THE THOMI T
A SPECULATIVE QUARTERLY REVIEW
OF THEOLOGY AND PHILOSOPHY

EmTons:

THE DoMINICAN FATHERS OF THE PROVINCE OF ST. JosEPH

Publishers:

VoL. VII

Sheed and Ward, Inc., New York City

OCTOBER, 1944

No.4

THE HUMANITARIAN VERSUS THE REIJGIOUS
ATTITUDE

I.
COMPLETELY or an originally irreligious civilization
has in all likelihood never existed, but it is not, in itself,
unimaginable; what is more important, the modern civilization of Western mankind, originally (and still, in part,
actually) Christian, has :revealed a trend of evolution towards
a society in which, practically speaking, religion as a determining factor of private and public life is to yield its place to
a non-religious, immanentistic, secular moral orientation which
may best be described succinctly as " humanitarian." While
such a prospect cannot but appall the believer, it has also
evoked misgivings and apprehension in a good many nonreligious or not emphatically religious students of human civilization; nay, terrified some of them, perhaps, to an extent to
which it could never terrify the believer himself. For it is pre-

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cisely the nobler and more perspicacious kind of mundane
thinker who is apt to be worried primarily about the fate of
human civilization as such, than which he knows no higher
thing. Yet it is a grave problem, and one that poses itself on a
purely worldly level of thinking, how far an irreligious civilization can subsist at all, or how soon it is bound to degenerate
into a state of barbarism: in other words, ·whether humanitarianism is essentially capable of maintaining itself in actual
reality or is fated to defeat its own ends, thus marking but a
brief transition towards disintegration ,and anarchy-coupled,
of necessity, with new phenomena of tyranny and new forms
of gross and superstitious creeds widely dissimilar to its own
mental world .. It goes without .saying that the rise of Communism and of Fascism-most characteristically, however, of
Nazism-is entirely calculated to impress the observer as premonitory signs (if not more) of just such a turn of evolution.
The problem I have indicated concerns the Catholic less
directly and from a somewhat different angle, but concern him
it ce:rtainly does. It is not only that we are interested in civilization as against barbarity; nor, merely, the greater freedom the
Church may hope to enjoy under a tolerant humanitarian system as compared with fresh brands of virulent paganism and a
totalitarian idolatry of secular power; it is also well for us to
understand wholly and in all its implications the intrinsio
of humanitarianism, so as to be able to help our
non:..Catholic and non-Christian fellows towards a fuller understanding thereof. For secular preoccupations of a legitimate
and dignified kind have often in history supplied valuable and
important elements of society with the initial motives for their
conversions to the Faith.
The sketchy 'remarks which follow, destined to throw some
light >on a very few aspects of the vast problem, are purely
analytic in character, and in no way supposed to contribute
directly to a historic prognosis or a cultural program. I may
also observe that I intend to examine, here, the " humanitarian "
attitude ·as, contrasted to the " religious " attitude in general,

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THE RELIGIOUS

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481

rather than to the specifically Catholic one. By no means does
this imply, however, any leaning towardS"the shallow and absurd
view that all religions "teach essentially the same thing"; nor
indeed the view that any kind of" religiousness" is necessarily
better, or more consonant with the basic values of Civilization,
than the irreligious attitude in its humanitarian form.

n.
A few clarifications regarding nomenclature may seem
advisable.
1. By a " religious attitude " we mean a corporate--or at
least, a socially relevant-outlook on human affairs which contains a reference to a " higher " Power (or a system of such
powers) underlying "cosmic" reality, and invested with a
" claim " to determine, direct, or guide human thought and
behavior. The terrri. "higher" is meant .to indicate an order
of Reality qualitatively distinct from the natural order of things
and events as experienced in the everyday existence of a given
society, including even such unknown objects and forces as can
at any rate be imagined as niere additional elements essentially
fitting into the texture of natural reality. The word " higher "
(for which" transcendent," or, in a looser sense," supernatural"
may be substituted) also connotes a specific relationship between the supposed Power and the gradation of recognized
values, as well as the hierarchy of social ·dignities, within
natural reality itself: deities are ·Usually, though in various
manners and degrees, conceived as the sourcc:;s, guardians and
guarantors of law and morality; as paragons and measures of
holiness and rectitude; moreover, as exemplars and incarnations
of things noble and things royal. The " Power " in question is
also credited with a specific relation to " cosmic " reality: with
a faculty of creative and ordering activity, in regard to the
things of nature, on · a radically and incomparably vaster
scale than the human one; a tendency towards assumptions
of universality, omnipotence, and creativeness proper is mostly
present in some form.

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AUREL KOLNAI

Thus, in religion, the incommensurableness between man and
the cosmic forces which surround and condition him without, apparently, being affected by his actions in any but an
infinitesimal sense, is at the same time reaffirmed and-tentatively, at least-healed: man is no longer simply a hopeless
exile lost in the vastness of things extra-human of which he is
doomed to occupy a tiny corner; by dint of his proper contact
with the Divine, to which cosmic reality is subject or in which
it is centered, he comes to fill a rightful place, to assume a
positional value as it were, in the Universe (whatever his
concrete conception of the latter). Finally, to the Divinethough its personal nature be represented in a vague and uncertain fashion only-is attributed a " claim " on man; in other
words, man's cognition of the Divine inherently entails obligations on his part. These are always closely interrelated,
though never purely and simply identical, with whatever he
experiences as moral obligations. The duties and functions of
men (in society, or under the eyes of society) thus appear to
be specifically incorporated in the ultimate principles of Being
as such. I have, naturally, employed a more or less modern
and technical language (though, as best I could, a "neutral"
one), rather unlike the terms in which actual religious consciousness is wont to express itself; yet it is in some such way,
I think, that the main purport of that consciousness may be
conceptually grasped.
It remains to be added, however, that the ·religious attitude
also very generally encloses what we might briefly call a negativistic aspect: a tendency to break, to pierce-at least, to modify
and to relativize-man's natural egoism, lust, and joy of life.
The motifs of asceticism, sacrifice, self-renunciation, of fear and
awe tinging the reverence due to the assumed higher powers,
are by no means confined to Hinduism and Christianity; in
some form or other, they reappear in practically every religion.
Some consciousness (be it ever so dim and rudimentary) of
the Fall and of the corruption of human nature, of the need
to " propitiate " the " angry " or " jealous " godhead-or again,

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ATTITUDE

433

of man's need to "purify" himself by techniques mostly involving asceticism-are seldom absent. It is by making him
aware of his ambiguous and precarious status as a natural being
that religion provides man with a more settled and enhanced
position in "the face of cosmic nature. His impotence in relation
to his environment is rendered more bearable, and indeed even
actually lessened in various indirect ways: but this is granted
at the price only that he refrains from certain actions which he
could perform without even becoming liable to any immediate
or clearly consecutive punishment, and that he constrains himself to certain other actions which by themselves are entirely
strange, and even contrary, to the trend of his primary and
" normal " needs.
In connection therewith, the religious attitude always fastens
on some element of mystery, too; some concrete and particular myths, holy objects, rituals and rules of conduct: things
which from the very outset (and not only in our modern
consciousness) essentially differ from the "evident" and more
generally communicable data of both experimental worldinterpretation and rational morality. In all religion there is
some aspect of the mysterious and arbitrary, distinct from
norma,! everyday orientation: something that-apart, perhaps,
from such rather specific states of mind as are described under
the name of " primitive " animism-subsists· as an alien body
in the midst of the otherwise prevailing types of thought
and " pattern of reactions." The religious contact is definitely
experienced as an "'irruption" into the natural set of relationships. (Thus the belief in miracles does not, as the pitiably
shallow philosophy of enlightenment would have it, issue from
ignorance of the "laws of nature"; on the contrary, the very
concept of the miraculous presupposes a familiarity with the
laws of nature.)
Finally, I have alluded to the " corporate " character, if not
of all religious belief or experience as such, yet of all religious
systems and practices. Religion is essentially not a matter
of " opinions," " convictions," or " conscience," though these

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AUREL KOLNAI

may play a legitimate part in a man's basic acceptance or. rejection of a religion, and again in their turn are conditioned
by one's religious allegiance and outlook. In fact, religion
always intrinsically tends to be " tribal " or " national," or
again, whether or not with a universalistic intent, to constitute a community of its, own-a " church." And, unlike many
other types of " association," the community coordinated to a
religion tends to enter into the thematic content of that religion: the ruler is a descendant or a member of divinity; the
people is a chosen or a priestly .one; the Church herself, as a
body, is holy. The adherents of a religion experience it, not
only as important and as uniting, but as the token, and the
generative principle as it were, of a specification of
aware of its own identity. If the religion is frankly universalistic, as is the case with Christianity, then mankind as a
whole is deemed to be destined to reshape itself in the concrete
community of the " children of God."
2. The irreligious attitude, on the other side, need not of
course be what we call a " humanitarian " one. An un-spiritual,
purely private and " selfish " outlook on life, for instance, is
of fairly common occurrence even in religious ages. Humanitarianism, however, is the standard type of non-religious philosophy. It has risen, in unprecedented vigor, on a soil tilled by
Christianity: that is to say, in our own modern age characterized
by a·decaying and shrinking Christian religiousness. Obviously,
Christianity at a stage of disintegration and retreat is calculated
to prepare the ground for humanitarianism, for the Christian
religion itself, being universalistic, personalistic and moralistic,
we may even say in a sense rationalistic, bears a strong connotation of humanitarianism in the broader sense of the term.
It places man as such in the center of the created universe;
hence the Christian in the process of losing hold of his religion,
and restricting his interests to the world of creaturely things,
is likely to set up " man as such " as the measure of everything,
and to develop a humanitarian outlook. Many simple minds
among the modern half-educated hold that huma,nitarianism is

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485

all that is essential arid worthy of respect in Christianity: he
who devotes;his cares to " social welfare " is the " true Christian,"
though he may not believe in the biblical God, that " old
gentleman with a big white beard,'' -seeing that he obeys
conscientiously the injunctions of Jesus the great "teacher"·
of " unselfishness." Many moderns less naive, and some of them
actually Christians,· maintain that humanitarianism is nothing
but " Christianity rationalized,"
in their eyes may mean
either a" perfected" or an impoverished Christianity. The truth
is.that humanitarianism is one of the primary, inherent possibilities of our philosophical orientation; it is revealed, for example, in certain types of ancient thought represented by men
who lived long before the Incarnation and never heard or cared
about the Jewish God. But certainly modern liberal society,
with its mental complexion mixed of Christian, semi-Christian
and post-Christian ingredients, exhibits the traits of humanitarianism with a unique sharpness and completeness.
The humanitarian attitude, then, takes its departure from the
" human needs " in a comprehensive sense of. the word: what
"men" desire and what they fear, what" men" appreciate and
what they loathe, what promises to secure or to enhance and
what is apt to threaten or to stunt the·" development " and the
" happiness " of " men" is to provide us with the basic data for
our orientation. All kinds of " needs " and the " needs " of all
men or groups of men are equally legitimate in principle; any
preconceived bias or restriction is illegitimate. Account is to be
taken, indeed, of the mutual interdependence and conditioning
of the " needs," including the tensions and antagonistic relations
among them: hence the necessity for a (temporary) repression
of needs, and for their " scaling" as well as for their " education," is granted. But certainly human needs can only be
opposed
on the strength of-more imperious and urgent,
more general and more durable needs. We must have a selective
:recognition and rejection or postponement of needs: but this
must be effected on the basis of a purely immanent consideration
of the needs themselves-that is, on a basis of "reason"; it

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AUREL KOLNAI

must not be done in deference to any prejudice claiming absolute recognition over and above human needs as such-which
would mean " superstition " in the place of reason.
A strictly humanitarian orientation is, of course, impossible
in practice, because an all-embracing conspectus of mankind's
needs is beyond the mental range of its members, taken individually and collectively; " arbitrary preferences " of various
kinds will always enter; though sometimes surreptitiously; they
tend to change more or less rapidly in the typical humanitarian
mentality, which logically involves a cult of flexibility and
adaptability. As regards the metaphysical interpretation of the
world most suited to humanitarian ethics, it is inherent in the
creed itself that this cannot be more than a secondary concern;
on the whole, however, some variety of a naturalistic, mechanistic and sensualistic pattern is undoubtedly preferable, since
an attempt to " explain " the world with ,the exclusion of
" transcendent " entities is best in tune with the central tenet:
the immanent sovereignty of human needs. Yet a deistic,
pantheistic, or even " Christian," phraseology may seem quite
permissible: for a really consistent, broad-minded humanitarianism will not hesitate to register the "religious needs of man,"
as well as his " aesthetic needs," along with the more serious
ones. In any concrete question of morals, moreover, humanitarianism may (and often does) happen to arrive at the same
conclusion as, say, Catholicism. That the irreligious-humanitarian morality is in no case actually and intrinsically "the
same" as any religious morality, and in what typical ways it
tends to differ therefrom in a material and tangible sense, will
be examined in the third and main part of this article.
3. Before that, however, we must devote some attention to
the phenomenon of quasi-religious attitudes. Man does indeed
stand in great " need " of religion: wherefore, whenever the
traditional religion of a civilization is weakening, and irreligious patterns of thought acquire ascendency in men's minds,
a secondary appearance of semi-religious or para-religious attitudes can be observed. We are faced with a heretical watering-

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ATTITUDE

437

down of the traditional religion, arbitrary qualifications of the
humanitarian creed, semi-scientific fads and fashions, autochthonous or imported superstitions actually believed or flaunted
of diversion, political ideologies assuming a religious
as a
tinge and fervor, and the like.
In our own days, Communism and Nazism are sometimes
described as "pseudo-religions"; the label is erroneous, particularly in the case of Communism, for what is present there
is not so much worldly incentives operating under a pretence
of religion as an attitude akin to the religious one which is
camouflaged as a "scientific" or purely political doctrine.
Hence we ought rather to speak of " crypto-religion," or use
the standard term adopted by some critics of. totalitarianism: " secular religion." In fact, concepts purely immanent,
natural and scientific in appearance, such as the " dialectic evolution of productive forces" or the " world revolution," the
" Nordic race " or the " Germanic values " etc., come to assume
a psychological function not devoid of certain " religious "
traits; for not only do they claim devotion and self-sacrifice,
they also carry with them a note of mystery and arbitrary
specification, they seem to embody a self-subsistent reality
"transcendent " to the rational operations of
individual
mind, and, in a word, they belong to the realm not merely of
political ideology but of " collective myths." Lenin and Stalin,
and Hitler to an even higher degree, unmistakably represent
mythical figures in a far more proper and pretentious sense of
the term than do the liberal, revolutionary and nationalist
political heroes of the last hundred and fifty years, or the minor
dictators of our own days.
In a very loose way of speech, we might of course call the
ideology of the French Revolution a " religious " one, as it is
certainly anything but a plain statement of" scientific truth";
but much more properly may we so describe Communism, and
again in a yet stricter sense, Nazi racialism. Although, in fact,
the "self-evident truths" of the liberal revolutionary ideology
are far less " self-evident " than they were made out to be,

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AUREL KOLNAI

and may in part be no truths at all,
are conceived as" selfevident" to anybody's individual reason as such; their appeal
is directed simply to the "enlightened self-interest" of men.
The aspect of " revelation " and " prophethood " implied in
Marxism- Leninism, and in a franker fashion and with stronger
metaphysical connotations, in Hitlerisn1, has no counterpart at
all in the sphere of humanitarian liberalism. Nor do I think
we are justified in calling nationalism · the " religion of . the
present age." A virulent and operative creed, enclosing even a
good deal of unreasonableness, need not be anything like a
religion: the latter requires an element of cosmic reference, of
superhuman afflatus, of mystical transcendency, experiencedthough not perhaps formulated-as such.
A society absolutely addicted to humanitarian irreligion seems
well-nigh impossible; the predominance of this creed will be mitigated by various " substitutes for religion " which in a religious
society would :rot be present or would be present in a less
emphatic, a more siiD;ply natural form only. Besides, in the
humanitarian societies we know Christianity itself has survived,
though largely in a fragmentary shape, and in a restricted. and
equivocal position. But Communism and especially Nazism,
signalizing
advance in depth of the crisis, seem to announce
the possible advent of genuine new religions opposed to humani:..
tarianism. This, however, is not meant as a prognosis. It is
conceivable that all attempts to introduce new heathen religions
in a society impregnated with Christianity will prove abortive;
that there will follow a reviviscence of the old religion, or again,
a consolidation and expansion of the humanitarian system made
more livable, for some time, by subordinate religious factors
like traditional Christianity, a somewhat tamed Communism,
and possibly others to come.
To avoid a crude misconception, it may be worth noting
that " genuine religion " has nothing, of course, to do with" true
religion " or " authentic faith." " Genuine religion" belongs to
a ,purely natural, socio-psychological, descriptive order of conit is quite. irrespective of the truth or untruth of the

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489

given religion's claim and contents. Several religions may not
be essentially true at the same time, nor even enclose the same
amount of partial truth; but many contradictory religions may
well be fully " genuine religions " at the same tin,.e. The worshippers of Baal professed a more genuine religion than many
present adherents of a vague and threadbare Christianity soaked
in humanitarianism; yet there is more truth, according to our
belief, in the religious" persuasions" of the latter than in those
of the idolaters.
TII.
Turning, now, to the differential description of the humanitarian as contrasted to the religious attitude, we must naturally
qualify our query. That the religious mind places God, or the
Deity, or things divine, in the center of its outlook upon life,
whereas irreligious humanitarianism does not admit of these
except perhaps as mere verbal decorations-this is not the
difference which interests us here but only the premise to it:
the definition underlying the question. We might best put the
actual question in the form of an initial doubt on its relevancy.
There is an obvious nexus between religion and morality; but
most of us have known definitely moral men who were wholly,
or all but, irreligious. Civilizations seem to be called into life,
and sustained, by religions; but, to put it in guarded terms, a
case can be made out for progresses being possible in a civilization weakening in religion and approaching the creed of
irreligious humanitarianism.
We may prefer, and prefer infinitely (supposing, in particular, that we are already believers in one given religion)
religion plus morality, and religion plus civilization, to morality
and civilization alone; or again, to express it differently, morality or civilization inspired and informed by religion to morality
or civilization built on irreligious foundations. Yet at the same
time we might be obliged to admit that as morality or civilization pure and simple, one may look very much like the other.
To take one very plain example: I may, at the risk of my
own life, rescue a fellow-man from a burning house, because I

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AUREL KOLNAI

obey God's commandment enjoining the love of one's neighbor;
but I may equally do so without believing in any divine
legislation, because I consider it a moral duty on humanitarian grounds. It would be a false notion (and, let it be
stressed particularly, by no means a Catholic one) that in
the second case my action, though objectively useful, cannot be
a genuinely moral one. Certainly I may also rescue the man
from danger because he is a debtor of mine, or in order to boast
of my courage; but that is not the supposition. On the other
hand, quasi-religious motives may .also sometimes approximate
towards a crude utilitarianism in reference to expectations in
the hereafter.
Not only is it possible for a man to understand, to appreciate, and to cultivate, say, justice, kindness and self-control,
without referring them back to the qualities and the will of
God, but (in orthodox Catholic doctrine at least) the immanent
distinction of Good and Evil is one of the logical premises to the
Faith itself (God is good, and wills the good; the good is not
simply " what God wills ") . Are we, then, concerned with a
mere difference in the ultimate motivation of moral behavior,
without any bearing on the essential contents, as well as the
actual recognition, of morality?
1. It is .indeed the problem of motivation, and, linked to
that, the problem of obligation on which the defenders of religious morals have dwelt most insistently when criticizing humanitarian ethics. From recognizing the good to practising it, from
discerning moral values to accepting the sometimes very onerous
obligations they entail, it is a far cry: religious belief in a cosmic
reality specifically related to the moral law, and it alone, will
guarantee the acceptation of that sacrifice, the translation of
moral cognition and preference into terms of action-with the
renunciation of pleasures and the endurance of hardships implicit therein. The irreligious man may fulfill his duties so long
as they are pleasant; he may also comply with unpleasant ones
so long as the privation of satisfactions they involve is moderate,
and there is a recompense in sight on another level of pleasures;

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441

but as soon as duty pure and simple confronts the behest of
the senses or the possessive instinct, duty will prove weaker:
as soon as the man's morality is put to the ultimate and
decisive test, it will break down. Viewed in the average perspective, this argument is certainly sound; though it is worth remembering that moral life as a whole does not predominantly consist of " ultimate and decisive tests " and heroic situations, and
that religious moralists and pedagogues, too, are almost invariably eager to point out the physical and secular usefulness of a
moral conduct and the probable deleterious consequences of sin.
It is more important for us to emphasize, however, that irreligion is also bound to impair moral cognition itself. True, the
irreligious mind may discern good from evil; but again it may
not. Whereas our primary " moral sense " as such does not
depend on religious concepts, it yields no concrete, certain, and
fully articulated knowledge of good and evil: the latter requires
an authoritative divine guidance (which may reaeh us either in an
authentically revealed or, at any rate, in a vague, dimmed, and
partly distorted form). Whenever, on the other hand, a moral
duty strikes the " decent " but irreligious man as definitely
unpleasant, he may well tend to explain it away and to develop
a falsified ethic in order to escape both material unpleasantness
and the equally unpleasant consciousness of moral guilt or
inferiority. Against such an aberration he is protected by no
sure safeguard. The humanitarian ethicist who takes his stand
on the comprehensive system of " human needs " will no doubt
arrive at many materially correct conclusions: first, because
true morality in fact closely corresponds with the universal
and perennial" needs of man," and secondly, because our supposed ethicist, if he is intelligent, will take account of the
"data" of the natural "moral sense," too (that is, of men's
average moral preferences and judgments), in his calculus of
"human needs"; yet nothing need keep him from placing, in
regard to certain problems and in given cases, the urge of morally
indifferent or intrinsically reprehensible "needs" (which he
deems to be more pressing, more general, or more unalterable)

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above even very clearly voiced imperatives of the "moral
sense." Not only, then, is irreligious morality a fragile thing in
practice, but humanitarian ethic, too, is at its best a flimsy
texture at· the mercy of inherent dangers.
Moreover, it must be axiomatic even for the non-religious but
unprejudiced student that humanitarian and religious morality
must always be different in quality. I am not hinting, of course,
at the "supernatural virtues" treated in Catholic philosophy,
which logically presuppose the Q.elief in transcendent objects of
veneration, but am entirely confining myself to the sphere of
natural morality. The moral judgment (the act of approval or
disapproval as such) , the moral decision and outward action,
may occasionally or frequently be the same; the moral experience
as a whole--even in reference to limited cases or subject-matters
-is never the same. For the religious consciousnes-s will, whenever a " moral attitude " is elicited, experience the divine
exemplar, codifier and guarantor of virtue at least as a background element of the situation. God is, generally speaking, not
the thematic center of natural morality, but the underlying
relationship with Him cannot but color and complete even
the humblest moral act of deliberation or decision, however
humdrum its object. We may understand the "nerve" of
justice, as it were (and behave accordingly), without any
reference to divine justice ordering the world and providing
even human justice with a- supreme sanction; but with such a
reference wanting or being excluded, we are cut off from the
full meaning of justice--applied to matters howsoever· trifling.
On the impossible supposition that there were no God, I
should still speak "the truth" in affirming that a cardboard
box now lying em my writing-desk is yellow and circular, and
tell a " falsehood " in asserting that it is blue and hexagonal;
yet the thought of God having revealed Truth and not falsehood, of Jesus having risen from the dead "in truth" (which
the suspicious and critical Thomas quite understandably
doubted at first but was ultimately compelled to admit on the
strength of a supremely realistic test), of" Ego sum via, veritas

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443

et vita," of true dogma and false
etc., provides Truth,
if i may so put it, with a sounding-board of sacredness and
inexorable earnestness, should the " truth " in question even concern the color and shape of an unimportant object. Apart
from the cases of sensual attraction,
personal "fancyor unpersonal tribal " identification,'' the love of our
fellow-men will bear a prn:n, ice-cold, multilated quality unless
it be grounded in the love of Him Who alone is absolutely
worthy of love and Who bestows His gratuitous primal love
upon all of us. Humility and reverence in the human relationships which properly require them may be possible without
religious piety, but they cannot help losing depth, savor, and
firmness, if the sphere of their primary and standard objects is
removed.
The realm of "mores,. (that is, of morally relevant social
custom) is perhaps even more intimately dependent on religious allegiance than the realm of morality proper. It is by
no means in Christian communities alone that asebeia has,been
felt to he inseparable from anarchy and moral disintegration.
IJ'he reconciliation of personal freedom, dignity, selfhood, and
vitality with the requirements of social disciplne and coordinatio_n, though it may he conceived on extra-religious grounds,
constitutes a special function of religion (owing to the specifically " uniting " power of religious experience, and for other
reasons which cannot he discussed here); in this matter, particularly, the humanitarian experiment is drawing
the dwindling resources of Christianity, and the precarious balance it
has achieved exhibits the signs of shifting towards a totalitarian
or " identitarian "loss of liberty and personality: a self-idolatry
of " society " pregnant, perhaps, with new types of pagan quasireligiousness.
In sum, the primordial contrast between religious and
humanitarian morality lies in the "metaphysical substructure,
and accordingly, in the ultimate or" official" motivation rather
than in the contents; hut motivation and contents are far from
being radically separable from each other, and, though it be in

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variable ways and degrees, an essentially altered motivation is
certain to react upon the contents themselves. Thus, generally
speaking, irreligious humanitarianism necessarily involves a certain bias for immoralism inasmuch as it has no room for the
concept of intrinsic moral evil, and of the moral scissure in
human nature. Rejecting all intrinsic discrimination between
human " needs," and interpreting moral " evil " merely in terms
of impulses which in given conditions are likely to interfere with
the fulfillment of more imperious, general, and permanent
" needs," it is b<Jund to profess an ethical " positivism " cleared
from all experience of " sin," which is tantamount to a flattening
out of all moral life into a technique of the gratification of
desires. True, the full substantiality or self-subsistence of
" evil " is questioned in certain religious systems of thought,
too (thus, in Catholicism as against Manichaeism); but notwithstanding the essential goodness of being as such, at least in
a secondary sense the existence of intrinsic evil-of a basic
perversion of the will-is not only admitted but centrally
emphasized. Hence, a tendency in favor of the " free will," of
responsibility in the strict sense, of a fundamental distinction
between formal and merely material defects of human conduct,
and of the idea of retaliation: a tendency entirely alien to the
humanitarian attitude.
The humanitarian attitude will lean towards making the
goodness or badness of any type of conduct dependent on the
part it may play in a functional framework of situations; placing instincts and moods on a footing with the direction of the
will, manifestations of the "subconscious" with decisions enacted by man's central personality, deficiency in" training" or
" development " as well as " disease " with malice and deliberate
wickedness; and substituting " cure " or " prevention," " education" or "elimination," for all retaliation proper. To the
humanitarian mind, Raskolnikov's "claim" to slaying and
despoiling the old usurer will probably appear " erroneous,"
but not altogether absurd (on the one hand, the old woman's
" right to live " is as much a primary " datum " as everybody

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else's; on the other, a strong and gifted young man represents
a so much greater volume of " needs " and so much more
potential usefulness for " society " that his "miscalculation "
is at any rate understandable); while the public authority's
right to execute the murderer must obviously appear absurd
and fictitious-for the infliction of death and suffering will not
be made undone but merely aggravated by the consequent
infliction of more death and suffering. Under humanitarianism,
the judgment of crime will tend to degenerate into a mere protection of " majority " interests: to shrink to a mere repression
of the inconvenient-or again, perhaps, to expand into a suppression of whatever may be deemed inconvenient. The selfsame
mentality that rejects the concept of punishing the evildoer as
" superstitious" or a " mere disguise for the primitive urge of
revenge" may glibly accept the "elimination" of the "unfit
for life" or the" maladjusted" as an act of" higher humanity."
3. It can be maintained that, in spite of its essential bent
towards immoralism, the humanitarian attitude may also at
certain phases find expression in a kind of hyper-moralism.
Such transitional phases in the process of the impoverishment
and evaporation of corporate religion have been marked, for
instance, by waves of hyper-moralism of the Stoic and the
Puritan type. An intensified, systematized, and particularized
moral strain may be substituted for the vanishing mystical substance of religion; with faith proper growing more doubtful,
reduced, and threadbare, a crampedly " impeccable " life may
serve to demonstrate one's "effective" belief in whatever is
"truly essential" in religion, or one's actual membership in the
body of the " elect " or the " wise."
In advanced humanitarianism, the aspect of hyper-moralism
will still be present but bear a different tinge. It will no longer
ding to arbitrary relics from the old religious morality (including this or that element of material, " mystical " ethics, as well
as the overstressing of individual " conscience ") but appear
more strictly formalistic and organizational: while morality no
longer consists in anything but a rational and comprehensive
2

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administration of " human needs " as such, men's VISion is
directed to ensuring a " m-oral world " and an omnipresence of
moral conduct. There is not much sense left in the concept of
sexual purity; but, on the other hand, a large-scale building of
spacious apartments for everybody will cause sexual impurity
to disappear automatically and universally. The " solution of
the economic problem " will similarly do away with hatred,
jealousy, greed, petty egoism, etc., for when all will live in
abundance, there will be no need for anybody to develop such
emotions. Liquor prohibition, the 'outlawry of war, the organized World State, universal free trade, institutionalized national self-determination, etc., come within the same context.
Certainly moral values taken in any specific sense of the term
seem to be engulfed and transposed here entirely in concepts
of material or " psychic " welfare; but the less content attaches
to the idea of moral perfection and the less moral substance
appears to be left over, the more pretentious and cocksure
becomes the pursuit of the claim to a formally " perfect " world,
a morally " waterproof " and indeed a " foolproof " reality as
it were.
4. In general, we may state that the humanitarian attitude,
while not necessarily out of contact with moral as distinctfrom
material or hedonic values, will be inclined to concentrate (more
and more, in the progress of its unfolding) on such moral values
as can be grasped somehow in analogy with the evidence of the
outward senses. Hence the ascendancy a) of formalism, b) of
materialism-as opposed a) to · " material," " objective," or
"intrinsic" value, b) to spiritual points of view. Supposing the
primary sovereignty of human needs without any distinction
derived from man's dependence on a higher sphere of being, and
having regard to their most complex and variable interrelationship, our orientation will necessarily seek guidance from principles
as " plain " and " neat " as possible, which are invested with a
character of quasi-geometrical "self-evidence." The repression
of inordinate self-seeking, the principle of commutative justice
may carry as much appeal to the humanitarian as to the Chris-

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tian; an appeal always lacking, of course, the complete weight
of the Christian experience of good or ill, but occasionally, let
it be admitted, exercising an even more acute and-transitorily,
at least-more effective pressure. Every possibility of quantification will be seized upon: the" greatest good" of the "greatest
number" is proclaimed; every inequality, at least every inequality
not directly traceable to innate physiological differences, is
frowned upon as an injustice. The differential characteristics
of human persons will be negated unless they are verifiable by
experimental and statistical methods. Much more attention is
paid to the problem of making everyone alike share in the
" good life " than to the query as to what the good life really is
like; there is less and less care about the existence of standards
of culture, but an enormous amount of thought and effort is
devoted to the dissemination of culture through education; because the meaning and purpose of life are viewed as purely
immanent, and therefore at once self-evident and insusceptible
of definition, the technique of life (with a particular stress on
technology) becomes the object of a devotion unmistakably
imbued with a kind of misplaced religious fervor.
The fatal tendency towards materialism is but another side
to this. Taking needs as needs, the material needs of man are
more massive, urgent, and obtrusive than those of the soul, and
therefore procure a surer guidance and a more fixed pattern of
orientation. Everything else appears reduced to the status of a
supplementary decoration; it is ordered on the model of the
classic and proven organization of things material; the spiritual
is tolerated or appreciated as an epiphenomenon, a superstructure, an article of luxury-gossamer stuff, as it were, that cannot be taken truly seriously in the face of the solid necessities
and securities of the material sphere. Nor does this hang on the
phrase " human needs," which I think is most expressive of the
attitude in question, but is inherent in the very essence of that
attitude; instead of " needs," we may as well choose as a dominant formula human " welfare " or " happiness," or even the
"full unfolding of man's dispositions and capacities." All these

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AUREL KOLNAI

may be, and very often are, interpreted generously and intelligently so as to comprise the spiritual, not excepting even the
"religious yearning": yet, once the perspective of an immanent
humanitarianism is adopted and maintained, the spiritual will
be credited with no other mode of existence than a mere elongation or "sublimation" (that is, a possibly attractive but unnecessary and peripheric refinement) of the material, an affair
of Sunday boredom or festive recreation, of after-dinner pasttime or ungenuine romanticism.
An unprejudiced contemplation of "humanity," with its
curious, manifold, and contradiCtory attributes, is indeed calculated to draw us towards religion: in other words, towards
the discovery of man's "fallenness" as well as his peculiar
ontological nobility; of his relation to a supra-human reality
which exists outside him; in a word, of the radical inadequacy of humanitarianism. However, given the premise of an
artificial restriction to "humanity," implying the axiom that
all" higher aspirations" of man are meaningless or at any rate
irrelevant for us except as "higher aspirations of man "irrespective of the objective goal towards which they pointthe physical substratum of " human nature " cannot help
occupying a central and overwhelming position. If a moribund
patient is known to be a devout Catholic, or expresses the wish
to receive the Sacraments, we will of course be considerate and
complaisant enough to send for a priest, if only to apply a bit
of soothing psycho-therapy; but on the plane of terrestrial
immanence, any drug which we hope to be ever so slightly
efficacious will appear more important and needful than the
religious ceremony.
"Culture," again, has no small prestige in the wor1d of
humanitarianism; but it has often been observed that it is
valued in view of its being somehow translatable-through
whatever more patent or more hidden channels of ideas, and
interactions of forces-into terms of "money." The ultimately essential category is not, of course, " money " (it is not
an affair of capitalism or market economy, with socialism as a

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" remedy ") , but " welfare," economic security and supersecurity, protection and perfection of the functional mechanism
of " life." " Culture " and its enjoy:rp.ent is supposed to " educate," " recreate," and " ennoble " man: to render him fitter
for work and more " productive," to alleviate the strains he
must endure, and to make him more amenable to smooth and
rational " cooperation."
Anyhow, the claim of taking into account man's spiritual
nature without a genuine and dominant reference to suprahuman spiritual reality is comparable to pretending to a vision
of man's physical nature without a knowledge of the lower
animals and the realm of inanimate material things. In the
climate of irreligion, man's spiritual functions and capacities
(considered, even, in a purely natural context of objects) willno matter how much lip-service and sincere enthusiasm be
devoted to them-inevitably be understimulated, undernourished, underexercised, and condemned to atrophy; it is the
inherent nemesis of hpmanitarianism that the proclamation of
man's " sovereignty " is bound to displace his center of gravity
into the nether regions of his being, and to degrade his nature
towards a level of sub-humanity. But, seeing that man is and
remains man, he is certain to react, sooner or later, in a fashion
unforeseen ·by his humanitarian shepherds: to react morbidly,
dismally, disastrously, and perhaps, again, aspiringly and
gloriously.
5. A particular point we must pause to consider is that of
sexual morality. That the irreligious mind is precluded from
the apperception of the values of purity would again be a rash
asseveration. Humanity in general possesses an experience of
these as of other moral values-though, unenlightened by
religious revelation and moulding, it is mostly a stunted and
rudimentary one-and sexual immorality rests, not on a literal
absence of that experience but (apart from the "weakness of
the flesh" proper which is apt to stifle it) on the intellectual
counter-pressure of hedonistic ideologies. Now such a "repression " of the moral sense by adverse ideology is particularly

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AUREL KOLNAI

likely to occur in regard to sex morality. Moral" inhibitions"
in this field, more than in any other zone of natural morality,
are likely to be qualified by the humanitarian critic as superstitious, obsolete, " hostile to life," and " opposed to happiness."
The reason is obvious. " Lust "-that is, inordinatt> sexual
pleasure-typifies, in the most exemplary and characteristic
manner, the concept of "sin" as such; and the valuation of
purity is the very touchstone of " material " (essential, intrinsic,
objective) ethics. In other words," lust" comes nearest to the
idea of a material element of life-or a state of mind-" evil by
itself" (the word "impure" is meant to express this) rather
than evil on account of its impeding the gratification of more
imperative needs or impinging upon more inviolable rights.
Perhaps it will be objected that (in Catholic ethics, for
instance) the seeking of pleasure is not itself immoral, the
profligate or the pervert sinning merely in that he procures
himself pleasure by illicit means: just as the thief deserves
reproof only because he deprives another person of his rightful
property, whereas the use to which he turns the stolen object
or money has (generally speaking) nothing bad in itself. However, the structure of the two situations is entirely different: in
the case of theft, there is a clear disjunction between good or
permissible " ends " and criminal " me::J,ns," whereas in the case
of " evil lust," such a separation is untenable; the circumstances
which make sexual enjoyment immoral determine the quality
of the pleasure in question and taint the respective experience
of the subject as a whole. The situation is comparable not to
the one involved in theft as it "normally" happens but to
what theft would be if the thief enjoyed with intense excitement the act of stealing itself rather than the goods of which
he thus unlawfully gains possession.
On the other' hand, sex immorality-in its isolated typical
forms, uncomplicated by violence or deceit-fails to involve
any transgression of the " rights of others," or even any damage to their interests; in an immanent computation of " human
needs," therefore, we may easily be driven to decide that those

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needs in their entirety are better served by disregarding certain
"needs for chastity" than by refusing gratification to certain,
more or less vehement, sensual needs proscribed by religious
or traditional morality. Humanitarian ethics will, without
doubt, acknowledge and stress the elementary necessity of
self-control and the general readiness to exercise it; but apart
from this abstract and formal postulate, definite standards of
purity can hardly count on any support. The individual and
social " harmfulness " of inordinate sexual pleasure as such
being susceptible of a very vague and circuitous demonstration
only, it will appear " rational " to entrust its indulgence or
shunning to anybody's personal taste-and more than that, to
denounce any emphatic moral standpoint and terminology in
these matters as intolerant, superstitious, narrow-minded, arbitrary, and obnoxious. Immoralism will sometimes make fun
of our resentment at murder, robbery, cruelty, tyranny,
treachery, mendacity, arrogance, etc., "unmasking" it as a
manifestation of inferiority, the" instinct of revenge,"" neurotic
fear," or what-not; but serious and responsible humanitarianism
will rarely endorse such a nihilistic attitude except in a local and
accidental context. In regard to the sphere of purity, however,
the outlook is darker. For here, as we have seen, adequate and
objective moral experience is more intimately linked to a sense
of religious mystery-a genuine belief in substantial " good "
(with the concept of" holiness" hovering uncomfortably near),
and in at least quasi-substantial evil. The temptation to discard
this k!nd of moral experiences as delusive, neurotic, wayward,
and requiring a thorough "rationalization" (that is, dissolution) , is perilously plausible. Only think of how the vast
majority of non-Catholic opinion today looks upon Catholic
standards concerning contraceptives and divorce or remarriage,
not as too lofty and rigorous but as frankly revolting and
scandalous.
The most important consequence lies, not even so much perhaps in the actual spreading of sexual licence and its biological
and sociological effects, disastrous though these may be, as in

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the enervating and deadening action of ideological immoralism
in respect of purity upon men's moral sensibility as a whole.
The category of good and evil--of virtue and
as
it were, mystically up-rooted here, a process of shrinking· and
flattening will blight moral life in its entirety, including even
its most directly " justifiable " and " useful " manifestations.
With the destruction of morality par excellence, the psychological center of moral fastidiousness is obliterated, the ground
prepared for further corrosive " interpretations," the leverage
established for the destruction of morality pure and simple.
A certain formal analogy to the theme of purity is presented
by the moral problem of suicide. The felo de se, too, " violates
nobody's rights" and merely exercises, according to his preference, his empire over himself. Here, again, the humanitarian
mind is at great difficulty to find any justifiable ground for
moral "interference"; and this, again, is a matter of at least
great symbolic importance. Humanitarianism, while it certainly
does not encourage man to practise all sorts of iniquity, portends
a decisive moral abandonment of man.
6. Another important dimension in which the contrast between the two " attitudes " unfolds impressively is connected
but by no means identical with the sphere of sexual morality.
I am hinting at the rather obscure problems of generation and
biological continuity; the sense of the future and the instinct of
prevision; the experience of supra-individual duration. The fact
that " modern " man, under the influence of what is called here
irreligious humanitarianism, reveals a growing tendency to stop
procreation and to view the preservation and the status of his
family (as a relatively "immortal" social unit) with indifference has been much commented upon. It is not manifest that
this should be so; on the contrary, it would be quite understandable that the loss of the religious belief in the soul's survival after death should strengthen the need for " surviving in
one's progeny"; also humanitarianism obviously tends, not to
neglect but to overemphasize the physical care for children and
the task of their mental education. In fact, " enlightened " man

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often refrains from begetting progeny unless he feels he can
guarantee the utmost degree of security regarding its physical
constitution and economic position-which does not happen too
frequently or abundantly. However, at the heart of this meticulous responsibleness we may again and again discover an all
too anxious insistence on one's own" standard of living "-the
famous " motor-car which is more indispensable than a child."
Yet this is not simply a matter of greed. Rather it ensues from
a pious economy, not to say a deification, of "actual human
needs": that is to say, the claims of human beings existing at
present (including children), or presumed as "present ones"
(children whose existence is "anticipated"). The wilful and
"unplanned" multiplication of "claimants," with the attendant
complication of "needs," is looked upon as irrational; the
sovereignty of " actual needs " is incompatible with the realization of a biological or historical continuum. Hence the tendency, not only to regard contraceptive practice as laudable, but
to consider even artificial abortion as more or less justifiable.
Irreligious man lives "in the moment"; his great concern
about the fate of such children as he happens to have or consents to have does not mean a genuine tribute to the future but
merely the incorporation of some technically " future " interests
in the context of the present moment: not a genuine recognition
of supra-momentary duration (which seems to presuppose a
mystical experience, however vague, of eternity as mirrored in
continuity throughout time) but merely a craving for "improvement," " evolution," and " expansion " essentially im.manent to the " present moment." Whoever looks back upon "::he
past as simply dead and done for will also lack the capacity for
any organic contact with the future. And a mind must be so
fashioned which rejects the idea of there being anything more
holy and more objectively real than, one's "actu.al needs" as
well as those of the " other members of society " (who people
one's" actual," momentary world). What is most characteristic
of the full-fledged irreligious mind is not its disbelief in the immortality of the soul but its loss of the desire for immortality:

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the evanescence of any meaning attached thereto. This observation is not contradicted but confirmed by the " modem " tendency to ignore death, or banish it from the realm of consciousness, as though it were an unhappy accident or an indecent
eccentricity, avoidable in general. Instead of the longing for a
status in the order of eternity, the moment with its more and
more elaborately subserved needs is set up as a substitute for
eternity.
Furthermore, the severing of ties with transcendent reality
also determines-subtly and slowly though this law may impose itself-a desiccation and fading away of man's psychic
bonds with reality pure and simple. The " release of energies "
ostensibly brought about by man's emancipation from religious
concerns, anxieties and inhibitions proves temporary, illusory,
and lethal. Life that has become " its own master " is bound
for suicide. I will no more than mention one highly important
political implication: the increasing difficulty for liberal-democratic societies of conducting a sustained foreign policy based
on prevision and the sense of continuity.
7. That " culture " in the specific sense of the term-high
art, and creative thought-are likely to be seared and to wither
away in an age of irreligion has become almost a truism these
days, although there was a time when " culture " in this high
sense was expected to profit from the disappearance of religion,
and also to supersede it advantageously. For it may be conceded
that the initial relaxation of religion's control over men's minds
may sometimes produce a stimulating and enlivening effect on
thought and imagination: the first doubts concerning what was
generally and unquestionably held to be true yesterday, as well
as a certain measure of the freedom to disagree even in basic
things, may exercise an apparently fertilizing fascination on the
mind and encourage the flight of fancy. But a morbid overexcitement dissembling an inward consumptive process-a decrease of genuine power and of recuperative
not
be slow to follow, and in due course will again yield its place
to manifest drabness, inertia, and mental drought. The truth is

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that man is as little equipped to be " imaginative " of his own
force as to maintain his moral level on the resources of his own
nature. Creative and constructive imagination is consistent
with disbelief in the existence of its· object, or with a state of
evanescent religious belief iri general, but it is not consistent
with religious unbelief as a basic and stabilized state of mind;
nor can it thrive in a social milieu sterilized of transcendent
references. Imagination may not imply actual belief, but it does
imply a resonance of actual belief, piety, devotion, anxiety,
consciousness of one's dependence on a superior Reality: when
that resonance is dead, imagination itself will crumple up and
become mummified in spite of all endeavors to recapture a
mystical "mood" (which is in fact only the aura attending
the actual deference to a mystical reality) and of all artifices
applied to " inspiring " our thoughts with the allegedly " noblest " theme of human welfare and " optimum adjustment to
conditions."
Perhaps, it will be contended, the lack or ungenuineness of
" high culture " can be put up with if at the same time society
lives in a civilized order and a state of prosperity-including
literacy and a good level of education-which is doubtless possible in logic. But is it so in reality? In this respect many
doubts have been expressed. " Where there is no vision the
people perish " is a slogan often to be heard today; though
most of those who repeat it seem to take it for granted that
the prospering of the " people " is itself the primary and proper
object of the " vision." Anyhow, I may not be far wrong in
assuming that a danger deeper and more dismal is inherent in
spiritual inanition and levelling than the boredom and dissatisfaction of a tiny " minority " of refined intellectuals.
Humanitarianism suppresses, thwarts, and stultifies too much
that is by no means a mere froth upon the surface of " serious "
life but belongs to the very viscera of human constitution.
Whether or when the mankind of which we are will again
hunger strongly and widely for the kingdom of Our Lord we do
not know; but there are not a few presages that in some way or

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other (sociologically speaking) the "gods and demons" will,
sooner and more sweepingly than many would surmise, come
into their own.
More acute observers have voiced the paradoxical suspicion
that the emancipation. and deification of human " life's aims "
may result in a decay of men's joy of life, psychic vitality, and
appetite for work as well as enjoyment of pleasure. If that
were true, and more than an accidental and sporadic or transitory phenomenon, it might indeed mean that humanitarianism
is doomed to defeat its own ends. Some would put the blame
specifically on Puritanism; but I wonder whether the old crabbed
Puritans did not live with far more "gusto" and vigor than
do the vitamine-conscious sovereign selves of an earth-controlling, labor-saving," streamlined" modernity. Others would
indict, precisely, mechanized production and the soulless " mass
existence" it determines; but civilizations which lacked our
technological temptations have revealed more or less analogous
symptoms of psychic· consumption after the basic faith which
inspired them was gone; it seems as though our socio-economic
technique of life were less a primary cause than an effect and
ex;>ression of more central processes.
We will not argue at any length with the not too numerous austere moralists who allege that modern man is cloyed
and oversaturated with goods and pleasures (as though the
simple abundance of goods or comforts could account for
the fierce obsession with prosperity; as though surfeiting itself
would not indicate a wrong and one-sided kind of food, or
an ill-balanced disposition on the eater's part) nor with those
tenacious humanitarians who persist in denouncing " underconsumption " and this or that " maladjustment " betokening
that the "economic problem" or, better still, the "cultural
problem " is " not yet solved." Most of us bewail the " disproportion between mankind's stupendous progress in controlling the material forces of the world and his much less satisfactory control of moral and spiritual ones "; and this sounds
fairly convincing. However, the reason does not lie in the

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so much greater controllability of material forces but in the
fact that Man has essentially chosen to "progress" on the
wrong track; and he will continue doing so as long as he dreams
of " controlling moral and spiritual forces " (on the model of
the material ones, of all things!) instead of surrendering to the
moral and spiritual Reality outside and above him.
By formalizing, restricting, relaxing and refusing his allegiance to Him Who Is, man has set himself at war (a war
waged on innumerable fronts) with Being as such, and condemned himself to seek satisfaction in the dissolution and reduction of all Substantiality and Nobility. By "emancipating" the Image from its Exemplar, the privileged, Creature
from its sovereign Creator, he has virtually destroyed his very
humanity. He will recover his humanity (including even its
undergrowth of psychic robustness) as soon as he truly and
integrally reasserts the· greatest and most vital of his needs,
ignored and maimed and stifled by humanitarianism: the need
for a meaning of his life which points decisively and majestically beyond the range of " his needs."
AuRET· Km,NAI

Cambridge, Ma.M.

THE CONFIGURATION OF THE SACRAMENTAL
CHARACTER

I

N THE Council of Trent the Church has solemnly defined
that three sacraments, Baptism, Confirmation and Holy
Orders, impress on the soul an indelible mark, by reason
of which these sacraments cannot be repeated. 1 In virtue of
this definition, therefore, it is necessary to believe in the existence of a sacramental character. It is also necessary to believe,
in virtue of this same definition, that the mark impressed by
the sacraments, and called a character, is a spiritual and supernatural quality inhering in the soul, distinct from divine grace. 2
In regard to the indelibility of the sacramental character
mentioned in the definition of the Church, it is a matter of
faith that the character remains at least during the earthly life
of the one receiving it. The doctrine that the character endures
forever, that is, in the souls both of the glorified and the
damned, is at least theologically certain, if not a matter of
faith. 8
Theologians have for a long time investigated the nature of
the sacramental character to determine its precise nature as a
quality and its immediate subject of inherence. Nothing has
been defined by the Church in regard to these questions, but
the doctrine of St. Thomas that the sacramental character
effects in the soul a participation in the priesthood of Christ can
be said to be theologically certain by reason of common accep-

1 Sessio VII, can. 9: Si quis dixerit in tribus sacramentis, baptismo, scilicet, confirmatione et ordine, non imprimi characterem in anima, hoc est signum quoddam
spirituale et indelibile, unde ea iterari non possunt; A. S. Cf. Denzinger, Enckiridion
Symbolorum, 852.
• Cf. B. Durst, "De Characteribus Sacramentalibus," in Xenia Thomistica, IT,
p. 551.
8 Ibid.

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tance by theologians. The question, however, as to the precise
way in which this participation in the priesthood of Christ is
effected by the sacramental character is again a matter of free
discussion.
Since the twelfth and thirteenth centuries, when theologians
began to scrutinize minutely the nature of the character, it has
been described as a sign that is distinctive, configurative, dispositive and obligatory. What particular meanings these terms
have depends largely upon the particular theologian's views
concerning the nature of the character (that is, the category of
being to which it belongs) and the function exercised by the
character in the causation of grace.
The main points of St. Thomas' doctrine regarding the sacramental character can be reduced to the following statements.
The sacramental characters are impressed by the sacraments of
Baptism, Confirmation and Holy Orders. The characters are
either active or passive instrumental potencies which effect in
the soul various configurations to Christ the Priest. The immediate subject of the character is the intellect, since the function
of the character is exercised in the reception or administration
of the sacraments, which are protestations of the faith. Since
faith resides in the intellect, so does the character. Furthermore, since the intellect is incorruptible and the priesthood of
Christ eternal, the character is indelible.
The purpose of the present study is to investigate the nature
of the configuration to Christ effected by the sacramental character .. It will be assumed in this study that the doctrine of St.
Thomas is true, not only as it regards the sacramental character
directly, but also as it concerns the physical causation of grace
by the sacraments. There will be no discussion, then, as to the
merits and demerits of other systems which variously assign the
nature (i.e., the category) of the character, its subject of residence, or the cause of its impression.
Since St. Thomas usually employs the term configuration to
signify the likeness impressed in the soul by the sacramental
character, that usage will be observed in the following pages.

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S'l'EPHEN

MCCORMACK

This study will serve, it is hoped, to establish a basis for contrasting the likeness to Christ effected in the soul by the sacramental character and that effected by grace, referred to by St.
Thomas as a conformity. 4 The question of sacramental configuration is properly a Scholastic problem. Although the
teaching of the Scholastics regarding the nature of the sacramental character is foreshadowed in St. Paul's references to the
Sealing of the Holy Spirit and the teaching of the Greek Fathers
regarding the Sphragis, the investigation of the question in
these pages is restricted to the age of Bonaventure, Albert,
and Thomas.
The question as to how closely the Scholastic deductions
regarding the nature of the sacramental character followed the
metaphors employed by the Fathers is of merely historical
interest. It can therefore be omitted from the present consideration. The problem of configuration arose out of the attempts
of the Scholastics of the twelfth century to describe the causation of grace by the sacraments. 5 Since the character came to
be regarded as a res-et-sacramentum, an intermediary between
the external rite and the ultimate effect of the rite in the soul,
the question regarding the likeness to God effected in the soul
by the character quite naturally arose. In this paper we will
point out briefly the solutions of St. Albert and St. Bonaventure
regarding this problem that St. Thomas' doctrine may be seen
in clearer relief.
The teaching of St. Albert and St. Bonaventure relative to
the likeness effected in the soul by the sacramental character is
essentially the same. 6 Both of them hold that the character is
4 Cf. Sum. Theol., lli, q. 69, a. 9, ad 1: Ad primum ergo dicendum quod baptizari
in Christo potest intelligi dupliciter: uno modo in Christo, id est, in Christi conformitate ... alio modo dicuntur aliqui baptizari in Christo, in quantum accipiunt
sacramentum Christi; et sic omnes induunt Christum per configurationem characteris,
non autem per conformitatem gratiae. Cf. also, I, q. 93, a. 4.
5 Cf. "Caractere
Sacmmentel," in Dictionnaire de Theologie Oatholique, Vol.
III, Coil. 1698-1703.
6 Sancti Bonaventurae
Opera Omnia (Quarrachi), Vol. IV, Comm. · in Sent. P.
Lombardi, Lib. IV, D. VI, P. I, art. unicus. The doctrine contained in Breviloquium,

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an imperfect habit-imperfect in the sense that it demands the
full perfection of grace, although it can exist without it. It
likens the soul to God inasmuch as it is a step towards grace.
This likeness of the soul to the Most Blessed Trinity is a
shadowy likeness compared 'to that of grace. Since the character
is an advance towards grace it resides in the three powers of
the soul wherein shines forth the " natural image " of God: in
the intellect, memory, and will. It is impressed in the soul
by reason of God's will to set men in special states of faith.
The identity of doctrine regarding the configuration of the
sacramental character in St. Bonaventure and St. Albert arises
from their agreement that the character is an imperfect habitimperfect in relation to grace, the perfection of the soul, to
which the character is a disposition. Since the character is, in
the teaching of these two Doctors, a step towards grace, it effects
a likeness to the Blessed Trinity superior to that of the natural
image of God in man, yet vastly inferior to that realized by grace.
St. Thomas' doctrine marks a sharp divergence from these
views. This is not surprising, since he departs from the basic
premise of his predecessors by assigning the character to the
category of potency. In that assignment is contained not only
the point of departure from his predecessors, but the root of all
St. Thomas' doctrine regarding sacramental configuration. In
pursuit of this question it would be interesting to compare the
doctrine of St. Thomas as it is presented in his Commentary on
the Sentences with the more mature treatment of the Summa.
This paper, however, will be confined to the consideration of St.
Thomas' doctrine as presented in the sixty-third question of the
Third Part, with such occasional references to the earlier work
as seem necessary.
The exposition given here will follow the treatment of the
sacramental character as given by St. Thomas in the first three
articles of the sixty-third question as closely as possible, with,
P. VI, art. 6, is a summation of that in the Commentary on the Sentences and adds
nothing to it. B. Alberti Magni Opr:ra Omnia, ed. Borgnet, Paris, 1894, Vol. XXIX,
Comm. in IV Sententiarum, Disp. VI, art. 3, seqq.

3

STEPHEN MCCORMACK

however, such explanations and digressions as seem necessary
to point his exposition to the
problems relative to the
question of configuration. The exposition will be divided into
three main headings corresponding to the first three articles of
the sixty-third q1,1estion,which will, however, be entitled differently from St. Thomas' articles for reasons that will be evident
as the exposition proceeds.
In. treating of the character, St. Thomas follows his usual
order of pursuing the four causes. In the first article he establishes the existence of the character from a study of its final
cause. Its formal cause (or category of being) is considered in
the second article. The efficient cause is considered under the
question," whose character is this." The material cause (materia
in qua) is determined in pursuit of the question whether the
character is present in the essence of the soul or its faculties.
The remaining two articles deal with the questions 6f the indeliqility of the character and the particular sacraments that impres!>
a character.
The prel!ent exposition will proceed under the following
headings:
I. The Character as a Sign.
II. The Character as an Instrumental Potency.
·III. The Character as a Configuration.

I.

THE CHARACTER

AS A SIGN

In considering the character as a sign, it is necessary to ask
whether the character is a sign in the prope;r sense of the word
or only analogically. St. Thomas answers this question in the
first article of tl;te question under consideration in replying to
an objection. 7 The character, the objection proceeds, is a distinctive sign. But a thing that is not evident to the senses cannot be a sign. Therefore it would seem that a character is not
impressed in the soul. The answer given by St. Thomas is the
thoroughly familiar one that the character, while not visible in
7

Sum. Theol., III, q. 68, a. 1, ad 2.

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463

itself, is so by reason of the sensible sacrament which impresses
it. Here, it should be noticed, St. Thomas makes use of the
distinction between the character considered in itself and considered in relation to the external sacrament. This is his invariable practice in speaking of the character as a sign in the
Summa.
The character impressed in the soul has the nature of a sign inasmuch as it is impressed by a sensible sacrament; a man knows that
he is signed by the baptismal character by the fact that he is
washed with sensible water. Nevertheless, that which configures to
someone or distinguishes from another even if it is not sensible
can be called a character or sign through a certain similitude.8
From this quotation it can be seen that St. Thomas teaches that
the sacramental character considered in relation to the external
sign is a sign in the proper sense of the word. Considered as it
is in itself, however, it is a sign only by analogy.
The next reference St. Thomas makes to the character as a
sign is in answer to an objection in the following article and is
based upon the definition of the character which in the Commentary on the Sentences has been ascribed to the PseudoDenis. Since the character is a sign, the objection says in effect,
it is a relation, not a potency. The objection, of course, proceeds on the confusion of the material and formal considerations of a sign. Every sign is, in its formal consideration as
sign, a relation; but that on which the relation is founded, and
hence, the sign materially considered, is in some category other
than relation. Thus, smoke bespeaks a relation to fire, and as
bespeaking that relation, it is formally a sign. But smoke is
not in the category of relation, but of substance. All this is
implied in St. Thomas' answer: .
It is necessary that the relation which is implied by the name sign

be based upon something. The relation of this sign, however, which
8 Sum. Theol., Ill, q. 68, a. 1, ad
Character animae habet rationem signi in
quantum per sensibile sacramentum imprimitur; per hoc enim scitur aliquis esse
baptismali charactere insignitus quod est ablutus aqua sensibili. Nihilominus tamen
character vel signaculum dici potest per quamdam similitudinem omne quod configurat alieni vel distinguit ab alio etiamsi non sit sensibile.

464

STEPHEN

MCCORMACK

is the character, cannot be based immediately on the essence of
the soul, since then it would belong to every nature naturally.
And therefore it is necessary that something be placed in the soul
upon which ·this relation is based. 8 "

In this answer St. Thomas does not engage in a discussion of
what" this sign which is the character" is related to, but it is
characteristic that in the answer to the very next objection he
invokes the distinction between the character considered m
itself and considered in relation to the external sign:
The character has the nature of sign by reason of its relation to the
sensible sacrament by which it is impressed; but considered in itself,
it has the nature of a principle. 9

In the next article, which treats of the character as a participation in the priesthood of Christ, St. Thomas sums up all of
his previous statements regarding the character as a sign:
The sacramental character is a thing (res) as it relates to the
external sacrament, and is a sign (sacramentum) as it relates to
the ultimate effect. And therefore something can be attributed
to the character in two ways: in one way, according to its nature
as sacrament, and in this way it is a sign of invisible grace which
is. conferred in the sacrament;. in another way, as it is properly
the character (secundum propriam rationem characteris) and in
this way it is a sign configurative to someone principal, in whom
resides the authority for that to which one is deputed. 10

The doctrine contained in this response cannot be summed up
better than in the conclusions of Fr. Doronzo: 11
•• Sum. Tkeol., ill, q. 68, a. 2, ad 8.
• Q. 68, a. 2, ad 4: character habet ratiori.em signi per comparationem ad sacramentum sensibile a quo imprimitur; sed secundum se consideratus habet rationem
principii per modum jam dictum in corp. art.
10 Art. 8, ad 2: Character sacramentalis est· res respectu ascramenti exterioris, et
est sacramentum respectu ultimi effectus. Et ideo dupliciter potest aliquid characteri
attribui: uno modo secundum rationem sacramenti, et hoc modo est signum invisibilis gratiae quae in sacramento confertur; alio modo secundum propriam
rationem characteris; et hoc modo est signum configurativum alieni principali apud
quem residet auctoritas ejus ad quod aliquis deputatur ....
11 " De Charactere ut est Res et Sacramentum/'
in Revue Univ. Ottawa, Vol.
VI (1986) , pp. 248-261.

CONFIGURATION

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1. The character considered as a res-et-sacramentum, and in
that part qua sacrament, is a dispositive sign of grace.
2. The character considered as res-et-sacramentum,-and in that
part qua res, is a distinctive sign.
3. The character considered in itself is a configurative sign.

This, however, is to be noted about these three propositions: In
the first two propositions the word sign is used in the pr<:>per
sense of the word, namely, to signify a sensible reality. The
character is, then, a dispositive and distinctive sign insofar as
it is related to the external rite. In the third proposition the
word sign is used " per quamdam similitudinem." 12 Precisely
how the character is a sign in this extended sense of the word
can be made clear only after the question concerning the nature
of sacramental configuration has been discussed. Again, it is to
be noted in regard to the second proposition above, where the
statement is made that the character is a distinctive sign, that
this does not mean distinctive as opposed to configurative. A
distinctive sign may be either natural or arbitrary. Thus, a
" character " branded upon sheep would be an arbitrary sign of
distinction denoting the owner of the sheep by reason of an
agr.eement among men that such a mark would signify such an
owner. The" character," (image) upon a coin would ordinarily
be a natural sign of distinction, denoting by its very nature the
sovereign from whom the money receives its value. Thus, a
distinctive sign that is at the same time a natural sign can, it
is evident, be called a configurative sign, since configuration of
its very name signifies connaturality. In this use of the term
"configurative sign," however, as applied to the sacramental
character, it is obvious that the term "sign" is used in the
proper sense to signify a sensible reality. Therefore it can be
said that the character is a configurative sign in the proper
sense of the word sign, inasmuch as the sacramental character
is a natural, distinctive sign. It is a sign because it has an
infallible connection with the sacramental rite; it is a distinctive natural sign, because it not only distinguishes those pos12

Cf. Sum. Theol., III, q. 68, a. 1, ad 2.

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STEPHEN

MCCORMACK

sessing it, but bears in its very nature a relationship to Christ.
How the sacramental character is related to Christ will be seen
in discussing the character as it is a participation in the priesthood of Christ. Since this relationship to Christ is not a visible
reality, the term configuration will not be used to signify a
distinctive sign that is natural, but rather the inward reality
upon which the connaturality of such a distinctive sign is based.
Configuration, therefore, as it is used in these pages will signify
participation in the priesthood of Christ.

II.

THE CHARACTER

AS AN INSTRUMENTAL

PoTENCY

In the Commentary on the Sentences St. Thomas makes a
most important departure from the more co:inmon opinion of the
contemporary doctors in assigning the character to the category
of potency. 13 After dismissing the arguments of those who held
that the character is a habit, St. Thomas adduces positive
reasons for his opinion which may be summarized. briefly as
follows: There are certain operations peculiar to the regenerated
state of man. These special supernatural operations require
special supernatural powers. These powers are similar to the
forces in virtue of which the sacraments themselves produce
their supernatural effects, since just as the sacraments operate
instrumentally, so those receiving the character operate ministerially. Now it is evident that to operate as a minister is to
operate as a living instrument. The character, which makes it
possible for man to function as a special minister of God, is,
therefore, a quality placed in his soul that has the nature of an
engrafted faculty or potency.
This is essentially the same argument that is brought forth
in the Summa except that in the Summa St. Thomas introduces
the concept of the character's relation "to those things which
pertain to divine worship accordip.g to the rite of the Christian
religion." In the Commentary on the Sentences, St. Thomas'
usual expression in speaking of the action proper to the character
13

Comm. in Lib. Sent., Lib. IV, Disp. lV, q. 1, art. 1, sol.

CONFIGURATION

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is" actiones spirituales." The change is significant, since insofar
as St. Thomas speaks of the worship of God, he has laid the
basis for determining the subject of the character. 14 But far
more worthy of notice for the present study is the latter half of
the phrase, " according to the rite of the Christian religion."
What is especially to be noted in the present consideration is
that the phrase does not read " according to the religion of a
child of God" nor" according to the rite of supernatural religion."
Likewise it is to be recalled that St. Thomas uses the same
phraseology in concluding that sacramental grace adds something over and above the notion of sanctifying grace. 15 From
this it is indicated that there is an intimate connection betweep.
the potency which is ordained to those things which pertain to
the worship of God according to the rite of Christian religion,
and the nature of sacramental grace which is ordained to supply
the special needs of Christian life.
In determining in the second article that the character is an
instrumental potency, St.
gives a speeial meaning to
the subsequent question, "whose character is this," since that
question will then be a pursuit of the principal cause in virtue
of. which the character operates. It is in answering this question
that St. Thomas describes the character as a configuration to
Christ the Priest. A better understanding of that answer will
be gained if the peculiar nature of that potency is more fully
appreciated and if the problem is investigated of how an instrumental potency can be spoken of as a participation.
In pursuing the first consideration it must be remembered
that St. Thomas determines the character to be not merely a
10 Sum. Tkenl., III, q. 63, art. 4, ad 3: Character ordinatur ad ea quae sunt divini
cultus, qui quidem est quaedam protestatio fidei per exteriora signa. Et ideo opportet
quod character sit in cognitiva potentia animae in qua est fides. (Cf. the commentary of Cajetan on this article where it is pointed out that although the worship of God pertains to justice, the character is nevertheless rightly placed by
St. Thomas in the intellect.)
15 Sum. Tkeol., III, q. 62, art. 2, ad 1: Gratia virtutum et donorum sufficienter
perficit essentiam et potentias animae quantum ad generalem ordinationem actuum
animae; sed quantum ad quosdam effectus speciales, qui requiruntur in vita
christiana, requiritur sacramentalis gratia.

468

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MCCORMACK

potency, but an instrumental potency. The sacramental character renders a man a potential instrument of God. 16 Hence it
can be seen that the character is a completely unique reality,
for God does not require any proper capacity in the instruments
that He uses.17 The other instruments used to produce God's
effects, for instance, the sacraments, or a miracle worker, are
constituted instruments only in the moment of acting, that is
to say, in the moment ·of being used. God's use of a man as a
miracle worker places nothing in the man permanently 18 and
His use of the sacraments sanctifies them intrinsically only in
their moment of use.19 The character, however, because it is a
permanent quality,2{) renders a man a potential instrument of
God: there is something in his soul in virtue of which he, and
he alone, can be used to perform or receive those things pertaining to the worship of God to which the character is ordained.
The second thing to be considered by way of introduction to
the question of configuration is the problem of how a potency
can be· spoken of as a participation. The basic principle of St.
Thomas' conclusion that the sacramental character effects a
configuration to Christ is that the character is a potency ordained
to things of divine worship. A basis for understanding this doctrine will be gained by a brief' review of the nature of participation.
Participation, according to its nominal definition, signifies the
relation that exists between part and whole. In the material
16 Sum. Theol., III, q. 63, a. ft: Sciendum tamen quod haec spiritualis
potentia
est instrumentalis, sicut dictum est de virtute quae est in sacramentis. Habere
enim sacramenti characterem competit ministris Dei: minister autem habet se per
modum instrumenti . . . et ideo . . . character . . . reducitur ad secundam speciem
qualitatis.
17 Cf. Sum. Theol., II-IIae, q. 178, a. 1; ill, q. 18, a. ft; De Potentia,
q. VI, aa.
8 & 4.'

'"Idem.
19 Sum. Theol:, III, q. 6ft, a. 8, corp.: Gratia est in sacramento
novae legis, non
quidem secundum similitudinem speciei, sicut efl'ectus est in causa univoca; . neque
enim secundum aliquam formam propriam et permanentem et proportionatam ad
talem effectum, sicut sunt efl'ectus in
non univocis, puta res generatae in sole
sed secundum quamdam instrumentalem virtutem, quae est fluens et incompleta
in esse naturae.
•• Ibid., q. 68, a. 5.

CONFIGURATION

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469

order participation is realized in the relation that exists between
a quantitative part and its corresponding whole. Thus, half an
apple participates (is a part of) a whole one. In the formal
order participation is spoken of in relation to an exemplar. 21
The exemplar is conceived of as the plenitude of form in relation
to which other forms are said to be participative. In the formal
order, then, participation consists in imitation. An exemplar,
however, properly exists only in the mind of an intelligent
agent, according to which he works. 22 The imitation of an
exemplar in extra-mental reality is therefore an analogical imitation (participation) , since the extra-mental exemplar is not
properly an exemplar. In the efficient order, participation is
spoken of as the relation that exists between mover and thing
moved. Thus, a subordinate cause is said to participate in the
motion of its superior cause. This participation is realized most
perfectly in an instrumental cause, whose whole being is " to be
moved." 23 It is important to realize that the participation of
an instrument in the causality of the principal cause is not the
participation of a form in an exemplar, either proper or analogical, but is a distinct type of participation, namely, participation
in. the order of 'efficient causality. The being of an instrument
is motion, which is not a form but a tendency. Not having a
21 Cf. T. M. Sparks, O.P., De Divisione Causae Exemplaris Apud S. Thomam
(Somerset, Ohio), 1936.
•• Cf. Sparks, op. cit., pp.
Concl. la: Causalitas exemplaris, sensu
exemplaris, sensu formali et proprio, convenit agentibus per intellectum. Agens
autem per intellectum est vel increatum, i. e., Deus, vel creatum. Concl. 2a:
Exemplar seu forma exemplaris est vel in mente artificis vel non. Tamen ut
exemplar secundo modo, actu fiat exemplar, necesse est ut ab artifice inspiciatur.
Cf. idem, p. 59: Imprimis recolendum est ex Capite I, quod formaliter loquendo
non habetur causalitas exemplaris nisi quando habetur in agente idea; aliis verbis
perfecta et formalis causalitas exemplaris ccinvenit tantummodo agentibus per
intellectum. Idea ergo est proprie causa exemplaris; alia vero opportet esse
exemplaria impropria.
23 This
participation of an instrument again admits of various degrees of
participation, since the instruments that God uses do not dispose the matter
operated upon, but the action operating (Non ex parte 'rei operatae, sed ex parte
modi operandi [Cf. Bannez, Comm. in lam Partem, q. 45, a. 5], whereas creatures
use instruments that exert some dispositive effect on the matter affected.

470

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MCCORMACK .

form, then, motion cannot be said to participate in an exemplar
can be had only in
of form. Nevertheless, since
terms of act, the imperfect being of instrument is denominated
in terms of form, namely as "esse motum" or " esse intentionale ."
It is this denomination of the imperfect being which is not a
form in terms of form which gives a basis for speaking of an
analogical participation of motion in· an exemplar, analogous,
now, in respect of the analogous participation according to
extra-mental forms. It must be remembered, however, that
such denomination of motion in terms of being is due to its
logical consideration in a moment of act in which, however, it
does not
(apart from the consideration of the mind)
exist. Were it to be said simply that the instrument participates
in the principal cause as created being participates in God as
Exemplar, the statement would be erroneous, in confusing two
distinct types of participation: formal on the one hand, efficient
on the other. To preserve ourselves from error it must be
remembered that motion as it really exists does not admit of
partiCipation in the formal order.
The relation of this to the doctrine of the character may be
stated as follows: In the very act of cooperating with God in
those things which pertain to divine worship, man participates
as an instrument; participates therefore in the efficient order.
However, because the character is a permanent quality, it is
not merely by a logical consideration that according to his
character man is configured, that is, " participates in the form
of " Christ the Priest. 24 On the other hand, in producing the
acts proper to his character, man can be said to be configured
to the actions of Christ, in the sense that he participates in the
•• This seems to be the meaning of St. Thomas in the following passage, q. 68,
a. 5, corp.: Character sacramentalis est quaedam participatio sacerdotii· Christi in
fidelibus ejus, ut scilicet sicut Christus habet plenam spiritualis sacerdotii potestatem,
ita fideles ejus ei configurentur in hoc quod participant aliquam spiritualem potestatem respectu sacramentorum et eorum quae pertinent ad cultum divinum. Et
propter hoc etiam Christ9 non conipetit habere characterem, sed potestas saceidotii
ejus comparatur ad characterem, sicut id quod est plenum et perfectum, ad aliquam
sui participationem. (The fact should not be passed over that the article from
which this quotation
taken treats of the permanence of the character.)

CONFIGURATION

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CHARACTER

471

"motion " of Christ as a subordinate instrumental cause. Thus
it has been pointed out that St. Thomas speaks of configuration
in his Commentary on the Sentences chiefly as it is a configuration in action.
These notions prepare the way for a more complete understanding of the doctrine of configuration-that is to say, the
doctrine which holds that man in virtue of the possession of an .
instrumental power is said to participate in the priesthood
of Christ.

III.

THE CHARACTER

As A CoNFIGURATION

Thus far it has been pointed out that in its formality of reset-sacramentum, the character is a sign in the proper sense of
the word; considered according to its proper formality it is a
sign in an extended sense, which is described as a configuration.
It has also been shown that the character is a unique reality
inasmuch as it is a permanent instrumental potency. Indication
has also been given of the peculiar meaning " participation "
will have in speaking of the character.
These notions are all preparatory to understanding St.
Thomas' answer to the question " whose character is this." St.
Thomas answers, as has been said, that the character is that
of Christ the Priest. The meaning of that answer will be more
fully appreciated if this discussion now reverts to the phrase,
" divine worship according to the rite of the Christian religion."
The worship of God is the object of. the virtue of religion? 5 As
such it consists of acts both interior and exterior, the most perfect of which is the offering of sacrifice:26 The ·present study is
not directly concerned with such a notion of the worship of
God, but rather with the question of how the worship of God
offered by Christ, our "one High Priest," continues to have its
effects in the ages that follow the performance of his principal
priestly act upon the Cross.27 The fact that the sacraments ar.:'
20 Ibid., qq. 81\!"91.
Sum. Theol., II-II, q. 81, a. 5.
All the meritorious actions of Christ were priestly acts, since of themselves they
had infinite value, as proceeding"'trom a divine Person. Nevertheless the merits of
25

27

4'12

STEPHEN

MCCORMACK

the means of distributing those effects is assumed here; 28
wise, not only that in the Eucharist there is present the Author
of grace, but also that in the confection of that most august
Sacrament there is performed a Sacrament-Sac:rifice, the representation under the sacramental veils of the Price offered
for the redemption of mankind. 29 What is important to see in
connection with the present study is that every sacrament pertains to the priestly act of Christ offering sacrifice, as causing
the grace He merited,
that some sacraments have a special
:relation to the Passion of Christ, or what amounts to the same
thing, to divine worship according to the rite of Christian religion.
These sacramentf' which have a special relation to the Passion,
in the words of St. Thomas, show forth to a man " something
new" pertaining to the worship of God. 30 This "something
new" is then a special relation to the Passion of Christ, or,
since the nature of the character has already been determined,
a new power relative either to receiving its effects, or for
mitting those effects to others. 31 It can be seen, then, why only
three of the sacraments impress a character: because only three
of them establish man in essentially different distributive relations with the Passion of Christ. Baptism gives the ability to
receive the fruits of the Passion sacramentally; Confirmation,
His acts were ordained by God to be consummated in His Passion and Death upon
the Cross. Cf. Durst, "De Characteribus Sacramentalibus," Xenia Thomistica,
(pp. 541-581); p. 559: Fontes autem revelationis constanter adVol. II,
scribunt redemptionem nostram pretioso sanguini Christi et ejus passioni et morti,
ergo cultui quem in sacrificio crucis exhibuit; ex quo sequitur, secundum liberum
decretum Dei singula opera Christi non distributive sed collective sumpta simul
cum sacrificio crucis habuit valorem satisfactorium in actu secundo. Christus autem
per hoc, quod moriens in cruce Deo cultum in forma veri et sacri:ficii realis exhibuit,
sacerdos in stricto sensu evasit, ergo
verus sacerdos salutem nostram operatus est.
28 Sum. Theol., III, q.
a. 5.
20 Idem, q. 83, a. I.
Cf. Vonier, The Key to the Doctrine of the Eucharist
(London,
.
30 Sum. Theol., III, q. 63, a. 6.
31 The sacramental
character is directly related to the external signs of divine
worship (the sacraments), which
be shown later. Nevertheless, it is important
to see that the character is also related to the causation of grace through the
administration and reception of the sacraments.

ut

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the power to receive them with greater strength; Orders, the
ability to cooperate with Christ in distributing these fruits
to others. 32
All the Sacraments of the New Law, then, pertain to the
worship of God according to the rite of the Christian religion
inasmuch as through their administration the soul is perfected
by the salutary effects of the Passion of Christ. 33 Some, however,
effect a result which makes their recipients instruments or
ministers of Christ's Passion; that is, by the reception of some
sacraments men are constituted not only recipients of Christ's
Passion, but ministers of it. 34
Christ is a priest inasmuch as he is man. 35 His priestly actthe offering of condign satisfaction for the sins of mankind-was
offered by Him as a principal cause and as an instrumental
cause. He offered as a principal cause inasmuch as His sacrifice
was meritorious. Since merit can only be gained through the
voluntary act of a creature, it is evident that Christ's meritorious
actions proceeded from His human will as from a principal cause.
Christ's Humanity, however, also effected the fruits of the
Passion efficiently inasmuch as His Humanity was conjoined to
the Person of the Word in Hypostatic Union. 36
Since the sacraments produce their effects as instrumental
causes 37 it is evident that they derive their efficacy from the
Humanity of Christ precisely as that Humanity is the conjoined instrument of His divinity. 38 How, it is well to ask, can
3 ' Sum. Theol., lli, q. 63, a. 6: Ad agens in sacramentis
pertinet sacramentum
ordinis, quia per hoc sacramentum deputantur homines ad sacramenta aliis tradenda.
Sed ad recipientes pertinet sacramentum baptismi, quia per ipsum homo accipit
potestatem recipiendi alia Ecclesiae sacramenta; unde baptismus dicitur esse janua
omnium sacramentorum. Ad idem etiam ordinatur quodammodo confirmatio.
33 Idem, ad 1: Ad primum ergo dicendum
quod per omnia sacramenta fit homo
particeps sacerdotii Christi; utpote percipiens aliquem effectum ejus,
34 I(lem, and immediately
following: Non tamen per omnia sacramenta aliquis
deputatur ad agendum aliquid vel recipiendum quod pertinet ad cultum sacerdotii
Christi; quod quidem exigitur ad hoc quod sacramentum characterem imprimat.
35 Sum. Theol., lli, q. 22, a. 2.
36 Sum. Theol., III, q. 48, a. 6 ad 3: Passio Christi secundum
quod comparatur
ad divinitatem ejus, agit per modum efficientiae; in quantum vero comparatur ad
voluntatem animae Christi, agit per modum meriti.
38 Idem, q. 62, a. 5.
37 IdMn, q. 62, a. 1.

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this be done? How does the power of Christ's Passion reach
the material elements of which the sacraments are composed?
The answer to this question gives
solution to the problem
of the nature of configuration. In order to arrive at this solution
it is now necessary to discuss in some detail the nature of
instrumentality.
An instrument, in its widest meaning, is a means used to
accomplish an end. An instrument can operate either in the
order of final causality (a moral instrument) or in the order of
efficient causality (physical instrument). This consideration is
concerned only with physical instruments. Since the problem of
configuration is concerned with the question of God's use of
instruments, it will be necessary 'first to discuss the difference
between man's use of instruments and God's use of them.
The first and essential difference between man's use of instruments and God's is that man is necessitated to use instruments
whereas God is not. God can accomplish by an act of His will
anything that is not intrinsically impossible. There is no need
for Him, therefore, to assume other. causes to cooperate in the
accomplishment of His will. :1\{an, however, has no intrinsic
power over the proper virtues (potentias) of things outside
himself. 39 To accomplish certain effects, therefore (e. g., the
3 ° Cf. De Potentia, q. 6, a. 3: Id quod est immediata causa reducens formam de
potentia in actum. per generationem et alterationem, est corpus aliter et aliter se
habens, secundum quod accedit et recedit per motum localem. Et inde est quod
substantia separata suo imperio in corpore causat immediate motum localem, et
eo mediante ca,usat alios motus, quibus mobile acquirit aliquam formam. Et hoc
rationabiliter accidit. Nam motus localis est primus et perfectissimus motuum,
utpote qui non variat rem quantum ad rei intrinseca; sed solum quantum ad
exteriorem locum; et ideo per primum motum suum, scilicet localem, corporalis
natura a spirituali movetur. Secundum hoc ergo corporalis creatura obedit imperio
spiritualis secundum naturalem ordinem ad motum localem, non autem ad alicujus
formae receptionem; quod quidem intelligendum est de natura spirituali creata
cujus virtus et essentia est limitata secundum determinatum genus, non de substantia spirituali increata cujus virtus est infinita, non limitata ad aliquod genus
secundum regulam alicujus generis. (The doctrine contained in this quotation
anticipates .much of what is to be said in the text below. Yet it is well to place it
here that what will be said may be seen to be entirely in accord with the mind
of St. Thomas.)

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plowing of a field) , it is necessary for him to discover something that in virtue of its inherent power will aid him in the
accomplishment of his intention.
An instrument then has two actions: 40 one proper to itself
and the other which is not proper to it. Thus, to cut is proper
to a saw; to make a cabinet by cutting is its instrumental
action. There is therefore in the instrument a twofold principle of operation: one proper to itself (e. g., the sharpness
of the saw); the other communicated to it by the principal
agent in virtue of which the instrument is said to produce
the effect intended by the principal agent (in the present
example, the cabinet). This latter principle of operation is the
very motion (usus passivus) whereby the instrument is moved
by the principal agent. Here, however, one must be careful not
to make an equivocation upon the word " motion."
Man, as has been said, and as is evident 41 can move causes
subordinate to himself only in virtue of his power to move things
locally. He cannot move them in the sense that he can educe
them from their proper potency to their proper action, or, as it
might be stated, he can make them to operate, he cannot deter-·
mine how or why they will operate. Thus, man can move oxygen
from one place to another without affecting it intrinsically;
yet in virtue of local motion he can cause oxygen to form
water, namely by so moving it locally that it will come into
contact with hydrogen. For understanding the difference between man's use of instruments and God's, it is important to
see that man's power over material things is restricted to his
power of moving them locally. It is, nevertheless, in virtue
of his power to move things locally that he can cause things
to happen which would not happen except in virtue of the local
motion communicated to them. The things moved by man,
then, are said to produce effects in virtue of a higher power than
•• For what follows here regarding instrumental power and action, cf. St. Thomas,

Sum. Tkeol., II-II, q. 178, a. 1; III, q. 18, a. !l; q. 6!l, a. 1, ad !l; De Potentia, q. 6 ·
aa. S and 4; Cajetan, Comm. in Ill, q. IS, a. !l; Bannez, Comm. in I, q. 45, a. 5.
Cf. also Gredt, Elementa Pkt1osopkiae, I, n. 576, !l.
n

Cf. footnote 89.

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they have by nature. Nevertheless it is by reason of their
capacity to be moved locally that they are able to be used by
man; and it is in virtue of their power to do something proper
that man is motivated to move them locally and so produce an
effect that is attributed to him as a principal cause.
Man, then, in his construction of instruments properly so
called unites in an accidental union things that by action and
reaction will produce an intended effect (e. g., a violin) .42 This
constructed instrument is said to have two powers: one to be
moved locally and one to be moved artistically. 43 It is now
important to remember that the term " to be moved locally "
is applied to an instrument properly so called. Thus to move
the violin locally does not mean to carry it about; it means to
vibrate the strings. Any man, then, it is usually said, can move
the instrument locally; but an artist is required that it be moved
instrumentally or artistically. Here it is important to see, and
it is evident from what has already been said, that artistic
motion is merely local motion. It is however motion that is
caused by an intelligent agent and is therefore such local motion
as will cause the violin not merely to make a sound, but to
produce a melody. To describe this motion communicated by
the artist as" esse intentionale" is somewhat misleading, since
it might be thought that the artist has a more intrinsic effect
on the instrument than to move it locally. It seems more in
harmony with St. Thomas' terminology to ,reserve the term
"esse intentionale" to the motion whereby God's instruments
are used and to describe the transient force communicated by
man to his instruments as " esse motum." 44 God is not restricted
'" Cf. footnote 89: Id quod est immediata causa reducens formam de potentia in
actum per generationem et alterationem est corpus aliter et aliter se habens,
secundum q_uod accedit et recedit per motum localem.
•• Cf. Cajetan, Comm. in Ill, q. 18, a. 2.
•• Cf. De Potentia, q. 6, a. 4, where St. Thomas compares (does not identify) the
" intentiones " of God's instruments to the motion of instruments: Virtus ad
cooperandum Deo in miraculis in Sanctis intelligi potest ad modum formarum imperfectarum quae intentiones vocantur, quae non .Permanent nisi per praesentiam
principalis agentis, sicut lumen in aere et motus in instrumento. Again, cf. Sum.

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to using instruments nor in his use of instruments is He restricted to certain instruments for particular effects. 45 The
reason for this is that God not only can move things locally,
but can move beings from any state of potentiality to any act
not involving impossibility for a creature, and from no potency
at all to acL He can do this because He is the Cause of being
as such. Thus, God in His use of instruments is only restricted
by the nature of instrumentality.
He only requires that the
instrument operate, not that it operate in any particular way.
This operation of the instrument exercises dispositive causality,
but not necessarily in regard to the matter operated upon. It
can also dispose in regard to the manner of operating. 46 God's
use of men as instruments is seen most clearly in His communication to them of the power of working miracles. The
function of the thaumaturge is that of "carrying the divine
command " to the matter upon which the miracle is to be performed.47 The use of men to perform miracles offers a valuable
parallel to the use of men for the distribution of the effects of
Christ's Passion. The primary difference between these two
uses of men by God is that the gift of working miracles is not
given to men as a permanent quality of souL St. Thomas explains
the reason for this: 48
Theol., HI, q. 64, a. 8, ad 1: Instrumentum inanimatum non habet aliquam intentionem respectu effectus, sed loco intentionis est motus, quo movetur a principali
agenti.
45 Sum. Theol., II-II, q. 178, a. l.
•• Cf. Bannez, Comm. in lam Partem, q. 45, a. 5.
47 Cf. De Potentia,
q. 6, a. 4: Videmus autem quod imperium divinum ad
inferiores rationales spiritus, scilicet humanas, mediantibus superioribus, scilicet
Angelis, pervenit, ut in legislatione apparet; et per hunc modum per spiritus angelicas
vel humanos, imperium divinum ad corporales creaturas pervenire potest, ut per
eas quoddamodo naturae praesentetur divinum praeceptum; et sic agant quoddamodo spiritus humani vel angelici ut instrumentum divinae virtutis ad miraculi perfectionem; non quasi aliqua virtute habitualiter in eas manente, vel gratuita vel
naturali, in actum miraculi possint (quia sic quandoque vellent, miracula facere
possent; quod tarnen Gregorius non esse verum testatur; et probat per exemplum
etc.).
48 Sum. Theol., II, q. 178, a. 1, ad 1: Sicut prophetia
se extendit ad omnia quae
supematuraliter cognosci possunt, ita operatio virtutum se extendit ad omnia quae

4

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MCCORMACK

Just as prophecy extends to all things which can be known supernaturally, so the working of miracles extends to all things which
can be done supernaturally: the cause of which (works) is the
divine omnipotence which cannot be communicated to any creature. And therefore it is impossible that the principle of working
miracles be a quality habitually remaining in the soul.
Now it is St. Thomas' teaching that Christ, according as He
is man, possesses the power of working miracles, and He possesses
this power permanently. 49 He has this power, however, not by
reason of a permanent quality of His soul, but by reason of the
Hypostatic Union. 5° He can communicate this power to others/ 1
but not as a permanent quality. 52 How, then, it might be asked,
can Christ communicate the power of His priesthood to others
in the form of a permanent quality? The answer is that Christ
does not, and could not, communicate His priesthood in its
fullness to anyone, for His priesthood is uniquely .the priesthood
of the Word Incarnate. He could indeed have communicated
His " power of being the principal minister " in regard to the
sacraments (which principality of power would include the
sanctification of the sacraments in the name of that hypothetical
priest, the institution of the sacraments and independence of
external rite) ,58 but it is important to remember that if Christ
had communicated this principality of administration in regard
to the sacraments, such sacraments would not operate efficiently
supernaturaliter fieri possunt: quorum quidem causa est divina omnipotentia quae
nulli creaturae communicari potest. Et ideo impossibile est quod principium
operandi miracula sit aliqua qualitas habitualiter manens in anima.
•• Sum. Theol., ill, q. 18, a. 2.

•• Ibid.
Ibid., ad 8.
•• II-II, q. 178, a. 1, ad 1.
•• Cf. Sum. Theol., q. 64, a. 4: Christus habuit in sacramentis duplicem

51

auctoritatis quae competit ei secundum quod Deus, et talis
potestatem:
potestas nulli creaturae potuit communicari, sicut · nee divina essentia. Aliam
potestatem habuit excellentiae, quae competit ei secundum quod homo, et talem
potestatem potuit ministris communicare, dando scilicet eis tantam gratiae plenitudinem, ut eorum meritum operaretur ad sacramentorum efiectus, ut ad invocationem nominum ipsorum sanctificarenwr sacramenta, et ut ipsi possent sacramenta instituere et sine ritu sacramentorum efiectum sacramentorum conferre
solo imperio.

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479

in the causation of grace but only morally. 54 This, at least,
of ·St. Thomas and its
seems to be implicit in the
relevance to the nature of the sacramental character justifies a
short digression on the point.
The causation of gTace is reserved to God alone and to the
humanity of Christ as physically conjoined to the Divinity in
the union of Person. Thus the others to whom Christ could
possibly have communicated a power of excellence in regard
to the sacraments would have been subordinated to Christ as
lesser heads; acting therefore as principal causes and not as
instrumental causes. 55
The ability to act as the first instrumental cause of grace
belongs exclusively to the Word Incarnate. In the event that
Christ had communicated his power of excellence so that the
sacraments would have their effect by reason of the invocation
of names other than Christ's, the grace that was merited and
caused by Christ's Passion would be conferred upon the invocation of those names; but this would not be in virtue of an
instrumental power, but by reason of merit. The reason for
this, in the teaching of St. Thomas, is that such sacraments
would not be sanctified in the N arne of Him, Who alone is the
primary instrumental cause of grace.
It is seen from this that the teaching of St. Thomas regarding
the existence and nature of the sacramental character is intimately connected with his doctrine regarding the efficient causality of the sacraments. The reason why the sacraments of the
"'Cf. Sum,. Theol., III, q. VIII, a. 6: Interior autem influxus gratiae non est ab
liliquo nisi a solo Christo, cujus humanitas ex hoc quod est Divinitati conjuncta,
habet virtutem justificandi. (Notice also the words contained in the previous footnote, "dando eis tantam gratiae plenitudinem ut eorum .meritum operaretur ad
sar:;rame:ntorumeffectus.")
55 III, q. 64, a. 4, ad 8: Ad hoc inconveniens evitandum,
ne scilicet multa capita
in Ecclesia essent, Christus noluit potestatem suae excellentiae ministris communi·
care. Si tamen communicasset, ipse esset caput principaliter, alii vero secundario.
(What has been said in the text, of course, refers to the administration of the
sacraments. It seems to be St. Thomas' opinion that God could use others as
instrumental causes for causing the effect of the sacraments without the external
rite. Cf. q. 64, a. 4, in fine corporis; also the commentary of Cajetan on this
article.)

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New Law cause grace efficiently is that they are linked up
physically with the Passion of Christ. 56 The physical link is the
sacramental character. Therefore the sacramental characteran instrumental potency-:-is required for the efficacy of those
sacraments which physically cause grace. 57 Since the Passion
of Christ causes our salvation, the power which God uses in
the causation of grace through the sacraments is therefore the
link in our souls to the Passion of Christ and it is rightly called
the character of Christ. It sets us apart from those not physically
affected by the Passion of Christ.
Since Christ insofar as He is man is the principal. instrumental cause of grace, it is possible for others to be constituted
subordinate instrumental causes of grace and to be such through
a quality permanently remaining in the soul. This is so, because
unlike the instrumental power communicated transiently whereby man works miracles, the character is a participation in the
Priesthood of Christ; not therefore precisely a participation in
divine power, since Christ is a Priest as He is man, not as He is
God. The power communicated to men whereby they cooperate
in the priestly works of Christ is therefore subordinate to a
human power of Christ. Moreover, and this is essential for
understanding the nature of the character, the character is not
precisely a principle of grace, but a principle whereby the signs
instituted by Christ can produce grace. As the miracle worker
" carries the intention " of God to the miraculous operation, so
the "characterized "'man carries in virtue of his character the
intention of Christ to the sign instituted by Christ making it
in the concrete productive of grace. 58
•• Sum. Theol., Ill, q .• 6fl, aa. 5 and 6.
57 Sum.
Theol., q. 63, a. 1, ad 3: Sacramenta veteris legis non habebant in se
spiritualem virtutem ad aliquem spiritualem effectum operandum; et ideo in illis
sacramentis non requirebatur aliquis spiritualis character, sed sufficiebat ibi corporalis
circumcisio.
•• Sum. Theol., Ill, q. 64, a. 8, ad 1: Instrumentum animatum, sicut minister
non solum movetur sed etiam quodammodo movet seipsum in quantum sua
voluntate movet membra ad operandum; et ideo requiritur ejus interitio, qua se
subjiciat principali agenti ut scilicet intendat facere quod facit Christus et Ecclesia

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It is clear, then, that the character respects directly the outward sign that causes sacramental grace, not the grace itself. 59
Although the character is concerned primarily and directly with
the administration and reception of the sacraments, it is true
nevertheless that it is by reason of the character that these outward signs are constituted in their sacramental being: that is,
are made signs which are productive of the grace they signify.
St. Thomas, therefore, does not speak so much of the character
as being concerned with the sacraments as with those things
that pertain to divine worship according to the rite of the
Christian religion, thus combining the double relation of the
character: to the sign and, through the sign, to grace.
The sacraments of the Christian religion-in which divine
worship .now principally consists-are distinguished in the fact
that their use of itself can justify men. 60 This fact shows that
the protestation of faith which the sacraments essentially are is
an acknowledgment that the sacrament is capable of accomplishing the salutary effects of Christ's Passion. The intention, then,
that operates in the reception or administration of the Christian
sacraments is not precisely an intention to receive or to administer but an intention that is
in the actual reception
or administration. It is the intention in execution, not the
intention that is elicited in regard to an end to be accomplished.
The intention then, operating in the performing or receiving of
the sacraments is more precisely the " imperium." Hence the
commentators of St. Thomas unanimously speak of the character
as operating in the order of execution, not in the order of inten59 Cf. John of St. Thomas, Cursus Theologictts, Vol. IX, Disp. XXV, art.
CXXIII: Sicut in humanitate Christi aliud est esse conjunctum divinitati, aliud
active se habere ad effectum per motionem instrumentalem; sic in ministris Christi
aliud est ei conjunctos et configuratos quod permanenter habent per characterem,
aliud activitatem habere instrumentalem quod fit per motionem. Per characterem
ergo non datur activitas ad effectum sacramentorum qui producitur instrumentaliter,
sed validitas ad actus ut non sint nulli sed validi in genere sacramentali.
60 Sum. Theol., III, q.
art. 6, ad 1: Antiqui patres habebant fidem de passione
Christi futura quae secundum quod erat in apprehensione animae poterat justificare;
sed nos habemus fidem de passione Christi praecedenti, quae potest justificare
secundum usum realem sacramentalium rerum.

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tion. 61 This intention is elevated by virtue of the character,
which is a participation in the priesthood of Christ, to have the
force of Christ's intention, and hence renders the sacramental
sign valid, that is, efficacious for the causation of sacramental
grace.
Since the character is not concerned directly with the causation of grace, but with the causation of grace as it is produced
by the sacramental sign, it can be seen how it is possible to
have a passive power, which is, nevertheless, a participation in
the priesthood of Christ. There is no special difficulty in seeing
how the character which is an active power cooperates in the
work of Christ's Priesthood; the human intention, as it were,
receives the intention of Christ and " carries " it to the sacramental sign in virtue of which the sacrament causes grace. If
the fact that the character is concerned immediately with the
sacramental rite is not emphasized, one will have difficulty in
seeing that a passive power can be a configuration to Christ
the Priest, since Christ's priestly intention is not to receive
grace but to give it. 62 The character which is a passive power
is related to the sacramental rite as making it productive of
grace in the soul which receives it. 63 Thus the passive power
" carries the intention " of Christ the Priest to the sacramental
sign, but in a different way than the active power. The active
power makes the sacramental sign valid, that is, productive of
its sacramental effects; whereas the passive power might be said
61 Cf., e. g., Salmanticenses, tract. XXII, Disp. V, dub. III, n. 57:
Character
non ponitur a nobis principium cognitionis speculativae, sed practicae, nempe
illius imperii quo intellectus movet alias potentias tam internas quam externas ad
actus eidem characteri correspondentes, ut sunt debita intentio in suscipiendo et
ministrando sacramenta atque externa et legitima eorum administratio.
a. 4: Primum enim agens in quolilet genere ita
Cf. Sum. Theol., III, q.
est influens quod non est recipiens in genere illo; . . . Christus autem est fons
totius sacerdotii . . . et ideo non competit Christo effecturri sacerdotii recipere.
•• Salmanticenses, tract. XXII, Disp. V, dub. II, .n.
Nihil refert quod character baptismi sit in uno subjecto et quod sacramenta recipiantur in alio: semper
enim cerificatur hominem non esse aptum ad recipiendum sacramenta in corpore
nisi habeat characterem in anima. Et addimus sacramenta its recipi in corpore
quod nihilominus habent virtutem physicam commutandi animam per gratiam;
quare egent ex parte animae potentia passiva, quae est per characterem baptismi.

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to validate the recipient, i. e., render him capable of the effects
that are produced by the external rite.
The passive power, therefore, receives the intention of Christ
in a twofold manner: insofar as it makes the soul capable of
receiving the effects of the· sacramental sign by receiving the
external rite with a fortified or "characterized" intention 64
and insofar as the soul by reason of this elevated operation
actually receives the effects intended by Christ to be given
through the sacraments. In the former instance the character
operates instrumentally. It carries the intention of Christ to the
sacramental sign, but as an intention of receiving the sacramental effects, not as an intention of causing them for others.
Without this characterized intention, no effect could be obtained
from the sacraments: it is therefore truly a cause of the sacramental effect, but since the intention is that of a recipient, it
demands an active power by which the sacrament is constituted
a cause of the effects which the passive power renders the subject capable of receiving. Since, however, the passive power
actually cooperates in bringing the effects of Christ's Passion
to the soul, it can be seen that such a power is rightly called a
participation in the priesthood of Christ, even though it is an
essentially different participation from that conferred by the
active power. 65
•• Ibid. Cum character ordinetur ad cultum Dei secundum ritum Christianae
religionis consistentem principaliter in susceptionibus et administrationibus sacra.mentorum; in ilia potentia debet immediate recipi quae habet vim imperandi
movem:li alias potentias: ergo haec potentia est subjectum recipiens immediate
characterem. Unde facile intelligitur characterem baptismi recipi in intellectu
practico communicando ejus imperio efficaciam ut alias potentias moveat ad validam
receptionem ceterorum sacramentorum.
65 Cf. John of St. Thomas, Cttrsus Tkeol., Vol. IX, Disp. XXV, art. II, dub. II, .
n. CXXIV: Si dicas quod omnis character est potestas passiva, quia habet activitatem respectu instrumentalis concursis et motionis respondetur quod character non
datur in ordine ad instrumentalem motionem ut ad proprium actum (quia etiamsi
non daretur physica motio· instrumentalis, adhuc daretur character) sed in ordine
ad ea quae sunt
divini cultus, et actiones sacras exercendas; et in his
vel passive se habent vel active; ad operandum autem instrumentaliter semper
passive se habent; sed non ad operandum ministerialiter et sacramentaliter, quia in
aliquibus configurantur Christo agendo, in aliis recipiendo.

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MCCORMACK

From this fact of the necessity of a passive power for the
reception of the sacraments, one can gain further insight into
the fact that the teaching of St. Thomas relative to the distinction of sanctifying and sacramental grace is closely linked
to his doctrine of the character as an instrumental potency. Thus
the sacraments of the Old Law did not cause sacramental grace
(which adds something over ap.d above sanctifying grace) because they were not instrumental causes of grace. 66 Because the
sacraments of the New Law physically cause grace, and because
that grace adds something to sanctifying grace, a disposition
(that is, a potency) is required to make the soul capable of
receiving such grace. 67 It is very significant therefore that it is
in the third article of the sixty-third question that St. Thomas
distinguishes the sacramental character, which is the mark of
Christ, from sanctifying grace, which is the mark of the Holy
Spirit. 68 Man is naturally capable of grace, 69 but he requires
a further disposition to be capable of sacramental grace. 70
This further disposition is his passive power of receiving the
sacraments.
These considerations of the phrase, " divine worship according to the rite of the Christian religion," and the nature of the
instrumentality exercised by the active and passive characters
66 Sum. Theol., III, q. 62, a. 6, cf. also, q. 70, a. 4: Et quia baptismus operatur
instrumentaliter in virtute passionis Christi, non autem circumcisio, ideo baptismus
imprimit characterem incorporantem hominem Christo et copiosiorem gratiam coniert
quam circumcisio; major enim est effectus rei quam spei.
67 Sum. Theol., III, q. 63, a. I, ad 3: Sacramenta veteris legis non habebant in se
spiritualem virtutem ad aliquem spiritualem effectum operandum; et ideo in illis
sacramentis non requirebatur aliquis spiritualis character, sed sufficiebat ibi corporalis circumcisio. Cf. IV, Sent., Dist. IV, q. 1, art. 4, q. 1, ad 2: Sacramenta
veteris legis ex opere operato nihil conferebant, et ideo illae actiones non requirebant
spiritualem potestatem; et ideo nee ab illis, nee ad ilia imprimebatur character.
68 Cf. art. 3, ad I.
•• Sum. Theol., I-II, q. 113, a. 10: Naturaliter animae est gratiae capax; eo
enim ipso quod facta est ad imaginem Dei capax es(Dei per gratiam, ut Augustinus
dicit. Cf. M. Mathis, 0. P. "Quommodo Anima Humana sit 'Naturaliter Capax
Gratiae' Secundum Doctrinam S. Thomae," in Angelicum, Vol. XIV (1937), pp:
178-193.
7 ° Cf. A. Horvath,
0. P., "De Influxu Christi in Evolutione Imaginis Dei,"
Angelicum, Vol. VI (1929), pp. 125-141.

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in distributing the effects o£ Christ's Passion will render more
understandable the doctrine of St. Thomas that the characters
are configurations to the priesthood of Christ. The orderliness
of St. Thomas' procedure will also be revealed. In the first
article of the sixty-third question, it will be recalled, St. Thomas
determines that the sacraments of the New Law are rightly
said to mark the soul of a recipient with a spiritual character.
In the second article he determines that this spiritual mark is
an instrumental potency. In the third article he asks, "Whose
character is this? "
Now since it has already been determined by St. Thomas that
the character is both a sign and an instrumental potency, this
question can have two meanings: first, it can have the meaning: Who uses this character to mark men? In this sense the
question is a pursuit of the efficient cause of the character, and
abstracts from the question of the character's being either a
purely distinctive sign, or a natural one. That St. Thomas is
not asking the question in this sense can be seen in a comparison of this article (q. 63, a. 3) with the first article of the
following question. In the first article of the sixty-fourth question it is evident that St. Thomas is speaking of the character
as it is an effect of the sacraments, not as a potency that
operates. 71 Here, however, it is evident that he is concerned
with the character precisely as a potency that operates. Its
efficient cause then will be more precisely its principal causethe cause in virtue of whose influence the character operates,
not the cause in virtue of which it exists.
The question " whose character is this " can also mean " to
71 Cf. Sum. Theol., ill, q. 64, a. 1: The question asked is whether God alone
works interiorly toward the effect of the sacraments. The answer in part: Respondeo
dicendum quod operari aliquem effectum contingit dupliciter: uno modo per modum
principalis agentis, alio modo per modum instrumenti. Primo igitur modo solus
Deus operatur interiorem effectum sacramenti, tum quia solus Deus illabitur animae
in qua sacramenti efl'ectus existit; ... tum quia gratia, quae est interior sacramenti
effectus est a solo Deo .... Character etiam qui est interior quorumdam sacramentorum efl'ectus est virtus instrumentalis, quae manat a principali agente, quod
est Deus. Secundo autem modo homo potest operari ad interiorem effectum sacramenti, in quantum operatur per modum ministri.

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whom does this character configure." This is the question of
the relationship of the character to its principal cause. Verbally,
it is a question regarding the exemplary cause. Nevertheless,
the relationship of the character to its exemplary cause can only
be determined after the principal cause has been determined.
The question, then, is a pursuit primarily of the principal cause
of the character (as distinguished from its efficient cause) and
secondarily of the exemplary cause. The character will, however, respect its exemplar in the way proper to its nature or
potency. The relationship of the character to its exemplar will
be described after the argument in this third article has been
considered.
The first thing to be remarked in an attempt to understand
the doctrine contained in this article is that the argument in the
Sed Contra should not be separated from that given in the body
of the article. In the Sed Contra St. Thomas invokes the
authority of the magistral definition to prove that the character
is to be attributed to Christ. 72 Were one to consider the Sed
Contra alone, one might be led into the impression that St.
Thomas is teaching that the "eternal and invisible Image" of
the Father is the cause of the sacramental character. This may
well have been the mind of the author of the magistral definition,
and the mind of the predecessors of St. Thomas, but the teaching of the Angelic Doctor in the body of this article shows that
it is not his. The conclusion of St. Thomas is that the sacramental characters are configurative to Christ insofar as they
are participations in His priesthood. Now, Christ is a priest,
not as He is God, but as He is man. 78 Therefore the efficient or
principal cause of the sacramental character is not precisely the
Eternal Character, but the visible manifestation of that Eternal
72 Sed contra est quod quidam sic definiunt characterem:
Character est distinctio
a charactere aetemo impressa animae rationali, secundum imaginem, consignans
trinitatem creatam Trinitati creanti et recreanti, et' distinguens a non configuratis
secundum statum fidei. Sed character aetemus est ipse Christus, secundum illud
Hebr. 1, 8: Qui cum sit splendor gloriae, et figura (character) substantiae ejus.
Ergo videtur quod character sit proprie attribuendus Christo.
•• Cf. Sum. Tkeol., ill, q. 22, a. 2.

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and Invisible Image. 74 This point represents the basic difference between St. Thomas' concept of configuration and that of
his predecessors. It will be necessary; therefore, to examine the
body of the article in detail.
St. Thomas first sums up the previous articles of this sixtythird question. He begins by recalling the essential nature of
a character. It is, he says, a sign whereby someone or something
is assigned a function: for ·instance, there is the stamp upon
metal making it a medium of exchange, and in ancient times a
mark was inscribed upon a man sent out to fight for his country.
Now, the sacraments depute men to certain goals. Primarily
they depute men to the enjoyment of heaven when they impress
upon the soul the mark of divine grace, the seed of glory. Man,
however, is also deputed to a temporal function: the worship of
God according to the rite of the Christian religion, and it is to
this function that man is assigned in the reception of a sacramental character. Since the worship of God in the Christian
economy consists mainly in the administration and reception of
the sacraments, the character is, therefore, either a passive or
active ability in regard to them. Now, continues the Angelic
Doctor, the entire rite of Christian worship is derived from the
priesthood of Christ. Therefore, he concludes, the sacramental
characters, ordained as they are to the worship of God according
to the rite of the Christian religion, are participations in the
priesthood of Christ. The answer, therefore, to the question,
"whose character is this" is simply, Christ the Priest's.
To understand the notion of configuration of which St.
Thomas is speaking, it must constantly be kept in mind that
the character is an instrumental potency. Therefore the like.. Cf. Horvath, op. cit., p. U5: Regalem potestatem Christi intime cohaerere
cum sacerdotali, imo ab ipsa fluere necnon ab ilia deterrninationem quandam soli
huic regalitati propriam recipere universaliter notum est. . . . Haec tamen suprema
potestas regia distincta est ab ilia quae convenit illi ex eo quod sit Unigenitus
Patris et. imago invisibilis Dei. In de enim haec regalitas solum rationem habet
quod Christus sit primogenitus ex mortuis, imago visibilis, caput corporis Ecclesiae,
principium salutis, in quo et per quod Deus sibi reconciliavit omnia, pacificans per
sanguinem crucis ejus, sive quae in terris sive quae in coelis sunt.

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MCCORMACK

ness of the character is found in .the fact that the function of
the character is to produce the works of Christ, works which,
properly, are not to be attributed to the character, nor to the
one who possesses the character, but to Him who works through
the character, namely, Christ the Priest. Christ the Priest,
therefore, may be said to be the exemplary cause of the character in the same wide sense that the sacramental character,
according to its proper nature, can be called a sign. 75 In the
rigor of technical language however, Christ the Priest is the
principal cause of the character, that is, the cause under whose
influence the character produces the work of Christ's priesthood, the sanctification of men.
All Christians, therefore, can be said to participate in the
priesthood of Christ. Some participate passively in the twofold
sense that they receive the effect of Christ's sacrificial act,
namely grace/ 6 and also in the sense that through Baptism
they receive a capability of worshiping God through the reception of the Christian sacraments. 77 The character is therefore
a sign insofar as it unites its recipient to Christ the Priest. It is
not in the genus of sign, however, as is the sacrament, which
impresses the character, but rather in the genus of potency
or cause. 78
The principle whereby St. Thomas concludes that the sacramental characters are participations in the priesthood of Christ
is, then, that the characters are instrumental potencies. Therefore the characters are participations in the sense that men
through them participate in Christ's causation of the sacramental effects. The participation, therefore, of which St.
Thomas is principally speaking in the third article is a participation in action, not precisely a participation in an exemplar.
Men do participate in. Christ the Priest, however, as in an
exemplar inasmuch as their characters are permanent qualities.
By reason of this permanence, men can be said to be consecrated
Cf. Sum. Theol., III, q. 63, a. 1 ad 2.
Ibid., a. 6, ad 1.
78 Ibid., a. 2, ad 4.
77 Ibid., a. 2.
76

76

CONFIGURATION

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489

to the redemptive work ·of Christ, as the Humanity of Christ
by reason of the Hypostatic Union is consecrated to the work
of Redemption. 79 If Christ worked his sacramental effects
through men merely by assuming them into His operations they
would be configured to Him in operation, since they would produce His works. Since, however, they possess a permanent
quality in virtue of which Christ uses them, they can be said
to be configured to Him according to their characters.
It is important to remember in speaking of Christ as the
exemplar of the characterized man that the characters are
instrumental potencies-ordained, in cooperation with Christ,
to produce the works of His Priesthood. Therefore, even in his
static condition (when his character . is not operating) the
characterized man is configured to the actions of Christ, since
by reason of his character he stands physically related to them.
The configuration of the character is the configuration that a
moved cause has to its mover; a configuration or participation
in the order of efficient causality. This is true even of the character as it is a permanent quality, since it is a quality that is
reductively a potency-therefore having a relation to a principal
cause.
character therefore configures to Christ as He is a
Priest, that is to say, as He is the primary (instrumental) cause
of the sanctification of men.
The difference between the configuration of the character and
the conformity of grace 80 is chiefly to be discerned from this
fact: grace is a habit perfecting the soul in its being and its
is an instrumental
own proper operation whereas the
potency. Grace effects in the soul of man an immediate participation in the life of God, without, however, destroying the
proper and therefore meritorious causality of the secondary
cause in which it resides and which it perfects. The ultimate
exemplar of grace, therefore, is the life of the Blessed Trinity,
not Christ as He is man. Christ, as man, is also sanctified by
•• Cf. Heris, 0. P., Le Mystere du Christ.
80 St. Thomas uses this terminology without explaining it further in III, q. 69,
a. 9, ad 1.

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MCCORMACK

habitual grace, which elevates his human soul to an immediate
participation in the divine life, and makes it capable of the
beatific vision. Christ's Humanity, as it is sanctified by habitual
grace, is, however, the exemplar of souls sanctified by grace in
the limited sense that His Humanity is the most perfectly
sanctified of creatures. Christ the priest, however, is the ultimate exemplar of the characterized man (considering the character as a permanent quality or consecration) since His
Humanity possesses by reason of the Hypostatic Union what
the characterized man possesses in a limited degree. 81 Thus St.
Thomas in treating of the indelibility of the character explains
the relation of the character as it is a permanent quality to the
Priesthood of Christ:
The sacramental character is a certain participation of the priesthood of Christ in his faithful, so that, namely, just as Christ has the
full power of a spiritual priesthood, so his faithful share some
spiritual power in regard to the sacraments and those things which
pertain to divine worship. And it is on this account also that it
does not belong to Christ to have a character, but the power of his
priesthood is compared to the character as that which is complete
and perfect to some participation of it. 82

When it is remembered that this quotation is taken from the
article dealing with the character as a permanent quality, and
not in its precise formality of instrument, everything that has
81 Cf. John of St. Thomas, Disp. XXV, art. 3, n. IV: Itaque in exemplaritate et
participatione character respicit sacerdotium Christi ·et consequenter Christum
secundum quod homo; in quo differt a gratia ·quae est immediata participatio
naturae divinae; et ideo non respicit gratiam Christi aut Christum secundum homo
in participatione et exemplaritate. At vero in efficientia character est effective a
tota Trinitate, et ab humanitate Christi solum instrumentaliter, sicut alia supernaturaliter dona; et sic dici potest character Trinitatis effective, Christi autem
participative et exemplariter.
•• S.um. Theol., III, q. 63, a. 5: Character sacramentalis est quaedam participatio
sacerdotii Christi in fidelibus ejus, ut scilicet sicut Christus habet plenam spiritualis
sacerdotii potestatem ita fideles ejus participant aliquam spiritualem potestatem
respectu sacramentorum et eorum quae pertinent ad cultum divinum. Et propterea
hoc etiam Christo non competit habere characterem, sed potestas sacerdotii ejus
comparatur ad characterem sicut id quod est plenum et perfectum ad aliquam sui
participationem.

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been said of the character as a configuration is summed up. The
likeness effected in the soul by the sacramental character is a
participation in the priesthood of Christ. This participation is
a participation in the efficient order-the participation of the
moved in the mover. Insofar, however, as the character is
permanent, this participation in the priesthood_of Christ can be
considered in the formal order, so that the character can be
said to set apart or consecrate its recipient for the sanctification
of men as a subordinate instrument just as the Hypostatic
Union sets apart the Humanity of Christ as the Primary
Instrument.
STEPHEN

Domini<:an House of
Washington, D. C.

McCoRMACK,

0. P.

THE SEARCH FOR THE INTELLIGIBLE
GOOD

K

ISTOTLE'S definition of the good as that which all
things desire is acceptable in any of the historic philosophies except the materialistic. Men of good will
and philosophic vision have always been able to attain to the
concept of the Immanent or the Transcendent Good. However,
it is only in Judaeo-Christian thought that there has been any
development of the concept of the Immanent and Transcendent
Good, the God Who loves all things 1 as well as the Good whom
all things love. Eastern theologies, whether indigenous or transplanted to the West, find the immanent good of natural existence a perpetual stumbling-block in the rise to the Transcendent One. On the other hand, Western theology, when separated
from Messianic thought, either before or after Christ, never
succeeds in making a systematic identification of the Immanent
and the Transcendent Good. When Heraclitus discovered the
Everlasting Logos, he found it only as a principle immanent in
the flux. And the sovereignty held by the Platonic ideas over
the realm of
is ordained to the perpetual renewal of the
temporal order. Even the One of the Parmenides is still involved in the Heraclitian flux at the end of the dialogue in spite
of all the Pythagorea:n and Eleatic rationalism which has gone
before.
Aristotle, alone of all non-Messianic thinkers, succeeded in
achieving a statement of true transcendence and a statement
of true immanence. But by restricting the contemplation of
God to the Mind of God, Aristotle also fails to identify the
Transcendent and the Immanent Good. The universe of Aristotle is moved by God to the Good. It is not moved for and in
God, as it is to .St. Paul. To Aristotle, n:o less than to Plato,
the forms found in nature are to be perpetually renewed. Once
1

The Book of Wisdom, 11, 25.

492

THE SEARCH

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493

away from the First Mover, they have a completely autonomous life of their own.
The Platonic insistence that the truly real is the ideal sets the
historical pattern of Western idealism by becoming the scepticism of the Middle and New Academies. Meanwhile, under the
influence of Theophrastus, Peripateticism devoted itself to the
exploration of the natural sciences. The search for the Good
was continued in the Alexandrine age only by the Stoics. Moreover the Stoic emphasis on the doctrine of Providence gave to
their concept of God a realism in theology which only the
Hebrews had asserted previously. To the Stoics evil is not the
inevitable result of natural imperfection, as in Plato and Aristotle. The concept of evil is rather the product of human ignorance. This doctrine is, of course, an extension to the physical
world of the Socratic doctrine of moral evil. And it amounts to
the broadening of a basic error rather than a basic truth.
The denial of intrinsic imperfection is, of course, the weak
point in the Stoic dialectic. But the important point for the
history of the search for the Good is the unyielding Stoic insistence that all reality is reducible to a Divine Purpose.
Neither the early nor the later Stoics were ever able to support
their statements of the Providence of God by any arguments
except ad hominem. They did, of course, revive the Socratic
argument from Design. But to the inescapable question: why
is the Design so obviously imperfect from the human point of
view, the Stoics could say only that it is the human point of
view which is imperfect. That is good rhetoric but it does not
answer the objection. The Stoics maintained the doctrine of
Providence against their opponents. But they did not establish it.
After two centuries of controversy with Epicureans, Peripatetics, and
the Stoic position was synthesized with
Pythagorean mysticism by the Stoic Posidonius. The resulting
Neo-Pythagoreanism attained a considerable influence until
it was finally absorbed hy the Neo.,Platonic school. But the
union of Stoicism and mysticism was made at the expense of
the basic Stoic orientation toward nature as good in itself. And
5

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JAMES F; KELEHER

Epictetus revived an historically pure Stoicism by insisting that
philosophy must be practical, not.mystical.
The eclecticism of Posidonius is, typical of the last two centuries of pre-Christian Hellenism. But the most important of
the eclectics is, of course, Cicero. With true Roman impartiality Cicero gives audiences in his De Natura Deorum to all the
flourishing systems of his period. First, with characteristic universalism, he propounds the argument for the existence of God
from the common consent of mankind. Then he calls on the
philosophers for a practical ethic. But he finds the Epicurean
non-social, the_ Stoic non-human, the Peripatetic committed
to the unstable goods of fortune. He reminds us that Carneades
had decided against the Oneness of God because men had worshipped too many different gods. What, then, does the highminded but practical Roman do? He will not renounce the
search for the good. But for him the only verifiable good is the
bonum honestum, the ethos of men of goodwill. And this, historically speaking, is the end of the search for the Good by unenlightened natural wisdom. If there is a God it is time for
Him to manifest Himself to men.
It is a well-established assumption of modem religious criticism that Christian theology is a syncretism of preceding systems, a rationalization of the " simple " message of Christ.
But this assumption cannot survive an historically informed
and alert reading of the Gospel of St. Matthew. For the God
Who marks the fall of the sparrow and Who numbers the hairs
of our heads 2 is completely different from the God of any of the
Hellenes or the Hellenists. The God of St. Matthew loves His
creatures as individuals, not as idealized participants in the universal scheme of things. He is not the inevitably forgetful
Designer of the Timaeus nor the indifferent God of Aristotle's
Metaphysics. He is not the Heraclitian Logos of the Stoics,
alternately renewing and relapsing the flux forever; nor the
completely transcendent One of Plotinus, Who must have a
hierarchy of beings in which the lowest can ascend to the High• St. Matthew, X, 29 & 80.

TliE SEARCH FOR THE INTELLIGIBLE

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495

est but the Highest can never descend to the lowest. For God
made all things and He made each one for Himself. Revelation
was not only necessary to sustain natural ethics, as the Church ·
proclaims. It was also necessary to enlighten metaphysics.
The metaphysical enlightenment which is the distinctive note
of Christian philosophy is not only the Law of Reason to which
Hellenism was committed. It is also the Law of Love which
derives from the historical Christ. God is not only the Good
which all things desire. He is also the Good which desires all
things. Christ fulfilled the Law of the Covenant. He also transformed the Logos of the sages.
Unlike Athena, Christian philosophy did not spring fullgrown from the Mind of God. It is, indeed, still growing. But
it is still rooted in the Joannine Logos, the historical Christ,
Who is One with the Father in a Love Who also exists eternally
as a Third Person. The revelation that the Godhead is also ordained to the Law of Love makes the doctrine of the Immanent
and Transcendent Good hardly more than a commonplace for
Christian theology. And until th.e doctrine of the Trinity had
been defined authoritatively, the purely philosophical implications of the Law of Love and Reason were not too carefully
articulated. Even then the working of grace is clearly evident.
For it was in the throes of his conversion from Manicheanism
that St. Augustine was able to restate definitively the principle: omne ens est bonum.
The restatement by St. Augustine of the basic Christian
metaphysic was actually the formulation of a n{lw and profound
attainment of the intelligible good. This is the doctrine of the
degrees of perfection. Things as they exist are good. But they
are only relatively good. They are not completely perfect because God did not make them so. They are not bonum per se.
But they are bonum in se. There is no fundamental defect in
things, as Plato had taught. For being in se is good, although
it is not good per se. Thus St. Augustine triumphed over the
Hellenists and the heresiarchs not only because he knew the
Law of Love but because he also understood the Law of Reason
better than they.

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JAMES

F. KELEHER

The Augustinian doctrine . of the degrees of perfection has
itself been restated by many Christian philosophers from Boethius to Berkeley. It remains a basic insight in the continuing
search for the good. Even though Augustianism yielded to
Thomism after nine hundred years of dominance in Western
thought, St. Thomas is thoroughly Augustinian in his doctrine
of the
of the Good. For the momentuous discovery of Augustine gathered impetus from Boethius, Anselm, and Albert to become an integral part of the Thomistic
system in the Fourth Argument for the existence of God. Moreover, while Aquinas uses. Aristotle's principle of "no regress to
infinity " in his presentation of the argument, he uses Augustine's doctrine of the omnipotence of God deriving good from
evil to answer the second of the two objections which he
considers pertinent against the existence of God.
Scotus, however, departs from St. Augustine in his treatment
of the intelligibility of the Good. St. Thomas proves the omnipotence of God by a dialectic purely rational. 3 But it is a rationalism informed by the Augustinian insight that being as such is
good. Scotus denies explicitly that the omnipotence of God can
be established by rational inquiry. 4 We must believe the doctrine of the omnipotence of God, says. Scotus, although we
cannot prove it. But the rational inquiry of Scotus fails of an
affirmative solution because he declines to reaffirm the historic
doctrine of the intrinsic but relative
of all natural
existence. He claims that he is taking the Creed in its truest
sense by insisting on the necessity of believing in the omnipotence of God rather than claiming that the truth is demonstrable. But this is a grave misunderstanding of the historic
function of Christian philosophy. The Logos is a Light shining
in darkness. And Christian philosophy is a leap in the Light,
not in the dark. If, faith is not fundamentally reasonable it is
vain. Even the mystery of the Trinity, once revealed, does not
defy rational analysis, as the philosophy of St. Bonaventure
shows most excellently. The failure of Scotus to find. natural
• Summa Theologica, I, 25, 8.

• Opus Oxoniense, I, 42, 1.

THE SEARCH

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GOOD

·i97

reasan attunable to natural existence on a much more fundamental question of natural theology reveals dearly an important defect in the system of Scotuso That defect is its
basically non-existential charactero
The effect of the denial by Scotus of the demonstrability of
Omnipotence is immediately apparent in Ockham. Like Fo Ho
Bradley's Absolute, Omnipotence becomes for Ockham an
enfant terrible whose insistent claims must be recognized because we are unable to silence them. Eventually Laplace was
to assert that he had silenced those insistent claims of Omnipotence. But for a long time after Ockham, Omnipotence was
still a datum of dialectic. However the work of the fideists from
Nicholas de Ultra-Curia to Montaigne is not our present
concern. And it was not until the time of Descartes that the
demonstration of the Omnipotence of God was again attempted
by natural wisdom.
Descartes' proof of the omnipotence of God is irrefutable
within the framework of the simple dualistic system of Descartes. If spirit and matter are the fundamental dichotomies
of existence and if man is fundamentally a spirit, his continuea
existence as such leads inevitably to the existence of an Infinite
Power. As Descartes himself puts it:
It is perfectly manifest that in this question of the existence of
God there can be no regression into infinity, since what is in question is not so much the cause which formerly created me, as that
which conserves me at the present time. 5

But it is " perfectly manifest" only if one concedes in advance
the continued existence of the spirit of man in a material world.
Quite obviously, therefore, the materialistic attack on Cartesianism took the position of maintaining the basic and undistinctive materiality of all knowable existence. Yet it was
Descartes who had maintained the undistinctive materiality of
purely· mundane existence, excluding only the spirit of man
from his dictum. If Cartesianism has done nothing else, it has
5 Descartes' Selections. Edited by Ralph M. Eaton.
Charles Scribner's Sons, New
York: 1927, p. 124.

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JAMES F. KELEHER

shown that, historically as well as intrinsically, a basic pluralism is a necessity for Christian philosophy. The almost inevitable development of Cartesianism which was formulated by
Spinoza is another indication of this. For the monism of
Spinoza closely approximates that of the great Hindu thinkers
in spite of its rigorous mathematical dialectic. But it is completely alien to the Hebraic wisdom which had transformed the
West.
The pluralism of Leibniz, however, is recognizably Augustinian. In St. Augustine the complete dependence of the universe
on God is forever emphasized. In Leibniz complete dependence
of the individual being on God and complete independence of
all others is developed by using the Cartesian principle of the
metaphysical insufficiency of secondary causes. Thus with
Leibniz the entire universe is converted to Protestantism. For
to him each individual being is both self-integrated and immediately in harmony with the universe by the direct action of
God. Not only can nothing come between God and the individual being. Nothing can even try to do so. This is the unyielding individualism of Ockham combined with the divinely
participating individualism of Scotus. But Leibniz does not
derive his individualism from the dialectic necessity of Ockham
nor from the Scotistic view of the Divine simplicity of creation.
Leibniz gets his individualism· from his radically dynamic
pluralism. However, in order to view the universe as a whole,
Principles of Continuity and Concomihe proposes his
tance, by which each individual is not only bonum in se but
also bonum in commune.
To attain in one magnificent vision both the bonum in se
and the bonum in commune is the unceasing task of Christian
philosophy. Leibniz achieved it by a method at once radically
individualistic and radically mathematical. However, Cartesian and post-Cartesian idealism came to its inevitable scepticism in Hume, the ambidextrous disciple of Berkeley and
Malebranche. And modern thought, from Hume to Whitehead,
has denied the God of Leibniz. But it remains intrigued by the

THE SEARCH FOR THE INTELLIGIBLE

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499

Leibnizian vision of the mathematical and pluralistic Good. It
is highly doubtful that the cosmological optimism of Leibniz
will be revived. For the anthropomorphism of. eighteenth-century Deism still prevails in non-Catholic theology. But current
idealism and current realism now manifest an Hegelian synthesis describable as Meliorism-to use a thought of William
James.
Meliorism is an eclectic modification of Leibnizian optimism.
In denying Leibniz' postulate that the universe is the best it
could be because God would not make it otherwise, modernistic
thought maintains that, since the world could be better, therefore it should be better. Since God has not accepted this Categorical Imperative, theistic modernism has decided that He is
not the Summum Bonum of Kant-yet. Post- Kantian idealism
set the basic pattern of Meliorism by making the Absolute
merely super-human, as in Fichte; infra-rational or suprarational, as in Schelling; merely rational, as in Hegel; and
necessarily finite, as in Bradley. On the other hand, theistic
empiricism has reacted against Humanism in Reid's doctrine of
the validity of common experience. But Hamilton restricted
Reid's doctrine to the philosophy of nature, insisting that only
Kant's moral argument for the Summum Bonum has validity. 6
Against Hamilton's merely moralistic theism, Mill first maintained that if there is a God He is knowable in common experience at least analogically .7 But eventually Mill could envision
no more than a- finite God, if any. 8 The finitism of Mill and
Bradley are only nominally the same, however, since Bradley
is always sure of his Absolute and Mill can get along with or
without God. The final formulation of Reidian Common
Sensism into the Unknowable of Spencer made empiricism and
theism no longer reconcilable for modernist thought, if merely
• Discussions on Philosophy and Literature. Harper & Bros., New York: 1858, pp.
585-590.
7 An Examination
of Sir William Hamilton's Philosophy. William V. Spencer,
Boston: 1866, Vol. I, pp. 129-181.
8 Three Essays on Religion.
Edited by H. Taylor. Henry Holt and Sons, New
York: 1874.

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experiental rationalism is followed. But the American philosopher C. S. Peirce had proceeded from" Critical Commonthe doctrine of common scientific exSensism " to
perience which is the " working " epistemology of our present
culture. Peirce thereby outlined the scientific pragmatism
which soon became, among other things,- current realism.
Peirce worked out a metaphysic which is historically interesting. More realistic than Leibniz and under the influence of
evolutionism, he proposed a continuum which is potentially infinite, not actually infinite, as with Leibnitz. Peirce, moreover,
accepted according to his mode his Joannine heritage of Law as
Love. But he found Love operative only in the dynamism of
and
individualism indiscriminately tending toward a
greater pluralism. Finding no evidence of Transcendent Love
Peirce had recourse to Casuism to account for the limited perfection he found in the existential universe. This amounts to a
substitution of Love and Luck for Love and Reason. But since
rationalism from Descartes to Bradley and Spencer had been
unable to achieve an historically satisfactory vision of the
universe, even a Love dependent on Luck would seem worthy
of consideration.
However, James and Dewey have_made only a humanistic
Meliorism out of Peirce. And one of his editors, Paul Weiss,
has proposed his own version of the Absolute while still recognizing the Casuism of Peirce. 9 Apparently the Melioristic
pattern of modern thought is not to be denied.
Meliorism finds its current metaphysical basis in the doctrine
of the indeterminism of being, just as it finds its historical
progenitor in the epistemically indeterminate Hume. And now
that Scholastic philosophers have generally revised that historic system to accommodate the theory of metaphysical
indeterminism, Scholastic epistemology also begins to show
tendencies toward indeterminacy. This is a development to
be expected. For, however insistently one may maintain that
the natural form and the mental representation of that form are
• Reality. PrincetQn Press, Princeton: 1988.

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separate orders of being, a realistic epistemology must, by its
very realism, be modified by the accepted theory of natural
form. We may, then,note quite pertinently that the general
theory of the indetermip.ism of natural forms, with its historic
roots in the mental indeterminacy of Hume, appears to be a
thought. For Scholasticism is comGrecian gift to
mitted to the intrinsic knowability of. things as they are, because, such as they are, God made them andsaw that they were
good.
Of course no adherent of Scholasticism has accepted the indiscriminate pluralism of modern evolutionism. But the historic Scholastic recognition of an immense variety of knowable
natural forms has been narrowed in its current viewpoint by an
increasing commitment to the general theory of evolution.
However, a commitment to evolutionism has become less and
less indicated by the accumulated findings of natural science
since. Pasteur disproved spontaneous generation and biology
made its belated verification of the Mendelian Laws. The autonomy of vitalistic processes, which is from Pasteur, and the
autonomy of specific vital process, which is from Mendel, are
no:t disputable on the basis of verified technical data. They are
disputable only on the basis of scientific " fallibilism," the
hypothesis that since we don't know everything, therefore we
don't know anything.
I do not, of course, maintain that biological genera and
species are as rigidly distinguishable as historic Aristotelian
science once found them to be. The colloids, the crystalline
viruses, the locomotive plants and the carnivorous plants-certainly these have made Porphyry's tree and Bergsonian vitalism
no longer useful. Also, the extent of possible variations within
the various species and the enlargement of the limits of particular species make engrossing problems for the geneticists.
But a non-specific mutation, a newly-autonomous form, is still
no more than wishful thinking.
In the purely inorganic domain also the authentic pluralism
of natural form is undeniable. Even if the dreams of the

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modern alchemists come true and material substance is shown
as demonstrably monotype, we shall still have, as existential
forms, the half-million molecules, the ninety atoms, the subatomic particles, and the several rays. J\!Ioreov'er, the formal
identity of the hydrogen proton with the " protons " which are
assumed to be in the other elements is yet to be established
systematically.
It is true, of course, that natural forms existed once which
no longer exist. It is also true that current organic forms once
did not exist, according to our best available knowledge. This
may be true even of inorganic forms. Again, it is possible to
point out recoguizable patterns of life with a history of ascent
and descent. But it is also possible to point out patterns of life
with no such history. Nevertheless, the search for the countless missing links still goes on. But the continuum, Leibnizian,
Hegelian, or Peircian, is an assumption whose fruitfulness becomes more and more questionable except in mathematical
reasoning. For the existential universe is radically discontinuous. The individual existents which compose the universe are
independent as well as interdependent. They have their own
intrinsic continuity, not altogether continuous with the rest of
their species nor the rest of the universe. Moreover, the interrelations which do exist indicate that the processes of the universe are saltatory and not serial. Men think otherwise only
when their minds move in levels of abstraction not continuously
informed by the richness of individual existence.
Thus, Leibnizian monadism, in spite of its orientation from
the individual as dynamic, renders obscure the pluralism which
it also proclaims. For, since the individual only reflects the concomitant action of the Divine Causality on the other individuals
in the universe, the dynamism of any one individual has no
individual relation to any other. For Leibniz, as for Descartes,
only one individual existent outside God is needed to make
the universe meaningful. If there is no extrinsic efficiency in
created causality, the Divine Purpose of creation could be
realized in any. one individual capable of loving the Infinite

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Essence in which all possibilities are eminently actual. And so,
while Leibniz answered his own famous question: why anything, he did not answer adequately the question: why everything? Of course, no one else has answered that question adequately. But since the cosmological optiin.ism of Leibniz is
not an acceptable a:nswer, Christian philosophers must continue
to ask the question.
The historic Christian metaphysic requires that existence
itself be recognized as good, and St. Augustine's doctrine of the
degrees of perfection is still the basic expression of the historic
metaphysic. It is also the position of· St. Augustine, reiterated
by St. Thomas, that the bonum in
is not the totality
of the bona in se of individual beings. This would be true, as
St. Thomas points out, 10 only if all created being were incorruptible. Undoubtedly the best possible world, according to
natural human standards, would be an incorruptible one. For
man, whose own material corruption is an ancient curse which
the materialist forever tries to rationalize, is uneasy and querulous about corruption of any kind. The great heart of Leibniz
used the resources of his Platonic dialectic to make even the
souls of animals immortal. Nevertheless, the corruptible is
bonum in se for the term of its existence and contributes to the
bonum in commune by its dissolution. The Scholastic generalization, generatio unius, corruptio alterius; corruptio alterius,
generatio alterius, was based perhaps on faith as much as knowledge. But the economy of the universe becomes less and less a
devout assumption as we learn more and. more about the universe.
In a universe recognized as economical, the limited autonomy
of created being becomes self-evident. Outside God no one,
however perfect, can have more than some degree of perfection,
whether that perfection be by nature or by grace. Autonomous
form is not itself divine, as Plato taught. Nor is it self-sufficient,
as Aristotle held. For it is interdependent as well as independent.
This realistic concept of limited autonomy avoids the practical
difficulties of Christian idealism, from Eriugena's spiritualized
10

Summa Theologica, I, q. 48,

corp.

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JAMES F. KELEHER

intellectualism to Berkeley's spiritualized sens1sm. Against
monadism it maintains an interrelated pluralism; against
monism a radical pluralism. It rebuts Meliorism by placing
fallibilism in the human mind, not in the general dynamism of
being. The doctrine of limited autonomy does not "rhetoricize " the problem of evil, as the Stoics did. It affirms the actual
existence of evil as a privation of being. The doctrine does
maintain, however, that there is no fundamental defect or negation in created being. There is rather a positive affirmation of
the Immanent and Transcendent Good.
JAMES

Mineola, N. Y.

F. KELEHER

PATRISTIC SCHOOLS IN THE SUMMA
(Continued)

III.

LATER THEOLOGIANS

It is most necessary to single out the most important among
the later theologians in whom the spirit and influence of the
Schools of Alexandria and Antioch are found. They are the
authorities who are most respected and followed by St. Thomas
in the Summa Theologica and through whom the spirit and
methods of these schools found their place in the thought of the
Common Doctor.

St. Augustine (354-430)
St. Augustine, Bishop of Hippo, was the greatest of the
Fathers of the Church. 167 His very profound and lasting influence on the development of Christian thought is incontestable.
His powerful genius was the bridge over which the intellectual
treasures of the old world were introduced to the new Latin
culture. In him the center of theological influence shifted to
the West. Augustine's was a deep and original mind unequalled
among Christian thinkers. In the vastness of his writings he
was surpassed only by St. John Chrysostom. Besides .sowing
the seeds of medieval theology, he contributed to the definite
settlement ofthe language of theology. His keenly speculative
mind and deeply religious soul earned him a capital position in
167 The life of St. Augustine is too well known and his works too numerous to
be circumscribed by a few words here. He was born at Tagaste, Numidia, in 354
A. D. of a pagan father and the Christian, St. Monica. His studies led him away
from his mother's influence and finally into Manicheism. Search for the Truth
gradually led him to the Church through Nco-Platonism. He was baptized by St.
Ambrose in 387. In 391 he was ordained a priest at Hippo and in 396 became its
bishop. He died in 430. His brilliant and fruitful career and permanent influence
are without parallel in the Church. His most universally influential works are the
Retractions and the Confessions.

505

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the double movements of Scholasticism and Mysticism. With
such a fertile genius it is daring, to say the least, to attempt a
summary of his teaching. 168 However, the intent is merely to
sketch briefly the method employed by St. Augustine, pointing
out those factors which suggest his great authority, particularly
with the Angelic Doctor.
St. Augustine was too much of a philosopher and a man of
his time to fail to value the gifts of reason. He wished to use
the intellectual culture most fitted to pierce the meaning of
dogmas. Like most of the Fathers, he considered that Platonist
philosophy was just this instrument. He did not distinguish
Neo-Platonism from Platonism. Nevertheless, Augustine was
not resting in any system but was of the opinion that the spirit
of Platonist thought was best suited for the service of Christianity. It was a spiritualist philosophy. It most closely
approached that true philosophy, Christianity. It rose above
the realms of sense and changeable spirit to reach God.169 On
the other hand, he did not hesitate to refute some of the NeoPlatonist teachings, such as its inferior divinities, metempsychosis, its monistic and emanistic tendencies.
The role of reason is to prepare for the act of faith and to
aid in the penetration of the faith possessed. This is St.
Augustine's famous formula: Intellige ut credas, crede ut intelligas.170 Reason proves the veracity of the witness on whose
authority belief is based, and thus "ipsa (ratio) antecedit
168 Most good manuals on the history of dogmas contain worthy treatments
of
St. Augustine. The most complete summary, that followed here, is that of E.
Portalie in the Dictionnaire de Theologie Catkolique,_ "Augustin," vol. I, col.

!'t!'t68-!'t47!'t.
169 Of Aristotle, St. Augustine says: " vir excellentis ingenii et eloquio Platoni
quidem impar, sed multos facile superans." De Civitate Dei, VIII, 12.
Ibid., 5: "Nulli nobis, quam isti, proprius accesserunt."
Ibid., 6: " Cuncta corpora
quaerentes Deum ... omnem animam
mutabilesque omnes spiritus transcenderunt quaerentes summum Deum."
170 Sermo XLIII,
7, 9. In Psalm., CXVlli. Sermo XVIII, 3: "Alia sunt enim
quae nisi intelligamus non credimus, et alia sunt quae nisi credamus non intelligimus:
proficit ergo nqster intellectus ad intelligenda quae credat, et fides proficit ad
credenda quae intelligat."

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fidem." Reason is conscious of this authority; even in the act of
faith. 171 Once faith has presented the revraled truths, then
reason can endeavor to penetrate them, to
their
to discover their foundation. In St. Augustine the natural and
supernatural orders are not found clearly defined. The whole
is present in a synthetic divine viewpoint, combining all things
in the relationship to God, rather than analyzing them in themselves. Although a philosopher, St. Augustine so joined his
philosophy to theology as to make them inseparable. His entire
body of teaching is theological, essentially centered on God.
This was quite in accord with Augustine's purpose of nourishing
piety. Truth was not only the object of contemplation but a
good to be possessed, loved, and lived. He considered Christian
dogmas more in relation to the soul and the obligations of the
Christian life than speculatively. Truth was the central idea of
N eo-Platonist philosophy; the study of philosophy was a way
of approach to God, not a mere exercise of the mind. Theology
was the understanding of faith developed in the superior light
of wisdom. Theology is to nourish, defend, and strengthen faith.
The operations of charity and wisdom have their part in Augustine's system, as in all the Fathers: they produce a religious
knowledge. The essential intellectuality of St. Augustme's teaching is fused with an enlightened mysticism. Consequently, he
frequently used symbols to represent the divine mysteries and
he was drawn to see things in hierarchy. At the same time he
never abandoned the habit of reasoning (on) his faith, manifesting its nobility and reasonableness.
The idea of God, the Truth, the universal principle of being,
truth, and goodness, is the foundation of the Augustinian thought
-God in his essence (On the Trinity), in His Government
(The City of God), as the last end of all Christian life (Enchiridion and On Christian Combat). Although God is not
directly the object of intuition or immediately seen, yet, His
111 Epist. CXX, 88. De Vera Religione, 4/J, 46. Epist. CXLVII; CIII, 8. De
Praedest. Sanctorum, 5.

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existence being so evident, it is the exception that it be ignored. 172
St. Augustine furnished many proofs of God's existence in his
writings: the teleological and metaphysical proofs, 173 that drawn
from the degrees of perfection in the world, which he especially
prefers, and the psychological proo£.114 The changing and imperfect character of things in the world, their more or less goodness, cannot be so except in comparison with the supreme good,
perfection entirely unlimited. " Wherefore there would be no
changeable goods unless there were an incomlhutable good." 175
Moreover, reason, which is the noblest part of man, is guided
by principles and ideas that are necessary, immutable, eternal,
and superior to it since it does not create them. The truth which
in this way illumines and strengthens the soul is God, since He is
the principle of all knowledge, the first and essential foundation,
as He is the principle of all being. Yet, these ideas are not
absolutely innate. 176 Though it was abandoned by later theologians, Augustine considered this an argument from causality.
God is above all categories of the finite, at once knowable
and unknowable. 177 He is the first truth, the first being, the first
life, the supreme good. 118 He is unique, simple, eternal. The
finite is His work (and therefore good) , distinct from Him and
created in time. The conservation of beings is a continued
creation; divine Providence reaches all beings. All beings are
the realizations and images of the ideas of God, all knowledge a
participation in His thought, which is the perfect exemplar of
all things. Augustine identifies the Platonic subsisting ideas
with the creative ideas of God. Not only the general but all
Sermo LXIX, 3. In Joan., tract. CVI, 4.
Sermo CXLI, ft. Enarr. in psalm. XLI, 8. Confess. X, 8-10.
174 De Libe1o Arbit. II, c. 3-14, 7-38.
In Psalm. XLI, 8.
175 De Trin. VIII, 5. Confess. XI,
4, 6.
176 De Lib. Arb. II, 7-14.
><• De Trin. V, 1, 2: " ... sine quaiitate bonum, sine quantitate magnum, sine
indigentia creatorem, sine situ praesidentem, sine habitu omnia continentem, sine
loco ubique totum, sine tempore sempiternum, sine ulla sui mutatione mutabilia
facientem nihilque patientem."
178 De Civit. Dei, VIII, 10, 2.
Ibid., c. IV: ·.. Deus est causa. subsistendi, et
ratione intelligendi, et ordo vivendi."
172

118

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particular essences, real and possible, ideally pre-exist in the
mind of God. 119 From the vision of all these possibles which
God sees in His essence, He made a choice by creating the
actual world according to His preconceived plan. These divine
types are the ultimate bases of all contingent reality, the supreme foundations of the intelligibility of essences, the source of
the certitude of our knowledge. This exemplarism, according
to which St. Augustine had interpreted the Platonist theory of
ideas, was well known in the Middle Ages and exerted its
influence on St. Thomas.
The Greek Fathers had been forced by errors and heresies to
treat the Trinity in a controversial manner. St. Augustine wrote
more directly as a speculative theologian and a contemplative.
His work, On the Trinity, is his most lengthy and profound.
The point of departure is the one, simple divine nature and not,
as with the other Fathers, the Father as the source of the other
two Persons. 18° Consequently he teaches the unity of operation
of the Three Persons ad extra, their absolute equality and circumincession, the necessity of singular affirmations in regard to
their nature and anything said absolutely of God. 181 In order
to explain the plurality of Persons and to avoid the errors of
Modalism, St. Augustine developed the theory of relations.
It is shown that not everything which is said of God is predicated
according to substance but it is predicated also relatively, that is,
not to Himself, but to something other than Himself.182
179 De div. quaeat., LXXXIII,
q. 46, !!: "Singula igitur propriis sunt creata
rationibus . . . rerum omnium creandarum creaturarumve rationes in divina mente
continentur ."
180 De Trin. VIII, 11. Ep. OXX, 18, 17.
1'" 1 De Trin. II, 8, 9, !!!; III, 2!!-27; VI,, 8, 9; XV, 8; V, 9, 11.
••• Ibid., XV, c. 14, 5; V: "These Persons are relations, which are not to be
confused with the substance or nature, since they are not something absolute;
but neither can they be called accidents, because they are essential to the nature
and like it eternal and necessary .... "
Ibid., V, 6, 16, 17; VII, 24; De Oivit. Dei XI, 10, 1: "Non secundum substantiam haec dicuntur quia non quisque eorum ad seipsum, sed ad invicem atque
ad alterutrum ista dicuntur; neque secundum accidens, quia et quod dicitur Pater
et quod dicitur Filius aeternum atque incommutabile est. . . . Hoc non secundum

6

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He very explicitly taught the procession of the Holy Spirit
from both Father and Son. 188 In order to understand more fully
the mystery of the Trinity and to show its reasonableness,
although an analogical and imperfect knowledge, he sought to
find many analogies or images of the Trinity. Man is an image
by esse, rwsse and velle. 184
The Bishop of Hippo left no special treatise on the Incarnation
except for Epistle CXXXVII ad Volusianum. However, Christ
holds the prominent position in his theology. He is the Way to
God. Augustine taught the divinity of Christ and His complete
human nature, and he so understood the union of these natures
in Christ that the Eastern heresies were not able to secure a
foothold in the West. The mission of Christ on earth was for
the purpose of redeeming man and freeing him from sin. Augustine is more complete than any other Father on the place of the
Blessed Mother in the economy of salvation. 185
It is not necessary to discuss the Augustinian teaching on
grace and free will. Opposing the errors of the Pelagians and
Semi-Pelagians, the dangers of which Augustine saw far more
clearly than the theologians of the East, the Doctor of Grace
was the :first to synthesize, and state with a greater clarity than
heretofore, the relationships of original and actual sin, grace
and free will, and to provide an explanation of them. He insisted
on the absolute mastery of God by His grace of all the detersubstantiam dicuntur, sed secundum relativum; quod tltmen relativum non est
accidens, quia non est mutabile."
Ibid., V, 10; VII, 8, 9: " Tres utique sunt. . . . Tamen cum quaeritur quid tres,
magna prqrsus inopia humanum laborat eloquium. Dictum est tamen tres personae,
non ut illud diceretur, sed ne taceretur."
183 De Trin. IV, 20. Cont. Maximinum II, 14, 1. In Joan. tract. XCIX, 7: "Non
possumus dicere quod Spiritus Sanctus et a Filio non procedat; neque enim frustra
idem
et Patris et Filii Spiritus dicitur."
De Trin. V, 15: " Fatendum est Patrem et Filium principium esse Spiritus Sancti,
non dua principia."
18 ' Confe.Ys. XIII, c. XI, 12. Cf. de Trin. VIII-XIV.
185 Sermo CLXXIV,
2: "Si homo non periisset, Filius hominis non venisset."
Protin, S., "La Mariologie de St. Augustin," Revue Augustinienne, 1902. Alvery,
A., "Mariologie Augustinienne," ibid., 1907.

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ruinations of the will, the latter yet remaining free under this
action, the reconciliation of these two truths being referred to
the manner of divine government. He distinguished two orders
of grace, the motions given for the natural virtues and those
given for salutary supernatural acts, such as the first motions
of faith. Although the will is free, since the Fall it is inclined to
evil. St. Thomas followed in great part the teaching and
authority of Augustine as to the reality, necessity, distinctions,
and gratuity of grace and the freedom of the will under grace.
Augustine did not develop the question of the efficacy of grace
precisely enough to preclude the divergences of systems among
later theologians. But there are sufficient indications which
substantiate the interpretation of St. Thomas and his disciples. 186
The Doctor of Hippo maintained the fact of a predestination to
glory and of a final reprobation against the Origenists, the
gratuity of grace and salvation, and the special divine mercy
toward the elect. Based on his lofty and pure concept of God,
the Truth, Wisdom, and Goodness, in the mystery of predestination and human liberty, Augustine concluded that such a
Being can in no wise cause evil and although· for good reasons
permitting it, He foresees it, can punish it, and in His wisdom
draws good from it by manifesting His justice, as His mercy
is shown in rewarding the elect.
In his doctrinal method St. Augustine laid stress upon
authority. Besides Tradition and the ecclesiastical magisterium,
he placed the authority of the Scriptures at the foundation. He
admitted their divine inspiraton and absolute inerrancy. His
mystic temperament and Neo-Platonist spirit naturally inclined
him to a spiritual exegesis after the manner of the Alexandrians.
Yet, in spite of the wide range he gave to this mode of interpretation, he never neglected the literal sense. He ruled that
the true Scriptural sense should always be sought and unscientific interpretations avoided. He was the first to admit a multiple
literal sense. 187 Whatever truth can be found in a phrase of
186

187

Enchiridion, c. 95 sq. Ad Sim.plic. I, q. II, n. 18. De corrept. et grat. n. 81.
De Doct. Christiana, II-III. De Gen. ad litt., I, c. 19-21.

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Scripture was the meaning intended by the Holy Spirit, the
primary author. 188 But he was not too certain of this theory.
The golden rule which tempered all his exegesis was the criterion,
the authority of the Church/ 89
St. Augustine was before all else a mystic. Truth meant for
him not mere contemplation but a good to be possessed, embraced with the whole soul. God is a living reality to be enjoyed
through charity. The holy Doctor discovered Him in all His
creatures. In contemplating them he ascended by so many
degrees to their Maker. In this can be seen the Platonist influence. They are reflections of Him, participations of the essential
Being, unchangeable Truth, incorruptible Good. Even the
Trinity has been traced in them. St. Augustine wrote his works
with a view to leading men to a deeper and truer knowledge and
love of God, to union with Him.
St. Augustine possessed one of the greatest minds which the
Church has produced. He is the great founder of supernatural
Christian anthropology, the one most responsible for the Western
idea of an immanent Trinity, the Filioque, and the attempts at
psychological explanations of the mystery. He built up a concise theology of grace. The substance of his theology has passed
into the dogmatic definitions of the Church. St. Augustine
wielded one of the greatest influences in the Middle Ages. This
attraction was due to the theological tendency which inspired
his doctrines and method. Although by the 13th century his
influence was combined with that of the Pseudo- Dionysius, the
Damascene, and Aristotle, he maintained a dominant authority.
188 De Potentia, q. IV, a. 1. Summa Theol., I, q. 1, a. 10. De Doctr. Chr., III,
c. XXVII, 88; I, 40. Confess. XII, c. XXXI,
80-88.
189 De Doctr. Chr., III,
"Consulat (interpres) regulam fidei quam de
Scripturarum planioribus locis et ecclesiae auctoritate percepit."
De Gen. ad litt. imperf., I, 1: "Quaerendi dubitatio catholicae fidei metas non
debet excedere."
De Doctr. Chr., III, 10, 15: "Non autem praecipit Scriptura nisi caritatem ..
non autem asserit nisi catholicam fidem."
De Gen. ad litt. imperf., I, 1: "Multi haeretici ad suam sententiam quae praeter
fidem est catholicae disciplinae, expositionem Scripturarum divinarum trahere
consueverunt."

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This legacy comprised his teaching on the nature of God, the
divine exemplary ideas, creation, the spirituality of the soul, all
tending to correct the naturalism of Aristotle, which the Scholastics coordinated with Augustinian Platonism. In addition there
was his affective and synthetic doctrinal method, a clear-cut
moral associated with profound mysticism. The greatest disciple
of Augustine was St. Thomas, who held him in great authority.
He constantly invoked him and always attempted to e.xplain
favorably the meaning of Augustine. He recognized and interpreted the richness of the Augustinian theology, brought its
essential points to perfection and was guided by the spirit of
its teaching.
Pseudo-Dionysius (c. 480-c. 530)
An outstanding contributor to the progress of theology who
appeared in the latter part of the fifth century was the writer
who was known for centuries as Dionysius the Areopagite, the
disciple of St. PauJ.190 His writings had a great influence on
Eastern thought and were made one of the bases of Scholastic
and Mystical theology in the Middle Ages. He attempted to
COJ?.ciliate and amalgamate as far as possible Christian dogmas
and Neo-Platonic ideas, and to develop mystical theology in
close harmony with dogmatic theology. Through his authority
Neo-Platonism "obtained a place by the side of Aristotle's
speculations in treatises of Scholastic theology." 191 He was very
familiar with the Neo-Platohist writings, especially those of
Proclus, and knew the Fathers at least up to St. Cyril of Alexandria. He did not intend to baptize Neo-Platonism but to
refute its arguments against the Christian doctrine and to point
190 The true author of the Pseudo-Areopagitica is not known to this day. They
were certainly written between 482 and 532 A. D. They include ten letters and
four treatises: The Celestial Hierarchy; The Eccle\Yiastical Hierarchy; The Divine
Names; Mystical Theology. The intention was to compose a complete course of
mystical theology and lead men to union with God. The style is obscure with
purpose. The author constantly uses the works of the Neo-Platonists, especially
Proclus. Both their real intrinsic value and their spurious authority gave them a
preponderating influence in the Middle Ages.
101 Tixeront, History of Dogmas, III, p. 5.

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out the superiority of Christian teaching on those points on
which they were on common ground. Although using NeoPlatonist expressions, he employed only those ideas which could
be accommodated to the service of the faith. The obscurity
which sometimes surrounds his thought is due to the nature o£
the matter under discussion, the Neo-Platonist influence, his
own bent, and even to deliberate purpose. 192
Philosophy always remained for Dionysius an instrument.
Although he was educated under Neo-Platonist influence and
avowedly set about to enlist it in the service of the faith, he
steadfastly kept it in its subservient role. He was kept from
deflecting from the truth by a lively sense of faith. Dionysius
used the general method of Neo-Platonism but did not hesitate
at times to correct it and give new meanings to its terms. This
type of Neo-Platonism
holds undisputed sway in the works of the Pseudo-Areopagite, and
through them finds its way into the commentaries of St. Maximus,
thenceforth to remain the philosophy of mystical and contemplative
theology, which, in the words of Pseudo-Dionysius, does not prove
the truth, but exhibits it symbolically and enables those who yearn
for light and holiness (Ep. IX, 1) to attain to it without going
through a process of reasoning.193
Systematic theology or the rational investigation of the revealed
truths is a preparation for or the fruit of mystical theology, in
which view philosophy plays only an instrumental role.
The Holy Scripture remains the source and foundation of all
theological doctrine. Dionysius made use of the advantages of
allegorism, even to that point which the Aristotelian literalists
might term excessive.
The Dionysian theology is centered quite extensively about
God. Intimate union with God, the deification of man, is its concern. Dionysius taught a very lofty, pure, and simple concept of
God; he maintained His absolute transcendence. He is above
every genus and category; the divine attributes are formally
192

De Divinis Nominibus, Commen. Sti. Thomae,' prologus.

193

Tixeront, op. cit., p. 9.

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above those discovered in creation; every name ascribed to Him
properly belongs to creatures rather than to Him. He is nameless
•194 The express purpose of the Areopagite was to
lead to a pure knowledge of God. 195 Although God is absolute
unity, yet as the principle of all things He is in a certain way
those multiple attributes observed in creatures and consequently
He is "many-named" (7roi\:v6wvp.o>).196 But since these names
are imposed from concepts deriving from creatures, God far
excels their literal signification.
Hence there are, in the genesis of our idea of God, three intellectual acts that can be distinguished by analysis. A first act by
which we ascribe to God all the qualities of the beings whose
principle He is: this is the affirmative theology. A second act, by
which we deny Him these same qualities, because He transcends
them: this is the negative theology. 191 Lastly, a third act, by which
we notice that our negation does not destroy our first affirmation,
for it merely declares that God is above all that we can affirm or
deny of him. 108 This process is what the Scholastics later on called
the via eminentiae. Dionysius exemplified it by multiplied words
imlp on the one hand, and a privative a.,
composed with awo,
on the other, and applying them to God. The former mark God
as the being, the essential perfection, and the principle of every
being and perfection; the latter denote that-formally-He is no
definite perfection, but above every perfection and being. 199

This process at most disposes for that other form of knowledge of God which is mystical experience. It should be kept in
mind that theology, in the earlier centuries, was taken strictly
as the knowledge of God, the Trinity, the divine nature and
attributes. It concentrated on a fuller understan&ng of these
matters, the primary principles that Faith proposes. Consequently, this knowledge or theology is discursive or mystical.
19 •" De div. nom.,''
I, 1, 5, 6, P. G., III, col. 588, 593, 596. "De mystica
theologia," V, P. G., III, col. 1045.
195 " De div. nom.," XIII.
196 Ibid., I, 6; II, S, 11, ibid., col. 596, 640, 649.
197 Ibid., IX.
"De myst. theol.," I,
III; IV. "Eccl. Hier.," II, 3. "Ep. I";
IX, I.
108 "De myst. theol.," I,
P. G., Ill, col. 1000. "Ep. I," ibid., col. 1065.
199 Tixeront, loc. cit., p. 186.

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Being concerned with a more and more pure knowledge of
God, the unum A.bsolutum, free from the imperfections of
creatures, Dionysius wrote little about the Trinity, the distinction of the Persons. He held that unity and trinity do not
express the transcendent being of God; 200 and as a result of
the oneness of their substance he taught their circumincession. 201
Nor does he discourse at length on Christ beyond repeating the
orthodox doctrine. Because Christ is God in a human nat11re,
he spoke of a theandric operation. 202
The Areopagite saw creation as the result of divine love and
goodness which gave to creatures their multitudinous gradations. In this he maintained continuity with Augustine and
Plato. God exercises a minute l?rovidence over creatures and
directs each according to its nature, drawing all mutually in
an ascending order to Himself. He represented creation as a
circle· from God back to God, in addition to many other
similes.208 Dionysius avoided all pantheism by emphasizing that
the creative act was a free divine act; creatures were free
emanations from God. 204 In this view Dionysius had no difficulty in establishing the position and nature of the angelic
world in the order of the universe as intermediaries. He was
the first to declare clearly and unequivocally their pure spirituality and intellectuality, 205 and to teach their distribution into
hierarchies and choirs.206 It was the doctrine that was accepted
and developed by all later Catholic theologians.
Dionysius the Areopagite was a mystic according to the best
traditions of the Alexandrian school. His writings were produced with a view to contemplation, to an intimate union with
God. His insistence on the divine transcendence and unity, his
De div. nom.," Xill, S, ibid., col. 981.
Ibid., ll, 4, ibid., col. 641.
202 Ep. IV ad Caium.
" 0 " Cf. "De Div.. nom.," IX, 9, P. G., Ill, col. 909c. Ibid., ll, 10 (col. 648c) ;.
XIll, 1 (col. 977b); IV, 1,' 6 (col. 69Sb, 701a); XI, 2 (col. 952a); I, 2 (col. 588c);
X, 1 (col. 986); IV, 14 (col. 712); V, 6 (col. 820).
•o• Ibid., IV, 10, ibid., 708b.
808 Ibid., IV, 1, 2; IX, 1.
206 " Celest. Hier.," IV, 1, ibid., col. 177c.
200 "
201

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efforts to clarify the divine attributes, to intimate a purer and
simpler knowledge of God, are pointed to this end. The idea of
the ecclesiastical hierarchy being analogous to the celestial, of
the threefold manner of participating the divine perfections in
creatures (purification, illumination, perfection) , is subordinated
to the same end. The knowledge of God in its higher stages is
infused, not the result of human efforts alone but of divine
impression, a connaturality with or certain sympathy for the
divine. 207 In this respect, Dionysius was among the pioneer
mystical theorists and his influence in the study of mystical
theology was tremendous.
In the Middle Ages the authority of this supposed disciple
of St. Paul was esteemed above the Fathers and second only
to the canonical authors. His influence was very real and lasting
in speculative and mystical theology in both East and West.
The writings of the Areopagite were known in the West,
especially in the Latin translation of Scotus Erigena. St. Thomas
made most frequent use of Dionysius in all his works, even
writing a special commentary-De Divinis Nominibus. Dionysius was one of the principal sources of Alexandrian influence
in the theology of the Angelic Doctor.

St. John Damascene (c. 675-749)
St. John Damascene is the last of the great Greek Fathers.
He was the intellectual leader of. his time, and his influence
upon the Oriental Churches has made him the classic author
even into modern times. His effect upon Latin theologians was
very great, beginning to be felt in the West at the time of Peter
Lombard. He has been called the St. Thomas of the Greeks,
but he had neither the breadth nor the acuteness of intellect
of the Angelic Doctor. He produced the greatest and most
complete Summa among the Eastern theologians, a synthetic
expose of dogma. He summed up and assimilated the teaching
of his predecessors, skillfully and methodically organized it, and
presented it in clear, precise, and firm expression. Although he
so• "De Div. Nom.," VII, 8. Cf. Summa Tkeol., 11-11, q. 45, a.

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did not incite others to attempt the study and solution of new
pr0blems, he did faithfully reflect the traditions of Greek
theology. 208
St. John of Damascus was primarily a theologian. But he
valued philosophy highly and considered it important in the
exposition of Catholic dogma. The first part of his great Source
of Knowledge is devoted to it. He considered philosophy only
in its relationship to theology. Human sciences are merely
servants of theology .209 He borrowed several definitions from
Aristotle which he did not hesitate to correct in accordance with
Christian doctrine. Through Pseudo-Dionysius and his immediate predecessors, the Damascene absorbed a great deal of
Neo-Platonism. But neither it nor Aristotle was the master of
his thought. That place was filled by the Scriptures and the
Fathers. It is the Fathers rather than the philosophers who are
to be heeded. 210 He condemned the heretics for making Aristotle
the thirteenth Apostle and for preferring the pagan to the
inspired writers. 211
St. John did not supply an exact definition and analysis of
faith. He defined it briefly as an assent without indiscreet and
curious research. 212 It is indispensable for salvation. Its norm
is the tradition of the Church. He who departs from the norm
208 St. John of Damascus was born towards the end of the 7th century
of a
Christian family in high position in the local Arab government. He early spoke
out in support of images. In 735 he was ordained a monk-priest. His life was given
to prayer, study and the composition of his many works. He died about 749 A. D.
Besides being the chief upholder of image worship against Leo the !saurian, he was
the last of the great representatives of Greek theology during the early part of
the Middle Ages. He gave the Summa and the definitive formula of that theology
to which scarcely any addition has been made in the following ages. His most
important work is the Source of Knowledge, divided into three parts, of which the
last, De Fide Orthodoxa, contains his whole theology. The finest survey of the
Damascene theology is given by M. Jugie in Dictionnaire de Theologie Catholique,
" St. Jean Damascene," which is used extensively here.
•o•" Dialectica," P. G., XCIV, col.
210 " Fons Scientiae, prologus," ibid., col. 5il5.
211 " Contra
Jacobitas,'' 10, ibid., col. 1441a.
219 Cf. " De Fid. Orth.," II, 10-11, ibid., col. ll!l6-ll!l7.

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is an infideP 13 The sources of this faith are the Scriptures and
unwritten tradition. 214 The Scriptures are inspired by God.
Although individual Fathers and Doctors may make mistakes,
taken as a whole and in agreement, he seems to attribute
inspiration to them. 215 Revelation is accommodated to the
man's spiritual growth 216 and in the elaboration of doctrinal
formulas there is a real dogmatic progress. Words not found
in the Scriptures were used by the Fathers to convey equivalent
expressions and all must accept them. 217
The Holy Doctor distinguished two forms of theology:
(JEo>voyla
unita, de Deo uno, and (}w>.oy[a
discreta, de Deo trino. God is known
perfectly to Himself alone. Being essentially good and thus
communicative, He revealed Himself to men through the creation
and conservation of the universe and by positive revelation.
This latter comprises only what it is useful and feasible for man
to know. 218 God's nature being infinite and incomprehensible,
our knowledge of it is more negative than positive. We know
only His existence, infinity, and incomprehensibility, which
knowledge is, so to speak, innate in every man. 219 He does not
neglect the ways of affirmation and eminence. 220 I am who am,
is the best name for God, who is above all being, the plenitude
of being. Ue explained the use of anthropomorphisms in the
Scriptures. 221
By the metaphysical arguments of the changeableness of the
created universe, the conservation and government of the world,
the order and harmony of the cosmos, the Damascene demonstrated the existence of God. 222 The divine unity he proved by
Ibid., loc. cit., col. 1128a.
Ibid., IV, 12, col. 1136b, 1173. " De Imag." I, 23, ibid., col. 1256.
215 Ibid., II, col. 1305a.
216 Ibid., II, 8, col. 1289.
211 Ibid., III, 11, col. 1333.
213

214

218 "

De Fid. Orth.," I, 1, P. G., XCIV, col. 789-792.

Ibid., I, 4, col. 800; I, 1, col. 789; I, 3, col. 793c.
220 Ibid., I, 8, col. 808-809; H!, col. 845-848.
222 Ibid., I, 3, col. 793-798.
221 Ibid., I, 11, col. 841-844.

219

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His perfection, immensity, and governance of the world, and the
ontological fact that unity is prior to plurality. 228 He listed
the divine attributes, demonstrating in particular His incorporeity, simplicity, and immensity. He explained the sense in
which God alone is incorporeal and uncircumscribed. 224 The
knowledge of God joined to the divine will is the creator and
cause of universal being. 225 God is omnipotent, able to do all
He wishes, not wishing to do all He can. 226
In the mystery of the Trinity the Doctor of Damascus added
nothing to the teachings of his predecessors, the Cappadocians,
especially St. Gregory N azianzen. He was in ignorance of
Augustine's teaching and his theory of the processions. The
Trinity is an incomprehensible mystery; the more it is studied,
the less it is known. 227 All comparisons are inadequate. 228 Person in God is a mode, without beginning, of each eternal subsistence, distinguished from one another by relations of origin,
yet mutually compenetrating, without confusion, because
founded on the unity of essence (circurrnincessio).229 The Son
cooperates with the Father in the procession of the Spirit from
the latter, but He receives this spirating power from the Father.
The Holy Spirit proceeds though not from the Son, because the
Son is not the principle of the Trinity, the Father alone possessing
that property. 230
The central point in St. John's teaching is the Incarnation.
He has been called the Doctor of the Incarnation. His synthesis
is representative of all previous Greek teaching. The only
••• Ibid., I, 5, " Dialog. contra Manichaeos."
""'"De Fid. Orth.," P. G., XCIV, c. IV, col. 797; IX, col. 883; XII, col. 849-853;
845b.
225 Ibid., I, 9, col. 837b.
"De !mag.," I, 10, col. 1240-1241.
•••" De Fid. Orth.," 14, P. G., XCIV, col. 860-861.
••• " De Haeres. epilog.," ibid., col. 780a.
228 " De Fid. Orth.," III, 26, col. 1096b.
•••" Dialect.," 66, col. 669a; " De Fid. Orth.," 9, col. 837a; 8, col. 828-829; 14,
col. 860b.
••• Ibid., I, 12, col. 849. "Homil. in Sabbato Sancto," P. G., XCVI, col. 605.
" De Hymno Trisagio," 28, P. G., XCIV, col. 60.

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motive for the Incarnation was the salvation of man. 281 It has
also procured the glory of God, manifesting His goodness, wisdom, justice and power. 232 Being the Son of God, it was fitting
that only the Word become the Son of the Virgin Mary. 238 The
Word supplied the role of hypostasis in the human nature of
Christ, which from the first instant of its being never possessed
a proper personality but participated in the existence of the
Word, subsisted in it. St. John seemed to place personality in
existence. 284 The two natures in Christ are united in the Word
without confusion or the lessening of their proper qualities. He
remarked that most Trinitarian and Christological heresies
arose from the confusion of the concepts of nature and person.
He himself repeated the definitions and philosophical theories
of Leontius of Byzantium. He tried to bring into agreement the
definitions of the Fathers and the philosophers. He gave primacy
to the concept of the person.
From the fact of this hypostatic union, the Damascene drew
several corollaries which anticipated the conclusions of the later
Scholastics. Christ is truly God and Mary truly
and
universal mediatrix. Since generation is referred to the person
and not the nature, it is the hypostasis that is engendered. 235
Human nature has become deified, not losing its own proper
essence and properties, but being the instrument of divine
operations. The two natures integrally subsisting with all their
properties in the divine hypostasis, the actions are thus theandric. 236 The humanity of Christ inasmuch as it is united to
the Word is the object of adoration. 231 St. John spoke at length
on the communication of idioms and the value of using abstract
""'"De Fid. Orth.," III,
ibid., col.
Ibid., IV, 4, col. 1108. "De
Duabus Voluntatibus," P. G., XCV, col. ISla.
••• "De Fid. Orth.," III, I, P. G., XCIV, col. 984.
••• Ibid., IV, 4, ibid., col. 1108a. "De SS. Trinit.," 1, P. G., XCV, col. Ua.
•••" De Fid. Orth.,"
P. G., XCIV, col.
•••" Hom. II, in Dormit.," 18, P. G., XCIV, col. 783, c, d. "In Nativ.," 11, U,
ibid., 680. "De Fid. Orth.,"
P. G., XCIV, col. 1113c, d.
••• Ibid., III, 17, ibid., col.
19, col. 1077-1081; 15, col. 1057-1060.
287 Ibid., III, 8, col. IOU!.

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and concrete terms 238 -the finest treatment of the subject until
his time. He also treated of the manner in which Scripture
speaks of Christ and Christ speaks of Himsel£. 239 It also followed that Christ was perfect from conception in human and
divine wisdom. He had the beatific vision. 240 The natural passions assumed by Christ were entirely under the control of His
reason; their motions were not caused by the apprehension of
the unknown. His body was preserved from total corruption
after death. 241
Man is the image of God principally in his intellect and will.
He has natural tendencies to moral good imprinted on his nature
by God. To practice virtue and to advance in it the help of
God is necessary. Man, raised to the supernatural state, fell. By
Adam's transgression sin inhered in human nature, being subjected primarily in the free will.242 By sin man lost divine grace
and the privileges .of incorruptibility, imp'assibility, and immortality. 243 As a result there is attached to human nature the
aversio a Deo and the conversio ad creaturas. Although retaining free will, man cannot lift himself up. 244
This brings up the question of grace and predestination. In
general terms the Doctor of Damascus taught the absolute
necessity of grace, without which salvation and the power to
attain it cannot be had, since these are beyond human endeavors.245 Lacking grace man can neither do nor have any
good, know supernatural truth nor overcome carnal concupiscence.246 Concomitant grace, the result of free choice, coop239 Ibid., IV, 18, col. 1181-1192.
238 Ibid., 4, coL 997-1000.
••• Ibid., III, 7, col. 1012; 17, col. 1068-1072.
•u Ibid., 20, coL 1084; 28, col. 1088-1089; 28, col. 1097-1100. "De duabus volunt.,"

86, 87, P. G., XCV, coL 178-177 .
... "De Fid. Orth.," IV, 18, P. G., XCIV, coL 1187b, c. Ibid., III, 14, col. 1041d.
••• Ibid., II, 28, coL 961; III, 1, coL 981. "In Sabb. Sanct., 7-12, P. G., XVI,
col. 609-612; 27, col. 628.
•u "De Fid. Orth.," II, SO, P. G., XCIV, col. 977c, d. "In Ficum Arefactum," 1,
P. G., XCVI, coL 576-577.
••• Ibid., 8, ibid., col. 581c.
•••" De lmag.," III, s, P. G., XCIV, col. 184. "Dialect.," 1, ibid., col. 582a.
" De Fid. Orth.," IV, 17, col. 1176c; 22, coL 1200-1201.

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eration, and the divine concursus is necessary for salutary
actions. Even Adam in his sinless state needed this grace to
progress in good. 247 Prevenient grace is necessary but it depends
on our will to choose or reject it. This is the tenor of Greek
teaching, which seemed to ignore the existence of efficacious
grace, which is not the result of human consent. St. John gave
definitions of actual grace which avoided the extreme of Pelagianism.248 By baptism and habitual grace men become sons of
God by adoption, gods by participation in His nature, above
the angels, the temples of the Trinity dwelling in the soul, and
possessing the right to heaven. 249
St. John taught predestination post praevisa merita. Although
he immortalized the distinction between the antecedent and
consequent wills in God, he ignored completely all predestination
antecedent to foreseen merits. He was not a Pelagian since
he admitted the radical impotence of human nature to attain
salvation, 250 grace being necessary for every salutary act. He
was not fully able to conciliate the divine infallible foreknowledge and universal causality with created liberty. God is the
cause of all good in creatures, but free creatures in their free
acts initiate the quality of goodness or evil in them. 251 The
Damascene realized his inability to fully explain the workings
of divine grace. 252 It must be pointed out that, although he is
assuming the human point of view here, he was concerned with
the heresy of his time, which was Manicheism. Thus he sought
to defend human liberty. Behind him, fitting him for this task,
was a strong theological tradition.
St. John Damascene was affected by both currents of Greek
tradition. He was primarily a theologian. In his treatment on
247 Ibid., II,
col.
"C. Manich.," 70, col. 1569a, b.
•••" De Fid. Orth.," II, 80, col.
"De Duab. Volun.," 19, P. G., XCV,
col. 149b.
•••" De Fid. Orth.," IV, 89, P. G., XCIV, col. 1117a; 15, col. 1121c. "De
lmag.," III,
col.
80, col. 1849c;
col.
88, col.
250 "In Ficum Aref.," I, P. G., XCVI, col. 576-577.
261 " De Fid. Orth.," II, 80; IV, P. G., XCIV, col. 969,
252 " C. Manich.," 77, ibid., col. 1576c.

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God, the Trinity, the Incarnation, and faith he was deeply
influenced by his predecessors, Leontius of Byzantium and St.
Maximus, as well as St. Gregory N azianzen and the PseudoDionysius. He held the Nazianzen Doctor in especial authority.
Through these writers the influence of Alexandria and the mystical tendency of the Neo-Platonists were felt. On the other hand,
and to a lesser degree, the Antiochene tradition appeared in his
treatment of man, grace, and what is known of his few Scriptural commentaries. In these latter, he was content to repeat
principally the homilies of St. John Chrysostom. Peter Lombard
divided his Liber Sententiarum along the lines of the De Fide
Orthodoxa, which was the only work known to the Middle
Ages. The influence of this work on St. Thomas and the
Scholastics was very real, though his ideas on the procession of
the Holy Spirit were little understood. 253 St. Thomas fused the
Damascene distinction of antecedent and consequent wills with
the Augustinian concept of predestination. 254

IV.

THE

Summa Theologica

In the philosophical and natural sciences the weakest argument is the one from authority. Since these sciences fall within
the adequate object of the human
the mind is, therefore, able to know their objects as they are, in themselves. It
can argue metaphysically, conclude from what is better known,
both in itself and to the mind, to what is less known. So in these
sciences an argument from authority, based as it is upon the
testimony of another, and not upon evidence, is merely probable,
hardly a compliment to the dignity of the human intellect. In
theology the situation is reversed. The human mind is humbled
in the presence of those things which surpass its entire power to
conceive or to attain. For the principles of theology, though
most evident and certain in themselves, offer the least evidence
and certitude to the human mind. They are held by faith, on
••• Summa Theol., I, q. 86, a.
ad 8.
""' D'Ales, A., "Predestination," Diet. A pol. de la Foi Oath., t. IV, col.

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the authority of God revealing, the testimony He has given of
His own Self and the truths of the supernatural life. It is upon
the sure basis of authority that reason begins its work. The
proper source of theology is authority.
St. Thomas was well aware of the primacy of authority and
fitted together his entire synthesis upon this truth.
This doctrine is especially based upon arguments from authority,
inasmuch as its principles are obtained by revelation: . . . Nor
does this take away from the dignity of this doctrine, for although
the argument from authority based on human reason is the weakest,
yet the argument from authority based on divine revelation is the
strongest ... sacred doctrine ... properly uses the authority of the
canonical Scriptures as an incontrovertible proof and the authority
of the doctors of the Church as one that may properly be used, yet
merely as probable. 255
The teaching of the Fathers and their successors, the authority
or source proper to the science of theology, is the concern here.
It is well known that St. Thomas had the greatest respect for
these men. At times he seemed to bend over backwards to save
their authority. He was too humble to set himself in judgment
of men of holy genius, whom undoubtedly Providence had fitted
to play a special part in the development of the theological
science .
. . . the holy Doctors have sometimes expressed themselves with
greater emphasis than the strict propriety of terms allows. Whence
instead of enlarging upon such expressions we should rather explain
them. . . . These phrases are not to be taken too literally, but are
to be loyally explained, wherever they are used by holy doctors. 256
In all events the teachings of the Fathers are to be exposed
reverently. 257 Such was indeed the practice of the Angelic Doctor.
The Summa Theologica was St. Thomas' chef d'oeuvre, the
perfection of his thought. For the sake of clarity, brevity, and
intelligibility, he chose his authorities most carefully; he intro••• Summa Theol., I, q. 1, a. 8,
••• Ibid., q. 39, a. 5, ad 1; III, q. 4, a. 3, ad 1.
••• Cf. Contra Errores Graecorum, proemiunt.

7

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duced a minimum into his work. Of these, three are most frequently quoted throughout the Summa. They are the Masters
of Aquinas. It was to their authority that he looked for guidance. It was their teaching which exerted the greatest influence
upon his mind. They are St. Augustine, Pseudo- Dionysius and
St. John Damascene, disciples of the early Alexandrian tradition,
Neo-Platonist in education, Platonist in spirit. At the same
time it is most evident that to these names must be added that
of Aristotle.
St. Thomas is . considered the great Christian Aristotelian.
Through his efforts an intellectual revolution took place. Aristotle, long contested, was securely and permanently established
in ecclesiastical theology, on an equal footing with the agelong
Platonist supremacy, stemming from the earlier Greek Fathers
and St. Augustine. In the Philosopher St. Thomas recognized
the value of a vigorous method of scientific analysis, which he
employed extensively throughout his own works. The logical
works of Aristotle were known throughout the West a century
before Aquinas. They had satisfied the growing desire among
thinkers for a sure method of discussion. The severe Aristotelian
dialectic had all the advantages. It was the philosophy of
demonstration.
The Platonist philosophy, which had rendered· signal services in
the domain of Christian speculation, showed itself powerless when
it was a question of organizing methodically in a complete system
of theology the truths acquired and of giving a clear and precise
scientific formula.258
Once having taken to itself the systematic form, Christian
theology gradually became aware of the more essential parts of
Aristotelianism. St. Thomas definitively stamped its character
on Christian theology .. Aristotelian philosophy took a scientific
258 Braun,
Revue des sciences eccleaiaatiques, June, 1907: "La philosophie
platonicienne qui avait rendu de signales services dans le damaine de la speculation
chretienne, se montrait impuissante quand il s'agissait d'organiser methodiquement
en un systeme complet de theologie les verites acquises et de donner une formule
scientifique nette et precise."
Saisset, Emile, Revue des Deux Mondes, 1•r Mai, 1858.

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attitude toward reality. It was concerned with natures as they
are in themselves, viewing each being in its proper grade and
mode of being.
The Angelic Doctor, however, was not an Aristotelian in the
sense of being anti-Platonist. Living in a period when the two
traditions were considered antagonistic, he used both to great
advantage. If Albert the Great thought that one could not
become a perfect philosopher unless he studied the two philosophies of Plato and Aristotle, so, too, in order to penetrate more
perfectly the teaching of St. Thomas it is necessary to know
what he owed to Plato and what to the Stagirite. St. Thomas
did not know Plato directly. It seems that the only textual contact he had with him was in the Timaeus and a few passages
from the Phaedo. How he would have reacted had he known
Plato first-hand as he did Aristotle it is vain to imagine. His
knowledge of the great Academician was through the opinions
of- Aristotle and the teachings and spirit of the Fathers. The
influence of Plato was exercised principally through the intermediary of the Fathers, especially the tradition of Augustine,
"the Christian Plato." 259 In the system of Aquinas the Platonist and Aristotelian traditions found their proper and complementary place.
Aristotle's was a philosophy of nature expressed in a literal
manner undoubtedly for the very purpose of preserving in its
earthly moorings the higher doctrine of his master, Plato, against
259

Huit, C., "Les Elements Platoniciennes

de Ia Doctrine

de St. Thomas,"

Revue Th., 1911, p. 741: "L'exemple a coup sur le plus decisif en ce sens avait
ete donne par St. Augustin. Faire de la notion de Dieu le centre philosophique
par excellence, definir l'etre pur par le bien absolu, chercher dans !'unite le caractere
fondamental du beau, monter par degres de Ia terre au ciel, des vulgarites de la
nature animale jusqu'aux sublimites de la nature infiniment parfaite, deriver des ,
raisons eternelles, des idees divines, toute realite, toute verite, toute certitude,
n'est-ce pas faire acte du plus pur platonisme? La meme ou Ia pensee de saint
Augustin garde un caractere personnel et original, a !'elan de l'ame, a Ia poesie
de !'expression on reconnait sans peine !'esprit platonicien. Des lors, si l'on tient
compte de !'immense et legitime influence que son genie, sa renommee, ses nombreux
ecrits, lui out assuree des le premier jour· dans le monde theologique, on comp1·endra
qu'il est impossible d'etre un familier de saint Augustin sans etre attire par lui,
consciemment out inconsciemment, dans l'orbite de Platon."

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the sententious perversions of the sophists. Plato on the other
hand, was not concerned so much with natural truths as such,
but rather with the order they bore to divine truth which on
account of its lofty and highly spiritual import he left in the
symbolic mode. St. Thomas with a scrupulous regard for the
whole of reality adopted from Aristotle the literal mode of
expressing truth as the most powerful weapon against the sophistry and agnosticism of his day. At the same time, in order to
escape the dangerous tendencies towards the opposite extreme
of rationalistic anthropomorphism which are implicit in Aristotelianism as applied to theology, St. Thomas carefully :rp.odified
the extravagant pretenses of the literal mode of expression by
his judicious use of thevianegativa borrowed from the Christian
Platonists. This latter method consists in negating all the
imperfections characteristic of human concepts as derived from
the creature before they can be literally applied to God. Thus
by laying due emphasis upon the order of all things to God
without suppressing or denying the things on which that order
is founded, St. Thomas was able to give theology its proper
position between philosophy and the beatific vision of which
it is a participation. Hence the Summa is not only a synthesis
of Christian doctrine but also of two great traditions. As for
the School of Antioch, it appears that its best elements, with
the exception of St. John Chrysostom's influence, came directly
to St. Thomas from their original sources, namely, the texts of
Aristotle himself. By' availing himself of the expurgated editions
of the Stagirite which had begun to appear at this time, St.
Thomas was relieved in some measure from the arduous task of
sifting out from authentic Aristotelianism the bulky dross of
rationalism and heterodoxy which the Antiochene School had
imbibed at the hands of such heresiarchs as Theodore of Mopsuestia and Diodore of Tarsus. It can therefore be said, with the
above mentioned qualifications, that both of these theological
schools have been harmonized in the Summa.
It is interesting to note that although the influence of Aristotle permeates the entire Summa, and almost exclusively in

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520

the moral tracts, the Alexandrian teaching predominates in
dogma and gives direction to the entire work. The great Christian authorities in the Summa are St. Augustine, PseudoDioysius, and St. John Damascene, heirs of the Alexandrian
school, Platonist in spirit. For example, in the First Part, the
Pseudo-Areopagite is cited 205 times, the Damascene 65, St.
Basil 26, Origen 23, St. Chrysostom 16 and St. Gregory Nyssa
7 times. 260 St. Gregory N azianzen is singly extolled. 261 Augustine
is cited as often as 250 times in the Summa. 262 In the tract on
the passions there are 226 citations from Aristotle, 56 from
Augustine, 12 from Pseudo-Dionysius and 9 from the Damascene.263
As noted, the Alexandrians predominate in the dogmatic
treatises of the Summa, the First and Third Parts. In the First
Part the authority of Augustine is ubiquitous. Pseudb- Dionysius
is also valuable in the treatises on the nature and attributes of
God, the names and science of God and the entire subject of
angelology. The Damascene's authority is incorporated in the
question of the divine names and of human liberty. In his
cosmology St. Thomas lays great weight upon the authority
of St. Basil and St. John Chrysostom. In the Third Part St.
Augustine is likewise the continuous authority, especially for
the reasons of convenience. However, St. John Damascene is
the theologian of the Incarnation par excellence. St. Thomas
made his own the Damascene's teaching on individual human
nature, which has not a proper hypostasis, though never without
a hypostasis, being united to the Word; also concerning the rules
for the communication of idioms and the teaching on the wills
and operations, the human affections in Christ. St. John is also
260 Bardy, G., "Les sources Patristiques
grecques de St. Thomas," Rev. de Sc.
Phil. et Theol.,
961 Cf. note
supra.
262 Von Bertling, Augustinuscitate
bei Thmnas v. Aquin.
263 Meier, Die Lehre des Th. v. Aquin de passionibus animae. Cf. Ignaz Backes,
"Die Christologie des hl. Thomas v. Aquin und die griechischen Kirchenviiter: 10.
Pseudo-Dionysius; 11. Johannes von Damaskus." Fo1·schungen zur Christlichen
Literatur und D.?gmengeschichte, XVII, 8-4 (1981).

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found in the tracts on the conception and nativity of Christ and
the Redemption. St. Chrysostom is again cited on the complete
nature, the baptism, manifestation, doctrine, temptation, and
miracles of Christ.
The Second Part, the moral treatise of the Summa, is more
fully the domain of Aristotelianism. The nature of the ultimate
end and the principles of human acts are discussed at length.
The treatment is more extensively philosophical. In the First
Part of the Second Part Augustine is almost the sole authority
among the Fathers. In the tracts on the human acts and the
passions St. Gregory of Nyssa (whom St. Thomas often confused with Nemesius of Emesus, a Neo-Platonist) and the
Damascene are cited insofar as they are in agreement with
Aristotle. Pseudo-Dionysius is quoted in reference to habits in
the angels and concerning the cause of the virtues. St. Thomas
develops and brings to perfection the Augustinian doctrine on
grace. The Second Part of the Second Part is likewise a treatment of the virtues taken singly in their natures. The definitions
of faith of St. Augustine, Pseudo-Dionysius and the Damascene
are reduced to St. Paul's statement. St. Augustine is the
authority for the gifts corresponding to each of the virtues. He
is also cited with reference to various vices and potential virtues.
In the tract on the spiritual life the Doctor of Grace and to some
extent the Pseudo-Areopagite are used.
It is of supreme importance that the architecture of the
Summa be interpreted according to the avowed plan of the
Angelic Doctor. 264 It is the statement of this plan which unfolds
the .spirit of St. Thomas, not the mere logical divisions and subdivisions, but the living interior force which gives soul to
the whole structure. From this viewpoint it is seen that the
entire character of the Summa is theological. Even the most
philosophical questions, e. g., the habits, passions, rational psychology, are introduced only insofar as they are related to God,
as coming from Him or as principles of return to Him.
In sacred science all things are treated of under the aspect of
s•• Cf. Chenu, Le Plan de la Somme Theologique.

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God; either because they are God Himself; or because they refer
to God as their beginning or end. . . . Some, however, looking to
what is treated of in this science, and not to the aspect under which
it is treated, have asserted the object ofthis science.to be something
other than God. . . . Of all these things, in truth, we treat in this
science, but so far as they have reference to God. 265 Whatever
other conclusions are reached in this sacred science are comprehended under God, not as parts or species or accidents, but as in
some way related to Him. 266
Having established the theological note of his work, St.
Thomas next constructed his frame of reference according to
which all things would find their place in relationship to God.
St. Thomas had already foreshadowed the plan of his Summa
in the Commentary on the Sentences: 267
For since the aim of sacred science is concerning divine things,
and since the divine is taken as it relates to God either as principle
or as end, the consideration of this doctrine will be of things according as they come forth from God as a principle, and according as
they are referred to Him as an end. Wherefore, in the first part he
determines concerning divine things according to their issue from
their principle [secundum exitum a principia]; in the second according to their turning back to their end [secundum reditum in finem}.
Thus the great circle of being-God as beginning and end,
everything outside of God secundum exitum a principio et
reditum in finem--becomes the basis of his division. The Summa
is solidly established on reality.
Because the chief aim of sacred doctrine is to teach the knowledge
of God, not only as He is in Himself, but also as He is the beginning
of things and their last end, and especially of rational creatures,
as is clear from what has already been said (art. 7, preced. quest.),
therefore, in our endeavor to expound this science, we shall treat:
(1) of God;
of the rational creature's advance towards God;
(3) of Christ, who as man, is our way to God. 268
The First Part treats of God, both as He is in Himself and as
the efficient cause, and all things as emanating from Him, their
••• Summa Theol., I, q. 1, a. 7.
••• Ibid., ad !!.

••• I Sent., d. !!, divisio textus.
••• Summa Theol., I, q. 2, prologus.

NICHOLAS "HALLIGAN

creator, conservator and exemplar. Since these beings which
proceed from God as stable, complete in nature, have implanted
in their nature a movement of conversion back to their principle, the Second Part embraces God as final cause, which
beatifies and glorifies the end of the divine image, man. Consequently, in these two divisions all things pertaining to the
necessary process of exitus and reditus are included. Into this
circuit the fact of the Incarnation, Christ, enters as the means
of return willed by God,. according to His free and gratuitous
design, as Scripture reveals.
Forasmuch as our Saviour the Lord Jesus {;hrist, in order to save
His people from their sins (Mt. I, 21), as the angel announced,
showed unto us in His own Person the way of truth, whereby we
may attain to the bliss of eternal life by rising again, it is necessary,
in order to complete the work of theology, that after considering the
last end of human life, and the virtues and vices, there should follow
the consideration of the Saviour of all, and of the benefits bestowed
by Him on the human race. 269

In this return Christ is the Way, the Artisan. The fact of
His mediatorship is the pure result of divine liberality, and not
necessarily a part of that divine love which produces creatures
and draws them back to the source of that love.
In the plan of his masterpiece, St. Thomas was most certainly
inspired by Christian Platonist tradition as realized through the
Augustinian, Dionysian, and Damascene influences. As noted,
God was most consciously the theme of their writings; they
were occupied with the process of exitus and reditus. Christian
tradition had purged the Neo-Platonist doctrine of emanation
and conversion of all determinist and pantheist tendencies. All
things were grasped from the viewpoint of the divine. God is
the exemplar, man His image-a Neo-Platonist theme which St.
Thomas exploited from St. John Damascene for his own purpose.
Since, as Damascene states (De Fide Orthod. II, 12), man is
said to be made to God's image, insofar as the image implies an
intelligent being endowed with free-will and self-movement; now
260

Ibid., III, prologus.

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that we have treated of the exemplar, i. e., God, and of those things
which came forth from the power of God in accordance with His
will; it remains for us to treat of His image, i. e., man, inasmuch as
he too is the principle of his actions, as· having free will and control
of his actions. 2 7°

Thus St. Thomas is in full accord with the mystics of the
Alexandrian School and the spirit of that tradition. For his
plan is a religious exposition. One of the bases of his system is
the Platonist theory of ideas as understood by Augustine. For
St. Thomas the natures proceeding from the hands of God
realize and reflect, in themselves and in their destiny, the
divine ideas.
The grand plan of the Summa, then, orders, reduces all things
to their reference to God. This theme runs through every tract.
Having treated of the spiritual and of the corporeal creature, we
now proceed to treat of man, who is composed of a spiritual and a
corporeal substance. We shall treat first of the nature of man, and
secondly of his origin. Now the theologian considers the nature of
man in relation to the soul; but not in relation to the body, except
insofar as the body has relation to the soul. Hence the first object
of our consideration will be the soul. And since Dionysius (Ang.
Hier., XI) says that three things are to be found in spiritual substances-essence, power and operation-we shall treat first of what
belongs to the essence of the soul; secondly, of what belongs to its
power; thirdly, of what belongs to its operation: 271 We next treat
of the powers of the soul specifically. The theologian, however, has
only to inquire specifically concerning the intellectual and appetitive
powers, in which the virtues reside .... 272 We have now to consider the acts of the soul in regard to the intellectual and the
appetitive powers; for the other powers do not directly come under
the consideration of the theologian .... 273

Moral principles are not to be considered only as principles
of doing but as principles of return. In regard to the nature of
man, the Fathers, especially St. Augustine, were interested only
in the states of man as revealed by the Scriptures and little in a
theoretical consideration of human nature. St. Thomas main270
271

Ibid., I-II, prologus.
Ibid., I, q. 75, prologua.

272
278

Ibid., I, q. 78, prologua.
Ibid., q. 84, prologus.

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tained this frame of reference, while admirably fusing with it
the anthropology of Aristotle. The hierarchical view of reality
so characteristic of Pseudo-Dionysius is found, besides the tract
on the angels, in the questions on the action of God on creatures,
of creature upon creature. In fine, it is through the plan of the
Summa that we are given entrance to the spirit of St. Thomas,
which is the spirit of Alexandria. A few individual doctrines of
the Angelic Doctor will be pointed out briefly in order to
confirm this conclusion.
Scripture is, of course, one of the first principles of theology.
Sacred do.ctrine
properly uses the authority of the canonical Scriptures as an incontrovertible proof .... For our Faith rests upon the revelation made
to the apostles and prophets, who wrote the canonical books, and
not on the revelations (if any such there are) made to other
doctors. 274

In the Summa, particularly in its opening question, St. Thomas
has summed up his exegetical principles. In his insistence on
the fundamental primacy of the literal sense, the influence of
the tradition of Antioch seems to be present. At the same time,
as is evident from his entire works, he employs all the advantages
of the spiritual senses.
The author of Holy Writ is God, in whose power it is to signify
His meaning, not by words only (as men also do), but also by
things themselves. So, whereas in every other science things are
signified by words, this science has the property, that the things
signified by the words have themselves also a signification. Therefore
that first signification whereby words signify things belongs to the
first sense, the historical or literal. The signification is called the
spiritual sense, which is based upon the literal and presupposes
it. . . . Since the literal sense is that which the author intends, and
since the author of Holy Writ is God, Who by one act comprehends
all things by His intellect, it is not unfitting, as Augustine says
(Confess. xii) if, even according to the literal sense, one word in
Holy Writ should have several senses. 275
lbid., q. 1, a. 8, ad 2.
Ibid., a. 10. Quodlib. VII, a. 16, c.: "In nulla scientia humana industria
inventa, proprie loquendo, potest inveniri nisi litteralis sensus; sed solum in ista
scriptura cuius Spiritus Sanctus est auctor, homo vero instrumentum."
274

075

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The literal sense must be the basis of all the other interpretations.
Thus in Holy Writ no confusion results, for all the senses are
founded on one-the literi!-1-from which alone can any argument
be drawn, and not from those intended in allegory, as Augustine
says (Epist. xlviii). Nevertheless, nothing of Holy Scripture perishes
on account of this, since nothing necessary to faith is contained
under the spiritual sense which is not elsewhere put forward by the
Scripture in its literal sense.276
Consequently, I the literal sense is of major importance
argumentation, the sense which is necessarily true.

for

The parabolical sense is contained in the literal, for by words
things are signified properly and figuratively. Nor is the figure
itself, but that which is figured, the literal sense.... Hence it is
plain that nothing false can ever underlie the literal sense of Holy
Writ. 277
The literal sense
is called history ... whenever something is simply related; it is
called etiology when its cause is assigned ... it is called analogy
whenever the truth of one text of Scripture is shown not to contradict the truth of another ... allegory alone stands for the three
one cannot draw
spiritual senses.278 It is not lack of authority
an efficacious argument from the spiritual sense; that comes from
the very nature of the similitudes on which it is founded, for one
••• Summa Theol., I, q. 1, a. 10, ad 1um.
271 Ibid., ad 8.
I Sent., Prol., q. 1, a. 5, c: "Ad destructionem errorum non proceditur msi per
sensum 'litteralem; . . . uncle et Dionysius dicit (in Epist. ad Titum in princ.)
quod symbolica theologia non est argumentativa."
Quodlibet., VII, a. 14, ad 4
Cf. Opusc.14, t. XVI (ed. Parm.), for the principle-ex solo sensu litterali efficax

argumentum trahitur.
Summa Theol., q. 68, a. 1: "In discussing questions of this kind two rules are
to be observed, as Augustine teaches (Gen. ad litt. l, 18). The first is, to hold
the truth of Scripture without wavering. The second is that since Holy Scripture
can be explained in a multiplicity of senses, one should adhere to a particular
explanation, only in such measure as to be ready to abandon it, if it be proved
with certainty to be
lest Holy Scripture be exposed to the ridicule of
unbelievers, and obstacles be placed to their believing."
218 Ibid., q. 1, a. 10, ad 1.

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thing can be similar to many and without sophistry one could not
conclude to one of them in a determined fashion. 279
For the divine author, the spiritual sense of Scripture is
literal/ 80 but for us it is not. It is necessary to compare it with
other passages in the literal sense and in conformity with the
teaching of the Church. 281 Another valuable criterion, although
external, of the literal sense when the textual evidence is insufficient, is the testimony of tradition.
The ancient Doctors could refute better than we the errors of
the Gentiles, because they could know them better, having been
Gentiles or because they lived among them and were versed in their
doctrines. And, as stated above (Q. 1, a. 7), the nearer they
were to Christ, the more distinct was their knowledge of Christ's
mysteries. 282

It was on questions of dogma that St. Thomas as a rule
allowed no accommodation; the literal sense alone was employed,
e. g., in the tracts on the Trinity and the hypostatic union.
The Angelic Doctor reduced the presence of symbols and
figures in the Scriptures to their necessity and utility. They are
necessary for man's understanding and useful for preserving
the truths of faith.
Now it is natural to man to attain to intellectual truths through
sensible objects ... hence in Holy Writ spiritual truths are fittingly
taught under the likeness of material things. . . . Sacred doctrine
makes use of metaphors as both necessary and useful. ... The ray of
divine revelation is not extinguished by the sensible imagery wherewith it is veiled, as Dionysius says (Celest. Hierarch. i); and its
truth so far remains that it does not allow the minds of those to
whom the revelation has been made to rest in the metaphors, but
raises them to the knowledge of the truths. . . . The very hiding
of truth in figures is useful for the exercise of thoughtful minds,
279 Quodlibet. VII, a. 14, ad 4. Summa Theol., I, q. 10fl, a. 1: "For whatever
Scripture tells us about paradise is set down as a matter of history; and wherever
Scripture makes use of this method, we must hold to the historical truth of the
narrative as a foundation of whatever spiritual explanation we may offer."
280 Ibid., I, q. 1, a. 10. Quodlibet., VII, a. 14, ad 5.
281 Summa Theol., II-II, q. 1, a. 9-10.
2182 Ibid., q. 2, a. 7. I Cont. Gent., c. 11.

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and as a defense against the ridicule of the impious . . because
this is more befitting the knowledge of God that we have in this
life. For what. He is not is clearer to us than what He is. Therefore
similitudes drawn from things farthest away from God form within
us a truer estimate that God is above whatsoever we may say or
think of Him .... 288
Thus, the things of God are veiled in symbols which, in their
primary reference imperfect, do not allow the mind to rest in
them as embracing the divine, but of their nature lead to what
is higher and beyond.
St. Thomas crystallized the Alexandrian teaching on the
ancillary position of philosophy and its value in the exposition
of the faith-the burden of theology.
This science can in a sense depend upon the philosophical sciences,
not as though it stood in need of them, but only in order to make
its teaching clearer. For it accepts its principles not from other
sciences but immediately from God, by revelation. Therefore it
does not depend upon other sciences as upon the higher, but makes
use of them as of the lesser, and as handmaidens. . . . That it thus
uses them is not due to its own defect or insufficiency, but to th0
defect of our intelligence, which is more easily led by what is known
through natural reason (from which proceed the other sciences),
to that which is above reason, such as are the teachings of this
science. Although arguments from human reason cannot avail to
'prove what must be received on faith, nevertheless this doctrine
argues from articles of faith to other truths .... But sacred doctrine
makes use even of human reason, not, indeed, to prove faith (for
thereby the merit of faith would come to an end) , but to make
clear other things that are put forward in this doctrine. Since
therefore grace does not destroy nature, but perfects it, natural
reason should minister to faith as the natural bent of the will
ministers to charity. . . . Hence sacred doctrine makes use also of
the authority of philosophers in those questions in which they were
able to know the truth by natural reason . . . as extrinsic and
probable arguments. 284
In his treatment of the nature of God and of our knowledge
of Him, St. Thomas followed the best Alexandrian traditions.
He expanded and elucidated the Christian Platonist teaching
Summa Theol., I, q. 1, a. 9.

•••Ibid., a. 5, ad 2; a. 8, ad 1, 2.

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of the divine transcendence with the clear, scientific notions of
the Philosopher. This is his clear purpose throughout the tract
De Deo u-rw.
Now, because we cannot know what God is, but rather what He
is not, we have no means for considering how God is, but rather
how He is not .... Now it can be shown how God is not, by denying of Him whatever is opposed to the idea of Him-viz., composition, motion and the like. 285
He agrees with St. John Damascene that it is impossible to
define the essence of God, and he adds:
Although we cannot know in what consists the essence of God,
nevertheless in this science we make use of His effects, either of
nature or of grace, in place of a definition, in regard to whatever
is treated of in this science concerning God. 286
God is supremely transcendent,
cations, knowledge and being.

above categories and predi-:

God is not said to be not existing as if He did not exist at all,
but because He exists above all that exists; inasmuch as He is His
own existence. Hence it does not follow that He cannot be known
at all, but that He exceeds every kind of knowledge; which means
that He is not comprehended. 287 God is the supreme good simply,
and not only as existing in any genus or order of things. 288
Hence, being above all we can know of Him, God is nameless.
The reason why God has no name, or is said to be above being
named, is because His essence is above all that we understand about
God and signify in word.289
From His effects-from creatures and from revelation- 290 we
can know the existence of the First Cause and something of
His nature, but very imperfectly. Creatures are, therefore, the
medium of our knowledge.
Natural things are midway between the knowledge of God and
986 Ibid., q. 8, prologus.
••• Ibid., q. 1, a. 7, ad 1.
••• Ibid., q.
a. 1, ad 8.
••• Ibid., q. 6, a.
Cf. ibid., q. 4, a. 8, ad
q. 8, a. 5.
••• Ibid., q. IS, a. 1, ad 1.
••• Ibid., q.
a. IS, ad 1.

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our knowledge; for we receive knowledge from natural things, of
which God is the cause by His knowledge. 291
Their insufficiency
knowledge.

argues

an imperfection

in our mode of

The created essence is compared to the essence of God, as the
imperfect to the perfect act. Therefore the created essence cannot
sufficiently lead us to the knowledge of the divine essence, but
rather the converse. 292
We thus name God as we know Him, imperfectly.
attributes are present in Him in truth.

Yet these

Negative names applied to God or signifying His relation to
creatures manifestly do not at all signify His substance, but rather
express the distance of the creature from Him, or His relation to
something else, or rather, the relation of creatures to Himself. But
as regards absolute and affirmative names of God, ... these names
signify the divine substance, and are predicated substantially of
God, although they fall short of a full representation of Him ....
For these names express God, so far as our intellects know Him.
Now since our intellect knows God from creatures, it knows Him
as far as creatures represent Him. . . . Therefore the aforesaid
names signify the divine substance, but in an imperfect manner,
even as creatures represent it
As regards what is
signified py these names, they belong properly to God, and more
properly than they belong to creatures, and are applied primarily
to Him. But .as regards their mode of signification, they do not
properly and strictly apply to God; for their mode of signification
applies to creatures.2 94
Thus the names applied to God adequately signify creatures,
but may be transferred to signify God primarily. 295
It is not necessary that all the divine names should import
relation to creatures, but it suffices that they be imposed from some
perfection flowing from God to creatures. 296
Ibid., q. 14, a. 8, ad 3. Cf. ibid., q. 13 in toto, de divinis Nominibus.
Ibid., q. 14, a. 6, ad 2. Cf. ibid., q.' 13, a. 5, ad 2.
••• Ibid., q. 13, a. 2.
••• Ibid., a. 3.
••• Ibid., q. 13, a. 6.
••• Ibid., a. 11, ad 3.
291

292

540

NICHOLAS

HALLIGAN

The mode of our knowledge of the divine is threefold. The
way of negation, which is based upon the divine transcendence,
removes all imperfections in the divine, emphasizes the divine
dissimilarity with creatures. 297
And although in God there is no privation, still, according to the
mode of our apprehension, He is known to us by way only of
privation and remotion. 298
At the same time the way of affirmation places perfections
in the divine nature formally, though according to analogy.
They are substantially in God, but in a more eminent manner.
This more eminent manner is in itself mysterious and expressed
only negatively and relatively. The concept of a certain perfection as it is in man in some degree circumscribes and comprehends the thing signified; it is distinct from all his other
attributes. With God it is different. The thing signified remains
as uncomprehended, as exceeding the signification of the name.
Because perfections flowing from God to creatures exist in a
higher state in God Himself (Q. IV, a. 2), whenever a name taken
from any created perfection is attributed to God, it must be
separated in its signification from anything that belongs to that
imperfect mode proper to creatures. 299 We can name a thing according to the knowledge we have of its nature from its properties and
effects.... Now from the divine effects we cannot know the divine
nature in itself, so as to know what it is; but only by way of
eminence, and by way of causality, and of negation as stated above
(Q. XII, a. 12). Thqs the name God signifies the divine nature,
for this name was imposed to signify something existing above all
things, the principle of all things, and removed from all things; for
those who name God intend to signify all this. 300
Since our concepts of God are all in some way derived from
a creature-foundation, creatures, according to their own natures,
are from a theological point of view symbols of the uncreated,
the divine.
••• Fourth Lateran Council (Denz.
Between the Creator and the creature
not so great a similarity can be detected, as not to detect a greater dissimilarity.
••• Summa Theol., I, q. 11, a. 8, ad 2.
300 Ibid., q. 18, a. 8, ad 2. Cf. ibid., q. 18, a. 1, 3.
••• Ibid., q. 14, a. 1, ad 1.

PATRISTIC

SCHOOLS

IN THE 'SUMMA'

541

Now as words formed by a man are signs of his intellectual
knowledge; so are creatures, formed by God, signs of his wisdom.301
Each in the measure in which it shares in the divine perfections
mirrors the divine essence.
But every creature has its own proper species, according to which
it participates in some degree in likeness to the divine essence.302
Likeness of creatures to God is not affirmed on account of agreement in form according to the formality of the same genus or
species, but solely according to analogy, inasmuch as God is essential
being, whereas other things are beings by participation. 303
Even reason itself is a sharing in the perfection of God and a
means of knowing Him.
For the light of natural reason itself is a participation of the
divine light. 304

It is in accord with this mode of human intellection that God
accommodated the revelation of His truths.
In the tract De Deo Uno St. Thomas, following the lead of
his Patristic Masters, steered a clear course between the Scylla
of agnosticism and the Charybdis of anthropomorphism. The
former was avoided by affirming the presence in God, substantially and properly, of absolutely simple perfections, primarily in Him. Against anthropomorphism he predicated the
perfections of God and creatures not univocally but analogously.
Consequently, our knowledge of God, drawn from creatures,
themselves symbols of the divine, is properly symbolical. 305

V.

CoNCLUSION

1. The greater part of this study has been devoted to an

analysis of the two great schools of the earlier Christian theological tradition-Alexandria and Antioch. In order to discover
•o• Ibid., III, q. U, a. 3, ad
302 Ibid., I, q. 15, a.
Cf. ibid., q. 14, a. 9, ad
808 Ibid., q. 4, a. 3, ad 3.
•o• Ibid., q. Hl, a. 11, ad 3. Cf. ibid., q. 16, a. 5, ad 3.
•o• Ibid., a. 9, ad
3.

8

542

NICHOLAS

HALLIGAN

-their doctrines and methods, the most important representatives
in each tradition were briefly studied. The endeavor has been to
ascertain through what channels this double stream of influence
has entered into the thought of the Angelic Doctor. The Summa
Theologica has been the sole source of investigation, since it
represents the ensemble and the perfection of St. Thomas'
teaching. Examples, which can be multiplied throughout the
entire work, of the existence and extent of this influence have
been offered. Nothing more has been intended than to outline
the problem-how these theological traditions ·influenced St.
Thomas; to show that there is foundation for the claims made,
and to incite interest toward further studies in the same branch
of Thomistic research. 306
2. The Summa Theologica is the greatest synthesis of Christian
theology. Within its pages is included the harmony of many
previously diverse elements and teachings. Above all it is the
synthesis of Aristotelianism and Christian Platonism. This
latter theological tradition, as St. Thomas saw it, was preserved
more adequately by three important authorities-St. Augustine,
St. John
and Pseudo-Dionysius. They were the
spiritual heirs of the School of Alexandria, the spirit of Christian
Platonism. It was upon this Platonist frame of reference that
St. Thomas admirably infused the scientific spirit and teaching
of the Philosopher. The Platonist spirit was one of synthesis,
seeing all things in hierarchy, as related to God-the vertical
view of- reality. Aristotelianism was the .spirit of analysis, the
scientific investigation of natures-a horizontal view of reality.
In his Summa St. Thomas made these elements converge into
306 Concerning the authorities
cited throughout the Summa, studies could be
made as to whether St. Thomas knew them in the text or through the florilegia and
compilations so numerous in the Middle Ages. Also, there is a problem of which
were used merely to confirm the doctrine expounded in an article, and which were
used strictly as a theological premise from authority. Studies on the extent of St.
Thomas' dependence upon each of the three Masters cited in the Summa would
be very valuable. Especially valuable would be the study of St. Thomas and St.
John Damascene, who both as a saint and as a doctor had much in commOJ;t with
the Doctor Communis.

PATRISTIC

SCHOOLS IN THE 'SUMMA;

543

one complementary whole. Except in his exegesis where he
followed the primacy of the literal sense, at least in dogmatic
questions, it seems that the elements of the tradition of Antioch
were supplied for St. Thomas from Aristotle himself.
On the other hand, the Angelic Doctor was no mere synthesist,
but a true architect. He judged, sifted, revised, corrected some
of the essential line:. and perfected the heritage he had received.
Cajetan says truly of him,
So great was his veneration for the ancient and sacred Doctors
that he may be said to have gained a perfect understanding of
them all. Thomas gathered together their doctrines like the scattered
limbs of a body, and moulded them into a whole. He arranged them
in so wonderful an order, and increased them with such great
additions, that rightly and deservedly he is reckoned a singular
safeguard and glory of the Catholic Church. 307
NICHOLAS

HALLIGAN,

0. p.

Dominican House of Studies,
Washington, D. C.

307

Comm. in II-llae, q. 148, a. 4, in fin. Also quoted by Leo XIII, AetemiPatris.

BOOK REVIEW
The Condition of Man. By LEWIS MuMFORD. New York:
Brace & Co., 1944. Pp. 467. $5.00.

Harcourt,

The experience of reading The Condition of Man is comparable to
several days of conversation with an intriguing and forceful personality,
one who startles by his epigrams and insights, one who ofttimes provokes
by· his personalizations and generalizations, yet one withal whose underlying conviction is caught and shared because, and sometimes in spite of,
the evidence that is presented. In this work, Lewis Mumford, Professor
of Humanities at Stanford University, has sketched for himself a huge
task: "to deal at length with the tangled elements of Western man's
spiritual history. . . . The time has come for a new drama to be conceived and enacted. Each of us has his part to play in that renewal. And
first of all, we must understand the formative forces that are still at work
in our civilization: by such fuller and deeper knowledge of our own living
past, we will refashion the actors themselves and give them new parts to
perform. . . . We must recapture once more our sense of what it is to be a
man ... " (p. 14) ."
The Condition ofMan is the third volume in the series that opened with
Technics and Civilization, a history of the machine and a critical study of
its effects upon civilization; the second volume, The Culture of Cities, is a
penetrating analysis of the new role of cities and regions in our modern
civilization. In order of importance, the author ranks this volume first,
since it deals with the purposes and ends of human development. Because
it treats of human purposes and ends in an age when finality in human
affairs is either denied or seriously controverted, the book is bound to
arouse comment along the whole critical continuum from lusty condemnation to enthusiastic approbation.
Approaching history as " a reservoir of human creativeness," the author
opens his study with the Greek and Roman civilizations, for if we would
understand our present selves, " we must understand the central core
which formed the primitive Christian " (p. 17) . While the Greeks sought
to achieve an organic society, they failed because they did not in their
parochialism embrace all humanity, a failure to be concerned with the
whole life of man and with every member of human society. Rome, seeking a greater universality failed because it lacked the inner logic to fulfill
the powers of ubiquitous Roman law, Roman administration, Roman sani-

544

REVIEW

545

tation, Roman engineering; " as life became mechanically disciplined it
became spiritually incoherent " (p. 39) .
In Chapter II on " The Primacy of the Person,'; Mr. Mumford introduces Jesus of Nazareth with the assumption that "much of his actual
doctrine, perhaps part of the kernel, was misunderstood or rejected by his
more simple-minded recorders" (p.
The interest of Jesus was in
"the redemption of man's very humanity, in the perpetual renewal andrededication of the living to the task of self-development: he sought to
bring the inner and the outer aspects of the personality into organic balance by throwing off compulsions, constraints, automatisms " (p. 54) .
Looking at Christ as the mystic llJld the psychologist, and mayhaps the
psychoanalyst, the author considers him as one of the great prophets of
emergent evolution, contributing to the gradual building up of personality
and its extension in theory to every member of the community. "What
was lacking in his creed was what was lacking ·in his native environment,
the back countries, far from the big cities with their art' and learning "
{p. 60). Mumford likens the Christian Church to the tomb in which
Christ was interred. Doctrinal Christianity, from Paul to Augustine, was
" essentially the product of an informal revolutionary committee of correspondence " (p. 65) , gathering, in the unverified opinion of the author,
many things besides the sayings and deeds of Jesus, thus to build up what
is known as Christian theology.
Taking the Church as an example, Mr. Mumford describes the transition
from personality to community which is essential to his main thesis. To
him, only at the moment of formulation is an idea its very self; to survive,
the idea must adapt itself to an impure medium, the mediun;t of life; otherwise it is doomed to sterility. As it creates new institutions or reforms
old ones, the idea, in the process of vulgarization, is warped. " Therefore,
if the original idea that has been incorporated and embodied in the community's life is itself to remain alive, there must be a perpetual going back
to original sources, and an .equal capacity to anticipate and formulate new
experiences which will enable further growth to take place" (p.
This
theory has much to recommend it if we limit ourselves to purely human
institutions and leaders. It can also be applied to an institution such as
the Christian Church from the historical point of view. One wonders if
Mr. Mumford had investigated more closel.v Christ's claims to Divinity and
the relation between Christ and His Mystical Body, the Church, would he
be so prone to define Christianity in such terms as to hold it apparent
"that Jesus of Nazareth was the first heretic " (p. 75) . The author's flair
for the catchy phrase sometimes distorts the truth. The reader gets the
impression that Mr. Mumford is not pushing his own theory far enough;
he is too prone to examine the letter and miss the spirit, to see the pallor

546

BOOK REVIEW

of death enshrouding the dying Church as it came upon the dying Christ,
but not to witness the constant resurrection of the Church when, like its
Founder, it has been many times pronounced dead.
As the writer delineates the social world of Augustine, " a forerunner of
Freud," of Jerome who "announced Western Europe's spiritual hibernation,'' of Benedict, and
who enabled the Papacy to succeed as
..-an agent of efficient political organization, not as a repository of spiritual
enlightenment . . . ," he finds Romanesque man leading a sentient existence, seeking only protection, subject to " the new manic-depressive visions
of Christian theology" (p. 105). "There is scarcely a single aspect of
this culture which does not become clearer when one interprets it as a
neurotic. dream phenomenon" (p. 107). Mumford borrows more than a
little from Freud.
With the year 1000 A. D. and the failure of the millenia! reign to
materialize, there came a new spring to Western Europe; it had at last
broken through the cracked mold of Roman .civilization; it now had its
own life to live. Mumford interprets the prohibition of the marriage of
priests as a defense of the Church against the new flood of erotic energy;
and dynamically, the Church" reluctantly sanctioned a womanly redeemer,
nearer to the popular heart than the Holy Trinity-the Virgin Mary . . . "
(p. 109) ·.
The medieval economy, based on a feudalized agriculture and a corporate
municipal economy, brought about a change from custom to written law,
from fixed, all-embracing duties to specified privileges, from servility to
civility. The traditional elements of the medieval life .are here treated,
ofttimes with insufficient respect for historical accuracy. For instance, when
St. Dominic saw that Franciscan poverty brought provisions in greater
quantity than was needed, he " went into retreat and founded a parallel
order of preaching friaJ;"s" (p. 128). Such dangerous simplification is not
borne out by the researches of Jarrett, Mandonnet and other reputable
historians of the Dominican Order. It was unfortunate, according to
Mumford, that the essential insights of Francis's vision were betrayed and
its principles underminded. " He sought to get rid of all the encumbrances to Christian living and _he completely forgot, or rather, he
heartily embraced, the most formidable of all these encumbrances in the
thirteenth century, the Roman Church itself'' (p. 125).
The two. greatest collective products of the thirteenth century were the
Gothic cathedral and scholastic philosophy. " The· first risked security for
the sake of its own audacious self-fulfillment: the second courted stultification for the sake of finality" (p. 126). Mr. Mumford accepts the works
of Thomas Aquinas as the soundest and best contribution of scholastic
philosophy, but points out that his weakness lies in the fact that his

BOOK REVIEW

547

questions do not bring under rational scru,tiny either the method of his
logic or the po,stulates of Christian theology. Anent the first, one should
peruse the Commentaries of St. Thomas on Aristotle; as for the postulates
of theology, which are the principles of faith of revealed truths, reason is
not capable of proving them; though it may indicate their credibility, and
this St. Thomas always does. Of Thomas, the author says that " one
cannot dispute the power of his mind or the sheer aggregate wealth of its
operations: no one, except perhaps Aristotle, has ever taken in so much
or had ordered his results with such thoroughness ... the Summa is rather
to be considered as a work of engineering, conceived on a cyclopean scale,
by one of the ablest technical minds of any age" (p. 131) . But for all his
sympathetic treatment of Thomas, Mumford falsely accuses him of leaving
out only one proof, the most important, the proof for the existence of
God. How the author missed Question 2 in the Prima Pars of the Summa
Theologica or the tract on the existence of God in the Summa Contra
Gentiles is hard to explain. The prvise of the Angelic Doctoris rather well
negated by the writer's specious criticism of his' theory of knowledge, his
facility " in adroitly getting arnund the falsehoods and errors in canonical
scriptures that were in contradiction to experience and reason " (p. 186) , ·
his subservience to the dogmas of the Church, and the neglect to use the
words of Jesus himself as an authority, ''as if the Angelic Doctor understood that Jesus's doctrine of life as the manifestation and exaltation of
love was the grain of radium that might disintegrate this complex scholastic structure" (p.
Did·Mr. Mumford miss the tract on Charity in
the. Summa Theologica?
Summing up the medieval period, the author says that the Church
embodied rationality and ideal purpose, giving collective dignity to human
life at large as no other institution had ever done for so large a part of
the Western World before. Fellowship and beauty were the Church's great
gifts; but before .man could long enjoy them, the forces of disintegration
were at work. These are the subject of a chapter entitled " Capitalism,
Absolutism, Protestantism."
In the introduction to this chapter, Mr. Mumford points out that the
downfall of a culture as a whole may lead to rapid advances in this or
that part of it. He shows how the Black Death, by removing a third or
half of the population of Europe, took with it a multitude of skills, a vast
heritage of living knowledge, an abundance of sensitive discrimination,
passed from parent to child, from master to apprentice, from neighbor to
'neighbor. "There is no mechanical substitute for a living tradition"
(p. 155) . The Black Death produced a break in social continuity, loosening connections with the immediate past, making it easier to begin on fresh
foundations than to resume old connections.

548

BOOK REVIEW

Capitalism is the first trend to be considered; and its inception is due,
according to Mumford and contrary to Tawney, Weber and Fanfani, to
the medieval Church which, economically speaking, " had become a machine for manufacturing salvation" (p. 156) . '!'he author's loose use of
the term " capitalism " makes this section one of the least understandable
of the book. He says that " the capitalist super-ego was as much in conflict with man's diversified biological and social needs as that of the Christian Church: it was based on an equally wholesale system of denials and
negations ... " (p. 168) .
Financial concentration and political despotism went together; governments courted the cooperation of great bankers and business men, repaying them handsomely in titles, lands, and commercial monopolies. The
individual was smothered under the cult of uniformity, with the omnipotent
state making automatons of men.
Protestantism in religion, avers Mumford, came into being, not as an
ally of capitalism, but as its chief enemy; it was " an attempt to check
the commercial spirit and prevent it from getting hold of the Church ... ''
(p. 18fl) . " If the eventual result of Luther's theology was to buttress
the absolute state, and that of Calvin's theology was to fortify with selfrighteousness the capitalist enterpriser, both results were far from their
patent intention" (p. 184). Mumford sees the machine as the true
symbol of Calvin's unrelenting God and his predestined order; " its very
austerities and abnegations and self-denials, the driving discipline of the
factory, with no time for idleness and therefore no opportunity for sin-all
this gave the machine 'a foundation in protestant culture that it long lacked
in countries like Spain and Italy which remained under the laxer and
more human forms of the medieval Church and of medieval craftmanship" (p. 194). The individualism of Protestantism turned into mere
atomism; " the final flower of protestant teaching was a willful denial of
the need for unity. A society of one is the ultimate denial of human
unity: the very negation of the true person, who seeks to be at one with
all humanity" (pp. 196-7).
Though mammonism and mechanism were the two great molders of
human character between the sixteenth and twentieth centuries, they had
to meet with what the author terms " an uprising of the libido," an expansion of every activity that promoted animation, joy, bodily exuberance.
Physical energy and money provided the material wherewithal for the
artful luxuries whose enjoyment became the principal end of upper-class
existence. The new libido created a commanding presence and a fearless
self-reliance, typified in the new character of the gentleman, whose "most
precious possession was his self-possession'' (p. 204). As counterparts in
the other sex, there were the courtesan and the lady, both celebrated in

BOOK REVIEW

549

art and both artful in capitalizing on the power of their sex. In the
country house, the finer elements of this new expressive society were
molded to fortn an upper class free from the economic anxieties of the
masses and capable of the cultivation of the arts and the sciences. In the
long run, however, country house existence was an aimless way of life.
Mumford does see in Ignatius of Loyola a gentleman who was a saint.
Explanation of this dubious distinction, rendered less striking by the comparison of the Jesuit Order to the Communist Party, winds up in a contrary figure: "The Society of Jesus, unfortunately, was conceived under
the sign of the Despot" (p.
In the ne:J!i chapter, entitled "The New Hemispheres," Mr. Mumford
indicates that the era of discovery beginning with the finding of the New
World helped bring into existence a new ideal of the human personality,
" one whose wishes, no longer locked up in dreams and returning circuitously in subjective emanations, now worked upon the outer world
as pure will. The outer man conquered; the inner man abdicated " (p.
In the ideological New World of science, there was likewise an
abandonment of the inner and subjective in every form. " Science opened
up the external world and bade it welcome; but it shut out the self; it
enlarged the horizon but contracted the center " (p.
. The separation of positive science from normative science caused a deeper split in the
Western personality. "The New World, as conceived through the mechanical sciences, was a world of isolates, presided over by isolates. The
depersonalized scientist was at his best in a world from which the perModern
sonality itself had been removed: his own first of all" (p.
Man, Mumford avers, became an ideological scarecrow.
Turning next to the doctrine of progress, the author wisely observes
that progress may be considered either as getting closer to a goal or getting
farther away from a starting point. In the eighteenth century the latter
meaning prevailed, an era in which novelty became a merit and change of
any sort a source of hope. Two main types of personality clearly defined
themselves toward the end of the eighteenth century: the romantic and
the utilitarian: the one turning back to nature, the other turning nature
back to the profit of self. Of these, the romantic was the more popular in
that century; but the difficulties attending social reform caused not a few
to question its initial premise of the essential goodness of man.
In the following century, utilitarian ideology held sway, seeking the
conquest of nature and the liberation of mankind by mechanical invention
"In the name of economy, a thousand wasteful devices would be invented;
and in the name of efficiency, new forms of mechanical time-wasting would
be devised. . . . Without critical inquiry it (the utilitarian ideology)
assumed that the new was better than the old, that the mechanical was

550

BOOK REVIEW

betteJ; than the vital, that the active was better than the passive,
that the financially profitable was a sufficient indication of the humanly
valuable. All those unqualified assertions were demonstrably false " (pp.
304-305) . The answer of the utilitarians to all of life's enigmas was to
work a little harder and to forget about it.
In reacting against the dehumanization process of __the machine, people
inclined to an emphasis on the vital things of life. Unhappily, with the
help of DMWin's theory of natmal selection, they identified "the natmal
with the savage, the organic with the primitive, the life-creating with the
death-seJ;Ving" (p. 351). In nationalism, we see the doctrine of the smvival of the fittest applied to whole states; in the domain of sex, Freudian
psychoanalysis sought to harmonize man's waiTing impulses. But all these,
reactions, the vital, the national, and the sexual, failed to alter the dominant pattem of life because they failed of union in what Mumford terms
"the idolum of the organism" (p. 381). It is at this junctme that the
author introduces his master, Patrick Geddes, as one .who achieved the
synthesis. " The basic change exemplified by Geddes was the unification
of all the pmcesses. of life, the subjective and the objective, and the equal
cultivation of the sciences, the arts, and the humanities " (p. 387) .
Thus we are bmught to the concluding chapter," The Basis of Renewal.''
With prophetic stemess, Mumford moums that most of our contempmaries are still unaware of the dimensions of the present catastmphe.
We have sought, he says, to achieve perfection by eliminating the human
element. The disease that threatens us is an mganic one, requiring " a
reorientation of our whole life, a change in occupation, a change in regimen,
a change in personal relationships, not least, a change in attitude and
conscious
fundamentally, a change in religion, om total sense
of the world and life and time " (p. 393) . Since organization has become
destructive of human values, we must reassert once mme the primacy of
the
The present period is a painful transition between two eras:
the first associated with the rise of capitalism, Jllilitarism, scientism and
likewise with the counter-movements of protestantism,
mmanticism and democracy. The period of " humanization " that appmaches will have as its theme " the resurgence of life, the displacement of
the mechanical by the organic, and the reestablishment of the person as
the ultimate term of all human effort. Cultivation, humanization, cooperation, symbiosis: these ue the watchwords of the new world-enveloping
culture" (p. 399).
Tlw era of expansion is over and the era of stabilization is near at hand;
balanced economy must replace the old competition. To achieve this balanced life, man must undergo an internal renewal that will carey him
tmough the extemal transformation that the author has outlined. In

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BOOK REVIEW

terms of life-fulfillment, the most important needs are those that foster
spiritual activity and promote spiritual growth; and the deepest, the most
organic, of these higher needs is that for love. " Only in one place can an
immediate •renewal begin: that is, within the person; and a remolding of
the self and the super-ego is an inescapable prelimimiry to the great
changes that must be made throughout every community, in every part of
the world. . . . God must work within us " (p. 421-422) .

*

*

*

*

*

*

*

*

One closes The Condition of Man with mixed sentiments. There is so
much in it that is striking, relentlessly to the point. One sees here a mind
that does not fear to survey the whole expanse of Western civilization, to
probe the writings of scholars from Plato and Aristotle to Thomas Aquinas,
Marx, Freud and Geddes, turning upon one and all the x-ray of a hypercritical sense. His sparkling epigrams and climactic quips compel the
mind's attention; and the speed with which he turns· from one fact or
figure or philosophy to another is nothing less than breath-taking. His
kaleidescopic view of history is highly selective, as might be expected; but
that he has selected the real high spots is not too apparent. It is as
though he views the world from an airplane, to free himself from the
provincialisms of the philosopher's. chair or the hermit's mountain. This is
not altogether advantageous: the valleys of human endeavor are filled up
and the mountains made low; and it takes a discerning eye to delineate
the topography of the civilization thus viewed.
Prof. Mumford strikes this reviewer as the great leveller. With broad
sweeps he levels the idols of modern thought, men like Marx, Darwin, and
Freud; the house of so-called progressive education is crushed as one built
upon sand; Jesus Christ, the Roman Catholic Church, Sts. Paul, Thomas
Aquinas and Ignatius Loyola, all are made to feel the brunt of his relentless iconoclasm; protestantism, capitalism, romanticism, and socialism are
blown away like papers before a pentecostal wind. And what would he
erect once the demolition process is completed? It is a new civilization,
whose ideal personality is a balanced person, in dynamic interaction with
every part of his environment and every part of his heritage. What is
needed is not reorganization, but reorientation, ·a change in direction and
attitude.
What is the goal of this direction? Apparently it is the new idolum
which we must create--" we must create a new super-ego:" To create a
new super-ego may mean two things. If " create '' is taken in the strict
sense, namely, to make something out of nothing, then it means that man
must fashion a new being, a new ideal superior to himself. But it is not
within the power of man, who is a creature, to create. That is the work
of God. Taking " create " in an analogical sense, we may envision man,

BOOK REVIEW

by progressive thought, reformulating the ideal of his existence, aiming it
toward a higher perfection. Yet by what norms are we to judge perfection if we do not have a standard, something objective, against which we
may measure the fulfillment of man's promise? In this man needs God;
as Mr. Mumford says, " God must work within us."
If we take religion as embracing the sum total of man's relationships
with God, then religion should provide an answer. It is at this point that
the author leaves us rather much in the dark. As Ordway Tead Qbserves
in his review of the book (The Saturday Review of Literature, VoL
XXVII, May QO, 1944), the acknowledgment of religion as critical and
powerful seems somehow timid and restrained. " One would have valued
a still further chapter on the ways and means of renewal-even on the
regimen of faith."
If religion holds the answer, then he who would improve the condition
of man should seek a Creed and a Church which embodies all the noblest
aspirations of man towards God. That Creed, that Church, may be, to
the agnostic, one of the existing Churches, or it may be orie yet to come.
Before venturing a new religion and a new Church, it is not unreasonable
to investigate the claims of existing Churches. Speaking only for the
Catholic Church, this reviewer knows that Mr. Mumford has not given it
impartial study. His attitude toward the divinity of Christ, the " inventing" of a womanly redeemer in Mary, the distorted presentation of the
development of doctrine and the caustic jibes at ecclesiastical practices of
the Roman Church, betray an indebtedness to anti-Catholic sources which
could be counteracted by recourse to standard Catholic references or to the
offices of a Catholic priest. Were he to study, for instance, the classic
encyclical letter of Pope Pius XII on " The Mystical Body of Christ," he
would find in its pages an affirmation of his plea for the primacy of the
person, for the internal renewal that must precede the external transformation; therein is explained the vital relationships that should exist between the individual and the organic community which is the Mystical
Body of Christ; there he will find the true super-ego, not a Freudian projection which man creates, but Christ, the Son of God, Who created man.
It is sincerely to be hoped that Mr. Mumford, who has gone so far,
will go further in his quest of the truth, the Person-God.

Loms A. RYAN, 0. P.
St. Mary's of the Springs OoUege,
Oolumbua, Ohio

BOOKS RECEIVED
Auerback, Leo (Ed.). The Babylonian Talmud. New York: Philosophical
$3.00.
Library, 1944. Pp.
Bryson, Lyman, Finkelstein, Louis, Maciver, R. M. (Ed.). Approaches to
World Peace. (Fourth Symposium: Conference on Science, Philosophy
and Religion.) New York: Harper Bros., 1944. Pp. xviii
973, with
index. $5.00.
D'Arcy, M. C. Thomas Aquinas. Westminster, Md.: Newman Book Shop,
1944. Pp.
with index. $3.50.
Donnelly, Dorothy. The Bone and the Star. New York: Sheed & Ward,

+

1944. P:p,,

Heydon, J. K. The God of Love: New York: Sheed & Ward, 1944. Pp.
$U5.

Jordan, Paschal. Physics of the 20th Century. New York: Philosophical
Library, 1944. Pp. 185. $4.00.
Men Hate? New York: Harper & Bros., 1944.
Livingston, Sigmund.
Pp. 344, with index.
McGinley, L. J., S. J. Form-Criticism of the Synoptic Healing Narratives.,
Woodstock, Md.: Woodstock College Press, 1944. Pp. 165, with index.
Mueller, G. E. The World as Spectacle. New York: Philosophical Library.
Pp.
with index. $3.00.
Naturalism and the Human Spirit: A Symposium. Y. H. Krikorian (Ed.).
New York: Columbia University Press, 1944. Pp. 397, with index.
$4.50.

Proceedings of the American Catholic Philosophical Society: Philosophy in
Post-War Reconstruction.· Washington, D. C.: The Catholic University of America, 1944. Pp.
Reilly, D. F., 0. P. The School Controversy (1891-1893). Washington,
D. C.: The Catholic University of America, 19M3. Pp.
with index.
$3.00.

558

INDICES OF VOLUME VII (1944)
INDEX OF AUTHORS

PAGE

ADLER, M. J. AND FARRELL, W. The Theory of Democracy
so
323
ALLERS, R. Functions, Factors and Faculties
CARLSON, S. The Virtue of Humility .
135,363
EGAN, J. M. Review of What is Ed1wation? by E. Leen
415
---. Review of Education at the Crossroads, by J. Maritain
415
---. Review of The University and the Modern World, by A. S.
Nash
415
---. Review of Principles for Peace, H. C. Koenig (Ed.)
264
---. Review of Liberal Education, by M. Van Doren .
415
FARRELL, W. AND M. J. ADLER. The Theory of Democracy
SO
GREENWOOD, T. The Platonic Theory of the Continuum
179
HALLIGAN, N. Patristic Schools in the Summa .
271,505.
KANE, W. H. The Nature and Extent of the Philosophy of Nature
!!!04
KELEHER, J. F. The Search for the Intelligible Good .
492
KoLNAI, A. The Humanitarian Versus the Religious Attitude
429
McCoRMACK, S. The Configuration of the Sacramental Character
458
OESTERLE, J. A. Another Approach to the Problem of Meaning
233
PETRY, R. C. The Social Character of Heavenly Beatitude
65
RYAN, L.A. Review of The Condition of Man, by L. Mumford
544
1
ZmnRI, X. Socrates and Greek Wisdom

INDEX OF ARTICLES
Configuration, The-- of the Sacramental Character. S. McCoRMACK
458
Continuum, The Platonic Theory of the --. T. GREENWOOD
179
80
Democracy, The Theory of--. M. J. ADLER AND W. FARRELL
Functions, Factors and Faculties. R. ALLERS
Greek Wisdom, Socmtes and--. X. ZuBmi
1
Heavenly Beatitude, The Social Character of--. R. C. PETRY
65
Humanitarian, The-- Versus the Religious Attitude. A. KoLNAI
Humility, The Virtue of--. S. CARLSON
135, 363
Intelligible Good, The Search for the--. J. F. KELEHER
492
Patristic Schools in the Summa. N. HALLIGAN
27.1., 505

554

INDICES

OF VOLUME VII

(1944)

555
PAGE

Philosophy of Nature, The Nature and Extent of the--.

W. H.

KANE .
204
Platonic, The-- The?ry of the Continuum." T. GREENWOOD . . . 233
Problem of Meaning, Another Approach to the--; J. A. OESTERLE . 233
Religious Attitude, The Humanitarian Versus the--. A. KoLNAI . 429
Sacramental Character, The Configuration of the-- .. S. McCoRMACK
458
Social Character, The-- of Heavenly Beatitude. R. C. PETRY .
65
Socrates and Greek Wisdom. X. ZuBmi .
I
271,505
Summa, Patristic Schools in the--. N. HALLIGAN .

INDEX OF BOOK REVIEWS
LEEN, ED. What is Education? (Egan) .
MARITAIN, J. Education at the CrossroadB (Egan) .
MuMFORD, L. The Condition of Man (Ryan) .
NAsH, A. S. The University and the Modern World (Egan)
Principles for Peace: Selections from Papal Documents: Leo XIII
to Pius XII. H. C. KoENIG (Ed.) (Egan)
VAN DoRAN, M. Liberal Education (Egan)

END oF VoLUME VII

415
415
544
415
264
415