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.

JULY, 1965

No.3

THE ACT OF FAITH ACCORDING TO ST. THOMAS:
A STUDY IN THEOLOGICAL METHODOLOGY

E

OKING THROUGH the works of Thomas Aquinas
in their historical order, a reader quickly senses an
increasing profundity in the saint's thinking. This
maturing process one would naturally expect. But in what
precisely does such maturity consist, when apparently the
same conclusions are reached in both the early and the late
works?
Critical studies of Thomistic texts are, at least implicitly,
efforts to answer this question. And one point continually
emerges from a comparative analysis of texts: though
Thomas' doctrine remains essentially constant, his way of
approaching a problem changes from one work to another.
Thus, in cases where Aquinas seems to reach the same conclusions and even to formulate them in essentially the
same words, it is worthwhile examining carefully the arguments he uses. For it is possible that a different type of
reasoning will change the ,sense or import of the conclusion.

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The three Thomistic treatises on faith are instances of
texts that contain essentially the same doctrine. The Commentary on the 8 entences (1254-56), the De V eritate (125659), and the Summa Theologiae (II-II, 1271-72) show Aquinas making very few changes in his conclusions regarding the act of faith. But ·even a cursory glance at the internal arrangement of the three treatises reveals a striking
change in approach.
The structure of the Commentary on the Sentences 1 is
of course largely dictated by Peter Lombard's treatise.
Thus, taking up the problem of faith, Thomas first handles
everything that touches ·the nature of faith as an act and
as a virtue. His second question discusses the relation of
faith to charity. He finally approaches the object of faith,
finishing with an analysis of the principal articles of faith
and some questions concerning the explanation of these
truths to the faithful.
1

In III Sent., dist. 23-25.

Distinctio 23
[q. 1 De virtutibus in generale]
q. 2 De fide
Utrum convenienter Apostolus definit fidem
De actu fidei (3 aa.)
De subiecto fidei ( 3)
Utrum fides sit virtus (2)
Utrum fides sit prior aliis virtutibus
q. 3 De formatione fidei per caritatem (9 aa.)
Distinctio 24
a. 1 Quid sit obiectum fidei (3)
a. 2 Qualiter se habeat obiectum fidei ad nostram cognitionem (3)
a. 3 De merito et laude fidei (3)
Distinctio 25
q. 1 De definitione articulorum
De articulo secundum se (3)
Utrum convenienter articuli distinguantur in symbolo
q. 2. De explicatione fidei
De necessitate explicationis ( 4)
Quantum ad quae oportet esse fidem explicitam (4)

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241

In the De Veritate, 2 there is ·a slight shift among the first
questions. Quid sit credere now precedes quid sit fides, and
an sit virtus comes before quid sit subiectum eius. The new
order is more logical: the simple act before the habit, and
the an est before the quid est. For the rest, the De V eritate
is quite parallel to the Sentences. There are three questions on the relationship between faith and charity. Then,
in Article 8, the problem of the object of faith is raised;
and the last four ·articles take up various problems similar
to those discussed in the last articles of the Sentences.
Taken as a whole, the De V eritate is characterized by less
of the intricate organization of questions that is found in
Sentences; principal problems are highlighted, and many
details are confined to the answers to the objections. But
the 'OVer-all structure remains unchanged, and faith as a
virtue still provides the basic point of reference for the
treatise.
A sharp contrast is at once noticed in the Summa. 8
Thomas begins now with the object of faith, which was
among the last of the questions discussed in the earlier
works. In the course of ten articles, he treats everything
• De V eritate, q. 14.
Art. 1 Quid sit credere
2 Quid sit fides
S Utrum fides sit virtus
4: In quo sit fides sicut in subiecto
5 Utrum forma fidei sit caritas
6 Utrum fides informis sit virtus
7 Utrum sit idem habitus fidei informis et formatae
8 Utrum proprium obiectum fidei sit veritas prima
9 Utrum fides possit esse de rebus scitis
10 Utrum homiui sit necessarium habere fidem
11 Utrum necessarium sit explicite credere
12 Utrum sit una fides modernorum et antiquorum
1 8. T. II-II
Quaestio 1 De obiecto fidei
Utrum obiectum fidei sit veritas prima
Utrum obiectum fidei sit aliquid complexum per modum enuntiabilis
Utrum fidei possit subesse falsum

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that touches this object, the veritas prima: our way of
grasping it, the principal articles that express it, and the
creeds that formulate it. Only after this detailed discussion
does Aquinas take up the interior act of faith, the credere.
Then, after a dozen articles analyzing different aspects of
the act, he finally approaches faith as a habit and a virtue.
The complete reorganization of these three basic elements
of the problem-object, act and virtue-becomes even more
evident when one notices subjects falling into a new framework. For, many of the practical problems found at the
end of the two earlier treatises reappear now directly subordinated to the object or act of faith.
Judging purely ·a priori, one would suspect that the
Summa is simply taking a more realistic approach to faith,
handling in detail the object and ·simple act before the virtue. Thomas is constructing his own treatise, following the
order dictated by his own thinking, which has matured well
beyond the Sentences and De Veritate stages. Moreover,
Utrum obiectum fidei possit esse aliquid visum
Utrum ea quae sunt fidei possint esse scita
Utrum credibilia sint per certos articulos distinguenda
Utrum articuli fidei secundum successionem temporum ereverint
Utrum articuli fidei convenienter enumerentur
Utrum convenienter articuli fidei in symbolo ponantur ordina.re
Quaestio 2 De actu interiori fidei
Utrum credere sit ''cum assensione cogitare ''
Utrum convenienter distinguatur actus fidei per hoe quod est ''credere
Deo, credere Deum, credere in Deum"
Utrum credere aliquid supra rationem naturalem sit necessarium ad salutem
Utrum credere ea quae ratione naturali probari possunt sit necessarium
Utrum homo teneatur ad credendum aliquid explicite
Utrum omnes aequaliter teneantur ad habendum fidem explicitam
Utrum explicite credere mysterium Christi sit de necessitate salutis apud
omnes
Utrum explicite. credere Trinitatem sit de necessitate salutis
Utrum credere sit meritorium
Utrum ratio inducta ad ea quae aunt fidei diminuat meritum fidei
Quaestio 3 De exteriori actu fidei (2 aa.)
Quaestio 4 De ipsa fidei virtute (8 aa.)
Quaestio 5-7 De habentibus fidem, de causa et effeetibus fidei (8 aa. omnino)

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TO ST. THOMAS

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the Sentences is a commentary, and one should not expect
to :find in it a systematic exposition of Aquinas' own
thought. The De V eritate involves similar restrictions. It
is one of the "disputed questions"-problems raised in a
special historical context and requiring answers organized
with a special end in view.
Historical considerations of this sort explain why Thomas took a certain approach in a given work, and what were
some of the factor·s contributing to the development of his
thought. But beyond this, a further question can be asked:
what effect does a change in approach have on Thomas'
metaphysics of faith? For if the structure of a treatise has
changed, so may the arguments. And since the arguments
enter into the conclusion and give it its substance and meaning, the full sense of the conclusion cannot be grasped unless the underlying metaphysics is also seen.
The key texts in Aquinas' treatises on faith have not
yet been subjected to the type of comparative analysis
needed to answer the above question. There exist surveys
and detailed collections of texts which show well the full
scope of Thomas' doctrine on faith. But none of the existing studies go into detail on Aquinas' metaphysical method; and although key texts in the different treatises have
been compared, the comparisons are generally too sketchy
for our purposes. 4 Hence, the meaning of the master texts
has not been exhausted.
• One of the most recent and detailed studies is that of Benoit Duroux, O.P.,
La psyehologie de la Foi ehez S. Thomas d'Aquin (Tournai: Desclee, 1963).
This work gathers what appears to be everything Aquinas wrote on the question of faith, and it organizes the texts in terms of the object, act, and habit
of faith. The study gives a good over-all view of the Thomistic teaching, referring frequently to the historical context within which Aquinas' doctrine developed. However, preoccupation with modern problems or with later scholastics' ways of conceiving those problems often obscures the textual analysis.
There is some comparison of principal texts from the three treatises, but little
account is taken of context or the internal development and purpose of each
treatise. The study freely cites parallel texts or parts of texts which give per-

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The present study will take up the three Summa articles
that present Aquinas' basic doctrine on the object and act
of faith. These Summa texts will serve as a framework for
discussing the parallel texts in the two earlier treatises. To
avoid blurring the outlines of each argument, no reference
will be made to Thomas' incidental remarks on faith in
other contexts ; for pieces of other texts will not throw any
light on the internal development of a given argument.
Some observations concerning Thomas' methodology will
follow the textual study, along with an analysis of the
judgment of faith based on that methodology.

I: THE OBJECT OF FAITH
Article I of the first question in the Summa treatise determines the nature of the object of faith; the discussion
here thus lays the groundwork for nine more articles, all
concerned with the character of the object and its expression. The first article asks whether veritas prima. is the object of faith, and St. Thomas approaches the question by
using a matter-form analysis of the object of knowledge.
TEXT

The object of any knowing habit has two aspects: that which is
materially known, which is a kind of material object; and that
through which it is known, which is the formal reason for knowing
the object. In the science of geometry, for instance, the things materially known are the conclusions, while the formal reason for
tinent conclusions, but which take a different point of departure or depend
on a different form of reasoning.
Analytic techniques like these are helpful for giving a general resume of
Thomas' conclusions, or for making historical comparisons between Thomas
and other thinkers. And the method of compiling all pertinent texts is indispensable for reconstructing what might have been Aquinas' doctrine, had he
written a treatise explicitly on a certain point. But where formal treatises
exist, as in the case of faith, another procedure seems to be called for, if the
study is to be a textual analysis of Aquinas' own thought and manner of conceiving a question. In this case, one can expose in detail the sense of the
principal texts and treatises in which they appear, before taking up pieces of
other texts or any related or later problems. The treatises on faith do not as
yet seem to have been studied in this way.

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knowing is found in the media of demonstration, through which the
conclusions are known.
In the case of faith, then, if we consider the formal reason for
knowing the object, it is nothing other than the First Truth. For
the faith in question here assents to a thing only because it is
revealed by God; hence, it rests upon the divine Truth itself as
upon a medium.
But if we consider materially the things to which faith assents,
the object is not only God Himself, but many other things as well.
Still, these other things fall beneath the assent of faith only insofar
as they are ordered to God; thus, certain effects of the Divinity
help man in directing his course toward his divine end. And so,
even from this point of view, the object of faith is in a certain sense
the First Truth, insofar as nothing belongs to faith except in its
ordering to God. In a similar way, the object of medicine is health,
because medicine considers nothing except in its ordering to health.
[Ad 1] Those things, then, which pertain to the humanity of
Christ, to the Church's sacraments, or to any other creatures belong
to faith. insofar as through them we are ordered to God. And we
assent to these things too because of the divine Truth.
[Ad 2] The same thing is true for all those things which are
handed down in sacred scripture.
[Ad 3] Charity is like faith: we love our neighbor because of
God, and so the object of charity is properly God Himself. 5

Some twenty years earlier, in the Commentary on the
Sentences, Thomas used the same approach by way of material and formal object; the earlier text includes all of the
analytic trappings involved in this method of studying an
object of knowledge.
In the object of any power, there are three elements to be considered: what is formal in the object, what is material, and what is
accidental. In the object of sight, for instance, the formal element
is the light which makes the color actually visible, the material aspect is the potentially visible color, and the accidental is quantity
and other things of this sort which accompany the color.
Now any being acts insofar as it is in act, and through its form.
And the object is the active thing in passive powers. Therefore, the
principal aspect of the object [ratio objecti] to which a passive
5

8. T. II-II, q. 1, a. 1,

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power is proportioned must be that thing which is formal in the
object. In this way powers and habits are distinguished; for it is
from the ratio of the object that they receive their specification.
These three elements are found in the object of faith. Faith
assents to a thing only because of the First believable Truth; for
the object cannot be actually believable without the First Truth,
just as color cannot be visible without light. Hence, the First Truth
is the formal element in the object of faith, and the thing from
which the object gets its total intelligibility. Whatever it is that is
believed about God, such as the fact that He suffered and so on, is
then the material element in the object of faith. And things that
follow from what is believed are as it were accidentals.
Thus, the object of faith, properly speaking, is the First Truth.

The sense of "accidentals" in this text is further clarified in the answer to the second objection. The objection
stated that in scripture, through which faith is instructed,
there are many creatures; so Uncreated Truth cannot be
the only object of faith. Thomas answers:
In sacred scripture, faith receives instruction in essentials (such
as things which are said about God) and also in accidentals (such
as deeds of the patriarchs and other like things, which pertain to
to faith insofar as they are divinely inspired and spoken). 6

The arguments in the two texts appear to be essentially
alike. The matter-form analysis of knowledge objects serves
as the basic approach in both texts, and both show the First
Truth as the formal ratio of faith. In fact, though, beyond
these surface resemblances the two texts have very little
in common. The way Aquinas manipulates the matter-form
analysis in the Summa. changes the whole tenor of the
conclusion.
In the Sentences, God emerges as the object of faith only
in the sense that He is the reason for our assenting to the
object. All the emphasis of the argument is thrown onto
the formal object; in fact, in a series of remarks that interrupts the flow of the argument, Thomas takes pains to show
• In III Sent., d. 24, a. 1, sol. 1,

THE ACT OF FAITH ACCORDING TO ST. THOMAS

247

that the formal element is the most significant thing in an
obj·ect of knowledge. The material aspect of the object is
thus thoroughly subordinated to the action of the First
Truth which makes the object actually believable.
In the Summa, on the other hand, God is clearly shown
as the object of faith both formally and materially considered. Thomas mentions only briefly that we believe because
of God's action of revealing. The real emphasis of the entire text and of the answers to all three objections falls on
the material side of the object. What we know in faith,
Thomas insists, is always in some way God. It is true that,
materially considered, "the object is not only God Himself, but many other things as well." But when faith is
exercised on such things as the sacraments or scripture,
God is still the object of faith, because of the creatures'
ordering to God in faith. God is the object, not only because He is revealing (acting as formal object), but because
He is revealing Himself through the creatures He chooses
(acting as material object).
The relationship between the two aspects of the object
of faith is highlighted in the answers to the first two objections: created truths become instruments of faith insofar
as through them we are ordered to God (material object),
Who also makes our assent possible (formal object). Thus,
through the creature·s and "effects of His divinity" that
God uses to present Himself to us in faith, our act of belief becomes an acceptance of God Himself. This is the
force of the answer to the third objection. For, just as in
loving our neighbor we love God, so in believing a created
truth we believe the First Truth.
God does not appear as the term of our belief in the Sentences argument. The ·status of the material object, as that
text pre·sents it, is vague. The object materially considered
seems to be nothing beyond truths of faith. The text does
not indicate how these truths are related to the First Truth,
or how man is related to God through the act of believing

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a truth. Leaving the material side of the object so undeveloped, the argument gives the impression that the ·act of
faith terminates in propositions about God. (This point will
come up again in the second set of texts.) The Sentences
thus leav·es a gap between the formal and material aspects
of the object. The First Truth renders the object formally
believable. But who or what exactly is the object taken
The Summa gets to the reality of faith and shows the
real identity between the two aspects of the object. Analytically, formal and material objects are distinct: why we
know and what we know are not the ·same thing. But what
we know in faith, the Summa insists, is always in some way
God. In reality, then, the two aspects of the object are only
two aspects of a single divine action-God revealing Himself to man.
This emphasis on the singleness of the object is reflected
in the analogy that Thomas chooses in the Summa to present the material-formal distinction. God act·s in the case
of faith, in somewhat the way that the media of demonstration act in science. Faith depends upon God ''as upon a
medium," that is, as conclusions depend upon the media of
demonstration. To see the force of this analogy, we need
only recall that, in scientific knowledge, the new conclusion
rests utterly upon the media, not only in the first instance
of reaching the conclusion, but ever after. For the ·conclusion can never be fully understood apart from the demonstrative process. 7 Once the conclusion is reached, then,
media and conclusion in a sense become one. Similarly, in
an act of faith, formal object (God revealing: media) and
material object (God revealed: conclusion) become one.
7 For
the textual basis of these remarks, see Louis-Marie Regis, O.P.,
' 'Analyse et synthese dans I' oeuvre de S. Thomas, '' Studia medievalia
(Bruges: De Tempel, 1948), pp. 303-30; and J. Peghaire, C_S.Sp_, 'Intellectus' et 'ratio' selon S_ Thomas d'Aquin, Publications de l'Institut d'Etudes
Medievales d 'Ottawa, VI (1936), esp. pp. 100-280.

THE ACT OF FAITH ACCORDING TO ST. THOMAS

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Thus, although the analogy is used primarily to explain
the analytic distinction between material and formal object,
it also implies their real identity. In the light of the way the
Summa, argument unfolds, it is a particularly apt analogy.
The ,sight analogy found in the Sentences does not have
this force. Recall that light, in the medieval physics known
to St. Thomas, did not constitute a part of the object seen,
but only rendered visible the color inherent in the object. 8
Hence, the analogy calls attention primarily to the necessary presence of a formal ratio; in its emphasis, it subordinates color to light, and the theory behind the analogy
sees the two elements as quite distinct. Aquinas' choice of
this analogy ties in with the doctrine he presents in the
Sentences and reflects the limited scope of his thinking on
faith at that time. For the argument itself is concerned
only with the formal object and makes no attempt to show
the single reality that links formal and material in the
object of faith.
Still another fault can be seen in the Sentences analysis.
Because he failed to develop the material side of the object
in that text, Thomas equivocates on the "accidentals" of
faith. Objectively speaking, one can distinguish between the
essential truths that we must believe explicitly in order to
be saved, and accidental truths that require only implicit
belief. This is the sense of "accidental" proposed in the
Sentences text and tagged on to the matter-form analysis
of the object. The notion in itself is perfectly valid. But it
belongs to another context, one which examines the content
of faith from an objective point of view outside any par• Thus, light was looked upon as a kind of spiritual entity. This physics
led St. Thomas to affirm that there is no organic change in the power of
sight, which is therefore '' maxime spiritualis et perfectior inter omnes sensus''
(see S. T. I, q. 78, a. 3). Modern physics and physiology correct the philosophical analysis of the sense of sight: there is of course an organic change
in the eye; and the object of sight, the coloratum, is made up of color inherent in the object plus the light which falls upon it and contributes integrally
to the color of the object as actually seen.

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ticular act of faith. The question at hand, however, must
look at the object of faith precisely as an object of knowledge, from within the act of faith. In this context, once a
truth is believed, it is, because of the very act of believing
it, a subjectively real part of belief. Or, to use the Summa's
language, once a truth is ordered to God in the act of faith,
it becomes in that act a means of ordering man to God. As
long as we look at faith from this one point of view, in
which God is always in some way the object known, talk
of accidentals makes no sense. The Sentences, therefore,
confuse·s two points of view on the object of faith. The
Summa drops the notion of accidental aspects of the object,
since it was irrelevant to the Sentences argument in the
first place. 9
Turning now to the De V eritate text on the object of
faith, we find St. Thomas using an entirely different type
of argument. Here he takes his point of departure from the
notion of faith as a virtue. A habit cannot be a virtue,
Aquinas begins, unless its act is always good; otherwise,
the habit would not be a real perfection of the power in
which it exists. Now, in the case of an intellectual habit,
goodness is linked to truth, since an act of the intellect has
no goodness unless it is considering something true. If the
intellect attains truth infallibly, such ·as when it operates
through the habit of science, its goodness is assured, and
the habit can be considered a virtue.
But truth in faith, continues Thomas, cannot be guaranteed by purely natural evidence ; for faith, unlike science,
exceeds the evidence of nature. If faith is to be a virtue,
then, the First Truth must be its object. For only uncreated
truth can rid created truth of its defectibility; and human
testimony can be infallible only when God is seen speaking
9 Later on in the Summa treatise,
Aquinas will in fact talk about essential
and accidental truths of faith, but only in the context-objective rather than
subjective-of what a man must believe in order to be saved. See S. T. II-II,
q. 2, a. 5.

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in it. God, therefore, as First Truth, guarantees the intellect's assent to truth in faith. As First Truth, He is Himself the principal object of faith; other created truths belong to faith by reason of their being joined to the divine
truth. 10
While the Summa and the Sen.tences used an "intentional" framework, arguing in terms of the nature of an object
known, the De V eritate takes what might be called a ''transcendental" approach. It appeals to ontological truth and
the metaphysics of being, rather than to the metaphysics
of knowledge. The created truth or testimony assented to
in faith must be joined to the First Truth; and in this way
"faith joins man to the divine knowledge through assent."
Adjuncta and conjuncta are the operative words appearing
throughout this article, since Thomas is here concerned with
the linking of truths in the order of being. The reduction
to first principles takes place strictly on this basis. It is the
ontological tie between created and uncreated truth that
guarantees the act of belief. And once ontological truth
is guaranteed, the ontological goodness of the intellect's
act is assured, and along with it faith's ontological status
as a virtue.
The De V eritate 's "joining" of truths thus brings out
the full force of the veritas prima terminology, which is
meaningful in a meta physical setting of this sort. This approach contrasts with the Summa's key idea of ''ordering.'' The Summa uses the traditional veritas prima as a
name for God in the context of faith, but the text is really
more interested in God as the term of our faith than in the
ontological linking of truths. In the Summa, it is God's action in created truths which is highlighted. His action of
revealing formally enables man to assent to the truth; and
a truth enters faith materially only "insofar as through it
we are ordered to God.'' In thus emphasizing God's action
10

De Ver., q. 14, a. 8.

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and the finality of faith, the Summa sees faith primarily
in the perspective of the divine agere, while the De V
looks at it more from the side of the divine esse.
It would be profitable at this point to compare the main
features of the three texts in -a more historical fashion, and
in this way to see the over-all evolution of Thomas' thinking on this question.
In comparison with the Sentences argument, the De Veritate discussion opens a whole new perspe·ctive on God as
the object of faith. The Sentences text shows that we believe
because of God; but what it is that we believe, the material
aspect of the object, is undeveloped and in several respects
inexact. The De V eritate, which takes an entirely different
analytic approach, shows God as the complete object of
faith. He is no longer simply the reason why we believe,
He is the object of belief. The De Veritate, in fact, makes
no distinction between the material and formal aspects of
the object, since such a distinction lies outside the framework of the kind of metaphysics used in ·this text.U
Although the Sentences and the Summa take essentially
the same approach to the problem, the Summa corrects
basic flaws found in the earlie·st text. In the Sentences,
Aquinas used the traditional Aristotelian matter-form analysis of an object of knowledge, either because it seemed
to him to be the best approach, or because his own thought
had not developed sufficiently for him to break away from
traditional structures. Whatever the case may be, the analysis did not in fact get to the full reality of the object of
faith. Later on, Thomas came to see the singleness of the
object, God working in both the material and formal aspects
of the object. He then returned in the Summa to the original
11 In his answer to the 9th objection, Thomas alludes to the distinction
but
insists at once on the unity of the object. '' Quamvis per veritatem primam
deducamur in creaturas, principaliter tamen per earn deducimur in seipsam,
quia ipsa principaliter de se testificatur; unde veritas prima se habet in fide
et ut medium et ut obiectum.''

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approach of the Sentences; but this time Aquina:s saw to
it that the matter-form analysis featured rather than blurred
the oneness of God's action in faith. In this perspective,
the De Veritate certainly seems to have contributed to the
maturity of the Summa argument. For, the De Veritate's
metaphysics by its very nature stresses the ontological
oneness of the object of faith, and the argument itself unfolds without any need to refer to the different cognitive
aspects of the object.
Why then does Thomas return, in the Summa, to the
Sentences' way of answering the question, if the De Veritate's approach has already proved to be fruitfuU
A partial answer to this question can be given in the light
of the internal structure of the treatises. As was noted at
the beginning of this study, the De V eritate quickly establishes the notion of faith as a virtue. This is also true of
the Sentences. But in the De Veritate, Thomas seems to
follow quite rigorously the logical and metaphysical consequences of his initial approach. A glance at the other
articles in this treatise shows Aquinas consistently occupied with faith as an ontological state of being. Not that
he ignores the dynamic aspects of being, the act of virtue.
But, whenever possible, he does maintain an ontological
orientation, building such arguments as the present one
into a framework that is more ontological than cognitive. 12
The Summa treatise, on the other hand, discusses faith
as an ontological ·state, as a virtue, only after an exhaustive
analysis of the object and simple act. In this setting, the
De Veritate's method of studying the object would be proleptic, since it proceeds on the assumption that faith is a
virtue. Hence, in the Summa, Thomas argues directly from
12 E.g., three of the twelve articles are concerned with the metaphysical
relationship between charity and faith (aa. 5-7). The necessity of having faith
is seen in terms of perfection of knowledge rather than finality (a. 10). And
the question of differences in belief before and after Christ is set into a metaphysical one-many analysis (a. 12).

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the nature of an object of knowledge, at least partially for
reasons of methodology.
But Aquinas seems to have had a good deal more than
this in mind when he changed his approach in the Summa.
For the method he uses in this work is already beginning
to show a special fruitfulness. The type of argument seen
in the De V eritate shows the act of faith joining man to
the ontological world of divine Truth. By itself alone, this
type of metaphysics is not capable of handling adequately
the agere of faith. We have to go outside the analysis of
ontological truth and borrow from another analytic structure in order to see God working in man or man consciously
directing himself and his powers to God. The Sttmma's
approach, on the other hand, stresses at once God's action
in faith and the result of this action, through which the
truth known in faith orders man to God. In the Summa,
then, faith emerges as a more dynamic act than it is in the
De Veritate. In this view, there is more room for understanding man's conscious efforts to order himself to God
through the assent of faith. The full force of this metaphysics will be seen in subsequent articles, as Aquinas turns
his attention to the interior act of faith itself.
TEXT 2 : THE OBJECT oF FAITH As KNowN BY MAN
The nature of an object of knowledge is understood only
in relation to the act that knows it. A total cognitive experience is involved here; and a report of one's findings at
either end of the experience, external object or interior act,
cannot be made without some reference to the other term
of the real relation.
The second article of Question 1 in the Summa treatise
is not yet directly concerned with the interior act of faith.
St. Thomas wants to explore still further, in subsequent
articles, the nature of the object itself and its expression.
But to do so, he must first analyze the way in which man
possesses that object. Article 2 therefore asks "whether

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the object of faith is something complex, known by way of
propositions.''
This particular question-whether the object is simple
or complex-is colored with a good deal of controversy
among Thomas' predecessorsY Some of the flavor of the
debate can be caught in Aquinas' treatment of this problem
in the Commentary on the Sentences. It will be helpful to
glance at the earlier text before taking up the Summa's
analysis.
The Sentences' discussion contains two arguments. The
first is based on Augustine's definition of faith: "believing
is thinking with assent.'' We can give assent, Thomas
argues, only to something that is true. And since truth is
found only in the composition of ideas, the object of faith
must be a complex truth. Hence, says Aquinas, those who
say that the object of faith is incomplex are unaware of the
meaning of their own words. For when a person says "I
believe the incarnation," this does not mean that he forms
a concept of the incarnation; if this were true, anyone who
under'Stands the meaning of the word would believe the
incarnation. The real sense of the statement is, "I believe
that the incarnation exists, or that it took place." It is evident, then, concludes Thomas, that faith as faith must deal
with a complex truth.
The second Sentences argument develops further the
nature of our knowledge of God. The human intellect knows
only that He is, not what He is; and this knowledge the
intellect has only in the act of composing and dividing.
Hence, the proper object of faith, namely God as First
Truth, must be a complex truth as known by man. 14
Both these arguments are effective enough in a controversy. They prove Thomas' point, by as'Serting that man
13 M.-D. Chenu has studied the historical importance
of this article in ''Contribution a 1'histore du traite de la foi: Commentaire historique de II-II, q. 1,
a. 2," Melanges thomistes (Paris: J. Vrin, 1934), 123-140.
"In III Bent., d. 24, a. 1, qa. 2.

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knows truth only in judgment, 15 and that our judgments
about God yield no knowledge of a conceptual sort, in the
order of His essence. But the arguments do not penetrate
beyond the limited terms of the debate. This becomes evident when one reads the Summa text, which situates the
problem in a larger context and solves it by appealing to
more basic principles.
Objects known are in the knower according to his way of knowing.
Now the proper way in which the human intellect knows truth is
by composing and dividing, as was stated in Book I. And therefore
those things which are in themselves simple the human intellect
knows in a certain complex manner; just as, conversely, the divine
intellect knows in an incomplex manner those things which are in
themselves complex.
The object of faith can consequently be looked at in two ways.
First, from the point of view of the reality that is believed: thus
seen, the object of faith is something incomplex, namely the reality
with which faith is concerned. Secondly, from the point of view of
the person who believes: viewed this way, the object of faith is
something complex, known by way of propositions.
Both opinions existed among older writers, and each is in a certain way true.

The first objection is taken from the doctrine of the preceding article: the object of faith is the First Truth. Since
the First Truth is incomplex, the object of faith cannot be
complex. Answer:
This argument considers the object of faith from the point of view
of the reality that is believed.

The second objection points out that the creed contains
not propositions but realities. For the creed says "I be15 The term judgment as used throughout
the textual analysis is to be taken
as an equivalent for Thomas' ''intellect composing and dividing.''
The modern term is sufficiently general to cover the various logical and psychological
meanings of Aquinas' expression. Judgment should not be confused with
Thomas' iudimum, which generally refers to acts of the practical intellect
(e.g., see S. T. I, q. 83, a, 1).

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257

lieve in God almighty,'' and not ''God is almighty.'' So the
object of faith is a reality, not a proposition. Answer:
Things of faith are dealt with in the creed to the extent that the
act of the believer terminates in those things; this is clear from
the creed's very manner of speaking. Now the act of the believer
terminates, not in the proposition, but in the reality. We form
propositions only so that through them we can have knowledge
about realities. This is the case in science, and the same holds true
in faith.

The third objection recalls the fact that, in heaven, the
object of our vision will be incomplex. The object of faith,
then, ought to be the same, since faith is the way to the
heavenly vision and a kind of reflection of it (1 Cor. 13.12).
Answer:
In heaven, we shall see the First Truth as it exists in itself: "When
He appears, we shall be like to Him, for we shall see Him just as
as He is" (I J o 3.2). Hence, our vision in heaven will not be by
way of propositions, but rather by way of simple understanding.
Through faith, on the other hand, we do not grasp the First Truth
as it exists in itself. So faith and vision cannot be compared here. 16

The objections depart from three different viewpoints:
the simplicity of God, the creed's phraseology, and the
nature of the beatific vision. In so doing, they suggest how
the problem had been complicated by doctrine tied up with
related issues. In answering these disparate objections,
Thomas insists each time on the importance of maintaining
a consistent point of view. The matter at hand concerns an
object of knowledge, and so it can be settled only in terms
of the nature of human knowledge. We must therefore reject any viewpoint which simply does not take knowledge
into consideration (lst objection), or which oversimplifies
human knowledge, ignoring basic psychological facts (2nd
and 3rd objections).
The emphasis of the main argument, like that of the answers to the objections, falls on the "proper way" in which
'" S. T. II-II, q. 1, a. 2.

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the human intellect knows. In using the term modus proprius, Aquinas brings into play a notion that he developed
at great length in the Summa treatise on man (I, qq. 75-89).
The term is introduced into that treatise in order to specify
the precise object of the human intellect: while the general
object of any intellect is being as intelligible, the "proper'' object of the human intellect is some intelligible aspect
of sensible being. The term thus has a technical sense, and
it implies the psychology presented in the Prima Pars. 11
Reality is presented to man in sensible form, addressing
itself to his composite nature ; man in turn understands
reality only in a composite act of intellect and sense. The
intellect turns to the phantasm to know sensible beings;
and it turns again to phantasms, using its experience of
sensible reality, to understand something about realities
that are not sensible. This, psychologically speaking, is the
act of judgment. In logical terms, man's way to knowing
is by nature complex; his intellect must compose and divide,
adding one perception or concept to another, and one composition or division to another.
The present text chooses the logical rather than the psychological terminology related to the "proper way" of
human knowing, since the text has verbal expressions of
the object of faith in mind. Whether in science or in faith,
"we form propositions only so that through them we can
have knowledge about realities." In the act of faith, then,
as in any other human act of knowing, the propositions
that we enunciate are only helpful expressions of our experience of reality, not the term of our knowledge. Thomas
insists on this point in his answer to the second objection,
17 See esp. S. T. I, q. 84, a. 7. For an analysis of this text and its importance
in Thomas' psychology, and for further explanations of the term proprius, see
T. Guzie, S.J., "Evolution of Philosophical Method in the Writings of St.
Thomas," Modern Schoolman (January, 1960), 95-120.
For the logical consequences of these psychological principles, see q. 85, a. 5,
which handles the same matter in terms of ''intellect composing and dividing.''

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259

but the body of the article provides the context and philosophical basis for this truth. In the act of faith, man believes a reality, res ipsa; but he knows it in the way of
knowing that is by nature proper to his intellect. The knowledge of faith may not be directly demonstrable by the
natural evidence of ·science. But it is no less real than the
knowledge of science.
The differences between the Sentences and Summa discussions of this question are striking. The Sentences appealed to man's way of knowing God, and to the fact that
truth is known only in judgment. The Summa, however,
goes directly to man's proper way of knowing any object,
and thus demonstrates precisely why truth can be known
only in judgment.
The Summa text is thus a continuation, in the same realistic line, of the doctrine presented in Article 1 concerning
the object of f.aith. The object is God, and our way of knowing does not change this fact. The Sentences' treatment,
on the other hand, shares the weaknesses of the preceding
Sentences article. Just as the first text did not show how
God is the object materially known in faith, neither does
the second insist on reality as the term of human judgment.
Thus, neither Sentences article handles the problem beyond
the level of propositions or truths about God. Thomas
clearly had not gotten to the heart of the matter in his
first treatise on faith, which therefore lacks the explicit
and convincing realism found in his later work.
The De V eritate takes up this question in quite a different form. While the other two treatises attack the problem
from a cognitive point of view, the De V eritate takes an
approach consistent with its emphasis on faith as a state
of being. The last article of this treatise asks whether
faith is one and the same for people before and after Christ.
Summarizing in some detail the various positions on the
object of faith, Thomas asserts that "faith deals not with
the proposition but with the reality. The reality then is the

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same, though the propositions are different.'' The judgmental summary in this article is quite similar to the
Summa text, except that here faith is seen as a virtue
rather than an act, and the whole problem is read in the
light of the metaphysics of unity:
Therefore, the object of faith can be considered in two ways. First,
as it is in itself, outside the mind; thus seen, the object properly
has the intelligibility of object, and from it the habit receives its
multiplicity or unity. And secondly, the object can be seen as participated in by the knower.
Now if we take the object of faith-that is, the reality believed
-as it exists outside the mind, it is one as presented to us and to
the ancients. Thus, faith gets its oneness from the oneness of the
reality. But if we take the object as it exists in our knowledge,
then it becomes many, expressed in different propositions. But this
diversity does not diversify faith.
It is clear, therefore, that faith remains one in all ways. 18

As was seen in the first series of texts, the De V eritate
clearly presented the First Truth as the object grasped in
faith. The present text continues in this same line, emphasizing that mankind's real contact with one God is not
broken by the propositions that express faith. As in the
first series of texts, then, the De V eritate once again furnishes a larger view and a realism missing in the Sentences'
picture of the object of faith.
The De Vertitate's method of handling the object of
faith is particularly valuable for ecclesiology or for any
study which is not primarily concerned with the psychology
of the judgment of faith. As Thomas mentions at the beginning of the text, if faith is not one for all men, neither
can there be one Church. The De V eritate thus provides
a metaphysics for undeTstanding the continuity between
the Old and the New Alliance.
The Summa takes up the De Veritate's insistence on the
reality of contact in faith and sets it into the modus
18 De Ver., q. 14, a. 12. Cf. De Ver., q. 14, a. 8 ad 5, ad 12. See also Chenu,
op. cit., p. 138.

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261

proprius of human knowledge. The Summa thus presents
the psychological principles needed to understand the
judgment of faith. Its over-all approach will then be
more useful than that of the De Veritate for understanding the conscious act in which man orders himself to God
through God's action in the object of faith.
TEXT

3: THE INTERIOR

AcT OF FAITH

In the remaining eight articles of Question 1 in the
Summa treatise, St. Thomas handles v·arious traditional
problems that touch the object of faith-the object's freedom from error, its unique character which excludes complete scientific grasp, and its enunciation in articles and
creeds for the instruction of the faithful.
The rest of
Question 1, therefore, centers around the expression of the
object of faith. It is not until Question 2 that Thomas
shifts his attention to the other end of the object-act relation which is human knowledge.
In approaching the interior act of faith as such, Aquinas
is taking up a question quite different from the one analyzed above. The human intellect by nature knows the
object of faith in the act of judgment: this is merely an
affirmation, in the context of faith, of the nature of man's
knowledge of any object. Now however, turning to the
act of faith itself, Thomas has to show how this act differs
from any other act of knowing. The intellect grasps the
object of faith in a real but complex manner. But in what
way is this grasp
In all three treatises on faith, Thomas answers this
question by discussing St. Augustine's definition of faith:
credere est cum assensione cogitare. 19 All three treatises
19 Augustine's
definition entered medieval theology particularly through its
use in Peter Lombard's treatise. For the history of this formula in the schools,
see M.-D. Chenu, "Psychologie de la foi dans la theologie du 13eme siecle,"
Etudes d 'histoire litteraire et dootrinale du 13eme sieole (Paris: J. Vrin,
1932), 187-88. See also Duroux, op. cit., pp. 61-82.

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will reach essentially the same conclusion, that the definition is completely adequate. But Thomas will set the
formula into his own theology in quite different ways. The
evolution of his thought can be seen most clearly here if
the texts are taken in their historic order.
Verifying Augustine's definition in the Commentary on
the Sentences, Thomas begins by distinguishing the two
acts of intellect-absolute consideration of quiddities, and
the intellect composing and dividing. Since the ''assent''
mentioned by Augustine must deal with a truth, faith has
to be located in the second category; for only judgment
engages truth. But this does not fully explain the meaning of "assent"; assent also demands the intellect's deterThis
mination to one part or term of a contradiction.
adherence can take place in three ways: by visio, when
the intellect is determined by the presence of an intelligible
form, such as a first principle; by scientia, when the intellect is determined by reasoning; or by credere, if the intellect receives its dete:rmination from the will. Thomas then
sketches various acts in which the intellect lacks determination to one or the other term of a contradiction (doubt, suspicion, opinion, ignorance) and instances of complete determination (science, understanding of first principles). Finally, he points out the elements of "thinking" and of
"assent" which appear partially in each of these mental
states but which are found fully realized only in the act
of belief. 20
The same method of verifying Augustine's definition is
used in the De Veritate. In this work, though, the analysis
Thomas
is better organized and f.ar more exhaustive.
again begins by distinguishing the two acts of the intellect,
choosing judgment rather than absolute consideration as
the correct context for the act of assent. The argument
then takes up various mental acts, gradually isolating the
""In III Bent., d. 23, q. 2, a. 2, qa. 1.

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263

proper notes of the act of belief. An outline seems to be
the most practical way of bringing out the essential structure of this long and complex analysis :
When the intellect composes and divides, it can adhere to either
term of the composition. The final adherence is dependent either on
the intelligible form or on the will. Thus, the intellect, in every
case moved by its object, can reach a state
A) of doubt, if it hesitates between two parts of a contradiction;
B) of opinion, if it tentatively adheres to one part rather than
the other;
C) of complete adherence to one part. This determination will
take place
1) because of the intelligible object itself, which results in
a) understanding of first principles, if the knowledge is
immediate;
b) science, if the knowledge is mediate.
2) Or else the final determination can take place because of
the will. And in this consists the act of belief. For if there
is no sufficient determination from the side of the object,
the will can call forth an assent to the part that seems
good and suitable.
Now, in order to verify Augustine's definition, we must consider
that the act of faith can consist
neither in simple consideration, where there is nothing true or
false;
nor in doubt, where there is no assent to either term of the contradiction ;
nor in opinion, where the assent is not firm;
nor in understanding of principles, where there is indeed assent
but no reflective thought ( cogitatio), since the knowledge is
immediate;
nor in science, where the assent puts an end to reflective thought.
Hence, it is only in the act of faith that we find both assent and
reflective thought. The definition "thinking with assent" consequently expresses the complete intelligibility of the act of faith and
distinguishes it from all other acts of the mind. 21
21

De Ver., q. 14, a. 1.

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Using the same conceptual framework as that of the
Sentences, the De Veritate tightens the argument by placing the different mental states in positions that will most
enhance their distinctive character.
This by no means
simplifies the analysis, but it does give a more pointed
explanation of "thinking with assent" than the one found
in the Sentences.
The different mental states discussed in the De V eritate
are real acts of the mind, which Thomas handles in logical
terms; that is, he defines the acts in the light of their varying degrees of adherence to propositions.
Both texts,
moreover, use the traditional approach which divides human thought into absolute consideration and the intellect
composing and dividing.
The Summa abandons this distinction as an approach
to Augustine's definition. In that work, St. Thomas has
already explained how judgment is the way in which man
by nature encounters reality.
Consideration of simple
quiddities has not entered the Summa analysis of faith,
since Thomas has been concerned from the start only with
the act in which man understands real objects. Thus, he
need have no Tecourse now to a distinction based on the
structure of propositions rather than on real acts of the
mind. Instead, he immediately takes up one term of Augustine's formula, cogitare, and discusses it in a psychological rather than logical perspective.
''Thinking'' can be taken in three ways.
First, it can be understood in a general sense, referring to any
actual consideration of the intellect, as Augustine says in the De
Trinitate: "I am now speaking of intelligence as that by which
we understand in the act of thinking.''
In a second way, thinking is taken in a more proper sense as a
consideration of the intellect that is accompanied by a kind of inquiry, before the intellect is perfected by complete certitude. Augustine speaks along these lines in the De Trinitate: ''The Son of
God is called not the cogitatio but the verbum of God. Our own

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265

human thought reaches the point where we know; when our thought
becomes formed, our word is true. But the Word of God must be
understood apart from this process of thinking; for it has nothing
formable which could make it unformed. '' In this sense, then,
thought is properly a motion of the mind still deliberating and not
yet perfected by full vision of the truth.
Now such a motion can involve the mind's deliberation either
on universal intentions, which pertains to the intellective part of
the soul; or on particular intentions, which pertains to the sensitive
part. And so thinking is taken, in a second sense, as an act of the
intellect deliberating; and in a third sense, as an act of the cogitative power.

In a psychology as highly developed as that of St. Thomas,
a general notion like cogitare could possibly be made to
cover many acts of the intellect. 22 Here Aquinas confines
the sense of the term to two meanings that Augustine himself gave the word. The third meaning involves the verbal
connection between cogitatio and the vis cogitativa, the
sensory power by which man perceives concrete relationships or "particular intentions"; no time will be spent
on this point, since faith is clearly concerned with acts of
intellect and "universal intentions." The different states
of mind discussed in the earlier texts are now thrown
against the background of the intellect deliberating with
inquiry.
Now if thinking is taken in a general sense, according to the first
meaning, then the words ''thinking with assent'' do not express
the full intelligibility of "believing." For in this sense, the man
who thinks about what he knows or understands also thinks with
assent.
But if we take thinking in the second sense, we find there the
full intelligibility of the act of believing.
Some of the acts belonging to the intellect involve firm assent
without any such thinking process, as when a person considers the
things that he knows or understands: for such consideration is already formed.
Other acts of the intellect do involve thought, but thought which
22

On the use of cogitatio in St. Thomas, see Peghaire, op. cit., pp. 86-90.

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is unformed and lacking firm assent. The act may incline toward
neither part, as happens when a person doubts. Or it may incline
more toward one part but be held back by some slight sign, as happens when a person suspects. Or again the act may adhere to one
part, but with some fears concerning the other; this happens when
a person has opinion.
The act of believing, on the other hand, involves firm adherence
to one part. In this respect, believing has the same character as
knowing and understanding. However, the believer's knowledge is
not perfected by clear vision; and in this respect belief has the
same character as doubt, suspicion, and opinion.
Hence, the proper mark of belief is thinking with assent. And in
this way the act of believing is distinguished from all other acts
of the intellect that are concerned with the true or false.

The answers to the objections form an integral part of the
discussion, since important parts of the argument are still
missing. In explaining the second meaning of thinking,
Thomas mentioned inquiry as an element in this particular
kind of thought process. The answer to the first objection
now show:s how inquiry applies to faith:
Faith does not involve an inquiry of natural reason which demonstrates what is believed. But it does involve some inquiry into those
things by which man is led to believe-for instance, because things
are spoken by God and confirmed by miracles.

The second answer makes explicit the point that cogitar;io
here has nothing to do with the act of cogitative power. The
third objection asserts that assent, like the moral act of
consent, seems to be an act of the will; hence, since belief is
an act of the intellect, it cannot correctly be called ''thinking
with assent.'' Thomas answers:
The intellect of the believer is finally determined not by reason,
but by the will. And hence assent is here taken to mean an act of
the intellect receiving its final determination from the will. 2 s

The doctrine in St. Thomas' early writings is frequently
presented in formulas borrowed from auctoritates like
28

S, T. II-II, q. 2, a. 1,

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267

Augustine or Aristotle. Thomas will take his point of departure from authorities and also retain their terminology
in formulating his own conclusions. The Summa, on the
other hand, often confines the authorities' statements to
the sed contra introducing the argument or to obiter dicta
in the body of the argument. Aquinas has assimilated his
predecessors' doctrine, and his Summa treatises unfold in
his own terms-with respect for the great authorities, to be
sure, but with much less reliance on their personal terminology or way of visualizing a problem. 24
Hence, even though Augustine's definition of faith was a
highly respected formula in medieval thought, it would not
be surprising to see the Summa subordinating it to another
definition, one more personal to Thomas' own thought. The
fact that he retains the definition as an approach to one of
the cardinal articles in the Summa treatise suggests that
Aquinas saw in it a special value.
What that value is does not emerge from the De V eritate
or Sentences, for their interpretations of the definition are
forced. These texts immediately set the formula into analytic categories that see human knowledge primarily from
the viewpoint of propositions, the logical results of an act
of knowing, knowledge in facto esse. But since Augustine's
definition is more a psychological description of the act of
believing in fieri, the analytic apparatus of the Sentences
and the De Veritate gets into Thomas' way. In that setting, he has no room to develop ''thinking'' as a real process of the intellect, nor to clarify the exact psychological
nature of "assent." And so neither term of the definition
emerges from these discussions with any real clarity.
24 In some instances, important
articles in the Summa treatises can be traced
back to chance remarks in Thomas' early commentaries on an auctoritas. The
change in context, length of development, and analytic approach in these eases
indicates the degree to which Aquinas broke away, not only from his predecessors' conclusions and terminology, but from their way of conceiving problems.
See Guzie, op, cit.

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In the Summa, however, Thomas approaches the problem
f,rom a psychological point of view. In so doing, he takes
Augustine on the latter's own terms, a:s his references to
Augustine's psychological uses of the word cogitare indicate. Thus, the first part of the text gives a brief phenomenological description of human thinking, noting also
the powers of the soul that come into play. Then, against
this background, the text presents a logical analysis of
assent, in terms of the different ways in which thinking
becomes "formed" through adherence to parts of a contradiction. The logical approach is fruitful at this point, :since
it is directed toward the "assent" aspect of faith, which
envisages the completion of the act of faith in facto esse.
The answers to the objections then return to the psychology
of the act. Faith in fieri is clarified by the explanation of
how inquiry applies to the thinking that takes place in
faith. And the logical description of assent in the body of
the text is completed by a psychological definition of that
act, as a composite act of intellect and will.
Two psychological moments can thus be distinguished
within the integral act of faith. The intellect examines the
object, searching out reasons for belief, deliberating with
inquiry; this is ''thinking.''
And the intellect adheres to
and possesses the object in composition with the will's
action; this is "assent."
The new elements in the Summa, then, which did not
appear in the two earlier texts, are the psychological description of "thinking" as an act of deliberating, and the
psychological definition of ''assent.'' These are precisely
the elements needed to bring out the accuracy of Augustine's definition, without blurring its clarity and directness in an analytic framework that does not fit it. Thomas
sees in Augustine's formula a summary of the exact data
that a realistic psychology must work with. Hence, he
places it in a prominent position in his Summa treatise,

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giving both of its terms a precise technical meaning within
his psychology.
In defining the act of assent in this text, Aquinas formally
introduces the will into the Summa treatise on faith. 25
Question 1 had shown how, through the object of faith,
man is ordered to God. Question 2 turns to the act of
faith, and so it presents the psychological correlative needed for the Summa/ s stress on the finality of faith. The intellect consciously adheres to God and possesses Him in the
act of believing, and thus faith remains formally an intellectual act. But the will, by commanding the intellect's
adherence, becomes the key power through which man
actually orders himself to God.
With the entrance of the will into the picture, faith takes
on a new dimension, which St. Thomas goes on to exploit
in the remaining articles of Question 2. Now God is related
not only to the intellect as formal and material object of
faith, but also to the will as final cause, drawing man to
Himself in the object (a. 2). Man's response to this divine
action through his will then means that he accepts God as
his intellect's teacher; for man's natural reason, if unaided
by God, is incapable of ordering him to his supernatural
end (a. 3). Once the analysis of the object of faith is completed by a view of man's answering act, one can determine
what man must believe in order to reach his end. For faith
must be explicit as its end is explicit, and the extent of
belief necessary for salvation is determined by what is adequate to order man to his real supernatural goal (aa. 4-8).
The Summa thus sees God as the focal point of faith from
25 The only allusion to the will up to this point is found in q. 1, a. 4, whieh
distinguishes faith from seientifie knowledge: '' Alio modo intelleetus assentit
alieni non quia suffieienter moveatur ab obieeto proprio, sed per quandam eleetionem voluntarie deelinans in unam partem magis quam in aliam. Et si
quidem hoe fit eum dubitatione et formidine alterius partis, erit opinio: si
autem fit eum eertitudine absque tali formidine, erit fides.'' This allusion
foreshadows and is completed by the analysis in the present article.

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every perspective. Through God's action in man and in the
sign which He chooses as instrument, man is drawn to God,
reaches God in the sign, and so orders himself to the act
of possessing God in patria. Aquinas will now go on to analyze faith as a virtue, as the state of being in which man is
habitually ordered to God. Further textual study will show
whether the Summa's treatment of the virtue of faith follows in the lines of the dynamic view of object and act presented in these three master articles.
METHODOLOGY

AND MoDERN

PROBLEMS

IN THE JUDGMENT OF FAITH

Throughout the centuries, scholastic treatises on faith
have generally retained a certain Thomistic background or
base. But with the passage of time, arguments and distinctions that had their origins in Aquinas' writings were colored with shades of every philosophical variety. The treatises on faith thus suffered the same fate as scholasticism
in general; trapped in terminology, distinctions, and particular historical problems, the treatises often lost contact
with the reality they were trying to analyze.
Rationalist and nominalist interpretations of mental acts,
for instance, have had ruinous effects on explanations of
the act of faith. The traditional three acts of the mind is
a division based on the structure of propositions. It is a
useful distinction in a logical analysis, but later scholastics
transferred it to the psychological order. Thus, an act of
judgment became a kind of mechanical joining of concepts,
and analysis of propositions was frequently mistaken for
analysis of the intellect's real acts. This left the study of
faith in the mental world of second intentions, cut off from
the real experience of faith. Similarly, analytic distinctions
were often reified, so that mere aspects of an integral act
or a single object became separate acts and objects. Explanations based on such an approach were left with no means

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of tying the act of faith together again, since the integrity
of the experience of faith was shattered in principle.
As a result of such factors as these, the treatise on faith
lost many of the unifying metaphysical principles that made
it both realistic and scientific. Moreover, without an effective speculative tool, new questions could not be handled
efficiently. And thus the addition of new problems to the
treatise only served to disintegrate it further.
The doctrinal confusion that resulted from all this can be
seen in the First Vatican Council's having to reaffirm what
for St. Thomas was the most fundamental of principles: we
believe revealed truths because of the authority of God who
reveals them. 26 The Council's decrees on faith were, in fact,
extremely limited. Its definition on faith, for instance, if
read in Thomistic terms, insists on God as the formal ratio
of the object. The decree does not develop the material side
of the object or penetrate beyond faith as an acceptance of
truths. (The parallel with Aquinas' limited treatment of
faith in the Sentences is rather striking.) Thus, Vatican I
was concerned with defining only what had to be defined to
meet current errors. It made no attempt to provide the
metaphysical instruments needed to enlarge that scope.
Our own century, with its revival of studies in Thomistic
philosophy and theology, has pulled scholasticism out of
various terminological impasses and thrown more light on
specific problems concerning faith. For example, Vatican I
had forced further investigation of the relationship between
faith and reason; and so the work of reason in faith has
been examined more effectively and realistically during our
century. But the deposit of history still plagues the treatise
on faith. Analytic conceptions of the sort mentioned above,
conceptions which confuse the logical and psychological
26 See Denziger 1789. Vatican I 's concern with the relationship
between faith
and reason and its stress on propositions or truths of faith can be seen through
chapters 3 and 4 of the Constitutio de fide catholica. See Denzinger 1789-1800;
1810-1820 (canons).

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orders, frequently prevent a realistic synthesis. And so
the treatise on faith generally lacks a metaphysics large
enough to piece the act of faith back together again. 27
Hints for handling modern speculative problems are
often sought in Aquinas' treatises-in his incidental remarks on related questions, in his answers to specific objections, and so on. This approach can be useful. However,
Thomas conceives problems in a way adapted to the structure and viewpoint of his own treatises-a way that can
differ sharply from the context in which modern questions
are conceived. In these cases, Thomas' remarks can provide
only piecemeal answers to specific problems; they will not
restore the integral view of faith that the treatise on faith
needs. The procedure called for is rather the one suggested
by the De Veritate and the Summa. In these treatises, Aquinas abandons the piecemeal arguments of the Sentences by
adopting a single metaphysical point of view, and by developing his arguments and handling further problems primarily in terms of that basic approach. Because of the
difference in metaphysical viewpoint between the De Veritate and the Summa, questions are answered in different
ways. But because they are answered in accord with the
basic approach, the answers are tied firmly to fundamental
metaphysical principles and to an integral conception of
faith.
The Summa provides a basic outline of the judgment of
faith, which Thomas exploits in accord with his own interests and the problems of his time. The following pages will
take this outline in a different direction, relocating various
modern problems in the Summa's basic frame of reference.
The judgment of faith will be looked at psychologically,
first, from the side of the intellect and will, then from the
side of the sense powers. The aim here will not be to present
27 Particularly
useful for seeing the problems of modern scholasticism regarding faith is Roger Aubert, Le probleme de l'acte de foi: Donnees traditionnelles et resultats des controverses recents (3d ed.; Louvain, 1958).

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TO ST. THOMAS

273

an exhaustive discussion of modern questions, but rather
to understand the judgment of faith in a more integral
fashion. This approach, from the single viewpoint of the
metaphysical psychology of judgment, may suggest new
ways in which various problems can be conceived.
The principal arguments in Aquinas' treatises are concerned with faith as a final commitment to the object; owing
to this emphasis, the work of reason in faith gets rather
subordinated treatment. But since the Summa analysis so
clearly delineates the place of inquiry in the act of faith, it
provides a good framework for analyzing the function of
reason and the traditional "judgments of credibility" in
faith.
"Thinking with assent," as explained by Aquinas, indicates the twofold task of the intellect in the act of faith.
There is the work of the deliberating intellect that precedes
man's commitment to the object of faith; activity of the
same genre can also take place after the initial assent, insofar as further reflection deepens faith. And, secondly, there
is the work of the intellect along with the will that constitutes the actual commitment.
Judgments of credibility can be conveniently read in
these terms. On the side of "thinking," there are the
judgments that precede final commitment. These judgments
have a speculative character: the intellect searches reasons
for belief. They also have a prudential character: the reasons are seen, not merely in the abstract, but as related to
this man's concrete good; for it is only in relation to a
man's real end that his personal belief has any meaning.
The judgments that follow the first instance of assent can
also be seen on the side of ''thinking,'' insofar as through
such judgments man deepens his faith and hence the assent
itself.
Now, elements of these judgments are also found on the
side of "assent" and in the very act in which man commits
himself to the object of faith. One way to demonstrate this

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TAD W. GUZIE

is to look at the structure of the act of assent. In adhering
to the object in which God presents Himself, the intellect
sees that there is nothing unreasonable in that object. This
reasonableness the intellect must see implicitly in any act
of assent; otherwise, adherence to the object would be contrary to the determined nature of the intellect. In this
sense, the intellect sees that it can believe, in the very act
of adhering to the object. In a similar way, the obligation
to believe may be seen and judged outside the act of assent.
But the obligation is also implied in the composite act of
intellect and will that constitutes the act of assent. In this
sense, the intellect understands that it must believe, in composition with the will's command that it adhere to the
object, here and now. Thus, although separate judgments
of credibility and obligation may take place outside the
actual assent of faith, they are also integral to the judgment
of assent itself. For they express and are expressed in the
intellect's actual adherence to the object through the will's
action.
Comparison with the psychological process of science provides a second way of showing how aspects of credibility
are found in the act of assent itself. In both faith and
science, there can be many individual judgments that precede the intellect's final determination, judgments in which
the intellect is formally concerned with reasons, evidence,
and so on. In reaching a scientific conclusion, the center of
the intellect's attention is focused on the meaning that its
reasoning process has produced. But in the same act, the
intellect can be materially aware of some of the reasons or
evidence of the demonstrative process; that is, the intellect's awarness includes some consciousness of the evidence
that led to this conclusion.
In the case of faith, of course, assent is not commanded
by the force of natural evidence alone. Still, in the judgment of assent, the reasons that contributed to final commitment can hold a psychological position similar to de-

THE ACT OF FAITH ACCORDING TO ST. THOMAS

275

monstrative evidence in a concluding judgment of science.
That is, while the act of assent is formally concerned with
accepting the object, there can also be, in the same psychological act, a material awareness of reasons for this acceptance. What evidence or reasons actually enter a given
act of faith will of course vary with the person and
with the existential moment. But in any case, the assent
of faith, like a concluding judgment in science, will be a
rich judgment, one that can embrace in a single psychological act far more meaning than could be expressed in any
single abstract proposition.
Hence, whether the problem is approached by an analysis
of the structure of assent or by a comparison with other
processes in which the intellect deliberates, it is clear that
judgments of credibility and obligation need not be conceived in a piecemeal fashion. Once the implications of
"thinking with assent" are fully drawn out, these judgments become part of the integral psychological act of belief
and, in the sense explained, part of the final judgment of
assent itself.
Further questions concerning belief can be clarified by
looking at the judgment of faith from the side of the sensory powers that enter into the act.
In any act of judgment, the intellect must turn to the
phantasm, which sensorily represents the intelligible object
and thus serves as the intellect's instrument in an act of
understanding. The necessary presence of the phantasm in
any act of thought is part of man's "proper way" of knowing, as described in the textual analysis; it is a consequence
of the metaphysical union of body and soul. In the act of
faith, therefore, God reveals Himself and reaches man under a sensible form. For without something sensible, capable of being represented in a phantasm, the intellect would
have no instrument with which to operate, and man would
have no psychological means of believing.

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TAD W. GUZIE

The act of faith, then, is necessarily tied to signs of faith.
This fact highlights the meaningfulness of the sacramental
system. For, even apart from defined dogma, it is psychologically fitting that the Christian, justified by faith, should
express and nourish his faith through certain special signs
determined by Christ and His Church. But the psychological force of the visible Church is not limited to the sacraments alone. All the Church's symbols and symbolic statements or dogmas, and all the Christian activity of her
members are in some way presentations of the object of
faith, possible instruments of the intellect in a judgment
of faith, ways of telling the truth of revelation. Moreover,
once an act of faith has taken place, man expresses it and
retells it beneath still other sensible forms, through his
imaginative ability to reshape sensible reality. Thus, material reality is in a way sanctified through the interaction
between intellect and phantasm in the act of belief.
When the act of faith is studied from its sensory side,
theology becomes an art as well as a science. Psychologically speaking, science is formally addressed to the intellect;
it is concerned strictly with ideas. Any art dealing with
communication, however, is formally addressed to the imagination; it is concerned with the way in which man's intellect can be reached, and hence with the sensory instruments
that carry potential meaning. One can therefore speak of
''theological arts,'' arts which deal with the organization
and presentation of symbols that can se·rve as the intellect'·s
instruments in judgments of faith. Although catechetics,
pastoral theology, and apologetics are usually thought of as
sciences, these branches of theology are also arts, insofar
as they are concerned with the concrete communication of
revelation.
History has not always kept these two aspects of theology
clearly distinguished. It is true that the science of theology
provides a theological art with its content, and both deal

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277

with the same object of faith. But a scientific expression of
the object of faith will not necessarily be the best way of
communicating that object. Abstract propositions are in
themselves the most impersonal of symbols, well removed
from the concrete experience of sensible reality that constitutes the primary and proper object of the human intellect. Thus, in the act of thinking about abstract or intangible matters, the mind invariably searches, not for more
propositions, but for images, visual outlines, and other concrete data that can support the thinking process.
In faith as in any other human knowing, then, the mo·st
effective instruments of the intellect are those symbols and
signs that are the most closely related to man's direct experience of reality. This is precisely where the humanity of
Christ, the living example of the people of God, sacramental
signs, and liturgical action get their psychological force
and human value. When the theological arts throw their
emphasis on concrete signs such as these rather than on
abstract propositions, they reach man in the way that is
most proportioned to the manner in which his intellect by
nature works.
One of the Church's enduring tasks is to refresh and
clarify her most traditional and significant symbols, as well
as to search for new expressions that will be more readily
meaningful in a given age or place. For, owing to the changing psychological temper of peoples and epochs, /gensible
forms vary in their capacity to communicate the reality of
revelation. And if ·sensible forms lose their potential meaningfulness, the intellect can no longer arrive at an actual,
personal meaning. Many instances of what we commonly
call "weak faith" or "loss of faith" are explained by this
phenomenon. In such cases, if the intellect never fully
grasped the Church's signs as meaningful signs, a personal
judgment of assent may never have taken place at all, and
a personal faith may never have existed. For a real act of

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TAD W. GUZIE

assent terminates in reality, not in propositions or signs of
reality. Thus, as the Church reflects on her place in the
world, she is ultimately reflecting on means of communicating to men the reality that she represents. The Church
can never force a personal act ·of faith, an assent to that
reality. But she can always make the signs of faith more
fully significant to the world in which she exists.
The synoptic gospels conceive the act of faith in a way
that highlights the central points of the foregoing ·analysis.
In these gospels, faith emerges as an acceptance of the person of Jesus, the Son of God. This is the primary sense
of "faith," and other types of belief are subordinated to it,
including belief in the human teaching of Christ. 28 The act
of faith, then, clearly terminates in reality, not primarily
in doctrines. Moreover, in emphasizing the person of Christ
rather than His human teaching, the synoptic view of faith
also points to the psychological importance of the concrete,
the sensible, the perceptible, in the judgment of faith.
Analysis of the act of faith traditionally leads to discussion of the virtue. But a psychological study can also move
in another direction, taking up the other human acts that
both accompany and result from the intellect's adherence
to the object of faith. Trust and love are analytically different from faith; but in the real order, these virtues and their
acts will appear in composition with faith. This point, too,
is confirmed by the ·synoptic writers' view of faith; for, in
these gospels, belief is almost invariably accompanied and
naturally completed by trust in Christ. 29 Post-Reformation
disputes, along with Catholic theology's insistence on faith
as an intellectual act, have generally shut out of the context
of faith any but negative references to trust. Further study
is needed concerning the positive relationship between these
28 For exegesis on this point, see Edward D. 0 'Connor, C,S.C., Faith in the
Synoptic Gospels (Univ. of Notre Dame Press, 1961).
20 Ibid.

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TO ST. THOMAS

279

and other virtues, and their composition in the integral
activity through which man orders himself to God.30
Contemporary theology's interest in scripture and patristics, and its quest for new and renewed expressions of the
object of faith have had important consequences for the
science. of theology. Implied in this movement is a search
for new unifying principles for the science itself, a broader
basis for analyzing and expressing the truth of God's revelation. Study of the judgment of faith further emphasizes
the need for this search. Just as the whole of revelation
cannot be fully conveyed in any single created symbol,
neither can the science of revelation be confined a priori to
one form of conceiving that revelation.
Hence, as far as the problem of the present study is concerned, it is clear that the Thomistic system, taken with all
its external forms, is not the only path to understanding
the act of faith. Biblical study is needed to reveal more
fully the existential meaning of belief. And sciences like
experimental psychology and anthropology could contribute
a great deal to the study of sign and symbol in faith. Still,
St. Thomas' method, or what we might call his attitude
toward the problem of faith, does suggest certain things
that will always be necessary in a scientific treatise on faith.
First, whatever sciences may be brought to bear on
questions of faith, the study of faith will always find profitable unifying principles in a sound metaphysics. For belief is first and last a human act; and metaphysics is ultimately needed to understand the human act in a fully realistic fashion, and hence to interpret or organize the data
provided by other disciplines.
Secondly, whatever metaphysical point of view or termi80 The notion of an integral
aet with elements that are only analytically distinct is fundamental to Aquinas' treatise on habits and virtues in S. T. I-II.
For an explicit discussion of procedure in analyzing habits, see esp, S. T, I-II,
q. 54, a. 1 ad 1.

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TAD W. GUZffi

nology may be adopted as an approach in scientific theology,
true understanding comes from reasoning based not on isolated problems or tag-ends of texts, but on fundamental arguments and consistent, integral speculative thinking. The
Sentences' treatise on faith illustrates this point negatively,
through its lack of integral perspective. The De V eritate
and Summa show positively the value of such a perspective;
and at the same time these two treatises, with their different
approaches, indicate the variety of conception that is possible within one general speculative system.
All this may suggest that speculative theology should
abandon certain scholastic forms and structures. But this
is negative. The basic positive need is a realistic metaphysics and a solid speculative method.
TAD

St. Mary's College
St. Mary's, Kansas

W. Guzm, S.J.

THE PHENOMENOLOGY OF MUSIC AND THE
THOMISTIC AESTHETIC

O

NE FEATURE of N eo-Thomism has been the effort
to formulate a theory of aesthetic. This attempt has
resulted from the desire to confront Thomistic philosophy with modern problems in aesthetics. Such a "rapprochement" has received the attention of several scholastic
philosophers in the past/ but these writers have been mostly
concerned with philosophical aesthetics, excogitating their
definitions of "beauty," and aesthetic value, in an "a
priori'' manner, from the tenets of Thomism. Their approach has been highly ab:stract and conceptual, having
only a tenuous contact with particular works of art.
The Thomistic aesthetic is in danger of becoming impracticable unless its field is given more concrete specification.
If there is to be validity to this aesthetic then there mu:st
be special relationships between Thomistic principles and
particular arts, capable of throwing light upon the arts, and
of giving greater content to the principles. It should build,
in an hierarchical manner, by observation and induction
from the actual experience of art works culminating in its
proper metaphysical level of abstraction. This higher level
of intellection cannot be contemptuous of the material embodiment of art, believing that fundamental problems can
be solved on a transcendental plane of abstraction without
recourse to concrete particulars.
The aim of this paper is to show that there is a basis of
agreement between Thomistic principles and recent phe1 See Jacques
Maritain "Art and Scholasticism" Scribner, N. Y. (1930),
and "Creative Intuition in Art and Poetry" Pantheon Books, N. Y. (1953);
Maurice De Wulf "Art and Beauty" B. Herder, St. Louis (1950); Leonard
Callahan, O.P. ''A Theory of Esthetic According to the Principles of St.
Thomas" Catholic University Press (1947); Robert Lechner, C.PP.S. "The
Aesthetic Experience" H. Regnery Co. (1953), et al.

281

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ALFRED PIKE

nomenological developments in musical aesthetics. 2 If such
a compatibility can be demonstrated then there is a possibility that a more complete reconciliation can be accomplished throughout the field.
THE PHENOMENOLOGY

OF

MusiC

The phenomenological tendency in modern musical aesthetics is basically psychological and must be clearly distinguished from "philosophical phenomenology." Psychological phenomenology represents an approach rather than
a system. The phenomenological method differs from general psychology in concentrating upon certain selected
phases in psycho-physical activity, and their application
to musical situations. This procedure places emphasis on a
descriptive, factual scrutiny of musical events 3 as phenomena. It is preoccupied with problems of experience,
meaning/ and communication arising from these musical
events rather than a concern with "ideal beauty," and
normative concepts of value. Phenomenological efforts are
concentrated upon re-achieving a direct and basic contact
with the actual music as it compels the senses to attention.
These efforts avoid replacing music by something it is not,
e.g., extra-musical concepts, emotional states, etc. This does
2 The phenomenological
approach to music has been expounded by Leonard
B. Meyer "Emotions and Meaning in Music" University of Chicago Press
(1956), and Monroe Beardsley ''Aesthetics" Harcourt, Brace & World, Inc.
(1958).
• The pitch-rhythm combinations of tones and their organization make up
these ''musical events.'' These different kinds of phenomenal ''Gestalts'' are
melodies, chords, rhythms in various style patterns and contexts. Smaller
groupings of events are in turn developed into larger architectonic formal
structures which are not directly perceptible, but must rely on memory for
comparison and evaluation.
• The meaning of music has concerned many theorists in the past, but the
practical application of phenomenology is recent. From a phenomenological
point of view musical experience is basically an act of perception, and musical
meaning arises from this perception, dealing with the sheer surface qualities
of sound.

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283

not imply that extra-musical meanings do not exist or are
unimportant, but such considerations are not allowed to
obscure the phenomenological scrutiny of the music.
When the auditory nerves are stimulated we have experiences of a certain kind. These experiences, received
through the ears, are described by :saying that we hear a
certain quality of sound or pitch. This description of our
aural experience would be unlike that given to such sensations as tickling, pricking, or burning. It is unlike these
descriptions because they depend upon analogies with objective phenomena. The description of pitch, or timbre, is
of our perception of objective phenomena. The term "experience" describes not only our feelings and sensations, but
also our perceptions. The te•rms describing each class should
not be confused. Aural sensations are unique in that they
are perceptions. Hearing is a form of perception, 5 taking
in sounds and their properties as well a;s musical facts.
Primarily perception signifies any means whereby something is recognized or identified by means of the senses.
Although sense experience is necessary it is not sufficient
for the identification of musical sounds. Sounds are empirical objects and the relation of sensation to perception
is that the first is a prerequisite of the second. The sensation itself cannot tell us anything about its cause.
Pure sensation is instantaneous, and undifferentiated-a
feeling impact. Let us imagine the sensation of a single
tone, a patch of :sound posited in a background of silence.
The vibrations function to form the peculiar pitch of a
tone, e.g., A=440 vibrations per second. This isolated tone
does not make musical sense in itself but arouses the expectation of further tones. This elementary perception is
already charged with meaning. The perceived sound is
• Perception involves the process of observation and attending, and depends
upon the organization of the sensory material and the designation of some
meaning or significance to it.

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ALFRED PIKE

always a part of a ''field'' of silence. To hear is to encounter sounds.
A musical composition is an integrated system of reciprocal influences and qualifications; the musical events
being what they are through their interrelationships with
other musical events. A full knowledge of these events can
only be obtained as the work unfolds in time; as the listener
anticipates coming events by what he immediately hears.
Certain sounds or sound complexes have a vector-like quality, pointing to other sounds to come. In this context the
patterns are devoid of feeling import. They are "phenomenally objective.'' The patterns have their own intrinsic and
kinetic qualities of tension-relaxation, tendency, striving,
hesitancy, slackening, closure, etc. 6 On the other hand these
same sound patterns can arouse the listener's expectations
of future developments, satisfying or disappointing these
anticipations, and giving rise to affective states which are
''phenomenally subjective.'' 7
Phenomenal objectivity and phenomenal subjectivity,
taken separately cannot be the datum upon which total
perception depends, but, taken together, fuse in the unified
process of musical experience. The listener's "phenomenal
field,'' the totality of his awareness at a given time, includes
phenomenally objective factors such as tones, intervals,
chords, timbres, instruments (the auditory field) as well
• See; Meyer, op. cit. Index,
7 Few contemporary
psychologists adhere wholeheartedly to one or another
of the psychologieal schools, but accept each school for what it has to offer in
achieving the fundamental aim of psychology, Their theoretical orientation
depends upon their special field of study, .However, there is general agreement
as to the conditions under which emotional responses arise, and the relationship between the affective stimulus and the affective response. The ''conflict
theory of emotions'' has been adopted by many psychologists of different viewpoints and has a particular bearing on the phenomenological effects of music.
''Emotion or affect is aroused when a tendency to respond is arrested or
inhibited.'' R. P. Angier ''The Conflict Theory of Emotions'' American
Journal of Psychology XXXIX (1927) pps. 390-401.

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285

as phenomenally subjective thoughts, memories, feelings,
and expectations (the psychological field) that accompany
the auditory field.
From the point of view of pure phenomenology the
listener does not immediately search within himself, into
his personal experience, for the significance of the sounds
he is hearing. Phenomenological datum is given in terms of
immediate experience and requires no translation to make
it meaningful. Faced with musical tension the listener has
no need, in order to understand it, to ,recall his own tense or
discordant experiences. The music does not make him think
of tension-it is tension itself. The meaning of the sounds
is not given and the act is not to be confused with cognitive
operations. Phenomenologically there is no reason to depart
from the perceptual facts, the musical events, to extramusical events or emotions. If the listener refers to the
"tension" of the music his reference is to a perceived fact.
The tension appears to be like the tension he sometimes
finds in himself. 8 Similarly if the tension in the music
gradually resolves the calmness which comes to his ears is
not an irrelevant sensory fact. Rather the dynamics of the
musical phenomena contain a movement towards calmness.
From the viewpoint of naive phenomenology there is no
need to seek for any extraneous cause of this tension and
release. Music can arouse general feelings of excitement,
serenity, las:situde, tension, relaxation, disappointment, and
satisfaction. These affective states are phenomenological,
embodied in the musical context.
However, there are listeners of various types, each with
his own private world of meanings, interpretations and feelings arising from the musical stimulus. In the phenomenal
field one level may shade the other. Subjective, emotional
8 Motor
reactions are produced by certain sounds and combinations of
sounds. They are in the consciousness, and produce changes in the physical
body. Dissonant chords can be distinguished and heard as the pattern of
tension felt in body and mind.

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ALFRED PIKE

factors may emerge sharply as the focus of the field with
objective factors fading into the background of awareness.
The difference between musical responses are due to the
dispositions and beliefs brought to bear on the musical experience rather than the musical processes which evoke the
responses.
How can specific emotional designations like ''sad'' or
"cheerful" be applied to
It is all a matter of perspective as these terms do not refer to the physical properties of sounds as such, but to the perception of them.
Either of two theories may be applied to the perception
of emotional qualities in music: (a) The process of identification and projection. The listener projects his particular
emotion (sadness, etc.) into the music through past associations with certain musical events (melodic and harmonic
formulae) as related to his own feeling of sadness. Upon
hearing these musical inflections (signs) the associated
emotion is aroused and projected. He imposes upon the
music his private, idiosyncratic meaning and organization,
responding to his meaning by some form of behavior that
is expressive of his personality. His reaction may be interpretive, cathartic, etc.
(b) The affective qualities, although actually extraneous to
the music (in the perceiver), are phenomenologically within
the music, being perceived as one of its qualities. These
emotional qualities are the objective side of the phenomenal
perceptive field. Sadness is carried by the music as a "behavioral object.'' Certain musical events are considered
to correspond, to some extent, to similar physical or mental
events. The music is considered to be charged with feeling
extending to the listener rather than the converse process.
Instead of saying the music expresses sadness we could use
a metaphorical description and say "the music is sad"
meaning that the qualities of this music are similar to qualhas eviities of human behavior. Experimental
dence to support the theory that these qualities are heard

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287

as phenomenally objective, and vary from person to person
according to learning and background. When the musical
idiom is familiar the responses are greatly alike and certain
generalizations can be made.
Musical enjoyment depends upon the music, as a phenomenal object, and the listener's subjective feelings about
the music, the expressive values in the music, and the form
of structure of the music. Music is not only sensual material, evoking various affective responses, but also a pattern
of sounds integrated by formal principles. 9 It is the logical
inner relationships 10 of these sounds which give them
meaning. Although these sounds and their relationships
are objective patterns they must be followed subjectively.
Hence there is a reciprocity between the formal connections
of tones and their qualitative, expressive value.
The communication or comprehension of musical events
arises through the reciprocity of the listener's empathic
projection and the music's play upon him. These musical
events provide him with a choice, bringing certain perceptible bits of musical experience to his attention and
inviting concurrence in them. The music is genuinely present and fully understood when he adjusts to it. Communication is achieved when his behavior identifies the patterns
• A passage of related musical events is received by the auditory apparatus
and finally reaches the brain. If there is a lack of perception and training
necessary for the aesthetic understanding of musical form, this information
will meet a block, whereas the same musical information being fed to a trained
listener would be met by an interpreting organization, assembling the patterns into significant forms, leading to aesthetic appreciation and further
understanding.
10 Logic is the name for the study of thought, but the thought so studied is
logical. Similarly musical logic is the logic of musical thought. Music caunot
state propositions nor prove their truth or error, argue syllogistically or draw
conclusions, but music is a non-conceptual form of thought and in being a
form of thought it must employ the same processes of thinking as any other
form of thinking. The inspiration of a work is no doubt psychological, probably emotional, but the technical process of making a continuous web of music
from the musical ideas is a process of thought.

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ALFRED PIKE

with himself. The field of perception is constantly filled
with the movement of tones, intervals, rhythms, timbres
which are immediately placed as real, without confusing
these events with daydreams. Equally constant are the illusions which are subjectively woven around these sounds.
Emotions and feelings whose presence are not incompatible
with the sound context, yet which are not actually involved
in it; they are in an imaginary realm.
The interrelationships of tonal patterns may stimulate
extra-musical associations in some listeners (memories and
images having similar patterns), but whether these associations are experienced as sensory images, emotional effect,s,
or as abstract formal patterns, the music has meaning because of them. There is an intimate interaction between the
extra-musical meaning of a musical composition and the
embodied meaning. Although these meanings are logically
separable the extra-musical meaning of the music will influence expectations of subsequent musical events (embodied meaning), even as the way these expectations are
satisfied or blocked will play an impurtant part in the
extra-musical meaning of various passages. Whatever the
listener's interpretation-be it a designative or embodied
meaning-musical affects can be reduced, in ultimate analysis, to the underlying musical events as phenomena with
their own objective phenomenal relationships.
THE PHENOMENOLOGY

OF MUSIC AND THOMISTIC

PRINCIPLES

Thomism in evaluating the phenomenological approach
cannot deny that this method has provided much that is
worthwhile. It is of an independent, psychological order,
but can serve to complement, and be complemented by
Thomistic principles. The Thomistic aesthetic can derive
p'hilosophically useful facts from the empirical data gath-

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OF MUSIC & THOMISTIC AESTHETIC

289

ered by phenomenology and contemplate these facts at
higher degrees of abstraction.
The phenomenology of music can be included within the
first order of the three degrees of abstraction; the Thomistic doctrine characterizing the three generic types of
knowledge.U These kinds of abstraction-physical,
mathematical, and metaphysical-correspond to essentially different types of intellective operation. Sense perception plays
an essential role in the knowledge proper to the first degree
of abstraction; however, according to one contemporary
Thomist, there are two ways of resolving concepts of the
sensible real: (a) by empiriological analysis, and (b) by
ontological analysis.
Empiriological analysis, within the first order of abstraction, investigates the sensible, observable, and measurable
as such, and is concerned with the knowledge of phenomena
as phenomena. The phenomenological method, which
gathers its data empirically, is included in this extension.
Ontological analysis begins with the sensible and observable data, but the mind penetrates this data seeking inner
natures, and intelligible reasons, and is refracted upwards
to the third degree of metaphysical abstraction. In following this procedure it arrives at concepts like quality, operative potency, material, formal, and final causes. It is an
intellectual knowledge concerned with the philosophical
explanation of the sensible.
From a Thomistic viewpoint the stimulus-response situation at the phenomenological level must be transformed
u For a detailed exposition of the degrees of abstraction see: Jacques
Maritain "The Degree of Knowledge" Chas. Scribner Sons (1959) pp. 3546, and "Philosophy of Nature" Philosophical Library (1951) pp. 73-88;
also Alfred Pike ' 'A Theology of Music' ' Gregorian Institute of America,
Toledo (1953) pp. 23-30.

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ALFRED PIKE

into a sign-meaning situation. 12 At the level of sensation
these qualities are fused. The Thomist will then transpose
the meaning of perception effecting both subject and object
simultaneously. The music is to be considered phenomenologically in its surface aspects, ontologically with its inner
substance as well as its transcendental attributes of unity,
truth, and beauty. The phenomenological and ontological
a:re both aspects of the same reality.
Phenomenology ·assumes a realist metaphysic. 13 It recognizes that men exist in a world of phenomena, not merely in
an environment of stimuli. Cognitive reactions to music are
reactions to musical significance not to mere sensations of
the auditory nerves. The listener does not just react to
sound stimuli, but he knows the nature of the stimulus. The
nature and validity of this knowledge extends into the realm
of epistemology. The Thomistic treatment of cognition appeals to empirical evidence to verify its conclusions, but
there can be no substitution of the philosophy of knowledge
for a phenomenology of knowing.
The following experiments in musical perception will corroborate the Thomistic treatment of the intellect:
12 According to Scholastic Dialectics a sign is instrumental if it leads to a
knowledge of the thing signified only ''mediately,'' i.e., through previous
knowledge of itself. It is itself the immediate object of cognition, and, once
known, it leads to the knowledge of the object it signifies. A formal sign,
on the contrary, immediately and without being perceived itself as a sign,
represents the thing signified. Musical events are instrumental signs when they
refer to extra-musical data. They have designative meaning in this case. They
are formal signs when they are autonomous, referring only to themselves. Here
they have syntactical or embodied meaning.
13 The phenomenological method is extremely realistic, and has stressed the
importance of the existing real in any system of thought, It has succeeded in
penetrating hitherto obscure aspects of the psychological act of listening to
music, Thomistic philosophy has not ignored the real nor reduced it to a mere
abstraction. Likewise the Thomistic aesthetic must have contact with reality
as it exists. The aesthetic object (the music) has real chauges and properties,
and experience gives the listener a trustworthy image of the music, Something
similar applies to his intellectual knowledge-the formal relations of music,

THE PHENOMENOLOGY OF MUSIC & THOMISTIC AESTHETIC

291

(a) If a tape recorder, or multi-speed phonograph is
made to play a series of motives from well known musical
compositions at various rates of speed, ranging from very
fast (Prestissimo) to moderate (Moderato) tempi, the investigator will find that the most extreme speed will only
evoke vague, confused responses from the listener. Theresult is a blurred sensation as the identifying melodic profile
is lost, and the specific motives are not perceived. The
listener will only be able to describe them in a general way.
If the same series is repeated at a slower speed on each
subsequent playing the responses will become more and
more determinate until finally the motives become perceptible, and are identified as ''the opening motto of Beethoven'·s Fifth Symphony" or "the initial motive of
Franck's D Minor Symphony," etc. Compare this with St.
Thomas' thought, "We can have knowledge not only of the
universal whole, which contains parts potentially, but also
of the integral whole; for each whole can be known confusedly, without its parts being known distinctly" (Summa
Theologica, q.85, a.3).
(b) If a listener is familiarized with a certain number of
chords, say five, and these simultaneities are interspersed
with five other chords with which he is not familiar a significant difference from the preceding experiment will result:
If the chordal series is played at a normal speed the
familiar chords will be recognized and given singular names
such as "C Major, Eb Minor," etc. The unfamiliar chords
will merely be described generally as Ininor or major chords
until they become fainiliar. Perception is always of wholes,
but not of the whole reality of the object. Recognition is
concerned with details. In other words the distinction between the psychological processes of perception and of
recognition consists of the fact that the former are concerned with wholes "known confusedly," and the latter
with distinctive characteristics known clearly. Perception

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ALFRED PIKE

is prior to recognition, epistemologically speaking, and the
object is always perceived in terms of something already
known.
The phenomenal properties of objectivity and subjectivity are seen by phenomenology in their proper perspective. Music is normally "out there" in audible space, arising from its source in an objective manner,l 4 on the other
hand, affective states are felt subjectively. Thus objectivity
and subjectivity are phenomenal facts, properties of an
organized perceptual field in which the points of reference
are the perceiving subject, and the object of perception.
Similarly Thomism makes a distinction between the object
and subject, and rejects extreme subjectivism. There is a
progression of sensible experience from which knowledge
of the object hegins and ends. The characteristics of the
music are not qualities merely heard, they are apprehended
in the music by the listener. They are not exclusively in his
subjective life.
In our consideration of phenomenology we saw how emotive phenomena were induced in terms of conflicting opposites: doubt-certainty, expectation-satisfaction,
incompleteness-completion which all relate to the kinetic nature
of musical events. 15 In the Thomistic synthesis these affective states can be transposed from the empirical to the
speculative realm of Rational Psychology. The will, or
rational appetite, is the power of enjoying, or disliking,
that which is apprehended by the intellect as perfect or
imperfect. Hence, an object which is perfect (complete), if
presented to the will as such, would satisfy all its capacities,
14 Collate with St. Thomas ''Res cognita dicitur
esse cognitionis objectum
secundum quod est extra cognoscentem in seipsa subsistens.'' (De Ver. 14.8
ld 5)
15 Musical events inducing
these psychological states arise from the principles of pattern perception, the law of good continuation, completion and
closure in various stylistic contexts, the weakening of musical shapes, deviations in tonal organization, etc. (See, Meyer, op. cit.)

THE PHENOMENOLOGY OF MUSIC & THOMISTIC AESTHETIC

293

and be admired and enjoyed. On the other hand, an object if
presented to the will as lacking anything of the perfect
(incomplete) will not satisfy the rational appetite, and consequently will not necessitate its admiration. If the rational
appetite is not supplied with the lacking factors necessary
for perfection (completion) it will be dissatisfied. We have
within us a power of longing for, striving after ideals of
knowledge and beauty. Man "looks before and after and
pines for what is not" in any accumulation of material
objects.
The phenomenological is a restricted method; it is not
concerned with causes, but the mere observation and classification of phenomena. The Thomist takes his orientation
from the principle ''every phenomenon which experience
shows to be real has a real cause." He will search for this
cause, formulate hypotheses, and attempt to verify them.
If his information points towards the existence of real affective states evoked by music, he will be inclined to admit
their existence because of his acceptance of the trustworthiness of experience, but he will require certain evidence. As
a realist he sees some revelation of reality, some reflection
of his principles, even in experimental laws. Phenomenology
gives some measure of insight into music because it reveals
certain characteristics of its structure and shows that in
music there is a certain tendency and inclination towards
the attainment of some final cause. Music strives towards
a definite end as determined by its proper nature.
Phenomenology cannot provide a basis for evaluation.
It has given preference to the primacy of intrinsic, immediate values over extrinsic, ultimate values. Music involves
objective relationships between sounds, and has an ontological status of its own with relations to other ontological
beings, relations which are psychological, epistemological,
ethical, etc. It remains for Thomism to transcend the empirical interpretations of phenomenology and to explore

294

ALFRED PIKE

these problems according to the concepts of beauty, goodness, and value which are also a part of the real natures of
phenomena. It is on this plane that we can hope for a Thomistic explanation of such questions as: (a) the nature of
beauty in music, (b) the subjectivity and objectivity of
beauty, (c) musical beauty as conditioned on form and
meaning, (d) truth as expressed by music, (e) the ultimate
nature of musical (aesthetic) experience, (f) the moral
aspects of music, (g) the theological implications of music. 16
ALFRED PIKE

St. John's University
Jamaica, New York

18

See, Pike, op. cit., Chapt. IX.

THE INTERIOR TESTIMONY OF
THE HOLY SPIRIT
PART

II

THE CATHOLIC
SECTION

T

PosiTION

1: The Two-fold Source of Revelation and the
Function of the Church.

HE PROBLEMS of the place of Scripture in the
economy of salvation and the manner of its insertion
into this economy may be stated by way of a proportion. We have seen two terms of this proportion in the doctrine formulated by Calvin, and given precision and defended by his progeny in the Protestant movement. These
terms are (1) the principle, sola Scriptura, and (2) the doctrine of the Interior Testimony. Before undertaking a
direct criticism of this position, we shall see what terms are
substituted on the other side of the equation. In recapitulating the Catholic doctrine, moreover, the first factor will
be that element which corresponds directly to the Calvinist
sola Scriptum. It will be a matter of briefly stating the
Catholic thesis and exposing the basis of the Church's
teaching on the two-fold font of revelation, Scripture and
Tradition.
This preliminary explanation has a certain extrinsic
necessity about it too, insofar as misunderstanding of the
Catholic doctrine is not a thing of the past. Karl Barth, for
example, gives evidence that in the theological circle which
he represents today (Calvinist in its historical roots) this
position is not clearly comprehended. He writes of that
synthesis in this vein :
What [the Council of Trent] really intended was the identification
of Scripture, Church, and revelation. This lay behind the decree
about tradition, and might well have been stated in it in accordance
with the meaning of the developments which had preceded it. . . .
It was no extravagance, but it had become the common habit of

295

296

MAURICE· B. SCHEPERS

the Church, and still is even in contemporary Catholic dogmatics,
not to speak as Trent did of two, but quite expressly of three
sources of Christian knowledge, Scripture, tradition, and the
Church. 1

What, then, according to Catholic doctrine are the authentic sources of divine revelation 7 Is Barth correct in
affirming that, at least for all practical purposes revelation,
the Church, Tradition, and the Scriptures are all one reality 7 The germ of the answer to these questions is actually
contained in the decree of the Council of Trent, to which
Barth refers. ''Revealed truth is contained in written books
and in traditions, not committed to writing, which, received
by the Apostles either from the mouth of Christ Himself or
from the Holy Spirit, have come down to us as if passed
from hand to hand.'' 2 The so-called fonts of revelation,
Barth, I, 2, pp. 551 and 558.
Before the first draft of the text was presented for the consideration of
the Conciliar Fathers (March 22), and in the two weeks of discussion which
followed, it appears that the Council was divided roughly into two parties
concerning the decree. The extreme position of one party was stated by the
Bishop of Chioggia, Jacobo Naclantus. After having asked the Fathers of
the Council not to ''receive the Traditions,'' he stated: ''No one is unaware
that all which pertains to salvation is contained in the Holy Books" (Concilii Tridentini actorum, diariorum, epistolarum, et tractuum nova collectio,
edidit Societas Goerrensiana, Freiburg im Breissgau, 1911, 16 tomes: t. 5,
p. 18, 11, 27 ff.). The other view was expressed by the Cardinal of Giennensis,
who asked the Fathers to receive the Traditions (ibid.). This second party
appears to have been further divided into two wings: those, such as the latter
Cardinal, who wished to abstain from the explicit determination of the '' traditions " in question (and this view prevailed), and a second group who would
have preferred that the Council make explicit what traditions were to be received pari pietatis affectu (op. cit., p. 37, the remarks of D. Senogalliensis).
The text presented to the Fathers on March 22 differs in some remarkable
respects from that finally adopted.
Two facts are to be noted: (1) the wording, partim ... in libris scriptis,
partim sine scripta traditionibus, in the original text, regarding the apportioning of divine revelation, is deleted, in the final decree; (2) however, in the
acts of the Council, not a single word of the debate (heated in some instances)
concerns this particular usage. The entire argument centers about the phrase,
pari pietatis affectu, which several of the Fathers would have deleted too, or
changed to simili pietatis affectu (op. cit., p. 91).
What can be concluded from these historical
Did the Fathers of the
1

2

THE INTERIOR TESTIMONY OF THE HOLY SPIRIT

297

therefore, are really only two: first of all, the Bible, and
second, divine tradition, properly so-called, which has as
its primary source either the revelation of Christ to the
Apostles while He was on this earth, or else the revelation
to these same Apostles by the Holy Spi'rit from the time of
the Ascension of Christ into heaven to the death of the last
of the Apostles. Henceforth, according to the Catholic
position, nothing new has been received in the genus of
revelation. This is the significance of the word, ''contained.'' The visible mission of the Son of God, of which
the mission of the Apostles was an integral continuation,
achieved all that God envisages in this respect. The revelation of Christ was the apex and the completion of all that
God had to tell man about Himself. This much is certain
about the above statement of the Council.
A better comprehension of this doctrine, however, depends upon how one understands the term ''tradition.''
More than the written books of which the council speaks,
tradition is so complex that its precise meaning needs to
be defined. Nominally, of course, tradition refers to that
which is passed on, or also the actually passing on, of divine
Council of Trent, by deleting the partim . . . partim wish to leave open the
possibility of the decree's being interpreted in a sense which would make the
content of the Scriptures and Tradition
It appears that part of
the difficulty at that moment in history was a difficulty that endures, and
seems to become even more complex: the richness of the concept of Tradition.
From the text of the debate among the Fathers, it is evident that they understood tradition in an objective sense; but the consensus on the extension of
this concept was varied (see, for example, the remarks of the Bishop of Fanensis in the general assembly of March 27; p. 39). The approximation of
Tradition and magisterium ("living tradition"), therefore, seems to be a
later development.
The question of the exact interpretation of this decree appears to remain
an open one, especially since the precise reason for the disappearance of the
phrasing, partim ... partim remains obscure. This entire question is treated
explicitly, and also placed in its proper context by Fr. I. M.-J. Cougar, O.P. in
La Tradition et les Traditions (Essai Historique). Paris: Librairie Artheme
Fayard, 1960. Chapter V: "Concile de Trente et Theologie post-tridentine,"
pp. 207-232.

298

MAURICE B. SCHEPERS

revelation. On this basis tradition is distinguished, according to whether it is considered either objectively or formally (actively). Objectively considered tradition is doctrine
connoting its transmission. Again transmitted doctrine
which contains the revelation of God may be viewed as a
whole (in confuso) or in particular. In the first case tradition is the entire body of Christian doctrine regardless of
the mode of its transmission. If considered in particular,
however, objective tradition is either written or not. If written it is nothing other than Sacred Scripture itself. Nonwritten tradition, however, is our real concern; and even in
the objective sense, this admits of a multiple distinction. As
to its content in relation to the Scriptures, from a merely
negative point of view, tradition may or may not contain
elements identical with that which is also contained in the
Bible. The negation consists in this, namely, that the doctrine is not transmitted through the inspired word of God,
but rather by word of mouth, by the praedicatio ecclesiastica.
But privatively objective tradition designates that which
might be the object of faith and yet not contained in any
way in the Scriptures. 3 It is important to note that, since
it is a question of matters pertaining to faith, the tradition
will be, as to its origin, divine and, in the dispensation of the
New Testament, will have as its immediate promulgator
either Christ Himself or the Apostles to whom He promised
that the Spirit of Truth would teach them all things (i.e.,
would bring to absolute perfection the revelation which He
had once come to complete). 4 Ecclesiastical tradition, therefore, is excluded, at least indirectly. There is a type of this
latter which may be traced back to the Apostles, considered
not as promulgators of the New Testament revelation, but
• This is called by Cardinal Franzelin tradition in sensu strictiori, that which
is ordinarily meant when the term is used objectively. See Tractatus de Tra·
ditione et Sacra Scriptura, ed. 4a, Rome: ex Typis Polyglottis Cong. de Prop.
Fide, 1896, p. 17.
• Cf. the passage from the Council of Trent (D. 783).

THE INTERIOR TESTIMONY OF THE HOLY SPIRIT·

299

rather as governors of the Church which Christ founded.
An example of such would be the most primitive ceremonies

with which the sacraments of the New Order were conferred. Granted that at the present day these could be discerned, a denial of their binding force would, indirectly, be
tantamount to rejecting the delegation of the power to legislate in such matters, made by Christ to the Apostles. Other
merely ecclesiastical tradition is, as to its genus, human.
As a sign that a tradition is apostolic St. Augustine adduces the test of universality, i.e., is it a practise (or a
5 The above distincbelief) of the whole Christian
tion can be ,summarized in the following schema :
in general
Divine

{

negatively
in particular

{
privatively
(in a
strict sense)

Tradition,
objectively
considered
. .
Human (ecclesiastical)

{

From Christ
Himself
{From the
Apostles

merely
a ostolic
P
merely
ecclesiastical

·
{umversal
particular

If Tradition be considered formally it does not refer to
content but rather to an act-the act, namely, by which
the organ instituted by Christ transmits the divine revelation committed to her by her Founder. This activity of the
Church, which is called praedicatio ecclesiastica, may be
viewed either statically or dynamically. In the former case
the Church's passing on of tradition is documented in her
authentic doctrinal pronouncements. To this documentation
may also be added all the literature, e.g., of the Fathers of
• Cf. Franzelin, Zoo. cit. and Billot, L., S.F., De Immutabilitate
Romae: ex typis Pontificii Instituti Pii IX, 1907, pp, 19 ff.

Traditionis,

300

MA URIOE B. SCHEPERS

the Ohurch, consonant as it is with the doctrine proposed
by the teaching hierarchy. Indeed, for the greater part, the
Fathers themselves pertain to this hierarchy in so far as
they were successors of the Apostles in one or another See.
This whole treasure of Christian literature, the relic, as it
were, of the Church's activity, links the Church of the present day with the Church of Apostolic times; and as such it
constitutes a remote rule of faith. 6 Formally and dynamically, however, tradition is nothing else than the praedicatio ecclesiastica of any given moment in the history of
the Church, even of the present moment; and in this last
sense tradition is truly said to be the proximate rule of
Christian faith.
With these distinctions in mind we return to the statement
of the Catholic doctrine on tradition in the decree of the
Council of Trent. With particular regard 1) for divine
tradition objectively considered as privatively distinct from
Sacred Scripture, and 2) for tradition formally considered
in its dynamic sense, we ask if Karl Barth is correct in saying that this succinct expression of the doctrine is the result
of a heterogeneous evolution of the Roman Catholic system. 7
Is there perceivable an inner conflict between the tendency
to stratify the Ohristian synthesis through a Tradition that
runs parallel with and completes Sacred Scripture, and an
opposite tendency to leave the Scriptures free to rule the
Church as they really
Let us take a look at the
texts which interest Barth himself, and see if such a conflict
can be verified.
The earliest witness to the existence of unwritten Tradition as a source of divine revelation is St. Irenaeus. It is
noteworthy that having lived through the latter half of the
second century (d. 202), Irenaeus ·constituted for the
• ef. Billot, ibid., p. 29. This author carefully distinguishes rule of faith from
object of faith, a just distinction, as can be seen from the double aspect of
tradition.
• Of. Church Dogmatics, I, 2, pp. 547-551.

THE INTERIOR TESTIMONY OF THE HOLY SPIRIT

301

Church of that period a rather direct link with the Apostles
themselves. St. Iranaeus speaks of having learned from St.
Polycarp, and we know that this latter was a disciple of the
Apostle St. John. There are two important passages in his
Adversus H aereses that bear consideration here. In the
first of these he is discussing the manner in which the
heretics of that particular time, principally the gnostics,
attempted to escape being convicted of error by reference
to the revelation of God. First of all, he observes, when
they are confronted with the testimony of the Scriptures,
the heretics themselves take refuge in the affirmation that
''truth cannot be found in them save by those who are conversant with Tradition." 8 It is to be noted that this is
characteristic of the gnostics with whom St. Iranaeus was
dealing, namely, that they appealed to an esoteric doctrine
that could be known only by those who were well initiated
in the system of the gnosis. Proceeding then dialectically
the Christian apologete observes:
When, moreover, we again call their attention to that Tradition
which has its origin in the Apostles, which is cared for by the succession of presbyters in the churches, then they attack Tradition .
. . . And so in the end they consent neither to the Scriptures nor
to Tradition. 9

It is evident that St. Irenaeus is speaking of a reality distinct from that tradition which the Gnostics claimed as their
prerogative. If anyone, however, in the present day would
hesitate on the basis of this rather indirect statement to
affirm that Irenaeus was referring to a reality separable
from the Scriptures as the Church then recognized them,
he has this to say just a little further on in a different context: "What if the Apostles had left us no Scriptures;
would it not then be necessary to follow the order of tradition., which they themselves handed on to those to whom
• Adv. Haer., III, 2, 1 (MG 7, 846).
• Adv. Haer., eol. 847.

302

MAURICE B. SCHEPERS

they committed the churches.'' 10 It is difficult to see how
Barth could in any sense see portions of these texts of
Irenaeus as a retarding influence in the evolution of the
Roman Catholic system. It seems rather to be an ingenuous
statement of which the doctrine of the Council of Trent is
but a confirmation; so that the latter ought not to be considered as the term of a long period of gradual aggrandizement by the Church, but as the natural crystallization of a
doctrine that has its sources in revelation itself, and which
needed to be expressed, as the occasion demanded it, as
far back in the history of the Church as the time of
Irenaeus.
The same may be said of the texts that are generally
adduced from the writings of other of the Fathers and of
ancient Christian writers. Such is that of Origen (d. 254):
Since there are many who deem themselves to know those things
that are of Christ, and not a few of them actually affirm something
different from that which was formerly held; since, moreover, the
doctrine of the Church, handed on from the Apostles and enduring
even now within the Church, is maintained by the order of succession: that alone ought to be believed as true which in no way is
in opposition to the ecclesiastical and apostolic tradition. 11

The witness of St. Basil of Caesarea is perhaps even
stronger:
Of the dogmas and the teachings which are kept in the Church,
some are derived from doctrine that is written while others are
received from the tradition of the apostles, given to us in mystery.
Each of these has the same force, as far as piety is concerned; and
so let no one contradict either of them. For if we presume to reject
as of little moment those customs that have not been committed to
writing, we shall imprudently do injury to the Gospel itself in
its cardinal points ; even more, we shall reduce teaching to a mere
fiction. 12

It is not to be wondered that the Council of Trent spoke of
receiving and venerating both the Bible and Tradition, the
10

Ibid., ch. 4, col. 855.

n Peri Archon, I, prol., 2 (MG 11, 116).
lll

De Spiritu Sanoto, ch. 27, 66 (MG 32, 187).

THE INTERIOR TESTIMONY OF THE HOLY SPffiiT

303

two-fold font of revelation, with ''equal reverence and
affection of piety.'' One ought to be cautious, however, in
the interpretation of the texts of the Fathers. Here, for
example, St. Basil shows by the examples he uses (the use
of the sign of the Cross by Christians, the custom of facing
east to pray, making use of the first day of the week for
Christian worship, the formulae of the Eucharistic celebration, the blessing of baptismal water and the holy oils) that
the traditions are not always dogmas, in the precise sense
of the word. Nonetheless even 'these practices, if they be
such, do have direct reference to doctrines, some of which
are not found in the :Scriptures (the use of holy oils, for
example, implies the institution of a sacramental rite-oil
being the symbolic reality employed), and indirect reference to the aforementioned apostolic power to govern the
Church.
Other Fathers can be cited too, 13 and their testimony
leads right up to the definition of the Council of Trent,
not as a gradual usurpation of the freedom of the Bible, but
rather as the crystallization of a fundamental truth of the
Christian synthesis. Later the position of St. Augustine
must be considered separately, and so it is possible to conclude these citations by remarking that, even though on
occasion one may find the Fathers speaking of the Sacred
Scriptures as the unique pathway to the acquisition of divine truth, it is always in a context wherein the question
is one of merely setting off the intrinsic divine value of
the Sacred Scriptures against the comparative worthlessness of that which is merely human. 14
13 E.g., St. Epiphanius
(d. 403), Adv, Haer., 1. II, 1, 6, (MG 41, 1047); St.
John Chrysostom, In ep. II ad Thess., Hom. 4, 2 (MG 62, 488); Tertullian
(d. c. 240), Liber de Praescriptionibus, ch. 19 (ML 2, 36); St. Augustine,
De Bapt. contra Dorvat., 1. II, ch. 7, 12 (ML 43, 132).
>< Cf. St. Athanasius, Oratio contra Gentes, 1 (MG 25, 3) : Tertullian, De
Virginibus Velandis, 1 (ML 2, 936-938); St. Augustine, de Doct. Christiana,
1. II, ch. 9 (ML 34, 42).

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MAURIOE B. SCHEPERS

To establish. the fact of a constancy in the doctrine of
the two-fold source of divine revelation is not difficult, but
the delineation of the relationship between the two, Scripture and Tradition, and their mutual relation to the Church
is another matter. These relations are important too, to
the present consideration; therefore, a brief discussion of
their nature is in order. Let us speak first of all of Scripture and Tradition as containing the object of Catholic
Faith. Calvin himself finds no difficulty in admitting an
objective Tradition, in sensu strictiori, in the dispensation
of the Old Testament. 15 Before the time of Moses it is not
possible to point to a written witness to the revelation of
God. Yet it is certain that from the very beginning of
creation man was in touch with God, and this is in a supernatural way. There was, moreover, a single means of
handing on this precious truth, i.e., by oral tradition. The
transmission was imperfect, perhaps, since there seems to
have been lacking an organ of infallible proposition, but
it was sufficient to give all men the opportunity "to seek
God, if happily they might feel after him or find him,
although he be not far from any one of us" (Acts 17-27).
From time to time (and this is evident from the biblical
history), the primitive revelation was supplemented by
oracles to the patriarchs. When Moses was inspired to put
these things down in a written form the world and the
human race were already extremely old.
The temporal priority of tradition is no less verified
in the New Testament. Jesus Christ Himself, the Author
and Promulgator of the New Law, taught orally but wrote
not a word. When He commanded his Apostles to ''go
forth and teach all nations" (Matt. 28:19), Christ omitted
telling them to put the Gospel in writing. Doubtless this
too was an element in the divine plan for the spread of the
final revelation of God to mankind; but in the first instance
15

Inst., I, 6, 2; op. cit., vol. I, p. 82 (CR, XXX, 54).

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305

this doctrine too was disseminated by an oral tradition.
This is the object of the "order of tradition" referred to
in the second century by St. Irenaeus, as also in the thirteenth century by St. Thomas Aquinas, in much the same
way: ''Even though not all are handed down by the Scriptures, yet the Chul'ch holds them from the intimate tradition of the Apostles.'' 16 It is the tradition which is set down
as an authentic and primary source of divine revelation
by a constant teaching of the Catholic Church.
Now if we view tradition dynamically it is possible to
perceive the Church's distinct role in this economy. It will
be recalled that this transmission of Christian doctrine is
identical with the teaching activity of the Church. This
institution, therefore, may be considered either absolutely
or as modified by this precise function, viz., to transmit
revelation:. It is evident that in either case the Church is
distinct from the fonts of revelation she being an organ
of divine revelation of an order different from Scripture
and Tradition. She takes rightful possession of them and
proposes the doctrine contained in them, but never becomes
thereby a source of revelation in the sense that they are.
This is the reason that the Council of the Vatican declares
that the Church "depends upon the word of God, written
and handed on by tradition,'' and then ''guards, exposes,
professes and declares" this wordP The function of the
Bible and of oral Tradition (taken objectively) is to contain
revelation, while that of the magisterium of the Church
(tradition taken actively or formally) is to propose revelation, to apply revelation to the present age, to give it a
living expression. This expression or proposition is, in
virtue of the special assistance of the Holy Spirit, free
from error under certain conditions; and this freedom is
God's final guarantee of the perpetual stability of his rev16
17

Summa Theol., III, q. 64, a. 2, ad 1.
Constitutio dogmatica de fide catholica, Sess. III, April 24, 1870; D. 1781.

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MAURICE B. SCHEPERS

elation. Yet this fact never makes the infallible proposition
of revelation by the Church a font of revelation in the
sense in which it has been defined above.
This distinction of order between the infallible Church
and ,the fonts of revelation helps to determine what is signified by the affirmation that these latter depend also in
some way upon the Church. It is a dependence not in the
direction of the fonts of revelation themselves, for they
stand by themselves as immediate expressions of the Word
of God. The dependence is that which is verified in the
transmitting of the revelation to its subject, man; so that it
might be more accurate to speak of the dependence of man
upon the Chur,ch, rather than of the fonts of revelation.
In reality the doctrine proposed here contains all the
elements necessary for defining the generation of an act of
faith. We note this because Calvin himself recognizes that,
notwithstanding the fundamental position of the doctrine of
the Interior Testimony to his system, it is really a special
case of the general problem of faith. Thus both Calvinist
and Catholic must give credence to this proposition: The
Word of God in the Bible is an authentic source of divine
revelation. The complex picture of this act, according to
the doctrine just proposed, is expressed by St. Thomas in
the following formula: "Faith adheres to all the articles of
faith by reason of one mean, viz., on account of the First
Truth proposed to us in the Scriptures, according to the
teaching of the Church who has the right understanding of
them.'' 18 In this case the term ''First Truth'' is St.
Thomas' modest way of expressing the living activity of
God, Revelation, wherewith He impregnates, a,s it were,
the minds of those whom He has chosen, so that their minds
conceive faith. But he does not leave out the other ordinary
means which intervene to make faith possible. The doctrine
of God in the Scriptures (and Tradition) comes to us
18

Summa Theol., II II, q. 5, a. 3, ad 2.

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307

·through the Church. The Church acts as a medium, not in
the sense that she sifts out the true from the false; for,
as we have already noted in general, the Scriptures have
their own intrinsic claim to inerrancy, and, therefore, to
the assent of faith. Rather, as Cajetan puts it, the Church
functions as the ''rule, proposing and explaining the things
to be believed, in this measure modifying as far as men are
concerned, the divine truth revealing itself." 19
A:s a matter of fact, it is remarkable that this contemporary of John Calvin took great pains (not, however, from
any polemical motive; because his Commentary antedates
by several years the first edition of the Institutes) to make
this Thomistic doctrine on the formal motive of the act and
habit of faith quite clear, by delineating all of the elements.
It may be helpful to follow his commentary.
First of all, concerning faith, Cajetan points out that its
dependence on a created cause is tantamount to its having
a created rule. Now to understand the extent to which faith
can have a created rule, we must, he says, keep in mind
that two things concur with respect to faith: (1) the inner
assent of the mind; (2) the exterior proposition and explanation of the things which are to be believed. Faith's assent
cannot possibly have a created rule. Its one rule and sole
cause is God. Therefore, when we speak of a created rule
of faith, it is to be understood in relation to the exterior
proposition of that which belongs to faith, and this exclusively.
Cajetan's general contention is that, according to the dispensation of God's providence, this latter proposition can
depend on either angels or men. And when we examine the
concrete manner in which this dispensation is realized now,
we discover that the Holy Spirit has provided for an
infallible rule, which Cajetan calls the sensus et doctrina
10 Commentary on Summa Theol,, II II, q. 1, a. 1, Leonine Edition of the
Opera Omnia. See also Summa Theol. II II, q. 6, a. 1.

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MAURICE B. SCHEPERS

Ecclesiae. It is worth noting that he attributes this infallibility to the Church, as such, and not immediately to any
one organ within the Church's structure.
The conclusion which Cajetan draws from this line of
reasoning is that faith really has two infallible rules: (1)
divine revelation; (2) the authority of the Church. He is
quick, however, to point out that there is a vast difference
between them. Divine revelation is, formally, the motive
on account of which the believer adheres to the object of
faith; and it is, moreover, essential to faith. The authority
of the Church is only the minister through which the object
of faith is attained; and it is accidental to faith, i.e., it belongs to faith insofar as it is our faith which is in question,
and not the faith of those, such as the Apostles and Prophets, to whom God revealed Himself immediately.
One last problem that Cajetan treats in this connection
is the all important one of knowing the Church as an infallible rule. His answer is quite simple. Among those
things, he states, which are revealed by God is the holiness
of the one catholic Church; and this holiness implies necessarily the rectitude of the Church's understanding and
propagation of doctrine. Therefore, anyone who assents to
the truth that God is the one who has revealed the articles
of faith, by the same token accepts the Church as the
infallible rule of his faith.
The difficulty with this explanation, however, is that, as
Cajetan himself observes, it might appear that we are involved in a vicious cir'Cle. On the one hand, we believe that
the Church is an infallible, albeit created, rule of faith,
because God has revealed it to be so. On the other hand,
we believe that God has revealed this, because the Church
says t'hat he did. The solution of this last objection is based
on what has been said previously concerning the respective
roles of divine revelation and the Church as infallible rules
of faith. In the first case, the "because" refers both to the

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309

assent and to the proposition of that which is the object of
assent; and it relates to faith as such. The reason is, as has
been pointed out, that divine revelation is the formal motive
of the assent to the object of faith (ratio formalis objecti).
In the latter case, however, the reference of the "because"
is only to the exterior proposition of that which belongs
to faith, and, again, only in relation to those whose faith is
mediated by a created cause. 20
Thus divine revelation is transmitted to mankind in the
fonts of revelation and through the magisterium of the
Church. It is God bending toward man with such largesse
that He accommodates this manifestation to what is connatural to man. In the first instance the accommodation is
by way of expressions intelligible to the human apparatus
of understanding, by putting the revelation in human language, through oral and written testimony (and this is the
part of the Catholic synthesis that is a scandal to Barth);
while the final form of the accommodation consists in a
contemporary witness to the true sense of the objective
content of revelation (the part of the synthesis that was
principally a scandal to Calvin, and, is, secondarily, to
Barth also).
To sum up the doctrine that has been presented in this
section, as an introduction to the Catholic position on certifying the Sacred Scriptures as divine:
1) These principles hold the same place in the Catholic synthesis
as does the Calvinistic principle, sola Scriptura.
2) There exists a divine revelation which is manifested in two
forms, really which may be distinct even as to objective content in
some instances, the Scriptures and Oral Tradition.
3) The presentation or proposition of the content of this two-fold
revelation is conditioned, from man's point of view, by the magis.., Ibid., nn. 10 and 12; cf. also St. Thomas, In Boetii de Trinitate, q. 3, a. 1,
sol. 4 in fine. In this place St. Thomas compares that which is proposed exteriorly, i.e., by the Church, with regard to faith, to that which is perceived
by the senses with regard to the knowledge of principles in the natural order.

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MAURICE B. SCHEPERS

terium of the Church, an institution which functions in the transmission of divine revelation as a living witness to the true sense of
what is to be found in the two-fold font.
4) Therefore, the act of faith which a man makes in divine revelation will depend (a) on the activity of God, (b) on the font of
revelation, and (c) upon the Church, but the dependence in each
case will be of a distinct order.

2: The Certification of the Divine Au.thority of
the Bible.
From the previous section it is easily discernible that
although for Calvin and those of his school of thought
the ·certification of the Bible is the central and irreducible
question, in the Catholic synthesis it is more particular
and relative. Because Calvin posited the absolute supremacy of the Scriptures, all of his endeavor had to be in the
certification of them; whereas. the Catholic system, admitting as it does a two-fold font of revelation, is concerned
with the certification of this manifold. Nevertheless, to
form the basis by which we may criticize the Calvinist position on its own ground, it will be preferable to restrict
ourselves to that single point even in the consideration of
the Catholic doctrine.
SECTION

Just at this juncture, however, a difficulty arises, which
must be solved before we proceed further. It is a difficulty,
in a way, of terminology; and it stems from the fact that
the Calvinist and the Catholic authors do not always agree,
at least verbally, on what is the object of the Interior Testimony, or that which corresponds to it in the Catholic system. Calvin himself speaks of confirming the Scriptures,
establishing their authority, as also of accrediting to them
divine origin. Catholic theologians, therefore, ought to determine exactly what formality of the Sacred Scriptures is
under discussion when Galvin or one ·of his disciples undertakes their confirmation. Is it the fact that they contain
revelation f Or, is it rather the notion that they are inspired

THE INTERIOR TESTIMONY OF THE HOLY SPIRIT

311

and therefore free from
Or, finally, is Calvin, unconsciously or not, referring to that formality which is
Here we
called the canonicity of the Sacred
propose to examine these terms briefly and to make a judgment of the question.
In the first place, Catholic authors have distinguished
sufficiently between the phenomenon of biblical inspiration
and divine revelation. Each of them is in the genus of
prophecy, that is, each of them is ordered to intellectual
contact between God and man, by means of a divinely chosen
human delegate who speaks for God. In the case of divine
revelation the speech of the prophet is based upon a light
that he receives from God, and of which he is aware. The
object of his locution is something that is divine, that is,
beyond the reach of man's ordinary knowledge; and so we
see that in the Sacred Scriptures, the prophets often preface what they have to say with, "Thus saith the Lord."
Inspiration, however, according to the distinction which is
based upon the thought of St. Thomas, 21 even though it be
in the same class of reality, is an imperfect form of
prophecy. The inspired prophet is not always conscious
of the fact of his being inspired. Thus he does not, under
this formality, always speak explicitly in the name of God;
indeed, sometimes he speaks ''as from his own person, even
though it be with the help of divine light." 22 Nor does
inspiration, as such, have as its object knowledge which is
properly divine. For this reason Catholic theologians have
defined biblical inspiration not in terms of the specific character of what is transmitted through the medium of the
prophet from God to man, but rather in terms of the general effect
the divine light has upon what the prophet
writes, namely, that, whether he speak properly in the name
of God or ''as from his own person,'' what he writes will
21 Summa Theol., II II, q. 174, a. 2, ad 3.
•• Summa Theol., II II, q. 174, a. 2, ad 3.

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MAURICE B. SCHEPERS

be that which God wills to be written, in the fullest sense
of this phrase. It is for this reason that St. Thomas applies
the notion of instrumental causality to inspiration, and the
hagiographer is called a divine instrument, whose faculties
(primarily the mind, secondarily the will and the executive
faculties) are elevated and moved in such a manner that he
write what God wills and in the way that God wills it to
be written. A necessary corollary of this use by God of a
human instrument, in this precise manner, is that the content of the hagiographer's work is without error, that is,
divinely true; even though objectively there may be no
question of divine truth, properly so-called. This quality
of inerrancy is, according to the Catholic view of biblical
inspiration, a property, and, therefore, inseparable from
inspiration itself. It is immediately evident that the question of whether or not Calvin and his disciples' notion of
revelation and inspiration jibe with this doctrine will certainly have an influence upon the direction which criticism
of that notion according to the norms of Catholic theology
will take. Therefore, we shall have occasion to return to
this point shortly. Before leaving it momentarily, however,
another word should be said by way of emphasis. In spite
of the real distinction of biblical inspiration from divine
revelation, inspiration is correctly affirmed to be a supernatural fact, that is, a reality the existence and intimate
nature of which cannot be known by human reason unaided,
but must be revealed by God.
The formality that remains to be considered is that of
canonicity. From the language of the Council of the Vatican we may correctly infer that the fact that the Scriptures
are inspired and that they are canonical are two distinct
things. The Council speaks of the Scriptures' being received as ''sacred and canonical.'' 23 The word ''sacred''
23 Cone. Vat., Sess. III (April 24, 1870), Dogmatic Constitution
of the Catholic Faith, c. 2, Revelation, D. 1787.

THE INTERIOR TESTIMONY OF THE HOLY SPIRIT

313

evidently refers here to their being inspired. What does
their being canonical add to this
The answer to
this question is simple enough, although it contains a paradox. The canonicity of the Scriptures refers to their being
commended by the Church and to the Church as a public
rule of faith. The canonical Scriptures are, first of all,
comprised within a list which is of ecclesiastical origin,
that is, formed and promulgated by the teaching Church.
Thus it is that St. Augustine, reflecting the common usage
of his age, speaks of an ecclesiastical canon being constituted.24 Second, the Scriptures themselves are a rule or
norm of the faith which the Church publicly professes.
Whether, therefore, the formality of canonicity be considered in a passive sense as designating a norm by which the
Scriptures are accepted as the word of God, or in the active
sense, as pointing to a rule according to which adherence
is given to divine revelation (by the Ecclesia docens) ;
the term always bears a direct relationship to the Church.
In fact, historically, the Church and canon have never been
separated, it being inconceivable either that a canon be
constituted by a mere private authority or that the canonical Scriptures be given to any other but the society of believers. This brings us back again to the idea of revelation,
and shows us how, according to the plan of God, revelation
and inspiration, though really distinct, are as a matter of
fact united in the Scriptures. That they are canonical means
that in the Scriptures man has a guide, a rUle, by which he
is directed to the true knowledge of God Himself. 25 Father
Zarb sums up these notions:
[Canonicity] is that internal character of the Sacred Scriptures in
virtue of which being divinely inspired they form the deposit of
faith .... Canonicity, therefore, is essentially based upon divine
inspiration; but it adds a formality particular in every way. This
24 '' ••• eanon eeelesiastieus eonstitutus
est ... ''Contra Cresconium, 1. II,
e. 31, n. 39 (ML 43, 489).
25 Here we restriet the diseussion to the active sense of the term.

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MA URIOE B. SCHEPERS

is to say that in virtue of this quality the Scriptures are essentially
directed toward constituting the deposit of faith. 26

At this point we pose the question: which of these formalities are Calvin and his disciples speaking of, w}len
they affirm that by the Interior Testimony of the Holy
Spirit the divine authority of the Scriptures is definitively
established 1 At the outset it is necessary to observe that
the question must be answered somewhat differently for
Calvin together with his immediate and faithful disciples,
on the one hand, and for Karl Barth together with the
members of his school of thought, on the other. The first
moment of the Reformation, that thrust which was really
controlled by Calvin and a few other notable leaders, while
rejecting the Catholic notion of a two-fold font of revelation, still retained the traditional view with regard to the
inner nature of the Sacred Scriptures. In other words, it
must be admitted that for Calvin and the Reformers of his
period (and those today who are faithful to his entire synthesis of Christian doctrine), there was such a thing as
biblical inspiration in the sense in which we have defined it
above. The whole tone of the Institu.tes indicates that he
never thought of denying that the effect of inspiration is
something permanenltly divine; and the inerr-ancy which results from this character is a fundamental truth of his
system. 27 Therefore, we may infer that for Calvin and those
who are faithful to his principles there is also such a thing
as the canonicity of the Scriptures, an intrinsic quality in
virtue of which the Bible is a rule of faith for the Church.
The higher criticism of the nineteenth century posed a
problem for the Protestant theologians in this very sphere.
Zarb, S., O.P., Il Canone Biblico, p. 104.
zr ''That the truth might remain in a continual course of instruction to all
ages, [God] determined that the same oracles he had deposited with the patriarchs should be committed to public records" Inst., I, 6, 2; op. cit., vol. 1,
p. 82 (OR, XXX, 54). "It is only in the Scriptures that the Lord hath been
pleased to preserve his truth in perpetual remembrance" ibid., I, 7, 1, p. 85
(OR, XXX, 56).
26

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315

The results of this criticism pointed to the fact that the
Bible could no longer be considered as free from error,
especially with regard to science and history. A choice,
therefore, presented itself to the Protestants of that time;
and the situation even extends itself to the present day.
The one possibility was and is to reject intransigently the
inferences that some modern critics desire to make on the
basis of the biblical research of the last century. This
school of Protestantism would remain faithful to the principles of sola Scriptura, and, if following the thought of
Calvin even in its specific character, would also maintain
inspiration, inerrancy, and a biblical canon in the Catholic
sense. 28 On the other hand, it is possible to accept as proven
the fact that the ancients erred in attributing characteristics to the Sacred Scriptures which they simply do not have.
In this case the idea of inspiration must be altered; that of
inerrancy perishes ;
the concept of a biblical canon
fluctuates according to the precise meaning that is attributed to inspiration. Thus, for KaTl Barth, since inspiration
is only a divine touch, the traces of which cannot be found
in any written document (even though a document was produced by a human author on the occasion of that contact
with God), so canonicity is equally only the momentary
result of a divine activity which takes place here and now,
whenever a Christian recognizes that God speaks to him
in the Scriptures. "Because there is a moving hand, there
is ·a moved and self-moving canon, a commissioned, objeCtive, true and real proclamation in obedience to this
canon.'' 29
Notwithstanding these various .concepts, and making al.. ' ' Catholie sense'' here is to be understood of the biblieal eanon taken in
an active sense; i.e., as ruling the faith of the Chureh. In the passive sense,
i.e., with regard to the eonstitution of the biblieal eanon, even these Protestants
do not understand the role of the Chureh in the way it is propounded aeeording to Catholie doetrine.
"" Barth, op. cit., I, 1, p. 133.

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M:AURIOE B. SCHEPERS

lowance for the difference especially between the doctrine
of the Interior Testimony as first formulated by Calvin and
as borrowed at the present time by Karl Barth, we propose
that the formality of canonicity, as understood according
to Catholic doctrine, is materially the object of the Interior
Testimony. We have seen that this concept implicitly contains those of inspiration and revelation. An inspired book,
as such, would not need to contain divine revelation, in the
mQst proper sense. A book that is canonical, however, because it is proposed precisely as a rule of faith must be
inspired and be the deposit of the revelation of God. The
Interior Testimony of Calvin is such, therefore, that by it
a Christian is given divine assurance that in this book is
contained the inspired word of God for the establishment
of his faith. All the terms of this statement can be understood in a sense that is familiar to the Catholic system of
thought. The Interior Testimony of Barth, however, is, to
return to a text that we have already cited, that "third
aspect of biblical inspiration," a witness to the canonicity,
or regulative character of the Scriptures, understood only
as the occasion upon which God chooses to make Himself
present in the life of a Christi,an.
With these things laid down, it is possible to set forth
briefly the Catholic doctrine on this point. How does Catholic theology really answer this specific question: in what
manner is the individual Christian made certain that the
books of Sacred Scripture are canonical? The principles
for the solution of this question have already been proposed in the previous section. Now it seems prefemble,
however, to proceed in an analytical manner. Let us imagine, therefore, an individual who is confronted with the
Bible. If he is to make the judgment, "This is the canonical word of God,'' upon what criterion is he to base himself¥ To obtain the full picture of the Catholic view on
this matter it will be helpful to describe what transpires in

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317

the given case. In the first place, examining this judgment
the Catholic theologian observes that it is composed of a
subject that stands foT a collection of literature, which may
truly be affirmed to be a ''sign of contradiction.'' The predicate to which it is linked existentially designates, as we
have seen ''the e·cclesiastically authenticated bearer of divine revelation.'' The comparison of these two terms reveals that their composition is neither self-evident, nor is
it possible for human reason to find a medium that will
make the statement evident. This is the significance of Calvin's own insistence that no character of the Scriptures, no
"Tational proof to establish the belief of Scriptures," 30
will take the place of the Interior Testimony of the Holy
Spirit. Rational evidence therefore is ruled out as a criterion.
The only other means by which the above statement can
be legitimately made is by an act of faith; and this is the
point where the Catholic analysis parts ways with Calvin's
solution. Two characteristics of the act of faith are particularly important here. First of all, for an act of faith,
whethe1r it be divine or human, a testimony or witness is
necessary. The function of the testimony is to take the
place of the evidence which is lacking to join the terms of
a given proposition. Second, in the making of the act of
faith itself the mind of man is not moved even directly by
the testimony. In other words, the witness' function with
regard to the act of faith is not to take the place of the
missing evidence in such a way that the testimony of itself
overpowers, so to speak, the mind. Rather, it is the will
that, in the last instance, moves the mind to assent, by
faith, to the proposition under consideration. Objectively,
therefore, a witness or a testimony, and, subjectively, the
30

Title of Chapter 8, Book 1, of the Institutes

(CR XXX, 61).

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MA URIOE B. SOHEPERS

movement of the will must both be present in the concrete
case which is before us now, the same case that Galvin once
considered and resolved in his own manner.
Now the Catholic theologian considers each of these elements singly. With regard to the objective one, namely, the
testimony, he affirms at the outset that it must be reduced
ultimately to God Himself, the "First Truth." That a
created medium, the Bible, be an authentic bearer of divine
revelation is a truth that can be recognized properly only
by God. We should say that it is a mystery, substantially
supernatural, which is the proper object of divine knowledge. If God shares this knowledge with others, it is by
revelation, that is, by His own testimony or witness. Now
in fact God has made this truth known, and has deposited
this knowledge with the Apostles of Jesus Christ. These
chosen men have, moreover, transmitted this witness or
testimony to their successors in the Church. 31 This transmission was accomplished by way of a tradition that lives
in the Church today, and which has now for several centuries been crystallized in the decrees of the ecumenical
councils. In the resolution of this series of witnesses the
Catholic theologian affirms that each of them is endowed
with its own guarantee of infallible truth: God Himself,
pre-eminently, as the First Truth; the Apostles, upon
whom the Church is founded (Eph. 2: 20), by a special
prerogative in virtue of which they possessed a full and certain knowledge, in so far as possible, of all of divine revelation; finally, the Church, who in her magisterium is protected by the Holy SpiTit against any error in the proposal
of divine revelation. 32
31 We must observe, therefore,
that per force it is only in the Chureh that the
Bible is received. The very fact that mankind is in possession of the Scriptures,
here and now, is due to the commission of them by God to the Church and
her fidelity to this trust.
32 cf. De Veritate,
q. 14, a. 10, ad 11. Omnia media per quae fides ad nos
venit, suspicions carent. Prophetis etiam et apostolis credimus ex hoc quod eis

THE INTERIOR TESTIMONY OF THE HOLY SPIRIT

319

If an act of merely human faith were in question, this
would be the place for the Catholic theologian to observe
that, given this testimony, the mind of men confronted with
the Bible, has before him an objective witness that is
worthy of belief. Indeed, if one remains on the human level
and is able to assure himself of the credibility of the witnesses-in this case, especially of the Apostles and the
Church-then he may legitimately make an act of faith,
i.e., human faith. Howeverr, if his act is to be one of divine
faith (Calvin would call this saving faith, and in this respect it seems possible to accept the term, although it may
be objectionable on other grounds), then something further
is necessary. The added requirement is the infusion of a
divine light, simultaneous with a motion of the will, so that
the mind can actually assent to the truth proposed. 33 A
divine light and a divine motion are so necessary here because the act of divine faith, as we have seen (and as Calvin
and his disciples so well realized), has as its object or term
a divine reality. In other words, this particular act of faith
terminates in the Bible not as the collection of human literature which it appears to be to those who do not believe,
but as the very word of God. Scholastics express this truth
by affirming that the active principle and object attained by
any given activity must correspond; and the only principle
which corresponds to the term, ''the Word of God,'' is the
Dominus testimonium perhibuit miraeula faeiendo, ut dieitur Mare. eap. xvi,
20 : Sermonem eonfirmante sequentibus signis. Sueeessoribus autem eorum non
eredimus nisi in quantum nobis annuntiat ea quae illi in seriptis reliquerunt.
38 The fact that both a motion and a light are involved is explained by St.
Thomas in this way:
Cum enim ad bonitatem alieuius potentiae requiratur quod ilia potentia
subdatur alieni potentiae superiori, sequendo eius imperium, non solum
exigitur quod potentia superior [the will, superior in the order of motion]
sit perfeeta ad hoe quod reete imperet vel dirigat, sed inferior [the intellect] ad hoe quod prompte obediat . . . Et ideo ad hoe quod intelleetus
prompte sequatur imperium voluntatis, oportet quod aliquis habitus sit in
ipso intelleetu speeulativo; et hie est habitus fidei divinitus infusus. de
Veritate, q. 14, a.4 in corp.

320

MAURICE B. SCHEPERS

Word of God itself, ''more penetrating than any two edged
sword.''
To avoid any misunderstanding it ought to be pointed
out here how faith differs from prophecy. St. Thomas
states it in this way: "Prophecy does not depend on the
will of him who prophecies ... whereas faith belongs, in a
certain way, to the will of the believer.'' 34 The will must
move the intellect; otherwise there is no act of faith. This
is not, however, to affirm that the motive of faith, precisely
as such, is anything but divine revelation. The habit of
faith, no less than the gift of prophecy, is essentially a
reality that pertains to the intellect; and the act of faith is,
consequently 1 brought forth by the mind. The habit of faith
is infused by God so that the human mind is rendered
capable of attaining the truth which is set forth by the
Deus revelans. This enlightenment by God determines both
the intrinsic nature and the supernatural character of faith.
With all of these elements before us, we return to the original question: What is the criterion. for the establishment
of the canonicity of the Scriptures¥ It is possible immediately to set aside the subjective considerations, with respect, namely, to that intimate divine movement, which is
necessary for this particular act of faith (as for faith in
general). Manifestly, this is not a denial that this movement
is absolutely required. The basis for ruling it out is rather
that the very nature of a criterion demands that it be of
the objective order. We see, moreover, that objectively the
testimony with regard to the divine authority of the Scriptures is a manifold that has its source in divine revelation,
but which is ultimately expressed in the magisterium of
the Church. It is for these reasons that Catholic theologians affirm that ''only the testimony of the Church, based
upon tradition, which is really the echo of God revealing
.. de Veritate, q. 14, a. 3, ad 11. Prophetia non dependet ex voluntate prophetantis . , , fides autem est quodammodo ex voluntate credentis.

THE INTERIOR TESTIMONY OF THE HOLY SPIRIT

321

(the custodians and witnesses of which are the Apostles
and subsequent Fathers and Doctors) ... is an apt, adequate, universal and certain criterion" for the canonicity
of the Sacred Scriptures. 35 Such is the Catholic doctrine,
35

Voste, J., O.P., op. cit., p. 30.

upon which the judgment concerning and criticism of the
Interior Testimony must be established.
(To be continued)
MAuRmE

Dominican House of Studies
Washington, D. C.

B. ScHEPERS, O.P.

REVIEW ARTICLE

The Church and Mankind (Con cilium: Dogma [vol. 1]),
E. Schillebeeckx, editorial director. Glen Rock, N.J.:
:Paulist Press, 1964. viii, 177 pp. $4.50.
Precisely how are the Church and mankind distinOr are they distinguished at
Is the Church
perhaps only an aspect of mankind, namely, the fellowship
and communion which comes from the efforts expended by
men to assist one another, and even mutually to give themselves to one another¥ Such questions are behind the essay,
written by E. Schillebeeckx, which constitutes the most
important part of the first volume of the Concilium series. 1
The reason for asking these questions, moreover, is the
fact that "today many believers are at a loss as to what to
do about the Church as an objective reality .... There is
talk of 'Christianity without a Church', a Christianity in
which fellowship and brotherhood appear as the essence
of the Church" (pp. 70-71). Note well that the author attributes these question to "believers.''
The question that spontaneously comes to mind in this
context, of course, is, why are believers talking about a
The main burden of this
Christianity without a
review will be to look at the reasons for it and compare
the conclusions with :some of the ideas set forth by Schillebeeckx concerning the objective distinction of the Church
and mankind.
A. The subjective question: why the confusion concerning
the objective subsistence of the
1 There are other worthwhile
things in this volume too. I would cite particularly the two treatments of the "people of God" theme: Y. Cougar's
reflections on the developments and importance of the idea in recent times, and
R. Schnackenburg and J. Dupont's bibliographical survey, Typical of the entire
series, this book is divided into three parts: (1) a section devoted to theological essays; (2) rather exhaustive bibliographical notes on specific topics;
(3) pertinent documentation.

322

THE CHURCH AND MANKIND

323

The modern world is one in which man is quite 'Selfconscious: conscious at once of his titanic capacities for
knowing and exploiting the universe, and his imbecility in
the face of the disorder he himself has produced. One result
of this two-edged self-consciousness is that men alternate
between a state of exhilaration and empty despair. Believers, moreover, belong to this world; and they recognize
instinctively that their belief, i.e., their conviction about
Jesus Christ, has something to do with resolving this conflict. They know that somehow through this belief exhilaration over man':s achievements, especially in the technological order, can be tempered. They feel too that their belief
in Jesus Christ has something to do with protecting themselves against despairing completely. Yet, as Father Schillebeeckx observes, at least some believers do not see how
the Church fits into this picture.
Before venturing any suggestions as to the casuality
operative here, it might be well to set into place another
observable phenomenon, namely, the efforts made in the
modern world to achieve fellowship and communion, and
the partial success of these efforts. Practically no one would
say that the United Nations is a model of fellowship among
nations; but its existence is a veritable monument to the
ardent desires and faithful work of many to achieve something of the sort. Again, the racial situation in the United
States at the present time reveals frightening gaps in understanding and sympathy; but at the same time the freedom movement has put men into communion one with the
other on a level that would not have been predicted, e.g.,
in the mutual support involved in non-violent action.
Examples such as these, moreover, actually point to the
reason believing men of the modern world question
the need for the Church. Especially in the latter situation
they perceive that the organizations we know as the
''churches'' have, for the most part, been quite backward

324

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B. SCHEPERS

in their attitude toward the freedom movement. When,
therefore, a measure of fellowship and communion is
achieved through the organs of the freedom movement it:self, they are led to conclude that this and analogous movements are the Church. What is the need for an organized
fellowship whose special "business" is religion, when the
ends of religion are being effectively promoted through
secular institutions 7 This :seems to be the sort of reasoning
which is behind the advocating of a sort of '' religionless
Christianity" by men such as Dietrich Bonhoeffer (who
saw the same phenomenon in quite different circumstances,
under the Nazi regime), and even more recently J. A. T.
Robinson.
Stated in simple terms, the matter seems to be as follows: we know that Jesus Christ came to gather all nations
into one redeemed people. We see that a measure of unity
and fellowship is being attained in the modern world,
through movements which are at best anonymously Christian, and the leaders of which often disown the Church.
We see that in this same world the Church appears, at least
on some crucial levels, to be "out of touch" and incapable
of reaching modern man, in order to draw him out of himself, i.e., out of the vicious cycle of exhilaration and despair,
and into fellowship with others. And the conclusion is
reached, at least by some, that the real Church is the fellowship and communion which exist ostensibly apart from
the "officially organized Church.''
An effective investigation of this sort of emerging religionless Christianity would have to go at least one step
further. Why does the Church appear to be somewhat "out
of touch" and incapable of leading modern man to true
fellowship7 If by true fellowship we understand the exchange of mutual love as the proper effect of the conviction
that men are truly brothers, then one of two things must
be true. Either the Church has not provided the atmos-

THE CHURCH AND MANKIND

325

phere, climate or opportunity for "modern men" to be
fellows one with the other in this sense; or these same men
are indisposed to recognize and accept such opportunities.
Of course, we cannot rule out the possibility that both
negative factors are involved; and it is probable that they
are in fact combined in some undetermined proportion.
We ought to be aware, however, that the discovery and
acceptance by modern men in "religionless" movements
of a certain fellowship does indicate a modicum of openness on their part.
At this point it would be possible to ease off into some
generalizations about the ''complexity of the problem.''
The truth of the matter, however, is that from within the
fellowship of the Church, the Catholic faith it:self provides
some insight into the root causes of this situation. We
know, for example, that men do want to love and to be
loved; even though these natural desires leave much wanting, whenever the climate in which they are nurtured is
one of alienation rather than open-ness. The faith also
teache:s that the substantially sound actualizing of these
natural tendancies demands the grace of God, at once healing and transforming these tendencies at their root. Finally, we recognize, if not from an explicit teaching of the
faith, at least from the Church's experience down through
the centuries, that wherever the grace of God is operative
in this way, the economy of sacramentality is inevitably
involved. Ultimately this means, of course, the transmission of grace through signs such as those given the Church
by Christ himself. Beyond that, however-or perhaps
before it-this means other humanly visible signs of the
love of God, through" which men come to recognize the
mystery of that love in itself.
This notion of :sacramentality, rooted of course in the
mystery of the Redemptive Incarnation, is obviously quite
crucial. Without presuming any sort of comprehensive
treatment of it, I will try to indicate some particular fac-

326

MAURICE

B. SCHEPERS

tors which seem to be relevant to the matter at hand.
In the first place, it is remarkable that the sacramental
life of the Church itself is constituted by symbolic rites,
which, in their symbolism, refer to realities that are lifegiving. To take the two principal sacraments as examples,
baptism is a re-birth, while the Eucharist is food and drink
for nourishment. The symbols are, respectively, the coming
out of the womb of the baptismal font, after having been
buried or immersed in its watery depths ( cf. Gal. 3:26-27;
Col. 2-11-13), and the eating of the bread and drinking of
the wine at a common table. Note, moreover, that the being
born and the being nourished are referred in each case both
to the principle of life, who is the Father, and to a familial
fellowship, which is the Church. Only the faith, of course,
specifies these references. In themselves, i.e., without the
specification given by the faith, these symbolic rites, however sacred in their origin and powerful on account of the
continued presence of the risen Christ in the sacramental
activity of the Church, remain somewhat enigmatic and
even foreign to our experience.
We come down, therefore, to the question of the specification or ''spelling out'' of the symbolic rites of the Church's
sacramental worship. How does it come about in the conImmediately, of course, through the sacramental
catechesis and the very sacramental form; but fundamentally through the preaching of the Church, confirmed by the
living fellowship through which her faith is expressed,
i.e., in which it bears fruit. " ... The life was made manifest, and we saw it and testify to it, and proclaim to you
the eternal life which was with the Father-that which we
have seen and heard we proclaim also to you, so that you
may have fellowship with us; and our fellowship is with
the Father and with his son Jesus Christ" (I Jn. 1: 2-3).
From this it becomes evident that the realization of fellowship, at least on this properly ecclesial level, neces:sarily
involves the correlatives of paternity and childhood. Men

THE CHURCH AND MANKIND

327

are introduced into the fellowship of the Church, through
her sacramental activity, and nourished therein, insofar
as they become disposed to be born, i.e., to become children.
This element of the Father-child relationship, therefore,
is integral to the sacramental life of the Church, as it is
specified by the Church's preaching of the gospel.
These reflections are related in several ways to the problem of modern man and his seeking for religion-less forms
of Christianity. In the first place, it would have to be recognized that modern man is, in a peculiar way, alienated from
the idea and the experience of becoming a child. The causes
of this alienation-a fact impossible to escape-need not
be discussed here in extenso; although it would be well to
observe that "not wanting to be a child" must always be
related to "having been a child"-for no one is spared that
experience. At the same time, it is very interesting to note
that in the freedom movement, for example, the simplicity
called for in non-violent action is impossible of attainment
without a person's becoming :spiritually a child. The conclusion that has to be drawn here is simply that there are
movements in the modern world, ostensibly non-ecclesial,
where people are brought to a disposition which objectively readies them for the sacramental life of the Church. At
the :same time there appear to be situations wherein the
juridically constituted society, which is the Church, fails
to realize the capacity given it to provide the atmosphere
necessary for the engendering of such dispositions. Such
conclusions are alarming only insofar as the phenomenon
to which Father Schillebeeckx refers is widespread: ''there
is talk about 'Christianity without a Church'."
B. The objective question: the factors which distinguish
the Church from mankind; the locus where they come together.
The objective question is the one treated explicitly by
the author of the essay; and he has put things into good

328

MAURICE B. SCHEPERS

perspective, without by any means answering all the questions that could be asked. The most basic truth, as he makes
quite clear, is that the Church, properly so-called, is a
"post-paschal" reality. One might even say that it is the
post-paschal reality, for the term has more than a temporal
significance. Whereas mankind as a whole is destined to
become the "people of God," with the accomplishing of the
Redemptive Incarnation in the Passion and Resurrection
of Jesus, this destiny is realized properly only by sacramental incorporation into his body. Henceforth the people
of God is the body of Christ; and this people is a ''chosen
race, a royal priesthood, a holy nation . . . called out of
darkness into his marvelous light" (I Pet. 2 :9).
One way of conceiving the situation, therefore, is to set
the Church as the kingdom of light, over against the
''world,'' the realm of darkness (cf. Col. 1 :13), and thus be
done with it. This way becomes increasingly difficult, however, and one of the main reasons is the advance of secularization, considered now not as the very nemesis of the
Church, but rather as the normal process in a world in
which the inherent finalities of the temporal sphere are
better and better recognized. Father Schillebeeckx sees
the boundaries between Church and mankind, therefore,
as fluid, and conceives of the grace of Christ as being expressed in two distinct ways. First of all, the grace of
Christ is expressed in the life of the Church as the Body
of Christ, principally in the Eucharist, secondarily in all
the other rites and actions which flow therefrom or which
lead to the Eucharist as preparations thereto. In addition,
the grace of Christ is expressed "anonymously" in structures and institutions which we designate as secular. Normally Christian engagement in the world will result in free
use of those things which belong to the temporal sphere,
e.g., the technology of the modern world, or the instruments
available to mankind today for the promotion of peace
among nations. The term, ''free use,'' here designates not

THE CHURCH AND MANKIND

329

an attempt to bring these factors of secular or "worldly"
life under the sway of the Church as an institution, but
rather to exploit their potentialities to the full, recognizing
that the "temporal sphere is governed by its own principles." 2 We see in this "exploitation" of the temporal
sphere an expression of ecclesial grace on account of the
doctrine concerning the necessity of grace in human life.
It is significant, for example, that the very examples St.
Thomas adduces of things that men can do without the assistance of grace are in the order of art : aedificare domos
et plantare vineas (Summa, I II, 109, 2). Building a civilization, keeping the peace, making good use of technological advances, improving economic conditions of impoverished families : none of these ''secular'' processes (all of
which have their own finalities, albeit limited and subordinate) can be brought to completion or even initiated in
a sound way without the grace of Christ. This grace, moreover, is present in the world today for the sake of and
through the Church, as a worshipping community.
Another aspect of the fluid boundaries between the
Church and mankind is, of course, the fact that not only
believers are involved in those secular institutions and
movements which tend to express themselves as fellowship
and communion among men. Among mankind there exists
what Father Schillebeeckx calls the votum ecclesiae, the
spontaneous and grace-supported tendency of mankind to
approach the fulfillment of its destiny, which is ecclesial
communion. This is anonymous Christianity in the proper
sense of the term and, as such, it ''inwardly demands a
fitting sacramental visibility" (p. 89). There is, then,
according to the author, "thanks ... to Christ's historical
coming ... in living humanity a kind of built-in compass
pointing to the Church. Her missionary activity is merely
• Constitution, de Ecclesia, of Second Vatincan Council, para. 36 (NCWC
translation).

330

MAURICE

B. SCHEPERS

the counterpart of this. This pointing to the Church, or
mankind's need for her in the concrete, and, on the other
hand, her going out to mankind, are both visible forms of
the one operative salvation which Our Lord is in the Spirit
of God" (p. 89).
We are deeply indebted to Father Schillebeeckx for this
penetrating introduction to these problems. In this volume
the Conciliu,m series is off to an auspicious beginning, especially on his account.
MAuRICE

Dominican House of Studies
Washington, D. 0.

B. ScHEPERs, O.P.

NOTES ON OUR CONTRIBUTORS
TAD W. Guzm, S.J., M.A., author of The Analogy of Learning and
contributor to Modern Schoolman and New Scholasticism, is
now engaged in research at St. Edmund's House, Cambridge,
England.
ALFRED PIKE, MUS. D., author of A Theology of Music and contributor to Journal of Aesthetics and Art Criticism, Music
Review, and Musical Opinion, is Professor of Music at St.
John's University, Jamaica, New York.
MAURICE B. ScHEPERS, O.P., S.T.D., Professor of History of Dogma
on the Pontifical Faculty of Theology, Dominican House of
Studies, Washington, D.C., has recently published a volume
in the Foundation of Catholic Theology Series entitled The
Church of Christ.
JoHN A. OESTERLE, Ph.D., Professor of Philosophy at the University
of Notre Dame, Notre Dame, Indiana, author of Ethics: An
Introduction to Moral Science, translator of St. Thomas'
Treatise on Happiness, is President of the American Catholic
Philosophical Association.
DAVID A. O'CoNNELL,O.P., S.T.M., author of Christian Liberty and
God and His Creatures, recent editor of the Dominican Educational Bulletin, is Professor of Theology on the Pontifical
Faculty of Theology, Dominican House of Studies, Washington, D. C.

331

BOOK REVIEWS
Commentary on the Nicomachean Ethics by ST. THOMAS AQUINAS.
Translated by C. I. Litzinger, 0. P. Chicago: Henry Regnery
Company, 1964. Vol. I, pp. xiii and 534. Vol. II, pp. xiii and
535-1000. (Both volumes contain the same Index of Names and
Index of Subjects.) $25.00.
It would be difficult, from all relevant points of view, to give
too much praise to the careful, scholarly work of translation Fr.
I"itzinger has achieved in this rendition of the Commentary on
the Nicomachean Ethics by St. Thomas Aquinas. While there can
never be any substitute for going to the original language when
reading St. Thomas, still many of us over the years have often
wished we could turn to a readable and accurate translation to
supplement our examination of the text. Fr. Litzinger has provided
us with such a translation and has superlatively achieved the
middle course he designated between a slavishly literal translation
and a free one that would, in a bid for popularization, distort the
meaning of the original and introduce, as well, unfounded interpretations. Fr. Litzinger's "middle course" is an Aristotelian mean:
it is literal when the text is best served thereby and it is freer in
rendition when the thought accordingly benefits. As one who has
wrestled with the problems of translating St. Thomas readably,
I marvel at the apparent ease with which Fr. Litzinger has mastered
the various difficulties, for the ease can only be apparent. Underneath the appearances lie the hours and hours of translating, phrasing, polishing and refining. The finished form amply justifies the
toil and mental sweat; to speak of it as a faithful and sound rendition of the original is to pay it the highest compliment.
The format is an admirable complement to the work of translation. Each book of Aristotle's text is preceded by a listing of the
lectures of the commentary (I am not too happy with the translation of lectio by "lecture," but it is hard to pick a word free from
all objection; the idea is a reading or an exposition of the text, but
no one word in English seems to convey the meaning sufficiently).
Each lecture begins with two parallel columns. The column on the
right is a translation of the text of Aristotle from the Latin versio
antiqua, generally attributed to William of Moerbeke, interspersed
with numbers indicating the paragraphs as commented on by St.
Thomas. (The decision to translate Aristotle from the Latin
version has the merit Fr. Litzinger notes: it is a translation of a

332

BOOK REVIEWS

333

text more closely conformable to the one St. Thomas used; however, if I may make a domestic, and not wholly a personal, point,
my wife's translation of On Interpretation from the Greek has
the added advantage of being more conformable to the text of
Aristotle without any detriment to the commentary of St. Thomas
on that work.) The column on the left reproduces the analytical
outline of St. Thomas as expressed in explanatory phrases and
sentences taken from the Commentary itself. These sentences have
been numbered and lettered to correspond with the bracketed
marks found directly in the Commentary. The Bekker enumeration of Aristotle's text has been included, a desirable and even
necessary inclusion in order to facilitate reference to other translations. The Commentary of St. Thomas thereupon follows in
double columns, nicely spaced and in very legible print.
One of the most important points treated in the Nicomachean
Ethics, and sometimes not sufficiently paid attention to by moral
philosophers, is the method of moral science and the degree of
certitude attainable in it. Aristotle discusses this matter chiefly
in Book I, Chapter 3 and Book II, Chapter 2. St. Thomas is clear
and explicit in his Commentary in underlining the point that "the
matter of moral study is of such a nature that perfect certitude
is not suitable to it" (N. 32). It is particularly important that
the Commentary on this matter be well and carefully translated,
since it is imperative to understand the proper method of moral
science. On the whole, Fr. Litzinger's translation continues to
hold up well, but the following passages raise some question as to
the way in which they are translated.
The last line of N. 34 reads: '' Et sic manifestum est, quod
materia moralis est varia et difformis, non habens omnimodam
certitudinem. '' This sentence is translated: ''Thus it is evident
that moral matters are variable and divergent, not having the
same certitude each time. '' Since St. Thomas is expanding on the
point that perfect or complete certitude is not appropriately realized in ethics, the translation of that summarizing sentence tends
to weaken the main point. In this instance, a more literal translation would have clinched the point more effectively: ''Thus it is
evident that the matter of moral (science) is variable and divergent, not having certitude in all respects (wholly or altogether).''
The words which have been italicized bring out the fact that what
moral science is about does not permit certain application of principles to individual acts and circumstances wherein we find what
is variable and divergent. This latter translation may not seem

334

BOOK REVIEWS

very different, yet it does bring out a prems10n important for
understanding how and why a complete certitude is not attained
in moral science.
The following number (35) goes on to emphasize the preceding
point by specifying the appropriate method for moral science.
Since principles must conform to conclusions, when treating what.
is variable "from premises likewise variable," we need "to bring
out the truth first in a rough outline by applying universal principles to singulars ... " (Fr. Litzinger handles this opening difficult sentence very well indeed.) We are thereby led to see that
''it is necessary in every practical science to proceed in a composite
(i.e., deductive) manner." The inclusion of the parenthesis" (i.e.,
deductive)" is unfortunate since it is misleading to speak of the
composite mode, taken in its strict sense as the mode of reasoning
about operables, as deductive-taking the latter term also in its
strict sense, which pertains to speculative knowledge. The sentence in the Commentary, which is about speculative knowledge,
Fr. Litzinger translates as follows: ''On the contrary in speculative
science, it is necessary to proceed in an analytical manner by
breaking down the complex into elementary principles," ("E conautem in scientia speculativa, necesse est ut procedatur modo
The
resolutorio, resolvendo composita in principia simplicia").
translation fails to bring out the precision of the resolutory mode
of speculative knowledge. The method of such knowing consists
in resolving what is composite (conclusions) back to the "simple
principles" or causes; a conclusion will thus resolve back into the
premises and be known with scientific certitude. To speak of this
process as "breaking down the complex into elementary principles"
hardly captures the force of the resolutory mode. Finally, a little
later on, Fr. Litzinger translates "apparens bonum" as "fictitious
good," but surely "apparent good" is precisely what is meant
in the context; what is an apparent good is not necessarily "fictitious."
In Book II, Chapter 2, Aristotle and St. Thomas return again to
the consideration of the character of moral philosophy, stressing
that it is not pursued for contemplation, "but in order to become
virtuous; otherwise it would have no utility.'' St. Thomas in N. 258
has an opening, difficult sentence: "Et dicit, quod illud oportet
primo supponere, quod omnis sermo qui est de operabilibus, sicut
est iste, debet tradi typo, idest exemplariter, vel similitudinarie, et
non secundum certitudinem .
" Fr. Litzinger translates: "We
must presume, he says, that any discussion concerned like this

BOOK REVIEWS

335

with actions to be performed ought to be given in a general way,
that is, as a precedent or as likely, but not definitively." In taking
some issue with this translation, I do so with great sympathy for
Fr. Litzinger's effort. Anything approaching a slavishly literal
translation will not do; some freer rendition must be employed,
and he has made a conscientious effort to do so. Nonetheless, I
think that the force of this involved sentence is somewhat lost;
moreover, something quite important about the character of moral
science is being said here that somehow should be preserved. Without attempting a direct translation, I should like to comment on
the phrase'' debet tradi typo, idest exemplariter, vel similitudinarie,
et non secundum certitudinem." What is being emphasized is that
any discussion or teaching concerning what is to be done must be
presented by way of example and by likeness, and not by way of
certitude. We cannot, in moral science, proceed with certitude to
determine what must be done in singular actions even when principles of themselves are true. What can be achieved then 1 We
must appeal to the norm, to what the good and practically wise
man does, and hence we need to have recourse to examples of good
men acting and likenesses of what good actions would be in varying circumstances. This comment may seem to verge on '' interpretation,'' but in the context in which the passage arises, and with
reference back to the earlier section in Book I, it is not so much
an ''interpretation'' as that sort of ''freer rendition'' Fr. Litzinger
himself so often employs. To render this passage only as a discussion to be ''given in a general way, tl;lat is, as a precedent or as
likely, but not definitively,'' discounts too much the manner in
which moral science must proceed, and the lack of certitude appropriate to moral science in its compositive mode.
It would be ungracious of me not to acknowledge that in this
same lecture, as well the earlier one, Fr. Litzinger often translates
crucial passages skillfully and revealingly. Take, for example, the
opening sentence of N. 259: '' Et cum sermo moralium etiam in
universalibus sit incertus et variabilis, adhuc magis incertus est
si quis velit ulterius descendens tradendo doctrinam de singulis
in speciali." Fr. Litzinger breaks the sentence into two: "The
teaching on matters of morals even in their general aspects is uncertain and variable. But still more uncertainty is found when
we come down to the solution of particular cases.'' Breaking the
sentence into two has the advantage of being more forthright. On
the other hand, perhaps a certain casual connection is thereby
diminished. The following rendition retains the force of the connection: Since teaching about moral matters is uncertain and

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variable even in regard to universal (principles or aspects), even
more uncertainty is found when we come down to treating in particular the knowledge of individual actions. But either way has a
particular advantage. In this same number, St. Thomas has a
particularly engaging phrase: ''Quam vis autem hoc sermo sit talis,
idest universaliter incertus, in particulari autem inenarribilis ... "
It would be hard to improve on Fr. Litzinger: "Although this
doctrine is such as to be uncertain in its general aspects and incapable of precision in particular cases ... "
It is perhaps also ungracious of me to have dwelled so much on
instances where I would find some disagreement with the way in
which Fr. Litzinger has translated. There are so many more which
I find not only good but admirable. My justification for centering on
the passages I have arises from a concern to call attention to some
of the central points in Aristotelian teaching on moral philosophy
particularly because such points have not always been sufficiently
appreciated, and hence the translation of St. Thomas on such points
deserves special consideration as to how they are rendered.
Were the limits of this review more generous than can be the
case, I would be able to cite many instances of felicitous translation.
I can at least stretch the limits somewhat to indicate some general
areas. The difficult chore of settling on satisfactory names for the
many specific virtues (especially in Books III-V) is ably handled.
The translation in Book VI, especially in the first two lectures,
clearly brings out how "right reason" is the key concept ordering
the context in which the intellectual virtues are introduced. The
remarkable doctrine on friendship in Books VIII and IX comes
through particularly well in translation. If I were to try to single
out any one general passage as uniformly well done, I think I
would select lectures X-XIII of Book X. I admit to a predilection
for this part of the Nicomachean Ethics where Aristotle confronts
so ably the problem of a natural, terrestrial happiness, and the
translation of the Commentary on this section brings out well not
only what Aristotle held on this matter but also what St. Thomas
adds (I must, however, object to translating impassibilis as "incapable of suffering" in N. 2108). A particularly good piece of
translation occurs inN. 2133 and N. 2134.
''For, supposing-as is really the case--that God exercises solicitude and providence over human affairs, it is reasonable for
him to delight in that which is best in men and most akin or
similar to himself. This part is the intellect, as is clear from the
premises (2109). Consequently it is reasonable that God should

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337

confer his greatest favors on those who love and honor their intellect
preferring its good to all other goods ... ''
"Now all these attributes clearly belong to the philosopher: he
loves and honors his intellect, the most pleasing to God of all human
things; he also acts honorably and rightly. It remains then that
he is dearest to God. But that man is happiest who is loved most
by God, the source of all good. Likewise, since man's happiness is
said to consist in the fact that he is loved by God, we conclude
that the philosopher is happy in the highest degree."
The foregoing passage is a fitting close to the discussion of the
problem of man's natural terrestrial happiness. It is also a typical
specimen of the quality of Fr. Litzinger's translation.
JoHN A. OESTERLE
University of Notre Dame
Notre Dame, Indiana

Rational Man: A Modern Interpretation of Aristotelian Ethics. By
HENRY B. VEATCH. Bloomington, Indiana: Indiana University
Press, 1965. pp. 226. Paper $1.95.
Samuel Johnson praised authors by whom "new things are made
familiar, and familiar things are made new.'' Dr. Henry B. Veatch
is that kind of writer. Professor of Philosophy at Indiana University since 1937 and a contributor to many periodicals, including
THE THOMIST, Dr. Veatch presents, with the Nichomachean
Ethics as his chief source, the case for rationality in personal conduct as opposed to the Irrational Man described by William Barrett.
Disclaiming all intention of polemic, he writes with clarity and
conviction the kind of popularization that only one who is completely in control of the literature could produce. Confining himself solely to individual ethics, and excluding religious as well as
political and social questions, he uses the moral doctrine and the
method of Aristotle in a modern effort to set forth and justify a
rational system of ethics. Especially helpful are the abundant
examples from literature, both classical and current, as well as
from everyday experience.
In eight chapters he presents Aristotle's teaching on man's last
end, the moral and intellectual virtues, the passions, impediments
to free choice, and at the same time exposes the flaws and intrinsic
contradictions of ethical relativism ("the badge of the modern
intellectual''), determinism, and existentialism. Dr. Veatch writes

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BOOK REVIEWS

better than professors are expected to and brightens every chapter
with illustrations ranging from Plato to the comic strips.
On some points not all Aristotelians will agree with Dr. Veatch,
as, for example, the limitations he imposes on the doctrine of the
mean of virtue. There is an unexpected touch of scepticism on
p. 203. But this work belongs on all the booklists handed out to
undergraduate students of moral philosophy. It is highly recommended as an extremely valuable supplement, not as a text. It
will be better appreciated by the students than by their teachersDr. Veatch is not awed by academic position, and he offers some
frank comments on professors of ethics that many will not relish.
Rational Man is far superior to most of the recent works on reading lists for ethics.
DAVID A. O'CONNELL, O.P.
Dominican House of Studies
Washington, D. 0.

BOOKS RECEIVED
Academia Alfonsiana, Studia M aralia. Vol. II. Roma : Desclee,
1965. Pp. 340. L. Ital. 2.500.
Adler, Mortimer J., The Condition of Philosophy. N. Y.: Atheneum,
1965. Pp. 303 with index. $5.95.
Aquinas, St. Thomas, Summa Theologiae. Latin text and English
translation with Introductions, Notes, Appendices and Glossaries. Thomas Gilby, O.P., General Editor. Published by
Blackfriars in conjunction with McGraw-Hill, New York,
1964-1965.
Vol. 3 (1a 12-13) "Knowing and Naming God" by Herbert
McCabe, O.P. Pp. 117. $5.75.
Vol. 4 (1a. 14-18) "Knowledge in God" by Thomas Gornall,
S.J. Pp. 137. $5.75.
Vol. 6 (1a. 27-32) "The Trinity" by Ceslaus Velecky, O.P.
Pp. 170. $5.75.
Vol. 22 (1a 2ae. 49-54) "Dispositions for Human Acts" by
Anthony Kenny. Pp. 140. $5.75.
Vol. 26 (1a 2ae. 81-85) "Original Sin" T. C. O'Brien, O.P.
Pp. 178. $7.50.
Vol. 39 (2a 2ae. 80-91) "Religion and Worship" Kevin D.
O'Rourke, O.P. Pp. 281. $7.50.
Vol. 58 (3a. 73-78) "The Eucharistic Presence" William
Barden, O.P. Pp. 219. $7.50.
Aquinas, St. Thomas; Siger of Brabant, St. Bonaventure, On The
Eternity of the World. Tr. Cyril Vollert, S.J., Lottie Kendzierski, Paul Byrne. Milwaukee: Marquette, 1964. Pp. 132.
$3.00.
Babin, Pierre, Faith and the Adolescent. N.Y.: Herder and Herder,
1965. Pp. 128. $2.95.
Barbour, George, In the Field with Teilhard de Chardin. N. Y.:
Herder and Herder, 1965. Pp. 160. $3.95.
Benoit, O.P., Pierre. Aspects of Biblical Inspiration. Chicago:
Probe Books-Priory Press, 1965. Pp. 77. Paper $2.45.
Biezanek, Anne, All Things New. N. Y.: Harper, 1964. Pp. 152.
$3.50.
Blondel, Maurice, The Letter on Apologetics and History and
Dogma. Texts translated by Alexander Dru and Illtyd
Threthowan. N.Y.: Holt, Rinehart and Winston, 1964. Pp.
301 with index. $6.95.

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BOOKS RECEIVED

Bonhoeffer, Dietrich, No Rusty Swords. N. Y.: Harper, 1965. Pp.
384. $4.50.
Bornkamm, H., The Heart of Reformation Faith. Tr. D. W. Doberstein. N. Y.: Harper, 1965. Pp. 126. $3.00.
Bouwama, 0. K., Philosophical Essays. Lincoln, Nebraska: University Press, 1965. Pp. 209. $5.00.
Brodrick, James, Galileo. N.Y.: Harper, 1965. Pp. 152. $3.50.
Brown, D. Mackenzie, Ultimate Concern: Tillich in Dialogue. N.Y.:
Harper, 1965. Pp. 234 with index. $3.95.
Bruckberger, R. L., The History of Jesus Christ. N. Y.: Viking,
1965. Pp. 462. $8.50.
Callahan, Daniel, Honesty in the Church. N. Y.: Scribner's, 1965.
Pp. 188. $3.95.
Dillenschneider, Clement, C. SS. R., Christ the One Priest and We
His Priests. Vol. I. Tr. Sister M. Renelle, S.S.N.D. St. Louis:
B. Herder, 1964. Pp. 306 with index. $5.95.
Dunne, John S., C.S.C. The City of the Gods: A Study in Myth
and Morality. N. Y.: Macmillan, 1965. Pp. 243 with index.
$5.95.
Ellis, John Tracy, Catholics in Colonial America. Baltimore: Helicon, 1965. Pp. 486 with index. $10.00.
Feiner, Johannes, Josef Tritch and Franz Bockle (editors) Theology
Today, Renewal in Dogma, Vol. I. Milwaukee: Bruce, 1965.
Pp. 282 with indices. $5.00.
Frost, Francis, L'Enseignement Moral de Bishop Kirk. Lille,
France: Bibliotheque des Facultes Catholiques, 1965. Pp.
389 in two fascicules. N.P.
Gallagher, John F., C.M., Significando Causant: A Study of Sacramental Efficiency. Fribourg, Switzerland: The University
Press, 1965. Pp. 264. Fr.jDM 27.Gilson, Etienne, The Arts of the Beautiful. N. Y.: Scribner's, 1965.
Pp. 189 with index. $4.50.
Gilson, Etienne, The Philosophy of St. Bonaventure, tr. Dom Illtyd
Threthowan and F. J. Sheed. Paterson, N.J.: St. Anthony
Guild, 1965. Pp. 499. $8.00.
Gilson, Etienne, The Unity of Philosophical Experience. N. Y.:
Scribner's, 1965. Pp. 331 with index. Paper $1.65.