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. XXXV

OCTOBER, 1971

No.4

THE NATURE-GRACE QUESTION IN THE CONTEXT
OF FORTITUDE

T

HE IDEA THAT grace, though different from nature,
does not destroy but rather presupposes and perfects
it, is basic to what might be called the Thomistic
vision. 1 Examination of this idea is often hindered, however,
by the abstractness of the discussion; though the notion is
echoed and re-echoed the actual working of nature and grace
are not analyzed. It is hoped that materials with which to
understand more fully the interaction of nature and grace may
be obtained by describing and specifying the activity of both
the " graced " and the " natural " man. If so, the concrete
referent of natural and supernatural activity will give more
content to the analysis of nature and grace. The concrete
specification will be investigated by means of the distinction
1 The fundamental
references for the general notion of nature and grace are
ad I. See also II-II, q.
a. 13 and
Summa Theologiae I, q. 1, a. 8 ad and q.
I-II, q. 113, a. 9 ad
for the idea that the good of a single grace is higher than
the natural good of the whole universe. It is interesting to note that in I, q. 1, a. 8
ad
St. Thomas himself gives a concrete reference for the relation.

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between the natural virtues (e. g., the cardinal virtues) and
their supernatural counterparts (in the usual division, the theological virtues, the other infused virtues, and the Gifts of the
Holy Spirit). Fortitude is the particular model or instrument
chosen to describe the activity of the " natural " and the
" graced " man; these descriptions then being used to specify
the notion that grace while different from nature does not
destroy but rather presupposes and perfects it. 2
In general the Thomistic account will be followed as there
one sees probably the first and in many ways the best account
of both this general idea of nature and grace and the natural
virtues and their supernatural counterparts. Nevertheless, to
clarify certain issues not directly or perhaps fully dealt with
by St. Thomas, some references will be made both to Aristotle
and to later developments. The underlying presuppositions of
the Thomistic vision-God as an a se Creator, the supernatural
end of man, the Creation as dependent but real, etc.-will not
be questioned. Nor will there be any attempt to question the
final adequacy of the scheme of nature/virtue/habits,
etc., to
depict fully and most adequately the constitution of man.
Finally, there will be no attempt, except tangentially, either to
defend the notion of the reality of the supernatural activity or
to argue that the idea reflects the distinctive and essential core
of Chistianity. To that extent the undertaking is quite modest
2 This kind of analysis could be done for either justice or temperance-prudence
being dealt with here insofar as it informs fortitude. Fortitude was chosen because
the other two present some particular difficulties: e. g., questions about the distinct
nature of Christian asceticism given a world created by God-a problem often
reflected in the ambiguity of Thomas's account; the general question of salvation
outside Christianity arising from problems concerning the degrees of conscious
intentionality of acts toward neighbor that pass beyond the strict demands of
justice. Questions like these will arise here but they are less central.
In this and later references to the Gifts of the Holy Spirit there is no intention to
overlook the problems presented by the peculiarities of their Biblical base, the
difficulty of exactly separating out their function, etc. They are referred to because
they illuminate certain points and facilitate an understanding of St. Thomas's
position, though it must be noted that he may have been led into formulations he
would not otherwise have made because he believed they were revealed data that
needed to be brought into his analysis.

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though it is important both in itself and as a first step toward
answering some of these more general questions. For through
giving a concrete, discernable, and discussable reference to the
Thomistic idea of nature and grace, one can better understand
both the idea itself and the implications arising from it.
One final preliminary point needs to be mentioned; that is,
the difficulty of trying to describe and differentiate natural and
supernatural activity. There are at least four reasons for the
difficulty and noting them is important so that the problems
and limitations of the task are recognized. First, the characteristics showing the distinctions may be clearly evident only in
certain extraordinary circumstances, e. g., the facing of death
or with justice the charitable love of enemy. To illustrate the
differences as sharply as possible one must turn to and emphasize these crisis situations while remembering that the general
characteristics are present in almost all human activity.
Second, only the general characteristic of each type of activity
can be set down. There is no intention to formulate a complete
and clear guide for untangling and judging the conflicting cross
currents of anyone's interior life; that task is impossible. This
impossibility is important to keep in mind, and not only for
those who have visceral reactions to the Thomistic categories
in which this analysis is couched. For it may appear, or one
may be lulled into believing, that a comprehensive, exhaustive,
and systematic treatment of human actions is given or intended. But any systematic treatment of man is bound to
mirror imperfectly the complex and particular life of man
however important that treatment is, if cogent analysis is to
be attempted. Third, it must be honestly admitted, and continually kept in mind, that the relation between natural and
supernatural activity is difficult to understand just because the
supernatural in presupposing and perfecting the natural does
mix with it. There is no intention of holding to a " two-story "
theory in speaking of natural and supernatural activity; in fact,
part of the reason for this analysis is to show concretely how
the two do interpenetrate. Fourth, and closely related to the
second and third points, the difficulty of specifying or clearly

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LEE H. YEARLEY

understanding the intentionality of an agent is recognized.
Though particularly true when examining the actions of an
agent from the outside, this is also true even if one is " inside,"
as the exact intentionality of an act may be unclear even to
the agent himself. This difficulty has repercussions in two
directions. On the one hand, it means natural acts as seen from
the outside may (to use a phrase from Newman) "counterfeit" supernatural acts; that is, acts that are natural can
appear from the outside to be supernatural because one does
not know the intentionality of the agent. On the other hand, it
also means acts may fulfill the criteria for supernatural activity
in an inchoate manner, perhaps particularly if done outside a
specifically Christian framework. This general problem will be
discussed further in examining the perfecting of natural
activity, but it must be always kept in mind.
This analysis then is bound at times to appear to involve an
arbitrary categorizing of human activities and a misleading
separation of nature and grace; further its application to any
particular distinct case is severely limited. But even given these
limitations, or perhaps more important remembering them, the
task still seems possible. And the attempt itself is important
as it offers an opportunity to give concrete content to an
analysis of nature and grace thereby specifying more fully the
complex relation of the two.

I
Before beginning the explicit analysis of the relation of natural and supernatural fortitude it may be helpful to sketch out
briefly the general character of fortitude. Fortitude is one of
the two cardinal virtues dealing directly with oneself, specifically with the removal of obstacles within oneself to the
establishment of just or right relations both toward others
and between the various parts of the self. The establishment
of that rectitude can be hindered by either the concupiscent or
the irascible aspects of the will; the former by being drawn to
improper objects of pleasure, the latter by being dissuaded
from following reason because of difficulty. Temperance con-

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cerns the former, fortitude the latter. It needs to be remembered, however, that these divisions between virtues are for
purposes of analysis. Though the virtues are distinct and o.f
different value, it is impossible therefore to have one without
the other as they refer to one entity-the developing acting
man-and thus qualify and form each other. For example, the
natural act of fortitude is based on or presupposes the perfection
of the other three virtues; e. g., fortitude is actualized in part
through temperance's control of passion's desire for immediate
good, justice's sense of varying obligation, and prudence's
organizing command and insight into reality.
But fortitude does have a distinct character; it signifies the
overcoming of the difficult through knowing, loving, and holding to a good for the sake of which one will either surrender or
endure the loss of lesser goods. At its simplest level it can even
represent the firmness of mind necessary for meeting the difficulty presented by temporal goods like money or honor; e. g.,
magnificence, the mean in disposition of property, and magnanimity, the mean in relation to honor, are both made possible
and formed by fortitude's constancy. Indeed even at this level
one essential aspect of fortitude's character is evident, that is,
that its value or praise is dependent upon the end sought.
Fortitude remains a preliminary virtue aimed at the realization
of rational good-standing firm against honor, in order say to
pursue a woman, would not be called an integral act of fortitude. This fact also makes clear that, fundamentally, fortitude
is not a passive acquiescence but rather is based in, or defined
by, a resolute grasping of and holding to some good which in
turn measures the value of fortitude itself. Essentially, then,
fortitude is the overcoming of a difficulty by the abandoning
of the self's love for some particular good in order to love a
higher good. 3
• Summa Theol., II-II, q. 123, a. 6 and ad 1; also q. 12, ad 2 and 3. This is seen
clearly in that part of fortitude called patience, for through patience one possesses
one's soul and its real good. The point is forcefully made by J. Pieper in The Four
Cardinal Virtues, various translators (New York, 1965), pp. 117-141; an excellent
study even if, at times, Pieper's own insights replace those of Thomas.

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LEE H. YEARLEY

This essential character is most evident in confrontation with
death, particularly when death is the possible result of an
action, and thus a difficulty is involved in following out the
action. Therefore Aristotle says that fortitude is most fully
realized in a man freely choosing to die for his community, as
in that case its ambiguous attributes are starkly clear .4 For
fortitude, when defined more specifically, concerns withstanding things where it is most difficult to be firm, and in death one
faces the greatest possible difficulty or fear. This itself makes
evident that of fortitude's two major components-the enduring
restraint of the difficulty of fear and the dispelling of fear by
daring-it is the enduring which is fortitude's main object. 5
In facing this sort of death the only real response is enduring
and suffering. All the normal defenses-self-confidence, imagined heroism, etc.-are seen to be of no avail; still further
one recognizes that even the most concerted and courageous
actions cannot dispell the difficulty presented by the fear. In
that situation, then, it is fully recognized that one can only
suffer and endure the loss of the greatest natural good of all,
one's life, for the sake of a greater good. Fortitude is clearly
realized in its essence because the difficulty of fear can be overcome only by marshalling one's powers to love and hold to a
good for the sake of which one's own good is seen as a lesser
value needing to be given up.
Given this general analysis of fortitude, the examination can
now turn to a more specific discussion of natural and supernatural fortitude centering initially on the differences between
the two activities. As noted, as a natural virtue or activity
Aristotle says that fortitude is most clearly realized in a man
freely choosing to die for the sake of his community. For St.
Thomas, as a supernatural activity and the manifestation of a
• Nichomachean Ethics, 3, 6, 1115a-117b,
5 Summa Theol., II-II, q.
a. 6 and ad 1. The centrality of endurance is also
evident because fear by its nature tends to moderate daring and endurance perceives
danger as present not future. This point exemplifies the difficulty in consistently
applying the idea of a mean, because fortitude is really directed more to fear than
to daring.

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gift or infused virtue, it is seen most clearly in martyrdom. 6 To
illustrate the peculiarity of the martyr's case and to furnish
an image to which reference can be made later it may be
helpful to construct an imaginary historical situation-particularly as the characteristics of the act of martyrdom are
more difficult to grasp than those of the act of the citizen
soldier. One may imagine the case of :an early Christian
faced with either denying God's sovereignty or being martyred. Further, one can suppose that the man possesses a
strong sense of civic duty and believes that Rome is a reasonably just state that has brought peace to much of the world.
Moreover, one may envision that he recognizes both that
religion has a necessary social function and, of course, that he
ought to remain alive both to protect and nurture his family
and do good in the civil sphere. Yet one can suppose that he
will overturn these considerations realizing that his response to
this situation, to this providential call of God, may decide his
destiny (and perhaps that of others) and, in any event,
represents a higher obligation to which he must respond.
Given this image and the general discussion of the natural
act of fortitude a beginning may be made by loosely putting
the two kinds of activity into a fourfold causal scheme in order
to accentuate their differences. For the natural act the end
would be the good of the community; the efficacy, one's will,
passions, and natural reason; the forms, the habits acquired
through repeated actions; and the matter, one's natural inclinations, attributes, etc. For the supernatural activity-and emphasizing its divergent character-the end would be the relation to God and the doing of his will; the efficacy, God
working in and through one directed by means of the new
nature and the infused habits and gifts; the form, reason enlightened by faith or directly inspired by God; the matter, the
new nature working in and through normal will and reason.
Examining the end of the two activities and how that end
• Ibid., q. 124.

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LEE H. YEARLEY

forms the actions can most fruitfully and concretely enable us
to compare them. 7
The end of the natural man's fortitude is the good of the
community inasmuch as for it he will sacrifice the limited good
of his own life. Because the citizen, soldier, or patriot intellectually and emotionally grasps the meaning of the good of
the community he fully understands its importance and is willing to take actions that may involve giving up his life for its
sake. 8 But in the case of the martyr all temporal goods, even
that of the community, would be sacrificed for the end or
object of the love of God. Concomitant with or underlying
that love would also be a reverence for the ultimate sovereignty
of God leading to a continuing desire to do his will as particularly manifested and understood. This goal is one that
cannot be grasped or loved by natural means but only by the
theological virtues acting in concert with the infused virtues
and gifts.
Both acts then-the sacrifice of the patriot and that of the
martyr-are acts of fortitude examinable in terms of their
teleology. Both are based in-and formed, understood, and
7 The inadequacies in such a brief account are obvious. For instance, the new
habitu or quiddam given by grace is not, for St. Thomas, a distinct entity "once"
given by God then independently possessed by the individual and nourished only
intermittently. There is no complete, distinct, intermediate reality between God
and man. For a brief but excellent study of this point in its historical context see
C. Moeller and G. Phillips The Theology of Grace and the Oecumenical Movement,
trans. R. Wilson (London, 1961), pp. 11-24.
8 To my mind Aquinas clarifies Aristotle's notion concerning the motivation
or
teleological causality of this ultimate act of natural fortitude. The clarification is
necessary as, in the passage in Aristotle analyzing this activity, there are a number
of unclearly separated diverging and even conflicting causes; see Nichomachean
Ethics 3, 8, 1116a 17 ff. Seen hierarchically, the different telic causes could be
articulated as: 1) an aesthetically pleasing character; 2) the judgment of the
community; that is, acting bravely because the community will stigmatize a coward;
8) honor, as the attestation or reflection of virtue and 4) and closely related to # 8,
the good of the community. [To my mind, Ross is mistaken in saying that there is
a significant difference between honor and the good of the community. Dying for
the community is the highest good of a natural man and so the ultimate virtue
of which honor is an attestation. See W. D. Ross, Aristotle (New York, 1960),
pp. 188-198; 197-209.) Thomas's clarification is important as the last three are not
clearly distinguished in Aristotle.

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judged by-the love of an end or good for the sake of which
fear is overcome and lesser goods discarded. The value, the
internal nature or actuality of their act is dependent upon the
end sought and the love of it; that is, the taking of death upon
oneself is not in itself praiseworthy but becomes so because of
the subordination and direction to the good implied in it. In
fact, one might go even further and apply the Thomistic principle that the nature of the end and one's love for it can be
judged, proved, or understood by what will be rejected,
suffered, or lost for its sake. 9 Thus from the perspective of that
criterion it can be seen that the natural man dies for love of
the community, the martyr for the love of God, and both shed
all lesser goods. But the martyr includes among the lesser
goods the higher or highest good of the patriot.
From this general discussion two clear differences between
these types of activity can now be seen. The first is that, while
the natural man dies for an obvious good, one that can be
easily known and loved as constantly and empirically present,
the object of the supernatural activity is beyond any knowing
and thus any loving that is certainly and easily verifiable. The
supernatural end can be reached and loved only means of the
theological and other infused virtues. Therefore the end's character and one's relation to it are of a different order than the
natural one as the supernatural end, while "fully " loved, can
at best be only partially known and ambiguously hoped in.10
9 Summa Theol., II-II, q. 1£4, a. 3. The essence of virtue consists in adhering to
the end, God, not in the condemning lesser goods; acts not done out of obedience
to God's will are without merit. Therefore, even if one suffered martyrdom or gave
all one's goods to the poor, the act would not be meritorious unless it were directed
to the fulfillment of the divine will. (Ibid., q. 104, a. 3) Ultimately then,
obedience, as conformity to God's will, can be called the final criterion for real
virtue. Thus it is not unjust for Abraham to slay Isaac or the Israelites to steal
from the Egyptians as the acts are in conformity with the will of God-who, of
course, also gives life, death, and all wordly goods. (Ibid., a. 4 ad 2) The value
of conforming to God's will is important enough to overturn lesser, more obvious
forms of virtue.
10 Of course, this point raises a host of questions about the kind of knowledge
given by the theological virtues, the difference between faith and charity's relation
to God and so forth. Without attempting to develop the question, it can be said

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In fact, the giving up of earthly goods and the set of obligations
pointed to in the act of martyrdom become intelligible only
through recognizing both the mysteriousness of the object and
the peculiarity of the relation to it. For, as in general the
strength of desire and pleasure hoped for help a man bear the
pain of loss, so more particularly the good for which one will
endure the evil of loss must be more desired and loved than
the good whose privation will bring sorrow. But in our normal
state spiritual goods cannot present the obvious delights or
attractiveness of those worldly goods or obligations unless they
be present, however ambiguously, by way of the theological
virtues. Therefore there must be a supernatural love of the
final end to overcome our immediate attention to and love of
temporal ends. 11 Indeed it is precisely because of considerations
like these that St. Thomas stresses that the particular character
of the gift of fortitude is the confidence it gives. That is, it is
only by the direct movement of God to and through oneuniquely represented by the Gifts of the Holy Spirit-that one
can receive a confidence akin to that available to the natural
man. 12
that, though Thomas stresses the theological virtues' real relation to God in
himself, he also emphasizes both the transcendent mystery of God and the
limitations of creaturely knowledge. (On the nature of faith as an example of this
see Summa Theol., II-II, q. 1, a. 1; q. 2, aa. 1, 4, 9 and 10; q. 4, a. 7; q. 5, a. 2;
and q. 10, a. 2)
11 Summa Theol., II-IT, q. 23, a. 12 ad 3 and q. 136, a. 3 and ad 1. Some of
the ramifications of this idea are evident in the relation of fortitude to fear
because fear, arising from love, is dependent upon observing the correct hierarchy
of love. For example, an inordinate fear of the loss of a temporal good is based
in both an excessive love of the good itself and a deficient love of the final good.
12 Ibid., q. 139, a. 2. Also see ibid., q. 52, a. 3. The question of the relation of
confidence to fortitude is important particularly as some theologians and Thomistic
commentators write as if the martyr were completely confident of his end, his
knowledge being certain. But if the knowledge is certain and the confidence
complete it would not be an act of fortitude. The ambiguity of life and the
mystery surrounding the willing of God are part of what give both fortitude and
hope their distinctive character; hope, for instance, being defined by its poles of
presumption and despair, and its sense of the possibility rather than the necessity
of one's own salvation.
Perhaps what is being pointed to is the unique quality of the action of God in
the Gifts, particularly in confirmation in grace, the most radical form of that

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An important corollary of this notion lies in the martyr's
working from and thereby being open to a direct divine call.
In part this is significant because it makes clear that one does
not actively seek the consummation of martyrdom but rather
only accepts it if it is recognized to be God's will for one-a
point emphasized both by St. Thomas and most of the writings
from the period of early persecution. But more important is
the distinction here illustrated between this openness and the
patriot's openness to the particular and perhaps extraordinary
demands of the community. There are three differences: First,
the community's commands would be more regular, or continuous with the past, than those evinced in martyrdom. Second,
they would in almost all cases be more evident, and directly
verifiable-even in those cases where the community's need
was not distinctly spoken. Third, the communities' demands
would be within certain obvious boundaries, that is, within
certain norms which echoed an accepted structure of values to
which the community was committed and from which it
received its particular reality or life.13
This last point leads to the second and most striking difference, that is, for the martyr the whole perspective on life is
changed. Life's meaning and real goods are seen in a different
light because the center of explanation and value is moved out
of the natural world. Indeed it is precisely for this reason that
St. Thomas stresses the need of the gift of counsel and the
infused virtue of prudence; only through them can the martyr
escape from the enclosed world of natural considerations and
become aware of the whole range of components to be taken
into consideration when his decision is made. In fact, it might
be said that natural prudence is the virtue most likely to cut
confidence. If so, it would seem that one must then make some distinction
between biological and spiritual death and carefully work out the relation of the
free act of fortitude to the direct movement of God.
13 The demands of the community
are judged by the set of goods or laws the
community represents; its general demands could never violate them (e. g., asking
one to kill an innocent child). But the command of God might legitimately overturn those accepted goods as is exemplified generally in martyrdom and particularly
in the discussion of obedience in footnote nine.

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LEE H. YEARLEY

one off from one's supernatural destiny precisely because it is
allied to common-sense considerations and in touch with the
demands of the natural world. For natural prudence rightly
points out that by normal standards the act of martyrdom is
imprudent, unjust, and intemperate: it is harmful to the community by depriving it of the potentially good actions of one
of its citizens; to the family by destroying its head and possibly
making it endure the wrath of the community; and to oneself
by causing the loss of one's own life and thus thwarting both
the natural desire for self-realization and the opportunity to
do good for others. Nat ural prudence counsels against the
martyr's act in grasping fully its senselessness, its overturning
of the natural order. In a sense, then, the highest actualization
of natural virtue can stand most directly opposed to the highest
actualization of supernatural virtue as prudence can close one
off from God by restricting the determinative factors of life.
As such it clearly illustrates this second distinction between
the two kinds of activity.
This aspect of the discussion can be closed and summarized
by briefly turning to a fictitious example that seems to raise
a central problem in the analysis: the question of how to
specify the activity of a Marxist who might die for the sake of
the "coming" classless society. The problem is that his
" natural " act of fortitude seems no different from the Christian martyr's death because the Marxist surrenders all lesser
goods-his life, family, potential service to community, etc.for the love of a good before which all mediate goods are judged
and discarded. But even in such an extreme case, the two
noted points of difference remain in force. For first, the end
sought would be natural insofar as the Marxist is oriented to
and dying for a just community, even if one in the future.
Also, though he is not believing in, loving, and hoping for a
purely present good, the good he seeks, or the command to
which he responds, does have a base of empiric possibility, at
least given his understanding of man and history. Second, the
act does not contravene natural prudence if he feels that acts
involving possible death are necessary for the coming of the

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perfect society-e. g., capitalists of a certain kind must be
destroyed by him even if his life may be lost in the process.
However, were he actually "martyred" the act would be
imprudent though not in the sense of the Christian martyr's
death. It is imprudent just because it violates natural prudence
rather than because natural prudence is discarded for a higher
good as in the martyr's case. For the Marxist's act is naturally
imprudent in two ways: First, because one might argue that
its relation is to an impossible good-a perfect earthly society
making men completely happy and fulfilled. Second, because
the martyrdom could not serve to further the end of the good
society unless it were public and well publicized; if not, it
should be avoided at all costs. That is, it would be truly
prudent for the Marxist to make no heroic gestures, to mask
his true feelings, and then to work to subvert the society from
within; his secret death would serve no purpose and just render
him useless. Therefore, even in this extraordinary case the two
kinds of activity can be differentiated.
The distinction between the martyr's and the patriot's
encounter with death can also be seen in a somewhat less
radical form in the problem of meeting a normal death. Briefly
sketching out the distinction seen in that case can help to
illustrate the point, show that the differences are also evident
in more normal circumstances, and provide the matrix for some
questions to be investigated further in discussing grace's perfecting of nature. Perhaps the distinction can be drawn best
by looking again at the difference between Aristotle's and
Thomas's treatment. On the one hand, Aristotle says fortitude
is not germane to the meeting of certain kinds of death, say
death by disease, as there is no meeting or overcoming of difficulty and therefore no possible nobleness or reflection of
virtue. 14 One might fill out Aristotle's account by noting that a
"Nichomachean Ethics 5, 11, 1188a515. Compare, for instance, Summa Theol.,
II-II, q. 187 on perserverance. In his commentary on the Nichomachean Ethics
Thomas approvingly echoes Aristotle's idea about the lack of courage in the meeting
of death by disease. But it must be noted that not only is St. Thomas working
to present Aristotle in the best possible light to those hostile to him but, more

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LEE H. YEARLEY

possible difficulty might be a despair about the meaning of
virtue generated by the thought of one's imminent destruction.
A virtuous man would not let that difficulty drive him into
intemperance or injustice because overcoming the difficulty
would be a genuine instance of fortitude. But even if one must,
perhaps, re-affirm the integral meaning of virtuous action, this
addition does not overturn Aristotle's general point. There is
no real difficulty to be overcome by holding to a good. 15
For St. Thomas, on the other hand, in any death whatsoever
one sees the essential characteristics of the realization of supernatural fortitude that are particularly mirrored in martyrdom.
One cannot, of course, include the important characteristic of
losing natural goods by explicitly choosing a supernatural one,
since in normal death the natural goods are bound to be lost
anyway. But the central question posed by martyrdom still
holds good for any death: in facing death will one reject
or affirm God? In any death one faces the "difficulty" of the
loss of most apparent reasons to have faith, hope, and love
toward God; therefore that difficulty must be overcome
through supernatural fortitude's affirmation of God and one's
relation to him. The meeting of death represents a crisis because most of the natural stays-both legitimate and illegitimate-upholding one's relation to God are destroyed or called
into question. Reasons such as the theological meaning one
saw in human love, the sense of gratitude for one's well-being,
and the feeling of purpose in one's activity, are dissolved or
tested by the encounter with the finality of death. 16 As one
important, his interpretation keeps strictly within the limits of the text-a study
of natural virtue. His ideas on supernatural fortitude appear elsewhere, as in the
articles on martyrdom and perseverance in the Summa. Nevertheless, it may also
be noted that St. Thomas did not fully develop this point, however implicit it is
in other points he makes.
15 For some of the difficulties in an oversimplified understanding
of this matter
see the discussion on the perfecting of natural fortitude.
16 Marcel, for instance,
has observed that much of the terror and outrage at
death arises not from the thought of one's own death but from the death of a
beloved, because the latter's death seems to involve the destruction of a bond that
appeared to be eternal. See G. Marcel, The Mystery of Being, trans. G. S. Fraser,

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faces the fact of possible annihilation the natural reasons for
relating oneself to God are called in question. Precisely because
of this fact, the manner of meeting any death whatsoever can
be either the highest possible actualization, or the final and
complete denial, of the basic relation to God specified by the
theological virtues. Therefore in any death, as with potential
martyrdom, there is the possiblity of the ultimate actualization
of the theological virtues and the supernatural activity they
represent; one can believe in and love God when purpose and
love are not evident, one can hope in him when all apparent
natural reasons to hope are destroyed. Indeed it is in large
part because the difficulties in encountering death are so clear
that St. Thomas emphasizes the need for a special grace of
perserverance, itself an aspect of fortitude. From the natural
perspective of Aristotle then, a normal death is seen and
accepted as the end of a natural process; the only difficulty is
the need to affirm the continuity of one's personhood, one's
normal moral activity. But, from St. Thomas's perspective, a
normal death, like that of a martyr, is viewed as a key testing
point at which one either denies or affirms a relationship to
God which the very death makes even more mysterious. 17

II
The discussion of these two examples of fortitude's encounter
with death allows us now to turn to a more schematic investigation of how the supernatural activity of fortitude differs from
the natural activity, yet presupposes and perfects rather than
destroys it. To begin with a precis of how they differ (a precis
2 vols. (Chicago, 1960) II, 163-185. The point is important for two reasons: First,
it makes clear that it is not mere egotism that makes death seem strange and
terrible. Second, it clearly shows the character and integrity of the outrage that
death is, an outrage too often mollified by a Christian stoicism that speaks of the
healing of time, the smallness of man, etc.
17 Augustine,
particularly in his last years, probed the very depths of this
problem, seeing in it one of the central mysteries of life and grace. For Augustine
only too clearly recognized that no one is so well known to himself or so clear
about God that he knows what his actions in the future will be. For a striking
analysis of this see P. Brown, Augustine of Hippo (Berkeley, 1968), pp. 403-408.

572

LEE H. YEARLEY

because the preceding discussion of fortitude's encounter with
death had examples which stressed their differences.) In the
natural activity, fortitude is defined by a relation to an understandable good for the sake of which one overcomes difficulty,
that is, rejects lesser goods. While the same general structure
holds for supernatural activity, there are three major differences. First, the good to which one is related is neither understood nor loved in its fullness by natural means; indeed the
good can be understood only partially by even the infused
theological virtues. A corollary of this is the distinctiveness of
both the form and type of the command coming for the supernatural object. Second, relating to the object of supernatural
activity may entail the rejection of all worldly goods, including
that for which the patriot dies, because that object is " above "
the world. This total rejection makes the act appear imprudent
or even senseless from a natural perspective. Third, the manner
of meeting any death whatever is important because of the
difficulty of holding to a Being above the world when most
apparent natural reasons to do so are destroyed or diminished.
In the natural meeting of death there is no such difficulty as
there is no object to hold to in spite of death.
Having pointed out the differences between the two activities
we may now examine, secondly, how supernatural activity presupposes natural activity. 18 Put in general terms, natural
activity is presupposed because the natural activity of overcoming difficulty by holding to a good, known and grasped
naturally, is usually necessary for any correct holding to an
unseen good. One must cultivate natural virtue " before " one
18 It is interesting to note that in some " textbook " presentations, " presupposes "
is an innocuous concept meaning little more than the existence of something for
grace to work on. For an example see L. Ott, Fundame:ntals of Catholic Dogma,
trans. P. Lynch, (St. Louis, 1964), p. 102.
In explicating this idea one might also mention Pieper's interesting observation
that one can distinguish a pre-moral level of fortitude, that is, a level at which
one's vulnerability is admitted yet one still opens oneself to ungraspable reality
whose goodness one wills to assent to and even love. This aspect of fortitude would
be the basis for any enduring psychological health. On this point also see W.
Lynch, Images of Hope (New York, 1965).

NATURE-GRACE

QUESTION IN THE CONTEXT OF FORTITUDE

573

can become supernaturally virtuous. The natural perfection in
turn entails or presupposes the actualization not only of fortitude but also of the three other cardinal virtues, for, as discussed earlier, the virtues all refer to one entity and form and
qualify one another. This presupposing of fortitude, and
through it the other three cardinal virtues, has two distinct
aspects.
The first, more particular aspect arises because natural fortitude sets one into right relation with goods in the world by
enabling one to recognize their value. This point is illustrated
by St. Thomas's argument that fearlessness may destroy
natural fortitude precisely because fearlessness arises from a
lack of true understanding of, and just relation to, the values
of this world. Natural fortitude is impossible without a
prudentially just love of oneself and temporal goods, a love
based in an acute awareness of the debts owed. Therefore,
there can be no real natural fortitude if one is fearless through
a prideful and imprudent belief that one can neither be dispossessed nor hurt, or more important, through a dullness of
mind that does not recognize the values and obligations of this
world. 19
The tension here pointed to is, of course, even more acute
and significant in supernatural fortitude since it may reject
all natural goods. But that very tension arises because natural
fortitude is presupposed, that is, the just demands of other
objects or goods in life like the family or the state are recognized. Without that presupposing, the complex density characterizing the act of martyrdom would be vitiated or even
destroyed for there would be no real difficulty to overcome.
Rather than an act defined by the overcoming of difficulty,
martyrdom would instead be characterized by its ease and lack
of tension. In fact it would be very similar to the presumption
that Thomas calls a pole of hope, that inordinate conversion
to God that rejects both the value of his Creation and the
mystery of his being because of a false relation to him and the
19

Summa Theol., II-II, q. U5, a. 6.

574

LEE H. YEARLEY

world. If there is to be a real act of supernatural fortitude it
must presuppose the recognition of the value of goods of the
world that is essential to natural fortitude.
The second, more general aspect of the presupposing involves
natural fortitude's role in the sequential development of man.
Nat ural fortitude represents a necessary first step because
holding to any sort of good, natural or supernatural, first
requires overcoming what Newman called man's fearful subjection to sense, that is, overcoming man's normal tendency to
be drawn to objects of pleasure that are immediately seen and
desired. 20 Normally this tendency or difficulty can be overcome
only by means of something connatural to man in his natural
state, that is, natural virtue. The real objects of religion are
too lofty and our relation to them is too uncertain and changing to overcome these initial tendencies. Because man is an
ambivalent creature composed of body and soul he initially
needs goals allied to, or aligned with, his more normal mode of
being. Without the kind of guidance and control that is represented by the fulfillment of the natural virtues, man's relation
to higher objects will at best probably be a febrile one, passionately involved at times, unrelated at others, and always likely
to fail him at the most crucial points.
Stressing this is neither to imply, nor to say, that St. Thomas
believed man's normal ambivalence and subjection to sense
can be overcome only through acts of natural virtue. Nor does
it mean that the image of a gradual, sequential development is
absolutely binding. Obviously St. Thomas felt God could work
more directly if he desired: his work on miracles, for instance,
show how almost frighteningly unqualified he felt God's omnipotence was. 21 Further, he also was aware that the history of
Christianity shows conversions of the most radical sort, e. g.,
Paul. The radicalness of the turning that is justification is
20 NeWman's analysis of this aspect of the presupposing
of natural activity is
acute: see particularly The Idea of A University (Image Book, New York, 1960),
pp. 147, 148; 197-199.
21 For instance, see the notion of two bodies occupying the same place:
Summa
Theol., I, q. 105, a. 8; III Cont. Gent., c. 101.

NATURE-GRACE

QUESTION IN THE CONTEXT OF FORTITUDE

575

clearly recognized by Aquinas and must be kept in mind.
Therefore, one must always be aware of the dangers involved
in overstressing the " presupposed " aspect. It can be misleading both in breaking down too neatly the sequential steps and,
more important, in making the assent to God too continuous
and gentle a process thereby underplaying or demeaning the
revolutionary change that is justification. 22 God is not absolutely bound to work in any particular way, nor should any
image be allowed to underestimate or demean either the radical
change that is justification or the difference between natural
and supernatural activity. Nevertheless, the presupposing of
natural virtue does point up the kind of continuity that is
normally at work and reflects St. Thomas's general approach
(as further exemplified in his attitude toward the virtue of
religion or the role of the sacraments.) In the normal economy
of salvation the natural virtues are necessary first steps as they
are the connatural aids that more readily and easily subject,
control, and order sense, and thus lead man to the initially
necessary control.
Supernatural activity completes and perfects natural activity
basically because the fullest actualization of man's function or
virtue involves a relation to an end above the naturally understood one. Because, for St. Thomas, man's nature is pointed
toward God, completion can come only by a positive relation to
him before death and a union with him after death. Having
not only the potentiality for this end but also the positive (if
not always clearly conscious) yearning for it, the full perfection
of man involves some sort of actualization of the potential
and at least preliminary satisfaction of the desire. The realization of the natural virtues cannot by themselves represent a
full consummation of man; that takes place only through the
kind of relation to God that animates supernatural activity.
22 For an interesting
discussion of this see Henri de Lubac, The Mystery of the
Supernatural, trans. R. Sheed (London, 1967), p. 108 ff. The conscious and
continuous maintenance of a balance between the ideas of radical change and
growth is difficult. Stressing one or the other gives a distinctive " tone" and form
to a theology, as is seen in much traditional Catholic and Protestant theology.

576

LEE H. YEARLEY

Only that relation can fulfill man's potential and quiet his
desire or need for a perfect state, one characterized by enduringness, freedom from evil, rest, etc. There can be no natural
perfection without a supernatural perfection because natural
actualization, however integral, is not in itself complete; it
points beyond itself to a higher state of which it is only a part,
however necessary. 23
Recognizing this fact also entails honestly noting that the
tidy distinction between fortitude's natural and supernatural
encounter with death is less clear than it seems. For any
natural realization also involves some kind of relation to God,
whether it be explicit or implicit, and whether it ends in
rejection or affirmation. This point brings up a whole series of
allied questions. Some, however import:mt, are quite tangential
to this project, e. g., the problem of the relation of the natural
desire to the gratuitousness of grace. Others, however, focus
around the relevant question of how the basic relation to God
works and what that entails. For if the "perfecting" factor is
really present (at least after the Incarnation), or if man has
never had a distinct and completely natural end, the possibility
of salutary, supernatural activity with its relation to God is
present in any act whether explicitly " Christian" or not. That
question involves the basic problem of whether, or in what
sense, intentionality toward God can or must be conscious; that
is resolvable into determinable propositions. In turn, that
question leads to the problem of the presence or weight of sin
in unconsciously Christian acts, the role of Limbo if used, as
23 While seeming to admit the desire for perfect happiness Aristotle denies the
state is achievable, therefore making man's goal those acts closest to enduringness,
freedom from evil, and so on-i.e., deeds of virtue. St. Thomas objects on the
grounds that nature does nothing in vain, that Creation would be a cruel joke if
this most basic part of man were unfulfilled, etc. (thereby, of course, opening up
the whole problem of the gratuitousness of grace). See Nichomachean Ethics, I,
10, llOla, 18 and Ill Cont. Gent., c. 48. The distinction is obviously of the utmost
importance, though a full discussion involves resolving the numerous difficulties
surrounding any interpretation of Aristotle's idea of contemplation:
e. g., the
apparent distinction between sophia in Book Six and theoria in Book Ten, and
the marked change from the Eudemian to the Nichomachean Ethics.

NATURE-GRACE

QUESTION IN THE CONTEXT OF FORTITUDE

577

by Dante, for virtuous pagans, and so on. 24 These questions
are important and need to be noted, but they lie beyond the
scope of this article. 25
For this project, however, one point does need to be clearly
24 The death of Socrates is a striking example of a possible act of supernatural
fortitude outside Christianity, particularly
if the sources in Plato concerning it are
interpreted so as to stress and substantiate three things: First, that the mission
from Apollo was some kind of call from God to mediate truth to Athens-and
was so understood by Socrates. Second, that the daimon is a divine reality rather
than an evil spirit or an image of Socrates' own natural conscience (remembering,
as particularly emphasized in the Apology, that Socrates would not act if the
daimon objected). Third, that the myths of judgment in say the Republic, Gorgias,
and Phaedo are more than rhetorical expressions of the importance of living
virtuously. This is a possible-and to my mind defensible--interpretation
of the
Platonic materials concerning Socrates. The major problem is whether, even granted
the divine action, the ultimate aim remains the maintenance of the state as the
divine matrix for a realization that is basically natural (e. g., the Crito).
(Xenophon, of course, gives a much different picture and even the Platonic
materials are susceptible to other readings. For an example see H. Jaffa, Thomism

and Aristotelianism: A Study of the Commentary
Nichomachean Ethics [Chicago, 1961], pp. 9?8, 9?9.)

by Thomas Aquinas on the

It is also interesting to note that the idea of a divine call (T'ien ming) might
also be seen in relation to Confucius. See the Analects Q, 4, and the incidents, after
his fiftieth year that follow that call-3, QQ; 7, 9?2; and 9, 4.
25 At some places St. Thomas
himself shows an extraordinary sense of salvation
outside the Church. Passages in early works-such as the famous " man in the
woods "-declare that the following of conscience and the doing of the good within
one's power will result in God's giving the necessary internal inspiration or
revelation, or sending a preacher to enable one to be saved (II Sent., q. 9?8, d. 1,
a. 4 Rd 4; and De Verit., q. 14, a. 11 a.d 1). These passages perhaps can be
discounted as there is a notable hardening of attitudes on some of these issues.
But there still remain later passages from the Summa (e. g., I-II, q. 19, a. 10,
ad 1; II-II, q. 85, a. 2) and the exciting if perplexing II-II, q. 2, a. 7-see
particularly ad 3 with the notion of mediation and the saving faith that God will
deliver man in the way most pleasing to him. Obviously the notion of supernatural activity outside Christianity did not significantly form St. Thomas's vision,
though there are these passages and numerous other potentially fruitful general
ideas.
Karl Rahner is an example of someone whose general perspective has been so
affected; his work also contains one of the fuller and more precise discussions of the
general problem of salvatory activity outside a Christian framework. Particularly
helpful are Theological Investigations, various translators, 5 vols. (Baltimore, 196168) V, 115-134; and "Implicit Christianity" Theology Digest, Sesquicentenniai
lssue/1968, 43-56, and On the Theology of Death, trans. C. H. Henkey (New York,
1967), pp. 35-48; 89-99 in particular. "On Martyrdom," included in that edition,
is also relevant to some of the more general issues.

578

LEE H. YEARLEY

stated. That is, that the idea of grace perfecting nature coupled
with the notion of the continuing presence of the supernatural
end forces the recognition that no clear, simple, and neat
distinction can be made between natural and supernatural
activity. The distinctions made here are important for purposes of analysis, hopefully their illuminating power has been
made evident. But the analytic distinctions neither exhaust
nor exhibit fully the interaction of natural and supernatural
activity. The distinction must be used with the care demanded by a recognition of their limitations for they furnish
an analytic model helpful only when used with an understanding of its limitations. Indeed the model itself precludes any
oversimple application just because it manifests the presence
of the "perfecting" element and implies the continuing existence of the supernatural end.
The final goal, then, of the natural activity of fortitude, the
realization of the whole man, is clarified and fulfilled by the
relation to man's ultimate, not proximate, end that characterizes supernatural activity. The idea that man's ultimate fulfillment consists in adhering to the true end, not in merely
condemning or following lesser objects, is the linchpin for the
notion of "perfecting"; it led St. Thomas, for instance, to
focus on the importance of the realization of the theological
virtues or to call obedience, in some ways, the central animating notion of human activity. In the fulfillment of both his
abstract potential and his concrete desire, man's whole nature
is perfected.
This general idea of perfecting can also be seen to take place
in two more particular ways which help to further illuminate
the more comprehensive notion. First, the perfecting occurs
because there takes place a new and correct hierarchical ordering of the goods of the world. The vision of natural goods is
perfected because they are related to their final end and
therefore given a truer place in the general value scheme, a place
that recognizes both their integrity and limitations. In this
way the movement discussed in the presupposing aspect is
itself completed. There remains the vision of the integral value

NATURE-GRACE

QUESTION IN THE CONTEXT OF FORTITUDE

579

of objects of the world central to the idea of presupposition, but
this vision is put into a new and real relation with the idea of
man's final end. For example, the idea of the good of the state
would be perfected by being set in a new context. That is, the
state's end would be seen as more than sociai harmony and
order as a value just in and of itself; that end would be seen
as ordered to the spiritual fulfillment of its citizens. Thus, to
return to the example of the Roman martyr, his action would
not be just a rejecting or denying of the legitimate place of
the state as a civilizing force. For he would be accepting that
notion but perfecting it by calling the state to, or at least
having himself, a truer understanding of the state's full value
as a natural entity. 26
Second, the form or general structure of natural activity is
intensified or perfected through the more complex and difficult
act of holding to a supernatural end. That is, one holds to a
greater though less obvious good, God, rather than say community, through greater difficulty, the possible loss of all-and
not just some-natural goods. Thereby the very tensions implied in, or defining, the general character of fortitude are raised
to a higher level. From the mere firmness of mind implied in
say overcoming the good of money, the tension rises to the
difficulty of giving up most natural goods to die for the community and then finally is completed in the giving up of everything for one's relation to God. The inherent tension characterizing fortitude is perfected by being brought to its highest
pitch.
Supernatural activity's perfection of natural activity is then
further illuminated in these two particular ways: the vision of
different goods is more perfectly established as those goods are
set in a new context, and the form of structure of the natural
function is intensified. More generally, natural activity is per26 This point is not contingent
on the martyrdom's being socially efficacious, that
is, causing the society to change. For if the martyrdom were secret-as mentioned
in relation to the example of the Marxist-there might be no effect at all. But
even without that effect, the natural good of the state could still be said to be
perfected in the martyr's vision.

580

LEE H. YEARLEY

fected because its full actualization is reached. The final goal,
form, and activity of natural fortitude is clarified and fulfilled
by supernatural activity's generation of a relation to man's
ultimate not proximate end. For natural activity, while
integral, is not complete but rather points beyond itself to a
higher state, a state that fulfills both the abstract potential
and concrete desire of the natural man. Thus supernatural
fortitude while different from natural fortitude does not
destroy but rather presupposes and perfects it.
LEE
Stanford University
Stanford, California

H. YEARLEY

THE MOTIVATION OF MARTYRS:
PERSPECTIVE

A PHILOSOPHICAL

M

ARTYRS ARE THE most widely praised and the
least understood o£ all men. We regard the willingness o£ Christ or o£ Socrates to be martyred as being
o£ monumental significance, and yet, in spite o£ countless opportunities to martyr ourselves, we invariably choose not to.
All men sacrifice to some extent. Some give up great sums o£
money and others give up innumerable hours o£ their time £or
their fellow man. Some are even willing to suffer great pain
and distress £or their fellow man. They all get something in
return: the enduring happiness that can only result £rom
moral fulfillment. But what about those who die £or others?
The people who sacrifice their lives so that others may live on
to lead happy and healthy lives seem to get nothing in return.
They lose their lives, their capacity £or happiness, everything.
As much as we praise such men, we cannot help asking ourselves, "Was it worth it?"
I£ we do not understand martyrs-if we have no conception
o£ what could have possibly been motivating them-then our
praise is empty. But the people who have in the last few
decades concerned themselves with motivation have provided
us with a picture o£ man that makes our praise even emptier.
For these reasons, I should like to sketch out some alternative
explanations o£ the martyr's behavior. Before I do so, however,
I want to make some comments about the explanation I am
rejecting.

I
It has become fashionable in recent years to antiseptically
dissect human actions with the end o£ uncovering some latent
drive which explains the actions away. The martyr's benevolence is reduced to a psychological-physiological abnormality

581

JAY NEWMAN

or coincidence, and in such a way is the moral inertia of the
majority of men justified. Advocates of this theory of motivation argue as follows: while it appears that the greater part
of human behavior is the result of conscious deliberation and
free, rational choice, all behavior is, in actuality, the result of
certain basic drives of which, for the most part, the agent is
unaware. I do not want to attribute this theory of drives to
any one particular man or school of thought, although this sort
of reductionism unquestionably owes its popularity in recent
years to the influence of psychoanalytical and behavioristic
psychologists.
In the years prior to the advent of the theory of drives, it
was held that a martyr was one who, when confronted with
the alternatives of expediency and justice, chose the latter over
the former. He chose the latter because he valued it more highly
He was not compelled either to make that choice or to hold
the values which resulted in that choice. The emergence of the
theory of drives has led to the discarding of this simple analysis.
The new approach to an understanding of the motivation of
the martyr involves delving into the martyr's background.
What sort of relationship did he have with his mother? Was
he a loner? Did he get on well with women? Did he have an
authoritarian personality? Did he have confidence in himself?
All these questions and others like them are seen as being
relevant to the question, "Why did so-and-so run into the
burning house in a futile attempt to save the three children?"
Each of these questions opens up a new dimension of the
martyr's character, and there is a distinct possibility that, after
likely answers to these questions are considered, we will realize
that the martyr was not a great man at all but just a pathetic,
mentally-unbalanced fanatic who was led to the act of martyrdom by an intense, latent desire to destroy himself or to
sublimate away his sexual energy.
The theory of drives has brought with it a new conception
of man, and while this conception of man may have done
mankind a great service by enabling us to understand and even
to treat many forms of mental and emotional illness, it has

THE MOTIVATION

OF MARTYRS

588

done mankind a great disservice by casting a new and suspicious light on those who have embodied classical virtues like
honor, dignity, justice, and compassion.
The theory of drives is neither a fact nor a set of facts;
it is a theory. It is a presupposition which serves as a model
to explain certain facts and to account for certain phenomena.
It cannot be shown to be false, but neither can it be shown to
be true. Presuppositions and models are not verified or falsified
the way most claims are. They are not verified or falsified at
all. While they cannot be shown to be true or false, however,
they can be shown to be good or bad. We speak of good and
bad presuppositions or good and bad models. And so, with
regard to the theory of drives, we should ask ourselves, "What
justifies this theory?" This amounts to asking why it is a good
theory for explaining human behavior. The opening lines of
Freud's Outline of Psychoanalysis suggest that no one was
more aware of this than Freud himself, for he there claims that
the justification of the basic assumption that psychoanalysis
makes lies in its results. I have been suggesting that it is the
results which necessitate our rejecting that very theory.
How is an assumption or presupposition of this sort to be
justified, and what would render a particular model of human
behavior a good model? Since a presupposition or model is
something which underlies or explains the empirically known
but is not itself empirically known, its justification or goodness
must be a function of something other than correspondence
to facts or states of affairs. Its goodness must be a function of
some sort of practical efficacy. Indeed, the fact that Freudian
psychoanalysis or behaviorist research has enabled its practitioners to cure many sick people would make the theory of
drives appear efficacious in one important sense. But the
appearance is, I insist, deceptive. Perhaps it is the case that
many people have illnesses which stem from problems with
their latent drives. But the theory of drives we are concerned
with is making a much broader claim-that all behavior can
be explained in terms of those latent drives. And such a claim
is not justified by the successful treatment of one, fifty, or a

584

JAY NEWMAN

million mental patients. Many, perhaps even most contemporary psychologists would agree to this, and they have wisely
chosen to separate their work from the realm of metaphysics.
One obvious method for evaluating the efficacy of a model is
to invoke the criterion of simplicity. Is the theory of drives the
simplest possible model of human behavior which explains all
necessary facts and phenomena? Talk about drives clearly
simplifies some matters: it is much easier to speak of the
libido than to speak of a whole mass of physiological and
behavioral data. J\:Ioreover, the existence of those phenomena
and data cannot be denied, for their existence is empirically
known. But allowing for the existence of drives is not the
same as committing onsel£ to the theory that all human
behavior can be traced back to the one, two, or twelve drives
which one is allowing for.
Hence, we can retain both our traditional conception of
the nobility of the martyr and the drive-terminology. The
practical efficacy of the latter lies in its simplicity; the practical
efficacy of the former lies in its consolation, for it supports
abstract notions of human dignity and human freedom on
which we can draw in our disillusionment and our despair.
But now, if the martyr's values cannot ultimately be explained
by drives, then how are they to be explained? This is a loaded
question, for it presupposes that values must be explained in
terms of something else. Advocates of the theory of drives do
not, after all, explain drives away in terms of something else.
They see the drives as being basic. Now, why cannot the
martyr's values be taken-at least in some cases-as basic?
By raising this question, we have turned the drive theorist's
challenge against him, for we have underscored for him the
point that somewhere along the line, every explanation of behavior will have to invoke a "basic," something not to be
explained or reduced further. The issue becomes one of committing oneself to a particular basic, and there is no reason
whatsoever for presupposing that in every explanation of behavior there ought to be a reduction of value but not of drive.
It seems to me that this is the way we must answer the

THE MOTIVATION

OF MARTYRS

585

drive theorist's challenge. I want to add, however, that the
solution we have provided here will come back to haunt us
at a later stage in our inquiry, for having committed ourselves
to a basic phenomenon or entity in behavior, just as the drive
theorists have, we may tum out with an explanation of behavior not all that different from theirs, or at least, not as
different as we would have hoped.
In the meantime, though, let us consider some responses that
the drive theorist might make to our challenge. The drive
theorist might want to hold that the " theory " of drives is not
a presupposition or a model at all but a fact or set of facts,
empirically verifiable. He would then be disagreeing with
Freud, who tells us in those opening lines of the Outline that
the discussion of the basic assumption of psychoanalysis falls
within the sphere of philosophical thought. Two criticisms can
be directed at the drive theorist's claim that the theory of
drives is empirically verifiable. One criticism is that, since the
theory of drives involves a universal claim, a claim about all
manifestations of behavior, it cannot be strictly verified. But
this is to invoke a somewhat positivistic notion of verification
which the drive theorist might not altogether unjustifiably protest against. The other criticism, though, is simply that the
very fact that there is so much disagreement concerning the
theory of drives seems to be an indication that a sufficient
verification of the theory has yet to be provided.
The drive theorist might insist that the theory of drives
does not jeopardize our conceptions of moral goodness and the
nobility of the martyr. The notions of sublimation and repression of our innate sexuality or lust for power are elements in
the drive theorist's explanation of behavior which justify our
praise of the martyr. But do they really? Sublimation and
repression are not conscious, active processes. They are passive
occurrences of which we are, for the most part, unaware. What
would there be to praise in the martyr-that it accidentally
turned out that his sexual energy was reworked in such a way
as to lead him to his death? Only if sublimation and repression
can be seen as conscious, active processes can the theory of

586

JAY NEWMAN

drives be reconciled with our praise of the martyr-justified
praise of the martyr. But if the drive theorist is willing to
allow for conscious, active sublimation and repression, then
of what use is the theory of drives? All the stuffing is knocked
out of the theory, and it no longer gives us an account of what
it was designed to give an account. For we may now ask,
since sublimation is a conscious, active process, " Why did the
martyr sublimate in such a way?" The new question is merely
an old one in new terminology, the old question being, "Why
did the martyr choose to do what he did? "
The best course for the drive theorist to take, I believe,
would be to take the theory of drives as one of many ways of
looking at behavior. He could assert that in such-and-such a
particular case, it is expedient to take an individual's behavior
from the point of view of the theory of drives. As superior
as this course is to the others he can take, the drive theorist is
still in trouble. If it is expedient to take a particular action
as resulting from something related to drives, why must we
accept the theory of drives, with its strong claim about all
behavior. Why can we not just say without any qualification,
"Some behavior can be understoood in terms of basic drives."
No one ever meant to deny this claim. So the talk about points
of view really does not support the theory of drives but something that has already been accepted.
Now, the martyr's behavior is one sort of behavior. If the
theory of drives were true, then it would encompass all sorts
of behavior, including the martyr's. But we have seen that it
is still possible to allow for alternative models of behavior, and
in our effort to understand and thereby justify our praise of the
martyr, let us consider those possible alternatives.

II
Instead of talking about drives, let us talk about interests.
Interests are different from drives. We all have interests, many
of them, and we know what they are. Different people have
different interests. What is important to the businessman
seems to be quite different from what is important to the

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clergyman, the soldier, or the poet. They do share interests.
Some things are important to all men, or at least most of them.
But is is an interesting feature of human existence that not
all men have exactly the same interests, and perhaps no two
men have all the same interests. A man's interests, the things
which are important to him, are intimately tied up with that
man's values.
Anything which supports a man's total interests more than
it damages them is " in his interest." Something which
damages them more than it supports them is not. Now,
morality involves interests. When we act justly with our fellow
man, we consider his interests as well as our own. In any
event, what we are considering are interests. If men had no
interests, then there would be no need for morality and no need
for justice. When we act justly with our fellow man, we not
only consider what his interests are but how we can support
them or prevent damaging them as well. We do this in much
the same way as we consider how we can support and prevent
damaging our own interests. Now, we have not committed ourdeontoselves to any particular ethical theory-utilitarianism,
logical ethics, and so on-by seeing morality as involving
interests. For this can be seen, is seen, and must be seen by
anyone concerned with morality. It is a theory-neutral claim,
an analytical proposition, that morality involves interests.
The most persistent problem in the history of Western moral
philosophy is whether or not morality ultimately rests on selfinterest. Granted, the just man considers the interests of
others. But does his so doing, and does his supporting the
interests of others, stem from a desire to support his own
interests? That is, are just men just because it is ultimately to
their benefit to be so? In a paper to be found in the Proceedings of the Aristotelian Society for 1964-1965, D. Z. Phillips
argues that morality does not ultimately rest on self-interest.
In his paper," Does It Pay to Be Good?" he offers an interesting criticism of the thesis that one should deal justly with his
fellow man on the grounds that it is likely to pay or profit him
to do so. According to Phillips, the value of just action must

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not be located in considerations which refer beyond the action
itself to its results; any attempt to find a non-moral justification for moral beliefs is destined to fail, for it distorts the kind
of importance which moral considerations have for us.
The point of virtue is not, for Phillips, its " profitableness,"
and in supporting his position Phillips points to the very people
we are concerned with here, the martyrs. It would certainly
appear, on the surface, that the martyr's dying cannot possibly
be in his own interest, and Phillips infers from this appearance
that the martyr has simply chosen justice over expediency,
profit, and self-interest. He concludes his paper by contrasting
a successful rogue with a truly just man and criticizing Philippa
Foot for concerning herself with how the just man " profits "The man who chooses justice may not profit as our rogue has done.
None of the things that Mrs. Foot envisages as probably coming
his way may prove to be his lot. Nevertheless, since his regard for
decency does not depend on such probabilities being realised, in the
only sense relevant to morality, he has accomplished all.
An earlier attack on Mrs. Foot's position is even strongerMrs. Foot assumes that if a man's just actions bring about his
death, they have ended in disaster. She fails to see that for anyone
concerned about justice, death for the sake of justice is not a
disaster. The disaster for him would be to be found wanting in
the face of death, and to seek the path of injustice and compromise.
Now, while I sympathize with the sort of approach Phillips
is taking in his paper, I am convinced that the position collapses under inspection. First of all, Phillips claims that the
truly just man seeks the path of justice even when it is unprofitable. But let us consider an extreme case. Say that a
soldier fighting for a just cause has been captured by the
enemy and his captors are subpecting him to terrible physical
torture in an effort to extract from him information as to where
his fellow soldiers are hiding. In that he has refused to reveal
their place of hiding even while he is being subjected to this
terrible torture, we may clearly say that the soldier is pursuing
the path of justice. But say now that the threat of death

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finally intimidates him to the point where he is willing to, and
does, reveal where his comrades are hiding. He has yielded
purely on grounds of self-interest. Would it be fair to say that
he was not, consequently, a truly just man? Would it be fair
to say that he was following the path of injustice? Compromise, maybe, but not injustice. The man was, after all,
willing to suffer great pain for the safety of his fellow soldiers
and the justice of their cause. Phillips fails to realize that one's
being concerned with his own interest, even ultimately concerned with it, does not preclude his being moral. In addition,
the fact that the soldier had so much to lose by being just is
a significant factor in our evaluation of the relative morality
of his action. If his self-interest had been threatened only
mildly (his captors threatened not to serve him potatoes with
his dinner), and he then went ahead and betrayed his comrades, we should regard the soldier as being immoral. But the
threat of death and the fact that he had so much to lose would
suggest that the soldier's betrayal of his comrades was not
really blameworthy but morally neutral.
Then again, since morality involves consideration of interests, should we not consider our own along with those of
others? The moral man is the man who considers all interests,
including his own. Whether his own is more important than
those of others is another problem altogether. There is such a
thing as being fair to onself or being just with oneself. Consider this case: say that I lend a friend several thousand dollars
which he subsequently refuses to pay back. I can pursue one
of two options. I can pursue measures, legal or otherwise, to
make him return the money which rightfully and justly belongs
to me. Or, I can forget about the whole thing, feeling that one
ought to make sacrifices every so often in his life. If I choose
the latter option, then I have not been fair to myself. I have,
so to speak, committed an injustice against myself, for the
money is rightfully and justly mine. I am being immoral to
myself by slighting my own interests just as I would be immoral to others (or unjust with them) by slighting theirs.
Now we may consider the question of relative importance of

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interests and carry our criticism of Phillips a step further. In
a sense, self-interest is more than just one of the many interests
that must be considered by an individual. I have a privileged
status because I have a special metaphysical relation to myself:
I am myself. And when I am called upon to make a decision
involving the interests of various people, including myself, I
cannot act as a purely objective judge, treating myself as just
one more of many people. I am not just one more of many
people; I am myself.
Let me give an example of the sort of case I have in mind.
Suppose that I am with a man who is virtually the same as I
am. We are both of the same age, we have the same education,
and most important of all, we have the same social value.
Suppose now that a madman walks in and offers me the following ultimatum: " I am going to shoot you or him. Pick the one
you want shot." Suppose further that I have reason to believe
that this fellow means business. I suspect that, in such a
situation, I would tell the madman to shoot the other fellow.
Would I be immoral to do so? I do not believe I would be.
But of even more importance, would I be moral if I told the
madman to shoot me instead of the other fellow? I think not,
for it is no more just that I die than that he die. Perhaps I
would be nice, perhaps crazy, but I certainly would be no
more moral if I told the madman to shoot me instead of the
other fellow. For my decision would be morally neutral.
So far, though, all I have established is that one can be
moral without abandoning a sense of stronger obligation to
oneself than to others. I now want to consider Phillips's claim
that the martyr-the man who sacrifices everything, his very
life-is unconcerned with his own interest. Phillips makes the
interesting move of adopting a form of hedonism, and yet he
does not seem to realize it. Phillips does not really want to
say that " x is good " reduces to " x produces the greatest
pleasure and the least pain for individual S or society T." He
wants to say something very different. And yet, look at
Phillips's concept of self-interest. Phillips wants to say that a
rogue's life can be profitable. But is that not to assume a

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great deal? It is only in a very trivial sense that the thief who
steals from the just man is leading a more profitable life than
the latter. Fortune is not the end of man-or, at least, of the
wise and just man. What concerns us is that Phillips fails to
realize that the martyr who is willing to die for a just cause or
for his fellow man does not apparently consider it in his
interest to remain alive. Rather, given the circumstances, he
considers it in his interest to die for the just cause or for the
fellow man. The interests of men are not limited to financial
success, sexual conquest, and things of this sort. And so,
Phillips's claim that the man who chooses justice does not
profit and has eschewed his own self-interest is, in the end, an
empty one. Along these lines we do not find Socrates holding
at his trial, " I am accomplishing all, but I am not really
satisfying my self-interest." We find him saying," I see clearly
that the time had arrived when it was better for me to die and
be released from trouble." (Plato, Apology.) 1
Now, Phillips is quite aware that the martyr's death is not a
disaster in the same way that the accidental death of a good
man is. He tells us explicitly that the martyr " accomplishes
all" even in death and that the martyr avoids disaster. The
martyr, then, even for Phillips, is seen as profiting as a result of
his action, even though the profit is very different indeed from
the sort of profit the thief makes when he steals something
from someone. There are, we see, two sorts of profit, two sorts
of self-interest. There is that ultimately hedonistic sort of
self-interest which is the thief's concern. We may regard this
as lesser self-interest. On the other hand, we find another sort
of self-interest at the heart of the martyr's actions, which we
may regard as greater self-interest. If Phillips would object to
regarding a martyr's sacrifice as being in his interest in this
special sense (as opposed to the sense Phillips had in mind in
his essay, I could only reply that I was thence unable to make
any sense of Phillips's claim that the martyr "accomplishes
all" and" avoids disaster." For I am sure that Phillips did not
1

Jowett translation (Oxford) .

JAY NEWMAN

mean by these claims that the martyr accomplishes all for
society but nothing for himself or that the martyr avoids
disaster for others but not for himself. And, this being the case,
I see no reason for not saying, providing we make the distinction between lesser and greater self-interest, that in sacrificing
his life the martyr acted in his own interest as well as in the
interests of others.
We now have the underpinning of the models of the explanation of the martyr's behavior that we have been seeking. What
remains for us is to understand in what greater self-interest
consists, that is, in what way or ways the martyr sees it in his
interest to die. When we understand that, we will then understand how he IS motivated. So let us consider the possible
models.

III
The most obvious explanation of greater self-interest is one
which involves the notion of reward after death. If a man
believes that there exists a God who will reward him with
eternal happiness for having sacrificed his worldly life for a
just cause, then it is clearly in that man's interest to be a
martyr. But if the promise of reward is all that is motivating
the martyr, then is the martyr all that more noble than anyone
else, even the thief? This martyr is merely taking a calculated
risk, as he is working on the belie£ that if there is indeed a
just God-which he believes is likely-then the small
he makes in this life will be repayed many times over in the
next. What, then, is there to praise in this martyr's action?
His willingness to gamble? His preference for a more promising
reward? If this is all that greater self-interest amounts to, then
it is not really very different from lesser self-interest, and we
ought to be very cautious in our praise of the martyr motivated
by it.
The second model that comes to mind involves a different
promise of immortality, the immortality associated with the
fond remembrance of the martyr. All men are motivated to
some extent by a desire to leave some sort of legacy to their
society after they pass on. The martyr almost always leaves

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such a legacy, for he is apt to be remembered fondly and with
respect even by his enemies. People will say that he was a
great, or at the very least, a good man. So there is a reward
for this martyr, too, although it is a reward of a much more
abstract nature than that which the first martyr envisioned.
A third martyr is one who chooses to die in order to free
himself from pangs of conscience; martyrdom offers this man
freedom from internal sanctions. Say that an individual has
the option of sacrificing or risking his life to save some small
children and that this fellow is the sort of person who, if he
did not attempt to save those children, would suffer terrible
pangs of conscience throughout the remaining years of his life.
Knowing that he is such a person, he is likely, for reasons of
self-interest, to decide to risk his life for those children. This
martyr, the man who would not be able to live with his conscience, profits from his act of martyrdom, but in a negative
way. His profit, his reward, is not having to live out an unbearable life. Now this is again a very abstract sort of profit,
reward, or interest. It is hard for most of us to comprehend it
very clearly, but that is, after all, why we do not choose to
martyr ourselves-because we can only understand motivations of this sort on a very abstract, almost unreal level.
I want to consider still another " justification " of martyrdom
along the lines of self-interest, and it involves self-fulfillment.
Few people can make the claim that they thoroughly understand what life is all about. Perhaps none can. In any event,
most of us just go on living without worrying about any
central theme or any central goal which ought to be at core of
our life plans. All of us wonder at one time or other if life has
any significance at all, and we then look back at the life we
have lived and see it as being in some sense without meaning,
without direction, and without purpose. It is conceivable that
a man seek a fulfillment in his death which has eluded him in
his life. One is reminded of Dickens' Sidney Carton, who chose
to die better than he lived. We praise a good painter because
he paints well; in a sense, when we praise the martyr, we are
doing so because that man chose to, and did, die well. And who

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JAY NEWMAN

is to say, after all, that self-preservation is innately better
than self-fulfillment? When we abandoned the theory of drives,
we abandoned with it the notion of a natural hierarchy of
values.
Here then are four models for the explanation of the martyr's
behavior. There are, I am sure, more than four; in fact, I will
offer still another shortly. These four will suffice, however, to
show what I have wanted to show: first, that to sacrifice or
even suffer martyrdom is not to act against one's interest but
to support that interest; and second, that the martyr acts no
more blindly and no more emotionally than the rogue, the
philosopher, or anyone else, for he, too, can offer very sound
reasons for his actions. We cannot accept those reasons in
leading our own lives, and that may simply be a matter of
different values or different taste, as I have been asserting.
But perhaps the martyr can actually see things which we
cannot, things to which we are just blind. For it is not simply
a case of our rejecting his course and his rejecting ours; he has
known our course and lived by it, but we shall have never lived
by his.
If the martyr is motivated by self-interest, does he deserve
to be praised? Granted, he is motivated by a different sort of
self-interest than the average man; but it is still self-interest.
We do not praise the martyr for supporting his own interest;
we praise him for supporting the interests of others. We praise
him for seeing that his interest lies in supporting the interests
of others. We do not praise him for doing good blindly,
emotionally, or accidentally; we do not praise him for doing
good because "it was right to do good." We praise him for
doing good rationally: he had the very best reason for
doing good, notably, that it was in his interest to do so.
Phillips is quite right when he says that any attempt to find
a non-moral justification for a just action or a moral belief
is destined to fail; what Phillips fails to realize is that a moral
justification cannot be provided without reference to interests
somewhere along the line.

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IV
There are some who will be unhappy with the explanatory
models I have provided. There are three objections which
might be brought against these models. First, they do not
account for the martyr's sense of duty, obligation, or responsibility. Second, they do not account for the martyr's altruism,
his love for his fellow man. Third, they involve us in a determinism no less serious than that of the theory of drives.
In responding to the first two criticisms, I should like to
bring a particular martyr into the discussion, the German
theologian, Dietrich Bonhoeffer. In addition to being one of
the most vociferous critics of both Nazism and the apathy
which nurtured it, Pastor Bonhoeffer was one of the key
figures in the German resistance to Hitler. He could have
remained in America, as his friends had urged him to do, and
he could have chosen to remain silent, as so many of his
colleagues and his countrymen had, for he was well aware oi
the likely consequences of his action. But he chose instead to
pursue the course of justice and humanity in the face of those
very consequences, and he inevitably chose to die. The Nazis
caught up with him in April of 1943 and had him sent off to
Buchenwald. There he had little to eat, little companionship,
and only a Bible to read. Yet, according to one of his fellowprisoners, "he always semed to diffuse an atmosphere of
happiness, of joy in every smallest event in life, and of deep
gratitude for the mere fact that he was alive." 2 It is said that
he never complained, and he believed that his time in prison
had not been wasted. 3 In April of 1945, in the last stages of
World War II, Bonhoeffer was removed from his cell and
executed.
Now, I am not disturbed by the criticism that my models
do not account for the martyr's sense of duty, obligation, or
responsibility. I believe that they do, and that the concept of
duty is inherent in at least some of them-the ones involving
2
3

Terence Prittie, Germans Against Hitler (London:
Ibid., p. 125.

Hutchinson, 1964), p. H!4.

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JAY NEWMAN

freedom from internal sanction and self-fulfillment. But the
sense of duty embodied by these models is probably very
different from the one sought by the critic. Most moral philosophers still think of duty, alas, in terms of a cold obedience
to some artificial rules. In his Ethics, Bonhoeffer has nothing
but scorn and ridicule for this view of duty, which he associates
with Kant. He tells us in the section of the work devoted to
" Conscience " that this view of responsibility misses the point:
From the principle of truthfulness Kant draws the grotesque conclusion that I must even return an honest " yes " to the enquiry
of the murderer who breaks into my house and asks whether my
friend whom he is pursuing has taken refuge there; in such a case
self-righteousness of conscience has become outrageous presumption
and blocks the path of responsible action. Responsibility is the
total and realistic response of man to the claim of God and of our
neighbour; but this example shows in its true light how
response of a conscience which is bound by principles is only a
partial one. 4

As I see it, it is only partial because it has been divorced from
interests, which constitute the concrete reality of situations
involving moral decisions. While Bonhoeffer does not employ
this terminology, it is clear to me that this is what he had in
mind. One's responsibility is ultimately a matter of considering
and judging how to support all interests; it is not just a matter
of enslaving oneself to some artificial rules.
I do not believe that my models have banished altruism and
love from the explanation of martyrdom, either. I again see
love as latent in the third and fourth models, and even in the
second, the one involving fond remembrance. It is his love for
his fellow man which seems to explain the martyr's desire to be
remembered fondly by that fellow man. It is his love for his
fellow man that results in the internal sanctions. It is his love
for his fellow man that enables him to regard doing something
for his fellow man as leading him to self-fulfillment.
• The English translation of the two quotatiuns from the Ethics is by Neville
Horton Smith. The translation is published by S. C. M. Press and also by
Macmillan.

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597

I am still not satisfied with this account of the role of love,
and so I am going to indulge now in a bit of mysticism, the sort
of mysticism which makes philosophy platable after all of the
presuppositions and possibilities have been laid out before us.
I want to offer a fifth model, but this model does not displace
the second, third, and fourth; it complements them. First I
shall consider Bonhoeffer's account of " deputyship," which is
to be found in the Ethics:
The father acts for the children, working for them, caring for them,
interceding, fighting and suffering for them. Thus in a real sense
he is their deputy. He is not an isolated individual, but he combines
in himself the selves of a number of human beings. Any attempt to
live as though he were alone is a denial of the actual fact of his
responsibility. He cannot evade the responsibility which is laid on
him with his paternity. This reality shatters the fiction that the
subject, the performer, of all ethical conduct is the isolated individual.

I shall translate this deputyship-terminology into love-terminology, by taking love in the following sense: when someone
loves someone else, what that involves is that the one who loves
sees the interest (and the component interests of that interest)
of the one he loves as being his own. The interests of the loved
become the interests of the lover: the lover combines in himself the selves of a number of human beings, and he combines
in his self-interest the interests of a number of human beings.
This is not to say that he is sacrificing his interests for theirs.
It is not to deny the "privileged status " of the self in one's
thought and action. The self is itself expanded to encompass
more interests. This love-terminology may not be such a
mystical device after all, for it seems to be the simplest way
of dealing with the particular phenomena it is designated to
signify. The practical efficacy of the terminology lies in its
simplicity, and the existence of the pheonomena it signifies cannot be denied, for their existence is empirically known.
This model is not meant to displace the others. It is a
general model which the others grow out of. Some acts of
martyrdom may not be able to be treated by the model-such

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JAY NEWMAN

as the first martyr's. Most acts of martyrdom, however, can
be explained in terms of it, in a general way, with the second,
third, or fourth models representing the fleshed-out versions of
this new model.
We see now where God comes into the picture of most
martyrs. It is not so much the reward that matters. It is that
the martyr sees his interests as being those of his God-justice,
dignity, love itself-and his act is seen by him to fit in with
some sort of universal plan, universal order. This is a complex
metaphysical business indeed, but that does not mean that it
is not at the heart of the religious martyr's motivation.
We come, then, to the third criticism, that the models involve us in a determinism no less serious than that of the
theory of drives. It is here that the "basic" quality of some
phenomenon or entity in our models comes back to haunt us.
In the new models, those alternatives to the theory of drives,
there is still some " basic," something not to be explained or
reduced further. In the general model, it is the general phenomenon of love; in the other models, it is either conscience,
internal sanctions, the desire for self-fulfillment, the desire to
be remembered fondly, or something else of this sort. Love and
conscience and the desire for self-fulfillment are no more explained in these models than drives are in the drive theorist's
model. So, we seem to be left with a determinism in the new
models, just as we were left with a determinism in the theory of
drives. That determinism was a determinism of basic drives-it
saw all behavior as ultimately determined by drives which were
not themselves further explainable or reducible. The new determinisms are determinisms of some basic love or desire-they
see some behavior as being ultimately determined by an individual's capacity for love or self-fulfillment, or whatever. One
does not love rationally; the martyr may be said to have
decided to martyr himself rationally, for he can cite reasons for
his action, but he cannot cite reasons for loving his fellow man
or seeking to be remembered or seeking self-fulfillment. And so,
in the end, it turned out that Bonhoeffer martyred himself
simply because it just so happened that he had a capacity for

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love. Poor Hitler, Goebbels, and Streicher: they just did not
have that capacity for love-they could not collapse the interests of others into theirs-and so it was determined that
they could not martyr themselves for a just cause. It just
turned out that way.
It is useless to try to avoid a determinism of basics in any
philosophical realm. The logician sits down with his first principles and starts being rational after he has made himself aware
of those principles. The metaphysician sits down with his
dogma and starts being rational after he has made himself
aware of that dogma. A logician without first principles and a
metaphysician without a dogma cannot be rational, for they
have nothing to work with, nothing to be rational about. In
the realm of moral action, a man begins with his valueswhat is important to him, the component interests of his
general interest-and, in consciously basing his actions upon
those basics, he acts rationally. His actions become a workingout of his values.
Our models are not jeopardized by the existence of a determinism of basics, because any model of behavior necessarily
involves basics. The only alternative sort of model could never
be set down or even be conceived of, for it would involve an
infinite regression of explanations and reductions. It does not
seem reasonable that a particular action which takes place in
finite time and finite space should require an endless chain of
explanations and reductions at higher and higher levels.
The practical efficacy of our models does not lie in the
avoidance of determinism, for a determinism of basics is not
avoidable. It lies in the fact that, in not explaining the behavior of the martyr beyond the level of his values-and his
allegiance to those values-the models enable us to retain our
traditional conception of the nobility of the martyr. We praise
a man for his commitment to values, not for his enslavement
to drives. In carrying explanation one step beyond values, the
drive theorist upsets the framework of our traditional conception of morality. And there is no good reason for his doing so.
Some will ask now, "But ought we praise the martyr for

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his values if they themselves are, like drives, in some sense
determined?" This question is self-defeating, for it amounts to
asking, " Ought we do such-and-such if ' ought ' really does not
mean anything?" Diogenes Laertius's famous anecdote about
Zeno comes to mind. When the slave Zeno was scourging for
theft complained to Zeno that it was fated that he, the slave,
should steal, Zeno replied that it was fated that the slave
should be beaten. In that spirit, let us go on praising the
martyrs for their commitment to their values, as we always
have. They at least sense some commitment. It is the mystery
of reason that reason itself rests on its adversary, this arbitrary
commitment to a first principle, a dogma, or a value. If we try
to explain these arbitrary commitments away, we shall find
that there will only be new arbitrary phenomena to contend
with. And in the process of trading the old phenomena in for
new ones-say, interests for instincts-we shall have lost our
notion of commitment, our firm sense of direction, and whatever concept of human reason we managed to salvage with that
notion of commitment and that sense of direction.
JAY NEWMAN

Y ark University
Toronto, Canada

GRACE AND FREE WILL IN JUSTIFICATION:
TEXTUAL STUDY IN AQUINAS

A

T

HIS IS AN historical study in which the development
of St. Thomas's doctrine on the relationship of grace
and free will, divine and human action in the process
of justification, is followed step by step, though it may be of
identical conclusions. The resources of the historical method
force this procedure upon us, not simply for the sake of erudition but for the benefit of the doctrine itself, that we may more
easily follow its genesis and evolution over the changing years/
St. Thomas himself was conscious of the condition of progress in the thought of individuals and of society:
If anyone proceeds to an investigation of truth he is helped to find
it by any preceding investigation. This is valid for the same man
who now sees what he did not see before, and also for different men
inasmuch as one takes what his predecessors discovered and adds
to it. 2

In the course of this study we will see how closely this applies
to the author. We shall see him in the early works carrying
on a constant dialogue with his contemporaries and in particular with St. Albert the Great and the Franciscan St. Bonaventure, accepting their discoveries and adding to them. And we
shall see him gradually emancipate himself from them, see
things which he did not see before, and finally arrive at the
term of his synthetic sweep in the Summa Theologia-e.
In his early period St. Thomas twice treated the complex of
questions relating to grace, in the Commentarium in Sententias and in the De V eritate. As both works offer almost the
same doctrine and have the same notable differences with
respect to the later works, they can be studied together. The
Cf. M-D. Chenu 0. P. Introduction
• I Ethic., lect.

1

a l'Etude de S. Th011ULS d'Aquin, pp.
601

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G. LAWLER

first part of this analysis will be devoted to this study, the
second to the development which culminated in the Summa
Theologiae, and the concluding section to the reasons that
provoked this development.
THE EARLY

TEACHING

I. Necessity of Preparation for Grace
Man is justified, St. Paul tells us, not by works but by faith,
and this a gratuitous gift of God. 3 On the other hand, turn to
me, says the Lord, and I will tum to you, 4 He who made you
without your consent will not justify you without it. 5 The
apparent contradiction between these texts presents the problem of the relationship between grace and free will. In what
sense is a preparation for justification, a turning to God,
necessary? And if it is necessary, how can justification be
gratuitous?
The theologians of the Middle Ages had worried over this
problem without coming to any uniform solution. Man must
prepare himself for justification, Bonaventure taught. By a
special privilege God can justify him without any special preparation, as he did in the case of St. Paul. But the general rule
is that man must dispose himself by a preparation which
precedes the act of justification. 6 St. Thomas is of another
opinion. True, every adult must prepare himself for the grace
of justification; but this preparation need not necessarily precede the infusion of grace, it suffices if it accompanies it. Paul
on the road to Damascus was instantly converted from his
intention of sinning, 7 but he prepared himself by cooperating
with the grace offered to him. The only preparation necessary
is a simple cooperation with grace. 8
• Rom. 3, 28 and 24.
• Zach. 1: 3.

Qui fecit te sine te non te justificat sine te. Aug., Serm.ad Popul. 169.
IV Sent., d. 17, q. 1, a. 2; q. 3, corp. et ad 1 and 2.
7 Ibid., q. 1, a. 2, sol. 1 ad 1.
8 Ibid., sol. 1 corp.
5
6

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Why is preparation for justification demanded? There are
two reasons: one is based on the nature of the will, the other
on the conditions of justification insofar as it is a species of
generation. 9
The nature of the will demands that it cooperate in man's
justification, for justification is a perfection of the will and
unless the will contributes something it would suffer violence,
receiving a perfection from an agent outside itself, which is
repugnant. The free will cannot be forced; libertas a coactione
is essential to it. 10 The will, then, must cooperate. As we have
seen, this cooperation need not precede justification; it is
enough if it accompanies it.
A further precision of this argument is given in the De
Veritate. Justification is a perfection of the will, in effect, a
change of will. Now" will" can mean both the faculty and its
act, 11 and though the faculty can be changed without its
cooperation, the act cannot, for if the will did not cooperate
in an act, it would not be its act. An adult sinner by his own
act is directed towards evil. He can only change this direction
by a contrary act of his will, and therefore every adult must
cooperate in his justification. The same is not the case with
infants. They are not directed towards sin by their own free
act but have only the faculty of will, and so they can be justified without any contribution on their part. 12 The same reasoning applies to those who never have the use of reason and to
those who have it only occasionally, provided that in their
lucid intervals they have expressed a desire for baptism. 13
The adult sinner, we have said, must cooperate in his justification. This may give the false impression that, if he were
not a sinner, he could be justified without any cooperation.
Such a conclusion would be far from the thought of St.
Ibid.
II Sent., d. 25, q. I, aa. 4 and 5. Cf. Lottin, Psychologie et M01"ale au
Moyen Age, pp. 226-7.
11 "Voluntas
accipitur et pro ipsa potentia et pro actu potentiae." De V erit.,
9

10

q. 28, a. 3 c.
19

18

Ibid.
Ibid., ad 2.

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MICHAEL G. LAWLER

Thomas. The angels received grace in the moment of their
conversion to God. 14 Adam received it by turning to God the
instant he was created. 15 It is not because he is a sinner that
man must cooperate but because justification without his cooperation would be a violation of his free will, which is inconceivable.
Can God, then, not change the will? Yes, he can change it,
but he cannot force it, he cannot do it violence. 16 To will
something is to be inclined towards it. Force or violence is
contrary to this inclination. When God changes the will, he
simply takes away the inclination it had and replaces it with
another, which is not to do violence to the will since it is now
led to something which is not contrary, but according to its
actual inclination. Just as if God were to change the inclination
of gravity to an upward rather than a downward attraction,
stones flying up rather than falling down would be no violation
of gravity.
There is another reason why man must prepare himself for
grace. A form can only be reoeived in materia diffposita.
Sanctifying grace or justification is a form received in the will.
Therefore the will must be disposed to receive it. The question
arises how is it to be disposed? St. Thomas replies:
It is up to the will to draw near to God by love and desire, and to
be oriented towards grace by the removal of the impediment which
is sin. By turning away from sin towards God man prepares himself for graceY

When a man so acts he is said to do what is in his power, and
he receives grace.
14
15

II Sent., d. 5, q. 2, a. 1.
Ibid., d. 29, q. 1, a. 2.

16 "Deus
potest immutare voluntatem de necessitate, non tamen potest earn
cogere." De Verit., q. 22, a. 8. Cf. II Sent., d. 25, q. 1, a. 2 ad 8; B. Lonergan,
" St. Thomas' Thought on Gratia Operans," Theol. Stud., III (1942), p. 588.
17 " ••• in ipsa voluntate sit appropinquare
Deo per affectum et desiderium, et
ordinari ad gratiam per remotionem impedimenti, quod quidem impedimentum est
peccatum; et ideo per displicentiam peccati et affectum ad Deum se aliquis ad
gratiam praeparat." IV Sent., d. 17, q. 1, a. 2, qc. 2.

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This is to apply to justification the Aristotelian theory of
generation. 18 St. Thomas constantly refers to it without ever
developing it at length, seemingly taking it for granted, which
is understandable when we realize that St. Albert had already
taught it. 19 Justification is the movement towards justice, the
passage from the state of sin to the state of grace. 20 This latter
being considered as a form, justification is the movement
towards a form, which is generation. 21
Every generation is a movement between two extremes, the
privation of the form and the form. Obviously between these
extremes there is no intermediary, just as there is no intermediary between non-being and being. There is no instant in which
there is an in-between non-being and being, the passage is
accomplished instantaneously. So it is in the case of justification, the passage from the privation of grace to grace. 22
Nevertheless, for a subject to receive a new form it must be
properly disposed, and in the case of justification there is a
remarkable peculiarity. In the physical world alteration implies succession of time. Before the wood will take fire the
heat must dispel the dampness. 23 But in the case of justification there is no succession of time; it all takes place in
instanti. Two cases can arise. Either the movement of the will
constitutes a sufficient disposition for grace, in which case this
is given simultaneously, 24 or the movement of the will is not a
sufficient disposition, and then there is needed a succession,
each member creating a disposition closer to the necessary one
until finally this itself is posited and with it, again simultaneously, is given grace.
18
19

Cf. H. Bouillard, Conversion et Grace chez S. Thomas d'Aquin, pp 24-8.
IV Sent., d. 17, aa. 10-11.

20 " Justificatio
de sua ratione importat motum ad iustitiam . . . Ad hanc
iustitiam motus justificatio dicitur." IV Sent., d. 17, q. 1, a. 1 qc. l. Cf. De V erit.,
q. 28, a. l.
21 "Generatio
est motus ad formam" De Principiis Naturae ad Fratrem
Silvestrum, ca.
22 De Verit., q. 28, a. 9 c.
23 Vll Physic., lect. 6, in fine.
24 " Forma et dispositio ad formam completam et abiectio alterius formae totum
est in instanti." De V erit., q. 28, a. 9 c.

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Man must prepare himself to receive grace. How, then, is it
gratuitous? Is it not rather that man merits grace by disposing
himself towards it? Not at all, replies Aquinas. Nobody can
merit grace because it completely surpasses human nature and
leads to an end which no creature can attain by itself. 25 God
does not justify us without our consent, it is true. But our
consent is not the cause of our justification; God justifies us
without our being in any way the cause of it. 26 However, do
not the good works we do before receiving grace in some real
sense merit it? Is it not at least convenient, de congruo, that
when man does what he can God does what he must do?
Many theologians of the twelfth and thirteenth centuries
thought that it was so convenient, 27 teaching that man merits
the grace of justification de congruo by doing what he can to
prepare himself for it. St. Albert the Great opposed this view.
Before receiving grace, no one can do anything to merit
He knows others teach that the sinner by his good works merits
grace de congruo. But it is not true, he says, though it could
be said that in virtue of his good works the sinner merits grace
de minus incongruo than he who has no good works. 29 Albert's
position is clear: he shows respect for a consecrated formula,
but he judges it to be inexact.
Many commentators hold that, at least in the Commentarium in Sententias, St. Thomas was in the Franciscan stream
with regard to meriting grace de congruo. 30 Several texts are
quoted:
We say that by free will alone man can prepare himself for santifying grace. For doing what is in his power he receives grace from
God. 3 L
II Sent., d. 27, q. 1, a. 4.
"(Deus) iustificat nos sine nobis virtutem causantibus." Ibid., a. 2 ad 7.
27 Cf. A. Landgraf, "Die Vorbereitung auf die Rechtfertigung und die Eingiessung
der heiligmachenden Gnade in der Fruhscholastik," Scholastik, 6 (19131), pp. 85470; J. Riviere," St. Thomas et le Merite de congruo," Rev. Sc. Relig. (1927), p. 642.
28 II Sent., d. 28, a. 2 sol.
•• Ill Sent., d. 18, a. 1 sol.
80 Vide Riviere, loc. cit., pp. 648-644; J. Stufler, "Die entfertne Vorbereitung auf
die Rechtfertigung nach dem hi. Thomas," Z. Kath. Theol., 47 (1928), p. 168.
31 " Dicimus quod ad gratiam gratum facientem habendam ex solo libero abitrio
25

26

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Evidently good works are dispositions for grace; all are agreed
on that. But, they say, St. Thomas does not regard them
simply as dispositions but as real causes which create in us a
capacity for the supernatural: causant quamdam habilitatem
ad gratiam. 32 Every bit as much as Alexander of Hales and
Bonaventure, Aquinas does not hesitate to regard good works
as constituting merit de congruo. 33
Others opine that here, as elsewhere, St. Thomas followed
his master. 34 As does St. Albert, he uses the formula "merit
de congruo " out of respect for those who have consecrated it,
but it does not seem to him to be exact. This appears from an
examination of the texts. He puts to himself the objection: it
would be unjust of God to give grace to anyone who was not
worthy. But we are only worthy to receive what we have
merited. Therefore anyone who receives grace has merited it. 35
The reply: God gives grace to those who are unworthy, in
this sense that he gives it to those who are not sufficiently
worthy but who have some disposition for it. Because of this
disposition they are said, in some way, to merit grace de
congruo. From this one connot conclude that God is unjust,
but that he is liberal. 36 St. Thomas, therefore, does not teach
merit de congruo; he simply uses the formula, 37 indicating that
it is exact only in a certain sense: quodammodo. 38 Finally, he
expressly indicates in what sense it may be used, namely, inasse homo potest praeparare; faciendum enim quod in se est gratiam a Deo consequitur." II Sent., d. 28, q. 1, a. 4.
82 II Sent., d. 27, q. 1, a. 4.
88 "Actibus
talibus (i.e., praeparatoriis)
non meretur quis gratiam sibi ex
condigno, sed solum ex congruo." Ibid., a. 6.
•• Cf., for example, Bouillard, op. cit., p. 33.
35 II Sent., d. 27, q. I, a. 4, obj. 4.
36 " Deus dat gratiam indignis quia
(dat) his qui non sunt sufficienter ad hoc
digni, sed tamen habent aliquam dispositionem ad recipiendum, ex quo dicuntur
quodammodo ex congruo gratiam mereri; nee ex hoc sequitur quod sit iniustus, sed
liberalis." Ibid., ad 4.
•• " ... dicuntur quodammodo mereri gratiam de congruo."
88 Riviere,
loc. cit., notes this " quodammodo " and judges that it is but a
difference in nuance, not a basic divergence. He cites a text of Alexander of
Hales in which man is said to have " quodammodo meritum condigni per usum
gratiae" with respect to glory.

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much as it indicates a disposition to receive grace. 39 In a
following article he again mentions that by acts prior to the
reception of grace man merits it de congruo. 40 But here again
the consecrated formula is simply used. He does not reject it,
but neither does he make it his own. And elsewhere he clearly
distinguishes disposition and merit de congruo. By prayer man
can merit grace de congruo for others; for himself it is only disposition.41
It is only, then, in a non-proper sense that we can speak of
merit de congruo with respect to grace. St. Thomas's real
thought is that he who has not already received grace can in
no way merit it. 42 In the De Veritate there is no more mention
of merit de congruo, and in the Summa Theologiae we will find
it completely subordinated to merit de condigno. 43
Although the natural good works which precede justification
do not cause it, they do produce a certain disposition for it. 14
Almighty God has the same design for all. The diversity of
graces depends on the diversity of capacity in the recipients,
which in tum depends on the complex of innate and acquired
dispositions. In this way the good works of a man contribute
to his share of grace. They are not active principles with regard
to it; they simply create in him a material disposition. 45 It
is in this way that causant quamdam habilitatem ad gratiam is
to be understood. 46
Philip the Chancellor had opened up the way towards this
habent aliquam dispositionem ad recipiendum, ex quo dicuntur .... "
Vide note 33.
41 " ••• praedestinationem
iuvare ... vel ex condigno ... vel ex congruo, sicut
aliquis orando pro aliquo alio meretur ei primam gratiam . . . vel per modum
dispositionis, sicut quando quis praeparat se ad habendam gratiam." I Sent.,
d. 41, q. 1, a. 4.
42 II Sent., d. 27, q. 1, a. 4.
43 I-II, q. 114, aa. 3, 5, 6.
•• " Gratia excedit omnem proportionem naturae; unde actus naturales non
possunt merita respectu gratiae dici, sed dispositiones remotae tantum." II Sent.,
d. 27, q. 1, a. a ad 5; "Opus bonum praecedens gratiam non est causa meritoria
eius, sed solum dispositio quaedam." I Sent., d. 41, q. 1, a. 3.
•• 1 Sent., d. 17, q. 1, a. 3.
•• 11 Sent., d. 27, q. 1, a. 4.
39 " •••
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solution in the Summa de Bono. 47 But there was still a difficulty which St. Thomas saw. If God has the same design
towards all, and the measure of grace is regulated by man's
disposition, then he who does whatever lies in his power necessarily receives grace. Man seems to take grace by storm, God's
liberty is overpowered. The rejection of this argument lies in
the distinction of absolute and hypothetical necessity: man
receives grace necessarily, not absolutely, for God is not subject
to such necessity, but hypothetically, de necessitate ex suppositione divina ordinis, by which God has willed to give grace
to each according to his capacity. 48 If preparation for grace
necessarily results in grace being given, it is only because God
has so ordained it. Grace is due to the gratuitous goodness of
God with whom the initiative always rests, a fact which we
will find underlined with greater emphasis in the succeeding
sections.

II. Sanctifying Grace, Principle of Justification
The only necessary disposition for the reception of justifying
grace, the only sufficient one, is the conversion of the will which
coincides with it. What is the relation between these two, grace
and conversion? Is grace simply a perfection which is added to
the act of conversion or does it produce it? Is grace an ornament of conversion or its principle? The answer to these
questions demands an analysis of the act of justification.
Four elements can be distinguished in the process of justification considered as a generation. In every generation in
which which one form is corrupted, another produced, there
must be a twofold disposition, one to the first form, the other
to the second. In justification this twofold disposition is a
movement of the will towards God and a movement of the
will away from sin. 49 Therefore the four elements in the
Cf. A. Landgraf, Scholastik, 6 (1931), p. :239.
IV Sent., d. 17, q. 1, a. 2 sol. 3.
49 " Sicut per rnoturn liberi arbitrii
in Deurn disponitur ille qui iustificatur ad
gratiarn obtinendarn, ita per rnoturn liberi arbitrii in peccaturn oportet quod ad
culpae expulsionern disponatur." IV Sent., d. 17, q. l, a. 3 sol. 4.
47

48

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MICHAEL G. LAWLER

justification of the sinner are the infusion of grace, the movement of the will to God, the movement of the will away from
sin, the remission of sin. 50 There is no temporal succession
involved; in the one undivided instant grace is infused, the
movement of the will takes place and sin is remitted. Justification is not a successive process but simultaneous. 51
This theory of justification is by no means peculiar to St.
Thomas. It is common Scholastic doctrine. Though there
is a priority of nature among the various elements, 52 we are
concerned here only with the relation which exists between the
infusion of grace and the remission of sin on the one hand, and
the movements of the will disposing towards them, faith,
charity, contrition, 53 on the other. In other words, we are
concerned only with relationship between the action of God
and the action of man in the process of justification.
Attempts to establish this exact relationship had been made
before Aquinas. Three he rejects: the movement of the will
is anterior to the infusion of grace in the order of nature, not
of time; the movement of the will informed by grace necessarily
succeeds the infusion of grace in the order of nature, though it
precedes the remission of sin; 54 the infusion of grace and the
remission of sin both precede the double movement of the will
without any reciprocity. 55 The infusion of grace and the remission of sin admit no intermediate. 56 Thus the free acts must
either precede both or follow both. But they cannot simply
6

° Cf. De Verit., q. 28.

a. 1 Utrum iustificatio impii sit remissio peccatorum.
(Sic)
a. 2 Utrum peccatorum remissio possit esse sine gratia. (Nullo modo)
a. 4 Utrum motus liberi arbitrii in Deum ad iustificationem requiratur. (Sic)
a. 5 Utrum in impii iustificatione requiratur motus liberi arbitrii in peccatum.
(Sic)
51 IV Sent., d. 17, q. 1, a. 5 sol. 3.
52 Cf. Ibid., a. 4 sol. 1.
53 Cf. Ibid., a. 3 sols. 3 and 4.
6 • De Verit., q. 28, a. 3. The movement of the will to God is characterized
as a
movement of fides caritate formata, the movement away from sin as detestatio

peccati.
55 Ibid., a. 8 c.
•• IV Sent., d. 17, q. 1, a. 4 sol. 2.

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precede, for they cannot be meritorious before grace is infused.
Nor can they simply follow, for they are dispositions to the
remission of sin. 57 It may be noted that here St. Thomas
explicitly rejects his later seriation that places the free acts
after the infusion of grace but prior to the remission of sin, 58
a position all the more surprising in view of the fact that he
had already 59 formulated his view that the infusion of grace
involved a change in the inclination of the will.60
St. Thomas's own explanation is along a line already mapped
out by St. Albert who had distinguished three points of view. 61
If the nature is considered as a form the priority is the following: infusion of grace, double movement of the will, remission
of sin. If it is considered as matter, then detestation of sin
comes first, followed by conversion to God, infusion of grace,
remission of sin, in that order. If one considers the genesis of
the nature, then the order is remission of sin, movement of the
will, infusion of grace. Other theologians had advanced similar
explanations and St. Thomas did not differ from them. 62
Each element in the justification process has priority but
from a different point of view. In the order of material
causality, the double movement of the will precedes the infusion of grace and the remission of sin. In the order of formal
causality, however, it is precisely the inverse. 63 There is therefore reciprocal priority of grace and free will in instantaneous
justification. The will's movement of conversion in which grace
is infused is disposition to grace insofar as it proceeds from the
will, meritorious insofar as it proceeds from grace. Free will
furnishes the substance of the act, grace the form which makes
it meritorious. 64
What precisely did St. Thomas mean by this reciprocal
De V erit., q. 28, a. 8 c.
Summa Theol., q. 113, a. 8.
59 De V erit., q. 22, a. 8.
6 ° Cf. Lonergan, Zoe. cit., pp. 86-7.
61 IV Sent., d. 17, a. 11.
62 Vide Bouillard, op. cit., p. 46; Landgraf,
art. cit., p. 503.
63 De Verit., q. 28, a. 8. Cf. IV Sent., d. 17, q. 1, a. 4 sol. 2.
64 II Sent., d. 5, q. 2, a. 1 corp. and ad 1.
57

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priority? How, in his earlier thought, did he conceive the role
of grace in the act of conversion to God away from sin? To
understand this we must now consider the notion of sanctifying
grace as a habit.
Albert had already characterized grace not just as form but
as habit, the idea of which had been formulated by Philip,
Chancellor of the University of Paris. 65 Now immediately
following a habit there is an act, 66 it inclines to act. Grace,
therefore, moves the free will the very moment it is conferred. 67
Joined to the free will it becomes the principle of merit. Free
will furnishes the matter of the act, grace the form by which it
is meritorious. 68
Here St. Thomas follows his master very closely. When it
informs the soul, grace moves to meritorious acts not alone
but in cooperation with the will.69 What is the relationship
between their two roles? It is that of matter to form. Free
will furnishes the substance of the meritorious act, grace the
form of merit. 70 Has not, then, the will the principle role, the
substance of the act? Is not grace a mere complement added to
what the will has already provided? 71 Not at all. Grace has
the principle role, because it inclines the will to act per modum
naturac. 72
Cf. Lonergan, lac. cit., Vol. II (I94I), p. 307.
"Habitum immediate sequitur actus." Il Sent., d.
a. 6 sol.
67 Ibid., ad 7 ad quaest. I.
68 "Ideo
dicitur coopcrans quia liberum arbitrium in merito ministrat materiam
actus; sed forma per quem est efficacia rneriti dat gratia." Ibid., a. 6 sol.
69 "Ha],itus
effective causat opus. Ita gratia motum meritorium voluntatis
operatur eliciendo ipsum." II Sent., d.
q. I, a. 5 ad
"Quia inclinat (gratia)
in talem actum per modum cuiusdam naturae ideo ipsa sola dicitur operari, non
quod sine libero arbitrio operatur, sed quia est principalior causa." De Verit., q.
a. 5 ad 3. " Ex hoc enim quod voluntas est inforrnata aliquo habitu, sequitur quod
in actum volendi exeat." Ibid., ad
cf. Lonergan, lac. cit., p. 314s.
70 " Liberum
arbitrium administrat substantiam actus et a gratia est forma per
quam rncritorius est; . . . et propter hoc dicitur cooperans, quasi complens illud
quod per liberum arbitrium ut praeiacens exhibetur." Il Sent., d.
q. I, a. 5
ad 4. Cf. the resemblance of these texts of St. Thomas to those of St. Albert cited
above.
71 Vide note 70, "quasi complens."
72 Vide note 69.
65
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Is grace a formal or efficient principle? It is, in fact, both,
though its efficient causality depends on an already existing
formal causality. The formal causality of grace with respect to
the act of the will is easily explained, for
as the habit formally perfects the faculty, whatever in the faculty's
act is from the habit is formal with respect to the substance of the
act. And so the habit is the formal principle of an accomplished
act. 73

Its efficient causality flows from this. The faculty and the
habit which perfects it are in the same category of causality
since the habit supplies what is lacking in the faculty. But the
faculty is efficient cause of its act. Therefore the habit also is
in the category of efficient causality. 74 Faculty and habit, will
and grace, exercise a common efficient causality on the free act.
However, their functions are not to be confused. The habit,
form of the faculty which produces the act, is the efficient cause
of the formation of the act/ 5 which again underlines the fact
that the premier role of the habit is that of formal cause; its
role as efficient cause depends on this. 76
In this way St. Thomas demonstr:1tes the intimate relationship of free will and grace. They are not simply coordinated
principles but one single principle, as matter and form are
one single being. The moment grace is given the will moves
towards God and away from sin, for when the will is informed
by any habit it produces an act of willing. 77 One single act
proceeds from the one principle of grace and free will. From
grace it has the form of merit, from free will it has the char73 " Sicut habitus formaliter
perficit potentiam, ita quod ex habitu relinquitur in
actu est formale respectu substantiae actus quam potentia ministrat; et sic habitus
est formale principium actus formati .... " De Verit., q. 28, a. 8 ad 4 in contr.
74 De V erit., q. 28, a. 8 obj. 4 in contr.
This part of the objection is not rebutted
in the answer, and therefore is assumed to be St. Thomas's teaching. Cf. note 69
"Habitus effective causat opus."
75 De Verit., q. 28, a. 8 ad 4 in contr.
76 For a discussion of this cf. Lonergan, lac. cit., Vol. II, pp. 316-17.
77 " Ex hoc quod voluntas
est informata aliquo habitu, sequitur quod in actum
volendi exeat." De Verit., q. 27, a. 5 ad 2.

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MICHAEL G. LAWLER

acter of final disposition for grace. Without the free will grace
cannot be given, justification is impossible.

III. Divine Motion, Ultimate Principle of Justification
The ultimate disposition for justification is produced under
the influence of grace which inclines the free will to meritorious
act. In this process the will is not simply passive, it cooperates
with grace. This cooperation is not determined by gracehabitus which does not set the will in action but only inclines
to it. The question then arises, does the will require another
grace to set it in motion towards cooperation or does it move
under its own power?
This question had already been discussed before St.
Thomas. 78 The tendency of the Franciscan school had been
to affirm that to prepare oneself for justification a grace quite
distinct from sanctifying grace, gratia gratum faciens, was
necessary. It was called gratia gratis data. St. Bonaventure
explained why it was necessary. Free will cannot dispose itself
for sanctifying grace as it ought-de congruo-because grace
so exceeds natural knowledge that it cannot be known or asked
for without a movement from God; without, in other words, a
gratia gratis data which is a grace midway between sanctifying
grace and the free will.79
The opposite solution was proposed by William of Auxerre,
followed by the growing Dominican school. No sinner is deprived of every grace; the free will by its own power can turn
to God. 80 St. Albert followed this path. No sinner is deprived
of every grace: fear, hope, fides informis, angelic influence,
with these he can avoid sin and even without them he can
resist temptation. 81 Note Albert's point of view. He speaks of
avoiding sin without grace, not of disposing oneself for justifi78 Vide A. Landgraf,
"Die Erkenntnis der heiligmachenden Gnade in der Fruhscholastik," Scholastik, 3 (1928), pp. 28-64; 6 (1931), pp. 42-3, 245-6, 501;
Z. Kath. Theol., 55 (1931), p. 206.
79 II Sent., d. 28, a. 2, q. l.
so cr. Bouillard, op. cit., pp. 64-5.
81 II Sent., d. 25, a. 6 sol.

GRACE AND FREE WILL IN JUSTIFICATION

615

cation, for he does not admit disposition to grace and so does
not need to speculate on its conditions.
St. Thomas again follows his master and opposes the Franciscans. If gratia gratis data is accepted as a habit, it is not
required to move the will to cooperate with gratia gratum
faciens, for if the ultimate disposition is under the influence of
this latter, there is no need for another habit to influence the
remote dispositions. Free will is enough. He justifies his
position by three arguments.
Preparation for grace is not made by acts proportionate to
grace, as merit is proportionate to its reward. Therefore it is
not necessary that man prepare himself for grace by acts which
surpass the natural power of his faculties. His nature is a
material power with respect to grace, so the acts of the natural
virtues are material dispositions for it. To prepare himself for
grace man has no need of another, preceding grace. 82
If it is admitted that another grace-habit is necessary to
prepare oneself for habitual, sanctifying grace, then it must be
admitted that another is need to prepare oneself for that, and
so on indefinitely. As there must be a beginning somewhere
and, as there is no reason to stop at this grace rather than
that, it is better to admit from the beginning that man by his
own power can prepare himself for grace. 83 If the free will has
not the power to prepare itself for grace, no perfection added
to it will sufficiently prepare it.
Besides, to prepare oneself for grace is to do what one can
according to the adage: God gives grace to him who does what
lies in his power. But we can only do what is within the power
of our free will, and so if man cannot prepare himself for grace
by his free will alone, then to do what is in one's power is not
to prepare oneself for grace. 84 The conclusion is as before: if
man cannot prepare himself for grace by free will alone, he
cannot do it in any way.
Man, therefore, does not need an infused habit to prepare
•• II Sent., d.
q. 1, a. 4.
•• Ibid. Cf. De Verit., q.
a. 15.
•• De Verit., loc. cit. Cf. II Sent., d.

q. 1, a. 4.

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MICHAEL

G. LAWLER

himself for the grace of justification. He can do it by free will
alone. But does he not at least require an actual grace, a divine
help distinct from the natural concursus? Aquinas replies in
the affirmative. To prepare himself for grace man needs special
divine help, but as to the nature of this help he, Thomas,
hesitates in the Commentarium in Sententias and the De
Veritate. 85
The necessity of this divine help is deduced from the general
principle: omne motum necesse est ab alio moveri. The movement of a living thing which has been at rest must necessarily
be preceded by other movements which excite it to action. 83
And so it is with man whose will, preparing for justification,
turns towards God and away from sin. He must be moved
either by external events such as a monition, an illness or the
like, or by an internal impulse manifesting the divine action
on the soul, or perhaps by both at the same time. All of these
are granted to him by the mercy of God. If one, then, understands by gratia gratis data divine providence mercifully directing man towards good, it is undoubtedly true that without it
man cannot prepare himself for justification. 89
There is a text which seems to teach that for the final
disposition or meritorious conversion no other grace is necessary beyond sanctifying grace itself. With this free will alone
suffices.88 St. Thomas forgot to mention-maybe for him it
was too obvious to mention-that the act of conversion itself
has God for first cause, since he operates in every nature. 89 The
Bouillard, op. cit., p. 71.
VIII Physic.
87 De V erit., q. 24, a. 15.
85

86

88 " Ad eliciendum
actum conversionis sufficit liberum arbitrium quod se ad
habendum gratiam per hunc actum proeparat et disponit. Sed efficacia conversionis
ad meritum non potest esse nisi per gratiam; unde unus et idem motus est in quo
gratia infunditur, qui est dispositio ad gratiam secundum quod exit a libero
arbitrio, et meritorius secundum quod gratia informatur." II Sent., d. 5, q. 2, a. 1.
89 " Cum
dicitur quod habens caritatem diligit Deum propter seipsum, ly
'propter' denotat habitudinem finis et efficientis, quia ipse Deus superaddit naturae
uncle in eius dilectionem tendit. Sed cum dicitur de carente caritate quod diligit
Deum propter seipbum, ly 'propter' denotat habitudinem finis et non efficientis
proximi, NISI SICUT DEUS IN OMNI NATURA OPERANTE OPERATUR."
II Sent., d. 3, q. 4, unic ad 1.

GRACE AND FREE WILL IN JUSTIFICATION

617

divine help which is necessary is sometimes the very act of will
which God accomplishes in us and by which we are prepared
for grace. 90
As has been demonstrated, the grace necessary to prepare
man for justification is not to raise his action to a supernatural
level but simply to bring it into being. It does not confer on
the will any transitory elevation but merely sets it in motion.
Its necessity is explained by the principle, omne motum necesse
est ab alia moveri, to which St. Thomas expressly alludes.n
Therefore if we accept grace not as a habit but as the mercy
and providence of God, it is as necessary for non-meritorious
action as for meritorious, for man can do natural good without
grace, but not without God. When we speak of grace, however,
we usually mean a justifying habit, 92 and so we can conclude
that for St. Thomas the grace necessary to prepare oneself for
justification is not gratia gratum faciens but simply a divine
motion.
From this consideration it appears how unjust it is to accuse
St. Thomas of being Semipelagian. He teaches clearly that
man cannot prepare himself for grace without the help of God.
True, this divine help is not necessarily in the interior of the
soul; it is enough that the will be set in motion by some exterior
occasion. But the initiative always lies with God who arranges
all with a view to salvation. This is quite in accord with
Augustinian doctrine 93 and equally opposed to that condemned
at the Second Council of Orange.
It is true that certain phrases taken out of context surprise us
with their resemblance to Semiplagian propositions. Certainly
•• II Sent., d. 28, q. 1, a. 4 corp. and ad 2.
91 lbid.
92 De Verit., q. 24, a. 14. Cf. II Sent., d. 28, q. 1, a. l.
93 "Attendat
et videat non ideo tan tum istam voluntatem divino muneri tribuendam, quia ex libero arbitrio est, quod nobis naturaliter concreatum est; verum
etiam quod visorum suasionibus agit Deus, ut velimus et ut credamus, sive extrinsecus per evangelicas exhortationes, ubi et mandata legis aliquid agunt, si ad hoc
admonent hominem infirmitatis suae, ut ad gratiam iustificantem credendo
confugiat; sive intrinsecus, ubi nemo habet in potestate quid ei veniat in mentem,
sed consentire vel dissentire propriae voluntatis est." De Spiritu et Littera, c. 34,
n. 60. PL 44, 240.

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MICHAEL G. LAWLER

had St. Thomas known this similarity to condemned doctrine
he would have avoided such ambiguous expressions. But he
did not know, and so we cannot reproach him with doctrinal
error, but only with a lack of information on a point of positive
theology. 94 We shall see that, when he became aware of the
difficulties and of his divergence from Augustine, he modified
his doctrine as a consequence.
THE SYNTHESIS

After the completion of the Commentarium in Sententias
(1254-1257) and the De Veritate (1256-1259), St. Thomas left
Paris for Italy where he taught for nine years (1259-1268) .94 "
It was only on his return from there that he took up again,
probably in 1271, the compilation of the Summa Theologiae at
the second part. Herein we find his perfected theory of the
relationship of grace and free will. In this section of our study,
we shall expose the new doctrine, compare it with the old, and
note where they agree and where they differ.

I. Necessity of Preparation for Grace
Sanctifying grace and the supernatural virtues which accompany it are infused by God as the principal cause. But man
cooperates by acts of faith, hope, fear, charity 95 which dispose
him for it. Insofar as these acts are supernatural, they proceed
from the infused virtues and so do not dispose towards grace.
They dispose inasmuch as they are free acts. Preparation for
grace does not mean a series of supernatural acts by which man
moves progressively nearer to justification; rather, it is the free
act by which he cooperates in the very act of his justification.
In the Summa, as in the earlier works, preparation for grace
means cooperation with grace. It is the part of man in justification.
Why is this preparation necessary? Aquinas is content to
•• Cf. Bouillard, op. cit., pp. 84-87.
••• These dates are accepted from Mandonnet,
Thomiste, pp. xiii and xv.
•• Cf. Summa Theol., I-II, q. 113, aa. 3, 4, 5.

Destrez, Chenu, Bibliographie

GRACE AND FREE WILL IN JUSTIFICATION

619

repeat the two reasons already given: God moves each being
according to its nature; it is natural for man to have freedom of
choice; therefore he is not moved to justification without a free
act on his part. 96 No form can exist except in materia disposita.97 Therefore, since justification is a generation, 98 the
acquiring of a form, 99 man must be disposed and only when he
is sufficiently disposed is the form received. In natural generation the disposing agent needs time, but with his infinite power
God can dispose instantaneously, especially in the case of the
will whose movement by nature is instantaneous. Therefore it
is by a single free act, simultaneous with the infusion of grace,
that man is disposed for grace. 100
The classical example is that of St. Paul. While he was on
his way to sin, God completely changed his heart: Paul heard
the voice of God, heeded it, cooperated with it and instantly
received grace. 101 This is what happens in every case. Justification is never effected without the free cooperation of man, 102
which is at the same time an act of faith, charity, contrition, a
movement away from sin and towards God. 103 It is worth
noting that no longer is it called " ultimate disposition " but
" sufficient disposition " 104 or " perfect preparation " 105 for
grace.
Another noteworthy characteristic is that now St. Thomas
delays less over justifying the necessity of man's cooperation
than he did in the earlier works. Now he insists more on the
fact that cooperation itself is a gift from God. No human
preparation precedes the divine movement, it all comes from
God who moves the soul to good. Even the free movement of
Ibid., q. liS, a. S c.
Ibid., q. li2, a. 2 c.
98 Ibid., q. liS, aa. 1 and 7.

96

97

"(Generatio) est ex privatione ad formam." Ibid., a. 1 c.
Ibid., q. liS, a. 7.
101 Ibid., q. 112, a. 2 ad 2.
102 Ibid., q. 11S, a. S and a. 7 ad 1.
108 Ibid., aa. 4 and 5.
104 Ibid., a. 7 c.
105 Ibid., q. 112, a. 2 ad 2.
99

100

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MICHAEL G. LAWLER

the will by which man cooperates in the reception of sanctifying grace has God for its principal cause. If a disposition or
preparation is necessary, it is not in this sense that God cannot
act unless he finds it already accomplished but rather that he
causes it. 106 Preparation for grace is the work both of God and
of man. In the Commentarium in Sententias and De V eritate
it appears more as man's work; in the Summa Theologiae more
as God's.
Given this principal causality of God in the act of preparation for grace, there is no difficulty in reconciling the necessity
of preparation with the gratuity of justification. Is grace given
necessarily to him who does what he can? Not at all, if doing
what one can is considered as being from the free will. Certainly, if it is considered as being from God; for the intention of
God who moves the free will to preparation precisely that it
may be justified cannot not be fulfilled, non quidem coactionis
sed infallibilitatis/ 07 The gratuity of justification is assured by
the infallible intention of God relative to the individual, who is
justified by a particular decision of God and an interior action
in the will which cooperates.
In the corresponding article in the Commentarium in Sententias 108 St. Thomas had sought to give a different assurance
to this question. The man who prepares himself necessarily
receives grace, not of absolute necessity but hypothetical-ex
suppositione divini propositi 109 -inasmuch as God has willed
to give grace to each according to his capacity. Preparation on
man's necessarily results in the infusion of grace, which is
nevertheless a gratuitous gift of God because God in his
goodness has willed to give it to all who do what is in their
106 "Nulla
praeparatio requiritur ex parte hominis quasi praeveniens divinum
auxilium; sed potius quaecumque praeparatio in homine esse potest ex auxillio Dei
moventis animam ad bonum. Et secundum hoc ipse bonus motus liberi arbitrii quo
quis praeparatur ad donum gratiae suscipiendum est actus liberi arbitrii moti a
Deo." Ibid., q. 112, a. 2 c.; "Ad hoc quod Deus gratiam infundat animae, nulla
praeparatio exigitur quam ipse non facit." Ibid., ad 8.
107 Ibid., q. 112, a. 8 c.
108 IV Sent., d. 17, q. 1, a. 2 sol. 8.
109 Cf. pp. 608-609 supra.

GRACE AND FREE WILL IN JUSTIFICATION

621

power. Therefore, the gratuity of justification is assured by a
general decision of God, established once for all, to give grace
to all who do what they can to obtain it.
Everything, therefore, even the disposition to grace, depends
on God; justification is entirely gratuitous. There is no longer
any question of meriting grace, even de congruo, in any real
sense of the word. Merit de congruo which had been retained
at least verbally in the earlier works is now completely subordinated to merit de condigno. It depends entirely on sanctifying grace, insofar as
it seems convenient that God should reward according to his power
the man who does what lies in him.110

II. Perfect Preparation and the Infusion of Grace
A free act of faith and charity, we have seen, constitutes the
perfect preparation for grace. We must now consider what is
the principle of this act. Is it sanctifying grace itself, or is it
that divine movement of the will which St. Thomas calls
auxilium Dei moventis, and we actual grace? Both positions
have had their adherents m and both can be authorized by
texts from the Master. 112 Are we to conclude, then, that
Aquinas's position was fluid or was it perhaps more complex
than his commentators have realized?
In the Prima Secunda:e 113 St. Thomas enquires: Is the
infusion of grace first in the order of nature among the elements
which are required for the justification of the sinner? His
Summa Theol., I-II, q. 114, a. 3 c.; cf. aa. 5 and 6.
Cf. Bouillard, op. cit., pp. 5-6, 8, 12; Stufler, De Deo Operante, pp. 342ss.;
Boyer, Tractatus de Gratia Divina, pp. 383-386; John of St. Thomas, Cursus Theologicus, disp. 28, a. 2 n. 12; Suarez, De Gratia, 1. 8, c. 14, nn. 5-10.
112 i Perfect preparation
depends on habitual grace:
" Tota iustificatio impii originaliter consistit in gratiae infusione. Per earn
enim et liberum arbitrium movetur et culpa remittitur." Summa Theol.,
I-II, q. 113, a. 7.
"Ipsa igitur Dei moventis motio est gratiae infusio." Ibid., a. 8.
ii Perfect preparation depends on divine motion:
" Ita infundit donum gratiae iustificantis, quod etiam simul cum hoc movet
liberum arbitrium ad donum gratiae acceptandum. Ibid., q. 113, a. 3.
118 Ibid., q. 113, a. 8 corp. and ad 2.
110
111

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MICHAEL G. LAWLER

answer clarifies the question under consideration and so must
be given in full.
In the order of nature there is a priority among the elements
required for the justification of the sinner. First is the infusion of
grace, second the movement of the will towards God, third the
movement of the will away from sin, fourth the remission of sin.
The reason is this: in every movement, first is the action of the
mover, then the disposition of the matter or the movement of the
thing moved, and last the term of the movement. The action of
God-mover is the infusion of grace; the disposition or movement of
the thing moved is the double movement of the will; finally the
term of the movement is the remission of sin.
In the order of nature, the disposition of the subject precedes the
reception of the form, but it comes after the action of the agent
which disposes it. That is why in the order of nature the movement
of the free will precedes the reception of grace but follows the
infusion of grace.

The order of elements now given, infusion of grace, movement of the will towards God, movement of the will away from
sin, remission of sin, is precisely the one he had already rejected.114 Thomas now favors it, interpreting it in a different
way. The free act which is the perfect preparation is considered
less as a material disposition than as a movement having the
infusion of grace for its principle, the remission of sin for its
term. Sanctifying grace is considered less as a form than as
the action of God in the soul. The act of perfect preparation
proceeds from grace, no longer considered in its term of created
form-habit but in its source, divine action. The notion of
created form is subordinated to that of divine action, the
scheme of matter-form gives way to that of moved-mover.
From now on habitual grace and divine motion are correlatives, each having a role in the meritorious act. 115 Habitual
grace and the virtues which accompany it give the soul the
ability to accomplish supernatural acts and incline towards
them; divine motion moves it to actually accomplish them.
The habit is at once the formal and efficient cause of the
114
115

De Verit., q. 28, a. 8.
Cf. Bouillard, op. cit., pp. 158-164.

GRACE AND FREE WILL IN JUSTIFICATION

623

action, 116 but divine motion is the ultimate efficient cause because it determines the form to produce its act. Habitual grace
and divine motion are both indispensable to the birth of the
meritorious act 117 and so to the act of faith, charity, and
repentance which is the perfect preparation for grace.
The reciprocal implication of these two aspects of grace
explains why in the Summa Theologiae St. Thomas relates
merit to divine motion. He does not mean actual grace but
sanctifying grace considered as the action of God in the soul,
the notion of habit fading into the background. It will be
well to consider some examples.
The meritorious act can be considered in two ways: either as
proceeding from the free will or as proceeding from the grace of the
Holy Spirit. . . . If we consider it as proceeding from the grace
of the Holy Spirit, then it merits eternal life in strict justice. In
this case merit is evaluated according to the power of the Holy
Spirit who moves us to eternal salvation (secundum virtutem
Spiritus Sancti moventis nos in vitam aeternam) .118
Clearly the virtus Spiritus Sancti is identical with the virtus
gratia'e,119 the donum supernaturale quod gratia dicitur, 120 required for merit, which elsewhere is characterized as divine
motion.
Our act has the form of merit from a twofold source: first, from the
divine motion and in this way it merits ex condigno. . . . Each of
us is moved by God through the gift of grace that he may come to
eternal lifeY 1
The gift of final perserverance does not fall under merit because it
depends entirely on the divine motion which is the principle of all
merit. 122
116 " Relinquitur
igitur quod oporteat esse quemdam habitum caritatis in nobis
creatum, qui sit formale principium actus dilectionis. De Carit., a. 1.
" Habitus igitur sunt causae effectivae actuum." De Virt. in CIYI11!In., a. 12 ad 5.
117 Summa Theol., I-II, q. llO, a. 2.
118 Ibid., q. 114, a. 3.

Ibid., q. 109, a. 5.
Ibid., q. 114, a.
121 Ibid., a. 6.
'"" Ibid., a. 9.
119

120

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MICHAEL G. LAWLER

The grace by which God moves man to eternal life cannot be
other than sanctifying, habitual grace, for merit is impossible
without an infused habit to elevate the soul to the supernatural
order. If our good works have their value from a divine motion,
it can only be insofar as this implies habitual grace. Only in
this sense can the Holy Spirit move us to merit. 123
DISCOVERIES

In the course of our study we have noted a considerable
divergence betwen the earlier writings and the final synthesis
in this question of grace, free will, and justification. This
divergence bears mainly on three points: first, St. Thomas puts
in greater relief the divine initiative and the necessity of divine
help to prepare oneself for grace; second, he characterizes this
divine help as an immediate and interior motion of the will;
third, he subordinates the idea of sanctifying grace-habitus to
that of sanctifying grace-divine motion. In general we can say
that the cause of this evolution, traceable to the period of
his sojourn in Italy, is to be found in an increased aquaintance
with the biblical, patristic, and philosophic data which enabled
him to investigate the sources more fully. 124 We must now
enquire more specifically.
The decisive cause was, undoubtedly, the discovery of the
Semipelagian controversy. The theologians of the Middle Ages
knew the dispute about the initium fidei and used the writings
it provoked. Hincmar of Rheims, for example, who died in 882,
quotes the letter of Prosper of Aquitaine to Augustine exposing
the Semipelagian arguments and the latter's replies in the De
Praedestinatione Sanctorum and De Dono Perseverantiae. He
also knows the writings of Fulgentius on predestination, the
role of Caesar of Aries at the Second Council of Orange, and
the doctrine of the Council. 125 But the theologians of the
twelfth and thirteenth centuries were less well informed. The
Cf. Bouillard, op. cit., pp. 164-166.
Chenu, op. cit., p. 236.
125 Cf. Bouillard, op. cit., p. 92.
123

124

GRACE AND FREE WILL IN JUSTIFICATION

Lombard makes no mention of initium fidei. He does quote
from the De Praedestinatione Sanctorum a passage 126 which is
precisely a refutation of the Semipelagian position, as indeed
is the entire work, but he does not grasp the context. And as
his Sentences became the standard theological textbook, 127 subsequent theology and theologians suffered from his ignorance.
The treatises of Alexander of Hales, Albert the Great, Bonaventure, on grace, merit, faith, justification, will be searched in
vain for the characteristic terms " initium fidei" or " initium
salutis." The Semipelagian struggle might just as well never
have taken place.
How is this ignorance to be explained? Quite simply by the
method then in use. Texts were not as available as the advent
of printing was to make them and for the most part theologians
relied on the Florilegia, collections of the most important
scriptural and patristic texts and authorities grouped together
in treatise form. 128 There was no means available of relating
these texts to their context and, if difficultly arose, it was solved
by dialectic or distinction. Under such a procedure it was easy
to know doctrine without having any knowledge of its genesis.
That is why the Semipelagian controversy and the Council of
Orange were unknown to the thirteenth-century theologians.
St. Thomas was no exception to the general ignorance. His
treatment of the problem of the preparation for grace in the
early works indicates that he has no idea that the question has
already been discussed and the Church's position taken. He
affirms the necessity of preparation for grace in order to have a
reason on man's part why it is given to some and not to
others. 129 Man can prepare himself for grace by free will alone,
else there would be no meaning in the adagium: God gives
grace to him who does what he can. 130 He can prepare himself
II Sent., d. 28, c. 3.
Cf. Chenu, op. cit., pp. 226-229.
128 Cf. ibid., pp. 106-131; M. Grabmann,
Geschichte der Scholastischen Methode,
126

127

t. I, p. 184.
129 De Verit.,
q. 24, a. 15.
180 Ibid. Cf. II Sent., d. 28, q. l, a. 4.

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MICHAEL G. LAWLER

by natural acts and by his own power can posit an act of
faith. 131 Evidently Aquinas has no knowledge of the controversy in which Augustine taught that though man's assent of
faith to what the preacher says is free, it is nevertheless a
gift of God, 132 which requires an inspiration and illumination
from the Holy Ghost. 133 We have already pointed out 134 that,
in spite of appearances, St. Thomas does not fall into the
Semipelagian error. But it was not because he deliberately
avoided it. If such were the case, we could reasonably suppose
he would have taken greater care to avoid all possible ambiguity.
The first sign of aquaintance with Semipelagianism is found
in the third book of the Summa Contra Gentiles. Aquinas does
not, of course, employ the term " Semipelagian." 135 In fact,
he attributes the error to Pelagius. But what is important is
that the doctrine itself is well defined. The chapter on the
impossibility of meriting grace is to exclude the Pelagian error
that we have have merited the help that is given us and that
therefore the initiative in our justification is from ourselves, its
consummation from God. 136 Grace is established as the principle of faith against the error that the preliminaries in the act
of faith are from man, not from God. 131 The same teaching is
reiterated in the Scriptural commentaries 188 and again in the
Ill Sent., d.
q.
a. 1, qc. 1 ad 1.
De Praed. Sanct., c. 8, n. 7.
133 Council of Orange, can. 7, DB 180.
134 Cf. pp. 617-618 supra.
135 The initium fidei controversy was first characterized as " Semipelagian " in the
sixteenth century. Cf. M. Jacquin, "A Quelle Date Apparait le Terme 'Semipelagien '?," Rev. Sc. Phil. et Theol. (1907), pp. 506-8.
136 "Per
hoc excluditur error pelagianorum qui dicebant huiusmodi auxilium
propter merita nobis dari; et quod iustificationis nostrae initium ex nobis sit,
consummationis autem a Deo." Ill Cont. Gent., c. 149.
187 " Per hoc excluditur error Pelagianorum
qui dicebant quod initium fidei in
nobis non erat a Deo sed a nobis." Ibid., c.
138 II ad Cor., c. 8, lect. 1, commenting on the text:
"Non quod sufficientes
simus cogitare aliquid a nobis quasi ex nobis, sed sufficientia nostra ex Deo est."
ad Philipp., c. 1, lect. 1; commenting on the text: "Qui coepit in nobis opuE
bonum, ipse perficiet."
131

182

GRACE AND FREE WILL IN JUSTIFICATION

627

first part of the Summa Theologiae,139 indicating the importance which St. Thomas attached to it.
We can conclude, then, that when he wrote the third book of
the Contra Gentiles 140 St. Thomas had acquired a knowledge
of Semipelagianism which produced in him a change of attitude
towards preparation for grace. Now he emphasizes the divine
initiative; to prepare himself for grace man must first have the
help of grace. When it is a question of doing good, divine grace
precedes rather than follows as merit, the movement of the
free will. Our conversion to God is preceded by divine help
which converts us. The initium fidei is from God, not man. 141
From the foregoing it appears that the evolution in St.
Thomas's thought with respect to preparation for grace can
be attributed to the discovery of the Semipelagian controversy.
The question remains: how did he make this discovery? The
scope of this study does not permit a full discussion of this
question. Suffice it to say that the answer is twofold: a greater
familiarity with Christian sources, especially St. Augustine, and
philosophical reflection upon a principle provided by Aristotle.142 The first half of this answer we have already treated,
albeit summarily. The second requires a little explanation.
In his Commentarium in II Epistolam ad Corinthios, after
opposing the Semipelagian error to the doctrine of St. Paul, St.
Thomas adds a ratio accedens which he attributes to the Liber
de Bona Fortuna, but which is in reality a fragment of the
Eudemian Ethics. 143 Man does good because he has so decided;
this decision is from a principle superior to him moving him to
139
14

Summa Theol., I, q. :'l3, a. 5.

° Chenu, op. cit., p. £51, note 1, indicates that, when he left Paris for Italy in

l£59, St. Thomas had completed only up to Book Ill, chapter 45, of the Contra
Gentiles. Mandonnet, Destrez, Chenu, op. cit .. p. xiii, give the date of the completed
Contra Gentiles as 1£64, that is, during the first period (1259-1£69) in Italy. The
pauline commentaries and the Quodlibet I also belong to a period following this
Italian sojourn (cf. Chenu, op. cit., p. £11; Mandonnet, etc., op. cit., p. xv).
141 Contra Gentiles, III, 149.
142 For a full discussion, cf. Bouillard, op. cit., pp. 108-11!2.
14 3 Cf. T. Deman, " Le 'Liber de Bona Fortuna ' dans Ia Tll.eologie de S. Thomas
d'Acquin," Rev. Sc. Phil. Et Theol. (19£8), pp. 38-58.

628

MICHAEL G. LAWLER

act; this principle is God. 144 The same argument is repeated in
the Quodlibetum I with greater precision. It is not enough that
Providence provide for man exterior occasions of salvation,
preaching, good example, illness, and the like; God must
interiorly move him to accomplish good. 145
A greater knowledge of the Christian sources led Aquinas to
emphasize divine motion as preceding man's in preparation for
grace. Philosophic reflection led him to deduce this divine
motion as necessarily interior. Both contributed to his final
conclusion: no one can prepare himself for grace, or do the
least good, without the help of God/ 46 It has been noted that
the texts advanced to illustrate the divine motion are vague
or intellectualist. 147 Others explicitly place it in the will.148
Therefore the final conclusion is: no one can prepare himself
for grace or do the least good without being interiorly moved
to it by God.
In the articles just quoted, grace is called au.xilium divinum
or auxilium gratiae. In the Contra Gentiles these same terms
are applied to sanctifying grace, sometimes considered as a
habitus, more often as divine motion. Sanctifying grace is,
above all, the action of God leading man to his final end, which
is the vision of God. Man cannot attain this end without the
1 " " Hoc etiam Philosophus
vult quod numquam homo per liberum arbitrium
potest quoddam bonum facere sine adiutorio Dei . . . qui et homines movet et
omnia quae agunt. ... II ad COT., c. 3, lect. 1; cf. Summa Theol., I-II, q. 9, aa.
Lottin, op. cit., pp.
145 " Indiget
autem divino auxilio non solum quantum ad exteriora moventia,
prout scilicet ex divina providentia procuratur homini occasiones salutis, puta
praedicationes, exempla ... sed etiam quantum ad interiorem motum; prout Deus
cor hominis interius movet ad bonum." Quod I, a. 7.

106

Ibid.

Lonergan, op. cit., Vol. III, p. 539 note 48.
"'"" Relinquitur ergo, sicut concludit Aristoteles in cap. De Bona Fortuna, lib.
VII MOTal. ad Eudemum, quod id quod primo movet voluntatem et intellectum sit
aliquid supra voluntatem et intellectum, sci. Deus. Qui cum omnia movet secundum
rationem mobilium ... etiam voluntatem movet secundum eius conditionem, non
ut ex necessitate, sed ut indeterminate se habentem ad multa." Ds Malo, q. 6, a. 1;
"Necesse est ponere quod in primum motum voluntatis voluntas prodeat ex
instinctu alicuius exterioris moventis, ut Aristoteles concludit in quodam cap.
Ethic. Eudomicae, cap. XVIII, eire. princ. (a)." Summa Theol., I-II, q. 9, a. 4.
107

GRACE AND FREE WILL IN JUSTIFICATION

6'l9

help of God, 149 a help he can do nothing to merit. 150 This help
is not actual grace but sanctifying grace, for not only is it
gratis data, it is also gratum faciens.151 The idea of grace-habit,
therefore, is subordinated to that of grace-divine motion. What
is emphasized is the action of God in the soul, not the immanent form resulting from this action. In placing these two
ideas side by side St. Thomas was simply following in the footsteps of St. Albert, who sometimes conceived sanctifying grace
as a form, sometimes as the divine action in the soul. 152 Still,
we may ask what provoked this change of emphasis in St.
Thomas's thought.
The answer would seem to be that Aquinas realized more
and more that the notion of grace-habit did not fully satisfy
or explain the Biblical data on grace. In the Gospels and in
the epistles of St. Paul grace appears as the action of God in
the soul, and it is precisely in his Commentarium in Epistolam
ad Romanos that we see this Biblical notion effecting a change
in St. Thomas. The good works of a man can be considered
from two points of view: in their substance from which they
have nothing worthy of merit; or in their principle, divine
motion, from which they derive their merit. For they who act
by the Spirit of God are the sons of God; and if sons, heirs
also. 153 Evidently, the formula "ex impulsu Dei aguntur" is
imposed by Paul's " qui Spiritu Dei aguntur." St. Thomas is
led to conceive grace, the principle of merit, not as a permanent
habit informing the soul but as a divine action in the soul. He
was too attached to Aristotle to completely abandon the notion
of grace-form, but he subordinates it to grace-divine motion.
The years between the De V eritate and the Summa Theo""Ill Cont. Gent., c. 147.
150 Ibid., c. 149.
151 " Hoc auxilium dicitur gratia, non solum quia gratis data ... sed etiam quia
hoc auxilio homo ... redditur Deo gratus." Ibid., c. 150.
152 Cf. H. Doms, Die Gnadenlehre des Albertus Magnus, pp. 96-101.
153 "Alio modo possunt considerari secundum suum principium, prout scilicet ex
impulsu Dei aguntur ... et secundum hoc eis debetur merces praedicta secundum
debitum. Quia ut infra VIII, 14 dicitur: qui Spiritu Dei aguntur, his sunt filli Dei;
si autem filii et heredes." Ad Rom., c. 4, lect. 1.

630

MICHAEL G. LAWLER

logiae were fruitful in discovery and in new ideas. The discovery of Semipelagianism led to a greater emphasis on the
divine initiative in the preparation for grace. The discovery
of the Liber de Bona Fortuna indicated this initiative as necessarily interior in the will. And finally, following Holy Writ,
the idea of grace-habitus was subordinated to that of gracedivine motion. 154 The final synthesis was accomplished.
CoNCLUSION

An historical study reveals to what extent theology is bound
to time. It spotlights what is contingent in it and what is
relative, it traces the origins and evolution of the problems and
indicates how important truths are temporarily obscured only
to emerge again. In our study we have noted how St. Thomas
differs from modern theologians in his concept and his manner
of confronting the problems, how his theology depends on its
time, its milieu, and the tendencies of its author, and especially
how it is bound to Aristotelian categories. Touching, however
lightly, on his predecessors, we have been able to follow the
origin and evolution of the problem under review, and from thl'
mass of relative and contingent explanations have been able
to separate the constant, fundamental affirmation: justification is a gift of God. It is by grace that man is freed from sin
and enabled to do good.
Historical theology, therefore, does not lead to relativism.
True, it establishes that concepts and systems are relative, but
it also establishes the permanence of divine truth. It enables
us to seize the absolute among the relatives, an absolute not of
representation but of affirmation. Whoever wishes to seize this
absolute, to understand theology as an ever vital, personal
knowledge of divine mystery, must perforce have recourse to
history.
MICHAEL

Creighton University
Omaha, Nebraska
'"• Cf. Bouillard, op. cit., p. 140.

G. LAWLER

OF GOD AND MAN: CONSEQUENCES
ABELARD'S ETHIC

OF

E

THICS IS A suitable starting-point for investigating
the interrelationship between God and man in Peter
Abelard. Ethics must attempt to determine man's
moral responsibility, and this responsibility must entail a
certain autonomy on man's part. Autonomy means that man
has an authentic role in determining his actions and the moral
quality o£ his actions according to a consistent structure. This
raises the question, however, in a Christian context, about the
relationship between man's autonomy and God's autonomy.
How does man's activity fit into God's activity in the world?
How does man's determination o£ the good relate to God's
ultimate determination of the good? Does God's ultimate
autonomy leave room for man? Finally, does man's autonomy
restrict the autonomy of God?

I
THE TEACHING OF THE Ethica

The Ethica of Peter Abelard demonstrates a considerable
autonomy on man's part. The act of consent or intention holds
a primacy over all man's activity. Among all the psychological
and moral elements of man, pleasure, passion, habit, will, and
consent, only consent has moral meaning and brings that moral
meaning into the other elements of man. Furthermore, only
consent bestows moral significance on the external factors o£ the
human act and law. Thus, the act of consent or intention is
crucially determinative and fixes to a great extent the autonomy of man. This autonomy is further confirmed by Abelard's
insistence on the justice owed to man in terms of merit or
recompense. From the Ethica emerges a self-consistent explication of the moral reality o£ man.

631

632

FRANK DE SIANO

I. Psychological Elements of Man

In the Ethica, without a great attempt at systematic presentation, Abelard is at pains to distinguish vice (along with
virtue), will (whether bad or good), consent, and the external
act; 1 he does not want these confused with each other. Indeed,
he must differentiate the psychological elements of man in
order to sustain his argument. For temptation consists in
suggestion, pleasure, and also, perhaps, consent; sin, on the
other hand, consists in consent alone. 2 The task is to explicate
these various levels of human behavior so that consent can be
accurately pinpointed.
Pleasure (delectatio) is a necessity for human functioning;
it is a good, bestowed by the Creator. 3 Thus, no natural
pleasure can be called sinful or make a person guilty; pleasures
are necessary in human sensation. 4 But pleasure is not an
unqualified good; for consent to pleasure may be sinful. 5 It
can be concluded, therefore, that pleasure is itself ambivalent
and can be used both well and evilly. This conclusion is tersely
asserted by Abelard when he distinguishes between general love
of the flesh, which is necessary, and crass lusts (voluptatibus) .
So he states: "We ought not to be enemies of nature, but
rather enemies of vices." 6
Passions (passiones) indicate a moral ambivalence of will or
whim, as pleasure indicates a moral ambivalence of bodily feeling. Passion is a suffering which arises against what one
spontaneously wishes to do; it is a tolerance of a situation,
despite the evil or suffering involved, for the accomplishment
of an end. 7 Passions are contrary to natural impulse; as such,
1 Petri Abaelardi, Opera Omnia, ed. J.-P. Migne, vol. 178 in Patrologice Latinae
(Paris, 1855, reprinted Turnhout, Belgium, 1967), abbreviated as PL 178, col. 6450.
• PL 178, col. 646B-C.
8 Ibid., col. 640C.
• Ibid., col. 641.B.
• Ibid., col. 646A.
• Ibid., col. 958A.
7 R. Bloome, "A Propos
de !a Definition du Peche chez Pierre Abelard,"
Epremerides Theologicae Lovanieneses, 88 (1957), pp.

OF GOD AND MEN:

CONSEQUENCES

OF ABELARD's

ETHIC

638

there is always some aspect of violence about them. 8 One is
forced, in a situation of passion, to want something unjust to
happen; or else one is forced to want something just not to
happen. An example of passion is martyrdom: we tolerate
the suffering of the saints for the goodness of their act.Q
Another example is the situation of a man who wishes to
fornicate with a woman who is married; he must tolerate the
sin of adultery, which he does not wish, for the sake of his
fornication, which he does want. 10 Similarly, a man will tolerate the substitution of his son for himself in fulfilling a prison
sentence. 11 Because passion will not be present at the resurrection of the body, passion is not a necessary constituent of
man. 12
Habits (habitus) are regular, residual patterns of action
(mores) that have greater permanence than other ephemeral
dispositions (dispositiones) of men. 13 They are parallel to
knowledge (scientia) in the intellectual sphere and can be
described as scientia agendi. 14 Abelard cites Boethius's statement that one act of adultery does not make an adulterer, nor
one just act a just man. 15 By definition, habits are ambivalent:
they can be good or bad, in which case they are called " virtue "
and "vice" respectively. 16 In this way, a virtue is defined
• PL 178, vol. 806C.
• Ibid., 951A.
10 Ibid., 639D.
11 Ibid., 637C.
12 Ibid., 1664B-C.
13 Peter Abaelard, Philosophische Scriften, ed. and intro. by Dr. B. Geyer, in
BeitriigB zur Geschichte der Philosophie und Theologie des Mittelalters, ll1
(Munich, 1919-1933) in the "Logica ' lngredientibus,' " p. 227: " Differentiam
assignat inter habitum et dispositionem, quod videlicet habitus non facile movetur
sicut dispositio. Quod autem ait: permanentior et diuturnior, ... " Hereafter,
this work will be abbreviated by Geyer, LI. The work also contains Abelard's
"Logica 'Nostrorum Petitioni'" and will be referred to as Geyer, LNP. Cf. also
PL 178, col. 1651C.
14 Geyer, LI, p. 227; Geyer, LNP, p. 505:
"Scientia alia enim agendi, alia
discernendi. . . ."
15 Boethius, Lib. de Divis., PL 64, col. ll42:
"Neque enim qui semel iuste
iudicat, iustus est neque qui semel adulterium facit, adulter est . . .'' PL 178,
col. 1652A.
16 PL 178, col. 633D, 1642A.

634

FRANK DE SIANO

as "a spirit's best habit"; and a vice as "a spirit's worst
habit." 17 In some of Abelard's writings habits appear to be
open for more definite specification as good or bad-for if a
habit, such as prudence, can be used both for good and bad, it
cannot be called a virtue. 18 This is so because habits entail a.
note of zealous application which is not present in either
pleasure or passion. Thus, if a virtue comes easily, it is not a
virtue. 19 Unfortunately, Abelard does not develop vice in the
same way. Despite the later specification of habits as definitively good or bad, in the Ethica they have only the function of
making man prone to good or bad acts 20 and, as such, much be
differentiated from the central moral act itself. 21 In the Ethica
Abelard resists the tendency to make virtue and its practice the
ultimate end of man, that by which he is happy; 22 thus, habits
are ambivalent and must be distinguished from the core of
moral activity.
Will (voluntas) must be carefully approached in the Ethica.
It has none of the modern characteristics of will in the sense of
a clear, conscious directing of oneself. Will seems to mean the
same as concuspicence, 23 although concupiscence itself can be
seen as consequent upon will. 24 Because "will" is almost
synonymous with " desire," 25 few sins can be called " voluntary" since there are always displeasing aspects to sin. 26
With this understanding of will, Abelard can affirm that some17 Ibid., 178, col. 1651C for definitions of virtues and vices; and col. 895D for
definition of virtue.
18 Ibid., col. 1652B-C.
19 Ibid., col. 1651C-D.
20 Ibid., col. 633D, for example.
21 Ibid., col. 645D.
29 Cf. ibid., col. 1642D-43A; 1641D-42A.
This is a development for which Abelard
is dependent on philosophical influences. So 0. Lottin, Psychologie et Morale aux
Xlle et XIIIe Siecles, Tom. 3A, (Gembloux, 1949), p. 103 says, "Nous sommes
ici sur un terrain purement philosophique."
23 PL 178, col. 639A.
2 • Ibid., col. 648D:
" non enim concupiscere vel desiderare aliquid nisi volendo
possumus .... "
25 Ibid., 639 B.
28 Ibid., col. 639D.

OF GOD AND MEN:

CONSEQUENCES

OF ABELARD's

ETHIC

635

one might sin without any bad will at all; 27 this is precisely
because the will, as such, in not sinful. 28 In the Ethica there
is an evolution of terminology about the wilJ.29 For example,
in his Commentary on the Epistle to the Romans, "volo"
means " approbo " which is equivalent to " consenting through
reason." 30 But Abelard's attempt, in the Ethica, to distinguish
bad will from sin forces him to use " will " in the sense of
spontaneous movement or desire. 31 In order to clarify the
imputability of guilt, Abelard puts rigor into his concepts,
maintaining consent as alone constitutive of sin and relegating
concupiscence and bad will to lower psychological roles. 32
Although in places the terminology appears to regress (e. g.,
Abelard uses the phrase " voluntatem vel consensum " as if
they were synonymous and parallels " velle " and " voluntatem
implere" with "peccare" and "peccatum perficere ") ,33 generally in the Ethica " will " means a desire, usually spontaneous,
based on what is pleasing or not, or on what one would like
to do or not. Abelard's point comes down to saying this: the
desire to rob is not the same as the consent to rob.
Pleasure, passion, habit, will: all these are only constituents
of a moral act; of themselves, they possess no strict moral
quality. They can be either good or bad, depending on a more
fundamental act by which one becomes either innocent or
guilty. That central act is the act of consent.

Consent: The Center of Moral Act
After meticulously distinguishing consent from all other
facets of human behavior, Abelard makes consent the fundamental descision of man in terms of good and bad. Consent
is more important than will, because one can consent to what
he does not will or
It arises from and determines will
in a direction; it precedes action; but consent is neither will or
Ibid., col. 636C.
Ibid., col. 638A.
•• R. Bloorne, art. cit., p. 341.
ao PL 178, col. 894AB.
27

28

Bloorne, art. cit., pp. 332-333.
Ibid., p. 339.
33 PL 178, col. 643A, 645C.
•• Ibid., col. 640A.
31

32

636

FRANK DE SIANO

action. 35 Sin is, strictly speaking, consent; when consent is
absent, there is no sin. 36 Abelard uses "intentio" and "animus" as synonyms for consent. Negatively, consent means one
does not hold oneself back; 37 positively, consent is an assent. 38
But consent obviously is the core of man's moral determination; it runs through and beyond all the other elements of
man's psychology and directs them well or evilly. I£ consent
can be erroneous,S 9 or deceived, 40 it still remains absolutely
determinative of moral quality.
Consent has a twofold basis. First, consent belongs only to
the soul because reason and knowing (ratio and notitia) reside
in the soul; 41 accordingly, it is impossible to sin in ignorance. 42
Secondly, belief is also a basis of consent; when one sins, he
acts against what he believes should be done. 43 And, following
on this, one can in no way go wrong if one believes he is
pleasing God. 44
Abelard has affirmed consent as man's morally crucial act.
Man seems quite passive in all of this: he reacts to drives
and movements within him and either consents or refuses to
consent to these drives and movements, in this way bestowing
on them moral imputability. "Intention" is used interchangeably with " consent " and seems to indicate a more active
quality to man's moral activity. But whether one speaks of
consent or intention, one has narrowed and defined moral activity so that it is clearly and decisively in man's control. Through
consent or intention, man does good or evil and makes aspects
about himself good or evil. Man's moral autonomy has a firm
foundation in Abelard's precise notion of consent.
Ibid., col. 642BC.
Ibid., col. 636A and 639B.
37 Ibid., col. 639B.
38 Ibid., col. 646A.
39 Ibid., col. 653A: "erronea est eorum intentio .... "
•• Ibid., col. 1619BC.
" Ibid., col. 648C.
49 Ibid., col. 653C.
•• Ibid., col. 636B.
.. Ibid., col. 653B.

35
36

OF GOD AND MEN:

CONSEQUENCES

OF ABELARD's

ETHIC

637

3. The Primacy of Interior Act

In Abelard's thought, the act of consent or intention enjoys
a primacy over external acts. Exterior acts (opera, operatio)
are sharply distinguished, indeed, almost opposed, to consent.
Because all sins are of the soul/ 5 morality must reside in the
intention rather than in the exterior act. 46 Thus, God weighs
the animum and not the actionem. 47 The intention is so primary that it renders inconsequential one's state in life. For
example, if a layman and a monk were to fornicate, the layman's sin would be as great as the monk's if he would sin even
if he were a monk. 48 Indeed, the internal state of a person
determines his morality more than any external work he might
perform. If a person's conscience, for example, dictates something as wrong, even though it is not wrong, he still stands
judged in terms of his conscience because he believes it to be
wrong. 49
There are two reasons for Abelard's position, one practical,
the other theoretical. On a practical level, often an intention is
formed but the deed, for one reason or another, cannot be
carried out; 50 on a theoretical level, the intention forms the
essential moral quality which lies behind and informs the work.
The intention functions like an id quo: it makes the reality
to be what it is; the work itself is only the id quod. Between
the two, the id quo has the priority. 51 The good intention is
good in se; the external act is good only ex intentione. 52 Thus,
morality is not concerned with whether an act is good or not
•• Ibid., col. 648C.
•• Ibid., col. 644A.
47 Ibid., col. 638D:
" cum ipse animum potius quam actionem in remuneratione
penset, nee quidquam ad meritum actio addat sive de bona sive de mala voluntate
prodeat, sicut postmodum ostendemus."
•• Ibid., col. 649D-650A.
•• Ibid., col. 959A.
50 Ibid., col. SOQA where Satan
and Simon Magus are presented as damned
although they did not accomplish their intention.
51 Ibid., col. 650BC.
•• Ibid., col. 65QC.

638

FRANK DE SIANO

(bonum or malum) but rather whether an act was done well
or not (bene or male) ,53
If deeds can be bad or good only according to the intention, 54
then deeds themselves are indifferent. 55 The same act can be
done for a variety of motives. For example, two men can
execute another; one man does it because of his earnestness for
justice, the other out of hate for an enemy. 56 Again, someone
can speak words which are only accidentally true; his actual
intention could be to lie, in which case his words do not really
signify his true inner state. 57 The external act, in this line of
reasoning, has been severed from its formal principle. It is
indifferent, material without form, open to diverse meaning and
intention. It is almost completely devaluated. Since there is,
for example, only the essential goodness which informs an
externally good act (the good intention), then increasing external acts does not add to or affect that essential goodness.
The number of concrete instances of an intention does not
affect the goodness or badness of the act. 58 There is a cleavage
between the interior and exterior aspects of human behavior,
and this cleavage can be used in two ways. First, the external
act can recede to such insignificance that it makes no difference whether it is done or not. Thus, if two men decide to build
an almshouse and one is prevented from building because he
is robbed, nevertheless his good intention is not lost because of
the violence he incurred. 59 Second, if the intention can be
viewed apart from the external act, the external act can be
viewed apart from the intention. Thus, the Jews who crucified
Christ sinned only in operatione but not in intentione. 60 In
fact, they would have sinned more in not killing Jesus because
they would be violating their conscience. 61
Ibid., col. 650B; also 1677C.
Ibid., col. 1676AB; also 1652B.
55 Ibid., col. 650B.
56 Ibid., col. 644B, col. 1676D, and Geyer, LI, pp. 168-164.
57 Ibid., col. 910B.
58 Ibid., col. 652BC.
•• Ibid., col. 651A.
60 Ibid., col. 656B.
61 Ibid., col. 657D.
53

54

OF GOD AND MEN:

CONSEQUENCES

OF ABELARD's

ETHIC

639

To summarize the place of external acts in Abelard's
thought, it can be asserted that the external act is consequent
upon the internal act and extrinsic to its moral value. The
external act may or may not bear the meaning of the internal
act; if it has moral meaning, it has it only by virtue of that
internal act.
What must be noted here is that in both the internal, psychological constituents of human activity and the external constituents of human activity there is, in Abelard's thought,
ambivalence. Abelard has consistently nwved to the act of
consent or intention to resolve that ambivalende. All human
reality is a field for the activity of man's moral judging, a field
which has to be given moral meaning through the central, interior, and essential act of consent. Thus, this interior act of
man is the element which gives coherent moral meaning to
man's world. Man is central; he makes the good or the evil.
He is, thus far, morally autonomous.
The internal act also gives meaning to man's observance of
law. Abelard is hardly a subjectivist because law does properly
teach and prohibit; nevertheless, law must extend to man's
dispositions and acts of consent and cannot merely content
itself by regulating external behavior. 62 In presenting the laws
of the Old Testament Abelard is quite traditional. However,
he is careful to point out internal dispositions called for in the
observance of law; thus, one can murder both in deed and in
will.63 His sound condemnation of homosexuality testifies to his
objective approach to law. 64 Indeed, law is capable of justifying if there is love and will (voluntas) present in man's observance of law; fulfillment of law lies in the voluntas. 65 From
this, however, arises Abelard's persistent criticism of the law
of the Old Testament. It never reaches to or motivates the
interior of man. Rather, its motivation is fear, earthly desires,
•• Ibid., 643A.
•• Ibid., col. 807AB, col. 947CD-948CD.
•• Ibid., col. 764C.
65 Ibid., col. 814C. Note here that "voluntas"
is used in a different sense than
that employed in the Ethica.

640

FRANK DE SIANO

and earthly gains. 66 It caused the Jews to pay more attention
to works rather than the dispositions behind the works, the
quae fiunt, not the quo animo fiant. 67 It remained basically on
the level of external purity and never quite reached the level
of purity for the soul. 68 Finally, the law gave the Jews a false
sense of pride, making them secure in the idea of their obedience to it. 69
The law was a great dispensation to the crude Jewish
people/ 0 and there was a possibility that it might lead them to
an interiorization of its values as they morally developed. 71
But the Jews used it badly; its useful and health-bestowing
intention was frustrated. The motivational failure of the Old
Covenant law, however, remains as Abelard's sharpest objection; only Christ, the consummation of the law, 72 could give
mankind the proper example of universal love which the
prophets and laws of the Old Testament could not supply. 73
This, despite the possibility of love and moral meaning within
the law, remains Abelard's final judgment. 74
I£ there is moral and formative value to the law, it still
maintains that ambivalent character so characteristic of Abelard. Temporally prior to the internal act, law has moral
meaning only when informed by an act of consent or intention.
While it appears difficult to accuse Abelard of excessive subjectivism, nevertheless it remains clear that man's moral act
of consent or intention is primary before all.
The primacy of the interior act of consent rests on a conceptual pattern that is present in much of Abelard's writings.
With the help of some examples of this type of logic Abelard's
•• Ibid., col. 722B, 883C.
67 Ibid., col. 801BC:
"non tam attendant quae fiunt quam animo fiant" describes
the Christian view of the law, as opposed to the Jews'.
68 Ibid., col. 1633B.
•• Ibid., col. 889C.
70 Ibid., col. 890B:
" magnae dispensatio providentiae .... "
71 Ibid., col. 1616B.
79 Ibid., col. 884C:
" Christus, qui est finis et consummatio legis .... "
78 Ibid., col. 890C-89IA.
"Ibid., col. 1624B, 1627BC.

OF GOD AND MEN:

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641

conceptual pattern can be clearly outlined. With reference to
God's decrees, God may at times appear to change them.
Actually, God's ultimate consilium remains fixed, though his
particular sententia may be changed. 75 Churchmen use both
words and works; at times it is necessary only to listen to what
they say and to disregard what they actually do. 76 In reading
Scripture there are both in the bare words and the sense o£
the words; anyone can hear the words, but the Holy Spirit
must give us the sense o£ the words. 77 Two elements are
involved in martyrdom, the actual dying and the cause £or
dying; only the cause makes the martyr. 78 In preaching, there
is involved the word of Christ bringing faith through our own
words; but our words do not bring £aith. 79 In creation, God
is motivated by the general good itsel£ before he looks to
specific individual goods. 80 So when we praise God, we praise
him £or himself and not £or the works he has done. 81 Again,
there are two aspects to death, death o£ the body and death o£
the spirit. 82 In anthropology, concerning the body and the soul,
does the body add anything to the soul? 83 Likewise, the combination o£ divinity and humanity in Christ is not better than
God himself £rom whom all goodness comes. 84 Perhaps the
prime analogue £or this theoretical pattern is £rom grammar:
the same word can be used with different meanings and the
same meaning can be expressed through different words; the
solution is to find the meaning. 85
In every one o£ these instances, two elements are present:
one element always gives meaning and intelligibility; the other,
Ibid., col. 655C.
Ibid., col. 671C.
77 Ibid., col. 514A.
78 Ibid., col. 903B:
" martyrem non facit poena, sed causa .... "
79 Ibid., col. 926-927.
80 Ibid., col. 1323D.
81 Ibid., col. 937D-938A.
82 Ibid., col. 877C.
83 Ibid., col. 65ID:
" licet ad dignitatem vel meritum animae bonitas corporis
75
76

nihil referat."
•• Ibid., col. 65ID.
•• Ibid., col. 1339B.

642

FRANK DE SIANO

whether singular or plural, receives its meaning from the first
element. The second element is depicted as indifferent, or as a
manifestation of the primary element. To claim something is
indifferent, however, is to claim that it is in need of meaning.
And to present something as a manifestation of something else
is to present it as contributing little to what is being manifested. Thus all ambivalent situations receive meaning from
an underlying and interior form or intention. Abelard consistently moves to this interior meaning in solving problems or
in offering explanations: it is his constant theoretical pattern.
4. Conflict in the" Ethica ": the Autonomy of God and Man

Man's autonomy receives confirmation in Abelard's thought
by his insistence on just recompense for man's moral acts. But
recompense also brings to light a determination outside o£
man's activity. God judges the intention for reward. In fact,
the justice of God is precisely his remuneration of reward or
punishment for the elect or reprobate. 86 Because of the
cleavage between the interior and exterior act, only God can
judge moral worth, for he alone can probe the internal act. 87
In this first clear confrontation between God and man's autonomy Abelard works to secure man's autonomy. First,
Abelard roots merit squarely on the basis of man's responsibility. External acts are indifferent and cannot be a basis o£
merit. 88 Because deeds can be in discrepancy with intentions,
only intentions gain merit. 89 Second, Abelard establishes merit
on clear grounds of justice. If one argues that there is only one
fundamental act of love which lies behind all other virtues, and
therefore all men are equally rewarded because of this act of
love one either has or not, Abelard will sharply rejoin. 90 Individuals have different degrees of love and virtue. Some people
Ibid., col. SOIA.
A constant theme of Abelard.
1346BC.
88 Ibid., col. 1676AB.
89 Ibid., col. 644A.
90 Ibid., col. 1647D-1648A.
86

87

Ibid., col. 648D, 649A, 489C, 810A, 959B,

OF GOD AND MEN:

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have wills more evil than others, and the degree of one's intention determines the recompense he will receive according to the
quality of virtue or vice in one's acts. 91 Finally, Abelard's
doctrine of penance secures man's autonomy. Penance is the
counter-movement to contempt, inspired by our love for God. 92
Love and contempt are mutually exclusive, 93 and Abelard attempts to make penance as pure as possible, as selfless as
possible. Penance should spring from love rather than fear. 94
The reversal of contempt is only half of the problem, however;
recompense must be removed too. Sins are forgiven by God
when he removes the punishment owed for them. 95 Penance
makes us worthy of forgiveness, which is to say that damnation
is not owed to a person anymore. 96 It is clear that God inspires
repentance, but this remains on the motivational plane. Man is
inspired so that he can repent. Man keeps his role. This is
corroborated by the security that comes from repentance. If
God finds no sin, he finds no grounds for damnation. So
penance, which drives out all contempt-since they are mutually exclusive-means
that salvation is necessary for the
penitent. 99 God is needed primarily to remove the very element beyond man's control, the recompense.
The self-consistent pattern of man's moral autonomy is set.
Man acts in terms of lower psychological elements and infuses
moral meaning in them by his act of consent. This act of
consent also bestows meaning on man's external act and on his
observance of law. He is rewarded in justice for his activity.
If man sins, he reverses his act of contempt by an act of love;
God, finding no contempt present, finds no cause for damnation
either.
Original sin, however, disturbs this self-consistent pattern.
The sin involved in original sin is not strictly sin (culpa) but
rather only the penalty for sin (poena); this explains how
Ibid., col. 1648C-I649C.
Ibid., col. 664C.
93 Ibid., col. 665C.
94 Ibid., col. 668D.

Ibid., col. 1684B.
Ibid., col. 666B.
97 Ibid., col. 665D.

91

95

92

96

644

FRANK DE SIANO

David can be said to have been born in sin. 98 Children are
born under this penalty of sin despite their lack of any owed
recompense for good or evil done by them. 99 How is Abelard to
solve this problem, a problem which directly attacks the autonomy of man's moral life and the consistency of Abelard's
teaching? For here is clearly a determination absolutely beyond man's act of consent or intention. What does Abelard
do with it?
Abelard proceeds to an interior principle to solve his problem:
the will of God. With reference to Adam's sin, although it was
" most slight," his transgression redounds to the rest of his
posterity so God could give us a lesson about how he would
treat even greater faults. 100 Here the intention of the Lord
overrides all consideration of justice and equal recompense for
moral acts. Children are saved without merit, so likewise this
permits them to be damned without merit too. 101 It can be
quite properly claimed that this is not a doctrine of sin but a
doctrine of collective punishment; perhaps the germinal reason
for this is an overly stressed identification of concupiscence
with birth. 102
If Abelard's thought about original sin rests on the double
sense of sin as fault and penalty, he develops analogous conclusions by working out the double sense of sin as fault and mistake to explain the fate of those who reject Christ out of
ignorance. For those who crucified Christ and those who have
not heard of the Gospel have ignorance as their quite legitimate
excuse. 103 But the Jews received at least temporal punishment,'04 while those who do not accept the Gospel are punished
with damnation. 105 Baptism, once it has been commanded, canIbid., col. 64ID: "a qua jam poenam contrahit, etsi non culpam .... "
Ibid., col. 866D. Also col. 64IC-642A.
100 Ibid., col. 662B.
101 Ibid., col. 655D.
100 J. Gross, "Abiilards Umdeutung des Erbsiindendogmas," Zeitschrift fiir
Religions-und Geistesgeschichte, 15 (1963), p. 21, 25. Gross sees an Augustinian
influence here.
103 PL 178, col. 655D-656A.
Also 657C.
10 ' Ibid., col. 655D-656A; also 657C.
100 Ibid., col. 656A.
98

99

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not be dispensed with: no one is saved without the sacrament.106 In order not to rely too exclusively on the sacrament
alone (an external reality), Abelard affirms that love (an
internal reality) must be present with the sacrament. Baptized
children who die before the age of reason receive love on
entrance into heaven; those who have love but not the sacrament will lose their love and despair before they die; those who
have neither love nor the sacrament are damned. 107 Recompense according to intention has lost much of its meaning and
Abelard is in quite a difficult position. His only solution is the
will of God. God disposes all things according to his most
profound plan. 108 So, for example, because all things happen
for the best in God's plan, this unmerited punishment for unbaptized babies is actually the " slightest punishment " because
God foresaw more terrible things that the child would have
done if it had been allowed to live; after all, God's will is the
basis for distinguishing good from eviJ.1°9
Abelard has solved the problem arising from the theological
datum of original sin by absolute recourse to God's will. The
ambiguity of the situation, namely, whether for innocent
people to be damned was good or not, has been resolved in
terms of God's absolute autonomy. And his autonomy has
ruptured, in effect, all the autonomy Abelard had claimed for
man.

II
THE AuTONOMY

OF GoD AND THE AuTONOMY

oF MAN

Investigation into the Ethica has shown that in Abelard's
thought man enjoys moral autonomy in the sense that his act
of consent establishes the goodness or badness of his acts; for
106 Ibid., col. 838A:
"fixam Domini sententiam de baptismo . . ." And col.
654A: " solummodo per sacramenta salvantur."
107 Ibid.,
col. 838A-C. A. Landgraff, " Studien Zur Theologie Des Zwolften
I. Nominalismus in den Theologischen Werken der Zweiten Halfte
Jarhunderts:
des Zwolften Jarhunderts," Traditio, I (1943), p. 217 traces this theme into
Robertus Pullus's work.
103 PL 178, col. 656D:
" profundissimo dispensationis suae consilio .... "
109 Ibid., col. 870; and col. 869.

646

FRANK DE SIANO

without his consent, all is indifferent. Man's autonomy, furthermore, is confirmed in that he receives merit strictly according to the quality of his moral act. Yet, because of original
sin and other theological data, God's will must intervene to
resolve certain inconsistencies in man's moral life. Thus, God
makes all good by bringing all events into his design and
informing all indifferent reality with his good will. God enjoys
an ultimate autonomy, then, into which man's moral autonomy
must fit. The task now is to expand the study to all of Abelard's thought and discover his fundamental perspective on the
problem.
1. The Autonomy and Will of God

Both with reference to himself and with reference to the
world, God's will is good. But, with reference to himself, it
is a necessary will. God can do what he does only as he does it;
he can only do what is good, and so he can do nothing which is
not good for him to do. 110 There are three reasons for this. In
the first place, God is rational. He would be irrational if he
saw that there was something good to be done and did not do
it. 111 Second, God is the perfect substance, in need of no other
thing. 112 Therefore, he is an unchanging norm always faithful
to himself; any change man experiences must come from
creatures and not from God. 113 Because of this substantial
quality, there can be no question of God's having to choose
among particulars. In the third place, God's will, power, and
necessity are all interrelated. 114 As J. G. Sikes says,
Ibid., col. 1096A.
Ibid., col. 1324CD.
112 PL 178, col. 1235CD:
110

111

" His itaque rationibus patet divinarn substantiarn
ornnino individuarn, ornnino inforrnern perservare, atque ideo earn recte perfectum
bonum dici, et nulla alia re ingens, sed a seipso habens, non aliunde quod habet
accipiens. Creaturae autern quanturnlibet bonae, adjunctione egent alterius, ex qua
quidern indigentia irnperfectionern suarn profitentur."
113 Geyer, Ll, p. 428.
114 PL 178, col. 1099C:
"manifeste ita ejus potestatem et voluntatern consociant .
. ." And also col. llOlC: "Hie enirn quaedarn naturae vel bonitatis ejus
neceBsitas ab ejus voluntate non est. separata."

OF GOD AND MEN:

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Abailard, however, mainly as the result of his own inability to
distinguish adequately between God's will and his power, placed
unwarrantable restrictions upon the power of God. Anxious to
preserve intact both the rationality and the absolute goodness of
everything that God accomplishes, he denies that God can act in
any other way than he actually does.115
Abelard is concerned with God's necessary goodness because
God is the ultimate resolution of all the moral indifference in
the world. He must be necessarily good if the goodness of the
world is to be sustained. This, however, does not mean that
there is only necessity in the world; God is not dictating all the
events that happen. In fact, with reference to the world, God's
will appears to be capricious.
There are two reasons for this apparent capriciousness. In
the first place, God's will is the ultimate basis of what is called
" good." One may talk of a " good vice " or may even make an
assertion such as "it is good that there is evil "-although one
may never assert that "an evil is good." 116 Abelard attempts
to define the good by assigning a functional meaning to the
word. Something may be called " good " when it is fit for some
sort of use and when it does not impede the suitability or
dignity of anything else. 117 Conversely, something may be designated "evil" when some suitability or dignity is missing;
the evil thing has hindered and blocked the quality of something
else. 118 An indifferent thing, then, is something which is neither
good or bad; nothing is impeded or detracted from as a result
of its existence. 119 The only difference between the concepts of
115

J. G. Sikes, Peter Abailard (New York, 1965, first published at Cambridge,
p.

cf. also pp.

for further criticism of Abelard on this matter.

PL 178, col. 1675CD.
117 Ibid., col. 1676A: "Quantum
tamen mihi nunc occurrit, bonum simpliciter id

116

est bonam rem dici arbitror, quae cum alicui use sit apta, nullius commodum vel
dignitatem per earn impediri necesse est."
118 E. Buytaert,
"Abelard's Collationes," Antoninum, 44 (1969) cites this definition; he suggests the following emmendation to line 8 of col. 1676 (although he
erroneously writes col. 1675) in PL 178: "E contrario malam rem vocari credo
per quam alterum horum conferri necesse est." This statement is present in another
manuscript.
119 PL 178, col. 1676A: "Indifferens
vero, id est rem, quae neque bona est, neque

648

FRANK DE SIANO

" good " and " indifferent " is that of use: a good thing is " fit
for some sort of use." An indifferent thing must be put to some
sort of use if it is to be called " good." But to talk about the
idea of " good " in terms of use is to presume that there is a
user; something must be appropriated in a context of use. Man
may use something well or badly; when he does, a thing is
called either " good " or " bad." Hence, the priority of consent
in the Ethica. God, however, determines the ultimate goodness
of reality because something is ultimately good when it fulfills
the disposition or arrangement of God-although that disposition remains hidden from us. 120 God resolves the ambiguity
and indifference of reality; his will is the only norm for distinguishing good from evil. Reality has meaning only insofar
as it fits into God's design; just as man's consent makes moral
meaning, so God's design gives moral quality to reality which is
otherwise indifferent. Thus, if good and bad are distinguished
only according to God's will, the qualities of good and bad can
be interchanged on God's command or prohibition. 121
The second reason for the capricious aspect of God's relation
to the world is his power to change the natures of things.m
"Since it is his creature, Nature cannot be hostile to God and,
accordingly, cannot restrict his omnipotence. . . . God can
change the very character of things even against their customary habits." 123 While this position will have to be qualified
when the autonomy of nature is explicitly treated, it does indicate God's absolute power over his creation. In fact, the
position is an obvious consequence of Abelard's notion of
creation. God creates in two steps: the first step is the creation
of material elements; the second step is the creation of substantial forms. 124 Only God can create substantial forms; theremala, illam arbitror, per cujus existentiam nee ulla bona deferri, nee impediri necesse
est .... " Examples of indifferent things Abelard mentions are moving a finger
and actions of that sort.
120 Ibid., col. 1680D-81A.
121 Ibid., col. 869B-D.
122 Ibid., col. llllD:
"ipsas rerum naturas quocunque modo voluerit permutare."
123 Sikes, op. cit., p. 125.
12 ' Petrus Abaelardus,
Dialectica: The First Complete Edition of the Parisian
Manuscript, ed. and intro. L. M. De Rijk (Assen, 1956), p. 419: "Primas vero

OF GOD AND MEN:

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fore only he can change substantial forms according to Abelard.
The combination of God's necessary goodness and his seemingly arbitrary power-bestowing both being and moral quality
to the world-allows Abelard to assert God's omnipotence.
Omnipotence is important because it assures the ultimate resolution of the indifference of the world. For only one who can
effect his will despite all obstacles and hindrances can be called
omnipotent. 125 Only an omnipotent being can bring good from
evil, take evil and convert it into good. 126 Abelard relies upon
an interior principle, God's omnipotent will, to bring about a
resolution of ambivalence. Just as man resolves the indifference
of his psychological dispositions and his external acts, God
resolves the ultimate indifference of the world.
Abelard has affirmed principles which insure that creation
will be good; in fact, it could not be better. 127 Assurance is also
given that the world will run its course within God's good
design. But two points must be made in order to assure a place
for man; for a God of absolute, necessary, and unrestricted
power poses a serious threat to man's freedom and the autonomy of his world. First, God's foreknowledge does not impose
necessity on the world. While an extensive treatment of foreknowledge would be extraneous to this study, it suffices to say
that the contingent and the free are known by God from all
eternity as contingent and as free. 128 For if God's infallible
knowledge were to impose necessity on man, man would be
forced to sin and there would be no guilt arising from man's
responsibility for his actions. God would be responsible for
man's sin. 129 Second, God's will does not impose necessity on
creationes dicimus per quas rerum materiae prius inceperunt esse .... Secundae
vero creationes sunt iam creatam materiam per a.diunctionem substantialis formae
novum facit ingredi esse, veluti cum de limo terrae hominem Deus creavit." Hereafter, this work will be abbreviated as: Dialec.
125 PL 178, col. 1680B.
126 Ibid., col. 898D.
127 Ibid., col. 804A:
" Deum nullatenus potuisse mundum meliorem facere quam
fecerit."
128 Geyer, LI, p. 429:
" Sic enim providet et stabilit futura, sicut sunt evenientia
ipsa autem sic evenientia sunt, ut queant etiam non evenire .... "
'
129 Ibid.:
" alioquin ipse me compelleret peccare nee reus essem qui coactus
peccarem, sed ipse per quem peccare cogerer."

650

FRANK DE SIANO

the world either. Abelard makes a distinction m God's will:
God can will " according to the decree of providence " in such
a way that there can be no resistance by any creature to his
will; or he can will " according to the encouragment of his
plan" in such a way that man's free will can fulfill or frustrate
God's wilU 30 This distinction develops further the analogy between God's willing and man's willing. Just as man tolerates
something for the sake of another thing in a situation of
passion, so God can tolerate the frustration of his plan for the
sake of man's free will and the ultimate fulfillment of his own
design. 131
fl. Free Will in Man

Abelard's mature formulation of free will complements his
teaching in the Ethica quite smoothly. He followed the definition of Boethius on free will: " liberum nobis de voluntate
judicium." 132 From this, free will becomes for Abelard the
deliberation or judging of the spirit by which someone proposes
to do or not do something. 133 It is easy to see how this concept
would lead Abelard to differentiate the act of consent from
other psychological acts of man. It is also easy to conceive
free will as somewhat passive in the sense that the soul judges
in terms of its voluntas, of suggestions and feelings that are
present. Finally, because the definition situates free will in the
soul, free will demands reason and intelligence as its basis. 131
130
131

PL 178, col. 1093B-D. See also col. 1323B-D.
Ibid., col. 895 where Abelard develops the analogy between human passion

and God's double will.
132 Boethius, In Librum Aristotelis De Interpretatione, Editio Secunda, PL 64,
col. 492D-493A: " ... sed est liberum arbitrium quod ipsa quoque vocabula produnt,
liberum nobis de voluntate judicium. Quotiescumque enim imaginationes quaedam
concurrunt animo, et voluntatem irritant, eas ratio perpendit, et de his judicat, et
quod ei melius videtur cum arbitrio perpenderit et judicatione collegerit, facit, atque
ideo quaedam dul (cern) speciem utilitatis monstrantia spemimus, quaedam amara,
licet nolcntes, fortiter sustinemus. Ideo non in voluntate, sed in judicatione voluntatis liberum constat arbitrium, et non in imaginatione, sed in ipsius imaginationis
perpensione consistit, atque ideo quarumdum actionum nos ipsi principia non
sequaces sumus." The parentheses enclose conjectured letters, since the copy of the
text was not clear.
133 PL 178, col. ll10A.
184 Ibid., col. ll10AB.

OF GOD AND MEN:

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Free will is part of the contingency of nature and must be
taken as a fact which God's knowledge and will do not violate.
An important aspect about free will is that it is open to
diverse possibilities. Where there is inevitability, there can be
no free will, no merit, and no guilt. 135 Because free will has this
quality, it is radically different from God's will which is necessary. Abelard must develop a somewhat analogical notion of
free will which can allow him to affirm it of God and of man,
but in different respects. The central analogical notion of
freedom for Abelard is a judgment made without any constraint according to reason. In this sense, God can be called
free. 136 Man, too, judges without constraint and according to
reason; but he does so while choosing between diverse possibilities, between opposites. This position assures man a clear role
in resolving the indifference of his world: by his consent or
intention he is free to use things well or badly, to love God or
sin. This position also establishes a clear basis for merit, for
merit rests on man's responsible consent to sin or not. 137
3. The Will of God and the Will of Man: Their Inter-relation-

ship
If nature has an authentic autonomy, a structure of its own,
this will find its reflection in man's moral structure: thus,
there will be a natural law. Does God grace man, redeem man,
and beatify man, however, in such a way that his natural
structure is altered or compromised? The investigation of
nature and grace will highlight the autonomy of God and man
and help illumine Abelard's ideas on their inter-relationship.
The concept of nature, and consequently, the concept of
natural law, does not yield a clear, self-consistent meaning in
the writings of Abelard. Because nature would not receive its
complete explication until the thirteenth century, 138 it is an
136 Ibid., col. lllOC-D.
137 Ibid., col. 1662D-63A.
Ibid., col. 907C.
M. D. Chenu, La Theologie au Douzieme Sillele, (Paris, 1957), in English,
Nature, Man, and Society in the Twelfth Century: Essays on N(')U) Theological
Perspectives in the Latin West, trans. and ed. J. Taylor, L. K. Little, University of
Chicago Press (Chicago, 1968), p. 15.
135

138

652

FRANK DE SIANO

elastic term in Abelard's writings; it can be used for such
notions as God's plan, God himself, mind, and world-soul. 139
The operations of nature are considered operations of God, and
this is especially so in the generation of human life 140 -which is
the creative bestowal of the human form and therefore a work
of God. But these God-centered notions of nature must be
qualified by a more autonomous notion of nature which
Abelard also develops. Nature is a power (vis) in things which
comes from God's primal preparation of them; nature explains
the becoming of things in that nature is sufficient for effecting
them. 141 In this can be recognized a " rigorous distinction between the properly creative act of God and the forces of nature;
these forces ... operate autonomously." 142 Miracles therefore
operate" above or against nature "-and such a statement can
be made only after some distinct and self-consistent notion of
nature is developed. 143 God's power over the nature of things
is seen at least as exceptional to the course of nature. So there
is confusion in Abelard's concept of nature; it pertains both to
God and the world. But this overlapping of the domain of
God and man may conveniently be used to support the autonomy of either man or God.
The overlapping quality of nature finds expression in the
overlapping quality of natural law. "It is perhaps less realized
that Abelard held a kind of double source theory of revelation.
Not only the written law but the law of nature and reason as
well were the utraque doctrina which the best men accepted
and studied." 144 The realm of faith and reason are confused
here, just as the realm of God and the world are confused in the
189

PL 178, col. 1088A and 1317B.

uo Geyer, Ll, p. 298:

"Unde puer ipse non hominis opus est, sed naturae, id est
Dei, hominum autem operatio alterare tantum materiam videtur secundum accidentia, veluti dum donum componit vel gladium, non etiam in substantiam
generare."
141 PL 178, col. 746C-D.
1 .. Chenu, op. cit., in English, p. 16, in French, p. 29.
" 8 Cf. note 141 supra.
1 .. D. E. Luscombe,
"Nature in the Thought of Peter Abelard," La Filosofia
della Natura nel Medioevo (Milan, 1966), p. 319.

OF GOD AND MEN:

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concept of nature. This is intelligible because the Old Testament and the New Testament contain naturallaw. 145 Natural
law means reason for Abelard; he affirms, in dependence on
Cicero/ 46 that it is present among all men. 147 Whether ultimately natural or supernatural, Abelard has a very optimistic
view of its role. For the Gentiles, it was equivalent to circumcision; 148 and through it, through reason, Gentiles even came to
know about the Trinity. 149 In fact, the pagans lived an evangelical life because of the natural law. For what is the Gospel
but a renewal of the natural law? Even the name "philosopher " is equivalent to the name " christian " because Christ
is man's "sophia "-his wisdom. Although Abelard retracted
some of his enthusiasm for natural law in his later works/ 50 his
thinking on it does advance the role of man quite considerably.
For it is man's reasoning and his following of the conclusions of
reason which remain decisive aspects about natural law.
Although natural law has a confusing complexity about it in
Abelard's thought/ 51 and does not receive much concrete specification, it still begins and even moderately accomplishes an
elaboration of a quite autonomous moral structure for man.
Even the lawyers of the twelfth century had not as yet differentiated natural and divine law/ 52 and Abelard shared in the
confusion. But if elements of a distinctly Christian belie£ are
conflated with natural law, still, were the Gospel not given to
man, man's reason, when applied and followed, would suffice.
PL 178, col. 1656D.
0. Lottin, op. cit., (Cf. note
supra), vol. IIIB, p.
"Abelard est le
premier theologien du Xlle siecle qui ait exploite Ciceron . . . marquant la
distinction entre justice naturelle et justice positive. . . ."
147 PL 178, col. 1656C.
148 Ibid., col.
""Ibid., col.
805B; cf. especially col. 1179B-D.
150 Dialec., pp. 558-559 for his greatest reversal; also PL 178, col. ll80A where he
insists it is blasphemy to state Christ learned from Plato.
151 J. Jolivet,
"Elements du Concept de Nature Chez Abelard," La Filosofia
della Natura nel Medioevo (Milan, 1966), p. 303: "On voit que dans tout cela
le concept de nature a un contenu assez complexe pour ne pas dire confus. . . ."
150 Sikes, op. cit., p. 71:
"It seems clear that both lawyers and theologians in
Abailard's day were unable to distinguish clearly betwen Natural and Divine
law .... Abailard certainly could not separate the teaching of Natural Law from
much of the teaching which he found in the Gospel."
145

146

654

FRANK DE SIANO

Man's reason and his moral categories have their established
place; it is the Gospel that fits into them.
Grace has not been mentioned in all of this. Grace offers,
however, the final opportunity for examining the roles of God
and man. How man and God relate in grace must be balanced
with enough delicacy to do justice to each; any imbalance in
the relationship will affect the roles of each. Thus, this study
of man under grace brings to its climax the study of the
autonomy of God and man.
There is no question that grace is needed by man. Abelard's
interest with the Gentile philosophers convinced him that their
highly moral life and intuitions of the Trinity, immortal life,
and just recompense for deeds had to be ascribed to God. 153
Indeed, if their faith was at least as strong as that of the Old
Testament prophets, this is due only to God's gracious revelation.154 Furthermore, in the conflict between concupiscence and
reason which man experiences, concupiscence would always be
the victor were it not for grace. 155
In fulfillment of man's need for grace, grace achieves a
primarily moral effect on man. Grace is functional: it allows
man to do, it effects his activity. When one lives the new life
of the Gospel, the kingdom of justice is built up in him; his
lusts are ruled, his illicit movements are checked. In this way,
man is prepared for eternal life.156 Grace means that one puts
off the old man with his actions and puts on the new man in
recognition of God. 157 The new law frees man from sin and
from the suggestions of concupiscence. Thus, he becomes a
son, motivated by love for God. 158 By grace, the Holy Spirit
ruels man/ 59 bestows his gifts/ 60 and stirs up spiritual desires. 161
PL 178, col. 1179B-D.
Ibid., col. 1007A. See also l006C, 1008B.
155 Ibid., col. 896D-897 A.
156 Ibid., col. 874B.
157 Ibid., col. 875C.
158 Ibid., col. 897D-898A.
159 Ibid., col. 899A:
"sed gratia Dei, id est Spiritu cancto regimur.
160 Ibid., col. 899B:
" experiendo dona ipsa Spiritus sancti."
161 Ibid., col. 899C:
"Vos autem gratia jam ... id est non in carnalibus, sed
153

m

spiritualibus desideriis."

OF GOD AND MEN:

CONSEQUENCES

OF ABELARD's

ETHIC

655

According to these texts, God has an essential role in all these
descriptions of grace. Moral renewal appears to be the work of
God, and chiefly his work.
Yet Abelard's key affirmation about grace is that it operates
motivationally. For grace is bestowed equally on the just and
the reprobate: some are incited by grace to do good; some
remain negligent in the face of it. This primal motivation of
grace is all that is needed; as in one sailing trip a merchant
may stop at many ports, so with this fundamental incentive,
man is led to do many things. 162 If this is the central affirmation of Abelard, that grace is primarily motivational, then the
place of human activity must be strong and prominent. For
motivation stands outside the one motivated; one who is motivated maintains a solid kernel of autonomy, a kernel that
decides to act or not in terms of the motivation. Thus, the
center of attention must shift from the motivator to the
motivated, from God to man.
To confirm this prominent place for man and his activity,
merit, which is opposed to grace and insufficient without
grace, 163 takes on an importance which secures its value.
Although it is true, Abelard claims, that justification does not
come ex meritis, nevertheless it does come per merita. 164 Indeed, once man is graced, he does not discount his merits; quite
the contrary-through grace he can trust in his merits. 165
Grace operates on man the way the sun's rays operate on the
earth, through efficacy. 166 Thus, God's working in grace and
man's own work cannot be distinguished. Anything we have
can be attributed to divine grace. 167 Man's activity, the conIbid., col. 918D-919A.
See, for example, ibid., col. 903D and col. 881C and 906C.
1 .. Ibid., col. 928C:
"Si autem gratiae, id est per gratiam, subaudi salvae factae
sunt, jam non ex operibus, id est ex meritis suis. Non dicit per merita, sed ex
meritis, quia et gratia Dei merita Pauli et aliorum non excludit."
165 Ibid., col. 860A:
"nos ipsi quam alii de nostris per gratiam Dei meritis
confidamus."
166 Ibid., col. 1667B.
161 Ibid., col. 785CD:
" sed totum divinae tribuat gratiae quidquid valet, a qua
quidem recognoscat se accepisse quidquid boni habet."
16 •

163

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FRANK DE SIANO

firmation o£ God's efficacy, must move to the center o£ attention because grace is God's motivation o£ man.
Abelard's theory o£ grace demands an exemplarist explanation o£ the redemption. The Son has taken on human nature
primarily to set up for man an example o£ true charity; he
comes to fill man with love instead o£ fear, a love that frees
him from slavery to sin. 168 Christ came to show man how to
love his neighbor and to pray for him. 169 Christ, then, is model
and motivator. Exemplarism must be the central crux o£
Abelard's thought on redemption, for only exemplarism adequately leaves untouched Abelard's notion o£ grace as motivational.170 Christ's death provides the essential motive which
leads man to love. Man is the one who loves; he only needs
someone to instruct him in love; Christ fulfills that need.
Christ helps man to fulfill the natural law o£ love. An indication o£ Abelard's basic exemplarism is the fact that it is difficult
to differentiate God's work in Christ £rom God's work among
men in general. God's presence in Christ means that new
effects arise through God's will 171 -and this is strikingly similar
to his activity among all men. It is like the sun's operation
through its rays: efficacy is the only mode o£ his presence and
his work.
The picture that emerges is this. Man seems fairly capable
o£ his own activity. He has his domain and his powers. His
168

Ibid., col. 836A: "nos tam verbo quam exemplo instituendo. . . ." See also

col. 836B.
169

Ibid., col. 865C.
Sikes, op. cit., p. 207 has the following statement:

" Since he did not regard
the work of Christ as a ransom paid either to God or to the devil, Abailard
somewhat naturally fell back upon the exemplarist theories which we have found
both in St. Paul and St. Augustine, but, unlike them, he made exemplarism the
centre of his doctrine." And also, p. 209: " The mere performance of some things
and the omission of others is not enough; the motive of charity was needed, and
this Christ's death supplied. This intimate connexion between Abailard's ethics
and his doctrine of the Atonement has not been sufficiently brought out."
171 PL 178, vol. 1104C-D:
In the context of "In qua etiam virgine Deus homo
factus adeo mutari videtur," Abelard concludes: "Cum ergo dicimus eum uliquid
facere, dicere est juxta ejus voluntatem aliquid contingere, ut in ipso nihil novi
contingat, sed novum aliquid sicut in ejus voluntate fixum permanet, fiat."
170

OF GOD AND MEN:

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OF ABELARD's

ETHIC

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dignity is to use those powers for the good, although he can use
them for evil too. God's role is to handle whatever is outside
the domain of man: he creates, and assures the overall intelligibility of the world, and bestows the recompense owed to
man for his moral activity. He also inspires and motivates man
to love. But, in the end, the activity of God and the activity
of man are extrinsic to each other. Whatever man does, God's
ultimate intention for the good will be achieved. And whether
Christ comes or not, man is still capable of pursuing the good.
God is needed to implant the natural law (reason) and to
insure the ultimate end; man is sandwiched between these
functions of God, standing full, tall, and autonomous.
Abelard's treatment of the ultimate end is the final point of
this study. In the Ethica, it has been noted, Abelard successfully resisted the temptation to make virtue and its practice
man's ultimate end. He has intentions of resisting that temptation in the Collationes too. Abelard insists that virtue is a
means to an end and not the end itself. 172 The end of man is
beyond man and not within him. Thus, a distnction must be
forged between the Summum Bonum in se and the Summum
Bonum for man. The Summum Bonum in se is God as he is
happy from himself; he is man's Summum Bonum inasmuch as
man receives joy and rest according to his merits through the
vision of God. Man's highest good is divine; only God is the
Summum Bonum. 113 Man's good consists in the otherness of
God and is strictly beyond himself.
But Abelard reverses himself, almost inadvertently, and with
this he eliminates his clearest assertion that God is intrinsic
to man in grace. When Abelard comes to specify in what
heaven and hell consist, he locates the end of man precisely in
man's activity. For if culpa is worse than poena, man's ultimate
misery must lie in culpa. Therefore, hell is essentially man
hating God. And, conversely, heaven is man loving God. On
God's part, there is his bestowal of either poena or fruitio, but
172
173

Ibid., col. 1645CD-1646A; note that Abelard wants virtues to be "utilia."
Ibid., col. 1646B.

658

FRANK DE SIANO

the ultimate end of man remains immanent to himself. 174 The
significance of this conclusion in terms of the primacy of man's
act of consent or intention, which the Ethica affirmed, is
obvious. The interior act of man, arising from a monad-like
center, perdures. Man's ultimate destiny lies in the use of his
own will to love or to hate.
A consistent image of man has emerged-that of a man who
enjoys absoluteness in. his own domain, whose absoluteness
remains constant from his moral acts to his ultimate end. Man,
by his activity, informs himself and his world with either
goodness or badness. By his activity, he lays the basis for his
ultimate end and achieves that ultimate end. God establishes
the starting-point for man; and he is needed as a somewhat
extrinsic ending-point. Man abides fully, however, between
those two points. The only difficulties left for Abelard are those
which emerge when God's domain and man's domain come into
conflict, such as in recompense. At this point, God acts analogously to man by bringing all to good, even when there seems
to be injustice in the recompense. Abelard's other difficulties
arising from the conflation of the supernatural and the natural
in natural law and grace are rather convenient ambiguities
which permit him to insure both God's concern and man's
autonomy. Yet difficulties or not, man, for Abelard, has
arrived.
CoNCLUSIONS

The following conclusions will also serve as a summary to
this study.
1) The fundamental principle which Abelard uses is what
may be called the priority of the interior. The principle works
like this: there are two elements generally involved in understanding something; one element is exterior, the other interior.
The exterior element, whether singular or plural, receives its
meaning from the interior element which is some abiding form
bringing intelligibility to the exterior element. Examples of
m Ibid., col. 1660C-1661B.

OF GOD AND MEN:

CONSEQUENCES

OF ABELARD's

ETHIC

659

this are acts of consent and exterior acts, God's providence and
the world, the soul and its body, etc.
Because this fundamental line of reasoning tends to
empty the exterior element of meaning, exterior reality becomes flat and indifferent. Its indifference is resolved only by
principles of meaning which bestow intelligibility (whether
intellectual or moral) on the exterior reality.
3) There are two moral centers which resolve the indifference of reality. One is God, the other is man. God, by his
providential vision and his overall good intention insures that
the world is the best of all possible worlds and that all will
work out ultimately for the good. Man, by his act of consent,
brings indifference into his act and informs them with his moral
meaning, whether bad or good, according to how he uses them.
4) Thus, the notions of " good," "bad," and " indifferent,"
must be derived from centers of moral activity, God's or man's.
Goodness or badness depends on how man disposes of reality
according to his will; the ultimate goodness of things depends
on God's disposing of reality according to his will.
5) From this follows a certain absoluteness or autonomy to
God and man. The autonomy is expressed by the determinative stance of will which focuses a complex of meaning in that
will. So the strands of reality can only be tied together by
autonomous centers which instill meaning in indifferent reality.
6) God's absoluteness is expressed in terms of his necessary
nature. Power, will, and necessity are intrinsically implicated
in the substance of God, so that God must do what he does
as he does it; and whatever God does is best.
7) Man's absoluteness, which can be sharply differentiated
from God's because of Abelard's firm conceptualization of the
substantial difference between God and man, is expressed by
the decisive character of his consent, by the innate and sufficient principle of natural law, and by just claim to recompense
according to the quality of his act of consent or intention.
8) God's autonomy and man's autonomy conflict chiefly in
the area of recompense; innocent children or ignorant men can

660

FRANK DE SIANO

be punished without evil consent on their part. In areas of
conflict, God's autonomy is primary.
9) God's role in general is to fix the starting point of man's
world (creation, grace, natural law); because of imprecision in
the notion of nature Abelard can preserve much of man's
freedom and initiative as well as God's agency at the same time
(e. g., notions of reason and natural law, grace and merit).
God also assures an ultimate end for man.
10) Between the initiation and the termination of man's
moral life, man has charge over his own destiny. His autonomy, expressed by his moral acts, can be easily subsumed into
God's overall intention no matter what man does. But within
man's domain, man is free, responsible, and his will is determinative of his moral meaning and the moral meaning of all he
uses. This position can only be sustained after God's intellect
and will have been sufficiently nuanced so as to eliminate a
threat to man's free will. Whether by natural law or grace,
reason or redemption, after these are granted, man is working
by his own will. His will remains constant into the next life,
and constitutes the basis of his eternal happiness or eternal
wretchedness.
11) I£ there is incongruity between the interior act and the
exterior work, whether this be in terms of man's act or God's
creation, the inconsistency must be only apparent; for the
reality ultimately exists in the interior act, the interior intention, and from there alone does it flow into the exterior work.
FRANK

St. Paul's College
Washington, D. C.

DE SIANO,

c. s. P.

THEISTIC

REALISM AND MONISTIC IDEAI.ISM

I

T HAS BECOME a common methodological device for
Thomistic philosophers to emphatically distinguish their
own evidentiary and logical foundations from those of
modern idealism. In this way they hope to show that the antimetaphysical criticisms inspired by opposition to idealism are
quite provincial and fail to deter a metaphysical effort conceived in an alternate fashion. Whether this device is fully
successful or not, there do seem to be emphatic differences bet ween the two outlooks. I wish to clarify the often misunderstood contrast betwen these two metaphysical positions, while
pointing out certain similarities that are often overlooked. 1
Although it is quite true that neither Thomas Aquinas nor
F. H. Bradley are quite the philosophical fashion these days,
they do provide excellent specimens of their respective metaphysical types. Few other theistic realists have attained the
stature of Aquinas in Western philosophy, and due to the
special interest he has held for subsequent Catholic scholars,
no other philosopher's doctrines have been more closely examined and refined. Hence, a comparison of any other type of
philosophy with that of Thomism would not suffer from any
deficiency of delineation on the part of theistic realism.
Bradley, furthermore, is an appropriate specimen of monistic
idealism. Not only was he the leading British idealist of the
late nineteenth and early twentieth century, and as such the
1 That there are similarities is illustrated by the effort of A. E. Taylor to identify
his Bradleian inspired metaphysics with that of Thomism. His effort to interpret
the Absolute as the Thomistic God and the appearances as the Thomistic
participations is not entirely successful, since he is unwilling to make the radical
re-interpretation of evidentiary foundations that this would require. Nevertheless,
it does bring to the forefront certain analogies between the systems that are often
overlooked. See Taylor's Elements of Metaphysics, London: Methuen and Co.
(University Paperbacks), (1903, 1909) 1961, both prefaces and dedication.

661

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GARY L. BEDELL

prototypical philosophical villain for Anglo-American empiricists, pragmatists, and analytical philosophers, but he is also
more critical and skeptical than his great German mentor,
Hegel. Bradley learned much from Hegel, but he always resented being called an hegelian or neo-hegelian, since the ultimate dialectical rationality of the Absolute, so dear and
essential to Hegel, was what Bradley could not accept. Hence,
it is possible to reject certain fundamental doctrines of Hegel's
dialectical monistic idealism and yet maintain a monistic idealism akin to Bradley's.
A comparison of theistic realism with Bradley's version
would be, therefore, much more direct and elucidating than
with Hegel's more specialized version of monistic idealism.
The clarification of metaphysical types is much better served
in this fashion.

I.

ExPERIENCE

AND EXISTENCE

1.

Although on the question of what it is that makes something
real a realist and an idealist must part company, there is a
common commitment for St. Thomas and Bradley that is easily
overlooked. Both subscribe to what Whitehead was later to
call the ontological principle, that is, that all real explanations
must be in terms of actual entities. In Thomism this takes the
form of the basic dictim that absolutely considered act is prior
to potency. This means that, while in a changing being potency
has a certain temporal priority to act, real causal efficacy and
absolute priority resides in actuality. The world of potency and
possibility exists only in abject dependency on act.
Ultimately, to be is to be actual. The so-called world of
possibles is neither real in itself nor some intermediate realm
between actual being and nothingness. Much less is it a
broader, more extensive realm conveying the primary meaning
of being. Rather the possibles are defined in reference to the
actual; they are possible precisely as conceivable participations

THEISTIC REALISM AND MONISTIC

IDEALISM

663

in the actuality of God. Hence, in one sense the primacy of
existence in Thomism means the primacy of actuality.
With this Bradley would quite concur. Indeed the worst
philosophical sin for Bradley was to commit the fallacy of
vicious abstraction. Vicious abstraction is the process of confusing the products of our own abstraction with concrete
actuality. Metaphysics is the intellectual search for the concrete, and the concrete is the actual. Although Bradley dislikes
using the term "existence" for maximal actuality, in contrast
to standard Thomistic usage, this terminological difference is
not really the significant issue. The issue is in regard to that
by which the finite beings of our world posses their limited
actuality.

2.
A philosophical realist holds that objects can be real independently of experience and, therefore, insists upon distinguishing the conditions of being from the conditions of being-known.
He does not merely assert that there can exist things of which
we are not aware but that even the things of which we are
aware are not real because we experience them. Although their
reality is revealed to us in our experience, nevertheless we
recognize and acknowledge their reality as independent of our
experience of them.
A Thomistic realist claims that we directly experience other
beings, which are real in the same sense that we are. We intellectually acknowledge their existential reality 2 and conclude
that they are finite substances. Nevertheless, Thomists must
find a basis for their existential reality that is not reducible to
their substantiality, in order that these substances not be
interpreted as absolutely independent metaphysically. In recent decades an increasing number of Thomistic metaphysicians have settled on a doctrine of the real distinction between
• Thomists disagree on exactly how this takes place. On the one side there is
Maritain who claims an intellectual intuition of being. On the other side there is
Lonergan who rejects any claim to intellectual intuition and for whom our metaphysical knowledge of being is subsequent to the existential judgment.

664

GARY L. BEDELL

essence and existence as the ontological character of finite
substantiality.
To those upholding the distinction not only is the doctrine
philosophically sound but it is also the authentic position of
St. Thomas Aquinas and provides the basis for distinguishing
his genuine existentialism from other philosophical systems.
Led by Etienne Gilson as its most prominant advocate, upheld
by Jacques Maritain after apparently some early hesitation, it
is now vigorously maintained by a strong cadre of Jesuit
Thomists. 3
Nevertheless, not only was the doctrine opposed by nonThomists but it also found opposition within Thomism itself.
The advocacy of an exaggerated version of this doctrine by
Giles of Rome, who had studied under Thomas, provoked a
very strong reaction at the University of Paris led by Henry of
Ghent. Ever since that time the controversy has raged, and
some have insisted that it was Giles and not Thomas who invented the real distinction. Herve of N edellec, who as general
of the Dominican order worked for Thomas's canonization and
secured the teaching of Thomism in the Dominican houses of
study, denied that Thomas had ever held the doctrine. And
so it went, until even recently such eminent thinkers as Pedro
Descoqs and Garrigou-Lagrange, each for his own reasons,
found cause to object to the doctrine. 4
Nevertheless, the doctrine seems to have predominated
among recent Thomistic metaphysicians and provides au advantageous perspective for our comparison with Bradley. According to this view, the beings of our experience do not exist
because they are experienced, nor because they are material or
physical, nor in virtue of being a specific being of any kind.
They exist, rather, in virtue of a special and irreducibly distinct
principle called the act of existence (esse or actus essendi) .
8 The thesis of the real distinction became a standard doctrine in the metaphysics
textbooks used in Jesuit institutions.
• A good summary of the history of the real distinction, both pro and con, can
be found in Louis De Raeymaeker, The Philosophy of Being, tr. by Edmund H.
Ziegelmeyer, St. Louis: Herder, (1947) 1954.

THEISTIC REALISM AND MONISTIC

IDEALISM

665

This principle of existential actuation is related to the other
principles of a being's metaphysical constitution as entitative
act to potency.

3.
The contrast with Bradley is here extremely helpful in
elucidating the less obvious issues latent within the general
problem of the relation of essence to existence. Bradley himself
holds a doctrine of the distinction between essence and existence, although he seldom uses this terminology and never
relates them as act and potency.
In contrast to theistic realism Bradley does not recognize
substantiality anywhere short of the Absolute. He agrees that
we encounter public objects that are just as real as ourselves.
But, for Bradley, both the public world and the private self are
ideal constructions from the basis of immediate feeling. Both
the self and the public objects are ideal and abstract; they are
universals and not concrete individuals. 5
A Thomist appeals to the naive realism of common sense in
asserting the substantiality of these objects. He places his confidence in the deliverance of direct perception and natural reflection, and then employs his technical analysis to yield his
doctrine of finite substance. Bradley, however, appeals to his
own technical doctrine of immediate experience in order to
convict these objects of being ideal and abstract. He is quite
willing to abandon the common sense assumption of their ultimate concreteness on behalf of what he considers to be a higher
evidence and ultimate logical consistency. 6
Since these objects are abstract and not substantial, Bradley
faces no threat of their being independently real. The question
is, Why are they real at all? They are not real by virtue of
their essence, their "what," since it is an abstraction. Nor,
5 For an introduction
to Bradley's metaphysics see Gary L. Bedell, "Bradley's
Monistic Idealism," The Thomist, XXXIV, 4 (Oct. 1970), 568-583.
6 See
Gary L. Bedell, " The Relation of Logic and Metaphysics in the
Philosophy of F. H. Bradley," The Modern Schoolman, XLVIII, 3 (Mar. 1971),

666

GARY L. BEDELL

however, are they real by virtue of an existential actuation of
essence by esse. An abstraction can hardly be actuated by anything, since it is an abstraction from actuality and not a coprinciple in a real composition of being.
According to Bradley, something is real only because it falls
within actual sentient experience. Just as a Thomist makes his
negative judgment of separation, in which he denies any
identity of essence and existence, so Bradley denies that any
abstraction (essence) by which we attempt to express reality
is identical with that reality. All objects arise within the felt
and feeling continuum of immediate experience, and so too all
distinction. A thing is real only insofar as it enters into actual
sentient experience, and if things are real outside of our private
experience, this means that sentient experience is not limited
to private states of awareness. All reality must fall within
sentient experience as a minimal requirement.
All the content of our ideas is drawn from sentient experience. This is Bradley's analogue to the Thomistic maxim that
all knowledge begins in the senses. But in Bradley's hands it
becomes not only an epistemological but also a metaphysical
theorem. For, not only is all content drawn from sentient
experience but also all content is referred back to sentient
experience in the act of judgment.
Judgment for Bradley is the direct qualification of reality by
ideal content (abstracted content), but the only reality directly
encountered is the immediate sentient reality. Hence we
qualify reality only through the mediacy of qualifying sentient
experience. But since all content is taken from sentient experience and referred back to it through the qualifying function of
judgment, it is understandable why Bradley should conclude
that reality is sentient experience and nothing else.
Although both Bradley and the Thomist interpret the subject-predicate form as the essential form of judgment, they
have moved in opposite directions in using this logical doctrine
as an instrument of metaphysical analysis. If the S-P form is
the essential form of judgment, then in the existential judgment existence (or reality) must become either the subject or

THEISTIC REALISM AND MONISTIC

IDEALISM

667

the predicate. According to Bradley, in every judgment we
affirm ideal content of reality itself as the subject. According
to the Thomist, existence must become the predicate, albeit of
a very special sort, in every existential judgment. 7

4.
Both Bradley and the Thomist advocate some distinction
between essence and existence, but their meanings differ considerably. What is meant, first of all, by "essence"? I think
we can say that in general " essence " refers to that which
would respond to the question, What is it? In this sense it is
similar to the term "quiddity." "Quiddity," however, connotes the humanly articulable response to the question, such
as could be framed in a definition, whereas " essence " connotes that in the being itself which would ground our response.
In other words, " essence " may be considered the what of a
being, in the sense of being that which grounds our response to
the question, What is it? Now the first thing to notice is that
when we attempt to answer, What is it?, we are inevitably
forced to respond in abstract terms. This is so, because we
know the concrete being only by encountering it in sensible
experience. Not all dimensions of concreteness are translatable
into intellectual terms, and so our reponse to, What is it?, must
perforce be abstract. In other words, we must leave out some
of the concrete content.
Both Bradley and the Thomist believe in the reality of
universals, that is, that there exist (not independently, of
7 Both Bradley and the Thomist
resist accepting the ultimate accuracy of this
description. Ultimately for Bradley we must see that the subject-predicate form
must be transcended, although we are dependent upon it as the most adequate
form of discourse. In the end reality cannot be a mere subject for qualification.
It is a self-qualifying, self-diversifying and re-integrating, subject-superject.
Similarly, Thomists recognize the inadequacy of calling existence a predicate,
since a predicate presupposes a subject in which it inheres and to which it adds
some determination in the order of (individual) essence. The problem here is one
of deciding whether the deficiency is due to the inadequacy of the mode of
expression available for a sound insight or the inadequacy of the insight itself and
its analysis.

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GARY L. BEDELL

course, but as part of the concrete content of finite beings)
specific identities of content which ground our abstract knowledge by becoming explicitly universal in knowledge-usage.
These elements of identity ground our classifications, comparisons, and distinctions between kinds of things, and, hence, our
response to the question, What is it?
But "essence" in this sense is obviously abstract, and if we
ask whether it is distinct from existence or reality, we must
surely answer yes. A distinction between essence-as-abstract
and reality (or the fully existent) is, however, a very obvious
point. Anyone who agrees that essence is abstract must necessarily concur with this distinction. Bradley's distinction is
precisely this, and hence his effort is directed to establishing
the inevitable abstrictness of all knowledge of essence.
But Thomists cannot mean merely this, for an abstraction
is not a candidate for being a constitutive ontological principle,
nor for being perfected by existence. An abstraction, or the
content which is abstracted, must, as Bradley surmised, be
adjectival to that from which it is abstracted. What can
Thomists mean by " essence," then, when they use the term in
the doctrine of the real distinction?
We can only respond to, What is it?, incompletely and
abstractly. But yet, we can reflectively acknowledge the incompleteness and abstractness of our response. Hence, we can
conceive of an ideally perfect response that would, if it were
attainable, transcend the practical limitations of abstractive
intellection and capture the full concretenes of the being.
Although such a response is unattainable by the human intellect, we can conceive that in the being itself there is the ground
for such a response. Just as the universal elements (essence in
the first sense) ground our actually imperfect quidditive knowledge, so the concrete structural make-up of the being would
ground the ideally complete quidditive knowledge conceived
as the limit of progressive inquiry. This latter ontological
ground for putatively perfect quidditive knowledge might be
called the " individual essence."
It is clear, however, that the basis for a distinction between

THEISTIC REALISM AND MONISTIC

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669

the individual essence and existence cannot be the same as the
basis for the distinction between the abstract essence and
existence. Furthermore, it is clearly not an issue of whether the
isolated individual essence is distinct from being-as-such, for
if a being is one among many it is obvious to all that by its own
isolated individual essence a single finite being cannot exhaust
the plenitude of being. In order to make clear what the precise
issue is, let us further distinguish between meanings of the
term" essence." vVe already have I) the abstract essence (the
abstract universal) , which is the ontological basis for the kind
of quidditive knowledge we do have, and 2) the individual
essence, which is the ontological ground for a putatively perfect
quidditive knowledge. Now let us distinguish two senses of the
individual essence: 2a) the isolated individual essence, and
2b) the relational individual essence.
This distinction is obviously important in examining our
problem, for if the individual essence is considered in itself in
isolation from any relations to the rest of the universe of bei.ng,
then to show that this isolated essence is inadequate to account
for the very existence of the being would not necessitate that
a supra-essential principle of existence be required, since it may
require the full network of essential relations to the rest of the
universe to account for the existence of the being. It is one
thing to show that, no matter how concretely we take a being
in isolation, the finite individual essence (2a) cannot account
for its existence; and quite another to assume that the complete
relational individual essence (2b) cannot account for the being
of the thing.
It is the fully concatenated network of essential relations
that leads both Bradley and Hegel to a monism, for the reality
of a finite being is this totality of relations, or, in Bradley's
case, a supra-relational totality. Hence, a theism must maintain both that the essence of a finite being is sufficiently independent to resist being totally incorporated into a larger whole
of essential relations, and yet that it is not sufficiently independent to account for its own actuality.

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GARY L. BEDELL

II.

METAPHYSICAL

DEPENDENCY

AND THE CoNCEPT

oF

INTELLIGIBILITY

1.

We have already seen that both Bradley and St. Thomas
insist on the absolute priority of actuality over possibility.
Here already is a fundamental metaphysical appraisal. But,
furthermore, even in regard to those beings we regard as actual,
further discriminations may be made. Both Bradley and
Aquinas assume a hierarchy of actual entities (in quite different senses, of course). There are degrees of being even within
actuality.
A thing is real for a Thomist if it has esse, and for Bradley if
it falls within sentient experience. But both agree that to be
maximal actuality a thing must not only meet the minimal
requirements for existence but must do so with full intelligibility. Intelligibility, therefore, becomes a test for the ultimate
reality of the actually existent beings which we encounter in
experience. Both Bradley and the Thomist require, therefore,
some means of determining the intelligibility of things.
It is true, of course, that for a Thomist existence itself does
in a sense establish the intelligibility of things. First, the fact
of existence establishes intelligibility in the sense that what
exists cannot be utterly unintelligible, and that what exists is
open to intellectual inquiry, which it invites us to pursue
precisely by its lack of full intelligibility when taken by itself in
isolation. If mere existence guaranteed full intelligibility
simply as given, no questioning of a being's status in being
would be elicited and no basis could ever be established for
arguing to its dependency-in-being on a higher being. 8
8 This was the crucial point in the debate on whether the existence of God could
be demonstrated between Bertrand Russell and Frederick Copleston. Russell inisted
that intelligibility was merely an external relation that reflected our ability to
explain things. The beings of our experience were merely there. No question could
legitimately be raised about why they existed. Copleston insisted that intelligibility
was an intrinsic quality in reference to which we could raise the question of why

THEISTIC REALISM AND MONISTIC

IDEALISM

671

Secondly, for the Thomist esse is considered the principle
which is the being's intrinsic source of intelligibillity, since it
is its highest act. But since in finite beings esse is limited, so
too is its intrinsic intelligibility; which is another way of saying
that its intrinsic intelligibilty is incomplete. Thus, to insist on
interpreting it as completely intelligible in itself would render
it unintelligible. In other words, the intelligibility promised by
its very being would be aborted by our failure to transcend the
limits of the finite essence. In this sense, therefore, existence
does not, independent of our interpretation of it, establish full
intrinsic intelligibility.
For neither Bradley nor the Thomist, therefore, will the mere
fact that something exists establish its full intelligibility. And
yet anything completely unintelligibile would not exist at all.
Hence, it will not be the case that dependent beings are absolutely unintelligible but that they are unintelligible in.'!ofar as
they are taken as independently real. Hence, unintelligibility
will be due to the restricted perspective in which they are
viewed.
Therefore, each needs some means of convicting these objects
of unintelligibility insofar as they are viewed as independently
real and also of dissipating this threatened unintelligibility
when this perspectival error is corrected. Both appeal to the
axiom of non-contradiction in this regard. The unintelligible is
neither merely the not understood nor the unimaginable but
that which shows explicit self-contradiction or self-discrepancy.
Both, therefore, interpret intelligibility as an intrinsic quality
and not merely an extrinsic relation. In other words, it is a
quality that concerns the degree of reality of the being and is
not merely a reflection of the limits of our explanation.
these beings existed. Both agreed, in other words, that the question of intrinsic
intelligibility was crucial and only if the question could be raised whether something
was or was not fully intrinsically intelligible could any demonstration of ontological
dependence be possible. See John Hicks, ed., The Existence of God (New York:
The MacMillan Co., 1964), p. 174, for a reprint of a debate originally carried on
the BBC.

672

GARY L. BEDELL

2.
In making a metaphysical appraisal of finite beings a
Thomist wants to establish vertical dependence of a causal
nature. That is, he wants, first, to sho\v that the finite being is
dependent in ways other than merely by virtue of relations to
other finite beings. If dependency were shown only in that
respect, then the finite being would ultimately be dependent as
a part within some kind of whole, an instantiation of some
natural law or an appearance of the Absolute. In contrast to
these horizontal or contextual dependencies the Thomist wants
to establish a vertical dependency on a higher being.
Secondly, he wants the dependency to be of a nature of
efficient causality, albeit of a very special kind. It is special
both because he wants it to be a creationist efficient causality,
in contrast to a merely making or altering causality, and also
because it is to be simultaneous to its effect and not prior to it
as is most finite causality. The proLlem here is to get this
speciality without completely losing the ratio of efficient
causality, without, that is, permitting the creature to be absorbed into the source of its intelligibility and being.
The crucial concept is the concept of a finite, dependent
substance, which the monist claims is self-contradictory. How
can something be a substance, which connotes independence
in being, and yet be finite and dependent? Of course, we can
say in general that this concept means that the being is to be
dependent but not as an adjective or mode or accident. It is to
be dependent as an effect on an efficient cause.
But this clarification does not resolve the problem, since it
appeals to the category of efficient causality which itself needs
to be justified in the special sense in which the Thomist means
to employ it. The ordinary category of efficient causality implies (or almost always implies) temporal priority and some
independence in the effect, such as some pre-existent matter.
But the creationist concept of causality implies both simultaneity and, most importantly, that the effect is entirely a
product of the cause.
The use of efficient causality in this context must, therefore,

THEISTIC REALISM AND MONISTIC

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673

be justified and not presupposed. Hence, we return to the
concept of a vertically dependent finite substance as logically
prior to the concept of a creationist efficient cause, since, if the
former is not justified, there can be no excuse for the use of the
latter.
What can be meant by a substance that is dependent? First,
substance must imply some sort of independence. What is this
independence to be, if it is not to be absolute? It means, first
of all, contemporary independence from horizontal or contextual relations. In other words, a finite being is substantial
only if, however causally dependent on finite causes for its
coming to be, it has in its present immediacy some inwardness
of being which is not the mere product of these causes. In
other words, an essential analysis of the being of this finite
substance is not able to reduce it to its present finite relations
and thereby dissipate its perseity into contextual otherness.
Even if it can be established that finite beings possess this
contemporaneous horizontal or contextual independence, there
still awaits the theist a further threat to finite substantiality.
For this finite substance is supposed to be utterly dependent
upon a creator. How then do we avoid absorption of the
created into the creator? Here we cannot employ the same
tactics we used to avoid absorption into the context of horizontal relations, since there we could appeal to a residual
perseity. In its relation to the creator, however, the finite being
is to be a simultaneous and total effect.
I£ we are to save the concept o£ finite substantiality from
reduction to a mode or adjective o£ the creator-absolute, we
must turn to the concept o£ the creator itself. Although the
creature is to be utterly dependent on the creator, the creator
is not to be dependent on the creature. In contrast to a monism
or any form o£ immanentism in which the relation is mutual,
even if unequal, the relationship here is one-directional. This
means that the creator is conceived as complete in itself independently and prior (metaphysically) to the creature. The
creature does not contribute to the perfection of the creator.
and, hence, cannot be reduced to a mode or adjective, which,

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GARY L. BJ!\DELL

however, trivial, would imply some contribution to the very
being of the absolute.
Here we have the justification of the application of the
category of efficient causality, which implies some degree of
externality between cause and effect (and here obviously not
in the spatial sense). Externality implies that there is some
independence-in-being of cause and effect, even though in another sense there must be some relationship between them. 9
Here the independence is provided entirely by the cause, God,
insofar as he is perfect and complete in his Being.
The use of efficient causality is justified by this Divine independence and unicity precisely because it permits the finite
substantiality of creatures to be maintained even in the face
of their total dependence on God. In other words, creatures
would retain substantiality not through their own independence from God but through God's independence from them.
The residual independence of creatures that preserves their
substantiality is precisely their resistance to absorption into
the being of God, not by virtue of themselves but by virtue of
God's self-completeness. In contrast, Bradley's appearances
are absorbed into the being of the absolute not only by virtue
of their own deficiency as finite but also in virtue of the nature
of the Absolute as the supra-relational unity of all appearances.

3.
Such is the theistic project and the requirements for fulfililng
it. But proper philosophical order of evidence requires us to
begin not with God but with creatures. A theist may know
what he wants in advance of explicit demonstration, but a
philosophical theism requires a demonstration with rigorous
evidentiary foundations.
The first step is to establish finite substantiality in the sense
indicated, in order to save the finite being from reduction to
9 Efficient causality is, properly speaking, a relation of extrinsic principles.
Without some externality and independence between cause and effect the relation would
collapse into a relation between intrinsic principles, such as between substance and
mode.

THEISTIC REALISM AND MONISTIC

IDEALISM

675

horizontal relations and a possibly monistic interpretation and
to establish a foundation for vertical dependency. Secondly,
the theist must convict the finite substance of being merely
dependently real by showing its intrinsic unintelligibility when
taken as absolutely independently real. In other words, when
taken as absolutely independently real, finite substances show
self-discrepancy, or at least the constricted interpretation of
them as independently real shows self-contradiction. Since
horizontal independence has already been justified, the inconsistency of an interpretation that would posit absolute independence would thus establish the need for vertical dependency
as the only alternative that can save intelligibility by introducing appropriate qualifications.
Just as Bradley does, the Thomist must assume that the
axiom of non-contradiction is not merely formal but also
expresses the conjunction of incompatible states or qualities,
and that the way to eliminate the contradiction is to reconcile
the discrepant qualities by distinguishing the levels or spheres
to which they belong.
For example, Thomists claim to eliminate any inconsistency
between the identity and difference of finite beings by distinguishing between substance and accident. Similarly, they
claim to eliminate the threatened inconsistency of the existentially actuated finite substance by distinguishing between
what the being has of itself and what is contributed by an
extrinsic cause. In order for this analysis to be efficacious,
however, they must establish the threat of contradiction in
regard to the conjunction of elements in question.
Presupposing the finite substantiality of the being, the
threatened contradiction cannot be removed by introduction of
additional horizontal conditions. n the contradiction is to be
avoided by introduction of an additional condition, it must be
a condition of another order, the vertical order.
This movement in the vertical direction is also promoted by
the special relationship that characterizes this conjunction of
elements, that is, the relationship of act and potency. It is
assumed, first, that this conjunction of elements is something

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GARY L. BEDELL

that must be accounted for. In this way it is hoped to undercut
Hume's objection and leave only two alternatives: either the
finite being is itself responsible for what it possesses or some
extrinsic cause is responsible. The Thomistic way of doing this
is to establish one of the elements in question as a perfection
(act) , since a perfection is not the kind of thing you merely
find lying around, and its possession by a passive potency
must be explained.
Secondly, the thing itself is so identified or defined as to
exclude (at least by not explicitly including) the perfection. A
passive potency does not include the acts which at different
times it may possess, and, hence, even when it does possess an
act, it itself cannot be what accounts for it. Since the being
itself is not responsible for the perfection, and since a perfection
or act is the kind of thing for which something must be responsible, it is assumed that it is to be accounted for by another
individual being.
For both Bradley and the Thomist the axiom of non-contradiction serves as an instrument of metaphysical appraisal. But
how can it be established that contradiction threatens all finite
being (or at least our intepretation of them) when considered
as independent? Contradiction would be the conjunction of
discrepant qualities, but how establish that this discrepancy
threatens in principle any finite being?
Bradley's method is to argue that any conjunction of different qualities is itself discrepant unless subjected to harmonizing
conditions. But since the harmonizing conditions are contextual, and since anything short of the absolute itself is thereby
discrepant, the monistic conclusion is inevitable. The Thomist
does not identify just any conditionless conjunction of differences as discrepant but only the conditionless conjunction of
differences related as act to passive potency. The conjunction
of an act and potency is the perfecting relation of that act to
that potency, and for a passive potency to possess a perfection
for which it itself cannot account would be positively unintelligible (involve explicit discrepancy) , unless subjected to conditions that would reconcile the imperfection of the potency

THEISTIC REALISM AND MONISTIC

IDEALISM

677

with the perfection of the act possessed. Hence, a being so
composed of principles related as act and potency is defined as
dependent on an extrinsic source for the conjunction of that
act and potency.

III.

GoD AND THE ABSOLUTE

1.

Having established the existence of a conjunction of discrepant qualities, or, in the case of a Thomist, the threat of
discrepancy, and with the assumption that the self-contradictory cannot be ultimately real, both the Thomist and Bradley
can argue to the reality of that state of affairs which will
remove the contradiction or threat of contradiction. If contradiction is threatened unless an extrinsic cause is acknowledged, then that cause must be acknowledged, since 1) the
contradictory cannot be real or true, and 2) the being itself is
somehow real, since we do encounter it in experience.
For Bradley, although the contradictory cannot be real, the
content of the finite object is in some sense real, because it falls
within actual sentient experience. According to Bradley's interpretation of contradiction there are no natural contraries.
Qualities become discrepant only when merely conjoined apart
from the conditions that would distinguish and reconcile them.
The occurence of contradiction is a sign and product of a
restricted perspective that excludes the conditions that would
adjust and harmonize the clashing elements. What is required,
therefore, is a change in perspective that will introduce these
reconciling conditions.
The ideal is itself the source of contradiction and therefore
that which harmonizes the clashing elements cannot be ideal.
The conditions must be made good by that which does not
suffer from the deficiencies to be corrected. In this both
Bradley and the Thomist agree. For the Thomist the ultimate
source of existential actuation in finite beings must be that
which accounts for its own existence; in other words, that in

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GARY L. BEDELL

which there is no real distinction between essence and existence. For Bradley that which accounts for the actual content
of the ideal and which can reconcile the apparent discord must
be that which in itself is not ideal and is not content loosened
from existence. It must be that in which there is no distinction
between content and reality.
Both Bradley and the Thomist agree, therefore, that the
ontological character of all finite being is a distinction between
essence and existence. That is, to be dependent is to be distracted from within, and this internal disruption or real distinction is a metaphysical sign of external dependency. The finite
shows itself to possess a reality which it does not include or
account for within its own proper limits.
Whereas for the Thomist all that is required is an acknowledgement of the dependent status of finite being, for Bradley
the ideal (the finite) must be degraded to the level of appearance. For the Thomist the essence (individual essence) is
interpreted as a concrete finite substance actuated by existence
which it exercises only by the gratuity of a creative efficient
cause. For Bradley the essence is an abstraction of identical
character from the continuum of actual sentient experience,
which is the source of its reality. The content is said to qualify
actual sentient experience and to be conditioned by it.
The difference is that between a finite being discovered to be
self-incomplete and contingent, and therefore dependent upon
an extrinsic cause, and a finite being convicted of being selfdiscrepant appearance and thus adjectival to an encompassing
whole. In fact, Bradley's ideal objects, in sharp contrast to
Thomism's finite substances, are not only adjectival but subject to transmutation of character when taken up into the
Absolute. This is the essential metaphysical difference between
creatures and appearances.

2.
Within the philosophical order of evidence the metaphysical
differences between God and the Absolute reflect the different
concepts of dependent being that they are supposed to ground.

THEISTIC REALISM AND MONISTIC

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679

God for the Thomist is an efficient cause of a unique sort. He
is a free creator who gratuitously makes creatures ex nihilo.
Bradley's Absolute, on the other hand, is a totality of actual
sentient experience in which all aspects are relevant to all
others and to the whole. It is the only perfect individual, and
all finite beings are but abstractions from the intimate oneness
of the Absolute reality. Both God and the Absolute, however,
are conceived as being identical with their own essence. In
contrast to creatures and appearances there is no distinction
between essence and existence.
Both Bradley and the Thomist have their own special problems in explaining the relationship between finite beings and
God or the Absolute. The Thomist has the serious problem of
explaining why a God, perfect and complete in himself, should
create other beings which could add nothing to the perfection
of the universe of being.
Thomists generally argue that goodness is diffusive of itself,
and, in contrast to imperfect beings which act for the good
in the sense of obtaining it for themselves, a perfectly good
being tends to diffuse its goodness and to multiply it, since it
itself is in need of nothing. Although there is no reason that
God should create rather than not, or that he should create this
particular world rather than another, he freely chooses to do
so. In such a world creatures are the gratuitous products of
free creation, and a world more radically contingent can hardly
be conceived.
According to Hegel's dialectical monism infinite being constricts itself into finitude as an essential moment in the logical
process that is the very essence of infinite being. Self-alienation
is an element of that essence-which-is-existence of the infinite
being. Absolute Spirit must alienate itself by its very nature.
But, for a theist, this kind of answer is not possible. First,
creation is free and not a logico-metaphysical necessity of divine
nature. Second, in creation the divine substance is not dialectically parcelled out to creatures, for while they depend upon it,
it is not related to them. Hence, finitude cannot be the result
of something that happens to divine substance, even if that

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GARY L. BEDELL

happening be nothing more than the immanent activity of
dialectical self-alienation.
Some Thomists, therefore, have appealed to essence as the
passive potency and the intrinsic principle of limitation. Esse
is supposed to be diversified and limited by being received into
essence. This is determination by way of imperfection, since of
itself esse is act. However, according to Thomism's own
analysis of esse as the ultimate act, it is difficult to see how
essence can be available to receive and limit it, since apart from
esse there would be no reality at all. The problem here is not,
of course, one of temporal priority but one of sufficient entitative independence to ground a causal contribution on the part
of essence/ 0
If it is any consolation to the theist, it is clear that the
monist has his own analogous problems. Since the Absolute is
not independent of finite beings, he does not face the problem
of explaining a free creation. He does have a problem in
explaining why, in principle, and how, the Absolute can appear.
This is not a problem of showing in detail but of showing in
principle how it is compatible with the self-identity and oneness
of the Absolute that there should be many finite beings.
Having rejected Hegel's doctrine of determinate negation,
10 Even
prime matter, although pure potency, has some residual ratio not
reducible to what is provided by substantial form by virtue of which it contributes
something to the relationship, even if that something be by way of imperfection.
But if esse, as it must be, is the complete source of all reality, then essence can have
nothing, literally and absolutely speaking, that it does not derive from esse. How
then can it provide anything, even by the way of imperfection, to the relationship.
In answer to this problem William Carlo ("The Role of Essence in Existential
Metaphysics: A Reappraisal," International Philosophical Quarterly, II [Dec.
584-589) reinterpreted the concept of essence, not as that which limits esse but
as the limit of esse. Essence is where esse stops, so to speak. Others have
appealed to a doctrine of the auto-determination of esse to resolve the paradox.
See Leo J. Sweeney, S. J., A Metaphysics of Authentic Existentialism (Englewood
and Maurice Holloway,
Cliffs, New Jersey: Prentice-Hall, 1965), ch. 5,
"Towards the Fullness of Being," Proceedings of the Twenty-Fourth Annual ConWoodvention of the Jesuit Philosophical Association, (Woodstock, Maryland:
stock College Press,
6-37. Sweeney cites the support of Etienne Gilson as
the first to maintain this doctrine in Le Thomisme, 5th ed. (Paris: J. Vrin, 1948),
p. 54.

THEISTIC REALISM AND MONISTIC

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681

Bradley cannot appeal to some concept of self-alienation of the
Absolute as Hegel does. Bradley's harmonious Absolute, in
which all conflicts are resolved, shows no reason why it should
alienate itself from itself, or how it could possibly do so.
Bradley's hannonization of hostile elements loses Hegel's
machinery of self-perpetuating and continually sublated contradiction.
The self-discrepant, ideal objects are the result of a constricted perspective which excludes the conditions of reconciliation. Limited perspective is expressed by Bradley by the term
"finite centre," which does not denote the self but the limited
perspective on reality whose content is the world and self in
one. The existence of finite centres might explain a restricted
view that would leave out the reconciling perspectives, but
what will explain finite centres? Just as the theist cannot
appeal to essence to do a job that the very concept of essence
presupposes already done, neither can Bradley logically appeal
to finite centres to provide a function apart from which there
could be no finite centres.
Somehow Bradley needs the finite centres as privileged concretions of the Absolute, but not only does he not have the
necessary dialectical machinery to provide them, he himself has
insisted that they themselves are also appearances.
The most serious problem that Bradley faces is that his
concept of transmutation of appearances in the totality of the
Absolute seems to imply that there are really no finite things at
all; there only appears to be finite beings. 11 But, furthermore,
unless there first appear to be finite centres, there could appear
to be nothing else. Nothing in Bradley's metaphysics seems
able to account for the appearance of finite centres.
CoNCLUSION

Both Thomism's theistic realism and Bradley's monistic
idealism make the classical metaphysical assumption that it is
11 This was pointed out almost immediately
by Bradley's critics, but its most
memorable expression was given by G. E. Moore, Some Main Problems of Philosophy (New York: Collier Books, 1962), p. 36.

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GARY L. BEDELL

logically possible to assess the intrinsic intelligibility of the
beings of our experience by an existential employment of the
axiom of non-contradiction. Each grants that anything that
exists is by that very fact somehow intelligible and self-consistent but also insists that the metaphysical question is how
they must be interpreted in order to acknowledge this intelligibility. Anything encountered in experience is in some sense
real, but only that which is self-sufficiently intelligible is also
self-sufficiently real.
They differ, however, both in what they take as the basic
sense of actual reality and in what they take to be the manner
of resolving the threat to self-consistency. For both Bradley
and the Thomist the index to actual reality is immediate experience. But, whereas the Thomist claims to discover within
actual sentient experience evidence of a meaning for existential
actuation which is not reducible to the sentient experience in
which it is encountered, Bradley takes the actual sentient experience as the very sense and meaning of the object's reality as
well as an index to its actuality.
Both agree that the mark of finitude is a distinction or
loosening of essence and existence or of the " what " from the
" that." For some Thomists, at least, the essence is a co-principle in a real composition of metaphysical principles, serving
as the receiving and limiting function for actus essendi. For
Bradley, on the other hand, the essence or content is an
abstraction from sentient experience, and its most appropriately, although inadequately, expressed function is to qualify
and be conditioned by that sentient experience. For the
Thomist, essence is the more or less substantially independent
being which depends on existential actuation from above; for
Bradley, however, essence is a mere abstraction which simply
ignores the context which vitally influences its very being.
For a Thomist a contradiction is threatened insofar as we
tend to view the finite being as independently real. The threat
is removed by attributing the existential actuation, for which
the essence cannot account, to an extrinsic cause. For Bradley
the contradiction is introduced by the finite being itself, since

THEISTIC REALISM AND MONISTIC IDEALISM

683

as ideal it itself is responsible for the exclusion-by-ignoring of
conditions that would reconcile the conflicting ideas of its
being.
Both Bradley and the Thomist feel justified in arguing to
the actuality of a reality which is at one with its own existence
as the presupposition of the finite beings which are distinct
from their own existence. But for Bradley it is monism's perfect individual of which the finite beings are but appearances.
For the Thomist it is theism's God who is perfect and complete
independently of the creatures he freely creates from an overflowing of his own goodness.
The resulting universes of being are quite different. For the
monistic idealist the universe is a perfectly concatenated
system of the completely determined aspects of one perfect
individual. The manifold of finite beings only appears to be
there, and no element is anything but an abstraction from the
supra-relational unity of the Absolute.
For the theistic realist, on the other hand, the universe is
radically contingent, since it is the product of a radically free
choice. At the same time, the theist grants to the finite being
a degree of substantiality that the monist cannot countenance.
The finite beings are finite substances, and not subject to
transmutation. Here is a fundamentally different concept of
dependent being, according to which the theist hopes to hold
open some possibility of free and dependent creativity on the
part of the finite.
GARY BEDELL
Rockkurat CoUege
Kansas City, Miaaoun

BOOK REVIEWS
God and Rationality. By THoMAs F. ToRRANCE. New York:
University Press, 1971. Pp. 228. $9.00.

Oxford

Thomas Torrance, Professor of Christian Dogmatics in the University of
Edinburgh, dedicates this collection of essays to the memory of Karl
Barth, " Doctoris Ecclesiae Universalis, Magistri Mei Cari In Universitate
Basiliensi." In his earliest writings, Torrance followed Barth in teaching
that faith was self-vindicating and that to search for apologetic evidence
is to reject justification by God alone through Jesus Christ. The present
book's title as well as its central thrust, an attempt to show the rationality
of Christian faith and theology, would suggest that Torrance has modified
his position. We will restrict our analysis here to the central theme of
these essays and certain difficulties we find with it. Torrance's views have
an importance, both for his real contributions and for the stimulus they
give us to reflect on theological method today.
Torrance sees the current crisis in theology as due largely to the
emergence, in the shift from a Newtonian to a post-Einsteinian physics, of
a new scientific view of the world and a new scientific method. Scientific
changes in the past have brought about crises in theology; this was the
case particularly in the shift from Greek astronomy to the Ptolemaic universe during the second to the fourth centuries, and in the change from
medieval science to the universe of Copernicus and Newton during the
fifteenth to the seventeenth centuries. Arianism was a theological aberration dependent in part on the emerging Ptolemaic universe, whereas the
true development went through Nicea and Athanasius; so too today,
Bultmannianism is a theological casualty of the contemporary scientific
development, while the true development today will come from a renewed
realization of the intrinsic rationality of the Christian mystery and the use
of a strict scientific method in theology appropriate to this mystery's
distinctive nature.
Torrance presents his analysis of the rationality appropriate to theology
through analogy with the method of contemporary physical science; and in
studying the latter, Torrance depends largely on Michael Polanyi (e. g., his
book, Personal Knowledge. Toward a Post-Critical Philosophy). Polanyi
emphasizes, in his important book, the personal character of scientific
knowledge. He studies science particularly at the point of its breaking out
into the discovery of a new theory. He shows that discovery emerges not
simply from an objective submission to empirical data but rather from the
adoption of another structure of interpretation, a structure that the scientist

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cannot verify at the time but adopts for such personal reasons as its
simplicity, its aesthetic value, and its suspected future possibilities in
interpreting a large range of data. The scientist cannot demonstrate the
validity of his theory to those who do not accept his standpoint of interpretation; demonstration here is essentially dependent on persuading the
other to adopt the new standpoint and look at the data from that
perspective. Positivism and empiricism can explain neither such discovery
nor the scientist's more fundamental confidence in the intelligibility of the
universe and his own ability to know it. The scientific endeavor is based
on a belief, and it is only through this belief that the scientist is introduced
to the inherent rationality of his sphere of study. As Augustine wrote,
"nisi credideritis, non intelligitis."
For Torrance, theology's future is dependent upon its use of a scientific
rigor as strict and as appropriate to its object as physical science uses in
its own sphere. This has a number of implications, of which we may
mention a few. It displaces medieval objectivism, for even as early as the
sixteenth century,
Calvin made it clear that there is a mutual relation between the knowledge of
God and the knowledge of ourselves. That can be taken to mark the beginning of
modem theology, for it is within this orbit that all our theological thinking since
has moved. We do not know God in the abstract as He is in Himself, but only in
the reciprocal relation which He has established through His revelation between
God and us and us and God. (31)

On the other hand, and it is on this that Torrance's main emphasis lies, this
implies that modern interpretations of theology as non-objective or nonconceptual knowledge, or as simply an objectification of the belief of the
Christian, are misreadings of the implications of modern science. It is true
that if scientific objectivity means the objectivity of mechanistic and instrumentalist science, then our knowledge of God cannot be objective
because this would subordinate God to us. But to interpret science in this
fashion, as so many theologians still do, is simply to take an outdated view
of science. Objectivity means rather to submit one's mind to the rationality
of its object in accord with the nature of this rationality; and so objectivity
in theology, while attaining the intrinsic rationality of its object, is as
proportionately different from that of science as the objects are different.
(For his views in this area Torrance is dependent also on the long-time
professor of philosophy at Edinburgh University, John MacMurray.) The
words and concepts of faith and theology are, no more than those of
science, expressive simply of the feelings and beliefs of the speaker; they
have primarily an objective intentionality, and their appropriateness is
judged more through their relation to the object than their relation to the
individual subject speaking or the culture of which he is a part. Torrance
adds that the presence of the subject in his concepts and words, in short,

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in his knowledge in both science and theology, does not imply that the
object is related only to the subject, because the theological object (as the
physical object in science) is related as well to other objects. The greatest
danger in theology today is a subjectivism; a great need then is for us to
"think out more carefully and stringently the interrelation of object and
subject and build into our thinking remedies for the inveterate preoccupation with ourselves from which we all suffer."
Torrance's insistance on the " intrinsic rationality " of the Christian
mystery and his theological approach to it are a real contribution to the
theological dialogue today, but there are some major difficulties with it,
two of which I would like to mention. In the first place, he has not
sufficiently recognized that the widespread current sense of a loss of meaning in the Christian mystery is due not simply to Bultmann's and others'
subjectivism and reductionism; it is also due in part to Barth's rejection, in
his attempt to preserve the transcendence of God, of a developed V orverstiindnis or preunderstanding of man as an integral part of the theological
enterprise. Although Torrance shows an understanding of modem science
(as shown also in his book Space, Time, and Incarnation), he does not
analyse modern man's experience of life. His references to secularity or
secularization (48, 71, 75, 78 f.) are all negative. This approach makes
impossible an adequate unfolding of the intrinsic intelligibility or rationality
of the Christian mystery. As Jean Piaget shows in his studies of the
development of man's knowledge from infancy through adolescence, the
condition for man's understanding a new dimension of his environment is a
process of assimilation to schemes or structures of knowledge formed by
previous experience and an accomodation of these schemes to the new
dimension that now faces the subject. If this is the case, then there is no
approach to the intrinsic intellibility of the Christian mystery that can
bypass modern man's distinctive experiences and his self-understanding
that emerges from these. Justification, grace, the Spirit, the Church must
be articulated theologically today in relation to modern man's experiences
of secularity, of change, of his self-making, of urban life, of alienation.
Langdon Gilkey is one theologian who has made a good start in analyzing
those current experiences that offer a point of contact for our articulation
of the Christian message; this he does particularly in his book Naming the
Whirlwind.
Secondly, Torrance has not departed from Barth's views on the relation
between man's Christian and preChristian knowledge as much as the title
of his book and his use of the modern scientific method would suggest. For
example, he writes:
The transcendent rationality of God . . . is ultimate and as such can be known
only out of itself. . . . The Truth of God cannot be demonstrated from other
ground or derive suport from lesser truths for He is the ultimate ground and
support of them all. (97)

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687

And:
Without the Spirit, we have no opening to the transcendent Being, but through
the Spirit our concepts are opened in such a way that He is accessible to us ....
(188)

Torrance finds support for this position in Polanyi's views that the basis of
scientific knowledge is fiduciary and that one can appreciate the intrinsic
rationality of a new theory only by adopting its standpoint.
One can question aspects of Torrance's epistemology of faith and
theology on biblical bases. But we can also question Polanyi's views on
the bases of our scientific knowledge. These views may seem congenial to
the classical Protestant understanding of how to turn men to Christian
faith, and they have been adopted by other theologians (e. g., by Gilkey,
in his book Religion and the Scientific Future). There is a truth in
stressing the fiduciary bases of the scientific enterprise, particularly because
this enterprise is a human action that demands a stepping out of the
present into the future (e. g., in initiating or adopting a new theory), and
this depends on a faith. But it is also a very specific kind of human
activity, an intellectual activity that has its proper bases. It is true that
science is based on an expectation of intelligible order in the world and a
confidence in one's ability to know it, but whether this expectation and
confidence are properly faith or knowledge depends in turn on their bases.
This question cannot be decided simply by attempting to reflect on the
bases current in the adult when he is engaging in scientific activity, if the
bases of his adult form of knowledge have been established genetically by
a succession of structures of knowledge developed from infancy through
childhood and into adolescence. Piaget is also a help to us here, because he
argues effectively for the genetic approach to human knowledge, and he
gives a vast amount of data and an analysis of man's growth and structures
of knowledge that support and articulate this approach. Piaget's own
explanation does not adequately answer the question we posed above,
because he (rightly for his science) treats knowledge as a behavior modeled
on but not reducible to biological behavior, and he seeks to know the
mechanisms of knowledge rather than its nature. But a philosophical
reflection that, on its own level, would explain Piaget's data would, I
suggest, show that the basis of science is not properly faith but the child's
growing insights into an expanding environment and into his own intellectual relation to this environment. It is true that to accept the Christian
faith one must accept the standpoint proper to Christian faith, and one
can do this only under the Holy Spirit. But part of the conversion involved
here is an intellectual conversion, and part of the basis for changing one's
intellectual standpoint or perspective can be rationally available data that
show the insufficiency on one's previous intellectual perspective, as Catholic
theologians have traditionally (though frequently onesidedly) held.

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Torrance's work is a welcome contribution to the dialogue today on the
meaning of theological statements. His present work does not pretend to a
complete treatment of this issue; his work Theological Science deals with
it more at length. Torrance's use of science would seem to be an integral
part of the answer to this problem, although it would have to be supplemented by a study of how we know ourselves, the objectives of our life,
and other persons to be adequate for the task.
JoHN FARRELLY, 0. S. B.

St. Anselm's Abbey
Washington, D. C.

The Future of Philosophical Theology. Edited by RoBERT EvANS. Philadelphia: The Westminster Press, 1971. Pp. 190. $6.95.
Whether philosophical theology has a future and if so what form it
will likely take are the matters discussed in the present work. The essays
that are presented here were originally papers read in a confernce held at
McCormick Theological Seminary in April of 1970. Their authors are
Schubert Ogden, David Burrell, Van Harvey, and Heinrich Ott. In addition
to doing the editing, Robert Evans has written a Preface and an Introduction that provide useful background information and set the tone for
what follows.
Despite the diverse philosophical and theological convictions of the
major contributors, something of a consensus seems to have emerged. It
is a very limited one, perhaps mote implied than clearly expressed, but real
for all of that. There is agreement on the need for a distinction between
philosophy and Christian theology; furthermore, the latter cannot dispense
with the services of the former. Finally, one ought to take seriously at
least the possibility that Christian theology has something of truth and
value to offer philosophy.
To understand the origin of the differences that exist between the views
expressed in this book, one must look to the nature of philosophy. As for
a definition of the latter, none is given on which everyone agreed; indeed
no effort seems to have been made in this direction. Still there is a
description that is applicable to the various instances of philosophical
endeavor spoken of and exemplified in the observations of the major
contributors to the conference. Philosophy is not assumed to be the knowledge of all things in their ultimate causes. There is clear recognition of the
fact that what it means to know universally and through ultimate causes
is too much in doubt at present. But what then is the broad area of human
thought designated by the adjective philosophical and related to theology
so positively in the view of these authors?

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I submit that the following description does justice to the intellectual
endeavors they have in mind. Philosophy is a broad, general inquiry in
which every meaningful question is legitimate including " Is question Q
meaningful?" and "What is philosophy? " This type of inquiry is to be
regarded as distinct from the activity one engages in when believing as a
Christian. But what is more, such inquiry and its results are important
for Christian theology in the future. How and why?
Perhaps one would proceed best by answering the second question first.
Christian theology is a methodical attempt to understand human existence
in dependence on the historically determinable experience and expression
that is Christian Faith. But to understand in this particular fashion remains incomplete unless the same phenomenon of human existence is
analyzed and scrutinized form other perspectives. To be sure, the understanding that accrues to human existence from the a-priori of Christian
Faith must be brought into relation with other types of understanding of
that same reality. But how is that broad ende.avor of seeking understanding in dependen('e o" something other than Cluistian faith to he conceived? Here the coi'\Sensus obviously d;sappeared. David :Bilnell and
Schubert 015den provide clear er<amples of this.
They differ as to the nature of philosophical theology in the future.
For Ogden, the process of underslar,ding involves something that is
positively constructive. What man does ard makes by way of mental
constructs precisely in understanding is something that the Christian
theological enterprise needs very much. Philosophy comes to grips with
problems that are evidently presupposed for an encounter between
Christian understanding and that which is non-Christian. It thereby
becomes necessary for Christian theology. For Burrell, on the other hand,
a more important purpose of philosophical thought is to keen the human
mind open and to revive ever again man's sense of mystery that concepts
and systems of thought may dull. Through this clearing operation the
human mind recognizes once again that its previous efforts are not adequate to grasp the mystery of existence as lived and experienced. One is
not unfair in noting the similarity between the type of understanding Ogden
envisions with that sought by the field theorist in physics and that which
Burrell has in mind with the endeavors of the literary critic. Science and
the analysis of esthetics provide different options for the type of understanding that will be needed in critical efforts to reflect on Christian Faith
in the future.
An understanding explicitly dependent on that Faith stands isolated unless it engages in a give-and-take with other, broader (because less specified)
forms of understanding. To avoid the ghetto, the enterprise of Christian
theology will need a functional specialization called philosophical theology.
But how does the understanding that belongs to a Christian as such relate
itself to other types even in the same individual, to say nothing of his

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non-Christian peers? Here philosophical theology comes into play. But
how does it seek to achieve its purpose? Is it to lay the grounds for attempts to answer the questions that arise ever anew from such an encounter? Or is it to keep the frontiers of thought open and in that sense
to offer hope that room will always be left for Christian understanding as a
viable, intellectually respectable, but free option? Philosophical theology
would be primarily constructive in the first hypothesis and therapeutic in
the second. No consensus on this matter was reached by the major
contributors and twenty other consultants who took part in the conference
reported here.
Another significant issue raised during the conference is that to which
Van Harvey addressed himself and which others referred to as the morality
of knowing. He employed a long allegory to illustrate that the old dilemma
of the Englightenment is that of the alienated Christian theologian today.
Foundational questions deal with the grounds on which others rest and
are as such the most important. Newman was right in finding it hard to
understand how men could become more concerned when they heard it
reported that murder had just been committed in Japan than when someone noted that God may exist! The problem of the alienated theologian is
to be located right here. Inquiry into ultimate questions is crucial, but
no one has any moral right to jump to conclusions in answering those
questions. Evidence must be the decisive factor, and that evidence is so
hard to come by. The alienated theologian today is one who asks questions
about the implications of the God-talk of believers, one who does so in
close connection with a Christian community asking and answering those
questions with more equanimity than he, and one who is yet unable either
to agree completely with the answers given or to rule the latter out of
court.
In the discussion that followed the presentation of the papers and that
is summarized by Dr. Donald Mather in a very helpful concluding Report,
Dr. Carl Armbruster is described as taking exception to Dr. Harvey's
unwillingness to accept beliefs one cannot account for. Dr. Harvey
replied, as reported, that this nevertheless is in fact his position. In my
opinion this issue is just as crucial as Dr. Harvey makes it. The Deathof-God theologians were not wrong in asking their questions; they were
mistaken by and large in the hasty answers they gave to those questions.
This issue of ground for believing what one believes as a Christian is too
important theoretically and pastorally for theologians to neglect. It merits
much more consideration from Christian scholars who consider it important
not merely to believe but to be ready to render an account of the hope
that is consequently in them.
Why does the Christian believe this rather than that to be true? Surely
this is one of the most fundamental questions bothering reflective men and
women of the East and West today. The role of proof, of evidence, of

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warranties for truth claims-what is it in the case of Christian Faith? In
that Faith one experiences and affirms in dependence on a norm that
makes the experience and affirmation Christian. The objective content of
that affirmation, its claim to truth, the quality of that experience, its claim
to be appreciated-these are all determined by relation to that norm, which
makes the specifically Christian what it is. As such that norm must be
compared with others exercizing a similar function for expressions that
make no pretension of being Christian but simply of being true and for
experiences that lay no claim to be Christian values but simply to be
appreciable and valuable.
In this demand for evidence, Dr. Harvey may be closer to John Locke
than to John Newman, with whom he nevertheless sympathizes. At least
the Newman of the Essay in Aid of a Grammar of Assent took issue with
Locke precisely on the issue of the morality of knowing and affirming
without probative evidence. Still Dr. Harvey does raise the question that
I likewise am convinced is central and that will in my opinion be ignored
further only at the cost of theological disarray hitherto unparalleled among
Christians in modern times.
CARL J. PETER
The Catlwlic University of America
Washington, D. C.

Theology Today Series. 10. The Theology of Inspiration, by JoHN
ScULLION,S. J. 11. The Theology of Tradition, by ANTHONY MEREDITH,
S. J. 12. The Theology of the Word of God, by ALOYSIUS CHURCH,
S. J. 16. The Theology of St. Paul, by HENRY WANSBROUGH, 0. S. B.
18. Theology and Spirituality, by JoHN DALRYMPLE. 21. The Christian
Social Conscience, by RoDGER CHARLES, S. J. Each 95-96 pp. $0.95.
The editor and the publishers of this series deserve applause for keeping
their promises. The books are coming strictly to time.
The author of Theology of Inspiration is lecturer in Old Testament
Exegesis at the Jesuit Theological College, Parkville, Melbourne. He presents briefly but adequately the theology of Inspiration. His treatment of
its development between the two Vatican Councils is very interesting. He
summarizes the opinions of the great theologians who contributed to the
more perfect formulation of the Church's teaching as it is found in the
Constitution on Revelation of Vatican II, e. g., Franzelin, Newman, M. J.
Lagrange, Benoit, Rahner, Cougar, John McKenzie. It is remarkable that
Fr. Lagrange's approach has remained valid and acceptable.
Fr. Scullion deals with the teaching of the Church in the encyclicals of

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Leo XIII, Benedict XV, and Pius XII. But I wonder if his criticism of
Humani Generis on literary forms i.> quite fair. The Pope does not write
as an exegete; his purpose is the very practical one of safeguarding the
interpretation of the Bible. There are literary forms that are in practice
incompatible with " God's sanctity and truth." One has only to read the
scriptures of other religions to see that. It is enough to read Allegro's
interpretation of our own to see what Pius XII feared.
The treatment is adequate for those who have studied and mastered the
theology of Inspiration; for the layman this little book may be either a
help or a hindrance. Synopsized theology is certainly useful for the
cognoscenti.
The author of The Theology of Tradition is perhaps the youngest of the
contributors, three years ordained with the same in teaching experience at
Stonyhurst. But he has produced one of the most satisfying books of the
ser1es.
In the fourth chapter he seems to be careening toward a tangent, where
he says that " the nature and exercise of authority in the Church is one
of the crucial issues in any theology of Tradition." He then cites the crisis
about H1tmanae Vitae. However, he kept away from the question of pills
and gave an excellent judgment on the harmonizing of personal conscience
with the commands of authority. Nevertheless, I am still wondering how
the chapter fits in. The book is brief and concise and a good commentary
on the recent Concilar teaching.
In The Theology of the Word of God Fr. Church has written a fairly
complete theology of preaching, teaching, and catechizing. A teacher of
eight years' experience in Jesuit schools in North England, he spent two
years giving retreats, missions, and some conferences for catechists. He
now works in Guyana. His approach, though orthodox and logical, is thus
; ot purely academic.
There is some lack of sympathy with the pieties of the Counter-Reformation, although they were inspired by the Society of Jesus. To me, a
Jesuit, while moving with the Church, should be able to make a case for
the valid survival of individualism in the spiritual life. Even the present
renewal of community worship--which borders on communitarianismneeds the powerful check of lgnatian spirituality. The quotation from
Mediator Dei of Pius XII, which he contrasts, I think unfairly, with what
Vatican II says about Lent, is inspired by lgnatian spirituality and is
perfectly sound, " doleful " though it may seem to the author.
The chapters on preaching are excellent, especially the seventh where
calling on lay people to preach is discussed. " The doctrinal pronouncements of the Teaching Authority," the fourth listed among the sources of
preaching today, is too brief. It is a pity not to include the personal teaching of the Roman Pontiff as a necessary source for the preaching of
bishops and priests.

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693

Fr. Wansbrough, still in his thirties, is now Housemaster at Ampleforth
where he teaches classics. A student of the Ecole Biblique of the French
Dominicans at Jerusalem, he once taught at The Catholic University,
Washington. His The Theology of St. Paul is in a way an introduction to
all of St. Paul's letters. Singled out for special attention is the development
of St. Paul's theological ideas as they occurred to his mind while confronting the practical problems of the infant churches. The author's classical
background is evident, but, benefitting also from being a teacher of boys,
his scholarship is not oppressive.
The danger of touching so briefly the huge canvasses of Pauline theology
is one of saying too little or of giving only one point of view, as in dealing
with original sin on page 44. I do not agree that the letters to Timothy as
" less inspiring reading than the earlier ones " because " they present the
institutional side of the Church." Is it fair to say that the Pauline theology
of marriage " is too much conditioned by the social presuppositions of
Paul's own milieu to serve as a perfect guide for present-day husbands and
wives "? Still, the author's insights into St. Paul are worth having.
John Dalrymple, Theology and Spirituality, is a Scot and a late vocation,
for he served in the Scot's Guards and was ordained in 1954. Founder of
a hostel for women in distress, he serves also as spiritual father at St.
Andrew's College, Drygrange.
Spirituality is a vague word with a wide meaning, embracing the
practical side of the Christian life. The author here generally considers
it under the title of Christian Response, its clements and development.
He is slightly impatient with distinctions, admits them but sees no
practical purpose in them. This I believe leads him to apply the via
negativa of our natural knowledge of God to God's supernatural knowlelge of himself. Thus he agrees with the Bishop of Woolwich that the first
step in Christian maturity is to " sit loose to the image," which is very
well for spirituality in heaven. However, I see no sense whatever in trying
to get beyond God the Father, and apparently God does not either! Is it
quite right to call the notions of the Trinity anthropomorphous?
The author's liturgical approach to Christ's place in our prayer, as the
One in whom and with whom we approach the Father, is a bit rigid; he
says this is more " biblical and authentic." Yet I find the adoration of the
Lamb in the Apocalypse; from that liturgy St. Thomas borrowed much of
the language of his eucharistic hymns.
In The Christian Social Conscience Fr. Charles, lecturer at Heythrop
College, begins with a short treatise on conscience and the development of
the socially alert conscience in modern times. He devotes a most interesting chapter to the growth of the social teaching of the Church. It is refreshing to find a modern author who is not ashamed to quote St. Thomas
on law and the common good.
In the third chapter the main points of the teaching of the modem

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social encyclicals is given with the historical context which called for special
emphasis. The author rightly remarks that "Rerum Novarum outlined
the basic standards for a free industrial society. Other documents of the
Church have built on them but little that is new has been added in the
way of principle. Such was the achievement of this great encyclical, the
Magna Carta of the Church's social teaching."
There is a special chapter on the response of the Magisterium to the
international discussion on the cold war, the arms race, and aid to underdeveloped countries. A wisely devised comment follows on two contemporary problems, racism and political cynicism. Finally, there is a most
helpful appendix on the authority of the social encyclicals.
JEROME TONER, 0. P.
St. Charles' Seminary
Nagpur, India

Tommaso Campanella. Renaissance Pioneer of Modern Thought. By
BERNARDINO M. BoNANSEA, 0. F. M. Washington: The Catholic University of America Press, 1969. Pp. 43!'!; $14.50.
" The journey through the maze of Campanellian writings has not been
an easy one," says the author of this substantial work, and we can well
believe him. Campanella's literary output was enormous; much of it is
still imperfectly edited; and as a philosopher he is not only highly original
but, to our way of thinking today, often extremely bizarre. Part of this
oddness in his subject is indeed avoided by Fr. Bonansea, for he hardly
touches on Campanella's philosophy of nature, which was saturated with
astrology and magic, and says relatively little about his fantastically
theocratical politics. What he gives us in the main is a very clear and wellconsidered critical exposition of the Campanellian theory of knowledge and
metaphysics. These two topics occupy the main body of the work, (pp.
46-247) being introduced by a section on Campanella's life and philosophical background and followed by fifty pages on his moral philosophy and
politics. There are nearly a hundred pages of Notes, inconveniently placed
at the end of the book but in themselves of the greatest value and interest,
since they largely consist of copious extracts from Campanella's writings
(which very few readers will have read for themselves, at least as regards
the more important ones, the Metaphysica and the Theologia). There is
an excellent bibliography (to which, however, the following items may be
added: P. Mandonnet's article-for its time a good one-in the Dictionnaire de Theologie Catholique, II, col. 1443-7; D. P. Walker, Spiritual and
Demonic Magic from Ficino to Campanella, London, The Warburg lnsti-

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tute, 1958; F. A. Yates, Giordano Bruno and the Hermetic Tradition, ch.
20, London, 1964; E. Gilson, Etudes de philosophic medievale, Paris, 1921,
pp. 125-45) . There is a name-index, of course, but unfortunately no
subject-index.
The author keeps his exposition distinct from his critique by inserting
three purely " evaluative " chapters after the sections, respectively, on
Campanella's theory of knowledge, metaphysics, and ethics. The expositions are scholarly and objective; every important statement is carefully and sufficiently documented. As for the critical part, some may find
it excessively Thomist. The Thomist point of view is never indeed
explicitly adopted, but it seems implicit everywhere, and it becomes quite
evident in the evaluation of Campanellian metaphysics. This is not, of
course, a defect as such, but in the event it has, I venture to think,
resulted in a certain restriction of intellectual sympathy-not precisely because Fr. Bonansea reasons like a Thomist (or better perhaps, an
Aristotelian) but because on some important points his understanding of
the relevant Thomist thesis seems rather unsubtle and unimaginative, as
I hope in part at least to indicate. I could not help wondering at times
why a Franciscan should make so little use of the great thinkers of his
own Order in evaluating this most " Franciscan," in a sense, of Dominican
philosophers. Scotus is mentioned from time to time; the use Campanella
makes of his " formal distinction ex natura rei" is well brought out in the
discussion of the Campanellian structure of all being in terms of the three
" primalities," power, knowledge, and love. But Bonaventure is conspicuously absent, his name appearing only twice, and marginally, in the
whole book; and yet Campanella's theses on the soul's notitia innata of
God, and on the discernible presence of the Trinity in the universe, are at
least prima facie very similar to the Franciscan master's positions.
Let us glance now at some characteristic Campanellian theses on knowledge and on being and note briefly how F. Bonansea assesses them.
Knowledge. Adequate knowledge, for Campanella, is a thorough comprehension of particulars. As bearing on the concrete, the particular, all knowing may be called sensation, senstts; a use of terms which makes for confusion, as Fr. Bonansea often remarks. But as comprehensive, as a
thorough intus legere of an object in its totality, knowledge is best called
sapientia and is proper to the more " divine " part of the human soul,
the mens. Everything in the universe has knowledge of a sort, just as
everything has "power" and "love "-power, knowledge, and love being
the three " primalities " which reflect in the created world the divine
Monotriad, the Trinity. This universal knowing appears on two levels, the
corporeal and the incorporeal, denoted by spiritus and mens respectively.
Mens begins in man and extends upwards through the angels to God. In
man the knowing proper to the corporeal spiritus includes not only sensation, external and internal, but the power to form universal ideas and to

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reason, which Aristotle and his school mistakenly supposed to be incorporeal. In fact the universal is only an internal sensation bearing on similarities between sense-objects. As such it is doubly defective; it lacks both
the certitude that is the mark of external sensation and the comprehensiveness, the total intus legere proper to true intellectual intuition, the
act of mens. Conceiving the universal in this way, it is no wonder that
Campanella rejects the Aristotelico- Thomist theory of abstraction by an
intellectus agens, and indeed the whole theory of knowledge that this
presupposes-that knowing is the non-material reception of forms. Two
further characteristics should be noted: Campanella's insistence on doubt
as a necessary prolegomenon to metaphysics, and his stress on self-knowledge as the primary and most radical form of knowledge.
It is not difficult for Fr. Bonansea to point out the confusions and obscurities of the Campanellian noetic; and this part of his evaluation need not
be repeated here. More positively, he draws a clear distinction between
Campanella's methodical universal doubt and that of his younger contemporary Descartes; and between Campanella's empiricism (so to call it)
and that of Locke and Hum e. On two matters, however, it seems to me
that he might have pressed his analysis further. The first concerns one
of the weakest points in Campanella's system, the link between senseknowledge, the work of spiritus, and full understanding, the work of mens.
Gilson, in one of his earliest essays (referred to above), asked himself how
on earth Campanella could combine an apparently sensist epistemology
with a quasi-mystical natural philosophy and metaphysic full of " fantasmagorie poetique "; and he found the answer in Campanella's persistent
habit of reasoning by analogy, of treating all discursive understanding as a
discovery of similarities, of sensus similis in simili. Gilson did not go into
the metaphysics underlying this analogical " habit " and I had hoped that
Fr. Bonansea might take the matter up, but he has very little to say on
this aspect of Campanella. The other matter is Campanella's stress on the
primacy of self-knowled'!e; a consequence of the strange-sounding doctrine
of the three "primalities," as Fr. Bonansea shows: the whole universe has
an "embryonic consciousness" which comes, as it were, to the surface in
the
self-cognition through self-presence (notitia praesentialitatis).
To speak personally, I find this a very exciting idea and one that Thomism
by no means simply rules out (as Fr. Bonansea seems to imply, e. g., pp.
U4-5) . though, of course, it needs to be carefully rethought and restated.
The strongest thing in Campanella was his sense of God's immanence in the
world: it enabled him sometimes to write great poetry. His weakness was
overcorfider>cc and a lack of critical (and self-critical) finesse. He flung
himself ag-ainst a desiccated Aristotelianism without (it seems) ever really
trying to understand in depth the principles from which, after all, it
derived. More precisely, as regards his noetic, he lacked what Aquinas had
not lacked, an exact and clear conception of the degrees of knowledge.

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Being. Fr. Bonansea, though he is not directly concerned with biography,
follows R. Amerio and others in seeing a development in Campanella from
an earlier " naturalistic " phase to the " Christian philosophy of his later
years." This Christian emphasis was related, of course, to the friar's lifelong anti-Aristotelianism, and in passing it is interesting to observe what 1!,
different course this attitude took in the other great Dominican rebel of
that time, Giordano Burno, whose break with the Aristotelian cosmos led him
in the event away from Christianity. Why Campanella's mind went in the
direction opposite to Bruno's is known to God alone; Fr. Bonansea in any
case does not raise the question (nor was he obliged to). One factor
perhaps was an underlying Platonism, such as comes out in the statement
"res cunctae constituuntur ex primi entis participatione." Another, surely,
was that admittedly somewhat reckless zest for analogy which (reinforced
no doubt by simple piety) led Campanella, with a magnificent naivety, to
read into being in general his own self-awareness-seeing
in a grain of
sand or blade of grass the three " primalities " that he found in his own
soul: power, knowledge, love; so that in the physical cosmos itself he
thought he discerned the Holy Trinity. And he thought he discerned It
metaphysically; the " primalities " were for him the basic principles of
being as naturally intelligible; they replaced the Aristotelian correlatives,
act and potency. But his new metaphysics, his rethinking of the basic
notions of essence and existence, centered inevitably on the first "primality," power. And the result, as Fr. Bonansea shows, was confusion. For in
effect what Campanella meant by potentia or potestas, in this fundamental
sense, involved a blurring of two concepts which, as St. Thomas had shown,
have to be kept distinct if one is to preserve any essential difference
between the created world and God: the notions of potentiality with
respect to activity (operatio) and potentiality with respect to existence
(esse (cf. Summa Theol., I, qq. 54, aa. 2-3). But this point is worth
examining a little more closely.
In passing, I could wish that Fr. Bonansea's exposition of the Campanellian teaching on essence and existence had been a little clearer; no
doubt this teaching is already rather confused in the texts, but the
ambiguities have not, to my mind, been very acutely sorted out; moreover,
in this very important part of the exposition we really need more quotations verbatim from Campanella than we are given in fact (I refer
especially to pp. 150-1, 228-31). This said, let me say that, so far as I
understand it from the account here given, Campanella's theory of essence
and existence may be reduced to five points. (I) The "primality" that
is "power to be" is the same as essence, essentia. (2) Essence, in this
radical sense of a relation to existence, esse, is never conceived by Campanella as mere potentiality to receive existence (as in St. Thomas, when
speaking of creatures) but always as having existence in some way, either
imperfectly or perfectly. (3) An essence has imperfect existence while it

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is still only "in its causes"; but this existence is also called (and the term
makes for confusion) "intrinsic." (4) It has perfect existence when, being
now caused, it " stands outside its causes "-having, therefore, now an
"extrinsic" existence. (5) The difference,
regards existence, between an
essence as " in " its causes and as " out " of them, as " imperfect " and as
" perfect," is purely modal-the esse of the essence has simply changed its
"mode," that is all. Now on all this, two observations seem called for.
The first and more general is that Campanella seems always to conceive
of being as a kind of force and of existence as a sort of deed or action.
As Fr. Bonansea paraphrases certain texts (which might well have been
quoted more fully) , " just as power is needed for acting, so it is need for
being"; and again, potentia essendi is that whereby a thing "maintains
itself in being." And this might have been just an emphatic way of stating
the positivity, so to say, of that which is, but in fact it is clearly due to
some confusion between operatio and esse in creatures such as St. Thomas
was at pains to avoid. The second observation is made, very succinctly,
by Fr. Banansea when he points out Campanella's conception of a merely
modal difference between possible and actual existence " logically leads to
pantheism." If the essence of things as merely possible is an essence that
already exists, how do you distinguish, ultimately, between the world of
creatures and the mind of God?
Earlier I remarked that Fr. Bonansea's criticism of Campanellian positions is sometimes deficient in "intellectual sympathy." This phrase may
be questioned, but I think that the careful reader will see what I mean if he
considers, for example, the way the idea of our having "innate knowledge "
of God is refuted, (pp. 229-30) and still more the treatment of the thesis
that " we love God by an innate and essential love more than we love
ourselves, for what we love in us is what God really is " (p. 163) -a
statement which, I should have thought, was substantially in line with
St. Thomas's teaching in the Summa I, q. 60, a. 5, and in any case did not
deserve the slick comment (p. 234) that this point in Campanella's teaching " is contradicted by the fact that many people love themselves more
than God. This . . . is enough to show that our love for God is neither
an essential part of human nature nor a necessary property of it. It is
only an accidental (sic) act, depending on our free will." One further
criticism, concerning the subtitle of this book. Whether Campanella was
or was not a " Pioneer of 1\fodern Thought," the reader interested in this
question will remain unenlightened by Fr. Bonansea; for, apart from a
passing allusion to Campanella's influence on Leibniz, the question of his
relevance to modern philosophy is left entirely in the air.
Still, all in all, this is a substantial contribution to Campanellian studies
and should find a place in any decent philosophical library. And Campanella himself, for all his waywardness and confusions, is a giant among
the later scholastics and one of the glories of the Dominican Order. It is

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pleasant to remember that after nearly thirty years in prison, and having
been physically tortured both by the Inquisition and the Spanish civil
authorities, this extraordinary man was declared a Master in Sacred
Theology by the General Chapter which met at Rome in
KENELM FosTER, 0. P.
Blackfriars
Cambridge, England

Grecia e Roma nella Storia delle Religioni. By GmsEPPE GRANERIS. Studi
e Ricerche di Scienze Religiose, No. 1. Edizioni della Pontificia
Academia Romana. Citta Nuova Editrice, 1970. Pp. 393.
This book could be described as an attempt to place the religions of
Greece and Rome in historical perspective and to situate them in the
general history of religions. It contains, however, no general introduction
to the whole series nor any explicit outline of the aims and method of this
particular book. After a brief introduction the religions of Greece and
Rome are dealt with separately. Finally, the author discusses some
common elements and problems.
The introduction accepts much of the commonly shared orientations of
contemporary historians of religions. The limitations of archaeology in
unearthing the religions of the past is readily admitted. The author
rightly rejects the archaic endeavors to draw up stages of religious evolution. And again he admits that ethnological and cultural elements are
related to religious facts.
The rest of the book does not, however, live up to this promising
introduction. Over one-third of the chapters are given over to describing
the various Greek and Roman gods. Their history, attributes, religious
functions, and family relationships are all portrayed in monotonous
sequence. The often concise and accurate statements about these gods
make useful encyclopedic references. But the reader is given no idea of
the part gods played in the daily lives of their adherents. The importance
of each of these gods to the Greeks and Romans is not shown; the reader
is left to make his own imaginative conclusions.
In spite of the early admittance of the importance of cultural elements,
the author does not supply his readers with enough cultural material to
make the subject-matter of his book intelligible. Consequently the reader
is not able to see Greek and Roman religions as ways of life nourishing
the day-to-day living of the believers, supplying them with meaningful
explanations of the world around them, and presenting ideals worth
following. To give one example, prayer is never related to culture.

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Prayer-forms are not seen as part of a cultural style, and prayer-content
is not envisaged as an expression of the cultural needs of a people. Or
again, immortality is singled out as an important attribute of the gods.
But why this is the case is never spelled out; nor does the author put
much emphasis on immortality as a human ideal which leaves enormous
impact on burial customs, legal practices of child-adoption, and so on. At
one point the author makes the appropriate remark that anthropomorphic
elements, which are characteristic of the gods, are symbolical in nature.
Much light would have been shed on these religions had the symbols been
examined and analyzed.
One is never sure of what the author is really doing in the final section
of his book. His claim might be that he is trying to place Greece and
Rome in the general framework of the history of religions. His most
important statement is that the two classical religions have features
common both to Indo-european and Mediterranean religions. Such features
are not examined, and the significance of the similarities referred to is not
explored. Most of what the author writes in these final eighty pages could
be described as haphazard reflections. Why he has to end with a theological
postscript which explains all religions-Islam excepted, or left out, or
possibly ignored-as a " praeparatio evangelica " to Christianity is not
clear at all.
In short, this book says a lot about Greek and Roman religions, but it
still leaves the reader in the dark. One can hardly say that his understanding of these religions has been enhanced. How the various gods and
cults formed part of the people's religious experience--a concept the author
ignores-remains a mysterious puzzle to be solved by the reader himself.
JoHN A. SALIBA, S. J.
University of Detroit
Detroit, Michigan

Johannes Blund, Tractatus de Anima. Ed. by D. A. CALLUS, 0. P. and
R. W. HuNT, Auctores Britannici Medii Aevi, 2. London: Published
for the British Academy by the Oxford University Press, 1970. Pp.
147. $20.00.
When Father Daniel A. Callus died in Malta, May 26, 1965, in the 78th
year of his life, he left many unfinished projects behind him. Before he
died he asked that Dr. Richard Hunt and Miss Beryl Smalley be his
literary executors. One of the more important projects in his mind was
the publication of John Blund's Tractatus de Anima. Both John Blund
and his treatise on the soul were, in a sense, Fr. Callus's personal discovery

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701

while working on his D. Phil. from Oxford. One of the more important
studies to come from his pioneering research was his paper on " The
Introduction of Aristotelian Learning to Oxford," published by the British
Academy in 1943. At that time only one Ms was known of the Tractatus
de Anima, that of Cambridge, St. John's College Library
In 1955 he
announced the discovery of a second MS in Vatican, Vat. lat. 833. A third
MS of this work was later discovered by Pere B.-G. Guyot, 0. P., in
Prague, Bibl. Univ. cod. IV. D. 13 (667). Father Callus was unable to
collate the text of either the Vatican or the Prague MSS. Before he died
he had transcribed the whole of the Cambridge MS with variant readings
and most of the sources. But it remained to Dr. Hunt to collate the
three known MSS, supply the variant readings and complete the apparatus
fontium. This was a formidable task for anyone not specializing in the
intellectual history of the period and for one who had to step into the
middle of a project only half completed. No one but Dr. Hunt with the
help of Fr. Daniel's friends in Oxford and on the Continent could have
managed so courageously and faithfully the rendition of this important
text.
The importance of the Tractatus de Anima lies basically in its scholastic
antiquity, being an early work, falling between the years c. 1197 and 19.04,
that is, before Alexander Nequam entered the abbey at Cirencester c. 1197
and before news of the fall of Rouen on June
reached him. Very
little is known for certain about the career of John Blund. He was a clerk
in the service of Henry III of England by
elected archbishop of
Canterbury on Aug.
but never consecrated, and finally appointed
chancellor of York Cathedral in
an office which he held until his
death in
On his early life we have only pure conjecture. It would
seem that John was born about 1175 and that he studied first at Paris,
where he incepted in arts, then returned to England to teach at Oxford.
Perhaps during the interdict laid upon England by Pope Innocent Ill,
he returned to Paris to study theology. P. Glorieux places his
regency in theology from 19.18 to
when he was succeeded by Alexander of Hales.
The Tractatus itself must have been written in the first decade of the
13th century, probably at Oxford while he was teaching arts. It is a
highly sophisticated treatise, treating in detail the physiological and psyshort chapters,
chological aspects of the soul and its faculties in
following the interpretation of Avicenna. Clearly John Blund knew the
text of Aristotle extremely well, but it was Avicenna's De anima (Liber
sextus naturalium) which served as the immediate source for John's
Tractatus. The chapters on the five external senses and the four internal
senses are replete with concrete physiological details, as one would expect
from an English empiricist.
His discussion of the human intellect (XXV. ii, 337-361) is most

BOOK REVIEWS

illuminating, for he does not follow Avicenna's teaching entirely, although
he does hold for the four kinds of intellect mentioned by Avicenna: "the
material or potential intellect " entirely without form; "the formal or adept
(adeptus) intellect" meaning the formal images and species of external
things; " the intellect in effect," that is, the union of the material and
formal intellect producing knowledge; and the " agent intellect," which
abstracts universals from their accidents. The interesting point in this
explanation of Avicenna's four kinds of intellect is that the agent intellect
is not unique for all men and separated from all mankind but is a power of
the individual soul, vis anime apprehensiva. (341) For John the "formal
intellect" is impressed upon the soul in order to produce the intellect in
effect "by means of the first giver of forms," (mediante primo datore
formarum). (344) Without making the suggestion his own, he notes that
many authors say that this " giver of forms " is an angel given to each
man in order to perceive the truth. (344) But nowhere does he suggest
that the agent intellect is the tenth separated intelligence, as Avicenna did,
nor that it is identical with God, as some of John's Christian contemporaries did. In this regard John is closer to Aristotle than he is to Avicenna
and his Latin contemporaries.
In discussing the internal sense faculties John emphasized the role of
reminiscence, a kind of memory proper to man, capable of knowing
universals, while memory is a sense belonging to all animals capable
of knowing both singulars and universals. (275) It would seem that
John attributed to reminiscence many of the same functions that later
commentators would attribute to the vis cogitativa, a higher function of
vis aestimativa not mentioned by John.
As for free will, John argues that it is not a special power of the soul
distinct from reason or will. For him " reason and free will are one and
the same in essence." (385) It is "a power in the soul of choosing good
and evil according to a consideration (examinationem) proceeding from
reason." (283) Instead of making free will a power distinct from intellect
and will, as some of his contemporaies did, or a special modality arising
from both intellect and will, as Aquinas did, John makes it identical with
the reasoning power of the intellect. For John this follows from the literal
meaning of liberum arbitrium, which is not properly rendered by our
English expression "free will."
For Fr. Callus there were two aspects of John Blund's work that struck
him as significant. The first was John's teaching concerning the unicity
of the substantial form and soul in man. In a little known study by Fr.
Callus called "The Origins of the Problem of the Unity of Form," which
appeared in THE THOMIST, 24 (1961), 120-149, he pointed out the
older tradition of unity followed by John Blund. The controversy over this
question occupied the whole of the 13th century. The main sources for
this medieval speculation, as Callus pointed out, were Avicenna for the

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708

unity thesis and Avicebron (ibn Gebirol) for the pluralist theory," Gundissalinus being the immediate channel through which the same problem
reached the schools." (ibid., 136) The whole issue was confused by schoolmen who refused to consider the "soul " identical with " substantial form."
They held that there were at least four substantial forms in man, including
the forma corporeitatis, but only one soul; others said that there were three
substantial forms in man, the vegetative, sensible, and rational, constituting
three separate souls. Blund is unequivocal in his discussion of the problem,
insisting with Avicenna that man has only one soul and one substantial
form. (35-45) Fr. Callus found in John Blund "the earliest, clear and
unmistakable account" of the controversy in which John sided with
Avicenna in defending the unity theory. Clarification of the issue came
only when Albertus Magnus and Thomas Aquinas taught that the human
soul is the substantial form of man and that the substantial form is the
first, immediate, and total actualization of first matter, which is a pure
potentiality. But even then, pluralists, such as John Pecham, considered
the unity teaching to be heretical.
The second aspect which Fr. Callus found to be most significant was
John Blund's acquaintance with the whole of the Aristotelian corpus
(except, of course, for the Ethics). In the Index Auctorum of the present
edition, Dr. Hunt shows us at a glance the extent to which Blund was
familiar with the works of Aristotle; he quoted Aristotle twice as often
as Avicenna. For the most part it is from the vulgate translation of James
of Venice that he quotes. John Blund is but one witness to the extent that
Aristotle and Avicenna penetrated the faculty of arts at the turn of the
13th century.
From an otherwise impeccable edition there is only one typographical
error on p. 103, line 9, where the reading given is " con contingit" when it
should read "non contingit." This edition may well stand as a model of
how medieval texts should be published. There is only one problem: the
cost of the book.
JAMES A. WEISHEIPL, 0. P.
Pontifical Institute of Mediaeval Studies
Toronto, Canada

My Conversations with Teilhard de Chardin on the Primacy of Christ. By
GABRIEL M. ALLEGRA, 0. F. M. Chicago: Franciscan Herald Press,
1971. Pp. 126. $3.75.
Pierre Teilhard de Chardin, the priest-paleontologist whose writings have
so greatly influenced contemporary Christian thought, wrote his spiritual
manifesto, The Divine Milieu, in 1927. Since its publication after Teilhard's

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death in 1955, The Divine Milieu has come to be recognized as a classic
of spiritual theology, a magnificent presentation of Catholic spirituality,
and a work of unquestionable orthodoxy. Although it seems unbelievable
today, Teilhard was, despite heroic efforts, unable to get the book past
ecclesiastical censors. And so, in 1942, fifteen years after completing the
mansucript, Teilhard was still trying to get a nihil obstat for The Divine
Milieu. The apostolic delegate to China appointed Father Allegra to
censor the manuscript. Father Allegra found things that appeared to him
to be " shocking," " daring," and " even wrong." He disapproved the work
on the gounds that it was ambiguous, confused the natural and supernatural orders, and was inadequate in its treatment of sin, the Cross, and
redemption. The apostolic delegate instructed Father Allegra to tell his
findings to Teilhard, and so began a series of weekly conversations between
the author of this book and Teilhard de Chardin.
These conversations are more or less reco;Jstructed and presented here
in the form of a dialogue between Teilhard and the author. This work,
then, is not a scholarly study but a memoir of some conversations, written
decades later in the form of a dialogue.
The general topic of the dialogue is John Duns Scotus's doctrine of the
primacy of Christ; the book is, in fact, simply a popular explanation of the
Scotist doctrine. There is little of substance of Teilhard de Chardin's
thought; Teilhard serves merely as a foil, somewhat in the manner of
Anselm of Canterbury's Bozo, for Allegra's explanation of the Scotist
teaching on Christ's primacy. It is really just as well that Father Allegra
is the star of his book rather than Teilhard, for the author shows almost
no understanding of Teilhard's thought. For a thorough and scholarly
discussion of the relationship between Scotus's idea of Christ primacy
and Teilhard's Christ-Omega, the reader is referred to Robert G. North,
Teilhard and the Creation of the Soul (Milwaukee: Bruce, 1967.)
The book is attractively presented, and the translator's notes are
excellent.
RoBERT L. FARleY, S. J.
Gregorian University
Rome, Italy

The Scientific Enterprise and Christian Faith. By MALCOLM A. JEEVES.
Downers Grove, Ill.:

Inter-Varsity

Press, 1971 Pp. 168. $2.25.

In the late summer of 1965, a one-week conference was held in Oxford,
England, of thirty-six participants from ten countries. All of them were
professed Christians and the large majority practicing scientists holding
academic positions in their specialties. Each prepared a position paper in

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705

advance which was shared with all the others. The author, a professor of
Psychology from Australia, drew the material for this book from these
papers and from the conference discussions.
The first half of the book is devoted to the possibility of maintaining
simultaneously without contradiction a Christian view of reality and a
scientific view of reality. This problem is first approached by contrasting
the Greek and Hebrew views of God and nature. In Greek thought nature
is uncreated and eternal, therefore, divine. Man with his reason tries to
understand nature but never to change it. By contrast, in the Biblicai view
nature is created by God and sustained at every moment by his power.
It is neither eternal nor divine and the worship of any part of nature is
always idolatry. Man has been given dominion by God over all other
creatures. Man continually changes nature either blessing it or cursing it.
It was the peculiar combination of Greek rationalism with Biblical contingency beginning in the late sixteenth century and flowering in the seventeenth which led to the scientific enterprise and the full development of
modern science.
Against this background, the question of God's activity in the world as
related to the laws of nature is discussed. Several ways of looking at this
relationship are considered, but no one of them is found to be satisfactory.
The key to a solution to the problem is felt to lie in the continual activity
of God in holding the whole of creation in being. The treatment concludes
with a rather good and certainly helpful discussion of miracles. My own
feeling is that most readers will not derive very much benefit from this
chapter of the book. One difficulty with it is an apparent tacit agreement
that the laws of nature as known in science imply that the course of events
in nature is always orderly, dependable, and predictable. In fact, they are
observed to be so only in the laboratory where apparatus has been designed
to reveal them, or in technology where an artificial situation has been
created to optimize dependability. In nature as a whole everything happens
at once, the course of events is characterized by chance and accident, and
the novel and the unpredictable continually emerge. In a universe which is
continually running down in accordance with the second law of thermodynamics, new achievements and new creations are continually made at the
expense of the general degredation and decay. It is in this context. it seems
to me, that the problem of God's action in the world needs to be dealt
with. Relevant to it is Whiteheadian process philosophy and the poetic
insights of Teilhard de Chardin. Contemporary treatments of the problem
by Langdon Gilkey, Eric Rust, Ian Barbour, and others are much superior
to that in this book.
The discussion turns next to the nature of the scientific enterprise. Here
the impersonality, rigorous methodology, and thorough objectivity which
characterize science as it appears in textbooks and papers in scientific
journals is contrasted with the enterprise of science as it is actually carried

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out in the community of science by human beings with personal commitments to the enterprise. The discussion is heavily dependent on Michael
Polanyi's Personal Knowledge. Considered in this way as human communities with a common commitment and a shared faith and convictions,
there are many parallels between science and Christianity. The discussion
here is well done and helpful.
The final topic in the first section of the book deals with the role of
explanations, models, and images in both science and Christianity and their
relationship to the reality they are designed to represent. Explanations in
science are often given on several levels in quite different terms as, for
example, in biology in terms of nucleic acid and protein molecules, in terms
of whole organisms, or in terms of physiological structure and glandular
secretion. In physics different models of electrons and atoms have been
used and discarded at different stages of explanation. The same holds true
in religion where various images and models ltre used in the Bible or in
subsequent theological explanations. Both in science and Christianity the
hazard that must always be guarded against is that of identifying the
image or model with the reality it is designed to describe or explain.
The remainder of the book is devoted to specific problems between
science and Christianity. These are cosmology, evolution, the origin of life,
psychological accounts of religious experience, and physico-neurological
determinism versus human freedom. There have been so many new developments in cosmology since 1965 that the discussion of this subject is
rather out-of-date as well as inaccurate in places. The long section on
evolution is inconclusive and not particularly helpful. Its rather cavalier
disposal of Teilhard de Chardin is disappointing, especially from a conference of scientists who are also Christians. Much better treatments of
this subject have been given elsewhere in current literature. The short
section on the origin of life is acceptable but does not add very much
of interest.
The remaining two topics are covered in the last chapter. The treatment
of them is excellent and illuminating. For this reviewer they are the high
point of the whole book.
One of the problems with a book which attempts to reflect the consensus
of a fairly large conference is the necessity to seek positions which do
justice to all the participants. This results in a cautious approach to
problems and a certain amount of indecisiveness. There are many reservations about each possible position and few problems are solved although
a number are identified and their nature well described. Yet the book
has a strong and positive Christian orientation, is honest, and is reasonably
well informed. For any scientist who is concerned about possible conflicts
between his science and his Christian faith, this would be a good book with
which to start. For him it will be reassuring and hopefully will entice him
to further exploration of the issues raised in it. If so, he will find that

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there are other currently available books which go more deeply into the
several problems raised in this book and emerge with considerably more
satisfying theological perspectives on them.
WILLIAM

G. PoLLARD

Oak Ridge Associated Universities
Oak Ridge, Tennessee

Sex: the Radical View of a Catholic Theologian. By MICHAEL VALENTE.
New York: The Bruce Publishing Co.; London: Collier-Macmillan,
1970. Pp. 158. Paper,
In this small book, Michael Valente uses the widespread dissent from
Humanae Vitae as a fulcrum upon which to gain leverage against the entire
traditional Christian sexual ethics and against the Roman Catholic ecclesiology of Vatican I and Vatican II. The book defies easy summary, since
it is not tightly organized theological argument; rather, it is theological
vulgarization-a diatribe aimed at the widest non-professional audience.
Valente's position is that " there is no intrinsic moral valuation in any
species of sexual act." Rather, the value derives from "the context of an
individual's life " or from "the personal judgment of the individual." (p.
Valente does not notice that context and judgment are not identical;
he is not concerned with theoretical precision.
Neither does Valente systematically examine either the older or newer
arguments against the morality of practices such as contraception. Of
polygamy, he simply asserts that "there is no clear-cut, supposedly
intrinsic or ' natural ' reason why being monogamous, as opposed to being
polygamous, is any more virtuous than having blue eyes instead of brown."
Masturbation is not unnatural and is no more harmful than
(p.
cigarette smoking. (pp. 73-74,
136-137) Contraception is an ethical
imperative. (p. 118) The quality of the relationship and the intention
with which it is carried on are the factors that count, not whether the
couple are married, use a contraceptive, or are of opposite sex. (p. 96) If
sex can be non-procreative, then the sanctions against masturbation, homosexuality, and even bestiality are removed. (pp. 126, 135, 140) Adultery
is not absolutely wrong. (pp. 130-131) Loveless, casual relationships may
have some value, and in any case are not intrinsically sinful. (pp. 136, 143)
Valente does admit some moral guidelines for sexual behavior, although
he makes clear that such guidelines have no validity as absolute, objective
precepts. One should ask oneself if anyone, including oneself, will be hurt
by one's action . (p. 136) Guilt feelings are to be avoided. (p.
Meaningful and loving relationships are desirable, but empty, promiscuous, and

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unfaithful ones are not on that account to be regarded as sinful. (pp. 128130) In the last analysis, what is at stake is individual comfort in life.
(pp. 139, 149)
Valente's positions in themselves are not particularly new. l\-Iany liberal,
secular writers who treat sexual ethics in ultilitarian terms, and who base
their judgments exclusively on psychological and sociological data relevant
in a utilitarian approach, share all of the same positions. (Even in such
writers one seldom finds so much obvious sympathy for some of the
perversions.) What is peculiar about Valente's book is that he presents
himself as a Catholic theologian and weaves into this secular sexual ethics
a polemic against the ecclesiastical " Establishment "-that is, the institutional Church. The demise of the institutional Church is being completed
today through a Protestant dynamic which extends beyond and generalizes
the process begun by Luther. (p. 112)
Valente holds that all creedal statements are subject to revision and
evolution; the opposite position is the " hierarchical heresy of institutionalism." (p. 92) "Even if all creedal statements fell into disuse, however
unlikely that may be, faith would still remain." (p. 97) Infallibility does
not imply the exclusion of error under specified conditions; what it really
means is " the indefectibility of the believing community's existential commitment to its Lord Jesus." (p. 109) Characteristically, Valente does not
explain what this means; he never tells us whether, for example, an atheist
who regards Jesus as one heroic figure among others shares in the " existential commitment " or not.
Valente disposes of theological sources in a cavalier manner. Scriptural
relative to moral issues are excluded from the argument by a
simple assertion that the moral teachings in the Bible are culturally
relative and that only the message of salvation taken as a whole is revealed
truth. (p. 147) Tradition is excluded by the now-familar device of the
presentation of a simplified schematized historical account of the development of traditional teaching, an account which ignores the unity and
continuity of Christian moral teaching and which emphasizes the variation
and peculiarity of various theological explanations of that moral teaching.
(pp. 31-64) Valente's history contains several important statements that
are not documented and that to the best of my knowledge are simply false,
for example, the following:
It is interesting to note that, despite the detailed consideration he gave to the
sins of lechery, Thomas Aquinas took a tolerant attitude toward prostitution; he
believed it to be a necessary evil without which great good would be lost or greater
evil fostered. His justification was not based on a recognition of the futility of a
civil-law prohibition, but rather represented consent to a male-centered, doublestandard view on questions of sexual morality. (p. 50)

Valente at various points in the book expresses his dedication to a number
of values, including reason, freedom, truth, love, and life. (pp. 15-29) It

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Is difficult to know which of these values justified such a treatment of
Thomas Aquinas.
Basic to Valente's "theological" position is a totally dialectical theory
of reality and of human life. Modem man is fundamentally changed; he
has a radically altered psychic world view. (p. 90) "Evolution" is
Valente's key-word; he neither tells us what it is nor seems aware that the
general sort of theory he is espousing is at least as old as the Greek
Sophists and has always represented an altemative to other philosophical
views of man and nature.
What is the use of Valente's book? The fact that it is relatively
inexpensive and that its positions are bluntly stated, even if not well
organized, might make it useful as a foil for serious study of the morality
of sexual conduct. In particular, the relationship between theological
dissent on the issue of contraception and a radical revision both of traditional moral teaching and of ecclesiology appears more clearly in this work
than in more technically competent theological studies.
On the other hand, Valente is professor of theology and former Chairman
of the Department of Theology at Seton Hall University. One can only
feel sorry for unsophisticated young people, including his own students,
who will be persuaded by this book that they can embrace both Christian
faith and a completely secularized sexual ethics. Perhaps someone like
Valente himself, brought up with a sense of faith and guilt, can maintain
for a time this unstable synthesis of incompatible elements. The next
generation surely will choose, and then there will be no further call for
" theology " such as this.
GERMAIN

GRISEZ

Georgetown University
Washington, D. C.

Concordant Discord. The Interdependence of Faiths. By R. C. ZAEHNER.
Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1970. Pp. 464. $15.00.
R. C. Zaehner is one of a coterie of older British scholars who have
written prolifically over the years in comparative religions and have exerted
remarkable influence on the place of religion in England today. Along with
E. 0. James, Geoffrey Parrinder, and S. G. F. Brandon, Zaehner and his
colleagues have brought the discipline of comparative religions into the
forefront of religion study in England. In fact, the discipline of comparative religions may have a firmer position in England than anywhere else
in the world today. For the past century the British have been orientated
towards Asia and Africa and, consequently, have taken great interest in
advancing the study of other religions. The discipline has taken root in the

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British educational system with some ease, and this has resulted in a
demand for materials and scholarly works on the religions of Asia and
Africa.
The British school of comparative religions, as represented by those
mentioned above, differs markedly from Continental and American scholars
in this field. In both America and on the Continent the phenomenology of
religion and the history of religions, strictly speaking, have dominated the
direction of those studying world religions. Religionswissenschajt, in its
classical sense for this discipline, is an attempt to integrate the research of
the phenomenology and history of religions, and this is the goal, with the
exception of the British school, of most comparative religionists today.
R. C. Zaehner and his colleagues are by and large less concerned with this
methodology and, consequently, are working within this discipline much as
their predecessors did. It means that the British school is primarily concerned with the " comparing " of religions as was the fashion with the great
pioneers in this discipline some decades ago. A redeeming factor, however,
is that several of the British scholars, for example, Geoffrey Parrinder and
S. G. F. Brandon, are more astute than Zaehner in drawing upon anthropological data and pertinent historical studies respectively.
In England the scholar in comparative religions has become frequently
the apologist for religion and, moreover, because of his Christian heritage,
the Christian apologist of religion in the latter half of this century. It has
effected the type of research and scholarship done in England. This is
especially true of R. C. Zaehner. The British school, with R. C. Zaehner in
the lead, has taken on a polemical and solipsistic approach in dealing with
the religions of other men. Zaehner, for example, has waged a lifelong
polemic against Aldous Huxley, Arnold Toynbee, and Hendrick Kraemer,
and this appears in nearly all of his major works. Moreover, Zaehner's
Christian orientation is quite overt in his comparative studies; Christianity
or Roman Catholicism, as in Zaehner's case, is the prime norm against
which comparison is made. The type of objectivity desired and sought
after by those attempting religionswissenschaft in both America and on the
Continent has not been the concern of Zaehner. Nonetheless, he is a
respected scholar in his discipline today.
In 1953 Zaehner was called to Oxford University and awarded the
prestigious Spalding Chair in Eastern Religions and Ethics. Since that time
he has written close to a dozen works extending from Zoroastrianism, the
area of his original expertise resulting in three scholarly works, to Hindu
and Muslim mysticism. Several of his books will surely become classics in
the area of Indian studies which he has developed with adeptness since
becoming Spalding Professor. Hinduism (1962) is an excellent survey
integrating the Indian religious traditions; likewise, his work on the
Bhagavad Gita (1967) is probably one of the finest interpretations
developed in the Western world. Two predominant interests emerge from

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711

his scholarship: mysticism and the relationship of Christianity to other
religions. It could be said that his scholarly work has been principally a
study of comparative mysticism. This is specifically true in many of his
studies, namely, Mysticism: Sacred and Profane (1957), Hindu and
Muslim Mysticism (1960), Matter and Spirit: Their Convergence in
Eastern Religions, Marx, and Teilhard de Chardin (1963), and the present
volume under review, Concordant Discord. In these studies Zaehner considers religion and religious experience, in particular, in its highest and most
manifest expression as mystical phenomena. No student of comparative
mysticism in the future can ignore Zaehner's contribution to this field. His
other books establish the relationship of Christianity to the faith of other
men, namely, The Comparison of Religions (1958), The Catholic Church
and World Religions (1964), Christianity and Other Religions (1964), and
again the present volume, Concordant Discord. This most recent work of
Zaehner's brings to focus a lifetime of scholarship in both comparative
mysticism and the comparison of religions from a Christian perspective.
Concordant Discord represents the Gifford Lectures in 1967-1969. Surprisingly, both Lord Gifford, the founder of these famous lectures, and
H. N. Spalding, the founder of Zaehner's Chair of Eastern Religions and
Ethics at Oxford, looked forward to a renaissance of ethical and religious
thought respectively in this country. Lord Gifford based his assumption
on the advance of what he called natural theology, and the latter, H. N.
Spalding, looked to the religious and ethical systems of the East. Both
were probably universalists who anticipated a harmony of religious and
ethical man in the twentieth century. Zaehner, early in his career, exploded
the naivete of such a dream. From his earliest writing (The Comparison
of Religions), Zaehner was more impressed by and certainly stressed more
in his writing the differences and the discord among religions. In selecting
this current title, Concordant Discord, for a work which is the culmination
of years of scholarship, he again states that a " concordant discord " or a
" discordant concord " is the most that can be hoped for among the
classical religions of East and West. (p. 7) He culls the phrase from the
first book of Traite de !'amour de Dieu of St. Franr;ois whom he uses
freely throughout this study. Thus, the differences among religions speak
more to Zaehner than the often simplistic and undefined similarities, and
this has proven to be factually and methodologically sound. In his
Introduction to The Concise Encyclopedia of Living Faiths (1967) which
he edited, he referred to the " sharp differences," " the irreconcilable
beliefs," the contention that "religions readily divide themselves":
The resemblances are of structure, not of content. It is in the matter of content
that the two streams are so radically divided. . . . It is, then, methodologically quite
wrong to treat the great religions of the world as parallel phenomena and to saddle
(The Concise
them, as Toynbee does, with purely subjective essential truths.
Encyclopedia of Living Faiths, pp. 16-fW.)

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How then does professor Zaehner extract a " concordant discord " among
world religions? He neither goes to the philosophical, poetical, or devotional
literature of a religion; nor is he concerned with artistical, sociological, or
anthropological phenomena. But he finds concord in " those texts that each
religion holds sacred and in the impact that these have caused." (p. 19) It
is in the interpretation of the sacred texts of the Asian world that Zaehner
achieves an excellence as a comparative religionist. This is, however, only
a partial dimension of his general orientation for there is, according to
Zaehner, sharp discord among the great religions. This is due to Zaehner's
belief that coherency in religion is found only in Christ. " For me the
centre of coherence can only be Christ." (p. 16) With this theological
statement he would have to be placed among those religionists who see in
Christianity the fulfillment of all religions. In 1958 in The Comparison of
Religions he clearly stated his thesis that Jesus Christ not only fulfills
the law and the prophets of Israel but also the prophet of Iran and the
sages of India. "In Christianity then, it would appear that the highest
insights of both the Hindus and the Buddhists are fulfilled ... " (The
Comparison of Religions, p. 193). This theological and Christian orientation has influenced all of Zaehner's work and even the present volume. It
will cause great difficulty for those scholars attempting religionswissenschaft, strictly speaking, and those writing in terms of religious dialogue.
Although the twenty chapters of Concordant Discord, consisting of the
two years of the Gifford Lectures, cover all the great religious systems
(Christianity, Judaism, Zoroastrianism, Hinduism, Buddhism, Confucianism, Taoism, Nco-Confucianism, and Zen), it cannot be considered a comparative study of religion. It is, in short, a study of comparative mysticism.
Zaehner draws upon a threefold, hierarchical division of mysticism which
he worked out previously in Christianity and Other Religions (1964). He
speaks of it in this way in his current book:
First, there is nature mysticism, of which Whitman is an almost perfect example:
it sees the human self as encompassing all Nature, the subjective 'I' is merged
into the cosmic All, and all distinction between subject and object seems to be
obliterated. Secondly, there is the mysticism of 'isolation '-the isolation of the
eternal soul from all that has its being in space and time, ' to isolate eternity from
origination' as Al-Junayd, the tenth-century Muslim mystic, puts it. Lastly, there
is the mysticism of the love of God in an ecstasy of eternal love. (p. 59)

With these distinctions in mind he examines sacred texts and the writings
of mystical personalities of the world. He begins in an early chapter (III)
by identifying Richard Maurice Bucke, a Canadian mystic of the early part
of this century, and Walt Whitman, the American poet, as nature mystics
who achieved a sense of cosmic consciousness. From this point onwards
he treats in the following seven chapters (IV-X), the first year of the
Gifford Lectures, the mystical traditions of Hinduism. This is hardly
disproportionate, for " Hinduism is both the fountain-head and the typical

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713

manifestation of mystical religion in all its forms." (p. 194) The second
half of the book, and the second year of the Gifford Lectures, covers the
religious traditions of China: mystical Taoism, classical Confucian humanism, the synthetic N eo-Confucianism of Chu Hsi, and the intuitionalism
of Zen. In the final six chapters (XV -XX) a potpouri of classical Christian
mystics (Hugh and Richard of St. Victor), French writers (Balzac,
Voltaire, Rousseau), and French Catholics (Peguy, Bernanos, Teilhard de
Chardin) are treated with far less thoroughness or satisfaction. Woven
throughout the entire book is Franr;ois de Sales' insight into " unity in
diversity/diversity in unity" which keeps the rather unwieldly material in
focus.
The general context of Concordant Discord presents several difficulties.
It is questionable whether the selection of materials, especially with
reference to the Western traditions, is representative. Zaehner has certainly
drawn upon the most pertinent literature of the Asian spiritual traditions;
yet, in the West he has totally ignored the mystical literature of John of
the Cross, Teresa of Avila, the German and Flemish mystics, and even
the medieval mystics. Consequently, it is not a comprehensive mysticism.
The unfortunate factor is that Zaehner draws upon the great Indian and
Chinese scriptures in treating of Asian mysticism, but his exposition of the
Western spiritual traditions is limited to a particular type of religious
writer, for example, Teilhard de Chardin and his predecessors in France.
What really determines the context of Zaehner's work, and the selection of
materials, are two central presuppositions which he has continually tried
to work out in previous books. First, he is thoroughly convinced of the
validity and usefulness of a hierarchical formulation of mystical states and
achievements. He is determined to exegete a religious text into the categories of nature my&ticism, isolation mysticism, or the mysticism of love.
This distinction finds favor more among theologians and apologetes than
among comparative religionists. Whether one accepts these categories or
not determines whether one accepts a great deal of Zaehner's work.
A second presupposition which determines the context of the present
work and much of Zaehner's previous writing is the manner in which a
particular religious tradition or spiritual process resolves the dichotomy
between spirit and matter. A spiritual tradition, according to Zaehner,
will either seek liberation from matter or find liberation in matter. Again,
this thesis, if it is considered important to the interpreter of a sacred
text or a religious personality, determines greatly the limits and dimensions
of the interpretation. Zaehner clearly sees the line of demarcation between
India and the West drawn on this point:
The principal difference between Indian mysticism and its Christian counterpart
is that salvation is understood by the Indians, both Buddhist and Hindu, as
necessarily implying liberation from matter-matter in the Marxian sense understood

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as the basis of all that moves and strives, acts and thinks; while for the Christian
mystic salvation ultimately means union with a God who is not only a static
Absolute (as in Sankara and other Indian monists) but also being in act. This is
true of the Bhagavad-Gita too, and therein lies its importance. (p. 209)

Since he wishes to follow through on this theme, he relies in the last five
chapters of this book upon the French writers, especially Teilhard de
Chardin whom he calls the " mystic of matter," and the one who saw
"the potential holiness of matter." (p. 405)
These overriding concerns frequently obscure what Concordant Discord
is about. It is poor methodology to compare religious scripture with a
religious personality or a spiritual tradition with a particulal· literary,
scientific, or religious writer. In short, the context of this book is obscured
because of its ambitious attempt to include too much material, questionably
selected, based upon sundry pesuppositions. It in no way, however, makes
for dull reading. Professor Zaehner's writing has always been illuminating
and at moments challenging to both neophite and scholar. This is also true
of Concordant Discord. Nonetheless, the context of this book reminds one
of the generalist approach to comparative studies taken by Frazer, Eliade,
and other pioneers in this field. Such a massive work is not attempted
by many scholars today.
Although one may be somewhat critical of what Professor Zaehner is
about, in terms of context and approach, the content of Concordant
The seven
Discord evidences brilliant scholarship and interpretation.
chapters (IV-X) which speak of the Hindu mystical experience beginning
with the early V cdic literature and culminating in the Bhagavad-Gita and
the devotional (bhakti) traditions must rank as a singular achievement.
Das Gupta's Hindu Mysticism has been considered a most acceptable
survey of the Indian mystical experience, but Zaehner's perceptions are
deeper, more integrated, and reflect a better grasp of the Indian scriptural
tradition and its historical development. He identifies from the scriptural
tradition four types of Hindu mysticism:
I. The transcending

of spacial limitations and the consequent feeling that one
is the All.
2. The transcending of temporal limitation and the consequent realization that
one cannot die.
3. The intuition of oneness outside both space and time in a realm in which there
is no becoming, only Being. This state is normally achieved by a process of
Y oga-Df introspection and integration of all the faculties into a timeless inner
core. This is a "contraction" into the One rather than an "expansion" into
the All. All three experiences invariably bring peace and joy: sometimes they
are considered to transcend good and evil. Of love there has hitherto been no
hint.
4. The love of God in the context of pure spirituality beyond space and time
and beyond the " One." In the Hindu tradition this first appears in the
Bhagavad-Gita.
(p. 204)

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715

He is able to view the convergence of Hindu and Christian mysticism
because of the significance and interpretation he gives to the BhagavadGita, the classic of Hindu devotionalism, which gave birth to Indian
theistic mysticism. According to Zaehner, this is "the most significant
sacred text in the whole history of religion." (p. 117) It is the basis for
" concord " between Asian and 'Vestern mysticism because it offers a
basis for a theistic mysticism. Although much that has been said within
these chapters can be found in Zaehner's Hinduism and Bhagavad-Gita, he
has integrated and interpreted his texts so brilliantly that Concordant
Discord can be considered a high achievement on these chapters alone.
Finally, mention must be made of those chapters, and especially the final
chapter of this book (XX) , which treat of Teilhard de Chardin. Undoubtedly, Teilhard has influenced Zaehner greatly and has given direction
to much of his research. He sees in Teilhard the convergence of all
mysticism:
His mysticism is a fusion of the mysticisms of the Buddha and that of Walt
Whitman: he confirms and completes the mysticisms of the Upanishads and the
Bhagavad-Gita as well as that of the neo-Confucians in China; and he gives a new
dimension to Christianity itself. (p. 407)

Teilhard is the " first Christian Marxist," "perhaps an answer to Marx";
and " the only form of Christianity that may prove acceptable to modern
man is perhaps the gospel according to Teilhard." (pp. 422-423) He sees
in Teilhard the fulfillment of Balzac's dictum that "the flesh will become
Word," implying the ultimate correlation of spirit and matter. (p. 427)
This will be great fare for Teilhardians, but more importantly it gives to
Zaehner an optimism unparallelled among comparative religionists.
Concordant Discord is an excellent attempt to overcome many of the
simplistic works which view high religious experiences, both subjectively
and objectively considered, as somewhat similar or identical. Zaehner is
one of the few comparative scholars who has worked out the complementariness of religious experiences within a tradition and from one tradition to
another. One may be wary of his presuppositions, but there will be more
to agree with than not after examining his argumentation and conclusions.
To grasp the spiritual history of mankind in its complementariness may be
as far as comparative studies can take us at this time. Professor Zaehner
has merited a place in the history of this discipline because he has achieved
this to a significant degree.
This book will appeal more to the literary critic and the theologian than
to the comparative scholar. It offers material especially for a theology
of religions. Because of its comprehensiveness, its literary and theological
interpretations, Concordant Discord should find a large audience. For
comparative studies, however, it may mark a turning point in the dis-

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cipline as did Frazer's Golden Bough and Eliade's Patterns in Comparative
Religion. The sophistication and complexity of religionswissenschaft in
gathering and integrating anthropological, sociological, and linguistic data
do not lend themselves to this general type of study in the future.
WILLIAM CENKNER, 0. P.
The Catholic University of America
Washington, D. C.

Situationism and the New Morality. Edited by RoBERT L. CuNNINGHAM.
New York: Appleton-Century-Crofts,
1970. Pp. 281. $3.50.
Situationism and the New Morality is apparently intended as an
introduction to the recent debates centering on the status of moral
principles which have interested not only theologians and philosophers but
have at times been the subject of popular discussion.
The editor has divided the book into two main parts. The first is an
original essay of fifty-one pages in which the editor explains at an introductory level the background from which the situationist movement seems
to have developed and the issues with which it is concerned. Each of us
would, of course, choose slightly differing ways to introduce such a subject,
but it would seem unprofitable for me to quarrel with small points in the
Introduction in this space.
The second part of the book consists of selected readings and is itself
divided into three sections. The first section is a set of exchanges between
Professor Joseph Fletcher (surely the best-known exponent of situationism)
and Father Herbert McCabe. The second section consists of eight essays,
concerned in some cases with the situationist debate directly, but in others
merely with issues relevant to the debate. In this section such secular
writers as B. J. Diggs and Jonathan Bennett are included as well as
religious writers. Thus, this section illustrates even in its selection of
writers one of the best things about the situationist movement-it has led
to discussion in depth between secular and Christian moral philosophers
of a kind which is all too often lacking. The third section of readings is a
critique of Fletcher's position and defense of " intrinsicalism " by Professor
Aurel Kolnai with a response by Fletcher written for this book. The book
does not, alas, contain an index which would have been particularly helpful
given the wide range of interrelated views and topics scattered throughout
its contents.
A book divided into so many discreet units obviously presents a reviewer
with difficult choices, and these choices are made more difficult in the
present case by the fact that as a secular moral philosopher I have a certain

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717

feeling of entering a family quarrel in discussing the two most interesting
(to me) parts of the book-the debates between Fletcher and McCabe and
Kolnai and Fletcher. Since, however, I can hardly take the space to introduce and comment on each essay in the second section, it seems best for
me first to make some comments on the two debates just mentioned and
then to raise some general issues about situationism which arise as one
reflects on the whole book. In this way I can perhaps best illustrate the
philosophic interest and usefulness of the work as a whole.
Professor Fletcher's version of situation ethics is, of course, that which
most of us have in mind when we discuss situationism, and most readers of
this journal will not need any introduction to it.l The first essay in
Fletcher's exchange with Father McCabe does, however, present a good
introduction to his views, and it will facilitate later discussion if we are
reminded of their basic outline. Generically, situationism is a thesis about
the status of principles of rightness. Basically, the situationist recognizes
as binding only one principle of rightness, namely, the promotion of whatever he takes to be ultimate intrinsic value. All other principles of rightness are employed only as guides or illuminators and may be overridden
in any situation if this value is better promoted by doing so. Thus, as
Fletcher sees clearly, there may be as many versions of situationism as
there are positions on value. Fletcher's own theory makes agapic love the
focus of value, and he may most properly be called an agapic or Christian
situationist. Since Fletcher is the primary exponent of situationism in the
current debates, there is at times a tendency to conflate these two aspects
of his view, but for critical purposes it is important to keep them distinct.
Father McCabe's criticism of Fletcher is interesting in that he does
keep aspects of the theory distinct but nevertheless advances an interesting
attack on Fletcher's particular position both as to love and to situationism.
McCabe argues that, having made love the standard of both good and
right, Fletcher is not in a position to continue to maintain (as a situationist
would) that no kind of acts are always wrong. McCabe's argument is a
version of Wittgensteinian criteriological argument. He argues that, if the
term " love " is to function in a public language, there must be criteria by
which we can recognize cases of non-love and that these criteria will
mention actions which thereby are part of our criteria for love. By
Fletcher's own theory then, some actions will always be wrong. While
McCabe's argument is interesting (as well as clearly and carefully advanced) , it seems to me that Fletcher can escape it without much trouble.
As long as Fletcher provides a more general, although no less public,
characterization of love he can escape McCabe's point. If, for example, he
says something such as that love seeks to promote the neighbor's interest,
1 The most nearly
complete statement of Fletcher's view is his SITUATION
ETHICS: THE NEW MORALITY (Philadelphia:
Westminster, 1966).

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BOOK REVIEWS

he can answer McCabe. This is not to say that Fletcher does not have
serious difficulties over his use of agapic love. I have argued at length
in this journal that his use of love is hopelessly circular, but that is a
different point, and it seems to me that he is not caught by McCabe's
point. 2 McCabe also charges Fletcher with viewing the situation in which
he acts too narrowly, with presenting situations which seem to include only
a few possible neighbors, while the whole suffering world should be our
situation. This point is probably true, but if it is, it is simply a corrective
and does not undermine Fletcher's theory although it might improve his
practice.
My experience in reading the Kolnai-Fletcher exchange was rather like
the experience one has when one meets the family of an irritating associate
and suddenly feels a wave of sympathy for him since he has come so far
after starting with such handicaps. For Kolnai is a representative (a very
able and articulate one) of one sort of view in Christian (and secular)
moral thought against which Fletcher must originally have rebelled. Basically Kolnai is one of those exasperating souls who intuit their own moral
convictions as part of the basic structure of the universe. As against this
kind of view Fletcher is a breath of fresh air-we may disagree with him,
but we can argue with him without ending against a stone wall of intuition.
Kolnai's article is a defense of intrinsicalism against situation ethics.
The article is long and detailed, covering many points. It is strongly
polemical. I shall comment only on the central issue of intrinsicalism versus
situationism, or as he calls it extrinsicalism.
The heart of Kolnai's argument against Fletcher seems to be that
Fletcher's position is not strictly speaking philosophic at all because he is
not concerned to interpret " moral experience " but to reform it. According to Kolnai, at least some kinds of action have intrinsic moral properties
which we grasp in what he calls moral experience. Fletcher, then, distorts
the nature of morality with his claim that moral terms such as " good "
or " right " apply as judgments on how actions stand in regard to the
external standard, love. This contrast is apparently what Fletcher has
intended by his somewhat puzzling insistence that moral terms involve
predicates not properties. Fletcher is, of course, completely unmoved by
Kolnai's complaint here because he has specifically intended to deny that
moral qualities are inherent in certain actions. The disconcerting point
about this dispute is that Kolnai charges Fletcher with undermining the
objective validity of moral principles while Fletcher admits that in his
view ethics comes in the end to a decision not a conclusion. It may be
2 My paper,
"The Inadequacy of Situation Ethics," (The Thomist, July, 1970,
pp. 428-487), presents a detailed argument for the view that Fletcher's use of
love makes his argument hopelessly circular. I also attempt to show that Fletcher
does not present any telling critique of a complex and flexible morality of principles.

BOOK REVIEWS

719

called, he says, emotivist, attitudinal, or positivist. Now, depending on
how Fletcher defends his claim that love is the first principle of value, his
theory may in fact be emotivist or attitudinal, but there is nothing in
situationism as a generic view about rightness which requires this. A
situationist view may easily hold that moral judgments are objectively true.
The term " objective " probably proves misleading in this context since to
some it apparently denotes existence as an object rather than only a
rationally justifiable or defensible claim. The heart of the matter is this.
The really important question here is whether a theory holds that moral
judgments may be justified by a rational means. A theory which does not
allow such justification is in fact merely a version of moral scepticism. But
many moral theories have been advanced which, while they do deny that
moral terms refer to intrinsic properties of kinds of action, do maintain
that moral judgments can be rationally justified. A view which is generically situationist can certainly maintain such a claim. In fact, Fletcher can
maintain that moral judgments are rationally justifiable if he can give us
criteria for determining what love is or demands and can give us reason to
take love as a guide. It is important, therefore, to see that situationism
need not involve emotivism or any other version of moral scepticism.
Another issue of special interest arises in Fletcher's reply to Kolnai when
Fletcher denies Kolnai's claim that Fletcher's view on Rightness is a
species of act ultilitarianism with love replacing the classical pleasure as
chief value. Fletcher asserts that his view is neither act nor rule utilitarianism but a modified rule utilitarianism. His reason is that he does
accept the importance of rules and principles (and is thus more nearly rule
utilitarian) but is willing to override them if love is better served (so that
he modifies rule ultilitarianism) . It seems to me that Fletcher is simply
mistaken on this point. Classical act utilitarians such as Bentham and Mill
(part of the time) describe the status of moral rules and principles in
just the way Fletcher uses them. They take the received basic rules to be
useful guides to utility in most
especially when time for thought and
calculation is short, but are in principle always ready to appeal directly to
utility if the situation indicates. Thus they use traditional rules as rules
of thumb embodying the result of past thought just as Fletcher wishes to
use rules. Mill in fact remarks that to suppose that every decision must be
recalculated without the aid of past experience summarized in received rules
(thus always requiring much time before action) is supposing his view
conjoined to universal idiocy, in which case any view would work ill.
Thus it seems clear that Fletcher's view is act utilitarian especially since
in his view moral rules (other than his first principle) simply do not have
the binding force attributed to them by rule utilitarians. 3
3 Fletcher's
relation to act utilitarianism
to which I referred in note two.

is also discussed at lenth in my paper

BOOK REVIEWS

In summary, it seems to me that the crucial point concerning the
Kolnai-Fletcher exchange is to see that situationism is not necessarily committed to the view that moral judgments are not rationally justifiable. In
fact, I am more inclined to hold that it is Kolnai's sort of intuition of
intrinsic properties which fails to give us any rational justification of moral
judgments. It is after all of very little help merely to learn that Kolnai
(or W. D. Ross or any other intuitionist) has decided to call his moral
beliefs cognitions of how things are in the universe, thus avoiding the
arduous task of presenting a rational defense of them.
In reflecting again on the whole issue of situation ethics as illustrated in
this book I am struck with the feeling that the debate is in danger of
becoming sterile with continual repetition of positions from which neither
side will budge. This would be a most unwelcome outcome particularly
because the popularity of Fletcher's book has afforded the occasion for
debate between secular and Christian moral philosophers. I would like
therefore to make some general points concerning the issues both in regard
to the way situationism as a generic view is debated and in regard to the
use of agapic love in moral philosophy.
First, it is misleading to draw a contrast simply between situationism and
intrinsicalism or between extrinsicalism and intrinsicalism in the theory of
right and debate these as the options. Situationism does, of course, characterize the right in terms of producing or promoting the good. As such it is
a teleological theory of right. But the label "extrinsicalism" invites a contrast with intrinsicalism only. This is misleading in that the proper
contrast with teleological theories is deontological theories, and a deontological theory does not necessarily rely on claims of the intrinsic right and
wrong of certain acts. The claim that acts are intrinsically right is only
one kind of foundation for a deontological theory. By a deontological
theory of right I mean any theory of right which does not rely in its
formulation or justification of principles of right and justice on a specific
conception of the good. It is important to see that such theories need not
rely on claims of intrinsic right or intuited right. For it seems to me
that one of the intuitionist's most persuasive devices is to point out some
of the serious difficulties with teleological theories-the most serious seems
to me to be the fact that teleological theories cannot give a sound basis
for individual liberty and are thereby without an adequate theory of
justice-and then to present their intuitionism as the only alternative. I
wholly agree that teleological theories will not do, but it then becomes
crucial to see that intuitionist or other intrinsicalist theories are not the
only option. For example, a modern version of contractarianism remains
as a plausible deontological theory of right.
Second, and more directly related to Fletcher, some people have understood situation ethics to maintain that what act you do really doesn't
matter as long as you do it with an attitude of love. Some things Fletcher

BOOK REVIEWS

721

says may indeed be taken as supporting this view. But, we are also
reminded that one of Charles Manson's followers thought she did no wrong
in killing Sharon Tate and her companions because she loved them as she
killed them. This monstrous view is clearly not what situationists such as
Fletcher are maintaining, whatever some popularizers may say. Fletcher
does not have an ethic without principle. He has a theory of right with
only one principle, but that principle is absolute. I myself believe that his
principle itself and the one-principle-only procedure are demonstrably unacceptable, but he should be met at this level, not pilloried because of
popular misconceptions of his view. Fletcher would do well himself to be
more careful in his use of the term " right " so as to avoid these confusions.
and
of this book,
His comments on right and good actions on pages
for example, could easily leave the impression that he shares the kind of
interpretation I am rejecting.
Finally, I would like, as a secular moral philosopher, to raise some issues
about the use of agapic love in moral philosophy. Agapic love is, of course,
in most of our minds the most characteristically Christian contribution to
moral thought. It seems to me, however, that the very difficulties
Fletcher encounters in his attempt to use love as both standard of value
and of right-in brief he falls into a vicious circle using love as a criterion
of both good and right but needing these notions to characterize genuinely
loving conduct-argue against over-use of love even in Christian moral
philosophy. This is not to deny that the position of agapic love will be an
all-important distinguishing feature of a Christian moral position, but it is
to deny that love can do the whole job even for the Christian moralist
who after all faces most problems in common with the secular moral
thinker. Basically, we must all have a theory of value (including a theory
of the good life or best life style); a theory of right and justice which
regulates what is incumbent on us in dealing with each other, as well as
what is good but merely permissible, not our duty; and finally, a theory of
moral worth by which we evaluate ourselves and others as persons.
Further, we all face the need both for cognitive aspects of our theories to
tell us how to pick out what is good and right and motivational aspects of
our theories to tell us what reason we have for acting on the principles of
good and right. It would seem to me important to see that even for the
Christian moralist love cannot answer all these questions as Fletcher tries
to have it do. Thus, both secular and Christian moral philosophers can
work on many problems together. Roughly, I would suppose that the
Christian philosopher will find his conception of agapic love most helpful
in his account of what kind of life is best-not at more basic levels of
value theory; in giving his account of reasons (rational motivation) for
doing what is right and just; and in his account of supererogatory acts and
goodness of character.
These remarks are perhaps too schematic to be readily evaluated, but

BOOK REVIEWS

they illustrate, I hope, the fact that Christian and secular moralist alike
stand to profit from fuller communication. To this communication situation ethics has made a major contribution, and one hopes that Situationism
and the New Morality will help to increase that contribution since it makes
the heart of the situationism debate easily and effectively available to both
Christian and secular audiences.
J. CHARLES KING
Pomona College
Claremont, California

Authority and Freedom: the Case for Orthodoxy in the Catholic Church.
By CHARLES E. RicE. Garden City, New York: Doubleday & Co.,
1971. Pp. 253. $5.95.
Charles E. Rice, Professor at the School of Law at the University of
Notre Dame and editor of the American Journal of Jurisprudence and
Legal Philosophy, joins an ancient and honorable tradition of lay apologetics with this volume, which is primarily aimed at fellow Catholics,
especially at fellow laymen. Avoiding the excesses of both right and left,
he tries to clarify the principles at stake in the present crisis of authority
in the Church, and then he brings these principles to bear in balanced
treatments of several concrete issues of most immediate practical concern.
The resultant work exemplifies what used to be meant by "thinking with
the Church " and " loyalty to the Holy See " by those whose Society once
promoted these attitudes most vigorously.
Prof. Rice recognizes that the crisis of authority and obedience is not
as basic as the crisis of faith. But he wishes to clarify the immediate
issues in their own terms so far as possible, without pursuing his inquiry
to the ultimate theological and philosophical principles. He makes clear
the distinctions between faith, religious assent, the obedience to disciplinary
decrees, but he also recognizes the dynamic unity of the attitude of faithfulness which has always been characteristic of Roman Catholics true to
their religious tradition.
As a background for his discussion of the paradigm instance of the crisis
of authority-that is, the reaction to Humanae Vitae-Prof. Rice reviews
(pp. 16-35) the aspects of the contemporary anti-life movement. This
movement subordinates the sanctity of life to individual and social convenience, and this subordination leads to the widespread acceptance of
abortion, sexual permissiveness, public indecency, marital instability, contraception, and even coervice public programs of birth control. This movement is totally opposed to the entire Christian moral tradition. Many

BOOK REVIEWS

7fl3

who are not even Christian call attention to the threat to human dignity
implicit in the anti-life movement of our time.
Prof. Rice next summarizes (pp. 86-57) the controversy prior to the
publication of Humanae Vitae, the teaching of that encyclical, and the
controversy following it. His balanced treatment of the essential facts is
very valuable; unfortunately, all too many Catholics have received partial
and distorted views from brief reports in the public media and from
biased presentations in certain journals calling themselves " Catholic "
which hardly deserve the name. Therefore, the summary in this book
should be very useful for correcting misunderstandings.
Prof. Rice sees two factors underlying dissent from the teaching of
Humanae Vitae. One is the authority crisis itself; the other is liberal
secularist thought leading to doctrinal errors and issuing in the so-called
"new morality."
The chapter on authority (pp. 58-82) briefly summarizes the common
Catholic understanding of the origin and locus of authority in the Church,
the scope of such authority, which includes the precepts of the natural
moral law, and the relationship between the mrrgisterium aad the properly
formed conscience of the faithful Catholic. Here careful distinctions are
made between disciplinary and teaching authority, as well as among the
modalities of the hierarchical teaching authority.
The chapter (pp. 88-100) on the ideas which have led up to the present
crisis reviews the conceptions signified by the expression '' the new
morality " and shows how these ideas conflict with Catholic teaching. This
chapter also relates the contemporary moral crisis to the wider ideological
crisis brought about by the attack of secularism upon religious faith, and
by the compromises made by some " theologians " and others in the name
of religious faith-for example, in the form of the " modernism " condemned early in this century.
With the preceding as a foundation, Prof. Rice goes on to consider the
authority crisis as it affects several important areas: priestly and religious
life, ecumenism, the liturgy, Catholic education (both at the lower and at
the higher levels), and Church-State relations. In each of these areas
Prof. Rice makes a fair and balanced summary of the immediate causes
of the crisis, then he clarifies these immediate causes, and finally he outlines a practical approach that can be taken by faithful Catholics.
Lastly, the author emphasizes three points in a brief concluding chapter.
First, we must maintain a balanced outlook and avoid extremism of the
right or of the left. Second, we must begin to renew the Church followin!l'
the spirit of Vatican II by first renewing our own lives interiorly. Third,
we must continue to strive confidently not only to keep the faith but to
spread it, thus saving the secularized modern world from itself.
An appendix to the volume includes the complete text and Pope Paul's
prefatory address to the " Credo of the People of God."

724

BOOK REVIEWS

This book is admirably balanced. It is sound and practical. Priests and
teachers should find it useful in counseling and the book could well be
adopted for high school and adult C.C.D. groups. Even those trained in
theology may find much food for thought in this work, which expresses a
simple and straightforward-but
not simpliste-faith in Christ and in
his Church.
Unfortunately, many who could profit by meditation upon the truths
outlined in this work will refuse to give Prof. Rice's book an openminded
reading, due to their " liberal " prejudice that no case for Catholic
orthodoxy can be worthy of their attention.
GERMAIN GRISEZ
Georgetown University
Washington, D. C.

The Messianic Idea in Judaism. By GERSHOM G. SHOLEM. New York:
Schocken Books, 1971. Pp. 350. $15.00.
There is a delightful story about Gershom Sholem's service in the
German army in World War I. I found it in my colleague Herbert Weiner's
excellent book o £essays, 9% Mystics, The Kabbala Today (Holt, Rinehart
and Winston, 1969). Sholem was a pacifist, yet he was drafted into the
Kaiser's army. He confronted his commanders with an ability to speak
only Latin. He was so good both at the Latin and in performance that he
was hastily released from active duty. Two sides of Prof. Scholem's
surface in this story: he is a " ham " with a bit of pixy in him;
a11d whatever he kncws about, he knows a lot about. He holds a degree
in mathematics. He knows a lot about natural science, about all the
behavioral disciplines, about all the humanities. But he knows most about
Jewish mysticism, to which has devoted the past 45 years. (He is
now Prof. Emeritus at the Hebrew University in Jerusalem where he has
l.ived since
lVIartin Buber, who was Scholem's jousting partner on many occasions,
as well as his friend (see pp.
ff. and 314 ff. of the book under review
for a fine expression of each aspect of their complex relationship), said of
Scholem, with a touch of sarcasm, " he made a science out of Kabbala
(Jewish mysticism)." A Jerusalem Kabbalist was less kind; he called
Scholem an accountant: " ... accountants know where the wealth is, its
location and value. But it doesn't belong to them. They cannot use it."
(Weiner, op. cit., p. 57) Whether or not Scholem "uses " his encyclopedic
knowledge of mysticism is a question. That he knows incredibly about it,
that is unquestionable.

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BOOK REVIEWS

Scholem's Major Trends in Jewish Mysticism remains the best book in
the field in English, though it was published more than 35 years ago. The
Messianic Idea is a wide-ranging collection of essays previously published
in various languages in several kinds of journals. It is good that they have
been collected, for the selection includes some of Scholem's most perceptive
and penetrating work.
Christian religionists will not be excited about all the essays. For
example, his appraisal of Wissenschaft des Judentums (Science of Judaism)
over the past 100 years will not mean much to any but the most specialized
Christian scholars. On the other hand, most of the essays have two great
values: the information they contain in seminal, essential to an understanding of many aspects of ,Judaism; and there will be constant earperking over the comparisons and contrasts between Jewish mystical
thought in its evolution and Christian mysticism. It is important for
Christians to discover just how deep-rooted and how complex is Jewish
Messianism. Little is known by most Christian scholars of the Sabbatean
movement of the 17th century and its ongoing expressions within the
Jewish community. As Christians read here about Frankish literature,
about the fascinating crypto-Jewish Turkish Muslims called Donmehparallel in medieval Christain thought will come to mind rapidly.
Several of the essays are goldmines of factual data about concepts and
aspects of Judaism. Scholem's exploration of "devekut," close communion
with the Divine, is important. I was delig-hted to reread the essay on the
"Sheld (or Star) of David," whose evolution the author traces painstakingly. Anyone who has read Andre Schwarz-Bart's poignant Last of the Just
needs to read the essay on the 36 hidden just men (Tzaddikim) for whose
sake God does not destroy the world.
When the Weizmann Institute of Science in Israel dedicated its first
giant computer, Scholem named it Golem Alef (Golem I). As a result he
was invited to speak at the dedication ceremony. His brief statementThe Golem of Prague and the Golem of Rehovot-is a fine climax to this
exciting intellectual feast. The Golem of Prague is an immortal legend
within Kabbala about a " man " brought to life by the great mystic Rabbi
Judah Low of Prague in the 7th century. Scholem's comparisons and
contrasts with the computer are a little shaking, but good for us.
I only wish the book were not so expensive. But it belongs in every good
library, and perhaps one day soon it may come out in paperback, for
wider distribution to thinking, growing Christian students and scholars.
For Prof. Scholem not only knows everything about Jewish mysticism;
he and his translators have given us a readable and stimulating adventure.
RABBI EuGENE

The Catholic University of America
Washington, D. C.

LIPMAN

BOOK REVIEWS

Jewish Philosophy in Modern Times: From Mendelssohn to Rosenzweig.
By NATHAN RoTENSTREICH. New York: Holt, Rinehart and Winston,
1968, Pp. 282. $6.50.
Modem Judaism is usually considered to have begun about the time of
the Declaration of the Rights of Man. This period marked a transition
within the Jewish community from isolation (where the Jew was accepted
on sufferance) to new-found equality. This new status of the Jew as a
"supposed " equal or citizen in the land in which he lived had a profound
impact upon the Jewish intellectual community. Prior to the actual
granting of Jewish citizen rights, and following it, there was an abundance
of philosophic writings in which Jewish philosophers attempted to relate
contemporary philosophical thought to Jewish (religious) thought. This
was a response to what might be called a re-entering of the Jewish people
into history. The process received further impetus when the third
Israeli Commonwealth was established in 1948.
There were at least two basic problems inherent in this development.
The first was the necessity in the minds of the various writers to force or
interpret Judaism in terms of contemporary philosophy no matter how alien
it might have been to the spirit of Judaism. (It has often been pointed
out that Judaism does not become too involved with philosophical or
theological speculation except in response to other challenging systems of
thought). The second problem (often related to the first) was the conflict
between the universalist and the particularist approach. There is the need
in every religious tradition to validate its universalist claims and then its
particularistic claim that its universal truth can be attained either solely,
or especially, through its uniqueness. (It is my understanding, for example,
that the prophets who preached universal concepts were particularists who
believed that the universal values were to be found in and through the
community of Israel.)
In Jewish Philosophy in Modern Times Dr. Nathan Rotenstreich, rector
of the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, explores the Jewish philosophical
trends of the modern period. He considers, first, those philosophers of the
latter half of the eighteenth, the nineteenth, and the early twentieth
centuries who emphasized the primacy of ethics in the sphere of faith. The
author indicates that moral imperatives have always been an inseparable
part of the religious life of the Jew. Moses Mendelssohn viewed Judaism
as primarily a system of legislation while S. D. Luzzatto argued that
Mendelssohn's conception of Judaism rested on the performance of commandments and not on faith. Nevertheless Luzzatto considered religion as
dear to God because of its importance for morality. Moritz Lazurus expanded this identification of religion with ethics and viewed God as the
Archetype of ethical attributes. Hermann Cohen saw the role of ethics
as the incessant striving after an ever-receding goal. God served as the

BOOK REVIEWS

Guarantor of the reality of the correspondence between nature and reality.
God is an idea, not a reality. In his later period Cohen attempted to
discover a new personal dimension in religion through his search for ethical
concepts in the domain of religion. Dr. Rotenstreich sees in all these early
modern Jewish philosophers a blending of traditional Judaism with Kantian
ethical principles.
The second group of philosophers that is discussed by Rotenstreich
regarded Judaism as a religion of the spirit. The emphasis here shifted
from the ethical to the ontological. The philosophers covered in this section
are S. Formstecher, S. Hirsch, and N. Krochmal. Their metaphysical
principles were drawn from Schelling and Hegel. German idealism served
as the basis for their concern with the ontological concepts of Judaism.
They accepted a basic distinction between nature and spirit. Their
Judaism was cut off from traditional Jewish sources. Krochmal, for
example, in his search for the Absolute Spirit, rejected the particulanstic
tradition of Judaism. Judaism was submerged, in Krachmal's philosophy,
under the current philosophic system of his day.
Rostenstreich then considers S. L. Steinheim and Franz Rosenzweig, who
he believes helped return Judaism to an authentic tradition based upon its
uniqueness. Steinheim considered faith an independent sphere of knowledge, and he rejected rationalistic knowledge. He based faith on Revelation and rejected the need for reconciling the faith of Israel with a
philosophic system. Rosenzweig, while in this pattern, did not unite his
particularistic Jewish values and ideals with his existential views. He
considered man as separated by a distance from ultimate truth, and he
postulated a distinction between the truth and God in his Perfection.
Faith was the attempt to bridge the gap among the three separate entities,
God, man, and the world. Man was destined to remain on the way,
proceeding toward life. Toward life is directed toward existential man and
not man redeemed.
The last two philosophers whose concepts Rotenstreich explores are
Rav Kook and A. D. Gordon. Kook considered time as a dimension for
man but not for God. Although man is subject to the dimensions of change
and decay, the true existence and the Source of all existence is not subject
to time; there are no time limitations for God. Events related to time
disappear in a realm beyond time and change, where all things, past,
present, and future are united in the light of the Source. The world is thus
one harmonious whole. Because there is no world but only God present in
all things, there is no distinction between the sacred and the profane.
The world is harmonious became God is in harmony. Man by reaching
for the unchanging scene, and by his desire for the fellowship of God,
discovers the road back to himself. Toward the conclusion of the chapter
on Rav Kook there is an interesting comparison between Judaism and
other religions in which Rav Kook's belief in the superiority of Judaism is
expressed.

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One may wonder if Rotenstreich concludes with A. D. Gordon to end
with an emphasis of Judaism identified with the concept of history.
Gordon stresses the harmony between man and the world, and this ideal,
in turn, requires action directed toward the world. Another aspect of
Gordon's work that has great appeal to the contemporary Jew, especially
the Israeli Jew, relates the essence of religion to the creative genius of
the people from whom it stems and to the unity between man and the
world. These two basic elements of religion are, of course, contained within
Jewish monotheism.
Rotenstreich ends his presentation by posing two questions for the
contemporary Jew. The first question may be expressed as follows: Now
that Judaism has re-entered the stream of history, does the present
generation have any need for a revealed, pre-ordained Judaism? The
second question asks: What meaning historical continuity can have for
the Jewish people if it is devoid of Jewish content? The ancient challenge
of the universal within the context of the particular is an ever-recurring
theme. Will the experience of the Jewish people in Israel present new
opportunities for the development of authentic Jewish thought with universal relevance? Will it be able to validate itself out of its unique and
particular insights and experiences? Through his interesting, challenging,
and thought provoking presentation we, together with Rotenstreich, have
an opportunity to engage in study about past philosophic formulationswhich indicate a continuing concern on the part of Jewish theologians and
philosophers to relate Jewish religious thought to contemporary life and
thought. This exploration of the past, through this valuable and interesting
presentation, will enable us to walk with Rotenstreich toward the future
in the spirit of bold adventure.
RABBI LEONARD w. STERN
St. John's University
Jamaica, N. Y.

The Star of Redemption. By FRANZ RosENZWEIG, tr. WILLIAM W. RALLO.
Holt, Rinehart and Winston, N. Y. 1970. Pp. 463. $10.00.
Kachav HaG'ulah ("The Star of Redemption"). By FRANZ RosENZWEIG,
(Hebrew), tr. JosuuA Al\nR, intro. Moshe Schwartz, Mossad Bialik
a d L?o Baed: Irstitute, Jerusalem 1970. Pp. 437.
W. Hallo's Emclish translation and J. Amir's Hebrew translation of Franz
Rosenzweig's Stern der Erloesung make accessible to the readers of these
languages one of the most important and influential works in twentieth-

BOOK REVIEWS

century Jewish philosophical theology-and an extremely important work
at any time and for many purposes. Previously there had been good reason
to believe that this book could never be successfully translated: it tackles
a large number of extremely difficult and complex tasks (among them a
very high-level metaphysics, an ambitious universal historiography, an
involved philosophical theology, elaborate theologies of Judaism and Christianity largely in terms of their liturgies, etc.) -it does all this within the
ambiance of classical German culture in general and largely as an extrapolation of the philosophical configuration of Hegel and Schelling in particular-and it does it with an extraordinary amount of reliance on the
meaningfulnesses of the philology and implications of the German language.
Let it be said, then, at the very outset that, in the face of these and other
seemingly insurmountable obstacles, Rallo and Amir have brought off the
miracle of rendering The Star of Redemption into not only comprehensible
but even smooth English and Hebrew respectively. Substantively the book
remains, of course, extraordinarily difficult. Even so, if only because from
the frequently multiple simultaneous levels of meaning in the German only
one could be preserved in translation, the English and Hebrew versions are
in some way more easily understandable than the original, albeit at the
price of some unavoidable de-complexification.
The history of the edition of The Star is itself a significant part of
twentieth-century history. Rosenzweig wrote most of the book on postcards which he sent home from his army-stations during World War I.
(Cf. N. N. Glatzer, Franz Rosenzweig-The Man and His Thought, N. Y.
1953) The first edition appeared in Frankfurt-on-Main, where he spent
the rest of his short life, in
The Hebrew motto on the title-page is
taken from Psalm 45:5: "Ride on the word of truth!" In accordance with
the author's direction, the second edition, which appeared after his death
in
completed the quotation: "Succeed in riding on the word of
truth! ", for, according to his "existentialist," "messianic" theory of truth,
only the completed life of a man testifies to the extent of his success. This
edition also incorporates his own marginal sub-titles, which have now
been moved into the body of the English and Hebrew texts. They are,
indeed, very helpful in what is otherwise a thicket of ideas and argumentsso much so that the present writer would suggest that in the future they
be also incorporated into the table of contents, which, as it stands, is
really no more than the widest possible structuring of Rosenzweig's
quasi-Hegelian construction. It took until 1954, for obvious historical
reasons, before the third edition appeared in Heidelberg. By now secondhand reports about his writings and work, the influence of his friend and
colleague Martin Buber, and, no doubt, indirect dissemination through his
German-Jewish compatriots who, if they survived, dispersed throughout the
world, had made Rosenzweig one of the three or four most effective religious
and intellectual forces in the Jewish world. In America, for example, M.

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Himmelfarb had to say in 1966: "The single greatest influence on the
religious thought of North American Jewry, therefore, is ... Franz
Rosenzweig." (The Condition of Jewish Belief, p. Q) In Israel a symposium 'Al F. Rosenzweig was published at the Hebrew University in 1956 in
connection with the twenty-fifth anniversary of his death. In Britain the
present writer's F. Rosenzweig-Guide to Reversioners was published in
1960. Emmanuel Levinas, the French phenomenologist who may well be
the most significant Jewish thinker on the scene at the present time, says
at the beginning of his Totalite et lnfini (The Hague, 1961, p. XVI;
English: Duquesne University Press 1969) : "The Stern der Erloesung of
F. Rosenzweig is present in this book so much that it cannot be cited."
And now, precisely all of fifty years after the first edition, the
magnum opus makes its own entry into very different linguistic and
historical cultures.
It is an open question whether the book's accessibility to the Israeli and
American reader (a British edition is in preparation) will increase or
possibly even diminish its effectiveness, at least in the short-run. Up to
now it was more the myth of Rosenzweig (the alienated Jewish intellectual
who becomes a profound Jewish scholar, the youthfully paralyzed man who
manages to continue his literary and personal productivity), and at most
the practical, religious teacher (the theoretical and practical educator, the
interpreter of the liturgy, and the model for a reasoned Jewish-religious
" praxis ") , who influenced a considerable number of people in the quest
for "Jewish authenticity."
Now Israelis and Americans will suddenly
find themselves confronted, if they take the trouble of trying to understand him at all, with the real thinker: a doctrinal non-Zionist (actually
at the time of The Star he may be said to have been more anti-Zionist
than non-Zionist), an extremely European, German sort of a Jew who
devotes many more pages to Goethe than to Maimonides, and a metaphysician whose style of thought could not be further from the tenor of the
prevailing contemporary mode. Some early, popular reviews of the book
make it plausible that henceforth more people will turn away from, rather
than toward, him.
The new reader who really wants to try conscientiously to fathom what
goes on in The Star can be given some propadeutic advice. Just opening
it and beginning, cold, to read it, without some introduction, background,
or guidance, is almost bound to fail or may even prove to be counterproductive. This will be true not only for the general reader but even
for the typical sophisticated product of the presently dominant kinds of
philosophical and theological education-unless he happens to be hip to
at least Hegel's Phenomenology of the Spirit and Schelling's Ages of the
World. The "Foreword" in the English translation by Prof. Glatzer,
himself an associate of Rosenzweig's and certainly the most knowledgeable
man on the subject in the English-speaking world, is, unfortunately, a

BOOK REVIEWS

731

peculiarly apologetic, peripheral, and useless exercise. The introduction to
the Hebrew translation, to the contrary, supplies a very good, albeit brief
description of the place of The Star in modern general and Jewish thought
and of the motivations and basic goals operative in the work. In general,
one may say that if you understand Rosenzweig you will understand The
Star-but then, of course, you do not need to read it anymore; if you
do not understand Rosenzweig and, therefore, need to read him, you will
not be able to understand The Star. The best way of breaking out of this
bind, in English, is, then, to read the chapter on Rosenzweig preferably
in Jacob Agus's Modern Philosophies of Judaism (N. Y. 1941, now finally
re-published in paperback)
or in Julius Guttmann's Philosophies of
Judaism (N. Y. 1964, unfortunately out of print). Having obtained a
general overview from Glatzer's previously mentioned book and once
having digested one of these philosophical analyses, one should be able to
get through the volume with some initial profit.
The potential new reader will also, beforehand, want some kind of
synopsis of what the book deals with. To try to give it to him is a risky
and necessarily distorting enterprise, but it shall, nevertheless, be attempted.
The Star of Redemption consists of three Parts, and each Part is divided
into three Books (plus introduction and transition) . Indeed, Hegelian
now
triadism crops up all over the place: being-negation-sublation,
formulated in Schellingian terms as yes-no--and, take form in Godworld-man, creation-revelation-redemption,
in the two triangles of " the
star of David," etc. The introductions and transitions express, then, the
dynamic processes leading from one stage to another. Each section tackles
its assigned task in both an historical and a "systematic" way, i.e., as is
the case with Hegel and Schelling, it is held that logic and history arc
ultimately identical, and, therefore, what is true of the former must be
demonstrable in the latter.
Part I begins with an introduction which surveys the history of philosophy from Greek idealism to modern personalism and synchronizes the
latter with the discovery of the individual, through confrontation with
death, as the ultimate stubborn reality. Thus shattered by the extrusion
of the individual, the idealistic uni-verse falls apart, in thought, into its
compon1!nts-God, world, and man. The three Books of the First Part
then go about constituting the theoretical structures of these respective
components in mathematico-symbolic form. Book I constitutes God in
thought as substance and free action living in and by himself. This is the
pre-personal God of eternal paganism. In Book II the world is constituted
as mate1 iality and change following its " laws of nature " without relationship to human history. This is the real, self-subsisting nature of eternal
materialism. Man is constituted, ideally, in Book III as the substance of
self and free will unable, however, to affect either God or nature. This is

BOOK REVIEWS

the eternal hero of Greek tragedy. In the conclusion of this Part the whole
cosmos constituted by these three theoretical entities, which is ontogenetically and phylogenetically identical with paganism, is found to be characterized by the lack of relations between its monadic parts-the lack of
structure which, in modern parlance, is often spoken of as directionlessness
in terms of time and values.
The introduction to Part II reviews the history of philosophic thought
once more, this time oriented not toward the discovery of the individual
but around an understanding of the notion of " miracle." A miracle is
discovered to be not the creation of a new reality but the " revelation " of
a pre-existing one. Revelation is then the process through which the
monadic entities of the first Part "discover," enter into relations with, one
another. Entry is an act in time, and relationship occurs in the form of
language. Part II thus transforms the ideal constructions of philosophy
into the realities of theology. Book I unpacks (continuous) "creation"
as the realization of relation between God and the world through the
former's activity. Genesis I is exegetized in this sense. Book II unpacks
(continuous) "revelation" as the realization of relation between God and
the individual components of the world, especially men, through love.
The Song of Songs is exegetized in this sense. And Book III unpacks
" redemption " as the extension of the love-endowment to literally all
components of the universe through divine and human activity. Psalm 115
is exegetized in this sense. In the conclusion of this Part the three points,
the monadic entities of Part I, are thus found to have drawn lines
between, entered into relations with, one another and to constitute the
upper triangle of what is destined to become "the star of redemption."
The introduction to Part III coordinates three different forms of prayer
with the three Joachimite ages and arrives at the conclusion that the
modern age-defined by the French Revolution, Jewish emancipation, and
secularity-is the Johannine age, the drawing of the night, when God will
again be "all in all" and the star will shine. I. e., the cosmos is being
" eternalized," taken back into God. The eternalization of men and nature
is brought about through the liturgy. In Book I the Jewish liturgy is shown
to be the expression of a community living even now in eternity, outside
of history, having long since arrived at the end. In Book II the Christian
liturgy is interpreted as the expression of a community " on the way "
through history toward the eschaton, increasingly absorbing the as yet
unredeemed portions of the pagan world. Book III is a vision of the
eschatological end, when the existent eternity of Judaism and the emergent
eternity of Christianity conicide in " the truth," which is God. The conclusion of this Part and the book as a whole is symbolized in the Star of
David, when the two sets of relations, the ontogenetic triangle of Part II
and the phylogenetic triangle of history, overlap in "the star of redemption." All that is left now is " to do," to live the Jewish and Christian
realities toward salvation.

BOOK REVIEWS

733

Even so inadequate a summary of the content of the book suffices to
indicate its overweening ambitions in philosophy, theology, and history.
Some sections are brilliant and extraordinarily provocative, others are inordinately complex and obscure. The sheer bulk of its cumulative cleverness and literate ponderousness can, after a while, grow oppressive and even
boring. Much in it can and should be argued with: for example, the argument against idealism and rationalism, the dangerous and perhaps even
invidious Schellingian theosophy of Part I, the view of Judaism as metahistorical and Christianity as historical (cf. D. Clawson, "Rosenzweig on
Judaism and Christianity," Judaism XIX/I, Winter 1970), the notion of
continuousness as used in Rosenzweig's doctrine of creation and revelation
and his interpretation of " the law " that emerges from it. (In his
discussion with Martin Buber several years after The Star, " The Builders,"
in On Jewish Learning, N. Y. 1955, a much improved understanding of the
law developed.) With an eye toward the readership of this journal (my
son Maimon punned that writing this review during the summer would
make it " a long, hot 'summa' ") the present writer will take up only
one issue, resuming the theme of an article " Rosenzweig on Judaism and
Christianity " in Conservative Judaism, Winter 1956.
The publishers of the Rallo translation, no doubt hoping thereby to
increase the market for the book, lay special stress on the dust-jacket and
in their release on the " ecumenical " character of Rosenzweig's theology of
Judaism and Christianity, that, according to him, both religions are" tme,"
that dialogue in the world between them is, therefore, called for, etc. (It is
telling that the Israeli edition would engage in no such sheenanigans.)
Now, it is true, as even our excessively brief synopsis indicates, that
Rosenzweig assigns to Christianity a more significant and valid role in
Heilsgeschichte than perhaps any other serious Jewish thinker in historyeven more than is done in the two famous passages from Rabbi Y.
HaLevy's Kuzari and Maimonides' Mishneh Torah which he cites respectively at the very beginning and very end of Part III, Book II. It is also
tme, of course, that Rosenzweig came to Judaism in effect from Christianity,
not only in the biographical sense but also in the philosophico-theological
sense. Though his theologizing is authentically Jewish, he could not have
done it except coming, as he did, out of a Europeo-Christian milieu: at the
time that he wrote The Star he did not know enough Kabbalah to do the
theosophy of Part I, nor was he sufficiently acquainted with Hassidism to
be able to put as much emphasis on the roles of love, atonement, and
prayer as he did based on Jewish sources alone; the crucial influence of his
close friend, the Protestant theologian Eugen Rosenstock-Huessy, makes
itself heavily felt here and elsewhere. (Cf. Rosenstock-Huessy, Judaism
Despite Christianity, University of Alabama, 1969) Rosenzweig has,
furthermore, none of the horror of what to " simple Jewish instinct, compounded of incomprehension and pitying contempt "-as he called it in a

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similar context (Briefe, ed. E. Rosenzweig and E. Simon, Berlin, 1985,
p. 670) -must be the heathenism of so much in Christianity. Finally, it
is true that some interesting Jewish and Christian thinkers of the mildtwentieth century, like H.-J. Schoeps (cf. The Jewish-Christian Argument,
N. Y., 1968), James Parkes, and Reinhold Niebuhr, derived a theory of
"the two covenants "-Sinai and Calvary, equally valid and authentic
for Israel and " the nations of the world " respectively-from The Star
of Redemption.
Just the same, to claim that Rosenzweig presented " Judaism and
Christianity as equally 'true' and valid views of reality" (as the pubblishers do on the dust-jacket, and in form of an unspecified quotation
yet!) is to misrepresent him badly, though this may well describe what
some people have made of his views and what " indifferentists " of various
stripes think it would be useful to "inter-religious good-will" projects
to represent him as having taught.
As Rosenzweig sees it, the issue is that divine providence must be
universal (the synthesis) -any defined entity, e. g., Judaism or Christianity, is defined, among others, as different from what it is not (the
thesis) -and the question, therefore, arises as to how something can be
universal and yet leave out that which, though real, is not part of it
(the antithesis). In a general way Rosenzweig's answer to this question is
that Judaism (thesis) is, from the start and inherently, universal (synthesis) and, therefore, has no need to sublate an antithesis, whereas
Christianity
(thesis) goes out into its own and others' prior pagan
substance (antithesis) and sublates them into faith (synthesis). Thus,
Christianity must and does risk infection by the antithesis, while Judaism,
if only by its silent existence and stubborn persistence, calls it back to its
true eschatological (synthetical) goal. Put more simply, the Jew is
naturally pious, and the power of (divine) nature is immune to temptation,
whereas the Christian is pious by adoption, and adoption is subject to
historical distortions and disruptions. More specifically, if revelation-redemption is the relationship between God, man, and the world, then this
triadic relationship is subject to two dangers: a part of it can be taken for
the whole (idolatry), and its eschatological realization can be proclaimed
before its time (pseudo-messianism) . Judaism is, according to Rosenzweig,
"at the goal," i.e., with God, outside of history, in the messianic fulfillment, and it is, therefore, essentially immune to these dangers: in the end
all is God anyway, and at that point it can, therefore, not be false to
say that God is man and world; i.e., idolatry is here not so much abolished
as impossible. In the second place, as Rosenzweig puts it in another and
very interesting connection (Jehuda Halevi, Berlin n.d. [1927], p. 289),
not to know that the fulfillment has been attained when it has
been is at least as much pseudo-messianism as to think it has been
attained when it has not been,-and for Jewry, says Rosenzweig, it has

BOOK REVIEWS

735

been. (He is, therefore, quite indulgent to pseudo-Messiahs like Sabbetai
Tzevi.) In Christianity, on the other hand, these dangers always exist and
sometimes become real: the Orthodox Church tends to identify spirit with
God, while it is not yet divine, the Roman-Catholic Church tends to
identify the world with God while it is still nature, and Protestantism tends
to identify man with God while he is still unredeemed. (The overlapping
of triadic antitheses becomes positively dizzying at this point.) " Thus they
are dangers which Christianity never overcomes-spiritualization
of God,
apotheosis of man, pantheification of the world .... " (p. 40!2) And since
Christianity is not, according to Rosenzweig, " at the goal " but " on the
way," i.e., it has not yet experienced the eschatological fulfillment, spirit,
world, and man taken as God are what they would no longer be in the
eschaton, namely, pre-messianic idolatries. It is true that also Judaism runs
certain dangers, and dangers of particularism: it can think that God is
only the God of Israel, the world is only "the four ells of the law," and
that the Jew is the only man. But Rosenzweig can afford to talk much
more calmly about these: the God of Israel is, after all, the God of the
universe-the Torah does, after all, embrace everything-and the Jew is,
after all, " universal man," and, therefore, the more deeply one goes into
the particularistically Jewish God, world, and man the more one ends up
with universality. In short, the Jew heals himself out of his Judaism, the
Christian must be healed by the Jew. (For all this cf. pp. !298-308, 341351, 399-416.)
Now, all this may well be-and this writer thinks that it is-significantly wrong. Many Jews and many Christians would want to say, if
anything, the exact opposite, that Christianity, by virtue of the first
advent, thinks that it is in some sense "at the end," and Judaism, still
awaiting the Messiah, thinks that it is "on the way." Few, if any, of the
religionists whom Rosenzweig talks about-and he insists that he is talking
about Jewry and Christendom, not the "isms " of Judaism and Christianity-express their faith as he claims they do. We will not even speculate
what Moslems would want to say about the really outrageous analysis of
Islam that he intersperses in hefty chunks in The Star: he displaces
practically all the theological criticisms that Christianity has traditionally
leveled at Judaism and projects them onto Islam; to be able to do this he
has to read Islam very selectively and, at that, in its most simple-minded
version. (This writer, for one, would hold that, to the contrary, Judaism
and Islam are monotheistic brothers in opposition to Christianity. [Cf.
the notes in the Hebrew translation on pp. 205, 361.] The history of Jews
and Arabs since Rosenzweig's death may, in some part, be due to the
Europo-centrism which Rosenzweig manifests, and it makes our counterthesis, apart from its theological and historical correctness, also an urgent
normative notion.) As a result, also the respeclive liturgies might have to
be interpreted very differently from Rosenzweig's way.

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One might thus well think that Rosenzweig's view of Judaism and
Christianity is substantially false. But one can scarely speak of what is
imputed to him, " indifferentism," a doctrine of real " equality of validity "
between them. In the by now famous passage (p. 415) : " Before God,
then, Jew and Christian both labor at the sam? task. He cannot dispense
with either. He has set enmity between the two for all time, and withal
has most intimately bound each to each "-in this passage the phrase
about "enmity" is usually, and conveniently, muted. He explicates its
meaning (and what we have outlined above) in the very next paragraph:
" And thus we both have but a part of the whole truth ... A direct view
of the whole truth is granted only to him who sees it in God. That,
however is a view beyond life. A living view of the truth ... can become
ours too only from out the immersion into our own Jewish heart and even
there only in image and likeness. As for the Christians, they are denied a
living view altogether .... " There is, thus, a real relativization of Jewish
and of Christian truth in Rosenzweig-and lhat seems fair enough, but
it is a very unequal relativization-and that
seems fair. The question
remains whether it is correctly, and unequally, relativized.
Finally a few technical remarks about the two translations ought to be
added. They are so excellent that they will undoubtedly remain standard
texts, and future editions can be expected. Excellence is not synonymous
with perfection, however, and there are ma:1y minor corrections which
need to be made. The last quotation from The Star of Redemption in the
Rallo translation in the previous paragraph, for example, uses " too " where
the import of the original is clearly "even." Rallo has " Christians" where
Rosenzweig says "Jenen "-"those there," which carries the overtones of
a simple, colloquial, and somewhat derogatory Yiddish euphemism. " Too,"
if at all, should obviously have been put between commas, and presumably
one needs " from out of the immersion." There is a goodly number of
similar and other minor such corrections that are desirable, printing errors,
punctuation, some small translational points, etc. In order not to burden
the general reader with these the writer has forwarded a list of them to the
translator. The few footnotes in the English version, usually restricted to
matters of translation, occasionally begin to argue with the author. Either
this would need to be done much more frequently and extensively, or,
preferably, it should be omitted altogether in the book and done elsewhere:
let the man, right or wrong, at least have his own say in his own book!
The real and bothersome problem is the indices. The "index of Jewish
sources," adapted from Glatzer's compilation for the second edition, contains many Biblical, very much fewer Rabbinic, and no Kabbalistic references-which badly misrepresents the nature of Rosenzweig's thought.
Entries are listed by numbers not carried in the body of the text, and
the page references follow these numbers-altogether an unfathomable and
certainly useless procedure. The "index of names" and the "index of

737

BOOK REVIJJWS

subjects," compiled for the third edition by Rosenzweig's widow and now
adapted by the translator's mother (the Rallo's, a prestigious family from
the German-Jewish aristocracy, were close friends and associates of
Rosenzweig, and W. Hallo is now professor of assyriology at Yale University), are, in the first place, quite incomplete. (E. g., to "Buddha,"
add: "p. 890; " to "Goethe," add: "pp. 282, 292, 802;" under "Jesus,"
omit "p. 277," which is really a Talmudic reference; to "Kant," add: "p.
214;" add: "Stirner, p. 9;" to "Islam," add: "p. 280; " to "Mysticism,"
add: "p. 207 f.") Above all, the index of names is organized alphabetically; as a result, it is next to impossible to determine the source of a
quotation or allusion, often deeply and obscurely buried in the text, unless
you know its authorship in the first place; even the products of German
humanistic education two generations ago might have had trouble ranging
widely and often esoterically through the classics, mediaevals, and modern
European literature, and this is altogether too much to ask, and unnecessarily, of the contemporary English reader. Here if anywhere numbers in
the text and index would be called for. In any case, many more allusions
need to be explicated.
The Hebrew translation has no indices at all, which should be remedied.
Here, too, the footnotes sometimes argue. On the other hand,
supply
many more Rabbinic and non-Jewish cross-references, and they give very
useful historical, philosophical, as well as linguistic explanations. In one
case, p. 254, an interesting emendation to the original German text is even
suggested. It might not be a bad idea to add English translations of the
Hebrew footnote apparatus in future editions of the Hallo translation. One
thing the Hebrew does that cannot be done in English: a goodly number of
Rosenzweigian phrases and thoughts, when rendered in Hebrew, turn out
to be much more authentically Jewish than their denotations in Western
languages indicate. For example, the Hebrew for " the peoples of the
world" (which Rosenzweig uses essentially in the sense of "the worldly
peoples ") evokes an entire complex of Talmudic concepts and laws which
are at best left in a half-shadow even for the initiate in Occidental languages. The author of the Hebrew introduction, M. Schwartz, aptly quotes
Rosenzweig-and the Mishnah--to the effect that "every translation is a
sort of messianic act, which brings redemption nearer," because it communicates between the diverse languages and cultures of mankind. Rosenzweig was himself powerfully conscious of the fact that in Hebrew it
brings Jews and non-Jews back to their common root, in " God's language."
Schwartz hopes-as Rosenzweig himself had prayed-that this may be true
of the Amir translation. In the jubilee-year of The Star of Redemption
one hopes that it is true to some extent of both translations.
STEVEN

Washington University
St. Louis, Missouri

S.

ScnwARZSCHILD

738

BOOK REVIEWS

Brothers in Hope (The Bridge: Judaeo-Christian Studies. Volume V).
Edited by JoHN M. OESTERREICHER. New York: Herder and Herder,
1970. Pp. 350. $7.50.
This fifth volume in the series called The Bridge comes eight years after
the fourth volume and follows in the wake of the Second Vatican Council's
Statement on the Jews. Like its predecessors, it is a work of scholarly
collaboration which should go far toward bridging the gap between Jews
and Christians by helping Christians to be more aware of their Jewish
heritage and by helping Jews to see that fulfillment of their hopes has been
renewed. One of its most important, and best, features is its variety of
content and viewpoint. The pre-conciliar volumes presented the studies and
views of Catholic scholars exclusively, while in this volume Jewish as
well as Catholic scholars explore the implications of the conciliar Statement on the Jews in careful, probing essays.
The structure is similar to that of previous volumes. There is an
Introduction together with the text of the Statement on the Jews, followed
by ten contributions called Studies. Next follow another three contributions called Perspectives, which are shorter, more specialized or more
tentative essays. These are followed by eight Documents, which include
relevant statements by Pope Paul, the American Bishops, and members
of the Institute of Judaeo-Christian Studies. Following three excellent
Book Reviews come Notes and Acknowledgements, Contributors, and a
very welcome three-part index of names, subjects, and Biblical references.
While each of the essays is distinctly commendable, the preferences of
this reviewer lie with the eloquent study of Ernst Ludwig Ehrlich on
"What Vatican II Means to Us Jews," the expert treatment of" Jesus and
His People's Tradition," by Herbert Haag, the practical implications developed in " Religious Instruction," by Sofia Cavalletti, and the very
sensitive " The Theologian and the Land of Israel," by the editor, John
M. Oesterreicher.
One does not find a perfect harmony of views in the volume, and, as the
editor remarks, the contributors do not resemble the members of an
orchestra flawlessly performing a symphony. They are rather like players
at a rehearsal who time their various instruments so that they may truly
complement and support one another. They are courageous and forthright
as they take the conciliar Statement as their point of departure and ask
themselves, " where do we go from here? " This question and the title
itself Brothers in Hope, may be taken together as the overriding and guiding
theme of the work. There is a spiritual bond that ties the people of the
New Covenant to Abraham's stock. Judaism is founded on the same
Covenant and the same promises that Christianity is, and the God of the
Covenant is the God of both Christians and Jews. The usual way of
describing the difference between the two communities-that Christians

BOOK REVIEWS

739

believe that the Messiah has come while Jews still await His coming-is
neither exact nor complete. While the traditional Jew hopes that the
Messiah will come, so does the Christian who expects Christ's return in
splendor and majesty, when the full glory of God will be disclosed and the
rich first fruits of our redemption made manifest, when a new heaven and
a new earth will be a reality and the petition, " Thy kingdom come,"
lastingly fulfilled. Thus Christians and Jews are bound together, not only
by their faith in the one living God and their love for him but also by their
hope in the ultimate realization of God's reign. They are an ecumene, a
brotherhood, sharing in this eschatological hope.
A greater or mere appealing theme cannot be imagined for our despairridden age, and this volume admirably and beautifully continues the
conciliatory work of its predecessors.
THOMAS

P. MALLAGHAN, c. M.

Saint John's University
Jamaica, New York

The New American Philosophers. By ANDREW J. REcK. Baton Rouge:
Louisiana State University Press, 1968. Pp. 349. $8.95.
A sequel to his Recent American Philosophy (New York, 1964) which
treated of American philosophy between the two world wars, Reck's The
New American Philosophy concentrated on American philosophy since
World War II. While the latter book stands on its own, it is nonetheless
similar to its predecessor in purpose and format. In each case Reck's aim
is to " demonstrate the richness, diversity and originality of American
philosophy during the Twentieth century." And in each book he accomplishes his end by expounding in general terms the thought of well-known
American philosophers who have expressed their views on a variety of
philosophical fields and in a number of book-length works. Moreover, his
general purpose is served by keeping criticism to a minimum. For Reck
feels that to pause to criticize is to interrupt the process of revealing the
total development of the thought of the philosopher under consideration.
In The New American Philosophy Reck presents essays on no less than
twelve philosophers. These are: C. I. Lewis, Stephen Pepper, Brand
Blanchard, Ernest Nagel, John Herman Randall, Justus Buchler, Sidney
Hook, F. S. C. Northrop, James K. Feibleman, John Wild, Charles Hartshorne and Paul Weiss. We shall here comment on just three of Reck's
essays, namely, his expositions of the philosophies of C. I. Lewis, Brand
Blanchard and John Wild respectively.
The author's account of C. I. Lewis's "conceptualistic pragmatism" has

740

BOOK REVIEWS

much to recommend it. While correctly classifying Lewis as a logical
empiricist, Reck takes pains to show not only how Lewis's account of
analytic truth differs from that of the Vienna Circle version of logical
empiricism but also how this difference is rooted in Lewis's rather sophisticated neo-Kantian epistemology. As Reck fully recognizes, analytic statements for Lewis are true not by reference to linguistic meaning but by
reference to what Lewis calls sense meaning. And this sense meaning of
an analytic statement is something akin to Kant's concept of a schema.
Further, Reck ably unfolds the pragmatic feature in Lewis's analysis of
meaning as well as the paradox which attends that feature. For on the
one hand, the relation between the sense meanings of an analytic statement.
are necessary and unalterable according to Lewis; but on the other hand,
it is, for Lewis, we human beings who for our own purposes decide what
characteristics are to be packed into these meanings. But this paradox is
not an inconsistency.
In Reck's essay on Blanchard two items especially stand out for the
insight they provide into Blanchard's thought. First is the account given
of Blanchard's concept of the teleological relation between idea and object
and the relationship that that account has both to the Platonic paradox of
knowledge and to Blanchard's overall rationalism. This important aspect
of Blanchard's philosophy is not often stressed. To the extent that an idea
is its object in posse, the two are both identical and different. But this
identity in difference is exactly what is called for to explain the fact of
knowledge. Moreover, this same purposive identity of idea and object leads
to and supports the rationalist's thesis that the rational is the real. For
what satisfies thought as its end is what is real. Second, Reck's analysis
of Blanchard's treatment of universals also is instrumental to understanding
Blanchard's thought. In particular, the author's discussions of Blanchard's
distinction between the abstract and the concrete universal shows
Blanchard's indebtedness to the English idealists Bradley and Bernard
Bosanquet. Of special merit is Reck's acknowledgement of Blanchard's
emphasis on the potential indeterminate character of abstract universals in
contradistinction with the actual determinate character of the real. For
Blanchard, then, abstract universals are not real, i. e., do not exist
independently of mind.
To turn to Reck's description of the philosophy of John Wild, what
immediately strikes the reader about this essay is the way in which the
author finds and clearly presents the deeper unity or continuity between
Wild's older philosophical stance, namely, classical realism, and his more
recent self-styled existentialism. Reck's approach is especially helpful
since Wild's abandonment of classical realism in favor of a type of existentialism has been so radical a change in viewpoint that we tend to forget
or overlook the element of continuity between the two. This factor of
continuity Reck locates in Wild's insistence on the necessity of the

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741

methodological priority of phenomenology to metaphysics. Even when
Wild argued for the primacy of metaphysics in his realist period against
the tendency in recent philosophy to establish a logic and a theory of
knowledge independent of metaphysics, Wild insisted that the revival
of metaphysics be preceded by careful and detailed phenomenological
descriptions. But, whereas in his classical realist period Wild took these
descriptions to be descriptions of the objects of awareness, in his present
existentialist period he requires that these descriptions be descriptions of
the awarenesses themselves along with subjective feelings such as care and
guilt, and in general the data of the human existential situation.
Admittedly, in a book of this sort, devoted as it is to exposition,
criticism should be kept to a minimum. At the same time, however, since
criticism is often a fruitful means to clear exposition, Reck's purposes
would have been even better served had he made more use of criticism
than he did. For example, as a way of elucidating Blanchard's notion that
an idea is its object in posse one might have raised the objection that the
relation between an idea and that which it is the idea of appears more to
be one of act to potency than one of potency to act. Presumably, in
showing how Blanchard might answer this and perhaps other criticisms,
one would be gaining greater insight into that philosopher's thought and
doing so by means of criticism. Or again, to gain deeper insight into Lewis's
conceptualistic pragmatism one might raise the rather commonsensical
objection that, if Lewis holds that it is we human beings who for our own
purposes decide what features are to be packed into the meanings of
concepts, how can he also hold that the given data provide us with some
clue as to what is to be included in the meaning of these same concepts. It
appears prima facie as if Lewis is both denying all intelligibility to the
given data while at the same time according some intelligibility and determinateness to this data. Now it is precisely by raising and trying to
answer a criticism of this sort that one would achieve a clearer picture of
Lewis's philosophical program.
JOHN F. PETERSON
University of Rhode Island
Kingston, R. I.

Cajetan's Notion of Existence. By JOHN P. REILLY. The Hague: Mouton,
1971. Pp. 131. 25 Dutch guilders.
This book, which is divided into six chapters, begins the first chapter
with a textual analysis of St. Thomas Aquinas's notion of existence. The
point stressed is that existence and participation are the cornerstone of the
Thomistic metaphysics. In chapter two, the author presents Cajetan's

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explanation of two points: God is essentially subsisting esse; as such he
transcends all categories and is infinitely perfect. God as the subsisting
act of existing is the First Cause of all other beings.
Chapter three is the main section in the book and is composed of three
parts: (a) the metaphysical constitution of material substances; (b) the
real distinction between essence and existence; and (c) the problem of the
supposit. The aim and purpose of the book, and especially of chapter three,
is to establish Cajetan's existentialism in his analysis of being 1 and to
show that Cajetan's notion of existence is fundamentally the same as that
of St. Thomas Aquinas. The texts of Cajetan that are used to prove this
point are: In Summa Theologiae Commentarium, In De Ente et Essentia
Commentarium, De Nominum Analogia and In De Anima Commentarium.
In his textual analysis, the author tries to reconcile texts in Cajetan which
imply an essentialism with texts that are existentialist in tone and thua
answer the charge of essentialism in Cajetan raised by Gilson. According
to Gilson, Cajetan's position on esse is the same as that of St. Albert
the Great, where esse is not the act of form but is only the relation of an
actual being to its efficient cause. Gilson's view is supported by texts which
strongly suggest an essentialism; 2 the view is further supported by
Cajetan's use of terms that appear to be those used by Scotus. Against
Gilson, the author argues that terms such as esse actualis existentiae and
esse essentiae were used by other Scholastics besides Scotus, especially
Giles of Rome and Henry of Ghent who used the terms in an essentialist
framework, and Thomas Sutton, Capreolus and Sylvester of Ferrara who
used the terms in an existentialist framework.
Cajetan's terminology and thought is extremely complex and difficult to
interpret, and the charge of essentialism directed against him is understandable. Whereas St. Thomas Aquinas uses esse as the act of existing,
Capetan speaks of an esse actualis existentiae or esse existentiae as opposed
to esse quiditativum or esse essentiac.3 Esse essentiae seems to imply that
essence has an actuality of its own. Yet Cajetan argues that essence of
itself is not, properly speaking, real being. It is a pure potency for esse.
1 Chapter six is an analysis of three difficult texts in Cajetan
which are interpreted to convey an existentialism in Cajetan rather than an essentialism.
2 In
chapter four, the author presents evidence from Gilson's Elements of
Christian Philosophy for an essentialist concept of being in Cajetan because of his
denial of the demonstrability of personal immortality. The author argues that to
deny personal immortality is not to deny that esse is the act of form; Cajetan had
difficulty in reconciling how the human soul could be both the substantial form of
the body and a subsisting form.
3 On the use of these terms in his Commentary
on the De Ente et Essentia of
St. Thomas, see L. H. Kendzierski and F. C. Wade, 8. J., Cajetan, Commentary on
Being and Essence, tr. from the Latin with an Introduction (Milwaukee: Marquette
University Press, 1964), p. 4, fn. 8.

BOOK REVIEWS

748

When essence receives esse it becomes real and actual; essence in itself,
therefore, is the proper subject of esse actualis existentiae. Esse actualis
existentiae, according to the author, has the same meaning for Cajetan
as esse does for St. Thomas, namely, the actuality of essence.
The reviewer would like to insert the following points on Cajetan's
notion of being. 4 Cajetan distinguishes between ens used as a participle
and ens used as a noun. Ens as a participle is transcendental and is divided
into the ten categories. It includes the subject and means " one existing."
Ens taken as a noun is esse actualis existentiae. Here the subject is left
out; it is not a transcendental nor is it divided in the categories. Ens taken
as a noun, that is, abstractly so as not to include its subject, is quo res est.
It is ultimate actuality in the line of substance, not accident. It unites
with essence but does not constitute essence. Its function in the union is
not to make an essence but to make essence exist in nature. Correlative to
esse accounts for its being itself but not for its being in nature. It is open
real of itself, and to that extent it has esse but only an esse essentiae. This
esse accounts for its being iteself but not for its being in nature. It is open
to the ultimate reality of esse actualis existentiae. Thus essence must be
something that makes it real enough to be ready for ultimate actuality or
esse essentiae. This esse is not from esse actualis existentiae, but is the condition requisite for the ultimate actuality. For Cajetan, esse existentiae is
both essential (constituted in some sense by the principles of essence) and is
accidental (esse is other than essence). Cajetan defended both points in
order to be true to St. Thomas. Actual existence can be constituted only by
the proper principles of essence (essentiality); actual existence comes from
an efficient cause to an essence fully constituted as essence (factor other
than essence) . Thus essence is in some way prior to actual existence, and
there is a real distinction between essence and esse actualis existentiae, but
it leaves doubts about the esse that is ultimate only in the way that is
most proper to accidents.
The last section of chapter three, devoted to the supposit, indicates
Cajetan's view that the supposit is an essence. The relation of the supposit
to existence is, therefore, that of a potency; the supposit becomes being
through the act of existence. The supposit is id quod and through esse it
becomes id quod est. The author argues that Cajetan would rather say
that the supposit composes with esse to give being and that the form and
the supposit are not properly real in themselves but are only real through
esse, which is what St. Thomas would say.
The final point covered in the book (chapter five) deals with the being
of accidents and is based, for the most part, on chapter seven of Cajetan's
Commentary on the De Ente et Essentia of St. Thomas.
• See L. H. Kendzierski and F. C. Wade, S. J., op. cit., pp. 17-19, where Father
Wade has given a developed account of Cajetan's notion of being.

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The book is carefully written and the author has used the basic texts in
Cajetan dealing with his notion of being. The problem of understanding
Cajetan's terminology has been handled very well. The attempted purpose
of establishing Cajetan's existentialism is commendable for its thorough
treatment; the conclusion, however, remains debatable.
LoTTIE

H. KENDZIERSKI

Marquette University
Milwaukee, Wisconsin

L'Enciclica "Humanae vitae." A.nalisi e orientamenti pastorali. By LINO
CiccoNE, C. M. Rome: Edizioni Pastorali, 1970. Pp. 214. L. 2.000.
This work brings together into one volume four successive articles on the
encyclical Humanae vitae which appeared in the renowned review of
philosophy and theology Divus Thomas of Piacenza (1969-1970). The
author, Father Lino Ciccone, of the Collegio Alberoni and editor of the
above periodical, sets out to answer in a scientific and documented manner
two questions: what did the pope really say? and what are the pastoral
directives which he has effectively given?
The author prefaces his work with a treatment of the relationship of
theologians to papal encyclicals. The structure of the text itself follows
the outline of Humanae vitae: 1) actual terms of the problem, 2) doctrinal
solution, 3) faithful realization in practice of the moral doctrine. By
textual analysis and comparison with other ecclesiastical documents, such
as Gaudium et Spes, Fr. Ciccone brings into focus the meaning of the text
and its pastoral implications and demands. The method employed in
unfolding the teaching of the encyclical is more scientific and more
complete than in most literature on the subject. This work is perhaps the
last of its type we shall see on the encyclical.
The ideas exploded by the impact of the publication of Humanae vitae
rapidly moved beyond the question of the regulation of birth to the
reevaluation of positions on conscience, authority, infallibility, etc. The
fullness, richness, and extent of the meaning of the papal document have
become overshadowed or forgotten in the subsequent contestations. Thus
this work is of immense value to those who are interested in the moral
problem of birth regulation as presented by the encyclical, for they have
available a thoroughly competent study which is analytical in method,
doctrinal in evaluation, and pastoral in orientation.
NICHOLAS

Dominican House of Studies
Washington, D. C.

HALLIGAN,

0. P.

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BOOK REVIEWS

Fabricated Man. By PAuL RAMSEY. New Haven:
1970. Pp. 174. $7.50 (cloth), $3.75 (paper).

Yale University Press,

The Patient as Person. By PAuL RAMSEY. New Haven:
Press, 1970. Pp. 305. $10.00.

Yale University

Princeton ethician Paul Ramsey, in his two newest books, confronts
problems in medical ethics which have occupied his attention increasingly
in recent years. Fabricated Man incorporates two of his previously published essays, apparently with little editing. This makes for some repetitiousness, but the book as a whole is nevertheless a clear and readable study
of major moral issues raised by aclYances in genetic science and technology.
The Patient as Person discusses a wider range of medico-moral problems
with emphasis on obtaining the patient's consent especially for experimental measures (with special reference to the ethics of experimenting on
children) , the duty of caring for the dying, the determination of the
moment of death, and the morality of transplant surgery. This book is
based on the Lyman Beecher lectures on medical ethics given at Yale in
1969, a task for which Ramsey had prepared by means of two semesters'
work as visiting research professor of genetic ethics at the Georgetown
University Medical School.
Both books are premised on a view of man, stated in consciously
Barthian terms, as a being " created in covenant, to covenant, and for
covenant," (Fl\1:, p. 38) 1 such that " covenant-fidelity is the inner meaning
and purpose of our creation as human beings, ... of even the ' natural'
or systemic relations into which we are born and of the institutional relations or roles we enter by choice." (PP, p. xii) Respect for the "sanctity
of human life " is one essential facet of the attitude of " any man who,
so far as he is a religious man, explicitly acknowledges that we are a
convenant people on a common pilgrimage." (PP, p. xiii) l\foreover, since
Christians understand " the humanum of man to include the body of his
soul no less than the soul (mind) of his body," (FM, p. 47) man IS a
" sacredness in the natural, biological order" as much as in the sociopolitical order. (PP, p. xiii)
Accordingly, a sound ethics must recognize that just as man's sacredness
as a social being prohibits his subjection to "complete dominion by
'society' for the sake of engineering civilizational goals," (PP, p. xiii) so
also the sacredness of his physical existence forbids abuses of his body
even if he freely undertakes them. Put simply, "something voluntarily
adopted can still be wrong " (FM, p. 32) ; certain kinds of bodily behavior
"are of quite questionable morality, and questionable for reasons that the
voluntariness of the practice would not remove." (FM, p. 45) An ethics
1 Where necessary, the initials FM and PP are used in page references to indicate
Fabricated Man and The Patient as Person, respectively. Italics in all quotations
are original.

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which supposes otherwise, denying any intrinsic morality to bodily acts and
stipulating only that the freedom of the agent or agents be respected (as
though coercion, pressure, or deceit were the only ways to violate personhood) , suggests to Ramsey a kind of Cartesian dualism which depersonalizes the human body; such a position, which in effect puts man's bodily
life " in the class of the animals over whom God gave Adam complete
dominion," (FM, p. 86) is alien to authentic Christianity. Ramsey sees this
erroneous view as more or less implicit in the eugenic proposals of certain
scientists, (FM, p. 81) and in the exaggerated campaign of some liberal
Catholic theologians against the alleged " physicalism " of traditional moral
theology. (PP, pp. 178-187)
Indeed, to the surprise of no one familiar with Ramsey's many earlier
writings on general Christian ethics and on the morality of war, both of
the present books show their author in close accord with traditional
Catholic thought not only in affirming the view of man referred to in the
previous paragraph but also in the strong rejection of situationism and
subjectivism, and in the respect accorded to such classical principles as
the double effect, the doctrine of ordinary vs. extraordinary means of
preserving life, and the principle of totality. For all this, Ramsey's work is
not to be taken as simply a replica of Catholic teaching (a charge sometimes made by his own Protestant coreligionists). To begin with, as the
author is at pains to point out, much of what is commonly considered as
peculiar to Catholic doctrine is actually the traditional Judaeo-Christian
consensus; he takes particular notice of the affinity between Catholic and
Jewish attitudes in medical ethics, especially their "common concern for
the integrity of men's bodily life." (PP, pp. 187-188) Nor by any means
does Ramsey adhere slavishly to the older Catholic moralists; while praising
their efforts to encompass " hard cases " within the discipline of moral
reasoning, he is generally critical of what he considers their excessive
pretensions to " solve " such cases definitively as though a prudential
judgment could be simply deduced from general premises. (PP, pp. xvixvii) Moreover, he appears to concede some validity to the accusation of
" physicalism " brought against traditional Catholic ethics, even while
reserving stronger criticism for the liberals' overreaction. (PP, pp. 158n,
178) Finally, Ramsey disagrees significantly with the traditional Catholic
approach to the issues of contraception, sterilization, euthanasia, and
transplant surgery; these points warrant some detailed comment here, at
the admitted risk of exaggerating their importance in relation to the many
other areas where Ramsey would meet with no opposition from moralists
in the Catholic tradition.

Contraception and Sterilization
These practices are approved in Fabricated Man as voluntary means
of preventing the transmission of genetic defects. While acknowledging

BOOK REVIEWS

747

that " the nature of human parenthood " involves a basic connection
between the procreative and unitive dimensions of sexuality, so that "an
ethics (whether proposed by nominal Christians or not) that sunders in
principle these two goods ... falls out of the bounds which limit the
variety of (possible] Christian positions," (p. 33) Ramsey maintains that
the requisite connection is present as long as procreation (if there be any)
and love-making take place within the sphere of the marriage covenant:
Most Protestants, and nowadays a great many Catholics, endorse contraceptive
devices which separate the sex act as an act of love from whatever tendency there
may be in the act (at the time of the act, and in the sexual powers of the
parties) toward the engendering of a child. But they do not separate the sphere or
realm of their personal love from the sphere or realm of their procreation, nor
do they distinguish between the person with whom the bond of love is nourished
and the person with whom procreation may be brought into exercise. . . .
(pp. 88-34)

This position does not depend on viewing acts of contraceptive intercourse as connected in an ensemble with other conjugal acts which are
allowed to be procreative, justifying the former by seeing them in a moral
unity with the latter. Even if spouses have a good reason (eugenic or
other) to "adopt a lifelong policy of planned unparenthood," they still do
not by habitual contraception " put completely asunder what God
joined together-the sphere of procreation, even the procreation they have
not or have no more, and the sphere in which they exchange acts that
nurture their unity of life with one another." (pp. 34,
Nor, in
this reasoning, is there any intrinsic moral difference between contraception
and sterilization; indeed, "even in terms of the more static formulations
of the past, . . . a vasectomy may be a far less serious invasion of nature
than massive assault upon the woman's generative organism by means
of contraceptive pills." (p.
(This last statement is actually irrelevant,
inasmuch as Catholic objection to contraceptive pills is precisely on the
ground that they effect a temporary sterilization. Ramsey is aware of the
traditional Catholic view that sterilization entails, besides contraception,
the additional formality of a mutilation; but he does not refer to this in
the present context.)
This whole section of the book antedates Humanae Vitae; an updating
footnote simply remarks that Pope Paul missed what Ramsey sees as the
essential point. Since the pope in his encyclical had singled out only the
" ensemble of acts " defense of contraception as a possibly significant
objection to his own position, he is reproached not only for himself adhering
to an outmoded " single-act analysis " approach to the problem but for
failing even to recognize that the issue might be discussed in other terms.
(p. 165, n. 50) As Ramsey mentions in the same footnote, many opponents
of the encyclical have alleged other instances of gaps or weaknesses in its

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reasoning. Concerning all such criticisms it should be noted that, when
popes exercize their magisterial authority in declaring what is to be held
as Catholic teaching, they need not and ordinarily do not undertake
detailed scientific reasoning or an exhaustive refutation of every possible
opposing position. It seems clear in the present instance that, if papal
teaching on contraception could not accommodate the more modest departure of the" ensemble" theory, which would still be somehow within the
" act analysis " tradition, the pope would have to reject a fortiori the
more radical departure which Ramsey proposes.
Ramsey's defense of contraception is consciously devoid of situationist or
subjectivist bias. " Their [the spouses] morality is not oriented upon
only the genetic consequences which are believed to justify any voluntary
means; nor is it only an ethic of inner intention which is believed to make
any sort of conduct right." (p. 42) Nor could one rightly make the accusation, which adherents of papal teaching often bring against proponents of
contraception, that Ramsey's thesis would open the way to sexual perversions of all kinds. Clearly Ramsey's understanding of the connection
between procreative and unitive values in human sexuality enables him to
endorse contraception (and contraceptive sterilization) while condemning
extra-marital sex as well as more extreme eugenic measures such as AID
(artificial donor insemination, which is reductively extra-marital sex) and
cloning (the asexual replication or "xeroxing" of persons); evidently his
principles would also exclude solitary gratification through masturbation,
and homosexuality. In all of these there is a sundering of the "sphere"
of procreation from that of love-making, either by seeking the procreative
good apart from the conjugal union of spouses (AID, cloning) or by
seeking sexual satisfaction without reference to a person with whom
procreation would be physically or morally possible (the other cases). At
the same time, however, one is hard put to see how this reasoning would
prohibit perversions within marriage, such as mutual masturbation or
sodomy. If Christian morality requires of sexual acts only that they be
reserved for the sphere of the marital covenant, it should follow that
as long as a man and woman are married they are permitted any kind of
sexual expression which they find mutually satisfying. In other words,
within marriage anything goes. What then is the marriage covenant for?
Finally, we suggest that Ramsey's language is somewhat farfetched in
describing the meaning of the contraceptive intercourse he seeks to justify.
Repeatedly he says that spouses using contraception still maintain procreation, " even the procreation they have not or have no more," within the
sphere of their conjugal union. (pp. 86, 41-42, 44) "Neither the husband
(or wife) who practices artificial birth control nor the husband who decides
to have a vasectomy is saying by the total course of his life anything other
than that if either marriage partner has a child, or more children, it will
be within their marriage covenant" (p. 41); but granted that this is what

BOOK REVIEWS

749

he may be saying " by the total course of his life," it is surely not what
he is saying specifically by his choice of contraceptive or sterile intercourse.
Again, the spouses " through a whole course of life ... actually unite their
loving and their procreativity (which, incidental to this, they have not)"
(p.
; but non-procreativity can hardly be called "incidental" to a
conjugal life which is deliberately contraceptive.
The unanswered question persists: When man and wife make love,
when they celebrate their convenant of complete mutual self-giving by the
union of their procreative organs, how does the act maintain its integrity
as an expression of their total self-donation if their procreative potential
is being purposely withheld? No answer to this is given by simply
dismissing "act analysis" as outmoded or "static."

Euthanasia
Chapter Three of The Patient as Person, entitled "On (Only) Caring
for the Dying," presents the thesis that there is a radical difference
between our duty toward the sick who may recover and our duty toward
the sick who are irreversibly in the process of dying. "Just as it would
be negligence to the sick to treat them as if they were about to die,
so it is another sort of ' negligence ' to treat the dying as if they are going
to get well or might get well." (p. 133) The exposition of this thesis
necessarily entails a discussion of ordinary vs. extraordinary means to
save life; Ramsey pursues this discussion with copious citations from
medical ethicians in the Catholic tradition, and his position is in substantial
accord with their consensus. Pointing out that physicians and moralists
tend to differ in the specific meanings they assign to the terms " ordinary "
and "extraordinary," he emphasizes that easily available procedures which
might be considered routine practice (and therefore ordinary in medical
terms) can be quite extraordinary in the moral sense, e. g., because they
are futile or because they would entail excessive hardship for the patient
despite their certain or likely effectiveness in preserving his life. Once we
prudently judge that a person's life cannot be saved or prolonged except
through morally extraordinary means, the choice not to use (or to cease
using) such means opens the way for exercizing our obligation now to
attend the dying person with proper care, i. e., to make him as comfortable as possible and to console and support him with the warmth of
human love and companionship as he prepares to make his passage.
The problem of euthanasia is introduced in the course of a vigorous
refutation of Joseph Fletcher, who acknowledges no morally significant
difference between direct euthanasia and the rejection of extraordinary lifesustaining measures, approving either as justifiable in proper circumstances.
For Ramsey, the distinction between these two procedures derives its
meaning from the duty of caring for the dying; the abandonment of

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extraordinary efforts at prolonging life frees us to administer appropriate
premortem care, whereas direct euthanasia intends to hasten the dying
person to a realm beyond our care. " This is the ultimate ground for saying
that a religious outlook that goes with grace among the dying can never be
compatible with euthanasiac acts or sentiments " (p. 153) ; on the other
hand, in a secularistic culture which lacks realistic perspectives on death,
it seems understandable that some are inclined to ward off death by
extravagant means as if " to make an absolute of saving life for yet a bit
more spatio-temporal existence," while simultaneously there are "equally
powerful currents of thought toward the arbitrary taking of life for the
sake of earthly good to come." (p. 156)
However, the very reasoning which motivated the rejection of euthanasia
in principle now leads Ramsey to admit qualifications. Having put forward
the duty of properly caring for the dying as the sole basis for distinguishing
between the choice to kill and the choice not to intervene any longer
against death, Ramsey finds himself forced to concede that this distinction
loses its moral import in the case of a patient so far in extremis as to be
irretrievably beyond the reach of any human care. If a slowly dying
person is irreversibly comatose, " it is then a matter of complete indifference whether death gains the victory over the patient in such impenetrable
Similarly, if a terminal
solitude by direct or indirect action." (p.
patient is in such severe and unconquerable pain that no ministration of
care can really be communicated to him, a situation which Ramsey
considers unlikely, then "one can hardly hold men to be morally blameworthy if ... dying is directly accomplished or hastened." (p. 163)
As with contraception, no concession to situationism is intended in the
above suggestions; Ramsey would not have us dismiss a moral principle
according to circumstantial exigencies but merely refine our understanding
of the principle itself. Nor, again, does the "wedge argument" serve as a
ready objection; Ramsey is confident that his qualifications are formulated
carefully enough to exclude abuse. Though remembering that the Nazi
horrors originated from small beginnings, he acknowledges the need for
caution. But, as he recognizes, to accept even his narrowly circumscribed
permission of euthanasia it would have to be " agreed that directly deathdealing or death-hastening actions are not inherently or always necessarily
wrong " (p. 163) -indeed, that such actions worked upon innocent persons
are not inherently wrong! An ethics that forbids all direct killing of the
innocent (and even, in Thomistic ethics, direct killing of a criminal or an
unjust aggressor by private authority) will insist that the moral difference
between deliberately administering death to a dying person and ceasing
to oppose his death unreasonably cannot be simply reduced to the duty of
"caring" for him-a duty which admittedly, like all specific positive
obligations, has limits. It is not palpably implausible to hold that a dying
person retains his right to life even after he has irrevocably lost the

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751

capacity to appreciate our respect for it, or that in any event we should
not force the hand of the Lord of life and death, whose rights in the matter
are supreme.

Transplant Surgery
Ramsey's differences with Catholic teachings on this subject appear to be
more in the area of remote theological perspectives than in specific
conclusions. The difficulty for Catholic moralists has been that the principle
of totality, as traditionally understood, cannot easily accomodate the
mutilation of a well person for the sake of the life or health of an ill
person, e. g., in the case of a kidney transplant. In The Patient WJ Person,
Ramsey notes the tendency among contemporary Catholic theologians to
reinterpret the principle so as to justify physical self-mutilation for
own good in the order of fraternal charity, whereas Gerald Kelly, S. J.,
is cited to the effect that the requirement of greater personal welfare as a
motive for legitimate self-mutilation is perhaps merely an operating principle intended to encompass " ordinary " cases. (p. 176) The author is
dissatisfied with the principle in general and is less enthusiastic with the
attempted reformulation than with the traditional version. Crediting the
older approach with a sound concern for physical integrity as an essential
element in personhood, he fears that efforts to expand the totality principle by appealing to " sticky " theories of the multilated person's higher
spiritual or psychological benefit may herald that persistent Cartesian
tendency to depersonalize the body.
Both the "conservative"
and "liberal" views of totality suffers,
Ramsey suggests, from being locked into the Catholic theology of supernatural charity as a virtue perfecting man's natural appetite for his own
greatest good. While it is misleading to contrast classical Protestant
theology with Catholic theology by saying that the former sees charity as
" a free act of grace " (p. 185) while the latter sees it as being " in
continuity with 'nature '" (p. 177) and hence by implication not quite
gratuitous, be it granted that Catholic teaching has characteristically
maintained the congruity (if not " continuity ") of the natural and supernatural orders. From this it certainly follows with immediate necessity, in
the moral realm, that an intrinsically (or " naturally ") wrong action
cannot be rectified by appealing to a motive of supernatural charity. But
in the present context the point in question is precisely whether the
principle of totality is a matter of intrinsic natural morality, i.e., whether
or not, apart from procuring one's own greater benefit (physical for the
conservatives, spiritual or psychological for the liberals), a reasonable selflove must always forbid depriving oneself of an organ even to relieve
another's grave need. If, as Kelly suggested, the totality principle is only
a guideline which may not be adequate to all situations, this is the same
as saying that it is not always necessarily implied by the requirement of

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reasonable self-love. Whatever inadequacies the principle of totality may
have should not, then, be blamed on the doctrine that grace (charity)
perfects nature. The natural moral obligation to love oneself reasonably
can retain its universal validity, even though the principle of totality may
be found not to be the embodiment of that obligation in every case.
Ramsey forthrightly acknowledges that his suggested Protestant perspective, while it may more easily allow the welfare of the recipient to be
the decisive motive for sacrificing one's own physical wholeness, is also
fraught with danger; " precisely because of its freedom from the moorings
of self-concern, [it] is likely to fly too high above concern for the bodily
integi'ity of the donor, higher than one finds in even the most ' liberal '
Roman Catholic thought." (p. 187) To offset this risk, he urges that
we cultivate the " very realistic view of the life of man who is altogether
flesh (sarx) ," which the Bible teaches just as emphatically as it enjoins
"love of God and neighbor." (p. 187) Interestingly, Ramsey omits to
mention the love of oneself in this reference to the biblical precept of
charity. Let us note that, for Catholic theology, the obligation to love
oneself arises not only from natural morality but also from its being
specifically included in that very biblical injunction to reflect divine love
by loving our neighbor as ourselves. The insistence on a proper self-love
is not, then, a hangup with the natural order which must be balanced
against the promptings of supernatural charity; it is an explicit requirement
of charity itself.
Despite any differences in theological outlook, however, no responsible
Catholic moralist is likely to find significant fault with Ramsey's treatment
of the prudential aspects of the mutilation-transplantation
problem. In
his words, we dare not forget that the multilation of a live donor " makes
a well person ill," (p. 183) and so " bodily integrity must be a norm
operating in the assessment of the morality of the self-giving of organs,
even if it is outweighed." (p. 195) While offering no strict rules for determining just what a person may or may not reasonably have done to himself
for another's welfare, Ramsey cites with approval the criterion of proportionality between risk to the donor and benefit to the recipient as variously
proposed by medical writers. Noting the characteristic concern of the
medical profession for the donor's physical well-being, which now motivates
intensified research into the feasibility of transplanting cadaver organs so
as to make the mutilation of living donors unnecessary, he remarks that
"the physicians may have to save us from the moralists" whose calculations take the donor's bodily integrity too little into account.

Concluding Comments
We noted earlier the danger of distortion arising from concentration on
those relatively few areas in Ramsey's works which are " sensitive " from

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758

the viewpoint of Catholic moral tradition. It remams for us now to
emphasize that the above criticisms do not prevent an enthusiastically
favorable reception from being given to the two books as a whole.
The problem of contraception and sterilization notwithstanding, Fabricated Man is a solid Christian evaluation of the goals and the means of
genetic control. Basically Ramsey favors efforts at minimizing the transmission of hereditary defects (preventive eugenics) but balks at projects
aimed at the breeding of a "better" human species (positive eugenics).
He warns that only an appreciation of man's embodied personhood and a
sound Christian eschatology can prevent our being stampeded, by scientific
pessimism about mankind's present state and/or by a misconceived revolutionary "eschatologism"
(which he attributes to Karl Rahner and to
"Roman Catholic omega-pointers," pp. 139-142), into the blasphemous
and suicidal goal of transforming man into an altogether new species of
creature.
Even in pursuing legitimate eugenic goals, Ramsey insists on proper
circumspection regarding the means. Besides respect for the " nature of
human parenthood " which rules out certain measures as intrinsically immoral, we must beware of circumstantial dangers which may warrant
avoidance even of procedures that are unobjectionable in themselves, such
as genetic surgery. Similarly, an important objection to cloning, besides its
intrinsic violation of human parenthood, is that the very first experiment
with such a procedure must involve the willingness to subject human
fetuses to cruel risk; hence we cannot even morally find out whether the
feat is possible.
In The Patient as Person the insight into man as embodied spirit,
although definitely present, is exploited perhaps less fully than in the
other book. Heavier emphasis tends to be placed instead on the obligation
to obtain the patient's informed consent to any therapeutic or experimental
measures; and a little confusion arises from the suggestion, never elaborated, that even the requirement of consent (understood to embrace
presumed consent in extreme need) may not be unexceptionable. (pp.
9-10) But all of this still leaves substantially intact the author's soundness
of principles, the hard discipline of his reasoning, and the reasonableness
of his conclusions.
Most instructive in this book is the chapter on the redefinition of
death; no clear or more judicious analysis of the problem is available.
Ramsey argues that the current proposals for " updating death " are:
proposals for updating our procedures for determining that death has occurred, for
rebutting the belief that machines or treatments are the patient, for withdrawing
the notion that artificially sustained signs of life are in themselves signs of life,
for telling when we should stop ventilating and circulating the blood of an
unburied corpse because there are no longer any vital functions really alive or
recoverable in the patient. (pp. 88-89)

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By " scotching the rumor that people are going to be declared brain dead
while having natural activity of heart and circulation," we can " effect a
return to a rather traditionalistic understanding of the procedure for
stating that a man has died." (p. 68) However, we are cautioned that
" there is something a little sinister " in the repeated practice of associating
the discussion of " updating death " with the prospect of organ transplantation (p. 108); hence it is imperative to insure that "neither the procedures
for stating death nor a decision that death has occurred are distorted by
any reference to someone else's need for organs." (p. llfl) In a subsequent
brief chapter on heart transplants it is argued that the only morally
questionable aspect of these operations was the tendency of some physicians
and of the public press to oversell them as therapeutic instead of acknowledging their chiefly experimental nature.
For anyone desiring to understand current issues in medical ethics in the
light of the Judaeo-Christian moral heritage, both of Paul Ramsey's new
works will be of immense profit. If not to be accepted uncritically in all
particulars, they should nevertheless be very warmly received and seriously
studied.
BRucE A. Wu,LIAMS, O.P.
St. John's University
]a11UJ,ica, N. Y.

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Barnes & Noble, Inc.: Gilbert Ryle. Collected Papers. Vol. 1 Critical
Essays. Vol. Collected Essays 1929-1968, by Gilbert Ryle. (1 pp.
801, $16.50;
pp. 504, $19.50); Records of Christianity. Vol. 1 In
the Roman Empire, by David Ayerst and A. S. T. Fisher. (Pp. 864,
Consciousness and Freedom, by Pratima Bowe (Pp.
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Literature, by D. D. R. Owen. (Pp. 884, $10.00); An Examen of
of Witches, by Henry Boguet. (Pp. 861, $11.50); The Trial of the
Lancaster Witches, ed. by G. B. Harrison. (Pp.
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Hunting and Witch Trails, ed. by C. L'Estrange Ewen. (Pp. 858,
$11.50); Origins of Astrology, by Jack Lindsay. (Pp.
E. J. Brill, Publisher: Thomism and the Ontological Theology of Paul
Tillich. A Comparison of Systems, by Donald J. Keefe, S. J. (Pp.
878,
guilders).
Cistercian Publications: The Works of Bernard of Clairvaux. Vol. 1
Treatises I, ed. by M. Basil Pennington, OCSO. (Pp. 199, $7.50).
Consejo Superior de Investigaciones Cientificas: Santiago Ramirez, 0. P.
Su Vida y Su Obra, by Vicente Marrero. (Pp. 856,
ptas) .
Doubleday & Company, Inc.: Authority and Rebellion. The Case for
Orthodoxy in the Catholic Church, by Charles E. Rice. (Pp.
$5.95).

Librairie Artheme Fayard: L'Esprit Saint et L'Eglise. L'Avenir de l'Eglise
et de l'Oecumenisme, by Academie lnternationale des Sciences Re50 F).
ligieuses. (Pp. 850,
Humanities Press: Orestes A. Brownson's Road to Catholicism, by Per
Sveino. (Pp. 840, $11.50).
Indiana University Press: George Santayana. Lotze's System of Philosophy, ed. by Paul Grinley Kuntz. (Pp.
$11.91).
Inter-Varsity Press: History & Christianity, by John Warwick Montgomery. (Pp. 110,
Christ the Liberator, by John R. W.
Stott and others. (Pp.
New Testament Introduction,
Donald Guthrie. (PP. 1054, $11.95).
Northwestern University Press: For an Ontology of Morals. A Critique
of Contemporary Ethical Theory, by Henry B. Veatch. (Pp. 185,
$6.50).

Orbis Books: The Assault on Authority. Dialogue or Dilemma? by
William W. Meissner. (Pp.
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Editrice M. Pisani: Preghiera Eucaristica Penitenziale nella Luce Biblica e
Patristica, by Corrado M. Berti, OSM. (Pp. 68) .

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Schocken Books: The Problem of Evil, by M. B. Ahern. (Pp. 96, $4.50).
Editions Universitaires Fribourg: La Crise de l'lnformation et la Crise de
Confiance des Nations Unies, Alpha Amadou Diallo-Tayire. (Pp.
144, Fr. 18) .
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La Trascendenza della Gratia nella
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$10.00): ltinerario al V alore, by Giovanni Magnani, S. J. (Pp. 263,
$4.35).
University of St. Michael's College: Thomistic Revival and the Modernist
Era, by Thomas J. A. Hartley. (Pp. llO).
Whittemore Associates, Inc.: Animals, Birds and Plants of the Bible, by
Willard S. Smith. (Pp. 63, $0.95) .