that the command of charity is effectively limitless. The precept has no upward bound, a fact evident from the exhaustive nature of the first and greatest commandment (“with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your strength, and with all your mind”) and from the formal structure of charity itself. In ST II-II, q. 24, a. 7, St. Thomas enumerates the three principles which could potentially circumscribe the growth of charity (agent, subject, and participated form), but he determines that none of these impose a limit. God possesses infinite power; the soul has no upper bound beyond which it cannot further participate a qualitative form; and the depths of charity, as a created participation in God’s own love, simply cannot be plumbed.68 Thus, the command to be perfect admits of no ne plus ultra for the wayfarer. For this reason, as Cajetan highlights, charity is fittingly commanded without limit: Because the end of charity, which is God himself, is infinite, therefore it is no wonder if charity, which commands what is proximate to the infinite end, be commanded without measure. And so charity is fittingly desired without measure both in that it is the end of the remaining precepts, and in that it is immediately proximate to the infinite end: for nothing is more commensurate to the infinite than what is without measure.69 ST II-II, q. 184, a. 3, corp.: “Per se quidem et essentialiter consistit perfectio Christianae vitae in caritate, principaliter quidem secundum dilectionem Dei, secundario autem secundum dilectionem proximi, de quibus dantur praecepta principalia divinae legis, ut dictum est.” 67 ST II-II, q. 184, a. 3, ad 2: “Perfectio autem divinae dilectionis universaliter quidem cadit sub praecepto, ita quod etiam perfectio patriae non excluditur ab illo praecepto” (cited in Teofilo Urdanoz, O.P., “El precepto de la perfección según Santo Tomás,” La Vida Sobrenatural 35 [1955]: 164–76, at 169). 68 See ST II-II, q. 24, a. 7, corp. 69 Cajetan, commentary to ST II-II, q. 184, a. 3: “Quia finis caritatis, qui est ipse Deus, est infinitus, ideo non est mirum si caritas, quae ut quid proximum ad finem infinitum praecipitur, sine mensura praecipitur. Ita quod caritati convenit sine mensura appeti et ex eo quod est finis reliquorum praeceptorum, et ex eo quod est ut immediate proxima infinito fini: commensuratum enim infinito nihil magis est quam quod sine mensura est.” 66 1200 Gregory Pine, O.P. St. Thomas explains the practical import of this universal call to holiness: “We so love Him, if there be nothing in us which is wanting to divine love, that is to say, if there is nothing which we do not actually or habitually refer to God.” 70 St. Thomas, himself glossing the first and greatest commandment, expands on this to show how the precept requires of each the complete subjection of the whole self. To love with the whole mind is to subject one’s understanding. To love with the whole soul ensures that all that man loves is loved in God and all man’s affection is referred to the love of him. To love with the whole strength signifies that all one’s words and works are established in divine charity.71 This is no anemic or partial perfection over which the counsels make additional or supplementary demands. Clearly, the precepts entail a perfect adherence to the common end of human life on which the counsels can make no improvement: “Now the love of God and of our neighbor is not commanded according to a measure, so that what is in excess of the measure be a matter of counsel.” 72 Thus, the difference lies in the means adopted. Before passing to consideration of how the counsels “improve” upon the common mode of fulfilling the primary precept of charity, it is helpful to compare the counsels to the secondary precepts as St. Thomas himself uses this analogy. Within the treatise on states of life in the Summa theologiae, once St. Thomas has established the nature of Christian perfection, he considers the means thereunto. In ST II-II, q. 184, a. 2, he states that the pursuit of perfection prescribed by the primary precept entails the removal of obstacles which impede man’s gradual approach to a wholly actualized charity. This progressive realization, he writes, can be lived in two generic modes, both of which are an adequate response to the Lord’s injunction to be perfect. The first way is described as follows: “By the removal from man’s affections of all that is contrary to charity, such as mortal sin; and there can be no charity apart from this perfection, wherefore it is necessary for salvation.” 73 The second way exceeds the first, not in that it pursues a nobler object, but in that it endeavors a more thoroughgoing asceticism: “By the removal from man’s affections not only of whatever is contrary to charity, Aquinas, Perfection of the Spiritual Life, ch. 6: “Alio vero modo ex toto corde, mente, anima et fortitudine Deum diligimus, si nihil nobis desit ad divinam dilectionem quod actu vel habitu in Deum non referamus.” 71 See Aquinas, Perfection of the Spiritual Life, ch. 6. 72 ST II-II, q. 184, a. 3, corp.: “Non autem dilectio Dei et proximi cadit sub praecepto secundum aliquam mensuram, ita quod id quod est plus sub consilio remaneat.” 73 ST II-II, q. 184, a. 2, corp.: “Uno modo, inquantum ab affectu hominis excluditur omne illud quod caritati contrariatur, sicut est peccatum mortale. Et sine tali perfectione caritas esse non potest. Unde est de necessitate salutis.” 70 Religious Life as a State of Perfection 1201 but also of whatever hinders the mind’s affections from tending wholly to God.” 74 This distinction appears to describe the pursuit of Christian perfection without the counsels and with the counsels respectively, or the common mode of acquiring the perfection of charity and that proper to religious life. But, as this identification is not made explicitly, the point must be established. St. Thomas makes it clear in the line which immediately follows that this latter course signifies a certain perfection: “Charity is possible apart from this perfection, for instance in those who are beginners and in those who are proficient.” 75 The clear implication is that the second way which removes from man’s affection “not only of whatever is contrary to charity, but also of whatever hinders the mind’s affections from tending wholly to God,” is more fittingly called perfect. The question remains whether the perfection attributed to the latter course is essential (having a higher degree of charity) or instrumental (pertaining to a higher state in pursuit of charity). The categorization of the three ages of the spiritual life (beginners, proficient, and perfect), to which St. Thomas adverts, appears earlier in the treatise on charity76 under the aspect of those moral matters which pertain to men of every state.77 It would seem from this initial treatment that the categorization pertains principally to essential Christian perfection or the pursuit of charity regardless of state. But the immediate context suggests a different application in the article under consideration. St. Thomas describes the three ages again in the immediately preceding question, and there he construes the division as somehow associated with difference of states.78 He affirms baldly in ST II-II, q. 183, a. 4, ad 2: “Men are said to be beginners, proficient, and perfect (so far as these terms indicate different states), not in relation to any occupation whatever, but in relation to such occupations as pertain to spiritual freedom or servitude.” 79 ST II-II, q. 184, a. 2, corp.: “Alio modo, inquantum ab affectu hominis excluditur non solum illud quod est caritati contrarium, sed etiam omne illud quod impedit ne affectus mentis totaliter dirigatur ad Deum.” 75 ST II-II, q. 184, a. 2, corp.: “Sine qua perfectione caritas esse potest, puta in incipientibus et proficientibus.” 76 See ST II-II, q. 24, a. 9, corp. 77 See ST II-II, prol.: “. . . de his quae pertinent ad omnes hominum status.” 78 See ST II-II, q. 183, a. 4, corp.: “Videtur quod differentia statuum non attendatur secundum incipientes, proficientes et perfectos.” The cited text is the first line of the first objection, which will be denied in the sed contra. 79 ST II-II, q. 183, a. 4, corp.: “Incipientes, proficientes et perfecti, secundum quod per hoc status diversi distinguuntur, dicuntur homines non secundum quodcumque studium, sed secundum studium eorum quae pertinent ad spiritualem libertatem vel servitutem.” 74 1202 Gregory Pine, O.P. St. Thomas has just defined ecclesial state in question 183 according to spiritual freedom and servitude. It appears thus that in the present treatise the three ages pertain principally to ecclesial state, and that therefore the latter category in ST II-II, q. 184, a. 2, pertains to religious. St. Thomas confirms this deduction and elaborates upon it in the next article. There he addresses directly “whether perfection consists in the observance of the commandments or the counsels,” and it is in this context that the analogy with the secondary precepts proves so illuminating. As highlighted at the beginning of this section, St. Thomas begins by distinguishing different senses of perfection: “Primarily [per se] and essentially [essentialiter] the perfection of the Christian life consists in charity,”80 which St. Thomas identifies with the double love command.81 After a short disquisition on the inexhaustibility of this command, St. Thomas summarizes with the observation that “perfection consists essentially in the observance of the commandments.”82 Here commandments should be understood as the aforementioned precepts of love of God and love of neighbor. From this point, St. Thomas passes on to a description of the counsels, the perfection of which he describes initially as “secondary and accidental,”83 and which here he calls “secondary and instrumental.”84 In the latter half of the article, St. Thomas describes the counsels in terms of the secondary precepts (those subordinated to the double love command), both of which (secondary precepts and counsels) are “directed to charity, yet not in the same way.”85 He goes on to describe how the other precepts (alia praecepta)—the secondary precepts—“are directed to the removal of things contrary to charity,”86 while the counsels “are directed to the removal of things that hinder the act of charity.”87 This division conjures ST II-II, q. 184, a. 3, corp.: “Per se quidem et essentialiter consistit perfectio Christianae vitae in caritate . . . ” 81 See ST II-II, q. 184, a. 3, corp.: “. . . principally as to the love of God, secondarily as to the love of our neighbor, both of which are the matter of the chief commandments of the Divine law [. . . principaliter quidem secundum dilectionem Dei, secundario autem secundum dilectionem proximi, de quibus dantur praecepta principalia divinae legis].” 82 ST II-II, q. 184, a. 3, corp.: “Perfectio essentialiter consistit in praeceptis.” 83 ST II-II, q. 184, a. 3, corp.: “secundario et accidentaliter” 84 ST II-II, q. 184, a. 3, corp.: “Secundario autem et instrumentaliter perfectio consistit in consiliis.” 85 ST II-II, q. 184, a. 3, corp.: “. . . ordinantur ad caritatem, sed aliter et aliter.” 86 ST II-II, q. 184, a. 3, corp.: “. . . ordinantur ad removendum ea quae sunt caritati contraria.” 87 ST II-II, q. 184, a. 3, corp.: “. . . ordinantur ad removendum impedimenta actus caritatis.” 80 Religious Life as a State of Perfection 1203 the twofold perfection of charity described at the end of the last article, and what is more, here the identification of the common and religious modes is explicit. What is at stake is an analogous attribution of totality or perfection. In the former course the strict contrary (mortal sin) is removed, while in the latter course everything which might detract from the most expeditious and complete actualization of and growth in charity is removed insofar as possible. As Marie-Joseph Nicolas notes, the former is a principally negative totality—“There is nothing in my heart which is contrary to charity (not only to the fervent act of charity, but also to its presence in the soul)”—whereas the latter is at first negative, but also positive—“There is nothing in my heart which hinders me from loving God with all my strength, actually.”88 The analogy with the secondary precepts is especially important in framing the subsequent discussion. One of the governing paradigms according to which St. Thomas describes the counsels is as non-essential yet more efficacious instrumental means. Scholars have noted that this notion, if understood improperly, may be taken to trivialize the importance of the counsels. Fernando Sebastian Aguilar notes that comparison with the secondary precepts helps one to retain a sense of the counsels’ importance: In reality, commandments and counsels have a similar relation to the great commandment of charity. The secondary commandments are means of fulfilling the commandment of charity imperfectly; the counsels, for their part, are means of fulfilling it perfectly. Perfection consists in neither of the two essentially. If we say that the counsels are not necessary for perfection because it does not consist in them formally, why not say also that it is not necessary to fulfill the secondary precepts in order to be perfect, for Christian perfection consists essentially in neither of them.89 By comparing the efficacy proper to the secondary precepts with that of the counsels, one is more likely to avert such a minimization. There is evidence to suggest that this theme is one which St. Thomas came to appreciate especially in the years immediately preceding his death, as it reappears in a work contemporaneous with the composition of the Marie-Joseph Nicolas, O.P., “La perfection chrétienne dans l’état religieux,” in Directoire des supérieures (Paris: Cerf, 1948), 10. 89 Fernando Sebastian Aguilar, C.M.F., “Mandamientos y consejos evangélicos,” Revista Española de teología 25 (1965): 25–77, at 45. 88 1204 Gregory Pine, O.P. end of the secunda secundae. In the Contra retrahentes, he gives a classic formulation: The manner in which the precept of Charity is to be fulfilled by certain precepts of the Law [alia praecepta legis] is different to that in which it is to be accomplished by the Counsels. For some things are so designed to a particular end that the end cannot be attained without them [sine quo finis haberi non potest]. Such is the case with food and the maintenance of life. Other things, again, serve to attain an end with peculiar certainty and completeness [per quod et facilius et securius et perfectius finis obtinetur]. Thus, though food is necessary for the continuance of physical life, medicine serves for the easier and more certain preservation of health. Now some of the commandments [alia legis praecepta] are given for the first of these two reasons, namely as a necessary means of attaining to charity. . . . But the Counsels are given to us in order that we may fulfil the precept of charity, in the second way of which we have spoken.90 This text makes clear the analogous use of perfection. The secondary precepts (alia legis praecepta), on the one hand, are strictly necessary for salvation and for keeping the precept of charity such that, without their observance, charity itself is lacking. In this sense, they are perfect. The counsels, on the other hand, dispose man more perfectly (perfectius) unto the total attainment of the end. Aguilar summarizes: “Both are dispositions to charity; the commandments to the essential existence [ser] of charity, and the counsels to its perfection [su perfección].”91 Aguilar compares the characteristic nature of these two modes of fulfillment. The former mode— by observance of secondary precepts (de necessitate salutis)—entails the recognition and love of God as final end and Summum Bonum.92 The St. Thomas Aquinas, Contra retrahentes [Refutation of the Pernicious Teaching of Those Who Would Deter Men from Entering Religious Life], ch. 6, in Procter (trans.), Apology for the Religious Orders. “Aliter tamen ad caritatis praecepta ordinantur alia praecepta legis, aliter autem consilia. Ad finem enim aliquid ordinatur ut sine quo finis haberi non potest, sicut cibus ad vitam conservandam; aliquid vero ordinatur in finem sicut per quod et facilius, et securius, et perfectius finis obtinetur: sicut ad vitam corporis conservandam ordinatur cibus ex necessitate, medicina vero conservativa sanitatis ut perfectius et securius sanitas habeatur. Primo igitur modo ad caritatem ordinantur alia legis praecepta. . . . Secundo autem modo ordinantur ad caritatem consilia.” 91 Aguilar, “Mandamientos,” 54. 92 See Aguilar, “Mandamientos,” 46–47. 90 Religious Life as a State of Perfection 1205 latter mode—by adoption of the counsels (de consiliis)—responds to the prompting of charity unto a permanent and total act of love of God. He explains this beautifully as a kind of drawing nearer and nearer to heaven: Between avoiding mortal sin and doing some acts of love of God now and again [secured by the fulfillment of the secondary precepts] and living in a permanent and total act of the love of God [secured expeditiously through observance of the counsels], there is room for the possibility of striving to make our love as frequent and total as is possible to us, going beyond the measure of the obligatory and drawing more or less near to the ideal of beatific perfection.93 In the same vein he writes later: The secondary precepts [mandamientos] establish the required acts for the very essence of charity, such that without them it [charity] could not exist; therefore they are like instruments for acquiring and exercising charity in its most essential and indispensable elements; the counsels also are instruments for acquiring and exercising charity, not in its essential elements, but rather with a singular perfection, as the sole reason of the whole of life assiduously exercised.94 It is in this sense that St. Thomas will speak of the secondary precepts as, in a sense, ordered to the perfection of the counsels: “But the observance of the precepts apart from the counsels is directed to the observance of the precepts together with the counsels; as an imperfect to a perfect species, even as the irrational to the rational animal.”95 This is to say that the fulfillment of the secondary precepts as ordered to the observance of the primary precept of charity can, in a certain sense, be said to dispose to the totality and perfection represented by observance of the counsels. Aguilar writes: The exercise of charity at the level of the secondary precepts [mandamientos] disposes one to exercising it [charity] at the level Aguilar, “Mandamientos,” 47. Aguilar, “Mandamientos,” 54. 95 ST II-II, q. 189, a. 1, ad 5: “Observantia vero praeceptorum sine consiliis ordinatur ad observantiam praeceptorum cum consiliis sicut species imperfecta ad perfectam, sicut animal irrationale ad rationale.” 93 94 1206 Gregory Pine, O.P. of the evangelical counsels. . . . The evangelical counsels are more perfect than the secondary precepts; they are more direct and more closely bound up with the perfection of charity; and they contain eminently the perfection of the secondary precepts as perfect charity contains imperfect.96 This is the essential point. The counsels, beyond merely instrumental and non-essential means available to those who would assume them, exercise a certain perfecting influence vis-à-vis the secondary precepts. (It is for this reason that all are called to observe the spirit of the counsels.) By motivating a more perfect way, the counsels somehow complete and crown the instrumentality of the common course of pursuing perfect charity. This gets at the principal sense in which a life lived according to the counsels is somehow more perfect. It bears repeating that this is not to say that religious have a specifically different charity from that possessed by non-religious. This is emphatically not the case. Grace is one. So too is charity. Lemonnyer writes: “St. Thomas is categorical. This charity which the precept of charity commands for all is perfect charity in all its extent and according to all its modes, both heavenly and earthly. The reason for this is that charity, having as it does the value of an end, is necessarily willed by God and commanded by him without limit or measure.”97 Both forms of life, with and without the profession of the counsels, are trained on the fulfillment of the precept of charity. But, those who assume the counsels outstrip the mark intentionally lest they be found wanting in the end. With the solicitude of a perfectionist, the religious seeks to remove all the obstacles that could potentially hamper his pursuit of God. Counsels as More Efficacious Means St. Thomas speaks of the counsels with greatest frequency as instrumentally dispositive means to the perfection of charity. St. Thomas describes the nature of this instrumental perfection or efficacy in a variety of ways. On the weaker side, he speaks of them as preamble or preparatory to charity.98 According to these formulations, the counsels appear to occupy Aguilar, “Mandamientos,” 56. Lemonnyer, La vie humaine, 550. 98 See St. Thomas Aquinas, Quodlibet I, q. 7, a. 2, ad 2: “Those are said to have a state of perfection who are solemnly obliged to something annexed to perfection. But something is annexed to perfection of charity in two ways. In one way as preamble or preparatory to perfection, as with poverty, chastity, and such like, by which man is withdrawn from concern for things of the world, that he might be given more freely to things of God [Statum autem perfectionis habere dicuntur qui sollemp96 97 Religious Life as a State of Perfection 1207 a merely negative place. The counsels, in this sense, are for removing obstacles. Antonin Motte clarifies: “It is a matter of what affords to charity its full growth in aiding it not only to triumph over what could threaten its very existence, but to exclude as much as possible what prevents it from being actualized.”99 On the stronger side, St. Thomas speaks of the counsels as instruments in the sense of perfective or efficacious means unto perfect charity.100 Reginald Buckler writes of this instrumental perfection: The difference between the ordinary Christian and the Religious life lies in the means to be used in each state for gaining the common end. The Christian life provides sufficient means for attaining to perfect Charity. The Religious state provides the perfect means. It is therefore called a state of perfection, because of the perfect means it possesses for attaining the end, and the obligation it imposes on those who join it to use those means permanently in progressing to their end.101 St. Thomas uses a variety of terms to denote the mode or manner of expediency. By the counsels, one attains the end of the religious state more easily,102 more securely, and more perfectly.103 Pedro Lumbreras echoes this language, speaking of the advance of the religious as “better, more expeditious, easier, more secure, and more perfect.”104 niter obligantur ad aliquid perfectioni annexum. Est autem aliquid annexum perfectioni caritatis dupliciter. Vno modo sicut praeambulum et praeparatorium ad perfectionem, ut paupertas, castitas et huiusmodi, quibus homo retrahitur a curis saecularium rerum, ut liberius uacet hiis quae Dei sunt].” 99 Antonin Motte, O.P., “La definition de la vie religieuse selon s. Thomas d’Aquin,” Revue thomiste 87 (1987): 442–53, at 444. 100 See Aquinas, Contra retrahentes, ch. 6: “From all this it becomes clear that the Counsels pertain to perfection of life, not because perfection necessarily consists in their observance, but because they are the way or means to perfection [Sic igitur patet quod consilia ad vitae perfectionem pertinent, non quia in eis principaliter consistat perfectio, sed quia sunt via quaedam vel instrumenta ad perfectionem caritatis habendam].” 101 H. Reginald Buckler, O. P., The Perfection of Man by Charity: A Spiritual Treatise (London: Burns and Oates, 1893), 91. 102 See St. Thomas Aquinas, Quodlibet IV, q. 12, a. 2, ad 2: “per que facilius ad perfectionem peruenitur.” 103 See Contra retrahentes, ch. 6: “per quod et facilius, et securius, et perfectius finis obtinetur.” 104 Pedro Lumbreras, O.P., De Statibus Hominum Variis (Madrid: Graficas Halar, 1957), 79. 1208 Gregory Pine, O.P. The concept of instrumental causality perhaps more adequately connotes a sense of contribution, albeit relative and subordinated, to the pursuit of perfection in the context of the religious state. Thus, while the instruments themselves do not impart perfection infallibly and indefectibly, they are certainly most apt and qualified to an expedient attainment of the end. Marie-Vincent Leroy writes: “And it is necessary that [the state of perfection] deal with a certain type of works objectively better than their opposite, and which, without themselves being perfection, are qualified to lead to it with greater surety and rapidity.”105 Whenever speaking of their instrumental efficacy, St. Thomas deploys three principal images for their manner of operation, the discussion of which follows in turn. Counsels as Therapeutic, Ascetic, and Oblative St. Thomas describes the instrumental perfection of the vows in terms of their therapeutic (healing), ascetic (self-emptying and disciplining), and oblative (self-offering) value. In general, the counsels seek to ameliorate the wounds and remove the impediments which hinder the actualization of charity while effectuating the self-gift of the individual. Charity is habitually retained so long as mortal sin is expunged from one’s life. But, St. Thomas observes, the habit itself has a trajectory. It stands as first act with respect to the further perfection of posited acts of the habit. And, as the beatitude toward which man tends is a matter of actual charity, it stands to reason that the soul is more perfect which is better disposed to act out of that habit. The counsels cultivate the perfection (understood as actualization) of perfection (understood as habitual charity). The genius of the counsels is that they make just such a reality more attainable. Aguilar writes: “The perfect mode of perfecting the precept of charity tries to avoid, moreover, all which is contrary to the actuality and integrality of charity, to its perfection; [the religious] tries to practice it with the totality and with the actuality with which it is practiced in heaven.”106 The threefold renunciation of the vows begins by reorienting the woundedness of one’s fallen desires and advances by distancing him from whatever secondary goods might prove absorbing and engrossing, so that he may give himself wholly to the continual pursuit of a heaven-bound charity. By renouncing legitimate claims to these goods, the evangelical counsels seek first to ameliorate and heal the concupiscent tendency Marie-Vincent Leroy, O.P., “Théologie de la vie religieuse,” Revue thomiste 92 (1992): 324–43, at 337. 106 Fernando Sebastian Aguilar, C.M.F., La Perfección en la Iglesia: Sus Lineas Essenciales (Madrid: Victor Pradera, 1963), 69. 105 Religious Life as a State of Perfection 1209 which—when aggravated—is inflamed by covetousness, lasciviousness, and vainglory. The vows thus restrain and purify the associated desires under the leavening influence of charity. Taking chastity for example, the counsel does not represent an overly fastidious fear of sexual intercourse or a dualistic depreciation of bodily goods. Rather, St. Thomas explains, it represents a therapeutic means to ameliorate the reproductive faculty’s fallen clamoring: “Now the use of sexual union hinders the mind from giving itself wholly to the service of God . . . on account of its vehement delectation, which by frequent repetition increases concupiscence.”107 By extending this logic to obedience and poverty, which respectively curb man’s concupiscent tendencies to egoism and acquisitiveness, one can see how the vows are ordered to the progressive healing of man’s fallen nature. St. Thomas summarizes in the following fashion: As regards the practice of perfection a man is required to remove from himself whatever may hinder his affections from tending wholly to God, for it is in this that the perfection of charity consists. Such hindrances are of three kinds. First, the attachment to external goods, which is removed by the vow of poverty; secondly, the concupiscence of sensible pleasures, chief among which are venereal pleasures, and these are removed by the vow of continence; thirdly, the inordinateness of the human will, and this is removed by the vow of obedience.108 But the value of the vows extends beyond the therapeutic. Indeed, by the vows one abandons claim to everything which occupies or consumes his attention and solicitude. This frees the religious to dedicate himself more wholly to the pursuit of what is higher and ultimately more conformable to his nature. Solicitude is a limited commodity and vehement or sustained activity in any particular aspect of man’s life hinders him from ST II-II, q. 186, a. 4, corp.: “Usus autem carnalis copulae retrahit animum ne totaliter feratur in Dei servitium . . . propter vehementiam delectationis, ex cuius frequenti experientia augetur concupiscentia.” 108 ST II-II, q. 186, a. 7, corp.: “Quantum ad exercitium perfectionis, requiritur quod aliquis a se removeat illa per quae posset impediri ne totaliter eius affectus tendat in Deum, in quo consistit perfectio caritatis. Huiusmodi autem sunt tria. Primo quidem, cupiditas exteriorum bonorum. Quae tollitur per votum paupertatis. Secundum autem est concupiscentia sensibilium delectationum, inter quas praecellunt delectationes venereae. Quae excluduntur per votum continentiae. Tertium autem est inordinatio voluntatis humanae. Quae excluditur per votum obedientiae.” 107 1210 Gregory Pine, O.P. pursuit of higher things.109 Thus, by freeing man from even legitimate objects which greatly absorb his attention, the counsels leave him better disposed to attain a higher good. Picking up at the end of the last cited text, St. Thomas goes on to describes this ascetic aspect of the vows: In like manner the disquiet of worldly solicitude is aroused in man in reference especially to three things. First, as regards the dispensing of external things, and this solicitude is removed from man by the vow of poverty; secondly, as regards the control of wife and children, which is cut away by the vow of continence; thirdly, as regards the disposal of one’s own actions, which is eliminated by the vow of obedience, whereby a man commits himself to the disposal of another.110 By virtue of the renunciations and purifications which the evangelical counsels entail, the religious is freed to adhere to the one thing necessary. Apropos of the ascetic quality of the instrumental efficacy of the counsels, St. Thomas writes elsewhere: “It is abundantly clear, that the human heart is more intensely attracted to one object, in proportion as it is withdrawn from a multiplicity of desires. Therefore, the more a man is delivered from solicitude concerning temporal matters, the more perfectly he will be enabled to love God.”111 Thus, by disciplining his concern for the principal goods which impinge upon his life and attention, man is thereby freed to dedicate himself more wholeheartedly to the pursuit of perfection. And by hemming in his use of these goods, he can reasonably expect a concomitant asceticism of affection. Nicolas writes: “The religious chooses actual poverty, perfect chastity, and universal obedience, not in order to make his perfection consist in them, but in order to arrive by these means at a purity of heart, that is to say at the abolition in himself of all the affections which See ST II-II, q. 180, a. 2, corp. ST II-II, q. 186, a. 7, corp.: “Similiter autem sollicitudinis saecularis inquietudo praecipue ingeritur homini circa tria. Primo quidem, circa dispensationem exteriorum rerum. Et haec sollicitudo per votum paupertatis homini aufertur. Secundo, circa gubernationem uxoris et filiorum. Quae amputatur per votum continentiae. Tertio, circa dispositionem propriorum actuum. Quae amputatur per votum obedientiae, quo aliquis se alterius dispositioni committit.” 111 Aquinas, Perfection of the Spiritual Life, c. 6: “Manifestum namque est quod humanum cor tanto intensius in aliquid unum fertur, quanto magis a multis revocatur; sic igitur tanto perfectius animus hominis ad Deum diligendum fertur, quanto magis ab affectu temporalium removetur.” 109 110 Religious Life as a State of Perfection 1211 present obstacles to actual, total, direct, and immediate love of God.”112 Now, in addition to the therapeutic and ascetic, there is an oblative dimension to the instrumental efficacy of the counsels.113 St. Thomas shows that, by an exhaustive dialectic, the counsels lay claim to all the goods of the religious which he offers with a certain élan: Again, ‘a holocaust is the offering to God of all that one has,’ according to Gregory (Hom. xx in Ezech.). Now man has a threefold good, according to the Philosopher (Ethic. i, 8). First, the good of external things, which he wholly offers to God by the vow of voluntary poverty: secondly, the good of his own body, and this good he offers to God especially by the vow of continence, whereby he renounces the greatest bodily pleasures. The third is the good of the soul, which man wholly offers to God by the vow of obedience, whereby he offers God his own will by which he makes use of all the powers and habits of the soul.114 St. Thomas regularly uses the Scriptural image of holocaust, a species of Old Testament sacrifice, to signify the complete nature of the offering in religious profession.115 St. Thomas relies on St. Gregory the Great to draw the connection between the Old Testament sacrifice and religious oblation: “Hence Gregory says (Hom. xx in Ezech.): ‘Some there are who keep nothing for themselves, but sacrifice to almighty God their tongue, their senses, their life, and the property they possess. . . . When a man vows to God all his possessions, all his life, all his knowledge, it is a holocaust.’”116 Nicolas, “La perfection chrétienne,” 17. I have described this feature at length in the discussion of religious self-offering as devout sacrifice or holocaust. It suffices to supply the final division of the quotation from ST II-II, q. 186, a. 7, corp., for the sake of completion. 114 ST II-II, q. 186, a. 7, corp.: “Primo quidem, exteriorum rerum. Quas quidem totaliter aliquis Deo offert per votum voluntariae paupertatis. Secundo autem, bonum proprii corporis. Quod aliquis praecipue offert Deo per votum continentiae, quo abrenuntiat maximis delectationibus corporis. Tertium autem bonum est animae. Quod aliquis totaliter Deo offert per obedientiam, qua aliquis offert Deo propriam voluntatem, per quam homo utitur omnibus potentiis et habitibus animae.” 115 St. Thomas gives a summary description of the holocaust offering in his treatise on the Old Law in ST I-II, q. 102, a. 3, ad 8. 116 ST II-II, q. 186, aa. 1 (corp.: “Unde Gregorius dicit, super Ezech., sunt quidam qui nihil sibimetipsis reservant, sed sensum, linguam, vitam atque substantiam quam perceperunt, omnipotenti Deo immolant”) . . . and 6 (corp: “Cum quis omne quod habet, omne quod vivit, omne quod sapit, omnipotenti Deo voverit, holocaustum 112 113 1212 Gregory Pine, O.P. Transposing the cultic sense of holocaust (from the Greek, “burnt whole”) in which the entire host is consumed on the altar, St. Thomas uses this notion of religious life as an immolative self-offering to capture the comprehensive nature of a life vowed to God according to the evangelical counsels.117 The vows inaugurate this offering not merely by the offering of discrete goods or of discrete acts, but the very person—possessions, body, and soul (with all its powers). The therapeutic, ascetic, and oblative features of the vows are ordered and animated by perfection, as ordered to the more fixed, stable, and permanent actualization of the virtue of charity—an inchoation of the perfection of heavenly love. Taken in this light, the healing, training, and offering which the counsels effect at once signal the presence of charity’s prompting and dispose to its growth in extent and intensity. Lemonnyer writes on this score: A holocaust accomplished under the influence of initial charity and in view of perfect charity, the vows are an authentic work of perfect charity and represent an excellent starting point of the religious towards perfection. A complete liberation of the will and of the spirit, the vows assure [the religious’s] total and permanent preparedness, exterior and interior, for charity itself and for its distinguished works—contemplation and works of mercy, spiritual and corporal.118 So while the counsels proximately dispose only the means, they do so perfectly. By ordaining means more proportionate to the end of man’s high calling, they assist the religious to accede more rapidly to love’s abundance. Counsels and State of Perfection At this point, we are in a position to appreciate why religious vows constitute religious life as a state of perfection. All that remains is to make the connection explicit. Religious life is fittingly called a state of perfection because vowing the evangelical counsels according to a rule of life fixes one solemnly and stably in an ecclesial state wherein one adopts the means best est”). Because the host is wholly consumed in a holocaust, St. Thomas, following the testimony of Scripture, teaches that it is the preeminent (praecipuum) or perfect sacrifice: “Inter omnia sacrificia holocaustum erat praecipuum, quia totum comburebatur in honorem Dei, et nihil ex eo comedebatur” (ST I-II, q. 102, a. 3, ad 10). 118 Lemonnyer, La vie humaine, 520. 117 Religious Life as a State of Perfection 1213 suited to the perfection of charity and the life of heaven: There is required for the state of perfection a perpetual obligation to things pertaining to perfection, together with a certain solemnity. Now both these conditions are competent to religious . . . For religious bind themselves by vow to refrain from worldly affairs, which they might lawfully use, in order more freely to give themselves to God, wherein consists the perfection of the present life.119 By the assumption of this obligation in solemn manner as ritually attested, the religious is bound to perfect means to perfection: “The state of perfection requires an obligation to whatever belongs to perfection: and . . . poverty, continence, and obedience belong to the perfection of the Christian life. Consequently, the religious state requires that one be bound to these three by vow.”120 At first the claim may seem modest or unremarkable. Are not the counsels only perfect instrumentally vis-à-vis charity (which is perfect simply)? How then does a vowed life justly merit consideration as a state of perfection? Recall that, for reasons adduced earlier, perfection in charity cannot function as the object of a vow (in the strict ecclesial sense), as it is not a concrete and immediately realizable higher good, itself having no upper bound; by comparison, the counsels given shape by a prescribed rule can serve in just such a capacity. And, in light of their proximately dispositive position vis-à-vis charity, they are especially well-suited to serve in this stead. Thus, given the distinctions already formulated regarding the analogical use of perfection and the proper perfection of religion and charity, we can appreciate the content, scope, and significance of the claim that religious life is a state of perfection. ST II-II, q. 184, a. 5, corp.: “Ad statum perfectionis requiritur obligatio perpetua ad ea quae sunt perfectionis, cum aliqua solemnitate. Utrumque autem horum competit et religiosis et episcopis. Religiosi enim voto se adstringunt ad hoc quod a rebus saecularibus abstineant quibus licite uti poterant, ad hoc quod liberius Deo vacent, in quo consistit perfectio praesentis vitae.” 120 ST II-II, q. 186, a. 6, corp.: “Ad statum autem perfectionis requiritur obligatio ad ea quae sunt perfectionis. Quae quidem Deo fit per votum. Manifestum est autem ex praemissis quod ad perfectionem Christianae vitae pertinet paupertas, continentia et obedientia. Et ideo religionis status requirit ut ad haec tria aliquis voto obligetur.” 119 1214 Gregory Pine, O.P. Conclusion Religious life takes its name from the virtue of religion, and its constitutive act is an act of religion. And yet, religious life does not limit its aspirations to the subjection of divine servitude through acts of worship within a merely natural setting. Rather, the religious is trained ultimately on the fullness of charity which pursuit his state animates in peculiar fashion. In considering the vows, we have seen how this plays out in the concrete order of virtuous acts. Acts of religion (devotion, prayer, vows, etc.) have their own proper perfection, but they do not operate in isolation from charity. Rather, religion—by approximating the perfection of charity in the register proper to the moral virtues—proves proximately dispositive to the reign of charity and indeed conduces to the advent and augmentation of thereof. Thus, religious life is not a state of perfection in that it infallibly generates a more intense charity by the sheer instrumentality of the state itself. Such claims, in addition to being verifiably false, justly incur the wrath of those seeking to appropriate the Church’s ascetical tradition and the teachings of the Second Vatican Council in the present context. Rather, the dignity and suitability of the means adopted in the religious state dispose one—provided he consents and cooperates—unto a more expedient growth in Christian perfection, which perfection God wills for all persons of whatever rank or state. Here, the suitability and continued pertinence of the language of “state of perfection” emerges. In the end, there are a variety of excellent ways to go to God. The manifestation of God’s glory cannot be exhausted by merely one way. Rather, he chooses to bless a diversity of states so that each might testify to his glory with a certain excellence. Some means are better than others and some can fittingly be called perfect. Thus, we can appreciate that religious life—as deploying especially efficacious means—serves in this sense as an eschatological sign. The goal is heaven. Some states are especially transparent to that reality, from which other states may in turn benefit. Ultimately, religious life and the language used to describe it ought not to dispirit or rankle but rather to orient the mystical body toward the perfection of charity in the integral union of the worshipping Christ unto the praise of N&V God’s glory. Nova et Vetera, English Edition, Vol. 19, No. 4 (2021): 1215–1235 1215 Catechisms, Communion, and Latin Scholastic Reception of Byzantine Thought: St. John Damascene’s De fide orthodoxa in St. Bonaventure’s Breviloquium Corey J. Stephan Marquette University Milwaukee, WI Introduction Although it is often noted that St. Bonaventure, together with other Western Scholastics, employed Burgundio of Pisa’s twelfth-century Latin translation of St. John Damascene’s De fide orthodoxa as a reference work, the Damascene’s influence on Bonaventure’s thinking remains understudied. What follows is partly a preliminary study of that influence. Since Bonaventure intended the Breviloquium to be a catechism for fellow Franciscans, the work became his outline of the basic tenets of Christian orthodoxy. Although few in number, Bonaventure’s citations of the Damascene appear at crucial moments. The Damascene is one of Bonaventure’s chief authorities for matters of Christology, and he stands as Bonaventure’s lone source for the Maximian dyothelite logic found in the Breviloquium. Further, from a grand view, it seems plausible that Bonaventure adopts De fide orthodoxa’s creedal structure for his own creed-like summary of the rule of faith. By exposing the Damascene’s influence on Bonaventure, the present author hopes to help further the modern development in historical scholarship of locating—even in the thirteenth century with its plethora of polemical tractates—an unmistakable consanguinity between Greek East and Latin West. To that end, the essay concludes with preliminary suggestions regarding how studies of this kind may contribute to modern Roman Catholic and Eastern Orthodox theological dialogue. 1216 Corey J. Stephan History Andrew Louth is not hesitant to attribute landmark status to St. John Damascene: “The theological tradition to which he belonged . . . may be said to have culminated in John, and it is John who represents this tradition in later theology.”1 Between The Fountainhead of Knowledge (of which De fide orthodoxa is only one quarter), the treatises against the Iconoclasts, and the myriad chants that are still standard in Orthodox liturgy, the Damascene’s works came to pervade Byzantine Christianity after his life. Yet the diffusion of the Damascene’s works to non-Hellenists was more complicated and less comprehensive. Old Slavonic, Arabic, and Georgian translations of De fide orthodoxa existed by the end of eleventh century.2 The first Latin translation, traditionally attributed to the Hungarian Cerbanus, was completed partially in the early twelfth.3 Finally, Burgundio’s complete mid-twelfth-century translation became popular among the Latin Scholastics.4 The exact date of Burgundio’s translation of De fide orthodoxa is contested.5 However, it can be placed confidently between 1149 and 1154, with modern scholarship favoring 1153–1154 for two reasons.6 First, Pope Eugenius III, who died on July 8, 1153, sought his longtime trusted translator’s skills by ordering the project, showing that it was started no later than that time.7 Second, a gloss by one of Peter Lombard’s students Andrew Louth, St. John Damascene: Tradition and Originality in Byzantine Theology (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2002), 16. 2 John Damascene, De fide orthodoxa: Versions of Burgundio and Cerbanus, ed. Eligius Marie Buytaert (St. Bonaventure, NY: Franciscan Institute, 1955), “Introduction,” vii. Unless otherwise attributed, citations of De fide orthodoxa will be from the Latin translation by Burgundio as found in this volume. Buytaert’s “Introduction” will be cited as such. 3 Buytaert, “Introduction,” vii. 4 Buytaert, “Introduction,” vii; Basilio Studer, “John of Damascus,” in Patrology: The Eastern Fathers from the Council of Chalcedon to John of Damascus, ed. Angelo Di Berardino, trans. Adrian Walford (Cambridge: James Clarke, 2008), 229–36. 5 For a full discussion of dating the translation, see Buytaert, “Introduction,” ix–xv. 6 Michael McCormick, “Burgundio of Pisa,” in The Oxford Dictionary of Byzantium, ed. Alexander P. Kazhdan (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1991); Buytaert, “Introduction,” ix. 7 Before translating De fide orthodoxa, Burgundio of Pisa (ca. 1110–1193) had already served as an interpreter for an official Western expedition to Constantinonople (1136) and translated the compilation of St. John Chrysostom’s Homiliae in Matthaeum (now known to be pseudopigraphal) at Pope Eugenius III’s request (finished in November 1151). Clearly, Burgundio was both an accomplished translator of the Greek language and a trusted papal scholar. 1 Catechisms, Communion, and Latin Scholastic Reception of Byzantine Thought 1217 suggests that the Lombard encountered Burgundio’s translation of De fide orthodoxa during a trip to Rome.8 Since a copy of Burgundio’s translation had arrived in Rome by the time that the Lombard was working on his Sentences (ca. 1155–1158), but the Lombard did not have access to Burgundio’s translation earlier in his project, it seems that Burgundio just had finished his work by the time that the Lombard began his own.9 This places Burgundio’s undertaking immediately before the Lombard’s.10 The Franciscans who assembled the critical edition of the Sentences identify De fide orthodoxa as one of the Lombard’s most important sources. Further, they see the Damascene’s prominence as only behind that of St. Augustine, Hugh of St. Victor, and Peter Abelard, and they note that the Lombard cites the Damascene in such diverse matters as “faith, sacraments, creation, and predetermination.”11 However, since the Lombard did not have access to Burgundio’s work until partway through his own project, he mixes quotations from the (incomplete) Cerbanus and (complete) Burgundio translations.12 Occasionally, the Lombard blends the two translations in the same citation, suggesting that he may have used Burgundio’s as corrective. As Eligius Marie Buytaert notes, the Lombard’s use of both translations had far-reaching ramifications, making “traces of both of them run through the entire Scholastic literature.”13 Yet the Scholastic reception of Burgundio’s translation was not limited to transmission via the mixed citations of the Sentences. William of Auxerre and Philip the Chancellor both seem to have had access to Burgundio’s Buytaert cites a gloss of Bamberg: “The Master obtained this authority from that book while he was in Rome [A libro isto sumpsit magister hanc auctoritatem dum Rome esset].” Buytaert, “Introduction,” ix. An introductory comment by an editor of Lombard’s Sententiae agrees with Buytaert’s assessment (presumably referring to the same gloss of Bamberg): “Perhaps by deficient time or money or some other thing, while in Rome Peter obtained only this sample of those chapters that were introduced to him in the other version [Forsitan hoc tantum, quod deficiente tempore vel pecunia vel utraque Romae Petrus obtinuerit exemplatum illorum capitulorum quae iam in altera versione ei innotuerant]”; see editorial comment in Peter Lombard, Sententiae in IV libris distinctae, 3rd ed., vol. 1: Prologomena (Grottaferrata: Collegii S. Bonaventurae ad claras aquas, 1971), 121 (editorial introduction). Unless otherwise stated, all English translations are the original work of the present author. 9 Buytaert, “Introduction,” ix–x. 10 Editorial comment in Lombard, Sententiae, 1:122–29. 11 Editorial comment in Lombard, Sententiae, 1:121. 12 Buytaert, “Introduction,” ix; editorial comment in Lombard, Sententiae, 1:121. 13 Buytaert, “Introduction,” v. 8 1218 Corey J. Stephan text.14 Among Franciscans, Alexander of Hales, St. Bonaventure’s teacher, appears to have drawn directly from Burgundio in his Glossa, his Summa, and elsewhere.15 Although Robert Grosseteste produced a corrected version of Burgundio’s translation early in the thirteenth century, Burgundio’s original (sans Grosseteste’s corrections) became the text of study throughout the thirteenth century in the Latin West, including at the University of Paris.16 The Burgundio translation of De fide orthodoxa was so commonly studied that the Latin Scholastics, presumably imitating the form of the Sentences, divided it into four books (with additional chapter headings) for easy reference. Reliable thirteenth-and-fourteenth-century manuscripts from the various European and British centers of learning, especially Paris and Rome, abound.17 Those manuscripts reveal that studying De fide orthodoxa closely and frequently enough to merit indexing was a matter of routine. By the time that the Italian Giovanni di Fidanzza, the man who would become the Doctor Seraphicus, was born (ca. 1217–1221), De fide orthodoxa had inundated Western Scholasticism. When Bonaventure began studying at the University of Paris (ca. 1235), faculty were versed in the Damascene through both the Sentences (their main theological textbook) and the Burgundio translation itself.18 It seems likely that Alexander’s familiarity with De fide orthodoxa influenced his young pupil. Scholars at Paris had few complete works (rather than florilegia) of Eastern Fathers.19 Largely for that reason, the only Greek figure with more direct influence on Bonaventure than the Damascene was Pseudo-Dionysius.20 Alongside Buytaert, “Introduction,” xvi. Buytaert, “Introduction,” xvi. 16 For a discussion of the extent to which Burgundio’s translation was received rather than Grosseteste’s corrective version, see Buytaert, “Introduction,” xv–xx. However, the reason(s) for the reception of Burgundio’s over Grosseteste’s are unknown. 17 Buytaert, “Introduction,” xviii–ix. For example, at Oxford, the Dominican Robert Kilwardby, Bonaventure’s contemporary, indexed the complete known works of the Damascene to assist the study of his fellow friars (M. Michèle Mulchahey, “First the Bow is Bent in Study”: Dominican Education before 1350 [Toronto: Pontifical Institute of Mediaeval Studies, 1998], 524). For a full discussion of the extant medieval manuscripts, see Buytaert, “Introduction,” xx–xli. 18 Marianne Schlosser, for example, suggests 1235 (“Bonaventure: Life and Works,” trans. Angelica Kliem, in A Companion to Bonaventure, ed. J. A. Wayne Hellman and Jarod Goff [Boston: Brill, 2013], 9). 19 Schlosser, “Bonaventure,” 9. 20 Jacques Guy Bougerol, Introduction to the Works of Bonaventure, trans. José De 14 15 Catechisms, Communion, and Latin Scholastic Reception of Byzantine Thought 1219 the Corpus Areopagiticum, the Greek patristic tradition’s dominant representative for Bonaventure and his thirteenth-century Latin Christian contemporaries was De fide orthodoxa, the work of a seventh-to-eighthcentury Syrian.21 What seems to be the earliest of hundreds of citations of De fide orthodoxa in Bonaventure’s corpus appears in the second dubium in his commentary on the prologue of the Sentences.22 Here Bonaventure employs the Damascene alongside Scripture to help explain why teachers may write treatises to explain theological matters rather than allowing the Scriptures to speak for themselves, implicitly defending his own project.23 Moving through Bonaventure’s corpus, quotations of the Damascene appear to help identify the attributes of the one God, to help explain God’s status as Trinity (especially vis-à-vis the divine hypostases), to discuss the Maximian relationship between voluntas naturalis (“natural will”) and voluntas deliberativa (“deliberative will”), to help describe the sacraments, and to assist with other philosophical and theological matters.24 Vinck (Paterson, NJ: St. Anthony Guild Press, 1964), 25. Louth, St. John Damascene, 3. 22 Throughout his corpus, Bonaventure cites the Damascene by name over 250 times. Bonaventure’s actual number of quotations and/or allusions to the Damascene is higher, but it would be difficult (if not impossible) to count them accurately. 23 Bonaventure, In sent., prol., dub. 2 (quoting De fide orthodoxa 1): “Likewise, from what is said—namely, “with two denarii having been obtained,” “supereroganti” [etc.]—it is asked: What is that ‘supererogation’? If you should say that it is a superaddition to sacred Scripture from the masters and the Saints, against such an idea the Damascene says: “What has been handed down to us by the Law and the Prophets, we do venerate, in no wise inquiring beyond it [Item quaeritur de hoc quod dicit: Prolatis duobus denariis supereroganti; quae sit ista supererogatio. Si tu dicas, quod sit magistrorum et Sanctorum superadditio ad sacram Scripturam; contra, Damascenus: “Quae tradita sunt nobis per Legem et Prophetas veneremur, nihil ultra haec inquirentes”]” (Opera Omnia, vols. 1–10 [Quaracchi: Collegii S. Bonaventurae, 1882–1889], 1:23; all citations of Boneventure’s commenary on the Sententiae will draw on the Latin from this edition). Bonaventure employs this quotation of the Damascene as offering an understanding of the sacred tradition that seems to oppose the existence of the theological enterprise. Yet Bonaventure moves on to explain that, in sum, additions to the sacred tradition are only pseudo-theological reflections that actually oppose it. For Bonaventure, true theology never involves additions to the repository of faith. 24 For an example of Bonaventure citing the Damascene in discussion of attributes of the one God, see In I sent., dist. 9, a. 1a, q. 4. Here Bonaventure quotes the Damascene: “God, a being with no limits and without time, generates without limits and unceasingly [Deus, infinite et sine tempore ens, infinite et inquiescibiliter generat]” (De fide orthodoxa 8). For an example of Bonaventure citing the Damascene in discussion of God as Trinity, see Bonaventure, In I sent., dist. 34, 21 1220 Corey J. Stephan However, Bonaventure is not averse to refuting the Damascene when he believes a refutation to be necessary. Addressing the question as to whether or not a person of the Trinity other than the Son may be called an “image,” Bonaventure cites the Damascene as an authority who writes that the Holy Spirit is an “image of the Son,” a quotation also adopted (and explained away) several times by Alexander in his Summa and Aquinas throughout his corpus. Bonaventure retorts: “To that which is objected from the Damascene, it is to be said that the Damascene was a Greek. And the Greeks do not properly accept the ratio of the image, like the Latins, since they do not truly understand about the origin of persons.”25 Although other Latin Scholastics generally reject the notion that the Holy Spirit is literally or absolutely an “image of the Son,” Bonaventure is more severe than they in his handling of the Damascene’s claim.26 where Bonaventure relies on the Damascene several times for his discussions of the hypostases. Bonaventure also relies on the Damascene throughout Quaestiones disputatae de mysterio Trinitatis, citing De fide orthodoxa dozens of times—notably the earlier chapters, in which the Damascene explains who God is (1–15, especially 8, subtitled “De sancte Trinitate” in the Burgundio translation). For Bonaventure citing the Damascene in discussion of the divine will in God, see, for example, Bonaventure, In I sent., dist. 47. For an example of Bonaventure citing the Damascene in discussion of the relationship between the two types of voluntas, see Bonaventure, In II sent., dist. 24, pars 1, a. 2, q. 3, conc. The present author contends that Bonaventure is drawing upon De fide orthodoxa, esp. 58 (subtitled “On the wills and autexousion (that is, free choice) of our Lord Jesus Christ [De voluntatibus et autexusion (id est liberis arbitriis) Domini Nostri Iesu Christi]” in the Burgundio translation). For an example of the discussion of the sacraments, see Bonaventure’s discussion of baptism in Bonaventure, In IV sent., dist. 4, pars 1, a. 1, q. 3, wherein Bonaventure quotes De fide orthodoxa 82 (subtitled “De fide et baptismate” in the Burgundio translation): “By baptism, pardon from sins is given to all similarly, but grace [is given] according to both the proportion of faith and the previous purification [Peccatorum omnibus similiter per baptismum venia datur, gratia autem secundum proportionem fidei et praepurgationem].” 25 Bonaventure, In I sent., dist. 31, pars 2, a. 1, q. 2, conc.: “Ad illud ergo quod obiicitur de Damasceno, dicendum, quod Damascenus fuit Graecus; Graeci autem non ita proprie accipiunt rationem imaginis, ut Latini, quia nec de origine personarum sic sane intelligunt.” 26 Among other places, Aquinas addresses the matter of the Greeks calling the Holy Spirit an “image of the Son” in Contra errores Graecorum I, ch. 10. For Alexander’s treatment of the problem, see Alexander of Hales, Summa Halensis I, pars 2, inq. 2, tract. 2, sec. 1, q. 2, mem. 3, “De nomine ‘Imago’” (all citations from Summa Halensis are from the Latin in Alexander of Hales, Summa Theologica, ed. Bernardini Klumper [Quaracchi: Colegii S. Bonaventurae, 1924–1948]). Alexander addresses the Damascene’s claim twice, each time not outright denouncing the Damascene’s claim that the Spirit is an “image of the Son,” but rather clarifying Catechisms, Communion, and Latin Scholastic Reception of Byzantine Thought 1221 Yet even Bonaventure’s rejections of specific claims in De fide orthodoxa help establish an initial observation for the present study: Bonaventure incorporates De fide orthodoxa into his corpus more thoroughly than he would have had he only known it via the Lombard’s Sentences and his mentor’s Summa. Rather, it seems that Bonaventure was intimately familiar with the Damascene’s great synthesis of orthodoxy. De fide orthodoxa in the Breviloquium Bonaventure wrote the Breviloquium in 1257, the capstone of his twenty-year career of studying and teaching at the University of Paris, as an introductory theological textbook for fellow friars—a Franciscan catechism.27 Thus, the Breviloquium has been described as “a concise synthesis of [Bonaventure’s] mature teaching.”28 Bonaventure labored to communicate the essentials of Christian belief in minimal language, writing in succinct, simple Latin prose. Given Bonaventure’s insistence upon brevity, as he demonstrates even by titling the work the Breviloquium (brevis + loqui), it seems reasonable to assume that he has chosen each outside reference due to its particular magnitude. The Scriptures and St. Augustine claim (predictable) pride of place, but Aristotle, St. Ambrose, St. Gregory the Great, Pseudo-Dionysius, Hugh of St. Victor, St. Anselm of Canterbury, and Peter Lombard are all included—as is the Damascene. The lone direct quotation of (rather than citation of or allusion to) the Damascene in the Breviloquium appears in book V, ch. 10, no. 1. Here Bonaventure quotes De fide orthodoxa in order to explain how the Lord’s Prayer (and all prayer) invites the Holy Spirit’s gifts of grace by defining the types of prayer that God wills for each human to make: He wishes not only for mental prayer [oratio mentalis], which is “an ascent of the intellect into God [ascensus intellectus in Deum],” but truly he also wishes for vocal prayer [oratio vocalis], which is “a petition for fitting things from God [petitio decentium a Deo],” not only by ourselves, but truly also by the Saints just as by divinely that the Spirit is an “image of the Son” in a manner that is not absolute, contrasting the Spirit’s status as a non-absolute image of the Son with the Son’s status as an absolute image of the Father (“effective,” “effectively,” rather than “absolute,” “absolutely”). 27 See Dominic V. Monti, O.F.M., “Introduction,” in Bonaventure, Breviloquium, Bonaventure Texts in Translation 9, trans. and ed. Robert J. Karris, O.F.M. (St. Bonaventure, NY: Franciscan Institute Publications, 2005), xiv–xvii. 28 Monti, “Introduction,” xvi. 1222 Corey J. Stephan given co-prayers with us, that we might be able to obtain more by the Saints than we are worthy by ourselves.”29 Note that Bonaventure identifies “mental prayer” (oratio mentalis) as an “ascent of the intellect into God” (ascensus intellectus in Deum) and “vocal prayer” (oratio vocalis) as a “petition for appropriate things from God” (petitio decentium a Deo). Alexander quotes the phrase ascensus intellectus in Deum in his Summa, where “Ioannes Damascenus” receives the first word in response to the question “whether Christ prayed according to an affect of reason or sensuality.”30 Alexander eventually merges the Damascene’s definition of prayer as an “ascent of the intellect” with the Lombard’s seemingly contradictory concept of prayer as “from the human affect of sensuality, not reason.”31 This may be the only time that Alexander quotes the line in his extant corpus, but it came to permeate his disciple’s theory of prayer.32 Beside here in the Breviloquium, Bonaventure writes some variant of “oratio est ascen Bonaventure, Breviloquium V, ch. 10, no. 1: “Vult autem orari non solum oratione mentali, quae est “ascensus intellectus in Deum,” verum etiam vocali, quae est “petitio decentium a Deo,” non solum per nos ipsos, verum etiam per Sanctos tamquam per coauditores nobis divinitus datos, ut quod minus digni summus impetrare per nos impetrare valeamus per Sanctos” (unless otherwise noted, all Latin quotations from Breviloquium are taken from Tria Opuscula Seraphici Doctoris S. Bonaventurae: Breviloquium, Itinerarium mentis in Deum, et De reductione artium ad theologiam, ed. Quaracchi Friars, 3rd ed. [Quaracchi: Collegii S. Bonaventurae, 1911]). Here Bonaventure quotes De fide orthodoxa 68. 30 Alexander of Hales, Summa Halensis III, pars 1, inq. 1a, tract. 4, q. 2, c. 1: “utrum Christus oraverit secundum affectum rationis vel sensualitis.” Since the Cerbanus translation does not have ch. 68, here Alexander draws directly from the Burgundio translation. In ch. 68, the Damascene discusses Christ’s prayer at the Garden of Gethsemane. He relies upon Chrysostom, the Nazianzen, and Maximus in order to offer a terse explanation of why Christ prayed. He is particularly dependent upon Maximus in order to discuss the interplay between Christ’s two wills (human and divine). 31 Alexander of Hales, Summa Halensis III, pars 1, inq. 1a, tract. 4, q. 2, c. 1, contra: “Ex affectu humano sensualitatis, non rationis.” Alexander cites Lombard, Sententiae III, dist. 17. 32 In a surprising parallel, this line appears only once in the corpus of St. Albert the Great but many times among the writings of St. Thomas Aquinas (see Albertus Magnus, In IV sent., dist. 32, a. 10). Unlike Bonaventure, who only cites the full line (with petitio decentium a Deo) once, Aquinas does so many times. It would seem that Bonaventure tends to follow Alexander in only turning to the Damascene’s first definition, whereas Aquinas follows his own mentor in turning to both parts. Regardless, the Damascene’s definitions of prayer became definitive in the corpora of both Bonaventure and Aquinas. 29 Catechisms, Communion, and Latin Scholastic Reception of Byzantine Thought 1223 sus intellectus in Deum” in his commentaries on books III and IV of the Sentences and his commentary on the Gospel of Luke.33 Perhaps the most significant of Bonaventure’s uses of this formula is found in his commentary on the Sentences III, dist. 17, “whether it was fitting for Christ to pray,” wherein the Damascene’s definition appears multiple times.34 It is unclear why Bonaventure categorizes both types of prayer as oratio rather than preserving Burgundio’s accurate rendering of the Greek proseuchē as oratio and the Greek aitēsis as petitio. Specifically, Bonaventure merges what the Damascene depicted as two separate acts into one act with two types, oratio mentalis and oratio vocalis.35 It is possible that the broader context in the Breviloquium, Bonaventure’s discussion of how the Lord’s Prayer allows the Christian to receive gifts of grace from the Holy Spirit, intimates an answer per se. For Bonaventure, prayer that is jointly a mental orientation (mentalis) and a vocal plea (vocalis) uniquely welcomes the Holy Spirit into one’s soul. The Lord’s Prayer, the prayer of the God-Man, is the paragon of such an oratio. See Bonaventure, In III sent., dist. 9, a. 1, q. 1, conc.; dist. 17, q. 1 (several times); In IV sent., dist. 45, a. 3, q. 1; Super Lucam 6, v. 12, no. 25. 34 A moment at which Aquinas relies on the Damascene to address the same concerns as Bonaventure comes in his own In III sent., dist. 17. Both Aquinas and Bonaventure rely on the Damascene’s definitions of prayer, especially as ascensus intellectus in/ad Deum, to address the Christological questions that arise from the scene of Christ praying at Gethsemane. Broadly, it seems that De fide orthodoxa 68 became particularly important for thirteenth-century commentaries on Sententiae III, dist. 17. Compare Aquinas, In III sent., dist. 17, q. 1, a. 3, qca 1, arg. 1 to Bonaventure, In III sent., dist. 17, q. 1. The alternative presence of in and ad in ascensus intellectus in/ad Deum in various Scholastic texts is curious. Because ad is both attested in the oldest (and best) manuscripts and reflects a tighter rendering of the Greek pros, it is probably Burgundio’s word (Buytaert, “Introduction,” 267). Yet here Bonaventure cites in, and Aquinas normally does the same—with a few exceptions, notably when he quotes the phrase in full (e.g., Aquinas, Catena aurea super Matt 26, lec. 10). Although the two prepositions with the accusative are typically synonymous in medieval Latin, in might carry a subtle change in theological meaning. Perhaps “ascent of the intellect toward God” became “ascent of the intellect into God” early in the manuscript tradition—early enough for the phrase to already appear with in in Alexander’s Summa. Regardless, in (Bonaventure’s reading) seems to fit more aptly than ad inside Bonaventure’s broader mystical project. The ascensus intellectus in Deum is the subject of Bonaventure’s work with a title reminiscent of the Damascene’s formula—the Itinerarium mentis in Deum. It is not difficult to imagine the formula at least partly inspiring Bonaventure’s title for his mystical treatise. 35 For comparison, although Aquinas normally discusses the two definitions separately, he preserves the Damascene’s distinction at the level of act when he quotes the entire phrase (e.g., Aquinas, Catena aurea super Matt. 26, lec. 10). 33 1224 Corey J. Stephan Bonaventure relies on the Damascene at least thrice to explain why God assumed full humanity, each time in Breviloquium IV, his discussion of the Incarnation. The first is in ch. 2, no. 4: “Et totum genus humanum lapsum fuerat et vitiatum, non solum ratione animae, verum etiam carnis: hinc est, quod necesse fuit, quod totum assumeretur, ut totum curaretur” (“And the whole human genus was fallen and spoiled, not only in ratio of the soul, but also of the flesh; that is, that it was necessary that it totally be assumed so that it would totally be cured”).36 The editors of the Quaracchi edition of Bonaventure’s Latin opera and Dominic Monti agree that he is drawing upon chapter 50 of De fide orthodoxa. Monti directs the reader to the Burgundio translation (lns. 41–46): “Totum enim totus assumpsit me, et totus toti unitus est, ut toti mihi salutem gratificet. ‘Quod enim inassumptum, incurabile’” (“For he wholly assumed my whole, and whole became one with whole, that with the whole he might bestow salvation [Latin adds “to me” here, mihi], ‘For what[ever] was unassumed [is] incurable’”).37 Lombard’s Sentences III, dist. 2, ch. 1, “Why [Christ] accepted a full human nature, and what is to be understood by the name of ‘humanity’ or of ‘human nature,’” engrained this formula from the Damascene, who (in turn) adopted it from St. Gregory the Theologian, in Bonaventure’s mind.38 Here the Lombard quotes the Damascene (quoting the Theologian) several times, including Burgundios’s rendering of the key line: “Totum enim totus assumpsit me, ut toti mihi salutem gratificet. Quod enim inassumptibile est, incurabile est” (“For he wholly assumed my whole, so that to the whole of me salvation might be granted. For what is not assumed is not curable”).39 Bonaventure, Breviloquium IV, ch. 2, no. 4. See Bonaventure, Breviloquium IV, ch. 2, no. 4 (Tria Opuscula, 151; see 137 in Monti’s translation). The Damscene’s original Greek reads: holon gar holos anelabe me, kai holos holō hēnōthē, hina holō tēn sōtērian charisētai “to gar aproslēpton atherapeuton” ( John Damascene, Die Schriften des Johannes von Damaskos, vol. 2 [Berlin: de Gruyter, 1973], 121). 38 Lombard, Sententiae III, dist. 2, ch. 1: “Quare totam humanam naturam accepit, et quid nomine humanitatis vel humanae naturae intelligendum sit.” For the original context of the phrase, see Gregory Nazianzus, Epistle 101 (“To Cledonius the Priest Against Apollinarius”). In addition to various commentaries on the Sentences, including Bonaventure’s own, the formula is quoted in an extant sermon by a renowned Franciscan who died during Bonaventure’s childhood, St. Anthony of Padua (Anthony of Padua, Sermo in dominica XX post Pentecostem 1.3). 39 Cerbanus had also translated chapter 50. However, throughout this chapter in the Sentences, Lombard is loyal to the Burgundio translation. For example, whereas Cerbanus begins paragraph 3 with “therefore, he is united with the flesh by the medium [that is the] intellect of the Word of God [unitum igitur est carni per 36 37 Catechisms, Communion, and Latin Scholastic Reception of Byzantine Thought 1225 It may seem problematic that Bonaventure does not explicitly quote Burgundio’s translation of the formula. However, Bonaventure’s language affirms his dependency. First, the vocabulary that Bonaventure employs is either identical with or synonymous to the Damascene’s: totum matches totum, totus, and omnia; genus humanum aligns with nostra natura; carnis aligns with corpus; ratione animae aligns with animam intellectualem et rationalem; assumeretur matches assumpsit; curaretur aligns with gratificet. Second, Bonaventure’s phrasing parallels the Damascene’s: “et totum genus humanum” parallels “in nostra natura . . . omnia”; “non solum ratione animae, verum etiam carnis” parallels “corpus, animam intellectualem et rationalem, et horum idiomata”; “necesse fuit, quod totum assumeretur, ut totum curaretur” more loosely parallels “totum enim totus assumpsit me, et totus toti unitus est, ut toti mihi salutem gratificet.” Although these parallels differ in transparency, they combine to show the connection between Bonaventure’s formula and the Damascene’s. The second time that Bonaventure relies on the Damascene’s discussion of why Christ had to assume full humanity comes implicitly in Breviloquium IV, ch. 8, no. 4. After citing the standard trope of his time (also seen in the Sentences) that Christ could not assume human poenalitates vitiosae (“vicious/corrupting penalties”) because such was not possible for one “with supremely perfect innocence,” Bonaventure writes: “Since truly [these] penalties, which are perfect exercises of virtue and true (not simulated) testimonies of humanity, are principally [traits] with respect to common nature, such as hunger and thirst in the absence of provisions, and sorrow and fear in the presence of a nuisance, it follows that it was fitting for him to assume these, and he did so assume.”40 For Bonaventure, Christ could not assume that which is innately spiritually corrupt. Yet in order to assume full humanity and, therefore, fully save humanity, Christ had to assume all natural and not innately spiritually corrupt aspects of being human. The Damascene claims the same at the beginning of chapter medium intellectum Verbi Dei],” Lombard agrees with all of the Burgundio manuscripts in writing “therefore, he is united with the flesh by the medium [that is the] intellect, the Word of God [unitum igitur est carni per medium intellectum Verbum Dei]” (emphasis added). 40 Bonaventure, Breviloquium IV, ch. 8, no. 4: “Quia vero poenae, quae sunt exercitativae virtutis perfectae et testificativae humanitatis verae, non simulatae, potissime illae sunt quae respiciunt naturam in communi, sicut fames et sitis in absentia alimenti, tristitia et timor in praesentia nocumenti; hinc est, quod illas debuit assumere et assumsit.” For the trope that Christ could not assume poenalitates vitiosae, see Lombard, Sentences III, dist. 15, chs. 1–2; Bonaventure, In III sent., dist. 15, a. 1, q. 2. 1226 Corey J. Stephan 64 of De fide orthodoxa.41 In sum, for Bonaventure and the Damascene, Christ assumed everything human except sin. The idea that Christ assumed everything human except sin certainly existed in medieval literature prior to the diffusion of the Burgundio translation, with that exact phrase having been used by Augustine and other Latin Fathers.42 Yet the Scholastics seem to have gained this exact formulation, with specific mention of Christ’s innocence, from the Damascene. Alexander of Hales paraphrases the Damascene in his discussion of “whether Christ had all kinds of the corporeal passions” in his Summa.43 Here in the Breviloquium, Bonaventure may have been thinking of Alexander’s paraphrased “Item, Damascenus. . . ,” the original text in De fide orthodoxa, or both. Regardless, this passage of the Breviloquium seems to be (at a minimum) thematically and theologically founded in the thought of the Damascene. Bonaventure’s third reliance on the Damascene in his discussion of why Christ had to assume full humanity is also implicit. At the end of Breviloquium IV, ch. 9, no. 1, Bonaventure writes: “For he is anathema who says that the nature of the Son of God, which he once assumed, he finally released [i.e. at the end of his earthly life].”44 Here Bonaventure implicitly reiterates what he wrote in his In III sententiae in response to the question “whether in death the soul of Christ was separated from the divine nature”: “Augustine and the Damascene [say]: ‘Let him be anathema who says that the Word deposed what he once assumed;’ if, therefore, John Damascene, De fide orthodoxa 64: “For he assumed all man and all the things of man, except sin [Totum enim hominem et omnia quae hominis assumpsit, praeter peccatum].” 42 See, for example, Augustine, Enarrationes in Psalmos, Psalm 29 (enarratio 2, no. 3): “And it is confirmed, just as I have said, that that man, the Mediator, had all the things of man, except sin [et confirmatum est, quemadmodum dixi, hominem illum mediatorem habuisse omnia hominis, praeter peccatum]” (Corpus Christianorum Series Latina, 38: 176). See also the Vulgate rendering of Hebrews 4:15: “For we do not have a high priest who is unable to sympathize with our infirmities, but, rather, one who has been tested in every way with us, for similitude—yet without sin [non enim habemus pontificem qui non possit conpati infirmitatibus nostris temptatum autem per omnia pro similitudine absque peccato]” (emphasis added). 43 Alexander of Hales, Summa Halensis III, pars 1, inq. 1a, tract. 5, q. 1, mem. 2, c. 2, a. 1: “utrum Christus habuerit omnia genera passionum corporalium.” Here Alexander writes: “Likewise, the Damascene writes: ‘He assumed all man and all the things that are of man, except sin [Item, Damascenus: ‘Totum hominem et omnia quae hominis sunt, assumpsit praeter peccatum’].” 44 Bonaventure, Breviloquium IV, ch. 9, no. 1. 41 Catechisms, Communion, and Latin Scholastic Reception of Byzantine Thought 1227 he assumed a soul, he never deposited the soul.”45 Citing Augustine and the Damascene together here requires paraphrasing.46 It also reflects an addition to the way that his mentor Alexander addressed the same question, since Alexander only mentions Augustine.47 Further, Bonaventure’s placement of his discussion of the Incarnation in the Breviloquium seems to reflect De fide orthodoxa’s influence. For the Damascene (following Maximus and others), the Incarnation is the turning point of the history of the universe. Thus, the Damascene placed Gregory the Theologian’s Christological axiom, as well as his broader definition of the Incarnation, in the fiftieth chapter of his hundred-chapter work—the exact center. In the Breviloquium, Bonaventure does the same, discussing the Incarnation in the fourth book of an eight-book treatise. De fide orthodoxa’s structure might inform this aspect of the Breviloquium’s organization. The Damascene’s discussion of what it means to be fully human also made its way into Bonaventure’s text. In Breviloquium II, ch. 9, no. 8, Bonaventure explains that every human has two types of wills: “Finally, since appetite is able to be brought to something in two ways, either according to natural instinct or according to deliberation and choice, it follows that the affective potency is divided into natural will and elective/ deliberative will, which is properly called will.”48 In his In II sententiae, Bonaventure makes the same distinction by explicitly citing the Dama Bonaventure, In III sent., dist. 21, a. 1, q. 1. For Augustine’s comments, see In Iohannis evangelium tracatus, tractatus 47, pars 10. Here Augustine writes, among other statements to the same effect: “If, however, we should say that the soul laid itself down and then assumed itself again, that sense is supremely absurd; for what was not separated from the Word was not able to be separated from itself [si autem dixerimus quia ipsa se anima posuit, et iterum ipsa se sumsit, absurdissimus sensus est; non enim quae a verbo non erat separata, a seipsa poterat separari]” (Corpus Christianorum Series Latina, 36:410). For the Damascene’s comments, see De fide orthodoxa, 71: “For the Deity remains inseparable from other parts, I mean, the soul and the body; and, accordingly, neither is the one hypostasis divided into two hypostases [deitas inseparabilis utrisque permansit, ab anima et corpore aio; et neque ita una hypostasis in duas hypostases divisa est].” 47 Alexander of Hales, Summa Halensis III, pars 1, inq. 1a, tract. 1, q. 4, tit. 1, dist. 2, c. 5. Alexander’s paraphrase also differs from Bonaventure’s: “Let him be anathema who says that the Son of God deposed man, once it was assumed [Anathema sit, qui dicit Filium Dei hominem semel assumptum deposuisse].” 48 Bonaventure, Breviloquium II, ch . 9, no. 8: “Postremo, quoniam appetitus dupliciter potest ad aliquid ferri, scilicet secundum naturalem instinctum, vel secundum deliberationem et arbitrium; hinc est, quod potentia affectiva dividitur in voluntatem naturalem et voluntatem electivam, quae proprie voluntas dicitur.” 45 46 1228 Corey J. Stephan scene, even writing that dividing voluntas “in thelesin et bulesin”—using the Damascene’s Greek terms, which Burgundio leaves transliterated while offering Latin equivalents—means “in naturalem et deliberativem.”49 Here in the Breviloquium, Bonaventure summarizes what he had discussed at greater length in In II sententiae. The Damascene’s discussions in De fide orthodoxa of the two types of wills synthesize Maximian, contra-monothelite thought.50 Having received the Damascene’s synthesis, in his Summa Alexander cites the Damascene almost identically to how his student Bonaventure does here in the Breviloquium.51 Aquinas employs the same language, which may suggest a broader influence of the Damascene for discussion of wills in the Parisian milieu—likely because he was the only readily available source for Maximian thought.52 Another instance in which Bonaventure draws from De fide orthodoxa to discuss human will occurs in Breviloquium III, ch. 11, no. 3, wherein he identifies two ways in which an act may be considered sinful: “For [an act] is said to be involuntary in two ways, either by violence or by ignorance; the first by a defect of potency, the second by a defect of knowledge.”53 In his In II sententiae, Bonaventure discusses involuntarium per violentiam (“involuntary by violence”) and involuntarium per ignorantiam (“involuntary by ignorance”) at separate places.54 First, he discusses involuntarium per violentiam in answer to the question “whether free will is able to be compelled by any created agent.”55 Explicitly citing both the Damascene and Aristotle, Bonaventure establishes that one may not be guilty of sinning if a normally sinful act was forced.56 Next, Bonaventure discusses Bonaventure, In II sent., dist. 24, pars 1, a. 2, q. 3. For a brief note on the Damascene’s appropriation of St. Maximus the Confessor’s discussion of wills, see Paul M. Blowers, “Maximus the Confessor and John of Damascus on Gnomic Will (γνώμη) in Christ: Clarity and Ambiguity,” Union Seminary Quarterly Review 63, no. 3–4 (2012): 44–50. 51 Alexander of Hales, Summa Halensis II 2, pars 1, inq, 4, tract, 1, sect. 2, q. 3, tit. 2. 52 See Aquinas, In IV sent., dist. 50, a. 1, qca 1, resp. 53 Bonaventure, Breviloquium III, ch. 11, no. 3. 54 For per violentiam, see Bonaventure, In II sent., dist. 25, pars 2, a. 1, q. 4; for per ignorantiam, see In II sent., dist. 22, a. 2, q. 3. 55 Bonaventure, In II sent., dist. 25, pars 2, a. 1, q. 4. 56 The Damascene draws his own discussion largely from Nemesius of Emessa’s De natura hominis, with which Bonaventure may also have been directly familiar. De natura hominis was known to the Scholastics—and especially cited by Albert and Aquinas—via a Latin translation done by the same Burgundio (Michael McCormick, “Burgundio of Pisa”). Since they believed that the work actually had been authored by St. Gregory of Nyssa, the study of De natura hominis was common 49 50 Catechisms, Communion, and Latin Scholastic Reception of Byzantine Thought 1229 involuntarium per ignorantiam in answer to the question “whether ignorance might be an excuse for guilt.”57 Bonaventure does not cite the Damascene by name, but (as the Quaracchi editors agree) he depends upon the same chapter of De fide orthodoxa 38. The fact that Bonaventure cites the Damascene by name in his discussion of the same topic in the commentary on the Sentences is further evidence of his dependency upon De fide orthodoxa 38. The Quaracchi editors suggest that De fide orthodoxa 36, which Burgundio subtitles “De passione et operatione,” influences Bonaventure’s division in Breviloquium II, ch. 9, no. 7 of the potentia cognitiva (“cognitive power”) into several officia.58 Since this language is not reflective of the Burgundio translation, and since Bonaventure does not rely on the Damascene in the parallel comments that he makes regarding the Sentences II, dist. 24, verifying dependency here would be impossible.59 Structural Appropriation? The Quaracchi editors’ suggestion that Bonaventure appropriated the particular order of the Damascene’s distinctions is in part a claim on structural influence. As noted, the Damascene’s Incarnation-centric configuration of De fide orthodoxa seems to have informed Bonaventure’s decision to do the same in the Breviloquium. In addition, a case may be made for De fide orthodoxa subtly influencing the Breviloquium’s entire pattern. Both De fide orthodoxa and the Breviloquium are structured to trace the course of salvation history. In this regard, both the Damascene and Bonaventure appropriate the pattern of the Nicene-Constantinopolitan Creed as the core of their catechisms. A table is appended to this article that outlines how the pattern of both works echoes the structure of the Creed. The structures of the Creed, De fide orthodoxa, and the Breviloquium do not have perfect point-by-point correspondence, but all three progress in a common sequence: (1) God and God as Trinity; (2) creation; (3) the need for salvation (the fall); (4) the Incarnation; (5) the Passion; (6) the resurrection; (7) the Holy Spirit’s work, the Church, and the sacraments; and (8) the eschaton. There are (at least) two possible ways of explaining the structural correamong the Scholastics (F. L. Cross, E.A. Livingstone et al., eds., The Oxford Dictionary of the Christian Church, 2nd ed. [London: Oxford University Press, 1974], s.v. “Nemesius of Emessa”). 57 Bonaventure, In II sent., dist. 22, a. 2, q. 3. 58 Bonaventure, Breviloquium (Monti trans.), 86n1. 59 Bonaventure, In II sent., dist. 24, pars 1, a. 2, q. 1. 1230 Corey J. Stephan spondence between the Creed, De fide orthodoxa, and the Breviloquium. On the one hand, the correspondence could be viewed as strictly coincidental. In such a view, the project of writing a catechism necessitates following the Creed’s structure per se. On the other hand, since Bonaventure was intimately acquainted with De fide orthodoxa, his structuring of the Breviloquium could be viewed as either implicitly or deliberately informed by the structure of the Damascene’s work. In such a view, the Damascene creatively expanded upon the structure of the Creed as the first Christian theologian to publish a major catechesis of this kind (systematized and comprehensive), and Bonaventure appropriated the Damascene’s structuring for his own project. The second possibility is more consistent with the evidence. While it cannot be proven whether Bonaventure’s assumption of the structure of De fide orthodoxa was intentional or subconscious, Bonaventure’s knowledge of De fide orthodoxa at large and dependency upon it in the Breviloquium suggests that De fide orthodoxa is one of the Breviloquium’s organizational guides. Some of the structural parallels are trivial. For example, it is chronologically sensible to treat the Passion after the Incarnation. Additionally, in certain places the parallels between the three are untidy. For example, Breviloquium III, in which Bonaventure discusses sin and the need for salvation, does not align neatly (regarding structural location) with either a particular place in the Creed or a particular chapter of De fide orthodoxa. However, two things should be kept in mind. First, the Western medieval insistence on structuring claims in seven parts, based on the belief that seven is a theologically perfect number, also informs Bonaventure’s structuring of the Breviloquium. Second, the claim here is that Bonaventure is guided by De fide orthodoxa’s overall pattern—not that he summarizes or copies the Damascene’s work. There is also technical evidence for Bonaventure’s structural dependency. First, while the Breviloquium differs considerably from the Creed in the amount of space that it dedicates to each of the themes (1–8), at several places it agrees completely with De fide orthodoxa (see the appendix). For example, chapters 1–14 of De fide orthodoxa, or one seventh of the work, define God; Breviloquium I, or one seventh of that work, does the same. Second, more tenuously, the Breviloquium’s smooth Latin is perhaps more similar to the Burgundio translation than it is to other great Western Scholastic texts, differing from both the ridged analytical style of the Sentences and various summae, on the one hand, and the conversational style of homilies, on the other. Of course, there are other possible explanations for the similarity between the two works’ Latinity. Because the Catechisms, Communion, and Latin Scholastic Reception of Byzantine Thought 1231 Breviloquium is a formal work (unlike a homily) meant to be read from beginning to end (rather than checked for reference like the Sentences and summae), Bonaventure likely felt compelled to write outside of the standard genres for theological works. However, given Bonaventure’s broad use of De fide orthodoxa, it remains plausible that the Burgundio translation’s Latinity in some way affected that of the Breviloquium. Third, both the Damascene and Bonaventure close their respective works by insisting on the magnitude of the coming eschaton. Bonaventure begins Breviloquium VII with sine dubio (“without doubt”), perhaps imitating the Damascene’s fervent repetition of certitude at the beginning of chapter 100 (the final chapter) of De fide orthodoxa.60 In each work, like in the Creed, the eschaton is not only the bold crescendo at the end of salvation history but also (as a result) the bold crescendo at the end of the work.61 Without the coming eschaton, everything discussed previously— chapters 1–99 of De fide orthodoxa and parts I–VI of the Breviloquium— would be meaningless. The Christian must believe in the final judgment and the resurrection of the dead sine dubio. John Damascene, Bonaventure, and Matters of Greek East and Latin West Since De fide orthodoxa and the Breviloquium both were written as expanded creeds outlining the tenets of orthodox Christian belief, their respective authors assume (with few exceptions) that an orthodox Christian will believe what they have written sine dubio.62 As noted, Bonaventure does not accept De fide orthodoxa in its entirety, especially in matters Bonaventure, Breviloquium VII, ch. 1, no. 1. The Damascene writes: “And we also believe in the resurrection of the dead. For [this] there really will be—there will be the resurrection of the dead. And [when] speaking of resurrection, we affirm the resurrection of bodies [Pisteuomen de kai anastasin nekrōn. Estai gar hontōs, estai nekrōn anastasis. Amastasin de legontes, sōmatōn phamen anastasin]” ( John Damascene, Die Schriften, 2:234). Burgundio’s translation reads: “Credimus autem et in resurrectionem mortuorum. Erit enim vere, erit resurrectio mortuorum. Resurrectionem autem dicentes, corporum aimus resurrectionem.” 61 The Damascene begins this section of De fide orthodoxa with the same word that begins the Creed: pisteuomen. 62 For one example of an exception, in Breviloquium VII, ch. 2, no. 6, Bonaventure writes “ut magis credo” (“as I rather believe”) in reference to his preferred method of describing the manner in which souls are actually purged in purgatory. Bonaventure favors “virtus gratiae interius” (“the power of indwelling grace”) as the cleansing power, but he concedes the possibility that “ignis ille spiritualem habeat virtutem divinitus sibi datam” (“the fire [itself ] has a divinely-given spiritual power”). 60 1232 Corey J. Stephan pertaining to the Holy Spirit’s procession (or lack thereof ). However, he does treat De fide orthodoxa both as an authoritative reference work for a range of theological concerns and as an example of a catechism that follows the basic structure of the Creed. In the Breviloquium, Bonaventure cites the Damascene in reference to prayer and willing—both in Christ and in fallen human beings—and in reference to the Incarnation, specifically why Christ assumed full humanity. It is unclear whether or not a consistent rationale underlies such citations. Since the Damascene’s broader thought pervades Bonaventure’s corpus, it could be a matter of coincidence that all of Bonaventure’s citations of the Damascene in the Breviloquium pertain to Christology. However, at least in the specific case of the Breviloquium, that trend may suggest that Bonaventure sees the Damascene as crucial for understanding how Christ’s fulfillment of the economy allows human will to be brought into full accord with the divine will. If true, for Bonaventure, the Damascene’s Maximus-informed discussion of wills and Gregory-informed synthesis of the Greek patristic understanding of why Christ assumed full humanity combine to make De fide orthodoxa the funnel through which he receives Greek patristic Christology. As Gregory makes clear, what Christ did not assume, he did not save. Thus, what Christ assumed had to include a human will; how Christ’s human will interacted with his divine will is explained by St. Maximus the Confessor. These and other treasures of the Greek tradition became known to Bonaventure and his fellow Latin Scholastics via De fide orthodoxa. The Damascene’s stated goal to synthesize the Patristic tradition for future generations partly came to fruition in thirteenth-century Latin Scholasticism.63 The Damascene’s influence on Latin Scholastic theology at large merits more scholarly engagement. Regarding Bonaventure, future study may reveal that Bonaventurian concepts generally attributed to sources such as the Corpus Areopagiticum actually stem from or were mediated by De fide orthodoxa. Bonaventure is often framed as a disciple of Pseudo-Dionysius, but perhaps he should also be called a disciple of the Damascene. For Scho63 In the Introductory Epistle to The Fountainhead of Knowledge (of which De fide orthodoxa is the final part), the Damascene writes, among other statements to this effect: “I shall not speak sayings pertaining to the fruit of my own mind [lalēsō logia ou tēs dianoias, karpon, tēs emēs]” (Die Schriften, 1:52). The Damascene is adamant that he has undertaken the project not to express his own views but, rather, to synthesize the preceding tradition. Louth takes issue with the common notion that the Damascene is a mere compiler, preferring to understand the Damascene as a creatively faithful organizer (St. John Damascene, viii). Catechisms, Communion, and Latin Scholastic Reception of Byzantine Thought 1233 lasticism more broadly, in his monograph on the Damascene, Louth hints that De fide orthodoxa inspires the entire summa enterprise.64 Following this study, which serves as evidence for Louth’s claim, the present author urges an analysis of the extent to which De fide orthodoxa structurally and theologically informs Scholastic summae at large. Finally, there is merit in studying the weight of the Damascene in Latin Scholastic thought for the sake of modern Roman Catholic and Eastern Orthodox dialogue. St. Bonaventure, the theologian known to Catholics as the Doctor Seraphicus, routinely drew upon one of early Byzantium’s greatest minds, another figure revered by Catholics as a great saint and doctor of the Church. In fact, St. John Damascene’s definition of prayer— presumably because it was quoted habitually by Bonaventure, Aquinas, other Scholastics, and their disciples—opens the modern Catechism of the Catholic Church’s own definition.65 As Marcus Plested writes in the conclusion to his Orthodox Readings of Aquinas regarding the need for an Eastern Orthodox re-appropriation of St. Thomas Aquinas, who is revered by Roman Catholics as not only a saint but the Doctor Angelicus and Doctor Communis: “Such an appropriation would serve to explode the very human and time-bound construct of an East–West dichotomy and to demonstrate the fundamental congruity and, so to say, consanguinity of Greek and Latin theological traditions.”66 Scholarship of this kind should help guide Roman Catholics and Eastern Orthodox (in some modest way) along the journey to full (re-)communion. St. Bonaventure does not retreat from disagreements; neither should modern theologians. However, Bonaventure’s view that “Damascenus” sometimes errs because “fuit Graecus” does not prohibit him from revering the Damascene as a theological authority. In this way, St. Bonaventure can serve as a model for all involved in Roman Catholic and Eastern Orthodox N&V theological dialogue. Louth writes that “in later Western theology, beginning with the great Summae of the scholastic theologians . . . [the Damascene’s] epitome of patristic doctrine (known in the West as De Orthodoxa Fide, ‘On the Orthodox Faith’) became [the] principal resource for the Trinitarian and Christological doctrines defined by the Oecumenical Synods of the early Church” (St. John Damascene, 3). 65 The Latin of the modern Catechismus Catholicae Ecclesiae quotes the formula—in the Burgundio translation, no less, although it replaces intellectus with mentis and follows Bonaventure and Aquinas with in instead of ad: “Oratio est ascensus mentis in Deum: aut eorum quae consentanea sunt postulatio a Deo” (§2559, citing De fide orthodoxa 68). 66 Marcus Plested, Orthodox Readings of Aquinas (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2012), 228. 64 1234 Corey J. Stephan Appendix: The Structure of the Nicene-Constantinopolitan Creed67 in De fide orthodoxa and the Breviloquium Concept Creed De fide orthodoxa Breviloquium (1) God and God as Trinity I believe in one God, the Father almighty, maker of heaven and earth, of all things visible and invisible. I believe in one Lord Jesus Christ, the Only Begotten Son of God, born of the Father before all ages. God from God, Light from Light, true God from true God, begotten, not made, consubstantial with the Father; chapters 1–14 book I in the medieval fourbook division book I (2) Creation through him all things were made. chapters 15–44 book II in the medieval fourbook division book II (3) Need for Salvation (the fall) For us men and for our salvation (scattered throughout, esp. in book III ch. 73) (4) Incarnation he came down from heaven, and by the Holy Spirit was incarnate of the Virgin Mary, and became man. chapters 45–67 most of book III in the medieval four-book division book IV, chapters 1–7 (5) Passion For our sake he was crucified under Pontius Pilate, he suffered death and was buried, chapters 68–73 end of book 3 in the medieval fourbook division book IV, chapters 8–10 67 This is the English translation of the Nicene-Constantinopolitan Creed promulgated by the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops at usccb.org/beliefsand-teachings/what-we-believe/. Catechisms, Communion, and Latin Scholastic Reception of Byzantine Thought 1235 (6) Resurrection and rose again on the third day in accordance with the Scriptures. He ascended into heaven and is seated at the right hand of the Father. He will come again in glory to judge the living and the dead and his kingdom will have no end. chapters 74–81 (roughly) start of book IV in the medieval fourbook division (discussed some in book IV, chapter 10) (7) Holy Spirit’s work, Church, and Sacraments I believe in the Holy Spirit, the Lord, the giver of life, who proceeds from the Father and the Son, who with the Father and the Son is adored and glorified, who has spoken through the prophets. I believe in one, holy, catholic and apostolic Church. I confess one baptism for the forgiveness of sins, chapters 82–98 (roughly) most of book IV in the medieval four-book division books V and VI (8) Eschaton and I look forward to the resurrection of the dead and the life of the world to come. Amen. chapters 99–100 end of book 4 in the medieval fourbook division book VII Nova et Vetera, English Edition, Vol. 19, No. 4 (2021): 1237–1256 1237 Fiat Lux! Anchored in Glory—No Scandals to Dread Sister Maria of the Angels, O.P. Monastery of Our Lady of Grace North Guilford, CT “Something strange is happening —there is a great silence on earth today, a great silence and stillness. The whole earth keeps silence because the King is asleep.” Thus begins an ancient homily used all over the world in the liturgy for Holy Saturday. This year these words have a particular poignancy. Something strange is happening. Churches all over the world are sunk in the unprecedented silence of suspended public worship. Here in this monastery, although the usual silence continues to be punctuated by common worship, there is still a greater silence. The computer that was left on in order to receive updates on a relative afflicted with Covid-19 has been turned off. The message had arrived early on Good Friday—“the tubes on the ventilator became clogged and his wonderful heart stopped.” Other names of victims of “the virus” appear one by one on the board outside the chapel. The nuns’ choir and the public chapel are almost completely dark. Together we sit in the shadow of death, the death of the Lord and so many others all over the world. The altar is stripped, the tabernacle empty, no sanctuary lamp, no exposition candles burning. We sit in a dark silence before Matins begins. The first streaks of dawn gradually appear and slowly light fills the air. One is reminded of the original Fiat Lux! and made bold to question the darkness. Why? How? How long? Pope Francis, in his March 27 Urbi et Orbi message,1 stated that the current crisis has exposed the illusion that “we would stay healthy in a world that was sick” and that the present moment “is a time to get our lives back on 1 Pope Francis, Urbi et Orbi Message, St. Peter’s Basilica, Vatican City, March 27, 2020 (see Vatican website). 1238 Sister Maria of the Angels, O.P. track.” Often the best way to get “back on track” is to retrace one’s steps and return to the beginning. This year, in a unique way, we are invited to return to the very beginning when “God, infinitely perfect and blessed in himself, in a plan of sheer goodness,”2 brought into being all that exists. This was an act of profound generosity and, at the same time, baffling simplicity. God had no need to create and was in no way changed by his creation of all things out of nothing.3 Why then did God create? Simply for the manifestation of his own goodness and the sharing of his own inner life of uncreated happiness with created persons. The one God, who is three divine persons, is the causa et ratio of the coming forth from and return of all creation to God.4 The goodness that is manifested by the created world and into which it is drawn is the goodness of the divine Trinitarian life. Put differently, God created, out of nothing, everything that is and with himself, Father, Son and Holy Spirit, as the exemplar or model as well as the final goal.5 The existence of every created reality, with the Creator himself as the pattern Catechism of the Catholic Church [CCC], prologue. St. Thomas Aquinas writes: “God did not need preexisting matter from which to fashion things. . . . He has the power to bring things into existence from nothing or, in other words, to create. . . . The divine action which brings things into being does not suppose the pre-existence of matter. The cause of diversity in things could not be on the side of matter unless matter were needed prior to the production of things, so that the various forms induced would follow diversity in matter. Therefore the cause of diversity in the things produced by God is not matter” (The Compendium of Theology, trans. Cyril Vollert [St. Louis, MO: Herder, 1947], 69, 71). 4 Gilles Emery, Trinity, Church, and the Human Person (Naples, FL: Sapientia Press, 2007), 122. See also Gilles Emery, The Trinitarian Theology of St. Thomas Aquinas, trans. Francesca Aran Murphy (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2007). 5 See Thomas Aquinas, Summa theologiae [ST] I, q. 44, a. 3, resp.: “God is the first exemplar cause of all things. . . . An artificer produces a determinate form in matter by reason of the exemplar before him, whether it is the exemplar beheld externally, or the exemplar interiorly conceived in the mind. Now it is manifest that things made by nature receive determinate forms. This determination of forms must be reduced to the divine wisdom as its first principle, for divine wisdom devised the order of the universe, which order consists in the variety of things. And therefore we must say that in the divine wisdom are the types of all things, which types we have called ideas—i.e., exemplar forms existing in the divine mind [ST I, q. 15, a. 1]. And these ideas, though multiplied by their relation to things, in reality are not apart from the divine essence, according as the likeness to that essence can be shared diversely by different things. In this manner therefore God Himself is the first exemplar of all things.” All citations from the ST are taken from the translation of the Fathers of the English Dominican Province (New York: Benziger, 1947). 2 3 Fiat Lux! Anchored in Glory—No Scandals to Dread 1239 and end of all things, is a relational existence. Everything that exists is the recipient of a particular form and dynamism to its proper end. When it exists according to this form and dynamism, it flourishes and gives glory to its Maker. Reflecting upon these origins offers us the surest way of resetting our lives in a conversion that goes all the way down. Everything that exists has come forth from the mind of God. Only a return to the truth of real things and gaining a renewed perception of the way things are intended to correspond to the wise design of God can make possible a true reorientation of our lives. Variety, Hierarchy, Mediation Although God is one, simple, and immutable,6 the world he created is, by design, varied, hierarchically ordered, and possessed of an inbuilt tendency of movement toward completion. As Saint Thomas says: The distinction and multitude of things comes from the intention of the first agent, who is God. For He brought things into being in order that His goodness might be communicated to creatures, and be represented by them; and because His goodness could not be adequately represented by one creature alone, He produced many and diverse creatures, that what was wanting to one in the representation of the divine goodness might be supplied by another. For goodness, which in God is simple and uniform, in creatures is manifold and divided; and hence the whole universe participates the divine goodness more perfectly and represents it better than any single creature whatever.7 The doctrine of the immutability of God is an especially consoling one to ponder during times of upheaval and uncertainty. According to this doctrine, the elaboration of which is assisted by the philosophical category of mixed relations, God is changed neither by the creation of the world nor by becoming man in the Incarnation. God himself is unmoved but remains the same God, namely, the Father eternally generating the Word, and with the Word, breathing forth Love. What is changed by creation and the Incarnation is, respectively, that there is now a created order of existing things, reflecting and participating (in various, hierarchical ways) the Trinitarian life of the Creator and a human nature that is hypostatically united to the second person of the Trinity. When everything seems to be in flux it can be very stabilizing to reflect and lean upon the unchanging God. How the Incarnate Lord is moved by the vicissitudes of our mutable world is another question. 7 ST I, q. 47, a. 1, resp. 6 1240 Sister Maria of the Angels, O.P. So, in the beginning was God and then came his unfathomably generous act of creation in order to have created persons in his company. He created a world of fascinating variety in order to show forth his own simple and unique beauty. Perhaps a symptom of the sickness of our flat and insular world is a loss of taste for ordered variety, for hierarchy and the God-given dynamism toward perfection.8 Similarly, in our disembedded9 world of autonomous individuals, we have also lost a taste for mediation. These losses have adversely affected our vision and have contributed to the occlusion of the manifestation of the Creator’s intention for the world. Regaining an appreciation of variety and distinction and even for inequality can, paradoxically, position us for a new awareness of the unity and perfection of the universe and consequently for the reception of God’s self-manifestation, a manifestation filled with promise. God is light and in him there is no darkness at all. Along these same lines, a renewed acceptance of mediation is a crucial step on the road to a rehabilitated welcoming of God’s purpose in creating a graded world. One of the things this gradation in being is intended to do is to establish an inbuilt interdependence among the various parts, to enable and encourage mutual assistance. God intended his creatures to be like him in being causes, albeit secondary ones, for each other and in enjoying a common life based on a mutual enjoyment of the good. It is precisely in these ways that creation participates in the divine life both ad extra and ad intra. Where can we turn for help in recovering from these losses and for regaining a sense of wonder born of a keener awareness of the purposeful whole? Where can we turn for guidance not only about our beginnings but also about our end? For, even more than retracing one’s steps, getting back on track requires clarity about the terminus. New voices such as Dr. Reinhard Hütter have arisen in this post-modern wilderness. Although comprised mainly of previously delivered lectures subsequently printed as articles in various venues, his most recent work, Bound for Beatitude, presents a gently but tightly woven argument that could, borrowing the title given to the 1999 reprint of the late Dominican Gerald Vann’s Saint Thomas Aquinas, be titled, The Aquinas Prescription. It is, as the author suggests, an “exercise in ressourcement” ordered to awakening the human mind and heart to its ultimate end, beatitude, and to lighten (in both senses of the term) the way each human person must What Charles Taylor refers to as a loss of a “transformation perspective” (A Secular Age [Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2006]). 9 See Taylor, A Secular Age, 146–58. 8 Fiat Lux! Anchored in Glory—No Scandals to Dread 1241 follow to arrive at that destination. This excellent work not only proffers a prescription but, in itself, performs a remedial service; as a true work of sacra doctrina, it engages the reader in a contemplative ascent into the divine perspective. As the prologue explains in the opening lines, “The book treats the meaning and purpose of human life embedded in that of the whole cosmos.” 10 Looking to the Angels Times of crisis can lead to a renewed appreciation of our friends. Yearning anew for meaning and purpose, and following Dr. Hütter’s approach by considering the cosmos as a whole, might we look for help from some forgotten friends,11 friends who are superior beings and who have already attained God’s purpose for them? Surely these friends already “anchored in the glory”12 of the divine happiness are eager to help us poor creatures find our way home. In a world shrouded anew in darkness we have much to learn and benefit from these first creatures in the cosmos, citizens of the invisible realm. So let us return to the beginning and the original Fiat Lux!—“Let there be light!”—a command which Saint Augustine interpreted as the creation of pure spirits.13 This unique reading allowed him to distinguish between Reinhard Hütter, Bound for Beatitude: A Thomistic Study in Eschatology and Ethics (Washington, DC: Catholic University of America Press, 2019), 1. 11 Thankfully, there has begun a renewed appreciation of these forgotten friends, the angels, among some scholars. Most notable is Serge-Thomas Bonino, O.P., Angels and Demons: A Catholic Introduction, trans. Michael J. Miller (Washington, DC: Catholic University of America Press, 2016). 12 See Hütter, Bound for Beatitude, 368. 13 See Elizabeth Klein, Augustine’s Theology of Angels (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2018), 28. For all subsequent references to Saint Augustine’s angelology I am indebted to this superb study. Saint Thomas, in treating the question of when the angels were created, rules out the possibility of the angels having been created after the creation of the material universe: “It cannot be expressly ascertained from the canonical Scriptures when the angels were created. That they indeed should not have been created after the corporeal beings, reason itself makes clear, for it was not fitting that the more perfect should be created later” (Treatise on Separate Substances, ch. 17, no. 95, trans. Francis J. Lescoe [West Hartford, CT: Saint Joseph College, 1959], 101). Saint Thomas also, in a couple of places, details the various orthodox positions on when the angels were created. For example, see ST I, q. 61, a. 3, resp.: “There is a twofold opinion on this point to be found in the writings of the Fathers. The more probable one holds that the angels were created at the same time as corporeal creatures. For the angels are part of the universe: they do not constitute a universe of themselves; but both they and corporeal natures unite in constituting one universe. This stands in evidence from the relationship 10 1242 Sister Maria of the Angels, O.P. the creation of light on the first and the fourth days. On the first day God created spiritual light (the angels), and on the fourth day he created corporeal light (the sun, moon, and stars). Continuing with Saint Augustine as our guide, what might we learn about ourselves by considering the creation and mode of existence of the inhabitants of the invisible world? After much pondering and wrestling with a literal interpretation of Genesis 1:3, and in particular with the alternation of morning and evening before the sun had been created, Saint Augustine came to the following understanding elucidated by Elizabeth Klein and worth quoting in full.14 Thus on day one the angels are created. They are spiritual creatures whose beginning is fittingly described in the words fiat lux since they receive enlightenment along with their being. The following cycle of evening eclipsed by morning and overtaken by evening does not signify any amount of time as we know it, but rather indicates the angels beholding all things as they already exist in the mind of God (day) and then looking at creation, and knowing the created order as it is in itself (evening). When the angels then refer the good of the created order back again to the praise of God “it is as if morning has dawned in the minds of those who contemplate them.”15 Klein continues by citing the following text from Augustine’s Literal Commentary on Genesis: The evening of the first day is also [spiritual creation’s] self-knowledge that it is not what God is, while the morning after that evening, which marks the conclusion of the one day and the beginning of the second, means its turning to refer what was created as to the praise of the creator, and to receive from the Word of God knowledge of of creature to creature; because the mutual relationship of creatures makes up the good of the universe. But no part is perfect if separate from the whole. Consequently it is improbable that God, Whose works are perfect, as it is said in Deut. xxxii.4, should have created the angelic nature before other creatures. At the same time the contrary is not to be deemed erroneous; especially on account of the opinion of Gregory Nazianzen, whose authority in Christian doctrine is of such weight that no one has ever raised objection to his teaching, as is also the case with the doctrine of Athanasius, as Jerome says” (emphasis in bold-italic added). 14 See also Bonino, Angels and Demons, 54–55, for his presentation of Augustine’s teaching on the creation of the angels. 15 Klein, Augustine’s Theology of Angels, 28 (citing St. Augustine, De civitate Dei 9.29). Fiat Lux! Anchored in Glory—No Scandals to Dread 1243 the creation that was made after itself.16 The angels receive the light of the Word at the very moment of their creation, are given to understand that they are not God, and then turn toward the giver of their existence in praise. The light they receive is an illumination from and by the Word whom they know before they know themselves. This is what Augustine refers to as “morning knowledge.” It is in the subsequent evening of the first day that “they come to see their creaturely status and understand themselves in themselves. In other words, they come to know themselves, but already in relationship with God and with each other.”17 Here we have an initial lesson for an existential theological reorientation. Let us learn from the angels’ recognition of their creaturely status and their intrinsic relationality and make this an initial point of reference for getting “back on track.” The angels, in turning their gaze back to the Word, are also privy to God’s creating act in the following days. “When God speaks, in order to make something, Augustine explains, this signifies the angels seeing by God’s Word what is about to be made in the way in which it already exists in the mind of God.”18 They see it both in the Word and as it is brought into existence. The angels, then, on Augustine’s view, are privileged witnesses to the spectacular work of creation. They saw each created reality as it preexisted in the Word and were already praising God for it as it all came forth into being. The angels thus understood themselves as in communion with God and each other, and as a community continued to refer “its knowledge of itself, and of the beauty of creation back to God. This motion, of seeing and knowing God, seeing and knowing oneself and creation, and then turning back to God is called worship.”19 It can be consoling, in a time of darkness and the almost global cessation of public worship, to think about the angels who, recognizing their creaturely status, exist in an abiding state of humility, solely for the praise of God.20 But to avoid the charge of turning away from current harsh St. Augustine, De Genesi ad litteram 4.39, quoted in Klein, Augustine’s Theology of Angels, 28. 17 Klein, Augustine’s Theology of Angels, 29. 18 Klein, Augustine’s Theology of Angels, 29. 19 Klein, Augustine’s Theology of Angels, 29. 20 Another elevating exercise is to reflect on the number of these splendid creatures. It would stretch this essay beyond reasonable proportion to consider this in detail. Suffice it to point out the difference that the concept of number or multitude takes on when referring to spirits rather than physical things, and therefore what is meant by the references to the angelic multitude. Thomas established this 16 1244 Sister Maria of the Angels, O.P. realities to myth or fantasy let us consider some reasons for holding to the existence of these pure spirits. Reasons for Believing Here Saint Thomas Aquinas is our best guide. Various arguments21 for distinction early on in ST I, in the questions on the Trinity, when he explains what numeral terms mean in God: “We may observe that all plurality is a consequence of division. Now division is twofold; one is material, and is division of the continuous; from this results number, which is a species of quantity. Number in this sense is found only in material things which have quantity. The other kind of division is called formal, and is effected by opposite or diverse forms; and this kind of division is called formal, and is effected by opposite or diverse forms; and this kind of division results in a multitude which does not belong to a genus but is transcendental in the sense in which being is divided by one and by many. This kind of multitude is found only in immaterial things” (ST I, q. 30, a. 3, resp.). The Benedictine Abbot Anscar Vonier develops the implications of this in such a profound way it is worth citing him at length: “The concept of multitude in spirits is something very different from the concept of multitude in material things. Number is indeed a marvel of material nature; even the human race has that astonishing factor of number; God has multiplied the children of men. St. Thomas remarks wisely that with material things, man not excluded, number supplements the weakness of the species; a species is saved from death, from disappearance, through its numbers, and the weaker the species the greater the numbers. It is evident that when we come into the spirit world the notion of number must take a different form, and when we say that angels are innumerable we mean something quite other than the idea suggested if we say, for instance, that the pebbles on the shore are innumerable. In material things number is rather a necessity than a perfection, in spiritual things multitude means perfection, and cannot mean anything else. . . . In our Scriptures spirit-multitude is always associated with the society of God, with the praise and contemplation of his perfections. Spirits are multiplied for this very end, that the perfections of God may be reflected more and more completely. . . . One angel reflects God’s glory in one way, another angel in another way, and multitude is something very perfect for this precise reason that it is an image of a perfection which is absolutely inexhaustible” (The Angels [London: Burns, Oates & Washbourne, 1934], 39–41). 21 See Kenelm Foster, “Angelology in the Church and in St. Thomas,” appendix 1 in Saint Thomas Aquinas, Summa Theologiae, ed. Thomas Gilby, vol. 9, Angels (New York: McGraw Hill, 1968), 304: “Against [the] background of an agelong [sic] and biblically very conservative witness on the part of the teaching Church, St. Thomas’s treatise on the angels stands out as probably the most brilliant piece of speculation on the subject produced by a western theologian. It is both a summary and a critique: it summarizes and critically assesses the theological tradition on the matter down to his own time. This tradition—formed chiefly by three writers, Dionysius, Augustine and Gregory the Great—derived its essential data from Scripture, but it inevitably derived much also from the assumptions and preoccupations, from the whole forma mentis of the culture in which it was born and grew up.” Fiat Lux! Anchored in Glory—No Scandals to Dread 1245 the existence of separate substances can be found throughout the Angelic Doctor’s corpus; they are present in some of his minor works as well as in most of his major works. Thus, “in various ways St. Thomas seeks to show the reasonableness of positing an order of separated substances and the harmony of this doctrine with some generally accepted philosophical conceptions.” 22 To consider his arguments based on the order of the universe one can start by taking a look around and noting the wide range of beings. 23 Some things are just material, like a desk or the dust on a keyboard. Other things are somehow living, like the plant on the windowsill or the grass on the lawn outside the window, actively soaking in the sun but incapable of sensing the presence of a human admirer. Next one can think of something that can freely move around but not engage in conversation, like someone’s pet cat or a neighbor’s dog. We might then think of a close friend, who not only exists like a piece of dust, soaks in the sun like a plant, and moves about like a cat or dog, but also thinks and loves and can share a meal with us; or one might think of a close friend or relative who has died and exists in an unnatural state as a disembodied soul. Now take this brief meditation on the various levels of being a step further. What is next? Does it seem fitting that, after such a step by step progression (from sheer matter, to matter that is alive but without the capacity to sense, to matter that can sense and move but not communicate by language, to matter that is informed by a rational soul or a separated James Collins, The Thomistic Philosophy of the Angels (Washington, DC: Catholic University of America Press, 1947), 27. Collins groups Thomas’s arguments according to the following schema: There are two groups of arguments. The first is in relation to causality and is based on the regular movement of the celestial spheres. The second is in relation to hierarchy and includes arguments based on the order of the universe, the perfection of the universe and the nature of the intellect. For a very concise analysis of Thomas’s arguments for the existence of angels see David P. Lang, “Aquinas’ Proofs for the Existence and Nature of Angels,” Faith and Reason: The Journal of Christendom College 21, nos. 1–2 (Spring/Summer 1995): 1–7. 23 St. Thomas Aquinas, De spiritualibus creaturis, a. 5: “We cannot go from one extreme to the other except through intermediaries. . . . Now at the topmost summit of things there is a being which is in every way simple and one, namely, God. It is not possible, then, for corporeal substance to be located immediately below God, for it is altogether composite and divisible, but instead one must posit many intermediates, through which we must come down from the highest point of the divine simplicity to corporeal multiplicity” (in On Spiritual Creatures, trans. Mary C. Fitzpatrick and John J. Wellmuth [Milwaukee, WI: Marquette University Press, 1949]). 22 1246 Sister Maria of the Angels, O.P. soul awaiting its resurrected body), there would be a leap in the great chain of being to the uncreated God, who is the source and end of all that is and in whom there is no distinction between essence and existence? 24 Would it not be most orderly for there to be some creatures that are, so to speak, higher than embodied rational souls but lower than God, creatures that are like God in being pure spirits yet unlike him because their existences are received and distinct from their essences? Another closely related approach to the argument based on the order of the universe, and the abhorrence of any “gaps” in the chain of being, is one that considers the existence of angels from the perspective of the perfection of the universe.25 Given that there exist things that are purely material and creatures that are both material and spiritual, does it not seem appropriate that among created reality there would exist creatures that resemble God in being purely spiritual?26 In other words, the perfection of the universe requires not only the orderly arrangement of created realities but also the existence of every sort of thing that is possible.27 The above condensed and overly simplified accounts of Saint Thomas’s arguments for the existence of angels have been presented from the standpoint of “fittingness.” Some go further and have held that the existence of pure contingent spirits is demonstrable. The late Dominican Father Benedict Ashley, for example, held for the demonstrability of the existence of the angels. While he recognized that most will concede only arguments Bishop Robert Barron offers a helpful overview of Thomas’s proof of the real distinction in his “The One Who Gives: Derrida, Aquinas, and the Dilemma of the Divine Generosity,” Nova et Vetera (English) 18, no.1 (2020): 17–18. 25 St. Thomas, ST I, q. 50, a. 1, and q. 51, a. 1. See also Summa contra gentiles II, chs. 46 and 91, and Bonino, Angels and Demons, 88–91. 26 See Bonino, Angels and Demons, 88–89: “Indeed, repeatedly in his work, St. Thomas Aquinas discerns the a priori necessity of the existence of intellectual substances separated from matter based on what we are able to know about the logic of the creative plan as it is reflected in the metaphysical structure of the universe. . . . For example, Aquinas likes to highlight the general law of mediation or of gradualness that regulates ‘the order of things.’ Hence, once we have acknowledged, at the one extreme, the existence of God, Pure Act, and given, at the other extreme, the existence of corporeal substances, Thomistic thought abhorring a vacuum and disproportion, immediately infers from this the existence of an intermediate category of created spirits.” 27 See Mortimer Adler, The Angels and Us (New York: MacMillan, 1982), 55–67. 24 Fiat Lux! Anchored in Glory—No Scandals to Dread 1247 with probative force,28 he was “personally convinced” 29 that there were rational arguments which followed the principles used in the proofs for the existence of a First Cause and for the spirituality of the human soul which led “to a factually certain conclusion concerning the existence of pure spirits.”30 Others before him, such as Étienne Gilson, also held that it was possible to argue conclusively to the existence of angels. Gilson claimed: The order of creatures in which the highest degree of created perfection is realized is that of pure spirit, commonly called angels. Some historians pass over in complete silence this part of St. Thomas’s work or at best dismiss it with a few allusions. Such an omission is particularly regrettable in that St. Thomas’s study of the angels is not entirely or specifically a theological inquiry. Angels are creatures whose existence can be demonstrated.31 Gilson further posits that: “To disregard them destroys the balance of the universe considered as a whole. Finally, the nature and operation of inferior creatures, men for example, can only be well understood by comparison and contrast with the angels. In short, in a doctrine in which the ultimate reason of beings is often drawn from the place they occupy in the universe, it is difficult to omit the consideration of one whole order of creatures without upsetting the equilibrium of the system.”32 Thus, Gilson claims not only that the existence of the angels is philosophically demonstrable but also that a regard for them is necessary for the balance of the whole of the created order. Furthermore, thinking about pure contingent spirits and comparing them with human nature and operation bears fruit in a deeper understanding of ourselves. What Faith Teaches Thinking about the reasonableness of the existence of pure contingent spirits based on the order and perfection of the universe may not appeal Benedict Ashley, The Way Toward Wisdom: An Interdisciplinary and Intercultural Introduction to Metaphysics (Notre Dame, IN: University of Notre Dame Press, 2006), 119: “Most Thomists consider such purely rational arguments for pure spirits to be merely probable.” 29 Ashley, Way Toward Wisdom, 119. 30 Ashley, Way Toward Wisdom, 119. 31 Étienne Gilson, The Christian Philosophy of St. Thomas Aquinas (New York: Random House, 1956), 160 (emphasis added). 32 Gilson, Christian Philosophy of St. Thomas Aquinas, 160 (emphasis added). 28 1248 Sister Maria of the Angels, O.P. to everyone. So let us turn to the Scriptures. What do we find there? We may be surprised to discover something that our eyes may have glossed over many times, namely that angels are conspicuously present in the very first chapter of each of the four Gospels. In Matthew, an unnamed angel appears to Saint Joseph to advise him of the truth of Mary’s pregnancy (Matt 1:20–21); in Luke, we have the more familiar annunciation scene when Gabriel appears to Mary and converses with her about the conception and birth of the Messiah (Luke 1:26–38); in Mark Jesus’s forty days in the wilderness are peopled by angelic ministrations as well as by Satan’s temptations (Mark 1:13). Finally, the last sentence of the first chapter of John’s Gospel records Jesus telling Nathanael that he will “see the heavens opened, and the angels of God ascending and descending upon the Son of man” ( John 1:51). We may also be surprised, if we take a closer look at the New Testament, to find how often Jesus himself speaks of the angels. For the sake of brevity just consider some of the references in the first canonical Gospel. There, in the Gospel of Matthew, in Jesus’s elucidation of the parable of the weeds in the field, he explains that the reapers are the angels and that, at the close of the age, “the Son of man will send his angels to gather out of his kingdom all causes of sin and all evildoers” (Matt 13:41). Following his parable of the net, Jesus once again says that it will be the angels who will “come out and separate the evil from the righteous” (Matt 13:49). Further on, after a prediction of his Passion and the invitation to discipleship, Jesus claims that “the Son of man is to come with his angels in the glory of the Father,” (Matt 16:27) at which time he will repay everyone according to their deeds. Again, in the Gospel of Matthew, we find another type of reference to the angels — those of God’s court,33 when Jesus counsels his disciples not to despise the little ones because “their angels always behold the face of my Father who is in heaven” (Matt 18:10). In an episode with the Sadducees, who denied the resurrection as well as the existence of angels, Jesus corrects them by stating that “in the resurrection they neither marry nor are given in marriage, but are like angels in heaven” (Matt 22:30). As his Passion drew near, in a private conversation with his disciples on the Mount of Olives, Jesus delivered his great eschatological discourse. In the course of this preaching, he told them of his second coming and the role the heavenly army will play: “They will see the Son of man coming on the clouds of heaven with power and great glory; and he will send out 33 Bonino distinguishes between angels as God’s army and as God’s court (Angels and Demons, 16–17). Fiat Lux! Anchored in Glory—No Scandals to Dread 1249 his angels with a loud trumpet call, and they will gather his elect” (Matt 24:31). As Jesus continued his address on the end time, he told his disciples that “of that day and hour no one knows, not even the angels of heaven, nor the Son, but the Father only” (Matt 24:32). On the same topic of his second coming, Jesus told his disciples: “When the Son of man comes in his glory, and all the angels with him, then he will sit on his glorious throne” (Matt 25:31). At the end of his life, after Jesus had been betrayed by Judas, one of his disciples drew his sword in a gesture of rescue, only to be reprimanded by the Lord, who asked him: “Do you think that I cannot appeal to my Father, and he will at once send me more than twelve legions of angels?” (Matt 26:53). In addition to above references to the presence of angels within the first chapter of each of the Gospels and some of Jesus’s own references to them in Matthew’s Gospel, we might also recall that the angelic choirs sang at his birth, that an angel warned Joseph about Herod’s wrath and wicked intent, that an angel came to comfort Jesus in his agony, that an angel was present at the empty tomb, and, finally, that two angels appeared to the disciples at Jesus’s Ascension into heaven. The Church, as the faithful interpreter of the Word of God, has consistently upheld the truth of the existence of a created order that is invisible. Much of what the Church taught about the angels in its first twelve centuries was gathered and explicated at the beginning of the thirteenth century in the following declaration from the Fourth Lateran Council: We firmly believe and confess without reservation that there is only one true God . . . the one principle of the universe, the creator of all things, visible and invisible, spiritual and corporeal, who by his almighty power from the beginning of time made at once out of nothing both orders of creatures, the spiritual and the corporeal, that is, the angelic and the earthly, and then the human creature, who, as it were, shares in both orders, being composed of spirit and body.34 Only in the middle of the twentieth century was this long tradition of belief in angels apparently being called into question. Pius XII’s Humani Generis, promulgated on August 12, 1950, makes clear that new doubts 34 Fourth Lateran Council (1215), in Heinrich Denzinger, Enchiridion Symbolorum: Compendium of Creeds, Definitions, and Declarations on Matters of Faith and Morals, ed. Peter Hünermann and Helmut Hoping (43rd Latin ed. [DH]), English ed. Robert L. Fastiggi and Anne Englund Nash (San Francisco: Ignatius Press, 2012), no. 800. 1250 Sister Maria of the Angels, O.P. had begun to be raised about the nature of angels. He wrote: “Some also question whether angels are personal beings and whether matter and spirit differ essentially” (§26). Here we find a first hint of an eclipse of angelology. Still, the Second Vatican Council did not see the need to devote much attention to them and simply reaffirmed the existence of the angels as worthy of veneration.35 More recently, Saint John Paul II devoted six of his 1986 Wednesday audience catecheses on the Creed to the angels. He explained to the faithful that he would be presenting the faith on the creation of the angels as a “precise item of revelation: the creation of purely spiritual beings which Sacred Scripture calls ‘angels.’”36 He continued: “These other beings, purely spiritual, [are] therefore not proper to the visible world, even though present and working therein. They constitute a world apart.”37 The Catechism of the Catholic Church, which, unlike the Wednesday catecheses, is part of the official magisterium, teaches the following: “The existence of the spiritual, non-corporeal beings that Sacred Scripture usually calls ‘angels’ is a truth of faith. The witness of Scripture is as clear as the unanimity of Tradition. . . . As purely spiritual creatures angels have intelligence and will: they are personal and immortal creatures, surpassing in perfection all visible creatures, as the splendor of their glory bears witness.”38 At this point, a question emerges: Why, with Scripture and the magisterium unanimously, unambiguously, and consistently affirming the existence of the invisible world of pure created spirits, have they fallen out of the habitual consciousness of most of us? Is it not because we have all, in various ways, lowered our gazes? Or, put another way, have we somehow capitulated to the anthropocentric turn and raised our heads in a prideful stance of self-sufficiency? A Theology of Paschaltide for a Time of Pandemic The sudden anguish brought on by the novel coronavirus is distressing. People are asking “how?” and “why?” One response to both questions Second Vatican Council, Lumen Gentium, §50: “The Church has always believed that the apostles and Christ’s martyrs who gave the supreme witness of faith and charity by the shedding of their blood are closely joined with us in Christ, and she has always venerated them with the Blessed Virgin Mary and the holy angels.” 36 John Paul II, “Creator of All Things, Seen and Unseen,” (General Audience of July 9, 1986), §1, L’Osservatore Romano, July 14, 1986. 37 John Paul II, “Creator of All Things,” §1. These catecheses are worth reading in their entirety. 38 CCC, §§328, 330. 35 Fiat Lux! Anchored in Glory—No Scandals to Dread 1251 is to return to the reality of the existence of contingent beings who are purely spiritual. Father Ashley, as was mentioned above, held for the demonstrability of the existence of pure spirits and proposed that rational arguments developed along the lines of the proofs for the existence of God were one way of demonstrating the existence of pure contingent spirits. One such argument, which follows principles Saint Thomas used for the existence of a First Cause, recalls the first of the Five Ways in Summa theologiae I, q. 2, a. 2, which argues from the observable fact of motion to an Unmoved Mover whom we call God. This is one of the ways that Thomas, following Aristotle, argues for the existence of angels. Given the Philosopher’s premises that the heavenly bodies are incorruptible, tend to a natural place, and are the cause of generation and corruption in the world, it follows that the movement of the celestial spheres is caused by incorporeal intelligences. We cannot, obviously, adopt Aristotle’s premises based on the cosmology of his time, but we can still posit the necessity of a first mover to move anything, including the planets, stars, and so on, from potency to act, a first mover who may or may not employ secondary movers or causes. Nothing excludes the possibility of the First Cause, God, using non-necessary secondary causes, the angels, in the ordering of the universe.39 Saint Thomas presented this claim as one which was universally accepted, writing, for example, in De veritate: “Both saints and philosophers say that all corporeal things are governed by divine providence through the mediation of angels.”40 Even more recent saints and philosophers have maintained this view. Consider Saint John Henry Newman’s sermon 29, “The Powers of Nature,” in which he states: “I affirm, that as our souls move our bodies, be our bodies what they may, so there are Spiritual Intelligences which move those wonderful and vast portions of the natural world which seem to be inanimate.”41 While this argument in particular might be easily dismissed in the light of twenty-first century physics, Father Serge-Thomas Bonino, in his magisterial work on the angels, cautions otherwise: “The idea of an angelic See Bonino, Angels and Demons, 81. St. Thomas Aquinas, De veritate, q. 5, a. 8, resp. (trans. Robert W. Mulligan, S.J. [Albany, NY: Preserving Christian Publications, 1993]). Thomas also makes a similar claim in ST I, q. 110, a. 1, resp.: “So are all corporeal things ruled by the angels. This is not only laid down by the holy doctors, but also by all philosophers who admit the existence of incorporeal substances.” 41 John Henry Newman, Parochial and Plain Sermons (San Francisco: Ignatius Press, 1987), 453. 39 40 1252 Sister Maria of the Angels, O.P. activity that habitually sustains the course of nature in a constitutive way should not be disregarded.”42 Given the possibility of angelic activity governing the natural world, in ways that nevertheless respect and preserve the integrity of the natural order, we turn now to a text of Saint Augustine which offers a pertinent explanation: All things that come to corporeal and visible birth have their hidden seeds lying dormant in the corporeal elements of this world. There are of course the seeds plants and animals produce which we can see with our eyes; but of these seeds there are other hidden seeds from which, at the creator’s bidding, water produced the first fishes and birds, and earth the first plants and animals of their kind. Nor was this basic seminal force exhausted in that first primordial breeding; often, the suitable combinations of circumstances are lacking for particular species to burst into being and carry on their career. . . . It is the creator of all these invisible seeds who is the creator of all things, since whatever comes into our ken by a process of birth receives the beginnings of its course from hidden seeds, and derives its due growth and final distinction of shape and parts from what you could call the original programming of those seeds. So then, just as we do not call parents the creators of human beings, nor farmers the creator of their crops, though it is through the external action they provide that the power of God operates inwardly to create these things; so we are not permitted to call bad, or even good, angels creators, just because with their finer senses and more volatile bodies they perceive the seeds of these things that are hidden from our gaze, and scatter them secretly among suitable combinations of the elements, and so seize the opportunity to bring things to birth and accelerate their growth in novel ways. No, the good angels only do such things as God commands them, and the bad ones, though they do them unjustly, only do them as far as he justly permits them. The unjust wills of the wicked angels are all their own, thanks to their malice; but their power is something they receive, and justly, whether for their own punishment, or the punishment of bad men, or for the praise and glory of the good.43 42 43 Bonino, Angels and Demons, 77n14. Saint Augustine, De Trinitate 3.2.13, trans. Edmund Hill (Brooklyn, NY: New City, 1991). Fiat Lux! Anchored in Glory—No Scandals to Dread 1253 What was it that brought about the “suitable circumstances” for a new virus to appear and for the acceleration of its growth? Could it be that there was angelic involvement in the appearance of a new virus to afflict the human community?44 Is this something that God has “justly permitted”? This possible answer to the “how” question provides a segue into the “why” question. A conceivable answer could be that God has withdrawn his protective hand for a time for the ultimate health of our souls. The world has been increasingly set on the course of a destruction of its own making. As Pope Francis prayed in his March 27 Urbi et Orbi message: “We have gone along at breakneck speed, feeling powerful and able to do anything.” Father Bonino, in his Angels and Demons, makes the dramatic claim that we have arrived “at an hour when Western culture is sinking inexorably into the night of massive unbelief.”45 Perhaps the whole world needed a jolt, something to wake us up and shake us out of our crippling self-referentiality, our anthropocentricism. Perhaps we needed to be brought to the ground and given a new beginning, a new beginning with a fresh focus on the Creator and not on ourselves. And, perhaps, we needed a new impetus Dr. Francis S. Heinemann, MD, explains: “Viruses co-evolved with higher forms of life. The development of a new virus requires molecular evolution of a pre-existing virus. Molecular evolution is the result of a unique movement, or pause of motion of genetic materials. New viruses develop by mutation of old viruses. (Random?) mutations, which are changes in the form of genetic materials, arise continuously in DNA/RNA-based self-replicating structures such as viruses. Mutations, which are changes in the form of genetic materials, arise based on the motion of DNA and RNA polymerases—the enzymes that replicate genetic material—and the preexisting DNA/RNA template and the nucleotide building blocks necessary to build the genetic material of a new virus. If everything required for replication of viral genetic material (the polymerase enzymes, the template DNA/RNA, and the precursor nucleotides) is moving in a standard way, an exact replicate of the template is produced and an exact copy of the viral genetic material results. If the polymerase pauses or the template moves or an incorrectly base paired nucleotide moves into position, a mutation may occur meaning the new DNA/RNA structure is slightly different” (personal correspondence with the present author). Another possibility is that an existing virus jumps species. This is something that is considered to be a rare occurrence requiring a unique interaction between two species or after a mutation creates a new virus capable of infecting a new species. According to Neel V. Patel’s account, Covid-19 is a “zoonotic disease—it jumped from another species to human hosts” (“How Does the Virus Work?,” MIT Technology Review 123, no. 3 [2020]: 22). Regardless of the precise mechanism, local motion was required and local motion is the special province of the angels (good and bad alike); see ST I, q.110, a. 3. 45 Bonino, Angels and Demons, 1. 44 1254 Sister Maria of the Angels, O.P. for living according to the forms and patterns God has inscribed in his creation. Of course, we simply do not know. But, in the face of a self-reproducing agent that is hardly alive itself and parasitic on the cells of living organisms, a microscopic46 entity a thousandth of the width of an eyelash, we find ourselves powerless. Recognizing this in humility we can turn the awareness to a good purpose and raise our gaze to the Creator and to those friends who first witnessed God’s self-gift in the creation of the world. They are here to help us. They see all creation both in the Word and in themselves.47 Thus, seeing the reasons of things, the nature of things, and their finalities and already secure in the vision of God, they want us to share in their happiness and their life of worship. They delight in their role of being secondary causes, servants of the one Mediator who is Jesus Christ, the Word made flesh. They “speak” to us by turning their attention to us, by focusing their higher intellects on us and thereby fortifying our own intellectual powers. They also “speak” by proposing intelligible truths under the similitudes of sensible things.48 Why are we so deaf? There are various ways of answering this question. One is that we cannot hear, or are not listening to, the angels because our own minds are dulled by sensuality, or our imaginations glutted with images. We cannot hear because we cannot be still. Another response is provided by Saint Augustine, who suggests that humans do not listen to angels because of their own pride and anger.49 Pride comes from loving ourselves wrongly, from not recognizing our creaturely status and the gift that it is. Anger can be a result of this fundamental disorientation of the soul away from God toward the self. As a response to perceived deprivation or the experience of being slighted, anger could very well be born from the false sense of entitlement that is part of the human condition in this secular age.50 Not all of the angels chose to return the glory to God. The devil, “who in his pride refuses to refer his own being and that of creation back to God,”51 seeks to convince us of a false independence and superiority. The temptation remains to be like God on our own initiative. But we A single particle is approximately eighty nanometers (one billionth of a meter) in diameter (Patel, “How Does the Virus Work?,” 22). 47 See Klein, Augustine’s Theology of Angels, 33. 48 ST I, q. 111, a. 1, resp. 49 See Klein, Augustine’s Theology of Angels, 71n67. 50 See Edward Norman, Secularisation: Sacred Values in a Godless World (New York: Continuum, 2003). 51 Klein, Augustine’s Theology of Angels, 46. 46 Fiat Lux! Anchored in Glory—No Scandals to Dread 1255 are not gods and are only like unto God when we receive everything from his loving, albeit incomprehensible, providence. In this one cosmos, comprised of invisible as well as visible inhabitants, we form one community—a varied, hierarchical reflection of the one and triune God, simple, immutable, and unfathomably generous. Even in the most challenging of times, we are invited to receive everything from God, and in the company of the angels, turn back to him in praise and thanksgiving. The singular Holy Saturday of 2020 passed through the lighting of the new fire, the solemn Vigil and into Easter morning. Yet, something strange is still happening —even the flowers seem to know. Many of the lilies have not yet opened. Neither did the roses, which instead encircle the Paschal candle with their heavy heads bowed. Let us, too, bow down and worship. Let us become newly cognizant of angels, who, as a community, establish and maintain a perpetual worship of God, and who protect each one of us individually.52 Many feel beaten down by both scandal and pandemic. We have before us an invitation to set out again as wayfarers, trusting in God’s promise to make all things new and to provide help and companionship on the way.53 An angel has come and rolled back the stone (recall that local motion is their special province). 54 The empty tomb has been revealed and the faithful women commissioned to go announce the Good News to the disciples hidden away behind locked doors. They obey in haste with a strange mixture of fear and joy. We, too, live in a strange mix of fear and joy. Still, we are called to obey and by the witness of our hope proclaim the Lord’s triumph over death and every suffering that evil affords, be it moral or physical. None of these will triumph. There is another world, and its inhabitants are absorbed in worshipping God but simultaneously concerned about our salvation. The angels, as well as the saints, are here to help along the way until the number of the elect is complete and the old order has passed away and all is made new. A longing for this other world, for our heavenly home, is the proper vocation of those called to the monastic life.55 We are, as the Church On the guardian angels, see Bonino, Angels and Demons, 261–74. Bonino’s comments are particularly apposite here: “I do not claim that it is necessary to force oneself to experience psychologically the immediacy of the angelic presence. This type of immediate, naïve relation to the supernatural has become difficult for us, if not impossible. But our intellect has everything to gain in discerning the presence and activity of spirit in the overall intelligible structure of the universe” (Angels and Demons, 107). 54 See ST I, q. 110, a. 3. 55 Vatican II, Gaudium et Spes, §38: “Now, the gifts of the Spirit are diverse. . . . He 52 53 1256 Sister Maria of the Angels, O.P. teaches, meant to be eschatological signs, pointing to the life to come. But this vocation is complemented by a variety of others. As Gaudium et Spes teaches: He summons others to dedicate themselves to the earthly service of men and to make ready the material of the celestial realm by this ministry of theirs. Yet He frees all of them so that by putting aside love of self and bringing all earthly resources into the service of human life they can devote themselves to that future when humanity itself will become an offering accepted by God.56 Whatever our state in life is we are all viatores. May this current challenge redirect us to a renewed understanding of our common origin and our hoped-for destination. And let us raise our eyes on high and unite with the psalmist making the ascent to Jerusalem, who, as Augustine says, “cries out to God, ‘Alas, alas, how long-drawn-out is my exile! I have gone so far away from you. My pilgrimage is so wearisome! I have not yet arrived in that homeland where I shall live untroubled by any evil. Not yet have I attained to the fellowship of the angels, where I shall have no scandals to dread.’”57 N&V calls some to give clear witness to the desire for a heavenly home and to keep that desire green among the human family.” 56 Vatican II, Gaudium et Spes, §38. 57 Saint Augustine, “Exposition on Psalm 119(120)” in Expositions on the Psalms, trans. Maria Boulding (Hyde Park, NY: New City Press, 2003), 504. Nova et Vetera, English Edition, Vol. 19, No. 4 (2021): 1257–1270 1257 The Politics of Chastity Edward Feser Pasadena City College Pasadena, CA Reinhard Hütter has authored an excellent and much-needed essay on the virtue of chastity, with a special focus on the unprecedented threat to this virtue posed by contemporary online pornography.1 His essay addresses the moral and spiritual aspects of the issue, as illuminated by both natural law and divine revelation. But there is also a crucial political dimension that the essay does not address, though it too is illuminated by Hütter’s insights. I propose in this essay to supplement Hütter’s account with some remarks on this dimension. Sex and Human Nature The political dimension I want to address is neither peripheral to chastity nor related to it only contingently. For, together with the moral and spiritual aspects of chastity, it follows directly and necessarily from our nature as rational social animals. This is evident from the traditional Thomistic natural law account of the foundations of sexual morality, so I will begin with an exposition of that. The fundamental way in which we are social animals is by being familial animals. And sex—both in the sense of there being two sexes, and in the sense of the sexual act—exists for the purpose of creating new families. In particular, the distinctive physiology and psychology of male human beings exists for the sake of making them fathers, and the distinctive physiology 1 Chapter 8 of Bound for Beatitude: A Thomistic Study in Eschatology and Ethics (Washington, DC: Catholic University of America Press, 2019). The chapter is a revised version of the article “Chastity and the Scourge of Pornography,” The Thomist 77 (2013): 1–39. 1258 Edward Feser and psychology of female human beings exists for the sake of making them mothers. Of course, not all men and women actually become fathers and mothers, but the point is that that is what their being either men or women in the first place is for. If we did not reproduce in a way that required fathers and mothers, there would be no males and no females. Hence there would be no sex organs, no sexual arousal, and no sexual act. Now, the most obvious respect in which sex has this teleology is that male sexual physiology and arousal have the biological function of getting semen into the vagina, whereas female sexual physiology and arousal have the biological function of facilitating reception of the semen, so as to get the sperm it contains into proximity with an ovum, so that pregnancy will result. It is often assumed that getting this plumbing right is the main concern of the natural law theorist. Nothing could be further from the truth. To be sure, the natural law theorist does insist on getting the plumbing right, but that is because the plumbing ultimately exists for the sake of a larger and more important end—just like a beaver’s teeth ultimately exist for the sake of building shelters for beaver families, their function of gnawing trees so as to provide materials for beaver dams (which in turn provide the setting for the shelters) being merely an essential means to that end.2 The locus classicus for Aquinas’s treatment of these matters is the discussion in Summa contra gentiles III, ch. 2, nos. 122–26. There is a little bit there about emissions of semen and the like, but there is much, much more about what children and mothers need in order for family life to be possible, and how fathers have to provide it. That is to say, Aquinas’s treatment of what it is to be a man or a woman goes well beyond having sex organs of a certain kind and using them in a certain way, and that is exactly what we should expect given that we are social animals, and rational social animals. Sex is for making you a father or a mother, with all that that entails given our social and rational nature, and any deliberate use of sex that positively frustrates that end (with all that it entails given our rational and social nature) is as contrary to what is good for us as breaking off teeth or gnawing only rocks rather than trees is contrary to what is good for beavers. Now, one way this might happen is when a man sleeps with a woman to whom he has not committed himself in the way definitive of marriage. For any children that result from such acts, and the woman too who becomes a mother as a result, will be left helpless by such a man. Aquinas emphasizes several respects in which this is so. First, mother and children are in need of material provision, yet especially when the children are young 2 I borrow this example from Steven J. Jensen, Knowing the Natural Law (Washington, DC: Catholic University of America Press, 2015), 72–73. The Politics of Chastity 1259 it is very difficult for the mother to supply this herself. Second, it is not only material provision children need, for they are rational animals and thus need education as well, which takes a long time. Third, they need not only maternal nurturing but paternal discipline. All of this is the work of many years, and thus requires the stable commitment of being a husband. Providing all of these things is no less part of the role of father than emitting semen is, and thus it is toward the fulfillment of this whole paternal/ husbandly function that a man’s sexual faculties point. A woman’s sexual faculties point toward the fulfillment of the whole maternal/wifely function that complements the paternal one. In this way, there is for the natural law theorist a natural teleological connection between sex, marriage, and child-rearing, rather than a merely conventional one. When natural law theorists say that sex has a procreative function, then, they do not mean merely that it has the function of generating new animals, but that it has the function of generating new animals of the social and rational type, with the long-term commitment that that entails. The making of a new rational social animal is not completed with birth, but only when children have matured to the point that they are capable of leaving home and beginning families of their own. To have sex is to carry out an action that has all of that as its teleology, just as for a beaver to gnaw at a tree is to carry out an action that has the sheltering of the beaver’s family as its teleology. And in both cases, this larger teleological context determines what counts as healthy or dysfunctional (and thus good or bad) behavior. Of course, sex is pleasurable, but the pleasure of sex has its own teleology, just as the pleasure the beaver takes in gnawing trees or eating nuts and the like does. In both cases, the end or point of the pleasure is to draw the animal toward carrying out the action with which the pleasure is associated. But here too, it is the whole teleological picture that must be kept in view, not just the sexual act considered in isolation. And here as in every other aspect of our animal nature, our social and rational nature gives new significance to what in a non-human animal might be mere pleasurable sensations. Hence the pleasure of sex has as its natural end the drawing of the rational animal toward fatherhood or motherhood and the family life that that entails. And that is why, in rational animals, sexual desire comes to be associated with romantic fantasy, idealization of the sexual partner, a disposition toward playfulness and affection, and so on. What cognitive scientists call “theory of mind” plays a crucial role as well, insofar as sexual desire typically involves not just a desire to sleep with another person but also the desire that the other person wants the same and feels a similar attraction. The pleasure looked forward to is not the mere release of one’s own bodily tension but rather a shared pleasure in an essentially interper- 1260 Edward Feser sonal activity. The perceptual and affective components of sexual arousal and pleasure are, in human beings, fused with an irreducible conceptual element. Thus, as Aquinas writes, “the lower powers follow the motion of the higher if that motion is more intense (as we see that a man’s whole body is inflamed and set in motion at the sight of a woman he loves).”3 Thomistic natural law theorists thus hold that in addition to its procreative end, the sexual act has a unitive end, but that this second end is subsidiary to the first insofar as it exists in order to facilitate the first. Aquinas notes that “the greatest friendship between husband and wife” can be produced by their commitment to a common domestic project together with “the act of fleshly union, which produces a certain gentle association even among beasts.”4 But it is because sex is for creating new families that it also happens in this way to facilitate a bond between spouses. If there were no such procreative end, there would not be two different sexes, and thus no sexual act, and thus none of the pleasure and gentle association the sexual act produces. In short, the procreative end provides the larger teleological context within which the unitive end must be understood. Unnatural Sexuality Now, it is for the purpose of facilitating this unitive end, so that the procreative end might in turn be fulfilled, that sex involves “the greatest of pleasures . . . [which] absorb the mind more than any others.”5 The upside of this is that sexual pleasure can function as a kind of superglue that bonds a man and woman together long enough for a new family to get started, and retains enough strength to help maintain a stable bond even after the initial intensity of romantic passion has subsided. The downside is that, precisely because sexual pleasure is the most intense of pleasures, it has the greatest tendency to cloud reason. In particular, when we take pleasure in what is contrary to the teleology of sex, and especially when we become habituated in doing so, it becomes harder for us to acknowledge that teleology, and easier to engage in rationalizations that blind us to it. And this can corrupt Thomas Aquinas, On Love and Charity: Readings from the “Commentary on the Sentences of Peter Lombard,” trans. Peter A. Kwasniewski, Thomas Bolin, O.S.B., and Joseph Bolin (Washington, DC: Catholic University of America Press, 2008), 34. 4 Thomas Aquinas, Summa contra gentiles III, ch. 123, in Summa Contra Gentiles, Book Three: Providence, Part II, trans. Vernon J. Bourke (Notre Dame, IN: University of Notre Dame Press, 1975), 148. 5 Thomas Aquinas, Summa theologiae [ST] II-II, q. 46. a. 3, in Summa Theologica, trans. the Fathers of the English Dominican Province, 5 vols. (New York: Benziger, 1948); emphasis added. 3 The Politics of Chastity 1261 reason in general, insofar as the very idea of a natural order of things that implies that indulgence of some pleasures is dysfunctional, and therefore bad, becomes hateful to us. Accordingly, Aquinas identifies what he calls “blindness of mind” as the chief of the “daughters” of lust or sexual vice, and argues that sexual vices more than any other tend to erode “prudence” or the capacity for practical reason.6 Hence, consider some of the behaviors and habits that natural law theory condemns as contrary to the natural teleology of sex. Fornication tends to bring children into the world outside of the stable two-parent family unit they need for their full maturation. Hence while an act of fornication is not per se contrary to the proximate end of the sexual act (the climax which brings both insemination and emotional bonding), it is contrary to its ultimate end (the creation and maintenance of a stable marital-cum-family unit). You might say that such an act is directed toward the right sort of object, but in the wrong sort of context. Homosexual acts, though, are not even directed toward the right sort of object, and are on the natural law analysis contrary to the proximate end as well as the remote end. If the fornicator is like a beaver who gnaws on trees but does not build dams, the person acting on homosexual desire is like the beaver who gnaws on rocks instead of trees. Now, repeated indulgence in and rationalization of fornication dulls the intellect’s capacity to see the natural end of sex and the will’s capacity to pursue it, making sexual pleasure an end in itself rather than a facilitator of a larger purpose. Repeated indulgence in and rationalization of homosexual desire has an even greater tendency to dull the intellect and will in these ways, since it is not even directed toward the right sort of object. The intense pleasure associated with such behaviors “superglues” the mind onto ends other than the natural one, hardening one’s orientation in an unnatural direction, like a kind of psychological crippling. Aristotle compares habituated homosexual desire to the compulsion to eat dirt or other nonnutritive substances, a disorder known as pica.7 Just as pica would be no less dysfunctional even if it turned out to have a genetic basis, so too, for the natural law theorist, homosexual desire would be no less dysfunctional even if it turned out to have a genetic basis. That would entail, not the absence of psychological dysfunction, but rather the presence of both psychological and genetic dysfunction. As habituated and rationalized sexual vice becomes more widespread, it inevitably takes a toll on the stability of the family, as individuals no 6 7 Aquinas, ST II-II, q. 153, a. 5; q. 53, a. 6. Aristotle, Nicomachean Ethics 7.6.1148b15–19a 20. 1262 Edward Feser longer see it as the end for which sexual desire exists. Instead of seeking to restrain and reform disordered sexual desire in a way that will be conducive to strengthening the institution of the family, they seek to alter the institution of the family in a way that will be conducive to indulging whatever disordered sexual desires they happen to have. The tail comes to wag the dog. The natural order of things becomes harder to see and people become less willing to see it. Increasing numbers of children come to lack the stability and discipline provided by parents who sacrifice their short-term desires for the good of the family, and are neither encouraged nor prepared to form such stable and self-sacrificing unions themselves. In these ways, sexual vice strikes deep at both our rational nature and our social nature. Sexual Immorality as Social Injustice It has become a cliché in modern political life that what happens in the bedroom between consenting adults hurts no one else and therefore ought not to be the concern of the state. The account just sketched implies that nothing could be further from the truth, and recent history confirms it. Consider the effects of fornication, which has become extremely common as the social stigma against it has virtually disappeared in the decades since the beginning of the Sexual Revolution. One effect has been widespread fatherlessness, which has trapped millions of children in poverty, drug addiction, gang activity, and other criminality. Another effect has been millions of abortions. In short—and as Aquinas would have predicted— widespread fornication has led to an enormous number of poor children, delinquent children, and dead children. Thus does sex, which has as its natural end the generation, rearing, and education of children, now regularly lead by way of illegitimacy and abortion to the impoverishment, moral corruption, and murder of children. Another effect has been widespread denial of this reality. To be sure, academic social scientists and political commentators occasionally acknowledge the ill effects of fatherlessness. But very few are willing to draw the conclusion that the Sexual Revolution was a mistake and that the social stigmas it swept away ought to be restored. The tendency is to blame the resulting pathologies on other things—racism, insufficient government spending, and so on—when the true cause is staring them in the face. Thus has habituation in sexual vice brought about exactly the sort of corruption of intellect and will that Aquinas characterized as the “daughters of lust.” The mainstreaming of fornication as a way of life has also harmed women, and even men, in ways Aquinas would not be surprised by. Having made themselves sexually available throughout their fertile years but also The Politics of Chastity 1263 practicing contraception and abortion, large numbers of women now find themselves without husbands, childless, and lonely when those years are past. Large numbers of men have become aimless and prone to risky behavior without the purpose and discipline that the role of husband and father provides. The pathologies resulting from fornication do not merely harm the men, women, and children immediately involved, but spread out to society at large. Women become more dependent on state assistance, which undermines subsidiarity. The greater tendency toward gang activity and criminality among young men who grow up without fathers leads to neighborhoods becoming unsafe. These neighborhoods also become impoverished, since their lack of safety makes them less able to support businesses. Gang activity and criminality also lead to higher incidences of violent confrontations with police, the sequel to which is greater distrust of police, racial tensions, and the like, which then lead to further criminality and general social unrest. Children who do not know anything but these dysfunctional arrangements tend to create them anew when they grow up and have children of their own, so that the pathologies recur generation after generation. Other aspects of the Sexual Revolution reinforce this breakdown in the stability of the family. Even when people do marry, liberalized divorce laws and the disappearance of the stigma against divorce make it less likely that marriages will last. The normalization of homosexuality has massively reinforced the attitude that sex is fundamentally about pleasure and personal fulfillment, with child-rearing and the formation of a new family unit coming to be seen as optional extras rather than the whole point of sex. The influence of feminism has massively eroded the once commonsense understanding that women are by nature directed toward a maternal/wifely role and men are by nature directed toward a paternal/ husbandly role. Transgenderism has eroded this understanding even further, and popularized the idea that sex roles are entirely conventional, fluid, and optional. Indeed, feminism and transgenderism have represented traditional sex roles as positively oppressive. Now, the family is the fundamental social unit, so that the common good of society as a whole depends on the health of the family. This traditional conclusion of natural law theory is confirmed by the pathologies that have followed upon the weakening of the family in the wake of the Sexual Revolution. Though some aspects of this revolution are often defended in the name of social justice, they are in fact instances of the most fundamental kind of social injustice, destructive as they are of the fundamental unit of society. 1264 Edward Feser Since government exists in order to safeguard the common good, government has a grave duty in justice to promote the health of the family, and thus to oppose the tendencies I have been describing. In fact, though, modern Western governments have not only not opposed them, but have encouraged them and in some cases even written them into law. Examples would be the legalization and subsidization of abortion, liberalized divorce laws, the legalization and subsidization of contraception, the legalization of pornography, the legalization of same-sex marriage, the subsidization of day care in order to facilitate the entry of mothers into the work force, the inculcation of feminism and acceptance of homosexuality and transgenderism via the public education system and antidiscrimination laws, the forcing of businesses and religious organizations to fund contraception for employees, and so on. In these ways, the modern state has to a large extent become a kind of “pornocracy” that directly pits itself against the family and against the virtue of chastity that is its safeguard. It has to that extent made itself the agent of the most basic kind of social injustice—and thus, to that extent, tyrannical. (It is worth recalling Plato’s warning in the Republic that the tyrant is the man dominated by his passions, and above all by lust.) To be sure, there are countervailing tendencies, and much that modern states do that is perfectly legitimate and necessary. All the same, we must face up to the reality, disturbing as it is, that the modern liberal democratic state seems to be evolving into something diabolically contra naturam. Pornography as a Universal Acid To begin to tie my discussion in to the themes of Hütter’s essay, we might note the role that pornography, and our highly sexualized popular culture more generally, play in upholding this unjust regime. The bad effects of habitual pornography use are often noted even by secular psychologists. Habitual viewers often have unrealistic expectations of real-life sexual partners and sexual encounters, a tendency to depersonalize the sexual act, and sometimes even problems with impotence. They often become desensitized to what was once titillating and require ever more extreme content in order to maintain arousal. Pornography use often becomes compulsive, as does the masturbation that is its concomitant. A spouse’s addiction to pornography is implicated in many divorces. Naturally, the procreative end of sex recedes from the habitual pornography user’s view, as the pleasure of sex becomes an end in itself. But the unitive end of sex is undermined as well. Sexual arousal and desire have as their natural teleology the direction of a person outward toward another The Politics of Chastity 1265 person, and the intensity of the pleasure of climax is intended to bond the person emotionally to that other. By contrast, the fantasy world of the pornography user is internal to himself, and the pleasure of his masturbatory climax locks him into this private fantasy realm and increasingly unable to find similar satisfaction in a real human being. Worse, the need to find ever more extreme subject matter in order to achieve the same levels of titillation entails that the pleasure he takes in the associated masturbatory climax will “superglue” him onto ever more disordered habits of thought and feeling where sex is concerned. This is all bad enough, though so far the damage I have been describing directly affects individual users and their immediate relationships to other human beings. But insofar as the use of pornography undermines the stability of the relationships between men and women, and thus the stability of the family, it naturally has a ripple effect on society at large. Moreover, the use of pornography is known to affect users’ opinions about matters of sex at a more philosophical level, and where they touch on public policy. For example, social scientists have noted a correlation between a tendency to use pornography and a tendency to support samesex marriage.8 Now, as Aquinas notes, disordered sexual pleasures “above all debauch a man's mind” and “more than anything else work the greatest havoc in a man's mind.”9 With pornography use, they do so in an especially insidious way, because the costs are not as immediate or dramatic as they are with fornication (where an unintended pregnancy can result), adultery (where a jealous spouse can cause one harm), or promiscuity (where venereal disease and jilted lovers can cause harm). Moreover, unlike other sexual sins, pornography use is now extremely easy to indulge in and in a way that can be kept secret indefinitely. One need not convince another person to participate in a sexual act or even to sell one the materials, thereby risking embarrassment and exposure. All one needs is a cell phone, and portrayals of the most debauched acts imaginable are seconds away. Now, as Aquinas teaches, it is not possible to suppress all immorality through human law, and governments ought not to try to do so. He writes: Human law is framed for a number of human beings, the majority of whom are not perfect in virtue. Wherefore human laws do not forbid all vices, from which the virtuous abstain, but only the more See Mark Regnerus, “Porn Use and Supporting Same-Sex Marriage,” Public Discourse, December 20, 2012. 9 Aquinas, ST II-II, q. 153, a. 1. 8 1266 Edward Feser grievous vices, from which it is possible for the majority to abstain; and chiefly those that are to the hurt of others, without the prohibition of which human society could not be maintained: thus human law prohibits murder, theft and such like.10 If the state were to try to extirpate all sexual immorality, it would in the nature of the case have to extend its reach as far as possible into the private sphere, and would not succeed even then, given the very strong temptations associated with sex. Hence, it would be a very bad idea literally to send police into bedrooms to hunt down those engaging in adultery, fornication, homosexual acts, and so on. Such draconian policies would do far more harm than good. However, the immediate harm of such immoral behavior is localized, and things are very different where what is in view are policies and actions that have a tendency to undermine the stability of the family as an institution—and thus “without the prohibition of which human society could not be maintained,” to borrow Aquinas’s words. Examples would include practices, like those mentioned above, that were once illegal but are now supported by the state—abortion, same-sex marriage, easy divorce, and so on. These things can and ought once again to be forbidden by law. The same goes for pornography, which does to the moral character of individuals and societies what heroin does to bodies, and I would argue that its distribution should be punished with a severity comparable to the severity with which drug kingpins are punished. The legality of pornography is often defended, even by those who disapprove of it, in the name of free speech. But such a defense is fallacious. From a natural law perspective, the right to free speech is grounded in our nature as fallible rational animals. Because we are rational creatures, we ought as far as possible to try to persuade each other through rational argumentation rather than force, and because we are fallible we need to be open to rational criticism. Freedom of speech is thus a safeguard on the proper exercise of our intellectual powers. But pornography does not appeal to the intellect. Rather, it appeals to our passions, and has an inherent tendency to disorder them. Moreover, as Aquinas’s analysis of the “daughters of lust” implies, it does so precisely in a manner that positively impairs rather than facilitates our intellectual powers. Properly understood, then, the rationale for freedom of speech points if anything away from rather than toward a right to the use of pornography. 10 Aquinas, ST I-II, q. 96, a. 2. The Politics of Chastity 1267 Integralism and Sexual Morality So far my discussion has appealed to considerations drawn from natural law rather than divine revelation. But two key insights from Hütter’s article point to the relevance of the latter as well to what I am calling the politics of chastity. In particular, Hütter argues persuasively that in the modern world, pornography and other sins against chastity are primarily a byproduct of the vice of acedia. He also argues, no less persuasively, that ultimately “chastity is restored, preserved, and perfected from above,” by way of grace and the theological virtue of hope.11 Now, acedia—apathy with respect to spiritual goods, and in particular with respect to what Aquinas calls “the Divine good”12—is especially fostered by the two main political ideologies that have dominated the modern world, namely liberal individualism and socialism. Both put excessive emphasis on material goods, liberalism by way of fostering consumerism and socialism by way of a primarily economic conception of social justice. Both have frequently (though not always) been associated with hostility to religion. Liberalism has evinced such hostility in the name of freeing individuals from the fetters on their desires imposed by religious dogma and the political influence of the clergy. Socialism has done so in the name of breaking the power of an institution that reconciles believers to economic injustice and stands in the way of the state’s efforts to rectify it. By focusing human efforts on bettering material conditions in this life and often fostering suspicion of religion, these ideologies have opened the door to the acedia of which Hütter speaks, to the spiritual emptiness that is its inevitable sequel, and to indulgence in sexual vice in the vain attempt to fill the void. As it happens, though, these ideologies have also both tended to attack the family in a more direct way, and this was arguably inevitable given the individualism of the one and the collectivism of the other. Liberalism has difficulty countenancing the reality of positive obligations to others to which we never consented. Accordingly, it is difficult for liberalism to accept the idea that marriage is indissoluble, that we are duty bound to protect and provide even for “unplanned” offspring, and so on. Meanwhile, socialism has difficulty countenancing the reality of allegiances that trump any duties we have to society as a whole, especially when these allegiances pose barriers to the designs of central planners and upset favored patterns of distribution. Hence the rights of parents over the education of their children, natural sex roles that entail dependence of a mother on 11 12 Hütter, Bound for Beatitude, 333, 361–62. Aquinas, ST II-II, q. 35, aa. 3–4. 1268 Edward Feser a father’s income, the right of children to inherit the wealth amassed by their parents, and other aspects of traditional family arrangements do not sit well with socialism. Liberalism’s threat to the family derives from its insensitivity to the natural law principle of solidarity, and socialism’s threat to the family derives from its insensitivity to the natural law principle of subsidiarity. If liberalism tends to dissolve the family down into its individual parts, socialism tends to absorb it up into the collectivist blob. The political dimension of chastity thus seems clearly to require opposition to these ideologies most definitive of political modernity. But more than that, it indicates that at least ideally, a distinctively Christian understanding of our spiritual end ought to inform the political order. For the highest spiritual end that acedia distracts us from is the supernatural end of the beatific vision. And the grace that is necessary to restore us to chastity is supernatural assistance, mediated through prayer and the sacraments. While some knowledge of God and of the nature and gravity of sexual vice is available to natural reason, knowledge of the supernatural end and the assistance of grace are not. And in light of original sin, even the natural knowledge that is available in principle is in practice rarely to be found, and is admixed with grave error. Hence Christian revelation is needed for a complete understanding of the ends we must pursue in order to overcome acedia and sins of the flesh, and of the means to achieving those ends. Hence the project of restoring respect for chastity at the level of Western society as a whole is not realistic unless it is concomitant with a general re-evangelization of Western society—and with the political implications of such a re-evangelization. As the Catechism of the Catholic Church teaches: The duty of offering God genuine worship concerns man both individually and socially. This is “the traditional Catholic teaching on the moral duty of individuals and societies toward the true religion and the one Church of Christ.” By constantly evangelizing men, the Church works toward enabling them “to infuse the Christian spirit into the mentality and mores, laws and structures of the communities in which [they] live.” The social duty of Christians is to respect and awaken in each man the love of the true and the good. It requires them to make known the worship of the one true religion which subsists in the Catholic and apostolic Church. Christians are called to be the light of the world. Thus, the Church shows forth the kingship of Christ over all creation and in particular over human societies. (§2105; emphasis added) The Politics of Chastity 1269 And against the idea that a state can somehow instead be neutral about the Catholic Faith—hostile to it, but not affirming it either—the Catechism says: Every institution is inspired, at least implicitly, by a vision of man and his destiny, from which it derives the point of reference for its judgment, its hierarchy of values, its line of conduct. Most societies have formed their institutions in the recognition of a certain preeminence of man over things. Only the divinely revealed religion has clearly recognized man’s origin and destiny in God, the Creator and Redeemer. The Church invites political authorities to measure their judgments and decisions against this inspired truth about God and man: Societies not recognizing this vision or rejecting it in the name of their independence from God are brought to seek their criteria and goal in themselves or to borrow them from some ideology. Since they do not admit that one can defend an objective criterion of good and evil, they arrogate to themselves an explicit or implicit totalitarian power over man and his destiny, as history shows. (§2244; emphasis added) It is worth emphasizing that these are post–Vatican II magisterial texts, and that they sit alongside texts in the same Catechism expressing Vatican II’s teaching on the right to religious liberty. Clearly the Catechism does not regard that right as incompatible with the Church’s having an influence on the state. Of course, this raises the question of integralism, a view which has been extremely controversial since the council, though in recent years seeing something of a revival.13 Now, critics of integralism are correct to point out that it is not a politically feasible program in the short term, and that historically the influence of churchmen on politics has not always been benign. But as all Thomists know, virtue is to be found in a mean between extremes. If the history of Christendom shows that abuses can arise when the Church has too great an influence on the state, the history of the West post-Christendom shows that great evil also arises when it has too little influence. What we have seen is exactly what St. Paul, in Romans 1:16–32, warns is bound to happen when grace no longer assists fallen nature—a collapse in knowledge even of the natural law, with widespread 13 See, e.g., Thomas Pink, “In Defense of Catholic Integralism,” Public Discourse, August 12, 2018, and Thomas Crean and Alan Fimister, Integralism: A Manual of Political Philosophy (Neunkirchen-Seelscheid: Editiones Scholasticae, 2020). 1270 Edward Feser sexual immorality being Paul’s “Exhibit A” of the phenomenon. The fact that modern Westerners typically regard this sexual depravity as “no big deal” only shows how thoroughgoing their depravity is. They no longer see it for what it is—an acid that eats away at the very institution most fundamentally necessary for our fulfillment as rational social animals, the family. This is precisely what we should have expected on a priori theological grounds from the dissolution of Christendom. To believe that knowledge and practice of the natural law could survive without what the Catechism calls the “[infusion of] the Christian spirit into the mentality and mores, laws and structures of . . . communities” amounts to a kind of “social Pelagianism.” Since human beings are by nature social animals, it stands to reason that grace, and its vehicle the Church, must work through the social order, and not merely directly on us as individuals. If in the short run we must muddle through as best we can in a hostile social order, in the long run chastity cannot be restored without the restoration of the social reign N&V of Christ. Nova et Vetera, English Edition, Vol. 19, No. 4 (2021): 1271–1287 1271 The Consummation of the World: St. Thomas Aquinas on the Risen Saints’ Beatitude and the Corporeal Universe Bryan Kromholtz, O.P. Dominican School of Philosophy and Theology Berkeley, CA In the Catholic tradition, the object of human hope is offered as bodily resurrection from death, and “the life of the world to come.” Implicit in that short phrase from the Nicene-Constantinopolitan Creed is that this “life” is understood to be life in communion with God, knowing and loving him without end, for “this is eternal life: that they know you, the only true God, and Jesus Christ, whom you have sent” ( John 17:3). Pope Benedict XII’s encyclical Benedictus Deus (1336) states dogmatically that the souls of the saints enter immediately into beatitude—perfect beatitude—constituted essentially by the vision of God “face to face.”1 God, as the Source of all being, all truth, all goodness, all beauty, perfectly, more than satisfies every human longing.2 Such a conception of the object of our hope may leave one wondering: since God is, indeed, all that one could ever want—which we have no inten Heinrich Denzinger, Enchiridion Symbolorum: Compendium of Creeds, Definitions, and Declarations on Matters of Faith and Morals, ed. Peter Hünermann and Helmut Hoping (43rd Latin ed. [DH]), English ed. Robert L. Fastiggi and Anne Englund Nash (San Francisco: Ignatius Press, 2012), nos. 1000–1002, esp. 1000. 2 Reinhard Hütter, Bound for Beatitude: A Thomistic Study in Eschatology and Ethics, Thomistic Ressourcement 12 (Washington, DC: Catholic University of America Press, 2019), has recently offered a thoroughly documented, penetrating treatment on God as final end of humanity. The present essay is intended to complement that project, albeit modestly, by fleshing out one aspect related to human finality that is not considered extensively in it. 1 1272 Bryan Kromholtz, O.P. tion of denying here—what will the rest of creation be for the blessed who partake of the vision? If we are blessed to be counted among those resurrected to glory, what will it matter to us (1) that we will be risen bodily, (2) that others will be there with us, including (3) the angels, and (4) that there is also to be a renewed world, a “new heavens and a new earth”? The first two parts of this question have received a fair amount of attention, including discussions over the relation of bodily resurrection to beatitude, as well as reflections on the eschatological nature of the Church.3 Here, we will limit ourselves to considering the fourth of those parts, namely, how and why we are to look forward to the life of the world to come. In this regard, we can ask: is the “world” of the creed merely a shorthand for “the way things will be” after the resurrection? Does it instead mean that the new heavens and new earth are also, in some way, to be awaited, hoped for, by humanity? Our study will consider the respects in which this latter question can be answered positively, particularly according to the teaching of St. Thomas.4 We will consider what precisely the role of non-human material creation may be—that is, of the non-human animal, vegetable, and mineral world—for human beatitude and eternal life, for St Thomas.5 In doing so, we will first briefly consider those other questions, particularly regarding the role, in the post-resurrection world, of the body and of other risen human persons, by way of comparison and contrast, in order the How communion with the blessed angels in praising the eternal God might relate to human beatitude may deserve more attention than it has received of late, but that will not be our task here. 4 The Latin texts of the works of St. Thomas Aquinas cited in this article are as follows: Summa theologiae [ST] is taken from the edition by the Institutum Studiorum Medievalium Ottaviensis (Ottawa: Studium Generale O.P., 1945); In sententiarum is taken from vol. 7.2 of the Parma edition (1858); Summa contra gentiles [SCG], De veritate, De potentia, Super Iob, and Compendium theologiae [CT] all are taken from the Leonine edition; Super Eph, Super Ioan, and Super Matt are all taken from the Marietti edition. English translations of ST, SCG, and CT (modified, in some cases) come from, respectively: the ST translation by the Dominican Fathers of the English Province; Summa contra Gentiles: Book Four: Salvation, trans. Charles J. O’Neil with introduction and notes (Notre Dame, IN: University of Notre Dame Press, 2012 [orig. 1957]); and The Compendium of Theology, trans. Cyril Vollert (St. Louis, MO: Herder, 1947). All other English translation, unless otherwise attributed, is original to this article. 5 The scope of the present study allows us to explicate only cursorily the role of heavenly bodies relative to final human beatitude. On the celestial bodies in St. Thomas’s work, see Thomas Litt, Les corps célestes dans l’univers de saint Thomas d’Aquin, Philosophes médiévaux 7 (Louvain: Publications Universitaires; Paris: Béatrice-Nauwelaerts, 1963). 3 The Consummation of the World 1273 better to illuminate Thomas’s teaching. What I intend to argue is that Thomas teaches that the eschatologically transformed, non-human material creation does not contribute to the beatitude of the saints, although it does offer them something, namely, the conditions of their existence, as well as an enjoyment of that creation as a kind of expression of the glory of God. I will also argue that—perhaps surprisingly—this does not derogate from the dignity of material creation but should instead further our appreciation to God for providing it. It is evident why such questions should be worthy of attention, for anyone interested in the faith—whether because they share that faith or because they want to know how those sharing it might address them. After all, the world that God created is believed to be “very good” (Gen 1), the very place in which God has placed us, upon whose creatures we depend for life itself. Furthermore, the creatures in the world provide us innumerable indications of him and his goodness constantly. That there will be a “new heavens and new earth” (2 Pet 3:10–13, Rev 21:1) is a matter of faith and also an indication of God’s regard for his own creation—it will not be left behind in the world to come, but will come to its own perfection. This perfection or finality of the world, with its nearly endless and wondrous variety of creatures, and its relation to our own finality, should always be of at least some interest to us. Beyond such a general and perennial interest, there are also certain recent developments in reflection upon the faith and matters allied to it that indicate that these questions are particularly timely. One of them would be (1) the increasing attention paid globally toward care for the environment, and the need for persons of faith and the Church as a body to contribute to that care in way consistent with and even animated by that faith. This can be seen in the relatively recent development of more extensive teachings by the magisterium on the question of the eschatological fate of material creatures. While the official teaching office of the Church had not pronounced much of moment on the topic before the Second Vatican Council, certain teachings from two of the four most prominent documents from the Council itself, in addressing matters of the end, briefly consider the final renewal of the heavens and the earth.6 6 See Second Vatican Council, Lumen Gentium, Dogmatic Constitution on the Church, §§5–112, esp. §48, and Gaudium et Spes, Pastoral Constitution on the Church in the Modern World, §§1025–120, esp. §§38–39; see also Catechism of the Catholic Church, §§1042–44, 1046–50, and 1060, and Nathan W. O’Halloran, “‘Each Creature, Resplendently Transfigured’: Development of Teaching in Laudato Si’,” Theological Studies 79, no. 2 (2018): 376–98, esp. 379–91. 1274 Bryan Kromholtz, O.P. Even more recently, Laudato Si’, Pope Francis’s 2015 encyclical on care for creation, offered certain reflections on the final end of non-human material creation, suggesting possibilities for further theological consideration and development. While a cursory reading of the document might suggest that it has little to say about creation’s final end, there a few passages that are readily construed as eschatological (§§83, 99–100, 237–44). And parts of those few passages are suggestive for a theological consideration of the ultimate fate of animal, plant, and mineral beings. One states that “all creatures are moving forward with us and through us” towards God (§83), while another notes that “the Son will deliver all things to the Father” at the end of time, even mentioning in that context the very flowers and birds that Christ saw while on earth (§100; citing Col 1:19–20 and 1 Cor 15:28).7 While these teachings are not presented as dogmatic definitions, they nevertheless invite theologians to consider the final fate of material creatures more deeply.8 Another set of relevant discussions would be (2) efforts to re-think what constitutes human eschatological fulfillment, with some proposals leaving aside the possibility of any beatific vision and suggesting that it would rather be an endless passing from one fulfillment of desire to another, one action to another, each surpassing the last in an ever-increasing passage from glory to glory, forever. Others question whether such construals of the ultimate end of human persons really allow for the attainment of an eternal life that can properly be considered ontologically perfective, final, and deifying—as truly uniting the blessed with the one God.9 Clarifying See O’Halloran, “‘Each Creature, Resplendently Transfigured,’” 392–98, who considers Pope Francis’s encyclical “an important new development in the teaching on New Creation,” representing “a significant development in the church’s eschatological teaching” (377–78). See also: Anthony J. Kelly, “Eschatology and Hope for Nature,” Pacifica 28, no. 3 (2015): 256–71; Stephen N. Williams, “Laudato Si’ and the Environmental Imperative: A Compelling Theology for our Times?,” European Journal of Theology 28, no. 2 (2019): 144–53, esp. 149. 8 For some recent theological speculation on the ultimate destiny of non-human creatures, barely predating Laudato Si’, see Paul J. Griffiths, Decreation: The Last Things of All Creatures (Waco, TX: Baylor University Press, 2014). 9 It would be outside the scope of the present paper to enter into an evaluation of such efforts or their reception. Briefly, we will mention in particular Hütter, Bound for Beatitude, 416–25, which discusses and critiques (aptly, in my opinion) the proposal of Germain Grisez that the final end of humanity should be considered the Kingdom of God, rather than God himself; see Grisez, “The True Ultimate End of Human Beings: The Kingdom, Not God,” Theological Studies 69, no. 1 (2008): 38–61. Hütter notes briefly that such proposals are not unique to Grisez but are “encountered widely in contemporary Protestant, and especially Evangeli7 The Consummation of the World 1275 Thomas’s position on the role of created material things in human beatitude can contribute in an ancillary way to such considerations, showing where Aquinas’s teachings give a proper place to some kind of human participation in a renewed creation without denying the primacy of man’s close relation to God for his happiness. Thus, the present article is relevant to at least these two sets of discussions and reflections of current interest.10 Our work will proceed as follows. Having introduced our topic, we will offer in the next section a brief overview of some relevant texts by the Common Doctor on our theme of how material creatures can or cannot contribute to the final beatitude of risen human persons. We will note his rather consistent position that such creatures will not contribute to human beatitude in the new heavens and earth, after the resurrection, but that they will nevertheless have a role in the eternal life of those raised to glory. The section will conclude with a consideration of how to interpret Thomas’s teaching in a way that allows it to be rightly received in the face of our antecedent expectations and academic habituations—emphases in previous considerations of the question that may help us see some things and miss others. In our conclusion, we will discuss how these interpretations might offer some resources for the discussions we just mentioned above. cal theology” (Bound for Beatitude, 422n54), mentioning N. T. Wright, Surprised by Hope: Rethinking Heaven, the Resurrection, and the Mission of the Church (New York: HarperOne, 2008). See also J. Richard Middleton, A New Heaven and a New Earth: Reclaiming Biblical Eschatology (Grand Rapids, MI: Baker Academic, 2014). 10 Of relevance also is a third current area of inquiry—albeit more tangentially related—which concerns the nature of Christ’s causality of the beatific vision, including how Thomas considered it, or might consider it, in view of the overall structure and content of his thought. Essentially, the question concerns whether, in Aquinas’s account, Christ has any ongoing role in any given saint’s beatific vision. For Thomas, is Christ merely a kind of “means” for the saints to arrive at the end of seeing God himself, after which the humanity of Christ (at least) is no longer needed? See Hans Boersma, “Thomas Aquinas on the Beatific Vision: A Christological Deficit,” TheoLogica 2, no. 2 (2018): 129–47; Boersma, Seeing God: The Beatific Vision in Christian Tradition (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2018); Simon Gaine, “Thomas Aquinas, the Beatific Vision and the Role of Christ: A Reply to Hans Boersma,” TheoLogica 2, no. 2 (2018): 148–67; Gaine, “Thomas Aquinas and John Owen on the Beatific Vision: A Reply to Suzanne McDonald,” New Blackfriars 97, no. 1070 (2016): 432–46; Gaine, “The Beatific Vision and the Heavenly Mediation of Christ,” TheoLogica 2, no. 2 (2018): 116–28; and Michael Root, “The Christological Character of the Beatific Vision: Hans Boersma’s Seeing God,” The Thomist 84 (2020): 127–51. 1276 Bryan Kromholtz, O.P. Thomas’s Teaching We will look first at the section of St. Thomas’s writing that is best known, and rightly so, for its consideration of human beatitude: the first five questions of the prima secundae of the Summa theologiae [ST], his mature work of (and on) sacra doctrina, a work both systematic and unfinished (lacking, alas, a section planned on the end, including general resurrection, judgment, and the like). In that section on beatitude, Thomas states that ultimate human beatitude, which comes to those who love God, consists solely in the intellectual vision of the divine essence (not by bodily eyes), which is an operation of the intellect, resulting in delight in the will. The souls of the saints are introduced to this beatific vision immediately upon death, and it continues after the common resurrection at the end of the world, at which time the renewal of the world will also occur. Now, as we mentioned in our introduction, it will be instructive for our purposes to consider also what Thomas says about the potential contribution to a risen saint’s happiness by the saint’s own risen body and by interaction/communion with other blessed, risen human persons. Regarding the risen body, we may wonder what it might contribute to a beatitude that the human soul has already reached, because Thomas clearly states that souls need not await the resurrection for perfect beatitude.11 Citing St. Paul (2 Cor 5:6–8; Phil 1:21–23), he states that “the souls of the saints, separated from their bodies, are in God’s presence.”12 He also claims this is evident also by appeal to reason, since “the intellect does not need the body for its operation except on account of the phantasms, wherein it looks on the intelligible truth,” and that “the Divine Essence cannot be seen by means of phantasms.” Thus “since man's perfect Happiness consists in the vision of the Divine Essence, it does not depend on the body.” Nevertheless, the body does contribute to beatitude, in a certain way: Something may belong to a thing’s perfection in two ways. First, as constituting the essence thereof; thus the soul is necessary for man’s perfection. Secondly, as necessary for its well-being: thus, beauty of body and keenness of perception belong to man’s perfection. Wherefore though the body does not belong in the first way to the perfection of human Happiness, yet it does in the second way.13 When we speak of final human beatitude as perfect, we are not suggesting a beatitude perfect in itself (which would be proper to God), but perfect for man. See: In II sent., d. 1, q. 2, a. 2, ad 4; ST I, q. 26, aa. 1 and 4. 12 ST I-II, q. 4, a. 5, corp. 13 ST I-II, q. 4, a. 5, corp.: “Ad perfectionem alicuius rei dupliciter aliquid pertinet. 11 The Consummation of the World 1277 The body is not necessary to the essence of beatitude, but to its well-being or bene esse, the way, as Thomas says, a horse is needed for a journey: not absolutely needed, but needed according to some consideration: Something is said to be necessary with respect to an end in two senses. In one sense, as that without which an end cannot exist, as food is necessary for human life. And this is unqualifiedly necessary for the end. In the other sense, that without which the end is not so fittingly attained is called something necessary, as is a horse for a journey. But this is not, simply speaking, necessary for the end.14 Thus, for a resurrected saint, that saint’s own risen and glorified body belongs in some way to his or her beatitude, but not as an essential element of it (although the body is an essential element of the risen saint’s humanity)—in Thomas’s mature view, as seen here.15 Thomas says something similar about the fellowship of friends in this beatitude, this state of glory. He states that “the fellowship of friends is not essential” to this ultimate happiness, since “man has the entire fullness of his perfection in God. But the fellowship of friends conduces to the well-being of Happiness.”16 Notice that this fellowship of friends makes a real contribution to this ultimate human happiness, being positively part of it, but not necessary to it. Uno modo, ad constituendam essentiam rei, sicut anima requiritur ad perfectionem hominis. Alio modo requiritur ad perfectionem rei quod pertinet ad bene esse eius, sicut pulchritudo corporis, et velocitas ingenii pertinet ad perfectionem hominis. Quamvis ergo corpus primo modo ad perfectionem beatitudinis humanae non pertineat, pertinet tamen secundo modo.” 14 ST III, q. 65, a. 4, corp.: “Necessarium respectu finis . . . dicitur aliquid dupliciter. Uno modo, sine quo non potest esse finis, sicut cibus est necessarius vitae humanae. Et hoc est simpliciter necessarium ad finem. Alio modo dicitur esse necessarium id sine quo non habetur finis ita convenienter, sicut equus necessarius est ad iter. Hoc autem non est simpliciter necessarium ad finem.” 15 It is well known that Thomas’s teaching on this point seems to have undergone a development. In one of his earliest works, he taught that the separated soul’s beatitude would increase both extensively and intensively after the addition of the body (at the glorious resurrection). See: In IV sent., d. 49, q. 1, a. 4, qa. 1, corp. and ad 4, esp. in contrast with ST I-II, q. 4, a. 5, ad 5. See also Bryan Kromholtz, On the Last Day: The Time of the Resurrection of the Dead according to Thomas Aquinas, Studia Friburgensia 110 (Fribourg, Switzerland: Academic Press Fribourg, 2010), 472–82. 16 ST I-II, q. 4, a. 8, corp.: “Si loquamur de perfecta beatitudine quae erit in patria, non requiritur societas amicorum de necessitate ad beatitudinem, quia homo habet totam plenitudinem suae perfectionis in Deo. Sed ad bene esse beatitudinis facit societas amicorum.” 1278 Bryan Kromholtz, O.P. There is a notable contrast when Thomas takes up the question as to whether “external goods,” such as “food and drink, wealth and a kingdom” (ST I-II, q. 4, a. 7, obj. 1), are necessary for perfect happiness: Such goods as these are in no way [nullo modo huiusmodi] necessary for perfect Happiness, which consists in the vision of God. The reason for this is that all such external goods are required either for the support of the animal body, or for certain operations that belong to human life, which we perform by means of the animal body: whereas that perfect happiness which consists in seeing God, will be either in the soul separated from the body, or in the soul united to the body then no longer animal but spiritual. Consequently, these external goods are in no way [nullo modo huiusmodi] necessary for that Happiness, since they are ordained to the animal life.17 We ought to take note when Thomas makes a strong denial. Such does not happen so often, but here it is—twice. Unlike the fellowship of friends, and unlike the perfection of one’s own body, which is part of one’s own nature, external goods are not to be necessary in any way to beatitude, because they are necessary only for animal-level operations. They are not needed in any way for helping one participate in knowing God, whether as a separated soul or as a risen human person, along with other risen persons. However, let us notice also what St. Thomas does not say. He does not say that the risen man cannot look at, or consider, or do something with such external goods. And he does not say that there will be no positive relation between risen man and the new heavens and new earth. So, we will now consider some texts where Thomas says that the risen man may look upon the transformed world, and some where he states that there is a close relation between the two. To do this, it is helpful to review, all too briefly, how Thomas sees the relation between man and the non-human material world. Thomas holds that all bodily creatures, including heavenly bodies, were 17 ST I-II, q. 4, a. 7, corp.: “Ad beatitudinem perfectam, quae in visione Dei consistit, nullo modo huiusmodi bona requiruntur. Cuius ratio est quia omnia huiusmodi bona exteriora vel requiruntur ad sustentationem animalis corporis; vel requiruntur ad aliquas operationes quas per animale corpus exercemus, quae humanae vitae conveniunt. Illa autem perfecta beatitudo quae in visione Dei consistit, vel erit in anima sine corpore; vel erit in anima corpori unita non iam animali, sed spirituali. Et ideo nullo modo huiusmodi exteriora bona requiruntur ad illam beatitudinem, cum ordinentur ad vitam animalem.” The Consummation of the World 1279 made for the sake of man.18 This anthropocentric aspect of his cosmology is found within an even more fundamental theo-centrism, since it is God who orders “lower things through higher ones,” including ordering “bodily things through spiritual ones.”19 Yet even as human persons are subject in a bodily way to the heavenly bodies (which themselves are believed to be of a higher kind of material), they share in governance due to their intellectual nature.20 Though they are subject to heavenly motion, that motion is for the sake of humanity, a motion that is ultimately directed by God.21 In this light, Thomas considers, then, in his commentary on Peter Lombard’s Sentences, what corporeal beings, which were made for human beings, can do for risen and glorified human persons: All bodily things are believed to have been made for man; hence all things are said to be subject to him. Now they perform services of two kinds for him. One is for the sustenance of his bodily life; the other is for the advancement of his knowledge of God, inasmuch as man perceives the invisible things of God through the things that are made, as is said in Romans 1. Now glorified man will not need the first of these services of creatures in any way, since his future body will be incorruptible in every way, because the divine power will make it that way through the soul, which it glorifies immedi See: In II sent., d. 1, q. 2, a. 3; In IV sent., d. 47, q. 2, a. 1, qa. 1, corp.; d. 48, q. 2, a. 2, ad 8; a. 3, ad 3 ad 6; a. 4, corp.; SCG IV, ch. 97, no. 1; De veritate, q. 5, a. 9, obj. 13; De potentia, q. 5, a. 9, corp.; CT I, ch. 148; Super Ioan 6, lec. 5 (no. 940); on John 6:44b); Super Eph 1, lec. 3 (no. 29; on Eph 1:10); ST I-II, q. 2, a. 1, corp. See also ST I, q. 73, a. 1, corp., which says that the perfect beatitude of the saints is the purpose of the entire universe; and Kromholtz, On the Last Day, 152–64. See also Emmanuel Cazanave, “L’Église et le bien de l’univers: une lecture de la Summa contra Gentiles,” Revue Thomiste 120 (2020): 309–30. 19 SCG III, ch. 83, nos. 2–3. For Thomas, the end of all things (including man) is the divine goodness; see In II sent., d. 1, q. 2, a. 2; ST I, q. 65, a. 2. See also: In IV sent., d. 48, q. 2, a. 3, ad 6; SCG III, ch. 17, no. 2; De veritate, q. 5, a. 9, ad 13; De potentia, q. 5, a. 4, corp.; ST I-II, q. 1, a. 8, corp. 20 SCG III, ch. 78, nos. 1 and 5. 21 See De veritate, q. 5, a. 9. For Thomas, there is a more fundamental theo-centrism that goes beyond the anthropocentric aspect present in his understanding of creation. All creatures are ordered by God, to God. It has been noted that in this way, Thomas (like Bonaventure) attenuated an exaggerated anthropocentrism found in Peter Lombard’s Sentences. See Richard Schenk, “Der Mensch—die Dornenkrone der Schöpfung? Umweltzerstörung aus theologischer Sicht,” in Nachhaltigkeit in der Ökologie: Wege in eine zukunftsfähige Welt, ed. Luca Di Blasi, Bernd Goebel, and Vittorio Hösle (Munich: C.H. Beck, 2001), 151–74, 276–82 (notes), esp. 165–68. 18 1280 Bryan Kromholtz, O.P. ately. Man does not need the second service either, so far as his intellectual knowledge is concerned, because the saints will see God with such knowledge immediately according to his essence. But the eye of the body will not be able to attain this vision of essence; and thus, so that it may be provided with the comfort of the vision of God that is fitting to it, it will observe the Godhead in its corporeal effects, in which indications of the divine majesty will appear clearly, primarily in the flesh of Christ, and then also in the bodies of the blessed, and finally in all other bodies. Thus even these other bodies ought to receive a greater influx from the divine goodness, not changing their species but adding the perfection of a certain glory; and this will be the renewal of the world. Thus, at the same time, the world will be renewed and man will be glorified.22 Somehow, in this text, we see how corporeal things—renewed by God— can serve risen, glorified human persons: comforting the bodily eye, in a way proportioned to it, so that they may participate in perceiving God, not only through seeing Christ and the saints bodily, but also by seeing the world.23 In the same article, the final objection effectively asserts that since non-sensate creatures will not have merited anything, they ought not be In IV sent., d. 48, q. 2, a. 1, corp.: “Omnia corporalia propter hominem facta esse creduntur; unde et omnia dicuntur ei esse subjecta. Serviunt autem ei dupliciter. Uno modo ad sustentationem vitae corporalis; alio modo ad profectum divinae cognitionis, inquantum homo per ea quae facta sunt, invisibilia Dei conspicit, ut dicitur Rom. I [Rom 1:20]. Primo ergo ministerio creaturarum, homo glorificatus nullo modo indigebit, cum eius corpus omnino incorruptibile sit futurum, virtute divina id faciente per animam, quam immediate glorificat. Secundo etiam ministerio non indigebit homo quantum ad cognitionem intellectivam; quia tali cognitione Deum sancti videbunt immediate per essentiam. Sed ad hanc visionem essentiae oculus carnis attingere non poterit; et ideo, ut ei solatium congruens sibi de visione Divinitatis praebeatur, inspiciet Divinitatem in suis effectibus corporalibus, in quibus manifeste indicia divinae majestatis apparebunt, et praecipue in carne Christi; et post hoc in corporibus beatorum; et deinceps in omnibus aliis corporibus; et ideo oportebit ut etiam alia corpora majorem influentiam a divina bonitate suscipiant; non tamen speciem variantem, sed addentem cujusdam gloriae perfectionem; et haec erit mundi innovatio; unde simul mundus innovabitur, et homo glorificabitur.” 23 See also: In IV sent., d. 44, q. 2, a. 3, qa. 2, corp.; d. 49, q. 2, a. 2, corp. and ad 6; Super Matt 5, lec. 2 (no. 434; on Matt 5:8). In Super Iob 19. Thomas gives the end of Augustine’s De civitate Dei as a source for this notion (Leonine ed., 26:117, lns. 302–34, esp. 327–31; on Job 19:26–27). See Augustine, De civitate Dei 22.29, in The City of God Against the Pagans, ed. and trans. R. W. Dyson (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1998), 1171–78. 22 The Consummation of the World 1281 renewed. The response is particularly relevant, helping show how the world can serve humanity in the next life: Although non-sensate bodies will not have merited that glory, properly speaking, man will have merited in such a way that this glory will be bestowed on the whole universe, insofar as this results in an increase of man’s glory, just as a man merits being clothed with more richly adorned clothing, whereas the clothing in no way merits the adornment.24 We can notice how closely this places the renewed world in association with risen humans. Of the many possessions that might have been discussed, clothing in particular is the possession in this life that is most closely identified with humans and is literally closest to the body. Accordingly, the type and appearance of clothing worn symbolizes the identity of the wearer. Thomas is saying that the transformed world is like transformed clothing for a glorified humanity. For risen persons, the world ought to “suit” them; it ought to “fit” them, like good clothing does. And notice that it is men that may merit (through Christ) the renewal of the world, which shows in yet another way the close relation of humans to the world: the very effects of their salvation and glorification are to extend beyond their persons to the world.25 The glorification of the world happens in response to the glorification of humanity and for the sake of humanity. We can see something similar in a passage from the end of the Summa contra gentiles, which notes that “because the bodily creation will in the end be ordered to be in harmony with the state of man, since men, of course, will not only be freed from corruption, but also clothed with glory . . . it must be that even the bodily creation will achieve a kind of radiance of glory in its own way.”26 Because of the change that happens to humanity, the world is to be In IV sent., d. 48, q. 2, a. 1, ad 5: “Quamvis corpora insensibilia non meruerint illam gloriam, proprie loquendo; homo tamen meruit ut illa gloria toti universo conferretur, inquantum hoc cedit in augmentum gloriae hominis; sicut aliquis homo meretur ut ornatioribus vestibus induatur, quem tamen ornatum nullo modo ipsa vestis meretur.” 25 Elsewhere, Thomas says that the elements of the world will be given “radiance” (claritas) when they are renewed at the end of the world, because the elements composing the human body will be glorified (In IV sent., d. 48, q. 2, a. 4, sc 3). 26 SCG IV, ch. 97, no. 7: “Quia igitur creatura corporalis finaliter disponetur per congruentiam ad hominis statum; homines autem non solum a corruptione liberabuntur, sed etiam gloria induentur, . . . oportebit quod etiam creatura corporalis quandam claritatis gloriam suo modo consequatur.” 24 1282 Bryan Kromholtz, O.P. changed also, in order to be “in harmony with the state of man.” Similarly, in the Compendium theologiae, we have a text indicating the ordering of things to man: But the four elements—namely, fire, air, water and earth—are ordered toward man not only regarding the utility of corruptible life, but also regarding the composition of his body, for the human body is made up of these elements. Thus, the elements have an essential ordination to the human body. Hence when man reaches his consummation in body and soul, it is fitting that the elements remain also, but changed to a better disposition.27 Here, Thomas says that it is fitting that the elements remain because they will be included in the composition of humans. It is not asserted that they must remain only within human bodies, but that it is fitting, appropriate that those elements themselves be renewed. Of course, Thomas holds that the elements will indeed compose the risen human body.28 Yet their renewal is to occur for both the parts that compose human bodies and those that do not. In the same chapter of the Compendium, then, the Angelic Doctor goes on to consider whether, in the renewed world when man is in the state of perfection, the material world can offer indications of God, or will need to do so: In that state of perfection man is not led to the knowledge of God by a consideration of sensible creatures, since he sees God in himself; it is nevertheless enjoyable and pleasant for one who knows the cause to consider how its likeness shines forth in the effect. Thus, it will give joy to the saints to consider the refulgence of the divine goodness reflected in bodies, and particularly the celestial bodies, which appear to have a preeminence over other bodies. Heavenly bodies also have an essential ordination in a certain manner toward the human body under the aspect of efficient causality, just as the CT I, ch. 170: “Quatuor vero elementa, scilicet ignis, aer, aqua et terra, ordinantur ad hominem non solum quantum ad usum corruptibilis vitae, sed etiam quantum ad constitutionem corporis eius: nam corpus humanum ex elementis constitutum est. Sic igitur essentialem ordinem habent elementa ad corpus humanum; unde homine consummato in corpore et anima, conveniens est ut etiam elementa remaneant, sed in meliorem dispositionem mutata.” 28 In IV sent., d. 44, q. 2, a. 1, qa. 1; d. 47, q. 2, a. 1, qa. 1; a. 2, qa. 2–3; a. 3, qa. 2, ad 3; d. 48, q. 2, a. 4, sc 3; De potentia, q. 5, a. 7, corp., ad 9 and ad 10; a. 8, obj. 8; a. 9, ad 9; a. 10, corp. and ad 7. See also ST III, q. 54, a. 2, ad 2. 27 The Consummation of the World 1283 elements have under the aspect of material causality: “for man—and the sun, also—generates man”: thus, for this reason also, it is fitting that the heavenly bodies remain in existence.29 Yes, bodily creatures can and will continue to manifest their Creator, in some way, as his effects—although human persons will not need them for that service. Even though risen persons will have the direct vision of God in himself, without the help of the indications of God available through sensible creatures, it will be “delightful” and “pleasing” (delectabile and iucundum) to them to see God in his creatures. The direct vision of God, although perfect, does not exclude other possible kinds of perception of him, nor does it exclude taking a kind of joy in that lesser form of consideration of God.30 That part of the Compendium then goes on to mention another way in which the universe relates to man, although it also offers a reason why the universe should continue in itself: Since man is a part of the corporeal universe, it must remain when man is brought to his final consummation; for a part does not seem complete if it should exist without the whole. Now the corporeal universe cannot remain in existence unless its essential parts remain. Yet its essential parts are the heavenly bodies and the elements, such CT I, ch. 170: “In statu perfectionis illius homo ex creaturis sensibilibus in Dei notitiam non adducatur, cum Deum videat in se ipso, tamen delectabile est et iucundum etiam cognoscenti causam, considerare qualiter eius similitudo resplendeat in effectu: unde et sanctis cedet ad gaudium considerare refulgentiam divinae bonitatis in corporibus, et praecipue caelestibus, quae aliis praeeminere videntur. Habent etiam corpora caelestia essentialem quodam modo ordinem ad corpus humanum secundum rationem causae agentis, sicut elementa rationem causae materialis: ‘Homo enim generat hominem et sol’; unde et hac etiam ratione convenit etiam corpora caelestia remanere.” The quotation is from Aristotle, Physica 2.4.194b13. 30 The “joy” that such sensible perception of God’s creatures might afford, coexisting with the beatific vision but distinct from it, would likely fall under the category of those delights that follow human reason but do not arise from nature; see ST I-II, q. 31, a. 3, corp. That the risen saints’ beatific vision would not interfere with certain natural human operations such as natural human reason and sensation — and vice versa—is held throughout Thomas’s work, consistent with his view that not only grace but even glory does not destroy nature, but elevates it and perfects it. See: In IV sent.; d. 49, q. 2, a. 3, ad 8; ST II-II, q. 26, a. 13, sc. On angels’ nature, see ST I, q. 62, a. 7, sc, corp., and ad 1. I thank Matthew Ramage for prompting me to offer some clarification on this point. 29 1284 Bryan Kromholtz, O.P. that the whole world system is made up of them; but other bodies do not appear to pertain to the integrity of the corporeal universe, but are rather for its adornment and beauty, which is fitting to its changeable state in the sense that, with a heavenly body acting as efficient cause and with the elements as material causes, animals and plants and mineral bodies are generated. But in the state of final consummation another kind of adornment will be given to the elements that suits their condition of incorruption. Accordingly, in that state, men, the elements, and the heavenly bodies will remain, but not animals or plants or mineral bodies.31 Since human persons are a part of the universe, the universe must remain if human persons are to be raised. Yet the completeness of the universe itself is also invoked. For the world to continue to exist, it must have all its essential parts, including the heavenly bodies and the elements.32 We can now summarize what we have reviewed. Though the body and the fellowship of friends can each conduce to the well-being (bene esse) of final human happiness, external goods are in no way (nullo modo huiusmodi) necessary for that perfect happiness. Yet after the general resurrection, the bodily eye of the risen person will observe the Godhead in its corporeal effects. Furthermore, man will have merited in such a way that this glory will be bestowed on the whole universe, insofar as this results in an increase of man’s glory. Bodily creation will in the end be ordered to achieve a kind of radiance of glory. The elements will be changed to a better disposition. It will give joy to the saints to consider the refulgence of the divine goodness reflected in bodies, and particularly the celestial bodies.33 CT I, ch. 170: “Cum enim homo pars sit universi corporei, in ultima hominis consummatione necesse est universum corporeum remanere; non enim videtur esse pars perfecta si fuerit sine toto. Universum autem corporeum remanere non potest nisi partes essentiales eius remaneant. Sunt autem partes essentiales eius corpora caelestia et elementa, utpote ex quibus tota mundialis machina consistit; cetera vero ad integritatem corporei universi pertinere non videntur, sed magis ad quendam ornatum et decorem ipsius qui competit statui mutabilitatis, secundum quod ex corpore caelesti ut agente, et elementis ut materialibus, generantur animalia et plantae et corpora mineralia. In statu autem ultimae consummationis alius ornatus elementis attribuetur qui deceat incorruptionis statum. Remanebunt igitur in illo statu homines et elementa et corpora caelestia, non autem animalia et plantae et corpora mineralia.” 32 One aspect of Thomas’s teaching on the “new earth” that we will not be able to address here is his position that plants and non-rational animals will have no place in it. 33 We noted above that that the Summa theologiae remained unfinished—notably, 31 The Consummation of the World 1285 Since man is a part of the corporeal universe, it must remain when man is brought to his final consummation; and the corporeal universe must remain in its essential parts: men, the elements, and the heavenly bodies. What must be noticed is the sharp denial by the mature Thomas of any contribution of external goods toward ultimate happiness. Thomas is insistent that it is not through lower things that human fulfillment can come. Yet there are ways in which there is a relation of the world to human beatitude. In fact, the relation is reversed from our original question. It is not the case that man attains or enjoys his end through material creatures, but rather that the material world somehow reaches its end, a higher state for itself, through man having reached his. Because the just have been raised and glorified, the creation, too, shares in that renewal and in its way shares in a radiance of glory. Human persons do not depend on mere material creatures for their beatific operation; rather, the world, in some lesser way, participates in human beatitude—or even receives its own perfection in its own way, for all things are ultimately made by God and for God. This means that the material creation of which we are speaking, on Thomas’s view, is not to be considered merely as a means by which humans reach their end, but also as having a more limited but real creaturely participation in final perfection. In places, Thomas speaks of glory as a kind of “overflowing” from the soul to the body (and not vice versa).34 Similarly— extrapolating, as it were—we might say that it is consistent with Thomas’s thought to suggest a kind of overflow to the material creation from man, coming down the hierarchy of being. Yet there is also on occasion room for considering material creation as having its share in final perfection in its own right, directly from God. Implications for Some Current Discussions It is this nuanced and potentially varied consideration of the relation between the material universe and risen and glorified man that may make some contribution to the kinds of discussions considered early in this presentation. The effort in Laudato Si’ to bring a theological consideration of ecology to that of the common good (such that the natural moral law is extended to include ecological considerations) could be aided by a further application of the eschatological categories it suggests—aided in particular finally lacking the planned section on eschatology. This work seems to lack any mention of the possibility of the risen saints’ sight of non-human material creation as providing some indication of God or delight to them; however, it is does not deny that possibility. 34 ST I-II, q. 3, a. 3, corp. 1286 Bryan Kromholtz, O.P. by St. Thomas’s teaching on the new heavens and new earth. If, as I have said St. Thomas implies, other creatures’ eschatological end is in some way dependent on that of the just, this suggests a deeper human responsibility for the world than perhaps is instinctively felt by someone in the Western world, accustomed to use and control of the world, rather than to seek a kind of solidarity with the rest of creation, at least insofar as all creatures look toward a final renewal (Rom 8:19–23). In this, there may be potential for reviving the kind of connection with the divine that a sense for natural law can help foster. Further reflection will be needed on the kind of eschatology that, on the one hand, allows for both an appreciation of creation and an appropriate stewardship of it and yet, on the other hand, opposes both an idolization of that creation and any abusive exploitation of it. As for those seeking to reimagine the afterlife as including so much more than “merely” the beatific vision of God, they may do well to recognize that the goodness of all creatures need not require them to contribute by necessity to the end of humanity. It may even be possible that the very quality of not being necessary for human beatitude can make the promised eschatological renewal of creatures act as a salutary reminder that there is a higher purpose to the ontological universe than serving us—for God himself is that purpose. On the other hand, Thomas’s sharp insistence that human happiness cannot be achieved through material creation points us rightly toward the One on whom our attention should be fixed even in this life, and away from any idolization of economics, acquisition, production, or consumption, or the control of goods, whether public or private—without denying the necessity of a proper ordering of worldly affairs in this life.35 For St. Thomas, then, in the glorious resurrection—if, as we pray, we may be a part of it—material creatures will not contribute directly to our union with God, nor even to the fellowship we will have with others in concert with that union, nor in our own integral unity as soul-body creatures. Yet in that renewed heavens and earth, we may engage with what God has created, for all of it will continue to exhibit his wisdom, 35 Discussions over whether Thomas’s account of beatific vision is sufficiently Christological, as we mentioned above in note 10, may be enriched by considering how Thomas’s teaching allows for the simultaneous operations of various kinds in a single human person: a risen saint can intellectually see (and voluntarily love) God in the beatific vision while also being perfected bodily and being in fellowship with other risen human persons, while perceiving the world with the bodily eye (and even choosing to do things in it), a world that itself is clothed in a radiance due to the just by their merit in and through Christ. What role, for example, would the humanity of Christ play in each of these modes of knowing (and choosing)? The Consummation of the World 1287 goodness, and beauty. It may not be the case that the new heavens and the new earth are going to help us see the face of the living God. But they may continue to reflect the divine goodness to us, whether this be by reflecting the glory refracted through ourselves by the grace of Christ, or bestowed upon them directly by their Creator. This is something to await with eager N&V expectation.36 36 A version of this essay was originally delivered as a lecture (remotely via electronic link), under the title “The Consummation of the World: The Beatitude of the Saints and the Corporeal Universe, according to St. Thomas Aquinas,” for the conference “Hope and Death: Christian Responses,” hosted by the Aquinas Center at Ave Maria University, Ave Maria, FL, held February 11–13, 2021. I am grateful to the organizers of the conference and to the editors of Nova et Vetera for allowing this arrangement. Nova et Vetera, English Edition, Vol. 19, No. 2 (2021): 1289–1322 1289 “Habitual” Ordering William C. Mattison III University of Notre Dame Notre Dame, IN Reinhard Hütter’s Bound for Beatitude: A Thomistic Study in Eschatology and Ethics is an important and timely contribution to Catholic theology, and moral theology in particular.1 Though we contributors to this symposium in this issue of Nova et Vetera (English) in celebration of Hütter’s book have been asked to present our own current research, only “springboarding” from Hütter’s tour de force, a few words on the book are warranted to situate it and to set up this essay. Students of Fr. Servais Pinckaers, O.P., of whom there are many in this readership, find in Bound for Beatitude a thoroughly “Pinckaersian” contribution to moral theology. Hütter relies on ressourcement Thomism to do moral theology in a manner fully integrated with biblical, systematic, and spiritual theology, and additionally incorporates his impressive philosophical acumen. The book is utterly teleological, not simply in its metaphysical defense of the centrality of teleology (contra the modern repudiation of the same), or in its account of human action, but also in its narration of the entire human journey, individual and communal, toward participation in divine beatitude. Hütter thus contributes to the growing trend in Catholic theological scholarship toward eschatology. 2 Finally, Hütter’s book adopts a thoroughly Pinckaersian virtue-centered “morality of happiness,” including even a mini commentary in chapter 1 on Thomas’s Reinhard Hütter, Bound for Beatitude: A Thomistic Study in Eschatology and Ethics (Washington, DC: Catholic University of America Press, 2019). 2 For a comparable recent contribution to eschatology and moral theology, see Matthew Levering, Aquinas’s Eschatological Ethics and the Virtue of Temperance (Notre Dame, IN: University of Notre Dame Press, 2019). 1 1290 William C. Mattison III so-called treatise on happiness, a contribution that follows directly in the footsteps of Pinckaers.3 More pertinent for this essay, Hütter’s Bound for Beatitude provides evidence that, in moral theology, the last end is back. One would think that the post-conciliar, Pinckaers-fueled resurgence in attention to virtue and happiness would include a focus on this bedrock Thomistic (and indeed all classical virtue ethics) feature of morality.4 Yet there is surprisingly little attention to the last end in recent Catholic moral theology.5 In his opening commentary on Aquinas’s questions on happiness, Hütter rightly recognizes that the last end is crucial for a teleological account of human action as coherently unified, to greater or lesser degrees in this life.6 It provides occasion to delineate commonality and differences between people in the journey toward happiness.7 This topic also provides occasion to address our last end as both something “out there” to be sought, and the manner of our attaining it.8 In fact, Hütter not only begins but also ends his book with a focus on the last end, as significant portions of the epilogue on “Man’s Beatitude” are devoted to defending Thomas’s claim that “the ultimate end of the human being is God alone and that the beatific vision See Servais Pinckaers, O.P., La Béatitude: Ia IIae Qu. 1–5 (Paris: Cerf, 2001). For Thomas treatment of the last end, see Summa theologiae [ST] I-II, q. 1, aa. 4–6. For the centrality of this concept in ancient ethics of varying stripes, see Julia Annas, Morality of Happiness (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1993), esp. 27–46. 5 There are exceptions. Perhaps most well-known is the relatively recent debate over the repudiations of Aquinas’s account of the last end by Germain Grisez and Peter Ryan, S.J, cited below. For the best recent account of the last end, see Steven Jensen, Sin: A Thomistic Psychology (Washington, DC: Catholic University of America Press, 2018). From the field of theological ethics, David Decosimo offers an account of a “final end conception” that attempts to extend Thomas’s thought in his Ethics as a Work of Charity (Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press, 2014). See also William C. Mattison III, “A New Look at the Last End: Noun and Verb, Determinate Yet Capable of Growth,” Journal of Moral Theology 8, no. 2 (2019): 95–113. For a penetrating recent philosophical treatment of the last end, see Alasdair MacIntyre, Ethics in the Conflicts of Modernity (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2016), 227–31. 6 Hütter, Bound for Beatitude, 15–16; see also ST I-II, q. 1, aa. 5–6. 7 Hütter, Bound for Beatitude, 16–17; see also ST I-II, q. 1, a. 7. 8 Hütter, Bound for Beatitude, 18–19; see also ST I-II, q. 1, a. 8; q. 3, a. 1. This is actually a topic Pinckaers wrote on, and Hütter deploys his language of the “objective” and “subjective” last end of happiness (Bound for Beatitude, 18). See Servais Pinckaers, O.P. “Beatitude and the Beatitudes in Aquinas’s Summa Theologiae,” in The Pinckaers Reader, ed. John Berkman and Craig Steven Titus (Washington, DC: Catholic University of America Pres, 2005), 115–29, esp. 121–22. 3 4 “Habitual" Ordering 1291 satisfies all human desires,” against Germain Grisez’s claim that it is the “Kingdom not God alone.”9 This essay continues attention to the last end, though on a topic not addressed by Hütter, indeed a topic addressed even less frequently than the last end in recent scholarship on morality, despite its pertinence to the last end. The topic is habitual ordering, which Thomas distinguishes from actual ordering, of one’s acts toward one’s last end. It will help at the outset to contextualize that inquiry within the broader context of inquiry on the last end. Hütter rightly notes that there are “two prongs” to recent debate over the last end.10 One prong addresses what constitutes humanity’s last end “out there,” or more specifically, how to understand humanity’s last end in relation to the myriad ends in a human person’s life. Scholarship on Aristotle has addressed this topic by exploring whether or not humanity’s last end is rightly understood as “inclusive.”11 In more recent Catholic scholarship on morality, this first prong has been centered on debate over whether or not God alone in the beatific vision, or instead the Kingdom of God as recently maintained by Grisez and Peter Ryan, S.J., constitutes humanity’s last end.12 To reference Pinckaers’s label for the classic Thomistic distinction between “objective” happiness (the end “for which,” or cuius13) and “subjective” happiness (i.e., the end “by which,” or quo14), this prong of the debate concerns the former. There is excellent scholarship on this first prong of the debate, not only in response to Grisez and Ryan but on the topic more generally.15 This Hütter, Bound for Beatitude, 388–89. Hütter, Bound for Beatitude, 419–20. For further recognition of these two prongs in recent scholarship, see Thomas Osborne, “The Threefold Referral of Acts to the Ultimate End in Thomas Aquinas and His Commentators,” Angelicum 85 (2008): 715–36, at 715. See also Jensen, Sin, 16. 11 For a seminal treatment of this issue in Aristotle, see J. L Ackrill, “Aristotle on Eudaimonia,” Essays on Aristotle’s Ethics, ed. Amélie Rorty (Berkeley, CA: University of California Press, 1980), 15–33. 12 The most developed version of this argument is Germain Grisez, “The Ultimate End of Human Beings: The Kingdom Not God Alone,” Theological Studies 69, no. 1 (2008): 38–61. See also Grisez, “Natural Law, God, Religion, and Human Fulfillment,” American Journal of Jurisprudence 46 (2001): 3–36, and Peter Ryan, S.J., “Must the Acting Person Have a Single Ultimate End?,” Gregorianum 82, no. 2 (2001): 325–56. 13 Hütter, Bound for Beatitude, 18. 14 Hütter, Bound for Beatitude, 18. 15 For an excellent rebuttal of Grisez focused on this prong of the debate, namely, whether or not the “ultimate end of the human being is God alone and the beatific vision satisfies all human desires” (as Hütter puts it in Bound for Beatitude, 388–89), see Ezra Sullivan, O.P., “Seek First the Kingdom: A Reply to Germain Grisez’s Account of Man’s Ultimate End,” Nova et Vetera (English) 8, no. 4 (2010): 9 10 1292 William C. Mattison III essay does not directly address that prong of the debate. The second prong of recent scholarship on the last end concerns whether or how human activity is ordered toward one’s last end.16 This is Pinckaers’s “subjective” happiness, namely, how our activity is ordered toward and indeed constitutive of our last end. Our inquiry into habitual ordering addresses one sliver of this prong of inquiry. This prong also includes broader questions such as whether or not all human activity is ordered toward one’s last end. Given Thomas’s claim in Summa theologiae [ST] I-II, q. 1, aa. 4–6, that not only does every person have one and only one last end, but also that every act a person performs is indeed ordered toward her last end, much inquiry in this prong concerns how this could possibly be so when there seem to be so many obvious examples to the contrary.17 Another topic in this prong concerns the last end of the person who sins venially.18 These topics are indeed addressed in this exploration of habitual ordering. Yet there are other aspects of those inquiries that are not addressed here given the focus on habitual ordering.19 The purpose of this essay is to present a Thomistic account of habitual ordering of a person’s actions.20 Despite the term “habitual” ordering, and despite the consistent assumption in scholarship that the person who sins venially possesses the infused virtue of charity, there is strikingly little attention to the question of how the possession of a habit (e.g., charity) influences one’s practical reasoning, that is, the “ordering” of one’s actions toward a further end. Even when there is recognition that habitual 959–95. See also the various essays in response to Grisez in the American Journal of Jurisprudence 46 (2001), as well as Jensen, Sin, 41–65. 16 The two prongs are of course related, which is one reason why the work of people like Grisez, Ryan, and Jensen addresses both topics. 17 For a helpful set of examples that consistently appear in this debate, see Grisez, “Ultimate End,” 40. 18 For a helpful bibliography of treatment of this topic among Thomists before the twentieth century and in the early twentieth century, see P. DeLetter, S.J., “Venial Sin and Its Final Goal,” The Thomist 16, no. 1 (1953): 32–70, esp. 32–33. 19 For a helpful example of five common responses by Thomas on the question of the last end of venial sin, only one of which is habitual ordering, see DeLetter, “Venial Sin,” 39–68. 20 I say “Thomistic account” because, if there is one constant in scholarship on habitual ordering or more broadly the last end of venial sin, it is that, despite certain clear texts and claims in Thomas’s corpus on the topics, his thought is underdeveloped and requires further expansion. See for example Jensen, Sin, 21: “the relation between habitual order and action is far from clear.” Osborne notes how later Thomistic commentators try to “bring into clarity problems that are raised and not solved by Thomas” (“Threefold Referral,” 736). “Habitual" Ordering 1293 ordering references possession of a habit, there is scarce attention to the dynamics whereby the possession of the habit influences particular actions. The account of habitual ordering offered here focuses precisely on this question. Indeed, by centering on this question of the relationship between habit and activity, we are able not only to offer a more cogent account of habitual ordering based on Thomas’s thought, but also to apply the notion of habitual ordering more broadly than is normally assumed. This essay proceeds as follows. In the first section, I present Thomas’s texts on habitual ordering and distill from them claims about habitual ordering that are uncontested (in terms of interpreting Thomas) in scholarship on the topic. In a second, I examine recent scholarship on this topic, including scholars who neglect or misconstrue Thomas’s thought on habitual ordering. I include a focused look at the work of Steven Jensen, whose work on the last end is the most important and accurate to be found in recent scholarship. Yet even his account has certain inadequacies that provide a springboard into the position offered here. Section Three offers my own account of habitual ordering. In the fourth section, I identify three conclusions about habitual ordering that defy common assumptions in scholarship on this topic. Thomas’s Texts on Habitual (and Virtual) Ordering In his “mini-treatise” on the last end (ST I-II 1, qq. 4–6), Thomas Aquinas claims that one orders all of one’s actions toward one’s last end. Detailed inquiry into what exactly this claim means, why he makes it, and why it is indeed correct, is beyond the scope of this essay.21 Thomas is obviously aware of occasions where it does not seem a person orders proximate activity to her last end. Throughout his corpus, Thomas consistently offers two distinctions to nuance the claim that all of one’s actions are further referred to one’s last end. One of them is the distinction between habitual ordering and actual ordering. Another is the distinction between virtual ordering and actual ordering. Since Thomas addresses virtual ordering in this very mini-treatise on the last end, I consider it first. Additionally, though virtual ordering is not the focus of this essay, disentangling it from habitual ordering is one contribution here, and thus treatment of it is necessary. In the very article where Thomas claims that a person orders all she does toward her last end, an objector claims, “whoever orders something to an end, thinks of that end. And since a person does not always think of the last end in all he desires or does, he does not do all for the sake of the last 21 In addition to Hütter’s brief treatment of these articles as noted above (Bound for Beatitude, 15–27), see Mattison, “New Look,” 99–107. 1294 William C. Mattison III end.”22 Aquinas replies that one need not always be thinking of the last end when one is doing something toward it. He offers a distinction that has come to be known as the “virtual–actual” distinction: One need not always be thinking of the last end, whenever one desires or does something. But the virtue of the first intention, which was in respect of the last end, remains in every desire to any object whatever, even though one’s thoughts not be actually directed to the last end. Thus while walking along a road one need not think of the end at every step.23 The concrete example of the journey along a road is very helpful, since each step can be ordered toward the destination even if one is not thinking of that further end during each step. Thomas offers additional examples in other texts. He claims that a doctor may be picking herbs to make a potion for the further end of his patients’ health, but need not be thinking of health while doing so, even as that end is moving his activity.24 In yet another text Thomas says “actual” acting for the last end might even impede the activity, as when a craftsman “virtually” acts for the sake of the last end even though all his attention must be focused on the immediate task at hand and not that further end.25 These examples address easier cases of when an immediate activity is not consciously thought of in relation to a further end, but it could be and indeed previously has been from the perspective of the acting person. Such activities are said to be ordered toward the last end “virtually.”26 Before turning to habitual ordering, it is worth pausing to define explicitly both terms in this first distinction. “Virtual” ordering occurs when the strength or power of a further end moves a person to act toward ST I-II, q. 1, a. 6, obj. 3 (translation mine; unless otherwise noted, as here, all quotations from the ST are from the English Dominicans translation). 23 ST I-II, q. 1, a. 6, ad 3 (emphasis added). 24 Aquinas, De caritate (De virtutibus, q. 2), a. 11, ad 2 (quotations of De car. are taken from Disputed Questions on the Virtues, trans. Ralph McInerny [South Bend, IN: St. Augustine’s Press, 1999], modified and html-ed. Joseph Kenny, O.P., atisidore.co/aquinas/QDdeVirtutibus.htm). 25 Aquinas, In II sent., d. 40 q. 1 a. 5 ad 7. For a final example of virtualiter used in this manner, see De perfectione, ch. 5. 26 Despite its being the dominant English translation of in virtute or virtualiter, “virtually” is an English cognate with unfortunate connotations of “not really” as in “virtual reality.” This is not at all the sense of the Latin. Etymologically related to virtue, the meaning of virtus here is more akin to strength or force. So the proximate act is done virtually, moved by the strength or power of the further end. 22 “Habitual" Ordering 1295 a more proximate end, yet without explicit thought about the further end while doing the proximate activity. To put this less mechanistically, since an end “moving the person” could suggest the end is not the agent’s own, in virtual ordering it is the agent’s own grasp of and pursuit of the further end that moves her to the immediate activity even while that further end is not consciously or explicitly on her mind. Thus, since the proximate act is prompted by and indeed ordered toward the further end, one is said to act virtually toward that end even while not thinking of it. Thomas distinguishes this virtual ordering from actual ordering. “Actual” here means that one is explicitly thinking of how the proximate end is prompted by and ordered toward the more remote end. In other words, what distinguishes actual from virtual is not whether or not an act is truly ordered toward the further end; that can be the case with both actual and virtual ordering. Rather it is whether or not one explicitly thinks about the further end.27 This distinction is largely uncontested in scholarship on Aquinas. What then, is habitual ordering? In the dozen or so texts where Thomas distinguishes habitual from actual ordering of one’s activity toward a further end, he makes several consistent claims.28 In every text (with one exception noted below) Thomas describes habitual ordering as something active that the person does.29 In other words, habitual ordering is not a Contemporary virtue ethics seizes on the dynamic Thomas calls virtual ordering with various other names. Nancy Snow describes the “goal dependent automaticity” supplied by virtue (Virtue as Social Intelligence: An Empirically Grounded Theory [New York: Routledge, 2009], 39). Julia Annas describes this dynamic as the “effacing” of reasons for action in Intelligent Virtue [Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2011], 29, 161–62). 28 The texts addressed here are: In I sent., d. 1, q. 3, a. 1, ad 4; In II sent., d. 42, q. 1, a. 3, ad 5; De malo, q. 7, a. 1, ad 4 and ad 9; a. 9; ST I-II, q. 88, a. 1, ad 2 and ad 3; II-II, q. 24, a. 10, ad 2; q. 44, a. 4, ad 2; De perfectione, ch. 5; De car. a. 11, ad 3; Super Col 3, lec. 3 (no. 170). Thomas obviously describes habit and habitual activity quite frequently in his corpus. The texts addressed here explicitly concern habitual as distinct from actual ordering of one’s activity toward a further end. There are other ways that Thomas distinguishes in actu or actualiter from in habitu or habitualiter, as when he describes the possession of the infused virtues in infants (ST III, q. 69, a. 6) or the retention of propositions (ST I-II, q. 90, a. 1). These other uses are beyond the scope of this essay. 29 See De malo, q. 7, a. 1, ad 4: “He who sins venially does not enjoy a created thing as an end but uses it as a means, for he refers it to God habitually though not actually” (quotations are from On Evil, trans. John Oesterle and Jean Oesterle [Notre Dame, IN: University of Notre Dame Press, 1995]). See also ST I-II, q. 88, a. 1, ad 3: (“He that sins venially clings to a temporal good, not as enjoying it, because he does not fix his end in it, but as using it, by referring it to God, not actually but habitually”); 27 1296 William C. Mattison III state of affairs describing a person, but rather the person’s ordering of an act. In every text in which Thomas deploys the distinction, the activity is habitually ordered toward God.30 In nearly every text the habitually ordered act is a venial sin, and while venial sins are habitually ordered toward God, they are not actually, or in reality, ordered toward God.31 Here we see how Thomas distinguishes habitual ordering from actual ordering, since an act can be habitually ordered toward God even if not truly, or actually, so ordered. Finally, Thomas consistently claims that the person who habitually orders her acts to God, even if such acts are venially sinful, continues to be ordered to God as her last end.32 This ordering is of II-II, q. 24, a. 10, ad 2 (“That which we love in venial sin is loved for God’s sake habitually though not actually”). 30 In addition to the previous three citations, see De perfectione, ch. 5: “We love God with our whole heart . . . if there be nothing in us which is wanting to divine love, that is to say, if there is nothing which we do not, actually or habitually, refer to God” (quotations are taken from The Perfection of the Spiritual Life, trans. John Proctor, O.P., isidore.co/aquinas/PerfectVitaeSpir.htm). See also ST II-II, q. 44, a. 4, ad 2: “To love God with one’s whole heart has a twofold signification. First, actually, so that a man’s whole heart be actually directed toward God. This is the perfection of heaven. Second, in the sense that man’s whole heart be habitually directed toward God, so that it consent to nothing contrary to the love of God, and this is the perfection of the way. Venial sin is not contrary to this latter perfection, because it does not destroy the habit of charity, since it does not tend to a contrary object, but merely hinders the use of charity.” See also Super Col 3, lec. 3 (no. 170): “It is not necessary that we refer everything to God in an actual way; it can be done habitually. Whoever acts against the glory of God and his commands, acts against this command [1 Cor 10:31]. But one who sins venially does not act against this command in an absolute way, even though he does not refer everything to God in an actual way, he does so habitually” (quotations taken from Commentary on the Letters of Saint Paul to the Philippians, Colossians, Thessalonians, Timothy, Titus, and Philemon, trans. F. R. Larcher, O.P. [Lander, WY: Aquinas Institute for the Study of Sacred Doctrine, 2012). 31 In addition to what has been previously cited, see ST I-II, q. 88, a. 1, ad 2: “Everyone who does not actually refer all of his actions to the glory of God does not therefore act against this precept [1 Cor 10:31]. In order therefore to avoid mortal sin each time one fails actually to refer all of one’s actions to the glory of God, it is enough to refer oneself and all that one has to God habitually. Now venial sin excludes only actual reference of the human act to God’s glory, and not habitual reference, because it does not exclude charity, which refers man to God habitually.” 32 See De malo, q. 7, a 1, ad 9: “Since the precept of the Apostle [1 or 10:31] is positive . . . it is always observed habitually as long as man is habitually ordered to God as his ultimate end, which is not excluded by venial sin.” See further a. 9 of the same question: “In us there can be a deordination about those things that are for the end, owing to venial sin, though our mind is habitually fixed on the end, and therefore in man there can be venial sin without mortal sin, not however in the “Habitual" Ordering 1297 course through the infused virtue of charity. Habitually ordered activity is thus distinguished from not only actually ordered activity on the one side, but also mortally sinful activity on the other side, since the latter severs one’s ordering toward God as last end. Thus any particular mortal sin is not accurately described as habitually ordered toward God. It should now be clear why the topic of habitual ordering is so commonly addressed in the context of inquiry into the relationship between venial sin and a person’s last end. As noted above, Thomas offers other arguments not treated here about why venial sin, unlike mortal sin, does not sever a person from God as one’s last end.33 Yet one of those arguments is that venial sin is indeed habitually ordered to God.34 Among scholars trying to interpret Thomas’s thought on habitual ordering, none of the above claims are contested. Yet it should be clear why these claims present a problem. After all, Thomas insists that a person orders all of his actions toward his final end. He also grants that venial sins are not in reality ordered to God, hence their being sins. Yet Thomas claims both angels.” See also In I sent., d. 1, q. 3, a. 1, ad 4, and In II sent., d. 42, q. 1, a. 3, ad 5. See DeLetter, “Venial Sin,” 39–68. 34 Note should be made of an influential but puzzling text that does not accord with certain of the features noted in the previous paragraph. Thomas claims in De car., a. 11, ad 3: “Habitually one orders to God who does nothing, nor does he actually intend anything, as sleeping.” Despite all other texts conveying an active sense of habitual ordering, this text claims one can habitually refer something to God even when inactive, or acting for no purpose. This text surely gives rise to what is called below the concomitance approach to habitual ordering. This quixotic text likely prompts scholars like A. J. McNicholl to discuss two types of acts in the context of habitual ordering, namely, deliberative and non-deliberative acts (see “The Ultimate End of Venial Sin,” The Thomist 2 [1940]: 373–409, at 378). Presumably the habitually ordered activity in this text would be the latter. Other authors have noted the difference between this De car. text and other, more active, Thomistic texts on habitual ordering. Osborne claims this non-deliberate usage soon falls away after Thomas (“Threefold Referral,” 719). He even references Sherwin’s case for an earlier dating of De car than J.-P. Torrell assumes (1270–1271), presumably suggesting this out of the ordinary usage of habitual ordering is incongruous with other, later texts; See Michael Sherwin, O.P., By Knowledge and by Love (Washington, DC: Catholic University of America Press, 2005), 199n192. Given those important differences, one could conclude this text reveals an inconsistency in Thomas’s account of habitual ordering. Or Thomas could be using the concept to refer both to deliberate acts and to non-deliberate acts in service to God as last end, in which case the account offered here would address only the former, or render the latter to be imperfect cases of habitual ordering, much as Thomas adduces actions that are not properly human or dispositions that do not attain the perfection of habit. I offer no firm conclusion about the relation of this text to the other references to habitual ordering. 33 1298 William C. Mattison III that it is possible to possess the habit of charity whereby one is ordered to God as one’s last end and that the person with charity can sin venially without losing charity. Therefore, he must claim that somehow one’s venial sin is ordered toward God, which seems impossible. His solution is that venial sins are habitually (though not actually) ordered toward God. What exactly does this mean?35 Furthermore, how to relate the habitual–actual distinction, on the one hand, to the virtual–actual distinction, on the other? Given that the term “actual” appears in both distinctions, do the terms “actual,” “virtual,” and habitual serve as three distinct points on the same continuum? Or does “actual” mean something when distinguished from “virtual” that is different from what it means when distinguished from “habitual”? How various scholars have approached these questions in relation to Thomas’s texts is the task of the following section. Recent Interpretations of Thomas on Habitual Ordering This section examines a sample of scholarship on habitual ordering in Thomas for a variety of “solutions” to this problem. I use scare quotes because in at least one case, rather than offer a solution to how Thomas’s seemingly contradictory claims can be reconciled, there is a rejection of Thomas’s position. I begin with a recent prominent rejection of Thomas’s account of habitual ordering in the work of Ryan, an approach we also see in certain early-twentieth-century scholarship. I then briefly treat another recent scholar who addresses this problem, one who claims to be true to Thomas’s thought even as he extends beyond Thomas, but in fact is not consistent with Thomas’s claims. Finally, I will address the work of Jensen on this topic, since he offers the best available account of habitual ordering. Yet even his view has inadequacies. Treatment of these recent scholars paves the way for the account of habitual ordering offered in the ensuing section. As noted above, recent scholarship by Grisez and Ryan is in no small part responsible for renewed attention to the last end in recent Thomistic studies. Their focus is on the first “prong” of study of the last end (cuius), namely, how the last end “out there” is related to other ends in a person’s life. Yet they also address the second prong of study of the last end (quo), namely, how human activity is ordered toward one’s last end. This is especially true of Ryan, who takes on this topic is his aptly named “Must the Acting Person have a Single Ultimate End?” In the end, his answer is no, and his treatment of venial sin is one linchpin in his argument. Along the 35 DeLetter claims that many approaches have been taken to this issue and none found satisfactory (“Venial Sin,” 32). “Habitual" Ordering 1299 way, he addresses Thomas’s treatment of the problem of venial sin through the concept of habitual ordering. Unfortunately, what Ryan describes as habitual ordering is in fact what Thomas calls virtual ordering. So while Ryan’s claims that such ordering does not solve the problem of how venial sin can be ordered to one’s last end, Thomas does not purport it to do so. Ryan rightly identifies the problem posed by Thomas’s claim that all one’s actions are ordered to one’s last end. Ryan’s response is to reject this claim, and that entails dismissing Thomas’s actual–habitual ordering distinction. After quoting Thomas’s claim that in venial sin a person refers that sin to God not actually but habitually (ST I-II, q. 88, a. 1, ad 3), Ryan interprets this text in the following manner: For an act to be ordered to an ultimate end, even if only habitually and not actually, it must be ordered to it per se. Such an act must be done for the sake of that end even if one does not consciously advert to it.36 Ryan suggests two features of habitually ordered venial sins here, both of which are inaccurate. First, he claims venial sins as habitually ordered acts must be truly ordered to God. He is right that they are not, but Thomas never says they always are. That is why they are sinful. If such acts were truly ordered toward God, they would be actually ordered toward God rather than merely habitually ordered toward God. Second, Ryan connects habitual ordering with non-conscious acting for an end. Yet as seen above, non-conscious acting for an end is what Thomas describes as virtual ordering. In nearly every text on habitual ordering (including the one Ryan quotes), Thomas describes habitual ordering as a quite active referral of action toward God. Therefore, Ryan is incorrect in claiming that habitually ordered actions must be truly ordered, even if not consciously so, toward God. Ryan wrongly equates habitual ordering with what Thomas calls virtual ordering.37 Ryan, “Must the Acting Person Have a Single Ultimate End?,” 350. Ryan makes this same argument in disagreeing with T. C. O’Brien’s account of venial sin in Aquinas (“Venial Sin (Ia2as. 89),” in the New Blackfriars ed. of ST, 27:118–24). Ryan claims “God can be, even habitually, an act’s ultimate end only if the act’s immediate end and intervening ends, if any, are per se ordered to him” (353). 37 Despite the importance of the term “virtual” as distinct from “actual” in addressing Thomas’s various ways of ordering actions to God, Ryan inexplicably never uses the term in his own voice in his article. It appears three times, always in quotations, once in Latin and twice in English. For another critique of Ryan as mixing up virtual and habitual, see Jensen, Sin, 18. 36 1300 William C. Mattison III This misinterpretation of Thomas leads Ryan to reject Thomas’s claim that a person has one last end and does all she does for the sake of that last end (ST I-II 1,4-6). Ryan does not deny that human actions have a last end.38 Yet he thinks venial sin proves that a person can have more than one last end, and therefore “Aquinas’s position” is wrong. We see here that a failure to grasp Thomas’s account of habitual ordering leaves a person bereft of the unifying role of the last end on human action.39 A similar misinterpretation occurs in the recent work of David Decosimo, whose Ethics as a Work of Charity offers an excellent Thomistic account of habit, and defense of “pagan virtue.” He also rightly recognizes the moral importance of the last end, or what he calls a person’s “final end conception” (FEC).40 Decosimo’s main concern in his treatment of the last end, which he acknowledges extends beyond Thomas’s thought, is to explain what could be understood as the “flip side” of the case of the venial sinner, namely, the person oriented away from God as last end who nonetheless performs a truly good act.41 I cannot offer a complete assessment of Decosimo’s broader account of the last end here. But two points are relevant for this essay on habitual ordering. First, Decosimo offers no significant treatment of Thomas’s account of habitual ordering.42 Given that the main thrust of Decosimo’s chapter concerns incongruity between particular actions and one’s last end, and that Thomas consistently deploys the habitual–actual distinction in precisely that context, this is a stunning omission. See Ryan, “Must the Acting Person Have a Single Ultimate End?,” 354. Though Ryan agrees with DeLetter that venial sins are not toward God as last end, he disagrees with DeLetter’s claim that such sins are not toward any last end (“Venial Sin,” 39, 69). 39 For a more in-depth account of this role, see Mattison, “New Look,” 99–107. 40 See Decosimo, Ethics, 198–235. 41 Decosimo claims to make “Thomas more capacious . . . without betraying his basic commitments” (Ethics, 220), a laudable endeavor even though he does not succeed in the latter. Note that despite the book’s valuable work on the classic topic of the “virtuous pagan,” whose last end is presumably the natural common good, Decosimo explores how it might be the case that an unbeliever, whose last end is contrary to God, can perform a good act in relation to that last end. Though Decosimo’s explanation of it is problematic, the fact that such a person could commit a good act is indeed affirmed by Aquinas (see ST II-II, q. 10, a. 4). 42 See Decosimo, Ethics, 316nn35–36. In neither note does Decosimo define habitual ordering or explain its relevance for the ordering of acts toward one’s last end. Though in the latter he claims “it’s tempting to use Thomas’s notion of habitual ordering to make my points, but habitual ordering is not the ordering of particular acts.” As may already be evident from the texts in n. 29, and will be clear by the end of this section, this claim is not true. 38 “Habitual" Ordering 1301 Second, deprived of this concept to explain how acts not actually ordered toward one’s last end can be habitually ordered, Decosimo is forced to make a move akin to Ryan and break apart the unity of one’s last end. Whereas Ryan had done so by speaking of venial sins as ordered toward different final ends, Decosimo affirms the existence of one final end conception for a person, but claims it is an assemblage of various beliefs, such that different actions can be ordered toward different “portions” of it.43 For Decosimo, a person’s last end is a conglomerate of “pre-approved reasons for acting,” and therefore “we ought not to understand an agent who ordains an act to his final end to be referring his act to each and every belief that constitutes his FEC.”44 As noted, extended treatment of why this position is incompatible with Thomas’s understanding of a person’s last end, and how one’s actions are ordered to it, is beyond the scope of this essay. Yet it is noted here as a consequence, reminiscent of Ryan, of inattention to (or in Ryan’s case misconstrual of) Thomas’s account of habitual ordering. Bereft of an account of habitual ordering, these scholars cannot offer an account of the last end that integrates people’s actions in the manner Thomas affirms.45 We now turn to the most common interpretation of habitual ordering in Thomistic scholarship. With regard to habitual ordering, all who write on Thomas’s account agree both that a venial sin habitually ordered toward God is not actually so ordered, and that nevertheless the person remains so ordered since venial sin does not entail the loss of charity. Therefore, an obvious interpretation of habitual ordering is that it concerns not the person’s actions, but rather the person himself. This has been called a “concomitance” view, namely, that a person can venially sin concomitant with the possession the virtue of charity which orders the person (not act) toward God.46 Though all agree that this is possible, it is not nearly so obvious that this is For this language of “portions,” see Decosimo, Ethics, 211, where he also claims: “While we can understand the final end as a monolithic whole, we need not so understand it when it comes to understanding how it guides particular acts.” The claim is not true, as is evident in Thomas’s texts on habitually ordered acts being actively referred to God. 44 Decosimo, Ethics, 212 and 213, respectively. See also 211: “Not all of one’s beliefs about the final end, therefore, are necessarily implicated or actively engaged in one’s acts directed to the final end.” 45 We also see the inherent connectivity between what Hütter calls the two prongs of scholarship on the last end. The lack of an adequate conception of habitual ordering correlates with an account of the last end as an assemblage. 46 See McNicholl, “Ultimate End,” 385. He ascribes this view to Cajetan, Sylvius, and Billuart. 43 1302 William C. Mattison III what Thomas means by habitual ordering. This concomitance view, in its starkest form, entails an excessive separation between the person (or more precisely his habits) and his activity. This excessive separation is evident in one early-twentieth-century Thomist who states baldly, “the mere presence of the habitus of grace in a man does not affect his moral activity.”47 But even into more subtle accounts of habitual ordering, the danger of concomitance can seep. Consider Jensen’s recent work, which in many ways is the best available account of the last end and human action. Jensen claims that, “strictly speaking, habitual order is applied to persons and only secondarily to actions.” He grants that “habitual orders must have something to do with actions,” but he repeatedly affirms that “habitual order is incidental in relation to an action . . . insofar as it is performed by someone who is ordered” habitually.48 For Jensen habitual order applies primarily to a person.49 Jensen claims habitual ordering suggests a “staying power” and “a kind of plan a person has” with only “incidental” relation to a particular action. It is this ascription of habitually ordering primarily to the person rather than to the act that characterizes the concomitance view of habitual ordering. How is one’s habitual order to the last end related to actions according to Jensen? He claims that, once one has an end (any end, not just the last end) that is a “kind of plan,” any activity done prior to that goal may be said to be done habitually for that goal since the person doing the more proximate activity still retains that goal. He uses an example of someone deciding to go purchase milk later in the day. Not only more obviously related acts (e.g., driving to the store where milk is sold) but any prior act (e.g., exercising), according to Jensen, may be said to be done for the sake of getting milk: If Anna decides in the morning that she will later that day go get DeLetter, “Venial Sin,” 37. DeLetter is of course correct that the presence of any habitus neither necessitates nor determines activity. Yet to claim it does not influence activity drives a wedge between habit and activity. For a comparable concomitance view of habitual ordering, see Gérard Gilleman, S.J., The Primacy of Charity in Moral Theology (Westminster, MD: The Newman Press, 1961), 20: “Habitual intention in the strict sense is the simple presence of a habit at the moment of the act, without any actual or virtual influence of a preceding act of this habit.” 48 See Jensen, Sin, 20–21 (emphasis added). 49 This is even more surprising since Jensen rightly claims habitual ordering should not be confused with habits, and rightly notes that “Habits belong only to persons, not to actions. Orders [including habitual ordering] belong both to persons and to actions” (Sin, 21n19). 47 “Habitual" Ordering 1303 milk, and in the meantime she exercises and reads a novel, then she is still ordered to the end of getting milk, even while performing these actions. We can even say that the act of exercising is ordered to getting milk, insofar as the one who exercises is also ordered to getting milk.50 Note how Jensen first claims the person is “still ordered to the end of getting milk,” though he then claims “the act of exercising is ordered to getting milk,” though the latter only “insofar as the one who exercises is also ordered to getting milk.” In an article on this topic (from which his book draws), Jensen claims an act could “have nothing to do with” the further end and yet be habitually ordered because the person is so ordered.51 This is a perfect statement of concomitance. Jensen uses an example of someone (named Kenny) who decides to attend a concert that night at 8 pm, and is deciding whether or not to go to dinner (at Tony’s restaurant) at 5 pm. Because Kenny himself is related to the goal of going to the concert, all of his actions are also related to this goal of going to the concert, simply by association with him. . . . Going to Tony’s restaurant is ordered habitually to going to the concert, because the person who goes to the concert happens to be ordered to go to the concert.52 One could easily imagine how the choice to go to Tony’s restaurant could indeed be done for the sake of, and thus informed by, the further goal of the concert. But Jensen claims that choice is habitually ordered to the concert simply “by association” through being performed by the same person who “happens to be” going to the concert. Jensen applies this depiction of habitual ordering to one’s actions in relation to his last end, God: When Aquinas says that all the actions of a person in the state of grace are habitually ordered to God as to an ultimate end, . . . Thomas means that the person has previously ordered himself (rather than this action) to the ultimate end of God, which order remains through Jensen, Sin, 22. Steven Jensen, “Venial Sin and the Ultimate End,” in Aquinas’s Disputed Questions on Evil: A Critical Guide, ed. M. V. Dougherty (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2016), 75–100, at 79. 52 Jensen, “Venial Sin,” 84. 50 51 1304 William C. Mattison III all his actions unless he changes his mind through mortal sin.53 This connection between person and action is too “incidental.” It is true that Thomas’s texts are few and open to interpretation, and thus as Jensen himself notes, “the relation between habitual order and action is far from clear.”54 Nevertheless, claims that habitual ordering refers to the person “rather than this action,” and that the proximate act is habitually ordered simply because the person “happens to be ordered” to the further end, are characteristic features of a concomitance account of habitual ordering where there is no causal influence between the more remote end and the proximate act habitually ordered to it. Before turning to Jensen’s attempt to provide a closer connection between the end to which the person is habitually ordered and more proximate ends/action, note that Jensen describes the dynamic of habitual ordering with regard to not only the last end but also other stable ends in a person’s life. This is not common, but as I will argue in the final section, I believe he is correct. Had he simply focused on the last end (rather than getting milk or going to concerts) his argument would have been easier to make, given his rightful support of Thomas’s claim that all one does is ordered to one’s last end. Thomas makes no such claim about ends that are not one’s last end. Though I will argue that incidental or happenstance relations to getting milk or going to a concert are not occasions of habitual ordering, I do argue below that stable ends possessed by a person (including through possession of a habit, and not only the habit of charity) can indeed provide occasions for habitual ordering. Yet a fuller account is needed of how the end influences the more proximate act. Despite the strong affirmations in the above quotations about habitual ordering primarily concerning persons, and the proximate acts having “nothing to do” with the further end—all representative of a concomitance approach to habitual ordering—Jensen himself recognizes at times that there must be some sort of relation between the two other than “by association” as possessed by the same person. He claims that “clearly habitual orders must have something to do with actions.”55 He considers first a “negative causality” solution to this problem of the causal relationship between ends held habitually and proximate acts, though it does not play a significant role in his position on this topic. He then considers a “positive causality,” and though he deploys a Thomistic distinction Jensen, Sin, 22 (emphasis in original). Jensen, Sin, 21. 55 Jensen, Sin, 21. 53 54 “Habitual" Ordering 1305 regarding the final end to explain how venial sins may be habitually ordered to God, his account of habitual ordering retains deficiencies characteristic of concomitance. Before offering his own solution as to whether or not a further end exerts causality on the more proximate act, Jensen considers the notion of “negative causality” of the last end on venial sin, a concept he claims originates in John of St. Thomas.56 According to this approach, in the venial sinner who is habitually ordering acts toward God, her last end “continues to exert a negative influence on the other goods,” to “assure” that one’s act does not exclude the final end or “interfere” with God as one’s final end.57 It is certainly correct that, in habitual ordering, one’s act does not dislodge one’s last end, a feature of habitual ordering noted above. Yet this account of negative causality fails in an important respect. Venial sins do indeed interfere with God as one’s last end even as they do not sever one from that end.58 Furthermore, the possession of charity does not “assure” that one’s Jensen, “Venial Sin,” 81–82. Odon Lottin identifies predecessors to John of St. Thomas on this approach; see Principes de Morale, vol. 2 (Louvain: Editions de L’Abbaye du Mont César, 1946), 246, naming “Curiel et Martinez.” Jensen says there are texts in Thomas that support such a notion, citing ST II-II 24,8 as an example. He cites McNicholl (“Ultimate End,” 384) and Th. Deman (“Péché,” in Dictionnaire de théologie catholique 12/1: 237–44, at 240) as affirming the same. He also recognizes Thomists such as DeLetter who claim there is no basis for this notion in Aquinas (DeLetter, “Venial Sin,” 351–53). Lottin rather decisively rejects the existence of this notion in Aquinas (Principes de Morale, 2:247–48). 57 Jensen, Sin, 75–76. 58 Recall ST II-II, q. 44, a. 4, ad 2, above, where Thomas claims that though venial sin does not destroy charity, it does “hinder the use of charity.” Though Jensen does not end up affirming the negative causality position, he does not adequately recognize here the extent to which venial sin hinders the use of charity. He describes venial sin as “possible,” presumably meaning possible to commit without severing charity. On that fact, all agree. But by describing a class of acts that are “not inconsistent” with the end (“Venial Sin,” 83; cf. 95 on “not ordered against” the end) or that “do not interfere with the end” (Sin, 70), and placing venial sins in this category (“Venial Sin,” 85), Jensen fails to recognize Thomas’s claim that venial sins do indeed interfere with (even while not dislodging) our order toward God as last end. This is all the more surprising because Jensen repeatedly cites Thomas’s text at De malo, q, 7, a. 5, which says “Deliberation can also concern that which does not exclude the end but nevertheless the end can be attained better without it, since it impedes progress to the end or disposes to a contrary end; these actions are venial sins” (“Venial Sin,” 85; see also Sin,” 72). Jensen’s foray into this third class of “indifferent acts” not only represents an excessively “neutral” view of venial sin, but also represents an approach to this issue decried by Lottin as metaphysical not moral, where acts stand on their own as good, bad, or indifferent regardless of how they are chosen by the person (Principes de Morale, 2:245–47). See also Osborne, 56 1306 William C. Mattison III act not exclude God as final end, since one may sin mortally. Depicting the causal influence of the last end “negatively” in this way is more of an after-the-fact assessment of whether the person sinned venially, rather than an account of how that immediate act is habitually ordered toward God as one’s last end. Jensen rightly gropes for some “positive final causality” that is missing in the standard negative causality account of habitual ordering.59 Here Jensen supplies an account that has precedents but is developed particularly clearly by him, namely, the distinction between the last end understood more generally as one’s overall good, and the last end understood more determinately as the specification of one’s overall good.60 On this argument, habitual ordering occurs when a venial sin is chosen since it appears from the perspective of the acting person (albeit wrongly, and thus not actually) to be ordered to one’s happiness in general. Yet in reality it is not ordered to the specific determination of one’s overall good, namely, God in the beatific vision. The distinction enables Jensen to explain habitual ordering, in a manner that seemingly gives it more than incidental relation to the person’s actions. An action such as a venial sin is habitually ordered to one’s last end understood as one’s overall goodness, happiness formally or generally understood. Yet venial sin is not ordered to one’s last end understood as the specific determination of one’s last end, in this case God in the beatific vision. The allure of this solution is that is guards Thomas’s claims that all actions are ordered to one’s last end, and that even sins while not actually so ordered are habitually so ordered. Problem solved! Not quite. While this solution succeeds in differentiating between good acts and venial sins, and explaining in what way each is ordered to one’s last end, it does not explain why it is the case that mortal sins are not habitually ordered. Thomas is quite clear that mortal sins are not habitually ordered “Threefold Referral,” 729, 731. This is surprising since Jensen in the same article recognizes the importance of the perspective of the acting person (“Venial Sin,” 87), not as determining the morality of a chosen act but as a necessary component of its analysis. 59 See Jensen, Sin, 73n15, for this terminology. 60 See Jensen, “Venial Sin,” 83–87 and 98–100, and Sin, 30–40 and 69–75. In both texts Jensen argues forcefully—and accurately—against new natural law proponents Ryan and Grisez. For another helpful rejoinder to Ryan and Grisez that also relies on this distinction, see Fulvio Di Blasi, “Ultimate End, Human Freedom and Beatitude,” American Journal of Jurisprudence 46, no. 1 (2001):113–35. For a position in line with Jensen’s though with a slight complexification, see McNicholl, “Ultimate End,” 398–406. For an examination of the origins of this argument, see Osborne, “Threefold Referral,” 733–35, which focuses on Banez. “Habitual" Ordering 1307 to one’s last end. Thus any account of habitual ordering must be capacious enough to explain how a venial sin is ordered to one’s last end, but not so capacious as to allow that mortal sin meets the conditions of habitual ordering. If habitual ordering is understood as the exercise of positive causality by the last end on a more proximate act by doing the latter for the sake of happiness, or one’s overall good in general, then true as this may be, it does not depict what Thomas describes as habitual ordering. That account of habitual ordering would make even mortal sins so ordered. Jensen concludes one of his treatments of venial sin with a jarring comment that is easily misunderstood. But even when clarified, it betrays a consistent problem in his and others’ accounts of habitual ordering. He claims, “We have reached the conclusion that venial sin is ordered to no final end, as we have defined the term, but it is nevertheless ordered to an ultimate end.”61 Though the claim that “venial sin is ordered to no final end” initially seems jarring, it is comprehensible given Jensen’s distinctive use of the term “final end” here to refer to the determination of one’s “overall good,” whereas he uses “ultimate end” for both the final end and its formality as one’s overall good.62 Thus the initially jarring quote is really a re-statement of his position above. But it is suggestive of a problem with this strategy and others similar to it of distinguishing between the last end as the formality of one’s overall good and its specific determination, at least as an account of habitual ordering.63 We saw in two earlier approaches an eventual rupture of the last end, either in Ryan’s claim that venial sins are toward a different last end, or in Decosimo’s fragmentation of the last end into portions. There is a hint of similar fragmentation here. Jensen acknowledges that scholars have criticized excessive separation between these understandings of the last end, and he himself claims: “The difference between the formality and determination is not stark. It is not as if the former refers to a mere abstraction and the later to something entirely concrete.”64 But as he goes on to describe how a person can act toward the formality of one’s overall good before specifying it, he evidences the problem with using this distinction to explain habitual ordering. For examples Jensen, “Venial Sin,” 99. Jensen, “Venial Sin,” 90–91. 63 Thomas does indeed reference a distinction like this. But it is adduced not as an explanation of habitual ordering, but rather as an explanation of the sense in which all persons have the same last end even if some find it in riches, some pleasure, etc. See ST I-II, q. 1, a. 7. 64 Jensen “Venial Sin,” 92. For his treatment of various twentieth-century scholars who have variously opined on this distinction regarding the last end, see 91nn51– 52. 61 62 1308 William C. Mattison III of distinguishing general and determinate ends, he claims one can be hungry and then desire pizza, or seek a high paying job and then choose to be an accountant, or seek an enjoyable night out and then choose a particular concert.65 All of this is absolutely true of how persons reason practically. However, it is not an adequate account of habitual ordering, since Thomas clearly claims that a person who habitually orders an act is already ordered to God as one’s last end (not ordered to an overall good and seeking its specification), and who nonetheless chooses a venial sin as ordered to God (not just toward one’s overall good). So in the end, Jensen’s and others’ reference to Thomas’s distinction in ST I-II, q. 1, a. 7, between the formality of the last end as one’s overall good, and its specific determination (God, riches, pleasure, etc.) is not adequate for explaining what habitual ordering means. First, the person who habitually orders a venial sin to God is already habitually ordered to her last end understood as a specific determination; she possesses charity and is thus ordered toward God. Thomas clearly states she orders her particular act (e.g., venial sin) toward God.66 Second, any human act is done for the sake of one’s overall goodness (even if wrongly so), and so that depiction of how venial sins are habitually ordered fails to distinguish them from mortal sins. Toward a More Adequate Thomistic Account of Habitual Ordering The previous section focused especially on Jensen’s work on habitual ordering because of how much he gets right. Consider three features of his account. First, there is something about habitual ordering that refers to persons rather than acts. Second, with regard to acts, the further end toward which one is ordered appears to exert a negative causality in dissuading one from sinning mortally and dislodging one’s last end. Third, there is some sort of positive causality in habitual ordering, such that one’s act is rightly said to be ordered to the further end. Each of these is true, despite certain shortcomings in Jensen’s account. The task of this section is to offer a Thomistic vision of habitual ordering that incorporates these insights into a more adequate account. To start with the conclusion, I argue here that habitual ordering represents Thomas’s (admittedly underdeveloped) account of how the activities of a person with a habit are influenced by that habit, even when 65 66 See Jensen, “Venial Sin,” 91–92. Recall Thomas uses language of one habitually ordering doing his act “referring it to God” (De malo VII., q. 7, a. 1, ad 4; ST I-II, q. 88, a. 1, ad 3) and loving it “for God’s sake” (ST II-II, q. 24, a. 10, ad 2). See note 29 above. “Habitual" Ordering 1309 they do not in fact serve the end of that habit (e.g., venial sin). As with any habit, possession of the habit neither necessitates nor specifically determines the activity of the habituated person. Nonetheless, the end of the habit does indeed causally influence the person’s activity. This dynamic is true of habits more generally. It occurs not primarily negatively (though we see below why it is easy to describe it as such), and not mainly by the activity being ordered to one’s further end more generally considered (as Jensen claims). Rather, in the case of deliberate human acts such as venial sins, the person actively orders the acts toward God by “narrating” them as ordered to God, that is, undertaking them under a description as ordered to God. Of course, as in the case of venial sins, they need not be so ordered. And given that a mortal sin could presumably be done under such a description (obviously wrongly), we will have to attend to why mortal sins are not habitually ordered. We begin with the influence of a habit on a person’s activity. A grasp of the relationship between a person’s habits and activity goes a long way toward understanding habitual ordering. Thomas consistently claims that habits, as qualities of a person’s powers, are related both to the person’s nature on the one hand, and activity on the other.67 The ends of certain sorts of activities are possessed by a person by nature, albeit inchoately. This potentiality issues forth in actions, which are particular specifications of ends supplied by nature. “In between” a person’s nature and activity are habits that qualify, or stably specify, the person’s ends supplied by nature so one’s powers can be more readily actualized in (even further specified) activity.68 We might imagine three “levels” of ordering toward ends in a person, with increasing specificity. At a first level a person by nature is ordered toward certain sorts of activity, ends which are inchoate though not wholly undetermined. At a second level, a person’s natural powers (that is, those that may be subjects of habits in the properly human sense of the term) are stably specified by habits, which supply to the person an ordering toward more particular ends. The purpose of habits is to aid the person to act more readily to actualize her ordering toward natural ends in specific activity. That activity is the third level, where the person’s activities toward ends are most specific. In the approach offered here, For clear statements of this see ST I-II, q. 49, a. 4, q. 54, a. 2. The following draws on the forthcoming William C. Mattison III, Growth in Virtue: A Thomistic Account. 68 For more on this account of habits as supplying more particular ends than nature, yet still requiring instantiation in specific activity, see Angela Knobel, Aquinas and the Infused Moral Virtues (Notre Dame, IN: University of Notre Dame Press, 2021). 67 1310 William C. Mattison III Thomas’s habitual ordering is an account of how habits at the second level causally influence activity at the third. Though recent renewed attention to virtue offers a new angle on this question, it has been traditionally addressed by exploring the relationship between venial sins (third level) and one’s ongoing possession of charity (second level). A. J. McNicholl addresses precisely this causal influence of charity (at the second level) on a person’s actions, including venial sin (on the third). He recognizes that Thomas describes two sorts of acts as habitually ordered toward God, namely, deliberate venial sins and what McNicholl calls “abortive,” or non-fully deliberate, acts.69 Habitually ordered deliberate acts are actively referred to God. McNicholl quotes Thomas: “That which we love in venial sin is loved for [propter] God’s sake habitually though not actually.” 70 Referencing the active sense of propter, McNicholl claims “this is a very explicit statement that the venial sin is ordered to God,” since the “the word ‘for’ (propter) expresses real causality and not mere concomitance.” 71 He claims the habitually ordered venial sin is “somehow drawn by charity to God, attracted by the vital magnetism of charity to this virtue’s last end.” 72 He claims charity “draws it [the venial sin] to its own last end.” 73 He offers a powerful image of a river to depict the overall flow of charity and its relation to venial sin: We may liken this universal impulse of charity toward God to the sweeping flow of a broad river, whose waters glide ever on to the limitless ocean from which they came. Where these waters meet the banks, there will be numerous eddies and counter-currents; but this contact with the earth will only slow up the flow of the river and impede its progress for a time; the varying counter-currents and swirling eddies of disturbed water, though not caused by the river, are caught in the broad strong flow of the hurrying stream, and are swept on with it and in it, to be embraced in the bosom of the mighty sea. We have to explain the mysterious and powerful influence of charity on all our acts in dry and technical formulae. These should not be permitted to blind us to the real significance of the deep working of charity in our souls.74 See McNicholl, “Ultimate End,” 378. ST II-II, q. 24, a. 10, ad 2. 71 McNicholl, “Ultimate End,” 385. 72 McNicholl, “Ultimate End,” 386. 73 McNicholl, “Ultimate End,” 387. 74 McNicholl, “Ultimate End,” 387. 69 70 “Habitual" Ordering 1311 McNicholl’s beautiful prose here, a style reminiscent of Hütter’s own in Bound for Beatitude, reminds readers of this journal of the importance of combining technical precision with spiritual inspiration.75 Notwithstanding the beauty of McNicholl’s image of the relationship between the general thrust of the river (loving all things for God’s sake habitually) and the countercurrents or eddies (venial sins not actually moving toward God), the metaphor’s weakness is a rather mechanical or at least non-personal image of both the overall thrust of the river and the countercurrents. In charity a person refers all his acts (of course only with God’s grace) toward God, and this same person deliberately chooses venial sins for the sake of God, albeit wrongly. The image suffers from what Odon Lottin describes as the early modern shift in understanding habitual ordering more metaphysically than morally.76 Or, as we might say after Veritatis splendor and the late-twentieth-century shift toward recognizing the importance of the first-person perspective, more from an observer perspective rather than the perspective of the acting person.77 The person who habitually orders action to God loves God above all For another inspirational passage that should give pause to readers of this journal, McNicholl notes in the context of explaining the inability of angels to sin venially that “the more intellectual a man is . . . the greater is the danger of falling into mortal sin. . . . To be highly intellectual is to approach more nearly to the condition of angels and hence to be less capable of deliberate venial sin: this consideration should inspire humility in those who are gifted with acute intelligences, or who are well-instructed in the nature of sin, or the precepts of divine law” (“Ultimate End,” 389–90). See a comparably inspiring passage in Jensen, Sin, 38–39: “If everyone in a state of grace did indeed order all of his actions virtually toward the divine good, then there might be little room for spiritual growth. As it is, not everyone in a state of grace does order all of his actions virtually to the divine good. Those in a state of grace are themselves ordered habitually to the divine good, but not all of their actions have a virtual order to this good. As such, they often lead disjointed lives; they often pursue a multiplicity of goods, independent of the divine good. They are ready to curb these pursuits when the goods exclude the divine good (else they would commit a mortal sin), but as long as these independent goods do not eliminate the divine good, they are often pleased to pursue them. Eliminating these independent goods, ultimately seeking to subordinate everything virtually to the divine good, is the work of the spiritual life.” 76 Lottin, Principes de Morale, 2:245–47. See also Osborne, “Threefold Referral,” 729, 731. 77 See Pope John Paul II, Veritatis Splendor (1993), §78. In addition to the seminal Elizabeth Anscombe, Intention, 2nd ed. (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2000), see Servais Pinckaers, O.P. Sources of Christian Ethics (Washington, DC: Catholic University of American Press, 1995), whose third chapter (47–94) addresses this topic in an illuminating manner cloaked by the chapter’s title, “The Human Aspect of Christian Ethics.” 75 1312 William C. Mattison III else and yet can deliberately choose acts for the sake of God that in fact impede one’s love of God. That love of God above all else parameters the immediate act, causally influencing it to help keep one from sinning mortally. This is what McNicholl describes as the “vital magnetism of charity,” which draws it [the person’s act] toward its own end [God].” 78 Yet it is less some “magnetic” force acting on the person’s immediate act, but the person herself both loving God above all else and yet loving the venial sin (for the sake of God, wrongly) in a way that impedes her journey on the road toward God.79 When McNicholl claims that “the virtue of charity would forbid them [the proximate acts] if they were gravely sinful,” we hear echoes of what the previous section described as the “negative causality” of charity. Yet there is less a negative causality than a person actively loving God above all else and actively referring a proximate act (even if wrongly, as in venial sin) to God. What we have is a lack of full coherence and integration of the person’s actions toward God in this life, a lack that is not (only) suffered but (also) perpetuated actively by the person in venial sin. How is the account of habitual ordering offered here different from ones offered in the previous section? First, it is clearly not a concomitance account. Habitual ordering does not primarily refer to the person who possesses a habit, with only “incidental” connection to her action. In habitual ordering, the person is ordering her more proximate actions in a manner reflecting her possession of a habit. That habit has an object, and its possession (since it is her possession, her end) has real causal influence on her proximate actions, such that she refers her proximate act to the end supplied by the (relevant) habit. In the case of charity which refers her to God as last end, she even refers to God acts that are not actually toward God (i.e., venial sins). Thus the fact that the person is habituated is important, because from the perspective of the acting person all of his habitually ordered acts are for the sake of God. Who cannot empathize with an account of a person loving God above all else, and yet at times actively narrating his particular choices as part of his journey toward God when in fact they impede progress toward God? Perhaps some concrete examples of this dynamic might help. Consider a person ordered to God through the graced virtue of charity, yet who narrates his harsh demeanor toward his wife or kids as insisting on what is right for everyone’s good, rather than as the impatience or self-centered78 79 McNicholl, “Ultimate End,” 386 and 387, respectively. For a vivid image of venial sin as akin to a person on a road to God not abandoning his destination but delaying too much or loitering on the road (see In II sent., d. 42, q. 1, a. 3, ad 5 and In I sent., d. 1, q. 3, a. 1, ad 4. “Habitual" Ordering 1313 ness that it is. Or consider the person ordered toward God in charity who narrates venially sinful alcohol consumption as a way to relax or enjoy the company of others, rather than the self-centered focus on pleasure that it is. Or consider the person whose career represents a commitment to the Church, and who narrates political scheming at work as pursuit of that mission rather than the manipulation or prideful ambition that it is. In each of these cases, the person’s ordering to God as last end is not merely concomitant to the venial sinful activity, but that venial sin is actively (though wrongly) ordered to the person’s last end. Second, what is described above as the negative causality of habitual ordering is not some mechanical influence on the person’s proximate acts as if from the outside. It is the limiting of the person’s sin to be only venial and not mortal because the person himself is still clinging to God as last end and referring all his proximate acts toward God.80 Of course habitual ordering does not prevent the possibility of mortal sin. But when a person does choose mortal sin, it is not that some negative causal influence has ceased being effective. Rather it is that the person himself has relinquished the gifted grasp of God as his final end and instead taken on a temporal good as his final end. From the first-person perspective, he may think he still holds God as last end, and that he does the immediate act for God’s sake. But his narrating the act for the sake of God in a manner whereby it is compatible with holding God as last end does not make it so. In actuality, he does not hold God as his final end through charity in doing the proximate act (a mortal sin), and thus his act is not habitually ordered toward God. He has relinquished the habit of charity. This is not simply an after-the-fact assessment of an act as mortal not venial. In his choice of the proximate end, he ceases to will God as his last end, and thus the mortal sin is not habitually ordered. Third, this account of habitual ordering explains how a person habitually orders acts toward God without relying on a distinction between the formality of the last end and its specificity, despite how common this move is made in the tradition. Thomas’s reference to some such distinction (ST I-II, q. 1, a. 7) immediately after his article claiming one does all one does for one’s last end (ST I-II, q. 1, a, 6) makes it understandable people appeal 80 For a powerful description of this with more of a first-person perspective, despite his holding on to the language of negative causality, see J. Aumann, O.P., “The Theology of Venial Sin,” Proceedings of the Catholic Theological Society of America 10 (1955): 74–94, at 81: “The Christian in a state of grace, even as he commits a venial sin, preserves his resolution not to admit any other ultimate end but God, and in this sense, at least, the ultimate end exerts a negative influence on the commission of venial sin. Therefore it is not an empty gesture to ask whether the just Christian in any way directs his venial sinful acts to the ultimate end.” 1314 William C. Mattison III to the relevance of this distinction.81 However, that distinction is Thomas’s explanation for how people can hold different last ends, not how they can habitually order proximate acts (wrongly in the case of venial sins) toward God as last end. Furthermore, appeal to the general–determinate distinction does not explain why mortal sins are not habitually ordered toward God, as presumably even mortal sins are indeed done for the sake of one’s overall happiness (albeit drastically wrongly).82 Identification of mortal sin always requires analysis of an act beyond the person’s own perspective. The account offered here claims mortal sins are not habitually ordered to God even if one narrates them as referred to God, because in reality one has relinquished God as last end in doing the proximate act, and thus the act ceases to be parametered by that end, regardless of whether the person narrates it as such. In short, habitual ordering is ordering a proximate act toward a further end toward which one is habitually inclined, so that the choice of that proximate act is from the perspective of the acting person actively and deliberately done for the sake of that further end. It may not in reality (actually) be ordered toward that further end, but one’s clinging to that further end while choosing the proximate act parameters that act so one’s further end is not lost even if the immediate act one chooses is not conducive to it. Assumption-Defying Conclusions about Habitual Ordering Brought into Relief by This Account The previous section argues that habitual ordering is Thomas’s device to explain how a person’s referral (due to the possession of a habit) to a further end influences more proximate ends chosen by that person. That account leads to certain further conclusions about habitual ordering that defy assumptions commonly held in scholarship on the topic. I offer three here, and state them at the outset. First, contrary to the common assumption that actual, virtual, and habitual ordering are three points on one continuum regarding the further referral of one’s acts, I argue that when “actual” is distinguished from “virtual,” it has a meaning different from the one it has when distinguished from “habitual.” Second, contrary to the assumption that an act must be either habitually or actually ordered, I In another article I make a different case for why ST I-II, q. 1, a. 7, is indeed relevant, namely, by interpreting it more akin to the distinction in q. 1, a. 8, than commonly supposed (“New Look,” 103–7). Though I stand by that case, the current argument on habitual ordering does not depend on the success of that case. 82 For an attempt to cordon off mortal sins from habitual ordering by creating a trifold distinction regarding the last end, an approach to habitual ordering similar to Jensen’s, see McNicholl, “Ultimate End,” 398– 405. 81 “Habitual" Ordering 1315 argue that a good act actually ordered toward the further end of God can also be habitually ordered. Third, scholarship on habitual ordering focuses on venial sin and habitual ordering toward God in charity, but I argue that Thomas’s account of habitual ordering applies also to habits other than charity. Each of these claims is brought into clearer relief by the account of habitual ordering offered here. However, despite assumptions to the contrary in scholarship on habitual ordering, each of these conclusions holds true even if one holds a concomitance view of habitual ordering, or an account such as that offered by Jensen. My first conclusion is that “actual” ordering as distinguished from “virtual” ordering has a meaning different from when it is distinguished from “habitual” ordering. Since habitual and virtual ordering are both distinguished by Thomas from actual ordering, there is an assumption in Thomistic scholarship that these three terms exist as distinct points on one and the same continuum. The best recent article on the history of these types of ordering refers to the “threefold” referral of acts in Thomas’s thought.83 This assumption is evident in the work of Jensen, as well as earlier twentieth-century scholarship.84 That continuum presumably looks something like this: -actually ordered to God—good acts truly ordered to God as further end and consciously so -virtually ordered to God—good acts truly ordered to God as further end but not consciously so -habitually ordered to God—venial sins not truly ordered toward God but not dislodging God as last end ________________________________________________________ -mortal sins—not ordered toward God, and dislodging God as last end The “threefold referral” (the three above the line in the spectrum list just above) references the fact that the first three sorts of actions, unlike the fourth (mortal sin), all are referred to God in some way, and that is true. Yet the threefold ordering on a continuum approach is based on 83 84 See Osborne, “Threefold Referral,” 717. Jensen describes a “tripartite division between habitual, virtual, and actual order to an end,” and further on a “threefold division of orders to an end: actual virtual, and habitual” (“Venial Sin,” 77). See also Maurice de la Taille, S.J, “La Péché véniale dans la théologie de S. Thomas,” Gregorianum 7 (1926): 28–43, at 32. 1316 William C. Mattison III two assumptions, the dislodging of which correspond with the first two conclusions about habitual ordering addressed here. The first assumption is that “actual” means the same thing when distinguished from virtual and from habitual. However, despite the same term “actual” being used as distinct from both virtual and habitual, and despite the common topic of referring acts toward further ends, I argue here that “actual” means something when distinguished from “virtual” that differs from what it means when distinguished from “habitual.” If that is the case, we will have four, not three, different ways of ordering acts toward ends. It is relatively uncontested that “virtual” means the further end is not consciously thought about while doing the proximate act, and that “actual” ordering—when distinguished from “virtual”—means a person is actively thinking of that further end, explicitly or consciously. Let us label the “actual” distinguished from “virtual” as “actual-1.” Yet though actual-1 means “explicitly or consciously thought of,” this cannot be the meaning of “actual” when distinguished from “habitual.” Rather, if distinguished from “habitual,” then “actual” means something like “done in a manner influenced by and truly in accord with one’s habit.” Let us label “actual” when distinguished from “habitual” as “actual-2.” According to Thomas, venial sins are actively referred to God, and done for the sake of God.85 So a venial sin is habitually ordered toward God because an end held by the person habitually (e.g., God in charity) causally influences the person’s choice of the proximate act, even though the immediate act is not truly in accord with one’s habitual order to God, since the act is not truly conducive to God as last end. Actual-2 ordering means an act is done not only in a manner influenced by, but also truly in accord with, one’s habit. Thus a venial sin is habitually but not actually-2 ordered. This is not the same as actual-1 ordering; indeed, an act such as venial sin being done while possessing a habit yet not truly in accord with one’s habit is possibly true of both actual-1 and virtual ordering. Thus actually-2 ordered acts can be actually-1 or virtually ordered. Conversely, given that venial sins are deliberate acts referred to God, they can be actually-1 ordered even while not actually-2 ordered. This means venial sins can be habitually and actually-1 ordered to God. But they are not actually-2 ordered to God. Therefore actual-1, distinguished from virtual, must mean something different from actual-2, distinguished from habitual.86 See: De malo, q. 7, a. 1, ad 4; ST I-II, q. 88, a. 1, ad 3; II-II, q. 24, a. 10, ad 2. See also n. 29 above. 86 Assuming “actual” means the same thing when distinguished from “virtual” as when from “habitual” is a possible explanation for why someone like Ryan could 85 “Habitual" Ordering 1317 Given this distinction between actual-1 and actual-2, there is really a fourfold referral of acts to further ends. Rather than a continuum, these two distinctions result in four possible permutations, as seen on this chart: Actual-1 (=explicitly) Actual-2 (=truly in accord with habit) Habitual (=influenced by habit) truly in accord with habit and explicitly further ordered Actual-1 Actual-2 ordering causally influenced by habit and explicitly further ordered Actual-1 Habitual ordering Virtual truly in accord with habit causally influenced by habit (=implicitly) but implicitly further ordered but implicitly further ordered Virtual Actual-2 ordering Virtual Habitual ordering Though the account of habitual ordering offered here makes these four types of ordering more obvious, the above chart is actually not dependent upon the account in the previous section of this essay. In support of the chart rather than continuum, consider whether or not venial sins must be always either actually-1 ordered or always virtually ordered. It is claimed here they are sometimes actually-1 ordered and sometimes virtually ordered. Ask yourself whether venial sin, which is not actually-2 (truly) ordered to God, can at times be referred actually-1 (explicitly) to God. All grant that venial sins are deliberate acts, and Thomas is quite clear that they can be consciously referred to one’s last end. Anyone has done this who has rationalized a venial sin, who has convinced himself that an act conduces to a life integrated by love of God above all even though in reality the act is not conducive to that end. Clearly venial sin can be habitually and actually-1 ordered. Additionally, ask yourself if venial sin can be done without the further end of God explicitly on one’s mind, in other words virtually ordered. Venial sin can be virtually ordered if one had earlier consciously referred it (erroneously) to God, and then continues to do the act without that connection to the further end explicitly on one’s mind. If either of these is the case (and I claim both are), the threefold referral continuum cannot stand. It is not supple enough to distinguish the various ways a person orders his acts toward a further end. The second assumption in the “continuum” or “threefold order” approach relates to the second conclusion regarding habitual ordering. In conflate virtual and habitual. 1318 William C. Mattison III the threefold continuum approach, it is assumed that habitually ordered acts are always venially sinful and are never mortally sinful. Or at the very least, in the concomitance approach to habitual ordering, there is no relation between the habitually ordered act and the further end held by habit, other than “by association” as it is the same person who does both. According to the account of habitual ordering here, habitually ordered acts can be venially sinful and are never mortally sinful. But habitually ordered acts can also be good. In other words, while it is true that acts are either actually-1 or virtually ordered, and that a habitually ordered act need not be actually-2 ordered, it is also true that a habitually ordered act can also be actually-2 ordered. Habitual ordering is a claim about the causal influence of an end held by habit on a person’s proximate act. The contexts where Thomas deploys habitual ordering are his treatments of venial sin and adherence to the precept in 1 Corinthians 10:31. These contexts lead Thomas to adduce habitual ordering to explain how venial sins are ordered to God by a person with charity, since they are causally influenced by the habit even though the proximate act is not conducive to God and thus not truly in accord with one’s habit. In these contexts, habitual ordering also helps him explain why mortal sins are not so ordered to God, because the chosen act is not causally influenced by the habit (and obviously not conducive to God). Given these contexts, “habitually ordering” is used to describe venial sin. But if “habitual ordering” means causally influenced by the end supplied by one’s habit, then habitual ordering occurs also with good acts that are conducive to the end a person holds by habit. In fact, this claim about habitually ordered action also applying to good acts is not dependent on the account of habitual ordering here, even if this account makes the possibility of good habitual action more clear. Consider other accounts of habitual ordering noted above. A concomitance account claims that an act is habitually ordered when performed by one with charity. Stated as such, it is not clear why only venially sinful acts would count as habitually ordered, unless by “habitually ordered” is understood “merely habitually ordered.” So, surely “habitually ordered” also describes good acts of the person with charity. Or consider Jensen’s account. He claims an act is habitually ordered when performed by one with charity, and done for one’s overall good so as not to dislodge charity, even if it is not ordered toward one’s specific determination of one’s overall good, such as the beatific vision. Though he is right, and all agree, that a habitually ordered act may not be truly in accord with the end of one’s habit, why is it necessarily not so? That Jensen thinks habitually ordered acts cannot be good is clear when “Habitual" Ordering 1319 he claims that a habitually ordered act is only good for the end one holds “by association.” If it is truly good (actually-2) for that end “it becomes virtually ordered to his good.”87 But this does not at all necessarily follow. First of all, what makes something virtually ordered to an end is not that it is truly so ordered (though that can be true too), but that it is not on one’s mind.88 Second, in what way does the now-good act fail to meet Jensen’s conditions for habitual ordering, even if it is now also truly conducive to the person’s end (actually-2 ordered)?89 Therefore, there appears nothing in these accounts of habitual ordering that disqualifies good acts from being habitually ordered. It is certainly true that habitually ordered acts can be (venially) sinful. It is also true that Thomas treats habitual ordering almost always with regard to venial sin. This seems to have led scholars to assume that acts can only be either habitually or actually-2 ordered.90 But if we approach Thomas’s thought on habitual ordering not simply through the topic of venial sin, but also on the topic of the relationship between habits and acts, suddenly a host of other texts come into play.91 Therefore, my contention is that Thomas’s actual–habitual distinction is not an either–or distinction as is the case with virtual–actual-1 ordering. Rather, an act can be “merely” habitually (and not actually-2) ordered or habitually and actually-2 ordered. The account of habitual ordering offered here makes this possibility more evident. Note the impact that this second conclusion would have on the above Jensen, “Venial Sin,” 79. Recall venial sins can be virtually ordered by not having their further end consciously on one’s mind. 89 I suspect this is one reason that Jensen unfortunately defaults his three categories of acts as good, bad, indifferent, and labels habitually ordered acts the latter. This is unfortunate since, as noted above in n. 58, venial sins are not indifferent. 90 Of course, one can simply stipulate that acts are either actually-2 ordered or habitually ordered. But if one did so, it would seem to be merely stipulative, since an account of habitual ordering could not be offered that both distinguished it from both actual-2 ordering on the one side, and mortal sin on the other. 91 Such texts would obviously include explicit mentions of the relationship between habit and act, including ST I-II, q. 49, a. 4, and q. 54, a. 2, noted above. It would also bring into play texts such as De virtutibus, a. 1, on what habits supply to powers amenable to habituation, and De car., a. 12, on why one need not act in accordance with charity even if it is possessed. In both of his treatments of this topic, Jensen gives extended attention to the different ways a person with a habit (such as charity) can sin, namely, from passion, ignorance, or malice (referencing Thomas’s internal causes of sin from ST I-II, qq. 76–78). This reflects exactly the right intuition that a crucial topic here is the relationship between a person’s habit and his action, and how causal influences other than the habit can prompt an action. See Jensen, “Venial Sin,” 93–98, and Sin, 124–211. 87 88 1320 William C. Mattison III chart. If actual-2 ordered acts can be also habitually ordered (assuming the possession of a habit), the chart would have to look something like this: Habitual and Actual-2 (=influenced by, and truly in accord with, one’s habit) Merely Habitual (=influenced by, though not in accord with, one’s habit) influenced by and truly in accord w/ habit and explicitly further ordered Actual-1 and Habitual / Actual-2 order influenced by but not in accord w/ habit and explicitly further ordered Actual-1 and Mere Habitual order Virtual influenced by and truly in (=implicitly) accord with habit but implicitly further ordered Virtual and Habitual / Actual-2 order influenced by but not in accord w/ habit but implicitly further ordered Virtual and Mere Habitual order Actual-1 (=explicitly) The third conclusion offered here concerns the applicability of habitual ordering to other ends besides the habitual ordering of a person toward God as last end through charity. I noted above that Jensen’s analysis offers examples of habitual ordering to non-ultimate ends.92 He also considers whether habitual ordering applies in cases of people ordered away from God, in other words, with a different last end.93 These instincts seem to me exactly right, and reflective of an intuition that Thomas’s account of habitual ordering is at root an account of the relationship between a person’s habits (by which one is stably ordered toward certain ends of activity) and one’s proximate actions which may or may not conduce to those ends.94 In addition to the examples noted above, Jensen explicitly affirms this dynamic with regard to non-ultimate (“lesser”) ends (“Venial Sin,” 78). 93 See Jensen, Sin, 83, for a description of habitual ordering of a person in mortal sin. 94 Though certain features of Jensen’s work evidence this intuition, it must be noted that the account of habitual ordering offered here concerns ends held habitually. When Jensen references a “standing plan” with “staying power” (Sin, 20) such as a decision to go get milk later, he addresses the relation between proximate ends and further ends, including when the latter need not be reflective of a habit. I argue that Thomas’s account of habitual ordering addresses the relationship between a further end a person holds habitually and a proximate action. Perhaps that shares features of more generally acting proximately while holding a more remote end, 92 “Habitual" Ordering 1321 If this is the case, and I believe that it is, then we can speak of habitual ordering not only to God but also to other habitually held ends. Consider a person who could habitually order a choice of meal toward the further end of good eating to which he is ordered by temperance, when in fact the meal at hand is not actually-2 temperate. The act would be habitually ordered in that the person still holds the end of temperance and it causally influences his choice of meal, even if the proximate act is not actually-2 ordered. It would parameter the act, in a manner appearing like negative causality. In his brief discussion of decrease in habit, which (reminiscent of Jensen’s work) can happen through “ignorance, passion, or choice,” Thomas notes that a habit can diminish in several ways.95 One can act against the habit, or cease to act in accord with the habit.96 One can also act in a manner that is still virtuous but with less intensity.97 Any of these ways of acting could be habitually ordered. The reference here to Thomas’s work on growth or decrease in habit indicates a major benefit of the account of habitual ordering offered here. A whole slew of texts previously not discussed in the context of habitual ordering, since Thomas mainly uses that term with venial sin or in reference to 1 Corinthians 10:31, come into play. This observation is a fitting way to conclude, since it indicates how much further work there is to be done based on this account of habitual ordering. Rather than some sly distinction to accommodate a seeming inconsistency in Thomas’s various claims on acting toward one’s last end and the possibility of venial sin, habitual ordering is way to address the real causal impact of charity on the actions of a person in a state of grace, as well as possibly other virtues, while also recognizing a person’s freedom to act in a manner not conducive to the end held in habit. Much work is left to be done to assess this account of habitual ordering and, in light of that assessment, to address these three N&V conclusions regarding habitual ordering. but those are not addressed here. For these internal causes of decrease in virtue, see ST I-II, q. 53, a. 1. For Jensen’s extensive analysis of these internal causes of sin, see Sin, 142–93. 96 ST I-II, q. 53, a. 1, and q. 53, a. 3, respectively. 97 See ST I-II, q, 52, a. 3. 95 Nova et Vetera, English Edition, Vol. 19, No. 4 (2021): 1323–1343 1323 Friendship with God: The Christian Call to Divine Intimacy Michael S. Sherwin, O.P. University of Fribourg Fribourg, Switzerland Abraham gehöre zu den Suchern und Autodidakten, aber darum sei er Freund Gottes genannt worden 1 —Erik Peterson The Book of Exodus contains a brief passage that expresses the unique intimacy that the Lord accorded to Moses during the people’s sojourn in the desert. “The Lord spoke to Moses face to face” (Exod 33:11a). To explain this face-to-face colloquy, the text offers a comparison that employs the Hebrew word rēaʿ. The Lord spoke to Moses the way “a man speaks to his rēaʿ” (Exod 33:11b). What does this Hebrew word mean in this context? The first to confront this question were the Jewish scholars in Alexandria who, in the third century BC, undertook the task of translating the first five books of the Old Testament into Greek, a project that became the foundation of the translation subsequently known as the Septuagint (LXX).2 Their Erik Peterson, “Der Gottesfreund: Beiträge zur Geschichte eines religiösen Terminus,” Zeitschrift für Kirchengeschichte 42 (1923): 173–74: “Abraham belonged to the seekers and autodidacts, but that is why he was called friend of God.” Peterson is paraphrasing Clement of Alexandria, who is himself drawing on ideas found in Philo of Alexandria. Unless otherwise noted, all English translations are my own. “I dedicate this essay to Reinhard Hütter, whose reflections on friendship with God in his recent monograph, Bound for Beatitude: A Thomistic Study in Eschatology and Ethics (Washington, DC: The Catholic University of America Press, 2019) have inspired its contents. 2 The translation of the first five books of the Old Testament (the Torah) was undertaken at Alexandria in the early part of the third century before the birth of Christ, 1 1324 Michael S. Sherwin, O.P. translation of this passage will influence how subsequent biblical authors and early Church Fathers portray the call to divine intimacy. Specifically, the Alexandrian translators began the tradition of describing divine intimacy as a type of friendship with God. In what follows, we shall study features of this scriptural account of divine friendship and consider some of the implications of this account for our understanding of the Christian life. Moses, the Friend of the Lord When one looks at the Torah as a whole, one discovers that rēaʿ most often signifies “neighbor” or even just a generic “other.”3 As such, the Alexandrian translators regularly translate rēaʿ as plēsion, the Greek equivalent of “neighbor.”4 In several places, however, a more specific sense of rēaʿ seems to be intended. For example, the story of Judah and his daughter-in-law Tamar begins with a description of Judah pitching his tent “near a certain Adullamite named Hirah” (Gen 38:1). In this context, the description of Hirah as Judah’s rēaʿ seems at first to pose no difficulty. Judah has pitched his tent next to Hirah, and thus, Hirah is his neighbor. The text, however, contains two added features. First, the narrator describes Hirah as Judah’s probably around 280 BC. The Letter of Aristeas (written sometime either in the third or second century BC) affirms that the translation was undertaken by order of Ptolemy II and at the urging of the librarian of Alexandria. To this end, the author claims that Ptolemy sent him on a mission to the high priest in Jerusalem, asking him to send seventy-two translators (six from each tribe) to undertake the work. Whatever the historical accuracy of this account may be, it is certain that these five books, which the translators will call the Pentateuch (the “five scrolls”) were the first to be translated and would become the model for the subsequent translations of the other books of the Old Testament as well as for the language of the deuterocanonical books that would subsequently be written in Greek. Together the collection would come to be known as the Septuagint (the seventy) and abbreviated using the Roman numerals for that number: LXX. See: Gilles Dorival, “La traduction de la Torah en grec,” in La Bible d’Alexandrie: le Pentateuque (Paris: Cerf, 2001), 31–41; Marguerite Harl, “Le rôle du grec dans la diffusion de la Bible,” in La Bible d’Alexandrie: le Pentateuque (Paris: Cerf, 2001), 5–12; Natalio Fernández Marcos, The Septuagint in Context: Introduction to the Greek Version of the Bible, trans. Wilfred G. E. Watson (Leiden: Brill, 2000); James K. Aitken, “Introduction,” in The T&T Clark Companion to the Septuagint, ed. James K. Aitken (London: Bloomsbury, 2015), 1–12. 3 See, for example, Exod 20:16 (“You shall not bear false witness against your neighbor [rēaʿ]”), Lev 19:18 (“You shall love your neighbor [rēaʿ] as yourself ”), and Gen 11:3 (“They said to one another [rēaʿ], ‘Come, let us make bricks’”). 4 For example, the Alexandrian translators use plēsion to translate all three quotations cited in the preceding note (Takamitsu Muraoka, A Greek-English Lexicon of the Septuagint [Louvain: Peeters, 2009], 565–66). Friendship with God 1325 rēaʿ in a pastoral context: Judah “went up to Timnah for the shearing of his sheep in company with his rēaʿ Hirah the Adullamite” (Gen 38:12). Second, it is to Hirah that Judah entrusts the delicate mission of paying his debt (a young goat) to the woman he assumes to be a temple prostitute (the disguised Tamar) and of retrieving from her his signet and staff: “Judah sent the kid by his rēaʿ the Adullamite to recover the pledge from the woman” (Gen 38:20). This mission requires discretion and once again has a pastoral element: the transportation of a live goat. The relationship between Judah and Hirah, therefore, seems richer and more complex than the generic term “neighbor” conveys. This is perhaps because what it means to be a neighbor in the pastoral context of nomadic shepherds implies a complex set of relationships and mutual expectations that are not implied of neighbors in the urban context of great cities such as Alexandria. Stated in another way, a native Hebrew speaker of that period would recognize that in this context rēaʿ conveys a richer and older relationship. At its root, rēaʿ seems to signify the one guarding sheep next to you.5 Those who have experience tending flocks in tandem know that this is no easy task. To maintain two flocks peacefully next to each other—to find pasture and water and to defend the flocks from predators—requires a high level of cooperation, support and trust not conveyed by the Greek word plēsion or the English word “neighbor.” Not surprisingly, therefore, the Alexandrian translators chose a different word to translate these two occurrences of rēaʿ. They chose the word poimēn: shepherd.6 Hirah is Judah’s neighboring shepherd. In describing Moses’s relationship to the Lord, Exodus also employs the term rēaʿ in a pastoral context. It is after spending many years tending the flocks of his father-in-law,7 that the Lord calls Moses to liberate his Since the root meaning of rēaʿ remains uncertain, there is no scholarly consensus on this point. For the best survey of the evidence, see Ludwig Köhler and Walter Baumgartner, The Hebrew and Aramaic Lexicon of the Old Testament (Leiden: Brill, 1994), 1253–55. 6 The Latin Vulgate translates rēaʿ in the first instance (Gen 38:12) as opilio gregis or “shepherd of the flock,” while it translates rēaʿ in the second instance (Gen 38:20) with the synonym pastor. For more on the Septuagint’s use of poimēn, see Muraoka, Greek-English Lexicon of the Septuagint, 571. 7 Stephen, in his discourse before the high priest and the Sanhedrin, affirms that Moses spent the first forty years of his life in Egypt, then spent the next forty years tending the flocks of his father-in-law (Acts 7:23, 30). The name of Moses’s fatherin-law is also significant. Although he is most frequently referred to as Jethro, he is first introduced to the reader as “Reuel” (rəʿûʾēl), a name that literally means “rēaʿ of God” (Exod 2:18). Moses thus spent forty years tending the sheep of God’s shepherd, before being called by the Lord to shepherd his people. 5 1326 Michael S. Sherwin, O.P. people from slavery in Egypt and to shepherd them as they travel through the desert. Exodus delineates explicitly what this relationship entails. The Lord entrusts Moses with specific tasks and promises to be there with him. As with shepherds and flocks the world over, there are disputes about food and water, and about how to deal with the stubborn stupidity of the flock.8 There is even a classic back-and-forth concerning the ownership of the flock and thus concerning who ultimately has responsibility for it.9 Throughout their discussions, however, the Lord is clearly the master of the trade, while Moses is the apprentice shepherd. Moses, for example, begs the Lord to show him his ways (Exod 33:13), while the Lord promises to be with Moses to help him shepherd his people (33:14). In portraying this apprenticeship, Exodus repeats two themes: knowledge and favor. Moses desires to know the Lord (and to see his glory), while the Lord knows Moses by name and reveals his own name to him.10 This knowledge and help, however, are the result of the free gift of the Lord’s favor. When Exodus affirms, therefore, that “the Lord spoke to Moses face to face, as a man speaks to his rēaʿ” (33:11), it was affirming an intimate apprenticeship in the task of shepherding the Lord’s people. These features of apprenticeship and intimacy seem to have led the Alexandrian scholars to conclude that “shepherd,” like “neighbor,” would be an inadequate translation of rēaʿ as applied to Moses. As a result, they take the extraordinary measure of translating rēaʿ as philos, the standard Greek word for friend, a word they avoid throughout their translation of the Pentateuch.11 There were good reasons for avoiding this term in relation to God. Aristotle, for example, expressing the classical Greek view, denied the possibility of humans becoming the friends of God.12 He affirmed that all forms of friendship (philia) require a certain relative equality See Exod 15:22–27; 16:2–35; 17:1–7. See Exod 32:7–14, where, in discussing how to respond to the people’s infidelity, Moses and the Lord tussle over whose people they are and who brought them out of Egypt. 10 Exod 3:13–14; 33:18–19. The Lord affirms that he knows Moses by name (Exod 33:12, 17); this is significant, because we never learn his name. “Moses” is the name given to the child by Pharoah’s daughter (Exod 2:10). The child had spent three months hidden by his family before being placed in the Nile. Would he not have received a Hebrew name during that time? Then, when he returned to his family to be nursed by his mother, what did they call him? Would he not have had a Hebrew name? This, however, we never learn. See Robert Duke, “Moses’ Hebrew Name: The Evidence of the Vision of Amram,” Dead Sea Discoveries 14 (2007): 35. 11 The Alexandrian translators employ the term philos only twice in the Pentateuch (Exod 33:11 and Deut 13:7), and both times they use it to translate rēaʿ. 12 Aristotle, Nicomachean Ethics [NE] 8.7.1158b33–36, 1159a3–5. 8 9 Friendship with God 1327 and are based on some communion of life (koinōnia). Since, however, the distance between God and humans is too great, no communion of life is possible and thus neither is friendship possible between humans and God.13 Aristotle applied this same reasoning concerning the relationship between a king and his subjects. The distance was too great between them for friendship to exist.14 But after the conquests of Alexander the Great and the social transformations that these occasioned, Hellenistic authors began to apply the terms philos and philia in new ways. First, writers began to describe royal officials in the service of kings such as Ptolemy as “friends of the king” (philoi tou basileōs). Specifically, Hellenistic authors applied the term to describe those court officials who both acted as counselors to the king and helped him administer the kingdom, often exercising substantial executive authority. The friends of the king counseled him candidly and helped him govern.15 Second, the new philosophical schools that emerged during this period also employed the language of friendship to describe students’ relationship to their teachers.16 The disciples of a philosopher were his friends because they were all the friends of wisdom. Lastly, pagan authors of the Hellenistic period began to portray certain humans as having become the friends of the gods. Indeed, some philosophers began to portray friendship with God or the gods as one of the goals of true philosophy.17 Moreover, the Greek ideal of friendship, as articulated by Aristotle, remained the model even for friendships existing between kings and their servants or philosophers and their disciples: friendship was viewed as entailing a See David Konstan, Friendship in the Classical World (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1997), 167–70. 14 NE 8.7.1159a1. 15 See Ivana Savalli-Lestrade, “Friends of the King,” in The Encyclopedia of Ancient History, ed. Roger S. Bagnall, Kai Brodersen, Craige B. Champion, Andrew Erskine, and Sabine R. Huebner (London: Blackwell, 2013), 2765–67, and more completely, Savalli-Lestrade, Les philoi royaux dans l’Asie hellénistique (Geneva: Droz, 1998). See also Konstan, Friendship in the Classical World, 95–108. 16 See Konstan, Friendship in the Classical World, 108–15. 17 In his groundbreaking and influential study “Der Gottesfreund,” Peterson draws attention to the current of Greek philosophy that asserted the possibility of friendship with God. Konstan, while offering important correctives to this account (Friendship in the Classical World, 167–70), provides evidence for the emergence of such views among the Stoics during the Hellenistic period (169). This is something that Konstan had not yet seen in his earlier study (“Problems in the History of Christian Friendship,” Journal of Early Christian Studies 4 [1996]: 91–97). For more on the Stoic understanding of friendship with God, see Anne Banateanu, La théorie stoïcienne de l’amitié: essai de reconstruction (Paris: Cerf, 2001), 183–97. 13 1328 Michael S. Sherwin, O.P. stable relationship of mutual well-wishing that is mutually known and lived through concrete acts that mutually promote the well-being of the friends.18 These features of Hellenistic friendship are perhaps the reason that the translators of the Pentateuch chose to describe Moses’s unique role as the Lord’s rēaʿ as a form of friendship: “The Lord spoke to Moses face to face, the way a man speaks to his friend” (Exod 33:11). The wisdom of this choice becomes apparent from the way it enables Philo of Alexandria subsequently to explain Moses’s unique endowments. Philo asserts that the reader need not be surprised that God gave Moses power over the natural elements (to divide the sea or cause water to spring from the rock), because, “if as the proverb says, ‘common are the things of friends,’ and the prophet is called the friend of God [philos theou], then it follows that he would share in God and in his possessions according to what was needful.”19 Thus, Moses, as a friend of God, can heal Miriam of her leprosy and teach others the divine mysteries.20 Moses’s status as a friend also helps Philo explain Moses’s frank candor (parrēsia) in speaking—indeed arguing— with the Lord.21 All of this is uniquely possible for Moses, because Moses is a friend of God.22 NE 8.2.1155b16–56a5. For good introductory accounts of Aristotle’s philosophy of friendship, see David Konstan, “Aristotle on Love and Friendship,” ΣΧΟΛΗ 2 (2008): 207–12, and Michael Pakaluk, “Friendship,” in Blackwell Companion to Aristotle, ed. Georgios Anagnostopoulos (London: Wiley-Blackwell, 2009), 471–82. See also Lorraine Smith Pangle, Aristotle and the Philosophy of Friendship (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2003). 19 Philo of Alexandria, De vita Mosis I 28.156. The proverb (koina ta philon) was a commonplace, quoted by both Plato (Republic 4.423e-424a; Phaedrus 279c; Laws 739bc) and Aristotle (NE 9.8.1168b7–8]). Diogenes Laërtius reports that the historian Timaeus of Taormina attributed it to Pythagoras (Vitae philosophorum 8.36). 20 Philo of Alexandria, Legum allegoriae I 24.76; De cherubim 2.14.49. 21 Philo of Alexandria, Quis rerum divinarum heres sit 21. For the role of candor (parresia) in Greek understanding of friendship, see “Introduction,” in Philodemus, On Frank Criticism, trans. David Konstan, Diskin Clay, Clarence E. Glad, Johan C. Thom, and James Ware with introduction and annotation (Atlanta, GA: Scholars Press, 1998), 1–24. 22 Alain Le Boulluec and Pierre Sandevoir note, however, that although the early Greek Fathers follow Philo in celebrating Moses’s friendship with God (see especially Clement of Alexandria [Stromata IV 3.9.1] and Gregory of Nyssa [In Canticum Canticorum 1.2 and De vita Moysis 2.219–30]), they subordinate it to Christ. Irenaeus, for example, affirms that it was with the Word that Moses spoke face to face (Adversus haereses 4.20.9), while Origen asserts that, although he is a “friend of God,” Moses’s power comes from Christ—a dependency that he shares 18 Friendship with God 1329 Wisdom and Friendship with God The Book of Wisdom, a work written in Greek, enlarges this conception of divine friendship by affirming that, “in every generation,” Wisdom “passes into holy souls and makes them friends of God and Prophets” (Wis 7:27).23 Wisdom is a treasure accessible to all who seek her. They attain her, however, by means of a disciplined instruction (paideia): “and those who gain this treasure obtain friendship with God to whom the gifts they have from discipline (paideia) commend them” (7:14). What is the character of this discipline? This question runs throughout the Book of Wisdom. Some passages convey the impression that Wisdom’s paideia refers to the Mosaic law. We read that love of discipline means the “keeping of her laws” (6:18), while the narrator describes “the law” as “divine” (18:9) and as an “imperishable light given to all the world” (18:4). Other passages, however, suggest that this paideia corresponds to the ethical teaching of Greek philosophy.24 We read, for example, that Wisdom’s labors “are the virtues, for she teaches temperance, prudence, justice and courage” (8:7). But a closer inspection reveals that Wisdom’s paideia incorporates both the Law and moral philosophy into a more fundamental discipline. The book begins with the imperative call to “love justice” (Wis 1:1). Although this justice (dikaiosynē) includes the classical understanding of the virtue of justice that disposes us to do the just,25 it refers more deeply to the Hebrew notion of ṣədāqāh, which signifies right relationship with God and is portrayed as walking in his ways.26 Moreover, we learn that this with Peter, Paul, and the other servants of the Lord (De principiis 3.2.5). See La Bible d’Alexandrie: l’Exode, trans. Alain Le Boulluec and Pierre Sandevoir with introduction and annotation (Paris: Cerf, 1989), 332. 23 See James K. Aitken, “Wisdom of Solomon,” in Companion to the Septuagint, 401–9, and David Winston, The Wisdom of Solomon: A New Translation with Introduction and Commentary, Anchor Bible 43 (New York: Doubleday, 1979). 24 For the character of Greek paideia in Alexandria at this time, see Víctor Alonso Troncoso, “La Paideia de los primeros Ptolomeos,” Habis 36 (2005): 99–110; Troncoso “Paideia und philia in der Hofgesellschaft der hellenistischen Zeit,” in Aspects of Friendship in the Graeco-Roman World: Proceedings of a conference held at the Seminar für Alte Geschichte, Heidelberg, on June, 10–11, 2000, ed. Michael Peachin (Portsmouth, RI: Journal of Roman Archaeology, 2001), 81–87. See also Jason M. Zurawski, “Mosaic Paideia: The Law of Moses within Philo of Alexandria’s Model of Jewish Education,” Journal for the Study of Judaism 48 (2017): 480–505. 25 Aristotle, NE 5.5.1134a1–5. 26 See, for example, the Lord’s description of Abraham: “I have chosen him, that he may charge his children and his household after him to keep the way of the Lord by doing justice [ṣədāqāh] and judgment” (Gen 18:19). 1330 Michael S. Sherwin, O.P. justice is linked to eternal life—“justice is immortal” (1:15)—and even though they die, “the just will live forever” (5:15). Through the gift of the Lord’s “grace and mercy,” the just live by means of faith and love (3:9),27 in a “hope full of immortality” (3:4), because they have been “saved by Wisdom” (9:18). The most striking feature of this discipline is that it is Wisdom personified that teaches it. Wisdom, as both a friend of the good (philagathos) and a friend of man (philanthropos) (Wis 7:23), is an attendant at God’s throne (9:4, 10), who goes forth with “the Holy Spirit of instruction [paideia]” (1:5) to teach us the way to eternal life. Wisdom’s saving discipline occurs in relation to the mysterious “just one” who is rejected by the people: “Let us plot against the just one, because he is obnoxious to us” (12). In verses that the liturgy applies to Christ and which will influence the portrayal of Christ’s Passion in the Gospels, the plotters explicitly attack the just one because of his assertion of a filial relationship with God: He calls blessed the destiny of the just, and boasts that God is his Father. Let us see whether his words be true; let us find out what will happen to him. For if the just one be the son of God, he will defend him, and deliver him from the hand of his foes. With revilement and torture let us put him to the test, that we may have proof of his gentleness, and try his patience. Let us condemn him to a shameful death; for according to his own words, God will take care of him. (Wis 2:16b–20) But the just man subsequently confronts his plotters and leads them to see their errors: This is he whom once we held as a laughingstock 27 Wisdom’s assertation that “the faithful shall abide with him in love [hoi pistoi en agapē prosmenousin]” (Wis 3:9b) is taken up by Paul and explicitly centered in Christ, when he affirms that, “in Christ Jesus neither circumcision nor uncircumcision is of any avail, but faith working through love [pistis di’ agapēs energoumenē]” (Gal 5:6). Also, Wisdom’s reference to understanding truth in the first part of the verse (Wis 3:9a), seems also to influence the Pauline call to “live the truth in love” (Eph 4:15). Friendship with God 1331 and as a figure of reproach, fools that we were. His life we accounted madness, And his death dishonored. See how he is accounted among the sons of God; How his lot is with the saints. (Wis 5:3–5) They recognize that instead of following “the way of truth” (Wis 5:6), being ignorant of “the way of the Lord,” they wandered along the paths of falsehood that lead to impassable deserts (5:7). The narrator then describes Wisdom’s saving action, but in such generic terms that one could read his narration as describing Wisdom’s action in the past. For those who have learned Wisdom’s discipline, however, the narration points forward to the saving events of the long awaited just one: “Wisdom again saved [the world], piloting the just man on frailest wood” (Wis 10:4). Although we might be tempted to see this as an account of Noah in the saving ark, the “again” in the passage—“Wisdom again saved the world”—points us toward the wood of the Cross. In other words, the discipline that leads to friendship with God is the science of the Cross: “Blessed is the wood through which justice comes about” (14:7). Thus, the bronze serpent raised on the pole was only a “sign of salvation” (16:6). Those who turned to it were saved not by what they saw, but by “the Savior of all” (16:7). Indeed, they were cured from the serpent’s venom “by neither herb nor balm” but by the Lord’s “all-healing Word” (16:12). Although Wisdom’s instruction is the science of the Cross, this instruction is not without its consolations. The Lord, for example, reveals his sweetness and mercy toward his children by nourishing them with the “food of angels,” that is the “bread from heaven . . . containing all delights” and corresponding to all desires (Wis 16:20–21). Thus, the narrator explains that he sought Wisdom because he had discovered that there was “immortality in kinship [syngeneia] with Wisdom and pure delight in her friendship [philia],” while there was “practical wisdom [phronēsis] in communion [koinōnia] with her words” (8:17–18). The ultimate fruit of Wisdom’s action in our lives is to establish a glorious kind of “common life with God” (symbiōsis theou) (8:3), whereby we participate in his works and in his governance of creation. We should note as well that, as presented in the Book of Wisdom, the science of the Cross is inseparable from the mystery of the Trinity. The just one suffers because of his filial relationship to God the Father, while Wisdom acts in the world in company with the Holy Spirit of instruction. This mystery, affirmed every time a Christian makes the sign of the Cross, is ultimately what renders the discipline of the Cross a source of joy: the Cross becomes the way to communion with the life and love of the Trinity. 1332 Michael S. Sherwin, O.P. Abraham, the Friend of God The Old Testament embodiment of friendship with God is Abraham. Indeed, Abraham is the only person in the Scriptures explicitly to receive the title “friend of God” (Gk. philos theou /): “Abraham believed God, and it was reckoned to him as justice and he was called the friend of God” ( Jas 2:23). James is quoting Genesis (15:6), where the Greek for justice (dikaiosynē) is once again translating the Hebrew ṣədāqāh, signifying right relationship with God.28 For James, as for the Book of Wisdom, this right relationship is a form of friendship with God: the just are God’s friends. Moreover, as with the Book of Wisdom (Wis 3:9), one lives this friendship by means of the loving trust that is faith. Abraham is just and a friend of God because he believes. What exactly, however, does Abraham believe? In the Gospel of John, Jesus affirms that “Abraham rejoiced to see my day: he saw it, and was glad” ( John 8:56). Here again, divine friendship leads to the mystery of the Cross. Just as Job will say, “I know that my redeemer lives, and that at last he will stand upon the earth” ( Job 19:25), so too Abraham salutes from afar (Heb 11:13) the living promises he encounters on the mountain. Since Paul will describe Abraham as the father of all who believe (Rom 4:9–25), Abraham’s encounter with the discipline of the Cross merits close attention. Perhaps more than any other Old Testament figure, Abraham reveals what it means to be a friend of God. But the Abraham story is deeply troubling. Although there are passages in the Abraham cycle that touchingly reveal Abraham’s intimacy with God (Abraham’s meal with the three visitors, the Lord’s revealing of his plans and of his unique promises to Abraham, as well as Abraham’s insistent intercession on behalf of Lot and his family),29 the cycle culminates with the call to sacrifice Isaac. The Lord seems to be calling a father to kill his own son. This is brutal and should provoke anguished questioning on the part of all those who dare to affirm that they share the faith of Abraham. Our post-Christian contemporaries are helpful in this regard, especially those known as the “New Atheists.” For these thinkers, God’s command to Abraham retains its horror.30 As one commentator explains, “to modern See also Rom 4:3 and Gal 3:6. See Gen 15:1–20; 18:1–33. John Chrysostom remarks about the Lord’s decision to reveal to Abraham his plan to destroy Sodom, that God remains with Abraham “as if communing with the just man, like a friend to a friend [philos philō] about what he was going to do” (In Genesim 42 [PG, 53:387]). 30 For an analysis and assessment of the New Atheist criticisms of the God of the Old Testament, see Paul Copan, “Is Yahweh a Moral Monster? The New Atheists and Old Testament Ethics,” Philosophia Christi 10 (2008): 7–37. 28 29 Friendship with God 1333 ears, this is a horrible story: it depicts God as a despotic and capricious sadist.”31 Richard Dawkins, for example, sees the command to sacrifice Isaac as “disgraceful” and as a form of “child abuse.”32 It is part of what leads Dawkins to describe the God of Abraham as an “evil monster.”33 Whatever we may ultimately conclude concerning these criticisms, they point to a fundamental truth: the divine call for Abraham to sacrifice his son poses the central question of our faith: who is this God? Who does the Lord reveal himself to be? At this point it will be helpful to consider anew the biblical account of what happened. The Lord calls Abraham to take his son Isaac, “whom you love,” and “go to the land of Moriah, and offer him there as a burnt offering upon one of the mountains of which I shall tell you” (Gen 22:2). Abraham obeys, travelling with Isaac and two servants, until after three days they arrive at the mountain. Upon their arrival, Abraham orders the servants to stay behind, saying, “stay here with the donkey; I and the boy will go yonder and worship, and come again to you” (22:5). Abraham then takes the wood for the burnt offering and places it on Isaac, while he takes in hand both the fire and the knife. So equipped, they travel up the mountain together. On route, Isaac perceptively asks about the lamb: “Where is the lamb for a burnt offering?” (22:7). Abraham responds by saying, “God will provide for himself the lamb for a burnt offering” (22:8). Then, when they arrive at the place of sacrifice, Abraham prepares to sacrifice his son. It is only when the angel of the Lord intervenes that Abraham desists. The angel tells Abraham not to lay a hand on the boy, saying, “now I know that you fear God, seeing you have not withheld your son, your only son, from me” (22:12). Abraham subsequently sees a ram caught in a thicket by its horns and offers it instead as a burnt offering to the Lord. The narrator concludes the story by saying that “Abraham called that place ‘The Lord will see,’” adding that people still say that “on the mount of the Lord it shall be seen” (22:1–18). The first thing to consider in this passage is Abraham’s three-day voyage: those apparently silent and dreadful days, during which Abraham travels with Isaac and the two young men. How could a father not be Karen Armstrong, A History of God (New York: Ballantine, 1993), 67. See also Larry Powell and William R. Self, Holy Murder: Abraham, Isaac, and the Rhetoric of Sacrifice (New York: University Press of America, 2007): 3–8. 32 Richard Dawkins, The God Delusion (Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 2006), 242. 33 Dawkins, God Delusion, 248. For an even more severe assessment, see Christopher Hitchens, God Is Not Great: How Religion Poisons Everything (New York: Twelve Books, 2007), 51, 53, 206–7. 31 1334 Michael S. Sherwin, O.P. haunted by the words of the Lord during that trip?34 How could he not replay them over and over in his mind as he travelled: “Take your son, your only son Isaac, whom you love, and go to the land of Moriah, and offer him there as a burnt offering.” Abraham’s agony must surely have intensified when, on the third day, Isaac asked him about the lamb of sacrifice. Among early Christian authors, Origen was particularly struck by the drama of this event. “Imagine for yourselves how the father’s heart must have been wrung when he heard the voice of the lad who was to be sacrificed!”35 Perhaps the best way to attain some glimpse of how anguished and dark Abraham’s road of faith may well have been, is by listening to the pain of a father who has lost a son. The theologian Nicholas Wolterstorff, for example, received a call early one morning announcing the death of his oldest son. “For three seconds,” he tells us, “I felt the peace of resignation: arms extended, limp son in hand, peacefully offering him to someone—Someone. Then the pain— cold burning pain.”36 A pain so intense that Wolterstorff had difficulty doing even the simplest tasks of daily life. A lament had entered his life and determined an aspect of his identity. Part of the pain was experienced as a lost future: “It is so wrong, so profoundly wrong, for a child to die before its parents; . . . our children belong to our future. . . . I lament all that might have been and now will never be.”37 Abraham on the human level might well have experienced a similar lament as he thought about the impending death of Isaac. Wolterstorff, however, as he mourned the loss of his son, also learned something about the character of love: “We took him too much for granted. . . . He was a gift to us for twenty-five years; When the gift was finally snatched away, I realized how great it was. I didn’t know how much I loved him until he was gone.”38 This insight is the key to understanding what occurs to Abraham’s faith as he travels to Moriah. Abraham, by experiencing the impending death of his son, learns how much he loves Isaac. Abraham experiences during those three days the depth of a father’s Hegel regarded Abraham as the model and primal hero of alienation: “He was a stranger on earth, a stranger to the soil and to men alike. Among men he always was and remained a foreigner. . . . The whole world Abraham regarded as simply his opposite; if he did not take it to be nullity, he looked on it as sustained by the God who was alien to it” (G. W. F. Hegel, Early Theological Writings, trans. T. M. Knox [Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 1971], 186–87). 35 Origen, Homilia in Genesim 8, no. 6 (PG, 12:206). 36 Nicholas Wolterstorff, Lament for a Son (Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans, 1987), 9. 37 Wolterstorff, Lament for a Son, 16, 22. 38 Wolterstorff, Lament for a Son, 13. 34 Friendship with God 1335 love for his son. Only then, on the third day, does a revelation begin to occur. Only then does Abraham speak of Isaac returning with him after the sacrifice, and of God supplying the lamb of sacrifice. His love for his son leads him to discover the presence of another greater love, and this love leads to a deeper knowledge of faith. Pope Francis addresses this dynamic in his encyclical on faith, when he affirms that, “love itself brings enlightenment. Faith’s understanding is born when we receive the immense love of God which transforms us inwardly and enables us to see reality with new eyes.”39 That a revelation has indeed occurred becomes clear from the way the inhabitants subsequently describe the mountain of sacrifice. In the Hebrew, the passage literally reads as follows: “it is said to this day, ‘On the mount of the Lord it shall be seen’” (Gen 22:14). What shall be seen? The Alexandrian translators seem to respond to this question when they point and punctuate the text slightly differently. For them, the passage reads: “On the mount, the Lord shall be seen” (kurios ōphthē). What Abraham rejoiced to see and what he saluted from afar were the mysteries of the Trinity and of the Cross. Abraham’s faith is indeed a faith in the resurrection, as the Book of Hebrews affirms,40 but it is also a distant and veiled encounter with God’s merciful love for sinful humanity, revealed in the Father’s love for the Son: “No one has ever seen God; the only Son, who is in the bosom of the Father, he has made him known” (John 1:18). His love for Isaac prepared him to discover another Father’s love for his Son, which in turn reveals the depths of God’s love for the world: “God so loved the world that he gave his only Son, so that everyone who believes in him might not perish but might have eternal life” (John 3:16). Just as the serpent in the desert was a sign, so too are Abraham and Isaac and 39 40 Pope Francis, Lumen Fidei (2013), §26. Heb 11:17–19: “By faith Abraham, when put to the test, offered up Isaac, and he who had received the promises was ready to offer his only son, of whom it was said, ‘Through Isaac descendants shall bear your name.’ He reasoned that God was able to raise even from the dead, and he received Isaac back as a symbol [en parabolē].” Hebrews is thus affirming that Abraham was guided by a twofold conviction (that God would be true to his promise to give him descendants through Isaac and that God was asking him to sacrifice Isaac) which led him to a third conviction of faith: that God would raise Isaac from the dead. Abraham’s faith, while beyond reason’s ability to comprehend, is thus not contrary to reason or irrational. Søren Kierkegaard’s celebration of Abraham’s faith, therefore, although elegant and moving, is ultimately inadequate (see Søren Kierkegaard, Fear and Trembling, in Kierkegaard’s Writings, vol. 6, ed. and trans. Howard V. Hong and Edna H. Hong [Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1983]). Abraham’s greatness does not stem from the irrational or absurd character of his belief, but from its depth as an expression of a loving trust in God’s caring fidelity to his promises. 1336 Michael S. Sherwin, O.P. their journey to the mountain signs of God’s triune mystery revealed in the Cross. The events of Calvary are all there in figure: there is the father, and the son carrying the wood of sacrifice, and the mysterious fire that accompanies them in the hand of the father: Father, Son, and Spirit acting through the Cross to save the world from sin and death. To ensure that we understand what is being revealed on Mount Moriah, three things occur here for the very first time in the whole of the Old Testament. First, the Scriptures employ the common Hebrew word for love, ʾahav, for the first time. It is God who employs it, and he uses it to describe a father’s love for his son, a son who is to be sacrificed: “Take your son, your only son Isaac, whom you love [ʾāhavəta]” (Gen 22:2). The next two things that happen for the first time are that a father is addressed as “father” and a son is addressed as “son”: “And Isaac said to his father Abraham, ‘Father!’ And he said, ‘Here am I, son’” (22:7). Far from revealing a wicked God, therefore, the events on the mountain reveal a God whose love is stronger than sin and death: a love so great that it is willing to send the Son to die for us, so that we may have eternal life by becoming the adopted sons and daughters of God. This revelation is what enables Paul to refer to Abraham as having had the Gospel preached to him beforehand (Gal 3:8). Nevertheless, these events and Abraham’s understanding of them are still under a veil. Just as Wolterstorff described his wounded heart as “an unanswered question,”41 so too, as it stands in the Old Testament, the call to sacrifice Isaac remains an unanswered question. Divine Friendship in the New Testament The revelation of Jesus of Nazareth as the Father’s only Son provides the answer. As in the Old Testament, this revelation takes place where the New Testament employs the word “love” for the first time. It occurs in Matthew’s Gospel at the baptism of Jesus. Matthew employs the very word that the LXX version of Genesis uses to describe Abraham’s love for Isaac: agapētos or “beloved.”42 Once again it is God who employs it to describe a father’s love for his son: “And behold, a voice from heaven, saying, ‘This is my beloved Son, with whom I am well pleased’” (Matt 3:17). As Ceslas 41 42 Wolterstorff, Lament for a Son, 68. The Alexandrian translators seem to have been working from a slightly different Hebrew version of Genesis 22:2 than is found in the Hebrew Masoretic Text (MT). Where the MT refers to Isaac as Abraham’s “only son” whom he loves, the Septuagint describes Isaac as Abraham’s “beloved son” whom he loves (ton huion ton agapēton, hon ēgapēs). Thus, in the Septuagint, the first reference to love is not the verb, but the substantive form “beloved.” Friendship with God 1337 Spicq notes, “in its eight uses in the Synoptic Gospels, agapetos is always and exclusively a description of Jesus as the Son of God.”43 Moreover, in each of the eight cases it is God who speaks, either directly (as here at the baptism), or indirectly (as in the parable of the vineyard, where the landowner sends his beloved son).44 From Christ’s baptism to his transfiguration, therefore, from the beginning of Christ’s public ministry to its fulfillment, the Lord is revealing the Father’s love for the Son. But the New Testament does more than just reveal this love. It also reveals the Christian vocation to participate in it. Specifically, through the sanctifying grace of baptism, we become by adoption what the Son is by nature: we become the adopted sons and daughters of God. Paul affirms: “You have received the spirit of adopted sonship. When we cry, ‘Abba! Father!’ it is the Spirit himself bearing witness with our spirit that we are children of God” (Rom 8:15–16).45 Although God created humanity in his own image,46 through the grace of baptism, he draws humanity more deeply into his triune life, by configuring us “to the image of his Son, so that he might be the firstborn among many brothers” (Rom 8:29). This is why, as Thomas Aquinas notes, friendship with God has a filial character. It is a friendship between a Father and his adopted sons and daughters: Since all friendship is based on some kind of communion (for likeness is a cause of love), that friendship is right which exists on account of likeness or communion in the good. Christ thus loved us because we had become like him through the grace of adoption, loving us according to this likeness, he drew us to God: “I loved you with an everlasting charity; and therefore being merciful I drew you” (Jer 31:3).47 Ceslas Spicq, Agapè dans le nouveau testament, vol. 1 (Paris: Gabalda, 1958), 73n1. The eight passages are from the Synoptic accounts of the Lord’s baptism (Matt 3:17; Mark 1:11; Luke 3:22) and transfiguration (Matt 17:5; Mark 9:7) and of the parable of wicked tenants (Mark 12:6; Luke 20:13), as well as from Matthew’s application of Isa 42:1 to Jesus (Matt 12:18). 45 Thomas Aquinas describes beautifully the communal and ecclesial character of this adoption in Super Ioan 2, lec. 3 (no. 404): “Just as the divinity dwells in Christ’s body by the grace of union, so too does it dwell in the Church by the grace of adoption [sicut in corpore Christi habitat divinitas per gratiam unionis, ita et in Ecclesia per gratiam adoptionis].” 46 Gen 1:26–27; 9:6; Wis 2:23; Sir 17:3. 47 Aquinas, Super Ioan 15, lec. 3 (no. 1838). See also De caritate, a. 2, ad 15. Thomas’s theology of friendship with God is able to respond to Aristotle’s concern that, since there can be no communion of life (koinōnia) between humans and God, there can be no friendship, by explaining that God himself establishes the requisite 43 44 1338 Michael S. Sherwin, O.P. It was while we were still sinners that Christ began to draw us to himself (Rom 5:8), becoming known as a “friend of publicans and sinners” (Matt 11:19; Luke 7:34). The goal, however, was to lead us from enmity to friendship (Eph 2:16, Jas 4:4). Through the action of his Spirit, he configures us to his image and establishes a communion of life with us. As the Second Letter of Peter affirms, we become “participators in the divine nature” (2 Pet 1:4). Through this communion, Christ both reveals his secrets and draws us into his life and mission.48 Specifically, and as the experience of the Old Testament patriarchs should lead us to expect, Jesus reveals to his disciples both the mystery of the Trinity and that of the Cross. Here again, this twin revelation occurs in the context of divine friendship. In John’s Gospel, for example, it is on the eve of his Passion that Jesus tells his disciples, “I no longer call you servants, because a servant does not know what his master is doing. I have called you friends, because I have told you everything I have heard from my Father” (John 15:15). At the beginning of the final discourse, Jesus underlines the mystery of the Trinity and the disciples’ participation in it: he is in the Father and the Father is in him, and they will not leave the disciples orphans, because they will send the Spirit; and Father, Son and communion (koinōnia or communicatio) by communicating his divine life to us in the gift of sanctifying grace, “which establishes a certain friendship between God and man” (Summa contra gentiles III, ch. 157, no. 3). We should also note that, although Aristotle denies the possibility of friendship between humans and “God” (theos), he nevertheless subsequently considers that, if there is something akin to friendship “of men toward the gods [theoi],” then this would be analogous to the friendship that “children have toward their parents,” who recognize their parents as the source of all they have: “their birth, their nourishment, and their education” (NE 8.12.1162a4). 48 One implication of our configuration to Christ is that we cannot understand ourselves apart from Christ. Just as a friend becomes another self (NE 9.4.1166a31), in whom we see our own image, so too it is in Christ that we discover who we most deeply are. Ultimately, it is only at the resurrection that we will fully understand who we are in Christ. As Paul affirms, “your life is hidden with Christ in God; when Christ your life appears, then you too will appear with him in glory” (Col 3:3). Nevertheless, as Paul himself notes, the revelation of Christ—the “image of God” (Col 1:15) and the “mystery of God” in whom “are hidden all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge” (Col 2:2–3)—has already begun (Col 1:27), and thus has already begun to reveal our new and true selves: “There is not Greek and Jew, circumcision and uncircumcision, barbarian, Scythian, slave and free; but Christ is all and in all” (Col 3:11). Those who turn away from Christ, by contrast, become an ever-growing mystery to themselves. Turning away from the light, they wander in a growing darkness, divided internally and separated from others. Friendship with God 1339 Spirit will dwell within them.49 Moreover, it is by remaining in Christ, like branches on a vine, that the disciples will bear much fruit and bring glory to the Father (John 15:4–5, 8). The disciples also learn that remaining in Christ entails loving as Christ loves. It is when Jesus mentions love that he shifts to the mystery of the Cross. “This is my commandment: love one another as I love you. No one has greater love than this, to lay down one’s life for one’s friends. You are my friends if you do what I command you” (John 15:14). In John’s Gospel, Jesus’s mission is to reveal the Father’s love for the world in order to lead his people from death to eternal life: “For God so loved the world that he gave his only Son, so that everyone who believes in him might not perish but might have eternal life” (John 3:16). Jesus invites the disciples to participate in this mission. They too are called to reveal the Father’s love. By doing so, however, they will also participate in his Cross: “If the world hates you, realize that it hated me first. . . . Remember the word I spoke to you, ‘No servant is greater than his master.’ If they persecuted me, they will also persecute you” (John 15:18–20). In Luke’s Gospel, Jesus similarly prepares his disciples for this outcome, and once again he employs the language of friendship. “I tell you, my friends (philois mou), do not be afraid of those who kill the body but after that can do no more” (Luke 12:4). Instead, they are to have confidence in Christ because the Holy Spirit will be with them: “When they take you before assemblies and before rulers and authorities, do not worry about how or what your defense will be or about what you are to say. For the Holy Spirit will teach you at that moment what you should say” (Luke 12:11–12). Jesus returns to this theme on the eve of his Passion. They will seize and persecute you, they will hand you over to assemblies and to prisons, and they will have you led before kings and governors because of my name. This will lead you to testimony. Remember, you are not to prepare your defense beforehand, for I myself shall give you a wisdom in speaking that all your adversaries will be powerless to resist or refute. (Luke 21:12–15) This passage from Luke’s Gospel, in conjunction with the verses that follow, suggests another aspect of divine friendship: its relationship to the virtues. Thus far we have seen that divine friendship entails love. A fuller account would also show that love always accompanies and animates faith 49 John 14:10, 16–18, 20, 23, 26; 16:7. 1340 Michael S. Sherwin, O.P. and hope.50 Yet what about the other virtues? As we have seen, the Book of Wisdom affirms that Wisdom’s discipline teaches the classical virtues of prudence, justice, courage, and temperance. Does the New Testament vision of divine friendship also entail cultivating these virtues? Luke’s Gospel suggests an answer. Although “testimony” in the above passage is translating the Greek word martyrion, which we often properly translate as “martyrdom,” it here signifies more generally the universal call to bear witness to the Gospel. We know this, because Jesus lists martyrdom properly so called (i.e., dying for the faith) as only one of the many disagreeable consequences of proclaiming the Good News: “You will be delivered up even by parents and brothers and kinsmen and friends, and some of you they will put to death; you will be hated by all for my name’s sake” (Luke 21:16–17). Significantly, Jesus ends by affirming, “by your patient endurance you will gain your lives” (Luke 21:19). The Gospel of Luke portrays Jesus here as employing a Greek moral term to describe a trait of character that his disciples should exhibit, hypomonē, which is translated here as “patient endurance.” For Aristotle, hypomonē is the principle act of the virtue of courage.51 When we turn to the rest of the New Testament, we discover that patient endurance is at the heart of the Christian life, appearing in several of the New Testament lists of virtues.52 The list in Second Peter is most significant, because of its relationship to the language of friendship. As we have seen, friendship presupposes communion of life, the Greek word for which is koinōnia. Second Peter prefaces its list of virtues by first referring to God’s virtue and to our communion in the divine nature. The term employed here is koinōnos, which is an adjectival form of koinōnia. Second Peter employs it as a plural noun: we are koinōnoi or “participators” of the divine nature. As such, we are called to exhibit certain traits of character: Make every effort to supplement your faith with virtue, and virtue with knowledge, and knowledge with self-mastery, and self-mastery with patient endurance, and patient endurance with reverence, and See especially Rom 5:1–5 and 1 Cor 13:13. NE 3.9.1117a32: “It is for enduring the painful that people are called courageous.” Aristotle employs here the verbal form of hypomonē, which is hypomenein. 52 The New Testament contains thirteen virtue lists. Hypomonē appears in four of them: 2 Cor 6:6; 1 Tim 6:11; 2 Tim 3:10; and 2 Pet 1:5–7. Paul also frequently celebrates hypomonē in his Letter to the Romans (2:7; 5:3–4; 8:25; 15:4–5). Indeed, it could be argued that Rom 5:1–5 is also a virtue list, where Paul places hypomonē at the heart of the Christian experience of faith, hope, and charity. See also 1 Thess 1:3. 50 51 Friendship with God 1341 reverence with brotherly affection, and brotherly affection with love. For if these things are yours and abound, they keep you from being ineffective or unfruitful in the knowledge of our Lord Jesus Christ. (2 Pet 1:5–8) There are several things to note in this passage. First, the list begins with faith and ends with love, as if to say that the Christian life begins with faith and is brought to perfection by love. Second, the goal of these virtues is fruitfulness in Christ. As with the analogy of the vine and the branches in John’s Gospel, knowledge of Christ only bears fruit when accompanied by love. Thirdly, the general term “virtue”—which is extraordinarily rare in the New Testament—heads the subsequent list of specific virtues, as if to signify an appositive construction. In contemporary English grammar, we might express this appositive by placing the specific virtues within parentheses. The primary meaning of the sentence would thus be: Make every effort to supplement your faith with virtue and your virtue with love. Second Peter would then secondarily be delineating the specific virtues that the author has in mind: knowledge (gnōsis), self-mastery (enkrateia), patient endurance (hypomonē), reverence (eusebeia), and brotherly affection (philadelphia). Although this list of virtues deserves a study of its own, at present we can only note the following.53 The first two virtues concern intellect and will (knowledge and self-mastery) and primarily have the agent himself as their object. The last two virtues, on the other hand, are directed toward others: reverence (which is directed toward God and toward those who represent him: parents, elders, religious and civil authorities) and philadelphia (which is a friendship love directed toward our equals, whom we treat as brothers). This leaves patient endurance, the primary act of courage, which Thomas Aquinas will associate with martyrdom.54 From the Petrine perspective, therefore, the virtues that flow from our communion with God—the virtues that begin in faith and are animated by charity— dispose us to act rightly toward God, our neighbor, and ourselves, and to be courageous in proclaiming the Gospel: “Always be ready to give an explanation to anyone who asks you for the reason for your hope” (1 Pet 3:15). The friends of God are thus those who live the virtues that sustain them in the proclamation of the Good News, even unto death. For more on the catalog of virtues in 2 Peter, see J. Daryl Charles, Virtue amidst Vice: The Catalog of Virtues in 2 Peter 1 (Sheffield, England: Sheffield Academic Press, 1997), 128–58. 54 Aquinas, Summa theologiae II-II, q. 123, a. 6; q. 124, a. 2. 53 1342 Michael S. Sherwin, O.P. The Shepherd’s Friend at the Lakeside These themes are perhaps nowhere more completely expressed than in the Johannine account of Peter’s encounter with the resurrected Jesus at the lakeside. First, the disciples recognize Jesus’s identity as the risen Lord only after he helps them in their common activity of catching fish. Just as the Lord helped Moses shepherd his people, the risen Lord helps the disciples in their task as fishermen. Second, Peter’s conversation with Jesus takes place over a communal meal, an activity universally recognized as proper to friendship. Third, the character of the love proper to friendship is at the heart of their exchange. Jesus three times asks Peter “do you love me?” By posing this question next to a charcoal fire and by posing it three times, Jesus is doubtless offering Peter the opportunity to undo the three denials he had earlier made before a different charcoal fire in a more sinister setting ( John 18:18).55 More importantly for our analysis, however, are the Greek verbs that each of them employs during their exchange. In the Johannine account of this encounter, the first two times Jesus poses the question, he employs the common Greek verb for love agapan (the verbal form of the noun “agapē”), while Peter always responds with philein (the Greek verb for friendship love: the love proper to philia). Only the third time does Jesus switch and ask the question with the verb philein. Many scholars affirm that this change of verbs has no significance. Even St. Augustine holds this view.56 But what if this passage harkens back to the first time that philia is applied to God? What if John’s Gospel is alluding to Moses’ encounter with the Lord? The Lord spoke to Moses face to face, as a man speaks to his rēaʿ, to his shepherd friend. In this case, the exchange acquires new significance. The key element here is the reference to sheep. Jesus is concerned about the flock. Each time Peter affirms his friendship love for Jesus, Jesus refers to the flock: “Feed my lambs”; “Tend my sheep”; “Feed my sheep” (John 21:15–17). From the outset, Peter thinks he is ready to be the Lord’s rēaʿ, his shepherd friend. Jesus, however, only proposes this after Peter has twice undone his former denials. What Jesus then offers is a uniquely intimate form of friendship love: the friendship of a shepherd who invites you to help him tend his sheep. Jesus further reveals the culmination of this shared ministry, the Cross: “Amen, amen, I say to you, when you were young, you girded yourself and walked where you would; but when you are The Greek word for “charcoal fire,” anthrakia, appears only twice in the entire New Testament: here ( John 21:9) and in the courtyard of the high priest ( John 18:18), the setting of Peter’s three denials. 56 Augustine, De civitate Dei 14.7. 55 Friendship with God 1343 old, you will stretch out your hands, and another will gird you and carry you where you do not wish to go” (John 21:18). Peter and his successors in the apostolic ministry have a unique way of living this pastoral ministry. Nevertheless, Peter’s experience also points to an aspect of divine friendship to which all the baptized are called. Abraham saw this from afar. The Book of Wisdom described what it would entail. Friendship with God offers a divine intimacy by which we both participate in God’s triune life and in his saving activity. We do this, however, through an apprenticeship that draws us into in the mystery of Christ’s Cross. The Cross is bitter, but does not end in sadness. With Abraham we can rejoice in the filial sacrifice, because it leads to the joy of the resurrection. Like the wood that sweetens the bitter waters of Marah (Exod 15:25), to reveal the Lord’s power (Sir 38:5), the Cross leads to the fulfillment of Moses’ desire to see the Lord, with whom he spoke, as one N&V speaks to his friend. Nova et Vetera, English Edition, Vol. 19, No. 4 (2021): 1345–1397 1345 Godlike Instruments: Notes toward the Regeneration of Science Adrian J. Walker St. Patrick’s Seminary and University Menlo Park, CA Introduction: Nature without Naturalism Reinhard Hütter’s magisterial Bound for Beatitude will do much to confirm its author’s standing as a leader of the new Thomist school whose emergence is one of the most interesting and encouraging developments in recent Catholic theology. The book represents—among other things—a signal contribution to the revival of an authentically Thomist account of man’s constitutive Godwardness. As Hütter so ably shows, this account is based primarily on the transcendence of the intellectual soul, whose thirst for truth cannot be slaked by anything less than the divine essence, but it also honors the soul’s connatural union with the body, which underscores man’s status as a wayfarer journeying to God from, through, and with the material creation. For Hütter’s Aquinas, man’s Godwardness is an essentially world-mediated immediacy to the Creator: an ontological ordination toward God whose nature requires a historical activation beginning in the arcane counsel of providence and reaching us through the economy that reveals and fulfills the providential counsel in space and time. Re-reading Thomas with Hütter, then, we discover that Aquinas does full justice to man’s worldliness—his belonging squarely to the visible world— without immuring him in any purely this-worldly immanence. Even more, we discover that the Angelic Doctor does this justice because he refuses to confine man within the world. Hütter’s Thomism offers us a salutary reminder that man’s Godwardness, while presupposing his worldliness, also demands and founds it in turn. Hütter recovers Thomas’s anthropology by exhibiting (inter alia) the inex- 1346 Adrian J. Walker tricable unity of ecstatic Godwardness and self-perfective finalism that constitutes the figure of man. But, Hütter also shows, this interweaving represents a perfection realized in analogically diversified modes by the whole universe of beings. Every creature is ordered to a proper completion, which in turn coincides with an assimilation to God appropriate to its nature and characteristic natural capacities. This insight is the starting-point of the present meditation, which is devoted to continuing the retrieval of nature without naturalism undertaken in Bound for Beatitude. In what follows, I will be arguing that bodily substances achieve their Godward assimilation by serving as teleological instruments of God’s providential governance. Bodily substances, I contend, are Godlike instruments the Creator uses to direct them to himself and to the natural ends perfecting their assimilation to him.1 This thesis represents an intentional challenge to the ontology of scientific naturalism (a term I will define presently). But it also calls into question the assumption that science stands or falls with a methodologically naturalist abstention from all consideration of teleology. This assumption deserves contestation. For if the visible world is chiefly a network of nature-bearing bodily substances, and if these are end-seekers, methodological naturalism (as just characterized) is both extra- and anti-scientific: the former because it is not required by the object of scientific investigation; the latter because it obscures this object from the view of science itself. Anyone who challenges the supposed necessity of methodological naturalism will be expected to reassure his readers that he is not “against” the scientific enterprise as such—that he is not calling science itself into question, but is merely challenging the scientistic mythos propagated by ideologues in the name of science. This expectation presupposes the existence of some bright, clear, immovable boundary neatly separating science and scientism both in reality and in the minds of scientists. Unfortunately, the boundary is much more fluid, discontinuous, and obscure than all that. For so long as science abstracts from nature’s end-seeking (and its instrumental role in God’s providence), but has no intra-scientific way of correcting for the abstraction, it is structurally tempted to reify the result1 My main focus, then, is on corporeal substances. Each of these is endowed with a respective “nature” (physis): an innate principle of motion and rest belonging to its bearer per se and to the extent that the bearer is itself a per se unity (see Aristotle, Physica 2.1.192b20–23). Nature, so understood, is an analogical perfection. It exists in heterogeneous forms that organize themselves into a coherent network through common convergence on a single end. Already for Aristotle, this end is co-participation in divine actuality, which God liberally communicates as the common good of the universe (see Metaphysica 12.10.1075a11–25). Godlike Instruments 1347 ing abstracta—and then to inflate them into an ontology that absorbs every other feature of reality into a totalizing naturalism. This propensity to reifying abstraction is both a cause and an effect of the attempt to make the world safe for science by making it look empty of God. In challenging the reification of the abstracta, I am not rejecting the abstracta themselves or denying their capacity to reveal real features of the natural world. Rather, I am suggesting that it would be better for science— and so more scientific—to disclose these features without pretending that they exist outside of a teleological cosmos. Of course, science cannot ever really succeed in ignoring the actual cosmos or its finalistic order. The moment it did so, it would forfeit its capacity for all those astonishing discoveries that, properly understood, constitute evidence for, rather than against, universal teleology. As Conor Cunningham put it in a private communication to me, “here again, when you push through the natural sciences—especially physics, but all of them (chemistry can be very sexy)—you enter the most marvellous of worlds, one that simply does not correspond to the straw ideologies.” The attempt to abstract cleanly and permanently from all natural finalism is not just bad metaphysics, but also bad science. This abstractive project prevents science from correctly interpreting its own findings while leaving it vulnerable to self-conflation with naturalist ontology. In order to obviate these deficits, science must re-learn to make explicit and systematic its still mostly tacit and unwanted reliance on natural end-seeking. Only thus can it achieve its full potential and become all it is meant to be in God’s providential plan. The re-orientation I am recommending would of course be difficult and dramatic. It would, in fact, require nothing less than the death of science to its current form. But this death, like that of the grain of wheat in the Gospel, would be a fruitful one. It would be the path to a resurrection enabling current science, along with everything true, good, and beautiful already proper to it, to rise into a new synthesis of the sort C. S. Lewis describes in The Abolition of Man: Is it, then, possible to imagine a new Natural Philosophy, continually conscious that the “natural object” produced by analysis and abstraction is not reality but only a view, and always correcting the abstraction? I hardly know what I am asking for. I hear rumors that Goethe’s approach to nature deserves fuller consideration—that even Dr. Steiner may have seen something that orthodox researchers have missed. The regenerate science I have in mind would not do even to minerals and vegetables what modern science threatens to do to 1348 Adrian J. Walker man himself. When it explained it would not explain away. When it spoke of the parts it would remember the whole. While studying the It it would not lose what Martin Buber calls the Thou-situation. The analogy between the Tao of Man and the instincts of an animal species would mean for it new light cast on the unknown thing, Instinct, by the only known reality of conscience and not a reduction of conscience to the category of Instinct. Its followers would not be free with the words only and merely. In a word, it would conquer Nature without being at the same time conquered by her and buy knowledge at a lower cost than that of life.2 The ideal of regenerate science Lewis presents in this passage is not an incitement to utopianism, but an invitation to relinquish it. It is a call to abandon the utopian fever dream of technological domination. As Lewis himself shows, this dream is at least as bad for us as it is for our fellow creatures. For to the extent that technological domination neutralizes what he calls the Tao, it also neutralizes man’s ordination to conformity with the Tao, which is the very thing that makes man human. Technological domination puts its wielders on the road to becoming the “conditioners” of Lewis’s thought experiment. These are the post-human men who, having stepped out of the Tao, have ceased to be human in any recognizable sense.3 Now, to the extent that science is prone to ontological naturalism, it is also prone to technological dominationism.4 These interwoven temptations place the scientific guild before a stark choice it has neither the right nor the luxury to ignore: Either science submits to an ongoing Lewisian regeneration, with all dramatic conversion that it would entail—or science leaves itself defenseless against a naturalist ontology that, by pretending to drain the universe of every trace of the Tao, conspires in the technological C. S. Lewis, The Abolition of Man (New York: Harper Collins, 2009), loc. 78–79, Harper Collins e-book. 3 See Lewis, Abolition of Man, loc. 63–64. 4 I readily grant that most scientists seek contemplative understanding of the natural world for its own sake. So long as they abstract their contemplation from natural finalism, however, they are prone to representing the contemplated as a non-finalistic object. This representation is already a piece of scientific naturalist ontology. It also underwrites technological dominationism, since a non-finalistic object is one that almost by definition is unprotestingly available for human purposes. Hence my thesis: Even a scientist seeking pure contemplation for its own sake will do so both naturalistically and technologically—if, and to the extent that, he approaches the contemplated as a mere non-finalistic object. (Whether a given scientist actually does so in any particular case of course depends on more than just his explicit theoretical commitments.) 2 Godlike Instruments 1349 abolition of man. In what follows, I try to show that the embrace of the former option would not amount to the suicide of science, but would mean a life-giving metamorphosis into the glory destined for it. Naturalism and Atheism If, as Lewis suggests in The Abolition of Man, the true science of nature is still aborning, scientific naturalism (even when repackaged as a “purely methodological” option) distracts us from scientia’s still unfinished state with a delusive image of completion. Science, the naturalist at least tacitly holds, has already grasped the secret of mastering nature, and so has broken through to its definitive, even eschatological, horizon. In principle and on the level of method, it is already at the end—even if in fact and on the level of results it is always re-living the breakthrough it is has achieved once and for all in nuce. The scientific naturalist’s eschatological mythos is underwritten by a corresponding ontology resting on at least two interrelated claims. The first claim is that the domain investigated by science is all there is. The second is that whatever cutting-edge physics reveals to be “fundamental” is the really real. Modern physics, here, replaces metaphysics as the science of being as being.5 Only this is a replacement that also drastically changes what the beingness of being consists in. If the two claims I just described were true, the really real could not consist in actuality, much less in the “to be,” or ipsum esse, that Thomas Aquinas calls “the actuality of all acts.”6 No, the ontōs on would necessarily consist in physical entities (taking “physical” and “entity” in the broadest sense), or in so-called “natural laws” (or law-like patterns), or in some combination of the two. But how could physical entities, or laws, or their combination be the really real? Indeed, how could such things exist at all without sharing in the actuality of esse, outside of which there is nothing but sheer non-entity?7 For a decisive critique of the “myth of the base,” see Conor Cunningham’s forthcoming True Reduction: A Theology for Science After “Naturalness.” By means of a sophisticated engagement with contemporary physics, Cunningham shows in precise, intra-scientific detail how abandonment of the aforesaid myth can help the discipline both fruitfully overcome its current theoretical crises (which seem to herald a new paradigm shift) and find its place within a web of knowing no longer dominated by fantasies of a purely bottom-up reductionism. 6 Thomas Aquinas, De potentia, q. 7, a. 2, ad 9: “What I call esse [is] the actuality of all acts” (“Hoc quod dico esse [est] actualitas omnium actuum”). Unless otherwise stated, all translations are my own. 7 Every object-like candidate for the naturalist really real is itself a determinate 5 1350 Adrian J. Walker The scientific naturalist assumes a metaphysics that replaces the actuality of being (which is analogically realized in all things) with supposedly basal objects (which are taken as univocal templates of the really real). This metaphysics seems to commit a gross category error that renders it untenable to the point of self-contradiction.8 But both the naturalist’s metaphysics and its untenability, I want to suggest, are bound up with his attempted elimination of any ontological space for a God whose being exceeds the all-too-narrow confines of the naturalist ontōs on.9 Whatever the naturalist’s intentions, his naturalism amounts to an ideological bid to establish an atheistic worldview through a drastic redesign of the nature of being itself. A Most Liberal Giver At this stage of the argument, the scientific naturalist might retort that the effective elimination of an extra-mundane Creator is the necessary price to be paid for protecting the rational coherence of things on which the possibility of science depends. “Does not the availability of the universe for science,” he might object, “hang on its ability to constitute a perfectly self-contained system impervious to invasion by an arbitrary supernatural agent?” But why assume, I ask in reply, that a Creator would have to be an arbitrary busybody from beyond the skies? Why postulate some inevitable competition or rivalry between the Creator and the creaturely causes he himself has brought into being ex nihilo? Is it not unreasonable to suppose that a Creator who ungrudgingly gives his creatures existence entity. As such, it raises the same inevitable question as all the others: Why should this thing be the really real rather than anything else? Why, indeed, should there be something (finite) rather than nothing (finite) at all? To suppress this question is to suppress the wonderment that gives rise to every cognitive enterprise, including that of modern science itself. 8 Inasmuch as a hypothetical basal object is finite, it cannot be self-existent. But if it is not self-existent, it must participate in the actuality of ipsum esse. By the same token, to deny that it does so is to commit oneself to the proposition that it is both finite and self-existent at the same time and in the same respect. It is this proposition I am rejecting as self-contradictory. 9 Someone unduly impressed by scientific naturalism but unwilling to discard all belief in God might attempt to salvage the notion of divinity by placing it “beyond being”—by installing it, that is, in splendid isolation above the realm of what the scientific naturalist would regard as the really real. The trouble is that such a God would be transcendent without being immanent. By the same logic, he would be excluded from any discernible involvement in the world of beings. But is not such a Deus otiosus perfectly indistinguishable from pure non-entity? Godlike Instruments 1351 would begrudge them causality? Would such an envious refusal to bestow causation not “contradict God’s goodness, whose tendency is to share itself” by making things “similar to [him], not only by being, but also by acting as real causal agents”?10 Imagine that an English professor, after having accurately recounted the story of Emma without any mention of Jane Austen or her authorial intentions, were to cite his performance as proof that the novel’s internal inner completeness eliminated any need to ascribe it to an author, especially one so crudely anthropomorphic as “Jane Austen.” It is evident that our imaginary professor would have point-missingly failed to grasp that, far from reducing Jane Austen to an auctrix otiosa, the inner completeness of Emma’s plot manifests her total causal responsibility for the entire work down to the smallest detail. But just as Austen is the source of her characters and of everything they do within the secondary world of Highbury, God is the source of creatures and of everything they do within the primary world of the cosmos.11 If Emma, Harriet, Frank Churchill, and the rest do not act in spite of Austen’s authorship, but thanks to it, why should God’s creatures not act thanks to his? Why should God be any less Aquinas, De potentia, q. 3, a. 7, corp.: “Repugnat etiam divinae bonitati, quae sui communicativa est; ex quo factum est quod res Deo similes fierent non solum in esse, sed etiam in agere.” 11 If an otherwise educated person who had unaccountably never heard of Jane Austen were given a copy of Emma from which both the title of the book and the author’s name had been carefully removed, he would have little trouble discovering that he holds a work of fiction in his hands. Attention to the difference between narrative voice and narrated plot would suffice for this discovery. It might seem, then, that the comparison I am drawing between Emma and the universe question-beggingly smuggles the evidence of narrative voice, i.e., of the story-teller’s authorship, from the former into the latter. I do not concede, however, that I am guilty of such a petitio principii. First of all, the universe does display something analogous to a distinction between plot and narrative, inasmuch as its natural history is indeed just that: a narratable history, rather than an accidental series of brute facts. True, it requires an intelligent being such as man to see the story as a story, and so to narrate it as such, but I take this very requirement to be evidence that the distinction between plot and narrative is implicitly, yet objectively present in potentia in the structure of the universe itself. Second, even quite apart from this first point, there remains a crucially important logical distinction between the English professor’s recounting the plot of Emma—his detailing how its action unfolds from an initial, plot-immanent event—and his explaining why the plot exists in the first place. For both of these reasons, the internal completeness of a plot-like, universal natural history would not ipso facto count as evidence against the existence of a narrating author. If anything, it would serve as evidence for such an author’s existence. 10 1352 Adrian J. Walker generous than the human author whose inventiveness and skill derive from participation in his? 12 “Do not be deceived, beloved brethren: Every good gift . . . comes down from the Father of lights” (Jas 1:16–17), who, unaffected as he is by even the slightest “shadow of turning” (Jas 1:17), “gives to all without reservation and without blame” (Jas 1:5). Now, if, for Aquinas (and the tradition he represents), one of the goods God bestows with such unrepentant liberality is causality, the scientific naturalist faces an uncomfortable choice. Either he must show why even this sort of divine Giver would unexpectedly turn out to be an arbitrary supernatural busybody after all—or else, failing that, he would have to prove on other grounds that “everything showing up [apparet] in the world can be completely effected [compleri] by other principles, supposing that there be no God.”13 But how, I ask, would Physicist Stephen M. Barr deploys a similar analogy to illustrate a related point concerning the difference between the temporal beginning of the universe and its supra-temporal metaphysical origin: “A traditional analogy compares God, the Author of the universe, to the human author of a book or a play. One can distinguish the beginning of the book, in the sense of its opening words or sentences, from the origin of the book. The entire book, not just the beginning, has its origin in the author’s imagination. Every word of the text is part of the text by virtue of the author’s decision that it should be. In the same way, the whole universe and all its parts are equally created by God. . . . The events in a book have a certain sequence that constitutes the ‘timeline’ of the book’s plot. Within the plot of the book some events are causes of later events. Something that happens on pager thirty causes something else to happen on page fifty. But the author causes the book at a different level altogether. On one level, Polonius dies because Hamlet stabs him, but, on another level, Hamlet stabs Polonius and Polonius dies because that is what Shakespeare wrote. The author causes every part of the book equally. Moreover, while events in the book, including its ‘beginning,’ have some definite location in the plot’s timeline, the creation of the book has no such location: the author conceiving of the book’s plot in his mind is not an event that takes place on a certain page in the book’s plot. The author is external to his work, and his act of creation is not an episode within it” (Modern Physics and Ancient Faith [South Bend, IN: University of Notre Dame Press, 2003], 262). 13 Thomas Aquinas, Summa theologiae [ST] I, q. 2, a. 3, obj. 2: “Omnia quae apparent in mundo, possunt compleri per alia principia, suppostio quod Deus non sit.” It is instructive to consider the use that Thomas’s imagined objector makes of the verb “reduce” a little later in this same text. He admits two possible termini of reduction: on the one side, reason and will, whose sole locus shifts ex hypothesi to the human being; on the other side, nature, since “the things that are natural are reduced to the principle that is nature” (“Ea quae sunt naturalia, reducuntur in principium quod est natura”). The modern scientific naturalist, by contrast, is less generous than his medieval predecessor, in that he is eager to narrow the gap between reason and nature, if not to eliminate it altogether. To make matters 12 Godlike Instruments 1353 the scientific naturalist go about substantiating this claim in a non-question-begging manner, especially if, as noted in the previous section, his own metaphysics is untenable to the point of self-contradiction? The naturalist tries to eat his cake (he denies the actuality of being natural things exist by sharing in) and have it too (he nonetheless prides himself on defending naturalness against supernatural invasion). But what if doing justice to nature requires eschewing naturalism rather than embracing it? What if Thomas (among many others) is right in thinking that natural causes depend for their being and operation on the First Cause? One might of course object that creaturehood is ontologically enslaving. But this objection is based on a gratuitous assumption. Since God creates everything out of pure, needless generosity, creaturely dependence converts with reception of existence and causality. Dependence is a constitutive good. Even more, it is a divine gift, which God gives, not in order to enslave things, but in order to liberate them for dynamic participation in, and likeness to, himself: It is evident . . . that even if a natural thing produces its proper effect, it is not superfluous for God to produce it, because the natural thing does not produce [this effect] except by the divine virtue. Nor is it superfluous, even if God can produce all effects by himself, that they be produced by some other causes. For this is not on account of the insufficiency of the divine virtue, but on account of the immensity of God’s goodness, thanks to which he wished to communicate his likeness to things, not simply to the extent of giving them to be, but also to the extent of giving them to be causes of other things. For it is in these two ways that all creatures commonly attain to Godlikeness. It is also by this means that the beauty of order appears in created things.14 worse, he typically assumes that nature itself is a dead “mechanism” devoid of any inner principle even remotely analogous to ratio. One of the best-known recent dissenters from this view is Thomas Nagel, who nevertheless resembles Aquinas’s objector in one crucial respect. While arguing that the presence of mind in nature demands a richer, post-reductionist science, Nagel rules out any transcendent divine cause (of which he incidentally has a rather crude conception) as a principle for explaining the Whole. See Nagel’s much-discussed Mind and Cosmos: Why the Materialist Neo-Darwinian Conception of Nature Is Almost Certainly False (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2012). 14 Thomas Aquinas, Summa contra gentiles [SCG] III, ch. 70: “Patet etiam quod, etsi res naturalis producat proprium effectum, non est superfluum quod Deus illum producat: quia res naturalis non producit ipsum nisi virtute divina. Neque est 1354 Adrian J. Walker An Irrelevant Hypothesis? At this point, the scientific naturalist might counterattack by asserting the irrelevance of knowing the Creator to the proper work of science. There is admittedly something plausible about this assertion. Given that the Creator is not a body (or any sort of creature at all), his exclusion from the purview of natural science would be legitimate to the extent that science’s exclusive theme was the universe of bodies taken as objects of a certain empirico-mathematical method. Unfortunately for the naturalist, however, it is not at all clear that science is obliged to pay exclusive thematic attention to whatever it can represent as an object of this sort. The naturalist’s insistence to the contrary looks much more like a gratuitous postulate than an actual requirement of either nature or natural science. To the extent that empirico-mathematical study sets aside natural finalism, as I was saying earlier, its data are one-sided abstracta. In order, therefore, to understand properly what these abstracta reveal and how they do so, science needs to re-embed them in the concrete actuality of the really existing world. But if science needs to return to the actual world in order to interpret its abstract data, why should it not also need to acknowledge the Creator in order to be present to the actual world as it really is? Why should science not, like man himself, achieve its worldward perfection in an upward flight of Godward ecstasy?15 superfluum, si Deus per seipsum potest omnes effectus naturales producere, quod per quasdam alias causas producantur. Non enim hoc est ex insufficientia divinae virtutis, sed ex immensitate bonitatis ipsius, per quam suam similitudinem rebus communicare voluit non solum quantum ad hoc quod essent, sed etiam quantum ad hoc quod aliorum causae essent: his enim duobus modis creaturae communiter omnes divinam similitudinem consequuntur, ut supra ostensum est. Per hoc etiam decor ordinis in rebus creatis apparet.” 15 In reality, science never succeeds in escaping the actual world. It is always at least implicitly returning the abstracta to their natural origin. By the same token, it is also always at least implicitly returning both to the Creator. To be sure, this hidden anaphora is just that: hidden. It is certainly not acknowledged as such by the scientific guild. Nevertheless, it is structurally implicit in the guild’s actual practice and accounts for all its successes—however few of its members understand or welcome this fact. The structural implication I am talking about seems to call for an act of explicitation. Where, then, does the responsibility for this act lie—with science or with religion? My answer is: “both.” Science, too, I would argue, bears a specific responsibility for explicitly acknowledging God. This thesis, let me stress, has nothing to do with a sacralization of science. On the contrary, one of the thesis’s implications is that science comes into its own by acknowledging its creaturely status as the non-divine activity of a non-divine being. The point is simply that this self-knowledge on the part of science requires its recognition of its positive, Godlike Instruments 1355 The scientific naturalist might attempt to parry this suggestion by claiming that science should content itself with exploring the being and order of the universe on its own immanent terms. The problem with this rebuttal is that the Urphänomen of being-and-order awakens a wonderment that structurally imposes the question of metaphysical origin: What is the source of being-and-order itself?16 The same wonderment that awakens the desire to understand nature on its own terms awakens the desire to know nature’s Cause and Origin as well. How, then, can we suppress the latter desire without injuring the former? Indeed, are we even talking about two desires, rather than two expressions of one and the same desire? The naturalist might attempt to obviate this question by re-proposing the ontology I critiqued in the “naturalism and atheism” section above. He might insist that “being” is nothing over and above the supposedly fundamental entities disclosed by cutting-edge physics; that “order” is nothing over and above the law-like patterns discernible in these entities’ behavior; and, finally, that both being-so-reduced and order-so-reduced are basic, underived brute facts. Alternatively, the naturalist might postulate an infinity of “universes” that, by reason of their very infinity, axiomatically guarantee the actualization of all possibilities (including those of being and order themselves) without the intervention of any divine cause. The trouble with these two strategies, and others like them, is that the universe (together with the endless multitude of its supposed Doppelgängers) structurally resists the pure self-enclosure the naturalist is striving for. This is not because the universe lacks immanent completeness, but because its completeness consists in participating a perfection—ipsum esse—that originates from an extra-universal source: [Natural] causes share in one effect, namely, esse, although they all severally have their proper effects in which they are distinguished. Heat, in fact, makes something to be hot, and the builder makes the house to be. They agree, therefore, in respect to the fact of causing esse, but they differ in that fire causes fire and a builder causes a house. Consequently, there must needs be some cause higher than intrinsic, creaturely relation to God. For a decisive exposition and defense of this thesis, see Michael Hanby’s No God, No Science? (Chichester, England: Wiley Blackwell, 2013). 16 To ask this question is not to deny that being and order are immanent in the system of natural things, but to suggest that this very immanence—like the internal completeness of the universe itself—ineluctably raises the question of metaphysical origin. 1356 Adrian J. Walker all the others, a cause by whose power all things cause esse and of which esse is the proper effect. And this cause is God. Now, since the proper effect of every cause whatever proceeds from it according to the likeness of its nature, it must be the case that the very thing that is esse be God’s substance or nature. And it is on this account that the Book on Causes says that an intelligence does not give esse except insofar as it is divine, and that the first effect is esse, and nothing at all was created before it was.17 The Fifth Way How, then, does the primordial phenomenon of being-and-order reveal a divine Creator as its source? The famous “fifth way” that Aquinas sketches in the Summa theologiae can be read as furnishing an answer to just this question. Here is how the quinta via runs as I translate it: The fifth way is based on the governance of the universe. For we see that some entities that lack cognition, namely, natural bodies, operate for the sake of an end. This is apparent from the fact that they always, or very frequently, operate in the same manner so as to attain what is best. This makes it evident that it is not by chance, but by intention that they arrive at the end. But entities lacking cognition do not tend to the end unless they are directed by something having cognition and intelligence, as the arrow [is directed] by the archer. There is therefore something intelligent, by which all natural things are ordered to the end, and this we call “God.” 18 Aquinas, De potentia, q. 7, a. 2, corp.: “Omnes autem causae creatae communicant in uno effectu qui est esse, licet singulae proprios effectus habeant, in quibus distinguuntur. Calor enim facit calidum esse, et aedificator facit domum esse. Conveniunt ergo in hoc quod causant esse, sed differunt in hoc quod ignis causat ignem, et aedificator causat domum. Oportet ergo esse aliquam causam superiorem omnibus cuius virtute omnia causent esse, et eius esse sit proprius effectus. Et haec causa est Deus. Proprius autem effectus cuiuslibet causae procedit ab ipsa secundum similitudinem suae naturae. Oportet ergo quod hoc quod est esse, sit substantia vel natura Dei. Et propter hoc dicitur in Lib. de causis, quod intelligentia non dat esse nisi in quantum est divina, et quod primus effectus est esse, et non est ante ipsum creatum aliquid.” 18 Aquinas, ST I, q. 2, a. 3, corp.: “Quinta via sumitur ex gubernatione rerum. Videmus enim quod aliqua quae cognitione carent, scilicet corpora naturalia, operantur propter finem, quod apparet ex hoc quod semper aut frequentius eodem modo operantur, ut consequantur id quod est optimum; unde patet quod non a casu, sed ex intentione perveniunt ad finem. Ea autem quae non habent cognitionem, non tendunt in finem nisi directa ab aliquo cognoscente et intelligente, sicut sagitta a 17 Godlike Instruments 1357 It is “apparent,” Thomas writes, that at least some “natural bodies . . . always, or very frequently, operate in the same manner.” Typically, they do so by moving toward definite termini. These termini, moreover, are not merely arbitrary stopping points, but ends that fittingly fulfill unrealized potential expressed in the motions tending toward them. It is this fitting fulfillment Thomas has in mind when he observes that the reliably regular operations he speaks of aim at “attain[ing] what is best.” A contemporary reader (like the scientific naturalist) might object that Aquinas is merely postulating final causality without sufficient argument. This objection rests on a misunderstanding. We are not dealing with a postulation of what only some believe, but with a restatement of what all men know—with a bringing-to-awareness of a primordial phenomenon that everyone, including the scientist, necessarily takes for granted. As Leon Kass has pointed out, even Darwin assumed the existence of teleological patterns in the natural world.19 What Darwin disputed was not the teleological phenomenon, but the inference to an extra-mundane intelligence supposedly required to explain it. Darwin’s thesis, in other words, was that, for scientific purposes (at least), the teleological phenomenon was adequately derivable from an undesigned interplay of chance and necessity—in the form of natural selection (necessity) culling random variations (chance). Thomas’s very attempt to craft a demonstration of God’s existence based on the phenomenon of natural teleology suffices to prove his awareness that this phenomenon, while primordial in intra-worldly terms, is not simply self-explanatory in an absolute sense. One reason the phenomenon cannot be absolutely self-explanatory—at least not on Thomas’s Aristotelian principles—is that it is bound up with motion. Indeed, it coincides materially with (end-oriented) motion itself; the fifth way recapitulates the first way ex motu. But “all things that are mobile and capable of failing are necessarily reduced to some first principle that is immobile and necessary per se.”20 To deny this necessity, Thomas thinks, is to commit oneself to the sagittante. Ergo est aliquid intelligens, a quo omnes res naturales ordinantur ad finem, et hoc dicimus Deum.” 19 Leon Kass, Towards a More Natural Science: Biology and Human Affairs (New York: Free Press, 1985), 258–64. 20 Aquinas, ST I, q. 2, a. 3, ad 2: “Oportet autem omnia mobilia et deficere possibilia reduci in aliquod primum principium immobile et per se necessarium.” Thomas’s use of the verb “reduce” is significant. It suggests that the interesting question is not whether science should reduce phenomena to principles, but which principles it should reduce them to and by what methods it should do so. This is not to say that Thomas would rule out any matterward reductionism. Even on Aristotelian and 1358 Adrian J. Walker claim that the potential, as such, is either self-actualizing or self-existent. To advance such a claim, however, is to assert that the potential as such is equivalent to the actual as such—and thus to run afoul of the principle of non-contradiction. What cause, then, is adequate to account for the teleological phenomenon? If we attend to the content of the phenomenon itself—if we consider end-oriented operation on its own terms and according to its own manifest idea—we notice that it involves a reliable and intelligible nexus between motions and ends. But a reliable, intelligible nexus between motions and ends cannot itself be, or consist in, a chance conjunction. A chance conjunction, after all, is simply not the sort of thing capable of showing up “always, or very frequently . . . in the same manner.” Even Darwin understood that adaptation, looked at as a survival-promoting relation between the organism and its environment, is not itself a chance conjunction, but a teleological fit—even though this fit, in his view, has a non-teleological pre-history based on the undesigned interplay of chance and necessity. But if the intelligible, reliable nexus displayed in the teleological phenomenon is not a chance conjunction, is it the outworking of what Thomas elsewhere calls the “necessity of matter”?21 Is it, in other words, the result of a deterministic pressure exerted by a given material on the shape and direction of motion? Here, too, the answer must be negative. If, in fact, the material is to exert deterministic pressure in any causally relevant way (what I will label determination1, the determination by which material determines an effect), it must itself already have a determinate Thomistic premises, both material potency and inanimate being serve as a kind of foundation for actuality and living nature, respectively. Nevertheless, this foundation is not absolutely free-standing or self-explanatory, and matterward reduction will end up wrongly eliminativist if it forgets that. Natural bodies, after all, hold together by nature (in the Aristotelian sense), while nature, in its turn, is primarily and architectonically form—even though the form in question is one naturally and essentially incarnate in some proportionate bodily matter (whose properties are thus appropriate objects of natural scientific investigation). 21 Necessitas materiae (Thomas Aquinas, De principiis naturae, ch. 4). Thomas’s (brief ) discussion of the necessity of matter in this text is based on Aristotle’s account of the relationship between necessity and the end in Physica 2.8. The Aristotelian account, in its turn, recalls Socrates’s argument in Phaedo 99a4–b6 for the distinction between that which is a cause in the proper sense and that without which the cause in the proper sense cannot cause. The former is an end, the latter a necessary material condition of its achievement. (This distinction seems to go hand in hand with a view of the agent as an entity both capable of grasping ends and embodied in manifold ways that condition, constrain, and occasion its pursuit of them.) Godlike Instruments 1359 form (what I will call determination2, the determination by which the material itself is determined to be causally relevant). The repeated impact of Michelangelo’s hammer on his chisel, for example, plays a role in determining1 the shape of the statue, but only on the condition that it itself has a determinate2 quantitative-qualitative form that Michelangelo’s apprentice (to use another example) might approximate but can never replicate perfectly. Taken by itself, neither the hammer nor the chisel can give itself this determination2, which can come only from an agent—Michelangelo—initiating work that, while taking account of the necessity of matter, is not itself originated by this necessity. One could, of course, reply that every individual instance of the necessitas materiae gets its precise shape or determinate2 form from a previous one. But even if this were true, it would still leave unexplained the ontological relationship between deterministic1 pressure and the formal determination2 it requires to be effective. In order to account for this ontology, we must assign the necessity of matter to the order of potency. 22 The necessitas materiae, we must say, is something like potential work-energy harnessed for (and/or as) functionally ordered equipment. But if the necessity of matter is potential, it must owe its concrete efficacy and causal relevance to a distinct principle belonging to the order of actuality. To deny this is to commit oneself, once again, to the proposition that the potential, as such, is either self-actualizing or self-existent, and so to embrace yet another contradictory identification of potency as such with actuality as such.23 To be sure, the necessity of matter, when looked at concretely in context, is an (instrumental) efficient cause that imposes determination1. Taken precisively, however, it is merely in potency to this efficiency. It is only when an agent harnesses the necessitas materiae, and so actualizes the potential in question, that both the material and the necessity do any real determining1 work. Even then, however, the determining1 work they do does not originate in them, but in the agent. Michelangelo’s hammer blows do achieve real work, but only insofar as he produces and directs them with his consummate skill. This is not to deny, of course, the indispensability of the material. It is simply to insist that the indispensability of the material presupposes agential end-seeking in its turn. If the material is indispensable, it is as (potential) equipment for a task, equipment whose concrete constraining power is a hypothetically necessary condition of the achievement of the task itself. 23 The scientific naturalist might object here that my account of the necessitas materiae holds, if at all, only for the realm of art, but not for the realm of nature. The trouble with this rebuttal is that the analogy between art and nature is the basis of all scientific study of the natural world. To deny this analogy is to undermine science, even science of a mechanistic stripe—if, at least, talk of art-like “mechanisms” is to have any meaning at all. But we logically back ourselves into just such 22 1360 Adrian J. Walker The teleological phenomenon, then, cannot be adequately described on its own terms either as a chance conjunction or as an outworking of material necessity. Can we supply the missing adequacy by describing the phenomenon as an undesigned interplay of the two, that is, as a non-teleological concurrence of chance conjunction and the necessitas materiae? There are many mutually supporting reasons why we cannot. One of them—and it should suffice to make my point—is that the necessity of matter cannot transmogrify a chance conjunction into a reliable, regular nexus. The necessity of matter lacks such transmogrifying power because, taken precisively, it has only a merely potential share in constituting anything like a reliable, regular nexus. The decisive, actualizing principle of the nexus must lie elsewhere—a conclusion we cannot deny without committing ourselves, once again, to a self-contradictory identification of the potential as such with the actual as such. In order to locate this principle, we need to look to the end. For insofar as the end requires definite means for its attainment, it, too, imposes a corresponding kind of necessity. It is this “necessity of the end”24 that determines2 the necessitas materiae to the concrete actuality and efficacy it needs to be equipment for teleological agency. Or, put more precisely, the necessity of the end determines2 the agent to provide the requisite determination2 of material necessity. Far from deterministically1 compelling the agent to move, however, the necessity of the end elicits the agent’s motion by embodying an attractive good to behold and fall in love with.25 The necessity the end imposes on the agent is no “absolute” (i.e., deterministic1) constraint, but a “conditional” one grounded in the goodness it a denial when we isolate the necessitas materiae from the context of end-seeking agency in which alone it acquires the kind of determination2 it needs to do its own sort of determining1 work. This is no trivial consequence, since, if we try to think it through to the end, it forces us to treat material necessity as a hypostatized agency able to determine2 itself in the requisite manner. But to treat material necessity in this way is to run afoul, once again, of the principle of non-contradiction. (Nor does recourse to an infinite series resolve the problem. If determination2 is a prior ontological condition of the actual pertinence and efficacy of the necessitas materiae, the infinite series merely postpones the decisive question: What is the source of the determining2 actuality itself, taken both as an ontological fact and perfection? Whence the distinction between determination1 and determination2?) 24 Necessitas finis (Aquinas, De principiis naturae, ch. 4). 25 This, in fact, is one important reason why nature (in the Aristotelian sense) comes to light primarily in the end, why it is “manifestly a cause, and a cause of the type for the sake of which” (Aristotle, Physica 2.8.199b31–33). Godlike Instruments 1361 presents for loving assent.26 Granted, then, that the teleological phenomenon cannot be adequately described as consisting in chance, material necessity, or the interplay of the two, can it nonetheless be adequately caused by any or all of these? If the teleological phenomenon, as described on its own terms, contains more than chance, material necessity, and the interplay of the two; if this “more” explains chance and material necessity, but not vice versa; 27 if, finally, nothing comes from nothing without an adequate cause, the answer must be negative. For, given these three premises, neither chance, nor necessity, nor the interplay of the two can be the first cause, or the prime origin, of the teleological phenomenon and its described contents—provided, at least, that the principle “ex nihilo nihil fit sine causa adaequata” remains in force. The adequate cause of the teleological phenomenon, then, cannot be ontologically inferior to the end, which, as the foregoing implies, is itself an adequate (proximate) cause of end-seeking. For, given what has been said so far, natural movers do not merely happen to arrive at “what’s best” from the viewpoint of an external observer. No, “what’s best” is itself the point of their motion so far as they themselves are concerned. They move for the sake of the end—for the sake of the good—and they do so primarily in virtue of their own stake and interest in that very good. Natural bodies are not rational agents, to be sure, but they are analogous to rational agents in that they, too, move out of something like desire for the ends they move toward. I will be showing the connection between desire for the end and love of the Beautiful below.28 See Aquinas, De principiis naturae, ch. 4: “Conditional necessity . . . proceeds from the causes posterior in generation, namely the form and the end. We say, for example, that it is necessary for a conception to occur if a human being ought to be begotten. And this is a conditional necessity, inasmuch as it is not necessary in any absolute sense for this woman to conceive, but only conditionally, namely, if a human being ought to be begotten. And this necessity is called the necessity of the end” (“Necessitas . . . conditionalis procedit a causis posterioribus in generatione, scilicet a forma et fine: sicut dicimus quod necessarium est esse conceptionem, si debeat generari homo; et ista est conditionalis, quia hanc mulierem concipere non est necessarium simpliciter, sed sub conditione, si debeat generari homo. Et haec dicitur necessitas finis”). 27 Taken both by itself and in conjunction with material necessity, chance is simply the unintended intersection of otherwise independent lines of agential end-seeking. For its part, material necessity, taken both by itself and in conjunction with chance, derives its concrete causal relevance and power from the necessity of the end, rather than vice versa. 28 At this point, the scientific naturalist might pose the following objection: “Even if 26 1362 Adrian J. Walker there were natural end-seekers as you describe them, any knowledge of their existence and activity as such would be pre- and extra-scientific, since it would have to occur in the medium of our self-experience in the lifeworld. But this self-experience, while it may be a heuristic starting-point for science, is not itself science, which consists in causal explanation of phenomena. We must therefore bracket the question of natural agential end-seeking, so as to focus instead on what manifestly lends itself to causal explanation without recourse to the life-world or self-experience in it: the law-like interactions of parts outside of parts.” Now, this objection might tell against the scientific fruitfulness of final causes if the wholes we encounter in the lifeworld were nothing but sense data organized into intelligible patterns by the brain (or by transcendental subjectivity). For, in that case, lifeworld experience could tell us nothing about what underlies and generates the raw sense data this experience is supposedly based on. But why assume that all we know about the physical world is sense data organized by the brain (or by transcendental subjectivity)? Why not make the more natural assumption of a teleological fit between sensible-intelligible nature, on the one hand, and our entire psycho-physical apparatus, on the other? On this assumption, the brain (if not transcendental subjectivity) might still play some role in organizing experience, but it would do so as an organic instrument of a whole oriented to being, meaning, and truth. To be sure, we cannot demonstrate the just-mentioned fit from a position outside of it. But we do not have to: Every attempt to deny it entails a performative self-contradiction, inasmuch as every such attempt is necessarily based on the very thing it attempts to deny. On the positive side, we can also deploy an account of change in terms of act and potency, form and matter—an account that is susceptible of rigorous demonstration—to show that natural bodies are what they appear to be: per se hylemorphic units that exist as, and make themselves known by, enmattered substantial form. But if, pace our objector, the wholes we encounter in the lifeworld are the underlying reality in its self-manifestation, then what is first in itself—the irreducible, substantial whole—is also, mediate and implicite, first for us as well. By the same token, science is not obliged to use appearing natural wholes only as starting-points and objects of experimental inquiry, but may and should also take them as sources, paradigms, and ends of scientific research itself. Of course, the naturalist might insist once more that what looks a natural whole is simply a heuristic placeholder for the underlying material behind the sense data. But what is his proof ? It cannot consist merely in the observation (whose truth nobody denies) that modification of a thing’s material produces a corresponding modification in its appearance or behavior. The connection between the modification of the material and the modification of the appearance or behavior does not suffice to demonstrate that the latter is nothing but (an epiphenomenal byproduct of ) the latter. Being pertinent to the whole as material is not the same, conceptually speaking, as being the really real behind the whole. The (still unmet) burden of proof, then, lies squarely on the shoulders of those who would dismiss lifeworld experience as a subjective impression produced by law-like interactions among entities otherwise accessible only through mathe- Godlike Instruments 1363 Thomas’s intermediate conclusion, then, is that natural bodies arrive at their respective ends “by intention” (ex intentione), which is to say, by a striving that is like a response to, and a desire for, the good these ends represent. The scientific naturalist will of course object here that the ascription of “intention” to non-rational bodies is a gross example of illicit anthropomorphism. I make two observations in response.29 First, Thomas’s claim that natural bodies arrive at their ends ex intentione is not a postulate, but the conclusion of an implicit argument—the very argument, in fact, that this section of the essay has been dedicated to explicating and interpreting. Second, Thomas is fully aware of the same aporia the scientific naturalist sees: How can natural bodies lacking reason, or indeed any cognitive capacity at all, act “by intention” of the end? Aquinas does not disagree with the scientific naturalist because he overlooks this obvious question, but because he resolves it differently. For, while admitting that only intelligent agents can recognize ends as ends, he does not infer that non-intelligent entities are not end-seekers. The inference he draws is rather that they are genuine end-seekers—but that their end-seeking is reducible, somehow, to end-direction by an intelligent agent. “Entities lacking cognition,” Aquinas writes, “do not tend to the end unless they are directed by something having cognition and intelligence.” In order to illustrate this claim, Thomas introduces the example of the archer and the arrow: It is the archer, he says, who directs the arrow, not the arrow that directs itself. At first sight, it looks as though Aquinas were asserting that natural bodies are merely impelled toward their ends by an external governing intelligence. This impression is not entirely false: The arrow is indeed impelled by the archer. Nevertheless, if it were merely impelled by the archer, without acquiring a determinate directionality from him, it would not continue to fly on its own toward the target. Even matical modelling. By the same token, we may confidently welcome lifeworld experience as the ordinary human being already implicitly takes it to be: a faithful apprehension—with sense and intellect at once—of natural bodies in motion that are per se units and agential end-seekers. 29 A sufficient response would require showing (among other things) that there is a distinction between the final cause as an external reference-point and the final cause as an immanent perfection; that, in tending toward the former, the agent achieves the latter; that the final cause, taken as an immanent perfection, coincides with the (complete) actualization of potencies given with the agent’s nature; that the tendency to this actualization—in other words, end-seeking—need not be chosen or even conscious, but may be nothing more (and nothing less) than a non-chosen, non-conscious structure or activity; and so forth. These claims, and others like them, would require a thorough justification that, alas, is out of the question in what is already a long enough essay. 1364 Adrian J. Walker an act as seemingly violent as shooting an arrow from one place actualizes its (or its material’s) potency to be in another place—and the resulting actualization, far from being external to the arrow (or its material), expresses its nature (or that of its material). If this is true of an artificial inanimate body like an arrow, how much truer will it be of natural bodies, especially living ones, which are endowed with a capacity to move themselves on their own? Thomas’s point, then, is not simply that natural bodies show signs of being directed by a superintending intelligence. It is that they also show signs of participating in that intelligence’s directive action. If non-cognitive, non-rational bodies act as an intelligent agent would act without themselves being intelligent, his argument goes, they must both be directed by, and participate in, an intelligent cause capable of accounting for this astonishing effect. Hence the conclusion of the fifth way: “There is therefore something intelligent by which all natural things are ordered to the end.” Non-cognitive agents, Thomas is saying, participate in an intelligent agency that directs them to their respective ends. This participation begins with their coming-into-existence and enters into the ratio of the act–potency mixture they come into existence as. But if their teleological ordination and their being are simultaneous and imply each other, the two goods must also come from the same source together. Consequently, the intelligent agent responsible for the former must also be responsible for the latter, so that the giver of finalistic motion is also the giver of being, and vice versa. But then Giver we are dealing with is not simply an extra-mundane designer or a supra-cosmic craftsman. He is these things in being something even greater: the Creator ex nihilo whom we may therefore confidently “call God” in the full sense of the term.30 30 The first and second of the five ways in ST I, q. 2, a. 3, conclude to an Unmoved Mover (first way) who is also an Uneffected Efficient Cause (second way). The third way makes clear that this Mover and Efficient Cause is the necessarily existing source of the entire mixed actuality of what is not he. In the fourth way, we learn that he himself is the fullness of actuality and of all the perfections it enfolds. This perfection includes—so we learn in the fifth way—the plenitude of intelligent agency. From this extreme end of the series of the five ways, we can reverse the sequence and say that the supreme Intelligent Agent (fifth way) bestows participation in his own perfection (fourth way), giving actual being (third way) via efficient causation (second way) and non-interactive but transitive motion (first way). In a certain sense, the being-in-motion of creatures is the telos of this reversed sequence—at least insofar as we contemplate it, not simply as motion, but as end-directed motion. For in this respect, it represents a participation in the directive activity of God’s agent intelligence, even as this activity, in its turn, Godlike Instruments 1365 The Unmoved Mover “Since nature acts for the sake of a determinate end by the direction of a superior agent, what happens by nature must also be reduced to God as to its first cause.”31 These lines nicely capture the point of the fifth way: The Creator reveals himself most fully as such (at least in the natural order) by directing all things toward their proper ends, the common end of the universe, and himself. But if, in providentially guiding “every [created] agent whatever,” the Creator also uses it as an “instrument of the divine power,”32 we suddenly find ourselves confronting a new question: Does Thomas’s “reduction” of creaturely agents to instruments in the divine hands commit him to portraying God as the sort of supernatural busybody we said he denied the Creator to be? The scientific naturalist will certainly think so. “Look,” he will triumphantly ask, “has the Angelic Doctor not effectively recanted his own assertion of God’s non-invasive, non-competitive liberality? Has he not in fact replaced the good God who ungrudgingly gives causal initiative with a sinister divine puppeteer? Are we not dealing with a violent, arbitrary manipulator whom we must reject as imperfect, or even evil, on account of his apparent unwillingness or inability (or both) to give being, interiority, and causality to his works?” Nemo scandalizetur! For Thomas, the God of the fifth way is also the God of the first. He is the Unmoved Mover, who non-interactively moves the creature by giving it both to move itself and to participate in his very act of imparting motion to it. Aristotle himself already implies as much in affirming that the Unmoved Mover “kinei hōs erōmenon,” that is, moves (transitively) as loved.33 The intention of this brief passage is not to deny God’s efficient represents the concrete culmination of his work as Creator in the natural order. Aquinas, ST I, q. 2, a. 3, ad 2: “Cum natura propter determinatum finem operetur ex directione alicuius superioris agentis, necesse est ea quae a natura fiunt, etiam in Deum reducere, sicut in primam causam.” 32 Aquinas, De potentia, q. 3, a. 7, corp.: “Sic ergo Deus est causa omnis actionis, prout quodlibet agens est instrumentum divinae virtutis operantis.” 33 Aristotle, Metaphyisca, 12.7.1072b3. In the next line (1072b4), Aristotle adds that “by something moved, however, [he] moves all things.” This reference to the primum mobile raises a number of exegetical questions that it is best to leave aside here. John G. Brungardt draws on the work of Charles de Koninck in his unpublished 2016 dissertation (“The Primum Mobile in the Thomistic Aristotelianism of Charles de Koninck: On Natural Philosophy as Architectonic”) to argue for the perennial validity of the notion of the primum mobile, whose function he says Aristotle merely misassigned to the outermost celestial sphere. 31 1366 Adrian J. Walker causality, but to forestall a misunderstanding of how he exercises it. The Aristotelian First Mover is indeed the First Efficient Cause of being, but his efficiency does not work by physical, or quasi-physical, interaction with the cosmos or any member of it.34 Put positively, the First Efficient Cause of things’ being exercises a purely non-interactive efficiency—as befits the transcendent “source” (archē) from whom, Aristotle says, “the universe and nature hang down.”35 Even for Aristotle, I contend, the deity is the undiminished giver of all non-divine being. He, the Pure Act, is the origin of the entire actuality-mixed-with-potency characteristic of every substance that is not itself the Actus Purus. It is not that there is no beginning for Aristotle, then. It is that the beginning he affirms is an ever-flowing ontological source that reigns above us: here, now, always.36 Aristotle highlights God’s transcendence of both the cosmos and intra-cosmic entity, along with the freedom from interactivity this transcendence entails, in Metaphysica 12.7.1073a3–13. 35 Aristotle, Metaphyisca 12.7.1072b13–14. 36 As everyone knows, Aristotle denied that the world had a temporal beginning or will have a temporal end. This denial, it is often supposed, entails the world’s self-existence apart from God. No such entailment obtains: The question of the world’s temporal duration is logically separable from the question of its ontological origin. To be sure, if the world lacked a temporal beginning or end, its existence would have a certain necessity (understood as an immunity to failure). Even so, this necessity would not characterize the world’s existence on account of the world itself, but on account of the divine causality the world depends on. Such, at any rate, seems to me to be the opinion of Aristotle. The necessity of the world, for him, is an implicate of God’s primal efficiency, just as God’s primal efficiency is an implicate of the perfection of Pure Act. Let me stress that this account implies no “impersonal” view of God’s ad extra causation. How could it, when God’s causing ad extra expresses his unique unity of being and knowing? (If, moreover the participle erōmenon can be read in the middle voice, and so has a reflexive connotation, it may suggest that God causes by delighting in his pure actuality and, in that delight, diffusing it as the loved common good of the universe.) By the same token, the necessity Aristotle ascribes to God’s ad extra causation is not some impersonal force. It is God’s own total self-possession as the Beautiful: “But since there is a mover that is itself immobile, being in actuality, it cannot be otherwise in any way at all. . . . It must therefore be by necessity, and insofar as [it is] by necessity, [it is] beautifully, and thus it is a source. For the necessary [occurs] in the following ways: by violence, inasmuch as it is contrary to the impulse; that without which the good cannot be; that which cannot be otherwise, but is simpliciter” (Metaphysica 12.7.1072b7–13). Does Aristotle mean that God’s necessary being equips him to be a source or that his being a source is necessary? Assuming he intends to embrace the latter 34 Godlike Instruments 1367 I said just now that non-divine substance is an act–potency mixture. This mixture structures and unites three elements: (1) the substance’s completion in first act, (2) its self-perfective motion, and (3) the perfection in actus secundus this motion tends toward. Although Aristotle’s “he moves as loved” explicitly mentions only the third element, it implies the other two. Even more, it expresses God’s causation of the entire threefold complex in light of the just-mentioned third element: the non-divine substance’s being-in-motion toward its perfection in second act—a movement whose external reference point is God, but whose benefit accrues entirely to the moving thing itself.37 But if Aristotle is thus describing God’s efficient causation, what is he describing it as? He “moves as loved” suggests the answer: He is describing divine efficiency as God’s impartation of an erotic participation in divinity. The point is just that the expression “he moves as loved” formulates this participation in terms of its intended fruit: the participator’s movement toward self-perfection. It is by this self-perfective motion, I argue, that the participator fruitfully recapitulates in second act the Godwardness always already constituting it in actus primus. 38 Aristotle offers us a way to understand how physical motion recapitulates ontological participation in the following passage from De anima 2.4, which contains clear echoes of Diotima’s remarks on begetting in Plato’s Symposium: option, we can say that his error, if there be one, lies in not recognizing that God’s ad extra causation, being rationally distinct from the divine essence (while also substantially identical with it), is not a necessary requirement of God’s being God. Once this clarifying distinction is admitted, however, Aristotle’s teaching about the “eternity of the world” appears compatible in principle with the doctrine of creation out of nothing, at least insofar as both involve a radical dependence of finite substances on God that is not the result of any transition from potency to act. 37 Aristotle explicitly distinguishes between the perfection of the beneficiary and the beneficiary’s external reference-point in De anima 2.4.415b20–21. 38 Aristotle’s teaching on this score clearly rules out any gap of space or time between the divine causation and the genesis of its effect. The absence of such a gap ensures that, within the terms of its limited existence, the effect is always already complete in first act and always already on its way toward actus secundus. Completion in first act entails (inter alia) empowerment to move toward actus secundus, and the entailment is so immediate as to ensure that the motion has always already begun. The beginning of motion that is in question has one foot in nature and another in the possessor of the nature, which thus finds itself already moving prior to any individual act or choice on its part. 1368 Adrian J. Walker The most natural of works for living things—as many as are complete and not defective or come to be by chance—is to make another like oneself (which an animal does with an animal and a plant with a plant). Their aim in this is to partake of the divine and eternal insofar as they are able. For all things have an appetite for [the divine and eternal], and for its sake they do whatever they do by nature (note that for the sake of which is twofold: for the external goal and for the beneficiary). Since, then, they cannot continuously commune with the divine and eternal, because nothing corruptible can perdure as one and the same in number, they commune (to greater or lesser degrees) in this manner, which is within the individual’s capacity for participation. And so they do perdure—though not as the same self, but as another like it, nor as one in number, but as one in species.39 In this text, begetting serves as a richly illustrative analogue of all erotic aspiration to participate in the divine and eternal. For Aristotle, this aspiration begins in first act, pre-defines its structure, and orders it to completion in actus secundus. Participation (first act) has an erotic structure, and this structure, in its turn, always already unfolds into a natural motion ordered to recapitulating it in second act. Erotic participation immemorially expresses itself “downward” in motion (toward second act), just as erotic motion immemorially recapitulates participation “from below.” Now, Aristotle’s account of the participation–motion complex recalls a teaching we already find in the passage of Plato’s Symposium where Socrates cites Diotima to the effect that eros is a desire to beget in beauty.40 When, in fact, we read the sentence “[he] moves as loved” in its immediate context, we find that it expresses as similar view: the view that God causes things to be and gives them to move by revealing himself to them as the lovable Form of Beauty.41 My contention is that the effect’s participation in God in first act and its Godward motion toward/in actus secundus are distinct but inseparable expressions of one and the same love of the Beautiful.42 Aristotle, De anima 2.4.415a26–415b7. For the Platonic passage Aristotle is echoing, see Symposium, 207c–208b. 40 Tokos en kalō (Plato, Symposium 206b). 41 Aristotle uses both adjectival and adverbial forms of the word kalōs in Metaphysics 12.7 to characterize the divine and its mode of causality. See, for example, 12.7.1072a24–1072b4, where he connects God’s pure actuality, his beauty, and his lovability—all in the context of explaining that he “moves as loved.” 42 As both Plato and Aristotle already saw, falling in love with the Beautiful is not an 39 Godlike Instruments 1369 We can formulate the matter like this. The moved effect’s dependence on the First Mover and First Efficient Cause converts with its erotically responsive participation in his beauty (which is the secret of his motive efficiency). Already in first act, then, the moved effect finds itself having been given to respond to the prior irradiation of the Beautiful; such is the a priori (erotic) form of its participated, and participating, existence. In the same timeless center, though, the moved effect has also already begun to appropriate, without completely exhausting, the response it was immemorially given to make in first act (and the appropriation, too, is a gift). It is in this non-exhaustive appropriation, this ontological already-but-not-yet, that motion springs to life on the way to recapitulating the participation it flows from, abides in, and returns to. God’s self-revelation as the Beautiful constitutes and shapes things’ being and motion in the invisible, a priori, metaphysical order. It also simultaneously prolongs this constituting and shaping action through the a posteriori mediation of the physical world. There is thus never a moment when non-divine things are moved “from above” without being involved in the process “from below.” They are always “in on the act.” To be sure, God does not show things an immediate glimpse of his beauty, but disguises it in a form they can relate to and be in love with: that of their own natural ends.43 The attraction of these ends is like a sacramental mediation through which the Beautiful stirs things to their depths, calls them out of themselves, and, in so doing, puts them in their own hands as movers at the juncture of ontology and history. 44 anthropological peculiarity, but a universal good, a perfection realized in analogically diverse guises from the natural inclination of inanimate bodies to the intellectual thirst of rational and intellectual beings. This is not to say, of course, that non-rational things can recognize the divine beauty as such. On the contrary, it is to insist that they do not have to: All they need to do is have natural inclinations toward their own ends, which objectively represent specific modes of beautiful God-likeness. 43 This is true even for human beings. Our final end, looked at as our immanent perfection, and to the extent that it is revealable in this world, is an assimilation to God, regardless of whether we recognize this fact or not. At the same time, our final end commands every other end, as the ultimate commands the penultimate, and enfolds it in its encompassing teleological suasion. Long before we entertain any explicit love for God, we are drawn to the divine beauty as reflected in our final end. The final end, in its turn, appears to us in ever-new ways through the mediation of the penultimate ends that participate in it and enact our relationship to it. 44 In its erotic character, motion mediates between history and ontology in a way that enables the former to serve as medium, enactment, and touchstone of the latter. 1370 Adrian J. Walker What is true of the Aristotelian First Mover and First Efficient Cause is true a fortiori of the Thomistic Creator, who is more intimately present to his creatures than they are to themselves.45 When the Creator moves things, he is not meddling with them, but conserving them in the proper work bound up with their nature.46 At the same time, he is taking them into his counsel, enabling them to share, to the extent they are able, both in his knowledge of his purposes and in his accomplishment of them. The insight that God moves creatures by making them privy to his intentions arguably underlies Thomas’s account of natural law, whose culminating form is the rational creature’s conscious participation in the law and legislation of the all-provident Creator: Since law is a rule and measure, it can be in something in two ways: in one way, as in the one ruling and measuring; in another way, as in the one ruled and measured, because to the extent that something partakes of rule or measure, it is ruled and measured in a corresponding manner. It evidently follows that, since all things subject See Aquinas, ST I, q. 8, a. 1, corp.: “But since God is being itself by his very essence, created being must be his proper effect, as to ignite is the proper effect of fire. But this is an effect that God causes in things, not only when they first begin to be, but also so long as they are conserved in being, just as light is caused in the air by the sun so long as the air remains illumined. So long, therefore, as a thing has its being, God must be present to in the mode in which it has this being. But to be is what is most intimate to each thing, and it is more deeply in the thing than anything else, since it is formal with respect to everything else therein, as is evident from what was said above. Consequently, God must be in all things, and this in the most intimate manner” (“Cum autem Deus sit ipsum esse per suam essentiam, oportet quod esse creatum sit proprius effectus eius; sicut ignire est proprius effectus ignis. Hunc autem effectum causat Deus in rebus, non solum quando primo esse incipiunt, sed quandiu in esse conservantur; sicut lumen causatur in aere a sole quandiu aer illuminatus manet. Quandiu igitur res habet esse, tandiu oportet quod Deus adsit ei, secundum modum quo esse habet. Esse autem est illud quod est magis intimum cuilibet, et quod profundius omnibus inest, cum sit formale respectu omnium quae in re sunt, ut ex supra dictis patet. Unde oportet quod Deus sit in omnibus rebus, et intime”). 46 “But,” the scientific naturalist might object, “is God not entirely responsible for all created nature? How, then, can you suggest that he nonetheless treats it as a sort of template for conserving the work appropriate to it?” There is no difficulty, I reply, because the creative paradigm by which God conceives the creature’s existence also secures its otherness as a hypothetically necessary presupposition of this very conception (insofar as the conception postulates a created terminus ad quem). God’s fidelity to the creature-as-template is thus wholly enfolded within his fidelity to its creative paradigm, even as his fidelity to its creative paradigm is wholly enfolded within his fidelity to himself. 45 Godlike Instruments 1371 to divine providence are ruled and measured by the eternal law . . . all things participate in some way the eternal law, inasmuch, that is, as by its impression they have inclinations to their proper acts and ends. Now, among the other entities the rational creature is subject to divine providence in a more excellent way, inasmuch as it becomes a partaker of providence by providing for itself and others. It follows that in it itself there is a participation of the eternal reason by which it has a natural inclination to its due act and end. And such a participation of the eternal law in the rational creature is called the natural law. Whence the psalmist, after having said “sacrifice the sacrifice of righteousness,” adds, as if in the voice of those asking “what are the works of righteousness?”; “who shows us good things?” To which question he answers by saying “the light of thy face, o Lord, has been sealed upon us,” as if the light of the natural reason, by which we discern what is good and evil, which pertains to the natural law, were nothing other than an impression of the divine light in us. Whence it is evident that the natural law is nothing other than a participation of the eternal law in the rational creature.47 At this point, we are ready to answer the objection posed by our imagined scientific naturalist at the beginning of the present section. To be an instrument in God’s hands, we can now say, is not to be a slave of some arbitrary tyrant, but a friend of a most generous Ruler. Indeed, it is to be a 47 Aquinas, ST I-II, q. 91, a. 2, corp.: “Respondeo dicendum quod, sicut supra dictum est, lex, cum sit regula et mensura, dupliciter potest esse in aliquo, uno modo, sicut in regulante et mensurante; alio modo, sicut in regulato et mensurato, quia inquantum participat aliquid de regula vel mensura, sic regulatur vel mensuratur. Unde cum omnia quae divinae providentiae subduntur, a lege aeterna regulentur et mensurentur, ut ex dictis patet; manifestum est quod omnia participant aliqualiter legem aeternam, inquantum scilicet ex impressione eius habent inclinationes in proprios actus et fines. Inter cetera autem rationalis creatura excellentiori quodam modo divinae providentiae subiacet, inquantum et ipsa fit providentiae particeps, sibi ipsi et aliis providens. Unde et in ipsa participatur ratio aeterna, per quam habet naturalem inclinationem ad debitum actum et finem. Et talis participatio legis aeternae in rationali creatura lex naturalis dicitur. Unde cum Psalmista dixisset, sacrificate sacrificium iustitiae, quasi quibusdam quaerentibus quae sunt iustitiae opera, subiungit, multi dicunt, quis ostendit nobis bona? Cui quaestioni respondens, dicit, signatum est super nos lumen vultus tui, domine, quasi lumen rationis naturalis, quo discernimus quid sit bonum et malum, quod pertinet ad naturalem legem, nihil aliud sit quam impressio divini luminis in nobis. Unde patet quod lex naturalis nihil aliud est quam participatio legis aeternae in rationali creatura.” 1372 Adrian J. Walker viceroy, a plenipotentiary representative of a benevolent King who asserts his full, fontal possession of all power, not by jealously hoarding its riches, but by liberally imparting them, in analogically diversified grades and measures, to the entire community of his creatures. This is the same King who in the last days reveals his own undiminished glory by voluntarily emptying himself to the form of a free and rational instrument (whose liberty is to obey from the heart his own sovereignly liberating will in the personal, dialogical difference between Father and Son): The property of an instrument is to be moved by the principal agent, albeit in an analogically diverse mode determined by the respective property of its nature. For an inanimate instrument, such as an axe or a saw, is moved by the craftsman by means of a mere bodily motion. An instrument animated by a sensitive soul, on the other hand, is moved by means of a sense-appetite, as a horse is moved by a rider. Differently still, an instrument animated by a rational soul is moved by its own will, as the servant is moved by the command of the master to perform a task. . . . In this way, then, the human nature in Christ was the instrument of divinity in such wise as to be moved by its own will.48 48 Aquinas, ST III, q. 18, a. 1, ad 2: “Ad secundum dicendum quod proprium est instrumenti quod moveatur a principali agente, diversimode tamen, secundum proprietatem naturae ipsius. Nam instrumentum inanimatum, sicut securis aut serra, movetur ab artifice per motum solum corporalem. Instrumentum vero animatum anima sensibili movetur per appetitum sensitivum, sicut equus a sessore. Instrumentum vero animatum anima rationali movetur per voluntatem eius, sicut per imperium domini movetur servus ad aliquid agendum, qui quidem servus est sicut instrumentum animatum, ut philosophus dicit, in I Politic. Sic ergo natura humana in Christo fuit instrumentum divinitatis ut moveretur per propriam voluntatem.” As Thomas explains in De potentia, q. 1, the term potentia, when applied to God, does not refer to an unrealized potential, or even to a logical possibility, but to the superabundance of pure act, whose property is to “diffuse its own likeness.” For “it befits who God is to be the pure and primal act. By the same token, it befits who he is to act most of all, and to diffuse his own likeness to others. Which is why active power befits him most of all. For a power is called ‘active’ insofar as it is a principle of action” (Aquinas, De potentia, q. 1, a. 1, corp.: “Deo autem convenit esse actum purum et primum; unde ipsi convenit maxime agere, et suam similitudinem in alias diffundere, et ideo ei maxime convenit potentia activa; nam potentia activa dicitur secundum quod est principium actionis”). It follows that true power—original, archetypal potentia—is substantially identical with generative fruitfulness, and so with undiminished, self-communicative goodness; it is the ability, always already realized, to produce something Godlike Instruments 1373 The Gift of Giving Even after the foregoing work of clarification has been done, there remains a certain unease. Why should Thomas insist on calling creatures God’s “instruments” in the first place? Is the scientific naturalist right, after all, in claiming that God withholds the being and causality bodily things need to be wholly natural, full-fledged co-actors in the visible world? A first answer to this question is that emphasis on creaturely instrumentality counters the reduction of (the idea of) God to a mere tool for attaining intra-worldly goals. Needless to say, a merely instrumental God would be a sitting duck for the scientific naturalist, who claims that intra-mundane phenomena are so completely reducible to intra-mundane principles as to obviate any need for an extra-mundane Creator.49 The God-as-tool neither is, nor does, nor means anything that the universe, or nature, or evolution, or history, or progress, or any other such supposedly immanent absolute, would be, or do, or mean already. No one, I think, has made this point better than John Henry Newman: Nothing is easier than to use the word [God], and mean nothing by it. The heathens used to say, “God wills,” when they meant “Fate”; “God provides,” when they meant “Chance”; “God acts,” when they meant “Instinct” or “Sense”; and “God is everywhere,” when they meant “the Soul of Nature.” The Almighty is something infinitely different from a principle, or a centre of action, or a quality, or a generalization of phenomena. If, then, by the word, you do but mean a Being who keeps the world in order, who acts in it, but only in the genuinely new. It is the ability, then, to bring forth another that, precisely as other, manifests the fontal plenitude of the producer. How? By existing, of course, but also by having and exercising generous, self-communicative power in turn. Now, God’s creative act ad extra offers a partial, contingent display of his fontal plenitude; its full, indefectible revelation lies in the Father’s begetting the Son in divinis: “The power of generating and the power of creating are one and the same power, if we consider the thing the power is. Nevertheless, they differ by reason of their diverse relations to diverse acts” (Aquinas, De potentia, q. 2, a. 6, corp.: “Sic ergo potentia generandi et creandi est una et eadem potentia, si consideretur id quod est potentia; differunt tamen secundum diversos respectus ad actus diversos”). At the same time, this diversity of acts enables an analogy-founding order between them: Creation presupposes generation (though not vice versa), even as it marks the first step toward its communication ad extra through the Incarnation— whose exaltation of its human “instrument” is the source, pattern, and end of God’s unstinting communication of productive power to secondary causes in creation. 49 See Aquinas, ST I, q. 2, a. 3, obj. 2. 1374 Adrian J. Walker way of general Providence, who acts towards us but only through what are called laws of Nature, who is more certain not to act at all than to act independent of those laws, who is known and approached indeed, but only through the medium of those laws; such a God it is not difficult for any one to conceive, not difficult for any one to endure. If, I say, as you would revolutionize society, so you would revolutionize heaven, if you have changed the divine sovereignty into a sort of constitutional monarchy, in which the Throne has honour and ceremonial enough, but cannot issue the most ordinary command except through legal forms and precedents, and with the counter-signature of a minister, then belief in a God is no more than an acknowledgment of existing, sensible powers and phenomena, which none but an idiot can deny. If the Supreme Being is powerful or skilful, just so far forth as the telescope shows power, and the microscope shows skill, if His moral law is to be ascertained simply by the physical processes of the animal frame, or His will gathered from the immediate issues of human affairs, if His Essence is just as high and deep and broad and long as the universe, and no more; if this be the fact, then will I confess that there is no specific science about God, that theology is but a name, and a protest in its behalf an hypocrisy. Then is He but coincident with the laws of the universe; then is He but a function, or correlative, or subjective reflection and mental impression, of each phenomenon of the material or moral world, as it flits before us. Then, pious as it is to think of Him, while the pageant of experiment or abstract reasoning passes by, still, such piety is nothing more than a poetry of thought or an ornament of language, and has not even an infinitesimal influence upon philosophy or science, of which it is rather the parasitical production.50 Even granting, however, that God is not an instrument in the hands of creatures, why must creatures be instruments in the hands of God? This re-formulation of the question calls for a second answer: The category of “instrumental causality” is tailor-made for causes that, like non-divine ones, communicate perfections which do not originate with them, but flow down through them from some superior agent. Nevertheless, this second answer, like the first one, still seems to leave room for doubt. For if creatures are after all just instruments of their Maker’s transcendent will, how can they truly be beneficiaries of his unenvious impartation of being and causality? John Henry Newman, The Idea of a University, discourse II, no. 7, newmanreader. org/works/idea/discourse2.html. 50 Godlike Instruments 1375 This objection would be unanswerable if the term “instrument” necessarily referred to an empty, fungible convenience lacking any proper, intrinsic sourcehood. Fortunately, God’s instruments are not mere conveniences in this objectionable sense. To be God’s instrument is not to be the first source, that is true, but it is to be, in one analogically diversified grade or another, a sourced co-source. In using his instruments, God works their proper work as a participation in his,51 giving them to produce in their own order the entire effect he originates in his own: It is . . . evident that the same effect is not attributed to the natural cause and to the divine virtue as if it were produced partly by God and partly by the natural agent. Rather, the whole [is produced] by both in different ways, just as the same effect is attributed as a whole to the instrument and is also attributed as a whole to the principal agent.52 See Aquinas, De potentia, q. 3, a. 7, corp.: “God, then, is the cause of every action insofar as every agent whatever is an instrument of his operant virtue. So if we consider the acting supposits, every particular agent whatsoever is immediate to its effect, whereas, if we consider the virtue by which the action occurs, the virtue of the higher cause will be more immediate to the effect than the virtue of the lower one. This is because the lower virtue is not conjoined to its effect except by the virtue of the higher, which is why the Book on Causes says that the virtue of the prime cause acts on the caused and enters more vehemently into it. It is thus that the divine virtue has to be present to every agent thing. . . . For God is the cause of every action whatsoever insofar as he gives the virtue of acting, and insofar as he conserves it, and insofar as he applies it to the action, and insofar as it is by his virtue that every other virtue acts. And if we add to all this that God is his virtue, and that he is within everything whatsoever, not as a part of its essence, but as keeping the thing in esse, it will follow that he operates immediately in every operant thing whatsoever, without exclusion of the operation of will and nature” (“Sic ergo Deus est causa omnis actionis, prout quodlibet agens est instrumentum divinae virtutis operantis. Sic ergo si consideremus supposita agentia, quodlibet agens particulare est immediatum ad suum effectum. Si autem consideremus virtutem qua fit actio, sic virtus superioris causae erit immediatior effectui quam virtus inferioris; nam virtus inferior non coniungitur effectui nisi per virtutem superioris; unde dicitur in Lib. de Caus., quod virtus causae primae prius agit in causatum, et vehementius ingreditur in ipsum. Sic ergo oportet virtutem divinam adesse cuilibet rei agenti. . . . Sic ergo Deus est causa actionis cuiuslibet in quantum dat virtutem agendi, et in quantum conservat eam, et in quantum applicat actioni, et in quantum eius virtute omnis alia virtus agit. Et cum coniunxerimus his, quod Deus sit sua virtus, et quod sit intra rem quamlibet non sicut pars essentiae, sed sicut tenens rem in esse, sequetur quod ipse in quolibet operante immediate operetur, non exclusa operatione voluntatis et naturae”). 52 Aquinas, SCG III, ch. 70: “Patet . . . quod non sic idem effectus causae naturali et 51 1376 Adrian J. Walker But if God, holding nothing back from his creature, gives it to share even in his divine causality, why does Thomas deny that a “created power can create anything, either by its own virtue or as the instrument of another”?53 Does this abrupt “No!” not entail, after all, an ungenerous restriction of the scope of the creaturely instrument’s participation in its Creator’s activity? Such, at least, is the objection our indefatigable naturalist might offer at this point in the discussion. What, then, shall we say in response? The first thing to be noted is Thomas’s conviction that God does not begrudge his creatures the giving of being. To be sure, Aquinas holds that ipsum esse is the Creator’s “proper effect,”54 which the creature can give divinae virtuti attribuitur quasi partim a Deo, et partim a naturali agente fiat, sed totus ab utroque secundum alium modum: sicut idem effectus totus attribuitur instrumento, et principali agenti etiam totus.” 53 Aquinas, De potentia, q. 3, a. 4, corp.: “Relinquitur ergo quod nulla potentia creaturae potest aliquid creare neque propria virtute, neque sicut alterius instrumentum.” 54 Esse is the perfection of actuality outside of which there is precisely nothing: “Nothing can be added to esse, however, which would be external to it, since nothing is external to it apart from non-being, which cannot be either form or matter. Whence it follows that esse is not determined by another as potency is by act, but as act is by potency” (Aquinas, De potentia, q. 7, a. 2, ad 9: “Nihil autem potest addi ad esse quod sit extraneum ab ipso, cum ab eo nihil sit extraneum nisi non-ens, quod non potest esse nec forma nec materia. Unde non sic determinatur esse per aliud sicut potentia per actum, sed magis sicut actus per potentiam”). Nevertheless, while “complete and simple,” created esse is also “non-subsistent” (see Aquinas, De potentia, q. 1, a. 1, corp.: “Esse significat aliquid completum et simplex sed non subsistens”). Now, if the esse we see in things is unable to subsist on its own, it must derive from a source other than itself. If, on the other hand, esse is ontologically prior to everything else, the source it flows from cannot be either a part or a whole of the universitas rerum. No, the esse we see in things must flow directly from an extra-mundane source, which, by reason of this immediacy, it must represent and express. Put another way, created esse “cannot be understood except as drawn forth from the divine esse, just as a proper effect cannot be understood except as drawn forth from its proper cause” (Aquinas, De potentia, q. 3 a. 5, ad 1: “esse, quod rebus creatis inest, non potest intelligi nisi ut deductum ab esse divino; sicut nec proprius effectus potest intelligi nisi ut deductus a causa propria”). An implication of this teaching is that nothing other than God has being, or even a claim to being, independently of the divine act of bestowing esse ex nihilo. Even what things are has its sole source in God (as Aristotle himself glimpsed), since “from the very fact that esse is attributed to the quiddity, not just the esse, but the quiddity itself is said to be created. This is because before [the quiddity] has esse, it is nothing, except perhaps in the intellect of the Creator, where it is not a creature, but a creative essence” (Aquinas, De potentia, q. 3 a. 5, ad 2: “Ex hoc ipso quod quidditati esse attribuitur, non solum esse, sed ipsa quidditas creari dicitur: quia antequam esse habeat, nihil est, nisi forte in intellectu creantis, ubi non est Godlike Instruments 1377 only by virtue of the creative First Cause. Nevertheless, he also holds that the creature, like a steward of God’s proper effect, plays a real instrumental role in communicating it. This, at any rate, seems to be the clear implication of passages like following: Any other cause that gives esse has this [giving], not by its own virtue, but [only] insofar as the virtue and operation of the first cause are immanent in it. The same thing is true of an instrument, which effects the action it instrumentally serves, not by the virtue of its own nature, but by the virtue of the one moving it.55 Why, then, does Thomas insist that the creature cannot be even an instrumental agent of the creative act? His intention, I think, is not to deny that the creature really gives being, but to deny that it gives being as God does. God alone gives being ex nihilo, and the creature (ongoingly) receives both being and the giving of being thanks to the unique divine donation. It is only on this condition that the creature can play its proper role in unfolding horizontally the vertical communication of esse by which the Giver ceaselessly founds, enfolds, and pervades the being, acting, and causing of his creatures ab initio. 56 To be sure, God retains full possession of creating as his proper act. He does so, however, in order to diffuse its reception as the common good creatura, sed creatrix essentia”). Aquinas, De potentia, q. 3, a. 4, corp.: “Quaecumque alia causa dat esse, hoc habet in quantum est in ea virtus et operatio primae causae, et non per propriam virtutem; sicut et instrumentum efficit actionem instrumentalem non per virtutem propriae naturae, sed per virtutem moventis; sicut calor naturalis per avirtutem animae generat carnem vivam, per virtutem autem propriae naturae solummodo calefacit et dissolvit.” If Thomas is correct, then all creaturely causation is nothing but a received share in the activity in which God gives the creature to be. If, in fact, esse is the actuality of all acts, including that of the forms; if, further, the proper effect of the creature, as such, is always some finite form; and if, finally, Aristotle’s four causes represent irreducibly distinct, yet intelligibly coordinated modes of producing form (one of which is simply to be the form produced)—if, I say, these three premises are true, then all creaturely causality is, or is reducible to, participation in the communication of esse. 56 While horizontally uniting the members of the universal community with one another, this participation vertically unites them collectively and singly to God. It is as if something analogous to friendship—both among things and with God— determined a priori the form of the universe. Far from existing, suffering, acting, or causing in isolation, finite entities do each and all of these things in a network of friendly communion they both presuppose and help co-constitute in turn. 55 1378 Adrian J. Walker of the universe and to constitute this reception as a valid likeness of his induplicable creativity. The likeness he grants, moreover, is no poor copy or pale second best, but a new way of being a co-source as original in its own domain as God is in his. By thoughtfully removing from the creature’s shoulders the impossible burden of replicating him, the Creator frees for it true greatness, which is not to repeat the creative act, but to receive the act’s fruit as its own exercised existence (the actus essendi)—and so to give birth, Theo-tokos like, to the fruit from below. Fruitful Communion When, then, does the creature’s instrumental participation in the Creator’s giving of being begin? The initial form of this participation, I want to suggest in answer, occurs within the original constitution of the creature itself. God, so my thesis runs, first uses the creature as a self-receptive instrument of its own passive creation. For if God is to create out of nothing, his creative action necessarily terminates, ex hypothesi, in a passive creation, which—again ex hypothesi—is necessarily inherent in a created supposit that substands it. This substanding is primarily the fruit of God’s creative action, but it is secondarily the creature’s proper good as well: It is (to re-state my thesis) the self-receptive instrumentality by which the creature shares in divine creativity without replicating it, competing with it, or adding to it from the outside. According to Aquinas, passive creation is “nothing other in terms of reality than a certain relation to God accompanied by a newness of being.”57 One striking feature of his account of this relatio is his affirmation that it is a kind of accident really distinct from, and inherent in, the creature as its underlying subject. His argument for this thesis can be summed up as follows: If passive creation is the correlate of the creative act 57 Aquinas, De potentia, q. 3, a. 3, corp.: “Creatio nihil est aliud realiter quam relatio quaedam ad Deum cum novitate essendi.” As Thomas makes clear in this and many other texts (such as ST I, q. 13, a. 7), creatures are really related to God, while God is not really related to creatures. It is my contention that this fundamental asymmetry not only entails the creature’s dependence on the creative act, but also enables the creature to participate in this act precisely by means of its self-reception from the Creator. This is why it is helpful to think of the relations in question—the real one of the creature and the rational one of God—as two ontologically distinct, but spatio-temporally inseparable dimensions of a single creative communication of being. Cunningham has nicely captured this dual unity by describing (in private conversation) Thomas as affirming what is in effect a “mixed relation” between Creator and creature that bears a striking structural similarity to the hypostatic union (see forthcoming True Reduction). Godlike Instruments 1379 on the side of the creature58; if, furthermore, passiva creatio is never merely in process, but is always already complete59; if, finally, it is not the created thing per se, but a con-created condition of the created thing,60 then it must be an accident-like relation underlain by the creature as its supposit.61 It is only if passive creation is an accident-like relation, Thomas is saying, that the creature can owe itself totally to its Creator—and so find itself already posited as the real term of a Godwardness whose ratio, lying primarily in See Aquinas, De potentia, q. 3, a. 3, corp.: “Now, the creature, as its very name implies, is referred to the Creator. But the creature depends on the Creator, and not vice versa. . . . And therefore we must say that creation can be taken actively and passively. If it be taken actively, it designates God’s action, which is his essence, with a relation to the creature. This relation is not real, but is purely rational. But if creation be taken passively, then, since creation . . . is not a mutation, it cannot be said to be anything in the genus of passion, but is in the genus of relation” (“Creatura autem secundum nomen refertur ad Creatorem. Dependet autem creatura a Ceatore, et non e converso. . . . Et ideo dicendum est, quod creatio potest sumi active et passive. Si sumatur active, sic designat Dei actionem, quae est eius essentia, cum relatione ad creaturam; quae non est realis relatio, sed secundum rationem tantum. Si autem passive accipiatur, cum creatio . . . proprie loquendo non sit mutatio, non potest dici quod sit aliquid in genere passionis, sed est in genere relationis”). 59 See Aquinas, De potentia, q. 3, a. 3, corp.: “But, as was already said, creation cannot be understood as a being moved, which is prior to the term of the motion, but is understood as already completed in being” (“Creatio autem, sicut dictum est, non potest accipi ut moveri, quod est ante terminum motus, sed accipitur ut in facto esse”). 60 See Aquinas, De potentia, q. 3, a. 3, ad 2: “The aforesaid relation is not some created thing, but a con-created one, just as it is not a being properly speaking, but inheres in one” (“Relatio praedicta non est quoddam creatum, sed concreatum, sicut nec est ens proprie loquendo, sed inhaerens”). 61 See Aquinas, De potentia, q. 3, a. 3, ad 3: “That relation is an accident, and, considered in its being as inhering in a subject, it is posterior to the created thing, just as an accident is posterior in both idea and nature to its subject” (“Illa relatio accidens est, et secundum esse suum considerata, prout inhaeret subiecto, posterius est quam res creata; sicut accidens subiecto, intellectu et natura, posterius est”). To be sure, we are dealing with a unique case, inasmuch as the relation in question “is not the sort of accident that is caused by the principles of the subject” (ibid.: “quamvis non sit tale accidens quod causetur ex principiis subiecti”). Even more, if we consider the relation as an immediate effect of prior divine action, it in some sense precedes the subject it inheres in: “If, however, the aforesaid relation be considered according to its ratio, inasmuch as it comes to be by the action of an agent, it is in some way prior to its subject, just as the divine action itself is its proximate cause” (ibid.: “Si vero consideretur secundum suam rationem, prout ex actione agentis innascitur praedicta relatio, sic est quodammodo prior subiecto, sicut ipsa divina actio, est eius causa proxima”). 58 1380 Adrian J. Walker God himself, the creature can never identify with or exhaust.62 Thomas’s account of passive creation implies that the creature serves as a kind of presupposition of its reception of being and the relation following on this reception.63 Thomas is of course fully aware that God is the one who first gives the creature both to receive being and to have the consequent relation. Nevertheless, Thomas holds, this prior donation is not a forensic imputation: In giving his creature to receive being and be related to him in turn, God also gives the creature to be the real subject of both the receiving and the relating. Nor is there ever a time when the creature’s “subjectivity,” always already turned Godward by God himself, has not immemorially converted with its own subsistence in itself.64 I thus come to my thesis: In substanding the being it has received from God, the creature serves as an instrumental cause of its own passive creation. To be sure, passive creation is not caused by the principles of the created subject. Because, however, it cannot occur unless it inheres in the creature, it relies on the creature as a hypothetically necessary condition of its own reality and efficacy.65 It is this reliance—so my thesis posits—that establishes the creature as a kind of instrumental cause of its own being Unless the creature underlay the relation of passive creation from the beginning, there would be a time when it was still only partly created. Creation would be a motion, and something of the creature would preexist the motion’s completion. The creature would not owe its existence entirely to God. A similar consequence follows if we suppose that the creature is its relation of passive creation. For, on this supposition, the creature coincides so completely with its Godwardness as to become indistinguishable from God’s own self-knowledge as the term of Godwardness. In this way, too, the creature would no longer owe its existence entirely to the divine initiative, since it would in effect be God by nature. 63 This implication looks counterintuitive only so long as we forget that, “in giving esse, God simultaneously produces what receives esse, which is why he has no need [to create] out of any preexisting thing.” (Aquinas, De potentia, q. 3, a. 1, ad 17: “Deus simul dans esse, producit id quod esse recipit: et sic non oportet quod agat ex aliquo praeexistenti”). 64 The same relation of passive creation that inheres accident-like in the creature’s substance is also simultaneous and coterminous with its substance. This fact secures for creaturely being a kind of conversion between subsistence and relativity that is analogous to, though not identical with, the subsistent relationality of the divine persons. 65 The creature’s role as presupposition is a logical requirement of active creation, whose idea demands a certain type of creaturely terminus ad quem to make sense: a receptive bearer distinct from its received actus essendi and its passive creation. The necessity attaching to this requirement is purely conditional or hypothetical, in that it is entirely consequent upon active creation and the logic of its utterly gratuitous liberality. 62 Godlike Instruments 1381 created (whose effect includes that very establishment). Obviously, the creature’s exercise of instrumental causality in passiva creatio is not an action properly speaking. If anything, it is an inaction: not a doing but a being that, so to say, has the force of a doing. Put another way, it is a sufficing that has the value or effect of a causal exercise without requiring any additional activity beyond having come into existence at God’s command. Just as God is his creative act, so the creature substands passive creation, while its sufficient doing-by-being is an analogue of the simplicity of the One whose creating is substantially identical with his being. By the mere fact of coming into being at the Creator’s behest, the creature communes with him, and in this communion it “does” (inactively) what it could never have done alone: underlie the gift of being thanks to which it exists. 66 But this communion with God at the level of first act, I now want to argue, is already the beginning of a similar communion in second act. Although the creature’s initial self-reception is not yet an operation or an exercise of causality—it is still inactive in the sense described above—it contains the natural beginning of both. Even more, it provides both with an exemplar to follow while orienting them toward their proper end. It is here that we discover the first root of the connection between agency and end-seeking in the creature.67 The connection is an inseparable one. Agency is end-seeking—understood as an aspiration to recapitulate the beginning in non-identical repetition.68 We can say that the purpose of this recapitulation is to appro God, the Pure Act and the Infinite Good, wills to be the common good he shares with creatures—not in order to gain anything from them, but in order to lavish on them the gift of co-participation. To be sure, this co-participation is both received and receptive: It is a (received) response, and obedience before it is an initiative and responsibility. But creatures enact this responsive obedience precisely by bearing fruit with God. Meister Eckhart captures the essential idea with admirable concision: “The fruitfulness of the gift,” he says, “is the only gratitude for the gift” (cited from a vernacular sermon on Luke 10:38, listed as “sermon 2” in Meister Eckhart, Werke, vol. 1, ed. Niklaus Largier, trans. Josef Quint [Stuttgart: Deutscher Klassiker Verlag, 1993], 24). 67 The creature’s inactive self-reception is the root, paradigm, and beginning of the entire quadriform causality Aristotle ascribes to material substance. In the present section, I focus only on the relation between two of these four causes: the agent and the end. 68 The non-interactive character of the creative act ensures the creature an absolute beginning in clean distinction from, and fruitful communion with, its Maker. The creature, for its part, does not merely suffer this absolute beginning, but has always begun to appropriate it; the creature’s possession of an inner source of being and 66 1382 Adrian J. Walker priate the beginning more fully, but only so long as we add that the verb “appropriate” cannot mean “possess to the exclusion of God.” Just as the beginning includes a communion with God, the recapitulation of this beginning includes a communion with him both in its unfolding and in its completed fruit. An implication of what I have just said is that the creature is open from the root of its being to a fruitful self-excess it both receives from God and achieves in communion with him. It is radically ready to let itself be guided and, in being guided, to be surprised. Its orientation to its end is an empowerment to play a role in an unfolding drama—not an entitlement to be spared the drama’s surprises, challenges, and risks. It is through this drama that God finishes doing in the historical order what he has already begun to do in the metaphysical, namely, to give his creature a share in the fullness of being by drawing it out of nothing toward the Beautiful.69 We thus return to the insight we already glimpsed through Aristotle’s contemplation of the Prime Mover: The creature’s end-seeking agency is best understood as a fruitful recapitulation in second act of its self-reception from God in actus primus. The recapitulation at stake is obediential, since its inner shape is defined by loving assent to the divine intention that presides over the creature’s genesis and directs it to its end.70 This obedience, however, is constitutive and liberating rather than destructive and alienating, because freedom and obedience, whose analogues occur on operation—of a nature—shows as much. Nevertheless, because God is the one who first gives the beginning, the creature’s appropriation of this gift is never exhaustive. In appropriating the gift, the creature is exceeded by it; thanks to this excess, it is already on the way to unfolding the implications of the gift in ever-new ways. Seen in this light, end-seeking is the creature’s non-identical, forward-moving re-petition of its own primordial constitutive act. 69 Pace the scientific naturalist, it is the marvelous interplay between natural ends and contingently colored contexts that constitutes the intelligible order of the universe. As Thomas argues in SCG III, ch. 74, God fittingly integrates chance and fortune into his providential plan so as to give the finite, embodied agent an appropriate context for manifesting its perfection as such. Within this context, the agent has an opportunity to know the goodness of being one of many in a world not of its making and not totally under its own control—and so to be given material for displaying the beauty of its telic completion in ever-new ways. (We glimpse a physical expression of this metaphysical truth in the contextual sensitivity of living beings, which have the power to respond with astonishing plasticity to unforeseen circumstances in creative fidelity to their respective natural ends.) 70 I am speaking about what the creature always finds itself doing by nature—not about how it might modify nature’s operation by reason of the individual coloring it gives to the operation. Godlike Instruments 1383 every level of the scala naturae, are not dialectically opposed antagonists, but mutually implicating goods. It is as if the whole cosmos had been created for the sake of the Hour when Jesus, praying in agony to his Father, achieved the supreme freedom of the rational will through its supremely fruitful self-surrender into the hands of his Paternal Begetter. It was in this Hour that the creature’s desire to beget in beauty became, at long last, fully transparent to fruit of the Father’s beautiful begetting. Godlike Instruments Now, even granting that creatures are most agents in their own right when they are most instruments of God, whose use of them grounds their intrinsic dignity as agential end-seekers, it still remains to ask what God uses creatures for. What is the fruit he uses them to commune with him in producing? Aquinas suggests an answer to this question when he affirms that “the ultimate end of things [is] to become like God”71 so that “each thing tends to Godlikeness as to its own end.”72 If Aquinas is right, the fruit in question is nothing other than creatures’s assimilation to himself—an assimilation that grounds, finds expression in, and depends on their own immanent self-perfection.73 Thomas’s term for becoming Godlike—assimilari Deo—has a dynamic connotation. It suggests a Godwardness, an upward correspondence to the Creator, a referentiality of the entire creaturely analogue to its divine archetype.74 What, then, about the creature’s instrumental self-recep Aquinas, SCG III, ch. 19: “Ultimus finis rerum [est] Deo assimilari.” Aquinas, SCG III, ch. 25: “Unumquodque tendit in divinam simiitudinem sicut in proprium finem.” 73 Inasmuch as the creature’s self-reception from God belongs to first act, its subsistence expresses a double ontological love: Loving God, the creature loves itself as his likeness; loving itself as God’s likeness, it loves itself as a non-divine subject that is both the fruit and the supposit of its receptive dependency on the Creator. In this complex, the Godward love is the prior ontological source of the selfward, while the selfward love is an obediential implication of the Godward. In order to complete its likeness to God, moreover, the creature also must also imitate his gesture of communicating his proper good as bonum commune of the universe. The creature thus loves its proper good as a bonum commune for its fellows. In naturally loving God above all things, it loves both itself in light of God and its “neighbor” as itself for God’s sake. 74 This correspondence is analogous to form, while the creature’s proper subsistence and perfection play the role of the proximate material this form is expressed in. These realities thus stand to God-likeness as a living body stands to soul—incarnating it, quasi-sacramentally expressing it, and even serving as a kind of ontological support for it. 71 72 1384 Adrian J. Walker tion spoken of in the previous section? Does it, too, enter into dynamic Godwardness? Does it manifest some perfection in the Creator? I want to suggest that it does, insofar as it plays a role in manifesting God’s ad extra causation as the archetypal form of what I am going to call “contemplative self-use.” This thesis implicitly challenges the widespread assumption that use is always necessarily degrading to the used.75 Fortunately, the degrading use of things or people is not the only possible variety of use. It is not even the ontologically normative and paradigmatic one. Degrading use presupposes right use, and there is no right use without care for the nature of what is used and respect for its intrinsic goodness. Now, such care implies responsiveness, just as responsiveness, in its turn, implies contemplative receptivity. Right use is contemplative in being pragmatic.76 This is not to deny that right use is ordered to results, but only to insist that results are not merely benefits to the user. They are that, of course, but they are also primarily disclosures, are manifestations of natural potencies and teleologies in new and appropriate ways. (We are dealing with a way of participating in divine governance that both shares in its authority and is responsible to its intentions.) To be sure, if I ask a friend why he is hammering a nail into the wall, he will likely answer me by citing the satisfaction of some practical need such as “to keep this board from falling out,” “to put up a picture-frame,” or the like. Nevertheless, while such need-satisfaction does represent a telos, the telos in question is what we might call a “material end,” or the end considered as matter. But the material end is for incarnating a form; it is the apt matter of which we might call the “formal end.” In my friend’s case, the formal end—the end that makes the need-satisfaction he cites both choice-worthy and intelligible—is the activity of maintaining a home fit for human habitation (and, beyond that, the activity of living well as a I acknowledge that a great deal of actual use seems to warrant this assumption. One would have to be blind not to see how the ubiquitous libido dominandi constantly suggests ever-new ways of treating both people and things as mere means whose goodness (if there is any) is entirely relative to the desires of the user. Ironically enough, this sort of use is at least as degrading to the user as it is to the used. It enmeshes him in a master–slave dialectic while distorting him into the morally misshapen form of the habitual degrader. 76 For an already classic account of the contemplative character of right use, see Matthew B. Crawford, Shop Class as Soulcraft: An Inquiry into the Value of Work (New York: Penguin, 2009). See also D. C. Schindler, “Work as Contemplation: On the Platonic Notion of Technē,” Communio 42 (Winter, 2015): 594–617. 75 Godlike Instruments 1385 human being).77 The point I wish to stress is that this activity—like every formal end—is primarily disclosive. Its primary perfection is to reveal both human nature and the world’s potential to become the dwelling place of human nature so revealed. Let me be clear, before moving on, that even the results of need-satisfying activity are not merely excuses for disclosive activity. They are its fruits, looked at materially. In this capacity, they represent a sine qua non of the good of disclosure and a test of its authenticity. Imagine a carpenter who claimed to be interested only in disclosing the beauty of wood, but not in making anything out of it. We would have good reason to wonder aloud whether he had in fact ever disclosed the beauty of wood except in his imagination. Of course, he might protest that he had indeed disclosed the beauty of wood, but was simply unconcerned about utility. “I’ve made some lovely chairs,” he might say, “and that’s enough. It’s a matter of indifference to me whether they’re useful or not.” Even after having heard this protestation, we would have reason to doubt whether he had in fact disclosed the beauty of the wood, at least in the manner expected of a good carpenter. A lovely chair, after all, would have to bring out the beauty of the wood in chair form, and a chair that does not work would therefore be a failure even on aesthetic grounds, at least insofar as we are dealing with the aesthetics of carpentry.78 With that, I return to the main thread. While use-as-disclosure is productive (it draws otherwise latent potential into actuality), I want to say, it also begins in contemplation (it is rooted in a receptive vision Although use is conditioned (conditioning1) by the necessity of matter, this very conditioning is itself conditioned (conditioning2) in another way by the necessity of the (formal) end. It is the vision of the (formal) end that puts conditioning1 in our hands as a constraint that unleashes inventiveness—rather than as a compulsion that forces behavior. Contemplation of the (formal) end, in other words, ensures that need-satisfaction is not an absolute in itself, but an opportunity and material for living well as human beings. To be sure, needs can sometimes compel their own satisfaction, as when hunger drives prisoners in the Gulag to struggle ruthlessly for scraps of food. Nevertheless, even in such extreme cases, we remain embodied rational beings able in principle to understand need-satisfaction as necessary condition of being, rather than as its end and meaning. 78 As this latter example suggests, the results of need-satisfying activity are not just a sine qua non of the good of disclosure and a test of its authenticity. They also partake of this good. Even more, they enter into it themselves. For one thing, they help give it the constraints and contexts it needs to be specific and pragmatic enough to count as a real disclosure, rather than a merely imagined or asserted one. Here we have yet another example of the way in which the necessity of matter is rooted in, and serves, the self-diffusiveness of the good. 77 1386 Adrian J. Walker of natural potency) and renders the contemplated visible to the gaze of others (it displays natural potency in new and appropriate ways). In its very productivity, then, use is both receptively and disclosively contemplative: This is the truth that, as Martin Heidegger glimpsed, remains latent within the technological conflation of knowing and making, nature and art.79 The regeneration of science requires retrieving this truth in a new synthesis more responsive to the given natures of things.80 More on this point in the conclusion. Granting that use is a practice of contemplative disclosure, what does it disclose? A partial answer is that it discloses the thinghood of natural entities. By “thinghood” I mean, in the present context, the quality the word “thing” typically evokes in common parlance: an it-like “thereness,” a reliable availability that can appear so obvious and so able to be taken for granted as to require no further explanation. It is partly because thinghood in this sense can seem so anonymously indifferent to all comers that we are quick, at least within the horizon of everyday speech, to assume that it is an imperfection incompatible with intrinsic dignity or goodness. Things, we are tempted to think, are essentially neutral conveniences that can only be exploited, never contemplated, because they offer nothing to receive or disclose beyond the bare brute fact of “thereness” itself. I propose a contrasting interpretation of thinghood that turns the justcited view on its head. Yes, thinghood connotes a reliably available “thereness.” Yes, to be a thing in this sense is to be available for all comers, like the sun that rises equally on the just and the unjust alike. Far from betraying a deficit, however, such availability manifests a perfection. It displays the dignity of an intrinsically good creature that, in one simple gesture, both This is one of the principal theses of Heidegger’s essay Die Frage nach der Technik. For a decisive diagnosis of the conflation of making and knowing in technology, see chapter 3 of Hanby’s No God, No Science?, especially 107–49. 80 In order to be pragmatic, use must rely on natural potencies and their constitutive character. To be sure, use innovates on the expression of these potencies, but, in so doing, it must also conserve their natural form and virtue, lest it saw off the branch it is seated on. Use innovates conservatively. To innovate conservatively, however, is not just to intervene or modify; it is also to show forth something seen. It is to enact a disclosure that unites production and revelation. Such disclosure is as contemplative as it is “poietic,” both because it begins with a beheld good and because it ends with the manifestation of this good ad extra. Far from being a degradingly utilitarian affair that must be corrected, supplemented, or replaced by contemplation, use itself already embodies a form of contemplation. This is not to deny that contemplation can and should also exist apart from use, but only to insist that use, when rightly understood and practiced, both presupposes contemplation and enacts a species of contemplative receptivity itself. 79 Godlike Instruments 1387 self-assuredly takes its place among its fellow beings and selflessly places itself at their disposal. The association of “thereness” with neutral brute facticity is a misinterpretation, even a willful distortion, of what is in fact a kind of ontological love. 81 It is an attempt to re-conceive the vulnerability of what is lovingly given over into the world as a pretext for abuse rather than as a summons to care. Human use, then, contemplatively discloses thinghood as an intrinsic good that is also an at-least-incipient bonum commune.82 But man’s use of creatures (“art”) is itself analogous to a self-use on their part (“nature”).83 Creatures first use themselves in serving as instruments of their own passive creation, and they prolong this self-use in moving (themselves) toward their respective ends under providence.84 It is as if they contem “Thereness” is not a neutral, brutely factical bare minimum. In natural entities, at least, it is an inner implication (and condition) of enmattered form. For, if the form is to be true to its nature and task, it has to be poured out upon matter. Indeed, it has to exist in the state of having been outpoured. It has to be an actuality, yes, but one always already “made over” to an underlying subject that is not simply itself. There is never a moment, then, when the form is anything but the completion (in first act) of a body, the unconditional reality of a corporeal thing fully present in the world. By the same token, the body’s worldly “thereness”—vehicled through the accident of dimensive quantity—is not alien to the perfection of enmattered form, but is its quasi-sacramental symbol, a display and prolongation of its indissoluble mixture of actuality and outpouring. And this mixture, I contend, is a kind of ontological love. 82 The intimate connection between thinghood and common goodness is developed in D. C. Schindler, The Politics of the Real: The Church between Liberalism and Integralism (Steubenville, OH: New Polity, 2021). The connection is also implicit in Hannah Arendt’s treatment of thinghood in The Human Condition. 83 The tool, it is important to see, is also a thing: a definite entity reliably available for work within the human world. The thinghood of tools would of course be unintelligible without the functions to which they are ordered, but their very relation to their respective functions founds a thing-like permanence. This, I want to suggest, is because the function, the work to be performed, is a disclosure of natural thinghood—the power to achieve such a disclosure being embodied, and kept ready for action, in the very design and shape of the tool. The primal thinghood of natural bodies, as it is potentially disclosed in use, is thus reflected from the opposite side—and so made present in a new way—in the artificial thinghood of the tool. This “artificiality,” it is important to add, does not connote violence or factitiousness, but an imitative recapitulation of nature and the mode of its operation. 84 To be sure, only living bodies move themselves in the strict sense; only they are properly both users and the equipment they use. Nevertheless, inanimate bodies enjoy an analogue of self-motion consisting in their aptitude to behave in certain ways under the appropriate circumstances. Water is by nature apt to boil at 212 degrees Fahrenheit and to freeze at 32 degrees. These aptitudes reveal it, in turn, 81 1388 Adrian J. Walker platively received their idea from the Creator and, in so doing, began to disclose it through an end-seeking that is self-perfective, self-diffusive, and self-revelatory in one. Even inanimate substances participate in the perfection of contemplatively disclosive end-seeking.85 They do not merely lie about inert, but are endowed with what Yves Simon has called an “existential readiness,”86 a finalistic aptitude to assert their presence and make themselves available to others in determinate ways appropriate to their natures.87 It is as if as a real but incomplete agent or user: incomplete, in that it cannot initiate any particular behavior of itself alone; agent- or user-like, in that its behavior is nonetheless rooted in a nature belonging to every aqueous mass. 85 At least some naturally occurring inanimate bodies are Aristotelian substances: bearers of a per se unity that cannot be the accidental result of aggregation or the pure end product of assembly. Even water is arguably such a substance. One piece of evidence for this claim is that water, as we experience it, cannot be formally identified with its chemical composition. On the contrary supposition, the entire range of macrophysical phenomena that seem to characterize experienced water (from wetness to boiling) would be accidents of something other than water as it appears to us. But we would have to ask, in that case: what are these accidents actually accidents of? They cannot be accidents of the single, uncombined H20 molecule, which displays none of the properties mentioned above (the H20 molecule is not wet). Can they be the unintended byproducts of aggregations of H20 molecules? If these molecules have a natural tendency to aggregate in the precise ways needed for experienced water, then they are best understood as structured potencies for the latter. By the same logic, then, their appearance as discrete particulate entities does not manifest their complete actuality (only experienced water does that). Nor does the term “aggregation of H20 molecules” indicate any reality other than experienced water looked at materially. It should be clear—to answer the question posed just now—that experienced water cannot be a byproduct of what it itself consists in materially, especially since the matter, as already noted, is best understood as a potency for water-as-experienced. 86 See Yves R. Simon, The Definition of Moral Virtue (New York: Fordham University Press, 1986), 72–74. Simon’s discussion of existential readiness (his synonym for finality, especially in inanimate things) suggests that nature already contains the beginning of habitus, which is not simply habit, but a self-holding in active receptivity. 87 In one sense, this aptitude makes possible a certain kind of reduction of the science of living things to the science of body tout court. I say “a certain kind of reduction,” because I want to distinguish the reductio ad physicam I have in mind from what I regard as its counterfeit: the supposedly “scientific” reductionism that, in one way or another, denies life (or soul) any proper ontology over and above that of extended matter. This reductionism, which is the dialectical twin of Cartesian-style dualism, wrongly supposes that the res extensa—but we should really be talking about the res corporea—is the opaque “other” of life, the dialectical negation of vital self-unity. But this is not the case. Even on the level of inanimate Godlike Instruments 1389 inanimate beings delighted to show by their uncomplicated and unstinting “thereness” what it means for all matter and every body to be an “image of the (divine) Good.” 88 The unfussy “thereness” of inanimate substances reveals an incipient analogue of contemplative self-use. But what is already true of inanimate substances continues to be true in proportionately richer ways on each higher level of the scala naturae. We are dealing with a perfection belonging in different ways to all natural beings (indeed, to all creatures). The next step is to consider how this worldly perfection reflects the divine source of the world and finds its transcendent exemplar in his world-grounding self-communication. In beholding his essence for its own sake, God also knows and wills it as a common good for creatures to share with him. But if God is to know and will his essence as the common good of all, he must also know and will it as the exemplar of the proper good of each.89 He must behold the divine essence as the divine ideas.90 Insofar as God’s vision of these ideas entity, we observe a certain conversion between substantial self-unity and exteriority. Such self-unity-in-exteriority, moreover, arguably represents a perfection that, with the proper analogical recasting, enters into actuality specific to living bodies. This perfection helps animate things maintain themselves in the fluid middle between inside and outside, self and world (as we see them doing in metabolism, reproduction, sensation, and the like). For an illuminating exposition and defense of this thesis, D. C. Schindler, “Analogia Naturae: What Does Inanimate Nature Contribute to the Meaning of Life?,” Communio 38 (Winter 2011): 1–24. 88 For both this expression and a profound and lucid exposition of its meaning, see Rachel M. Coleman’s unpublished 2019 dissertation, “Matter as an Image of the Good: Ferdinand Ulrich’s Metaphysics of Creation.” 89 This is especially true given that creatures are not to become the divine essence, but to participate in it, each by means of a proper likeness. God would not truly give his essence as the common good unless this gift produced another who shared in the essence without being absorbed into it (and that can happen only via a proper likeness inhering in the creature and orienting it to dynamic participation in God). 90 For Aristotle, God’s self-contemplation is the efficient cause of the world. Aquinas clarifies and deepens this insight with his doctrine of the divine ideas. In contemplating himself, Thomas says, God contemplates his (possible) effects. Rather than deriving his idea of his effects from them, however, God derives his effects from his idea of them. The idea itself derives directly from the divine essence. Even more, it is the divine essence—seen and willed as the term of a possible imitation, participation, and reflection on the part of what is not itself (see Aquinas, ST I, q. 15, a. 2, corp.). Although the divine idea is a productive paradigm, it also has a contemplative dimension (see Aquinas, ST I, q. 15, a. 3, corp.). By the same token, I would add, it has an erotic connotation as well: It is as if, in beholding his essence, God caught sight of, and fell in love with, the beauty of the creature’s (potential) likeness to it 1390 Adrian J. Walker combines contemplation and production in an original synthesis, it is the primordial archetype of contemplative self-use.91 Insofar as it is simultaneous with (though rationally distinct from) his self-contemplation, it is also the primordial archetype of the uncomplicated “thereness” displayed by natural bodies.92 Now, just as God’s ad extra causation discloses his contemplative selfuse, it communicates a share in this contemplative self-use at the same time. When we say God “uses” his creatures as instruments, we are talking about just this communication. We are describing the concrete, “hands-on” way in which he grants them a share in the contemplative self-use by which he creates, conserves, and providentially governs them. Having glimpsed this truth, we can return one last time to the scientific naturalist’s objection: Does God’s use of creatures as teleological instruments of providential governance not inevitably degrade them? Just the opposite is the case: In generously condescending to use creatures, God is not depriving them of any due good, but is showering them with gifts. As we have just seen, the first benefit he grants is participation in his own contemplative self-use (which itself coincides with his act of using them). But, let me now add, this first benefit immediately entails a second: empowerment to a contemplative self-use that is creatures’ own to the (on this point, see Dionysius the Areopagite, De divinis nominibus 4.13). Clearly, such a contemplative-erotic “response” is not an accidental modification of the divine essence. It is, rather, a logical implication of God’s free and generous will to see it as a common good for creatures to share via their respective proper likenesses to it. 91 God’s pure actuality frees him both to be his creative act (which is substantially identical with him) and to wield it as its agent (inasmuch as he possesses it as something rationally distinct from himself ). By the same token, pure actuality enables him to unite in himself the whole perfection of instrumentality and the whole perfection of agency so as to be “the source of the whole of esse according to the whole of himself” (Aquinas, De potentia, q. 3, a. 1, corp.: “totius esse principium, et secundum se totum”). 92 God’s choice to give himself as the common good of all that is not he is an irrevocable one; it is like a pledge to uphold and finish what he has begun. To be sure, the pledge does not tie God’s hands, as if it limited him to repeating what he has already done instead of weaving all things “counter, original, spare, strange” (to cite Gerard Manley Hopkins’s poem Pied Beauty) into the fabric of created reality. Nevertheless, God’s pledge is a real commitment to conserving and perfecting his handiwork, so that even his boldest surprises—indeed: even his supernatural miracles—presuppose, save, and crown the natures he has made. Every new moment in our daily lives is fresh proof of this inexhaustible capacity to combine orderliness and surprise into an indissoluble whole that is at once dependable and challenging, static and dynamic, cosmic and historical. Godlike Instruments 1391 extent that it is a divine gift, and vice versa. It is by its own contemplative self-use that the creature finishes ratifying the Creator’s covenant-like offer of fruitful communion with himself. Creatures, then, are not empty, fungible conveniences. They are Godlike instruments that serve providential governance as its free and obedient ministers. To be sure, there remains a fundamental, irreversible asymmetry between creature and Creator: The former is by nature the instrument of the latter, while the latter is not by nature the instrument of the former. But this asymmetry is not an evil. It is a liberating boon that secures the good of the creature’s distinction from God while weaving this distinction into the good of its communion with him. Conclusion: Redeeming Technology What, then, about the objection posed at the beginning of this essay? Does the teleological instrumentality of creatures contradict their worldliness and their availability for science? Here, too, the answer must be negative. In using creatures as teleological instruments, God also empowers and equips them for their corresponding (contemplative) self-use. In the case of corporeal substances, he does this by giving them finalistic agency with a hylemorphic shape: one defined by the inexhaustible, inextricable interplay between the necessity of matter and the necessity of the end, on the one hand, and natural ontology and spatio-temporal historicity, on the other. The resulting interplay inserts corporeal substances in the world and opens them to science (while withdrawing them from exhaustive control by either). But if, in so doing, it merely reveals and completes their teleological instrumentality (which their contemplative self-use coincides with), how can the latter threaten either their worldliness or their availability for scientific study? How can it be anything other than a sine qua non of both goods as expressions of nature’s own non-naturalist ontology? This conclusion stands out even more clearly when we consider that corporeal substances cannot attain their ends without the appropriate material equipment (which is first their own bodies). End-seeking, for them, depends on matter. This dependence is rooted, to be sure, in the necessity of the end; it is a requirement of the end’s own nature as the completion in second act of a contemplatively self-using bodily agent. But the very fact that the dependence we are dealing with is a requirement of the ratio finis implies that it is not a misfortune, or any kind of accident at all, but an intended good. The point I want to stress here is that the same applies to the constraint imposed by matter on end-seeking as a result of the dependence: This constraint—the necessitas materiae—is also an 1392 Adrian J. Walker intended good. Or, more precisely, it is a proper participation in the goodness of the end, which, in receiving the determination2 from the end, also helps the end be true to its own nature and exigencies as the completion of a corporeal substance. Appreciation for the naturalness of nature, then, does not require us to endorse the scientific naturalist’s attempt to immure the universe in its own supposedly self-sufficient immanence. This attempt, I have suggested, can be understood as an effort to keep out a God whose involvement in the world, the naturalist believes, would compromise its availability for science. As I hope to have shown, the truth of the matter is actually the opposite. God’s unceasing, intimate involvement in the universe is what provides science with the entirety of its potential subject matter. The concrete actuality of all there is to be known depends on God’s energetic involvement in the concrete actuality of all there is.93 Seen in this light, scientific naturalism looks like a bid to secure an autonomous subject matter for science by abstracting it from the actual universe. Although there is nothing wrong with abstraction in general, this particular instance of it is far from harmless. Inasmuch as it serves the construction of a (supposedly) God-proof autonomy, the naturalist abstraction entails a re-conception of natural being as a brute facticity devoid of all theological significance.94 The perversity of this re-conceived To know things as they truly are is to know them as co-members of a cosmos that (like every entity it contains) exists only in virtue of being known, conserved, and governed by divine providence. As John Henry Newman explains with unsurpassed clarity in The Idea of a University, each special science can lay hold of the concrete actuality of its respective object only to the extent that it is ready to grasp this object in relation to a universe of beings owing its entire actuality to God’s providential government: “Summing up, Gentlemen, what I have said, I lay it down that all knowledge forms one whole, because its subject-matter is one; for the universe in its length and breadth is so intimately knit together, that we cannot separate off portion from portion, and operation from operation, except by a mental abstraction; and then again, as to its Creator, though He of course in His own Being is infinitely separate from it, and Theology has its departments towards which human knowledge has no relations, yet He has so implicated Himself with it, and taken it into His very bosom, by His presence in it, His providence over it, His impressions upon it, and His influences through it, that we cannot truly or fully contemplate it without in some main aspects contemplating Him” (The Idea of a University, discourse III, no. 4, newmanreader.org/works/idea/discourse3.html). 94 This re-conception gets its plausibility from the “thereness” spoken of just now, insofar as this “thereness” includes an availability for productive use. For this very reason, however, it is transcendently important to understand the character of “thereness” properly—not as a neutral facticity, but as the efficacious communicative symbol of a generous thinghood. 93 Godlike Instruments 1393 nature, let me stress, does not lie simply in its silence about God. It also lies in the resulting suppression of what natural being most properly is: the agential end-seeking, at once self-perfective and self-diffusive, through which God administers his providential government of the universe. What is ontologically primary about the natural world is agential finalism. But the ontologically primary is, in this case at least, epistemologically primary as well: Agential finalism is the abiding source, measure, and end of all our knowledge of the natural world in all its parts—including the microphysical entities, energies, and processes discovered or theorized by conventional science. Every causal factor invoked by this science to explain the behavior of material things presupposes, and reduces back to, some per se agent seeking its proper end. For the same reason, it also presupposes, and reduces back to, what the end-seeking agent most properly is. And what is that if not an undivided whole embodying actuality and the quadriform causality articulating actuality’s co-essential self-communication? Now, the ontological-epistemological primacy of agential finalism is so absolute that even conventional science cannot help implicitly knowing it in everything it knows. This is one reason why the actual results of scientific work tend to exceed the conventional scientific imagination, not to mention the one-track control fantasies of scientific naturalism. But why should science explicitly acknowledge its pervasive but implicit reliance on agential finalism? Would that step not be un- or anti-scientific? In reality, the opposite is the case. Science itself, in fact, needs to learn such acknowledgment if it is going to acquire a built-in, intra-scientific capacity for systematic self-scrutiny in light of its still tacit principles (and that means: in light of agential end-seeking). This self-scrutiny is no luxury: Lacking it, science almost inevitably succumbs to a double temptation to reify its own abstractions and to elevate its power to produce them into the sole criterion of truth. But once it starts down this road, science is already a form of technology, which, in subordinating “should” to “can,” replicates the disjunction between the possible and the good typifying the (il)logic of human sin. In order to free itself from the grip of scientific naturalism, which drains the cosmos of its concrete saturation with the Tao and turns knowledge into technology, science must restore the contemplation of agential finalism to its architectonic place in the study of nature. In order to do that, however, it must re-learn to see end-seeking agents in their full concreteness. It must learn to see them, then, as what Hans Urs von Balthasar, following Goethe, calls Gestalten. By Gestalt, Balthasar means in this context the substance looked at as an undivided, self-manifesting 1394 Adrian J. Walker teleological whole that precisely as such is a symbol of God (as well as of its fellow creatures, the cosmos, and esse commune): Everything occurring in reality is, to one analogically diversified degree or another, “Gestalt-like,” the “elevation” of a Gestalt being judged by the proportionately greater power of its unity to gather into oneness manifolds similar to itself [Ehrenfels]. Nevertheless, all Gestalten, in opening themselves to the gaze of the spirit as they are naturally apt to do, refer beyond themselves to being, or Sein, which, as Goethe says, “cannot be grasped by our thought” on account of its completeness and perfection. The light that breaks forth from the Gestalt and opens it to the understanding is thus inseparably two things at once: It is the light of the form itself, which is why Scholasticism speaks of the splendor formae, and it is the light of being, Sein, as a whole, which the form has to be immersed in simply in order to constitute a unitary Gestalt in the first place. Here transcendence is directly proportional to immanence. Put in aesthetic terms: The higher and purer a Gestalt is, the more centrally the light breaks forth from its proper depths—and the more pointedly the same Gestalt refers to the luminous mystery of being, or Sein, as a whole. We can say the same thing in religious terms: The more spiritual and independent an entity is, the more consciously it can bear in itself the knowledge of God and the more clearly it can refer to him. Biblical Revelation simply cannot escape a law of metaphysics that is this fundamental, for God acts in human history, assumes a human Gestalt, and through this human Gestalt incorporates humanity into himself in the Church. In order to manifest itself in its unfathomable personal depth, then, Absolute Being, das absolute Sein, avails itself of the services of worldly Gestalt that speaks on two levels at once: the level of the ineliminable finitude of the Gestalt and the level of its absolute, self-transcending referral to being as a whole.95 95 Hans Urs von Balthasar, Herrlichkeit: Eine theologische Ästhetik, vol 1, Schau der Gestalt (Einsiedeln: Johannes, 1961), 32. Balthasar adds an important observation in a footnote to the passage just cited: “Every kind of form-bearing entity,” he writes, “unfolds itself out of a non-appearing depth. By the same token, it is always already more than just itself too: übergestaltig” (33n15). Everything we can describe as a Gestalt, Balthasar is saying, is at once itself and more than itself; its immanent completeness seamlessly coincides with its self-transcendence, its excess towards—and from—what is more intimate to it than it is even to itself: God, God’s proper effect, and, via ipsum esse, the entire universitas creaturarum. It is as if the Gospel paradox that we find our life by losing it were prefigured in the very Godlike Instruments 1395 Science thus faces a stark choice: Either it restores Gestalt to thematic centrality—or it leaves itself defenseless against the technological perversion of knowing and the attendant anti-natural ontology. The scientific naturalist will doubtless still prefer the technological option on the grounds that it looks more this-worldly and secular than the contemplation of Gestalt. But if natural being reduces to Gestalt, and if the immanent integrity of Gestalt converts with its Godward symbolism, no study of natural being can avoid having religious implications.96 The only question is which form these implications will take—the form of idolatry or the form of right worship. To assert that the worldliness of the world is neutral with respect to this radical alternative between idolatry and right worship is already to have preferred the former to the latter. In reality, the technological mastery of nature is not as “purely secular” as it is commonly believed to be. In fact, it is arguably a form of perverse religiosity, which expresses a Gnostic resentment of bodily vulnerability while attempting to externalize it in quasi-magical fashion. The externalizing mechanism works in two steps: First we re-imagine bodies as totally available to human control; second, we try to achieve this control as a means of shifting the burden of unwanted vulnerability onto other shoulders supposedly incapable of complaint. This maneuver looks secular and neutral only so long as we accept the premise that bodies are in fact totally available to human control. Once we realize that this premise is an ontological constitution of creaturely being. “[For] might it not be,” Balthasar asks, “that the eschatological mystery of God’s kenosis in Christ finds a prefiguring analogue in the metaphysical mystery of being, of Sein whose luminous fullness appears only in its emptiness of any proper subsistence?” (38). By Sein Balthasar means esse creatum, which he understands, with Thomas, as a non-subsistent actuality. Far from being an imperfection, Balthasar thinks, created esse’s lack of subsistence is a perfection pertaining to its nature as received act. Note the hidden kinship between Aristotelian eidos and Goethean-Balthasarian Gestalt. The latter corresponds to the enmattered form that is the proximate object of natural science. For its part, the former highlights the dynamically self-revealing, symbolic character that, arguably, is already implicit in Aristotle’s account of embodied eidos as the concrete ingathering of self-communicating act and the quadriform causality that articulates it. 96 It would of course be equally important to show that the Gestalt cannot symbolize the divine unless it is also a thing in its own right. We do not have to choose between a sacred cosmos and a secular world, but can have both at once, so long as we respect the absolute primacy of the ratio of the former and the relative primacy of the ratio of the latter—which is precisely what the recognition of creation as gift enables us to do. 1396 Adrian J. Walker illusion—that even our machines are not entirely subject to our will97—we can see the maneuver for what it is: a Gnostic-inspired scapegoating, even a counterfeit anti-Eucharist, that does at least as much violence to human nature as it inflicts on the non-human world. The foregoing is not an argument against using, changing, or even killing non-human creatures. All three activities fall within the purview of the vice-regal authority entrusted to Adam in the beginning. Nevertheless, the exercise of this authority is exposed to the temptation of tyranny—especially in a civilization that, like ours, has woven technology into the fabric of all of its main institutions, including science. This is why there must be a continual passing over from science to scientia, accompanied by a constant labor of intellectual-moral conversion away from the technological caricature of Adamic authority, toward the good stewardship proper to God’s viceroy. Where danger is, the saving means grow too. Even the technological conflation of making and knowing can become a “happy fault” by presenting an occasion to retrieve the disclosive power of contemplative use. But this retrieval depends on a reversal of priorities within the current technological mixture of the two: If technology subordinates contemplation to production, the redemption of technology requires the subordination of production to contemplation.98 Our Adamic right to disclose the truth of things subserves our prior duty to honor their natures and the divine intentions they manifest.99 It is only if we give ourselves over to the Creator I owe this insight to Matthew B. Crawford. This implies that use can be a form of contemplation only on two conditions. First, there must be such a thing as contemplation beyond use. Second, this other form of contemplation must be ontologically superior even to contemplative use. That said, even the purest contemplation is supremely fruitful. It is God’s self-contemplation that gives being to the world in time, just as it is the Father’s contemplation of the divine essence that brings forth the Word in eternity. 99 The art of working out the hidden potencies of things is a great good, but in a fallen world even this good is never free from the temptation to reduce the actual—the undivided Gestalt—to a disposable pretext for the possible, or to regard nature as a mere reserve of anonymous energy for endlessly remaking the world at will. Let me be clear: I am not suggesting that science should not concern itself with the inner workings of nature’s art. I am not even denying that it should represent these workings as a sequential process involving relatively discrete parts in interaction. What I object to is the gratuitous assumption that such representation is perfectly transparent, without any correction, to the reality it represents. This assumption introduces a confusion between model and thing, the mathematical and the physical, which, in turn, enacts a mechanistic reading of nature’s art. When we peer at the autopoiēsis, or “self-making,” of natural entity through this distort97 98 Godlike Instruments 1397 as instruments of his contemplative use that we can fruitfully reveal the Godlike instrumentality of things as administrators of his providential governance. The ideal of scientia is a radically anti-utopian one. Negatively, it serves to deflate the reigning mythos of scientific revolution as an almost eschatological breakthrough to the definitive, infallible revelation of nature apart from the haze of our animal subjectivity. Positively, it reminds us that every branch of science—even physics, chemistry, and biology—“is seared with trade; bleared, smeared with toil; / And wears man’s smudge and shares man’s smell.”100 This is not to deny, of course, that we can know the world beyond our own head. It is to stress that our self-transcendence, looked at in fieri, is supremely dramatic in that it engages all our faculties, shows up all our limits and flaws, and, in inseparably doing both, stands within the mysterious interplay of divine Providence and human freedom we call “history.” Even our science, even our scientia, is a dramatic enactment of our teleological ordination to truth and to God—and, precisely as such, an episode within the “common groaning” (Rom 8:22) of creation for its “liberation . . . into the freedom of glory of God’s children” (Rom 8:21). N&V ing lens, we no longer see the dynamic, often improvisational self-unfolding of an undivided unity whose art-like infrastructure we then try to understand on its own holistic terms. Instead, we arbitrarily reconceive the autopoietic as a mere self-assembly that, once its supposed “laws” have been discovered, can be understood without any “self ” to do the assembling in the first place. The unity of natural substance, as far as we are concerned, dissolves into the epiphenomenal byproduct of a primitive duality that, by reason of its sheer twoness, lies entirely open to a manipulation aimed at altering the appearing Gestalt at will. (By the same token, we also obscure the character of art as a way of participating in, and prolonging, the self-manifestation of nature.) 100 Gerard Manley Hopkins, God’s Grandeur. Nova et Vetera, English Edition, Vol. 19, No. 4 (2021): 1399–1416 1399 Book Reviews Visioning Augustine by John C. Cavadini (Oxford: Wiley Blackwell, 2019), xxvi + 322 pp. This volume of twelve essays by a leading American Cath- olic theologian brings together a number of analyses of key Augustinian themes from research conducted during the past thirty years. These chapters have already appeared in learned journals before their re-edition here. This collection of essays is occasioned by requests from the author’s colleagues and students, as he states in the preface. The publication of these articles in a single volume constitutes an important milestone in the evolution of contemporary Augustinian studies. The strength of Cavadini’s approach is his mingling of insights from textual, historical interpretation astride his adoption of a systematic theological perspective. There is also the slightly contrarian (and therefore welcome) impulse to take seriously the views that Augustine actually held, as opposed to the views that are still inaccurately ascribed to him. The overall impression of this multivalent portrait of Augustine is refreshing and somewhat bracing as well. Nevertheless, Cavadini steers clear of claims that move too far beyond the texts he is working carefully to unveil. As such, his approach is a sober corrective to an overly hermeneutical approach that would over-emphasize his philosophical novelty (e.g.: an existentialist avant le lettre) at the expense of his theological specificity. This collection is also a properly academic work, not a general treatment. As such, this book corrects some recent popularizations of Augustine that glossed over the more demanding claims Augustine makes on his readers. As standalone essays, the book’s chapters deal with key themes that preoccupied Augustine, namely the Trinity, sex and the body, the Eucharist, creation, salvation, and the relationship between philosophy and theology. In line with the guild of historical theology, Cavadini shows an interest in the structure of Augustine’s arguments. Such a focus yields insights, such as the comparison between De Trinitate and De civitate Dei. Usually cited for their vast differences in form and argument, Cavadini shows that these two major works actually converge on the nature and value of an apologetic approach while neither ever cedes the category of the revelatory to that of the neo-Platonic as Augustine’s intellectual plumbline. 1400 Book Reviews Some surprises emerge nonetheless, such as the idea that mercy is a hermeneutical key for Augustine. This is mentioned in the foreword to the book by Mark Therrien, a former student of Cavadini’s, and the author delivers on this claim at several junctures. Some of the best surprises are the asides and pointers to richer insights that appear in the footnotes. Somewhat missing is an attention to Augustine’s extensive biblical commentaries, although of course that is determined by the focus on the great contested themes in the magna opera: De civitate Dei, Confessiones, and De Trinitate. However, there is some analysis of Augustine’s sermons in chapter 5, an effort to probe to what extent Augustine simplifies his portrait of God there, in comparison with his treatment of God in De Triniate. The answer, it turns out, is that he does not simplify: both works share the structure of faith seeking understanding. One feature of Cavadini’s articles is the subtle way he engages in dialectical reasoning when it comes to Augustine’s critics. Yet, he foregoes explicitly dialectical engagements in favor of a straightforward engagement with the primary texts. The exceptions to this tendency are few but very telling. One is Cavadini’s adroit acknowledgement of Rowan Williams’s view of the imago Dei as the proper analogy for the Trinitarian relations in God. For Cavadini, the ecclesial location of a converted, faithful person is a corrective to Williams’s “over-spiritualized” interpretation of self-transcendence. According to Williams, the assent to true justice and charity is sufficient to identify the faith of the individuals who will make up the totus Christus in the fulfillment of time. But, in Cavadini’s way of construing it, “true worship” suggests a visible, ecclesial locus for each Christian. Herein lies the anthropological analogate for the Trinitarian life of God. Another dialectical moment comes with a brief mention of Colin Gunton, whose critical reading of Augustine became a touchstone back in the 1990s, representative of a certain set of Evangelical and Orthodox thinkers who were worried about the influence of neo-Platonism on Augustine and thence the Latin tradition. Sticking to his exegetical brief, Cavadini includes a careful footnote that corrects Gunton’s oversight on Augustine’s use of language regarding the theory of signs and the difference between the presignified and the signified. Citing the correct translation of the Latin for “signs,” Cavadini is able to diagnose Gunton’s imposition of the modern distinction between the abstract and the concrete, which actually serves to exaggerate the Platonic character of Augustine’s aim. The reason for mentioning such cavests is to point out the fact that Cavadini engages in the struggle for Augustinianism by taking the high road of textual exegesis very seriously. His mind cuts through the meat of ideas sharply and leaves the reader with a picture of Augustine that is more exact Book Reviews 1401 than other efforts to shoehorn Augustine into simpler intellectual moulds. In choosing to deal with specific themes in specific texts, Cavadini conveys several strong points that belie large swaths of Augustine’s historical reception. Take the vice of lust for instance. In chapter 6, which deals with sexual desire, Cavadini sees links between the passion of lust, initiated as an act of will and born of pride, and a complete hamartiology that specifies Augustine’s elevated sense of the soul’s active involvement in sin. This far more exact, complex analysis stands against the view that sin is a simple fallenness of natural, biological proportions. Yet, while the insight into the way lust works is lucid and accounts for much of what moderns miss, it does not account for what Augustine says at points in his later anti-Pelagian writings about the bodily promptings to sin. Nor does such a position take into account the view expressed, for instance, in the Enchiridion that sin has two categorical causes, one of which is ignorance. This does not imply that Cavadini is wrong about lust, but rather that he is almost right. Augustine’s intellectual cartography knows many terrains. What this close attention to Augustine’s notion of (willful) passion does do is call out those anemic yet popular misconstruals of Augustine as a figure who hated the body. Such views, epitomized by the critiques of Elaine Pagels or Peter Brown (named by Cavadini), wish that “more positive” views of sexuality had prevailed. Cavadini unmasks such blithe criticisms thus: “Augustine had very positive sentiments toward sexuality, but not toward what he called ‘lust’ in its specifically sexual sense” (111). This sense of positive sexuality relates to the theme of another chapter that is devoted to the sacramentality of marriage. Here, Cavadini deftly plays off Augustine’s fulsome notion of nuptial desire over against the far narrower notion of sacramentality in Chrysostom, a notion that is tied inextricably to the role of the husband exclusively. Deploying the nuptial analogy lightly, Cavadini is convincing in showing that, akin to Pope John Paul II’s theology of the body (properly understood, something subject to much confusion), Augustine’s depiction of the sacrament of marriage is not a blessing of desire, but an admonition for self-gift. On a couple of occasions, Cavadini stretches hermeneutic credulity somewhat, such as the chapter dealing with the Eucharistic thrust of the Confessiones. It is unclear to me why the broader sense of ecclesial form is an insufficient category for grasping Augustine’s sense of God’s mercy. At least in that text, as Cavadini admits at the outset of the chapter, the Eucharist is barely mentioned. There are only a few occasions such as this in which the speculative or the homiletic value of theology carries Cavadini beyond the bounds of Augustine’s own concerns. This is not necessarily a detraction to the volume, but clarity about where exegesis of Augustine’s 1402 Book Reviews text ends and creative interpretations begin should be more forthcoming. The matter of the differences between the earlier and the later Augustine has been an interpretive conundrum for centuries, and it is one area that Cavadini leaves relatively untouched despite the occasional intriguing reference to the Retractationes. What Cavadini does handle extremely well is the relationship between philosophy and theology. According to Augustine, this interdisciplinary relationship reflects both the insufficiency of philosophy alongside its paradoxical necessity, as a heuristic. The visio of God, granted by God’s grace, is—in effect—a response to this heuristic. Cavadini takes Augustine in De civtate Dei XI to mean that “the Platonists may know the destination to which we must travel, but faith provides a pathway to the God of human beings through the human being who was God” (289–90). This metaphor of vision as applied to God is here played up in the book’s title with respect to the theology of Augustine, and it is a good one, considering the extent of Augustine’s own development of themes like the beatific vision and illumination. Nevertheless, those themes are not treated in this volume, and neither are some other great themes such as free will, predestination, or original sin, despite appearances in passing. That is to say, this book does not offer a comprehensive treatment. It is more a series of brilliant rejoinders on precise, interpretive matters of Augustine’s theologically dense writings. It has been said recently that Augustine is being rediscovered as the muse for understanding religious experience for the entire Western tradition. This may be the case, but the theological framework of that journey of faith cannot be elided, and this volume testifies to that imperative. There are competing views of Augustine afoot in the academy more broadly, but Cavadini presents by far the most plausible of them, which is not to say that there are not contradictions or even aporias to be found in his writing. But, in this volume at least, we are privy to the lucid results that come from the close engagement of historical with systematic theology. The philosopher’s Augustine has not been banished, but the limits of philosophical Augustinianism are nowhere clearer than in this careful, deeply informed set of essays that gives us a more visible sense of Augustine’s mapped horizon. Paul Allen Corpus Christi College Vancouver, BC N&V Book Reviews 1403 The Achievement of Hans Urs von Balthasar: An Introduction to His Trilogy by Matthew Levering (Washington, DC: Catholic University of America Press, 2019), xxii + 253 pp. Matthew Levering is tired of the fighting between Thomists and Balthasarians, and he is calling for a truce. As a performative enactment of peace, he has written a book about Hans Urs von Balthasar that says almost nothing bad about its subject. To do this, he has to steer clear of the meatier parts of Balthasar’s trilogy (the Glory of the Lord, the Theo-Drama, and the Theo-Logic), which contain ideas that he has previously critiqued and (he gives fair warning) will continue to do so. Nevertheless, this book is not a pablum of a thousand, blooming, theological flowers but rather a sympathetic treatment of how Balthasar grappled with key modern ideas. After the insightful foreword by Cyril O’Regan, Levering states his irenic goal in the introduction: He has written his book “for theologically educated readers who mistrust von Balthasar or who mistrust von Balthasar’s critics” (15). He proceeds by means of the inspired idea to focus on the first volume of each part of the trilogy. This allows Levering to zero in on the foundational ways Balthasar will treat the transcendentals of beauty, goodness, and truth respectively in each part. A further happy inspiration (perhaps suggested by Edward Oakes’s outstanding Pattern of Redemption) is to connect each part of the trilogy with three major modern thinkers with whom Balthasar is in dialogue: Kant, Hegel, and Nietzsche respectively. Levering reads the Glory of the Lord as a “Kantian critique of Kant,” the Theo-Drama as a “Hegelian critique of Hegel,” and the Theo-Logic as a “Nietzschean critique of Nietzsche.” Here the book clearly states the limits of what it will accomplish and even, with an excess of modesty, denies being the important endeavor that it is. In the following three main chapters of the book, he provides an overview of the relevant modern thinker, followed by a summary of Balthasar’s introductory volume. While doing so, he calls attention in particular to the moments in which Balthasar agrees with or argues with his modern interlocutors. Levering praises Balthasar for his ability to listen to modern concerns while keeping a critical distance from the aspects of modern thought that are opposed to the Gospel. These summaries are for the most part accurate and deceptively simple; Levering has absorbed an enormous amount of material that he presents clearly in comparatively few pages. Occasionally the summaries feel a little too much like lists of bullet points rather than a coherent treatment of themes, but this approach has the advantage of thoroughness. 1404 Book Reviews In the first chapter, Levering tackles the theological aesthetics presented in Glory of the Lord, in contrast to Kant. It is well-known that Balthasar ordered his trilogy in opposition to Kant’s three critiques. Rather than begin with truth (more accurately, with the mind’s structures) as Kant did in the Critique of Pure Reason, Balthasar began with beauty. Levering uses a clue from Balthasar’s Epilogue, the one-volume conclusion to the trilogy, to the effect that Kant’s transcendental apperception provides a way to think about the unity of the experience of form (Gestalt) that is central to Balthasar’s aesthetics. Yet, as Levering demonstrates, Balthasar believes that “the unchanging ground that unites all appearances, all of nature, is divine triune self-surrendering love manifested in Christ,” rather than Kant’s synthetic unity of self-consciousness (79). In following through on this clue from the Epilogue, Levering makes an original contribution to understanding Balthasar’s relation to Kant. I was surprised, however, that Levering did not focus on the more relevant issue in Balthasar’s aesthetics, namely, the status of form (Gestalt). Balthasar alluded to this point of contention with Kant in a famous interview, when he stated, “[Karl] Rahner has chosen Kant, or if you will, Fichte, the transcendental approach. And I have chosen Goethe, my field being German literature.” At first, this might seem like mere eccentricity, or, worse, anti-intellectual romanticism. But Balthasar explains by highlighting “The form [Gestalt], the indissoluble, unique, organic, developing form—I am thinking of Goethe’s poem ‘The Metamorphosis of Plant’—this form, which Kant does not know what to do with, even in his aesthetics.”1 Here Balthasar is presenting a fundamental dichotomy: Is form something that the person generates by the spontaneous activity of the mind? Or is form primarily received by the person? The first approach is Kant’s, the second Goethe’s. For Kant, form is located in the structures of the mind, in particular in its a priori regulative categories, and not in the matter of the appearances (see Critique of Pure Reason, A20/B34). For Balthasar, drawing on Goethe, form is presented as Gestalt, found genuinely in the thing itself and expressed in the thing’s appearances. Gestalt is first and foremost received; it comes to one from the outside. While there is an active role 1 Hans Urs von Balthasar, “Geist und Feuer, Michael Albus: Ein Gespräch mit Hans Urs von Balthasar,” Herder-Korrespondenz 30 (1976), 75–76, quoted in Peter Henrici, S.J., “The Philosophy of Hans Urs von Balthasar,” in Hans Urs von Balthasar: His Life and Work, ed. David L. Schindler (San Francisco: Ignatius Press, 1991), 149–67, at 154. Book Reviews 1405 for the knowing subject (something Balthasar treats in the first volume of the Theo-Logic, as Levering accurately presents it), truth is truly a dramatic encounter with the beauty of an other—and, ultimately, with the divine Other. It is not a (Kantian) transcendental monologue, but a drama in which the transcendentals are fully in play in extramental reality. This receptive stance vis-à-vis the world is the most fundamental difference between Kant and Balthasar. In the second chapter, Levering tackles the titanic figure of Hegel as he appears in the Theo-Drama. Levering acknowledges the previous and more encyclopedic work of Cyril O’Regan on this topic, and to a lesser degree Ben Quash, with whom, however, Levering has interpretive disagreements. Hegel is so fundamental to the Theo-Drama precisely because the drama transitions from the more contemplative and metaphysical stance of the aesthetics to the historical reality of the triune God’s action in Christ for our salvation. Hegel is the great modern Trinitarian thinker of freedom within history (prior, at least, to Balthasar, as this reader would argue!), and his project is so close to Balthasar’s that it must be addressed. To Levering’s presentation I would add that Balthasar in many ways accepted the terms of the importance of the Hegelian subject–object encounter, which is fundamental to all the parts of the trilogy, as is also the question of freedom that arises from this encounter. Yet Balthasar judged Hegel to be undramatic, as Levering observes, because ultimately there is room for only one player on the Hegelian stage, namely, absolute spirit. I would note as well that much of what Balthasar rejected in Hegel derives from the latter’s particular reading of Luther: the ultimate unfreedom of the finite vis-à-vis the infinite, as well as the interpretation of the inner-Trinitarian relations in terms of conflict. This chapter concludes with a satisfying summary of many important points in the first volume of the Theo-Drama, a book that gets insufficient scholarly attention. Chapter 3 is a treatment of Balthasar’s Theo-Logic, which concerns truth, in light of Nietzsche’s reorientation of truth away from concepts and toward the will to power. Balthasar granted to Nietzsche the importance of truth “for life” (and here Levering notes in passing another significant dialogue partner throughout the whole trilogy, namely, Martin Heidegger). Nevertheless, Balthasar repeatedly insisted on the necessity of a will to loving service in the action of knowing, a stance that for Nietzsche could only be an anti-human expression of sickness. Levering gives some attention to the question of the relation of love and truth. Without putting it in these terms, Levering wonders whether Balthasar has an excessively Franciscan prioritizing of will over truth. Levering comes down in support of Balthasar’s fundamental conviction 1406 Book Reviews that only the lover can truly know. This discussion could be furthered by noting a closely related idea, namely, “freedom.” For Balthasar (like some of his contemporaries, such as John Paul II), “freedom” does not refer solely to the faculty of the will, but rather is an outgrowth of both intellect and will. Freedom applies to the whole human person. “Finite freedom” at its most basic evokes the original created reality of being not-God and of being given a metaphysical “space” of one's own, dependent upon God but not monistically identical with the divine. In this sense, it echoes while correcting the eros of freedom explored by the German idealists, that is, spirit’s striving for infinity. This striving is both intellectual and volitional. In the concluding “Epilogue,” Levering’s detached tone is replaced with a mild cri de cœur concerning the needlessly polemical stances of the neo-Scholastic and “nouvelle théologie” schools toward each other: “When two sides that agree with each other in their fundamental faith commitments . . . blame each other for the prevalence of classical liberal theology in the Catholic theological academy, then something has gone badly wrong” (226). Levering notes the impatience of Balthasar and many of his fellow travelers with the neo-Scholasticism in which they were trained. Indeed, Balthasar would complain that the radiant mystery of Christ was reduced in Christology courses to a thorny hedge of heresies and their defeat. Against Balthasar’s dismissal, Levering defends the much-reviled neo-Scholastic manuals and their role in seminary formation. “A more differentiated reading of the neo-scholastic theologians of the first forty years of the twentieth century shows a number of very bright lights, despite the inevitable existence of flaws in neo-scholastic approaches” (208). Indeed, this rebalancing is needed. Whatever their failings, post-Tridentine and modern scholastic thinkers engaged a difficult polemical situation and made many contributions to philosophy and theology. And textbooks are perhaps not the best genre on which to base judgments of entire schools of thought. Nevertheless, Levering’s presentation of Balthasar’s critique of neo-Scholasticism omits mention of the ways in which Balthasar persistently appropriated and even developed the philosophia perennis he was taught. Thomas Aquinas comes in for criticism in various theological matters, but metaphysically Balthasar was fundamentally a Thomist, if an atypical one. The philosophical skeleton of his entire theological project in the trilogy is the analogy of being: Between created being and divine Being, there is a similarity with a greater dissimilarity. Thus, creaturely beauty, goodness, and truth can be an echo of the divine Being that is beauty, goodness, and truth itself. Balthasar bolstered this analogical structure by tying it closely to the distinctio realis between essence and existence. “Essences are limited, Book Reviews 1407 but Being is not. That division, the ‘real distinction’ of St. Thomas, is the source of all the religious and philosophical thought of humanity.”2 Because of the real distinction, the creaturely side of the analogy of being is so inescapably marked by finitude and contingency that it seems unable to image the infinite. Indeed, Karl Barth indicated it could not. In response, Balthasar’s theological project depends upon a philosophical concern that is indebted to Aristotelian thought: how to justify the existence of finite beings metaphysically, over against a Plotinian tendency to depreciate multiplicity as a fall from the primordial One. As he put it in Glory of the Lord, “nature . . . is good in its radical otherness to God.”3 Balthasar finds the source of the goodness of finite otherness—of “not” being God—in the triune God himself: “the ‘not’ (‘the Son is not the Father,’ and so forth) possesses an infinitely positive sense.”4 In this way, Balthasar’s analogia entis finds its ultimate ground in the distinction and unity of the Trinity. This Trinitarian metaphysics is certainly not a conventionally Thomistic approach, but neither is it conceivable outside of Thomistic categories. In any case, Levering’s call to mutual respect is both deeply Thomistic and thoroughly Balthasarian. Both great thinkers had synthetic minds, capable of appreciating many diverse schools and thinkers. In Balthasarian terms, both are valid theological “styles” that enrich the Church. Perhaps this book will be the beginning of a more fruitful dialogue that leaves N&V behind heresy hunting and contemptuous dismissals. Angela Franks Saint John’s Seminary Brighton, MA Hans Urs von Balthasar, My Work: In Retrospect (San Francisco: Ignatius Press, 1993), 112. 3 Hans Urs von Balthasar, The Glory of the Lord: A Theological Aesthetics, vol. 1, Seeing the Form, trans. Erasmo Leiva-Merikakis (Edinburgh: T&T Clark, 1982), 339. 4 Hans Urs von Balthasar, Theo-Drama: Theological Dramatic Theory, vol. 2, Dramatis Personae: Man in God, trans. Graham Harrison (San Francisco: Ignatius Press, 1990), 261. 2 1408 Book Reviews Autism and the Church: Bible, Theology, and Community by Grant Macaskill (Waco, TX: Baylor University Press, 2019), 239 pp. Grant Macaskill has written one of the first books seri- ously examining autism from a theological perspective. Obviously, much of this is pastoral theology, as salvation is essentially the same independent of neurotype. As an openly autistic Catholic priest who has also thought about these questions, I read this book from a unique perspective. Some reflections require contextualization in evangelical Christianity, of which Macaskill is a part, but in general, his reflections are applicable to Catholicism as well. This review will cover four main topics in Macaskill’s work: his biblical exegesis, analysis of autism, practical suggestions, and views on human sexuality. Macaskill admits near the beginning the challenge he has with the theology of autism: “The biblical writers had no category that matched the modern definition of autism, which means that we cannot find texts or passages that obviously inform our thinking about it” (2). He repeats this at the beginning of his section on the Bible, warning against proof-texting (43–44) and proposing that the Bible offers a framework for theological engagement with autism. Reflecting on the Sermon on the Mount, Macaskill notes that Jesus does not choose examples from what is useful for production (harvest) or can be used in sacrifice (sheep). Instead, “his examples involve things with no utility or value (grass and lilies) and things which would be considered unclean (ravens), and he indicates that God cares for and clothes these things in ways that exceed any human ascription of worth” (78). This provides a framework to value people, particularly those on the spectrum, as God does not value people for mere pragmatic abilities in religion or social life. Macaskill repeats this emphasis on God’s valuation: “The very core of the gospel story involves a recognition that God loves the unlovely, the things that are generally considered difficult to love and that are typically treated with contempt, and makes them pivotal to a work of salvation that itself centers on a moment of extreme unloveliness” (80). Macaskill concludes from studying 1 Corinthians: “The church is not a safe place just because in is the church. It is a safe space when the values of God’s kingdom are straightforwardly implemented and applied to the welfare of each member” (97). In a Catholic view, where one can be more or less fully representative of the Church (Mary being the perfect model of the Church), I think we could say that implementing the values of God’s kingdom is becoming more fully the Church. Book Reviews 1409 Macaskill sees accommodations like sensory-friendly Masses in Romans 14 and 15. He uses similar principles to those that Paul employs in describing the “weaker” and “stronger.” These chapters “involve very specific applications of the principles of unity and value” (118). Macaskill explores how the primacy of God’s election bears upon value judgments regarding those who require others to help them. We tend to assume that the weaker brother in Romans is deficient compared to the stronger, but Macaskill questions this as a prejudice on our part. He recalls Paul’s point that God chooses the weak, and Paul’s use of the analogy of the body, where weak and strong are equally part of the body (119–20). These Pauline texts should lead us to value those who struggle, such as autistics. In disability literature, there is currently a debate between a medical model of disability (the disability is disabling in itself) and the social model (the disability is disabling insofar as society does not make room for it). In autism, there is a related movement called neurodiversity: it emphasizes that autistic brains are primarily different not defective, without denying autism is disabling. Macaskill addresses these issues, taking a balanced approach with which I generally agree: “The positive significance of diversity can be affirmed alongside the acknowledgement that autism can have genuinely disabling effects, which are often specific to context. More subtly, this can lead to reflection on the extent to which the ‘disabling’ of autistic persons is a function of the world in which they live, which is constructed around the preferences of the neurotypical” (25). Macaskill also confronts how the Church itself, unfortunately, can be the source of such social disability: “Within the church, we often form a sense of inclusion through ‘normal’ social practices, and those same practices influence the ways in which we ascribe relative value to other Christians” (100). Obviously, autistic Christians often are socially awkward and fail to measure up to normal socializing. He notes that inclusion that depends upon normal social practices is not the way of Jesus. Jesus chose things that others despised as part of his work, surrounding himself with tax collectors and sinners, and allowing immigrants and prostitutes to be listed in his genealogy. Macaskill challenges the evangelical tendency to make salvation depend upon a conscious experience of receiving salvation at the moment one accepts Jesus. He aligns himself more closely with a Catholic understanding of infant baptism. He states, “‘Belonging’ to the church . . . is something that is constituted outside of our own consciousness by our union with Christ” (108). He goes on to make an important point regarding autism: “At the heart of so much that is difficult in the experience of autism is the need to find 1410 Book Reviews some kind of control over the world in which we live” (160). Obviously, as Jesus is the Lord of history, our control will always be limited. Autistics can do much within that limited control: we can control our sensory input or our social situation, which can help us flourish as Christians. Later, he notes, “We should remember that Christian ethics embrace the whole of life and are oriented toward the flourishing of the believer in Christ” (183). Macaskill wants autistics to use things like our precise use of language to reflect on the Bible: “Those with autism might read the Bible in a way that is particularly constructive and that may be helpful to others” (186). Not surprisingly, Macaskill supports accommodating autistics in the Church. He begins with the modern expectation in many evangelical circles: a Bible Study, then service, then a social. He explains that the first Christians did not have such liberty to schedule their Sunday, since many were either hired laborers before Sunday was a holiday, or else were slaves. It is likely today that an autistic member can only manage to come for the hour of worship (Mass for us Catholics), but that does not take anything away from their Christians identity (123). In this regard, Macaskill accurately notes how exhausting social gatherings (even Mass) can be for autistics: “Sensory and social experiences are often exhausting for autistic people and, consequently, also for those who care for them. They may enjoy them and value the fact that they participated in them, but they may need to recover from the experience in ways that others do not” (124). He observes sadly regarding the experience of autistics in the Church: “Many autistic individuals, or their families, will testify that fellow Christians have failed to bear all things or endure all things, and have not been kind. This is something of which we must repent” (155). We all need to help overcome this tendency to isolate Christians with irregular traits. When dealing with autistics at Church, Macaskill notes, “it is important to distinguish ‘adaptation’ from ‘camouflaging,’ which merely masks a problem by superficially imitating the behaviors of others in order to fit in to their expectations” (156). Indeed, when one reads online about the experiences of autistics—especially those diagnosed later in life— this “camouflaging” comes up regularly. Often the exhaustion from this camouflaging, or else the inability to maintain it in a particular situation, leads to a diagnosis. Macaskill goes on to emphasize, “true adaptation involves more than just masking behaviors in order to fit in; it involves addressing the things that keep us from flourishing” (156). This is a key point when considering things like sensory-friendly Masses for autistics and for others with sensory issues: they are to help us flourish in Mass, even if we can grind through an ordinary Mass with difficulty. After all, as Macaskill argues, Book Reviews 1411 “the goal of our flourishing is not to become better versions of ourselves, as in classical virtue theory, but to inhabit and embody the moral identity of Christ, to become radically different persons” (157). The Mass or other liturgies exist not just to make us more virtuous but to accomplish a radical transformation. Macaskill makes a very good point about unity: “Our salvation and our unity are a function of our shared union with Christ, not our agreement on moral or doctrinal issues” (177). However, he uses it as a way to argue for including Christians with radically divergent views on sexual ethics in the Church, which is problematic. He takes the image of the Peter’s vision of the unclean animals (Acts 11), a vision that led to his welcoming gentile Christians, and applies it to how we should think about sexual morality (178). Thus he argues, “The ‘biblical evidence’ is limited and is subject to interpretation; both sides can claim to be ‘biblical’” (179). In Catholic theology, this is not an issue, as we have the magisterium to help guide us, and we can use the whole anthropological vision of Scripture, as that elucidated by John Paul II, to aid in understanding passages. When commenting upon Paul’s preference for the celibate state, Macaskill uses it to argue against a creation order in the Old Testament: “For those who view marriage as part of the creational order, the affirmation of singleness is a dramatically countercultural move” (181). The Catholic vision, including magisterium and a wider anthropological perspective, makes it clear which Old Testament laws are universal. Overall, Macaskill has provided a commendable first attempt at situating autism in theology. He accurately defeats the kind of attitude that sees autism as some kind of curse to try to exorcise. He accepts autistic members of the body of Christ for who we are. He sees biblical examples that can apply to us. He grasps many general principles for accommodating autistics that Christian groups can adapt to their situations. However, his reflections are a first attempt, not a final word. I think we need to continue reflecting on disability in general and autism in specific, as there is much more to draw both from the Bible and from a theological anthropology based on the Bible. For example, how does one adapt spiritual theology to the autistic mind? How can we inculturate catechesis to an autistic mind? Or how can we think of the word alone without non-verbal aspects, given that Jesus is the Logos? Let me conclude with two points Macaskill himself makes in the conclusion. First, “As we participate in the gospel, we are called to repent of [ascribing value to people based on perceive social capital] and embrace a divine perspective on value, through the Spirit’s renewal of our mind. ‘From now on, we regard no one according to the flesh’ (2 Cor 5:16, my 1412 Book Reviews translation)” (192). Second, we need to avoid the tendency to defend the place of the disabled or the different “in a way that falls back unwittingly into a kind of utilitarianism” (192). Individual autistics are valuable in the Church because we are humans, not primarily or solely on the basis of N&V what we can do. Matthew Schneider, L.C. Pontifical Athenaeum Regina Apostolorum Rome Jesus and the Last Supper by Brant Pitre (Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans, 2015) xiv + 590 pp. “The problem of the Lord’s Supper is the problem of the life of Jesus.” With Schweitzer’s own words, Brant Pitre steps into “the problem” of the Last Supper. Anyone who has waded into the hundredplus year “Quest(s)” for the historical Jesus quickly understands that of all Gospel traditions, the Last Supper is the quintessential fault line upon which much of the historical-critical ground quakes. Those who have weighed in on the matter read like a who’s who of biblical scholars: from early twentieth century giants, such as like Schweitzer, Rudolf Bultman, and Martin Dibelius; to mid-century thought leaders such as Joachim Jeremias, Raymond Brown, and John Meier; to more recent voices like James Dunn, Dominic Crossan, Bart Ehrman, Dale Allison, and N. T. Wright. For the most part, the questers have landed squarely on the skeptical side of the fault line. (Although, the deeper one wades into the Quest(s), the more evident it becomes that there is unending bickering among apparently like-minded scholars). The German school of Jesus scholarship, if one can describe it as such, put Jesus at odds with the first-century Judaism from which he emerged from (go figure). Instead, such approaches insisted that the closest parallels to—and the most significant influences upon—the Gospels lie not with the Jewish Scriptures, nor the Jerusalem Temple, but with the broader Greco-Roman world in which Judaism lived, and moved, and had its being. Today, the Jewishness of Jesus has returned to the forefront, and is “universally recognized,” as Pitre indicates (3). The Hellenism-to-Judaism paradigm shift largely occurred in the wake of the Dead Sea Scrolls (1947), and was gradually nudged forward from the likes of E. P. Sanders, Wright, and Evangelical scholars like Craig Evans, and more recently, Michael Bird. Confessionally, Pitre is Roman Catholic, and although it does not Book Reviews 1413 intrude in the scholarship here, it is worth noting. Put bluntly, one questions where Catholic scholars have been on this issue over the past few decades. Indeed, Pitre’s monograph of more than five hundred pages is the first serious foray into this crucial biblical topic in what feels like ages. And its presence is a welcome addition to contemporary Jesus studies. Pitre’s monograph is commended for its clear and unambiguous methodology. Rather than sifting through page after page of exegetical minutiae before one can sort out a scholar’s point about the historical plausibility of a Gospel pericope, Pitre is upfront. At the outset of Jesus and the Last Supper, he lays out four primary questions: (1) Are the words and deeds of Jesus at the Last Supper historically plausible in a Jewish context? (2) What does the Last Supper reveal about Jesus’s self-understanding? (3) How does the Last Supper fit in Jesus’s overall eschatological outlook? (4) What does the Last Supper reveal about Jesus’s intentions toward the community of the disciples? These are smart questions, ambitious in scope yet not over-reaching. Such inquiries are sorely needed, and Pitre raises them precisely because of their neglect in contemporary scholarship. Clearly, Pitre is committed to delving into questions about the Last Supper traditions within the framework of Second Temple Judaism. Yet, it is not solely within a Jewish context that the study unfolds. Rather, Pitre anchors the discussion in what he calls the “triple contexts” of ancient Judaism, the life of Jesus (and the historical ekklēsia he founded), and the matrix of early Christianity. Without apology, Pitre’s method is not dependent upon consensus of the Synoptic problem, resting more tenuously than ever upon the “two source hypothesis” of Markan priority and the enigmatic “Q” source. Instead, he builds upon Sanders’s approach, who, in Jesus and Judaism, articulated this overlapping, threefold model. Helpfully, the locus of Pitre’s own method involve assessing the plausibility of the Last Supper traditions across these three horizons (34–52). Over the remainder of the book, Pitre tackles the aforementioned question. Employing a modified version of Sanders’s approach, he breathes new life into the stale state of the contemporary quests for the historical Jesus. Strikingly, Pitre expands Sanders’s approach, weighing data in both a “for” and “against” manner, as it concerns historical plausibility. Previously, the approach of most Jesus scholars only worked “in one direction—to authenticate evidence” (45). Thus, Pitre’s approach is more holistic, and actually more historically rigorous than many earlier “questers.” Another innovation is the introduction of a new vocabulary in historical Jesus research. Jesus studies have tended to operate in one of two directions. On the one hand are those that try to reconstruct the ipsissima verba 1414 Book Reviews Jesu (“exact words of Jesus”) which, as Pitre admits, is a daunting task. Even a cursory review of any number of “Synoptic parallels” often reveals slight but very real differences between the evangelists in their presentation of a given pericope. As Pitre puts it, the evangelists “do not seem bent on giving us anything like the exact words of Jesus,” as the Gospels are “not stenographs,” but closer to ancient bioi, that is, biographies (46). On the other hand are scholars who employ another approach, which aims at discovering the ipsissima vox Jesu, that is, the “exact voice of Jesus.” This too is problematic, and hard to nail down, yet far too many studies sift through endless data, trying to reconstruct the “primitive form” of a Jesus saying. In Pitre’s assessment, this approach over-emphasizes form over the substantial meaning of the words themselves. Pitre’s approach is somewhat innovative here, a kind of third option, which he deems the substantia verba Jesus, that is, the substance of the words of Jesus. As he bluntly states, he is “not looking for the ipsissima anything” (48). Readers will have to decide for themselves if Pitre’s method yields more or less insight of the historical details of the Last Supper. And yet, by the conclusion of the volume, his approach does seem to expose inconsistencies in the ipsissima methods of inquiry. As he points out, even asking the question “of whether ‘Jesus intended to found a church’ smacks of historical anachronism, and in no small part it has been discarded as a question unsuited to Jesus research and more fitted to systematic theology” (516, emphasis added). As a volume, Jesus and the Last Supper is comprised of six extensive chapters, many in excess of one hundred pages. Each chapter could nearly stand as an independent essay. Yet, given the careful methodology, and the overall thesis of the book, they are brought together and cohere as a careful, stepwise account of the Last Supper. Chapter 1 (1–52) lays out “The Problem of the Last Supper” and, as indicated, establishes the author’s methodological approach. In this opening chapter, Pitre also unveils the thesis of the book as a whole, and he is direct about this, too. When all of the data of the Last Supper is carefully assessed, the author suggests that “Jesus saw himself the new Moses who would inaugurate the long awaited new exodus, set in motion by a new Passover, bring back the miracle of the manna from heaven, and gather the twelve tribes of Israel into the heavenly and eschatological kingdom of God—all by means of his sacrificial death and the prophetic sign of his death that he performed at the Last Supper” (3; emphases added). Chapter 2 (53–147) immediately delves into the discussion of Jesus as “the New Moses.” In keeping with the “triple contexts” of his Sanders-like method, Pitre examines the relevant data from the standpoint of Second Book Reviews 1415 Temple Judaism, Jesus’s own life, and the early church. This chapter, like the whole of the book, is amply annotated, with reams of data supplied from antiquity, as well as pertinent studies in the field of the Gospels and historical Jesus research. Pitre’s handling of the Sinai traditions, especially concerning the “life” that is in the blood—and therefore, to be strictly avoided (see: Lev 17:10– 12; Deut 12:15–16)—is rich and engaging. Happily, Pitre again takes up the mysterious lehem panim (“bread of the presence”) in much more robust detail than he did in his earlier, more popular volume, The Eucharistic Words of Jesus (2011). Here, he engages in a close comparison of the Bread of the Presence (Exod 24-25; Lev 24) and the Institution Narratives in the Synoptics and Paul (Matt 26; Mark 14; Luke 22; 1 Cor 11). Near the end of the chapter, Pitre builds upon the work of Jesus scholar Crispin Fletcher-Louis, bringing together his insights on the lehem panim with Fletcher-Louis’ work on Jesus as priest. Here, Pitre boldly suggests that Jesus’s action at the Last Supper is priestly and messianic, and that he was “both instituting and distributing to his disciples the new bread and new wine of the presence” (143, emphasis added). Chapter 3 develops another theme Pitre dealt with in the earlier, shorter monograph, that of the “New Manna” of the New Moses (148–250). Here, Jewish manna traditions are examined, along with the brief Melchizedek texts of the Jewish Scriptures (Gen 14; Ps 110). The crux of the chapter deals with the text(s) of the Lord’s Prayer (Matt 6:9–13; Luke 11:2–4), as it pertains to the New Exodus. Here, a fascinating array of ancient texts are introduced, many of which pertain to the forgiveness of debt and the return of Jews to ancestral lands. Over fifty pages of the chapter are dedicated to Jesus’s Bread of Life Discourse in the Capernaum synagogue. In the end, Pitre concludes from the evidence that “the substance of the Capernaum teaching [substantia verba Jesu] in John 6:48–66 is in fact historically plausible as deriving from Jesus during his public ministry in Galilee” (250). Chapter 4 takes up another puzzle about the Last Supper, that of its “date” (251–373). After explaining the “apparent contradiction” that exists between the Synoptic Gospels and John, Pitre explores four possible solutions: one from the Essene community and its literature; two more that preference either the Synoptics or John; and the one he advocates, that he refers to as the “Passover Hypothesis.” Space does not permit a detailed discussion, but Pitre’s mastery of the issues, and the pertinent texts, is skillful. His Passover Hypothesis remedies the issue through, in his view, a better grasp of the terminology involved. Even if one does not agree with his conclusion, the essay redefines the way that the issue should have 1416 Book Reviews been—and will be dealt in subsequent scholarship. Chapters 5 and 6 round out the volume with fresh discussions of issues that have been stalled out: the “New Passover” as it emerges out of Judaism (374–443) and the “Eucharistic Kingdom of God” (444–512). These chapters will likely generate some disagreements among readers. They are also some of the richest and exciting discussions in historical Jesus scholarship in many years. In sum, Pitre’s expansive volume is a tour-de-force treatment of the all-important words of Institution, the Last Supper. His even hand, firm grasp of both primary sources and relevant scholarship, and bold assertions combine to make this a seminal contribution in contemporary Jesus studies. Moreover, Pitre has contributed a salient method—one that will hopefully be advanced by future scholars. This further cements its place as a seminal study of the early twenty-first N&V century, and one not be overlooked. Steven Smith Mundelein Seminary Mundelein, IL