THE THOMIST
A SPECULATIVE QUARTERLY REVIEW
OF THEOLOGY AND PHILOSOPHY
EDITORS:

THE DoMINICAN FATHERS oF THE PROVINCE OF ST. JosEPH

Publishers:

VoL. XXIX

The Thomist Press, Washington 17, D. C.

JANUARY, 1965

No.1

DIVINIZATION:
A STUDY IN THEOLOGICAL ANALOGY

S

ANCTIFYING GRACE, the infused virtues, the gifts
of the Holy Spirit, the light of glory: these are finite
perfections intrinsic to a creature, and as such they are
infinitely below God. At the same time they make the creature to whom they are given mysteriously but really divine,
lifting it to the supernatural plane of God's own life. This is
the fascinating and baffiing mystery of divinization, in which a
finite gift endows a creature with the proper beauty of the
uncreated God.1
Saint Thomas has given a humble, reverent, profound explanation of this mystery. A vigorous Thomist tradition, stemming from the great commentators Cajetan and John of St.
Thomas, has repeated this explanation, delved into it, and
1 Thus St. Augustine says:
" factus est Deus homo, ut homo fieret Deus "
(PL 39: 1997) and St. Leo says: "Agnosce, 0 Christiane, dignitatem tuam; et
divinae consors factus naturae, noli in veterem vilitatem degeneri conversatione
redire" (PL 54:

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KEVIN F. O'SHEA

shown that its true greatness lies in giving a synthesis, perfect
" pro modulo nostro," of the finite and infinite aspects of the
divinizing gifts. Writers like Ambrose Gardeil and Reginald
Garrigou-Lagrange have made us familiar with this teaching.
Through them we are accustomed to the cardinal distinction
of the Thomist theory of divinization: the divinizing gifts are
materially classified in a finite category of being, but at the
same time they are formally defined as participations of the
Deity itself. The possibility of this distinction depends on an
analogous application of the Thomist doctrine of transcendental
relatives to the supernatural order: the divinizing gifts, though
collocated in a finite category of being, are transcendentally
relative to the depths of the Divine Being, are consequently
formally divine, and communicate properly divine perfection
to the creature to whom they are given. 2
In recent years some writers have been contending that this
traditional Thomist theory exaggerates the finite aspect of
these supernatural gifts at the expense of their infinite aspect.
For Thomism confessedly makes these gifts supernatural and
divinizing only as participations of the Deity, not as communications of the Deity in the fullness of a union that is more intimate and complete than participation. The sources of divine
revelation, to the minds of these theologians, seem to speak
of a higher and more wonderful divinization than that which
Thomism ascribes to these gifts, a divinization which is absolutely and totally infinite because it is the entire gift of God
Himself to the creature. While the Thomists would, they say,
place the accent on finite grace, they would place the accent
on the infinite gift of God Himself. Dazzled by the beauty of
this intuition of a divine communication, they have tried to
• The Thomist commentators treat this problem either in their tract on Grace
(concerning the essence of sanctifying grace) re I-II, q. 112, or in their tract on
the beatific vision (concerning the essence of the light of glory) re Ia, q. 12. In
more recent times this problem is raised in Thomist works of fundamental theology dependent on Garrigou-Lagrange. The modern commentary of J. M. Ramirez,
O.P., De Hominis Beatitudine, 3 vols., Salamanca-Madrid, 1942-1947, remains a
classic source.

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A STUDY IN THEOLOGICAL

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3

explain it in terms of a unique causality called " quasi formal
causality" or" pure formal causality," thinking that God Himself is the unparticipated formal Act of the creature thus perfected. They have then tried to find this superior causality in
all the divinizing gifts of grace and glory, thus equating divinization and supernaturality with it, and unifying the explanation of all "grace" under this aspect. 3
Traditional Thomism has not viewed this proposal without
sympathy. Saint Thomas, Cajetan, John of St. Thomas and
the Masters of the modern Thomist school have known a divinizing gift which is not by way of participation, which is totally
infinite, which is God Himself as the very Act of the soul, and,
implicitly at least, they have called it a " pure formal actuation " of the soul by God.4 Traditional Thomism is not entirely
foreign, therefore, to the intuition of the modern movement.
It has however (and, we believe, with justice) been critical of
the way in which recent authors have tried to express their
intuition. In particular, it has been careful to distinguish the
supreme divinizing gift, where God is the infinite formal Act
of the soul, from other divinizing gifts which are truly finite
categories of being while being formal participations of the
3 M. De Ia Taille and K. Rahner are (it seems, independently)
pioneers of this
movement. P. De Letter pursued it recently in The Irish Theological Quarterly,
1960, pp. 221-228, and the present writer answered him in the same review, 1961,
pp. 1-15. This study is not directly intended to prolong the discussion of Father
De Letter's article: it is rather intended to profit by the occasion of the exchange
of views to search the entire problem. Nor is the present rather particular point
at issue--basic though it be--the only point at issue between traditional authors
and this modern current. The modern current is becoming more and more vocal:
cf. on the teachnical level, B. M. Xiberta, 0. Carm., "De ratione entis supernaturalis," in Carmelus, 4 (1957), pp. 3-49, and on the popular level, R. W.
Gleason, S. J., Grace, Sheed and Ward, New York, 1962. It has even been given
prominence in the catechetical review Lumen Vitae: cf. XVII (1962), pp. 235-240.
• Thus Cajetan writes: "Nam si de actuare et actuari infra totam latitudinem
suorum modorum sermo sit, non est remotum a philosophia, divina Deum posse
actuare rem creatam. In cuius signum, divinam essentiam esse actum cuiusque
intellectus videntis ipsam, et theologi et philosophi fatentur. Cum ergo naturam
humanam in Christo ex divina personalitate et esse divino perfici fateamur, non
est absonum fateri etiam, quod actuatur aliquo etiam modo per personalitatem
et esse divinum .... " (In lllam, q. 17, a. 2, n. XVIII.)

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KEVIN F. o'SHEA

Deity, and it has refused strongly to apply the notion of a
"pure formal actuation" to these gifts. It feels that any explanation which neglects these necessary distinctions and diversities must, in the last analysis, make the infinite aspect of
divinization excessively preponderate over the finite aspect and,
therefore, be an imperfect speculative explanation of the data
of faith. It cannot then equate divinization with pure formal
actuation, or finally explain the supernatural order in terms
of it.
It is therefore necessary to ask three questions:
1. Is it necessary to distinguish two kinds of divinizing
gift: one totally infinite, not by participation, involving
pure formal actuation by the Deity; the other finite yet
formally infinite and divinizing, by participation of the
Deity, excluding all pure formal actuation by the Deity?
2. If so, how must we explain the intimate nature of each of

these distinct divinizing gifts precisely as divinizing?
3. Does this twofold explanation permit, finally, a single
unified picture of divinization?
To answer these questions would be to unfold a whole
Thomistic theology of divinization, and to lay the foundation
for a division of the supernatural which corresponds to the
needs of modern theological research. It is our conviction that
this theology is none other than that of traditional Thomism,
that this division is exactly that of the standard authors of the
Thomist school. In this study we propose to begin an inquiry
into these central problems of speculative thought, by taking
up the summit of divinization, the beatific vision. There we
shall see that it is necessary to distinguish the two kinds of
divinizing gift which we have outlined, we shall examine the
intimate nature of each kind, and we shall attempt to integrate
our findings into a single picture. That picture may serve as
an introduction to the analogy of divinization, a sense of which
is vital to fruitful research in the theology of grace.

DIVINIZATION:

A STUDY IN THEOLOGICAL

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The blessed in heaven see the divine essence with an intuitive, face-to-face vision, without the interposition of any creature in the function of object seen. The divine essence immediately manifests itself to them, plainly, openly, clearly. To
see God in this way the soul needs a supernatural elevation
called the light of glory. 5
We have no other way of understanding these data of revelation on the beatific vision except through the analogy of
intellectual knowledge: for the vision is nothing else than an
intellectual knowledge of God as He is in Himself. Unless this
analogical method is stressed and fully appreciated, it is impossible to grasp the nuances of our solution, indeed, no solution is
at all possible. I£ this method is fully worked out, it will lead
to the difficulties which are necessary and proper in the concept
of the divinization of the beatified mind. Fidelity to this analogical method will help us to confront these difficulties which
are not inconsiderable and which, as facets of a great mystery,
must then be understood " pro modulo humano." Our procedure is therefore that of an analogical ascent. We shall first
work out the point of departure of our ascent, the speculative
meaning of intellectual knowledge. Then we shall institute the
analogy and ascend to a concept of the vision of God. Having
reached the point of arrival of the ascent, we shall try to understand, as far as we can, the mystery whose lines are clear, and
whose depths are forever dark to the thoughts of man. 6

•" Beati ... vident divinam essentiam visione intuitiva et etiam faciali, nulla
mediante creatura in ratione obiecti visi se habente, sed divina essentia immediate se nude, clare et aperte eis ostendente." Denz. n. 530. Ex constitutione
Benedicti XII, " Benedictus Deus."
6 This study must not be thought
a complete or formal tract on the vision of
God. It will rather presuppose a familiarity with standard expositions of the
matter, and use that matter to bring out the distinction, the diversity, and the
integrated unity of the two modes of divinization.

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KEVIN F. O'SHEA
PoiNT OF DEPARTURE

OF THE AscENT

1. Knowledge as a natural mystery of pure union
Knowledge is a natural mystery, beyond the power of our
minds to grasp completely. We can only describe it negatively
and relatively, saying that it is not like other things we know
better, and that it is above them. When we reflect on it in
this way, we realize that its dark mystery lies in a new way of
communicating perfection, a way not like that of the physical
order, a way above and beyond it. The object known gives its
own perfection to the knower without physically altering it,
and without achieving in it its normal physical effects. In every
physical way it is still apart from the knower, not given to it,
and yet in a new, mysterious way it is one with the knower,
given to the knower. We call this new way a "spiritual" or
" immaterial " way: for there is no material composite formed
between known and knower, there is not even material inhesion
of the known in the knower. Properly speaking we should say
that the knower does not " receive " the form known, but
rather "accepts" it, or is perfected by it. We call this new
way of perfecting also "objective" or "intentional," for the
known and the knower still stand in physical independence,
but are drawn together into unity by the mysterious communication of the known to the knower. We can say that the
knower is perfected by the known "as other," because it still
stands in no new dependence on the knower in extra-cognitive
physical reality. We can say it is a case of "pure union, of
the form known with the knower without the limitation that
goes with union of form in the physical plane of nature. But
when we have said all that, we have still not said with final
positive clarity exactly what this unique union really is. It
remains a natural mystery.
We wish now to reflect on this mystery through two great
insights which are personal to Saint Thomas: the metaphysics
of form and existence, and the religious bearing of the finality
of the created universe. After explaining each of these, we shall
unite them to give an interpretation of the " pure union " that
is the key to the cognitive order.

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A STUDY IN THEOLOGICAL

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First, we consider the metaphysics of form and existence.
For Saint Thomas, a formal perfection perfects the essence of a
being by giving it a potency, an ordination, to a proper act of
existence. The communication of formal perfection, or " perfecting " in the active sense, means that a form becomes the
reason the being to which it is given is ordered to a new act
of existence. 7 An already existing form could thus communicate itself entirely to another being only by becoming the reason the other might exist with its own proper act of existence.
This is clearly impossible in the physical order, for, in that
order of the finite universe, beings are existentially distinct
from one another. The necessary distinction of beings in the
physical universe implies a necessary limitation in the perfection of each particular being, a necessary " imperfection,"
insofar as it cannot possess intrinsically the formal perfection
of other beings, or their act of existence.
Now let us look at the religious bearing of the finality of the
created universe. The purpose of God in creating finite being
is to manifest His own goodness. 8 Since no one finite being can
adequately manifest that infinite goodness, He has chosen to
7 Cf. Cajetan, in his commentary on the De Ente et Essentia of St. Thomas,
ed. Laurent, 1934, pp. 142-143: " ... advertendo proportionem quae est inter
formam et existentiam. Est enim proportio formae ad esse actuale, sicut proportio diaphaneitatis ad lumen; forma siquidem recipit existentiam et causat earn,
sicut diaphaneitas lumen. Sicutnamque aer in eo quod non est capax luminis, sed
oportet ipsum diaphaneitate informari, ut proprium receptivum luminis fiat, non
aer nee diaphaneitas, sed aer diaphanus ideo est enim qui primo luminosus est,
licet secundario tam aer quam diaphaeitas lumine careat; ita in proposito materia
sola non est capax existentiae, quia actus in propria suscipi debet potentia, sed
oportet in ipsa formam recipi, ut proprium exceptivum existentiae fiat, non materia
nee forma, sed compositum ex eis. Unde sicut diaphaneitas est causa formalis
aeri diaphano et eius complementum formale ad hoc ut proprium susceptivum
luminis sit, et cum hoc comparatur ad lumen adveniens ut composito et complementum eius formale ad hoc, ut proprium receptivum existentiae sit, ac per hoc
comparatur ad ipsam existentiam subsequentem ut potentia recipiens secundario
tamen ad actum receptum; uncle fir ut ipsum esse actualis existentiae ad nihil
aliud comparetur ut potentia ad actum, sed sit ultima actualitas omnis rei etiam
ipsius formae."
8 Deus " produxit res in esse propter suam bonitatem
communicandam creaturis
et per eas repraesentandam" (Ia, q. 47, a. I).

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KEVIN F. O'SHEA

create a universe of finite beings, that His goodness might be
better reflected in the whole than it can be in any part. 9 But
even that universe, of course, is still finite, and so cannot fully
reveal God's beauty. So even while it fulfills the purpose of
creation better than any of its parts, its parts remain necessarily
distinct from one other and from the whole. Thus, the parts
are unable to achieve in themselves as parts the role that
belongs only to the whole/ 0 It is precisely to afford some
remedy to this situation, according to Saint Thomas, that the
Author of the universe has bestowed the power to know on
some beings in the universe. Through the mystery of knowledge, the perfection which is proper to one being, is found in
another, and this is the perfection of the knower as such.11
The knower is thus enabled mysteriously to enlarge its role
of manifesting the Divine goodness, " ad extra." If it were able
to know all things in the universe, it would then itself be able,
through its own mystery, to fulfill the role of the entire universe in the external praise of the goodness of the Creator.
This is the religious bearing of the power of intellect in the
universe. In this sense Saint Thomas interprets Aristotle's
dictum that the intellect is in some way all things. 12
9 "Et quia per unam creaturam
sufficienter repraesentari non potest, produxit
multas creaturas et diversas, ut quod deest uni ad repraesentandam divinam
bonitatem suppleatur ex alia: nam bonitas quae est in Deo simpliciter et uniformiter, in creaturis est multipliciter et divisim. Unde perfectius participat
divinam bonitatem et repraesentat eam, totum universum, quam alia quaecunque
creatura" (Ibid.) .
10 " Quia esse specificum unius rei est distinctum
ab esse specifico alterius rei,
ideo in qualibet re creata huiusmodi perfectioni habitae in unaquaque re, tantum
deest de perfectione simpliciter quantum perfectius in aliis speciebus invenitur;
ut quaelibet rei perfectio in se consideratae sit imperfecta, veluti pars totius universi quae consurgit ex singnlarium rerum perfectionibus invicem congregatis."
(De Veritate q. 2, a. 2).
11 " Unde ut huic imperfectioni aliquod remedium esset, invenitur
alius modus
perfectionis in rebus creatis, secundum quod perfectio quae est propria unius rei,
in altera re invenitur, et haec est perfectio cognoscentis in quantum est cognoscens;
quia secundum hoc a cognoscente aliquid cognoscitur quod ipsum cognitum
aliquomodo est apud cognoscentem; et ideo in III De Anima (comm. 15 et 17)
dicitur animam esse quodammodo omnia, quia nata est omnia cognoscere." (Ibid.)
12 " Et secundum hunc modum possible est ut in una re totius universi perfectio existat " (Ibid.) .

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A STUDY IN THEOLOGICAL

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If we unite these two insights of Saint Thomas, we must
realize that in knowledge a form is mysteriously communicated
entirely to a knower, and thereby becomes the reason why it
and its knower share in one single indistinct act of existence.
What can this act of existence be? It is impossible to think
that it is the physical ontological act of existence, as such,
which the form known has in physical reality: that would
destroy the necessary distinction of beings in finite existence.
It is equally impossible to think that it is a new physical ontological existence of the form known "in the knower": that
would nullify the essential mystery of the cognitive order, for
it is to fall back into the physical order to explain what is ultimately not physical. We are forced to conclude that it is an
entirely new kind of existence, one proper to the order of
knowledge, which the knower is granted through the form given
to it in this pure union, and which also exists with the knower
in this one existence. We can call it, in our negative and relative terminology, a" new, singular, immaterial, spiritual, objective, intentional, pure" existence. It is, nonetheless, intensely
real. It is a true act of existence, not a figment of the imagination. We must therefore open the eyes of our mind and see
the amplitude of existence on the finite level. It is not co-extensive with physical, extra-cognitive existence, it embraces also
the mystery of cognitive existence. The pure union of known
and knower lies in the fact that the perfection of the form of
the known becomes the intrinsic reason the knower possesses a
new existence proper to the form of the known as known, and
thereby communes with the known in the indistinct unity of a
single act of existence. At the heart of the process of knowledge as a natural mystery of pure union, there is an intrinsic
formal actuation of a very pure type. We might call it by the
name of " pure formal actuation," but for an infinitely higher
communion of form and perfected which is found only in certain supreme cases of our supernatural gifts. The fore-going
reflections will be valuable when we have instituted our analogous ascent and reached the direct consideration of these
gifts.

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KEVIN F. O'SHEA

Knowledge in the context of tendential participation
Although pure union is the heart of the mystery of knowledge, it is not the whole of that mystery. Knowledge, as the
Author of nature has instituted it, is more than pure union.
It is pure union which comes about through the efficient activity of the knower: the knower unites itself actively to the
form to be known and thus enters pure union with that form.
God has thus wished his creature to participate in the efficient
causal activity by which, through knowledge, he provides a
remedy for the necessary imperfection of the creature as a
physical distinct part of the universe. The dynamism which
brings about the pure union in which knowledge consists, is
not exclusively that of the Divine Governor of the universe.
By His great largesse, it is also, subordinately but intrinsically,
that of the creature, which under God is moved to know. Moreover, the creature is enabled to act in that marvellous way not
simply "ad actum" but permanently and habitually. It is
endowed with an intrinsic and permanent power to know, a
power which flows from its own most intimate essence as a
property, and it is thereby intrinsically denominated as a
"knower." Since the term of this activity, intrinsic and proper
to the knower, is that union to the form of which we have
spoken, it is within the knower and thus the activity itself is
immanent. To be a knower is to be endowed with life of a
very high kind. 13
To understand the intimate nature of the active potency to
know, and the act of knowledge itself, we must invoke principles which are not exclusive to the order of cognition. They
are the principles of specification of transcendental relatives.
As a delicate understanding of them is vital to our later research into the supernatural, we shall explain them in some
detail and then situate the mystery of knowledge in their
perspective .14
13 More will be said later on the intimate relation between the term of knowledge and the act of knowledge.
14 The sources of this exposition are:
St. Thomas, Ia, q. 77, a. 3; Cajetan on

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In classic Thomism, an active potency and its correlative act
receive their formal meaning, that is, their specification, from
their proper formal object. We say their" proper" object, that
is, the object which is proper to them and not to any other
potency or act, and their " formal " object, that is, the object
as precisely objectivated to them as the term of their tending.
This object is said to be the determinant of their formal specific meaning. This means that they belong to a unique group
of beings. They are not what we might call" absolute essence":
beings which not only possess a reality intrinsic to themselves,
but which find in themselves the formal determinant of the
specific meaning of their own intrinsic reality. We say the
" formal " determinant, not the efficient determinant, for no
finite being can be the efficient determinant of itself. Nor are
these unique beings of which we speak what we might call
"purely respective essences": beings which, though they possess a reality intrinsic to themselves, are entirely determined in
that reality by simply looking towards (or respecting) another
being purely as other. These must be the most tenuous of all
real beings, for their formal determinant is simply a respecting
of another as other, and no more. Rather the unique beings
of which we speak must be classified between the two groups
mentioned and rejected, and for want of a better name we
might call them "'117Rdian respective essenoes ": beings which
possess a reality intrinsic to themselves, whose formal determinant does not lie in their own absolute reality as absolute,
nor yet in a simple respecting of another as other, but in an
essential ordination of their whole absolute reality towards
another as its crown and perfective consummation. This spethis article; John of St. Thomas, Logica, "De signo secundum se," art. iv, qualiter
dividitur obiectum in motivum et terminativum, in ed. Reiser, pp. 670-679. It
must be remarked that the phrase " transcendental relation " seems often used
by some recent writers in a sense which is not that of the sources just cited.
What Father Gleason writes in Grace, p. 158, is hardly adequate to express the
sense of the classic Thomists. Father Rahner equally in Zur Theologie des Todes
(Eng. trans., ed. Herder-Nelson, 1961, pp. 28 seq.) seems to use the term
" transcendental relation " to describe what really appears in sense to be a predicamental relation.

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KEVIN F. O'SHEA

cial relativity which orders the entire absolute being to the
other in this way, is not something superadded to a prior and
distinct absolute reality, to be explained in its own right: it is
of the very essence of the absolute reality itself, without which
it simply cannot be conceived. Thus to be ordained to another,
thus to respect another as the crown and climax of its whole
meaning, is precisely the whole formal meaning of these unique
beings. In defining them we must then posit this tendentialrespecting-towards-another in the place of a specific difference
in the definition of an absolute essence. In this way, the
" other " to which they tend is included in their essential definition, not as an intrinsic predicate, but as an extrinsic term of
reference solely in tendential relation to which the intrinsic
determinant has meaning. It is in this sense that classic Thornism maintains as an axiom that" median respective essences"
receive their formal specification by such an intrinsic ordination to an extrinsic object. 15
15 Cf. Cajetan, loc. cit., n. IV:
" ... potentia, secundum id quod est, ad actum
dicitur et est; id est, quia potentia, secundum suam entitatem, non est res absoluta
ab actu et obiecto; quamvis sit res absoluta a termino, et propterea non est in
genere relationis. Imaginamur enim, secundum divum Thomam, quod potentiae
et habitus, et alia huiusmodi, sunt entitates quaedam mediae inter absolutas
omnino, et respectivas totaliter. Ita quod non per aliquid superadditum, sed per
suas essentias essentialiter ordinem habent ad actus, ita quod absque eis intelligi
etiam in prima operatione intellectus non possint: non quia differentiae earum
sint, sed quia earum differentiae sumuntur ab ordine ad illos; ordine autem dico,
non relationis praedicamentalis, sed transcendente." Cf. item John of St. Thomas,
I. c., p. 670: " ... aliquae res sunt prorsus absolutae, in sui specificatione et
constitutione, a nullo extrinseco dependentes, ut substantia, quantitas, etc. Aliae
sunt prorsus relativae, quae totum suum esse habent ad aliud et ab illo pendent ut
a puro termino. Aliae sunt mediae interistas, quae in se quidem habent quidditatem et essentiam absolutam, ita quod aliquid aliud habent quam respicere et
referri; tamen in sui constitutione et specificatione dependent ab aliquo extrinseco,
non ad respeciendum, sed ad agendum vel causandum aut aliquid negotiandum.
Et sic se habent potentiae et actus et habitus circa ea, quae, attingunt, dicunturque habere ordinem transcendentalem ad ea." John of St. Thomas thus explains the difference between a pure term and a term which determines the
'median respective essence': " ... Licet autem quod est pure terminus, non
perficiat, sicut in relativis, eo quod relatio non tendit agendo, sed pure respiciendo,
et similiter quod est pure effect us, non perficiat, sed pure perficiatur, sicut creaturae respectu Dei, quae ita efficiuntur a Deo, quod ab earum terminatione eius

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Classic Thomism applies this teaching to the case of an active
potency and its correlative act: they are thus specified by an
intrinsic ordination to their proper formal object. The ultimate
reason of this is that the proper formal object is for both act
and potency the end and term of their whole formal meaning
and function. Their object is not merely "what they effect":
it is also the crown and climax, the perfective consummation
of their very essential intelligibility, which is conceivable only
in relation to such an object, not as simply "other," but as
formal extrinsic determinant. This too is a natural mystery.
We would introduce here, on the subject of these principles
of the specification of transcendental relatives, a consideration
whose importance will be paramount later when we deal directly with the divinizing gifts. It deals with the unique way
in which this tendential relativity towards an object is a participation of that object. In the light of our remarks at the
opening of this study, it will be seen that this point is at
the heart of the modern divergence of viewpoint concerning
divinization.
The tendency, or ordination, of a "median respective
essence " towards its formal extrinsic determinant means that
in a certain real sense the entire formal perfection of the determinant is imbibed into that essence. It is of course perfectly true that there is simply no formal intrinsic causality
exercised by the extrinsic determinant on the " median respective essence." It is therefore abundantly clear that there is no
intrinsic union between that extrinsic determinant and the
essence in question. All that we have is a special extrinsic
formal causality which we may call objective causality. Nevertheless, the transcendentally relative essence is a tendency to
the whole formal perfection of the extrinsic determinant. In
other words, that whole perfection determines the formal nature of the " median respective essence " and thus can be said
actio in se non pendet; tamen in actibus creatis terminatio dat perfectionem
actibus, quia si terminati non sint, perfecti non sunt nee completi, sed quasi in
via et tendentia; perficiuntur ergo determinatione ipsa, ad quam tendunt" (Ibid.,
p. 671).

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KEVIN F. O'SHEA

to be, in its entirety, "in" that essence after the manner in
which a term can be said to be " in " a tendency which it
terminates and determines. The transcendental relative is not
determined by part only of the formal perfection of the determinant, but by the whole of it: the whole of it thus enters
in some way into the formal constitution of the relative. We
suggest then that we have a case of a unique participation.
The relative makes its own the whole formal perfection of the
extrinsic form, leaving aside only the entire manner in which
that perfection perfects in reality and exercises intrinsic formal
causality. We can see with some clarity that it does leave this
aside; we can explain, again with some clarity, that it makes its
own the entire perfection of the determinant, " as a tendency
claims for itself its determinative term"; but we do not see,
ultimately and positively, how this really takes place. That is
the originality and the exact natural mystery of a " median
respective essence." That is also the analogy between intrinsic
formal causality and formal extrinsic objective causality. In
Thomistic language, " participation " often means to imbibe
and make one's own some part of a perfection, while leaving
aside some other part. Very often it thus means that something less than the full perfection of the participated form is
imbibed into the participant. We must avoid such an impression here. Although, simpliciter, the full perfection of the determinant is not thus given, that is, by way of intrinsic formal
causality, nonetheless, secundum quid, that full perfection is
given in the singular sense explained. The transcendental relative is thus only a similitude of the determinant, but at the
same time it is a similitude of a unique kind, one that is in total
reference to the total perfection of the determinant as such.
Every basic consideration of an active potency and its correlative act is therefore twofold: material and formal. M aterially, these realities will be in a certain category of being,
but their uniquely determined nature will prevent them from
being in the category of substance and reduce them to one of
the categories of accident. To consider them materially is thus

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to consider them according to the category of accident to which
they are reduced, and so in relation to the subject in which
they inhere as accident. Formally, however, these same realities are specified by an intrinsic ordination to an extrinsic
object in such a way that they imbibe into their own formal
meaning all the formal perfection of that object insofar as it
can be imbibed into a tendency determined by it. Thus they
are unique participations and similitudes of that perfection.
This key distinction-materially,
formally-is not of itself
proper to the order of cognition, but is a necessary accompaniment of the mystery of the transcendental relative. It is
not therefore the same distinction as that between the physical
order of finite being and the pure or cognitive order of that
being.
We may return now to the act of knowledge and the intrinsic
power by which it is performed and situate them in the perspective of these principles. Immediately we may apply the foregoing distinction. Materially, according to their relation to the
knowing subject, the act of knowledge and the power to know
are accidents and are classified reductively in the category of
quality. Formally, they are specified by a relation to the object
known, by a real intrinsic ordination to this or that kind of
object as known by this knower.
Two further remarks will lead us from here to a point where
we may see the range of God's plan in instituting the natural
mystery of knowledge as it is.

First, let us draw a consequence from what we have said
about transcendental relatives and active potencies. An active
potency and its act are not merely efficient principles of an
effect, producing it in being. By them a creature does not
merely share in the efficient causal activity of the Author of
nature in bringing about new being and thus constructing the
serried ranks of the distinct perfections of the universe. An
active potency and its act are also entirely determined in their
formal specific perfection by the formal perfection of their
object, in the sense explained. They possess, in their own formal

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KEVIN F. o'SHEA

perfection, the full formal perfection of their term, not of course
as it stands in inalienable distinctness in the finite universe,
but as it is contained in the tendential perfection of the second
cause which is ordered to it. In a certain real sense then the
very existence of active potencies and efficient activity in the
creature is already a step towards the remedying of the essential " imperfection " of the universe and of the acting creature
as a distinct part of it. Nonetheless, it is but an initial step.
Even when we realize it, we see clearly that we may still invoke
the full strength of Saint Thomas' argument in favour of some
other and singular remedy for this " imperfection " which even
then clearly remains.

Secondly, an active potency to know and the act of knowing
have a singular place in the "remedy" for the" imperfection"
of the universe. We are now speaking directly and exclusively
of the unique order of knowledge, in which the pure union of
known and knower is the essential and proper novelty in this
remedy. As we have said, it is a case of pure intrinsic formal
causality. But this union is and must be the term of the act
of knowledge and the fruit of the activity of the active potency
to know. If the knower intervenes actively to bring about the
mysterious pure union of knowledge, it must not be regarded
simply as an executive and no more. The knower thus elicits
the act of knowledge through principles which possess intrinsically the very formal perfection of the form united to the
knower in the pure union of knowledge, not as that perfection
exists in reality in the physically diverse universe, not as that
perfection is precisely communicated in a pure intrinsic formal
causality in the exact union of knowledge, but as it can be
precontained in the tendential participation that constitutes
the specific nature of the transcendental relative ordered to it.
In the total mystery of knowledge, then, the remedy for the
imperfection of the universe takes place on two distinct but
integrated levels. The first and foremost, surely, is the level
of intrinsic formal actuation by the form known in the union
which is the term of the act of knowledge. The second, but

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still significant, level is the tendential participation of the form
known within the active potency to know and its proper act.
The integral mystery of knowledge is a close weaving together
of these two aspects: pure intrinsic; formal union, and tendential participation of an extrinsic formal determinant. To retain
one without the other is to miss the full mystery of knowledge
as the Author of nature has instituted it to be the remedy of
nature.
We are now at a point where we may rightly ask the reason
for duality of this remedy in the plan of God. Clearly, the
mystery of pure intrinsic formal union is greater than that of
tendential participation. It will not be enough to say, without
further explicitation, that the advantages of tendential participation over pure formal union reduce to the granting of the
dignity of efficient causality to the creature. The true explanation of its advantages is an explicitation of that point. Tendential participation will give the knower, in its faculty to
know and its act of knowledge, a more connaturally intrinsic
possession of the form to be known than it has in the greater
intrinsic pure union at the term of knowledge. For the former
gives an intrinsic possession of the form (in tendential participation) according to a mode which is not proper to the
cognitive order, which is often found in the physical order of
nature, which is therefore more connatural to physical nature
than the properly cognitive mode of union. At the term of
the act of knowledge the knower possesses as its own the perfection of the known form intrinsically actuating it in a pure
manner; but it possesses the power to know and the act of
knowing as its own in a way that is also intrinsic, and at the
same time much more connatural to it. This additional element of connaturality is what never could be present in the
idea of a pure formal union not achieved through the active
principles of the knower. In the act of knowledge the knower
has within itself, most connaturally and intrinsically, the entire
act of the extrinsic determinant, by way of tendential participation. At the term of that act, it has it less connaturally,

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KEVIN F. o'SHEA

still intrinsically, and more perfectly in itself, by way of pure
formal union. If the union of the creature to the extrinsic form
is to be seen integrally, if the nature of the creature as knower
is to be respected integrally, it is necessary to retain these two
distinct modes of possession of the form, and to see them in
their integrated unity. Anything else would be a depreciation
o£ the creature.
Further, the conception just proposed is necessary lest we
depreciate the harmonious plan of the Provident Creator in
supplying a remedy for the necessary imperfection of his creature. If there were two disparate ways in which the Creator
supplied this remedy, order would be lacking in His plan. That
there are two ways is clear. The first is the way of efficiencythe gift of active potency to the creature, whereby it intrinsically becomes an operator. The second is the way of pure
formal union-the truly additional gift, coming upon the whole
physical order of beings and agents to grant them unity in a
non-physical way. These ways would be disparate if pure
union were simply passively achieved " ab extra " and not
actively produced through the intrinsic efficient fecundity of
the perfected knower. They are not disparate, but marvellously ordered, when, in reality, the way of efficiency is enabled
to fructify into a pure union which is the result of its own
dynamism. Thus the pure union at the term of knowledge is
not a " quoddam pati ab extra," but essentially a fructification
"ab intra." We say" essentially," not because we would deny
the possibility of a pure union which came about purely passively from an extrinsic agent, but because the pure union at
the term of the cognitive process is not just any pure union.
It has a finality and a function that are harmoniously integrated into the steps o£ the entire divine plan to remedy the
necessary imperfection of His particular creature. The price of
seeing the harmony of this plan is to retain its necessarily distinct and integrated stages: tendential participation and pure
union. To deny one of them, or to confuse them, is to depreciate not only the dignity of the creature which knows, but also

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the wise providence of the Creator Who instituted knowledge
in His creature.

3. Complexity in the process of knowledge

In the mystery of the beatific vision, we are going to see
pure union and tendential participation elevated to unsuspected
heights. Before we institute the analogy, we ought first to clear
the ground by discussing three points which are at the root of
the complexity of the natural process of knowledge. Later,
when we look back on them, they will enable us to grasp the
superior simplicity of the supernatural process of the vision
of God. 16

First, there will be many cases in which the intrinsic active
potency to know, already specified by such and such a formal
object, will of itself extend indeterminately to many different
material objects possessing the same formal aspect. It must
then be applied to know one of these objects rather than
another, before it can actually perform the act of knowledge.
This objective application (or determination) is not an increase
of the subjective power to know, nor a new exercise of objective
specifying causality, but simply a definitive coaptation of a
particular knowing faculty to a particular material object, for
particular action is in the concrete. We must not then confuse
two distinct uses of the word " objective "-as we used it previously concerning objective specifying causality, and as we
use it here concerning objective application. Here the active
potency to elicit the act of knowledge is passive in regard to
the extrinsic agent which applies it to act concerning a definite
and particular material object. The actual objective application, though coming to the knower from such an agent, itself
can only consist in a certain union of the knower to the form
16 This section, included for the specific purpose of showing how the material
complexity of the cognitive process is but the result of the intimate integration
of the two formal aspects of pure union and tendential participation, is thereby
deliberately incomplete in doctrine and advisedly free from all documentation.

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KEVIN F. O'SHEA

to be known, as to be known here and now by the applied
faculty. This union will then necessarily be in the manner
proper to the order o£ knowledge, that is, it will be pure and
intentional. Already then before the act o£ knowledge the
knower is united to and perfected by the form o£ the object
in a pure intentional way, in a way that involves pure formal
intrinsic causality. Nonetheless it is not then united with the
form o£ the object as known, but only as proximately knowable
by it. The knower has yet to unite itself actively by the act
o£ knowledge to the form as known, and that is the proper term
o£ the cognitive process. In these cases then there is a twofold
pure union o£ object and knowing subject: as objective applicant to, and as formal term o£, the act o£ knowledge, that is,
as proximately knowable, and as actually and formally known.
This duality is not rooted in the type of object being known,
but in the indetermination of the knowing subject and its active
potency to know. It is an imperfection, a limitation, that comes
£rom the radical nothingness o£ finite being itself. It is something that ultimately we cannot grasp clearly in our minds
because ultimately it reduces to an absence o£ perfection. It
creates complexity in these cases o£ knowledge, so that side by
side with the mystery o£ pure union and the mystery o£ tendential participation, which are too perfect to be grasped clearly,
we are £aced with the lower mystery o£ the radical insufficiency
o£ the creature, formed £rom nothingness. When we come to
the vision o£ God, we must retain this point, since it is truly
the mind o£ a creature which sees the Divine Face.

Secondly, there will be other cases in which the intrinsic
active potency to know, already determined to know such and
such a proper formal object, may not be strong enough to know
another object which is more perfect than its own proper formal
object. It may not be strong enough to be purely united to this
object as ultimately knowable, and then to unite itself actively
to this object as known. The reason is that it is specified by
an essentially inferior formal object. I£ then it is to know this
higher object, it will need a subjective confortation (or eleva-

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tion) of its intrinsic active potency to know, by which that
potency is increased and lifted to a higher level. This confortation must in no way be confused with the objective application of which we have just spoken. It is demanded for a different reason: not to reduce the vague indetermination of the
potency (as passive) to a determined first act, but to make
the very potency itself (as active) intrinsically proportioned
both to first and second act. A perfection cannot be communicated except to its proper and proportioned perfectible,
and an act cannot be elicited except by its proper and proportioned active potency. This is simply an application of the
absolutely and transcendentally valid principle of sufficient
reason. It is also essentially different in its intimate nature.
It is not a union to the form as knowable in pure intrinsic
formal causality, but a physical addition to the knowing faculty of a distinct reality which is itself intrinsically specified
by a real intrinsic ordination to the higher object as its extrinsic
formal determinant, and in which there is real and intrinsic
proportion to this object. This addition may be actual or
transient, it may be habitual and permanent. If it is the latter,
it will be classified (reductively) in the material category of
quality and the species of habit. Still it retains its formal
nature, like any other " median respective essence," from its
tendential ordination to its object. It is important to add that
the knowing faculty, thus elevated by a new perfection, becomes with it a single, undivided principle of the act of knowledge to which it is now truly proportioned through the addition.
The original potency does not elicit part only of that act, or
some aspect of it, but the potency together with the confortation, per modum unius, elicits the entire act. Thus it is
as truly and properly the knower which elicits the act of knowledge of an object to which it was not proportioned by its native
specification, as it is truly and properly the knower which
elicits another and lower act of knowledge of an object to
which it is proportioned by its native specification. The connaturality of the act is the same in each case.

KEVIN F. o'SHEA

Thirdly, there are cases in which complexity arises not from
the indetermination of the knowing subject, nor yet from the
essential inferiority of the faculty in relation to the form to be
known, but from the type and mode of existence of that form
(or object) in physical reality. The physical mode of being of
many such finite forms or objects is such that it prevents them
entering into union, in pure, intentional existence, with a
knower, as they stand in their proper physical existence. To
enter into union, then, they need the interposition of a vicar
or similitude (called a " species ") of themselves, whose whole
purpose is to achieve pure union with such forms. The similitude must possess a physical existence within the knower such
that it can, in that state, be the means of the pure union of
knower and form vicariously represented. The complexity of
" species " in the achievement of pure union with the object
derives properly from the limitation of the object. We need
not pursue it here, since such complexity will no longer be retained in the beatific vision where the object is God as He
exists divinely in Himself.
We could perhaps attempt now to sum up these points of
complexity in the natural process of knowledge in the following schema.
In the first phase of the cognitive process, which IS preparatory:
the object-has objective specifying causality.
-has intrinsic formal causality of a pure order,
insofar as it is proximately knowable.
the subject-is acceptive of the object as knowable, purely;
and perhaps acceptive of a " species " to do
so.
-is receptive, perhaps, of an intrinsic subjective
confortation in its active potency to know
and its passive potency to accept the object.
an extrinsic agent-is efficient of the pure union in question
and, if need be, of the " species " involved.
-is efficient of the intrinsic confortation.

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fl3

In the second phase of the cognitive process, which is proper
and formal:

the object-is still exercisinig its objective specifying causality.
-has a new union to the subject in pure intrinsic
formal causality, as actually known.
the subject-agent-is

efficient and receptive of its own act
of knowledge.
-is acceptive of the object as known
purely, and perhaps of a " species "
which it will produce, virtually in the
act of knowledge.

Important as these points of complexity are for a total penetration of the process of knowledge, they are insignificant in
comparison with the two great intuitions which are the secret
of any true understanding of this natural mystery: the intuition of pure union in intentional existence, and the intuition of
act specified by tendential participation of the total perfection
of an extrinsic object. These complications have arisen through
the three roots we have isolated, namely, the indetermination
of the knowing subject, the essential superiority of the object
over that knowing subject, and the limitation of the object in
its physical mode of existence. In order that the two central
mysteries of pure union and tendential participation, in a given
case, might be harmonised in the one knower, these complications are necessary. They are the machinery needed to give
rise to the integration of the central perfections of the mystery
of knowledge, in cases where the frailty of finite being (in subject and in object) is only too evident. They are the manifest
evidence that the Author of nature has deigned to grant a noble
dignity to His finite work in a way that is, even in its utmost
complexity, most fittingly adapted to the weakness of that
work made from nothing. In a certain real sense, therefore,
these complications are the consequence of the necessary dis-

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KEVIN F. O'SHEA

tinction and integration of the two aspects of knowledge: pure
union and tendential participation.

This, then, is the point of departure of our ascent, by way of
analogy, to an understanding of the vision of God. Such ascent
must begin with some grasp of meaning of knowledge in its
essential mysteries of pure union and tendential participation,
and in its complexities which are their consequence in a knower
which is finite.

THE AscENT, BY WAY OF ANALOGY

We know by the most elementary reflection on the data of
divine revelation that the beatific vision is an intellectual
knowledge of God as He is in Himself. It is therefore legitimate to seek some understanding of the vision by proceeding
analogically: removing all the imperfection and impurity associated with lower cases of intellectual knowledge on a natural
plane, and thus arriving, by ascent to its summit, at the most
eminent possible verification consonant with nature and with
the demands of revealed data.
1. The vision as a supernatural mystery of pure union

We are faced with the fact that the Deity itself, the supereminent perfection of the Godhead, is communicated to the
finite mind which sees it, in pure intentional union, as known.
The formal perfection of the Deity thus becomes the reason
God and the finite knower commune in the indistinct unity
of a single act of pure existence, which can only be the one
divine existence. This is the natural result of an analogical
ascent which is absolutely valid in theological method. The
result is at the summit of mystery and must be investigated
in detail later.

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fl5

2. The vision as a supernatural mystery of tendential par-

ticipation
We are faced with the fact that the vision is a vital activity
by which the knower unites himself actively to God and thus
actively enters this pure union with Him. Materially, this act
of beatific vision is classified among the finite accidental categories of being (at least reductively), but formally, it is specified as a "median respective essence" by an intrinsic tendential participation of the divine object as divine. This result
is also the natural term of the same analogical process which
is fully valid in theology. But once again it is full of deep
mystery and must be investigated further.

3. Complexity in the process of vision.
We must concede that a finite intellectual agent is not of
itself determined and applied to know God face to face, and
that it therefore needs an objective application to the vision,
achieved in a preparatory pure union with God. There is thus
a twofold pure union of the mind with God: as knowable, and
then as known.
We must understand also that the native intrinsic power of
a finite intellect is not strong enough of itself to know God
face to face, and that it will therefore need a subjective confortation or elevation increasing that power, a confortation
specified by and proportioned to the act and object in question.
With that confortation (which is called the light of glory), the
intellect then elicits the act of vision as a single, undivided
principle. Man sees his God.
We must state too that no vicar or similitude or species of
the divine object is possible or necessary. It is not possible,
for what is of the finite order of essence-distinct-from-existence,
i. e., of limited and circumscribed perfection, cannot sufficiently
be the vice-gerent of what is of the infinite order of essence-onewith-existence, i. e., of unlimited and uncircumscribed perfection. It is not necessary, for the divine essence in its own
divine existence is more intimate to the knower than the

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KEVIN F. o'SHEA

knower is to itself, and, far from entering into a new distinct
existence with the knower (on an intentional plane), admits
the knower into a communion, mysteriously, in its own simple
and single divine existence.
At the term of our ascent we see what is to be retained and
what not retained of the complexities of the natural process
of knowledge in the supernatural vision. We may now attempt
a schema of the process of vision parallel to the schema given
previously.
In the first phase of the process of vision, which is preparatory:

the object-has specifying objective causality.
-has intrinsic formal causality of a pure order,
insofar as it is proximately knowable.
the subject-is acceptive of the divine object as knowable,
purely, without the interposition of any
" species."
-is receptive of the light of glory, which enables
it to accept the divine object, and will enable
it to see it.
the divine agent-is efficient of the pure union in question.
-is efficient of the infusion of the light of
glory.
In the second phase of the process of vision, which is proper
and formal:

the object-is still exercising its objective specifying causality.
-has a new union to the subject in pure intrinsic
formal causality, as actually known.
the subject-agent-is

efficient and receptive of its own act of
VISIOn.

-is acceptive of the divine object as known,
purely.

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The importance o£ this schema o£ complexities is that it is
manifest evidence o£ the deep ingra£ting o£ the supreme mysteries o£ vision in the finite intellect o£ a creature. For all o£
these complexities which remain in the vision are entirely on
the side o£ the imperfection o£ the knowing mind which sees
the absolutely perfect divine object. Such a vision, in such a
mind, demands them. They tell us once again that knowledge
on this supreme level is a profound integration o£ the two distinct but inseparable aspects o£ the total mystery o£ knowledge: pure union and tendential participation.
Our analogical ascent therefore tells us that in the beatific
vision we have, essentially, two deep realities which bear much
likeness to the pure union and the tendential participation
we
know in the case o£ natural knowledge, but which at the same
time bear an even greater unlikeness to these things, because
of the unique conditions of the divine object to which they
look. Our task at the term o£ our ascent is then to explore,
as far as possible, the exact likenesses and unlikenesses between pure union and tendential participation in the natural
plane, and pure union and tendential participation in a divine
object. When we have done that, we shall see the necessity o£
distinguishing these two supernatural mysteries, the diversity,
and, at the same time, the marvellous affinity o£ their supernaturality, in an analogy that is properly o£ the theological
order.

PoiNT oF ARRIVAL AT THE AscENT

1. The vision as pure union in transformative identity

I£ our analogical process is valid, there must be some similarity between pure union in the case o£ the vision and pure
union in ordinary knowledge. In the pure union o£ the vision,
the formal perfection o£ the Deity becomes the reason God
and the knower commune in the indistinct unity o£ the simple,
single act o£ the divine existence. The similarity between this
and pure union in the ordinary case lies in the £act that the

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KEVIN F. O'SHEA

divine Form is exercising its proper mode of formal perfecting
as form, by being the reason of the perfected's possession with
it of a new act of existence proper to it. If, however, our process
is truly analogical, there must be some dissimilarity between
this pure union of the vision, and ordinary pure union. The
dissimilarity lies radically in the fact that the new existence
given to the mind is the divine existence itself. This immediately gives rise to three basic difficulties, the solution, " pro
modulo humano," of which will lead us to the heart of the
mystery.
a) How IS the one divine existence truly an intentional
existence?
b) How is union to God in this way not, eo ipso, a physical
union to God?
c) How is one-ness with the divine existence as intentional,
possible for a creature?
We shall take up these questions in order.

a) The divine existence as intentional
There is a natural temptation for the frailty of our human
minds to conceive the divine existence as exclusively an existence which is physical and non-cognitive, after the pattern of
such" ontological" existence on the finite plane. On that plane,
we recall, " existence " embraces both finite physical existence
and finite cognitive existence which is instituted as the remedial
supplement of the former. There is perfection in each. The
source, ultimately, of the perfection of each is the unlimited
perfection of the divine existence. In the utter simplicity of one
single perfection, the Deity, the divine existence includes in a
formal and eminent way all the pure and simple perfection
that is found on any level of the finite realm, leaving aside the
finite mode in which it is there realized. Thus the perfection of
standing in real, physical, ontological reality, and the perfection of standing in pure, intentional, cognitive reality, are
united and subsumed in the single supreme perfection of stand-

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ing in divine reality. The divine formal perfection, simply
because it is divine and therefore one with its own existence,
is in the same moment and under the same formal aspect-a
divine aspect-the reason for its standing in divine reality and
the reason for its standing in the perpetual act of divine knowledge of itself. The dispersion of being on the finite plane into
physical being and intentional being is a consequence of the
finite character of being, not a consequence of the character of
being as such. The supplementary role of intentional being on
that level looks properly to physical finite being as finite, not
as physical or ontological being. In God, where there is nothing
finite, both the dispersion is no more, and the whole role of
supplementation in intentional being is no more. God is His
own Being, and that divine Being is Reality and is Cognition:
Reality and Cognition in Him are Being, and that Being is
Himself. The concept of the divine existence as a true intentional existence in this sense is an immediate property of the
key Thomistic doctrine that in God essence and existence are
one.
b) Intentional, not physical, union to God
The above solution gives rise to a further problem. If the
divine existence is eminently and formally ontological and
intentional, how can there be union to the divine existence as
intentional without, at the same time and under the same
formal aspect, being union to it as ontological, or physical?
And would we then be able to escape from an immediate
accusation of quasi-pantheism in the explanation of the vision
of God?
The divine perfection, although it is most simple, can be
communicated to inferior beings under different formal aspects.
The various perfections which are formally and eminently one
in God (in the simplicity of the one divine formal ratio) retain
there analogously the true perfection they may have on a finite
plane, and thus in God are distinct from one another, not really,
but according to a distinction of reason. The force of this
distinction is that there may be communication of the divine

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KEVIN F. O'SHEA

perfection to an inferior finite being under one formal aspect
divinely verified in the one divine being, but not necessarily
thereby at the same time under another such aspect verified
in that same divine being. Thus in our case there can be union
to the divine existence as intentional, under that precise formality, without eo ipso there being union to it under the
formality of ontological existence. Certainly there will be union
-materialiter-to everything that is in the divine reality, when
the divine reality itself is given. But there will be unionformaliter-only to the divine reality under that formal aspect
under which it is communicated. The blessed mind in the
vision becomes God intentionally, but not physically or ontologically.
c) One-ness with the divine existence.
This brings us to the third and by far the greatest of the
difficulties raised. How is one-ness with the divine existence
possible for a creature? We touch here on the essential supernaturality of this union, on its essential elevation above the
highest pure intentional union conceivable in the natural level.
This is more than a difficulty, it is a mystery, an essentially
supernatural mystery.
How must we conceive the uniqueness of pure union with
the divine existence itself? Pure intentional union on the natural level takes place when a known form is the reason it and
the knower commune in the indistinct unity of a single new
act of intentional existence. That act of existence is always a
finite act, distinct really from the form known and from the
knower. Both form known and knower strictly should be said
to "have" this new existence in common. If we speak of a
certain " becoming" of the known form by the knower, we
mean no more than this common possession of a new existence
by both, as a fruit of the activity of the knower. Now in the
unique case of the vision of God, we have a pure intentional
union in which the divine form known is the reason it and the
knower commune in the single act of the divine existence. That
act of divine existence is an infinite act, really indistinct from

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the divine form known, really distinct from the knower who
sees the divine form face to face. In the limited framework
of our human thoughts, we try to conceive the divine form as
distinct (conceptually) from the divine existence, and exercising two formal functions: first, in relation to itself (on its
own behalf) , in being the divine reason that it binds to itself
in indistinct unity the one divine existence; secondly, in relation to the knower (on the knower's behalf) as given to the
knower, in being the divinely given reason that the knower is
admitted to commune with the divine form in the one divine
existence as intentional. We cannot strictly speak of the divine
form, in its first function, as being the reason that it " has "
the divine existence: it does not strictly "have" the divine
existence, it " is " the divine existence. Likewise, we cannot
strictly describe the knower's" communing" in the one divine
existence as a "having" or "possessing" of the divine existence. If it is really the divine form which is the title to such
" communing," the " communing" will be, mysteriously and
intentionally, not a possession but an identity with the divine
existence. What really happens then is that the one divine
reality, the Deity itself (above "form" and "existence" as
we conceive them in our limited thoughts) is the formal reason
for the knower being identified intentionally with Itself. Only
in this case of pure union can there be strict intentional identification of the knower and the form-one-with-existence which
is known. Only in this case is there more than the simple formative communion of known and knower in a new distinct
existence which they "have"; only here is there a marvellous
transformative identity of the knower into the known, of the
knower with the known, not of course in a physical way, but
in an intentional way. For the knower, antecedently standing
alone in its own distinct physical ontological existence, and
remaining in that state throughout the process of the vision,
becomes Deiform by an intentional identity with the unique
reality which it knows, which is form really and intentionally
united with its own supreme existence. The proper condition

KEVIN F. O'SHEA

of the pure formal intrinsic causality of the union of knowledge
as verified here would seem then to be best described as a transforming formal identification of the knower into the divine
form-existence which he knows. This would seem to be the
consequence of the fact that the divine object, which is seen,
is an object whose essence and existence are one. This transformative identity would appear to be a property of pure union
to a divine object.
And, to return to our question, how can such a thing be possible? Without revelation, from the standpoint of pure reason,
we do not even know with certainty that it is possible, let alone
how it is possible. When we come to speak of the divine modality of this pure union with the divine object as a unique
transformative identity with the divine reality (with that ultimate being which is strictly neither essence nor existence as
we have them on our finite plane) then any arguments of convenience or probability which we might offer fall down before
the staggering mystery, and are impotent to conclude with
certainty. After revelation, when we believe, on God's word
alone, that the clean of heart shall see God; when we accept,
again on God's word alone, that one day we shall be like to
Him because we shall see Him as He is, then we believe also
that such a union, with all its demands, is possible. Reflecting
on our firm faith, we can then see a certain likeness between
this supreme case of pure union and that pure union we understand in the natural plane, a likeness which is true and valid,
while it certainly does not rule out the vastly greater unlikeness that must always remain between the two. Thus we become aware of a superior analogy, an analogy realized once we
grant the data of divine revelation, an analogy proper to theological order. In this analogy, we can distinguish the likeness
and the unlikeness: the likeness is the true communion,
through form, in intentional existence; the unlikeness is the
manner in which that happens, not by simple formative communion in distinct existence, but by unique mysterious transformative identification with a form that is its own intentional
existence.

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The likeness is valuable to us, insofar as it enables us to
answer some of the difficulties made against our faith in the
divine vision in the name of human reason, and insofar as it
lifts the veil of darkness one small fraction to see, dimly and
imperfectly, the full harmony of the finite and the infinite
worlds which we shall see clearly and perfectly in heaven. The
unlikeness is also valuable to us, insofar as it unveils to us in
supreme language the very divine conditions of divine union.
Thus expressed, it is like a ray of light from a new world, a
glimmer of an intelligibility that is proper to the divine order
itself, an opening to us of the proper meaning of the divine
reality as it is in itself. Both the likeness and the unlikeness
have their part to play in the full human theological understanding, pro modulo nostro, of the vision that has been revealed to us.
2. The vision as tendential attractive participation

We have seen in the process of the vision of God a vital
activity of the knower (the act of vision) and a confortation
of his knowing power (the light of glory) which are specified
by the divine object known, as " median respective essences,"
by way of an intrinsic tendential participation of that object.
There will be likeness and unlikeness between this singular
case of tendential participation and the natural cases explained
earlier. It is important to elaborate them.
The similarity in question will consist in the fact that the
divine object of this act and habit truly exercises formal
extrinsic specifying causality, by being the extrinsic term of
reference or determinant, the whole formal perfection of which
is imbibed tendentially into the act and habit which essentially
look to it. The dissimilarity in question will arise radically
from the fact that the divine object is one whose formal perfection is really identified with its own divine existence. Our
basic difficulty here is then parallel to our third difficulty in
the preceding inquiry: how can the divine reality, where formal
perfection is one with existence, be totally imbibed into a tran-

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KEVIN F. O'SHEA

scendental relative by way of tendential participation? Once
again, this is more than a difficulty, it is an essentially supernatural mystery.
On the natural level, it is the entire formal perfection of the
determinant object which is tendentially imbibed into the
median respective essence. That formal perfection, as finite,
does not and cannot include the existence of the object within
the determining imbibed perfection. Never, then, on the natural level, can there be an imbibing of the entire reality, formal
(essential) and existential, of the determinant object. Now,
if we grant that the act of vision and its proper principle, the
light of glory, are and must be specified in this way, by the
divine object as divine, then we must posit within the determinant object in this case, the entire perfection of the deity,
which is formally and eminently super-essence and super-existence. We feel that we might best express it by saying that
the tendential participation in this case becomes an attraction
of the median respective essence to the entirety of its determinant object. The proper mode in which tendential participation is realized on this supreme level would then be by way of
attraction, a way which could never be realized on a finite
plane. Tendential attractive participation would be proper to
a determinant object whose essence and existence were one.
Just how does such a thing take place? Ultimately we cannot answer that question. To do so we would have to explain
exactly how an existential perfection, and indeed a divine existential perfection, was intrinsically imbibed, tendentially, into
being totally relative to it. When we use the concept of attraction to express what happens, we are forcing ourselves to the
limit of our human language to express what we could never
have been confident enough to assert with certitude from the
standpoint of pure reason. Accepting the existence of such
realities as the necessary consequence of revealed data, we
feel that such is the best human way we have of describing
their inmost essence. That way is both like and unlike tendential participation on the natural level. It is like it, because it is

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still genuine tendential participation, still genuine specification
of a transcendental relative by an object exercising this formal
extrinsic causality. It is unlike it, in the way it happens, by
attraction to the essential-existential totality of that object.
Once again, both the likeness and the unlikeness are invaluable
to us. The likeness enables us to see the full range of harmony
of such beings on a natural and divine level. The unlikeness
opens to us a glimpse of the divine level of being in one of its
proper notes, it is a beginning of the light of God's own order
dawning in our minds.

This ascending analogical research into the beatific vision
therefore leaves us with two realities in which are summed up
all the mysterious character and the supernatural riches of that
vision. These realities we have called transformative identity
and attractive participation. We have seen that they are distinct; we have seen the intimate nature of each in likeness and
unlikeness to the corresponding natural realities of pure union
and tendential participation. All this has merely been an attempt to supply the framework of the initial problem, on the
necessary distinction, the diverse nature, and the analogical
integration of two kinds of supernatural divinizing gifts, finite
and infinite. As we now have the data of our problem, we may
conclude our direct research into the beatific vision of God, and
revert to a general statement of questions. We shall ask:
1) Are these two kinds of divinizing gifts, by way of transformative identity and by way of attractive participation,
simpliciter diverse?
2) Are they secundum quid the same?
3) What then is the analogous ratio of divinization?
The solution to these questions will put us in a position to
assess the value of the modern critique of the standard Thomist
theory of the finite supernatural, and the Thomist reply.

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KEVIN F. o'SHEA

Are these two kinds of divinizing gifts simpliciter diverse?
We answer affirmatively. They are diverse in purpose, and
diverse simpliciter in nature.

In purpo8e. The purpose of each of these gifts, in one way or
another, is to divinize. But the exact kind of divinization envisaged in each case is different, just as the functions of their
correlatives in the natural plane, pure union and tendential
participation, are different. On the natural plane, the purpose
of gifts of tendential participation is to give to their subject a
deeply physical and intimately connatural intrinsic po88e8sion
of a certain form. Through such participation of the form the
subject may then act in virtue of that physically possessed
form in an intrinsic way that is thoroughly connatural to it.
On the natural plane again, the purpose of gifts of pure union,
in an intentional way, is to give a knowing subject an extraphysical intentional intrinsic po88e8sionof a form, which is the
instituted supplement and remedy of that separateness which
still remains after all the gifts of physical character have been
exhausted. Pure union can never possess the connatural intrinsicness which tendential possession mu8t always possess: for
pure union is a mysterious supplement to the physical order,
while tendential possession is a mysterious ingrafting into the
very context and plane of the physical. Now on the superior
divine plane, for example in the beatific vision, these differences
of purpose must clearly remain, if our analogical process of
investigation has been well founded. On the divine plane, the
purpose of the gifts of transformative identity is to endow the
creature with the whole perfection of the Godhead, in the only
order where such endowment is completely possible, that is,
in the intentional order. 17 In these gifts the divine form is communicated as divinizing and being the root of intentional iden17 We here prescind from the real ontological order of personality and substantial existence: the impact of this doctrine on the problem of the Hypostatic
Union has already been discussed in the context of the views of Dom. Herman
Diepen in our " The Human Activity of the Word," The Thomist, 1959, pp.
143-232.

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tity with the
divine reality. On this divine plane again,
the purpose of the gifts of attractive participation is to enable
the creature to become a proper intrinsic agent in the achievement of the pure union of transformative identity, by endowing it with the whole perfection of the Godhead in the only
physical way possible, that is by a unique tendential participation called therefore attractive participation. The purpose of
the transformative identity gift is to grant supreme identity
above and beyond the plane of the physical. The purpose of
the attractive participation gift, is to grant supreme identity
within the plane of the physical. The distinction between the
physical plane and the super-physical intentional plane, in the
relations between the creature and the Creator, must always
be maintained, at the peril of gross confusions which would
not, in ultimate analysis, be free from error and absurdity. A
diversity in purpose in the two gifts must then be likewise
maintained.

In nature. Granting the diversity in purpose, does it follow
that the intentional identity with the Godhead, in the gift of
transformative identity, is simpliciter diverse from the physical-tendential identity with the Godhead in the gift of attractive participation? Again, we answer affirmatively. The former
is a strict unity of identity; the latter is a unity of similitude
called identity only because it retains some likeness to the
former. The former is identity simpliciter; the latter is identity
secundum quid, or, better, participation.
To explain this point, let us state at the outset that no one
who has grasped the concept of transformative identity will
hesitate to call it identity simpliciter, in the strict sense of
identity. Further, no one who has followed the nuanced discussion of tendential participation on the natural plane, and
the analogous sense of attractive participation, will hesitate to
deny to it the eminence of identity simpliciter, in the strict
sense of identity. In tendential participation on the natural
plane, the full, total perfection of the extrinsic determinant,
simpliciter is not given to the transcendental relative; although,

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we grant, and we insist in its right place, secundum quid, it is
so given. Attractive participation is, by force of the entire
analogical process of investigation of the supernatural, an eminent case of tendential participation, a tendential participation
verified by manner of attraction to the total essential-existential reality of the determinant object. The uniqueness of attractive participation lies in the object, and in the intrinsic reference to the totality of the object. It changes nothing in the
character of the object as simpliciter not given in its entirety
(that is, in the way proper to intrinsic formal causality) to the
relative it specifies. Transformative identity and attractive
participation differ as strict identity simpliciter with the divine
object, and not strict identity simpliciter with that same object.
Therefore, they are simpliciter diverse. Indeed this essential
diversity between them is the very root of their possibility of
fulfilling the diverse functions and purposes for which they are
posited.

Nonetheless, are these two kinds of divinizing gifts secundum
quid the same? Once again, we answer affirmatively. We are,
moreover, conscious of a duty of insisting upon the value of
our affirmative answer. There is a deep similarity between
the two kinds of gifts. We may see this in two ways: first,
insofar as each gift is similar to a corresponding finite natural
reality; and secondly, insofar as each gift is dissimilar to its
corresponding finite natural reality. The first point is merely
the introduction to the second, which is one of the chief fruits
of our study.

First, insofar as each gift is similar to its corresponding naturral reality. Transformative identity is similar to the natural
case of pure union; attractive participation is similar to the
natural case of tendential participation. As pure union and
tendential participation, that is, natural formal instrinsic causality and natural formal extrinsic specifying causality, are simi-

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lar; so also the two kinds of divinizing gifts, insofar as they
retain a likeness to these natural things, will be like each other.

Secondly, insofar as each gift differs from its corresponding
natural reality. The chief difference between pure union and
transformative identity lies in the immediate total relationship
of the creature to the whole Godhead in its essential-existential
perfection. The chief difference between tendential participation and attractive participation lies in the total ordination of
the whole specified relative to the whole Godhead in its essential-existential perfection. This total, immediate, face-to-face
condition of the perfected before the perficient in each case
appears to be the key note of what is peculiar to the divine
plane of pure union and tendential participation. We must
always keep in mind that the perficient in each case is vastly
different: in the one case, it is an intrinsic, in the other an
extrinsic perficient. But, while that essential diversity simpliciter stands, there is an aspect, peculiar to the divine conditions of each case, which unites them in a remarkable similitude. This aspect is the total immediate reference to the whole
Godhead. According to this aspect, secundum quid, the two
kinds of divinizing are the same.
The two kinds of divinizing gifts are then simpliciter diverse
and secundum quid the same. The nature of divinization, in
the case of transformative identity, is simpliciter the intentional
identity with the divine reality, while the nature of divinization, in the case of attractive participation, is simpliciter the
physical tendential participation of the divine reality. Simpliciter then divinization itself is twofold. But the nature of
divinization, in the two cases, is secundum quid the same,
insofar as it implies a total, immediate reference to the whole
Godhead. Divinization is then secundum quid the same in the
two cases.

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CoNCLUSION

At the end of a long and difficult study we must now try to
assess the modern criticism of the traditional Thomist theory
of finite supernaturality, which occasioned the work. In effect
the modern trend accuses the older theology of exaggerating
the finite aspect of the supernatural divinizing gifts at the
expense of their infinite aspect, that is, at the expense of
their very supernaturality and divinizing character. For the
modern trend would conceive communicated supernaturality,
and divinization, in a univocal fashion: solely the infinite gift
of the Godhead Itself can divinize. The sole possible manner
of supernatural communication, and divinization, is then that
of a pure formal causality or actuation, in which the infinite
God, is, as it were, the very Form and Act of the divinized
creature. A division of communicated supernaturality is then
but a list of cases in which this univocally identical process
may be found. Against this, the traditional Thomist view responds that the modern attempt exaggerates the infinite aspect
of divinization at the expense of the finite aspect. The Thomist
view is deeply conscious of the analogy, not the univocity, of
divinization: of two distinct and diverse modes of divinizing
which have certain common aspects. It sustains that pure
formal actuation can apply strictly to one of these modes, but
not to other. And it defends an equally analogous division of
communicated supernaturality into essentially distinct members. For the modern view, the older one is at root a depreciation of supernaturality itself. For the older view, the modern
one is basically a depreciation of nature, of man who is divinized, and thus also of the merciful and wise Providence of the
God who deals with man according to his nature. Each view
fears that the other falls into a trap which both abhor. The
question is, which view has succeeded in respecting both noble
summits of doctrine-the dazzling eminence of supernaturality
and the inmost radication of the supernatural in the nature of
man? Both would claim to do so. The modern view, in a more
obvious and apparent way, seems to do more justice to the

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claims of supernature, less to those of nature. The older view,
in a more patent way, seems to do more justice to the claims of
nature than to those of supernature. The modern synthesis
claims that the idea of a total gift of God as Act of the soul is
faithful to the infinity of the supernatural, and at the same
time to the deep ingrafting of the supernatural in nature. The
older view, equally thinking itself a true synthesis, claims that
besides such an infinite supernatural communication, there is a
true divinizing gift in which God is not the Act of the soul but
the Object specifying a finite gift, which, as finite, can pertain
to the very proper texture of a finite nature. Which synthesis
is the genuine one?
It is obvious from the whole development of this study that
our option is for the older theology. But it would indeed be
ungracious for us to refuse the modern attempt, and to criticize it, without striving to show that its intuition of genuine
supernaturality-an intuition which is indeed so rich and so
beautiful-is truly retained untarnished, in the older view, and
not merely retained, but integrated there with another intuition-not as sublime, perhaps, but equally necessary-which
cannot equally be retained in the modern view. To insist on
the depth of God's entry into man's nature need not prevent
us from insisting on the fullness and totality of God's gift of
Himself. That is the coviction at the heart of the traditional
Thomist theory of finite supernaturality, which it thus conceives as a divinization which is both thoroughly genuine, and
deeply intimate. To show the basis of that conviction has been
the design of this study. To carry out that design, we have
tried to bring out the analogous unity that exists between the
two necessarily diverse modes of communicated supernaturality. We have maintained that between these modes there is
diversity simpliciter, but unity secundum quid. It may well be
that, through circumstances of history and background, the
Thomism of recent times has been more insistent on the diversity between them than on the unity. We are convinced, however, that it is happy to retain both. On the other hand, we

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think that the modern view has transformed the secundum
quid unity between them into a unity simpliciter and thus
ended in sustaining, in reality, the univocity of communicated
supernaturality. Not that we would reduce the whole modern
current to a simple logical fallacy of secundum quid and simpliciter. We are all too conscious of the natural temptation of
the human mind, overcome by the likeness of finite gift to the
Infinite Gift, to use language proper to the latter in describing
the former. If we think that the modern view has fallen into
this temptation, and thus erred-and we do think so-we are
quick to add that it is a natural temptation and a natural error
in an area where every tongue must stammer. We feel that
the older Thomist view, precisely because it is more deeply
schooled in the proprieties of analogical predication, has been
able to express itself without inconvenience and without damage to any of the manifold sides of mystery, in this area where
mystery must always reign. Therein lies the basis of our option.
Further, the unity which both schools of thought conceive
in the various cases of divinization, is in reality that of total
immediate reference to the entire essential-existential reality
of the Godhead. That unifying aspect of the two cases is verified in each of them, according to the older view, in simpliciter
different ways: by pure intrinsic formal causality and transformative identity, and by extrinsic objective formal causality
and attractive participation. The modern view appears to give
the name of " quasi or pure formal actuation " to the common
aspect, that is, to the total immediate reference to the Godhead, as such. This we would not accept. Intrinsic formal
causality must always remain in the order of absolute communication, not in the order of a relationship consequent upon
a prior absolute foundation. We would further accept some
likeness on the absolute level between the intrinsic formal
causality and the extrinsic formal causality involved. This
likeness is founded on the natural plane itself, and is manifested in the attribution of the word " formal " to the diverse
causality involved there. It is verified also, in the deeper way

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we have shown, on the supernatural level, in the proper likeness of transformative identity and attractive participation, the
likeness which the consequent relation of total immediacy to
the Godhead makes clear. But we would not accept the application of the title " pure formal actuation," or its equivalent,
to extrinsic formal causality and attractive participation. For
this phrase, it seems to us, has been reserved in the common
way of speaking of philosophers and theologians to describe
precisely what is diverse from extrinsic formal causality and
attractive participation in intrinsic formal causality and transformative identity, namely, the unity or identity simpliciter
without which the latter cannot be. To use such a phrase to
indicate the analogous unity of the two modes of divinization
would be, once again, to convert that unity into a univocal
unity, to hold at root the univocity of divinization.
We believe then that a sympathetic retention of the intuition of the modern view will only confirm the sound foundation of the analogous division of divinization which the older
Thomist view has always sustained. A communicated supernatural divinizing gift will be either simpliciter infinite (and
then pure formal actuation, and transformative identity, are
implied) or it will be simpliciter finite but secundum quid
infinite (and then attractive participation will be implied).
The first member of this basic division can and must be further divided, according to the formal aspect of the infinite form
therein communicated (e. g., the infinite form under the aspect
of divine essence as actually understood, or the infinite form
under the aspect of the relative subsistence of the Word as
supplying human subsistence, etc.) . The second member of the
basic division can and must be further divided, according to
the formal aspect of the infinite form therein acting as specifying object (e. g. the infinite form under the aspect of divine
truth, or the infinite form under the aspect of divine good,
etc.) . The multiplicity of these divisions of the communicated
supernatural will lead us to realize how the single pure white
ray of divine beauty is refracted into many colors when given

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to the creature, and to realize that each color is still intrinsically
supernatural, still divinizing. The prism of finite nature cannot capture the transcendent Deity, but it can and does make
its beauty more manifest by separating the various aspects
under which it is communicable precisely as Deity. The vision
of such radiating glory of the Divine Beauty is a far greater
thing than a too simple statement of even a most elevated
common denominator that could be found, diversely, in these
different cases.
So much for our option of the older view, and our rejection,
with sympathetic appraisal, of the modem view. In probing
the depths of the problem we are conscious that we have
brought forward certain notions that are not explicitly the
common property of standard Thomist works in the area. We
have gone to the roots of" pure formal actuation" and" transformative identity "-notions which we had previously used
and proposed in treating of the Incarnation. We have developed here for the first time an interpretation of the specification of transcendental relatives by way of " tendential participation " and, in the supernatural area, " attractive participation." It is our hope that these notions, on which our thesis
of the diversity simpliciter and unity secundum quid of the
two necessarily distinct modes of divinization relies, are not
really new, but are rather mere explicitations, in a new context
and perspective, of what has always been equivalently and
implicitly maintained by the masters of traditional Thomism.
These notions, together with the common analogous aspect
of total immediate reference to the Godhead, could well be of
service to positive theologians in their efforts to show us the
exact manner in which sacred Sacripture and the Fathers have
taught the mystery of God's gift of Himself to man. Perhaps
the biblical and patristic themes, so often alleged by the modem
speculative view as inexplicable except in terms of its own
persuasion, might be found to correspond even more perfectly
to the older and traditional theology. If the concepts we have
made explicit in the course of this study were to help towards

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such an end, they will have been worth the effort that has
gone into their formulation.
In fine, the traditional Thomist synthesis appears to us in
this case, as in so many others, to have lost none o£ its vital
power to assimilate all that is good and genuine and true in
modern research, whether positive or speculative. Our study
has shown us once again the perennial actuality and the eternal
validity o£ the doctrine and principles o£ the Angelic Doctor
as they have lived in the school which bears his name. Nova
et vetera.
KEVIN F. O'SHEA, C. Ss. R.
Redemptorist House of Studies
Ballarat, Victoria, Australia

SYMBOLISM IN PREACIDNG

I

N THIS article we shall examine (1) the essential function
of the Christian preacher;
the two modes of communication which this function involves; (3) the main problems confronting the preacher today with regard to these two
aspects of his task; and (4) suggestions for solving these
problems.
(1) Christ, the Word, said of his own preaching that the
words he spoke, the message he bore, were not of his own
coining, but that he spoke only as the Father had bidden him
speak (Jn. xiv, 10); in this he is obviously a model for his
own messengers (apostoloi) , the original disciples whom he
commissioned to teach whatsoever he had commanded them,
and their successors down through the ages. In ancient Greece
the pedagogue (paidagogos) was a slave whose duty it was
not to teach the boy but to lead the boy safely to school, to
his teacher; similarly the office of the Christian preacher is to
lead the faithful to the Word who is their teacher, to prepare
them as best he can for their schooling in the words of the
Word. So St. Paul declares in his first letter to the Corinthians that it was Christ who sent him to preach, and to
preach only the gospel. He had no concern with " any high
pretensions to eloquence, or to philosophy," but only with
"God's message to you"; he would have nothing to do with
"an orator's cleverness," with rhetoric, "for so the cross of
Christ might be robbed of its force" (I, 17; II, 1-5) : his only
purpose was to speak "of Jesus Christ, and of him as cruci, i. e., to help his hearers to enter with minds and
fied " (II,
hearts into God's wisdom, hitherto hidden and secret (II, 7)
but now made known through and in the Christian Mystery
of the Tree.
46

SYMBOLISM

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47

In present-day colloquial language we use the word
"mystery" in the sense of a baffiing problem to be solved by
detection. Here we must think of it as meaning a profound,
vital, religious truth: the Truth which is the eternal Word,
communicated to us principally through the words of the scriptures, the words spoken, the events described; but these words
and events, because of the profundity of their meaning, need
to be explicated if we are to understand them rightly and
assimilate them fully. The explication is the essential function
of the preacher who represents the teaching authority of the
Church as " opening " to us the scriptures.
But the Church has two ways of opening the scriptures and
communicating the truth; and both ways are necessary to us
since each provides the necessary complement to the other.
The language of the Bible is essentially the language, not of
scientific or reasoned prose, but of poetry in the wide sense
of the term: of imagery, of parable and paradox, of the Johannine paroimiai or allegories, of symbol. The Church opens the
scriptures to us (a) by making use of this same language of
symbol, e. g., in its sacramental ritual, and (b) by re-stating
the Biblical message in" prose": in the formulas of creed and
catechism, in the technical language of theology, and in the
elucidation of formulas and theological propositions in everyday terms.
Christ spoke to the multitudes in parables and indeed did
not speak to them without parables (Mk. iv, 34) ; and the
purpose of this method of teaching was not, as has sometimes
been supposed, to hide his meaning from them but on the
contrary to communicate his meaning through an idiom which
simple, unlearned people could easily understand and which
appeals to, and evokes a response from, not merely the mind
but the heart, the whole personality. Moreover, symbol-language can take us deeper into mystery than the language of
conceptual thinking can, precisely because it is the property
of symbol to communicate realities for which no conceptsand therefore no reasoned formulas-exist. But this very pro-

48

GERALD VANN

fundity involves a danger of misunderstanding. Scientific prose
seeks to prevent misunderstanding by excluding ambiguity and
being clear and distinct and univocal; symbol is deeply significant precisely because it is of its nature ambiguous (ambivalent or polyvalent). Christ speaks to us in paradox-finding
life by losing it, being rich by being poor, attaining peace
through the sword, being reborn through death and finding
light in darkness-and there is always the danger that we may
either fail to see how the two apparently contradictory sides
of the paradox meet and fuse in a creative unity, a coincidentia
oppositorum, or, in our desire to have everything neatly and
tidily defined and distinct, may concentrate on one aspect to
the exclusion of the other, thus distorting the truth and missing
altogether the meaning of the mystery.
The formulas of creed and catechism, then, are an essential
complement to, and explication of, the scriptural message since
they give definition to our thinking and so prevent us from
misinterpreting the message. But they are no substitute for
the message; they are not sufficient of themselves to communicate the Word. A formula cannot express the Inexpressible or
define the Infinite. We believe not in a creed but through a
creed; we believe in the Reality about which the creed tells
us things which are true indeed, but finite and therefore partial. Furthermore, definition implies limitation: a formula
makes static what is of its nature dynamic, vital; it turns the
living, concrete reality into an abstraction. There is a world
of difference between the formula H20 and the elusive, mercurial reality of water. Thus, if the ambivalence of symbol
involves a danger of misinterpretation, the clarity of abstract
formulation involves a danger of aridity and unreality. The
twofold function of the preacher is to help us to think theologically lest we misinterpret symbol, and to keep us constantly
and ever more deeply aware of symbol lest our theologizing
become arid and perhaps in the end meaningless.
(3) But today each part of this double task is beset with
difficulties. We live in an age of psychological improverish-

SYMBOLISM

IN PREACHING

49

ment: rationalism and scientisme have taught us to rely solely
on strictly rational, logical, scientific thought processes and to
ignore or repudiate as valueless all other modes of psychic
experience and avenues to reality. Thus the language of symbol
is for us, to a great extent, a" forgotten language "-the Catholic believes in the efficacy of the baptismal ritual, but to what
extent is the ritual itself meaningful for him?-or, if it is not
forgotten, it is suspect, and suspect precisely because imprecise.
The Catholic today tends to be Cartesian in his thinking, in
the sense of demanding that everything be formulated in terms
of clear and distinct concepts. The task of the preacher, therefore, is interpreted, so far as dogma is concerned, simply in
terms of instruction, and of instruction simply in the sense
of imparting to the hearers the exact wording of doctrinal
formulas and definitions. Where morals are concerned, the
preacher's task is seen either in terms of the pious generalities
and windy rhetoric of the fervorino (for while "feeling" as
one of the elements in total, personal awareness of reality is
misprized, the value of an appeal to the emotions pure and
simple is often grossly over-estimated), or else as again a
question of the imparting of neat and tidy rules, tabulating
the various types of virtuous or sinful behaviour and fixing the
exact degree of guilt involved in this or that sin, always viewed
in terms of objective standards, of general laws, with little or
no regard for particular circumstances or the psychological conditions and attitudes and stresses of the individual. The Catholic, cleric and layman alike, tends to be influenced by the climate of opinion in which he lives; the fervorino closely resembles the rhetorical verbosities of the political demagogue, the
moral instruction too often betrays a mentality closely resembling the impersonal or anti-personal and procrustean categories of the bureaucrat. Msgr. Ronald Knox, in an article in
The Month (March 1959) , quoting the words "Did not our
hearts burn within us when he talked with us on the way?"
(Luke, xxiv, 82) , described what in his view the Catholic
" apologist " ought to do but in fact often fails to do and his
words are relevant to the work of preaching in general.

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GERALD VANN

He will vindicate the prophecies, not by raking up a score of
familiar quotations, but by exhibiting the Old Testament in extenso
as a cipher message imposed on history. He will prove the divineness of our Lord's mission, not by presenting us with a series of
logical dilemmas, but by trying to reconstruct the picture of our
Lord himself; what it was that met the gaze of the apostles, and
the touch of their hands. He will read the New Testament, not
as a set of ' passages ' which must somehow be reconciled with one
another, but as the breathless confidences of living men, reacting
to human situations, and inflamed with zeal for their Master. He
will portray the teaching Church, not as a harassed official' handing
out ' information at a series of press conferences, but as a patient
pioneer washing out the gold from the turbid stream of her own
memories. Everything will come alive at his touch; he will not
merely know what he is talking about, but feel what he is talking
about.
Whether the preacher likes it or not, the fact is that God
wrote his book in the language of poetry, of symbol. The
tragedy is that for the most part preachers do not like it, and
therefore fight shy of symbol-language and in effect repudiate
it. The Church does not, and cannot, repudiate it; it speaks
through it daily, constantly, in the Mass and the other sacraments; but to the faithful, conditioned by the world they live
in and deprived of an adequate pedagogy, it becomes of necessity more and more obscure till in the end it is simply a
meaningless hieroglyphic.
But if the language of symbol is meaningless because its
idiom has been forgotten, the language of doctrinal definition
and theological statement is often meaningless because to the
layman its idiom is a technical jargon which he has never really
been taught. Whether from laziness or illiteracy or the fear
of departing by a hair's breadth from the safe orthodoxy of
the Latin formulas he has culled from his textbooks, the
preacher will probably make no effort to express doctrinal
concepts in contemporary language. Indeed, to put it bluntly,
he will fail to talk English. But to transliterate when one
should be translating is not merely illiterate, it is to invite a
double disaster. Almost certainly what is said will sound re-

SYMBOLISM

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51

mote and unreal; it may also be positively misleading, for a
living language is precisely living and therefore constantly
changing, so that in course of time words sometimes come to
convey the exact opposite of their original meaning. If, for
example, we always speak of matrimony instead of marriage,
of nuptials instead of a wedding, of spouses instead of husband
and wife, and (crowning infelicity) of the marriage debt instead
of physical and sexual union, we inevitably give the impression
that the sacrament of marriage has nothing to do with the
realities of human love. We do not adequately convey the
realities of the life-renewing sacrament of repentance if we
always call it the sacrament of penance and speak not of
sorrow but of contrition, and of the oddly inappropriate "satisfaction." We cannot blame our hearers for going to sleep if
our sentences are a relentless succession of ponderous latinisms;
nor can we blame anyone but ourselves if we create an atmosphere of unreality by clinging doggedly to difficult polysyllabic
terms when perfectly adequate simple, homely words are at
hand. It is not helpful to talk of nativity and regeneration
when we could perfectly well say birth and rebirth; we do
not encourage realism if we can never speak of the sinlessness
of Mary except in terms of immaculate conception; we are
guilty not merely of illiterate infelicity but of crude error when
we refer to the " descent" from the cross or-an ultimate in
stupidity-to the "invention" of the true cross; and we do
not help but hinder by speaking of the sacrament of extreme
unction, since " extreme " seldom means " last," and " unction "
nowadays is less suggestive of anointing than of oleaginous
insincerity.
The sense of unreality is intensified when to these infelicities
and falsifications are added the pious cliches which are usually
found to accompany them: if a preacher can never refer simply
to God, to Christ, to Mary, to the Church or the Pope, but
must always unfailingly speak of Almighty God, our divine
Redeemer, the blessed Mother, and so on, he should not be
surprised to find that his words have a markedly narcotic

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GERALD VANN

effect; nor is that necessarily their worst effect since here too
falsification is not uncommon, as when chastity is referred to
as " the holy virtue " (which implies " holy par excellence ")
in plain defiance of the New Testament teaching that the
supreme virtue is caritas, love.
It should perhaps be added that the dice must inevitably
be adversely loaded, the work of training young men to become
preachers inevitably start from a lethal basic assumption, as
long as that work continues to be referred to in the jargon of
the seminaries as a training in " sacred eloquence."
It is not surprising, then, if nowadays the laity often feel,
and sometimes voice, a profound disquietude concerning the
preaching of the gospel. If a sermon is made up partly of technical terms which, though legitimate in themselves, have become worn away into meaninglessness by over-usage like the
inscription on an old coin, partly of illegitimate technical jargon, and partly of the pious cliches which make Christianity
and the Christian ideal of holiness seem secretarian or even
subhuman, the sermon will be in effect not a homily but a
bromide; it will not open, it will effectively close the scriptures. So it is that, as Milton expressed it, " the hungry sheep
look up, and are not fed."
(4) What then can be done to remedy this state of affairs?
What are the main tasks, the main challenges, confronting the
preacher in our contemporary world? The first task is to restore to the Christian his rightful heritage: to help him to
recover the lost or forgotten language of symbol, the language
of the Bible in general and of the Word himself in particular.
It is sometimes argued that though symbol in general has
its uses there is nothing to be gained by attempting to revive
interest in the biblical symbols since these were the product
of an agrarian society and must be meaningless to our modern
industrial-urban civilization. How can one hope, it is asked, to
communicate the realities of the Christian mystery in terms o£
tree and water and wine and fire when those one addresses have
no knowledge of wood except in industrial artefacts, or of water

SYMBOLISM

IN PREACHING

58

except in pipes controlled by faucets, no real awareness of fire
since the hearth has been rejected in favor of central heating,
or of wine since they drink only beer or spirits?
The argument, though specious, will not survive any but the
most superficial scrutiny. There are indeed some minor symbols
which were popular at some period in Christian history but
which would now seem " dated," lacking in significance or even
ludicrous. The pius pelicanus is perhaps a case in point. But
there is an essential difference between "invented" and therefore transient symbols, however rich in meaning and indeed
sublime these may be for certain peoples or at certain epochs,
and the symbols which are so universal, geographically and
historically, that they must be regarded as "innate," as part
of the very structure of the human psyche. The basic Christian symbols are of this kind, and indeed it is surely unthinkable that the eternal Word would couch his universal message
in symbols which he knew would be meaningless to future
generations. The " forgotten " language is in fact not so much
forgotten as repressed: it was not destroyed by the arrogant
repudiations of positivism and scientisme, it was merely driven
underground, so that today, if it is still excluded from the
highest spheres of expression, it will be found-as has often
enough been demonstrated-manifesting itself in the spheres of
fiction and fantasy, and of course in everyman's world of
dreams. And even in the most completely industrialized and
urbanized communities today there must be few indeed, if
any, who are utterly impervious to the quickening, freshening,
youth-renewing qualities of water, the warming, strengthening,
liberating therapy of the golden sun, the jubilant evocations
of the wine of feasting and fellowship in human history and
song and story. A man may never have watched the baking
of bread, the making of wine, the catching of fish, the sowing
of a field, but he would have to be worse than a moron if when
these things were described to him he failed completely to sense
their profound and profoundly simple significance.
To open the scriptures then means first of all to help one's

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GERALD VANN

hearers to sense the significance, the implications, the evocations, of the biblical word-symbols which are also the universal
lingua franca, the Ur-woerter, of mankind. This universality
means that a prudent and informed mind can find endlessand endlessly thrilling and enriching-sidelights on the scriptural symbols in the art and literature, the myth and folklore,
of humanity. Even when these present a picture of reality
which is in some way or degree distorted, still we can derive
from them a quickening of interest in, and perhaps a new
insight into, the biblical pattern or process of rebirth and transfiguration or one or other of the symbols included in it.)
The first way of opening the scriptures therefore consists in
helping one's hearers to appreciate, to see into, the idiom of
the scriptures and so to enter into the mystery expressed and
revealed through that idiom, rather as a connoisseur of painting or poetry can help us to grasp the idiom of the artist and
so enter into his creation. This in turn means encouraging
the hearers to gain, and then to enrich, develop, deepen, an
insight into individual symbols; but it also means helping them
to penetrate the inherent ambivalence of the symbols and, in
the case of the gospels, the paradoxes in which the Word presents his message, whether in the form of picture-language
(e. g., parables and paroimiai) or in explicit and seemingly
contradictory statements.
The parables have sometimes been" allegorized" for preaching purposes (e. g., by St. Augustine), and some of Christ's
parables are in fact a mixture of parable and allegory (e. g.,
the sower) ; but in its pure form the parable is a picture which
presents one single truth or lesson but a lesson which may well
be paradoxical and therefore requires, for a true understanding
of it, not merely a penetrating but a unifying vision. It has
been said of the parable of the prodigal son, for instance, that
it might well be called the parable of the prodigal father: the
story is a paradox-picture because it portrays for us the mystery of God's mercy, the mystery which can be stated in theological terms by saying that in God justice and mercy are one.

SYMBOLISM

IN PREACHING

55

The obvious " difficulty " in the story is the apparent unfairness
with which the elder son is treated; the task of the preacher
or pedagogue will be not merely to draw out the implications
of the details of the story as a portrayal of mercy (e. g., the
fact that the father saw the prodigal " while he was yet a long
way off" [Luke, xv, 20] implies that he was not merely willing
to welcome him back but was anxiously looking out for
him) but still more to show how this mercy is not an arbitrary abrogation or dilution of justice but is itself justice. The
miserum cor, the pitying heart, which is implied in misericordia
is correlative to the miseria, the state of wretchedness, of the
one pitied: the greater the miseria, the greater the misericordia;
and this relatively is itself just, is the divine justice which is
thus revealed as differing toto caelo from the unrealistic, arbitrary rule-of-thumb "equity" of the legalist.
Again, the theandric reality of the incarnate Word, which
the theologian describes in terms of hypostatic union, is presented in the gospel through the paradox-picture of the simultaneous total divineness and total humanness of Jesus, a picture painted most vividly by St. John with his genius for fusing
together the sublime and the homely, as in the final chapter of
the fourth gospel where the might and majesty of the Word,
the grandeur and universality of his message, the absoluteness
of his demand for love and obedience usque ad mortem, are
manifested in the homeliness of human love and fellowship,
the catching and counting of the fish, the humble breaking of
bread together and the sharing together of the food cooking
on the fire.
The second main task of the preacher is to present to his
hearers the theological implications of the word of God, doctrinal and moral, in an idiom which will be meaningful for
them and grip their attention because it is contemporary, vital,
concrete and vivid; and also in a manner which, because it
springs from a keen insight into and sympathy with the realities of their own immediate and pressing problems and difficulties, will arouse in them not the sense of unreality produced

56

GERALD VANN

by vague generalities or diatribes which betray a total incomprehension of their situation, but a sense of immediacy, of a
here-and-now enlightening and encouraging message, a manifesting of the law-the law which is Truth and Life and Love,
for "our law is Christ "-as indeed "a lamp for [their] feet"
(Ps. cxviii, 105) and a lamp which, as the message strikes
home to them, they will recognize as what their hearts have
been looking for.
All this implies much more than the mere acquiring and
memorizing of a new vocabulary. It involves, first, a constantly
renewed thinking-out of timeless truths in terms of contemporary situations, problems, mental attitudes; secondly, a constant re-appraisal of the shifting nuances of current speech in
general; and thirdly a constant alertness in particular for the
changes which can and do befall traditional Christian words
or phrases not so much in their dictionary-meaning as in their
overtones and evocations.
Changes of this latter kind can be of extreme importance,
so much so that it may be necessary to discard the old terms
altogether and invent new ones; for nowdays the changes often
involve a loss of strength, the sort of etiolation which comes
of substituting soft sentimentality for the tough realities of
deliberation and volition. The tragic deterioration which is revealed in the contrast between the Christ of the Byzantine
mosaics or of Giotto or Michelangelo and the saccharine Sacred
Heart of present-day popular piety is equally revealed in the
contrast between the primitive or medieval and the present-day
connotations of many of the great Christian words. It just
is a fact-and a fact which we cannot ignore without incurring
the catastrophe of falsification-that " charity" no longer conveys the fiery immensities of caritas or agape but suggests
either almsgiving, perhaps impersonal or even condescending,
or else a mild and vague emotional benevolence; that " temperance " means not temperantia but merely abstention from,
or an attitude of cautious timidity towards, the bottle; that
"purity" no longer suggests integrity, wholeness, the quality

SYMBOLISM

IN PREACHING

57

o£ being " all o£ a piece" and free of all base alloy, but has
become equated with the (largely negative) idea o£ sexual
continence. Negativism has made "prudence" the equivalent
simply o£ caution and the cult o£ safety-first; sentimentality
has emasculated "meekness" and "mildness"; "humility"
has been so grossly misinterpreted that instead o£ meaning an
acceptance o£ the truth about oneself it now means a complete
self-denigration which in £act is deliberate falsehood.
For concepts such as these, therefore, the preacher today
needs a new vocabulary unless he is prepared, every time he
mentions them, to begin with a laborious correction o£ misapprehensions concerning the old. Once again, it is not a question
merely o£ finding new words for old but o£ seeing and stating
timeless truths in the context o£ the immediate here-and-now
problems and pre-occupations o£ his audience; and this in turn
involves a great deal o£ imaginative sympathy. The priest has
his own personal problems, but one o£ his main tasks as a
preacher is to identify himself with the quite different problems
and mental attitudes o£ his people: his message will never
seem real to them or get under their skins unless he can think
himself into their skins. I£ he treats o£ the theology o£ God's
providence he must explain how the Father's loving care is
compatible with the frustrations, the tragedies, the derelictions
which his people experience; he cannot speak convincingly o£
the motherhood o£ the Church unless he first faces with courage and compassion the widespread feeling o£ the laity that the
Church is far more severe and impersonal than Christ. It is
useless to expound the ideals o£ Christian justice or sexual
morality unless he really understands the problems o£ how to
be honest and yet survive in our rat-race world and how to be
chaste in spite o£ all the economic, social, emotional and psychosexual stresses which pull, sometimes so overwhelmingly, in the
other direction; and to speak o£ deep-rooted sinful habits as
determining an eternal destiny, without having a vivid awareness (whether experiential or sympathetic) o£ the psychological
factors whereby the culpability o£ such habits is itself determined, is not merely useless but positively harmful.

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GERALD VANN

But even here we return in the last resort to the question of
words. A preacher who had taught himself to understand and
to feel his people's problems would still be unable to reach them
unless he had also taught himself to speak of these problems
in their own language. And if he is to undertake this task, or
even be aware of its necessity, he must first acquire a deep
feeling for words. He is not required to be an orator, and he is
definitely required not to concern himself with the pomposities
and verbosities of empty rhetoric; on the other hand, he certainly will not achieve his objective by the pitiful expedient of
injecting a few ill-chosen colloquialisms into his discourse. Cor
ad cor loquitur: he must know in his own heart, in his bones,
the words which will not just skim the surface of other minds
but dig down deep into minds and hearts alike. What a tragic
irony, when those who worship the Word and whose office it is
to proclaim the Word betray a complete lack of awareness,
appreciation, love and reverence for words. The words of a
living language are themselves living things: mutable, fragile,
fugitive; and their loveliness too (when they are lovely) is
fragile, easily marred by the accretion of ugly overtones or the
arrosions of misinterpretation or the destructive effect of drab
associations. The office of the preacher is to lead his hearers
to an epopteia, a beholding, of the Word through his use of
words: with what love and reverence, therefore, with what
care for clarity and simplicity, for vividness and vitality, must
he use them! He must open the scriptures, and to open the
scriptures is to open a door and the door is Christ (ln. x, 9) .
When the reading of the gospel is announced in the Mass we
cry Gloria tibi Domine: not " Glory be to the Lord " but
" Glory be to you, Lord, here and now present in our midst,"
for the gospel means not merely a promise for the future but a
present beholding. The events it records are, as events, in the
historical past but as symbols are timeless and therefore contemporary; and as we are the widow's son, the demoniac boy,
the cripple, the blind man, the prodigal, so Christ is here and
now for us the vine and the wine, the living bread, the living

SYMBOLISM

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59

water, the shepherd and the door of the sheepfold, the living
and life-giving Word.
We live in a world in which multitudes are filled with despair
because they find life meaningless. But Logos means " meaning"; as Peter declared, the Word has the words which give
life, the secret of life (Jn. vi, 69) because he is himself the
meaning of life. It is for those who are the Word's messengers
to learn to use words lovingly, carefully, creatively, so as to
heal the despair of a world without meaning; and to make
sure that their words are truly pedagogic, truly life-bringing and
light-bringing, because leading their hearers to that epopteia
in which blindness is forever healed in and by the sight of the
Life and the Light.

t GERALD VANN, 0. P.

SOME CAUSES OF THE ELIMINATION OF CAUSALITY
IN CONTEMPORARY SCIENCE

M

ANY QUESTIONS are being raised in the philosophy
of science-questions such as, "What is science?";
"What are its aims?"; "What is its methodology?"
" What is the relationship of scientific theory to empirical
fact? ". This latter question together with its correlative,
"What is the place of causality in contemporary science?",
will be investigated in this article.
Ample evidence indicates that the views which some " bench
scientists " hold on these matters tend to be naive. Indeed,
many work-a-day scientists are in nearly complete ignorance
of the views discussed by more articulate spokemen concerning
the philosophy of science.
Most scientists may say that they don't particularly care
about the philosophy of science. This is certainly a very comfortable attitude, even though it is exceedingly ostrichlike in
its characteristics. It is ostrichlike because many problems
raised in philosophy of science have had and will have profound repercussions for them and their sciences.
Men are saying things in the philosophy of science which we
cannot afford to ignore. Some of these men are from the usual
ranks of self-appointed spokesman, but many speak with the
full authority of the scientist. The prominence and importance of science in our contemporary society cannot be denied.
Nevertheless, certain responsibilities go hand in hand with
being in the spotlight. Among these is the obligation that
scientists explain to others (as well as to themselves), not
only what they are really doing, but what they are even talking
about.
This calls for a genuine and sometimes agonizing reappraisal
of science. Perhaps " appraisal " might be the better word, for
60

SOME CAUSES OF THE ELIMINATION

OF CAUSALITY

61

many have not taken time to reflect at all on this matter.
Many scientists would be unpleasantly surprised if they attempted to answer certain questions in the philosophy of science. Even the attempt to formulate these questions would
prove a formidable task, for it is no easy thing to pose an intelligent question. Indeed, a question cannot be well formulated
unless one already knows a good deal about the answer. Yet,
we agree with Planck that there are such things as " phantom
problems." 1
Although many practical scientists have ignored the philosophy of science, other scientists (together with some who
are not scientists) have been influential in alternately clarifying and beclouding the future directions of science. We may
be amazed by what they say. We may not like what they have
to say. We may eventually dismiss what they have to say,
but we cannot ignore what they have to say.
The authority of spokeman such as Einstein, Planck, Mach,
Bohr, Heisenberg, Eddington and Jeans, is at least sufficient to
command our attention. Yet there are others who may not be
so familiar, but who have had much to contribute. Such men
are P. Frank, H. Poincare, P. Duhem, R. Carnap, L. Wittgenstein, B. Russell, and M. Schlick. Everyone of them has had a
strong influence in determining the course of the philosophy
of science.
Let us briefly trace the historical background from which
current problems in the philosophy of science have arisen. A
schism developed between philosophy and science at the end of
the middle ages and the beginning of the modern era. We
refer to the period of Francis Bacon and the 16th century.
Bacon was no scientist, but he was a trumpeteer for the new
science. Ample testimony for this assertion is found in his
N ovum Organum and in his On the Proficience and Advancement of Learning. Prior to this era, science and philosophy
1 Cf. Max Planck, "Phantom
Problems in Science" in Scientific Autobiography
and Other Papers, tr. Frank Gaynor (New York: Philosophical Library, 1949),
pp. 52-79.

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GERALD F. KREYCHE

had constituted a unity. However, at this time it began to
appear that the embrace of the two was more of a stranglehold-especially to science-and in many ways it proved to
be just that. L' affaire Galileo demonstrates the point. Hence,
it seemed that science would have to bid adieu to philosophy.
The breakup occurred not at once, of course, but over a period
of centuries.
Traditionally, philosophy concerned itself with an investigation of reality in terms of four basic kinds of causes. 2 Very
briefly, these are the material cause (that out of which a thing
comes to be or that which is acted upon); the formal cause
(that which makes the thing to be such a thing); the efficient
or agent cause, and the final cause (that for the sake of which).
Originally, science concerned itself with all of these causes as
well, for it claimed (as did philosophy) that knowledge was
not scientific unless it was causal knowledge. As Aristotle said:
We suppose ourselves to possess unqualified scientific knowledge
of a thing, as opposed to knowing it in the accidental way in which
the sophist knows, when we think that we know the cause on which
the fact depends, as the cause of that fact and of no other, and,
further, that the fact could not be other than it is.3

However, as the success of science grew almost in proportion
to the extent that it divorced itself from philosophy and theology, and while philosophy in some respects grew more decadent, it appeared to many that philosophy never had any
real content of its own, other than that which science (in the
new meaning) had given to it. Apparently, this was the time
for science to assert itself and walk in its own right, instead
of being dragged down by philosophy which it had been needlessly supporting. 4
•" Now the causes being four, it is the business of the physicist to know about
them all." Aristotle, Physics, II, 7, 198a 22-25 in The Basic Works of Aristotle,
ed. Richard McKeon (New York: Random House, 1941), p. 248. Cf. also
Physics, II, 3 and Metaphysics, I, 1-10.
3 Aristotle, Posterior Analytics, I, 2, 71b 8-12, ibid., p. 111.
• Remarkably enough there developed an almost exact parallel in the relationship
of philosophy to theology-a relationship of estrangement.

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Two effects were immediately witnessed; (1) philosophy
regressed to a rationalism with such exponents as Descartes,
Spinoza, Leibniz, Kant and others; 5 and (2) science ventured
down the path of empiricism. On this latter point, Werner
Heisenberg correctly observes, "The exact sciences-physics
and chemistry-of modern times were, until the discovery of
the Planck quantum, materialistically oriented." 6
It is almost axiomatic that since philosophy talked about
four causes, science, in trying to escape the clutches of philosophy, would do its best to break away from any doctrine
of the causes which bore the slightest resemblance to those
treated in philosophy. The time was ripe for such a trend,
for many philosophers themselves were confusing the analogical doctrine of the causes by unwittingly reducing all to a
manifestation of efficient or agent causality.
To some extent, Rene Descartes, the father of modern philosophy and the inventor of analytic geometry, is the villain
of the piece-at least to begin with. He sought to restore
philosophy by mathematizing it, but instead, gave the impetus to subsequent science to become mathematized. This
tendency has revealed itself more fully in our time than in any
other. His influence was apparent on Newton. Note the title
of Sir Isaac's classic work, The Mathematical Principles of
Natural Philosophy.
Decartes' reasons for wanting to mathematize everything
were quite simple. He said:
There is, however, one principal property of every substance,
which constitutes its nature or essence, and upon which all the
others depend. Thus extension in length, breadth, and depth, constitutes the nature of corporeal substance. 7
5 It is no coincidence that
these men were rationalistically and idealistically
oriented, for there has always been a tendency for mathematicians to lean in such
a direction upon venturing into philosophy. Cf. Plato, the Pythagoreans, etc.
6 Werner Heisenberg, "From Plato to Max Planck:
The Philosophical Problems
of Atomic Physics," The Atlantic Monthly, CCIV, 5 (November, 1959), p. 110.
7 Rene Descartes, Principles of Philosophy, LUI, in A Discourse on Method,
Etc., tr. John Veitch (New York: E. P. Dutton & Co., Inc., 1912), p. 185.

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Surely, if the nature of material being is extension, no more
appropriate way to study it will be found than through mathematics. Because of this tendency to mathematize, certain
causes gradually came to be ignored, if not positively denied.
The initial attack began against final causality. There are
good reasons why this was so, for the final cause was regarded
as the highest of the causes and the reason that the others
were actually causes.
Francis Bacon was one of the earliest in modem times to
lead the movement which ultimately resulted in a rejection of
final causality within the domain of science. He moved the
analysis of final causes from the realm of special physics and
placed it in the area of metaphysics. In effect, this was a rejection of finality, for in Bacon's view, final causality was little
more than anthropomorphism, an idol of the tribe which should
be expurgated from science.
The contemporary scene has reinforced this view. As Gilson
aptly puts it:
For centuries final causes have been mistaken for scientific explanations by so many generations of philosophers that today many
scientists still consider the fear of final causes as the beginning of
scientific wisdom. Science is thus making metaphysics suffer for
its centuries-long meddling in matters of physics and biology.8
There are many who claim that to the extent which biology
still seeks purposes, it must be regarded as an inferior science,
or even worse, as unscientific. Nagle sums up the case quite
accurately when he declares,
Modern science, on the other hand [vs. Aristotelian science] regards
final causes to be vestal virgins which bear no fruit in the study of
physical and chemical phenomena; and, because of the association
of teleological explanations with the doctrine that goals or ends of
activity are dynamic agents in their own realizations, it tends to
view such explanation as a species of obscurantism. 9
8

Etienne Gilson, God and Philosophy (New Haven:

Yale University Press,

1941)' p. 129.
9 Ernest Nagel, The Structure of Science (New York:
Harcourt, Brace & World,
Inc., 1961), pp. 401-402.

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Perhaps Nagle and contemporary scientists have misunderstood the authentic view of final causes. Certainly there is
ample opportunity to do so, considering the mistaken notions
philosophers have ascribed to it; yet the fact remains that
mechanism appears to explain the phenomena in question as
well as teleology explained them. Hence, they argue, we should
eliminate the complex explanation (teleology) and retain the
simple one (mechanism) . Such a view is in keeping with the
principle of economy stressed by Ernst Mach-a principle
known to philosophers as Occam's razor. However, it is a principle which, if left unbridled, might lead to serious error. 10
There are, of course, biologists who still accept the term
" teleology " in their science, but when questioned closely on
the meaning of this term, it is clear that only function is indicated. To ask if there is teleology, is equivalent to asking
whether there is a function. In short, teleology is acceptable
to modern biologists only if it is not teleological-only if it is
not a cause.
However, it is not only final causality which has been sliced
off by Occam's razor. Gradually, the efficient or agent cause
has also been lost sight of. Through men such as C. S. Peirce,
the efficient cause has been reduced to its effect and its effect
reduced to an irreducible fact. Thus there are only facts. " The
existence of a fact is equivalent to the existence of its consequence. Thus, if the consequences of a supposed fact exist,
then, so does the supposed fact for the pragmatist." 11
Elsewhere Peirce writes:
Whether we ought to say that a force is an acceleration, or that
it causes an acceleration, is a mere question of propriety of Ian1 ° Cf. Copernicus'
view on planetary motions as perfectly circular and the
subsequent correction by Keppler proving their motions to be elliptical. Cf. Also
the destruction of the simplified principle of parity and its replacement with a
more complex explanation. Embarrassed by such untoward happenings, scientists
quickly discovered that ontological simplicity did not imply logical simplicity and
corrected the principle of economy accordingly.
11 Charles S. Peirce, Collectoo Writings, ed. Charles Hartshorne and Paul Weiss
(Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1931-3), 1. 431.

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GERALD F. KREYCHE

guage.
Consequently, if we know what the effects of force
are, we are acquainted with every fact which is implied in saying
that a force exists, and there is nothing more to know.12
The exit of efficient causality from contemporary science
then, has been unceremoniously hurried by the taking over of
methodology by mathematics. After all, in mathematics, one
does not ask" Who did what?". All that is asked is" What is
the structure? ". Indeed, by mathematical manipulation, cause
and effect may be replaced by symbols in an equation. Then
if we like, the symbols may be reversed algebraically so that
what formerly was a cause may now be regarded as an effect,
with no appreciable mathematical difference. St. Thomas himself points out that, " There is no demonstration by means of
an efficient cause in mathematics." 13 To quote Gilson on this
point:
The marked antipathy of modern science toward the notion of
efficient cause is intimately related to the nonexistential character
of scientific explanations. It is of the essence of an efficient cause
that it makes something be, or exist. Since the relation of effect to
cause is an existential and a nonanalytical one, it appears to the
scientific mind as a sort of scandal which must be eliminated.14
The tendency today is to talk about statistical incidence,
instead of causation-a case in point would be cigarette smoking and incidence of lung cancer. Such an attitude appears
to be a mark of sophistication. Because mathematics abstracts
from material things, material causality is also beginning to
lose its place. There are no perfect circles in nature (indeed,
there are no circles in nature) any more than there are lines
or points or plane surfaces.
To sum up this view: in order to attain his object, the
mathematician has been obliged to abstract from the real. Thus
12 Charles S. Peirce,
Values in a Universe of Chance, ed. Philip P. Wiener
(Garden City: Doubleday and Company, Inc., 1958), p.
13 St. Thomas Aquinas, Summa Thealogiae, I, 44, 1, ad 3 in The; Ba$l,c Writings
of St. Thomas Aquinas, ed. Anton C. Pegis (New York: Random House, 1945),
I, p.
"Gilson, op. cit., fn.
p. 131.

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he is more often dealing with concepts and ideas (logical structures), than with things or sensible realities. This is the difference between a mathematical approach to reality and an
experiential or even an experimental approach. Mathematics,
and so the mind, contains the ideal (something first conceived,
such as the perfect circle); then reality is compared to it and
judged in the light of this ideal. In such a view, things measure
up to what exists in the mind, rather than the mind conforming to the ways things are.
Immanuel Kant, who provided a philosophy for Newtonian
science, certainly gave the contemporary view a strong push
when he instigated his own " Copernican Revolution " by declaring," The understanding does not derive its laws (a priori)
from, but prescribes then to, nature." 15 Pierre Duhem writes
in a somewhat similar vein saying, " The experimental verifications are not the bases of the theory, but its culminations." 16
Is the starting point things or mind? Those inspired by
Kant, and their number is legion, declare for mind.
Of course, the attack upon efficient causality, especially in
science, came with the empiricist, David Hume, who denied
any necessary connection between cause and effect, other than
that of psychological association. However, there is no need
to quote 18th century Hume, when we can find a
century
man articulate the same basic proposition. We refer to Moritz
Schlick of the Wiener Kreis who says:
Necessity means nothing more than universal validity [i. e., the
universal is simply a complete enumeration]; the sentence: "A
follows necessarily from B," so far as content is concerned, is completely identical with the sentence: "In every case where the
state A occurs, the state B follows," and says nothing more whatsoever.17
1 " Immanuel
Kant, Prolegomma to any Future Metaphysics, 86 in From
Decartes to Kant, ed. T. V. Smith and Marjorie Grene (Chicago; University of
Chicago Press, 1940), p. 840.
16 Pierre Duhem quoted in Philipp Frank,
Modem Science and its Philosophy
(Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1950), p. 16.
17 Moritz
Schlick, The Philosophy of Nature, tr. Amethe Van Zeppelin (New
York: Philosophical Library, 1949), p. 89.

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GERALD F. KREYCHE

Occurrence, not causality, has become the byword in science.
In quantum physics, probability of occurrence would be an
even more accurate expression.
Max Planck faced the question quite squarely when he asked,
" Is there any infallible sign to indicate that a happening in
nature is causally determined by another?" 18 In answering
his own question he states, "An occurrence is causally determined if it can be predicted with certainty." 19 But, "It is

never possible to predict a physical occurrence with unlimited
precision." 20
What are we to make of this? Planck himself wishes to side
with the determinists (i.e., those who accept causality) , yet
he admits that the indeterminists are in the majority today. In
the face of the difficulties with which the indeterminists confront him, Planck is forced to make certain concessions-one
of them being the construction of his famous W eltbild.
As he puts it:
We have been able to carry through the deterministic viewpoint
only with the expedient of replacing the directly given sense world
by the world picture of physics, that is, by a provisional and alterable creation of the human power of imagination. 21
The necessity for doing so is rooted in the character
occurrences.

of

While in the sense world the prediction of an occurrence is always
associated with a certain element of uncertainty, in the world picture of physics all occurrences follow one another in accordance
with precisely definable laws-they are strictly determined causally.
Therefore, the introduction of the world picture of physics-and
herein lies its significance-reduces the uncertainty of predicting
an occurrence in the sense world to the uncertainty in translating
that occurrence from the sense world into the world picture and
in retranslating it from the world picture into the sense world.22
Planck, op. cit., p. 121.
Ibid., p. 122.
20 Ibid., p. 124.
21 Ibid., p. 144.
22 Ibid., p. 130.
(Need it be added that something is often lost in a translation!)

18
19

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Eventually, Planck is forced to conclude that
the law of causality is neither true nor false. It is rather a heuristic
principle, a signpost-and in my opinion our most valuable signpost-to help us find our bearings in a bewildering maze of occurrences, and to show us the direction in which scientific research
must advance in order to achieve fertile results.23
The great physicist, Ernst Mach, in one of his anti-metaphysics tirades wished to make physics descriptive, precisely
in order to avoid causality. He explicity states: "There is no
cause nor effect in nature; nature has but an individual existence; nature simply is . ... The essence of the connection of
cause and effect, exists but in the abstraction which we perform
for the purpose of mentally reproducing the facts." 24
Commenting on this problem, Bertrand Russell makes what
must be considered a " generous " concession; " There is therefore something to preserve in this notion [i. e., of causality],
though it is a very tiny part of what is commonly assumed in
orthodox metaphysics." 25 Apparently what is " preserved " is a
group of fairly constant relations, but nothing more.
Victor Lenzen tells us, " Causality is a relation within the
realm of conceptual objects .... In the sophisticated stage
of science [i. e., contemporary science] causality must be attributed to a model which the scientist constructs out of
concepts." 26
These are serious accusations and they raise important problems in the philosophy of science. If true, and if mathematics
is becoming the language of the sciences, and if the sciences
have parted with real causality, then to what extent do the
sciences deal with reality? Certainly for Mach, theory is not an
explanation. It is merely a representation.
•• Ibid., p. 149.
"'Ernst Mach, The Science of Mechanics: A Critical and Historical Account of
its Development in Readings in Philosophy of Science, ed. Philip P. Wiener (New
York: Charles Scribner's Sons, 1953), p. 447.
•• Bertrand Russell, Our Knowledge of the External World (London: George
Allen & Unwin, Ltd., 1922), p. 227. Cf. also p. 230.
•• Victor Lenzen, Causality in Natural Science (Springfield: Charles C. Thomas,
1954)' p. 6.

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Henry Margenau asserts that it is a " naive claim of textbook writers that the first principle of science is to recognize
an external world.'' 27
Max Planck holds that:
Directly observable magnitudes are not found at all in the world
picture. It contains symbols only. In fact, the world picture even
contains constituents which have only a very indirect significance
for the sense world, or no significance at all, such as ether waves,
partial vibrations, frames of references, etc. Primarily, such constituents play the part of dead weight or ballast, but they are
incorporated because of the decisive advantage assured by the
introduction of the world picture-that it permits us to carry
through a strict determinism. 28
The situation has become even more acute in attempting
to establish a rapport between the macroscopic world of classical mechanics with the new sub-microscopic world of atomic
and sub-atomic physics. Does the language of the macroscopic
fit the sub-atomic world? Do the laws of the one fit the other?
Can the motion of sub-atomic particles be described by Newtonian law? Moritz Schlick suggests that we abandon all attempts at translation here.
According to Lenzen, Kant " may be described as the philosopher of causality in classical mechanics.'' 29 However, his
"doctrine that the principle of causality is founded on an
immutable form of thought is uncongenial to an era which is
accustomed to relativity and change in the foundations of science." 30 Becoming more specific, Lenzen points out, " In classical physics it was assumed that a statistical regularity is the
manifestation of more basic dynamical regularity. As we shall
see, however, quantum theory has introduced statistical regularities which are not reducible but fundamental." 31
27 Henry
Margenau, St. Thomas and the Physics of 1958: A Confrontation
(Milwaukee: Marquette University Press, 1958), p. 35. Cf. also Lenzen, op. cit.,
pp. 3-5 and Planck, op. cit., pp. 136-137.
•• Planck, op. cit., p. 129. Cf. also p. 128 where Planck explains the double
meaning which is always present in the interpretation of measurable magnitudes.
31 Ibid., p. 26.
30 Ibid., p. 22.
29 Lenzen, op. cit., p. 55.

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Summing up the views expressed here then, causality may
be viewed as dynamical or statistical. The former was common
to classical mechanics and required the notion of force and
necessary connection. The latter is appropriate to sub-atomic
physics. All that is required is regularity or uniformity.
It is becoming increasingly difficult to maintain this schizophrenic attitude toward the macroscopic and sub-atomic. As
Nagle observes, " In consequence, the view has become widespread that all laws whatever, even those about macroscopic
objects and events, are at bottom statistical, and that in the
end all natural processes are acausal." 32 Certainly men such
as Peirce, Eddington and Boltzmann make nature acausal,
while others such as Philipp Frank and Henri Poincare make
cause a mere conventionalism.
Contrary to Lenzen's position, it is permissible to wonder if
modern science has really transcended Kant, for the present
statistical view of causality is much akin to a Kantian a priori
form playing the role of a regulative principle but not a constitutive one for experience. 33
Werner Heisenberg has taken upon himself the task of raising
the implications of these problems. In his view, those who
oppose the Copenhagen interpretation of the quantum theory
would prefer to come back to the idea of an objective real world
whose smallest parts exist objectively in the same sense as stones
or trees exist, independently of whether or not we observe them.
This, however, is impossible or at least not entirely possible because of the nature of atomic phenomena. . . . It cannot be our
task to formulate wishes as to how the atomic phenomena should
be; our task can only be to understand them. 34
Nagle, op. cit., p. 312.
For practical purposes, real causality has been relegated to the realm of
faith. Here is the contemporary interpretation of Kant's goal " to deny knowledge, in order to make room for faith." Immanuel Kant, The Critique of Pure
Reason, tr. Norman Kemp Smith (New York: The Modern Library, 1958),
Preface to the 2nd ed., B xxxi, p. 22.
34 Werner Heisenberg, Physics and Philosophy (New York:
Harper Bros., 1958),
p. 129.
3"

33

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GERALD F. KREYCHE

In this same work, Heisenberg points out that we can't describe what really happens in the atom. " The words ' description ' and ' really ' and ' happen ' can only refer to the concepts
of daily life or of classical physics." 35 For Heisenberg, these
terms are unambiguous but also very inaccurate. What he
seeks, therefore, is an ambiguous language predicated on a
theory of indeterminism and probability.
At this point, it is easy to see the opening provided in science
for the linguistic analysts to enter, and entered they haveen masse. Their position will be considered shortly. But to
continue with Heisenberg, in contemporary physics:
There are large areas of experience which cannot be even approximately described with the concepts of classical physics.
In these areas of atomic physics, a great deal of the earlier intuitive physics has gone by the board-not only the applicability of
its concepts and laws but the entire notion of reality which underlay
the exact sciences until our present day atomic physics. . . . In
science we are not dealing with nature itself but with the science
of nature-that is, with a nature which has been thought through
and described by man .... [That is to say] science stands between
man and nature and that we cannot renounce the application of
concepts that have been intuitively given to or are inborn in man.
. . . [It is difficult] to designate the smallest particles of matter as
being " truly real." For if the quantum theory is correct these
elemental particles are not real in the same sense as the things in
our daily lives-for example, trees or stones-are real; they appear
as abstractions derived from observed material which in a literal
sense is real.
They are simply expressions of fundamental mathematical constructions which one comes upon in striving to break down matter ever
further, and which provide the content for the underlying laws of
nature. In the beginning, therefore, for modern science, was the
form, the mathematical pattern, not the material thing. And . . .
the mathematical pattern is, in the final analysis an intellectual
concept. . . . The task of present-day atomic physics is to explore
this meaning [i.e., of the concept] in all its details. 36
Ibid., pp. 143-145, passim.
•• Heisenberg, Atlantic Monthly, CCIV, 5, loc. cit.,

35

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Heisenberg clarifies this still further:
Scientific concepts are idealizations. . . . But through this process
of idealization and precise definition the immediate connection with
reality is lost. The concepts still correspond very closely to reality
in the part of nature which had been the object of the research.
But the correspondence may be lost in other parts containing other
groups of phenomena.37

It is clear that here the distinction among the various sciences is being erased. In former times, biology, chemistry,
physics and mathematics each had its own proper area. A
status level even prevailed here. The biologist charged that
the philosopher was not a scientist; the chemist disclaimed
biology as a science; the physicist didn't regard the latter two
areas as really scientific; and, of course, the mathematician
lorded it over all. Perhaps the mathematician was correct, for
the unification of the sciences today is one being accomplished
by a mathematical method. Descartes' dream is close to fulfillment. The case is not one of physics and chemistry becoming biological, but rather of all three becoming mathematical.
Whether the process whereby this is being achieved is assimilation or osmosis or what have you, it is difficult to say-but it is
happening.
The problem of meaning was mentioned a few moments
earlier in connection with symbols and the expression of scientific problems in mathematical formulae. Let's explore this a
bit more for it raises the question of the extent to which a given
theory deals with facts.
According to Bertrand Russell (whom nearly all contemporary mathematicians call " Master ") , at rock bottom in
mathematics, we start from assumptions which are arbitrary.
Granted, he says, within a given system conclusions may be
affirmed, but this by no means is to confirm the statements.
Other systems could explain it as well. There can be different
logical systems for the same explanation. Many physical
hypotheses could be " verified " by several conflicting theories,
37

Heisenberg, Physics and Philosophy, p. 200.

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GERALD F. KREYCHE

each of which is logically self-consistent. As Pierre Duhem
says, " An infinity of different theoretical facts may be taken
for the translation of the same practical fact." 38
Several concrete applications of this principle appear to bear
out its validity. Certainly, Bohr's principle of complementarity
has proven most fruitful in practice; consider the application
to a corpuscular vs. a wave theory of light; a diffused mass vs.
an orbital theory of the atom; a system which employs alternately Euclidian or non-Euclidian geometry, etc.
Rapoport and other semanticists provide further backing for
these ideas. Writing in ETC, Rapoport claims:
According to our view you cannot have certainty with content .
. . . Some of us go on to draw a moral from this limitation: if
we cannot have certainty about the real world, we must learn to
live without it.
Mathematics . . . has had to admit that any set of axioms underlying a mathematical system is arbitrary and meaningless ....
Mathematics gained its stature by recognizing that it started not
with self-evident truths but with a set of arbitrary rules.
At the rock bottom of each system [of science or mathematics]
there are only meaningless terms. 39

Truth or falsity is no concern of theirs-only meaning. And
their principle of verification or meaning states that whatever
is non-sense is meaningless. Meaning can only occur within a
logical system which at rock bottom is arbitrary. Only logical
necessity, not metaphysical necessity is meaningfuJ.4° Wittgen88 P. Duhem, The Aim and Structure of Physical Theory in Readings in Philosophy Science, Wiener, p. 9l8.
89 Anatol Rapoport, " General Semantics and Thomism:
Their Contrasting Metaphysical Assumptions," ETC. A Review of General Semantics, XVI, 9l (Winter,
1959), pp. 140-146 passim.
•• Of course it was Descartes who set up the basis for this position, for in his
view, there are no intelligible necessities in things, because they measure, not up
to Divine ideas, but to an arbitrary Divine Will. In short, there is no basis for
truth in things themselves. Cf. Descartes' influence on Kant's a priori laws,
Berkeley's denial for a needless material world and James' will to believe.

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stein tells us that, " A necessity for one thing to happen because
another has happened does not exist. There is only logical
necessity." 41
These men warn us that in sub-atomic physics we cannot be
naive and set up mechanical models as was done in Galileo's
day. But they also remind us that we do have a substitute,
namely, the logical construct which is really mathematical construct. To insist that one draw a graphic picture or artists'
conception of sub-atomic parts, would be requested only by
one ignorant of physics and mathematics-surely not by the
physicist.
As Mach saw it, the atomic theory " is a mathematical model
for facilitating the mental reproduction of facts." 42 P. Frank
states:
The nature which the human mind rationalizes by means of theoretical science is not at all the nature that we know through our
senses. The law of causality and with it all of the theoretical sciences have as their object not empirical nature but the fictitious
nature of which we spoke above. 43

Duhem puts it this way. "Between the concrete facts, as
the physicist observes them, and the numerical symbols by
which these facts are represented in the calculations of the
theorist, there is an extremely great difference." 44
For Margenau, "A theory, still exact and deterministic in its
own terms, is related to the realm of immediate experience by
probabilities only." 45
Mach saw reality as merely a name for the sum total of the
complexes of observable sensations. 46 For Mach:
41 Ludwig Wittgenstein, Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus (London:
Routledge and
Kegan Paul Ltd., 1949), 6.37, p. 181.
42 Mach, op. cit., p. 45!l.
43 Frank, op. cit., p. 58.
44 Duhem, op. cit., p. !l7.
45 Henry
Margenau, Philosophy of Science in Readings in Philosophy Science,
Wiener, p. 549.
46 For a brief but excellent summary
of Mach's position here, cf. Joergensen,
"The Development of Logical Empiricism," International Encyclopedia of Unified Science, II, 9 (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1951), p. 9.

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GERALD F. KREYCHE

Sensations are not signs of things; but, on the contrary, a thing
is a thought-symbol for a compound sensation of relative fixedness.
Properly speaking, the world is not composed of " things" as its
elements, but of colors, tones, pressures, spaces, times, in short
what we ordinarily call individual sensations.47
In Mach's view all scientific statements are statements about
sense observations. In Russell's view, "a thing is a certain
series of appearances, connected with each other by continuity
and certain causal laws." 49 It might be added that for Russell
these laws are logical rather than ontological in origin and
structure. For Poincare, the general laws of science, e. g., conservation of energy, etc. are arbitrary conventions about the
use of words. 50
R. Carnap, one of the chief spokesmen for the old Wiener
Kreis has published a book whose title is very revealing. It is
Der logische Aufbau der Welt-The Logical Construction of
the World. Carnap claims that there are two languages which
we possess; one is a " thing-language " while the other is a
" phenomena-language." When we speak of tables, desks, etc.,
we are using a thing-language. However, it would be more
scientific to speak of a patch of red or green instead, thereby
employing a phenomena-language. The combining of patches
of green and red is a logical construction. We don't actually
see chairs, only their patches of color, etc. Carnap is thus forced
to view causality as beyond the realm of proof or disproof, for
it is a purely conventional definition.
Both Eddington and James Jeans saw physics in their day as
heading toward an idealistic philosophy. Eddington is quite
47 Mach, op. cit., p. 447. Cf. also, "In nature there is no law of refraction, only
different cases of refraction." Ibid., p. 448. The nominalism which serves a backdrop for this school of thought is unmistakable.
48 Cf. Frank, op. cit., p. 14.
48 Russell, op. cit., p. 111. If this is not succinct enough, Russell states, " More
generally, a 'thing' will be defined as a certain series of aspects, namely those
which would commonly be said to be of a thing." Ibid., p.
It is clear to
Russell that any other mode of speaking is a product of a " gratuitous metaphysics."
5 ° For a summary of Poincare's position here, cf. Frank, op. cit., p. 10.

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frank in holding that science more often makes than discovers
its laws and objects (and to that extent is idealistic.) Science
is obliged to interfere with the object it studies, thereby making
it impossible to know reality as it really is. This is somewhat
similar to Heisenberg's principle of interference. Consequently,
knowledge of the physical world is a structural knowledge
only. 51
In a particularly revealing text, Eddington explicitly discloses his leaning toward idealism and rationalism.
But if it were necessary to choose a leader from among the older
philosophers, there can be no doubt that our choice would be Kant.
. . . Kant anticipated to a remarkable extent the ideas to which
we are now being impelled by the modern development of physics.52
As has been made clear throughout this paper, Eddington
was not the only one influenced by Kant. The list of those so
inspired could go on indefinitely. Philipp Frank admits to the
Koenigberg philosopher's influence on himself and the entire
analytic school. 53
Max Planck declared that," Observed from without, the will
is causally determined. Observed from within it is free." 54
Finally along this line, would it be too much to suggest that
current views on the principle of complementarity had their
paths paved by Kant's dichotomy of the phenomenal and
noumenal orders? Does not the physicist have to guard himself against the " seductive " tendency of the " human spirit "
to view the sub-atomic order in terms of the laws of the macroscopic (much as Kant advised the philosopher to guard against
51 Cf Arthur Eddington, The Philosophy of Physical Science (New York:
Macmillan, 1939), p. 190.
52 Ibid., p. 188.
53 Cf. Frank, op. cit., p. 7.
54 Planck,
op. cit., p. 75. How different is this from Kant's view that the will
is phenomenally determined, but noumenally it can be free? For further evidence
of Kant's influence on Planck, cf. ibid., pp. 69-75. The view of Planck that either
the will is caused or it is free, sets up a false disjunctive, or at any rate, not a
perfect disjunctive. Here St. Thomas shows quite clearly that we can both have
our cake and eat it; the will can be caused and free. Cf. Summa. Theol., I, 83,
and esp. ad 3; and 1-11, 9, 3-4.

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the tendency to interpret the noumenal in terms of the phenomenal?) In contemporary science, is a realistic physics any
more possible than metaphysics was for Kant? Wittgenstein
sums up this view quite succinctly, "At the basis of the whole
modern view of the world lies the illusion that the so-called
laws of nature are the explanations of natural phenomena." 55
What has happened with respect to causality in today's science, may now be stated quite succinctly. Of the four causes
of reality formerly investigated by science, only one cause remains in its employ, namely, formal causality. But the formal
cause which remains is but an image of its former self, because
it is not the formal cause in the thing which is investigated; it
is the formal cause in the mind of the investigator-a sort of
exemplary formal cause-the logical construct.
There is no arguing here with a scientific method. All one
can legitimately ask is, "Does it work?". In this it is quite
permissible to be pragmatic. Yet the current reflection on
method and theory by modern thinkers has shown that perhaps
science is not as far away from philosophical presuppositions
as it once thought itself to be. As one historian observed, it is
paradoxical that while philosophy, traditionally accused of
being rationalistic, is becoming more empirical; science, traditionally accused of being empirical, is becoming increasingly
rationalistic. It now appears that empirical science which hoped
to put metaphysics to death, has succeeded only in being instrumental in its rebirth. Surely, some kind of unity between science and philosophy is once more in the offing.
GERALD

De Paul University
Chicago, Illinois

•• Wittgenstein, op. cit., 6.371, p. 181.

F. KREYCHE

VATICAN II:

THE THIRD SESSION

A THEOLOGIAN's

T

REPORT

HE FATHERS of the Church, especially St. Augustine,
fascinated by the magic of numbers, saw in the number
three a symbol of Heaven (the three Persons of the
Trinity) and in number four a symbol of earth (the four elements; earth, water, fire and air), both together forming the
mystic number seven, the number of creation and of redemption (sacraments, virtues). One is tempted, in this spirit, to
see the first three sessions of the Council as concerned principally with the Church as divine, and the fourth and final
one as looking to the world which is the concrete setting of
the Church. In the first sessions the new consciousness of herself which the Church has slowly and with difficulty attained
was formulated; once that had been accomplished she could
turn her attention to her situation in the world and her attitude to others.
In the first session the Council became truly ecumenical,
fully universal. Refusing to confine itself to the narrow Latin
limits and restricted perspective set for it by preparatory bodies
under the guidance of the Roman Curia, it constituted itself
as a Council that was really Catholic, not Latin only, or European, or even Western, but universal in fact and aim. As Pope
John wished, it became a Council that was above all pastoral
and ecumenical, not called to define or to condemn but to
adapt the Church to the needs of her divine mission in the
world to-day and to prepare the way for the unity of the whole
Christian community.
The second session made it clear that the central theme of
this Council is the Church, first in herself and then in her
relations with the other Christian communities and with the
world. From a concept of herself that had, in the West, be79

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come too exclusively juridical the Church turned to one that
is more inward and spiritual based on the primacy of the
ontology of grace that makes her one living reality with her
Founder as Head. She revealed herself as the sacrament of
Christ, the visible and efficacious sign of the saving presence
of God in history, and renewed and adapted her internal life of
worship and of sanctification in the Constitution on the liturgy,
the first practical fruits of the Council. At the same time the
Council began to take the daily directions of the Church from
the hands of jurists and functionaries and to place it in the
hands of pastors awake to the needs of their time. The conciliar
commission set up to work out the practical application of the
constitution on the liturgy was composed of residential bishops
from all over the world, a practical example of episcopal collegiality in fact, and a sign of what is to come, and to be normal
in the future of the Church.
The Council is sometimes seen as a body set up to promote
renewal and reform in the Church. It is far more than that.
It is the Church herself, in her divinely appointed leaders, in
the process of renewing and reforming herself. It is the work
of the divine Spirit acting within the Church to draw its members to greater likeness to their Head and to draw the attention of men to the Mystical Body of Christ. Once the Council
had become a truly Catholic one the Church could, in the
decisive second session, define herself as a sacrament, the
efficacious sign of God to the world; her external form could
more easily be seen as having value primarily as a sign and
means by which the Holy Spirit acts in the world, so that her
visible structure could be fully referred to the invisible reality
of Christ.
In his discourse to the Fathers at the opening of the third
session Pope Paul summed up the theme of this Council saying: " The hour has come when the Church must present herself, saying what Christ thinks and wishes her to be. . . . The
Church must define herself, and draw from the consciousness
which she has of herself the teaching which the Holy Spirit

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makes known to her." And the burden of his first encyclical,
Ecclesiam Suam, is that the Church is now more conscious of
herself as the Body of Christ and of her role as mediating between Christ and men, totally belonging to Christ, totally at
the service of men. This entails a new atmosphere and new
attitudes in the Church, above all a less defensive and polemical
attitude towards other Christian Churches, a readiness to
acknowledge the divine elements retained in other communions
and to enter into dialogue aiming at unity. For many commentators, the Council, in the first two sessions, brought the period
of the Counter-Reformation to an end, and in the third session
passed to the period of ecumenism, of dialogue with others.
The Pope's encyclical contains a solemn declaration of this
sincere desire for such dialogue and of a willingness to plan
for it.
Many circumstances have combined to make possible this
transformation in outlook and attitude within the Church. The
renewal of liturgical life and of theological thought as well as of
biblical studies was accompanied by the first sporadic but practical steps towards Christian unity, helped by the example of
non-Catholic Christians in their efforts for greater unity among
themselves. In the light of what is happening in the Christian
Churches one may discern one reason at least why divine Providence should allow the growth and world-expansion of atheistic
Communism. The presence of this common threat to Christian
values, no less than the religious indifference which is so common to-day, makes the need of Christian unity ever more
urgent. Under Communist, as under Nazi, persecution Catholic and Protestant and Jew suffered together; such unity, sealed
by blood, could not be forgotten, nor could such sacrifice be
without effect. As the Church enters into closer relations with
other religious bodies, and thinks of those who have been won
over to Communism or are hostile to religion, she has to examine the manner of her presence in the world to-day and
study the forces that mould men's thinking and influence their
choice.

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Such a profound transformation could not be expected to
take place in the Church without stress and strain on the part
of the human elements that give her visible and historical
reality. Each session so far has had its moment or moments
of tension, its dramatic high-lights. One is tempted to see the
Council, from the human view-point, as a symphony in four
movements all based on the contrast between two main themes.
In the first, the themes are stated, and reach their highest
contrast in the debate on the sources of revelation, a contrast
solved by Pope John's decision on Nov. 21st., 1962 to send the
schema back for revision by a mixed commission. When the
contrast showed itself once more in the second session, the vote
on episcopal collegiality and the diaconate (Oct. 30th., 1963)
showed that henceforth it was a question of majority versus
minority; one theme in the symphony begins to assert itself as
against the other. The minor theme remains vocal in the third
session, and leads to still another dramatic confrontation in
mid-October on the question of religious freedom and the declaration on the Jews; the echoes of this clash are heard again as
the session draws to a close, and a minority prevents a vote
being taken on the question of religious freedom. The major
theme is, however, firmly in the ascendant and will impress itself on the final movement as the whole work draws to a
peaceful close.
These high-lights are a good index to the change that has
been brought about in the Church by the Council, and to the
progress of the Council. In her effort at self-renewal, the
Church had to return to her sources, the sources of the divine
truth which she must preach and of her life of grace and love
in the liturgy. She could then begin her meditation on herself,
in the light of what Christ wants her to be, and with new
vigour for the task of expressing the life of Christ more fully
in herself define her essential structure more clearly than before. Having attained this more complete self-consciousness,
she could then, in the third session, turn her attention towards
other Christians and to the world, and prepare for the more

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practical reforms in her members that will allow them to take
part more fully in her mission.

The Church
The most important fruit of the third session is without
doubt the constitution on the Church. Since its introduction
towards the end of the first session, the text has undergone so
much revision as to be a new and newly ordered document.
This revision was begun in the first intersession, in the light of
the interventions made in Council and of written ones later
sent in. The revised text was debated from the opening of the
second session until the end of October, when the guiding-vote
on the famous five points (collegiality and the diaconate) was
taken; on the previous day (Oct. 29) the Fathers had decided
by a slender majority to include the schema on Our Lady as
the last chapter of the document on the Church. The text
was again revised by the theological commission between the
second and third sessions, and another chapter (the 7th.)
added dealing with the Church as tending to its final state in
Heaven.
The third session began its debates with this chapter and
the final one, on Our Lady (Sept. 15-18). One of the striking
features of this session was the procedure, adopted in order to
hasten the work of the Council, of voting on texts that had
been previously debated and revised, while debates on other
subjects were going on. This subjected the bishops to very
heavy pressure of work, but it enabled them to get through
an enormous amount of material in little over two months,
in 48 General Congregations and about 150 hours of debate.
In this period there were 659 oral interventions, and 1586
written ones, dealing with the 15 themes proposed for discussion and explained to the Fathers in 54 expositions (relations);
apart from the standing votes, to decide when a theme had
been sufficiently debated, there were 148 votes taken on individual sections or chapters and on texts as a whole. It was
also far more common in this session for bishops to speak not

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J. MC NICHOLL

just in their own name but on behalf of many others, a procedure that could become normal only as a result of experience and methods of organization learned during the preceding
sessions, and that considerably speeded up the pace of the
Council.
One feature, adopted to quicken the tempo of the Council,
did not find favour with all the bishops. When a text, revised
in the light of a debate, was being voted on part by part, and
chapter by chapter, the only votes allowed were those in favour
or those against the text. When the schema as a whole was
being voted, before it went to the public sessions presided over
by the Pope, the bishops could also vote with modifications;
but these suggestions, which sometimes were quite a large number, were not considered by the competent commission. For
instance, after the various " modi " in the decree on Ecumenism
had been voted, the text came back to the bishops, for definite
approval, with a significant change in regard to communicatio
in sacris which was evidently inspired by a similar passage in
the Decree on Catholic Eastern Churches. This change could
be interpreted as favouring the opinion of those who regard
the Anglican Church as on an equal footing with the Russian
and Oriental Churches since so large a number of Anglican
ministers, and perhaps bishops, have secured valid Orders.
(The second last Lambeth Conference announced that a complete fusion had been effected with the Old Catholic Church
of Holland) . The 300 or so modi sent in, dealing with this
change, were rejected by the Commission, on the grounds that
substractions could not be made from a text that had already
been approved.
The various chapters of the text on the Church were voted
on from Sept. 17th. onwards. The controversial points of chap.
3 (on the Hierarchy, the relations of the episcopate to the
Pope, and the diaconate) were voted on individually from
Sept. 21-29, with the power to ask for modifications of the
text. The other chapters were approved without difficulty; but
great anxiety was felt as the controversial third chapter, with

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its amendments, had not been placed before the Fathers for
their final vote with only one week left for the session to close.
Fears that it might not meet with Papal approval were dispelled when the text was given to the bishops on Nov. 14th.
and voted on on the 17th. While distributing this text, the
Council Secretary reminded the Fathers of the declaration
made by the theological commission on March 6, 1964, to the
effect that only those matters are to be regarded as defined by
the Council as of faith and morals which are expressly declared to be such. He added that the explicative note added
to the text by the theological commission was to be regarded
as part of the Acts of the Council. On Nov. 19th. the complete text was approved by vote; and after the final vote (with
only five dissentients) at the public session on Nov.
the
constitution on the Church was promulgated by the Pope.
Since the dogmatic constitution on the Church is the centre
and climax of the whole Council, that to or from which all the
other texts lead, the Council, by promulgating it, has substantially completed its work. It has, in the words of Pope Paul
at the close of the third session," brought the doctrinal work
of the First Vatican Council to completion; it has explored
the mystery of the Church, and outlined the divine plan of its
basic structure." It sees the Church " as being in Christ the
sacrament, that is the sign and instrument, of the intimate
union with God and of the unity of the whole human race "
(text., par. I). It sees all the faithful first of all in their fundamental state and in their equality as members of the holy people of God, so that the Church should not be seen primarily
as composed of groups with different functions and powers,
but as a community of persons bound together in Christ by
baptism, by faith and love. The divinely instituted powers
and degrees in the Church can then be seen as destined for the
service of the Church and of all men, as Christ himself said
that he came not to be served but to serve.
This Council notably completes the previous Vatican Council by its treatment of the episcopacy in itself and in its rela-

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J. MC NICHOLL

tion to the Pope. It was the right time to do so, as Pope Paul
said in his concluding address, since theologians had given
much thought to the subject, and the bishops were anxious
to have their status clearly defined. The spread of the Church
throughout the world, and the problems met with in the daily
government of the Church, called for such a declaration. The
teaching set forth in the text, continued the Pope, is not new.
"That which until now was lived is now expressed; that which
was uncertain is now made clear; that which was meditated,
discussed, and to some extent controversial, attains now a
peaceful formulation." The bishops are not just vicars or delegates of the Pope; as consecrated to the fullness of the priesthood by the integral sacrament of Orders, they are placed by
the Holy Spirit to rule the Church of God. As united among
themselves with and under the Pope they constitute a college
in succession to the college of the Apostles with full and supreme power over the universal Church, by the will of the
divine Founder of the Church. 1
1 According to the famous explanatory
note referred to above, in the light of
which the teaching in this chapter of the text is to be understood, (i.) the word
college is not to be taken in a juridical sense. It signifies that the episcopate is a
permanent body in which the relation between bishops and Pope is similar to,
but not identical with, that which existed between the Apostles and Peter.
(ii.) Membership of this college is acquired by episcopal consecration and hierarchical communion with its head, the Pope, and its members. Such consecration
places the recipient in the radical state of being able to share in the government
of the Church; but the actual exercise of that power depends on the juridical
assignment of an office or subjects by which hierarchical communion is effectively
realized. (iii.) The episcopal college has full and supreme power over the whole
Church only in so far as the college includes its head who, at his discretion,
determines the manner in which that power is exercised. (iv.) The college acts
fully as a college only at intervals, and only with the consent of its head, and
never without that consent.
The question of the validity and liceity of the exercise of episcopal authority
by Orientals separated from Rome is left open to theological discussion.
This note does not, even as a foot-note, form part of the text voted on by the
bishops, and approved and promulgated by the Pope. It is, however, included
in the Acts of the Council; and the Pope referred to it while approving the constitution on the Church. The dogmatic value of this note will certainly be the
object of much discussion. It can at any rate be regarded as an instrument of
theological research, and its usefulness will be measured by the way it aids the
theologian to clarify the teaching set out in the text.

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Pope Paul expressed his joy at being able to approve this
text that so honours his brethren in the episcopate. Rather
than fear any lessening of his own divinely given authority he
felt that through it his power to rule the Church would be
strengthened by this closer union with the world-episcopate.
The application of the conciliar decrees, he said, would require
the establishment of commissions in which the collaboration
of the episcopate would be indispensable. The liturgical commission, already set up and active, with powers formerly
entrusted only to the Congregation of Rites, sets a head-line
for such future commissions where residential bishops rather
than officials of the Curia will guide the process of aggiornamento. The many problems set for the Church by the world
to-day, continued the Pope, make it advisable for him to convoke and consult aptly designated members of the episcopate
from time to time in order to benefit by their counsel and
experience and to have the support of their authority. The
bishops will be asked to take part not only in the post-conciliar
commissions, but also in the various organs of the Roman
Curia, whose reform is at present being studied by a special
commission. The Pope did not refer expressly to the episcopal
senate which so many wished to see established. The prudent
way in which he has acted up to now suggests that he may
gradually work towards setting up some such body, perhaps
as growing out of the various post-conciliar commissions and
on the analogy of the present co-ordinating commission of the
Council. At the end of chapter 3 the restoration of the diaconate as a permanent and separate ministry in the Latin
Church is envisaged. Deacons, as belonging to the hierarchy,
may, when duly authorised, administer solemn baptism, communicate the faithful and bless their marriages, give Viaticum
to the sick, preside at meetings of the faithful and read the
sacred scriptures to them, bestow the sacramentals, and officiate at funerals and burials. They may also be given charge
of works of temporal administration and of charity. They can
thus, especially where there are few or no priests, be of very

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AMBROSE J. MC NICHOLL

great service to the community. If the local episcopal conference finds it fitting and necessary, the diaconate may, with the
approval of the Pope, be restored in that region, and conferred on married men of mature age. If young men are
ordained deacons they will be bound by the law of celibacy.
The fourth chapter, on the place of the laity in the Church,
had been fully debated in the second session, and had been
amended in view of that debate. It provides an outline for a
full theology of the laity, a new and most significant phase in
the Church's renewed meditation on herself, and it meets the
growing demand of the lay members of the Church for a more
explicit and positive recognition of their place and role in the
plan of salvation and in the activity of the Church. It was
fitting that at this session not only male members of the laity
(raised from IS to 21) were present, but also, for the first
time in conciliar history, women, to the number of thirteen,
including both Religious and unmarried seculars. Perhaps the
next and final session will see a married pair added to the lay
auditors, to symbolize the presence of the Church to men in
every state of life.
The nature of the Church is largely determined by the ends
which, in God's plan, it pursues, and which are summed up as
the sanctification of its members on earth so that they may
join the blessed in Heaven. The relation between the general
call to holiness and the more specific one to the state of evangelical perfection is clarified in chapters five and six, while the
final state of the Church as gathered in glory around its Head
in Heaven is described in chapter seven. The final chapter
treats of Our Lady in the mystery of Christ and the Church
in a way that does justice to her sublime prerogatives and at
the same time warns against such excesses as marr popular
devotion to Mary in certain countries. The most controverted
points in this text concerned certain titles commonly given to
Our Lady, and principally those of "Mediatrix" and" Mother
of the Church." The text retains the title " Mediatrix," not
as strictly theological, but as one of the many titles given to

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her by popular devotion, but does not salute Mary as Mother
of the Church. At the end of the third session Pope Paul put
an end to this controversy by solemnly proclaiming Mary as
Mother of the Church, a title which admirably sums up the
eminent and unique place which she holds in the plan of salvation and in the Church.
Explaining why he chose this moment to bestow such a title
on Our Lady, Pope Paul recalled that the central theme of this
Council is that of the Church. " The reality of the Church,"
he continued, " is not confined only to its hierarchical structure,
its liturgy, its sacraments, its juridical enactments. Its inner
nature, and the primal source of its sanctifying power, are to
be found in its mystical union with Christ. We cannot think
of such a union apart from her who is the Mother of the Incarnate Word, and whom Jesus Christ himself wished to be so
intimately united to Himself for our salvation. Hence it is
within the vision of the Church that we must set the loving
contemplation of the marvels which God worked in His holy
Mother. And the knowledge of the true Catholic teaching on
Mary will always be a key to the exact understanding of the
mystery of Christ and of the Church."

Divine Revelation
The deeper self-awareness which the Church has gained is
based on a renewed study of divine truth as made known to us
by Revelation. The controversial text dealing with the sources
of Revelation was the occasion for the council in its first session
to assert its pastoral end ecumenical character and to sanction
newer trends in biblical scholarship and in theology. This
matter was not touched on in the second session. A revised
version of the text, one that met with general approval, was
debated in the third session from Sept. 30 to Oct. 6.
The new text deals with the role of Sacred Scripture and
Tradition in allowing man to know and encounter God. It
sees Revelation as more than the communication of abstract
truths since it includes also God's actions and words, and is

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summed up in the Person of Christ. Faith implies not only
intellectual assent to revealed truth but a vital encounter with
Christ made present in the Church to all men. Divine truth
is not just a static collection of set formulae; it is also a personal communication which the Divine Spirit aids the faithful
to grasp and the Church to penetrate more deeply. The text
is important not only for the faithful, but also for those outside
the Church, insofar as it explains why the Church holds her
beliefs, and how she knows that God has indeed revealed Himself to men. It encourages biblical scholars to make prudent
use of modern means of research, and appeals to the faithful
to nourish their piety and further their doctrinal formation by
recourse to the Bible.
The text does not define the relation between Sacred Scripture and Tradition, since theologians are still not agreed on
this question. In their criticism of Protestant views which
regarded Scripture as the sole rule of faith Catholic theologians
had generally tended to insist that Tradition is a distinct and
independent means of knowing divine truth, and that some
truths are learned from it that are not expressed in the Scriptures. The written word always has need of an interpreter,
and the living authority of the teaching Church is both the
judge of the meaning of the inspired writings and is by itself a
sufficient rule of faith.
The more general tendency now is to see Tradition not so
much as a distinct source of revealed truth but as the interpreter of Scripture, and to regard both Scripture and Tradition
as united and active within the one life of the Church in her
temporal continuity. Revelation is considered, not as a book
or a tribunal, but as God's living word as He now speaks by
the Church to His people, as a revealing that is active and
present to all times and places by means of the Church as she
meditates on the Scriptures and explains them to her children.
God is the one source of revelation; and the Scriptures, as interpreted by Tradition, contain, at least implicitly, all that He
has revealed.

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By adopting a non-committal formulation the Council leaves
this point open for theological discussion. This policy of compromise has been greeted with satisfaction by many of the
more progressive theologians; it does at least mean that the
Council has not rejected their views. But it is possible that
the more conservative thinkers may be equally happy, and not
just because the Council did not accept the view which they
oppose, but because the way is left open for a decision to be
made later on, for instance by the Holy Office, or for reprobation of theories that may be considered extreme.
Many bishops moreover feel that a non-committal policy is
not what one would expect from a General Council, even if its
aims are primarily pastoral, and that the desire not to offend
those outside the Church should not lead the Council to vagueness especially on matters that have immediate practical bearings. On the question, for instance, of the relation of nonCatholics to the one true Church of Christ, the teaching of
Pius XII-that only those who are members of the Catholic
Church are members of the Mystical Body-is not mentioned,
and the doctrine is so phrased that an answer to the question,
e. g., "Are the Anglicans members of the one true Church? "
is left more uncertain than before. When the practical consequences of this ecumenical attitude are raised, as with regard
to inter-confessional acts, such as taking part in non-Catholic
services, or allowing non-Catholics to hold services in Catholic
Churches, it will not be any easier to come to a decision. At
any rate, some uncertainty is an invitation to the theologians
to busy themselves with the problems involved; and the postconciliar commissions and the new code of Canon Law will
issue practical directives.

Ecumenism
In a lecture at the Greek College, Rome, on the significance
of the Decree on Ecumenism for the dialogue with the Orthodox
Churches, Cardinal Lercaro said he was convinced that this Decree and the Constitutions on the Sacred Liturgy and on the

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Church constitute an indivisible trilogy since they touch what
is deepest in the theology of the Church, and that they form
the very heart of the Council willed by Pope John. This decree
defines the Catholic attitude towards the ecumenical movement and establishes the principles which must guide Catholic
effort in favour of the restoration of Christian unity which,
from the beginning, has been one of the principal aims of the
Council. If Christ has destined His Church for all men, a renewed self-consciousness must lead the Church to meditate on
her relations with men, and especially with those who profess
the name and faith and share the sacraments of Christ.
Towards the end of the first session, the original draft on
this subject was sent back for revision. The revised text was
thoroughly debated at the second session, from Nov. 18 to
Dec. 2, and the text was altered in the light of that debate. It
was presented at the third session for voting, without debate,
but with the power to suggest modification, from Oct. 5 to 8;
the individual chapters were voted on from Nov. 11-14, and
the text as a whole was passed on Nov. 20. The next day it was
approved in public session, with 11 dissentients, and promulgated by the Pope. 2
This conciliar document is not a dogmatic constitution, but
takes the form of a decree since it has immediate practical and
pastoral implications. It does, however, present us with a
theology of Church unity and the doctrinal basis of Christian
dialogue. From this point of view, the decree is best seen as a
prolongation of the text on the Church since it recalls some of
its main ideas to serve as directives for action in search of
Christian unity.
2 The bishops found that the text presented to them for final approval
at the
end of the session had, in nineteen places, been re-touched in accordance with
"benevolent suggestions authoritatively expressed," as Monsignor Felici put it.
Some of these changes were merely formal. Others, where the reference is to
non-Catholics, modify the meaning, as when " the disciples of the Lord " is changed
to " those who profess to be disciples of the Lord "; or when " under the action
of the Holy Spirit, in the Scriptures they find God who speaks to them in
Christ," is changed to " invoking the Holy Spirit they seek God who as it were
speaks to them in Christ." These changes were not voted on in themselves; to
vote against them would, at this stage, have been to reject the entire text.

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Although this text is intended primarily for those who believe in Christ, it is not without significance for mankind in
general. The divisions between men and nations are largely
based on religious grounds. The example of the Council in
seeking to restore unity among Christians and to establish
relations with other religions cannot but be effective and contagious and a potent force in promoting world-unity. Every
attempt to achieve Christian unity will at the same time help
to remove the scandal to the world of the divided if not opposed
Christian Churches and serve to draw the attention of men to
the true Church of Christ. Disunion, no less than the faults of
her members, hides from men the true face of the Bride of
Christ. Perhaps the gravest fault of Christians has been precisely that they destroyed the unity which Christ willed to be
one of the fundamental marks of His Church. Catholics are
not altogether without blame in this respect. And the Church,
in her deep and humble meditation on herself, does not hesitate to make this confession, and to ask pardon of past injuries
from God and her separated brethren ( Text, pars. 3 and 7) .
It is this aspect of the Church in her human members, as penitent, that may finally overcome the prejudice of many separated from her, and to whom an unwillingness to admit defects
or injustices in the past could only seem at variance with the
truth and humility of the genuine Church of Christ.
The first chapter, on the Catholic principles of Ecumenism,
teaches that the complete unity willed by Christ, and the fullness of His revealed truth and of the means of salvation instituted by Him, are found only in the Catholic Church. It explains the various ways in which the separate Churches and
communities are related to the one Church of Christ, and
singles out the divine elements found in them. In regard to
ecumenical activity, to which the second chapter is dedicated,
the Council urges Catholics to adopt a charitable and positive
approach to their separated brethren, and to consider rather
what they hold in common than what keeps them divided.
They should try to understand the mentality and attitudes of

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other Christians, and recognise what is true and divine in their
beliefs, and be ready to join with them in the common defense
of Christian values and in charitable activities. The bishops
are asked to encourage and direct participation by the faithful
in ecumenical activity. Directly ecumenical dialogue, however,
should be engaged in only by qualified persons, especially by
adequately prepared theologians, and in ways approved by the
local bishop or episcopal conference.
Evidence of the way in which a more truly Catholic consciousness has spread in the Church is provided by sections of
this text which draw a distinction between unity and uniformity (pars. 4 and 16) . Within the one Church due freedom
must be allowed for variety in forms of the spiritual life, of
liturgical worship, and of the theological explanation of divine
truth. This is particularly stressed in the section of the third
chapter dealing with the Orthodox Churches. Unity is preserved in the Orthodox East by fraternal communion between local groupings of sister Churches, usually around a
patriarchal See. Within each group there is a distinct and
living tradition, expressed in its own proper discipline, liturgy,
spirituality and theology. The Orientals have always feared
that union with Rome, after agreement had been reached on
matters of divine faith, would imply the destruction of these
venerable traditions and practices and the imposition of ways
of thought and worship that are foreign to them. Reason for
such fears has often been afforded by those Latins who regard
the Eastern Churches as quaint and almost archaeological relics
of the past, or at best as picturesque appendages that are barely
tolerated by the Church. This text assures the Eastern Christians that the Catholic Church not only allows but welcomes
variety within the limits of the one true faith, and regards it
as a sign of the universality of the Church destined by Christ
for all nations and all cultures. Such diversity is not an obstacle
to unity, but rather enhances its beauty. 3
3 At the Solemn Liturgy
in the Siro-Malancarese Rite during the Eucharistic
Congress in Bombay on Dec. 4th. Pope Paul referred to this theme: " The

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On the practical level, since the Orthodox Churches have
preserved the Mass and the Sacraments, Catholics are allowed
by the text to join in prayers with these separated brethren,
especially when they are offered for the unity of the Church.
Participation in their religious services, insofar as this would
be taken to signify membership of their Church, remains unlawful; insofar as it signifies use of the means of grace left to us
by Christ, it may be not only lawful but desirable, especially
where refusal to take part would be a cause of scandal to others.
Such sharing in the worship of God, if it is to be truly ecumenical, should be done with the consent of both churches,
and with the approval of the bishops concerned.
The section of the third chapter dealing with the Churches
and Communities of the Reform recognises that unity, though
ardently desired, is an ideal that still seems far from realization, and it confines itself to indicating the mentality with
which Catholics should approach this task, and such preparatory steps as careful study by priests and theologians of Protestant teachings, and meetings of experts with representatives
of the separated Churches under the supervision of the local
bishop. Many of the observers present at the Council have
expressed their satisfaction with this text, especially as evidence of a more positive and constructive approach to the
problem of unity. Oscar Cullmann, one of the leading Protestant theologians among the observers, wrote, in the Neue
Zurcher Zeitung of Nov. 5, that the Council has opened the
door to real dialogue, and contributes much towards the restoration of unity by its teaching on the collegiality of the bishops,
plurality of these traditions is a living witness to the Catholicity of the Church,
which is at the same time for all men, embracing all cultures, and also can express in a particular way the truth and beauty which exist in each culture." He
then quoted from the second chapter of the Constitution on the Church: " The
Church fosters and takes to itself, in so far as they are good, the ability, riches
and customs in which the genius of each people expresses itself. Taking them to
itself, it purifies, strengthens, elevates and consecrates them," and continued:
" Perhaps in the past, the idea of legitimate plurality joined 'with mutual cooperation may have been obscured at times. But today there must be a new dedication to this idea."

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by its dynamic theology of the Church, by the restoration of
the Diaconate, by its formulation of mariological teaching, and
by its treatment of Revelation and of Ecumenism. And Cardinal Bea, receiving the observers on Oct. 27, could thank them
for their presence at the Council, and not only for their prayers
and suggestions which had been so helpful, but for the fact of
their presence which was a concrete reminder to the bishops of
the urgency of the problem of unity and of the ecumenical
aims of the Council.

The Catholic Oriental Churches
The text of the Decree on the Eastern Churches in communion with Rome was debated from Oct. 15 to Oct. 19 and
was the occasion of some notable and courageous interventions
in favour of a sincere and profound respect for these Churches
and in condemnation of ill-judged and harmful efforts in the
past to latinize them. It is such actions, declared Monsignor
Slipyi, that make the Orthodox believe that union with Rome
is but a bridge over which one passes to fall into the Latin sea.
The first votings (Oct. 20-22) resulted in many modifications
being proposed, which was only to be expected since the decree
is intended to be temporary, to remain in force only until more
perfect unity with the Orthodox Churches has been secured.
Although it concerns Catholics of Eastern Rite, its aim is to
prepare the way for unity with Oriental non-Catholic Churches
by removing some obstacles and allowing some forms of intercommunion. The final vote on the text as a whole was taken
on Nov. 20, and on the 21st the vote in public session revealed
that 39 bishops were still dissatisfied with the text. It may be
for this reason that the Pope, in promulgating the Decree,
decided that it will not come into force until January 21, and
granted the Patriarchs the faculty of anticipating or of extending the end of this time limit.
The Decree opens with a declaration that the Church honours
and respects the customs, rites, ecclesiastical traditions and
discipline that are proper to the Oriental Churches as part of

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the common heritage of the one true Church. Such variety
does not harm but rather affirms the unity of the Church.
The ancient rites and customs, and the internal discipline, of
those Churches must be preserved. If adaptation to modern
needs is required, this must be seen to by the Churches concerned and especially by the Patriarchs, whose special rights
and privileges are confirmed by this Council.
Most of the Decree is taken up with practical ways in which
inter-communion may be practised in territories where Catholics of Latin and of Eastern rites, or where Catholics and Orthodox, live together. Since simple priests may, in the Oriental
tradition, be ministers of the Sacrament of Confirmation, Catholic priests of Oriental rite are empowered by the Decree to
confirm faithful of the Latin rite. The obligation to assist at
Mass on Sundays and Feast Days may be fulfilled on the previous evening, after the time of Vespers. The faithful may go
to confession to any Catholic priest with the necessary faculties
whatever his rite. The marriage of a Catholic with an Orthodox
in the presence of an Orthodox priest is declared to be valid,
and a Sacrament, although unlawful.
Oriental Catholics are reminded of their special duty to
work towards the unity of their Church and the Orthodox ones.
In order to foster such unity certain forms of inter-communion
are allowed which do not endanger the unity of the Church
or the faith of those taking part, and which do not entail profession of error or indifferentism or give rise to scandal. The
Sacraments of Penance, the Eucharist, and the Annointing of
the Sick may be administered to Orthodox Christians in good
faith who freely ask for them, for the good of souls may often
demand this. Catholics may receive the same Sacraments from
validly ordained Orthodox ministers where recourse to a Catholic priest is difficult. Permission is also granted to Catholics
to take part, for a sufficient reason, in the sacred functions of
the Orthodox Church; the same permission is extended to
Orthodox believers in regard to Catholic services.
These concessions are made by the Church on its own initia-

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tive, and they are unilateral. This is about as far as the Church
can go without entering into some kind of formal agreement
with the Orthodox Churches and without the risk of being
accused of proselytism. Unity can probably be restored as
much if not more by the gradual extension of such forms of
practical collaboration in Christian living as by meetings of
theologians and of representatives from the separated Churches.
What effects the texts so far promulgated by the Council
may have outside the Catholic Church depends as much on
those whom she wishes to engage in dialogue as on her own
members. We will not have to wait long for their effects within
the Church. The liturgical reform is already under way and
will be most efficacious in diffusing the new self-consciousness
of the Church among the faithful. The number of commentaries on the Constitution on the Liturgy that have already
appeared make it clear that we can expect a very vigorous
development in the realms of theological thought and of biblical
scholarship, especially in regard to the nature of the Church
and to the relation between Sacred Scripture and Revelation.
The renewal that is now taking place in moral theology will
be paralleled by similar trends in other areas of theological
science where abstract procedures and mentalities will be complemented by a more personalist approach. Whole sections of
theology have still to be cultivated or revised in the light of
new problems and of the advances made by secular science:
the theology of the apostolate, of work, of marriage, of the
missions, of the lay state and spirituality, to mention only a
few. It is the patient, often thankless if not actually hampered,
work of genuine and dedicated theologians that has, to a great
extent, been responsible for the growth in self-knowledge which
the Church has made in the Council. The Council will, in turn,
stimulate the progress and perfecting of theology, all the more
that the bishops have now been confronted with the problems
of the universal Church and made familiar with the work and
tendencies of theologians to-day.

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Pastoral Themes
Once the main lines of the theological exposition of the
nature and prayer of the Church and of her relations to other
Christian bodies had been determined, the Council could turn
its attention to the reform and adaptation of the internal structure of the Church and to the renewal of the spiritual life of
her members. Such pastoral themes alone would have been
sufficient reason for convoking a General Council; the internal
reform of the Church was the object of several previous Councils. The Second Vatican Council will be a land-mark in the
history of the Church for many reasons, not the least being
that it approached the subject of internal renewal from within
the wider context of mature theological reflection on the nature
of the Church and of a general liturgical revival.
The purely pastoral texts are brief. The major documents
of the Council have placed the conditions that make real reform possible, having indicated the general principles that must
guide and inspire all the activity of reform and adaptation.
With the texts that remain to be considered in the last phase
of the Council the work of internal reform in the main practical spheres is set in motion, and will be continued through
the post-conciliar commissions which will have more time and
experience to propose more detailed legislation.
Discussion on one of these pastoral texts, that on the pastoral duties of bishops, had started in the second session. The
parts that had not been debated, including the original schema
on the care of souls which is now incorporated into this text,
to
When votes
came before the Council from Sept.
were later taken (Nov. 4 and 6) so many modifications were
proposed that the text had to be sent back for revision. The
amended text was ready at the end of the session, but there
was not enough time to vote on it. Moreover, since this text
depends so much on the one on the Church it could not be
passed until that one had been approved.
The three chapters of this schema deal with the relations
of the bishops to the universal Church, to their own dioceses,

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and of dioceses among themselves. The first chapter is notable
for the section on the relations between the bishops and the
Roman Curia. It affirms the desire of the bishops to take a
more immediate part in the government of the whole Church
in ways to be determined by the Pope, perhaps through some
form of central council. It touches on the problem of the reform of the Curia and suggests that bishops from all over the
world should be consulted on decisions of policy and on judgments on authors. The text also denies the right of the State,
still claimed in some countries, to interfere in the nomination
of bishops. In the second chapter it recommends that old or
ailing bishops should freely resign from their Sees, and it suppresses the right formerly enjoyed by pastors not to be removed from their parish or relieved of their pastoral charge.
In this chapter a brief section is devoted to the relations between the local bishop and the exempt Religious of his diocese,
granting greater episcopal control over the works of the apostolate in his territory. Detailed directives on this and other
such practical problems are left to the consideration of the
Commission for the revision of the Code of Canon Law.
One of the measures taken by the Co-ordinating Commission
to speed up the work of the Council was to order that several
texts prepared in the form of full schemata should be reduced
to a short series of propositions; the original texts would be
used by the post-conciliar commissions. This measure was not
quite successful since the majority of the bishops wanted, in
some of these matters, a thorough examination of the questions that face the Church in her effort to adapt herself to
actual conditions, and pressed for a full text that would do
justice to the theme considered. For these reasons the shortened texts on priestly life and ministry, and on the missionary
activity of the Church, were sent back for more detailed treatment. It was unfortunate that this last document should have
been judged inacceptable just after Pope Paul, who assisted
at a conciliar Mass during the debate on the missions to
show how much importance he attached to them, had recom-

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mended the Fathers to accept the text. Seemingly he had been
advised that the bishops would certainly accept the text in its
reduced form. This incident did at least serve to emphasize
the freedom of the Council debates and votings.
The beginning of the debate on priestly life and ministry
(Oct. 13 to 15) was notable for the fact that for the first
time a group of parish priests (35 in all) attended the General
Congregation. They continued to attend until the end of the
session, and sent their observations on the texts to the competent commissions through Monsignor Veuillot. One of their
number, Don Marcos of Madrid, addressed the Council and
voiced some of the desires and hopes of the parish clergy whom
he represented. On the morning of Oct. 28 Mass was concelebrated by the Secretary General, Mgr. Felici, and twelve of
the parish priests.
Three other pastoral texts were debated from the lOth to the
19th of November, those on the renewal and adaptation of the
religious life, on the training of priests, and on Christian education. Some of the propositions of the first of these texts did
not obtain the necessary two-thirds of the votes cast, and will
have to be revised. Since voting on the major texts to be
promulgated at the end of the session was going on during
these days, the debates were hurried, but sufficient material
was provided to ensure that the texts could be presented in a
more perfect form at the next session. It is a pity that these
important texts should have been shortened in an attempt to
end the Council at its third session, and even more so that the
debates on such vital matters could not be carried on with
the leisure and attention which they deserve. The text on
Christian education was voted on as soon as its debate was
finished, on the 19th and 20th; the changes suggested will have
to be considered before the final text can be presented for
approval at the next session. The text on seminaries and
priestly training has won general praise and it may lead to
significant changes in a system that dates back to the Council
of Trent, especially in that it gives Episcopal Conferences the

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power to adapt the methods of formation according to local
needs and traditions.
The last document set before the Council deals with the
Sacrament of Marriage. It is neither a dogmatic constitution
nor a decree, but what is technically called a V otum, and is a
series of practical and juridical recommendations concerning
such questions as mixed marriages, impediments, and the legal
form of the marriage contract. A vote was taken at the last
General Congregation (Nov. 20) on the proposal to refer the
questions raised by this text to the personal decision of the
Pope, perhaps with the hope that changes in the existing legislation concerning marriage could be made without having to
wait for the next session. The proposal was carried, by 1592 as
against 427 votes, with the result that this text will not come
before the Council again. The Pope, it may be remembered,
has also reserved to himself the right to decide on the lawfulness of new methods of contraception.
The fourth chapter of the Constitution on the Church deals
with the place of the laity in the Church. It is the first time
that a General Council has treated expressly of this subject.
For the first time also the kindred theme of the apostolate of
the laity has been debated in a General Council in an attempt
to draw out some of the practical consequences of the Church's
meditation upon herself as the People of God and as the Mystical Body of Christ. The text on this subject had been presented at the last General Congregation of the second Session.
It was debated during the third Session from the 7th to the
13th of October, a debate that summed up the practical experience of bishops in dealing with their people, and that did justice to the aspirations of lay-folk throughout the world.
It was fitting that lay people, men and women, should have
been present in the Council for this period, and that they could
voice their sentiments through addresses made on their behalf
to the Fathers by Pat Keegan, James Norris and Juan Vasquez.
One of the most significant moments of the Public Session
which closed the third phase of the Council was that of the

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Communion during the Mass which the Pope concelebrated
with twenty-four of the bishops. The Auditors approached the
Papal altar from the Tribune of St. Andrew to receive the
Sacrament from the hands of the Vicar of Christ. This union
between the head and members of the Church on earth, at the
moment of receiving the Body of Christ, symbolized most
aptly the spiritual unity of the members of the Mystical Body
of Christ with their Head, and pointed to what is both the
source and the goal of all the apostolic activity of the Church
on earth, viz, sacramental oneness with Christ.

The Non-Christian Religions
When the bishops re-assemble for the fourth and last session
of the Council, which should not be a long one, the text on the
Apostolate of the Laity will be voted on without debate. So
too will the schema on Divine Revelation, although suggestions
for improvement of the text and of those dealing with priestly
life and ministry, relations with non-Christian religions, and
religious freedom may be sent in until January 31st. There
will be votings on the modifications that have been already
proposed in Council on the schemata that treat of the pastoral
duties of bishops, the re-adaptation of Religious Life, the training of priests, and the relation of the Church to non-Christian
religions. Short debates will take place on the texts concerning
the Church in the world to-day, religious freedom, the missionary activity of the Church, and priestly life and ministry.
If the attention of Christians separated from the Catholic
Church was especially focussed on the third session, and particularly on the Decree on Ecumenism, it is in the final session
that the world in general may be expected to show most interest. However important in themselves and for the internal
life of the Church the other texts to be promulgated may be,
they will be overshadowed, for most people at least, by those
in which the Church defines her attitude to the world to-day,
to the great non-Christian religions, and to the thorny question
of religious freedom.

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It was at the personal request of Pope John that Cardinal
Bea, and his Secretariate for Christian Unity prepared a declaration on the Jews, not only to stress the special relation between the Church and the people and religion of the Old Law,
but also to deny one of the motives most invoked in antiSemitic movements, the charge levelled against the Jewish
people of collective deicide. The text prepared by the Secretariate was introduced at the second session as a declaration
attached to the Decree on Ecumenism. It was not discussed
except in the general debate on Eumenism. The text was revised in the inter-session, and discussed during the third session
on Sept.
and 30th. The revised version, probably due to
pressure brought to bear on the Vatican by the Arab States,
did not refer to this charge of deicide, and seemed to many of
the bishops, and to the Jews, to extend an invitation to the
Jews to join the Church by an act that could only be interpreted by believing Jews as national apostasy.
One of the uneasy moments of the third session followed on
the report that Cardinal Bea had been informed on Oct. 9th
by the Secretary General, acting on instructions received " from
higher authority," that the text on the Jews was to be annexed
to the Constitution on the Church, and would therefore come
under the competence of the Theological Commission as well
as of the Secretariate for Christian Unity; and that the document on religious freedom would be revised by a commission
of ten members, three from his Secretariate, three from the
Theological Commission, and four nominated by the Pope.
Three of these nominees would, it seemed, be Fathers known
to be very critical of the declaration on religious freedom. This
report moved sixteen Cardinals to send a letter of protest to
the Pope on Oct. 11th, asking him to intervene to defend the
rights of the Council. There was fear that a situation would
develop that was similar to the clash between Council and
Theological Commission on the subject of the collegiality of
the bishops at the second session.
Tension was eased by the decision to leave these controverted

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texts to the competence of the Secretariate for Unity which
would submit them to the consultative vote of designated members of the Theological Commission, and to unite the declaration on the Jews to one on the non-Christian religions, as many
bishops had requested during the debate, so as to form a document that could eventually be added as an appendix to the
Constitution on the Church.
The text finally agreed on deals with the charge of deicide
in order to refute it; and, on the subject of conversion, it says
that "the Church awaits the day, known only to God, when
all peoples with one voice will call on the Lord and serve Him
in unison." It condemns all discrimination against persons by
reason of their race or religion, and reminds men that God is
the common Father of all. The first part of the Declaration
treats of the non-Christian religions, with a paragraph devoted
to Islam in particular since many of its basic doctrines agree
with those of Christianity. Catholics are asked to study these
religions, and to acknowledge the good and positive elements
in them. That the Church is anxious to promote good relations
with these religions is shown in a practical way by the Pope's
establishment, last Pentecost, of an organism, under the presidency of Cardinal Marella, to study and to encourage contacts with the great and ancient religions of the East. The
Declaration was voted on and passed at the General Congregation of Nov. 20th. This was not only the first time the
present Council had voted on such a text, but the first time
that any Council voted on this subject. Since the Fathers were
allowed to suggest modifications to the text, these will have to
be considered by the Secretariate for Unity before it presents
the definitive text for voting in the next session.

Religious Freedom
As the bishops left the Council Hall after the last General
Congregation of the second session, many of them openly voiced
their disappointment that the text on religious freedom had
not been accepted by vote at least as a sufficient basis for dis-

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cussion. Their disappointment at the end of the third session
was even greater. The text, revised in the inter-session, had
been debated from the 23rd to the 25th of September, a debate
which showed that there was strong opposition to, and even
stronger support for, an open and sincere declaration in favour
of freedom, both of individuals and of groups, in matters
of conscience and religion, and an exposition of the doctrinal basis of such a right. The fears aroused by the October
crisis already referred to were allayed when it became known
that the Secretariate for Unity would remain responsible for
the text but would seek the advice of the Theological Commission. The consultative vote of this Commission, on Nov. 9th,
was favourable to the text, which was handed to the Secretary
General on Nov. 11th. It was given to the bishops on the 17th,
to be voted on by the 19th.
On the 18th, the Secretary General made it known that many
bishops (the number is said to have been about 120, mostly
Spanish and Italian) wanted the vote to be deferred as they
had not enough time to reflect on the text which, by reason of
the many changes made in it, could be regarded as a new text
and which therefore, according to the rules of the Council,
should first be debated before being submitted to vote. The
Moderators and Presidency had decided therefore to leave it
to the bishops to determine by vote on the next day whether
the text should be debated again or voted on at once. On
the 19th, when the bishops expected to vote on this issue,
Cardinal Tisserant as head of the Presidency informed them
that this guiding vote would not be taken since the rules of
the Council indicated that there should be a debate if notable
additions had been made to the text. Instead of the vote there
would be an exposition of the text by Monsignor De Smet
(whose address was greeted by the longest applause heard in
the Council) , and the bishops would be allowed to send in their
suggestions up to Jan. 21st. Immediately there was a move by
several bishops to collect signatures to a letter asking the Pope
to have the text voted on before the end of the session, and

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about a thousand bishops favoured this course of action. The
Pope, however, decided that the Council rule invoked did apply
to this case, and that the text should therefore be debated as
soon as possible in the final session.
Bearing in mind the extreme diversity of social and cultural
conditions in different countries and peoples, the difference in
formation and outlook of the bishops, and the difficulty of the
problem itself, one is not too surprised that the text will be
the object of further reflection and discussion. After all, the
United Nations have already spent seven years in trying to
draw up a charter on religious freedom. This is the first time
that a General Council has had to consider and make a pronouncement on the subject of religious freedom. It is barely
over two years since the Council first met, and this matter is
one item on a huge agenda. Moreover Pope Paul is understandably anxious to secure acceptance for the conciliar texts
that will be as nearly unanimous as possible. The wise and
patient way in which he has done this so far, especially with
regard to the Constitution on the Church, gives every reason
to hope that there will be far greater agreement on the final
text in the coming session than could have been attained in
the previous one.
The obstacles to such unanimity are partly practical (such
as the reluctance of bishops in Catholic countries to admit the
right of other religious bodies to preach and practise what the
Church must regard as false) and partly theoretical. It is only
one hundred years since Pius IX issued the Syllabus which
condemned the notion of freedom of religion and of conscience
put forward by a rationalism that was hostile to religion. To
many bishops the context in which this problem must be placed
appears to be essentially the same as in the last century. What
is objectively false cannot have any rights; those who know
and possess the truth may at most, when the common good so
requires, tolerate the permanence of error and of worship by
those outside the Church.
The text, as it stands at present in its third version, traces

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the evolution of thought and of social conditions since the last
century which places the problem of freedom in a new context,
and notes that men to-day demand that the Church should
explain her position on this subject. In answer to this reasonable request it clearly affirms the strict obligation to respect the dignity of the human person which is the natural
basis of human rights and duties. With the encyclical Pacem
in Terris of Pope John, it asserts that not abstract truths but
concrete human persons are the subject of rights. The person
has the right and duty to observe the law of God as it is perceived by his conscience, for that is how God calls on him to
act. He has the duty of conforming his conscience to the will
of God in so far as he can know it, and the right to act according to that conscientious judgment, as well as to practise that
religion which he believes to express God's will for him. In
practice, this means that the individual may not be forced to
accept any one religion, or be prevented from practising his
own. In so far as that religion is founded on an act of faith
it postulates freedom, for the internal act of faith is of its very
nature free.
What is true of individuals in regard to such freedom is true
also of communities. The State has no power to deny such
rights, to impose any form of religion, or to interfere directly
in affairs of conscience and religion. But no human right is
unlimited. The individual is bound in the exercise of his rights
by his responsibility towards others. The powers of the State
are determined in view of the end of society as ordained by
God, namely to allow men more fully and easily to attain their
perfection than they could in isolation. In so far as these powers
imply the obligation to preserve public order, to safe-guard
public morality, and to guarantee the rights of all, the State
may limit the exercise of freedom by the individual.
The last section of the text shows how this teaching on
religious freedom is implied in the practice and teaching of
Christ and the Apostles, and it affirms the right of the Church
to preach the Gospel everywhere, in obedience to the com-

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mand of Christ. It is God's will that His revealed truth be
made known to all men by means of His Church so that they
may freely, under the impulse of grace, accept it and live by
it. The vast majority of men to-day are not Christians; the
Church has the divine commission to speak to them all. The
world to-day with its growing desire of freedom and its greater
insistence on the rights of man will be more disposed to listen
to the message of a Church that asserts the freedom of conscience and of religion. The first condition of dialogue is respect, respect for the truth which can set man free, and respect
for the person, who is the image of God and who is called to
the freedom of the children of God.4

Dialogue with the World
Having dwelt on the relations of the Church with other
Christian bodies and with the non-Christian Religions, and on
the need for the recognition of moral freedom, an essential condition for human dialogue, the Council could enlarge its horizon
even further so as to turn to all men. This again is something
quite unique in a General Council. A Catholic Council could
be in fact universal when the known world was largely Catholic, or even Christian. Catholics today form less than one-fifth
of the world-population; there are about 1,500 million men
who are not Christian. The first Vatican Council, even had it
pursued its normal course, could hardly have risen sufficiently
above the defensive and polemical mentality bred by the AntiReformation in most of its members to envisage such an ap• The spirit of this text and of that on the non-Christian Religions is well
summed up in the words of Pope Paul to the people of India pronounced during
the open-air Mass at the Church of St. Paul on Dec. 4th: "We are deeply grateful for the freedom assured to the preachers of the Gospel in your country. They
communicate the message of Jesus with highest respect for the convictions of
others, in the language and cultural expressions of the people, and encourage
Christians to express their faith and devotion in harmony with the civilization of
India and in truly Indian forms. Thus the Church, having gathered the varied
treasures of many cultures of East and West, will be further enriched by the
contribution of her Indian sons, drawn from their country's rich and ancienl
cultural tradition."

no

AMBROSE

J. MC NICHOLL

proach to mankind as this Council has made. Nor could it
have hoped for such a hearing as men are willing to give the
Church now that they live under the constant threat of atomic
war, and are more conscious of the obstacles to unity among
nations and of the needs of other peoples, especially the underdeveloped ones. The very fact that the Council can address
itself to the world is a sign not only of a deeper consciousness
in the Church of her nature and mission, and of her own historicity and of that of the world, but of the respect which
the Church has gained in the eyes of the world during the last
century.
The original agenda of the Council did not include the theme
of the Church in the present-day world. The bishops brought
with them to the Council the problems and worries of their
people and of the world; and the great charity of Pope John
readily responded to the desire often expressed in the first
session that the Council should not only treat of the internal
affairs of the Church but give the world a proof of her concern
and love for man by undertaking to study some of the great
questions and urgent problems of life today, and to indicate
guiding principles for their solution in the light of the Gospel.
After the first session a commission was formed from the members of the commissions for Faith and Morals and for the Apostolate of the Laity to prepare a schema dealing with the effective presence of the Church in the world. No other text was
the object of so much speculation or revised and re-written
so many times. Eventually a draft was submitted to the Coordinating Commission on June
1964, which decided
that the text must be drastically reduced but that the main
portions of the text could be retained in the form of annexes.
This new document was presented for debate on Oct.
and was discussed until Nov. lOth. The debate was not only
the longest of the session, and in many ways the most notable;
it was the one followed with greatest interest by the world and
most publicized by the press.
The first three chapters of the document explain the per-

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111

spective from which the Church views the problems that affect
the temporal life of man, while the fourth deals with the
major questions put to the Church by the world today. What
is attempted in the text may be described as an outline of a
theology of temporal reality, or the setting of problems of life
and culture today within the context of the Christian outlook
on man and reality. Some of the matters raised are so delicate
and complex that it is hard to see how the Council can do more
than give general directives and leave the more difficult of
them, on which theologians do not yet agree and which involve
scientific research that is not yet complete, to the study of
the commissions that will prolong the work of the Council.
The important thing, however, is that the Council has shown
the world that the Church is indeed concerned about its problems and that she is willing to enter into a dialogue with it in
an effort to find solution and to help to make life more worthy
of man.
Never was the pastoral aim of the Council more clearly
shown than during this debate which brought the problems
of the home, of society, of the world of science and culture,
and of modern civilization into the Hall and around the Altar
where the Sacrifice of the Cross is renewed and the inspired
Word of God enthroned. As the discussion slowly took up in
turn the themes of the dignity of the human person, marriage
and the family, the advancement of culture, social and economic life, the solidarity of the human race, and peace, the
burning questions of human misery and want, of war, racism
and injustice, of atheism and evil were raised. One cannot in
a few words sum up so momentous a debate; it is possible,
however, to indicate the setting in which these problems were
placed. In general, the Council's attitude to the world was
positive. It rejected the alternative, with its Manichaean overtones, of God or the world. It saw the world as coming from
God, and directed its attention to what is essentially good and
holy in it. It pointed out that its use may and must enter
into God's plan for man's salvation, and stressed that it shares

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AMBROSE

J. MC NICHOLL

in that work of Redemption. The key to this Christian attitude to the world is not only the fact of Creation but also the
fact of the Incarnation, the assumption of a created nature
into the divine order, and the consecration of the natural order
through the insertion into it of the divine. The natural order
of things is not without significance for man's sanctification;
it contributes to his perfection and is destined to share, especially through the human body, in the final glorification of all
through union with Christ.
The subject and spirit of both the text and of the debate
could hardly be better expressed than by the words of Pope
Paul addressed in Bombay to the representatives of the nonChristian Religions: " Today the human race is undergoing
profound changes and is groping for the guiding principles and
the new forces which will lead it into the world of the future.
Your country also has entered into a new phase of her history
and in this period of transition you too feel the insecurity of
our age, when traditional orders and values are changed, and
all efforts must be concentrated on building the future of the
nation not only on a stable material basis, but on firm spiritual
foundations. You, too, are engaged in the struggle against the
ills that darken the lives of innumerable people all over the
world: against poverty, hunger and illness; you too are fighting the relentless battle for more food, clothing, housing, for
education, for a just distribution of the wealth of this world.
Are we not all one in this struggle for a better world, in this
effort to make available to all people those goods which are
needed to fulfill their human destiny and to live lives worthy
of the children of God?
Therefore we must come closer together, not only through
the modern means of communication, through press and radio,
through steamships and jet planes,-we must come together
with our hearts, in mutual understanding, esteem and love.
We must meet not merely as tourists, but as pilgrims who set
out to find God-not in buildings of stone but in human hearts.
Man must meet man, nation meet nation, as brothers and

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II:

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113

sisters, as children of God. In this mutual understanding and
friendship, in this sacred communion, we must also begin to
work together to build the common future of the human race.
We must find the concrete and practical ways of organisation
and cooperation, so that all resources be pooled, and all efforts
be united towards achieving a true communion among all nations. Such a union cannot be built on a universal error or
fear of mutual destruction; it must be built on the common
love that embraces all and has its roots in God, who is love." 5
The liturgy celebrates at Christmas the revelation of God
made Man to the chosen People of God, and at Epiphany the
manifestation of the Incarnate Word to the world. One might
see the first three sessions of the Council as a kind of Christmas
of the Church, a new showing-forth to the faithful of its divine
and yet human character. The fourth session will be a new
Epiphany, a revealing of the Mystical Body of Christ to the
world. Its message cannot be other than one of love, for Christ
is love incarnate, and the Mystical Body is one in love. That
message will also be a prayer; and both message and prayer
are, once more, summed up in the words of Pope Paul to the
non-Christian world: " True love must be renewed in our midst
and must become the inspiring force of all our efforts. We need
peace and stability in our world, we need food, clothing and
housing for millions, we need honesty and devotion and untiring work for bettering man's condition, but all these efforts
must be animated by true love. I pray that the words of the
motto of this Congress-' order your lives in love '-remain
imprinted in your hearts, and become a living seed that will
grow and bear fruit. May God awaken this love in all of us
and unite us through that invisible, yet unbreakable bond
which should bind all those who are sheltered in the love of
God. May He make of us the one family of His children."
AMBROSE

J. McNicHOLL, 0. P.

University of St. Thomas in Rome,
Rome, Italy
• The words of Pope Paul spoken in India are quoted from reports in the
Osservatore Romano from December Srd to 5th.

NOTES ON OUR CONTRIBUTORS
KEVIN F. O'SHEA, C. Ss. R., S. T. D., who has contributed previously to
THE THOMIST and to other journals including Freiburger zeitschrift,
The Irish Theological Qua:rterly, and Studia Moralis, is presently
Professor of Dogmatic Theology at St. Mary's Monastery, Ballarat,
Vic., Australia.

t GERALD VANN, 0. P., M.A., internationally renowned scholar, lecturer, and
author of nineteen books and innumerable essays, was Visiting
Professor at the Catholic University of America from 1959 until he
returned to his native England, where he died inJuly, 1963.
GERALD F. KREYCHE, Ph. D., noted lecturer with numerous appearances on
radio and educational TV, and author of many articles appearing in
a wide range of magazines and journals, is Chairman of the
Department of Philosophy, De Paul University, Chicago, Ill.
AMBROSE MeN ICHOLL, 0. P ., Ph.D., author of Man's Basic Freedom and
contributor to scholarly journals in many nations, continues his
research in Contemporary Philosophy as a member of the faculty at
the University of St. Thomas in Rome, and in Aesthetics at Pius
XII Graduate School of Fine Art of Florence, Italy, with which he
is affiliated.

114

BOOKS RECEIVED
Aquinas, St. Thomas, Commentary on the Nicomachean Ethics translated
by C. I. Litzinger, 0. P., Chicago: Henry Regnery Library of
Living Catholic Thought. 1964. Vol. 1, xiii, 534 with indices. Vol.
II, pp. 1000 with indices.
Aquinas, St. Thomas, tr. John A. Oesterle, Treatise on Happiness. Edgewood Cliffs, N. J.: Prentice-Hall, 1964. La Ilae, qq. I-XIX, pp. 208.
$2.75.
Bahm, Archie J., The World's Living Religions. New York: Dell, 1964.
Pp. 384 with index. $0.75.
Burghardt, Walter, S.J. and Lynch, William F., S.J. The Idea of
Catholicism. Cleveland and New York: Meridian Books of the
World Publishing Company, Expanded edition from 1960 in 1964.
Pp. 518. $U5.
Clark, Gordon H., The Philosophy of Science and Belief in God. Nutley,
N. J.: The Craig Press, 1964. Pp. 95. $1.50.
Danielou, Jean and Marrou, Henri. The Christian Centuries: Vol. I, The
First Six Hundred Years tr. Vincent Cronin. New York: McGrawHill Book Company, 1964. Pp. 494. $12.50.
de Fraine, Jean, S. J., Praying with the Bible, tr. Jane Wynne Saul,
R. S.C. J. New York: Desclee, 1964. Pp. 182. $3.75.
Downs, Robert 13., Famous Books Ancient and Medieval: Outlines of 108
Great Works. New York: Barnes and Noble, 1964. Pp. 329 with
index. $1.95.
Flew, Anthony (ed.), Body, Mind and Death in Problems of Philosophy
Series, Paul Edwards, General Editor. New York: Macmillan, 1964.
Pp. 306. $1.95.
Freeman, David Hugh in collaboration with Freeman, David, A Philosophical Study of Religion. Nutley, N. J.: The Craig Press, 1964. Pp.
270 with index. $3.75.
Gelin, Albert, P. S. S. Tr. Mother Kathryn Sullivan, R. S.C. J., The Poor
of Yahweh. Collegeville: The Liturgical Press, 1964. Pp. 125.
$2.25 cloth; $1.00 paperback.
Haring, Bernard, C. SS. R., Christian Renewal in a Changing World. New
York: Desclee, 1964. Pp. xxi, 461. $6.75.
Javorka, Joseph, S. J., Amor a Dios Sobre Todas Las Casas L Amor A Si
Mismo. Buenos Aires: Pontificiae Universitatis Gregorianae, 1964.
Pellegrini. Pp. 94.
Jomier, Jacques, 0. P., The Bible and the Koran. New York: Desclee,
1964. Pp. 120. $2.75.

115

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BOOKS RECEIVED

Lerhinan, John P., C. SS. R., Background to Morality. New York: Desclee,
$4.75.
1964. Pp.
Nakamura, Hajime, Ways of Thinking of Eastern People. Edited by Philip
P. Weiner. Honolulu, Hawaii: East-West Center Press, 1964. Pp.
711. $9.50.
O'Malley, Sister Judith Marie, P.M., Justice in Shakespeare: Three English
Kings in the Light of Thomistic Thought. New York: Pageant
Press, 1964. Pp. 57. $3.00.
O'Meara, Thomas, 0. P. and Weisser, Celestin, 0. P. editors, Paul Tillich
in Catholic Thought. Chicago: The Priory Press, 1964. Pp.
$5.95.

Perrin, J. M., 0. P., The Minister of Christ. Chicago: The Priory Press,
1964. Pp. 141.
Rankin, H. D., Plato and the Individual. New York: Barnes and Noble,
1964. Pp. 156. $4.50.
Roensch, Frederick J., Early Thomistic School. Chicago: The Priory Press,
1964. Pp. 351. $5.95.
St. John-Stevas, Norman, Life, Death and the Law. Cleveland and New
York: Meridian Books of the World Publishing Company, 1964.
Pp. 375.
Smart, J. J. C., (ed.), Problems of Space and Time in Problems of Philosophy Series, Paul Edwards, General Editor. New York: Macmillan, 1964. Pp. 436.
Whiteley, C. H., An Introduction to Metaphysics. New York: Barnes and
Noble, reprinted in 1964, with minor corrections from 1950 edition.
Pp. 174. $4.50.
Wills, Garry, Politics and Catholic Freedom. Chicago: Regnery, 1964. Pp.
302. $5.95.
New Testament Students' Workbook: Greek, Latin, English. Collegeville:
The Liturgical Press, 1964. Pp. 671. $6.95.
Studies in Philosophical Psychology: Tulane Studies in Philosophy, Vol.
XII. New Orleans: Tulane University, 1964. Pp. 147. $2.00.