THE THOMIST
A SPECULATIVE QUARTERLY REVIEW
OF THEOLOGY AND PHILOSOPHY

EDIToRs:

THE DoMINICAN FATHERS oF THE PROVINCE oF ST. JosEPH

Publishers: The Thomist Press, Washington, D. C. 20017
VoL. XXXIII

OCTOBER, 1969

DIMENSIONS

No.4

OF PERSONALITY

THE PRESENT time there are dozens or scores of
theories of personality competing for general acceptance
and obtaining enough support to afford intellectual
respectability, and there are more if we include, more broadly
speaking, views of human nature. Some are associated with
prominent names and schools of psychology, e. g., Freud, Jung,
Adler, Fromm, H. S. Sullivan, Murray, Lewin, Allport, Rogers,
Murphy, Maslow, Horney, Goldstein, Cattell, Angyal and
Eysenck, and others represent more general currents of
thought: Christianity, Marxism, Existentialism, Humanism,
Behaviorism, etc. Most of these views of human personality
purport to be complete at least in the essentials. It is not
remarkable therefore that many overlap in a number of their
substantive conclusions, nor even that many contradict each
other. What is more remarkable is the number which seem
mutually irrelevant, as if they were explaining wholly disparate
subjects. It is as if man is so complex a creature that he
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MICHAEL STOCK

can be studied " exhaustively " by one investigator and by
another, and neither sees what totally preoccupies his colleague.
With this situation in view, it seems to be of some value
to try simply to sketch or outline the dimensions of human
personality as a basis for judging the completeness of present
theories and a preamble to formulating new ones. By dimensions we mean more or less clearly distinguishable spheres or
aspects of vital operations which are prominent enough to
figure as components in the tatum which is called personality.
In the following pages an attempt will be made to do this, to
present those facets or features which can claim consideration
in an overall theory of personality. The principal aim is comprehensiveness: to include all that must be eventually taken
into account. It is impossible, however, unless one were content
to present a mere table of contents, to avoid statements about
the dynamic inter-relations of these components, and therefore
this essay goes beyond the simple presentation of components
and into the beginnings of actual theorizing. Or, one could
argue that dynamic considerations are as much components of
personality as structural definitions and belong equally as
much in the preamble.
To formulate this comprehensive view of personality we have
abstracted eight spheres of factors which have been selected
as fundamental conceptions or basic points of view in terms of
which personality can be systematically outlined. Each sphere
is described in terms of its more important elements and the
principal variables affecting them. Note is also made of the
limitations of this approach (and perhaps of any approach) in
terms of the aspects of personality which seem impenetrable.
The eight spheres are 1) the basic givens, 2) the operating
field 3) the general operating principle, 4) the specific operating poles, 5) the operating limits, 6) the operating tools, 7)
the operating base, and 8) the resolution of competing operations.

DIMENSIONS

I.
1.

SYSTEMATIC

OF PERSONALITY

618

OuTLINE oF PERSONALITY

THE BASIC GIVENS

Universal Human Nature
Man is a rational animal. Like the other higher animals,
man lives and breathes, seeks food and drink and nourishes
himself, finds or makes shelters to protect himself from the
weather, mates and produces offspring and cares for them,
fights or flees from enemies, associates with his own kind in
groups, responds to their cries for help and cries for help himself, labors as he must and plays when he can, and continuously
searches curiously in his enviroment, exploring and investigating. Unlike all other animals, he thinks, he reasons about the
way he does things, and whether he can do them better, and
wonders why he does them at all. By dint of thinking he
produces art, science, politics, religion, literature, philosophy,
mathematics, technology, and all the other facets of culture
which mark him off in sharp contrast to the rest of the animal
world.
The Six Levels of Basic Capacities
Fundamentally, man is a creature compounded of six intricately related systems of organic and anorganic capacities,
through which he is stimulated, acts and reacts, and these
systems are dynamically interconnected. At the first and most
basic level, he nourishes himself, grows and matures, and
reproduces himself sexually: he vegetates. However, he vegetates as a sensory creature does, that is, at the second level
of capacities he responds intentionally by sensation and perception to the immediate objects in the physical world around
him; he also retains, amasses and organizes his sensitive experiences. He relates objects and himself in space and time and
sorts out the useful and the harmful. Third, his experiences
arouse the native drives and urges by which he is attracted to
objects which gratify organic needs and afford pleasure, or,
alternately, by which he is repelled and which he seeks to avoid,

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or is threatened and seeks to escape or destroy. The fourth set
of powers are muscular-executive: to walk, run, jump, to
scratch and twist, to peer and hearken, to grasp and manipulate, to emit sounds, etc. Fifth, at the core, to appraise and
evaluate in terms of meanings man has intelligence. Open to
awareness of the outside world through the senses, this is
fundamentally a higher power than sensation or imagination.
It is a spiritual, i.e., anorganic, intentional power by which
he reasons in abstract and universal categories about things
and seeks their explanations. Turned inward upon himself, he
has the capacity to reflect and know himself as self. Lastly,
and closely allied to intelligence, is the capacity to make commitments and decisions freely and deliberately in tern1s of
reasoned judgments.

The Dynamics of the Basic Capacities
FiTst Sphere
At the vegetative level there are three basic movements:
incorporation of things into oneself, alteration of oneself from
within, and reproduction or replication of oneself. People ingest
and consume nourishment from the environment and assimilate it into their own substance. From within they grow in
size and their capacities mature in quality, i.e., become functionally effective. When they are sexually mature, they reproduce their own kind from their own cells.
The dynamic rationale of this sphere is basic living process.

Second Sphere
At the level of sensitivity, the movement of sensationperception is also a kind of " incorporation " and " assimilation," but this "incorporation" and "assimilation" subtend a
return which is intentional, i.e., in the order of objective
reference or awareness of the sources of stimuli. The senses
" ingest " stimuli from the environment and react with outward-looking perceptions. The internal senses further" ingest"
this sensory material and reproduce it in intentional or outward-looking images and memories. These images and mem-

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OF PERSONALITY

615

aries are continually associated spontaneously into patterns
based on forms (Gestalten) and the similarities, contrasts and
actually experienced connections of forms. They are further
assimilated into a time-space structure, classified into pleasantuseful and unpleasant-harmful categories, and finally organized
into an overall view, outward looking, of the lived-in physical
world. All this comprises an interndly organized structure with
intrinsic references to the original sources of £timuli in the outer
world and continuous internal adjustment through contact
with the outer world by means of perceptions.
The dynamic rationale of this sphere is the opening of
relationships of objectivity, i.e., intentional contact with other
sensory things as they are other than oneself and distinct, even
distant, but potentially useful or harmful.

Third Sphere
Drive, urge and affect operate in the sensual appetitive
sphere, and they have five basic movements. The first two are
simple and direct: urges to attain, possess and enjoy attractive
objects by means of appropriate actions (movements towards
objects) and urges to avoid repellent objects by taking
measures to shun them (movements away from objects).
These movements are respectively in the broad categories of
love, desire and joy, and dislike, aversion and sorrow. The
other three movements are more complex and arise in emergency situations. The first is to face challenges of danger and
difficulty which threaten the attainment or possession of attractive objectives, a kind of overdrive movement for a thing.
This is the hope-boldness category. The second is escape from
a threatening evil which is hard to escape, a kind of overdrive
away from a thing, the fear-despair category. The third is to
fight and destroy a threatening evil, a movement against an
object, in the anger category.
These movements of the appetites comprise all the drives
and urges which impel a person to action and all the affects
and emotions which constitute his feeling experiences. In order
to understand their role in personality more fully, it is conven-

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ient to divide them into three ranges of intensity. The first
range includes ordinary or surface impulses and feelings, i. e.,
the everyday, operating energies which motivate casual and
routine behavior and exhibit only mild feeling tones, if any.
Examples are the pleasure of taking a hot cup of coffee in the
morning, of meeting an agreeable but casual acquaintance,
and apprehension about being five minutes late for an appointment. The range of strong or deep drives and affects include
the energies which motivate vigorous action and generate definite feelings; they also generally involve a change in facial
expression, rate of breathing, and heart beat, etc. Examples are
meeting a dear friend, losing a month's pay, receiving a direct
insult. Violent or pit drives and emotions energize a compulsive need for immediate decisive action (or perhaps paralyze
action) and totally saturated feeling states (or a state of
stunned feelings). They cause generalized and extreme physical excitement which fixates attention on violent action, or, if
action is impossible, produces loss of composure and perhaps
incoherence, loud vocalizing, and perhaps mental shock and
fainting, etc. Examples are reactions to a threat of death,
achieving a life-long goal, sexual relations, loss of a deeply
loved person.
Drive and affect are known directly by experience, but, more
than that, they exhibit, in the structure of sensory organisms,
a dynamic rationale which is a strict necessity. I£ a creature
possessing perceptive and fantasying powers were not capable
of being aroused appetitively by the objects perceived,
perception and fantasies would be intrinsically futile and therefore absurd. I£ would be a situation, for example, of perceiving
food or drink and of lacking a capacity to feel desire for them;
the perceiving would be dynamically sterile.
Fourth Sphere
The fourth sphere of capacities, the executive-muscular, operates as an instrument of drives and urges. By physical activity
we approach attractive things, take and hold them, consume
them, use them, or, conversely, avoid them, depart from them.
push them away. Again, we face up to dangerous objects or

DIMENSIONS

OF PERSONALITY

617

flee from them or attack them. Some of the objects we deal
with are physical: food, drink, tools, materials, other people,
etc.; others are intentional or psychic: sights, sounds, touches,
tastes, etc. Some of the activities by which we handle them are
physical, like walking, grasping, biting, manipulating, and
others are psychic, like speaking, singing, and staring, etc.
The executive-muscular capacities respond under the motivations supplied in the appetitive sphere, and again there is
a connection of strict necessity. If we could want things and
could not direct our actions on the basis of wants, our wants
would be satisfied only by chance and coincidence, which would
make us intrinsically absurd.
Part of the energy of drive and urge is used in moving these
muscular-executive capacities oriented towards the environment, another part moves the internal activities by which we
attend to and organize fantasy, memory and thought. Basically, then, people have a two-fold orientation, towards the
external world on one hand and towards their own internal
operations on the other: extraversion and introversion.

Fifth Sphere
At the level of intellect the basic movements are like those
of sensitivity: incorporation and assimilation and intention,
but on a different plane. Fundamentally, the intellect is abstractive anrl universalizing. By intellect we regard and perceive or understand concrete reality according to intelligible
notes, i.e., the potentially endless multitude of abstractible
aspects which exist as such only in concepts in the intellect.
We universalize these abstracted aspects and seek the answers
to the questions " what," " why " and " how " in terms of them.
By intellect also we reflect on self as self.
The rationale of the intellectual level is intentionality plus
meaning; it is essentially the sphere in which meaning is discovered and meaning is situated.

Sixth Sphere
The sixth sphere of capacity is the voluntary. The fundamental movement in this sphere is to choose between altcrna-

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STOCK

tives, establish final purposes and ends and the series of steps
or means to attain them, and to elect from the immediate possibilities the one which will be here and now acted on. The
action of willing is fundamentally free, it supplies effective
direction to life, it controls or commands directly or indirectly
almost all other human activity. It cannot control the thrust
of drive and urge and the welling up of affect, but it can accept
and use drive forces, contain them to some extent, and, by
the nature of things, drives and urges tend to be aroused to
reinforce deep voluntary impulse and commitments.
The dynamic rationale of the voluntary sphere is, in relation
to intelligence, parallel to that of the sphere of drive and affect
in relation to perception and fantasy. If meanings do not elicit
voluntary decisions and commitments, they are ultimately
"meaningless." Finally, moreover, if man is a creature who
essentially aspires to meaning, and meaning gets its ultimate
significance when it is translated into decision, it is reasonable
that the whole human person in all its capacities is somehow
subordinate to voluntary control and direction.

The Basic Differentials in Human Nature
The preceding paragraphs outline the basic structure of
human nature. This basic structure, however, is possessed
differently by different people, and these fundamental differences are natural and intrinsic differences with which people
are born. They are conceived as entitive habits, i. e., ways of
"having oneself," or fundamental ways in which a given nature
can be disposed or organized differently. These differences are
sex, temperament, race and individual mode.
The most basic difference is sex, male and female. The
male tends to have more muscular strength; his sexual urge
tends to be concentrated on sexual activity directly and for
specific incidents; he tends to try to impress and please people
by prowess and achievement; he is more overtly aggressive,
oriented towards impersonal reality and the use of logic. The
female tends to live longer; her sexual urge tends to be diffused
into affection and to be generally closer to consciousness; she

DIMENSIONS

OF PERSONALITY

619

tends to try to please people by signs of tenderness and affection, to be aggressive in more covert ways, to be interested in
personal relations, and to rely on intuitive judgments.
The second set of differences are temperamental, a difference probably based on endocrine gland function. There are
possibly eight temperaments: one (high pituitary) seems to be
tall, heavy-boned and muscular, with strong features, aggressive, mentally analytical, and domineering. Another (high thyroid) is youthful in appearance, lean, active, mentally bright
and creative, emotionally variable. A third (high adrenal) is
full-bodied and muscular, energetic in mind and character, individualistic. A fourth (thymic) seems to be tall and fatty,
puerile, weak-willed, affectionate and uninhibited. Two others
(low thyroid and low pituitary) tend to be short and plump,
the former sluggish, the latter timid and peaceful. The seventh
(low adrenal) is slender, dark and weak, intelligent, nervous
and depressed. The last (low parathyroid) is tall, cold, pale,
intelligent but narrow.
Differences of race are more apparent in physical features;
there are probably mental and emotional differences, too, but
these are almost impossible to determine.
The most important individual psychologj.eal differences,
over and above those referable to sex and temperament, are
probably differences in degree of intelligence, ranging from the
simple-minded to the genius, in orientation of intelligence, e. g.,
verbal or mathematical, etc., overall energy and drive, tension
tolerance or will-power, overall sensitivity and emotionality,
and orientations of emotionality.
People also differ in the degree to which they are oriented
more towards the outside world (extraverted) or towards their
inner world of thought and feeling (introverted) , but whether
this is in any way an innate difference is difficult to tell.

Dynamic Aspects of Basic Human Differentials
From the point of view of the individual the fact that he
possesses basic human nature in a way different from others
means that he will, in a given situation, react more or less

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than others, and even react in a basically different way. Where
one individual will react with strong or pit emotions, another
will be relatively indifferent; where one will intellectualize a
situation, another will sentimentalize, etc. From the point of
view of the group, the differences mean that different individuals working together can complement each other in complex tasks requiring varied abilities which are perhaps incompatible in a single individual. Differences can also operate to
cause basic misunderstandings and suspicions among people,
and, on the other hand, they can be the basis of mutual attractions among people.
The basic givens of human personality are
animal oTganism with powers of reasoning, awareness of the
environmental world, self-reflection and the capacity to take a
deliberate stand by free decision. The basic dynamics are
ingestion of nourishment and experience, assimilation and
growth, intentional awareness, selective drive and urge, search
for reasons and deliberate choioe. These basic givens are
possessed in different modes by different sexes, temperaments,
races and individuals.
STATEMENT:

2.

OPERATING

FIELD

The operating field of personality is the sphere in which
actions are possible for the individual. The total operating
field can be divided into the external field and the internal
field. The external field is the adjacent physical environment
in which the individual is situated, and by which he is stimulated, and towards which he observably acts or reacts. The
internal field is the area of operations as they are known only
from within. The two fields are directly connected by cognition, feelings of pleasure and pain, and physical actions.
Internal Field
The internal operating field is a function of the basic givens 1
insofar as these produce cognition and consciousness, urge and
1

See # 1 above.

DIMENSIONS

OF PERSONALITY

feeling, voluntary control and available physical energy, i.e.,
the elements which constitute specifically human action. The
formal constituent of the field is cognition: perception, insight
and reasoning as looking out into the sunounding world, and
conscious reflection upon internal activity. The materials of
the internal activities reflected upon are cognition itself, drive
forces, feelings and affects, voluntary decisions and the sense
of available physical energy.

Sphere in the Internal Operating Field
The internal field can be conveniently divided into concentric
spheres. The surface sphere, opening into the outside world,
embraces not only objects in the environment which are terms
of intentional awareness but consciousness of their being sensed
and perceived. This surface sphere also includes the awareness
people have of their own bodies through their own senses and
the conscious feelings of pleasure and pain. The limits of this
sphere are the thresholds below or beyond which sensation fails
to register.
The second sphere of the internal field embraces internal
imagery, sensual appetites and the sense of body action. The
internal imagery includes fantasy and memory, the learned
experiences of thingg as pleasant-useful and painful-harmful,
and the lines of association of fantasy and memory and experience. It includes also the memories of memories and fant::tsies
and the recognition of their varied patterns of association. In
the appetitive area this second sphere involves consciousness
of drives and urges aroused by perceptions and fantasies and
consciousness of emotion or affect. It includes, finally, the sense
of muscular readiness and response.
The limits of this second sphere of consciousness are complex.
1) There are large areas of habitual or preconscious knowledge
readily available for recall and use when needed. These spheres
of habitual knowledge are virtually continuous with actual
consciousness. 2) There are also areas of repressed unconscious
memories and fantasies, with drive and affect connected with
them. Repressed unconscious materials are threatening and

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MICHAEL

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anxiety-producing and not available for ready recall, although
they have considerable indirect and disguised influence on
conscious activity. 3) There is also a sphere of the unassimilated subconscious which contains experiences which for want
of time to reflect and cogitate have not actually been integrated into fully conscious and articulated thinking. 4) And
there is, finally, the limit of the non-conscious, i.e., the biological, physiological, neurological processes which subtend conscious processes but are themselves outside the scope of consciousness.
The innermost sphere, at the core of consciousness, is the
sphere of intelligence: insight, reasoning, judgment, cogitation, the formulation of plans, etc. In this core of consciousness
a person is aware of his own thinking as it refers to outside
reality !and as it is a process in itself. He is also aware of his
voluntary activities, of possible ends and means, purposes and
intentions, of commitments made and decisions taken, and of
the exercise of free choice among them. He is aware, too, of
voluntary control of executive powers. By intellect a person is
conscious of all the other spheres, i. e., sensation, perception,
fantasy, appetite, motor control, and feeling. Finally, at the
center of all, a person is aware of himself as a permanent self,
who is subject, recipient and cause of his actions and operations.

Focus in the Internal Operating Field-Attention
At any given time, the possible operating field is much more
extensive than the actual operating field. The actual operating field is determined by attention, which is the focus of
cognitive activity. Attention may be sharp, if it is focused on
a particular object, or diffused, if it spreads over many objects.
When it is sharp, the peripheral objects are unfocused and
blurred, when it is diffused, the particular objects are unfocused
and blurred. There are always objects which could be attended
to but are in fact beyond the range of attention, and these go
virtually unnoticed.
The variations of attention range from high to low or non-

DIMENSIONS

OF PERSONALITY

623

existent: from alertness and concentration through ranges of
ordinary or casual inspection, observation, and reflection, to
dull or befuddled cognition, and finally into non-attention,
during sleep, coma, etc.
Attention may be focused on objects in the outside world,
or on objects as they are being sensed or felt, or on memory and
fantasy, or on thought and decision making. Usually attention includes some awareness in all these spheres of cognition,
but it can concentrate in one sphere to the exclusion of the
others.

Dynamics of the lntemal Operating Field
All of the elements which contribute to the internal operating
field have their natural and appropriate dynamics, that is,
there are rhythms of biological activity, laws of perception,
laws :of ima,ge association, laws of thinking, laws of drive and
affect, laws of volition, rhythms of physical energy. Nevertheless, the role of sensual drive and emotion and voluntary action,
i.e., the role of appetition, is unique and dominant. Appetition
influences the activities of all other operative capacities. 1)
In the cognitive sphere appetition tends to determine which
objects will occupy the focus of attention, actually here and
now, and generally over periods of time, and which objects will
be left on the periphery of focus or entirely suppressed, for
what we love or hate or fear attracts us more than neutral
objects. Appetition also tends to distort objects and judgments
about objects, making them seem actually larger or smaller,
or better or worse, and in various ways different from what
they really are. We tend to make things seem to be the way we
want them to be, and the more so the more deeply the appetites
are moved. And appetite, e. g., the force of desire or fear, can
make us avoid reality and live in fantasy, if reality is too
threatening or disappointing. 'l) In its own sphere appetition
stimulates its own cross-currents, as drives and urges arouse or
inhibit other drives and urges and generate affects and emotional states as side effects, for people can fear fear, and be
ashamed of love, and·like to be angry, etc. 3) Appetition pro-

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MICHAEL STOCK

foundly influences physiological and biological processes, stimulating or inhibiting digestion, circulation, respiration, hormone
secretion, etc., producing states of vigor and health or lassitude
and sickness. In short, the workings of appetition constitute a
generalized secondary variable in the internal field which must
be taken into account in analyzing the workings of the whole
field and of each part of it, and this is especially true when
deep and pit emotions are involved, particularly if they are
constant or repeated.

The External Field
The general external operating field may be defined as those
things which can or do affect the individual and which are
characterized by being cognitively objective and capable of
initiating actions independently of the individual. Within the
general external field there is the immediately effective environment, which comprises those persons or objects with which the
person is actually or habitually concerned cognitively, and with
which he is actually or habitually engaged as objects of desires
or aversions, and concerning which he actually or habitually
acts and reacts.
The principal kinds of elements in the external field are:
1. Persons to meet and engage.

They are more or less numerous, more or less intimately
connected and related in various ways. The individual is
related internally to persons by attachment attitudes such as
love, trust, and expectation, and by aversion attitudes such as
dislike, contempt and suspicion. He is related to some by
respect, to others by disrespect; to some by submission and
compliance, to others by dominance, leadership or exploitation,
and to others by rebellion. These attitudes may be more or
less conscious, or may stem from unconscious fantasies and
attitudes attaching to these people; they may be responses to
the persons in themselves, or responses to them as they are
somehow representative of other persons and things.

DIMENSIONS

OF PERSONALITY

625

2. Groups and societies of which he fonns a part.

Groups are, of course, made up of persons, but over and
above his personal relationships, an individual has relationships
with his communities as communities. These groups are more
or less intimate, richer or poorer in culture, and more or less
suitable to the person's human and individual needs. The
individual is internally related to groups by more or less
successful integration in tenus of accepting the group's conditions for membership, and by more or less complete participation in its benefits, and by being more or less conscious of
himself as so related.
3. Physical resources to exploit and dangers which threaten.

This part of the field may be rich or meager, secure or
dangerous. The person's internal operating field is related to
this part of the environment by more or less thorough acquaintance, more or less intense interest, and by more or less successful dominance of the advantages offered, and finally, by consciousness of himself as so related. 2
4. God.
Given the fact that the principles on which the universe
is based are mysterious, God is the One, in whatever way
conceived, who transcends the presenting environment but is
immanent in it. He is the ultimate referent of environment, in
the sense of being the One who knows what is behind it and
controls it from within itself. The individual is related internally to God by more or less full and clear recognition and
understanding of his presence in the environment and by more
or less full and accurate acceptance of its implications. 3

Dynamics of the External Operating Field
The fundamental impact of the external operating field is
in providing the real objects which, as correlatives of the
• See Operating Tools, # 6 below.
8 The full study of the external operating field belongs to social psychology,
sociology, cultural anthropology, technology, economics, religion and theology.

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MICHAEL

STOCK

person's operating powers, activate him, nourish him and make
him grow, take him out of himself and put him into the
interactions which complete and fulfill himself. In a corollary
way the external field confronts the person with the " force "
of reality, which is a continual corrective for the subjective
biases which may be introduced by fantasy under the force of
appetite. 4 Reality provides greater gratifications than fantasy,
punishes mistakes and frustrates illusions.
STATEMENT:
The internal operating field, which is established foTmally out of the basic givens of cognition, compTises
all levels of awareness of ·external reality and internal reaction,
centeTed in the intellectual awareness of the meaning of things
and of oneself. At any given time, attention defines the actual
contents and orientation of awareness, which is limited inteTnally by the bound.<? of latent, subconscious and unconscious
materials, and externally by objects beneath tlve thTesholds or
beyond the extent of peTception. The objects of awareness and
the way in which they are perceived and conceived are radically
affected by the person's appetitive reactions to them. The
external field comprises the persons and things which are
independent in themselves of the reactions of an individual,
which act on their own initiative and constitute the mtt.<tide
1·eality in which a person finds his real fulfillment.

3.

GENERAL OPERATING PRINCIPLE

The 'Fundamental Thrust in Personality-the
Happiness

Urge to

Within the internal operating field the fundamental general
operating principle which underlies motivations in all specifically human activities is the urge to be happy. It arises as a
more or less conscious and deliberate purpose in life from one
of the most general and compelling of the reasoned insights of
man, to wit, that it is good to be happy and bad to be unhappy,
and this is universal for all people. It manifests itself in fantasy
' See pp. 628-624 above, on the influence of appetites on other operations.

DIMENSIONS

OF PERSONALITY

627

and affect as yearnings and daydreams about blissful states, in
nostalgias for imagined past joys, in fears that one is somehow
losing out on something in life, in excitements at possibilities
of great good things to come-in youth's enthusiasm to go out
to meet life and in the thoughts of middle age that life must
hold something more than it is unfolding. 5
If the general urge towards happiness is not explicitly formulated and acknowledged as a personal goal, it still operates as
the sum of the motives in all deliberate concrete acts, insofar as
everyone looks for an increase in contentment in every particular thing he deliberately does or wishes he could do.
Happiness in the simplest sense is getting all that one wants;
not to be happy means not to have what one wants, and to
be unhappy means to suffer from not getting what one wants.
In the simplest sense happiness motivates as a simple attractive
force; unhappiness as suffering and the fear of suffering is a
different and more complex aspect of motivation. 6

The Positive Components of Happiness
Essentially, happiness embraces several inseparable components or dimensions, i. e., aspects all of which must be present
simultaneously, given the nature of man as it is. First of all,
happiness means loving and being loved by some people, for
love is the basic law of human life. Second, for happiness.
people want to achieve or attain some goal or goals, for men are
full of potentialities which cry out to be realized and in realizing them they also create goods to sha.re with those they love.
5 This concept
of general happiness is not exactly the same as the Freudian
concept of the " oceanic feeling." The oceanic feeling is described as a longing
for an original, infantile objectless condition of life, a feeling of omnipotence which
persists as long as the infant experiences no excitations (objects) which cannot be
mastered, a feeling which returns in certain experiences in life like falling in love
when a person " loses " his ego boundaries by a feeling of participating in the greatness of a partner. (Cf. Otto Fenichel, The Psychoanalytic Theo1·y of Neurosis [New
York: W. W. Norton Co., 1945], p. 86.) The oceanic feeling is a feeling of tension·
lessness, of absolute freedom from pressures. Happiness as conceived here presupposes freedom from pain and suffering but essentially involves a positive state of
conscious joy, a heightening, as it were, of "good" tension.
6 See below, pp. 6!1!9-631.

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Third, people want to find their personal meaning in their loves
and goals, for human happiness is self-conscious. Fourth, the
achievement of happiness involves a sense of rightness or innocence of evil, for the essence of evil is to fail to find happiness.
At the heart of his consciousness a person knows he has
responsibility for his own happiness, and if he jeopardizes it,
he feels an essential guilt. Fifth, men realize that their happiness is bound up with that of the people of their own group,
for men are essentially commu11al animals. And finally, the
fulness of happiness requires the belief that one's individual
mode of contentment is in accord with the ultimate principles
of the universe; otherwise the contentment is somehow illusory
and transient, i.e., happiness has a religious dimension.
Since there is no aspect of loving, fulfillment, meaningfulness,
innocence, communal security and ultimate accord with the
universe which is undesirable, happiness has the aura of absoluteness.
Unhappiness comes from loneliness, failure to achieve, meaninglessness in life, guilt, ostracism and the sense of being
ultimately wrong, and, since there is no aspect of these which is
attractive, ultimate unhappiness has the aura of absoluteness,
too.
The actual or proximate realizations of the general operating
principle in daily life is in the contentments which come from
seeing oneself make observable progress in love and achievement, in meaning, in innocence, in the community under God.
Conversely, day-by-day unhappiness comes from failures in
any of these dimensions of contentment.
Since the achievement of happiness is a future thing, entailing labor and risk against obstacles and competition, the urge
to happiness is not a simple response to an attraction but
rather an overdrive in the order of hope, confidence, and boldness to meet challenges, and these responses themselves form
part of the day-by-day thrust towards happiness, since they are
both signs and causes of progress, organically and spiritually
strengthening, and psychologically gratifying.

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Counter-thrust and Under-thrust to the Urge for Happiness
There are things men need in order to live and things
which make living worthwhile. Moreover, pain is the result
of privation of the things men need for life. The urge for
happiness, therefore, even at its most fundamental level, is
affected by complexities.
In one sense, and a more essential sense, the urge to happiness is for the things that make life worth living; it is fundamentally a simple thrust towards a better condition of life,
towards a deeper and fuller experience of better things. Love
and friendship, fame and prestige, wealth, power, knowledge,
goodness are ingredients of a good life, pursued simply for their
promise of happiness. Nevertheless, given his human condition,
a person cannot neglect the things he needs in order to live, to
maintain health and strength, physical wholeness, mental balance, the feeling of community support, etc. There are necessities like food and drink, sleep and dreaming, recreation and
sensory stimulation, companionship and security which are
necessities of life.
These necessities introduce the first complexity into the
dynamics of the basic urge to happiness. Even if a person has
never felt them as needs because he has never experienced their
privation, and even if he counts them as part of his present
contentment because their continual satisfaction affords continual pleasure, they consume time, energy, attention and resources which he might have expended on attaining a better
state of life, and therefore they are in competition with achieving happines&-if not a counter-thrust to the urge to hn_ppiness,
they are at least a diversion.
Most people, however, have experienced privation in some
of these necessities or all, and from the memory of the pain and
distress which occurred, they feel an additional motivation: the
felt need to have these things. Needs are here defined as desires
with an added sense of urgency, with an edge of threatened
pain. They are desires which are prompted not only by the
promised gratification but also by the fear of something like

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discomfort, distress, pain and eventual organic, psychological
or spiritual deterioration if they are not gratified.
The necessities of life take on need aspects directly when
privation and pain have been felt. The simple good things
which make life worthwhile, which can be pursued simply for
the promise of happiness they offer can also take on a need
aspect if their privations or contrary states have been experienced as painful (psychogenic needs) or if a person has been
taught that not attaining them is somehow evil or shameful
(sociogenic needs). They have then become like necessities of
life. A person who has suffered from grinding poverty may
not only want but also feel that he needs to have wealth in
order to be happy, and a person who has been taught that
social status is necessary for a happy life may have to have
status or suffer a feeling of degradation.
It may happen also that a conflict arises between need,
gratification and the attainment of happiness whenever the demands of the need jeopardize the attainment of happiness in
any of its major dimension, for instance, if sexual need conflicts
with social standards or conscience, or the needs of personal
health with a work achievement. Even the dimensions of
happiness can come into conflict with each other, creating
fundamental tensions, for instance, between the love for a
person and work achievement, between social standards and
conscience, between religion and love for a person.
When a necessity of life becomes a need, or a person or
goal takes on a need aspect or the conflict between a need and
the attainment of happiness or between two dimemions of
happiness generate, as it were, derivative needs, a person may
experience a direct counter-thrust to the urge for happiness.
The time, energy, attention and resources he might spend for
happiness now must be spent to avoid pain and distress which
threaten to increase the longer the remedy is delayed. The
person is now definitely interrupted in and distracted from the
pursuit of happiness, and unwillingly.
On the other hand, in the case of goals and person which
have psychogenically or sociogenically acquired need aspects,

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the added urgency reinforces the thrust towards happiness, like
an under-thrust which adds to the original movement. And if
a single goal carries, or seems to carry, the promise of relief for
many needs, its attractive force can become compelling, for
instance, the unloved, insignificant, lonely person may see
wealth as bringing affection, power, prestige and companionship
along with material ease, and long for it correspondingly
passionately. What often happens in these cases is that the
gratification of the need is felt as deferrable until the goal is
attained and the relief from distress will be all the sweeter.
Fundamentally, then, a person strives for happiness, taking
time and energy recurrently to gratify needs which cannot be
deferred. Some needs are seen as adequately gratifiable in the
future attainment of goals of happiness and contribute their
motivating force to the pe1· se force of that goal. Some needs
come into conflict with the hopes of happiness, and some plans
for attaining happiness come into conflict with each other,
creating new tensions which operate as needs. The greater the
pressure of needs demanding present satisfaction, the more a
person must attend to them directly, and if they build up close
to his limits of distress toleration, his life becomes reduced to
coping with them, and the attainment of happiness is relegated
more or less resignedly to wishful thinking. Then an undercurrent of depression sets in, motivated by the loss of hope
for happiness, and a person experiences lassitude, and may
regress into fantasy life, or despair, rebel and strike out against
the " world." On the other hand, as present needs are adequately supplied and need pressure decreases, the attraction of
attaining happiness positively can assert itself more strongly
and the individual can give himself more completely to the urge
for contentment.
A person lives with a more or less tentative schedule of plans
for happiness which shift around as the demands for immediate
need satisfaction continually insinuate themselves more or less
insistently. He can fend them off, combine them with his plans,
divide his resources between them, or succumb to them. 7
7 This distinction between the urge to happiness as an uncomplicated response to
the possibility of perfect contentment and need motivation as a pain-distress

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STATEMENT:
The overall operating thrust in a person's internal operating field is the urge towards future happiness,
which is realized day-by-day in partial satisfactions in progress
under way, and in the sustaining fo1·ce of attitudes of hope,
confidence, willingness to meet challenges, etc. This overall
thrust is modified by the 1·ecurrent necessity to invest resources
in the gratification of needs as they become felt. Need.'? whose
gratification can be deferTed and combined with plans fo'r
achieving happiness in goals add the force of their motivation
to the attraction of the goal. Needs whose gratification conflicts with attaining happiness create new needs. A tension
exists between coping with needs and being left free to pursue
happiness, and a person balances them off by continnal adjustments.

4.

SPECIAL OPERATING

PoLES

Preamble: When we deal with specific operating poles, and
subsequently with needs as operating limits, skills and knowlcdges as operating tools, and the self image as operating base,
we are beginning to treat the acquired differences of personality, the almost limitless adjustments and adaptations which
affect the person internally because of his experiences and
constitute in the end the most significant part of personality.
These internal changes are in one way or another in the order
of operative habits, i. e., re-dispositions of the operative capacities which enable a person to operate subsequently more
avoiding response is reflected in the later Freudian distinction between the conflictfree ego sphere and the region of mental conflicts and defences. In the former, a
person is "left free" to respond adaptively to the environment realistically apprehended. In the latter, he is obliged to respond in ways which relieve drive pressures.
(Cf. Heinz Hartmann, Ego Psychology and the Problem of Adaptation, [New York:
International Universities Press, 1958], pp. 8-"ll.) Similarly, in comparing the
developmental psychologies of Freud and Piaget, Peter H. Wolff holds that an
infant develops according to the reality-adaptive stages described by Piaget during
periods when he is not feeling tension from undischarged drives. In periods of
tension, he develops the mechanisms of drive binding and discharge which psychoanalysis describes. (Cf. Wolff, "The Developmental Psychologies of Jean Piaget
and Psychoanalysis," Psychological Issues, Monograph 5. [New York: International
Universities Press, Inc., 1960], pp. 63-65, 80-83, 100-103, etc.)

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quickly and effectively. The major areas in which operative
habits are formed are called focal points, i. e., important spheres
in which personality necessarily develops in one way or
another. We will note sixteen focal points in human personality
as we proceed, and we will relate various personality traits to
these areas of development.
The overall urge to happiness, in the sense of the positive
thrust towards a better form of life, is made concrete in a
person's life in terms mainly of other persons and specific goals
intended in life. These are the principal focal points of personality. The act of accepting other persons and specific goals
as the concrete representatives of one's hope of happiness is an
act of commitment, a voluntary acceptance of the attraction of
these persons and goals rather than others with the implied
resolution of dedicating oneself to them more or less permanently. Such commitments form a major part of the core of
personality.

Persons
Love of Persons and Failure to Love
Probably the deepest impact made on human personality is
the impact made by other persons, and the deepest motives in
human life are probably the urges to make other people react
in return. In other words, other people have direct access to
any person's pit emotions. When one person makes an impact
on another, he becomes a pole, a focus or target of reactions
for the other, and the other person in return reacts to being
targeted, and they become parts of each other's personalities.
The deepest need in human nature is the need to be loved,
which is what makes one person vulnerable to other persons,
for other persons are the givers of love. The need to be loved
is in one sense the sum of almost all a person's other needs, for
if one is loved one is more assured of being taken care of, fed
and housed, recreated and rested, sexually stimulated and satisfied, attended to, made to feel worthwhile, made a center of
attention, given status, reassurance, and all the rest of the

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things one needs for life and happiness. In another sense the
need to be loved is specific: it is the need to have others do
what one wants because one wants it. This is intensely gratifying.
Therefore, the deepest gratification a person can feel is to
be loved by a person whose love is needed. It follows, then,
that the greatest thing one person can give another is love, the
willingness to do for them what they want, to be generous with
them and thoughtful, forgiving their faults and covering their
weaknesses, supplying their strength and supporting their purposes, and proving it all by affection and concern. And therefore, the perfect human situation is friendship, which occurs
when one person loves and is loved by another whose love he
needs and who needs his love.
The foundations of love are many, but they can be reduced
to three main categories. We love those who are useful to us,
who supply us with the things we need to prosper materially
and spiritually, morally and socially. Second, we love those
who stimulate and please, who are comfortable or exciting or
delightful company. And third, we love those with whom we
want to be identified by association, those who represent in
themselves the human qualities we most prize and yearn for,
who realize in themselves the personality we idealize.
For all this, a person's deepest loves are ordinarily adventitious; love for parents and family and children by accidents
of birth, love for spouses by accidents of sexual attraction, love
of closest friends by accidents of local or working proximity.
A great part of personal misery comes from failure to love.
If a person cannot obtain a return of love from someone he
loves by offering his own love, he may try to gain a substitute,
by dominating the other person, playing on his fears and dependence, or by seducing the other person, playing on the
weaknesses he likes indulged, or by displaying hurt, playing on
guilt feelings. Often when a person cannot establish love or any
substitute relation on a person-to-person basis, he turns his
energies to achievements, and he fantasies that he is making
the impressions he wants to make on other people in general.

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Even when there is mutual love, disappointment is frequent,
since the need to be loved is almost insatiable, and when a
person is disappointed, he may react by resentment and spite,
which generally causes resentment in turn, which leads to
mutual hostility and the end of the friendship. Many friendships are based not on simple love but on a kind of investment
of love with expectations of return, a quid pro quo relationship, and when the return on the investment falls below a
certain rate, the friendship ends. To love genuinely, i.e., to be
able to disengage the offering of benevolent, thoughtful love
from the need to be loved in return is the essential problem in
personal relationships.
Many people, moreover, quasi instinctively reject the love
of those who do not fill their needs or please them or with
whom they do not want to be identified.
Many people, finally, feel that they are in competition with
others, especially for love, prestige and influence, and this
establishes the basis for hatred rather than love.
Around the focal point of personality which is constituted
by relationships with other persons as individuals a host of
personality traits are developed: love, tenderness, affectionateness, benevolence, sympathy, friendliness, affability, gregariousness, tolerance, loyalty and devotion or, on the other hand,
reserve, suspicion, coldness, indifference, brusqueness, selfishness, hostility, meanness, malevolence, cruelty, possessiveness,
submissiveness, etc.

Respect for Persons and Violations of Persons
Love and friendship are based on sharing, on what we feel
in common with other people. But other people have an
irreducible minimum of differences, and these have to be
respected. A person must deliberately or instinctively learn to
respect the rights of others, i. e., their legitimate claims to all
they have to have for themselves, and indeed this respect is
intimately related to genuine love. The habit of respect for
persons is a focal point of personality and subsumes such traits
in relation to other persons as honesty, fall-ness, decency,

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MICHAEL STOCK

reverence, consideration vs. cheating, over-reaching, conniving,
disrespect, arrogance, contempt and violence, or gratitude,
courtesy, graciousness, thoughtfulness, generosity, candor, and
openness vs. their counterfeits like obsequiousness and their
opposites like rudeness. In regard to one's own person there
are also traits of self-respect or readiness to vindicate one's
rights vs. opposite traits of self-effacement on the one hand and
vengefulness on the other.

Goals or Achievement Poles
Man is potential, both in the passive sense that he is incomplete and capable of being fulfilled by things outside himself,
and in the active sense that he has powers, energies and skills
by the employment of which he can accomplish and achieve.
Goals in life attract usually at a level of strong or pit emotion
by offering the promise of personal completion and fulfillment
and by representing goods and achievements which one can
communicate and share with other people, for the purposes of
giving love or winning their love, or of dominating or controlling or cajoling or impressing them. The achievement of
goals represents an increase in personal value, power and importance, and an acceptable contribution to the happiness of
others-family, friends, community, mankind, God-which redounds again to one's own great happiness. Goals constitute a
focal point in human personality.
The particular goals a person can intend are almost infinitely
variable, but they can be summarized under relatively few
titles: wealth including all kinds of material abundance and
prosperity; power and authority with security, law and order
and peace; pleasure, thrills and excitement; physical strength,
health and beauty; creativity and productivity; prestige, honor,
fame, status in the community; knowledge, science, wisdom,
insight, understanding; goodness, innocence, moral character;
the welfare and prestige of tribe or nation; the service of God.
People generally select some of these goals and order them
in a. hierarchy of precedence on the principle of maximum
happiness anticipated in accomplishing and achieving them.

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Ordinarily they are proximately interested in a complex of
attainments which assure adequate present contentment, for
themselves and for those they love, i.e., adequate material
possessions, health, security, recreation, acceptance in the community, knowledge of what is going on, a good conscience
morally and religiously, etc. Besides this, they usually invest
some goals with higher value, even with the aura of absoluteness which attaches to ultimate happiness itself, since they
believe the achievement of these goals would make them
supremely happy, and they either strive actually for these
ultimate goals or wishfully contemplate them. These goals are
any of the goals mentioned above realized in a perfect or
complete way. The hierarchy of ordinary and ultimate goals
(along with the principal persons with whom one wants to
share them) constitute the central structure of mature personality and one of the major keys to understanding its
dynamics.
Insofar as goals are possessible goals the person wants to
possess and control them and communicate them to others as
he wishes; and he himself is a central figure in the mental
representation of the goal complexus. But if the goal is the
prosperity of some other person, institution or cause, he dedicates himself to it as to something greater than himself, and
the picture of his happiness is a picture of sharing in the
prosperity of this other. In either case, there is a vision of the
future which inspires the person, a vision of himself as attaining the goals-this is his ideal self-image, and the foretaste
of his happiness.
A personality develops traits or characteristics from the
substance of its goals, from their intangible qualities and from
the way they are pursued. By their substance a person may be
a miser, a tyrant, a sage or a saint; by their abstract qualities
he may be realistic or idealistic, idealistic or pragmatic, noble
or mean, ordinary or remarkable and by the way he pursues
them he may be dedicated, fanatic, undirected, integrated, disorganized, etc. Moreover, broad styles of life are developed
and exercised in relation to goals: possessiveness, productivity,
dominance, dedication, conscientiousness, self-expression, etc.

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Coordinates of the Operating Poles
The four other elements which enter intrinsically into happiness, namely, the personal meaning of life, the sense of moral
rightness, the sense of integration into the community, and
the sense of accord with the ultimate principles of the universe,
or God, may be goals in themselves, or aspects of personal
relationships and goal achievement which permeate them either
contributing their own specific value or creating their own
specific tension.
1. The Personal Meaning of Life

The overall thrust to happiness is so connatural to human
nature that it does not have to be learned, and it supplies the
essential meaning of life: life is for the sake of happiness. If
a person, for whatever reason, cannot accept this, his life is
irrational, meaningless and absurd, or else he must believe that
he is personally the victim of a cosmic injustice.
On the other hand, the particular persons with whom he is
closely related and the specific goals he intends, which supply
the concrete meaning of life, are very much the product of
experience and learning, in spite of the fact that commitments
are generally made on the basis of deep, natural attractions
of things.
The relationship between personal attachments and goals
on the one hand, and the personal meaning of life on the other,
is a reciprocal relationship. On the one hand, a person's beliefs
and convictions prescribe, within limits, the attachments he
will form, and, on the other hand, the attachments will influence his deepest beliefs and convictions.
A person's convictions about the world around him and
about his role in the world arise partly from his objective
experiences, about which he has more or less clear insights,
more or less well-organized and substantiated conclusions, more
or less depth of wisdom, and partly from his subjective experiences (which are in large part an effect of his own temperament) especially the critical experiences, i.e., the experiences
in which he has felt saturated by intense joy, high excitement.

DIMENSIONS

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excited anticipation or conversely, intense pain, fear like agony,
traumatic emotional shock, etc. The persons to whom he commits himself and the goals he intends: will represent and
promise a renewal of the saturation joys and safety from a
repetition of the saturation shocks. Integrating the results of
observation, insight, and cogitation about the world with subjective experiences, he will form his convictions of the meaning
of the world and of his own meaning in the world, and his
personal attachments and goal in life will be correlated with
these ultimate convictions.
In a particular way the ideas, opinions and convictions of the
people with whom he is closely associated and attached will
influence his own ideas, beliefs and convictions. A person is
most deeply impressed and influenced by the approval or
disapproval of other persons, (these often constitute the saturation joys and traumatic shocks in his life) and is deeply
biased in his own thinking by the need to win approval through
accepting what they accept and rejecting himself what they
reject. The single most important influence on a person's
ultimate convictions and the goals he intends in life are the
opinions and wishes of his family, spouse and close friends.
Some of the experiences, thinking processes, desires and
social pressures which enter into the formulation of a person's
ultimate convictions and the choice of his hierarchy of goals
operate consciously and articulately; others exert their influence inarticulately, from repressed motivations. Some aspects
of their goals and personal relationships people do not want to
express clearly to themselves, and some they could not even if
they wanted to, for they gratify, actually or symbolically,
cravings which are not named. The core of personality which is
represented by an individual's personal attachments, goals and
basic convictions about his meaning are like a mountain whose
peak shines in the sun and whose foothills are hidden in mist.
Basic convictions involve three focal points of personality;
understanding or basic insight, ultimate convictions in terms of
which a person is wise or foolish, and belie£ which is the habit
of accepting the authority of others. These are also operative

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b.abits and centers of many personality traits. In the sphere of
insights, some persons are more alert, perceptive and inquiring,
others dull and uncomprehending, and some have their insights
into some areas and not in others, for there are disparate
spheres for the exercise of basic understandings: nature, mathematics, law, morals, human relations, metaphysics, etc. Wit
and humor as well as common sense are also insight-connected
traits. In the sphere of ultimate convictions a person might
be characterized as materialistic or idealistic, fatalistic, optimistic, pessimistic, wise and foolish, etc., on the substance of his
convictions. On the basis of his mode of forming and holding
convictions, he can be termed inquiring, dogmatic, faithful,
reticent, assertive, argumentative, etc. In the sphere of belief,
some people are more gullible than others, some more suspicious
and skeptical, some docile, some obstinate, some tentative, etc.
!2. Moral Right and Wrong

The essence of morality lies in the fact that persons are
aware that they are responsible in great part for their thoughts,
words, deeds and omissions, and that these thoughts, words,
deeds and omissions will either bring them close to the people
they love and the achievement of their goals or will make them
fail. The esence of immorality is deliberately to jeopardize the
things which one believes will make for happiness. The moral
dilemma occurs when some deliberate operation seems simultaneously to be necessary for success in one aspect of happiness
and necessarily a threat to another.
In actual practice a person's norms of morality are dictated
partly by insight and reasoning about the right ways of acting
to achieve purposes from the very nature of the purposes
involved and partly by the customs and norms approved in
society, generally with some kind of religious sanction. The
latter are often incorporated unconsciously in childhood and
continue to influence actions throughout life. Adherence to a
personal code of moral right and wrong, even if it is the social
code unconsciously incorporated, gives one a deep sense of
being "right"; violation of the personal code generates more

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or less disturbing guilt feelings. The aspect of personality subtending moral rightness and wrongness is conscience, and the
traits connected with this aspect of personality are idealism,
rigidity, laxity, sensitivity, scrupulosity, righteousness, etc.
3. Integration into the Community

People belong to communities essentially because they cannot prosper in a human way as solitaries. They need communities at a pit emotional level, for nourishment, support and
protection, physical, psychological, moral and spiritual and
even by a quasi instinct to avoid loneliness. Therefore, over
and above their direct personal relations, people have to be
integrated into groups, accepting the prescriptions and prohibitions adopted as laws and rules in the group, and profiting
as far as they are able from the advantages offered by the
group. The motives for integration in the group are partly the
understanding of the value of group membership, partly a fear
of group sanctions.
As long as the gains which accrue from group membership
outweigh the demands made by the group on one's personal
resources and energies, and as long as the group norms do not
conflict too violently with one's personal needs and purposes,
group membership is welcome. When the demands and restrictions imposed by the group outweigh the benefits it offers,
tension sets in. The aspect of personality subtending group
relationships is respect for social codes; the focal point is
community integration vs. isolation. Many traits are developed in relation to communities: leadership, loyalty, responsibility, cooperativeness, obedience, lawfulness, equity, legalism,
disobedience, unruliness, lawlessness, delinquency, subversiveness, rebelliousness, etc.
4. Religion

The essence of religion lies in the need to make some response
to the mystery of the world. The religious response is a response in terms of where we have come from, why we are here,
and where we are going, and who directs the whole movement.

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The religious response in the strict sense is a belief that there
is some supernatural being or beings who hold the keys to these
mysteries, and that his or their wills can be known, consulted
and acted upon, that the good will of God or gods can be gained
and bad will conciliated. In important undertakings which
involve risk, people become more conscious of the religious
dimension of life, and especially when life itself is in danger or
drawing to an end. For many people, religion is deeply entwined into the meaning of life, the most basic convictions,
the main moral norms, and sometimes even the form of society.
The personality aspect subtending religion is reverence and
respect for supernatural beings, part of the focal point of
respect. As long as the advantages experienced from the
religious dimension of life outweigh the demands imposed by
religious codes, a person is content with religion.
Around this focal point complex traits are formed in the
orders of reverence or irreverence, prayerfulness, meditativeness, austerity, superstition, fanaticism, pharisaism, piety,
saintliness, ritualism, mysticism, asceticism, priestliness, etc.
All of these four dimensions which permeate personal relations and goal strivings can themselves become goals in life:
a person can make the search for meaning his goal in life, like
a philosopher, or a person can make moral uprightness his main
goal, or service to his family or to the nation, or to God and
religion.
STATEMENT:
The specific poles of personality operation
which concretize the overall operating thrust to happiness are
the persons to whom love (or some otheT attitude) is committed and the goals intended in life. PeTsons and goals are
fitted togeth eT into a hiemTchy in anticipation of maximum
happiness. A peTson's specific meaning in life is Tealized mainly
in these peTsons and goals, and the goals and peTsons to whom
he is most deeply attmcted in turn infiu'ence the deepest conin which he expTesses the meaning of life. Activities
Telated to these persons and goals are affected by moral judgments of 1'ightness and wTongness dictated by conscience, by
1

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the realization of community approval or disappraval, and by
the sense that they m·e fundamentally in accord with religious
beliefs or not.
5. Operating Limits
The necessity of gratifying felt needs limits the free and
direct pursuit of happiness in persons and goals. 8 Needs recur
regularly or occasionally, impinging on consciousness as mental
or physical discomfort, uneasiness, pain, irritation or tension,
and they demand gratification under the threat of increased
distress and eventual deterioration of strength and health. The
assuaging of needs consumes time, energy, attention and resources which might otherwise have been devoted to positive
pursuits, and this interrupts and postpones the pursuit, temporarily or indefinitely, and may prevent further pursuit altogether and even reverse progress.
There are basic physiological and psychological needs, such
as the needs for food and drink, which signal themselves by
hunger and thirst, and the need for regular functioning of the
organ systems, digesting, breathing air, eliminating, circulating,
maintaining temperature, etc. There is need for sleeping (and
dreaming) and rest, which signal themselves by fatigue, weariness and emotional unrest; for recreation and sensual stimulation which are signaled by boredom and disgust for work; for
safety and protection which make themselves known by fear,
worry and anxiety. People also need some order and familiarity in their surroundings, and also change, in recurrent cycles.
The need for knowing and understanding things is signaled by
uneasiness about being ignorant, confused or doubtful; the need
to accomplish tasks by impatience; the need for reassurance
that one is accepted in the group by the fear of loneliness and
rejection. There is a need for justice, for having rights, privileges and status respected in the group, and a need for
revenge if rights have been violated. There is a need to make
amends, conciliate and be absolved if one has guilt feelings,
• See p.

above, on Counter-Thrust

to the Urge to Happiness.

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STOCK

need to mollify and regain acceptance if one has offended the
group, need to propitiate if one has offended religion. Deepest
of all is the need to be loved. Some needs impinge lightly, some
deeply, and some affect sensual appetites to the roots.
These are all needs of the person as person or of the person
in relation to the group. The sexual need is a special case and
signals its unique role and function in life by the unique force
and persistence of its drive. It is almost always a pit drive.
It combines the need to be stimulated sexually with the need
to be gratified sexually, and most people feel the need daily
from puberty on, associated intimately with the need to be
loved, to dominate, to be submissive, to be male, to be female,
etc. It involves in turn the need to be sexually attractive to
another person, or persons, or to a type of person, either in fact
or in fantasy. Finding ways to gratify the sexual need, or,
conversely, reacting and defending against it, profoundly influence most people's ultimate purposes in life and everyday
thoughts and actions. The biological and psychological insistence of the drive is understandable in the sense that the
existence of the next generation depends on it.
Besides these natural needs there are accidental needs, which
arise from sickness and injury and demand cure and healing,
or from physical or mental defects, which force a person to
withdraw from fields in which he cannot compete on equal
terms. There are emotional and mental needs which compel a
person to avoid situations which arouse anxiety, panic, phobias,
etc. To these are added the limitations imposed by one's own
past choices and actions (which have too often been more or
less forced by needs) , e. g., opportunities forfeited and time
wasted, which must be made up, mistakes which must be
rectified.

Within the ego line
The deepest needs of an individual can be described as
needs "within the ego line." Among all a person's yearnings,
hopes and fears, some are more heavily invested with his
essential longing for happiness, or fear of unhappiness, some are

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OF PERSONALITY

645

more closely identified with himself as real self. These are the
secrets of a person's heart, at the core of his love for himself
and his hope for the future. These needs must be satisfied
under penalty of essential frustration, self-hatred and disgust.
The needs actually contained within the ego line are different
for different people, but they usually include the responses
from others which assure him that he is lovable, worthwhile,
valued by others, with meaning in life. They are needs which
have been activated by actual experiences in which saturation
feelings have been experienced, either of joy or of pain. A
person's deepest hunger is for the repetition of the joy experiences and security from a recurrence of the pain experiences.
A situation in life which promises eventual fulfillment in terms
of the needs within the ego line is essentially satisfying; a
situation which seems to violate the right to fulfill needs at
this level arouses essential rage and rebellion.

Needs for others
All the needs listed above have been described in terms of
an individual's needs for himself. But since a person's happiness is intimately bound up with the happiness of those he
loves, and those he loves are like part of himself, he can feel
needs for their needs to be gratified, which multiplies his own
needs via the sense of responsibility and sharing.

Unconscious needs
The real nature of many needs, especially psychogenic needs,
is often unconscious, their origins buried in experiences whose
memory has long since been repressed. Unconscious needs include especially sexual needs if they have fastened on objects
and aims which are, or seem to be, shameful, obscene, perverse
or in any way despicable in terms of personal code or social
norm, needs for revenge if they involve abnormally cruel fantasies and particularly if they are aimed at persons one loves, or
feels one ought to love, and needs within the ego line, if the
expression and admission of them seems to be an intolerable
admission of weakness or a threat to their gratification. If a

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MICHAEL STOCK

need has been repressed for these or other deep emotional
reasons, a person may seek and obtain gratification in substitute or symbolic forms.
Several of the focal points in personality center on the drives,
urges and passions of the appetites connected with needs.
In the area of pleasures, a person can be, in general, moderate
or indulgent or inhibited, temperate or intemperate or abstemious. Specifically he can develop habits of chastity, continence,
promiscuity, autoeroticism, sadism, masochism, purity, prurience, voyeurism, exhibitionism, deviance, modesty, immodesty,
puritanism, sensuality, stoicism, sobriety, drunkenness, gluttony, frugality, voluptuousness, comfort seeking, frivolity, austerity, etc. In the sphere of bravery, a person can be in a
variety of ways either courageous or reckless or fearful: he can
be physically or morally brave or cowardly, shy, bold, impudent, insolent, patient, pig-headed, persevering, pusillanimous, irresolute, servile, prudish, timid, etc. In the area of
ambition or self-assurance vs. egoism on the one hand and
defeatism on the other, a person can become confident and selfreliant, striving and achievement oriented, unambitious or
shiftless, humble or proud, vain or conceited or modest or
deprecating, etc. In the sphere of irascibility traits are developed in the order of hot-tempered or mild, resentful or meek,
sullen, vengeful, indignant, eventempered, magnanimous, vindictive, bitter, obsequious, etc. These are also operative habits,
i.e., modes of forming the sensual appetites to make them
respond in one way rather than another.

Need Gratification and Relief
Some needs, especially physiological needs, grow in intensity
until they are gratified or until the organism breaks down.
Others can be repressed for long periods of time, especially
psychogenic needs. When a need is actually felt, a person can
still choose to tolerate the distress rather than spend time and
resources in assuaging it, and if the gratification of the need
involves sacrifices in other areas which he is unwilling to make,
he can altogether refuse gratification to the need up to his

DIMENSIONS

OF PERSONALITY

647

limits of stress toleration. If experiencing the love of another
person or achieving a goal is foreseen as simultaneously gratifying needs (as many loves and goals are) , a person can
postpone need satisfactions for long periods on the basis of
future hopes.
When a person elects to gratify needs, the most direct way
is to find and apply the specific remedy for the specific need,
if this is possible: e. g., food for hunger, sleep for weariness,
success for ambition, pardon for guilt, wealth for poverty,
assurance for insecurity, love for the longing to be loved. For
most people the specific remedies are not usually always available (even if the specific need is recognized), and generalized
states of more or less intense distress and discomfort are often
experienced. For relief people can turn to remedies which produce general comfort and relaxation. Normally people find
relief in natural remedies like food and drink, especially
alcoholic drinks, in sleep, play and recreation, singing and
dancing and amusements, and, most effectively, in humanly
satisfying sexual relations. A taste of success in any venture is
a great stimulant and relaxation, which is one of the advantages of games. Reading, meditating, cogitating and mulling situations over intellectually, finding periods of peace and
quiet, talking things out with friends (including all forms of
conversation from chats to counselling and psychotherapy),
and praying, are other forms of finding relief. In general, the
deeper and more long-lasting the tensions and the distress, the
more violent the form of relaxation sought. Under greater
stress, people turn to purely distractive behavior, intoxication
by alcohol or drugs, to sexual excesses, destructive and rebellious outbreaks, orgies of sensuous indulgence or excitement.
All of these relieve tension in one form or at one level, but they
also tend to produce new tensions in other forms and levels,
which in turn need relief, and this introduces the possibility of
being trapped in a vicious cycle of tension-producing tension
reliefs.
When needs multiply and distress intensifies, a person is
forced to abandon effective pursuit of love and goals. As the

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STOCK

limits of toleration are approached, either by the addition of
ungratified needs, or by the multiplication of basic needs by
tension causing remedies, a person is reduced to a life of coping
with needs. He turns more away from reality and retreats into
fantasy and eventually begins to suffer personality disorganization and regression to lower levels of operation.
STATEMENT:
Needs operate as limits on the movement towards personal loves and concrete goals because their g?·atification distracts attention and consumes time, energy and resources, and they sometimes pressure b-ehavior into otherwise
unwanted lines of action. There are scores of human needs
conscious and unconscious; the sexual need and the n'eed to be
loved me two of the deepest. The needs most closely associated
with the need to be loved are needs within the ego line. A person can postpone or deny need satisfaction up to the limit.s of
distress toleration, then he must apply specific or general
remedies. When needs get excessive, a person has to abandon
his positive projects in life and cope with them, and if he
cannot cope with them, personality disintegration sets in.

6.

OPERATING

TooLs

Man, by his basic operative capacities, can react immediately with his environment or he can suspend immediate
response in order to ponder and reason about possible alternative modes of future action, to reflect on himself in future
situations and choose future courses of behavior. Moreover,
man can shape and form his basic operating capacities into
more effective operating elements by purposive repetition of
actions and operations. So he produces skills and habits of
thought and self-control whose purpose and effect is efficiency,
i.e., the ability to perform more complex operations more
quickly, easily, accurately and, as a bonus, pleasantly. However, he must take present time and energy to form skills and
habits, and this involves the postponement of immediate need
gratification and direct progress towards goals. The advantages, however, are eventually more rapid and easier progress
towards higher levels of success.

DIMENSIONS

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649

At the core, a person has immense potential for developing
the basic capacities of intelligence, will and drive into effective
habits of thought and decision. Moreover, the complex interacting levels of intelligence, will, drive and feeling, imagination
and memory, perceptivity and muscular response can be integrated in numerous alternative modes of effective reaction.
The basic plasticity of human nature is almost endlessly
capable of development. In this area, the concept of operative
habits is particularly apt. The focal points subsuming these
operative habits are science, art in the broadest sense, personal sagacity and voluntary self-control.
Purely cognitive habits, like scientific, philosophical and
theological thinking, are aimed at enlarging and deepening the
view of external reality and of self, and at clarifying, organizing
and certifying the conclusions of the reasoning processes involved. When by these habits a person succeeds in making
his vision more penetrating, realistic, clear and certain, he
opens up the latent dimensions of the potential external and
internal operating fields, and expands the base of his area of
opportunity for fulfillment and meaning. Habits of applying
scientific knowledge to the practical order of arts, techniques,
technologies and professions give men control of the physical
world and its resources, to make life richer, safer and more
comfortable. Liberal arts articulate the mind for more effective
communication; fine arts provide ways of expressing self and
creating beauty.
Around these focal points again many traits or habits are
developed: disciplined thinking, eagerness for truth and certitude, pedantry, criticalness, diligence, originality, creativity,
imitativeness, authenticity, ingenuity, ineptness, craftmanship,
shoddiness, etc.
Reflecting on themselves and on the human situation people
try to work out and establish clear and trustworthy habitual
guidelines for their own behavior, prudential norms by which
they will regulate their conduct in relations with other people,
govern the use of their own resources, and contribute to the
welfare of the communities they belong to. Having established
habits of normative thinking, they will try to form habits

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of voluntary decision and drive control, to make themselves
responsive to the legitimate demands of other people and of the
community, and to bring their feelings and urges into the most
effective service of the whole personality. In all these operations they will develop habitual modes of expressing themselves, styles which reflect and respond to inner demands of
personality.
In actual fact, people often do not see the need of forming
effective modes of habitual response or succeed always in
forming them when they do see the need. The result may be a
lack of habitual effective mode of response or the formation
more or less indeliberately of an ineffective or self-defeating
mode of response. In either event personality traits are formed:
sagacity, common and uncommon sense, thoughtfulness, alertness, tact, tactlessness, caution, ability to handle people and
affairs, resourcefulness, ineptness, etc.
Effective habits of thought, decision, response and action
readily available for use when wanted or needed constitute an
extensive latent richness and power of personality, if they are
suited to the person's individual needs and the necessities of
his situation; otherwise habits are superfluous, and can become
useless, dangerous or destructive, i. e., stereotyped and nonadaptive forms of response.
STATEMENT:
By repetition of action, persons can form thei1·
native operative capacities into multiple modes of habitual
response, acquiring, at some initial expenditure of time and
energy, the skills and patterns of thinking, deciding and responding emotionally which are ejf'ective tools for eventually
accomplishing mm·e complex purposes more thoroughly, quickly, easily and pleasantly. Failure to develop effective habits
leaves a person relatively inept. The formation of ineffective
or destructive habits tends to defeat a person's plans fm· finding
love and achieving goals.

7.

OPERATING

BASE

The terms and end-points, i.e., objects and aims, of human
activity have been described above as happiness, particular

DIMENSIONS

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6:51

persons and concrete goals to be achieved, meaning in life to
be unravelled, in a context of moral assurance, and community
approval in accord with religious beliefs, with recurring needs
to be satisfied, and skills and habits of thought and decision
to be formed and used. Shifting the focus now to the sources or
founts of human activity, it is evident that it is the person
himself who acts by means of his basic operative capacities,
but it is not the " raw " person as he actually is. The effective
source of human activity is rather the person as he " thinks "
he is. People act mainly not on the basis of what they can
actually do but on the basis of what they think they can do,
and they are satisfied or dissatisfied not so much by what they
are as by what they believe they are. What a person thinks he
is is the main operating base of human actions and passions.

The Self-image
By reflective awareness a person generates a self-image or
self-concept or sense of identity which is the effective center of
his internal operating field. This self-image is not a single
image like a photograph but more like a montage of innumerable partial self-perceptions and self-evaluations from many
points of view and in many situations accumulated over long
periods of time up to and including the present moment. It is
an amassment of self-reflections, often repeated and over-lapping, with features which are strong and definite and features
which are vague and weak, with long-range and fairly constant
features (like body height, color of eyes, race, overall intelligence), shorter-range, more flexible features (like body weight,
state of health, age group) and present, constantly changing
features (like bodily position, need for food, alertness.) All
the various features of the montage are held together by consciousness of the fact that they are attributes, conditions and
situations that belong to and constitute oneself.

Substantive Features of the Self-image
The substantive features of the self-image are both concreteConcretely a person
denominative and abstract-evaluative.

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thinks of himself in terms of a particular height, weight and
strength, with his own face and expressions, his sex, his religion,
race and social position, his health, his job, economic rank,
preferred interests, recreations and pastimes, of a degree and
kind of intelligence, emotionality, temperament, and will power,
with various weaknesses and defects, with habitual likes and
dislikes, fears and hopes, etc. Evaluatively he thinks of himself
in general as attractive or unattractive, personable or unpersonable, able or inept, worthwhile or worthless, fine or crude, clean
or dirty, superior or inferior, etc., and these overall evaluations
are the sum of the particular evaluations of the concrete-denominative features, i.e., his appearance is fine and attractive,
his race is infericr or superior, his pastimes are clean or dirty.
In applying evaluative tags to himself and even in perceiving
the concrete qualities on which they are based, a person is profoundly susceptible to misjudgment from listening to the
opinions of other people and noting their attitudes towards
himself. Emotions radically affect the veracity of perceptions,
fantasies and judgments and every person is emotionally
deeply affected by what concerns himself and by the attitudes
of people close to himself. Almost nobody escapes bias in forming his self-image or identity.

The "Selves" within the Self-image
The substantive features of the self-image are organized into
more or less distinct and coherent "selves," each self being
a complex of aims, attitudes, skills and talents, means-end relationships, desires, expectations, tensions, defences, etc., geared
to a more or less distinct general purpose or situation. There is
a working self, with typical attitudes and needs, plans, intentions, desires, etc., to the fore, which gives way to other qualities, attributes and interests when one relaxes and assumes his
playing self. There is a social self, a religious self, an amorous
self, a reflective self, etc. At different times and in different
circumstances a person might be said to be a different " person " depending on which one of his selves is being engaged.
The selves are not necessarily sharply defined against one

DIMENSIONS

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another and may have overlapping and interplaying features,
especially broad and general styles of action which proceed
from some part of the person deeper than any particular self.
All of a person's selves are normally more or less firmly and
fluently integrated into the total personality, as many organic
systems within one organism.

The C01'e of the Self-image
At the core of the self-image or identity, uniting all the
substantive features organized in different selves, is the center
of reflective knowledge. This self-reflection comprises the
knowledge a person has of himself as persistently the same
being under the flux and flow of various experiences, the sense
he has of being responsible as initiator and oause of llills
deliberate actions, and the sense of himself as the ultimate
subject and experiencer of his own satisfaction or dissatisfaction. This is the constitutive core of self as self.
The substantive features closest to this core are the qualities
and attributes in which the person has invested his greatest
hopes for happiness and fears of unhappiness. These arc the
features of the 8elf-image within the ego line, i.e., the most
sensitive longings and hopes, the deepest shames and fears, the
parts of self a person reveals if he is fully conscious of them
only to his most intimate friends or to no one. If knowledge
of self as a self is the cognitive constitutive core of personality,
the parts of the self-image within the ego-line are the emotional core. 9
Different selves may contribute their own distinctive features
to the attributes within the ego line, but some may not be
represented there at all. For example, a person's sense of his
own capacity to work effectively (his working self) , and his
sexual capacity (his amorous self) , may both be essential to his
sense of personal worth (within the ego-line), but his ability
to get along well with people (his social sense) may be of
little importance to him.
9

See above, pp. 64S fl., on needs.

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MICHAEL

STOCK

Self-image as Basis of Sa-tisfaction and Action
In terms of his overall self-image a person is more or less
satisfied or dissatisfied with himself and his prospects for the
future; in terms of his selves, he is more or less satisfied or
dissatisfied with himself in specific situations and circumstances. To the degree he is dissatisfied, he is subject to continual cravings to change or be changed, an internal disequilibrium like a hunger constantly gnawing from within. These
dissatisfactions are motivations to remedial action if action is
possible and continual sources of exasperation, to be repressed
or compensated for, if effective remedies are impossible.
In terms of his overall self-image and of his selves a person
is more or less willing to act in general and in particular
circumstances. It is on the basis of what he thinks he can do
or cannot do that he is willing to expend effort in action.
What he ought to do or ought not to do is based on his moral
guidelines, i.e., that is good and lawful or bad and forbidden
to a person of his sort. He acts or refrains from action also
on the basis of what he thinks he is expected to do, given the
type of person he is, by other people either individually or
in groups who assess his responsibilities and praise or blame
him accordingly.
Taking all his readinesses for action together, in relation to
his goals in life, a person forms habits of confidence and hope,
in general and in particular situations, and these hopes are the
final focal points to be considered.
STATEMENT:
The self-image or identity of a person is the
effective base of his actions and the
for satisfaction
and dissatisfaction. At core a sense of personal permanence,
of responsibility fo1· action and of liability for satisfaction and
dissatisfaction, the whole self image consists of a montage of
many self-perceptions, concrete and evaluative, organized as
diffe'l'ent selves for different circumstances, profoundly influenced by the opinions and attitudes of other people. A person
acts on the basis of his estimate of his own capacities and
chances for success and feels satisfaction or dissatisfaction with
himself in terms of what he believes himself to be.

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OF PERSONALITY

655

8. Resolution of Competing Claims in the Operating Field

At any given time the person exists in his own operating
field, which is a complex, shifting montage in which the various
opportunities or necessities for action and reaction being perceived in the external environment combine with thoughts,
memories, feelings und urges arising within himself. He is
already committed to the love or hatred of people around him
and to specific projects which are immediate goals, and he has
needs he must presently satisfy and tool-making activities
currently in process; therefore, his attention will tend to scan
over the outside possibilities and inner suggestions for here and
now action which will serve these purposes and which are
indeed prompted by them. Whether he is conscious of it or
not, his attention is attracted to the persons who satisfy deep
or pit needs for love, affection and acceptance, and to those on
whom he wants to work retaliation and revenge, and to sexual
thoughts and opportunities, and to projects which offer the
best chance to exert power or display prestige, and to projects
underway to which he has already committed time and effort,
and to needs for comfort and rest, etc. The mind circles around
the opportunities for actions which will ultimately give the
deep and pit gratifications, like the gratifications within the
ego line, and the gratifications of sexual needs, like a hawk
looking for the fattest chicken in the :flock. The individual's
immediate, on-going task is to focus attention on some one
predominant immediate aim and to let the rest of the claims
for action subside temporarily into the subconscious or hover
on the periphery.
Although most people follow schedules of daily activities
and more or less automatically shift from one activity to the
next at the prescribed times, the schedule itself is a product
of reconciling competing claims and subject to change by circumstances, and, in any event, it does not determine all activities. The individual must continually make the choices to
employ his time, energy, attention and resources in following
the schedule or in getting a profit out of unscheduled time.

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MICHAEL STOCK

The Decisive Act
The decisive acts by which a person determines how the
competing claims on time and energy will be resolved are the
free acts of will by which he elects among alternative possibilities for action the actual here and now action judged lo be
best.
At its heart the act of free choice is the freest of acts, for a
person can never be intrinsically activated to choose wha.t he
does not want to choose. If pressures are exerted, they must
be exerted at other levels of personality.
When a person is making a free choice, however, and after
he has made one, he is aware of the fact that there are many
factors outside himself, some known and some unknown, over
which he has limited control or no control at all. At the same
time, he is conscious of the limits of awareness and control
over many parts or elements or spheres of his own personality.
Of parts of himself, a person has virtually clear consciousness
and complete control, e. g., the skills and talents which can be
used at will, the areas of knowledge and experience available
for ready reflection, the capacities of self-control and selfarousal which have been tested and found reliable, the direct
command of gesture, speech and other actions involving muscular exertion. These are the forces and materials of personality
in which the individual is most master. Beyond these a person
has parts or spheres of self of which he is conscious but over
which he has only indirect and partial control, e. g., the more
or less spontaneous processes of fantasy, image and memory
association, the drive, urge and feeling reactions which are not
responsive to deliberate arousal or dismissal, the availability of
energy which depends on underlying physiological processes
and conditions of health, fatigue, etc. And beyond these
spheres, there arc spheres or parts of himself of which he is
conscious only indirectly and over which he has no direct
control, e. g., the unconscious and subconscious contents of the
mind, the physiological processes of life, and the physical subjection of the body itself to the physical laws of the world.
Outside himself there is the external environment, when•

DIMENSIONS

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657

action is initiated independently of the person. Wherever he
cannot exert voluntary control, pressures can be exerted against
an individual's free choices and conflict arise.

Freely Commanding and Freely Yielding
The acts of free choice can be called directive insofar as they
are concerned with lines of action deliberately initiated by a
person for projects deliberately and consciously intended. They
can be called compliant insofar as they are acts of yielding
or consent to attractions and pressures which originate in the
sphere of conscious but indeliberate urges and fears, with roots
in unconscious motivations, or from pressures exerted from the
external field. In either case there is as much freedom and
responsibility in the acts as there is freedom from unwanted
pressures. Most concrete actions have both ai<pects about
them, but if the former predominate, a person feels free, and
if the latter predominate, he feels under some compulsion.
Once decisions are taken a person sets out to execute his
choice by voluntarily commanding the appropriate actions employing the available energies and internal and external resources.
Coalescence of Motivations
When making a decision, a person generally focuses cognitive
attention on the materials concerning which the free choice is
to be made and on the exercise of the act of choice itself.
One goal project or one personal contact or one need gratification or learning project wins out in the competition for the
focus of attention to the temporary exclusion of others, and the
prospective here and now alternative actions are mentally
assembled for this project and reviewed, accepted or rejected
until the range of possible courses of action are gradually
narowed down and eventually reduced to one. Then the person
is ready to act.
This focusing on an immediate choice of action to attain
a particular objective tends to exclude temporarily any direct
progress towards other objectives. By way of compensation for

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MICHAEL

STOCK

this limitation people tend to look for ways in which one piece
of behavior can return several gratifications at the same time,
for they generally have many things in fact that they would
like to attend to. In a concrete way, therefore, particular objectives tend to asociate other objectives to themselves, e. g.,
a person plans a trip to include as many errands as possible
along the way. Again, a particular objective tends to become
"saturated" with subsidiary objectives, e. g., a person tries to
make working conditions as comfortable as possible, with companionable associates, and the best chances for recognition,
approval and advancement, etc. And, finally, a person tries to
realize in any particular objective the several dimensions which
contribute to ultimate happiness, e. g., meaning of the objective
for himself and for those he loves, and the moral, religious and
social aspects. And, therefore, in most human activities there
is a coalescence or co-fusion of objectives, an overloading of
motivations which gives more impetus to each given action and
makes the expenditure of time, energy and resources more acceptable.

Levels of Personal Fulfillment in Actions
A person is most productive and happy in action when he
is working for objectives which at least temporarily satisfy him
at every level of conscious urge and in every sphere of immediate concern, while no other objectives are actively competing
for attention. For example, a person who is working on a project directly related to goal achievement with the support of
the people he loves, and who sees his work in this light, and is
satisfied that it is morally right, socially approved, prestigious
for his age, sex and rank, and that his needs are momentarily at
rest, and his energies abundant for the task at hand, is a
person who is happy at work.
If, however, one or more of these elements is missing or
negative, he works at a lower level of efficacy and contentment.
If, for example, he is ambitious but fatigued, engaged in profitable action but aware of moral wrong and social disapproval,
or relaxing but apprehensive about the time he is wasting, his

DIMENSIONS

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659

motives are in conflict and his personal fulfillment m the
project is diminished.
If, at the lowest level, he is engaged in a project and for
some reason determined or compelled to continue it, and he
feels pressures of hunger, fatigue, sexual tension, fear of injury,
etc., and he lacks energy, and feels guilty and is doubtful of
the relevance of the work for his real purposes, he is operating
at the minimal level of personal fulfillment.
In any event, however, when a person is working towards
one objective, other objectives are being neglected. Ordinarily,
as he achieves the desired results of one project, the motivations for which he originally undertook it are dissipated, and
the urgency of neglected projects increases, and he moves to
the choice of a new project. If a person can move from project
to project and find satisfaction temporarily in each, he is living
a contented life.
STATEMENT:
A peTson decides on the paTticulaT opemtions
he will undeTtake heTe and now to the exclusions of alternatives
by an act of fTee choice, within the limits defined by actual
consciousness and contTol, the fOTce of internal p1'essuTes and
the exigencies and oppOTtunities in the external field. He loads
each padiculaT line of action with as many gmtifications as
possible, and when he has achieved his immediate puTpose in
one line of action, changes to anotheT.

A person is a rational animal (basic givens)
operating on the basis of his self image or identity (operating
base) from a center of intelligent awareness of his own capacities and limitations and of his situation in a sensibly perceived
world of persons and things (operating field) in which he
commits himself for the sake of ultimate happiness (general
operating principle) to the formation of friendships and the
achievement of goals (concrete operating poles) by freely
organizing his on-going operations (resolution of competing
operating limits) and with the aid of instrumental habits he
forms for effective action and drive mobilization (operating
tools) .
CoNCLUSION:

660

II.

MICHAEL
THE MYsTERIEs

STOCK

oF HuMAN PERSONALITY

A mystery involves a hidden explanation, a reality lying
behind a reality. We know the one reality but cannot explain
it; we know or suspect that there is something behind it which
explains it, but what it is, we do not know; we surmise that it
is the key to understanding the reality we know. Human
personality contains at least three mysteries, one lying in its
complexity, one in its individuality, and one in its ultimate
purpose.

The Complexity of Human Personality
The human personality contains a complexity of subtle, interacting spheres or levels of operation, a density of finely
intertwining aspects so numerous, so different, and so intricately interrelated that on this score alone it might well tum out
that man will never be able clearly to understand himself. A
systematic outline of personality like the one given above aims
at clarifying some of the intricacies of personality, but if it
gives an impression of achieving real clarity, it is illusory.
In the first place, a person operates at several distinct
levels of reality, each having its own appropriate laws, often
contrary to the laws of other levels, and all nevertheless aspects
of the one single, unique person. At one level man is a physical
body, subject to laws of gravity, velocity, pressure, density,
inertia, temperature, impetus, electricity, radiation, impact,
displacement, etc. At another level, he is living, subject to
laws of nourishment, growth, reproduction, circulation, excretion, oxygenization, biochemical interaction, metabolism, adaptation, etc. At another level he lives by cognition which is
intentional and objective, which in effect repeals the laws of
physical identity and distinction. At another level he lives by
urge and drive and feeling, which involve laws of attraction and
repulsion having nothing to do with physical laws. At another
level he is spiritual, dealing with abstract and universal realities, with purposes and means, with free choice and responsibility, with questions about why things are, with consciousness of self as self. At each level, a person has to obey the

DIMENSIONS

OF PERSONALITY

661

special operative laws, and somehow simultaneously integrate
all the levels into one smoothly functioning whole. How this
can be is one mystery of complexity. The function of sex, for
instance, requires physical maneuvering and contact of some
complexity; bio-chemical and physiological processes of immense complexity; drives, urges, feelings, memories, fantasies,
perceptions and sensations which, if not as complex as the
physiological, are harder to analyze; possible reactions to and
inhibitions of the same drive; integration of this drive and
these feelings into the complexus of broader human feelings and
attitudes. Sex involves free choice and responsibility for the
present human involvement and the possible consequences; it
has social and legal dimensions, a complexus of moral considerations, possible religious repercussions; it involves considerations of practical convenience and perhaps of decorum and
aesthetics, and so on. Yet sexual relations can often be fairly
simply exercised.
In the second place, all the factors or elements which are
distinguished in any outline of personality are inseparable in
reality. In the outline above we distinguished eight spheres of
which the basic givens were the first factor to be analyzed in human personality, but, in fact, the basic givens are inextricably
tied up with the other seven spheres and they with one another.
The operating field is formally constituted by the basic givens
of human nature insofar as they are known by reflection. And
not only as they are known in thymselves but also as they are
pleasurable and productive, in which sense they enter into the
consideration of goals in life, and as they generate needs, in
which sense they enter into the operating limits, and as they
are subject to being formed by habits and so enter in as
operating tools. As attributes of self they enter into the self
image, and as the materials and foundations of free choice they
are part of the resolution of competing claims in the operating
field.
When we consider the acquired aspects, like actual personal
attachments and commitments to goals, we find them intricately related to other acquired habits, i.e., to convictions and

662

MICHAEL

STOCK

beliefs in a relationship of mutual influence, profoundly influenced by basic given differences of sex and temperament
and individual idiosyncracy. We find that concomitant aspects
of happiness, like morality, religion and community welfare, can
themselves shift over to become goals; we find that tools which
are fundamentally means to ends can themselves become ends,
and goals which were once major purposes can be reduced to
tools. We find a simple thing, like an art or a science, can
function as tool, as purpose in life, as recreation, as compensation for personal defects, as weapon for revenge, as defense
mechanism, as item of prestige, as product for sale, as relief of
tension, as medicine, etc. In each distinct function it belongs
to a different aspect of personality. Moreover, one art or
science may depend essentially on the development of prior
habits of mind, like first principles, and simpler arts or sciences,
and depend also in fact on other personal habits of appetite
and urge, like determination, temperance, and honesty and
habits of personal relationships, like respect and ability to
cooperate, etc., and may in turn reciprocally influence their
further developments.
We find many virtually distinct selves operating in different
situations in life and distinctive styles of life operating in all
the selves, like a pervasive influence from the depth of personality.
We find that everything a man says or does can mean
exactly what it seems to mean, or the exact opposite (if it is
used as a disguise) or something irrelevant. We find that
features which are identical in their surface manifestations are
profoundly different when their roots are known.
We see that great differences in personality can be the result
of chance and accident, of being in the right or wrong place at
the right or wrong time, or of being set in the circumsbmces
which bring out the best or the worst.

The Individuality of the Human Personality
Even if a human being were not so complex, there is a
sense in which human personality would still be mysterious

DIMENSIONS

OF PERSONALITY

663

in a special way because of its individual uniqueness. Science,
philosophy and theology, the intellectual habits by which men
try to understand things with clarity and certitude, abstract
from the individual, leaving it out of their formal considerations. These disciplines are constructed out of principles and
conclusions which deal with the universal, with general laws
and general relationships. Whether the individual follows these
laws in every ease is beyond the scope of science;· even
statistical sciences deal only with the probabilities and percentages. Nor does it make much difference. When examining
data in order to detect general principles, it is understandable
that some instances will not fit the general patterns, because of
circumstantial interference with the operation of the general
law, or because of defects in observation. These instances, if
they do not themselves present a pattern, can be dismissed.
When applying general laws of science to actual cases, it is
again understandable that mistakes will be made, because of
uncontrollable factors in the practical situation. This projectile
does not follow the predicted course, this disease does not
respond to the specific remedy. The mistakes may be regrettable, they may even cost lives, money and time, but they do
not invalidate the science.
The case with human personality is different. Science, philosophy and theology work out general laws of human nature,
and they are often clear and valid, even though, because of
their techniques, they necessarily abstract from the individuals
involved. But for understanding the human person, it is absolutely as necessary to understand how he participates in the
experiences of his particular situations in life as it is to understand in general what they are. It is the individual's mode of
participation in the general modes of life which gives the individual his meaning, and everyone instinctively understands
this. To know that people seek fulfillment in achieving goals
in life is one thing, and to know the unique, concrete purpose
one is trying to realize oneself is another. The first can be
known by science and philosophy, the second only by immediate intuition of one's own commitments and the sense of hope,

664

MICHAEL STOCK

fear and risk involved. To know that men and women usually
marry is one thing; it does not capture the unique experience
of this man and this woman in relation to each other. It is
generally true that people seek or create meaning for their lives,
but this general conclusion does not give the feel of the individual who is pondering on his meaningfulness. Toothaches in
general cause pain in general, but no one can feel another
person's toothache. The essence of the individual is the intuition or feeling of himself, the center of his most intimate
concern, as realizing his own single, unsubstitutable and unsharable experiences, and this essence science cannot express.
Even when it is the subject which is being specifically expressed, as in the preceding sentence, it is being expressed in an
abstract and general statement, and therefore failing to express
the unique and concrete individuality it intends.
As Allport expresses it, in each individual everything is
organized to his unique goals and needs, to working out his
unique pattern of life. Everything is modified in terms of his
individual " cenler," and this alone explains him as an individual, and in this is his inerradicable dignity and worth/ 0
This uniqueness can be expressed even more strongly in
terms of an older philosophical system, the scholastic hylomorphic theory. In these terms the essential and impenetrable
uniqueness of the person comes from the material principle,
the substantial element in him which is prime matter which
renders every substance basically individual and incommunicable. His substantial form which gives him humanness and
personality is itself rendered unique and individual (if for no
other reason) by the actual forming of this prime matter.
Every quality he has or acquires is similarly realized in a
unique mode as a form informing this unique substance. And
in itself, prime matter is unknowable. In his physical roots a
person is incomprehensible, and this root incomprehensibility
affects the other aspects of his being.
10 G.
W. Allport, Personality: A Psychological Interpretation
Henry Holt & Co., 1937), pp. 3-24, 549-565.

(New York:

DIMENSIONS

OF PERSONALITY

665

The Ultimate Purpose of the Person
There is, finally, a third sense in which human persons are
mysterious, and this third aspect of mystery is probably more
profound than his complexity and material individuality. The
human person is in some way created in order to experience
God.
The consideration here is theological. " To those who prove
victorious, I will give the hidden manna and a white stone-a
stone with a new name written on it, known only to the man
who receives it." (Revelation 2: 17) The new name is the
symbol of rebirth in God, of living with God. (See also Isaiah
62: 2; 65: 15; Revelation 19: 12) But the name is not just a tag
to identify a person; in the Scriptures a name gives the essence
of a creature and his power. When it says in Genesis 2: 19-20
that God showed Adam all the beasts of the earth, so that he
could give them their names, and so he named them all, it does
not mean he labelled them but rather that man had dominion
and power over all other animals. Some primitives, e. g.,
American Indians, did not receive " real " names until they
were initiated at puberty and "saw" their real meaning in
visions or omens. In primitive magic part of the power of
incantations which arouse demons and spirits and bring them
to serve men's purpose is their real name; whoever knows and
invokes this name has power over the spirit. Probably this is
one of the reasons the Hebrews would not use the " real " name
of God, Yahweh, lest they seem to imply that they believed
they had power over him. Even today, in many ncar Eastern
countries, people have several names, one of which, their
" real " name, is kept secret from all but their closest and most
trusted intimates, lest others should use the knowledge to gain
power over them.
A name, then, in the Scriptures, means a person's essence,
his real being. A new name is given to those who are "victorious," i.e., they have a new, essential meaning. And this name
is known only to the man who receives it and presumably also
to the One who gives it. In effect, the Scriptures seem to be
saying that there is something in the essence of the human

666

MICHAEL

STOCK

person which is uniquely between himself and his God. It it is
not given to God, it goes ungiven.
This is perhaps also what St. Augustine meant when he
said that our hearts are restless until they rest in God, as
though there are wants in the human person which can only
find satisfaction in their Creator. And this is what is implied in
St. Thomas Aquinas's doctrine that nothing can move man in
his most intimate depths where freedom is exercised except
goals he himself chooses and God himself. No creature can
intervene between God and the individual man. 11
In effect, then, there seems to be something in human
personality which is uniquely for God, fulfilled only in God and
known by God and the person himself, and this would of
necessity be an incomprehensible mystery to anyone else.
MICHAEL

St. Ste;phen's College
Dove1, Mass.

n Cf. Summa Theol., I-II, q. 53, a. 1.

STOCK,

0. P.

GOD AND THE DESIRE OF UNDERSTANDING

T

WO PROBLEMS engage man in his quest for God:
the existence and the nature of God. Put in the form
of questions, they are: What is God and whether God
is. Bernard Lonergan deals with these in the final pages of his
work, Insight. He approaches them after a long and detailed
investigation of the act of understanding and a careful analysis
of "the personal appropriation of one's rational self-consciousness " wherein he lays bare the structure of human cognitional
activity in its three levels of experience, understanding and
judging. Advance from the lower to the higher levels takes
place through inquiry. ]'or man seeks to know. Such seeking
leads to questions, questions demand answers, answers arise
through insight. If insights are to yield truth, they must be
correct. Their correctness needs verification. So step by step
Lonergan leads to his doctrine of being and of the human
means of reaching the absolute in being. 1
We should also note, in order to avoid any error, that he
considers himself to possess, in the appropriation of cognitional
structure, a basis for methodical cognitional activity. It is not
just the proof of God's existence which primarily interests
him, rather it is the methodical proof. "So to advance from
proportionate to transcendent being that the universal viewpoint, attained in earlier stages of the argument, might be
preserved as well as expanded." 2 Such is the method. It is
more fully outlined in the following passage: " Being is whatever can be grasped intelligently and affirmed reasonably. Being is proportionate or transcendent according as it lies within
1 F.
E. Crowe, S. J., " The Exigent Mind:
B. Lonergan's Intellectualism,"
Continuum
(1964), p.
• B. J. F. Lonergan, Insight: A Study of Human Understanding (London:
Longmans, Green & Company, 1957), p.

667

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MICHAEL

J. LAPIERRE

or without the domain of man's outer and inner experience.
The possibility of transcendent knowledge, then, is the possibility of grasping intelligently and affirming reasonably a transcendent being. And the proof of the possibility lies in the fact
that such intelligible grasp and reasonable affirmation occur." 3
Four themes shall engage our attention. They are: the
notion of being, the idea of being, the notion of God, and the
idea of God. There is, in addition, the transitus from proportionate to transcendent being. Proportionate being yields proportionate knowledge, and transcendent being yields transcendent knowledge. Each knowledge as knowledge is connatural to
man. Knowledge given by divine revelation is supernatural.
We note this latter to set it aside, for the conditions of the
possibility of supernatural knowledge are not the same as those
for the possibility of transcendent knowledge.

The notion of being.
Being is the objective of the pure desire to know. The desire
to know is the innate inclination of man to inquire and to
judge. It is pure, for in its nakedness, in its detachedness, it
drives for what is to be known through cognitional activity.
It is also pure when unimpeded, unmixed, unbiased by the
many other desires of the human agent. Its objective is the
content of the knowing rather than the act. At first this
orientation is toward the totally unknown. As knowledge
grows, this unknown becomes less and less unknown, more and
more known. At any given moment, then, the objective includes both the known and what remains to be known. This
desire is unrestricted in its range. As such it manifests being
to be the anything and everything that constitutes its proper
objective. Being as notion is simply the immanent, dynamic
orientation of cognitional process, something prior to thinking
and judging, something going beyond them. The notion arises
from the fact that this orientation is discerned in cognitional
process, is understood through it, and is an element of this
• Ibid., p. 640.

GOD AND THE DESIRE OF UNDERSTANDING

669

same process. The orientation is intelligent and rational, not
unconscious, not merely empirical, and not consequent to understanding. The notion of being is the totality to be known
through all answers as well as the totality known through all
answers; it is then all pervasive and all inclusive. This is the
pure notion of being.
Since, however, notion implies the understanding of "future
function in present structure," we may also speak of an heuristic notion of being. The pure notion is the pure unrestricted
desire to know: the heuristic notion is whatever is to be grasped
intelligently and affirmed reasonably.
The unrestricted desire to know is at the origin of all intelligent and critical reflection. This unrestricted desire fulfills
itself by an unrestricted act of understanding being or by
restricted acts of understanding, conceiving, affirming being.
The restricted acts yield knowledge of particular beings and of
particular domains of being. The unrestricted acts yield knowledge of being in its totality. As the content of a restricted
act of understanding is a particular idea of being, the content
of the unrestricted act is the idea of being.

The idea of being.
There is in man the urge to understand completely. Yet this
unrestricted urge is bounded by a limited capacity to reach
knowledge. This limited capacity reaches its fulness in the
intelligent grasp and reasonable affirmation of transcendent
being. We reach transcendent being through extrapolation
from proportionate being. Lonergan defines proportionate being as " whatever is to be known by human experience, intelligent grasp and reasonable affirmation." Simply, then, it is
being commensurate with human knowing. Extrapolation is
here the operation by which we proceed to grasp from the
properties of the restricted act of understanding the properties
of the unrestricted act and to pass from the structure of proportionate being to the idea of transcendent being. Only the unrestricted act of understanding can have as content the idea of
being, for it is only the unrestricted act that understands

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MICHAEL

J. LAPIERRE

everything about everything. Granted, then, that the content
of the unrestricted act is the idea of being, it is possible to
ask, and in a manner to answer, the question: What is being?
The content of the idea of being divides into a primary and
secondary component. The primary component is an immaterial, non-temporal, non-spatial unity. It is identical with the
unrestricted act; it is in fact the unrestricted act's understanding of itself. The secondary component is many and includes
the material, the temporal, the spatial. It is the unrestricted
act's understanding of everything else. For the unrestricted
act, as unrestricted, understands both itself and restricted acts,
but in understanding itself it understands its content and so
the idea of being. The unrestricted act is itself the primary
content of the idea of being in that it satisfies the definition of
this content: it is one, spiritual, and, if grasped, so is everything
about everything else grasped. In understanding itself it penetrates its own depth and fecundity and so grasps everything
about everything else in a single view, that is, the secondary
component of the idea of being.
Proportionate being is intelligible, otherwise it is outside the
domain of being and so nothing. It is not, however, selfexplanatory. Were it so, there would be no need of further
questions about it; inquiry would rest in the explanation. Its
intelligibility finds its ultimate and unconditioned ground in
transcendent being which is devoid of all contingency and
capable of grounding the explanation of everything about
everything else. Proportionate being, then, leads to the affirmation of an unrestricted act of understanding, for transcendent being is self-explanatory.

The notion of God.
An analysis of the unrestricted act of understanding shows
that it is the same thing to understand what being is and what
God is. For, an inquiry into the structure of the act considered
in itself and in its relation to the universe leads to the knowledge of a primary intelligible, a primary truth, a primary
good, a spiritual, self-explanatory, unconditional, necessary,

GOD AND THE DESIRE OF UNDERSTANDING

671

unique, simple, eternal, personal being who is the unchangeable, totally, free, prime agent and final cause of the universe.
The notion of God is the immanent, dynamic orientation
(resourcefulness) of the unrestricted act of understanding.
This notion is the totality to be known through all questions
about the unrestricted act.

The idea of God.
Lonergan does not expressly employ the term, " the idea of
God." This is reasonable. In his terminology the idea of God
would be the content of the unrestricted act of understanding.
But he makes the idea of being the content of this act, and in
this idea is a primary component to be really identified with the
unrestricted act. On this account he will say that " we can
conceive God as the transcendent idea." The idea of God, then,
in human understanding is always a qualified idea. We may
advance a second explanation. We grasp what God is not by
an unrestricted act of understanding but by a restricted act
which extrapolates from itself to an unrestricted act through
inquiry which furnishes a list of attributes of the unrestricted
act. What is grasped is not the unrestricted act but the extrapolation which proceeds from the properties of the restricted
act to the properties of the unrestricted act. Such procedure
yields the restricted act's notion of God.

The existence of the notion of God.
There is, when this notion is had, the further question of its
existence. For, inquiring intelligence raises the very question
of this notion's existence and seeks an answer. The questions:
Is God merely an object of thought? Is God real? Is he an
object of reasonable affirmation? Does he exist?-these Lonergan considers to be by intent one and the same. For, in his
position, the real is being, and being is not known without
reasonable affirmation, and existence is the respect in which
being is known precisely as reasonably affirmed. This affirmation that ti!e real is being and that being is the completely
intelligible objective of the unrestricted desire to understand

672

MICHAEL

J. LAPIERRE

supplies the base for the affirmation that God exists. Anyone
who has followed Lonergan's analysis and development of these
basic affirmations cannot but admire the unswerving methodicalness and critical thoroughness of his procedure. He will also
discover that the universal viewpoint of proportionate metaphysics gained earlier has been preserved and expanded: preserved in that the framework of inquiring intelligence and
critical reflection is maintained, expanded in that the ground
of proportionate metaphysics is discovered in transcendent
knowledge.
Since Lonergan defines being in relation to intelligence, he
affirms intelligence and not being as the ultimate in God
whence all else logically follows. This is neither a new nor an
unanimously accepted position, nevertheless it is inescapable
in Lonergan's starting point and coherent development of his
subject. He painstakingly informs us that his argument for
God's existence does not discard the five ways of Aquinas or
any other legitimate way of proving this existence. His argument merely grounds all these in the principle that the unrestricted desire to understand the universe of proportionate
being finds its fulfilment in the affirmation of the unrestricted
act of understanding which knows all about anything and
everything. He has primarily concerned himself with method
and the systematic development of the approach to God, his
nature and existence. He is not issuing a challenge; he is not
forging a defense; he is simply guiding the intelligent and
rational enquirer in the self-appropriation of his intellectual
and rational self-consciousness, from experience, through proper
understanding, to correct judgment. The motif of his vast
effort has been: inquiring intelligence finds its rest in the
possession of complete understanding. To possess this is to
require the existence of God.
Reflection upon this approach calls up a number of points.
A consideration of these may help us to grasp more thoroughly
and appreciate more fully its profundity and originality.
It starts with the finite knowing subject. This subject, aware
of its acts of knowing with their contents, aware also of the
limitations of these acts and the consequent limitations of

GOD AND THE DESIRE OF UNDERSTANDING

673

their contents by the very fact that it asks questions and seeks
for answers beyond the content of these acts, comes of a
necessity arising from its own unlimited orientation within
its restricted action to affirm a subject whose unlimited orientations are met by an unrestricted operation, hence whose unrestricted act of knowing embraces the totality of the real. The
finite subject by such affirmation posits the existence of a
subject beyond the range of proportionate being, explanatory
of itself and of all other beings.
We may think this procedure somewhat idealist. Yet it is
hardly so. The idealist begins from the contents of the knowing
acts to seek a content explanatory of all contents of all knowing acts. He leaves unresolved the subject-object dichotomy.
This present appmach begins from the act of knowing oriented
in its pure desire toward the complete explanation of the real
to claim that an unrestricted act of understanding appropriates
the object of the pure desire: the exhaustive explanation of the
real. Here subject and object become one in the act of knowing everything about everything. This difference suffices in
itself to remove the charge of idealism.
Kant had made God a postulate of human reason. Does not
the present procedure appear to do the same? It may indeed
give such an appearance. For all that, however, this approach
and Kant's postulate are a world apart. Kant apparently
equated the adequate and the proportionate objects of understanding. He limited the object of theoretical reason to the
world of sensible experience. Such a limitation left unexplained
the open-ended dynamism of man's pure desire to know. Kant
thought to satisfy this desire by the device of his three postulates of the practical reason. He was acute enough to see
that human reason has this desire to transcend itself; he failed
to appreciate the validity and the full reach of this desire. To
put it another way, his opposition to the idealists was legitimate, his evaluation of the realists too narrow. Lonergan's
approach accepts the full validity of this desire to explain it
ultimately by the subsumption of the proportionate object of
understanding under its adequate object. God, in this view,
does not become a postulate in the Kantian sense at least, but

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MICHAEL J. LAPIERRE

the objective towards which the desire of knowing tends as to
its ultimate fulfilment.
We now turn to another point. A number of philosophers in
the course of the centuries considered the proof for God's
existence to be established by an a priori or an a simultaneo
argument; some suggested the idea of God to be innate.
Lonergan's approach may furnish a clue to such positions. For,
likely as not, these thinkers, without explicitly saying so, were
groping toward the truth that, within man's pure desire to
know, an objective becomes manifest the existence of which,
in its completeness, in its self-explanatoriness, in its ultimateleness, coincides with the existence of God. What the mind
leaped toward in a flash of intuition required an arduous and
detailed analysis of man's activity of knowing in order to present the operation in a scientific fashion. Once done, we grasp
the nature of this desire and its significance in the affirmation
of God's existence. What is a priori or a simultaneo is not the
argument itself but the pure desire to know driving men
towards the formulation of an argument. What is innate is not
the idea of God but the pure desire to know, the meaning of
which becomes fully coherent by making its objective the
knowledge of God.
Finally, we may affirm, deny, or doubt the validity of the
particular arguments offered to establish God's existence. We
may accept the argument from design while we reject the argument from movement; we may
the argument from
the grades of perfection in the universe while we find no conviction in the argument from efficient causality. Such diversity
in the evaluation. of the arguments is due to various factors into
which it is unnecessary to enter at present. But why attempt
such arguments at all? The final, full, and seemingly only
convincing answer is that man's desire to understand seeks the
understanding of all understanding. This search comes to rest
only in the discovery and possession of God.
MICHAEL

Regi8 College
Willowdale, Ontario

J. LAPIERRE, 8. J.

THE CHURCH AS TEACHER: PROLOGUE TO
HUMANAE VITAE

T

HE GREAT Councils of the Church achieved their
stature in history because they cut deeply into the
lines of thought of the People of God. Some consequences of these significant ecclesiastical assemblies became immediately apparent; other effects were only gradually realized.
At the same time it often happened that some forces that had
hitherto been restrained, and other elements which had been
disappointed in some way, intensified their efforts to achieve
satisfaction.
The Second Vatican Council, for all its efforts, did not
resolve, or at least did not bring in its wake a resolution of,
the tension between freedom and authority in the Church. In
the first decade of the post-Conciliar period the tension has
mounted, has become more open and divisive. The focus of
this struggle or contestation has come to center on the teaching authority in the Church, especially the papal magistcrium.
This phenomenon had already become perceptible in some
reactions to the encyclicals on the Eucharist (M ysterium
fidei) 1 and on celibacy (Sacerdotalis c'elibatus) .2 The catalyst,
however, was provided by the appearance of the encyclical
Humanae Vitae on the regulation of births 3 in which was
promulgated the long-awaited decision on the previously widely
argued question of human procreation. In a remarkably short
time the area of disagreement and dissension began to shift
from the content of the encyclical to the very authority with
which it was invested. The whole nature of the papal magisterium and of the Catholic response to it, the role of the Church
3 Sept. 1965, AAS 57 (1965), 753-774.
24 June 1967, AAS 59 (1967), 657-697.
3 25 July 1968, AAS 60 (1968), 481-503.

1

2

675

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NICHOLAS

HALLIGAN

as teacher in the modem world, came-and continues to
remain-under question.
The authority of the encyclical Humanae Vitae must ultimately rest upon the quality and extent of one's acceptance
of the teaching authority of the Church, in particular of the
Roman Pontiff. For this encyclical is the most recent-and
the most controversially received-pronouncement
of the
Church teaching in the person of the Holy Father. Thus, in
order to place this papal teaching in its proper perspective, the
following points will be made: 1) the Church is essentially
a mystery and the object of faith; Z) the Revealed Word
comes to us in the Church, is responded to in the Church, and
the Church itself is guided by the Spirit in its proclamation of
the Word; 3) the whole People of God in various ways shares
in the prophetic function of the Church; 4) the Church proclaims its message in both an infallible and a non-infallible
manner, possessing limits and criteria; 5) the non-infallible
magisterium, as exemplified by Humanae Vitae, must be judged
according to certain norms. In this context the understanding which the modern popes have of the teaching authority in
the Church is most important.

I. The Church as Mystery
A mystery confronts man with a challenge; he is never at
peace until he has unveiled its secret. Modern man, by reason
of his already astounding successes, would seem to many to be
on the sure road to conquest of the mysteries of the universe
and even of life itself. However this may be, there is another
level of challenge which continually confronts him, the mystery
of God's revelation to man. Its secret he cannot unveil in this
life of faith; the vision of its truth is reserved by divine decree
as a reward in the hereafter. The fullness of the mystery of
revelation is realized in the Incarnate Word; and whatever is
inseparably connected with the continuance and perpetuation
of the mission of the Word become man is by that token part
of the same mystery. Man can clarify the terms of this
mystery, but he can never adequately penetrate to the core
of its truth and reality.

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Man's personal response to God's revealing Word is his
human act of faith, in which the divine act of salvation achieves
its created expression and fruition. By his faith man embraces
with his whole being not a proposition but the very Person
who speaks, not the expression but the Word expressing himself
in the mysterious fecundity of his saving message. This message, this liberating and living truth, does not depend upon
the action of any one of us, upon the faith of any single individual. It is a gift of God, and like him from whom it comes,
it lives and remains, even though individuals may fail to hear
it, to accept it, to respond to it, to keep it. In other words, it
is a saving Word given to the total People of God for the
duration of time. It is the Word given in the Church, and by
the promise of Christ it remains ever living in the Church until
the end, regardless of the attitudes of men. It is the faith of
the Church, the Word of God received in the Church, by which
our faith as individuals is measured and tested. We receive our
faith from the Church and in the Church, and it is in the
Church that it receives its full nourishment. In fact, everyone
who is drawn to Christ and to his saving truth pertains in some
way to the Church. Such a person is in greater or lesser degree
related to, united to, belongs to the Church, which, because
it is the Body of Christ, means necessarily being related to,
pertaining to, being united to, belonging to Christ himself.
The Church which Christ instituted as the vehicle for the
continuance of his saving message in time is an essential component of the fullness of his revelation. As revealed it is the
object of our faith. It is a mystery, the sign-mystery of the
life and saving action of Christ to man. It is rightly looked
upon as the sacrament in which we continue to encounter
Christ yet living among us to instruct us in the way of salvation in our day, to sanctify us so that we might be authentic
witnesses of him in love before our neighbors in the world in
which we presently live, to direct and guide our free activities
so that they might attain the true goal which he has so graciously provided for us. Thus, as mystery, the Church is itself
at all times a challenge to man. In order to make that challenge

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clearer to contemporary man, the Church in Vatican II reflected upon her own nature and mission and expressed herself
especially in the Constitutions on the Church (Lumen Gentium) and on the Church in the Modern World (Gaudium et
Spes). As Paul VI remarked at the time: "The Church is a
mystery, which means that she is a reality saturated with the
presence of God, and therefore always open to new and deeper
investigation." 4
The Church is a light to all the peoples, the mysterious sign
of the new, living and lasting covenant between God and his
People in Christ, whose saving mission is continued throughout
the remainder of time and applied to each person who, according to his capacities, personally encounters the Son in faith and
in the sacraments of faith. It is a mystery of faith and
surpasses the capacities and powers of our intellect no less
than any other revealed truth. It cannot be viewed or judged
on merely human standards or by merely natural criteria. Of
supernatural origin and embodying the mysteries of supernatural life, it becomes the meeting-place of all mysteries, and
mystery has been referred to as something that is fittingly
believed in obscurity, to be meditated in silence. It is the
Kingdom of God preached by Christ which will be fully realized when those whom God has chosen are united with the
Risen Christ in the heart of the Trinity.
II. The Revealing Word in the Church
Faith comes by hearing, by listening, listening to the Church
in which the saving truth of revelation is heard and understood.
The voice of the Word is inscribed for us in the Scriptures and
conveyed in Tradition. But these embodiments of revealed
truth are not self-explanatory, or self-compelling, or spontaneously applicable to each succeeding human situation, or unerringly received by the free and sin-tainted human mind. For
faith to be meaningful to man as his total engagement in
response to God's call to him, the genuine message must be
• Allocution, fl9 Sept. 1968, at the opening of the second session of Vatican II.

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known, the authentic truth and its implications for our lives
must be grasped. In the important area of our actions which
are conducive to salvation we need clarity and certainty. As
depositary of the revealed Word, Scripture and Tradition must
be for us a living organ of encounter with God. It was with this
intent that Christ constituted his Church as the authentic
guardian and living interpreter of his Word, so that it might
unfold to each generation whatsoever he has commanded!
Thus this entire deposit of faith is the point of departure which
provided the content for the teaching of the Church. And it is
only within the teaching of the Church that we can find a
guarantee for establishing contact with the saving truth of
Christ.
The teaching Church has the task of interpreting the Word
under the guidance of the Holy Spirit, whose assistance Christ
promised to his Church for this purpose. In the original body
of revelation, as the Apostles proclaimed it and the early
Church believed it, many truths were not contained in so many
statements but only implicitly and in a hidden way. Neither
human logic nor interpretative skill has sufficed to bring them
adequately to light but only the guidance of the Holy Spirit.
The living Church, as the Constitution on Divine Revelation
states, 6 is Christ's means of perserving the purity of his truth
5 "The divine plan
is right in wishing the revealed Word, contained in the
Scriptures and in apostolic tradition, to be protected by a vehicle of transmission.
We mean a visible and permanent magisterium, authorized to guard, interpret and
teach that Word." (Paul VI, Allocution on the Magisterium, 4 Dec. 1968)
6 " In his gracious goodness God has seen to it that what he has revealed for the
salvation of all nations would abide perpetually in its full integrity and be handed
down to all generations. Therefore Christ our Lord, in whom the full revelation
of the supreme God is brought to oompletion, . . . commissioned the Apostles
to preach to all men that gospel which is the source of all saving truth and
moral teaching, and thus to impart to them divine gifts. . . . This commission
was faithfully fulfilled by the Apostles. . . . But in order to keep the gospel
forever whole and alive within the Church, the Apostles left bishops as their
successors, ' handing over to them their own teaching role .' . . . Therefore the
Aposties, handing on what they themselves had received, warn the faithful to
hold fast to the traditions which they have learned either by word of mouth or by
letter . . . , and to fight in defense of the faith handed on once and for all ..•.
Now what was handed on by the Apostles included everything which contributes

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and guaranteeing the fidelity of its interpretation. "But when
the Spirit of truth comes, he will lead you to the complete
truth." 7
Thus the Spirit's guidance in the Church as guaranteed by
Jesus not only clarifies and illuminates the deposit of revelation conveyed to the Church, i. e., the divine dimensions of
the sacred words and deeds, but also draws out from these
depths into the light of conscious awareness and belief the
truths God has placed there and watches over their interpretation and application to the life of salvation in each generation.
Despite all the brilliance of human endeavor and industry that
may be employed, the perspectives intended by God in his
communicated Word can be ascertained for certain only under
the suggestion of the Holy Spirit in the Church. It cannot then
be expected that the divine depth of meaning which the Church
preaches and brings into the conscious stream of the life of
faith in any particular age or situation is susceptible of proof
or verification in the manner of a human science. The connection between the Church's proclamation of truth and the
source of that truth is guaranteed through the guidance of
the Holy Spirit, even when this connection eludes human
verification. The " traditio " or what has been handed down to
it by Christ through the Apostles is what the Church proclaims; it is only the instrument, servant, bearer of God's
communication to it without error.
The witness of the Church to revealed truth must, of course,
be understood with and in faith. This is not the human faith
which is synonymous with opinion but the Christian or religious
to the holiness of life, and the increase in faith of the People of God; and so the
Church, in her teaching, life, and worship, perpetuates and hands on to all
generations all that she herself is, all that she believes." (Dei Verbum, nn. 7-8)
• Jn. 16:13. " [Revelation] reaches us, in other words, through a human ministry,
a vehicle of Revelation, a magisterium (teaching authority): the Apostles, who
to the single and original mediation of Christ coordinate their mediation, which
is subordinate and instrumental, but made by Christ himself (Jn. 6: 70; 15: 16), and
of their institutional and permanent function (Mt.
19; Lk. 10: 16). This is a
charism which does not derive from the ' communio fidelium,' but which is for its
edification." (Paul VI, Allocution on the Office of Bishop, 5 Jan. 1969).

THE CHURCH AS TEACHER

681

faith which is the most certain and reliable affirmation available
to man, guaranteed not by human perception but by the infallibility of God himself. Its motivation is the Word of God, the
authority of God revealing, who can neither deceive nor be deceived. Although this faith takes hold of and involves the total
person and provides a newer and nobler life-orientation, its act,
in the immediate sense, proceeds under grace from the human
mind which in faith grasps reality as truth. This religious faith
is man's free openness to the call of God through his Church
and his docility to guidance by that call; it is " an obedience
by which man entrusts his whole self freely to God, offering
the full submission of intellect and will to God who reveals,
and freely assenting to the truth revealed to him." 8 It gives
credence to words which are received as true because of confidence in God's trustworthiness and reliability in which his
Church participates. Whereas Christ is no longer visibly present to us on earth, he is present to us in the message and
worship of the Church, in Word and in sacrament. The truth
proclaimed in the Church is Christ, his truth, and we receive
his truth, as we receive him, in faith. And the vitality of our
religious faith will be in the measure of the impact that this
truth has on our minds and hearts and lives.
The reality that confronts us through the gift of reveb.tion,
a reality enshrouded in the obscurity of a mystery, is testified
to only by revelation and is not perceptible to direct human
perception nor does it derive from native intellectual insight. 9
The act of faith whereby we grasp this reality is a supremely
free moral decision, and all the subsequent acts of faith that
we make throughout life proclaim and even accentuate that
very character of faith's freedom. The longer we live and
experience life's realities, the more we become conscious of
Dei Verbum, n. 5.
The teaching of the faith does not have the power to impose itself by its
very announcement as do the truths of the rational order, which can be accepted
and diffused by their intrinsic evidence. The faith is based in the word of God
and of Christ, and of him who is his faithful witness, (cf. Lk. fl4: 48; Acts 1:8 sq.;
10: 89), an authoritative and decisive witness (cf. Gal. 1: 8; Dei Verbum, n. 10) ."
Paul VI, Allocution, 5 Jan. 1969).
8

9 "

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NICHOLAS

HALLIGAN

what it means to live a life of faith, to live by faith, and the
more we realize that the demands of our faith are nevertheless
challenges to repeat our free response. In faith a meeting
occurs between the revealing God and the believing person on
the common ground that is the truth-content of revelation.
Truth is the core of the living encounter, not an academic
encounter but a total acceptance of the Word and its implications which produces a living communion. " And eternal life is
this: to know you, the only true God, and Jesus Christ whom
you have sent." 10
The Church, then, like its Head Christ, is a mystery and
similarly a sign of contradiction: for the unbeliever a stumbling block, for the believer a testing ground of his faith.

III. The Prophetic Function in the Church
The entire Church, as it lives and images Christ, shares in
Christ's messianic dignity and mission; it receives an inner
capacity to represent and, in a way, to prolong Christ. One
aspect of this capacity is to share in the magisterial or prophetic
function of Christ, whereby it possesses its charism of salvation
teaching or its magisterium. This comes about fundamentally
by the act of believing which implies both acceptance of Jesus
as Master and Lord and the pledge to testify to and to proclaim
his faith before the world. In this way the entire Church, the
universal assembly of the faithful-hierarchy and laity, together making up the beFeving Church-responsibly and concretely fulfills this authentic prophetic function, together understanding more deeply, elucidating more meaningfully, expressing more clearly the common faith.
Vatican II stated that " Christ, the great Prophet, who
proclaimed the kingdom of his Father by the testimony of his
life and the power of his words, continually fulfils his prophetic
office until his glory is revealed." 11 Christ continuously living
in his Church is always speaking to it, always teaching it,
10

Jn. 17:8.

11

Lumen Gentium, n. 85.

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683

always making the clarion words of his gospel resound in it.
He is the "truth" that becomes the "way" and generates
" life." 12 In fulfilling its mandate the Church teaches with
authority, with Christ's authority. Its mandate comes from
Christ and not from men; its authority does not derive from its
societal character, as with the family or the State, but from
Christ the Prophet: " As the Father sent me, so am I sending
you "; 13 " all authority in heaven and on earth has been given
to me. Go, therefore, make disciples of all the nations; baptize
them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy
Spirit, and teach them to observe all the commands I gave you.
And know that I am with you always; yes, to the end of
time." 14 Its mandate embraces the power to bind and to
loose.15 Moreover, in the exercise of its prophetic function, the
Church has always been conscious that among her members
some have been empowered with authority over the community, who have owed their selection not to any decision or
institution of the community but to Christ's own determination. This claim to divine authority, in particular to divine
magisterial authorization, was preached by the Apostles and
has been reiterated by those who succeeded them and who are
such as St. Paul, " who does not owe his authority to men or
his appointment to any human being but who has been appointed by Jesus Christ and by God the Father who raised
Jesus from the dead." 16 As Paul VI has expressed it: "the
Church is hierarchical and an organic unity; it is not democratic in the sense that the community itself enjoys priority of
Jn. 14:6.
Ibid., 20: !n.
14 Mt. 28: 20.
15 Ibid., 18:18.
16 Gal. 1: 1; cf. Acts !W: 28. "And to you [bishops], more so than to anyone else in
the Church of God, there is promised the outpouring of the Holy Spirit, which
15: 26). And
gives understanding and opens the depths of Revelation (Jn. 14:
from privileged listeners you have become teachers of divine doctrine: the
magisterium is one of the major and specific powers entrusted by Christ to his
Apostles and to those who will succeed them in the spreading of the message of
truth and salvation, which precisely is the Gospel (Mt. 28:20) ." (Paul VI,
Allocution, 5 Jan. 1969)
12

13

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NICHOLAS

HALLIGAN

faith over those whom the Spirit has placed at the head of the
Church." 17
The competence of the Apostles (and their successors in
turn) extended not only to external Church order and to
interior sanctification but also involved a doctrinal competence
or authority. They were commissioned to propose the message
of salvation not simply as messengers but as expounders of the
Word. It was to the " teaching of the Apostles " to which the
early Christian community remained faithful and devoted itself, the teaching, as St. Paul told the Corinthians, " that you
received and in which you are firmly established; because the
gospel will save you only if you keep believing exactly what I
preached to you-believing anything else will not lead to anything." 18 Thus, if it were to bear fruit in Christ Jesus, the
authorized preaching of the gospel would need both to moderate Christian exuberance and caution against aberrations in
pondering its message and daily reducing it to principles of
action.
Nevertheless, the exercise of the prophetic function, whether
by the Church at large or by those in whom the office in a
special way resides, is always subordinated to the word of God,
the origin and foundation which forever unites the Church.
The sacred text proclaims: " the word of God is something
alive and active " 19 and " ... has power to build you up and
to give you your inheritance among the sanctified." 20 Nothing
and no one is above it or can take its place. All the teaching
in the Church, solemn or popular, formal or informal, ecclesiastical or theological, learned or unsophisticated, must take its
inspiration, its source and judgment from the Word of God.
It is in this sense that the Council spoke:
17
18

Allocution, !Z Feb. 1968.
I Cor. 15: 1-!Z.

19 Heb.

4:

Acts !ZO:
" The force and power in the word of God is so great that it
remains the support and energy of the Church, the strength of faith for her sons,
the food of the soul, the pure and perennial source of spiritual life." (Dei Verbum,
20

n. !Z1)

THE CHURCH AS TEACHER

685

Sacred tradition and sacred scripture form one deposit of the word
of God, which is committed to the Church. Holding fast to this
deposit, the entire holy people united with their shepherds remain
always steadfast in the teaching of the Apostles, in the common
life, in the breaking of the bread, and in prayers (cf. Acts fl:4fl),
so that in holding to, practising, and professing the heritage of
faith, there results on the part of the bishops and faithful a remarkable common effort.
The task of authentically interpreting the word of God, whether
written or handed on, has been entrusted exclusively to the living
teaching office of the Church, whose authority is exercised in the
name of Jesus Christ. This teaching office is not above the word o£
God, but serves it, teaching only what has been handed on, listening to it devoutly, guarding it scrupulously, and explaining it faithfully by divine commission and with the help of the Holy Spirit;
it draws from this one deposit of faith everything which it presents
for belief as divinely revealed.
It is clear, therefore, that sacred tradition, sacred scripture, and the
teaching authority of the Church, in accord with God's most wise
design, are so linked together that one cannot stand without the
others, and that all together and each in its own way under the
action of the one Holy Spirit contribute effectively to the salvation
of souls. 21

As already noted, the Church in its totality is a prophetic,
living organism, always growing and developing in the knowledge of truth received once and for all.
For there is a growth in the understanding of the realities and the
words which have been handed down. This happens through the
contemplation and study made by believers, who treasure these
things in their hearts (cf. Lk. fl: 19, 51), through the intimate
understanding of spiritual
they experience, and through the
preaching of those who have received through episcopal succession
the sure gift of truth. For, as the centuries succeed one another,
the Church constantly moves forward toward the fullness of divine
truth until the words of God reach their complete fulfilment in
her. 22

In this process the Church confronts the forces of the world,
enters into dialogue with each generation in order to bring to
21
22

Dei Verbum, n. 10.
Ibid., n. 8.

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HALLIGAN

terms man's problems, as in each situation they relate to
savation, in order to provide answers from the gospel message
which will guide and direct man's life in the world of his age.
Fundamentally this springs from the unity in faith and charity
of the entire People of God.
The holy People of God shares also in Christ's prophetic office. It
spreads abroad a living witness to him, especially by means of a life
of faith and charity and by offering a sacrifice of praise. . . . The
body of the faithful as a whole, anointed as they are by the Holy
One, cannot err in matters of belief. Thanks to a supernatural
sense of the faith which characterizes the People as a whole, it
manifests this unerring quality when, " from the bishops down to
the last member of the laity," it shows universal agreement in
matters of faith and morals. For by this sense of faith which is
aroused and sustained by the Spirit of truth, God's People accepts
not the word of men but the very word of God. It clings without
fail to the laith once delivered to the saints, penetrates it more
deeply by accurate insights, and applies it more thoroughly to life.
All this it does under the lead of a sacred teaching authority to
which it loyally defers. 23

1. Laity. In this same process the laity play an important
role as witnesses of the faith of the Church, with the implications of that witnessing as explored in the Conciliar documents.
Nevertheless, their prerogatives never extend to the role of
defining doctrine or of judging, as this belongs to the teaching
magisterium alone. The Holy Spirit is given to the whole
Church and to all in the Church, but he gives special assistance
to those who exercise a public function in view of the common
good. To settle disputes that arise in matters of faith and
morals is not the general function of the faithful at large; their
principal form of proclamation is by the witness of their lives.
Thus Christ fulfils his prophetic office,
not only through the hierarchy who teach in his name and with his
authority, but also through the laity. For that very purpose he
made them his witnesses and gave them understanding of the faith
and the grace of speech, so that the power of the gospel might shine
forth in their social and family life. . . .24 Alloting his gifts
•• Ibid., n. 85.
Lumen Gentium, n. 12.

23

THE CHURCH AS TEACHER

687

"to everyone according as he will" (I Cor. 12:11, [the Holy
Spirit] distributed special graces among the faithful of every
rank. . . . These charismatic gifts ... are exceedingly suitable and
useful for the needs of the Church .... Judgment as to their
genuineness and proper use belongs to those who preside over the
Church, and to whose special competence it belongs, not indeed to
exstinguish this Spirit, but to test all things and hold fast to that
which is good ( cf. I Th. 5: 12; 19-21) ,25

The Council, then, makes clear that one dimension of the
Church, the charismatic, must not be set in opposition to or
separated from the other dimension, the institutional and
hierarchic.
2. Hierarchy. It is a fact, attributable solely to the free
institution of Christ, that only a few in the Church "have
received through episcopal succession the sure gift of truth " 26
for "the task of authentically interpreting the word of God." 27
Hierarchical teaching is, in fact, a dogma of faith. Catholics
believe that Christ constituted the pope and the bishops united
with him as teachers, guardians, and interpreters of the faith
to whom the special assistance of the Holy Spirit is promised
so that they do not fall into error when they propose for belief
truths contained in revelation. This is a supernatural fact,
freely willed by Christ, who gave to Peter as head of the
Apostolic college the command to " confirm " his brethren in
the faith, i. e., the other Apostles and in them and with them
all the faithful. 28
•• Ibid., n. 12. "This method seems to Us indispensable to prevent certain
dangers, to which the fascinating search for the ' signs of the times ' might expose
us. The first danger is that of charismatic prophetism, which often degenerates into
bigoted fancy, conferring miraculous interpretations on chance and often insignifi··
cant coincidences. Eagerness to discover easily 'the signs of the times' may make
us forget the ambiguity, in many cases, of evaluation of observed facts, all the more
so if we are to attribute to the ' People of God,' that is, to every believer, a
possible capacity to decipher 'signs of God's presence and purpose' (Gaudium et
Spes, n. 11). The sensus fidei may confer this gift of wise insight, but the assistance
of the hierarchical magisterium will always be provident and decisive, when the
ambiguity of the interpretation deserves to be solved either in the certainty of truth
or to the benefit of the common good." (Paul VI, AUocution, 16 April 1969)
•• Dei Verbum, n. 8.
•• Ibid., n. 10.
28 Cf. Lk. 22:82.

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HALLIGAN

The function of the hierarchical magisterium, then, is to
guide the Church in the sure path of truth. To accomplish this
she strives to deepen her understanding of the saving message
and thereby to offer appropriate response to concrete historical
situations. Every bishop in communion with his brother
bishops and especially with the head of the college of bishops
becomes by this very fact a sign or manifestation of the
Apostolic ministry continued in him. Thus, to his authentic
teaching there is due that veneration and adherence which
springs from faith and the acknowledgement that the bishops
alone embody Christ's authority in its fullness.
God's action, indeed, so often remains invisible and hidden
beneath a very human exterior. This was the challenge of the
carpenter's son of Nazareth; it is the same in the Church. The
human element in the hierarchical structure from time to time
will tend to obscure the clarity of vision in faith. The infallibility or authenticity attached to the Church's teaching of the
Word of God is no guarantee against human limitations, no
remedy for the inadequacy of human language or the poverty
of human vocabulary faced with the transcendency of divine
truth. The men whom Christ chose to be the leaders and
teachers of the Church he was leaving behind he sought out in
such places as the shores of the Lake of Genesareth; he did not
call renowned scholars or government advisors. Moreover, he
gave them a task which surpassed their capabilities; he did not
guarantee them the human talents such a commission required.
He knew the men he selected, the level of their intelligence, the
limits of their generosity; the same awareness applies to their
successors. Yet Christ did not hesitate to proclaim: " Anyone
who listens to you listens to me; anyone who rejects you rejects
me." 29 The challenge, therefore, is a spiritual one, a challenge
to faith, as is the whole mystery of the Church.
3. Theologians. The theologians in the Church have indeed
their own teaching authority, such as all professional experts
enjoy. Yet, clarity is never served if the theological enterprise
•• Ibid. 10: 16.

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689

is labelled a " magisterium," any more than to call the doctrinal
witness of the laity a " magisterium." The authentic teaching
authority in regard to what is involved in faith or in morals
belongs, of course, only to those " whom the Holy Spirit has
placed as bishops, to rule the church of God." 80 The noble
and fruitful office of the theologian carries with it no supreme
authority, no charism of infallibility or even of official authoritativeness. The theologian is himself a believer, endowed by
nature, industry, and grace to assist his fellow believers with
his insights. And thus the gathering of the People of God
under the Holy Spirit is a community of believers, not a
congress of theologians or philosophers or scientists.
The theologian exercises his function in the Church insofar
as he receives his mandate from ecclesiastical authority, pope
or bishop. His role is to serve the faith and thereby to serve
the Church and the magisterium to the extent of the faith
and the problems which torment man. In reflecting on the
faith the theologian employs the best tools in the tradition of
the believing intellect, using as his bedrock starting point the
understanding which the Church has of her own faith as she
authentically interprets it in the course of her pilgrimage on
Recognizing that everything in the Church did not
begin with Vatican II, the true theologian of renewal will not
be unmindful of the values of the past while offering solutions
for the present and outlines for the future. He will strive to
express in a suitable language for his day both the exact same
truths expressed in different forms in old dogmas and insights
into the relevance and application of the gospel message re30

Acts

(d) The last and finally only efficacious criterion of this orthodox knowledge is the teaching Church. For the Church cannot live as a body and ecclesiastically in the unity of truth, except thanks to an ecclesiastical criterion of unity
and belief. This is why, as muclt apropos of the auditus fidei and positive theology
as apropos of the intellectus fidei and speculative theology, we have pointed out
the necessity for the theologian to refer constantly to the teaching of the Church,
to have within himself the sense of the Church and the sense of the magisterium."
(Yves M. J. Cougar, 0. P., A History of theology [Garden City, N. Y.: Doubleday
& Co., 1968], pp.
31 " •••

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HALLIGAN

garding contemporary problems in conformity with the whole
teaching of the faith. Faith, the magisterium, theology are
distinct realities although closely linked: they are· different
gifts with distinct duties.
Theology and the magisterium have a common source, divine
revelation. . . . The Church ... was set up as the absolutely trustworthy teacher of truth and endowed with the charism of indefectible truth, so that it might fulfil its mission properly. . . . In
accordance with Christ's divine will, however, the proximate, universal norm of this indefectible truth is to be found in the authentic
magisterium of the Church, whose task it is to faithfully guard the
deposit of faith and to proclaim it infallibly .... For in the Church,
the magisterium stands in the place of Christ the teacher. . . .
Sacred theology uses reason enlightened by faith. . . . Its duty is
to examine and comprehend the truths of revelation more thoroughly; to bring the fruits of its labor to the attention of the Christian
community and, in particular, to the attention of the magisterium
itself, so that the whole Christian people may be enlightened by the
doctrine which the ecclesiastical hierarchy hands down; and finally
to lend its efforts to the task of spreading, clarifying, confirming,
and defending the truth which the magisterium authoritatively
propounds. [The magisterium's] official task is, first and foremost,
to bear witness to the teaching received from the Apostles and
hand it on, so that it might become the' possession of the whole
human family; to maintain this doctrine completely free from
errors and distortions; in the light of divine revelation to pass
authoritative judgment on new teachings, and on the considerations
proposed by theology as solutions to new questions; and finally, to
authoritatively propose newer and deeper investigations into divine
revelation, and new adaptations of this revelation to our timeswhich it, with the enlightenment of the Holy Spirit, judges to be in
full accord with Christ's teaching .... [Theologians] will also take
the greatest pride in being obedient and judicious interpreters of the
magisterium. 32
Thus the theologian who denies defined Church teaching is
failing in his role. If he is in open conflict with the clear and
authentic teaching of the Holy Father, he might recall the
wise warning of the Faculty of Paris in 1682 [two centuries
32 Paul VI, Allocution to Theologians (Libentissimo animo), 1 Oct. 1966. Cf.
Also Allocution to the International Theological Commission, Oct. 6, 1969, and
Cougar, op. cit., chapter 6.

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before the formal definition of the dogma]: " Whatever opinion
one many profess concerning the pope's infallibility, it is as
disrespectful to publicly proclaim that he can be mistaken, as to
say to children: your parents can lie."

IV. Infallible and Non-infallible Expression of the Prophetic
Function
The prophetic function of the Church need not and does not
always assume the same form; the teaching charism is not
characterized by one mode alone. The special assistance which
the Holy Spirit renders to the magisterium may be expressed
at one time in an infallible form and at another in a non-infallible but authentic form. In any case, the object of magisterial
authority is apostolic truth, proclaimed for all mankind but
usually specially expressed for the acceptance of contemporary
man. The authoritative teaching office confided by Christ to
his Apostles was always to remain in the Church in the persons
of their successors, not in order to promulgate new revelations
of truths but faithfully to guard, defend, and to expose the
apostolic teaching. 33 Moreover, the teaching body of the
Church in the exercise of its office is, through the assistance of
the Holy Spirit, preserved from error. 34 From the beginning,
as witnessed by early testimonies as well as by the early
practice of convoking local synods and later general councils,
the special and authoritative role of the leaders of the local
churches (i.e., the bishops in apostolic succession) in guarding
and teaching apostolic doctrine was recognized. This traditional teaching was affirmed to be the ultimate norm of faith,
the doctrine to be believed. 35 This understanding was maintained against all forms of gnosis that arose, whether charismatic or academic, as well as against the later Reformers who
admitted apostolic authority for the Scriptures alone. Even
though the Church progressed in its understanding of the role
of its magisterium (as has happened with respect to other
33 Vatican

I, DS 8018, 8050, 8070-8075.

•• Ibid., DS 880, 8074; Lumen Gentium, n. 25.
35 Cf. St. Irenaeus, Adversus Haereses, bk. III, 3, 2.

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facets of its rich and mysterious life) , it is unquestionable that
it has always believed that its living and authoritative teaching office is an integral, necessary, and irreplaceable element in
its on-going life.
In terms of declared Catholic teaching 36 concerning the
deposit of faith or of divine truth, God's revelation to man
was fully constituted and terminated with the death of the last
Apostle, 37 the last of the privileged eye-witnesses of God's
definitive self-revelation to man. "The Christian dispensation,
therefore, as the new and definitive covenant, will never pass
away, and we await no further new public revelation before the
glorious manifestation of Our Lord Jesus Christ (cf. I Tim.
6: 14; Tit. 2: 13) ." 38 Thus the Church's faith and life is founded
upon that of the Apostles alone, to be safeguarded and built
upon (but not added to) by their successors. Therefore, the
Church must always remain apostolic, 39 faithful to the "faith
and order " of the Apostles, transmitting their doctrine uncontaminated to all subsequent generations within and through
the Church, " which upholds the truth and keeps it safe," 40
against which the forces of hell will not prevail. 41 The efficacious sign or sacrament of this apostolicity consists in the
apostolic succession of a body of teachers. Thus, the proximate
organ animated by the Holy Spirit to insure the steadfast and
unfailing unity of faith among the people of God is the living
and perennial magisterium of the successors of the Apostles, a
magisterium derivative in its authority, subordinate to the
revealed Word, and dependent for its efficacy upon the assistance of the Holy Spirit. Not judging revelation itself but only
interpreting it for men and judging those things contrary to it,
the magisterium will not be allowed by the Holy Spirit to
interpret the Word in a manner contrary to the Word. As
Pius IX wrote:
DS 30fl2, 3020, 3070.
DS 3421.
38 Dei Verbum, n. 4.
39 Cf. Eph. 2:fl0.

36

37

•• I Tim. 3: 15.
' 1 Mt. 16:18.

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693

The truth of the matter is that [the Church] maintains against the
hostile forces that are always at work the truth entrusted to the
Church once and for all-maintains it " in its fullness, integrity and
authenticity," and makes it fruitful " in the same sense and with
the same mind" (Vatican I. DS
For the Church, having
custody of the deposit of divine revelation, will never suffer anything to be subtracted from the truths proposed to us by faith,
nor anything to be added to them. 42

This position is reiterated by Paul VI:
Of such laws [the entire moral law, both natural and evangelical]
the Church was not the author, nor consequently can she be their
arbiter; she is only their depositary and their interpreter, without
ever being able to declare to be licit that which is not so by reason
of its intimate and unchangeable opposition to the true good of
man. 43 But one condition is necessary, the one We mentioned of
absolute respect for the integrity of the revealed message. On this
point the Catholic Church, as you know, is watchful, severe,
demanding, dogmatic. The very formulas in which the doctrine has
been deliberately and authoritatively defined, cannot be abandoned.
In this connection the magisterium of the Church is adamant, even
at the cost of bearing the negative consequences of the unpopular
terms in which the doctrine is expressed. It cannot do otherwise.
Jesus himself, moreover, experienced the difficulty of his teaching;
many of his hearers did not understand it (cf. Mt. 13: 13); in fact
even his beloved disciples found his words hard and were upset by
them (Jn. 6:
when he announced the mystery of the Holy
Eucharist to them, and Jesus did not hesitate to ask them a very
painful question: "What about you, do you want to go away
too?" (ibid., 68) .44

The teaching office in the Church, the body of authentic
teachers, is essentially one, as the faith it guards and spreads.
In this unity of constitution and mission we find two distinct
though not separated elements: the body or college of bishops
and the pope who is the head of this body.
Just as, by the Lord's will, St. Peter and the other Apostles constituted one .apostolic college, so in a similar manner the Roman
42 Pius IX, ency. Nostris et Nobiscum, 8 Dec. 1849; bull lneffabilis Deus, 1854;
DS 2802.
•• Ency. Humanae Vitae, n. 18.
•• Paul VI, Allocution on the Magisterium, 4 Dec. 1968.

694

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Pontiff as the sucessor of Peter, and the bishops as the successors
of the Apostles are joined together. . . . The order of bishops is
the successor to the college of the Apostles in teaching authority
and pastoml rule; or, rather, in the episcopal order the apostolic
body continues without a break. 45
But the college or body of bishops has no authority unless it is
simultaneously conceived of in terms of its head, the Roman
Pontiff, Peter's successor, and without any lessesning of his power
of primacy over all, pastors as well as the general faithful. For
in virtue of his office, that is, as Vicar of Christ and pastor of
the whole Church, the Roman Pontiff has full, supreme, and universal power ov.er the Church. And he can always exercise this
power freely .... Together with its head, the Roman Pontiff, and
never without this head, the episcopal order is the subject of
supreme and full power over the universal Church. But this power
can be exercised only with the consent of the Roman Pontiff. For
Our Lord made Simon Peter alone the rock and keybearer of the
Church (cf. Mt. 16: 18-19), and appointed him shepherd of the
whole flock (cf. Jn. fl1: 15 ff.) ..w
The Roman Pontiff, as the successor of Peter, is the perpetual and
visible source and foundation of the unity of the bishops and of
the multitude of the faithful. 47

Thus the pope has the special responsibility of strengthening
the faith of his brethren. On occasion he acts as their spokesman; in matters of faith and of morals he serves as supreme
judge. As head he is distinct from the college but never
separated, and he proclaims not his own but the faith of the
Church. On the other hand, several bishops or episcopal conferences are not to be equated with the entire episcopate;
bishops are authentic teachers only when united with their
head and never apart from him (witness the Arian period).
The teaching authority or magisterium of the Church may
be exercised infallibly or not. This means that, in presenting
the rule of faith or in affirming a truth of faith or of morals
for the faithful, the magisterium does or does not engage the
full exercise of the divine charism of infallibility, that is, the
special assistance of the Holy Spirit preserving it from error.
' 6 Lume:n Ge:ntium, n. 22.
•• Ibid.
' 7 Ibid., n. 28.

THE CHURCH AS 'rEACHER

695

However, whether a doctrine is taught infallibly or not, the
truth content of the teaching is not changed. Infallibility is
but an extrinsic guarantee, a spiritual tag, which makes explicit
faith's content, certifies or verifies it in a special way. Thus
infallible teaching is clearly seen to be the fixed and irreversible and required object of Christian faith, although it is
merely what has been called " the tip of the great iceberg of
Christian doctrine."
The exercise of the solemn magisterium . . . adds nothing to the
body of truths contained, at least implicitly, in the deposit of
revelation which God has confided to his Church; what it does do
is to proclaim what until its intervention might have seemed
unclear to some minds, or to create an obligation of believing a
point which previously might have been for others open to discussion.48

The authentic teaching office in the Church can be considered in its ordinary or extraordinary exercise. We shall
consider first the latter (and relatively rare) function.
1. Exercise of the M agisterium

a. extraordinary and infallible. The Church's teaching of
the faith can take the form of a solemn judgment pronouncing
definitively and infallibly on the object of faith. But this mode
of presentation is quite exceptional. The teaching office, which
habitually witnesses to revelation, only in extraordinary circumstances feels impelled to define its meaning or implications
in a judicial or solemn manner, e. g., to answer an error, terminate a dispute, to remove all doubt about an accepted truth
by declaring it a dogma of the faith. Moreover, in a definition
or solemn statement of faith only what is defined or taught is
infallible, and normally not the arguments from Scripture,
tradition, reason, etc., that may illustrate, confirm or support
the teaching.
The extraordinary and infallible magisterium of the Church
is activated in two ways: 1) "when gathered together in an
48

Pius XI, ency. Mortalium animos, 6 Jan. 1928.

696

NICHOLAS

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ecumenical council [the bishops with the pope J are teachers and
judges of faith and morals for the universal Church. Their
definitions must be adhered to with the submission of faith." 49
2) when the Roman Pontiff defines ex cathedra some point
concerning faith or morals to be held by the univerasl Church.
Such a pronouncement is infallible and irreformable of itself
and so does not need the subsequent juridical asent of the other
bishops, nor does it allow of an appeal to any other judgment. 50
In the discussions at Vatican I it was made clear that it was
not a condition of the pope's infallibility that he first consult
the Church but only that he make certain of the continuity of
the magisterium on a doctrine.
The basis for discerning when the pope is speaking infallibly
is that he must be speaking ex cathedra in the sense defined by
Vatican I and explained by Vatican IV 1 Three conditions are
thus required: 1) the pope must be speaking in the performance of his office as supreme pastor and teacher of all Christians, 2) he must act in the fullness of his Apostolic authority,
3) he must clearly show that he means to impose on the universal Church a doctrine of faith or of morals. Thus an ex
cathedra papal pronouncement is always an infallible pronouncement and vice versa, and, as noted, it does not depend
on the previous or subsequent approval or acceptance of it by
the episcopate or the faithful. If the above conditions are not
fulfilled, there can be no question of a definition nor can the
papal judgment be considered of itself irreformable. However,
in speaking ex cathedra, the pope may employ any vehicle for
the dissemination of truth that he chooses, any particular type
of documentation or form of address. The popes at different
periods in the history of the Church have been inclined to
employ one or another form. If the pope should make clear his
intention to speak ex cathedra, for example, in an encyclical,
which is the common vehicle for ordinary papal teaching, then
the papal statement enjoys infallible status. The same in•• Lumen Gentium, n. !!5.
•• DS 8068.
51 DS S074; Lumen Gentium, n. !!5.

THE CHURCH AS TEACHER

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fallible character attaches to his statements when he affirms
that his teaching is already the teaching of the ordinary and
universal magisterium of the Church.
b. ordinary and infallible. Besides the rare extraordinary
and solemn form, the faith of the Church is handed on, and
usually so, by the ordinary and universal magisterium of the
Church.
By divine and Catholic faith everything must be believed that is
contained in the written word of God or in tradition, and that is
proposed by the Church as a divinely revealed object either by a
solemn decree or in her ordinary, universal teaching.52
The ordinary and universal magisterium of the Church,
being infallible, likewise demands the response of supernatural
faith in the teaching it proposes. The exercise of this magisterium does not normally take place in one isolated act but
rather in a whole series which concur in communicating a
teaching. For all practical purposes this was the only mode of
teaching the early centuries knew (tradition in the strong
sense of the term) ; it is still the one that reaches the mass of
Christians. This magisterium is exercised by the bishops united
with the pope.
Although the individual bishops do not enjoy the prerogative of
infallibility, they can nevertheless proclaim Christ's doctrine infallibly. This is so, even when they are dispersed around the world,
provided that while maintaining the bond of unity among themselves and with Peter's successor, and while teaching authentically
on a matter of faith or morals, they concur in a single viewpoint
as the one which must be held conclusively.53
c. ordinary and non-infallible. The faith of the Church is
communicated infallibly to the faithful by both the extraordinary magisterium of the Church (ecumenical council or
the pope alone speaking ex cathedra) and by the ordina.ry
and universal magisterium of the Church. However, Christian
truth is also conveyed in the Church by the ordinary and
52
53

Vatican I, DS SOil.
Lumen Gentium, n. 25.

698

NICHOLAS

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non-infallible teaching authority which resides individually in
the bishops of the Church and individually in the teaching of
the Supreme Pontiff. Vatican II sums it up in this manner:
Bishops, teaching in communion with the Roman Pontiff, are to be
respected by all as witnesses to divine and Catholic truth. In
matters of faith and morals, the bishops speak in the name of
Christ and the faithful are to accept their teaching and adhere to
it with a religious assent of soul. This religious submission of will
and of mind must be shown in a special way to the authentic teaching authority of the Roman Pontiff, even when he is not speaking
ex cathedra. That is, it must be shown in such a way that his
supreme magisterium is acknowledged with reverence, the judgments made by him are sincerely adhered to, according to his
manifest mind and will. His mind and will in the matter may be
known chiefly either fmm the character of the documents, from
his frequent repetition of the same doctrine, or from his manner
of speaking. 64

Let us consider the Holy Father simply in the day-to-day
exercise of his teaching office, i. e., in his ordinary and authentic
but non-infallible magisterium. In this form of teaching the
pope ordinarily and habitually instructs, admonishes, persuades, enlightens, warns or encourages the faithful of the
Church in those matters which relate to salvation and the
kingdom of God. This he does through encyclicals, allocutions,
letters, radio addresses, etc. These expressions usually do not
enjoy the character of infallibility, since the pope does not
choose or intend to engage that degree of his supreme teaching
authority, i.e., to fulfil all the requisites of ex cathedra expression. On the other hand, because a papal teaching is in the
mode of an authentic but non-infallible expression, it does not
thereby become the statement of an individual Catholic bishop
or theologian. When the Holy Father addresses himself to the
entire faithful as their supreme pastor and teacher, his authentic or official teaching has greater authority than all
hierarchies or all theologians. 55 His is the office of the Vicar of
"'Ibid.
66 Cf. the thought of St. Thomas, e. g., Quoifl. IX, q. 17, a. 16:
"Hence we
should more abide by the decision of the pope, to whom it belongs to prescribe with

THE CHURCH AS TEACHER

699

Christ, "catholicae ecclesiae episcopus" or universal doctor.
His church is " the mother and mistress of all the Churches,"
the center of truth and unity, as the early Fathers attested. 56
By his ordinary magisterium he presents the rule of faith and
of morals to the People of God in ways other than ex cathedra,
as Pius XII noted:
Nor must it be thought that what is expounded in encyclical
letters does not of itself demand consent, since in writing such
letters the popes do not exercise the supreme power of their teaching authority. For these matters are taught with ordinary teaching
authority, of which it is true to say: " He who hears you, hears
me" (Lk. 10: 16); and generally what is .expounded and inculcated
in encyclical letters already for other reasons appertains to Catholic
doctrine. But if the Supreme Pontiffs in their official documents
purposely pass judgment on a matter up to that time under dispute,
it is obvious that that matter, according to the mind and will of
the same Pontiffs, cannot be any longer considered a question
open to discussion among theologians. 57
To the Holy Father teaching authentically or officially in
his capacity as supreme pastor and teacher, an assent is due,
but it is not the assent of faith. Rather, the motive of this
type of assent is the religious motive of obedience due to those
who have been given authority in the Church of God. 58 It is
an assent of obedience within the supernatural community of
faith in which this authoritative ministry of the Word resides
for the promotion of truth and love. Indirectly, this response
must be based on one's supernatural faith in the credentials
regard to the faith, which he makes known in a judgment, than by the opinion of
men wise in the Scriptures, no matter who they are"; Summa Theol. II-II, q. 10,
a. 12: "Custom in the Church has very great authority and ought to be jealously
observed in all things, since the very doctrine of Catholic doctors derives its
authority from the Church. Hence we should abide by the authority of the
Church rather than by that of an Augustine or a Jerome or any doctor whatever."
66 Cf. St. Irenaeus, Zoe. cit.
57 Ency. Humani Generis, n. 20, 12 Aug. 1950.
68 This assent cannot be legitimately refused on the grounds that the Holy Father
fails to observe the principles of collegiality. Lumen Gentium (n. 22; also the
Prefatory Note of Explanation, nn. 3, 4) explicitly teaches that collegiality does
not restrict the full, supreme, direct and personal power of the pope to be expressed
freely, personally or collegially, as he chooses.

700

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of the Church, and, in particular, of the Holy Father to teach
authoritatively in the name of Christ.
Vatican II explains that " the Roman Pontiff and the
bishops, in view of their office and the importance of the
matter, strive painstakingly and by appropriate means to inquire properly into that revelation and to give apt expression
to its contents." 59 Thus the Holy Father consults with both
hierarchy and laity, with experts and with the experienced;
he receives materials from the current governing bodies in the
Church, and he sets up special commissions in order to appraise
himself of the broad spectrum of opinions on a matter, to
furnish information and to supply motivations. But the decision rests with him alone as Vicar of Christ and not as an
official registrant of majority vote. It is a truism that the
Church's teaching authority is a magisterium of authority and
not precisely a scientific magisterium. The theological value
of a papal pronouncement or decisive judgment in a controverted question is not related to the extent of the support it
receives or the force of the contributing arguments it marshals
or the references it cites, although its psychological impact in
this respect indeed varies.
When the popes refer to the natural law, they do not affirm
any particular theory regarding its interpretation; on the other
hand, they do teach its existence as a divine law written in the
hearts of men to dispose them to acts whereby they achieve
their perfection, and they unfold certain principles contained in
it, which are essentially though not in so many words contained
in Scripture. So-called natural law arguments which may be
mustered in a document in support of a teaching are not
considered to be all-inclusive or taxative or tellingly cogent. In
some areas of considerable complexity or in others of great
delicacy and intimacy which affect the practical lives of men,
it is questionable whether the human mind can be convinced
or sufficiently satisfied by arguments brought forward on their
own strength or by unaided reason.
59

Lumen Gentium, n. 25.

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701

Papal pronouncements by no means foreclose further discussion or debate, study or research or penetration on even the
very reasons and arguments put forward. They do, however,
require the assent of those who believe in the Church's magisterium with the consequence that they do not deny or subvert
the specific points affirmed or condemned by the magisterium.
2. Criteria for judging the ordinary papal magist'erium

In judging the weight of the teachings of the ordinary magisterium of the pope, it must be kept in mind that these teachings are of unequal value and authority, no one to be considered in isolation as all informative, e. g., the social encyclicals
or those on Christian democracy do not deal with human goods
as basic and absolute as the very beginnings of life itself. The
position of the pope's teaching on a point should be discerned
from the ensemble of his affirmations or statements. Some useful criteria for this evaluation, in accordance with Lumen
Gentium (n. 25) , are:
a) the will of the pope himself. The pope's will is decisive
in determining the extent to which he intends to engage his
authority as Vicar of Christ (when he wishes to do so at all),
the weight attaching to his teaching, and the form of expression or address to be employed, as noted above. He may, for
example, wish to close off all debate or simply wish to orientate
minds toward a solution that needs further precision and
development.
b) the anticipated effect of a teaching on the whole Church.
The Holy Father is assisted in his office by the Holy Spirit
for the purpose of " confirming his brethren " and preserving
unblemished the faith of the Church. He may address the
whole Church directly or choose a small group, e. g., physicians
or scientists or pilgrims, to be the vehicle whereby his message
as teacher and pastor is brought to the attention and compliance of the Church at large. Notwithstanding the absence
of an ex cathedra character, it is difficult to see how, by reason
of its anticipated repercussion, this message lacks a special
assistance of the Holy Spirit; otherwise, hesitation and doubt

NICHOLAS

HALLIGAN

could from time to time be engendered in the faith of all
believers.
c) continuity and coherence of papal teaching. This is a
most important criterion or norm, doctrinal continuity. Its
verification is obvious when the pope materially repeats the
same truth taught by his predecessors or as held in the
Church, a point which the pontiffs have often been at pains to
make. Failing this, and amid the variety of papal expressions
and the occasions which have evoked them, since it is a living
and on-going magisterium, what can be examined is the internal coherence of a doctrinal development with past statements or teaching. Some point of universal importance and
enduring significance is often contained in even the most " ad
hoc" of papal documents. A solid and harmonious body of
doctrinal teaching may emerge into view in its coherence and
continuity only after a period of time and a number of magisterial expressions. For all its technical aspects, authority in
the Church, including the magisterium, is fundamentally
pastoral. 60
3. Dissent from the teaching of the Magisterium

The criterion of continuity and coherence is not weakened
but rather confirmed by more or less dissent of conscience from
an official teaching. This teaching has thus made its impact
•• "You know that authority in the Church and hence religion is not something
that has been established by itself. Instead it has been instituted by Christ. It is
his thought, it is his will, it is his work. And so when we are in the presence of the
authority of the Church, we ought to feel as if we were in the presence of Christ.
' He who hears you, hears me,' is what the Lord said. Any time someone tries to
attack this institution, the apostolic power of sanctifying and of teaching and ruling,
he is striking out against the word, the plan, the love of Christ. Yes, at the love
of Christ too. For authority in the Church is an instrument of his charity, even
when it has to be strong and severe in order to be effective. Authority in the
Church is a vehicle for divine gifts, a service of charity for the sake of charityestablished, in fact, to put the gl'eat commandment of love into practice in behalf
of salvation. . . . It is a pastoral function, directed to the guidance and prosperity
of others ... it is instituted specifically in order to confer upon them dignity and
spiritual validity, to guarantee them the light of divine truth, to distribute to them
the gifts of the Spirit and to assure them of the right path toward God." (Paul VI,
AUocution, 6 Nov. 1964)

THE CHURCH AS TEACHER

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felt if not always accepted. Conscience is not itself a teacher
of doctrine but rather a practical rule or dictate of what is to
be done here and now in view of sound knowledge at hand. 61
Decisions of conscience are necessarily incomplete and partial
because of limiting circumstances, time, environment, with the
result that they can be one-sided and subject to error and
prejudice. A critical examination and continuing formation of
conscience are always indispensable.
The conscience of the Catholic does not differ from that of
his fellow man as far as the structure and functioning of
conscience in his moral living are concerned. However, the
life of a Catholic is influenced primarily by his faith which
unfolds for him the supreme values and goals of restored
human dignity and evokes from him a total commitment, a
different, higher, and indeed more difficult orientation of his
whole life. Unlike others who profess Christianity the Catholic
believes that the purity or apostolicity of his faith is assured
and confirmed by the magisterium of the Church. Consequently, as Vatican II clearly taught, 62 a Catholic cannot form his
Cf. Paul VI, Allocution on Conscience,
Feb. 1969.
In the depths of his conscience, man detects a law which he does not impose
on himself, but which holds him to obedience. Always summoning him to love
good and avoid evil, the voice of conscience can when necessary speak to his
heart more specifically: do this, shun that. For man has in his heart a law
written by God. To obey it is the very dignity of man; according to it he will
be judged. Conscience is the most secret core and sanctuary of man. There he
is alone with God, whose voice echoes in his depths. In a wonderful manner conscience reveals that law which is fulfilled by love of God and neighbor. In
fidelity to conscience Christians are joined together with the rest of men in the
search for truth, and for the genuine solution to their numerous problems which
arise in the life of individuals and from social relationships. Hence the more that
a correct conscience holds sway, the more persons and groups turn aside from
blind choice and strive to be guided by objective norms of morality. Conscience
frequently errs from invincible ignorance without losing its dignity. The same
cannot be said of the man who cares but little for truth and goodness, or of a
conscience which by degrees grows practically sightless as a result of habitual sin.''
(Gaudium et Spes, n. 16)
" In the formation of their consciences, the Christian faithful ought carefully to
attend to the sacred and certain doctrine of the Church. The Church is, by the
will of Christ, the teacher of truth. It is her duty to give utterance to, and
authoritatively to teach, that truth which is Christ himself, and also to declare
61

62 "

704

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HALLIGAN

conscience, arrive at practical moral judgments about his concrete actions, no matter who he is or what his position or
situation in life may be, without paying deep attention to the
authoritative voice of the magisterium which interprets the
law of God.
The Church has always fostered and protected a properly
understood freedom of conscience. But liberty of conscience
is not a law unto itself. A long time ago, in his encyclical
condemning the Fascist persecution, Pius XI said:
We are happy to fight the good fight for liberty of consciences,
not ... for liberty of conscience, which is an equivocal expression,
and one too often abused to signify absolute independence of conscience, an absurd thing in a soul created and redeemed by God.63
Twenty years later Pius XII reminded the faithful in a radio
message:
Both of these, the law written in the heart or the natural law, and
the truths and precepts of supernatural revelation, Jesus our
Redeemer remitted into the hands of the Church as the moral
treasure of humanity, for her to preach to every creature, expound
and transmit intact and preserve from every contamination of error
from one generation to the next. Ag.ainst this teaching, unchallenged for long centuries, there arise today difficulties and objections
which must be explained. Of dogmatic teaching, as also of Catholic
moral doctrine, it is proposed to make some sort of radical revision
to deduce a new order of values. The first step, or better, the
first blow aimed at the edifice of the Christian moral norms, would
be to detach it-or so it is pretended-from the strict and oppressive surveillance of the authority of the Church, so that, liberated
from the sophistical subtleties of the casuistic method, morality
would be brought back to its original form and to the determination
of the individual conscience. Everyone can see to what dreadful
consequences such an overthrow of the very foundation of education would lead.64
Aware of these very words, the Council in the introductory
lines to its Decree on Religious Freedom reaffirmed:
and confirm by her authority those principles of the moral order which have their
origin in human nature itself." (Dignitatis humanaeJ, n. 14)
63 Pius XI, ency. Non Abbiamo Bisogno, !'!9 June 1931.
•• Pius XII, On the Education of the Christian Conscience, !'!3 March 195!'!.

THE CHURCH AS TEACHER

705

On their part, all men are bound to seek the truth, especially in
what concerns God and his Church, and to embrace the truth they
come to know, and to hold fast to it ... it is upon the human
conscience that these obligations fall and exert their binding force.
The truth cannot impose itself except by virtue of its own truth, as
it makes its entrance into the mind at once quietly and with
power. Religious freedom, in turn, which men demand as necessary
to fulfil their duty to worship God, has to do with immunity from
coercion in civil society. Therefore, it leaves untouched traditional
Catholic doctrine on the moral duty of men and societies toward
the true religion and toward the one Church of Christ. 65

Thus, every authentic or official teaching of pope (or local
bishop) binds in conscience by virtue of its authority and not
(by supposition) of its infallibility. Authority determines the
obligation to give assent or obedience, infallibility only determines the kind of assent or adherence. As a matter of fact,
infallibility is not of itself precluded from every non-ex cathedra
pronouncement simply because it is in a non-ex cathedra mode,
e. g., from the Council's teaching on episcopal collegiality; it
merely cannot be verified.
Yet, each one must make it his own personal act of judgment
as to whether the Holy Father (or bishop) is speaking in his
capacity as authentic teacher and within the competency of
his teaching office. An individual who feels competent enough
to judge, on seriously grave and solidly objective reasons, that
some doctrinal statement of the Holy Father (or local bishop)
is inadequate or false, may suspend his interior assent and
merely give external obedience. If he wishes, he may and
perhaps ought privately to relay his objections or reasons to
the consideration of the Holy See, being prepared to accept in
the matter any subsequent decision, realizing that as a human
he is liable to be mistaken.
The Catholic scholar indeed must have liberty of personal
intellectual inquiry without arbitrary interference or dictation.66 It is presumed that he is a responsible professional
65 Dignitatis humanae, n. 1; cf. also Paul VI, Allocution,
April 1968; Allocution
on Conscience
Feb. 1969.
66 The following evaluation is both relevant here and admonitory:
" The climate

706

NICHOLAS HALLIGAN

person and a committed Catholic. And thus the intellectual
must be free to propose and to discuss theories and opinions,
with solicitude for those less expert, when there is no question
of authentically declared truths. 67 A Catholic, who accepts the
Church's moral teaching as binding only if he himself sees
it to be so independently of the fact that the Church teaches
it, is regarding the pope as merely one more advisor among
many and ignores his authority assigned by Christ. In good
conscience he cannot choose which of the Church's moral
teachings he will accept; he cannot be without fault in violating
a clear and certain law which does not allow of exceptions.
Freedom of the sons of God radically depends on adherence to
the truth. The Catholic, both simple faithful and renowned
in the Church at the time was excessively authoritarian, that is, the role of
authority on all levels was not sufficiently complemented by the role of intelligence,
especially as it evaluates the data of research. Scientific intelligence lagged badly
behind pastoral and practical intelligence. When this occurs, the good is often
thrown out with the bad. I cannot, and do not want, to believe as a Catholic that
the Church is simply a research society. It should be a hierarchically structured
assembly of believers where research is furthered to the fullest possible extent compatible with what is certainly known as essential to revelation. Despite the risks
and confusion we experience today, and despite a clear knowledge of the results
of walking down the blind alley of ulta-liberal theology-a fact which Protestants
who have been down that path warn us about--still a failure of nerve in our search
would simply lead us again down another blind alley, along which we have already
walked. The antimodernist crusade led to a freezing of the spirit, whereas modern
ultra-liberal theology, we feel, leads to a vaporization of Christianity. The lesson
of the Modernist period is that we must walk neither of the two blind alleys, but
the clear middle road." (John J. Heaney, S. J., The Modtmtiat Crisis: von Hugel
(Washington-Cleveland: Corpus Books, 1968], p. 208) For the necessary freedom
Paul VI, Allocation to the
of the theologian, cf. also Congar, op. cit., pp.
International Theological Commission, Oct. 6, 1969.
· 67 ". , • a man is not to be forced to act in a manner contrary to his conscience.
This is certainly true in any conflict between a practical dictate of conscience and
a legislative or administrative decree of any superior. However, when it is a
question of the Pope's teaching, as distinct from a decree or order, on a matter
bound up with life and salvation, the question of conscience and its formation takes
on quite different perspectives." (Pastoral Letter, Human Life m Our Day, U. S.
Bishops' Co-nference, Nov. 15, 1968).
" He who thinks that it is permissible for him to deviate in his private theory
and practice from a non-infallible teaching of the Church authority-a case is
conceivable in theory-must question his conscience soberly and critically whether
he .can justify this before God." (Statement of the German Hierarchy, 11 Sept.
1968)

THE CHURCH AS TEACHER

707

scholar, knows that he has available to him another and
singularly reliable source of truth. Responsible freedom acknowledges and respects the legitimate requirements of authority. Paul VI said:
Take great care to show the intimate connection and harmony
existing between the teachings of the Council and those given by
the Church's magisterium in the past. May Christians not be
misled by the contrary impression that some things which were
once declared intrinsically wrong by the Church are today permitted by the teachings of the Council. Who can fail to see the
moral relativism that can arise from such a state of mind, and
how the entire teachings of the Church are then brought into
question? For that reason, more than ever before it is necessary
to follow the living magisterium of the Church with complete
fidelity and with a docile and humble submission of mind. As the
proximate and universal norm of truth for every theologian, the
Church's magisterinm is not to be considered an unjust drawback:
on scientific investigation but rather as the necessary condition
for true progress in sacred doctrinc. 68

4. Extent of the prophetic witness of the M agisterium

We believe God's word on his authority as revealing it to
us. However, because his revelation is in itself a mystery, its
truth content is beyond our comprehension; we can give our
assent only when moved by grace. Yet, " the act of faith is
of its nature a free act. Man, redeemed by Christ the Savior,
and through Christ Jesus called to be God's adopted son, cannot give his adherence to God revealing himself unless the
Father draw him to offer to God the reasonable and free submission of faith," 69 although it remains within our power to
reject God's grace. By faith we believe all that God has
revealed and that Christ has bequeathed, without qualification
or selection. It is an absolutely irretractable assent and
embraces in its object the Church with its teaching authority
and its charism of infallibility. When the act of faith is made
within the community of believers through the mediation of
the special ministry authorized to witness to and define what
68 Paul VI, Allocution to the Redempt01'ists, e4 Sept. 1967.
•• Dignitatis humanae, n. 10.

708

NICHOLAS

HALLIGAN

is to be believed by the whole Church in the exercise of its
extra-ordinary or ordinary and universal teaching office, this is
called an act of divine and Catholic faith. 70
The " doctrine concerning faith and morals to be held by
the universal Church " 71 necessarily includes whatever concerns the truth of the religious relationship of men with God
in Christ and whatever pertains to the promotion of the
Christian religion and the eternal salvation of men. This
involves, first, whatever has been revealed by God either
explicitly or implicitly, promulgated by the Apostles and preserved in Scripture and in living tradition; second, other
truths not revealed in themselves but which are so intimately
connected with revelation that their profession and eventually
their definition by the magisterium (or the condemnation of
errors that contradict them) are necessary for the integral conservation of the deposit of faith which is the mission of the
Church. 72 In this category are certain facts, e. g., that particular errors opposed to revelation are contained in specific
writings, or certain truths, e. g., that the human mind is capable
of knowing truth. Pius XII clearly included the natural law in
the secondary object of faith:
The power of the Church is not bound by the limits of " matters
strictly religious," as they say, but the whole matter of the natural
law, its foundation, its interpretation, its application, so far as their
moral aspects extend, are within the Church's power. For the
keeping of the natural law, by God's appointment, has reference to
the road by which man has to approach his supernatural end. But,
on this road, the Church is man's guide in what concerns his
supreme end. 73

V. Criteria of the Non-infallible Witness
The assent which is given to the authentically and officially
but not infallibly proposed truths is the religious submission of
mind and will/ 4 religiously motivated by obedience and inVatican I, DS SOli. Cf. note
above in the text.
DS 3074.
72 Cf. DS
3018,
3045.
78 Pius XII, AUocution,
Nov. 1954.
74 Lumen Gentium, n.

70

11

THE CHURCH AS TEACHER

709

directly related to supernatural faith in the credentials of the
Church and its magisterium. The faithful are to adhere to the
authentic teaching of the pope in accordance with the " manifest mind and will " of the pope in expressing his judgment.
" His mind and will in the matter may be known chiefly either
from the character of the documents, from his frequent repetition of the same doctrine, or from his manner of speaking." 75
In order to evaluate the authentic, i.e., the official but noninfallible teaching of the pope, such as in the encyclical
Humanae Vitae, we will seek to exemplify the statement of
Lumen Gentium by noting the doctrinal continuity and coherence of the teaching contained in Hunwnae Vitae, the expressed
will of the pope himself, and the expected repercussion on the
whole Church. Although many points in regard to doctrine in
the encyclical could be considered, e. g., the nature and sublimity of Christian marriage, conjugal love, etc., we will single
out only the two most agitated and controverted at the present
time.
1. Doctrinal continuity and coherence

a) In the matter of conjugal chastity and respect for the
processes of procreation and the dignity of human life, we can
go back in papal documentation to 1796 when Innocent XI
condemned as not without fault the use of marital coition for
the sake of pleasure alone. Howev,er, more frequently in
modern times the Holy See has responded to questions about
and reacted to abuses in conjugal chastity of one kind or
another from 1816 onward. During the period 1816-1930 there
were 19 statements emanating from the Sacred Penitentiary or
the former Holy Office. In all of them we find an abiding
concern to safeguard the conjugal act and its openness to life.
The great turning point in the future development of the
Church's teaching was the encyclical Casti connubii of Pius XI
(1930) which formulated the principle according to which
" any use whatever of marriage, in which, the act is deliberately
"Ibid.

710

NICHOLAS

HALLIGAN

deprived of its natural procreative power, is an offense against
the law of God and of nature, and those who shall have committed such are guilty of grave fault."
From Pius XI onward the condemnation of contraceptive
means of birth regulation is unanimous: bishops, theological
teachers, Catholic writers, and, in pastoral practice, the insistence on the confessor's duty to question and to instruct penitents who are in good faith. With the discovery and availablity
of the anovulant pill in particular, the problem of contraception, practice and theory, intensified. The purpose of Humanae
Vitae has been to terminate the controversy as far as the
statement of principles is concerned.
Pius XII several times reiterated the teaching of his predecessor. He called it
the basic law of the conjugal act and conjugal relations [and said
that] no "indication" or need can change an action that is
intrinsically immoral into an action that is moral and lawful. This
prescription holds good today as much as it did yesterday. It will
hold tomorrow and always, for it is not a mere precept of human
right but the expression of a natural and divine law. 76

Vatican II was by no means silent on this point, even though
Paul VI, with the agreement of the Council, judged it better
to reserve any further judgment on this question until more
reflection upon its many facets could be made, since " at the
Council it was generally recognized that a question of such
delicacy could not properly be debated in that vast assembly." 77 By thus remitting this particular question for further
solution and final judgment of the pope, the Council was also
reaffirming the latter's supreme, personal magisterium given
to him by Christ.
Therefore, when there is a question of harmonizing conjugal love
with the responsible transmision of life, the moral aspect of a
procedure does not depend solely on sincere intentions or on an
evaluation of motives. It must be determined by objective standards. These, based on the nature of the human person and his
76
77

Pius XII, Address to Midwives, nn. 24-25, 29 Oct. 1951.
Statement of the English-Wdsh Hierarchy, cf. Tablet, 28 Sept. 1968.

THE CHURCH AS TEACHER

711

acts, preserve the full sense of mutual self-giving and human
procreation in the context of true love. Such a goal cannot be
achieved unless the virtue of conjugal chastity is sincerely practiced.
Relying on these principles, sons of the Church may not undertake
methods of regulating procreation which are found blameworthy
by the teaching authority of the Church in its unfolding of the
divine law. 78

The Council here in a famous footnote 14 explicitly cited Pius
XI's Casti connubii, Pius XU's Address to Midwives, and
Paul VI's Address to the Cardinals 79 in which he stated that
the question was under study. Therefore, the Council noted
that, this being the doctrine of the magisterium, it did not
wish immediately to propose concrete solutions. Thus the
Council both supplied the background and enunciated principles which inspire Humanae Vitae. This is confirmed by the
history of the progress of the drafts that led to the final
accepted and promulgated passages of Gaudium et Spes. 80
Later on Paul VI stated that " the thought and the norm of
the Church have not changed," and, although it was studying
and reflecting on the question, " the magisterium," was not
" in a state of doubt." 81
This, then, is the first point of doctrinal continuity which
Humanae Vitae reflects and explicitly states,S 2 namely, the
openness of the conjugal act to procreation and the rejection
as immoral of any deliberate and direct violation of it. Specific
Gaudium et Spes, n. 51.
Paul VI, Address to the Cardinals, Q3 June 1964.
80 " The
parents themselves should ultimately make this judgment [on the
regulation of births], in the sight of God. But in their manner of acting, spouses
should be aware that they cannot proceed arbitrarily. They must always be
governed according to a conscience dutifully conformed to the divine law itself,
and should be submissive towards the Church's teaching office, which authentically
interprets the law in the light of the Gospel. That divine law reveals and protects
the integral meaning of conjugal love, and impels it toward a truly human
fulfilment." (Gaudium et Spes, n. 50)
" But the Church issues a reminder that a true contradiction cannot exist between
the divine laws pertaining to the transmission of life and those pertaining to the
fostering of authentic conjugal love." (Ibid., n. 51)
81 Paul VI, Address to Italian Obstet?·icians and Gynecologists. Q9 Oct. 1966.
•• Humanae Vitae, n. 4.
78

79

NICHOLAS

HALLIGAN

points in which the teaching of Humana:e Vitae reaffirms
previous pronouncements on marital relations can be detailed.
" Marriage and conjugal love are by their very natures
ordained toward the begetting and education of children." 83
This divinely willed order, always to be respected in the processes involving the conjugal act, must not be deliberately
obstructed by positive human interference in any way. Thus
every action which, either in anticipation of the conjugal act, or in
its accomplishment, or in the development of its natural consequences, proposes, whether as an end or as a means, to render
procreation impossible 84

is morally wrong. Moreover,
to justify conjugal acts made intentionally infecund, one cannot
invoke as valid reasons of the lesser evil, or the fact that such acts
would constitute a whole together with the fecund acts already
performed or to follow later, and hence would share in one and the
same goodness ... it is not lawful, even for the gravest reasons,
to do evil so that good may follow therefrom.s'' Responsible parenthood also and above all implies a more profound relationship to the
objective moral order established by God, of which a right conscience is the faithful interpreter .... In the task of transmitting
life, therefore, they are not free to proceed completely at will, as
if they could determine in a wholly autonomous way the honest
path to follow; but they must conform their activity to the
creative intention of God, expressed in the very nature of marriage
and of its acts, and manifested by the constant teaching of the
Church. 86

The method of employing the infertile period,-a method to
be perfected and secured by medical and scientific experts, 87" founded on observance of natural rhythms," 88 whereby the
natural consequence of the marital act is not obstructed, i. e.,
avoided rather than prevented, is for valid reasons lawful.
Encouraged in the regulation of births is self-discipline which
avoids selfishness and fosters love in a spirit of sacrifice.89
Moreover,
83 Ibid., n. 9.
•• Ibid., n. 14.
BG Ibid.
•• Ibid., n. 10.

87 Ibid., n. 11.
•• Ibid., n. 16.
•• Ibid., n. 21.

THE CHURCH AS TEACHER

713

the Church does not at all consider unlawful the use of those
therapeutic means truly necessary to cure diseases of the organism,
even if an impediment to procreation, which may be foreseen,
should result therefrom provided such impediment is not, for whatever motive, directly willed. 90

The Church's condemnation is strongly repeated regarding
direct abortion, deliberate and carried out even for therapeutic
reasons, and direct sterilization, whether temporary or permanent, of the hubsand or of the wife.91
b) The competence of the Church to teach authoritatively
with regard to the natural law is reaffirmed in Humanae
Vitae. 92 This was explicitly taught by Pius XII in the allocuin which he also cited the words of his
tion already
predecessor, St. Pius X:
Whatever a Christian may do, even in the affairs of this world,
he may not ignore the supernatural ... but all his actions, insofar
as they are morally good or evil, that is agree with or are in
opposition to divine and natural law, are subject to the judgment
and authority of the Church. 94

John XXIII made the same point in his encyclical Mater et
Magistra, 95 which was later restated during the Council by
Paul VI:
The Church must also affirm hers [her area of competence], that
is to say, that of the law of God, which she interprets, teaches,
promotes and defends; and the Church will have to proclaim this
law in the light of scientific, social, psychological truths which
have lately had new and very extensive studies and documentation.98
•• Ibid., n. 15.
91 Ibid., n. 14.
•• Ibid., n. 4 .

•• cr. footnote 78 above.
•• Pius X, Singulari quadam, 24 Sept. 1912.
•• " For it is the Church's right and duty not only to safeguard principles
relating to the integrity of religion and morals, but also to pronounce authoritatively when it is a matter of putting these principles into effect." (John XXIII,
ency. Mater et Magistra, n. 289, 15 May 1961) Cf. also ency. Pacem in Te1'1'is,
n. 160, 11 April 1968.
•• Paul VI, Address, 28 June 1964.

714

NICHOLAS

HALLIGAN

The second point of doctrinal continuity to be. stressed is the
reaffirmed competence of the magisterium to interpret the
moral order authentically, in its natural expression as well as
in its evangelical revelation.
The will of the pope himself. In judging the extent to
which the pope intends to engage his authority as Vicar of
Christ, that is, the degree of weight he wishes to attach to
any of his teachings, we should consider the two major modern
encyclicals on marriage. The form of the encyclical Ca$ti
connubii certainly expressed the intention of Pius XI to exercise his ordinary magisterium: " The Catholic Church, to
whom God has entrusted the defense of the integrity and
purity of morals, . . . raises her voice in token of divine ambassadorship and through Our mouth proclaims anew .... "
Paul VI likewise in H umanae Vitae clearly calls upon his
authority as supreme Pastor and Teacher: "We now intend,
by virtue of the mandate entrusted to Us by Christ, to give Our
reply to these new questions." 97 Moreover, there is basis for
the opinion that the content of these encyclicals, as distinguished from their fmm of papal expression, is the ordinary
teaching of the Church. Paul VI did not present his doctrine
as his own personal teaching or even as that of his predecessors
but as the constant teaching of the Church, as the teaching of
Christ Himself.
3. Expected repercussion in the whole Church. For the
past century and a half questions of conjugal morality have
more and more activated the moral direction and guidance of
the Church. The judgments of the Holy See have progressively
been sought and looked to by pastors and faithful, and those
outside the Church have shown a special interest in the
Church's moral teaching, even when they have been unsympathetic. All the popes mentioned have addressed themselves to
the whole Church, and their teaching has made its definite
impact upon the people. Pius XI in Casti connubii addressed
the whole Church through its pastors, the bishops; Pius XII
91

Humane Vitae, n. 6.

THE CHURCH AS TEACHER

715

chose to speak to the whole Church through a series of talks
to particular and significant groups, such as midwives, obstetricians and gynecologists, hematologists, etc. Paul VI, on his
part, addressed his solemn words in Humanae Vitae not only to
pastors and faithful but " to all men of good will." The adverse
reaction among some suggests an admission of an authoritative
pronouncement and of official opposition to their own opinions.
Thus the character of the moral matter involved in the
teaching of Humanae Vitae makes its pertinence to the whole
Church, and in fact to all men, very great indeed, since it
deals with the intimate life of the majority of couples. It is a
doctrinal teaching regarding the nature of fertility and the
morality of certain practices; it is not merely a prudent directive, not a statement about what is morally safe, but a certain
interpretation of actual fact. This was subsequently made
clear by Paul VI himself:
It is not merely the declaration of a negative moral law that
excludes every action aimed at rendering procreation impossible,
but it is above all the positive presentation of conjugal morality
concerning its mision of love and fecundity. . . . It clarifies a
fundamental chapter in the personal, married, family and social
life of man, but it is not a complete treatment regarding man in
this sphere of marriage, of the family and of moral probity ....
We sought to interpret the divine law that flows from the very
nature of genuine love, from the essential structure of married life,
from the personal dignity of husband and wife, from their mission
of service to life, as well as fmm the sanctity of Christian
marriage. 98

The ruling that We have affirmed is not Our own. It originates
from the very stnrcture of life and love and human dignity, and
thus is derived from the law of God .... It is just a moral lawdemanding and austere-whit:h is still binding today. It forbids the
use of means which are directed against procreation and which
thus degrade the purity of love and the purpose of married life.
The duty of Our office and pastoral charity have led Us to speak
out.99
•• Paul VI, Allocution, 81 July 1968. "And we wonder, too, if among the reasons
for the objections made to the Encyclical Humanae Vitae, there is not also a secret
wish to abolish a difficult law in order to make life easier. (But if it is a law
founded in God, how can this be done?)" (Allocution, 25 June 1969).
•• Paul VI, Allocution, 4 Aug. 1968.

716

NICHOLAS

HALLIGAN

Conclusion: Crisis of the Prophetic Function in the Church
The post-Conciliar crisis in the Church, symbolized in the
reactions to Humanae Vitae, is a crisis of faith in the prophetic
function of the Church, in its capacity as a doctrinal guide for
the People of God. The crisis must reduce ultimately to the
attitude of one's faith and to the motivation of one's love. As
Paul VI noted: "It is our duty to love our neighbor in whatever guise he may appear . . . we should remember that the
Church is also our neighbor. And she is our neighbor par
excellence-composed as she is of our' brethren in faith' (Gal.
6: 10) -to whom we owe an active preferential love." 100
If there is genuine belief that the Church is specially assisted
by the Spirit of Truth in her prophetic function at all times,
and if there is an abiding and consuming love of this pastoral
charism, then every effort will be made by the Catholic,
scholar and non-scholar, to understand the teaching of the
magisterium, to abide by it, to promote it and expound it, to
aid it, to examine one's own difficulties and to reflect upon the
objections of others in the light of enlightened faith and of
sound tradition. This is the note sounded by the bishops of
France at the close of the Year of Faith:
Such is the mystery of faith: Jesus Christ who has risen again is
the Lord, the Savior, the Word, the beginning and the end, always
present in his Church, by the Spirit of Pentecost, always present
with the Father to intercede on our behalf. It is within the Church
that one must believe and live in the faith. . . . Faith is a personal
adherence to Jesus Christ encountered in the Church .... From
Jesus Christ this Church has received the charge, furnished with
indefectible promises, of teaching Jesus Christ. By means of the
voice of the successors of the Apostles, by its liturgy which gathers
us together, by the Eucharist which is the food of faith, the Church
does not cease from proclaiming Jesus Christ. To the multitude of
men it offers this service Df leading them to encounter Jesus.
The Church would not have this power of making Jesus Christ
present in the midst of men and of giving him to the faith which
requires him if it had not received this mission of doing this. This
is why we are resolutely attached to our Church, for we know that
everything which lessens or weakens our trust in the Church
100

Paul VI, Allocution, 18 Sept. 1968.

THE CHURCH AS TEACHER

717

constitutes a threat for faith in Jesus Christ. Some claim to
judge the Church or let it be put on trial as if it were a simple
human society, when it is, in the Spirit, the beginning and seed of
the kingdom of God. Others, too, eager for visible success and
ascertainable results, do not understand its prudence and grow
angry at not seeing it conform fully to passing fashions. Others
again upbraid it for not being obliging enough toward their request
for a routine that will provide them with a sense of security, and
accuse it of modifying its teaching and worship. These are examples of lack of trust in the Church which risk injuring faith in
Jesus Christ. It he whom one listens to when one listens to the
Church, it is he \Yhom one follows when one follows the Church:
"He who hears you, hears me." (Lk. 1: 16)
It is to Jesus Christ that we must always come back, making
our own Peter's reaction of faith the evening of the discourse at
Capernaum: "Lord, to whom shall we go? You have the word of
eternal life; and we have believed and have come to know that you
are the holy one of God." (Jn. 6: 168-69) 101

Reflecting upon the mystery of the Church in its prophetic
mission, the encyclical Humanae Vitae is seen as the latest in
long series of prophetic witnesses illuminating the path set
forth by Christ and offering to married couples the right way,
evangelical truth, and the pledge of eternal life.
NICHOLAS HALLIGAN,

Dominican House of Studies
Washington, D. C.

101

Cf. Herder CMTespondence,Sept. 1968, 277-278.

0. P.

EVOLUTION AFTER DARWIN

I

N A PREVIOUS article, "Darwin on Evolution: A ReEstimation," 1 we sketched some o:f the steps of Darwin's
thought and left the reader to ponder the philosophical
and theological implications of his theorizing. In our exposition we saw several things. Darwin was faced with the problem
of fitting changes in the biosphere into the same pattern as
changes in the geophysical universe. At base this meant unifying all developments in animate nature via some sort of scheme
that would allow for a series of gradual changes in which each
past and present aspect of the whole would condition every
future state of organic being. Negatively speaking, it meant
casting out any kind of revolutionary doctrine such as special
creations for each new entity or state of being. In order to
accomplish this, Darwin found it necessary to declare himself,
without ever fully realizing what he was about, on the
epistemological problem of universals. He also had to face the
lack of concrete evidence for his doctrine. The main problem
here was solved by declaring the paleontological record to be
highly imperfect. After hearing this latter statement repeated
so often for more than a hundred years, it is not surprising
that most modern intellectuals, both in and outside of biology,
have accepted it as a fact, thereby handing Darwin a victory
before the debate has even begun. Some little reflection, however, will show that the imperfection of the paleontological
record is a conclusion and not a fact to be taken as a premise.
Indeed, it may well be that the record is perfect, i. e., complete
as it stands. If this is the case, then the multitudes of intermediaries necessitated by the special theory of natural selection
have not disappeared for one reason or another. Rather, they
were never there in the first place. This would be tantamount
1

THE TnoMIST, XXXIII, 3 (July 1969), pp. 456-496.

718

EVOLUTION

AFTER DARWIN

719

to denying that Darwin's position has been scientifically verified.
Let us now continue with a brief survey of post- Darwinian
thought on evolution, some aspects of which we have already
had occasion to mention. The one outstanding development
has been the new science of genetics. Gregor Mendel (18:t21884) is usually regarded as the "father" of genetics. Mendel
was an Augustinian monk who spent most of his life in a
monastery in Bruenn in Czechoslovakia. There in the quiet
monastery garden he carried out a long series of experiments
designed to test the way in which various characteristics are
inherited. Previous work on breeding had not been very precise,
and Mendel thought he would correct the situation by experimenting with only one characteristic at a time. His subject
was the common pea plant.
The main results of his work are the following. First, he
discovered that it is possible to inherit just one characteristic
at a time, i. e., that inherited characteristics appear to be
unitary or atomic in nature in relation to other factors. Also,
some characteristics appear more often (dominants) than
others (recessives). Furthermore, when hybrids bearing the
inheritable factors for both members of a pair of traits are
interbred, both traits appear in the new offspring in a predictable proportion.
Mendel's work appeared in various articles in 1866 and in
correspondence with the German botanist Naegeli, but no one
recognized its significance. In 1900, however, the work was
rediscovered by several biologists, the most important one being the Dutch botanist Hugo de Vries (1848-1985) . De Vries
continued Mendel's experiments using the evening primrose
and published his preliminary results a short time later. 2 He
proposed the view that new varieties arise suddenly, by quick
changes or "mutations." His work attracted wide interest in
the scientific community. Others began to experiment in the
same fashion. Scientists, such as R. R. Gates, Shull, MacDougal, Frank, and Wasmann, soon added many more cases of
• See his Die. Mutationstheorie

(Leipzig, 1901).

720

F. F. CENTORE

mutations to de Vries' list. Perhaps the most noteworthy set
of experiments on the subject was begun by T. H. Morgan in
1909 and is still continuing today. These experiments concern
the famous fruit fly (Drosophila) which, because of its quick
breeding and many relatively stable (under normal circumstances) characteristics, has made it an ideal subject to work
with. Some of the more striking examples of mutations are
the long-legged Ancon sheep, hornless cattle, tailless cats, dogs,
and poultry, hairless dogs," jappaned" peacocks, and albinism
in various creatures including man.
The exact manner in which the various inherited traits were
passed on was also under investigation. Through the application of the microscope to histology during the last century it
was found that present in both plant and animal cells are
relatively long fibers, definite in number for each species, called
chromosomes. The word itself literally means colored bodies
and comes from the fact that these parts of the cell become
deeply colored in the process of " staining " the cell so as to
have the various constituents of the cell show up better under
the microscope. It was at first thought that the chromosomes
carried the traits because of the close. parallelism between their
behavior and that of the inherited traits. Later, however, it
was found that the inherited traits were too numerous to be
identified with the chromosomes. Other bodies, much smaller
than the chromosomes, but carried within them, were postulated and appeared to be numerous enough to carry the burden
of explanation. These bodies or factors are called genes, which
derives from a Greek word meaning production. The whole
aggregate of genes in the cells of an organism is called its
genotype. Genotype, then, means the whole collection of relatively permanent characteristics that a creature potentially
can possess. We must say potentially, because not all of the
traits which can show up in the outward, physical appearance
of the creature actually do. Some are recessive. As opposed to
the genotype, the usual, actual physical appearance of a creature is called its phenotype. 3
8

See M. Abercrombie et al., A Dictionary of Biology (revised ed., New York,

EVOLUTION

AFTER DARWIN

721

Genes are thought to be composed mainly of proteins and
deoxyribose-nucleic acid (DNA). In normal cell division the
genes are perfectly duplicated so that the genotypes of the new
cells, and consequently of the offspring, do not differ. However,
when a mutation occurs the changed gene structure is replicated and thus passed on to the offspring.
About 1914 a controversy arose among scientists over the
import of the recent work on mutations. Even though little
of what we know today about genes was known then, the
notion that sudden mutations rather than gradual selections by
nature were the main causes of evolution was not long in
presenting itself to some scientists. In the Darwinian system
changes had to take place via small inherited variations which
made one creature more efficient in surviving than another. A
geneticist, however, such as the well respected biologist W.
Bateson, could dispute the proposition that organisms would
progress by the accumulation of slight differences as merely
a continuation of eighteenth-century optimism. Some years
before, Bateson had published a book (Materials for the Study
of Variation, London, 1894) in which he concluded that large
variations and not small ones must be the main source of new
species. His work studied in detail the many abnormalities and
"monsters" that occur in nature. He saw ample reason to
hold that such sudden and great variations were as important
as little variations in the creation of new species. First of all,
because such" leaps" were not the summation of little changes.
Secondly, because they were random and did not appear to
have any correlation or orthogenetic tendency among themselves. Thirdly, because such mutations were usually degenerative. Old characteristics were lost rather than new ones gained.
Even when an apparently new trait appears it is more likely
the loss of some inhibiting factor rather than a really new
trait. This led Bateson to believe that all possible traits are
present in the changing organisms from the very start of the
evolutionary process.
1961), pp. 96 fl'. and E. A. Carlson, The Gene: A Critical History (Philadelphia,
1966).

F. F.

CENTORE

Other people, such as de Vries, were taking a less radical position. Why not have both mutations and natural selection?
Why not regard mutations and selection as two separate processes which can interact to produce a new variety of creature?
If it is objected that only mutations are inherited, the Darwinian can answer that this is certainly not the case. A tall man
and a short woman can have a tall son or an intermediate-sized
son without having to invoke mutations. The research of
Galton and others had already shown that non-mutation types
of variations are in fact inherited. In the long run, though,
these variations will tend toward a mean somewhere between
the two extremes.
As applied to Darwin's theory, this means that a mutation
in one creature at one time is capable of being inherited, but
also that the intensity of the mutation will be reduced as it is
passed on to other organisms in the same species. This is
because the gene (or genes) passed by the organism with
the mutation to its offspring will be modified by mixing with
those of its mate. Each mutated gene retains its changed
character and is passed on in an atomic ali-or-nothing fashion,
but its effects are obscured or "watered down" by the vast
pool of unmutated genes in the population as a whole. With
respect to natural selection, then, selection acts upon the organism considered as a whole in its particular environment and not
upon each individual mutation. In the long run, each mutation
will have its effect. If the result of the mutation as reflected in
the over-all make up of the creature aids the organism in the
fight for life, the creature will survive (barring the many
occasions for a chance death) to pass on the mutation to
posterity. We see, therefore, that mutations do occur and are
inherited in a unitary, atomic fashion (thus making the geneticists happy) while, at the same time, the over-all effect of
mutations is to produce by selection the appearance of gradual
change (thus making the Darwinians happy).
Aside from some few adherents of a neo-Lamarckism, this
compromise is followed by most evolutionists today. It is a
neo-Darwinianism or Synthetic theory of evolution. In a nut-

EVOLUTION AFTER

728

shell it states that favorable mutations are preserved and
ultimately come to dominate by natural selection. The newer
theory maintains that an organism's type is due to an aggregate of traits determined by separate tiny particles in its
chromosomes. One gene may influence several other traits
while several genes may act on one trait. The genes themselves
do not appear to respond to the needs of the organism nor do
they seem to be affected by ordinary environmental changes.
But for some unknown reason they do mutate at some equally
unknown rate. The mutation rate has been estimated as anywhere from one in 100,000-500,000.4 These mutations have a
cause but they are not correlated positively with the organism's
immediate welfare needs. This is also true i£ several mutate
simultaneously. In fact, the vast majority of mutations do not
have adaptive or survival value. But through the process of
natural selection the unfavorable mutations have been eliminated or made ineffectual in harming the evolving organism.
Thus, for example, assuming the environment remains stable,
either dominant unfavorable mutated genes become recessives
or the whole species in time must die out. Also, the mutations
giving rise to new species are very small, and inconsequential
if taken alone, thus accounting for the slowness of change.
Large-scale mutations, considered highly important by Bateson,
de Vries, and others, are now considered as relatively unimportant by neo-Darwinians. However, when environmental changes
are just right, provided that the creatures have been able to
survive, some mutations may enable the creatures to adapt
(i.e., to insure their survival for a while longer) while other
creatures, without such mutations, will be killed off by the new
environment.
• See R. A. Fisher, The Genetical Theory of Natural Sdecti<m (New York, 1958)
for details on the mathematics of mutation. See also M. Grene, " Statistics and
Selection," British Journal for the Philosophy of Science>, Vol. 12 (1961), pp. 25-42
for a criticism of Fisher's views. Presently, there is absolutely no reliable basis
upon which a statistical approach can be built. There is no way of saying that
thing X will become thing Y in time T. By arbitrarily picking and choosin.g their
initial parameters mathematicians can extend or contract the time at will. For a
further discussion, see P. S. Moorhead and M. M. Kaplan (eds.), Mathematical
Challenges to the Neo-Darwinian Interpretation of Evolution (Philadelphia., 1966).

72.4

F. F.

CENTORE

If some modern geophysicists are to have their way, however, the old battle between the strict mutationists and the
strict Darwinians will once more be joined. Very recently a
Canadian geophysicist, Robert J. Uffen, of the University of
Western Ontario, has put forth the proposal that there is a
close connection between the periodic collapsing of the earth's
magnetic field and the quick dying out and springing up of
new species. 5 Uffen reasons that the" powerful electrical wind"
blowing out of the sun is deflected only because of the earth's
magnetic field. The field was set up by the rising and falling of
hugh iron chunks in the molten mass of the earth starting
about five billion years ago. The moving iron cut across the
primary magnetic field created by the solar wind blowing across
the earth's iron core. Electric currents were thus set up perpendicular to the earth's axis and generated outwardly. This
projected magnetic field, however, is dependent upon the continuous motion of the earth's iron which in turn depends upon
the heat rising from the earth's core. If the heat should be
unsteady, the motion will momentarily falter causing either a
collapsing or reversal of the magnetic field.
It is known that molten rocks retain the magnetic orientation
they had when molten. It is also known that some rocks are
magnetically oriented in one direction while others are oriented
in the opposite direction. Furthermore, there have been periods
in the past when whole classes of species abruptly sprang up
and died out. Did these new species have anything to do with
the hugh amounts of solar radiation allowed onto the earth by
the momentary failure of our protective shield? Additional
evidence for momentary collapses is the existence of " Tektites."
These are glass-like, highly brittle substances apparently
formed in outer space. They are believed by some scientists to
be connected with meteorites and are found spread around the
earth's surface. Their ages seem to be grouped around 700
thousand, 1500 thousand, 15 million, and 35 million years old.
Could these Tektites have showered down to earth at the same
times there were collapses in the magnetic field?
5

See Saturday Review, May 6, 1967, pp. 57-62.

EVOLUTION

AFTER DARWIN

725

No one is as yet willing to stake his life on positive answers.
The fact that some noted scientists are thinking about it,
though, indicates that revolutionary theories have not been
completely displaced by evolutionary theories.
What is one to make of the newer trends in Darwin's special
theory of evolution? Have the older objections been put to
rest? Do mutations increase or decrease the problematique?
In response to the Saturday Review article lending new support
to radical change theories, R. B. Chiasson, of the University of
Arizona's (Tucson) Zoology department, writes the following:
" Your exce1lent article on comets has one rather important
misrepresentation .... The misleading aspect is in the interpretation you leave for the reader. These statements seem to
imply that a faster mutation rate increases evolutionary change
directly. In truth, mutations in fruit flies are invariably detrimental." 6 The more important aspect of mutations, Chiasson
goes on, is the elimination, not the perfection, of species.
Carl C. Lindegren, Professor emeritus at the Biological Research Laboratory at Southern Illinois University, sent in the
following brief letter: " A propos comets and the birth of man:
When evolution is discussed in the popular press it is generally
thought of in terms of ' progress ' ( ?) as, for example, from
apes to man, in terms of an increase in forms of higher complexity. There can be no doubt that a massive dose of radiation would disturb the biological balance and change the
nature of surviving terrestrial living forms (generally the more
complicated forms, which are usually fewest, would suffer
most) , resulting in a drastic change in the dominant forms
existent after the radiation. The certain result could be a
change in the direction of evolutiop., but the direction would
probably not be considered to be 'progressive.'" 7
W. A. Berggren and J. D. Phillips, of the Woods Hole
Oceanographic Institution (Mass.), also raised objections. A
certain species of protozoans (planktonic Foraminifera), re• Ibid., August 5, 1967, p. 58.
• Loc. cit. Lindegren himself seems to think more highly of Lamarck than
Darwin. See his Cold War in Biology (Ann Arbor, 1968).

726

F. F. CENTORE

ported as having become extinct about the time of one of the
ten known reversals in the last four million years, is still with
us. The writers explain that they have made a special study
of this group of organisms in an effort to determine the ages of
sediment strata. " The most reliable criteria," they claim, " for
determining time-stratigraphic
boundaries in marine sediments are unequivocal morphologic changes in a phylogenetic
sequence leading from an ancestral species to a descendant
one." 8 But the evolutionary picture of these creatures
through several million years, and across several paleomagnetic
reversal boundaries, is one of a gradual change in appearance
with no major extinction patterns during the Pleistocene.
Based upon current research it does not seem that the
discovery of mutations as a common biological occurrence is
really of much help to Darwin's special theory. First of all,
because the studies of the geneticists are limited to creatures
which are already interfertile. This can give us no insight into
how sexual differences arose in the first place. Second, single
large-scale or " saltatory " changes occurring at random cannot
explain the coordination and complexity of a higher life form
as a whole or of any one of its complex organs. Also, all genetic
changes to date have been restricted to accidental or individual
differences and have not altered the species. In fact, there is
no known case in which mutations have ever produced a new
organ, much less a new species. Furthermore, mutations are
generally harmful, if not completely lethal. People have a valid
fear of nuclear fallout. It is expected that the future generations of parents exposed to excessive radiation will be born
handicapped. Such a weakened offspring must succumb in the
struggle for survival, for only the fittest survive.
With or without the addition of our knowledge of mutations
to Darwinism, however, the older Darwinian theory remains
vulnerable to all of the previously discussed difficulties. When
all is said and done, claims Thompson, " What the great book
of nature shows us, indeed, is not an evolutionary flux but a
• Loc. cit.

EVOLUTION

AFTER DARWIN

7CJ-7

world that is at once polymorphic and stable, within narrow
limits." 9
Other claims are also being made which at least bear mentioning. One is Weismannism and the other is neo-Lamarckism.
August Weismann (1884-1914) was a professor at the University of Freiburg. His great contribution to biology was a
clear recognition of the difference between the germ cells and
somatic cells in the bodies of living organisms. Because it is
only the germ cells that pass on traits to one's progeny,
Lamarck's view on the inheritability of merely somatic
changes in an individual must be rejected. In opposition to
Darwin, who maintained that natural selection operated upon
the organism as a whole, Weismann postulated that selection
can only operate upon the germ plasm in the fertilized egg.
what resulted was a battle in the womb. Those hereditary
traits which received more food prospered, while those receiving
less weakened. If inequalities of nourishment persist, the effects
will be noticeable. By controlling heredity, then, Weismann
would control evolution. 10
Neo-Lamarckism has also made an appearance in recent
times. It has been defended by such men as G. H. T. Eimer,
E. D. Cope, and E. W. MacBride. Neo-Lamarckians emphasize
the simplicity of their theory when compared to Darwin's.
They also emphasize the fact that changes in habit and changes
in structure always go together. Changes in the environment
will force a change in habits, and this in turn will result in a
change in structure. Instead of having to put up with all the
difficulties of Darwinism, they ask, why not admit the universally held belief that what the parents do will affect their
offspring. This, of course, is the crux of the problem. If an
individual's responses to his environment are inherited, then
has a case. This is basically the same situation that existed in Lamarck's own day.

*

*

*

*

*

*

• W. R. Thompson, "The Status of Species," Philosophical Problems in Biology
(ed. by V. E. Smith, New York, 1966), p. 111.
10 See his The Evolution Theory (tr. by Mr. and Mrs. J. A. Thomson, London,
1904).

728

F. F. CENTORE

We have now reached the point where a word on the
evolution of man would be appropriate. This is usually not
considered as a separate topic by evolutionists. If everything
has evolved, then, of course, man, being a part of everything,
must have evolved too. The question that remains is exactly
how man evolved. Each special theory will supply its own
answer by extending the principles supposedly true of all
evolution to man. Everything we have said concerning living
things in general, therefore, can be applied to man. As Darwin
well knew, without the Origin of Species the Desc·ent of Man
could not have been written.
Although The Descent of Man is known today to be highly
faulty in detail and highly anthropomorphic in spirit, it has
exercised a strong influence on anthropologists. Since the evolution of man suffers from the same shortcomings as whatever
special theory of which it is a part, Darwinians have had to
attempt to rectify these shortcomings in the case of man also.
One of the more significant shortcomings, it will be recalled,
is the lack of intermediary specimens. Just as to help justify
Darwin's theory in general intermediaries must be found, so
also in the case of human evolution. Since Darwin's time,
various such finds have been claimed.
Perhaps the most famous " find," because it later turned out
to be a fake, was the so-called Piltdown Man or Eoanthropus
dawsoni. About 1908 Charles Dawson discovered part of a
skull on the Piltdown estate in Sussex, England. A short time
Sir A. S. Woodward found part of a jawbone that
appeared to be both human and simian. Some years later,
Teilhard de Chardin found various teeth and flint instruments
which he claimed to be 500,000 years old. When put together
all these pieces supposedly added up to a missing link. The
"earliest Englishman" became famous. He was widely hailed
and discussed by anthropologists. 11 Then, about 1948, Oakley,
Hoskins, and some other anthropologists, wishing to confirm
the age of the specimens, starting putting them through various
11

See A. Woodward, The Earliest Englishman (London, 1948).

EVOLUTION

AFTER DARWIN

729

chemical and physical tests. By 1950 the truth was out. The
cranium was not old enough to be significant and the jaw was
that of a modern chimpanzee suitably doctored up and fitted
with teeth. 12
Another group of remains is known as Sinanthropus pekingensis (China man of Peking) A Swedish mission in China in
the 1920's excavated a group of caves of limestone rock near
Choukontien, about 37 miles S. W. of Peking. Two teeth were
discovered. In 1927 a third was found which Dr. Davidson
Black, anatomist at the medical school in Peking, became convinced was human. Subsequent investigations by Black, and
later by Dr. Franz Weidenreich and Chardin, produced altogether about three dozen incomplete individuals. There were
no complete skulls, a few postcranial remains, and various long
bones, all of which had to be pieced together to make a
specimen.
The "finds" were made in a collapsed cave. The cave
appeared to have been occupied by humans as seen from artifacts and ornaments found in the successive layers of debris.
In this same large cave was a heap of rubble, apparently
used as a garbage dump. It was in this rubble that the remains
of Peking man were found. The rubble also contained evidence
of long burning fires and may have been used for some kind of
industry requiring intense heat. The cranial capacities of the
skulls were only between 915 and 1025 cubic centimeters. Also,
the fact that the skulls appeared to have been deliberately
broken open would indicate that they were used as sources of
food. All in all, it is generally agreed today that the cave men
who inhabited the area were already human. 13
12 For details
on the forgery see F. Vere, Lessons of Piltdown (Hayling Is.,
Hampshire, England, 1959). Thompson (art. cit., pp. 119-120) and others think
that of the three suspects (Dawson, Woodward, Chardin) Chardin was most likely
the mastermind behind the forgery. He had the motive (to convince the Church
of evolution), opportunity (he was living at a Jesuit seminary nearby),
the means and knowledge to carry out the fraud. Opposed to this view is the fact
that it is very unlikely that Chardin would have thought that anyone would have
been convinced of human evolution by one skull.
13 The remains are now lost.
In 1939 they were sent to the coast to be put
aboard an American ship for safekeeping. Some say they were discarded by an

730

F. F. CENTORE

Other intermediaries between some advanced ape and harno
sapiens have also been claimed. In 1925 Dr. Raymond Dart
found an ape-like skull which appeared to have human-like
teeth in Taungs, Bechuanaland, South Africa, and named the
reconstructed creature Australopithecus (southern ape). In
1947 Dart found some few remains which he called Australopithecus prometheus because, on the basis of evidence of fires
in the same area, he believed that the creature used fire.
Various other relics have been found in South Africa by investigators, such as Bloom and Robinson, and have been given
various names. 14
Even before the South African finds, Dr. Eugene Dubois,
digging around deposits of extinct animals which had been
discovered in a bed of volcanic ash on the banks of the
Solo River in eastern Java, came across, near the village of
Trinil, a tooth and a skullcap in one place and, at some distance
away, a femur and two other teeth which he thought might be
human. He also found some fossilized skulls, that were definitely human, in the same region. (However, he neglected to
tell anyone of these human skulls for twenty-five years.) 15 He
called these remains, believed to be semihuman in nature,
Pithecanthropus erectus (ape man standing upright). In 1894
he returned to Europe, reported his find, and the bones
remained largely inaccessible until 1923. A German expedition left for Trinil after Dubois' return but failed to find
anything. Still later, von Koenigswald unearthed some fragments farther upstream which seemed to support Dubois' find.
The Dubois find has elicited much controversy among the
experts. The teeth are moJ.'Ie likely from a contemporary
Orangutan than from a human. The femur is considered
human but cannot be connected with the skull and teeth. The
skullcap is thick, with ridges above the eye sockets. The brain
American officer for some reason. See P. O'Connell, Science of Today and the
Problems of Genesis (Dublin, 1960) and P. Teilhard de Chardin and Pei WenChung, Le Neolithique de la China (Peking, 1944).
"See H. Wendt, In Search of Adam (Boston, 1956), ch. 15.
15 See Sir A. Keith, The Antiquity of Man (London, 1925).

EVOLUTION

AFTER DARWIN

731

cavity is extremely small but lacks the median longitudinal
crest found in most of the larger apes. Many paleontologists
have discounted the fragments as belonging to a Gibbon, an
animal capable of walking upright. The finds of von Koenigswald show large teeth, low brain cases, and a skull very narrow
compared to its length. The brain capacities are from 835 to
940 cc. This is less than half way between 1500 cc for the
modern European and 600 cc for the great apes. Because the
average is lower than for other fossil finds, it is guessed that
von Koenigswald came across a woman's skull. All in all, the
fact that remains of modern men were found in the same region
(Dubois dated his finds as between 500,000 and one million
years old), makes it highly unlikely that the relics represent
intermediaries.
More recently, L. S. B. Leakey in 1959 found the larger part
of a skull, broken into 400 pieces, in the Olduvai Gorge, Tanganyika. He reconstructed the whole creature and called it
Zinjanthropus boisei. Using other fossil remains in the same
area as a criterion, he dated his find as about a half-million
years old. He suggested that it could speak, although he was
not sure why, and claimed its brain size was a little more than
half of ours, even though there is no accurate way of telling.
Soon after, this "intermediary" appeared in popular journals
fitted out with the usual hair and club. In 1961 the potassiumargon method of determining dates was applied to some
samples of ground taken from the area of the find. On the basis
of these tests, the age of the relics was set at from 1,570,000 to
1,890,000 years. Leakey himself later raised the estimate to
about 8 million years.
About the same time, Leakey announced the discovery, at a
lower level, of a foot (not of a human type) , a deformed jawbone, and parts of a skullcap. The reconstruction was called
Prezinjanthropus. It was also decided that the new creature
was more human, even though much older, than the original
find. At a higher level than the original find, and therefore
closer in age to our own time, he discovered part of a skullcap.
This newer creature was thought to employ stone tools such as

F. F. CENTORE

those found near Chelles, France and so was named Chellean
man. According to Leakey, hundreds of thousands to millions
of years separate these three races of creatures, even though
no remains of the thousands of generations of intervening
creatures can be found in the same area} 6
Other than the above examples, there are literally hundreds
of little fragments, gleaned from all over the world, which
someone or another has reconstructed into a race or species or
subspecies, etc., of some semihuman type. Currently, Louis
and Mary Leakey can be counted upon periodically to find new
links. Yet, the vast expanse of time leading up to the supposed
Pleistocene emergence of man remains nude of specimens. Also,
the general feeling today among archeologists is that orthogenetic development cannot be supported in the case of man.
The straight line theory of progressive development is no
longer in vogue due to the difficulties encountered when endeavoring to arrange the supposedly semi-human fragments in
chronological order. The problem is that some older in time
show more similarities to modern man than do some (e. g.,
the various relics of so-called Neanderthal man) closer to the
present in time. Today, specimens such as Neanderthal man
are not regarded as intermediate stages in the development of
homo sapiens but instead represent a sidetracking in the evolutionary process. It has even been proposed by Le Gros Clark
and C. S. Coon that Neanderthal man may have been a
retrogression. 11
To say that the paleontological evidence in favor of human
evolution is flimsy would be an understatement. Today, the
only well-documented cases of "cave men" are the remains
known collectively as Cro-Magnon man. At Les Eyzies,
16 According to a noted South African anthropologist,
P. V. Tobias, apes may
have descended from man rather than vice versa. It seems that some people are
finding the remains of hominids older than the remains of monkeys. See the N. Y.
Sunday News, Jan. 14, 1968, p. 98. For an idea of how precarious are the claims to
human missing link finds, see E. L. Simons' review of Tobias' Olduvai Gorge. Vol.
2: The Cranium and Maxillm·y Dentition of Australopithecus (Zinjanthmpusj
boisei in Science, May 10, 1968, pp. 679!-675.
11 See W. E. Le Gros Clark,
of thll Primates (Chicago, 1958).

EVOLUTION

AFTER DARWIN

733

France, in a rock cave known as Cro-Magnon, five fragmentary
skeletons of four adults and one child were found in 1868. In
future years many more discoveries were made throughout
central and southern Europe. One outstanding find was made
in the Grimaldi caves on the Riviera. It consisted of a complete set of skeletons of a mother and her son huddled together in a crouching position among several other complete
specimens. At Moravia, Poland, twenty almost complete
skeletons were located, all in one cemetery.
The Cro-Magnons were apparently well-skilled in art work,
as many samples of their talent show. Examples of their
having done multi-colored paintings on cave walls and lithographs and etchings on bone have been found among the
remains. It was also discovered that for the first time the
dead were carefully buried. The bodies were placed in sepulchers made from jaws and shoulder blades of large animals
which were etched with designs and drawings. Also, the beds
yielded evidence that these people hunted the cave hyena and
small horses.
As Thompson summarizes the present situation: " It appears to me that when we survey the animal kingdom as a
whole, the data do not really support the idea of the gradual
transformation of animal mentality into human intelligence
and this in spite of the undoubted morphological similarity
between apes and man." 18

*

*

*

*

*

*

What remains, then, of the general and special theories of
evolution after we have subtracted the arguments of those
who do not want to believe in any of them and the arguments
of those who do want to believe in at least one of them. We
note first o£ all that the existence o£ change would be admitted
by all, except perhaps a Parmenidian. Whether the changes
that occur are evolutions or revolutions is another question.
Within the nco-Darwinian evolutionary party it is still not
18 W. R. Thompson art. cit., p. 125. The term "cave men " can be extended
to include such groups as the finds at Choukontien, etc.

734

F. F. CENTORE

clear whether the conservative (natural selection) wing or
liberal (mutationist) wing will dominate. A compromise seems
to have been the order of the day until the recent reassertion of
the mutationist position. The tendency not to say anything
too definite was revealed at the Darwin Centennial Celebration
held at the University of Chicago in 1959. At that convocation
of most of the outstanding evolutionists in the world the following definition was accepted by most: "Evolution is definable
in general terms as a one-way, irreversible process in time,
which during its course generates novelty, diversity, and higher
levels of organization. It operates in all sectors of the phenomenal universe but has been most fully described and analyzed in the biological sector." 19 The definition is very broad.
To anyone who knows anything about physics it is also false
in part. There is a basic law in physics which says that the
universe is heading for more and more homogeneity, gradually
breaking down, and not achieving higher levels of organization.
However, this is not the first time that people from the different
sciences have been at odds with one another.
What the definition indicates is that, although the delegates
did not wish to commit themselves on any one special theory
of evolution, they did want to express their belie£ in the progressiveness and universality of change. They also hint that evolutionary theories are not like those found in the other physical
sciences. Evolution concerns an irreversible historical process.
That is, certain events have taken place once and cannot be
repeated. Several delegates later made this point more explicity. Two things, therefore, seem clear from the definition.
First, change in the world has produced and will continue to
produce a better and better world; second, the various special
theories of evolution are just that: theories.
But how is one to judge the claims of any evolutionary
doctrine? In physics and chemistry experiments can be repeated and the same results obtained by anyone familiar with
the needed techniques. Not so with evolutionary statements,
10

Evolution After Darwin (ed. by Sol Tax, Chicago, 1960), Vol. 8, p. 107.

EVOLUTION

AFTER DARWIN

785

either general or special. Evolution is an historical process and
history does not repeat itself. The evolutionist claims to make
factual statements about unique historical events. He may
claim that the same type of thing may occur again (assuming
he is not a nominalist) if the laws governing evolution today
are the same as those in the past, but he could never achieve
the duplication obtainable in physics or chemistry. This point
is well taken. The claims of the evolutionist must be judged as
one would judge the claims of any other serious historian.
Now, one of the cardinal points of procedure for any good
historian is not to be a priori in his approach to his subject
matter. This means that he must first look at the evidence and
then construct a theory, not vice versa. This, of course, takes
us right back into the debate over whether or not the available
historical remains are sufficiently consistent, authentic, and of
the required type to support any one of the special theories or
even the vague, general theory of evolution. We have already
mentioned the salient points and need not repeat them here. In
this area, about the only thing evolutionists (including those
who maintain that gradual change occurred under divine
guidance) and revolutionists (including special creationists)
will agree upon is that, granted that the rock strata arc
arranged in chronological order with the oldest at the bottom,
the more complicated and highly organized creatures appear to
have anived on the earthly scene at a later date than the less
highly organized ones. Even this, though, has exceptions. If
accepted as a fact, this situation would seem to satisfy the
Centennial's definition, thus making evolution in its broad
sense true. Unfortunately for the sake of clarity, however,
someone who believed that the great and interrelated number
of presently existing species came to be by sudden changes,
natural or divine, could also claim that his position is true.
For, these sudden changes, taken as a group, form a one-way,
irreversible process in time which has given the world novelty,
diversity, and higher levels of organization.
'Vhat then " proves " evolution to so many of our contemporaries? The proof appears to be philosophical rather than

786

F. F. CENTORE

historical or strictly scientific. The basic argument put forward
by evolutionists seems to be of the same type as used by St.
Thomas Aquinas to " prove " the existence of angels. Aquinas
argued that, although the existence of angels could not be
established by any kind of direct rational proof, it was nevertheless a 1·easonable belief because it was " fitting " that angels
should exist to fill in the gap between man and God in the
hierarchy of being. Likewise, it is argued that it is fitting that
God (or Nature) should act in a steady gradual manner
instead of abruptly and discontinuously. After all, God is
not thought of as having constantly to intervene in matters of
physics and chemistry. Why should he have to be thought of
as constantly intruding in biological matters? There is a kind
of principle of simplicity here also which has worked very well
in other branches of science. Why multiply causes unnecessarily? If evolution can explain how God has produced species,
why postulate all sorts of special interventions? 20
Under these circumstances, one can understand how someone, such as Teilhard de Chardin, can have no qualms about
basing his belief in evolution upon a " vision " rather than
upon the paleontological evidence. Simpson and Dobzhtmsky
have called Teilhard more of a poet than anything else. Perhaps this is so. There are questions that the natural and
social sciences, either separately or together, cannot answer.
These questions happen to be the more profound and important ones for us humans. Here some other form of knowledge
must enter to try as much as possible to light the way. But,
when all else fails, one can have no recourse, below the supernatural level, than to turn to the mythmaker.

F. F. CENTORE
St. Jerome's CoUege
University of Waterloo
Waterloo, Ontario
•• Darwin reasoned this way also. Cf. Origin of Species (Modern Library ed.),
p. 369: "It has been maintained by several authors that it is as easy to believt>
in the creation of a million beings as of one; but Maupertuis' philosophical axiom
• of least action' leads the mind more willingly to admit the smaller number."

THE PHILOSOPHY OF ERNST CASSIRER AND
FICTIONAL RELIGION

NY ONE FAMILIAR with the history of philosophy in
this century will know that some of the most influential philosophers have been those who have considered
that the right knowledge and use of language will solve world
problems; in fact, some even believe language to be the only
reality, which "creates" the world which we think we see as
"given." Even the logical (sometimes called mathematical)
positivists may be included in this group, if we consider mathematical symbols as a kind of language: it is their conviction
that ordinary language, though very important, is somewhat
ambiguous and in need of extended supplementation by the
more exact symbpls of mathematics. The ontological status of
mathematics and the other sciences as well as language has
been argued at great length, but an important group of philosophers of this century has decided that such an argument
is futile, since the important thing for all such symbols is not
their reference to an objective truth (if indeed such exists) but
their function. In other words, do they enable us more efficiently and satisfactorily to live our lives? Perhaps the most
learned philosopher in this century to emphasize the problem of
linguistic and other symbols was Ernst Cassirer, a German
refugee who spent the last four years of his life (after two years
in England and six in Sweden) lecturing and writing in America
until his death in 1945. Cassirer vigorously denounced the
positivists, and, though he never mentioned Vaihinger, he
would surely have denounced Vaihinger's "idealistic positivism " as it is expressed in the theory of fictions. This failure to
mention Vaihinger is a little hard to understand, since both
men were important modern professors and philosophers in
Germany (their careers to some extent overlapping, though

787

73S

HARRY M. CAMPBELL

Vaihinger was much older) and since both wrote extensively
on Kant. Their views, furthermore, as it shall be the purpose
of this essay to demonstrate, were basically very similar, in
spite of Cassirer's repeated denial that his system of idealism
should be construed as mental fictions.
The discussion of Cassirer's philosophy in this essay will be
based on three of his works: Language and Myth/ An Essay
on Man/ and The Philosophy of Symbolic Forms, 3 the first
two of these being popular and condensed versions of the last,
which is his magnum opus in three volumes. His system is
usually called a kind of modified philosophical idealism (cf.
Professor Charles W. Hendel's Introduction the PSF I), but, as
I shall demonstrate later, the modification is little more than
an occasional brief and unemphatic reference to an objectivity
that is soon forgotten in the all-embracing creative activity
attributed to the human spirit and expressed through language.
Perhaps it might be said that he always recognizes a certain
amount of objective reality in the material world, but the
noumenal world exists only as the creation (or "objectification") of the human spirit (always expressed through some
form of language) .
In the beginning one may wonder why he lists language as
parallel with myth, art, and science, sometimes adding religion
as a fifth " cultural form." It would seem, one might suppose,
more logical to subordinate language as the instrument through
which most aspects of the other " cultural forms " are expressed. It is soon clear, however, that he wishes to exalt
language as a creative force .equivalent, as an expression of the
human spirit (in modem terms, of course), to the Greek Logos
and the Christian Word. Indeed, in some respects, language
is supreme among the forms, because myth (which includes
religion) and science are types of language, as, from one point
1

New York: Dover Publications, n. d., hereafter referred to as LM.
City, New York: Doubleday Anchor Books, n. d., hereafter referred

8 Garden

to as EM.
3 New Haven:
Yale University Press, 1958 (for Vol. I), 1955 (for Vol. II),
1957 (for Vol. III), hereafter referred to as PSF.

THE PHILOSOPHY

OF ERNST

CASSIRER

739

of view, is art. Language, furthermore, is the source of what we
call reasoning, as Mrs. Susanne Langer, one of Cassirer's most
ardent disciples and interpreters in America, explains: " It is
the discursive character of language," says Mrs. Langer, interpreting Cassirer, " its inner tendency to grammatical development, which gives rise to logic in the strict sense, i. e., to the
procedure we call 'reasoning.' " 4 But in his definition (in
LM) of the symbolic forms Cassirer prefers to consider language as parallel with the others:
Myth, art, language, and science appear as symbols; not in the
sense of mere figures which refer to some given reality by means of
suggestion and allegorical renderings, but in the sense of forces each
of which produces and posits a world of its own. In these realms
the spirit exhibits itself in that inwardly determined dialectic by
virtue of which alone there is any reality, any organized and
definite Being at all. Thus the special symbolic forms are not
imitations, but organs of reality, since it is solely by their agency
that anything real becomes an object for intellectual apprehension,
and as such is made visible for us. The question as to what reality
is apart from these forms, and what are its independent attributes,
becomes irrelevant here. (LM, 8)
Cassirer is here emphasizing what he elsewhere (PSF I, 98)
calls "the modern, ' subjective' trend in speculation" which
does not worry about reality or truth apart from these forms,
" each of which produces and posits a world of its own." In
his Introduction to PSF Professor Hendel explains and approves of Cassirer's appeal to Kant as the authority for this
kind of idealism. Cassirer, according to Hendel, used the
authority of Kant for the idea that " whatever reality we
know is precisely such as ' conforms to ' our human ways
of knowing" (Introduction, PSF I, 3) and that, "instead
of human knowledge being shaped to reality, it is our human judgment which determines whatever is to have the
character of reality for us " (Introduction, PSF I, 6) , or, to
• Susanne K. Langer, "Theory of Language and Myth" in P. A. Schilpp (ed.),
The Philosophy of Ernst Cassirer (Evanston, Illinois: The Library of Living
Philosophers, 1949), pp. 399-400, hereafter referred to as Schilpp.

740

HARRY M. CAMPBELL·

put it another way, "the world is' constituted' in accordance
with tht! forms of man's intuition and understanding." (Introduction, PSF I, 10) Kant, of course, believed that "the principle of formal purposiveness " is an a priori principle necessary
for the knowledge of nature, but it is still only " regulative "
for the knowing, and not essentially "constitutive of the
known, the appearances, or the phenomena." Cassirer went
beyond this, believing, as does Hendel, that he is still faithful
to the Kantian orientation and method when he obliterates
the distinction between " regulative " and " constitutive " principles and makes all of them constitutive. There is, however,
some ambiguity (not mentioned by Hendel) in Cassirer's use
of the adjective " constitutive." The question is whether purposive form is " constitutive of " nature in the sense of existing
in nature and being discovered by the human mind or whether
the human mind (or spirit, for Cassirer a synonymous term)
contributes the purposive form which does not exist independently in nature. As a good idealist Cassirer would like to
escape from this difficulty by treating the elements of form and
matter in what he calls a " functional " as distinguished from
a " substantive " manner, and yet he cannot deny that in the
realm of biology any organism reveals substantive form.
Hendel can see no contradiction in Cassirer's system here or
anything contradicting Kant in Cassirer's belief that" the character of ' whole-forming' or ' system-forming ' pertains to the
world itself of living nature." (Introduction, PSF I, 29) In
other words, as Cassirer says elsewhere, " Developing organisms are, in substance, self-contained complexes of activities
that are determining and productive of form." (Introduction,
PSF I, 28, quoting Cassirer's Problem of Knowledge) But this
kind of objective reality is hardly compatible with the prevailing emphasis on the creative activity of the human spirit, " by
virtue of which alone there is any reality, any organized and
definite Being at all." And in neither of these contradictory
views is Cassirer being, as Hendel believes he is, " faithful to
the Kantian orientation and method." Kant certainly did not
believe that the human spirit created all the cultural forms,

THE PHILOSOPHY

OF ERNST

CASSIRER

741

including religion and metaphysics in general. The phenomenal
world may be " constituted " in accordance with the forms
of man's intuition and understanding, but, in Kant's opinion,
this was not true of the noumenal realm, which Kant said
(again and again, even in the Critique of Pure Reason) man
cannot cognize, but in the objective reality of which he had
faith to believe. Nor did Kant believe in the other (contradictory) view that nature itself was the source of purposive form
in organisms. Again, though this point could not be settled
cognitively for what Kant called the " determinant judgment,"
certainly for the "reflective judgment" behind any organized
being there must be a design with its " root origin " in a
supreme Being: " It is absolutely impossible for us," says Kant,
" to obtain any explanation at the hand of nature itself to
account for any synthesis displaying finality," 5 by which he
means complexity of organization. The proximate source lies
in what Kant calls the " supersensible substrate of nature,"
and the ultimate source in a transcendent God.
In explaining the development of this wonderful creative
power which he attributes to the human spirit, Cassirer begins
with the primitive belief in the "physico-magical power of the
Word," meaning language, and traces the history of it until
its "spiritual power" was finally recognized. This "spiritual
power" is the ability to create all the cultural forms, including
religion, concerning the nature of which the unenlightened man
is in error, for with him, "as in the case of tools and instruments, all creativity is felt as being, and every product of
(LM, 61-62) This
subjectivity as so much substantiality."
naive interpretation, however, says Cassirer, is necessary before
the correct one can develop: "The Word has to be conceived
in the mythic mode, as a substantive being and power, before
it can be comprehended as an ideal instrument . . . in the
construction and development of spiritual reality." (LM, 62)
And when Cassirer refers to the Word he means language, the
great creative or " spiritual " power of which he proclaims in no
• Immanuel Kant, The Critique of Judgment
Western World, 195ll), XLIV, p. 575.

(Chicago: Great Books of the

742

HARRY M. CAMPBELL

uncertain terms as a "form-creating power, which at the same
time has to be really a form-breaking, form-destroying one." 6
But Cassirer forgets that for orthodox theology the Word is
still conceived as a substantial being, identified in the prologue
to the Fourth Gospel and in later writings with Jesus Christ,
not in the sense of attributing physico-magical power to language, but, as ·webster's puts it, as "the actively expressed,
creative, and revelatory thought and will of God, at once distinguished from and identified with him." For both Cassirer
and for the believer in a transcendent God the physico-magical
use of language is superseded gradually in the development of
the human race by its use to refer to a higher spiritual reality,
but for Cassirer this spiritual reality is the human mind or
" spirit " and for the believer in a transcendent God this
spiritual reality is that God.
Cassirer, like so many other moderns, has served the metaphysical part of the Great Chain of Being and believes that the
truncated remainder will stand on its own. This truncation,
though without reference to Cassirer, has been well explained
by Professor William York Tindall in his book entitled The
Literary Symbol. Most of us in the modern world, says Tindall,
do not use allegory, for on the whole, lacking certainty, we prefer
indefinite analogies. Definite analogies, such as the allegory and
metaphor of the Middle Ages and the Renaissance, were designed
to present not abstractions alone but the nature of things. If we
are to distinguish these limited instruments more plainly from the
romantic symbol which we prefer, we must consider two worlds.
The first, organic, lasted from the time of Pythagoras to the late
seventeenth century. The second, which replaced it, is mechanical
in one of its aspects and developmental in another. What we call
the romantic movement is the endeavor to I!W ke the world organic
again . . . to recover the upper half of the broken chain. . . .
The upper half of this restoration, however, acquired new meanings.
Not only the place of spirit, it came to mean the imaginative, the
subjective, the unconscious, or sensibility, separated by that famous
dissociation from fact and reason, which continued to occupy the
lower half of the chain. . . . The French symbolists . . . mark
6

Ernst Cassirer, " ' Spirit ' and 'Life '" in Schilpp, p. 879.

THE PHILOSOPHY

OF ERNST CASSIRER

743

the second stage of the romantic movement. These poets used
symbol not so much to unite worlds as to create them. . . . [Baudelaier called] " The visible universe ... a kind of fodder that the
imagination must digest and transform." In the second place,
moving beyond existing analogies, the queenly faculty the imagination [or what Cassirer would call the human "spirit"] has power
to create new ones, " la plus haute fiction," or what Stevens called
a " supreme fiction." As seer Baudelaire belongs with the earlier
transcendentalists :md as artist with those who, finding aesthetic
construction a substitute for cosmic reconstruction, made something like autonomous worlds.7
Not all of this description, of course, would apply to Cassirer,
who does not make much of the unconscious. However, he is
trying to make the world organic again, trying to recover the
upper half of the broken chain in the manner of the French
symbolists, only by " using symbol not so much to unite worlds
as to create them." But the French symbolists, and Wallace
Stevens following them, were more aware than Cassirer of the
limitation of their creation since they called it " la plus haute
fiction " or a " supreme fiction," which, of course, takes us back
where (philosophically) all of this belongs, to Vaihinger's AsIf theory of fictions. 8 Cassirer always evaded this poiut by
talking about meaning rather than truth, or about function
rather than substance. He did, however, in one memorable
passage at the end of PSF II and in another at the end of LM,
praise the " aesthetically liberated life," in which " language
becomes an avenue of artistic expression." The statement in
PSF II is more eloquent and more revealing:
In the image myth sees a fragment of substantial reality, a part of
the material world itself, endowed with equal or higher powers than
'W. Y. Tindall, The Literary Symbol (New York: Columbia University Press,
1955).
• Cf. Hans Vaihinger's The Philosophy of As If (first written around 1875 and
first published in English in 1924 [trans. by C. K. Ogden] in the International
Library of Psychology, Philosophy, and Scientific Method). Ogden (Bentham's
Theory of Fictions [London, 1932], p. cxlviii), Etienne Gilson (The Unity of
Philosophical Experience [New York, 1952], pp. 294-95), and other important
thinkers consider this theory to be the most influential one in modern philosophy.
Vaihinger's thesis is that "fictions ... are hypotheses which are known to be
false, but which are employed because of their utility." (p. xlii)

744

HARRY M. CAMPBELL

this world. From this first magical view religion strives toward a
progressively purer spiritualization. And yet, again and again, it is
carried back to a point at which the question of its truth and
meaning content shifts into the question of the reality of its
objects, at which it faces the problem of " existence " in all its
harshness. It is only the aesthetic consciousness that leaves this
problem truly behind it. Since from the outset it gives itself to
pure " contemplation," developing the form of vision in contrast
to all forms of action, the images fashioned in this frame of consciousness gain for the first time a truly immanent significance.
They confess themselves to be illusion as opposed to the empirical
reality of things; but this illusion has its own truth because it
possesses its own law. In the return to this law there arises a new
freedom of consciousness: the image no longer reacts upon the spirit
as an independent material thing but becomes for the spirit a pure
expression of its own creative power. (PSF II, 261)

Cassirer does not realize that he has here given an excellent
description of what (in spite of his great devotion to learning)
is implied by his whole philosophy when he faces the unvarnished truth: like the French Symbolists and the English
decadents of the "Yellow Nineties," he is really an aesthete (a
kind of epicurean of the intellect, substituting philosophy for
belles lettres) who rests in the supremacy of the aesthetic
consciousness with its images which "confess themselves to
be illusion as opposed to the empirical reality of things," and
which thus avoid "the problem of 'existence' in all its harshness." We can see behind the mask here, and what we see is a
world-weary thinker who, like Santayana, recognizes that he
cannot change the " harshness " (and it is to be noted that he
does not put "harshness" in quotation marks) of reality with
all its disappointments and therefore leaves it for the realm of
art, where, as Santayana says, " what is good is altogether and
finally good, and what is bad is at least not treacherous." 9
Cassirer still refers to this kind of illusion as one that " becomes
for the spirit a pure expression of its own creative power," but
the term " creation " has far less force when, instead of trans• George Santayana, "Justification of Art," in Benet and Pearson (editors),
Oxford Anthology of American Literature (New York: Oxford University Pre$8,
1948), p. II06.

THE PHILOSOPHY

OF ERNST CASSIRER

745

forming or transcending existence, it "confesses" itself to be
only illusion and" leaves behind ... the problem of' existence'
in all its harshness." What, then, becomes of Hendel's claim
that for Cassirer, as for Goethe and Hegel, " the Ideal is
Actual and the Actual is Ideal"? (Introduction, PSF I,
Of course, even in the above passage on the aesthetic consciousness, Cassirer puts " existence " in quotation marks and thus
leaves some room for his idealism, though the power of this
idealism is definitely threatened when he " confesses " that it is
only illusion. Most of the time, however, Cassirer does sound
like Hegel in maintaining the identity of " idea " and " phenomenon." But Hendel, after contending for this similarity between Hegel and Cassirer in the passage quoted above, reverses
himself and argues that the two are unlike in this respect.
" Hegel," says Hendel, " advances from the engagement of
spirit with life to the ultimate resolution of the dialectic where
Spirit has 'absolute knowledge' of itself. But Cassirer keeps
the twain ever twain, spirit and its other .... There is always
the added phrase ' and reality,' the reality of the phenomenal
world." (Introduction, PSF I, 62) In the unguarded "illusion " passages quoted and discussed above this is true, but
very seldom is he this frank or (one might add) perceptive in
analyzing the realistic implications of his philosophy. His
whole philosophy, on the contrary, is based on the grandiose
claims which he makes for the creation by the human spirit of
the "cultural forms," including " the highest objective truth."
Cassirer says:
The highest truth that is accessible to the spirit is ultimately the
form of its own activity. . . . The illusion of an original division
between the intelligible and the sensuous, between " idea " and
"phenomenon," vanishes ... each new" symbolic form "-not only
the conceptual world of scientific cognition but also the intuitive
world of art, myth, and language-constitutes, as Goethe said, a
revelation sent outward from within, a " synthesis of world and
spirit," which truly assures us that the two are originally one.
(PSF I, 111)
This certainly does not seem as if Hendel is correct in saying
that Cassirer "keeps the twain ever twain, spirit and its other."

746

HARRY M. CAMPBELL

The " and reality," which Hendel quotes out of context to
prove that Cassirer keeps spirit separate from the reality of
the phenomenal world, is taken from this very paragraph
arguing the oneness of world and spirit. Here is the sentence:
"In the totality of its [the spirit's] own achievements, in the
knowledge of the specific rule by which each of them is determined and in the consciousness of context which reunites all
these special rules into one problem and one solution: in all this,
the human spirit perceives itself and reality." It is clear here
that " reality " is perceived in, and owes its existence to, the
totality of the spirit's "own achievements."
Elsewhere 1 ° Cassirer elaborates on the advantage of this
idealism:
The " thing" is thus no longer something unknown, lying before us
as a bare material, but is an expression of the form and manner of
conceiving. What metaphysics ascribes as a property to things in
themselves now proves to be a necessary element in the process
of objectification [the process, that is, by which the spirit "achieves" what he calls "reality"]. While in metaphysics the permanence and continuous existence of objects is spoken of as
distinguishing them from the changeableness and discontinuity of
sense perceptions, here identity and continuity appear as postulates,
which serve as general lines of direction for the progressive unification of laws. They signify not so much the known properties of
things, but rather the logical instrument, by which we know.
Reality, then, being an " achievement" of the human spirit,
must also be spiritual, in Cassirer's sense of this word. This
was the whole point of the essay entitled " ' Spirit ' and 'Life' "
which Cassirer contributed to the Schilpp volume.
Professor Fritz Kauffman has well expressed the existential
inadequacy of Cassirer's system:
... Cassirer's pre-occupation with the boundless objectifying process almost blinds him to the essential limitations of human life.
This applies, above all, to the life of the individual. Cassirer's main
concern is, like Kant's, with the "intelligible substrate of hu10 Substance and Function (New York:
pp. 303-304.
in America in

Dover Publications, 1953 [first published

THE PHILOSOPHY

OF ERNST

CASSIRER

747

manity," not with human existence. The problems of individual
birth and death-personal problems rather than merely creatural
ones-are scarcely handled at .all (death only in a negative way)
... he recognized in man's knowledge of his finiteness the very
dawn of the infinite ....
Cassirer did not and could not proceed the way Kierkegaard,
Jaspers and, within their sphere, the great tragedians and also
such novelists as Joseph Conrad and Franz Kafka did: he could
not "define" man with a view to the extreme situations (Grenzsituationen) in which man's true being, his greatness and weakness
come out-most eloquently in the very moments of his growing
silent and succumbing to destiny. (Personal "destiny" is not a
category that fits into a dialectical schema of the objective mind.)
(Schilpp, 843-844)
Professor Kauffman goes on to say that Cassirer's philosophy
"neglects man's inability to express certain experiences in an
adequate way as well as his unique capacity for going into
hiding by the very means of communication." (lde1n) Indeed,
Cassirer has essentially gone into hiding by overemphasizing
the creative power of language in calling it " a form-creating
power, which at the same time has to be really a form-breaking,
form-destroying one." (Schilpp, 879) Here language, usually
one of the" cultural forms" created by the human spirit, seems
to usurp the place of its creator, but this is no doubt a kind
of synecdoche, as is doubtless his idea in his derivation of
reason from language, explained thus by Mrs. Langer: "It is
the discursive character of language, its inner tendency to
grammatical development, which gives rise to logic in the strict
sense, i. e., to the procedure we call ' reasoning.' " (Schilpp,
399-400) For Cassirer, says Mrs. Langer approvingly (and
she does not call it synecdoche), language "embodies not only
self-contained, complex meanings, but a principle of concatenation whereby the complexes are unravelled and articulated.''
(Schilpp, 399)
But, even if we assume that the above exaltation of language
is really, by synedoche, to be construed as referring to the
human spirit (of which language in Cassirer's system is in one
way a part and in another a product), there is still in Cassirer's

748

HARRY M. CAMPBELL

central argument a logical inadequacy quite as serious as the
existential defect referred to by Professor Kauffman. Cassirer
is attempting to supply an explanation of the origin of reason
and knowledge that avoids the faulty logic of both materialism
and traditional religious revelation. In Cassirer's opinion, it
would be highly illogical to consider the human spirit as derived
either from matter or from a spirit higher than itself. Apparently Cassirer would agree with Poe, who said, " I cannot imagine
any being in or outside the universe superior to myself." But
is there not even more difficulty in imagining the human spirit
to be self-originating? Such an assumption would involve what
M. F. Ashley Montagu, in explaining Cassirer's system (which
he accepts), calls "a primordial directive of the spirit, an
intrinsic way of forming knowledge." (Schilpp, 368) Presumably this "primordial directive" was contained in the primordial protoplasm that first evolved in the ocean slime, or if
it was later added, how was it added-and by what or by
whom? The only answer that Cassirer gives to this question is
that "the spirit (Geist) forges the conditions necessary to
itself." (Schilpp, 368) The human spirit, according to Cassirer,
created, as part of its religious " cultural form," the myth of a
transcendent God who created the world and all that dwell
therein. Was the human spirit, then, self-creating? Of course,
Cassirer would say that to consider such a question as this
would be to consider the human spirit " substantively " rather
than, as he prefers, "functionally." But is he not speaking
" substantively " when he says that the human spirit " created "
the culture forms? And can he really avoid the question of the
origin of the human vessel in which this spirit is " contained,"
or in which it "functions"? Mrs. Langer 11 has worked out
her " new key " to philosophy in the spirit of her master,
Cassirer, when she simply "rejects" such a question as this
by saying, "If we have new knowledge, we must get us a whole
world of new questions." (PNK, 10) But both she and Cassirer are really often giving old answers to old questions. When
11 In her book entitled Philosophy in a NrJw Key (New York:
Penguin Books,
1948), hereafter referred to as PNK.

THE PHILOSOPHY

OF ERNST CASSIRER

7 49

Mrs. Langer says that the answer to the question " How did
the world become as it is? " is " It has not ' become ' at all "
(PNK, I), she is not, as she says she is," repudiating the very
framework" (PNK, I) of traditional logic. She is simply, by
implication, giving to this very old question one very old
answer, namely, that the world, in some form or other, has
always existed. She does this more openly in another instance
when she says, " If we ask how physical objects, chemically
analyzable, can be conscious, how ideas can occur to them,
we are talking ambiguously; for the conception of ' physical
object' is a conception of chemical substance not biologically
organized." (PNK, 32) But presumably it would not be
ambiguous to ask how a biological organism can be conscious
or have ideas, nor would it be ambiguous to consider how the
biological organism became organized. She is referring to the
human organism and how it evolved out of "physical objects,"
as her next sentence shows: " What causes this tremendous
organization of substances, is one of the things the tremendous
organisms do not know; but with their organization, suffering
and impulse and awareness arise." (PNK, 32) Again she is
giving another very old answer to another very old question
when she says in the next sentence: " It is really no harder to
imagine that a chemically active body wills, knows, thinks, and
feels, than that an invisible, intangible, something does so,
the body without physical agency, and 'inhabits'
without being in any place." (PNK, 32) The old answer is
that what Cassirer would call the human spirit, " creator " of
all the " culture forms " (including, under the heading of myth,
the account of its own origin) , simply " arises " when the
" organization of substances " becomes sufficiently " tremendous." In Mrs. Langer's and Cassirer's opinion, it is naive to
imagine that a transcendent God creates the human spirit, as
well as the world in which it functions, but it is sophisticated to
asume that it simply, at the appropriate time in evolution,
" arises."
Nor is Cassirer's "synthesis" of all the various culture forms
a new one. It is certainly as old as Protagoras's attempt to

750

HARRY M. CAMPBELL

make "man the measure of all things." Protagoras indeed
would not have objected to the essential meaning of the :following statement by Cassirer:
The various products of culture-language, scientific knowledge,
myth, art, religion-become parts of a single great problem-ccmplex: they become multiple efforts, all directed toward the one goal
of transforming the passive world of mere impressions, in which
the spirit seems at first imprisoned, into a world that is pure
expression of the human spirit. (PSF I, 80)
But such a synthesis is by the very nature of what would be
its parts unattainable when traditional religion, at least, claims
to be derived from a source which cannot be defined as " pure
expression of the human spirit," but which transcends, and is
the ultimate Creator of, the world and all (including the human
spirit) that dwells therein. Cassirer admits that the different
cultural forms are often in conflict with one another, but, in
his opinion, philosophical thought can " find a standpoint situated above all these forms and yet not merely outside them "
and can understand "particular aspects of cultured life and the
concrete totality of its forms." (PSF I,
. But Cassirer's
position is not "above all these forms"; he is simply adopting
as his own one aspect of one of these forms, the interpretation
(in the romantic tradition) of religion as man-made. The
nineteenth century " higher critic " Feuerbach expressed this
view as follows: " We have reduced the supermundane, supernatural, and superhuman nature of God to the elements of
human nature as its fundamental elements .... The beginning,
middle, and end of Religion is Man." 12 Many poets could be
cited with the same view: for example, Swinburne, who said:
Glory to Man in the highest! for Man is the master of things ....
There is no God, 0 son,
If thou be none.13
Profesor 'Wilbur M. Urban, whose essay on Cassirer is one
of the best in the Schilpp volume, wonders why Cassirer never
10 H. N. Fairchild, Religious Trends in English Poetry (New York:
University Press, 1957), IV, 6.
18 Ibid., pp. 444, 445.

Columbia

THE PHILOSOPHY

OF ERNST

CASSIRER

751

discusses the language of metaphysics except in his brief refutation of Bergson's purely intuitive metaphysics which seeks to
dispense with symbols .
. . . if it is true, as we are told by Cassirer, that science as symbolic
form has no exclusive value, but is only one way of constructing
reality, and has value only from the standpoint of science, then it
would appear that a metaphysics, to be adequate, must be a metaphysics of art and religion also and must have a language and
symbolic form which includes these forms also-in which case it
could no longer be a symbolism of relations merely, but must be
a symbolism of things also.

Of course, by "things" Profesor Urban does not mean either
"material" or " anthropomorphic" existence, but rather, for
example, a transcendent Being superior to the human spirit,
the latter being really Cassirer's God. Professor Urban answers
his own question, though he is not sure-one wonders whythat his answer is correct. " It may be, after all," he says,
" that it is merely a phenomenology and not a metaphysics with
which Cassirer presents us." This is most certainly the answer.
The ultimate for Cassirer is the human spirit, beyond which
for him there is no metaphysical reality. (Cf. PSF I, 80 quoted
shortly above) Of course, it might be argued that Cassirer's
belief in " spirit," even though only the human spirit, would
take him out of the realm of phenomenology, "the science
dealing with phenomena as distinct from the science of being,"
into that of metaphysics, but this objection would be quibbling,
for it is clear enough that for Cassirer the problem of the
human spirit is no more than a phenomenological one to be
explained in such terms as " expression," " function," and
"meaning." A good illustration of Cassirer's avoidance of the
metaphysical is his chapter entitled " The Expressive Function
and the Problem of Body and Soul" in PSF III. The nexus
between body and soul, says Cassirer, is not a causal one, but
is one of those " basic forms of combination, which can only be
understood if we resist the temptation to dissolve them into
causal relations, if we leave them as they are and consider them
as structures sui generis." (PSF III, 98) He thinks it un-

752

HARRY M. CAMPBELL

fortunate that this " phenomenological question " has too often
been " transformed into an ontological question. . . . The
history of metaphysics shows us clearly that every attempt to
describe the body-soul relationship by transforming it into a
relation of the conditioning and the conditioned, cause and
effect, has culminated in inextricable difficulties." (PSF III,
94, 99)

One may well wonder whether the combination of body and
soul is really " understood " by considering it as a " structure
sui generis" or as an "authentically original phenomenon,"
and one may also wonder whether Cassirer's whole system, at
least in the realm of religion (which for him is actually no
different from myth when it believes in the reality or truth of
its object), does not find itself in a self-imposed dilemma.
"The problem," says Cassirer, "is not the material content of
mythology [and for him when religion believes in the reality
or truth of its object it is synonymous with mythology], but
the intensity with which it is experienced, with which it is
believed-as only something endowed with objective reality
can be believed." This intensity of belief in the reality of its
object is what gives myth " the incomparable force it has
demonstrated over and over again in the history of the human
spirit." If this force depends on belief, then the force must
be lost when the sophisticated approach of Cassirer's "religion " is substituted for the belief in the reality or truth of its
object. This was the same dilemma in which Vaihinger found
himself with his "law of ideational shifts" in the history of
religion, the shift being from dogma to hypothesis to fiction.
He says:
At first all religion consists of general dogmas. . . . Then doubt
appears and the idea becomes an hypothesis. As doubt grows
stronger, there are some who reject the idea entirely, while others
maintain it either as a public or a private fiction. This last condition is typical of every religion so far known when it has reached
a certain age. It can be seen to great advantage in Greek religion,
where the Greek folk-deities were at first general dogmas . . .
Subsequently they became fictions for the educated classes, who
adhered tenaciously to the worship of God, or rather of the gods,
although convinced that the ideas represented nothing real.

THE PHILOSOPHY

OF ERNST CASSIRER

758

Vaihinger considered that the approach through a consideration of religion as fiction would bring mighty spiritual benefits,
but at the same time he associated the " law of ideational
shifts" with the "decline and break-up" of religion. Cassirer,
of course, would deny that his " spiritual " approach would
make of religion a fiction, but it is really no different. The
dogma stage for him would be myth, which would become truly
" spiritual " when it ceased to believe in the reality or truth
of its object, and then what the spirit " created " in the metaphysical realm would really be a fiction. (A fiction, etymologically a variant of the past participle of facere, to make, is
siomething "made.") This is no different fl,rom Cassirer's
" created." Vaihinger starts with what he calls the human
psyche, Cassirer with what he calls the human spirit. Vaihinger
says that the psyche uses fictional hypotheses, including religion, to produce spiritual benefits; Cassirer says that all the culture forms, including religion, are " functions " of the human
spirit. The idea of God is a fiction of the human psyche, says,
Vaihinger; the idea of God is a " creation " of the human spirit,
says Cassirer. There is absolutely no difference. Both originate
in the human mind and deny any kind of metaphysical reality
superior to the human mind. To be sure, Cassirer constantly
uses the word " spirit," as if to give his philosophy some lofty
connotation, while Vaihinger, more frankly, calls himself basically a materialist and at times an " idealistic positivist."
Urban argues that Cassirer is superior to the positivists because
he insists upon " the autonomy of the speech notion " (Schilpp.
411) and the great gap between animal expressions and human
speech. For Cassirer, says Urban," Language is not limited to
the ' practical ' functions for which it was primarily made, but
in its development has achieved a freedom which makes it, in
the words of Von Humboldt, ' a vehicle for traversing the
manifold and the highest and deepest of the entire world'."
(Idem) But Vaihinger claims that his fictions, too, accomplish
all these wonders: " Thus, before our very eyes does a small
psychical artifice not only develop into a mighty source of the
whole theoretical explanation of the world-for all categories

754

HARRY M. CAMPBELL

arise from it-but it also becomes the origin of all the idealistic
belief and behaviour of mankind."
One can only conclude that neither of these learned philosophers has solved what Cassirer, in an unguarded moment calls,
in reference to the combination of body and soul, " the mystery
of efficacy." (PSF III, 102) If he had grasped the full import
of this unguarded admission, he might have been led, by a logic
at least as convincing as his, to the conclusion that there may
be, existentially and metaphysically in very truth, more things
in heaven and earth than are dreamt of in his "journey round
the world, the globus intellectualis."
HARRY

Oklahoma State University
Stillwate1', Oklahoma

M. CAMPBELL

BOOK REVIEWS
Temps, Dieu, Liberte dans les Commentaires AristotelicierM de Saint
Thomas d'Aquin. Essai sur la pensee grecque et la pensee chretienne.
By S. DEcLoux, S. J. Bruxelles: Desclee de Brouwer, 1967. Pp. 262.
In the Introduction the author clearly states his thesis:
La pensee grecque aurait constamment privilegie !'aspect d'universalite et d'objectivite, au detriment de Ia singularite et du mouvement de l'acte subjectif. Ariatote, toutefois, dans son opposition a Platon, a voulu porter son interrogation sur
Ia singularite irreductible du rolie n et sur le dynamisme du mouvement. Mais cet
eflort-nous le verrons-n'a pu etre pousse jusqu'au bout, et les cadres "noetiques"
de Ia pensee grecque continuent a regir la pensee du Stagirite. N'a-t-on pu
souliguer, a plusieurs reprises, I' "ambivalence" d'Aristote et le "dilemme"
auquel il se trouve accule?
La pensee chretiennc, au contraire, dans sa refiexion sur le message du salut et
dans sa refiexion sur l'lwmme, pose de maniere definitive Ia realite de Ia personne
singuliere et de sa liberte historique. C'est qu'elle trouve son point de depart dans
Ia foi au Dieu personnel, Pere, Fils et Esprit, et a la communion de " dialogue "
qu'il veut instaurer avec l'homme. Du coup, par cette acceptation radicale de la
dimension "pneumatique," le " noetique" lui-meme se trouve transforme:
de
totalite objective, le voici devenu unite spirituelle, d'echange, de partage, de
communion.
Par Ia conjonction dialectique du " noetique " et du " pneumatique," l'univers
et l'histoire humaine, ainsi que Ia vie de chaque homme, peuvent done etre penses,
a partir de !'engagement premier d'un Dieu qui, en creant, se comml)nique luimeme a sa creature, et atteint dans une meme generosite Ia totalite de la creation
et tous les etres qui Ia " oomposent." 1

It is, therefore, through the use of the twofold " noetique " and " pneumatique," such as he found them in the work of Maurice Blonde!, that
the author attempts to precise the philosophical divergences which exist
between the Christian thought of St. Thomas and the thought of the
Greek philosopher Aristotle.
In this perspective the author seeks, in the first chapter, to reinstate
the Aristotelian commentaries of St. Thomas in their historical milieu.
The second chapter, with its Aristotelian analysis of time and movement,
explores the cosmological level of the thought of the philosopher and establishes comparisons with St. Thomas. In the third chapter theological
questioning aims at precising the difference between the God of Aristotle
and the God of St. Thomas. As for the last chapter, it is "anthropologi1

Op. cit., p. 10.

755

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BOOK REVIEWS

cal " in the sense that it considers the problem of person in Aristotle and
St. Thomas.
We can see the interest and importance of such a study, one which
would merit a point by point examination. For, as the author himself
has noted, here the three ages of philosophical thought are touched upon:
the cosmological age of Greek thought, the theological age of the Middle
Ages, and the anthropological age of the modern epoch. We could say that
Greek cosmological thought was a preparation for theological thought,
while the latter, in turn, prepared the way for anthropological thought.
What is certain is that Christian thought, and in particular that of St.
Thomas, reveals a marvelous unity of these three ages.
In this perspective the author concludes-and his position is clearest in
his conclusion, which is why we somewhat insist on it-by showing the
grandeur of St. Thomas's vision regarding God and man:
Le Dieu createur suscitant, au coeur de la personne spirituelle, une liberte capable
de lui repondre en s'engageant dans une histoire, qu'elle construit en union avec
toutes les libertes et dont Dieu est lui-meme la fin.•

St. Thomas recognizes that philosophers, at the beginning of their
reflection, were oriented toward this progressive discovery but were unable
to attain it on account of their desire to "possess the truth":
Dieu seul peut en definitive engengrer dans l'histoire des hommes, comme dans sa
vie intime, son Verbe eternel; lui seul peut purifier le coeur de l'homme pour lui
permettre de recevoir cette parole qu'il lui envoie. . . . La philosophic, oeuvre de
Ia raison de l'homme, est ouverte a un achevement qui ne vient plus d'elle-meme.'

May we not affirm, moreover, that
l'univers entier, celui des paiens, des " Gentils," fut plonge dans !'ignorance
" theorique " (speculativa) de Dieu? Si les esprits les plus exerces et les plus
profonds sont en efl'et parvenus a decouvrir la voie qui conduit a lui, tous ne
l'ont-ils pas cependant ignore comrne Pere du Fils unique? •

In a certain way, we can say that philosophy has attained to a certain
knowledge of the Father and the Word, but it has totally ignored the
Holy Spirit. And the author concludes:
ce bilan de la philosophic antique, que reprend Ia Some Theologique, ne nous

invite-t-il pas a recounaitre le sens demier des insuffisances d'Aristote? Le
dualisme de !'esprit et du sensible, de Dieu et du monde, ce dualisme dont Ia
racine se trouve dans une raison encore insuffisarnment ouverte au dynamisme de
la liberte et de !'amour, n'est-ce pas de la sorte que theologiquement il s'eclaire? •
'P. 286.

•p, 287.
'Pp. 287-288.
• Pp. 238-289. Cf. I, q. 82, a. I.

757

BOOK REVIEWS

All this is quite clear and helps us to understand the philosophical
method of the authors: the philosopher Aristotle is judged by the
theologian Thomas Aquinas. Philosophy is viewed as a disposition for
theology, a disposition filled with awkwardness, filled with confusions.
And we may even add that the theology of St. Thomas, on its part, is
understood through the thought of Blonde!. We see the danger of such .a
method; and we can immediately affirm that it is foreign to the thought of
St. Thomas who, rightly, has always been careful to distinguish well what
belongs to philosophy and what belongs to faith and theology. Moreover,
the distinction, on which the author very much insists, between "noetique"
et " pneumatique," implies a confusion. The term " noetique," the nuthor
explains,
designe le principe constitutif de la realite et de l'intelligibilite des choses, qui les
fait apparaitre comme solidaires et reunies dans la totalite d'un univers. In revele
done a !'analyse une fonction unificatrice, une fonction d'intelligibilite objective et
d'universalite.
Mais le noetique est continuellement solidaire du " pneumatique " qui, a son
tour, degage dans l'univers des centres singuliers de reaction et fait ainsi apparaitre
l'univers sous la forme d'une diversite. Sa fonction est done de differenciation, en
meme temps que de dynamisme " subjectif " et de singularite.•

Now, according to Blonde!, these two aspects are coordinated,
symetriques, s'appelant ou se provoquant l'un !'autre, chacun n'etant possible et
intelligible que par l'autre et pour l'autre!

It is easy to understand that this distinction, which sought to express St.
Thomas's analysis-the distinction between subject-object, intellect-willno longer expresses it in reality; for it is not on the same level, and this
is the confusion that the author has fallen into. The analysis of St.
Thomas is located on the level of principles and proper causes (the object,
for him, signifies the principle of specification, of determination, whereas
the subject expresses the principle of exercise), whereas the distinction of
noetic and pneumatic is on the descriptive level, vital and existential,
which corresponds to the schema "statique "-" dynamique." s This is
why it seems a grave error to judge the thought of Aristotle as a " noetique " 9 thought and to return to it constantly; for it amounts to judging
this thought in terms of distinctions which have nothing to do with it.
We understand, then, the judgment which is made on the philosophy of
Aristotle:
• Pp. 9-10.
from La Pensee, quoted on p. 10.
Seep. 93.
• See especially pp. 100, 101, 117,
151, 165,
283,
1 Extract
8

177, 183, 186,

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BOOK REVIEWS

Philosophie de Ia substance et philooophie de !'intellect, telle nous a semble etre,
de l'aristotelisme.
II en resulte un
apres le platonisme, Ia caracteristique
dualisme de Ia matiere et de !'esprit, du monde et de Dieu, dont !'immanence pas
plus que Ia transcendauce ne sont pensees jusqu'au bout ... le "premier vivant"
d'Aristote reste encore enferme dans les cadres de l'identite formelle avec soi.10
... cette identite reste finalement pensee en termes formels et selon Ies lois de
l'exteriorite. 11
L'identite formelle ne domine-t-elle pas aussi sa reflexion sur le temps et l'eternite?
L'impossibilite ou se trouve Aristote de poser un debut et un terme a l'histoire,
en meme temps qu'elle Ie pousse a une conception du retour circulaire, negatrice
des lors du veritable devenir, ne signale-t-elle pas son incapacite de saisir le
surgissement toujours neuf de Ia liberte, sa gratuite et sa generosite creatrice? 12

And, speaking on the nunc which, he thinks, should invite " a degager en

lui la presence immanente d'une dimension ' etemelle , transcendante,"
the author adds:
C'est cette transcendance de l'acte qu'Aristote en definitive a meconnue. L'acte a
ete par lui finalement identifie a Ia forme; et Ia reduction du devenir a sa dimension
horizon tale et lineaire dans Ia duree, a fini par lui retirer toute realite veritable.''

Is it possible to reduce the entire philosophy of Aristotle to a philosophy of substance and intellect? 14 The first philosophy of Aristotle is
certainly the philosophy of substance, but it is also, and even more profoundly so, a philosophy of act. We might even say that his first philosophy is fundamentally that of substance, and, ultimately, that of act.
And we cannot pretend that "l'acte a ete par lui finalement identifie a Ia
forme," 15 since act and potency immediately divide being, whereas form
a.nd matter arise from becoming. To pretend that Aristotle has reduced
act to form is to say that Aristotle did not distinguish being from becoming,
and therefore that his first philosophy consists in his philosophy of
nature.l 6 It is very clear, if we analyze Book () of his first philosophy, that
10

P. 289.

n P. 186.

P. 240. See pp. 230-283.
P. 240. The author says very clearly: "Philosophic du mouvement et de Ia
generation, Ia philosophie d'Aristote n'accede qu'a une transcendance qu'on nous
perrnettra d'appeler 'horizontale,' en d'autres termes au maximum de perfection
obtenue par extrapolation a partir de l'univers" (p. 168). The author seems to
ignore totally the metaphysics of act in Aristotle and only considers the philosophy
of form. See also pp. 50 (where it is affirmed that Aristotle "continue it penser Ia
fin comme une forme, et l'acte pur comme une forme maximale "), 59, 82, 87, 90,
92, 93, 97, 99, 108.
"See, p. 86, for the manner in which the author defines the substance of
Aristotle. But substance is not a synthesis!
'"P. 240. Cf. p. 101.
16 It seems that the author has not understood
the transition, in Aristotle, from
12

13

BOOK REVIEWS

759

the distinction of act and potency is an immediate division of that u•hic.h
is considered from the point of view of being. And act is first, it transcend&
potency (at least from the point of view of nature, of intelligibility, since
from the point of view of becoming potency is prior). The first philosophy
of Aristotle is the philosophy of being; it is therefore the philosophy of
substance and the philosophy of act and, consequently, the philosophy of
the one. 17
To pretend that Aristotle identifies act with substance is to confuse the
existential point of view and that of philosophical analysis. For, from the
point of view of existence, it is correct to say that act is identified with
substance; but, from the point of view of philosophical analysis, it is false,
because substance is distinguished from accidents and act from potency.
Therefore, potency and accident are not identified for Aristotle, since
matter is in potency without being thereby an accident.
Finally, to pretend that Aristotle, "fidele disciple de Platon," identifies
being with the intelligible, 18 is to misconstrue his realism. For, does not
Aristotle show the difference which exists between substance, first being,
and quiddity (-ro r{
dvat), that which is first in the order of intelligibility? 19
natural philosophy to first philosophy. This is why he does not hesitate to make
the following criticism concerning his theology: " il nous faudra oonstater !'impuissance oil elle reste a fonder a la fois la transcendance et !'immanence du premier
principe. On a la comme deux lignee de reflexion qui ne parviennent pas a se
rejoindre, parce que les schemes de pensee, empruntes a la dimension du devenir
les lois de l'exteriorite." (p. 166,
et du mouvement, continuent a se poser
cf. p. 70) Likewise we can understand how the author could affirm that movementis the" centre de la philosophic d'Aristote" (p. 169)-although he recognizes
also that the r6l5e n is the "point de depart" and the " centre de la reflexion
We thereby also understand how the author
philosophique du Stagirite" (p.
could affirm that it is in relation to movement that ·' se definissent des lors les
differents degres selon lesquels s'etage le reel " (p. 169) .-Let us point to other
analogous affirmations: "L'analyse du mouvement selon le couple de matiere et
de forme, si elle pent conduire Aristote, par extrapolation de !'experience du monde
changeant, a une premiere substance qui soit pure forme, ne lui permet pas
cependant d'acceder a la dimension de cause universelle qui est au fondement de
la metaphysique thomiste" (pp. 169-170). "Le dynamisme du reel reste defini
par Aristote dans les termes du mouvement comme passage de matiere a forme "
(p.
Cf. p. 70: " la composition de matiere et de forme est la seule qu'il
invoque pour rendre compte de toute la complexite du reel "! See also pp. 86
and 94.
11 For the discovery, in Aristotle, of being as being, we refer the reader to our
Initiation a la philo11ophie d'Aristote (Paris: ed. de La Colombe, 1956), in particular pp. 130-140.
18 Cf. p. 90.
19 See Meta. Z, 4,
b 1-1130 b 13. See also Initiation ala philosophie d'Ari.Y-

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. Moreover, to pretend that the philosophy of Aristotle is a philosophy of
intellect does not correspond to the definition which he gives of his first
philosophy, philosophy of being insofar as it is being. 20 If his philosophy
of the living, in the
is interested in the intellect above all else,
·it is because the intellect allows him to grasp that which substantially
characterizes the life of man: a life according to the voiJ<;;.21 But let us
not forget that in the Nicomachean Ethics Aristotle shows the importance
of the voluntary in human activity, in the search for happiness. The
author, in following the interpretations of F. Nuyens on the evolution of
the psychology and noetics of Aristotle, 22 along with the interpretations of
R. A. Gauthier and J. Y. Jolif, has not grasped the proper significance of
{3ovA7JUts in Aristotle. 23 He has, moreover, made no mention of the thesis
of J. Vanier, which shows the partiality of the judgment of Gauthier and
JoJif.24
When the author supposes that the philosophy of Aristotle implies a
dualism between matter and spirit, between the world and God, here, too,
does he have reason? 25 Aristotle distinguishes between matter and spirit,
but he does not oppose them, since matter is a modality of being (in
potency) and spirit another modality of being. For him, being is outside
this distinction, and it is precisely in this that we come to grasp the
progress of his thought on the philosophy of Plato. We can likewise say
that there is no opposition (no dualism) between the universe and God,
but a distinction. One represents the realm of movement, the other that
of pure Act; one is measured by time, the other is eternal.
tote, pp. 180-18!! and "La sustancia en Ia l6gica y en Ia Filosofia Primera de
Arist6teies," in: Studium, Revista de filosofia y teologia (Madrid: Instituto
pontificio de filosofia, 1966), VI, fasc. I, pp. 94-101.
•• See Meta. E, 1, 1025 b !!.
01 It would be necessary to take up here the analyses given by the author on
voils (pp. 20!!-212) . Can we affirm that Aristotle arrives at the depersonalization
of the POVS (p. 207)?
•• See p. 198f.
•• See p. 221, 227f. The author does not hesitate to say that the voluntary
dynamism is unknown to Aristotle (p. 2!!6, cf. p. 229)!
•• See Jeiln Vanier, Le bonheur, principe et fin de la morale aristotelicienne
(Desclee De Brouwer, 1965), and especially chap. II, 7, p. 146£.
•• We might also ask whether the author has well understood the significance
of matter in Aristotle, since he asks the question: " N'est-ce pas d'ailleurs dans
sens qu'Aristote sera amene a parler d'une matiere universelle, semblable
le
au receptacle (inroBox'l!) platonicien, dote par Ia pensee d'une certain autonomic? Ce qui revient a opposer entre elles matiere et forme selon les schemes
renouveles du dualismc" (p. 102, cf. p. 117). For Aristotle, matter is distinguished
from form, but is not opposed to it, for it is essentially ordained to form and it is
intelligible to us only through the form.

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761

Moreover, is everything the author says on the God of Aristotle exact? 26
That Aristotle's theology is less precise than that of St. Thomas leaves no
room for doubt. But how easy it is, in the name of a theology based on
Revelation, to criticize the efforts of the philosopher searching for a
philosophical precision of what God is! It is inaccurate to suppose that the
first living being of Aristotle remains enclosed " dans les cadres de l'identite
formelle avec soi." This is confusing the Categories with first philosophy.
When Aristotle affirms that the first Being is Substance and purl! Act,
there is no longer question of a logical framework. 27 And when he says
that this Being is V01)CTt> V01JCT€w>, there is no longer question of an " identite
formelle avec soi," :;ince, precisely, there is question of showing that the
substantial vital act of v01)> (the J't57J<n>) can only be the object of its own
operation. We are indeed here in the dynamic order, to use an expression
of the author!
As for the author's critique of the conception of time and of eternity in
Aristotle, does it not come from the author's own conception of time and
eternity which is different-or, if one prefers, does it not come from a
confusion between the proper point of view of the philosopher and that of
the theologian? 28 For, before speaking of eternity, the philosopher must
•• See pp. 62, 150f, 157f. The author concludes: " De toute fa<;on on ne pourrait
qu'abusivement parler d'un monotheisme aristotelicien, puisque ce serait nller a
l'encontre des affirmations les plus explicites du Philosophe" (p. 162). Can this
be affirmed? The problem seems badly stated. Among those which Aristotle calls
divine beings, is there not for him necessarily a first (since one is a property of
being)? Likewise, the author declares: "C'est que le voiis supreme d'Aristote,
substitut de !'Idee du Bien, semble, comme cette derniere, ne pas se detacher encore
fort nettement des inferieurs hierarchises dans lesquels il se realise et exerce sa
vertu " (p. 164). But the voils of Aristotle is not a substitute for the Idea of
the Good, for it is a separated substance and pure act, and not an idea; and
Aristotle affirms that it is autonomous, substantinlly separated from all inferior
beings. The author asks the question (to which he replies): "Le Dieu d'Aristote
ne reste-t-il pas encore en quelque maniere corre!atif au monde du devenir?"
And then he adds: " ll suffit, pour s'en rendre compte, de reprendre Ia ligne
generale de Ia preuve aristotelicienne " (p. 167) . The author does not sufficiently
distinguish that which permits us, from the point of view of our knowledge, to
attain to the prime Mover, and what he is in himself. It is true that, for
Aristotle, movement is for us an avenue of approach; but, considered in himself,
God is not correlative to the world of becoming. This world is related to him,
but he himself," pensee de Ia pensee," is not related to the world.-See alsop. 170,
where the author adopts the affirmation of Fr. Ducoin: The pure act of Aristotle
would be " acte pur dans Ia ligne dn mouvement," and not in the line of being!
27 Let ns also note what the an thor affirms following Miss Mansmn:
"Aristote
fait, dans Ia question de Ia necessite et de l'eternite, une facheuse confusion entre
le plan de Ia logique et le plan de Ia realite, entre la necessite et l'eternite de Ia
proposition enoncee et Ia necessite et l'eternite de l'etre existant" (p. 101, cf. p.
109). We do not think so.
•• See pp. 65 and 68.

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precise what time is in itself and the measure of time; time is that which
permits him to say something about eternity-while the theologian
considers time in the light of eternity.
I do not believe that St. Thomas had a philosophical conception of
time other than that of Aristotle; but, since he is a theologian, time only
interests him in view of eternity, and the latter permits him to make a
value judgment on time. I would be even more willing to think that the
author has a conception of becoming which is neither that of St. Thomas
nor, a fortiori, that of Aristotle. For when he reproaches the latter for
" la reduction du devenir a sa dimension horizontale et lineaire dans la
duree," which removes from it " toute realite veritable," he is thinking of a
fieri which is the recognition of a " plus-etre." 29 Does there not appear
to be a confusion here between fieri and vital operation? It is evident that
the vital operation which we experience implies a mode of fieri; but it is
not a simple fieri. And if vital operation implies (according to an
expression which, moreover, is not exact from the point of view of metaphysics) a "plus-etre," it is not insofar as it implies a mode of fieri but
insofar as it is a vital operation. Fieri, as such, is the " acte de ce qui est en
puissance " and, by that very fact, it remains within the horizontal
dimension, without implying any perfection.
Similarly, regarding the end as conceived by Aristotle, the author
affirms:
Ia reflexion sur Ia fin et sur le bien n'est pas interiorisee chez le Stagirite au point
de s'enraciner dans Ia motion actuelle de l'acte createur; elle rest.e au niveau de
Ia forme et de Ia determination par laquelle chaque etre se definit en connexion
avec !'ensemble.••

But the end and the good, considered on the philosophical level, must not
be immediately rooted in the actual motion of the creative act. The
latter is an ultimate judgment of wisdom which precises it. In addition,
it is impossible to say that for Aristotle the end remains on the level of
the form, except when it is a question of physical becoming.
Staying in the realm of ethics, the author notes in Aristotle the absence
of a deep reflection on liberty, 81 and he makes his own this affirmation
of Gauthier: the morality of the Nicomachean Ethics is a " morale de
cette vie, sans aucune ouverture sur un autre monde quel qu'il soit." s2
The philosophy of Aristotle "limite sa vue aux horizons terrestres." 33
•• P. 240; see also p. 101.
80 P. 104. See p. 150. We will return to this subject.
31

See p. 197.

uP. 213. Cf. p. 221: " ... une vie morale limitee a !'organisation de Ia cite

terrestre, ou s'engouffre le necessitarisme de Ia raison, et qui a son sommet s'efface
devant l'intellectualisme pur de !a contemplation impersonnelle.
83 P. 218.

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For the author, there is in Aristotle a dualism between vovs and .yux1];
" dualisme d'un vov<> puremcnt raisonnable, referme sur soi dans son
oeuvre d'intelligence et de raison, et d'une arne inferieure, lieu des passions
et des appetits." 34 And he adds:
ll manquait sans doute a sa conception du voils !'element dynamique qui aurait
brise sa suffisance statique et formelle. 85

The author seems not to have grasped the final causality which is only
exercised, for Aristotle, at the level of vov>· But this is not surprising,
since, according to him, the good, such as Aristotle conceives it, " reste
encore trop, dans la ligne ' idealiste ' de Platon, ' une idee de bien.' " 86
We do not think so; Aristotle has explicitly criticized this conception of the
good.
" Aristote," the author repeats, " ignore la promotion ' personnelle ' de
l'etre, le surgissement d'une liberte proprement spirituelle." 37 We are in
agreement with the author on this point but not on the reasons which
he gives:
Parce que sa reflexion philosophique reste limitee au plan de Ia forme, et n'accede
pas au "plan " ... inh\rieur de l'acte ou se reve!e l'absolue immanence de !a
transcendance. . . ." 8

The author seems-this is clear from the few texts which we have
quoted-not to have clearly grasped the point of view of Aristotle. This is
sufficiently made manifest by hearing him reproach the philosophy of
Aristotle for failing " a atteindre le veritable universal concret.'' 39 Aristotle must not be judged in the light of Hegel! His perspective is altogether
different; it is that of a philosopher in search of the proper causes of that
which is moved, of that which is living, of that which is, of moral activity,
and who, by that very fact, analyzes. Aristotle in his realism knows all
too well that life is beyond analysis. The philosopher analyzes in order to
live better afterwards, but his philosophy is not his life.
Finally, when the author compares the philosophy of St. Thomas to that
of Aristotle, he sums up by saying:
sa philosophic n'est plus une philosophic de Ia forme ou de Ia substance, mais une
philosophic de l'acte et de !'esse. L'identite qui, pour lui aussi bien que pour le
philosophe grec, est le premier principe de sa metaphysique, n'est plus a con40
siderer seulement comme une identite formelle.

•• P.
•• P. 225.

•• P.

•• Ibid.

P.
•• P. 104.
•• P. £39. Cf. p. 50: "Affirmation de !'esse, decouverte de Ia negativite infinie
(correlative de l'acte de creation), voila en quoi !a metaphysique thomiste se
distingue, d'une maniere irreductible, de Ia metaphysique aristotelicienne." See
87

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And elsewhere, he insists: the dimension of esse "reste ignoree d'Aristote." u And again: "C'est la dimension meme de creation qui fait defaut
a la philosophie d'Aristote." 42 And, speaking of the real distinction
between essence and being, he adds: "Voila certes une distinction et une
composition ontologique qu'on serait embarrasse de retrouver chez Aristote." 43 While the philosophy of St. Thomas is, for the author, " d'un
autre ordre," 44 it is a philosophy of participation, 45 a philosophy of
creation 46 and of creative liberty. 47 It is a Christian philosophy. "Seule
une metaphysique de Ia creation," writes the author,
peut atteiudre a cette conjonction de Ia plus intime immanence avec Ia plus totale
transcendance. ••
L' erreur" d'Aristote, le caractere inachieve de sa reflexion philosophique, apparait dans !'absence chez lui de cette dimension " verticale," du rapport immediat au Dieu createur!"

Later, he will speak again of "!'absence chez Aristote de la dimension
d'interiorite totale qui permet a St. Thomas d'elaborer une metaphysique
de l'esse et de la creation." 50
also pp. 98, 111, 117.-Another opposition indicated by the author between
Aristotle's philosophy and that of St. Thomas is their different conception of
history. For Aristotle, the world is eternal and there is a cycle of eternal return,
whereas for St. Thomas there is a history (see p. 103). When the author notes
this opposition, he does not sufficiently distinguish between what St. Thomas says
as theologian, basing himself on Revelation, and what he says as philosopher.
Does not St. Thomas himself recognize that the creation of the world in time
cannot be philosophically affirmed? The philosopher can affirm that the world is
created; but, insofar as he is a philosopher, he cannot know how it was created,
nor when it was created. The philosopher is unable to understand the sense of
the history of the world.
41 P. 60.
•• P. 69.
•• P. 70.
.. P. 181.
•• Seep. 78.
•• See pp. 166, 176.
47 See p. 176.
Further on, the author says explicitly: "C'est done bien sa
metaphysique de la creation et de la liberte divine qui, a chaque pas, preserve saint
Thomas des dangers du noetisme aristotelicien." (p. 183)
•• P. 100. Let us also note this manner of opposing the philosophy of Aristotle
and that of St. Thomas: " Pour le philosophe grec, il faut rendre compte du
mouvement et de son eternite ... pour saint Thomas, il s'agit d' 'expliquer'
l'iltre du monde en recourant a une cause transcendante qui fonde tant la valeur
.absolue que l'essentielle contingence du cree." (p. 178)
•• P. 120.
•• P. 166.

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As we have already said, the philosophy of Aristotle cannot be reduced
to a philosophy of form. Moreover, if we want to compare the metaphysics
of St. Thomas to Aristotle's, it will be necessary to ask whether their proper
principles are sufficiently distinct. The metaphysics of St. Thomas appears
equally to be the metaphysics of being, of substance, of act. Certainly, it
is true that the " dimension de la creation " is present in the metaphysics
of St. Thomas, whereas it is absent in Aristotle's; but is the problem of
creation, in the metaphysics of St. Thomas, a proper principle in the strict
sense, which gives a new comprehension of being? Or is this problem a
conclusion which must necessarily be inferred when t4e existence of the
first Being has been posited and when its relationships to other existing
realities are being precised? We can make an analogous remark with regard
to the conception of esse, whiCh would be altogether novel in St. Thomas
and ignored by Aristotle. If we consider the participated esse of creatures,
we can, in effect, affirm that this esse, as such, is ignored by Aristotle.
But what does the knowledge of this participated esse represent in the
thought of St. Thomas? Is it an immediate, direct knowledge which we
have in experiencing existing realities? Is it a mediate knowledge, a
conclusion which we affirm beginning with creation and in the light of it?
If the knowledge of this participated esse is an immediate and direct
knowledge, then we can ask ourselves whether it engenders a new metaphysics, whether it permits us to posit a new principle; but if it is
merely a mediate knowledge, dependent on creation, everything can be
reduced to the preceding question: is the problem of creation, in the
metaphysics of St. Thomas, a proper principle?
Hence, it is evident that, for St. Thomas, we do not have a direct
experience of participated esse. If we had the evidence of participated esse,
we would have an evident knowledge of creation and of God himself.
We can reason in the same way with regard to that which concerns
participation. May we truly oppose Aristotle's philosophy to that of St.
Thomas by saying that the former is that of causality, the latter that of
participation? If we understand " participation " in the sense of "participation in esse," and hence in the sense of " creation," we see what
the answer is. If we understand " participation " in the Platonic sense, then
the philosophy of St. Thomas is nothing but a philosophy of participation.
Finally, if we suppose that the real distinction between essence and
esse is not in Aristotle, which would justify a distinction between the
metaphysics of St. Thomas and that of Aristotle, we must then ask this
question: is such a distinction considered as the fruit of a direct analysis
of experience or as the fruit of an inference, of a metaphysical judgment?
It is evident that, in Aristotle, there cannot be here any distinction that
is the fruit of a metaphysical judgment, since this judgment presupposes
the problem of creation. But if we consider the distinction in question
as the fruit of a direct analysis of experience, there is room for discussion.

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For Aristotle clearly distinguishes the
TL from TO T[
dvat, the
existing singular of its essence. Therefore, it is evident that only this
second consideration (where the distinction between essence and esse is
seen as the fruit of a direct analysis of experience) could modify the
structure of a metaphysical way of thinking.
We point out once more this opposition which the author makes between
Aristotle and St. Thomas, when he supposes that, in Aristotle, affirmation
and negation are opposed " dans l'ordre de Ia forme et ne portent pas sur
I'esse lui-meme de la n\alite consideree," 51 for his thought" nc s'approfondit
pas jusqu'a atteindre la source meme de l'etre, ou celui-ci se trouve
IJ,ffronte au pur non-etre." 52 In St. Thomas, on the contrary, "l'acces a
l'etre veritable . . . passe par le moment de Ia negation." 53 And the
author will affirm that: "La saisie de Ia negation reve!e une difference
fondamentale entre Aristote et saint Thomas." 54
Is this opposition between Aristotle and St. Thomas in that which
concerns negativity correct? Yes, without any doubt, if we accept what
the author says with regard to negation in Aristotle. But, to be precise,
this does not seem accurate, unless we confuse being and the first Being.
The negation of being (this is not) is opposed to the affirmation of
that-which-is (this is); such :t negation holds well for being (is) but not
for this.
Just as affirmation of the first Being is not immediate from the philosophical point of view, negation with respect to the first Being cannc·t be
first, but we can make use of it to explain creation, participation in esse.
Therefore, we concede that St. Thomas, with the problem of creation,
has explicitated the problem of negativity in his ultimate conclusion; but
this does not give us, on the metaphysical level, a new kind of negativity.
Again the author sees, between Aristotle's philosophy and that of St.
Thomas, a difference (to which we have already alluded) concerning the
conception of end. For the Stagirite end remains
un terme exterieur, vers lequel se meut l'etre en movement, qu'il puisse d'ailleurs
atteindre ce terme, ou que cette actualisation lui reste a jamais impossible . . .
Toute fin, pour S. Thomas, est, au contraire, pensee a partir de Ia " fin derniere "
qui est, dans I'etre ce qui lui est le plus interieur, plus interieur a lui-meme,
selon le mot de S. Augustin.••
51 P. 116.
•• P. 118.
53 P. 120.
•• P. 150. For Aristotle, "Ia negation est reconnue dans le mouvement comme
ITTEP'TJ<r<s: elle est, en quelque sorte, le manque qu'implique toute forme autre que
Ia forme pure .... Comme telle Ia negativite est essentiellement Jiee a !a matiere
et elle reste toujours, en fait, Ia negation d'une qualite determinee. Chez S. Thomas:
!'affirmation de Ia creation ... conduit a Ia reconnaissance d'une negation autrement radicale, laquelle est correlative de I'etre regu de Dieu." (p. 150)
55 Pp. 150-151. Cf. p. 225:
" ... Ia fin derniere, ainsi que l'ordre entier de Ia

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767

We find here once more the same misunderstanding of Aristotle and the
same confusion concerning St. Thomas. In reality, finality, for Aristotle,
does not reside in the exteriority of a term. Let us recall what he says
regarding happiness, contemplation 56 and friendship, since it is there that
we can understand finality in the most explicit manner. And in the case
of physical realities the proper finality of these realities is their immediate
connexion with their natural place. As for St. Thomas, he distinguishes
well what finality is from the philosophical point of view and that certain
finality which is that of God the creator, who is the last, ultimate finality.
Let us not confuse the two, which would amount to the suppression of the
order of secondary eauses.
We could go on multiplying questions and remarks. But those already
presented suffice to show the difference between the metaphysics of St.
Thomas and that of Aristotle. If, substantially, they are one and the same
metaphysics-for the same proper principles are had and utilized by bothnevertheless that of St. Thomas incontestably marks a new achievement
and new precisions. The problem of creation, while not presenting any
new principles, allows very important new metaphysical judgments to be
made, both from the speculative and the practical points of view, in order
to better understand man's situation toward God and the universe. But
the achievement, the flowering of metaphysics, must not be confused with
its proper structure.
The constant opposition made by the author between Aristotle's thought
and that of St. Thomas becomes so strong that we must ask the question:
how could St. Thomas have commented on Aristotle with such precision
and such care? For we are obliged to recognize, in the perspective of the
author, that St. Thomas has understood nothing of the thought of Aristotle, that he thought he had understood it but in fact had not at all done
so.57 This is somewhat annoying! For if St. Thomas, in commenting on
Aristotle, was not interested in the historical-which is evident-he was
interested in the philosophical in his search for truth; he used Aristotle
as one uses a friend who helps to discover truth, a friend with whom, in
finalite ne semblent pas encore con<;us de maniere totalement 'inh\rieure '."-It is
evident that the finality discovered by the philosopher is not that of Revelation
and of charily, which alone can be totally interior.
•• See especially the last book of the Nicomachean Ethics. See also Initiation
la philosophie d'Aristote, pp. 161-167, and "Nature de l'acte de contemplation
philosophique dans !a perspective des principles d'Aristote," Revue Thomiste, ill
(1949)' 525-541.
57 The author does not hesitate so say:
" lei encore, il faut que saint Thomas
depense des tresors d'habilete pour justifier !'accord de sa pensee avec celle du
Stagirite" (p. 180). See also pp. 186, 221, and 223 where the author writes
. ce n'est que pour sauver, par une pieuse interpretation, le texte
textually: "
d'Aristote qu'il ne comprenait plus, que saint Thomas se resigne a voir ... " etc.

a

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seeking truth, one works jointly, and, consequently, whose thought one
does not hesitate to explicitate when he himself has not sufficiently done
so.5s
The historian must keep in mind this attitude of St. Thomas with regard
to Aristotle; otherwise, he risks failing to understand the thought of St.
Thomas by no longer understanding a chief source of his philosophical
thought. Perhaps this is the reason, moreover, why so often those who
dialectically oppose the philosophy of St. Thomas to that of Aristotle :ll"rive
at the point of no longer understanding the true metaphysics of St. Thomas;
they see only his conclusions without regard for principles and thereby
no longer understand it. 59
58 On St. Thomas's use of auctoritates we refer the reader to an article entitled
"Reverentissime exponens Frater Thomas," published in French in Freiburger
(1965), nn°
and in
Zeitschrift fiir Philosophic und Theologie,
English in The Thomist, XXXII (1968), n° 1, 84-105.
59 See for example p. 110, where the author affirms that, in the perspective of
St. Thomas, "I' esse et !'immanence creatrice sont au fondement de tout etre et
de Ia nature meme du cree." Likewise p. 121: "L'action creatrice de Dieu est Ia
source meme de Ia consistance en soi du cree." And p. 122: " La liberte creatrice,
de Ia metaphysique thomiste .... "-Is it exact to say that the " cause universelle"
is the "fondement de Ia meta physique thomiste" (pp. 169-170)? Is this not
to accept the
of ontologism? The author a-ffirms again that "toute philosophic qui echoue a acceder a Ia dimension de I' esse devra immanquablement
recourir a des realites intermediaires entre le fini et l'infini." (p. 169) If esse
signifies participated esse, we can see where we shall end up, far from the thought
of St. Thomas! If esse here signifies actUs essendi (the first modality of act), we
should therefore rather talk of a metaphysics of act, which would be true; but
then we should, at the same time, recognize that Aristotle is the first to have
come to this metaphysics, even though he may not have explicitated all the
consequences.
Is the supposition that the dualism (immanence-transcendence) " est des le
depart depasse " in fact the thought of St. Thomas, the reason being none other
than "!'introduction clans le voils de Ia dimension de liberte: le dynamisme qui
anime le Dieu de S. Thomas lui permet de franchir tous les cercles superposes pour
habiter, de sa presence immediate, chacun des etres " (p. 174)? The author again
says that "Saint Thomas, parce que sa reflexion est exercice ooncret du 'mouvement de transcendance,' aboutit a une cause premiere infinie." (p. 178) But is it
correct to say that the reflection of St. Thomas is " exercise concret du ' mouvement de transcendance ' "? Can we say, on the other hand, that the Thomistic
synthesis, " est Ia volonte libre qui clot le 'cercle de I' esprit ' " (p. 197) ?
Let us note also the following affirmations: free will " acheve de poser Ia
personne dans sa singularite et de l'integrer dan3 Ia communion interpersonnelle. Elle resoud par le fait meme Ia dialectique singulier-universel saisie
encore de
abstraite par !'intelligence." (p. 197)-Finally, wishing to characterize the position of St. Thomas with regard to morality, the author shows that
this morality is totally oriented toward eternal beatitude, and he adds: N'est-ce

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Fr. Decloux considers the metaphysics of St. Thomas as
Ullll refiexion totale, qui saisit au coeur du reel la dimension de !'esse [et qui]
saisit correlativement Ia liberte spirituelle de Ia personne qui doit Ia reconnaitre
et s'y soumettre. 60

And the author adds:
Parce qu'elle atteint, dans !'affirmation du Dieu transcendant et immanent au
monde, la source vivante et personnelle de Ia totalite de l'etre, Ia reflexion de saint
Thomas per<;oit egalement, au niveau de !'esse que lui communique le Createur,
Ia valeur ultime de Ia personne spirituelle." 1

Is this not a very particular type of Thomism?
Finally, for the author, it seems that the final perfection of Thomism is
to have grasped
le dynamisme de Ia personne et de l'univers qui se realisent en faisant leur le don
premier de Dieu, dans un mouvement de liberre reellement "autocreatrice." ••

The author admits that his criticism of Aristotle is at times somewhat
unilateral:
pas elle deja qui commence, de maniere imparfaite, dans !'adhesion a l'etre de
!'intelligence, lorsque, en fonction de son ouverture radicale, celle-ci decouvre dans
that in
!'instant Ia presence de l'Absolu" (p. 218; the author even says, p.
his eternal destiny the person " adhere a l'etre qui est sa beatitude ") . But is there
not some confusion here? Is it not faith, rather than philosophical knowledge,
that in which the intellect "deoouvre dans !'instant Ia presence de l'Absolu "?
•• P. 197. Similarly, the author, in order to characterize that which is proper
to the metaphysics of St. Thomas, declares: " Ne fallait-il pas pousser Ia pensee
jusqu'a la
totale sur l'acte et le dynamisme de !'exercise, pour obtenir,
sans confusion indealiste, l'identite de l'etre et du connaitre, et pour que l'!nfinite
noetique, au-deJa des dualismes, cesse definitivement de representer un jeu de
miroirs ou de oorrespondances queloonques? " (p. 207)
61 P. 197.
•• P. 284. Such a definition of Thomism, which is hardly Thomistic, would, on
the contrary, wonderfully agree with a definition of the philosophy of Whitehead.
In fact, we find in it, very well rendered in the French, a part of the key concepts
of this philosophy: self-realization, self-creation, initial aim, endowment inherited
from God, freedom. . . . The metaphysics of Whitehead, in fact, brings to light
a dynamism, that of the " entite actuelle " and, by means of it, of the universe,
which realizes itself by making its own, in its subjective aim, the primordial gift
of God in a movement of freedom really "auto-creatrice." See A. Parmentier, La
philosophie de Whitehead et le probleme de Dieu (Paris: Beauchesne, 1968), pp.
872-879. The definition of Thomism given by Fr. Decloux can almost be interposed
on certain phrases of Whitehead, notably the following: " Thus the initial stage of
the aim (qui guide !'auto-creation de l'entite actuelle et, par elle, de l'univers] is
rooted in the nature of God, and its completion depends upon the self-causation of
the subject" (Process and Reality, Macmillan, 1929, p. 878).

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Au risque de paraitre injuste envers le Stagirite, nons avons surtout souligne le
cote lacunaire, a nos yeux, de sa philosophie. II faut reconnaitre cependant que
sa conception du premier Moteur ne manque pas d'une certaine grandeur.••

We make the same admission. At the risk of appearing unjust toward
Simon Decloux, we have especially noted what in our eyes is the lacunary
side of his comparison between Aristotle's philosophy and that of St.
Thomas. It must be recognized, however, that his study does point, at
certain times, to a relationship between the Stagirite and the medieval
theologian, and even shows how one prepares for the other. 64
M.-D. PHILIPPE, 0. P.
Univeraity of FribO'Urg
FribO'UTg, Switzerland

St. Thomas Aquinas Quaestiones De Anima. A newly established edition of
the Latin text with introduction and notes. By JAMES H. RoBB.
Toronto: Pontifical Institute of Mediaeval Studies, 1968. Pp. 282.
$9.00.

Students of St. Thomas will welcome this new edition of the Quaestiones
disputatae De anima. It is intelligent and well produced. However, they
will want to know the textual basis for this new edition. In the strict
sense of the term this is not a critical edition. For this we will have to
await the patient work of the Leonine editors with their new exhaustive
methods. The present text is basically that contained in Oxford manuscript Balliol 49, which is of Parisian origin and contains pecia indications
throughout. In other words, the present edition represents the university
tradition collated with three other manuscripts of the same tradition:
Paris, Bibl. lat. 14547, Paris, Bibl. Nat. lat. 15352, and Vatican, Bibl.
Vat. lat. 786. Of the sixty manuscripts known to the editor, fifty have been
examined and forty-one are said to be based on university exemplars. The
other nine belong to a different tradition which contains " rather marked
differences." This second tradition is not given a name or source; however
these manuscripts could possibly constitute the " conventual " tradition,
meaning the text preserved in religious houses and copied by religious. This
phenomena has been encountered elsewhere, notably in Gauthier's magnificent edition of the Super Ethicam. The Leonine editors have repeatedly
pointed out that the university tradition is by no means the best. University
stationers were not as interested in a faithful text as they were in money.
88

P. 184 .

.. See pp. 190, 204, 205, 209, 219.

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771

With them it was a business. Of the nine non-university manuscripts only
three have been selected for collation in the apparatus: Vatican, Bibl. lat.
Ottob. 2Hl, Vatican, Borg. 15, and Bruges, Bibl. de Ia Ville 491, plus one
incunabulum.
The author knows of sixty extant copies of the De anima. In actual fact,
the Leonine editors know of ninety-one. Mere numbers do not mean much
except as an indication of the diffusion of the text. But the thirty-one additional MSS still need to be analyzed and divided into groups. It might
even be possible to establish a stemma for the entire collection. The
whole point of a stemma is to eliminate codices that are simply duplicates
or to eliminate new errors that have crept into a copy (eliminatio codicum)
so that they can be disregarded in the actual reconstruction of the authoritative text. This eliminatio codicum has for its ultimate purpose the
relation of extant manuscripts and the reconstruction of the original
exemplar or something close to it. Dr. Robb has not given the reader an
evaluation of the individual codices listed. So it is impossible to make a
judgment about this matter. The main point here is that thirty-one
codices remain to be examined and that the whole collection needs to be
broken down into groups. Dr. Robb realizes in part this grouping when
he indicates the agreement of MSS OVB by the letter g in the non-university tradition.
A more serious question in the introduction is the dating of the
Questiones De anima. The author's thesis is that the questions were
delivered and written during the " spring of 1269 " (p. 27) and therefore
a product of St. Thomas's second Parisian regency (passim). It is true
that two MSS (Klosterneuburg, Stifsbibl. 274, and Angers 418) state
explicitly that these questions were debated in Paris (determinate parisius).
But this testimony must be considered in the light of other testimony.
The catalogue of Prague, Bartholomew of Capua, and Nicholas Trevet
merely say " Item de quaestionibus disputatis partes tres. Unam disputavit parisius de veritate; aliam in Italia de potentia dei et ultra; aliam
secunda vice Parisius, scilicet de virtutibus et ultra." The other catalogues
present conflicting testimony. There is no difficulty about dating the
De veritate. They were given over a period of three years and can be
distributed into three groups: qq. 1-7, qq. 8-20, qq. 21-29. No author or
catalogue gives evidence of other disputations during this regency. The
three catalogues mentioned can be presented in the following way:
(1256-69)
(1259-68)
(1269-72)

De veritate -Paris
De potentia -Italy
et ultra
De virtutibus-Paris
ct ultra

The critical question is the scope of "et ultra " and, in the present context,
the place of the De anima, whether this is to be placed in Italy, where

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St. Thomas resided for nine years, or in Paris, where St. Thomas lived only
two and a half years during his second regency. There is no dispute
about the De malo, which is a long work consisting of 101 articles or
subjects for disputation. Nor is there any dispute about the De virtutibus,
a substantial collection of five subjects and containing 36 articles. Likewise, there is no trouble about the series of questions called De spiritualibus
creaturis: " Hie incipiunt questiones fratris T. de Aquino disputate in
Italia." The De veritate, De potentia and De virtutibus are certain and
based on sound evidence. The only question is about De anima and De
unione Verbi Incarnati. We must not forget that St. Thomas's sojourn in
Italy after becoming a master included Anagni
Orvieto
65), Rome
Viterbo
and Naples
and that
he did not always have the same audience. Our concern here is the place
and approximate date of the disputations De anima.
Dr. Robb follows P. Glorieux in placing the De anima in St. Thomas's
second Parisian regency. Glorieux's arguments are not conclusive: (1) the
length of
questions fits neatly into the period from January to June
but so do others;
this would explain the inclusion of the work in
the stationers office in Paris, but this would not explain why the De
potentia is also included; (4) there are parallel places in the Parisian
Quodlibets and the De anima, but there are parallel places throughout the
works of St. Thomas on this subject. Dr. Robb adds two more: (5) "the
extreme unlikelihood that St. Thomas would dispute twice on the same
topic in the same place and before the same audience," which would be
the case if De spiritualibus creaturis and De anima were given in the
same place and year; but this would not need to have been the case within
the nine-year period when St. Thomas was in Italy before going back to
Paris; (6) in both series of questions St. Thomas points out that Augustine
is not the author of De spiritu et anima, but every parallel place can bear
the brunt of this objection; moreover, St. Thomas need not have had the
same audience for both series, and even if he did, there is no reason why
St. Thomas could not have mentioned this significant fact twice. The
most weighty argument to my mind is the fact that two manuscripts
mention Paris as the place of disputation. This argument is serious, and
I cannot answer it.
In the second Parisian regency Robb would order the disputed questions
as follows: De anima, De virtutibus, De unione Verbi and De malo. But
this does not accord with the lists given by the catalogue of Prague,
Bartholomew of Capua and Nicholas Trevet, who explicitly state that the
first set of disputations stemming from the second Parisian regency is De
virtutibus. They would have said "De anima et ultra." Instead, they
explicitly say "De virtutibus et ultra." Further, the collection of disputations known as De virtutibus parallels St. Thomas's composition of the
Secunda Pars, which he was working on at that time in Paris, while the

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773

De anima parallels Prima Pars, q. 75 fl'. Furthermore, there are too many
works attributed to St. Thomas's second regency, especially if Dom Marc's
thesis is correct concerning the Summa contra gentiles. Even if Dom
Marc's thesis is not correct, there are still too many works crowded into
this period. Moreover, St. Thomas was working on some of the Aristotelian commentaries at this time besides the Summa theologiae, numerous
opuscula and carrying out his duties as a regent master. After all, St.
Thomas was in Paris for a second regency only two and a half years. It
is natural to think that St. Thomas would have disputed on questions that
most occupied his mind at the time. My own opinion is that he disputed
the questions De anima in Italy, probably at Rome, where he was regent
master in the new Studium Generale, or at Orvieto, where he was assigned
for four years and lectured at the papal curia.
The question De unione Verbi Incarnati is more difficult to date and
place. Since it is not noted in any of the lists mentioned by Dr. Robb,
it may very well be that these were disputed at Naples where St. Thomas
was sent after his second Parisian regency. As regent master he would be
obliged to lecture on Sacred Scripture and to hold disputations as well
as to preach. No one to my knowledge has attempted to determine which
disputations were held at Naples. Moreover, St. Thomas would be
particularly interested in this question, having written the first part of the
Tertia Pars either at Paris or at Naples. If anything, the De unione Verbi
Incarnati was not disputed in Paris; it may have been disputed in Italy
where he found Latin versions of the early Ecumenical Councils and the
Fathers of the Church.
My own inclination would be to list the chronological arrangement of the
Quaestiones disputatae as follows:

I. Paris (1256-59)
II. Italy

III. Paris

IV. Naples (H7Q-74)

De veritate (qq. 1-7; qq.
qq.
De potentia
De spiritualibus creaturis
De anima
De virtutibus (in communi; De caritate; De
correctione fraterna; De spe; De virt1ttibus
cardinalibus)
De malo
De unione Verbi Incarnati

The text of the De anima is very good and well presented. Nevertheless,
one must always keep in mind that this version represents the university
tradition. Apparently it was this version that had the greatest historical
influence, at least before the printed versions. To the objection that
editions of medieval texts are versions of works that never existed before
we can answer that this text belongs to a clearly defined tradition; it is
a conglomeration of variant readings for a version that never existed in

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BOOK REVIEWS

history. It is carefully done and excellently produced. More work likl."
this needs to be done even before the Leonine editors get around to
producing a definitive version. The fact that Dr. Robb recognizes the
existence of a second manuscript tradition is a far-reaching step. Readers
encountering a printed text of a medieval author too often assume that it
is the Gospel truth and are not even aware of the subtelties and difficulties
encountered by an editor.
JAMES A. WEISHEIPL, 0. P.
Pontifical Institute of Mediaeval Studies
Toronto, Canada

The Apple or Aristotle's Death. Translated from the Latin, with an
introduction, by MARY F. RoussEAU, M.A. Milwaukee: Marquette
University Press, 1969. Pp. 81. $3.00.
St. Thomas Aquinas: On the Unity of the Intellect Against the Averroists.
Translated from the Latin, with an introduction, by BEATRICE H.
ZEDLER. Milwaukee: Marquette University Press, 1968. Pp. 83. $3.00.
Long attributed to Aristotle by scholars of lesser standing during the
Middle Ages, The Apple or Aristotle's Death was probably of Arabian
origin, the three paragraphs referring to Noe and Abraham having been
inserted probably by a Hebrew translator of the original dialogue. Already
deemed spurious by Thomas Aquinas and many of his contemporaries,
there are at least five points of evidence against Aristotelian authorship.
The first is that this dialogue is far too garrulous, in strict contrast to
Aristotle's own dialogues (as well as we know them now) and the very
concise style of the twelfth book of the Metaphysics. The second point is
that this dialogue contains very strange medical doctrine, which could
hardly be attributed to the son of the famous physician. Nicomachus.
The third point lies in the very poetic language ascribed to a man whose
recognizably last writings contained terms of the best scientific precision
for his time. The fourth point comprises the numerous contradictions to his
scientific teaching. A fifth point is that the dialogue is imbued with a
strange melancholy hardly in keeping with the Stagirite's character as
known historically hut well in keeping with the historically known character of Manfred, who apparently produced the first Latin translation of
the dialogue from a Hebrew version before December,
We can thank Miss Rousseau for introducing us to an area poorly
represented in Western publications and for producing a good English
translation of the dialogue, including the Margoliouth English translation
of The Book of the Apple from the Persian. Her summaries about the

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influence of Plato's Phaedo upon the author of The Apple, the history of
the latter's origin and tradition, and the manuscript tradition of the Latin
version of The Apple, are well presented.
Working in an area in which modern scholarship has yielded a betterdeveloped order of historical data and making use of the critical edition
of the opusculum as produced by L. W. Keeler, S. J., Dr. Zedler has
made a very good translation of the Aquinas defense of the coherent Aristotelian psychology concerning the mind against the Averroists at the
University of Paris during the late Hl60's and early 1£70's. Her summaries
of the history previous to and contemporaneous with the dispute about the
unity of the mind (as well as her choice of excellent references in this
regard) , immediate facts relevant to the Aquinas treatise and its relationship with writings of Siger of Brabant, and the content and structure of
this treatise, represent a splendid accomplishment.

F. c. LEHNER, 0. P.
Dominican House of Studies
Washington, D. C.

Aristotle's Syllogistic: By LYNN E. RosE. Springfield, Ill.:
Thomas Publishers, 1968. Pp. 149.

Charles C.

It is no secret among logicians that Aristotle's theory of the syllogism
has been the subject of much controversy for centuries. During these
confrontations the Peripatetic has received many criticisms as well as many
encomia for his pioneering efforts in the sphere of formal logic. In light
of these varied representations of Aristotle's Syllogistic the author of this
book purposes to correct once and for all some of these old and gross
misunderstandings. By offering this amalgam of essays on the essential
elements of syllogistic reasoning Dr. Rose hopes to "exonerate" Aristotle's
theory. Using the Prior Analytics almost exclusively, his main thesis is
that the only genuine way to view the syllogism is " as a linear array of
three terms." With mostly probable arguments the author attempts in
scholarly fashion to establish this position and then to explore its many
consequences in deductive logic.
In general this book is composed of two parts:
(I) the arguments
themselves (pp. 3-97), and (£) the appendices (pp. 99-143). The first
part is made up of ten chapters of uneven length, ranging from three pages
e. g., chaps. II, V, VII) to twenty-two pages (e. g., chap. VIII) and
arranged in no special order. The six appendices are quite similar, as to
their arrangement and length, the longest being a most interesting study of
"Theophrastus and the Indirect Moods." (pp. 109-132)

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In the early chapters Dr. Rose sees the Peripatetic's theory of the
principally as a natural result of an evolutionary process of
" premise sets " from Plato's theories about division and recollection. As
long as Rose realizes that " division " was a very remote stepping-stone to
the demonstration that Aristotle talks about in the Analytics, these
chapters are of some value in his project. In the next few chapters (pp.
16-52) the author attempts to do three things but not always with equal
success: (1) to explain why the syllogistic as conceived by Aristotle is
exclusively a three-figured structure (chap. 8); (2) to show why logical
" rules " are superfluous in the syllogistic in light of his earlier discussion
about the sufficiency of "premise sets" in any argument (chap. 4); and
(8) to emphasize the importance of the " reduction " technique in the
axiomatization of Aristotle's formal logic. Of the subsequent chapters
the best done are the most controversial ones on the " Counter Example
Technique in Invalidation" (Chap. 6) and "The Fourth Figure and the
Indirect First" (Chap. 8). However, we would heartily disagree that
" counter examples would be perfectly appropriate as bases for a system of
logic" (p. 51); nor is his rather dogmatic interpretation of the Aristotelian technique of " reduction " satisfactory in light of his lack of
concern about the act of consequence in the syllogistic. Finally, of the half
dozen or so typographical errors (e. g., pp. 8, 59, 89, 106, 116, and 188),
only those on pp. 89, footnote 27 (consequence should have read consequent), and p. 106, line 4, were serious.
To this reviewer Dr. Rose has performed a courageous and scholarly
work in a highly sensitive area of formal logic. For his candid views,
generally expressed quite soberly, Rose's colleagues in the field of Logic will
be most appreciative, yet not too convinced that his principal aim was
achieved. Chapters 4 and 10 were not done too scientifically. By way of
constructive criticism we would like to make a few suggestions that might
(I) greater
have helped the author realize his aims more perfectly:
expression of medieval and modern commentators on the Analytics; (2)
more benign attitude towards other logicians' positions, especially those
with reputations like Ross, Aristotle himself, and Lukasiewicz (see p. 39);
and (3) less disregard for the necessity and vitality of the illative act in all
genuine syllogistical reasoning. Despite these shortcomings and its limited
appeal due to its tremendous scholarship, Rose's Aristotle's Syllogistic is
a definite contribution to the literature of formal logic.
DENNIS

Providence College
Providence, R. I.

c. KANE, 0. P.

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777

Studies in Analogy. By RALPH MciNERNY. The Hague: Martinus Nijhoff,
1968. Pp. 147. 19.80 guilders.
Like his earlier work on analogy, The Logic of Analogy, Professor
Mcinerny's recent penetrating book, Studies in Analogy concentrates on
Aquinas's doctrine of analog-y. Basically, though not exclusively, Studies
in Analogy deals with two exegetical problems in Aquinas's teaching on
analogy. First and foremost, it confronts the difficult and crucial problem
of whether or not Aquinas holds that there is a ratio communis (common
notion) in an analogous name, and if he does, how the medieval doctor
then distinguishes the ratio communis of an analogous name from the
ratio communis of an univocal generic term. Second, Mcinerny investigates
the question of the relationship of analogy to metaphor in St. Thomas.
Concretely, he asks whether for Aquinas a metaphor is a kind of analogous
name or whether it is to be distinguished from an analogous name.
As regards the first problem, Mcinerny first brings the issue of the
ratio communis of an analogous name into sharp focus by carefully citing
a number of Thomistic texts which seem to conflict openly on the question
of whether or not there is a ratio communis in an analogous name.
Rejecting the view that these texts are really incompatible with each other
and that their differences are to be explained in terms of a change of
mind on the part of St. Thomas, Mcinerny contends that the prima facie
inconsistency dissolves once one realizes that Aquinas distinguishes two
senses of ratio communis, i. e., the ratio communis of an analogous name
and the ratio communis of an univocal generic name.
But the problem is exactly how St. Thomas distinguishes them. In other
words, precisely how does Aquinas say the way something analogously
common to many differs from what is univocally common? This can only
be answered, Mcinerny holds, by first understanding what St. Thomas
means by "analogically common" (as opposed to "univocally common").
But now if, as Aquinas says, the distinguishing mark of an analogous
as opposed to an univocal name is that it does not signify one notion
common to many but rather several notions related as prior and posterior,
then how is it even meaningful to speak of the ratio communis of an
analogous name or of something which is analogically common?
Using "healthy" as an example in the statements (1) "The dog is
healthy," (!2) "Food is healthy," and (3) "A cold nose is healthy,"
Mcinerny suggests that sense can be made of saying that " healthy " here
is analogically common by identifying the ratio communis of " healthy "
with" related in some way to health." Stated generally, the ratio
of an analogous name is the res significata (the essence or nature) taken
together with " a variable whose values would be determinate modi symficandi." (p. 102) In other words, "being related in some indeterminate
way to health " is what the subject terms of the above statements have

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in common, even though, of course, they do not have health itself in
common. In the sense described then, St. Thomas can speak of the ratio
communis of a term which is predicated analogously. By contrast, the ratio
communis of what signifies univocally according to Mcinerny (and, I take
it, Aquinas too) is identical with its ratio propria. Thus in (4) "The dog
is healthy," (5) "The cat is healthy," and (6) "The horse is healthy,"
the ratio communis is the nature health together with a determinate way
of signifying it, i.e., " subject of health." Thus, what is common to the
dog, the cat and the horse is that each of them is a subject of health.
Nevertheless, to this way of distinguishing the ratio communis of an
univocal name from that of an analogous name it may be objected that
the distinction is made possible in the first place only by falsely identifying
what is univocally common with the res significata together with the usual
mode of signifying it. For while it is true that the subject terms in, say,
(4), (5), and (6) above are alike in being "subjects of health," still,
someone might insist that only that which is predicated of these same
subject terms can be said to be univoca1ly common to them. But that which
is predicated of them (according to Aquinas) is simply the essence health
taken absolutely or, in other words, simply the res significata considered
apart from any mode of signifying. But if this is true, it follows that St.
Thomas cannot distinguish what is analogously common from what is
univocally common the way Mcinerny says he does. Or, if Aquinas does
indeed make the distinction in this way, he does so inconsistently. In any
case, it is the reviewer's opinion that a discussion of this rather immediate
objection would have helped to make the author's otherwise excdlent
treatment of the problem of the ratio communis univocal and analogous
names more provocative and complete.
Finally, still in connection with this same problem of the ratio communis,
there seems to be a certain ambiguity in Mclnery's analysis on the
question of whether or not the ratio communis and the ratio propria of an
analogous name are identical. Most of the time the author
they
are not identical. In fact, it is their very difference in an analogous name
that marks off the latter from an univocal name in which the two rationes
are identical. But, at least in two places, Mcinerny expressly and misleadingly identifies these rationes in an analogous name. Thus: "From
such considerations it seems to follow that the notion which is analogically
common is none other than the ratio propria of the name." (p. 63) And
again: " The ratio communis of the analogous name . . . is rathe 1• the
most proper meaning of the term in question .... " (p. 63) But later on
he clearly differentiates the two rationes in an analogous name. (p.
This ambiguity, occurring as it does at crucial points in Mcinerny's
analysis, tends to leave the average reader somewhat confused as to what,
according to the author, is St. Thomas's teaching on the nature of the ratio
communis in univocal and analogous names.

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779

As regards the second, less fundamental problem (i.e., whether o:r not
metaphor is a kind of analogy), Mcinerny's analysis is without
He clearly shows how, according to Aquinas, analogy is formally distinct
from metaphor by contending that, while the former always involves a
new way of signifying the res significata, the latter never involves a new
way of signifying the same form. Rather, a thing metaphorically named is
referred to what is properly named by the term in question " because of a
similarity of effects or properties." Nevertheless, the author points out
that, if one goes by the narrower etymological meaning of metaphor (i. e.,
to transfer), then, to the extent that analogy involves a transfer of a word
from its usual context, analogy may be say to be a kind of metaphor.
JoHN F. PETERSON
University of Rhode Island
Kingston, R. I.

Greek Thought and the Rise of Christianity.
York: Barnes and Noble, 1968. Pp. 161.

By JAMES SHIEL. New

Shiel's volume, presented in this country in paper by a firm commonly
linked with the less-than-scholarly student handbook, marks a pleasing
departure from that tradition. It is one of the series Problem,q and
Perspectives in History which evolved under the general editorship of Hugh
Kearney from the inter-disciplinary approach in force at the University
of Sussex where Shiel lectures in classical and medieval thought. Although
some might describe the work as an anthology, there is a much wider
editorial consideration of issues than that format usually allows: fully
half the text is Shiel's commentary. Even were this not so, with a problem
as intricate as the relationship of Greek to Christian thinking, the selector/
arranger can never move too far from the scene of his deeds. It can be
reported that Shiel has positioned his texts with verve, imagination and
fairness. The product is balanced and sure to prove a useful item for
upper level college courses.
What is the philosopher to make of the New Testament, asks Shiel, and
how account for Eusebius's declaration that " Nobody can deny that our
Lord and Saviour was a philosopher and a truly pious man, no imposter
or magician "? This encomium, of course, comes but a few generations
after Paul warned his Colossians about the empty deceptions of philosophy.
Shiel offers a generous cross-section of ancient writers who successively
formulate and discard opinions, some tentative, some rabid, on the relationship of philosophy to the new religion. We meet Jesus who was a philosopher in spite of Paul, and Jesus who was not because of Paul. The proces-

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sion of witnesses is well introduced and a perspective of caution maintained.
Part I brings the reader from Clement of Alexandria up to Gemistos
Plethon, and the compiler has written generous pages of orientation to his
forty-odd authors. The matter is broken down into four chapters treating:
the question of Greek rationalism and the possibility of a religious undertone, as we understand it, in that thought; the noisy advent of followers
of Jesus into the intellectual stoa and the various attempts to synthesize
faith with the evidence of reason. Since this discussion is too often carried
on solely in terms of Augustine's view, it is refreshing to find appreciation
for what Damascene, Michael Psellos and Origen have contributed to the
effort.
Part II is devoted to some thirteen " historical " approaches to the faith
and reason question. In line with the definition given history by the
general editor, the discussion here ranges into economic and social themes
with Troeltsch, Gibbon and Toynbee represented. The same sense of
balance and variety is had here as in Part 1: Nietzsche speaks and
Peguy responds.
If we are to take seriously Lord Acton's admonition to study problems
in preference to periods-and the limitations of the lecture system still in
vogue makes this an imperative-then Shiel's work offers hope that an
historical approach can be combined with incisive commentary to the
detriment of neither. Documentation is complete and so also is the
index. While biographical data is supplied, one might have hoped for a
larger bibliography.
JoHN B. DAVIs, 0. P.
The Pennsylvania State University
University Park, Pa.

The Geometric Spirit. The Abbe de Condillac and the French Enlightenment. By IsABEL F. KNIGHT. New Haven and London: Yale University Press, 1968. Pp. 321. $10.00.
While the Abbe de Condillac can scarcely be regarded as a major philosopher-or even a very important popularizer, as the often-reprinted Voltaire,
for instance-a careful study of his works can provide a fascinating
example of one way eighteenth-century, officially Christian Europe attempted to preserve the rationalism of Descartes and the empiricism of
Locke while maintaining at least the forms of religious orthodoxy.
According to the Condillac family's oral tradition, the abbe was always
careful to do and say the things orthodoxy required of him. A priest as
a result of family pressures, he is said to have offered Mass only once, on
the
of his ordjp.ation; neverthelest; he was careful to wear always

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781

the prescribed cassock, he assisted at Mass regularly in his private chapel,
and professed at the end of his life that he died in the Catholic faith.
Condillac's primary interest, however, seems to have been that of a
bloodless sort of philosophe; that is, a man intensely interested in understanding the workings of a sensibly perceived universe he assumed to be
wholly rational, but a man devoid of any zeal to change political, social,
or religious structures.
As Miss Knight sees the relationship betwen Condillac's religious orthodoxy and his philosophical enterprise:
Perhaps the most striking thing about Condillac's religious references is their
irrelevance to everything else in his philosophy .... They make no difference to
his system, which would be the same without them. . . . Whether he really
believed in the Christian revelation, or whether it was a mere convention which
he dared not openly reject, is probably impossible to ascertain, but some tentative
suggestions may be made. I think it more likely than not that he really accepted,
with little passion and with some mental reservations, the Catholic position and
simply kept it isolated from his philosophy, with which it was not compatible ....
How he did it, by what intellectual or psychological machinery he managed not to
let his left hand know what his right hand was doing, may be explained by two
elements in his makeup: his conventional and retiring spirit, and his formalistic,
unemotional temperament. Controversy and rebellion were deeply threatening to
Condillac.

Miss Knight, however, reveals in her speculation concerning Condillac's
reconciliation of religious orthodoxy and philosophical innovation, a certain
simplistic approach to "Catholic theology," as she calls it:
His empiricism was incompatible with the metaphysics on which Catholic theology
had always rested; his psychology made unnecessary any belief in the fundamental
spirituality of man; and his assumption that anything worth explaining can be
accounted for by natural means made theological explanations superfluous.

The author seems to be accepting here too readily an identity between
Descartes' epistemology, with its divinely implanted ideas, and Christian
doctrine. And she would seem to think, too, that a bona fide Christian
could not share La Place's conviction that there is no place in astronomy,
or in any other natural science, for what would amount to a deus ex
machina.
However, Miss Knight's principal purpose in The Geometric Spirit was
not to explain Condillac's accommodations vis a vis the Church but to
demonstrate the fact of Condillac's ba£ic rationalism [and] to show how it functioned in his thought: how it shaped and altered the empiricist principles he had
acquired from Locke, how it determined the meaning he attached to those
ambiguous and omnipresent words " nature " and " reason,'' how it acted as an
unconsciously held metaphysics which comes through most clearly in his methodology, how it served as an anchor for his religious convictions, and how it gave him
an image of man and his works not dreamt of in the empirical philosophy.

782
Co rli lac's 'bas·c at:o alism" was rooted in a view of the universe
whic': s:Pmcd '' f;: damer:tal order behird the empirically observable
[.hcLomeLa, au order more -significant than the phenomena, which man
can come to know because it is an order essentially congenial to his reason."
H is this rationalism that explains the title, The Geometric Spirit. As the
author explains in the second chapter, "Metaphysics en geometre,"
while pure mathematics, mathematics divorced from the observable world, had
markedly declined in prestige by the middle of the eighteenth century, mathematics
as a technique of empirical science remained very much alive, ancl it was in the
light of this
of the geometric spirit that Condillac set himself the task
of working out its implications for metaphysics.

The author elaborates several pages later:
Condillac's unbounded
for Newton, whose method he hoped to
approximate, suggests that, like many another thinker of the second rank, he
wanted to be the Newton of philosophy, reconciling the opposing tendencies of
empiricism and mathematics. And, indeed, his work contains both elements. On
the one hand, he adopted Locke's empiricist epistemology, and on the other, he
championed mathematics as the perfect language for expressing and expanding
knowledge. But ... instead of subordinating mathematics to the requirements of
the data by making it an instrument of measurement, comparison, and expression,
he selected and shaped his data to fit the logical structures of analytic algebra.
His logic became the master, rather than the servant, of his thought.

The remaining chapters of The Geometric Spirit consist of analyses of
of
eight of Condillac's principal works, a chapter being devoted to
them. Chapter Three, " True Systems and False Systems," is a careful
study of the abbe's Traite des systemes, an inquiry into the basis for some
unity of the sciences, a unity required by Condillac's geometrical approach.
The philosophe, however, did not let his enthusiasm for system-building
destroy his respect for empirical data. Miss Knight translates a pertinent
passage from the Traite:
To imagine that we can ever have enough observations to make a general system
is to hope too much from the advancement of physics. The more materials
experience furnishes us, the more we will feel what is lacking for so vast a
construction. There will always remain phenomena to be discovered. . . . For,
everything being connected, the explanation of the things that we observe depends
on an infinity of others, which we shall never be able to observe.

Nevertheless, though the whole system of nature eludes man's grasp,
partial systems can be discovered. And it is these partial systems the
abbe attempts to explain in his Traite des sensations, with its " thought
experiment " involving the genesis of sensation in the " statue man "; the
Traite des animaux, with its ambiguous conclusion that animals and men
differ in their knowledge only by degree and yet are of different " essences ";

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783

the Essai sur l' origine des connaissances humaines, with its rationalistic
reconstruction of the genesis of human language; the De L'Art d'ecrire, with
its aesthetic combining French classicism as the highest form of art with
an openness to the aesthetic values of other cultures; the Cours d'etude,
embodying the results of Condillac's theories and practice in tutoring the
Prince of Parma for nine years; and Le Commerce et le g01wernement, a
highly original essay on economic theory and the origin of political
systems.
Miss Knight does more than merely paraphrase Condillac. She investigates his sources, provides an excellent historical background, and
furnishes a helpful critical commentary. The fourteen-page bibliography
with critical notes is carefully done.
Still, there is a nagging problem about the whole book: why spend so
much time, energy, and talent on a strictly second-rate philosopher whose
influence on the direction of philosophical study has been so slight as to
be almost non-existent? Perhaps to establish his uninfluential, second-rate
status-or, perhaps, by contrast, to give us a new appreciation of the
real giants of philosophical thought? But, whatever the intention, The
Geometric Spirit supplies a well-written, scholarly, and at times brilliant
study of a figure about whom the historian of philosophy will always be
led to ask the sorts of questions Miss Knight answers.
RosEMARY LAUER
San Diego State College
San Diego, Calif.

The Religious Experience of Mankind. By NINIAN SMART. New York:
Charles Scribner's Sons, 1969. Pp. 576. $10.00.
The Bhagavad G'itii. Translated, with introduction and critical essays by
ELIOT DEUTSCH. New York: Holt, Rinehart and Winston, 1968.
Pp.
$4.95.
In The Religious Experience of Mankind, Smart discusses the nature of
religion and describes the formulations and cultural manifestations of the
variety of religious experiences from the days of our earliest evidence on
through the present writings. There is a great wealth of material in this
book, and it will be of significant help to most undergraduate students of
comparative religion. The comprehensive nature of the work makes complete evaluation an impossible task, and so this reviewer will make a
general evaluation of each chapter and indicate what he sees as assets and
deficiencies in terms of the particular elements. The book is an overly

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ambitious project, one that simply cannot live up to the promise of its
title. The stronger parts are those dealing with ancient themes and
perspectives, the weaker are those parts dealing with medieval and contemporary areas.
The first chapter is a discussion of the nature of religion. The author
maintains that the study of religion can be a scientific discipline by reason
of the many technological advances both in research and communication.
Smart recognizes difficulties " in our appreciating fully the content and
quality of prophetic, mystical, and other forms of religious experience,"
but maintains that " there is a sense in which we can deal with them
objectively." One problem here is the choosing of what to include in the
reports of such experience. This reviewer agrees with Smart that Paul's
" shattering experience in the Damascus Road " is germain to a " proper
account of Paul's apostolate," but other reports are not so clearly authentic
in terms of what is included or omitted. For example, the early imprisonment (?) of Thomas Aquinas is included, whereas the acceptance of
Christianity by the father of Karl Marx is omitted. In his discussion of
religion the author presents 5ix dimensions: ritual, mythology, doctrine,
ethics, the social, and the experiential. These elements do present a good
framework for a comparison of religious differences.
"Prehistoric and Primitive Religions " is the title of the second chapter.
This is a good report on historical material, but the interpretive elements
are sources of dissatisfaction. Freud seems to have been rather arbitrarily
introduced and even more arbitrarily dismissed, whereas Jung is not even
mentioned. Tyler, Schmidt, and Fraser are cited in the discussion about the
origins of religion, but Albright is ignored even though his From The Stone
Age To Christianity is the first book listed by the author in his bibliography
for the sixth chapter.
Chapter Three, " The Indian Experience," is a superior presentation of
the varieties of Hindu thought. This is the finest chapter of the book, and
it reflects previous work in this area by the author. All of us who
discuss Buddhism have a problem with the identification labels for the
two major divisions. This reviewer suggests the term particularistic for
Hinayana or Theravada and transcendental for Mahayana, since the commonly used terms often seem offensive to one group or the other. In his
discussion of the classical schools Smart does not indicate the broad use
of Yoga techniques, especially in Tibetan Buddhism (later on he does
mention similiarities in Taoism to Buddhist Yoga) . His treatment of the
Vedanta School should have begun with Gaudapada, since there has
been much attention on the part of scholars to the possible identification
of medieval Indian Buddhism and the rise of Vedantism, and Smart himself mentions that some of Shankara's contemporaries called him a
"crypto-Buddhist." It would be more meaningful to describe Ramanuja's
thought as "non-duality with differences " or " identity in differences"
and his doctrine of maya as viewing the world as non-ultimate.

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785

Chapter Four is concerned with "Chinese and Japanese Religious
Experience " and it is very well done. One difficulty in understanding the
religious life of China follows from the blending of Taoism, Confucianism,
and Buddhism. Smart does much to clarify these interrelations and to
delineate each of the schools. His discussions of Taoism and Chinese
Buddhism are especially good. Perhaps some comment was in order about
the divorce between ethics and metaphysics as background for Smart's
section on K'ung (why not call him Confucius even if it is a latinization?).
He did not do so well with the doctrine of Yin and Yang. Nor was
his section on Japanese thought as clear or as informative as that on
China.
Chapter Five deals with the Ancient Mediterranean World and is
mostly a mere report culled from various sources. The information here
will be of help to the beginner, but there is little attempt to probe the
religious experiences themselves. The ideas influencing the Greeks and
Romans are not examined to any significant extent; the result is that we do
not see the development of the Hellenic mind. The passing mention of the
Pythagorean brotherhood in the text is quite unsatisfactory.
The chapter on "The Jewish Experience" has to be judged by those
more competent in the field than this reviewer who has no way of knowing
whether or not Jeremiah's prophetic role was a unique individualization of
the God-man relationship beyond that of the other prophets. Here the
author does not do much more than report the events when it is expected
that he would try to give us insights into the experiences of the people.
His discussion of the Kabbalah and the Hasidim do move in this direction
and are more satisfying. On the other hand, his treatment of Zionism is
again unsatisfactory in that he does not give us the religious dimension of
the movement. Many Jews today have much to say about the theological
notion of land in contemporary Jewish perspective, which is missing in
Smart's book.
Reading Chapter Seven on " The Early Christian Experience " as a
layman rather than as a professional, this reviewer felt that it simply did
not capture the experience of the early Christian communities. The same
criticism is placed against Chapter Eight and its treatment of the Muslim
experience. Sufism is handled better than was monasticism in the previous
chapter. Indian Islamism is practically ignored except for fragments on
Iqbal and Ahmad. There is no insight into the spirit of Islam as it
developed in central Asia and brought Pakistan into existence as well as
giving India the religious and political problem it has with the Muslims
today.
Chapter Nine is entitled "The Later Christian Experience." It attempts
to cover the years from the Dark Ages up to and including the Second
Vatican Council. It is most unlikely that anyone could satisfy even
himself in a project such as this. Historical fragments seem thrown

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together without much attention to the religious attitudes themselves. It
would seem impossible to understand the religious attitudes of the Middle
Ages without examining the various positions taken on the faith/reason
question. The author does not do this. Nor does he give us much of
an understanding of the influences of medieval Augustinianism, Averroism,
or Scotism. In terms of medieval mysticism Smart does point out a
number of similarities between Eckhart and Oriental thought. Although
mentioned as an element of the ecumenical spirit, Vatican II is not given
consideration as a principle of renewal in the religious life of Roman
Catholics. So many important thinkers are left out of the discussion of
contemporary Christianity that what is given becomes too arbitrary to be
meaningful.
The tenth chapter which presents the humanistic dimension is
least
effective from the standpoint of the stated objectives of the book. The
treatment of Feuerbach is not in line with the tremendous influence he
has had on the humanistic mind. The discussion of Marxism is somewhat
better, but those who give Marxism its religious dimension today, men
such as Bloch and Garaudy, are not mentioned. Existentialism is presented
in the figures of Sartre and Kierkegaard, but Heidegger is incredibly
omitted, as are the rest of the existentialists. And the contributions and
insights of those belonging to the school of Linguistic Analysis are also
left out.
The final chapter is entitled " The Contemporary Experience and the
Future." This is a most interesting essay, one which brings Smart's
professional background to bear upon the current situation. He concludes
that religions are moving closer together even though differences are being
accentuated in certain areas. There is an implication here that the
present structures will endure even as new structures are being formed.
The New translation of the Bhagavad Gita by Eliot Deutsch is not quite
as readable as some others have been, but this is because Deutsch
a point of staying close to the original text, which is a distinct advantage
of his work. The Introduction and the Essays by the translator are well
written and should prove to be of much help to students approaching the
Gita for the first time. His essay on " The Meta- Theological Structure "
is especially good as an introduction to the notion of God in the Gita.
RussELL NAUGHTON
La Salle College

Philadelphia, Pa.

BOOK REVIEWS

The Christian New Morality. By 0. SYDNEY BARR. New York:

787
Oxford

University Press, 1969. Pp. 118. $4.00.
According to Ban the New Morality, better described as the Situation
Ethic, has four basic premises, although his primary concern is with the
last one. These premises are: (I) Persons are more important than things;
(!i!) Love alone is the ultimate criterion for making ethical decisions; (3)
What love demands in any specific instance depends upon the situation;
(4) The New Morality is biblical morality. Behind it lies the authority of
Jesus Christ himself. Barr makes out a cogent case for the biblical foundation of the New Morality by establishing the priority and primacy of agape
over law.
His analysis proceeds this way: The New Morality is biblical morality
if it can be shown that (1) the teaching of Christ is not anti-nomian: (2)
Christ was committed to a respect and reverence for the law, but he was
never the legalist because in the texts cited by Barr it should be evident
that he always maintained the primacy of agape. Situationalism insists
that love is primary and that law is thereby relativized in importance.
Law is for persons and not persons for the law. Law should never be
considered as an end in itself; persons should never be considered as mere
means, which is evident if in every situation law is primary and love
secondary. Barr's case is strong if it is confined only to this conclusion:
that Situationalism, identified by the primacy and priority of agape, is
biblical morality. This includes a large number of interested parties, and
no complaints can be raised by Fletcher, Robinson, Brunner, Niebuhr,
Ramsey, Haring, and some of the Roman Catholic writers who are doing
some exhilarating writing by enlarging the ambits of their own tradition.
It is more a matter of all of these writers agreeing that agape is primary
and that what survives of the priority of law over love in some juridical
statements of the insitutional Church will consequently be open to criticism
as to their compatibility with biblical morality. But then the differences
begin to appear.
The problems arise in a book like Barr's when we ask the deeper
question-does the biblical evidence point to anything more than the
primacy of agape? In other words, does the evidence
Situationa.lism of any one of the several kinds? Dr. Barr sees the difficulties here
because he says on page 29:
We have now reached the point where we can better appreciate the position of
those who claim the authority of Jesus himself for their insistence that love alone
is the ultimate criterion for decision-making. Admittedly, proof positive that the
claim is correct is impossible. The gospels do not offer examples of Jesus' contravening every law of his day. Furthermore, there is no record of his having
discussed the matter of lww versus absolutes, or of legalism versus freedom, in
the technical language of, or from the perspective of, today's Situation Ethics. And

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we most certainly cannot read his mind. We have, nevertheless, uncovered certain
elements of the gospel picture which clearly underline the strength of the
situationist's position. It is now apparent htat Jesus himself understood agape
not simply as one of many guidelines for man's relationship with others, but as
something in a special category ail its own. There is no question but that he held
the religious laws of his tradition in high esteem. It is equally certain that he
did not hesitate to go beyond these laws. He did not do this arbitrarily, but
whenever and wherever a primary concern for persons and sensitivity to human
need dicated. Never, as far as the gospel record is c-oncerned, did he default
from this criterion, or allow any other consideration to have a higher claim.

Situationalism is protean and the classifications that are helpful in this
discussion are similar to the classifications employed in treating of Utilitarianism. Philosophers refer to pure-act-utilitarianism, modified-act-utilitarianism, and pure-rule-utilitarianism. As Professor Luther J. Binkley
clearly points out in Conflict of Ideals, the pure-act-ultilitarian maintains
that in a specific situation one ought to explore the likely consequences of
one's actions and then choose to act so as to bring about the greatest
amount of happiness possible. The important point here is that the pureact-utilitarian holds that one ought not to ask about the likely consequences
which might ensue " if the same thing were done in similar situations (i. e.,
if it were made a rule to do that act in such situations." (William K.
Frankena, "Love and Principle in Christian Ethics," in Faith and Philosophy: Philosophical Studies in Religion and Ethics, ed. by Alvin Platinga,
p. 207) . At issue for the act-utilitarian is only the specific contemplated act
for a particular circumstance; it is held to be irrelevant to inquire as to
whether one ought to act that way in future situations which might be
similar.
Opposed to the act-utilitarian, the rule-utilitarian maintains that in a
particular situation one ought to appeal to some set of general rules, such as,
"Tell the truth," Do not commit murder," etc., rather than attempt to
calculate the likely consequences of the contemplated action. Rule-utilitarians would justify the rule even in the exceptional case by pointing out
that in the last analysis more good is achieved for everyone by always
upholding the moral rules. While a lie in a specific situation might produce
more immediate good for those directly concerned, it would tend to break
down the moral fabric of our society and encourage lying in other situations
which might be less justifiable. Therefore, the greatest amount of good in
the long run for the greatest number of people would be obtained by an
undeviating adherence to the moral rule.
The third class is modified-act-utilitarianism. This interpretation recognizes elements of strength in both rule- and act-utilitarianism.
The
modified act-utilitarian admits that mles can be formulated for moral
action, but he insists that these rules are not absolute; they are only
generally binding. Thus in most cases, " Tell the truth " will produce the

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789

greatest amount of good, but one is justified, for the sake of the ultimate
principle of utility itself, in disobeying the rule in a particular situation
where more good is likely to be achieved by such disobedience. Frankena
in the article cited above suggests that the discussion concerning the
status of rules or principles in Christian ethics parallels the discussion
between the act and the rule ultilitarians. The highest and ultimate
principle in Christian ethics is agape or the " law of love," and in the light
of this ultimate commitment the Christian ethic can be developed in terms
of pure-act-agapism, modified-act-agapism, or pure-rule agapism. These
distinctions are not sharply drawn in most of the writings on Christian
ethics (as Professor Binkley has pointed out), but he offers some suggestions of ethicists in contemporary ethics who seem to fit fairly well into
this classificatory scheme.
For pure-act-agapism Binkley considers that the Frankena terminology
fits Fletcher the closest; that Robinson, Niebuhr (Reinhold) , and Brunner
might be seen as modified-act-agapists; and the best example of rule-agapism would be Ramsey. If we accept this outline of representative Christian
ethicists, then we can raise the further question whether the evidence as
Barr sees it bears out any one of the three kinds of agapism. It seems to me
that the most difficulties are confronted by the pure-act-agapist who would
look to the biblical evidence for apodictic evidence to support his claim.
That evidence is a least ambiguous, and in a portion of a chapter of a book
of mine (Christian Ethics for Today) I addressed myself to this problem.
Barr considers the same text as I did in that chapter (p. 142 ff) describing
Christ's behavior with the woman taken in adultery. The question is
whether Christ reacts in the same way or a different way than the way
situationalism seems to react. It appears to me that the incident. does not
offer categorical evidence for the Situationalist, especially the pure-act
agapist.
For the Situationalist (Pure-act-Agapist), adultery must always be submitted to the crucial test of loving concern and, if this is promoted, then
adultery can be situationally justified. Does Christ resolve the problem of
the woman taken in adultery in exactly the same way? Of course, there
was the additional problem of the relation of the Pharisees toward this
woman. But he never asked the woman whether there was a situational
defense for what she had done. He did not ask her what the pure-actagapist would ask if the problem arose concerning adultery. For the
situationalist of the pure-act-agapist type the reaction is to submit a
concrete existential case where adultery might be right and another where
it may be wrong. But how does Christ behave toward the adulteress? He
does not resolve the problem by disposing of the law and state that it
must serve the situation in the name of loving concern. He does not seem
to say that adultery is morally indifferent until a concrete case is submitted
to him for a provisional and then final answer. He does not absolutize the

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law as the legalist
represented as doing in the person of the Pharisees.
They were anxious to see whether he would put aside the law in the name
of love or charity and therefore be in opposition to their understanding of
morality. On the other hand, they watched to see whether he would
dismiss charity in the name of law and thereby recognize their conception of morality. The Pharisees would have subjected Christ to criticism in
either event. However, if we read John 8:3-11 carefully we shall find that
Our Lord neither discarded the law in the name of charity nor discarded
charity in the name of the law. He was the wisest of all Situationalists in
resolving the tension that existed between law and love, and therefore his
first reaction was to place the law of adultery in proper perspective and
to ask the Pharisees who were accusing the woman: "Let him that is
without sin among you be the first to throw a stone at her." Christ
implied that, if the law was to be cited by the Pharisees against the
woman, then they should be consistent in allowing the law to be cited
against themselves. This willingness on the part of the Pharisees would
indicate a real genuine concern for law and not an idolatry toward the law.
That they had an idolatry toward the law was revealed in the aftermath
of his remarks. They left and silently admitted their unwillingness to be
judged by the very law that they directed against the woman. Christ
therefore made clear that judgment was to be made by God and no one
else. He would equally show that forgiveness belongs ultimately to God
and therefore he forgave the woman, not by saying that the law did
not apply, or that she had not possibly sinned in the act of adultery, or
that her psychological reaction should be one of mild regret because of a
possible wrong ethical situational resolution, nor did he give indication
that remorse and guilt were not proper to her. He simply said "I do not
condemn you." In fact he implied that her wrongdoing was not only a
possibility but an actuality because he advised her against future adultery
and said: " Go and sin no more." Christ must have known that some of
the situations in which this woman entered were experiences that were performed with loving concern. The prostitute
the heart of gold must
have existed in Christ's day!! In those cases participants were better
disposed to accept themselves and others as a result of their relationship.
Nevertheless, Christ does not seem to relativize the law to the extent that
would satisfy the pure-act-agapist, but he liberated the law from the charge
of legalism by his exercise of love and forgiveness.
If this explanation I offer is plausible, then the Situationalism found in
the biblical evidence is more to be characterized as a modified-act-situationalism or a pure-rule situationalism. The texts are hard to make compatible
with the position of the pure-act-agapist. Barr's study examines texts in
the first three Gospels, in St. Paul's letters, and in the Johannine writings.
In all of these agape is viewed as love-with-responsibility. The last
chapter applies the criterion of agape to several contemporary economic,

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791

political and sociological problems. Barr's questioning of the real seriousness of the Church in exercising her own genuine biblical morality is
pointed and sharp. In doing so, Barr is testifying to the prominence that
has been given in contemporary culture to the ethic of responsibility over
the ethic of conviction. The first makes its ultimate concern in the
determination of rightness or wrongness the presence of agape in the
personal empirical verifiable consequences of one's actions; the second
makes the ultimate concern the principle or the rule with more or less
indifference to the consequences. My own position developed in Christian
Ethics For Today (Bruce-Macmillan, 1969) is that we cannot live on just
one of these ethics c:onsistently, constantly and uniformally, but we have
to live on both in dialectical tension. Conscience in this ethic of tension
becomes then a response with evaluational knowledge and freedom of one
person to the Person of Christ incarnate in other persons. The person is
the communicating existent who stands at the convergence of a series of
relationships arising from his encounter with another person or persons.
It is the person who must resolve this dialectical tension that exists
between the two ethics, the ethic of responsibility and the ethic of conviction. This strikes me as the more genuine Christian ethic and defensible
in the biblical evidence. At least it is more defensible than the situationalism of pure-act-agapism.
THOMAS A. WASSMER, s. J.
ProfessoT of Moral Philosophy
College of Business Administration
Ohio University, Athens, Ohio 45701

The Reasonableness of Faith. By DIOGENES ALLEN. Washington:
Books, 1968. Pp. 160. $4.95.

Corpus

Is affirming the tenets of faith a reasonable act? It is to this problem
that Diogenes Allen addresses himself from the context of contemporary
British philosophy. It is no longer possible to present a rational proof for
God's existence. Traditional arguments like those of Aquinas have not
recovered from the critiques of Hume and Kant. For that matter, the very
meaningfulness of propositions about God has been called into question.
But to these challenges there have been thoughtful responses on the
part of believers. Thanks to linguistic analysis we are more careful in our
use of religious language. Logical positivism raises the more troublesome
problem: are ultimate questions worth the asking? Ian Ramsey, Austin
Farrar and English Thomists have endeavored to show that Christianity
offers the most satisfying world-view or that the world as we know it
points of itself to a Creator. Professor Allen prefers to side with John Hick

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in this discussion: theism can at best be a plausible option. But this is
beside the point. Christianity is more a medium of salvation than an
explanation of the world. In fact, religious questions cannot be a matter
of disinterested knowledge, for if there is a God, this fact will affect my
life.
The necessary and sufficient ground for faith is that it satisfies certain
needs in man. This is not to say that religion is purely a projection of
personal wishes. Religion arouses and satisfies needs of its own, e. g., a
consciousness of sin and a desire for a Redeemer. It is a matter of concern
to the believer that the Redeemer he believes in really exists and is not
just a figment of his imagination. Hence, faith implies a truth-claim and
can, in principle, be falsified. Theology must preserve consistency in
religious language and steer clear of contradictions both within the system
and with the empirical world. On the other hand, faith is not just a matter
of rational argument. Faith has its rationales, but even challenges that
cannot be answered successfully do not in fact destroy the faith of the
believer. This is because the actual ground for faith is the spiritual
" nourishment " received from it, aside from any knowledge; needs are
satisfied and that makes faith reasonable enough.
Of course, not every need warrants every affirmation but only such as
pass the " bizarreness test." The need must be neither ignoble nor
irrelevant but properly relevant to the affirmation. Thus, to believe in a
Redeemer in order to gain attention would be ignoble, to do so out of
fear of chickens would be irrelevant, but to do so out of a felt need to
be redeemed would be reasonable. Entrance into faith is less by argument
than by persuasion and by personal participation in the style of life
religion entails. In this, growth in faith is comparable to developing a
taste for fine art. But unlike art, religion involves adherence to truthclaims and shapes the whole of one's life. Rebuttal to a challenge, such as
the problem of evil, is largely a function of the needs of the individual
believer; it involves not only a response to an argument but also a program
for coping with the challenge in the affairs of life. Professor Allen
concludes: beliefs should be submitted to theological screening and to
challenges but ultimately rest on the fulfilment of needs, not on rationales.
The brunt of Professor Allen's argument is that reasonable means more
than rational or logical. In particular, belief can still be reasonable in the
face of unanswerable challenges. Paul Tillich has pointed out that the
Enlightenment, which was so rationalistic, was also at times overemotional.
This kind of polarity seems to affiict British thought today. When the
topic is impersonal there is an awe-inspiring precision of thought, but
when human affairs are being considered the discussion can get vague and
sentimental. A book such as this one labors under this handicap, and how
successfully it emerges will have to be judged by Professor Allen's compatriots. One looks in vain for such basic distinctions as that between

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" problem " and " mystery " and for the Continental insights into intersubjective knowledge. Thus, this book merits attention, even thought its
argumentation is not convincing.
MATTHEW RZECZKOWSKI, 0. P.
Dominican House of Studies
Washington, D. C.

Is Original Sin in Scripture? By HERBERT HAAG. New York:
$3.95.
Ward, 1969. Pp.

Sheed &

This slim volume is a translation of Biblische Sc!Wpfungslehre und
kirchliche Erbsiindenlehre with some modifications for American readers.
The work rightly points to the need for some re-evaluation of the theological notes attached to certain doctrines as well as the desirability of
eliminating some exeessive theological conclusions having no real basis in
the biblical texts, e. g., certain speculations about the preternatural gifts.
The treatment given to catechetical presentations of original sin is far
too long, however, and becomes tedious.
The author, however, leaves no doubt as to his own conclusions: " The
idea that Adam's descendants are automatically sinners because of the sin
of their ancestor, and that they are already sinners when they enter the
world, is foreign to Holy Scripture. . . . The ' inheritance ' of Adam's sin
means rather that sin, after its entrance into the world, so spread that
consequently all men are born into a sinful world and in this sinful world
become themselves sinners .... No man enters the world a sinner ....
However, the man who is born in the New Covenant times does not automatically share in the life of the risen Christ ... but receive it only when
they become united to Christ. . . . This union with the risen Christ is
based on faith and becomes effective through baptism. . . . Thus baptism
does not bring about the removal of ' original sin,' but rather rebirth as a
child of God; it makes man a member of Christ .... " (pp. 106-107) The
book itself, of course, must be read in order to weigh properly the supporting argumentation. Readers may find it interesting to compare Dr.
Haag's approach with that used by Dr. Joseph Fitzmyer, S. J., in the
Jerome Biblical Commentary (cf. Pauline Anthropology, p. 818 f., and his
p. 306 f.) .
pertinent comments on Rom. 5,
ALAN SMITH, 0. p.
Dominican House of Studies
Washington, D. C.

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Evolution: The Theory of Teilhard de Chardin. By BERNARD DELFGAAUW.
New York: Harper and Row, 1969. Pp. 124. $4.00.
The audience to whom this book is addressed, specifically, "those who
mean to read The Phenomenon of Man-or who have already done so,"
but who have not had " any training in either philosophy or the natural
sciences " (p. 20) , rather clearly delimits the sort of criticisms a reviewer
may make without laying himself open to the charge of attacking an author
for not doing what the author in question never intended to do.
Accordingly, I will limit my remarks to the only two questions applicable
to a book of this kind: a) is it "written down " adequately to be
"adapted to the sort of knowledge that anyone would get from the average
run of secondary education" (p. 20); and b) does it achieve this order of
simplification without oversimplification, that is, does it omit without
distorting, and delineate without caricaturing (abstractio non est mendacium).
In my judgment, the book probably could be read with understanding
by an interested high-school graduate. I do think that the author has
pretty well proportioned his material to the capacities of the audience he
had in mind. Whether he achieves this simplification without oversimplifying is another question again. This type of popularization is not easy
to achieve, and on the whole I don't think Professor Delfgaauw has done
too badly.
His location of the position taken by Teilhard in terms of two basic
notions (that life is the specific effect of organized matter, and that man
represents a new kind of animal life) is accurate as far as it goes, though
Teilhard himself adds a third proposition-that human socialization is
an organic phenomenon-in his own summary of the " essence " of his
intellectual position (see the "Summing Up or Postscript" to The Phenomenon of Man, pp. 299-308, esp. pp. 303-306). Similarly, his setting
out under eight headings of " the most striking features of Teilhard's
synthesis " (I, that the appraisal of a world known to be in evolution
requires " a new methodology ... in between that of experimental science
... and of philosophy "-p. 36; II, that "evolution embraces the whole
of reality "-p. 38; III, that there is some manner of discontinuity within
the continuity of evolution-p. 40; IV, that evolution as the rise of consciousness equals progress-p. 42; V, that there is reason to expect a
successful continuance of evolution through man-p. 43; VI, that evolution
" has the character of a call on human freedom " as " the foundation of
ethics "-p. 45; VII, that evolution in man must move toward increased
interdependence, achievement, and so" towards unity "-p. 47; and finally,
VIII, the Christian faith endorses and reinforces man's role as the "leading
shoot" of cosmic evolution-p. 49) is not a bad summary of the main
features in Teilhard's view.

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795

On the other hand, the non-specialist reader deserves better than the
impression that with Teilhard we have something utterly novel, which
contrasts vividly with "the final bankruptcy of traditional modes of thinking about the world, all of which have looked on it as something essentially
static" (from Bernard Towers' "Introduction," p. 11). If Towers is right
in regarding Teilhard's "greatest single contribution to science" as ''his
'Law of Complexity-Consciousness'"
(p. 11), or, as Delfgaauw himself
puts it, if " what Teilhard's fundamental insight is" comes down to regarding " life as a higher stage of material organization and consciousness as a
higher stage of life" (pp. 48-49) -and I agree that these formulations do
capture Teilhard's essential conviction-then Teilhard's doctrine is as
revolutionary and anti-traditional as Aristotle's definition of the soul (see
" The Philosophical Dimensions of the Origin of Species," Part II, in the
April, 1969, The Thomist, esp. pp. 318-326, 319 fn. 264, and 335) .
The non-specialist deserves better, too, than to be told that objections
to the Teilhardian vision, whether "in writings markedly unfavorable to
Teilhard's thinking" or" on the part of authors who sympathize with and
admire Teilhard," spring in every instance " from a deficient knowledge of
what Teilhard has written or from an inadequate grasp of his mode of
expression." (p. 94) That, in my judgment, goes beyond oversimplification
to irresponsibility.
Again, what is the non-specialist-or the specialist, for that matter-to
make of the assertion that " ontology provides a viewpoint without which
science cannot operate," but which viewpoint ontology is able to decide
on only "on the basis of what is put before it by science"? (p. 107) If
ontology cannot reach its viewpoint except on the basis of scientific
evidence, while, on the other hand, science is able to come up with
evidence only by virtue of the viewpoint ontology provides. . . . Surely
the translator has left something out.
I think it is hardly a contribution to the development and discipline of
the general public's thinking to be assured without further distinction that
" the constitutive ontological law of evolution is that the result can be
more than the cause" (p. 116), which, being a "law "-an ontological law
at that-suffices to resolve " the problem of evolution as such: how is it
possible for the higher to originate from the lower?" (p. 112)
However, each of these hyperboles and antinomies are no worse-and no
different-from the sort of baffiegab that has come to characterize the
tradition of Teilhardian commentary; and in one respect at least, Delfgaauw does better than most of the popularizers of Teilhard, specifically,
in his clear and accurate assessment (see pp. 65-76) of the reasons why
science does and must assume that the transitions from non-living to living
matter, and from animal to man, are causally linked transitions, in such
wise that "the general evolution theory ... is the only framework within
which we can think and work scientifically," (p. 72) or theologize reason-

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ably. (p. 68) Yet even in this regard, not even popularization can
justify the glib proposal (pp. 115-117) that the problems generated by the
evolutionary uniqueness of man are adequately accounted for in the
analysis of novelty given by Dialectical Materialism. In the first place,
Mechanistic Materialism, Vitalistic Materialism, and Dialectical Materialism certainly do not adequately categorize the positions possible and taken
over the problem of matter and spirit as it arises in considering the nature
of man (see the comprehensive survey of opinions on this point in M. J.
Adler, The Difference of Man and the Difference It Makes [New York:
Holt, 1967], Ch. 4, pp. 51-65); and in the second place, it is simply shoddy
concordism to pass off the impression that the traditional Christian
doctrines about man's spiritual nature and destiny can be taken over
without contradiction into the philosophical framework of Dialectical
Materialism (see The Difference of Man, Ch. 18, pp.
There is more that could be said on these and still other points; but I
think enough has been said to support this double judgment: a)
Delfgaauw's study does succeed in keeping at the level of the interested
high-school graduate, as it was intended to do; b) Delfgaauw's study
achieves its intended level of simplification without falling into any more
oversimplifications than most of Teilhard's popularizers. If you know a
high-schooler interested in Teilhard, you could do worse than to put him
on to Delfgaauw. On the other hand- I am taking Delfgaauw's word on
this-" the reader who wants a more thorough exposition, from philosophical standpoint, of the issues raised by the theory of evolution might do
worse than tum to my [i.e., Delfgaauw's] book Geschiedenis en Vooruitgang" (p.
available in German translation as Geschick als Fortschrift
(Cologne,
JOHN N. DEELY
Institute fOT PkiloBopkical R&earck
Chicago, IUinois

Evolutionary Philosophies and Contemporary Theology. By ERIC C. RusT.
Philadelphia: The Westminster Press, 1969. Pp.
$6.50.
Professor Rust does us all the favor of raising quite clearly the question
of the scope and the task of theology today. He gives us a good outline
of various philosophical views which are influential in shaping both
Protestant and Catholic theology. This, of course, does not include an
account of those still available classical philosophies, nor does it review
all of even the contemporary philosophical possibilities, but the evolutionary thought he outlines does affect one important stream of contemporary
theology. Teilhard de Chardin, for instance, seems about to become one

BOOK REVIEWS

797

of the major theoretical influences in Catholic thought, and, in order to
appraise this, we will have to understand it more fully against its philosophical background.
However, no complete treatment of all major theological questions has
yet been built on a modern basis of process and evolution, and this raises
the question of whether such a full-scale theology can be produced. Certainly we can see more and more clearly why it is crucial for us to try this
complete theological revision and to do it on the basis of clearly developed
philosophical principles. In an instant, it seems as if we have left most
classical Protestant and Catholic theologies behind. The pressures of the
day are such that we must produce a fresh theological scheme or we will
have none.
In this attempt, history is exhausted as a theological source. The
younger generation has abandoned its interest in developing its understanding from a study of the past. This does not mean they are right in
doing this, but it does mean that the only way to preserve tradition and
to make it forceful again is to bring it forth in a new mold. As we consider
this task, we are almost forced to begin by considering evolutionary
philosophies as a model. The problem is, however, that no complete
theological treatment has yet been built on this basis, although a number of
attempts are in the making. A partial treatment of a few theological issues
will not do. How successful will it be if every major doctrine is redone on
this basis?
In helping to answer this question, the problem with Rust's book is
that it is primarily a brief report on a wide variety of such evolutionary
philosophies, which leaves him very little time to develop much from that
basis. This raises the question that our primary need may not be for more
theological reporting but for a critical appraisal of the alternative philosophical bases open to us and then an el..i.ensive attempt to provide detailed
" theological answers " on this ground. Only when this is done will it be
possible to tell whether a given philosophical suggestion can be theologically
fruitful. If evolutionary philosophy is so suitable, it should be able to
produce a contemporary theology of some religious power and usefulness.
Professor Rust does give us, in addition to his summaries of various
views, a closing chapter of some twenty-nine pages which is both critical
and constructive. He begins by suggesting science, history and secular
society as contexts for theology, but these are hardly new suggestions, and
they may be already outworn. He thinks that theology must find a philosophical bridge to " secular man," but this assumes that the best way to
affect someone is to adopt his assumptions-which may or may not be
true. Professor Rust claims that " Christian salvation is not from the
world but in it." (p. 205) However, that statement is a little questionable
in this form, since Christianity originally claimed to have saved man from
death and to believe in the coming of a new world, both of which are
hardly achievable within this world as we know it.

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Rust goes on to suggest a personal model as basic in the interpretation
of the universe (p. 206) , but, whatever the merits of this may be, we must
be careful not to think of it as a new suggestion. It is as old as Hegel and
as American as personalism. He goes on to develop some of the aspects
of a personal interpretation, but this is still a far cry from a complete
treatment of theological issues built entirely on this basis. "Love" emerges
as a primary factor in Rust's scheme, but this perhaps tips us off to the
lurking romanticism in most evolutionary views and raises the question of
the adequacy of any primary stress on love for a contemporary theology.
If it can be argued that a sense of the power of evil is the primary
experience of our day, then no optimistic evolutionary view may be able
to do justice to the power of the negative experience in the contemporary
world. What this brings home to us, perhaps, is that evolutionary views are
not born out of twentieth-century experience but actually come out of an
earlier optimism about progress in human history. If this is true, we
may need to question seriously whether evolutionary philosophy can really
produce the kind of sober theology we need today. Our sense of the
presence and destructive power of evil may demand a different analysis of
the power of non-being against being.
Professor Rust sees man as continually incorporated more intimately
within the life of God. (p. 227) As religiously satisfying as such a picture
may be, this hardly is what the course of recent history seems to evidence.
In the events of the world we have lost God rather than grown closer to
his nature. If such process of divine approximation is in fact going on, it
will have to be in some non-obvious, non-empirical sense. If so, we have
lost science as our model. Rust sees the universe as full of the " intention
of finite personal being" (p. 229) , but to see this in any optimistic sense
must take a peculiarly powerful pair of rose-colored glasses, since the
experience of most today is one of the wasteful destruction of human
values.
Professor Rust concludes with a hope that God's purpose will be
actualized at all levels of creation, but surely he does not think that
the factual course of present history in itself offers evidence of any such
optimistic outcome. Certainly he is welcome to believe this, but such
optimism cannot be drawn from the empirical starting point which he
asserts we must use. He appears to have grafted on theological hopes that
are not scientifically in view. He need not, of course, limit himself to
science, but, if he does not, then he will have to develop clearly new
philosophical bases for his theology. Thus, we end no nearer to our philosophical conclusion, because it is not clear that evolutionary theories really
fit contemporary experience.
Is it, then, the problem of evil which gives us no choice but to make
it our starting point in theology today? Professor Rust raises this question
for us because the sense of evil seems to be the overpowering present experi-

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ence, and evolutionary philosophies seem most inclined to optimism and
away from this serious issue. We need to locate our theological starting
point and our defining issue, and then against this we can measure the
success or failure of theological attempts. What can God be like if evil is
real and powerful and positive? What can God be said to do to counter
this destruction if neither history nor present experience in themselves
can offer much hope? Where else can we turn for our theology?
FREDERICK SoNTAG
Pomona College
Claremont, California

The Future of Theology. By FREDERICK SoNTAG. Philadelphia:
minster Press, 1969. Pp. 155. $4.95.

West-

This book is a systematic consideration of the status of Protestant
theology in America. It stems from lectures and seminars given by
Frederick Sontag while he was a guest lecturer at the Pontifical College of
S. Anselmo in Rome in 1966-1967. The author was the first non-Catholic
to offer regular courses in a Roman seminary since Vatican II. His book
indicates his perceptive and sympathetic understanding of the Catholic
position; his criticisms of Roman Catholic theology are tactful and always
in good taste.
Professor Sontag's theme is that theology alone cannot provide the
basis for universal agreement between Protestants and Catholics; he calls
for a new philosophical base for Protestantism. It is his hope that such a
philosophy would bring greater unity to theology. This does not mean
that we would end up with some one universal philosophy and one theology
built upon it; rather, we should aim for a philosophy which is always open
to other points of view. No one philosophy grasps the fullness of truth;
reality is never exhausted by one mind. If we are ready to co-exist with
other opinions, and even to borrow from them when this is helpful, then
we will be living in an atmosphere more conducive to unity. The history
of Catholicism reminds us not to look for such an attitude in the Roman
Church; perhaps American Protestant theology can contribute such an
eclecticism.
Sontag argues that our theological fractures today arise from differences
in philosophy, "i.e., over how one understands the fixity and the finality
of any verbal formulation." (p. 144) He alludes to Roman theology and
its philosophy when he says: " no one can speak infallibly unless his
supporting philosophy can conceive of words bearing the weight of this
burden. A singleness of interpretation and formulation and a denial of

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pluralistic form are dependent on a philosophical view that allows such
unity." (p. 144)
I think that this is a valuable insight. Differences in our philosophies
are much more effective of theological differences than we might have
thought. We say very facilely that we are separated on issues of faith,
whereas Sontag's point is that philosophy divides us. Having recognized
the value in Sontag's thesis, I must still say that we need not expect any
doctrinal unity in the near future. Indeed, I am quite certain that
Sontag would agree with me here. There is a real division; his contribution
is in pointing us toward philosophy as the root of much division, but
division will remain. The mood of mature post-Vatican II ecumenism is to
search for possible unity while still recognizing significant differences; no
longer do we hear such strident demands for an immediate and total
reunification of Protestants and Catholics. And I believe Sontag is right in
suggesting that American Protestantism can lead us here by offering a
philosophy which is open to points of view other than its own; such a
pluralism should originate in America. I do think that he should not sell
short the Catholic Church on the topic of pluralism. We may not be
equivalent to American Protestantism in this area, but Jolm XXIII opened
up many a window in the high-walled fortess in which he had lived for
eighty years.
Sontag catalogues the current trends in Protestant theology, the philosophical sources available, the philosophical needs of a new theology, and then
he considers how the available philosophies can answer those needs.
lJas given a concise and critical summary both of philosophical sources and
theological trends. I am especially happy with his insistence on the role
of traditional philosophies and theologies in any theology of the future;
he takes issue with John Macquarrie's Twentieth Century Religious
Thought which considers contemporary thought to the exclusion of
tradition.
In one chapter Sontag discusses whether Protestantism is necessarily
antiphilosophical. Again, he is frank in self-criticism. Whereas Protestantism in its beginnings objected to the Scholasticism of its day, we now find
that Protestant thought is heavily philosophical; Bultmann and Tillich are
obvious examples. In our day Protestantism must question its own
philosophy rather than that of Roman Catholic theology. Decadent philosophy is to be thrown out, no mattet• whose home it has seized.
Throughout the book the assumption is made that the God-problem is
the principal theological question to be faced today. I agree with this
assumption; it was probably an even more urgent issue in 1966-1967 when
the radical theologians were still being taken seriously. However, I think
that Sontag could provide a valuable service if he would spell out in detail
exactly how a theological question becomes urgent. How do we determine
what questions are relevant? We have just passed through an episode of

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the theology of hope; no doubt, it was a valuable experience. But why did
theologians turn to the question of hope? By what criteria do we judge
what questions are deserving of answer? Sontag might respond by saying
that this problem depends on the philosophical stance assumed by the
theologian; different philosophical bases would lead to different theories.
I reject such a response. It is evident that Sontag has already made the
judgment (with which I agree) that we now need new developments in our
theology about God; I ask him what led him to this judgment. Involved
here is the role of " traditional questions " in theology; Sontag says that
we must take traditional questions into account. He does not go so far
as some Catholic theologians who feel obliged to be able to answer
systematically all such traditional questions, but neither does he follow the
radical theologians who freely dispense themselves from considering those
questions.
Perhaps I am speaking too much from a Catholic mentality which
recognizes the category of Tradition in theology. I submit myself to such
a criticism, but I still press my question. I am not so much objecting to
Sontag's position as I am asking him to undertake a new task. If he could
delineate his attitude toward the relevancy of traditional questions in u
contemporary theology, I think he would be serving us all. Roman
Catholic theologians still wrestle with hermeneutics and the development of
dogma; they might be helped in their struggle by the insights of a sympathetic thinker like Frederick Sontag.
This leads me to a section on page
of the book.
What form of philosophy do we need? . . . a philosophy that does nol
nncontrollably distort the Christian message, i. e., if the theology be Christian,
because no theology can be drawn from a philosophy without some prior
particular religious content. The theologian may, of course, decide independently
to reject some portion of his tradition, such as the resurrection. It is his
individual privilege to reach this decision on independent grounds if he is prepared
to defend it openly, although his tradition may in turn decide not to follow him
at all or only in part.

Sontag is definitely opting for a "prior particular religious content" for his
theology. It is from this position that he can speak of traditional
questions and traditional theologies; he will not allow an uncontrollable
distortion of the Christian message. How do we know what this Christian
message, this prior particular religious content, might be? I am sure that
Sontag would not answer that the Scriptures in an unqualified sense are
the Christian
He insists that the Scriptures themselves have a
philosophical overlay; the Scriptures are not naked Scripture but are
influenced by philosophy. In this case, Sontag explicitly responds to me
by saying that our notion of revelation depends on the philosophy
choose; hence different theologians might explain differently how we can

BOOK REVIEWS

begin to separate out philosophy from the prior particular religious content
of their theologies. I accept his reply but I still ask: How are you able
to say that there is a prior particular religious content? Is such a statement
independent of your philosophy? Is it a dogma? Are you certain that it is
true?
Obviously, I agree with Sontag that there is such a prior particular
religious content; I am simply asking him to spell out how he can hold this
position independently of a philosophical base. Perhaps I am trying to
emphasize how close he is to Roman Catholic theology (and its philosophy).
It is this assertion of the existence of a prior particular religious content
which tempers the theme of the book. It is not only philosophy which
separates Protestant and Catholic theologies; they are also kept apart by
their prior particular religious content. There are differences in faith.
Sontag has helped me by showing very clearly that over and above differences in faith there are also many more differences arising from philosophy;
a new philosophy could move us toward greater union even though it will
never touch the prior particular religious content of our theologies.
I agree with Sontag in saying that process philosophy seems to offer us
real hope for a new theology of God; I have found it yielding many helpful
insights. The process theology of Professor Daniel Day Williams (whose
help Sontag acknowledges in his preface) deals systematically and very
competently with such traditional questions (!) as God, faith, prayer,
ethics, and eschatology. Williams meets Sontag's stipulation that ethics
should grow out of the doctrine of God. However, I have found the
Christology of process theology to be woefully disappointing. I have discussed this with Professor Williams. As I understand his position, he is
hesitant to go along with any Jesus-statements which are in any way
rooted in the Greek-influenced formulas of Chalcedon. I think that he is
reflecting a concern with philosophy not unlike Sontag's concern; Chalcedon
was too full of Greek philosophy. I think that here we have a case of
differing prior particular religious contents; we believe different things about
Jesus of Nazareth, independent of our personal philosophical presuppositions. I believe that Jesus was true God and true man. I am not yet
ready to admit that this statement of faith would change if my philosophy
changed; it would change, however, were my faith to change. In the eighth
chapter of his Reality as Social Proce88 the process philosopher Charles
Hartshorne takes a position which challenges my faith, not my philosophy.
He says: "I very much doubt if there ever has been or ever can be a
form of theism which will enable such phrases as 'Jesus was God ' or the
'divinity of Jesus' to have a sufficiently unambiguous meaning to entitle
them to serve as requirements for Christian unity." I disagree.
To return to Professor Sontag's book, let me make a final point. I think
Sontag is very much a Greek, strongly influenced by that theology which

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has borrowed and built upon ancient Greek philosophy. His very criticism
of the process doctrine of God (it gives us a limited God and emphasizes
process over God) is made by my Thomist friends. In fact, whenever he
says that the key theological problem today is the nature of God, he
indicates a tendency to ask Greek questions; after all, it was Aristotle who
led us to ask about natures. Sontag notes that the Bible does not give us a.
comprehensive picture of the nature of God. This should not surprise us;
after all, the Bible is not a. Greek document using Greek categories of
thought.
Whatever question and problems I have raised here are not meant as
criticism of this book. I am convinced that men like Frederick Sontag can
do much to bridge Protestant and Catholic theologies. He notes that
contemporary Catholic Biblical scholarship can serve to free Protestant
theology from some of its unwitting philosophical assumptions. I would
tell Professor Sontag that his call for a metaphysical theology can guide
Catholic thinkers back to that realm, away from many of the philosophies
with which the Protestant theologians have already experimented and are
now rejecting. I urge him to continue his thinking and writing; his
s·ervice is needed and is most welcome.
WILLIAM

J. FINAN, 0. P.

Dominioon House of Studies
Wa8kington, D. C.

The Presence and Absence of God. Edited by CHRISTOPHER F. MooNEY,
S. J. New York: The Fordham University Press, 1969. Pp. 189. $6.00.
This attractively produced volume presents us with the first series of the
Cardinal Bea Lectures given at Fordham University by representative
Christian thinkers with a hope to " mobilize those forces which are in agreement at least in their general ideas about belief in the existence of God "
(Card. Bca). The ten lectures reproduced here were given between the
years 1966 and 1968 and mark out the general contours of the massive
theological problems in the areas of theory and communication which
confront all thinking men at the present moment. Of the ten lectures
printed here six are by Catholic authors and the remainder by well-known
Protestant theologians. The themes are grouped in two parts: I The
Phenomenon of Unbelief and II The Contemporary Problem of God. Each
part has five lectures. There seems to have been no dialogue between the
lecturers, as there well might have been, nor any record of discussion
that arose in response to the serious questions that are posed. However,
any needless repetition of material has been avoided by keeping each
lecturer to a fairly well-defined area.

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R. Johann begins with his "Creativity and Unbelief." (pp. S-18) This
is a rather brilliant piece in which he delves into the conditions of
genuine creativity for man, isolates in a succinct manner the paradox that
theism almost demands that man live atheistically in that any objectivization of the absolute is necessarily a distraction from the true indeterminate
absolute that founds life. Are we not left with the sole demand to act
intelligently in all circumstances and merely within the limits of the present
human existence? If faith as allegiance to any value comes into the picture,
it is precisely as faith in the capabilities of intelligence to orientate man to
an ever more human future. (pp. 13 f.) After sketching this prevalent
mentality, he goes on to show with considerable force that, in fact, the
only way to prevent humanistic ideal of creativity from becoming distorted
is a practical theism. Here he asks the question, " To whom is man
responsible " in all his creativity. If man is responsible to no one, human
crettivity will lapse into an amorphous, levelling collectivism, or a subjectivism that will exploit rather than contribute. (pp. 15-18)
James F. Gustafson in his" Faith, Unbelief and Moral Life" (pp. 19-30)
explores wittily the relation between the cerebral and the visceral in the
moral life and points to the necessity of reasoned intellectual convictions
in human commitment. He has in mind the present student generation
with their spontaneuus and uncritical acceptance of rather indeterminate
values. In this area he makes for a readily intelligible clarity.
The Editor, Christopher F. Mooney, assumes the rostrum for the next
lecture on his specialty, Teilhard de Chardin: "Teilhard de Chardin On
Belief in God." (pp. 31-47} He makes the valuable point that saves
Teilhard from the usual run of Process-Thought, namely, that the scheme
of evolution demands the all actualizing presence of an absolute which is
personal and loving and present to man in this process through Christ.
The thought of Teilhard is neatly analysed with abundance of citation.
Langdon B. Gilkey follows with "Unbelief and the Secular Spirit." (pp.
50-68} He gives an astute analysis of the human situation and man's
experience of it and shows deftly how, amidst the contingency, relativity,
temporality, and freedom of man, the ultimate question about the absolute
must necessarily arise despite any amount of the theoretical consideration
of it.
John Courtney Murray rounds off the first part with " The Unbelief of
the Christian." (pp. 69-83) This must have been one of the last writings
of this great scholar. He pins down the terms of the modern problematic
of the position of the Church in the world and shows in what it differs from
the biblical question. He points to the reality of the Church as the
sacrament of Christ in the world, yet stresses the historical nature of the
pilgrim Church and the possibility of its greater or lesser unfaithfulness.
In the process he has some interesting and impassioned remarks to make
about the inclusion of such ideas in the Vatican II documents from his

BOOK REVIEWS

805

own experiences at the Council. The lecture in its present form is badly
marred by a hopelessly inaccurate translation of the opening words of the
Constitution on the Church. He writes: " Christ is forever the lumen
gentium, the light of the peoples." In the opening words of the Constitution
on the Church: " Upon Christ as the light of the peoples, the Church
herself, who is to be the sign of Christ, casts shadows." The puzzling
nature of such erratic misrepresentation is not helped by the footnote, no.
8: Documents of ·vatican II, pp. 14-24. (p. 83) By no stretch of the
imagination can the words: " Lumen Gentium cum sit Christus, haec
Sacrosancta Synodus . . . omnes homines claritate eius, super facien
Ecclesiae resplendente, illuminare vehementer exoptat, omni creaturae
evangelium annuntiando ... " be translated as in the lecture. The strange
thing is that Fr. Murray seems to refer to the passage later: "Yet this
instrument of Christ's revelation has in cold historical fact obscured his
face and failed to proclaim his message." (p. 81, my emphasis) Whatever
be the explanation, this is a serious mistake.
The next part is introduced by Leslie Dewart: "Metaphysics and the
Concept of God." His programme, though with characteristic modesty
put forward merely as a hypothesis, (p. 90) is to show that metaphysical
thought, and philosophical analysis in terms of being, is invalid, with the
result that all thought about God must enter into a post-metaphysical
phase. Consequently, in the effort to conceptualize the reality which transcends being, the word "presence" is chosen as being especially apt. This
concept of a reality transcending being, namely, the Presence herein implied, is not envisaged as substituting for being or a metaphysics in disguise.
(p. 107) The notion of presence is not that to which everything is reduced.
That would be to embark on the (disastrous) metaphysical path with
new-soled shoes. On the other hand, the notion of presence seems to have
the advantage of letting reality appear to human perception without any
preconceptions or any a priori principle or framework. I presume that
this lecture was a biproduct of Dewart's Future of Belief, which he must
have been writing at the time or seeing through the press. These ideas
are expanded there at greater length.
The next lecture in this part is entitled "God's Pseudonyms" and is
by Robert McAfee Brown. Here he takes up the " risky business " of
detecting the presence of God masked in some of the great issues of the
day, at least, for Americans. Discovering God's presence in this manner
is fraught with surprises; but we should be no more surprised by the
presence of God manifested now in this manner than Jacob was at his place
of rest, or Elipah at hearing the "still, small voice," or Israel seeing God's
will manifested through the intervention of Assyria. (pp. liS ff.) This
is an interesting essay in reading the " signs of the times."
Henri Rouillard's "Human Autonomy and the Presence of God" follows.
(pp. 129-146) In it he gives a very refined treatment to the relationship

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between secular, ethical autonomy and the morality of the gospel. In doing
this, he takes up the preceptive, eschatological and Church-guided aspects
of Christian morality and shows that they do not necessarily cramp human
autonomy in its quest.
A general summary entitled "God in Modern Protestant Thought," by
John Coleman Bennett, (pp. 147-163) has an appropriate place. HI!
points out the common denial of any kind of unchanging Absolute amongst
Protestant thinkers (and some younger Catholics). He remarks
on the effect of the variation in the relation of Protestant theology to
philosophies and pomts to a greater flexibility in this area. He takes up
some of the reasons against the traditional Christian theism: that it
distracts from the service of man; that God overwhelms nian in his
freedom; that God could not possibly permit the evils of the world. Having
said an enlightening word about each of these difficulties, he stresses that
an appreciation of God as a transcendent reality enables man to criticize
his positions and, in the long run, to hope.
The concluding statement is left to Berhard Lonergan " The Absence of
God in Modern Culture." (pp. 164-178) He sketches with precision
the empirical nature of modern culture with its specific "scientific"
component. Within the limits of its procedures God cannot be found,
even if religion in its manifold facets is studied. Though one might expect
the theologian to speak with greater clarity of God through availing
himself of the findings of the modern sciences, this is not so, Lonergan
readily concedes: for Catholic theology is suffering through its own crises.
The. relativity of theological enunciation is clarified through the modern
history-conscious methods; Scripture is further demythologized; modern
philosophy has superseded Thomism; the dogmatic component of faith has
been softened if not weakened; the possibility of objectively valid statement
seems so remote. All of this is to say that God is absent from the highly
reflex superstructure of modern culture. Likewise, on the more concrete,
immediate level, the absence of God is further verified: the Church has
stood aloof from modern culture and, in being initially suspicious of it,
has not expected to find God present in any way in it. The intensely
secular life of the present looks on God as an intruder; ·and the power of
which it feels itself the possessor does not need him. Lonergan rounds off
this oppressive picture by stating that God's actual absence is also his
potential presence, and where heroic charity is practised and radiated
Christianity will not find itself irrelevant for the building of the future.
Such is the impressive outline of the matters treated by an equally
impressive list of Christian scholars. This by itself speaks volumes for the
serious work going on in North American theological circles; this brand of
thinking is definitely for export.
Yet so few answers are given, and so little interrelationship is present.
No reviewer could expect that the editor ensure this; but insofar as these

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lectures do give a general impression of the state of theology concerning
these big questions on the American scene, one proportionately wonders
how much exact dialogue is going on. Has theology become the domain
of individual and independent prophets? This point can be illustrated by
asking a few specific questions: is Dewart's notion of presence as divorced
from the notion of being as he thinks? It may be divorced from a Greek
conception of being, but from being itself ... ? What would Johann have
to say on this, seeming to imply that God must be in man's life in order
that he might be himself? Why is there really so much prejudice against
the Absolute in Protestant thought? Does Gilkey, in showing up the basic
questions that life poses about the Absolute, end, in unanamity with his
Protestant colleagues, by rejecting it? Bennet wishes to keep the Transcendent: can he do this without affirming the Absolute as Teilhard seems
to have .done? If God is so absent in modern culture as Lonergan has it,
is it the time to interpret the reality of the Church in purely historical
categories as Murray has done? Were the Council Fathers so completely
wrong? Is there a way of seeing the Church as the presence. of the
Absolute within history that is neither a Platonic dream on the one hand
nor a reality completely conditioned by history on the other? Finally, is
not the rich burgeoning of American theology at the moment still too much
at the mercy of images rather than insights; of slogans .rather tha)l
judgments; of independent theory rather than a communal quest for truth?
So much of this present volume is dominated by the image of on-going
process, of non-conceptualizable reality, of non-being presence, that one
cannot but feel that sooner or later it will be up to the theologians to dig
in their heels and say there is an Absolute finalizing the process; there is a
truth that cannot be contradicted, and for that matter, there is a gospel
that must be respected.
All in all, an interesting volume of lectures. May the Institute that
sponsors these lectures and the continuing publication of them fulfill the
intention of the great Cardinal in whose memory they appear.
ANTHONY

J. KELLY,

c. ss. R.

St. Mary'11 College
Wendouree, ViD.
Australia

The Knowledge of Things Hoped For. By RoBERT W. JENSON. New York:
Oxford University Press, 1969. Pp.
$5.75.
It is Robert Jenson's subtitle, "the sense of theological discourse," which.
describes his intent. The title of the work, presumably a play on the
definition of faith in Hebrews 11:1, does telescope some of Jenson's con"

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BOOK REVIEWS

elusions. The argument of the " essay " relies first upon a Western preoccupation with analytic significance for "God-talk." Second, it seeks to
trace the author's ruminations concerning both historical theology and
contemporary philosophy.
Introducing his discussion with a brief chapter on " The Problem
About ' God,' " Jenson justifies the endeavor as follows: " This is by no
means the first book devoted to this attempt. Why, then, yet another?
Because it seems to me that the most vigorous analyses of theological
language have been pursued in relative ignorance of theology-that is,
23) He admits
of that language as it has in fact been spoken." (pp.
from the outset that the book claims only to be " a beginning " in its
exploration of theological discourse.
Two succeeding chapters, on Origen's use of " image " and on St.
Thomas's reliance upon "analogy," establish Jenson's via negativa for
a subsequent " conversation with a great number of thinkers." (p.
He dwells on the appropriateness of image to prototype, in the case of
Origen, and on the components of analogical predication for Thomas. In
common, they rely on eschatological verification, according to him. In
chapter 4, however, "The Continuing Problem,'' Jenson accuses Thomas
of lacking the "christological logic" employed by Origen. Moreover, he
claims, " If we turn to the differences between Origen and Thomas, we
note immediately that they cancel each other out. Origen's christological
concentration, whereby we speak of God precisely by speaking of Christ,
is undone by Thomas. And Thomas' sober self-restriction to language
continuous with our other language is ignored in Origen's flight to ecstatic
speech." (p. 95) We need turn, Jenson concludes on the subject, to look
elsewhere for bases yielding theological language.
Thus Jenson turns to "Analysis: Verifiability,'' a comparison of scientific and theological language, and to "Hermeneutics:
Historicity,'' a
discussion of historical and historiographical events. His primary dependence philosophically proves to be upon Wisdom, Crombie, and Wittgenstein; and he mentions most extensively Bultmann, Ebeling, Fuchs and Ott
among the theologians. Jenson's agreement with Moltmann and Pannenberg, alluded to in several respects, must be viewed in light of his concerns
with language and " the new hermeneutic."
By way of quibbles, Jenson's style makes following his train of thought
extremely difficult. Personally, his frequent usage of "this" in sentences
such as: " If we keep this clear, then it seems to me that all this is
both correct and helpful,'' (p. 187) proved very annoying. More serious
and more frequent, though, is Jenson's unnecessary ambiguity within
declarative sentences. "Historical understanding, once begun, swallows
everything,'' for example, is followed by: " All that men believe, insofar
as they express their belief so that it becomes a possible part of traditionthat is, of the object of historical understanding-becomes
by their

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expression a historical item-including what we ourselves believe and
express of our belief." (p. 20)
Of particular interest may be the chapter on St. Thomas's use of analogy.
J"enson has not acknowledged his position in comparison with those of
Lyttkins and Klubertanz, although he notes " general dependence " on their
works. Nor has Jenson emphasized the limited role of analogy for Thomas
himself, and the dearth of formal discussion within the Summa Theologiae
on the very definitions of analogy has not been cited. On the other hand,
Jenson shows concern with the interpenetration of analogy, eschatology,
and creation. In sum, however, Jenson's chapter on Thomas adds little and
recapitulates much on the subject.
Most disturbing is Jenson's ultimate reliance on Biblical categories"Law," "Gospel,"" Hope,"" Resurrection," etc.-with no use of Scripture
itself. Even when granting the redefinition of his terms, one cannot help
but wonder if Jenson's work avoids consciously the available passages
employed by "theologians of hope," for example. Especially when he
concludes, as he does, with exhortations to keep theological discourse from
being hollow, does Jenson open himself to this criticism.
The Knowledge of Things Hoped For is, however, a pioneering essay in
contemporary systematics; it should not be judged harshly for its shortcomings. Jenson has exercised candor as well as prudence in his endeavor.
As anyone who attempts to understand the confluence of modem trends
in philosophy and theology can testify, vocabulary at once precise, faithful
to the sources, and apropos a general discussion is seldom achieved.
Again, the focus of the work on the dogma and debate concerning the
meaning of Resurrection penetrates to the heart the dilemma of Western
Christianity today. Jenson concludes with some exhortations which are
good ones, especially concerning Resurrection.
It is Jenson's admission in his closing paragraph, however, which commends itself to us all: "The language of faith is never achieved. We
faithfully when we respond to, and ourselves make, the promise of
that utterance in which we will one day speak the meaning of life in God.
Let us now, therefore, speak of God in fear and trembling and in reliance
on forgiveness: 'Here, Lord, is what we must say. If we misspeak,
forgive us.' "
LOUIS WEEKS,

3316 Swanaea

Durham, North Carolina

III

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BOOK REVIEWS

Lutherans and Roman Catholicism: The Changing Conflict, 1917-1963.
By MYRON A. MARTY. Notre Dame: University of Notre Dame
Press, 1968. Pp.
$6.95.
The first chapters of Mr. Marty's book are very much like a visit to the
family attic or basement where the furniture and knickknacks of thirty
or forty years ago are being stored. The value of such a visit is to remind
us how things used to be and how far we have come, and in most cases how
unwilling we would be to have these things back in the living room again.
For those who are impatient with the pace of ccumenism and are tempted
to feel that our partners in the dialogue are not changing enough, this book
will be reassuring. Lutherans and Roman Catholicism: The Changing
Conflict, as the title indicates, is a case study of the rhetorical exercises
and polemics between the churches which was carried on between 1917 and
1963. Mr. Marty deals only with the Lutheran side of these activities,
however, and then only with those of the Missouri Synod Lutherans, not
the Lutherans in this country in general. The year 1917 was chosen to
begin the study in part because Lutherans were then celebrating the fourhundredth anniversary of the Reformation when their anti-Catholicism
found special opportunities for a place in print. 1963 was chosen as the
eutoff date because Mr. Marty sees that year as one of " many turning
points " for the Lutheran-Catholic dialogue and as good a place as any
for concluding the discussion. 1963 was also coincidentally, as he points
out, the four-hundredth anniversary of the closing of the Council of Trent.
The changing Lutheran attitude toward Roman Catholicism is illustrated
for us by quotations from the pages of the semi-official press of the
Missouri Synod and some popular periodicals like the Cresset, from books
published by the editors of those periodicals, and from books of other
authors who held influential posts such as professors in the Synod's seminaries. The opinions expressed by these writers over the years undoubtedly
reflect the " official line " of the leaders of the Missouri Synod, if not quite
the official church doctrine. In 1917 and in the early
as we might
expect, articles and editorials were uncompromising in tone, liberally
sprinkled with emotionally charged words and with references to the past
evil deeds of the Roman Catholic Church. By the late 1940's and into the
1960's a very different spirit prevailed even where hesitations and severe
reservations about the Roman Catholic Church were being expressed. Two
quotations from Mr. Marty's book aptly illustrate the change of climate
in answer to a papal invitation for reunion
in forty years. Writing in
of the churches the Lutheran Witness said:
Remember that a return to the Pope means 1t return to bondage under him who
burned innocent and faithful Hus at the stake, rejoiced over the massacre of
thousands of godly men and women on that bloody night of St. Bartholomew,
waged cruel persecution against millions of faithful Christians in Spain,

BOOK REVIEWS

811

Germany, England and the Netherlands till this savagery rivaled, if it did. not
surpass, that of the Roman emperors who hunted down the early .Christians.

By 196fl, in response to Pope John XXIII's call for an ecumenical Council'

that would discuss reform and reunion, the Cresset editors felt called upon
to write:
The Roman Catholic Church is our mother, from whose house we are, for the
time being, absent in cbedience to Our Lord's demand, " He that loveth father or
mother more than me is not worthy of me." We hope for the day when tho;:
invisible fellowship which we share with all Christians will once more be a
visible reality in the fellowship of one Holy, Catholic, and Apostolic Church.

The change of editorial style between 1924 and 1962 did not, of course;
come about all at once but was prepared for little by little over the years.
In separate chapters Mr. Marty traces this change for us by showing how
the Luthern press gradually modified its stance and tone when taking up
questions such as the " Catholic Church's attempt to take over America·
and suppress religious freedom," State aid to parochial schools, an ambassador at the Vatican, and a Catholic as president. He also deals in the
same way with a selected number of theological problems such as Scripture
and Tradition, the Pope as heir of St. Peter or as the fulfillment of the
prophecies about the Anti-Christ, saving faith versus good words, and the
position of Mary. In all of these areas he finds a significant softening of
anti-Roman language and a closer examination of current Catholic teaching,
indicating that among Lutheran writers of the Missouri Synod a total
reappraisal of Catholicism is going on, not just an accommodation of one or
two points of difference.
While reporting the attitudes found in the Lutheran press, no attempt
is made to evaluate the impact of this literature on rank and file
Lutherans of the Missouri Synod or even on its pastors or activit laymen.
Readers who are looking for a sociological survey will be disappointed. JVIr.
Marty is not dealing in this book with a conflict between Lutherans and
Roman Catholics so much as between Lutherns and Catholicism, i.e., the
conflict between Lutheran apologists and their idea of Catholicism. He
points out that the cardinal principle underlying the anti-Catholic
Lutheran polemics of thirty or forty years ago was the notion (a notion,
we might add, that was no doubt reinforced by many Roman Catholic
doctrinal presentations) that "Rome never changes." Her theology, her
entire ecclesiastical system was looked upon by Lutherans as an unchanging abstraction which could always be attacked by the same kind of
arguments. No new arguments were really ever necessary because the
Roman Church was, after all, continually seeking the same thingreligious domination. Lutheran writers in those years felt justified in
quoting official Catholic statements, whether made in 1302, 1549, or 1870,
all of them as though they had been written yesterday, without any need

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to take into account the historical circumstances of their original formulation or discussion of their present applicability. When Catholic contemporaries differed from the " official " view or argued that modern
conditions demanded some reinterpretation of ancient statements, Lutheran
writers regularly dismissed them, feeling that these Catholics either spoke
from ignorance or were simply intent on making propaganda. Polemics or
counter-polemics could do nothing, of course, to change this situation.
Mr. Marty finds that the first softening of attitudes toward Catholicism
grew cautiously out of evangelical concerns. In the 1980's and 1940's voices
were raised against anti-Catholic diatribes, which sometimes still existed,
on the grounds that they were not appreciated by the Lutheran rank and
file, and anyway did nothing to give America a " Bible-based, Christorientated, freedom-bearing religion."
It was the march of events, however, which did the most to force
Lutherans toward a reappraisal of their relations with Catholicism. Mr.
Marty concludes tha.t:
As long as Catholicism appeared to remain the same, there was no compelling need
for Lutherans to change their position. But when the Roman Catholic Church
launched an effort at renewal and reform, that which the Lutherans had been
opposing began to change. Abstract opposition to concepts that were no longer
abstract had to be abandoned. Reappraisal ... pertinent to the real situation
became necessary.

As Lutherans of the Missouri Synod became convinced in the 1950's and
especially in the 1960's that renewal and reform was a reality within
Catholicism, then the possibility, if not of reunion, at least of ultimate
unity with Catholicism also became a conceivable reality. It is interesting
to remember that when Pope John called for a council which would discuss
renewal and take up the problem of Christian unity a similar kind of
argument was advanced by those who looked for the council's success.
Catholics themselves found cause for optimism in the fact that in the past
fifty years and especially since the second World War the Protestant
churches had changed, that theologians were no longer content with
repeating the abstractions of the Reformation, and that there was a 11pirit
of renewal in them.
HILARY MARTIN,

Berkeley P'l'iory
Berkeley, California

0. P.

BOOK REVIEWS

813

Melanchthon and Bucer. The Library of Christian Classics, vol. 19. Ed.
by WILHELM PAUCK. Philadelphia: The Westminster Press, 1969.
Pp. 406. $7.50.
Two of the leading figures of the early period of Protestantism were
Philip Melanchthon (1497-1560) and Martin Bucer (1491-1551). Surprisingly little is known today even in Protestant circles of these theologians
who were second only to Martin Luther among German reformers and
whose published works-books and treatises-number in the hundreds.
The appearance of two important works of Melanchthon and Bucer in
English translation is a welcome addition to the theological corpus of the
Reformation and to ecumenical studies. This volume is one of a twentysix volume English language presentation of the " most indispensable
Christian treatises written before the end of the sixteenth century." The
translation and the editorial notes are in keeping with the high standards
of The Library of Christian Classics series.
The Loci Communes Theologici (1521) of Philip Melanchthon has been
described as the first Protestant dogmatics or the first Protestant attempt
at systematic theology. Unlike the De Locis Theologicis (1560) of
Melchior Cano, Melanchthon's work is not a study of the sources of
theology. It is a treatment of Loci communes rerum theologarum (Fundamental Theological Themes). Melanchthon was still a young man of
twenty-four when he first published the Loci Communes, a work which was
to undergo several changes and additions throughout the author's career.
In the period 1521-1525 eighteen Latin editions were published; in the
years 1535-1540 an enlarged and much altered edition appeared; the
greatest changes in theological opinion occurred in the editions of 15431544. A book of the Library of Protestant Thought series, M elanchthon on
Christian Doctrine: Loci Communes 1555, ed. by C. L. Manschreck (New
York: Oxford University Press, 1965), presents the final redaction of the
author. Anyone who is interested in an extensive study of Melanchthon's
thought is referred to this latter book which contains notes and an
introduction by Hans Engelland from the critical edition of the Loci
Communes (1555).
The special importance of the volume of the Library of Christian Classics
under consideration is that it presents the work of a young writer at the
beginning of his career and at the beginning of the Reformation period
(1521) alongside of the De Regno Christi, the mature work of Martin Bucer
which appeared at the end of the first generation of Lutheran and Reformed
theologians (1550) . Bucer's work, like Melanchthon's, contains elements of
Protestant dogmatics. The editor, Wilhelm Panek, a distinguished Protestant historian of the Church, has published writings on both men but
is more at home with the Strasbourg reformer Martin Bucer, having done
his doctoral dissertation on the De Regno Christi at Berlin (1928).
Both Melanchton and Bucer were repulsed by the " spohistical legends,"

814

BOOK REVIEWS

as they referred to the scholastic theologians. They were attracted by
Erasmus, Rhenanus (learned humanist of Bucer's birthplace, . Selestat) ,
Reuchlin (from Melanchthon's home in the Palatinate), Brenz, and the
humanists of the University of Heidelberg. Both were deeply moved by
Luther's arguments from Holy Scripture. Melanchthon, a professor of
Greek at Wittenberg, was moved to become a theologian; Bucer, a
Qominican. priest, was moved to seek a dispensation from his vows and to
become a preacher of the reform.
The Loci Communes was hastily published by Melanchthon after his
students had put in print without permission a set of his classroom notes.
The worl.< amounts to a commentary on the Epistle to the Romans of St.
Paul. The basic topics of Christian theology are sin, the fruits of sin, law,
free will, grace, the vows of monks, justification and faith, etc. Little or
nothing is done with. the divinity of God, the Christian mystenes of the
Incarnation, creation. "We do better to adore the mysteries of Deity than
them." .
The Thomistic influence of his early Dominican period remained to give
moderation and a certain organization to Bucer's program of social ethics.
The De. Regno Christi
a program of social and ecclesiastical reform
presented to the young King Edward VI of England, where Bucer was
in exile during the last two years of his life. Bucer returns to preChristian and Christian sources. The Bible is the foundation stone for his
ecclesiology and reform program. He presents the Church as a community
of the elect: one may not' be in the Church (Body of Christ) and yet be
in .the reign of Christ; but it is not possible to be in the Body of Christ
without being in the reign of Christ. This view of Church membership
is close to that of the prominent Protestant theologian of our day Oscar
Cullmann (cf. Christ and Time, Philadelphia: The Westminster Press,
1964', p. 188 ff.).
¥elanchton and Bucer were important figures in the struggle for
Protestant unity, a fact which led both men to be misunderstood and mistrusted by contemporaries. Melanchthon convinced Luther that he should
agree to the Concord of Wittenberg (1536) of which Bucer was the
architect, a concord which at least on paper put an end to the bitter strife
among Protestants over the doctrine of the Lord's Supper.
:rhe historical and theological research into Melanchthon's early Protestant dogmatics and Bucer's early Protestant social ethics will prove
rewarding to Roman Catholic scholars. The .historical influence and significance of these men is reflected in Lutheran, Calvinist, Anglican, Puritan
ap.d Methodist traditions. Both are witness to the central Protestant ·
concern for the articulus stantis et cadentis ecclesiae.
JoHN

Dominican HOWle of Studil!S
Washington, D. (j.

M. DoNAHUE, 0. P.

BOOK REVIEWS

815

The Politics of the Gospel. By JEAN-MARIE PAUPERT. New York: Holt,
Rinehart & Winston, 1969. Pp.
$4.95.
This is not a profound book nor is it a shallow one. It is a deeply-felt call
for "evangelical action." One may dispute, as I do, M. Pauper's exegesis
of the Gospels and his reading of history, but one senses his Christian
concern. He makes a number of uncomfortable but very cogent observatiOns about Christians and Christianity.
Pauper's theme is that Christians " are simply unfaithful to the Kingdom
of Heaven when ... they are divided on an essential political problem that
is also a problem of Truth." He defines "politics" as having to do with
"everything that depends on and flows from the social life of man." But
lest he trap himself, he introduces a distinction between " formal " politics
that deals with "types of power, organizational systems, administration,
government and law," and "essential" or "real" politics, the "concrete
and substantial reality " of political and social life. Though he appeals to
Marx for confirmation of this distinction, it never remains very clear and
continually bothers him throughout the book.
Paupert seeks to explain historically how the problem of " politics " and
the Gospel has arisen and how various solutions have been proposed. He
seeks to find out what Christ recommended, how these recommendations
became blurred and, finally, how the evangelical insights may be made
clear to contemporary man. This is a large order for a book of 174 pages,
and, almost apologetically, Paupert keeps telling the reader he has not the
time to go into all the complexities. Complexities there are!
The first section discusses the New Testament approach to "polities."
Jesus was opposed to theocracy and caesaropapism; he made a clear distinction between the Kingdom of God and the kingdom of man. But there
are relations between these two kingdoms, though an undoubted primacy
of the Kingdom of God. The question of temporal power, of legal justice,
of peace and non-violence, of patriotism are examples of the " political
realities" which extend into the "political universe of the Gospel."
Evangelical economy, Paupert insists, "is structured by a tension between
poverty and money." In fact, so fundamentalist is Paupert's exegesis on
the question of money that he eventually calls for the creation of an
economy without money. I would think that the evangelical strictures are
just as relevant whether we use script, chits or gold coins. As far as international and internal relations go, Paupert asserts that "a recourse to force
and violence is absolutely proscribed." Non-violence is a "a direct and
immediate consequence of the evangelical law." Paupert is here most
consistent with his principles. In an Epilogue he castigates the " theologians
of revolution " and the " comfortably pious " who play the role of
" suburban Che Guevaras."
In the second section, entitled" Avatars of Evangelical Politics," Panpert

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BOOK REVIEWS

rapidly covers nineteen centuries of Christian experience which includes
a short chapter devoted to "Bossuet, Victim of His Century." There are
verw few in the New Left, I think, who have heard of or care about
Bossuet.
In the final section Paupert discusses the application of evangelical
l)rinciples to today's situation. He asserts once again Christianity's "indifference " to forms of government, but he manages to condemn most of
them as " un-Christian " anyway. He analyzes the "Right " and " Left,"
seeking an " absolute Right and Left." It is no surprise that, given his
descriptions and his outlook, he concludes that " the evangelical spirit
cannot be harmonized with a right-wing mentality "; and that the
" Gospel of the Lord is truly of the Left," though he castigates leftists
for their sins of omission and commission.
I would criticize and argue with numerous statements of fact and interpretation in this book. But it has been stimulating to read. The same
cannot be said about the Foreward contributed by Daniel Berrigan. My
advice is to skip it and read Paupert.
RICHARD

Aquimu Institute
Dubuque, Iowa

K. WEBER, 0. p.

BOOKS RECEIVED
American Bible Society: Good News for Modern Man. The New Testament in Today's English Version. Second Edition, 1969. (Pp. 600,
$0.35)
Bobbs-Merill Co., Inc.: Jonathan Edwards. Freedom of the WiU, ed. by
A. S. Kaufman & W. K. Frankena. (Pp. 309, $6.50)
Collier Books: The Two Hands of God. The Myths of Polarity, by Alan
W. Watts. (Pp. 256, $1.50)
Doubleday & Co., Inc.: The Crisis of Faith. A Protestant Witness in
Rome, by Frederick Sontag. (Pp. 285, $5.95)
Fides Publishers, Inc.: Intimacy. Pastoral Psychological Essays, by Henri
J. M. Nouwen. (Pp. 173, $4.95 cloth, $2.50 paper)
Harper & Row, Publishers: What is Religion? by Paul Tillich. (Pp. 191,
$5.95); Evolution: The Theory of Teilhard de Chardin, by Bernard
Delfgaauw. (Pp. 124, $4.00)
Holt, Rinehart & Winston, Inc.: The Politics of the Gospel, by Jean-Marie
Paupert. (Pp. 192, $4.95); Church. Vatican II's Dogmatic Constitution on the Church, ed. by Peter Foote, John Hill, Laurence
Kelly, John McCudden, Theodore Stone. (Pp. 144, $3.25)
Les Presses de L'Universite Laval: La Philosophic dans le Cite Technique.
Essai sur la philosophic bergsonienne des techniques, by Roger
Ebacher. (Pp. 226, $5.25)
Libreria Editrice della Pontificia Universita Gregoriana: Dogmenentwicklung als Problem der Geschichtlichkeit der Wahrheitserkenntnis, by
Winfried Schulz. (Pp. 387, $6.70, L. 4.000)
Libreria Editrice della Pontificia Universita Lateranense: Esegesi Tomistica, by Cornelio Fabro, C. S.S. (Pp. 478); La Vocazione Individuate
nel Nuovo Testamento, by Germano Greganti. (Pp. 456); Un
Cardenal, Filosofo de la Historia. Fr. Z.eferino Gonzalez, 0. P.
(1831-1894), by Franco Diaz de Cerio, S. J. (Pp. 197); La Dignita
della Persona Umana nel Magistero di Pia XII, by Giuseppe
Aquilanti. (Pp. 150); Giustizia e Carita, by Reginaldo Pizzorni,
0. P. (Pp. 150)
Libreria Editrice Vaticana: Acta Congressus Internationalis de Theologw
Concilii Vaticani II, 1966, ed. by A. Schonmetzer, S. J. (Pp. 881,
$14.50)
Oxford University Press, Theological Science, by Thomas F. Torrance.
(Pp. 388, $11.75)
Philosophical Library: Everyman's Book of Saints, by C. P. S. Clarke.
(Pp. 346, $10.00); Existentialism and the New Christianity (A

817

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BOOKS RECEIVED

Comparative Study of Existentialism and Swedenborgianism) , by
Harry W. Barnitz. (Pp. 5fl9, $10.00)
Ronald Press Company: Introduction to tke New Testament, by R. W.
Crapps, E. V. McKnight, D. A. Smith. (Pp. 578, $8.50)
Sheed & Ward: Theologicel Soundings. God and Man, by E. Schillebeeckx,
0. P. (Pp .. 3fl0, $6.50)
Schocken Books, Inc.: The Five Ways. St. Thomas Aquinas' Proofs of
God's Existence, by Anthony Kenny. (Pp. 139, $4.95); Mora)
Reasoning, by R. W. Beardsmore. (Pp. 159, $4.95)
University of Chicago Press: Tke Existentialist Prologomena. To a
Future Metaphysics, by Frederick Sontag. (Pp. 231)
University of Kentucky Press: The Light of tke Mind: St. Augustine's
Theory of Knowledge, by Ronald H. Nash. (Pp. 156, $6.50)
University of Notre Dame Press: Tke Jews in Germany. From tke
Enlightenment to National Socialism, by H. G. Adler. (Pp. 128,

.
Vanderbilt University Press: Physical Order and Moral Liberty, by
George Santayana, ed. by John & Shirley Lachs. (Pp. S36, $7.95)
Westminster Press: Melanchthon and Bucer, ed. by Wilhelm Pauck.
(Pp. 4fl6, $7.50)