THE THOMIST
A SPECULATIVE QUARTERLY REVIEW
OF THEOLOGY AND PHILOSOPHY

EDITORs: THE DoMINICAN FATHERS OF THE PROVINCE OF ST. JosEPH
Publishers:
VoL.

The Thomist Press, Washington, D. C.

XXXVIII

JULY, 1974

No.3

METAPHOR AND ONTOLOGY IN SACRA DOCTRINA

T

HIS ESSAY is intended as a contribution to hermeneutic theology, the theology of meaning. 1 Hermeneutic theology can concern itself with any topic
within the theological tradition; in this article we shall try to
allow a certain conception of hermeneutic theology to arise
out of the consideration of a particular conjunction in Christian
theological tradition, the interpretation of Pseudo-Dionysius on
the divine names by St. Thomas Aquinas. For both these
writers the divine names were revealed in Scripture; so the
conjunction will be viewed in a perspective which refers itself
to our own concern today with Scriptures, with its ramifications
into matters of exegesis on the one hand and modern awareness
of language on the other. Thus four hermeneutical loci mark
1 Hermeneutik saw its original rise to common consciousness and eventually the
commonplace in Germany, with Bultmann, Heidegger, Gadamer, and Ebeling. It
is now going through a second phase in France, largely in dialogue with structuralism. As well as Ricoeur's more recent 'lvritings, see the collective work,
Exegese et hermeneutique, ed. X. Leon-Dufour (Paris, 1971).

403

404

CORNELIUS ERNST

out the general area of our concern: the Scriptures (making the
large assumption here that the Scriptures can be taken as a
single locus), Pseudo-Dionysius, St. Thomas, and our own times
(this latter in the sense of an invisible point of vision) . Clearly
no claim is made here to be the master, in a scholarly way, of
all these fields; and while I have tried to make use of scholarship, this study is not itself offered as a piece of scholarship.
Many of the footnotes, and even parts of the text, are best
seen as triangulation points from which bearings might be
taken; the points chosen are arbitrary but not random. By
speaking of hermeneutic theology as theology of " meaning "
the intention is to appeal to the English notion of " meaning,"
which has no adequate equivalents in French or German, and
which has been the theme of all sorts of reflection in the
English-speaking world. If St. Thomas interpreting PseudoDionysius on the divine names is at the centre of the discussion,
then the primary concern of this article is the hermeneutic
theology of meaning itself: the theology of meaning reflecting
on itself as it comes to light in a particular historical conjunction.
By sacra doctrina we understand that " science " which St.
Thomas discusses in the first question of the Summa Theologiae.
The unity of this science is guaranteed by the uniqueness of
its formalis ratio obiecti, the divinitus revelabile (art. 3) the
subiectum of this science is God (art. 7). If we ask how the
God of sacra doctrina is related to the God of philosophy, the
answer is always clear: the same God is known by different
lights, different media (art. 1, ad 2); sacra doctrina is a kind
of stamp, impressio, of divine science, and therefore has access
to all that may be known (including God) in a higher or more
universal way ( art. 3, ad 2) ; and indeed it has access by revelation to God's knowledge of himself (ad id quod notum est sibi
soli de seipso), this same God who is otherwise known by
philosophers only through the created world (art. 6).
All this is familiar enough. But it may be that in spite of a
great deal of scholarly work in this area we are still not quite
ready enough to accept the implications of St. Thomas's iden-

METAPHOR AND ONTOLOGY IN " SACRA DOCTRINA "

405

tification-verbally at least-of sacra doctrina and sacra Scriptura. Let us now resolutely make this identification, in the
sense that" theology" (using the term neutrally) is indeed the
rational exploration and declaration of the unified self-disclosure
of God in himself and in the world, mediated by Scripture (cf.
art.8). There are then three modes of determining the basis of
theology: the infallible truth of God himself, V eritas Prima;
the articuli fidei; and the canonical Scriptures; these three are
modes of a single revelation. That these modes are distinguished in this way is a reflection of St. Thomas's epistemological principles and again raises the question with which
we are concerned in this article. " Veritas Prima " is a
physical expression, " articuli fidei" (= "principia ") is a logical expression, " canonicae Scripturae " is an empirical-historical expression. The unifying base of theology is determined
in three modes, thought of as pretty well equivalent, though
there can be no doubt that the metaphysical expression is the
primary one (cf. II-II, q.l, a.l). That is to say, even the God
of revelation, the God who reveals himself, is conceived of in
metaphysical terms-which is not to say that these metaphysical terms still have the same definite content as they would
have if they were being used purely metaphysically, on the
basis of philosophy alone. Because these terms are used to refer
to the God of revelation, their content is indefinite, or, more
exactly (though St. Thomas does not and probably would not
say so), their content is defined "contextually," the context
being the Scriptures. St. Thomas can identify sacra doctrina
and sacra Scriptura because he is guided, both explicitly and
also, with a certain sense of the obviousness of it, tacitly, by ll.
" literal " determination of what God must be: the Being who
is spoken of in metaphysical terms, terms which are now
" transferred " to the God of revelation, and yet are not " metaphors."
It is of course, from this viewpoint that we must understand article 9 of the question on sacra doctrina: "Utrum sacra
Scriptura debeat uti metaphoris." This article is pervasively
Dionysian, as the citations would be enough to show. But an

406

CORNELIUS ERNST

examination of St. Thomas's commentary on the de divinis
nominibus of Pseudo-Dionysius will allow us to see more clearly
what basic assumptions St. Thomas shared with PseudoDionysius and in what ways he importantly departed from
them. 2 For our purposes, the first chapter of de div. nom.
is the most instructive. Pseudo-Dionysius insists that he draws
his account of the divine names exclusively EK Twv iepwv 'Aoy£ow
of the Scriptures (PG 3.588C; cf. 588A; Pera text nn. 8.4) ,
and St. Thomas follows him in this without hesitation:
De eo quod ab aliquo solo scitur, nullus potest cogitare velloqui,
nisi quantum ab illo manifestatur. Soli autem Deo convenit perfecte
cognoscereseipsum secundum id quod est. Nullus igitur potest vere
loqui de Deo vel ·cogitare nisi inquantum a Deo revelatur. Quae
quidem revelatio in Scripturis sacris continetur. (Pera, lect. 1, n.
13; see the whole treatment, nn. 6-21)
Now although St. Thomas does contrast the doctrina fidei he
and Pseudo-Dionysius are treating of with any merely natural
knowledge (lect. 1, n. 7), he rather surprisingly makes no
reference to any natural knowledge of God. St. Albert, however, does see this as an objection to Pseudo-Dionysius's assertions (ed. Simon, n. 16), quoting Rom. 1:20, and deals with
it by trying to show that philosophical arguments do not lead
directly (directe) to the knowledge of God; hence the frequency
of error about God in philosophy. This would hardly be St.
Thomas's view; on the contrary, he does allow that the same
matters (eisdem rebus) are sometimes dealt with by philosophical theology and that theology which belongs to sacra doctrina,
under different lights (1, q.1, a.l ad 2).
In fact, St. Thomas's view is more radically "theological"
• The text of St. Thomas used is that of Ceslaus Pera, who also supplies a revised Greek text and a Latin version corresponding to Sarracenus. A useful comparative tool is the fine edition of St. Albert's commentary by Paulus Simon
For Pseudo-Dionysius himself, see the numerous writings by
(Miinster,
R. Roques, in particular L'Univers dionysien (Paris, 1954), and his introduction
to the edition of La Hierarchie celeste, Sources Chretiennes 58 (Paris, 1958) .
M. de Gandillac's Oeuvres Completes du Pseudo-Denys (Paris, 1948) is extremely
useful (his translation of CH. in SC. 58 is thoroughly revised).

METAPHOR AND ONTOLOGY IN " SACRA DOCTRINA"

407

in a modern sense; even that activity of reason which might
seem in a philosophical context to be purely natural is to be
understood in the context of sacra doctrina as operating within
revelation, guided by the truth of sacred Scripture, that light
which derives like a ray from first truth (In de div. nom. 1, lect.
1, n.15, a Dionysian text frequently quoted by St. Thomas) .
The philosophical activity of reason is at the service of revelation and integrated into sacra doctrina. Now while this general
statement may be accepted with some hesitations in regard
to the argumentative role of the mind, there is likely to be more
resistance to it once the perceptive role of the mind is considered, especially when it is directed to the created world as
a source of our knowledge of God. What we have to see is the
way in which for Pseudo-Dionysius, followed in this apparently
by St. Thomas, the Scriptural names of God seem to include,
without any special distinction, names of God which would
seem to derive immediately from created nature. There can
be no doubt that Dionysius, and St. Thomas after him, thought
themselves to be expounding a Scriptural revelation of God.
Thus, however remarkable it may seem to us, the vision in the
Temple of Isaiah 6 is offered as an example of the way in which
" ex bonitate Dei intelligibilia circumvelantur per sensibilia,
sicut cum Scripturae de Deo et angelis sub similitudine quorundam sensibilium loquuntur " (lect.2, n. 65) . It is the Apostolic
logia, whether by way of Scripture or also of liturgical tradition,
which are held to confer symbolic and revelatory power on
the sensible world. The world which is offered to our senses
is made transparent by the light of verbal revelation. A list
of Scriptural divine names proposed by Dionysius includes the
following: good, beautiful, wise, lovable, eternal, existent,
mind, intellect, powerful, as well as fire, water, cloud, stone,
rock (596A; Pera n. 25). It seems that Pseudo-Dionysius, and,
with some important modifications, St. Thomas, see the revealed names of God in Scripture as at least sometimes doing
no more than pick out a revelatory significance with which
items in the created world are already charged; for the two
authors there seems to be a single seamless " veil " between

408

CORNELIUS ERNST

our perception and the transcendent truth o£ God. In immediate support o£ this claim we may draw attention to articles
and 13 o£ I, q.l2, a question dominated by the idea o£ the
beatific vision as the culmination o£ all knowledge of God.
Certainly by natural reason alone we cannot know o£ God quid
est but only an. est; but what does grace add to this knowledge?
Only, so it seems, what can be referred to St. Thomas's standard
epistemological structures:
fresh phantasmata, a stronger
lumen intellectus (as in the prophets) , sometimes special sensible realities like the dove at Jesus's baptism (art.13). We still
do not know of God quid est, though we have more and better
effects £rom which to know o£ him, and by revelation can make
certain new assertions, e. g., Trinitarian ones, about him
.3
It is surely not enough merely to £eel some embarrassment
at this account and bury it out of sight and mind. Is this, £or
instance, a satisfactory way o£ talking about the revelation of
God in Jesus Christ? We must inquire more searchingly into
the explicit and tacit grounds for such a theological epistemology, in particular the view of language and reality it assumes.
The key-passage here would seem to be St. Thomas's
Proemium to his commentary on the de divinis nominibus. According to Thomas, Pseudo-Dionysius makes an "artificial"
fourfold division o£ what the Scriptures say about God. Firstly, there is the treatment of what bears on the unity of the
divine essence and the distinction of persons. Secondly and
thirdly, there is what is said o£ God in virtue of some likeness
in created things:
Quae vero dicuntur de Deo in Scripturis, quarum aliqua similitudo in creaturis invenitur, dupliciter se habent. Nam huiusmodi
similitudo in quibusdam quidem attenditur secundum aliquid quod
a Deo in creaturis derivatur. Sicut a primo bono sunt omnia bona
et a primo vivo sunt omnia viventia et sic de aliis similibus. Et
• Cf. the excellent article by G. Ebeling, originally in Zeitschrift fur Theologie
und Kirche 1964, now translated as "The Hermeneutical Locus of the Doctrine of
God in Peter Lombard and Thomas Aquinas," Journal for Theology and the
Church, vol. 3 (1967), 70-111.

METAPHOR AND ONTOLOGY IN " SACRA DOCTRINA "

409

talia pertractat Dionysius in libro de divinis nominibus, quem prae
manibus habemus.
In quibusdam vero similitudo attenditur secundum aliquid a
creaturis in Deum translatum. Sicut Deus dicitur leo, petra, sol
vel aliquid huiusmodi; sic enim Deus symbolice vel metaphorice
nominatur. Et de huiusmodi tractavit Dionysius in quodam suo
libro quem de symbolica theologia intitulavit.

But because every likeness of creatures to God is deficient, we
have to proceed by way of negations (remotiones). "Non solum
Deus non est lapis aut sol, qualia sensu apprehunduntur, sed
non est talis vita aut essentia qualis ab intellectu nostro concipi
potest." Hence Dionysius's fourth treatise de mystica theologia
(Pera, p. 1) .
The key-text in this key-passage for our purposes is "symbolice vel metaphorice." We shall have to try to show briefly
that the " vel " conceals a fairly deep division between the
Platonisms of Pseudo-Dionysius and St. Thomas; and that both
Platonisms are fairly remote from any view of metaphor, symbol, language and reality which we could comfortably hold today.4 It may be noted that this "vel" is taken for granted
by St. Thomas from his earliest writings: in the Commentary
on the Sentences, I, d.34, q.3, a.l, obj.3 (Moos I, p.796) we have
" huiusmodi metaphorae, vel symbolicae locutiones," where he
is speaking of the Scriptures and goes on to refer to PseudoDionysius (the answer to the objection does nothing to modify
the language); again I, d.22, q.l, a.2, contra 2 (Moos I, p.534) .
Relying on the copious indices of Chevallier's Dionysiaca, it
may be said with some confidence that metaphora occurs nowhere in the Greek or in any of the Latin versions of PseudoDionysius's works. Why then does it seem obvious to St.
Thomas that " symbolice " and "metaphorice " are equivalent?

*

*

*

*

*

(A note on Latin metaphora). The question is complicated by
• I take it that my description of Thomas's perspectives as a Platonism is not
unduly provocative in view of the works of Geiger, Fabro, and most recently Klaus
Kremer, Die neuplatonische Seinsphilosophie und ihre Wirkung auf Thomas von
Aquin (Leiden, 1966).

410

CORNELIUS ERNST

the fact that Eriugena, although he does not use metaphora
in his version of Pseudo-Dionysius, uses it frequently in his
main work, the de divisione naturae or Periphyseon. For example, we have "quemadmodum fere omnia quae de natura
conditarum rerum proprie praedicantur de conditore rerum per
metaphoram significandi gratia dici possunt ... non ut proprie
significent quid ipsa (i. e. causa omnium) sit sed ut translative ... probabiliter cogitandum est suadeant." 5
Ultimately any use of metaphora must, of course, go back to
Aristotle, primarily Poetica
and Rhetorica III,
or Topica
The Moerbeke translation of Poet. has metaphora, but it can be exactly dated to
The Moerbeke
translation of Rhet. has not yet been edited, but the MSS are
7 no earlier version of Poet. is known,
dated at about
while an earlier version of Rhet. seems not to have been used
in the schools. Quintilian's Inst. Orat. was certainly used and
in the section de tropis (VIII, 6, 4) identifies translatio with
ftETacpopa.

The position regarding the translation of Top. has recently
been clarified by Minio-Paluello. 8 It now seems clear that
the Boethian translation available for most of the Middle Ages
is not accurately represented by the version printed in Migne,
PL 94, which represents a revision made by Lefevre d'Etaples.
In Minio-Paluello's edition,
is represented by translatio or secundum translationem (ed. cit., pp. 115 £.) .
MSS
of this version are listed, while only three, two of them fragmentary, are known of another version printed by MinioPaluello and ascribed by him to an anonymous author of the
twelfth century. In this version we have metafora and secun5 Johannis Scotti Eriugenae Periphyseon, Liber Primus, ed. I. P. Sheldon-Williams
(Dublin, 1968), p. 86, !I. 1-8; PL 122, 468C. My italics. Sheldon- Williams translates
" translative " here by " by analogy " ; but on the same page, 1.20 he translates it
"metaphorically."
6 Ed. A. Franceschini et L. Minio-Paluello, Aristoteles Latinus XXXIII
(BrugesParis, 1958), pp. 26 f.; p. vii.
7 Aristoteles Latinus.
Codices descripsit G. Lacombe et al. (Rome, 1989), pp.
77-8.
8 Aristoteles Latinus V. 1-8 (Leiden, 1969).

METAPHOR AND ONTOLOGY IN" SACRA DOCTRINA"

411

dum metaforam (ed. cit., pp.
although both versions
have transferen.tes, transferunt, for f.LEracpf.povre<;, f.LETacpepovaw
(140 a 10-11) in the text cited by St. Thomas, "Omnes enim
transferentes secundum aliquam (anonymous version 'quandam ') similitudinem transferunt." 9 In what is almost an
exact parallel to St. Thomas's use we find in St. Albert's little
treatise on the Trinitarian names of God, where he is discussing
Pseudo- Dionysius: "In alio (libro) tangit de his quae secundum translationem, quod ipse symbolum vocat, de Deo dicuntur, et de hoc £acit symbolicam theologiam" (In I Sent.,
A, Ad aliud (5); Borgnet XXV, pp. 567b-8a. Compare Ad
ultimum (6), p. 569b: "Duplex est translatio, scilicet secundum rem, et secundum nomen. Translatio secundum rem in
divinis nominibus non est nisi in symbolicis.")
Without claiming any great authority in this matter, I feel
bound to conclude that St. Thomas could make such free use
o£ his equivalence symbolum=metaphora in theology because
he could rely on a general familiarity among the thirteenthcentury Paris masters with the so-called " Dionysian corpus,"
containing a very large number o£ texts £rom Eriugena's De
div. nat. among the scholia attributed to Maximus. 10

*

*

*

*

*

Whatever may be the position regarding the Latin use o£ the
word metaphora, we can be certain that it does not adequately
represent the Dionysian idea o£ symbol. It is true that PseudoDionysius makes a significant distinction between the names
9 De Veritate, q. 10, a.7 obj. 10. In the new Leonine edition, vol. XXII,
p.
315, the text from Top. is referred to one of the MSS. consulted by Minio-Paluello
for his edition of the Boethian version. Readers of M. D. Chenu's fascinating
chapter on " The Symbolist Mentality " in La Theologie au douzieme siecle
(Paris, 1957), translated in Nature, Man and Society (Chicago, 1968), will realize
that a great deal of the above is dependent upon (and revises) the footnote n. 1,
p. 186 (French), n. 73, pp. 138-9 (English), where the de Veritate reference is
wrongly given in both versions, and the Boethian authorship of the Top. version
,
is glanced at.
10 See H. F. Dondaine,
Le Corpus dionysien de l'Universite de Paris au Xllle
siecle (Rome, 1953); also the chapters " L'Entree de la theologie grecque " and
"Orientale lumen" in Chenu, La Theologie au Xlle siecle.

412

CORNELIUS ERNST

proper to symbolic theology and those which belong to the
intelligible order, which he treats of in the de divinis n.ominibu.'J
(597 A, B; Pera nn. 27, 28). In the former group he refers to
the divine manifestations (Beiwv <f>rurt-tarwv) in temples and
elsewhere, illuminating initiates (t-tvcna<>) and prophets so that
they name the transcendent good according to its diverse powers
and causalities and attribute to it human forms and figures as
well as other JLV(J"T£Ka, mysteries. But a little earlier PseudoDionysius discusses the way in which the "theologians," the
sacred writers, praise God as beyond all names; and precisely
by way of a " symbolic theophany," f.v t-ttct- rwv JLV(J"T£Kwv r.ry<>
(J"VJLf3oAlKij<; Beo</>aveia<; opa(J"EWV (596 A; Pera n. 25) . The Latin
version St. Thomas is following here has " in una mysticarum
visionum Dei apparitionis," which Thomas strikingly amplifies
to " apparitionem divinam imaginativam " (Pera. 96) . Dionysius's "symbolic theophany" has become Thomas's "appearance in the imagination."
It is extraordinarily difficult to pin down a single definite
sense in which Pseudo-Dionysius speaks of symbols. He is not,
of course, interested in such a definite sense; his writing is incantatory in style and requires of the reader that he commit
himself to the way of anagoge, ascent: Dionysius is a mystagogue.11 However, we may say that his valuation of symbols
depends on whether they are being treated of on " the way
up" or on "the way down " : whether, that is to say, they
are being treated of apophatically (via negationis) or kataphatically (via affirmationis). But this distinction of modes of
theological consideration itself depends on a prior ontological
distinction: the procession of things from their source (7rp6o8o<>)
or their ascent and return to it (avo8o<>,
St. Thomas's
conversio; cf. CH 1,1; ed. SC, pp. 70 f.)
On the " way down " symbols are valued positively and
participate (deficiently) in the ontological fullness of their
11 On Pseudo-Dionysius's dependence, in language and ideas, on the Neo-Platonic
tradition of the mysteries see, e. g., de Gandillac's note to his translation of CH.,
ed. SC, pp.

MllJ'rAPHOR

AND ONTOLOGY IN '' SACiiA DOCTRINA H

41:3

source: "We must not despise them (the sacred symbols) for
they are begotten of the divine characters and bear their stamp,
manifest images of ineffable and sublime spectacles " (Ep. IX;
PG 3, 1108 C). Again, the symbols used by the ecclesiastical
hierarchy, when they celebrate litmgical rites, are valued positively (CH 3; ed.SC. p. 72-3). But there can be no doubt that
just because the way of ascent to a transcendent mystical union
beyond words is the dominant movement of Pseudo-Dionysius's
thought, symbols tend to be valued negatively, and this in the
special form of a recommendation of " dissimilar similitudes,"
which are less likely to mislead the initiate on his way up than
those similitudes which partially convey the richness of their
source (CH 2, 3; ed.SC. p.77 f.) Certainly Dionysius recognizes that even the most vile and inferior likenesses still resemble their source by participating in it (CH 2, 3; ed.SC p. 80).
It is here that a modern reader is most acutely aware of an
ambiguity which does not seem to have made itself felt to
Pseudo-Dionysius himself, and which is partially solved by St.
Thomas's equation of symbol and metaphor. On the one hand,
Dionysius is quite aware that his symbols are the product of
human creation; he even speaks in one place of the " holy poetic
fictions
CH2, 1; ed.SCp. 74), and
in Ep. IX he gives as an example of the function of symbols
for the "passionate" part of the soul the way in which some
hearers of unveiled theological instruction fashion in themselves
some figure
TV1TOV nva, 1108 B) so as to help
themselves to understand the pure theological teaching.
On the other hand, in the lines immediately preceding this
last reference, Dionysius says that the "impassible" part of
the soul is destined for " simple and interior spectacles of deiaya'Ap,aTwv). The word agalma has a
form images"
long and interesting history going back at least to Plato; 12 the
basic sense is "image," " statue," "object of religious veneration." For Dionysius, the celestial hierarchy makes of its
12 Phaedrus,
D; Timaeus 87 C, with F. M. Cornford's commentary, Plato's
Cosmology (London, 1987), pp. 99 f.

414

CORNELIUS ERNST

followers perfect images, agalmata, of God, stainless and transparent mirrors (CH 3, 2; ed.SC p.88). Pseudo-Dionysius belongs to that whole archaic tradition of thought about symbo]s
and images which finds in them the embodiment of the reality
they are meant to express.18
It seems likely that for Pseudo-Dionysius symbols belong to
the same conceptual world as ikons, which although made by
human hands are invested by consecration with the presence
of a divine reality. 14 Thus symbols, whether words or rites, are
" fictions," constructed by the sacred writers or ministers, and
yet communicate ontologically with the divine reality by participation and communicate this reality to the initiate. The
gap between" symbol" in this sense and St. Thomas's "metaphor " is striking. We may perhaps say, simplifying somewhat,
that for Pseudo-Dionysius symbols belong to a single continuous hierarchical chain of ontological participation, which
includes cosmos, hierographer and hierophant, and initiate;
for St. Thomas, the symbol (=metaphor) has become partially detached from this chain and is treated by the theologian as a product of the human mind, although sacred writer
and theologian still belong to an undivided cosmos of divine
creation. Pseudo-Dionysius's practice, of course, is pregnantly
symbolic; St. Thomas's is almost bare of metaphor.
What, for our purposes at least, distinguishes the whole
medieval tradition, from Eriugena to St. Thomas (and beyond), is an interest in language, grammar, rhetoric, and logic.15
18 For a discussion of patristic usage, see interestingly J. Betz, Die Eucharistie
in der Zeit der griechischen Vater, I/1 (Freiburg, 1955), pp. 217-39. Also F. W.
Eltester, Eikon im Neuen Testament (Berlin, 1958). A modem attempt to exploit this notion of symbol, K. Rahner, " The Theology of the Symbol," Theological
Investigations IV (London, 1966), pp. 221-52. Cf. the articles on "Bild" in
RAC, RGG, LTK.
14 St. Thomas is acquainted with this use of language. See his remarks in the
prologue to the question on oaths, 11-11, q. 89, where he speaks of the "assumption " of something divine for worship, whether this aliquid divinum is a sacrament or ipsum nomen divinum. But this is not the theologian's use of language.
15 See the stimulating book by MarciaL. Colish, The Mirror of Language (New
Haven, 1968). It is a pity that, in spite of some perceptive criticism of modem
" metaphysical " interpretation of analogy, she goes so badly wrong on St. Thomas,

METAPHOR AND ONTOLOGY IN " SACRA DOCTRINA "

415

The procedures of human articulation have become the object
of independent study, and the whole grasp of the world is mediated by an analytical consciousness of the linguistic modes of
that grasp. Here we are primarily concerned with the particular
form this analytic consciousness took in St. Thomas's mind,
in particular his account of the divine names.
The passage from the Commentary on the Sentences mentioned earlier (/ Sent. d, 34, q. 3, aa. 1-Q) is of considerable
interest here. We should bear in mind while reading these
articles Chenu' s extremely perceptive remarks when he discusses "the mental operation proper to symbolism " :
namely, translatio, a transference or elevation from the visible
sphere to the invisible through the mediating agency of an image
borrowed from sense-perceptible reality. This is what we mean by
"metaphor," except that here the term had a particular orientation;
metaphor was obedient to the necessities imposed by transcendent
realities, above all in pseudo-Dionysian theology....
Twelfth-century masters made ready use of the term translatio;
but its inadequacy led them to transliterate its Greek equivalent
into anagoge, as Latin versions of pseudo-Dionysius had already
done. (Nature, Man, and Society, p. 138)

Tran.slatio then can bring together what we should understand
by " metaphor " and by " ascent to the transcendent." So when
Thomas takes up the translative from Lombard's text and questions it, he is firmly within a tradition for which translatio
meant not only" transference" within a single order of reality,
but also, and indeed primarily, "transference" from one order
of reality-sensible and material-to a higher order of realityintelligible and immaterial. Hence Thomas's remark (art. Q ad
3) that names, such as " cherubim," expressing a limited mode
of intelligible perfection, cannot be applied to God even " metaphorically," quia metaphora sumenda est ex his quae sunt
manifesta secundum sensum.
failing to distinguish the analogical analysis <>f predication from the recognition
of, say, Trinitarian "analogies" in the soul. Pseudo-Dionysius gets a passing
mention, p. 169. More general treatments, still of great value for the nonspecialist: H. I. Marron, A History of Education in Antiquity (London, 1956);
E. R. Curtius, European Literature and Latin Middle Ages (London, 1953).

416

CORNELIUS ERNST

But still more interesting from our point of view is Thomas's
reply to an objection from the Topics (the text quoted above
as it appears in de Verit., q.10, a. 7 obj .10) and Boethius, where
it is argued that no similitudo vel metaphora can be taken from
the sensible world to be applied to God translative. Thomas
distinguishes in his reply between two sorts of likeness, similitudo: that which obtains by participation in the same form,
and quaedam similitudo proportionalitatis, as for instance 8: 't
as 6:3. This latter sort of likeness allows of transumptio ex
corporalibus in divina. So God can be called " fire " ; as fire
makes liquescent things flow by its heat, so God pours out his
perfections in all creatures by his goodness (" vel aliquid
huiusmodi," he says, rather offhandedly!) .
The language of " proportionality " comes we know from
Euclid. 16 Still from the early period of St. Thomas's teaching,
we have a parallel distinction of similitudo, here referred by
Thomas to Top. I. 11 The corpus of the article has contrasted
the two ways in which names can be predicated of God analogically: one symbolice, where the usual " metaphorical "
names are given as examples; the other where no defect is included in the definition of the principal significatum. The notion of "proportion" in metaphor occurs in Rhet. (e. g., III,
4; 1407 a 14, TTJV f-tETacpopav TTJV EK TOV avaA.oyov)' but its most
detailed treatment is found in Poet.
1457 b 16-33. As we
have seen, St. Thomas probably had no direct knowledge of
this treatment of analogical or proportional metaphor; but it
is deeply interesting that from his earliest writings his account
of "symbolic" or "metaphorical" names predicated of God
should be formulated in terms of a four-term "proportion"
or "proportionality." The same account occurs, of course, in
I, q. 13, a. 6.
16 Cf. B. Montagnes,
La Doctrine de l'analogie de l'etre d'apres s. Thomas
d'Aquin (Paris, 1963), p. 76, n. 9!3, "Note lexicographique sur la distinction
proportio-proportionalitas."
17 De Verit. q. 9!, a. 11 ad 2. Top. I, 17; 108 a 7-16, wrongly referred in the
Marietti edition to Top. II; I have not been able to consult the new Leonine
edition of the early questions of de V erit.

METAPHOR AND ONTOLOGY IN " SACRA DOCTRINA "

417

The reader need have no fear; we are not about to embark on
yet another examination of the " doctrine of analogy." In fact,
a subordinate concern of the present article has been to relativize what seems sometimes to have been an obsession on the
part of commentators, who have extracted St. Thomas's rPmarks on this topic and used them to pile up enormous metaphysical constructions: towers of Babel, one might suggest,
since in general the " doctrine of analogy " is not placed in what
we have tried to present as its proper context, namely, the
revelation in Scriptural tradition of divine names, transmitted
and interpreted in particular by Pseudo-Dionysius. It is only
when this context is appreciated by the modern reader that
he can recognize St. Thomas's originality within the tradition,
and also perceive its limitations.
The originality consists firstly in the formal application of
Aristotelian epistemology to the " symbolic " tradition of divine
names; St. Thomas's preference for metaphora rather than
translatio would seem to indicate a sharper awareness of the
human conditions of talk about God. Thus he begins his treatment de nominibus Dei in I, q. 13 with a general account of the
genesis of the word: " Secundum Philosophum, voces sunt
signa intellectuum, et intellectus sunt rerum similitudines. Et
sic patet quod voces referuntur ad res significandas, mediante
conceptione intellectus" (art. 1). We have to note that this
crucial shift of perspective-from words as logia to words ao;;
human products-involves an entire analytic procedure; for
what is now analysed is explicitly "names " as predicates. That
is to say, we have both a (metaphysical) psychological epistemology and a logical epistemology, the latter benefiting from
the tradition of "grammar" in theology. 18 While Thomas's
18 Cf. the chapter " Grammaire et Theologie " in M. D. Chenu, La Theologie
au douzieme siecle, pp. 90-107. The earlier version of this chapter, in AHDLMA

X (1935-6), carries the discussion on to the thirteenth century. The introductory
portions of the basic book by J. Pinborg, Die Entwicklung der Sprachtheorie im
Mittdalter (Munster, 1967), and of the essay by H. J. Stiker, "Une theorie
pp. 585-616,
linguistique au Moyen Age: I' ecole modiste," RSPT 56
offer summaries of grammatical theories, up to the time of St. Thomas, in regard
to the treatment of modi significandi.

418

CORNELIUS ERNST

account of modi significandi is not strikingly original, it is interesting to note that, according to Pinborg (p.
his view
allows greater freedom to the creative activity of the mino.
What is certainly true is that St. Thomas stands for a demythologization of the word, some of the consequences of which in
later times he could hardly have expected. The full consequences of Thomas's recognition of the human creation of the
word are still contained for him within an archaic order; for
even the human word is still related by similitudo to the cosmic
world, and thus to the pure perfections deficiently represented
in that world.
Here it seems desirable to stand back from St. Thomas for
a moment and place his views in a wider context. We need
perhaps do no more than mention the critique of the exclusive
analysis of propositions into subject and predicate by logicians
who have been concerned to analyse the propositions of mathematics.111 More important for our purposes are the implications
for an account of metaphor of abandoning the assumption that
metaphorical assertions are primarily the application of predicates. If we recall the famous description of ShakespearC''s
later plays by the critic G. Wilson Knight as" extended mebphors " we may see how the notion of metaphor-predicate is
much too narrow to do justice to metaphorical language. Given
our ordinary literary use of " metaphor," it is only by " extension " (by " metaphor ") that we can call an entire play
a metaphor; but just this extension of " metaphor " surely
draws attention to the important truth that metaphor only
functions as such within a given human " world," where tacit
assumptions as· to what counts as " literal " prevail. The play
as a whole can count as a metaphor when it is set over against
the ordinary world of our everyday habitation; and the "local "
metaphor of a particular act of speech or writing is a " play "
in detail-a " play of speech." Metaphor belongs not to isolated
18 For a modem
(favorable) discussion of "Subject and Predicate," see the
chapter by that title in P. T. Geach, Reference and Generality, amended edition
(Ithaca, 1968) . This might be the place to mention the interesting book by M.
Durrant, The Logical Status of • God' (London, 1978), though it deserves more
than a mention.

METAPHOR AND ONTOLOGY IN " SACRA DOCTRINA "

419

propositions but to entire " language-games " ; in fact, the particular metaphor always involves more than just the given
statement with its claim to represent a given state of affairs
(Sachverhalt) .20 Thirdly, we may consider Sir Edward EvansPritchard's reflections in the chapter "The Problem of Symbols" in his classic account of Nuer religion. 21 The characteristic of Nuer thought about "God" is that, while their Godterm Kwoth is predicated of all sorts of things and events, it
is rarely that anything is predicated of kwoth. Evans-Pritchard
analyzes the predication of kwoth in terms of a general formula:
"the problem of something being something else." In connection with our second observation in this paragraph we may
note again that metaphorical language in divinis cannot always
be assumed to consist of predications about God but that we
need to take into account the whole language-game of the
linguistic community (" tribe ") and its " world," a world
which cannot be unambiguously identified apart from the
linguistic community which contributes to its manifestation.
Now, of course, St. Thomas muut insist that it is in fact
possible unambiguously to define the world, to speak about it
proprie, literally; and so to argue that in some cases at least it
is possible to speak proprie about God. Here again his originality needs to be recognized so that we may at the same time
recognize its limitations. Briefly, St. Thomas both takes for
granted and establishes his own presupposition that the literal
sense of language (and we may say the literal sense of the
world) can be unambiguously defined in metaphysical terms.
Even God can be spoken of proprie, not aequivoce, because of
a similitude of participation between creatures and God which
can be in certain cases extracted from the creaturely modus
20 The use of Wittgensteinian
language of the later (" language-games ") and
earlier (Sachverhalt) periods is deliberate. It is a pity that Marcus B. Hester's
The Meaning of Poetic Metaphor (The Hague, 1967) has tried to "amplify"
Wittgenstein by introducing a notion of " seeing as " involving " mental images."
I cannot refrain from mentioning what seems to be Hester's extraordinary misreading (pp. 25-6) of Hopkins's lines " 0 the mind, mind has mountains," where
he seems to suppose that Hopkins is relying on a mental image of the brain!
21 Nuer Religion (Oxford, 1957).
Reviewed by the present writer in Blackfriars
(December, 1957), pp.

CORNELIUS ERNST

essendi by an appropriate negation of the modus significandi
of our language. The " certain cases " are those in which
materiality or corporeality is not inseparably part of the modus
essendi or significandi.
For St. Thomas the world manifests itself as a dualism of
spirit and matter, even where the dualism is manifested in
substantial unity. Thus it is possible to lay down conditions
for "proper" or "literal" talk about God in two stages: (1)
in general, " proper " and " metaphorical" language can be unambiguously distinguished;
in particular, proper and metaphorical language about God can be distinguished unambiguously on the basis of the dual manifestation of the world. The
consequences of this twofold distinction are obvious throughout the writings of St. Thomas, not only in his explicit use of
the distinction (e. g., I, q. 19, a. 11 on voluntas signi and
generally to exclude " anthropomorphisms ") but in the way
in which a Scriptural or other authoritative text, say in a sed
contra, is expounded metaphysically in the corpus articuli, without any apparent sense of hermeneutic discontinuity. The process is most clearly to be seen in the Scriptural commentaries,
which throw a great deal of light on the way in which Thomas
saw his own world of interpretation rise without rupture out of
the Scriptural world (reminding ourselves of the " seamless
veil" of symbols mediating revelation of God through Scripture
and the cosmos). We may compare this lack of sense of rupture
to that with which modern readers can comfortably use " existentialist " language to interpret the Scriptures.
Behind St. Thomas there is, of course, a long tradition, especially in regard to the " anthropomorphisms " of the Bible.
Consider, for example, Philo's astonishing exegesis of Gen. 17: 1,
"I am thy God," where he insists that this is an abuse, or at
least a licence, of language (Ka/raxpYJa-nKwc;, ov Kvp[wc;) . 22 The
•• I take this reference from the deeply interesting book by U. Mauser, Gottesbild
und Menschwerdung (Tiibingen, 1971), p. '27. Philo is discussed pp. '23-'28. Relying on the impressive and moving account of the divine pathos in Abraham
Heschel's The Prophets (New York, 196'2), Mauser sets out to show how the
" anthropomorphism " of God and the " theomorphism " of man in the Old Testament find their key and consummation in Jesus Christ and are further exhibited

METAPHOR AND ONTOLOGY IN " SACRA DOCTRINA "

Existent (ro ov) " is full of himself and is sufficient for himself . . . He cannot change nor alter and needs nothing else at
all, so that all things are his but he himself in the proper sense
belongs to none" (De JJfut. Nom. 4, 27-8, tr. Colson and
Whitaker, LCL V, p. 157) . There are however certain "potencies" (8vvaf.Lewv) which can be spoken of in a sense as relative; one such is " the creative potency called God, because
through this the Father who is its begetter and contriver made
the universe." 23 Again, the whole point of Maimonides' Guide
for the Perplexed is to resolve the apparent contradiction between philosophy and religion. " Human reason has attracted
him (the religious man) to abide within its sphere; and he finds
it difficult to accept as correct the teaching based on the literal
interpretation of the Law, and especially that which he himself
or others derived from those homonymous, metaphorical, or
hybrid expressions" found in the prophetic books. 24 Judaism
and Christianity have shared the same tension between a certain metaphysical determination of what is to count as literal,
and the metaphorical expressions of the Scriptures. 25 This
(" Platonist") metaphysical determination of what is to count
as literal is not, of course, the only one. An alternative version
in Christian life, especially in the " suffering Apostle." H. Corbin, Creative
Imagination in the Sufism of Ibn 'Abrabi (London, 1969), finds pathos in Islam.
23 Ibid., p. 159. Cf. Quod Deus immutabilis sit, 5, 20-6, 82; 11, 51-14, 69, for n
further treatment of anthropomorphisms.
Philo himself stands in a tradition. I•'or
the Septuagint, see the chapter "Names of God" in C. H. Dodd, The Bible and
the Greeks (London, 1954). An interesting example of LXX interpretation in the
area "knowledge of God" is found in Exodus 88: 18, quoted by Philo, de Mut.
Nom. 2, 8. On the names of God in the Psalms, see the excursus (4) to Ps. 24
in H. J. Kraus, Psalmen I (BK XV /1) (Neukirchen, 1960), pp. 197 f., with its
indication of Canaanite formulae. See also the articles 'el, 'elohim in JenniWestermann, Theologisches Handworterbuch ZUJn Alten Testament I (MiinchenZiirich, 1971), and in Theologisches Wiirterbuch zum Alten Testament I ( Stuttgart,
1971). For the tradition prior to Philo, see the magisterial work by M. Hengel,
Judentum und Hellenismus, 2. ed. (Tiibingen, 1978).
•• Guide for the Perplexed, 2 ed. (London, 1936 (1904), tr. Friedlander), p. 2.
See especially Pt. I, chapters 46 f. St. Thomas, of course, refers to Maimonides
(Guide, I, 58) in I, q. 13, a. 2 to criticize his views but in the same tradition.
25 For Islam and the Qur'an, as well as the standard
treatment by Gardet and
Anawati, see the useful small book by W. Montgomery Watt, Islamic Philosophy
and Theology (Edinburgh, 1962) .

422

CORNELIUS ERNST

is analyzed with great power by Michel Foucault for the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries in Europe, 26 and this version,
condensed in the notion of " facts," has continued to be influential in both explicit and implicit ways; recently it has been
revived in the sophisticated form of the mathematical theory
of "models," another avatar of similitudo. 21
This article has attempted to disentangle some of the implications of St. Thomas's "symbolice vel metaphorice," especially
in a theological context. The consequences of such an exploration may seem to indicate that he has very little to offer us
today except a purely historical interest. The whole tradition
of interpretation of Scripture to which he unmistakably belongs is obviously archaic, although his own equivalence of
" symbol " and " metaphor " suggests in germ the emergence of
an acosmic humanism which is still with us. St. Thomas contains the humanism within a metaphysical and hierarchical subordination of all being, including the being of interpreting mind,
to God. 28 It is here precisely that I should want to claim for
St. Thomas more than historical interest, in the sense that
his approach to the problem of theological interpretation of
Scripture has laid down what I take to be an inescapable
requirement for theologians of any epoch: that their interpretation must exhibit the ontological primacy of God, God as
the ultimately really real. How may we do this today when we
The Order of Things, ET (London, 1970).
See, e. g., the appendix by Rolf Eberle to Colin Murray Turbayne, The Myth
of Metaphor, revised edition (Columbia, South Carolina, 1970). Turbayne seems
to use the phrase "extended metaphor" to mean "model "-an interesting alternative to Wilson Knight's usage taken over in this article.
2 '8 I am sorry not to have been able to discuss in this article the interference of
Pseudo-Dionysian and Augustinian Platonisms in St. Thomas, especially tbe
historico-temporal and eschatological orientations of the latter. I cannot refrain
from referring to Thomas's treatment of the ceremonial precepts of the Old Law,
I-II, q. 99, a. 8 ad 8 with q. 101, a. 9!, where similitudo, metaphorica locutio,
and figura are simultaneously at play. In beatitude, the expressive role of the body
in praising is not "figurative," non consistit in aliqua figura. Note also the shift
to pure allegory from the "pregnant" symbolism of imago in III, q. 88, a. 1 corp.,
and ad 2. On allegory, see the remarkable book by Angus Fletcher, Allegory:
the Theory of a Symbolic Mode (Ithaca, 1964), especially the chapter on "Psychoanalytic Analogues."
26

27

METAPHOR AND ONTOLOGY IN " SACRA DOCTRINA "

423

seem no longer to be in command of a criterion, metaphysical
or other, for unambiguously distinguishing the "literal" from
the " metaphorical " ? Is " God " a literal or a metaphorical
expression? The whole of the present article has tried to lead
up to this question in a theological context; it would require
something much more substantial than an article to begin to
answer it and what follows may be regarded merely as programmatic notes.
To begin with the simpler aspects of our problem, we may
say that the context in which " God " is used will tell us
whether the expression is intended literally or metaphorically;
the texture of the context can be roughly discriminated. Ordinarily by this rule "God "-'el, ',elohim, theos-will have
to be called a metaphorical expression in its Biblical context,
as compared to its use in philosophical contexts. Of course, this
conclusion must make one feel uneasy; in fact, our ordinary
reading of the Bible is, I suspect, universally dependent on the
assumption that "God" there is somehow literal. Now that
we are more accustomed to reading " Yahweh " in our Bibles
than "the Lord" ('ad6nay, Kurios), we need to feel, for instance, that the identification of " God " and " Yahweh " is
doing more than claiming the same reference for two names,
say, "Julius" and " Caesar." In fact, what this means is that
we cannot read the Bible without interpreting it (" as literature"), that we must have some prior understanding of" God"
in order to make sense of the Bible. But can that prior understanding of " God " be called literal? Our ordinary contexts for
" God " (prayer, ritual, even swearing) are ways of life and
behavior which are discriminated from ways of life and behavior which are tacitly identified as everyday and which count
to make the language which belongs to them " literal." The
point of .the Five Ways was to show how one might go on
speaking of " God " in the ordinary world-et hoc omnes dicunt
"Deum." What if or when the Five Ways no longer perform
this function? Does one start looking for other " ways " ?
Obviously other " ways" must be looked for, though hardly
in the sense of " proofs " ; even for Aristotle and St. Thomas

424

CORNELIUS ERNST

the notion of demonstratio is more complex than the usual sense
of" proof" (c£. the Posterior Analytics and St. Thomas's commentary thereon). The most plausible "way," it seems, is the
exploration of the genesis of meaning, understood as the manifestation of the real. The significance of this "way," in the
present context, is that it is prior to any conventional discrimination of " literal " and " metaphorical." It would, I believe, render more adequately our intention when we speak of
God or to God to understand " God " as also prior to any distinction of literal (whether or not analogical) and metaphorical.
The later writings of Heidegger 29 are the most important exploration of this " way " known to me, not least because they
can be seen in continuity with the ontological interpretation
of the divine names in Catholic tradition, notably by St.
Thomas.
Finally, this" way," reaching beyond the distinction of literal
and metaphorical, allows Jesus to show himself as the center
of the revelation of God (thus "Jesus" as the fulfilment of
" Yahweh ") . This is not merely a matter of the words of
Jesus, his parables, for instance, though we can recognise in
them instances of what we have called above, with Wilson
Knight, " extended metaphor "-whole " plays " rather than
predicate-metaphors. 30 Nor again is it only a recognition of
the background in apocalyptic without which the figure of
Jesus becomes unintelligible in its New Testament setting. 31
Nor, yet again, is it a matter of the actions of Jesus, say his
" parabolic " actions, healing or presiding at the Last Supper;
though it is important that we should see the seamless continuity of those actions, in a total behavior which cannot be
divided into " everyday " actions and " religious " actions, corresponding to "literal" and "metaphorical." To see Jesus as
29 Some of the most interesting
essays are collected in a remarkably successful
translation, Poetry, Language, Thought, by Albert Hofstadter (New York, 1971).
30 See J. Jeremias,
The Parables of Jesus, revised edition (London, 1963),
especially the discussion of the introductory Aramaic 1•, no "like" but "as in
the case of," pp. 100 f.
31 See K. Koch,
The Rediscovery of Apocalyptic (London, 197:l).

425

METAPHOR AND ONTOLOGY IN " SACRA DOCTRINA "

the center of the revelation of God is all this and more, something for which a distinction into " sensible " and " intelligible "
could not possibly do.
We want to see Jesus as someone who walked in Galilee and
Jerusalem, who from the originating source of meaning in himself, prior to a literal-metaphorical distinction, was and is the
supreme and unique revelation of God, beyond distinctions of
meaning. We want to see his whole life, culminating in the
Resurrection, as the revelation of ultimate meaning. If by
"meaning " we may provisionally understand the process or
praxis by which the world to which man belongs becomes the
world which belongs to man, then we may see a man's life as
transformation in and of meaning, a " metaphor " beyond metaphors. In the Resurrection, the world which belongs to man
becomes the world which belongs to God; the Resurrection is
the ultimate " metaphor " of the world, its trans-lation aml
trans-figuration. This seems to make better sense of the Johannine logo8; for it is important to insist that what is at the
end is also in the beginning. Jesus is the " way."
These concluding remarks are enough, it may be felt, to suggest what might be involved in surrendering St. Thomas's metaphysically based distinction of literal and metaphorical in theology, while trying to retain a version of outology, here an
ontology of meaning. We need perhaps in our own times what
St. Thomas was in his:
The impossible possible philosophers' man,
The man who has had the time to think enough,
The central man, the human globe, responsive
As a mirror with a voice, the man of glass,
Who in a million diamonds sums us up. (Wallace Stevens,
"Asides on the oboe ")

I hope it will not seem too unpleasing a paradox to celebrate
St. Thomas in a metaphor.
CoRNELius ERNST,

Blackfriars
Oxford, England

0. P.

MAN'S TRANSCENDENCE AND THOMISTIC
RESOURCES

C

HRISTIANITY PRESUPPOSES that man is a reliously transcendent being, that is, that he is oriented
by his knowledge and love, as these emerge from andreflect his being, toward a personal relation to God within the
human community. On this view man's unawareness or rejection of this relation to God and his fellow men is an alienation
from himself, a failure to know or appropriate himself on the
deepest level of his being. It is not evidence that this orientation does not exist; rather it shows that the Christian revelation and gift are not only a fulfillment of man's orientation
but a liberation from ignorance and inclinations that are
destructive of himself and the human community. Without this
orientation the Christian proclamation can have no meaning or
relevance to him. There is, however, a very strong tradition in
modern philosophy that questions and even denies such a
transcendence. These denials or questions are normally based
on interpretations of man's horizon as experienced in his scientific knowledge and his values in modern secular life. The importance of this question for a philosophy of religion and theology calls us to raise the question of the fact and character of
man's transcendence from an examination of man's modern experience of knowledge and values. 1
The present article addresses the question of how one who
comes from the Thomistic tradition in philosophy should be
related to his tradition when he faces a problem like this. Although many of us in the Thomistic tradition claim as our own
1 In "Religious Reflection and Man's Transcendence," The Tkomist 87 (1978),
1-68, I present evidence for this interpretation of the difficulties and suggest an
approach to the question of transcendence.

MAN'S TRANSCENDENCE

AND THOMISTIC RESOURCES

4Q7

the whole background of modern science, life, and philosophy,
we were introduced to philosophy in a specific tradition, and
so we face the question of our relationship to that tradition
when we approach philosophical problems. We have seen
radically differing attitudes toward this tradition by men so
introduced to philosophy. At one period many Neo-Thomists
when facing a modern problem would seek the full answer from
St. Thomas in a way that indicates they did not recognize that
modern experience and problems pose a question of the adequacy of this philosophy. More recently we have seen many
reject or abandon this tradition almost totally when they face
modern philosophical problems, out of their sense of an unbridgeable chasm between current problems and Thomas's
philosophy. Most of us from this tradition are somewhat confused about the way we should relate the philosophy we initially
accepted to the current problems we face. In this situation it
seems worthwhile to reflect on the use we should make of the
resources of Thomistic philosophy as we face a question like
man's transcendence in our time.
It may seem to some that there is opposition between facing
a philosophical problem personally and creatively and doing so
within a philosophical tradition. True, we must honestly acknowledge the full dimensions of a philosophical problem like
that of man's transcendence and try to understand and be open
to the difficulties against it as these are expressed in modern
philosophies. And because of the nature of philosophy we must
address ourselves to a problem of this sort largely on the basis
of the experience we as modern men have and our reflection on
this. This is not because modern experience is more valid in all
instances than an earlier experience. In fact, there may well
be much in the experience claimed and explained by earlier
philosophers that we have valid bases to appropriate as our
own, and much in more recent philosophies that we cannot
validly appropriate as an adequate articulation of our experience. But the difficulties against man's transcendence in our
time are said to derive from modern experience; we share many
experiences with men of our time that seem to argue against

428

JOHN FARRELLY

transcendence, and we must communicate with these men.
While it is characteristic of creative philosophers generally to
reflect on their own problems and experiences, it also seems to
be characteristic of them to make use of the resources of a
philosophical tradition rather than to create totally on their
own a framework of interpretation.
The richness of their
philosophical answers, right or wrong, comes from their use of
a rich tradition and from their modification of this tradition as
this is called for by new problems and new experiences. For
example, Kant made great use of rationalistic and empiricist
philosophies that preceded him, and Heidegger made great use
of Husserl's phenomenology. These men, as well as so many
creative philosophers, seem to have found in their experience
a challenge to the adequacy of their inherited intellectual
scheme and value system, and the philosophical position each
developed is related in some way to a resolution of the dichotomy experienced, by a use and adaptation of an inherited intellectual framework. This situation is not only a factual one;
it seems to be an essential condition of man's philosophical
work, because it is part of the human condition. If philosophy
is to be valid, it is not by escaping this condition but by finding
that it is an opening rather than an obstacle to philosophical
truth, since philosophy's growth is dialogic and dialectical.
Recognition and acknowledgement of how we depend on and
have been enriched by our philosophical tradition is all the
more appropriate for those of us whose main service is sharing
with men of our time insights we have gained from others
rather than some unique philosophical creativity.
The Thomistic tradition, or the tradition to which St. Thomas
contributed so much and which has developed since his time,
particularly in our own century, is very rich indeed. Its roots
go back to the beginnings of philosophy, and it has experienced
a development that could not conceivably have been achieved
by one individaul, no matter how brilliant. Modern philosophy
owes much to this tradition, whether this is acknowledged or
not. Specifically in the question we are dealing with, Thomas
finds in human experience a basis for asserting man's religious

MAN'S TRANSCENDENCE

AND THOMISTIC RESOURCES

transcendence and articulates this philosophically, while most
prominent modern philosophies deny this. I£ modern experience
continues to justify a philosophical assertion of man's transcendence and calls for an anthropology that will explain this,
both a premodern philosophy that bases its affirmation of this
on human experience and modern philosophies that base their
denials of it on later human experience must change and grow
internally through acknowledging what is valid in positions
other than their own. In this situation and with reference to
our question it would appear to be as unwise to reject or abandon Thomas's philosophy totally as it would be to accept it
totally. There can be no philosophical reason against rejecting
or modifying our tradition when evidence calls for this, but
there is as much philosophical reason against being uncritical
in our rejection of our tradition as in our acceptance of it.
This article is a prolegomenon to a future direct philosophical
treatment of the question of man's religious transcendence; it
limits itself to asking how one from the Thomistic tradition in
philosophy should relate to the resources of this tradition as he
faces the question of transcendence in a way appropriate to the
contemporary problem. The article will develop an answer to
this question through examining different models for relating
the Thomistic tradition to the contemporary problem of man's
transcendence. \:Ve will indicate what these models are and
then comment on their adequacy, clarifying the answer we propose in the process of examining these alternatives. The alternatives we will study are (1) the recovery of St. Thomas's
philosophy, (2) Thomistic dialogue from the Marechalian tradition, specifically as found in Karl Rahner and Bernard
Longergan, and (3) a rejection of a metaphysics of being in
Leslie Dewart. We are not giving a full analysis of these positions; we are addressing ourselves primarily to those who are
familiar with these positions, and for others a fuller treatment
of them may be found elsewhere. We will simply recall what
we understand to be central elements of each of these positions
and then briefly reflect on these elements in reference both to

480

JOHN FARRELLY

the Thomistic tradition and to the current problematic. The
full justification for a program such as the one we are calling
for in this article can be found, of course, only in implementing
it. But it seems necessary for us, before such a study, to attempt to identify the position from which we carry on a
philosophical dialogue on man's transcendence appropriate for
our age.
1. The recovery of St. Thomas's philosophy

One model we should recall is the recovery of St. Thomas's
objective analysis of the hierarchy of being and of man's place
within this hierarchy. There are very few Thomists in our time
who would think that this recovery is sufficient as an answer
to the modern problem of transcendence, but this model should
be examined so that we can establish, as it were, a base line and
face honestly the limitations as well as the resources of
Thomistic philosophy in this regard. Without recalling here
the historical and theological context of Thomas's philosophy
of man, we suggest that essential elements of this alternative
are a recovery of his metaphysics, his philosophy of human
nature, and his reflective analysis of man's knowledge and moral
activity. After recalling some elements of these aspects of
Thomas's thought, we shall indicate what we think are some
basic modern difficulties to this thought and point to some
developments in Thomism that are both honest to Thomas's
basic principles and contributions toward overcoming the gap
that exists between his thought and the modern problematic.
In his metaphy8ics Thomas studies the structure of being.
That is, he studies concretely existing things; it is these that the
word and notion " being " primarily designates, for being is
that which is. What simply can be is not being but possible
being. In this study Thomas analyses the principles constitutive of beings as they are being, such as substance and accidents, act and potency, and particularly essence and existence.
The principle of being is primarily esse or the act of being, because " being, or that which is, is insofar as it participates in

MAN'S TRANSCENDENCE

AND THOMISTIC RESOURCES

431

the act of being." 2 In virtue of the principles of being and their
relationship Thomas explains the properties of being such as
their truth, goodness, and unity, and the hierarchy that exists
among beings, a hierarchy in perfection that is determined by
the form or substance as receptive of the act of being. This act
is proportioned to the potency it actualizes, that is, to the substance, nature or form. The powers and actions distinctive or
a certain kind of being similarly find their source in these
principles. But there are other principles of being that Thomas
also studies, namely, the causal principles. Here we think particularly of the first cause, God, who can be known by causal
inference from the imperfect and material beings we directly
know, and in whom being is found as subsistent. God is total
actuality, free from matter and potency, and so he is transcendent being " par excellence." Thomas articulates the interrelation between God and creatures in terms of causality and
participation. He also reflects upon the whole of this metaphysical analysis. For example, in his sophisticated analysis
of analogy, he reflects upon the modes of predication found
here; and in his study of the relation between metaphysics and
other kinds of knowledge (e. g., mathematics and natural
philosophy) , he shows the status of metaphysics as knowledge.
St. Thomas's philosophical analysis of man's transcendence is
primarily objective and is in the context (though not the confines) of Aristotle's philosophy of nature, and more specifically
his hylomorphic theory. That is, he like Aristotle infers from
certain general human experiences of material things enduring
and changing over a continuous period of time a view of the
constitutive principles of the material thing that can explain
this continuity and change. Man also is a material being, and
thus the primary philosophical principles in virtue of which
material things are explained in Aristotle's "physics" are
operative in the philosophical explanation of man. These help
to explain both what man shares with other material things and
2 St. Thomas,
In Librum Boethii de Trinitatl), q. 5, a. 4 (quoted here from
Opuscula theologica, Rome, 1954).

432

JOHN FARRELLY

what his transcendence is in relation to the rest of material
reality. Thomas examines the acts distinctive of man, and he
explains them philosophically through rooting them in natural
human powers proportioned to these acts and both of these in
human nature composed of matter and a form proportioned to
man's acts. In developing this he analyses the relation between
matter and form in man, shows that the human soul is his sole
substantial form, and defends its character as spiritual to account for man's intellectual activity. He analyses the specific
powers (and the interrelation among them) that one must infer
to account for the different kinds of human activity, giving
particular emphasis to man's intellectual knowledge. He explains our experience of knowledge by sense powers (both external and internal-like memory and imagination) and intellect.
What man primarily knows intellectually are the natures of
material things, and the way he knows these is through sense
knowledge and intellectual abstraction mediated by a power
St. Thomas infers (along with Aristotle), namely, man's abstractive or agent intellect. One summary statement of this
interrelation can be recalled here:
In this way then our intellectual operation is caused by sense from
the part of the phantasms. But since phantasms do not suffice to
affect the possible intellect-it is necessary that they be made actually intelligible by the agent intellect-it cannot be said that
sense knowledge is the total and perfect cause of intellectual knowledge, but rather, in a way, the matter of the cause. 3

The principles of our knowledge that Thomas investigates are
not only the objective principles, such as the physical thing and
how it informs the intellect, but also the subject. Knowledge
is properly our act; it is then primarily action or operation
(actus perfecti) and not being acted upon. That is, the proper
"cause" of our knowledge is the subject; knowledge is an
operation or activity of the subject through the mediation of its
powers. This knowledge occurs in man only through a succession of acts-apprehension, judgment, and reasoning. (We will
• Summa Theologiae, I, q. 84, a. 6.

MAN's TRANSCENDENCE

AND THOMISTIC RESOURCES

43$

have occasion later in this article to refer to these acts again,
and so here we shall not recall more o£ St. Thomas's very developed philosophical thought o£ man's intellectual activity.)
We should note that he also analyzes how man is oriented to
the good through desire and love, powers in him that can account for these acts (appetitive powers, on both the sense and
rational level) , and their relationship to man's cognitive powers
and acts. Here we have simply recalled that an important element o£ Thomas's philosophical articulation o£ man's transcendence is his analysis o£ the structure through which man is
able to engage in operations o£ knowledge and desire or love.
There is anther sense in which Thomas articulates the transcendence o£ man, one that is closer to the modern question.
Here we refer to his reflective analysis of man as knower and
as moral agent, as one who is naturally oriented toward God
in his desire to know and in his quest for value. With reference
to man as knower Thomas's practice in developing the five
ways by which we can know naturally the existence o£ God
shows the orientation and capacity that he finds in man as
knower. This exists in man even before he engages in metaphysical knowledge. Before knowing metaphysically, man possesses a primitive knowledge o£ reality as being, for" that which
the intellect first o£ all conceives as the most known, and in
which it resolves all its concepts in being." 4 And although
there is much that stands in the way o£ its actualization, there
is in men generally and not simply in the metaphysician a
natural capacity and orientation to the knowledge o£ God.
There is in man a natural desire of knowing the cause when he
sees the effect, for wonder arises in men from this. If therefore
the intellect of the rational creature is not able to attain to the
first cause of things, the natural desire remains unfulfilled. 5

In metaphysics this knowledge is possessed reflectively, systematically and scientifically, £or it is in metaphysics that we
study the principles (constitutive and causal) o£ beings as
• De V erit., q. 1., a. 9.
• Summa Theol., ibid., q. 12, a. 1.

484

JO:S:N FARRELLY

being. While God is not the subject of metaphysics, he is the
principle of its subject insofar as he is known through his
effects.
Something of man's transcendence in knowledge is shown by
Thomas when he critically and reflectively shows what sort of
knowledge is found in metaphysics. In one key passage he
associates knowledge found in natural philosophy and mathematics with the first act of man's mind, apprehensive abstraction, and metaphysics with the second act, judgment or
separation. 6 In abstraction one aspect of the thing is considered
without other aspects as when, for example, in natural philosophy we consider man without considering the individual (abstracting the universal from the particular) or when in mathematics we consider quantity without considering the material
substance it determines (abstracting form from matter). (We
can note here that how the object is known and conceptualized
depends in part upon the active and constructive character
of the intellect and its act.) Thomas associates the metaphysical level of knowledge with judgment because it is in the
judgment that we affirm being (asserting that something
or not). He associates it with judgment specifically as separation, since metaphysics is justified only if reality demands some
science in addition to those that treat it as material or quan·
tified; and reality justifies this only if it legitimately evokes a
judgment that there are dimensions of reality that do not exist
in matter or are not intrinsically dependent upon matter. We
should note that there is disagreement among Thomists in their
analyses of the intellectual act whereby man knows being or
knows metaphysically, some using as basis the above text, and
others calling upon a later passage where Thomas distinguishes
metaphysics from natural philosophy and mathematics as
another degree of abstration, thus associating it with the first
act of the mind rather than with the judgment. 7 The difficulty
of explaining man's knowledge of being as Thomas understands
• See In librum Boethii de Trinitate, q. 5, a. I.
7

See Summa Theol., ibid., q. 85, a. 1

MAN's TRANSCENDENCE AND THOMISTIC RESOURCES

435

being (in distinction from Aristotle ) within the noetic of
Thomas persists among his modern disciples. The understanding of being that is within the orientation and capacity of the
human mind for Thomas is, as we see, one that is not restricted
to a descriptive level but is explanatory, and explanatory not
only by constitutive principles of being but by causal principles.
In its furthest reach it includes an inference to the assertion of
the existence of God as first cause of the reality proportioned
to man's knowledge.
In interpretations of Thomas's understanding of man's transcendence we frequently find mention only of man's transcendence in knowledge. But for a more adequate view one
would have to recall his analysis of man's orientation to his goal
in the beginning of his moral treatise. 8 Here he analyses the
final goal in general, showing that an immediate goal or good
moves us in virtue of the ultimate end, and thus that the immediate end is for the ultimate end. He asks what things happiness
consists in; and he shows that ultimate happiness forman cannot
consist in goods external to him (such as riches, honors, fame or
power) , in goods of the body such as pleasure in goods of the soul
such as virtue, or in any created good, but only in God. Nothing
less than God has the perfection that fulfills the longings of
the human heart. Happiness is ultimately man's operation (an
activity of his higher powers and more properly of his intellect
than of his will, though including both) as this has to do with
man's highest intentional object, namely, God himself. Man
has even a natural desire for the beatific vision, a desire that
cannot be fulfilled save through God's gifts.
What should we think of the appropriateness of this model
for a philosophy of man's transcendence in our time? We will
make three comments on this model, comments that take their
origin from basic difficulties many modern philosophers would
have with it. These difficulties are against the fact of an opera8 See ibid., I-II, qq. 1-3. A full study of Thomas's thought on man's religious
transcendence would also include his teaching on the virtue of religion and what
evokes man's dedication of himself to God (e. g., ibid., q.
a. 3).

436

J"OHN FARRELLY

tiona! transcendence of man, against the structure of man, and
against the relation of man to the rest of the material order as
expressed by Thomas.
In the first place, the above view of man would be rejected
because much of modem philosophy denies man's transcendence; that is, it denies that man is oriented to and capable
of a dimension of knowledge that extends as far as a knowledge of God, and specifically one found in a metaphysics, or
that he is in his activity seeking a value not restricted to the
secular order and, indeed, properly seeking this. In reference
to this problem we agree that, while Thomas did on the basis
of human experience reflect and articulate man's transcendence
in knowledge and quest for value, this problem was not central
for him. In his age of faith and the science of his day this fact
of man's transcendence had an obvious character that for many
it does not have in our time. In a sense, this problem of the
fact of man's transcendence is the central problem for philosophy in our time and it is a more radical problem than those
that were central for Thomas. Before there is point in articulating philosophically the structure of man in a way that accounts for his transcendence, the question of the fact of this
transcendence must be raised, and raised within the context of
modem experience and philosophy. In this we are agreed with
the Marechalians, and in our next section we shall recall how
Rahner and Lonergan face this problem. But if modern experience as well as pre-modem experience justifies the philosophical
assertion of this transcendence, as we think it does, the question
of the structure of man that accounts for it returns to us. In fact,
one may say that the question of the structure of man faces
modern philosophers even before they are willing to assert the
operational transcendence of man. If they antecedently associate such an assertion with a structure of man that is static and
already totally given, and thus opposed to man's process in
nature and history, they have great difficutly in acknowledging
the fact of man's transcendence. An so even at this point there
is reason for us to recall that a static view of man is not a consequence of an assertion of his transcendence.

MAN'S TRANSCENDENCE

AND THOMISTIC ;RESOURCES

437

In the s'econd place then, philosophers today who do accept
a religious transcendence in man agree that this gives rise to a
need for a philosophical articulation of the structure of man.
But many of these react against Thomas's philosophy as reflecting a view marked too much by an intellectualism, an approach
to man as static substance, and an objectivism. To these it
may seem reasonable to opt for a philosophy that has been developed after modem science has shown the processive character of man. They may, for example, turn to A. N. Whitehead
or to Teilhard de Chardin. We certainly agree that these men
have essential contributions to make to a philosophical articulation of the structure of man, and they have gone far to integrate process with transcendence rather than, as so much
modem philosophy does, oppose them. Moreover, in their
philosophies they go far toward escaping the dilemma between
a reductionism to the scientific account of man or an isolation
of man from the physical order, between a scientism and an
existentialism, between an objectivism and a subjectivism, between a view that relates man solely to nature and one that
relates him solely to history. However, these philosophical traditions too are called to an enlargement today, and one that
may diminish the distance between them and a Thomism that
has been modified by modem science and experience. For example, some of Whitehead's disciples question whether his view
of man as a succession of actual events accounts adequately
for man as agent,-as one who is, endures, and acts. 9 Teilhard
de Chardin's position has been criticized because it brings together in one view science, philosophy, and theology in such
a way that what is distinctive to the method and implications
of each is no longer preserved clearly in their interrelation.
Moreover, at times he uses as his categories of explanation
metaphors (e. g., he attributes consciousness to the lowest of
physical organisms) which, if they were clarified, could well
9 In some cases these questions are addressed to Whitehead's
position from a
perspective influenced by John Macmurray. See, for example, Macmurray's, The
Self as Agent (London, 1957), and F. Kirkpatrick, "Process or Agent: Models
for Self and God," Thour;ht 48 (1973), 33-60.

438

JOHN FARRELLY

lead to distinctions articulated in Thomas's philosophy. Here
we simply wish to recall several points to show that Thomas's
philosophical articulation of man's transcendence toward being
or, more properly, toward God, has a capacity for growth that
allows it to explain much beyond the experience that he centrally articulated, a capacity that goes far toward overcoming the
dichotomy between being and subject in process that many see
in him.
Thomas's articulation of man appears to many to place much
more emphasis on the intellectual dimensions of his transcendence than is reflective of modern experience. The limited
transcendence in man's operations that is acknowledged by a
number of modern philosophies is primarily in the order of
values that man seeks in history, and there seems to be no
place in Thomas's philosophy of being to articulate this experience. In answer to this we should recall that Thomas's
articulation of man's transcendence has reference not only to
his knowledge but to his desires and the actions that come from
these. Man's desire for value or the good and his action for
these is an orientation toward being. That is, Thomas associates the good with being since the good is the actualization or
perfection of the one who is in quest, and esse is the actualization of being. For example he writes
The good is that which all desire ... but all things desire to be
(esse) actually according to their manner, which is clear from
the fact that each thing according to its nature resists corruption.
To be actually then constitutes the nature of the good.10

For St. Thomas, this good must be intentionally present to man's
will for him to elicit his free acts through which history is constituted. Without developing here the bases for this opinion/ 1
we can suggest that Thomistic philosophy can account for the
10 I Contra Gentiles, c. 37, para. 4. See also de Verit., q .. 22, a. 1 ad 4; q.
21, 2; de Pot., q. 3, a. 6.
11 I offer these bases in an article, " Existence, the Intellect and the Will," The
Nf!IW Scholasticism 29 (1955), 145-174. A relation between Thomistic principles
and modern experience to explain man's action is found to be very fruitful in
J. de Finance, Essai sur l'agir humain (Rome, 1962).

MAN'S TRANSCENDENCE

AND THOMISTIC RESOURCES

489

good as intentionally present to man through the act of the
agent intellect. This is an act emerging from the principles
of man's very being, an act that Thomas describes in ways that
associate it with esse, and an act that is present to the will
(somewhat as the intelligible species is present to the possible
intellect). Man's object in the sense of the good of the agent
is present to the will through such an act, and his object
in the sense of what he wants for his good is present to
the will through man's knowledge of a thing or operation.
Larger dimensions of the good, such as that which includes
both the agent and other men, or both man and God,
would be present to man in some way that is in continuity
with this. Being then, in this view, faces man as his horizon
not simply in his intellectual transcendence but in that value
orientation that is his as a free agent. It faces him as a lure
calling for his free acts through which his nature is perfecterl
or actualized. And since as a temporal being his actualization
emerges only through many acts, it faces him as a future that
is brought about by an historical process.
St. Thomas's explanation of man's actions through rooting
them in a human nature or substance appears to many to give a
static view that does not do justice to the dynamism in man's
history. For this reason some identify Thomas's philosophy
with a Greek view of man and oppose it to what they call a
Semitic view. In answer to this we can say that Thomas's enlargement of Aristotle's understanding of being has consequences here that go far to meet this difficulty. It is true that
Aristotle interpreted man's actions through their relation to
human powers and the nature in which they were rooted and that
Thomas also emphasized man's substance or nature, and particularly his form or soul, in his explanation of man's actions.
But there are many bases in Thomas's writing that call us to
relate man's actions to his being and not simply to his nature.
For example, if one must infer from man's operations that the
good is mediated to him through the agent intellect, and that
this properly participates in man's esse, then we must give a
fuller development than Thomas has explicitly given of esse

440

JOHN FARRELLY

as an intrinsic constitutive principle from which man's distinctive powers and acts emerge. An explanation of man's
distinctive actions (insofar as it is appropriate for a philosophy
to give) is impossible if we keep ourselves within the confines
of human nature. There is much in Thomas's philosophy to
support the view that the intrinsic constitutive principles of
the human person include both the substance and the esse, and
that the context of explanation of man's acts and powers should
be the human person or human being rather than human
nature. 12 The basic intrinsic principles that account philosophically for man's operations include a dynamic principle as
well as a formal principle (which is also dynamic formally).
Being for Thomas is so un-opposed to process in man that
man's being demands and is the root of the process that is distinctive of him. This can be seen since man's esse calls forth as
a lure the process through which man brings about the actualization of his being. The opposition between a Greek and
a " Semitic " view of man is diminished by this consideration; if
a Greek philosophical view of man has to account for his
dynamism and process, a " Semitic " view of man, if it is to have
any philosophical elaboration, has to account for the distinctiveness of man.
Thomas's understanding of man's moral activity has appeared to many to be incapable of articulating modern man's experience of himself as subject creatively realizing himself in
history. They interpret his view of man's moral activity as a
conformity to a totally given nature. This may have some
semblance of foundation in the way Thomas's view is at times
presented, but there is much in his analysis of man's operations
that, if brought to the fore, can allow us a more adequate basis
for judgment about the capacities of his philosophy to account
for modern man's experience of transcendence. Thomas (and
indeed Aristotle) radically distinguishes man's operations of
12 See, for example, Summa Theol., III, q. 2, a. 2 ad 3. Also Thomas's
understanding of person as "subsistens rationalis naturae" (ibid., I, q. 29, a. 3) has
implied for many of his disciples that existing as a substance of a rational nature
is all mtri!lsic principle of the person.

TRANSCENDENCE AND THOMISTIC RESOURCES

441

knowledge and free choice from the activity of a physical body
moved from one location to another; he expresses this by calling the former an " actus perfecti " and the latter an " actus
entis in potentia prout in potentia." I£ I move a pencil across
a page, it gains its movement from another " a retro " ; if I
choose freely, it is I who "move" or act, and I so act through
being empowered not " a retro " but by the value or good I
am seeking; I am empowered by the good, but it is I who actin virtue of that power that has actualized me. 13
I£ the implications of Thomas's analysis of man's free operation as an " actus perfecti " are brought out by properly rooting
man's operations in his being, it would appear that his philosophy has much to contribute to an elucidation of man's moral
activity. This accounts for man being truly agent in his activity rather than passive, the more so because he is reflective
agent-reflecting upon himself and his relation to value. In
this view the actualization of man's nature faces him as his
human horizon, the value soliciting his engagement in history,
and a causal influence enabling him to act humanly. In this
view the way in which human nature is a norm for man's
actions is radically different from the way a twelve inch ruler
is a norm for a line that is a foot long. The ruler is a norm
that is fully constituted before one draws the line, and one
that is identically the same for all the lines drawn according to
its specifications. Man's nature is a norm for moral action only
through the mediation of right reason. It is normative as it is
related to man's moral activity. Since this moral activity is
13 An analysis of St. Thomas's philosophy of the "actus perfecti"
may be found
in my Predestination, Grace and Free WiU (Westminister Md.: Newman, 1964),
180-185, 192-196. I may add, in view of some criticisms of Thomas's philosophy
from process philosophers, that in the same book I show that Thomas's nuderstanding of God's eternal knowledge of man's free acts is not opposed to the
reality of freedom and newness in creation. The same cannot be said about the
interpretations found in some of Thomas's disciples. On the comparison between
Thomas's view of God's relation to the world and that of Whitehead, one may
profitably consult Walter E. Stokes, "A Whiteheadian Reflection on God's Relation to the World," in Ewert Cousins (ed.), Process Theology (New York, 1971),
137-152.

JOHN FARRELLY

for the actualization of man's nature (individually and socially) , his nature is a norm for his action not so much as that to
which his action conforms as that which establishes what his
possibilities and fulfillment are as fully actualized. Therefore
man's reason is a norm not so much as he knows his nature
insofar as it is antecedent to his action but as he knows that
for which it is potential, that possibility and value to which
man and his acts are oriented. Also, while the norm present
in a ruler is unchanging, man's nature is present in individuals
only analogically, being existentially different in individuals
of different ages, sexes, cultures, environments, and heredities;
there is a certain indeterminateness in human nature when
abstracted from the circumstances in which it is a moral norm.
Right reason as a moral norm then is more an intelligent grasp
of man's possibilities and fulfillment appropriate to (or mediated by) his specific environment of nature and history and
its implications for present activity, than a directive from a
static nature unchangingly oriented to its proper fulfillment in
similar circumstances and structures. 14 The differences among
cultures or human environments and the relation of these
differences to human behavior-both as mediating to men universal human values in differing ways and as the effects of men's
behavior-were not recognized or articulated by Thomas as
they must be today if a continuity in human nature is to be
related properly to man's development and change.
In the third place, many who admit a transcendence in man
and a need to articulate a structure in man in virtue of which
he has this would say that this problem today involves man's
relationship to the rest of the material world. Here the state
of the question is so radically different from what it was in the
time of Thomas that, they would add, there is no reason to
look to to the resources of his thought for help in articulating
philosophically this relationship. Evidence of man's transcendence in an evolutionary world should make us turn to the
" A specific example of the use of human nature as a moral norm in this way
is suggested in my article, "The Principle of the Family Good," Theological
Studies Sl (1970), 262-274.

MAN'S TRANSCENDENCE

AND THOMISTIC RESOURCES

443

philosophies, for example, of Whitehead or Teilhard de Chardin.
These were developed to account, in part, for man's evolutionary or processive relationship to the rest of the physical
world. They are not in their philosophical articulation of this
bound to a static view of the world and of species. Specifically,
they allow for a spontaneity, newness, process, and relatedness
in the material order below man that give a better philosophical articulation of its relation to man than one can expect
from the resources of Thomistic philosophy.
We acknowledge, of course, that in this area the problems
and data on which philosophy must reflect have changed
radically since the time of St. Thomas. We are interested in
making a response here to this difficulty only to the extent of
showing that in this area Thomism has changed also and that
the current reflection in the Thomistic tradition deserves critical evaluation rather than simple neglect in a modern philosophical articulation of man's relation to the rest of the physical
world. As a basis for this view we will recall something in
general about the relation between Thomas's philosophy of
nature and the data of science, and then point to the fact that
in spite of all the changes in our understanding of the physical
world the modern data give rise to problems that Thomas addressed in a non-evolutionary framework, and addressed in such
a way that his answers are not restrictedly relevant to such a
framework.
In reference to the fact that Thomas's philosophy developed
from a pre-evolutionary world view, we wish to recall different
types of philosophies of nature when related to science, as these
hav:e been classified by E. McMullin. One type takes its basis
outside of physical sciences (PN 1) ; one in an extension of physical sciences and takes its data from them (PN 2); and one in part
takes its departure from outside the physical sciences but uses
the conclusions of science (PNM) .15 According to McMullin,
See E. McMullin, "Philosophies of Nature," New Scholasticism 48 (1969),
He distinguishes these from philosophies of science some of which he surveys in his article, "Recent Work in the Philosophy of Science," ibid., 40 (1966),
.
478-518.
15

444

JOHN FARRELLY

Aristotle's seventeenth-century successors and some of Thomas's
twentieth-century disciples opted for the first position, with the
result that they have lost contact with the sciences and their
views have become vacuous. John Dewey's position is of the
second type, but philosophies of nature of this character are
inadequate:
Such second order philosophies of nature are legion: The myriad
speculations of those whose imaginations are sparked by some new
scientific advance, so that they leap to a speculative claim about
Nature whose only real warrant is the original piece of empirical
science.16
The PNM model can escape the inadequacies of these extremes; this model, however, embraces many diverse philosophies of nature. It includes that of Whitehead who called upon
both the data of the physical sciences and his experience of
human consciousness to explain organic processes; and more
recently, it includes, for example, that of Errol Harris, the
foundations of whose view are both:
the empirical data underpinning the various theories whose results
he generalizes, and also the metaphysics whose internal coherence
and adequacy give it a claim that transcends that of the scientific
theories from which it originally took its origin.H
There is much reason to think that Thomas's philosophy of
nature falls into this last type, even though science and the
philosophy of nature were not distinguished in his age as in
ours. It did draw upon the physics of his day, for example, the
physics of the celestial bodies and their influence upon terrestial
bodies, but it certainly had bases outside these sciences, as in
man's general experience of different kinds of physical change,
and in Thomas's metaphysics of act and potency. A view that
Thomas's philosophy of nature has resources that contribute to
the philosophical elucidation of man's evolutionary emergence
from lower physical reality depends then upon the possibility
Ibid., 60.
Ibid., 57. See E. Harris, The Foundations of MetaphysiC$ in Science (New
York, 1965).
16

17

MAN's TRANSCENDENCE AND THOMISTIC RESOURCES

445

that certain principles in his philosophy can be disengaged from
the science of his time and that these are positively and profitably related to the data of modern science/ 8 We may also
note here that Aristotle's philosophy is not as
deM
pendent upon the " science ;; of his times as is popularly supposed. For example, in his elaboration of his hylomorphic
theory, he does not even mention his view on the physical
elements. This theory depends not upon the science of the
elements but rather upon a first order human knowledge, an
awareness of physical becoming and change within the context
of a more basic continuity of existence. 19
Can Thomas's philosophy of nature positively and profitably
relate to the modern data that supports man's emergence from
lower physical organisms? This question of the relationship
18 The dependence of Thomas's
metaphysics and cosmology on the science of
his day is more candidly admitted now by his disciples than it has been at times
in the past. See T. Litt, Les Corps celestes dans l'univers de saint Thomas d'Aquin
(Paris, 1963), 367:
" Les . . . chapitres de cet ouvrage montrent que . . . Ia metaphysique . . .
des corps celestes . . . est incontestablement une piece constitutive de Ia synthese
philosophique du Docteur commun ... : ses conceptions sur Ia nature et !'action
des spheres celestes prenn.ent place dans une vision grandiose de l'ordre universe!;
tous les aspects de cette cosmologie typiquement medievale se completent d'une
maniere rigoureusement coherente et revelent !'esprit de synthese si caracteristique
de Ia pensee du maitre."
And on page 372:
" Une . . . question, capitale pour les thomistes actuels, se pose aussitot: le
systeme philosophiqne de S. Thomas peut-il etre ampute, sans inconvenient serieux,
de Ia pseudo-metaphysique [pseudo cosmologie] des spheres celeste? . . . il est
possible de reprendr.e a S. Thomas les theses essentialles de sa metaphysique tout
en sacrifiant les conceptions pseudo-metaphysiques et pseudo-scientifiques de sa
'physique celeste'. Celles-ci, en effet, sont des applications erronees ou imaginaires
des principes ....
"Mais il ne suffit pas de supprimer, il faut remplacer. Les philosophes thomistes
d'aujourd'hui se trouvent devant Ia tache redoutable de mettre sur pied nne
nouvelle cosmologie, une nouvelle philosophic de l'univers materiel, et notamment
nne reponse valable au probleme de Ia finalite dans l'univers materiel en meme
temps qu'une epistemologie et nne critique des sciences."
These quotations are found also in John Deely, "The Philosophical Dimensions of the Origin of Species," The Thomist 33 (1969), 75-149, 251-342, on p. 258.
19 See Aristotle, Physics, I, vii; and U. Thobe, "Hylomorphism
Revisited," New
Scholasticism 42 (1968), 226-253.

446

JOHN FARRELLY

between Thomas's philosophy and evolutionary biology ia
different today than it was in the early days after Darwin. For
example, biologists in our time more fully acknowledge the fact
and dimensions of progress in biological evolution than they
did in the early twentieth century. Dobzhansky writes:
Despite numerous attempts, biologists have not succeeded in formulating a rigorous definition of what constitutes progress in biological evolution. And yet the progress is intuitively evident. 20

Relating this progress specifically to man, we see that modern
phenomena as well as pre-modern phenomena support the distinctiveness of man and so give rise to the problem of philosophically articulating this distinctiveness. John Deely, in a
treatment of this problem, turns to a modern expression of this
distinctiveness:
In terms of the adaptive phenotype, the radical basis of human
cultural capacity means this: "The human organism has a constitutional capacity to react to objects . . . without the specific
content or form of the reaction being in any way physiologically
given " and on the basis of this capacity " the human attains levels
of organization beyond those open to animals." 21

There is a genetic basis necessary for this constitutional capacity. This does not imply a fixed biological human nature, but
it does imply a first human nature from which the human
nature that we experience today has developed. Once we accept
the fact,
namely, that the human evolutionary uniqueness is constituted
by the norm of reaction which admits of certain non-physiological
phenotypic modalities, and that such a reaction range is established
in consequence of a kind of awareness which ... transcends the
biologically given, we have the evolutionary basis for the very
potency-act analysis by which, at another observational level and
•o T. Dobzhansky "Teilhard de Chardin and the Orientation of Evolution: A
Critical Essay," in E. Cousins (ed.), Process, p. 237.
"John Deely "The Emergence of Man: An Inquiry into the Operation of
Natural Selection in the Making of Man," New Scholasticism 40 (1966), 166-167.
The quotation in this text is from T. Parsons and E. Shils (ed.), Toward a General
Theory of Action (New York, 1962), 10, 17.

MAN'S TRANSCENDENCE AND THOMISTIC RESOURCES

447

in a non-evolutionary perspective, St. Thomas pointed out the
spirit in man ... that is not strictly educible from the potentiality
of matter-even though it appears in time exactly as though by way
of biological causation.""

If modem science gives rise in a new way to the philosophical
problem of accounting for the distinctiveness of man, it also
gives rise in a new way to the philosophical problem of the
progressively larger capacities evident in the physical world
or the problem of the interrelation of species. In an earlier
period of evolutionary biology and of classical philosophy the
answers to this problem were diametrically opposed. For Darwin, species were arbitrary divisions within a continuum of
nature; one derived from the other by the mechanistic and
chance factors implied in the principle " the survival of the
fittest." For an earlier philosophy species signified static kinds
given in the physical world, kinds that were unchanging, differing from one another as essentially and abruptly as whole numbers, and interrelated in a strictly hierarchical manner. When
a correlation between the two views of species was attempted,
confusion was multiplied. More recently each side has so
modified its position that there is communication between many
scientists and philosophers on the issues.23 From the biological
side, some prominent theorists of evolution accept the existence
of discontinuities and progress (not as defined as orthogenesis,
but nevertheless real) among species as well as of continuities.
They explain evolution through change in genetic endowment
in succeeding generations and thus through reproduction and
•• Ibid., 169-170.
23 For a treatment
on this matter on which I largely depend here, see Deely,
" The Philosophical Dimensions of the Origin of Species," cited above. Also see
James Anderson, "Teilhard's Cosmological Kinship to Aristotle," New Scholasticism
45 (1971) and Claude Savary, "About Aristotle and Evolutionism," ibid., 47
(1978), 248-52.
On Jacques Monod's reduct.ion of the evolutionary process to chance in his
book Le hasard et la necessite. Essai sur la philosophie naturelle de la biologie
moderne (Paris, 1970), see A. Bauchau, "La biologic modeme selon Jacques
Monod," NouveUe revue theologique 98 (1971) 290-800, and M. Corvez, "La
philosophie de la biologie modeme. Reflexions critiques," ibid., 801-816.

448

JOHN FARRELLY

heredity. And they recognize that a mechanistic interpretation
of macro-evolution may be all that science as such is capable
of, but it cannot do justice to the progress that is evident
or to the finality implied in the adaptation of organism to enviroment.24 From the philosophical side, the notion of species
has been disengaged from a variety of associated notions. For
example, in the Greek view of the eternity of the world, species
can seem to be eternally given; in Christian doctrine of creation,
species, and the ideas they give rise to, have an origin. The
modern recognition of evolution shows that this origin is a
progressive one in time. Certain traits proper to species in its
meaning as a term in logic have been disengaged from the notion of species as this refers to a structure of physical being:
species in the latter sense designates the nature or essence of
the physical being, that basic inner principle that structures
its existence and operation; and it is found in individuals only
in an analogical way, not in a univocal way. According to some,
there are basically only four species in this philosophical sense:
inanimate material being, vegetative life, animal life, and
•• See T. Dobzhansky, Genetics and the Origin of Species (8rd ed., N. Y., 1951),
88: " Evolution is change in the heredity, in the genetic endowment of succeeding generations; no understanding of evolution is possible except with the foundation of a knowledge of heredity." Also see Dobzhansky, "Teilhard ... ",
"Natural selection is, on the contrary, an anti-chance
The selection perpetuates genetic constitutions which are adaptive in a given environment and
fails to perpetuate the less well-adapted one . . . The environments present challenges to a living species-to which the latter may or may not respond by adaptive
alterations-of its hereditary endowment."
See also C. H. Waddington, "The Theory of Evolution Today," in Arthur
Koestler and J. R. Smythies (ed.), Beyond Reductionism (Boston, 1969), 857-895.
In one place he presents the evolution of the horse as an example of development.
Then in answer to a question about the spontaneous emission of behavior that
has adaptive value, he says (879):
" I think I gave an example of this when I said that horses had several
strategies available, either to stand and fight or to run fast and escape. Of course
in using terms like ' strategy ' one is being rather anthropomorphic. I think that
there are both dangers and advantages in being anthropomorphic in thinking about
evolution. If you are not at all anthropomorphic you run a great danger of being
confined to very simple minded mechanical models; . . . there is the danger of
being too anthropomorphic and implying that the evolving horses made a conscious
choice whether to run away or stand and fight."

MAN'S TRANSCENDENCE

AND THOMISTIC RESOURCES

449

human life, and there are subspecies mediating these basic kinds
of physical beings and individuals. Moreover, there is nothing
in Thomas's philosophical understanding of species to indicate
that a species cannot have an origin in time from material beings
of another species.
There is now more communication between scientists and
philosophers on the issue of the character of the progress evident in the physical world not only because certain unnecessary
obstacles have been overcome but also because the modern data
do give rise to philosophical problems if the scientist does not
so absolutize his method as to prevent these arising. Some of
these problems have been treated by Thomas at another observational level in a way that a contemporary philosopher (not a
scientist as scientist) may profitably consider them, and some
of these problems call for a marked change in a philosophy of
the Thomistic tradition if this philosophy is to justify any claim
to relevance or value as a reflection on our modern experience
of the physical world. Philosophical problems are acknowledged by Dobzhansky and Waddington among others. The
latter, for example, defends a theory of evolution that holds
that the unit of evolution is the phenotype, which is identified
on the basis of behavior, even more than the genotype. To explain evolution he calls upon factors such as the challenge
presented by the environment (e. g., that posed by enemies of
the horse in the Tertiary period) , the spontaneous response of
organisms to these challenges (e. g., the horses' strategy of
running away rather than standing and fighting), the feedback
of both the environment (e. g., through the survival of the
horses that became proficient at this strategy) and behavior
(e. g., horses that have genes capacitating them for this response
mate and enhance the capacity in their offspring) on the genetic
system, and the gradual changes in this system that bring
about a population of organisms that shows an appropriately
altered phenotype. 25
The problem of finality and spontaneous behavior evident,
25 See

Waddington, art. cit., 372-374.

450

JOHN FARRELLY

for example, in this evolutionary theory poses at another observational level and in an evolutionary perspective a problem
Thomas addressed. If what we have said earlier about esse as
well as nature evoking behavior and about actus perfecti is
true, it has much to contribute to a philosophical explanation
of the finality and spontaneity of the behavior that contributes
to the evolutionary process. (We may note that, in their explanations of evolutionary process, Whitehead and Teilhard de
Chardin call upon their experience of acting for a goal as a
partial principle, applying this analogically of course to lower
organisms. In the Thomistic tradition also, it would seem that
we must agree with them and call upon our experience as agent
operating for a goal, applying the philosophical explanation of
this analogically to lower organisms.) On the other hand, the
philosophical problem of behavior as contributing to a change
in physical structure and as relational to environment as well
as to the organism's inner structure poses a problem of adjustment to Thomistic philosophy that treated behavior too
prominently as function of nature (or, preferably, the physical
being).
From what we have seen in this investigation of a recovery
of Thomas's philosophy as a model for the interrelation between his thought and the present problem of man's transcendence we have suggested that a simple recovery is totally inadequate for the present problem but that there is a capacity
in his philosophy for development that lessens the gap between
it and man's modern experience of himself and the world and
that encourages us not to neglect the resources of his philosophy as we address the problem of man's transcendence in our
time.
2. Thomistic dialogue from the Marechalian tradition
Other models for the interrelation between the philosophy
of St. Thomas and the modern problematic of man's transcendence are presented to us by Marechal and those who
his dialogue with modern philosophy and particularly with

MAN'S TRANSCENDENCE

AND THOMISTIC RESOURCES

451

Imannuel Kant. Like Kant Marechalstarted withman'sknowledge; he attempted to show the possibility of metaphysical
knowledge as a condition for the possibility for man's judgments. Karl Rahner and Bernard Lonergan have also taken
this general approach, and so both have as a central theme in
their study the question of man's transcendence, though they
treat this in ways that differ from one another.
Karl Rahner' s central concern in the philosophical part of his
work is man's transcendence. This centrality is shown in the
fact that Rahner considers all modern philosophical difficulties
against Christianity to have behind them man's non-acceptance of his transcendence; what is then of prime importance is
man's appropriation of this transcendence. 26 To indicate how
he articulates this transcendence, we may recall some elements
of his early work defending the possibility of metaphysics and
man's openness to an historical revelation, and then something
of how he adjusted his view of man's transcendence in his
later work.
In Spirit in the World 27 Rahner presents as his central ques•• See K. Rahner, "Thoughts on the Possibility of Belief Today," Theological
Investigations, vol. 5 (Baltimore 1966), 7-9:
" The real argument against Christianity is the experience of life, this experience of darkness. And I have always found that behind the technical arguments
levelled by the learned against Christianity-as the ultimate force and a priori
pre-judgment supporting these scientific doubts-there are always these ultimate
experiences of life causing the spirit and the heart to be sombre, tired and despairing.
" .... For what does Christianity really declare? Nothing else, after all, but that
this mystery wishes to communicate Himself in absolute self-communication-as
the infinite, incomprehensible and inexpressible Being whose name is God, as selfgiving nearness-to the human soul in the midst of its experience of its own
finite emptiness. . . . For anyone who really accepts hi'llt$elf accepts a mystery
in the sense of the infinite emptiness which is man. He accepts himself in the immensity of his unpredictable destiny and-silently, and without premediation-he
accepts the One who has decided to fill this infinite emptiness (which is the
mystery of man) with his own infinite fullness (which is the mystery called
God)."
Also see "Philosophy and Theology," ibid., p. 74: "philosophy in the strictest
sense cannot be anything other than the methodically exact, reflected and most
expediently controlled representation and articulation of this original and never
quite attained self-understanding."
21 K. Rahner, Spirit in the World, translated by Wm. Dych from the second

452

JOHN FARRELLY

tion " the possibility of metaphysics on the presupposition that
all human thought remains permanently dependent on sense
intuition." 28 There is a certain similarity between Kant and
St. Thomas insofar as the former held that man's knowledge
was confined to the order of possible experience, and the latter
held that our knowledge always involves a turning to the
phantasm and thus to the order of space and time that is given
to us through sense knowledge and the imagination. From
these similar premises, however, Kant denies our knowledge
of the noumenon and the absolute, while Thomas affirms it.
Rahner uses Thomas's noetic, or his interpretation of it, to
show that a condition for the possibility of our questions and
our objective judgments is knowledge of the absolute and being.
It is a fact that man questions, and indeed questions necessarily. Man can tum away from particular questions, but there
is one question from which he cannot tum, namely, " the question about being in its totality." This question is one which
" he must ask if he wants to be at all." 29 Granted the necessity
of the question of being for man, how is it that this question
occurs in him, or what are the conditions for the possibility of
its occurrence? Among these conditions is some knowledge
mediated by sense intuition and by intellectual knowledge
through phantasm and abstraction under the influence of the
agent intellect, a condition which Rahner accepts from St.
Thomas. But furthermore, and more basically, the necessity of
this question of being " can only be grounded on the fact that
being is accessible to man . . . only as something questionable,
edition, an edition that was somewhat revised, with Rahner's approval, by his
student Johannes Metz (New York, 1968). The first edition was published in
1939. A study of the views of Rahner, Lonergan, and Dewart concerning our
knowledge of God may be found in Wm. Hill, Knowing the Unknown God (New
York, 1971), Chapter 3, "Theological Intuitionalism:
Beyond Concept," pp. 59109. For the theological center and context of Rahner's reflections on man's
transcendence, see Karl Lehmann, "Karl Rahner," in R. Vander Gucht and H.
Vorgrimler (ed.), Bilan de la theologie du xx 6 siecle (Paris, 1970) II, 836-874.
We may also note that in his later work Rahner accepts a pluralism in philosophy
as inevitable, although he continues to use his own early philosophical insights.
•• Ibid., 387.

•• Ibid., 57-58,

MAN'S TRANSCENDENCE

AND THOMISTIC RESOURCES

453

that he himself is insofar as he asks about being, that he himself exists as a question about being." 30 Not only is man a
dynamic orientation or thrust toward being as a question about
being; being must be somehow known to him for him to ask this
question. The question, that is, presupposes that:
man is already at the goal when he begins, since he must already
know of being in its totality if he asks about it; and at the same
time he confesses by his question that he himself is not the goal,
but a finite man. 31

This knowledge of being does not properly derive from what
is delivered to man through sense, imagination, and abstraction
since that is limited to the world of space and time. In the
question of being, being is somehow known in its totality.
There is then a " certain a priori knownness of being as such "
on which man's question depends. How being is thus present
to man can be understood if one recalls that, as St. Thomas
taught, the intellect, the known, and the knowing are the same.
Rahner interprets this to mean that the "object" primarily
known by man is the object with which he is identical, namely,
himself. Being is present as known to man through his selfpresence.
Knowing is the being present-to-self of being, and this beingpresent-to-self is the being of the existent .... If being is primarily
presence-to-self, then the real and original object of a knowing being
is that with which it originally is, itsel£.32 -

The same conclusion, namely, that the preapprehension of
being is a condition of man's knowledge, results from an analysis of man's affirmation (in the judgment) of the object, both
as object and as limited. Such knowledge depends on what is
gained through sense and abstraction, it is true. But it also
presupposes a knowledge of self and of the absolute or being.
To know the object as object is to know it as standing against
oneself as knower, and this presupposes presence-to-self. To
Loc. cit.
Ibid., 61.
u Ibid., 69, 75.
30

31

454

JOHN FARRELLY

know it as having a quality concreted in the individual and
thus to know it as limited in its being is to know in some sense
that which transcends these and any limits; this is to have a
pre-apprehension of esse, or absolute being.83 The affirmation
found in the judgment then presupposes a knowledge of being
that is not derived from the physical world through sense
knowledge and abstraction.
This pre-apprehension, we should note, is not an intuition
of absolute being, nor is it conceptual knowledge. It is not
knowledge that initially man is formally aware of possessing,
nor is it knowledge of absolute being as an object. Rather it is
knowledge of being as that which is given with objective knowledge of the world. This knowledge is available to the possible
intellect through the agent intellect and its light that actualizes
the species informing the possible intellect. This light which
mediates self-presence, being, and the absolute, is co-apprehended by the possible intellect in its apprehension of what is
offered through abstraction.
Even this skeletal recall of Rahner's position shows us
basically how he establishes the possibility of metaphysics by
the transcendental method, for its shows us how being is known
by man in spite of man's knowledge being directed to the order
of space and time. This approach also determines the character
of the metaphysics which it founds. Metaphysics here is not
cosmocentric; it is anthropocentric, insofar as it is a reflection
on being given through man's self-presence and the absolute as
mediated by this self-presence. We should note that while being
is not known objectively in this pre-apprehension, in metaphysics it is known objectively. Concerning the relationship between the knowledge of being we have been discussing and that
given in metaphysics, Rahner writes:
When man takes as the" object" of his knowledge in metaphysics
that which he affirms simultaneously in the pre-apprehension which
makes possible his knowledge of the world, then he necessarily
makes it a represented object in the only way in which he can
•• See ibid., 897-898.

MAN's TRANSCENDENCE

AND THOMISTIC RESOURCES

455

have such an object at all: he represents it as a thing, as the things
of the world are, because he can have no represented object at all
without a conversion to the phantasm. 84
In H ea?"ers of the Word 85 Rahner sought to show how man
is open to a possible historical divine revelation. Man's transcendence toward being in part makes this understandable, but
in part it seems to posit an obstacle to such openness. It makes
it understandable because man as a finite spirit does stand out
toward being, and so we see that " man ' is' absolute receptivity
for being pure and simple." 86 However, the fact that God is
known through man's "excessus" to being raises a difficulty
to the possibility of revelation, for it could imply that what
is highest in man's knowledge of God is a natural mystical nonconceptual experience. 87 Contrary to this, Rahner argues that
man is open to an historical divine word from God in revelation,
because man's self-affirmation that mediates his knowledge ol
God is an affirmation of his own contingency, and indeed a free
affirmation of his contingency. God is then known as the condition for the possibility of man's affirmation of his contingency; and since this is a free human act, God is himself known
as the free power that is the ground of man's contingency. 88
Man stands before a God who is free. This shows the possibility of a further and historical revelation of himself by God,
and it also implies that while the free act of God toward the
finite is love, so too what is the core in man's response or transcendence is love.
At the heart of the transcendence of the finite spirit there arises
a love of God. Man's openness to the absolute being God is the
affirmation of his own existence ... a deliberate attitude to himself,
and at the very foundation of his nature, a reaching out of finite
•• Ibid., 899.
85 K. Rahner, Hearers of the Word, trans. by M. Richards
(N.Y., 1969). This
is a translation of the second edition of this work; the first edition was published
in 1941; the second edition was, at Rahner's request, prepared by J. Metz and
published in 1968.
•• Ibid., 66.
67 See ibid., 77-78.
•• See ibid., 89.

456

JOHN FARRELLY

love toward God ... a love of God as the deepest fact of his very
knowledge. The love of God is not something which can be merely
added retrospectively to this knowledge, but, as the deepest factor
of knowledge, is both its condition and its cause.39
In his later writings Rahner has modified somewhat his interpretation of man's transcendence. This has been due partly
to criticisms directed against him by his student, Johannes
Metz. Metz, influenced by the Marxist Ernst Bloch, denies
that a purely contemplative vision, such as that of metaphysics,
can do justice to history or take up an appropriate attitude towards the future, To adopt such an attitude demands:
an active awareness, a new and authentic combination of theory
and practice, as it were of reflection and revolution, which lies
wholly outside metaphysical thinking and its conception of being.
The essential hiddenness of the future in metaphysics is, however,
at the same time the essential hiddenness of history altogether. 40
While Metz is more sympathetic to Rahner's anthropocentric
metaphysics and the theology associated with it than he is
with more traditional Thomistic philosophy, he thinks that
Rahner's approach also distorts the Christian message.
The prevailing theology of recent years, a theology of transcendental existential personalist orientation is well aware of the problematic situation created by the Enlightenment .... (but) the
societal dimension of the Christian message was not given its
proper importance but, implicitly or explicitly, treated as a secondary matter. In short, the message was " privatized " and the practice of faith reduced to the timeless decision of the person.H
Rahner's later interpretation of man's transcendence, influenced
by this criticism, is in continuity with his earlier one, but it
39 Ibid., 101.
This is in continuity with what Rahner says elsewhere in the
same book: "Man's will with regard to himself appears as the inner condition
of the possibility and necessity of the question about being, and thus as the condition of knowing about being in general." Ibid., 87. And: " In its ultimate
essence knowledge is but the bright radiance of love." Ibid., 100.
40 Johannes Metz, Theology of the World, translated
by Wm. Glen-Doepel (New
York, 1969), 98-99.
41 Ibid., 108-109.

MAN'S TRANSCENDENCE

AND THOMISTIC RESOURCES

457

brings in the added dimensions of the future, of society, of
change, and of man's active experimentation with himself to
achieve an improved social future. For example, man's transcendence is not one that is timeless but is rather openness to
the future, and indeed the absolute future. 42 He notes also
that man's openness to other human beings is an essential inner
moment of his transcendence; the transcendental experience of God is in and through man " who has already (in logical
priority) experienced the human Thou." 43
Rahner's approach has much value as a model for the relation of Thomas's philosophy to the modern problem of man's
transcendence, though there are questions that arise as to its
adequacy when compared to either of these poles. In the first
place, Rahner properly begins with man's experience of transcendence, because it is here that the modern problem primarily
exists. The specific aspect of transcendence he centers on is
one that is widely denied in our time and one that must exist
in man if we are to appropriate ourselves as religious beings.
This transcendence is man's orientation to an infinite goal or
value; that this is central to Rahner's experiences and view
of man is indicated in the very title of his first book, Spirit in
the World. This way of viewing man has a certain continuity
with German idealists and their successors, although Rahner
defends man as capax infiniti while these modern philosophers
claim for man only a limited transcendence. Thus Rahner
meets a very real modern problem. And his use of Thomas's
philosophy to articulate the structure of man as an" excessus"
to esse is of value both in reference to this dimension of transcendence and in showing the capacity Thomas's philosophy has
42 See K. Rahner,
" Marxist Utopia and the Christian Future of Man," Theological Investigations 6 (1969), 59-68. "The man who opens himself to his
absolute future experiences also what is really meant by the word God." (59) And:
"Absolute future is just another name for what is really meant by 'God.'" (62)
43 K. Rahner, "Reflections
on the Unity of the Love of Neighbor and the Love
of God," ibid., 245. Also see Rahner, "The Experiment with Man. Theological
Observations on Man's Self-Manipulation," Theological Investigations 9 (London,
1972), 187 ff.

458

JOHN FARRELLY

to articulate this experience. There is value and importance
also in Rahner's analysis of man's knowledge of being through
man's orientation to esse, or through the interrelation between
the practical and the speculative order in man's knowledge.
This is not the central meaning of knowledge for Thomas, nor
is the self the first object of knowledge for him. For Thomas,
it is the nature concreted in the material thing that is man's
direct object of intellectual apprehension. But Rahner is speaking of a different kind of knowledge, and there is no contradiction between his and Thomas's view. Man's knowledge of
being when being is taken as the object of man's thrust to the
good is indeed mediated by affectivity and decision, and so
also by man's self-presence. We agree that there are rich resources in Thomas's philosophy to articulate this knowledge of
being. Since, as we indicated earlier, esse is more properly the
object of man's love or desire than of his knowledge, knowledge of it is present to man's intellect properly through what
Thomas describes as a knowledge by inclination or connaturality.44 It is present by the intellect's participation in the dynamism of the will or in man's love. In some aspects I would
differ from Rahner's articulations of this; it seems that man
knows esse not by a knowledge he has of the agent intellect
but by his intellectual participation in the will's dynamism to
esse as mediated by the agent intellect. Such a dimension is
an intrinsic and essential element in our knowledge of being.
In the second place, the phenomenology presented in
Rahner's early works to help us appropriate our transcendence
seems inadequate in view of the many serious difficulties
modern men have in appropriating this. Rahner in his later
works seems to have realized this, for he insists that man's
transcendence to the absolute is mediated by his orientation to
•• See article, "Existence" cited in fn. 11, pp. 173-174. St. Thomas discusses
knowledge by connaturality primarily in reference to the judgment in the intellect
by participation in man's affectivity. See, e. g., Summa Theol., I-II, q. 28, a. 2;
q. 57, aa. 4 and 5 ad 3; q. 58, a. 5; II-II, q. 45, a. 2; q. 51, a. 3 ad 1; q. 60, a. 1;
In Romanos, c. 12, lect. l, in medium; In Phil., c. 1, lect. 2, proem; In Heb., c. 5,
lect. 2, circa finem.

MAN'S TRANSCENDENCE

AND THOMISTIC RESOURCES

459

other men and to the future. In such a phenomenology we
should examine man's value quest in relation to his social and
physical environment as well as to his inner dynamism, for both
the external and internal elements are essential factors in the
emergence of man's dynamism toward an absolute value.
Moreover we should examine this quest as it is manifested in
man developmentally, for it is only through its enlargement to
gradually more adequate horizons that its full dimensions come
about consciously in man. It seems to us that the work of Erik
Erikson has much to offer to such a phenomenology, since he
does treat man's development through stages to a fully human
dimension and he uses the resources of modern psychology to
illuminate this development.
In the third place, we question whether Rahner's analysis of
man's transcendence adequately meets modern difficulties
against the possibility of metaphysics (and of knowledge of
God) or reflects St. Thomas's understanding of metaphysical
knowledge of being. We agree with Rahner that we must defend the possibility of metaphysics in view of modern difficulties and that a defense of man's transcendence in his quest
for value is essential here since man's knowledge of being is in
part mediated by this. However, Rahner does not give a defense of the possibility of metaphysics that is appropriate to
the modern empiricist difficulty, for example, that "being " is
simply a word and that statements about being are tautological
and empty of empirical significance. It can also be argued that
Rahner does not defend metaphysics adequately against
Heidegger's strictures. If being is identified with esse, then there
is a sense in which metaphysical knowledge of being, which is objective knowledge, is only a representative knowledge of being.
On this basis Heidegger claims that metaphysics is based on a
forgetting of the ontological difference between being and beings;
and Rahner, with his view of being, may not have an adequate
answer to this difficulty. On the other hand, his defense of the
possibility of metaphysics does not seem to be adequate to
Thomas's understanding, an understanding that in ways is
more appropriate to the modern difficulties. For example, i£

460

.lORN FARRELLY

one accepts Thomas's basic understanding of metaphysics, the
possibility of knowledge of the absolute is a problem consequent
on, and not prior to, establishing its possibility; for Thomas,
God or the absolute is not, as for German idealism, the subject of metaphysics but the principle of its subject. Also,
Thomas's view is not subject to Heidegger's strictures, even
when it is rightly recognized that our knowledge is mediated
by our orientation to esse. For Thomas, esse is a principle ot
being, namely, the act of being; but since the essence of a being
is an intrinsic principle of being, a knowledge of being through
the way that is central for Thomas-through intellectual insight into the nature concreted in the individual and the judgment dependent on this-is properly knowledge of being. For
Thomas, metaphysics is not simply representative knowledge or
an objectification of being since it also reflects knowledge of
being through intellectual insight and judgment. An objective
knowledge of being is not a forgetting of the ontological difference unless it presumes to be our only manner of knowing being
or our most proper and primitive knowledge of esse. While our
knowledge of being is dependent both upon the physical beings
we know and our knowledge of esse by self-presence, it is not a
distortion of the latter as long as we recognize the differences
involved. These reflections have an importance for our understanding of man and God, as well as for our understanding o£
the possibility and nature of metaphysics. Rahner's analysis
of man's transcendence within an existential and an historical
framework does not perhaps give adequate emphasis to man's
insertion into nature, an insertion that the modem ecological
consciousness calls for, and for which the resources of Thomas's
philosophy have something important to offer. And Rahner's
insistance upon man's self-presence (and later his historical
future) as the locus of God's self-revelation similarly seems to
lose touch with an adequate recognition of the place of nature
or the physical world as a locus of God's self-manifestation.
Bernard Lonergan's work offers us another model for relating
Thomas's philosophy to the problematic of man's transcen-

MAN'S TRANSCENDENCE

AND THOMISTIC RESOURCES

461

dence in our time. His early work began with studies of St.
Thomas and found its culmination in his book Insights in which
he attempted to bring his readers to appropriate their knowledge and become aware of their transcendence in a way that
gave some basis for metaphysics and religious faith. His later
work finds its developed expression in Method in Theology,
where he centers his reflection on that transcendence found
in religious conversion understood as unrestricted love and its
implications for method in theology. We will dwell primarily
on his earlier work although we will briefly indicate his later
direction of thought as it relates to our theme.
In his early interpretation, Lonergan found that St. Thomas's
noetic was based largely on his experience of knowledge and
his use o£ this as an introspective and empirical basis for many
of his assertions in his philosophy of knowledge. For St.
Thomas, understanding or insight is located between
abstraction from sense knowledge on the one hand and the
concept or "inner word" on the other. Antecedent to our
understanding there is our sense knowledge of the sensible
qualities of the physical world, our imaginative grasp of
physical objects in a way more unified than offered by any
external sense or combination of them as such, and the illumination of the phantasm in the imagination by the agent
intellect that offers the intelligible species to the intellect-an
act that Lonergan calls "objective abstraction." Insight, understanding or what Lonergan calls "apprehensive abstraction " is an insight into the phantasm or the quiddity found
in the phantasm. 45
45 "Apprehensive
abstraction, insight, into phantasm, actually understands what
objective abstraction presented to be understood. But what was presented to be understood was the imagined object, the phantasm .... what is known, precisely by
understanding is the forma intelligibilis, the quiddity, the species intelligibilis quae.
This is known in phantasm just as actually seen colors are seen in colored things."
[B. Lonergan, Verbum. Word and Idea in Aquinas (ed. by D. Burrell,
Notre Dame, 1967), 179]. This was originally a series of articles published in
1946-1949. There are many passages in St. Thomas's reflections on knowledge (e. g ..
Summa Theol., I, q. 88, a. 1) that support the validity of Lonergan's view of
the experienti&l bltSis of 'rhomas's noetic,
-

469l

JOHN FARRELLY

Consequent upon this act of understanding there is the concept or " inner word " that is formed or constructed by the
very act of understanding; the concepts then reflect the intellect and the object understood. 46 This first act of the mind, intellectual apprehension, is not the termination of the process
of knowledge; this process terminates rather in that reflective
understanding or the judgment in which alone truth, the end
or goal of the intellect, is found formally. Through knowledge
of the truth, the intellect knows real being. 47 In accord with
But we must note here a difference from Lonergan's specific interpretation of
this noetic. While at times St. Thomas says that the intellect knows the nature of
sensible things in the phantasms, at other times he speaks more exactly and says
that we know the nature of sensible things through the phantasms. See ibid., q.
8; and de Verit., q. 10, a. 8,
sed contra; q. 10, a. 9. What we
85, a.
directly know, for Thomas, is the nature concreted in the individual thing. His
analysis at times in a more ontological vein of the causes of our act of knowledge
can confuse our interpretation of his view of the intellect's intentional object.
Although he infers the phantasm, the intelligible species and other principles as
principles by which we know, what we first know, or the direct intentional object
of the intellectual apprehension, is the natures of material things.
•• Lonergan's interpretation of Thomas in this manner has solid basis in such
texts as the following: de; Verit., q. 3, a.
Summa Theol., I, q. 85, a.
ad 3:
"Qua quidem formatus (i.e., specie intelligibili) format (intellectus) secundo vel
definitionem, vel divisionem, vel compositionem, quae per vocem significatur."
Another interpreter of Thomas who emphasizes this constructive character of
understanding is G. Rabeau, Species. Verbum. L'Activite intellectuelle elementaire
selon S. Thomas d'Aquin (Paris, 1938). I have briefly examined this active character of understanding and how the inner word emerges as a product or term
from it in Predestination, pp. 180-185.
•• Lonergan writes in Verbum, p. 140, that: " ... on the level of judgment
the agent object is the objective evidence provided by sense and/or empirical consciousness, ordered conceptually and logically in a reductio ad principia, and moving
to the critical act of understanding. Corresponding to this agent object, there is
the other terminal object, the inner word of judgment, the verum, in and through
which is known the final object, the ens reale."
We should note another difference here from Lonergan. It is true enough that
Thomas holds that the perfection of the intellect is truth as known, and therefore
that truth properly speaking is in the judgment and not in intellectual apprehension
(see Summa Theol., I. q. 16, a.
This can be interpreted in two ways. One may
say that what the intellect seeks to know is the truth, and we designate the
complete objective of the mind in this sense as being, as Lonergan does. Or one
may say that what the intellect seeks to know is being, but this knowledge of
being while occurring in part in the first act, is found formally only in the second
act because only there is it affirmed and only there do we reflectively know that

MAN'S TRANSCENDENCE

AND THOMISTIC RESOURCES

463

this, Lonergan interprets the concept of being in St. Thomas
as the conceptualization of intelligibility. For example, a story
is told us, and we answer" that may be so." It may be so because it is intelligible; if it is intelligible it is possible, that
is, it can be. Experience and judgment are needed to assert
real being here.
From this it follows that the concept of being is natural to intellect;
for intelligibility is natural to intellect, for it is its act; and conceptualization is natural to intellect, for it is its activity; but the
concept of being, on the above showing, is the conceptualization
of intelligibility as such, and so it too is natural to intellect. 48

In Insight 49 Lonergan addresses himself to the understanding of human understanding and through that to the question of our knowledge of being and the possibility of metaphysics. The first part of this book offers us an extended
phenomenology of knowledge to lead us to an appropria..
tion of understanding. Lonergan takes instances from mathematics, science, and common sense, and thus he begins
with twentieth-century man's experience of knowledge; but
the analysis of knowledge Lonergan offers here does not
lack continuity with what he discovered through his earlier interpretation of Thomas's noetic. He gives an illustration of understanding or insight from mathematics. If we consider the
genesis of the definition of a circle, we see that it involves a
dependence upon an imaginative grasp of phenomena (e. g., a
wheel, with spokes equally imbedded in the rim) and upon an
insight that is constructive rather than simply passive. The
gradual development of our definition depends upon our supposing certain things about the object given us in experience or
imagination (e. g., we suppose that the rim of the wheel is rewe know. In this latter interpretation truth is the perfection or term of the intellect in the sense of an act properly completed. It is this second interpretation
that seems to accord more with St. Thomas" view. (See ibid., a. 8 ad 8).
•• Ibid., 44.
•• B. Lonergan, Insight. A Study of Human Understanding (New York, 1957).
For a study of Insight and Lonergan's thought as a whole, see D. Tracy, The
Achievement of Bernard Lonergan (New York, 1970).

464

JOHN FARRELLY

duced to the breadth of a line ... ) . Here we see that the act
of understanding is both an insight into phenomenon and a
constructive formation of a definition, concept or inner word.
Insight itself, however, is secondary to the intellectual drive to
which it is an answer:
This primordial drive, then, is the pure question. It is prior to any
insights, any concepts, any words, for insights, concepts, words,
have to do with answers; and before we look for answers, we want
them; such wanting is the pure question.
On the other hand, though the pure question is prior to insights,
concepts, and words, it presupposes experiences and images. Just
as insight is into the concretely given or imagined, so the pure
question is about the concretely given or imagined. It is the wonder which Aristotle claimed to be the beginning of all science and
philosophy.50
Lonergan turns particularly to science for examples of the
heuristic structure of our intellectual dynamism. There is a
certain anticipation of the unknown that is evident in scientific
inquiry and in the methods it devises to search for this unknown. Even after a particular inquiry has progressed through
its levels (experiences, understanding, judgment) and terminated satisfactorily, there still continues to be an unexplained, a
surd that in turn calls for inquiry at another level and from
another viewpoint (e. g., a reflexive or second order inquiry, or
a more all-embracing inquiry). Scientific inquiry has a certain
structure in classical physical science and another in statistical
theories. (Lonergan asserts an isomorphism between the structure of intelligence and the structure of the world, and he works
out a generic design of the world that rests upon " the dynamic
structure of inquiring intelligence." 51 ) Inquiry terminates in
the reflexive understanding that we call judgment, judgments
being steps in " the pursuit of the logical ideal." 52 The character of the judgment is at least implicitly a hypothetical syllogism: "If B, then A; but B, so A.'' It depends upon certain
50 Ibid., 9.
"'Ibid., 116.
52

Ibid.,

MAN'S TRANSCENDENCE

AND THOMISTIC RESOURCES

46.5

conditions being fulfilled; when it is found that these conditions
are fulfilled, the judgment is affirmed. As Lonergan puts it,
" To grasp evidence for a prospective judgment is to grasp
the judgment as virtually unconditioned." 53 The judgment
is not actually unconditioned; but since it is affirmed only
through the recognition that its conditions are fulfilled, it is
asserted as virtually unconditioned. Thus the intellectual
dynamism does find a partial termination in the judgment
through the relation the judgment has' to the unconditioned
and some awareness of this relation by the intellect. Intellectual dynamism then is a process toward the unconditioned, and
it is in virtue of the relation of the particular judgment to this
final goal that it is affirmed. Thus somewhat parallel to the
way Rahner sees the presence of a pre-apprehension of the
absolute and of being in man's question of being or judgment
about an object as limited, Lonergan sees an implicit affirmation of the absolute and thus a knowledge of being in man's
achievement of a limited intelligibility in the judgment. " Only
in the act of judgment itself does one posit the absolute; only
in positing the absolute does one know being." 54
In the second half of his book Lonergan moves from his
phenomenology of understanding to a study of understanding
or insight as knowledge. Here he defends our knowledge of
being by a transcendental method, that is, as a condition
for the possibility of our making a true judgment; and he
develops his explanation of being and his assertion of the
possibility and nature of metaphysics from this. He begins
this part by affirming a judgment as true by, in fact, the
self-affirmation of the knower: "I am a knower." This
judgment is certain; even one who would deny it would implicitly be affirming it in the process of denying it. This judgment, like every judgment, is affirmed as a virtually unconditioned. The condition for the possibility of affirming it is
that we affirm implicitly the unconditioned since it is by its
•• Ibid., 280.
•• Ibid., 486.

466

JOHN FARRELLY

relation to the unconditioned that we affirm the particular
judgment; it is because absolute intelligibility that is the total
goal of our intellectual dynamism is really found in some way
in this particular judgment that we affirm this particular judgment. Lonergan concludes that this act of self-affirmation
shows the invalidity of Kant's denial of the possibility of our
knowledge of the absolute:
For Kant's dialectic has but a single premise, namely, that since
the demand for the unconditioned is not a necessary ground for
judgment, therefore, it is a transcendental illusion; in other words,
since the unconditioned is not constitutive of knowing an object
in the sense of making a judgment, therefore it has a purely regulative function in our knowing. On our showing, the unconditioned
is prior and constitutive; to affirm a fact is to affirm an unconditioned.55
Lonergan (as in Verbum) moves from his analysis of knowledge to his analysis of being. As we know possible being
through knowing intelligibility, and we know real being
through knowing the true in the judgment, so we can define
being through knowledge: " Being, then, is the objective of the
pure desire to know." 56 And from his analysis of knowledge he
moves to a development of metaphysics, his metaphysics of
proportionate being (i. e., " whatever is to be known by human
experience, intelligent grasp, and reasonable affirmation " 57 ) ,
and his metaphysics of transcendent being. His affirmation of
the existence of God, to take the major instance here, is a conclusion from the complete intelligibility of the real; and the real
is affirmed as completely intelligible because of the complete
intelligibility of being. 58 Without pretending to do justice to
•• Ibid., 841.
•• Ibid., 848. Lonergan recognizes, of course, that his " finalistic notion of being "
differs from the understanding of being by Thomists such as Gilson. See B.
Lonergan, Collection (N. Y., 1967) "Insight: Preface to a Discussion," 152 ff.
57 Insight, 891.
II$ See ibid., 672-678: "Now being is completely intelligibile.
For being is the
objective of the detached, disinterested, unrestricted desire to know .... Being,
then, is intelligible, for it is what is to be known by correct understanding; and
it is completely intelligible, for being is known completely only when all intelligent

MAN's TRANSCENDENCE

AND 'rHOM!STIC RESOURCES

467

Lonergan's treatment o£ this particular position we simply want
to recall that he leads us to an affirmation that we know being
through leading us to appropriate our dynamism to intelligibility and indeed absolute intelligibility; an affirmation o£ the
latter is implicit in any particular judgment.
I£ we ask o£ Lonergan in his later work what he means by
human transcendence and how we appropriate it, we see a
continuation o£ a shift he began earlier. He emphasizes the wa;y
in which meaning is different £or modern man than it was £or
classical man. In earlier times, £or example, men thought they
could escape history and gain universal concepts valid £or all
times. Now we see that social orders differ in the process of
history and that men in seeking meaning £or what they do
construct different orders o£ meaning £rom the variety o£ orders
o£ human action. Our order o£ meaning, and specifically that
differentiated order o£ meaning that is theology, is related to
the order or science and life o£ modern times; the result is that
"An old theology is being recognized as incomplete . . . there
is the collapse o£ Thomism .... " 59
The implications o£ this £or our question about how we reflect on man's transcendence can be found in Lonergan's
Method in Theology. This book is centered on method, as the
title indicates, but it contains Lonergan's later thought on
man's transcendence and how we reflect on it. In £act, there is
a certain parallel between Insight and Method; in the former
there is a central £act o£ consciousness that allows us to appropriate our transcendence (" I am a knower ") , and in the latter
there is a £act o£ consciousness that is the central foundation
£or religious reflection, namely, the £acto£ religious conversion.
Foundational reality, as distinct from its expression, is conversion: religious, moral, and intellectual. Normally it is intellectual
conversion as the fruit of both religious and moral conversion; it
questions are answered correctly .... being is all that is to be known by intelligent grasp and reasonable affirmation."
59 Lonergan, "The Absence of God in Modern Culture," in C. Mooney
(ed.),
The Presence and Absence of God (N. Y.: Fordham U. Press, 1969), 171-17ft.

468

JOHN FARRELLY

is moral conversion as the fruit of religious conversion; and it is
religious conversion as the fruit of God's gift of his grace....
At its real root, then, foundations occurs on the fourth level of
human consciousness, on the level of deliberation, evaluation, deCisiOn .•••

Such a deliberate decision is anything but arbitrary. Arbitrariness is just unauthenticity, while conversion is from unauthenticity
to authenticity. It is total surrender to the demands of the human
spirit: be attentive, be intelligent, be reasonable, be responsible,
be in love.60
This being in love with God is the fulfillment of man's capacity
for transcendence.
If we ask what the principles are from which this emerges
in man, or how we can justify it for ourselves or for those who
deny man's transcendence in our time, the answer seems to be
that Lonergan in Method is in continuity with his earlier work
in centering on intentionality analysis but diverges from it by
stressing the fact of decision as central in such a way as to leave
us without a clear relationship between this decision and man's
intellectual insight and judgment about the world in which he
lives. His tendency here to stress the self-validating character
of decision 61 may be due to the fact that he is reflecting on the
normal process of religious conversion. But it may be due in
part to the way Lonergan interprets meaning, for this is the
framework in which he understands conversion and modern religious reflection on it. The question of God is a question that
rises " out of our conscious intentionality, out of the a priori
structured drive .... In the measure that we advert to our
60 B. Lonergan, Method in Theology
(New York, 1972), 267-268. In the realm
of religious experience there is an unassailable fact in the existence of love (290);
this being in love with God is "love in an unrestricted fashion." (105).
61 For
example, see ibid., pp. 283-284 where religious conversion as defined
" provides the real criterion by which all else is to be judged; and consequently
one has only to experience it in oneself or witness it in others, to find in it its
own justification." And p. 338: " Basically the issue is a transition from the abstract logic of classicism to the concreteness of method. On the former view
what is basic is proof. On the latter view what is basic is conversion." See p.
22: "Genuine objectivity is the fruit of authentic subjectivity." And finally see
p. 339 for his current interpretation of Vatican I's statement that God can be
known through creatures with certainty by the natural light of human reason.

MAN'S TRANSCENDENCE

AND THOMISTIC RESOURCES

469

own questioning and proceed to question it, there arises the
question of God." 62 God is the intentional object of man's questioning, and man's religious conversion constructs the encompassing horizon of meaning for man. Meaning is accord with
Lonergan's constructivist interpretation of human understanding and judgment is formally an act of man operating on one
of the levels of consciousness. With reference to the fourth
level of consciousness, that on which conversion takes place,
he writes that "Active meanings come with judgments of value,
decisions, actions." 63 Man comes to conversion through God's
grace and his own dynamism as a drive to value, a theme that
Lonergan analyses in a chapter on the human good. His reflection on religion is within an interpretation of the development of Western tradition through three stages of meaning
from undifferentiated to differentiated consciousness. The first
stage was characterized by meaning in the mode of common
sense; the second by meaning not only in this mode but also
in the mode of theory controlled by logic; and the third, our
present mode, is characterized by the fact that" science asserts
its autonomy from philosophy, and there occur philosophies
that leave theory to science and take their stand on interiority." 64 Lonergan opts for a philosophy then that finds its
proper data in intentional consciousness, while leaving theory
about the physical world to science. Philosophy as he uses it
has as its primary purpose man's self-appropriation a selfappropriation that "cuts to the root of philosophic difference.;
and incomprehension." 65
In reflection on Lonergan's approach we first of all agree with
him on the necessity of treating the problem of the possibility
of metaphysics and on the approach to this through the ques•• Ibid., 1OS.
Ibid., 74; Also loc. cit., "The formal act of meaning is an act of conceiving,

68

thinking, considering, defining, supposing, formulating. There has emerged the distinction between meaning and meant, for the meant is what is conceived, thought,
considered, defined, supposed, formulated .... "
•• Ibid., 85, also see 95.
65

Ibid. 95.

470

JOHN FARRELLY

tion of our knowledge of being. An appropriation of our understanding through a phenomenology of knowledge as found in
or supposed by modern science is an essential element of such
an appropriation both because philosophy is a reflection on experience that we recognize as our own in our age and because
some major difficulties against the possibility of metaphysics
are dependent upon interpretations of modern scientific knowledge in an anti-metaphysical sense. Specifically, we think
Lonergan is correct in bringing out aspects of St. Thomas's
noetic that modern science has made us particularly aware of,
for example, the active, constructive, and dynamic character
of our knowledge, and the dependence of the character of our
knowledge of the world upon the dynamic structure of our intellects as well as upon the world known through experience.
In the second place, we would differ from some specifics in
the way Lonergan uses an analysis of knowledge to approach
the question of metaphysics, because we understand both the
current problem and St. Thomas somewhat differently. While
we agree on the necessity of dialogue with Kant and other
modern philosophers in our attempt to show the possibility of
metaphysics, we do not locate the grounds on which Thomas
agrees with Kant exactly where Lonergan does. Lonergan's
view that what we know in intellectual apprehension is not the
nature concreted in physical things but rather the phantasm
and what it contains does not seem to represent Thomas's
position; nor does it relate to what is most basic to Kant's
critique of realism or metaphysics. Kant's interpretation of
knowledge as a construction of phenomenon results from his
specific experience of knowledge according to Newtonian
physics and his interpretation of this through principles
he inherited (and adjusted) from empiricism and rationalism.
And, as Lonergan has shown, Thomas's view of knowledge
rests upon an experience of knowledge. Therefore, it would
appear that the basis of our dialogue should be the experience
of knowledge available to us, and particularly that which
is supposed by modern science, but not a specific interpretation
of this experience.

MAN's TRANSCENDENCE

AND THOMISTIC RESOURCES

471

We do agree with Lonergan then on the need of a phenomenology of our knowledge, particularly as this is related
to modern science, for our approach to the question of
metaphysics or of our knowledge of being. But we understand this phenomenology differently. To show phenomenologically what enables man to engage in scientific knowledge,
we must, as Piaget holds, give a developmental analysis of man's
knowledge and its structures. The hypothetical reasoning
found in science is a structure of knowledge characteristic of
the adolescent, and this depends on his development of conceptual knowledge, about the age of 5-7 and later; this in turn
depends upon the pre-school child's development of symbols in
an internalization process; and this rests upon the sensori-motor
stage of the child's knowledge in infancy. What accounts for
this development is the interaction between organism and environment-an enlarging environment and the child's structures of knowledge adjusting to this enlargement. We think
that this analysis should be developed and that in this we
should consider an alternative explanation of the child's knowledge, particularly as this is found in some American psychologists e. g., Eleanor Gibson. Moreover, we understand
Thomas's meaning of being, and therefore the question of the
psychogenesis of being, somewhat differently from Lonergan.
While Lonergan understands being to be for Thomas the conceptualization of intelligibility, we, with the more common
view, understand intelligibility to be the conceptualization of
being, since we call something intelligible and true insofar as
it is the basis or object of a true judgment. Since Lonergan
understands being as he does, he defends the possibility of our
knowledge of being through showing that we affirm the absolute, or total intelligibility, implicitly in the judgment. We
to show that
understand our task to be different-namely,
the enlargement of the environment and the knowledge structures in the child that capacitate him for scientific reasoning
lead to an affirmation of being, an affirmation pre-supposed implicitly by the hypothetical syllogism. In adopting this approach we in part agree with many modern disciples of St.

JOHN FARRELLY

Thomas that we must show a dimension in reality about us
that calls us to a form of knowledge beyond that of the physical
sciences, somewhat as the biologist in defending his discipline
has to show that there is a dimension in physical reality that
the physicist and the chemist do not properly reach. In part
we agree with Lonergan that we must show the development
of structures in man's knowledge process, for it is in virtue of
these as well that the psychogenesis of being occurs.
In the third place, Lonergan in his later work rightfully
makes religious conversion central in his reflection on man's
transcendence; he rightly stresses the dependence of conversion
on grace and decision, and the dependence of man's moral life
and religious knowledge on this decision. Moreover, he gives
us in his analysis of religion, meaning, and the human good
much that is of value and that complements his earlier analyses
of man's transcendence. Man's transcendence is indeed primarily shown in his religious life, and his religious life should
be central in our reflection on the transcendence that characterizes man. There are a number of difficulties, however, that
we have with the model of reflection on transcendence that
Lonergan presents to us. Some of these we will not recall here
(e. g., the fact that he seems to give an undue centrality to the
individual's religious conversion rather than the community's
of which he is a part). What is relevant to our purpose is to
present the following difficulties. Does Lonergan's view of the
" collapse of Thomism " owe something to the fact that his specific interpretations of or development of Thomism does not offer
interpretations of or development of Thomism does not offer
an adequate context for his interpretation of man's religious
conversion and his orientation to value in modern life? For example, Lonergan interprets being in St. Thomas as the conceptualization of intelligibility; on this view being does not offer
an adequate context for the interpretation of man's orientation
to the good or value. However, as we suggested above, intelligibility is only one property of being for Thomas; the goodness of being is another, and thus Thomas's understanding of
being has a more positive relation to the order of value and
good than Lonergan recognizes or exploits. Secondly, while

MAN'S TRANSCENDENCE

AND THOMISTIC RESOURCES

473

there is a sense in which it is true that man constructs the
meanings of his life by his actions, such as his decisions, and
Thomas does not sufficiently analyze this active relation of
man toward values, there is also a sense in which meaning is
given to man and is antecedent to his construction. 66 Man's
decisions may as easily lead to a loss of meaning in his life
as to its construction. Particularly in religion man has the impression that he is seized by an order of meaning on which he
depends totally and to which he must submit himself. Moreover this order of meaning that calls man to respond is related
to both the structure of man and his environment of nature and
history. We question then whether Lonergan's reflection on
conversion by an intentionality analysis that is as constructivist as his is and that is based rather narrowly on interiority
is adequate to religious man's experience. It does not really
seem possible to make a philosophical intentionality analysis
that is as divorced from philosophical theory of the world as
Lonergan supposes since man's intentionality is in interaction
with his environment and cannot be known or judged save in
this context. This context and man himself are in part changing and indeed changing through man's decisions, it is true; but
if we are able to evaluate these changes as progress or decline,
we once more presuppose a framework of meaning that is
antecedent to man's decision and discoverable by us. To escape
limitation to a particular culture in philosophy we need not
turn to interiority to the extent that Lonergan appears to do.
We may discover in the interaction between man and his environment of nature and history both man's transcendence and
his environment's mediation of ultimate values.
3. Rejection of a Metaphysics of Being
One who, after largely accepting St. Thomas's philosophy,
66 Langdon Gilkey brings out this character
of meaning in man's life very well
in Naming the Whirlwind: The Renewal of God-Language (New York, 1969),
335 ff.; and there is a criticism of Lonergan's understanding of meaning in Wolfhart
Pannenberg, "History and Meaning in Bernard Lonergan," The Irish Theological
Quarterly 40 (1973), 103-114.

474

JOHN FARRELLY

seeks to address himself to the problem of religious reflection
in our age in a creative philosophical way has another alternative open to him, namely, to reject this philsophy and continuity with it. Leslie Dewart's position is one model for this
option. We will indicate what seem to be the major reasons
for his option by examining briefly his central question, his
understanding of consciousness and the bases for his rejection
of a philosophy of being.
Dewart presents what is perhaps his central question when
he writes:

• the developWe have now determined that the question which
ment of philosophical thought as well as the history of Christian
dogma has led to in our time is this: What does the analysis of
religious experience reveal about the nature of reality? And, specifically, does it reveal a reality that transcends being? 67
There has been a development of human experience and consciousness in our day that leads us to ask questions that classical philosophy did not ask. In fact, the dichotomy between
Christian belief as expressed in Thomistic theology on the one
hand and contemporary experience on the other is so profound
that we need a reconceptualization of God today, and specifically one that is based on a rejection of classical metaphysics and
epistemology. 68 We can see this if we recall aspects of human
consciousness, as we are now aware of it, and the character of
religious experience.
Man is distinguished from the animal by consciousness. He
is not distinguished by the fact that he knows things other
than himself, for the animal does this as well. Nor indeed is
the basis of the distinction the fact that man, having knowlLeslie Dewart, The Foundations of Belief. (New York, 1969),
L. Dewart, The Future of Belief, Theism in a World Come of Age (New
York, 1966), 41: "The integration of Christian belief and contemporary experience, especially in what concerns the concept of God, could not be successfully
attempted by a Christian theology which .... assumed any fundamental principle
or essential part of that very mode of philosophical enquiry (and particularly the
classical epistemologies and metaphysics) on which was erected the concept of God
which can no longer be integrated with contemporary experience."
67

68

MAN's TRANSCENDENCE

AND THOMISTIC RESOURCES

475

edge of another, is then able fully to reflect upon himself and
know that he knows. This view supposes that in man's consciousness the opposition between self and non-self is what is
most primitive. But man does not first become conscious
when he fully reflects upon himself as knowing. He is conscious
in his first act of knowing; differentiation between himself and
the object known emerges within consciousness and is secondary
to it.
Consciousness is, thus, the self-presence of being, and man is being
present to itself .... The subjectivity of conscious being is nothing
less than the being of consciousness itself. 69

Man then is a subject or a self; and in knowing, a subject
knows itself most basically as be-ing itself, which self is not an
object and not an-other.
Development then for man differs from development for the
animal. For the animal, because of its form of knowledge,
development is a knowing of more things; but for man it is a
process of the "mind's self-differentiation of its-self out of a
reality with which it was originally continuous and united
un-differentiation." 70 Man's growth of consciousness is not the
possession by knowledge of other beings but rather an achievement of self-possession, a facing of self and a becoming present
to self, that is, the development or coming into being of a being
that is present to self. The emergence of such a being is the
result of the self's activity; what brings this about is a selfmaking action. Man is indeed a creature, but he does not come
into being ready made, with a determinate nature or a predetermined structure that he can exercise in only certain
specific ways. Rather he is in an historical situation, and:
69 Foundations 257. In ibid., 504-505, Dewart quotes Rahner's view of being as
being-present-to-self and acknowledges his agreement in general with Rahner's
view of knowledge. However, he disagrees with Rahner's " historical judgment
that this concept of knowledge can be remotely attributed to St. Thomas."
Dewart's interpretation of Thomas to the effect that to know is to know the other
as other is not sustained by the texts. See Summa Theol., I, q. 16, a. 2, and
L. Dewart, " Leslie Dewart, St. Thomas and Knowledge." Downside Review
91 (1973)' 51 fl'.
7 ° Future, 91.

476

JOHN FARRELLY

To that situatiDn his existence is a response. But his response 1S
creative, in the fullest sense of the word.
Hence, man is not free not to create himself. But how he responds to his situation, what he does with himself, and even the
orientation he gives to himself-thus, the very possibilities which
he opens up for himself-all this is very much the result of his
conscious, if not always, alas, deliberate, mature, or wise decisions.71
What creates here is not an object but the self. The medium of
this creation is the self's action, but action not so much on the
self as on the world about the self, through which a selfdifferentiation from the world emerges.
One consequence of this understanding of the subject is that
St. Thomas's explanation of knowledge as" the operation of a
faculty of a substance which would alone exercise primary existence " is unacceptable, since consciousness is " a reality which
constitutes the very being of man." 72 Man's being is his subjectivity, and this is constituted by his consciousness; consciousness, then, is the origin of his being, rather than an act
of his being as St. Thomas held. Another consequence is the
necessity of a revision of the meaning of truth. If consciousness
is not primarily possession in knowledge of another being but
rather being present to self, and if man's self is constituted by
consciousness, then, " Truth is not the adequacy of our representative operations, but the adequacy of our conscious existence. More precisely, it is the fidelity of consciousness to
being." 73 With this modern development of our understanding
of consciousness and of truth there is a change in man's understanding of himself, and an evolution of human nature necessarily accompanies this new self-understanding.
Foundations, 9!66.
FutuTe, 90.
78 FutuTe, 9!'!. Dewart continues with an explanation of this fidelity as fidelity
to man's own being, and as the self's action by which "the world is objectified,
that is, conceptualized, systematized, organized, lived with and made meaningful
for our consciousness." Ibid., 93. Perhaps it is relevant here to recall Thomas's
words: "verum intellectus practici aliter accipitur, quam verum intellectus
speculativi, ut dicitur in 6 Ethic.: nam verum intellectus speculativi accipitur per
conformitatem intellectus ad rem; ... verum autem intellectus practici accipitur
per conformitatem ad appetitum rectum." Summa Theol., I-II, q. 57, a. 5, ad 3.
71

72

MAN;S TRANSCE1N'DlrnCE1AND THOMISTIC RBSOUIWES

477

Dewart's reinterpretation o£ consciousness and the primacy
o£ self-presence is related to his view o£ religious experience. He
holds that the question o£ what is delivered to us by religious
experience is central today. What is revealed to us by religious
experience is not being but presence; and, i£ this is the case,
we have to recognize that there is a reality beyond being.
Dewart articulates what he understands and what Thomas understands by being:
By being ... I mean that-which-is, ens-although according to
context, and by reason of the grammatical characteristics of
English ... being (essendum) will also have to be used in order to
refer to the act of being, the act by which being is, ... being must
be defined as an objective reality. 74
While being is an object-the object known by intellect in its
orientation to the world, what is delivered to us in religious experience is definitely not an object or a thing, but rather a
presence:
What the religious experience of God discloses is a reality beyond
being ... For unless we retain the Greek metaphysical outlook,
the ordinary facts of Christian experience are sufficient to establish
that we do experience God, but that we do not experience him as
being .... God's real presence to us (and, therefore, his reality
' in himself ') does not depend on his being a being or an object.
In fact, our belief in the Christian God is post-primitive to the
degree that we apprehend that although there is no super-being
behind beings, no supreme being who stands at the summit of the
hierarchy of being, nevertheless a reality beyond the totality of
being reveals itself by its presence. 75
Dewart then understands God to be reality, but not being.
Reality is that with which the sel£ can have real relations.
Being is a part of reality; it is an object of thought or what is
empirically given as such. Dewart recognizes that it is difficult
£or men who are introduced into their knowledge or talk about
reality through Indo-European languages to accept his view
that reality is larger in scope than being. But he finds that this
•• Future, 175-177. See Foundations, 442-444.
•• Foundations, 397-399.

478

JOHN FARRELLY

difficulty is largely induced by the peculiarities of the IndoEuropean languages and that an investigation of Chinese shows
that not every language uses the word " is " or its equivalent
in the way that we do in our family of languages. 76 The conclusion he comes to then is that philosophy should transcend
Greek metaphysics, and indeed every metaphysics. We now
enter into " a post metaphysical age in philosophy ... a metametaphysical age." 77
In reflection on Dewart's view, we agree that the experience
of men in our day differs in many aspects from the experience
of the Middle Ages, and that it should be primarily upon the
experience of our time that we as philosophers reflect. This
is not because we start philosophy with the assumption of the
76 See Foundations, 396 ff. In Religion, Language, and Truth
(New York, 1970),
Dewart continues to evaluate Thomas's philosophy from the standpoint of language.
While we acknowledge that this constitutes an essential part of a contemporary
evaluation of classical philosophy, we question whether Dewart's view adequately
represents a modern interpretation of language and its relation to thought and
the physical world. For example, he writes that Aristotle and Thomas hold that
we know the necessities inherent in the things of nature, and that such knowledge
must be infallible (see Religion, 5'il, 54, 8'il, 83). Both of these positions must
count against classical philosophy. However, contrary to Dewart's position on
these matters, Henry Veatch in Two Logics. The conflict between classical and
neo-analytic philosophy (Evanston, 1969) holds that we cannot account for our
everyday knowledge unless we acknowledge that we do know to some extent what
things are, and thus the necessities inherent in them. This counts against the
adequacy of modern logic and for the
need for Aristotelian logic. Moreover, since our knowledge of what things are depends upon experience, this knowledge is of its nature fallible (see chapters 3 and 4, e. g., p. 97 f.).
Dewart also holds that " thought is voiceless speech, and speech voiced thought " ;
" there is no difference, other than voicedness or voicelessness, between thought and
speech" (ibid., 66). However, contrary to this virtual identification between
thought and speech, Jean Piaget (e.g., The Psychology of the Child [New York
1969] 84 ff.) finds that speech is secondary to knowledge and logic in the child.
This view is more in accord with Thomas's position on the relationship than is
Dewart's. Similarly, Veatch (op. cit., 65) notes a degree of independence between
language and thought in that the Arabs were able to appreciate Aristotelian logic
even though their basic sentence structure did not permit a subject-predicate form.
Veatch concludes that there can conceivably be different ways of symbolizing "the
form or structure of the logical tool that comes into play whenever we attempt to
understand things for what they are " (loc. cit.) .
77 Ibid., 361.

MAN'S TRANSCENDENCE

AND THOMISTIC RESOURCES

479

superiority of the way men experience life and the world today
over any experience in the past but because philosophy is an
interpretation of experience, and it is the experience that we
personally have that we first recognize as our own. This experience may distort as well as reveal, may be an obstacle as
well as an avenue to a philosophical interpretation of man and
of reality more generally, but the way for us to overcome its
limitations is not through escaping our experience or its importance in philosophy. We transcend our experience by sifting
it and recognizing how we do at times distort reality by the
way we experience it, a recognition that the remembrance of
our past experience and our awareness of the views of others
help us to gain. Without then asserting that the experiences
of men of past ages are experiences that we would reject as our
own, we must, it would seem, begin with our own experience.
The acceptance as ours of an experience of a past age is through
an expansion of our own experience, not the point of departure
for us in philosophy. (The relation of philosophy to human experience may not be in all respects the same as the relation o£
theology to Christian experience, because the experience that
is definitive for Christian theology is that of the particular historical events in the past that mediated its historical revelation.) Moreover, we agree with the central importance of
certain questions Dewart asks, namely, the question about man
as a self and specifically a developing self, and the question
about religious experience.
We also agree that Thomas's philosophy must be judged
solely by its philosophical merits, and that without marked
adjustment and development it cannot articulate many experiences or data that have come to the fore in the modern age.
We are in need of the contributions toward an elucidation of
our experiences that later philosophers have made available to
us; what Dewart offers up depends in large measure upon
Gabriel Marcel and Martin Heidegger. But what we question
is both the adequacy of Dewart's analysis of our current experience (both of self and of God) and his view that classical
metaphysics must be rejected if we are to do justice to our

480

JOHN FARRELLY

experiences and what they reveal. (We are not reflecting here
on Dewart's view of truth, since in practice he does not seem
to adhere to this view.)
We question whether Dewart's interpretation of religious experience is adequate and whether the implications he draws
from this for metaphysics are valid. Is he correct when he
states that in Christian experience God is not experienced as a
being? He is indeed correct in asserting that religious experience reveals a presence (and, we must add, an absence). But
his analysis does not do justice to the ordinary Christian experience or prayer if he denies that God is revealed here as in
some sense subsistent Being, for Christians experience God and
pray to him as personal (e. g., as one who hears our prayers),
and consequently in some sense as "one-who-is," and so the
question posed by contemporary experience to religious reflection is somewhat different from the one Dewart treats.
Also, we may question the adequacy of the other pole of
Dewart's premise, namely, his understanding of being and its
relation to religious experience. For Dewart, being is the object
of thought-thought in the sense in which he interprets St.
Thomas and the Greeks. While we acknowledge that there is
a justification for part of Dewart's interpretation, is he not
calcifying St. Thomas's understanding of being? St. Thomas
did not restrict being to the object of thought; rather he recognized that being as the object of thought (or as related to the
intellect) is designated by one of the transcendentals, namely,
as truth. Being as related to desire or will is designated as good.
If our understanding of the implications of this (as we expressed them earlier) is correct, then being as Dewart understands it is not being as it fully is, because being is also the
object of will, and as such it is known by connaturality as
presence. If this is the case, religious experience does not justify
the claim that there is a reality beyond being; rather it calls
us to transcend an excessively intellectualist notion of being.
Our relation to being by intellectual knowledge is just a part
of our relation to being; for our full understanding we must also
depend upon our affective relation to being and the presence

MAN'S TRANSCENDENCE

AND THOMISTIC RESOURCES

481

that is mediated through this. It is true that we must transcend
metaphysics in the sense that we must acknowledge that our
affective relation to the good and the experience of being mediated by this is not properly metaphysical knowledge nor a
knowledge that is derived properly from abstractive apprehension and concept. This is not to reject metaphysics but simply
to recognize that intellectual knowledge of being (and specifically that systematic knowledge of being that is metaphysics)
is simply a part of our relation to being and our knowledge of
being. Metaphysics continues, if this view is correct, to have
an importance in the articulation of religious experience and of
man in his relation to God. Although metaphysics does not
mediate the knowledge of being found in religious experience,
it can help us speak objectively about this experience and reflect
on its foundations. If this is the case, we must conclude that
metaphysics is of continuing importance in human knowledgein fact, that it is indispensable for the community of men.
In reference to Dewart's view on the subject as self-presence
and as self-creative in an historical situation we agree that an
analysis of man as subject in history is essential for religious
reflection today. Man's religious relation is a free and intelligent human act, an attitude adopted by the subject because
he appropriates it as his possibility and, in some sense, as his
greatest possibility, and he freely engages himself in it. The
subject's attitude present in his appropriation of his religious
transcendence is not divorced from his self-making in history,
his commitment to and his work for social goals, or his adoption of a personal relation to men and women about him. The
structuring of his personality and the integrating character
found in his religious commitment is not totally separate from
such structuring and integration found in the person's attitude
toward less ultimate horizons. This is one reason why study
of man's subjectivity is a prerequisite for a philosophical reflection on man's religious transcendence. The subject's act of
" self-creation " and his experience and knowledge of himself
as subject is most properly not a philosophical act or knowledge. Philosophical reflection on the subject is completely

482

JOHN FARRELLY

secondary to man's being a subject, acting as subject, and experiencing or knowing himself as subject, and philosophy can
never take the place of what it reflects upon. But restricting
ourselves to the limits proper to a philosophical reflection,
question whether Dewart's account correctly captures modern
experience of subjectivity and correctly estimates the resources
of St. Thomas's philosophy in reference to this.
It would seem that modern man does not experience himself
as a subject or as making himself in a way that is divorced
from experience of himself as being. Men generally experience
themselves as ones who act, that is, as human beings who act
and who decide or make themselves only in the sense of realizing possibilities that are in some real sense possibilities of their
being previous to their decisions. While they may experience
their consciousness and particularly their decisions as the origin
of what they become, this is not in a sense that is isolated from
their being as agent or as possibility to be actualized. On the
other hand, we agree that Thomas's philosophy of man as it
stands is too objective and too static; it treats man too much
of a piece with the whole of nature, as understood in his times,
and thus does not adequately articulate modern man's experience of subjectivity and process. But Thomas does assert that
man's acts of understanding and of love or desire are the acts
of us as subjects, or actus perfecti appropriate to the rational
level of being. This implies a very sharp differentiation between man's acts and those of the animal world, and it reflects
our experience of ourselves. Moreover, while Dewart interpret-;
Thomas as holding that our action is "the operation of a
faculty of a substance," we understand man's act to be related
to his being in a profound manner. The implications of
Thomas's philosophy is that we as subjects engage in our decisions in such a way that we indeed are the initiators and
sources of our decisions, but initiators in a way that is related
to our being, since it is by our being that we are empowered to
decide, and it is for the actualization of the possibilities of
our being that we decide. Therefore, we understand modern
man's experience of self-creation and the potentialities of

MAN'S TRANSCENDENCE

AND THOMISTIC RESOURCES

483

Thomas's philosophy somewhat differently from Dewart. In
our view then, we should examine more thoroughly than Dewart does the possibility that our philosophical resources may
help us in our creative philosophical endeavor before we reject
these resources and start off on our own, or start with some
twentieth-century philosophy isolated from its relation to its
precedessors and specifically from Thomas's philosophy and
what it can contribute.

*

*

* * *

In
we suggest that the approach to the question
of man's religious transcendence that we have proposed for
those of us who come from the Thomistic tradition does face
honestly the question of transcendence as it is posed in our
time; 78 it also faces honestly the perspective we initially accepted in this tradition. Critically evaluating the position from
which one comes is as important for a successful facing of the
issue as being open to modern experience and the contributions
of modern philosophers. We should ask the question of man's
transcendence in reference to being, understood in a sense that
is found in a legitimate development of St. Thomas, and we
should look to evidence for and against this; not to do this for
one who initially accepted this tradition is to abdicate a critical
evaluation of his tradition. This question of transcendence
as it is related to man's knowledge should be raised in dialogue
with modern philosophies and with the help of a phenomenology that makes much use of Jean Piaget's developmental
psychology, a psychology closely related to the question of
what makes modern science possible. If modern experience of
knowledge supports this transcendence, or the possibility of
metaphysics, we must also ask what the principles are on the
part of the knower and the environment that account for this.
And here we should face the question of the adequacy of
Thomas's account of these principles. Similarly, in the question
of man's value orientation, we should ask whether man is
oriented to a dimension of being that transcends the merely
78

See article "Religious Reflection," cited in fn. 1, p. 65-68.

484

JOHN FARRELLY

secular and human; we should ask this in dialogue with modern
philosophies, and in our phenomenology we should make use
of developmental psychology, e. g., in Erik Erikson. If modern
experience does support this transcendence, we must also ask
for the principles on the part of man and his environment of
nature and society that account for this-asking here specifically about the adequacy of Thomas's principles in this matter.
Here the question of man as subject (and the relation between
man as subject and man as human being) enters, the question
of how he structures himself and the princples operative in
this structuring. Only if we face this modern problem on the
basis of experience we can appropriate as our own and with a
correct evaluation of the Thomistic tradition in regard to it can
we preserve the value of the resources this tradition offers us
as we transcend its limits.
JOHN FARRELLY,

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

0. s. B.

AQUINAS ON CREATION: SCIENCE, THEOLOGY,
AND MATTERS OF FACT

W

ERE ONE to search for a central teaching of Thomas
Aquinas that most characterizes his contribution
to theology, he would do well to find an exposition
more notable than Aquinas's analysis of the problem of creation. Historians of medieval philosophy, seconded by present-day
scholastics attracted to existentialist thought, have focused on
Aquinas's real distinction between essence and existence as his
greatest contribution to metaphysics. 1 The abundance of literature on this subject attests to its key role in Aquinas's philosophy, and yet this distinction itself has deeper roots in his
theology. It has been argued, for example, that the Common
Doctor's concern with the "I Am Who Am" of Exodus gave
basic inspiration and ultimate precision to his distinctive treatment of e88e or existential act. 2 A similar case can be made,
perhaps with even fuller historical documentation, for Aquinas's
continued concern with the arguments over creation that were
being agitated during his lifetime. Whether or not creation is
indeed so pivotal a doctrine for him, however, there can be
little doubt that his treatment of the problem it poses is most
typical of his style of theologizing. And just as, several decades
ago, when metaphysics had fallen into dissuetude and was given
new life through Aquinas's "authentic existentialism," s so to1 Notably
Etienne Gilson and his school; see the writings of James F. Anderson,
Charles A. Hart, and Joseph Owens, among others.
2 See Gilson's Elements
of Ch1'istian Philosophy (Garden City: Doubleday &
Co., Inc., 1960), pp. 104-135, for a clear exposition of this teaching; Gilson also
considers the relation of essence and existence to the Thomistic treatment of
creation, ibid., pp. 164-183.
8 The expression is Jacques Maritain's
in his Existence and the Existent, Eng. tr.
by L. Galantiere and G. B. Phelan (New York: Doubleday and Co., Inc., 1957),

485

486

WILLIAM A. WALLACE

day, when speculative theology is in similar straits, his teaching
on creation can perhaps be re-examined, and re-asserted, for
the assistance it may give to contemporary theology.
Such an aim is the main burden of this essay. It proposes to
achieve that objective by examining one aspect of Catholic
teaching on creation, an aspect that has been questioned recently by some theologians, 4 that, namely, of creation in time. This
topic is of particular interest for the light it can shed on the
relationships between reason and faith or, more precisely, between science and theology, and this in the context of presentday discussions of man's knowledge of "matters of fact." To
appreciate Aquinas's contribution in this area, however, it will
first be necessary to set up the contemporary problematic. This
can be done most expeditiously by examining the origins and
development of the science-religion controversies of the nineteenth century, for these, as we shall see, have had serious and
debilitating influences on recent theologies of creation.
1. Science, Theology, and Matters of Fact

The year 1584 marks a convenient starting point for this account, for it was in that year that the young Galileo Galilei is
said to have penned a series of student notes on the origin of
the universe. Galileo's professors were apparently good scholastics in the Thomistic tradition, 5 for he affirms in the notes the
necessary existence of some first " uncreated and eternal being,
on whom all others depend, to whom all others are directed as
ultimate end," and who is " the efficient cause of all
in an unqualified way." 6 This first uncreated cause is God,
p. 18; it has been used by Leo Sweeney in the title of his textbook, A Metaphysics of Authentic Existentialism (Englewood Cliffs, N. J.: Prentice-Hall, Inc.,
1965).
• Protestant as well as Catholic, viz., Langdon Gilkey, John Macquarrie, Robert
Guelluy, Donald Ehr, etc., as will be detailed infra.
6 For documentation, see my study, "Galileo and the Thomists," in St. Thomas
Aquinas Commemorative Studies 1fl374-1974, 2 vols. (Toronto: Pontifical Institute
of Mediaeval Studies, 1974), Vol. 2, pp. 298-880.
6 Antonio Favaro, ed., Le Opere di Galileo Galilei, Edizione Nazionale, 20 vols.
(Florence: G. Barbera, 1890-1909, reprinted 1968), Vol. 1, pp. 24-25.

AQUINAS

ON CREATION

487

Galileo explains, who "not only could, but actually did, create
the world de novo," as can be readily known " on the authority
of Sacred Scripture and from the determination of the Lateran
Council." 7 This creation, Galileo goes on, took place in time.
Indeed, " no one has been found among writers worthy of credence," he writes," who affirms that the world existed previous
to six thousand years ago." 8 He himself can provide a more
precise date:
To anyone asking how much time has passed from the beginning
of the world I reply ... that the figure we give is most probable
and accepted by almost all educated men. The world was created
5748 years ago, as is gathered from Holy Scripture: for between
Adam and the Flood 1656 years elapsed; from the Flood to the
birth of Abraham, 322; from the birth of Abraham to the exodus
of the Jews from Egypt, 505; from the exodus of the Jews from
Egypt to the building of the temple of Solomon, 621; from the
building of the temple to the captivity of Sedechia, 430; from the
captivity to its dissolution by Cyrus, 70; from Cyrus, who began
to reign in the 54th Olympiad, to the birth of Chirst, who was
born in the 191st Olympiad, 560; the years from the birth of Chirst
to the destruction of Jerusalem, 74; from then up to the present
time, 1510.9

This text turns out to be extremely important for Galileo scholars, for not only does it give clear indication of the young
Pisan's Catholic orthodoxy, but, by supplying information for
dating the time of composition of the notes, gives one of the
few guides to the chronology of his early education. 10
Ibid., p. f26.
Ibid.
• Ibid., p.
1 ° Favaro
(ibid., p. 12) calculates that they were written in 1584, simply
7

8

adding the 74 and the 1510 in the last sentence of the text just cited. According
to this calculation, which has been accepted uncritically by most Galileo scholars,
the notes would have been written by Galileo when twenty years of age while
a medical student at the University of Pisa. A difficulty with this computation,
however, is that it neglects the fact that the destruction of Jerusalem took place,
not in A. D. 74, but in the year 70. If to this 70 is added the 1510 years said
to have elapsed, the time of composition of the notes would be 1580, a full year
before Galileo had even begun his studies at the university. Such a circumstance
makes it unlikely that the text is based on Galileo's own computation and is more

488

WILLIAM A. WALLACE

A quarter of a century later, now a professor at the University of Padua, Galileo made his famous discoveries with the
telescope, confirming him in his suspicions that the geocentric
theory of Ptolemy would have to be abandoned in favor of the
Copernican world system. This, in turn, set in motion a sequence of events that led him into Biblical exegesis,11 specifically on how the account of the creation of the world in Genesis
was to be interpreted, and ultimately to his condemnation by
the Inquisition. 12 Thus was started what has been referred to
as " the warfare between science and religion," a warfare that
was to continue for almost four centuries, wherein scientificallyinspired arguments over creation would recur down to our owu
day.ls
Galileo, in point of fact, never renounced the beliefs detailed
in his student notebooks with regard to creation in time or the
date of the world's origin. He held only that revisions would
be required in the interpretation of Genesis so that the sun,
rather than the earth, would be located in the center of the
universe. But his very insistence on this interpretation reveals
a deeper conviction on his part, namely, that the growth of
scientific knowledge must have important consequences for
Christian theology. Once a person knew, by reason, the details
of the structure of the solar system, he could no longer accept
on faith an interpretation that failed to take that structure into
account. The interpretation of Scripture, in other words, from
probably something he found in a source composed in 1580 but which he copied
at a later date.
11 See Galileo's Letter to the Grand Duchess Christina,
"Concerning the Use
of Biblical Quotations in Matters of Science" (1615), translated by Stillman
Drake, Discoveries and Opinions of Galileo (Garden City: Doubleday & Co., Inc.,
1957) pp. 175-fH6.
12 For a good account
of the condenmation and the events leading up to it,
see Jerome J. Langford, Galileo, Science and the Church, rev. ed. (Ann
Arbor: The University of Michigan Press, 1971).
18 E. g., Andrew D. White, A History of The Warfare of Science with Theology
(New York: D. Appleton & Co., 1896, Dover reprint); it is noteworthy that the
index of Pierre Teilhard de Chardin's The Phenomenon of Man (New York:
Harper & Row, 1959) contains no entry for creation.

AQUINAS ON CREATION

489

now on would have to respect" matters of fact" as these were
established by science. As a corollary to this, theology could
no longer stand in independence of science. There would henceforth have to be continuous dialogue between scientist and
theologian, the former supplying knowledge of " matters of
fact," the latter using these for the fullest possible understanding of divine revelation.
These ideals notwithstanding, Galileo's personal dialogue
with Bellarmine and other Roman officials, as is well known,
proved nothing less than disastrous. But three quarters of a
century later, in the year 1692, another dialogue occurred that
seemed more promising for realizing the Italian physicist's
ideal. This took place in Protestant England between the great
Isaac Newton and a young Anglican theologian, Richard
Bentley, who was about to inaugurate a series of lectures under
a bequest " of the great and pious Christian philosopher,"
Robert Boyle. 14 Pursuant to Boyle's intentions, Bentley proposed to use Newtonian science as a defense of Christianity
against the attacks of atheists and first focused on the problem
of the world's origin. He felt that Newton's Mathematical
Principles of Natural Philosophy could be used to support
Christian belie£ in creation and wrote to Newton himself for
assistance in showing this. In reply, the great English scientist
wrote four letters that explained, in some detail, how his laws
of mechanics failed to account for certain aspects of the solar
system's structure and how it therefore seemed necessary to
invoke God as a further explanatory principle. In what was
later to be identified as a" God-of-the-gaps" doctrine, Newton
saw God, in a vast creative act at the beginning of time, orienting the planets in space and impelling them by forces exactly
calculated to put them in elliptical orbits around the sun. And
parenthetically, his calculations showed that this momentous
event took place in the year 3988 B.C., thus making the uni"'For details see the essay, "Newton, Galileo, and Plato" by Alexandre Koyre
in his Newtonian Studies (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1965),
pp. 201-202.

490

WILLIAM A. WALLACE

verse 180 years younger than it would be according to the
figures recorded over a century earlier by Galileo! 15
Had Newton stopped there the concordist dialogue between
science and theology could have remained on safe ground for
another century and a half. Unfortunately, however, he did
not, for he wished to show how God's intervention was necessary not only at the beginning of time but also to conserve
the planets in their continuing orbital motions. According to
his calculations, the effects of the planets' mutual gravitational
attractions should result in a basic instability of the solar system whereby they would all ultimately fall into the sun, if corrections were not continually introduced to preserve them in
stable orbits. Newton saw the necessity of such interventions
as a new proof of God's existence, for, in his mind, God's action
could be conceived as the requisite physical force, steadily applied to the planets, maintaining the stability of the solar system. Newton's arch-rival, Leibniz, was quick to point out that
this was not a particularly complimentary estimate of God and
his handiwork, for he seemingly had produced a clock-work
universe that ran so poorly it had to be continually adjusted in
order to be kept going.16 Yet others, like Bentley, were willing
to take this type of argument and use it as a new proof for
the existence of God.
The success of this proof, however, was short-lived. Continental physicists, following up Leibniz's criticism, were soon
able to point out the inadequacy of Newton's calculations;
specifically, they showed how the perturbing effects of planets
on each other would cancel out, thereby preserving the stability
of the solar system without the necessity of a special divine
intervention. The net effect of the Newton-to-Bentley corres15 See William Hales, A New Analysis of Chronology and Geography, History
and Prophecy, 4 vols. (London: C. and F. Rivington, 1830), Vol. I, p. 283.
Newton's letters to Bentley are contained in I. Bernard Cohen, ed., Isaac Newton's
Papers and Letters on Natural Philosophy (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1958).
16 Koyre has an interesting account of this interchange in his From the Closed
World to the Infinite Universe (Baltimore: The Johns Hopkins Press, 1957), pp.
235-272.

AQUINAS ON CREATION

491

pondence, on this account, proved quite detrimental for the
science-theology dialogue. By the time its full consequences had
come to be realized the Enlightenment was well underway,
and even religious-minded people were inclined to place less
credence in Scriptural belief than in rationalist-inspired argumentation. As soon as Laplace had succeeded in showing that
the "gaps" Newton saw in his system no longer existed, there
was a strong temptation to make the " God of the gaps " disappear along with them. Like Galileo, Newton had thought to
place his science at the service of religion, but in so doing he
had unwittingly prepared the way for a rejection of God in the
name of science. Such a repudiation of God as an explanatory
factor, of course, was not complete and unequivocal; it was
meant to apply only to the present universe and to the causes
effecting its daily operation. At this stage in science's history
there was little suspicion that arguments of Laplace's type
could be extended back into history, that God might become
a superfluity even there. In the eighteenth century men were
content to limit God's activity in the universe to his creative
acts at some remote epoch at the beginning of time. But as
far as present "matters of fact" were concerned, these had
now become matters for scientific inquiry alone, and theology
would have nothing further to contribute towards their explanation.
The foregoing has been concerned solely with the impact
of astronomy and celestial mechanics on theological reasoning.
As the eighteenth century wore on, and extending well into the
nineteenth, discoveries in other scientific disciplines led to yet
further retrenchments in matters of religious belief. Scientists
turned their attention to the bowels of the earth, and men
began to dig in earnest. A great variety of fossil remains were
uncovered and the stratification of the earth's crust was revealed in ever greater detail. With this it began to dawn on
men's minds that the earth too had a history. 17 Such a realiza17 The story of this awakening is told graphically by John C. Green, The Death
of Adam. Evolution and Its Impact on Western Thought (Ames: The Iowa
State University Press, 1959), pp.

WILLIAM A. WALLACE

tion, coupled with geographical exploration of the earth's surface and the eventual cataloguing of all its extant flora and
fauna, prepared for even more startling disclosures. For strata
and fossils were uncovered revealing not only that vast changes
had occurred in the earth's structure, but that still more radical
changes had taken place in the plant and animal types inhabiting its surface.
Such discoveries were of immediate and momentous importance for the dialogue between science and theology. With regard to the geological changes, granted that these had indeed
taken place in the course of the earth's history, how were they
to be explained? Were they caused by "mighty acts of God,"
analogous to creation, whereby catastrophes such as the Flood
had been caused in ancient times? Such questions were not
considered irrelevant in the early history of geological science,
when Neptunists and Vulcanists vied with each other for satisfactory explanations of the upheavals that had altered the
earth's surface.' 8 Cataclysmic geology then found a ready ally
in Scriptural geology, and once more scientists and theologians
saw their disciplines united in a common search for the factors
that would render the earth's history intelligible to mankind.
But again the cooperation was to be short-lived, for another
great scientist soon appeared on the scene, Charles Lyell, the
father of modern geology. Lyell's major program, known as
uniformitarianism, consisted in showing that all geological
changes in the earth's history could be explained by causes
similar to those known still to be acting, according to physical
laws that reman uniform throughout time. The systematic aplication of this principle of explanation quickly ruled out God's
intervention as an explanatory factor in geology. It did not,
to be sure, entail an actual denial of the Biblical Flood but
only the acknowledgement that, i£ such a flood did take place,
it would now require explanation along lines similar to those
accounting for floods in more recent history.
18 See Charles C. Gillispie, Genesis and Geology. A Study in the Relations
of
Scientific Thought, Natural Theology, and Social Opinion in Great Britain, 17901850 (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1951), esp. pp. 41-1!'l0.

AQUINAS ON CREATION

493

Thus was Lyell effectively convinced that theology had no
place in geology, just as Laplace had been convinced that it
had no place in celestial mechanics. Yet Lyell was not rejecting
God entirely; he still allowed that the divine creative act was
the only way of explaining how 1nan had come into existence
on the earth's surface. Like Newton before him, he did not
quite anticipate how his methodology might be used to undermine even this personal religious conviction. Uniformitarianism,
as it turned out, could be applied in the biological sciences as
well as in the geological, and when this was effected by Charles
Darwin, the way had finally been prepared for the rejection of
divine intervention even in the matter of man's origins. The
full story of that development cannot be gone into here; suffice
it to mention only that Darwin took Lyell's Principles of
Geology with him while on the voyage of the Beagle and later
felt that he had successfully applied its uniformitarian doctrine
to biology, initially to explain the origins of all sub-human
species, and finally even to account for the " descent of man "
himsel£.19
With Darwin's work, the dialogue between science and theology inaugurated by Galileo was in reality reduced to a monologue. In the early seventeenth century, of course, science was
in its infancy and theology reigned supreme as the queen of the
intellectual disciplines. By the end of the nineteenth century
the tables had been turned completely. "Matters of fact" had
by then come to embrace not only the state of the present universe but all knowable events throughout its long history. H
such events were to be explained, they could now be explained
uniquely by science; theology was no longer necessary or even
relevant for their understanding. J\1:oreover, as evolutionary
doctrine continued to be refined and clarified, the time scale
for its application came to be expanded exponentially. The
age of the earth had been revised upward, from Archbishop
Ussher's estimate of 5654 years in the mid-seventeenth century,
19 A good account is Loren Eiseley, Darwin's Century.
Evolution and the Men
Who Discovered It (Garden City: Doubleday & Co., Inc., 1958).

494

WILLIAM A. WALLACE

to Lecomte de Buffon's "rash guess" of over a hundred thousand years in the late eighteenth, to Lord Kelvin's calculation
of some ten million years in the mid-nineteenth, to current
estimates of :five billion years in the mid-twentieth. 20 Naturally, the thought would have to suggest itself that time too might
be unending, that creation, if still a matter of religious belief,
could be postponed indefinitely, and that even the ancient view
of creation at the beginning of time might prove incompatible
with the ever advancing knowledge provided by science.
The adjustments of theologians to these developments were
quite predictable. In a battle wherein they were constantly
being defeated, not surprisingly many decided either to join
forces with the enemy or to change the ground of battle entirely,
so that theological discourse would remain forever unaffected
by subsequent advances in science. Protestant theologians, true
to their Lutheran and Kantian heritages, were the first to offer
such agnostic alternatives, but in an ecumenical age they could
not be expected to remain completely alone, and so a few
Catholic theologians have been attracted to their style of
reasoning also.
The first such movement to be discussed here, liberal theology, in effect joined forces with science by assimilating all of
its discoveries within a weakened religious context. Theologians
in this movement were content to relinquish God's transcendence and to see him as immanent within nature, as part of
its evolutionary process. Man they viewed as essentially sinless, proceeding from an undeveloped and imperfect state traditionally associated with "original sin" but ever progressing
and working toward a state of perfection. Again, they did not
think of Christ as divine and thus as radically different from
other human beings; rather they saw him as an outstanding
man, providing inspirational leadership and an excellent example of human goodness, certainly someone to be imitated and
followed. Finally, for them God was not to be discovered
through his activity in the physical universe but rather within
20

See Eiseley, op. cit., pp. 35-42, 233-241.

AQUINAS ON CREATION

495

man and particularly through religious experience, through the
"miracles" he works in the lives of individuals. 21
Such a radical adjustment to the scientific world-view still
has some appeal for Unitarians and Universalists, but most
religious thinkers find this progressivist and optimistic doctrine
incomprehensible in the face of two World Wars and the many
disorders plaguing modern man and society. A typical reaction
is that of Karl Barth, a seminal thinker within neo-orthodoxoy,
who was taught liberal theology in his youth and later came
to reject practically all its teachings. Instead of seeing God as
immanent within nature or cosmic process, Barth strongly affirmed God's transcendence and the fact that he is "wholly
Other." Rather than share the liberals' view of man as sinless
and ever-progressing he stressed that man is blinded by sin,
is so sinful in fact that his reason is powerless to understallll
the world as God's handiwork. Again, Christ is not like other
men; for Barth, he is radically dissimilar, being the primary
revelation of God, the Word made flesh. And finally, the sover,
eign and transcendent God is separated from sinful man by a
gulf so vast that it can never be crossed by man through moral
consciousness, religious experience, or any philosophical reflection based on his own initiative. God can only be known when
he chooses to reveal himself, and this primarily through Jesus
Christ. 22
Part of God's revelation to man, for Barth, is the fact of
creation, which he sees as an actual historical event that took
place in time. Knowledge of this event, however, will always
remain inaccessible to science or to man's unaided reason and
thus no truly scientific problems can arise in relation to the
creation account. Barth did not agree, for this reason, with othe1·
Protestant thinkers who had ceased to regard creation as an
historical event and were interpreting it as God's timeless relation to creatures and their existence. 23 As neo-orthodoxy de21 For a summary, see Ian G. Barbour, Issues in Science and Religion (Englewood Cliffs: Prentice-Hall, Inc., 1966), pp. 101-108.
22 Cf. ibid., pp. 116-119.
23 For an analysis of Barth's views on creation, see Thomas E. Rosinski, " Crea-

496

WILLIAM A. WALLACE

veloped, however, Barth's literal appraisal of the creation event
fell out of favor and in its place was substituted a more mythical interpretation of the opening chapters of Genesis. Langdon
Gilkey is the best spokesman for this newer interpretation,
which has come to be widely accepted in Protestant circles, and
which, far more effectively than the Barthian solution,
belief in creation from any possible attack by modern science. 24
As Gilkey sees it, the revealed doctrine of creation has nothing
whatever to do with the temporal origins of the universe or of
man but is merely a symbolic way of teaching man's complete
ontological dependence on God. So viewed creation is not an
event but a relationship, which would be true whether time
were finite or infinite, although in the creation story proposed to
primitive peoples only the former possibility is envisaged. In
Gilkey's words:
The myth of creation does not tell us about the first moment of
time, any more than the myth of the Fall tells us about a first
human being. What it does tell us is that every moment of time,
likely every contingent thing, comes to be from the creative power
of God. The question of the first moment of chronological time is
a question for the astrophysicist, not for the theologian, just as
the question of the first Homo sapiens is a question for the anthropologist, not for the biblical scholar. The event of creation of which
we speak in theology is not just an initial event within a first moment of time: rather it points to the relation of all events to their
eternal source. It is a theological myth which speaks to us of God
and of his deeds not ultimately of the universe and its workings. 25

This citation not only makes precise Gilkey's position on creation
in time but supplies some indication of his reason for adopting
it. Just as he would leave to science answers to questions about
man's origins, so he would vacate the field of cosmogenesis entirely and not presume to commit himself as to when creation
tion and the Origin of the Universe: I," Thought, Vol. 48, No. 189 (1973), pp.
121212-12126.
24 See Gilkey's Maker of Heaven and Earth. The Christian Doctrine of Creation
in the Light of Modem Knowledge (Garden City: Doubleday & Co., Inc., 1959);
Gilkey's main thesis is summarized by Rosinski, loc cit., pp. 1226-1231.
•• Maker of Heaven and Earth, pp. 317-318.

AQUINAS ON CREATION

497

took place, or even whether belief in creation Is reconcilable
with a universe of infinite duration.
Other prominent Protestant theologians, such as Paul Tillich
and John Macquarrie, are in substantial agreement with
Gilkey's analysis. "The doctrine of creation," writes Tillich,
" is not the story of an event that took place ' once upon a time.'
It is the basic description of the relation between God and the
World." 26 Macquarrie is no less explicit:
The exposition of creatureliness in terms of dependence puts to the
side the question about creation as a beginning in time, . . . [a]
problem that nowadays must be turned over to scientific cosmology. . . . In principle [it] is capable of being settled by empirical observation, and ... probably will be settled as, by radiotelescopes and other means, science probes further into the remote
history of the universe. We shall then learn whether there was a
time when the cosmic process began, or whether it has always
been going on much as we see it now. Theology can have nothing
to say on this matter, and, on the other hand, whatever answer
science may produce, this would not affect the doctrine of creation,
as it is expounded here. For this doctrine is not an assertion that
things began at a given time in the past, but is an attempt to
describe the characteristics of creaturely beings. If this is the true
purpose of a doctrine of creation, then we see once more the value
of an existential approach, and the corresponding danger of an
approach through nature, since the latter can so easily become the
question of how things began and can trespass into an area that
properly belongs to science. 27

This development within Protestant theology is not to be
unexpected in the light of higher Biblical criticism, which made
greater advances in Protestant circles than in Catholic, and in
Protestantism's non-acceptance of the conciliar teachings set
forth in the Fourth Lateran and First Vatican Councils. Because of the authoritative interpretation given these sources
of revelation by the Catholic Church, Roman Catholic theologians have generally been less fearful of the so-called ad•• Paul Tillich, Systematic Theology, 3 vols. (Chicago: University of Chicago
Press, 1951-1963), Vol. 1 (1951), p. 252.
27 John Macquarrie, Principles of Christian Theology (New York:
Charles Scribner's Sons, 1966), p. 199.

498

WILLIAM A. W ALLAC:ffi

vances o£ science and have continued to proclaim creation as
an historical event that took place at the beginning o£ time.
Recently, however, some Catholic theologians have questioned
whether this teaching is truly authoritative and so have moved
closer to the newer Protestant position. Among the first to
initiate the move in this direction was the Dominican theologian, A. D. Sertillanges. Discussing the question as to whether
a teaching on creation in time is explicit among the Church
Fathers Sertillanges writes:
The Councils of the Lateran and of the Vatican, true to say, seem
to be more explicit. They speak clearly of creation as having taken
place at the beginning of time, ab initio ternporis. But it remains
to find out if the intention of the text actually bears on this particular circumstance, or does not simply mean to exclude errors
which would equate the creature with God in the matter of duration, or particularly those that would take something away from
the creator's domain, such as the eternal matter of the ancients. 28

Having previously mentioned that Aquinas had held that
philosophers could never prove, one way or another, whether
the universe had a beginning in time, Sertillanges goes on:
If the position that St. Thomas says is tenable in philosophy had
been mentioned in our religious documents and excluded, then
there would not be any further room for doubt. Lacking that, I
am hesitant, and for myself I would not condemn a physicist who
might say: there is no stopping point in the regress from the course
of phenomena; because every phenomenon is explained by an antecedent from whence it proceeds. 29

Other Catholic scholars have taken up this questioning
attitude, 30 with the result that Donald Ehr, when writing the
article on creation £or the New Catholic Encyclopedia, decided
against the traditional position on the matter o£ creation in
28 Antonin G. Sertillanges, L'ldee de creation et ses retentissements
en philosophie (Paris: Aubier, 1945), p. 19.
29 Ibid.; it is difficult to see, of course, how the Fourth Lateran
Council could
have discussed and excluded Aquinas's opinion, since it was held in 1215 before he
was born.
30 Notably Robert Guelluy, La Creation. 2 ed. (Tournai:
Desc!ee, 1963).

AQUINAS ON CREATION

499

time. Inquiring whether the world actually did begin in the
sense of having "a first moment," Ehr notes initially that
philosophical arguments seem unable to provide a definitive
solution. 31 He continues:
Moreover, it also seems difficult to assert that revelation gives the
answer with the certitude of faith. Scripture, the creeds, the councils
speak unanimously of the beginning of the world and contrast
strongly creatures, which began, with God, who alone enjoys the
privilege of being eternal. But perhaps one sufficiently maintains
what the texts intend to affirm if he distinguishes eternity, in its
transcendence with regard to time and temporal duration, from
the creature that receives its total reality from the eternal. 32
Apparently not wishing to depart more explicitly from tradition,
Ehr then resorts to rhetorical questioning:
Is it contrary to revelation to think of a world always dependent on
God, that has received from Him a duration without beginning?
Does this alter what one knows about the history of salvation from
revelation? It is important to stress that this point is secondary
in the doctrine of creation. The essential thing is that at every moment the universe has been in the same need of God and has always received its reality from the absolute free liberality of God,
who is entirely transcendent and above its work.38
The mention of transcendence in the last citations echoes a
theme of Barthian theology and its radical separation of the
domains of science and religion. This is not the only movement
within Protestantism, however, that would so dispose of the
science-religion controversy. Existential theology and linguistic
analysis, each in its own way, adopt similar stances with respect
to scientific discourse. Existentialists such as Martin Buber
and Karl Heim distinguish science from religion on the basis
that the former's concern is objectivity whereas the latter's is
subjectivity. 84 For a thing to be objective, and thus charac81 " Creation,"
The New Catholic Encyclopedia, gen. ed. W. J. McDonald, 15
vols. (New York: McGraw-Hill Book Co., 1967), Vol. 4, p. 423.

•• Ibid.
""Ibid; cf. Peter Schoonenberg, God's World in the Making

(Pittsburgh:
Duquesne University Press, 1964), p. 28.
•• See Karl Heim, Christian Faith and Natural Science (New York: Harper &

500

WILLIAM A. WALLACE

terized by the "l-It" relationship, is for it to be "out there,"
something in the past, something that already " has been." As
opposed to this, subjectivity, operating within one's interior
and putting him in contact with the moment "now," defines an
area of personal communication and understanding, characterized by the" I-Thou "relationship, that shows a person what
really is, what is actually existent. 35 Linguistic analysts such
as Frederick Ferre dissolve any conflicts between science and
religion by showing that these use quite different languages,
which in turn are characteristic of their mutually exclusive
areas of concern. The language of science is instrumental, since
it enables one to summarize data, make predictions about
future events, and even control the course of nature. Religious
language, on the other hand, orients a person's life in terms of
matters of ultimate concern, worship, and devotion. For neither
language, moreover, is it essential to make strong metaphysical
commitments or even statements about the structure of reality.as
This should suffice for a brief survey of the way in which contemporary theologians have reacted to the challenge posed by
the advance of science. Rather than contest issues that share a
common ground, they have left the arena entirely and attempt to
define the theological enterprise in such ways that it can flourish
in complete independence of any scientific discovery. The resulting solution, neat and tidy though it be, unfortunately will not
stand close scrutiny, for like most such solutions it gives rise to
more serious difficulties than those it was designed to solve,
difficulties in fact that threaten to emasculate theology and
religious belief entirely. Specifically, if the story of creation as
recounted in the Scriptures is a myth that communicates a spiritual truth but in no way refers to an historical event described
literally in the objective, space-time framework of scientific
Brothers, 1953), pp. 35-150; note also the "existentialist approach"
by Macquarrie in the text cited supra, p. 497.
35 Ibid., pp. 104-105.
•• See Frederick Ferre, Language, Logic and God (New York:
Brothers, 1961); also the summary in Barbour, op. cit., pp. 121-H!5.

advocated

Harper

&

AQUINAS ON CREATION

501

language, then the way is prepared for the removal of all historical, not to say ontological, content from revelation itself. If
creation in time is not a "matter of fact," to put it bluntly,
then why not deny the same status to all the " mighty acts of
God" and to every key belief in the Judaeo-Christian religion
from the crossing of the Red Sea to the Resurrection of Christ?
Protestant theologians and the neo-orthodox in particular,
by zealously removing all " matters of fact" from religious discourse, have thus performed too radical a surgery on the body
of religious knowledge. In a recent work Gilkey himself calls
attention to the serious consequences of this move and lays its
blame at the doorstep of the new hermeneutics which, although
advertizing itself as a biblical theology, actually was dictated
by a naive attitude towards modern science. In his words:
However biblical they tried to be, the acceptance by neo-orthodox
theologians of the modern scientific world view forced on them a
new form of hermeneutic, and as a consequence a radical transformation of their understanding of the whole bible story from
Adam right through to eschatology. And what is important is that
the way they told that refashioned story reveals their acceptance
of scientific truth in every sentence. 37
The retelling of that story also showed its weaknesses and incongruities, as Gilkey goes on to detail:
God had acted, yes, but no longer had He acted upon the observable surface of nature history. Rather His activity was an
incognito, an activity related, to be sure, in some manner to the
observable events of space and time, but seen as God's activity
only by the eyes of faith, since to the ordinary observer all this
would have looked like ordinary events, like in fact the world pictured by naturalistic science and historical inquiry .... That activity was " there," and that activity was " real," but it could be
seen only by faith. What that " there " was, if it was not in
observable natural or human history, ... was thus left a problem
which has hounded biblical theology almost to its death. 38
37 Langdon
Gilkey, Religion and the Scientific Future. Reflections on Myth,
Science, and Theology (New York: Harper & Row, 1970), pp. 27-28.
38 Ibid., p. 28,

50fl

WILLIAM A. WALLACE

Gilkey's point in calling attention to this situation, finally, is
to stress that it had its source, and most basic explanation, " in
the nineteenth-century history of the altercations of science and
religion which forced theologians and biblical scholars to admit
that religious language, and therefore biblical language, does
not entail any affirmations of ' matters of fact.' " 39
This, then, is the contemporary problematic with respect to
creation in time. Protestant theologians, followed now by some
Catholics, have been so intimidated by scientific thought within
the past century that they have effectively relinquished all
claim to knowledge of "matters of fact.'' And because creation
in time has traditionally been regarded as such a matter, they
would delete it from the articles of faith and search for other
interpretations, however bizarre, that might confer new meaning on this age-old teaching of the Church.
fl. Aquinas on Creation in Time

It is in such a context that Aquinas's teaching on creation
in time takes on new importance in the present day. Living
as he did well before Galileo, Aquinas could not be expected
to know the challenges modern science would present to religious belief. Yet even in his day there were strong reasons
that might impel one to retrench on the matter of creation in
time. Aquinas, as we shall see, did not do so, being firmly
convinced that creation in time was an article of faith. His
metaphysics of essence and existence, already alluded to, enabled him to work out a consistent position that preserved the
article and still allowed full play to reason and faith, without
imposing arbitrary restrictions on what one might be entitled
to believe. Since that metaphysics has already been well
worked over, the accent in what follows will be on Aquinas's
hermeneutical procedures, since such procedures, as Gilkey has
just reminded us, were the single most important factor in
creating the impasse to which the " new orthodoxy " has come,
•• Ibid., pp. !'l8-!'l9.

AQUINAS ON CREATION

503

in its abortive attempts to deal with challenges to faith arising
from modern science.
The question of the world's eternity, and whether or not this
can be proved or disproved by reason alone, occupied St.
Thomas's attention from his earliest writings to the last years
of his life. The reason for this is that it typified the oppositions
between A verroist Aristotelians, who were convinced that the
world's eternity could be demonstrated by reason alone, and
traditional Augustinian theologians, who felt that they could.
demonstrate the world's creation in time. Steering a middle
course between the opposed positions, Aquinas taught that it
was impossible to demonstrate either that the world has always
existed or that it had a beginning in time, but that the issue
had been decided in favor of the latter by divine revelation. 40
Whereas his metaphysics enabled him to prove that the world
must have been created, it did not force him to hold that it
was created in time. To demonstrate the world's temporal
origin, he explained, one would have to proceed either from an
analysis of the world's essence or from a knowledge of the
efficient cause placing it in existence. Questions of essence, however, abstract completely from the "here and now," and thus
any analysis of the world in its nature (quod quid est) is
powerless to shed light on when it came into existence. A consideration of the cause producing it could provide such knowledge, provided the cause were such that it acted necessarily, for
then the necessity of its action would be open to demonstrative
proof. I£ the cause acted voluntarily, on the other hand, knowledge of the circumstances of its operation would depend upon
its will and how this might be made manifest. God's action in
producing creatures, however, Aquinas has already shown to be
voluntary. 41 God may therefore reveal to man how and when
40 Summa Theologiae, I, q. 46, a. 2. For an excellent account of the controversies
and the basic documents necessary for its understanding, see St. Thomas Aquinas,
Siger of Brabant, St. Bonaventure, On the Eternity of the World (De Aeternitate
Mundi), translated from the Latin with an Introduction by Cyril Vollert, Lottie
H. Kendzierski, Paul M. Byrne. Medieval Philosophical Texts in Translation,
No. 16 (Milwaukee: Marquette University Press, 1964).
41 Ibid., q. 19, a. 4.

504

WILLIAM A. WALLACE

the world were created, should he will to do so, but otherwise
man can have no certain knowledge o£ the universe's beginning
in time.
The first systematic exposition o£ this teaching is in the
Commentary on the Sentences, written at the beginning o£
Aquinas's first Paris professorship circa 1256, wherein Aquinas
acknowledges his debt to Moses Maimonides £or the basic lines
o£ his solution. After leaving Paris he took up the question
again in the portion o£ the Summa contra Gentiles written in
Italy. During the Italian sojourn he also devoted a question
o£ De potentia to whether the world has existed forever and
further wrote an exposition o£ the first Decretal bearing on this
question, which will occupy us later. It was during this period
that Aquinas wrote the first part o£ the Summa Theologiae:l
wherein his treatment o£ creation in time took definitive form.
Then, recalled to Paris £or an unprecedented Paris professorship £rom 1269 to 1272, he became embroiled in a series o£ controversies that forced him to reiterate his position and state it
yet more clearly. This is apparent in his Commentary on Aristotle's Physics, in a Quodlibet where he explicitly states that
creation in time is an article o£ faith, and again in a polemical
treatise directed against the Augustinian traditionalists, De
aeternitate mundi. Following these controversies Aquinas returned to Naples and there continued to reassert his teaching
in his Commentary on Aristotle's De Caelo and in two questions o£ his Compendium theologiae, probably his last work on
systematic theology.
What is curious about all o£ these tracts is that they concentrate almost exclusively on the rationes that support
Aquinas's conclusions but supply very little indication o£ the
authoritative sources on which his doctrinal interpretation is
based. Even when asserting that the world's beginning in time
is an article o£ faith, he does not refer to conciliar teaching but
gives only Scriptural passages in support o£ his assertion. For
purposes o£ future reference, all o£ these statements will be
Iwre i11 their approximate chronological order 1 with st&te-

AQUINAS ON CREATION

505

ments relating to " divine revelation," " Catholic faith," etc.,
being shown in italics:
1. Commentary on the Sentences (c. 1256) Bk. 2, dist. 1,
q. 1, a. 5: " ... Secunda positio est dicentium quod
mundus incepit esse postquam non fuerat. . . ; volunt
etiam quod mundum incepisse non solum fide teneatur
sed etiam demonstratione probetur. Tertia positio est
dicentium quod omne quod est praeter Deum incepit esse;
sed tamen mundum incepisse non potuit demonstrari, sed
per revelationem divinam esse habitum et creditum. . . .
Et huic positioni consentio: quia non credo quod a nobis
possit sumi ratio demonstrativa ad hoc, sicut nee ad
Trinitatem, quamvis Trinitatem non esse sit impossi,
bile .... " In support of this interpretation Aquinas here
cites the authority of Gregory the Great, in his first
homily on Ezechiel, where he mentions that prophecy,
meaning by this divine inspiration, can concern the past,
and instances Moses's revelation in Genesis 1.1, "In the
beginning God created heaven and earth." 42 Aquinas
further notes the weakness of the arguments offered by
those subscribing to the second position, and the fact that
they expose the faith to ridicule when they employ such
arguments to prove, against the philosophers, the newness of the world.

2. Summa contra Gentiles (c. 1260) Bk. 2, ch. 87: "Sic
igitur evidenter apparet quod nihil prohibet ponere mundum non semper fuisse. Quod fides catholica ponit ... "
Here Aquinas again cites Genesis 1: 1 and then adds the
assertion from Proverbs 8: 22-28: " The Lord possessed
me in the beginning of his ways, before he made anything
from the beginning. I was set up from eternity, and of
old before the earth was made."
Ibid. ch. 88: " Rae autem rationes quia non usque•• Patrologia Latina, ed. J. P. Migne, 217 vols. (Paris: 1878-1890), Vol. 76, col.
786.

506

WILLIAM A. WALLACE

quaque de necessitate concludunt, licet probabilitatem
habeant, sufficit tangere solum, ne victeatur fides catholica
in vanis rationibus constituta, et non potius in solidissima
Dei doctrina."
Ibid.: "Ab omnibus enim his ponitur aliquid praeter
Deum aeternum. Quod fidei catholicae repugnat."
3. De Potentia (c. 1Q65-69), q. 3, a. 17: "Dicendum quod
firmiter tenendum est mundum non semper fuisse, sicut
fides catholica docet."
4. Summa Theologiae (c. 1Q67), I, q. 46, a. Q: "Sed contra,.
fidei articuli demonstrative probari non possunt: quia
fides de 'non apparentibus' est, ut dicitur ad Heb. 11.1.
Sed Deum esse creatorem mundi, sic quod mundus incoeperit esse, est articulus fidei: dicimus enim: ' Credo
in unum Deum etc.' " Here Aquinas again cites Gregory
on Genesis, and concludes " Ergo novitas mundi habetur

tantum per revelationem.''
Ibid., corpus: " Respondeo dicendum quod mundurn
non semper fuisse, sola fide tenetur, et demonstrative
probari non potest, sicut et supra de mysterio Trinitatis
dictum est." In addition to these statements it should
be noted that Aquinas, in the Sed contra of art. 1, again
cites Proverbs 8: QQ and adds to this John 17:5, "And now
glorify thou me, 0 Father, with thyself, with the glory
which I had with thee, before the world was.'' Similarly,
in the body of art. 3, where he gives a further exegesis of
Genesis 1:1, he takes support from Psalms 103: Q4, "Thou
hast made all things in wisdom ... ," and from Colossians
1:16, "For in him [the Son] were all things created in
heaven and on earth .. .''
5. Commentary on the Physics (c. 1Q70), Bk. 8 lect. Q:, n.
16: "Hae igitur rationes sunt ex quibus Aristoteles
probare intendit motum semper fuisse et nunquam deficere. Quod quidem quantum ad unam partem fidei
nostrae repugnat, scilicet quod ponatur rnotus semper
fuisse .... Quantum vero ad aliam partem, non omnino

AQUINAS ON CREATION

507

est contrarium fidei: quia ut supra dictum est, non agit
Aristoteles de motu caeli, sed universaliter de motu.
Ponimus autem secundum fidem nostram substantiam
mundi sic quandoque incepisse quod tamen nunquam
desinat esse. Ponimus etiam quod aliqui motus semper
erunt, praesertim in hominibus, qui semper remanebunt,
incorruptibilem vitam agentes, vel miseram vel beatam."
Ibid. n. 17: "Sunt enim huiusmodi rationes efficaces
ad probandum quod motus non inceperit per viam
naturae, sicut ab aliquibus ponebatur: sed quod non
inceperit quasi rebus de novo productis a primo rerum
principia, ut fides nostra ponit, hoc iis rationibus probari
non potest .... "
Ibid., lect.
n. 7: " ... Quod patet esse falsum tam
secundum opinionem ipsius quam secundum sententiam
fidei christianae, quae ponit substantiam mundi in infinitum duraturam."
6. Quodlibetum tertium (c.
q. 14, a.
Sed contra:
". . . Sed mundum ex quodam principio temporis esse
creatum est fidei articulus, ... " and here again Aquinas
cites Gregory on Genesis as his authority.
7. De aeternitate mundi (c.
"Supposito, secundum
fidem catholicam,. mundum ab aeterno non fuisse, sicut
quidam philosophi errantes posuerunt, sed quod mundus
durationis initium habuit, sicut Scriptura sacra, quae falli
non potest, testatur, dubitatio mota est utrum potuerit
semper fuisse."
lect. 6, n.
8. Commentary on the De caelo (c.
7: " Non tamen dicimus secundum fidem catholicarn
quod caelum semper fuerit, licet dicamus quod semper sit
duraturum."
Ibid., lect.
n. 12: "Nos autem secundum fidem
catholicam ponimus quod incoepit esse, non quidem per
generationem quasi a natura, sed effiuens a primo principio,
cuius potentia non erat alligata ad dandum ei esse infinito
tempore, sed secundum quod voluit, postquam prius non

508

WILLIAM A. WALLACE

fuerat, ut manifestetur
totum ens .... "

excellentia virtutis ems supra

9. Compendium theologiae (c. H72-1273), ch. 99: "Sed
cum ostensum sit supra quod etiam materia non est nisi
a Deo, pari ratione fides catholica non confitetur materiam esse aeternam, sicut nee mundum aeternum."
Ibid.: "Sic ergo fides catholica nihil Deo coaeternum
ponit, et propter hoc ' creatorem et factorem ommum
visibilium et invisibilium' confitetur."
This series of texts reveals an interesting progression of
thought, particularly when one focuses on the content of what
Aquinas asserts to be of faith. Things that are known by divine
revelation, for him, are equivalent to those assented to by " our
faith," or " the Catholic faith," or " the Christian faith,"
by all of which expressions he mean nothing more than
the faith of the Roman Catholic Church. 4 " Apparently his
reflection on that faith, as he interprets and explicates it
with ever greater precision, enables him to see a certain
equivalence in the following series of affirmations: (1) that
the world began [nn. 1 & 4 of the texts cited above]; (2)
that the world did not always exist [nn. 2 & 3]; (3) that
nothing is eternal .except God [n. 2]; (4) that motion did
not always exist [n. 5]; (5) that motion began like something produced de novo by a first principle [n. 5]; (6) that the
substance of the world is not of infinite duration [n. 5]; (7)
that the world was created at a certain beginning in time [n.
6]; (8) that the world did not exist from eternity [n. 7]; (9)
that the world had a beginning of its duration [n. 7]; (10) that
the heavens have not always existed [n. 8]; (11) that the
heavens began to exist [n. 8]; (12) that matter is not eternal
[n. 9]; and (13) that nothing is coeternal with God [n. 9]. In
these assertions Aquinas successively affirms the beginning, or
non-eternal duration, of the world or the earth or the universe,
43 Ludwig Schlitz,
Thomas-Lexikon
reprinted Stuttgart 1958), p. 305.

(Paderborn:

Ferdinand Schoningh, 1895,

AQUINAS ON CREATION

509

the Latin mundus being the same for all; of motion; of the substance of the universe; of the heavens; of matter; and finally,
of everything that exists apart from God.
The hermeneutical base proferred by Aquinas for all these
interpretations of Catholic teaching is, as already observed, not
very substantial. Apart from two references to the Nicene
Creed [nn. 4 & 9], neither of which explicitly states the point
at issue, Aquinas seems to rely most heavily on the first sentence of Genesis, which he regards as an inspired statement of
Moses, and this merely on the authority of St. Gregory the
Great, a pope who reigned at the end of the sixth century.
What is most surprising is that Aquinas does not cite, nor do
his words show an explicit awareness of, the teachings of the
Fourth Lateran Council held in
which could have given
44
Both Galileo and Sertilfirm support to his interpretation.
44
are, however, two pieces of circumstantial evidence that indicate such
an awareness on his part and that, taken with the materials to be presented below,
strongly support the conjecture that conciliar teaching was part of the hermeneutical
base on which he erected his theological arguments. The first is the use of the
word " firmiter " in text n. 3, which is also used to designate the decree of the
Fourth Lateran bearing on creation in time, to be discussed infra. The second is
an incident in the life of Aquinas reported by his biographer, William of Tocco,
and graphically described by Fr. James A. Weisheipl, 0. P., in Friar Thomas
d'Aquino (New York: Doubleday & Co., Inc., 1974), p. 287 in the following
words. "According to William, a certain religious held his vesperies for the
magisterium in Paris and defended a view contrary to the position Thomas had
determined in his school, but Thomas allowed the matter to pass unperturbed. On
the return journey to Saint-Jacques, the students accompanying Thomas were
most indignant that the new master should defend such a position contrary to
Thomas's and that Thomas should have allowed such an injury to truth to go
unchecked before all the masters of Paris. Thomas replied, more in effect than in
words, ' Children, it seems to me that one should be indulgent to a new master
at his vesperies, lest he be embarrassed in the presence of all the masters; so
far as my doctrine is concerned, I do not fear contradiction from any doctor,
since with the help of God I have established it firmly on the authority of the
saints and the arguments of truth. However, if you think otherwise, I will try
to make up for it tomorrow.' On the next day, in the aula of the bishop, the
young master maintained the same position without any change. Then Friar
Thomas got up and said modestly, 'Master, that opinion of yours, with all due
respect to the truth, cannot be maintained, for it is contrary to such and such
a Council, and if you do not wish to oppose the Council, you will have to take
another stand.' But when the young master changed his wording, but not his

510

WILLIAM A. WALLACE

langes, it may be recalled, point to this teaching as the major
source (albeit thirteenth-century) of Catholic doctrine on creation in time.
Why Aquinas chose not to make explicit use of the Fourth
Lateran in the texts cited is a problem in its own right that is
best left to historians of medieval theological methodology. In
any event, the decrees of the Fourth Lateran were not unknown
to him, and in fact were probably the single most important
factor shaping his foregoing interpretations of Church teaching
on creation. Evidence in support of this thesis may be
marshalled from a brief analysis of a work recently issued in
critical edition by the Leonine Commission, namely, St.
Thomas's Commentary on the First Decretal of Gregory IX. 45
This decretal contains the decree Firmiter of the Fourth Lateran,
itself directed against the heretical teachings of the Albigensians
and the Cathari. Aquinas composed the commentary probably
at the instigation of Gifiredus of Anagni, who was socius of the
provost of Saint-Omer, Adenulf of Anagni, at whose request,
in turn, Reginald of Piperno published St. Thomas's lectures
on St. John's Gospel. Gifiredus was archdeacon of Todi from
HWO onwards; as Adenulf's socius he was probably present with
him in the curia of Urban IV, then residing at Orvieto. It
is known that from
to
Aquinas, being on particularly
friendly terms with Urban, was in residence at the curia during
academic terms, and it is probable that Gifiredus attended his
lectures while there. 46 The time of composition is not certain,
opinion, Thomas again adduced the authority of the Council, and ' forced him to
confess his error, and humbly ask the aforesaid doctor to elucidate the truth more
fully,' which Thomas is supposed to have done."-Weisheipl then notes that "to
this day no one has been able to name the Council in question or the point of
the argument," but himself goes on to argue persuasively that the incident probably
took place at the inception of the Franciscan John Pecham at Paris in the early
months of 1270. Since one of the questions propounded by Pecham at his inception was concerned with creation in time, the Council whose authority was invoked
by Aquinas in this incident could well have been the Fourth Lateran.
•• Expositio super primam et secundam decretalem ad Archidiaconum Tudertinum,
in Opera Omnia, Tomus XL (Rome: Sancta Sabina, 1969), pp. E1-E50.
•• For details on Giffredus, see A. Dondaine and J. Peters, "Jacques de Tonengo

AQUINAS ON CREATION

511

although it seems that Aquinas wrote the commentary for
Gi:ffredus when he returned to Rome to set up the studium at
Santa Sabina from 1265 to 1267, at which time he also began
his masterwork, the Summa Theologiae.
Two decrees are commented on by Aquinas, the first Firmiter
as already noted, and the second Damnamus, which refutes
and condemns the libellus of Joachim of Flora directed against
the Trinitarian doctrine of Peter Lombard. Aquinas treats the
two quite differently, glossing over the second in summary
fashion but analyzing the first precisely and completely, explaining it lemma by lemma with great care, and using all of
the resources of the theologian in so doing. It is difficult to
know what historical documents were available to him for this
purpose, for these are not dearly indicated in the commentary,
but some reconstruction will be attempted in what follows.
The Leonine editors cite only the commentary of Henry of Susa
(Hostiensis) on the first decretal, to which portions of Aquinas's
exposition bear some resemblance and which they feel he may
have used in preparing it. 47
The portion of the text of Firmiter that bears on the problem
of creation in time is the following:
Firmiter credimus et simpliciter confitemur quod unus solus est
verus Deus ... , unum universorum principium, creator omnium
visibilium et invisibilium, spiritualium et corporalium: qui sua
omnipotenti virtute simul ab initio temporis utramque de nihilo
condidit creaturam, spiritualem et corporalem, angelicam videlicet
et mundanam; ac deinde humanam, quasi communem ex spiritu et
corpore constitutam. Diabolus enim et alii daemones a Deo quidem
natura creati sunt boni, sed ipsi per se facti sunt mali .... 48
et Giffredus d'Anagni auditeurs deS. Thomas," Archivum Fratrum Praedicatorum,
Q9 (1959)' pp. 5fl-7fl.
47 Opera Omnia, Tome
XL, p. E6. See Henricus de Segusio, In primum
decretalium librum commentaria (Venice: Apud Juntas, 1581). A summary description of this work is given by Pierre Michaud-Quantin, "Commentaires sur les
deux premieres decretales du recueil de Gregoire IX au treizieme siecle," Die
M etaphysik im Mittelalter, ed. Paul Wilpert. Miscellanea Mediaevalia Q (Berlin:
Walter de Gruyter & Co., 1963), pp. 103-109.
•• Denzinger- Schonmetzer (hereafter abbr.eviated DS), 800.

512

WILLIAM A. WALLACE

Each of the phrases or lemmas after the ellipsis, beginning with
" unum universorum principium," is the subject of comment
by Aquinas and worthy of note for the conciliar hermeneutics
it embodies. Before translating these portions, however, it may
be mentioned that Henry of Susa is extremely brief when commenting on the above passage. At the phrase, " unum universorum principium," he merely notes that this is directed
against the " Marchionistae," who hold for two principles, one
good and one evil. From this he jumps to the phrase, " simul ab
initio," where he writes, somewhat cryptically, that "the Church
which will endure to eternity, created all things simul, wherefore
in the beginning God created heaven and earth." He then goes
on to note that God's creation "cannot be said to be simul"
and summarily explains the creation of angels and men: " but
he first created angels, and on the sixth day created men, quasi
communem, i. e., as an intermediate between the angelic and the
earthly .... " 49 As opposed to this brief exposition, Aquinas's
commentary is lengthy and proceeds articulatim, reading as
follows for the successive lemmas indicated in italics:

unum universorum principium
The Son is not another principle of things as if he were inferior to the Father, but both are one principle. And what
is said here of the Son is to be understood of the Holy Spirit
also.50
Instead of taking this phrase as part of the exposition relating
to God the Creator, as Henry had done, Aquinas annexes it to
the preceding portion of the decree treating of Trinitarian doctrine and sees it as directed against an Arian teaching to the
•• Ed. cit., fol. 5v. The text reads as follows: [Universorum.] Contra
Marchionistas, qui asserunt duo principia bonum et malum ... [Simul ab initio]
lnde ecclesia, qui manet in aetemum, creavit omnia simul, under in principio
creavit Deus caelum et terram. [simul] et tamen simul dici non potest. [ Humanam]
Sed primo creavit angelos. et sexto die creavit homines. [Quasi communem], i. e.,
mediam inter angelicam et mundanam. . .. "
60 E84.889-898. In this method of citation the figures before the period give
the page number and those following it the line numbers in the Leonine edition.

AQUINAS ON CREATION

513

effect that God operates through the Son as his instrument or
minister. The passage is not otherwise noteworthy, merely showing that Aquinas does not follow Henry on the interpretation
of this lemma, if indeed he used him as the basis for his commentary.

creator omnium visibilium et invisibilium, spiritualium et
corporalium
Some heretics like the Manicheans posited two creators,
one good who created invisible and spiritual creatures, the
other evil who they say created all visible and corporeal
things. But the Catholic faith holds that everything apart
from God, both visible and invisible, has been created by
God. Whence Paul says in Acts 17:24, "God, who made
the world and all things therein, he being Lord of heaven
and earth, etc." and Hebrews 11: 3, " By faith we understand that the world was framed by the Word of God, that
from invisible things visible things might be made." 51
The reference here to " two creators " occurs also in two of
Aquinas's other writings. 52 Of more interest is the identification
of " the Manicheans," which might be taken to mean the
ancient sect but more probably refers to the Neo-Manicheans
against whom the decree was directed. It is difficult to document the teachings of the latter in detail, since most of their
manuscripts were destroyed by the Inquisition. The essential
elements, however, are recorded in an anonymous Liber de
duobus principiis written around the middle of the thirteenth
century, which incorporates a section "De creatione." 53 One
of the adversaries of the sect was the Dominican master,
Moneta of Cremona, who composed a lengthy Adversus
Catharos et V aldenses Libri Quinque at about the same time.
The first chapter of Bk. 1 of this treatise is devoted to a deE34.396-407.
In II Sent., d. 1, q. 1, a. 1, and De potentia, q. 3, a. 6.
53 A. Dondaine, ed., Un TraiU neo-manicheen du xiii• siecle, le 'Liber de duobua
principiis,' ... (R-ome: Institutum Historicurn Fratrum Praedicatorum, 1939), pp.
99-109.
51

52

514

WILLIAM A. WALLACE

tailed exposition and refutation of their teaching on the two
principles. 54 Both works accord with the brief description given
above by Aquinas.

qui 8'Ua omnipotenti virtute
Another error was that of those holding that God is indeed
the first principle of the production of things, but that
did not create this world directly but through the intermediary of angels. This was the error of the Menandrites,
and to exclude this it adds " qui sua omnipotenti virtute,"
because, namely, it is only by the power of God that all
creatures have been produced, according to the Psalmist
8: 4, "I shall see the heavens, the works of your hands ... " 55
The reference to the Menandrites Aquinas might have gleaned
from the exposition of the Decretals ascribed to Isidore; they
are also discussed by Isidore in the Etymologia and by Augustine in De haeresis.56

simul condidit utramque creaturam, scilicet spiritualem, et
corporalem, angelicam videlicet et mundanam
Another error was that of Origen, holding that God at the
beginning created only spiritual creatures, and afterwards
because certain of them had sinned he created bodies to
which he would bind their spiritual substances by some
54 Moneta
Cremonensis, Adversus Catharos et Valdenses Libri Quinque, ed.
Thomas A. Ricchini, 0. P. (Rome: Typographia Palladis, 17413), pp. 1-35. This
edition contains an account of the life and writings of Moneta, as well as histories
of the Cathari and Waldenses. Moneta is best known to Dominicans as the friar
in whose cell at Bologna their founder St. Dominic died in U21. Already a
master of arts at the University of Bologna, Moneta became a Dominican in
1220 at the urging of Dominic and Reginald of Orleans. Dominic, of course, had
preached against the Albigensians, Cathari, and Waldenses in Languedoc until
1217; then, in 1220 and 1221, enlisting the help of Moneta and others, he launched
a similar mission in northern Italy. He had solicited Innocent III in 121.5,
precisely at the time of the Fourth Lateran Council, for confirmation of his new
Order of Preachers, for which approval had been given the following year, on
December 22, 1216.
55 E34.410-418.
56 See the references given by the Leonine editors at line 414.

AQUINAS ON CREATION

515

kind of bond, as if corporeal creatures were not produced
by God's principal intention because it was good for them
to be, but only to punish the sins of spiritual creatures.
For it is said in Genesis, 1: 31., "God saw all that he had
made, and it was very good." 57
This passage is extremely important for Aquinas's exegesis of
the decree because of the way in which he divides the text.
Instead of commenting on the entire lemma, " simul ab initio
temporis utramque condidit creaturam," he deletes the phrase
" ab initio temporis " so that the " simul " need not take on
a strict temporal sense but instead is made to modify the verb
" condidit." Possibly Aquinas here had his eye on the Greek
text of the Septuagint, which translates the " simul " of Ecclesiastes 18: 1," Creavit omnia simul," with the word" koine,"
thereby permitting a translation such as, " He created all things
equally." This procedure allows Aquinas to avoid some of the
difficulties regarding the teachings of the Fathers on the
simultaneous creation of the spiritual and corporeal orders, on
which there was far from unanimous teaching. 58 The exegesis
given above, of course, still permits a temporal interpretation
but does not highlight this as strongly as the text on which
Aquinas is commenting with its immediate juxtaposition of
" simul " and " ab initio temporis."

ab initio temporis
Another error was that of Aristotle, holding that all things
were indeed produced by God but from eternity, and that
there was no beginning of time. But it is written in Genesis
1:1, "In the beginning God created heaven and earth." 59
Here we are back to the key text and the Biblical support used
so frequently by Aquinas. What is most noteworthy is the ex57

58 For some details, see my introduction,
notes, and appendices to Vol. 10,
Cosmogony, of the new English translation of St. Thomas's Summa Theologiae
(New York: McGraw-Hill Book Co., 1967).

516

WILLIAM A. WALLACE

plicit identification of Aristotle as the adversary behind the
decree. Over a century earlier Peter Lombard had called attention to this " error " in distinction 1 of the second book
of his Sentences, and already in his commentary on this work
Aquinas had identified the opinion as " heretical." 60 The question that naturally suggests itself is whether Aristotle's teachings were being actively proposed by the Albigensians and the
Cathari, and thus should be considered the object of ecclesiastical condemnation. Dondaine's study of the Liber de doobus
principiis provides some evidence of Aristotelian influence in
Neo-Manichean doctrines, 61 but these are scant compared to
Moneta of Cremona's Adversus Cartharos et V aldenses. In
chapter 11 of book 5, entitled "De novitate mundi et de rationibus quibus philosophi probant mundum esse aeternum"
and running to 34 folio pages in the edition of 1743, Moneta
reveals the extent to which his adversaries were indebted to
Aristotle and his various Arab commentators. 62 Thus it is not
unlikely that this teaching had been taken up by those against
whom the decree was directed and hence was the object of its
censure.

de nihilo
Another error was that of Anaxagoras who held that God
made the world from some beginning in time, but that the
matter of the world preexisted eternally and was not made
by God. But the Apostle, [speaking of God,] states in
Romans 4: 17, " Who calls those things that are not, just
as those that are." 63
The reference to Anaxagoras here is similar to that to Aristotle
in the previous comment and is supported by other identifications in Aquinas's works, where he traces the teaching on the
eternity of matter back to this Greek philosopher. 64 Again there
In II Sent., d. 1, q. I, a. 5.
Ed. cit., pp. 18, 50, 141.
6 " Ed. cit., pp. 477-501.
6 " E85.487-448.
6 • In 11 Sent., d. 1, q. I, a. 1; In VIII PhysicCYTUm, lect. 1, n. 5.

60
61

AQUINAS ON CREATION

517

seems little doubt that this was an Albigensian or NeoManichean teaching, for the Liber de duobus principiis teaches
that creation does not take place " ex nihilo," but rather consists in a type of making (factio) from something as from a
pre-existing matter. 65 Moneta touches on much the same material without addressing the speculative issue explicitly but
concentrating on arguments to show that God actually did
create the visible, corporeal, and material things of this world. 66

deinde humanam, quasi communem ex spiritu et corpore constitutam
There was another error of Tertullian teaching that the
soul of man is corporeal, but the Apostle says in 1 Thessalonians 5:
"Let your whole spirit and mind and body
serve," and here he manifestly distinguishes soul and spirit
from the body. To exclude this [error] the decree adds,
" then" God created a nature that was " human, as constituted of both spirit and body " : for man is composed
of a spiritual and a corporeal nature. 67
Aquinas's source for Tertullian's teaching is probably Isidore's
Etymologia and the comments attributed to him on the
Dectetals. 68 As Moneta shows in detail, the "heretics" of his
time had developed an elaborate doctrine proposing a traducianist explanation of the origin of the human soul along lines
similar to that taught by Tertullian. 69 Thus Aquinas is probably correct in also seeing this ancient error, revived in the
century previous to his writing, as a target of the decree.

diabolus autem et alii daemones quidem a Deo natura creati
sunt boni, sed ipsi per se facti sunt mali
According to the aforementioned error of the Manicheans
•• Ed. cit., p. 103; the title of the relevant section reads: "Quod creare et facere
sit ex aliquo tanquam ex preiacenti materia."
66 Ed. cit., Bk. 1, cc. 6, 8 & 9, pp. 69-104.
67 E35.444-453.
68 See the references given by the Leonine editors at line 444.
•• Ed. cit., Bk.
ch. 4, pp. 129-138.

518

WILLIAM A. WALLACE

holding for two principles, one good and one bad, not only
was a distinction made with respect to the creation of
visible and invisible creatures, namely, that the invisible
were from the good God, the visible from the bad, but
also with respect to invisible things themselves. For they
taught that the first principle was invisible and that certain invisible creatures were produced by it which they
said were naturally bad; and so among angels there were
certain who were naturally good pertaining to the good
creation of the good God, who could not sin, and certain
others who were naturally bad-whom we call demonswho could not not sin. This is contrary to what is said in
Job 4:18, "Behold those who serve him are not steadfast,
and in his angels he found wickedness." 70
With this Aquinas rejoins the Neo-Manichean doctrine with
which he started this portion of the commentary. The teaching
on the angels, of course, was a major issue with the Albigensians,
and a considerable portion of the Liber de duobus principiis
is devoted to this type of teaching. 71 Similarly, this is a substantial matter for Moneta, who devotes chapters 4 through 7
of his first book to a refutation of the errors it contains. 72
The foregoing analysis, while far from complete, should serve
to indicate Aquinas's general competence as a conciliar exegete
and to fill in some of the authoritative sources on which he
probably relied, but which he does not mention, in his various
systematic treatments of creation in time. In presenting the
text translated and annotated above the Leonine editors remark
that the literary genre of the work is that of a summary exposition intended for private use and not a technical work intended
for publication. 73 Even in spite of this circumstance, however,
it is still possible to reconstruct some of the apparatus known
in a general way to Aquinas and hence providing the docuE35.454-470.
Ed. cit., pp. 82-98.
•• Ed. cit., pp. 44-80.
••p. E6.

70

71

AQUINAS ON CREATION

519

mentary background for his commentary. When all this is
taken into account it appears that, with one or two exceptions,
his statement of the " Catholic faith " is quite consonant with
the positive teaching and the censures of the Fourth Lateran
Council. 74
Before returning to recent theologies of creation and their
relation to problems raised by modern science, it may prove
worthwhile to pursue briefly the question whether Aquinas had
a true sensus ecclesiae and whether his reading of the Fourth
Lateran still accords with Church teaching as developed since
his time. The principal addition to that teaching came in the
second half of the nineteenth century, when atheistic, materialistic, and pantheistic teachings were being propagated throughout Europe. The First Vatican Council, in its constitution Dei
Filius, at that time reasserted the doctrine on creation defined
by the Fourth Lateran. 75 The major part of the decree bearing
on this subject is actually a verbatim repetition of the text from
the Fourth Lateran beginning with the words " simul ab initio
temporis " and concluding with " ex spiritu et corpore constitutam." The Vatican decree did, however, amplify the doctrine somewhat, for it added that the world was created by
"God alone" (hie solus vems Deus), thereby excluding angels
or devils acting as God's instruments in the creative act, and
that God in so creating acted of his own free will (liberrimo
consilio) .76 It also appended five canons condemning specific
departures from the Catholic faith, including materialism, which
would assert that nothing exists apart from matter 77 ; pantheism, which would identify the substance or essence of all things
with God, 78 or would hold that such things emanated from the
"' The exceptions would be the assertions regarding motion, which are made in
the context of Aristotelian physics and thus are quite remote from the matters
taught by the Fourth Lateran.
75 DS 3002.
76 Ibid.; note
that these additions incorporate the teachings of St. Thomas,
Summa Theol., I, q. 45, a. 5 and q. 46, a. 2, into the statement of the Fourth
Lateran.
77 DS 3022.
78 DS 3023.

520

WILLIAM A. WALLACE

divine substance or are its manifestation in an evolutionary
process, etc. 79 ; or some combination of the two that would deny
that the world and all it contains, in both the spiritual and
material orders, was produced by God from nothing " according to its entire substance." 80 The final canon further condemned the teachings of Georg Hermes and Anton Gunther,
asserting explicitly that creation was not necessitated in any
way but was a completely voluntary act of God ordered to the
manifestation of his own glory. 81
An interesting question arises as to whether, in reasserting
the " simul ab initio temporis " phrase of the Fourth Lateran,
the Fathers of the First Vatican Council intended to make any
further precisions in this teaching. Among the documents of
the Council is a disputation by the future cardinal, J. B.
Franzelin, S. J., delivered before twenty-four deputed conciliar
fathers and bearing on the schema from which the definition
was finally made. 82 There were four different versions of the
constitution Dei Filius,. but each contained this very same expression.83 Franzelin pointed out to the conciliar fathers that
it was not completely certain that the word simul in the Lateran
decree was meant to define the temporal simultaneity of the
creation of the material and angelic orders. In substantiation
of this he called attention to Aquinas's commentary on the
Decretals and the way in which his exegesis of the text permitted a reading of simul in the sense of the Greek koine to
mean that all creation proceeded equally from a single divine
plan. Arguing from this and similar documents, most theoloDS 3024.
DS 3025; the Latin text reads " secundum totam suam substantiam," which
echoes Aquinas's teaching in the Commentary on the Physics, Bk. 8, lect. 2, cited
supra, p.
81 Ibid., cf. Summa Theol., I, q. 44, a. 4.
82 Document
554; see J. D. Mansi, Sacrorum Conciliorum nova et amplissima
collectio, 53 vols. in 60 (Paris: 1889-1927), Vol. 50, p. 337, n. 6.
83 These
are given in an appendix to Jean-Michel-Alfred Vacant, Etudes
theologiques sur les constitutions du Concile du Vatican d'apres les actes du concile,
2 Vols. (Paris: Delhomme et Briguet, 1895), Vol. 1, pp. 686-687; see also pp.
690-693.
79

80

AQUINAS ON CREATION

521

gians hold that Vatican I did not intend to go beyond the Fourth
Lateran in making more precise the time at which angels and
the material universe were created. They did intend to affirm,
however, that such creation took place broadly at the beginning
of time and that man was not created until some later
From this it should be apparent that Aquinas's exegesis of
the decree Firmiter is not only consonant with the constitution
Dei Filius but was possibly influential in the way in which the
latter was formulated and hence can throw light on how it is
to be understood. Moreover, that the teaching of the Catholic
Church on creation in time has not changed since Vatican I is
clear from the encyclical letter Humani Generis, which lists the
denial of the world's having had a beginning (mundum initiurn
habuisse) among theses contradictory to the decrees of the First
Vatican CounciJ.85 Finally, in the preparatory schema for a
dogmatic constitution of Vatican II to be entitled Dre deposito
fidei pure c.ustodiendo,. it was proposed to devote chapter S
to the creation and evolution of the world and therein to assert
again and explain more fully the world's creation at the beginning of time. 86 Because of the decision to concentrate on
pastoral rather than dogmatic matters, however, this schema
was never adopted and thus did not become part of the Second
Vatican's decrees.

* * *
From the foregoing it should be clear that Aquinas's teaching
on creation in time is in continued accord with the Catholic
faith as proposed by the magisterium. Apart from this it is
of special value today, as already suggested, for the distinctive
way in which it permits one to judge " matters of fact " vis-avis the science-theology controversies of the nineteenth century.
84 E. g., Vacant,
op. cit., pp. 221-227; see also the article on the angels by the
same author in the Dictionnaire de theologie catholique, ed. A. Vacant et al.,
15 vols. (Paris: 1903-1950), Vol. 2, cols. 1267-1272.
85 DS 3890.
86 Schemata
constitutionum et decretorum de quibus disceptabitur in Concilii
sessionibus. Series prima, cap. 3, n. 12. Sacrosanctum Oecumenicum Concilium
Vaticanum Secundum (Vatican City: Typis Polyglottis,
p. 33.

WILLIAM A. WALLACE

Recent theologians, as we have seen, have sought novel interpretations of the traditional doctrine on creation, but in so
doing they have shown themselves naive in evaluating the force
of objections arising from modern science. Not aware of the
hidden presuppositions that colored their thought, they proceeded as if one could do exegesis, both Biblical and conciliar,
in complete abstraction from any philosophical framework or
context. Such a framework was, of course, there, and it was
that provided by a nineteenth-century so-called " scientific"
outlook. In their efforts to preserve the faith or to delineate an
area of discourse in which faith commitments would be valid,
they conceded too much to their supposed adversaries and as
a result effectively denuded religious discourse of its factual and
historical content.
Twentieth-century philosophy of science, by contrast, has
developed mostly in a positivist or instrumentalist direction
and has grown more and more agnostic with regard to its own
ability to attain truth and certitude. As a consequence there
has been a weakening of epistemological claims from two directions: neither scientists nor theologians are now prepared to
take a stand on such important matters as those relating to
the universe and its temporal origins. This, in turn, has led
to a false irenicism, itself based on the weakness of all cognitive
claims. There is no longer a warfare between science and religion, because neither pretends to have any final answers. The
void thereby created is filled by a type of fideism or voluntarism
that enables the interested party to believe or feel as he will.
Even in Catholic seminaries the tract on creation is rarely
taught, science no less than philosophy is shunned by semi·
narians, and emotional involvement is substituted for disciplined rationality in an absurd attempt to make religion " relevant " to modern man.
In such a situation Aquinas's distinctive teaching on creation
in time has special significance. With his realistic philosophy
of science Aquinas would never underestimate the power cf
the human mind to arrive at factual or historical knowledge
relating to the cosmos. With his deep faith and profound

AQUINAS ON CREATION

523

ology he would never fall into hermeneutical errors that deny
the very possibility of man's knowledge in these fields being
supplemented by divine revelation. The fact of the world's
temporal origin, as has been explained, offers an excellent illustration of a teaching that embodies both these features o£
Aquinas's thought. The factual status of creation posed a problem that loomed very large in Aquinas's lifetime, to whose solution he devoted all his intellectual energies. In our day, admittedly, that solution is of secondary importance compared to other
lessons that may be learned from the creation account. 87 But
it and the polemics with which it was surrounded still provide
a most interesting case history showing how the theologian can
have something to say concerning "matters of fact," and indeed how he can enjoy some autonomy when so doing, despite
the exorbitant claims made by some in the name of science. To
deny such a possibility out of hand is one of those " little errors
in the beginning" 88 that can have disastrous consequences for
speculative theology and for religious discourse generally.
WILLIAM

A. WALLACE, O.P.

The Catholic University of America
Washington, D. C.

87 And here we would express appreciation
for the valuable insights provided
by Gilkey and others for a deeper understanding of the traditional teaching on
creation and its meaning for modern man. It is not a question of rejecting these
insights, particularly when they seem able to give creation doctrine fuller significance for many individuals in the present day. They can do this, however,
without placing undue restrictions on the very possibility of divine revelation
relating to "matters of fact," and it is only such restrictiv.e interpretations that
are being implicitly criticized in this article.
88 See the essay of this title by Mortimer
Adler, The Thomist, Vol. 88 (Jan.
1974)' pp. 27-48.

FREEDOM AND EXISTENCE IN CONTEMPORARY
PHILOSOPHY AND IN ST. THOMAS

B

EING AND FREEDOM are not synonyms nor are the
two themes or two different or heterogenous inquiries,
but they mutually belong to each other: one points to
the other. They are, so to say, as concave and convex, the
ground and its foundation, the contained and the act of containing, that is, they constitute a dialectical couplet within
which the realization of the being of man arises, develops, and
ought to be completed. To attain freedom one starts from
being, but the same meaning of being and its expansion within man concerns, refers to, and has meaning only as related to
freedom. It seems obvious at this point to everyone belonging
to the modern period, more than to any other period in history,
that the concept of freedom has been brought to the summit of the spirit: in science, in economics, in politics, in the
sphere of the sacred, which is religion .... the modern age has
summoned man to the conquest of the principal dimensions
of freedom. New institutions and new constitutions have given
and continue to supply the initial start, on different continents,
to the new man engaged in his own formation and that of his
civil life.
There is no doubt that with the advent of modern thought
a decisive jolt has been produced in the attitude of man toward
truth which has brought on the crisis-not yet resolved and
perhaps never soluble because constitutive of the very essence
of freedom-of the freedom-authority tension. More than to
positive juridical systems, which are certainly always indispensable, men today look to new types of relationships-some
already in existence-issuing from the deepest dimensions of
conscience, from scientific and technological progress, which are
the content of that dimension and in general of that activity of

FREEDOM AND EXISTENCE

525

universal range, those which have shaken and compromised
irremediably the so-called established order and have placed in
the hands of man the secret energies of the cosmos and of the
psyche. Hence the irresistible and fascinating race to investigate the structure of matter and of the origin of life, to explore
the mystery of the unconscious and of psychic drives, individual
and collective tensions, on which very probably the society of
the future will rest. Yet today as never before, man-master
of so much of nature-senses his own inner insecurity, the
frailty of his structure, the unarrestable rise of anxiety and
loneliness in a cosmos which is always populated more with
machines laden with threats and terrors.
One need not be pessimistic in order to recognize that man's
own growing involvement in nature and his submergence in
the dark mysteries of the psyche have caused him to shudder,
as it were, which is a feeling of a growing insecurity as though
every conquest in the exploration of the cosmos and in the pretended mastery of matter reveals to him with horror the loss
of ego in the waste of freedom and the reinforcement of a
threat advancing on all fronts of the forces of nature ready to
break loose and sweep away the incautious wizard. And so the
era of the greatest power that man has ever reached coincides
today with the essential insecurity of man toward himself which,
evident or concealed, circulates in the most intimate fiber of
the spirit, and man realizes that he has marched too far along
the path which he believed was that of supreme freedom and
which, on the other hand, revealed itself-in many respectsas the path of his supreme alienation. It is not by chance today
that both philosophy and science find themselves facing the
possibility of nothingness, of decline into an apocalyptic
EK7n1pwcn<; of man's entire civilization, of his insignificance in a
world which at every conquest seems to become more hostile.
To say that the situation has become dramatic or tragic is
not of much importance nor does it mean much: it has been
outlined, with unequivocal clarity, by philosophy more than
three centuries ago with the advent of the principle of immanence all.d more tha11 a century- ago with the elevation 1 es-

526

CORNELIO FABRO

pecially by idealism and pragmatism, of consciousness to will
of being as will of power. What a wonder then if today freedom is at the mercy of shady and touchy confrontations of the
greatest nuclear powers and if the borders of nations are not so
much those of earthly geography as those which are being
contested in the race for the conquest of cosmic space!
And this is a sign, it seems to me, that with the advent of
modern thought the inner axis of the spirit has been changed,
and with it the relationship of man to nature, and that the
criterion of truth has been turned upside down precisely from
the orientation that it had from Being itself to the activity of
mind, from the time when Parmenides stated that " without
being there is no thought," 1 and from transcendence to immanence.
One could certainly say that in the period of a little more
than three centuries of modern thought man has made more
progress in the arts, in science, in technique, in institutions, etc.,
than in all the previous history of mankind. But one should
also recognize that man has never as today found himself
facing a cross-road which poses the radical question of the
meaning of his being and of his freedom and destiny. The
presumption of deterministic and mechanistic science of the
end of the last century and of the past decades of our century
has now been replaced among more responsible men of science
of our time by some form of anguish and " silent despair" :
there are today those who urge men to draw nearer to each
other and to lay aside pretexts and motives of discord and
division in order to defend themselves from the common enemy
which is the loss of the very criterion of truth and justice much
more than the excessive power of nuclear arms (cf., e. g., the
Nobel prize winner Max Born) .2 And it is therefore this relationship to being through truth, and to goodness through
justice, which man today feels more need for as for essential
1

Fr. !lB B 84 s.; Diels I, 288; s; Riezler, Parmenidea (Frankfurt a. M., 1988),

p. 84.

• Cf. Max Born, Experiment and Theory in Physics

(New York, 1956).

FREEDOM AND EXISTENCE

food: what can modem philosophy answer to this supreme
entreaty which now invests entire humanity?
Modern philosophy has replied and continues to reply that
only man can save man; but science today replies that nature
has become because of man stronger than man, and history
warns us that the will of man, when it becomes will to power,
can destroy and tear apart and lose, never build and preserve.
Of course, man today as always-as in the times of St. Augustine, Pascal, Shakespeare, Vico, Manzoni-finds himself at the
edge of the abyss, but he rebels against the law of necessity and
fate; he no longer believes the myth of " eternal return of the
same," and he does not want to believe the inevitability of
catastrophe. Is it possible to preserve and to feed the flame of
this hope?

*

*

*

*

*

Modem man, and especially contemporary man, has lost his
serenity before nature and seems to have lost the key to peace
before his fellow-man; everywhere relationships become tense
and dissolved in the incommunication at all social levels.
Would there not be involved in this destiny of transcendental
failure thought also, and even that modem thought which has
lifted up freedom on the heights of all the realms of the spirit?
Characteristic indeed of modern thought is the basing of
truth on freedom, because only in this way it seems to
guarantee the essential belonging of truth to the being of the
existent which is man: it seems in fact that only by resolving
matter into form and object into act that the ego can make
that complete return into itself which defends it from the dispersion and corrosion of doubt and from the determinism of
the content. With modern philosophy truth is interiority and
interiority is thinking and thinking is self-determination, that
is, willing: first, up to Kant, the basis of being is the Wille zum
Wissen, then from idealism on and in contemporary "philosophies of the fall " it is the Wille zur Macht. Indeed, the absoluteness of knowledge, according to the formula of Fichte,
does not proceed, in the modem cogito, from knowledge but is

528

CORNELIO FABRO

a product of the absolute freedom which therefore is not subject
to any rule or law or to any extraneous influence and is itself
this absolute liberty. 3 It is the immanent absoluteness and freedom of knowing: the absolute autonomy of the subject, the
immediate necessary connection and material belonging of
acting and knowing.
The basis of this decisive turning-point in thought derives
from Fichte' s principle of reduction of being to consciousness:
"No being without being conscious" (Kein Sein ohne Bewusstsein), which in its turn refers to the transcendental reduction
of being to freedom: " No nature and no being if not through
the will, the products of the will are the true being" (keine
Natur und kein Sein, ausser durch den Willen, die Freiheitsprodukte das rechte Sein) . Hence the affirmation that
consciousness of freedom is for the idealist the first immediate
principle from which being flows; the idealist, however, certainly does not find the feeling of freedom or of the subsistence
of his own ego in his consciousness, but he knows how to find
it and to produce it in himself through the free act of asserting
himself. The horizon of truth is therefore turned upside down;
it is no longer the presence of the world, the being of the world,
that causes the beginning: it is the Ego which, as act of freedom based through itself, is an absolute beginning. 4 Thus the
circle of the real closes in order to open to the infinite.
Once placed on this point of departure from which the priority
is of the act over content and of existence over essence, the
absolute Being is drawn inside subjectivity and freedom. Indeed, either the Ego rests on the character of absolute freedom
which becomes knowledge only through a further determination
such as is therefore simply presupposed; it looks only to the
other, to pure act, and in this glance the Ego looks like the
absolutely free and therefore also empty and void substratum
(Unterlage) of knowledge grasping itself simply and altogether,
8 Fichte, Darstellung der Wissenschaftslehre von 1801, §§ 11-12; Medicus IV, 22,
ss.
• Ibid., AngeJ.Wendete Philosophie: Die Staatslehre, Erster Abschnitt;
VI 1 4$6,

FREEl>OM ANl> EXlSTENCE

because the Ego grasps itself without any higher basis and
Being or the Absolute (of knowledge) that springs out from
this is the interior sight, the luminous situation. The entire
point of view of this conception is form or freedom of knowledge, Ego-ness, interiority, light, or, the reflection rests on the
character of the absolute Being so that a simple subsistence is
presupposed and this is elevated to a subsistence in itself and
for itself. This reflection looks therefore inside this self-grasping
to a subsistence of knowing, thus a quiescent capacity of the
act should be presupposed to the act itself; a zero in relation
to the act which however, can be simply and altogether
elevated through freedom to a positive fact. This, the fact that
the act is accomplished according to the pure form, must depend as the first condition on freedom; but that it can be accomplished must be based on a being and on a particular
reality. Knowledge cannot be absolutely empty as in the first
case, and generate light with freedom, but it must have light
absolutely in itself and grasp and develop only the same with
freedom. The permanent point of view of this conception is
absolute subsistence. 5
It is this identity of freedom (Freiheit) and knowledge
(Wissen) which constitutes that "intellectual insight" (Intellektuelle Anschauung) which, taken up again by Schelling, will
provoke the sarcasms of Hegel, who in his Phanomenologie des
Geistes will qualify it as that " night of the Absolute in which
all the cows become black." 6 Inexorable logic of a principle
which was pressing to arrive at its final consequences!
For Fichte these were not academic exercises of sedentary
professors but constituted the cry of freedom against Napoleon
whom Hegel on the contrary had greeted on his entry into
Jena as the " Spirit of the world" (Weltgeist) , and whom
Fichte instead pointed out to the condemnation of history as
the violator of men and the oppressor of peoples.
5 Ibid., Darstellung deJI' Wissenschaftslehre von 1801, § IS; Medicus IV, 28.
• Cf. Hegel, Phiinomenologie des Geistes, Vorrede; ed, Jo. Hoffmeister (Hamburg,
1952)' p. 72.

530

CORNELIO FABRO

Many consider the enemy, Fichte writes in our context, as
an instrument in the hands of God with which he wishes to
execute some plans of divine providence, e. g., the expulsion of
the Turks from Europe. But it is a matter of a basic error:
their fundamental blindness consists in this that they do not
look at freedom as the root of every true being, being benumbed
and blinded by a shallow concept of divine providence. These
people are totally wrong. There is no natural law and no
physical connection of things through which the good comes
to us. God does not will, cannot give us the good that we can
do without difficulty, except through our freedom, and God
is not in general a power of nature, as short-sighted simpletons
nonsensically say, but he is a God of freedom. Nature is simply
the reflection of this from the viewpoint of the universal freedom: but in freedom God has given us himself and his kingdom and the inner fullness of his beatitude, and he depends on
us only that we might develop all this in us. " Without freedom
we remain without God and in the nothing." 7 And Fichte proclaims that this is also the conception of Christianity which is
the gospel of freedom and equality. Thus willing is being, pure
willing pure being, and with that the surmounting of becoming
in order that the Ego be established in possession of itself
aeterno modo: I do not become at all, but I am absolute
through pure willing. Through it all my nature, and my being,
is determined. I am only a being which wills for all eternity.
This pure willing is my being, and my being is my willing; both
are one thing only and are self-sufficient. One cannot add anything more. This we have called the original reality (the root)
of the Ego; because only willing and pure willing are capable
of becoming immediate object of consciousness. This pure
willing must then have a primary reality. And the Fichtean
formula must be taken in the stronger meaning: my true being
is determination of my willing. This is my whole being.
whole is a being determined by a willing; this is my whole con• Fichte, Angewendete Philosophie, Zweiter Abschnitt:
wahrhaften Krieges; Medicus VI, 465.

Ueber den Begrifj des

FREEDOM AND EXISTENCE

581

dition. 8 And it is to this formula therefore that first of all is
referred the diagnosis of the last thought of Heidegger of the
cogito as identity of being-willing in its essence.
Under the thrust of Fichte and at the same time preceding
him by his metaphysical daring as Fichte himself recognized,
Schelling carried the resolution of existence into freedom as into
the ultimate essence of being. The result of this unique and exceptional springtime of German thought is the surmounting of
the so-called libertas indifjerentiae; this hybrid concept would
imply, observed Schelling, the complete casualness of single actions, analogously to the much discussed casual deviation of
the atoms that Epicurus, as is known, devised to explain becoming guided by the same purpose, that is, of escaping from
fate. Thus, if you wish to escape as much from casualism as
from pre-determinism, you cannot avoid having recourse to,
or requiring, if you so like, an internal necessity which springs
from the very essence of the agent himself; only idealism speaking in general has elevated the doctrine of freedom in that
sphere in which alone it is understandable. The intelligible
essence of every thing, and principally of man, is, as a consequence of that, withdrawn from causal concatenation, as that
which is outside space and above all time. It cannot thus have
been determined by anything preceding, more by reason of the
fact that it precedes every other thing that is or will be in it,
not so much in time as because of the concept as absolute unity,
which must always already exist as entire and completed, so
that the single action or determination might be possible in it.
This was in its essence the intimate requirement of the kantian
principle of the autonomy of the Ego for which, as Schelling
remarks, the Spinozian principle: omnis determinatio est
negatio, is no longer valid, since it forms one whole with the
position and the concept of the same essence; therefore, freedom
which is necessary spontaneity [of the act] is properly the essence of the essence. If it is true, Schelling thus argues, that
8 Ibid., Wissenschaftslehre 1798 "nova methodo," § 18; ed. Jakob (Berlin, 1987),
p. 481 s.

532

CORNELIO FABRO

intelligible being operates freely and absolutely, it is also true
that it may not operate except in conformity with its own
intimate nature that is, action cannot avoid following from its
inner self, according to the law of identity and with absolute
necessity, which alone is also absolute freedom; because that is
free which operates only in conformity with the laws of its own
essence and is not determined by something else from within
or from without.
The essence of freedom is thus not taken from the examination of the empirical behavior of consciousness, but it should
be referred to the very source of the spiritual act, namely, at
the point from which necessity and freedom must spring and
at which they must join. Because really this innermost necessity, Schelling states, is also freedom, the essence of man is
essentially its own act (seine eigne That); necessity and freedom are implied by one another, as one sole essence, which
when only considered from different aspects, appears as one or
the other thing-that is, either as necessity or as freedomfreedom in itself, necessity from the formal aspect. The derivation from Fichte here is evident, which Schelling openly recognizes: the Ego, Fichte says, is its own act: consciousness is selfcreation ... the Ego is not at all different from this but is
precisely the very self-creation. But this creating of self presupposed, as does every pure knowing, authentic being (das
eigentliche Sein). This being, conjectured (presupposed to
knowing) , is not being unless it is at the same time knowing;
it is real self-creating, is a primordial, basic willing, which
makes of itself something and the foundation and ground o£
every essence. The act which is the foundation of man's life
in time, according to the bOhmian spinozism of Schelling, is an
eternal act through which the life of every man is joined to the
principle of creation and in such a way he is at the center of
being and for that reason also outside creation; thus he is free
and whatever action he performs he accomplishes it not against
but by his will. And recalling Luther (in De Servo Arbitrio)
Schelling thinks that with such a synthesis of necessity and.
liberty we can solve the problem of evil and elevate it to the

FREEDOM AND EXISTENCE

533

form of pure happening, even in the case of Judas: " the fact
that Judas betrayed Christ could not be prevented either by
himself or by an other creature, and nevertheless he betrayed
Christ, not constrained but voluntarily and with full freedom."
As much must be said of the good man. He does not become
such by chance or by caprice, and nevertheless he is not forced,
there is (thus) a freedom for good and for evil whose foundation transcends the life of the individual, of which there has,
however, still remained some traces in his soul: " In consciousness, inasmuch as it is a simple apprehension of itself and is
purely ideal, that free act certainly cannot appear which becomes necessity because it precedes consciousness just as it
precedes essence, it is first of all this (the act) which makes
it." 9 But not on this account, he specifies, is it an act of
which no consciousness has remained for man because, when
it is a question of excusing himself from some evil action, he
is ready to make his excuses by saying that he could not do
otherwise. The act of freedom thus assumes, in this insertion
a parte ante in the eternal creation and ab aeterno, a dimension
of eternity and therefore of absolute meaning and value.
To this opposite extreme of Schelling, who projects freedom
into eternity a parte ante, Hegel projects the realization of
freedom a parte post,. i.e., in the becoming of universal history,
and man is effectively free in proportion to the part that man
himself takes in the activity of the absolute Spirit in the develpment of history. "In fact men," he observes, " are all rational,
the formal aspect of this rationality is that man be free; in this
consists his nature, this belong to the essence of man. And
nevertheless slavery has ruled over many peoples, and in part
it still rules, and nevertheless peoples feel satisfied. The Orientals, e. g., are men and as such in se are free, but they are
not because they do not have consciousness of freedom, but
they let themselves fall under the despotism of religion and
political situations. The whole difference between Oriental
• Schelling, Philosophische Untersuchungen uber das Wesen di'Jl' menschlichen
Freiheit S. W. Abt. I, Bei VII, 386.

534

CORNELIO FABRO

peoples and peoples where slavery does not rule is that the
latter know they are free, that their duty is to be free." 1 ° Further on Hegel gives a summary sketch of the development of
philosophy in the West in relationship to the development of
the concept of freedom as identity of thought and self-consciousness; this first happened in Greece and for this reason it
is in Greece that philosophy begins (p.
ss.) . Hegel attributes this decisive progress of the concept of freedom in the
West to Christianity, but it becomes explicit only in modern
philosophy which has established " freedom of thought " so
that thought does not proceed from something which is presupposed but only from itself, in a way that it begins from
nothing; even if it begins from what is recognized as truth.

*

*

*

*

*

Most recent philosophy has from this stage on developed the
concept of freedom with a further reversal, that is, after having
divested it of every further theological or metaphysical reference and returned it to its original ontological status already
glimpsed by Descartes, Kant, and Fichte which is the pure
Ego: the will which creates itself and by creating itself creates
being in accordance with the possible ways of existence.
What is man? Thus indeed, in the new atmosphere, the
psycopathologist and philosopher K. Jaspers asks himself. 11
Man by physiology is a body; by psychology a soul; by sociology a sociable nature ... in these and similar disciplines man
becomes object. But there is in him a final element which
transcends all such card-index filing and which escapes every
scientific classification and which nevertheless is present to it
as an inseparable possibility and which never can become object: freedom. Of this man has direct consciousness and
through it his activity escapes the determinism of physical laws,
to open itself to the Absolute. By means of freedom he can
10

Ibid., Vorlesungen iiber die Geschichte der Philosophie, Einleitung A. 1; ed. Jo.

Hoffmeister (Leipzig, 1940), p. 105.
11 Cf. Jaspers,
Einfiihrung in die Philosophie (Ziirich:
p. 61 ss.

Artemis-Verlag,

1950),

FREEDOM AND EXISTENCE

535

escape from what he does not will since freedom is in its sphere
the first motor principle of the person as such. And since the
Person is the whole of the rational being which projects its own
destiny toward the future, Jaspers finds that in the constitutive
dynamics of freedom Transcendence enters, that is, relationship
to God. "Man is the being which refers itself to God" (der
Mensch ist das Gottbezogene Wesen) . Thus the more man
is after all free, the more God is certain for him. Where I am
truly free, I am aware that I am not free for myself. Thus we
push ourselves above ourselves, and we grow with the profundity of the awareness of God thanks to which we become
first of all transparent in our nothingness. We must bear in
mind, Jaspers concludes, that the relationship of man to God
is not a natural property. Because it is jointly liable with freedom, it shines for each individual only when he completes the
leap (Sprung) from his affirmation of an existence purely vital
in itself, that is, when free from the world he is now completely
open to the world, when he can be independent from the world
because he lives bound to God. God is for me in the measure
in which I live authentically. In this complex of ideas is realized
that which for Jaspers is the constitutive category of existence,
that is, "philosophical faith" (der philosophische Glaube)
which affirms that" man can in his behavior live by God." The
existential behavior which is spoken of, Jaspers observes with
accuracy, is that achieved by Kierkegaard every day with selfreflection in a way that he was aware of being always in the
hands of God; through what he did and saw happening in the
world, he was listening to God and experiencing what he was
hearing in the multiplicity of its meanings. What guided him
was not the comprehensibility or the clarity of the precepts but
behavior through freedom itself which knows how to come to
a decision because bound in transcendental foundation. This
behavior through transcendence stands for the opposite extreme
of behavior which develops in the world because behavior
through freedom coincide. The " voice of God " ( Gottes
Stimme) is in that which arises for each individual when he is
open to all that comes to him from tradition and milieu. In

536

CORNELIO FABRO

Jasperian freedom, as in Kantian, the connection with the Absolute, although it is not the first element, is however constitutive of freedom as actuated which is given by the metaphysical
H leap " from finite to Infinite in the risk of the choice.
Not so Heidegger 12 who intends to proceed with absolute
fidelity to the modern cogito according to which truth springs
from freedom inasmuch as it springs from "behavior" (Verhalten) which renders the subject open to the revelation of
being. In this way the basis and the place of truth is not at
all the judgment, as tradition contended until Kant came, who
sanctioned in this regard the oblivion of being. Instead, the
original appearance of being must be pre-predicative, and in
that sense prelogical, because it itself is the original logos and
basis of every logos. For this reason the basis of the intrinsic
possibility of opening myself, of being able to open oneself, or
the opening of the behavior which reveals being and therefore
renders possible truth as conformity of judgment, is freedom.
In this opening oneself there is thus a preliminary giving of
oneself which is a " gift " and a " preliminary giving of oneself "
(Vorgabe,.Vorgeben), and it is this radical way of" being free.,
(Freisein) which reveals the until now unaccomplished essence
of freedom. We then say that the being open of the behavior
as that which founds the intrinsic possibility of exactness [of
the conformity] is based on freedom. And therefore " the
essence of truth is freedom " (das W esen der W ahrheit ist die
Freiheit).
This does not signify first of all and only, Heidegger hastens
to specify, that the search for truth" depends" on liberty and
on the motion of the will but exactly that the essence or the
constitutive of truth is in freedom or that objectivity is based
on subjectivity. And this clashes against the traditional conception, realistic or idealistic, which places metaphysics as
knowledge of truth in itself above man. Now the situation on
the other hand is reversed and it is this change of horizon-to
12

Cf. Vom Wesen der Wakrkeit, II Aufl. (Franfurt a. M. :V. Klostermann,

1949), spec. §§ 34, p. l!'l ss.

FREEDOM AND EXISTENCE

587

the extreme side of whatsoever formalism or essentialism, both
idealistic and realistic-which must be made clear. More than
the pseudotheologizing conception of Jaspers and the phenomenologico-anthropological dilettantism of Sartre, the position of Heidegger respects the uneasiness and the aspiration of
contemporary consciousness in the ambiguity of its plans for
the essence of man.
Against a whole tradition of thought dominating Western
culture, which made a "property" (Eigenschaft) of freedom
and bound it to the cart or Procustean bed of objectivity, the
situation has to be reversed and we have to say that the essence
of truth is freedom, that is, it must be admitted that " freedom
is the ground of the intrinsic possibility of conformity only because it receives its own essence from the more original essense
of essential truth alone." Freedom indeed is first of all determined as " freedom for what can be revealed in something
which is open" (als Freiheit fur dM Offenbare einer Offenen).
This means that the opening of the existent, which renders possible the conformity of the judgment, is rendered possible each
time by open behavior. Therefore freedom with regard to
what can be manifested in what is manifest is a letting be each
time the being of the being existent which is; therefore freedom
is now revealed as letting be the being of the existent. " Lettingbe " has here, one must keep in mind, the meaning not only
of rendering possible the appearance of the existent, i.e., its
manifestation, but at the same time of maintaining itself indifferent to the way and the content of this manifestation, not
in the sense of indifference or of carelessness but instead in
order to surrender itself (Sicheinlassen) to the existent, to let
itself be invaded, so to say, by the existent as it presents itself
in its presentation.
This is the original meaning of athis says exactly
non-hiddenness, i.e., the unveiling of the being of the existent
and not first of all "conformity" (Richtigkeit -op8oT'YJ<>) as
formalist rationalism has contended. Thus truth is the going
out and the let going out from the hiddenness (Entbergenheit,
Entbergung) , and it is freedom which renders it possible by

588

CORNELIO FABRO

letting be precisely the being of the existent. In this way, if
the essence of truth is freedom, i.e., to situate itself and to keep
essence of freedom is this " exitself outside-ex-sistere-the
posure" (Aussetzung) in the unveiling of the existent. Freedom then is in no way to be confused with the " caprice " of
protesting and para<loxical attitudes, nor is it the simple nonimpeded spontaneity or the concrete availability toward something or for some object; it is not first of all a negative freedom.
First of all and as problematic base of all this, freedom is the
abandoning of oneself to the unveiling of the existent as such,
This is the original meaning of " existence " (Existenz, Exsistere); not that (scholastic, wolffian ... ) of giving oneself
de facto existentia, or that moralistic as ethical commitment
as it is, for instance, in the pseudotheological existentialism of
a Jaspers or of a G. Marcel or in the ontological existence
of a Sartre. The existence, which is rooted in freedom, is the
placing oneself outside or ex-position (Aus-setzung) in the unveiling of the existent as such.
Having thus clarified the essential pertinence of freedom to
truth, it is also clear that the ex-sistence of man in history
and the beginning of his culture arrived at the precise moment
in which the first thinker, in positing to himself the question
of the unveiling of being, put to himself the question of what
the existent is. And it is the unveiling of the existent as a whole
that the Greeks called
thus the initial unveiling of the
existent in the Whole, the question of interrogation on the existent as such and the beginning of Western history are the
same thing, and contemporaries in a " time " from which history takes its beginning-and, we can add, only the people
have a history who, as those of the West, adopt this behavior,
i.e., who place such a radical freedom as the basis of the unveiling of the being that is the radical freedom of the existent.
Freedom thus understood is not then properly a " property "
of man, something that man possesses on his own account; on
the contrary, it is the freedom, in the sense of being-there (outside) as revealing Da-sein, to possess man and this in such an
original way that it alone guarantees to a humanity the re-

FREEDOM AND EXISTENCE

539

lationship which bases and characterizes every history for an
existent in the whole. While" nature" properly has no history.
It is this freedom, one can conclude, understood as the lettingbe of the existent, which fulfills and realizes the essence of
truth in the sense of unveiling of the existent, through which
there is realized and shown that opening which is precisely
the truth and which the behavior of man renders possible. And
it is this freedom (Heidegger, who has delved into its (freedom's) historical-transcendental dimensions in Western culture,
makes us understand marvellously) which is also the essence
of man; man indeed is that existent which happened to be
under the mode of the ex-sistence.
Here the discourse of Heidegger has reached its apex and
seems to be interrupted or be left in suspense; in reality this
is not so, because freedom is just this hovering over or the condition of hovering over the unveiling of the manifested in the
unlimited opening of time which is history. And not by chance
has Heidegger condensed his thought into the formula that " the
essence of [man as] Da-sein consists in his Ex-sistence "u which
Sartre has turned into another: " existence precedes essence," 14
a version which nevertheless Heidegger-perhaps because of the
publicity stunt used by the French writer-did not accept,
wrongfully in our modest opinion. In fact the Heideggerian
formula of truth as freedom through the unveiling of the existent suggests, and Heidegger is certainly not one to deny it,
the resolution of subjectivity into the freedom which begins
with Kant, is deepened by Fichte and Schelling, and culminates
in the Hegelian doctrine of the absolute Spirit. And the " unveiling," of which Heidegger speaks, recalls spontaneously the
"pure looking at" (rein Zusehen) of Hegel in which Heidegger
precisely places the original disposition of consciousness in the
face of reality. Only that in Heidegger the sole spectator
such a spectacle is also its single actor, that is, that which i'l
the sole subject of history, the absolute Spirit. But Heidegger

or

13

H

Cf. Was ist Metaphysik? V Aufl. (Frankfurt a.M., 1949), p. IS.
Cf. J.-P. Sartre, L'Etre et le neant, P. IV, ch. 1 (Paris, 1943). P· 513.

540

CORNELIO FABRO

does not allow his philosophy to go that far and rather turns
it back again-if one may say so-on Fichte and Kant, but
converging toward a pure historicism of " pure happening,"
matured and filtered with the inimitable experience of Nietzsche
and through the analysis of Dilthey. A discourse hence carrieJ
to the infinite and without end of which man appropriates each
time the segment which belongs to him, departing from his own
historical situation. And not by chance, one observes, has
Heidegger (above all the Heidegger of Sein und Zeit) exercised
and is exercising a considerable influence not only on contemporary German historiography but also on the sciences, on
medicine and psychopathology (BinffWanger), and on theolOg'"J
itself (Bultmann, Rahner) .

*

*

*

*

*

In this formula, that free will constitutes the basic prius with
regard to the being of the existent, the most recent philosophy
can meet St. Thomas. The Angelic Doctor expressly affirms
that the will in the subjective sphere is the very principle of the
person because it is not enough to aspire to the good in general-to which man naturally tends-but it is proper to it to
choose in the concrete the highest end (riches, fame, knowledge, etc., or eternal life) and to pass on to the choice of the
means proportioned to the end already selected. The will therefore not only moves the powers of the lower appetite, but also
the intellect itself toward the ultimate determination of the end
in concreto.
For this concrete end, which is the existential real object of
such a choice, the principle is valid:
In appetibilibus autem finis est fundamentum et principium
eorum quae sunt ad finem; cum ea quae sunt propter finem non
appetantur nisi ratione finis.1.5
And it must be said, in recognition of his perspicacity, that
Thomas himself has a certain inkling that the situation is to be
put in these terms, for instance, when he writes:
1"

St. Thomas, De Veritate, q. 22, a. 5.

FREEDOM AND EXISTENCE

541

Voluntas vult naturaliter bonum, sed non determinate hoc bonum
vel illud; sicus visus naturaliter videt colorem, sed non hunc vel
ilium determinate. Et propter hoc, quidquid vult, vult sub ratione
boni; non tamen oportet quod semper hoc vel illud bonum velit. 16
And in a positive form he affiirms:
Finis est in quem ordinantur ea quae sunt ad finem. Cum enim
voluntas moveatur in suum obiectum sibi propositum a ratione,
diversimode movetur, secundum quod diversimode sibi proponitur.
Unde, cum ratio proponit sibi aliquid ut absolute bonum, voluntas
movetur in illud absolute; et hoc est velle. Cum autem proponit
sibi aliquid sub ratione boni, ad quod alia ordinentur ut ad finem,
tunc tendit in illud cum quodam ordine, qui invenitur in actu
voluntatis, non secundum propriam naturam, sed secundum
exigentiam rationis.u
All this presupposes the reality of a concrete choice of a concrete
end of his own life.

1. The existential choice of the concrete end and moral determination.

It is through this choice of the ultimate end in concreto that
freedom is constituted as existential determination from which
springs the basic morality of the human act so that the human
will is called good or evil, and it is through the development of
this choice that the moral personality of man in his integralness
is being formed and qualified. To this man, engaged in the
radical choice in concreto of the end, is then applied the declaration, wonderful in its simplicity and profundity, provided that
the concrete choice of the ultimate end is subtended:
Quilibet habens voluntatem dicitur bonus inquantum habet
bonam voluntatem: quia per voluntatem utimur omnibus quae in
nobis sunt. Unde non dicitur bonus homo, qui habet bonum intellectum; sed qui habet bonam voluntatem. Voluntas autem
respicit finem ut obiectum proprium. 18
Ibid., a. 6, ad 5.
Ibid., a. 13. St. Thomas knows this situation and warns against £alse "choices"
of the ultimate end (cf. III Cont. Gent., cc.
Summa Theol. I-II, q. aa. 1-8.
18 Summa Theol., I, q. 5. a. 4 ad 3.
16

17

CORNELIO FABRO

But the will is called good or evil which makes a free choice of
the end which is in concreto good or evil in which the will
chooses its own happiness, as St. Thomas himself recognizes:
Felicitatem indeterminate et in universali omnis rationalis mens
naturaliter appetit, et circa hoc deficere non potest; sed in particulari non est determinatus motus voluntatis creaturae ad quaerendam felicitatem in hoc vel illo. Et sic in appetendo felicitatem
aliquis peccare potest, si earn quaerat ubi quarere non debet sicut
qui quaerit in voluptatibus felicitatem; et ita est respectu omnium
bonorum. 19
The reality of sin and the horrors of human freedom with which
human history is bloodied are there to show that the crisis of
choice is not stirred up and resolved in the area of means but
in the sphere of the concrete ends to which man devotes himself
with his choice for life and for death.
The most complete and explicit text in my awareness of this
existential dialectic of freedom is the youthful Commentary

on the Sentences:
Bonum, quod est obiectum voluntatis, est in rebus, ut dicit
Philosophus in VI Metaph. et ideo oportet quod motus voluntatis
terminetur ad rem extra animam existentem. Quamvis autem res,
prout est in anima, possit considerari secundum rationem communem praetermissa ratione particulari; res tamen extra animam
non potest esse secundum communem rationem nisi cum additione
propriae rationis; et ideo oportet, quantumcumque voluntas feratur
et
in bonum, quod feratur in aliquod bonum determinatum:
similiter quantumcumque feratur in summum bonum huius, vel
19 De Verit., q.
a. 7, ad 6. Cf. also ad 11: "Quamvis homo naturaliter bonum
appetat in generali, non tamen in speciali, ut dictum est, in solutione ad sextum
argumentum; et ex hac parte incidit peccatum et defectus." Thus St. Thomas
himself speaks because of the morality of the act, of "finis debitus" (and "indebitus "), a distinction which is applied obviously to the concrete and which each
individual chooses: "Ad hoc quod voluntas sit recta, duo requiruntur. Unum est
quod sit finis debitus; aliud, ut id quod ordinatur in finem, sit proportionatum fini.
Quamvis autem omnia desideria ad beatitudinem referantur, tamen contingit
utrolibet modo desiderium esse perversum; quia et ipse appetitus beatitudinis potest
esse perversus, cum quaeritur ubi non est, potest contingere quod id quod propter
hunc finem appetitur, non est fini proportionatum, sicut cum quid vult furari, ut
det eleemosynam per quam mereatur beatitudinem." (In IV Sent., d. 49, q. 1, a.
S, sol. 4 ad 5) •

FREEDOM AND EXISTENCE

543

illius rationis. Quamvis autem ex naturali inclinatione voluntas
habeat ut in beatitudinem feratur secundum communem rationem,
tamen quod feratur in beatitudinem talem, vel talem, hoc non
est ex inclinatione naturae, sed per discretionem rationis, quae
adinvenit in hoc, vel in illo summum bonum hominis constare;
et ideo quandocumque aliquis beatitudinem appetit, actualiter
coniungitur ibi appetitus naturalis, et appetitus rationalis; et ex
parte appetitus naturalis semper est ibi rectitudo; sed ex parte
appetitus rationalis quandoque est ibi rectitudo, quando scilicet
appetitur ibi beatitudo ubi vere est; quandoque autem perversitas,
quando appetitur ubi vere non est; et sic in appetitu beatitudinis
potest aliquis vel mereri adiuncta gratia, vel demereri, secundum
quod eius appetitus est rectus, vel perversus. 20
The " discretio rationis quae adinvenit in hoc vel illo summum
bonum" supposes the motion of the will which bears a judgment of choice-the basic choice on the existential plane-according to the principle: ". . . de hov potest esse e"lectio quod
sub iudido nostro vadit." 21 Thus, while the appetitus naturalis
of the will tends to the bonum in communi spontaneously, the
appetitus rationalis makes the precise choice of the good in
which it places its own happiness, i. e., " selects " from among
the various possible goods offered to freedom what it " prefers "
from whose goodness or malice the goodness or malice (merit
or fault) of the will itself depends. 22
The concrete end of life is that which first and above all falls
under our judgment of choice: because it depends on the will.
Hence this " adinvenit " can deceive as if it were a simple act
of the cognoscitive sphere, while in reality it depends on the
motion of the will. A happier expression, it seems to us, is that
which St. Thomas uses a bit previously between voluntas
naturalis (of the end in communi) and voluntas deliberativa
(of the concrete end) in a context (the will of the damned)
which eminently puts our question in focus:
In damnatis potest duplex voluntas considerari, scilicet voluntas
deliberativa, et voluntas naturalis. Naturalis quidem non est eis
In IV Sent., d. 49, a. 1, a. 8, sol. 8.
De Verit., q. 24, a. 1, ad 20.
•• Ibid., ad 2.
20
21

544

CORNELIO FABRO

ex ipsis, sed ex auctore naturae, qui in natura hanc inclinationem
posuit, quae naturalis voluntas dicitur; uncle cum natura in eis
remaneat, secundum hoc bona poterit in eis esse voluntas naturalis.
Sed voluntas deliberativa est eis ex seipsis, secundum quod in
potestate eorum est inclinari per affectum ad hac, vel illud; et talis
voluntas in eis est solum mala; et hoc ideo, quia sunt perfecte
aversi a fine ultimo rectae voluntatis; nee aliqua voluntas potest
esse bona, nisi per ordinem ad finem praedictum; uncle etiam se
aliquod bonum velint, non tamen bene bonum volunt illud, ut ex
hoc voluntas eorum bona dici possit. 23
St. Thomas still admits this implicitly when he seeks in men
and angels the origin precisely of bad will and therefore of sin.
For man in the first movement of the will, which is the intentio
finis in communi, there is no possibility of error or sin:
Cum voluntas tendat in bonum intellectum naturaliter sicut in
proprium obiectum et finem, impossible est quod aliqua intellectualis substantia malam secundem naturam habeat voluntatem,
nisi intellectus eius naturaliter erret circa iudicium boni ... Impossibile est igitur quod aliquis intellectus sit qui naturaliter in
iudicio veri decipiatur. Non igitur possible est quod sit aliqua
substantia intellectualis habens naturaliter malam voluntatem. 24
Equally explicit is the admission to explain sin in the fallen
angel:
Licet enim naturalis inclinatio voluntatis insit unicuique volenti
ad volendum et amandum sui ipsius perfectionem, ita quod contrarium huius velle non possit; non tamen sic est ei inditum
naturaliter ut ita ordinet suam perfectionem in alium finem quod
ab eo deficere non possit; cum finis superior non sit suae naturae
proprius, sed superioris naturae. Relinquitur igitur suo arbitrio
quod propriam perfectionem in superiorem ordinat finem.25
There is involved here the prevalence of the subjective bonum
proprium over the objective supreme good which is God himself and over what is willed by God; here is why the creature
can deviate, ean will another end or " his ", that of his pride, his
passion, his caprice, etc.-this is the existential choice into
In IV Sent., d. 50, q.
a. 1, sol. 1.
III Cont. Gent., c. 107, Praeterea.
25 Ibid., c. 109.
28
2•

FREEDOM AND EXISTENCE

545

which the first man and the rebel angels fell and into which
every man can fall and by means of which also each one of us
can lose or save ourselves.
2. Existential choice and origin of moral evil.

It is here, then, in the concrete choice of the existential end,
that is realized in the alternative of good and evil the dialectic
of horizontalness and verticalness of freedom and that is decided
the quality of its morality; good if the concrete end is ordered
to God, bad and perverse if the end chosen is bent toward the
ego which takes the place of God. It is this which St. Thomas
himself has eminently seen, and it is on this that is based hi.s
marvellous treatise on the virtues and the vices.
Perhaps-and it was not the task of our research to decide
on the difficult argument-the Thomistic doctrine of freedom
has remained formally closed within the limits of Aristotelian
rationalism or intellectualism, as the constant references to the
Nichomachean Ethics make us suppose. There is no doubt at
all that if we consider the doctrine both as a whole and in its
effective spiritual milieu, it reveals not a few and profound hints
of the existential nature of freedom or of the metaphysical
emergence of freedom in the formal sphere of reason. First of
all, the superiority of freedom quoad exercitium or subjective
over objective freedom quoad determinationem, a distinction
which if not completely unknown remains however only implicit or, for all practical purposes, inoperative in Aristotelian
ethics. Because of this superiority, as it was said above, all the
operative sector of consciousness and indeed the cognoscitive
faculties themselves and above all reason passes, according
to St. Thomas, under the dependence on the will. The first
effect of this superiority of the will is revealed in the control
which it can exercise on the very choice of the ultimate end:
Voluntas est secundum hoc determinata et in unum naturaliter
tendens, ita quod in alterum naturaliter non tendit; non tamen in
illud in quod naturaliter tendit de necessitate, sed voluntarie tendit;
unde et potest illud non eligere. Similiter potest etiam non eligere
illud peccatum in quod sensualitas corrupta inclinat; quia inclinatio

546

CORNELIO FABRO

naturalis, ut dictum est, est secundum exigentiam naturae in qua
invenitur talis inclinatio. 26

It is the decisive moment; if the content of the act would
suffice to move the will, the voluntary movement of the act
which consists in the formal aspiration for good and the free
movement which consists in the real choice both of the concrete
ultimate end and of the means would end up by being one and
the same thing, and freedom would be identified with rationality in act.
Therefore and consequently, the superiority of the control of
the libertas quoad exercitium always holds open a breach in
the circle which tends to be closed on the part of reason and
is such that objectivity-rationality
and freedom-responsibility
can and must remain distinct. And this emergence of freedom
is valid first of all for the " existential choice," that is, the
concrete choice of the end, a principle whose importance St.
Thomas knows well and which maybe he does not always explicate in all its consequences, as we have seen:
Voluntas neque subiecto cogi potest, cum non sit organo affixa,
neque obiecto, quantumcumque autem aliquid ostendatur esse
bonum, in potestate eius remanet eligere illud vel non eligere.27
Certainly the will, which necessarily aspires to happiness, will
make its choices but by beginning with the choice itself in
concreto of the concrete end of its own life.
3. Primordiality which grounds the existential choice.
The consequence then of the emergence of the freedom o£
•• In II Sent., d. 39, q. 2, a. 3, ad 5 (Mandonnet II, 994). And a bit before he
states with vigor what the principle of " active indifference " as constitutive of
freedom might say: "Ipsa enim potentia voluntatis, quantum est de se, indifferens
est ad plura; sed quod determinante exeat in hunc actum vel in ilium non est ab
alio determinante, sed ab ipsa voluntate" (Ibid., q. 1, a. 1; Mandonnet II 985).
27 Ibid., d. 25, q. 1, a. 2 (Mandonnet
II, 648). And a bit above: "Hoc ad
libertatem arbitrii pertinet ut actionem aliquam facere vel non facere possit "
(ibid., a. 1, ad 2; Mandonnet II, 646). Again: "Ex hoc liberum arbitrium in
nobis dicitur quod domini sumus nostrorum actuum " (ibid., a. 2 Praeterea); "In
voluntatis potestate est actum non facere sicut et facere" (ibid., d. 35, q. 2, a. 3,
ad 5; Mandonnet II, 907) .

FREEDOM AND EXISTENCE

547

exercise is that is has repercussions on freedom of specification
controlling it; this is the reason why all of those yet desiring
happiness eventually choose different ends in the concrete, and
sometimes also opposed ends, for their own life; some pleasures,
some glory, etc.:
" ... vita ergo voluptuosa dicitur, quae finem constituit in
voluptate sensibili. Vita vero civilis dicitur quae finem constituit
in bono practicae rationis, puta in exercitio virtuosorum operum.
Vita autem ·Contemplativa, quae constituit finem in bono rationis
speculativae, vel in contemplatione veritatis. 28
For this concrete choice of the end which founds the prime
morality of human activity, the first to be held responsible is
the will, not the passions, not even the intellect because the
will has the capacity to control the former and to direct the
latter. This is already included in the very notion of the rational appetite which is distinguished from the natural and animal
appetite, which is " ... determinatus ad unum ab alio " (that
is, by the Author of nature), inasmuch as man, knowing the
reason of the end, " ... finem sibi praestituere potest." 29 It is
obvious that in this existential choice of the end the will and
reason colloborate in such a way that, while the aspiration of
the end which follows on the indetermined knowledge of the
good is the simple response of the will to the presentation of
the good in general made by the intellect, on the contrary in
the concrete choice of the end the first movement comes from
the will itself and is a true choice inasmuch as " ... eligere est
alterum alteri preoptare." 30 It is interesting to observe that St.
I Ethic., lect. 5, c. 3, n. 59.
In II Sent., d. 25, q. 1, a. 1 (Mandonnet II, 645). Thus: " ... etsi ratio
obnubiletur a passione, remanet tamen aliquid rationis liberum. Et secundum hoc
potest aliquid vel totaliter passionem repellere; vel saltern se tenere ne passionem
sequatur" (Summa Theol., I-II, q. 10, a. 3, ad 2).
30 Ibid., d. £4, q. 1, a. 1 (Mandonnet
II, 593). Fo St. Thomas himsel£ the fact
that ". . . ratio beatitudinis nota est" does not take away the fact that
" ... beatitudo sit occulta quoad substantiam; omnes enim per beatitudinem intelligunt quemdam perfectissimum statum; sed in quo consistat ille status perfectus,
utrum in vita vel post mortem, vel in bonis corporalibus, vel spiritualibus, et in
28
29

548

CORNELIO FABRO

Thomas, still with reference to the Philosopher, approaches as
it were the nucleus of the problem, but in a disheartening way,
that is, after having reaffirmed that" libertas arbitrii (electio)
non se extendit nisi ad ea quae sunt ad finem.'' Indeed he
writes:
Quod autem in hoc particulari hie homo ultimam suam felicitatem,
ille autem in illo ponat, non convenit huic aut illi inquantum est
homo, cum in tali aestimatione et appetitu homines difl'erant, sed
unicuique hoc competit secundum quod est in se aliqualis. Dico
autem aliqualem, secundum aliquam passionem vel habitum; unde
si transmutetur, aliud ei optimum videbitur. Et hoc maxime patet
in his qui passione appetunt aliquid ut optimum, cessante autem
passione, ut irae, vel concupiscentiae, non similiter iudicant illud
bonum ut prius. Habitus autem permanentiores sunt, unde firmius
perseverant in his quae ex habitu prosequuntur. Tamen quandiu
habitus mutari potest, etiam appetitus et aestimatio hominis de
ultimo fine mutatur. 81
St. Thomas himself affirms expressly that ". . . agens per
voluntatem praestituit sibi finem propter quem agit," 32 which
can be different from the Summum Bonum, as it is said, and
becomes then the fall (defectus et peccatum) into sin as fixed
in its own subjective good, " ... per hoc quod voluntas remanet
fixa in proprio bono non tendendo ulterius in summum bonum,
quod est ultimus finis." 83 And the soul of the damned, not
differently from that of the fallen angels, will remain fixed
eternally in its wrong and obstinate choice in the evil in which
it will be seen found at the moment of death, as the elect and
quibus spiritualibus, occultum est" (Ibid., d. 38, q. I, a. 2, ad 2; Mandonnet II,
972).
31 Co-mpendium Theologiae, c. 174 (ed. Taur., n. 346, p. 82 a).
The (implicit)
allusion to Aristotle is in the expression " ... sed unicuique hoc competit secundum
quod est in se aliqualis " which is customarily quoted in the formula: " Qualis
unusquique est, talis finis videtur ei" (cf. for example, Summa Theol., I-II, q. 9,
a. 2). In the original: ... dXX' tnroi6s 11"11. oKa.u.,.6s ou'Tl, 'TIJ.WV'TO Ka.i .,.c, TeXos
¢a.lvera.< .,.{J.,.ij, (E. N. III, 5 1114 a 32). The expression remains undetermined and
St. Thomas understands it of the situation of passion. On the other hand, freedor.:t
according to the Angelic Doctor can control also the passions and thus its
supremacy is reaffirmed also for the choice of the end.
•• Ibid., c. 96 (ed. cit., n. 183, p. 46 b).
83 Ibid., c. 113 (ed. cit., n. 222, p. 55 b). Cf. also c. 120.

FREEDOM AND EXISTENCE

549

the good angels" ... habebunt voluntatem firmatam in bono." 84
Thus on the existential plane the final and decisive exit from
life depends on the ultimate concrete choice of the end in
concreto in its conformity or disformity with respect to the
attainment of God.
But there is more, to show that under the Aristotelian framework there abides in the Thomistic doctrine of freedom a new
spirit of existential impression. For Aristotle, the happiness of
man on this earth consists in the consideration of the speculative sciences with which he becomes a bit like God. 85 The lack
then of the prospective of personal immortality in Aristotle
results from his affirmation that it is a question of aspiration
of an " impossible thing " (f3oVA'Y)(J"tr:;o' f(J"Tt Kat TCOV aovvchrov, oiov
MJava(J"iar:;).36 Thomistic ethics, in this regard, has exactly reversed the situation through the ideal of Christian hope which
makes God himself and not vaguely happiness reachable in the
other life as the real beatifying end of man.
Therefore, in Thomistic ethics, it is now clear, the ultimate
real end of man is God who is and becomes " object of choice "
and thus of deliberation and who can be also rejected on the
existential plane, while on the formal plane the bonum in communi is only the object of "intentio"; as end freely chosen
God must control every intentional sector of the further choices
required to reach him ". . . post hanc vitam." And thus the
interior dynamism of the will is stabilized in the good, and
Ibid, c. 174 fine (ed. cit., n. 846, p.
b).
Cf. Metaph. XII, 7,
b
s. R. Schaerer has made very pertinent observations on the difficult intertwining of necessity and freedom in the aspiration
for happiness in poetry and Greek philosophy in his L'homme devant ses choix
dans la tradition grecque (Louvain-Paris, 1965), spec. p. 48 ss.
86 This radical and final frustration
of man in the classical world, and especially
for Aristotle, is expressly noted with sadness and delicacy by St. Thomas himself:
" Quia vero Aristoteles vidit quod non est alia cognitio hominis in hac vita quam
per scientias speculativas, posuit hominem non consequi felicitatem perfectam, sed
suo modo. In quo satis apparet quantum angustiam patiebantur hinc inde eorum
praeclara ingenia. A quibus angustiis liberabimur si ponamus, secundum probationes praemissas, hominem ad veram felicitatem post hanc vitam pervenire posse,
anima hominis immortali existente in quo statu anima intelliget per modum quo
intelligunt substantiae separatae " (Ill Cont. Gent., c. 48 in fine) .
34
35

550

CORNELIO FABRO

therefore the moral quality of the interior person who is called
" good " by reason of the " good will," as has already been
alluded to. 37 And the reason for this dignity and responsibility
is taken from the motio quoad exercitium which the will exercises over itself and over all the powers with respect to the attainment of the end.
Homo non dicitur bonus simpliciter ex eo quod est in parte
bonus, sed ex eo quod secundum totum est bonus; quod quidem
contingit per bonitatem voluntatis. Nam voluntas imperat actibus
omnium potentiarum humanarum. Quod provenit ex hoc quod
quilibet actus est bonum suae potentiae; unde solus ille dicitur esse
bonus homo simpliciter qui habet bonam voluntatem. 38

This active existential supremacy of the will is the more felt
need of modern thought which nevertheless has timorously
swung between the absorption of the will by the intellect and
of the intellect by the will opting either for the control of reason
or the titanism of action.
The dynamic priority of the will is thus the expression itself
of the prime source of the act, and therefore of human responsibility, in the same secret sanctuary of truth:
Voluntas movet intellectum quantum ad exercitium actus, quia
est ipsum verum quod est perfectio intellectus continetur sub universali bono ut quoddam bonum particulare. 39

Thus with a phrase no less bold than the modern cogito St.
Thomas proclaims the dynamic priority of the will over the
37 And in a context
similar to those already cited: " Simpliciter autem et
totaliter bonus dicitur aliquis ex hoc habet voluntatem bonam, quia per voluntatem
homo utitur omnibus aliis potentiis. Et ideo bona voluntas facit hominem bonum
simpliciter; et propter hoc virtus appetitivae partis secundum quam voluntas fit
bona, est quae simpliciter bonum facit habentem" (De Virtut. in Comm., q. un.,
a. 9 ad 16). Also in a youthful text: "Quamvis voluntas bonum appetat non
tamen appetit semper quod est vere sibi bonum, sed id quod est apparens bonum;
et quamvis omnis homo beatitudinern appetat, non tarnen quaerit earn in eo ubi
est vera beatitudo, sed ubi non est, et ideo nititur ad earn pervenire non per rectam
<viam; et propter hoc non opportet quod ornnis voluntas sit bona" (In II Sent.,
d. 38, q. 1, a. 4, ad 3; Mandonnet II, 979).
38 De Virtut. in Comm., q. un., a. 7, ad
•• Summa Theol., I-II, a. 9, a. 1, ad 3.

FREEDOM AND EXISTENCE

551

intellect in which the existential realization of the person consists, "lntelligo quia vola et similiter utor omnibus potentiis
et habitibus quia vola." 40 And, whatever might have been the
formalistic objectivism of Scholasticism and the tradition itself
of the Thomistic school, this is brought back to the ultimate
root of the subjectivity of the person: " omnis actus voluntati.y
est prior quam aliquis actus intellectus; voluntas enim tendit
in finalem actum intellectus qui est beatitudo." 41 Therefore
this moves the intellect to intend, but the basic reason of the
establishment of freedom, according to St. Thomas, as for
modern philosophy, is that the will is free because it can move
itself:
Quia voluntas domina est sui actus et in ipsa est velle et non
velle; quod non esset si non haberet potestatem movere seipsam
ad volendum. 42

Mistress of itself, the will can go out into the world and face
the risks of life, the conquests of technique, the contest against
death.
CONCLUSION
There is no doubt that St. Thomas in articulating the whole
of his thought, above all on the theological and mystical levels
(of the control of the will in the economy of the theological
virtues, of the gifts of the Holy Spirit, and especially of charity
" mater et forma omnium virtutem ") has generously filled up
the Aristotelian lacuna in the constitutive moment of the choice
of the end on the natural plane of the existential choice. One
cannot therefore reduce the essence of the Thomistic freedom
to the " negative indifference " of the subject with respect to
finite goods.43
De Malo., q. 6, a. un.
Ibid., q. 9, a. S.
41 Summa Theol., I-II, q. 4, a. 4, ad
•• For example, W. Hoeres, Der Wille als reine Volkommenheit nach Duns Scotus
(Miinchen,
p.
ss. Pompanazzi who, in the Renaissance, made the most
extensive and acute analysis of our problem, seems to restrict the activity of freedom to the " suspensio actus," that is, to the refusal of the velle in face of the
40
42

552

CORNELIO FABRO

1. It is in virtue of the active emergence of the libertas
exercitii (velle, non velle) over the libertas quoad determinationem (velle hoc vel illud) that for St. Thomas the will can
control the multiple pressure which is not only objective from
things (real values, utility, advantages, etc.) but also subjective (inclinations, passions, aspirations, etc.) .
2. It is the libertas exercitii, inasmuch as the will moves the
intellect to consilium (which St. Thomas expresses as refiexio,
oollatio, etc), to check the immediate objective and subjective
impulses in order to put the will in the condition of carrying
out with responsibility its choice of the concrete good and to
orientate the choice of the means towards the good (ultimate
concrete end) which it alone and of itself can and must choose
at its own risk and peril.
3. Because inasmuch as the libertas exeroitii can make "by
itself alone" the first active choice putting into action the velle
or non-velle, this creates and resolves of itself the tensions toward the option and fundamental choice of the (ultimate) concrete end (which St. Thomas implicitly admits and which
Scotus because of the unconditioned primacy of the will seems
to ignore).
4. Consequently, with the terms "indifferens," "indifferenter," etc., St. Thomas indicates the will with respect to goods
(ends and means) at the moment of the libertas quoad determinationem, that is, acting as the reflection and collatio of
the oonsilium which precedes the radical option or electio of
the concrete end and the choice of means.
5. Hence properly in the absolute sense, for St. Thomas the
will " follows " simply the intellect alone in the first moment
of the simplex apprehensio entis ut perfectivi (bonum) to which
it responds with the simplex intentio boni et finis but in order
good presented hy the intellect (De fato, lih. III, c. 8; ed. Lemay, p. 263, I. 8.23). It
must he admitted that, because the suspensio which refuses and the acceptatio
which welcomes coexist in the potentiality of the will, the decision (whatever it
is) must he made in relation to an active choice which is precisely the existential
choice of the good and end in concreto (of which Pomponazzi gave no hint, it
seems to me), a choice which is an initiative and a risk precisely of freedom itself.

FREEDOM AND EXISTENCE

553

to take at once the command of the interior life of the Spirit.
Hence in a paradoxical sense the indifference which is called
objective (as when, for example, Kierkegaard says he has 1'7
motives for marrying and 17 for not marrying!) manifests itself
to be also this in concreto subjective, and it is properly the very
condition of " radical freedom," that is, it is the platform which
freedom itself creates in order to make the leap to venture on
the risk of the radical choice.
In the modern thought from the extreme intellectualism of
freedom-spontaneity-necessity
(Spinoza-Leibnitz) and of the
extreme formalism of "you must" (Kant) one has reached
with Fichte-Schelling-Hegel the resolution of the being into
freedom, which forms precisely the " beginning " in the life of
the spirit according to the drastic and lapidary formula of
Fichte which can be valid for all modern thought " whether
you derive being from freedom or rather freedom from being,
it is always and only the derivation of the same thing, considered only in a different way; indeed freedom or knowledge
is being itself." 44 And in this intensive act consists the fichtean
"intellectual intuition" (intellektuelle Anschauung) . This extreme reduction of being to knowledge and of knowledge to will
depends, as was said in the beginning, on the pretense of the
absolute radical doubt or of willing to base being on thought
" without presuppositions " (Voraussetzungslosigkeit) . This is
a pretence in itself without sense and without possibility of success, as it is on the way of demonstrating, with tragic consequences of total loss of life and of culture, the consistent development of contemporary thought which has solved this
cogito-volo in the loss to the infinite of the Ego as possibility of
possibility or without aim because it always relapses into the
nothingness of being which constitutes it. Whence also the
surmounting of the metaphysics and the radical historicism of
the so-called " transcendental anthropology " which then is
a desire to introduce in this second post-war period in philoso44

Cf. C. Fabro, La Svolta Antropologica di Karl Rahner (Milano: Rusconi,

1974).

554

CORNELIO FABRO

phy and theology itself as realization of the program of " aggiornamento" of Christian thought with modern thought. But
more than aggiornamento, in this tactic one surrenders with
arms and baggage to the adversary (as Hermes, GUnther,
Frohschammer, etc., did a century ago, until K. Rahner today); 45 by this means one does not entirely safeguard freedom
but one discharges it in the becoming of the Ego in history. 46
It can be recognized that Hegel had come sufficiently close to
the core of the essence of freedom as tension of choice of the Ego
(and mutual basis of transcendental osmosis, as was said
above) in the convergence of horizontalness (the finite) and
verticalness (the Absolute), when he wrote that "first of all
then self-.consciousness as immediate is prisoner of its naturalness-corresponding, I think, to the simplex volitio boni and
to the intentio finis in concreto of St. Thomas-this is free only
formally, it is not the consciousness of its infinite freedom; !t
is determined and therefore also its object is determined and
therefore also its object is determined and freedom is as united
with it only formally, it is not united in se and per se." 47 Fo:r
•• " Ob das Sein von der Freiheit, oder die Freiheit von dem Sein ableitest,
ist es immer nur die Ableitung desselben von desselben, nur verschieden angesehen;
denn die Freiheit oder das Wissen ist das Sein selbst " (Fichte, Darstellung der
Wissenschaftslehre 1801, § 17; Medicus IV, 34).
•• The cartesiam phenomenologist Sartre is correct when he restores to the
hegelian Heidegger the proper notion of freedom wholly centered on the act, that
is, reduced to only the "libertas quoad exercitium" (horizontalness):
"La condition fondamentale de l'acte est la liberte n'a pas d'essence. Elle n'est soumise
a aucune necessite logique; c'est d'elle qu'il faudrait dire ce que Heidegger dit du
Dasein en general: "En elle l'existence precede et commande l'essence'." Hence
the disturbing definition of freedom as permanent void, negativity, negativization,
etc. (cf. J.-P. Sartre, L'Etre et le neant [Paris, 1943], p. 513). The opus terminates
with the definition which sanctions the continuous loss that the Ego makes pf
itself" "Un.e liberte qui se veut, c'est en effet un etre-qui-n'est-pas-ce-qu'il-est
et qui-est-ce-qu'il-n'est-pas qui choisit, come ideal d'etre, l'etre-ce-qu'il-n'est-pas et
le n'etre-pas-ce-qu'il-est. II choisit done non de se reprendre, mais de se fuir, non
de coincider avec soi, mais d'etre toujours a distance de soi " (p. 722) .
"" Zuerst aber ist das Selbstbewusstein als unmittelbares in seiner Natiirlichkeit
befangen; es ist nur formell frei, nicht das Bewusstein seiner unendlichen Freiheit;
es ist bestimmt, und daher ist auch sein Gegenstand ein bestimmer und die Freiheit
als Einheit mit ihm nur formell, nicht die an und fur sich seiende" (Hegel, Vorles.
uber die Philosophie der Religion, Lasson I, p. 260). The
Thomistic line

FREEDOM AND EXISTENCE

555

Hegel then as the Erscheinung has no truth without reference
to W esen nor the finite has reality without basis in the Absolute, so freedom of the subject (finite) wastes away in the
loss of the finite choices (the schlechte Unendlichkeit) and is
authenticated only in reference to the Infinite. It is on this
radical reference to the Absolute that also for St. Thomas, unlike Aristotle, radical freedom is realized and can " go in itself "
in its accomplishments.
St. Thomas on his part refers eminently to " freedom of reflection " as act of " reflection of freedom " ; in this one must
realize not only the responsible choice of means with respect
to end but first and above all the choice of the end itself in
the awareness of the tension of finite and Infinite ... , of the
opposition of pleasure and integrity ... in which consists the
risk of liberty itself which, immersed in time, opts with obsolute abandonment in God for eternity. But one is scarcely
dealing with signs: the theoretical structure of Thomistic freedom has remained formal, so at least it has been interpreted
and so also it has passed into the polemics of history, even if
a "more interior" reading of the texts would have been able
to temper this formalism. And so one can still point out in St.
Thomas some other flash of genuine advertence of the basic
seems to be perfectly consistent: Just as God who is the intensive lpsum esae,
principle and cause of every reality and in particular of the actus essendi (esse)
which is participated by creatures, so God is the first intensive principle, that is,
total and embracing (as First Cause) of action and thus also of freedom itself
according to the analogy of being itself. It is understandable then that the obscurity to which the notion of actus essendi and the capital distinction of essentia
and esse were subjected immediately after the death of St. Thomas in the Thomistic
school itself which lead it from the profound metaphysical plane to the phenomenologicalontic plane of esse essentiae and esse existentiae, then reduced to
essentia and existntia has lead to the obscurity also of the notion of freedom and
to the misunderstanding of the De Auxiliis controversy according to the opposition
of the rigid horizontalism of Molina (God and man as two partners ... as two
horses drawing a ship) and of the rigid verticalism of Bafiez. Not by chance
does Bafiez also treat esse as existentia and therefore does not succeed in grasping
the sense and the original metaphysical burden of the Thomistic distinction of
essentia and esse (C. Fabro, L'obscurcissement de l'esse dans l'ecole thomiste,
Revue Thomiste, 3 [1958], 443 ss; idem, Participation et causalite [Louvain-Paris,
1960], p.
ed. it., Torino, 1960, pp.
465 nota, 614 ss.).

556

CORNELIO FABRO

subjectivity, which pertains to the will and to freedom, which
brings us back fully to the existential sphere. As the following
text which precises the relationship of the influence of God
on created freedom:
. . . dicendum quod Deus operatur in unoquoque agente etiam
secundum modum illius agentis; sicut causa prima operatur in
operatione causae secundae, cum secunda causa non possit in actum
procedere nisi per virtutem causae primae. Uncle per hoc quod
Deus est causa operans in cordibus hominum, non excluditur quin
ipsae humanae mentes sint causae suorum motuum: uncle non
tollitur ratio libertatis. 48
This " relinquitur " sweeps away every schema of simple vertical descending causality and exalts to the infinite the synthesis,
in human freedom, of horizontal and vertical causality ascending in the conscious and free fullness which the finite spirit
assumes" before God" (Kierkegaard) of his own destiny. But
also the situating of man before God is therefore a choice, and
it is the choice of choices, the more intense act of subjectivity
which creates the supreme leap of quality of the spirit.
CoRNELIO

F ABRO

University of Perugia
P erugia, Italy

48 De Verit. q. 24, a. 1 ad 3. Similarly, with equal precision, in Summa Theol.
(I-II, q. 9, a. 6, ad 3): "Deus movet voluntatem hominis, sicut universalis
motor, ad universale obiectum voluntatis, quod est bonum. Et sine hac universali
motione homo non potest aliquid velle, sed homo per rationem determinat se ad
volendum hoc vel illud, quod est vere bonum vel apparens bonum. Sed tamen
interdum specialiter Deus movet aliquos ad aliquid determinate volendum, quod
est bonum; sicut in his quod movet per gratiam."

LITURGY IN THE THEOLOGY OF ST. THOMAS

S

INCE LITURGY became respectable there have been
numerous attempts to write a theology of it. Obviously
one can, and does nowadays, write a theology of almost
anything-from history to revolution, from leisure to clothes,
from sin to sport. But when liturgy is recognized to mean the
substance no less than the shape of the Church's worship it
becomes imperative to examine it on a theological level. In
its program for liturgical studies Vatican II puts the theological
aspect of the subject in the first place. 1
The literary form of theological studies on the liturgy can
be the theological monograph or some chapters in a book that
also deals with liturgy on other levels-historical, pastoral,
spiritual, ceremonial, aesthetic. These forms have, of necessity,
to take a great deal for granted about theology. They apply
theological categories, principles, and presuppositions to the
subject in hand without having the time or space to analyze or
evaluate them. Their theological assumptions are often unspoken or barely confessed. If theology were being done within
a single tradition, where there is general agreement on principles
and presuppositions, there might be no cause for concern here.
But in an era of theological pluralism and inter-Church debate
one cannot presume such agreement. If the writer on liturgy
does not declare his standpoint and explain his theological
horizon he will find it difficult to engage in theological debate
about liturgy, as about anything else, with those who stand
outside his tradition. And he will say nothing much of interest
to those who stand outside the ground of faith and who would
require the liturgical life of the church to be submitted to some
kind of rational verification.
1

Constitution on the Liturgy, Saerosanctum Ooncilium, nn. 16, !'l8.

557

558

LIAM G. WALSH

It might be claimed that contemporary

theology of the
liturgy avoids the pitfalls of pluralism by going back to categories that are predominantly biblical and patristic. Apart from
the fact that these are the indispensible source categories of
revelation, they predate the dogmatic disputes of the churches
and the theological particularism of the schools and are generally accepted by all Christians. However, the course of contemporary theology surely shows that what is built from a
common fund of biblical and traditional material is inevitably
influenced by the dogmatic and philosophical stance of different
writers. A theologian of the liturgy who is honest about his
hermeneutical presuppositions will not be deceived by a convergence' of terminology. In any case, the critical and rational
function of theology and its task of building a bridge between
faith and the capital of human thought require it to verify the
ontological ground of revealed ideas. The fact that the Bible
records the belief of a group of people in God and gives details
of their worship is no guarantee that there is any such thing as
God in reality; their belief that the mystery of salvation is embodied in certain events, persons or rituals is of itself no guarantee that the divine can be contacted by the human through
created intermediaries. A theology of the liturgy that limits
itself to a biblical and traditional explanation of the Church's
worship offers a specious prospect for communication between
religious men and can leave the liturgy defenceless and threatened with absurdity in the face of rational humanistic criticism.
An alternative theological approach to the liturgy is to situate the subject within a comprehensive theology, a theology
which is dealing in the broadest possible way with God and his
relationship to the created order. Such a theology will have
to analyze and justify its own basic assumptions about God and
man. If it is Christian theology it will have to examine the
historical working out of the relationship between God and man
and explain how it culminates in Christ. Then, with its theological, anthropological, and christological presuppositions
confessed and defended it will come to examine the place of the
Church and its liturgy in the actual bringing about of that rela-

LITURGY IN THE THEOLOGY OF ST. THOMAS

559

tionship. The fact that few contemporary theologians are prepared to attempt such a comprehensive task is less a sign of the
impossibility or undesirability of the project than of the priority
that has to be given at present to assembling and assimilating
the vast store of source material that has been presented to
the systematic theologian by biblical, patristic, and historical
studies of all kinds. Meantime, however, it should be interesting and methodologically instructive to look at how the task
was accomplished at an earlier age of theology.
St. Thomas did not write a theology of the liturgy. His thinking about liturgical matters is to be found mainly in his comprehensive theological works-in the two Summa's and in his
commentary on the Sentences. It is found there, not in the
form of a block of material that could be called a theology
of the liturgy, or even a theological tract on the liturgy. When
he comes to deal with the core of the Church's liturgy, in his
discussion of the sacraments towards the end of the Tertia Pars,
he is not opening up a new tract but simply coming in his
own good time to discuss the actual working out of the relationship between God and his creation that has been the subject
of his singleminded study from the first questions of the Prima
Pars. Throughout the Summa he is writing theology pure and
simple, not the theology of this or that. He does not present
a theology of the liturgy but incorporates liturgy in his theology.2 He examines the actual practice of the Church, as he
knew it, in the light of the general principles he has established
about God and man, the possible relationship between them,
and the historical phases of that relationship that have a bearing on present reality (creation, original justice and sin, the
Old Law, the community of salvation, Christ, the Church) .
These principles and historical precedents are his presuppositions. They have been critically examined and explained
throughout the Summa. Now they are being used to provide
a theological interpretation of liturgical data. One may disagree with his principles. But at least one knows what they
• Hence the title of this article.

560

LIAM G. WALSH

are. And one has been invited to debate them to the ultimate
limits of dogmatic and philosophical enquiry.
The working out of these theological presuppositions by St.
Thomas is not entirely independent of the data that they are
ultimately employed to interpret. The given norm of theological endeavor is the life of the believing community. The
theologian must know the expression which the faith of the
community finds in its Scriptures, Creeds, and liturgy. He
must be aware, too, of the direction which the contemporary
community is taking in its attempts to realize its belief and its
hope in a constantly evolving human situation. This datum,
which is the expression of Revelation, is sovereign in theology.
The theologian who does not begin his work by listening to it
risks wandering off on irrelevant, a prioristic speculation. And,
if he ever does get back to employing the speculative principles
he works out to the life of his contemporary Church, he may
find himself at variance with its beliefs and practices and the
directions these are taking in the world of his day. If, for example, a theologian found himself committed to a religious
anthropology which held that ritual symbolical activity is unworthy of man in his dealings with God, he would find himself
embarrassed by the sacramental practice and beliefs of the
Church.
There is good reason for claiming that St. Thomas gives due
theological weight to liturgical data. 3 In his treatment of the
sacraments the usus or consuetudo Ecclesiae, the ritus ab Ecclesia servatus is a solid unquestioned auctoritas. 4 If objections
3 Cf. C. Borobia, " La liturgia come lugar teol6gico en la teologfa sacramentaria
de santo Tomas," in Miscelanea P. Cuervo (Salamanca, 1970) ,229-254; Y. Congar,
0. P., "Faits, problemes et reflections a propos du pouvoir d'ordre et des rapports
entre le presbyterat et l'episcopat," in La Maison Dieu 14 (1948), 107-128; H.
Hering, "De loco theologico liturgiae apud S. Thomam," in Pastor Bonus 5
(1941), 456-464; F. Marin-Sola, 0. P., L'Evolution homogene du dogme catholique
(Fribourg, 1924). Tome I, p. 291 sq.
• To take the Summa Theologiae alone cf. Ill, q. 60, a. 8; q. 66, a. 10; q. 72,
a. 4 sed contra.; q. 72, a. 12 sed contra; q. 73, a. 1 sed contra.; q. 73, a. 2 ad 1;
q. 75, a. 2; q. 76, a. 8 sed contra.; q. 78, a. 6 sed contra.; q. 79, a. 3, obj, I;
q. 79, a. 5 sed contra.; q. 80, a. 12 sed contra.; q. 82, a. 2; q. 83, a. 2; q. 83, a. 3 sed
contra.; q. 83, a. 4; q. 83, a. 5 sed contra.

LITURGY IN THE THEOLOGY OF ST. THOMAS

561

suggest a conflict between principle and practice, it is the
principle that has to be adjusted. In his more abstract theological investigations he is also ready to appeal to liturgical
practice and texts for confirmation of his options. 5 And there
is an even more basic indication that St. Thomas builds his
theological edifice from its very foundations towards an
eventual understanding of Christian liturgy. In the general
prologue to the Summa he explains " propositum nostrae intentionis in hoc opere est ea quae ad christianam religionem
pertinent ... tradere." When he further specifies that " principalis intentio huius sacrae doctrinae est Dei cognitionem
tradere, et non solum secundum quod in se est, sed etiam
secundum quod est principium rerum et finis earum, et specialiter
rationalis creaturae " 6 he is maintaining his concern for religio.
In abstract terms he understands religio to mean " ordo ad
Deum" of those things which take their origin from him. 7 In
concrete terms religio is man's ordo ad Deum worked out historically until it is fulfilled in Christ and mediated to mankind
in the "cultus Dei secundum ritum christianae religionis." 8
This religio is the subject matter of his theology. His method,
beginning as he does with God and proceeding to examine the
exitus of all things from him and their reditus to him, provides
a profoundly theological perspective for understanding liturgy.
Movement from God to man and back to God is the fundamental pattern of liturgy. A liturgist, then, is entitled to claim
that, even in the most abstract speculations of St. Thomas, presuppositions are being established and ideas forged which will
be readymade for an eventual theological explanation of the
Church's worship.11
6 I, q. 23, a. 7; q. 25, a. 3 obj. 1; q. 28, a. 2; q. 52, a. 1 sed contra.; I-II, q. 103,
a. 3 ad 4; q. 113, a. 9 sed contra.; II-II q. 82, a. 3 ad 2; q, 82, a. 4; q. 83, a.17;
III, q. 27, a. 1 sed contra.; q. 27, a. 2 ad 3; q. 31, a. 5 obj. 1.
• I, q. 2, prologus.
7 II-II, q. 81, a. I.
8 III, q. 63, a. 2.
• For an historical survey of the relationship between liturgy and theology, with
a list of contemporary works on the subject, cf. P. Fernandez, "Liturgia y

562

LIAM G. WALSH

In fact, most of the theologies of the liturgy that already
exist within the Catholic tradition are happy to claim support
from St. Thomas. They use his ideas and principles in varying
degrees. However, it may be worth asking whether any of them
represents St. Thomas deepest theological thinking about
liturgy. These theologies can be characterized by the key idea
which they select as the starting-point for understanding
liturgy. One will usually find this at the heart of the "definition" they offer of the liturgy. While few of these writers would
claim to be giving a definition that measures up to all the
technical requirements of logical definition they usually do
attempt a concise, orderly statement of what they consider to
be the essential features of liturgy/ 0 The key idea in some
of these definitions is worship, cultus; in others it is sign, signum; still others define liturgy in terms of the priesthood of
Christ. While each of these ideas is prominent in St. Thomas's
thinking about liturgy, one is entitled to ask which, if any of
them, represents his most basic insight on the subject. They
can be examined in turn. If none of them proves entirely satisfactory, another idea will need to be put forward and its claim
to bring the full weight of St. Thomas's theology to bear on
the liturgy justified. Such an idea will put one in touch with
the ultimate presuppositions of his theological thinking about
the liturgy. And it will mark the point at which dialogue might
be undertaken with those outside the thomistic tradition,
whether within the Catholic Church or outside it, and a basis
offered for an intellectual justification of Catholic liturgy to
non-believers.
Liturgical Material
Before various definitions of the liturgy are examined in the
Teologia. La historia de un problema metodologico" in Ciencia Tomista 99 (1972),
185-179. This article deals at some length with the position of St. Thomas.
1 ° Cf. Introduction to the Liturgy
(English trans!. of Part One of L'Eglise en
priere, 8rd edit., edited by A. G. Martimort), Shannon, 1968, 1-12; H. Schmidt,
S. J., Introductio in Liturgiam Occidentalem (Herder, 1960), 47-87; J. H. Miller,
C. S. C., "The Nature and Definition of the Liturgy," in Theological Studies 18
(1957). 825-856.

LITURGY IN THE THEOLOGY OF ST. THOMAS

568

way that has been proposed a preliminary word has to be
said about what is being defined. For purposes of comparison
one must be sure that the ideas being put forward are all meant
to define the same thing, since any debate about definition supposes agreement on the material or objects to be covered by
the definition. And if one is appealing to ideas taken from an
author of the past, such as St. Thomas, one has to establish
that he was dealing with the same range of material. Otherwise
his ideas cannot be compared with those of the present.
From the time the word liturgy came to be used in its modern
sense there has in fact been some uncertainty about what
precisely should be covered by it. Nowadays, however, there
seems to be general agreement to let the teaching authorities
of the Church be the arbiters of what is liturgical and what
is not. The official liturgical books of the Church separate
liturgies from pia exercitia or private devotions. Of course, the
frontier between the two areas shifts from time to time, and
some ceremonies may find themselves now at one side now
at the other. The sensus fidelium has a legitimate right to
dialogue with the Magisterium on these matters. The theologian, for his part, will try to work out criteria to help the
Magisterium decide what is liturgical and what is not. But
at the beginning of his work he must adopt a provisional classification of liturgical material based on the practice of his
contemporary Church. At the present day he will take as his
guideline the constitution Sacrosanctum Concilium of Vatican
II, with the various instructions and liturgical books that have
been issued to implement it. This is the material that contemporary definitions of the liturgy will want to make intelligible.
The liturgical material which St. Thomas considered was
presented to him by the legislation and practice of the mediaeval Latin Church. It was not the most enlightened period
of liturgical history. The tradition had become somewhat narrow and static. There was not a great deal of historical information available, and the criterion of development was

564

LIAM G. WALSH

canonical precedent rather than living tradition. Allegorical
interpretation tended to obscure the real meaning of liturgical
forms. A clerical and monastic bias left little room for active
ceremonial participation in the the liturgy by the laity. St.
Thomas was certainly influenced and limited by prevailing attitudes and practices. But one can hardly claim that he deviates substantially from the essential liturgical tradition of the
Church. All the main elements that we now recognize as
liturgical-the seven sacraments, the prayer of the hours, the
main feasts of the calendar, and the architectural, artistic, and
musical setting of these activities-are certainly identified by
him as special subjects of theological analysis. He attempts to
cope with such historical material as was available to him; ll
he recognizes the legitimacy of the Greek rite; 12 his commentaries on the ritual of sacraments are quite realistic, with
only occasional concessions to allegory; 13 his discussions on the
subjectum (i.e., recipient) of sacraments and on the sacramental character show a fundamentally sound appreciation
of the need for active participation/ 4 and therefore for what
he calls the solemnitas 15 built around the essential core of
liturgical signs. A contemporary liturgist, then, can identify
quite well with St. Thomas's choice of liturgical material. He
can feel confident that ideas used by St. Thomas to understand
the ritus christianae religion.is are relevant to his own field of
investigation.
11 There are frequent references to earlier liturgical legislation in his sacramental
theology. Among the admittedly rare attempts he makes to explain the historical
evolution of a liturgical practice cf. III, q. 80, a. 10 ad 5; a. 12.
12 Baptism-III,
q. 60, a. 8; cf. q. 66, a. 5 ad 1; Eucharist-III, q. 74, a. 4; cf.
Cont. Errores Graecorum II, 28; for a general remark supporting the principle of
liturgical pluralism cf. Summa Theol., II-II, q. 93, a. 1 ad 3.
18 Cf. for example his analysis of the eucharistic
liturgy in Summa Theol., III,
q. 83, a. 4. On the reaction against allegory spearheaded by St. Albert the Great
cf. J. Jungmann, S. J., Missarum Sollemnia, vol. 1, english trans!. p. 113. Jungmann,
however, claims that the Summa still makes too many concessions to allegorism,
p. 114.
14 Cf. C. O'Neill, 0. P., "The role of the recipient and sacramental signification"
in The Thomist 21 (1958), 257-31, 508-540.
15 f umma Theol., III, q. 64, a.
ad 1; q. 66, a. 10; q. 72, a. 4.

LITURGY IN THE THEOLOGY OF ST. THOMAS

565

Liturgy as worship
Once it was established that liturgy was something more
than the Church's external pomp and circumstance, to be defined descriptively, liturgists began to search for its deeper theological meaning. In constructing their theological definitions
of the liturgy they turned first to the notion of e1dtus (cult,
worship) .16 Here was a ready-made idea, with profound theological resonances, which seemed to give its essential theological intelligibility to liturgical activity. A thorough analysis
of cult was available in St. Thomas's treatment of the virtue
of religion. His ideas were gratefully employed in working out
the implications of defining liturgy in terms of worship. 17 His
thinking on the relationship between internal and external
worship was considered particularly valuable. There could be
little danger of reducing liturgy to external ceremonial when
one conceived cult as a personal moral act of the virtue of religion. To say liturgy was cult was to say it was primarily an
interior relationship with God; all its external features were
meant to serve that relationship.
There is little doubt that the notion of cult is essential to a
theological understanding of liturgy. But whether it is the best
starting point for such an understanding may be questioned.
Some theologians are slightly suspicious of it insofar as it is a
" rational " notion, derived from a philosophico-ethical analysis
of the relationship between man and God.18 This objection has
some weight if the idea of worship is being put forward as an
a priori concept from which one claims to deduce the reality
of Christian liturgy. But when it is simply being used, and
used analogically, to provide an understanding of the given
There is a comprehensive list of these definitions in Schmidt, op. cit., pp. 48-60.
J. M. Hanssens, "De Natura Liturgiae ad mentem S. Thomae," in Periodica
de re morali, canonica, liturgica 24 (1935), 127*-165*; J. Menessier, 0. P., "L'idee
du sacre et le cult d'apres S. Thomas," in Rev. des Sc. Phil. et Theol. 19 (1930),
63-82 and "Les realites sacrees dans le cult C'hretien," ibid. 20 (1931), 276-286,
453-471; J. Lecuyer, "Reflexions sur la theologie du cult selon saint Thomas," in
Revue Thomiste 55 (1955), 339-362.
18 Cf. Introduction to the Liturgy
(Martimort), pp. 183-186.
16

17

566

LIAM G. WALSH

reality of Christian liturgy, which is what St. Thomas is doing,
one can have little ground for complaint-unless one is prepared to discredit the whole idea of a philosophical theology.
A more serious difficulty about the use of cult as the generic
element in the definition of liturgy is that it gives first place
to what may be called the upward movement of the liturgy
(from man to God) and does not make explicit its downward
movement (from God to man). Certainly any Christian idea
of worship carries an implicit awareness of the movement from
God to man, because it comes out of a background of belief
that in the order of grace nothing can come from man that
has not first been put there by God. But it is one thing to
say grace is a prerequisite for liturgy, quite another to say
that grace is actually given in and through the liturgy. A
definition which does not make the sanctifying power of the
liturgy explicit would seem to be inadequate. It is worth remembering that when the notion of cult was first employed to
define the liturgy there was still some uncertainty about
whether and in what sense the sacraments belonged to liturgy .19
The Mass easily earned its place because as a sacrifice it was
obviously an act of worship. But as long as sacraments were
conceived almost exclusively as means of sanctification their
relevance to the liturgy was not immediately obvious. When
the liturgical movement began to make it clear that all seven
sacraments were liturgies, and together formed the very core
of liturgy, the cult movement of the sacraments had to be
recognized. But at the same time the sanctifying power associated with the sacraments had to be predicated of the liturgy
as such. Now it has been found difficult to fit the idea of sanctification into a definition of liturgy which is committed to the
idea of cult as its starting point. If one were looking to St.
Thomas for guidance on how to do it one might note that when
he comes to discuss what is now recognized as the heart of the
liturgy, the sacraments, it is not to the notion of cult he first
turns. Nor does he begin with the notion of sanctification: he
19

Ibid. p. 186.

LITURGY IN THE THEOLOGY OF ST. THOMAS

567

refuses to define sacrament as a cause of grace. He opts instead
for a more general idea, which will allow him later to coordinate cult and sanctification-the idea of sign. 20 And it is,
in fact, with this very idea that some more recent theologians
have begun their definitions of the liturgy.

Liturgy as Sign
The notion of sign has been current in Latin sacramental
theology at least since St. Augustine. After its prominence in
St. Thomas it had a somewhat uncertain career. Because the
Council of Trent was preoccupied with the causality of the
sacraments, it tended to play down their sign value. It has
never been easy to coordinate signification and causality in
thinking about sacraments: the temptation, to which many o£
the Reformers seem to have succumbed, is to reduce their
causality to that exercised by merely human signs. PostTridentine Catholic theology, taking no chances on the ex opere
operata causality of the sacraments, did not make much use of
the concept sign at the heart of its sacramental theology. Eventually the theories of Cardinal Billot on sacramental causality
thrust the question of sign back into the center of the debate
about sacraments. And modern personalist theologians have
made sign once again a key feature of their explanation of
sacraments.
The liturgical movement was obviously a force in the restoration of sign to sacramental thinking. Its pastoral instinct about
the celebration of sacraments was confirmed by this kind of
sacramental theory. But liturgists were more aware than most
theologians that the sanctifying effect of sacraments took place
in a context of worship. They were also more aware than most
that the sanctification occurred not just in and through the essential matter and form of the sign but through the entire
liturgical ritual. Hence it was natural that they would extend
the notion of sign from sacramental theology to the theology
of liturgy, and that they would come to define liturgy as a com20

Summa Theol., Til, q. 60, a. 1

568

LIAM G. WALSH

plex of signs that express and realize both sanctification and
worship. 21
Although it must be admitted that cult definitions of the
liturgy are still more common than sign definitions, an indication of how theological thought on the matter is developing can
be gained from a comparison of two major Church statements
about the liturgy. The encyclical ll!fediator Dei defined the
liturgy solely in terms of cult. 22 There is no mention of sign,
nor does the idea get much prominence anywhere in the encyclical. Sanctification is not included in the definition, although it is dealt with elsewhere in the text. The corresponding
passage of Vatican II, Sacrosanctum Concilium shows a definite
development. 28 The double movement of the liturgy is explicitly recognized, and the notion of sign is introduced. The
Council says explicitly that sanctification is done through signs;
it does not say explicitly that worship is expressed by these
same signs. However, in other passages where it is dealing with
the worship movement of the liturgy the Council draws· conclusions from the fact that the liturgy is a system of signs.24
It seems to be quite in accordance with current Church teaching,
therefore, to define liturgy as a complex of signs that simultaneously expresses and effects the sanctification of men by God
and the worship of God by men.
01 C. Vagaggini, 0. S. B. Theological Dimensions of the Liturgy, vol. 1 (translated from
Italian edition of ll senso theologico deUa Liturgia) Collegevai.,,
1959, defines liturgy as " the complexus of the efficacious signs of the Church's
sanctification and of her worship " (p. 17) .
••" Sacra igitur Liturgia cultum publicum constituit, quem Redemptor noster,
Ecclesiae Caput, caelesti Patri habet; quemque christifidelium societas Conditori
suo et per ipsum aeterno Patri tribuit; utque omnia breviter perstringamus, integrum
constituit publicum cultum mystici lesu Christi Corporis, Capitis nempe membrorumque eius" Mediator Dei,
•• " Merito igitur Liturgia habetur veluti Iesu Christi sacerdotalis muneris exercitatio, in qua per signa sensibilia significatur et modo singnlis proprio efficitur
sanctificatio hominis, et a mystico Iesu Christi Corpore, Capite nempe eiusque
membris integer cultus publicus exercetur." Sacrosanctum Concilium, 7. Cf.
Introduction to the Liturgy (Martimort), pp. 4-6.
88, 47, 59, 60,
The description of the Church itself as a sign,
•• Nn.
introduced in Sacrosanctum Concilium, and developed in Lumen Gentium adds
considerably to the theological worth of the concept.

LITURGY IN THE THEOLOGY OF ST. THOMAS

569

Such a definition can also claim to be faithful to St. Thomas,
even more so than a definition in terms of cult alone. St.
Thomas is far more aware of the double movement of the
liturgy than is often supposed. He has a principle that in the
use of the sacraments (i.e., in their liturgical celebration) two
things have to be taken into account: divine worship and the
sanctification of men-the first being from man to God, the
second from God to man. 25 The fact that he defines sacrament
as sign of sanctification has, perhaps, given the impression that
sign is only applicable to the downward movement of the
liturgy. But in his treatment of the virtue of religion he has
already applied the concept to cult: exterior actions are signs
of interior worship. 26 Sign-making activity is therefore both
sanctification and worship. It is in his analysis of the sacramental character that St. Thomas most fully exploits the double
movement of sign. The characters equip the Christian to make
cultic signs, and it is precisely in those signs that he is sanctified.27 A definition ofliturgy, then, in terms of sign is very much
in line with the theology of St. Thomas, and can be articulated
theologically by means of his principles.
One may ask, however, whether sign is the first and most
fundamental concept that St. Thomas would predicate of the
liturgy. It is a concept that has the advantage of presenting
liturgy as a distinctively human activity; it draws attention to
the anthropological values of the liturgy; it justifies the pursuit
of subjective satisfaction and self-expression. But liturgists,
particularly when they are theologizing about their subject,
have to reconcile the subjective, anthropological values of the
liturgy with its objective, given structure. Liturgy is an objective divine reality and not merely the creation of man's religious
subjectivity. There is a real danger that anything described
25 " Dicendum
quod in usu sacramentorum duo possunt considerari, scilicet
cultus divinus, et sanctificatio hominis: quorum primum pertinet ad hominem
per comparationem ad Deum, secundum autem e converso pertinet ad Deum per
comparationem ad hominem." Summa Theol., III, q. 60, a. 5.
26 Ibid., II-II, q. 81, a. 7 and
q. 83, a.
q. 84,
q. 85, a. I.
27 Cf. C. O'Neill, art. cit. in note 14.

570

LIAM G. WALSH

as sign will be looked at merely from man's point of view, that
its legitimacy and efficacy will be judged solely by its power
to express his beliefs, feelings, and needs, that its conduct will
be organized on a criterion of human satisfaction. The postTridentine theologians were not just tilting at windmills.
The simplest way to guard against this forgetfulness of the
objective, given reality of the liturgy is to specify that the signs
being talked about are instituted by God. That tempers the
freedom allowed to man's subjectivity. But, apart from the
fact that divine institution can be claimed for only a very
limited area of the Church's actual liturgy, the notion of institution by itself may give the impression that the objective
standing of the liturgy is based on little more than a juridical
determination. A more comprehensive way of examing the
question-and one in which the debate about institution finds
a more profound context-is to consider the liturgy as mystery.
The mystery theology initiated by Dom Odo Casel has drawn
compelling attention to the objective reality that is realized in
the rituals of Christian worship. The influence which the ideas
introduced by Casel have had on the theology of the liturgy
has gone a long way towards ensuring that the objective dimension of the liturgy will not be neglected. However, the notion
of mystery is not of itself very helpful in the work of theological
definition. Its biblical and patristic richness has to be translated into something more technically manageable, if it is be
be used in general theology. 28 Out of the attempts to do this
one thing at least has emerged, particularly in debates about
the liturgy: the mystery can be explained in christological
terms. To say the liturgy is a mystery is to say it is an act and
presence of Christ. The specific act of Christ that has caught
the attention of theologians of the Jiturgy in this context is his
priestly act. The objective reality (mystery) of the liturgy is
expressed by defining it as an act of Christ's priesthood.
"" Th. Filthaut, La Theologie des mysteres, expose de la controverse (Tournai:
Desclee, 1954); J. Gaillard 0. S. B., "La theologie des mysteres," in Revue Thomist•
57 (1957)' 510-551.

LITURGY IN THE THEOLOGY OF ST. THOMAS

571

Liturgy as priestly work of Christ
Definitions of liturgy in terms of the priesthood of Christ
have, in fact, been offered by many authors side by side with
or as part of their cult and sign definitions. 29 The concept has
found favor in official teaching. Mediator Dei uses it, although
not as its principal definition of the liturgy. 30 Vatican II makes
it the starting-point of its definition and deduces its judgment
about the objective value and efficacy of the liturgy from it. 31 In
both these documents the link between the priestly work of
Christ and the liturgical activity of the Church is made by
means of the head-member relationship within the mystical
body. It is this relationship that allows one to see acts of the
Church as acts of Christ and conversely find the priestly act
of Christ visibly realized in liturgical signs.
St. Thomas would certainly approve of this way of explaining the objective reality of the liturgy. By defining the sacramental character as a sharing in the priesthood of Christ he
provided a technical theological explanation of how human
liturgical acts can be in reality acts of Christ the priest. 82 His
series of questions in the Summa devoted to the position of
Christ between his Father and the rest of mankind allows one
to understand how the personal liturgy of Christ is the ground
and prototype of the Christian liturgy. 33 Christ's subjection to
the Father, his prayer, his priesthood, his being adored by us
and accepted as our Mediator provide a christological articulation of the objective mystery which is entered into by the
Church when it addresses itself to the Father in submission,
prayer, adoration, sacrifice, and thereby achieves its own predestined adoption through Christ. The basis of the Church's
union with Christ through bodily, institutional contact is developed in the analysis of the Mystical Body, and Christ's head29

References in Introduction to the Liturgy (Martimort),

Mediator Dei, n.
81 Sacrosanctum Concilium, n. 7.
82 Summa Theol., III, q. 63, a. 3.
88 Ibid., qq.

80

p. 4.

LIAM G. WALSH

ship over it. 34 A definition of the liturgy, then, in terms of the
priesthood and headship of Christ can be given detailed technical precision from the resources provided by the christology
of St. Thomas.
But there are features of the christology of St. Thomas which
suggest that a definition of liturgy in terms of the grace, headship, and priesthood of Christ cannot be the last word about
it. The created qualities and prerogatives of Christ's humanity
can only be understood in relation to the Incarnation. His
grace is measured by his divine sonship. The human power and
authority which stems from his grace is ministerial and instrumental. The action by which he causes salvation is theandric.
To explain the full objective mystery of the liturgy it is not
enough to appeal to the human activity of Christ. One has to
raise further questions about how this human activity is a
manifestation and realization of divine activity. This, in turn,
involves appealing to presuppositions about the nature of God
and the nature of man. 35 A christology supposes a theology
(including a theological anthropology) . And for that very reason a christological definition of the liturgy supposes a theological one. Liturgy is the mystery of God before it is the mystery of Christ.
Certainly when liturgists are exploring the idea of mystery
they admit that its ultimate explanation lies in God. But more
often than not they seem to take God somewhat for granted.
Even when they develop the trinitarian pattern of the liturgy
they seldom go beyond an economic trinitarianism. It is arguable that St. Thomas would want to do more than this, that
he would want to employ a strictly theological category to
define the liturgy before specifying the christological property
of it. In fact, some of his most basic statements about liturgy
•• Ibid., q. 8.
85 Thus St. Thomas establishes the convenientia of the Incarnation
by showing
how it accords with the nature of God as benevolent self-giving (ibid., q, 1, a. 1)
and the status of man as an embodied, sinful creature set in history (aa. !'l-6) . His
views of God and man are the presuppositions which underlie all his christology.
They have been critically established in the two earlier parts of the Summa.

LITURGY IN THE THEOLOGY OF ST. THOMAS

578

come in the pre-christologicallevel of his theology, both in the
Contra Gentiles and in the Summa. It is there that he gives
his primary account of the objective divine dimension of the
liturgy.

Liturgy as the Work of God
Liturgists recall that in the Bible the word mystery originally
meant the plan of God's wisdom for the salvation of mankind.
It is this plan that is objectively embodied and revealed in the
liturgy. St. Thomas discusses the objective institutions of
liturgy in this very setting of the plan of God-technically
under the heading of Providence. He situates the subject interestingly in the Contra Gentiles. In the course of a discussion
on how Providence looks after rational creatures in a special
way he introduces the concept of divine law. 36 Having explained
how divine law provides for love and faith he goes on to explain why it also provides man with institutions of worship:
Since it is connatural to man to acquire knowledge through the
senses, and since it is most difficult to arise above sensible things,
divine providence has appointed sensible things as a reminder to
man of things divine, so that thus man's intention might the more
readily be recalled to divine things, not excluding the man whose
mind is not equal to the contemplation of divine things in themselves. For this reason sensible sacrifices were instituted .... Again,
sensible things are employed for man's sanctification, in the shape
of washings, anointings, meat and drink, and the uttering of sensible
words, as signifying to man that he receives intelligible gifts from
an external source, and from God whose name is expressed by
sensible words. Moreover, man performs certain sensible actions,
not to arouse God but to arouse himself to things divine: such as
prostrations, genuflexions, raising the voice and singing. . .. 37

It is also under the heading of law that he deals with the
institutions of worship in the Summa,. More than in the Contra
Gentiles he deals with the actual historical liturgies that have
been provided by God in the Old and New Laws. But a more
significant advance in the Summa is the way in which he co86
87

III Contra Gentiles, c. 114.
Ibid., c. 119.

574

LIAM G. WALSH

ordinates the providence of Law with the providence of grace
in his explanation of liturgy. This whole section of his theology
is, in fact, an examination of the twofold way in which God is
at work in man's search for self-fulfilment by law and by
grace. 38 And while St. Thomas distinguishes the two levels of
divine activity, he is very sensitive to their interaction and to
the way the balance between them changes from the Old to
the New Testament. This contrast between the Testaments,
in terms of law and grace, is important for understanding his
views on the liturgy. What he has to say about the worship
of the New Law is expressed by way of comparison with the
institutions of the Old Law. Consequently it is important to
study his discussion of the Praecepta Caeremonialia, not alone
for the valuable general insights it has into the dynamics of
liturgy but because it provides the point of reference and the
terminology for his study of Christian worship. Those who
would relegate the long, forbidding questions on Old Testament
ceremonial to the limbo of historical curiosities run the risk of
misunderstanding St. Thomas's thinking about liturgy. 89
By treating liturgy under the heading of law St. Thomas
gives basic recognition to its communal, public character. 40
The institutions set up by law are social: they create the community and provide the objective setting and support in which
the individual can practice virtue. Because the liturgical institutions of the Old Law are found in the Bible they are attributed to positive divine law. 41 They embody a revelation
Summa Theol., I-II, q. 90 prol.
He deals with the liturgy of the Old Law in I-II, qq. 101-103 and with the
liturgy of the New Law, ibid., q. 108, aa.
On the historical background and
methodology of his treatment cf. M.-D. Chenu, "La theologie de la loi ancienne
selon saint Thomas," in Revue Thomiste 61 (1961), 485-497; Beryl Smalley,
" William of Auvergne, John of La Rochelle and St. Thomas Aquinas on the Old
Law," in St. Thomas Aquinas, 1274-1974. Commemorative Studies. Pontifical
Institute of Mediaeval Studies (Toronto, 1974). Vol.
4 ° For a more general discussion on this point cf. C.-M.
Travers, 0. P. Valeur
Sociale de la Liturgie (Lex Orandi 5) (Paris, 1946) .
41 Summa Theol., I-II, q. 98, a.
It is because they are in the Bible that St.
Thomas devotes so much space to the ceremonial precepts. He is a theologian who
takes the Bible seriously, cf. Chenu, art. cit.
38

39

LITURGY IN THE THEOLOGY OF ST. THOMAS

575

made to a particular people, who have a special role in the history of salvation, of how the general moral precept to worship
God should be concretely carried out. 42 Such an elaborate code
was needed to protect them from idolatry and to encourage
them to direct all their life to God. 48 But there is a second, even
more fundamental reason why God should have legislated in
such detail: the ceremonies of the Old Testament had to prefigure Christ. 44 St. Thomas considers that this reference to
Christ has to be found in all liturgy, even in those extra-biblical
liturgies which he believes can be legitimately created by
prophetically inspired men. 45 It provides him with a fundamental explanation of why the ceremonies of the Old Law had
to be replaced. They were signs of a Christ who was to come:
they looked forward to him. Once he had come they were no
longer truthful, no longer expressed the objective reality of
salvation; they had to be replaced by commemorative signs,
which looked back in faith and charity to the Christ who had
come. 46
The law-making activity of God, then, which gives external
shape to liturgy, must be coordinated with his grace-giving activity. In Christ grace is objectively realized and available to
humanity. 47 Hence, according to St. Thomas, the New Law
is primarily a " lex indita," an inner enabling impulse of the
Holy Spirit producing justification and virtue. 48 But the new
dispensation does not dispense entirely with external law. Because grace became available in the humanity of Christ it is
fittingly communicated and expressed by men in bodily actions.49 These external actions, to the extent that they are
•• Summa Theol., I-II, q. 101, a. 1.
•• Ibid., a. 8.
•• Ibid., aa. 2-8; q. 102, a. 2.
•• Ibid., q. 108, a. 1. On the basis of this remark of St. Thomas one could find
a meaning and value in the liturgies of non-Christian religions, even in the present
day.
•• Ibid., q. 101, a. 2; q. 108, a. 8. On the need for truthfulness in liturgical signs
cf. II-II, q. 98, a. I.
"I-II, q. 108, a. 2.
•• Ibid., q. 106, a. 1.
'" Ibid., q. 108, a. 1.

576

LIAM G. WALSH

necessary for the gaining and right use of grace, become the
object of legislation in the New Testament. For the gaining
of grace divine law brings the sacraments into existence. 50 Although the shape of these sacraments was prefigured in the
ceremonies of the Old Law, 51 their objective reality is quite
different. They contain the justifying grace of God. The
liturgies of the Old Law could carry the faith and charity of
God's People forward to Christ and so play a part in their
justification; but they could not objectively embody the grace
of Christ, because Christ did not yet actually exist. 52 Because
they contain Christ, the sacraments of the New Law are the
work of God both as legislator and giver of grace.
But what is true of the sacraments need not be true of the
totality of Christian liturgy. St. Thomas, in fact, says that,
apart from the institution of the sacraments, there is no divine
legislation about worship in the New Testament. Other ceremonies do not give grace and are not given by God. 53 He sees
the detailed ceremonial of the Old Law fulillled, not in Christian liturgy (in spite of many similarities) but in the life of
Christ or in acts of Christian virtue. 54 In taking this line St.
Thomas would seem to be supporting the separation of sacraments from liturgy, of sanctification from worship. It is here,
however, that one must be sensitive to the categories in which
St. Thomas presents his thought and remember that he is
analysing the New Law, not in isolation but in contrast with
the Old. When he says, in effect, that there are no ceremonial
precepts in the New Law he is not saying that there is no place
for ceremonial. The New Law legislates for the human actions
by which we are introduced to grace and by which we use
grace aright. If the sacraments are necessary for the giving
of grace, then their use is necessary for those who would have
grace. The New Law requires participation in the sacraments.
Ibid., a.
Ibid., q.
a. 5 ad 8.
•• Ibid., q. 108, a.
53 Ibid., q. 108, a.
and ad
5 • Ibid., q.
aa.
especially in replies to the objections,

50
61

LITURGY IN THE THEOLOGY OF ST. THOMAS

577

It also requires that this participation should take the form
of worship. The moral precept of worship has not been abrogated in the New Law, and obedience to it is an essential requirement for the reception of grace. And while this worship is
essentially an interior attitude, it has to take external ceremonial form. St. Thomas denies none of this. What he does
deny is that there are any specific ceremonies, other than the
basic ritual of the sacraments, that are necessarily required for
worship under the law of grace. The response of worship must
be made with all the liberty, personal initiative and pursuit of
reasonableness that marks the law of the Holy Spirit. 55 The
individual conscience has its rights here. But because grace is
given and used concretely in the Christian community, there
will be a place for human legislation. St. Thomas takes it for
granted in his sacramental theology that, while the Church has
no right to interfere with the essentials of sacraments, it has
the right to legislate for their liturgical use and the ritual in
which they are solemnized. Here he mentions the special
authority of the "Sancti Patres " in the determination of Christian worship/ 6 and also the rights of prelates; 57 and when he
is dealing with the subjective moral values of worship he shows
how seriously the obligations arising from this human liturgical
legislation must be taken. 58 Yet he counsels moderation in
liturgical law" so as not to burden the way of life of the faithful." 59 And by presenting it as the work of human legislators
he frees it from the burdensome absoluteness that went with
the ceremonial precepts of the Old J..aw.60
Those who are interested in the renewal and reshaping of the
Church's liturgy will be encouraged by this teaching of St.
Thomas on the human provenance, and therefore on the rela•• Ibid., q. 108, a. 1 and ad !l. On the reasonableness of the New Law in contrast
to the Old cf. q. 10!l, a. 1 ad 1.
•• Ibid., q. 107, a. 4.
57 Ibid., q. 108, aa. !l-8.
""II-II, qq. 98, 94, 99.
•• I-II, q. 107, a. 4: "ne conversatio fidelium onerosa reddatur."
00 Note, for example, the difference he sees between the obligation of observing
Sunday and observing the Sabbath in II-II, q. U!l, a. 4 ad 4.

578

LIAM G. WALSH

tivity, of most liturgical law. But from the theological standpoint it would seem that he is making the liturgy much less
the work of God. Again, however, one has to keep the context
of St. Thomas's statements in mind. The reason there is so
little divine liturgical law in the New Testament is that grace
is now available in Christ. The more grace abounds the less
need there is of law. New Testament man can be trusted to
worship God without much guidance from divine law. He can
be trusted as an individual because he is transformed by the
grace of the Holy Spirit, perfected by the virtue of religion and
inspired by the gift of piety. 61 But more importantly, he can
be trusted insofar as he belongs to the community of the
Church. When one remembers that the ecclesiology of St.
Thomas is primarily an ecclesiology of grace 62 and that acts
of the Church are acts of grace, one can appreciate why he sees
so little need for its life to be arranged in detail by divine law.
The worship that New Testament man produces, provided it
is done within the order of the Church, is the work of grace.
And the work of grace is more effectively divine than the work
of law. New Testament liturgy, for all its freedom and manmade forms, is the work of God far more profoundly than was
the liturgy of the Old Law.
As an illustration of how the theological categories of law and
grace are used by St. Thomas to give a profound explanation of the mystery of the liturgy it is worth looking again
at his sacramental theology. At the heart of his analysis
of sacraments he has a question entitled De Caums Sacramentorum.63
He is isolating the actual causes that bring
a sacrament, as defined formally in previous questions, into
real existence. In other words, he is looking at an actual liturgy
61 II-II, q. 121 It is to the gift of piety that St. Thomas attributes the trinitarian
quality of the Christian's worship.
62 Cf. Yves Congar, 0. P., "Ecclesia et Populu,s (Fidelis) dans l'Ecclesiologie de
S. Thomas," in St. Thomas Aquinas, 1274-1974. Commemorative Studies (Pontifical
Institute of Mediaeval Studies, Toronto, 1974) vol. 1, pp. 159-174.
•• Summa Theol., III, q. 64.

LITURGY IN THE THEOLOGY OF ST. THOMAS

579

of the Church and asking what agents are at work to make
this to be a sacrament of the New Law. Before asking about
the minister, the Church, the Apostles, Christ, he asks about
the action of God. He studies this on two levels, of interior
action and of institution. 64 This con·esponds to the double pattern of grace and law that he has found in God's salvific action
in the Prima Secundae. To situate the question of the institution of sacraments in this context is to make it a genuinely theological rather than a merely apologetical issue. It is to ask,
not have individual sacraments been divinely instituted but
why and to what extent a sacrament has to be so. And the
answer, that a sacrament has to be from God because he is
the one whose virtus is present in the sacrament, joins the
sacramental expression firmly to the virtus that is at work.
God acts within and without, in a balanced presence of law
and grace. The power of the sacraments to cause grace is likewise better understood when seen within the general pattern
of grace-giving and its relationship to liturgical law in the New
Testament. The causality of the sacraments is not a surreptitious, unannounced intervention by God but a visible offer
made in a way that gives man the opportunity for a congenial,
personal response. The external shape corresponds to the internal movement: and both are from God. The importance of
liturgical celebration is also clarified. The distinction that St.
Thomas makes between what is " de necessitate sacramenti "
and what is " ad quandam solemnitatem " 65 may seem to be
restricting the work of God to the essential matter and form.
But when one remembers that what he is excluding from the
New Law of grace is not the exercise of worship or the need
for some external forms of it but simply the divinely imposed
necessity of this or that particular form, one can be satisfied
that liturgical self-expression of the Christian community is
an integral part of the economy of grace. As St. Thomas makes
•• Ibid., aa.
•• Ibid., q. 64, a.

ad 1.

580

LIAM G. WALSH

clear in his formal analysis of grace, everything that prepares
man for grace and enables him to cooperate with it and act externally in accordance with it is itself produced by God's
grace. 66 Hence the full liturgical celebration of sacraments is
the work of God, not as the product of divine law but as the
product of divine grace. While the presence of grace in a sacrament depends indubitably on the making of a divinely instituted sign, the taking hold of grace requires the creative
liturgical response of the Christian community. The Church's
freedom to create an appropriate liturgical setting for the sacraments is the grace-assured freedom of the children of God.

Theological definition of Liturgy
The conclusion suggested by our examination of St. Thomas's
treatment of liturgical material is thgt he would prefer a definition of the liturgy to begin with a strictly theological idea
rather than a anthropological one such as worship or sign, or
a christological one such as priesthood. God has to be brought
into the definition of liturgy somehow. The definitions we have
already examined do so by way of specific difference-qualifying, for example, the generic notion of sign by the notion of
divine institution. But it does seem more sensible in a theological definition to make the divine to be the generic element
rather than the specific difference. To define liturgy as " the
work of God" or "the action of God" takes one immediately
to the ontological reality of the mystery one is defining. One
could then go on to qualify this action of God as one which,
for example, appears in a system of signs which sanctify members of the Church for the worship of the Father through Christ
in the Spirit. The qualifying details of such a definition would
need to be worked out and balanced more carefully. The only
point at issue here is that these details should be qualifications
rather than starting points, and that the first thing a theologian
should say about liturgy is that it is the action of God.
To describe liturgy as an action of God ... can, of course,
•• I-II, q. 109, a. 6; q. 111, aa. 2-3.

LITURGY IN THE THEOLOGY OF ST. THOMAS

581

be a form of intellectual and pastoral escapism. In mundane
matters or in a purely secularist ideology to call something an
act of God can mean that we simply do not understand it or
can do nothing about it. But in a theologian like St. Thomas
" act of God " is an expression of neither agnosticism nor irresponsibility. It is not agnosticism, myth or metaphor because
his explanation of how liturgy is the work of God as lawgiver
and giver of grace is rooted in a careful metaphysical analysis
of the action of God on his creatures, and particularly on man.
His study of divine government in Prima Pars sets out to justify and explain how God is present and active in all things,
and how his action on intelligent creatures occurs both on the
level of interior transformation of mind and will as well as on
the level of external presentation of images and motivation. 67
Indeed his complex analysis of what would today be called
interpersonal relationships (involving different combinations of
God, angels, men, and things), and the place of signs in this,
offers a facinating groundwork for understanding the personalist dimension that so interests contemporary liturgists.
These patterns of divine government are in turn an application
of St. Thomas's more fundamental analysis of God, his providence, the work of creation and the kind of relationship that
exists between God and his creatures. The fact that God is,
that he gives himself out of sheer goodness to others, that he
directs these others to participate in his goodness by predestinating providence are the ultimate presuppositions for his theological interpretation of the liturgy. Some of them are more
immediately relevant to the liturgy than others. For example,
the discussion on the names of God 68 has a bearing on the
evaluation of prayer language in the liturgy. The credibility
of the trinitarian pattern of liturgy is supported by the establishment of basic trinitarian dogma, and the correlation of the
visible mission of the Word with the invisible mission of the
Holy Spirit shows how the pattern of visible shape and m67

Cf. I, q. 105, aa. 8-4.

68

Ibid., q. 18.

582

LIAM G. WALSH

visible grace found in the New Testament liturgy (law and
grace in St. Thomas's terms) is grounded on the trinitarian
economy of salvation. 69 The explanation of the purpose of creation as the communication of God's goodness provides the
basic key for understanding how in promoting the glory of
God liturgy is not benefitting God but perfecting his creatures. 70
Nor does defining liturgy as the action of God undermine the
pastoral responsibility of men for the actual carrying out of
liturgy. The basic anthropology of St. Thomas presents man
as a creature who is master of his own destiny. Made as he is
in the image of God he has a capacity for the gift of personal
relationship with God, freely accepted and pursued in accordance with the psychological and moral structure of his own
nature and his essential dependence on community. 71 Man's
self-perfecting action is no less his own, no less free, no less
typically human for being exercised under the sovereign premotion of God. It is no less personal for being worked out within patterns set by human law. Man's existential situation as
sinner does not alter the essential pattern of his relationship
with God but rather accentuates its humaness. The place of
the body in liturgy, the remedial redemptive necessity of Christian liturgy, the need for conscious, deliberate correspondence
with the grace it offers, the worshipful use of its forms whether
they are given by divine law or created by human ingenuityall this is justified and made intelligible by the general anthropological options of St. Thomas such as they appear, for
example in the Prima Pars and Prima Secundae.
This is not the place to debate the value of these fundamental
theological and anthropological positions of St. Thomas in any
detail or to fully explore their relevance to liturgy. They are
listed simply to show that from the very beginning of his theology St. Thomas is saying things which take account of and
provide a method for understanding the liturgical material
•• Ibid., q. 43.
70 Ibid., q. 44, a. 4; cf. II-II, q. 81, a. 7.
71

I, q. 93; cf. I-II prologue.

LITURGY IN THE THEOLOGY OF ST. THOMAS

583

which he will encounter in his progressive exploration of all the
principles, values, and historical happenings that make up the
existential relationship between God and his creation. And
since it is in the Christian liturgy that this relationship is being
worked out in the final phase of salvation history, one can claim
that he offers a method of thinking theologically about-if not
a self-contained theology of-the liturgy.
LIAM

St. Mary's, Tallaght
Co. Dublin, Ireland

G. WALSH, O.P.

PAUL AS PROFESSOR OF THEOLOGY
THE IMAGE oF THE APoSTLE IN S·.r. THoMAs's THEOLOGY*

Paul wrote fourteen letters ... Their entire doctrine deals with
the grace of Christ. This grace can be considered in a threefold
way. First of all, inasmuch as it is in Christ the head himself-and
this is the concern of the epistle to the Hebrews. Second, inasmuch
as it is in the principal members of the mystical body-and this
is the concern of the letters to the Prelates. Third, inasmuch as it
is in the mystical body itself, which is the church-and this is
the concern of the letters to the Gentiles. 1

T:

HIS IS WHAT Thomas writes in the prologue of his
commentary on the epistles of Paul. And he works out
this classification until all fourteen letters of the
Pauline Corpus have their systematic place within the whole.2

* This article is the revised and enlarged English text of a German radio-lecture,
transmitted November 14, 1970 by Radio Hilversum (Netherlands) within a series
of radio-lectures on the exegesis of Paul in the course of the centuries. The German
text has first been published in the Dutch edition of the entire series of lectures
under the title: De dertiende apostel en het e/jde gebod. Paulus in de loop der
eeuwen. Onder redactie van dr. G. C. Berkouwer en dr. H. A. Oberman (Uitgeversmij
J. H. Kok N. V., Kampen, 1971), pp. 53-67. The English text-translated by
the author-is first published in this volume.
1 Thomas Aquinas, Super Epistolas S. Patdi lectura, prol., ed. Marietti
(TurinRome, 1953), no. 11. Quotations from the Commentary on Paul are given according to the individual letters (for example: In Rom. = In Epistolam S. Pauli
ad Romanos expositio), indicating the verses which are commented on and the
lectio to which that part of the commentary belongs (as it well known, traditionally the chapters of the commentary which correspond to the chapters of the
biblical text are subdivided into lectiones). In order to facilitate the search of the
quotations we add (in brackets) the current number of the edition of Turin
mentioned above. About lectura and expositio c£. infra p. 5. For English cf. St.
Thomas Aquinas Commentary on Saint Paul's Epistle to the Ephesians
Books, 1966), ... to the Galatians (1966), ... First Letter to the Thessalonians
and the Letter to the Philippians (1969).
2 For illustration I quote the entire text:
" Scripsit enim quatuordecim epistolas
584

PAUL AS PROFESSOR OF THEOLOGY

585

The modern reader cannot believe his eyes: the medieval commentator stresses a picture according to which the most spirited
and least systematic author of the New Testament sits at his
writing table, far from the world, and meditates on the suitable
division of a dogmatical monograph about the grace of Christ.
The results were fourteen chapters which treat the whole topic
in an exhaustive way and in a definite sequence. Only an unimportant accident diffused this monograph over the whole
world in the form of fourteen letters.
But that is Paul in the eyes of Thomas Aquinas! The Apostle
is for him the greatest systematician of the New Testament,
the professor among the Apostles. How could such an image
of Paul arise, in which the features of the Apostle obviously
assimilate the traits of Aquinas and of his time?

The " Evangelical Movement "
Whoever thinks of the Middle Ages and particularly

of

quarum novem instruunt Ecclesiam Gentium; quatuor praelatos et principes Ecclesiae, id est reges; una populum Israel, scilicet quae est ad Hebraeos.
Est enim haec doctrina tota de gratia Christi, quae quidem potest tripliciter
considerari. Uno modo secundum quod est in ipso capite, scilicet Christo, et sic
commendatur in Epistola ad Hebraeos. Alio modo secundum quod est in membris
principalibus corporis mystici, et sic commendatur in epistolis quae sunt ad
praelatos. Tertio modo secundum quod in ipso corpore mystico, quod est Ecclesia,
et sic commendatur in epistolis quae mittuntur ad Gentiles, quarum haec est distinctio: nam ipsa gratia Christi tripliciter potest considerari. Uno modo secundum
se, et sic commendatur in epistola ad Romanos: alio modo secundum quod est
in sacramentis gratiae, et sic commendatur in duabus epistolis ad Corinthios, in
quarum prima agitur de ipsis sacramentis, in secunda de dignitate ministrorum,
et in epistola ad Galatas in qua excluduntur superflua sacramenta contra illos qui
volebant vetera sacramenta novis adiungere; tertio consideratur gratia Christi
secundum effectum unitatis quem in Ecclesia fecit. Agit ergo Apostolus, primo
quidem, de institutione Ecclesiasticae unitatis in epistola ad Ephesios; secundo,
de eius confirmatione et profectu in epistola ad Philippenses; tertio, de e;us <iefensione, contra errores quidem, in epistola ad Colossenses, contra persecutiones vero
praesentes, in I Thessalonicenses, contra futuras vero et praecipue tempore Antichristi, in secunda.
Praelatos vero ecclesiarum instruit et spirituales et temporales. Spirituales quidem
de institutione, instructione et gubernatione ecclesiasticae unitatis in prima ad
Timotheum, de firmitate contra persecutores in secunda, tertio de defensione contra
haereticos in epistola ad Titum. Dominos vero temporales instruit in epistola ad
Philemonem. Et sic patet ratio distinctionis cot ordinis omnium epistolarum."

586

OTTO HERMANN PESCH

Thomas Aquinas 3 thinks first of all of works like the " Commentary on the Sentences of Peter Lombard," or the " Quaestiones Disputatae," or the " Summa Theologiae." He remembers a " scholastic " manner of thinking and presentation, that
is to say, sophisticated divisions, stereotyped and sometimes
tiring literary forms, definitions, syllogisms, constant appeal to
" authorities," in short, a dry intellectualism which seems to
have forgotten the vivid originality of the Holy Scriptures. In
fact, this theological literature is the result and at the same
time an indication of the qualitative change of the educational
system which leads from the monastery school of the early
Middle Ages to the city schools of the twelfth century and
thence to the university of the thirteenth century. We know
the main factors of that dramatic intellectual development. Let
us recall only a few high points. There is the change from the
feudal system to the city culture of merchants and craftsmen;
the increasing desire for educatioll within the emancipated
citizenship in the cities; the increasing reception of logical and
dialectic methods in academic teaching on the basis of the
logical works of the old Greek philosophy; the progressive rediscovery and translation of the physical, metaphysical, and
ethical works of Greek philosophy, particularly of Aristotle; the
dialogue with Jewish and Arabic philosophy and their interpretation of Aristotle, entering the West, as happened, via Spain.
The consequence of all this was a self-conscious intellectual
3 For a general historical introduction
to Thomas Aquinas see, first of all, the
masterpiece by M.-D. Chenu, Toward Understanding St. Thomas (Chicago, 1964;
French original: Introduction a l' etude de saint Thomas d' Aquin, Paris,• 1954);
St. Thomas et la theologie (Maitres spirituels, 17: Paris, 1959); " Scholastik," in H.
Fries, ed., Handbuch Theologischer Grundbegriffe, II (Munich, 1963) pp. 478-494;
E. Gilson, The Christian Philosophy of St. Thomas Aquinas (New York, 1956);
French original: Le thomisme. Introduction a la philosophie de saint Thomas
d'Aquin (Paris,• 1948); the English version has an excellent "Appendix" on the
works of St. Thomas by I. T. Eschmann, op. cit., pp. 381-439); see also H.-F.
Dondaine-D. Schliiter-0. H. Pesch, "Thomas von Aquin" in Lexikon fur Theologie
und Kirche, 2nd ed., v. X (1965), col. 119-134; see last, but not least, the marvellous
and intelligent booklet by G. K. Chesterton, Saint Thomas Aquinas, (New York,
1933). The most recent scholarly study is by James A. Weisheipl, Friar Thomaa
D'Aquino, his life, thought and works (Garden City, N. Y., 1974).

PAUL AS PROFESSOR

OF THEOLOGY

587

optimism which stimulated scholars to attempt a synthesis of
philosophical and theological thinking, of obedience of faith and
rational reflection on the Christian message. The results were
the gTeat theological masterpieces of the thirteenth century.
What is less known but decisive for an understanding of this
theology and its literary expressions is, however, that this
" scholasticism " is developed on the basis and in the framework of what we might call an " evangelical movement." The
period of the last third of the twelfth and the beginning of the
thirteenth century is characterized by the breakthrough of a
desire for biblical knowledge which could not be satisfied either
by means of glosses between the lines or on the margin of the
biblical text or by means of meditation presented by an abbot
to his monks and which was intended only for religious edification.4 Obviously, this thirst for knowledge had a sociological
ingredient: by means of a more exact hearing of the biblical
word one expected an impulse and criteria in favor of a renewal
of the Church, and soon this evangelical movement expressed
itself in new institutional forms as, for example, the Orders of
the Franciscans and the Dominicans. 5 Nevertheless, this thirst
for knowledge soon developed as an academic tendency in its
own right. New methods were invented to diffuse the text of
the Scriptures in greater quantity; corrected copies of the text
were attempted, both Latin and vernacular texts; the text was
divided into pericopes; the first concordances appeared; and,
above all, the theological educational system in harmony with
these tendencies was rearranged. The consistent presentation
of systematic theology was the concern of the assistant pro• In addition to Chenu, Towards Understanding Thomas Aquinas (see n. 3) pp.
39-46, 233-262 see B. Smalley, The Study of the Bible in the Middle Ages (Oxford," 1952); H. de Lubac, Exegese medievale. Les quatre sens de l'Ecriture (2
vols. in 4, Paris, 1959/64) .
5 On Francis
of Assisi and the Franciscans see A. Fortini, Nova Vita di S.
Francesco (4 vols, Assisi, 1959); I. Gobry, St. Franl}ois d' Assise et l' esprit franciscain
(Maitres spirituels, 10: Paris, 1958). On Dominic and the Dominicans see M. H.
Vicaire, Ilistoire de Saint D01ninique (2 vols., Paris, 1957; English: Saint Dominic
and his Times, New York, 1964); New Catholic Encyclopedia, IV, 974-982,
Dominicans; VI, 38-46, Franciscans.

588

OTTO HERMANN PESCH

fessor, of the so-called "baccalaureus," who explained the
" Sentences " of Peter Lombard. The ordinary professor, the
so-called "magister," was alone concerned with continuous commentary on the Holy Scriptures. Only in public debate, the
so-called " quaestiones disputatae," did the magister teach as
systematician. And these " quaestiones disputatae " had also
been developed from the commentary on the Scriptures, both
as an academic exercise and as literary form. For in the text
of the biblical commentary it had long been customary to deal
with " questions " which arose in the context of the text in the
form of a systematic excursus. Thus, the "magister in sacra
theologia " has been produced by the " magister in sacra
pagina," and not vice versa. Even Thomas Aquinas wrote his
main work, his Summa Theologiae, without direct relation to
his academic work. It was to help students in their work outside the classroom. 6 But, except for the debates, his daily
courses were concerned with the interpretation of the Holy
Scriptures.

Scholastic Exegesis of Paul
In this intellectual atmosphere, where biblical testimony,
philosophical curiosity, and didactic technique influenced one
another mutually, Thomas dealt with Paul. Twice he commented in his courses on the fourteen epistles of Paul, all of
which he, according to the knowledge of his time, considered
to be authentic. 7 He first lectured on Paul during his stay in
6 Cf. Summa Theologiae I prol. On the didactic construction of the Summa and
on the theological meaning of this construction Eee 0. H. Pesch, " Urn den Plan der
Summa Theologiae des hl. Thomas von Aquin," in Munchener Theologische
Zeitschrift 16 (1965), pp. 128-137; this article refers to further literature and gives
a summary of the intensive discussion on this topic. This discussion has, more
or less, concluded to a partly confirmed, partly precised and modified position of
M.-D. Chenu in his chapter on the Summa Theologiae, op. cit. (see n. 8), pp.
297-322.
• Most recent surveys on the problems of Thomas's commentary on Paul under
the aspect of literary criticism cf. Chenu, op. cit., pp. 200 sq; M. Grabmann, Die
W erke des heiligen Thomas von Aquin. Eine literarhistorische Untersuchung und
Einfiihrung (Miinster, 8 1949), pp. 266-272; I. T. Eschmann in the "Appendix"
mentioned above, (see n. 3). See also the editor's Introduction in the ed. Marietti
of the commentary (seen. I).

PAUL AS PROFESSOR

OF THEOLOGY

589

Italy between 1259 and 1268 and a, second time towards the
end of his life, probably between 1269 and 1272 during his
second stay at Paris. 8 Reginald of Piperno, the student and
secretary of Thomas, had made a solid report, a so-called " lecture," of the first course on Paul. Thomas used this report later
in order to revise it in the context of his second course. For unknown reasons this so-called" expositio "-the name of a report
personally revised by the author-reaches only the tenth chapter of the first letter to the Corinthians. Reginald completed
the missing elements, using his fOi.'mer report, and thus the
commentary on Paul has come to us in this mixture of " expositio" and" lecture." Only the commentary from I Cor. 7:14
to I Cor. 10:33 has been lost by an accident of textual transmission. Yet Thomas does not deal with Paul only in his commentary on the Pauline Corpus. The thinking of the Apostle
is omnipresent in the Thomistic theology, particularly, of
course, in the context of the doctrine of grace and justification. 9
But let us first consider the literal commentary. How does
such an exegesis of Paul look in Thomas Aquinas when it has
gone through the scholastic sieve? Let us point out some of
the characteristics.
1. The text is divided into large, small, and minuscule units,
in order to clarify its inner structure, the exact sequence and
the connection of the ideas. Nobody at that time was afraid
to drain the text of its original vividness and the particular
trait of its author. God is a god of order, also in his written
8 For solid and, in my opinion, incontestable
arguments that the second course
on Paul and particularly the second redaction of the commentary on Romans
belong to the time of Thomas's second stay in Paris see H. Bouillard, Conversion
et grace chez saint Thomas d'Aquin (Paris, 1944), pp.
Bouillard's thesis,
however, has not yet been commonly accepted. Neither Chenu, loc. cit., nor Grabmann, op. cit., p.
nor the Introduction of the ed. Marietti (cf. p. VI) mention
it. Eschmann, op. cit., p. 399, mentions Bouillard's thesis, but without giving
his own opinion.
9 That will become impressively clear by consulting the Indices of the Editio
Leonina (S. Thomae Aquinatis Opera omnia iussu Leonis XII edita (Rome,
sqq.), t. XVI, partly reprinted in the ed. Marietti, (Rome, 1948); Paul's epistles
are quoted more frequently than the four Gospels together; Pentateuch and Psalms
follow at some distance.

590

OTTO HERMANN PESCH

word. Therefore, nothing in the text can be by accident or
without intention. 10 Analysis, therefore, has to investigate each
word right to the last letter. We read, for example, the following, in which Thomas deals with the epistle to the Romans:
This letter is divided into two parts, namely, into the greeting and
the epistle itself, which begins with the words " First I thank my
God." Concerning the first part, Paul does three things: First, the
person who is greeting is described; second, those who are greetedby the words" To all God's beloved in Rome"; third, the salvation
wished by the greeting-by the words " Grace be to you." As to
the first, Paul does two things: first, the person of the author is
described; second, his office is commended-by the words " which
he promised long ago." The person who is writing, however, is
described under four aspects, and first of all by his name, when
he says " Paul." In this regard we have to consider three
things ... .U

And now a long commentary about the meaning of the word
" Paul " follows, the first word in the first verse of the epistle
to the Romans. 12 Before we disqualify such a method as the
monotonous pedantry of a schoolmaster, we should realize the
progress it represented when compared with the various types
of paraphrase, which, at that time as today, could bend the
text to any purpose whatever. Here, however, the exegete is
forced to follow the text word for word and to rise to the
1 ° Cf. infra, p. 18 sq. Thomas nowhere explains the principles of interpretation
of the Scriptures in a coherent way-there was not yet a " hermeneutical problem "
at that time. The most detailed texts are Summa Theol., I, q. I, aa. 9-10; Quodl.
VII, 14-16 (q. 6 a. I-8); de Pot., q. 4, a. 1; further significant remarks, but made
only incidentally, e. g., Summa Theol., I, q. 24, a. 8 c; q. 68, a. I c., a. 8 c.;
q. I02, a. 1 c.; I-II, q. 82, a. 2, ad 1; q. 98, a. 8 ad 2; q. 108, a. 4 ad 2 (!); II-II,
q. 11, a. 2 ad 2; q. 89, a. 1 ad 1; III, q. 55, a. 5 c.; q. 60, a. 8' ad 1. Cf. also
the Indices mentioned in n. 9 (Index Elementorum, under "Scriptura "). An impressive example of the seriousness with which Thomas examines the biblical text
up to the last detail is his exposition of the literal and the "mystical " senses
of the "ceremonial precepts" of the Old Law (Summa Theol., I-II, q. 102-the
largest question of the entire Summa) . Cf. 0. H. Pesch, " Exkurs 4: Exegese des
Alten Testamentes bei Thomas " and the commentary on I-II, q. I02 in Daa

Gesets. Kommentar su Summa Theologiae I-ll 90-105 (Deutsche Thomaa-Ausgabe,
Bd. 18: Heidelberg-Graz, I974).
11 In Rom. 1: I, lect. 1 (15 sq).
'" Loc. cit., (16-20) .

PAUL AS PROFESSOR

OF THEOLOGY

591

" sententia," to the doctrine, only on the basis of the " littera "
and the " sensus," on the letter and the immediate meaning of
the words. Such was already the procedure of Hugh of St.
Victor a whole century before. He outlined the program of
the thirteenth-century exegetes with the following methodological direction:
An exposition ·Contains three things: letter, meaning, doctrine.
The letter means the fitting order of the words, which we also call
construction. The meaning is the obvious and open significance
which the letter evidences outwardly. The doctrine is the more profound insight, which is only found through exposition and interpretation. In these three things there is an order, following which
first of all the letter, then the meaning, and then the doctrine
should be investigated; when that is done, the exposition is completed.13

With such a method no one could construct a sermon, a catechesis or a meditation but rather an " expositio," an academic
explanation and interpretation of the text.
Under certain circumstances one could even develop a sermon
that way. In 1273 Thomas delivered Lenten sermons at Naples
about the Creed, the Our Father, and the Ave Maria. We have
a Latin report of these sermons, originally given in Italian, in
the three small works under the title Exposition of the A po.<rtolic Creed, Exposition of the Lord's Prayer, and Exposition
of the Angelic Salutation. When we read these small works H
we are made to realize that Thomas has given his audience
(probably students) the same scholastic methods of presentation, the same endless divisions and subdivisions, the reasons
and different manners of consideration with which we are very
familiar from his biblical commentaries.
2. The interpreter looks for " reasons " for what is said in
the text. The biblical author must have reasons in his mind,
if in the Scriptures nothing exists by accident. "And he gives
a reason," " first of all he established the meaning, and then
13

14

Hugh of St. Victor, Didascalion, III 6: P. L. 176, col. 771 D.
They are printed in ed. Marietti, Opuscula Theologica, vol. II (Turin, 1954).

592

OTTO HERMANN PESCH

he proves the meaning " ; " First he states his reason, then
he explains it"; "And he draws a conclusion "-we meet such
formulations on every page of Thomas's biblical commentaries.
These formulations may be related to important theological
matters and also to the smallest peripheral nuances of the text. 15
Even more, according to the mind of Thomas, Paul wrote his
letters as a philosopher trained by the logic of Aristotle. He
used the methods of syllogism. Already, a century before
Thomas, the monk Honorius of Autun signalized this method
in a famous bon mot: " Syllogisms are covered in the Holy
Scriptures like fish in the depth of the water. And as the fish
is drawn out of the water for the benefit of men, from the
Scriptures the syllogism is formulated, so that they may be useful." 16 Thomas followed this rule. For example, Romans 8: 5-6:
Paul brings in two syllogisms ... First, he posits the minor premise
of the first syllogism ... Second, he posits the minor premise of
the second syllogism ... Third, he posits the major premise of the
first syllogism ... Fourth, he posits the major premise of the second
syllogism ... 17

Thomas then does not refrain from showing us how Aristotle
would have formulated these two Paulinian verses:
Those who follow the prudence of the flesh are led to death. Now,
those who have set their minds on the flesh follow the prudence of
the flesh. Therefore, those who have set their minds on the flesh
are led to death. 18

The second syllogism, which deals with those who have set
their mind on the spirit, is similarly structured.
3. Hence it was not a big leap to the integration of small
15 Some examples of the commentary
on Romans, collected at random: In Rom.
1:14, lect. 5 (92); 2:1, lect. 1 (170); 2:9, lect. 2 (201); 2:28, lect. 4 (Z4Z); 3: ZO,
lect. Z (Z95); 5:20, lect, 6 (454); 6: ZO, lect. 4 (507); 8:2, lect. Z (631); 11:17, lect.
3 (894); 11:25, lect. 4 (91Z) and so on.
16 Honorius
of Autun, Expositio in psalmos selectos, on Ps. 1: P. L. 172, col.
Z79 D.
17 In Rom. 8:5-6, lect. 1 (614-618).
18 Loc. cit., (614).
Further Paulinian " syllogisms" e.g.: In Rom. 5: 17-18, lect.
5 (438-444); 6:2-5, lect. 1 (470-477).

PAUL AS PROFESSOR

OF THEOLOGY

598

systematical chapters into the context of the biblical commentary. The "quaestiones," which for a long time had become independent, returned in a stylized form to the biblical
commentary. Indeed, they remained connected with the course
of the literal commentary, but the relationship to independent
systematic methods which had been developed in the meantime
was obvious. In an extreme case we meet within the commentary the structure of an " article " customary in systematic
works, i.e., objections, counter-objections, systematic statement, and answers to the objections. Examples are the commentary on Romans 5:12 concerning the question of original
sin/ 9 and on Romans 8: 29 regarding the question of divine predestination.20

Thomas or Paul?
Can Paul remain Paul, if one stylizes him in such a way as to
be a professor? Can the Paulinian theology unfold its explosive
power under the pressure of such a sophisticated method of
interpretation?
To answer this question we have an absolutely sure method.
Paul was no professor, his letters are not at all a compendium
of dogmatics; we all know that very well. Paul remains Paul
even in the mind of Thomas, if we hut perceive that the latter
agrees even to be challenged by Paulinian thought, both in his
technical procedure and in his theological ideas. Does Thomas
permit Paul to challenge him? Is it Paul or is it Thomas who
has the last word?

Justification of the Sinner
Let us note first of all two relatively harmless challenges to
which Thomas exposes himself and which are nevertheless important when considering the history of theology.
The first challenge: Thomas interprets Romans 1: 17 exactly
19

In Rom. 5:12, lect. 3 (407-420).
In Rom. 8:29, lect. 6 (702-706).

Further examples:
(20-21); 1:4, lect. 3 (43-59); 5:20, lect. 6 (450-460).
20

In Rom. 1:1, lect. 1

594

OTTO HERMANN PESCH

as Martin Luther does later on. "This (the Gospel) is what
reveals the justice of God to us: it shows how faith leads to
faith "-this verse, under which
as is well known,
suffered so much, gives in the eyes of Thomas the reason for
verse 16 which immediately precedes it: "I am not ashamed
of the Good News! It is the power of God saving all who have
faith." Verse 17 will show, according to Thomas, " that the
Gospel words have salvific power." 21 The "justice of God"
is therefore not that righteousness by which God is righteous
in himself and rewards or punishes men according to their
merit-which inner righteousness really exists-but the righteousness by which God makes us righteous. And if one nevertheless prefers to interpret this verse in relation to the inner
righteousness of God, then it is always to be understood that
God is righteous in keeping his promises. 22 But where at Erfurt
or Wittenberg would Luther have been able to find precisely
the commentary of Thomas Aquinas on the epistle to the
Romans?
And even if Luther could have found it, he would have had
much more reason for being surprised if he had read it. For,
explaining Romans 4:5, Thomas exposes himself to a second
challenge of his thought by the Apostle. He does exactly that
which later on offended Catholic exegetes so much in the case
of Luther: without hesitating he joins the "sola" to the
" fides," the " alone " to the " faith," and interprets the verse
ln Rom.l:l7, lect. 6 (lO!l).
The righteousness of God in Rom. 1: 17 " dupliciter potest intelligi. Uno
modo de iustitia qua Deus iustus est, secundum illud Ps. 10: 8 ... Et secundum
hoc, sensus est quod 'iustitia Dei', qua scilicet iustus est servando promissa,
'in eo revelatur ', scilicet in homine credente evangelio, quia credit Deum implesse
quod promisit de Christo mittendo; et hoc 'ex fide ', scilicet Dei promittentis ...
' in fide ' scilicet hominis credentis.
21

22

Vel, alio modo, ut intelligatur de iustitia Dei, qua Deus homines iustificat. Nam
iustitia hominum dicitur qua se homines, propriis viribus, iustificare praesumunt,
infra c. X, S ... Quae quidem iustitia revelatur in evangelio inquantum per fidem
Evangelii homines iustificantur secundum quodcumque tempus, unde subdit ' ex
fide in fidem,' id est ex fide Veteris Testamenti procedendo in fide Novi Testamenti,
quia ab utroque homines iustificantur et salvantur per fidem Christi, quia eadem
fide crediderunt venturum qua nos venisse credirnus" (loc. cit.).

PAUL AS PROFESSOR

OF THEOLOGY

595

to mean: the sinner receives his justification "by faith alone,
without works." 23
These challenges from the ideas of the Apostle are harmless
for Thomas, because they can take place even in a mind that is
not accustomed to thinking in paradoxes and antitheses but in
logical connections of one thing with the other. The problem
that the righteousness of God, in opposition to the definition of
justice given by Aristotle and ancient philosophical ethics,
means in Romans 1: 17 really the same as "mercy of God," is
overcome by Thomas by means of an extended notion of justice:
to be righteous means to act according to one's own essence.
23 In Rom. 5:8, lect. 1 (329-331).
"Deinde cum dicit 'Ei vero', etc., ostendit
qualiter se habeat merces aeterna ad fidem, dicens 'ei vero qui non operatur', scilicet
exterior a opera, . . . ' reputatibur fides eius ', scilicet sola sine operibus exterioribus,
'ad iustitiam ', id est, ut per earn iustus dicatur, et iustitiae praemium accipiat,
sicut si opera iustitiae fecisset, secundum illud infra 10:10 ... , et hoc 'secundum
propositum gratiae Dei', id est, secundum quod Deus proponit ex gratia sua
homines salvare" (loc. cit., 330). Alia expositio est ut hoc referatur ad hominis
iustificationem. Dicit ergo 'ei autem qui operatur ', id est, si aliquis per opera
iustificetur, ipsa iustitia imputaretur quasi ' merces non secundum gratiam, sed
secundum debitum '. Infra XI, 6 . . .-' Ei vero, qui non operatur ', ut scilicet per
sua opera iustificetur, ' credenti autem in eum qui iustificat impium ', computabitur
haec eius 'fides ad iustitiam secundum propositum gratiae Dei', non quidem ita
quod per fidem iustitiam mereatur, sed quia ipsum credere est primus actus iustitiae
quam Deus in eo operatur. Ex eo enim quod credit in Deum iustificantem,
iustificationi eius subiicit se, et sic recipit eius efl'ectum.-Et haec expositio est
litteralis, et secundum intentionem Apostoli, qui facit vim in hoc quod Gen. XV,
6 dictum est ... -Et ideo Apostolus dicit quod haec reputatio locum non haberet,
si iustitia esset ex operibus, sed solum habet locum secundum quod est ex fide"
(loco cit., 331).

This text sounds different-one would like to say: simultaneously more simple
and more rigorous-than the relevant texts of St. Thomas's systematic works.
Nevertheless, also in the systematic works the incomparable importance of faith
for the justification of the godless is strongly underlined in the framework of the
general systematic concept. See especially Summa Theol., I-II, q. 113, a. 4, where
the faith which accepts the grace of justification is interpreted, referring to Rom.
5:1, as the fundamental "conversion"
(" conversio ") of the "mens" toward
God. Mens, however, means in Thomas the spiritual center of man as a whole,
before all distinctions of potencies and single acts are in question. On this and
other problems of the relationship between faith and justification accorcJing to
Thomas see 0. H. Pesch, Theologie der Rechtfertigung bei Martin Luther und
Thomas von Aquin. Versuch eines systematisch-theologischen
Dialogs (Mainz,
1967) pp. 719-737.

596

OTTO HERMANN PESCH

God's essence, however, is love. If he enters into communion
with men by love, keeping his promises, precisely then is he
righteous. 24 And also the formula " faith alone without works "
is understandable for Thomas's mind without too many difficulties. Luther does not exclude works proceeding from faith,
nor can Thomas exclude those works/ 5 since he finds no problem in developing a doctrine of "merit" which, by the way,
does not justify the criticisms which have often been leveled
against it. 26
Logical mistakes
Let us consider more serious challenges. First of all, those
in the area of technical procedure. 27
Already the presentation of the " syllogisms " which Thomas
surmises in Paul's mind shows Aquinas's willingness to agree
with a challenge of his procedure by Paul. Paul is allowed
in the eyes of Thomas to do what a teacher of Aristotelian
logic would never be allowed to do: he is allowed to mix up
the premises of his syllogisms and to confuse thereby the
syllogistic procedure. 28
Another example is Thomas's interpretation of Heb. 11:1.
According to his opinion, Paul has given an exhaustive definition of the virtue of faith in the verse: " Faith is that which
gives substance to our hopes, which convinces us of things we
24 Cf. Summa Theol., I, q. 21, a. 1 ad 2 and ad 3; a. 4 c. Cf. Pesch, op. cit., pp.
599-603.
25 Detailed interpretation
of the relevant texts in Thomas is tried by Pesch, op.
cit., pp. 758-771. In this context it is particularly interesting how Thomas interprets
James 2:17, 26 and Gal. 5: 6; cf. Pesch, op. cit. p. 745 sq., n. 134.
26 Summa Theol., 1-11, q. 114. Cf. Pesch, op. cit., pp. 771-798; "Die Lehre vom
'Verdienst' als Problem fiir Theologie und Verkiindigung" in L. Scheffczyk-W.
Dettloff-R. Heinzmann, ed., Wahrheit und Verkundigung. Michael Schmaus zum
70. Geburtstag (Munich-Paderborn-Vienna, 1967), vol. II, pp. 1865-1907.
27 Hence we no longer refer to the commentary
on Paul only but also on the
exegesis of Paul occurring in Thomas's systematic work. This is necessary since
we are now dealing not only with the methods cf medieval exegesis in Thomas but
also with its results. On this, indeed, the systematic works of Thomas are as
relevant as the biblical commentary.
"" Cf. supra, p. 8 (n. 17) .

PAUL AS PROFESSOR

OF THEOLOGY

597

cannot see." Obviously, notes Thomas, this definition does not
fulfill the requirement of a formal definition of the Aristotelian
type, which must always give the higher genus and the specific
difference. But we can excuse the Apostle, for-as Thomas remarks- things like that happen sometimes even in the writings
of philosophers. 29
But what to do if there is no longer a question of correct
definitions and syllogisms but rather of when the idea of Paul
leads to a challenge and if, moreover, not only the procedure
of Thomas is strained but also his thinking? Thomas exposes
himself to such a challenge in a threefold way. Either he allows
such a text to remain and renounces any attempt to elucidate
it by means of speculation. Or he contents himself with an improvised, almost sophisticated distinction in order to exclude
the threat of a misunderstanding as he sees it. Or he adjusts
his entire thinking to the text and feels stimulated by it to
a completely new speculative conception in which he cannot
hope for support either from philosophical statements or from
theological tradition. Each of three possibilities can be illustrated by an example.

Stumbling-block

and folly of the Cross

The first example: according to a profound, pre-theological,
basically spiritual inspiration, which we can perceive throughout the whole of Thomas's theology, God is, as already mentioned, a God of wise order. 30 Accidents, meaningless and un29 Cf. Summa Theol., II-II,
q. 4, a. 1 c. (in principio): " ... tamen, si quis
recte consideret, omnia ex quibus fides potest definiri in praedicta descriptione
(sc. Heb 11: I) tanguntur, licet verba non ordinentur sub forma definitionis; sicut
etiam apud philosophos praetermissa syllogistica forma syllogismorum principia
tanguntur." The same doctrine In Heb. 11:1, lect. 1 (552). The paragraph of the
commentary is another instructive example of the mutual penetration of textual
commentary and systematic analysis: the article of the Summa systematizes the
results of the commentary whereas the commentary formulates all arguments and
" questions " which the Summa deals with in the form of an " articulus," and
indeed partly even in the literary technique of an article (" Videtur quod ... ",
"Respondeo dicendum ... " and so on); cf. supra, p. 9 (nn. 19 and 20).
30 On this basic idea of St. Thomas's
theological thinking see Pesch, Theologie

598

OTTO HERMANN PESCH

intelligible things, do not happen within his creation. All
events, even the least important, reflect his wisdom. " Et disponit omnia suaviter "-"He arranges everything in a smooth
manner "-Thomas likes to quote this phrase of the Song of
Solomon (in the Latin translation available to him) as an expression of his concept of God. 31 If the theologian looks hard
enough, he can realize or at least guess many of these thoughts
of God's wisdom governing all things. The theological procedure which corresponds to this basic inspiration is the method
of the so-called " argument of convenience," the presentation
of reasons which show the " fittingness," the good sense of the
event in question, and sometimes instead of saying " convenience " even the strong word " necessity" is used. 32 Thomas
has not invented the method of convenience-arguments. The
Church Fathers had already used it frequently .33 But he used
this method in a magnificent way and, it must be conceded,
with much more theological " tact " or simply with much more
sensitivity than some people before him.
What now when this aristocratic conception of God is confronted with the phrase about the stumbling-block and the
folly of the Cross? Where Thomas is not bound immediately by
the Paulinian text, he becomes the victim of his basic inspiration and his procedure. In a long chapter of his Summa Theder Rechtfertigung, pp. 918-948; also pp. 840-881; 955 f.; "Existential and Sapien tal
Theology. The Theological Confrontation between Luther and Thomas Aquinas,"
in J. Wicks, ed., Catholic Scholars Dialogue with Luther (Chicago, 1970), pp. 61-81;
182-193 (notes); The God Question in Thomas Aquinas and Martin Luther (Facet
Books, Historical Series, 21; Philadelphia, 1972).
81 Cf. Summa Theol., I, q. 22, a. 2 sed contra; q. 103, a. 8 c.; q. 109, a. 2 c.; I-II,
q. 110, a. 2 c.; II-II, q. 23, a. 2 c.; q. 165, a. I c.; III, q. 44, a. 4 sed contra;
q. 46, a. 9 c.; q. 55, a. 6 sed contra; q. 60, a. 4 c.
•• On " convenience " and "necessity " in Thomas see Chenu, op. cit. (see n. 3),
pp. 181-186; M. Seckler, Das Heil in der Geschichte. Geschichtstheologisches
Denken bei Thomas von Aquin (Munich, 1964), pp. 42-47; 0. H. Pesch, "Urn
den Plan der Summa Theologiae" (s. n. 6), p. 129 sq.; "Besinnung auf die
Sakramente. Historische und systematische iiberlegungen und ihre pastoralen
Konsequenzen" in Freiburger Zeitschrift fur Philosophie und Theologie 18 (1971),
266-321; 275-280.
•• Examples in Pesch, loc. cit.

PAUL AS PROFESSOR

OF THEOLOGY

599

ologiae 34 he questions every perspective and viewpoint of
Christ's death on the Cross: was Christ obliged to die on the
Cross? Was that the most fitting way of redeeming mankind?
Did he suffer at a convenient time? Did he die at a suitable
place? Was it meaningful that he was crucified with two robbers? Was it proper that Gentiles killed him? Was he buried
in a fitting manner? Thomas answers all these questions with
a Yes-and lists the " arguments of convenience." 35 In the
final analysis the Cross seems to be the most reasonable thing
in the world.
But all that is seemingly forgotten when Thomas interprets
I Cor 1: in the context of his commentary on Paul. He allows
Paul to challenge him. In a concise commentary 36 and without
discovering a " deeper " meaning he explains why the Cross is a
stumbling-block for the Jews and folly (that is to say: a meaningless thing!) for the Gentiles: The Jews "demanded power
which works miracles, and what they saw was weakness bearing
the cross." To the Gentiles, however, "it seemed according to
human wisdom impossible that God die and that a righteous
and wise man deliver himself voluntarily to the most ignominious death." Some phrases later on, indeed, the " convenience "
of the Cross comes back into the argumentation. But it is the
"convenience" precisely of God's mysterious acting, therefore
no human reason (including theological reason) and faith alone
can maintain this divine convenience of the Cross against all
appearance.
The Law "kills"
The second example: the Paulinian understanding of the
Law culminates, as is well known, in the assertion that the Law
"works wrath" and "kills," that it reveals sin and even augments it. 37 No one is able to provide an adequate meaning of
those texts, if he bases himself on philosophical ethics, or even
Summa Theol., III, q. 46.
Ibid., aa. 2, 3, 4, 9, 10, 11; q. 51, aa. 1, 2.
86 In I Cor. 1:23, lect. 3 (58 sqq.).
37 Rom 4: 15; 7: 9-13; Gal 3:19,
34

35

600

OTTO HERMANN PESCH

on the faithful conviction that in the Law of the Old Testament
the obligatory will of God for man is expressed. Today we
know from the results of modern exegesis that in such statements Paul made a tremendously delicate attempt on his own
account to demonstrate that his unlegalistic proclamation of
the Gospel is the only one which is in agreement with the Scriptures.38 The differences clearly perceptible in this area between
the epistles to the Galatians and to the Romans show how
much Paul himself wrestled with this problem. Our knowledge
was not at the disposal of Aquinas. He had nothing else before
him than the confusing Paulinian text, and he faced the challenge once again.
If we but call to mind how much Thomas was interested
in emphasizing the idea that God consistently guides history
toward Christ as its focal point, then we can surmise that
Thomas, in harmony with his contemporaries,S 9 would have preferred to say simply: the Old Law is the imperfect, indeed, but
throughout the positive and pedagogically first step to the New
Law, to the Gospel. But Paul must have the last word. With
the Apostle Thomas establishes that the man of the Old Testament is through the Law hopelessly entangled in sin. Thomas
explains this as follows: only by means of God's grace is man
able to fulfill the Old Law and its supreme commandment, the
commandment of love of God and neighbor. The Law, how88 See any modem exegetic commentary
on these verses. We point particularly
to 0. Kuss, Der Romerbrief (Ratisbon, 1957/59) pp. 186-190; 441-450; "Die Rolle
des Apostels Paulus in der theologischen Entwicklung der Urkirche" in Munchener
Theologische Zeitschrift 14 (1963), 1-59; 109-187; "Nomos bei Paulus," loc. cit.
17 (1966),
For English commentaries consult the bibliography of "The
Letter to the Romans" by Joseph A. Fitzmyer, S. J., in The Jerome Biblical
Commentary (Englewood Cliffs, N. J., 1969), p.
and the bibliography of
"Romans" by A. Theissen in A New Catholic Commentary on Holy Scripture
(Camden, N. J., 1969), p. 1103.
89 On Thomas's idea of " Heilsgeschichte " and on agreement and disagreement
between Thomas and his contemporaries concerning the understanding of the Old
and the New Law see U. Kiihn, Via caritatis. Theologie des Gesetzes bei Thomas
von Aquin (Gottingen, 1965), pp. 37-43;
Seckler, op. cit., pp.
and
see also Pesch, Das Gesetz (see n. 10), especially "Exkurs
"Exkurs S."

PAUL AS PROFESSOR OF THEOLOGY

601

ever, did not endow man with this strength of grace. Thus the
demand of the Law becomes strained. The attempt to fulfill
the Old Law must lead to defeat, man remains short of the
Law, commits sin anew, and is lost. 40 Only a few people of
the Old Covenant escaped this necessity: those who understood the prophetical meaning of the Old Testament cult and
the ceremonial Law ruling it and who thereby were guided to
faith in the coming mediator and thus were living in the New
Covenant at the time of the Old Covenant. 41
By means of this construction, which is not without intellectual violence, Thomas permits his simpler and more obvious
conception to be mixed up. There is only one thing for which
he wishes to provide by a distinction: does not the Apostle
give occasion for misunderstanding, namely, that God himself
wills sin, if it is finally his Law which increases sin and kills
man? But that is not what the Apostle means, Thomas assures
us. The Law does not kill in an " effective " way, " effective,"
impelling directly to sin; it kills rather by giving the " occasion " for sin, "occasionaliter." It is men's guilt and not at all
the guilt of God, when man actually grasps this occasion. And
that is what Paul himself declares, following Thomas, for, we
read in Rom 7:11 (in the Latin version): "Occasione accepta " ... -" sin took advantage of the commandment to mislead me ... " 42 Therefore in the verse (5: 9W): "The Law
intervened that the offense might abound " the word " that "
must not be translated in a final sense (" causaliter ") of " in
order to " but in a consecutive sense (" consecutive ") ; the
Law intervened, so that the offense might abound. 48
No one will imagine that the distinction given by Thomas
is sufficient to solve his own problems regarding this text, not
•• Cf. Summa Theol., I-II, q. 98, a. 6; q. 100, a. 10 ad 3; ibid, a. 12.
Ibid., q. 98, a. 2 ad 4; q. 101, a. 2; q. 103, a. 2 c.; q. 107, a. 1 ad 2; for
an interpretation of these and other relevant texts see Kiihn, op. cit., pp. 169-191;
Pesch, Theologie der Rechtfertigung, pp. 424-439.
•• Summa Theol., I-II, q. 98, a. 1 ad 2; q. 99, a. 2 ad S; In Rom. 7: 11, Iect. 2
(550).
•• Summa Theol, loc. cit., q. 98, a. 1 ad 2; In Rom. 5:20, lect. 6 (459 sq.).
41

602

OTTO HERMANN PESCH

to mention ours. 44 But Thomas is content to have made his
reservation in favor of a correct idea of God. As for the rest,
the paradox of the Paulinian text dominates, and Thomas remains on its track by the assertion that God really wanted to
permit sin coming through the Law with the purpose that men,
thereby humbled, did then desire Christ's grace. 45 From this
great distance we can hear the sound of innumerable words of
Martin Luther!
Law of freedom

The third example: how will the medieval Christian Thomas,
sincerely involved in the framework of the well-established
medieval Church, react to the emphatic words of the Apostle
about Christian freedom and the autonomy of the faithful?
How will he deal with the pathos of the Epistle to the
Galatians? Here Thomas does not only admit to a challenge,
but he develops a conception which is without equivalent in the
Middle Ages.46 The word about the "Law of the Spirit" (Rom.
8:
combined with the word of the prophet Jeremiah about
the New Covenant (Jer 31: 31-33), induces Thomas to identify
the Law, according to which the Christian lives, with the grace
of the Holy Spirit itself. Let us quote the famous text of I-II,
q. 106, a. 1 (so seldom interpreted in Thomistic Schools!):
Each thing appears to be that which preponderates in it, as the
Philosopher states in IX Eth. Yet, that which is preponderant in
the law of the New Testament and whereon all its efficacy is based
is the grace of the Holy Spirit, which is given through faith in
Christ. And this is manifestly stated by the Apostle who says
(Rom 3: 27) : " So what becomes of our boasts? On the contrary,
« These problems belong to the context of the ideas which Thomas develops on
" God and evil " and, finally, on " predestination " and " reprobation " of men by
God. See Pesch, op. cit., pp. 513 sq.; 846-855; 861-864; 879-881; The God Question
(see n. 30), p. 24 sq.
'"Summa Theol., loc cit., q. 98, a. ad 3; q. 106, a. 3 c.
•• Detailed analysis by G. Sohngen, Gesetz und Evangelium. lhre analoge
1957)
Einheit, theologisch, philosophisch, staatsbiirgerlich (Freiburg/Br.M-unich,
pp. 44-78; Kiihn, op. cit., pp.
Pesch, Theologie der Rechtfertigung, 439·
451.

PAUL AS PROFESSOR

OF THEOLOGY

603

it is the law of faith" : for he calls the grace itself of faith a law.
And still more clearly it is written (Rom 8: : "The law of the
spirit of life in Christ Jesus has set me free from the law of sin and
death." Hence Augustine says (De Spiritu et Littera,
: "As
the law of deeds was written on tables of stone, so is the law of
faith inscribed on the hearts of the faithful." And elsewhere in the
same book he says: "\Vhat else are God's laws, written in the
hearts by God himself, but the very presence of his Holy Spirit?"
Nevertheless, the New Law contains certain things that dispose
us to receive the grace of the Holy Spirit and pertain to the use
of this grace; such things are of secondary importance, so to speak,
in the New Law, and the faithful needed to be instructed concerning them, both by word and by writing, both as to what they
should believe and as to what they should do. Thus we must say
that the New Law is in the first place a law that is inscribed in our
hearts, but that secondarily it is a written law. 47

The Christian is no longer confronted with a Law coming from
outside, he bears God's Law in himself. And this Law is no
longer a burdening demand but a spontaneous inner inspiration
and strength to do what God wills we should do. We need
the letter only insofar as the content of the New Law has to
become manifest and inasmuch as the" use" of this inner New
Law is to be clarified. But all that is secondary, and the written
letter of the Gospel kills in the same way as the letter of the
Old Law did, if it is isolated from that which principally and
first of all is the essence of the New Law: the grace of the Holy
Spirit in man's heart itsel£.48 Thus the New Law is a Law of
freedom, and Thomas does not neglect to point out that therefore also the leaders of the Church are obliged to be reserved
in making new laws. For God has given, compared with the
Old Covenant, only a few commandments and prohibitions in
the New Law. If one does not follow this rule, then one risks
finally the danger that to live under the New Law will become
more intolerable than to live under the Old. 49
"Summa Theol., lac. cit., q. 106, a. I c; Jer. 31:31-33 is mentioned in the "sed
contra." The same doctrine In Rom 3:27, lect. 4 (313-316); 8:2 1 lect. l (600-605).
•• Summa Theol., loc cit., q. 106, a. 2 c. (in fine),
'"Ibid., q. 107, a. 4 c.

604

OTTO HERMANN PESCH

" Domesticated " Paul?

Has Thomas " domesticated " Paul, a charge frequently
leveled as an immanent danger to the Paulinian exegesis in the
Catholic tradition? 50
One has to say Yes and No at the same time. In fact, it
does mean to "domesticate" Paul, if his letters are read and
interpreted as the academic
of a professor. Frequently, too, we have to establish that Thomas did not admit
a challenge to his thought by the Apostle but rather submitted
the latter's ideas to the traditional theological schemas or to
his own Aristotelian " pre-understanding " or to both of them.
We should recall, for example, questions like those about divine
predestination, 51 virginity, and marriage,S2 the doublet of" flesh
and spirit," 58 the faith coming from what is heard, 5 4 the image
of Christ in the Epistle to the Colossians,55 and so on. But are
not things like that-interpretation according to an inevitable
"pre-understanding "-the fate of e·very interpretation of Paul
and of the whole of Scripture, even in a strict historical explication of modem style?
Only then would Paul be really domesticated and have lost
his explosive power, if finally he no longer appeared as the
preacher of God's unconditioned, non-deserved mercy and as
the declared enemy of all legalism and work-righteousness. But
so See e. g., Kuss, "Die Rolle des Apostels Paulus" (see n. 88), pp. 12-16; SS-51;
178-187; "Nomos bei Paulus," p. 227.
" 1 In Rom 8:29, lect. 6 (701-706); 9:18-28, lect. 2 (762) to lect. 5 (795); Summa
Theol., I, q. 28.
•• In I COT 7:1-9, lect. 1 (812-885); Summa Theol., 11-11, q. 152; q. 184, a.
4; q. 186, a. 4; and the "Opusculum" De perfectione vitae spiritualia (OpuaC'!da
theologica, ed. Marietti, vol. II, Turin, 1954) , ch. 8 and 9 (English On the
Perfection of the Spiritual Life, Westminster, Md., 1950).
•• In Rom 8:8-6, lect. 1 (606-618); In Gal 5:16-17, lect. 4 (807-815).
•• In Rom 10:16-17, lect. 2 (842-844).
•• The relevant texts of the Epistle to the Colossians on creation in Christ are
commonly referred not to the Savior but to the trinitarian Logos. These biblical
texts, therefore, do not inspire the author of the Summa towards a " Christocentric "
theology. On the problem of "Christocentrism" in Thomas's theology see Pesch,
Thealogie der Reehtfertigung, pp. 581-584; 864-866; 921-985; collection of all
references to Col 1:15-17 in the Summa Theol., op. cit., p. 980 n. 48.

PAUL AS PROFESSOR OF THEOLOGY

605

Thomas Aquinas did not become guilty of such a perversion of
the Apostle's theology. 56 His exegesis corresponds to what he
says in the prologue of his commentary, characterizing the person of the Apostle:
Thus, just as from among the books of the Old Testament the
Psalms of David, who received forgiveness after his sin, are most
frequently used, so in the New Testament the Epistles of Paul, who
obtained mercy, are most frequently used. The reason is so that
sinners might be aroused to hope. 57
OTTO HERMANN PESCH

Gilching near Munich
Germany

•• On this we must call to mind the entire doctrine of Thomas on grace and
justification. See Pesch, op. cit., especially pp. 596-79fl.
57 In Epistolas Pauli, prol. (6).

KNOWLEDGE OF THE SINGULAR: AQUINAS, SUAREZ,
AND RECENT INTERPRETERS

O

CKHAM'S NOMINALISM carne as a severe blow to
philosophia perennis and prepared the groundwork
for Modern Philosophy. Several factors contributed
to this upheaval. On the one hand, neither Augustinian
Scholasticism nor the followers of Scotus were properly
equipped to oust once and for all the anti-conceptualistic tendencies introduced by the Venerabilis Inceptor. On the other
hand, despite the tremendous contributions of Cajetan and
Franciscus of Ferrara, the Thornist School was ill-prepared to
resist the attack which was strongly reinforced by Francis
Bacon's opposition to the scholastic apriorism in natural philosophy and by the brilliant confirmation of the " experimental
method " as it was put into effect in the works of Galileo.
It is true that in the early sixteenth century the tide seemed
to be on its way back for a moment. The School of Cajetan
indeed had just received a new momentum though Franciscus
of Vitoria who had been himself a student of a very serious
and progressive thornist, Peter Crockaert, at the University ot
Paris. This would seem to be a significant event, for through
his own teaching at Salamanca Vito ria was about to give Europe
a whole generation of outstanding professors such as Melchior
Cano and Domingo Soto, who in turn would pass on the
thomistic torch to others, such as the Jesuit Cardinal Toletus, a
disciple of Soto, who used his influential chair at the Roman
College to spread the word throughout the Continent. In this
chain, Peter Fonseca, S. J., was undoubtedly one of the most
effective links through the publication of his Cursus Conimbric.ensium which he undertook while teaching at the University
of Coi'rnbra in Portugal and which was designed to update in
a critical way traditional Aristotelianisrn. However, all this
606

KNOWLEDGE

OF THE SINGULAR

607

impressive anti-nominalistic effort would be overpowered and
even undermined by the eclectic mind of another illustrious
Jesuit, Franciscus Suarez, who joined Fonseca at Co'imbra and
was destined to dominate the Scholastic stage for three cen··
turies. His teaching indeed was bound to touch even a young
man called Rene Descartes who would study at the" College de
la Fleche " in Paris, and his frame of mind would impress the
new philosopher thereby exerting a decisive influence on the
whole Modem Philosophy. 1
Yet, this is not to say that Suarez did nothing more than to
convey Ockham's message, nor is it necessary to say so in order
to uphold the aforementioned impact. Although his sympathies
indeed were not all with Ockham-as they were shared also
by St. Thomas and Scotus-, his eclectic position was enough
to commit him to two allegiances totally irreconcilable with
each other which in the end were to give a considerable boost
to nominalism as they were bound to weaken and further
discredit thomistic terminology.
Furthermore, not even his doctrinal disagreement with
Ockham regarding the principle of individuation did in fact
immunize him against a nominalistic approach to universals
despite that Suarez could not altogether go along with the
Venerabilis Inceptor's conception of the individual for he tried
1 See Joseph Marechal, Le Point de Depart de la Metaphysique
(Paris: DescleeDe Brouwer, 1965), Cahier II, pp. 39-40: " Cette Scolastique renouvee, soit
thomiste, soit eclectique, inspira de nombreux titulaires de chaires publiques ou
privees, disperses par !'Europe entiere. Descartes, eleve au College des Jesuites
de La Fleche, dans le premier quart du XVIIe.s., fut atteint par le mouvement
general. Il connut directement ou indirectement les ouvres de saint Thomas, de
Tolet, des Commentateurs de Coimbre, et meme de Suarez; si mauvais souvenir
qu'il ait garde des lecons de philosophie scolastique qu'on lui infligea, on voudrait
en connaitre d'une maniere plus precise !'inspiration; car !'esprit le plus independant
garde toujours quelque chose d'une initiation premiere. Nous n'avons pas le moyen
de satisfaire cette legitime curiosite; mais nous ne croyons pas superflu de rappeler,
aujourd'hui meme, que la philosophie cartesienne n'est, ni logiquement, ni psychologiquement un 'commencement absolu '. Si originale qu'elle puisse etre ou se
pretendre, elle entre en scene grevee d'un heritage de presupposees, dont les plus
lourds ne sont pas ceux dont Descartes eut explicitement conscience." See also
Frederick Copleston, A History of Philosophy, Vol. 3, Part II, pp. 199-200, (Garden
City, New York: 1963), Image Books, A Division of Doubleday and Co.

608

FRANCISCO

L. PECCORINI

to be a genuine metaphysician even while doing Epistemology.
Alejandro has emphasized the gap that separates both philosophers in this respect:
We think that it is impossible to speak of a true principle of individuation in Ockham. He who sees in a thing that he intuits
nothing more than a whole presenting itself in its total phenomenal
reality, and does not penetrate the metaphysical principles or components that constitute it, cannot appoach a problem that supposes
those very principles. Those who admit a composition of act and
potency, of matter and form, will have to wonder in which one
of them lies the ultimate constitutive of individuality; but he who
does not acknowledge such a plurality of principles cannot find any
sense in that question. 2
Nevertheless, no matter how true this divisive metaphysical
concern of his may have been, Suarez's emphasis on the individual in its capacity as the very first object of our knowledge
far out-weighed it and seems to have driven the Eximius closer
to Ockham than to Aquinas and Scotus.
This finally leads us to the statement of our problem. Tf
both Suarez and Ockham are allegedly credited with having
fostered nominalism in Modern Philosophy without nevertheless fully agreeing with each other, it follows that we cannot
criticize their respective positions on the same grounds. There
is need then to draw a clear line of division between the two
nominalistic theses for evaluating purposes. In so doing, though,
we cannot overlook Suarez's claims of allegiance to St. Thomas,
as any Thomist handle used by him necessarily had to
have an adverse bearing on his ability to uphold the primacy
of the individual. As Camille Berube has brilliantly established
in his book La Connaissance de l'lndividuel au Moyen Age:
" Only under the condition of a fundamental disfiguration of
itself could the doctrine of the intelligible species adapt itself
to the direct intellection which by nature tends to eliminate a-;
superfluous the whole mechanism of Aristotelian intellects." 3
• Jose M. Alejandro, Estudios Gnoseol6gicos, Juan Flors, Editor (Barcelona,
1961)' p. 160.
8 Camille Berube, La Connaissance de l'Individuel
au Moyen Age (Presses Universitaires de France, 164), p. 93.

KNOWLEDGE

OF THE SINGULAR

609

Ockham himself perceived it most clearly, and this was the
reason why he divested himself of any belief in common nature,
principle of individuation, agent intellect, and intelligible
species. It is a law indeed that the thesis of the epistemological
primacy of the individual can succeed only to the extent to
which its path is made clear of any Aristotelian encumbrance.
According to this law, for instance, Matthew of Aquasparta and
Pier di Giovanni Olivi could cling smoothly to the new epistemological position, whereas Vital du Four fell prey to the
delusion of believing that he had proved the direct intuition
when in fact his position was still basically thomist, and John
Duns Scotus had to settle for a compromising distinction between human ability to conceive the individual ex natura
potentiae and man's frustrating inability to do so in statu isto.
In this respect Franciscus Suarez holds a very unique place
in history. As a Jesuit he was bound to the teachings of St.
Thomas, but as a man of his century he could not escape the
powerful attraction of the new theories. Unfortunately, as in
everything else, he opted once again for compromise as a way
out. Now his position raises two important questions which
will constitvte the thread of our work: Can a diminished
Thomism such as his really account for our knowledge of the
individual? Would it not have been better for him to go Thomist
all the way if he had really understood Aquinas's theory? It
is the contention of this article that through his eclectic solution
Suarez jeopardized both the nature of the agent intellect and
the thesis of the primacy of the individual in epistemology, thus
forcing us to review the thesis of indirect knowledge of the
singular which, if examined in the light of Lonergan and
Rahner's writings, finally proves to be fully satisfactory.

* * * *
First of all, Suarez' determination to remain on the side of
Aquinas and Scotus even while laying the foundation for the
proper concept of the singular becomes most evident in his
constant recourse to the agent intellect. In order to show this

610

FRANCISCO

L. PECCORINI

we divide his reasoning into three stages: (A) our intellect
knows the singular, whether material or not, through a proper
and separate concept; (B) in particular, it knows the material
individual in that way; (C) and it does so without resorting
to any kind of reflection.
In connection with the first thesis the outline of our procedure is as follows: we shall sum up Suarez' argumentation,
sprinkling it here and there with brief comments aimed mainly
at its methodological aspect, and then we shall examine at
length the chief assumptions on which Suarez bases his whole
case.
(A) According to Suarez, our understanding does not need
universal concepts to reach all kinds of individuals, and this is
clear for the following reasons. 4 First of all, any time the intellect
forms a proposition such as "Peter is a man" it undoubtedly
knows each of the terms including the singular one. 5 And it
does not help to say that the subject is known through the
cogitative and the predicate through the intellect, because in
any act of judgment the same intellect must know both terms
since it has to compare them with each other. 6 This first rea4 " lntellectus
cognoscit singulare formando proprium et distinctum conceptum
illius." (De Anima, IV, 3, 3).
5 " ••• intellectus format propositionem ex singnlari et universali termino:
ergo
concipit utrumque extremum proprio conceptu. Quod vero quidam volunt in tali
aliqua propositione, verbi gratia Petrus est homo, subiectum esse in cogitativa et
praedicatum in intellectu, omnino est alienum a ratione, nam ubi quaeso erit copula?
aut quomodo una ipsa potentia poterit comparare praedicatum cum subiecto nisi
utrumque cognoscat? " (ibid.).
6 Alejandro, op. cit., p. 195, footnote 38, supports Suarez in his reply to Cajetan:
" Suarez es fidelisimo en la referencia de Cayetano: ' Sufficit cognitio argnitiva.
Concipiendum enim in nobis hominem et singularitatem ab intellectu nostro non
proprio sed alieno conceptu, qui tamen est aliquo modo, scil., confuse et
arguitive ... non reprasentative ... " (1, q. 86, art. 1). Suarez dira oportunamente
que para esta explicaci6n, 'neque ratio adducitur apparens '. El que el concepto
universal no sea propio y con todo en algun sentido lo sea, y no representativamente
(es decir, cognoscitivamente), sino arguitivamente, exige una mayor explicaci6n
pues dificulta seriamente el problema del conocimiento. La situaci6n de Cayetano
no seria muy ventajosa en frente de Kant." Both Suarez and Alejandro base
their argumentation on the same regrettable petitio principii which supposes the
nature of the knowledge of the singular alr.eady definitively dealt with. Alejandro,

KNOWLEDGE

OF THE SINGULAR

611

son, then, begs the question, whereas it is the nature of the
judgment itself which is fundamentally at stake A second argument proposed by Suarez is not any more fortunate. Our understanding, we are told, distinguishes man from Peter, which
means that it possesses a distinct cognition of each of them. 7
Indeed, the validity of this impressive agrument is impaired as
soon as we realize that our intellect does not distinguish these
two extremes as two things but only as a "logical whole " and
one of its inferiors. A third attempt is made by focusing on
two intellectual activities, namely, the virtues of prudence and
of faith, and then pointing out that very often they refer to
singular objects. To what extent this is a conclusive argument
depends on whether or not a sound explanation of the pinpointed cases can be obtained through reference to acts of judgment as understood by the Thomists. 8 Finally, we are told,
is it not childish to deny to the more powerful intellect what
we grant the lower rank faculty of sense, namely, the cognition
of singulars? 9 There is no question, of course, of the superiority
of the intellect over the sense-faculty. Again, there is no question of this same ontological superiority carrying with it in
the case of subsistent intellects the same power which belongs
to the sense. Even here, however, it should be pointed out that
the subsistent intellect knows more of the individual than the
material sense, since the former knows the individual's being
which is totally impervious to any sense-activity. However,
none of this is really in question here. It is rather the superiority of human intellect over human senses which is of direct
in addition, refers to the universal what Cajetan says of the singular ... Finally,
both seem to take for a real reason their utopic desire of absolute clarity, which
in this matter is impossible.
1 "Praeterea
intellectus distinguit hominem a Petro, ergo utriusque habet distinctam coguitionem ... " (De Anima, IV, 8, 8).
8 " ••• Item prudentia versatur
circa singularia ... Sed prudentia est intellectualis
virtus . . . Rursus fides divina saepe singularium est . . . et tamen est virtus
intellectualis ... " (ibid.).
• ". . . Ratio a priori sumitur ex universalitate potentiae, est enim superior et
potens omnia quae inferiores sensus, imo dirigens illos errores illorum corrigit:
multo ergo melius singularia novit •.. " (ibid.) ,

612

FRANCISCO

L. PECCORINI

concern in this investigation. And yet, we should remember
that the Thomist thesis does not rest on any kind of " hierarchical consideration " but is forced as it were on its patrons by a
sort of "force majeure" imposed by the extrinsic dependence
of the human soul upon the body. It is within this inevitable
context that both epistemologies, that of Suarez and that uf
Aquinas, will have to be evaluated. In other words, the argu-ment we have been commenting on is one more instance of the
"begging the question" procedure with which we have met so
often up to this point.
(B) It would seem that Suarez is most anxious to make his
point in all ways possible but most of all insofar as material
things are concerned. 10 To this effect he calls our attention to
his particular conception of the agent intellect. The use he
makes of it reduces to the following argumentation: it is neither
impossible nor absurd for the agent intellect to produce a spiritual "species impressa" of the singular; consequently, the
possible intellect can react with a corresponding " species expressa " of the same, i. e., man can know the individual compound of matter and form. The possibility of such a production
is evident to him on the assumption that the agent intellect,
by performing a specific abstraction-not a generic one-removes the conditions of material existence from all concrete
modes of being and thus obtains an abstract intelligible singular.11 On the other hand, he does not see why and how such a
performance of the agent intellect should involve an absurdity.12 He starts off with a very debatable antecedent, which
10 " Intellectus noster cognoscit singulare materiale per propriam ipsius speciem."
(De Anima, IV, 3, 5).
11 See Alejandro, op. cit., p. 199; Suarez, Disputationes Metaphysicae, V, 1, f.!;

V, 8, 13-14; V, 6, 3.
12 ". • • nihil repugnat
dari speciem spiritualem impressam repraesentativam
singularis rei materialis, ut sic: ergo talis species produci valet ab intellectu agente:
ergo a possibili iam cognoscetur singulare per propriam speciem. Antecedens
suadetur primo: nam potest dari species expressa ... ergo et species impressa ...
Probatur secundo . . . nam in Angelis . . . dantur species spirituales, et singulares
repraesentantes propria singularia materia, ut sic; ergo . . . Tertio res universales
materiales repraesentantur per speciem spiritualem, ergo, et singulares poterunt

KNOWLEDGE

OF THE SINGULAR

613

openly begs the question: as a matter of fact, he says, we have
" species expressae " of singular material things; therefore we
must have the coresponding "species impressae" as well. It
is true that we know individual things, but why could this
not be through judgments rather than through concepts? To
say that it is through a " species expressa " of the singular is
to assume as already proven what constitutes the main point
in this whole inquiry. But Suarez does not seem to see the
problem. After all, he says, is it not true that angels have such
species? A pari, then, they can be found in human minds as
well. Of course, he does not realize that such entities may
not be absurd in the case of subsistent intelligences and nevertheless be impossible in human souls, as we shall show in the
main section of this criticism. There too we will deal with
another weak parity to which he resorts as to a final argument; it can be stated in this way: universal material essences
can be represented spiritually through universal concepts, therefore the materiality of the object is no obstacle at all, and consequently individual material things can be represented spiritually through direct concepts. In other words, once a material
thing can be represented spiritually, it can be always and under
any kind of circumstances the object of a proper concept.
(C) Finally, on the basis of his special conception of the
agent intellect it is not surprising that he could not see any
reason for any kind of reflection over or return to the phantasm.13 If such a reflection were necessary, he thinks, it would
be either because the singular thing is to be known through
it as through a " medium cognitum," i. e., through something
which only by being known itself leads to the knowledge of
the other, or else, because the individual material reality must
be known through it as through a real species which, without
being known, enables us to know the object. But none of these
hypotheses are admissible. The first one can be dismissed for
repraesentari. Nam si semel per spiritualem qualitatem potest repraesentari res
materialis, nihil interest singularisne sit an universalis." (De Anima, IV, 3, 5).
18 " Intellectus
noster coguoscit directe singularia materialia absque reflexione "
(ibid., 7).

614

FRANCISCO

L. PECCORINI

three reasons. First of all, we do not have any experience of
our knowing the phantasm when we know something, as we
would be required to do in this alternative. In the second
place, is it not repugnant to reason that our intellect should
know something in something else of an inferior order? Finally, does not this hypothesis already grant what it is designed
to disprove, namely, the direct knowledge of a particular material thing, since the very phantasm itself is such? As to the
other alternative, it is summarily dismissed by Suarez for the
very simple reason that it would be outrageous to say that a
material thing such as the phantasm is actually concurring in
a spiritual action of the intellect. 14 This difficulty, says Suarez,
becomes further compounded in Soto's theory according to
which not only the material phantasm would determine
spiritual intellect but the spiritual intellect thus determined
to know would attain the singular material thing directly
through a universal concept. 15

* * * * *
14 "Nam vel cognoscitur
per phantasma tamquam per obiectum seu medium
cognitum: vel tamquam per speciem. Tamquam per obiectum cognosci est impossibile primo, quia alioquin prius foret cognoscendum ab intellectu phantasma
ipsum quam singulare in eo repraesentatum quod est contra experientiam . . .
Secundo, quia rationi dissonum est, ut intellectus in re materiali et inferioris ordinis
tamquam in obiecto quippam cognoscat. Esset quin magna quaedam illius imperfectio, nullaque cogens ratio ad illam asserendam . . . Tertio quia phantasma
ipsum est quid singulare ac materiale: ergo si cognoscitur ... iam singulare ipsum
materiale directe cognoscitur. Quarto si cognoscitur singulare repraesentans. lam
vero cognosci singulare per phantasma tamquam per speciem seu medium non
cognitum dici nullo modo potest. Quia res materialis et inferioris ordinis non
potest concurrere in actum spiritualem ... " (ibid.).
15 Even Soto's account is dismissed by
" Tertium tamen modum assignat
Soto I Phys. q. 2, art. 2, dicens singulare cognosci ab intellectu per determinationem
ad particulare phantasma; sed vel modus hie coincidit cum
praecedenti, vel illud certe novum continet, quod phantasia operante circa tale
aliquod singulare ita determinatur intellectus, ut per speciem universalem possit
iam singulare attingere, quod tamen impossibile est: namque operatio phantasiae
impertinens est atque insufficiens, si intellectus ipse intra se non habet sufficiens
principium cognitionis qualis non est rei universalis species, sed sola species rei
singularis ... " (ibid.) .

KNOWLEDGE OF THE SINGULAR

615

There is no point in denying beauty and articulateness to
this construction. However, does it not overlook a third alternative which might be the true one, namely, the elevation of
the phantasm by the agent intellect? This leads us to the
main portion of our criticism.
Beyond the superficial flaws (of a rather methodological
character) already mentioned, we must now point to some fundamental premises that underlie the whole Suarezian discourse
about the cognoscibility of the individual as such, premises that
are either false or most debatable. Suarez, in fact, continues
to
to an " ad hominem " argument based on the parity
between angelic and human concepts, which entails a misunderstanding on his part both of what St. Thomas really taught
about the cooperation between senses and understanding in the
human being and of the Thomist doctrine of angelic species. In
addition, there is in Suarez a constant reference to a special
theory of the agent intellect on which most of his arguments
are based, a theory which must be subjected to a thorough
criticism if the Suarezian doctrine of the cognoscibility of the
singular is to be accepted in any knowledgeable manner.
There are several points in Aquinas's epistemology that
elude Suarez's grasp. For one thing, St. Thomas never
taught that the individual as such is unintelligible. How
could he, if according to his doctrine of intelligibilty which
is rooted in Being whatever " is" is intelligible and the individual really" is" ? It is only with regard to us that, in thomistic terms, the individual is not intelligible; and this is so
because we are constituted to know it through two facultiessense and intellect-and each one of them has alloted to it
only one part of the composite, namely, either matter or form,
whereby our intellect is forced to separate the form from the
matter if it is to really "understand " anything at all in the
individual. Our mind, therefore, understands the singular " by
way of analysis," whereas the angel intellectually grasps the
whole composite as such " by way of synthesis " because its
species is the likeness of the divine essence precisely insofar as
the divine essence is productive of both matter and form in the

616

FRANCISCO

L. PECCORINI

individual thing. 16 This alone destroys the "parity" which
constitutes the strength of several of Suarez's arguments. We
do not know individual things in the same way in which angels
know them because our proportionate object differs from theirs.
Ours is the essence of material things, theirs is whatever is intelligible through itself/ 7 namely, all separate substances-including their own-and all material individuals as such. However, separate substances know themselves directly through
their own essence, not in the way we know our own mind which
is in the process of knowing other things and is being actuated
by their species. 18 This is clear since our intellect must be actualized by species inasmuch as by essence it is only possible;
but the intellect of separate substances does not encounter such
a limitation since it is always in act. 19 However, in connection
with separate substances other than the one which is knowing,
intelligible species become necessary even for pure spirits.
St. Thomas argues that a separate substance does not know
other separate substances by knowing its own essence,
its essence would provide it only a generic knowledge of the
other. 20 The only way it could know others through its own
16 See II Cont. Gent., 100, 4:
" The species of intelligible things come to our
intellect in an order contrary to that in which they reach the intellect of separate
substances. For they reach our intellect by way of analysis, through abstraction
from material and individuating conditions; that is why we cannot know singulars
through them. But it is as it were by way of synthesis that intelligible species
reach the intellect of a separate substance, for the latter has intelligible species
by reason of its likeness to the first intelligible species-the divine intellect-which
is not abstracted from things but productive of them. And it is productive not
only of the form but also of the matter, which is the principle of individuation.
Therefore, the species of the separate substance's intellect regard the total thing,
not only the principles of the species but even the individuating principles. The
knowledge of singulars, ther.efore, must not be denied to separate substances, although our intellect cannot be cognizant of singulars." Ironically, Alejandro (op.
cit., p. !200, footnote 4), while trying to give us a better understanding of the
crucial " parity " argued by Suarez, sends us precisely to that chapter of the
Cont. Gent. See Summa Theol., I, q. 57, a. !2, c; II Cont. Gent., 100, !2, 4.
17 See 11 Cont. Gent., 98, 1.

Ibid., 96, 6; 97, 3.
'" Ibid., 98, 2.
•• Ibid., 3.

18

KNOWLEDGE

OF THE SINGULAR

617

essence would be if it were their cause, but it is not since the
cause of separate substances must be a creator and only God
can create. 21 It does not help to insist on the fact that it knows
its essence as it really is, namely, as the likeness of God insofar as God is the cause of all things, because this still does
not make an angel the universal cause of all things. 22 It ia,
therefore, only through species that a subsistent form can reach
its peers. And this conclusion is confirmed by Aquinas in the
following way. As a subsistent form is an understanding which
is always actual, it follows that it does always know the whole
of Being. 28 Now this requires that either it has of itself the
perfect likeness of the whole of Being and of all its differences,
and then it is an infinite being itself; or else, not being an infinite being it is in potentiality to the likeness of the whole of
Being, and this implies that the likeness of the whole of Being
is given to it in an imperfect and finite way, as a manifold
which is total only by addition. 24 Of course, the choice is not
at stake since it is evident that separate substances are not
infinite, although they most certainly are always actual. Consequently they reach their peers through species which are always present to them. 25 Does this mean that they are a sort
of carrier of an infinite number of species? This question makes
sense only insofar as it flows spontaneously from an anthropomorphic conception of the angels. St. Thomas's answer,
though, does not overlook the fact that pure forms are placed
at a midpoint between God, who knows an infinity of individuals through his unique self-subsisting species, and men
who cannot even know even one individual through each one
of their species. As a result, his answer is altogether in the
negative. Separate forms, he tells us, are so far from needing
an infinite number of species in order to know an infinite number of individuals that in fact their species are even less
" 1 Ibid., 4-6.
•• Ibid., 8.
23 Ibid., 9.
24 Ibid., 10.
25 Ibid., 13.

618

FRANCISCO

L. PECCORINI

numerous than those of human minds. He does not see an;ymystery in this. It is only that, as he sees it, the nearer a
form approaches to the perfection and goodness of the universal
beeing-which is also the universal likeness or species of all
individuals-the more it enjoys through its intelligible species
the all encompassing cognitive ability of the divine subsisting
species and consequently the more individuals it can reach
through each one of its general species. 26
It would seem that Aquinas has sufficiently proved that
angels need intelligible species in order to know other objects
different from themselves. He did not think so. For one thing,
in answer to a possible objection he makes it clear that, despite
the fact that a separate substance is intelligible through itself,
an angel does not become actualized directly by the essence
of a known pure spirit but rather by its species. 27 There i'S
an exception, though, for St. Thomas. If a separate substance
is spiritually in immediate contact with another separate substance, then it can know that form in its own essence, whether
the other is higher or lower than itself in the hierarchy. 28 But
once again this is a circumstantial exception that regards only
separate forms. As for material substances, the same regular
procedure described above, and for exactly the same reasonl'l,
applies to the understanding of them on the part of pure
spirits. 20
Once the alleged parity between angelic knowledge and human understanding has been shown to be false, we are able to
perceive the necessary limitations affecting the latter. What
first strikes our attention is that, being essentially possible, our
intellect must be actuated for each act of knowledge including
the act whereby it knows itself. The least that is entailed in
this conclusion is that a kind of determination coming from
the object is unavoidable. But since material singulars first
affect the knower through his external senses and his imagina•• Ibid., 10-12; 100, 2.
•• Ibid., 98, 14-19.
•• Ibid. 20.
•• Ibid., 99, 1--2.

KNOWLEDGE OF THE SINGULAR

619

tion, it becomes imperative to posit also a certain cooperation
between the sense-faculty and the intellect. On account of the
basic unity of the soul 80 some amount of interaction between
the phantasm and intellection in their capacity as operations
of two faculties of the same knower does not seem to be much
of a problem. However, on the account of the unbridgeable
gap between the material level of the former and the spiritual
character of the latter, such cooperation must necessarily undergo drastic qualifications. That the cooperation must respect
the irreducibility of one order to the other not only must be
agreed upon by Thomists and Suarezians alike but in addition
it must constitute the final test of their respective theories, in
the sense that they either adhere to this canon or in practice
at least forget its demands.
St. Thomas, for one, certainly remained faithful to his master
Aristotle who had insistently emphasized the sacredness of the
foregoing criterion. His theory of abstraction, based on conversion to the phantasm, is well known, but it creates some
confusion in certain circles and might induce some readers to
prefer the appar.ent simplicity that characterizes Suarez'::
theory of the cognoscibility of the singular. However, it is
quite in order to remind oursehoes of the golden advice so long
confirmed by the History of Philosophy: beware of over80 See Summa Theol., I, q. 12, a. 4c:
" Therefore, what exists only in individual
matter we know naturally, since our soul, through which we know, is the form
of some particular matter. Now our soul possesses two cognitive powers. One is
the act of a corporeal organ, which naturally knows things existing in individual
matter; hence sense knows only the singular. But there is another kind of cognitive
power in the soul, called the intellect; and this is not the act of any corporeal
organ. Therefore the intellect naturally knows natures which exist only in
individual matter; not indeed as they are in such individual matter, but according
as they are abstracted therefrom by the consideration of the intellect. Hence it
follows that through the intellect we can understand things in a universal way;
and this is beyond the power of sense." He further explains this basic inability
of the sense: "An indication of this is that sight cannot in any way know in
abstraction what it knows concretely; for in no way can it perceive a nature
except as this one particular nature; whereas our intellect is able to consider in
abstraction what it knows in concretion. For although it knows things which
have a form residing in matter, still it resolves the composite into both elements,
and considers the form separately by itself " (ibid., ad 3).

620

FRANCISCO

L. PECCORINI

simplifications. As we are going to show, Suarez's neat explanation falls short of reality, whereas the rather complicated approach followed by Aquinas truly accounts for the way in
which we intellectually come to grips with the most concrete
singularity of things.

* * * *
In order better to understand the Thomist position let us
first consider Suarez's account of our knowledge of the individual as such. It becomes quickly apparent that it falls prey
to a devastating dilemma which at best leaves the Eximius
Doctor saying no more than the Angelic. Indeed, focusing on
a certain ambiguity in the use of the term " material individual
substance " as it appears throughout the Suarezian writings,
two possible positions become immediately evident. Either one
says with Picard that Suarez nev.er clearly stated that our intellect directly grasps the existential singularity of sensible objects as such, 81 or else one holds to the position of Alejandro
who maintains that he did. 32 In the first case, the whole of
Suarezianism crumbles insofar as epistemology is concerned. In
the second, though, some appearance remains but it soon vanishes as well. This is so because either one means by existential
singularity the accumulation of individualized accidents, and
then the problem reappears in connection with each one of
those particular accidents without it ever being possible to find
any solution but only bold empty affirmations; or else, one
means the very hidden substance, and then one gets from
Suarez only an analogical and discursive knowledge which
amounts more or less to what Aquinas himself has consistently
held.
81 See N. Picard,
in Antonianum, XIX (Jan.-Apr. 1944), pp. 76-77, where he
writes: " Admet-il, en outre, l'intelligible de la singularite existentelle? . . . Quoi
qu'il en soit de la valeur de ces arguments remarquons que ... Suarez n'affirme
pas nettement que !'intelligence humaine saisisse, directement comme telle, la
singularite existentielle des objects sensibles." (Quoted by Alejandro, op. cit., p.
He does not emphasize either the distinction made famous by Scotus between perceiving the existence of this nature and knowing this nature as existing.
•• Alejandro, op. cit., pp.

KNOWLEDGE

OF THE SINGULAR

Alejandro makes his case as carefully as possible but perhaps
not as convincingly as we would have desired. First, he draws
a clear distinction between an individual material thing taken
in a metaphysical sense and the same considered from an existential vantage point. Evidently, the former is the real thing
insofar as it includes in its own being a metaphysical distinction between its specific nature and its individuation, the individuation itself being in Suarezian terms a real " difference "
which contracts the species to the individual in exactly the
same way in which the specific difference contrasts the genus
to the species, i.e., by adding to the specific nature something
positive although "ratione distinctum" only. 33 Accordingly,
the metaphysical concept of the individual would have to include necessarily these two essential marks, a concept of the
species and a real concept of the individuation of this particular
thing. Consequently, had Alejandro chosen to credit Suarez
with the contention that we have such a concept, he would
have been in genuine trouble because Suarez painstakenly
barely arrived at a general concept of individuation, and this
he did through a discursive procedure. Perhaps for this reason
Alejandro decided to attribute to the Eximius Doctor the thesis
of the cognoscibility of the " existential singularity." But such
an attempt carries with it a throng of puzzles and riddles.
Alejandro understands by "existential singularity" the very
individual material thing insofar as it is tied to the "hie et
nunc" of existence and moves in the midst of the accidentality
of the two existential dimensions, space and time. He is no
longer concerned with the fact that the specific nature becomes
differentiated by its metaphysical individuation but rather with
the existence of the thing which requires in addition to the
metaphyseal individuation further determinations such as the
thousand details which differentiate this from that. In his view,
it is this kind of global individual that, according to a sound
•• See DM, V, !l!, ## !l!, 5, 6, 8, 9, 16, !l!O; see also Frederick Copleston, A
(Garden City, New York: Image Books), vol. 3, part II,
History of Philosophy.
pp. 180-181.

FRANCISCO

L. PECCORINI

epistemology, our mind would grasp directly. He makes the
point that Suarez dismisses outright the difficulty ensuing from
the fact that material things are tied to spatio-temporal conditions. To show this he reminds us that Suarez concerned himself with the tight bond that ties the material thing to the conditions of space and time, 34 and that he nevertheless did not
grant it the category of a real obstacle to intelligibility. The
only way, says Alejandro while summing up Suarez's reasoning,
in which the spatia-temporal circumstances would hinder intellibility would be in their capacity as sequels of materiality
itself. If therefore materiality is not a real obstacle-since even
we know material common substances as material and angels
can reach the material individual itself through their understanding-, it would follow that spatio-temporal conditions cannot really constitute any kind of problem. All that would follow
is that material objects-singular
or universal-must
be
represented in a spiritual way by the mind. But this is neither
impossible nor absurd, as argued by Suarez in group (B) of
the expose we have presented above. Evidently, he persists in
holding the parity we dismissed at some length.
It is fair to say that so far Alejandro has been accurate, because Suarez did indeed really hold the general thesis of the
intellectual cognoscibility of the particular through proper concepts, and he even solved the difficulty coming from the spatiotemporal aspect of existence. But as soon as we ask about the
particular mode in which this happens, the inevitable ambiguity
reappears, and it becomes extremely difficult to decide in favor
of Alejandro against Picard's contention. It does not in fact
matter which way of defining the existential singular, as
allowed by Suarez/ 5 is chosen; in both cases unsurmountable
hindrances are encountered.
•• See De Angelis, IV, 3, 10: "Ad primam rationem ... die intellectum dici
et esse potentiam singularem spiritualem abstrahentem a conditionibus materialibus
non obesse quominus possit cognoscere res materiales cum omnibus conditionibus
individuantibus, ut in Angelis patet: solumque posse inferri speciem, per quaa
intellectus cognoscit singularia, debere esse spiritualem cum quo stat repraesentare
posse rem singularem ut ostensum est." See also: De Anima, IV, 3, 9.
85 See Alejandro op. cit., p. !'lll:
"Mas ann Suarez, como ya antes vimos, define

KNOWLEDGE OF THE SINGULAR

If we say that the existential singular is an aggregate of
sensible data and as such not only commensurate to our understanding but also "cognoscibile per speciem propriam," we
may be able to provide some passage in which Suarez would
appear to consider such a position as not absurd, 36 but it will
be difficult to prove on a strictly textual basis that he really
thought that such is the way in which things happen. For
one thing, a very simple argument will convince us that the
suarezian texts brought up by Alejandro do not match his
polemical aspirations. Disregarding the question whether that
would suffice, it is evident that the very least one should require
from anyone who holds that we know the individual as such
through its accidents is that he show as well that we have a
proper concept of each individualized accident, that is, of all
sensibilia, both propria and c-ommunia, precisely insofar as they
inhere in this particular substance. For, unless the notion of
a particular accident includes the intellectual grasp of the individuating actual inherence of that accident in a particular
substance, we are barred from including it in the brand of " concepts of individualized accidents." In other words, the thesis
of the proper conceptualization of the individual material thing
through the proper conceptualization of all its accidents goes
hand in hand with the belief in the conceptualization of the sensibile per accidens. And yet, we realize that Suarez does not
grant us a direct concept of sensibilia per accidens. On the contrary, whereas he sees no difficulty in our direct grasping of
" sensibilia per s'e," 37 he is adamant in denying any proper conla cosa material o como esencia material que se sumerge en los accidentes, o como
un cumulo de accidentes, o sea cumulo de datos ofrecidos a los sentidos. Pues
bien, afirma que ese conjunto de datos ofrecidos a los sentidos (sensibles propios)
es algo proporcionado a nuestro entendimiento y, por lo tanto, inteligible: 'cog-

noscibile per speciem propriam'."
36 See De Anima, IV, 3, 7:
"Alii tandem ponunt cognosci singnlare oognita
integra collectione accidentium illius. At tunc redit quaestio de accidentibus, an
in universali an in singnlari potius cognoscantur. Si primum, per illam profecto
non deveniemus in cognitionem huius singularis. Si secundum: ergo accidentia
singularia cognoscuntur directe per propriam speciem, quod est intentum."
37 See ibid., 4, 1:
" De accidentibus ergo per se sensibilibus nulla difficultas est,

FRANCISCO

L. PECCORINI

cept of "sensibilia per accidens." 38 It is true that, while recognizing that our concept of the particular accident does not
include its actual inherence as such (" non dicit ordinem ad
subjectum ") , Suarez still persists in calling it a proper concept on the grounds that, since the substance is a part of the
accidental concretion, it still includes a kind of confused, obscure, apprehension of the subject ("sed illud-namely, the
order to the subject-potitts in confuso indudit ") .39 But then
the very intellectual character of that confused apprehension
becomes questionable. Is it essentially obscure or does it rather
constitute only the first stage of a process of intellectual illumination? If the latter holds true, then it really " dicit.
ordinem ad subjectum," and Suarez has just voided his previom
negation. If it is rather the former that holds then Suarez is
not really talking of a conceptual grasp because it is essential
to real conceptions that they be open to enlightenning analytic
processes. Futhermore, even if he were ready to lower his
standards and have Suarez go along with the thomistic solution-according to which we have a real intellectual knowledge of that particular accident insofar as it leaves out its inherence as such but that knowledge is obtained not through
proper concept but only through an instantiating judgmenthe would still be faced with the objection he was trying to refute
and would have to grant that he has only a universal concept
of that accident. At any rate, the objected text does not make
things better for the thesis of the direct cognoscibility of the
individual through the collection of concepts of its accidents.
It would be too risky to rely on a passage which does not
manage to overpower in clarity the neat conclusion to which
qua ratione ab intellectu cognoscantur, nam cum ea species suas sensibus imprimant,
consequenter etiam imprimunt in intellectu possibili virtute agentis intellectus."
38 See ibid.:
"Sensibilia per accidens non cognoscuntur primo ab intellectu per
proprias species."
80 See ibid., 6:
" Ad secundam obiectionem dicendum, primam cognitionem accidentis non terminari ad abstractum, sed ad concretum, quod non dicit ordinem
ad subiectum, sed illud potius in confuso includit sicque substantiam quodammodo
cognosci simul cum accidenti, hoc est, in confuso, in quantum videlicet pars est
talis concreti accidentalis."

KNOWLEDGE OF THE SINGULAR

625

a combination of sound and well-established suarezian premises
have led us. After all, not even Suarez himself seems to have
dared to lean on his own theory about the proper conception
of the individual accident in order to support direct intellectual
access to the individual as such. 4 ° For when he referred to this
position he made it clear that he did not share it ("Alii tandem
ponunt cognosci singulare cognita integra collectione accidentium illius ") . Far from appropriating it to himself, he instead
pointed out a very serious problem that it raises, and ironically
that difficulty happens to be the same one we have been raising
as an objection to Alejandro's contention in connection with its
first alternative, namely, that it is not clear whether we can
really have a concept of an individual accident without conceiving simultaneously its substance ("At tunc redit quaestio de
accidentibus, an in universali an in singulari potius cognoscantur ") . And it is only as an hypothesis that he took advantage
of the singularity of such concepts to corroborate his own contention that our intellect can form proper particular concepts
both of substantial and accidental entities (" Si secundum: ergo
accidentia singula1ia cognoscuntur directe per propriam speciem,
quod es intentum.") It is an argument "ad hominem" pure
and simple.
One thing is clear, however, and it should spare us the effort
of considering Alejandro's second alternative. For by now we
already know that Suarez would never allow us to say that we
have a proper concept of the very individual substance which
hides behind the totality of its accidents. However, it is important to hear Suarez saying to us that the only way to grasp
substances is through a discursive and analogical process.
His thesis is clearly stated in the De Anima, where he tells
us that those things that are not sensible" per se," even though
they may be material in substance, cannot be known through
proper concepts-understanding
by that concepts which are
formed from the very similitude of the object without resorting
to any analogy or negation-, but must be obtained discursive40

See ibid., 3, 7 quoted here in footnote 36.

FRANCISCO

L. PECCORINI

ly. 41 According to his account, the final discourse develops as
follows. It begins with the production of the phhntasm which
represents the material thing. This quasi-portrait of the object
in turn triggers in the possible mind the impression of a spiritual image of the particular being which apparently includes
at once the spiritual representation of all the proper accidents
as well as all its common sensibilia and becomes thereby suitably modified and adjusted to the changing singularity of the
particular object. This inclusion of all sensibilia in the spiritual
representation of the particular thing serves another more important purpose too. It enables the actuated intellect to trace
the substance by pursuing the signs shown by the "understood"
accidents which confusedly point toward the subject, as noted
above by Suarez himself. At this point then all that is needed
for the mind to bring about the indicated result is a rapid
reasoning based on the consideration of the series of accidentssuch as heat, cold, clearness, darkness-which alternately shine
in its permanent concept of the same object and call for a
steady substratum to support them. 42 Then, taking advantage
41 See ibid., 4, 2:
". . . proprius conceptus alicuius rei dupliciter dici potest.
Uno modo si rei conveniat, ut non conveniat aliis . . . neque de hoc procedit
conclusio ... Altero modo dici rei conceptus proprius, quando formatur ex propria
rei similitudine absque analogia vel negatione: res ergo quae sub sensum cadunt
propriis conceptibus secundo modo a nobis concipiuntur, ut experientia constat:
quae vero non cadunt, esto materiales sint, non ita a nobis concipi valent pro
hoc statu ... "
42 See ibid., 3:
"Quare processus intellectus nostri in cognoscendo esse videtur,
ut primo quidem accipiat speciem spiritualem repraesentantem rem sensibilem et
materialem eamdem ipsam quae repraesentatur in phantasmate, atque adeo primo
repraesentantem accidentia sensibilia propria substantaie alicuius; tum etiam sensibbilia communia, quae propriorum modificant cognitionem, ac eandem in confuso
repraesentantem
subiectum accidentium, cum accidentia ilia repraesentet in
concreto. Intellectus ergo tali formatus specie proprio conceptu attingit sensibilia propria, atque etiam communia quae aliquo modo per se in specie relucent: Subiectum tamen accidentium quae ac caeterea quae per speciem non
repraesntantur, discursu colligit, quatenus considerant ipsa accidentia ac praecipue
cognoscens illorum mutationem quae fit circa idem subiectum (nun enim calidum,
nunc frigidum experitur, nunc lucidum, nunc tenebrosum, etc ... ) discursu colligit
aliquid substare illis, sicque concipit substantiam per modum subiecti substantis ... "

KNOWLEDGE OF THE SINGULAR

627

of this new vantage point, the possible intellect finally evokes
an analogical concept of the newly detected particular substance and stores it in memory, as can be seen from the
with which we use it thereafter as often as we wish. 43 It should
be noted, however that the initial spiritual concept of the individual that provided the subject matter to the foregoing
reasoning was not obtained through the accumulation of all
the particular concepts of the individualized accidents of the
thing itself, as Alejandro seemed to want us to believe. Such
an opinion never appealled to Suarez, as we have seen, at least
sufficiently to have him committed to its support; nor is it required by his account. According to him, (a) the mind, through
the cooperation of the phantasm and the agent intellect, directly forms the spiritual image of the individual and (b) simultaneously and in the same way causes as many concepts of
individualized accidents as the senses can reach; (c) finally,
it has the latter modify and perfect the former in the best
interests of a truly successful grasp of the individual as such. 44
From there, and always using analogical reasoning, the intellect
can go whereever it decides, even to the formation of the concept
•• See ibid., 4: " ... et quia postea facilius easdem cognoscit, quod indicium
est relictas fuisse proprias, cum per alienas tam prompte id praestare non potest."
.. See ibid., 3 cited here in footnote 42. This is a difficult text. On one hand,
it gives the impression that the spiritual species imprBSsa of the individual is but
a solid transposition of the phantasm, with all the particularities it contains
(such as color and size), to the spiritual level and that it is carried out in
cooperation with the agent intellect. This would account for the fact that it
actually represents all the sensibilia communia et propria that presently affect the
thing and the phantasm, and, together with De Anima, IV, 3, 7 (quoted here
in footnote 36), make it unnecessary to resort to the opinion that holds its
cumulative formation. But, on the other hand, the fact that the accidental characteristics are represented in the same particularized way discussed by Suarez in
De Anima, IV, 4, 3 (see here in footnote 39), would lead us to conclude to the
presence of particular concepts of the individualized accidents, and, ultimately,
to a cumulative formation of the concept of the thing. However, De Anima,
IV, 3, 7, still prevents us from abiding by that opinion. Hence, we are forced
to introduce point (b) as a middle solution. Accordingly, we would posit a basic
global concept of the thing, obtained via transposition, and some transient concepts
of changing qualities which modify and readjust it while enabling the mind to
undertake its substance-oriented reasoning process.

628

FRANCISCO

L. PECCORINI

of" matter." Ironically, listening to him, one has the impression
of listening to St. Thomas.

* * *

*

The way is clear now for a better understanding of St.
Thomas's protracted and complicated but really safe account
of our contact with individual reality. It is imperative in the
first place to do away once and for all with the misconception
of the Angelic Doctor's theory which has contributed in large
part to the suarezian opposition to his account. This misconception would have St. Thomas stating that the possible intellect, once it has been actuated by the species qua, produces in
itself a verbum mentis, a species in qua; " in which," in a rather
cartesian way, it knows the essence before comparing it with the
phantasm. Ironically, such an entity had the devastating virtue
of rendering the whole of Aquinas's epistemological production
unintelligible and contradictory. As a matter of fact, the
exegesis provided by many a celebrated thomist of the past,
such as John of St. Thomas, was badly damaged by their concern with such a requirement. Fortunately, with the highly
probable proof of the unauthenticity of the troublesome opuscle
attributed to the Angelic Doctor, DeN atura Verbi lntellectus/ 5
the direct intercourse between the possible intellect and the
phantasm came to the fore as St. Thomas intended. 46 Very
wisely, therefore, Bernard J. Lonergan, taking the elimination
of the verbum mentis as a solid basis, undertook a giant revision
of all the works of Aquinas from the vantage point of the theory
of knowledge and gave us a new thomist epistemology, with a
See Edition Mandonnet, V, 369-375.
See de Verit., q. 10, a. 2, ad 7.: " ... nulla potentia potest aliquid cognoscere
non convertendo se ad obiectum suum, ut visus nihil cognoscit nisi convertendo
se ad colorem. Unde cum phantasmata se habeant hoc modo ad intellectum
possibilem sicut sensibilia ad sensum, ut patet per Philosophum in Ill de Anima,
quantumcumque aliquam speciem intelligibilem apud se habeat, numquam tamen
actu aliquid considerat secundum illam speciem nisi convertendo se ad phantasmata:
et ideo, sicut intellectus noster secundum statum viae indiget phantasmatibus ad
actu considerandum antequam accipiat habitum, ita et postquam acceperit."
45

46

KNOWLEDGE

OF THE SINGULAR

human face as it were, in which all the parts articulately cohere
with each other and with the most trivial psychological experience as well.47
It is in the Prima Pars of the Summa Theologiae that the
final stand of St. Thomas is to be looked for if we want to know
what he really meant by" Conversio ad phantasmata." 48 Next,
we must bear in mind that his problem reduces to the question:
how can we be sure that the universal that we understand is
the same as the singular that we imagine? 49 Lonergan maintains that in pure Thomism the solution lies in the thesis that
understanding is insight into phantasm. Since insight means
seeing inside in a certain light, it must be made clear what
is properly being illuminated, immaterialized, universalized, and
in what does such an illumination consist. It is the phantasm
itself in the sense of that which is imagined that is being illuminated, we are told. As for the illumination itself, Lonergan
successfully points out that it does not consist in the reception
of any quality or virtue in the phantasm, but rather in a very
obvious process that could even be called "experienceable" in
47 Bernard J. Lonergan, Verbum. Word and Idea in Aquinas (University of Notre
Dame Press, 1967), p. 161: "This account of conversion [De Verit., q. 10, a. 2,
ad 7m.] throws a new light on such a passage as Summa Theol., I, q. 84, a. 7. The
influence of the doubtful De Natura Verbi lntellectus forced older interpreters to
take it as genuinely Thomist that the verbum was formed prior to any understanding; in consequence they held that intellect first knew the quiddity in the verbum
and then converted to phantasm to know it again existing in corporeal matter. But
once the opusculum is recognized as doubtful, the whole position falls to the
ground. Thomist conversion does not mean reflecting nor turning back but simply
a natural orientation; q. 84 of the Pars Prima does not seem to mention the
verbum; indeed the whole treatise on human intellect in the Pars Prima mentions
the verbum only in incidental fashion."
48 Lonergan,
op. cit., pp. 169-172, mentions the early writings in which an
account was provided which would explain only the way in which metaphysicians
know the singular. Essentially it is this: " first, intellect grasps the universal;
secondly, it reflects on the act by which it grasps the universal; thirdly, it comes
to know the species that is the principle of that act; fourthly, it turns to the
phantasm whence the species is derived; and, fifthly, it comes to know the singular
thing that is represented by the phantasm." (p. 170). But, we are told, due to its
exclusiveness and perhaps also to the influence of the Paraphrases of Themistius,
he gave up this explanation.
•• See Lonergan, op. cit., p. 172.

630

FRANCISCO

L. PECCORINI

some sense. He makes his point, first in a negative way, and
then in a positive and descriptive manner.
Indeed, how could St. Thomas have held a kind o£" receptive
abstraction," having objected so strongly to the averroist "irradiatio phantasmatum" on the grounds that, £ar £rom beinK
an abstraction, it would rather be a " reception " and as suc11
would have to downgrade the spiritual to the level o£ the
material recipient? 50 On the other hand, given the description
o£ the process provided by him, it is impossible to discover in
it the least trace o£ a need £or a reception. In £act, St. Thomas
lists only a £ew requirements £or a true abstraction: 51 first,
the presence o£ both the agent intellect and phantasms which
tend to increase the sensitive power 52 ; second, proper disposiitions in the sensitive faculties, which are to be bestowed on
50 See De Unitate lntellectus, c. IV, ed. Keeler, paragr. 98; quoted by Lonergan,
op. cit., p. 173: " Secundo, quod talis irradiatio phantasmatum non poterit facere

quod phantasmata sunt intelligibilia actu: non enim fiunt phantasmata intelligibilia actu nisi per abstractionem; hoc autem magis erit receptio quam abstractio.
Et iterum cum omnis receptio sit secundum naturam recepti, irradiatio specierum
intelligibilium quae sunt in intellectu possibili, non erit in phantasmatibus quae
sunt in nobis, intelligibiliter sed sensibiliter et materialiter."
51 See Sum. Theol., I, q. 79, a. 4, ad 3:
"If the relation of the agent intellect
to the possible intellect were that of an active object to a power (as, for instance,
of the visible in act to the sight), it would follow that he could understand all
things instantly, since the agent intellect is that which makes all things in act.
But the agent intellect is not an object, rather is it that whereby the objects are
made to be in act; and for this, besides the presence of the agent intellect, we
require the presence of phantasms, the good disposition of the sensitive powers, and
practice in this sort of operation. For from one thing understood, other things
come to be understood, as from terms propositions are made, and from first
principles, conclusions. From this point of view, it matters not whether the agent
intellect is something belonging to the soul, or something separate from the soul."
52 See ibid., q. 85, a. 1 ad 4:
"Not only does the agent intellect illumine
phantasms, it does more; by its power intelligible species are abstracted from
phantasms. It illumines phantasms because, just as the sensitive part acquires a
greater power by its conjunction with the intellectual part, so through the power
of the agent intellect phantasms are made more fit for the abstraction of intelligible
intentions from them. Now the agent intellect abstracts intelligible species from
phaitasms inasmuch as by its power we are able to take into our consideration
the natures of species without individual conditions. It is in accord with their
likenesses that the possible intellect is informed."

KNOWLEDGE

OF THE SINGULAR

631

them by the cogitative 53 ; and finally, practice which makes
scholars better prepared to understand the most difficult concepts.54
With these factors working together a nature passes through
an elaborate process of transformation. First, it becomes intelligible in potency-in the same way in which a color is visible
in potency while still in the dark-as soon as it is imagined by
an " intellectual-sensitive " subject. This is what happens in
the state of reverie. The nature of the knower makes the whole
difference here, it being impossible for the same object to be
intelligible in potency if it is being imagined only by an animal.
Next, it becomes intelligible in act but understood only in
potency-as colors which are present in daylight but are not
actually seen by anyone may be called visible in act but seen
only in potency-as soori as the agent intellect starts making
us care for the why and the wherefore and thus constitutes it
into something to be understood. It is then that the illumination of the imagined object takes place, and it happens by
reason of the object being received within the field of intellectual light. This light, though, falls only upon the nature of
the imagined thing: it is abstractive. The corresponding illumination, therefore, is a real abstraction. We shall call it
objective abstraction. Inasmuch as it is effected by the agent
53 See ibid., q. 78, a. 4 ad 5:
"The cogitative and memorative powers in man
owe their excellence not to that which is proper to the sensitive part bnt to a
certain affinity and proximity to the universal reason, which, so to speak, overflows
into them. Therefore they are not dictinct powers but the same yet more perfect
than in other animals."
50 See II Cont. Gent., c. 73, nn. 14-16. Ibid., n.
"Seemingly, the fallacy
of locating the habit of science in the passive intellect resulted from the observation that men are more or less apt for scientific studies according to the various
dispositions of the cogitative and imaginative powers." And ibid., n.
"This
aptitude, however, depends on these powers as on remote dispositions, as it likewise
depends on a fine sense of touch and on bodily temperament. In this connection,
Aristotle remarks in II De anima that men possessed of a highly developed sense
of touch and of soft flesh are 'mentally well endowed.' Now, the habit of
science gives rise to an aptitude for reflection, being the proximate principle of
that science; for the habit of science must perfect the power whereby we understand, so that it act easily at will, even as the other habits perfect the powers
in which they inhere."

632

FRANCISCO

L. PECCORINI

intellect it is efficient, whereas as affecting the image it is
instrumental. Finally, our travelling nature becomes actually
understood in act-in the same way in which colors actually
seen may be called seen in act-as soon as the actual insight
or understanding of it takes place. This happens when the possible intellect both (a) is actually informed by the species
qua-produced by the agent intellect working as the principal
cause and the illuminated phantasm cooperating in its capacity
as an instrumental cause-and thereby is enabled to understand,
and (b) actually understands the actually intelligible object
prepared by objective abstraction. To the extent that this operation lifts the nature to a higher state it too should be called
an abstraction. We shall call it apprehensive abstraction because by means of it we apprehend or contemplate the nature
in itself. Apprehensive abstraction, we should point out, is the
gordian knot of the mystery of science and speech, and so it
calls for further elucidation.
Seen from the viewpoint of the possible intellect apprehensive
abstration consists in being perfected or actuated twice in a
row by two acts or perfections which are (I) the species qua
which informs the possible intellect and thus makes it true,
itself being the product of the agent intellect and the phantasm,
and (2) intelligere which transforms the same possible intellect into something which actually grasps an intelligible species
quae in the imagined object and thereby constitutes it a
knower, itself being remotely the product of the above-mentioned causes. From this vantage point, therefore, there is a
twofold pati caused by two processiones. Lonergan says that
there are two processiones operati. 55 However, in the course
of the second processio operati there is a partial procession that
does not end directly in a pati but rather in an action. This is
the procession of one act, intelligere, from another act, species
qua, which takes place instantly, even automatically as it were,
in the same way in which esse follows the form. Lonergan calls
it processio operationis. As a result, we can conclude that ap•• See op. cit., p. 178.

KNOWLEDGE

OF THE SINGULAR

633

prehensive abstraction consists of a double processio operati
and a proc·essio operationis.
The process of knowing, though, has not yet come to an
end with the actual intelligere. At this point, the possible intellect finds itself still isolated from the particular things because
its contemplation, although sinking into the imagined individual, does so only out of concern for its essence. It is only
saying something, and apprehensive abstraction is nothing more
than a dicere. If one prefers, we might say that at this point
our understanding is saying an inner word without meaning
any particular thing yet, still less defining the very nature it
is actually contemplating, since defining entails a reference to
the individuals of a whole class whereby the latter becomf's
limited and circumscribed. The possible mind is saying an inner
word but has not yet turned it into a linguistic item or meaning
of an external word. In order to achieve this goal it has to
lift the travelling nature to a higher state: it must posit a
universal ratio or an intentio intellecta. This in turn will bring
to it a new perfection or act whereby it will become actually
meaning or defining. Inasmuch as this will be the result of the
continuation of the processiones operati that began with the
agent intellect and the imagined thing and terminated in the
pati " intelligere " and itself will terminate in a new pati of the
possible intellect, namely, the actual knowing of a universal, it
should be called also a processio operati. On the other hand,
inasmuch as it will constitute a lifting of the nature it should
be considered as an abstraction. We shall call it formative abstraction. However, with regard to this new abstraction, intelligere or dicere is not a sufficient cause; it is only the ground
of defining. Meaning or defining itself formally emerges as
an emanatio intellectualis, i.e., as a rational activity which supposes the essence already fully known in the same way as an
existential judgment presupposes the reason for it as already
understood.
Speaking in terms of material and formal objects, we might
say that objective abstraction, by constituting the imagined
thing as something to be understood with regard to its nature,

634

FRANCISCO

L. PECCORINI

gives us the material object of our understanding, whereas apprehensive abstraction, while actually understanding the phantasm, concentrates on our intellectual formal object, i. e., on
the forma intelligibilis or quiddity of the thing and, to put it
in more graphic words, on the species intelligibilis quae which
is known "in" the phantasm just as actually seen colors are
seen "in " colored things. Phantasm and nature, therefore,
should not be considered as two isolated objects of two independent actions-imagining and understanding-but rather
as two intrinsically related targets of a unique operation carried
out within the essential unity of the knower by a team of welldisciplined faculties, imagination, and understanding. 56 In the
56 See Summa Theol., I, q. 78, a. 4, ad 5m. (quoted here in footnote 53).
We
might account for this cooperation more conclusively perhaps if, following Karl
Rahner (Spirit in the World [Herder and Herder], pp. 290-309), we viewed man's
form as a Dasein whose essence is transcendence. According to this conception,
being a "finite spirit," man pre-apprehends an absolute negative infinity (esse)
without ever being able to really apprehend it thematically. We can only speak
of his " experience of esse" which happens when man experiences himself in his
movement towards esse in totality as surpassing all possible knowledge, i.e., as
being " in some way everything " in excess.
Now, if man, insofar as he is a drive towards esse, pre-apprehends always and
already esse in totality, it follows that by the same token he "can" actualize
this pre-apprehension i.e., he has the faculty of actually apprehending Being. This
is what Aquinas calls the agent intellect. On the other hand, the actual apprehension of esse takes place only when a particular thing is viewed in the light of
Being, Hence, man has the faculty of knowing things as entia, i. e., he has a
possible intellect. The possible intellect, therefore, is nothing more than Being
insofar as it can be present to itself as self in a complete return (judgment) but
not " of itself " nor always and already, since being present to itself of itself and
always is the .essential characteristic of the antithesis of a possible intellect, i.e.,
of a subsistent intellect. This requires that man's possible intellect can know or
come to itself only by receptively allowing another to encounter it. Consequently,
it is ultimately that definite intensity of Being whereby a form has of itself
the pow.er to know something receptively but not to know itself except through
that by which it becomes actual or knowing. It is therefore an intensity of
Being which is at once a form subsisting in itself-since it is not condenmed to
lose itself in matter-and sensibility as well-because it is a drive to let itself
be encountered by another and thus it is the form of matter. This means that
the possible intellect both depends on and controls sensibility in the sense that
without sensibility it cannot come to itself and without the intellectual activity
sensibility itself has no raison d'etre. But if the possible intellect controls sensibility, it must let it emanate from itself. It must, that is, create the possibility that

KNOWLEDGE

OF THE SINGULAR

635

course of the execution of such a naturally well-concerted plan
the imagined object is presented as something to be understood
and the "in-seeing " apprehensive abstraction grasps the intelligibility of the imagined object "in the imagined object."
To put it in a concrete way, while imagination presents a bundle
of equal radii in a plane surface, our insight grasps " imagined
equal radii in a plane surface " as being " the necessary and
sufficient condition of an imagined uniform curve."
But the two groups of cognitive faculties do not only work
together in the processing of our first act of understanding.
Both-external senses, imagination and cogitative on one hand,
and agent intellect and possible mind on the other-do so precisely because they do not lose touch with external reality. We
another can encounter it objectively as its first known by becoming itself the
form of matter without thereby compromising its spiritual transcendence, i. e.,
while remaining free from matter in its complete return. As Heidegger puts it
so well: " Human intuition, therefore, is not ' sensible ' because its affection takes
place through ' sense' organs. Rather, the converse is true: it is because our
Dasein is finite-existing in the midst of the essent which already is and to which
our Dasein is abandoned-that it must of necessity receive the essent, that is,
offer it the possibility of giving notice of itself." (Kant and the Problem of
Metaphysics [Indiana University Press], p. 31).
Sense faculty thus considered as integrated within the process of transcendental
intellection is what St. Thomas calls the Cogitative Sense or lower reason. Although it rests on an organ which may be structurally the same as the corresponding organ in some beasts, its functional abilities leave far behind those of the
" aestimativa" which is its conterpart in irrational animals. The Angelic Doctor
saw it in full light: " Nihilominus tamen haec vis est in parte sensitiva quia vis
sensitiva in sui supremo participat aliquid de vi intellectiva in homine, in quo
sensus
conjungitur. In animali vero irrationali fit apprehensio intentionis
individualis per aestimativam naturalem, secundum quod avis per auditum vel
visum cognoscat filium, vel aliquid hujusmodi." (II. de Anima, lect. 13, n. 397).
He explains himself further saying that man's cogitativa apprehends this man
insofar as he is this man, whereas animal aestimativa does not apprehend an
individual under the universal's extension, but approaches it only insofar as it is
the term or the principle of some action or passion (Ibid., n. 398) . The same
conclusion was reached many centuries later by Martin Heidegger in his book
What is a Thing? (Henry Regnery Co., Chicago, pp. 220-222). And the whole
conception of knowledge as a spiritual development which cannot be mistaken
for an aggregate of several faculties' operations but must be attributed to man
himself was already pointed out by Aquinas in his enlightening saying: "non
enim, proprie loquendo, sensus aut intellectus cognoscunt, sed homo per utrumqueJ."
(De Verit., q. 2, a. 6, ad 3.)

636

FRANCISCO

L. PECCORINI

can be assured that when the mind actually understands the
form in the phantasm the knower is actually attaining the real
thing. The chain that links it to the outside world is certainly
long but effective. It begins at the level of external senses which
take in the superficial characteristics of the object and transmit
them to the imagination and the cogitative for further elaboration, making it possible for the very " shining appearance " of
the real thing-as Heidegger would say-to show up at the
threshold of the agent intellect which in turn will unpack its
essential constitution and present it to the knowing mind with
all the guarantees of a safe product, which happens to be the
real thing as existing with an intentional existence. 57 Unlike
57 Karl Rahner's studies cast a precious light on the Thomist process of identification with the object in sensation and its further separation from the subject in
abstraction. The kernel of his reasoning :ceduces to this. The mind, whose Being
consists in being able to be everything, becomes self-conscious when it becomes actual, and it becomes actual any time it becomes something other than itself. But,
given the nature of its own Being, the mind becomes the other by substituting
its own Being for the Being of the other in the function of informing the " this "
of matter of the other. This, however, is done without its own Being being given
away absolutely to the other precisely because the reception of the determination
produced by the other does not take place until the actuality of the others's " this "
has been produced by the mind's own substantial ground as well, and it so
happens that the mental substantial ground produces such actuality precisely
because it is always and already being driven towards the ultimate actuality d
its total potentiality and while it is being so driven. The mind thus remains free
in the very act of sensation because in it the substantial ground, while giving its
own Being to the "this" of matter, is self-conscious of the "being-with-matter"
of its Being not being given away absolutely to such "this" of matter. Therefore,
even in the act of sensibility the subject perceives itself as ' more than " and consequently somehow "other than" the object. But this virtual experience of otherness--which shows as yet the traces of sensibility's emanation from the possible
intellect-becomes
crystal clear through the act of abstraction that it makes
possible (See Spirit in the W 01-ld, pp. 84-97; 366-374).
On the basis of the foregoing, the need for Ontology to account for abstraction comes out rather clearly. In human sensibility, indeed, the other is given to
the mind-i. e., the other gives itself or is present to the mind-through the
mind's self-consciousness which in turn results from the mind's giving its own
Being to the other while keeping an awareness in perspective of its total potentiality
insofar as the latter has not been exhausted by this given away determination.
Human mind is thus led to understanding the Being of the other as a specific limitation of esse and thereby to perform the act of abstraction of the form from esse.
Thence it further proceeds to limiting esse to the initself which is present to it in

KNOWLEDGE

OF THE SINGULAR

687

the empiricists, St. Thomas does not think that the key to
success lies at the level of senses and imagination. Of course,
we must rely upon them if the very epistemological question
as a problem is to be possible, since, it is the data presented by
our sensibility that raise the question about the validity of our
knowledge. If they were not assumed as reliable, not even
empiricism itself would stand a chance. 58 But, since the epistemological question is not " whether we sense something " but
rather "how do we understand the real being of that something," it is at the level of the agent intellect that the real
test arises. This amounts to saying that, if the whole cognitive
operation is to end successfully, the phantasm-which certainly does not " represent" the esse of the thing-must at least
"present" it lest objective abstraction-which is supposed to
constitute the imagined object as some intelligible in act-not
even be in a position to contact it due to the fact that it works
exclusively through the intellectual light provided by the agent
intellect which, being essentially" the light of Being," can only
be effective where it comes across Being itsel£.59 Therefore,
either we do not understand at all, and then we can do without
agent intellect, or else we do understand, and then the agent
intellect must be posited as attaining the esse of the thing in
its self-consciousness and thus to perform the act of perceptive judgment. This
shows that esse has been apprehended all along as limited. But since what is apprehended as limited presupposes the apprehension of the same as limiting and
thereby as somehow non-limited, and since furthermore esse as non-limited is
negatively infinite, it finally follows that the otherness of the object is experienced
through the actualization of the pre-apprehensive drive or transcendence of the
mind (See ibid., pp. 396-398; 124, 134, 160, 172, 221, 226-227).
58 Idealism
is not to be taken into consideration because it does not start with
true data but rather with an initial mistrust in our senses which already supposes
our epistemological problem solved albeit with a deviant solution only.
59 See In Anal. Post. c. 15, 1, 20 (Leonine Edition,
p. 402): Manifestum est
enim quod singulare sentitur proprie et per se, sed tamen sensus est quodammodo
etiam ipsius universalis. Cognoscit enim Calliam non solum in quantum est
Callias, sed etiam in quantum est hie homo. Et exinde est quod tali acceptione
sensus praexistente, anima intellectiva potest considerare hominem in utroque. Si
autem ita esset quod sensus apprehenderet solum id quod est particularitatis, et
nullo modo hoc apprehenderet universalem naturam in particulari, non esset possibile
quod ex apprehensione sensus causetur in nobis cognitio universalis."

638

FRANCISCO

L. PECCORINI

and through the phantasm. But, of course, there is no doubt
that we really understand and thereby are above mere beasts,
since it is precisely this simple fact of life-assumed without
hesitation by the whole of mankind in the very process of
making history, i.e., of "ek-sisting," of deciding unceasingly in
time at all levels of activity: private, political, commercial,
industrial, practical, speculative, and moral-that gave rise to
the epistemological question, which is not " whether we understand" but rather "how do we understand." Therefore, unless
a nonaprioristic account of the " how " of our understanding
proves absolutely satisfactory, the agent intellect-or, if preferr.ed a la kant, productive imagination-will remain an indispensable explanation, a must. But even then no one will
ever have the right to say that the thomistic apprehensive abstraction or first simple concept was not meant to he essentially
" realistic." There is no trace, here, of the depressing cartesian
dogmatic realism which stops short at the reality of the ide:>.
known in itsel£.60 According to St. Thomas, our concept is not
known in itself but through it we know the very being of the
thing which is "present "-although not "represented "-in
the phantasm. 61 It is indeed no overemphasis at all to say that
Aquinas would unhesitantly have subscribed to the following
heideggerian quotation: "Thus thought is that presentation
of the thing which is present, whereby the thing which
present is made available to us in its own presence and brought
forth in front of us, to the effect that we be enabled to persevere
in its presence." 62
Let us bear in mind, though, that apprehensive abstraction
is not really an intellectual representation of the individual
thing as an individual. In order to grasp the object in this
60 See Joseph
Marechal, Le Point de Depart de la Metaphysique (Paris:
Desclee-De Brouwer, 1964), Cahier I pp. !!!53-!!!55.
61 See Jacques Maritain,
The Pre-Conscious Life of the Intellect, in Challenges
and Renewals, Selected Readings edited by Joseph W. Evans and Leo R. Ward
(Cleveland-New York: The World Publishing Company), p. 57.
62 Martin Heidegger, Que veut-dire "Penser"?
in Essais et Conferences (Paris,
Gallimard), pp. 166-167.

KNOWLEDGE

OF THE SINGULAR

639

way the mind disposes of another genuinely intellectual operation based on pure conceptualization and constituting a further
step in the process of knowledge which will be studied later in
this essay. It is only through an act of judgment that we can
really know Peter as Peter and John as John. However, as
Lonergan puts it, " while apprehensive abstraction is not
of material conditions, still it is not of something apart from
material conditions." 63 It is essentially attached to Mother
Earth through the epistemological tie, essentially oriented we
might say to the very individual thing. On the other hand,
such an orientation is so undestructible and penetrating because
it is ontological in nature due to the fact that the "concept "
itself is nothing more than the result of the fruitful intercourse
between the agent intellect and the esse of the thing, as shown
above. And it is precisely because it is essentially dependent on
esse that apprehensive abstraction can enable the mind to
proceed to its judicative act whereby it finally reaches the individual as such. We might even say with Marechal that the
insight of the essence in the phantasm is already in a sense
an inchoate judgment: "If we call' affirmation' in the broadest sense of the word the active relation of the conceptual content to reality (ad rem), we will have to say according to what
has foregone that the representations indwelling in our thought
have in it an objective value solely in virtue of an implicit
metaphysical affirmation, i. e., of an affirmation that links the
object with the absolute of being." 64
We can therefore conclude that, while objective abstraction
is not yet an understanding but prepares and makes possible
the actual knowledge, apprehensive abstraction really grasps
a nature that is at the physical level although it certainly does
not apprehend that nature insofar as it is there. In other words,
it does not consider that nature at the physical level. However,
it enables the mind to elicit an act of judgment whereby it
finally knows the essence as it is in the individual and thereby
63 Lonergan, op. cit., p. 179.
•• Marechal, op. cit., V, p. 459.

640

FRANCISCO

L. PECCORINI

considers that nature at the physical level. Perhaps we should
say that apprehensive abstraction disregards the surrounding
individual characteristics of the object and only focuses on its
nature, which in turn presents itself for the mind to inspect
and know it as it is in itself without attempting to define it,
since definition presupposes verification. The result is that accordingly apprehensive abstraction considers a nature at the
metaphysical lev'el, that it says it, but does not define it or
means anything through it. A nature gets the status of " defined" or "meant" solely at the end of a rational process that
begins with a series of circumstantial " insights " of it followed
by the corresponding particular judgments which by being subjected to a comparative inspection finally yield suitable "generalizations." At this point, that essence is known by the mind
as a nature that is common to many. This new act of understanding is what Lonergan calls formative abstraction, and it
results as an emanatio intellectualis which in turn presupposes
the concept of the thing. Therefore, far from the understanding
of essences being the result of generalizations as Locke contends, it is rather the latter that presuppose the former 65 • Now,
inasmuch as formative abstraction is the outcome of a logical
reasoning, the nature as attained by it can be perfectly said
to be considered at the logical level. It is a real universal, that
is, a nature that is common to many, an object that is apart
from material conditions because it is not inseparably tied to
any particular thing, although it is equally oriented towards
many individuals specifically identical. It, therefore, can beand in fact is-defined and meant without meaning any particular instance. However, while conceiving the nature that
is universal and thereby knowing that it is universal, we do
not necessarily know it yet " as universal," because we may
be perfectly well aware of its being universal without paying
65 See Marechal,
op. cit., V, pp. 455-456: "Car le processus comparatif de
generalisation n'affecte pas !'abstraction, comme le supposent les nominalistes, mais
la devoile et en expresse tous les degres; cette exploration en profondeur fait
retrouver successivement les ' objects formels ' respectifs des diverses facultes qui
concourent a !'intellection directe."

KNOWLEDGE

OF THE SINGULAR

641

special attention to what constitutes it as a universal nature.
It takes further reflection at the logical level to attain what
we might call a " second degree " universal nature. This leaves
us with two kinds of proper universal: a direct and a reflexive
universal.
If now we compare the objects of apprehensive and formative abstractions, we see that they are essentially the same,
insofar as both work on the same essence, but modally different.
While apprehensive abstraction knows that essence only " in
the imagined thing," formative abstraction grasps it apart from
any instances. However, both abstractions somehow cross each
other in virtue of a kind of inner relation existing between their
objects. This is borne out by the fact that, while apprehensive
abstraction takes place only with respect to an instance, it
must nonetheless always be of a universalizable nature; and,
on the other hand, while formative abstraction posits the universal apart from any instance, as an act of meaning, however,
it can mean the individual just as easily as the universal. And
it means the latter precisely in virtue of apprehensive abstraction on which it builds; whereas it means the particular only in
virtue of a consequent, indirect, judicative, knowledge of the
same. This is the reason why the particular can be meant but
not defined explanatorily and quidditatively. Again, while apprehensive abstraction or insight focuses on the quidditas, that
is, the forma intelligibilis, or that in virtue of which the particular thing is what it is-for instance "humanity"-, formative
abstraction points to the res-for instance," homo"-, i.e., the
composite "that which has humanity," as a direct universal in
which therefore a metaphysical analysis is bound to uncover
a forma naturalis.
Although the process of abstraction is essentially dependent
upon and oriented toward the very esse of the particular thing,
it is clearly not through concepts alone that St. Thomas grasps
the individual as such but rather through judgments. Now,
judgment is to be integrated within the same ontological process
of understanding and does not therefore lose contact with the
real thing for one moment. Remotely indeed, and as it were

FRANCISCO

L. PECCORINI

materially, judgment results from developing insight which
unites distinct intelligibilities into single intelligibilities; but
proximately, and as it were formally, it springs from a reflective
activity of reason which involves the whole man and ultimately
rests upon a basic and simple act of understanding,
benefitting from the ontological value of simple concepts. 66
Insofar as it involves the whole man, judgment is conditioned
psychologically by a necessity of being wide awake, since it is
evident that in dreams we are liable to err, and judgment consists in a return from the syntheses effected by developing insight to their sources, both in sense and in intellectual light.
This leads us to a basic understanding because reason is nothing
else than understanding in an upward-downward process. 67 We
build first both on the direct and the reflective levels, but in
this way we only acquire problematic notions of things. On
our way up, at the direct level, we elicit daily numerous insights
into phantasms (apprehensive abstractions) which
express themselves in tentative formative abstractions or notions. As time goes by and our experience grows we become
able to effect coalescences of insights which result in hypothetical syntheses of simple quiddities or provisional definitions.
Thus, for instance, we manage to recognize in the notion of man
other notions that we find scattered in other beings. In this way
we focus on notions such as "living," "body," " animal," etc.
Reflecting upon those same formative abstractions we come to
recognize them as hypothetical syntheses and thereby transform them into questions which will be answered only through
a painstaking " resolutio in principia" on our way down. Such
questions concern themselves with the exact" defining power"
of those notions. For instance, we ask ourselves, "Is rational
animal the right definition of man? " i. e., " Does it apply to
all individual men and only to them? "
As soon as such riddles take over our minds we are on our
way down and necessarily steer our reflection toward an intel•• See Lonergan, op. cit., pp. 64-65.
Op. cit., pp. 65-66.

67

KNOWLEDGE OF THE SINGULAR

643

ligible ground where all doubt is expelled by the direct and
unobstructed light of the agent intellect. In other words, we
long for the evidence of a necessary connection between the
sources and the hypothetical syntheses. The first rest worth
noting in that descent takes place when we encounter the necessary dependence of our conclusions upon the first principles,
which are the immediate insight of forms in the phantasm and
the first laws of Being; and the final rest occurs simultaneously
with the understanding of the necessary connection of the first
principles with intellectual light. Compositio vel divisio, i. e.,
judgment follows suit as a self-expression of such a grasp which,
as shown above, is endowed with the full guarantee of ontological objectivity. 68
Summing up: we assent to first principles because of the
intellectual light and to conclusions because of their necessary
connection with principles. As Lonergan puts it: " With regard
to the quod quid est and with regard to principles known immediately from such knowledge of quiddity, intellect is infallible; but with regard to further deductions intellect may err;
still, such error is excluded absolutely, whenever a correct
resolutio in principiis is performed." 69 But we have opinion
alone when we only grasp a probable connection between conclusions and principles because that is not a sufficient determinant reason and therefore cannt coerce assent. As Lonergan
points out: until the resolution reaches the first principles,
doubt is possible, but once it has reached them, doubt is excluded." 70
This short incursion into the elaborate double-checking process from which the act of judgment ensues reveals that the
second operation of our mind is not concerned only with our
•• See Sum. Th., I, q. 79, c.: " Ratiocinatio humana ... in via iudicii revolvendo
redit ad prima principia, ad quae inventa examinat " ; see ibid., 12, c.: "Ratiocinatio hominis, cum sit quidam motus, ab intellectu progreditur aliquomm, scilicet
naturaliter notorum absque investigatione rationis, sicut a quodam principio immobili; et ad intellectum etiam terminatur, inquantum iudicamus per pricipia
naturaliter nota de his quae ratiocinando inveniuntur."
•• Lonergan, op. cit., p. 68.
•• Ibid. See also In II Sent., d. 7, q. 1, a. 1, c.

644

FRANCISCO

L. PECCORINI

knowledge of things but most of all with our knowledge of
the truth of our conclusions about them. The act of judgment,
in other words, is not merely synthesis but also positing of
synthesis. Hence the issue is not knowledge as true or false
but knowledge " as known to be true or false." 71 Through conceptualization
(apprehensive and formative abstractions),
therefore, the intellect attains its similitude to the object,
whereas through judgment it judges, that is, reflects upon, that
similitude and apprehends it as such. But this seems to give
rise to a very serious problem. Indeed, judgment thus defined
supposes a comparison between the "knowing" and its "standard." Now, either we say that the standard is known, and
then the comparison really takes place between two items of
knowledge and therefore one might better maintain that we
know directly without comparing, or else, we choose to say
that the standard is not known, but then there cannot be any
comparison at all. St. Thomas was not blind to the difficulty.
Not only did he admit the necessity of a standard but he even
suggested that it was so essential to the mind to be a " measuring faculty" that the very word mind (mens) was taken from
the verb " to measure " (mensurare) . As he put it: " nomen
mentis a mensurando est sumptum." 72 However, the standard
he was referring to was neither the thing-in-itself insofar as
it is such, i. e., " unknown," nor some second representation
of the thing itself. His standard was rather to be found in the
principles of the intellect itself through a resolutio in principia.
Yet, this resolutio, warns St. Thomas, is not to be understood
as a via inventionis vel inquisitionis--which is used by scientists
and mathematicians who respectively rely on induction or
mathematical hypotheses combined with verificative steps-.
but rather in the sense of a descent to a primordial evidence
based on an immediate intentional contact with reality which
is worked out by the agency of the intellectual light as established above. After all, he points out, the very word intellect
71
72

See Lonergan, op. cit., pp. 59-63.
De Veritate, q. 10, a. I, c.

KNOWLEDGE

OF THE SINGULAR

645

(intellectus, intus-lectus, intus-legens, i.e., inside-read, insidereader, in-sighter, insight) suggests that it is in the essence or
the mind to be so equipped as to be able to find the being of
things in its own being. 73
Therefore, if we take the word judgment, not in the sense
of proposition, which means only the expression of a judgment,
nor as a process of judging (judgment in fieri) , but precisely
as a personal mental commitment, i. e., as judgment in facto
esse, we must say that (a) it includes the apprehension of the
relation between a formative abstraction and a particular or
a universal ens, but that (b) it adds to it an act of assent. An
act of assent, on the other hand, is an act of the possible intellect and must therefore be counterdistinguished from the act of
consent which belongs to the will. To be more precise, let us
hasten to state that assent is a motion of the intellect with respect to a conception and that it occurs when we judge a conception of the thing to be true or false. 74 Paraphrasing Lonergan,
we might add that assent comes out as the end result of the
following process. Knowledge of the quod quid est takes us
outside time and space; knowledge of the universal returns us
but only hypothetically to the concrete; whereas the act of
compositio vel divisio involves a categorical return to the concrete.75 Consequently, assent is nothing more than the very
judgment " as based upon an apprehension of evidence," as in
eluding an awareness of its own validity, as a truth in the subject.
We are now in a position to collect our findings and assess
the epistemological status both of apprehensive abstraction in
its capacity as the very first mental act and of the individual
as such. It is abundantly clear by now that the former is
neither a concept of the singular-because it is only the understanding of the form which is in and shows up in the phan73 See ibid.:
"nomen mentis dicitur in anima, sicut et nomen intellectus. Solum
enim intellectus accipit cognitionem de rebus mensurando eas quasi ad sua
principia."
74 See De Malo, q. 6, a. 1, ad 14.
•• See Lonergan, op. cit., p. 63.

646

FRANCISCO

L. PECCORINI

tasm-, nor a real act of judgment-because it does not include an assent to this proposition, "this form is in this singular "-; but it is no less evident that, on one hand, with Marechal
we call it an inchoate affirmation if we take into account its
essential dependence on the ontological contact of the agent
intellect with the being of the object, and, on the other hand, it
constitutes the material of a potential judgment and can itself
become an actual judgment provided that it be subjected to a
resolutio in principia by means of a reflection upon sense evidence and that an act of assent be added to it. As for the individual as such, it is obvious that it cannot be understood or
conceived in the strict sense of the words. However, it most
certainly can be known with certitude since through resolutio
in principia it is quite possible for us to clearly understand
that the universal we understand is the nature of the singular
we are imagining and then give our assent to this proposition:
"this is so and so."
St. Thomas, therefore, has managed to give us a direct acces:3
to the individual as such which is safe and does not force us
to posit any proper concept of its substance or even of its
matter. As for this, he always requires a kind of reflection if
it is to be attained at all. 76 In fact, materia signata is known
by probing the essential relation to it that we discover in the
form (per habitudinem ad formam) , and materia prima presents
itself to our understanding solely at the end of a discourse
based on analogy (per analogiam) .
In connection with materia signata, which is that part of
matter which limits a form to a particular individual, three
points are clear in St. Thomas's doctrine: (a) as such, it is
attained directly by the senses, but only through its relation
to the accidental forms of the object; (b) it cannot be reached
directly by apprehensive abstraction but only indirectly through
an act of judgment; 77 (c) finally, when it is integrated within
See Ambrosio Rebollo Pena, Abstracto y Concreto en la Filosofia de Santo
Publicaciones del Seminario Metropolitano de Burgos, 1955),
pp. 123-129.
77 See Quodl. VII, q. 1, a. 3:
"Ad hoc quod particulare cognoscatur, oportet
70

Tomas, Burgos:

KNOWLEDGE

OF THE SINGULAR

647

a universal judgment by means of formative abstraction it is
not as this signata materia that it is known but only as this
kind of common matter. 78 As can easily be seen, only particular
judgments in which we explicitly compare the apprehensive
abstraction-with or without the special illumination originat.
ing in formative abstraction-with its corresponding phantasm
can give us some intellectual knowledge of this particular
matter. It is in this way, for instance, that we come to know
the matter of the nose through the apprehension of snubness
in this nose. 79 Since signata materia, when it actually exists, is
quod in cognoscente non solum sit similitudo formae, sed aliqualiter materiae ...
Species autem quae est in sensu causata a re sensibili, in quantum non est omnino
a conditionibus materialibus depurata, est similitudo formae secundum quod est
in materia; et ideo per earn cognoscitur particulare. Sed quia secundum quod in
intellectu nostro recipitur species rei sensibilis, est omnino iam a conditionibus
materialibus depurata, non potest intellectus noster per earn directe particulare
cognoscere." See In Anal. Post., c. 15, I,
(Leonine Edit.), p.
See also
De principia individuationis: "Manifestum est enim intellectum incipere ubi sensus
desinit. Sensus autem exteriores ipsa sensibilia accidentia, communia scilicet et
propria habent pro suis per se obiectis. Quidditas autem rei particularis in particulari non sp.ectat ut per se obiectum ad illos sensus exteriores, cum quidditas ista
substantia sit, et non accidens nee ad intellectum pertinet ut per se obiectum eius
propter suam materialitatem. Ideo quidditas rei materialis in ipsa sua particularitate
est obiectum rationis particularis, cuius est conferre de intentionibus particularibus,
loco cuius in brutis aestimativa naturalis est: quae potentia per sui coniunctionem
cum intellectu, ubi est ratio ipsa quae confert de universalibus, participat vim
collativam; sed quia pars sensitivae est, non abstrahit omnino a materia. Unde
obiectum suum proprium manet quidditas particularis materialis. Hoc autem non
est, quod ilia potentia apprehendat materiam in se, cum ipsa non possit sciri nisi
per analogiam ad formam, sed quia collatio de materia in ordine ad formam per
ipsam materiam individuatam, spectat ad hanc potentiam, sicut considerare de
materia in communi in ordine ad formam speciei, spectat ad rationem superiorem."
78 See de Veritate, q. 10, a. 5:
"Cognitio enim mentis humanae fertur ad res
naturales primo secundum formam, et secundario ad materiam prout habet
habitudinem ad formam. Sicut autem omnis forma, quantum est de se est
universalis, ita habitudo ad formam non facit cognoscere materiam nisi in cognitione
universali. Sic autem considerata materia non est individuationis principium, sed
secundum quod consideratur materia in singulari." -See also De principia individuationis, as quoted here in footnote 77.
79 See de Veritate, q. 10, a. 4:
"Ex cognitione autem formarum quae nullam
sibi materiam determinant, non relinquitur aliqua cognitio de materia; sed ex
cognitione formarum quae determinant sibi materiam, cognoscitur etiam ipsa materia
aliquo modo, scilicet secundum habitudinem quam habet ad formam; ... et sic per

648

FRANCISCO

L. PECCORINI

already informed by the form and thus is a particular material
substance, Aquinas applies the same doctrine to the knowledge
of particular material substances. This knowledge is different
from sensation because it attains the very material substance
itself. It is the activity of lower or particular reason which
is the judicative faculty insofar as it bears on material objects.
As a power, particular reason shares in both the intellect and
the sense faculty-" per conjunctionem cum intellectu ...
participat vim collativam; sed quia pars sensitivae est, non
abstrahit omnino a materia." 80-and can therefore substitute
for the animal aestimativa while exceeding it; 81 whereas higher
reason belongs to the intellect exclusively and bears only on
analytical propositions.
The knowledge of ·materia prima, on the other hand, calls for
a more complicated reasoning based on a larger-scale comparative process which covers absolutely all material beings. This
is necessarily so because prime matter not only lacks a proper
concept but it cannot even be detected by means of a careful
judicative inspection of a particular thing or class of things.
Besides the apriori argument used by Aristotle in his Metaphysics, Bk. II, the only a posteriori avenue for reaching
materia prima is the way called per analogiam, which supposes
materias signatas as already known. The process unfolds in this
way. On one hand, it is certain that we never come face to face
with absolute nothingness, and yet material things are constantly coming into existence and fading away. On the other
hand, the actuality of a material composite depends on the
actuality of its form which in turn is the end-product of the
generative action whereby the composite itself comes to exist
and is absolutely incompatible with the corresponding corruptive process. Therefore, for the uninterrupted flow of existence
that we witness to be possible as one form goes and another
similitudinem formae ipsa res materialis cognoscitur, sicut aliquis ex hoc ipso quod
cognoscit simitatem, cognoscit nasum sinum."
80 See here, footnote 77, the quotation
from De principio individuationis.
81 It is called cogitative also.
See In III Sent., dist. QS, q. 2, a. 2, ad Sm.:
In IV Sent. dist. 50, q. 1, ad Sm.

KNOWLEDGE OF THE SINGULAR

649

comes, there must be a something potential that remains and
in which the change gradually takes place. That such potentiality really exists when change is considered only at the level
of accidental composites is a matter of experience. So, we see
that the same wood remains when we make a table out of a bed.
Consequently, insofar as substantial change is concerned, there
must be something that remains in its capacity as pure potentiality.82 Now, that is what St. Thomas calls prime matter.
" Therefore," he writes, " we call prime matter that which is in
the same relation to natural substances as bronze is to the
statue and wood to the bed and everything that is material
and unformed to its form." 83 As can easily be seen, at this
point the Thomist epistemology and the Suarezian theory which
began with different premises converge in .their approach to
prime matter.

* *

*

*

In retrospect we can say that, regardless of the transitory
coincidence between Suarez and St. Thomas concerning this
mode of knowing matter and material substances, the allegiance
of the former to the latter breaks down all the way insofar as
the intellectual grasp of the individual is concerned. We would
like to venture an explanation which goes to the bottom of the
82 See De natura materiae, cap. !il:
" Ex generatione ergo quae est primus
terminus actionis physicae accipi potest quae sit natura materiae. Cum enim non
requiratur aliquod subiectum actu in actione physica nisi propter notum, sicut de
alteratione dictum est, et subiectum necesse sit manere in toto motu, sequitur
necessaria, quod quamdiu est aliquid de natura alterationis et motus, subiectum
esse in actu. Cum vero motus alterationis deficit, deficit subiecti actualitas. Haec
autem est in eius termino qui est generatio. Unde in generatione necessaria tota
actualitas subiecti alterati peribit. S olum ergo ens in potentia manet in generatione.
Ens autem in potentia est materia solum. Et ideo materia nuda est subiectum
generationis. Cum ergo materia impediat cognitionem, et unumquodque non
cognoscatur nisi secundum quod est actu, . . . idea materiae non est scibilis nisi
in ordine ad formam, . . . Ideo formam per prius oportet cognoscere, et per earn
requirere naturam materiae: forma enim est terminus actionis physicae ut dictum
est ... Quod ergo manet derelictum a forma substantiali, hoc est materia, quia
per actionem creaturae non devenimus in nihil, ut dictum est. Sic ergo per formam
cognoscibilis est materia."
83 I Physic. cap. 7, lect. 13.

650

FRANCISCO

L. PECCORINI

fact. Whereas St. Thomas based his whole theory on the
ontological value of objective abstraction, Suarez did not manage to understand the real mechanism of the agent intellect
and thereby fell prey to a kind of cartesian epistemology made
up of itemized, piecemeal, pictorial " representations." And
so, although almost every word of the thomist vocabulary remains in Suarez's theory of knowledge,-enough to induce him
to make the deceitful claim of enjoying a true thomistic discipleship-they mean totally different concepts. We should add
that, whatever its merits, Suarez's innovative position is the
result of an unscholarly and faulty method. His research on St.
Thomas's thought, as Ercilla points out, 84 is based only upon
an isolated text, and his actual interpretation seems to be
dominated by an aprioristic attitude of self-sufficience combined with a kind of snobbish indulgence in the fashion of quoting the Angelic Doctor and abiding by his sayings, as the
following typical statement bears out: "However," he writes,
" the true meaning is the one proposed, and St. Thomas' words
must be forced into it, or else, they should not be taken seriously." 85
Suarez is adamant on two counts: there is an agent intellect
perfectly attuned to evidencing the phantasm, but there is no
real interaction whatsoever between the two, unless we choose
to call such a mere quasi-material and exemplary influence he
considers on the part of the phantasm. 86 The second statement
84 Jose de Ercilla, De la imagen a la idea (Madrid:
Editorial Gredos, 1959),
pp. 306-310.
85 De Anima, IV,
n. lli.
86 See ibid., n. 11:
"Sit ergo conclusio prima. lntellectus agens numquam
efficit speciem nisi a phantasiae cognitione determinetur ... Secunda conclusio.
Praedicta determinatio non fit per influxum aliquem ipsius phantasmatis, sed
materiam et quasi exemplar intellectui agenti praebendo ex vi unionis quam habet
in eadem anima. Prima conclusionis pars probata relinquitur ex dictis circa
refutatas opiniones. Secunda vero explicatur ex dictis de sensibus interioribus, lib. 3,
cap. 9. Nam ad eum modum quo ibidem postremo loco dixi fieri species in interiori
sensu iudico fieri in intellectu; est enim notandum phantasma et intellectum radicari
in una eademque anima: hinc enim provenit, ut mirum habeant ordinem et
consonantiam in operando, unde (quod patebit infra) eo ipso quod intellectus
operatur, imaginatio etiam sentit. Ad hunc ergo modum arbitror intellectum pos-

KNOWLEDGE

OF THE SINGULAR

651

of course, completely voids the first, as can be shown on the
grounds that an agent intellect of that sort would be both useless from an epistemological viewpoint and impossible.
The Eximius Doctor, of course, believes that his account is
not only possible but also necessary and sufficient. However,
such a contention is far from being vouched for by the justification he presents in its favor. For one thing, the reason that
leads him to posit an agent intellect does not prove that this
faculty is endowed with those qualifications called for by om
experience. In fact, he requires an active mind for exactly the
same purpose for which he posits an " agent internal sense,"
namely, for picturing the individual thing (" N am ad eum
modum quo . . .dixi fieri species in interiori sensu iudico fieri
in intellectu."). This leaves us with an agent intellect which
does not illuminate the phantasm-because the phantasm does
not need any illumination since it cannot even claim a really
cooperative role, having been called upon simply to be there
and serve as a pure quasi-exemplar or, we should say, as a
mere occasion vis a vis its partner-, but does only effect at
the spiritual level a species impressa of the " particular thing "
in exactly the same way in which the agent sense effects the
phantasm at the material stage. This alone shows us that the
Suarezian agent intellect has nothing to do with intellectual
light. But the same fact might be confirmed on another count.
The agent intellect, indeed, does not perform any abstractive
operation. Its function, as described, is only to reproduce or
portray the individual as a block on a spiritual canvas. On the
other hand, while doing that it cannot even abstract or isolate
the specific unity of the thing in order to focus on it and thm;
give us an objective concept of the same for the very simple
sibilem de se nudum esse speciebus, inesse tamen animae rationali vim spiritualem
ad efficiendas in intellectu possibili species earum rerum, quas per sensus cognoscit,
ipsa sensibili cognitione minime concurrente efficienter ad earn actionem, sed habente
se instar materiae, ut excitantis animam, aut vero ad instar exemplaris atque ita
fit ut anima cum primum phantasiando cognoscit rem aliquam, per virtutem
spiritualem quam intellectum agentem vocamus, quasi depingat rem eamdem in
intellectu possibili, atque adeo per actionem transeuntem, quae proinde cognitio
non est."

652

FRANCISCO

L. PECCORINI

reason that, according to Suarez, the common nature, being
not really different from haecceitas, or at least from existence,
is not a thing that stands on its own and that can be pictured
without its surroundings. 87 In other words, apprehensive abstraction has no room in Suarez's epistemology. The very first
concept of the specific nature that he allows is the definition
or j01·mative abstraction, which does not face us with any real
object but only with a logical product obtained through a comparative process which envisages the individuals exclusively
on the basis of the similarities their individual natures
If we are entitled to call formative abstraction an objective
representation, it is certainly not because it represents an e:>sence really different from the particulars but only because
87 See Disputationes
Metaphysicae, V, I, n. 10: "Besides, the nature itself,
by us in itself (that is, according to those characteristics
could it be
which belong to it of itself as it is isolated in the mind from individuals) , is
nevertheless not truly a real being, unless it is in individuals." translated by J. F.
Ross in: Franciscus Suarez, On Formal and Universal Unity, [l\1arquette University
Press, Milwaukee, I964], p. 84) .-See also DM, V, I, I4; in Ross, p. 87: " ... for
although the specific nature may not be further divisible through essential divisions,
it is nev.ertheless divisible further through individual differences, and in each individual it has formal unity, distinct from that which it has in others; and this
suffices that such unity cannot be common in reality."
88 See DM., V, 2, I8; Ross, pp. 47-48: "
... for when this identity is said to
obtain between distinct things, it cannot in fact be anything beyond a similarity,
by reason of which they are also said to share or to have the same definition,
fundamentally indeed by reason of the mentioned similarities, formally, however,
through reason, for definition is the work of reason."-See also: ibid., I, 12; Ross,
p. 86: " ... it is one thing to speak of formal unity and another to speak of the
community of this unity ... no unity which is found in reality is common . . . ,
but there is in singular things a certain similarity in their formal unities on
which the community which the intellect can attribute to such a nature as it is
conceived, is based. "-See also ibid., I8; Ross, pp. 86-87 " For this, the formal
unity, which the nature has in any individual whatever along with the similarity
of all such unities among themselves is enough; for it arises from this that the
intellect conceives and defines that formal notion in one common concept. Whence,
when it is said that a nature does not have its definibility through the agency of
the intellect, it must be said that this is true fundamentally and remotely but
not, however, true proximately, or (what is the same) that it is true with regard
to the essence which is explained in the definition, for the essence precedes in the
thing but not indeed with respect to that condition, namely community which the
nature demands in order for us to define it; for this is had solely through the
thinking of the mind."

KNOWLEDGE

OF THE SINGULAR

653

it can be traced to real individuals. If, therefore, according to
Suarez, the agent intellect has nothing to do with intellectual
light, which is the light of Being, one must wonder where is
the guarantee that the spiritual species impressa really puts
our possible intellect in touch with the Being of the thing
known. And we must wonder all the more so if we take into
account the vagueness of the performance attributed to the
agent intellect by Suarez.
He, of course, does not see any difficulty in his account,
fascinated as he is by that kind of magical harmony between
imagination and agent intellect which he traces to the unity
of the subject. It so happens, therefore, that in virtue of that
wonderful sociability of faculties among themselves, as soon as
the former imagines and without it cooperating in the action
of the latter ("ipsa sensibili cognitione minime concurrente
efficienter ad eam actionem ") a spiritual similitude of the individual thing is simultaneously catapulted by the agent intellect and impinges upon the naked possible intellect which
thereby is moved to produce its own version of the object, i.e.,
the species expressa, which in turn by informing it constitutes
it in the act of knowing. Everything went so fast that we
barely realized that neither the agent intellect really knewit only caused the possible mind to know (" atque adeo pe'r
actionem tran8euntem, quae proinde cognitio non est ") -,
nor did the phantasm do anything at all except to exist and
thereby behave "as though" it were an exemplar with regard
to the agent intellect, or an object which in a figurative way
might be called a "stimulant " of the soul (" sed habente se
instar materiae, ut excitantis animam, aut vero ad instar exemplaris ".) How vague this whole explanation is can escape
no one. John of St. Thomas rebuked Suarez most severely for
stating that, if this " ad instar " does not point to a real
exemplary cause, then it is incumbent upon the author to determine its real causality .89
89 Ercilla, op, cit., p. 808, quotes him saying:
" Sed totum hoc quod est dicere
' ad instar ' relinquit rem obscuram et inexplicatam, quia in praesenti inquirimus

654

FRANCISCO

L. PECCORINI

Following John of St. Thomas we can argue thus with Suarez.
Since the agent intellect as stated does not know and however
effects a spiritual picture of the individual thing, it follows that
we ·are trapped in a real dilemma. Either we understand by
" effects " the same as " selects " the fitting spiritual picture
from a certain collection that it already precontains in store,
or we mean by that word a real causal action. The first alternative, though, cannot be sustained because in order to
"choose" one must be able to know. But the second is no more
fortunate. Since neither the agent intellect can " recognize "
any data in the phantasm nor the latter effectively guide any
kind of " blind " picturing taking place through the agency
of the mind, it follows that the action of the agent intellect
must be a " cr:eation from scratch." For this not to be branded
as "arbitrary," we must assert that it takes place through a
real " pre-established harmony " a la Leibnitz. But this is no
less absurd, because it cannot account for the specification of
the causation, which cannot come from the phantasm, since
the phantasm neither cooperates nor can be consciously followed by the agent intellect, or from the agent intellect itself,
since both by definition and as a result of our having denied
validity to the first horn of the dilemma we must take it to
be a faculty fully in act without thereby being actually knowing. Only a kind of occa8ionalism ala Malebranche could save
this sort of harmony from being absurd.
One wonders why Suarez let himself be led to such fantastic
accounts from the sound premise of the essential unity of the
subject since he could have stopped halfway at a very reasonable explanation offered by St. Thomas and based also on the
same principle. There is only one possible answer: he did not
fully understand St. Thomas's epistemology. Unfortunately,
this lack of understanding cast him on the side of the nominalquem concursum vere et proprie habeat phantasma, non ad cuius instar se habeat.
Nam esse ad instar materiae et exemplaris vel extrahit a vera et propria causa
materiali vel relinquit vere et proprie intra limites talis causalitatis. Si extrahit,
restat explicare in qua alia causalitate ponit. Si relinquit, ergo non ad instar sed
vere et proprie materia vel exempler est."

KNOWLEDGE

OF THE SINGULAR

655

ists. In conclusion, as things stand in his work, there is no real
utility in the agent intellect; and consequently, Suarez's position was bound to be a logical " go ahead " for all the occamists and materialists yet to come during the three centuries
of suarezian preeminence.
FRANCISCO L. PECCORINI
California State University
Long Beach, California

BOOK REVIEWS
Gottes Wirken in der Welt: Ein Diskussionsbeitrag zur Frage der Evolution und des Wunders. By Bela Wiessmahr, S. J. Frankfurter Theologische Studien, 15 Band, Frankfurt Am Main: Josef Knecht, 1973,
Pp. 208.
This work is a valuable contribution to a theological question of the
greatest importance: how does God work directly and personally in our
world, which is developing through its own proper activity? The sub-title
points to two areas that place this question with greatest insistence:
evolution, especially as it concerns the production of the human soul, and
miracles, as signs of God's direct action and self-communication. These
areas correspond to the action of God in " nature " and " supernature."
The first part of the book traces the development of theological understanding and sets out the varieties of opinion on God's direct action in
the world, beginning from the scholastic period up to the present. The
changes in theological teaching beginning in the 19th century about evolution and miracles are carefully examined.
The second, and much larger, part of the book lays out his own position.
He first seeks to establish his basic principle for all further discussion:
God acts in the world only through secondary causes. He then distinguishes
between two kinds of human knowledge: univocal, conceptual knowledge,
proper to the natural sciences, and analogous, radically non-conceptual
knowledge, proper to metaphysics-though this latter must be finally expressed in concepts and words. After discussing how these two different
kinds of knowledge view the world, he explains how a metaphysical view
of created causality provides room for a personal, direct action of God
in the world, acting always through the proper activity of secondary
causes.
It is his contention that nothing happens in the world that does not depend entirely on secondary causes as well as entirely on God, the primary
cause. Thus, evolution and miracles are both, in their entirety, effects of
secondary causes, acting in dependence on the primary cause. It may
seem to restrict the freedom of God in the world to affirm that he can
work in the world only through secondary causes and can produce only
effects ultimately proportionate to the activity proper to these causes. But
the contrary view, he maintains, destroys the transcendence of God by
making him in some degree a secondary cause-an obvious contradiction.
Furthermore, we simply do not know the full capacity of secondary causes
under all circumstances. Miracles are special instances of this general

656

657

BOOK REVIEWS

pattern of God-creature causality; essential to recognizing them as such
are religious significance and personal witness.
This work has much to recommend it. It deserves serious thought and
discussion. The author proposes his views carefully and modestly. Occasionally his treatment lacks the depth necessary to his subject; for
example, in a discussion of the unity and distinction of beings in preparation for a treatment of divine immanence and transcendence, he has no
exposition of the question of relations, which surely are essential to the
matter. But such defects are few, and the work as a whole manifests
theological and metaphysical competence of a high degree.
JoHN H. WRIGHT,

S. J.

Jesuit School of Theology
Berkeley, California

A Process Christology. By David Griffin. Philadelphia:
1973. Pp.
$10.95.

Westminster Press,

According to David Griffin, the task of contemporary theology is "to
formulate a conceptuality of God, man, and the world that will be compatible with our modern knowledge and relevant to our sensibilities." (165)
Faithful to this task, he makes available to the world of theology the first
full-scale Christology based on the metaphysics of Alfred North Whitehead.
The formal thesis of his work is that Whitehead's metaphysics provides
a conceptuality appropriate to the Christian faith. For Griffin, such a conceptuality " allows one to maintain both his formal commitment to rationality and his substantive conviction as to the truth of the essentials
of Christian faith." (10)
A key element in the development of his Christology and, in the opinion
of this reviewer, a key element in appreciating its inadequacy, is his acceptance of Whitehead's definition: " the essence of Christianity is the
appeal to the life of Christ as a revelation of the nature of God and of
his agency in the world." (164) This definition makes Revelation the central
notion for understanding Christianity. Griffin admits that it "was not a
central category for explicating Jesus' significance in the New Testament,"
(19) but he holds that in the modern situation "Jesus can only be understood as ' savior ' if he is seen as the decisive clue to the nature of
reality."
He begins his study by considering various problems with the concept
of Revelation in the context of four modern theologians: Paul Tillich, H.
Richard Niebuhr, Rudolf Bultmann, and Friedrich Schleiermacher. In the
first four chapters he shows how all of their theologies are inadequate for
resolving these problems and, in fact, attempt to avoid these problems both
by driving a wedge between faith and reason and by minimizing the role

658

BOOK REVIEWS

of doctrinal ideas in the working out of salvation. Nevertheless, Griffin
shows that in each of them essential aspects of their theologies demand
that faith be reasonable and, further, that doctrinal ideas are really more
central to their soteriologies than they explicitly admit. Significantly,
Griffin deliberately avoided consideration of Karl Barth since he " rejected
the aim of trying to make the Christian doctrine of revelation intelligible." (11)
In the fifth chapter Griffin outlines a new approach which, as it is
worked out in the remaining five chapters, will offer a satisfactory solution
to the problems with Revelation. The first problem he considers is how
theology can be both rational and adequate to Christian faith. The former
would seem " to imply that theology cannot be based on Revelation," while
the latter "demands that it must be." (139) Griffin, however, points out
that every philosophical position is based on a value judgment, i.e., some
limited aspect of reality is taken to be the most important clue to the
understanding of all reality. Christian philosophy, then, is no less rational
when it is based on judgments made in the light of the Christ event as
the decisive revelation of reality. Revelation is not, however, to be equated
with explicit doctrines, rather it is an intuition, a vision of reality brought
to expression in Jesus. According to Jesus' underlying vision of reality
" God works on man in the present, calling him to participate in his purpose
for the world, life under God's rule." (204)
Throughout history theologians have struggled with a dilemma: how
to conceptualize the Christian vision of reality by means of alien philosophical systems. In process philosophy, Griffin claims, there is no such
dilemma, for the metaphysics of Whitehead is rooted in the Christian
vision of reality. It is "a philosophy that takes personal relations, and
hence temporality and events, to be fundamental." (139)
Using Whitehead's metaphysics to explicate the Christian vision of
reality, Griffin then proceeds to resolve another problem with Revelation:
how can the unique presence of God in Jesus be explained apart from
miraculous intervention? For Griffin, if divine revelation involved a
miraculous intervention, then modern man's conviction that all events have
natural causes would render unintelligible that event which is supposed
to make all other events intelligible. There is only one possible solution:
"God is conceived as active in all events." (143)
The process metaphysics competent to explicate the Christian vision
of reality views " actual occasions," both spatially and temporally atomic,
as the ultimate building blocks of reality. These "actual occasions" are
constituted in their moments of immediacy by their " prehension " of other
"actual occasions." Human beings are what Griffin calls monarchial
corpuscular societies, i. e., aggregates of " actual occasions " among which
there is a dominant member, the psyche. Further, these "actual occasions"
are " enduring objects," i. e., they are series of " actual occasions " each

BOOK REVIEWS

659

member of which, in its moment of immediacy, prehends the past member
of the series and repeats certain structural characteristics. Each " actual
occasion " not only prehends its own past member but it also prehends and
is constituted by many other past " actual occasions " among which is
God. " Since God is the one actuality that is objectified by all other
entities, he is present in every actual entity." (179) This fact is the basis
of the process notion of " panentheism," God is incarnated in everything.
Hence, the problem for Christology is to understand how God's presence
in Jesus is, in some way, special.
Griffin explains the special presence of God in Jesus in chapter nine, the
central chapter of the book. There he draws an analogy between the
psyche's relation to the body and God's relation to the world. The psyche's
aim or intention is prehended by all the actual occasions composing the
body and hence the acts of the body are in some way revelatory of the
character of the psyche. However, since each "actual occasion" is radically free, the aim of the psyche is not perfectly realized in each act; further,
many are not especially suited for revealing the character of the psyche.
Likewise, God's aim for the world is objectified more or less perfectly in
every "actual occasion," while some are more suited than others for being
revelatory of the character of God. In Griffin's Christology Jesus is the
supreme act of God, revealing perfectly God's aim for the world. "In
actualizing God's particular aims for him, Jesus expressed God's general
aim for his entire creation." {fU.!O)
One further notion which expresses more completely Jesus' specialness
is Griffin's concept of "self" as that " relatively continuous center within
human experience around which the experience attempts more or less successfully to organize itself." (228) The "self" is not the psyche but only
an element within the psyche. In Jesus the prehension of the divine aim
was not one prehension among others as it is for all other men, rather,
the prehension of God constituted Jesus' "self." Thus Jesus was transparent to God's reality. All of this allows Griffin to conclude that "the
vision of reality expressed through his sayings and actions is the supreme
expression of God's character, purpose, and mode of agancy, and is therefore appropriately received as the decisive revelation of the same."
Anther significant element in Griffin's Christology is his explanation of
how God's decisive revelation in Jesus has an effect on the rest of mankind.
God, in process thought, is always influencing man, influencing him by
persuasion, not coercion. After the revelation in Christ the manner of God's
activity does not change; however, man's convictions about the nature ot
God have been clarified with the result that he is more likely to heed those
impulses that are consonant with these convictions, i. e., " after the revelation in Christ man is capable of receiving aims which more directly express
God's character and purpose."

660

BOOK REVIEWS

A final note, which for Griffin is of crucial importance, is the verifiability
of the Christian vision of reality. Perhaps it was not so in past centuries
but " nowadays the credibility of Christian faith rests only upon its intrinsic coherence, adequacy, and illuminating power."
For Griffin,
process thought provides an indirect way of testing the truth of Christianity.
The Christian vision of reality " authenticates itself by giving rise to a
conceptual understanding of reality which is judged superior in terms of
the criteria of consistency, adequacy, and illuminating power." (159)
Griffin is certainly to be commended for the thoroughness and consistency
of his work of articulating the reality which is Christ in terms of process
metaphysics, the most recent metaphysical system to be utilized in the
understanding of Christianity. Yet, one is often left with the feeling that
his insights are not all that new. The English Deist John Toland in his
Christianity Not Mysterious (London, 1696) held that Revelation had
to be reasonable and, further, that it had to be judged by the criteria of
consistency, utility, and intelligibility. Much deeper, however, than English
Deism are the elements of Platonism that one finds in process thought.
The subjective aim of each " actual occasion " being an imperfect expression of the ideal aim provided by God is not unlike Plato's theory of
the forms, while Whitehead's essentially deductive metaphysics is most
likely a product of the Platonic mentality present in all mathematicians.
Griffin's protestations to the contrary notwithstanding, Whitehead's metaphysics, no less than that of Aristotle, is founded not on the Christian vision
of reality but on alien philosophical assumptions.
Not only is Griffin's metaphysical system, like all metaphysical systems,
inadequate for expressing the mystery of Christianity, but Griffin's understanding of Christianity, while not original, seems nevertheless conditioned
by a concern to fit it into process metaphysics. God is not immutable nor
omnipotent, he is a changing being who affects his creatures by persuasion
and is in turn affected by them. Jesus is human differing from other men
by the degree of God's presence in him. He is unique in that he alone
is transparent to the divine reality. Griffin really is not far from Scotus'
concept of person as a negative attribute. For Scotus, all other men have
their own proper person insofar as they are " not assumed " by the divinity;
Jesus lacks this negative attribute insofar as he is assumed. For Griffin, all
other men have a subjective aim which falls short of the divine ideal aim
for them; Jesus lacks this " falling short " insofar as the divine ideal aim
was his subjective aim. Griffin departs from Scotus, however, in his understanding of divine Person and Trinity where his position differs little from
Sabelliam modalism.
The most serious defect in Griffin's understanding of Christ,
lies in his emphasis on the centrality of Revelation. Like Abelard, who
saw salvation as brought about by the example and teaching of God,
Griffin falls into a one-sided emphasis on the subjective side of redemption.

661

BOOK REVIEWS

Again like Abelard, Griffin rejects the notion of a moral stain in human
nature needing restoration. Hence Griffin can propound an essentially
Pelagian view of salvation in which God merely persuades and man
ultimately creates himself anew in each moment of immediacy.
Viewing the essence of Christianity in terms of Revelation is, of course,
essential to Griffin's concern to, render Christianity rational. Unfortunately
Christianity is not rational, at least not in Griffin's sense, while the Christ
of Griffin's Christology is not the Christ who died and rose to save mankind. A Christology that pretends to be " rational," " adequate," and " selfverifying" might satisfy the criteria of seventeenth-century Deism but not
the criteria of St. Paul: "Jews demand signs and Greeks seek wisdom,
but we preach Christ crucified, a stumbling block to Jews and folly to
Gentiles." (I Cor 1:22)
TERENCE

J. KEEGAN, 0. P.

Dominican House of Studies
Washington, D. C.

On the Church of Christ: The Person of the Church and her Personnel. By
Jacques Maritain. Notre Dame: University of Notre Dame Press,
1973. Pp. 315. $9.95 cloth, $3.95 paper.
Maritain considers this book a series of meditations on the mystery of
the Church. And just as a meditation is not a simple act, but a complex
one, combining elements of the rational and the intuitive, the past and
the present, consolation and desolation, so this book is a complex one,
bristling over with all of these elements and more. The most one can
hope to do in a review like this is to isolate various elements, in the hope
that the reader's imagination will hold the whole together.
First, Maritain has written this book as a man. I think this needs saying,
for Maritain has not written this work simply as a certain kind of NeoThomist philosopher, easily categorized and interpreted according to our
own a priori views of Neo-Thomism. He has written as a man, that complex being who just won't so easily adjust himself to our categories, who is
neither simply " black" nor " white," but "gray." As he puts it, this is
"the last testimony of a old solitary," (241) someone who thinks that this
book " has been written by an ignorant one for ignorant ones like himself." (vi) In other words, this work is written by a fellow human, and
anyone with an inkling of how complex man can be will not be surprised
to find that complexity manifesting itself in this book. And so we find a
love of the Church's past and a basic openness to its future; an appreciation for its humanity and sinfulness, and an awe in the presence of its
offer of Christ's grace and the ability to share in the communion of saints;

662

BOOK REVIEWS

a critical spirit, reminding one of the prophets, and a docile spirit, ready
to submit itself to the Magisterium. To the extent that someone is a
man, he can surely appreciate this book.
Secondly, Maritain has written as a philosopher. And by this he does
not mean a servile ancilla to the theologian but someone who exercises his
critical faculties with the aim, perhaps, of proposing " to the competent
doctors new views." (v) This shows up clearly when he mentions Cardinal
Journet as his ecclesiological guide: at times he will depart from the
Cardinal on some point, as he departs from Aquinas, for " a true disciple
is a free disciple, is he not? " (10). And true to the critical philosopher,
few are spared criticism: he speaks of clerics who are "first-rate simpletons," (40) only seeing sin and weakness in the Church; of the Papacy
and Roman Curia, about which he says: " ... there is still in Roman circles
a good deal of progress to be made" (65); and of theologians: "Too
many theologians" are destroying the Church's intellectual treasure,
" throwing it to the four winds; blessed be the others. . . . Experts are
useful and necessary informants; they are not worth much as counselors;
they are not worth anything at all if they claim to present themselves as
doctors" (89; cf. his comments on some of the Vatican II periti on pp. fl90fl91, n. flfl).
To my mind, it is in his role of philosopher that Maritain perhaps has
offered some important insights, not all of them of equal importance. For
example, he speaks of the need to speak more frequently of ecumenical
friendship rather than simply ecumenical dialogue, for the former is the
indispensable condition of the latter. (Ill) And in this I think we catch
a glimpse of the Maritain who, early in his career, emphasized the role of
intuition, of what cannot so easily be dialogued about, of that deeper experiental realm which we all somehow know and could perhaps share
through friendship. His sensitivity to intuition appears clearly in his comments on what the theologians commonly call "ecclesiastical faith" also:
" I rather think that ' ecclesiastical faith ' was invented in the sixteenth
century and baptized in the seventeenth by theologians who had lost the
sense of the intuitivity of the intelligence, and who embarked theologians
much better than they on a pseudo-problem, concerning which they could,
while making a great expenditure of subtlety, only find themselves in disagreement." (fl05) These are, you could say, issues on which Maritain
thinks his philosophical method would lead him to depart from such
a thinker as Journet. But these are clearly secondary issues.
More importantly, Maritain, exercising his philosophical intuition, has
isolated issues of major importance needing especially to be faced in our
time. As he puts them (fl41) : " the notion of the person of the Church,
who is a single and same person in Heaven and on earth, and in whom
are inherent holiness and infallibility; the distinction between the person
of the Church and her personnel; the distinction between the personnel of

BOOK REVIEWS

663

the Church acting as instrumental cause of the latter (whose voice then
it causes to be heard and through which she herself acts then) and the
personnel of the Church acting as proper cause (then it is exposed to mistake and to error) .... " What has caused to single out these issues is his
desire to avoid the mistakes of the " left " and the " right." And by this
I take it that he means the radical humanizers of the Church on the one
hand, and the radical divinizers of it, on the other. But to deal with this
we must turn to Maritain the " theologian."
Thirdly, then, Maritain has written as a "theologian." Perhaps not a
theologian in the technical sense of the word, but perhaps one in its original
sense, of a person adhering to the faith by way of critical reflection. And
it is perhaps here that contemporary theologians will have difficulty with
Maritain. And this, I think, not because of the importance of the issues
he deals with (we have enumerated them above), nor because of his intention to avoid either a radical humanizing or divinizing of the Church
(even Richard McBrien has declared his intenton of avoiding that), but
because of the Nco-Thomistic framework with which he works. Besides
the highly questionable "proof-text " method of using Scripture {and
Maritain does this constantly in this book) , the propositional view of
Revelation (see especially p. 17) , and the debatable approach to the relationship of the natural and supernatural orders (especially p. 12) -all
generally characteristic of Nco-Thomistic theology-it is its basic approach
itself which is increasingly being called into question.
What does this mean? Neo-Thomism-and Maritain is surely an excellent Neo-Thomist,-is an attempt to recapture the great scholastic
heritage. That heritage, especially under Aristotle's influence, was objective in its orientation. Unlike the early Church theologians, who wrote
in a fashion caluclated to stimulate, arouse, and provoke their listeners,
the great scholastics were more fascinated by the object of their concern.
With respect to the Church, for example, they would ask, not what does
the Church mean to the people but what is the Church in itself. The
emphasis in their thinking fell, then, upon objects, not subjects. This same
emphasis is reflected in Maritain's work. Like the great scholastics, and
the modern day Journet, his focus is upon the objective structures of the
Church: its nature as the real and explicit presence of God in history (its
" person ") , and the various ways in which that divine presence explicitate.s
itself (the Church's "personnel," acting instrumentally or properly). But
that is the problem, for hardly ever does Maritain turn his attention to the
subject, the person for whom his book is meant. And never does he focus
on what conditions must be present in the subject before he will be able
to understand this objective reality that we call the "Church." Rahner
has expressed, better and more credibly that I could, my basic uneasiness
with this work of Maritain's: "I believe that all the difficulties which
men of today experience have a common basis: theological expressions are

664

BOOK REVIEWS

not formulated in such a way that they can see how what is being said has
any connection with their own understanding of themselves, which they
derived from their experience." Surely if all theology is propter nostram salutem, then it must be concerned with man and the transformation
of his life. It must, in other words, be terribly related to man's existence.
But it is that relationship which Maritain leaves unexplored.
Personally, I think it would be futile to take up the argumentation of
Maritain's book point by point. In substance it represents a short, easily
readable, and sometimes passionate rendition of the kind of ecclesiology to
be found in Carrdinal Joumet's L'Eglise du Verbe Incarne. And there already exist a sufficient number of studies on that subject: Rahner, Congar,
Dulles, to mention a few authors. I think Maritain has correctly discerned
the key issue: the need to avoid either a radical divinizing or a radical
humanizing ofthe Church. But I suspect that this book will not be credible
to most, simply because of its total objectivism (which is surely not the
same as simply " error ") , and I would personally look in the direction
of a Karl Rahner for a more fruitful ecclesiology.
But finally, Maritain has written this book as a poet, one might almost
say a mystic, and it was this element which personally impressed me the
most. This comes to the fore especially in the last section of the book,
(pp.
where he takes up the knotty questions of the Church's
part in the Crusades, the experience of the Jews, the Inquisition, the
Galileo case, and the condemnation of Joan of Arc. From a theological
point of view, Maritain is able to preserve the Church from any stain by
his use of the distinction between the Church's "person" (unblemished)
and its "personnel" which, in varying ways, was at fault). He further
preserves God from any blame by employing the now famous distinction
between God's "pure" and his merely "permissive" will. I mention
these theological subtleties, not because I wholeheartedly agree with them
(surely theology must find the kind of language which, on the one hand,
will not allow churchmen to absolve themselves from the guilt of some
of the terrible things they have done, and which, on the other, does not
imply that God is in any way involved in evil) , but because these are not
the real point of what Maritain is offering in this section. What he is
offering is the example of a man who has the courage to believe that there
exists such a thing as an experience of God, and that such an experience
was in some imperceptible way present even in those terrible historical
episodes of the Church. And how else does one speak of this except poetically? A man who can see in the Inq11isition's fires the symbols of a divine
truth "which must burn us to the bones," (187) and in Joan of Arc's
condemnation " a marvellous adieu of the Lord God to medieval Christenmay not be the best of all possible
dom on the point of ending,"
theologians, but he is, without doubt, a believing poet.
WILLIAM

St. Patrick's Seminary
Menlo Park, Calif.

M. THOMPSON, s. s.

BOOK REVIEWS

66.5

Theology Today Series. 43. The Church and the World. By Rodger
Charles, S. J. Pp. 89; 27. The Theology of the Eucharist. By James
Quinn, S. J. Pp. 94; 33. The Priest as Preacher Past and Future. By
Edward P. Echlin, S. J. Pp. 92.

The Church and the World is a title which is apt to deceive. It does not
deal with what we might immediately expect to be dealt with behind
such a title. The thesis of the book could be said to be this: it is from
Christianity, and not from secular humanism, that man can come to a
sense of his dignity as a creature of God and can learn how to live out
the implications of this dignity. The claims of the secularisers: 1) that
what they are rejecting of structure, and morality, and dogma is really
only peripheral to Christianity; 2) that in rejecting these "medieval"
inessentials man, in the famous phrase of Bonhoeffer, "has come of age";
he has somehow become more Christian than the Christians themselves.
With a wicked touch of irony the author asks: the casual disrespect for
life today, the rationalization of the drug menace, sexual promiscuity, the
destruction of environment and resources, the belief in anarchy and licence,
the greed of the more affiuent societies-are these the signs that man has
come of age? And what of Christianity? It teaches that God made man
in his own image and likeness that, over and above this, God offers him
a share in his own divine life. There is no conflict between the life of
grace and man's own personal characteristics. Far from being destroyed in
this higher life, these personal characteristics are enriched. But this life
must be lived according to a law-the objective law of God. This law was
brought to the world by Christ, and Christ gave to his Church the mission
to interpret this law unerringly for men until the end of time. That
Christianity is being rejected by so many today is not an argument that
the Church has failed in this mission. The Church, and it only, provides
man with a purpose worth his seeking, and offers him effective means for
attaining it. The book is worth reading for at least this: the amount of
detail it packs into its short ninety pages. It is not a book for everyone.
But anyone genuinely interested in the phenomenon of secularization, and
a theologians' answer to it, has everything to gain from reading it.
The Theology of the Eucharist is an excellent little volume, one of the
most satisfactory that I have come across in the Theology Today series.
In fifteen brief chapters the author touches on all the important aspects
of Eucharistic theology. The exposition is clear, in welcome contrast to
much theological writing nowadays. The style is simple, but anyone acquainted with recent writing on the Eucharist will immediately recognize
the competence that lies behind this unpretentious exterior. About half
the book is devoted to a treatment of the biblical background of the
Eucharist, and this should prove especially valuable to those who studied

666

BOOK REVIEWS

this particular tract of theology at a time when scripture was invoked almost exclusively to prove the Real Presence and the sacrificial character
of the Mass. The author shows how the Eucharist, when situated in the
Passover context of berakah and memorial, takes on a rich new depth of
meaning. Perhaps more might have been made of the memorial dimension
of the Eucharist, along the lines indicated by Jeremias and Bouyer. A
minor criticism that might be made is that the very wealth of material
provided in some chapters (e. g., ch. 5) tends to confuse the clear lines
of development of the author's treatment. All in all, however, this is a
very satisfying piece of work. It makes one realize with a sense of regret
what the Theology Today series might have been if all the volumes were
of the same high standard.
The Priest as Preacher Past and Future might be described as a commentary on the statement in Presbyterorum Ordinis (n. 4) that
" priests. . . . have as their primary duty the proclamation of the gospel
of God to all." What the theology of the priest has needed for so long
is a resolution of the conflict between the post-Tridentine Catholic view
of the priest as essentially a man who offers the Eucharistic Sacrifice and
administers the Sacraments on the one hand, and the opinion of the
Reformers on the other hand, who stressed, at times exclusively, the minister's preaching role. Through a survey of scriptural, patristic, medieval, and
modem ecclesiastical documents up to and including Vatican IT, Father
Echlin throws considerable light on the priest's role as minister of the word
and shows that it is without prejudice to the ministry of the Sacrifice. Both
roles are indispensable for the wholesome exercise of the priesthood and
though preaching may be the primary duty of priests, the goal of all
preaching is the Eucharist.
NoEL MoLLOY,

0. P.
0. P.

Lours

0. P.

ANTHONY MoRRIS,

St. Charles' Seminary,
Nagur, India

HuGHES,

The English Bishops and the First Vatican Council. By Frederick J.
Cwiekowski, s. s. Bibliotheque de la Revue d'Histoire Ecclesiastique,
Fascicule 5!t. Louvain: Editions Nauwelaerts. 1971. Pp. 871. FB
500.

In this impressively researched study Frederick J. Cwiekowski gives
a broad view of the English hierarchy before, during, and after the First
Vatican Council. The focus is national and emphasizes " the bishops ' concerns with the ecclesiological issues " as the English prelates " saw the
council largely in these terms." A background perspective is provided on
the state of Catholicism in England, followed by a survey of the English

BOOK REVIEWS

667

role in council preparations. The author then treats with the Council
itself: its organization and management, major debates and the formation
of parties, English secular interests and activities, the position and participation of the bishops on the great issues, especially those growing out
of the Schema constitutionis dogmaticae ecclesia Christi-to which was
attached the explosive chapter on papal infallibility-and finally, the resolution of the controversies. Concluding chapters concern the aftermath
as it affected acceptance and interpretation of the decrees by the hierarchy,
closing with " The Ecclesiology of the English Bishops at Vatican I," a
return to the prefatory theme.
From cover to cover the author leaves little doubt that a majority of the
prelates were prepared to follow Ultramontane leadership, with slight exception. The story is dominated throughout by the energetic Archbishop
of Westminster, whose anti-Gallican convictions and personal quest for an
authoritative papacy assured him prominence before, during, and after
the Council, both in England and at Rome. Manning's pastoral letter of
October 1869-the eve of the council-pointed the way and, as with his
pastoral of two years earlier, strongly promoted infallibility. Even as Wiseman's successor waxed polemical at home, Cardinal Antonelli was assuring
Odo Russell that no new dogma of personal infallibility was to be submitted to the Fathers in that the Council had no auhority over such
matters.
Because so much of the literature on the Council focuses on the struggle
over the definition of papal infallibility, this study is particularly noteworthy for its consideration of the attitudes of the English bishops toward other matters debated at Rome. The English hierarchy was comparatively new, the English Catholic population relatively small; it would
appear that this rather insignificant delegation of twelve men wielded
little power as a body, When it became conspicuous, as in the debate
on the schema Dei Filius, efforts by Ullathorne and others to have a
comma inserted after "Roman" in the chapter's opening words "Sancta
Romana catholica ecclesia ", revealed more of the Church's sensitivities in
England than in the world at large.
A concise narrative portrays participation in great detail, though troublesome questions remain unanswered. To what extent, for example, did the
English hierarchy express itself on the impending loss of the Temporal
Power? And to what extent did the pre-Vatican tensions within English
Catholicism between the " national " bishops and the " Romanizing " bishops carry over into deliberations at the Council? Lines had been drawn
long before 1869 on several key issues; battles had been fought; careers
had been made, broken or frustrated. The men who gathered at Rome in
the fall of 1869 were to function within the context of pre-existing struggles,
and while Father Cwiekowski defines specific positions taken at the Council,
he does not relate the earlier conflicts to the tensions which developed

668

BOOK REVIEWS

during the proceedings. Historical difficulties between Manning and the
less " Romanized " bishops such as Errington, Ullathorne, Grant, and
Clifford suggest complications which are not explored.
Vatican I evokes strong currents in the minds of many as a time of
intrigue, vilification, mendacity, and the arbitrary exercise of power by
a much-troubled papacy and its partisans. The book brings little new light
to that dimension of the story, and surprisingly, except for a brief passage
near the end, the author seemingly overlooks one of the principal issues
formulated by the minority bishops, namely, the assertion that the most
bitterly contested doctrine of the Council could not survive the test of historical evidence. This episode would seem all the more relevant in that it
was an Englishman, Lord Acton, who organized the cause against promulgation on historical grounds, forcefully expressed in a letter to his Munich
mentor: " Man muss es klar machen dass nicht nur die Definition
schwierig sondern die Lehre falsch ist."
How did the English bishops respond to Acton's argument? We are
told neither the degree of their familiarity with the position nor their
assessment of it. Most would appear to have been indifferent, but there
were exceptions. Clifford led Acton to believe that they were of one mind.
In his letter to Newman dated 28 March 1870, Goss suggested disbelief
in the proposed doctrine. (Goss was unable to attend the Council owing
to poor health.) Among the Acton manuscripts at Cambridge is a memoir
in the hand of the historian's daughter, Annie. Not a lengthy document,
it contains material pertinent to the subject at hand. Annie Acton's contribution to historical controversy is her observation that the failure of
the minority bishops to persist in their resistance after promulgation gave
rise to the keenest crisis of her father's life. While recent scholarship has
softened the harshness of her assumption, the charge from one so intimately
connected with Acton cannot be ignored. Among the prelates who "wavered, only to join the ranks of the triumphant majority " were the Englishmen Clifford and Errington. Father Cwiekowski's treatment of the
controversy is cursory and uncharacteristically indulgent. Many historians
will question his conclusion that " the forces of moderation did prevail at
the Council." Acton's assertion that Clifford did not believe in the content
of the definition is given as wishful thinking-hardly an adequate explanation of so controversial a matter on which the evidence is thus far
inconclusive.
On balance this is an important book. Fifteen manuscript collections
were consulted. There is a good bibliography and a useful index. It takes
its place alongside James Hennessey's The First Council of the Vatican:
the American Experience, a welcome addition to a growing literature on
a fascinating topic.
JAMEs C. HoLLAND

Shepherd College
West Virginia

:BOOK REVIEWS

669

The Vatican in the Age of the Dictators (1922-1945). By Anthony Rhodes.
Holt, Rinehart and Winston, 1973. Pp. 383. $12.50.
It is a commonly held view that the papacy has had great influence
upon secular events in the modern world. Thus, popes have been condemned or applauded: Pius XI's signing of the Lateran Accords has been
seen by liberal historians as contributing to the rise of Fascism in Italy,
and the failure of Pius XII to speak out firmly against the destruction of
the European Jews has been portrayed as a significant factor in the holocaust. The fact is, however, that the modern papacy has been far more
influenced by the circumstances of the secular world than influencing them.
Mr. Rhodes appreciates this fact in his study of the papacy and its
relations with other countries from the accession of Pius XI in 1922 to
the end of World War II under Pius XII. His book is comprehensive in
scope and powerfully written: he describes papal problems surrounding
such important events as the rise of Mussolini, the Reich Concordat, the
Spanish Republic and Civil War, and the condemnation of Action Frangaise.
Almost half of the book is given over to a study of papal relations with
Nazi Germany and the events of World War II. Even such relatively minor
areas as relations with the Soviet Union and problems with the British in
Malta are dwelt upon in great detail. No author has given us a more comprehensive view.
Rhodes' thesis is that Pius XI broke sharply with the policies of his
predecessor in relying less upon Catholic political parties and more upon
concordats and papal diplomacy to protect the threatened rights of Catholies
in the unstable countries; thus the disappearance of the Popolari in Italy
and the Centre in Germany. In fact, of course, the departure of these parties
was less the result of papal intervention than of Fascist and Nazi oppression. Pius XII, Rhodes shows, was faced with almost insurmountable problems with the outbreak of the War. He spent the war years trying to safeguard not just the rights but the lives as well of Catholics in the occupied
countries, and he tried to preserve papal neutrality so that he could offer
Vatican services for peace negotiations. These factors and his excessive fear
of Communism led to his " silence " on the destruction of the Jews.
Unfortunately, for so excellent a book, it must be used with a strong caveat.
Rhodes' principal sources are German and British foreign office reports.
While this makes them invaluable for the story of German-papal relations,
they are much less reliable for other areas, with result that Spain, France,
and Italy come through strongly colored by German and British impressions. Nor has Rhodes checked all of his facts: numerous minor errors
creep in (Pius XI did not found Catholic Action, it was Benedict XV who
lifted the non-expedit, the Spanish Republic never had a fully accredited
ambassador to the Holy until 1936, etc.) . But, these errors do not affect
his general interpretation.

670

BOOK REVIEWS

Despite the Vatican's ineffectiveness in the modem world, there is a
fascination about its activities far in excess of its influence. Vatican gossip
is always more interesting that that of any other government. Part of this
has to do with tradition and manners; part of it is that juxtaposition of
secular and sacred so well illustrated by the remark made by the Vatican
Secretary of State, Cardinal Gasparri, when the French Ambassador accused him of lying: " the Cardinal cooly replied that he was merely doing
what all diplomats did, and that in any case the Pope would give him
absolution if necessary."
Jos:E M. SA.NcHEZ
Saint Louis University
St. Louis, Missouri

By John A. O'Brien. New York:
Co. Inc., 1973. Pp. 233. $6.95.

The Inquisition.

Macmillan Publishing

The present volume, by a well-known Catholic scholar, traces the history
and operation of the Inquisition in its medieval, Spanish, and Roman forms.
It closes with chapters on several celebrated cases that came before the
Inquisition-of Joan of Arc, Savonarola, and Galileo-and a final chapter
entitled, A New Era, in which the author brings out the significance of the
changes that were initiated by Pope John XXIII and Vatican Council II.
The book is a useful, popular, and readable account of this celebrated tribunal about which many people have only hazy ideas. Though filling a
need, the volume must be read with discrimination, keeping various reservations in mind. Though the author grounds himself on the sources, primary and secondary, he serves notice in his Foreword that he does not aim
at complete objectivity. It is best to let him speak for himself.
Neither have I failed to let my moral indignation come to the surface when
narrating the cruel and inhuman actions of the Inquisitors.
For a historian to relate such incidents with icy indifference and no feeling
of repugnance would be to strip history of moral values and undertones and put
it on par with wrestling with a problem in mathematics.
Running as a leitmotiv through the volume is the principle of freedom of thought
and conscience against the violence and coercive measures of the Inquisitors who
generally regarded a day's work wasted if it brought no victim to the jail,
dungeon or stake.

This last statement is a value judgment, an exaggerated generality that
must do injustice to a great many inquisitors. The author might have
added a word at this point to the effect that inquisitors were, at least in

BOOK REVIEWS

671

part, victims of their concrete historical environment and, like ourselves,
subject to the intellectual, moral, and spiritual blindness of their age,
limitations that very few men can escape.
Not only does O'Brien fail to mention this mitigating circumstance but
he also labors the incongruity of the Inquisition and the actions of the
inquisitors who professed to be agents of the Church of Christ and yet
sanctioned systematic cruelty, torture, and burnings at the stake. He returns to this in one form or another on six separate occasions (pp. 1, 40,
45, 49, 58, 70).
From the opening paragraphs of the chapter on witchcraft an indiscriminate reader could gain the impression that all the condemnations and
burnings for witchcraft were carried out by the Inquisition. The witchcraft
craze was not limited to the Inquisition or to Catholic leaders and countries
but was shared by the Protestant reformers, not excluding Luther and
Calvin, and Protestant countries. O'Brien mentions these facts later in
the chapter but in a muted key. Perhaps this is excusable in a book on
the Inquisition, though the chapter does attempt an overview of witchcraft.
The author is guilty of a simplistic statement in the same chapter. He
writes that "the philosopher Giordano Bruno, 1548-1600, was burned at
the stake as a heretic because he stated publicly that many so-called
witches were merely psychologically disturbed old women." Bruno's errors
were much more profound and general. A. Puppi writes in the New
Catholic Encyclopedia (vol. II, 889): "His (Bruno's) violent and imprudent criticisms against every doctrinal profession not illumined by
philosophical and personal knowledge, his rejection of all authority other
than reason itself, and his independent and rebellious position made him
an object of condemnation and persecution in many countries and led to
a tragic end." On the following page Pupi observes: " Bruno astutely used
symbols to criticize positive religions by citing superstitious aspects and
advancing the idea of a purely rational interpretation of traditional teachings." He says nothing about Bruno and witchcraft.
In his final evaluation of Savonarola the author practically canonizes the
friar. He fails to mention that some scholars who have studied the
Savonarola case judge that he was guilty of disobedience to the Pope and
is a doubtful candidate for canonization. O'Brien substantiated his judgment by citing an article by Antonio Lupi, an Italian Dominican, in
Blackfriars, 1958. He could have mentioned a companion article written
by an English Dominican, Kenelm Foster, who raised grave doubts about
the attitude of Savonarola toward Alexander VI. In another article, published in The Life of the Spirit the same year, Foster dealt with these
doubts about Savonarola's final resistance to the orders of the Pope. Referring to the friar's last sermons he wrote: "As he watched the pope harden
against him the prospect for Savonarola must have been heart-breaking

672

BOOK REVIEWS

indeed. But would a saint have preached those last defiant sermons? The
question is not merely rhetorical." (p. 194)
Considering the tendency of people of average education to lump together the entire period from the Fall of the Roman Empire to the beginning of the Renaissance as a period of intellectual stagnation and darkness, the author might have added more balance to his discussion of the
merits of Galileo. He writes: (Galileo) "Combined experiment with calculation and thus went counter to the prevailing system which held that
laws and processes of nature were best learned by going not directly to
nature, but to Aristotle." Balance could have been gained by noting that
overreliance on Aristotle was a recent development. As Langford points
out in his article on Galileo in the New Catholic Encyclopedia (vol. VI,
250), it developed "under the influence of Renaissance humanism."
Through its influence, "the tendency to attribute definitive authority to the
texts of Aristotle grew even stronger, and philosophical writings were
generally more textual and philological than original or creative." Langford
also notes Galileo's debt to earlier scholars: "Galileo, then, represents in
many ways the combination of certain scientific trends that existed before
him, especially at Paris, Oxford and Padua of a new beginning of science
that led to Newton and beyond." (p. 255)
The question of the number of burnings that took place under the
Inquisition is a difficult one and has not been fully researched. The medieval Inquisition was sparing in its use of the stake, as was the Spanish
Inquisition under Thomas Torquemada, the first Grand Inquisitor. Apart
from the burnings that occured during the witchcraft craze, in which
Protestant countries shared, it may be misleading to speak of condemning
" thousands to the stake to be burned alive for some alleged deviation in
doctrine or some alleged involvement in witchery." (p. 143)
WILLIAM

A. HINNEBUSCH,

o. P.

Dominican House of Studies
Washington, D. C.

Dictionary of Biblical Theology, New Revised Edition. Edited by Xavier
Leon-Dufour. New York: Seabury Press, 1973. 712 Pp. $17.50.
Like the original edition published in 1967, this new edition (translated
from the second French edition, 1968) makes available to English readers
a wealth of information and insight in the area of Biblical Theology. This
edition represents a significant advance over the earlier edition, primarily
in the area of new articles, but it also retains some of the deficiencies of
the former. A built-in deficiency in any such dictionary is the nebulous state

678

BOOK REVIEWS

of Biblical Theology. This dictionary, by the way it treats the subject
matter, opts for a systematic understanding of Biblical Theology, an understanding which is itself un-biblical. Uon-Dufour, in the new article
"Jesus Christ," recognizes that "the mystery of Jesus ... cannot be reyet he seems to attempt to do just that.
duced to a single system,"
The view of Biblical Theology taken by this work is most clearly manifest
in the index which was added in this edition, an index which offers a systematic arrangement of all the subjects treated in the dictionary.
There are forty new articles in this edition which fill in most of the
important areas neglected in the first edition. Among them are " Apparitions of Christ," " Conscience," "Jesus Christ," "Predestine" and
"Providence "; however, there is still no article on Paul . The foreword
claims that "most of the articles have been revised and corrected," (v)
but a comparison of fifty articles showed that very few had been altered
and what changes there were were minimal. Some notable inconsistencies
between articles, inevitable in a collaborative work, have been eliminated
from the earlier edition such as the conflicting views on paraclete found
respectively in the articles " Consolation " and " Paraclete," but other revisions that one might have expected were not made. The article "Resurrection," for example, is identical with the earlier one although the new
article "Apparitions of Christ " brings new insights to the divergencies
manifest in the various layers of tradition, insights that certainly would
have improved the article " Resurrection."
In spite of the above criticisms, the new edition retains all of the
virtues of the previous edition with enough significant improvements tl)
render it a most useful tool for students of the Bible.
TERENCE

J. KEEGAN, 0. P.

Dominican House of Studies
Washington, D. C.

Causality and Scientific Explanation. Vol. II Classical and Contemporary
Science. By William A. Wallace. Ann Arbor: University of Michigan
1974. Pp.
$14.00.
This second volume of Causality and Scientific Explanation proves beyond all doubt that Father Wallace has secured a permanent place among
the scientific methodologists of our time and that his philosophy of scienc:e
must be recognized by all future thinkers in the field. Fully acquainted in
both volumes with the latest secondary sources, he is deeply immersed in
the primary sources of each period of history. It would be a mistake,
however, to consider these volumes a mere historical account of causality

674

BOOK REVIEWS

and scientific explanation. It is much more. It is a critical justification of
the principle of causality as a valid, scientific explanation of physical phenomena enjoyed by scientists in every age, including our own.
The first two chapters of this volume continue the critical analysis of modern science begun in volume one. The first chapter discusses the philosophers of classical science from Rene Descartes to Immanuel Kant. Understandably, the focal points of this chapter are David Hume's rejection of
objective causation and Kant's attempt to ground the awareness of
causality on an a priori form imposed by the mind on phenomena. For
Kant the notion of causality is indispensable to science; and " scientific explanations, for him, are causal explanations" (p. 74) such as are found
in Newtonian physics. The second chapter is a brilliant and original discussion of the main methodologists of classical science: Francis Bacon,
Auguste Comet, John F. W. Herschel, William Whewell, John Stuart Mill,
and Claude Bernard. While Comte and Mill followed the positivist program
and embraced the Humean interpretation of causality, Herschel and
Whewell reacted agagainst the Comtean restrictions, insisting on some element of production and efficacy in the exercise of real causality.
By far the most formidable and impressive part of this volume deals
with contemporary science, both in its use of the causal principle and in
its scientific demonstrations. The principal areas of consideration are
relativity theories and quantum physics, both of which are shown to employ the notion of real causality in its scientific explanations. In three
illuminating chapters on contemporary science Fr. Wallace faces the problem of causality in contemporary thought straight on and talks in terms
that modern science and philosophy can understand. Here the most abstruse concepts of mathematical physics are expressed with clarity and
objectivity of understanding. Philosophical readers who find the concepts
of modern physics difficult to grasp will have to read, and indeed study,
this part of the book carefully; but it is worth the effort because here
is where the action is.
It is sometimes thought that the deathblow to causality came with
Heisenberg's enunciation of the uncertainty principle in 1927, thus replacing certainty with probability. Similarly it is sometimes thought that
that the principle of relativity enunciated by Einstein in 1905 dealt the
deathblow to mechanical efficiency in the universe. Wallace shows that in
neither field of physics is the notion of causality dead. Rather, it is demanded in any realist philosophy of nature. It is only that the Humean
restriction of causality to mere succesion will not work; a much more
nuanced notion of causality is needed to explain the scientists's own conviction that what they are studying is real.
Chapter three is a veritable survey of contemporary philosophies of
science ranging from W. S. Jevons (1835-82) to P. K. Feyerabend and
Rom Harre in our own day. But these philosophies have roots. And the

BOOK REVIEWS

675

roots of the modern debate lie in the end of the 19th century and the beginning of the 20th, when Stallo, Mach, Poincare, and Duhem re-examined
the foundations of scientific explanation. Since the critique of Ernst Mach
is considered so carefuly in this section, one might wish to have seen an
analysis of Lenin's Empirio-Criticism, especially as it is so pertinent and
other Soviet philosophers are elsewhere considered in the book. (p. 308)
In a brilliant exposition of the changing status of causality Wallace
shows that in their concern with explanation modern philosophers of science,
such as David Bohm, Mario Bunge, and Rom Harre, have all urged a return
to realism in scientific explanations. (pp. 197-237)
In chapter four Wallace insists that there are a variety of causal explanations which have been recognized not only by Aristotle but also by
scientists of the classical period and the contemporary scene. The themes
chosen for discussion, of course, diverge from the explanations given by
logical positivists and empiricists. But he maintains that there is a substantial continuity in the themes selected. The underlying thesis of these
themes is that " science is concerned with a study of the real, not with
the logical as such, that real entitites have natures that can be understood,
and that there can be progress in this understanding." (p.
In this
realist program Fr. Wallace's book will receive a warm welcome by many
contemporary thinkers.
In the final chapter Fr. Wallace examines the reality of causation in
contemporary science. Without ever relinquishing the historical roots of
contemporary science and its literature, he contributes much that comes
from his own profound thought. Of particular interest is his discussion of
the reality of elementary particles, such as atoms, electrons, neutrons,
mesons, and the like. Discussing the nature of causality found in quantum
physics Wallace holds that "contemporary theories of microphysical explanation proceed not so much along lines of efficient causality as along
those of material causality." (p. 303) His suggestion, based on a careful
reading of Heisenberg, is that subatomic particles are determinations of
a protomatter, which is completely featureless; that is, the determinants of
protomatter constitute a second-level manifestation of primary matter that
Aristotle posited as underlying his four elements. Thus, far from eliminating
causality from quantum physics, Heisenberg presupposes it. The problem,
therefore, is not the extramental reality of what is measured but the extent
to which such measurements depend on the protomatter or on the very
conditions of the experiment itself. (p. 306) .
In a brief section of the last chapter (pp. 308-322) the reality of causality
is examined in the life and social sciences. Here the theory of evolution is
analyzed to show that natural selection is an end-directed process, accounting for the internal teleology of the organism. This internal teleology determines the matter and form of biological systems. Thus, for Wallace,
the most striking advances in contemporary biology as well as in con-

676

BOOK REVIEWS

temporary physics have been made " through a study of material and
formal causes." (pp. 318, 3fl0) Little space is given to examining causality
and scientific explanation in the social sciences apart from pointing out the
obvious character of causal action and purpose in human behavior. (pp.
In brief, this is a brilliant work of scholarship and lucidity, proving its
case for a realist philosophy of science, its causality, and its scientific explanation. Even those who do not share such sympathies must acknowledge the care, objectivity, and precision with which the case is presented.
It is a monument that will weather many a storm that is bound to ensue,
especially from logical positivists and empiricists. I am convinced, however, that it will stand the test of time.
JAMES A. WEISHEIPL, o. P.
Corpus Christi College
Oxford, England

Tomismo e principia di non contraddizione. By Maria Cristina Bartolomei.
Padova: CEDAM, 1973. Pp. 110. Lire 1,750.
The purpose of this volume is " to evaluate the metaphysical implications of the Thomistic way of understanding the nature and use of the
principle of noncontradiction." (p. 13) An analysis of this principle in Aristotle's philosophy, based on both primary and secondary sources but with
no claim to originality or completeness, introduces the study. The results
of the analysis lead the author to conclude that the principle of noncontradiction is for the Stagirite a principle of thought as well as of reality
and that it would be a mistake to reduce it merely to a conventional or
logical principle.
This same teaching, Bartolomei asserts, is found in Thomas's commentaries on Aristotle, where the principle of noncontradiction is presented as
a clear manifestation of the relationship between being and thought (p. 45)
and the foundation of all demonstration. While the principle itself defies
all demonstration, it is either presupposed or implied by all other philosophical principles. (p. 47)
An important point of Thomistic epistemology, which the author rightly
emphasizes along with P. C. Courtes (cf. " L'etre et le non etre selon saint
Thomas d'Aquin," Revue Thomistre, 67 [1967], p. 391), is that the principle
in question represents " naturally " the first judgment of the agent intellect
in its grasp of being. Thus the crucial problem of the relation of truth
and certainty in knowledge is solved by Thomas's grounding of the principle
of noncontradiction in the source itself of intelligibilty, namely, the agent
intellect inasmuch as its judgment bears on the being of the objects of our
experience which participate their existence in the absolute Being. (pp. 48-

BOOK BEVIEWS

677

49) The opposition between being and nothing, which is expressed by the
principle of noncontradiction, becomes also the source of truth in our judgments, for no affirmation and negation are possible with regard to the one
and same being. (pp. 58-59)
The question of whether in Thomistic metaphysics the principle of noncontraction enjoys priority over the principle of identity is answered in
the affirmative by the author, who quotes to this effect Gredt, Jolivet,
and Fabro (cf. the review of the latter's work, Tomismo e pensiero mederno,
The Thomist, 84 [July, 1970], pp. 499-502). The opposite view of Maritain,
Garrigou-Lagrange, and Sofia Vanni Rovighi is discussed and criticized.
And so is the position of those who defend either the simultaneousness
of the two principles (Suarez) or the priority of the principle of noncontradiction but merely as a law of thought (Van Steenberghen-cf. pp.
68-80).
The theological import of the principle under discussion is the subject
of the last part of Bartolomei's study. Here the author shows that the
principle of causality, which is the immediate vehicle of Thomas's ascent
to God in his Five Ways, rests ultimately on the principle of noncontradiction. (pp. 80-97) Bartolomei concludes her study by indicating how contemporary philosophy, in its attempt to solve the problem of being and
becoming, could profit from a metaphysical discourse grounded in the ageold principle of noncontradiction.
In a time when the very possibility of metaphysical discourse is challenged, especially by advocates of positivistic and analytic trends in philosophy, Bartolomei's volume is not only very enlightening but also a welcome
addition to those studies which in recent years have attempted to revive
interest in classic and Thomistic philosophy.
BERNARDINO

M. BoNANSEA, 0. F. M.

The Catholic University of America
Washington, D. C.

The Fabric of Existentialism. Philosophical and Literary Sources. Edited
by Richard Gill and Ernest Sherman. New York: Appleton-Century.
Crofts, 1978. Pp. 640. $14.95.
In the halcyon days of existentialist thought after World War I1
Emmanuel Monnier wrote a book entitled Introduction aux existentialismes.
His choice of the plural seems apt indeed, for there is no existentialism;
there are only existentialisms crisscrossing and overlaping one another
in what Wittgenstein has called a family resemblance. Accordingly, the
most satisfactory way of providing a conceptual umbrella for those whom
one would like to call existentialists is the listing of several family traits

678

BOOK REVIEWS

which the members share in various degree. The editors of the present
anthology have done just that, offering a set of eight Kierkegaardian themes
in lieu of a definition of existentialism.
Few would fault them on their choice of the eight: (1) The Primacy
of the Individual; (2) The Critique of Reason; (3) The Authentic versus
the Inauthentic Life; (4) The Boundary Situation; (5) Alienation; (6)
The Encounter with Nothingness; (7) Dread; (8) Freedom, Choice, Commitment, and Community. Nor are any major existentialists omitted. Indeed, with such exceptions as Abbagnano and Shestov, few minor existentialists fail to be represented either. The passages chosen are the
standard ones for any such anthology, although the size of the volume
allows for some complete works to be printed on its two-column pages.
Each author is introduced with adequate biographical and philosophical
information to make the texts intelligible in themselves and in relation to
the movement as a whole. The introductory chapter is helpful in this regard as well.
What distinguishes the book from other such anthologies is its treatment
of the "background and portents " of the movement (allowing the editors
to include passages ranging from Plato to Stendhal) as well as its consideration of literary sources which develop these eight existentialist themes.
Under the latter rubric the editors introduce Tolstoy's The Death of Ivan
lllych (complete text), Coleridge's "Dejection: An Ode," and Hemingway's" A Clean, Well-lighted Place." Oddly enough, there is nothing from
Faulkner.
The editors' passion for completeness leads them to add a section,
"English and American Undercurrents," which ushers in readings from
J. S. Mill (!), Dickens, Arnold, Stephen Crane, and William James.
Though each entry is justified, the sheer variety tends to dilute whatever
meaning the term "existentialist" was intended to have. One is tempterl,
therefore, to suggest that this particular section could well have been
omitted. And yet in view of the subtitle of the book, " Philosophical and
Literary Sources," this section seems less incongruous.
The root of the difficulty lies in "literary" existentialism itself. This
is what William James would call a weasel word. For, aside from those
authors like Dostoevsky and Rilke who have been canonized by philosophical existentialists, a literary existentialist turns out to be most any
author who deals with the human condition-and that could pass for a
partial description of the literary enterprise itself.
This large book is an excellent collection of important selections. It is
intelligently organized and reflects that facile blend of the philosophic and
the literary which we have come to associate with the name of William
Barrett to whom the volume is dedicated. It should be of great use in any
general course on existentialisms, philosophical or not.
THoMAS

The Catholic University of America
Washington, D. C.

R. FLYNN

BOOK REVIEWS

679

Ernst Cassirer: Scientific Knowledge and the Concept of Man. By Seymour
W. Itzkoff. University of Notre Dame Press, 1971. Pp. fl86. $9.95.
In general it seems fair to say that in philosophy there are books which
have something to say in their own right, and there are books written
about those books. As H. L. Mencken well knew in regard to literature,
simply because a book falls into the latter category does not mean that
it cannot be original of itself, and in fact the best such books are. On
the other hand this need not, and too often is not, so, as this work concerned with Cassirer goes some to show.
According to the author, his chief purpose is to cull, or to use his own
word, delineate from Cassirer's writings "the historical and systematic
sources for his intellectual position." (p. ix) Although he suggests that
this purpose is an exegetical one, leading us to believe that he will in
some measure be involved with comparing various texts of Cassirer's with
an eye to illuminating their meaning for us and genuinely delineating their
developmental significance, this is, unfortunately, not quite what happens.
The alternate possibility, namely, that this will be an investigation of those
historical and systematic sources likewise turns out not to be the case.
In place of either of these two methods of proceeding, proof-texting or
historical analysis, the author opts for something he considers more faithful
to Cassirer's own method: he simply assembles, albeit not too obviously
so, everything Cassirer said about the given range of topics. Thus, the
first chapter gives us everything Cassirer said about the history of preKantian philosophy, the second everything about Kant, the third everything about Newton, and so on. Oddly enough, the only clue we get to
the fact that this is what is going on is in the footnotes. Whereas this
would not oppose too great a problem in most instances, the editorial decision
to have the footnotes conveniently less accessible at the back of the book
makes it look almost as if we are not supposed to find this out. The appearance of an interpretation of pre-Kantian thought as it presaged Cassirer
thus turns out to be the reality of a harmony of Cassirer's writings on the
subject, and Mr. Itzkoff, looking like an author, turns out to be a compiler.
There is, however, another purpose to the book which the author would
have us consider. Over and above its alleged exegetical concerns it is
supposed to have some creative and original intent as well, and thus the
second part of the book is meant " to examine the implications of this
critico-idealistic philosophy for a theory of man and discursive knowledge."
(p. ix) It is true that some attempt is indeed made to do this, particularly
in chapter 8, on an evolutionary interpretation of man's status as a symbolic animal, although the importance of the results is not altogether
without question. For the most part, however, the discussion is confined
to thumbnail sketches of the work and intellectual positions of a wide

680

BOOK REVIEWS

variety of philosophers, anthropologists, and psychologists, undertaken with
a view to showing how they fit into the critico-idealistic scheme of how
the history of man works, how man as a symbolic animal tends ever more
towards symbolism as his primary activity. This is sometimes interesting
because of the odd slant it gives on such matters, but too often it degenerates into the sort of broad-stroke cultural history where no conceivable data could disconfirm the principal hypothesis, where maverick
figures somethow get reinterpreted as fulfilling the expectations of the
scheme in spite of themselves. Carnap, whom ltzkoff identifies somewhat
too closely for comfort with the Wiener Kreig, thus winds up pretty much
as an example of how not to do philosophy. Wittgenstein, also identified
as a logical positivist, suffers a similar fate but seems to have at least
managed to go down fighting, as the author's bewilderment with the
Philosophical lnvestigatioM seems to attest. When some breakthrough is
made, i.e., when some constructive hypothesis of the author's is launched
over and above this kind of cultural history, the result is refreshing but
none the less unsatisfying because of a tendency to substitute prediction and
futurology for program: we are told where philosophy is going but not at
all what it actually ought to do to get there. This is, of course, a symptom
of philosophical systems and systematicians who think themselves already
to have arrived.
Is there, then, a worthwhile purpose to this book? Despite the foregoing,
the answer to this must still be affirmative. Cassirer as a thinker, analyst
of his culture, insatiable curiosity seeker for all that was newest in science
and the intellectual life of his time, spread his thoughts and impressions
far and wide throughout his writings. Some summary of his development
in particular areas is thus both necessary and useful to the student of
philosophy and western cultural history. Likewise, it seems abundantly
clear that some effort ought to be made, difficult of success as such efforts
usually are, to determine what Cassirer would have thought had he had
the opportunity to develop his insights further, particularly in dialog with
other elements of the philosophical mainstream. Mr. ltzkoff has tried
very hard to do this, and, in some measure, has succeeded. For practical
purposes, however, he seems to have fallen between two stools in that his
imitation of Cassirer is too good to serve as a simpler-than-the-original
introduction to his thought for students, while still being clearly only from
the workshop of the master.
JAMEs

New Haven, Connecticut

J. HEANEY

BOOK REVIEWS

681

Beyond the New Morality: The Responsibilities of Freedom. By Germain
Grisez and Russell Shaw. Notre Dame: University of Notre Dame
Press, 1974. Pp.
$7.95 cloth,
paper.
Grisez and Shaw state quite plainly in the Introduction to their book
that this volume on ethics is not a technical work of philosophy; rather,
"the primary audience is the college ethics class." The book is divided
into twenty short chapters on relevant moral issues, and at the end of
each of these chapters is a list of thought-provoking questions for review
and discussion.
Due to the fact that the authors do not explicitly address themselves
either to the tenets of traditional morality or to the methodological issues
of the new morality, it appears that they are presuming that the reader
either has some prior knowledge of what these moralities are, or he will
be able to rely upon a teacher to supplement the book's presentation.
Nowhere do they make specific reference to the proponents of either the
traditional or the situational approaches to ethical decision making. Thus,
it seems that the authors' principal aim is not to defend or to attack positions, but rather it is to involve the reader in a synthesis of both approaches to ethics.
The basic theme of the book revolves around discussing the three
levels of freedom which are operative in man's moral life. For the authors,
there is a corresponding level of action which is derived from each of these
levels of freedom. The first level of freedom pertains to the lack of physical
constraints or coercion. Physical freedom is not specifically human, since
as the authors point out this kind of freedom is enjoyed typically by wild
animals and can even apply to inanimate objects. At this level of freedom
the action's meaning comes from its consummation. The second level of
freedom is specifically human, and it is defined as " doing as one pleases,"
i.e., the absence of social demands and restrictions. This level of freedom
seems to be identical with freedom of choice. Actions which are derived
from this level receive their meaning from a specific goal the action is
meant to achieve. Now, whereas the authors are concerned with these
two levels of freedom mentioned above, their primary concern is with
the level of freedom as self-determination. At this third level an action
derives its meaning from a good in which one participates by performing
the action. Based upon this contention the authors attempt to show that
when man determines himself by participating in truly human goods he
is acting responsibly for his own life and for the lives of others. In other
words, the authors seek to prove that the problem concerning what it
means to be a person is essentially the problem of self-determination. This
fundamental problem of what it means to be a person (self-determination)
is discussed from many different angles, e. g., from the perspectives of
happiness, decision-making, the eight "modes of responsibility,'' etc.

682

BOOK REVIEWS

For the teacher who would be disposed to use this valuable book in a
college classroom, he should be well versed in both the traditional and
situational approaches to ethics in order to answer intelligently the questions that could be posed by an inquiring student. In addition, the teacher
should understand the distinction between freedom of choice and freedom
as self-determination. The reason for this is because the authors are seemingly employing a distinction that has been developed in both humanistic
psychology and theology (Josef Fuchs and Karl Rahner).
Although I feel that this book is valuable for both college classrooms
and discussion groups, I also feel that that it is not without flaw. The
authors have repeatedly argued that morality is essentially concerned with
how man chooses in his moral life. Whereas I am completely in agreement
with their view, I do not believe that the authors have adequately demonstrated the interrelation between the three levels of freedom which they discuss.
They consistently argue that it is precisely on the third level of freedom
(self-determination) where man becomes truly responsible for himself and
others. This seems to be a bit one-sided to me. For one thing, this seems
to neglect a very important emphasis upon the responsibility that must
be involved on the level where man chooses between particular, concrete
ends (freedom of choice). Also, by not clearly indicating the inter-relatedness between the various levels of freedom and concomitant responsibility
there is a danger of speaking about man as a schizophrenic being who lives
on various levels of existence. It seems to me that because Grisez and
Shaw do not always clearly and sufficiently point out that how one decides
about concrete ends actually does affect how one determines the self on
the third level of freedom, and because they do not clearly point out how
freedom as self-determination becomes operative on the level of freedom
of choice, they are hindered in implicitly refuting the physicalism that is
prevalent in traditional morality and the dualism that is operative in situation ethics, e. g., in Joseph Fletcher's writings. There are some isolated
references wherein Grisez and Shaw attempt to make this inter-relation
explicit; however, I feel that they should have devoted more effort to this
important issue. The flaw, then, is more one of emphasis than anything
else.
JAMES

The Catholic University of America
Washington, D. C.

J, WALTEI\

BOOK REVIEWS

688

For a Fundamental Social Ethic: A Philosophy of Social Change. By Oliva
Blanchette, S. J. New York: Philosophical Library, 1973. Pp. 243.
$7.50.

" This book has grown out of a double dialogue, one with the authors,
both classical and contemporary, and with students, who have listened
to me and challenged me to be relevant for our time." Its " purpose will
not be to establish prinicples as such ... but rather to examine how principles actually operate in our real judgments and how they are assumed
in our free activity." These two statements, from the author's Acknowledgments and Introduction respectively, describe the scope and content
of this book. Fr. Blanchette is Associate Professor of Philosophy at Boston
Coellge. As do many College and University professors, he feels the need to
bridge the gap between theory and practice and perhaps even more between
the classroom teaching and students' life experience. This is especially
called for in the area of ethics which by its nature deals or should be
dealing with human life and experience. In recent times, however, ethics
and philosophy in general have been denied such a role in life and reduced to mental exercises of an analytical and linguistic nature. Fr.
Blanchette's book reflects a growing awareness and reaction against this
situation.
For a Fundamental Social Ethic is not a textbook even if it grew from
a classroom experience, and the title, especially the subtitle, may suggest
more than the book actually offers. The author claims no original breakthrough in social philosophy. Rather, from an Aristotelian and Thomistic
perspective which he wants to make his own he discusses a number of
social realities in their historical and contemporary function. The realities
he chooses to discuss are social responsibility, the common good, justice
and friendship, and law and authority. These constitute the first four chapters of the book. They are geared to a concluding chapter on totalitarianism
and revolution or violence which the author takes as a test case " that
no social ethic can fail to confront." The underlying concern which
permeates the discussion in all these areas is how to find the grounds for
concrete moral judgments and convince the people that there is a possibility
of a more just social order in the world. In the author's mind such a
possibility is real if the understanding of the common good transcends the
existing political boundaries and if envisioned as a historical and human
value becomes the norm of all moral actions; if justice and friendship as
experienced between two persons can also become the model of relations
among peoples and nations; if instead of a purely positivistic and juridical
conception, law and authority are brought back into their moral foundation;
if revolutions and violence, instead of being dismissed in theory while still
occurring in practice, can themselves be evaluated in the context of the
common good.

684

BOOK REVIEWS

More could be said about Fr. Blanchette's book and more will be said
about the issues he discusses, since these are pressing both for a more
.realistic appraisal and more concrete action.
JANKO ZAGAR,

0. P.

St. Albert's College
Oakland, California

Knowledge and Existence: An Introduction to Philosophical Problems. By
Joseph Margolis. New York: Oxford University Press, 1973. Pp. 301.
$6.95.

This book has for its central thesis that "men-human persons-are
cultural emergents, physically embodied but exhibiting attributes that
cannot be characterized exclusively in material terms." Although he pays
tribute to the impact of Descartes (the only author mentioned by name)
in evoking the puzzles of his book, Margolis conducts his arguments against
the background of the mind-body debates current among contemporary
English-language philosophers. His case stands against a variety of reductionist theories about the nature of persons and about the relationship between mind and body which have had prominence in these
debates. He argues cogently against any theory which would simply
identify mind with body or eliminate language about mental states; and
he argues somewhat less convincingly for his own " compositional materialism," which would admit of persons as totally composed of matter,
yet as emerging within the material order with the development of human
culture. Theories which allow for a non-material element (say, for a spiritual soul) get no real play here: the supposition is that only a form of
materialism can fit into a satisfactory account of men and the world at
the present juncture in intellectual history.
Margolis begins and ends with summary reflections on the mind-body
question, but only one of the chapters (the penultimate one on "Mind and
Body ") develops this question at any length. The preceding seven chapters focus on the grand issues of epistemology and metaphysics-knowledge
and belief, sensation and perception, doubt and certainty, existence and
reality, identity and individuation, actions and events, language and truth.
In the final chapter the author turns to the connection between fact and
value. Throughout these discussions he tries to highlight the intersection
of problems in such a way that it will lend support to his basic thesis.
What proves critical to the whole enterprise is the informality with which
the concepts are applied and the import of particular cultural settings for
the application. Thus, for example, perception and knowledge prove to be

BOOK REVIEWS

685

normative notions with rules set roughly within this or that society. Mind
and person, in their turn, qualify not only as notions which have a type of
normative informality in their application but also as notions which are
geared especially to single out a segment of reality emerging culturally and
nonetheless composed of matter. A suggested analogy is with works of
arts-works made up entirely of material elements without being reducible
to them.
The sub-title of Knowledge and Existence is An Introduction to Philosophical Problems, but it is in no sense a text for beginners. Margolis's book
is rather a tightly reasoned, fairly technical work which can be considered
" an introduction to philosophical problems " inasmuch as it handles problems basic to almost any philosophical endeavor. As this species of introduction it provides invaluable clarification on all the issues investigated;
and it could well rank as prolegomenon to any reflection or debate involving
these issues. Many a meandering or confusing analysis of knowledge anJ
belief, sensation and perception . . . might be set straight or simplified
by attention to the careful and hard-headed treatment of them in Knowledge and Existence.
Praise for Margolis's rigorous and illuminating approach to fundamental
problems does not, of course, mean total satisfaction with all of his solutions or with all of his arguments. The present reviewer has special difficulty
with the account of existence as the relational property of " accessibility
to preferred criteria " and with the insistence on the ultimately non-cognitive role of taste in fixing ontologies and values as well as with the neat
bond between the correspondence notion of truth and realist epistemologies.
One might fear indeed that the manner of handling the status of ontologies
in general and the concept of existence in particular would undercut the
strong stress on the availabilty of the public world throughout Knowledge
and Existence. The linkage between the correspondence notion of truth
and realist epistemologies has no such possibly dire consequences, but it
does appear over simplifed.
Finally, on the basic problem of mind and body, Margolis seems at times
to have solved the puzzles by sleight-of-hand maneuvers. As noted above,
the reasons traditionally given for a more radically non-materialist theory
of mind (those of Plato, Aquinas, and Descartes, for example) receive
no formal attention. For the likely direction of the author's response to
such reasoning, the reader must look to passing remarks about minds as
" relatively late evolutionary developments " and to the " impressive power
and coherence of the physical sciences " as well as to the overall emphasis
on ontology as a second-order pursuit vis-a-vis the sciences and on the
place of taste in determining the preferability of ontologies over each other.
Margolis's interest is to dispute with those philosophers whose basic taste
is, like his own, for a materialist ontology but whose particular species of
materialism falls into incoherence through excessive reductionism. Yet con-

686

BOOK REVIEWS

cern for the arguments of men such as Plato, Aquinas, and Descartes is
important for making sense out of the notion of minds and persons as
culturally emergent entities. Most notably, Margolis does not really attend to the sort of organism for which culture itself is a relevant concept,
and this relevance is at the heart of the whole mind-body conundrum. It
is one thing to say that person is a culturally dependent and variable
notion and even that human persons and mental activities emerge within
cultural contexts; but it is quite another to establish that persons are
materially embodied and culturally emergent analogously to the embodiment and emergence of human products such as paintings and poems. The
open question concerns the activity involved in producing paintings and
poems and the capacity of some beings to produce them.
These are the hesitations and disagreements which one reader experienced
on investigating Knowledge and Existence. Still, Margolis's mastery is evident even on the points noted in the preceding two paragraphs, and the
unwillingness to accept the central thesis or to be at ease with many of the
subsidiary positions is compatible with a warm recommendation of the book
to anyone who would think seriously and clearly about knowledge and existence.
MICHAEL J. KERLIN
La Salle College
Philadelphia, Pa.

BOOKS RECEIVED
Academie International des Sciences Religieuses: Les Sacraments d'Initiation et les Ministeres Sacres. (Pp. 272)
American Catholic Philosophical Association: The Philosopher As Teacher.
Proceedings 1978. Vol. 47. (Pp. QQO)
Aquin Publishing Co.: Self Psychotherapy. Vol. I, by Albert Steinkirchner,
M.D. (Pp. 159, $1.95)
Arlington House Publishers: The Cult of Revolution in the Church, by
John Eppstein. (Pp. 160, $6.95); Christ and Revolution, by Marcel
Clement. (Pp. 128, $6.95)
La ComAssociation des Societes de Philosophie de Langue
munication. Actes du XVe Congres. Vol. I (1971) (Pp. 480,
$15.00), Vol. II (1978) (Pp. 58Q, $QO.OO)
Barnes & Noble: Berkeley: The Philosophy of Immaterialism, by I. C.
Tipton. (Pp. 405, $17.00)
Center for Advanced International Studies: The Uncertain Alliance: The
Catholic Church and Labor in Latin America, by Alexis U. Floridi
& Annette E. Stiefbold. (Pp. 108)
Consortium Press: The Fathers of the Church. St. Caesarius of Arles.
Sermons. Vol. 8 (187-Q88). (Pp. 31Q, $14.95)
Creation House, Inc.: Tonight They'll Kill a Catholic, by R. Douglas Wead.
(Pp. 115, $4.95)
Doubleday & Co.: Friar Thomas D'Aquino, by James A. Weisheipl, 0. P.
(Pp. 476, $8.95)
Les Editions Bellarmin: La Philosophie et les Philosophes. Tome I De
Socrate Marx (Pp. Q40, $4.75), Tome II De Nietzche nos jours
(Pp. Q81, $5.Q5)
Exposition Press, Inc.: Give Unto Caesar What Are God's The Christian and
Political Life, by Peter J. Riga. (Pp. 175, $6.00)
The Macmillan Company: Ecclesial Cybernetics. A Study of Democracy
in the Church, by Patrick Granfield. (Pp. Q93, $8.95)
Marist Communication Center: An Ontology of Understanding. Karl
.Rahner's Metaphysics of Knowledge in the Context of Modern
German Hermeneutics, by Vincent P. Branick, S.M. (Pp. 266)
McGraw-Hill Book Company: St. Thomas Aquinas Summa Theologiae.
Vol. 27 (1a2ae 86-89) Effects of Sin, Stain and Guilt, by T. C.
O'Brien (Pp. 169, $10.00), Vol. 36 (2a2ae 47-56) Prudence, by
Thomas Gilby, 0. P. (Pp. 211, $15.00)
Mouton & Co.: Classical Approaches to the Study of Religion I: Introduction and Anthology, by Jacques Waardenburg.
(Pp. 756, Fl. 50)

a

a

687

688

BOOKS RECEIVED

Orbis Books:

The Desert is Fertile, by Dom Helder Camara.

(Pa. 61,

$3.95)

Penguin Books, Inc.: Overcoming the Fear of Death (Pp. 115, $1.00);
Self-Love, by David Cole Gordon. (Pp. 96, $1.00)
Pontifical Institute of Mediaeval Studies: St. Thomas Aquinas 1274-1974.
Comparative Studies. 2 Vols. (Pp. 1014, $20.00 set)
Quadrangle. The New York Times Book Co.: Your People, My People,
by A. Roy Echardt. (Pp. 289, $8.95)
The Seabury Press: Dare to Live. The Taize Youth Experience, foreword
by Samuel J. Wylie. (Pp. 166, $2.95); The Wedding Book. Alternative Ways to Celebrate Marriage, by Howard Kirschenbaum & Rockwell Stensrud. (Pp. 280, $8.95 cloth, $4.50 paper); Stay with Me
Lord: A Man's Prayers, by Herbert B. West. (Pp. 147, $4.95)
Sheed & Ward: It's a Ziggy World, by Tom Wilson. Pp. 96, $1.95);
The New Parents' Bedside Reader, by Nancy Stahl. (Pp. 24, $1.50)
Tamburini Editore:
Materialismo e Pensiero Scientifico, by Edoardo
Benvenuto. (Pp. 204, L. 6000)
Theological Publications in India: Inspiration in Non-Biblical Scriptures,
by Ishanand Vempeny, S. J. (Pp. 275); Good News & Witness. The
Netv Testament Understanding of Evangelization, by L. Legrand,
J. Pathrepankal, M. Vellanickal. (Pp. 190); Ideas about Christian
Education in India, by A. Vertraeten, S. J. (Pp. 218)
Charles C. Thomas, Publisher: Phenomenology, Role, and Reason, by
Maurice Natanson. (Pp. 357)
Yale University Press: G. W. F. Hegel: An Introduction to the Science
of Wisdom, by Stanley Rosen. (Pp. 323, $12.50); The Cosmology of
Freedom, by Robert C. Neville. (Pp. 396, $17.50); The Eclipse of
Biblical Narrative: A Study on Eighteenth and Nineteenth Century
Hermeneutics, by Hans W. Frei. (Pp. 364, $15.00)