EDITORIAL ANNOUNCEMENT
Since the year 1974 marks the seventh centenary of the death
of St. Thomas Aquinas, the Editors of THE THoMIST are
pleased to announce that the four issues of 1974 will feature
articles written for this volume by distinguished American and
European scholars honoring St. Thomas and the contributions
he has made to contemporary thought. In so doing, the Editors
are confident that this centenary volume of the journal named
in honor of the Common Doctor will bring to the awareness
of a disturbed world, and one divided over profound speculative
issues in philosophy and theology, the enduring value and rich
relevance of the heritage of Aquinas.
Among the contributors to these issues are: Y. Congar, C.
Fabro, E. L. Mascall, C. Ernst, M. Adler, V. Bourke, H. Pesch,
W. A. Wallace, C. J. Peter, J. A. Weisheipl, J. B. Reichmann,
W. J. Hill, A. J. Kelly, L. Boyle, J. N. Deely, R. Mcinerny,
A. McNicholl, T. O'Meara, and L. Walsh.

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. XXXVII

APRIL, 1973

ESCHATOLOGICAL

ENCOUNTER WITH GOD

R

ECENT DISCUSSIONS and debates over the nature of
Christian eschatology have concentrated on the question whether theological interpretation should emphasize the present or the future reality of the reign of God. Should
we accept the futurist, apocalyptic option of a Pannenberg 1 or
the" presentative," existentialist eschatology of Bultmann 2 and

1 Cf. Wolfhart
Pannenberg, ed., Revelation as History, trans. D. Granskou
(Toronto: The Macmillan Co., 1963); James M. Robinson and John B. Cobb, Jr.,
eds., Theology as History: New Frontiers in Theology, III (New York: Harper &
Row, 1967); also W. Pannenberg, "Heilsgeschehen und Geschichte," Kerygma und
Dogma, V (1959),
and
A futurist, but less apocalyptic interpretation is oflered by Jii.rgen Moltmann, Theology of Hope, trans. James W. Leitch
(New York: Harper & Row, 1967). More recently, cf. Klaus Koch, Ratlos vor
der Apocalyptik (Gerd Mohn: Guterslaher Verlagshaus, 1970).
2 As set
forth most explicitly in Rudolf Bultmann, History and Eschatology,
Jesus Christ and Mythology (New York:
(New York: Harper Torchbooks,
Charles Scribner's Sons, 1958); Existence and Faith: Shorter Writings of Rudolf
Bultmann (New York: Meridian Books, 1960); Jesus and the Word (New York:
Charles Scribner's Sons, 1934), p. 51, "Future and present are not related in the

JOHN F. HAUGHT

his students? 3 Though hotly debated, both alternatives seem to
express elements of obvious value to Christian faith. Yet a common conceptuality, the prerequisite for fruitful discussion, seems
to be lacking between those on the one hand who envision the
eschaton as an essentially future, developmental or final eventuality, and those on the other who see the present moment of
authentic self-disposing decision as the occasion for the exhaustive outpouring of God's eschatological presence.
This impasse is the result of divergent philosophical-theological commitments as well as of correspondingly disparate
readings of Scripture on the part of each side. The" futurist"
approach is generally one in which the physical, corporeal, cosmological, and calendrical dimensions of space and time are
assumed to fall within the sphere of either a proleptically, developmentally or an apocalyptically interpreted eschaton. And
the " existentialist " approach is one which philosophically
(sometimes gnostically) prescinds from the natural-objectivehistorical order for the sake of locating eschatology in the sphere
of a " subjectivity " which is somehow disengaged from the
strictly cosmological elements of time and space. The futurist
position often stresses the liberating, even political-revolutionary implications of the radical relativization of the present order
in the face of an absolutely future eschaton, while the existentialist hermeneutic of eschatology accentuates the significance to
faith of complete involvement in each present moment, leaving
the future completely open and free from the apparently deterministic overtones of apocalyptic enthusiasm.
sense that the Kingdom begins as 31 historical fact in the present and achieves its
fulfillment in the future."
8 For
example, Gerhard Ebeling, Word and Faith, trans. James Vi. Leitch
(Philadelphia:
Fortress Press, 1963); cf. especially Robert W. Funk, ed.,
Apocalypticism: Journal for Theology and the Church, VI (New York: Herder &
Herder, 1969); James M. Robinson and John B. Cobb, Jr., The New Hermeneutic:
New Frontiers in Theology, II (New York: Harper & Row, 1964). The severe
debate among post-Bultmannians over the significance to Christian faith of the
apocalyptic horizon of Jesus's proclamation has not issued in any substantial appropriation of apocalyptio eschatology on their part. The valuable research by Ernst
Kasemann (cf., in particular, Funk, ed., Apocalypticism) has been of less theological
cf., for example, Carl
benefit to himself than to the disciples of Pannenberg:
Braaten, Christ and Counter-Christ (Philadelphia: Fortress Press,
pp.

ESCHATOLOGICAL

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273

The present article, while in no way striving for synthesis, will
attempt to exploit the possibilities of each of these apparently
antithetical interpretations. Eschatology must be so interpreted
as to have a bearing on present as well as future. This much
every Christian can accept. The problem is precisely how to
understand present and future as inextricable categories in
eschatological understanding. I shall propose that we work up
to this problem by way of beginning our discussion with a consideration even more basic to eschatology than that of the dimensions of time. We should ask first what eschatological encounter with God might mean in itself before we ask when it
might occur, now or in the future, within history or outside of
history, etc. Thus, in reducing the question of eschatology to
the question of encounter with God the problem outlined above
might become more congenial to a conceptual scheme in which
the philosophical question as to what constitutes authentically
human temporality takes a less restrictive place than recent debates over eschatology have allowed.
The thesis of this article, then, is the following: if the structure
of encounter with God is in itself explained in terms of an adequately expressed theology of the symbol/ rooted in Chalcedonian Christology, then both present and future, individual and
cosmological, existential and social dimensions of eschatology
may receive proportionate accentuation without involving the
antitheses and reductionism current in the predominantly Protestant debate outlined above. Such an interpretation may
provide a basis for assimilating the elements of present urgency
and eschatological intensity of the " now " advocated by existentialist hermeneutic, as well as an appreciation of the linear,
corporeal, social, and cosmological features of temporal reality
associated with the eschatologies of futurists like Teilhard,
Pannenberg, and Moltmann.
• As formulated by Karl Rahner, "The Theology of the Symbol," Theological
Investigations 4, trans. Kevin Smyth (Baltimore: Helicon Press, 1966), pp. 221-52.
It is the intention of the present article to offer an explicitly Catholic contribution
to the predominantly Protestant debate over eschatology. Rahner's theology of
the symbol seems to provide an excellent foundation for such a contribution.

JOHN F. HAUGHT

In order to achieve more historical scope, however, and in
order to give attention to the question of individual destiny it
seems fitting to begin our considerations with reference to that
more traditional eschatological category-the notion of the
beatific vision. Understood in the light of a theology of symbolic mediation, reflection on the notion of beatific vision will
by no means be antiquarian. Instead, such reflection can readily
become a significant point of departure for a quite contemporary
discussion of the nature of eschatological encounter with God.
SYMBOLIC MEDIATION

AND THE BEATIFIC

VISION

The notion of the " beatific vision " has always been the
source of inspiration but also the occasion for severe problems in
Christian theology. How finite man can acquire the capacity to
"intuit" the "essence" of the infinite, 5 how the infant Jesus
could have possessed the beatific vision, or how in the agony of
the cross Jesus could be said to have had the vision of God's
glory-these are traditionally among the most enigmatic of such
problems. To a great extent, though not exclusively, theology
has shielded itself by resorting to the notion of " mystery " as
the infinitely incomprehensible and by consigning such questions
as these to the sphere of " mystery " so defined.
As in so many other areas of theology, the problems surrounding the notion of the beatific vision require not so much a
definitive set of solutions as a reformulation of the basic question underlying all the diverse, and sometimes outlandish and
trivial, queries associated with this "mystery." 6 I would like
to suggest here that the fundamental issue is not what will take
place for men in the beatific vision or what did take place as
regards the vision of God in Jesus's earthly existence. The basic
problem is whether theology can meaningfully express what
encounter with God might mean in any case, and in particular
Summa Theol., I, q. 12, a. 2.
• St. Thomas alone (Summa Theol., I, q. 12) deals with thirteen distinct, but
highly significant, issues relating to the question of knowledge of the divine
essence.
5

ESCHATOLOGICAL

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WITH GOD

what might be the essential structure of such an encounter both
now and in the eschatological future. Can Christian theology
ascertain, for example, whether and in what way the shape of
man's " eschatological " vision of God might diverge from that
of human life before God in via? For unless speculation on the
notion of the beatific vision takes its bearings from the question
of present encounter with God, one may expect such speculation
to degenerate rapidly into sheer word-spinning. It is only by
extrapolating from the present and by avoiding the temptation
to interpolate into the present from some abstract or falsely
apocalyptic preconception of the future that any interpretation
of eschatology can escape simple iiTelevance. 7
Now in recent times, as well as traditionally, Catholic theologians have stressed that the typical mode of our present encounter with God involves the mediation of our fellow men
understood in terms of Christ and the Church. 8 But if present
encounter with God involves the mediation of our fellow men,
and if eschatology should ideally be extrapolation from this
present encounter, why has theological speculation so consistently held that the element of mediation drops out in the context
of the beatific vision? As far as I can ascertain, this question
has been only minimally and sporadically dealt with. 9 Among
the major reasons for theology's failure to give consideration to
the possibility of a retention of the element of mediation in its
discussion of the beatific vision one can cite the apparently
explicit and authoritative rejection of such a medium by St.
Thomas 10 and by Benedict XII in his Constitution Benedictus
• Cf. Karl Rahner, "The Hermeneutics of Eschatological Assertions," Theological
Helicon Press, 1966), p. 337.
8 This
theme receives its most explicit treatment in E. Schillebeeckx, 0. P.,
Christ the Sacrament of the Encounter with God (New York: Sheed & Ward,
1963); and Karl Rahner, The Church and the Sacraments, trans. W. J. O'Hara
(New York: Herder & Herder, 1963).
9 The most explicit, but still undeveloped treatment of this question is given by
Karl Rahner, " The Eternal Significance of the Humanity of Christ for our
Relationship with God," Theological Investigations 3, trans. Kevin Smyth (Baltimore: Helicon Press, 1967), pp. 35-46.
10 Summa Theol., I, q. 12.

Investigations 4, trans. Kevin Smyth (Baltimore:

276

JOHN F. HAUGHT

Deus (1336) .U The latter document was addressed primarily to
those (including Benedict's deceased predecessor, Pope John
XXII) who were of the opinion that the beatific vision in the
case of individuals must await the general resurrection. But in
the process of repudiating this belief the Constitution, in passing, characterized the beatific vision as involving " . . . nulla
mediante creatura in ratione visi se habente ... " and taught the
immediate, intuitive vision of God's essence.l 2
Thus, Catholic theologians in particular have been left with
a dilemma. On the one hand, the element of mediation is seen
as paramount in Christian faith. On the other hand, the traditional view of eschatology in terms of beatific vision apparently
leaves no room for a final state of happiness still involving such
mediation. But we are still left with the question whether we
have drawn out sufficiently the implications for eschatology of
the Christian belief that Christ is the sacrament of man's encounter with God. Have we radically inquired first of all into
what there is about Christ that allows him to mediate God's
presence to us? And have not Catholic theologians persistently
held, either explicitly or implicitly, that any eschatological
meeting with God must involve dispensing with all mediation in
· order that we may know him face to face and with unmediated
immediacy?
Such a dilemma seems unwarranted. First of all, it is governed by the assumption that " eschatological " refers to an exclusively future or final encounter. And second, it is the result
of an almost insurmountable prejudice that mediation always
implies indirectness and lack of immediacy. If we can expose
the arbitrariness of both elements of bias we may be in a position
not only to render more intelligible the old problems surrounding the beatific vision but, what is more, expose ourselves to the
11 Denz.-Schiin., 1000:
The souls of the blessed " ... vident divinam essentiam
visione intuitiva •et etiam faciaii, nulla mediante creatura in ratione visi se habente,
sed divina essentia immediate se nude, clare, aperte eis ostendente ... perfruuntur .
. . ." [Italics mine]
12 Ibid.
13 Cf. Karl Rahner,
" The Theology of the Symbol," Theological Investigations
4, p. 244.

ESCHATOLOGICAL

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277

real issues involved in the question of encounter with God. Our
dilemma can be removed only if we can arrive at an understanding of the beatific vision as involving both symbolic mediation
and, in virtue of this (not in spite of it) an immediate intuition
of the Divine Essence (as demanded, for example, in the constitution Benedictus Deus). Moreover, if such a view can be
adequately supported, an interpretation of eschatology based on
a theology of the symbol may prove illuminating in terms of the
contemporary Protestant discussion of eschatology.
First, then, it must be noted that recent theology and exegesis
apparently converge on the conviction that Christian eschatology is in some sense realized. That is to say, Christian scholars
take quite seriously, for example, the Pauline pronouncement:
"The hour of favour has now come; now I say has the day of
deliverance dawned." (II Cor. 6: 2, New English Bible) or the
Johannine Christ's emphasis on the presence here and now of
"eternal life." While, as we have seen, there is a great deal of
controversy over which tendency is dominant in the New Testament," future" or" present" eschatology, there are few Christian thinkers who would deny that the eschaton is in some way
or another a contemporary reality. 14
Christian tradition, moreover, has consistently held that encounter with God at this present moment is indeed possible,
provided that we note the typically mediate nature of this encounter. From this affirmation, however, there has resulted the
curious, never fully articulated corollary that future eschatological confrontation with God will differ from the present one by
virtue of an abrupt and final abrogation of all those mediating
elements which determine the structure of our present contact
with the Divine. And if we profess that at the present moment
encounter with God is necessarily conditioned by our life with
other men, we are still subject to the abiding notion that eschatological, face to face rapport with God will somehow be free of
such " encumbrance." 15
14 Cf., for example,
Raymond Brown, The Gospel of John, I (New York:
Doubleday Anchor, 1966), cxv-cxxi.
15 Of course, theologians
have always speculated that human fellowship will

JOHN F. HAUGHT

Such a restrictive view of the beatific vision as unmediated
has had the obverse tendency of derogating the admittedly
mediate character of man's present relationship to God, thus
rendering the present theoretically bereft of the eschatological
depth that rightfully belongs to it. It has often made theology
impotent to formulate an adequate appreciation of the realized
elements in Christian eschatology. But if it should be the case
that even man's" final" vision of God is to be understood as a
symbolically mediated intuition of the Divine glory, then present encounter with God could no longer be called " merely "
mediate (and strictly pre-eschatological). And in fact, consistent theological reflection may be able to conclude that mediation
is necessary for final as well as present" face to face" contact
with God.
In what follows, therefore, I would like to argue that a genuinely Christian view of " the last things " and of the " beatific
vision " should place great stress on the mediate character even
of "final" eschatology. Such an accentuation may be able to
provide a solid Christological basis for theology's assimilation
of those elements of realized eschatology associated especially
with the Pauline and Johannine writings. The theological viewpoint I shall pursue here will emphasize that the shape of man's
" final " eschatological encounter with God cannot legitimately
be conceived of as absolutely discontinuous with that of his
present historical or" earthly " mode of standing in the presence
of the Divine glory. For if present encounter with God necessarily involves the mediation of our fellow man, there is no
sufficient reason for supposing that eschatological" face to face"
intimacy with God does not also demand the mediation of
humanity.
This viewpoint is premised on the theological affirmation,
articulated most explicitly by Schillebeeckx and Rahner, that
Christ is the sacrament or symbol of our encounter with God.
be one element of final happiness, but that this fellowship could somehow retain its
symbolic-mediative function in relation to the beatific vision has not been a serious
consideration. Cf., for example, J. J. Redle, "Beatific Vision," The Ne10 Catholic
Encyclopedia, II,

ESCHATOLOGICAL

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279

But what does it mean to say that Christ symbolizes God?
Rahner reasons that it is Christ's human nature that bodies
forth in our own medium of existence what God is.16 In a sense,
the hypostatic union means that human nature is a medium
capable of expressing perfectly the inner life and being of God.
Human nature is not something which the incarnate Logos puts
on like a cloak. It is not something extrinsic or foreign to the
inner being of the Divine Word. 17 Rather, in Christ, manhood
is inherently expressive of the Word and flows forth from the
Logos as a spontaneous and" natural" expression of the latter.
It is not something in which God encases himself as an afterthought.18
From a more basic point of view, as Rahner's theology of the
symbol seems to imply, we may say that the human nature of
Christ symbolically mediates God to himself. And it is this
primordial symbolic actuality which grounds the ability of
manhood to mediate God to us also. From the point of view of a
theology of the "Immanent" Trinity, in order for the Father
to possess himself in eminently personal existence he exteriorizes
his being in his" other," the Divine Logos, as the necessary condition of Self-appropriation. This inherently symbolic nature of
the Logos is not simply for the sake of creatures' knowledge of
God but, more fundamentally, for the sake of the Divine Selfawareness. Trinitarian theology is an attempt to express the
elementary conviction that God's life is such a necessarily Selfmediated one. It follows, then, that " mediation" may have an
" eminent " sense which is not opposed to, but is rather the
condition of, immediacy to Self and others. Just as the notions
of multiplicity, relation, and becoming cannot be inconsistent
with the notions of unity, absoluteness, and immutability when
16

Rahner, " The Theology of the Symbol," pp. 235-45.

17

Ibid., p. 238.

18 " ••• the humanity of Christ is not to be considered as something in which
God dresses up and masquerades-a mere signal of which he makes use, so that
something audible can be uttered about the Logos by means of this signal. The
humanity is the self-disclosure of the Logos itself, so that when God, expressing
himself, exteriorizes himself, that very thing appears which we call the humanity
of the Logos." Ibid., p. 239.

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JOHN F. HAUGHT

applied to God/ 9 so also mediation need not in every case imply
imperfection, indirectness or lack of immediacy. I think this is
a point which has been given too little consideration in speculation concerning eschatology in general and the notion of immediate vision of God in particular. 20 "Whoever has seen Me has
seen the Father also." (Jn. 14, 9)
However, we must go still further. If God becomes man, if
the Logos becomes embodied in or symbolized through the
human nature of Christ and if this human nature is a medium
perfectly capable of containing and expressing the reality of the
Logos, then certain highly humanistic conclusions, usually overlooked, can be unfolded so as to have a bearing on eschatology.
First, it would follow that from the mysterious freedom of the
Divine existence the symbolic medium through which God
" takes possession " of himself is the human nature of Christ as
the self-expression of the Logos. Recognizing that Christ's human
nature is also our own it could be unqualifiedly asserted that
manhood is God's freely appropriated" idea" of himself. God's
personal presence to himself is gratuitously mediated through
his self-conception as man. If such statements seem unpalatable, this may be due to a basic refusal to take the Christological
Councils seriously. For nothing emerges from these sources with
less equivocation than the doctrine that the human nature of
1 ° Cf. Karl
Rahner, "Current Problems in Christology," Theological Investigations 1, trans. Cornelius Ernst, pp. 174-185. One might also note that no
philosopher has more emphatically exalted the notion of mediation than has
Hegel. It is clear that Rahner owes a great deal to such passages as the following:
" The horrified rejection of mediation, however, arises as a fact from want of
acquaintance with its nature. . . . We misconceive therefore the nature of
reason if we exclude reflection or mediation from ultimate truth, and do not take it
to be a positive moment of the Absolute." G. W. F. Hegel, The Phenomenology
of Mind, trans. J. B. Baillie, Harper Torchbooks (New York, 1967), pp. 82-83.
2 ° For further clarification of the notion of " mediated immediacy " see my article,
"What is Logocentric Theology," Theological Studies, XXXIII (1972), 120-32.
Mediation is essentially a mediation to immediacy. If a symbol or a medium seems
to obscure or withhold that which is symbolized, this is not due to the mediating
element of the symbol but rather to the ambiguous and non-mediating factors
ingredient in the symbol or to the deficiency of the recipient of the mediation.
Cf. further Karl Rahner, "Der eine Mittler und die Vielfalt der VermittlungeU:,"
Schriften zur Theologie 8 (Einsiedeln: J. C. B. Mohr, 1967), p. 234.

ESCHATOLOGICAL

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Christ is not a mere addition to but is
the self-expression
of the Logos. Human nature is thereby situated within and not
outside the Divine life. (The economic Trinity is the immanent
Trinity.) Consequently, man's nature or essential being (as
epitomized in Jesus Christ) becomes the symbolic medium
through which God beholds and takes possession of himself.
Now, to return to the question of the beatific vision, if God's
own Self-conception occurs through the medium of the humanity
of Christ, Christians may hardly expect that their own eschatological participation in the vision of God's inner being could be
one which itself evades such mediation. For the vision o£ God
may be understood as one o£ "mediated immediacy." 21 Mediation, if properly apprehended, does not necessarily obscure or
conceal or make ambiguous the reality which is being mediated.
In fact, a genuine or pure symbolic medium expresses the symbolized reality so fully that the latter is made present in full
immediacy to itself and others precisely because it is so mediated.22 Now since the human nature of Christ certainly does
not conceal but ratherrenders eminently lucid and visible to faith
the Divine glory, this human nature possesses an eternal and
not a merely temporary, significance for man's relation to God. 23
Man's eschatological encounter with God would appear to
demand, therefore, the element of mediation by Christ's human
nature. To meet God with " face to face " immediacy would
entail first of all an encounter with human nature brought to
perfection, since this is how God "knows" himself. The visage
of God is manhood, even from an eschatological point of view.
21 This exalted concept of mediation is capable of surmounting
any apprehension
of a loss of directness in the notion of a symbolically mediated vision of God.
Benedict XU's critique of mediation appears to be directed not against mediation
as such but against the ambiguities which usually encumber the symbols of finite
existence. The notion of mediated immediacy or of an eminent sense of mediation
certainly never occurred to him.
22 Cf. Rahner, "The Theology of the Symbol," p. 244.
23 This is the thesis of Rahner's
article cited above: " The Eternal Significance
of the Humanity of Christ for our Relationship with God," pp. 35-46. Cf. also
Rahner, "The Theology of the Symbol," p. 244: " ... the humanity of Christ
will have eternal significance for the immediacy of the visio beata."

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JOHN F. HAUGHT

It is not that one would have to peer through or look behind
human nature to get a glimpse of the Divine glory. Rather the
magnificence of God is capable of being perfectly embodied in
our own reality. Knowing God eschatologically involves not the
dissolution but rather the heightening of humanity as the
medium of our encounter with him. Eschatology does not
abrogate the incarnation. 24
It might be rejoined that we have been speaking too vaguely
about man, humanity or human nature without sufficient emphasis on the specific humanity of Christ and his distinctiveness
from the rest of us men. However, Christ's uniqueness certainly
cannot lie in his differing absolutely from us as man. For the
notion of Christ's human solidarity with other men is basic to
Christian faith. His human nature, however interpreted, is also
our own even though we may evade the task of realizing and
expressing it adequately in the ontic-existentiell order. And yet
to the extent that we might approach (asymptoically) realization of our humanity both as individuals and as a species, to
that extent would we express to each other not only what man
is but also what God is. And since, as we have seen, the beatific
vision must itself involve the mediation of perfected human
nature we could legitimately infer that the eschatological vision
of God is accessible here and now to the same extent that our
individual and collective manhood approaches such an idealeven from within history.
How is this ideal approached? Christianity teaches that one's
manhood becomes authentically realized in proportion to one's
giving himself or self-disposal to others. There should be no
difficulty, then, in apprehending how Jesus could be said to have
had the beatific vision at the hour of his death. Indeed, because
this hour was the occasion for his total outpouring of self to
•• The notion of the lumen gloriae does not become obsolete in this interpretation.
(Cf. Summa Theol. I, q. 12, a. 5 and III, Contra Gent., c. 53) The lumen gloriae,
of course, is not itself the medium in which the divine essence is embodied. But
it may be understood here as that power which enables man to " intuit " the
essence of God in the eschatologically perfected human nature which is the
medium of God's presence to Self and others.

ESCHATOLOGICAL

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fl83

others one would expect, if the notion of a humanly mediated
vision of God is acceptable, that the beatific vision would coincide with the unsurpassable realization of authentic human
existence in Jesus's death. Is it any wonder that the Gospel of
John sees this apparently ambiguous moment as the hour of
Jesus's" glory"? If the above notion of symbolic mediation is
accurately expressed one would be surprised if in Jesus's final
agony the " beatific vision " were not eminently present. In his
grasp of himself in the act of final and absolute self-giving, Jesus
grasps simultaneously and with irreducible immediacy what it is
to be God. 25 For at the same time, and even more fundamentally, in Jesus's act of kenotic self-deliverance it should be emphasized that the Father grasps or takes possession of his own
"essence," namely, kenotic love. God's "encounter" with himself (God's Self-knowledge), then, is freely mediated through
the historical act of Jesus's human self-giving. It is not as
though Jesus's activity is something outside of, or in addition to,
the dynamics of God's" inner life." The" economic" Trinity is
the " immanent " Trinity and not some afterthought or arbitrary accretion to the latter. 26 (This can be said without in any
way jeopardizing the belief that God's activity in history is
freely executed.)
Consequently, it seems quite legitimate to draw the following
conclusions. If God is eternally present to himself (knows himself) through the medium of radical human self-giving (in
Christ), then Christians themselves should recognize that eschatological encounter with God (if the " beatific vision " means
25 This, of course, does not mean that Jesus's vision or knowledge of the beatific
vision is a "looking at" involving something like a subject-object duality. For
knowledge (as can be argued in the case of Aquinas as well as of many modem
thinkers) is fundamentally presence-to-self (Beisichsein) and only dcrivately an
objectifying actuality. Now Beisichsein does not exclude but rather requires
mediation as the condition of presence-to-self. Thus it may be said that the divine
Self-possession or presence-to-Self is mediated through Jesus's kenotic activity and,
by virtue of this transcendental actuality, Jesus's experience of himself on the Cross
is equally an apprehension of the essence of Deity, i. e., the beatific vision.
•• This point is consistently emphasized in Karl Rahner, The Trinity, trans.
Joseph Donceel (New York: Herder & Herder, 1970).

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JOHN F. HAUGHT

" knowledge " of God) will occur and does occur to the extent
that men apprehend their own humanity as continuous with
that of Jesus in acts of kenotic self-giving. Or are we still to
expect that we will know God without any symbolic mediation
at all when sound theological speculation posits such mediation
as eminently inherent even in God's Self-apprehension? After
all, it is in instances of authentic human existence that the
" glory " of God shines through or comes to expression both for
God and for others. This, it seems to me, is a highly humanistic
way of understanding man's encounter with God.
APPLICATION To CoNTEMPORARY DEBATE

We can only briefly outline how the above reflections may
apply to the questions which introduce this article. First, our
interpretation of the " beatific vision " as involving the symbolic
mediation of human self-giving is well-suited to an understanding of the eschaton as a present and not exclusively future
reality. If properly understood, this view can suffuse the present
moment, and all present moments, with an element of urgency
customarily reserved for the " final things." Christians should
be made aware of the arbitrariness whereby unreflective views
of eschatology have derogated the capacity of human nature for
mediating the immediacy of God. Such a dismissal has had the
effect of relinquishing the eschatological element involved in
genuinely understood mediation. No matter how ambiguous or
deficient concrete embodiments of human nature may appear to
us in our experience, Christology implies that human nature is
essentially expressive of God. And if essential manhood is radically kenotic, then every encounter with attempts to approximate such authentic human existence, either in oneself or
in others, is to that extent an encounter with God. The intensity
and depth of present eschatological encounter with God is,
therefore, contingent upon the depth of genuine human love
in this historical moment. Bultmannians are quite correct in
emphasizing the significance for eschatology of present authentic
(kenotic) decision. For in such moments the very essence of
Godhood becomes transparent to the believer.

ESCHATOLOGICAL

ENCOUNTER

WITH GOD

285

At the same time, however, interpretation of the notion of
the " beatific vision " as involving mediation is capable, it seems,
of rendering future or " final " eschatology intelligible without
demythologizing these out of theology altogether. For what we
have been referring to as human nature is not only the property
of discrete, isolated individuals but also a characteristic embodied in a race or species in process of development. It is a
collective, evolutionary, and historical phenomenon and not
something consigned in a mutually disparate and static manner
to various atomized individuals. Human nature must be understood as expressing the reality of God in its generic sense and
not just in its privatized sense. Already in the New Testament
St. Paul sensed how the " mystery " of God was being unfolded
in a cosmic and historical context centered in the risen body of
Christ. The notion of the soma ChristoU is the Pauline way of
linking human nature as individually perfected with human
nature as a collective historical reality.
Thus, " human nature " in the plenary sense of a cosmically
rooted, Christ-centered, andhistorically-ecclesially-sacramentally
extended phenomenon must stand in the foreground when we
say that humanity mediates the immediacy of God (to himself
and to others). Eschatological encounter with God involves
filling out the personal risen body of Christ so as to render
human nature as an evolutionary-social-historical reality, increasingly transparent to the glory of God. The " resurrection of
the body " is primordially a communal concept which may be
interpreted as an indispensable condition for beatific vision.
Humanity's symbolizing of God is not a mere given but a task
also.
INDIVIDUAL EscHATOLOGY

Finally, the interpretation of eschatology we have outlined in
this article is open also to understanding the death of individuals as a decisive breakthrough to encounter with God. Death,
however, must not be looked upon merely as something that
imposes itself fatalistically upon us from without or as the mere
occasion for a transition to new life. While death may include

286

JOHN F. HAUGHT

all of this, the Christian view (which has its roots in the Suffering Servant theme of Deutero-Isaiah) is that one's fate can be
surmounted if it is appropriately internalized and converted into
gift for others. 27 Death as the final expression of fate which imposes itself on us can be converted by faith into a free act welling up from within. Our personal death can be appropriated
(even in the present moment) as our own act and not just as an
extrinsic necessity.28 Thus death can be seen as approaching the
final realization of our individual humanity if it is grasped as the
final expression of self-disposal. But we have already seen that,
where human existence is exercised in such a kenotic manner, it
becomes symbolic of Deity to us for the very reason that it is
God's way of mediately grasping himself. Death in Christ
means, then, appropriating our death as an element in human
self-realization, and this, as we have attempted to demonstrate,
can be the occasion for a symbolic encounter with the mediated
immediacy of God. What is more, we may confidently assert
that if God apprehends himself through the kenotic activity of
Jesus, then all of those who die in Christ are participants in the
Divine Self-mediation. That is to say, God knows himself and
" experiences " himself through genuinely Christian death. If it
is in such human outpouring (always in the context of Christ's
death, of course) that God's own inner life is made eminently
lucid to himself, then the Christian's vision of the Divine glory
may be understood as somehow coinciding with a Christ-like
appropriation of one's own (and others') self-abandonment in
death. That such death is at the same time man's access to
resurrection is a theme which cannot be explored here but one
to which contemporary theology is giving continually more
emphasis.
CoNCLUSION

The above reflections are not intended to specify the precise
content, much less to anticipate the degree of intensity and joy
8 ' On this point see Paul Ricoeur, The Symbolism of Evil, trans. Emerson
Buchanan (Boston: Beacon Press, 1967), pp. 3!i!4-!i!6.
•• Karl Rahner, On the Theology of Death, rev. trans. by W. J. O'Hara (New
York: Herder & Herder, 1967).

ESCHATOLOGICAL

ENCOUNTER WITH GOD

involved in what has traditionally been called the beatific vision.
All I have attempted to clarify is that encounter with God does
not preclude the mediation of humanity even when we speak of a
" final " eschatological, face to face encounter with God. Moreover, our concern even here has been less to describe the contours of such a future eventuality than to expose the implications of our concrete involvement with our fellow men here and
now. Such theologians as Rudolf Bultmann and Karl Rahner
have rightly stressed that eschatological assertions must always
have, above all, a contemporary existential bearing. It is hoped
that the interpretation sketched in this article will be taken
primarily as an effort toward elucidation of what is really at
stake in our present socially human situation and that it will
not be viewed as an arrogant attempt to delimit or decipher or
interpolate from the future which, as genuinely Christian eschatology always professes, ultimately belongs to God. For if the
implications of present symbolic encounter with God are adequately expressed, then the speculative problem of future vs.
present eschatology may be dissolved and the real problem of
how to render God always present in human existence may
receive its proper emphasis.
Finally, we should recognize that further development of the
theme presented here would have to include a more thorough
scrutiny of St. Thomas's own eschatological reflections.
JoHN

Georgetown University
Washington, D. C.

F. HAuGHT

WHY DID THE SON OF GOD BECOME MAN?

I

T IS PERHAPS not altogether otiose to broach-yet again
-one of the most famous questions in theology: if Adam
had not sinned, would the Son of God have become man? .1
In the present article I wish just to take a closer look at the
"Thomist" view in the light of recent (and not so recent) criticisms. We shall therefore leave out of account such questions as,
Does it matter anyway? or Who cares?.2 I shall also not be discussing the existence of Adam!
I
To the best of my knowledge, the first writer to ask himself
this question was Irenaeus. 3 Adv. Haer. 5,14 is devoted to proving that if our flesh had not needed saving, Christ would not
have assumed it. He is combatting heretics who denied the
reality of Christ's body. Irenaeus replies that if Christ has not
taken on :flesh and blood he could not have redeemed us (PG
7,1160-1163) . But he also states explicitly: If there were no
flesh to save, the Word of God would never have become flesh.
(1161)
1 Some recent literature
on the subject: R. Garrigou-Lagrange, "De motivo
incarnationis," Acta A cad. Pont. Rom. S. Thornae 10 (1944), 7-45; J. F. Bonnefoy,
"La question hypothetique," Rev. Esp.
14 (1954), 827-868; P. De Letter,
"If Adam had not sinned," ITQ 28 (1961), 115-125; G. Martelet, "Sur le motif de
l'incamation," in Problemes actuels de christologie, ed. Bouesse-Latour (Paris:
Descleee de Brouwer, 1965), 85-80; G. Tessarolo, La necessitd dell'incarnazione
presso Vasquez, Theology Dissertation at the Gregorianum, (Rome 1942). D. J.
Unger, "The Love of God the primary reason for the incarnation according to
Isaac of Nineveh," Franc. Stud. 9 (1949), 148-155; "Robert Grosseteste on the
reasons for the incarnation," ibid., 16 (1956), 1-86; E. Doyle, "John Duns Scotus
and the Place of Christ," Clergy Review 57 (1972), 667-675.
2 According to E. Mascall, The Importance of Being Human,
(London: Oxford
University Press, 1959), 92-98: "The controversy is largely an academic one."
• Many of the historical data are given by Martelet, op. cit., 46-60.

288

WHY DID THE SON OF GOD BECOME MAN?

289

Irenaeus was writing about the year 180. Sixty or seventy
years later, Origen asked himself the same question. 4 " As long
as there is sin," he says, " sacrifice must be made. But just
suppose there were no sin: if there had never been sin, there
would have been no need for the Son of God to be made the
Lamb (of sacrifice), and he would not have needed to be
slaughtered in the flesh; he would have remained what he was
in the beginning, God the Word."
Athanasius 5 and John Chrysostom 6 followed Origen in the
East. In the West, Augustine taught the same doctrine. In
Sermo 174 7 he states categorically: If man had not perished,
the Son of Man would not have come. The Gloss has the famous
phrase, " Tolle morbos, toile vulnera, et nulla est medicinae
causa." 8 We find the same doctrine in Cyril of Alexandria, 9 Leo
the Great, 10 Gregory/ 1 and others.
In the Middle Ages, however, voices of protest began to be
raised. The Fathers, particularly the Greeks, had often put as a
motive of the incarnation the deification or adoption of man,
almost, it would seem, apart from the fact of sin. The first,
however, to answer our question explicitly in the affirmative was
Honorius of Autun (died after 1130) who said that the first
man's sin was the cause, not of the incarnation but of death and
damnation. The incarnation came about because God had predestined man to deification. 12
Similar theories were expounded by Rupert of Deutz/ 3 Alexander of Hales 14 and Albert the Great. 15 Alexander of Hales, for
•In Num. hom.
1, PG
5 Adv. Arianos Or.
56 (R
6 In Heb. hom. 5, 1, (R

756 (Enchir. Patr. Rouet

R 1517.
Quoted by S. Thomas, Summa Theol., III, q. 1, a. 3, sed contra.
Enchiridion, 108 (R 1929).
9 De sancta et consub. Trinitate Dialog. 5 (R
10 Sermo 77,
(R
11 Moralia
3, 3 (R
12 Libellus octo, QQ. de angelis et homine
PL
1187.
13 Comment. in Mt. 13, PL 168,
10 De Verbo inc., tract. 1,
(Quaracchi 4, no.
15 In Ill Sent., d.
a. 4 (Vives
360-362) .
1

8

Cf. Augustine,

fl90

JEREMY MOISER

example (to choose an Englishman), reasoned as follows. Man's
happiness must be total. Now man has sensitive and intellectual knowledge. His happiness therefore implies that God
seizes and makes his own both types of knowledge. God must
therefore become incarnate in order to beatify the whole man.
The conclusion is, even without sin, God would have become
man.
St. Thomas first discusses the question in III Sent., d.l, q.l,
a.3. 16 The text is to be noted carefully:
The truth of this question is known only to God. We can know
what depends solely on the divine will only insofar as we can glean
some knowledge from the writings of the saints to whom God has
revealed his purpose. The canon of Scripture and the quotations
from the Fathers mentioned above (Augustine, Gregory) assign
one cause to the incarnation: man's redemption from the slavery of
sin. Certain theologians 17 say, with great probability, that if man
had not sinned, the Son of God would not have become man. This
is stated explicitly by St. Leo and St. Augustine . . . Other theologians, however, hold that the purpose of the incarnation of the
Son of God was not only freedom from sin, but also the exaltation
of human nature, and the consummation of the whole universe. It
follows that even had there been no sin, the incarnation would have
taken place for these other reasons. This opinion is equally probable.
There are two things to notice about this text: 1) Thomas is
basing his investigations on the data of scripture and tradition.
He is fully aware of diversity of opinion on the point in question;
fl) he is also aware that the scriptures are not conclusive, indeed
cannot give an answer at all; and that from the patristic texts,
there are arguments on both sides.
When Aquinas deals with the question again, however, nearly
twenty years later, he has modified his view. The text reads:
" In scripture the cause of the incarnation is always given as the
sin of the first man. It is therefore more conveniently said that
An early work (c.
dating from Thomas's early twenties.
"Quidam "-frequently used by St. Thomas to cover a large number of more
recent magistri like William of Auxerre, Philip the Chancellor, and Grosseteste.
See M. D. Chenu, Introduction a l'etude de saint Thomas (Paris: Vrin, 1954),
16

17

WHY DID THE SON OF GOD BECOME MAN?

291

the incarnation is a work ordained by God as a remedy for sin.
So: no sin, no incarnation. However, God's power is not limited
to this, and even without sin he could have become man "-a
balanced text showing an unwillingness to come down definitely
on one side or the other but favoring the first alternative. 18
A third and final text from St. Thomas is his commentary on
1 Tim. 1,15: "It seems evident that if no one had sinned, Christ
would not have become incarnate because he came to save
sinners." He quotes the Gloss: " Tolle morbum, et medicinae
non opus erit," and continues:
But the whole question is not of any great importance, because if
a thing happens it is because God ordered it, and we do not know
what he would have ordered if there had been no sin. Nevertheless,
the authorities are pretty clear that if man had not sinned there
would have been no incarnation, and I think this too (in quam
partem ego magis declino) .19

Not so Scotus. He disagrees, as ever, with St. Thomas. In a
celebrated text he argues that Christ's primacy, on scriptural
evidence, is absolute. God created the universe so that Christ
the incarnate Word should be its summit and perfection. The
fall could not be the cause of the incarnation, because that would
mean that God's supreme work would be merely a means to an
end, in itself. 20
Thus we have two series of opinions. The first, from Irenaeus
and Ambrose, leads through Bonaventure to Aquinas. The
other, starting with Honore d' Autun, includes Alexander of
Hales, Albert and Scotus. The two positions, now commonly
known as Thomist and Scotist, may be summed up thus:
1) Thomist. Scripture always connects the incarnation with sin.
18 Summa Theol., III, q. 1, a. 3. This text is quoted with approval by L. M.
Dewally, Jesus-Christ Parole de Dieu (Paris: Ed. du Cerf, 1969), 36; E. Schillebeeekx, "Die Heiligung des Namens Gottes durch die Menschenliebe Jesu des
Christus," in Gott in Welt, ed. Metz et al. (Freiburg: Herder, 1964), II, 80.
19 ln 1 Tim., lect. 4 (Marietti 40). This work is contemporary with the Tertia
Pars; it dates from 1272-1273.
20 Rep. Paris. 3, 7, 4 (Vives 23, 301-304).
Eng. trans. in J. M. Carmody (ed.),
Christ and his Mission (Westminster, Maryland: Newman Press, 1966), 218-220.
See also R. North, "The Scotist Cosmic Christ," Acta Gong. Scot. lnternat.
(Rome 1968), III, 169-217.

JEREMY MOISER

For example, Lk. 19,10: "The Son of Man came to seek and
save the lost"; 1 Tim. 1,15: "Christ Jesus came into the world
to save sinners"; 1 Jn. 3,8: "The reason the Son of God appeared was to destroy the works of the devil." It is therefore
reasonable to suppose that, if there had been no sin, there would
have been no incarnation either.
2) Scotist. God is love. Love is impelled to communicate itself.
The incarnation is the greatest manifestation of God's love.
Therefore the decree of the incarnation precedes that of grace
and of the remission of sins. The motive of the incarnation is
thus the diffusion of the divine love. The chief argument for this
view is taken from a comparison of Prov. 8,22; Col. 1,15-20;
Eph. 1,13-14.21
In a word, for the Thomist it is not contradictory to say that
everything is ordained to Christ, and yet that Christ is not
willed independently of sin. For the Scotist it is.
There is a third position which seeks to combine the insights
of both. It is represented by Suarez, Martelet, and Barden.
· Suarez has an extremely detailed and complex treatment of
the question, occupying eighty pages of the Vives edition. 22 His
position is fundamentally as follows: the incarnation has a
double complete and adequate motive: manifestation of the perfection of the divine work and redemption of the human race.
The former reason would have been sufficient on its own even
if man had not sinned, but since sin it is so no longer. There is
one divine decree from all eternity, foreseeing sin and embracing
inseparably the remedy for sin and the completion of creation. This theory introduces a hypothetical element into God's
knowledge which is difficult (impossible?) to justify. Suarez
tried to reconcile the Thomist and Scotist views by widening the
21 K. Adam follows a Scotist line
(The Christ of Faith [New York: MentorOmega, 1957], 207-211, 238, 341-342). For Teilhard's Scotist view see, for example:
E. Rideau, Teilhard de Chardin. A Guide to his Thought (London: Collins, 1967),
particularly 62 and 380-1; P. Smulders, La vision de Teilhard de Chardin (Paris:
Desclee de B., 1965), 247-260; R. d'Ouince, Un prophete en proces : Teilhard de
Chardin (Paris: Aubier, 1970) II, 133-190; R. L. Faricy, "Teilhard de Chardin's
theology of redemption," TS 27 (1966), 553-579; C. Mooney, "Teilhard's approach
to Christology," TD 15 (1967), 18-25.
22 Vol. 17, pp. 186-266: De incarnatione, q. 1, aa. 3-4, disp. 5.

WHY DID THE SON OF GOD BECOME MAN?

298

scriptural horizon. His efforts, however, met with scant success,
and he has not been followed.
More recently G. Martelet has attempted to find a new solution to this old problem on lines similar to those of Swirez. 23 In
an article called " A Thomist approach towards Scotism," 24
W. Barden, too, tries to show that the Thomist and Scotist approaches are closer than is often imagined. His conclusion is the
same as that of Martelet: God's will to adopt man is the motive
of the incarnation; the salvation of man supplies the mode.
It seems to me, however, that his position rests on a misunderstanding of both sides. Briefly:
1) He states that for St. Thomas, the incarnation, the supreme
act of divine self-communication to a creature, is something
incongruous, a sort of madness of divine love. God could not
allow himself this madness unless it were compensated by a balancing congruity, viz., the salvation of man from sin. In other
words, the only incarnation that God could permit himself is a
redemptive incarnation. This does not, in my opinion, accurately represent Thomas's position.
2) He states that the argument from convenience used by both
Thomas and Scotus is an a priori form of argument. This is not
true. The principle of convenience is a priori because it is arguing to a conclusion based on congruence: potuit, decuit, fecit.
The argument from convenience simply demonstrates the fittingness of something known to be so already for other reasons. 25
It is on this question that Lonergan and Rahner, too, part
company. Rahner teaches an absolute primacy of Christ 26 ;
Lonergan maintains a Tho mist relative primacy only .27
23 Apart from the article mentioned
in note 1 above, see his " Theologie und
Heilsokonomie in der Christologie der Tertia," in Gott in Welt (Festbabe K.
Rahner), ed. Metz et al. (Herder, Freiburg, 1964), II, 3-42. Cf. A. Feuillet, Le
Christ Sagesse de Dieu (Paris: Gabalda, 1966), 202-213.
••zTQ 26 (1959). 368-375.
25 F. Ruiz, "El principio de convenienca en cristologia," Eph. Carm. 16 (1965),
41-70.
26 The Trinity
(London: Burns Oates, 1970); "Christology within an evolutionary view," Investigations 5, 157-192.
27 De constitutione Christi ontologica et psychologica (Rome:
Pont. Univ. Greg.,
1964)' 58-60.

294

JEREMY MOISER

II
To try to resolve this vexed question we must sketch in the
biblical theology behind Christ's primacy. It will be convenient
to divide our treatment into a series of separate points.
1.. Christ's only name is Savior. I use Savior in a sense
synonymous with Redeemer, viz., one who saves from sin, who
buys back. It is clear from the Old Testament that the prophets
looked forward to one who would save the people from their
transgressions (Ps. 130: 8; Jr. 23: 6; Is. 53: 5; Dn. 9: 24; Zech.
3: 9). It transpires from the New Testament that this Savior
has come in the person of Jesus Christ (Mt. 1: 21; Jn. 3: 14; Rm.
3: 24; 2 Cor. 5: 21; Eph. 1: 7; Col. 1: 14; 1 Tm. 1: 15; Heb. 2) . St.
Thomas comments on Lk. 2:21: Christ is given many names in
the Old Testament: Emmanuel (Is. 7: 14), Prince of Peace (Is.
9: 6) , Ruler (Zech. 6: 13) , etc., but the one name that sums up
all the others is Jesus, which means Savior (est significativum
salutis) .28 Salvation means effecting a total reconciliation between God and man. Christ stands as the sole mediator between
God and creatures.
This means that Christ is our Savior. He became man for us.
This is explicitly stated in 1 Cor. 1:30. For implies subordination. Are we therefore to say that the incarnation is simply a
means to the redemption? Is Jesus subordinated to sinful man?
See conclusion 2 below.
2. Predestination of Christ. The biblical notion of predestination 29 is a divine, eternal, and absolute decree by which God
decrees a thing which has some relation to the scheme of salvation. It is a divine ordination from eternity of things which are
to take place in time.
Now the Bible does not specifically say that Christ was ever
predestined. The Vulgate reading of Rm. 1:4 (opurOevror; from
opt'(J) = determine or declare or designate) -praedestinatusis erroneous. Augustine and Thomas both base their theology
ad 1.
•• Summa Theol., III, q. 37, a.
••
Prat, The Theology of St. Paul (London: B. 0. W.,

433-4.

WHY DID THE SON OF GOD BEJCOME MAN?

!'l95

on this verse, which is unfortunate, but not necessarily invalidating.
If we deny Christ's predestination, we are forced to conclude
that God changed his mind. 30 We do not have the fall, and then
imagine God's saying: Well, how are we going to remedy this?
God's knowledge is supratemporal, everything is eternally present.31 God's decree is unique and includes the whole scheme.
And therefore we have to say that Christ was destined to become
man from all eternity. 32
3. Pre-existence of Christ. The New Testament is quite clear
(pace Schoonenberg) 33 that Christ preexisted from eternity.
" The Word was with God." This is particularly evident in
Paul, who makes copious use of Old Testament themes. Identifying Christ with wisdom, for example, leads him to attribute
creation and conservation to him. According to the New Testament, there was never a time when Christ was not. N evertheless, the New Testament authors are equally clear that Christ
showed himself to men at a particular moment, that he had
come to enlighten the world at a precise point in history.
The reason for this apparent dichotomy is that theN ewTestament authors do not distinguish two stages in the person of
Christ. They do not think of the Word living with the Father
from all eternity and then becoming flesh. They think of the
one, concrete person Jesus Christ creating in the beginning, and
being made man from Mary. 34 Now literally, it does not make
sense to speak of the man Jesus before the birth at Bethlehem, so
how are we to understand this pre-existence of the man Jesus?
Summa Theol., III, q. 24, a. 1 c.
Quodl. XI, q. 8 (Marietti, 214).
32 The predestination
of Christ refers, of course, to his humanity. As God Christ
is eternal, and therefore outside time. Hence Toledo XI (675): "Christ was born
of the Father from all eternity, not created and not predestined (against Arius);
but insofar as he was born of the Virgin Mary, we profess that he was born,
created, and predestined." (DS 586)
•• " Christus zonder tweeheid," Tijd. voor teol. 6 (1966), 289-806 and other
articles.
•• Cf. J. Bonsirven, Theologie du Nouveau Testament (Paris: Aubicr, 1951), 408404; L. Cerfaux, Le Christ dans la theologie de saint Paul (Pa.ris: Cerf, 1954),
878-4; H. Langkammer, " Christus mediator creationis," Verbum Domini, 45
(1967), 201-208.
30

31

296

JEREMY MOISER

It seems that in the mind of the hagiographers, Christ preexists in Old Testament prefiguration. For the Jews this presence in type was not simply symbolic but the beginning of real
existence. Similarly, for example, the Torah was considered to
have been with God always, even before being formally promulgated on Sinai. The Letter to the Hebrews (8: 5) attributes a
similar preexistence to the sanctuary and the mosaic rites. 35
Jesus was always God and man, always a creature, but somehow
above our time. He lived on the plane of salvation decree.
Prat 36 disagrees with this exegesis, Bonsirven and Cerfaux 37
both accept it. Benoit has given a detailed defense of it. 38
It must be admitted that Thomas seems not to have known
of this. Thus in I,q.45,a.5 creation is given as a mystery in the
eternal Word, but not in Jesus (Martelet). This does not seem
to reflect the biblical doctrine. Cf. also Camp. Theol. c.96.
4. Primacy of Christ. The biblical notion of Christ's primacy
is complex. 1) It includes the idea that Christ is the first of the
series of created beings (Col. 1: 15). Christ is also outside the
series, because as the divine Word he participates in the action
of creation. He is also the first to rise from the dead; he inaugurates the last times; he is the eschatological point of departure. 2) Christ is also the first in rank. 39 8) Everything depends
on Christ. He created all things, and holds them in being, and
everything tends to him. 40 4) He is the principle of cohesion,
reducing everything to unity. Thus Eph. 1:10. The Greek word
avaKecpaA.au!>a-aa-Oatmeans repeat, reduce to a main point, recapitulate, reassume. In the context it means to recapitulate
(give a head to) the whole universe. Everything is subordinated
L. Malevez, "Le message de Jesus et l'histoire du salut," NRT 89 (1967), 182.
Theology of St; Paul (London: B. 0. W., 1927), II, 115-116.
37 References in note 34 above.
88 "Preexistence
et incarnation," RB 77 (1970), 5-29.
89 JB note to Col. 1:15.
•• See also J. H. Wright, "The consummation of the universe in Christ,".
Gregorianum 89 (1958), 285-294; G. Bonnefoy, "II primato di Cristo nella teologia
contemporanea," in Problemi e orientamenti di teologia dommatica (Milan:
Marzorati, 1957), II, 128-286; P. Munoz, "La mediaci6n del Logos preexistente a
la encarnaci6n en Eusebio de Cesarea," Estud. Ecles. 43 (1968), 881-414; F. M.
Braun, "La seigneurie du Christ dans le monde selon saint Jean," Rev. Thom. 67
(1967)' 857-886.
35
36

WHY DID THE SON OF GOD BECOME MAN?

297

to Christ the head, and to his Church. Cf. Eph. 1:22. The
capitulation of everything in Christ is realized in the Church.
This concept of Christ as the focal point of the universe is justified in Paul, for whom the Redeemer is the principle which
reduces everything to a unity. Christ has absolute primacy in
the order of salvation. 41
Christ's primacy has a special modality, that of redemption.
Christ enjoys primacy as Savior. Now either the incarnation is
redemptive or it is not. In the logical order, incarnation of another type is not denied. Redemption and incarnation are not
intrinsically connected. But in the historical order, only one incarnation is known and only one Christ. Christ crucified realizes
the conflux of all creation.
Consider the following argument. Col. 1: 26 states that Christ
is the cause and end of everything. His task is to restore everything and bring it to perfection. The conflux of the universe is
realized according to an ordered scheme which means subordination. Christ, head of the Church, recapitulates in himself all
things because they are ordained to Christ the Church: " He is
the head of the body the Church; he is the beginning, the firstborn from the dead, that in everything he might be preeminent" (Col. 1: 18). Domination over creation exceeds,
spatially speaking, domination over the Church, and Christ's
first definition is thus Head of Creation. In other words, one
cannot argue: Christ is head of the Church, and therefore head
of the universe (as the Thomists do) but rather the other way
round. On biblical principles, creation comes before redemption.
The position just described is untenable, because spatial
domination is not primacy. Christ exercises dominion over the
universe as head of the Church. 42 The Church is at once part of
the universe and its influxive center. The Church is Christ's
"A. Feuillet, Le Christ Sagesse de Dieu (Paris: Gabalda, 1966), 202; J. M.
Dufort, "La recapitulation paulinienne dans l'exegese des peres," Sc. Eccles. 12
(1960), 21-38; I. H. Dalrnais, "La fonction unificatrice du Verbe incarne dans les
oeuvres spirituelles de saint Maxime le Confesseur," ibid., 14 (1962), 445-459; J.
Danielou, La Resurrection (Paris: Ed. du Seuil, 1969), 68-69.
•• John Eriugena, Homilia in Jn. 1:23, Sources Chretiennes 151, ed. E. Jeauneau
(Paris: Ed. du Cerf, 1969), 310.

JEREMY MOISER

body and as such makes him present to the world in a visible
fashion. Cf. Eph. 1:
"And God has put all things under
his feet and has made him the head over all things for the
Church which is his Body, the fulness of him who fills all in
all." 43
The Church's centrality is indicated by its position in the
mystery of God's salvific will. This mystery is not cosmogonic,
but Christ (1 Cor.
7-8), Christ in us (Eph. 3: 9), Christ
Crucified (1 Cor. 1:
Christ Risen (1 Cor. 15:
preached
by the prophets and Paul, and manifested in the Church: " That
through the Church the manifold wisdom of God might now be
made known to the principalities and powers in the heavenly
place" (Eph. 3: 10). There is but one mystery in three stages:
wisdom, Christ, the Church. 44
5. Incarnation of the Son only. The Thomistic thesis 45 is as
follows: the assumptive potency is common to Father, Son, and
Spirit. Although only the Son became incarnate, any of the
three Persons could have done so.46 St. Anselm held a contrary
view 47 and so does Rahner.
For the Thomist thesis we may argue as follows.48 Christ is
the image of God. He is the exemplar, the pattern on which
man was made. To reconcile humanity with God, it was fitting
for the Son to become man rather than the Father or Spirit. The
second person of the Trinity thus creates and recreates. Similarly Christ is the Word, the Logos by which the Father eternally expresses himself. The immanent Trinity is the economic
Trinity: just as Christ expresses the Father in eternity, so he
expresses the Father also in time. 49 Christ is the mediator who
•• RSV translation, The English JB is erroneous, the French JB non-committal .
.. These are also the conclusions of 0. Cullrnanu, Christology of the New Testament (London: SCM Press, 1959 and 1963), 228-230, and E. Kiisemanu, Jesus
means Freedom (London: SCM Press, 1969), 67-68.
•• Summa Theol., III, q. 3, a. 5.
•• B. Lonergan, De constitutione Christi (Rome: P. U. G., 1964), par. 61.
-'De Fide Trin. 4 (Corona I, 64-65); Cur Deus Homo 2, 9 (Corona I, 130-181),
quoted by Thomas Aquinas, Ill Sent., d. 1, q. 2, a. 3.
•• Ill Sent., d. 1, q. 2, a. 2.
•• Cf. IV Cont. Gent., c. 42; Y. Cougar, "Dum Deum visibiliter cognoscimus,"
Maisan-Dieu 59 (1959), 132-161.

WHY DID THE SON OF GOD BECOME MAN?

communicates the Father's will to us, and our response to the
Father's initiative. Communication is through the body. Christ
became man. 50
This does not mean, however, that the Father could not have
become man. We cannot put a limit on God's absolute power.
It is true that the Father is, by the very fact of being Mystery,
unapproachable and ungenerated. It is also true that in the
actual economy the economic Trinity reproduces the pattern of
the immanent Trinity insofar as Christ has revealed it to us. But
it is not a priori impossible for the Father to be born in time.
In his divine nature the Father is unborn, but could have become man in time. The incarnation in that case could not have
been called a mission/ 1 it would have been another type of incarnation. This Thomist position is admittedly weak, but it is
not essential to the Thomist position on the motive of the incarnation, despite misconceptions to the contrary (see conclusion 3 below) .
6. The messianic blessings (eschatological shalom) need not
have been willed by God on any hypothesis whatever.
Paul's letter to the Romans stresses the superiority of Christ's
gift to man. If Adam's sin caused the damnation of all, justification delivers all not only from that sin, but from every sin. The
reign of death gives way to the reign of life. In other words,
solidarity in Christ does more for our good than solidarity in
Adam for our harm. This is specifically stated in Rom. 5: 15-17,
but it is also the theme of the first eight chapters of the Letter.
To stress the wonder of God's consummate justice, Paul contrasts man's present state with the negative theme of humanity's misery without Christ. Sinful man at first sight sets at
nought God's designs of love, but, to the contemplative theologian, sin has enabled God to display his love with all the
greater force. 52
The Cross is the supreme proof of God's love (Rom. 5: 8;
6

°Cf. In Col., Iect. 4 (Marietti 29-43).

III Sent., d. 1, q. 2, a. 3, ad 3.
A. Feuillet, "Le plan salvifique de Dieu d'apres l'Epitre aux Romains," RB
57 (1950), 336-887, 489-529; II Sent., d. 29, q. 1, a. 8, ad 4.
61

62

300

JEREMY MOISER

1 Jn. 3: 16; Eph. 5: 2) . From permitted sin arises something
greater. In the words of Feuillet, the apex of God's self-giving
is Christ crucified. 53 In other words, it seems to be Paul's teaching that God's love has reached the summit, beyond which even
God's love cannot go, not in Christ as such but in the crucified
and risen Christ, in the Christ who shed his blood to save men
from their sins. This is why we find Adam's sin apostrophized
in the Fathers as a happy fault. For example, Ambrose says:
"Adam's sin was more fruitful than damaging because it gave
rise to the redemption " 5\ " My fault has become the cause of
my redemption ... it is more fruitful than my innocence would
have been" 55 ; "Felix ruina, quae reparatur in melius." 56
7. The hypothetical question. It has been said 57 that the
hypothesis, if man had not sinned, is sheer possibility and has
nothing to do with the incarnation. Of the possibility of other
economies we know and can know nothing.
However, if properly understood, the hypothetical question
" can throw a definite light on our present situation." 58 It is
used correctly, for example, by J. A. Baker in" The Foolishness
of God " 59 : " If Herod the Great had risen from the dead, this
would not have been tolerable to reason as a testimony to God
... Conversely, if Jesus had not been vindicated (by being
raised from the dead) , and in a way which demanded a divine
action as its cause, the glorious hope would not have been
refuted, but it would have remained-a hope."
It is misused by Martelet. He argues: the world without grace
is a possible but unreal hypothesis. The conclusion is Christ's
53 Cf. also what used to be the prayer at the Offertory:
" mirabiliter creasti et
mirabilius reformasti "; Comp. Theol., c. 237.
•• De inst. virg. 17, 104. PL 16, 846.
s5 De Jacob et vita beata I, 6, 21. PL 14, 637.
56 Ennar. in Ps 39. PL 14, 1116.
57 J. F. Bonnefoy, see note l. Cf. C. Butler, "The Theology of Vatican II,"
DLT (London, 1967 and 1968), 155: "The medieval question itself (whether the
incarnation would have occurred if man had not fallen) ... seems to express an
adventure into the unreal field of impossible hypotheses."
58 P. De Letter
(note I above), 115.
59 DLT (London, 1970), 278-279.

WHY DID THE SON OF GOD BECOME MAN?

301

priority: if there is grace, it is gratuitous; if there is Christ, he
has primacy. From the possibility of a non-elevated human
nature, the conclusion is that grace is gratuitous. Similarly from
the unreal hypothesis, If Adam had not sinned, the conclusion
is that Christ has primacy.
Yes, but only primacy with regard to sin. The hypothesis is
limited to one condition, and therefore the conclusion must be,
too. Perhaps we can make this clearer still. Martelet is in effect
asking whether Christ's primacy (Col. 1: 16; Eph. 1:2-10), on
New Testament data, is absolute or relative. To find out, he
puts himself the hypothesis of a world without sin. On this
hypothesis, would Christ have become man? Yes, he answers,
because Christ is willed from eternity. Therefore, he concludes,
his primacy is absolute. This is begging the question: we have
precisely to prove that Christ is willed from eternity even in a
(hypothetical) world without sin. The reasoning should be: a
world without sin is a possibility; therefore, if there is sin,
Christ's primacy concerns sin.
8. Rahner. There is some slight unease abroad concerning
Rahner's application of the transcendental method to theology.
For Rahner, as for Kant and Heidegger, transcendentals are the
a priori conditions of spiritual activity, the conditions which
make an object of thought or willing possible. Rahner tries to
counterbalance the objectivism of classical theology in which
the statements of Christian belief can seem mythical because
they have no connexion with man's experience in his effort at
self-understanding. According to this view, the theologian's
task is to show the link between statements of Christian belief,
as found in the various professions of faith, and man's contemporary self-understanding.
The whole problem here is the articulation between human
existence as an a priori transcendental of faith and Christianity
as a historical a posteriori. Rahner certainly avoids deducing
Christianity from the a priori conditions of the spirit. But he
leaves the impression that the only a priori conditions of the
spirit that he retains are those which are needed for revelation to
respond to. Does this not risk leaving out of account certain

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JEREMY MOISER

aspects of revelation? The word of God is not sufficiently respected in itself: instead of commanding the whole of man's
theological understanding, it becomes merely the occasion of
man's own theological self-understanding. 60
Congar, citing Lohfink, has the same criticism. 61 Rahner does
not accept the given of Scripture but tends to elaborate a system
or framework of philosophical concepts into which he fits scripture. The bent of his mind is above all philosophical and strives
to approach questions by deepening the concepts involved; it
is transcendental, in that it tries to establish what the reality
considered supposes on the part of the considering subject.
There is great power here, a source of intellectual strength and
new ways of looking at questions. But it also imposes a rigid
conditioning on the part of the theologian whose main task is
to listen to the word of God.

III
After these lengthy preliminaries, we are now in a position to
draw our conclusion.
1. On the precise hypothetical question the answer must be
that we do not know, as God has not revealed it. But certainly
from what we do know, it is more biblical and more realistic
to answer in the negative, with St. Thomas. 62 The biblical justification for the Thomist view can be summed up in three
phrases:
A) The only Christ we know is the crucified and risen Lord,
whose death and resurrection were interpreted by Christ himself
as salvi:fic (point 1 above). "Christianity's fundamental conviction on redemption and grace is such that all men are offered
6

°For these two paragraphs, see C. Geffre, RSPT 54 (1970), 345-347.

61

Ibid., 868-369. Cf. Y. Cougar, "Bulletin de theologie," RSPT 56 (1972),

311-Sl!l.
60 W. Farrell, A Companion to the Summa
(New York: Sheed & Ward, 1948),
IV, 20-30. My own view, I think, is stronger than St. Thomas's. He concedes
" equal probablity " to the " Scotist " position, while yet adopting the " Thomist "
one. To my mind this is too charitable a concession to his opponents. The most
we could allow, from all that has been said, is that the Scotist position is" possible."

WilY DID THE SON OF GOD :BECOME MANr

$0$

divinizing and forgiving grace, but in such a way that a) only in
Christ, and not simply as man, and b) only as sin-forgiving is it
given. This is already clear from Jesus' own interpretation of
his death as redemption for all." 63
B) Christ enjoys primacy not as Christ in the abstract but as
crucified and risen (point 6 above). This is Pauline teaching
(points 2, 8, 4 above) . But Christ's death and resurrection are
salvific. Therefore Christ enjoys primacy only as Savior. 64
C) According to Eph. 1:22-28, Christ enjoys cosmic primacy
as head of the Church. The Church's function in history is
salvific (origin in the flow of blood and water from Christ's
side). Therefore the incarnation (of which the Church is the
asymptotic prolongation) is never considered apart from salvation.
Conclusion: a Christ who would be incarnated but not redeemer
falls totally outside the biblical perspectives.
2. This position does not reduce Christ to a mere means. According to 1 Cor. 1:80, Christ's priority is not absolute, that is,
there is a certain dependence on redemption. Similarly we might
say (as Thomas does) that the king exists for the rustic. This
can be expressed by saying that the finis cuius gmtia is first and
foremost Jesus; the finis cui is the redemption. This is the same
as saying that Christ's primacy takes on the special modality of
redemption.
8. Data non concesso that only the Son could become incarnate, it would be because there is only one decree of salvation
embracing equally creation and redemption. 65 The pattern on
which God created the universe is not simply the man Jesus but
the crucified and risen man Jesus. One cannot possibly conclude,
63 K. Rahner,
"Erbsiinde," Saaramentum Mundi (Freiburg: Herder, 1967), I,
1110.
64 F. Amiot, Les idees mattresses de saint Paul
(Paris: Cerf, 1959 and
41-46; S. Lyonnet, "La valeur soteriologique de la resurrection du Christ selon
saint Paul," G1·eg. 39 (1958),
65 " From eternity
God, . . . decreed to create the race of man, and foreseeing
the fall of Adam decreed to redeem the whole race by the Son's taking flesh,"
J. H. Newman, Meditations and Devotions (London: Longmans, 1953, 1963, 1967).
IV Sent., d. 43, q. 1, a.
qch., ad
Cf. Vat. II, Lumen Gentium, c.

S04

JEREMY MOISER

with any show of logicality, from Paul's doctrine of Christ the
Wisdom of God, that God created with a view to a non-redemptive incarnation, which is the Scotist position. To say, on the
other hand, that for Paul and John God created foreseeing a
redemptive incarnation in Jesus Christ is to say:
(a) that there is only one salvation decree embracing creation
and redemption;
(b) that this salvation decree is not the only possible one, because God created and recreated in freedom:
-which is the Thomist position.
4. Scotus's conclusion does not follow from his premises.
Thomas admits the force of Ps. Denis's apophthegm" Bonum
dijfusivum sui," 66 but where he concludes to the convenience of
the incarnation, Scotus concludes to its necessity. 67
5. Martelet's attempt at a compromise breaks down because of
his misunderstanding (and therefore misuse) of the hypothetical question in theology (point 7 above). In any case, what he
adopts from Scotus (the fact that the motive of the incarnation
is divinization) has been shown to fall outside the biblical perspectives. Further, he is forced to appeal to the spirit of the
Fathers' writings, not only the letter. 68 This already gives rise
to suspicion: recourse to the spirit means that his theory does
not square properly with the letter.
6. It is still possible, as Thomas points out, that the" Scotist"
view represents the facts, because " the full truth of the question
is known only to God." But it remains a sheer hypothesis without any evidence in revelation. 69 As a pure theological exercise,
one could even elaborate a whole system using it as a working
66 E. g., Summa Theol., III, q. 1, a. I; In Dian. De div. nom., lect. 1, cap. 4,
text us 95 (Marietti, fl69-27l) .
67 John Damascene concluded, from the nature of divine love as diffusive, to the
necessity of creation (De fide orth. fl, 2. PG 94, 864-865). But then his theology
of creation had lost the salvific bias of earlier theology: L. Scheffczyk, " Schopfung
und Vorsesung," Handbuch der Dogmengeschichte II, fla, ed. Schmaus-Grillmeier
(Freiburg: Herder, 1963), Ill.
68 "Sur le motif de !'incarnation"
(note 1), 76.
69 A. Feuillet
writes: " The question whether God would have been incarnate
if man had not sinned is properly speaking insoluble from scripture " (Le Christ
Sagesse de Dieu, 21ft).

WHY DID THE SON OF GOD BECOME MAN?

305

basis, but it would not perhaps find many adherents. This is
perhaps why Rahner's method is criticized: it is often more
philosophical than biblical-theological (point 8 above). Thus,
although it is perfectly legitimate, as a philosophical process, to
speculate on what would have happened if ... , one immediately
puts oneself outside the framework of salvation history. There
is no reason to suppose that God has revealed anything outside
salvation history. The Father is revealed as the author of salvation; the Spirit is revealed in a strongly salvific context as Counsellor and animator of the Church in history; the Word is not
revealed as pre-existent apart from history (point 3 above); if
creation is attributed to the Word-which according to " Scotist " writers implies that the Word has a function that is not
salvific-it is only insofar as creation is itself salvific. If, therefore, Rahner answers our question in the affirmative, he has
simply left the realm of theology, because he is no longer pondering the given of salvation history.
7. Finally, Rahner's idea that the structure of man is such
that he needs the incarnation of the Logos is an example of what
Schillebeeckx would call an essentialistic proposition, that is,
one that is theologically unfounded. 70 That man needs Christ is
not a datum of revelation. The only datum of scripture in this
sense, if the Bible is nothing but the announcement of salvation,
is that sinful man needs Christ the Redeemer. Revelation knows
only sinful man and Christ the Redeemer (that is, man as conditioned by the existentials of original sin and objective justification) ; it has nothing to say about man apart from his present
condition, or about Christ apart from his redemptive function as
the focus and consummation of salvation history. It could well
be that man as such needs the incarnation of the Logos as such;
but our source of information for such a statement could not
possibly be revelation, and therefore lies outside the immediate
scope of theology. It would be essentialistic where the Bible is
existential.
JEREMY MorsER

Oscott College
Warwicks, England
•• "Die Heiligung des Namens Gottes"

(see note 18 above), 77-78.

THE ROLE OF NEGATIVE ABSOLUTES IN
MORAL THEOLOGY: A NOTE

T

HE DIFFICULT TASK of trying to comprehend man
both in his being and in his becoming puts moral theology in a position not unlike that of the woman who confided to her grown daughter: " The two great problems of my
life have been your father and the stove; every time I turned to
watch one, the other went out." In our time man's being
threatens to "go out" on moral theology. This can happen if
moral theology looks away from negative absolutes. The necessity and origin of such absolutes is the subject of the following
reflections.
How is man aware of absoluteness at all? This question underlies the question of moral absolutes.
Prominent in man's consciousness is a type of absoluteness
that can be called logical absoluteness. To experience this the
reader is invited to voice the proposition: The whole is greater
than the part. He will recognize that his utterance has the
ability to withstand contradiction always and everywhere. Its
pure logical consistency is the bond of rational discourse among
men. Logical absoluteness, however, is not moral absoluteness.
The reason for saying this is that man does not experience moral
propositions as having logical absoluteness. For example, consider this principle: It is never licit to kill directly an innocent
person. If you state its opposite, you do not create the inherent
contradiction which you do when you say: The whole is not
greater than the part. Besides this direct recognition, there is
another reason why logical absoluteness cannot be identified
with moral absoluteness. Moral acts take place in the real
order-Adolph Hitler was really a mass murderer, and Pope
John was really a kind man-and to insist that the real order
coincide with the logical order produces a philosophical Idealism.

306

THE ROLE OF NEGATIVE ABSOLUTES

IN MORAL THEOLOGY

307

The failure of logical absoluteness to ground moral absolutes
does not, however, necessarily doom the latter to irrelevancy.
Man has a second type of consciousness of absoluteness. This is
his awareness of absoluteness in the ontological order. While
not so clear as his awareness of logical absoluteness, it is by no
means an inferior type. Just the opposite. Logical absoluteness
is not the model for ontological absoluteness, but rather is its
servant.
Man discovers this ontological absoluteness by reflecting not
on his navel but rather on his identity as a person. In acknowledging his continuity in the process of becoming, man asserts
that he is somehow the owner of the process rather than its
property. Moreover, such ownership is seen as necessarily uncircumscribed by boundary lines. Were it not uncircumscribed,
man could read the deed of his being and thus grasp himself as a
fait accompli-an especially unpalatable conclusion for modern
man.
To say that man is aware of the absoluteness of being is to
say that he recognizes that as a person he transcends time and
space. It is not to say that he acknowledges pure absoluteness,
though he may realize that it is possible for him to move in this
direction. St. John expresses this when he writes," Beloved, we
are God's children now; it does not yet appear what we shall be,
but we know when he appears we shall be like him, for we shall
see him as he is. And every one who thus hopes in him purifies
himself as he is pure." (I John 3:
Precisely because man's absoluteness is not yet pure, its expression is a problem. If man tries formally to express the
absoluteness of his being he will perforce crowd out the expression of his becoming. The result will be a trip down the road
toward monism. On the other hand, if man does not effectively express the absoluteness of his being, he will be swept
away in the flood of becoming.
Negative moral absolutes solve this problem of expression
and reflect, inasmuch as every negation must ultimately be
based on an affirmation, the absoluteness (i.e., the achieved

308

JAMES W. DE ADDER

being) of man. Inasmuch as negative absolutes do not positively affirm the absoluteness of man, they avoid exposing such
absoluteness on a conceptual level to the contradiction of human
becoming. Thus it is possible for man to express his absolute
dignity by such an injunction as: Killing the innocent directly
is never licit, without equating himself to God.
Underlying the foregoing explanation is, of course, the premise
that the moral order is oriented to the fulfillment of the ontological order. Unfortunately, this premise is often obscured because compliance is placed as the dominant goal of moral action.
Under the sovereignty of compliance man recognizes himself
only as an agent designated to perform tasks separate from his
core-self. He likens himself to a contractor who is commissioned
to build according to architects' blueprints. He considers himself moral if he, too, "adheres to specifications." Compliance
is seen as bringing rewards up to, and including, membership in
the eschatological Kingdom of God. Yet, in spite of promised
rewards, stress on compliance tends to alienate man. He feels
the urge to revolt and " do his own thing." Such uprising is not
necessarily inspired by human perversity. To say, on the one
hand, that man can experience the absolute in himself, and to
say, on the other hand, that compliance is his ultimate goal, is
not a paradox; it is a contradiction. Even the time-honored
styling of man as the servant of God deserves review today;
here again, not because of insurgent pride, but because in a fastmoving world we tend to overlook the warning sign, ANALOGY.
Careless univocal designation of man as servant to God-with
the acme of his perfection in compliance-is simply unfair to the
being of man. Moreover, it clashes with the Johannine emphasis
on the superiority of friendship over servitude (John 15: 15).
With compliance properly subordinated to being, however, man
is able to return to his true self, and to the true worship of God.
Being through becoming (in Christ as Zenith) is recognizable
as the ultimate goal of man's activity, and compliance is for the
purpose thereof. Consequently, the principle underlying negative moral absolutes is this: man is always and everywhere

THE ROLE OF NEGATIVE ABSOLUTES

IN MORAL THEOLOGY

309

bound by negative rules, not in virtue of what he must not do
but in virtue of who he is.
A look at how man discovers who he is will further clarify the
role of negative moral absolutes. The process is a communal one
carried on in materiality. Space and time are, therefore, the
dimensions in which the ever increasing (or decreasing) awareness of man's being takes place. These dimensions dictate that
the process be an inductive operation. Therefore, since experience, hypothesis, and trial-and-error verification mark the way
to man's understanding of who he is, they likewise mark the way
to the formulation of negative moral absolutes. However, it
should be noted that the induction spoken of here has an aspect
not found in ordinary scientific induction. This moral induction,
while it also proceeds from sense experience, ultimately results
in an understanding of the one who experiences as well as his
experience. It thus conveys an absoluteness which would of
necessity be foreign to the process of induction as carried on by
what we today term " science."
It might seem that such inductive derivation of negative
moral absolutes would conflict with the function of the Church's
teaching authority. However, I believe that it does not. From
a natural standpoint, social authority is required to preserve
what the community has inductively achieved in understanding
man's being. For example, we readily call upon our Bill of
Rights. Authority also functions to propose legal hypotheses to
promote our well-being. These in turn are subjected to verification by acceptance or rejection, as happened to Prohibition.
Now when we consider that the Church promotes in a non-alien
way the even more real becoming of man (" I have come so that
they may have life and have it to the full." John 10: 10),
inductive derivation of moral absolutes-with the resulting intensity of conviction peculiar to the believer-can be seen as
intimately connected with the Church's teaching authority.
An infallible pronouncement of a negative moral absolute,
admittedly hard to find, does not have to be seen as an exclusive
revelation from God. It can be seen, I believe, as the definitive
confirmation of a moral truth of which the faithful have already

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JAMES W. DEADDER

gained some awareness. For example, if there should be a papal
definition of the absolute wrongfulness of directly killing the
innocent, this would not be the injection of a truth by the Pope
into the community of believers. It would rather be the solemn
ratification, in virtue of man fulfilling his being through faith in
Christ and his Church, of a conviction which, by an inductive
process, had already entered the consciousness of mankind.
Furthermore, a non-infallible pronouncement seems to me not
only not to contradict the inductive derivation of negative moral
absolutes but to promote it actively. This type of magisterial
teaching calls not for irreformable acceptance but for religious
submission of mind and will. On the one hand, such submission
allows-with all of the proper conditions met-the possibility
of the believer's remaining open for the non-verification of the
pronouncement. On the other hand, in a positive vein, such
submission invites the believer to accept the teaching and live
with it in such a way that it becomes recognized as expressing
the absoluteness he himself has achieved in the community of
the faithful.
It is worth pointing out again that this recognition is not the
shout of" Q.E.D." The perception of negative moral absolutes
is the experience of each moral agent, an experience especially
enhanced for those in the community of faith which is the
Church. Demonstration may have helped to bring the subject
to the experience, or demonstration may flow from the experience. ffitimately, however, the experience of moral absoluteness
is deeper than demonstration; its homeland is not logic but
being.
Seeing negative moral absolutes as reflecting the achieved
being (absoluteness) of man can, I think, offer a possible answer
to those who question the necessity of such absolutes. For example, the well-known moral theologian, Charles E. Curran, has
attempted to show that Roman Catholic theology is not unalterably committed to a generic insistence on absolute norms in
ethical conduct. 1 His method is to dispute two alleged sources
1 Charles E. Curran, A New Look at Christian Morality (Notre Dame, Indiana:
Fides Publishers, 1968), pp. 73-123.

THE ROLE OF NEGATIVE ABSOLUTES

IN MORAL THEOLOGY

811

of absolutism: natural law and the teaching authority of the
Church. In addition, he maintains that a new ecclesiological and
sociological understanding of the Church, on the one hand, and
a new theological method, on the other, undermine the traditional support for moral absolutes. Father Curran's arguments
would be compelling except for the fact, I believe, that natural
law and the teaching authority of the Church are not really the
ultimate fonts of negative moral absolutes.
Father Curran points out that natural law " does not designate a monolithic philosophical system with an agreed upon
code of ethical conduct which has existed throughout the history
of the Catholic Church.'' I agree with this statement. What I
say in addition, however, is that because absoluteness is not
found in a philosophy of natural law, we are not precluded from
finding absoluteness in the being of the philosopher himself.
This is what I tried to do above. Moreover, an inductive
journey to moral absolutes would not seem to need the aid of a
perennially existing philosophical roadmap of ethical conduct.
In like manner, I think that the teaching authority of the
Church is not the basic source of the absoluteness expressed by
negative moral absolutes. While the Magisterium plays an
essential role in the development of awareness of moral absoluteness in the subjects who constitute the community of believers,
it does not inject absoluteness itself. It could only do so by
exercising a voluntarism transmitting a direct ontological experience of the Divine Will. Since such a moral Ontologism is
unacceptable, the Magisterium must be seen as the educer,
rather than the creator, of absoluteness. Thus the development
in official teaching, of which Father Curran speaks, would not
seem to me to be out of phase with the process of magisterial
education. For example, I believe that we are just now arriving
at the absolute wrongfulness of forced self-incrimination.
Neither do I think that negative absolutes should be retired
from moral theology because they do not receive the same
port from the new ecclesiological and sociological understanding
of the Church as they received from an older, more authoritarian
perception. If you grant that the absoluteness of negative moral

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JAMES W. DEADDER

absolutes is not imposed upon man ab extra, the decline of
authoritarian support is not necessarily to be lamented. Rather,
it even can be approved. If authority contributes the major
support to moral absolutes beyond the time of historical necessity, it can prevent man from developing the sense of his own
being which these absolutes are meant to reflect.
Lastly, I do not see the replacement of a classicist theological
methodology by an historically conscious methodology as obviating negative absolutes. I admit that it would do so if moral
absoluteness were logical absoluteness. In such a case, given the
demise of classicist methodology, the moral consciousness would
no longer have a deductive gridwork to travel from universal
principle to particular conclusion. Without this gridwork there
would be no unity and therefore no absoluteness in any moral
conclusion. However, with moral absoluteness seen not as flowing from a logical gridwork, but rather as an ontological achievement along an inductive path, the methodology must be historically conscious.
In conclusion, let me say that by no means do I think that
negative moral absolutes are essentially the whole of moral
theology. They do, I believe, represent moral theology's systolic
grasp of man's being. Together with such an achievement goes
an equally important diastolic thrust into man's becoming. This
is the area of behavior in which the diversity of circumstances is
potentially unlimited. Both the systolic and the diastolic must
be found in moral theology until man has finished his journey
through time. Only then will God be All in All.
JAMES

Pope John XXIII National Seminary
Weston, Massachusetts

w. DEAnDER

SCIENCE AND RELIGION IN DESCARTES'
MEDITATIONS 1

D

I

ESCARTES' WORK HAS always been among the most
problematic in the history of philosophy, combining, as
it does, genius and clarity with apparent inconsistency
and circularity. Since these latter difficulties generally involve
a tension between theological and rationalistic strains in his
thought, they have occasioned such explanations as the "dual
allegiance " theory, according to which Descartes was so
strongly under the influence of his Catholic training, and took
his religious beliefs so for granted, that he failed to perceive that
they were challenged by his rationalist philosophy; and the
" insincerity " theory, according to which he was aware that his
religious statements conflicted with his rationalism, but maintained them for prudential reasons, such as to ingratiate himself with the powerful church. The former view may thus be
said to give the benefit of the doubt to Descartes' honesty, the
latter to his acuity.
The latter view has never been the dominant one, though it
has been advocated periodically, beginning with some of Descartes' contemporaries. Bernard Williams, in his article on
Descartes in The Encyclopaedia of Philosophy (New York and
London: Macmillan, 1967) , writes that Descartes' suppression
of his early treatise, Le Monde, when he learned of Galileo's
condemnation,
reveals that spirit of caution and conciliation toward authority
which was very marked in him (and which earned the disapproval
of some, including Leibniz and Bossuet) . The suppression also
1 For much in this article I am indebted to Richard Kennington and Stanley
Rosen.

313

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KENNETH DORTER

affected the subsequent course of his publications, which were from
then on strategically designed to recommend his less orthodox views
in an oblique fashion. (p. 344)
This is, I think, undeniable. The question is, how unorthodox
were his "less orthodox" views, and would his "obliqueness"
extend to presenting unorthodox views masked as orthodox
views which he believed to be false? 2
Betty Powell has made use of this theory in a recent paper, 3
arguing that Descartes was more of a mechanist than commonly
supposed and that his dualism was ultimately an explanatory
rather than substantial dualism. Descartes' attitude, she claims,
was that the mind which explains the world in mechanistic terms
cannot itself be regarded mechanistically, or an infinite regress
would develop which would render the explanation uncompleteable. She suggests that Descartes posited mind as distinct
from body so that it would function in explanation as outside
the events to be explained, thus precluding an infinite regress.
Thus it does not entail, she points out, the belief that men are
not machines. To be sure, Descartes speaks as if it does; but she
gives evidence that, for reasons of personal prudence in an age
of persecution and concern for public morality in an age of
dogmatic faith, Descartes was sometimes careful not to reveal
his true views to the reader.
I am interested here not so much in examining Miss Powell's
thesis in particular as the general attitude toward Descartes
which it implies. If, as this theory suggests, Descartes was
capable of dissimulation so as to present his unorthodox views in
the guise of orthodoxy, does it mean that we cannot trust his
orthodox statements at all, and must be suspicious of his philosophy wherever it seems at all orthodox, such as in his theology
• The term " orthodoxy " in this context is somewhat ambiguous, since, if one
takes orthodoxy to mean 17th century Thomism, Descartes is not orthodox in any
case. In what follows I shall use " orthodox " (if not quite accurately) to refer
to theological views which might be acceptab1e to, though not necessarily identical
with, the prevailing orthodoxy.
3 " Descartes' Machines,"
in Proceedings of the Aristotelian Society 71 (1970-1),
pp. 209-22.

SCIENCE

AND RELIGION

IN DESCARTES'

"MEDITATIONS

"

315

or his anti-materialism? The present study is an attempt to
discover what sort of picture of Descartes' philosophy would
emerge from such an interpretation, and what evidence exists
for it.
There is no question that Descartes sometimes acted from
motives of personal prudence, such as in his suppression of
Le JYIonde, and it is also obvious that he was aware of the danger
to public morality posed by any statements that might undermine religious faith. Near the beginning of the letter to the
theologians of the Sorbo nne, which prefaces the Meditations,
he writes:
And since in this life one frequently finds greater rewards offered
for vice than for virtue, few persons would prefer the just to the
useful if they were not restrained either by the fear of God or by
the expectation of another life. (p. fl) 4
And in the Discourse on Method he says:
next to the error of those who deny God, which I think I have sufficiently refuted, there is none which is so apt to make weak characters stray from the path of virtue as the idea that the souls of
animals are of the same nature as our own, and that in consequence
we have no more to fear or to hope for after this life than have the
flies and ants. (p. 574)
Nor is there any question but that in times of persecution people
must often veil their true beliefs, or not be heard at alJ.5 Schopenhauer interprets Vanini in this way, 6 and Russell's interpretation of Leibniz is similar. That this sort of dissimulative
writing was fairly common is witnessed by Kant's reference to
it in the Critique of Pure Reason (A749). Even David Hume,
living at a more liberal time in a more tolerant country, put his
skeptical views " Of a Particular Providence and a Future
• All page references to Descartes are to Adam and Tannery's edition of the
Latin text. Translations are either by Laurence J. Lafleur (Descartes' Jtleditations,
1960, and Philosophical Essays, 1964, New York: Bobbs-Merrill) or are my own.
5 Cf. Leo Strauss,
Persecution and the Art of Writing (Glencoe, lllinois: The
Free Press, 195fl) .
6 Essay on Frreedom of the Will (New York:
Bobbs-Merrill, 1960), p. 71.

316

KENNETH

DORTER

State " into the mouth of a presumably fictitious " friend," while
expressing, in his own person, fears that these views might be
detrimental to public morality-a device which he expanded
when he further elaborated these views in Dialogues Concerning
Natural Religion.
None of this, of course, is evidence that Descartes was less
than sincere in his writing. At most it establishes a certain historical context within which such a claim might be made intelligible, whereas in our own society it would scarcely be credible,
as freedom of speech and publication is prevalent, and the public is kept well informed of any opinions likely to endanger its
traditional beliefs and morality. This historical dimension, particularly the historical evidence for supposing Descartes to have
been insincere in his religious statements, is discussed in depth
in a recent article by Hiram Caton, 7 who makes an impressive
case for doubting Descartes' sincerity. It is necessary, however,
to examine also the internal evidence of Descartes' work, to see
whether it accords with this conclusion and, if so, exactly what
is at stake in the issue. To this end, let us examine Descartes'
most popular work, the Meditations. In particular, I shall discuss five issues in which there appears to be some tension between the religious and scientific sides of his thought and which
thus seem to afford a good basis for our inquiry: 1) whether
religious truths can be demonstrated by reason alone, 2) the
aim of the Meditations, 3) whether clear and distinct ideas are
indubitable, 4) the proofs for the existence of God, and 5)
whether mind and body are distinct substances.

II
REASON AND FAITH

The Aim of the Meditations
As Descartes hoped to assure maximum circulation for his
works, he was anxious that the powerful church give its approval
to them rather than condemning them and placing them on the
•" The Problem of Descartes' Sincerity," in The Philosophical Forum 2 (1971),
pp. 355-70.

SCIENCE

AND RELIGION

IN DESCARTES'

" MEDITATIONS "

317

index of forbidden books as it eventually did. Accordingly, he
wrote to the theologians of the Sorbonne, who entirely dominated the intellectual world of France, seeking their approval of
the Meditations. Descartes published the letter with the M editations, since it purports to be " a brief statement of what I
herein propose to do." (p. 1) In it he proposes to convince the
atheists of the two " principal questions " of philosophy: the
existence of God and the immortality of the soul. Since the
atheists lack the faith with which to believe, they must have
things proven by natural reason alone. Accordingly, Descartes
says he will show how " we can know God more easily and more
certainly than we know the things of the world," (p. 2) and will
attempt to refute those who argue that the soul perishes with
the body. (p. 3) It is his aim to give these truths "so clear
and exact a presentation that it would thenceforward be evident
to everyone that they are valid demonstrations." (p. 3)
In the next paragraph, however, he states that " not everyone
will be able to understand them " because of the complexity of
the subject. Accordingly, he decides, " I do not suppose that
they will have any great effect unless you take them under your
protection," (p. 5) and he concludes that the authority of the
theologians
will cause the atheists, who are ordinarily more arrogant than
learned and judicious, to set aside their spirit of contradiction, or
perhaps themselves defend the arguments which they see being
accepted as demonstrations by all intelligent people, for fear of
appearing not to understand them. (p. 6)

I think it is fair to say that this letter ends on a different note
from where it began. It begins by saying that we can know God
" more easily " than the things of this world, and that the proofs
will be so " clear " that their validity will be " evident to everyone," and ends by saying that they are so difficult and complicated that very few will be able to follow them. Similarly, it
begins by saying that the work is directed to atheists who accept
only what is proven by natural reason, and ends by saying that
the atheists will be convinced more by their respect for the

818

KENNETH

DORTER

judgment of the theologians (who were burning them for
heresy) than by any of the reasonings Descartes advances. This
vacillation provokes the question of whether Descartes was sincere in proclaiming the proofs of God's existence and the soul's
immortality as the principal aim of the Meditations. It is worth
turning to the Meditations to see whether this seems to be its
primary objective.
In the case of immortality, the answer comes surprisingly
soon. After stating in the letter that it is one of the two most
important questions, he tells us in the synopsis that he has not
fully treated the subject,
partly because we have already discovered enough to show with
sufficient clarity that the corruption of the body does not entail the
death of the soul, and so to give men the hope of a second life after
death; and partly because the premises from which the immortality
of the soul may be concluded depend upon the explanation of the
whole of physics. (p. 13)
Thus, although he has fulfilled his promise to try to refute those
who argue that the soul perishes with the body, it can scarcely
be said to occupy a prominent place in the Meditations, and does
nothing more than give us the " hope" of an afterlife.
As to the proof for God's existence, he relates one such proof
in the letter itself:
It is absolutely true, both that we must believe that there is a God
because it is so taught in the Holy Scriptures, and, on the other
hand, that we must believe the Holy Scriptures because they come
from God ... Nevertheless, we could hardly offer this argument to
those without faith, for they might suppose that we were committing the fallacy that logicians call circular reasoning. (p. 3)

They certainly might. Of course, this is precisely what people
have accused Descartes of doing in his own proof for God's
existence, a proof which seems to be a triple circle. On the basis
of the cogito argument he establishes the" general principle that
everything which we conceive very clearly and very distinctly
is wholly true." (p. 85) He then uses this principle to prove the
existence of God. (e.g., p. 46; cf. the summary on p. 58) Next

SCIENCE

AND RELIGION

IN DESCARTES'

" MEDITATIONS "

319

he uses the fact of God's existence to prove that clear and distinct ideas must be true. (p. 62) Having now established that
principle again, he uses it again to prove the existence of God.
(p. 65) And, having done so, he finds that he can now" infer as
a consequence that everything which I conceive clearly and
distinctly is necessarily true." (p. 70) This circularity is, in
fact, reflected in the chapter headings: the third meditation is
entitled" 0£ God: That He Exists"; the fourth," 0£ the True
and the False" (devoted to proving the truth of clear and distinct
ideas); and the fifth," 0£ the Essence of Material Things, and,
Once More, of God: That He Exists."
The periodic attempts to rescue Descartes from the charge of
circularity, usually by drawing distinctions of one sort or another to show that the circularity is merely apparent, not
vicious, have done little to alter the belie£ that the arugment is
fundamentally circular. Probably the best known of these is the
claim that when Descartes derives the certitude of clear and
distinct ideas from the existence of God it is not to be regarded
as a required deduction, which would make the argument circular, but only as a confirmation, which would not. However,
Descartes explicitly precludes this. Upon completing the third
and final lap of the circle, he says of the knowledge of God that
" the certainty of all other things depends upon this so absolutely that, without this knowledge, it is impossible ever to be
able to know anything perfectly." (p. 69) The importance of this
statement is indicated by the fact that he repeats it two pages
later: " And thus I recognize very clearly that the certainty and
truth of all knowledge depends solely on the knowledge of the
true God, so that before I knew him I could not know any other
thing perfectly." (p. 71) Also in the synopsis of this, the fifth
meditation, he says: " I show how it is true that even the certainty of geometrical demonstrations themselves depends on the
knowledge of God." (p. 15)
The fact that a work written by a brilliant mathematician
and logician, which is modeled after geometrical deduction, and
whose opening page contains a warning against circular argu-

3fl0

KENNETH

DORTER

ments, should contain a glaring triple circle in the main course of
its argument is not in itself proof of any insincerity on the part
of Descartes, but it certainly admits the possibility. In any case,
since the function of the knowledge of God is to assure the truth
of clear and distinct ideas, whereas this truth was already presupposed in arriving at this knowledge; the knowledge of God,
like that of the immortality of the soul, turns out to be an inessential part of the overall position of the Meditationswhether Descartes realized this or not. I£ this is true, it would
seem that, though Descartes may be sincere in his efforts to
demonstrate God and immortality, he seems to have been insincere in telling the theologians that these were the primary
aims of the Meditations. Since the importance of the knowledge
of God is to assure the truth of clear and distinct ideas, certitude
would appear to be the primary aim and knowledge of God a
subordinate one.
Certainly this is the impression given by the opening paragraph of the Meditations, which suggests that its chief aim is
to achieve "firm and constant lmowledge in the sciences." In
fact, he wrote to Mersenne that the Meditations is actually a
presentation of his physics but that he would not like this generally known, as the opposition of these principles to the Aristotelian ones would prejudice people against him. He hopes his
principles will penetrate insensibly, so that people will recognize
their truth before realizing the consequences to which they lead. 8
An example of how Descartes hoped to achieve this may be seen
from the ensuing pages of the first meditation.
He raises the question of what can be known with certainty.
The only thing certain in sense perception, he argues, is that
images are present to him. Whether they resemble, or even are
caused by things external to him cannot be determined, for he
might be asleep. (pp. 18-9) He therefore turns from sensation
to imagination: is there anything certainly true in these images,
or might they all be pure fabrication? The ultimate elements,
at least, of these images cannot be fabricated but are rather
8

Adam and Tannery edition, vol. III, pp. 297-8.

SCIENCE

AND RELIGION

IN DESCARTES'

" MEDITATIONS "

3!21

" simple and universal concepts which are true and existent ...
such as corporeal nature in general and its extension," (p.
from the mixture of which, as with the mixture of colors, all
images are formed. Corporeal nature and its extension, the only
such concept Descartes mentions, includes shape, quantity (size
and number) , place, time, etc. All these categories have one
thing in common: they are measurable and thus reducible to
number. This is true even of shape, thanks to Descartes' analytical geometry. It is because number thus turns out to be a
fundamental constitutive concept of our experience,
that physics, astronomy, medicine, and all the other sciences which
follow from the consideration of composite entities are very dubious
and uncertain; whereas arithmetic, geometry, and the other sciences
of this nature, which treat only of very simple and general things
without concerning themselves as to whether they occur in nature
or not, contain some element of certainty and sureness. (p. flO)
The clear implication of this is that if any certainty is to be
achieved in the sciences, the Aristotelian sciences must be
replaced by mathematical sciences, since the common denominator of all our experience is number.
Similarly, in the second meditation, Descartes proposes to
observe the operations of the mind by melting a piece of wax
and inquiring how we know the wax is the same. (p. 30) It
cannot be by our senses, for all its sensible qualities have now
changed. Neither can it be by our imagination, for, although
we may imagine a great many of the wax's possible transformations, " I conceive it capable of undergoing an infinity of similar
changes, and I could not compass this infinity in my imagination." Therefore the understanding alone conceives the essential nature of the wax: " its perception of it is clear and distinct
... as I attend ... to the things which are in it and of which it
is composed." (p. 31) The essence of the wax is thus its elemental composition, i.e., its material nature or corporeal extension. "And what I have said here about the wax can be applied
to all other things which are external to me." (p. 33) So here,
elaborating the implications of the earlier passage, we are told

KENNETH

DORTE:R

that the essence of everything in the sensible world is its corporeal extension. In the earlier passage this argument was used to
discredit the formal sciences; here, by implication, the doctrine
of forms itself is swept away. Contrary to Aristotle's teaching,
the essence of the wax does not lie in its form: " a body which a
little while ago appeared to my senses under these forms . . .
now makes itself felt under others." (p. 30)
In another letter to Mersenne, the year the Meditations was
published, Descartes wrote:
I have decided to ... fight with their own weapons the people who
confound Aristotle with the Bible and abuse the authority of the
church in order to vent their passions-! mean the people who had
Galileo condemned. They would have my views condemned likewise if they had the power; but if there is ever any question of that,
I am confident I can show that none of the tenets of their philosophy accords with the Faith so well as my doctrines. 9

Descartes' aim was to oppose the principles of Aristotle, while
maintaining that his own principles do not violate religious
dogma. But this could not be done openly, as the people whose
views he attacks in the above letter dominated the intellectual
life of France, including the Sorbonne. That is why, as we have
seen, Descartes had to smuggle the principles of his physics
surreptitiously into discussions of epistemology, which happens
with a regularity that bears out his claim to Mersenne that they
are the principal purpose of the Meditations. I think it is fair to
suggest that Descartes was insincere in giving the theologians
the impression that the Meditations was primarily a theological
work, although this does not mean that the theological aspect
of theM editationsis itself necessarily insincere. Descartes might,
after all, have been sincere in his religious statements, although
knowing them to be less central to his work than he would like
the theologians-whose support he needed-to believe.
It is possible, of course, that some further insincerity may
have been occasioned by the need to disguise his anti-Aristotel• Descartes' Philosophical Letters, edited and translated
(Oxford UP, 1970), p. 98.

by Anthony

Kenny

SCIENCE

AND RELIGION

IN DESCARTES'

" MEDITATIONS "

ianism. Descartes had said that the conclusions which followed
from his experiment with the wax applied to all external things,
but his illustration of these conclusions by means of something
relatively formless like wax makes it easy not to notice that
what is at stake here is the doctrine of forms. Had he chosen the
human body as an example and, after rearranging its parts,
asked whether the same body remains, he could scarcely have
replied, "no one denies it, no one judges otherwise." (p. 30)
As he himself states in the synopsis of this same meditation,
" the human body becomes a different entity from the mere
fact that the shape of some of its parts has been changed." (p.
14) But this is contradicted by what he demonstrates in the
meditation itself: with regard to all external things (i.e.,
bodies), they remain the same as long as their constituent matter remains the same. Descartes may have contradicted this
deliberately, in the hope of covering his tracks by paying lip
service to the hallowed principle his argument implicitly denies;
or he may have done so inadvertently, as a result of the lingering effects of his Thomist training. We can best pursue this
question by examining the theological portions of the M editations.

III
CLEAR AND DISTINCT

IDEAS

The tension between the theological and rationalist dimensions of the Meditations is probably most evident in Descartes'
effort to prove the indubitability of clear and distinct ideas in
the face of the hypothesis of an all powerful, evil deity. As the
embodiment of his skeptical method, Descartes supposes the
existence of a God who is all powerful and intent on deceiving
him. Only if some conviction can prevail against this radical
hypothesis is certitude possible. The struggle thus emerges as
one between the omnipotence of a God and the certitude of
reason. Is there anything, given the evil deity, not open to
doubt?
"Without doubt I existed if I was convinced, or even if I

KENNETH DORTEn

thought anything." (p.
It is indubitable, then, that if one
thinks, one is. The basis for this certitude is later seen to be
" the clear and distinct perception of what I affirm. . . . And
therefore it seems to me that I can already establish as a general
principle that everything which we conceive very clearly and
very distinctly is wholly true." (p. 35) But what is it about
clear and distinct ideas that makes them immune to a God's
omnipotence?
Every time that this idea of the supreme power of a God, as previously conceived, occurs to me, I am constrained to admit that it is
easy for him, if he wishes it, to bring it about that I am wrong even
in those matters which I believe I perceive with the greatest possible
obviousness. And on the other hand, every time I turn to the things
I think I conceive very clearly, I am so convinced by them that I
am spontaneously led to proclaim: " Let him deceive me who can;
he will never be able to bring it about that I am nothing while I
think I am something, or, it being true that I now am, that it will
some day be true that I have never been, or that two and three
joined together make more or less than five, or similar things in
which I recognize a manifest contradiction and which I see clearly
could not be otherwise than as I conceive them." (p. 36)
It is clear from this that the certitude of clear and distinct
ideas, including the cogito, lies in the fact that their denial
involves "a manifest contradiction." It is also clear, however,
that the certitude of clear and distinct ideas does not circumvent the omnipotent deceiver hypothesis after all. On the hypothesis of an omnipotent God nothing is certain: there is no
justification for withholding even the law of non-contradiction
from his omnipotence-as is evident from its inclusion in the
contrasting half of the dilemma-and I may be wrong about
even what seems most obvious, most clear and distinct. On the
other hand, according to the doctrine of clear and distinct ideas,
some things are certain: I am sure that even an omnipotent God
cannot deceive me on matters whose denial implies a manifest
contradiction.
The doctrines are thus wholly incompatible-one making
certitude possible, the other making it impossible-and there

SCIENCE

AND RELIGION

IN DESCARTES'

" MEDITATIONS "

seems to be no way o£ resolving the dilemma without simply
rejecting one o£ the premisses. It is clear which hypothesis-an
omnipotent God or the indubitability o£ logical laws-has more
force £or Descartes. The law o£ non-contradiction is equivalent
to clarity and distinctness, whereas the omnipotent God was
first introduced only as an "old opinion," (p.
which is,
after all, precisely the sort o£ thing that Descartes had resolved
to set aside at the outset. And here the omnipotent deity is
called merely an " idea " which " occurs to me," whereas the
opposing ideas are perceived " with the greatest possible obviousness," are conceived "very clearly," and are depicted as
indubitable. Unlike the law o£ non-contradiction, the hypothesis
o£ an omnipotent God is, at least at this point, far from indubitable. It was tacitly weakened in establishing the cogito argument
and is here sacrificed in favor o£ the rationalist premiss: Descartes resolves the present dilemma by reminding us that we do
not yet know whether God even exists. He does not express any
similar reservations about the laws o£ logic, and when the time
comes to prove the existence o£ God these laws are, o£ course,
already presupposed.
The dilemma was set up in such a way that it could be resolved only by rejecting one premiss in favor o£ the other. Had
the theological premiss been preferred, the result could only
have been skepticism. I£ reason is not autonomous, there is no
way out o£ the uncertainty posed by the omnipotence o£ God;
even our existence cannot be demonstrated i£ a contradiction
might be made true. By their condemnation o£ Galileo, the
theologians showed that they would not accept the autonomy
o£ reason: reason must be in the service o£ faith and must demonstrate only what faith first affirms. Accordingly, this is the
position from which, Descartes assured the theologians, the
Meditations was written: to demonstrate by reason the truths
o£ faith. (p. 3) What the Meditations actually shows, however,
is the contrary: i£ reason is not allowed autonomy, i£ we cannot
absolutely trust its fundamental principles against the possibility o£ deception, then the logical outcome must be rational
skepticism, not rational theology.

KENNETH DORTER

Here again we see that the theological considerations of the

Meditations are not as central to Descartes' purposes as he suggested to the theologians, and further, that reason must be
given precedence over them if skepticism is to be avoided. But
while this may diminish the relative importance of the theology
of the Meditations, it does not, once again, demonstrate its
insincerity. For this question, let us turn to his more explicit
theology, the proofs for the existence of God.

IV
THE ExiSTENCE OF GoD

There are three (perhaps more) fundamental reasons why
one might question the sincerity of Descartes' proofs for the
existence of God. The first is the aforementioned circularity,
which seems to render the establishment of God's existence
superfluous to Descartes' system, rather than an essential part
of it. It might be concluded from this that this section was
arbitrarily grafted onto the work, and springs, therefore, not
from any philosophical necessity but from the political necessity of gratifying the theologians. This interpretation cannot
be conclusively demonstrated, but it is certainly possible.
A second reason stems from the language and style of the first,
and main, proof, which is remarkably uncartesian. Descartes
has been insisting on clarity, lucidity, and simplicity. To avoid
error it is of the utmost importance that we move slowly and
transparently, avoiding any terms that have not been clearly
explained and understood, as is done in mathematics. (c£. p.
13) On the basis of these principles Descartes rejected Aristotle's definition of man as" rational animal," for he "would
have to determine what an 'animal' is and what is meant by
'rational'." (p. Q5) Of course, it was convenient for Descartes
to be able to dismiss Aristotle in so uncontroversial a manner,
but there can be no doubt of the importance to him of the principles of clarity and simplicity. Yet as soon as we come to the
main proof for the existence of God, these principles of clarity
and distinctness are abandoned. Instead we are deluged with

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the whole apparatus of technical scholasticism, without a single
explanation. Whereas before he found " rational animal " too
opaque for his method, he now uncritically employs such terms
as " substance," " objective reality," " actual reality," "formal
reality," " participation by representation," " degrees of being,"
"degrees of perfection," "modes," "accidents," "formal causality," " eminent causality," "material truth," "material falsity," etc., without definition, let alone inquiry as to whether
they signify anything real. Far from being clear and distinct,
the proof is obscure and confusing, despite the fact that it is
essentially rather simple and could easily have been stated in
clear terms. The style and language of the proof seem so out of
character with the general procedure of the M editation8, that
it is easy to believe that it is not part of the fabric of the whole,
and was written from a different position than the rest of the
work.
The third reason is the fact that elsewhere in the M editatiom
Descartes denies some of the essential premisses on which the
proof is based. Put briefly and simply, the argument is to the
effect that if my concept of God (infinite substance) cannot
have been synthesized by me from its constituent elements
(caused eminently), it must derive from nothing less than
infinite substance itself, as the latter's image (caused formally),
and thus infinite substance (God) must exist. The minor
premiss is that we cannot synthesize the concept " infinite substance " from its components, and the conclusion is said to follow. Obviously it is the minor premiss that requires the most
scrutiny, as it is much less evident than the major. The reason
we cannot synthesize the idea of infinite substance is that,
although we can derive the idea of " substance " from ourselves,
since we are substances, we cannot derive that of " infinite "
from ourselves, since we are wholly finite. (p. 45) Clearly,
then, if there were something infinite in our nature, we could
synthesize the concept of " infinite substance " and the argument would collapse. And, as a matter of fact, in the very next
meditation Descartes tells us that there is something infinite

KENNETH DORTER

in our nature, our will, and that " this is what principally indicates to me that I am made in the image and likeness of God."
(pp. 56-7) If the infinity of our will is thus an image of God, it
is also capable of furnishing us with the notion of infinity with
which the idea of God can be constructed, and the proof collapses.
Suppose that we do not agree with Descartes that the will is
infinite, can we derive the idea of infinity by negating that of
finitude, i.e., by thinking away the limits of something finite
and thus extending it indefinitely? Descartes denies this, claiming that the idea of the infinite is prior to that of the finite:
For how would it be possible for me to know that I doubt and that
I desire-that is, that I lack something and am not all perfect-if
I did not have in myself any idea of a being more perfect than my
own, by comparison with which I might recognize the defects of my
own nature? (pp. 45-6)
Yet, after here maintaining that we cannot arrive at the idea of
God by extending our idea of finite substance, he tells Hobbes
that we attain the idea of God's infinite intellect, not because
it is in us as the formal effect of God but that " it is by extending [our idea of our finite intellect] indefinitely that we form
the idea of the intellectual activity of God; similarly also with
God's other attributes." 10 It seems, then, that we do formulate
the idea of infinite substance by extending that of finite substance, after all. What then of Descartes' question: how could
we be aware of our finitude at all if we did not first have an
idea of infinity with which to compare it? Descartes removes
this difficulty on the next page:
Is it not even a most certain and infallible proof of the imperfection
of my knowledge that it can grow little by little and increase by
degrees? (p. 47)
Thus it seems that we can know that we are finite by noticing
that we are improvable, for which we do not require the concept
of infinity but only of some higher finite state. Furthermore,
10

Objections, III, reply to Objection X.

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it seems, by extending this finite idea of ourselves indefinitely
we can arrive at the conception of infinity, and once again the
proof collapses.
Descartes thus denies in short order two of the fundamental
premisses of his proof: that we are in no way infinite, and that
the idea of infinity is necessarily prior to that of finitude. Does
this give us any reason to suppose that the proof was insincere,
or rather, since philosophers tend to contradict themselves on
occasion, might it not be simpler to suppose that Descartes
simply failed to see these inconsistencies? Given the un-Cartesian method and language of the proof, the fact that the circle
renders it otiose in any case, the extraordinary analytical mind
that Descartes possessed, and the insincerity he seems to have
displayed in his letter to the theologians, I think one can at
least say that the suggestion that this proof may be insincere
should be regarded as a serious possibility. This would not be
to suggest that Descartes necessarily did not believe in God
but only that this theological element is not intrinsic to his
philosophy and was deliberately imposed onto it from without.
This proof is followed by a shorter one:
... the whole duration of my life can be divided into an infinite
number of parts, no one of which is in any way dependent upon
the others; and so it does not follow from the fact that I have
existed a short while before that I should exist now, unless at this
very moment some cause produces and creates me, as it were, anew
or, more properly conserves me. (pp. 48-9)

The term " conserves " is repeated in each of the next two
sentences.
What is demonstrated here is that not only myself, but the
state of all things (as the subsequent paragraph explains),
must be conserved from one moment to another. Thus far, it
turns out in fact to be an argument for Descartes' famous and
historic principle of the conservation of motion-that the sum
total of motion in the universe in any given direction (mass
times velocity) is constant at all times-which was corrected
by Leibniz and Newton to the principle of conservation of

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force (m2v 2 ) • For Descartes believed that motion was the essential principle of corporeal substance, as may be seen from
Principles of Philosophy, part II, XXIII, which is entitled:
"That all the variety in matter, or all the diversity of its forms,
depends on motion." In the Meditations, as well, Descartes
suggests that all we can clearly conceive of corporeal substances
may be reduced to quantity and motion. (e.g., pp. 20, 43, 80)
Given the identification of substances as species of motion, the
conservation of substances, which Descartes here asserts, is
implicitly an argument for the conservation of motion, a cornerstone of Descartes' physics. The further claim, that this (or
any) natural law entails the existence of God as its executor, is
arguable and would certainly be rejected by Descartes' intended
audience, the atheists, who are perfectly willing to recognize
natural laws without recognizing God.
A brief third proof follows this. One cannot have been wholly
caused by one's parents, "there being no relation between the
bodily activity by which I have been accustomed to believe I
was engendered and the production of a thinking substance."
(p. 50) Obviously this will be cogent, if at all, only if corporeal
and thinking substances are independent; this is the doctrine of
dualism, which will be examined in the next section.
The final proof is a version of Anselm's "ontological" proof,
presented in the fifth meditation. Stated as simply as possible,
it is that we conceive of God as having all possible perfections;
and, since existence is a perfection, we conceive of God as necessarily existing; therefore, since " it follows that existence is
inseparable from him," God exists. (pp. 65-7)
The ontological proof has always been difficult to grasp and,
consequently, highly controversial. I do not wish to become
involved in the complexities of this controversy, but, leaving
aside any question of the merits of the proof, I should like to
call attention to Descartes' handling of one of the problems surrounding it. The argument was not highly regarded in Descartes' time, as a result of the criticism by Thomas Aquinas.
Aquinas's most convincing attack was the claim that it made

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an illicit transition from the realm of thought to the realm of
being: while possibly we may have to conceive of God as existing (by definition) , it does not follow from this that he actually
exists: our thought imposes no necessity on things. In modern
terms, there is no assurance that our concepts do not denote
null classes. Descartes' way of stating the proof makes this
objection particularly obvious: "From the fact alone that I
cannot conceive God except as existing, it follows that existence
is inseparable from him, and consequently that he does, in truth,
exist." (p. 67) Having thus laid the proof open to the objection in question, he counters the objection in the next sentence:
Not that my thought can bring about this result or that it imposes
any necessity upon things; on the contrary, the necessity which is
in the thing itself-that is, the necessity of the existence of Goddetermines me to have this thought.

Regardless of the merits or defects of Aquinas's objection, it is
clear that Descartes' reply does nothing to meet it. All Descartes does here is to assume the point that Aquinas's objection
demands that he prove, namely, that our concept of God's
necessary existence is not arbitrary but reflects the actual
existence of God. In short, his reply begs the question and
should convince no one, especially those atheists who refuse to
accept circular arguments. He does not further discuss this
difficulty but devotes the remainder of his discussion to an
analogy between the ontological argument and the necessary
truths of mathematics, in which he ignores the decisive difference that, in the case of geometrical figures, conceptual existence
is sufficient for their reality (" whether they occur in nature or
not "-p. 20), whereas this is precisely not the case with God.
Leaving aside for the moment the proof based on dualism, it
seems clear that, in each case, Descartes' proofs for the existence
of God are accompanied by their own refutations, or, at least,
are mitigated sufficiently to destroy their cogency. Whether
Descartes was aware of this and did it deliberately, or whether
it was inadvertent, is, of course, another question.

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v
DuALISM

OF BoDY AND MIND

The basis of Descartes' dualism is the following argument:
it is sufficient that I can clearly and distinctly conceive one thing
apart from another to be certain that the one is distinct or different from the other .... Since on the one hand I have a clear and
distinct idea of myself in so far as I am only a thinking and not an
extended being, and since on the other hand I have a distinct idea
of body in so far as it is only an extended being which does not
think, it is certain that this "I" is entirely distinct from my body
and that it can exist without it. (p. 78)
We must ask, then, whether in fact the idea of body which
Descartes has shown us is " an extended being which does not
think " and whether the idea he has shown us of " thinking
being " entirely excludes extension. If the answer to either of
these questions is " no," Descartes' apparent dualism must become open to serious doubt. As a matter of fact, both questions
turn out to have negative answers.
The negative answer to the first question may be seen in a
remarkable and puzzling passage in the second meditation:
For to possess the power to move itself, and also to feel or to think,
I did not believe at all that these are attributes of corporeal nature;
on the contrary, rather, I was astonished to see a few bodies possessing such abilities. (p. 26)
In other words, Descartes had believed that it was not in the
nature of bodies to think and was astonished to find that, on the
contrary, some bodies have this ability. What sort of bodies he
has in mind is something of a puzzle, but it seems clear that he
is here asserting that the nature of body does not exclude the
ability to think. From the dualist position, that body and
thought are irreducibly distinct, one could never say that body
has the ability to think, or the attribute of thought, but only
that bodies are conjoined with minds that have this ability. But
Descartes can scarcely be saying here that he once thought no
bodies were conjoined with minds and was astonished to dis-

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333

cover otherwise; that would be incredible. In the light of his
assertion here that some bodies think, the argument for dualism
cannot, then, be maintained.
To take up the second question, whether the idea of a" thinking being" excludes the concept of corporeality, let us review
precisely what Descartes means by this idea:
What is a thinking being? It is a being which doubts, which understands, which affirms, which denies, which wills, which rejects, which
imagines also, and which perceives. (p.
But perception and imagination can hardly be entirely distinct
from extension, since the images they present to us are extended, and even measurable, whether or not they represent
real things. (c£. p. 9l9) This is obviously true of perception,
and, as for imagination, " it is nothing else than a particular
application of the faculty of knowledge to a body which is
intimately present to it and which therefore exists." (pp. 71-2)
The concept of thinking substance, therefore, far from excluding
corporeal extension, is inseparable from it. Accordingly, Descartes now contradicts his earlier assertion that thinking includes imagination and perception and says instead that these
faculties are not essential to a thinking being: it may be clearly
and distinctly conceived without them, although not vice
versa. (p. 78; also p. 73)
Can we really conceive of our thinking nature apart from any
images whatever? It is hard to see how, and much that Descartes says goes explicitly against this; for example:
Is there any one of these attributes which can be distinguished from
my thinking or which can be said to be separable from my nature?
... I am also certainly the same one who imagines; for . . . this
power of imagining cannot fail to be real, and it is part of my thinking. Finally I am the same being which perceives- ... it is certain
that it seems to me that I see light, hear noises, and feel heat. This
much cannot be false, and it is this, properly considered, which in
my nature is called perceiving, and that, again speaking precisely, is
nothing else but thinking. (p.
my emphasis)
But since Descartes may conceivably have changed his position
hetween the second and sixth meditations, let us see what is his

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KEN"NET1I DORTER

present view of the relationship between thinking and the faculties of perception and imagination. Descartes explains it by
an analogy: " These faculties are distinct from me as shapes,
movements, and other modes or accidents of objects are distinct
from the very objects that sustain them," (p. 78) But surely
this is an odd analogy to make in support of dualism, since this
terminology of Aristotle was meant to do away with the dualism of Plato. These things for Aristotle are logically distinguishable but actually inseparable and mutually interdependent:
not only can modes not exist without substances, but substances, as individual things, must have accidental properties:
what is accidental about such properties is not whether a substance possesses them but only which ones it possesses. From
Descartes' analogy, therefore, it follows only that it is a matter
of relative indifference which images or perceptions are present
to thought, but it is necessary that some are, and that imagination and perception in general, which involve corporeality, are
inseparable from thinking substance.
Descartes' claim that imagination and perception may be
conceived as distinct from the mind, on which his dualism rests,
is in fact contradicted not only by this analogy, by his earlier
statements in theM editations, and by his philosophy of mind in
general, it is explicitly denied (and the position of the second
meditation reaffirmed) in this very meditation. Descartes asks
how mind and body differ and replies that it is because the body
can be divided whereas the mind cannot.
Nor can the faculties of willing, perceiving, understanding, and so
forth be any more properly called parts of the mind, for it is one
and the same mind which as a complete unit wills, perceives, and
understands, and so forth. (p. 86; my emphasis)

Even if imagination and perception were distinct from thinking, however, the concept of a thinking thing would still necessarily involve corporeality. In the first meditation Descartes
argued that " corporeal nature in general and its extension "
are "simple and universal concepts," (p. QO) i.e., innate contents
of the understanding-and the understanding, certainly, can-

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not possibly be distinct from thinking. Thus, too, in the third
meditation he identifies " astronomical considerations " as " certain innate ideas," (p. 39) and in the fifth meditation he speaks
of " an infinity of details concerning numbers, shapes, movements, and other similar things " as being, in effect, innate.
(pp. 63-4) If, then, the principles of corporeality are inherent
in our thinking nature, the argument for dualism vanishes.
Moreover, certain important passages seem inexplicable except
on this assumption. In the third meditation Descartes inquires
whether he could have derived the elements of corporeal nature
from his nature as a thinking being: " since these are only particular modes of substance, and since I am myself a substance,
it seems that they might be contained in my nature eminently."
(p. 45) He says nothing to qualify this conclusion, as he easily
might do by here applying the already established principle of
clarity and distinctness that he later employs in his assertion
of dualism. Yet the conclusion must clearly be unthinkable for
his dualism. If, however, rather than being distinct, thinking
substance involves in its very nature the elemental concepts of
corporeal substance, there would be no difficulty; this seems
the only way such eminent causality could, in fact, be explained.
After Descartes' cogito experiment, when he has established
that he exists but not yet what he is, he reviews the opinions he
has held until now (antehac):
But either I did not stop to consider what this soul was or else, if I
did, I imagined that it was something very rarefied and subtle, such
as a wind, a flame, or a very much expanded air which was infused
throughout my grosser components. (p. 9l6)
In other words, Descartes, who supposedly was throughout his
life a devout Catholic, has been holding a materialistic view of
the soul. The dualism of the Meditations is a disavowal of
materialism, but we have seen that this dualism is by no means
consistently adhered to. This materialistic conception of the
soul, on the other hand, would certainly explain why thinking
substance (the soul) would by nature involve the elemental
concepts of corporeal substance (matter). It would also ex-

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plain Descartes' apparently irrelevant suggestion, in the argument about sense perception, that lunacy (a mental phenomenon) has an entirely physical explanation, the action of black
bile vapors on the brain (pp. 18-9); and that other strange
remark, that the immortality of the soul can only be demonstrated from principles derived from physics. (p. 18) And it
would account for the otherwise seemingly unaccountable language of the very proof itself of dualism, where Descartes treats
as equivalent the expressions " a substance whose whole essence
or nature is to think" and " a body which thinks." (p. 78; my
emphasis) Could this latter description of the soul be the explanation of the puzzling statement we saw, where Descartes
speaks of being astonished to discover bodies with the ability
to think? Are these " bodies " souls, and was his astonishment
connected with the discovery of the materialistic interpretation
of the soul? In any case, it is worth noting that the reference
to the astonishing bodies that think occurs in the same context
as his report of his materialistic conception of the soul. (p. 26)
Descartes suggested that the pineal gland is the point of
interaction between mind and body, and he has been much
ridiculed for this, since it is obvious that a body cannot mediate
between mind and body. But if mind itself is material, the
problem does not arise.
In light of the above considerations it seems clear that there
is a materialistic position in the Meditations, as well as a dualistic one, as Caton and Powell have argued also, and on different
grounds. Here, too, the tension is attributable to the difference
between the scientific and religious points of view, for the science of Descartes' day was often allied with materialism,
whereas theology, of course, insisted on the immateriality of the
soul.

VI
CoNCLUSION

It is clear that there is a great deal of inconsistency in the
Meditations. The question is, What explanatory hypothesis
best accounts for it? On encountering contradiction in a text,

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one is inclined initially to give the writer the benefit of the
doubt and test the possibility that some subtle distinction is
implicit, which, if discerned, would reconcile the apparent inconsistency. This is quite a common approach, for example, to
the circularity of God and clear and distinct ideas in the M editations. But, given the extensiveness and magnitude of the
inconsistency of the Meditations in general, I doubt that a
convincing resolution of the whole is possible along these lines:
not only would it require a very large number of presuppositions, it would also require us to believe that, contrary to the
methodology of clarity and distinctness, Descartes made an
enormous number of subtle, obscure, and arbitrary distinctions,
of which he gave no direct indication.
A second hypothesis is that he was simply not a very careful
writer. This might explain why such contradictions might have
gone unnoticed but would not explain why they arose at all:
why should Descartes have found himself on both sides of
every issue, why should a devout Catholic make not only pious
statements but also contradictory statements with heretical
implications? To answer this the carelessness thesis becomes
the dual allegiance thesis: Descartes was so convinced a
Catholic that, when his scientific principles led to conclusions
contrary to his faith, he closed his eyes to the resultant contradictions rather than acknowledge the possibility that faith and
reason might be at variance. Thus the dual allegiance thesis is
a kind of variation on the insincerity thesis, with the difference
that, according to the former, Descartes' primary aim was self
deception rather than deception of the theologians.
For a number of reasons, the insincerity thesis seems to me
more convincing than the dual allegiance one. At least since
the trial of Anaxagoras, and especially since the Middle Ages, it
has been well known that reason and faith are likely to come
into conflict. This conflict was indeed a thematic problem in
the scholastic philosophy in which Descartes was so thoroughly
instructed. Given this awareness, and given the acuteness, penetration, and mathematical-logical genius that Descartes so often
displays, I cannot believe he would so utterly fail to perceive

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in his own thought contradictions of the proportions we have
seen. Again, in his Notes Directed Against a Certain Program,
he points out (in self defence) similar contradictions in the work
of Regius, and accuses Regius of insincerity. That he should be
so sensitive to these contradictions in the work of another, and
ascribe them to insincerity, and yet be utterly oblivious of the
same contradictions in his own work, is difficult to believe. It
becomes even more difficult to believe when it is remembered
that, as we have seen, he has written letters expressing the intention of waging a surreptitious battle against Aristotelianism.
Finally, there is the fact that at least some of the contradictions
we have seen were clearly insincere, such as in the letter to the
theologians, with which we may compare the following passage
from the Principles of Philosophy (part III, XLV) :
Far though I am from wishing that everything I write should be
believed, I am going to suggest here some things that I consider to
be utterly untrue. Thus I do not doubt that the world was created
at the beginning with the same perfection it now has; that the sun,
the moon and the stars were there from that time; that not only did
the earth harbour the seeds of plants but the plants themselves
covered a part of it; that Adam and Eve were not created as infants
but already of a mature age.
The Christian religion requires that we believe it so and natural
reason persuades us entirely of this truth; for if we consider the
whole power of God we have to assume that everything he has done
has been perfect from the beginning. One would, nevertheless, know
much better what nature Adam and the trees of Paradise had if one
had examined how the child is formed in the belly of the mother
and how plants grow from their seeds rather than if one had only
considered them as they were when God created them.
Thus we shall make the nature of everything there is in the world
better understood than by just describing it as it is, or rather as we
believe it to have been created, if we can imagine certain principles
which are quite intelligible and quite simple. According to such
principles we should be able to see that the stars and the earth and
in short all this visible world could have been produced as though
from a few seeds (although we know that it was not produced in
this way). And since I think I have found such principles I shall
now try to explain them. 11
11 Quoted by C. D. Darlington in Darwin's Place in History (Oxford: Blackwell,
1960), p. 94. I am grateful to Michael Ruse for calling this passage to my attention.

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From this it seems clear, first of all, that Descartes was well
aware of the conflict between the demands of faith and the needs
of understanding, even within. his own mind, and this alone creates
difficulties for the dual allegiance view. Moreover, I think it
rather doubtful that he was sincere in his protestations of disbelief in his own principles here. If in some places it seems
obvious that Descartes was aware of and deliberately perpetrated such contradictions in order to make his work seem more
pious than it is, it is reasonable to try to determine whether
the other contradictions can be accounted for in the same wayas we have seen that they can.
I suspect the most effective obstacle to the insincerity thesis
is the fact that we are relatively unafraid to express our beliefs
and feel that there is something dishonorable in such fear. Thus
to accuse Descartes of dissembling is to attack his character,
whereas he seems to have been an honorable man. But it should
be remembered that there are situations in which dissembling
may not be dishonorable but rather prudent and even considerate. Even today it is common to express our more controversial views with caution; but suppose our very lives were at
stake over our views. Suppose too that public morality was
founded on a carefully sheltered set of dogmas, so that publication of arguments undermining such dogma might undermine
morality as well-and this was certainly of concern to Descartes, as we saw at the beginning. In that case it would be
hard to consider a covert presentation of such views as dishonorable.
It may be wondered what difference any of this makes. After
all, it is Descartes' explicit statements that have influenced his
successors, therefore they constitute the Cartesianism that is
historically important, and whether he was sincere or not is of
minor interest. But this is not quite accurate. For instance,
several of his contemporaries and successors, such as Hobbes,
Regius, and Leibniz doubted his sincerity 12 and responded to
him accordingly. To see accurately his place in history, there10

Cf. Caton (n. 7 above), pp. 855-6.

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fore, one must see this side of him as well. And, of course, it is
certainly of historical interest to decide whether he was long on
sincerity but short on coherence, or vice versa. But, most important, if we wish to learn from (or against) Descartes, how
we read him will determine what we learn.
KENNETH DoRTER

University of Guelph
Guelph, Ontario
Canada

THE EVOLUTIONARY

APPROACH TO ETHICS

I

N THE LAST hundred years evolutionary ethics has been
upheld by several well-known thinkers, besides gaining a
wide popular audience. We propose to study it here from
the methodological point of view. By analyzing the way evolutionary moralists proceed, we shall try to show to what extent
their manner of theorizing is acceptable in the light of such
usual methodological criteria as consistency and applicability.
We shall therefore first review how evolutionary ethics has developed. In a second section we shall discuss various points
about the procedure of its contemporary adherents. In conclusion we shall briefly indicate some general conclusions which
seem required.
I
Evolutionary ethics is one form of the biological approach
to moral philosophy. It thus has its roots in the hedonistic and
materialistic currents of Greece and, in modern times, the
English empiricists. It had other important sources in the
eighteenth century: the Encyclopedists did much to spread
empiricist and hedonist views; Condorcet popularized the idea
of indefinite progress in all fields, including the moral; the rise
of romanticism further prepared the psychological climate by its
insistence on the irrational and disorderly aspects of the
umverse.
The immediate sources of evolutionary ethics are found, however, in the utilitarianism and positivism of the early nineteenth
century. These provided its basic positions and attitudes, while
biology gave it a " scientific " basis. Evolutionary theories had
been current since the last quarter of the eighteenth century.
Thus, Buffon explained the biological development of species as
the effects of environment, perpetuated by heredity; Lamarck
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claimed these changes were due to the inheritance of acquired
characteristics. It took several decades, however, for such
ideas to develop into what we now refer to as evolutionary
naturalism.
In 1851 Spencer published his Social Statics, in which he
attempted to shape these trends into a cohesive unity. A real
science of ethics is necessary, he held, and it shows that evil
arises because we are ill-adapted to natural conditions. The
development of life entails a progressive physical and mental
adaptation which will result in the eventual disappearance of
evil. The evolution of human society is in the direction of
complete concord and cooperation. A scientific ethics can thus
guide men to happiness by pointing out to them the conditions
under which they can attain it.
In such a moral theory the method consists essentially of
trying to infer from the data and hypotheses of biologists the
direction in which the human species is developing, accepting
this as the purpose of life, and deducing from it a moral obligation to act always in such a way as to be in step with evolution.
Eight years after the appearance of Spencer's Social Statics
Darwin published the Origin of Species in which he amassed in
a persuasive lineup the scientific evidence for biological evolution. Then in 1871, in The Descent of Man, he attempted to
show that men's intellectual and moral faculties were also the
result of the evolutionary process. Thus, he said, the purpose
of life is " the rearing of the greatest number of individuals in
full vigour and health, with all their faculties perfect, under the
conditions to which they are subjected." 1 Darwin, however,
was primarily a scientist, and he preferred to leave to others
the task of developing the philosophical implications of his
theory. Hence his importance in the history of ethics is due
mostly to the use which others made of his biological discoveries.
Thus Spencer's later work, The Principles of Ethics, is largely
a re-presentation of his early ideas buttressed by the facts which
Darwin and other biologists had established. He believed that
1

The Descent of Man (American edition, 1896), p. 97.

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the evolutionism he had previously championed was now substantiated scientifically. His aim and method, however, remained the same. Ethics was to be developed in the light of
both the evolutionary direction of life and the utilitarian criterion of the happiness of individuals and groups.
In the nineteenth century evolutionary ethics had a number
of zealous adherents and they popularized the doctrine in numerous books and articles throughout the world. In AngloSaxon lands Spencer did this with the aid of Leslie Stephen and
W. K. Clifford. In Germany the oracles of scientific evolutionary ethics were Haeckel, Buchner and Moleschott. The French
had two varieties to choose from: the strictly materialistic type
of Metchnikoff and an idealist form proposed by Guyau, to
whom it had been suggested by Fouillee. John Fiske and Henry
Drummond developed theistic versions which appealed to religiously-minded people. Nietzsche, on the other hand, basing
himself on the notion of the survival of the fittest, proclaimed
the ethics of the Superman.
Spencer and his allies considered evolution as something of a
new gospel, which promised heaven on earth for those who
evolved rightly. Thomas Henry Huxley believed such optimism
unwarranted. In his Romanes Lecture, Evolution and Ethics
(1893) , he attempted to show that civilization is the result not
of evolution but of counter-evolution; for the person most fit to
survive is not necessarily the best morally.
I have termed this evolution of the feelings out of which the primitive bonds of human society are so largely forged, into the organized and personified sympathy we call conscience, the ethical
process. So far as it tends to make any human society more efficient in the struggle for existence with the state of nature, or with
other societies, it works in harmonious contrast with the cosmic
process. But it is none the less true that, since law and morals are
restraints upon the struggle for existence between men in society,
the ethical process is in opposition to the principle of the cosmic
process, and tends to the suppression of the qualities best fitted for
success in that struggle. 2
• Touchstone of Ethics (New York, 1947), p. 58.

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GERARD J. DALCOURT

And again, "Let us understand, once for all, that the
ethical progress of society depends, not on imitating the cosmic
process, still less in running away from it, but in combating it." 3
Such views had a far-reaching effect on Huxley's conception
of ethics and its method. For under such circumstances ethics
is aimed "to the end of facilitating the free expansion of the
innate faculties of the citizen, so far as it is consistent with the
general good." 4 Its method is "the same method of observation, experiment, and ratiocination, as is practiced in other kinds
of scientific work," 5 to determine the course of conduct which
will best conduce to that end. But Spencer's evolutionary criterion is to be rejected.
For several decades the ethics of evolutionism seemed to have
been deal a death-blow by the criticisms of Thomas Huxley.
It was, however, revived. A summary formulation of the renewed theory was given by Julian Huxley in the forties. His
grandfather, he pointed out, had concluded that the ethical
process combated the cosmic. At present however this contradiction of the cosmic by the ethical could be resolved " on the
one hand by extending the concept of evolution both backwards into the inorganic and forward into the human domain,
and on the other by considering ethics not as body of fixed
principles, but as a product of evolution, and itself evolving." 6
The solution of this contradiction and the renewal of evolutionary ethics, wrote Huxley, was made possible by two developments at the turn of the century, Freudian psychology and
Mendelian genetics.
Freudian psychology showed that the seeming absoluteness of
moral obligation is merely due to a compulsive aU-or-nothing
mechanism of the primitive super-ego.
This quality of absoluteness is later reinforced by the natural
human desire for certitude, as well as by certain peculiarities of our
language mechanism .... Thus the absoluteness of moral obligation
turns out on analysis to be no true absolute, but a result of the
Ibid., p. 99!.

5

'Ibid., p. 66,

6

3

Ibid., p. 66.
Ibid., p. 116.

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nature of our infantile mental machinery combined with later
rationalization and wish-fulfilment.7
Since one of the stumbling-blocks of evolutionary ethics was the
existence of absolutes, Freud rendered an immense service to
morality by making clear the real nature of moral qualities.
Besides this, modern psychology has greatly changed ethics by
bringing out many new facts and a new approach. 8
Modern genetics aided in this renewal of evolutionary ethics
by stressing the fact of man's immense genetic variability, which
has important results, both biologically and ethically. Among
these are those personal differences which allow us to speak of
moral temperaments. Modern genetics has also provided the
basis for a comprehensive selectionist theory of evolution. For
it has shown that, although mutation provides the raw material
of evolution, it has little or no effect on its direction. All other
suggested agencies of evolution, Lamarckism, orthogenesis,
vitalistic immanent tendencies, and divine guidance have been
proven unnecessary, since natural selection is logically necessary
and is in itself a satisfactory explanation of the facts. A further
development has been the closer analysis of the results of
evolution. 9
We now know, Huxley avers, that in all evidence it is better
to have a realistic rather than an unrealistic ethics. Furthermore, it should be realistic both internally and externally. The
first occurs when an individual adjusts himself objectively to the
moral standards of his society; the second, when the standards
of society are realistically adjusted to science.1°
All this however is merely knowledge of our psychological
situation. It does not tell us whether our standards are ethically
better.
However, ethics do not merely vary at random: they also evolve.
That fact provides our clue. Our ethics evolve because they are
themselves part of the evolutionary process. And any standards of
rightness or wrongness must in some way be related to the movement of that process through time.
7
8

Ibid., p. 120.
Ibid., p. 30.

9

Ibid., pp. 32-35.
Ibid., p. 125.

10

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GERARD J. DALCOURT

Now that the moment has arrived when we are able to perceive
evolution as an all-comprehensive process of which human existence
forms a part, it is impossible any longer to rely on any static guarantees for ethics. Our fuller knowledge discloses not a set of absolute
or fixed standards, but a direction of change. 11
At the beginning of life evolution was biological, proceeding
through mechanical interaction and natural selection. With the
advent of men it has become conscious and has acquired quicker
methods of gaining and transmitting experience. Since such is
the case, "ethics can be injected into the evolutionary process.
Before man that process was merely amoral. After his emergence
onto life's stage it became possible to introduce faith, courage,
love of truth, goodness-in a word moral purpose-into evolution." 12
But how are we to know what are morally right purposes?
When we look at evolution as a whole, we find, among the many
directions which it has taken, one which is characterized by introducing the evolving world-stuff to progressively higher levels of
organization and so to new possibilities of being, action, and experience. This direction has culminated in the attainment of a state
where the world-stuff (now moulded into human shape) finds that
it experiences some of the new possibilities as having value in or
for themselves; and further that among these it assigns higher and
lower degrees of value, the higher values being those which are more
intrinsically or more permanently satisfying, or involve a greater
degree of perfection. The teleologically-minded would say that this
trend embodies evolution's purpose. I do not feel that we should
use the word purpose save where we know that a conscious aim is
involved; but we can say that this is the most desirable direction of
evolution, and accordingly that our ethical standards must fit into
its dynamic framework. In other words, it is ethically right to aim
at whatever will promote the increasingly full realization of increasingly higher values. 13
Standards of right and wrong are to be worked out as an
expansion of this aim but always with an eye out to reconcile
the claims of the present and future. Evolutionary ethics thus
11

Ibid., p. un.

1"

Ibid., p. 135.

18

Ibid., pp. 136-7.

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847

presents the world with dynamic general standards to replace
the older ones which are crumbling.
As we analyze this renewal of evolutionary moral theory we
find that in essence its method is the same as the earlier.
Huxley first marshals all the evolutionary data science can provide; this task is a good deal more complicated for him than it
was for Spencer because scientists have discovered so much in
the last half century, and furthermore he has enlarged the concept of evolution to start it off with the first appearance of
matter, to include all the processes which it has gone and will
go through, to that ultimate step in which it is consciously
guided by man. From this overall view of evolution he infers
its direction of change. As man is a part of nature and all
nature is subject to evolution, only that is morally right which
is in accordance with this evolutionary direction of change. At
this point, however, Huxley slips in hedonistic considerations,
just as did the earlier evolutionists. As man evolves, he says,
he becomes conscious of objective values, that is, of the qualities of things whereby they are " more intrinsically or permanently satisfying." He has therefore a moral right to seek them
on two counts: first, the evolutionary standard, since these
values were perceived as part of the evolutionary process; secondly, their intrinsic satisfactoriness. With these standards
Huxley feels he is in a position to draw up scientific rules of
morality. These in effect will be merely generalized statements
of what has been empirically found to be in accordance with
the evolutionary direction of change or to be intrinsically satisfying.
Pierre Teilhard de Chardin, Huxley's friend and a renowned
paleontologist, had defended a view that is similar in its basics
but is developed within the framework of Catholic theology.
His ethical position is to be found chiefly in The Phenomenon
of Man (1955) and The Divine Milieu (1957). In his view a
central and crucial fact about man is that he is an evolving
creature of God. Evolution, Teilhard optimistically holds, necessarily and overall brings about progress. We can determine
the direction of this progress and should conform ourselves to

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GERARD J. DALCOURT

it. The ultimate end of the evolutionary process is convergence
with the divine. But at the present stage of evolution it is up
to man himself to organize and direct his social life in such a
way as to further the evolutionary tendency to an ever closer
communion with God. In man evolution has become conscious
of itself, so, in order to be true to himself and to the universe,
man has to bring about, individually and socially, the spiritual
progress of nature. Thus, the approaches of Huxley and Teilhard are similar in this way that they both base themselves on
what they determine the direction of evolution to be, but they
differ inasmuch as Huxley interprets and completes his analysis
of evolution with utilitarian considerations whereas Teilhard
does so from the point of view of a theistic and theological
humanism.
Another recent and prominent advocate of evolutionary
ethics has been the eminent geneticist, C. H. Waddington. In
the early forties he started off considerable discussion by his
article, " The Relations Between Science and Ethics." More
recently, he has attempted to give a fuller and more developed
expression to his position in The Ethical AnimaU 4
Waddington holds that Spencer and Huxley were on the right
track when they defended the necessity of an evolutionary approach to moral philosophy. But, he argues, both had certain
methodological shortcomings which weakened their presentation and also therefore the support they received. Both, he
says, fell into a vicious circle. For they claim that evolutionary
progress is good and that therefore the moral goodness of our
acts can be defined in terms of evolutionary process. Then too,
according to Spencer, evolutionary progress consists in and is
demonstrated by the increasing complexity of what evolves.
But this is to take too simple a view of the matter because the
development of complexity often leads in evolution to a dead
end. Huxley, Waddington says, also leaves himself open to the
charge of having committed the "naturalistic fallacy" by the
loose way that he identifies moral goodness and evolutionary
progress.
" The Ethical. Animal (London, 1960).

THE EVOLUTIONARY

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Waddington's aim is to work out more explicitly and fully
his earlier defense of evolutionary ethics and thereby to provide
a theory which, he feels, will be superior to Huxley's. He also
wishes to argue against the positivists and the analytic philosophers that ethics is a valid normative discipline and that it is,
besides, an objective one.
Waddington frames the issue in this way. We all wish to
have some rational guidance in regard to how we ought to act.
As adults we find that we have acquired a set of feelings about
what is right and what is wrong and about what we ought or
ought not to do. We refer to these feelings as" ethical" because
of a common quality we perceive in them, and we use them
as guides for our behavior. The issue, then, is how do we determine whether or not any such feelings are correct, that is, are
adequate guides for our conduct. It is only, Waddington holds,
through a consideration of animal and human evolution that
we are able to decide in such matters and also to make a
rational evaluation of different systems of ethics. It must be
stressed, however, that, besides animal evolution, man has also
gone through an evolution that is peculiarly human, which for
purposes of moral evaluation is of far greater importance.
Human evolution has been primarily a cultural evolution. And
it is only by understanding how culture has evolved that we can
see how man has achieved those characteristics that we now
consider the most valuable.
It is crucial to any form of evolutionary ethics that it can
show how evolutionary processes are demonstrably progressive.
There are various mechanisms whereby evolution comes. Two
that most biologists today recognize are mutation and natural
selection. These, says Waddington, cannot however by themselves adequately explain why evolution would be anything but
directionless change. But we can now see that two further
factors are involved. First, natural selection affects not the
hereditary factors themselves but the total organisms throughout their lives. Thus, what is passed on from one generation to
the next is not just a genetic system but a whole " epigenetic

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GERARD J. DALCOURT

system " whereby the information contained in the genetic system is provided a functional structure through which that
information expresses itself. In other terms, throughout evolution each organism responds to environmental stresses as well
as it can, but in any given population there will be a certain
range of variation in the density and character of the responses;
those organisms that are able to respond in the most adaptive
manner are the ones which in time will dominate, that is, remain
in existence. In this way acquired characteristics can be said
to be transmitted. But, then, the " survival of the fittest "
should be interpreted to mean, not the survival of the strongest
but the success of certain kinds of individuals in transmitting
hereditary qualities. A second aspect of the evolutionary
mechanism is that organisms are not just shaped by the environment but to a certain extent choose and modify it also. Waddington summarizes his view here in these terms:
Biological evolution, then, is carried out by an ' evolutionary system' which involves four major factors (Fig. 2) : a genetic system,
which engenders new variation by the process of mutation and
transmits it by chromosomal genes; an epigenetic system, which
translates the information in the fertilized egg and that which impinges on it from the environment into the characters of the reproducing adult; an exploitive system, by which an animal chooses and
modifies the environment to which it will submit itself; and a system of natural selective pressures, originating from the environment
and operating on the combined result of the other three systems. 15

As a result of the interaction of these four systems evolutionary
changes always tend in the direction of increasing efficiency.
Animal evolution continues in man, but the more important
and rapid changes in men are due to cultural evolution. This
has been made possible by an extremely important change in
the mode of evolution. In animals information (in the cybernetic sense) is transmitted from generation to generation through
the genes. Consequently, any improvement in this information
took a long time. Man, however, has reached an evolutionary
lG

Ibid., pp. 94-5.

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stage in which he transmits information by teaching, thus making
possible radical and rapid changes in what we know and how
we live. Teaching methods themselves have evolved in a very
rapid way in the last few thousand years. Among the main
steps of this evolution were the formalization of rote learning
and then the invention of writing and, more recently, of printing. As a result of this, new information can be acquired and
disseminated in a matter of days.
The socio-genetic transmission of information by man requires a certain mechanism whereby he can not only transmit
but also receive the information. This mechanism consists of
developing infants into acceptors of authority. It is a logical
and empirical necessity that children submit to learning from
others, that they in this sense accept the authority of others.
It is in this way too that we get our moral feelings and the
internalized authority system that we call conscience. Modern
psychology helps us to understand this process. Piaget has
shown that the development of the moral sense in the child
results from a spontaneous feeling in the presence of his parents
that they are greater than and superior to himself. Freud and
other psychoanalysts have shown how in the formation of personality systems like the ego and super-ego are formed in the
mind and why they are so often stronger and more demanding
than seems really necessary. The development of such" authority-bearing systems" is necessary so that children became
information-acceptors. But simultaneously it also makes them
acceptors of moral standards, values, and notions. Having
moral feelings is then also a necessary effect and factor of the
evolutionary process.
Although not every line of evolutionary change is progressive,
it is clear that evolution tends in the direction of increasing
efficiency and has over the long range produced newer and
higher forms of life. Evolutionary progress can then be characterized by the development to higher and higher levels of
various capacities: " to remain relatively independent of the
environment, to incorporate into the life-system more complex

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GERARD J. DALCOURT

functions of environmental variables, and ultimately to control
the environment." 16 In more crude terms, the progressive
character of evolution is exhibited by the increasing possibility
of richness of experience.
· As a result evolutionary theory can provide us with a criterion
to evaluate moral feelings and moral philosophies, while also
providing a more useful point of view to examine such problems. In the course of our evolutionary development we have
come to consider our feelings, about certain actions, as being
"ethical." Such feelings have an important function in the
evolutionary scheme: to make us do certain acts and avoid
others. We can determine which of these acts now are or are
not in accord with evolutionary progress and thus also determine which of these feelings are warrantedly ethical. We can
in the same manner establish which moral theories provide us
with a correct moral code. Thus, Waddington avers, resolving
moral problems is similar to resolving dieting problems. We
determine what a good diet is by finding out through which
foods we adequately fulfill the function of eating. We determine what acts should be considered ethical in the light of how
well by them we fulfill our functions in the evolutionary
scheme. The criterion of what should be done and avoided is
thus a cosmic, evolutionary wisdom.
If, as I maintain, our ethical beliefs are part of the human evolutionary system, they also must be subject to evolutionary processes.
Since we can discern their function, we can decide what is anagenesis
with respect to them, just as we can decide what is anagenesis with
respect to the biological genetic system. We can attach a real and
objective meaning to the idea of an improvement in the mechanism
of formation and development of the super-ego as a part of the
functional machinery of human evolution. This direction of improvement undoubtedly forms one of the criteria which we must
apply in judging the merits of particular ethical systemsP

In this way also we avoid committing the naturalistic fallacy
and reasoning in a circle.
10

Ibid., p. 187.

11

Ibid., p. 174.

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Despite differences in the conclusions and emphases, evolutionary moralists, it seems clear, all follow the same general
approach in developing their ethics. The problem we are mainly
concerning ourselves with here is how appropriate and adequate
is this approach, looking at it from the methodological point of
vtew.

II
It is axiomatic that a structure can be no more solid than its
foundation. We may then first ask ourselves how solid a foundation for an ethical system is the evolutionary theory. We
must keep in mind the difference between a fact and a theory.
No one nowadays doubts the fact of evolution, that is, that
living things of a higher sort have come from others of a lower
sort. But the theory of evolution is another matter. To explain
the facts of evolution scientists have worked out various evolutionary theories and they recognize that all of these theories
have their deficiencies and inadequacies. Thus, the well-known
biologist G. G. Simpson has written,
The general outline of that history and some of its characteristic
details are now so well determined as to provide a factual background open to little serious question. It is, however, still true that
the unknown exceeds the known and gives room for some (yet for
limited) differences of interpretation. And even were all factually
known, which can never become true, interpretation would still be
necessary before meaning could arise from the factual record.
Differences of interpretation will no doubt always arise, and this
or any other readings of meaning into the history of life can never
carry compulsive authority. It can only be an opinion submitted
for judgment ... 18

E. C. Olson, in the paper he read at the Darwin Centennial,
described the present situation in these terms." We are then in
the position of believing, without definitive proof, that factors
beyond those recognized at present are of major importance in
some areas of evolution, but of not knowing just what they are
or how they may be discovered. This is an unfortunate, negative
18

The Meaning of Evolution

(New Haven, 1949), p. 339.

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GERARD J. DALCOURT

situation." 19 Thus, since there is at present so much disagreement among scientists as to how and why evolution did take
place, it follows that in trying to establish an ethical system
on such a theory one would have to be most careful to base
one's self as much as possible on those parts of the theory that
are generally admitted, such as the view that the genes function
in an interdependent fashion or that natural selection occurs
to some extent through adaptation. But a moral theory based
on such a consensus would indeed have a rather narrow foundation. If, however, a moralist develops his views on the basis
of the total evolutionary theory presented by some scientist,
although he would then have a much broader base from which
to work, it would be a much more unreliable one. Even a
cursory reading, however, makes it clear that evolutionary
moralists like Huxley, Teilhard, and Waddington base their
moral systems on a whole-hearted acceptance of the particular
version of the evolutionary theory that they favor.
Because of the various gaps and obscurities in the facts of
evolution, there is a wide range of different, indeed, contrary,
interpretations and conclusions possible. On the purely scientific level the result has been a number of different schools, not
only in the past but also in the present: Darwinism, NeoLamarckianism, Neo-Darwinism, vitalism, etc. In the present
day, according to E. C. Olson,
There are, of course, degrees of differencein evaluation of successes,
from healthy scepticism to confidencethat the final word has been
said, and there are still some among the biologists who feel that
much of the fabric of theory accepted by the majority today is
actually false ... There exists, as well, a generally silent group of
students engaged in biological pursuits who tend to disagree with
much of the current thought but say and write little ... many who
are not satisfied with current theory are to be found in the ranks
of the paleontologists and morphologists.20
This diversity of scientific interpretation leads quite naturally
to a corresponding variety of conclusions drawn by the philos19

IG

Evoluti<m after Darwin (Chicago, 1960), v. I, p. 54!!.
Op. cit., pp. 5!!8-4.

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ophers. Thus Dewey had his instrumentalist naturalism; Harris,
a personalistic idealism; and Whitehead, a realistic process view.
Clearly, then, the scientific theory of evolution is open to a
variety of philosophic interpretations. If follows also that depending on these variations different kinds of moral theories
could be developed from the same facts. It is then most necessary to distinguish clearly what is based on the scientific fact
and what comes from the point of view of the interpreting
philosopher.
When we consider the different versions of evolutionary ethics
which have been produced, this conclusion is borne out, that
they are not just inferred from scientific theory but result
mainly from the philosophical presuppositions of their authors.
Both Huxley and Waddington interpret the scientific data from
a naturalistic point of view and their ethics is naturalistic.
Teilhard starts off with the same scientific data but also with
a theistic humanism and his ethics is a theocentric one. To put
it in another way, science, as has been so often pointed out, is
ethically neutral. Science has as its functions describing, measuring, and correlating phenomena and developing on this basis
theories which enable us to some degree to explain and control
nature. But when any person engages in scientific pursuits he
is working within an over-all world-picture which of itself is not
scientific but philosophical and which provides him with his
fundamental attitudes, presuppositions, and values. In accord
with his Weltanschauung he will then interpret his scientific
data. But such interpretations are then a function more of his
philosophy than his science. It is important to keep this in mind
because evolutionary moralists generally think of and present
their views as being simply and purely scientific inferences from
established facts.
We should note further that an evolutionary ethics involves
not just a general world-picture but, as its different versions
have been historically worked out, they also presuppose a set
of non-scientific, ethical principles. In The Phenomenon of Man
Teilhard claims he is doing and presenting work which is purely

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GERARD J. DALCOURT

and simply scientific. But many of his conclusions as to how
man should act are the result, it seems clear enough, not of a
strict scientific deduction from the evolutionary theory but of
his prescientific commitment to the Christian God. For Huxley
would draw no such conclusions from the scientific data. We
can see the same point rather clearly in Waddington's case.
One of his cardinal moral principles is the necessity to keep an
open mind and to avoid looking at the world in terms of stark
opposites, as just black or white. " The practical conclusion to
be drawn from this line of thought is that it is dangerous to
allow questions of belief to become concentrated into a single
channel. We have to recognize not merely that it is impossible
to eliminate beliefs from the human mind, but that a stable
and equable personality must be found, not only on one, but on
several ideals." 21 The issue here is whether this is a conclusion
he has derived from the evolutionary theory or a presupposition
derived from his W eltansahauung and in the light of which he
interprets the scientific data and theory. It has really to be the
latter. Let us note first an ambiguity in the statement "a
stable and equable personality must be found . . . on several
ideals." Does the " must " indicate an evolutionary or a nonevolutionary necessity? If he means the latter, then our point is
granted. If he means the former, then he is inconsistent. For it
is his view that "It is necessary, before socio-genetic transmissions can operate, that some sort of' authority-bearing system'
is formed in the mental apparatus of those who will transmit
and those who will receive" and that" The actual authoritative
system set up in human minds seems commonly to carry much
more weight than would be necessary to fulfill this function
adequately enough." 22 If such is the mechanism through which
evolution works in man, then the acceptance of several counterbalancing ideals, as -suggested by Waddington, would not be in
line with this mechanism; it would involve a transcending of
and an imposition upon the mechanism. It could then only be
justified on the basis of a non-evolutionary moral principle.
21

Op. cit., p. 193.

•• Op. cit., p. 203.

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357

Besides this, we may note, the claim that a stable and equable
personality must be based on more than one ideal seems counterfactual. Fanatics often have very stable and equable personalities; on the other hand, neuroses often result from following several ideals that are not unified in a hierarchical system.
From the point of view of method it is important to know
what a moralist is using as a dual, scientific and philosophical
foundation. We would want to know the justification for both
and how they are related. For, if a moral system was actually
based founded on a dual basis of this sort and this was not
recognized, the result would be that philosophical principles
would be covertly introduced and, despite the claim that the
result is a "scientific ethics," what one would have would be
simply an uncritical presentation of a set of philosophical prejudices. Unfortunately, since the more recent evolutionary moralists have not been professional philosophers, they have not been
very explicit in distinguishing the philosophical from the scientific in their theories. Since the former is so crucial, this is a
serious methodological deficiency.
A central tenet of every evolutionary ethics is that evolution,
at least in the long run, is achieving what is identifiably and
certainly progress. If this were not the case, there would then
be no way of developing an ethics from an evolutionary basis.
Methodologically, however, such a tenet is objectionable if
biologists do not in general support it. Concerning this we may
note first of all that there is general agreement that evolution
has not produced a uniform progress. But some scientists insist
further that there is not, in the total evolutionary process, any
single, overall progressive trend. Thus, G. G. Simpson has
written,
In summary, evolution is not invariably accompanied by progress,
nor does it really seem to be characterized by progress as an essential feature. Progress has occurred within it but is not of its essence.
Aside from the broad tendency for the expansion of life, which is
also inconstant, there is no sense in which it can be said that evolution is progress. Within the framework of the evolutionary history
of life there have been not one but many different sorts of progress.

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GERARD J. DALCOURT

Each sort appears not with one single line or even with one central
but branching line throughout the course of evolution, but separately in many different lines.23
From such considerations he concluded to the impossibility of
establishing any sort of evolutionary ethics based on the notion
of evolutionary progress. 24 This line of argument, however, be
it found in Simpson or elsewhere, is clearly fallacious, because
not to the point. The proponent of an evolutionary ethics does
not base his view on the claim that progress invariably accompanies evolution, for he would agree that it does not. Nor, likewise, does he identify evolution with progress. His point rather
is that through the whole course of evolution there have been
successively produced increasingly superior forms of life and
that biologists are in general agreement on the point.
Another example of such a straw man may be found in S. C.
Pepper's Ethics. In the context of this issue he says," Progress
... can only relevantly mean that the forms that have emerged
later in the evolution of life are better adapted than those that
emerged earlier." 25 Hence, he argues, an ethics based on evolutionary progress is untenable since all life forms adapt equally
well, in their own ways. But evolutionary moralists readily
acknowledge this comparability of adaptions and so, when they
speak of progress, this is simply not what they are referring to.
Thus Pepper's objection too is without foundation.
There still however remain difficulties. The long-range sorts
of progress we can point to in biological evolution are all of a
vague, general kind: extension of life, increase in complexity,
increase in efficiency, and increase in the richness of experience.
The use of these as moral criteria allows one to infer certain
moral rules. But these are also and necessarily phrased in very
broad terms. Consequently they would require other moral
rules providing for limiting cases, but from where except a nonevolutionary source could one derive them? If one takes evolu•• Op. cit., pp.
•• Op. cit., p. 304 and p. 345.
•• Ethics (New York, 1960), p.

THE EVOLUTIONARY

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tionary progress to consist in the extension of life, this leaves no
way of resolving problems of overpopulation and of the superiority of quality over quantity. If, then, one takes progress to
involve several or all of those biological trends, one would have
to determine which in which cases has priority over the others.
For instance, should we encourage growth in complexity over
growth in the richness of experience or vice versa? In itself,
evolutionary moralist is faced with the dilemma of either sticking solely with his evolutionary principles and having a system
too general to be effective or of giving up his purely evolutionary
system to make it more effective.
If we try to resolve this dilemma by a closer consideration of
human evolution, we still have problems. The development of
man manifests a number of different trends. How can we tell
which really constitute progress? To do this in a scientific way
we would have to derive our criteria from what we know of the
present and the past. But it is a characteristic of the evolutionary process to produce novelties. Since the latter are in the
nature of the case unpredictable, it is at least on the biological
level risky to either affirm or deny that a given trend shall continue to be progressive, even though we could establish that
from a given point of view it has been so. It might be argued
that on the human or cultural level of evolution that it is up to
man to continue consciously the progressive direction of the
past. But even if this were granted, it would not give us any
sufficiently specific indication of how we should act unless one
brought in further non-evolutionary principles on the basis of
which a proper direction could be maintained. Thus, the
dilemma remains.
There is another difficulty. Evolutionary moralists generally
consider ethics to be a normative discipline. In line with this
they talk like other normative moralists of the obligations which
men have. But there would seem to be an ambiguity in the use
of the term. Waddington, for instance, speaks of obligation in
terms of the super-ego and seems to reduce moral obligation to
a feeling of having to act in a certain way, a feeling whose nature

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GERARD J. DALCOURT

and origin is to be explained in Freudian terms. When, however, moralists speak of obligation in the more usual and traditional sense, they mean of certain moral, as opposed to physical
or psychological, necessity to act in a given way. But, to be
obliged in the sense that the super-ego makes us do an act is
quite different from being obliged in the sense that we have to
do an act because we recognize that there is a moral order that
is objective and superior to us and which requires that we do it.
It is this latter sense of obligation that the layman ordinarily is
using when he asks about his moral obligations. Realizing this,
Waddington answers queries about why we should be moral or
why we should seek to further evolutionary progress with an
analogy of morality to eating. You should be moral because you
will be fulfilling your natural function and will be happier, just
as you should follow a proper diet because you will be healthier
and feel better. The point to be noted here is this. A purely
evolutionary morality does not by itself provide an ultimate
justification for moral obligations but can do so only by bringing in non-evolutionary considerations: utilitarian ones in the
case of Huxley and Waddington, theistic ones in the case of
Teilhard.
As a normative discipline ethics has as one of its main functions providing us with a rational code of conduct. Evolutionary moralists have all tried to indicate what it should be but
the results show three common characteristics: their proposed
rules are all very general, they deal only with a limited number of selected problems, and they usually repeat some of the
same points most other moralists arrive at. To illustrate, we
find Waddington suggesting that we ought to encourage the
progress of the mechanism of the socio-genetic evolutionary
system, that we ought to encourage the development of varieties
of communities, and that we should avoid nuclear war. One
conclusion that suggests itself here is that the evolutionary
approch is then one of rather limited scope and value, for other
approaches provide behavior codes that are much more extensive and detailed. One could further argue that from a methodological view it is therefore an evolutionary dead-end.

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361

An important and interesting facet of evolutionary ethics is
its extension of the meaning of evolution. Evolution is now
taken to mean not just biological evolution but it is used to
refer to the cultural history of man also. There seem to be two
reasons especially for so extending the meaning of the term. On
the one hand, it is a way of acknowledging how different, indeed,
how unique, man is in the animal kingdom. This difference is
not simply biological, but we have in man a new dimension,
that of mind, which involves quite different sorts of conditions
and processes. What is perhaps most noteworthy is that with
man evolution has come to a point where it is self-conscious and
self-determined. On the other hand, we also make clear the
nature, functions, and necessity of ethics. Men have developed
ethical theories because they live together in groups and have
a certain culture. All sorts of problems arise as a result of their
interaction and ethics is one kind of attempt to resolve these
problems. By relating cultural evolution to biological evolution
it is hoped to arrive at a more adequate and scientific resolution
of moral problems.
There is, however, a rather paradoxical result of the extension
of the notion. It was done in order to complete and strengthen
the evolutionary ethical theory, but it would seem to require its
development along lines that go beyond its original premisses.
It accepts as established that in biological evolution progress is
guaranteed by the nature of the process, but that in human
cultural evolution it is up to men themselves to ensure continued
progress. In this case, however, past evolution might be able to
indicate certain general directions men should take but could
not give any reasonably specific goals, motives, and criteria for
activities that are progressive in the present context. For instance, Soviet, Maoist, and Western ideologists would all argue
that the cultural trends in their countries represent the main
thrust of human evolution. The only adequate way to resolve
this and similar issues seems to be through a metaevolutionary
analysis of the nature and conditions of human activity.
Then too, when it is used in these ways, evolution is an

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GERARD J. DALCOURT

analogical term, that is, it is being used to refer to two processes
which are quite different in nature but which have certain similarities and relations, and it is because of these that we call them
by the same name. Clearly, they are fundamentally different.
Evolution in the biological sense consists of changes that take
place in organisms, over eons, as a result of conditions arising
randomly, with no control over them by those affected. Evolution in the cultural sense refers to changes in how men live and
act; these changes occur relatively quickly and at an increasing
tempo; they are produced to some extent as a result of our
choices and we can to to a degree control them. On the other
hand, though they are different, cultural evolution is continuation, on a higher level, of what started in biological evolution.
They also both involve continual change and, hopefully, progress. It is such similarities and relationships which justify the
imposition of a common term.
As a consequence of this, however, what is true of biological
evolution is not necessarily so of cultural evolution. Thus, even
if we grant that biological evolution necessarily produces progress, it would not follow that cultural evolution does. What is
important from a methodological point of view is that any conclusion of evolutionary ethics that is based on a comparison of
or a passage between biological and cultural evolution could
strictly be only a probable one, no matter how plausible it might
seem. Even though such conclusions were in fact true statements and could be established otherwise to be such, taken as
conclusions from such premisses, they can only be probable.
Thus, for example, when an evolutionary moralist says that
men have an obligation to make cultural evolution progressive
because it is a continuation of biological evolution which is
progressive, it may perhaps be true. But to show that it is true
one would also have to somehow establish that we have a general moral obligation to live in accord with nature. Otherwise
one would be committing the "is-to-ought" fallacy. Huxley
and Waddington would base their view that we should live in
accord with nature at least in part on hedonistic grounds: doing

THE EVOLUTIONARY

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363

so is in general a more satisfying way of living. But the hedonistic principle is not itself established by the evolutionary data,
and so from within the purely evolutionary perspective has only
a hypothetical value.
This leads us to another methodological deficiency of evolutionary ethics. Both Huxley and Waddington would argue that
a valid ethics can be derived only through the application of the
scientific method to the evolutionary data. First of all, we
should note that the term " scientific " is also an analogous one.
It could be used in its recent sense of consisting of the cumulation of measurements and correlations of facts or in its older
meaning of productive of knowledge that is certain and of real
causes. Huxley and Waddington, however, use it in the former
sense. Now, we could agree with them that biological evolution
is studied properly only in this way. Such an approach, though,
does not work too well for the study of cultural evolution, for
here the qualitative factors are the more relevant. It is, however, not valid at all when the task is to develop an ethics.
Fundamentally, a scale of values and a code of conduct require
a quite different method of derivation than does man's genetic
structure. What is required for an ethics is an analysis of the
essential characteristics and functions of men and of their activities. This cannot be done through a laboratory approach. As
we have seen already, evolutionary ethics is possible only
through the acceptance of a Weltanschauung on the basis of
which biological and anthropological data are interpreted. A
valid ethics can be scientific only in the older and broader
meaning of the word, although it certainly should make use of
data that is scientific in the narrower sense. Thus, evolutionary
moralists err by conceiving of method and of science in a univocal instead of analogical fashion and concluding that the
method for ethics has to be the same as that for biology.
Another deficiency that has often been noted in evolutionary
ethics is that its proponents commit the " naturalistic fallacy "
by identifying moral goodness with being in accord with the
main evolutionary thrust. Waddington argues that this charge

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GERARD J. DALCOURT

is not valid against his ethical position because he does not
identify moral goodness with evolutionary progress but only
uses the latter as the criterion by which he can judge between
ethical systems. It is clear, however, that this is merely a
verbal evasion of the charge. Its plausibility, such as it has,
comes from the peculiar way that he defines moral goodness, as
a feeling certain activities arouse in us. He then goes on to
argue that" ethicizing," or having and living according to such
feelings, is a natural function directed to furthering the progress of evolution. From this he concludes that ethical systems
can be evaluated on the basis of how well they guide men
toward fulfilling their evolutionary goal. What Waddington is
doing here, however, is to identify what are or are not desirable
ways of acting with what is or is not in accord with the direction of evolution. And the former is what we usually mean by
moral goodness or badness. If now someone would counter that
nevertheless this identification is a valid one, we would be back
to point previously discussed: Waddington would have to establish that it is so, and he can do this only in terms of his prescientific, naturalistic assumptions.

III
We may summarize our conclusions in this way. The evolutionary approach to ethics has the advantage of taking a
strongly empirical point of view which leads to important insights into the nature of man and his situation. Nevertheless,
evolutionary ethics, at least in its common forms, is from a
methodological point of view inadequate for various reasons.
Its proponents tend to accept a given version of the evolutionary theory as thoroughly established and beyond doubt, which
is contrary to fact. Besides, there is no such thing as a purely
evolutionary ethics. Every form of it is based not only on a
scientific theory but also on a pre-scientific world picture of one
sort or another. And what is worse, often-times this world picture is accepted without much critical analysis and thus the
ethics based on it is to that extent methodologically tainted.

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But certainly any adequate moral theory will have to be based
on a Weltanschauung which gives an objective account and
explanation of the world and man, and to do this it will have to
give full consideration to evolutionary data. Then too, the criteria and the conduct rules evolutionary ethics can plausibly
support are also only of a rather general sort. But these can
usually also be established on the basis of non-evolutionary
considerations, although, we may note, evolutionary ethics can
provide strong arguments for certain negative rules such as
those against pollution.
GERARD

Seton Hall University
South Orange, New Jersey

J. DALCOURT

TRANSCENDENT KNOWLEDGE IN INSIGHT:
A CLOSER LOOK

T

HE ISSUE OF NATURAL knowledge of God in the
thought of Bernard Lonergan is not new to these pages.
Patricia Wilson 1 has already given us a helpful survey
of Lonergan's work which compelled her to be brief in dealing
with Lonergan's argument for the existence of God as it appears
in Insight. Further illumination of this issue is needed if we
are to adequately grasp what Lonergan is saying and demand-

mg.

In Chapter 19 of Insight, "General Transcendent Knowledge," the move is made from knowledge of proportionate being
to knowledge and affirmation of transcendent being. There
Lonergan attempts to show that the affirmation "God exists"
is a true judgment. Thus the specific concern of this essay is to
show how the move is made from one sphere of knowledge to
another and to evaluate the legitimacy of the move. Analyzing
this move will be our way of seeing what it means for Lonergan
to say " God exists."
The first step then is to trace the argument of Chapter 19,
emphasizing its crucial points and adding comments where they
will be most illuminating.

TRANSCENDENT KNOWLEDGE: ITs NoTION, SoURCE,
AND PossiBILITY
Lonergan's description of transcendent knowledge is deceptively simple: " Clearly, despite the imposing name, transcendence is the elementary matter of raising further questions."
(635) 2 "Transcendence, then, at the present juncture, means a
1
2

The Thomist, April, 1971.
Unless otherwise noted, the numbers in parentheses refer to pages in Insight.

366

TRANSCENDENT

KNOWLEDGE

IN "INSIGHT "

867

development in man's knowledge relevant to a development in
man's being." (686) But this description would be misleading
if it were not seen in the context of what is the source of
transcendence in man.
" The immanent source of transcendence in man is his detached, disinterested, unrestricted desire to know. As it is the
origin of all his questions, it is the origin of the radical, further
questions that take him beyond the defined limits of particular
issues." (686)
The nature of this unrestricted desire needs some comment
here for it will soon achieve focal importance in Lonergan's
argument. First, it is not just the "operator" in man's intellectual development, but it also presents a challenge to his will.
As man is a single being, he will not tolerate the duality that
would arise if his knowing and doing were not consistent with
each other. Already we can see that if a man does not live on
the level of his insight, he will not be dominated by the unrestricted desire and thus the immanent source of transcendence
in him is choked off. Further, he must exercise great vigilance
for " the unrestricted desire to understand is the opposite of
any and every partial obscurantism, no matter how slight."
(638)
Lonergan makes some further clarifications on the nature of
this desire; that the unrestricted desire to understand does not
mean that the understanding will be unrestricted (637) and that
since the desire and the understanding are two quite different
things, att2-inment of understanding requires the fulfillment of
certain conditions. 'Vhat these conditions are and how they are
fulfilled is the concern of philosophy. (637) Fulfillment of the
conditions is, of course, Lonergan's way of characterizing the
process of verification, and this occurs only in the judgment in
which the intelligent grasp of the virtually unconditioned is
reasonably affirmed.
Lonergan is so beautifully blunt when he directly confronts
the question of whether or not transcendent knowledge is possible. Its possibility is equivalent to the possibility of grasping

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JON NILSON

intelligently and affirming reasonably a transcendent being. The
proof of the possibility lies in the fact that such intelligent grasp
and reasonable affirmation exist. The question then is narrowed
further to: will the grasp and affirmation of a transcendent being be the inevitable outcome of his account of understanding
and judgment? He goes further than this when he hints that,
if his attempt is not successful, then no attempts can be. For
he feels that all the arguments for the existence of God can be
summed up in his own. (672) Thus he raises the stakes of the
game. If he succeeds, then transcendent knowledge is possible.
If he fails, then perhaps transcendent knowledge must be relegated to poetic language of wishful metaphor or to a more
primitive past in man.
TRANSCENDENT

BEING As CoNCEIVED

How must such a transcendent being be conceived? To conceive the transcendent being requires intelligent grasp and reasonable affirmation and what must be done is to extrapolate
from proportionate being. Thus even though the extrapolation
is conceptual, it operates from a real basis of proportionate
being. This must be done first for, before one can affirm reasonably, he must grasp intelligently. Therefore there will be
some elements in the conception of the transcendent being
that can be verified and so lead to the affirmation of that being.
When the affirmation takes place, it will be by means of a grasp
of a virtually unconditioned whose conditions are now seen to
be fulfilled.
Lonergan's argument in the section on causality shows that
proportionate being as a virtually unconditioned cannot account
for its own existence, for the merely contingent is unintelligible.
Since Lonergan has shown being to be intelligible (something
which is realized by anyone who has ever claimed to make a
true judgment), what is unintelligible is apart from being and is
therefore nothing. Thus Lonergan concludes that there must be
an ultimate ground of the universe totally intelligible and
intelligent. For Lonergan, one must either accept that argument or admit that the universe is finally unintelligible.

TRANSCENDENT

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IN " INSIGHT "

369

But the argument falls flat without the essential component
which motivates such further questions, which leads one to ask
what lies beyond mere matters of fact and that is again the
unrestricted desire to know. (637) Without that, one would
never ask the further question nor even it seems would he
assume that there was a point to asking the further question.
Next Lonergan develops the implications of the unrestricted
act of understanding to fill out as much as possible the conception of God. (657-669) But this essay is concerned more with
the section that follows in which he finally deals with the question of whether or not this notion refers to existent reality,
whether one can reasonably affirm the existence of God as
Lonergan has conceived him.
THE ExiSTENCE OF GoD

In the previous section, the unrestricted act of understanding
was not itself grasped but rather the restricted act that extrapolates from itself to the unrestricted act. Once that has been
done, the question remains whether this unrestricted act is a
mere object of thought or a reality. (670)
He offers a caveat first. It is granted that there is no way
to verify an unrestricted act of understanding in either our
internal or external experience. But this is an objection that
confuses the notions of experience and verification. The ground
of verification lies not in experience but in the reflective grasp
of conditions that are fulfilled. (671) Now the unconditioned
to be grasped in the affirmation of the existence of God is the
virtually unconditioned which consists in inferring God's existence from true premises.
The premise that must be true (and therefore verified) is
that the real is completely intelligible for the argument for the
existence of God in its short form is: I£ the real is completely
intelligible, God exists.
Can it be reasonably affirmed
on the basis of all that has gone before in Insight that the real is
indeed completely intelligible? David Burrell says no.
His argument runs as follows: if one affirms that being is

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JON NILSON

completely intelligible, this must be affirmed on the basis of
experience or a judgment according to the line of reasoning
developed in Insight. But we have no experience of a completely intelligible or an unrestricted act of understanding. Further, verifying this in a judgment is out of the question since
this would be a verification totally foreign to our understanding
of verification. For the unrestricted act of understanding would
not be a virtually unconditioned and so we " cannot conceive
what the judgment would be like which affirmed that all intelligent questions were in and all answered correctly." 3
The consequences of this are that Lonergan cannot reasonably affirm the existence of God. " ... if we cannot understand
what it means to say that being (or the real) is completely
intelligible, then we cannot affirm anything about 'complete
intelligibility '-most notably, that it exists. (674) And i£ we
cannot affirm that complete intelligibility exists, then we cannot complete Lonergan's argument to the existence of God."
(674) 4
Burrell's objection gains even more cogency when we consider that explicitness with which Lonergan emphasizes the
meaning of verification in his schema and the mode in which it
is achieved. If " it is in the unconditioned that we place the
whole meaning and force of verification," (672) then it is hard
to avoid the conclusion that the move from being as intelligible
and heuristic to being as completely intelligible is definitely a
leap as far as rational affirmation is concerned. But all this is
only a negative kind of progress toward answering the question
with which we began: just what is going on in Chapter 19? What
could have led Lonergan to make such an affirmation?
It has been seen already that the statement " God exists "
follows from the premise that the real is in fact completely
intelligible. Following this lead, we can ask how this premise
3 Burrell, David B. " How Complete
Can Intelligibility Be? A Commentary on
Insight: Chapter XIX." Proceedings of the American Catholic Philosophical
Association (1967), 41, pp. £5£.
• Ibid.

TRANSCENDENT

KNOWLEDGE

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371

was arrived at and, in so doing, find how Lonergan can speak of
God.
The contention here is that the statement "the real is completely intelligible " is not a judgment arrived at through intelligent grasp and reasonable affirmation but is only apparent
to one who is dominated by the unrestricted desire to know.
Thus the operative factor in Chapter 19, the element that actually effects the move from proportionate to transcendent being
is not an affirmation of the virtually unconditioned but the
dominance in Lonergan's own life of the unrestricted desire to
know.
Therefore there will be two main parts to the following treatment: first, text indications in Insight that show that being is
completely intelligible not to the reasonably affirmed judgment
but to the pure desire to know; second, that the dominance of
the unrestricted desire to know demands a disciplined life-style
if it is to lead one to the affirmation of the existence of God.
CoMPLETE

INTELLIGIBILITY

AND THE UNRESTRICTED

DESIRE

We have already seen how the unrestricted desire is the
immanent source of transcendence in man and is not to be confused with the act of understanding itself, for the desire can
exist and does exist quite apart from the fulfillment of it.
As Lonergan develops his argument he shows that the real is
being and" being is completely intelligible." Why? "For being
is the objective of the detached, disinterested, unrestricted desire to know; this desire consists in intelligent inquiry and critical reflection; ... " (672-3) That is, being is completely intelligible under the aspect of the unrestricted desire and not under
the aspect of intelligent grasp and reasonable affirmation. For
we do not have the means whereby to make such a judgment.
That " this desire consists in ... inquiry " we can only take to
mean as " actualized in," for as has been seen, the desire is separate from the inquiry and motivates it. Thus in the crucial part
of the argument it is the unrestricted desire that establishes the
premise. And whenever we read in Lonergan the phrase " com-

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JON NILSON

pletely intelligible," we must mentally add " to the unrestricted
desire to know," for this is the operative factor.
This is supported where Lonergan joins the reader in his
attempt to see where the unjustified step was taken. He says,
" ... granted the exclusion of all obscurantism, intelligence is
committed to the effort to conceive a notion of God .... " (675)
Further, " .... if I am operating in the intellectual pattern of
experience, if I am genuine in my acceptance of the domination
of the detached, disinterested, unrestricted desire to inquire
intelligently and reflect reasonably, then I have no just grounds
for surprise if I find myself unable to deny either that there is a
reality or that the real is being or that being is completely
intelligible or that complete intelligibility is unrestricted understanding or that unrestricted understanding is God." (675)
And again, " ... if the real is being, the real is the objective of
an unrestricted desire to understand correctly; to be such an
objective, the real has to be completely intelligible, for what is
not intelligible is not the objective of a desire to understand,
and what is not completely intelligible is the objective, not of
an unrestricted desire to understand correctly but of such a
desire judiciously blended with an obscurantist refusal to understand. Once this expansive moment is achieved, the rest follows." (676) This becomes even clearer when it is put negatively: if there is no unrestricted desire to understand, then
there is a realm of being which is not able to be affirmed as
intelligible, and so one could not affirm that the real is completely intelligible.
Therefore the crucial premise in the argument is established
not through a virtually unconditioned but through the unrestricted desire to know which has already been seen as quite
apart from the process of verification. It is the unrestricted
desire that gives rise to the further questions which in turn
lead to the intelligent grasp and the reasonable affirmation.
Thus one can only join Lonergan in affirming the existence of
God to the extent to which one is dominated by the unrestricted
desire to know. " Complete intelligibility" is the object of this

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KNOWLEDGE

IN "INSIGHT "

373

desire, the term to which the intellectual pattern of experience
is moving, and so when one affirms that being is completely intelligible, he affirms it not as something that is verified in a
judgment but as the promise which has been given to him in
his previous experience of knowing.
The same point might be made in another way by examining
the logic of the word " intelligible." " Intelligible " means not
" already understood " but " able to be understood." Therefore
this quality of being will not be grasped by one who has not
sought to understand being and who has not reflected on his
own judgments. "Intelligible" is both an " achievement-word"
and an "invitation or promise-word" which can better be
uttered the more one reflects on inquiry itself. One can make
the same affirmation only when he makes the same effort.
So although we do not know what " completely intelligible "
might mean, the phrase is an invitation to keep seeking its
meaning, i.e., to let oneself be dominated by the unrestricted
desire to know. That, as we shall see, requires a commitment to
a disciplined way of life.
Now Burrell has shown in his article that Lonergan's language
about God as completely intelligible is not contradictory.
Therefore one element of language, the syntax, is in order.
That leaves the question of usage. Is it in fact appropriate in
Lonergan to use such language?
What Burrell has done, it seems to me, is to alert the readers
of Insight to the fact that the proper context for Lonergan's
speech about God is not intelligent grasp and reasonable affirmation alone but the whole intellectual pattern of experience.
Only in a life which is dominated by the unrestricted desire to
know does the language of " complete intelligibility " find its
true home. This illuminates Lonergan's response to Burrell in
the same issue of the Proceedings.
In that response, Lonergan replaces the term " unrestricted
desire " with " intending " and, in so doing, he retreats to another abstract word to conceal the fact that what he has done
is comprehensible only in the context of that way of life which

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JON NILSON

domination of the unrestricted desire demands. To give Burrell
the response his " objection" required would have called for
the kind of self-revelation that is not found in philosophical
conventions.
UNRESTRICTED

DESIRE AS A WAY OF LIFE

That the unrestricted desire to know requires a way of life
and the style of that life are shown in Lonergan's earlier description of Genetic Method. Therefore we shall examine the concept of Genetic Method itself and then how it is actualized in
human development.
The question of being is the most comprehensive question
that can be asked. Therefore, to ask that question is to seek
the highest possible viewpoint (for outside of being, there is
nothing) , the highest integrator of all underlying manifolds.
But the question must be raised seriously and intelligently.
It must be asked because one is concerned about the answer,
not as part of an academic exercise or sophisticated parlor conversation. It is a question that demands strategic and critical
inquiry just as do other questions.
Now there are successive levels of lower viewpoints, each
less comprehensive and so less capable of integrating the entire
range of data to be understood. The problem then becomes this:
how does the intelligent questioner who stands at one less comprehensive level and viewpoint move from his lower viewpoint
into the higher viewpoints in order to finally raise the question
of being, i.e., to put himself in the position where transcendent
knowledge becomes a possibility. Lonergan's response to this is
found in the section on Genetic Method.
Genetic method is concerned with the sequences in which
correlations and regularities occur, and so the main object of
genetic method is to master the sequence, understand the development, and proceed from the correlations and regularities
of one stage to those of the next stage. Mathematically, "one
might say that genetic method is concerned with a sequence of
operators that successively generate further functions from an

TRANSCENDENT

KNOWLEDGE

IN "INSIGHT"

375

initial function."
(461) Thus "the sequence of conjugate
forms is a sequence of higher integrations of otherwise coincidental lower manifolds of events." (461) So a basic notion
from all( earlier section has re-appeared here, for in the section
on" Genus as Explanatory" it was shown how the genus defines
the relation that obtains in a given manifold. New data can
either confirm the explanation given by the genus or else may
demand that a move is made to a higher viewpoint. The higher
viewpoint accounts for what is merely coincidental in the lower
viewpoint. From this it is easier to see why the field in which
genetic method is located is finality, the "upwardly directed
dynamism " of proportionate being, from a metaphysical point
of view; from a scientific point of view, the field is generalized
emergent probability. Finality can also be seen as the operator
of the transition from the lower to the higher viewpoint and
" is constituted inasmuch as the higher system not merely
suffers but provokes the underlying instability." (466) I interpret this as meaning that the new data entering the manifold
is not seen as just coincidental by the inquirer but as the first
hint and determination of the higher viewpoint.
Now genetic method and its schema can be applied to the
progress of human intelligence for all insights and conceptual
constructions give rise to further questions. "Clearly, as the
conceptual construction is the formulated higher system as
integrator, so the emergence of the further question effects its
transition into the operator." (469) Thus questions give rise
to insights which lead to further questions. This schema
achieves a further concretization when it is applied to human
development. But most importantly it will finally reveal the
answer to the question," What is going on in Chapter 19?"
Man, as Lonergan conceives him, is an existing unity who is
differentiated by physical, chemical, organic, psychic, and intellectual conjugates. Since man is a unity, the integration of
these is under the control of one level.
Now there is a law of integration in human development.
(472) Initiative for a change may come from any of the levels

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JON NILSON

in man and this upsets the equilibrium which has been achieved
between the levels. But development will be spotty and twisted
askew unless correspondence between the levels is had.
The importance of this law of integration is that it declares
what is meant by the term" human development." (472) The
initiative which comes from a given level can be seen as an
invitation for it asks man to advance or make adjustments in
the pattern of his life. Unless a response is made and correspondence between levels effected, then man loses his unity and
becomes instead a kind of collection of " conjugate forms " and
their accompanying drives and demands. Thus human development involves tension for it is always moving away from the
man as he now lives his life. He must break with the " inertia
of his prior stage." Insofar as man is conscious, the tension
becomes conscious and so each initiative can become a crisis.
But "there is a further and deeper aspect to the matter.
Intellectual development rests upon the dominance of a detached and disinterested desire to know .... Still, it is difficult
for man, even in knowing, to be dominated simply by the pure
desire, and it is far more difficult for him to permit that detachment and disinterestedness to dominate his whole way of life.
For the self, as perceiving and feeling, as enjoying and suffering,
functions as an animal in the environment, as a self-attached
and self-interested centre within its own narrow world .... But
the same self, as inquiring and reflecting . . . is carried by its
own higher spontaneity to quite a different mode of operation."
(473) Thus the actuation of the unrestricted desire hinges on
the very style of life and concern for personal integrity of the
inquirer himself. It does not and cannot operate independently
of the rest of the conjugates in man. This same idea is echoed
in the section on " Essential and Effective Freedom " wherein
he says " ... effective freedom itself has to be won .... But to
reach the universal willingness that matches the unrestricted
desire to know is indeed a high achievement, for it consists ...
in the adoption of an effective attitude in which performance
matches aspiration." (628-4) Deserving special attention is

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KNOWLEDGE

IN "INSIGHT "

377

his statement that this universal willingness requires " the adoption of an attitude towards the universe of being." (6!24) This
allows us to set up the following schema which constitutes the
answer to the question of how transcendent knowledge is possible in Lonergan and what is transpiring in Chapter 19:
Transcendent Knowledge
Raising the necessary questions

AND
Requirement that desire be actualized: way of life, attitude towards
universe of being, resolution, disciplined life, effective detachment
and disinterestedness, etc.

Therefore in Lonergan's view, one cannot reach transcendent
knowledge (if we can speak that way) merely by raising and
answering questions, for this way of inquiring is part and parcel
of a way of life of critical receptivity and readiness to sacrifice oneself. It is hard to describe this way of life for it is
uniquely personal to each.
The contention of this essay is vindicated in Lonergan's" law
of genuineness" (475-8) which demands that one admit the
tension of initiative and development into consciousness. Thus
even though genuineness grows weary and discouraged, it does
not retreat to passivity or substitutes like busy work. It presses
on, and it knows that to fail here, to refuse to be genuine, is the
root of scotosis. (478) And as we know already, "To exclude
an insight is also to exclude the further questions that would
arise from it and the complementary insights that would carry
it towards a round and balanced viewpoint." (191) Cf. also
his discussion on the will, pp. 598-600.
So we conclude that the real operative factor in Chapter 19
is Lonergan's own way of life, and only he who is willing to
enter on such a life can follow him into the realm of transcendent knowledge. Lonergan's speech about God finds its true and
appropriate context in a life of sustained genuineness.
JoN NILSON

Illinois Benedictine College
Lisle, Illinois

BOOK REVIEWS
Unfolding Revelation:
The Nature of Doctrinal Development. By JAN
HENDRIK W ALGRA VE, 0. P. Philadelphia: Westminster Press,
Pp. 418. $9.95.
Almost a decade ago John Courtney Murray wrote in The Problem of
God: " leaving aside the issue of what Catholic and Protestant
respectively mean when they say, 'Credo,' I consider that the parting
of the ways between the two Christian communities takes place on the
issue of development of doctrine. " The intervening ten years have shown,
if anything, that the issue slices not only between Confessions but within
Confessions. Recall the breakdown of discussions between the Nijmegen
catechical school and the Roman theologians, the reaction to H. Kung's
Unfehlbar, the ferment over whose catechism to use in CCD programs,
etc.. Prof. Jan Walgrave, a noted Newman scholar, makes a significant
contribution to contemporary discussion on development of doctrine with
his latest book, Unfolding Revelation (hereafter designated UR).
A major portion of the book is an historical survey of theological thinking
on development, an impressive synthesis of various currents and opinions.
The book ends with Walgrave's own theological reflection on the nature
of doctrinal development, borrowing on insights from the past, especially
Newman's and Blondel's, and using his own fresh approach to epistemology.
I propose to present en gros the thrust of UR and conclude with some of
my own reflections.
The book operates within certain presuppositions, viz., that Revelation
is a possibility, that is clothed in human language-hence the problem of
reconciling the truth of dogma with the fragileness inherent in human
thought-and that in some sense Revelation was closed with the apostolic
generation; otherwise it is ongoing and totally new dogmas pose no problem.
Fair enough presuppositions. Doctrinal development is presented as an
aspect of cultural development because in many respects, as Newman noted,
dogmas develop the way cultural ideas do. However, Walgrave is careful
to point out the ways in which the analogy breaks down (cf. p. 861 f.),
due to the sui generis nature of revealed saving truth.
The problem of doctrinal development-how to reconcile the historical
fact of development with the claim of the substantial immutability of
Revelation-is posed neither by Scripture nor the earliest theologians. The
passage of time had to force the issue. If, given the fact of development,
however, did these earliest theologians have principles for accepting it?
It seems clear to Paul and John that the nature of faith, on both the

378

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379

individual and collective ecclesial level, is susceptible of growth and fuller
The early Fathers, such as
consciousness and was to be expected.
Tertullian, lrenaeus,
and Origen, viewed Tradition as alive and growing
through the action of the Spirit. Admittedly, Tertullian distinguished
regula fidei and disciplina, yet the latter are not merely ecclesiastical laws.
The Fathers of the great Councils of the fourth and fifth centuries worked
with non-scriptural ideas not opposed to Scripture but offered as a
clarification of implicit truths. (The advocates of homoousios were accused
by the traditionalists of doctrinal innovation not surprisingly.)
UR
concludes that, for these theologians, the finality of Revelation in Christ
does not exclude a developing understanding of it, but because this posed
no problem, these early theologians spoke loosely of development and gave
no rules for what would constitute a true development.
Among the medieval theologians the idea of development becomes more
distinct in their discussions on the nature of faith and of theology. In some
tracts on faith as existential encounter with God utterly beyond human
words implications are laid that a developing clarification of Revelation is
not governed by logical rules alone. However, the general trend of Scholastic theology, under the influence of Aristotle's notion of scientia, is to
conceive of development as logical inference; the seeds are sown for those
later theories of development that W algrave calls " logical theories. " But
in this earlier stage of Scholasticism the problem of immutability versus
development is not keen; the earlier dogmas were not viewed in terms of
their historicity.
I should mention here in passing a particularly valuable dimension of
UR. Walgrave has a gift for capturing the spirit of an age, a rare power
at synthesis and clarity. His introduction to the spirit of medieval theology
is superb, as are his later introductions to other epochs, such as German
Romanticism.
A new age dawns with the Renaissance. A sense of history poses the
problem of continuity versus de facto changes of doctrine; a sense of
rationalism looks toward solutions of logical inference. W algrave calls
such a solution " logical " because " according to it the process of development is simply described in terms of logical inference and the criterion
of its truth is the logical test. " (p. 165) Cano, Molina, Banez, Suarez,
the Salmanticenses, are among the first proponents of logical solutions.
Their problematic is whether theological conclusions can be defined. They
draw intricate distinctions of how a conclusion may be contained in
revealed premises, but they labor under the weakness of conceiving
Revelation as exclusively propositional. The modern logical theories of
Marin-Sola, Schultes, Tuyaerts, etc., are similarly weakened.
Their
propositional epistemology limits them to doctrinal growth through inference
alone, which neither fits the historical facts (how do you deduce the

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BOOK REVIEWS

Assumption?) nor really solves anything (is the consequentia merely
explicative or truly deductive, and hence, a new truth?) .
Walgrave calls the antithesis of logical theory a transformistic theory,
as it is the expression of so-called theological liberalism. Such a theory
distinguishes the essence of Christianity from its changeable accidents;
the latter include all dogmatic statements. Variations of the theory will
depend on what the operative philosophy is, e. g., Hegel's rationalism,
Schleiermacher's idealism, Harnack's positivism, and so forth. The continuity in Christianity is religious experience (defined in various ways).
Its objectification into doctrine undergoes continual flux, depending on
the culture and philosophy involved. Hence, there need be no logical
connection between one doctrinal statement of the experience and a later
one. A doctrine may point a man in the direction of the experience without
being an objectively true statement. Given this framework, the problem
of development as framed by UR poses no problem; liberal theology
lacks, in the words of Newman, a dogmatic principle. Walgrave presents
a clear synthetic sweep of the philosophies of Kant, Fichte, Schelling,
Schleiermacher, the influence on English liberal theology through Coleridge
and Tyrrell, the positivism of the Modernists, and the empiricism of Van
Buren, to name a few. It is impressive and very readable.
One can briefly contrast the logical and transformistic theories as follows:
Revelation is merely propositional-it is an actual personal experience;
its doctrines are statements about God-they are statements of a world
view using a " god language " ; one preaches truths communicated long
ago-one preaches to invoke an experience; faith is the intellectual
acceptance of a doctrine-faith is a change of heart and one's whole attitude
toward life. Whereas the logical theory did not fit the facts, the
transformistic theory eventuates in religious skepticism in the author's
opinion.
Since history moves in dialectical fashion-a leit-motif of UR is that
" the ' perspectiveness ' of human thinking is incurable "- the reader
is now prepared for the synthesis of these ideas in the" theological theory."
Beginning in the nineteenth century, the author contends that many
theologians from various backrounds came to the same basic insights on
development. Growth is not reducible to strict logical unfolding, but yet
one has an objective dogmatic principle, viz., " true faith, although
transcending the propositions in which its object presents itself, is not
possible without dogma conceived as a definite unfalsifiable truth about
the saving God." (p. 331)
The major contributors to this insight are the Ti.ibingen theologians
Mohler and Kuhn, J. H. Newman, Solov'ev, Blonde!, von Hugel, and K.
Barth. The Ti.ibingen school mediates and modifies according to Catholic
principles the German Romantic stress that the content of faith is authentic

BOOK REVIEWS

SSl

in so far as it is subjectified by becoming a personal communication with
the real. It was Newman's genius to analyze the spontaneous growth of
ideas in the mind and the role of moral consciousness in one's immediate
contact with the real (recall his famous distinction of real and notional
apprehension and the role of the illative sense) . The section on Newman
in UR singularly recommends itself, fruit of the author's life-study.
Blonde! and von Hiigel contribute how the knower is in contact with
reality transcending the range of clear notional apprehension and how the
growth of doctrine occurs in this " subconscious and unreasoned " depth.
I would say the integrating idea is beyondness; the whole reality is
present to the mind through the grace of faith but that it transcends any
objectifications.
The unexpressed awareness always exceeds articulated
dogmas. (Rahner's transcendental method finds place here.) Growth
is a gradual clarification of an intuition continually present as a composite
reality. The process is theological because it is super-inferential and
charismatic. Another reason for calling the theory theological is that
only an authoritative statement of the Church can insure what is true
development, and this role can only be recognized by faith.
Showing the influence of Aquinas, Newman, and Blonde!, UR concludes
with the author's own theological reflection. Parallels can be drawn between
the philosophical quest for " existential truth, " that which supplies
meaning to one's existence and which in a sense is already within one,
and theology's role to articulate the immediate presence through faith of
of the divine. Notional abstraction never exhausts the idea, hence a
continual mental motion to plumb further. Because of the unique nature
of the presence of the real to the mind-whether philosophic truth or
Saving Truth itself-one's moral stance vis-a-vis the real conditions
insight. "The real becomes more and more real to those who love it
and obey its claims on them. " (p. 373) And finally, the super-logical
character of dogmatic growth is shown from the very nature of thought
itself as well as from the role of the Spirit. There is, if I might call it,
room for mental gestation in which a dogma may grow spontaneously,
largely unconscious.
But dogma has this uniqueness. The terminus a quo is both an
immediate presence of God and a message. All of Revelation is " ultimately
meant, although incompletely expressed " by the Scriptures. Hermeneutics
brings to the fore elements not expressly said but implicitly intended, and
it must conserve what was explicitly meant by a statement. Subsequent
to all of this is the role of authority to judge true development, under the
guidance of the Spirit, which alone can save human thought from the
partialness inherent in its abstractive nature. My summation ends here.
I would have liked this last point to have been developed further because
even those in authoritative office think within a particular culture and

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BOOK REVIEWS

theological view. Since grace works within nature, how does the Spirit
enable someone in authority to pass judgments on the rectitude of a
theological development within another philosophical system? This raises
the possibility that it has been done already, precipitously and falsely.
U R clearly envisions the inevitability of error within a theological tradition.
The question is, does the insuring of true development demand that
every doctrinal statement of the Magisterium be errorless. The author does
not raise the problem directly, but would seem to say yes. It would have
been interesting to see H. Kung's question in Unfehlbar incorporated;
unfortunately the manuscript of UR had been in the publisher's hands
since 1970.
On the same idea, if UR develops strongly-and I think unassailably
correct-the super-logical growth of dogmas, how is one to judge even
in retrospect a true development?
UR notes that "the proper role of
theology is to work out a system in which primitive and later dogmas are
related to one another in such a way that harmoniously and intelligibly
But what would be the criteria for dogmas
fit into a pattern. " (p.
being harmoniously patterned especially if one wishes to leave room for
non-strictly logical connections,
There are some remarkably beautiful analyses of the nature of faith,
especially the idea of immediately and inarticulately but wholly possessing-or rather being possessed by-the divine. In the limp propositionai
approach to faith one could never show convincingly how the simple
believer, M. Unamuno's foi du charbonnier, could have as much faith as the
theologian, yet one had to admit it as possible.
I should like to conclude with an ecumenical proposal, suggested by
the analysis of the historicity of truth in UR. The first principles from
which a man thinks-or a collectivity-is the man himself. We are not
separately conscious of them in our thinking.
They provide direction
to our thinking, give tonality to a society's tradition. Now, when we look at
the Credo of another Church, we may see elements there which do not fit
into our own. Not in the sense that they contradict, but that they are
not easily harmonizable with our first principles. In a contribution to
New Dimensions in Religimts Experience (Alba House, 1971) I suggested
that conceptualizations can be rooted in irreducibly diverse patterns of
thought from which affirmations about the same reality can be made
although they are not harmonizable.
The ecumenical question is, what
do we need minimally to mutually recognize creeds. If Prof. Walgrave's
book clearly shows that we have moved away from logical theories of
inclusion, could we not extend that same direction to the matter of
recognizing other creeds, asking of others not that they embrace our
notional affirmations and tradition but asking ourselves to accept a true
development in their tradition. Credal formulae are not relative, I do not

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383

mean that, any more than J. W algrave would have us drop rigid logical
theories for fluid transformistic theories. Newman's dogmatic principle
holds, and so recognition could not be extended haphazardly.
We might
remember in all of this that the earliest creeds were doxological and
not criteria for division, and that even the New Testament lived with
pluralistic thought patterns. It took a long time to see how John's doxa
fit in with Paul's kenosis Christ.
There is an extended bibliography at the end of UR, drawing on German,
French, Dutch, and English materials. The publisher could well have put
the footnotes at the bottom of the pages rather than at the back. My
final word is that this is an impressive book, deserving of a slow and
careful reading.
JEREMY MILLER, 0. P.
University of Louvain
Belgium

The Crisis in Priestly Ministry.
Indiana:

By CHARLES E. CURRAN. Notre Dame,
Fides, 1972. Pp. 146. $1.50 (paperback) .

Where to classify Charles Curran's work within the currently everincreasing literature on the priesthood is difficult to judge. It eludes
categorization as scholarly or popular in presentation, as specifically
theological or behavioral in approach. It can seem to have some qualities
of each of these genres, yet is actually none of them.
The author describes his brief book as addressing " some theological
reflections on the crisis of priestly ministry to those who are either
actively engaged in the priestly ministry or preparing for it" (p. 1) "with
the aim of trying to be of assistance to" such persons. (p. 8) He identifies and discusses three crises among contemporary priests: 1) a "crisis
in ministerial identity" (Chapter I); a "crisis in spirituality" (Chapter
II); and a "crisis in preaching the Word of God" (Chapter III). This
review will be concerned chiefly with the convictions, both affirmative and
negative, which color and govern Father Curran's outlook on the three
"crises" he discerns, and the theological character of these convictions.
Opinions will differ as to whether this work really consists of " theological
reflections " at all. In its author's judgment, no doubt, the book is not
alone theological, but something of a model of what contemporary
theological methodology should produce. This is the reason, or part of
the reason, why Father Curran expects his work to be of assistance to
contemporary priests. But to those who hold that theological reflection
springs proximately from faith's believing and pondering God's word, so
that truly theological undertaking is directly illumined and guided by

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the divine word enlivening the believing community, "The Crisis of
Priestly Ministry " would not qualify as theological. For Charles Curran
accepts and urges as ultimately normative for priestly life and ministry
not the word of God but what he calls simply "the human." This
point needs concretization.
Catholic faith holds that many truths about the ministerial priesthood
have been revealed by God. These are preached in every age, by the
Church's ordinary magisterium, and some of them have been defined, at
one time or another, by her solemn magisterium. These stand as changeless.
No one holds that the meaning and "the model" (Fr. Curran's term)
of priesthood has been throughly penetrated by, or adequately defined in,
any human conceptualizations. For priesthood is an aspect of the total,
and incomprehensible, mystery of the Church; and it is a special
participation of Christ's saving presence and activity in history. Consequently, it transcends all human understanding. It remains true, however,
that because priesthood is a gift of God to men and not a merely human
institution, the ultimate norm for judging the meaning of priesthood and
its role in human salvation is the word of God and not merely human
exigencies.
Nowhere in his discussion of priestly identity or functioning (in fact,
nowhere in this book) does Father Curran so much as state what God's
word, as understood by the Church, tells us about priesthood; nowhere
does he accept and use this body of sacred teaching as normative in
determining priestly identity, meaning, and function. For example, Catholic
theology has taught for centuries that the priestly role includes prophetic,
sacramental, and leadership functions (magisterium, ministerium, regimen);
and Vatican Council II developed this point extensively. Charles Curran
mentioned these three aspects of priesthood, but simply as the opinion of
one contemporary theologian, Edward Schillebeeckx! Because Father
Curran suppresses divine truth about the priesthood more than he is
guided by it in his reflections, doubt that his work is really theological
is not groundless.
For Curran, it is " the human " which must finally determine priestly
identity. Impatient with a theology which "thought in terms of universal
essences or natures which are true in all circumstances, " (p. 27) the author
holds that " ultimately the individual minister himself must responsibly
fashion his own ministerial role in terms of the people he is trying to
serve ... ultimately the concrete meaning of (priestly) ministry comes from
the individual minister himself." (p. 33) One premise for this conclusion
seems to be Father Curran's position that "Christian ministry precisely
because it has to do with the human is not able to have ... strict definitions
and boundaries .. .by its very nature it can be as broad as the human. "
(p. 31. italics the reviewer's)

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Quite possibly, it is inevitable that, if our judgments about the meaning
of the ministerial priesthood are not immediately rooted in God's revelation
about it, we shall conclude that " by its very nature " priestly ministry is
coextensive with " the human " : it includes no less than, and no more than,
the human. God's word alone enables us to know the divine and eternal
meaning of priesthood and priestly ministry; only that word manifests
priesthood's role as the channel from Calvary to the Father, a channel
through which "the human " can journey infinitely beyond the human.
One cannot fault, but can only praise, Father Curran's deep conviction
about the need for profound reformation and updating of priestly life and
ministry. Vatican II, as well as the personal experience of priests almost
everywhere, witness that " the pastoral and human circumstances of the
priesthood have in very many instances been thoroughly changed. " (II
Vatican Council, Presbyterorum Ordinis, a. I) Urgent need for priestly
change and adaptation to contemporary man, and his society, must be admitted by all. The question is whether we shall accept as ultimately normative in determining the adaptive processes God's word proclaimed by
Christ's voice among us or the tastes, preferences, and so fallible (but always
"responsible"!)
whims of every individual priest in the Church. The
question is whether in determining what changes are to be made God's
word of wisdom or my foolisness shall decide what priesthood is "by its
very nature. "
Other major points made in this work are similarly open to question.
One example is the interpretation of the sacraments expressed in these
reflections. We are told that " the sacraments and even the Eucharist
are not primarily channels of grace, " (p. 36) but that " the sacramental
rite is above all a faith celebration." (p. 38) This is hardly a new view,
to be sure; elements of it can be traced back some 900 years. Certainly
Catholic theological tradition holds that faith plays a key role in sacramental
activity; it is the very great theologians who often speak not simply of
"sacraments " but of " sacraments of faith. " In this sense, one must
agree that every sacramental rite is " a faith celebration. " But is sacramental activity a faith celebration " above all " ? Is the sacrament no
greater than a celebration of our faith: that faith which is resident in us,
subject to our control, and which is at best a human response to God?
In Catholic teaching, the sacrament is not alone the manifestation of
faith within the community and within persons, it is more. It includes,
signifies, brings God's embrace of us, God's loving initiative to which,
through faith, we respond. As a (relatively) total encounter between God
and man, the sacrament really transforms us, making us truly "deiform,"
as ancient Christian usage put it. Father Curran sees the human activity of
faith as paramount in the sacraments, and as, so to say, defining sacramental
life; Catholic teaching sees God's self-giving to us as primary in all the

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sacraments, the human faith-response remaining indispensably necessary.
Again Charles Curran's complaints (the correct term) that "ministry
in the Church is practically limited to priestly ministry" (p. 3) is
remarkable.
His position is that, whereas scripture itself indicates " a
great plurality of ministry" in the Church, (p. 32) priestly ministry,
quite unfortunately, has come to include all other forms of ministry. This
position seems to be historically indefensible and factually untenable.
In addition to questions raised in this review, other positions taken by
Father Curran in the pages of this work are also open to discussion to say
the least.
A word should be added-however disagreeable the task-about the
author's style of presentation.
In his Introduction Father Curran points
out that the book began as a series of lectures. (cf. p. 8) This may account
for the fact that a tedious repetitiveness, not merely of ideas but of
identical phrases, comes to seem never-ending in this work. Only once,
in this reviewer's judgment, does the writing come alive, this for a very
few pages in the discussion of St. Paul's spirituality. Overall, the style is
as dully repetitious as the book's content is theologically poverty-stricken.
THOMAS U. MuLLANEY, 0. P.
Providence College
Providence, Rhode Island

Toward a Theology for the Future. Edited by CLARK H. PINNOCK and
DAVID F. WELLS. Carol Stream, Illinois: Creation House, 1971.
$4.95. Pp. 329.
Aggressive and comprehensive are the claims made in the Editors'
Preface for the essays collected in this volume. On the one hand, say the
Editors, these essays by Evangelical scholars will demonstrate theological
workers who have remained committed to biblical Christianity when
everyone else has rejected the Bible, leaving shattered convictions. On the
other hand, these essays will show that contemporary Evangelical Protestants do not deserve the charges of anti-intellectualism, cultural isolation,
and social indifference made against them in the past.
Indeed, these essays mean to be a gauntlet cast into the arena of
contemporary theological scholarship by Evangelical Protestants.
They
are to show that Evangelical scholars are " intellectually vigorous and
moving toward a fully articulated theology."
They are to show that
Evangelical scholars have what the situation today demands: " a vigorous
restatement of historic belief, " a " convincing and credible way out " of
the "dangerous cul-de-sac" theology is now in. More than that, even
these essays are to demonstrate a movement toward " constructive Evan-

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387

gelical proposal " for the future of theology. These are mms and high
claims.
To accomplish these goals, the editors have gathered eleven essays from
a wide range of theological areas, essays written by Evangelical Protestants
in America, Canada, and England. Of the American authors, the majority
are teaching at or have been closely associated with Fuller Theological
Seminary.
The field of Biblical scholarship is represented by three essays. R. K.
Harrison writes on Old Testament study; E. F. Harrison deals with the
sayings of Jesus in the New Testament; Palmer Robertson authors an essay
on Biblical theology.
The areas of historical and systematic theology receive their due.
Clark Pinnock, one of the editors, has an essay on contemporary systematic
theology. Geoffrey Bromiley writes on Patristic studies. David Wells,
a second editor, deals with the relation of theology to the institutional
Church today. A discussion of Ethics in the Theology of Hope is provided
by Bernard Ramm. And Stanley Obitts' chapter on Hans Kling's view of
infallibility belongs also to the area of theology.
Concerning the relation of Christianity to culture, three essays are
included. One by Harold Ockenga discusses preaching; another by J.D.
McDonald offers an Evangelical correlation of theology and culture. And
Arthur Glasser writes on the Church's ]\fission and the cultural environment.
Strikingly absent is anything on hermeneutics.
This is a surprising
lacuna, since interpretation of Scripture is a burning problem today, a
problem about which Evangelical scholars should have something important
to say. This lack leads me to the major criticism I have of this collection
of essays.
The reader of this book, led by the Editors' Preface, expects some
positive statements about new ways to do theological work. He expects
not just description of what is being done and not merely criticism of it;
he expects substantive alternatives spelled out. At least, the Editors'
Preface leads the reader to look for proposals articulated and defended
about doing things theological scholars have not been doing but should have
been doing. But what the reader actually gets is mostly criticism of what
theological scholars have been doing. Substantive alternatives, spelled
out and defended, are largely absent.
Take, for instance, Pinnock's chapter on systematic theology today.
Writing clearly and persuasively, Pinnock lays bare what he sees as the
sickness of modern theology: the refusal to reject the naturalistic ideology
of positivistic scientism.
What is Pinnock's constructive alternative?
Theologians should resist submitting to the naturalistic ideology of positivistic scientism. They should stick to their guns and appeal to the
"empirically verifiable divine activity in history," to" the public revelation

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of God given definitively in the Christ event ... ," to the "verified Word
received from beyond the human situation. " The reader searches eagerly
in the essay for how theologians should do this today. He looks for more
than these vague assertions; he looks for a constructive new way spelled
out. He looks in vain. All Pinnock offers are these vague assertions.
Or take the essay of the second editor, David Wells, on the relation of
contemporary theology to the institutional Church. Wells gives a fine
survey of contemporary Protestant and Catholic theology. What does he
suggest as a constructive remedy for the weakness of this theological
development he traces so well? We should, he suggests, recover Luther's
and Calvin's distinction between the Deus absconditus and Deus revelatus.
This would represent, Wells says, a fresh return to the Biblical sources for
man's knowledge of God rather than further immersion in secular life. It
will be a return "to the 'enfleshed Christ', Jesus of Nazareth, (in whom)
God has spoken His final Word to man." But how might theologians
today make such a return to the " enfleshed Christ? " Wells spells out
no answer.
Or, finally, consider Obitts' "discussion" with Hans Kling on the
subject of infallibility. This chapter, in my view, is the most closely
reasoned, the most penetrating of all the essays. And, in the light of the
expectations for constructive new proposals aroused by the Preface, this
essay is the most frustrating. For Obitts burrows into Kling's doctrine of
infallibility and religious truth, showing its weak and tender parts. But
what positive, constructive alternative is made by Obitts about this burning
issue of religious truth? All Obitts finally suggests is that we need to do
better than Kling. How to do better, something substantive, he does not
give.
The stated purpose of these essays is praiseworthy. To address the
present situation in theology offering constructive, positive proposals, to
show the vigorous work being done by Evangelical scholars, to demonstrate
that they are not anti-intellectual, culturally isolated, socially indifferent-all
these are worthy purposes. But the specific gravity of the essays tends
much more toward showing what Evangelical scholars think is wrong with
what other theologians are doing today. The claim of the Preface to
present constructive, positive proposals is not fulfilled. At least there are
no significant proposals which are substantively stated, spelled out, and
defended.
Several of these essays, especially the ones on theology and ethics, offer
perceptive analyses of contemporary theology. In this lies the volume's
value. More than vague assertions about how to do theology better,
however, the book does not provide.
DAVID

Virginia Theological Seminary
Alexandria, Va.

A. ScoTT

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389

The Thomism of Etienne Gilson. A Critical Study. By JoHN M. QUINN,
0. S. A. Villanova, Pa.: Villanova University Press, 1971. Pp.
As the long and brilliant career of Etienne Gilson draws to a close (he will
be 89 on June 13, 1973), it is inevitable that scholars in increasing numbers
will attempt a critical assessment of his life's work. Gilson himself would
be the first to welcome their evaluation of his thought and correction of
any mistakes he may have made. Fr. Quinn is the first, to my knowledge,
to publish an extended critical study of the part of Gilson's work that is
most dear to his heart-his Thomism. Chapter 1 examines Gilson's notion
his conception of metaphysics in its
of Christian philosophy, Chapter
relation to philosophy, Chapter 3 his doctrine of knowledge and existence,
and Chapter 4 his interpretation of the first three ways to God. His
judgment of Gilson is severe. He questions " the validity of the claim that
the Gilsonian Christian philosopher, the wholly metaphysical thinker, and
the existentialist represent the authentic Aquinas." (p. xvi) Because of
the difficulty and complexity of these issues this review can do little more
than comment briefly on author's interpretation of Gilson's positions and
the validity of some of his criticisms.
Like others before him, the author contends that Gilson's notion of
Christian philosophy is self-contradictory, for it claims that this philosophy
is both strictly rational and philosophical and also " rooted in Scripture
and tradition."
(p. 4) While not denying the validity of Christian
philosophy in the general sense of an influence of Christianity on the
philosopher (e. g., in raising fresh philosophical problems), he questions
the Gilsonian way of understanding Christian philosophy. What troubles
him most is Gilson's contention that Aquinas, in his role of theologian,
developed a philosophy that he made a part of his theology. This
philosophy, which according to Gilson is "the philosophical demonstration
of the part of revelation that deals with truth accessible to natural
reason, " (p. 7) is established on purely rational grounds. Fr. Quinn
cannot see how such a philosophical element can be part and parcel of a
theology. But this is because he either misunderstands or does not accept
St. Thomas's notion of theology. If the Summa Theologiae is truly a
compendium of theology, everything in it is theological-even rationally
demonstrated truths. Gilson was looking for a term to designate the
rationally demonstrable part of Thomistic theology and all the philosophical
notions that Aquinas elaborated in his theology for theological purposes.
To these he gave the name " the Christian philosophy of St. Thomas. "
More generally he considers every philosophy Christian which, " although
keeping the two orders [of reason and faith] formally distinct, nevertheless
considers the Christian revelation as an indispensable auxiliary to reason "
(The Spirit of Mediaeval Philosophy, p. 37). To my knowledge he never
suggested that this gives rise to a hybrid theology on the model of

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mathematical physics, as the author claims. (p. 9) The analogy is his
own, not Gilson's. Moreover, the author misinterprets Gilson's statement
that " Philosophically speaking, the way a philosopher arrives at truth is
irrelevant to it " to mean that the method of proof is irrelevant. (p. 5)
In the context Gilson means that a truth may be suggested to a philosopher
in many different ways, e. g., by his faith, but this truth must be rationally
demonstrated if it is to have philosophical merit. Nor does Gilson endow
St. Thomas, the commentator on Aristotle, "with the narrow textual
method and withdrawn posture of a modern scholar. " (p. 11) In Gilson's
own words, St. Thomas's commenting on Aristotle was for him " a study
of philosophy in depth and in its manifold disciplines, " in order " to
co-operate with the work of redemption" (The Philosopher and Theology,
p. 193). According to Gilson, however, many of St. Thomas's most
profound and original philosophical notions are contained, not in his
commentaries, but in his theological works.
Chapter Q, entitled "Metaphysics and Philosophy, " adds to the author's
misinterpretations of Gilson. He is said to depute " philosophy to an
exclusively metaphysical office, " to contract philosophy to metaphysics,
(p. 18) presumably because he holds that " being is the first principle of
all human knowledge. " (p. 17) Thus Gilson is said to invert the natural
order of learning, placing metaphysics first and setting "neophytes to
unriddling the puzzles connected with being as being." (p. QO) Were the
author well acquainted with Gilson's writings he would know that Gilson
follows St. Thomas's pedagogical order, placing mathematics first, followed
by the philosophy of nature, ethics, and finally metaphysics. With St.
Thomas he deputes metaphysics to the latter part of one's life. In his
Princeton lecture " Thomas Aquinas and our Colleagues " (1953) he
writes: "Young people cannot be metaphysicians. " The author thinks
Gilson insists on "the empirically unascertainable notion of being, " but
in fact he says in the same lecture: " The intellect for the metaphysician
is like any other human intellect: it draws its data from sense perception
and never thinks without images."
While having a predilection for
metaphysics and considering it philosophy par excellence, Gilson does not
practically place the whole of theoretical philosophy into metaphysics.
(p. 19) If he did, he would leave no room for his own books on the
philosophy of art, which according to him do not belong to metaphysics
(Forms and Substances in the Arts, p. Q) .
In Chapter 3 Gilson is upbraided for having a "horror of abstraction "
and a " fondness for metaphysical intuition " in the apprehension of
existence. The author finds in this " a residual Bergsonian influence. "
(p. 69) In fact, so little fond of intellectual intuition is Gilson that he
denies that we have any; in particular he will have nothing to do with
an intuition of the act of being or esse, as the author correctly quotes

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391

Gilson as saying. (p. 164, n. 63) Gilson is critical of another very
well-known Thomist for proposing precisely such an intuition of being
(Le Thomisme, 6th ed., p. 187) . For Gilson, the elaboration of the notion
of being is owing to "a progressive effort of abstraction" (ibid., p. 188).
(The expression " metaphysical intuitions " which the author finds in
Gilson's Being and Some Philosophers, p.
is not to be taken in a
technical sense; in the context it means simply "metaphysical reflections ") . In stressing the role of judgment in the apprehension of existence
Gilson wishes to avoid the reduction of existence to a form or essence,
which is the object of simple apprehension. The author praises Gilson for
drawing attention to the danger of essentializing the act of being or esse,
but the author himself has not escaped this pitfall. He describes existence
as "a form of reality," though superior to other forms. (p. 58) According
to Gilson's interpretation of St. Thomas, however, esse is not a form but
the actuality of form (Le Thomisme, p. 175) . The author does not wish
to de-essentialize existence lest it slip " beyond intelligibility. " (p. 54)
"Quiddity" and "meaning" are taken to be synonyms. (p. 71) He thus
loses sight of the radical otherness of esse in creatures from form or essence.
The same quickness to criticize Gilson and slowness to understand him
mars the fourth Chapter on the ways to God. The author misses the
thrust of Gilson's distinction between the first and second ways based on
the difference between a moving and efficient cause. (p. 96) He criticizes
Gilson's explanation of how a thing can move itself (" one part of a certain
being is moving another one "), then offers the same explanation: " one part
of an organism moves only because it is moved by another part. " (p. 99)
Gilson is said to base the third way not upon physical possibles but upon
abstract metaphysical notions of possibility and necessity. But as the
author remarks, Gilson sees the starting point of the proof as " the visible
Birth and
fact that certain things are born and others die." (p.
death certainly qualify as physical events.
It is remarkable that in a book on the Thomism of Gilson the author
nowhere refers to a book of Gilson entitled Le Thomisme, 6th ed. 1965,
which contains some of his latest thoughts on the subject. Only a few
citations are made to the English translation of an earlier edition of this
work. Had this book been consulted, the author might have avoided
some of his misinterpretations of Gilson's mind. His own book is worthless
for obtaining an accurate idea of what Gilson actually holds. Its many
grave misinterpretations obscure whatever of value there is in some of his
criticisms, for example, certain ambiguities and difficulties in some of
Gilson's English writings. It is to be hoped that in the future Gilson will
find more understanding critics.
ARMAND A. MAURER,

Pontifical Institute of Mediaeval Studies
Toronto, Ontario, Canada

c. s. B.

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Morality, Law and Grace. By J. N.D. ANDERSON. Downers Grove,
Illinoin: Inter-Varsity Press, 197Q. Pp. 1Q8. $1.95.

J. N.D. Anderson's book Morality, Law and Grace begins with a regret
that it is not what it might have been, viz., a more developed presentation
of the " vast range of subjects " pertaining to Christian Ethics rather than
a two chapter addition to a trifold lecture series. Unfortunately, the
opusculum suffers in that it raises more questions than it attempts to
answer.
Indeed, the questions it does attempt to answer hardly
bristle with relevance. Interest is not vibrant in the area indicated
by the title. Dr. Anderson's chapters on "Morality and Determinism " and " Morality in The Permissive Society " lay claim and
credence to the fact that it is sensible to address oneself to the
contemporary horizon of discussion. Such advertence would, of necessity,
include delving into the nature of secularity, world-hominization, and the
active virtues flowing from them-all of which are regrettably bypassed.
Certainly, B. F. Skinner's contention that man is freedomless is scarcely
challenged by indicating that there is " insoluble mystery " surrounding
speculation on man's being preconditioned. " (p. 38) In the second
chapter the author concerns himself more creditably with offering alternatives to the" man come of age" morality of J. A. T. Robinson and the
distinctive situation ethic of J. Fletcher. This is, perhaps, the better
segment of Dr. Anderson's work since here he argues congently for moral
criteria along traditional lines. But, even here, there are reservations.
He says: " To leave everything to man's better judgement presupposes
a moral perfection in human beings which contradicts the basic facts of
life." (p. 49) Be this as it may, this is no justification for the following
assertion: "This is precisely why the Bible includes ... clear-cut moral
principles or 'laws' which represent the Maker's instructions ... " (pp. 4950) This is Biblical fundamentalism at its boldest! These statements are
never integrated into the broader context of man under grace which the
author refers to as " the power for moral living. " The role of Christian
conscience vis-a-vis the ethical situation is never discussed. It is disconcerting-indeed, alarming-to find Dr. Anderson so superficially conclude
that " ... whether abortion is or is not justified must in the nature of the
case be justified by the medical profession; so it is in my view wrong to
introduce any criteria which are outside of a doctor's competence." (p. 80)
The peculiarity is that mention is made of the sanctity of life, but
there is no attempt made to demonstrate the aforementioned " exception "
to the law.
Positively speaking, Morality, Law and Grace does argue, even if
unsystematically, to the interrelationships among morality, law, and grace.
Basically, the book is apologetic by way of suggestion rather than by way
of serious dialogue and demonstration. One could hardly find time and

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space in lecture format to seek to establish the necessary complementarity
between reason and faith. Time ought to have been allotted to set in
perspective the relationship between Biblical and natural ethics.
In sum, one has no doubt that Dr. Anderson sees the broader dimensions
of the topics he has chosen to put before us. If the reader lacks his
perspecuity, he may be bored or deceived by his book's avoidance of more
fundamental questions.
ALAN MILMORE,

0. P.

Providence College
Providence, R. I.

Causality and Scientific Explanation. Vol. I: Medieval and Early Classical Science. By William A. Wallace. Ann Arbor: The University of
Michigan Press, 1972. Pp. 294. $12.00.
Rapidity of change in the philosophy of science is illustrated by the
fact that twenty years ago-in the heyday of the " logical empiricist "
or "logical positivist" movement-it would have been considered misleading to speak of causality and scientific explanation in the same breath
of voice. It was then assumed that the task of the philosopher of
science was the formal representation of scientific theories in general,
leaving to the practicing scientist the job of confronting his conclusions
with actual scientific procedure. Philosophy of science, thus disengaged
from the specific tenets of particular scientific theories, was thought
to be immune from the vicissitudes of change and the overthrow of
current beliefs. Since the philosopher of science could, in principle at
least, outline the characteristics of all possible explanations, he could,
by the same stroke, give the formal characteristics of all future
explanations.
Unfortunately, this attractive program has shown itself
grossly inadequate, and it is now generally recognized that, in their concentration on technical problems of logic, logical empiricists lost contact
with real science. If it was simplistic to read the past as the record of
great men throwing off the shackles of dark inheritance and heralding
the dawn of scientific objectivity, it was equally naive to assume that the
concept of " explanation " in science can be divorced completely from a
consideration of the history of scientific explanations. In this post-positivistic climate Fr. Wallace's excellent survey of the progress of scientific
explanation from the Middle Ages through the seventeenth century becomes
a fashionable book, which will appeal to a large audience beyond the
circle of medieval scholars.
Fr. Wall ace sets forth the characteristics of medieval science at Oxford,
Paris, and Padua with a penetration and fairness which could hardly be

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BOOK REVIEWS

bettered, and he argues very persuasively for the provocative thesis that
Aristotle provided the seventeenth century with its "new " scientific
method. In this brief review, I shall focus on this latter aspect of Fr.
Wallace's important book, and I shall choose to examine his contention
that the early modern period of classical science " for all the protestations
of reaction against late scholastic and Renaissance methods, was dominated
by the same search for causes and thus was in recognizable methodological
continuity with the medieval period. " (pp. 22-23)
Fr. Wallace shows that from the thirteenth century, when Aristotle's
philosophy was once more reaffirmed in the West, his methodogical canons
were generally taken for granted. Robert Grosseteste, although a Ncoplatonist in his metaphysic, felt he had to adhere to the methodology
defined by the Posterior Analytics, and he sought to cast his work into
this mold. Four centuries later, courses on scientific method still centered
around the four causes discussed by Aristotle.
However much his
latter-day opponents attacked him, they still retained more of his views
than they would have been fond of admitting. Fr. Wallace justly points
out that Galileo's running argument against Aristotle can obscure the
fact that he agreed with him in holding that there is a literally and
uniquely true physical theory, that it can be discovered, and that
alternative theories are consequently false. I doubt, however, whether this
warrants the claim that " there seemed to be, at the close of the Renaissance,
despite the continued presence of numerous and vexing substantive
problems, a general feeling that the methodological canons were well in
hand. " (p. 155) One has to ask not only about specific methods but
about the expectations that underlie these methods. There is obviously
a continuity of concepts with the Aristotelian and medieval tradition, but
in many respects such linguistic ties are minimal and should not obscure
the deep discontinuity between the old and the new science. At least
two basic features of Aristotle's methodology were profoundly at variance
with the new scientific method developed in the seventeenth century:
(a) its qualitative character, and (b) its restriction to" natural experience"
as opposed to " controlled experimentation. "
Aristotle took quality to be the clue to the discovery of the nature of
a thing, and he assumed that properties corresponding to the human
modes of perception were the basic ontological features of physical essence
itself. Fire, for instance, is defined essentially as the hot and dry, and no
appeal is made to mathematics, the science of quantity, which can tell
us nothing about the " essence " but merely about the " amount " of the
substance at hand. What characterizes a natural body is a normal way
of behavior, some "natural motion, " which is caused by a " form, " and
once this form has been named and located within a conceptual network
of mutual definitions, the motion has been explained and the " nature "

BOOK REVIEWS

395

of the body is to that extent scientifically known. Now it is precisely
this assumption that the new science rejected. Descartes, Galileo, and
Newton vigorously asserted that it is not the perceptible qualities but
an internal, mathematically expressible structure that characterizes what
a body is. On the strength of the evidence adduced by Fr. Wallace
himself, I submit that, inasmuch as this new attitude was foreshadowed
in medieval thought, it was by way of implicit transformation rather than
extension of the received Aristotelian approach. For instance, speaking
of the achievement of Thomas Bradwardine, he writes: " Aristotle and
thirteenth century scholastics had viewed speed as a modality or property
of motion, but not as motion itself, nor would they allow speed to be taken
in such a univocal sense as to permit a direct mathematical comparison
of motions of various types." (p. 59) One is reminded of A. C. Crombie's
characterization of the six principal contributions made by the Middle
Ages to the development of modern science, where five of the six turn out
to be an explicit repudiation of some Aristotelian tenet.
The shift is clear if one looks at the status of medieval astronomy which
used mathematical language and was considered, for that very reason, to
give no real insight into physical nature.
The vehement protests of
Copernicus and Galileo against the treatment of astronomical systems as
mere hypotheses was not directed against the nominalists who, as Fr.
Wallace clearly establishes, had lost their thunder by the sixteenth century,
but against the Aristotelian division of astronomy into physical and
mathematical with the attendant contention that mathematical astronomy
provided useful fictions. The removal of this barrier was one of the major
methodological advances of the new science.
The second feature of the methodology of the Posterior Analytics that
was set aside in the seventeenth century was its restriction to concrete
and ordinary experience. Aristotle assumed that one came to understand
the essence of a physical thing by observing what it "naturally " did,
disregarding chance events and instances where its motion was " constrained."
Hence the close relationship between nature and theology.
The behavior of a body in its normal context discloses the goal of its
activity and its place in the hierarchical structure of essence.
With this view of nature, it is not suprising that the notion of
experiment is not discussed by Aristotle in his account of scientific method.
He could hardly have countenanced actual interference with the natural
order and the use of idealized models to render manageable the complexity
of everyday causation as a legitimate part of his method. This is not to
disclaim that Aristotle was a keen observer of natural events, but his
insistence on the primacy of experience was always coupled with the
assumption that the human mind had a capacity of insight which enabled
it to grasp essence via single observations, and that this power of seeing

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BOOK REVIEWS

the universal in the particular made the premises of natural sciences into
necessary truths that are recognized as such without the need of further
test. This is a far cry from the modern experimental method with its
twofold characteristics of idealization and contrivance, and its reliance on
predictive validation.
knowledge given by Fr. Wallace
Some of the instances of"
presuppose little more than a vague empiricism that can be found in any
writer who thinks he can learn from observing the world around us. Surely
very little can be inferred from the information that " Coronel notes as
an experimental fact (cognoscimus per experientiam) that we cannot start
a fire without destroying something combustible ... " ! (p. 133)
The author is, of course, perfectly aware of these objections, and it is
one of the charms of his rich and scholarly work that he gives enough
quotations from the primary sources to allow dissenters to marshall their
own arguments and make a case for their own point of view.
Fr. Wallace has made an important contribution to our understanding of
scientific explanation, and he has written a stimulating and thoughtprovoking chapter in the history of the continuity vs. discontinuity debate
over the method of medieval and modern science. Readers of this first
volume of Causality and Scientific Explanation will eagerly look forward
to the publication of the second one which will continue this study to the
twentieth century.
WILLIAM R. SHEA
University of Ottawa
Ottawa, Canada

Philosophy of Religion Series. Ed. By JoHN HICK. New York:
and Herder.
Philosophy of Religion:
woRTH.
Pp.

The Historic Approaches.

Herder

By M. J. CHARLES-

$8.95.

Oppositions of Religious Doctrines.
Pp.
$6.95.

By WILLIAM A. CHRISTIAN.

Contemporary Critiques of Religion.

By KA1 NIELSON. 1971. Pp. 163.

$6.95.

Problems of Religious Knowledge.

By TERENCE PENELHUM.

Pp.

186. $7.95.

It was not too many years ago that philosphy of religion was, if not dead,
in a state of advanced anemia. Theology was robust, even rambunctious.
Today, constructive theology is a shadow of its old self. Valuable work is
now being done primarily in the historical, social-scientific, and philoso-

BOOK R:ElVlEWS

S97

phical study of theology. But especially impressive is the continuing flow
of books and articles by philosophical analysts of theology in Britain and
North America. Two worthwhile series of books m the philosophy of
religion have been published recently.
The four books here reviewed are contributions to the Philosophy of
Religion Series under the general editorship of John Hick. Books by Hick
and H. P. Owen were published earlier, and volumes by Ninian Smart,
Basil Mitchell, Nelson Pike, Donald Evans, Dennis Nineham, and H. D.
Lewis are forthcoming. The editorial design is an interesting and rather
unique one in that the series is intended to " consolidate the gains of the
past " and yet "to direct attention upon the problems of the future, "-i. e.,
trying to show the student how a particular problem such as the proofs of
the existence of God, concepts of deity, religious knowledge, etc., has
developed to the present and what the author sees as the problems and
prospects remaining for analysis. Hence each book is meant to be introductory but far more, for " each author will accordingly go beyond the scope
of an introduction to formulate his own position in the light of contemporary debates. " The authors, then, do not stop at historical exposition
and analysis but make clear their own theses or critical conclusions which,
in turn, are meant to stimulate further analysis and dialogue. This is an
admirable plan. It helps to define the issues, to give a sense of an
acknowledged body of literature or problems defining the field, and a
common task. This is a feature of scientific work so often missing in
the humanities.
Perhaps it was the editor's concern to give a sense of coherence to the
issues and tasks that lead him to invite contributions largely from
philosophers committed to or strongly influenced by British analytical
philosophy. It would have been less orderly but probably more instructive
if the series had included contributions from philosophers and theologians
representing quite disparate approaches:
Thomists following the leads
of Rahner and Lonergan, Whiteheadians, phenomenologists, radical
empiricists, etc. Men working from these perspectives are not only, or even
primarily, doing systematic theology but are wrestling with fundamental
issues of epistemology and method.
Since the editor conceives of this series as a collection of essays
comprising a comprehensive textbook in the philosophy of religion, it would
be well to begin with M. J. Charlesworth's Philosophy of Religion: The
Historic Approaches. Charlesworth has not, we can be thankful, written
a concise history of the philosophy of religion. Rather, he presents four
distinct conceptions of the nature and scope of philosophy of religion
dominant in the Western tradition since Plato. While these four approaches
do not exhaust the alternatives, they represent a perceptive and illuminating
way of looking at the role of philosophy in the Western religious tradition.

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BOOK REVIEWS

This approach should be a great help to students, for it sets forth systematically the respective logical structures, presuppositions, and consequences
draws some lessons and
of each of these important alternatives-and
conclusions about the relations of reason and religious belief in the present
context.
The first conception of the philosophy of religion is that it is " the
business of philosophy to lead men to a quasi-religious vision of reality,"
i.e., to make a religion out of philosophy. Representatives of this position
include Plato, Aristotle, the Neo-Platonists, Leibnitz, Spinoza, and Hegel.
Charlesworth concludes that this approach " results in an austerely contemplative and speculative approach to religion " and that it involves the
denial or " blurring of the distinction between the sphere of natural reason
and that of supernatural faith." Also, it leads to a radically a-historical
approach to religion and frequently involves no directly practical ethical
demands. All of these factors place this type of philosophy at odds with
supernatural religions involving claims of historical revelation. However,
Charlesworth argues that these objections do not count against all
religion, e. g., Buddhism. The fundamental weakness of this approach
stems rather from its conception of the nature and scope of philosophy,
viz., its metaphysical pretension. At present this kind of philosophizing
is scorned in the West, although it may well be revived in time.
The second conception of philosophy is that of handmaid of theology,
as exemplified in the work of Philo, Augustine, Maimonides and, most
importantly, Thomas Aquinas. Here reason and faith remain distinct, but
reason assists faith by justifying its presuppositions and explicating its
contents coherently. Charlesworth sees the fundamental defect of this
position (and especially in the case of Aquinas) in the fact that, if philosophy justifies the presuppositions and rational coherence of faith, " then
this would seem to make faith logically dependent upon reason " which
" tends to usurp the role of mistress of the house. " While this is a moot
conclusion, I do not interpret it as a devastating criticism of the Thomistic
position. Charlesworth is on much shakier ground-especially in the case
of the Augustinian tradition-when he includes among the weaknesses of
this position the fact that it allows a very secondary place to the
practical side of religion and that it "is also an impersonal and 'objective'
view that leaves aside altogether the dimension of what Pascal calls 'the
heart' and Kierkegaard 'subjectivity'. " (p. 85)
The third approach is that of Pascal, Hume, Kant, and Kierkegaard
in which philosophy has no justificatory role but, rather, " functions to
establish the conditions of the possibility of religion and, in a negative
way, to make room for religious faith."
This chapter includes some
excellent summaries of the faith-reason problem in the above figures and
is especially good on Kant. However, Charlesworth gives an exaggerated

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picture of the " harlot reason " in Luther and Kierkegaard. Brian Gerrish's
study of Luther and J. H. Thomas's study of Kierkegaard indicate that these
two fideists give a larger place to reason than the popular interpretations
allow. Charlesworth points out that fideism guarantees the autonomy of
faith and the transcendence of the religious object but, if radically maintained, at the high price of irrationalism. On the other hand, if the
heart has its reasons, then to some extent faith is subject to reason-if
only to distinguish the " paradoxical " from the nonsensical. Charlesworth
is of the opinion that radical fideism, so dominant in modern Protestantism,
inevitably leads to theological reductionism.
The fourth conception sees philosophy of religion as serving a purely
analytical function, exploring the logic or grammar, hence the meaningfulness of religious discourse. Here the author discusses the later
Wittgenstein and his followers, e. g., Malcolm, W. D. Hudson, Peter Winch
and D. Z. Phillips. Charlesworth agrees with Nielson and Macintyre that
the efforts of these men end in theological reductionism and radical
relativism in which " there can be no real dispute as to the truth or
falsity of religion, " between those within and which makes it " impossible
for those within the religious form of life to question it and to criticize the
standards of intelligibility and rationality which they have held hitherto. "
But more of this with Nielson. Charlesworth makes the important point
that the reductionist views of the Wittgensteinian fideists have largely
failed to " show the religious form of life to be sui generis," in which case
" the view that the sole task of philosophy with respect to religion is to
display the idiosyncratic functions of religious language, loses its raison
d'etre."
At the conclusion of his essay Charlesworth says that " a philosophy of
religion that effectively evacuates religion of any specific meaning of its own
by reducing it to that which is not religion, is deficient as a philosophy of
religion." One would agree, but the difficulty, of course, is in determining
what is and is not the essence or legitimate sphere of religion. What
constitutes legitimate interpretation, and what involves reductionism?
This is the issue between the modernists and traditionalists over the past
century, and the line becomes more difficult to draw. The philosophers like
things neat and tend to draw the line with the traditionalists and accuse
the modernists of disingenuousness or worse. A study of the history of
modern theology will reveal that the issue just is not that tidy. The
question of what constitutes orthodoxy is today very moot indeed! William
Christian makes an historical judgment not appreciated by most philosophical analysts: "Knowledge of what the tradition has amounted to
in the past is not enough, for if it is indeed a living and growing tradition
its past will condition but not determine its present and future. " (p. 8)
Kai Nielson's Contemporary Critiques of Religion is not a broad study

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of the critiques of religion dominant today; it does not, for instance, deal
with historical socio-economic, or psychological critiques so prevalent in
our time. Rather, Nielson focuses on contemporary Anglo-American logical
empiricist critiques of Judeo-Christian non-anthropomorphic God-talk.
Three chapters are devoted to an analysis of the challenge of logical
empiricism to religious belief, primarily in the work of A. J. Ayer; to the
criticisms directed against this older logical empiricism, especially by Fr.
Copleston and E. L. Mascall; and to the responses of Platinga and Hick
to Antony Flew's recent challenges.
Nielson acknowledges that Ayer's revisions of the doctrines of Language,
Truth and Logic involve further confusions and that the best empiricist
critiques need refining. However, Nielson is convinced that the theological
critics have done nothing to refute decisively the empiricist challenge, and
he sets himself the task of strengthening the empiricist position. Nielson
tackles the best philosophical responses to the empiricist critique and
attempts a genuine dialogue with the philosophical defenders of theology.
He makes some telling criticisms of Platinga and Hick, but how critical
these are remains debatable. One must examine the essays by Hick and
Platinga, Wisdom, Phillips, etc. concurrently with a reading of Nielson to
judge for oneself.
Nielson regards theistic discourse as incoherent, since he is confident that
efforts to meet Flew's demand, that putative truth claims be experientially
verifiable by at least conceivable experiences characterizable in non-theistic
terms, have failed. Hick's post-mortem verification fails because neither
the believer nor the sceptic have a sufficient understanding of God to
know what would constitute an eschatological theistic experience, e. g.,
whether a post-mortem presence of Jesus Christ was a theistic encounter or
just "throughly good human beings ruled over by Jesus." To claim to
know God is revealed in Jesus Christ is to step into the theological circle.
There appear to be a couple of maneuvers open to the theologians. It is
evident in Nielson's discussion and elsewhere in the work of the logical
empiricists that they are working with a classical notion of deity which,
rightly or wrongly, is no longer operable in many theologians, and secular
theologians all conceive of deity in terms very different from the God of
the classical tradition. When Nielson speaks of the problematic concept
of God he has in mind the God of Greek metaphysics. This is not to
say that the contemporary doctrines of God are unproblematic but simply
that it is important to recognize that very different concepts of deity are
employed in contemporary theological writing.
Assuming other than
classical metaphysical concepts of deity, it need not be logically absurd
to speak of God in "non-theistic" (i.e., not traditional theistic) language.
Issues remain, but they would be other than where Nielson locates them.
The problem of a true or adequate interpretation of experience persists

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once we recognize that there is no simple, direct, unmediated experience.
Nielson is sensitive to the criticisms of a " myth-eaten empiricist " conception of the relation between language and the world-especially to the
criticisms of Wilfrid Sellars. Yet, he insists, " seeing-as " and " experiencingas " is conceptually parasitical on " seeing " and " experiencing " ; thus
it is not justifiable to maintain, as do Hick and others, that all seeing is
seeing-as and all experiencing is experiencing-as, especially experience of
God. For we simply do not know what it would be like to experience God.
Nielson recognizes that there is no vocabulary that is common to all
discourse, yet with Sellars he claims that " it remains the case that
certain conceptions in certain language-games can be seen as more
adequate than others." (p. 91) How so? Because these conceptions, e. g.,
" ' Edmonton ' denotes the capital of Alberta " can be shown to have an
extra-linguistic relation, while " ' God denotes the maker of the world ' never
breaks out of a charmed linguistic circle." But again does this not depend
on our doctrine of God and creation? Nielson's point would not be decisive
with a radical empiricist theologian such as Wieman. The fundamental
It is at this point that I
problem is not empiricism but interpretation.
do not see how it is possible to step entirely outside the theological circle.
But, with Penelhum, I think this need not be an irrational stance. This
leads to the second possible maneuver of the theist: the argument of
conceptual relativism. Nielson devotes one brief and not entirely satisfactory chapter to this challenge-what he has dubbed as " Wittgensteinian
:fideism." This position, whose religious apostle is D. Z. Phillips, argues
that notions of " fact, " " reality, " " truth " are given within a particular
form of disourse or language-game, hence there can be no intelligible notion
of what constitutes reality sans phrase nor an intelligible way of comparing
various universes of discourse and deciding which one is truer or more real.
" The distinction between reality and illusion shows itself within particular
language-games." Again Nielson acknowledges the force of the argument
for conceptual relativism, but the cost, he believes, is destructive of Christian theology. For if it is true, then " Christian-talk ... has its own perfectly
legitimate order, but it can also in no objective sense be a claim to be the
truth about man or to be the way and life " any more than can Zande
witchcraft talk or Haitian voodoo talk. Given the truth of conceptual
relativism, "we cannot succeed in making statements about reality
uberhaupt, but only about the realities of a particular situation. " I do
not think this need be so but, if so, the consequences do not strike me
as fatal to theology. I am reminded of H. R. Niebuhr's comment that
" It is not apparent that one who knows that his concepts are not
universal must also doubt that they are concepts of the universal, or one
who understands how all his experience is historically mediated must
believe that nothing is mediated through history. " Nielson is wrong to
infer that a perspectivism or conceptual relativism is per se equivalent to

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subjectivism and precludes the legitimacy of making general truth claims.
Such claims cannot achieve the. form of proof reached in the laboratqry,
but the effort is continuously made, not without success, in human relations.
It seems to me that Nielson, and perhaps those he criticizes as well, are
working with a too-static model of language-games or inner-histories. Life
is more fluid and dialogical.
Nielson contends that the position of Phillips, Holland, Malcolm, and
John Wisdom" when pressed, leads or should lead to religious scepticism."
Such a conclusion is, I believe, unwarranted. Wisdom, certainly leads us
to a neutral conclusion. The conceptual relativists argue for a perspectivism
or relativism that need not logically argue for a stance of religious scepticism.
In conceding much to the Wittgensteinians, Nielson in fact appears to give
up the case for his own (meta?) linguistic canon, i.e., logical empiricism.
Contemporary Critiques of Religion should advance the present discussion
of the status of religious discourse and belief among the professional
philosophers. For students, some understanding of the literature of the
debate of the past two decades is prerequisite. Students with this background will find Nielson's lively and probing critique an enjoyable feast.
Terence Penelhum's Problems of Religious Knowledge is, in this reviewer's
judgment, the most valuable contribution to the philosophy of religion
of the four books here reviewed. It is by no means an introduction to
epistemological problems in the philosophy of religion and may well turn
off the neophyte early along. The book is a sophisticated, skillful analysis
of the present epistemological impasse between sceptic and believer.
Chapter I is a straightforward description of the nature of faith as understood in the Catholic (Aquinas) and Protestant (J. Hick) traditions.
Chapter II analyses the conditions necessary for successful proof, using
G. E. Moore's discussion as a guide. At this point Penelhum proceeds on
the assumption that the traditional proofs of the existence of God have
attempted to satisfy these fundamental conditions but that each one
has failed to satisfy at least one of the necessary conditions of proof.
For the author's purposes here, the criticisms of Hume, Kant, and others
are assumed compelling. Using his account of proof, in Chapter ill,
Penelhum concludes that the failure up to now of attempts to prove God's
existence from non-theistic premises " is clearly inadequate to supply us
with a proof that God's existence cannot ever be proved. " (p. 48)
Here Penelhum interjects a valuable discussion and refutation of the reasons
offered by (largely Protestant) theologians for holding that the theistic
proofs are doomed to failure. In countering these theological notions he
succeeds in refuting some doctrines widely held by theologians: that faith
and knowledge are exclusive, that proof issues in knowledge, that proof
compels assent, and that there is a connection between the voluntariness
of assent and the nondemonstrability of that which a man believes.
Chapter IV discusses the verificationist legacy and the possibility of

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403

verifying theistic statements. Penelhum considers that Hick's " eschatological verification" has successfully met Flew's criterion of meaningfulness
as set forth in the Theology and Falsification debate. Penelhum's assessment
of Hick's reply thus differs from Nielson's. Penelhum argues that a
radical theological nonnaturalist-i. e., one who holds that theistic
ments are in principle unverifiable by non-theistic statements-is irrational.
But most sceptics are theological nonnaturalists in the mitigated sense that
if any non-theistic statement is offered in purported verification of some theistic
claim, it is either not itself known to be true, or is such that even if it. were known
to be true, it would not suffice to place the theistic claim beyond reasonable doubt.

Now in relation to Hick's eschatological verification, while it is the case
that the predicted circumstances are of a sort that could! be ·recognized to obtain
by someone who did not know that God existed . ·. . it is very obvious that they
will not agree about the likelihood of these things coming to pass, since one's
estimate of such likelihood is dependent entirely upon whether or not one ,considers oneself already to have knowledge of God's existence ·and intentions. (p. 83)

This is the impasse between sceptic and believer-the claim of the believer
to have independent knowledge of God
revelation. Can the
deadlock be broken? Yes, by conversion-to see the world as God's world
or as Godless-but this is a question-begging solution. There is another
possibility of breaking this epistemological obstacle:
A phenomenon that could be known to obtain, that could be reported in nontheistic statements, that would serve as a revelation of God and would also serve
to put the theistic conclusion beyond rational doubt. I have called this a
probative revelatory phenomenon-a sign. (108)

Penelhum refutes possible objections to such signs that might be offered
by believers and also rejects the New Testament signs, since they are open
to the objections raised by Hume and Lessing against historical evidence
and witnesses. A " sign would be needed for each generation. "
It may be that my imagination is not fertile enough to conceive of
what kind of sign would do the trick, but I am doubtful that the sceptic
would be convinced that a particular sign was a revelation of God. This,
I think, is decisive, and here Nielson would, I'm sure, offer some of the
same compelling objections he raised against Hick. This rather vitiates
Penelhum's central argument.
The final chapter is a brilliant analysis of faith. I found the theological
criticisms here and in chapter three (mentioned above) the most illuminating in the book, and they should be given careful attention by
theologians. Thomists will be especially interested in the criticisms proferred
against St. Thomas's doctrine of faith and reason.
The !!Ubject of William Christian's Oppositions of Religious Doctrines
is of great moment in this ecumenical age. While we have all become

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aware of the new spirit of dialogue among the religions, little serious
attention has been given to the logic and ethics of inter-religious disscussion
of doctrine and practice. For this reason Christian's book held out
especially high promise. I may have missed the subtlety or the import
of Christian's analysis, but in my judgment the book takes a long and
rather tortuous route toward the clarification of some rather obvious
points.
Christian does not examille the logic of any particular religion but
rather explores " some of the types of possible oppositions which might be
tried o1.1t in the dialectical process. of coming to learn the logic of some
doctrinal scheme in discussion with its opponents. " He sets up a
hypothetical model dialogic situation in which the several members of the
discussion belong to different religious communities, each being intelligent
and candid, well-educated in their own tradition, reasonably conversant
in the history and literature of the other religions represented, and willing
to put forward and give reasons for accepting the doctrines they propose.
Unlike Ninian Smart's A Dialogue of Religioru;, Christian does not construct
an actual dialogue between members of the group; rather he uses the
situation as a framework for exploring various types of religious discourse
with an eye to sorting out possible oppositions. The sentences that he uses
are taken from the Judaic and Buddhist traditions, but no claim is made
that these are true or normative doctrines of these traditions; but this is
not required since the analysis is purely hypothetical. The exploration of
Jewish and Buddhist doctrines obviously limits the study to certain types
of oppositions, but it does allow for continuity and depth of analysis.
Three chapters are devoted to analyzing oppositions which (I) recommend specific courses of action;
propose valuations and (3) assert
beliefs. While I found Christian's conclusions unobjectionable. they were
at the same time not very illuminating.
The concluding chapter touches all too briefly on some of the ethical
issues that attend the serious discussion of religious differences. Hopefully
we will see much more writing on the issue discussed in Christian's book.
The value of these contributions to the Philosophy of Religion Series
will vary, depending on the audience. Charlesworth's book can be
recommended for use in undergradute courses and there should do very
good service. The Nielson and Penelhum studies will be of interest to
the specialist student and professional philosopher/theologian. Excluding
Charlesworth, none of these essays will win any prizes as works of prose.
The writing is often dreary, which unnecessarily tries the reader's patience
and interest. This is unfortunate, since the matters are important and
:the series is a valuable effort toward the advancement of the discussion
of them.
JAMES

The OoUege of William and Mary
Williamsburg, Virginia

C. LIVINGSTON

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405

Journey to Gorakhpur. An Encounter with Christ Beyond Christianity.
By JoHN MoFFITT. New York: Holt, Rinehart and Winston, ,1972.
Pp. 304. $7.95.
The author of this book, the poetry editor of America, joined the
Hindu Ramakrishna Order under the tutelage of the popular Swami
Nikhilananda after graduation from Princeton University.
For twenty
five years Moffitt, then known as Swami Atmaghananda, pursued the
spiritual disciplines of Hinduism. In 1963 he returned to Christianity and
became a Roman Catholic. This book does not concern his personal saga
but may well be a result of it. His purpose is to " search for evidences
of Christ's working beyond the bounds of organized Christianity," and
" to see the truths of non-Christian religions in terms of Christian truth. "
(p. xiii)
The literary structure is flawless and evidences a sweep of poetic insight,
language, and imagination. The journey to Gorakhpur is quite literally
a trip taken by the author and four Indian companions from Banares,
the holy city on the Ganges, to a less significant place a day's drive away.
From the experiences on this brief trip into the heart of India Moffitt is
able to distinguish four distinct sequences which divided themselves into
the four classic types of Hindu spirituality: intuitive wisdom, devotionalism, mental discipline, and humane service. Within this fourfold complex
he considers that reality within Hinduism which is most vital for
presentation to Christians. These four aspects of the spiritual life are,
according to Moffitt, the four " voices " whereby Christ also calls Christians
to, himself.
The path traditionally known as jnana yoga is here the " voice " of
intuitive wisdom which is the knowledge of God as the foundation of
personal existence. This experience bears witness to the nonduality of
the godhead and the oneness of the divine nature. In Christianity it can
be found in the scriptures, the mystics,, and ecstatic literature such as
the fourteenth-century text, The Cloud of the Unknowing. Hinduism best
symbolized the experience in the Atman-Brahman equation, an experience
of liberation in this life expressed in the earliest Indian religious literature.
Moffitt finds most suggestive the observation of Bede Griffiths, the Benedictine sannyasin, who has said that "Christ is the Atman." Devotional
self-giving, traditionally known in Hinduism as bhakti yoya, is the second
spiritual path, and this bears witness to the differentiation attributed within
the one god, an experience of personal relationship between the human and
divine orders. Jesus is the highest example of devotional self-giving, the
supreme kenosis; Hinduism has its counterpart in these experiences articulated in the Bhagavad Gita, Puraxnas, and the Hindu epics, and directed
toward Krishna, Rama, Siva, the popular deities of V aishnavism and

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Saivism. •It is devotionalism that the poet-saints of medieval India so
exquisitely expressed and· firmly established within popular Hinduism. The
third path of conscious discipline finds its witness in any religion which
requires stern personal effort. This particularly embraces the meditational
Following ·the classical writer on yoga, Patanjali, Moffitt views
·non-discursive, vertical meditation, as necessary for high religious experience; it alone attains a type of mental clarity whereby the mind is
perfectly attentive, yet free from discursive thought. Within the Christian
tradition, Pseudo-Dionysius in The Book of the Divine Names speaks of
those who approach God " by the suppression of all intellectual operation;"
"only through negations." (p. 165) Finally, Moffitt contrasts the path of
humane service, karma yoga in Hinduism, and the social gospel. Here
especially he finds little difference
Hinduism and Christianity.
In Hinduism service within the human community was a path of
·spirituality enunciated from the ancient Laws of· Manu to the political
and religious activism of Mahatma Gandhi in our century. It is at this
point that the author observes: "How is it that a substantial part of what
Christians generally think of
central to Christian behavior is already so
well understood by non-Christians? " (p. 186)
The purpose of this book emerges with more precision only in the final
chapters. Moffitt's concern is " not to affirm a Christ already known in
experience, but to find a further Christ as yet not clearly known." (p. 9t87)
To search for Christ beyond the institutional forms of Christianity is to
learn something new. The four "voices" should be present, according to
Moffitt; in any complete religious message. Yet, they are found integral
in Christ as a natural synthesis, and it is usually the mystic and religious
:seeker who
them. The scriptures, East and West, also attempt
an integral and synthetic approach to the divine. Moffitt is profoundly
·impressed by the similarities of these four paths in Hinduism and Christianity and, for him, this is evidence of Christ's presence in other religions.
But are not spiritual paths devised by man himself as a response to the
human condition as well as an attempt to experience the sacred? It
seem that the four " voices " are more an indication of the common
sensitivities of man himself.
Difficult and radical questions, concerning the relationship of Christ and
the world religions, conclude the study. They will certainly stimulate the
theologian. Moffitt takes a final cue from Dom Bede Griffiths who is not
as much impressed by the similarities of the spiritual paths as by their
complementarity one to another and from one religion to another, since
each .is necessary for a perfect understanding of the other and of divine
mystery itself. Moffitt's conclusion is that a recognition of Christ's presence
in another religion is always an epiphany. The non-historical Christ beyond
Christianity is, of course, the Word who was from the beginning, the time-

as

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407

less reality now incarnate in time. The benefit of his book rests not
only in the multiple suggestions for self-understanding but in the fact that
he has made this epiphany in time more evident. Mention must also be
made of Moffitt's poetry which is interspersed throughout, especially the
" Dance of the God, " and " A Word to the Wise, " poems he wrote while
still a Hindu.
WILLIAM CENKNER, O.P.
The Catholic University of America
Wa8hington, D. 0.

The Problem of Scientific Realism. Ed. by EDWARD A. MAcKINNON.
New York: Appleton-Century-Crafts,
Pp. 309. $4.95.
This book of readings should be well received for a variety of reasons.
Its organizing theme of scientific realism is both important in its own
right and also of considerable contemporary interest, yet has not been
anthologized to date. Further the material selected (from Aristotle,
Newton, Carnap, Hempel, Nagel, Quine, Harris, Einstein, Sellars, Mac,Kinnon, Bunge, and Heelan) is well chosen to illustrate the dimensions of
the problem, and a long, annotated bibliography provides easy access to
further sources.
More importantly, the lengthy Introduction (71 pages) is of considerable
value and interest as a philosophical piece in itself. It would be quite
desirable for all books of readings to make a similarly conscientious effort
to set up the problems for the reader. Because the author calls on an enormous range of philosophical and scientific background, and also because
he writes in very condensed style, the Introduction will be difficult reading
for the neophyte. This however should enhance the book's value in the
classroom since expansion on and critical evaluation of the material in the
Introduction is clearly called for in such a setting.
The first half of the Introduction is an historical survey of the fortunes
of the notion of scientific realism· from· Aristotle to the present. This
accomplishes two purposes. First, the editor shows that, because of
changes in the history of science itself, earlier more naive versions of
realism (e. g., Aristotle's causal realism and Newton's mechanistic realism)
must give way to a critical realism of some sort. .Second, he also shows
that any commitment to a realism is at least partially determined by
prior views on the nature of knowledge. Thus ontology must be intimately
associated with epistemology (which by the way is also very much in
evidence as MacKinnon works out his own views later.)
This brings us to the second half of the Introduction where MacKinnon
outlines his views on scientific realism. He argues convincingly that

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science as actually practised carries a commitment to a functional realism.
But this is pre-critical. The main problem is how can one convert this to
a post-critical realism. To make this jump the author employs a complex
collage of views and methods from many philosophical sources but especially
from analytic philosophy, from transcendental Thomism, and from W.
Sellars. His basic conviction (derived from Sellars) is that that is
existentially real which is postulated by a truly explanatory theory precisely
because that is what makes the theory explanatory. Thus realism is to be
critically established through the higher level theories of scien(!e. However,
MacKinnon's presentation remains programmatic since he does not claim
that there has yet been produced the type of transcendental metaphysics
which he envisions as the required underpinning for a scientific realism.
Is this program a viable one? This depends on how one judges the
author's conception of truth (since his realism is a function of his
epistemology). Ultimately his commitment to scientific realism hinges
on his claim that as knowers we can identify the intentional absolute
within the ever-present context of conceptual and linguistic relativity.
This point, by the way, is made much more clearly in the author's earlier
book Truth and Expression (New York: Newman Press, 1971). It is
in this context that one should understand MacKinnon's point that those
entities are real which are postulated by truly explanatory scientific theory.
But this raises further problems. Precisely how is the intentional absolute
grounded in scientific theories which are clearly changing in fundamental
conceptual ways and not just by addition? MacKinnon apparently does not
want to claim that science at present or in the foreseeable future is or will
be in a state of completion and fixity. How then does one recognize this
intentional covariance amidst the actual conceptual changes of scientific
theories? And if one could identify it, is it in itself ineffable and, further,
is such covariance alone enough to determine what is real independently
of us as knowers? If not, then have truth and reality escaped from the
limited conceptual framework of a special language system which might
be replaced in time?
As we said at the start, this volume deserves careful attention. It is
indeed a rare book of readings in which one finds the Introduction to be
of a philosophical value equal to that of the selections themselves.
RICHARD

Saint Louis Univeraity
Saint Louil, Miarouri

J. BLACKWELL

BOOK Rll)VIEWS

Whitehead's Philosophy. ·Selected Essays, 1935-1970. By CHARLES
HARTSHORNE. Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 1972. Pp.
$7.95.

This volume, as its sub-title indicates, brings together thirteen articles
of Charles Hartshorne published between 1935 and 1979. To those who
are already familiar with these articles: Whitehead after Forty-Five
Years; Whitehead's Metaphysics; On Some Criticisms of Whitehead/s
Philosophy; The Compound Individual; Whitehead's Idea of God; Is Whitehead's God the God of Religion?; Whitehead's Philosophy of Reality as Socially Structured Process; Whitehead's Theory of Prehension; Whitehead: the
Anglo-American Philosopher-Scientist (published here under the title:
Generalizing Power); Whitehead and Contemporary Philososophy; Whitehead's Novel Intuition; Whitehead and Ordinary Language;
Whitehead and lJerdyaev: Is There Tragedy in God?, the present edition
affords, besides the advantage of having brought all these articles together
in one volume, the novelity of commentaries, at times very
at times
more expanded, (as on p. 6) added by the author here and there and
enclosed in parentheses.
.
Some scholars will regret that other articles or communications of Dr.
Hartshorne have not been reproduced in this collection. For those who,
despite their deep interest in the thought of Whitehead, have taken no
notice of Charles Hartshorne's studies, this volume will provide a valuable
help, even, we may venture to say, an indispensable aid. For the thought
of Whitehead cannot be penetrated in depth without taking into account
the manner in which Professor Hartshorne has brought it out, even if one
does not always agree with him (which would generally imply that on the
point at issue one is not in agreement with Whitehead as well!) .
We know for Charles Hartshorne St. John's affirmation, that "God is
love, " which, in Whitehead, 1' perhaps more than in any thinker who ever
lived," finds "its fully generalized interpretation," (p. 14) expresses the
divine relativity. But when we affirm that God is love, does this truly
place relativity in God, or does it affirm that the very Being of God i13love,
that love in God is so profound and so radical that it is his very Being,
and that such a love no longer implies relativity? Certainly love, on the
intentional plane, is always relative (and love, on our level, is always
intentional). Certainly, "love of A forB does render A in some genui:rw
sense relative to B" (cf.. Ch. Hartshore, Whitehead in French J'erspective,
in THE THOMIST, 33 [1969], 580); but if, in going beyond the intentional
order, love is identical with being, then it ill no longer relative: it is.
Evidently this presupposes a distinction between the order of intentionality
and the order of being, and it .requires us to consider relation as a.mode of
being and not as exhausting in itself alone all the richness of being.

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In us, if I may be permitted to repeat myself, love remains· in the
intentional order and is not coextensive with our being (we have often
enough the sad experience that we are not love in all our being). Moreover,
our knowledge always remains intentional; it is always relative to some
object; that is why Plotinus denies that there is knowledge in God. But
if the object known by the
is the
itself, and if this
no longer
implies any potentiality (a potentiality that limits the full actuality of
knowledge), then such knowledge is no longer relative: God's knowledge
is his very Being. And it is in knowing himself, in an infinitely simple act
of contemplation (where there is no longer any distinction between the
intelligence knowing and the obect known) , that God knows all that
exists.
That is why St. Thomas can state that " the relations between God and
the world are not relations for God." (p. 144) In making such a statement
St. Thomas wishes to show that God knows the world in knowing himself. Far from having a limited knowledge of the world, by means of the
world itself, God knows the world through the gratuitous love by which
he creates the world. God does not know the world except through this
act of creative love (and it must be clearly understood that use of the
negative here does not signify a restriction on God but, on the contrary,
the exclusion of every limit upon divinity arising from an object exterior
to him). Thus St. Thomas cannot be made to say: "the world is perhaps
known by God, but God does not know the world!" (p. 144) What can
be said is that God eminently knows the world in the light of his Being,
through the simplicity of his Being; he understands the world, therefore,
in a unique way and not as we know the world. Let us add that, for
the world to be known by God, is not the same as for the world to be
known by us. God knows the world as its Creator, as an artist knows the
work of art he has made.
In saying that the creature does not modify God, we do not take away
anything from God. God is perfect " before " all creatures, for they depend
totally on him, and their supreme dignity lies in their being linked to him.
But if creatures do not modify God, this does not mean that they are
nothing for him. The creature does not add anything to God, but it
" permits " him to communicate his love. In the creature the love of God
is diffused and superabounds; it is in this sense that the term " glory "
applies to God. The " glory " of God actually has nothing to do with
what we call " glory " on the human plane; it is simply the communication
of love. And that is why, in the life of Christ, the hour of his glorification
is also the hour of the Cross (cf. Jn. 12:27-18; 13: 31-32; 17:1).
I hope that Professor Hartshorne will accept these brief remarks as a
sign of my respectful esteem and of my gratitude for the kindness he has
always manifested to me.

ALIX p ARMENTIER
Fribourg, Switzerland

BOOK REVIEWS

411

Values in European Thought. Volume I. By FRITZ JoACHIM VON RINTELEN. Pamplona: Editiones Universidad de Navarra,
Pp.
565. $8.50.
This is the author's
Der W ertgedanke in der Europiiiachen Geiatesentwicklung with an effort at updating the notes through the mid-sixties.
Although it covers only the classical and medieval periods, the author
feels its English translation is appropriate at this time given present
concern with value theory. Yet here perhaps is the difficulty. Kluckholm
and others agree, that the contemporary discussion of value dates back only
a century and a half. Attempting to read it into the whole of the Western
tradition, with whatever disclaimers, is to make dichotomies unknown to
the thinkers under consideration; it is casual poking at a haystack. The
result is so general that we can conclude ethical thought has . always
been a concern of our tradition, but little more. The .author's attempt
to integrate Eastern thought into his perspective does give the survey an
interest for today it would otherwise lack.
JoHN B. DAvis, 0. P.
The Pen1181Jlvania State University
University Park, Pa.

Haggai, Zechariah, Malachi. By J. BALDWIN. Downer's Grove, TIL:
Inter-Varsity Press, 1972. Pp. 253. $5.95.
This is a highly useful commentary on three prophets about whom the
pertinent literature is widely scattered. Dr. Baldwin has gathered and
considered 'this literature and so has presented a useful source reference,
but she, has done more than that. Her introductions have given the
plausible backgrounds to these prophetic writings, and here Dr. Baldwin
displays a mastery which would make the average reader wish space
requirements had not been so limiting to her exposition. Her investigation
into the theological significance of the temple and messianic hopes stimulates without satisfying entirely. Generally, however, rather ample footnote
references suggest paths of further study.
Her wide range of scholarship is evidenced by both the scope and
judicious selection of reference material.
She is fair-minded in her
evaluating of differing views and, one may say, ecumenical in her spectrum
.of consideration. All Scripture scholars will not agree with all her
decisions, but, at least, they can know the historical setting she deems
likely for the prophecies and some of the reasons for the positions she
takes. The work does not get bogged down in excessive technicalities,

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BOOK REVIEWS

though research references are given to satisfy the speci!tlist without
wearying the reader who seeks a more intelligent appreciation of these
three biblical prophecies.
Theologians especially should find this volume of assistance for, as Dr.
Wiseman remarked in his general preface, " ... the author of this commentary has shown that it is possible to make a book of the Bible-:--often little
read and studied outside a few well-known passages-stand out afresh in
its historical and prophetic setting, yet with meaning, relevance, and
application for the serious reader today. " Even an extremely long review
would not suffice to illustrate Dr. Wiseman's opinion fully; only a reading
of the work itself would convey these nuances of scholarship.
ALAN SMITH,

o. p.

Dominican House of Studies

Washington, D. C.

Jesus And The Old Testament. By R. T. FRANCE.
Inter-Varsity Press, 1971. Pp. Q86. $9.95.

Downers Grove:

Jesus' concept of his own identity and mission continues to preoccupy
biblical exegetes, as this work illustrates. The approach of Prof. France
is via Christ's use of Old Testament quotations: an approach which
has not been thoroughly explored. Closely allied to this. issue is the
question of the authenticity of sayings attributed by the Evangelists
to Jesus. Limiting himself to the Synoptic Gospels, the author addresses
his study to the solution of both problems by asking two questions:
(I) Does Jesus' approach to the Old Testament represent an original
line of development? and (Q) Did it form the model followed by the New
Testament writers? His research leads him to an affirmative answer in
each case.
An examination of the text-form of the Old Testament quotations
employed by Jesus occupies the first stage of this work. Rejecting the
extreme skepticism of the followers of Bultmann, Dr. France concludes
that there is no substantial evidence to be found in Christ's use of the
Old Testament to support other than a Semitic origin of the latter.
This conclusion is reached from the observation that in no case does a
quotation of Jesus depend upon the Septuagint reading: all could be based
on the Hebrew text.
Jesus' use of typology bears out this initial conclusion. The author
understands typology as a " pattern of the dealings of God with men "
The latter is described as
which is repeated later on in the antitype.
" the embodiment of a principle which was exemplified in the type " through

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418

·both-'historical and theological correspondence. His· analysis of a variety
of texts leads him to conclude to an authentic use of types by Jesus in
perfect continuity with the Old Testament, but manifesting revolutionary
features. The treatment of Jonah as basically a type- of one snatched
from death is cogent.
Next follows a study of Jesus' use of prediction. Here the author notes
his heavy emphasis on present fulfillment-clearly exemplified in Luke
4:21, "Today this Scripture is fulfilled." Dr. France opts for what may
be called a moderate eschatology on the part of Jesus: for him, the Kingdom
of God is already partially realized, with a distinctive future aspect yet to
'be realized. This emphasis on the " already " aspect is taken by the author
to constitute Jesus' most original contribution (over and above the fact.
of course, that he identifies himself as the Messiah!) .
A final chapter probes Jesus' use of Daniel 7 and Second Zechariah to
support the claim of originality. Dr. France notes several thrusts in the
Lord's citation of these texts. And, lastly, some examples are adduced to
illustrate how the early Church (including the Evangelists) followed the
pattern set by Jesus with few exceptions. All of these insights plus three
appendices and a table of references add up to a truly worthwhile book.
MARTIN HoPKINS, O.P.
University of St. Thomas
Houston, Texas

Il Moro: EUis Heywood's Dialogue in Memory of Thomas More. Translated and Edited by RoGER LEE DEAKINS. Cambridge, Massachusetts:
Harvard University Press, 1972. Pp. 155. $10.00.
Ellis Heywood (1530-1578) was a child when· his granduncle Tnomas
More was executed in 1535. His portrait of More is not arecollection
of the historical personality' of the author of Utopia; it is, as Deakins
says: " ... a figure of myth, not df history, a figura of that moral and
'and spiritual idealism that animated Roman Catholic art in its post-Tridentine phase. Heywood's More is a baroque figure who turns easily from
abstract discussions of moral philosophy to elaborately self-conscious word
plays, and just as easily from puns to the ecstatic contemplation of God. "
Indeed ll Moro is an: ·exotic creation. Apparently written originally in
Italian for reasons which must remain speculative, the dialogue appeared in
print in 1556 in a 'mood of R6man Catholic optimism when Queen Mary
reigned and Reginald Pole
'her
Archbishop of Canterbury.
The optimistic bubble burstbquickly, for within two years after the

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BOOK REVIEWS

publication date of Heyw-ood's Italianate effort Elizabeth was queen and
Cardinal ·Pole-to whom Il M oro was dedicated-was dead. · Although
the Stationera Registera for 1601 has an entry regarding a projected printing
of an English· translation of Il Moro, there is no evidence that it was
actually published. Ellis Heyw-ood'stribute to More simply was forgotten.
As for its author, he Ieft England in 1564 and became a Jesuit.
Mr. Deakins' scholarly edition of what surely is a work that achieved a
well-deserved obscurity is itself evidently something of a labor of love.
It provides a footnote to the mass of More scholarship, but it is a footnote
that has been prepared well. The critical introduction of some thirty-seven
pages is in some ways more attractive than the dialogue itself. and the
inclusion of the 1556 Italian text complete will, no doubt, prove useful to
a limited number of readers.
There is, of course, nothing especially remarkable about Il Moro, except
that it is so remarkably an example of the observance of certain Renaissance
conventions in literature and philosophy. The dialogue as a literary genre
had a life in the Middle Ages, as those who know the work of Gregory the
Great or Anselm will recall. But the Renaissance revival of Platonism also
saw a proliferation of dialogues, of which Aretino and Castiglione were
notable among a long list of practitioners. Ellis Heyw-ood's distinguished
father John Heywood himself wrote plays for the court of Henry VID
which were little more than dramatized debates over such topics as the
best way to find contentment. His son followed the Italian models even
in the language in which he chose to write.
Il Moro handles the convention well enough, with appropriate moments
of byplay, bits of dramatic action, and a proper action, and a proper
setting in a.leisurely and detached world created by the picture of More's
house and gardens. Moreover, the problem of the dialogue-What is true
happiness?-is worked out dramatically through the conflict of the disputants to the resolution as presented by More. This resolution is that
perfect happiness comes when a man is fully contented with a certain
good and understands perfectly that it is the final and highest good he
can desire. This, of course, leads on to the conclusions that, " The soul, then,
when it judges aright, will never have more than one happiness, nor any
good other than the highest, which is God Himeslf. " Having heard More
develop this idea out of Aristotle, with language that suggests the mediation
of Aquinas, we are told that all admired him because his life " corresponded
to the words he spoke. " It is then that Heyw-ood concludes the dialogue
with the dramatic reminder that it was not long after when More " lowered
his head to the very blow of the axe with a happy and open face, reassured
by his pure conscience, like one whose great courage faced that final end
with more hope of life than fear of death. "
·In short, the conventional discussion of the dialogue (which ranges

BOOK REVIEWS

41$

through wealth, honor, fame, power, pleasure, speculative science, as well
as Petrarchan love and despair of all earthly happiness) leads to what the
work really was really intended to be: an encomium for England's greatest
Christian humanist and a martyr to the Roman Catholic cause, which
was then ascendant.
As for the problem in philosophy which purports to be the theme of the
dialogue, Deakins himself notes what he calls the " pervasive influence of
St. Thomas' discussion of happiness in Il Moro." This is an understatement of that influence. In view of More's own view of scholastic
philosophy, which was not unlike that of Erasmus, it may also be important
reason why Il M oro is myth rather than history.
PAUL VAN K. THOMSON

Providence College
Providence, Rhode Island

BOOKS RECEIVED
American Catholic Philosophical Association: The Existence of God.
Proceedings. vol. XLVI, 1972. (Pp. 239)
Appleton-Century-Crofts:
Readings in Philosophical Analysis, selected
& edited by Herbert Feigl & Wilfrid Sellars. (Pp. 626)
Ediciones Secretariado Trinitario: El Hombre al Encuentro de Dios. (Pp.
262); La Trinidad Hoy (Pp. 242) (IV & V Semanas de Estudios
Trinitarios); "La Llaga de Amor" Bto. Juan Bautista de la Concepcion, by Jesus A. Lopez Casuso. (Pp. 204)
Du Language
Martinet et M.
Editions de l'Universite d'Ottawa:
Merleau-Ponty, by Ghyslain Charron. (Pp. 187)
Consortium Press: Why Monks?, by Fram;ois Vandenbroucke. (Pp. 201,
$10.95)
Creation House, Inc.: Fractured Personalities. The Psychology of Mental
Illness, by Gary Collins. (Pp. 217, $2.95); Christianity Without
Walls, by Morris Inch. (Pp. 135, $1.95); The Day Music Died, by
Bob Larson. (Pp. 213, $2.95); Out! In the Name of Jesus, by Pat
Brooks. (Pp. 248, $4.95); The Back Side of Satan, by Morris Cerullo.
(Pp. 235, $4.95); Mind Things, by Marie Chapian. (Pp. 96, $3.95);
Mayhem & Mercy, by C. Brandon Rimmer. (Pp. 134, $3.95)
Grove Books: What Priesthood Has the Ministry?, by Jean M. R. Tillard.
(Pp. 28, 20p)
Harper & Row: Body Theology, by Arthur A. Vogel. (Pp. 148, $5.95);
The Priest, by Ralph Mcinerney. (Pp. 531, $8.95)
Holt, Rinehart & Winston, Inc. : Catholics, by Brian Moore. (Pp. 107
$4.95)
Inter-Varsity Press: Your Mind Matters, by John R. W. Stott. Pp. 64,
95¢)
Living Flame Press: Union with the Lord in Prayer, by Venard Poslusney,
0. Carro. (Pp. 27, 75¢)
Martinus Nijhoff, Publishers: Infinity in the PreSocratics. A Bibliographical and Philosophical Study, by Leo Sweeney. (Pp. 255,
38.40 guilders)
Prentice-Hall, Inc.: Ethics and Twentieth Century Thought, by Frederick
A. Olafson. (Pp. 143)
University Press, Fribourg:
The Theology of the Primacy of Christ
according to St. Thomas and its Scriptural Foundations, by Thomas
R. Potvin, 0. P. (Pp. 355, Fr. 40.-)

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