THE THOMIST
A SPECULATIVE QUARTERLY REVIEW
OF THEOLOGY AND PHILOSOPHY

EDITORs:

THE DoMINICAN FATHERS oF THE PROVINCE oF ST. JosEPH

Publishers:

The Thomist Press, Washington, D. C. 20017

VoL. XXXVIII

OCTOBER, 1974

No.4

PARIS AS A CULTURAL MILIEU OF THOMAS
AQUINAS'S THOUGHT
Introduction
"A Citadel of Light ... "
I am in Paris, in that royal city where abundance of natural
wealth not only holds those who live there, but also attracts those
from afar. Just as the moon outshines the stars in brilliance, so
does this city, the seat of the monarchy, lift her proud head above
the rest .... Two suburbs extend to right and left, of which the
lesser alone rivals many cities. Each of these suburbia communicates with the island by two bridges of stone; the Grand Pont towards the north, on the side of the English Channel, and the Petit
Pont towards the Loire. The first-great, rich, trading, is the
scene of seething activity; innumerable ships surround it, filled with
merchandise and riches. The Petit Pont belongs to the dialecticians,
who walk there deep in argument. In the island, by the side of
the King's palace that dominates the whole city, is seen the palace
of philosophy, where study reigns as sole sovereign in a citadel of
light and immortality .1
1

Quoted in Joan Evans, Life in Medieval France (New York, 1969), pp. 14 f.

689

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THOMAS F. O'MEARA

So writes Gui de Bazoches, shortly before the beginning of that
century which would hold the brief life of Thomas Aquinas.
It was to Paris that Aquinas would come as student and to
which he would return as a young teacher or as theologian back
from the papal court. It was to Paris that the discovered
manuscripts of Aristotle and the Arabs flowed; it was in Paris
that innovative artistic ideas and movements flourished. This
cultural world would make
upon Aquinas, the
twenty-year-old student, and be in turn impressed by the
magister in his thirties and forties.
That scholasticism is one result of a wider, gothic, medieval
culture is obvious; it takes no genius to see that there are
Summae in stone as well as in parchment. 2 Yet, explanations
of the precise relationships between cultural media with attention to detail are very few.8 Studies of the aesthetics of Thomas
Aquinas are readily available/ but analyses of the work of
Albert the Great called Paris " civitas philosophorum"; cf. M. Grabmann, Die
Kulturphilosophie des Thomas von Aquinas (Augsburg, 19!'!7), p. 15.
•" Gothic is a simple translation of scholastic philosophy into stone." G. Semper,
Der Stil in den technischen und tektonischen Kunsten, cited in A. Hauser, The
Social History of Art, I (New York, 1951), p. 280.
8 Chenu observes briefly:
" It is, however, indispensable to do some essential
reading on the economico-social conditions of the civilization of which Saint
Thomas was to be one of the highlights. It is very Thomistic to observe, in the
consubstantial union of its body and soul, in which manner human society acts
and reacts from the standpoint of its spiritual comportment." Toward Understanding Saint Thomas (Chicago, 1964), p. 69. Harvey Cox's chronology is
incorrect when he remarks: " Notre Dame had already been gathering moss for
many years when Aquinas moved to Paris as a student." The Seduction of the
Spirit (New York, 1973), pp. 265 f. But Cox is making an important point when
he observes that popular culture must be studied as well as great chefs d'oeuvre,
c. g., movies as well as modem art. The medieval cathedral appreciated popular
religions with its representations of the demonic, astrology, the cycles of life and
local saints; see W. Abell, "A Psycho-Historical Study of Medieval Western
Culture and Its Background," The Collective Dream in Art (New York, 1957);
M. Dvorak, Kunstgeschichte als Geistesgeschichte (Munich, 1942), pp. 48-147.
In recent years
in art history have begun to include material from the history of music, philosophy or from other aspects of intellectual history: W. Fleming,
Art, Music and Ideas (New York, 1970); H. W. Janson, J. Kerman, A History
of Art & Music (New York, 1968).
• See M. Grabmann, "Thomas von Aquin und die Kunst," in Kulturphilosophie,
ed. cit.; Jordan Aumann, De Pulchritudine (Valencia, 1951); E. de Bruynes,

PARIS A CULTURAL MILIEU OF AQUINAS'

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691

a medieval theologian as a representation of the currents of his
cultural epoch are rare. By culture we mean the atmosphere
of thought-forms and of representational models congenial to
a particular time and place in the history of civilization. Culture encompasses the products fashioned by civilization as they
are concretized in literature, music, economics, politics, the fine
arts, philosophy, and theology.
The lack of effort towards relating theologians-whether it
be Origen, Ambrose, or Aquinas-to their cultural milieu encourages serious lacunae in our appreciation of them. First o£
all, students of art history are hinder.ed in their understanding
of the total milieu of the subject of their study. For instance,
without an adequate appreciation o£ the influence of Aristotelian or Platonic theologies in France from 1100 to 1250 it
is impossible to comprehend fully the " programs" of gothic
cathedrals. Interdisciplinary approaches recommend themselves
more and more, but this will mean that theology and philosophy
become hermeneutics for painting, sculpture, and architecture.
This wider context precises and grounds the historical motivation of artists and the purpose of their works.
The second vagary corrected by cultural consciousness is the
ahistorical understanding of a theologian such as Thomas
Aquinas. The Thomistic revival o£ the past one hundred years
(but also those of earlier centuries) took Aquinas out of history
and culture and located him in an aevum o£ eternal metaphysics
(philosophia perennis). No longer is philosophy science extending from psychology and politics to metaphysics; the
ancilla theologiae is limited to logic and metaphysics. The
dogmatic assertion by certain repr.esentatives of Thomism that
Aquinas's thought is the universal approach to reality and grace
escapes instant ridicule only when all cultural analysis has been
removed. First, thought (and art, for they are cousins) is removed from that world which produced (and so limited in that
very act) the mind of Aquinas. Next, to overlook culture is
Etudes d'aesthetique medievale (Brugge, 1946), S vols; F. Kovach, Die Aesthetik
Thomas von Aquin (Berlin, 1961).

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THOMAS F. O'MEARA

to ignore the different thoughtforms and movements which
modify the horizons of the individual and collective personality.
This type of discipleship to Aquinas (unworthy of him, since
he was a cultural theologian par excellence) has declined.
Scholars such as Grabmann and Chenu have presented the historical context of Aquinas; and the Catholic Church has cast
off its fear of modern culture and announced that the movements and hopes of the world could be those of the Church. 5
Thirdly, the contact between different fields or media in
which cultural movements of a time are incarnate has been
viewed as purely horizontal and mutual: philosophers and
poets talking to painters, composers, reading poets. What
kind of direct contact existed between the magistri at the university and the magistri completing the Sainte-Chapelle in
1248? As important as it is to research such contact, exploring
the over-arching cultural atmospher:e of the time is more significant. For there is a primal explosion from whose fall-out
the forms of theology, philosophy, economics, and art proceed. 6

I
Kairos
Before we look at the cultural atmosphere in which Aquinas
worked at Paris, l.et us pursue this theory of the cultural kairos.
Paul Tillich is well known for his theologizing within the framework of culture. One can view Tillich's entire work, his preaching and ontology, his German and American periods, as cultural
theology. Tillich's earliest writings attempted to relate German
metaphysics (for instance, Schelling) to cultural manifesta5 After Grabmann
sketches Aquinas's life amid the " cultural streams " of his
age, he concludes: "So, Thomas stands in living empathy with the culture, with
the scientific and social directions and movement of his time. His cultural
philosophy is not a conceptual, aprioristic approach but one receiving its orientation from living reality, even if the speculative element dominates, and the contemporary relationships show themselves in more detail only to the initiate."
Grabmann, Kulturphilosophie, p. £0. For a magisterial treatment of Aquinas's life
and works, see J. A. Weisheipl, Friar Thomas d'Aquino (New York, 1974).
• See T. F. O'Meara, "Art and Music as Dlustrators of Theology," Anglican
Theological Review 55 (1978), £67 fl'.

PARIS A CULTURAL MILIEU OF AQUINAS'

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693

tions of the Holy. When Tillich finished his studies in philosophy and theology in the 199lO's he was immediately involved
with politics: the development of a Christian socialism. 7 American Christians were still threatened by psychology and modern
art twenty years ago. After his flight to the United States for
politico-theological reasons Tillich's essays in these fields were
pioneering pieces. Their basic insight was that other areas as
well as religion are in touch with the depths of existence.
Tillich employed the biblical word " kairos " to name the
right time, the moment when culture and existence become
transparent to their Power: the Ground of Being. The kairos
is a moment pregnant, promising, dynamic, full of possibilities.
The time for a cultural .explosion arises out of a blend of
economic and political currents; new forms suddenly break
through. The arts as well as religion participate in metaphysical
shock and ecstatic insight.
Each cultural epoch has a style; this is not merely a superficial way of behavior but a unity of forms and motifs which
set it off from other times. Cultural events are channels through
which the manifestations of being and the holy reach us.
One may speak of a style of thinking, of research, of ethics, of law,
of politics. And if one applies the term in this way, one often
finds that analogies with respect to style can be discovered i:r..
all the cultural functions of a particular period, group or cultural
orbit. This makes style a key to understanding the way in which
a particular group or period encounters reality. 8
The deciphering of a style is an art in itself and, like every art, is
a matter of daring and risk. Styles have been contrasted with each
other in several respects. If one looks at the series of styles in the
visual arts in Western history after the beginnings of a Christian
art in catacombs and basilicas, one is overwhelmed by the richness
and variety: the Byzantine, the Romanesque, the early and late
Gothic styles precede the Renaissance ... Naturalism, Impressionism, Expressionism, Cubism, Surrealism . . . Each of them says
something about the period in which they were flourishing. In
each of them a self-interpretation of man is indicated, although in
7

Cf. J. L. Adams, Paul Tillich's Philosophy of Culture, Science and Religion

(New York, 1965).
8

Systematic Theology, III (Chicago, 1968), p. 61.

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THOMAS F. O'MEARA

most cases the artists were not aware of such interpretation. Sometimes they knew what they expressed. And sometimesphilosophers
and art critics made them aware of it."
For Tillich the same would be true of theology. Theology and
religion are not the Absolute, but concrete media through whose
potentialities God contacts men in history. Tillich describes
the Middle Ages as " a culture in which the ultimate meaning
of existence shines through all finite forms of thought and action; the culture is transparent, and its creations are vessels of
a spiritual content." 10
For us today the pressure of rapid cultural change and the
perception in counter-cultures that the presence of grace is not
limited to the churches and divinity schools have reintroduced
views which for over a century were labeled as outlandishly
Hegelian: for instance, our present decade as a time of cultural
mutation; the historical diversity but global unity of movements; the formal similarity of what is happening now in
different media and fields.11
• " Protestantism and the Contemporary Style in the VISual Arts," The Ohriatian
ScholaT, 40 (1957), 808. "Religion and culture are not separate. While most of
human life stops short of revelatory experiences, religion and culture lead to
the depth-questions. Religion is the directedness of the apirit toward the unconditioned meaning; culture is directedness of the spirit toward conditioned forms."
P. Tillich, What ia Religion? (New York, 1969), p. 7!!.
10 The PToteatant Em (Chicago, 1948), xvi. "Nothing
that is created, and
therefore, essentially good is excluded from the life of the churches and their
members. This is the meaning of the principle of the complexio oppositomm, of
which the Roman church is rightly proud. There is nothing in nature, nothing
in man, and nothing in history which does not leave a place in the Spiritual Community • . • This is classically expressed in both the medieval cathedrals and the
scholastic systems, in which all dimensions of being found their place, and even
the demouic, the ugly, and the destmctive appeared in a subdued role." SyBtematic Theology, ill, p. 170.
11 Behind this view of a particular cultural period as both darkening and illuminating Being lie Hegel and Heidegger. See M. Heidegger, DeT UTsprung dea
Kunstwerkea (Stuttgart, 1970). As contributing theoreticians on behalf of this
approach to cultural history we could list: Jacob Burckhardt, W. Dilthey, C. G.
Jung, Ernst Cassirer, C. Levi-Strauss, certain Geatalt psychologists, Susanne K.
Langer, Thomas Kuhn. Alfred North Whitehead wrote in the introduction to
a memorial volume for Arnold Schonberg: " In every period there is a general
form of forms of thought." M. Armitage, ed., SchiinbB'I'g (New York, 1987).

PARIS A CULTURAL MILIEU OF AQUINAS' THOUGHT

695

Theology partakes in the cultural explosions of its time.
There are moments when a society mov.es with confidence and
genius into new models for describing God and man. Beneath
literature, the fine arts, the psychology or liturgy of one cultural
epoch li.e tremors. Their eruption influences structure, bestows
form. As important as the content of any work of genius is,
the formal point of organization, the nuances, the horizons
within which the effort was conceived are more significant. By
exploring the struggles and lasting successes of the artists living
and working a dozen blocks away from Thomas Aquinas's
priory on the Rue Saint Jacques we understand better both
his work and theirs.

II
Paris in the Thirteenth Century
The reign of Louis IX built upon the work of his grandfather
Philip Augustus (1180-1223) and brought further peace and
prosperity to the Ile-de-France: to Paris and to the French
lands under Capetian sway. 12 Cooperation between a strong
French monarchy and the papacy and England secured a
measure of political stability. A sharp growth in population,
improvement in agriculture, and teeming commerce brought
prosperity to towns and to their burgeoning middle class; these
in turn provided the .economic and social support for universities. Intellectual discoveries not only in metaphysics but
in mathematics and medicine from the libraries of Islam and
Constantinople reached a climax during the middle of the
thirteenth century. Let us single out for brief consideration
three aspects of this cultur:e which we can project as influences
12 See C. Liebman, "Art and Letters in the Reign of Philip II Augustus of
France: The Political Backgiound," The YeaT 1200, II (New York, 1970), pp.
1 ff. " ... a common method of teaching and intellectual inquiry applicable to
the liberal arts, medicine, law, and theology. This scholastic method was not
only pertinent to the traditional academic disciplines but also was artistically expressed in Gothic monuments." J. Baldwin, "Preface," The Scholastic CultuTe of
the Middle Ages 1100-1300 (Lexington, 1970). On the relationships between
literature and scholasticism, G. Pare, "Vocabulaire scolaire et scolastique," Les
Idees et les lettTes au Xllle siecle, le Roman de la Rose (Montreal, 1947).

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THOMAS F. O'MEARA

upon the work of Aquinas: (1) the a:ffiuence of the culture;
(2) the unique cultural kairos on the Ile-de-Paris; (3) the
drive towards the thought-form of the Summa:
unity
highlighting diversity.

A. The Affluent Society

It is possible to discern the cultural explosion of the High
Middle Ages in various areas which would parallel theology,
for instance, in science and technology. Just as we can trace
in the works of Albert the Great and Thomas Aquinas their
acquaintance with new works, translations and commentaries
from Greek and Arabic thought, so the works of architecture
display in different script technological breakthroughs borrowed
from Norman, Romanesque, and Arabic styles and inventions.
In politics Aquinas must have had to juggle relationships: he
was guest and celebrity to Louis IX; yet, master of the university of Paris, theologian of the papal court, and related to
the imperial family.
One of the signs of French economic expansion was the sudden increase of stone church buildings which sprang up everywhere. It strains our imagination to grasp the resources expanded in this construction program. In France between 1180
and 1270 a population of less than eighteen million produced
eighty churches of cathedral size and six hundred abbeys. To
focus on one local example in the thirteenth century, Chartres,
a community of ten thousand citizens, in one generation rebuilt
its cathedral in grandiose proportions. Henri Pirenne describes
the expansion of monetary systems, the clearing of new land,
the population explosion as factors influencing society and the
university. 18 An urban, mercantile middle class flourishes, while
peace and taxes cream off some of this prosperity to the nobility
and especially to the royal presence in Paris. This same urban
Medieval Cities (Princeton, 1952); see Lynn White, Medieval Technology and
Social Change (Oxford, 1971); G. Beaujouan, "Medieval Science in the Christian
West," in R. Taton, ed., Ancient and Medieval Science (New York, 1963), pp.
488 ff.; A. Scobeltzine, L'Art feodal et son enjeu social (Paris, 1973); Chenu, Toward ... , pp. 69 ff; Baldwin, op. cit., pp. 15 ff.

PARIS A CULTURAL MILIEU OF AQUINAS'

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697

middle class sends their sons to the universities. The earlier
social fabric of monastic stability and of clerical beneficiaries
for students is not adequate to this explosion of learning and
money, and so the university must rent larger halls; fees are
introduced. At the same time, the newly founded friars drawing
their numbers (if not Thomas Aquinas) from the mercantile
class or from the lesser nobility create a life-style which will
blend academic proficiency with community life and urban
apostolates.
The mendicant friars, Franciscans and Dominicans, who were
to come and settle (in the cities and universities), were
merely a normal development arising from the new orientation which religious fervor took. That principle of poverty
which they professed made them break with the demesnial organization heretofore the support of monastic life.... They asked no more
of the burgher than their alms. In place of isolating themselves
in the center of vast, silent enclosures, they built their convents
along the streets. They took part in all the agitations, all the
miseries as well, and understood all the aspirations of the artisans,
whose spiritual directors they well deserved to become.14

The climax of this affiuence can be seen in Louis IX's SainteChapelle, a dazzling finale of rayonnant style where stainedglass walls rise upwards almo.st fifty feet and occupy in all
615 square meters of space.15 In a flurry of architectural and
theological planning, and then through rapid construction, this
enormous jewel-box was completed as a reliquary for Christ's
crown of thorns by lfl48 after perhaps less than six years of
labor. With this gothic multi-media event technology and the
"Ibid., pp. 166 f; pp. 288 fl'.; see L. Genicot, Le XIIIe siecle europeen (Paris,
1968), pp. 10-19, 884-850; Chenu, "Monks, Canons, and Laymen in Search of
the Apostolic Life," Nature, Man, and Society in. the Twelfth Century (Chicago,
1968), pp. 202 fl'. For the relationship of architectural advances to newly available
scientific treatises see J. Harvey, The Master Builder (New York, 1978), p. 48.
10 M. Aubert et al., Lea Vitraux de Notre-Dame et de la Bainte-Ckapellede Paris,
Corpus Vitrearum Medii Aevi, I (Paris, 1959), p. 74. Louis IX had next to the
Sainte-Chapelle a library for university professors; M. Pelisle, Le Cabinet des
manuscrites de la bibliotkeque nationale, I (Paris, 1868), pp. 6-10; cf. J. G.
Bougerol, "Saint Bonaventure et le roi Saint Louis," B. Bonaventura, II (Grottaferrata, 1978), pp. 469-498.

698

THOMAS F. o'MEARA

will for harmony reached a peak in sumptuous decoration.
Aquinas, after three years of study at Paris, leaves in the sumwith Albertus Magnus for Cologne. The solemn
mer of
consecration of the Sainte-Chapelle took place shortly before,
His career partakes in the aflluence of the
April 26,
time.
Aquinas's Dominican brothers grew in numbers and influence. They controlled chairs, receiv.ed scholars' fees, built
convents, searched out manuscripts, started groups of specialists in textual criticism and semitic languages. They received
and educated hundreds of novices, undertaking missions to
Constantinople, Mongolia, Algeria. Aquinas must divide his
time, accompanied by secretaries and companions, between the
university and the French Court, and the Papal Court at
Viterbo or Orvieto. Albert the Great successfully writes a
commentary on every work of Aristotle (and finds resources
for numerous opuscula, scriptural commentaries and Summae).
Aquinas before he is dead at forty-nine composes, usually
dictating, an enormous number of works. After 1260 he secures
the assistance for some years of William of Moerbeke, a firstrate translator, for Greek textual criticism into Aristotle's
opera. As magister Aquinas had secretaries at his disposal,
night and day, for dictation. "The master (Aquinas), assisted
by the Holy Spirit, dictated at the same time, in his cell to
three or sometimes four secretaries on different subjects." 17 A.
Dondaine concludes without discussing the size of the financial
outlay necessary: " The role of the secretaries of Saint Thomas
was not only to provide the works then needed but they were
present to write down Aquinas' works and to serve their publication." 18 Behind all of this was a time of aflluence, and in
such a milieu the harmonious balance, the optimism of uniting
nature and grace within the cathedral and in the viewpoint of
Aquinas's Summa theologiae are well understood.
16

Ibid., p. 7!t.

William of Tocco in Fontes Vitae Sancti Th. Aquinatis (Toulouse, 191!t), p. 89.
See A. Dondaine, Lea Secretaires de S. Thomas (Rome, 1956), p. 205. On
the financial outlay by the Friars Preachers for books see W. Hinnebusch, The
History of the Dominican Order, II (New York, 1978), pp. 194 if.
11
18

PARIS A CULTURAL MILIEU OF AQUINAS'

B.

THOUGHT

699

Gothic and the Ile-de-France

Gothic was originally a local style connected with the growing
fortunes of the kings of France and internationalized through
the prestige of France.
The first Gothic is so remarkably identified with one limited territory, the Ile-de-France-more exactly, the domain of the Capetian
monarchy-that the late Henri Focillon suggested wisely, if somewhat paradoxically, that Gothic be defined as the Romanesque of
the Ile-de-France.... Created in the very heart of Capetian power,
the Gothic advanced in the wake of its consolidation and expansion.18
A hundred years after the dedication of the Sug.er's gothic
Abbey of S. Denis in 1144, most of Europe had" gone Gothic,"
with one, French climax occurring during Aquinas's youth.
Explorations into the mutual similarities concretized in different media of cultur.e must be done within well-defined limits
of time and space. With Paris during the middle of the thirteenth century we have such a limited cultural epoch.2° Even
then detailed comparisons can be flimsy projections. Even
so, pronouncements about Gothic drawing on English architecture, Florentine poetry, German painting, and scholasticism
at Cologne are certainly of dubious value in comprehending
an epoch, a kairos.
In
Thomas d' Aquino, an Italian nobleman's son and
r.elative of the Holy Roman emperor, entered the Order of
Otto von Simson, The Gothic Cathedral (New York, 196il), pp. 62 ff.
Erwin Panofsky discusses the dangers of this approach while not rejecting
every attempt: " ... a pursuit of 'parallels' the hazards of which are only too
obvious. No man can master more than one fairly limited field; every man has
to rely on incomplete and often secondary information. • . . Few men can resist
the temptation of either ignoring or slightly deflecting such lines as refuse to run
parallel, and even a genuine parallelism does not make us really happy if we
cannot imagine how it came about. Small wonder, then, that another diffident
attempt at correlating Gothic architecture and Scholasticism is bound to be looked
upon with suspicion by both historians of art and historians of philosophy. Yet,
setting aside for the moment all intrinsic analogies there exists between Gothic
architecture and Scholasticism a palpable and hardly accidental concurrence in
the purely factual domain of time and place." Gothic Architecture and ScholMticism
(New York, 1964), pp. 1 f; see Genicot, op. cit., pp. 878 f.
19

20

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THOMAS F. O'MEARA

Preachers. From the autumn of 1245 into summer of 1248 he
was at Paris as a student of Albertus Magnus. As we saw,
during those years on the island in the midst of the Seine the
Sainte-Chapelle was rapidly constructed. The high point of
construction for Notre Dame most likely had occurred shortly
after the turn of the century. This coincided with Perotin's
polyphonic innovations in church music with the cathedral
choir. After four years with Albert at the Univ:ersity of Cologne
Thomas returned to teach and to prepare for his reception by
the University of Paris as master. For two years he lectured
on the Bible, and in 1254 he turned to the Sentences of Peter
Lombard. In the midst of some conflict he became Magister
in 1256 and remained in Paris for three years teaching. During
those years it is generally agreed that the decision was made
to construct two new facades for the north and south sides of
Notre Dame.
Out of the island of Paris with merchants to the right and
masters to the left came innovation in music through rhythm
and polyphony, in architecture through innovative vaulting
and lighter walls, in statuary and the use of colored glass, and
in theology and philosophy. By looking at some similar structural forms found in these different media we can understand
better the cultural achievement of Aquinas's intellectual synthesis of faith. The kairos of Paris was a time of peace, affiuence, and creativity.

C. Order-in-Diversity
If one cultural characteristic is particularly evident within
the climax of medieval culture it is the hypnotic attraction of
order. Order, subtle or bold, composing a diversity of ideas
or motifs or media (or all three) into a harmonious whole.
From early in the .eleventh century there had been a search
for harmony wherein a myriad of elements could achieve an
effect greater than their sum and yet find an o.rder friendly tu
that display of reality proper to .each facet. The Sentences of
Peter Lombard, the geometrical windows at Chartres, the
facades of Saint-Denis and ev.en of Chartres were intermediary

PARIS A CULTURAL MILIEU OF AQUINAS'

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701

periods moving away from pure collection towards living, original syntheses.
The Jesse Tree of Saint-Denis and the western portals of Chartres
make it clear that their designers were pursuing the ideals of formal
unity and constitutive unity common to all branches of creative
endeavour at that time. These ideals found their grandest artistic
expression in the architectural design of the Gothic sanctuaries of
the Ile-de-France. 21

It was one thing to open space for numerous, large pictorial
windows (Chartres): biblical parables, lives of saints, medieval
life, the song of Roland. It was something else to organize a
wall or a window (Sainte-Chapelle) into an esthetic experience
21 G. Henderson, Gothic (Baltimore, 1972), p. 57; "In Book Five of his treatise
De Consideratione, completed in ll52, St. Bernard of Clairvaux contrasts the

unity of the Three Persons of God with other lesser kinds of unity. First in his
list is the unity which he calls 'collective', as for example when many stones make
one heap .... During the first half of the twelfth century the principle of collective unity as the basis of artistic composition was replaced by the principle of
constitutive unity, and as a result the Gothic style was created." Ibid., p. 43. For
Aquinas's employment of these kinds of unum see Summa Theologiae, III, q. 2,
a. I; In Librum Beati Dionysii Aeropagitae De Divinis Nominibus Expositio
(Turin, 1950), XIII, ii. "To realize that constitutive unity is the central aim
of the new style in architecture we have only to look at the ground plan of a
typical twelfth-century Gothic cathedral, Notre Dame at Paris. Romanesque
planning is quite different. In planning their churches, Romanesque architects
were guided by an additive collective principle. Romanesque churches were the
sum of separate portions, each stated with aggressive individuality." Henderson,
op. cit., pp. 60 f. Some art historians compare the ideas of the cathedral schools
in the twelfth century or the Victorines and Peter Lombard with the Gothic
drive towards diversity in harmony. Climax should be compared with climax.
Peter Lombard and the Victorines are contemporary with the beginnings of Gothic
architecture, and their reference point would be Saint-Denis and Chartres (as von
Simson develops in detail). In the concluding decades of the end of the 12th
century theology like architecture is filled with potentiality.
The climax of art
between Notre Dame and Sainte-Chapelle corresponds more to the work of Albert
and Aquinas. Whereas in the first half of the twelfth century theology seems to
be slightly ahead in developing these primal thought-forms, architecture in the
first half of the thirteenth century has outstripped its sisters, the sacred sciences.
Different media do not participate in the kairos with mutual exactness. Panofsky
sees this; Gothic Architecture ... , p. 4. Cf. A. Priest, "The Master of the West
Facade of Chartres," Chartres Cathedral, R. Branner, ed. (New York, 1969); A.
Katzenellenbogen, The Sculptural Programs of Chartres (New York, 1964).

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THOMAS F. O'MEARA

of size and form. The same tension exists between Peter
Lombard's collection and Aquinas's textbook.
The thought-form of the Summa emerges not only from within architecture and canon law but within history, literatur.e out
of the attraction of four-part polyphony and in rhythm. From
Paris with its archiepiscopal cannons and concergerie comes
the scholastic method highly developed in the Summa of questions, in the cathedral and in the motet. Its goal is not all
encompassing arrangement, a mere totality, but harmony out
of diversity, order within variety. As the society delights in its
own capacity for deft creativity, the desire for masterful arrangement is enkindled; the grandiose product is the Summa.
The delight of the master theologian or architect was that the
whole, while avoiding an eclipse of the units, would be greater
than the sum total. Within the totality the individual elements
stand out even as they support on all sides the total fabric.
The sum total of logical calculations is therefore not in the end
put forward for its own sake, but for the sake of a superlogical
effect. The resultant expression goes far beyond the means by
which it was attained, and the sight of a Gothic cathedral does
not impress our minds as being a display of structural processes but
as an outburst of transcendental longing expressed in stone.... A
moment of superhuman force carries us up with it into the intoxication of an endless willing and craving.... 22
The drive towards the Summa is not realized in an encyclopedia. There were encyclopedias at this time, representing
the medieval interest in total informational control. 23 Vincent
of Beauvais was wrestling with the concern which would later
be Hegel's, how to philosophize order into history. The material elements, the small units have their legitimate role, their
own claritas,24 their individual brilliance as art. Hauser is correct in pointing out that the cathedral appears differently from
22 W. Worringer, Form in Gothic (New York, 1957), p. 108; cf. pp. 166 ff.
•• See J. Evans, op. cit., p. 113; Hinnebusch, "The Encyclopedists," op. cit.,
pp. 420 ff.
•• Thomas Aquinas, In Librum Beati Dionysii De Divinis Nominibus Expositio,
c. IV, xxi.

PARIS A CULTURAL MILIEU OF AQUINAS' THOUGHT

708

different angles; it has a mobile unity with different, subjectively perceived facets. 25 Moreover, how many art historians
select as the dominant motif of the Gothic over against the
Renaissance a location of man (before or inside the Cathedral)
within a larger world touched by an aesthetic dynamic drawing
his contemplation upwards and beyond.
The origins of the drive to the intellectual Summa lie in law,
philosophy, theology, and history. One current arises from the
influence of Roman law upon canon law. The dialectical
method of Gratian was organized to produce beyond glosses
or lists of opinions a systematic and comprehensive treatise
which would follow the logical order of doctrine rather than
the literal order of a previous legal compilation. Since Abelard's
Sic et Non the theologians of France had also been wrestling
with the problem of theological arrangement and of the interplay between reason as well as authority in reflection on faith.
By the middle of the twelfth century there are collections of
opinions with Peter Lombard's achieving the greatest success.
Thus at Paris (after 1160) there were two streams of influence
flowing, the one deriving from the dialectical Theologia of Abelard,
the other from the methodical, lucid, spiritual De sacramentis of
Hugh; they were united in the Summae of Robert of Melun an.d
of the school of Gilbert de la
to produce a new theological
form, covering the whole range of doctrine and embodying the
two strands of theological opinion and Aristotelian reasons. 26

Although Alexander of Hales and Albert the Great had already written Summae, Aquinas's Prologue to his Summa Theologiae might give the impression he is beginning anew. Work·
ing at a puzzle others had not fully solved, his work will replace
•• Op. cit., I, pp. !ll43 f.
•• D. Knowles, The Evolution of Medieval Patristic Thought (New York, 196!ll),
p. 179. For Chenu the goal of the Scholastic method was to expound concisely
all the main doctrines of a given scientific area; to push research beyond pieeemeal
analysis with the subject matter organized precisely and synthetically; and to employ the final product for good teaching. "What Is a Summa?," Toward . ... ,
p. !ll98. " What else is a summa, if not a concise gathering together ... a summary
of singular data." Robert of Melun, Sententie, cited in Chenu, Toward . ... ,
p. !ll99.

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THOMAS F. O'MEARA

the random orders of the Bible and of the public disputations
with another, a more interesting and coherent order. Into his
Summa Aquinas brings all of the information he can gather:
the Scriptures and the Apostle; the canonists; the Greek Fathers
and especially Chrysostom; the Latin Fathers and especially
Augustine; the Philosopher and the Platonists; medical and
biological and astronomical works. How mistaken Baroque
and Idealistic thought was to see Aquinas's work as pyramidical
metaphysics par excellence-this is like seeing only the bare
stone structure of Notre Dame. Above all the SuMMA THEOLOGIAE is an ordered presentation of the dynamic act of God,
i.e., of revelation and grace reaching man through the concrete,
empirical world, pemeptually presented by genuises in sciences
ranging from biology to philosophical theology.
Panofsky describes the development of the Summa-form.
" In formal organization, too, the High Scholastic Summa
differs from the less comprehensive, less strictly organized, and
much less uniform encyclopedias and Libri Sententiarum of
the eleventh and twelfth centuries much in the same ways as
does the High Gothic style from its ancestry." 27 The organizational form of this culture aims at manifestatio ("Sacred
Teaching uses philosophy to manifest . . ." 28 ) which requires
(I) totality of treatment, (2) arrangement of equal parts, (3)
distinction and interrelation. 29 Panofsky is correct, but we can
go deeper and see that between the general tone of the medieval
culture and the works themselves there are more precise formal
and material principles at work in some areas.
Within the Summa Theologiae we can discern these two
principles fashioning the order of this vast work. The first we
could call the formal principle: a dynamic, all-encompassing
focus of arrangement; it is that of exit and return; it is a
Platonic mov.ement along a horizontal elipse arranging all
realities of nature and grace. The material principle is a second
thought-form present in the various sections and questions of
•• Gothic Architecture ... , p. 7; see pp. 70 ff.
•• Summa Theologiae I, q. 1, a. 8 ad 2.
20 Gothic Architecture, p. 31.

PARIS A CULTURAL MILIEU OF AQUINAS'

THOUGHT

705

Aquinas's theological work. It is Aristotelan, vertical, a construction of a unit by analysis from the more known but general
through questioning dialectic to the lucid display of the issue
researched. 80
These two focal points arranging the vast material of the
Summa have often been neglected, and the neglect explains the
frequent dominance in the history of dogma of tractate- theology
and manualism, of explanations of Revelation as propositional
and of theology as an esoteric, logical deduction of new conclusions from old truth. When the material principle loses its relationship to the formal movement of the whole work, obscuring its
dialectical dynamic, the Summa becomes a collection of conclusions. Chenu observes that the mobile, formal, and horizontal principle is particularly theological, i.e., a historical and
biblical dynamic for the work. The quaestio is the distillation
of the scholastic method and presents a form for material to
be arranged from and to its Principle of existence. 31 The totality of the Summa Theologiae is not a rational background for
individual tracts any more than the windows of the SainteChapelle exist only to give light for the statues of the twelve
apostles. In the medieval world-and the churches show us
stained-glass windows, painting,
this so clearly-architecture,
friezes and sculpture, ceramics and decorative motifs combine
to highlight each other, impressing upon the vi.ewer an experi30 Aquinas's
first work De Ente et Essentia was written around 1256 as the
transept towers of Notre Dame were being completed; compare both as examples
of the vertical, hierarchical order of Aristotelian logic and metaphysics.
81 Chenu,
"The Birth of the Questio," Toward . ... , pp. 85 ff; "In order,
therefore, to understand the Summa theologiae as well as the purpose of its author,
it is important to perceive the ordo disciplinae that is worked out in it-not only
the logical plan of the work, with its divisions and sub-divisions, but also that
inner flow of movement giving life to the structure after having created it. This
movement, in fact, reveals, together with the scientific reasons that govern the
whole arrangement, the intellectual options by means of which it was decided here
aud there to lay stress on this or that part." Ibid., p. 301. The formal order of
Neoplatonic movement faced the question whether biblical salvation-history could
receive the imprint of scientia; the pattern Aquinas chose retains from biblical
history the motif of movement but combines that with the diffusion of all beings,
with an ontology.

706

THOMAS F. O'MEARA

ence of the whole. The balance of High Gothic is not only of
space and weight but of height and motion, or of light and
dark. Rarely has there been an architecture of such serenity,
of moments frozen out of movement towards the transcendent.
The High Gothic cathedral is a monument to clarity and reason ....
Every part has its proper place, nothing has been omitted, nothing
is superfluous. Instead of the starkly opposed verticals and horizontals of the Greeks the medieval architect used graceful arches.
But similar principles underlie his design. Vertical shafts support
each arch or rib and the substance of the structure can be read on
the surface. Never for a moment are we allowed to doubt its inherent stability. Yet the High Gothic cathedral is not a sterile
exercise in logic. It is a visionary design, a vivid, a living testimony
to the dream of its maker. Composed of solid blocks, it is open
and vast. Rooted to the earth by massive, ponderous walls, it
soars upward into aerial towers and spires. It forms a finite space
with every vista clearly limited, yet it appears to be constantly expanding in size. And it has huge windows to let in floods of light,
but thanks to the stained glass the interior is as dim as twilight.
These paradoxes are more apparent than real, however, for the
High Gothic style is not tense, but calm and balanced. 82
The cathedral is a Summa: a single ordering of many media.
Its theological and iconographical plans aimed at a harmony
of effects, effects experiential as well as intellectual, effects of
senses and mind, of history and ontology, of nature and grace.
Suger described the abbey-church under construction, the innovation of Gothic at Saint-Denis as a harmony of elements
brought together out of diversity to encompass light and to
lead to Light.
Two aspects of Gothic are without precedent and parallel: the use
of light and the unique relationship between structure and appearance. By the use of light I mean more specifically the relation
of light to the material substance of the walls.... The Gothic wall
seems to be porous: light filters through it, permeating it, merging
with it, transforming .... The stained-glass windows of the Gothic
replace the brightly colored walls of Romanesque architecture; they
are structurally and aesthetically not openings in the wall to admit
light but transparent walls. . . .
82

R. Banner, "High Gothic Architectures,'' The Year 1fJOO, II, p. 7.

PARIS A CULTURAL MILIEU OF AQUINAS'

THOUGHT

707

The second striking feature of the Gothic style is the new relationship between function and form, structure and appearance.
We cannot enter a Gothic church without feeling that every visible
member of the great system has a job to do. There are no walls
but only supports; the bulk and weight of the vault seem to have
contracted into a sinewy web of the ribs. There is no inner matter,
only active energy.B3
There is a similarity between these characteristics of luminosity
and structural harmony and the formal and material thoughtforms of the Summa Theologiae mentioned above. We will
pursue the formal principle below in some detail.
The artists and the theological consultants 34 faced in the
rose windows or in the facades of the cathedrals the same questions as the magistri did in planning their summary works. 35
There was an enormous space to be covered. The medieval
mind will want to select a central theme of magnitude: e. g.,
salvation-history prior to Mary and Christ; the apocalypse, or
kingship from Melchisedech through Christ Crucified to Louis
IX. Innumerable scenes with a myriad of figures had to be
arranged to giv.e a single, transcendent effect.
83 von Simson, op. cit., pp. 3, 4, 7. See Henderson, op. cit., p. 70; Chenu Toward ... , p. 318.
•• On the contact between artists and theologians: G. Henderson, op. cit., pp.
15 f.; J. Harvey, The Master Builders (New York, 1973); A. Martindale, The
Rise of the Artist (New York, 1973). "The architect lived in close contact with
the sculptors, glass painters, wood carvers, etc., whose work he studied wherever
he went (witness the" Album" of Villard de Honnecourt), whom he engaged and
supervised in his own enterprises, and to whom he had to transmit an iconographic
program ... he could work out only in close cooperation with a scholastic adviser."
Panofsky, Gothic Architecture ... , p. 27; R. Guelluy, "La place des theologiens
dans l'eglise et la societe medievale," MisceUanea historica, A. de Meyer, ed
(Louvain, 1946), I, pp. 571 fl'. These works discuss the master architect as
magister. With regards to music: " ... the twelfth and thirteenth centuries-coincided with the time when Paris rules the musical world; for men who studied
or taught in the university, most of them composers and theorists as well, were
largely responsible for the rapid development of polyphonic forms-organum,
eonductus, motet--during these centuries." N. C. Carpenter, Music in the Medieval
and Renaissance Universities (Norman, 1958), p. 69.
35 " ••• three characteristic Gothic 'problems '-or, as we might say, quaestiones:
the rose window in the west facade, the organization of the wall beneath the
clerestory, and the conformation of the nave piers." Panofsky, Gothic Architecture • • • , p. 70.

708

THOMAS F. O'MEARA

This (the order of the windows of the Sainte-Chapelle) is not, in
fact, as has often been said, a " narrative " or " historical " program,
following the order of the Bible ... and completed by a modern
subject .... In our opinion we must separate out of this totality
several parts or " cycles." 26
In the iconography of the Sainte-Chapelle the first cycle is
historical; a second is one of prophets. Both lead to the main
subject, the Passion of Christ, and are culminated in the single
rose window whose theme is the apocalyptic second coming of
the crucified Redeemer.
When compared with the programs of the first half of the thirteenth
century, that of the Sainte-Chapelle is one of powerful originality
and of great subtlety; it seems inspired by the tendencies of its
contemporary, scholasticism, by an exegesis at times concerned with
the " literal " sense of the Scriptures and by a variety of symbolic
interpretations which, nevertheless, are not reducible to the typeantitype so common in the traditional iconography of the twelfth
century. 87
Writers in the Middle Ages gave the multi-colored images in
the church windows the purpose of showing simple folk ignorant
of the Scriptures what they ought to believe.
In addition to their didactic purposes the stained-glass windows of
a church were part of an elaborate theological program. The
iconography of this program, its symbolism and meaning, was derived from many sources-from commentaries on the Bible and
other theological writings. In visual terms, the underlying meaning
of Christianity, as related in the Bible and interpreted by theologians was made comprehensible through image and narrative.
In all probability, the plan for the decoration of the structure was
devised by local churchmen. It is known, for example, that Suger
was responsible for the iconography of his windows at St. Denis. 38
The problem for both the authors of the cartoons for the windows and for gifted schoolmen intent upon their own works
was the same: the formal principle of ordering the whole.
•• Aubert, et a!., Les Vitraux ... , pp. SO f.
Ibid., p. 81.
88 J. Hayward, "Stained-Glass
Windows," The Year 1200, II, p. 72.
37

PARIS A CULTURAL MILIEU OF AQUINAS'

THOUGHT

709

Music gives us a third example of the love of plurality ordered.
Wherever one looks (in medieval poetry and music) one perceives
a trend toward animated motion. The guiding principle of Gothic
architecture was to attain the greatest possible richness in architectural motion; the static image of space played a subordinate role.
The same principle is manifest in Gothic music and is expressed in
the rhythmical motion of the independent parts. 89
Polyphony did not begin at Notre Dame after 1160, but it
did find a place there for firm innovation and lasting repertory.
Leontin and Perotin (still active in the first decade of the 13th
century) of the Notre Dame school and choir developed a twopart and then a three-part and four-part polyphony. Above
a sustaining line, slowed down Gregorian Chant, were sung improvisations, the tropes of other, melismatic voices. Polyphony,
too, is linear, horizontal, moving. It is tonal diversity organized, parallel musical intricacy possible through a technical
command of multiplicity. The formal organizing of the several
voices led to fixed rhythm entering Western music. Quickly
the motet was at hand, and the Church was scandalized at the
colorful, distracting intricacy of this music careening towards
novelty and individuality.
The metamorphosis of the massive homogeneous organum into an
animated structural web of rhythms and melodies in the Gothic
motet was in every way analogous to the stylistic changes that
took place in the fine art and literature. It required from the
listener a new approach and a new conception of listening to music,
for the Gothic motet did not establish an intimate relationship between listener and singer. Instead of concentrating on a group of
singers, the listener had to follow three individual parts presenting
three distinct moods .... The listener must make his choice, select
a part and follow it, and then become a part of the polyphonic
web.40
•• Paul H. Lang, Music in Western Civilization (New York, 1941), p.
See
Dom A. Hughes, "Music in Fixed Rhythm," New Oxford History of Music,
II (Oxford, 1954), pp. 314 fl'.
40 Ibid., p. 137; see "Ecclesiastical
Opposition to Polyphony," ibid., p. 139.

710

THOMAS F. O'MEARA

m
Aquin.as and Pseudo-Denis and Cultural Convergence: N eo
platonism in Theology and Glass
How to find a formal organizing principle which would bring
harmony out of the old and the new within tumultuous, medieval intellectual life? This was the problem Aquinas faced in
composing his Summa Theologiae. Its synthesis would risk
more than the earlier Summa Contra Gentes
and
the unfinished Compendium Theologiae. The problem should
be solved by arranging unity-in-div.ersity through a pattern
which possessed both clarity and action.
Aquinas's synthesis would have to transcend yet unite all
the sources and authorities summoned forth to explain God's
teaching about man's sanctity and future. Would the medieval
thinker search for the " form of forms " in the saving history
of the Bible, or in the vertically ascending patterns of the very
relevant Aristotle? As we know, curiously Aquinas turned to
N eoplatonic patterns of thought.
Beyond the scientific world of Aristotle, Saint Thomas appeals to
a Platonic theme of emanation and return. Since theology is the
science of God, all things will be studied in their relation to God,
whether in their production or in their final .end, in their exitus et
reditus [going-out from and coming-back to]. What a splendid
source of intelligibility! Now, every thing, every being, every action, every destiny will be located, known, judged, in terms of the
highest causality wherein the reason of their being will be fully
revealed under the light of God itself. This is more than science,
it is wisdom. This wonderful nco-Platonic theme-Christian or
pagan does not matter right now-in continuity with the epistemology of the Greek philosophers develops the latter's potential
beyond the horizon it had reached in order to explain the becoming
of created being. It is the schema of a universal order in which all
natures will be located within an analytical array according to genus
and species, but in which, moreover, the mind's understanding
reaches the root common to every nature. 41
"Chenu, Toward . ..• , p. 804. Arguing that any Neoplatonic current stems
more from Plotinus than from Plato are E. Hoffmann, ''Platonismus und Mittelalter,"

PARIS A CULTURAL MILIEU OF AQUINAS'

THOUGHT

711

It is processional movement, being from higher beings and
Being, the illumined participation in luminosity which gives
this formal pattern its uniqueness. For it is both metaphysics
and history. The hierarchy of being is evident, but so is the
history of grace.
This neo-Platonic schema is also responsive to history, that sacred
history whose opening page is precisely a description of the emanation of the world, whose whole course is an account of God's
governing of his creatures, whose outcome is decided by the way
men behave in their desire for happiness as they return to God.
Upon this circuit, one can locate the facts and deeds recorded in
sacred history-with all the contingency (herein is the trademark
of Christian neo-Platonism) that their dependence on the free will
of God and of man implies.42

Upon this ellipse of destiny, coming forth from God and
going back to God, every fact and moment of cosmic and redemptive history can be properly fitted, yet without suppressing the Christian dialectic of God's sovereignty and man's
freedom. The theme exitus-reditus brings with it movement;
it is a curved line which can become both mysticism (emanation from God) and history (successive events) . Yet, this
model is beyond history; although it may resemble the chronology of the arrangement of the books of the Bible, it does
not simply reproduce the historical experience of God in the
history of man. Finally, while this pattern acknowledges, it
also transcends individual realism. Although Aquinas strongly
espouses in his works on logic and natural science the realism
of Aristotle rooted in each individual entity, the realities of
the ellipse while complete in their own sphere are ultimately
referrable to an Absolute Reality.
How did this thought-from reach Aquinas? Can we study
it as a cultural motif present in different media? Popular history has it that from his appearance upon the scene in the
latter decades of the twelfth century Aristotle and his Arabian
Warburg Vortriige (Berlin, 19!i!6) and K. Kremer, Die neuplatonische Seinsphilosophie und ihre Wirkung auf Thomas von Aqui111 (Leiden, 1966).
•• Ibid., p. 85.

712

THOMAS F. O'MEARA

companions dominated, transubstantiating the world-view from
Platonism to realism. In fact, the twelfth and thirteenth centuries retained a complex pattern of Platonic movements and
witnessed the growth of some of these. 43
The emanation and return motif had been in circulation
since Scotus Erigena and did not immediately connote an embrace of Plotinianism. Aquinas often unconsciously absorbed
N eoplatonic ideas from Platonized works passing as compositions of Aristotle. Above all there were the extremely influential works of Denis: Greek philosopher, convert of Paul,
evangelizing bishop of Paris.
Aquinas like all of his contemporaries believed the legends
about Saint Denis. 44 This Dionysius was a convert of Paul
from the Apostle's arduous intellectual campaigns on the
Areopagus. 45 He found his way to Roman Paris to evangelize
the small town and to end his life in a miracle-surrounded
martyrdom on Montmartre. With this dual :figure was united
a third personage, the remarkable Syrian, monastic writer of
'"On the presence and complexity of Neoplatonism during the Middle Ages
see: R. Klibansky, The Continuity of the Platonic Tradition during tlie Middle
Ages (London, 1949); R. J. Henle, St. Thomas and Platonism (The Hague, 1956);
E. Weber, La Controverse de 1£70 a l'Universite de Paris (Paris, 1970).
•• See Chenu, Toward . .. , pp. 226 ff.; J. Durante!, S. Thomas et le Pseudo-Denys
(Paris 1919); Caramello, "De Fortuna Operum Dionysii .... ," in Aquinas, De
Divinis Nominibus . .. , ed. cit., pp. xi ff. H. F. Dondaine, Le Corpus dionysien
de l'Universite de Paris au Xlleme siecle (Rome, 1953). R. Rogues, "Introduction,"
La Hierarchie Celeste (Paris, 1958). Aquinas refers to St. Denis as a student of
Paul in his commentary; c. II, 4-6; c. II, 4. Aquinas considers, however, Denis
to be quite different from the Platonici whom he corrects; Aquinas, Super Librum
de Causis Expositio, I, 4; Henle, op. cit., pp. 424 ff. On the origin of the Dionysian
legend see P. J. Leonertz "La legende parisienne de St. Denys l'Areopagite,"
Analecta Bolandiana (Brussels, 1951), p. 69. Johannes Sarracenus, whose translation of Pseudo-Dionysius Aquinas used, states: "Among ecclesiastical writers
Dionysius comes after the Apostles." M. Grabmann, Mittelalterliches Geistesleben
(Munich, 1936), pp. 457 ff. Abelard, who had been a monk at S. Denis suggested
that the Areopagite and the apostle of Paris were not the same; Panofsky, "Introduction," Abbot Suger on the Abbey Church of St. Denis and Its Art Treasures
(Princeton, 1946), p. 18.
45 "After that Paul left them, but there were some who attached themselves to
him and became believers, among them Dionysius the Areopagite and a woman
,
called Damaris, and others besides." Acts, 17:33-34.

PARIS A CULTURAL MILIEU OF AQUINAS'

THOUGHT

713

the early sixth century, a master of Christian Neoplatonism.
As patron of Paris and as Greek speculative mind, Dionysius
was important to Aquinas and to Paris. For the motif of the
" translation of the center of study " from Athens to Paris via
Rome, the key actor became Dionysius. Thomas of Ireland,
0. P., writing at the end of the thirteenth century, observes:
" The Blessed Dionysius . . . came to Paris so that he might
make of this city the mother of studies after the pattern of
Athens. Like Athens, the city of Paris is divided into three
parts ... the merchants, the noblemen, the colleges." 46
Even amid the strong contemporary interest in Dionysian
thought, Aquinas made extraordinary use of the pseudoAreopagite.47 As Thomas matur.ed, he grew more critical in
his evaluation of some N eoplatonic texts passing as Aristotelian.
An incomplete Arabic text of Plotinus's Enneads existed under
the title of Theologia Aristotelis and the Liber de causis (which
Aquinas with the help of his Dominican translator William of
Moerbeke, the future Archbishop of Corinth, identified as not
from Aristotle's pen) created an
favorable to this
" subliminal Platonism." In the commentary on the Sentences 48 agreement between Dionysius and Aristotle is normally
reached, while in the later De Malo 49 Aquinas sees that in many
things Dionysius is" Platonic." While Aquinas is critical of the
Platonici and admits that Dionysius writes stylo Platonico, he
will not lose any of his great respect for Dionysius and at times
uses him (like Augustine) as an auctoritas to refute Platonism.
One might ask: was propinquity to Paul seen as a guarantee
of healthy Hellenism?
It is hard to know how extensive was the practice of commenting on Dionysius at Paris in the middle decades of the
thirteenth century. We have in the handwriting of young
Aquinas from about 1250 a repoTtatio of his teacher Albert
De tribus sensibus S. Scripturae, cited in Chenu, Toward. .. , p.
Durante! counted
citations of 466 different texts; op. cit., p. 60.
48 In II Sent., d. 14, a. 1, a.
•• Q. 16, a. 1, 3. For various texts see Henle, op. cit., pp.
But Dionysius
avoids the basic errors of the Platonici: De Divinis Nominibus, Proemium, IV, ii.
46

47

714

THOMAS F. O'MEARA

commenting on the De divinis nominibus. Albert began his
commentaries while in Paris in 1248 and completed them in
Cologne.50 Around 1261 Aquinas struggled to treat" the mystical-metaphysical attire " of Dionysius through Aristotelian
mental categories. This would be good preparation for the
counterpoint a few years later between Thomas's chosen formal
and material thought-forms to be developed as the superstructure for the Summa Theologiae.
For Dionysius a pristine "name" of God is light. "Now it
is right for us to praise the intelligent naming (of God as)
good light .... God is like a ray overflowing and superemanating,
an effusion of light illuminating every supramundane, circamundane, and mundane mind from its own fullness, ... converting from many opinions . . . gathering to one knowledge,
completing by one, unitive light." 51 Aquinas, commenting,
elaborates this theology of active, diffusive luminosity. "God
comports himself to those in which he causes light in three
ways: diffusion, excess, comprehension." 52 After reviewing
the opinions of physicists on the nature of light (Is light a
body or a quality?), Aquinas follows Dionysius into the explanation of the divine persons flowing from God in terms of
light. 53 Next, the image of light is linked to that of the good.
Creatures desire sunlight as the good source of their life, and
so they return again and again to it. Aquinas concludes that
God is like the sun: the good, directing creator and provider
of the universe. Yet, his primal light is inaccessible. The in50 P. Simon, "Prologomena,"
S. Alberti Magni, De divinis nominibus, Opera
Omnia 37: I (Aschendorff, I972), pp. vi ff. G. Thery, "L'autographe de S.
Thomas conserve a la Biblioteca Nazionale de Naples," Archivum Fratrum
Praedicatorum, I (I93I), pp. I5-86.
51 De divinis nominibus, IV, iv.
•• In Librum Beati Dionysii. . . . , IV, iv. "The Divine Light and the being
which it confers are the illuminating cascade whose steps are described by the
treatises (of Dionysius). This 'illumination' must not be conceived as a simple
gift of light to already existing things but a gift of light
is their very being."
E. Gilson, History of Christian Philosophy in the Middle Ages (New York, 1954),
p. 83.
58 Ibid., II, ii.

PARIS A CULTURAL MILIEU OF AQUINAS' THOUGHT

715

visible being of God is manifest in the world around us. 54
Explaining beauty, Aquinas can describe it as a "lightning"
which participates in the divine luminosity. Beauty comes not
only from clarity but from the harmony of the parts. One
harmony is found in the r.elationship of the world to God's light
(which is at the same time an " ordering of creatures back to
God ") , while the other is found in the parts of creation related
to each other and to the whole.55 The writings of Scripture are
also light (s) derived from the first light, the primal source of
truth. 56 The image of the diffusion of light analogously illustrates creation and justification-sanctification. The excessus is
the gracious gift of being and grace. Man's comprehension
initiates his mental, biological, and historical return to God.
And so in the earlier commentary on the Sentences we find:
" In the coming of creatures from the first principle, there is a
kind of circling or gyration, since all things return as to their
end to that from which they came as from their principle." 57

Gothic and Pseudo-Denis
Pseudo-Dionysius might link Aquinas's pattern for his Sum"' Ibid., IV, iii.
""Ibid., IV, v.
66 Ibid., I, i. Music too suggests the importance of Platonic forms in medieval
thought. Music became parallel diversity in motion. Polyphony only organized
its two or three lines minimally from the vertical perspective; the parallels were
swept forward. Augustine's De Musica exercised great influence; Pythagorean and
Neoplatonic theories of music through mathematics influenced artistic creativity, so
the choice of harmony was dictated by theories based upon perfect mathematical and
astrophysical relationships. "According to him (Alan of Lille) God is the artful
architect who builds the cosmos as his regal palace composing and harmonizing
the variety of created things by means of ' subtle chains ' of musical consonance.
The first Gothic cathedrals were rising when these lines were written." von Simson,
op. cit., pp. 12 f. One could add that polyphony was expanding at the same time.
This theorizing helps us to explain why Aquinas's analogy for faith I vision takes
for granted music as a division of mathematics. "Some sciences proceed from
principles known by the light of a higher science ... music from the principles
derived from arithmetic." (Summa. Theol., I, q. 1, a. 2).
57 In I Sent., d. 14, q. 2, a. 2. Thomas Aquinas is not fully Dionysian for he
will not limit God by such a hierarchism. God himself is the goal and source of
man and he is present (" grace") immediately to man in personality and history.
See 0. Semmelroth, " Die Lehre des Ps.-Dionysius Areopagita vom Aufstieg der
Kreatur zur gottlichen Licht," Scholastik, 29 (1954) pp. 26 ff.

716

THOMAS F. O'MEARA

ma with another cultural example of this Neoplatonic emana-

tion from and return to God: light as the architectural event
of the Gothic church. With some exaggeration Worringer
writes:
Anyone entering a Gothic cathedral encounters something far removed from sensuous clarification. He encounters an intoxication
of the sense, not the direct gross intoxication produced by the
Baroque, but a mystical intoxication of the sense which is not of
this world. Gothic space is unbridged activity. It does not receive
the beholder with soft gestures, but carries him violently along, exacting as a mystical compulsion to which the burdened soul deems
it a delight unresistently to yield.58
Suger, Abbot of Saint-Denis, towards the middle of the twelfth
century offered a religious theory for the breakthrough in
church decor through large stained-glass windows and lightsome stone. He turned to the N eoplantonic theories of the
procession of light from Light so characteristic of PseudoDionysius, the patron of the abbey which he was rebuilding and
the patron of the kingdom-city for which Suger intended to
offer ecclesio-theological support.
Gothic architecture through a system of skeletal supports,
ribs, buttresses, arches, and vaults freed wall space for glass.
The technique of stained-glass rose to the occasion to provide
shimmering mosaics dominated by reds or by blues. By the
year 1200 the colors had been deepened, naturalness and realism
had pervaded the figures, and the medium could be integrated
into the total aesthetic program of the cathedral. While the
culmination of stained glass came from Arab technology and
Aristotelian realism, the theology behind it was twelfth-century
Neoplatonism. "The close analogy between Dionysian light
metaphysics and Gothic luminosity is evident." 59 Suger was
aware not only of the presence of light and lights through
stained-glass but of the luminosity which the entire church
would possess. A dedicatory poem for his new abbey-church
•• W. Worringer, vp. cit., p. 55.
•• von Simson, vp. cit., p. 106.

PARIS A CULTURAL MILIEU OF AQUINAS'

THOUGHT

717

concluded: "Et quod perfundit lux nova claret opus nobile." 60
The beige-gray stone employed, the entry of light through the
windows, the new height of the structure must be experienced
to comprehend what an effect was set in motion at Saint-Denis.
Yet Suger's church was far from finished; it would be completed
in fact as well as in theory by the master of the SainteChapelle.
The abbey of Saint- Denis was a center for Hellenistic studies,
for Greek translations of Christian Neoplatonic works. 61 Suger
read the writings ascribed to the man whose controversial
legendary personality had caused the rift between Abelard and
the Abbey. 62 At the beginning of the De caelesti hierarchia
Dionysius says that we can rise to God because all things are
material lights which mirror ultimately the true light of God.
Every creature, visible or invisible, is a light brought into being
by the Father of lights. This stone or that piece of wood is a
light to me. But this procession of lights is also movement,
emanation of lightsome creatures from their source, and then
their r.eturn to it. Earlier in the dedicatory poem (these lines
are inscribed on the door) Suger said that believers struck by
the lights of the work would travel "through these true lights
to the True Light for which Christ is the true door." 68 At the
beginning of the Prima Pars of the Summa Theologiae Aquinas
writes: " First we will treat of God, secondly of the movement
of the rational creature back to God, thirdly of Christ who as
man is the way for us of tending to God." 64 Later, speaking
Panofsky, "Introduction," Abbot Suger . .. , p. !'l!'l.
Johannes Sarracenus dedicated his new translation of Pseudo-Dionysius, replacing that of Scotus Erigena, to Odo, Suger's successor in the abbacy. See von
Simson, op. cit., pp. 106 ff; L. Delisle, "Traductions de textes grecs faites par
des rcligieux de Saint-Denis au XIIe siecle," Journal des Savants, 1900, pp. 7!'l5 ff.
Saint-Denis was connected to Chartres in several ways. Geoffrey, Bishop of
Chartres and friend of Suger, was at the consecration in 1144. The work or influence of sculptors from S. Denis is in evidence on statues and capitals at Chartres.
See Branner, op. cit.; Katzenellenbogen, op. cit.
62 Panofsky, "Introduction,"
Abbot Suger. ... , p. 18.
63 Ibid., p. !'l8.
64 Summa.
Theol., I, q. !'l. "If the intelligible principles, i.e., the ideas can
exist for Dionysius only through a participation in being, a fortiori things in the
60
61

718

THOMAS F. O'MEARA

of God and creation, and alluding to Dionysius, Aquinas will
say that according to the normal usage of "light " God is
not a light, but according to an extended use, namely, making
things to be manifest, then God is the " light " of all of creation.65
Suger saw his artistic achievements as media for light.
Naturally in the windows and their effect upon the experience
of the viewers, the Neoplatonic schema is well verified. Suger
did not invent the stained-glass window, but when the cultural
time and the technological skill arrived to give it prominence he
offered a theological interpretation.
The transformation of Norman and Burgundian models in the design of St. Denis can really be explained as the artistic realization
of ideas actually taken over from the Pseudo-Areopagite. Thus,
by recording the building of his church, Suger has, as it were,
rendered transparent the creative process that translated the theology of light and music into the Gothic style.66
We have not wanted to give the impression that Suger and
Aquinas were contemporaries, or that they were influenced by
culture in the same way. The corpus of Pseudo-Dionysius with
certain thought-forms contributed to a cultural atmosphere
lasting over a century. This atmosphere can be concretely seen
in different media: in the earlier breakthrough to Gothic, and
in the High Gothic production by Aquinas of a true Summa.
Exit"us-reditus, the procession of lights from Light-this form
was not only in the air but in the efforts of the culture.
Aquinas's theology through the skeletal indications of what
his formal plan is for the Summa Theologiae expresses the theological analogy to, an interpretation of, the artistic experience
order of the senses exist only through participation in being. This shows us how
Dionysius understands the procession of things out of God, which Christian usage
calls creation: creation (Dionysius hardly uses the term) means emanation and
participation in God . . . the principle out of which everything flows while in
itself cannot proceed from anything else. The creature is that which participates
in the primum participatum and flows from it." Kremer, op. cit., p. 856.
•• Summa. Theol., I, q. 67, a. 1.
•• von Simson, op. cit., p. 133; see p. 131.

PARIS A CULTURAL MlLimU OF AQUINAS' THOUGHT

719

of the cathedral. Light enters our world mysteriously, an
analogue to the reality of God: penetrating, diffusing, enlivening through colored glass the figures and events which are
the " sacraments " of the jeweled windows. This light bearing
the mysticism of color and the content of salvation-history
strikes the believer whose spirit in ecstasy is drawn out of himself outwards in a return to the One, the Source, the Deity.
Salvation-history is interpreted with a Plotinian nuance, losing
something of its horizontal historicity. The Biblical narratives
are r.eal, just as the windows' designs are real, and without them
we would not contact God or see light. Yet, the goal of history
and of the window is not the figurative events, but human
contact with the Mysterious who is God and light. As we have
noted, the most sublime realities of nature or grace are
described in the Summa Theologiae not to provide informatio!l
but to nourish the moving ellipse whose source may be active,
primal light, but whose focal point is man (exitus-reditus). In
terms of the three dimensions of time, in both architecture and
theology, the past is prominent (the philosophers and Fathers,
the statues and windows) and exists to serve the present
moment of grace-surrounded contemplation. The future exists
not ahead as the continuation of the long line of history, but
above, a lasting fulfillment of the present.
Students of Aquinas long neglected the kinetic, Neoplatonic
lines. Did not this foster the never-satiated analyses of the
tracts and questions? The cultural context of the partial and
total work of Aquinas was neglected as were the horizontal
relationships of section to section. Attention was paid to the
vertical, the logical, the "Aristotelian." For instance, in the
consideration of law and grace in the Summa Theologiae the
horizontal lines lead backwards to the processions of God as
Triune and to the dynamics of the human psyche (or moving
in the other direction, to the Incarnate Word). These intermediaries culminate in God as a causal Being of participated
fullness, a reality at whose source-point for our world the distinction of nature and grace is not all that clear. Chenu writes:

720

THOMAS F. O'MEARA

How often, in the interpretation of the Ila Pars in particular, I was
shocked by the rigid and systematic way in which the Aristotelian
structures present in the text were commented upon in detail, while
the sap of evangelical and patristic spirituality supplying life to
these otherwise dead branches was ignored or glossed over.... Yet,
the effort of systematizing theology must, at any cost, respect the
strange logic of the Kingdom of God.... " 67
And so, the realism of the bird on the capitals in the SainteChapelle or Aristotle's title of " the philosopher " do not
represent a complete triumph over Neoplatonism. Yet we have
here a Plotinian strain not of unreal symbols but of sacraments
where both the human and the divine are intermingled, and
then drawn outward and upward. One of the cultural discoveries concerning Aquinas's work is that the formal organizing principle of his uniquely successful attempt at a Summa
is Neoplatonic rather than Aristotelian. While Aquinas does
not connect his pattern directly with Dionysius, we know that
this mystical theologian held the highest position, as the result
of the mixture of legends, in not only the theological but in the
cultural world of Paris during the climax of the twelfth and
thirteenth centuries. In mysticism and ecclesiology, in politics
and papal theory, the Areopagite's influence was
To step into the new creations of glass and stone or into the
lecture halls of the university the discerning mind might feel
at home among similar enterprises and related thought-forms.

Conclusion
The preceding pages have only introduced the enterprise of
situating Thomas Aquinas within his polychrome cultural milieu,
an enterprise which theologians and art historians have often
alluded to but rarely pursued. Other areas suggest themselves
for this hermeneutic through cultural comparison.
First, the opening question of the Summa Theologiae has a
history of interpretations. Many of them never escape the abChenu, Toward . ... , p. 309.
On these areas see M.-J. Congar, "Aspects ecclesiologiques de la querelle
entre mendiants et seculiers dans la second moitie du Xllle siecle et le debut du
XIVe," Archives d'histoire doctrinale et litterarire du moyen age, 36 (1961), 85-151
67

68

PARIS A CULTURAL MILIEU OF AQUINAS'

THOUGHT

stract and metaphysical. They appear singularly uninterested
in the cultural milieu as a source for understanding the nature
and purpose of Aquinas's magnum opus. 9 Yet, the composition
of this work is woven from the strands of controversy and
change. Aquinas had placed himself at the carrefour of Arabs
and Greeks, of ancient texts and new translations, of every
science and every theology. Surely a discussion of theology as
scientia 70 is understood not only by uncovering Aristotle's
definition but out of a context born of the university's attitude
towards the burgeoning of information for the secular sciences.
The new science and university were an offensive questioning
any place in the university for fides quaerens intellectum. We
have already noticed the Platonic theory of music (which had
concrete effects on the medieval ear's preference for fourths)
as the illustration in this question for Aquinas's rather unconvincing analogy supporting theology as a science. The treatment of Scripture's literal sense in the last two articles of this
opening question reflects the new naturalism and realism of
the time. This realism is as evident in sculpture and stainedglass as it is in textual criticism. 71
A second example is the social and political context for
Aquinas's work. This means not his political theory itself but
how the social and political movements of the time influenced
the theological forms throughout his work. The iconography
of the Sainte-Chapelle is an interesting place to study St. Louis
IX's image of himself in salvation-history and his rivalry with
For a summary see G. van Ackeren, Sacra Doctrina (Rome, 1952).
Summa Theol., 1, q. 1, aa. 2, 3. Weisheipl describes the academic culture of
Aquinas's career in Paris with painstaking detail; op. cit., pp. 53-139.
71 B. Smalley, The Study of the Bible in the Middle Ages (Oxford, 1952); W.
Hinnebusch, "Dominican Biblical Studies," The History . .. , pp. 99 fl'.; Chenu,
Toward . .. , c. VII; Panofsky, Gothic Architecture . .. , pp. 6, 91; C. M. Dvorak,
Idealismus und Naturalismus in der gothischen Skulptur und Malerei (Munich,
1918); The Year 1200, 2 vols. (New York, 1970); K. Flasch, "Ars imitatur
naturam, Platonischer N aturbegrifl' und mittelalterliche Philosophie der Kunst,"
Studien zur Philosophie Platona (Frankfurt, 1964); L. White, "Natural Science
and Naturalistic Art in the Middle Ages," The American Historical Review, 52
(1947), 421 fl'.; A. Forest, La Structure metaphysique du concret selon S. Thomas
d'Aquin (Paris, 1956); E. Auerbach, Dante, Poet of the Secular World (Chicago,
69

70

1961).

722

THOMAS F. O'MEARA

papal influence. Aquinas was involved with all three camps
struggling for decisive power in the thirteenth century: student
and teacher in Louis's capital, relative to the Emperor, theologian and political theoretician to the papacy. Yet, why do
the merchants and the new urban middle class play such a
limited role in Aquinas's thought? Did the Dionysian, hierarchical writings exert a strongly conservative political influence
in the organization of both church and state? It is striking that
the Secunda Pars ends not with activities but with states of
life. There Aquinas comes dose to identifying office (ministry)
with a social role and life-style in a theology of ministry which
neither the New Testament nor our times can readily accept.
And yet, it is a normal cultural and theological realization for
his epoch.
We have .stressed harmony-within-diversity as a thoughtform. A third cultural factor related to this as its flesh and
blood is the synthetic interpenetration which Aquinas and his
entire society wove out of the spheres of "nature" and "grace."
His time saw a single world grounded not on ontology or science
(as real as these might be) but upon a dialectic between grace
and evil. This dialectic was both origin and ground for man
and angels, for science and history. Into that single view all
the essences and persons, the choirs of the angels and the signs
of the zodiac, all principles and logical nuances could be fitted.
The result of the re-entry of Aristotle's realism was not to set
up a dual world (theologians will ineptly accomplish that later)
but to highlight the entities and facets which compose our one
world. This real and individual world ultimately is delineated
by grace. As God, as the Spirit, as the Hypostatic Union, as
the New Law, grace surrounds not a forward-moving Teilhardian line, but, for the thirteenth century, the ellipse of life
manifest on earth and in society in areas of vertical order.
This one world art and theology both wished to freeze for
a moment-in the facade, in the rose window, in the tympanum,
or in the disputation, in the Summa.
THOMAS F. O'MEARA,

Aquinas Institute of Theology
Dubuque, Iowa

0. P.

CHARISM AND INSTITUTION IN AQUINAS

I

N THE YEARS approaching the Second Vatican Council
the great Dominican Yves Cougar spoke of one of the
difficulties of the generation as a false mystique among
many Christians-" The notion of a complete identification of
God's will with the institutional form of authority." 1 It is one
of the blessings of the Catholic community that, in large part,
it has moved away from that notion. Even some Protestants,
anxious over the loosening of the social fabric, occasionally echo
the misgivings of those Catholics who lament this change; they
ask why so effective a theology of authority has been abandoned. The fact is, of course, that a new generation of Catholics
has enlivened its awareness of a variously manifested charismatic presence of the Spirit in its midst.
We measure our progress in the valuing of charisms only in
terms of recent history because it would be enough to read
St. Thomas Aquinas on the relation of charism to the institutional form of authority to become aware that, in some
measure, our finest contemporary insights are matched in his
vision. What differences there are can help us assess the
strengths and the perils of today's ruling views.
There are differences, of course. One searches in vain for
Thomistic texts on the Church as institution. Discussions on
law, obedience, grace, the Incarnation, or the Sacraments would
be the appropriate contexts; but these do not yield the conception familiar to us as the institutional Church, such as gained
currency in the De Ecclesia treatises which entered the literary
tradition of theology as a reaction to the Gallicanism of the
early fourteenth century: And yet, the mystery of the Church
1 " The
Historical Development of Authority in the Church," Problems of
Authority, ed. John M. Todd, (Baltimore: Helicon, 196:'!), pp. 119-56, at p. 14J.
2 Yves Cougar, Lay People in the Chmch
(Westminster, Md.: Newman, 1957),

p. 37.

723

724

EMERO STIElGMAN

is at the heart of Thomas's thought. Charism, too, is not a
Thomistic term; we read, instead, of gratiae gratis datae
(gratuitous graces) .
Both authority in the Church and gratia gratis data are
treated extensively in the Summa Theologiae in the final section
of the Prima Secundae, qq. 90-114, devoted to consideration
of the extrinsic principles of human acts. The extrinsic principle
of good actions is God, who moves us to what is good in two
ways: by law (qq. 90-108) which directs us and by grace (qq.
109-114) which assists us. We have, then, two treatises, on law
and on grace.

I.

On law (institution) .

Rather than envision the Church as a kind of society whose
institution and structures are due to divine positive law (ius
divinum), St. Thomas reflects upon the nature and exercise
of law in general and sets what we call institutional elements in
the Church into this context. His inspiration moves away
from present-day controversies as to whether these institutional
elements are simply developments in accord with a divine commission (ius ecclesiasticum) or whether they are specific posi.,.
tive divine laws (ius divinum) .3 He seeks instead, wherever
possible, points of convergence between reason and faith-between Aristotle and the Scriptures.
Law, he tells us, is something pertaining to reason (I-II,
q. 90, a. 1); it is always directed to the common good (a. 2);
it is made either by the whole people or by a public personage
who has care of the whole people (a. 3). However, besides the
natural and the human law it was necessary for the directing
of human conduct to have a divine law, for man's eternal end
is beyond the proportions of his natural faculty (q. 91, aa.
1-4). The divine law is twofold, the Old Law and the New
Law, and this precisely because priesthood has been translated-from the Ievitical priesthood to the priesthood of Christ
3 See, for example, Karl Rahner, " Reflections on the Concept of ' ius divinum '
in Catholic Thought," Theological Investigations, V (Baltimore: Helicon, 1966),
pp. 219-43.

CHARISM AND INSTITUTION

IN AQUINAS

725

(a. 5). This New Law is chiefly the grace itself of the Holy
Spirit; as such it is written in the heart. But .secondarily the
New Law has things that dispose us to receive this grace;
hence it is also a written law (q. 106, a. 1). Christ of himself
instituted the Sacraments, says Thomas; and among the .seven
are" Orders of the ministers of the New Law, by the institution
of the Apostles and the seventy-two disciples" (q. 108, a. 2).
To the objection that the New Law was insufficiently determinate Thomas answers: " Our Lord left judicial precepts
to the discretion of those who were to have spiritual or temporal
charge of others" (a. 2 ad 4).
Considering the visible Church, with St. Thomas, in the frame
of law affords possibilities for discovering the ultimate promise,
legitimacy, and necessity of its societal dimensions-finer possibilities than will arise from the mere facticity that seems at
times to he associated with the concept of institution. For
example, the absence of discussion under some such rubric as
"ecclesiastical law" occasions the perception that ecclesiastical
law is merely an area of human law, but that as such it is a
determination of natural law/ which is a participation in eternal
law (.see I-II, q. 91, and II-II, q. 147, a. 3, concl.).
This proliferation of distinctions in the Scholastic manner
is, of course, far removed from the inclinations of present-day
thinking. But long after the distinctions have lost their savor,
they may still make clear that " a complete identification of
God's will with the institutional form of authority" 5 could
never claim the support of St. Thomas.
Authority is studied carefully in the Summa. It belongs
to the political order, which is natural to man (I-II, q. 72,
a. 4). The fact, then, that society spawns those who command and those who obey should be attributed, not to human
• St. Thomas's concept of natural law seems in no way to lend support to the
immense confidence of some in the possibilities of human reason to arrive at knowledge of the particular-a confidence which is assumed in later Scholastic casuistry.
See the remarks on the limitations of reason in relation to human law, at I-II, q.
91, a. 8.
• Cougar's useful formulation. See note 1, above.

EMERO STH1GMAN

sinfulness, but to the necessity of assuring the common
good. The naturalness of this situation was presented in
Aristotle's Politics (I, q. 96, a. 4), and it may be reasoned
according to a proper concept of law: "Just as the actions
of natural things proceed from natural powers ... so in human affairs also the higher must move the lower by their
will in virtue of a divinely established authority .... In virtue
of the order of natural and divine law, inferiors are bound to
obey their superiors" (II-II, q. 104, a. 1). The normal exercise
of authority, then, assumes a vertical operation in which superiority is conceived formally as the authority divinely givennot, however, in independence of spiritual gifts possessed by
the one in authority. "If one man surpassed another in knowledge and virtue, this would not have been fitting unless these
gifts conduced to the benefit of others, according to 1 Pet. 4: 10,
'As every man hath received grace, ministering the same one to
another.' Wherefore Augustine says (De Civ. Dei, 19.14): 'Just
men command not by the love of domineering, but by the
service of counsel.' And (ibid. 15), 'The natural order of things
requires this; and thus did God make man'" (I, q. 96, a. 4).
So balanced a conception of authority suggests one reason
why, in our day, Robert Maynard Hutchins speaks of the
Summa (at I-II, qq. 90-108) as "that greatest of all books
on the philosophy of law." 6 Before this, by force of the same
treatise, F. Kern (possibly with a surplus of ardor) pronounced
Aquinas "unquestionably the best student of civilization." 7
Interesting that in seeking out what Thomas has to say on the
institutional aspect of the Church we should encounter the
"philosophy of law" and the" student of civilization" ! Granting, of course, that under the rubric of law we encounter much
more than this-for example, a theology of the New Law-it
6 St. Thomas and the World State
(Milwaukee: Marquette University Press,
1949), p. 38. From p. 45, n. 3, it is clear that Hutchins, speaking of "the Treatise
on Law," refers to this section of the Summa.
• See Humana Civilitas (Staat, Kirche, und Kultur): Eine Dante Untersuchung
(Leipzig, 1913), p. l!'l!'l; cited by Martin Grabmann, Introduction to the Theological Summa of St. Thomas (St. Louis, Mo.: Herder, 1930), p. 175.

CHARISM AND INSTITUTION

IN AQUINAS

727

becomes evident that institution and the authority that is associated with it do not exhaust the saint's concept of that
saving mystery which is the Church.
II.

On Gratia gratis data (Charism) .

Besides the authority of law, seen in the institutional Church,
is there not an authority that springs from charism?
The charismata spoken of in I Cor. 12:8-10 are considered
by St. Thomas in a general way in his division of grace (I-II,
q. ll1, aa. 1, 4, 5), later in a particular way for each of the
nine charismata enumerated (II-II, qq. 171-179), in the context of the Incarnation at III, q. 7, and again in his commentary
on 1 Cor. Hl (cf. R. Garrigou-Lagrange, De Revelatione, I, p.
209). Most of what interests us here is contained in the treatise
on grace (I-II, qq. 109-ll4) immediately following the treatise
on law with which we have just occupied ourselves. Created
grace, we are told, is either internal or external; internal grace
is such thing as preaching, good example, and opportunities for
good action.
The appropriateness of the division of grace into sanctifying
grace and gratuitous grace (gratia gratis data) is studied at
I-II, q. ll1 a. 1. This first article endeavors to explain the
text of 1 Cor. 12: 8-ll, where St. Paul enumerates nine graces
gratis datae, followed by the great hymn to charity in I Cor.
13: 8
To one is given through the Spirit the utterance of Wisdom, and
to another the utterance of knowledge according to the same Spirit,
to another faith by the same Spirit, to another gifts of healing by
the one Spirit, to another the working of miracles, to another
prophecy, to another the ability to distinguish between spirits, to
another various kinds of tongues, to another the interpretation of
tongues. All these are inspired by one and the same Spirit, who
apportions to each one individually as he wills.

8 This observation,
obvious enough once attention is called to it-for example,
by Garrigou-Lagrange---is
of much significance. See Reginald Garrigou-Lagrange,
0. P. Grace: Commentary on the Summa theologica of St. Thomas, I• II••, qu.
109-14 (St. Louis, Mo.: Herder, 1952), pp. 150-51.

728

EMERO STIEGMAN

And I will show you a still more excellent way. If I speak with the
tongues of men and of angels, but have not love, I am a noisy
gong or a clanging symbol. And if I have prophetic powers, etc.
(1 Cor. 12: 8 ff.)
St. Thomas concludes: " Thus there is a twofold grace-one
whereby man himself is united to God, and this is called sanctifying grace [cf. love in 1 Cor.]; the other is that whereby one
man cooperates with another in leading him to God, and this
gift is called gratuitous grace [cf. charismata in 1 Cor.], since it
is bestowed on a man beyond the capability of nature, and beyond the merit of the person" (I-II, q. 111, a. 1). Both kinds
of grace are gratuitous, of course; but beyond the characteristic
of gratis datay which is generic, sanctifying grace adds something: It makes man pleasing to God (a. 1, ad 8).
The peculiar " authority " of charism would be, then, that
it is the Spirit who, through this special gift, acts upon the community. Thomas notes (a. 1) the words of I Cor. 12:7, "the
manifestations of the Spirit for the common good." The thought
is made explicit in the comment of Garrigou-Lagrange: " Grace
gratis data is per se primarily ordained to the salvation of
others, or ' unto profit' [for the common good]. Sanctifying
grace is per se primarily ordained to the salvation of the recipient, whom it justifies." 9 However, in one sense, the more a
grace destined for the community as such is disassociated from
the individual through whom it is mediated, the more immediately awareness of its origin is communicated. Then the Spirit
is seen to move in the Church.
Thomas, however, is not intent upon expanding the phenomenon of charism in the Church. Just as St. Paul cautioned
the Corinthians not to conceive a false esteem for astonishing graces, not to covet any but the charismata meliora, but
to follow the more excellent way of love, so Thomas is careful
to set strict conceptual boundaries to his gratiae gratis datae.
(The Thomistic use of Scripture here is certainly not ornamental.) An unusual gift of nature would be outside such
• Grace, p. 152.

CHARISM AND INSTITUTION

IN AQUINAS

729

boundaries; it belongs to human nature ex debito (a. 1, ad 2).
The nine charismata enumerated by St. Paul are argued to be
an exhaustive catalogue (see also De Revelationes I, p. 29) .
They are divided as they pertain to knowledge, to speech, or
to action (II-II, qq. 171-79) . Garrigou-Lagrange notes that
the division corresponds to the division of miracles in I, q. 105,
a. 8. Like miracles, the gratiae gratis datae are generally supernatural only with respect to the mode of their production. 10
Many commentators, however, believe that the catalogue in
1 Cor. 12 is an enumeration merely of the principal graces
gratis datae.11 Suarez, for example, adds the priestly character,
jurisdiction in the internal forum, and the special assistance
given to the Pope. 12 Today Karl Rahner speaks of " the
charism of infallibility," considering this as "the divine grace
of the office which is needed for its right exercise." 18
III.

Charism in a Broader Sense

This enlarging of the concept of charism seems, indeed, to
be sanctioned in precisely the Scriptural text of which Aquinas's
discussion is an elucidation. St. Paul tells us that in distributing
his charismata " God has appointed in the Church first apostles,
second prophets, third teachers, then workers of miracles, then
healers, helpers, administrators, speakers in various kinds of
tongues" (1 Cor. 12: 28). Broadly speaking, Thomas himself
provides the rationale for an enlarged view of gratiae gratis
datae when he includes among them" whatever a man needs ...
to instruct" (I-II, q. 111, a. 4) . But the fact remains that, in
dividing all internal grace into sanctifying and gratis data, he
seems to move in the direction of restricting gratiae gratis datae
rather severely. These gifts are not only not sanctifying (per
se and primarily) of the recipient, they are in no way due to
human nature and are supernatural in mode only. When we
Grace, pp. 158-59.
Garrigou-Lagrange cites Medina, Vasquez, Bellarmine, Suarez, and Ripalda.
See Grace, p. 154.
19 Quoted by Garrigou-Lagrange, Grace, p. 154.
18 See "The Episcopal Office," in Theological Investigations, VI
(Baltimore:
Helicon, 1969), pp. 313-60, at p. 316.
10

11

730

EMERO STIEGMAN

have sifted the notion of divine grace through this grid of distinctions, have we not been discouraged from perceiving those
individual talents which may be natural in substance or
modality as the Spirit's gift to the Church?
I have pointed out that Aquinas's direction here matches
in some way the cautions which St. Paul himself communicates
to the Christian Church regarding charismata. If the circumstances which Paul was addressing conditioned his manner, the
circumstances of Thomas's milieu are likewise a determinant of
his thought. Chenu rightly asks us to consider the work of
St. Thomas as expressing the experience of the medieval
Church. During the Middle Ages the ecclesiastical institution
included and formed human society. From the eleventh century on the established direction was a strong centrism. "Underlying the most novel political problems was the mystical
vision of resurrecting the Roman Empire with its universal
political ideal." 14 The " Renaissance " of the period moves on
the hinges not only of Aristotle's entrance into the University
of Paris in the thirteenth century but also of the entrance of
Roman law at Bologna in the twelfth. 15 After the death of
Thomas and Bonaventure it will become difficult to keep legal
values in balance, and treatises on the Church will, as Cougar
remarks, have the character of "a theology of ecclesiastical
authority," or of a "Hierarchology." 16 But excesses were not
yet manifest, and Thomas valued and exercised that mystical
prayer which, before the rise of Scholasticism, had been thought
of as the essence of theologia. The Christian experience expressed in his theology did not deal in authority to the exclusion of spiritual gifts. His age felt authority to be a manifestation of divine care for the Church. It did not seem necessary
to locate such care strictly outside those forces which held
society together. 17
14

M.-D. Chenu, 0. P., Toward Understanding Saint Thomas (Chicago: Regnery,

1964)' p. 25.

Chenu, p. 26.
Yves Congar, Lay People in the Church, pp. 88-89.
17 Chenu (Toward Understanding Saint Thomas) and Cougar are of immense
15

16

CHARISM AND INSTITUTION

IN AQUINAS

781

Noting, with many observers, the fact that Thomas's theologizing is rooted in experience, we can here call attention
once again to a certain distinction between Thomas and
Thomism. The genius transcends the school. To study creation
in terms of law is, it would seem, to cast creation in essentialist
modes of thought at variance with much of our contemporary
awareness. It would, indeed, be unobjective to claim for
Aquinas, with his Aristotelian bent, the perspective of today's
Process thinkers; nevertheless, no one more than the Process
theologian will appreciate the merit of viewing "institution"
in terms of law as revealed in experience. 18 Thomas's law has
a dynamism that commends it beyond the static essentialism
characterizing the Thomism of a later era; it escapes as well,
as I have said, the merely factual nature of institution. And
let me insist that the intent of these observations is neither
to build an apology for a supposed golden age of theology nor
to extol the genius of Aquinas but rather to offer the hopefully
useful reflection that our present-day views of authority in
the Chur.ch were in some way parallelled and are therefore
seconded in Aquinas's thought. Then as well as now, God is
seen as revealing himself in the flux of human experience. As
it is the experience of the Church today that a consciousness of
the Spirit at work in the whole Church needs to be reinforced,
so it was the Christian experience of the late Middle Ages that
a consciousness of the Spirit's presence in authority needed to
be strengthened. One need emphasizes charism, the other institution.
Each emphasis has its hazards. We have been able to point
help in understanding the state of thought about the Church in St. Thomas's day.
See Cougar on the mystique of authority and on political theology in Problems
of Authority, pp. 139-43; also, "The Idea of the Church in St. Thomas Aquinas,"
in The Mystery of the Church (London, 1960), pp. 97-117.
18 See E. H. Schillebeeckx, 0. P ., "The Second Vatican Council," in The Layman
in the Church and Other Essays (New York: Alba House, 1963), pp.
The
majority-minority tension at the Council, thinks Schillebeeckx, was not so much
a progressive-conservativ·e tension as an existentialist-essentialist one, where pastoml
experience encountered and resisted inclinations to articulate the faith more exactly in definitions (pp. 9-10).

EMERO STIEGMAN

to a "Hierarchology" as the danger of stressing the institutional dimension of the Church. But long ago the great Thomist
Cajetan was also able to unmask a tendency that thought of
charism as "more spiritual" than legitimate authority. 19
Today we broaden the notion of charism, moving away from
an extrinsicist view of the relation of nature and grace as two
separate layers of our being; so that what is broadened is our
concept of the scope of God's salvific action in the human race.
The roots of this thought are what is referred to as Transcendental Thomism. 2° Catholic insights on the relation of grace
and nature, says Rahner, resemble the thought of St. Thomas
more closely than they resemble later theologizing. We repeat
Thomas's concept of a "desiderium naturale visionis beatificae "-an expression that witnesses to an era which not only
antedated more precise terminology but also thought more
deeply about uncreated grace than did post- Tridentine theology.21 But if we should discover in ourselves an inclination
to oppose charism to institution, considering one as the touchstone of the Spirit to the excluding or diminishing of the other,
will we not have discovered how dimly possessed is the insight
in the strength of which we broaden the sense of charism?
Conclusion
The following assertions may sum up our presentation: (1)
There are useful associations to be made concerning the fact
that Aquinas treats our present-day dichotomy of charism
and institution under the rubrics of gratuitous grace and law.
(2) He does not separate the institutional form of authority
from other gifts of the Spirit. The model may be found in the
Scriptural text which presents the charisms (1 Cor.
; this
model is St. Paul himself, who takes his stand, not on his juriSee Garrigou-Lagrange, Grace, pp. 16fl-63.
•• See a brief discussion of the meaning, origins, and recent history of Transcendental Thomism in Gregory Baum, Man Becoming: God in Secular Experience (New
York: Herder and Herder, 1971), pp. fl5-fl7.
21 This summarizes a reflection of Karl Raimer in Nature and Grace (New York:
Sheed and Ward, 1964), pp. 119-flfl.
19

CHARISM AND INSTITUTION

IN AQUINAS

733

dical rights but on his spiritual gifts. 22 (3) In the Summa the
description given of charism is more restrictive than in our
time. In this Thomas is led by the cautions of St. Paul to the
Corinthian Church and by the experience of the medieval
Church. (4) Both charism and institution are given for the
community. They stand in balance, not in antagonism. Both
are manifestations of the one Spirit.
EMERO STIEGMAN

Saint Mary's University
Halifax, Nova Scotia

90

This is the reflection of Congar in Problems of Authority, p.

TRANSUBSTANTIATION

1

I

F IT IS TRUE that God has loved the world so much
that he has given to it the bodily presence of his Only Son,
may we not conclude that he will love the world enough
to leave to it the bodily presence of this same Only Son? From
the opposite point of view, when the intellect acknowledges the
mystery of the Incarnation, yet takes exception to the belief
of Chalcedon, how could it reject the mystery of the Eucharist,
but fail to challenge the teaching of Trent?
I. The Why of Transubstantiation
" The bread that I shall give is my flesh,
for the life of the world." (John 6:51)
1. Scripture sees in the death of Jesus the supreme sacrifice,

in which the redemption of the world is accomplished: " He
gave himself for us as an offering and a sacrifice to God" (Eph.
5:
"He has offered one single sacrifice for sins, and then
taken his place forever at the right hand of God" (Heb. 10:
"We were reconciled to God by the death of his Son" (Rom.
5: 10). "God has reconciled all things through him, in making
peace through the blood of his Cross" (Col. 1:
The redemptive sacrifice extends to all men of the past and the future;
it saved the preceding ages by anticipation: the divine helps
were offered to each person in view of the future sacrifice of
the Cross. And by derivation it saved the ages that followed
it: the divine helps are now given through the completed sacrifice of the Cross. "And when I am lifted up from the earth,
.
I shall draw all men to myself" (Jn.
Into this sacrifice men are asked to enter: not indeed
to increase its value, which is infinite, but to receive from it its
purifying power.
1

Summa Theol., ill, q. 75, a.

734

TRANSUBSTANTIATION

735

Fundamentally, we enter into participation of the sacrifice
of Jesus by the assent of faith and love-of the great love which
is charity. And, where the Gospel has not been preached, that
can take place in a most hidden way; as soon as a heart opens
in secret to the predisposing and redemptive lights of the Cross.
But the express intention of God, as manifested in Scripture,
is especially to invite all men to a visible and cultural participation in the sacrifice of the Cross, a participation in no way
destined to dismiss faith or love, but rather to draw their unitive
capabilities to the highest degrees.
In the Old Law there existed a form of sacrifice to which the
Jews united themselves, not simply by intention but even more
by the personal eating of the victim, to signify that one was
offering himself together with victim. " Those who eat the
sacrifices are in communion with the altar" (I Cor. 10: 18) .
Such sacrifices were called " sacrifices of communion."
3. The sacrifice of the New Law is to be of this kind. The
Savior's intention is clear. There is nothing fortuitous in the coincidence of the Last Supper with the Jewish Feast of Passover.
It means that the Jewish Passover must give way to a more
mysterious Passover that it was prefiguring. The Jewish Passover was the sacrificial offering of a lamb to which one united
himself by eating it, in recognition of God's goodness in delivering his people from the captivity of Egypt so as to enable them
to enter the Promised Land. It prefigured the sacrificial offering
of Christ, the spotless Lamb (I Peter 1: 19). To this sacrifice
we are united by communion, and by it mankind is delivered
from sin and introduced to the peace of God. The Council of
Trent tells us that, after having celebrated the ancient Passover, Christ instituted the new Passover: "in memory of his
passage from this world to the Father, when he redeemed us
by the shedding of his blood, he rescued us from the power of
darkness, and brought us into his kingdom " (Denz.-Sch. no.
1741). The connection between the Last Supper and the Jewish
Passover is clearly indicated in Scripture. At nightfall Jesus
said to his disciples: "I have longed to eat this passover with
you before I suffer" (Lk. 22: 15) . And St. Paul exhorts the

786

CHARLES CARDINAL JOURNET

Corinthians to purify themselves from sin at the approach of
the festival of Passover: " for Christ, our Passover, has been
sacrificed " (I Cor. 5: 7)
But is a "sacrifice of communion " possible, when the Lamb
has taken the place of the lamb?
4. We are coming close to the answer to the question we
have raised, that of the why of Transubstantiation. There is
but one sacrifice through which we may be saved, and that
is the bloody sacrifice of the Cross. It had already begun when
Jesus instituted the Last Supper, "on the night in which he
It was completed on the Cross,
was betrayed" (I Cor. 11:
where "all is accomplished" (Jn. 19: 30) . At the Last Supper,
in order that the Apostles might unite themselves to this sacrifice, not only by faith and love but even more by partaking of
the victim, Jesus deliberately makes himself mysteriously
present under the appearances of bread and wine and gives himself to them as food. He wishes to be eaten by the Apostles
at the very moment of his gr:eat desire to save the world by his
sacrifice; at the very moment in which he is being consumed
by the fire he wishes to light on the earth (Lk.
49) . And
he who eats a desire is consumed by this desire; he who eats
fire is consumed by the fire.
5. The sacrifice by which all mankind is redeemed is a
" sacrifice of communion."
It continues from the Last Supper to the death on the Cross.
At the moment of the Last Supper we are shown how we can
participate in it by consumption of the victim. At the moment
of the death on the Cross WJe see in what we are participating
by consuming what is concealed under the appearances of bread
and wine.
"The Lord's Banquet," yes, but one calculated to immerse us
actively in "the Lord's Sacrifice."
II. Transubstantiation
" Do this as a memorial of me." (Lk.

19)

1. The holy Council of Trent teaches and professes " that,

TRANSUBSTANTIATION

737

after the consecration of the bread and wine, our Lord Jesus
Christ, true God and true man, is contained truly, really, and
substantially under the likeness (specie) of these sensible
things. There is actually no contradiction between the fact
that our Lord is forever seated at the right hand of the Father
in heaven according to the manner of existence natural to him,
and the fact that for us, nevertheless, he is, in numerous other
places, sacramentally present in his substance, according to
a manner of existence that we scarcely find words to express,
but which our understanding, enlightened by faith, can at the
same time acknowledge, and which we must firmly believe to
be a thing possible to God" (Denz.-Sch. no. 1686) . And this
is the corresponding canon, promulgated on the same date,
October 11, 1551: "If anyone should deny that in the Sacrament of the most holy Eucharist ar:e contained truly, really,
and substantially, the body and blood, soul and divinity of our
Lord Jesus Christ, and consequently the whole Christ, but if
one declares that they are present only by sign or figure or by
power, let him be anathema" (ibid., no. 1651).
2. We are speaking of one single Christ, present in heaven
after the Ascension under his proper and natural appearances,
who, without leaving heaven, or changing in any way, or
losing any of his splendor, makes himself present, as he does
here below under the very humble appearances of bread and
wine, when the words of consecration are pronounced. We insist on this point: it is accomplished without his leaving
heaven. To imagine Christ departing from heaven in order to
make himself present in the small hosts consecrated by the
priest would lead us to manifest impossibilities. But would
departure be the only manner of arriving really at a place
where one was not formerly present?
8. There does exist a most mysterious way that would permit a being, without undergoing a shadow of change, to arrive,
in a most profound manner, where he had not been previously.
It is primarily thus that God makes himself present in his
creation, the Word in the Incarnation, the Holy Spirit in justification. Let us examine this manner of presence rather briefly.

738

CHARLES CARDINAL JOURNET

God was not in the world before the world existed. Divine
omnipotence was necessary in some fashion to draw the world
out of nothingness; it is still necessary to maintain the world
in existence. What a reality is this creative and conservative
presence of God to the world! It operates without the possibility of the slightest ripple appearing in the Ocean of the
divine Being. The world began in dependence on God, and
God in no way depends upon the world; the theologians express
this by stating that there is a real relation of dependence of the
world on God, but that the opposite is not true. We can underscore the freedom and generosity of God's initiative by stating
that he has created by an act of his omnipotence; but, in order
to remind ourselves that this act has changed nothing in him,
we must have recourse to some sort of image as: God has,
as it were, summoned the world to himself; he has, so to speak,
breathed it forth out of nothingness.
A parallel of this is to be encountered in the mystery of the
Incarnation. Without leaving the right hand of the Father,
the Word was made flesh, so that he might dwell among us;
he made his own the human nature that was formed in the
womb of the Virgin Mary. Preexisting together with the
Father, he begins to exist outside the Father, without changing,
in a human nature, by drawing this human nature to himself,
by assuming it-the term employed by theology-in such a
way that it is he, the Word, who really, personally, will be
born, crucified, who will rise in this human nature.
This is the only means in which the mystery of the Incarnation is rendered possible; and it is not at all as a contradiction
of this truth that in the Creed we acknowledge that the Word,
" for us and for our salvation, came down from heaven."
Rather, it is to glorify the utter freedom of his initiative and
to adore with St. Paul the humiliations which it will entail
(Phil.
.
Finally, there is the further parallel in the mystery of justification. When a man passes from the life of sin to the life of
grace, the Holy Spirit descends on him, the divine Persons draw
near him: " If anyone loves me ... my Father will love him,

TRANSUBSTANTIATION

739

and we shall come to him and make our home with him" (Jn.
14: 23) What a transformation this works in the heart of this
man! But the change takes place only in him: if from within
your boat you pull on the mooring rope, you may believe that
the cliff is approaching you.
A presence of creation in the universe, a presence of indwelling in souls and in the Church, a presence of Incarnation
in Christ, head of the Church: these three presences are
thoroughly real, but in each the change is uniquely that of
things to God, and not inversely. One who has not reflected
on these three mysteries is incapable of understanding anything
of the mode of Christ's presence in the Eucharist.
4. For,-and her.ein lies the mystery proper to the Eucharist-when the words of consecration are pronounced, Christ,
seated at the right hand of the Father, becomes wholly present
here below-in his body, his blood, his soul and divinitywithout any change of his being, but with the sole, utterly
profound, change into him of bread and wine.
"The Lord Jesus, on the night he was betrayed, took bread,
and, after he had given thanks, broke it and said: ' This is
my body, which is for you; do this as a memorial of me'" (I Cor.
11: 23-24). The whole of divine omnipotence brings about what
the words signify. What was bread becomes the body of the
Lord Jesus, who, on the evening of the Last Supper, offered
himself in the redemptive sacrifice which then began, of that
Jesus who now sits in the glory of the Father: his body is indissolubly united to the divine Person, it is the body of the
Word incarnate.
If we were to delimit the translation as narrowly as possible,
we would have: "This is the very body of mine ... This is
the very blood of mine . ... " It is folly to separate, in the
Eucharist as in the Incarnation, bodily presenee and personal
presence.
The literal sense of the words demands that what Jesus
presents to his disciples should no longer be bread but only
his body. Yet nothing is changed as far as appearances go: this
is a truth of experience. Weight, color, taste, resistance to

740

CHARLES CARDINAL JOURNET

touch, properties and functions, remain the same. The senses
that perceive only phenomena continue without deception to
perceive bread and wine; but to these appearances is communicated a new, non-perceptible, reality, of which faith alone
permits us to be aware, namely, that the power of the words
of consecration has not annihilated but rather converted the
bread and wine into the body and blood of Jesus.
Let us consider for a moment the things about us. To us
they appear structured. Under the empirical activities which
manifest them exteriorly in space and time and by which they
affect our senses, the human intellect spontaneously discerns
what is its proper object, namely, being, substance, the existing
subject which sustains them. These empirical activities are
by nature inseparable from the subject that they disclose; but
they are distinct from it, they; are not confused with it. Only
an intervention of the Omnipotence by which all things have
been made could disunite them. And this miracle is precisely
what occurs in the Eucharist.
What is it then that takes place at the moment of consecration? The empirical activities, the externals, or the
sensible appearances of bread are not touched. The inmost
being of the bread-of this mixture which is bread-is detached
from it by the effect of divine omnipotence, so as not to be
annihilated but " changed," " converted " into the body of the
Lord, who, according to the manner of existence that is proper
and natural to him, dwells unchanged in heaven, but who, by
this fact, is moreover made present under the borrowed appearances of bread. There are not two Christs, but two modes
of presence of the one Christ: one " natural," in the glory of
heaven, the other" sacramental, under the veil of the externals
or empirical activities of bread. "This," which WAS bread, IS
now the body of the Lord. And what enveloped the bread, now
envelops the body of the Lord. Only the veil of the appearances
separates us from the radiance of his glory.
5. There is, at the end of the Mass in the Coptic rite of
Alexandria, the following solemn profession of faith in the Real
Presence:

TRANSUBSTANTIATION

741

"Amen, Amen, Amen, I believe, I believe, I believe. To the
last br:eath of my life, I will confess that this is the life-giving
body of your Only Son, our Lord and our God, of our Savior
Jesus Christ. He has taken this body from our Lady and our
Queen, the most pure Mother of God. He has united it to his
divinity without mingling, fusion, or alteration. . . . I believe
that his divinity has never, for a single instant, been separated
from his humanity. It is he who is given to us for the remission
of sins, for eternal life and eternal salvation! I believe, I believe, I believe that all this is true!"
6. For one who rejects transubstantiation and affirms the
persistence of the bread, what are the words of consecration
going to signify? Their sense will no longer be: "This, which
was bread, is my body," but: "This, which is br:ead, which
remains bread, is my body; " " This, which I hold in my hands
to offer to you, TOGETHER WITH my body, are both ONE."
According to this view, the body of Christ, superimposed on
the bread, in some manner affects it, " eclipses " it, " takes it
to itself," fuses togther with it, is identified with it. How are
we to understand this identification?
Luthe1· understood it in a real way: the very body of Christ
suffuses itself within the bread, is encountered under every fragment of the bread: "Although the body and the bread are two
different natures, each directed to itself, and although, when
they are separated from one another, the one certainly is not
the other, when they are reunited and become a new complete
being, they lose their differences in all that pertains to this new,
unique, being .... For now it is no longer a simple matter of
bread in the oven, but of bread-flesh, bread-body, that is, of
bread become one single sacramental thing with the body of
Christ." 2
For Calvin, the bread is here below, and the body of Christ
is in heaven. Their identification can thus be only one of the
• Oeuvres, VI, pp. 127-8 (Labor et Fides: Geneve, 1969). This treatise: Confession
about the Last Supper of Christ, which dates from 1528, " constitutes the last
word of Luther in his controversy with Zwingli and his school," ibid, p. 7.

742

CHARLES CARDINAL JOURNET

order of sign- (before the reredos of Grunewald at Colmar you
say to me: Behold, Christ in glory.) Calvin writes: "We must
not seek Jesus Christ, insofar as he is man, anywhere but in
heaven; nor dare we seek him in any other way but in spirit
and faith. Hence, it is a wicked and perv.erse superstition to
enclose him under the elements of this world. Therefore we
reject as bad expositors of Scripture those who rigorously insist
on the literal sense of these words: This is my body, this is
my blood. For we hold as generally known that these words
must be interpreted sanely and with discretion: that is, that
the names of what the bread and wine signify are attributed
to them. And this view must not be found novel or strange,
that, by a figure called metonymy, the sign bears the name of
the truth of which it is a figure, seeing that such modes of speaking are more frequent in Scripture." 3
It is Luther, even more than the Catholics, whom Calvin
blames in this matter: " But we do not consider it less of an
absurdity to enclose Jesus Christ under the bread, or to conjoin
him to the bread, than to say that the bread may be transubstantiated into his body." 4 It detracts from the heavenly glory
of Christ, 5 and from his Ascension. 6
7. In its second Canon, the Council of Trent has rejected
the thesis which claims " that, in the Holy Sacrament of the
Eucharist, the substance of bread and wine remains together
with the body and blood of our Lord Jesus Christ, and which
denies this marvelous and singular conversion of the entire substance of the bread into the body and the entire substance o£
• Accord passed and concluded touching the matter of the Sacraments between
the Ministers of the Church of Zurich and Master John Calvin, Minister of the
Church of Geneva, August 1, 1549, in Recueil des Opuscules (Geneve, 1566), p.
• Ibid.
5 Ibid.
6 " Far from resting on an identity
between sign and signified, the Sacrament
of the Eucharist adds to the relation between sign and signified the relation of
cause to effect and assumes the intervention of the First Cause, who produces
the most radical change that can be conceived, a change that attains to being as
being." .J. Maritain, Signe et Symbole, in Quatre Essais sur l'esprit dans sa condition charnelle (Paris, 1939), p. 89.

TRANSUBSTANTIATION

743

the wine into the blood; which does not acknowledge that there
subsists only the appearances of the bread and wine,manentibus dumtaxat speciebus panis et vini-a conversion
that the Catholic Church calls by the very appropriate name
of transubstantiation" (Denz.-Sch. no. 1652) .
Jesus did not say: This contains my body; nor: This signifies my body. He did say: This is my body.
III. The Bodily Presence of Jesus
" Could you not stay awake with me
for even an hour? " (Matthew 26: 40)
1. Without transubstantiation there would be in the Eucharist only bTead and wine, by means of which we might seek to
be united to Christ, present only in heaven. Transubstantiation alone makes possible our union with Christ's sacrifice, not
simply by faith and love but even more by the consumption of
the victim, present under the sacramental signs: " He who
eats my flesh and drinks my blood lives in me, and I live in
him" (Jn. 6: 56) .
The union by eating and assimilation, wherein the living
being changes into himself what he consumes, is the most intimate union observable in the world of sensible things. If this
is willed here by Christ,-yet, in that case, it will be he, the
Living Being, who does the assimilating-it is to make of this
action, by his omnipotence, the sign and instrument of a contact in which, at every occurrence, the union of love of the
fervent soul with the redemptive Passion can be deepened and
intensified. These sensible encounters with the Savior are always brief. They last for the time of a liturgy, that of the
Mass, where Christ in glory touches us through his bloody
Cross; and the bodily presence of the Savior in those who
ceive communion lasts but the space of time during which the
sacramental species are still unaltered. But such visits are like
flashes of fire. They invite us to follow the Apostles as on the
evening of the Last Supper they •entered into the drama of the
world's Redemption.

744

CHARLES CARDINAL JOURNET

2. If there be no transubstantiation, once the action of the
eucharistic liturgy is completed, only bread remains on the
altar table. After the accomplishment of the liturgical action,
transubstantiation alone enables Christ, God-made-flesh, to be
carried in communion to the absent and the sick, and to be
conserved, with great reverence, so that he might be given for
one last time in viaticum to the dying.
3. The passage of the centuries will manifest a constant
progress made by the Church in its deepening awareness of the
radiance cast on it by the silent, bodily, presence of Christ, its
Head, under the sacramental sign.
4. Such a deepening awareness of Christ's bodily presence
in our midst, such an intuitive and experiential knowledge of
faith and love, will lead us to a more attentive study of the
Gospel texts.
We know Jesus' mysterious promise concerning the prayer
that is certainly heard by the heavenly Father: "Where two
or three are gather:ed together in my name, I am there in their
midst" (Mt. 18: 20) . This is a promise that is valid until the
end of time. It concerns a spiritual presence among us, in faith
and love, of Jesus who is now in heaven and is bodily distant
from us. But in this very presence an event can be produced
to deepen fervor, and that is the bodily presence of Jesus.
It was actually in the name of Jesus and in a spirit of faith
and love that the anxious disciples gathered together in the
Cenacle on Easter evening, all the doors being closed. But
suddenly, "Jesus came and stood among them. He said to
them: 'Peace be with you!' Saying this, he showed them his
hands and his side" (Jn. 20: 19-20). "Eight days later, the
disciples again were in the house, and Thomas was with them.
The doors were closed but Jesus came in and stood among them
and said: 'Peace be with you! ' Then he spoke to Thomas:
'Put your finger here; look, here are my hands; stretch out
your hand and put it into my side: do not doubt any longer,
but believe! Thomas replied: ' My Lord and my God!' " (20:
26-8)

At Emmaus, on the very evening of Easter, "while he was

TRANSUBSTANTIATION

745

at table with them, Jesus took the bread and said the blessing;
then he broke it and gave it to them. Then their eyes were
opened, and they recognized him. But he vanished from their
sight" (Lk.
SO-l). It is the shock of this bodily presence,
suddenly revealed and recognized, that Rembrandt in his own
way attempts to communicate to us.
The spiritual presence of Jesus accompanies and protects the
disciples gathered in his name at the lakeshore of Tiberias. But,
after a night of fruitless fishing, what bewilderment they felt
when, at dawn, they suddenly recognized Jesus on the shore.
"The disciple whom Jesus loved said to Peter: 'It is the Lord! '
At these words: ' It is the Lord! ' Simon Peter clothed himself, for he was stripped, and jumped into the water" (Jn. 9ll:
7).
5. How strange is the conduct of Jesus at the time of the
sickness and death of Lazarus! At Bethany, Lazarus was ill.
"The two sisters thus sent word to Jesus: 'Lord, the man you
love is ill. . . . Jesus loved Martha and her sister and Lazarus.
Yet, when he learned that Lazarus was ill, he remained for
two more days at the place where he was. Only then did he
say to the disciples: 'Let us go to Judea.' His disciples said
to him: 'Rabbi, it is not long since the Jews wanted to stone
you! are you going back again?'" (Jn. 11: S-9) The spiritual
presence of Jesus to his friends in Bethany is intense. But why,
after learning of the condition of Lazarus, does he prolong the
separation? The reason he gives to his disciples is quite surprising: "Lazarus is dead, and for your sake I am glad that I
was not there, so that you may believe. But let us go to him "
(14-15) . The Gospel continues: "When Martha learned of
the arrival of Jesus, she went to meet him, while Mary remained
sitting in the house. Martha said to Jesus: 'Lord, if you had
been here, my brother would not have died.'" Jesus did not
deny it. "Then she went off to call her sister Mary. She
whispered to her: ' The Master is here and wants to see you.'
When Mary had heard this, she got up quickly and went to
him. Jesus had not yet come into the village: he was still at
the place where Martha had met him. . . . When Mary had

746

CHARLES CARDINAL JOURNET

arrived at the place where Jesus was, she threw herself at his
feet and said to him: ' L01·d, if you had been here 1 my brother
would not be dead.' When Jesus saw her weeping, together with
the Jews who had accompanied her, he groaned, and was
troubled in spirit .... " (20-33) The mystery of what Christ's
bodily presence can add to his spiritual presence of faith and
love is here unveiled for us. The Evangelist of the Word-madeflesh unceasingly draws our attention to this point.
6. The bodily presence of Christ in glory is to be found even
in the most unpretentious chapel, where he is waiting. And
it remains true, in a sense, to say that he is there in agony until the end of the world, amid the storms of history, and that
we dare not sleep during this time.
Must a reproach still be directed to us: " So, you could not
stay awake with me for even a hour? " (Mt. 26: 40)
CHARLES CARDINAL JouRNET

Grand Seminaire
Fribourg, Switzerland

NOTE ON THE REFORMABILITY OF
DOGMATIC FORMULAS

C

AN DOGMATIC formulas-such as "one nature three
persons," " one person two natures," " transubstantiation," etc.-be changed, or are they untouchable? The
hitherto prevalent opinion among traditional theologians was
that they are definitive and unchangeable. The recent Dec·laration of the Sacred Congregation for the Doctrine of the
Faith " in defence of the Catholic doctrine on the Church
against certain errors of the present day," dated June
1973,'
proposes an important change in the official doctrine on this
point.

I. A New Teaching
In its section 5 on "The notion of the Church's infallibility
not to be falsified," it is said first that dogmatic formulas of
the Church's Magisterium "were from the beginning suitable
for communicating revealed truth," and that " as they are, they
remain forever suitable for communicating this truth to those
who interpret them correctly." That is, the meaningfulness of
these formulas is reaffirmed for the past as well as for the
present and the future on condition however that they be " interpreted correctly " : this additional clause is not unimportant. For those who are unable to interpret the formulas correctly, they are no longer meaningful.
More important is what follows: some changes were made
by way of " suitable expository and explanatory additions " in
order " to maintain and clarify their original meaning " : in
such manner the ancient dogmatic formulas could " remain
1

AAS 65 (1973) 396-408.

747

748

P. DELETTER

living and fruitful in the habitual usage of the Church." This
means to say that the formulas needed explanation and interpretation in order to remain faithful to the original meaning.
Shall we say that this is nothing else but the normal way of
"dogmatic progress"? Under the pressure of deeper questioning and understanding arising partly from external changes
and influences, partly from new philosophical linguistic or religious insights, " distinctions " were proposed to delimit a statement and narrow down the meaning of the terms so as to
preclude misunderstanding. This is what happened, e. g., to
the aphorism: Outside the Church no salvation: which has
come to mean today: no salvation without (visible or invisible)
connection with the Church.
The Declaration goes on, and here it breaks new ground in
official documents: " It has sometimes happened that in this
habitual usage of the Church certain of these formulas gave
way to new expressions which, proposed and approved by the
Sacred Magisterium, presented m01'e clearly and more completely the same meaning." In other words, ancient dogmatic
formulas were set aside and gave way to new expressions in
order to keep the same meaning.
We are here faced with a new official teaching, one which
today is the crux of the rethinking of doctrine and dogma that
is going on the Church. In order to maintain the same meaning
in the expressions of the faith, it was necessary at times (and
so may be necessary again) to replace the ancient dogmatic
formulas by new expressions. The reason is obvious: the meaning of concepts and words evolves with the changing times. The
accepted dogmatic formulas, because they are ancient, may fail
to convey to our contemporaries the meaning they had for the
people of the time when they were coined. They then should
give way to new expressions. This was done at times in the
past, the Declaration says, and the new expressions were " proposed and approved by the Sacred Magisterium." In the postVatican II time of rethinking dogma, initiated by the Council
and continued in postconciliar theology, similar changes are
likely to happen again.

THE REFORMABILITY

OF DOGMATIC FORMULAS

749

II. Changing dogmatic formulas and " dogmatic relativism"
Some theologians may ask: Does the advocated change of
dogmatic formulas include the danger and error of " dogmatic
relativism " ? The phrase refers to what Pius XII had stigmatized as unacceptable more than twenty years ago, in the
Encyclical Humani generis.2 The Declaration mentions the
error, but not in reference to the proposed change but to something else.
The proposed change of dogmatic formulas is based on the
inherent inadequacy of every dogmatic formula, as explained
in the Declaration. This results from two facts: first, every
conceptual expression of a mystery remains " concealed by the
veil of faith," it inevitably uses terms in an anological sense,
there are no direct and proper concepts of what is mystery;
second, every such expression of a mystery or dogma is placeand time-conditioned. For these reasons, what in the ancient
dogmatic formulas was " first expressed incompletely (but not
falsely)" can later receive" a fuller and more complete expression." But the meaning " remains ever true and constant in
the Church."
Dogmatic relativism is something different. It is mentioned
in the Declaration to designate two opinions regarding the
inability of dogmatic formulas to express revealed truth definitely. The first is described as stating that "dogmatic formulas cannot signify the truth in a determinate way, but can only
offer changeabl.e approximations to it, which to a certain extent
distort or alter it." The second says that dogmatic formulas
"signify the truth only in an indeterminate way, this truth
being like a goal that is constantly being sought by such
approximations." It is these opinoons that involve dogmatic
relativism.
In fact, the above-mentioned inevitable inadequacy of dogmatic formulas does not mean to say that these formulas "to
an extent distort and alter " the truth, i.e., are partly true and
• AAS 42 (1950) 561-578.

750

P. DELETTER

partly false (to say this implies dogmatic relativism) .3 No,
the formulas express the truth incompletely but " not falsely" ;
what they express is correct and true. But they can be completed by explanatory additions or even be replaced by a new
way of expressing the truth, one which maintains the previous
meaning or understanding (which was not false) but which
states more clearly or fully the true meaning of the dogmatic
formulas. As the Declaration puts it, "the meaning of dogmas ... is determinate and unalterable," i.e., while the formulation can be changed, the meaning cannot.
Accordingly, to admit that dogmatic formulas can be perfected or even replaced by new expressions, while fully preserving the traditional meaning, is not dogmatic relativism.
Nor is it the same as to say that truth is never reached but
only changeable approximations to it are. Truth is reached,
but only partially; what is stated is true but incomplete.
Does the teaching of the Declaration imply that every dogmatic formula is perfectible and ever replaceable by another
expression? Humani generis formerly seemed to say clearly that
some dogmatic formulas are not r.eplaceable by another. 4 The
Declaration insinuates this universal application of the new
teaching without stating it explicitly. It only says that " certain
of these formulas gave way to new expressions ... which
presented more clearly and more completely the same meaning."
This statement does not exclude that the same could happen
to other, if not all, dogmatic formulas. Actually, the inherent
inadequacy of every dogmatic formula would seem to include
its perfectibility and even replaceability by another expression.
This conclusion was not accepted by Pius XII 5 nor, apparently,
by Paul VI, so far. 6
If these comments ar.e correct, it is right to say that we are
• Ibid.
• Ibid., 569.
5 Ibid.
• Ency. Mysterium Fidei (AAS 57 [1965] 757 ff.) referred to in no. 37 of the
Declaration.

THE REFORMABILITY

OF DOGMATIC FORMULAS

751

given in the Declaration a new teaching, a new understanding
of the inevitable inadequacy of every dogmatic formulation.

III. A Question of words?
After reading the above some may raise the question: is
there a real difference between saying: dogmatic formulas are
definite and they express truth, but they are .ever perfectible
and eventually replaceable by new expressions-this is accepted
by the Declaration; and saying: dogmatic formulas are only
" changeable approximations " to the truth " which to a certain
extent distort and alter it"; they signify the truth only in an
indeterminate way, truth being a goal constantly sought (but
not reached) by means of such approximations-which is rej.ected as "not avoiding dogmatic relativism" ?
Does it not look as though the first statement said in other
words that dogmatic formulas are only " changeable approximations " to the truth, since they are inevitably inadequate and
essentially perfectible and replaceable? Is that not the same
as to say: they are only approximations? A question of words
only?
No, there is a difference and an important one. The first
statement (acceptable) says that dogmatic formulas express
the truth (of a mystery), really but only incompletely and
imperfectly. They are true (and not partly false and partly
true). The second statement means to say that these" changeable approximations " to the revealed truth always distort and
alter it, i. e., they are partly true and partly false. This is not
correct. Dogmatic formulas do not include falsehood, they are
true in what they express, though unable to express the whole
of the revealed truth. Therein lies the difference.
A concrete example that is well-known may clarify the issue.
Hans Kung's way of speaking about .errors in the dogmas which
were corrected afterwards, and his reproach to the Church's
magisterium of never acknowledging errors, imply a stand that
is based on dogmatic relativism. What is false in a dogmatic
formula is to be corrected afterwards. This position does not

F. DE LE'r'rER

hold good when what actually happens (in dogmatic development) is this: what was absent or unexpressed in a dogmatic
formula or statement is added afterwards: the expression of
the revealed truth is completed (but nothing that was false
is corrected, there was nothing false in it) . No correction of an
error but a fuller expression of the truth is what is at stake.
Traditional theologians will suggest that at the root of the
difference lies the acceptance or rejection of a valid analogical
knowledge, a knowledge which is true while of necessity being
incomplete.
Moreover, to prevent an overstr.ess of the new teaching on
the changeableness of dogmatic formulas, we may recall here
that the conceptual formulation of a point of faith is of relative
importance. More decisive than " intellectual assent" to a
formula or statement is the commitment to Christ the Revealer
of the whole person, mind and heart and will. Mental assents
are included in this life-attitude, and the accurateness of the
statements and formulas is important to the extent that inaccuracies are liable to mar the fulness and genuineness of the
faith as personal commitment.

IV. Rethinking Doctrine
If the above conclusions are warranted, then, while keeping
in mind the insistence of the Declaration on preserving unaltered the meaning of dogmatic formulas which is to remain
the same in the eventual new expressions of it, we have here
an important principle regarding the rethinking of doctrine
and dogma. This means that no particular mystery of the faith,
or rather its dogmatic formulation, is a priori excluded from
the need of being rethought or revised in its expression for our
day. The task may be difficult and not without risk regarding
the faith. Nor should it be done rashly or hurriedly: much
time and thought are needed and no less faith and wisdom. It
should nevertheless be attempted. Which means to say that
onlookers and critics should show understanding and charity
towards theologians who attempt the task. In doing so, they
would give proof of faith and knowledge of the faith, as well

THE REFORMABILITY

OF DOGMATIC FORMULAS

753

as o£ openness to the needs, both intellectual and spiritual, o£
our contemporaries.
For this reason it may have been worth while to stress this
new teaching o£ the Declaration. For it is a clear proof that
this act o£ the Congregation £or the Doctrine o£ the Faith,
while being a warning against errors,-needed no doubt and to
be welcomed,-should also be an incentive to further investigation o£ the riches o£ Christ who is the summary o£ our faith.

P. DELETTER, s. J.
St. Albert's College
Rancki, India

THE NOTION OF EFFICIENT CAUSE
IN THE SECUNDA VIA

M

UCH OF THE literature on Thomas's secunda via,
both that produced by his friends and that produced by his enemies, seems to proceed on the assumption that " efficient cause " is for Thomas a univocal
notion and one that is
grasped. A close reading of the
texts, however, reveals that it is, on the contrary, a quite complex sort of idea involving some very precise distinctions which
the unwary reader is apt to overlook.
In the fifth book of his Commentary on the Metaphysics, St.
Thomas notes, with apparent approvaV that Avicenna distinguished four modes of efficient causality: perficiens, disponens, adjuvans, and consilians. 2 The perfecting cause is that
which effects the ultimate perfection, that which induces (inducit) the substantial form in natural things or the artificial
form in artifacts. The disposing cause 3 is that which does not
itself induce the form which is the end of the action but only
prepares the matter which is to receive the form. 4 The assisting
cause is one which acts, not for its own end, in producing a form
but for the end of the principal cause, as one who aids the king
in battle acts for the king's purpose.
1 That he does approve Avicenna's analysis is evident from the fact that he uses
it in his Commentary on the Physics, Book II, lect. 5, without qualifying it as
being the interpretation of another.
2 Expositio
in Metaphysicorum, lib. 5, lect.
3 In his commentary on the second book of the Physics, Thomas calls this the
causa praeparans.
• St. Thomas cites as an example of a disposing cause one who hews wood and
stone for a house. Such a cause, however, is not properly said to be an efficient
cause with respect to the house; but, if the disposing cause induces into the matter
the ultimate disposition upon which the form necessarily follows, then magis
tamen proprie erit efjiciens. It is as a disposing cause, Thomas says, that man
generates his offspring. V Meta., lect.

754

EFFICIENT CAUSE IN THE" SECUNDA VIA"

755

This last mode, adjuvans, is the disposition a secondary cause
has to a first cause, for secondary causes in any per se order
of causes always act for the end of the first in the order. A
counseling cause, finally, supplies the .end and form of the action to be performed. 5 Such is the bearing of the first agent
per intellecturn to every secondary agent, for the first intelligent efficient cause in any per se series supplies to all in the
series the end and form of the action, just as the architect of
a ship supplies the end and the form of the action to those
who build the ship.
To these four modes of causality, Thomas continues, one
can reduce everything which makes something to be in some
way (quicquid facit aliquid quocumque modo esse) ,6 whether
this be according to the substantial esse of a thing or according
to its accidental esse, as is the case in all motion. Not only,
therefore, is that which makes something a cause of what is
made (esse substantiale), but also whatever changes another
is the cause of the changed being (esse accidentale) . Any or
all of these four modes, then, may enter into our definition of
efficient cause.
In the Summa theologiaes when St. Thomas treats of God
as efficient cause of the universe, he does not begin, as a theologian is entitled to begin, with the biblical account of creation. Rather, he begins with what is sensible and intelligible
in the universe, analyses it in light of certain metaphysical
principles, and concludes to the existence of a first efficient
cause, quam omnes Deum nominant. 7 This secunda via, expounded so summarily in the second question of the Summa,
can be broken down into a number of propositions, each of
which must be investigated thoroughly if the cogency of the
argument is to be examined: (1) In sensible things there is
an order of efficient causes. (2) It is impossible that this order
of efficient causes should preceed to infinity. (8) There must
• Cf II Phys., lect. 5: Consilians ... est quod dat agentis formam per quam agit.
6 V Meta., lect. 2.
7 Summa Theol., I, q. 2, a. S, c.

756

LAlnmR

be a first efficient cause. (4) This first efficient cause everyone
acknowledges to be God. 8
That there is in sensible things an order of efficient causes
seems at first glance to be perfectly evident; however, if this is
taken to mean that one sensible thing is the cause of another's
esse, a difficulty arises immediately with respect to the question of whether Thomas would allow that a secondary cause
could be an efficient cause in such a sense. In Question Eight
of the Prima Pars we are told that, since Esse is the very nature
of God, created esse is an effect proper to God, not only in its
inception but also in its continuation. 9 Moreover the more unL
versal an effect is, the more universal and prior must be its
cause; because esse is the most universal of all effects, it must
be attributed to the most universal cause, God, and to him
properly. 10 Nor can God even communicate to another the
power of effecting esse, not even as an instrumental cause, for
an instrumental cause participates in the action of a higher
cause only inasmuch as the instrument, in accordance with
something proper to it, acts dispositively with respect to the
effect of the principal cause. But esse does not presuppose anything on which an instrumental cause could act dispositively;
rather, everything else presupposes esse.11
Ibid.
• Ibid. q. 8, a. 1, c.: "Cum autem Deus sit ipsum esse per suam essentiam,
oportet quod esse creatum sit proprius effectus ejus, sicut ignire est proprius
effectus ipsius ignis. Hunc autem effectum causat Deus in rebus, non solum
quando primo esse incipiunt, sed quamdiu in esse conservantur, sicut lumen
causatur in aere a sole, quamdiu aer illuminatus manet."
10 Ibid., q. 45, a. 5, c.: "Oportet enim, universaliores effectus in universaliores,
et priores causas rcducere. Inter omnes autem effectus universalissimum est ipsum
esse. Unde oportet, quod sit proprius effectus primae, et universalissimae causae,
quae est Deus."
11 Ibid.:
"Magister dicit in 5. dist. 4. Sent. quod Deus potest creaturae communicare potentiam creandi, ut creet per ministerium, non propria auctoritate.
Sed hoc esse non potest, quia causa secunda instrumentalis non participat actionem
causae superioris, nisi inquantum per aliquid sibi proprium dispositive operatur ad
effectum principalis agentis ... Illud autem, quod est proprius effectus Dei
creantis, est illud, quod praesupponitur omnibus aliis, scilicet esse absolute .•• Sic
igitur impossibile est, quod alicui creaturae conveniat creare, neque virtute propria,
neque instrumentaliter, sive per ministerium. Et hoc praecipue inconveniens est dici
8

EFFICIENT CAUSE IN THE" SECUNDA VIA"

757

These passages however, are reconciled with the above analysis of efficient causality as making something to be in some
way; 12 Thomas says that beings other than God cannot be
causes of being (essendi) in the unqualified sense but causes of
being this (essendi hoc) .13
In discussing divine providence Thomas explains in what
ways creatures can be .efficient causes. In the case of artifacts
the artificer is the cause of the thing's becoming, not of its
esse directly. For example to be a house is consequent upon the
form of a house, i. e., a certain composition and order of
materials; it is this form which the builder supplies, but he
supplies it only by making use of certain natural powers of the
materials, for the form is consequent upon these natural powers
rather than upon the action of the builder. That is, a house
is built by the use of mortar, stones, and wood, which are
naturally susceptible of, and naturally inclined to conserve, the
form and order which the builder imposes upon them. Consequently, to be a house depends upon the natural powers of
the materials; to become a house depends upon the builder's
making use of these natures. 14
Similarly, in natural things, nothing can be the cause of the
form, simply as form, of another individual of the same species
and, therefore, cannot be the cause of such an individual's esse,
which accompanies its form; 15 otherwise a thing would be the
cause of itself by causing the form which it also has as a memde aliquo corpore, quod creet, cum nullum corpus agat, nisi tangendo, vel movendo;
et sic requirit in sua actione aliquid praeexistens, quod possit tangi, et moveri."
12 Vd. supra, p. 755.
13 II Summa Contra Gentiles, c. 21.
u Summa Theol., I, q. 104, a. 1, c: "Aedificator enim est causa domus quantum
ad ejus fieri, non autem directe quantum ad esse ejus: manifestum est enim,
quod esse domus consequitur formam ejus: forma autem domus est compositio,
et ordo: quae quidem formae consequitur naturalem virtutem quarumdam rerum."
15 Ibid.:
" Et simili ratione est considerandum in rebus naturalibus: quia, si
aliquod agens non est causa formae, inquantum hujusmodi, non erit per se causa
esse, quod consequitur ad talem formam, sed erit causa effectus secundum fieri
tantum ... S<)d potest esse causa hujusmodi formae, secundum quod est in materia,
idest quod haec materia acquirat hanc formam; et hoc est esse causa secundum
fieri."

758

ROSEMARY LAUER

her of that species. However, a natural thing can be a cause
of certain matter's acquiring the form of its own species, as in
the generation of animals or in the generation of fire by fire;
but this is to be a cause only secundum fieri. In fact, whenever
the impression of the agent is received in the patient in the
same way (secundum eamdern rationem) as it exists in the
agent, that is, when the agent causes the patient to acquire
the same specific form that exists in the agent, the agent is a
cause only of the patient's becoming, not of its esse. This is
necessarily true, for whatever is not cause of the form, as such,
cannot be cause of that which accompanies (consequitur) the
form, the esse.16
On the question of whether a natural thing can truly bestow
upon a patient a form other than that which the agent itself
possesses, and thus be truly a cause of another's esse, St.
Thomas was led astray by Aristotelian physics. As a consequence, he considered himself obligated to explain the relationship between celestial bodies and the less perfect bodies of
whose generation they are the cause, not only in the sense that
they cause the form to be received in certain matter but in
the sense that they are the cause of the form as such. An example of this relationship, Thomas tells us, is that which exists
between the sun and the air which is illumined by it. Air is
not naturally capable of receiving the form of light in the same
way (secundum eamdem rationem) in which that form exists
in the sun which is the principle of light; therefore, the " participated " form of light in the air is not of the same nature
or species as that of the sun. Rather, it is a form of which the
sun is cause, not only secundum fieri but secundum esse. And
this explains why the air ceases to be illumined the instant the
sun's action on it ceases. 17
16 Ibid.:
" Et ideo quandocumque naturalis effectus est natus impressionem
agentis recipere secundum eamdem rationem, secundum quam est in agente, tunc
fieri effectus dependet ab agente, non autem esse ipsius."
17 If the sun were to be the cause of the air's illumination
only seeundum fieri,
then the cessation of the sun's action should not effect the cessation of the air's
illumination just as the cessation of the builder's action does not effect the cessation

EFFICIENT CAUSE IN THE" SECUNDA VIA"

759

This, of course, involves an apparent contradiction of what
Thomas says in many other places; i.e., that esse (not fieri) is
an effect proper to God alone. 18 That is, if esse accompanies a
form in such manner that whatever has a form is a being in
act/ 9 then whatever is a cause of a form as such is also a cause
of esse; and Thomas seems to have granted that at least the
sun is such a cause. Moreover those things which have forms per
se (formae subsistentes) would seem to possess esse per se in
such wise that their continued existence would be no more the
effect of God than the continued existence of a house is the effect
of its builder. To these objections the answer is given that the
esse which accompanies (consequitur) a created form presupposes a divine influx, just as the transparency of air is an accompaniment of light presupposing the sun's influx. 20 And yet
creatures are truly causes of the esse of others, for that certain
things continue to exist depends upon the continued existence
of their causes. For example, Aristotle's primus motus is the
cause of the continuance of generation; the secundum motus,
of diversity; Saturn, perhaps, of permanence or fixity. 21 Were
of the house's existing. Thomas was faced with a further difficulty, or with what
seemed to be a difficulty due to the Aristotelian physics; i. e., fire is the cause
of heat in any object only secundum fieri, and yet removing an object from a fire
results in that obj.ect's gradually losing its form of heat. (Were the form to be
lost instantaneously, as air loses its form of light when the sun ceases its action,
Thomas would very likely have been forced to consider fire as the cause of an
object's heat secundum esse.) That the object does not lose its heat instantaneously
is due to its receiving the impression of fire secundum eamdem rationem as it
exists in the fire; that it does gradually lose the form of heat is due to its participating the form in a feeble and imperfect way. "Si autem imperfecte participet
aliquid de forma ignis secundum quamdam inchoationem, calor non semper
remanebit, sed ad tempus, propter debilem participationem principii caloris." Summa
Theol., I. q. 104, a. 1, c. Connected with this Aristotelian analysis is the advice
Hamlet gives Polonius about keeping Ophelia out of the sun.
18 V d. supra.
19 Cf. Summa Theol., I, q. 104, a. 1, obj. 1:
"Esse autem per se consequitur ad
formam: quia unumquodque secundum hoc est ens actu, quod habet formam."
20 Ibid., ad 1:
" ... esse per se consequitur formam creaturae, supposito tamen
influxu Dei ... Unde potentia ad non esse in spiritualibus creaturis, et corporibus
coelestibus magis est in Deo qui potest subtrahere suum influxum, quam in forma,
vel in materia talium creaturarum."
01 Ibid., a. 2, c.

760

ROSEMARY LAUER

these to cease, the accidents of generation, diversity, and fixity
would cease to exist.
With respect to this causality of form St. Thomas says that
it is evident that whatever is made is similar to the maker,
for omne agens agit sibi simile; therefore, whatever makes a
natural thing bears some similarity to a composite: either the
maker is a composite, or the entire composite which is made,
both as to its form and its matter, exists in virtute of the maker.
This last is proper to God; therefore, all information of matter
(informatio materiae) is from God, either immediately or by
some corporeal agent; it is not possible that even an angel
should be the immediate cause of information. 22
This virtus of the maker, however, is not all that is required
in the information of matter. Even though the supreme being
has the maximum of universal power, the patients of that power
are not immediately proportioned to receiving that universal
power but through some mediating powers which ar.e greatly
particularized and contracted (per medias virtutes magis
particulares et contractas). This is evident in the order of corporeal things, for the celestial bodies are the principles of
generation in men and other "perfect " 23 animals, not immediately but through the particularized power which is in
the human seed.24
Again, it is to be noted, those beings which are posited as true
causes of esse (through always dependent in their action upon
an influx from the primary cause) are celestial bodies. It would
seem that Thomas's philosophical sense demanded that he reserve the causality of esse to God, and yet he was forced to
reconcile his own philosophical principles with Aristotle's
physics. Had he been disabused of his conception of celestial
bodies as being of some superterrestrial substance and exerting
•• Ibid., q. 110, a.
c.
•• Because the action of " imperfect " animals is so feeble, the principle of generation in the celestial spheres must act immediately in their formation: "Quamvis
quaedam animalia ex putrefactione generantur per solam virtutem caelestium
corporum absque semine; quod accidit ratione imperfectionis eorum." De Malo,
q. 16, a. 9, c.
"'Ibid.

EFFICIENT CAUSE IN THE" SECUNDA VIA"

761

some superphysical influence on the earth, it seems quite likely
that he would have been left without a single example of one
creature's being the cause of another's form as such and, consequently, of its esse.25 As far as we are presently able to discern, there seems to be no creature the cessation of whose
existence would entail the cessation of any species of form,
substantial or accidental (locomotion in general is a .species of
accidental form) , except, of course, its own form where the
creature concerned is unique in its species.
This, of course, does not eliminate efficient causality in
creatures. Though it may be the case that no creature is able
to effect a form as such and that no creature can operate in
any way without an influx from the first cause/ 6 it is not reasonabl.e, St. Thomas holds, to take the extreme position of certain
of the Arabians that no created power ever exerts any influence
whatsoever. Nevertheless, whenever there is an order of efficient
causes, the second operates in virtue of the first; that is, the first
moves the second to act. 27 Mor.eover, if the operation be one
of generation by a univocal agent, 28 the agent can be only as
an instrumental cause with respect to that which is the first
cause of the whole species. This instrumental causality, it must
be added, is always by way of motion, for it is of the very nature
of an instrumental cause that it should be a moved mover .29
Now, if the ultimate effect is a motion, then there must be a
recipient of the motion; consequently, no instrumental cause
can effect the unqualified existence of a being but only some
modification in an already existing being. 80 Were an instru•• Doubtless, knowing that " spontaneous generation " is not found in nature
would have prompted Thomas to alter his views on a celestial corporeal datw
j01'1fULrum.
•• Cf. Summa Theol., I, q. 105, a. 5, "Utrum Deus operetur in omni operante."
•• Ibid., c.
•• A univocal agent generates an individual of the same species as itself, as
man generates man; an equivocal agent, of a different species, as the sun in the
generation of man; an analogous agent, of a species which merely participates in
the perfection of the agent, as the sun is the cause of the participated form of
light in the air. II Cont. Gent., c. 88.
29 Ibid., c. 21: "Est enim ratio instrumenti quod sit movens motum."
80 Ibid.:
" lnstrumentum adhibetur propter convenientiam eius cum causato,

76Q

ROSEMARY LAUER

mental cause able to effect an ens from non ens, rather than, for
example, man from something which is not man, the case would
be different.
In another analysis of secondary causality St. Thomas tells
us that, though the esse of a form in matter does not in itself
entail any motion or mutation, except per accidens, no corporeal
thing acts except as moved. The principle on which a form depends per se must be an incorporeal principle; if a corporeal
principle is in some way a cause of the form, this happens only
because that corporeal principle acts as an instrument of and
in virtue of something incorporeal. Inasmuch as a corporeal
form cannot begin to be except in matter, and because not just
any kind of matter can receive the form, but only the proper
matter, it is necessary that matter which does not have the
proper disposition be changed in order that the form may be
received. It is this changing of the disposition of matter that
is attributed to a corporeal agent, which, however, acts in
virtue of the incorporeal principle, whose action it determines
to a certain form. Accordingly, the form of the generated
naturally depends upon the generator in its being educed from
the potency of matter, not, however, quantum ad esse absolutum. As a consequence, if the action of the generator should
cease, the patient's eduction from potency to act, which is
fieri, would cease, but the form according to which the
generated has esse would not cease to be. If the act of the first
incorporeal principle should cease, however, then the very esse
of the creature would cease. 31
Or, as Thomas explains it in another place, no corporeal thing
is the cause of another being except inasmuch as it is itself
moved, for no body acts except through motion. Neither, therefore, is any body a cause of the esse as such of another thing
ut sit medium inter causam primam et causatum et attingat utrumque, et sic influentia primi perveniat ad causatum per instrumentum. Unde oportet quod sit
aliquid recipiens primi influentiam in eo quod per instrumentum causatur."
31 De
q. 4, a. 1, c.: As a conclusion to this analysis, Thomas remarks
that " Hoc autem agens incorporeum, a quo omnia creantur, et corporalia et
incorporalia, Deus est ... a quo non solum sunt formae rerum, sed etiam materiae."

EFFICIENT CAUSE IN THE" SECUNDA VIA"

763

but only of its being moved to esse, its becoming. 32 Should the
motion of the mover cease, then the motion or fieri of the
patient would also cease; the esse of the patient, however,
would cease only if the divine operation should cease, for esse
is an effect proper to God. 33
This analysis of the instrumental causality of creatures, however, raises a difficulty with respect to the quinque viae. If all
creatural efficient causality is instrumental, and if all instrumental causality is a case of movens motum, 34 the secunda via
seems to differ not at all from the p1ima, unless, of course, the
motion referred to in the prima via be restricted to local motion
and the secunda via be interpreted to refer to quantitative and
qualitative changes considered as dispositive causes of generation and corruption. 35
However, Thomas offers what seems to be a solution to
this difficulty: it is not necessary that there be a real distinction between the motion considered by the prima via and
the causality noted in the secunda,, for everything which operates is in some way a cause of being, either substantial or accidental.36 That is, local motion, or any kind of passage from
potency to act, can be considered simply as motion, or it can
be considered as a substantial or accidental determination of
esse. Considered in the :first way, it supplies the starting point
for the prima via; considered as a determination of esse, it becomes the point of departure for the secunda via. Every mover
is, of course, an efficient cause, but it is so only in virtue of the
fact that it determines or particularizes esse. To think of a
mover as an efficient cause is to advert to its effect's relation
82 III Cont. Gent., c. 45:
"Nullum igitur corpus est causa esse alicuius rei
inquantum est esse, sed est causa eius quod est moveri esse, quod est fieri rei."
38

Ibid.

•• Cf. supra, note 29.
85 Even
with this interpretation of Thomas's intended sense of "motion" a
difficulty remains in the likelihood that modern science has demonstrated the
possibility, or perhaps even the necessity, of reducing to local motion all of
Aristotle's quantitative and qualitative changes in corporeal things.
86 Ill Cont. Gent., c. 47:
" Omne enim operans est aliquo modo causa essendi,
vel secundum esse substantiale, vel accidentale."

764

ROSEMARY LAUER

to esse,. to consider its metaphysical rather than merely physical implications.
It seems, then, that when St. Thomas states, as a first proposition of the secunda via, that there is an order of efficient
causes in sensible things, what he means is this: Certain actions
of terrestrial bodies are accidental; that is, they are produced
through certain active or passive properties of the agent bodies.
These properties, or accidental forms, however, are caused by
the substantial form, which together with the body's matter,
is the cause of all proper accidents; such accidental forms, then,
act only in virtue of the substantial form. 37 Further, certain
substantial forms are caused by the celestial body which is the
primum alterans; 38 these forms, accordingly, act only in virtue
of this primum alterans.39 Such a series of forms would constitute an order of efficient causality in sensible things, a series
of forms each of which acts only in virtue of that which is
next in the series. Since it is a form which is caused 40 and since
esse accompanies form, each agent in the series is a cause of
and, therefore, an efficient cause.
This order of causality is not to be considered as simply an
accidental order; each member of the .series depends upon its
immediate superior insofar as the superior gives the power in
virtue of which the inferior acts, conserves that power, or applies it to its act. Each member acts, then, not only in virtue
of its own power but in virtue also of each superior member;
consequently, not only is the last member of the series found to
be an immediate cause of the final effect but each member of
the series operates as an immediate cause of that effect, though
87 Ibid., c. 69:
" Agit enim unumquodque secundum quod est actu. Et propter
hoc omne corpus agit secundum suam formam."
88 Ibid.:
" In animalibus autem quae ex putrefactione generantur, causatur
forma substantialia ex agente corporali, scilicet corpore caelesti, quod est primum
alterans."
•• Cf. ibid. In the generation of more perfect animal forms, that of man, for
example, a univocal agent is required along with the primum alterana, so that
homo generat hominem et sol.
•• Ibid.: "Agens enim naturale non est traducens propriam formam in alterum
subiectum, sed reducens subiectum quod patitur, de potentia in actum."

EFFICIENT CAUSE IN THE "SECUNDA VIA"

765

not in the same way. 41 As a result, the final .effect is not to be
attributed partly to one member of the series and partly to
another but entirely to each member of the seri.es, just as
that which is accomplished by means of an instrumental cause
is to be attributed entirely to the instrument and entirely to
the principal agent, but, of course, secundum alium modum. 42
That there cannot be an indefinite regress in such a series of
causes is evident from the fact that each perfection, essential or
accidental, in virtue of which the members of the series operate
is either a participation in esse or a being which is essentially
esse. Whatever participates in a perfection depends for its
origin and conservation on what is essentially the participated
perfection, 43 and it is only in virtue of such an essential perfection that the series is possible at all. Without this " first" in
the series there could be no secondary causality. 44
As we have seen above every corporeal agent is a moved
mover and, therefore, a mediating cause. Now, it is required
that before (not in point of time necessarily) all mediating
causes there be a first, which is not a mediating cause (otherwise, it would not be a first), for the first cause is the cause of
all in the series. If that upon which all the causes depend be
r.emoved, then all those causes which depend upon it would
also be removed. 45 Further, this first efficient cause of every
01 Ibid., c. 70:
" Oportet ergo quod actio inferioris agentis non solum sit ab
eo per virtutem propriam, sed per virtutem onmium superiorum agentium: agit
enim in virtute omnium. Et sicut agens infimum invenitur immediatum activum,
ita virtus primi agentis invenitur immediata ad producendum effectum ... ita
non est inconveniens quod producatur idem effectus ab inferiori agente et Deo:
ab utroque immediate, Iicet alia et alio modo."
•• Ibid.: " ... sicut idem effectus totus attribuitur instrumento, et principali
agenti etiam totus."
•• II Sent., dist. 2, a. 1, a. 2, sol: "Cum autem qualibet res, et quidquid est
in re, aliquo modo esse participet, et admixtum sit imperfectioni, oportet quod
omnis res, secundum totum id quod in ea est, a primo et perfecto ente oriatur."
•• II Cont. Gent., c. 15: " Quod per essentiam dicitur, est causa omnium quae
per participationem dicuntur ... Deus autem est ens per essentiam suam: quia est
ipsum esse. Onme autem aliud ens est ens per participationem . . . Deus igitur est
causa essendi omnibus aliis."
'"II Metaphys., Iect. 8.

766

ROSEMARY LAUER

series whatsoever is essentially esse, for every efficient cause is
in some way a cause of esse. What is not essentially esse is
called a being (ens) only because it participates in esse, and
whatever has any perfection by participation is derived from
that which is essentially that perfection. 46
That this first efficient cause in virtue of which every secondary cause operates is " what everyone acknowledges to be
God" may be shown in various ways. The most obvious, however, and the most appropriate to the secunda via consists in
pointing out that the first cause of all esse is the " creator" and
conserver of all being; and certainly .everyone acknowledges
the identity between God and the creator of all things.
To create is simply to be first efficient cause, ex nihilo and,
theJ'Iefore, not as moving or altering some subject. 47 Since
whatever might be considered as a subject of divine causality
is, insofar as it is participation in esse, it is itself therefore an
effect of the divine causality. Certainly the Being to which all
actuality and perfection are to be attributed, both in their
origin and in their conservation, all acknowledge to be God.
So St. Thomas concludes his " second way " of demonstrating
the existence of God. To evaluate the validity of this conclusion surely the first requirement is that one understand the
argument-and that one understand the usually underesti•• II Sent., dist.
q. 1, a.
sol: "Cum autem qualibet res ... aliquo modo
esse participet ... "
I Sent., dist. 8, q. 1, a. 1, sol: "Tertia ratio (quod qui est, est maxime proprium
nomen Dei) sumitur ex verbis Dionysii, qui dicit, quod esse inter omnes alias
divinae bonitatis participationes, sicut vivere et intelligere et hujusmodi, primum
est, et quasi principium aliorum, praehabens in se omnia praedicta."
De Malo, q. 3, a.
c.: " ... cum Deus sit ens per suam essentiam, quia
sua essentia est suum esse, oportet quod quocumque modo est, derivatur ab ipso,
nihil enim aliud est quod sit suum esse; sed omnia dicuntur entia per participationem. Omne autem quod per participationem dicitur tale, derivatur ab eo
quod est per essentiam; sicut omnia ignita derivantur ab eo quod est per essentiam
ignis."
47 11 Cont. Gent., c. 16:
"Nihil enim est aliud creare quam absque materia
praeiacenti aliquid in esse producere." C. 17: " Motus enim omnis vel mutatio
est actus existentis in potentia secundum quod huiusmodi ... In hac autem actione
non praeexistit aliquid in potentia quod suscipat actionem . . .Igitur non est motus
neque mutatio."

EFFICIENT CAUSE IN THE " SECUNDA VIA "

767

mated complexity of Thomas's conception of" efficient cause."
One hopes that calling attention to some of the passages in
which St. Thomas makes this complexity explicit may contribute to a more balanced verdict on the cogency of the
Secunda Via.
RosEMARY

San Diego State University
San Diego, California

LAUER

ON JUDGING

R

ECENT DEVELOPMENTS in thomistic critique of
knowledge-usually though not too aptly called epistemology-could be summed up as centered on a
growing awareness of the importance of the act of judging as
the full and complete act of human knowing, that in which
truth is for the first time formally present as known. These
characteristics had indeed been known all along, but in a rather
theoretical and abstract way. Their bearing on the critique of
knowledge has been fully acknowledged by Scholastics only
in the last thirty years or so, at least if one is to take the best
known and most used manuals as guide.
There are many reasons for this state of affairs. Among them
some doctrinal and historical ones seem particularly pertinent.
Perhaps the main doctrinal factor is that in the normal course
of philosophy judging was treated only from a logical perspective, as judgment, the second act of the mind. Since the
first act, conception or simple apprehension, leads to the second
which is logically symbolized asS is P, and therefore expressed
as a proposition in which there appears to be a mental synthesis
of two previously formed concepts, the act of judging was
treated as such a union (or disjunction, in negations) of two
concepts. The act of judging was thus supposed to display
itself fully in the form of the proposition, and the logical properties of propositions were investigated. After this the act of
judging was considered to have been sufficiently treated. It
was not later treated from the psychological point of view, as
a full-blooded act of the mind; and as a result its central significance in the critique of knowledge was overlooked. After
all, if the judgment is only the union of two previously formed
concepts, it does not add anything new to the content of knowledge, with the result that knowing will be reduced, in its
768

ON JUDGING

769

essentials, to conception; and the critique of knowledge will
deal almost exclusively with this.
Concepts are abstract and universal. They do not directly
refer to the existential order of really existing things. If the
judgment does no more than unite two concepts the existence
expr.essed in the copula " is " will be no more than mental.
Thought, even when leading to judgment, will then be confined
to the immanent or conceptual order, and the age-old problem
of how to relate thought to reality will place itself in the forefront of critical reflection. Moreover, precisely because concepts are universal, the prototype of human judgments will be
taken to be found in universal propositions such as that oldest
inhabitant of logical text-books: all men are mortal. Singular,
and especially existential judgments will be treated as oddities
and of little value. The attempt to establish the existential
reference of thought, in such a context, to reality has absorbed
the energies of many an almost despairing realist.
This way of conceiving judgment and of placing the critical
problem is connected with another doctrinal matter, one that
is thoroughly metaphysical: the notion of being and of existence. Insofar as the judgment makes use of the copula
it affirms existence, so that to consider the act of judging is
at once to raise the question of existence; and if the judgment
is confined to the conceptual and abstract order, such existence will be seen either as merely mental or, at most, as
factual givenness of the objects represented in the terms of the
judgment and reached by the mind in some non-intellectual
way, by instinct, sympathy, common sense, or even by faith.
This in turn leads to-or perhaps it springs from-a completely
impoverished notion of existence as mere factual givenness, to
the neglect of its properly metaphysical value. It is no casual
coincidence that a more enlightened approach to the study of
judging has gone hand in hand with a return to a genuinely
thomistic appreciation of being and with developments in contemporary philosophy leading in the same direction.
The trend towards what we may call conceptualism, or essentialism, may be to some extent innate in the version of

770

AMBROSE MCNICHOLL

thomism which had won most support since the revival in the
last century. It can be partly explained as due to the predominance of the aristotelean elements (as typified in logic)
to the neglect of Thomas's own specific contribution, particularly where existence is concerned. But the emergence of the conceptualist trend is also due largely to the influence of other
historical currents of thought. One need not go back further
than Descartes to detect one main source of this kind. For
him, knowledge consists entirely in conception, or, as he put
it, intuition; and the object of such intuition is the clear and
distinct idea, the singular but totally immanent object of the
mind. This not only at once raises the famous problem of the
" bridge " from the mind to existent reality; it devalues the
judgment, so much so that Descartes assigns it to the will, not
to intellect; and evidently it can be nothing more than the
mental union of two ideas. 1 This way of viewing human knowledge, and of placing the critical problem, became so common
that Scholastic thought could not but be affected. The mathematicism which is explicitly central in Descartes came to be
at least implicitly assumed by others, thus effectively setting
philosophy upon the path of immanentism, with consequent
neglect of the existential order.
This "mathematicizing " tendency passes through Spinoza
and Leibniz to reach its climax in Wolff for whom philosophy
deals entirely with the ideal order of essences and essential relationships, wher.eas all questions of existential import are relegated to the sciences. Philosophy, for him, deals only with
what is possible. It shows no concern for the actual or existent.
Intellect becomes the faculty of conceiving ideas, while reason
is the power of grasping the relation between them and of
drawing conclusions. Judging is simply the correlation of ideas. 2
The cartesian principle of immanence was equally fundamental
to the empiricist school of thought which reduced knowledge
to the basic elements of images or sense impressions and in1 Principia Philosophiae, I, 32-34; A.T. VIII, 17.19-18.10.
• Philosophia Rationalis sett Logica, P.I, Sect. 1, c.1, § 40; Sect. 2, c. 4, § 198.

ON JUDGING

771

dicated the principle of association of ideas as the basis of
judgment. For Locke knowledge is therefore "nothing but
the perception of the connection and agreement, or disagreement and repugnancy, of any of our ideas." 3 When this connection is certainly perceived we can speak of knowledge;
otherwise we have no more than judgment "which is the putting
ideas together, or separating them from one another in the
mind, when their certain agreement or disagreement is not perceived, but presumed to be so." 4 The propositions of which we
may be certain have no reference to existence; they concern
"only the essences of things, which, being only abstract ideas,
and thereby removed in our thoughts from particular existence ... give us no knowledge of real existence at all." 5 Nevertheless, Locke maintained that we have "knowledge of our
own existence by intuition; of the existence of God by demonstration; and of other things by sensation." 6
Hume pushed this approach to its logical conclusion. If
knowing is reduced to having impressions and ideas, the three
acts of understanding (concept, judgment and reasoning) " all
resolve themselves into the first, and are nothing but particular
ways of conceiving our objects." 7 There is no such thing as
a distinct act of judging; and Hume finds confirmation for this
in the so-called existential judgment (v. g., God is) where, he
says, there are not two ideas but only one. For "the idea of
existence is no distinct idea," 8 so that we can form a proposition which contains only one idea. Hume seems at least to have
grasped the connection between judgment and existence; to
reject one implies rejection of the other." The idea of existence,
then, is the very same with the idea of what we conceive to be
existent. To reflect on anything simply, and to reflect on it
8 An Essay Concerning Human Understanding, IV, 1,2.
• Ibid., 14,4.
5 Ibid., 7,1.
6 Ibid., 7 .3.
7 A Treatise of Human Nature I, iii, 7 (Oxford:
Selhy-Bigge, 1951, 456); cf. I,
iii, 9 (108); III, i, 1 (456) .
s Ibid., I, iii, 7 (96n) .

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AMBROSE MCNICHOLL

as existent, are nothing different from each other." 9 "We have
no abstract idea of existence, distinguishable and separable
from the idea of particular objects." 10 If this be so, it will be
easy to show that the idea of an effect (that which begins to
exist) does not imply that of a cause; for "'twill be easy for
us to conceive any object to be non-existent this moment, and
existent the next, without conjoining to it the distinct idea of
a cause or productive principle." 11 The net result of all this is
that, for Hume, existence is simply not known; our conviction
of existence is explained away as belief.
If Hume reduced judgment to conception, Kant tended to
the other extreme of reducing conception to judgment. If intuition is restricted to the order of sense, which is presumed to
be that of appearances, the whole content of knowledge will
be provided by the senses. There will then be no act of conception as traditionally understood. The function of intellect,
and its first act, will be to correlate in purely formal ways the
data derived from sense experience; and this correlation is what
Kant calls judgment.
Kant seems to have retained this purely formal notion of
judgment right through his pre-critical period. In one of his
early works he speak of the judging faculty as belonging to
internal sense. Its function is to perceive something precisely
as a property of another to which it is attributed. This leads
to the formation of a concept, insofar as a representation is
changed into a concept when it is
to a subject. Since
this subject is already present to the mind, the judgment does
not imply more than a clarification of the subject. It does not
lead to increase in knowledge; all it does is to clarify by means
of analysis. 12 Consequently Kant hold that judgment does not
bear on existence, and indeed that existence is never a predicate
or a determination of anything. Like Hume he holds that, if
• Ibid., I, ii 6 (66, 67) cf. I, ii, 7 (94).
Ibid., App.endix (623).
11 Ibid., I, iii, 3 (79).
12 Die falsche Spitzfindigkeit der vier syllogistischen Figuren erwiesen (1762),
final section; Werke (Berlin, 1902-1938), ll, 57-61.
10

ON JUDGING

773

one thinks of an object in all its essentials and as non-existent,
and then thinks of it as existing, there is no change in that object. If existence is predicated, it will be attributed not to the
object but to its idea; and the idea does not contain existence.
Hence judgment is not concerned with things but with concepts. Real existence belongs only to a subject as given in
reality. It means the absolute positing of a thing, not its relation to other things or to its properties. Such positing adds
nothing to the essence; except where God is concerned it is
known only a posteriori. Judgment therefore, as regarding only
the analysis of the subject, bears only on the essence, whereas
existence lies outside the whole order of essence.18 The judgment can do no more than attribute to a subject a predicate already, although confusedly, contained in it. 14
Kant's notice for his lectures in 1765-6 gives a summary
statement of his ideas at this time. The teacher, he says/:;
should follow the order of man's mental evolution: the intellect, by means of experience, forms judments, and then concepts; these concepts are then ordered among themselves according to the relation of ground and consequence by means
of reason, so that they may all be shown in that organic totality
to which science gives expression.
The Critique of Pure Reason preserves and develops these
same notions. The understanding is defined as the faculty of
thinking by means of concepts, as distinct from knowing (which
requires also intuition) . The concepts of understanding are,
of themselv.es, pure, as divorced from sense intuition they are
empty. They arise from the spontaneous activity of the understanding; and this activity is essentially that of uniting diverse
representations under one. The concept is never related immediately to an object but only to another representation
(whether concept or intuition). The only use which underDer einzig mogliche Beweisgrund zu einer Demonstration des Daseins Gottes
cf. K.r.V.,B.626-7
(the "hundred thalers").
10 Versuch den Begriff der negativen Grossen in die Weltweisheit einzufuhren
(1763); W erke, II, 203.
15 W erke II, 305. 16-23.
18

(1763);Werkell,72-81;

774

AMBROSE MCNICHOLL

standing can make of concepts is to judge; and this means
uniting many representations together, for instance, the more
particular under the more general. To judge is to reduce many
representations to unity by means of concepts; it is to think
by means of concepts which contain other representations by
which the concepts may be related to an object. Hence a
judgment is mediate knowledge of an object, the representation
of the representation of an object. 16 The understanding can
therefore be defined as "the faculty of thinking, the faculty of
forming concepts, or the faculty of making judgments; and
these definitions, once brought to light, come to the same
thing." 17 The first act of the understanding is thus that of
judging; and this is the same as having concepts which can
unify different representations.
Granted this approach, it is inevitable that the speculative
judgments of understanding can never express real existence;
they can express only the relations of concepts among themselves or to repr.esentations. The existence which they express
is uniquely that of the mental synthesis, the logical existence
of the copula. Thus, in the Critique of Practical Reason, Kant
affirms that existence can never be known from mere concepts.
Every existential proposition, that is, every proposition that affirms
the existence of a being of which I frame a concept, is a synthetic
proposition, that is, one by which I go beyond that conception and
affirm of it more than was thought in the conception itself, namely,
that this concept in the understanding has an object corresponding
to it outside the understanding, and this it is obviously impossible
to elicit by any reasoning. There remains, therefore, only one single
16 Anal. Cone. 1 c.1, sect. 1; A. 58; B. 85 Kant goes on to explain (ibid., Sect. 2, §
19; B. 140-142) that a judgment is not the representation of a relation between two
concepts. It implies a certain union of representations by means of the intellect; and this union consists in reducing these representations to the objective,
and hence necessary, unity of apperception. The function of the copula is to
distinguish this objective unity from the merely subjective unity of given representations, such as results from their association. When the intellect unites representations according to principles which objectively determine all representations, we
then obtain a judgment which expresses a relation that is objectively valid.
17 Ibid., c.2, sect. 3; A, 126. 25-29; cf. B, 108,8-11.

ON JUDGING

775.

process possible for reason to attain this knowledge, namely, to start
from the supreme principle of its practical use.18
Kant's notion of understanding and judgment rules out any
possibility of speculative knowledge of existence. For him, as
for the logician and the mathematician, the existence expressed
in judgment is, as such, that of the mental synthesis of concepts.
If we look for a more modern approach to judgment that is
still mainly logical, yet with at least some awareness of the
psychology of the act of judging and of its relation to reality,
we could hardly do better than tum to Bertrand Russell. He
is neither the first nor the only important thinker to treat of
judgment in recent times. He learned much from Frege; and
G. E. Moore had written an influential article on" The Nature
of Judgement" in 1899.18 • But Russell set to work to analyze
and examine in depth the logic of propositions in current use
as well as those which have puzzled philosophers. His views on
this topic, as indeed his philosophy also, changed and developed, but there is a certain consistency in his approach, at
least after he had abandoned the objectivist views expressed
in the first edition (1903) of his Principles of Mathematics
where, as he says himself, he " shared with Frege a belief in
the Platonic reality of number." 19
Assuming that we have immediate knowledge ("by acquaintance") only of sense-data (and of our own mental acts)
Russell concluded that propositions deal with facts rather than
things. He went on to enquire what is required on the part of
such facts for a proposition to be meaningful. If we do not
know things (except by " description ") and yet
to them
in propositions, it seems that they can be no more than logical
constructions out of the sense-data that are known. The only
Werke, V, 139; trans. ofT. K. Abbott.
Mind, XXIV, pp. 176-199. In this article both things and propositions are regarded as colligations of concepts. The essays (1903-1920) now grouped together
in Moore's Principia Ethica can be described as a series of questions concerning
judgment in the writings of Idealists in ethics, and in rdation to perception and
similar topics.
19 The Principles of Mathematics, 2nd. ed. (London, 1937); Introd.,
X.
18

18 "

776

AMBROSE MCNICHOLL

truly singular proposition will then be that which refers immediately to an empirical datum. There was a difficulty about
proper names, for they seem to refer to individuals, as when one
says: Scott is the author of Waverly. He met this by the
theory of definite descriptions which reveals that " Scott " is
there a description, or predicate, rather than a subject; for the
meaning of the proposition is: "x wrote Waverly " is equivalent
to " x is Scott " is true for all values of x. This, notes Russell,
"swept away the contention-advanced,
for instance, by
Meinong-that there must, in the realm of Being, be such objects as the golden mountain and the round square, since we
can talk about them." 20
By making use of Frege's notion of a propositional function
he was then able to extend his analysis to logically proper
names and to propositions which affirm existence. The propositional function is an incomplete expression with a variable such
that if a definite value (a grammatical subject, or, in Frege's
term, an argument) be substituted for it the function will become a proposition which is either true or false. The example
already given (" x wrote Waverly ") is such a function. The
difficulty about logically proper names is that their meaning
seems to lie in their denoting some singular and existing object.
If so, to affirm the existence of such an object appears to be
a tautology, whereas to deny its existence would be a contradiction. To escape this dilemma Russell suggested that existence can never be affirmed except by means of the properties
of a thing; in other words, the proper name denotes by means
of a property, namely, the property of having an instance. The
individual is denoted by the argument (which can be a relation
as well as a property) which satisfies a propositional function.
From this point of view existence is no longer to be seen as
a property belonging to things. This is evident enough when
the existence in question is that only of the copula, of definition,
of equality, of implication, of membership of a class or of the
•• Ibid., cf. "Logical Atomism," in Contemporary British Philosophy I (London,
pp. 857-888.

ON JUDGING

777

inclusion of one class in another. These are all logical notions
regarding the union of function and argument. But it is also
true of existence in the sense of " to exist." The theory of
descriptions shows that a judgment of existence does not attribute existence to things represented by a grammatical subject; that judgment only asserts that a certain description is
applicable, a certain name is appropriate, an argument fulfills
a certain function. For instance, the propositional function:
" x is a man " gives rise, for certain arguments, to true propositions. Hence existence does not qualify things, even indirectly,
through properties; it is property of propositional functions, the
property of having certain instances so that the resulting
proposition is true in at least one case. The fundamental meaning of existence is that arguments exist which satisfy propositional functions." Other meanings are either derived from this,
or embody mere confusion of thought. We may correctly say
' men exist,' meaning that ' x is a man ' is sometimes true . . .
Though it is correct to say ' men exist,' it is incorrect, or rather
meaningless, to ascribe existence to a given particular x who
happens to be a man." 21 To attribute existence to individuals
is to commit the error of transferring to an individual who
satisfies a propositional function a predicate which applies only
to the propositional function. " It will be found," adds Russell,
" that by bearing in mind this simple fallacy we can solve many
ancient philosophical puzzles concerning the meaning of existence." 22
This treatment of judgment-more accurately, of the proposition-by Russell may be described as logico-semantical. It
is an enquiry into the meaning of propositions, particularly in
view of the problems set by propositions which are false or
which refer to objects which do not ,exist or at least cannot
be known to exist. It is an attempt to explain how such propositions can have meaning, on the assumption that we perceive
21
22

Introduction to Mathematical Philosophy, 2nd. ed. (London, 1920), pp. 164-5.
Ibid., p. 165; cf. A History of Western Philosophy (London, 1945),

c. 81, pp. 859, 860.

778

AMBROSE MCNICHOLL

only sense-data. Its scope is therefor.e restricted both by that
assumption and by the perspective of meaningfulness. Russell
however, like Frege, recognizes the distinction between the
proposition and its assertion, or at least the assertion of its
truth or falsehood. 23 He finds that "it is almost impossible, at
least to me, to divorce assertion from truth, as Frege does ...
To divorce assertion from truth seems only possible by taking
assertion in a psychological sense." 24 He does not entirely
neglect the act of judging from the psychological point of view,
although here also his chief problem remains that of meaning.
Rejecting the view that judgment is just a complex symbol,
he holds that it has a specific nature and unity of its own. At
first he saw it as a multiple relation between a perceiving Ego
and an objective state of affairs; although how an objective
state of affairs can be judged, if all that is immediately known
is sense-data, remains unexplained. Later, under the influence
of W. James, he came to hold that the Ego is not known as an
empirical subject but only as a sequence of thoughts and events.
Judgment was then seen as an arranging of images in the mind.
Some images represent individuals, others represent properties
and relations. It seems to be taken for granted that these
images have meaning. What is then asserted is a relation between these images as arranged in the mind and facts; while
belief (as in the case: A believes that B loves C) is explained,
after the manner of Hume, as a feeling of assent to a proposition.25

*

* * * *

Cf. for instance The Principles of Mathematics,
ed., Appendix A, 5W-4.
Ibid., p. 504.
25 Cf. " On Propositions"
(1919); reprinted in Logic and Knowledge ed. R. C.
Marsh (London, 1956),
ff. For a detailed discussion of Russell's theories from
1905-1919 cf. D. F. Pears:
Bertrand Russell and the British Tradition in
Philosophy (London, 1968), especially cc. 1, 5,
also A. J. Ayer: Russell (London,
E. Riverso: La filosofia analitiea in lnghilterra (Roma,
pp.
1969)' 196-9.
23

2•

ON JUDGING

779

The Return to Judgment
One thing that emerges dearly from a review of philosophical
opinions since the end of the last century is that the central
role of judgment in any theory of knowledge has come to be
acknowledged. This is understandable enough where the
philosophers are idealists. It is something quite new in the
empiricist tradition where the prevalence of the analytical approach had reduced knowing, ultimately, to a succesion of
isolated images or impressions which are then united or associated in the mind. It was presumably Russell's interest in logic
that led him to restore judgment to something like its rightful
place in the knowledge process, even i£ he was more interested
in the proposition than in the act itself of judging. This is also
true of Wittgenstein who realized that it is through study of
the proposition that we can begin to understand how language
has meaning. For it is only the proposition that has meaning;
a name acquires meaning only in the context of the proposition.26
thought is expressed in the proposition;
thought is the proposition as sensed. 27 The proposition is distinct from its assertion and must have meaning prior to its
assertion, for what is asserted is precisely the meaning of the
proposition. 28 Wittgenstein, however, was not interested in the
act of judging or of asserting. This he regarded as a question
for psychology and outside the limits of his enquiry. 29 After
Wittgenstein the central importance of the proposition for the
study of thought and language was taken for granted by the
English Analysts. It should be noted, however, that Peter
Strawson took Russell to task for neglecting the distinction between the proposition (or sentence) and its assertion. The
sentence, he says, has meaning but is never true or false.
Denotation, and therefore truth and falsehood, are present only
when the sentence is used, in given circumstances, to assert
Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus, 8.8.
Ibid., 4.
28 Ibid., 4.064.
29 Cf. ibid., 4. ll!illa;
and Norman Malcolm:
26

27

(London, 1958), p. 86.

Ludwig Wittgenstein: A Memoir

780

AMBROSE MCNICHOLL

something; and one such use is denotation, if the sentence is
used to refer to some particular thing. 30 In this respect Strawson agrees with Gilbert Ryle. 31
It was more to be expected that philosophers of the idealistic
tradition would retain or recover the notion of judgment as the
ultimate complete unit of thought. Idealism dwells by preference on the immanent contents of consciousness and on the
mental acts by which they are seized and synthesized. In
England F. H. Bradley had since 1883 32 attacked the empiricist
tradition; and it may well be that his influence helped Moore
and Russell to appreciate the importance of judgment. 32 " At
any rate, Bradley insisted that the basic unit of human knowledge is the judgment, which is far more than an association of
ideas or images. In his later and best known work he maintained that" every kind of thought implies a judgment, in this
sense that it ideally qualifies reality " ;33 more concisely, " if
there is no judgment, there is no thought." 34 The mind does
not just entertain a thought or idea; it refers it to reality. And
this shows that the traditional logical way of viewing judgment
as an abstract unity of ideas is incomplete. To see what judgment is one has to consider it at the moment when it is asserted,
for only then does it relate to reality.
Reality is always found to imply a " that " and a " what,"
or, in other words, "existence" and "character." 35 The
30 On Referring"
(Mind, 1950); reprinted in A. Flew (ed.): Essays in Conceptual Analysis (London, 1956), pp.
31 " The Theory of Meaning," in A. C. Mace:
British Philosophy in Mid-Century
(London, 1957), pp.
ff.
•• The Principles of Logic (Oxford, 1883), especially Bk. I.
••• Cf. D. Pears: "The empiricists operated with ideas rather than with
judgements or propositions, and this, Bradley thought, was a mistake. Now the
empiricists' neglect of judgements had always been the main target of idealist
criticism: it was really the deepest difference between Kant and Hume. What
Russell did was to absorb this part of the idealist tradition, and to put it at the
service of empiricism. For the new philosophy is really an empiricism based on
judgements or propositions instead of heing based on ideas " (" Logical Atomism,"
in The Revolution in Philosophy, London, 1956; p.
38 Appearance and Reality,
ed. (Oxford 1897), p.
•• Ibid., p. 150.
85 Ibid., pp. 143, 148.

ON JUDGING

781

" what " as grasped by the mind is ideal, " a quality made loose
from its own existence." 36 It is this which is represented in the
idea, and in the judgment the idea is predicated of a reality, it
is used to qualify further the" that" of a subject. 37 "The point
is whether with every judgment we do not find an aspect of
existence, absent from the predicate but present in the subject,
and whether in the synthesis of these aspects we have not got
the essence of judgment. And for myself I see no way of avoiding this conclusion." 88 The subj.ect of judgment is thus an actual existence. " In every judgment the genuine .subject is
reality, which goes beyond the predicate and of which the
predicate is an adjective." But Bradley is careful to add: " The
subject is never mere reality, or bare existence without character . . . For judgment is the differentiation of a complex whole,
and hence is always analysis and synthesis in one." 39 And as
regards existence, surely with Hume's view in mind, he remarks:
You will find that the object of thought in the end must be ideal,
and that there is no idea which, as such, contains its own existence.
The " that " of the actual subject will for ever give a something
which is not a mere idea, something which is different from any
truth, something which makes such a difference to your thinking,
that without it you have not even thought completely. 40

For Bradley truth implies the relationship of the object of
one affirmation to all else in reality, so that all reality must
form one whole, the Absolute. We find a similar conviction in
his younger contemporary Leon Brunschvicg, for whom reality
is a whole whose nature is revealed in thought, and especially
in the central mental activity of judgment. As he puts it, " the
nature of being is dependent (suspendu a) on the nature of the
Ibid., p. 144,
Ibid.
88 Ibid., p. 145.
•• Ibid., p. 149.
•• Ibid. In a note on p. 324 Bradley gives us to understand that Bosanquet's

86

87

notion of judgment is similar to his own: " I may refer the reader here to my
Principles of Logic, or, rather, to Mr. Bosanquet's Logic, which is, in many points,
a great advance on my own work."

782

AMBROSE MCNICHOLL

affirmation of being." 41 But his notion of judgment is not the
traditional one:
By making the judgment of attribution, where the copula signifies
the inherence of an attribute in a subject, the exclusive type of
judgment and the one to be considered in relation to the problem
of truth, the scholastic tradition has patently begged the question. 42
The only reality directly accessible to us is thought itself,
and the basic intellectual activity is judgment, for it is only
through analysis of the judgment that we come to know the
relations expressed in concepts. 43 The unity of judgment precedes the multiplicity of concepts. 44 Judgment is not a relation
between two terms.
" It is raining," or " I am," express, in the clearest and most simple
manner, real acts of affirmation. One must therefore hold that a
judgment need contain only one term ... The diversity of forms of
judgment suffices to establish that the essential and characteristic
element of judgment, perhaps what alone suffices to constitute it,
is the copula. 45

It is in the verb that being finds expression; under the form
of necessity in the judgment of interiority; under the form of
reality in the judgment of exteriority; and under the form of
possibility in the judgment of contingency formed by the fusion
of the other two. "Every process of the intellect is an effort
to grasp being; it results in a judgment; and the verb is charLa modalite du jugement, (1897) 2nd. ed. (Paris, 1934), p. 78; cf. p. 94.
Ibid., Introd., iii.
48 Ibid., p. 10.
44 Jacques
Havet thus explains this point: "the existence of the objects of
knowledge is entirely relative to the truth of the judgment attesting them; the
judgment precedes the terms which it brings together and the copula ' is' has no
force of existence, but simply expresses the act of synthesis which is the proper
function of the mind. The truth of judgment or, in other words, the objectivity
of knowledge and, equally, the validity of the assertion of an object's existence,
can derive only from the mutual correspondence between the series of relationships
united in a single synthesis." In " French Philosophical Tradition between the
two Wars," Philosophic Thought in France and the United States, edited by Marvin
Farber (Buffalo, 1950), p. 15.
45 La modalite du jugement, p. 15.
41
42

ON JUDGING

783

acteristic o£ the judgment." 46 What is first affirmed is existence,
as in the judgment o£ existence: "that is " (cela est) . This
is the
first form by which the spirit shows, in the presence of things,
its power of affirmation. In this judgment the "that," being
no more than the indeterminate subject on which the copula
confers existence, adds nothing to the copula; the primitive judgment turns out to be the copula . . . whose whole content is
summed up in the affirmation of reality ... The " that is " provides the criterion of reality; reality resides in it; it is defined by
it.47
In succeeding judgments the mind qualifies this existent
(which £or Brunschvicg is ideal and immanent) by means o£
a predicate. 48 This activity is creative; the judgment gives rise
to its object. It is the history o£ science which reveals the
journey o£ the spirit £rom its first abstract affirmations towards
the completely unfolded universe which we call reality.
Brunschvicg has made the theory o£ judgment the cornerstone o£ his philosophy. Few more than he have stressed the
central role o£ judgment in forming our view o£ reality our
theory o£ knowledge, and our metaphysics. I£ judgment is
basically the affirmation o£ being, our approach to the question
o£ being should be by way o£ the judgment. It is this fundamental conviction, or intuition, which lies at the base o£ his
philosophy, and it is well expressed in his own words:
If one agrees to designate by two words generally taken as synonymous two ideas which are philosophically distinct, if one designates by copula the union of the two terms of a determinate and
concrete judgment, by verb the affirmation of being in general and
independently of the particular judgments which manifest it, one
can say that the question of the meaning and value of the copula
presupposes that the question of the meaning and value of the verb
has been solved. For us, this question is the fundamental one of
critical philosophy. Beginning with the definition of philosophy we
have been led to admit that metaphysics is reduced to the theory of
knowledge, that the constitutive act of knowledge is the judgment,
•• Ibid., p. 170.

47

Ibid., pp. 117, 118.

•• Ibid., pp. 170, 171.

784

AMBROSE MCNICHOLL

and that the judgment is characterized by the affirmation of
being. 49
Whereas Brunschvicg looks to mathematics to provide the
highest type of judgment, Benedetto Croce finds it, on the
contrary, in history. Like Brunschvicg he holds that all reality,
insofar as known, is immanent to Spirit; but the primary activity of Spirit for him is theoretical. This includes first of all
the intuitive grasp of singulars by means of imagination, and
then the logical activity of thought which bears on universals.
Thought comes to full expression in judgment which is its
central and complete act. In it a universal predicate is referred
to a singular subject, thus implying a synthesis of concept and
intuition, of essence and existence, of logic and history.
Croce has little time for those who deal with the judgment
from the purely logical point of view.
We must free ourselves from the false theories about judgment
which for centuries have lazily spread themselves in treatises on
logic and which even today are found or have taken root in them.
I refer not only to its grammatical conception as a union of two
words by means of the verb " to be " (whence formalistic and
verbalistic logic), but also to that which makes it consist in the
agreement or otherwise of two " concepts." This last, especially,
is the worst and most persistent error. The process of freeing oneself
from this error began with Kant in particular and was furthered by
Fichte and Hegel although they did not bring it to completion.
This requires that we see the judgment as the synthesis of representation and concept, of intuition and category, as an act that is
at once division and reunion of the concept, of the concrete concept,
in the two elements which form its unbreakable unity, the universal
and the individual, the logical and the intuitive. In other words:
the judgment is always a judgment of fact; and since the fact is
nothing more than the history of past or present reality (which
form one whole) the judgment is always a historical one. 50
His theory is set out in detail in the second volume of his

Filosofia dello Spirito, 51 .especially in Part I, Section 2. Having
•• Ibid., p. 41.
50 Saggi Filosofici, VII:
Ultimi Saggi (Bari, 1968) : " lntorno all'intuito e al
giudizio," p.
"'Logica come scienza del concetto puro (1905), Srd. ed., Bari, 1917.

ON JUDGING

785

pointed out, in the first three chapters, that abstract and universal judgments are really concealed definitions, he goes on
to consider the individual judgment which contains a concept
and an individual. He holds that the subject and predicate
are distinct only if one is universal and the other not so; that
is, if one is a concept and the other not a concept. 52 This means
that the subject is a representation, the predicate a concept;
and in Croce's theory, where r.epresentation stands for intuition,
this means that the individual judgment is a judgment of perception, and this is really an intellectual intuition, since to perceive is to apprehend a thing as having a certain quality. This
individual judgment completes the process of knowing as
possession of reality. 53
It is the last and most perfect of the acts of knowing; in it the cycle
of knowing is closed . . . To regard it as the first act of knowledge,
as mere sensibility, and to derive concepts from it, either through
psychological mechanism or by choice, is the error of Sensists and
Empiricists. To conceive it as a judgment, and nevertheless place
it at the start of the knowing process and draw concepts from it
by further elaboration, is the error of Rationalists and Intellectualists. Against all these one must firmly hold that the first
moment of knowledge is intuitive and not perceptive; and that
concepts are not derived from the intellectual act of perception but
enter it as constituents of the act itsel£.54

From this it follows that the " is " is Teally a copula only
in the individual judgment, for there it unites two distinct
elements, one being a representation and the other being
logical. 55 The individual judgment always implies that the
subject exists, for in it .existence is always predicated. 56 I£
Ibid., c. 4, p. lOS.
Ibid., p. 105.
5 * Ibid., p. 107; cf. ibid., P. 4, c. 3, pp. 390 ff.
55 Ibid., c. 5, p. 109.
56 Cf. ibid., p. 117: Such objections as "If existence is predicated it would imply

52

53

that, in the judgment 'A exists,' one could think of both terms separately (namely,
A and existence), and that to think of A is already to attribute existence to it, turn
out to be sophisms; because A, outside the judgment, cannot be thought but only
represented; hence it lacks existentiality, a predicate which it acquires only in
the act of judging."

786

AMBROSE MCNICHOLL

there were a pure form o£ the existential judgment, it would be
this: something exists. This, however, is not really an individual judgment but a concealed definition: reality is what
exists. 57 Other types of empirical judgments presuppose the
pure existential one and determine its subject through classification, i.e., by reducing it to a class; but to classify is not to
judge. 58 Finally Croce comes to identify the judgment of definition and the individual one insofar as in fact they are made
by the one actual historical thinker. 59
Passing now from both the empiricist and the idealist schools
of thought to more realist ones mention should be made of A.
Trendelenburg who, during his mauy years of teaching in Berlin
until his death in
helped to direct the attention of his
students to the philosophy of Aristotle. Although he himself
favored a platonic kind of idealism which pointed to the
presence of an ideal element in reality, and thought of reality
as spiritual and evolving, he examined the epistemological and
logical basis of Aristotle's logic which he thus helped to restore
to favor. 60
It was partly through his influence that his student Franz
Brentano came to appreciate Aristotle's teaching and to seek
its help in his opposition to Kant and the Idealists. Already
in his Tiibingen dissertation 61 he set himself against Kant by
explaining the unity of our experience, not by reference to the
transcendental subject (lch denke) but- in the Aristotelean
tradition-by invoking the notion of evidence as the experience
of an immediate presence. This recall to evidence was to become a central theme in many later trends of philosophy; so
too his teaching on the intentionality of psychic acts which,
for him, were basically three: representation, or having an
Ibid., p. 118.
Ibid., c. 6; pp.
ff.
59 Ibid., Sect. 3, cap. 1; pp. 133 ff.
•• Cf. his Elementa logices aristotelicae (Berlin, 1936); Logische Untersuchungen,
ibid., vol. (1840); 3rd. ed. (1870).
61 Von der mannigfachen Bedeutung des Seienden nach Aristoteles
(Frieburg im
Bresgau,
57

58

ON JUDGING

787

object before the mind; judgment; and affection. Using this
notion he could replace Kant's distinction between a posteriori
and a priori judgments by that between experience of the abstract universal and experience of the concrete singular as
two inseparable modalities of the same reality.
Brentano is just as convinced as Bradley, Brunschvicg or
Croce that knowledge, in the full sense of the word, is found
only in judgment. 62 It is not the first of the acts of the mind;
it presupposes the prior activity of representation. 63 But he
is equally firm in rejecting the concept of the judgment as a
simple union or separation of two representations, for it affirms
or denies what is represented. 64 Representation and judgment
are two quite distinct attitudes o£ consciousness to the one
object; in the first it is just present to the mind; in the second
it is affirmed or denied. 65
Judgment does not require two representations, it is quite
possible to affirm or deny one and the same object represented. 66
Nor does it require the union o£ two terms, subject and predicate.67 The fundamental form of judgment is what Brentano
62 Psychologie vom
empirischen Standpunkt (1874), ed. 0. Kranus, vol. 1
(Leipzig, 1924), p. 195.
68 Ibid., pp. II2, 225, 263; II, (1925) pp. 33, 34.
64 Ibid., p. 200; II pp. 34; 44 ff.
65 Ibid., II, pp. 38, 39,63. On p. 46 he refers to J. S. Mill's A System of Logic,
Book I, c. 5. Mill here refers to logicians who " considered a Proposition, or
a Judgment, for they used the two words indiscriminately, to consist in affirming
or denying one idea of another. To judge was to put two ideas together, or to
bring one idea under another, or to compare two ideas, or to perceive the agreement or disagreement between two ideas " (8th ed., London, 1949. p. 56). He
then goes on to say: " The notion that what is of primary importance to the
logician in a proposition is the relation between the two ideas corresponding to
the subject and predicate (instead of the relation between the two phenomena
which they respectively express,) seems to me one of the most fatal errors ever
introduced into the philosophy of logic; and the principal cause why the theory
of the science has made such inconsiderable progress during the last two centuries" (ibid., p. 57). He writes as a logician, one however who recognizes that
"to determine what it is that happens in the case of assent or dissent besides
putting two ideas together, is one of the most intricate of metaphysical problems"
(p.56).
66 Ibid., II, pp. 48, 49.
67 Ibid., I, 200-201; II, 184 ff.

788

AMBROSE MCNICHOLL

calls the existential (or subjectless) one, of the type: "A is."
This is also called the judgment of inner perception. It does not
link a psychic act as subject with existence as a predicate; it
is the simple recognition of the psychic phenomenon present
in inner consciousness. 68 Hence, not every judgment is the
predication of one idea of another. 69 In fact, every type of
judgment, categorical as well as hypothetical, can be translated,
without change of meaning, into au existential one. For, in
order to be able to attribute any predicate to a subject, one
must first know that the subject exists. For example, the judgment " no stone is alive " means there does not exist any living
stone; " all men are mortal " means there does not exist any
immortal man. 70 Hence the "is" of the copula is existential. 71
The categorical judgment is really a double one: one of existence and one of predication. 72 In summarizing his reflections
Brentano concludes that the characteristic feature of judgment
lies in the way the mind is related to its immanent object; not
as just representing it but as affirming or denying its existence. 73
Judgment is thus always basically individual and existential,
even though the object is attained in knowledge as something
universal. 74

*

*

*

*

*

Ibid., I, p. f.l01; II, p. 49.
Ibid., II, p. 53.
70 Ibid., II, pp. 49; 56-60; 193.
71 Ibid., II, pp. 56-57.
72 Ibid., II, p. 165 ff.; 194 n.
78 Ibid., II, pp. 64-65.
74 This logical teaching is completed by what Brentano has to say in his work
on the categories where he speaks of analogy and the immediate evidence of
being as prior to all discourse (Kategorienlehre, Leip:>:ig, 1933). In ch. f.! he
treats of the plurality of accidental being; in ch. 3 of the double manifestation of
being as true or false in affirmation and negation; in ch. 4 of the double mode of
being as act and potency; and in ch. 5 of the categorial diversity of being. He
maintains that the primary function of analogy is not to control the use of the
" being " in discourse but to place thought in contact with the substantiality
of things. The category of substance is not an a priori one. It signifies reality
and that which is the cause of all its transformations. Analogy, in other words,
has a primarily ontological function. By it we can re-unite thought to reality
through affirmation and negation. Things can be this or that in innumerable ways;
68

69

ON JUDGING

789

Scholastics and Judgment
Scholastics treat of judgment in three contexts: in logic, in
psychology, and in their critical theory of knowledge. It seems
advisable to take these in turn, selecting some of the best and
most widely used works to furnish examples and to follow the
evolution of scholastic thinking in this matter.
Logic
As far as I can make out, Scholastic logicians do not seem to
have made up their mind whether they are dealing only with
the proposition or with the act of judging also. Perhaps this
is due to their view on the nature of logic. One of the accusations levelled against them by modern symbolic logicians is that
they approached logic from a presupposed realistic philosophical standpoint, whereas logic should be free from all such presuppositions. This is a question that can be debated; and it
they can be real only in one basic way, as substances. Similarly, the proposition
can be verified or denied in innumerable ways; there is only one way of being
true or false. For more detailed discussion of Brentano's views cf. G. Rossi:
Giudizio e raziocinio: Studi sulla logica dei Brentaniani (Milano, 1926) ; A.
Kastil: Die Philosophie Franz Brentanos. Eine Einfuhrung in seine Lehre, 2nd
ed. (Berne, 1950), L. Gilson: Methode et metaphysique selon Franz Brentano
(Paris, 1955) . Oskar Kraus, in his introduction to vol. II of Brentano's Psychologie (pp. xiv-xv), refers to the development of Brentano's notion of judgment
by Franz Hillebrand, Anton Marty, and Alfred Kastil.
Brentano's views could be profitably discussed in relation to those of Bolzano
and Meinong as well as of Husser!, but this article does not pretend to offer anything like a complete historical survey of the subject. The reader will find references to various theories on judgment from 1883 to 1952 in Gilbert Varet:
Manuel de Bibliographie Philosophique (Paris, 1956)vol. 11, pp. 659-660. Among
others he mentions: F. Miklosich, C. Sigwart, E. Lask, F. Weinhandl, J. Gordin,
L. Couturat, D. M. De Petter, E. Morot-Sir, A. Marc. Among the numerous more
recent works not mentioned by Varet I would draw attention to: E. Vinacke:
The Psychology of Thinking (New York, 1952); D. M. Johnson: The Psychology of Thought and Judgement (New York, 1955); P. T. Geach: Mental
Acts (London, 1957); M. Pradines: Traite de psychologie generale, 2 vol. (Paris,
1956-1958); H. W. B. Joseph: An Introduction to Logic, 2nd. ed. (Oxford, 1957);
F. C. Bartlett: Thinking (London, 1958); F. Resile: Psychology of Judgement
and Choice (New York, 1961); M. Navatril: Les tendances constitutives de la
pensee vivante, 2 vol. (Paris, 1968).

790

AMBROSE MCNICHOLL

may well be that it is only in the fully formalized form of symbolic logic that a purely logical study of the proposition is possible. At any rate, the fact is that Scholastic logicians do
treat both of the proposition and of the judgment, sometimes
without drawing any clear distinction between them. This may
be due in part to the fact that they rely on Aristotle, in whom,
as B. Lonergan
"this distinction between the merely
synthetic element in judgment (the conjunction or not of the
terms) and, on the other hand, the positing of synthesis is not
drawn clearly. In Thomist writings, I believe, the use of Aristotelean terminology obscures to some extent a more nuanced
analysis." Aristotle concentrates on one kind of sentence, namely, the proposition, thesentencewhichhastruthodalsity.
This,
in its simple form, consists in affirmation or denial. It is a statement, with meaning, as to the presence of something in a subject or its absence, in the present, past, or future. An affirmation is a positive assertion of something about something, a
denial is a negative assertion. 76 From the start it is not clear
whether we are dealing only with the proposition, or the assertion, or both together.
One of the best modem thomistic manuals of philosophy was
published by Fr. J. Gredt in 1909. In this edition as in succeeding ones, in the section of logic concerning judgment, we are
told that the essence of judgment consists in affirmation or
negation, and in perceiving the agreement (or lack of it) between two concepts. Three things are necessary for a judgment: a) the apprehension of the subject and predicate; b)
comparison of these; c) perception of the agreement (or not)
of one with the other. This is immediately followed by the
judgment, which consists formally in predication. Although
from a logical point of view judgment is complex, from a physical point of view it is a simple act by which the mind, perceiving the agreement or disagreement of subject with predicate, declares that they do or do not agree. Such perception
· •• Verbum: Word and Idea in Aquinas (London, 1968), p. 49.
•• Cf. On lnterp., cc. 4-6;

ON JUDGING

791

implies that the mind produces a new concept by which this
agreement or its opposite are represented. On this view, the
judgment implies two concepts, while the act of judging requires
at least three stages in its formation. 77 We may refer to this
widely-held view as the three-stage notion of judgment.
We find a more sophisticated version of this theory in another
well-known Thomist, J. Maritain, whose Petite logique (Elements de Philosophie, II) was first published in 1926. In chap.
2 he deals with judgment, first of all in itself, and then as expressed in the proposition. In the first section, on the judgment
itself, he gives his analysis of judgment, noting that this is a
question more for psychology than for logic/ 8 He distinguishes
five stages in the process leading to the formulated judgment.
First, there is the apprehension which provides the mind with
two concepts. Next, ther:e is the act of comparing these two
concepts and of forming a mental enunciation in which they are
linked by the copula as subject and predicate. This requires the
formation of a new mental concept of the identity (or diversity)
of the terms. Then the mind compares this enunciation with
the real object about which it is formed. Next, on perceiving
that the enunciation holds good in regard to the real object,
the mind passes to the affirmation of the enunciation. This is
formally the act of judging, that which sums up the simple
essence of judgment as affirmation or denial by which the mind
formally thinks the acts of being insofar as it is act. Finally,
this judgment is expressed in what is called the judicative
proposition. We may refer to this explanation as the five-stage
notion of judgment. 79
For a quite different approach we turn to G. H. Joyce, an
English Jesuit who was thoroughly familiar with the work of
his follow countrymen in the field of logic and aware of the
theories of Bradley and Brentano. Like practically all Scholas77 Elementa Philosophiae Aristotelico-Thomisticae, I, 26; 9th ed.
(Freiburg i.
B., 1951), pp. 27,28.
78 3rd. ed. (Paris, 1946), pp. 105-117.
70 A similar view is advanced by several other Scholastic writers; some examples
will be given later.

792

AMBROSE MCNICHOLL

tic logicians he assumes that the judgment implies two concepts,
and he has no hesitation in basing his logic on a realistic psychology. He tr.eats of judgment in ch. 3 of his Principles of
Logic, Part I, first published in 1908, insofar as the judgment
is expressed in the proposition, which is defined, with Aristotle,
as an expression in which one affirms or denies an attribute of
a subject. 80 In ev.ery affirmative judgment the two terms are
different mental expressions of the same object. Subject and
predicate are different concepts of the same thing; " the subject directly expresses the thing, i.e., that to which attributes
belong; the predicate expresses the thing as qualified by a particular attribute or form." 81 If the subject happens to be a
.significant term (e. g., "this bronze object") , i.e., if it expresses
an attribute belonging to the thing, " the proposition declares
the coinherence in the same subject of two ' forms of being '
expressed by the terms, though the form signified by the subj.ect is assumed, that signified by the predicate is asserted." 82
The copula of the judgment expresses the being which is
determined by the form expressed by the predicate, for only
what is conceiv.ed as possessed of being can be determined. The
being which is directly and immediately expressed by the copula
is being in the conceptual order, just as the forms expressed
by the predicate are forms as conceived. The essential function
of the copula is thus not to affirm existence in nature but the
objective identity of subject and predicate (or their diversity). 83
" The copula declares that the object expressed by the subject,
and that expressed by the predicate, are identical." 84 More
briefly, "the copula expresses 'being,' the predicate shows us
the nature of that 'being'." 85
Judgment is a simple act of the mind. It is not made up of
three separate acts corresponding to subject, predicate, and
80

Srd. ed. (London, 19fl6), p. 39.

Ibid., p. 41.
8 • Ibid., c. 6, § 2; p. 94
88 Ibid., pp. 40-42-44.
8 ' Ibid., c. 7, § 1; p. 105.
85 Ibid., c. 9, § 4; p. 146.
81

ON JUDGING

793

copula; but in affirmation and negation there is conjunction or
separation of two concepts. 86 The primary form of judgment
is that in which the subject is a concrete singular, the predicate
a form apprehended as belonging to it. 87 There is indeed no
singular concept. But " we may employ the universal concept
to designate a particular individual by using the demonstrative
pronoun, v. g., 'this gold is yellow'." 88 Hence "only in our
primary judgements-those in which the subject is an individual substance and the predicate a real form-is the 'being'
of the copula the ' being ' of real existence." 89
Finally, we may note that Joyce will not accept Bradley's
definition of judgment as " the reference of an ideal content to
reality." 90 This would imply that the true subject is not the
grammatical one but the reality itself, and that the whole
judgment is of the nature of a predicate representing attributes
which are referred to the real world, with the result that the
copula would be meaningless. We must hold, on the contrary,
that subject and predicate belong to the thing as conceived;
they are not the real entities referred to by these terms. 91 This
remark reveals that Joyce is still thinking of the judgment in
terms of the proposition and as therefore involving two concepts rather than of the judgment as the simple act of the mind.
This is understandable since he is speaking as a logician.
Psychology

The authors of scholastic manuals of philosophy frequently
have nothing at all to say on judgment in the section devoted
to psychology. They seem to assume that all that needs to be
said has been already said, in the section on logic, even though
they may point out, when treating of the validity of knowl•• Ibid., pp. 44-45.
•• Ibid., p. 48.
88 Ibid., c. 7, § 6; p. 118.
89 Ibid., c. 7, § 4; p. 114. In § 5 (pp.116, 117) Joyce dismisses Brentano's theory,
and a somewhat similar one of J. Venn.
90 He refers to Bradley's Principles, Bk. I, c. 1, § 17; c. !it, § 5.
91 Ibid., c. 7, § 6; pp. 117-118.

794

AMBROSE MCNICHOLL

edge, that it is only in the judgment that truth is formally
attained as such. 92 Others do touch on the nature of judgment,
though only to recall what they had previously said in their
logic.93 There are, however, some exceptions. One or two examples of such must suffice for our purpose.
The Psychology o£ M. Maher in the Stoneyhurst series,
has been in constant demand since its first edition in 1890. The
first part of ch. 15 is devoted to the judgment, and we are told
that the judicial act is the type of perfect knowledge, 94 although
the highest function of intelligence is not judgment or reasoning
but intuition, i.e., apprehension. 95 Two definitions are offered:
the mental act by which we perceive the agreement or disagreement betwen two ideas; the mental act by which something is asserted or denied; and St. Thomas is quoted as seeing
judgment as an act of intellect whereby the mind combines or
separates two terms by affirmation or denial. 96 When the judgment is analyzed, we find what is, in essence, the five-stage
theory as proposed by Maritain, with the qualification that affirmation and denial are not added to but included in the
perception of the agreement or disagreement of subject and
predicate. 97 The logical point of view is still dominant in this
psychological approach to judgment, even though the author
holds that thought is differently viewed by psychology and
logic.98
P. Siwek also treats in some detail of judgment in his work
Psychologia M etaphysica, Lib. III, c. 1, a. 4. Having rejected
the cartesian thesis that judgment belongs to the will, he
•• E. g., C. Boyer: Cursus Philosophiae, 2 vol., 2nd. ed. (Bruges, 1939); H.
Grenier: Cursus Philosophiae, 3 vol., 3rd. ed. (Quebec, 1947, 1948); R. E. Brennan:
Thornistic Psychology (New York. 1941).
98 V. g., J. Donat:
Surnrna Philosophiae Christianae, vol. 5 (Psychologia, Innsbruck, 1936), pp. 198-199; cf. vol. 1 (Logica), ibid. (1935), pp.94-95.
9 ' 9th ed. (London, 1933), p. 315.
95 Ibid., p. 317.
96 Ibid., p. 314.
97 Ibid., pp. 315-318; cf. pp. 234, 243 fl'. He quotes Ueberweg
(Logie, § 67) and
Bradley (Principles of Logic, cc. 1 and 2) as supporting this view (ibid., p. 816).
98 Ibid., pp. 825-826.

ON JUDGING

795

defines judgment as that act by which the intellect pronounces
on the id.entity or discrepancy of its terms and further says that
it expresses the relation of these concepts to being. 99 Formally
it consists in the act by which the intellect perceives the
identity or discr.epancy of the two terms; it requires the copula
as asserting such identity or discrepancy, and hence it is not
merely a union of concepts. Neither is it a mere ratification or
approbation of knowledge already possessed as, among others,
Tongiorgi, Palmieri, Donat, and Frobes are said to have maintained; while such authors as Sanseverino, Mendive, Boedder,
Mercier, De Backer and Remer are quoted in favor of the
author's view.100 In proving his thesis he calls judgment
the act by which the intellect formally adheres to truth, which
means that it explicitly knows that its concept conforms to
the conceived object 101 ; yet he does not conclude from this that
the judgment is the known referring of the concept to the
object. He does, however, hold that it is a simple act. It requires more than the understanding of the terms or their composition. It demands that the objective identity of the terms
be perceived and that this identity be expressed in a new
concept. 102
One more example will be enough to show how such psychologists seem to be caught between two fires, with the result
that they appear unable to decide whether-as the logicians
tell them-judgment implies comparison of two mental terms,
or whether, as their own experience suggests, it is just one
simple act by which the mind affirms or denies being. Although
they give both views, they do not ask if they are compatible.
Usually they are content to say that judgment can be considered either from a logical or a psychological point of view,
but they continue to hold that even from a psychological point
of view the judgment requires mental comparison of two concepts. This is the position adopted by R. Jolivet in his PsyOp. cit., Romae, 1948, pp. 314-315.
Ibid., p. 322.
101 Ibid., p. 323.
102 Ibid., p. 325.
99

100

796

AMBROSE MCNICHOLL

chologie.103 Having distinguished the logical from the psychological consideration 104 he, as a psychologist, describes judgment as the act of the mind perceiving and affirming an
intelligible relation between two objects of thought. 105 At the
same time he sees the essence of judgment in the act of affirming, or denying, the existence of a subject or of a determination of a subject. 106 The copula therefore always refers to existence. In the judgment of attribution existence is only signified whereas in the existential judgment the real existence
of the subject is affirmed.107 Hence judgment is an absolutely
simple and indivisible act, for it consists essentially in affirmation; it is essentially the affirmation of being. 108
Jolivet also asks which is prior, the concept or the judgment.
His answer is based on the distinction between the order of
exercise (i.e., of actual performance) and that of specification.
From the first point of view, or chronologically, judgment precedes concept since thought takes place only in the form of
judgment. From the point of view of its specification, and
hence of logical priority, the concept precedes judgment since
judgment presupposes that the objects of thought have been
grasped. This does not imply acceptance of Goblot's view
(Logique, Paris, 1918, p. 87) that the concept is only a sum
of virtual judgments, with the result that judgment must be
regarded as the only act of the mind; for this would entail a
regression to infinity because these virtual judgments themselves are formed of concepts. 109
In regard to this question raised by Jolivet refer:ence should
be made to the theory of the Spanish philosopher Angel Amor
Ruibal who died in 1930. At the origin of all intellectual activity he placed a pr.elogical notion of being, one which is utter108

Traite de Philosophie, vol. , Bk.

Ibid., p. 516.
Ibid., p.
106 Ibid., p. 518.
107 Ibid.
108 Ibid., p.
109 Ibid., pp. 519,

m

105

c. 4; 4th. ed. (Lyon/Paris,

1950), 515-

ON JUDGING

797

ly simple and unqualified either as to comprehension or to extension. This notion is gained by intellectual intuition on the
occasion of perception, and it signifies nothing more than " it,"
or" something." It implies a synthesis of sensible and of intellectual apprehension through a kind of primitive reflection; it
is thus at the same time both universal and particular, and
capable of representing the constituent elements of things (comprehension) and their singularity (extension) ; it can thus serve
as foundation for both predicates and subjects of judgments.
It is an ontological-noetic synthesis of the real and the ideal.
From the start being and knowledge are linked in this primitive
notion of being; and what this notion means is existence, for
this is what we first know.
Since this idea is both universal and particular, i.e., shows
itself under two modalities which imply each other, it can be
qualified and determined by means of judgment in two ways,
in regard to the compatibility of notes in any thing, and in regard to the existential realization of things; and this is taken
to mean that the judgement is always synthetico-analytic.
The ideal judgment (affirming compatibility) implies the real
one (affirming realization), and vice versa; both are derived
from the original synthesis. The first full act of the intellect is
therefore the judgment, and through judgment ideas come into
being. Judgment allows for the parallel development of the
aspects of being and knowledge, while ideas express the static
aspect of judgment. These ideas express both the real and the
ideal values latent in the primitive notion of being. At the
source therefore of our ideas we find a fundamental judgment,
our primary affirmation, which can be .expressed as: something
(or "it") exists. This judgment is the mental expression of
the primary fact attained through knowledge, namely, that the
individual thing perceived by the senses has .existence.110
110 Ruibal treats of this matter mainly in vol. 8 of his collected works:
Los problemas fundamentales de la filosofia comparada y del dogma in 10 vols., (Santander,
n. d.), and vol. IX, 121-149. cf. B. Martinez Ruiz: " El acto del Juicio segun Angel
Amor Ruibal," in Verdad y Vita (Madrid) XI (1958), 885-485.

798

AMBROSE MCNICHOLL

Epistemology
It is only in works on the critical theory of knowledge that
Scholastics finally free themselves from this half-logical, halfpsychological treatment of judgment and begin to deal with the
act of judging in its full reality, at the same time acknowledging
its central significance if one is to do full justice to the exigencies
of thought. This is perhaps only to be expected, for Scholastics
had always held that truth, in the complete sense of the word
as truth which is consciously recognized as such, is to be found
only in the judgment. The attention of authors concerned with
the critique of knowledge was bound to center, as reflection
proceeded, on the nature of this activity of the mind.
This development is no doubt due in part to the influence
of those non-Scholastic writers who have already been mentioned, but other influences were also at work. D. Dubarle notes
that mathemational logic helped to bring out the difference
(already stressed by Kant) between, on the one hand, universal and particular judgments and, on the other, singular
ones. Universal judgments enuntiate either inclusions (categoreal judgments) or formal implication (hypothetical judgments); particular judgments are regarded as negations of such
universal ones. The singular judgment enuntiates the relation
(of pertinence) of an individual subject to a group, whereas
the individual subject is not designated in either the universal
or the particular judgment. Aristotle, it appears, does not treat
of singular propositions, perhaps because science, as he conceives it, does not deal with what is singular. This may explain
why Scholastics had come to neglect the singular judgment. 111
It is also likely that the Gestalt psychologists, early in this
century, helped to draw the attention of critical thinkers to the
importance of knowledge of the singular existent, and therefore
of the judgment in which it finds expression. Starting from
111 D. Dubarle:
"La logique du jugement et les categories chez Kant,'' in Rev.
Sc. Ph. Th.
(1968). pp. 3-37. He notes, however, that logicians after the
Summulae of Peter of Spain (c.
and the Summa Totius Logicae (c. 1800)
do treat of singular propositions.

ON JUDGING

799

the observation that movement is perceived, not as a heap of
sensations but as a whole, they advanced the theory that what
is grasped in perceptual experience is a unitary whole which
cannot be explained merely as the result of individual stimuli.
The fact that man enjoys a direct perception of configurations
was seen as leading to a new approach in the analysis of consciousness, one which restores the singular judgment to its
proper place at the starting place of the development of
thought.
When Scholastic philosophers began to take an inter.est in
phenomenology, an interest that has steadily grown since about
1930, they found that Husserl had been engaged in a search for
a new and radical way to lay secure foundations for valid
knowledge and for science. From the beginning he had realized
the importance of judgment for any critical theory of knowledge; and, in relation to Bolzano, Brentano, and such logicans
as Bergmann, had refined his own views on the nature of judgment. He came to see that every proposition, even the most
abstract, is related to something individual which must carry
with it some kind of evidence. This means that the first truths
and evidences must be individual ones, and that all evidence
rests on pre-predicative evidence. Logical operations are therefore to be based on pre-logical intuitions, for we can explain
the spontaneous activity of the mind only as based on prelogical data. The analysis of logical truth should, in consequence, trace its genealogy in preceding acts of consciousness
and in pre-predicative evidence. Husserl's repeated investigations into this topic throughout his previous writings are
summed up in his Erfahrung und Urteil as edited by L.
Landgrebe in 1939.112
Husserl's influence remains active in the Existentialist
philosophers who seem to have been mainly responsible for the
" conversion " of a growing number of Scholastics from a too
112 For Husserl's ideas on judgment
in the Logische Untersuchungen cf. M.
Farber: The Foundation of Phenomenology (Cambridge, Mass., 1943), especially
pp.l75-179; 36fl ff.

800

AMBROSE MCNICHOLL

abstract and essentialist attitude to a more concrete and existentialist one. It was they who placed the problems of the
knowledge of existent and individual reality and of personal
self-consciousness at the very centre of philosophical reflection.
They dealt with man's experience of being; they raised the
question of a concrete, subject and intuitive grasp of singular
and existent reality and of existence itself. Authors such as
Marcel, Lavelle, and Heidegger, despite their many differences,
agreed that the mind is, by nature, open to being, and that
the basic affirmation could be expressed in such formulas as:
that is; things are there; reality exists. Scholastics, under the
influence of this stimulating trend of thought, came to realize
that their approach to philosophy had been too academic and
abstract and to appreciate the decisive importance of the act
of judging.
To confirm this interpretation of the way scholastic thought
has developed one has only to compare the articles and books
written by Scholastics up to about 1946, when the existentialist
" wave " broke over Europe, with what many of them began
to publish from about that time onwards. 113 One notes that
from about
Scholastics are to be found taking up the
question of the nature of judgment. Some of them did so in
an attempt to refute the theories of such Idealists as Brunschvicg, for example, G. Rabeau and G. des Lauriers. 114 Such
writers usually presuppose the commonly accepted notion of
judgment as a union of two concepts although des Lauriers
pointed out that it is not just a simple juxtaposition of concepts but a union of intelligibility and existence. Various other
articles appeared in this period, for instance, those of Johan,
Noel, and Wilpert. 115 If they did not lead to any revision of
Cf. G. Van Riet: L'Epistemologie thomiste (Louvain, 1946), c. 5.
G. Rabeau: "Concept et jugement," Rev. Sc. Ph. Th. 10 (1921), pp. 825-851;
525-547; cf. also Le jugement d'Existence (Paris, 1938); G. des Lauriers: "L'Activite
de jugement en Mathematiques," Rev. Sc. Ph. Th. 28 (1985): I. Concept et jugement," 407-433; 24 (1936): "II. Intelligibilite et existence,'' 76-108; "ill. De
l'unite a l'un existant," 269-298.
11 " R. Johan: " La nature du jugement," Revue de Philasophie 81
468118

114

ON JUDGING

801

the accepted notion of judgment, they at least showed that
there was a revival of interest in the topic; and Johan stressed
the fact that judging is a simple perfection of the intellect, an
act distinguished by its relation to existence, and that the
formal element of judgment lies in assent or affirmation as consequent upon the conceptual synthesis formed in the mind.
Significant contributions from two writers around this time
seem to have failed to gain the notice they deserved. B. M.
Xiberta in a short but tr.enchant article, and in a later one
on the same topic, made it clear that for St. Thomas the struCture of judgment was very important indeed, and that his
teaching on this point has wide implications. 116 Xiberta maintained that a misunderstanding of the nature of judgment lies
at the root of the difference between Scholastic and modern
philosophy. For Locke and Kant judgment is the :6rst act of
the intellect, since it is only the senses that afford man any
contact with external reality. By restricting intuition to the
senses they were forced to see the activity of the intellect as
that of coordinating images or phenomena by means of concepts and to conceive judgment as this kind of conceptual
ordering of material presented by the senses. This, according
to Xiberta, leads both to a denial of the true function of the
concept and to a radical distortion of the act of judgment. He
himself interpreted St. Thomas as holding that judgment does
not require two concepts, but that it does require two apprehensions, one of which is the direct apprehension (by means of
the concept) of the predicate, while the other is indirect, by
means of the senses, and bears on the subject.
Many of the texts in which St. Thomas treats of judgment
and of its relation of existence and truth are examined and
"La critique du jugement selon S. Thomas," in A us des Geisteswelt
(Miinster, 1935), pp. 710-719; P. Wilpert:"
Das Urteil als Trager der Wahrheit nach Thomas von Aquin," Philosophisches
Jahrbuch 46 (1933), pp. 56-75.
116 "Momentum
doctrinae S. Thomae circa structuram iudicii," Acta Pontificiae
Academiae S. Thomae, Nova Series I (1934), pp. 1-9; " Opposita sententia de
apprehensione origo est atque causa divergentis directionis scholasticae et modemae
philosophiae," Sapientia Aquinatis (Romae) 1955, pp. 367-374.

489; L. Noel:

des Mittelalters (Zeitschrift Grabmann)

AMBROSE MCNICHOLL

correlated in a notable article by B. J. Muller-Thym. 117 He
deals with judgment more from the metaphysical than from
the logical point of view. What is characteristic of judgment
is its power to affirm " to be," the act of being, whether simply
or in some respect (e. g., accidental or substantive); and the
subject of judgment is, ultimately, a substantial being which is
attained either directly or indirectly, mediately or immediately.
In judgment the intellect expresses a certain "to be" which
is exercised by the thing that is known. "The subject is that
through which the thing subjected to predication is signified;
it is that pure mean, then, through which the thing subjected
to predication possesses such determination as the predicate
exercises in its regard " (p.
. This means that the relation
of predicate to subject is analogous to that between form and
matter. It also implies that in the judgment there are not two
understood; there
concepts as representing two thing which
is but one thing, one intelligible existence, one act of the intellect (p. 239) . There is, however, a third intelligible component,
which is neither predicate nor subject, but which both signifies the " to be " of the thing which is judged and is the
"esse" of the ens rationis composed of predicate and subject.
The " to be " of the judgment signifies that which is exercised
by the predicate in the subject; and when this signification is
known we can speak of truth in the full sense of the word.
Had these articles received the attention they deserve they
could have led to an earlier clarification of the thomistic theory
of judgment. As it turned out, however, this had to wait until
the impact of the Existentialists had stimulated Scholastics to
turn to the study of judgment. Some seem to have been urged
in this way to study judgment mainly for its own sake, even
if they continued to treat of it mainly along the lines which
had come to be generally accepted. Others, grappling with
the problems raised by the Existentialists, dealt with judgment
as the only act by which we obtain adequate knowledge of the
117 "The To be which signifies the Truth of propositions," Proceedings of the
American Catholic Philosophical Association 16 (1940), pp. 280-254.

ON JUDGING

803

act of existence, thus coming closer to grips with the specific
nature of the knowledge had through judgment.
In the former group P. Hoenen is of particular importance.
His Reality and Judgment according to St. Thomas 118 is a sustained and systematic attempt to deal with judgment itself,
what he calls a phenomenology of judgment, and its relations
to existence and reality; this is followed by an examination,
from the epistemological point of view, of the various types
of judgment. All through the work there is constant recall to
the text of St. Thomas. Thomists were thus invited to study
the many key passages where Aquinas speaks of the nature
and functions of judgment. This work ensured that any later
thomistic critique of knowledge would have to take due account
of the judgment as the act in which the knowing process reaches
its term and by which the mind returns to concrete and existent reality. Hoenen himself continued to regard two concepts
as essential for judgment, insisting, however, that the concepts
must be grasped as a unity, that the subject is taken materially
while the predicate is taken formally, and that what distinguishes judgment is its power to affirm existence. However,
universal judgment are still given priority over singular ones,
with the result that the singular judgment is interpreted as an
application of the universal one to sense data.
More or less the same notion of judgment is found in the wellknown critical works of J. de Vries and L. M. Regis. 119 Both
fully recognize the central role of judgment in any critical
theory of knowledge but continue to regard it as implying two
concepts; in consequence, they attach more weight to universal
than to singular judgments. 120 This was indeed the typical
"thomist" attitude of the period, as represented by J. Maritain,
118 (Chicago, 1952), translated
from the original French (Rome, 1946) by H.
F. Tiblier.
119 J. de Vries:
La pensee et l'etre (Louvain/Paris, 1962); this is a revised
version of Denken und Sein (Freiburg i Br., 1937); cf. also his "Urteilsanalyse
und Seinserkenntnis," Scholastik 28 (1953), 382-399; L. M. Regis: Epistemology
(New York, 1959).
120 De Vries, La pensee et l'etre, 68-70; Regis, op. cit., 312 fl'.

804

AMBROSE MCNICHOLL

M.-D. Roland-Gosselin, and R. Garrigou-Lagrange. 121 The
latter, for instance, held that the intellect first acquires the
notion of being and formulates the principles of non-contradiction and identity before it can make any existential judgment.
A more free and open-minded attitude to thomistic texts was
encouraged by Neo-Scholastic thinkers, notably J. Marechal
and a group of later philosophers who owe much to him. In
general, one can say that these writers stress the dynamism
revealed in the knowing-process, its openness to horizons that
are infinite if not divine, while at the same time they pay
special attention to man's knowledge of singualr reality, and
therefore to the relation of intellect to sense. This concern with
human ways of knowing existent being is evident in Marechal's
study on the psychology of mystics. 122 In his better known
work, 123 his attempt to justify the validity of knowledge in the
light of modern theories, especially that of Kant, he insisted
that any critical reflection on knowledge must center on an in121 J. Maritain:
Les degres du savoir (Paris, 1932); M.-D. Roland-Gosselin:
Essai d'une critique de la connaissance (Le Saulchoir-Paris, 1932); R. GarrigouLagrange: "Notre premier jugement d'existence selon saint Thomas d'Aquin,"
in Studia Mediaevalia in hon. P. Martin (Bruges, 1948), 289-302. Along the same
lines cf.: F. M. Tyrrell. The Role of Assent in Judgement (Washington, 1948);
"The Nature and Function of the Act of Judgement," New Scholasticism 26
(1952) 393-423; F. A. Cunningham: " Judgement in St. Thomas," The Modern
Schoolman, 26 (1954), 185-212; "The Second Operation and the Assent vs.
Judgement in St. Thomas," New Scholasticism 31 (1957), 1-32; R. W. Schmidt:
"Judgement and Predication in a realistic Philosophy," ibid. 29 (1955), 318-326;
J. W. Elders: "Le premier principe de Ia vie intellectuelle," Revue Thomiste 70
(1962), 571-586; J. Gironella: Corso de cuestiones filosoficas (Barcelona, 1963),
p. 54; G. Giannimi: Ateismo e Filosofia (Roma, 1970), c. 4. One new line of
approach was opened up by G. Girardi in his article: "Fenomenologia del
guidizio e assolutezza della verita," Doctor Communis (Roma) 13 (1960), pp.
19-30. He sets out to show that it is the nature of judgment to place itself as absolute;
otherwise it has no meaning. Hence, if we retain any meaningful notion of judgment,
we must also assent to the existence of absolute truth. He notes (p. 24) that
one should distinguish the enunciation (which represents a relation between concepts) from assent to the enunciation. It is only when there is assent that there is
judgment.
122 Etudes sur la psychologie des Mystiques
(Paris, 1924), pp. 70-131.
128 Le point de depart de la metaphysique
(Bruges/Paris), 19!l3 ff.

ON JUDGING

805

vestigation into the act of judging; :r24 and he undertook such
an investigation. 125 If he does continue to speak of two concepts, he stresses far more the fact that the subject in the judgment stands for the suppositum known through the senses from
the start, and that judgment consists essentially in relating
an intelligible content to an object, thus leading the mind from
immanence towards transcendence. 126
This line of investigation was takeu up and carried further by
K. Rahner in a study which first appeared in 1939 and which
reached a wider public in its second edition. 127 It is an attempt
to present a thomistic metaphysics of knowledge, starting from
an exegesis of Summa Theol., I, q. 84, a. 7, where St. Thomas
deals with the " conversio ad phantasma" as an element of
human knowledge. For St. Thomas, as Rahner interprets
him, 128 the general concept is known only in this conversio ad
phantasma; which means that our primary type of knowledge
is concerned with singular existent reality, and that all objective knowledge is the relation of a general concept to a" this."
Rahner speaks of the two concepts of a judgment but is careful
to point out that the judgment is no mere liaison of two concepts; it is the1 application of general knowledge, as a possible
synthesis of subject and predicate, to an object existing in itself. We have knowledge, in the full sense of the word, when
the affirmative synthesis of subject and predicate is referred to
the thing in itself. The function of the subject is to indicate
this thing, the suppositum, to which the predicate (the general
element) is referred. Knowledge is thus the designation of a
composite reality (eompositum) insofar as it is a synthesis
of a form and of a suppositum.
The influence of Heidegger is more apparent in the thought
of J. B. Lotz than in the early work of Rahner. In his Das
Ibid., vol. 5 (Louvain/Paris, 1926), pp. 78 fl'.
Ibid., sect. II, c. 5 (pp. 56-280); cf. also sect. III, c. 1.
126 Ibid., p.
107 Geist in Welt (Innsbruck, 1989);
ed. (Mtinchen, 1957); French trans.
by R. Givord and H. Rochais, L'Esprit dans le monde (Toulouse, 1968).
128 Ibid., especially Part II, c. 8.
12 '

125

806

AMBROSE MCNICHOLL

Urte£l und das Sein 129 he approaches the question of being
through an analysis of the judgment, since he holds that judgment is the primitive place where being, and hence also transcendence, appear. Judgment, as St. Thomas taught (v. g.,
ibid.,. II-II, q. 173, a. 2; I Con. Gent., c., 59; In Boeth. de Trin.,
q. 6, a. 2) is not only the completion of knowledge but also
the only act by which existence is affirmed (v. g., I Sent., d. 38,
q. 1, a. 3; I Perih. lect. 10; lect. 8, 108; In Boeth. de Trin., q.
5, a. 3) . In the course of his analysis Lotz notes that the object
of our primitive judgment is individual, and that our universal
judgments are derivative. He interprets the judgment as the
affirmation of the synthesis of quiddity and individuality in one
being. It is not a simple liaison of subject and predicate for
it expresses a relation of the mind to its object, and it involves
an assertion, or positing, of being. Lotz, however, is more interested in the metaphysical implications of judgment than in
its psychological structure.
In the works of B. Lonergan we find a full appreciation of
the role of judgment in knowing. In his Verbum: Word and
Idea in Aquinas 130 he still speaks of the synthesis of two concepts in judgment 131 but as leading to one act of understanding
expressed in the combination of the two. It results from reflective activity which is a return from such a synthesis to its
source in sense and in intellectual light. The judgment is the
self-expression of the grasp of the necessary connection between the sources and the synthesis. 132 This analysis of the
knowing process is carried further in Collection (New York,
1967) with a critique of the static essentialism and closed conceptualism which looks on science as deduced from principles
whose terms are had by an unconscious process of abstraction
129 First published as Sein unit Wert
(Paderborn, 1938); revised, under present
title (Miinchen, 1957); French trans. by R. Givord (Le jugement et l'etre) (Paris,
1963); cf. especially c. 2 .. sect. 8. For a critique cf. R. Cenal: "El juicio
y el ser," Rivista de Filosofia (Madrid) 27 (1959), pp, 489-496.
130 Notre
Dame, 1967 (London, 1968); first published in Theological Studies
1946-1949.
131 Ibid., pp.,49, 51.
132 Ibid., pp. 64-66.

ON JUDGING

807

from sensible data, so that science is seen as matter of comparing terms, discovering necessary nexus, and grinding out
all the possible conclusions. 133 For Lonergan, on the contrary,
terms are due to acts of understanding as insights into sensible or
imagined data. Concepts e:J..'})ress insights, and insights grasp
forms immanent in sensible presentations. 134
Every judgment involves a simple act of positing or rejecting;
every human judgment in this life rests, in the last analysis, upon
contingent matters of fact; no synthesis of concepts, of itself, constitutes a judgment. On this view, on its cognitional side, there
can be no human knowledge of real possibility or of real necessity
without matter-of-fact judgments; and on its ontological side there
can exist no real necessities without existing essences and no real
possibilities without existing active or passive potencies. You will
find that in Insight this radical rejection of essentialism is worked
out in detail. Judgment is, not synthesis, but positing or rejecting
synthesis. 135
In Insight (London, 1957) the psychological process of knowing
is studied in great detail, with special attention to judgment in
c. 9. Judgment pertains to the third stage of the process (reflection; the other two are: presentation and
for
knowledge is a cumulative process developing from presentation through insight to judgment. The proper content of judgment, its specific contribution to cognitional process, consists
in the answers: yes, or no. "The ultimate basis of our knowing
is not necessity but contingent fact, and the fact is established,
not prior to our engagement in !<Jlowing, but simultaneously
with it." 135 " The judgment of fact, however, is based on what
is virtually unconditioned/ 36 while human knowledge reveals
a dynamic orientation towards being as the objective of the
pure desire to know, as that which is known only when attained
by the totality of correct judgments. 137
pp. 87-90.
pp. no, 159.
135 pp. 159-160.
135 " p. 332; cf. 340.
186 Ibid., pp. 336-338.
137 Ibid., pp. 348, 350; 354, 361, 370.
130

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AMBROSE MCNICHOLL

Among the many other writers who follow Marechal in
stressing the primacy of singular and existential judgments and
in regarding the judgment as bearing the mind not only to objective being but also, at least implicitly, towards God 188 it
will suffice for our purpose to refer finally to A. Marc who has
repeatedly turned to the study of the act of judging. His Psychologie Reflexive 139 affirms the decisive role of judgment in
any adequate theory of knowledge; it maintains that every
judgment implies a relation to individual reality and to existence, and that universal judgments are based on individual
and concrete ones; and the function of the subject of the judgment is said to be that of designating a whole in an explicit
manner, while that of the predicate is to qualify the same
whole.140 In the work La Dialectique de l'affirmation/ 41 which
is an introduction to metaphysics through a study of the judgment, we find the same recall to the primacy of individual
judgment, since it is of the essence of the concept to retain a
reference to what is individual. The typical judgment for us,
according to Marc in another work, 142 would be: this (is) a
dog. He summarizes his reflections in the words:
Since no knowledge is perfect without judgment, no knowledge or
thing which cannot be led back to being and reduced to it, knowledge is completed only when the mind, attaining being in the essence and in the idea of a thing, clings to it. Thanks to being, the
judgment is the act of that " realisateur" which is the mind. 143
188 E. g., J. de Finance:
Etre et Agir dans la philosophie de saint Thomas, 2nd.
ed. (Rome, 1960), 285-295; G. Siewerth: Die Metaphysik der Erkenntnis nach
Thomas von Aquin (Darmstadt, 1968); E. Nicoletti: Giudizio ed Essere (Roma,
1971). Another perspective is opened up by E. Coreth who owes as much to
Heidegger as to Marechal. In his M etaphysik. Eine methodisch-systematische
Grundlegung (Innsbruck/Munich, 1961) he stresses the cardinal importance of the
act of questioning as leading to metaphysical judgments about being. K. Hahner
(op. cit., P. II, c. 1, § I) had already drawn attention to this. On Coreth cf.
Lonergan: CoUection, c.l3.
189 Bruxelles/Paris,
vol. I, 1948.
140 Ibid., pp. 276 fl'; 325-336; 352-366.
1 " Bruxelles/Paris,
1952, c. 1, § 2 (pp. 103-139).
1 .. L'Etre et l'Esprit (Paris/Louvain,
1958), p. 34.
148 La Dialectique de ['affirmation, p. 114 (my translation).
He goes on (pp.
116 fl'.) to discuss the various types of judgment.

ON JUDGING

809

It is worthwhile noting that in favor of this "recall to the
concrete " one may invoke the authority both of the ancients
and of contemporary thinkers. Two examples must suffice.
S. Mansion has tried to show that, for Aristotle, scientific judgments, and even definitions, have an existential reference since,
according to him, an essence cannot be apprehended unless
its subject exists.144 For a contemporary view we may turn to
L. Lavelle who dwells frequently on the importance of the judgment, and in particular of the judgment of existence. In one
of his major works he deals expressly with the judgment of
existence. 145 He sees the judgment as affirming a relation between the mind and being. Of the two types of judgment, that
of relation and that of inherence, he holds that the latter is
more fundamental and presupposed by the former; its subject
is not an abstract concept but a concrete term. Our universal
judgments presuppose individual and existential ones; and of
these the most fundamental is expressed as: Being is. In this
judgment we find " the absolute power of affirmation; and, far
from believing that particular affirmations add anything to
it, we must say that they would not be possible without it,
that they receive from it the sap which enlivens and nourishes
them." 146
We begin to realize the str.ength and extent of this movement in philosophy towards a " return to the concrete " 147
when we compare the teaching of these philosophers with that
of the ones previously discussed in this article. We found
that Croce regards the pure existential judgment as primary,
the concept as always individual, and the judgment as always
one of fact. For Brunschvicg the primary judgment is that
of existence (" cela .est ") ; for Bradley judgment bears on the
"that" and the" what," on existence and character. Brentano
saw the fundamental type of judgment as "A is." Joyce held
Le jugement d'existence chez Aristote (Paris, 1946): pp. 173-183; 213-217.
De l'Etre 2nd ed. (Paris, 1947), c. 5.
146 Ibid., p. 162.
147 This is the theme of a book by J. Wahl:
Vers le concret; etudes d'histoire
de la philosophie contemporaine (on Whitehead, Marcel, James) (Paris, 1932).
14 •

145

810

AMBROSE MCNICHOLL

that the primary type of judgment is the one in which the subject designates a concrete singular being, the predicate standing
for a form; while for Amor Ruibal our primary judgment is
expressed as "something exists."
This movement was now reinforced by the turn given to
philosophical reflection by the Existentialists who set out, inspired by Kierkegaard, to anchor philosophy firmly to the individual and to man's experience of existence. We have already
met the influence of Heidegger in such N eo-Scholastics as
Rahner, Lotz and Coreth. From about 1946 onwards this new
trend forced the more traditional Thomasists to reexamine the
teaching of their master on the way in which we come to know
existence, and therefore on the nature of judgment.

The Existentialist Impact
J. Maritain was one of the first of these to react in a positive
way to the challenge of the Existentialists. A revised notion
of judgment appeared in the fourth edition (1946) of his Degres
du Savior (pp. 188-190); and a conference of the following
year 148 was touched up and included in a work which reached
a wider audience. 149 Here he explained the function of judgment as that of restoring essences (represented in concepts) to
the world of subjects and of existence; 150 and went on to say
that for St. Thomas the judgment is "the completion, the
consummation, the perfection and glory of intelligence, just as
existence is the perfection and glory of being and intelligibility." 151 Since we undoubtedly know existence, which, however,
cannot be adequately represented in a concept which abstracts
from singularity in order to grasp the essence, we must conclude that we have an intuition of being as existent. At the
beginning of thought we find, implicitly at least, that the mind
conceives and judges at one and the same time. It forms its
148 "L'Existentialisme
de saint Thomas," in Acta Pont. A cad. Romanae S.
Thomae Aq.: Esistenzialismo (Rome, 1947), pp. 40-64.
149 Court traite de l'existence et de l'existant
(Paris, 1947), c. I.
150 Ibid., p. 3fl.
151 Ibid., p. 33.

ON JUDGING

811

first idea (of being) in making its first judgment, and makes
its first judgment in forming its first idea. This judgment can
be formulated as: something .exists; it unites a subject with
an existence. 152 :More in detail, the development of thought can
be sketched as follows: With the formation of the first idea
(this thing, this being) there arises a judgment which composes this thing with the act of existing. The mind, in so
judging, knows the subject as singular (indirectly, by reflection
on the phantasm) and affirms that it exists. It can now form
the idea of .existence as an object of thought, since it has first
known it in an intuition inseparable from the first judgment.
After that the mind can gain its intuition of first principles,
and then an explicit consciousness of the existence of the thinking subject. Only then can it attain to explicit knowledge of
the extra-mentality of being and of existence. 153
Perhaps Maritain was indebted to his friend E. Gilson for
this new light on both existence and judgment. At any rate
Gilson, in the third edition of his Le Thomisme (Paris, 1941),
had added an important first chapter on Existence et realite,
towards the end of which he deals with judgment as the only
act by which we really know existence. His interest in existentialism is shown by an article 154 contributed to the volume
Existence (Paris, 1945) and by a conference at the Roman
Study Week in 1947 155 devoted to this topic. His ideas are set
forth at greater length in L'Etre et l'Essence (Paris, 1948),
especially .chaps. nine and ten. Gilson is here caught between
two fires. On the one hand, he insists that the act of existence
cannot be represented in the predicate of a judgment, since the
predicate is always a concept or form and can therefore represent only an essence or quality. On the other hand, he is
persuaded that the judgment is formed by the composition or
division of two concepts. 156 As a result he is forced to dis162
153

Ibid., pp. 43-46.
Ibid., pp. 49-50.

Limites existen tielles de la philosophie."
"La conoscenza dell'essere," in Acta (quoted n. 148), pp. 103-114.
156 L'Etre et l'Essence, pp. 281, 283.

1 "' "

155

su

AMBROSE MCNICHOLL

tinguish two irreducible types of judgment, the attributive one
(with which the logician deals) which has a subject and predicate joined by the copula which does not then signify real
existence; and the existential one affirming that an individual
being exists. In this judgment (e. g., Socrates exists) there is
no predicate; there is composition of subject and of the act of
existing, and the verb (is) is not a copula; it affirms the act of
existing. It is only in and by this judgment that the knower
attains existence as actually exercised.157
The stimulating effect of these philosophers, especially Gilson
who maintained the same thesis in his Being and Some Philosophers (Toronto, 1949) , can be gauged by the number of
writings dealing with judgment, in itself and in its relation to
existence, which were published about this time. Although few
Scholastics were found to agree with his notion of judgment,
many agreed with him that in metaphysics the existential judgment is of primary importance. 158 One of the critics who dealt
in most detail with the notion of judgment was G. Van Riet. 159
He could not accept the thesis that existence cannot be conceptualized. As he saw it, by judgment we recognize the vital
link which binds the significations expressed in concepts to
reality as perceived. The existential judgment is fundamental
because it explicitly affirms this link. It can be formulated in
this way: this is existing. 160 In this judgment the subject is not
a concept but a term designating the reality perceived; the
verb is the simple copula, signifying the identity of subject
and predicate; the predicate is the first concept, that of actual
Ibid., pp. 261-285.
E. g. R. Henle: "Existentialism and the Judgement," in Proc. A mer. Oath.
Phil. Ass. 21 (1947), 40-53; H. Renard: " The Metaphysics of the Existential
Judgement," New Scholasticism 23 (1949), 387-394; S. Mansion: " Philosophical
Explanation," Dominican Studies 3 (1950), 197-219.
169 " Philosophie et existence," in Rev. Phil. Louvain 46 (1948), 352-376; "La
doctrine thomiste du jugement," ibid., 97-108. The longer article is now available
as c. 4 of Van Riet's Problemes d'Epistemologie (Louvain/Paris, 1960) from
which we quote.
160 Ibid., p. 157.
Compare with L. Lavelle: Introduction
['ontologie (Paris,
1967), p. 16: the judgment " il y a quelque chose " is implied in all other
judgments.
157

168

a

ON JUDGING

818

existence; it expresses correctly the existent being.161 While
Gilson holds that the subject of the judgment, as a concept,
always signifies an essence, Van Riet maintains that the subject nev.er designates an essence. In the individual judgment
it stands for a really existing thing. In such a judgment as
"this is existing" the logical subject is a non-conceptual term
whose meaning is determined by an accompanying gesture. In
the judgment "being is what is" the subject is the transcendental
concept of being insofar as it signifies what is real by means of
its fundamental intelligible aspect, namely, existence. In the
judgment " man is mortal " the logical subject is an abstract
concept which, on becoming subject in a proposition, loses its
abstract signification in order to designate a concrete existent
by means of some of its essential characteristics. Hence the
meaning of judgment leads us beyond the realm of logic by
reason of the reflection which it implies and by which the
mind grasps the identity of the meaning expressed by the
predicate with the real existent signified by the subject. 162
This line of reflection is continued by G. Verbeke 168 who sees
the judicative act as essentially synthetic since it unites various
partial views of reality which the mind has gained. The function of the judgment is to express actual existence; hence it
cannot be called abstractive. It consists in this, that an abstract content is set in relation with a concrete existent by
means of man's sensibility, either implicitly or explicitly. The
relation to existence is discovered by reflection on the content
of the first operation of the mind; and it is this reference to
existence which is the characteristic of judgment.
Problemes d'Epistemologie, pp. 157, 158.
Ibid., pp. 164, 165. In his review (Rev. Phil. Louvain, 1951, pp.
of
Tyrrell's book (cf. n.
Van Riet distinguishes the intellectual judgment, the
interior act by which knowledge is led to completion, and which implies a union of
terms (not necessarily of concepts), and judgment as pronounced. This latter is
an act of the whole man; the intellect may play only a minor part in it. The
dominant role may be that of the will. In such cases judgment should be studied
rather in ethics than in epistemology.
168 " Le Developpement de la connaissance d'apres S. Thomas," Rev.Phil. Louvain,
47 (1949)' 437-457.
161
162

814

AMBROSE MCNICHOLL

While these developments were taking place in N eo-Scholastic circles a similar movement was gathering force among more
strictly thomistic thinkers. The question of the possibility of
an intuition of being had been discussed, mainly in relation
to the views of Bergson and Blonde!, by such authors as
Roland-Gosseilin and Jolivet as well as by Maritain himself.
From within this thomistic context the problem was treated
once more by J.-H. Nicolas in an article which could be called
existentialist in a thomist sense. 164 If there is an intuition of
being, he tells us, it must be a judgment, for the judgment is
the most characteristic act of the intellect, that by which it
returns from the abstract order to the order of reality. As an
affirmation of reality its validity is measured by existence, for
this it its proper object. 165 The judgment, as St. Thomas conceives it (e. g., Summa Theol., I, q. 16, a. 2; q. 13, a. 12), is
an absolutely simple act whose object-represented by the subject-is also simple. In its expression (the proposition) it is
complex; but in itself it is a simple act by which an abstract
form is related to its subject. The concept, on becoming the
subject in a proposition, is set in relation to concrete reality.
It can do this only if, by means of the copula, it is set in
relation to another concept which functions as predicate. The
judgment is therefore not a mental arrangement of objects of
thought but a simple act which attains the subject in a new
concept which is the fruit of its own activity/ 66
This question was approached from a new angle by D. M.
de Petter in a communication to the Tenth International Congress of Philosophy (1948) , on the subject: "L'Intuitif implicite dans l'acte de connaissance," (Acts of the Congress,
Amsterdam, vol. I, 1949, pp. 384-387). He maintained that
there is an intuitive element present, but only implicitly, in
every act of knowledge. By intuitive he means a full and
1 "' " L'Intuition
de l'etre et le premier principe," Revue Thomiste 46 (1947),
pp. 113-134.
165 Ibid., pp. 1!21, 1!24.
166 Ibid., pp. 1!25, 1!26.

ON JUDGING

SH>

adequate grasp of a concrete existent, as opposed to abstract
knowledge. He puts forward three main reasons. First, man
is conscious of the abstract character of the content of his
knowledge. This implies that the concretely determined object
is accessible to him. The dynamism of knowledge is ordained
to a more perfect grasp of such an object. Second, knowledge
presents itself as bearing on a form in a subject which in its
concreteness exceeds what that form represents. Third, judgment consists in reducing an abstract content of thought to
something which exists, to a concrete subject. Not all judgments do this directly, but those which do not must rest on
such a judgment as their foundation. Hence knowledge, particularly as expressed in judgment, implies an intellectual grasp
of a concrete existent; and to .explain this we have to invoke
the intervention of sense. This conclusion is re-inforced by the
consideration that being, as transcendental, is not really abstract since it includes everything, even the eoncrete determinateness of the singular existent. Moreover, every judgment implies a grasp of the content of the notion of being, of
which the abstract form (predicated in the judgment) appears
as an .explicit but inadequate expression. This notion of being
is confused-the role of the form is to render it more explicit.
De Petter's influence in the Netherlands has been considerable but restricted in other countries since he preferred to write
in Flemish. His realistic account of judgment can be found in
the article: "Zin en grond van het oordeel," (Tijdschrift voo1"
Philosophie 11 (1949) , pp.
and in his BegTip en weTkelijkheid (Hilversum, 1964).
As was perhaps only to be .expected, the thomists of this
period were more interested in existence itself, in its relation
to metaphysics, than in the nature of judgment by which it is
affirmed. C. Fabro, for instance 167 showed that the " esse "
which, for St. Thomas, is the object of judgment, is not existence as the act of an essence which is really distinct from it
167 In various articles, now included in Partecipazione e causalita, Torino, 1960;
cf. especially pp. 43-45; 52-53; 58-59; 103-104; 163-167; 234-237; 547.

816

AMBROSE MCN!CHOLL

but the esse of a synthesis; for the judgment, as such, only
affirms that a real synthesis corresponds to the mental one of
subject and predicate. L. B. Geiger was also more interested
in the metaphysical implications of judgment than in its structure. Although critical of Gilson's thesis, he agreed that the
act of .existence could not be properly represented by a concept.
Our first concept (namely, that of quelque chose qui est)
represents an object given to our senses and understood by
the intellect as being. 168 While he holds that the two terms of
the judgment need not both be concepts, since the subject may
stand for a concrete thing, he defines the role of judgment as
that of affirming a correspondence between what we grasp and
what we conceive. It recomposes our partial views of the obj.ect in a mental synthesis, and then affirms that this synthesis
is conformed to reality. 169
One effect of these discussions was to urge students of St.
Thomas to reexamine the texts where he deals with judgment,
especially when he considers its relation to existence. L. M.
Regis made a careful study of these texts in order to show that
Gilson could not invokeS. Thomas in support of his theory. 170
J. Isaac 171 acknowledged the primacy of existential judgments,
and allowed that existence is grasped only by means of the
judgment. He held that the judgment presupposes a complex
apprehension and a reflection on its relation to existent reality.
A. M. Krapiec found the theories of Garrigou-Lagrange,
Maritain, and Gilson lacking 172 and undertook a brief study
of the structure of judgment. As regards its matter, he said,
it does not differ from the concept. What distinguishes it is
168 "Philosophies
de l'€ssence et philosophies de !'existence," (a paper read at
Barcelona, 1948), now in Philosophic et spiritualite (Paris, 1963), pp. 53-70; cf.
pp. 62, 66.
169 Ibid., pp. 57, 68.
170 " Gilson's Being and some Philosophers,"
Mod. School. 28 (1951), 111-125.
171 " Sur la connaissance de la verite,"
Rev. Sc. Ph. Th. 32 (1948), 337-350;
cf. also Bulletin Thomiste Sa (1951), pp. 39-59.
1 ? 2 "Analysis formationis
conceptus entis €Xistentialiter considerati," in Divus
Thomas (Piac.) 59 (1956), pp. 320-350 the critique is set out pp. 321-331.

ON JUDGING

817

the act of affirmation. In the attributive judgment what is
affirmed is the necessary connection between the terms, while
the representations contained in the judgment must constitute
a whole. Such a judgment cannot provide the basis for the
proper notion of being as being. 173 For this we must acknowledge the presence of an existential judgment and regard it as
our primary judgment and as anterior even to conceptual
knowledge. 174 In the formation of this judgment the cogitative
power plays an all-important role; this kind of judgment has
no predicate, it simply affirms existence. This apprehension
and affirmation of the existence of material beings is the real
foundation of the process by which we come to know being
as such; by it our existential knowledge is united to our first
and imperfect concept of being. 115
Fr. Regis, in his review of Gilson, had made the point that,
for St. Thomas, every judgment consists of a noun and a verb,
and that in such a judgment as " Socrates exists " the verb
is the predicate. The same point would later be made by R.
Mclnemy. 176 Meanwhile H. McCabe, in criticizing K. Wall
for explaining the judgment as the expression of a partial
identity between subject and predicate, 177 brought the whole
discussion nearer to the linguistic level.178 For St. Thomas, he
pointed out, the judgment consists essentially of a name and
a verb (e. g., I Perih. lect. 6). It does not involve three terms,
the subject and predicate joined by a third term, the copula.
There are only two logical parts: the subject (a name) and
the verb ("is P. "); the subject is the material part of the
proposition, the verb its formal and principal part. We have
predication in the proper sense in an attribution-statement in
Ibid., pp. 344-346.
Ibid., pp. 338-9; 346.
175 Ibid., pp.
173

170

176 "Notes
on Being and Predication," Laval Theol. Phil. 15 (1959),
"Some Notes on Being and Predication," The Thomist
(1959), 315-335.
177 K.
Wall: "The Structure of the Concept," The Thomist 18 (1955),

178 "

The Structure of Judgment,"

The Thomist 19 (1956),

818

AMBROS:Ei MCNlCHOLL

which the subject is used to signify a suppositum, whereas the
predicate signifies a form. The subject is taken materialiter
(it stands for the thing referred to), while the predicate is
taken formaliter; it is not a name, for it does not stand for
any thing; it signifies a form. Hence in proper predication we
do not assert the identity of subject and predicate; this happens only in the identity statement. We may, however, make
the same assertion in the form of an identity statement, namely,
the subject is identically that thing which has the form signified
by the predicate (Summa Theol. I, q. 85, a. 5, ad 3). Hence
the identity involved in judgment is not that of two concepts
but of one and the same thing.
As a result of all these discussions it was clear that, if
thomists had, as Gilson and Fabro maintained, lost sight of
the supreme importance-for metaphysics-of the genuine notion of existence, they had more surely neglected to work out
a satisfactory theory on the nature of judgment. Some, notably
Tyrrell and Hoenen, had r.ecognized this, but they were unable
to rid themselves completely of a too logical approach to the
subject. A more realistic attitude was called for; and this historical survey can be closed by referring to two authors who
adopted such an attitude.
F. D. Wilhelmsen may have been, like many other fortunate
professors, helped and inspired by the work of one or more of
his students. At any rate he refers several times to an unpublished dissertation presented at St. Louis University in 1948
by G. V. Kinnard S. J. on the subject: The Intellect Composing and Dividing according to St. Thomas Aquinas. He
cannot praise this work too highly; it is said to be brilliant,
the most comprehensive study of St. Thomas's theory of judgment.179 I presume, although I have not been able to verify it,
that Wilhelmsen's notion of judgment is essentially the same as
that of Kinnard, or at least of Kinnard's way of interpreting
St. Thomas. He had dealt briefly with the nature of judgment
179 "The Philosopher
48, n.12.

and the Myth," Mod. School. 82 (1954) pp. 89-55; p.

ON JUDGING

819

in two articles 180 before he published a book on epistemology
which expressly made " the theory of judgment its center and
perfection." 181 The article preceding the book prepared the
way for it when it stated:
It is only judgment that attains being in its existence; and since
Thomist metaphysics is the philosophy of being as the exercise of
the act of existing, it is by now clear to all Thomists that the
metaphysical act is the disengagement of what is given in all judgments-being. What is not so evident as yet is the truth that this
position entails the philosopher's pentration into the whole bodysoul, intellect-sensation relationship that constitutes judgement. 182

In cc. 10-18 of his book Wilhelmsen sets out his theory of
judgment. He rejects the view that the judgment is composed
of two .concepts joined by the copula. This may be the logician's
way of treating the proposition, but, for St. Thomas at least,
the mind cannot be informed by two different concepts at the
same time. 183 Only one concept is needed for judgment; it is
that represented by the predicate. The primitive subject of
judgment is concr.ete and individual reality; and most fundamental judgments are those which deal with existing material
things.
From these judgments arise all human knowledge, and all other
judgments get their strength ultimately from those that meet existing singular things as they impinge themselves upon the senses.
From this it follows, not only theoretically but as a matter of
direct experience, that the subject is never understood as such in
any judgment. 184
The function of the subject is to stand for the thing which is
known in the first place.
The subject of judgment is, as it were, the finger of the intellect
pointing at a thing; and the predicate is the voice of the intelligence
180 "The Aesthetic Act and the Act of Being," ibid. SO (1952), pp. 279-291,
and the article just quoted.
181 Man's Knowledge of Reality
(Englewood Cliffs, N.J., 1965), p.v.
182 " The Philosopher
and the Myth," pp. 39-40.
188 Man's Knowledge of Reality, pp. 66, 106, 109 etc.
18 ' Ibid., p. 105.

SQO

AMBROSE MCNICHOLL

declaring that the thing exists in this or that way. Therefore, there
is but one meaning of which man is rationally conscious in any
single judgment: the predicate. 185 The intelligibility of the subject
is the predicate. The predicate makes known the subject or is the
light under which the subject is understood. In fact, the subject
has no other meaning in any one judgment than that given it by
predicate.186
The subject of a judgment may originally have been a concept. When it is used as subject in a judgment it no longer
signifies a concept. The term which formerly expressed a concept now refers, by means of the phantasm from which it was
derived, to the thing or object of the judgment. Wilhelmsen
proposes to call this the symbolized meaning of the subject, to
distinguish it from the formal or rational meaning of the predicate.187 This calls for attention to the all-important function
of the vis cogitativa (or ratio particularis) in the thomistic
explanation of judgment, a point which several other authors
had already made. 188 In judgment the phantasm can exercise
this role in three ways: 1) if the judgment concerns a material
thing present to the external senses it does not symbolize or
represent that thing, for it presents it to the mind; Q) if the
judgment deals with something known in the past and no longer
present the phantasm symbolizes this subject; 3) if the subject
is not a sensible reality the phantasm again stands as a symbol
for this reality and for all that was previously understood
about it. 189 Judgment essentially implies a reflection upon this
phantasm; and " in this reflection to the phantasm the intellect
185 Ibid., p. 108.
The author here refers to Newman's A Grammar af Assent
(London, 1887), p. 14.
186 Ibid. pp. 105-106.
187 Ibid., pp. 110-111.
188 Cf. for instance:
N. Mailloux: "The Problem of Perception," The Thomist
P. Hoenen, op. cit., c. 8; G. Klubertanz: The Discursive Pawer
4
(St. Louis,
esp. cc. 5-9; The Philosophy af Human Nature (New York, 1953),
pp.l43, 187, 19ft; cf. also Krapiec: art. cit. (n. 172), 331-339; Regis; ap. cit., pp.
271-275; A. da Castronovo, "La Cogitativa in S. Tommaso," Dact. Camm. l!l
(1959)' pp. 99-244.
189 Ibid., p. Ill.

ON JUDGING

applies a form (signified by the predicate) to a thing (signified
by the subject) ." 190
The " application of a form to a thing" (in the words of St.
Thomas) must be identified with the act of predication, with composing of predicate with subject. The subject is the very thing
itself, held before the intellect in the phantasm-sensation relationship. The predicate is the .formal content, the " meaning " or intelligibility initially abstracted in the phantasm .... Judgment, as
has been emphasized through all these pages, is the act in which
man understands something to exist. The theory of judgment must
terminate in the existentiality of judgment, in its very being. 191
[In fine:] What is known is a thing designated by a subject; what
is intended of the subject is the formal meaning designated by the
predicate. All judgments reach existence in some order." 192

Since the authority of St. Thomas had been invoked in favor
of widely different views on the nature of judgment, J.
Nijenhuis has set out to reconstruct a theory based on careful
study of the places where St. Thomas speaks of judgment. 198
He finds that the commonly accepted " two concept " theory
can find no support in Aquinas, and he rejects it as untenable
and as due mainly to a too logical treatment, to the neglect
of the psychology of judging/ 94 Aquinas does not confuse judg_
ment and proposition. For him judgment stands for the act
of passing a judgment, for affirmation or negation. It implies
the use of a noun and a verb; nothing more is needed for the
judgment to be complete; and a study of this can reveal what
is essential in any judgment.
The fundamental and primary type of judgment for man,
and that on which St. Thomas usually bases his analysis, is
the one which has a singular-material subject and a universal
predicate of an intellectual-essential nature. 195 Examination of
Ibid., p. 148.
Ibid., pp. 129-131.
192 Ibid., p. 117.
193 The Structure of the Judgement according to Aquinas (Romae, 1971).
This

190
191

is a summary based on a revised version of a dissertation
Faculty of Philosophy at the Angelicum (Rome) in 1960.
194 Ibid., pp. 37-39; 62-72.
19 " Ibid., p. 38.

submitted

to the

AMBROSE MCNICHOLL

this· kind of judgment shows that its formation requires two
apprehensions, one is the direct apprehension of the predicate,
the other is the indirect apprehension (by reflection on the
phantasm) of the subject (Summa Theol., I, q. 86, a. 1; De
Verit. q. 10, a. 5) . Hence in
the most precise and formal description of the nature of the
proposition: The Predicate signifies an aspect, property or quality
of the thing, representing one of the many " forms " of which the
thing, metaphysically speaking, is made up. Its direct apprehension
by the intellect may be taken as one of the many indications why
it is called principal part of the proposition. The Subject, which
is apprehended only indirectly, that is to say, by the intellect,
represents, via the phantasm directly "depicting" the material
thing, this thing itself in its entirety and as it is found in reality.196
As regards the structure of the judgment various texts (such
as Summa Theol., I, q. 13, a. 12 and a. 13; I Perih. lect. 8, 98)
are adduced to show that the component parts of the judgment
can form a unity insofar as the predicate is taken formally
while the subject is taken materially. Here" formally" means:
taken to signify a nature; while " materially " means taken to
stand for the suppositum to which the judgment refers (Summa
Theol., III, q. 16, a. 7 ad 4; a. 9). In consequence, we should
say that the role of the subject is to: " stand for, designate,
indicate, denote, direct attention to, point at ... the function of
the predicate is almost exclusively described as: signify." 197
The author ends his work by quoting Summa Theol., I, q. 16,
a. fl: "In every proposition (the intellect) either applies a
form signified by the predicate to the thing signified (!) by
the subject, or removes one from it." 198

*

*

*

*

*

At the end of this historical survey it seems undeniable that
for the last thirty years or so, whether through internal evolution or through the influence of such currents of thought as
Ibid., p. 87.
Ibid., p. 72.
us Ibid.

118
187

ON JUDGING

existentialism or phenomenology, Scholastic philosophers have
discovered and clarified aspects o£ the thought o£ S. Thomas
which appear to have been ignored or at least not considered
as important. One point that has been made clear is the
thorough unity o£ the human process o£ knowing. There had
been a tendency, due to a too narrowly logical approach to
the question, to separate the concept and the judgment as well
as the acts by which they are formed. Undoubtedly concept
and judgment are distinct; and by reflection one can concentrate on the concept alone or the judgment alone. But an act
o£ knowledge, £rom a psychological point o£ view, is a unity
in which conception and judging are combined and inseparable.
It is more a question o£ distinguishing formalities in the complete act of knowing than of designating distinct acts regarded
as complete in themselves. When, for instance, one says that
the essence is attained in a concept while actual existence is
reached by the judgment, this should be taken to mean that
by the one complete act an existing thing is known, the essence
(or something pertaining to it) by reason of the concept, the
existence by reason of the judgment.
It has also been made quite clear that for St. Thomas knowledge is complete only when the mind passes, in judgment, to
affirmation or negation; and that man's knowing process commences in contact, through the external senses, with existent
and singular material things. St. Thomas also insists over and
over again (e. g., De Verit., q.
6 ad 3; I de Anima, lect. 10,
152; De Anima 19; Quodl. IX, q. 7; Summa Theol., I, q. 75, a.
2 ad 2) that it is the whole man that knows. Properly speaking,
neither intellect nor sense can be said to know, £or they are
not agents but faculties. They are the means by which man,
as one subsisting being, knows. It is one and the same man
who understands and senses (Summa Theol., I, q. 76, a. 1) .
In man's normal knowing there is no such thing as pure sensation or pure intellection. There is but one process of knowing,
and it is integrated by a series of acts that occur together.
As B. Lonergan puts it, knowledge is a structured whole composed o£ parts which are active and which constitute them-

824

AMBROSE MCNICHOLL

selves as a whole. All its parts are knowledge, and all integrate
one whole.199
Similarly it is one and the same object that is known through
sense and intellect. The same object is, in different ways,
understood, imagined, perceived, and touched and seen; which
means that, as St. Thomas puts it, man never knows except
by" turning to the phantasm" (ibid. 1 q. 84, aa. 6-8).
This thomistic insistence on the organic and dynamic unity
of knowledge entails rejection of the Lockian and Kantian view
of knowledge as composed of two distinct stages, as though the
senses first formed their object and then offered this as material
for a subsequent act of the intellect which would order this
material in its own way. In this view intellect and sense would
not bear on the same object. Each would have its own object.
The intellect would then be cut off from intercourse with existent beings, and its first act would be that of judgment seen
as a correlating of immanent objects. For St. Thomas the
knowing process starts from sensible experience and always includes it as an essential component, even where there is question of knowledge of immaterial beings. Our primitive judgments bear on material existing things as present to and acting
on our senses; and all other forms of knowing refer back, in
various ways, to these. In this sense he affirms the primacy of
the existential judgment.
This means that, in studying the judgment, one should attend first of all to such singular and existential judgments.
One can understand why the epistemologist, and so many
modern philosophers from Descartes to Husserl, who are concerned with establishing the validity of science, should turn by
preference to judgments of the abstract and universal type
found in the sciences. But science is an artificial and highly
evolved kind of knowledge; and since its object is, formally,
ideal, universal and immanent, to restrict one's consideration to
such judgments is to enter the way of immanence which leads
to some form of idealism. It is also to deform the tJ:teory of
judgment.
199 "

Cognitional. Structure,"

in OoUecticm, c. 14, especially pp. 222-!!!W.

ON JUDGING

825

To reconstruct the thomistic theory of judgment one should
therefore carry out what may be called a phenomenology of
judgment, that is, a study of the principal types in order to
determine which are primary and fundamental. An investigation into these, in an endeavor to discover their basic structure,
should reveal the nature of the act of judging; and this, in
turn, should shed some light on the nature of the judgment
which simply affirms existence. Judgment and existence are
intimately related to each other; for judgment is the perfection
of knowing, just as existence is the perfection of being.
AMBROSE McNICHOLL,

University of St. Thomas Aquinas
Rome, Italy

0. P.

AQUINAS AND THE SOCIAL TEACHING
OF THE CHURCH

E

XCEPT FOR HIS Commentary on Aristotle's" Politics" and a brief opuscule on the Rule of Princes, both
completed by other authors, Thomas Aquinas wrote
no political treatise in the classical style. The great moral and
social themes on Law, Right, Justice, and the Social Virtues
are all integrated into his theological synthesis of "man's
coming from God and returning to him." The work and the
ideas it contains have secured for Aquinas a place among the
classics not only in philosophy and theology but also in law
and politics. Most Christian and especially Catholic social
ethics have been a reproduction-not always the most authentic-of the principles found in the Summa. In addition, a considerable literature of selected political texts, commentaries,
and historical and political studies has surfaced, especially since
the revival of scholastic philosophy under Leo XIII. It is
nevertheless true that Aquinas never made an impact on actual
political forms or events comparable, for example, to the influence of Locke, Rousseau or Marx. His contribution, we
would like to argue, consists primarily in his grasping and
formulating some basic, timeless insights into the nature and
purpose of human fellowship within his general conception of
man and his universe: insights that can be tested and expanded and in continuous dialogue with other philosophical
and political currents as well as with the reality of human
experience itself. The purpose of this article is to highlight
some of these insights as they reflect in the social teaching of
the Church and bear upon some of our contemporary social
Issues.
Although the seventh centenary of Aquinas's death calls
for a tribute to the man, it is not our intention to present a case

826

AQUINAS AND SOCIAL TEACHING OF THE CHURCH

827

for the Thomism of the encyclicals or to suggest that a thirteenth-century theologian or a twentieth-century Church has
all the answers to all the questions. Indeed, the first thing we
learn from Aquinas is that there are no blueprints for either
personal happiness or social progress. The Church has publicly
disclaimed such an expertise in human affairs.1 What we propose is that in addressing ourselves to such questions a dialogue
with the past may be as productive as a dialogue with the
present. The Church does not speak in a vacuum; it speaks
in the context of its own historical r.eality which stems from
the Incarnation, since " beneath all changes there are many
realities which do not change and which have their ultimate
foundation in Christ, who is the same yesterday and today,
yes and forever ". 2 The historical continuity of the gospel
message is essential to the Church's identity and mission. While
the same cannot be said of philosophical or .even of theological
traditions within this continuum, their contributions do call
for attention and testing, to say the least. Continuity does not
exclude change and adaptation, although this has often been a
slow and a painful process for the Church. Rather, such
changes in the Church's position on social questions not only
occur, they are also called for. Since the "static" conceptions
of the Church's teachings are frequently attributed to its
" fidelity to Thomas," it will be a part of this analysis to inquire not only what he might have contributed by way of
unchangeable truth but also, if such be the case, by way of a
spirit of openness to change and adaptation.
From a historical perspective, Aquinas's socio-political
thought is often associated with and, for some, is the spokesman
for the medieval conception of Christianity as a hierarchical
commonwealth whose parts are harmoniously interrelated and
jointly ordained to a common goal which is ultimately God
himself. By the time Aquinas was formulating his version of
this conception, the political reality was already quite different,
1 The Pastoral Constitution
on the Church in the Modern World (Gaudium
et Spes), no. 48.
• Ibid., no. 10.

828

JANKO ZAGAR

with both popes and emperors struggling for worldly supremacy. The result was not a harmonious Christendom but the
plurality of sovereign, absolutist, and often antagonistic states
that we still know today.
There is no need for us to review all the other historical
changes often described as the process of dechristianization.
The decline of scholasticism, the rise of modern science and
philosophy, the Reformation, and the political, industrial, and
most recently, technological revolutions are some of the great
turning points with which we are familiar. Gradually but
profoundly they changed the styles and structures of human
relations. It may be useful to sketch some of the results of
these changes as they appear on the contemporary scene. The
first to attract the attention of the Church was the rise of the
working class in the last century. It is followed now by the
entry of women into public life. Related to this is the weakening
of the centuries-old agrarian and patriarchal civilization on the
one hand, and the expansion of urban concentrations with all
their big-city problems on the other. On the international
level there is the emergence of underdeveloped nations (the
third world) with their problems of economic inequalities,
population explosion, and environmental crises, coupled, because of mass communication, with evidence o£ cultural and
religious pluralism, atheism as a possible world view, and
Christianity as a religion proper to Western man. In the sociomoral order the multiplication of social relations started what
the encyclicals now call the " process o£ socialization," 3 a daily
more complex interdependence of citizens. Contributing to this
process we can cite the computer, the possibility o£ genetic
and biological control of human life, the sexual revolution with
its effects on marriage and morality in general, and the specific
problems of the young, the old, the minorities, etc., in a society
which is still ruled by the law of competition rather than by
a spirit of cooperation. In the area of politics and government,
the power of the state and the danger of nuclear war are
8

Mater et Magistra, no. 59; Gaudium et Spes, no. 25.

AQUINAS AND SOCIAL TEACHING OF THE CHURCH

829

still very much with us. Governments, when they are not dictatorships, are based on positivistic, contractual, and utilitarian
conceptions of man. In spite of the great principles of the American and Fr.ench revolutions, and contrary to Marx's expectation of the withering away of the state into a classless society,
the bureaucratic, militaristic, and financial machinery of the
state has increased throughout the world. Individual freedom
can be challenged at any time on the grounds of " Party line "
or " national interest." Yet there is a profound confusion about
what such interests are. There is a crisis of the common good
in contemporary society at almost all levels. Citizens do not
know what the common good of their country is. The faithful
are confused about the common good of their Church; the religious debate the goals of their Orders; workers question the
common good in their unions; married couples search for the
meaning of their marriages.
Neither philosophy nor theology has been very helpful to
the human mind in recent times. It is true that currents like
existentialism and the Latin American theology of liberation
are awakening Christians to their responsibility for concrete
action. But the anti-metaphysical strain in modern philosophy
and the anti-transcendental bent in theology deprive man of
any appeal beyond the positivistic instances of the human will.
However, questions are being raised more and more about who
should decide and on what grounds, as the basic values of
human life apear at stake in such issues as war, capital punishment, abortion, euthanasia, sterilization, and other forms of
human experimentation.
There is no single cause or solution for these phenomena, but
two underlying thoughts come to mind in their regard; one
is that man has always searched for a happy balance between
his individual rights and his social interdependence, and he has
never found it; the second is that the Church has always
searched for an equally happy balance between its humanosocial and faith-transcendental function, and has never found
it either. Although human relations cannot be reduced to
simple categories, especially the individual-society relationship,

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JANKO ZAGAR

experience tells us that they can easily be polarized around two
extremes: individualism and collectivism in politics, and secularism and supernaturalism in r.eligion. Nineteenth-century
capitalism and the twentieth-century communism
what such polarization can mean in real life. It is true that the
general standard of living eventually rose under both systems,
but the achievements are due to mitigating rather than to enforcing the principles on which they are respectively founded.
Without such mitigation and with the materialistic and competitive conception of man which is common to both, the laissezfaire capitalism lends itself to the oppr.ession of the weak and
collectivism to totalitarianism. We still have plentiful evidence
of both.
Tossed between these two forms of the same mistake-extremism-the response of the Church grew gradually as it began to address itself to the particular issues of the day, from
working conditions and private property in the time of Leo
XIII to the concern for trade unions, peace and international
justice of the twentieth-c-entury popes. But the Church was
divided within itself. The "conflict" between transcendental
and wordly perspectives of the gospel, between the here and
hereafter, is not new in the history of Christianity. There have
always been within and without the Church those who conceive
Christianity as primarily if not exclusively a humanitarian and
social commitment and those who either refuse to be " of this
world" or deny the Church's right to speak on worldly matters.
The social turmoil of the nineteenth century brought the conflict to a head, as the Church was confronted, on the one hand,
with capitalism and socialism as the leading ideologies, and on
the other, with poverty as the common condition of the
majority of people. Although the leading nineteenth-century
Catholics were aware of a new situation created by the industrial revolution, and some like Cardinals Manning and Gibbons,
played important roles in the change which was to come, the
absence of a Christian-Catholic social " ideology" comparable
to the Marxist vision and method was conspicuous. Jeremiah
Newman describes the initial Catholic reaction as romantic,

AQUINAS AND SOCIAL TEACHING OF THE CHURCH

831

aristocratic, moralistic, and paternalistic. 4 As late as 1878 Leo
XIII's main concern was still" the defense of the religious order
and civil order against subversive forces " and the preaching
of almsgiving to the rich and patience to the poor as " the best
method" of social reconciliation. 5
As often happens in similar situations, the early Catholic
reactions were divided between the conservatives and the
liberals: the former centered on individual and the latter on
structural amelioration. Both failed in their respective efforts,
although not without significant influence on future developments: the conservatives because charity was not a substitute
for justice and liberals because they were too liberal for the
Church and not liberal enough for the workers. A new theological foundation for the social order that would meet the
new social climate and counteract both capitalism and socialism
ideologically became imperative. The Church looked for this
foundation in its own philosophical and theological tradition.
It was thus that the study of St. Thomas and a new edition of
his works (the Leonine) were initiated by Leo XIII's encyclical
letter Aeterni Patris (On the Restoration of Christian Philosophy) in 1879. The source was rich and valid, but it was also
suspect as a sign of looking backward instead of moving forward. Nevertheless, it soon became evident that under the
dust of casuistry, legalism, and the apologetics of the recent
centuries, here lay a treasure that could still be invested. The
first significant breakthrough came twelve years later with the
publication of Rerum N ovarum in 1891. The encyclical opened
a new path to a theological foundation for the social order. It
was the beginning and has remained the basis of a series of
subsequent pontifical documents which, under the name of
social encyclicals and together with Vatican II's Pastoral Constitution on the Church in the Modern World now constitute
a substantial body of the Church's social doctrine, bearing on
• Jeremiah Newman: Change and the Catholic Church (Helicon, 1965), pp.
141 ss.
• Leo XIII: Quod Apostolici muneris, 1878.

832

JANKO ZAGAR

practically all aspects of contemporary social and international
problems and relations.
All socio-political ideologies proceed from some basic assumptions which flow into practical application according to a proposed method. Thus capitalism proceeds from an egoistic conception of man and proposes free competition as the road to
social harmony. Marxism rests on the assumption of dialectical
materialism and expects, by way of proletarian revolution (or
the dictatorship of proletariat), to establish a communist
society. The Church's social doctrine also rests on some basic
assumptions and envisions a specific method for social betterment. The assumptions concern the understanding of man,
society, the common good, and social justice, which are the
underlying realities of all human r:elations. The method is one
of moderation and reconciliation of extremes, and, as far as the
Church's more recent stance toward the world is concerned, its
adaptation to " the signs of the times," without r:enouncing its
supernatural mission. It is along these lines that we propose
to review Aquinas's main contribution.
Aquinas's socio-political thought and its practical implications are, as we said earlier, only one aspect of his theological
synthesis. ·within this synthesis his " social theology " evolves
around four fundamental realities: the personal unity, dignity,
and mystery of the human being; the naturalness of society;
the primacy of the common good; and justice as the foundation
of human fellowship.

Dignity of the human person
Compared with modern evolutionary and process theories
Aquinas's concept of man appears static and has been criticized
as such. It assumes the existence and continuity of what we call
human nature and our capacity for knowing it. How " static "
Aquinas's conception is and how it compares in practical human
and social consequences with process thought may be a debatable issue. The fact is, and no one denies it, that human development, adaptation, and man's growing knowledge of himself are taken for granted. Speaking of natural law Aquinas

AQUINAS AND SOCIAL TEACHING

OF THE CHURCH

833

writes that "nothing hinders the natural law from being
changed since many things for the benefit of human life have
been added over and above the natural law, both by the divine
law and human laws." 6 For Aquinas, every human person is
a unique being, and human actions are singular (actus sunt in
particularibus). He writes: "Our intellect can make a universal statement which is true, as in the case of the necessary,
in regard to which a defect cannot occur. But of other things
it is impossible that anything be said which is true universally,
as in the case of the contingent." 7 This is an obvious warning
against too hasty a codification of the natural law. But it is
not a door to scepticism. There is still a world with man in
it at every given time. Individual personalities, tastes, and prefer:ences may vary, but the elementary needs for food, clothing,
and shelter are constant, and they tell us something. There is
still a specific human identity in a given time and place in
relation to the rest of creation; an identity which is recognizable
and discernible. On the basis of such a specifically human
identity, Aquinas makes the point that man is not just the
culmination of a natural evolution, but also-and primarilythe center of cr:eation, the middle between the Creator and the
least of creation. In the order of beings, he combines the highest,
a spiritual soul, with the lowest, a material substance, in one
person existing " on the horizon of eternity and time." 8
The individual is not just a member of a species: he possesses
a rational nature which distinguishes him as person, and "person signifies what is the most perfect in nature." 9 It also signifi.es what is distinctive and complete in that nature "this
flesh, these bones, and this soul, which are the individuating
principles of man, and which, though not belonging to person in
general, nevertheless do belong to the meaning of a particular
human person." 10 Against not only materialistic but also
• Summa Theologiae I-II, q. 94, a. 5.
• Commentary on the Nicomachean Ethics, Book V, lect. XVI.
• II Contra Gentiles, c. 81.
• Summa Theol., I, q. !t9, a. 8.
10 Ibid., a. 4.

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JANKO ZAGAR

dualistic and departmentalistic conceptions o£ man is Aquinas's
position that in man everything is man and man is a unique
person. The substantial union o£ soul and body, spirit and
flesh, consecrates man's physical, biological, and social existence,
and differentiates him from every other created being even
in £unctions which are otherwise common. It is with the soul
that " we eat and £eel and understand." 11 On these grounds,
£or instance, human sexuality is inseparable £rom human
spirituality. A complete declaration o£ human rights may be
deduced £rom this conception o£ man: the right to life and
bodily integrity: the right to knowledge and information; the
right to freedom, the right to worship; the right to work and
ownership, etc., since " man in a certain sense contains all
things and according a.s he is master o£ what is within himself,
in the .same way he can have mastership over other things." 12
Redemption adds another dimension to this natural dignity o£
man since "the perfection o£ the rational creature consists
not only in what belongs to it in respect o£ its nature but also
in that which it acquires through a supernatural perfection o£
divine goodness ... Hence man's ultimate happiness consists in
a supernatural vision o£ God." 13
It is on the basis o£ these two inalienable realities, nature and
redemption, o£ the human person that Pope John XXIII lays
down the grounds £or the order which should exist £or the respect o£ the person in human society.
Any human society, if it is to be well ordered and productive,
must lay down as a foundation this principle, namely, that every
human being is a person, that is, his nature is endDwed with intelligence and free will. Indeed, precisely because he is a person
he has rights and obligations flowing directly and simultaneously
from his very nature. And as these rights and obligations are universal and inviolable, so they cannot in any way be surrendered.
If we look upon the dignity of the human person in the light of
divinely revealed truth we cannot help but esteem it far more
highly; for men are redeemed by the blood of Jesus Christ, they
Ibid., q. 71, a. 1; II Cont. Gent., c. 56.
Summa Theol., q. 96, a. 2.
18 Ibid., 11-II, q. 2, a. 8.

11

12

AQUINAS AND SOCIAL TEACHING OF THE CHURCH

885

are by grace the children and friends of God and heirs of eternal
glory.14

Naturally somal
Man's uniqueness finds its extension in society. Society is
the result of neither sinfulness nor contract. It is the natural
framework of individual existence and growth which springs
from man's twofold needs of r.eceiving and giving. "To the
other animals nature provides food, hair to cover, defense such
as teeth, horns, claws or at least speed to flee. Man has nothing
of these prepared by nature, but instead he possesses reason by
which he can procure all these with his own hands and for such
preparation a single man is insufficient. One man alone cannot
by himself go through life." 15 Original sin is not the cause of
social differences and authority. In a question asking whether
in the state of innocence man would have been master over
man, in other words, whether social differences would have existed, Aquinas first rejecting the possibility of slavery writes:
A man is the master of a free subject, by directing him either toward
his proper welfare, or to the common good. Such a kind of mastership would have existed in the state of innocence between man
and man for two reasons. First, because man is naturally a social
being, and so in the state of innocence he would have led a social
life. Now a social life cannot exist among a number of people unless under the presidency of one to look after the common good;
for many as such seek many things, whereas one attends only to
one ... Secondly, if one man surpassed another in knowledge and
virtue, this would not have been fitting unless these gifts conduced
to the benefits of others, according to I Peter 4:10 "as every man
hath received grace, ministering the same one to another ... " 16
The meaning of" naturaliter sociale" has caused occasional
confusion due to the ambiguity of the terms nature and natural
in Aquinas's writings. Things could be natural in a cosmic,
generic, specific or even individual sense, as when we say that
the knowledge of medicine is natural to a doctor and that of
Pacem in Terris, nos. 9-10.
De Regimine Principum, I: 1.
16 Summa Theol., I, q. 96, a. 4.
14

15

836

JANKO ZAGAR

theology to a priest. In practice it makes a difference whether
we conceive human sociability as a cosmic or biological whole,
a heap of stones or something specifically human. It is in this
latter sense that we must understand St. Thomas's" naturaliter
sociale," since, according to the principle of substantial union
of soul and body in one person, in man everything is specifically
human. For both material and biological reasons man needs
society, but such needs are specifically human, subject to man's
organizational capacity and in various degrees integrated into
his moral order. Consequently, society is not simply or even
primarily a sociological phenomenon but a moral reality and
a postulate of reason: "civitas (est) quodam totum cujus
humana ratio non est solum cognoscitiva, sed etiam operativa." 17 Reason demands a society wherein the laws governing
society are also "ordinances of reason," or they are not laws
at all. Since man's sociability is based on his rationality every
human society implies reciprocity: the individual is both
active and passive, giving and receiving, although under
different aspects. It also implies a purpose because in all human
activity man always acts for an end. The end is the common
good of that society. St. Thomas's concept of society as a
reciprocal sharing of mutual and spiritual values in view of a
common goal is reiterated in the Pastoral Constitution on the
Church.
Man's social nature makes it evident that the progress of the
human person and the advance of society itself hinge on each other.
For the beginning, the subject and the goal of all social institutions
is and must be the human person, which for its part and by its
very nature stands completely in need of social life. This social
life is not something added on to man. Hence through his dealings
with others, through reciprocal duties, and through fraternal dialogue he develops all his gifts and is able to rise to his destiny .18

Aquinas offers no original thought on the institutional type
of government but rather a few accepted conditions for what
17
18

Commentary on the Politics, Prooemium.
The Pastoral Constitution on the Church, no. 25.

AQUINAS AND SOCIAL TEACHING OF THE CHURCH

837

he calls " civitas " or perfect society (equivalent to our concept
of state) suggesting a pragmatic approach. A perfect society
is a multitude of free people, sufficient for adequate human development (bene vivere humanum) and governed by a legitimate authority/ 9 A multitude of free people suggests a pluralistic conception of society, not only accepting but insisting on
healthy differences within a fundamental unity. 20 The conception excludes every biological, racial, class and in principle even
religious or any other totalitarian uniformity. What is sufficient
for life is an open-ended perspective since needs and possibilities vary in time and place. Once again " bene vivere humanum" applies to the entire person and includes material,
spiritual and emotional fulfillment. Man cannot live without
food, and " as he cannot live without truth, likewis.e he cannot
live without joy." 21 The purpose of a social institution, therefore, is to assure such material, moral, and cultural conditions
in which people can freely and comfortably advance in their
human growth and fulfillment. Although God is not a direct
objective of such human fellowship in a political society, a perfect society must at least he open to and in line with that
objective because of man's natural openness to the Absolute.
By the very fact that all moral order is goal-oriented Aquinas
excludes an entirely secular order with its own closed standards
and norms.
Because by virtuous living man is ordained to an ulterior end which
consists in divine fruition ... it is necessary that the end of human
multitude be the same as of individual man. The ultimate end
of an assembled multitude is not to live virtuously but by virtuously living achieve the divine fruition. 22
Commentary on Psalm 45, verse 4.
II Polit., lect. 1. ". . . civitas non solum debet esse ex pluribus hominibus,
sed etiam oportet esse ex differentibus specie, idest ex hominibus diversarum conditionum ... aliud est civitas et aliud est multitudo congregata ad simul
pugnandum."
21 Summa Theol., II-II, q. 114, a.
ad 1; also I-II, q. 4, a. 6: "Since it is
natural for the soul to be united to the body, how is it credible that the perfection
of the one should exclude the perfection of the other."
22 De Regimine Principum, I: 14.
19

20

838

JANKO ZAGAR

Natural order is distinct and, as we shall point out shortly,
in a sense autonomous, but not separate from, the order of
faith. In the total human destiny even secular social structures
have a redemptive value insofar as they help man toward salva..
tion.
As it is natural for man to live in society, so also is it natural
to live under an authority. A perfect .society cannot exist or
function without someone presiding and caring for the common
good. In practice this can only be done through a legitimate
government " qui curam communitatis habet." What kind of
government, how strong, how weak, how chosen, how controlled, how changed is a matter of political experience, prudence, and wisdom. But assuming the principle of individual
freedom as well as the egoistic undercurrents of human nature,
a perfect society can be united only by the free union of free
wills, on the basis of knowledge and in view of a common objective. It is a unity based not on the wit of either one or
many but on the law which is an "ordinance of reason" and
in its turn a reflection of the divine wisdom (eternal law) as
implemented in human hearts (natural law.)
Along these lines and from our contemporary perspective
Pacem in Terris takes it for granted that in the last instance
the public authority in a society is human persons: individuals
chosen or otherwise established to be authority or government.
Since governments are the result of man's social nature, it is
only by reference to this nature and ultimately to its Creator
that they are socially just or unjust, legitimate or illegitimate.
Since the right to command is required by the moral order and
has its source in God, it follows that, if civil authorities pass laws
or command anything opposed to the moral order and consequently
contrary to the will of God, neither the laws made nor the authorization granted can be binding on the consciences of the citizens,
since God has more right to be obeyed than men. As St. Thomas
Aquinas teaches: "Human law has the true nature of law only
insofar as it corresponds to right reason, and in this respect it is
evident that it is derived from the eternal law. Insofar as it falls
short of right reason, a law is said to be a wicked law; and so
lacking the true nature of law, it is rather a kind of violence."
(Pacem in Terris, 51)

AQUINAS AND SOCIAL TEACHING OF THE CHURCH

839

Human dimensions of the common good
Of all social factors and values the common good holds the
central place. Its existence is implicit in human cooperation,
but what it is and how it relates to individual goods is more
difficult to define. In Aquinas's thinking to understand the
common good one must begin by understanding the essence of
good as such, which is philosophically puzzling. Aquinas begins with a basic experience. This essence, he writes," consists
in this, that it is in some way desirable," in other words, it
is related as a fulfillment to a desiring subject, as truth is related to the intellect. Good is thus conceived as perfective of
one who desires it which implies that it must be perfect, i. e.,
a real value in itself, existing and true since ".everything is
perfect so far as it exists." 28 There is in the works of Aquinas
an ontology of good, its transcendental status, its identity with
being and truth, and its analogical application, which underlies
what in the social context we call the common good. Such a
common good is intrinsic to all human associations beginning
with friendship and the family and extending to political, religious, international and all other groupings. In all such groupings, Aquinas maintains, the common good is also the goal
to which particular goods are ordained as parts to their whole.
" The common good is the end of each individual member of
a community just as the good of the whole is the end of each
24 For this reason " it is a virtuous
action for a man
to endanger even his own life, either for the spiritual or for
the temporal common good of his country." 25 Since human
fellowship, according to Aquinas, is not just an institution
which one can join or leave but a community to which one
belongs in virtue of his humanity, the common good is not just
an accumulation in size and degree of individual goods but a
reality specifically different and a value in its own right. " The
common good of the realm and the particular good of the in•• Summa Theol., I, q. 5, a. 1.
•• Ibid., II-II, q. 58, a. 9 ad 3.
•• Ibid., q. 31, a. 3.

840

JANKO ZAGAR

dividual differ not only in respect of the many and few, but
under a formal aspect. For the aspect of the common good
differs from the aspect of the individual good, even as the aspect of the whole differs from that of the part." 26 The difference
and its implication echo in the distinction between what some
contemporary writers call the aggregative and the distributive
conceptions of the common good.27 The distributive conception
is limited to the distribution of existing goods or values under
such principles as justice for all, .equal opportunity, equal rights,
and viewing the society as a balance of group interests and
powers rather than as a community with a common goal. The
aggregative conception is goal-oriented. Merle Longwood observes, in the article just quoted, that only the aggregative or
goal-oriented common good is adequate to deal with such contemporary problems as clear air, clean water, education, crime
prevention, etc., because these are not matters of equal distribution but of common sharing in the responsibility for sur- i ''n
vival.
The primacy of the common good is not without qualification. " The good of the universe is greater than the particular
good of one, if we consider both of the same genus. But the
good of grace in one is greater than the good of nature in the
whole universe." 28 Aquinas speaks as a theologian, but the
principle applies on all levels, although a discernment is not
always easy. There are statements on individual/ society and
private f common good relationships which, if taken in isolation, appear conflicting. Thus we are told that "every individual person is compared to the community as part to a
whole," 29 or that being " a part of a political community he
cannot be good unless he be well adjusted to the common good";
yet " to be a part is contrary to the idea of person" 80 and " a
•• Ibid., q. 58, a. 7 ad 2.
21 Merle Longwood: " Common Good and Environmental Issues," in Theological
Studies, Vol. 84, No. 8 (September, 1978).
•• Summa Theol., 1-11, q. 118, a. 9 ad 2.
•• Ibid., 11-11, q. 61, a. 1; q. 64, a. 2.
80 Ill Sent., a. 5, q. 82.

AQUINAS AND SOCIAL TEACHING OF THE CHURCH

841

human being is not subordinate to the political community
entil"ely in his whole self and with all he possesses, and therefore
it is not required that each of his acts should be well or ill
deserving within the political order." 31 To understand Aquinas's
dialectic of the common good one must recall man's personal
dignity on the one hand and his natural embedment in society
on the other. Since every society is always a society of human
persons, the good of the society is the good of each person who
in turn continuously transcends the existing good (and society)
by his openness to something greater and better. A continuous
cross reference to man as a person and person as naturally social
is a safeguard against the extremes of both individualism, which
does not go beyond a juxtaposition (distribution) of private
goods, and collectivism, which deprives man not only of what
he has but ultimately of what he is.
Common good is not just an ideal, much less an abstraction.
In a social context it always has an existing content, a standard
that can be experienced and evaluated, although not determined. "Bene vivere humanum," good human life is an openended objective. It " requires good things enough to insure the
most developed activity this life allows." 32 Pope John defines
the common good as " the sum total of those ·conditions of social
living whereby men are enabled more fully and more readily
to achieve their own perfection." 33 Because common good is
an open-ended reality it becomes the object not only of sociological and political debates, votes, and decisions, but also
of philosophical and theological inquiry, especially when questions are raised about the universal common good of all mankind. It is our understanding of the common good that determines the extent of our relationships and, consciously or
unconsciously, who is "my neighbor." It is the understanding
of the common good that determines on what level we meet
another person: be it the level of friends and family, profession,
race, nation, religion, or whatever, and it is the same underSumma Theol., I-II, q. 21, a. 4 ad 3.
•• Ibid., q. 3, a. 3 ad 2.
•• Mater et Magistra, no. 65.
81

JANKO ZAGAR

standing also that determines the extent of our justice. Is what
happens to the minorities, the unemployed, the old, the third
world, etc., any of my concern and responsibility? The complexity and interdependence that we experience in the modern
world, (the process of socialization in the words of Pope John)
does not allow for indifference. However, an efficient and
joint cooperation will be possible only in view of a common
good which at the same time transcends each and fulfills all.
It is in this context that a philosophical and theological investigation into the nature of an authentic and supreme common good, as a postulate of reason, arises and through an
analysis of man's needs, frustrations, and openness this investigation brings God into the picture as the ultimate fulfillment
of man as man and thus the ultimate common good of mankind.
Now the supreme good, namely, God, is the common good, since
the good of all things depends on him, and the good whereby each
thing is good is the particular good of that thing and of those that
depend thereon. Therefore all things are directed to one good, God,
to wit, as their end.34
To the extent that man accepts God as his ultimate value
every other good must be in line with this value as every
positive law must be in line with the natural and eternal law,
or at least not contrary to it. Introducing God into the realm
of the common good does not imply a Church-dominated society. In this regard Aquinas provides the theological foundation
for the changes that have taken place in the Church's attitude
toward secular society and values. The principle that " the
divine law which is the law of grace does not do away with
human law which is the law of human reason" 35 (or that
grace does not suppress nor replace but only perfects nature)
opens the door to an understanding and autonomy of secular
values that has not always been characteristic of the Christian
mentality. The position that "outside the Church there is
no salvation " lent itself too easily to a chauvinistic and ec84
85

lll Cont. Gent., c. 17.
Summa Theol., II-II, q. 10, a. 10.

AQUINAS AND SOCIAL TEACHING OF THE CHURCH

843

clesiocentric perspective of defending the Church and denouncing the world. This situation has changed in many regards even
since the time of Rerum N ovarum. Thus there is a de-emphasis
very much in line with Aquinas's position on the inviolability
of private property as a natural right which Rerum N ovarum
overstressed as a defense against socialism. Among other
changes the Church now accepts strikes and allows Catholics to
be members of non-Catholic unions. It has disentangled itself
from particular regimes. It accepts socialism as a legitimate
political system and respects pluralism in practical social and
political matters. It professes religious liberty instead of mere
tolerance, and affirms " the autonomy of earthly affairs." 36
The distinction between earthly and spiritual values must not
be confused with their separation. When Aquinas speaks of
man's natural possibilities and progress as distinct from the
realm of the supernatural, he always adds " but not without
God's help" (non tamen sine adjutorio divino), a thought
which is reflected when the same Pastoral Constitution on the
Church affirms that " earthly matters and the concerns of
faith derive from the same God." (ibid) The idea implies not
only an assumed harmony between secular and spiritual values
grounded in the substantial unity of the person but also a
certain primacy and supremacy of God in human fellowship.
Social no less than individual life should not be split. The
highest guarantee of unity and harmony on both levels is God.
The Pastoral Constitution on the Church echoes this thought
in the following statement: "Often refusing to acknowledge
God as his beginning, man has also disrupted his proper relationship to his own ultimate goal. At the same time he became out of harmony with himself, with others and with all
•• Pastoral Constitution on the Church, no. 86. " If by the autonomy of earthly
affairs we mean that created things and societies themselves enjoy their own
laws and values which must be gradually deciphered, put to use, and regulated
by men, then it is entirely right to demand that autonomy. Such is not merely
required by modern men, but harmonizes also with the will of the Creator. For
by the very circumstance of their having been created, all things are endowed
with their own stability, truth, goodness, proper laws and order."

844

JANKO ZAGAR

created things." 87 The process of .socialization, as has already
been pointed out, and the complex network of social and
international interdependence, call for continuous self-transcendence and a clear vision of a sound, unifying objective for all.
Although there are still unfulfilled secular values, such as universal peace, nutrition, freedom, etc., God is their highest
guarantee for Aquinas as well as for the Church. " The Order
which prevails in society," writes Pope John, "is by nature
moral."
Grounded as it is in truth, it must function according to the norms
of justice, it should be inspired and perfected by mutual love; and
finally it should be brought to an ever more refined and human
balance in freedom. Now an order of this kind, whose principles
are universal, absolute and unchangeable, has its ultimate source
in the one true God, who is personal and transcends human nature.
Inasmuch as God is the first Truth and the Highest Good, He
alone is that deepest source from which society can draw its
vitality, if that society is to be well ordered, beneficial and in keeping with the human dignity. 88

Social Justice
A major concern in modern times has been the quest for
social justice. In moral theology this is a new term. Traditional
moral theology listed only three kinds of justice based on a
threefold social relationship of person to person, person to
society, and society to its individual members. Respectively
they are called commutative, legal, and distributive justice.
The term social justice was first used by Pius XI in Quadragesimo Anno. He writes:
To each, therefore, must be given his own share of goods and the
distribution of created goods, which as every discerning person
knows, is laboring today under the greatest evils due to the huge
disparity between the few exceedingly rich and the unnumbered
propertyless, must be effectively called back and brought into conformity with the norms of the common good, that is, social justice. 89
Ibid., no. 13.
Pacem in Terris, nos. 37-38.
39 Quadragesimo Anno, no. 58.

81

88

AQUINAS AND SOCIAL TEACHING OF THE CHURCH

845

The concept of social justice has become fundamental to
Catholic social thought and action. Nevertheless, its exact
meaning as well as its relationship to the traditional kinds of
justice have been a frequent subject of debate with equally frequent references to Aquinas. 40 In this regard Jeremiah Newman
offers an interesting observation in his book Foundation of Justice. He maintains that the contemporary notion of social justice is equivalent to Aquinas's legal justice, since Aquinas's
concept of "legal" must not be confused with "legalistic."
The confusion, he writes, occurred when the sixteenth- and
seventeenth-century scholastics sought to accomodate to the
new era of absolutism. As the medieval concept of a universal
commonwealth faded in theory and in practice, the common
good as the object of legal justice became identified with the
common good of the state, and legal justice with "state justice"
or the laws of the land. Such a constitutional and juridical
concept of justice, which .still persists in our understanding and
practice, confines man to his nation or state, identifies justice
with "law and order," and seeks its fulfillment in the strict
adherence to existing laws as opposed to arbitrary infractions
of them. The result is a freezing of justice to contractual relationships while many forms of injustice and discrimination
pass unnoticed, as if they were nobody's business.
As a moral disposition, social justice opens a new dimension
of social obligations. It calls for rendering to the other what
is his due, not as a matter of charity but as a due in equality,
not by the order of courts but in virtue of the dignity and
natural rights of the person and in view of the highest common
good. It thus releases justice from its contractual and legalistic
limitations. In practice this means that social justice is not
fulfilled if the workers are underpaid by an industry that can
afford more no matter how " legal " the original contract. Similarly, it would be an act against social justice for the workers
to strike for higher wages if this adversely affects the economic
•• Jeremiah Newman: Foundation
Thomism (Cork Univ. Press, 1954).

of Justice:

a historico-critical study

in

846

JANKO ZAGAR

stability of an entire nation. Pius XI was still speaking in terms
of a" national" social justice, demanding from the individual
that which is necessary for the common good and insuring for
him what he needs to fulfill his function. The Pastoral Constitution on the Church sees the same need on a global level.
Every day human interdependence grows more tightly drawn and
spreads by degrees over the whole world. As a result, the common
good, that is the sum of those conditions of social life which allow
social groups and their individual members relatively thorough
and ready access to their own fulfillment, today takes on an increasingly universal ·Complexion and consequently involves rights
and duties with respect to the whole human race. Every social
group must take into account the needs and legitimate aspirations
of other groups, and even of the general welfare of the entire human
family. 41

Viewed in this perspective social justice becomes the form of all
other social virtues, a continuous call for adaptation to social development with regard to the highest perceptible common good.
Commutative, distributive, and legal (state) justice must be
inspired by social justice which takes into consideration the
highest common good, now more and more the common good
of mankind as a whole. Technical, economic, and political development, coupled with social interdependence and confronted
with persisting inequalities, have created a situation in which
the full content of the common good can no longer be confined
to the individual state, much less to any smaller group. The
true justice will be the justice inscribed in our conscience and
respecting men as men. The Church wishes to inculcate this
kind of justice not as a moral disposition of persons but also
as a public concern of society. 42
The term " social justice " is not used by St. Thomas, but
the idea is more than implicit both in the concept of " legal "
or " general " justice and in his political thought as a whole.
This is clear from Aquinas's concept of man, his flexible conception of society, his openended perspective of the common
"Pastoral Constitution on the Church, no. fl6 .
.. Ibid., no. 91. (Also Divini Redemptoris, nos. 51-54).

AQUINAS .AND SOCl.At.. TE.ACHlNG OF THE CHURCH

847

good, and his understanding o£ justice not as a juridical device
£or regulating conflicting claims but as a moral disposition which
makes the possessor good by his willing good to the other.
There are textual indications in this regard. One is the distinction which Aquinas makes between the legal and the moral
due (debitum legale-debitum nwrale) .
A falling short of the just due may be considered in respect of a
twofold due, moral and legal ... The legal due is that which one
is bound to render by reason of a legal obligation and this due is
chiefly the concern of justice, which is the principal virtue. On
the other hand, the moral due is that to which one is bound in
respect of the rectitude of virtue .... 43

There are things which one does because o£ law, and there are
things one does to be virtuous. A similar point is made in
regard to epikeia.
Epikeia is a part of justice taken in the widest sense. In this way
it is clearly a subjective part. And it is called justice in a fuller
sense than legal justice, because epikeia is a norm over and above
legal justice. Epikeia thus stands as a kind of higher rule for
human actions. 44

Commenting on this text Thomas Gilby writes:
In this context justitia legalis means legalistic justice; elsewhere
it means the legal or general justice which serves the common
good. The terms are the same, but the notions are very different,
for equity is not legalistic but is the highest expression of legal
justice: the common good it serves is the truest commonwealth of
persons. 45

The point made is the same as the one implied in social justice.
Social justice demands positive action £or the good of the others
beyond merely refraining from harming or simply fulfilling the
law. Aquinas sees the human situation as one in which the common good of all cannot be served if limited to the letter of laws
•• Summa Theol., II-II, q. 80, a. 1.
.. Ibid., q. 120, a. 2.
•• Thomas Gilby: BefJween Community and Society (Longmans, Green and
Co. 1958), p. 804 (Note).

848

JANKO ZAGAR

and precepts or to the narrow groups which exclude concern
for mankind as a whole, and this is what social justice aims to
correct.

The significance of Aquinas's contribution
The preceding cursory assessment of Aquinas's social theology as it relates to and is reflected by the social teaching of
the Church can hardly do justice to the subject. Nevertheless,
it should indicate that important aspects of the Church's teaching are covered by Aquinas's theological insights. Since space
does not permit us to pursue a more detailed analysis, it may
be helpful, in conclusion, to attempt to synthesize what may
be his essential contribution to our concrete situation. We propose to do this by returning to and focussing on the issue which
by its very nature remains essential to all social relations,
namely, the individual versus the common good and, as we
mentioned at the beginning, a contemporary crisis in this regard.
Man is basically goal-oriented; his natural drive is for happiness and, for that matter, a personal happiness. But the
common good is an integral part of this orientation since no
personal happiness is possible outside human fellowship of some
kind. It is because of a common good which is perceived as a
necessary condition for personal good that people associate, accept common values, and submit to laws and authority. If no
such common good is evident, people become confused, socially
critical, politically subversive, and ultimately amoral in their
private and public business. One of the main problems in our
contemporary world is that we have lost the perspective of the
common good as a society of human persons and, as a consequence, the authentic meaning of personhood itself. The
highest common good that contemporary man perceives is
the corporative interest of the group to which he happens to
belong and on which his existence (mainly material) depends.
This may be his political party, labor union, corporation, professional association, or some similar grouping. A significant
symptom of how comprehensive such groups can be is the fact

AQUINAS AND SOCIAL TEACHING OF THE CHURCH

849

that most of them operate on their own " code of ethics " to
which the individual must conform not only as a professional
member but as a human person. The human person is thus
absorbed into a group whose goal is not really the human
person but rather political victory, profit, success, and similar
objectives that in most cases leave the individual with only
one concern, "on the job security." Such goals, however, are
humanly unfulfilling and socially divisive. The perspective of
a humanly unifying common good is thus conspicuously missing
on both the national and the international levels. The international situation, especially, is still dominated by narrow
nationalism, political blocs, and economic exploitation.
The result of this is a " morality of rules and games " for
both individuals and nations: how far one can go without
punishment, or at best, without hurting others. There is no
doubt that such amorality permeates most of our actions and
r.elations. The symptoms are manifest not only in such arrant
actions as terrorism, revolutionary movements, draft evasion,
and civil disobedience, but also in more subtle expressions of
selfishness in demands for abortion, euthanasia and geneticsocial engineering, the high divorce rate, in indifference to the
needy, and in many other forms of flight from social responsibility. The point we wish to make is not that there are no
motivations in some instances (e. g., disobedience to an unjust
law) , even good motivations, rather that there is no humanly
unifying motivation. In the absence of such motivation human
rights are conceived as an affirmation of the self, not as a recognition of the other, with everyone presumed to fight his own
battle.
All this is not necessarily a matter of corruption. Modern
man has been ideologically prepared for his attitude by the
materialistic and subjectivistic outlook of several centuries,
nourished with promises, and frustrated by experience. Even
such great political manifestoes as the Declaration of Independence and the French Declaration of the Rights of Man were
not untouched by the spirit of the time. Although they laid
the grounds for what could still be the best democracy in the

850

JANKO ZAGAR

world, they missed an important component. Directed, understandably for that time, toward the expansion of individual
autonomy against the absolutism of decadent monarchies, they
nevertheless took a position of principle that was not immune
from abuse. Marx describes this principle in one of his manuscripts as based not on the relation but on the separation of
men. Autonomy and private initiative, unsupported by any
other moral principle or goal, soon opened the door to private
caprice which favored the rich and powerful and neglected
the poor. When 1'Abbe Sieyes proposed a parallel declaration
of duties in the French Assembly, he was defeated.
The paradox of the present time is that, while such a subjective and materialistic outlook persists mentally, it has become
unworkable in practice. The pursuit of individualistic and
narrow nationalistic goals has become unrealistic under the
pressure of that inescapable interdependence to which we have
already referred as the " process of socialization " imposed upon
us by modern living. An example in point is the present-day
legislation which, unlike the declarations of human rights or
even the legislation of a century ago, tends to limit rather than
enlarge individual autonomy. There is an additional aggravating circumstance in this regard. In the process of affirming
his autonomy the individual has lost the authentic source of
his rights in his natural dignity (still implicit in the original
declarations of human rights) by placing it in the power of the
state or its judicial branch. Now when his autonomy is
menaced by limitations he has no recourse beyond the same
power which limits it.
Aquinas offers a different perspective based, as we pointed
out, on the natural and redemptive dignity of the person, the
naturalness of human society, a common good that has a human dimension, and a justice which considers not things but
persons. Let us elaborate on this perspective by addressing
ourselves to another change which, by some of its results, is
not unlike the one we just described. The Pastoral Constitution on the Church refers to this change when it .states that
" the human race has passed from a rather static concept of

AQUINAS AND SOCIAL TEACHING OF THE CHURCH

851

reality to a more dynamic, evolutionary one." 46 As new discoveries are made daily in science and technology, such that
no single human mind can keep track of, much less attempt to
synthesize, then also the traditional notions of substances and
ultimate values begin to be questioned. The result, once again,
is the disappearance of a long range vision of personal destiny
in favor of concrete experience and immediate objectives as
the only meaningful realities to be considered. In this context
Aquinas's natural law ethic and his teleological method are
often presented as inadequate for " the signs of the times." It
is true and generally acknowledged that Aquinas's concept of
natural law must not be confused with the "manual" interpretation of it which permeated most of pre-Vatican II morality. But even if Aquinas's natural law is purified of its subsequent juridical and physical interpretation, the question may
still be raised whether, in view of the new evolutionary concept
of reality, the v.ery assumption of a natural law and a goaloriented ethics aiming at some unifying objective of moral and
social endeavor can still hold. In answering this question we
believe that it not only holds but that it holds in harmony with
a dynamic conception of reality and provides a means, if one
is to be found, to rescue man from his confusing moral agony
and society from its self-destruction.
Aquinas's concept of reality, and especially of political realities, is anything but static. In history there have been
static conceptions of the common good. Christendom, feudalism, monarchy, socialism, private property, progress, tradition, law and order; and many other things have all been
mistakenly identified with absolute values at one time or
another. Aquinas never subscribed to such identification.
If the whole itself is not an ultimate but subordinate to a further
end, then a person's ultimate end does not lie there but somewhere beyond. The universe of creatures, to which man is compared as part to whole, is not the ultimate end but is ordered to
God who is the ultimate end. And so man's final destiny is reached
with God himself, not within the universeY
46

•7

Pastoral Constitution on the Church, no. 5.
Summa Theol., I-II, q. 2, a. 8 ad 2.

852

JANKO ZAGAR

The transcendence of the human person over and above any
given structure, and his own continuous growth, could not be
put in clearer terms. But Aquinas still maintains a purpose to
such social and personal becoming, and this makes a difference.
The difficulty, therefore, that Aquinas would have with process
thought is not process as such, but process without purpose
that would leave the world in chaos and man without meaning.
For Aquinas, human dynamics has a goal which can be discerned, and when it is discerned it is the duty of man as a
rational and free agent to bring all his activity into line with
it. It is from this stance which integrates dynamics and purpose that we derive Aquinas's first contribution in regard to
our contemporary needs. This is a call for a reintegration of
family, professional, economic, juridical, political, and international life into the moral order of human responsibility. We
cannot play games. In this reintegration the natural law still
holds its place, not as a closed, codified system but as human
reason seeking understanding. Human and social conditions
may and do call for a more explicit juridical expression of this
law in terms of natural rights and positive legislation, but
these must not be confused with the creative role of intelligence
in gaining new insights into a changing reality and moving
toward formulating new rights. In this respect Aquinas differs
not only from the physicism and absolutism of the natural law
but also from those who, swayed by evolutionism, deny any
reality or purpose to human life from which a process of discovering ethical truth could begin. This is not a suggestion
of compromise, it is a matter of evidence on which rests another
of Aquinas's contributions.
Although the natural law must not be coneused with the laws
of nature, natural and anthropological, biological and psychological data are not without meaning for the goal of human
life. Aquinas's position is that we may know little about human
nature and less about the individual human person, but we
know enough to make a significant start in moral and social investigation. We know that pain hurts and pleasure delights.
Aquinas, Bentham, Freud, and everyone of us agree that to

AQUINAS AND SOCIAL TEACHING OF THE CHURCH

853

avoid pain and seek happiness is our basic drive. It may be
an exercise of frustration, but it is still a fact of life. Significantly for our modern knowledge and mentality, Aquinas, instead
of beginning his study of morality by reference to extrinsic
norms and established values, begins with man's intrinsic, instinctive inclination: his total orientation to good.
To be good and to be desirable signify the same, and since evil
is the opposite of good, it is out of the question that any evil as
such can be directly wanted, either by natural appetite, or by
animal appetite, or by intelligent appetite, which is the will.48

It is from such human experience and reality which no evolution has yet denied that our understanding of good and evil,
right and wrong unfolds through trial and error. Implicit in
this also is the .search for meaning in life, another datum which
can hardly be disputed, although some may never find meaning
in their lives. The purpose of morals is to seek the meaning of
life, the ultimate meaning, if possible, and to act accordingly.
Aquinas makes no secret about his own findings and their
implication. If there is an ultimate goal of human life it can
only be God. He is the source of all fullness, stability, and
continuity; everything else is contingent and limited. The conclusion is theological but not without important political implications. It keeps the perspective of growth and happiness
open-ended and protects the person against submission and
enslavement to the contingent systems and values of a changing
world.
As the human person in his existential condition is the subject of his actions, so also is he-the image of God-the first
judge of his happiness and the first (proximate) norm of his
morality. The primacy of the agent (finis operantis) over the
material objectivity of the act (finis operis) runs through the
entire treatise on the morality of human acts (I-II, qq. 18-21).
It is unequivocally expressed in a statement concerning conscience. " To believe in Christ," writes Aquinas, "is good in
itself and necessary for salvation; all the same this does not
•• Ibid., I, q. 19, a. 9.

854

JANKO ZAGAR

win the will unless it be commanded by reason. If the reason
presents it as bad, then the will reaches to it in that light, not
that it really is bad in itself but because of a condition that
happens to be attached by the reason of apprehending it." 49
Although not explicitly referred to, this statement underlies in
essence the Vatican II Declaration on Religious Freedom and
condemns any conversion that is not founded on personal conviction. The same stance justifies the principle of subsidiarity
in its roots and prohibits any forced absorption of the individual
into collective thinking or acting.
This, however, is the beginning, not the end, of moral process.
An important turn sets in as soon as we realize that we can
seldom act on appearances and never in isolation. Not just
man's basic drive and his own reason, but the whole gamut
of the human condition-the possibility of error, the reality
of others, the social nature of man, his past, his future as well
as his redemption-must be brought into personal judgment if
a right decision and true moral progress are to follow. It is
here that we may discover Aquinas's most important contribution that permeates the Church's social teaching from the
beginning to the end. This consists in suggesting a reorientation
of personal and social mores from an individualistic and selfcentered position toward a principle of fellowship which recognizes the other not as a limitation but as a concern. Contrary,
therefore, to the aforementioned materialistic and subjectivistic
outlook Aquinas's moral and social concern centers not on the
affirmation of the .self, which is instinctive, but on the recognition of the other, which is more difficult. Personal conscience
and freedom remain fundamental, but true moral growth consists in a process o£ continually objectifying oneself; continually proceeding from an initial, natural subjectivism to an ever
greater identification with others in search for goods and values
that are common to all. The practical implications o£ this position are that positive laws must be kept to a minimum, even
at some risk, but personal response must grow in depth; right
is not what is due to the self but what is due to the other, and
•• Summa Theologiae, I-ll, 19:5. Ibid., 1-11, q. 19, a. 5.

AQUINAS AND SOCIAL TEACHING OF THE CHURCH

855

justice is not about things but persons. The Pastoral Constitution on the Church summarizes these ideas when it states that:
no better way exists for attaining a truly human political life
than by fostering an inner sense of justice, benevolence, and service
for the common good, and by strengthening basic beliefs about
the true nature of political community, and about the proper exercise and limits of public authority. 50

In this regard we would like to mention, even if we cannot
pursue a more thorough parallel, that the United Nations' Universal Declaration of Human Rights marks a significant departure from positivistic and juridical traditions toward the
direction of Aquinas's humanism. Thus the dignity of man consists in his "being endowed with reason" (art. 1); his rights
belong to him as a person (art. 2, 3, 6, etc.); society is his
natural setting since in " community . . . alone the free and
full development of his personality is possible," for which reason
the individual has not only rights but also " duties to the community" (art. 29).
Simone Weil writes in Oppnssion and Liberty that " the
ideal is just as unattainable as the dream, but differs from the
dream in that it concerns reality." 51 Aquinas's conception of
human fellowship and of the common good offers an ideal which
is not a dream. Against ethically neutral social and political
relations on the one hand and our failure to live unequivocally
the rules of justice on the other, Aquinas's common good calls
for a commonwealth of free human persons sharing their material and spiritual goods in terms of justice, which thus becomes the kernel of the common good itself. The political ideal
may never be fully obtained, but once its perspective is clear
it becomes and remains a challenging point of reference for the
ongoing evaluation, change, and progress of an always imperfect existential condition.
JANKO ZAGAR,

0. P.

St. Albert's College
Oakland, California
Pastoral Constitution on the Church, no. 78.
Simone Weil: Oppression and Liberty. Translated by Arthur Wills and John
Petrie (The University of Massachusetts Press, 1978), p. 84.
50

51

THE TWO APPROACHES TO LANGUAGE:
PHILOSOPHICAL

AND HISTORICAL

REFLECTIONS

OF DEPARTURE oF JEAN PoiNSOT's

ON THE POINT

SEMIOTIC

" We publish our position without yielding
to contention or jealous rivalry, but giving
ourselves to the pursuit of truth, which
concerns doctrine and not persons."
"To the Reader" of the Cursus Philosophicus
of Jean Poinsot. Alcala, Spain, 1631.

( ( RELATIONS DO NOT exist as such; they do not
constitute a mode of being; when two entities are
related-whether they are related as knower and
known, as father and son, as double and half, or any other
way-the relation exists entitatively as an accident in each of
the relata. It does not exist as something in between them, not
inhering in either of them. There is, in short no inter-subjective mode of being; for ev.erything that exists exists either as
a subject (i.e., a substance) or in a subject (i.e., an accident)." 1
This proposition, or set of propositions, proved to be, in the
light of my five years (1969-1974) as Senior Fellow r.esponsible
for the direction and development of language research at the
Institute for Philosophical Research in Chicago, the dialectically and philosophically crucial one for understanding (and systematically grasping the remedy for) the inveterate subjectivism and penchant toward solipsism that has beset philosophy
1 Mortimer
J. Adler, "Sense Cognition: Aristotle vs. Aquinas," The NI'JW
Scholasticism, XLII (Autumn, 1968), p.
in reply to John N. Deely, "The
Immateriality of the International as Such," in No.
of the same volume and
journal; Adler's emphases.

856

THE TWO APPROACHES

TO LANGUAGE

857

throughout its career in the national languages of modern times.
For, in the course of my investigations into the philosophical
literature concerning language, it came to light that in 1632,
during the lifetime of Hobbes, Descartes, and Suarez, Jean
Poinsot, the last philosopher, practically speaking, to hold the
contrary of the above proposition up until Hegel/ was also
able to demonstrate that what is at stake in this straightforward
proposition is the possible convertibility of being and truth
within the order of human understanding, and the successful
culmination-through the systematic application to discourse
of the contrast between the relative secundum dici and secundum esse-of the old medieval controversies over the " transcendental " properties of being, i. e., the properties whereby
the order of the knowable includes indifferently objective elements of being and non-being so far as it falls under perception
and conception.
We are confronted here with a situation that is, as Jacques
Maritain well remarked, "puzzling to realize." 3
Even the most advanced professors and students of philosophy today are unlikely to have encountered the name of Jean
Poinsot in the course of their researches and studies. 4 The dis2 That is to say, the last proponent at the dawn of the national language phase
of Western philosophy of the view that relations as such constitute precisely
an intersubjective mode of being, existing according to what is proper to it
neither as a subject nor in a subject, but as a suprasubjective means of union
betweoo (tertium quid) a subject and some thing that subject is not.
8 " It is puzzling to realize that the treasures contained in their writings "-i.e.,
the writings of the commentators and defenders of St. Thomas, particularly,
perhaps, in Iberia, between the 13th and the 17th centuries-" have remained,
for so many generations, unknown except to a very few.... " Jacques Maritain,
letter to Yves Simon, printed as the "Preface" to The Material Logic of John
of St. Thomas [i.e., Jean Poinsot] trans. by Yves R. Simon, John J. Glanville, and
G. Donald Hollenhorst (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1955), p. v. See
the " Thomistic Afterword " at the end of this present article.
' Nonetheless, Poinsot, an Iberian thinker who wrote under the name " Jolm
of St. Thomas," was a figure of exceptional prominence in his day. The principal
historical materials relating to Poinsot's person and life have been gathered together
and analyzed in the "Praefatio Editorum " to Joannis a Sancto Thoma, Cur8'U8
Theologicus, edited by the Benedictine Monks of Solesmes, France (Paris: Desclee,
1931), Vol. I.

858

JOHN N. DEELY

tinction between what is relative secundum dici and what is
relative secundum esse is hardly more familiar. Consequently,
we have to do here with a philosopher and a doctrine that ar.e,
for all practical purposes, universally unknown today, and that
yet rival and surpass the importance of Immanuel Kant for
understanding the present philosophical situation and interpreting its historical essentials. For in revealing how and why
the ancient doctrine of the relative is essentially at issue in the
celebrated controversies over the obj.ects of apprehension (and
particularly in the denial of universality), while achieving for
the first time a clarity in principle at the foundation and base
of the ancient doctrine, Poinsot's work, for those who learn how
to read it, brings into an extremely clear propositional focus
the essential features of the doctrinal melange that spreads outward and across the centuries after 1300 from the circle of
William of Ockham in what concerns the theory of knowledge
and truth, providing-again for the first time-an entirely
unambiguous ontological grounding for the notion of " realism."
By the same stroke, Poinsot's Treatise on Signs provides
the Ariadne's thread which enables us to trace in this
same area the effective influences which made their way, in the
period from 1600 to 1800, across the line separating the Latin
phase of Western philosophizing from the national language
phase of the modern period up to the present time.
I. WIEDERHOLUNG: THE TEXT AND DOCTRINAL
FOUNDATIONS OF POINSOT'S TREATISE ON SIGNS.

What I refer to as Poinsot's Treatise on Signs appears embedded within a much larger Cursus Philosophicus entirely by
the same author published in Spain in five serial volumes between the years 1631 and 1635.5 Within the entirety of the
5 The latest complete edition of this work was done in three volumes with extensive
indices by B. Reiser under the title, Cursus Philosophicus Thomisticus (Turin:
Marietti, 1930-1934). H.-D. Simonin, in a "Review" in the Bulletin Thomiste,
III (1930-1933) p. 148, has said of Reiser's work: " Telle qu'elle se presente
!'edition de Don: R. est desormais !'edition classique de Jean de St.-Thomas." See
following note.

THE TWO APPROACHES

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859

Cursus Philosophicus, however, Poinsot makes it clear that the
Treatise on Signs occupies a virtually independent and entirely
privileged position. This appears from a sufficiently careful
analysis of the structure of the Cursus as a whole, illumined
by Poinsot's remarks concerning his treatment of signs within
that whole.
Ars Logica is the collective name for the first two of the five
parts of Poinsot's Cursus Philosophicus. It is from the Ars
Logica that the whole of the Treatise on Signs (tractatus d'3
signis) derives. 6 The Prima Pars Artis Logicae, published in
1631 at Alcala, Spain, consists of an introductory logic text
for beginners-called Summulae books, according to the custom
of the times-followed by a series of eight " Quaestiones Disputandae " or exercises designed to illustrate some difficulties
incident to the Summulae books.
The Secunda Pars Artis Logicae was published at Alcala in
and is of an altogether different character, dealing primarily with questions raised by the imperfect interrelations
of truth and logical form. Whereas Part I was intended for
beginning students, Part II is intended for advanced students,
and indeed for the author's peers. More philosophical than
logical, by modern standards, the task of Part II is " to explain-leisurely, patiently, thoroughly, and with unique skill
in the selection and multiplication of standpoints-a restricted
number of wonderful questions." 7 The readers of this Part,
6 In Part II of the Ars Logica, Questions !il1-!il3 are the questions expressly devoted
to the subject of signs, and it is to these three questions that Poinsot, in a special
"Preface" added to the 1640 Madrid edition of Part II of the Ars Logica, expressly assigns the title, " tractatus de signis." This Preface may be found reprinted in the Reiser edition of the Ars Logica (Turin, Italy: Marietti, 1930),
p. !il49. All page references to Poinsot's work in subsequent notes will, without
exception, be from this 1930 Reiser edition of the Ars Logica, and will include
column and line references along with the page numbers.
• Yves R. Simon, "Foreword" to The Material Logic of John of St. Thomas,
translated by Yves R. Simon, John J. Glanville, and G. Donald Hollenhorst
(Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1955), p. xx. This volume is an English
translation covering three-fifths or so of Part II of the Ars Logica, without envisioning the unique and controlling status of the theory of signs either within
the Ars Logica or in relation to the Cursus Philosophicus as a whole.

860

JOHN N. DEELY

in Poinsot's milieu, could all be assumed familiar with the
Organon (the logical works) of Aristotle and with the major
Latin writings related thereto; and it must be said that, taken
questions comprising Part II of the
as a whole, the series of
Ars Logica acquires continuity and completeness only when
set explicitly in relation to the Latin translations of Aristotle's
texts together with the major Latin discussions sparked by
those texts all the way back to Boethius in the 6th century.
This makes for enormous difficulty in reading Poinsot, because
it means that llOO years of Latin discussions of logical and
philosophical questions are resumed and at issue at each point
of Poinsot's work. 8 In the particular case of the discussion of
signs, fortunately, this difficulty is minimized, owing to the
originality of Poinsot's standpoint, and to his conscious intention in giving it expression.
At the very beginning of the Ars Logica, in a" Word to the
Reader," Poinsot draws particular attention to the originality
in his handling of signs:
We have taken care to cut out [of the introductory text] an immense
forest of intractable questions and a thorny thicket of sophisms ....
The metaphysical and other difficulties from the books On the Soul
which break out in the very beginning of the Summulae books from
the ardor of disputants, we have removed to their proper place, and
we have set forth the tractate on signs and awarenesses in Logic
in relation to the Perihermenias books.•
8 With characteristic dead-pan, Henry Veatch, in his book, Intentional Logic
(New Haven: Yale, 195!il), p. ix, says of the Ars Logica: "For all its
wealth, it must be admitted that this book was written in the seventeenth
century, in Latin, and with what might loosely be called a thoroughly Scholastic
orientation. In consequence, the basic issues and problems of logic as they appeared to John of St. Thomas are scarcely such as they would appear to
be in this day and age, after Principia Matkematica and the Tractatus LogicoPkilosopkicus."
9 Joannis a Sancto Thoma [i.e., Jean Poinsot], Ars Logica, new edition by B.
Reiser (Turin: Marietti, 1930), p. 1: "Ut brevitatem [S. Thomae] imitaremur,
immensam inextricabilium quaestionum silvam et spinosa sophismatum dumeta
excidere curavimus, quae audientium mentibus onerosae et pungentes utilitatis
nihil, dispendii non parum afferebant. Ad haec metaphysicas difficultates pluresque
alias ex libris de Anima, quae disputantium ardore in ipsa Summularum cunabula
irruperant, suo loco amandavimus et tractatum de signis et notitiis in Logica super
librum Perihermenias expedimus."

THE TWO APPROACHES TO LANGUAGE

861

Why does Poinsot regard the discussion of Aristotle's
Perihermenias books as the proper context for considering the
nature and function of signs? Not because of the actual content of the traditional books so named, he will explain (in his
"Remarks Concerning the Books Perihermenias "), but because of the name itself, perihermenias, which means, in Latin,
"concerning interpretation" (de interpretatione).
In writing his books on this subject, Aristotle (and subsequently his commentators) restricted the consideration of
interpretation to the logical elements of discourse, with the
result that the subject of interpretation has been (as of
Poinsot's time) neither fundamentally nor adequately treated.
For interpretation, being an activity coextensive with human
awareness in its entirety, is far more universal than logical
analysis, and indeed, being based on signs, it includes the
logicians' instruments along with the many other instruments
by which sense is made out of the world. Thus, if the theory
of interpretation is to become transparent to itself and grounded
in principle, Poinsot is saying, it must not restrict itself to
logical elements as such (as in the older Aristotelian tradition)
but must extend itself to include a consideration of signs taken
in their entire amplitude. It is the recognition of this fact that
leads Poinsot to say that, in setting his discussion of signs in
relation to the Perihermenias books, he has at the same time
found the proper place for inserting a Treatise on Signs into the
philosophical tradition of the Latin West. Hence the distinctive
cast of Poinsot's Treatise: it introduces a revolutionary viewpoint, but it does so in a conservative way. Nothing of the old
tradition is lost, but it is yet made to surpass itself in the direction of its foundations.
A. The Task of Discriminating the Ground of the Terminology
and Structure of the Treatise on Signs.
The order of development followed over the three questionsor " Books," as I will ref.er to them-of The Treatise on Signs
seems straightforward enough: " Concerning the rationale

862

JOHN N. DEELY

proper to signs," Poinsot writes (642a38-b2), "there are two
principal points of controversy. The first concerns the nature
and definition of signs; the second concerns the division of signs,
and each divided member in particular." Thus, the first "book"
of the Treatise (Question 21 of Part II of the Ars Logica) deals
with the ontological status or nature of signs, the second
" book" (Question 22) deals with the various kinds of signs,
and the third "book" (Question 23) extends the discussion
of the division of signs into certain details of controversies
prominent in Poinsot's time on which the theory of signs has
a direct bearing.
Yet the reader who seeks to master the terms of this "straightforward " development is soon brought up short by the theoretical demands the Treatise places on the A1·s Logica as a
whole in order to become fully intelligible in its own rightdemands brought quickly into focus by Poinsot's preliminary
remark that " this inquiry into the nature and definable character of signs depends principally on an understanding of minddependent being and of the category of relation," 10 coupled
with his setting of the problematic for the Treatise as a whole
in terms of the contrast between what is relative secundum
esse and what is relative secundum dici.11 With these clues
alone to guide him, Poinsot leaves to his reader (and this no
doubt largely explains why the Treatise so long lay hidden
within the general oblivion that befell Aristotelian writings after
the 17th century) the most difficult task of conceptually locating the ground and architectural conception of the Treatise
as an independent whole. To accomplish this task is the aim
of this first part of this article and will serve to doctrinally
situate Poinsot's work. After that, we will be in a hermeneutic
position to essay an historical situation of the work.
10 Poinsot,
"Super Libros Perihermenias," in the Ars Logica,
" ... quaestiones istae de signis ... in hoc loco genuine introducuntur, post
notitiam habitam de ente rationis et praedicamento relationis, a quibus principaliter
dependet inquisitio ista de natura et quidditate signorum."
11 Treatise on Signs, Book I, Question 1 (i.e., Ar Logica, Part II, Question
Article 1: see following note), 646b16-45 (partially cited in note
below).

THE TWO APPROACHES

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863

B. The Textual Requirements of the Treatise on Signs as an
Independent Whole.
Of the 27 "questions" comprising Part II of the Ars Logiea,
one Article of Question 1 and the whole of Question
is devoted to the topic of mind-dependent being, while the whole
of Question 17 is devoted to discussing the topic of relation.
A careful reading of these sections within an eye to the discussion of signs reveals that the first, second, and fourth Articles
of Question 2, and the first three Articles of Question 17, provide all the terms and distinctions indispensable for following
the discussion of signs in Questions
(i.e., the three
"Books" of the Treatise). When I have occasion to refer to
the Articles from Question 17, I will refer to them as "Appendix
A," followed by page and line numbers in Reiser's edition of
the Ars Logiea. Articles from Question 2 I will refer to as
"Appendix B." The inclusion of these two Appendices meets
all the textual requirements that the larger project of the Ars
Logiea imposes as a matter of strict necessity on the reader of
Poinsot's Treatise on Signs. 12 From a purely conceptual standpoint these two Appendices suffice to constitute the Treatise
as an independent whole vis-a-vis the Ars Logiea and CurSWJ
Philosophieus.
However, the careful reader is soon led to realize (e. g., by
290a30-34, 29lb1-40) that what Poinsot calls the
" aliquid peculiare relationis "-the ontological peculiarity of
relation in the order of existence, let us say
is the guiding insight for Poinsot's discussion of mind-dependent
12 Questions 21-23, i.e., the main parts of the tractate,
I will refer to, as was
said in the text above, as "Books I-III," and I will refer to the Articles subdividing them as " Questions " rather than Articles, though "Article " will be
retained as the name of the main sub-divisions of the material in the "Appendices."
This system of reference conforms to the translation of the Treatise on Signs
now being completed by myself in consultation with Ralph A. Powell for publication as an independent whole. Pending the appearance of this work, if the reader
will keep in mind that all page, column, and line references to the Treatise conform, as indicated in notes 6 and 11 above, to the text of the 1930 Reiser edition of
the A rs Logica, there should be no cause for confusion on the part of those
pursuing any references herein given.

864

JOHN N. DEELY

being and relation alike and is therefore the most fundamental
notion to be grasped in embarking on his theory of signs. Thus,
while the Articles from both Question Q and Question 17 are
essential to the reader of the Treatise on Signs, priority goes
to the Articles drawn from Question 17. It is necessary above
all to have a sure grasp of the traditional materials at Poinsot's
disposal in terms of which these Articles were framed. Without
a knowledge of these basic texts and controversies, the starting
point of Poinsot's Treatise-namely, the assignation of sign
to the class of things, ontologically relative in their opposition
to transcendentally relatives-is bound to seem recondite and
artificial, if not arbitrary. With a knowledge of the traditional
materials involved, however, the naturalness and simplicityindeed, the necessary element-of Poinsot's point de depart
shows all the traces of philosophical genius of the purest type
at work. Let us try to see, if we can, what is at stake in
Poinsot's beginning where he does.
C. The Discussion of the Relativ:e in Ancient Greece from the
Perspective of the CuTsus Philosophicus.

It was in Aristotle's attempt to work out a categorial scheme
for the order of mind-independent being that the notion of the
relative, in the sense that proves decisive for understanding
(from the standpoint of Poinsot's TTeatise) the fate of Western
philosophy at the dawn of modern times, first began to come
into focus. Accordingly, we begin our account with that attempt.
According to the view of Aristotelian physics the natural
world is comprised of "a many, each of which is itself one," 18
and subject to change in time. The " ones" or fundamental
natural units in this scheme Aristotle called substance, and the
various ways in which the being of a substance could be aff.ected
without losing its basic self-identity Aristotle called accidents,
18 Aristotle,
Metaphysics, Book III, Chapter 4, 100 lb5-6: "all things are
either one or many, and of the many each is one": lhravTa ae Ta IJvTa i)
i)

7roAX&., Wv

gKaUTov.

THE TWO APPROACHES

TO LANGUAGE

865

of which he himself enumerated nine. Substance and the nine
accidents make up the traditional list of Aristotelian categories.
Though the number of categories that ought to be listed was
sometimes argued over among the important figures in the
Latin West, by the time of the high Middle Ag.es, there was
general agreement among them as to the purpose for which
the Aristotelian categorial scheme had been devised, a consensus well expressed by Poinsot in the following passage:
The distinction of the categories was introduced for this, that the
orders and classes of diverse natures might be set forth, to which
all the things which participate some nature might be reduced; and
on this basis the first thing that must be excluded from every
category is mind-dependent being, because being which depends for
its being on being cognized (mind-dependent being) has not a
nature nor a true entity, but a constructed one, and therefore must
be relegated not to a true category, but to a constructed one.
Whence St. Thomas says (in q. 7, art. 9 of his Disputed Questions
on Power) that only a thing independent of the soul pertains to the
categories."

Substance and its accidents thus were understood by our
author in the traditional sense as constituting the categories
of mind-independent ways of being. Aristotle was of the
opinion that a category of " the relative " ought to be included
in the list of categorial accidents, and his first suggestion for
the definition of this category was as follows:
Those things are called relative which, being either said to be something else or related to something else, are explained by reference
to that other thing.'"
"Ars Logica (Reiser ed.), Part II, Q. XIV, Art. 1, "Quid sit praedicamentum
et quid requiratur ut aliquid sit in praedicamento,"
" Et quia
praedicamentorum distinctio ad hoc introducta est, ut diversarum naturarum
ordines et classes proponerentur, ad quae omnia, quae naturam aliquam participant,
reducerentur, ideo imprimis secludendum est ab omni praedicamento ens rationis,
quia non habet naturam neque entitatem veram, sed fictam, ideoque neque ad
praedicamentum verum, sed fictum reici debet. Unde D. Thomas q. 7. de Potentia
art. 9. tantum res extra animam dicit pertinere ad praedicamenta."
15 Aristotle, Categories, ch. 7, 6a36-39:
Ilp6s TL li€ ra TOLavra 'A€-yerat, liua atlra
a:rrep eur!v ETEpWV elvat AE')'€TaL, i} C!'trWG'OVV lf.AAWS 'trpOS
o!ov TO p.e'ifov
rovO' 15'trep eurlv erepov 'Al-yerat • I have cited the translation by E. M. Edghill in

866

JOHN N. DEELY

Although this definition of the category of relation seemed
sound to Aristotle/ 6 he conceded that it presented some difficulty from the point of view of constituting a distinct category
within the substance-accident scheme:
Indeed, if our definition of that which is relative was complete,
it is very difficult, if not impossible to prove that no substance is
relative. If, however, our definition was not complete, if those
things only are properly called relative in the case of which relation
to an external object is a necessary condition of existence, perhaps
some explanation of the dilemma may be found.
The former definition does indeed apply to all relatives, but the
fact that a thing is explained with reference to something else does
not make it essentially relative.H
The Basic Works of Aristotle, ed. by Richard McKeon (New York: Random
House, 1941), p. 17. Cf. the translation by J. L. Ackrill, Aristotle's Categories
and De lnterpretatione (Oxford: Clarendon, 1963) , p. 17: " We call relatives all
such things as are said to be just what they are, of or than other things, or in
some other way in relation to something else."
16 For example, he explicitly
re-affirms it at ibid., 6b6-9: 1rp6s n ovv
Oaa aVrCt IJ:rrep furlv €r€pwv elvat A€""feTaL, 7} 07T'wuoVv liAAws 1rpbs flrepov, olov l>pos
pi.-ya Xt"f<rat 1rpos
•
17 Categories, ch. 7, 8a28-34:
d p.€v ovv lKavws 0 rwv 7rp6s 'TL optiTJLOS «i7ro3e3o'Ta.L,
1} r{iJv rr&.vv

7} T(jJv &.Ovv&.rwv fuTL TO
Ws oVula, T{pv trp6s TL Ahera.L.
ra 7rp6s TL ois TO .lvat ravr6v
r{jJ 7rpos 'Tl 'lrWS
el lie p.'l] lKavws, ciXX'
fcrws &v /J'Y]8el'Y)· TL 7rp0s aVr&.. 0 0€ 7rp6-repos 7rapaKohov8e'i p.fv 'Tt'Q.crr. Tois 1rp6s
Tt, oV p:f}v raVr6v 'Yf. Eort T(iJ rrp6s TL aVro'is elvat TO a.VTa. l1.7rep EcrTlP eTEpwv A€"'(eu8a.t.
Edghill trans., Zoe cit. (in note 15 above), p.
Whatever else is to be said of

this translation, in this passage and in the next one I shall quote, Edghill's rendering at least conveys in English the Greek-Latin parallel between AE"f<rat and
dicuntur (" Dans le texte grec comme dans Ia version latine," notes Krempel
[La doctrine de la relation chez saint Thomas, p. 398], "l'ancienne definition est
dominee par un double AE"f<ra<, dicuntur; Ia nouvelle, par elva<, esse.") This
contrast, everywhere discussed in the Latin West for over a thousand years, is
much obscmed, for example, in Ackrill's rendering (reference in note 15 above),
pp.
"Now if the definition of relatives which was given above was adequate,
it is either exceedingly difficult or impossible to reach the solution that no
substance is spoken of as a relative. But if it was not adequate, and if those things
are relatives for which being is the same as being somehow related to something,
then perhaps some answer may be found. The previous definition does, indeed,
apply to all relatives, yet this-their being called what they are, of other thingsis not what their being relatives is."
What seems to take place in Ackrill's rendering is a repetition of the now longforgotten (in the modern languages) attenuation of the Aristotelian conception

THE TWO APPROACHES

TO LANGUAGE

867

This distinction between what must be explained by reference
to something else without having itself to be a relation, and
what is essentially a reference to .something other than that on
which it is founded or based, is the first recorded glimpse of
what wa.s to become the Latin distinction within the order of
relation between what is relative secundum dici and what is
relative secundum esse. Relativity in the first sense characterizes not only what falls under the category of relation in
Aristotle's scheme but what falls under the "absolute"
categories of substance, quantity, and quality as well (categories called " absolute " from the fact that they are defined
in terms of themselves without including an essential relation
to something else). Outside the mind a .substance and its accidents other than relations-a subject of existence in its subjective determinations, let us say-constitute the order of
" absolute" and mind-independent being. Absolute beings in
this sense, the constitutent structures of ontological subjecof the categories introduced into the sixth century Latin West by Boethius under
the Platonic construing of the categorial scheme at work in Alexander of
Aphrodisias, Plotinus, and Porphyry, according to the description of Krempel:
"C'est ce qui amenait deja Alexandre d'Aphrodise (200 avant J. C., a Athenes),
et plus tard Plotin, a opposer trop brutalement A.t"f•'·a• et •tvca. Pour Aristote,
A.e"feTa• n'est jamais un simple: on dit. Si, par principe, il commence par le mot,
il fin it par !a chose. Les predicaments son t pour lui !'echo de !a realite. Boece
semble avoir perdu ce fait de vue quand, sous !'influence de ses predecesseurs, il
accentuait outre mesure dicuntur et esse." This description by Krempel would
seem to be confirmed by Gilson's evaluation of Boethius's rendering of Aristotle
(La philosophie au moyen age, 2nd ed., p. 141): "La logique de Bocce est un commentaire de celle d'Aristote, ou perce frequemment le desir de !'interpreter selon
Ia philosophic de Platon. Ce fait s'explique parce que Boece suit de pres un commentaire de Porphyre (J. Bidez), et il explique a son tour les pullulements des
opinions contraires qui s'affronteront au xne siecle sur !'objet de la doctrine
d'Aristote, car tous les professeurs commenteront le texte de Boece, mais alors que
les uns en retiendront ce qu'il avait garde d'Aristote, les autres s'y attacheront au
contraire a ce que son auteur y avait introduit de Platon."
In any event, there is no question in Poinsot that the secundum dici involves,
in principle, being according to its own exigencies for understanding and not merely
a question of being spoken of in an entirely contingent or dialectical fashion. It
is precisely because the categories are "!'echo de Ia realite" that Poinsot's contrast
between dici and esse establishes in principle the ground of the categorial interconnections. Cf. Sein und Zeit, p. 3, n. 1.

868

JOHN N. DEELY

tivity, though they can be defined without reference to anything else, cannot be accounted for except by reference to something else, namely, their principles and causes; and in this sense
they are relative according to the way their being must be expressed in discourse, even though they are not relative according to the way they essentially have being. At the risk of
getting a bit ahead of ourselves, we may note at once that such
relativity, besetting as it does each of the absolute categories,
is called by Poinsot tmnscendental/ 8 in line with the medieval
custom of calling properties of being which are not restricted to
any one category " transcendental," i. e., transcending the
categorial divisions of the substance-accident scheme. 19
Opposed to what is relative only according to the way its
being must be expressed in discourse (secundum dici) , or to
the transcendental notion of relation, there is the second kind
of relativity, the relativity which besets a thing according to
the way it exercises existence and is essentially a reference
toward another. Beings r.elative in this sense are the constitutent structures of ontological intersubjectivity and can neither
be defined nor accounted for save in terms of what they themselves are not, namely, subjects or subjective determinations
of being.
The question concerning the relative raised by Aristotle in
seeking to clarify the divisions of his categorial scheme thus
became, in the Latin West, the question of whether there ought
to be admitted among the categories of mind-independent
ways of being a category of external relation between subjects
(hence categorial relation); or ought it to be said rather that
relation in a pure form, i. e., as essentially toward another ac18 Ars Logica
(Reiser ed.), 590a48-59la5: Relationes "transcendentales
non
sunt aliquid distinctum a re absoluta, sed vere sunt absolutae entitates; neque
enim habent speciale praedicamentum, sed per onmia vagantur et sic ex sua
transcendentia habent imbibi in ipsa re absoluta, non distingui."
19 E. g., Poinsot notes
(Ars Logica, 594a43-b6) that St. Thomas "docet in 1.
quod res est de transcendentalibus et ideo se habet
dist.
q. 1. art. 5. ad
communiter ad absoluta et relativa. Ibi enim sumit rem transcendentaliter, prout
est communis ad entitatem et modum." (See also note 38 below.)

THE TWO APPROACHES

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869

cording to the way it has being, exists only thanks to the
powers of perception and understanding?
D. The Notion of Relation as an Ontological Rationale Fully
Consider.ed.
To disengage as such the full notion of ontological relation
(" relatio secundum esse ") in its properly philosophical import, it seems, was the unique privilege of Poinsot among all
the Latin scholastics who, for more than 1100 years, debated
the question of the relative raised by the Aristotelian texts.
(Before him, however, St. Thomas had shown the surpassing
theological import of the material elements comprising the notion by using them to reconcile the trinity of persons demanded
by Christian faith with the unity of God insisted on by Islam
and by the requirements of metaphysical wisdom; and, as we
.shall see mor.e clearly in Part II of this article, the medieval discussion of the "transcendental" properties of being adumbrated
the fullness of the notion of ontological relation as it is realized
in Poinsot's Treatise.)
According to the tradition of Latin Aristotelianism represented by Poinsot there are relations given in a pure form, i. e.,
according to the way they have being, independently of our
cognition as well as dependently upon it. Relation according
to the way relation has being is both a category of mind-independent being in the strictest Aristotelian sense of category,
with its instances called categorial r.elations (" relationes praedicamentales seu reales ") and something that is found existing
sometimes entirely dependently upon the mind (" relationes
rationis ") . " The relative " includes not only transcendental
relations (which are mind-independent, but not as relations)
and mental or mind-dependent relations (which are truly relations but as such are in no way independent of mind) but also
categorial relations which are mind-independent in their very
existence truly as relations.
Like each of the other categories relation is a rationale of
being, an "ontological" rationale, i.e., a rationale expressive

870

JOHN N. DEELY

of the possibilities of existence. But unlike the other categories,
relation as an ontological rationale embraces in its positive content both the mind-dependent and the mind-independent orders
of being; and so relation may be most properly called "ontological ,. when it is understood that the positive content in question is indifferent to realization according to its proper being in
the opposed orders of what is mind-independent and what is
mind-dependent. Not that mental relations can be said to belong to the category of relation-which would be a contradiction in terms-but that mental relations are relative according
to the way they have being, just as are categorial relations:
Any unreal object whatever conceived as being a subject or
subjective modification of being is the mind-dependent being which
is called negation; yet it will not be a mind-dependent substance,
because substance itself is not conceived as a mind-dependent being
patterned after some mind-independent being: rather, negations
or non-beings are conceived on the pattern of substance and
quantity.
But in the case of relatives, not only is there indeed some nonbeing conceived on the pattern of relation, but also the very relation on the part of the respect towards, while it does not exist in
the mind-independent order, it is conceived or formed on the
pattern of a mind-independent relation; and so that which is
formed in being, and not only that on whose pattern it is formed,
is a relation: and for this reason there are in fact mind-dependent
relations, but not mind-dependent substances."•

Thus the notion of the ontologically relative expresses precisely the indifference of relation to its subjective ground or
cause of being, or, to put it another way, .expresses the full
indifference to subjective
meaning of the intersubjective:
ground. The notion of ontological relation of inter.subjectivity
in the full sense, thus, depends entirely for its force on a prior
20 Poinsot,
Treatise on Signs, Appendix B, 58lb47-58!'lal6: "Sed hoc est ens
rationis, quod vocatur negatio, non autem erit substantia rationis, cum non ipsa
substantia ut ens rationis ad instar alicuius realis concipiatur, sed negationes seu
non entia ad instar substantiae et quantitatis. At vero in relativis non solum
aliquod non ens concipitur ad instar relationis, sed etiam ipsa relatio ex parte
respectus ad, cum non existit in re, concipitur seu formatur ad instar relationis
realis, et sic est, quod formatur in esse, et non solum id, ad cuius instar formatur,
et ratione huius datur relatio rationis, non substantia rationis."

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decision to the effect that there exist independently of the
human mind relations which as such are distinct from and
supraordinate to the subjective foundations upon which they
nevertheless depend for their existence. For if categorial relation (" relatio realis ") in this sense is denied, only transcendental relation (or some murky equivalent) remains common
to the two orders of mind-independent and mind-dependent
being; and even though mind-dependent being further contains " genuine " relations, it does not contain them in a fully
intersubjective way, for it does not contain them as enjoying
any indifference to the subject upon which they depend for
existence here and now: for this, mental relation must be itself
but a mind-dependent instance of something which is also
given in its positive content as such independently of the mind.
E. Ontological Relation as It Determines the Problematic in
Poinsot's Discussion of Signs.
The observations in sections C and D above suffice to indicate
that the fundamental option which Poinsot poses at the very
beginning of his Treatise on Signs is in no way arbitrary but is
rather the necessary point of departure for any systematic
inquiry into the nature of signification (including linguistic signification and reference) that has become transparent to itself
and grounded in principle: are signs to be regarded as primarily
and essentially relative only according to the way their being
must be expressed in cognition and discourse (transcendentally) , or according to the way they have the being proper to them
as signs (ontologically) and therefore (sometimes) independently of expression? 21
21 " Quaerimus ergo, an ista formalis ratio signi consistat in relatione secundum
esse primo et per se, an in relatione secundum dici seu in aliquo absoluto, quod
fundet talem relationem.
" ... loquimur hie de relatione secundum esse, non de relatione praedicamentali,
quia loquimur de signo in communi, prout includit tam signum naturale quam ad
placitum, in quo inV'olvitur etiam signum, quod est aliquid rationis, scilicet signum
ad placitum. Et ideo praedicamentale ens esse non potest nee relatio praedicamentalis,
licet possit esse relatio secundum esse iuxta doctrinam D. Thomae I. p. q.
art.
I. ... " (Treatwe on Signs, Book I, Question 1, 646bl6-S7.)

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JOHN N. DEELY

These two ways exhaust the possibilities of anything's being
relative: if something is relative in a given respect, it must
be so either transcendentally or ontologically, whether, it be
From Aristotle to
mind-independent or mind-dependent.
22
Charles Morris
all theorists of signs have defined them as
relative-signifying something to someone (aliquid ad aliquid) .
But only Poinsot, it seems, ever managed to get clear about
what in principle is at stake in the fact of a sign's relativity.
By contrasting ontological relation to transcendental relation
he has posed the question in terms that enable him to bring
together in the sign the opposed orders of mind-dependent and
mind-independent being, just as they appear to be found together in our direct experience of the world.
From the standpoint of this connection the genius of Poinsot's
Treatise is to see in the distinction between what is relative
secundum dici and what is relative secundum esse the resources
for explaining the ontological status of signs according to their
characteristically peculiar indifference to the presence and absence, the being or non-being, of what they signify. The semiautonomy discourse displays in the face of reality and the truth
about things is .explicable provided only that (but only provided that) we resolve the pertinence of signs to the order of
relation in favor of relation according to the way it has being.
Since both physical (or mind-independent: " categorial ") and
mental (or mind-dependent: cognition-dependent) relations
are truly relations according to the way they have being, identifying signs as ontological relations makes room for the obvious
fact of stipulated signs (" signa ad placita ") , without even
seeming to foreclose the possibility of signs whose r:elation to
what they signify is given independently of mind. 23 On the
•• Thus, for example, William Alston, in Philosophy of Language, (Englewood
Cliffs, N. J.: Prentice-Hall, 1964), p. 51, writes: "Peirce's definition may be
taken as typical. 'A sign is something that stands to somebody for something
in some respect or capacity' [Collected Papers, 2.228]."
23 Treatise on Signs, Book I, Question 1, 647bl5-22:
"Addimus in conclusione
[signa] consistere in relatione secundum esse. . . . Et ita utimur vocabulo communi
utrique relatione, et non solum agimus de relatione reali vel rationis determinate."

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contrary, the discovery that signs without exception are constituted formally by ontological relations opens the way to
rooting the theory of signs in mind-independent nature by the
fact that, first, .some signs are as such physically related to what
they signify (namely, when what they signify itself exists
physically) , and, second, initially stipulated or mind-dependent
.signs can become through custom assimilated to the world of
what is natural (for a given community) and possessed in their
turn of a relatively mind-independent significance. 24
F. Doctrinal Resume.
The distinction between what is r.elative secundum esse and
what is so only S'ecundum dici is the first and most fundamental
analytical couplet of Poinsot's Treatise on Signs. All the
the terminology playing an architectural role in Poinsot's
Treatise is governed by the fundamental discovery in the
order of the relative of an ontological rationale which at
once divides the intersubjective from the subjective (the
distinction of ontological from transcendental r.elation, secundum esse from secundum dici) and unites within the inte:rsubjective the opposed orders of being existing now independently
of and now dependently upon human (or animal) awareness;
for it is this discovery that enables Poinsot to explain how signs
enable us to transcend the sensory here and now by reason of
their indifference to the mind-independent existence or nonexistence of what they signify, itself a consequence of the functional equivalence in cognition of "real" or mind-independent
and" unreal" or mind-dependent relations, which springs from
the indifference of relation in its proper rationale to the subjective cause or ground whence it exercises existence. Understanding the Treatise is, accordingly, principally a matter of
mastering the complex of detail in the working out of this
extended and slippery contrast as it is verified in differing ways
through application to the variety of signs considered from
various points of view.
24

See the Treatise on Signs, Book I, Question

and Book II, Questions 5 and 6.

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JOHN N. DEELY

Thus, precisely because the relative secundum esse unites
under one ontological rationale the distinct orders of mindindependent and mind-dependent being (and so includes
implicitly the second fundamental analytical couplet of the
Treatise, the distinction betweenensreale and ensrationis), the
systematic contrast of these two terms determines the conceptual architecture of the Treatise on Signs as a whole: 1100
years of Latin philosophizing are summarized and rendered
aufgehoben in this application. 25 Nor does it seem too much
to say that Poinsot's Treatise is the first successful attempt in
any language to construe in a systematic way the intricate
network of contrasts that oppose these notions and give them
unrestricted scope. For, between them, they divide the order
of subjectivity taken in all its possible determinations (transcendental relation) from the order of intersubjectivity and public
life (ontological relation) where truth and history are given
•• A. Krempel traces the origin of these two expressions in the Latin West all
the way back to Boethius's 6th century translation of and commentaries upon
Aristotle's Categories. From that time until the 17th century Krempel finds,
" le couple au nom si etrange preoccupait tons les scolastiques " : La doctrine de
la relation chez St. Thomas (Paris: J. Vrin, 195il), Chapitre XVIII, "Le relativum
secundum dici et le relativum secundum esse," p. 394. This chapter in particular
paradigmatically illustrates the strange character of Krempel's massive and remarkable volume as a whole: a most careful and exhaustive compilation of texts
on the subject of relation drawn from the entire period of Latin scholasticism,
combined with a flatly unsuccessful attempt to interpret the import of the compilation philosophically. Nowhere is the philosophical barrenness of this impeccable
(and invaluable) scholarly study more clearly in evidence than in Krempel's
conclusion concerning the secundum esse-secundum dici couplet. " Impossible," he
writes (p. 394), " de trouver une traduction satisfaisante pour les deux terms."
It is hardly to he wondered at, in light of this failure, that Krempel, when he
comes to interpret Poinsot (p. 4lil), finds (or thinks he finds, for a whole nest
of misconstructions in his work come together on this point) that " a ce moment
la tradition est rompue." What has actually transpired is something quite different
and of another order: at this moment the latent possibilities of the tradition in
the distinction in question are freed of long-standing confusions and rendered actual
in their proper scope. It is not a matter of something rompue, but of something
aufgehobem. And it must be said, to Krempel's credit, that, in whatever respects
his interpretation falls short, it was conceived in the effort to elaborate discursively a profoundly true intuition of the scope of the difficulty: "s'il y a des
cas ou l'on doit remonter a l'origine et a !'original, c'est bien ici." (Krempel,
p. 397.)

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among men. Successful communication, whenever it occurs,
and whether it transpires between men and animals without
human understanding, or between men or animals and the
physical world: wherever there is a " communing " between
things, it occurs because and only because a pure relation-a
relation according to the way relation has being-has arisen and
serves as the medium of the communion. Unlike the subjects
brought into union by such a relationship, the relationship as
such is an intersubjective reality: regardless of its subjective
cause-mind or nature--its positive content remains unchanged.
It extends the boundaries of existence over and beyond the
boundaries of the subjectiVie here and now, mediating (in the
case of real existents) a trans-subjective contact and union between otherwise isolated members of the material world. And because of the ontological indifference relation enjoys towards its
subjective ground, this extension beyond subjectivity takes place
sometimes (the case of signa naturalia) along lines drawn by
nature, sometimes (the case of signa ex consuetudine) along
lines drawn by the customs of a community, and sometimes
(the case of signa ad placita) along lines creatively drawn by
the free exercise of genius (or perhaps the influx of a spiritual
intuition, or even a divine inspiration) -a pattern which may
in its turn become naturalized by customs to contribute to the
historical achievement of humanity expressed in a privileged
line of transmission, a traditio in the highest sense.26
26 These remarks suffice to indicate
the dependence upon the terms of the
secundum esse-secundum dici contrast of Poinsot's division of signs drawn from
the standpoint of the causes habilitating them to what they signify into natural,
customary, and stipulated. Poinsot has a second and more celebrated division of
signs, drawn this time from the standpoint of how a given sign functions in cognition and discourse, according as it is itself first of all an object of conscious awareness (an objectified sign, let us say), or as it is not itself first of all an object
of conscious awareness (an unobjectified sign). Signs of the former sort he calls
instrumental signs, signs of the latter sort (concepts, but as including memories
and imaginations) he calls formal signs. Because of the interest this division has
occasionally sparked here and there in contemporary discussions (e. g., see the
references in notes 93 and 94 below), and because of the reliance upon it of even
the provisional and primitive Institute schema for the treatment of the subject of
language (e. g., cf. M. J. Adler, The Difference of Man and the Difference It

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JOHN N. DEELY

II. THE HISTORICAL SITUATION OF POINSOT'S
TREATISE ON SIGNS.

In the English-speaking world no name is
closely associated with the theory of signs than the name of Charles Sanders
Peirce (1839-1914) .27 Now Peirce was one of the most learned
Makes [New York: Holt, Rinehart, & Winston, 1967], p. 320 n. 8, p. 327 n.IO,
p. 331 n. 11), it may be useful to note that this distinction too depends for its
being rightly understood on the secundum esse-secundum dici contrast, in the
following manner.
The distinction between the subjective means of objectification intrinsic to
a cognizing power as signs that need not themselves he cognized in order to function in awareness (formal signs), and the objective means of communication extrinsic to a cognitive power as signs that must be themselves cognized in order to
function in awareness (instrumental signs), is a distinction based in its proper
intelligibility on the fact that, since the ontological relation constitutive of
signifying respects the signified object directly and a cognitive power only
indirectly, the direct relation of sign to cognitive power can be merely transcendental and thereby can be entirely intrinsic to the cognitive power and the subjectivity of the knower, without the signifying as such (the formal rationale whereby
the sign functions to present another than itself) being in any way affected. It
is due to this fact that a concept, a " quality " and " inhering accident," as such
bound up with the subjectivity and individuality of the knower hie et nunc, can
yet serve as such to found an ontological relation to an object outside of the
subject, by which relation the external object is made present in cognition even
though the foundation of that relation itself remains unobjectified in that same
cognition and intrinsic to it. "A sign is formal or instrumental," i.e., intrinsic or
extrinsic, unconscious or conscious for its immediate user, Poinsot says simply,
" by reason of the fundament of the sign-relation itself but not on the part of the
relation" (684bll-14).
On the part of the relation itself the sign is simply
ontological; and so it is that Poinsot is able to reconcile in the being proper to
signs (whereby they "draw the order of the cognizable to the order of the relative")
the subjectivity of our means of knowing with the intersuhjective character of
our objects of knowledge, by showing that these subjective means do not interpose
themselves between conscious awareness and being, provided we understand
" being" as it includes mind-dependent as well as mind-independent patterns of
actuality (praedicamenta vera et ficta) and provided we understand that both the
signs that need not themselves be cognized and cannot be observed under any
circumstances except in their effects on the sensible patterns in perception
signs) and the signs that are objects first of all (instrumental signs) can function
as natural signs even when what they signify is itself unreal, by virtue of their
transcendental character as foundations in a subject for the rationale of the relative
indifferent in its positive content to the source of its exercise (that is, the rationale
of the ontological, not of the transcendental, relative.)
27 "Like Aristotle," writes T. A. Goudge, The Thought of C. S. Peirce (Toronto:
University of Toronto Press, 1950), p. 137, Peirce "saw that symbols are the

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philosophers of recent times, whose background was by no
means confined to the national language phase of Western
philosophy, as he himself tells us:
From Kant, I was led to an admiring study of Locke, Berkeley,
and Hume, and to that of Aristotle's Organon, Metaphysics, and
psychological treatises, and somewhat later derived the greatest
advantage from a deeply pondering perusal of some of the works of
medieval thinkers, St. Augustine, Abelard, and John of Salisbury,
with related fragments from St. Thomas Aquinas, most especially
from John of Duns (Duns being the name of a then not important
place in East Lothian), and from William of Ockham. 28
Few remarks could be better used to illustrate the oblivion
into which Poinsot's 17th century work on signs fell, therefore,
than Peirce's description of the situation in which he found
himself in the opening decade of the
century as regards
his attempt to work out a general doctrine of signs:
I am, as far as I know, a pioneer, or rather, a backwoodsman, in
the work of clearing and opening up what I call semiotic, that is,
the doctrine of the essential nature and fundamental varieties of
medium through which the rationality in the universe must be expressed and
communicated." The facts making this so " prior to Peirce's day," Goudge allows,
"had never been systematically investigated," and Peirce " was thus forced to
become the founder of a new discipline."
Charles Morris, in his book, Signs, Language, and Behavior (New York: George
Braziller, 1955), p. !'l87, states flatly that "Peirce was the heir of the whole
historical philosophical analysis of signs."
" Many thinkers-most notably C. S. Peirce--have supposed," writes William
P. Alston in the article, "Sign and Symbol," for Edwards' Encyclopedia of
Philosophy (New York: Free Press, 1967), Vol. 7, p. 488, that all the different
kinds of signs " are species of a single genus, for which the term ' sign' can be
employed."
Writing in the same volume of the Encyclopedia on " Semantics, History of,"
p. 895, Norman Kretzman asserts that Peirce "went much further than anyone
before him had tried to go toward the development of a completely general theory
of signs."
28 Charles Sanders Peirce, Collected Pape:rs (Cambridge,
Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1981-1988; Vols. I-VI edited by Charles Hartshorne and Paul Weiss,
Vols. VII-VIII edited by Arthur W. Burks), Vol. I, paragraph 560, i.e., I. 560
according to the standardized practice of giving the volume and paragraph numbers separated by a decimal when citing Peirce's Collected Papers.

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JOHN N. DEEJLY

possible semiosis [or signifying]; and I find the field too vast, the
labor too great, for a firstcomer.29

It is unfortunate in some ways at least that Peirce (to say
nothing of the students of Semiotic who carne after him: Cf.
Note
above) did not know that his was anything but the
:first attempt to overcome the " beastlike superficiality and lack
of generalizing thought [that] spreads like a pall over the writings
of the scholastic master of logic " 30 in the early Latin phase of
the modern period. 31 Poinsot' s historical situation in this regard,
as we shall see, gives the philosophical view expressed in tht
Treatise on Signs a unique importance for interpreting the history of philosophy both prior to and after the crucial 17th
century-and including the Peircean effort to
a
systematic view of signifying.
What seems to me called for first of all is a clarification, in
•• Ibid., 5.488.
30 Ibid., 1.561. One is reminded of Gilson's query:
"If Ockham was an Aristotelian, and St. Thomas Aquinas an Aristotelian, and perhaps even Aristotle an
Aristotelian, this at least remains to be explained: how is it that Ockham's
ultimate conclusions are so completely destructive of those of Aristotle as well
as those of St. Thomas Aquinas? " (The Unity of Philosophical Experience [New
York: Scribner's, 1937], p. 64.)
31 Despite his wide-ranging
forays into Latin scholasticism and the attraction
he found in Scotist thought (see his Collected Papers, 1.560)-which may help
to explain the fantastic complexity of Peirce's scheme of divisions of signs as
compared with Poinsot's-Peirce seems to remain wholly a son of the modem
tradition in his basic creative inspirations. In his essential definition of the sign
Peirce does not seem to envisage the systematic difference Poinsot demonstrates
between representation and signification but speaks of signs as if they were
"representamens" simply (e. g., see 2.228), with the result that his notion of the
"interpretant," unlike Poinsot's formal sign, readily lends itself to the construction it receives in the work of Morris and Osgood, where it is explained (in Poinsot's
terms) as something only transcendentally relative. In his approach to the subject of signs through categories he remained entirely within the Kantian conception of categories as dependent on formal logic (see Collected Papers, 1.561).
Finally, where Poinsot sees logic as subordinate to the theory of signs as one level
and type of interpretation among others, Peirce simply extends logic "to embrace
all the necessary principles of semiotic" (Collected Papers, 4.9), in this perhaps
showing a Hegelian tendency to equate interpretation tout court with a sufficiently
sophisticated logical construction.

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terms of the development of philosophy between Poinsot and
the present, of the fundamental option which Poinsot poses at
the very beginning of his Treatise, the need for a choice between r.egarding signs as primarily and essentially relative only
according to the way their being must be cognized or expressed
(transcendentally), or according to the way they have the
being proper to them as signs (ontologically) and therefore
(sometimes) independently of expression.
Yet this choice itself depends for its recognition and possibility, as Poinsot shows and as we have seen, on a prior
decision concerning the nature and reality of the relative as it
belongs to the order of mind-independent being. In this,
Poinsot advances the issue a step beyond his later contemporary, John Locke, who, having set himself" to examine the
extent and certainty of our knowledge," soon enough " found
it had so near a connexion with words that, unless their force
and manner of signification were well observed, there could
be very little said clearly and pertinently concerning knowledge." 32 Thus Locke had already uncovered for modern thought
the decisive connection between signs and knowledge, and no
insight was to exercise greater influence over the immediate
development of philosophical thought in both England and
Europe; but it was the privilege of Poinsot to see in exactly
what way the connection between knowledge and being is also
decisively at stake in the explanation of signifying, though this
insight of Poinsot's is treaceable after Locke mostly by its
absence.
We begin our attempt to historically situate the philosophical
substance of Poinsot's Treatise, therefore, with a sketch of the
history in the Latin West of the discussion of whether there are
pure relations in the world, .existing as such dependently upon
but supraordinate to and really distinct from their foundations
in material subjects. It was in the discussion of this question,
according to the terms of Poinsot's theory, that the way was
•• John Locke, An Essay Concerning Human Understanding, Book lli, Chapter
9, par. 21. (Vol. II of the 1894 Fraser/Oxford Press edition, p. 118.)

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JOHN N. DEELY

prepared at the dawn of modern times for the split between
being and intelligibility that received its classic systematic
formulation in Kant and which has perpetuated itself down
to our times as the characteristic heritage of philosophy after
Locke and Descartes but which is already implicit in any view
of signs (and therefore of concepts) as primarily relative in a
transcendental rather than in an ontological way. It is this split
for which Poinsot's theory of the sign is the unique remedy.
What is at stake in the contrast between the relative secundum
esse (or ontologically relative) and the relative secundum dici
(or transcendentally relative) as Poinsot makes of it the foundation of his Treatise is nothing less than the classical medieval
thesis, ens et verum convertuntur. It is a question of being able
to explain the apparent intersubjectivity of objects in discourse
(whereby they are referrable indifferently to the self and to
others) and their partial coincident identity with mind-independent beings, or having to explain all this away.
A. The Discussion of Mind-Independent Relation in the Latin
West up to Poinsot.
Richard McKeon and others have well pointed out that
an across-the-board influence of Aristotle did not make itself
felt in philosophy until after the translations into Latin of the
whole range of his writings in the 12th and 13th centuries.
Thus, it is to a v.ery late period
particularly) that
van Steenbergen applies the name, "Latin Aristotelianism." 33
Yet, as the exhausting textual surveys of Krempel show,34 in
what concerns the r.elative and its possible foundations for the
theory of knowledge and truth, " Latin Aristotelianism" comprises the entire period from Boethius's 6th century translation
83 Fernand
van Steenberghen, Aristotle in the West (Louvain: Nauwelaerts,
1955), pp. 147-197.
•• See A. Krempel, La doctrine de la relation chez St. Thomas. Expose historique
et systematique (Paris: Vrin, 1952), particularly Chapitre XVIII, "Le relativum
secundum dici et le relativum secundum esse." (As we have had occasion to remark
in note 25 above, Krempel's " expose historique " is considerably more satisfactory
than his "expose systematique,")

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of and commentaries upon Aristotle's Categories to Poinsot's
masterful Ars Logica of the early 17th century. From Boethius
on the question of whether there are in nature relations given
as such independently of cognition and mind was commonly
discussed in the West, and generally, with a f.ew exceptions, this
question was resolved in the affirmative. By the close of the
13th century consensus had it that there are r.elations in the
world existing as such dependently upon but supraordinate to
and really distinct from their subjective foundations in things.
This consensus was first challenged effectively in the work
of William of Ockham (c. 1300-1350), which gave rise to a
movement called nominalism-" a term which does not at all
serve to define it " 25 -whose partisans were also known as
"terminists" terministae) and" moderns" (moderni) .26 Complex as the movement was, it was united in its denial of
the mind-independent reality of relations, 37 a denial to which
Suarez had attached by Poinsot'.s day the weight and influence
of his Disputationes M etaphysicae. According to this view of
"modern" Latin Aristotelianism, in the order of mind-independent being as such, there
only absolute subjects with
their individual determinations. Relativity in the proper sense
of something essentially relative arises among these subjects
only as a result of our perceptions and attempts to explain
things. This order of being-the order of being which does
35 "Nous
pem\trons ici," writes Gilson (La philosophie au moyen age, 2nd
ed., p. 657), " sur un terrain doctrinal mal connu, extremement complexe et
dont on sait du moins deja ceci, que le terme de nominalisme ne suffit aucunement
a le definir."
•• Ibid., pp. 656-657.
37 " Les noms dont on designait au XIV• siecle les partisans
des anciennes et
ceux de Ia nouv.elle doctrine, supposent que l'on tra<;ait entre eux une ligne de
demarcation extremement nette," writes Gilson (ibid., p. 656). This is the most
fundamental such line suggested by Poinsot's Treatise, and one that, in the context
of present considerations, gives an entirely new dimension to Jacques Maritain's
contention that "A deep vice besets the philosophers of our day, whether they be
neo-Kantians, nco-positivists, idealists, Bergsonians, logisticians, pragmatists, neoSpinozists, or nco-mystics. It is the ancient error of the nominalists." (The Degrees
of Knowledge, trans. from the 4th French ed. under the supervision of Gerald B.
Phelan [New York: Scribners, 1959], p. 1.)

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JOHN N. DEELY

not depend for its existence on being cognized: the mindindependent order of being-reveals itself as relative according
to the way its being must be expressed in discourse; but apart
from the work of perception and discourse, there is nothing
of relative being in a way that extends beyond subjectivity.
The relative, on this view, is divided, in effect (and always
allowing for idiosyncrasies in sophisticated terminologies), between what Poinsot calls transcendental realtions, which are
not truly relations according to their way of being independently of the mind, and mental relations, which are truly relations
but as such are in no way independent of the mind: there is
a mode of being which is a relation according to the way it
has being, but this mode is given existence only by the mind:
it is not an ontological rationale. Relation according to the
way it has being belongs exclusively to the order of mind-dependent being.
Thus, by the time of Poinsot's publication in 1682 of his Ars
Logica, Part II, the medieval consensus in this matter had
given way to a clear opposition within the ranks of the Latin
Aritsotelians:
Those at one extreme think that relations are not distinguished on
the side of mind-independent being from their fundaments, but
only by the mind. This position is traditionally ascribed to the
Nominalists, against whom we argued in Article 1. Others, however, who admit categorial relations against those Nominalists,
follow this opinion concerning a mind-independent distinction from
the fundament. Thus Suarez in his Disputationes Metaphysicae,
disp. 47, sec. 2. And others at the opposite extreme distinguish all
categorial relations from their fundaments mind-independently,
which the Thomists generally follow, although some distinguish
the relation from the fundament as a thing from a thing, others
only as a mode.88
88 Poinsot, Ars Logica, Part ll, Q. 17, Art. 4, "Utrum Relatio Distinguatur
a
Parte Rei a Suo Fundamento," 591a6-2S: " Circa hanc ergo difficultatem divisi
sunt auctores. Quidam in uno extremo existimant relationes non distingui a parte
rei a suis fundamentis, sed solum ratione; quod Nominalibus tribui solet, contra
quos egimus art. 1. [i.e ., the Treatise on Signs, Appendix B, Article 1], Aliqui
tamen, qui contra illos admittunt relationes praedicamentales, sententiam istam
sequuntur de distinctione rationis a fundamento. Ita P. Suarez disp. 47. Metaph.

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Outside what Poinsot here calls the "Thomist " line, the
position of Ockham and Suar.ez was universally adopted by the
figures who exercised the controlling influence over the transition in the 17th and 18th centuries from Latin philosophizing
to philosophical discourse in the new national languages.
Whether we look to the work of Hobbes, Locke, Berkeley, and
Hume in England, or to the work of Descartes, Leibniz, Spinoza,
and Kant on the Continent, we find the unanimous adoption of
the view of Suarez and Ockham denying the reality in nature of
mind-independent relations as such.
B . Poinsot as Watershed of the Philosophical Tradition.
This puts into an entirely new perspective what Randall well
calls-despite his own work embodying the results of several:'
decades of r:esearch in the area-" that least known period in
the history of Western philosophy, the transition from the
thirteenth to the seventeenth centuries, when modern philosophy is conventionally supposed to have begun." 89 The "essential continuity between medieval and modern philosophy "
that increasingly impressed Randell " ever since the early
studies of Gilson on Descartes" 40 does not at all obtain at the
level of ultimate philosophical understanding of the foundations
in the order of the relative for the medieval theory of knowledge
and of truth as convertible with being. For Poinsot's theory
sec.
Et alii in alio extremo omnes relationes praedicamentales realiter distinguunt
a suo fundamento, quod communiter thomistae sequuntur, licet aliqui distinguant
relationem a fundamento ut rem a re, alii solum ut modum."
Here Poinsot clearly identifies modal distinction as a type of real distinction.
Here then is clear proof of the unreliability of Krempel's entire study of relation
so far as it concerns Poinsot; for Krempel writes (La Doctrine de la Relation chez
"Sous !'influence de saint Albert et surtout de Boec.e
Saint Thomas, p.
la plupart des thomistes primitifs, tel Herve de Nedellec et Nicolas Trivet:
rejeterent la distinction reele entre la relation accidentalle et son fondement absolu.
De meme Gilles de Rome, les nominalistes, Suarez, et Jean de saint Thomas."
Nor is there a trace of Boethian influence in Poinsot's fundamentally and unquestionably Thomistic conception of the categories.
•• John Herman Randall, Jr., The Career of Philosophy (New York: Columbia
Vol. I, "Foreword," pp. vii-viii.
University Press,
•• Ibid., p. viii.

884

JOHN N. DEELY

of signs-contemplated and crafted over a period of about 80
years in the very heart of Iberia-precisely extends to the
means of knowledge (the instruments whereby objectivity is
structured in cognition, let us say) St. Thomas's use of the
ontological rationale of the relative to explain truth as a
property of being, i.e., the convertibility of ens and verum. 41
This extension is impossible within the confines of the modern
tradition. Having only the transcendental rationale of the r.elative with which to explain the connection of being and truth,
in the terms of Poinsot's theory, the modern tradition is without
resources for explaining the possibility of even the most limited
escape from the basic condition of subjectivity as something
closed upon itsel£.42 The ontological relative does allow for
intersubjectivity as a rationale of being equiprimordial with
subjectivity, and, as realized in the particular case of signs actually manifesting in cognition what they signify, does explain
the intersubjective character of discourse and the public character of objects both real and unreal. Discourse is intersubjective and objects of awareness are public, in principle because
the means or instruments of discourse and objectification are
ontologically relative as signs, not transcendentally relative, and
so "do not pertain to the order of the cognizable absolutely,
but relatively and ministerially," 43 i. e., in such a way as to
41 See Thomas Aquinas, Quaestiones Disputatae de Veritate, Q. 1, art. I. What
Maurer says of "Renaissance Scholasticism" (in his Medieval Philosophy, p.
347)-that "with the exception of legal and political theory it contributed little
to the advancement of learning," and that " it did not even grasp with exactness
and profundity the most personal doctrines of St. Thomas Aquinas "-may well
be true of Suarez, but, in light of the above, how can it be said of Poinsot? The
answer is that it cannot.
42 For,
as we saw above, ou the view that only transcendental relation is
common to the two orders of mind-independent and mind-dependent being, even
though mind-dependent being further contains genuine relations, it does not
contain them in a fully intersubjective way, for it does not contain them as
enjoying an indifference to their subjective ground. For this, mental relation must
be itself but a mind-dependent instance of something which is also given in its
positive content independently of the mind.
43 Treatise on Signs, Book I, Question 2, 663a28-34: " ratio signi cum non consistit in ratione obiecti absolute, sed substitutionis ad alterum, quod supponitur

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be able to manifest otherwise than in terms of their objective
self alone, 44 and otherwise than in terms of the physical presence
or absence of objects signified. If signs are not ontologically
relative, however, they do not pertain to the order of the
cognizable in a ministerial capacity first of all, but in an objective capacity. The grounds for Poinsot's distinction, first, between formal and instrumental signs (i.e., between concepts,
and objects serving to signify) , and second, between instrumental signs which are founded in nature and instrumental
signs which are founded in custom or stipulation, are entirely
removed. Being transcendentally relativ:e, concepts, even as
signs, would be determinative of rather than .specified by and
subordinate to their objects; nor would they be mind-independently distinct from the subjective being of the knower as
closed upon itself. There could be no formal signs in Poinsot's
sense, for being cognized would pertain to the rationale as well
as to the exercise of a .sign; being formed by the mind and
being constituted in objective existence would be everywhere
and at all points the same. 45 There would still be signs founded
on custom and stipulation; but no signs founded on nature
as something knowable in itself given with and by the objects
of experience. Whatever necessity human understanding might
think it discerns among objects would perforce be the result
either of custom alone, or of custom together with some hidden
mechanisms of understanding which determine thought along
lines inscribed in and prescribed by an order of the" things-inthemselves," i.e., the order of things which are absolutely other
than the objects presented in consciousness by our concepts or
discussed with our fellows through signs.46
esse objectum sen signatum, ut representetur potentiae, non pertinet ad genus
cognoscibilis absolute, sed relative et ministerialiter."
.. See the Treatise on Signs, Book I, Question 1, esp. 695b5-696b16; and Jacques
Maritain, The Degrees of Knowledge, pp. 119-1!'l0. See also note !'l6 above.
•• Just as it became for each one of the British empiricists and Continental
rationalists. See, in particular, John Locke's Essay Concerning Human Understanding, Introduction, par. 8 (Fraser ed., Vol. I, p. S!'l).
•• This line of thought, it seems clear, is what is at stake in Chomsky's well-known
study, Cartesian Linguistics (New York: Harper and Row, 1966).

886

JOHN N. DEELY

In the choice between signs as ontologically relative or signs
as transcendentally relative one chooses between the acceptance or denial of being and truth as convertible; but in choosing
to deny the mind-independent reality of relation as distinct
from and superordinate to its fundament, one perforce excludes
the very notion of an ontological r.elative in the sense required
to reconcile the medieval doctrine of transcendental truth with
the dependence of objects in their cognized being on means of
objectification rooted in the subjectivity of the being who
knows.
Among those in the modern tradition conscious of the consequences of excluding relation as an ontological rationale
realized independently of human understanding few were more
conscious than William of Ockham himself. And it seems safe
to say that the entire structure of Book III of Poinsot's Treatise
was conceived as the philosophical counter to what Gilson
called "Ockham's master stroke," 47 namely, the perception
that the problem of removing entirely the character of relation as an ontological rationale "could not be solved unless a
new classification of the various types of knowledge was first
substituted for the old one," 48 specifically, a classification beginning with our experience of the difference between cognition
of things present and absent to sense. " Hence his division of
knowledge into abstractive and intuitive, terms that had already been used before him, but to which he gave a new turn
and was to use in a new way." 49
This last remark I apply to Poinsot as well as Ockham; for
Poinsot did not simply restore this division of knowledge to its
foundation in Scotus's pre-Ockhamite usage. 50 Rather, he re"Etienne Gilson, The Unity of Philosophical Experience (New York: St'.ribner's,
1987)' p. 68.
Ibid.
•• Ibid., pp. 68-69. See also Gilson, History of Christian Philosophy in the
Middle Ages (New York: Random House, 1955), pp. 489-491.
6 ° For Poinsot and Scotus alike intuitive knowledge requires physical presence
on the part of the object apprehended as such. But, for Scotus, abstractive
knowledge prescinds from the existence or non-existence of its object, whereas
for Poinsot abstractive awareness prescinds only from physical presence in pereep-

THE TWO APPROACHES

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thought (or rather: he projected a re-thinking of) the experience on which it is based, entirely in terms of the systematic
implications of the identification of signs as ontologically relative in rationale. It is because concept as signs are ontologically
relative that they are able to mediate between the transcendental relations of objects to the order of mind-independent
being (on the one side) and to the order of what depends on
cognition for its being (on the other side), and to unite in the
object the divisions relative to both orders-the order of
praedicamenta vera et ficta simul.
Poinsot shows that the foundations for the prior possibility
of critical truth as the conformitas intellectus ad rem lie in the
ontological peculiarity of the relative as something realizable
as such in the order of mind-independent existence. 51 With his
two divisions, one of natural signs into formal and instrumental,
and one of instrumental signs into natural, stipulated, and
customary, both founded on the contrast between the ontologically and the merely transcendentally relative as explaining the presence of non-being in cognition and the mediating
role of custom in structuring the apprehensive relations between human understanding and mind-independent being,
Poinsot may be said to have provided, for the first time, and
at the very end of a tradition founded on an 1100 year old
consensus on the reality of relation as an intersubjective union,
a metaphysical apparatus for analysis sufficiently refined and
delicate (" ens minimum, scilicet, relatio " 52 ) to accommodate
transcendental truth to history. At the very time when the
tion, not necessarily from existence. These remarks may suffice for here, but a detailed comparison of Scotus and Poinsot on these points should eventually be made.
01 Thus Poinsot's theory at once answers Heidegger's central question in V om
Wesen der Wahrheit (1954) and provides the foundations in ancient ontology
required to ground in principle Heideggers's anti-constructivist view that (Sein
und Zeit, p. 6fl) " Im Sichrichten auf . . . und Erfassen geht das Dasein nicht
etwa erst aus seiner lnnensphare hinaus, in die es zunachst verkapselt ist, sondem
es ist seiner primaren Seinsart nach immer schon ' draussen ' bei einem begegnenden
Seienden der je schon entdeckten Welt."
•• Thomas Aquinas, In I Sent, dist. fl6, q. fl ad fl. Cf. J. Maritain, The Degrees
of Kn()Wledge, p. llfl.

888

JOHN N. DEELY

medieval consensus entirely gave way in modern thought to
the nominalist or Ockhamite tradition on the non-reality of relation (as transmitted through the work of Suarez, Hobbes,
and Descartes within Poinsot's very lifetime; and as removing
the foundation of truth-its formal or categorial foundation-in the order of mind-independent being as such), Poinsot
was achieving in the older tradition the first entirely systematic clarification of the ontological foundations in relation for the possibility of truth as a conformity known
in the structures of objectivity between thought and things,
and of communication as an escape from subjectivity equiprimordial with subjectivity itself. Historically and philosophically, Poinsot's Treatise stands astride the dividing line that
separates the early Latin phase of the modern period (Ockham
to Saurez) from its national language phase (Descartes and
Hobbes to the present) . It is this fact that gives the philosophical view expressed in the Treatise on Signs a unique importance
and heuristic value for interpreting the history of philosophy
posterior as well as prior to the crucial 17th century.
C. The Modern Tradition up to Kant.
Hobbes spoke for the fundamentally new (and Ockhamite)
way philosophy was to take in England, we may say, when he
wrote in his Philosophia Prima: " De Relatione autem non ita
censendum est, tamquam ea esset accidens aliquod diversum
ab aliis Relati accidentibus, sed unum ex illis, nempe, illud
ipsum secundum quod fit comparatio." 53 The implications of
this view in the West for the grounds of knowledge and the
understanding of signs were first put to work systematically in
the national languages, it seems, with the appearance in
1690 of John Locke's Essay Concerning Human Understanding.
•• Thomas Hobbes, OpM"a Pkilosophica, Quae Latine Scripsit, Omnia (Amsterdam:
Joannes Blaev, 1668), Vol. I, Caput 11, par. 6, p. 71: "Concerning relation,
however, it must not be thought to exist in such a way as to be diverse from
the other accidents of the related thing, but as one of them, namely, that very
one according to which a comparison is made." Cf. the Treatise on Signs, Appendix
A, Article 1, 573b44-574a7.

THE TWO APPROACHES

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889

Here, the consequences of choosing the transcendental alternative to Poinsot's answer concerning the rationale constitutive
of sigus begin to come into the open, for here for the first time
a systematic work appears devoted to exploring the structures of sigus and coguition on the supposition that " ideas
of modes and relations are originals, and archetypes; are not
copies, nor made after the pattern of real existence, to which
the mind intends them to be conformable, and exactly to
answer." 54
Now there is no doubt that we experience things as connected
with one another in various ways. But if there are no true
relations save those our mind makes, on what grounds do we
experience these connections? Locke, it must be said, failed to
face this question in an entirely consistent way and introduced
as a result many inconsistencies into his Essay.
It was left for Hume to remove these inconsistencies, by
giving, with his Treatise of Human Nature in 1739, the first of
the two possible answers (within the confines of the modern
tradition) to why we connect objects in our experience:
Nature, by an absolute and uncontrollable necessity, has determin'd
us to judge as well as to breathe and to feel; nor can we any more
forbear viewing certain objects in a stronger and fuller light, upon
account of their customary connexion with a present impression,
than we can hinder ourselves from thinking as long as we are
awake, or seeing surrounding bodies, when we turn our eyes towards them in broad snshine.55
This certainly improves upon Locke's contention "there is
nothing more required" than that relations have reality" only
in the minds of men." 56
50 John Locke, An Essay Concerning Human Understanding, Book II, Chap. 31,
par. 14 (Fraser ed., Vol. I, p. 5U).
•• David Hume, A Treatise of Human Nature, ed. by L. A. Selby-Bigge (Oxford:
Clarendon, 1946), Book I, Part IV, Section 1, p. 183.
•• John Locke, An Essay Concerning Human Understanding, Book II, Chap.
30, par. 4 (Fraser ed., Vol. II, p. 449-500): "Mixed modes and relations, having
no other reality but what they have in the minds of men, there is nothing more
required to this kind of ideas to make them real, but that they be so framed ..•• "

890

JOHN N. DEELY

To Poinsot's question: "How does understanding form pure
respects if it has only absolute things (i. e., transcendental
relations) as the pattern on which to form them?," 57 Hume
can now answer: if anything further be required, as Locke
doubted, the intervention of customs in our perceptions supplies that requirement.
Poinsot has no doubt of the correctness of Hume's contention
that custom intervenes to structure the relations we directly
perceive in and among objects. In simple awareness, he writes,
" we apprehend many things not through proper concepts but
through connotative ones." 58 Indeed, it is on this ground that
he explains the incorporation into nature of patterns of nonbeing through the transformation of free creations into customary institutions by the use men make of them in everyday
life.59 It is on this ground too that he explains how language
in use becomes a Lebensform, wherein stipulation, which belongs to the order of non-being according to its foundation or
direct ground in subjectivity, is sensibly transformed into custom, whereby the element of stipulated non-being is indirectly
naturalized and made perceptible in the order of instrumental
signs.60 But, in Poinsot's scheme, the formal recognition in actu
exercito of mind-dependent relations as such by human understanding, whereby alone stipulation itself :first becomes possible,61 also provides the resources for critically distinguishing
among even customary associations those which are also con•• See the Treatise on Signs, Appendix A, Article 1, 575a25-82: "Quomodo
intellectus puros respectus format, si non habet nisi res absolutas seu relationes
secundum dici, ad quarum instar eas formet? Erunt ergo mera figmenta
relationes ab intellectu formatae, cum non habeant in rc puras et veras relationes,
ad quarum instar formatus."
•• Simplex apprehensio "non semper apprehendit rem, ut est in se, quasi
numquam ad instar alterius, cum plura apprehendamus non per proprios conceptus,
sed per connotativos." Treatise on Signs, Appendix B, Article 8, 805b89-48.
•• See the Treatise on Signs, Book II, Question 6, esp. 72lb27-40.
•• Cf. Treatise on Signs, Book II, Question 6, 719bl5-86 and 722all-24, with
Ludwig Wittgenstein, Philosophical Investigations, trans. by G. E. M. Anscombe
(8rd ed.; New York: Macmillan, 1958), p. 88, pars. 240-242, esp. 241.
61 Cf. Treatise on Signs, Appendix B, Article 8, 805bl9-25; Book I, Question 6,
685b29-82.

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nections realized independently of custom (and so of human
understanding) and those which are only connections realized
through custom; because, for Poinsot, the discrimination of
mind-dependent element in objective relations presupposes that
relation in the ontological sense, i. e., as including mindindependent relations cognized as such before being recognized
as such in their contrast to mind-dependent relations, has
already been given in the line of being as first known (ens ut
primum cognitum). There is room thus in Poinsot's theory for
the further difference between customary signs, i. e., signs
naturalized in experience, and natural signs simply speaking,
i. e., signs connected with what they signify antecedently to and
independently of their appearance as associated within human
experience. 62
Poinsot's theory achieves in this way a connection and commercium between mind-dependent and mind-independent elements of objective structure knowable as such because his
theory of signs as relations enables any given sign to "take on
something of the entitative order," 63 even though only some
signs have this entitative dimension immediately from the fact
that cognizability itself is something mind-independent in the
order of the relative (ens ut verum fundamentaliter) .•••
But such discrimination is impossible for Hume, because
it contradicts the premise that relations as such have their
being entirely from the work of human understanding. Consequently, where Poinsot explains the discrimination between
natural and customary elements on the grounds of the ontological rationale proper to relation whereby non-being becomes
a functional and structural element in our direct experience of
objects, Hume is obliged to explain this discrimination away as
a natural illusion.
'Tis natural for men, in their common and careless way of thinking,
to imagine they perceive a connection betwixt such objects as they
•• See the Treatise on Signs, Book I, Question 6, 719b8-ll and 719bS7-7!lOall.
•• Treatise on Signs, Book I, Question !l, 66SaS5-S6.
••• Cf. Treatise on Signs, Book I, ch. !l, 657aS9-658b29.

JOHN N. DEELY

have constantly found united together; and because custom has
render'd it difficult to separate the ideas, they are apt to fancy
such a separation to be in itself impossible and absurd. But
philosophers, who abstract from the effects of custom, and compare
the ideas of objects, immediately perceive the falsehood of these
vulgar sentiments, and discover that there is no known connexion
among objects. 64

Thus, by the middle of the eighteenth century in England,
the denial by Hobbes and Locke of the mind-independent
character and ontological rationale of relations has led directly
to a theory where all objective structures are the free work of
the mind, moderated or stayed, so far as can be known, only by
custom, the warrant available to man for his seeing things as
related in various ways.
The reduction of all connections among objects to custom is
disastrous for the theory of the sciences, which, since the time
of Aristotle, had thought to uncover necessary connections
among things. This reduction was not acceptable to Kant.
Agreeing with Locke and Hume that all relations as such are
the work of mind, Kant thought to restore true necessity
among objective connections by adding to the customary connections admitted by Hume relations which the mind forms
by an a-priori necessity of its manner of operations.
Moreover, unlike Locke and Hume who began to treat of
human thought and handled the question of relations along
the way, Kant'.s critical reflections are distinguished by beginning, exactly as Poinsot's, with the problem of the relative
in being explicitly envisaged as such as the determining ground
for any problematic involving concepts.
For this reason, within the modern tradition as it took form
in the national languages, Kant, writing nearly 150 years after
Poinsot, emerges as the only figure whose work stands to the
foundations of the modern tradition in a position entirely comparable to the position Poinsot's work occupies within the older
tradition. With Kant, for the first time in the national languages,
•• David Hume, A Treatise of Human Nature, Book I, Part IV, Section 8, p.
fl28.

THE TWO APPROACHES

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893

we have an entirely systematic work which not only (as with
Locke and Hume) explores the structures of signs and cognition
but does so from the first thematically under the guidance of the
notion of relation. Just as Poinsot's Treatise is an attempt to
think through the affirmation of relation as an ontological
rationale as this bears on the order of human understanding
and its possible objects, so the enterprise of Kant's Critique is
an attempt to think through the denial of relation as an
ontological rationale as this bears on the order of human understanding and its possible objects. Gilson considers that Hume's
influence on Kant was, in this respect, as direct as could be:
" There are two principles I cannot render ·Consistent," Hume says
in the Appendix of his Treatise of Human Nature, 65 "nor is it in my
power to renounce either of them, namely, that all our distinct
perceptions are distinct existences, and that the mind never perceives any real connection among distinct existences." We do
not know with certainty what, exactly Kant had read of Hume, but
there is little doubt that this sentence was the very one that
aroused Kant from his dogmatic slumber ;66

Kant's Critique is a systematic attempt to go to the very
foundations of the modern "way of ideas" as only transcendentally relative in founding the structures of objectivity, and
to do so in a way revelatory of the nature of truth in connection
with objective being. Since the possible conformity of concepts to mind-independent objects given in experience requires
relation as an ontological rationale indifferent in its positive
content to its subjective ground, from within the modern tradition premised on the denial of such a rationale, the most
consistent pursuit would indeed be to " make trial whether
we may not have more success in the tasks of metaphysics, if
we suppose that objects must conform to our knowledge." 67
P. 636 of the Selby-Bigge ed.
Etienne Gilson, Being and Some Philosophers
ed., corrected and enlarged; Toronto: Pontifical Institute of Mediaeval Studies,
p.
67 Kant's
Gesammelte Schriften, herausgegeben von der Koniglich Preussischen
Academic der Wissenschaften (Berlin: Reimer, 1911), Band III, p.
"Man
versuche es daher einmal, ob wir nicht in den Aussgaben der Metaphysik damit
65
66

894

JOHN N. DEELY

It is instructive, with the contrast between the ontologically
and the transcendentally relative expressly in mind, to re-read
the paragraphs in which Kant explains the revolution he wishes
to effect in philosophy by bringing its assumptions concerning
the relation between objectivity and truth in knowledge, into
conformity with the fact that relation is not an ontological
rationale; beginning with the passage in which he celebrates
his proposal by comparing it to the method of Copernicus:
Failing of satisfactory progress in explaining the movements of
the heavenly bodies on the supposition that they all revolved
around the spectator, he tried whether he might not have better
success if he made the spectator to revolve and the stars to remain at rest. 68
For Poinsot, this reduces the Copernican hypothesis down to
a question of alternate suppositions concerning which was the
primarily real and which the primarily unreal relation and
well illustrates the functional equivalence of the two types of
relation within an objective scheme. Kant continues:
A similar experiment can be tried in metaphysics as regards the
intuition of objects. If intuition must conform to the constitution
of the objects, I do not see how we could know anything of the
latter a priori [i. e., how there could be necessity in certain connections between objects-in certain objective structures, let us saynot reducible to the merely apparent necessity of customary association alone postulated by Hume]; but if the object (as object of
the senses) must conform to the constitution of our faculty of
intuition, I have no difficulty in conceiving such a possibility.69
besser fortkornmen, dass wir annehmen, die Gegenstande rnussen sich nach unserern
Erkenntnis richten." Immanuel Kant, Critique of Pure Reason, trans. by Norman
Kemp Smith (London: Macmillan, 1963) , "Preface to Second Edition," p. 22.
•• Ibid: "nachdem es mit der Erklarung der himmelsbewegungen nicht gut
fort wollte, weun er annahrn, das ganze Sternheer drehe sich urn den Zuschauer,
versuchte, ob es nicht besser gelingen mochte, wenn er den Zuschauer sich drehen
und dagegen die Sterne in Ruhe liess."
•• Ibid: " In der Metaphysik kann man nun, was die Anschaung der Gegenstande
betrifft, es auf ahnliche Weise versuchen. Wenn die Anschauung sich nach der
Beschaffenheit der Gegentande richten miisste, so sehe ich nicht ein, wie man
a priori von ihr etwas wissen konne; richtet sich aber der Gegenstand (als Objekt
der Sinne) nach der Beschaffenheit unseres Anschauungsverrnogens, so kann ich
mir diese Moglichkeit ganz wohl vorstellen."

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So far still, Poinsot has no quarrel with Kant. The objects of
our senses must indeed conform to the constitution of the sense
faculties: objects can affect the eye primarily only as colored,
and so on for each sense. Moreover, there is a sense for Poinsot
in which an external sense is in a privileged way called a
" faculty of intuition," since its operation always requires the
here and now presence in physical being of its object. 70 This is
but to say, in Poinsot's terms, that powers and objects are
transcendentally related and that, in the case of sensation, a
transcendental relation alone suffices to explain the objective
union attendant upon the physical influence here and now of
a physical object upon a passive .sensory organ. 71 But here,
possible agreement ends. For as cognition develops out of the
passivity of sense through the active formation of concepts
by internal sense (imagination, memory, natural instinct of
various kinds), the transcendental relation of power to object
is superseded in Poinsot's scheme by an ontological relation of
Treatise on Signs, Book III, 784a87-785a36; Appendix C,
For Poinsot, sense knowledge, analytically distinguished as such at the foundation and core of perception, differs from all other cognition in this, that of itself
it gives rise to no ontological relation of signification over and above the categorial
relation in the order of cause to effect and effect to cause resulting from the action
of the sensible object on the sense. Hence sensory apprehension, inasmuch as it
bears on the proper sensibles directly, enjoys none of the indifference to the
being of its object exhibited by imagination, memory, and understanding, though
it does involve relations between such so-called " proper " sensibles as color or
sound and such so-called " common " sensibles as movement and shape, and so
does not have an " atomic " or isolated character, but immediately reveals objects
as mind-independently structured within sensation according to size and distance,
shape and movement, etc. See esp. Book I, Question 6, of the Treatise on Signs.
Whereas for Locke and Burne (as later for Russell) the sense-data were regarded
as bare effects within my subjectivity directly known and supposedly caused by
unknown things, sense-data for Poinsot are effects indeed, but such effects as
presuppose and exhibit the here and now action of the cause as object, and hence
effects which, as transcendental relations, are pure means by which (principia quo)
their causes are cognized under the aspect of being noisy, colored, shaped, in motion,
etc., and present in awareness in themselves here and now. Thus Poinsot's view of
sense experience comes much closed to the views of T. H. Greene
except that with Greene even the primitive relations of sense perception (those
obtaining at the level of the sensibles proper and common) remain wholly the
achievement of mind.
70

71

896

JOHN N. DEELY

sign (concept as formal sign) to signified (object as made
naturally present in cognition as extrinsic specifier) . This reversal and subordination of the internal subjective means of
objectification to external specifications initially introduced
through the senses is not possible from within the modern tradition, for it can only come about through the intervention of
relation as an ontological rationale mediating the connection between concepts and their objects in perception and understanding. Hence Kant makes the decisive determination constitutive
of his Copernican revolution when he extends the primacy
of transcendental relation over the means of knowing not only
into the active process of concept formation but into the actual
function concepts perform as means of objectification: if sensory
intuitions are to become known, " I cannot rest in these intuitions ... but must relate them as representations to something as their object, and determine this latter through them." 72
Kant may be said to be the first in the modem tradition
concerning the difference between a relation and its subjective
foundation to have seen, with a darity and depth comparable
to that found in Poinsot's Treatise, the true requirements of
the problem:
Either I must assume that the concepts, by means of which I obtain
this determination [of what has been given in intuition], conform to
the object [in which case the concept as it functions in cognition
is ontologically relative], or else I assume that the objects, or what
is the same thing, that the experience in which alone, as given objects, they can be known, conform to the concepts [in which case
the concept, even as it functions formally as a pure means of cognition, is only transcendentally relative]. 73
72 Immanuel Kant, Critique of Pure Reason, " Preface to Second Edition," p.
italics added. Kant's Gesammelte Schriften (note
above), p.
"Weil ich
aber bei diesen Anschauungen, wenn sie Erkentnisse werden sollen, nicht stehen
bleiben kann, sondern sie als Vorstellungen auf irgend etwas als Gegenstand beziehen
und diesen durch jene bestimmen muss."
78 Ibid.:
"So kann ich entweder annehmen, die Begriffe, wodurch ich diese
Bestimmung zu Staude bringe, richten sich auch nach dem Gegenstande, ... oder
ich nehme an, die Gegenstande oder, welches einerlei ist, die Erfahrung, in welcher
sie allein (als gegebene Gegenstande) erkannt werden, richte sich nach diessen
Begriffen."

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897

To the question "whether the formal rationale constitutive
of a sign as such consists, primarily and essentially, in an
ontological or in a transcendental relation," 74 we have only two
systematically conceived answers. One, published by a professor at Alcala, in Iberia, in the year 1632, according to which
concepts (being natural signs formal in type) as they function
in cognition are ontologically relative and so sustain the convertibility of being with truth: this is Poinsot's Treatise on
Signs. The other, published by a professor at Konigsberg,
Germany, in 1781, according to which concepts even as functioning in actual cognition remain primarily transcendental in
their relative being, and so compromise the transcendental
character of truth (i.e., the character of truth as mind-independently founded) and its convertibility with being.
Poinsot and Kant are, each in their own way, the culmination of two radically opposed traditions concerning the connection between being and truth. These two traditions overlap
in their Latin development for about 300 years (1350-1650),
at which point the older tradition that Poinsot represents is
effectively terminated for the time, and the initial formation
of the modern tradition in the national languages takes place
entirely under the influence of the modern and nominalistic
position concerning the relative underlying the standpoint of
the great Kantian critiques. The doctrine of intuition Poinsot
introduces in Book I, Question 6, and dev.elops in terms of
formal signs throughout most of Book III, clearly expresses the
consequences of construing concepts and the means of knowing
generally as signs and ontologically rather than transcendentally
relative. As such, these pages serve as well to oppose Poinsot's
notions of intuition and experience to those of Kant after him,
as to those of Ockham and the nominalists before him in what
proved to be indeed the early modern period.
D. The Twilight of Modern Times.
From the viewpoint of its foundations in the being proper to
74

Treatise on Signs, Book I, Question 1, 646b16-19. See note 21 above.

898

JOHN N. DEELY

relation the modern tradition as found in the national languages
is perfectly continuous up to Kant, who, as we have said, brings
into systematic play the innermost possibilities of that tradition concerning concepts (the formal signs of understanding)
much as Poinsot does for the older tradition. This unity of
the formative stage of the modern philosophical mind was
clearly perceiv.ed by Hegel, who wrote (in 1802) : " Hume's
and Locke's reflective way of philosophizing, more thoroughly
and systematically worked out on German ground and soil,
becomes German philosophy." 75
Hegel also brings the unity to an end. He becomes the first
figure of stature to challenge and deny the all but universal
assumption that every relation existing as a relation is the work
of the mind.
I do not wish to say a great deal about Hegel here beyond this:
first, he certainly seems to recognize, with his " absolute relation," .essentially the same notion of the relative termed
" transcendental relation " by Poinsot; 76 second, he certainly
recognizes mind-dependent relations; 77 and third, he seems also
to recognize the equivalent of what Poinsot terms mind-independent or categorial relations. 78 Thus, at least in a tacit and
confused way, there would be operative in Hegel's thought the
notion of relation as the ontological rationale whereby Poinsot
accounts for the presence of being and non-being alike in the
objects of our experience and awareness. The univocity of being
and non-being in cognition is a fundamental principle for
Poinsot's Treati8e. It would not seem entirely unrelated to the
•• Hume's and Locke's "Reflexionswesen auf deutschen Grund und Boden weit
laufiger und systematischer ausgesponnen wird deutsche . . . Philosophie genannt."
G. W. F. Hegel, "Glauben und Wissen oder die Reflexions Philosophie der Subjektivitat," Journal der Philosophie, Band II, Stuck
as reprinted in
Siimtliche Werke (Stuttgart: Frommann, 1964), Vol. I, p. 874.
••" Das Nothwendige ist in sich absolutes Verhaltniss .... " System der Philosophie. Erster Teil. Die Logik, SW, Vol. 8, p. 887.
77 " ••• der Gedanke ist die Sache; einfache ldentitat
des subjectiven und
Objektiven." System der Philosophie. Dritter Teil. Die Philosophie des Geistes,
SW, Vol. 10, p. 859.
78 " ••• das Verhaltniss des Kindes im Mutter eibe, --ein Verhrutniss, des weder
bloss leiblich noch bloss geistig, sondern psychisch ist,- ein Verhrutniss der Seele."
Ibid., p. 158.

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899

famous text at the opening of Hegel's Logic: "Being, the immediate indeterminate, is in fact nothing." 79
But it does not seem to me that Hegel ever works out in a
clear way the reduction of mind--independent and mind-dependent relations to their common ground or their functional
interrelation in knowledge. It seems to me that Heidegger's
critique in passing of Hegel is probably sound: " when Hegel
at last defines ' Being ' as the ' indeterminate immediate ' and
makes this definition basic for all the further categorial explications of his ' logic ', he keeps looking in the same direction
as ancient ontology," 80 whereas with signs it is the question of
the prior possibility of a categorial scheme of any kind that
is posed for settlement in a fundamental way. The first problem
is not the derivation of one categorial scheme as superior to
some other but to lay bare the possibility of deriving categorial
schemes from experience and of distinguishing within experience the mind-dependent and mind-independent elements of
objectivity. 81
•• " Das Seyn, das unbestimmte das Immittelbare ist in der that Nichts, und
nicht mehr noch weniger als Nichts." Wissenschaft der Logik, Erster Teil, Erster
Abschnitt, Bestimmtheit, Erster Kapitel, Seyn, par. A, Siimtliche Werke, Vol. 4,
p. 88.
80 " Und wenn schliesslich Hegel des 'Sein'
bestimmt als das 'unbestimmte
Unmittelbare ' und diese Bestimmung allen weiteren kategorialen Explikationen
seiner ' Logik ' zugrunde legt, so halt er sich in derselben Blickrichtung wie die
antike Ontologie, nur dass er das von Aristoteles schon gestellte Problem der
Einheit des Seins gegeniiber der Mannigfaltigkeit der sachhaltigen ' Kategorien '
aus der Hand gibt." Martin H.eidegger, Sein und Zeit, p. 8, emphasis added in
English rendition.
81 Much of the difficulty and originality of Poinsot's work alike, we may say,
derive from his tacit recognition that the first concern of anyone who would
seek to explain signs, the universal means of communication, must be to pay
heed "to Aristotle's problem of the unity of Being [as that which is first in human
understanding] as over against the multiplicity of ' categories ' applicable to things "
(Sein und Zeit, p. 8: " das von Aristoteles schon gestellte Problem der Einheit des
Seins gegeniiber der Mannigfaltigkeit der sachhaltigen ' Kategorien • aus der Hand
gibt ") . The experience of signs and of th€1 escape from the subjectivity of the
here and now is as fundamental in its own way as is the experience of things in
terms of the effects which provide experimental justification for the scheme of the
categories, as is clear from the fact that the derivation of the categories from
experience is itself a function of the use we make of signs in developed discourse
(cf. Troo.tise on Signs, Appendix A, 577al0-ll8).

900

JOHN N. DEELY

Be that as it may, if we look at modem philosophy from its
national language beginnings in the 17th century up to its
culmination in Kant's Critiques, Hegel by comparison marks
a perhaps confused but decidedly new beginning. For the first
time in almost two hundred years the common assumption
of modern times underlying and necessitating its constant proclivity toward solipsism and subjectivism is put into question.
Without anywhere gaining clarity as to its principles the influence of Hegelian thought is pervasive throughout the nineteenth century and has begun to wax again in recent times; but
the confusion in Hegelianism nowhere demonstrates itself more
effectively, perhaps, than in the failure of the Hegelians to
isolate and develop the consequences of categorial relation with
its ontological rationale.
After Hegel, there are at least two developments of particular
interest in the light of Poinsot's notion of the ontologically relative.82 The first is introduced by Franz Brentano (1838-1917);
the second by Bertrand Russell (1872-1970) .
Brentano is celebrated for having introduced into modem
discussions the notion of intentionality and for having inspired
with this notion the founder of phenomenology, Edmund
Husser! (1859-1938) . With his doctrine of intentionality
Brentano originally set himself to explain the diff.erence between mental and physical phenomena precisely in terms of
The sign, as the medium of communication, functions by distinguishing connections within experience and so is not only presupposed to any system of categories
but is also the instrument of their establishment. The analysis of the sign, therefore, must be precisely fundamental to any categorial ontology-that is to say, it
must explain how it is that signs so function as to make possible the eventual
assimilation of experience to a categorial scheme of whatever kind.
82 I pass over the developments in England
from Greene, Caird, Wallace, and
Ritchie, to Bradley, developments to which Russell is in his origins largely a
reaction, because, despite Bradley's clear metaphysical superiority to anything that
comes after him-not only to Russell, but even more to Ayer and Ryle---he remains wholly within the confines of the modem assumption concerning the categorial
relative, and continues-under
the opposition of appearance and reality-the
ineluctably consequent split between being and the intelligible. At the same time,
it must be noted that Bradley's thought on the relative is essentially unfinished,
as his ex professo treatment of relation was interrupted by his death in September
of 1924. See F. H. Bradley, CoUected Essays (Oxford: Clarendon, 1985), Vol.
II, pp. 628-676.

THE TWO APPROACHES

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901

relation. This attempt foundered in Brentano's inability to explain how a mental phenomenon could be truly related or referred to an unreal object. Failing to get clear about the ontological peculiarity of the relative whereby precisely it introduces into discourse its own characteristic indifference to physical reality, Brentano eventually abandoned his view of mental
phenomena as truly relative in structure (etwas Relatives) and
fell back upon a notion of it as after all only what Poinsot
would call transcendentally relative (etwas Relativliches) .83
Husserl sustained and developed Brentano's original idea
of intentionality as the thoroughly relational structure of consciousness, but in Husserl there can be no question of relation
as an ontological rationale in Poinsot's sense. For this requires
the explicit contrast between and comparison of natural and
mind-dependent elements in objects, a distinction within objectivity precluded by Husserl's dogmatic adherence to what
Heidegger well terms the " constructivist standpoint " 84 regarding the being of objectivity. With Husser!, there is no
possible ground for introducing the contrast between mind-dependent and mind-independent being in Poinsot's sense and
hence no possibility for developing the notion of an ontological
rationale whereby the Husserlian ego might slip out of its
"transcendental subjectivity." Husser! reverts entirely, but in
highly suggestive and idiosyncratic ways comparable to those
of Kant in their obsessive power, to the modern and nominalistic tradition uniting the mainstream of British empiricism
and Continental rationalsm 85 in its denial of relation as a
properly ontological rationale capable of bringing together
knowing and being through the instrument of signs.
88 See John
N. Deely, "The Ontological Status of Intentionality," The New
Scholasticism, XLVI (April, 1972), pp. 220-233; and "Reference to the Non-Existent," Part I, forthcoming in The Thomist, XXXIX (April, 1975) .
•• Sein und Zeit, p. 61.
85 According to Herbert Spiegelberg, The Phenomenological Movement
(2nd ed.;

The Hague: Martinus Nijhoff, 1965), Vol. I, pp. 92-93, "the British empiricists
from Locke to Hume were Husserl's introductory readings in philosophy and remained of basic importance to him all through his later development. . . . He
ev·en kept recommending them to his students . . . as one of the best approaches
to phenomenology."

902

JOHN N. DEELY

In the English tradition it is Bertrand Russell who, more
than any single figure, has brought the notion of relation in
recent years to the foreground of discussion in British and
American circles. In 1965 Weinberg could still write that "we
owe to Russell, more than to any single philosopher, a clear
understanding of the nature and importance of relations." 811
From his earliest studies of Leibniz, and in opposition to
Leibniz, Russell developed a lively sense of the independent
reality of relations and of their importance for any theory
of knowledge and truth. 87 Yet, from Poinsot's standpoint,
Russell consistently mistakes what is proper to relation as
CO'IWeivablefor what is proper to relation as susceptible of existence.88 Because relation is conceivable as indifferent to physical or mental existence, Russell argued that relation as
such exists in neither the mental nor the physical realm.
But the notion of ontological relation derives from what is
peculiar to relation not as something conceivable, but as something susceptible as such of
in nature independently of perception and conception, though not of subjective
being tout court. It is perhaps not surprising, therefore, that
Russell repudiated Brentano's early views without correcting
them 89 and spent most of his speculative time with relations
in an effort to construct a logic that would enable the sufficiently informed observer to correct, in principle at least, the supposed defect (directly consequent upon the very nature of signs
as ontologically relative) whereby language can be used to
speak of what does not " in fact " exist. 90
On the side of Continental rationalism, it suffices merely to recall the title and
content of Husserl's late work, the Cartesian Meditations.
86 Julius R. Weinberg, Abstraction, Relation, and Induction
(Madison: University of Wisconsin Press, 1965), p. 117.
87 E. g., see Bertrand Russell, A Critical. Exposition of the Philosophy of Leibniz
(2nd ed.; London: Allen and Unwin, 1937), pp. 14-15, et alibi.
88 E. g., compare the Treatise on Signs, Appendix A, Article 1, 582a17-b36,
with Russell's remarks in The Problems of Philosophy (New York: Oxford, 1912;
Galaxy ed. 1959), pp. 90 fl'.
•• See " Recent Criticisms of Consciousness," Ch. 1 of Russell's The Analysis of
Mind (London: Allen and Unwin, 1921), pp. 9-40, esp.
•• I am thinking, of course, of Russell's celebrated " theory of descriptions,"

THE TWO APPROACHES

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903

On the exclusively American scene John Dewey built an
elaborate doctrine of experience and nature around the notion
of relation. 91 But this theory nowhere shows a clear awareness
of its foundations or of the alternatives concerning relation that
the history of thought has made available.
E. Historical Resume.
No matter where we look in modem times, we find far reaching and detailed differences, both dialectical and philosophical,
directly related to the effective termination with Poinsot's
Treatige of the influence of the older medieval tradition concerning relation as far as concerns the epistemological and critical reflections of modem times. Given the date of publication
of the part of Poinsot's Cursus Philosophicus containing the
tractatus de signis, it is no longer possible to accept Whitehead's position as expressed as the twentieth century entered
its second quarter: " a brief, but sufficiently accurate, description of the intellectual life of the European races during the succeeding two centuries and a quarter up to our own times is that
they have been living upon the accumulated capital of ideas
provided for them by the genius of the seventeenth century." 92
If we except the remarkable studies of Jacques Maritain
(1882-1973) and his school,93 and some of the logical investigations conducted by Henry Veatch, 94 we can say that Poinsot's
apparently inspired by a passing comment of Frege's (in Uber Sinn und Bedeutung),
which became a fundamental part (specifically, the third introductory chapter)
of Russell's and Whitehead's Principia Mathematica and a principal inspiration to a
wh<>le generation of American logicians. See John N. Deely, "Reference to the
Non-Existent," The Thomist XXXIX (April, 1975).
01 ln particular, see his Human Nature and Conduct (New York:
Holt, 1922),
esp. Parts I and III.
•• Alfred North Whitehead, Science and the Modern World (New York: Free
Press, 1925), p. 89.
•• Particularly Maritain's Reflexions sur ['Intelligence et sur sa vie proper (2nd
ed.; Paris: Nouvelle Librari.e Nationale, 1924); The Degrees of Knowledge; "Sign
and Symbol," Chapter IX of his Redeeming the Time (Lond<>n: Geoffrey Bles,
1948), pp. 191-QQ4; and his "Language and the Theory of Sign," in Language:
An Inquiry into Its Meaning and Function, edited by Ruth Nanda Anshen (New
York: Harper, 1957), pp. 86-101.
"'In particular, his book, Intentional Logic (New Haven, Conn.: Yale, 195Q),
where he says explicitly (p. ix) : " I have relied heavily on the very rich but

904

JOHN N. DEELY

work in philosophy remains in its entirely to be considered in
modem times. It does not seem too much to expect that at
last it will be, and that the oldest Western tradition concerning
truth and the relative, lost at the very period when the concepts and philosophical vocabulary of modem thought were
being formed in the national languages during the 17th and 18th
centuries, will once again become familiar in the world of
learning and a civilizing force in the culture of the West, restoring to a yet richer unity and continuity man's understanding of himself and of his being in the world. For, as the
sole figure in modem times who dared to envision the import
of an adequate grasp of Poinsot's properly philosophical
thought has observed, " the sign involves the whole extent of
moral and human life; it is in the human world a universal
instrument, just as is movement in the physical world." 95
'Vhen we consider, as a consequence, that " there are no more
complex problems, no problems of wider bearing on psychology
and on culture than those pertaining to the sign," 96 we can
sadly neglected Ars Logica of John of St. Thomas. Needless to say, I make no
pretense of having exhausted or even adequately understood this massive work."
(See note 8 above.) But also F. H. Parker and Veatch, Logic as a Human Instrument (New York: Harper and Row, 1959), which relies on Poinsot's doctrine of
the formal sign (without, however, explicitly envisioning its dependence on the
secundum dici- secundum esse contrast); and Henry Veatch and Theodore Young,
"Metaphysics and the Paradoxes," The Review of Metaphysics, VI (December,
195!1!), pp. 199-218. Veatch's later study, Two Logics (Evanston: Northwestern,
1969), does not directly rely on Poinsot but continues to develop in lively and
trenchant ways the contrasts between mathematical logic and the philosophical
logic of the Aristotelian tradition.
Ironically, Veatch was originally directed to Poinsot by John Wild, who himself,
though he drew on Poinsot's doctrine of signs (e. g., "An Introduction to the
Phenomenology of Signs," Philosophy and
Research, VIII
[December, 1947], pp. 217-244), shows, by his review of Simon's translation (in
Philosophy and Phenomenological Research, XVII [June, 1956], p. 558) wherein
he expresses puzzlement as to why Poinsot thinks categorial relations exist as
mind-independently distinct from their fundament, that his grasp of Poinsot's
doctrine was never grounded in principle. From the standpoint of Poinsot's
Treatise, Wild, while professing realism, develops in spite of himself in the direction of nominalism.
95 Jacques Maritain, "Sign and Symbol," in Redeeming the Time, p. 191.
9o Ibid.

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905

perhaps appreciate just how radical and revolutionary in principle was Poinsot's return to the beginnings of his Cursus
Philosophicus in his Treatise on, Signs. (See the opening paragraphs of Section I of this article, above) For the first time in
the history of the West the world of society and culture and
history generally was brought in principle and in a thematic
way into the orbit of philosophical understanding along with
the subjectivity of the knower whereby he becomes inserted
through his experience into a definite epoch and historical
world, 97 without thereby losing the privilege of intelligence
whereby it is able to grasp truths about things as they are
"in themselves," and to speak languages other than its own.

*

*

*

* *

Thomistic Afterword:
If one were to ask in recent years what transpired in philosophy along the Thomistic line between the death of St. Thomas
in 1274 and the death of Descartes in 1650, one would most
likely have received an answer to the effect that of this entire
period should be said what Gilson said of the 14th century:
" If we consider above all that which each epoch bears of the
new, then it is not at all toward the commentators and defenders of St. Thomas and of Duns Scotus that we must direct
our attention." 98
Since at least the time of Windelband it has been the conventional wisdom that " even the short after-bloom which
scholasticism experienced about 1600 in the universities of the
Iberian peninsula bore no real fruit." 99 (Though it is admitted
97 A preliminary
account of this fact is given in John N. Deely, The Tradition
Via Heidegger (The Hague Martin us Nijhofl', 1971). Ch. VII "Dasein as the
Intentional Life of Man," pp. 88-110.
•• Etienne Gilson, La Philosophie au Moyen Age. Des origines patristiques a
la fvn du XIV• siecle (:!• ed., rev. et aug.; Paris: Payot, 1952), p. 638.
•• Wilhelm Windelband, A History of Philosophy, authorized trans. by James
H. Tufts of the Univevsity of Chicago (2nd ed., rev. and enlarged; New York
and London: Macmillan, 1901), Part IV, "The Philosophy of the Renaissance",
Chapter 1, section 28, "The Struggle between the Traditions", p. 363. Cf.

906

JOHN N. DEll1LY

by all that Francis Suarez, " Professor Primarius " and " Doctor Eximius" of the University of Coimbra in Iberia, was "an
important writer "-in no small part, according to the terms
of Brehier's report, for reasons philosophically proper to the
sociology of knowledge: " Thomism as formulated by the
Jesuit Suarez was universally taught [in 17th century Europe]
and finally supplanted the doctrine of Melanchthon, even in
the universities of Protestant countries.") 100
It comes as something unexpected and definitively disruptive of the long-standing opinion, then, when we find that the
work of clearing and opening up what C. S. Peirce called
semiotic," that is, the doctrine of the essential nature and fundamental varieties of possible semiosis," or signifying,101 was
first systematically undertaken not, as is generally believed,
by Peirce himself, but by Jean Poinsot, one of the "commentators and defenders of St. Thomas " in the 17th century
Iberian " after-bloom." Known within the Thomistic school
usually as" John of St. Thomas," Poinsot was a younger contemporary of Suarez and intimately familiar with the writings
of Suarez but opposed radically on all fundamental points in
his theory of signs to the opinions of Suarez-the very opinions
which, particularly in the celebrated Disputationes Metaphysicae, became "the main channel by which scholasticism
came to be known by modern classical philosophers," 102 notably, Descartes, Leibniz, Schopenhauer, Christian Wolff, and
(through Wolff) Kant.
More surprising still, perhaps, and more important surely,
both in itself and for the historical interpretation of philosophy,
is this discovery: \\ith Poinsot's tractatus de signis the realism
constitutive of the metaphysical spirit in its proper and highest
Armand A. Maurer, Medieval Philosophy (New York: Random House, 196!t),
p. 847.
100 Emile
Brehier, The Seventeenth Century, Wade Baskin's translation of
Histoire de la Philosophie: La Philosophie Moderne. I: Le dix-septieme siecle
(1938) (Chicago and London: The University of Chicago Press, 1966), pp. 1-!t.
101 Charles Sanders Peirce, Collected Papers, 5.488.
102 Armand Maurer, op. cit. (in note 99 above), p. 356.

THE TWO APPROACHES

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907

realization in human understanding became for the first time
critically grounded and doctrinally justified, in the bringing
together, if I may so put it, of transcendental truth and history.
In this work, it does not seem too much to say that we are
confronted with an entire period, forgotten and ignored for the
most part even by the scholars in philosophy, and hidden
almost entirely from modern eyes behind the exuberant success
of Suarez's writings throughout the 17th and 18th centuries,
but during which, Jacques Maritain uniquely and perceptively
noted, " the thought of St. Thomas had time to be mined, detailed, elaborated; the treasures of the highest metaphysics were
able to be placed in reserve for a future time." 103 (In this
respect, the Treatise on Signs forever bears the mark of its
origin as part-albeit the privileged and most unique part-of
a vast ontological synthesis which ambitioned to know the
world in its proper possibilities, just as it is, and as it includes
the power of human understanding whereby is made explicit
the contrast between being and non-being, truth and the false.)
We may at least hope that the detailed historical reconstruction
and study of this lost epoch-long overdue-is finally getting
underway. 104
JoHN

N. DEELY

St. Mary's CoUege
Notre Dame, Indiana

108 " Grace a eux," writes Jacques Maritain-namely
(to mention only "les
noms tout a fait eminents "), "au XVI• siecle, les theologiens et les grands
juristes de Salamanque, c'est surtout, a la meme epoque, le puissant Cajetan, t-t
au XVII• siecle, Jean de Saint-Thomas"-" grace a eux, la philosophie modeme
peut venir: la pensee de saint Thomas a eu le temps d'etre creusee, detaillee,
elaboree; les tresors de la plus haut metaphysique ont pu etre mis en reserve
pour l'avenir." Antimoderne (nouvelle edition revue et augmentee; Paris: Editions de la Revue des Jeunes, 19!'l!'l), pp. 141-14!'l.
••• Important groundwork is at least being done-e. g., Walter Redmond,
Bibliography of the Philosophy in the Iberian Colonies of America (The Hague:
Martinus Nijhoff, 197ft) one of the many volumes relevant to the period in
Nijhoff's "Archives Internationales d'Histoire des Idees " series.

SPIRIT, FREEDOM, HISTORY
KARL RAHNER'S HaRER DES WORTES (HEARERS OF THE
WORD)
In a manner similar to my examination of Rahner's Geist in Welt 1 this
review article also falls into two parts. First (I), an interpretation of
the work itself offered as an introduction and an aid to a first, or second,
reading; second (II), a detailed review of the English translation, 2 a rendition so poor and inaccurate that it should have long ago been withdrawn
from circulation.
To interpret Harer des Wortes it is helpful to note its setting. In 193!3
Rahner completed his doctoral dissertation in philosophy. Two years before it was published as his first major work, Geist in W elt,3 Rahner
a metaphysics of human knowledge based on Thomas Aquinas. Equally
important, however, was the clear purpose Rahner had of showing how
metaphysics was possible for the sort of cognition revealed by his Thomist
analyses. In brief, he concluded that while man as finite spirit depended
on sense intuition (the conversio ad phantasma) for all objective knowledge, still, as finite spirit, that very knowledge of objects was possible
only on the condition of transcending all objects toward the infinite horizon
of being co-known non-objectively (that is, not as an object). This
transcending openness to being allowed Rahner to consider human cognition, as spirit in sense or matter or world (Geist in Welt), not only as the
possibility of meta-physics but also (in the terms of the very Kantian
problematic within which Rahner was working, where God was considered the traditional" object" of transcendence and thus of metaphysics)
the possibility of revelation. This note, the coda with which Geist in Welt
ended, was the opening theme for Harer des Wortes.
1 Andrew Tallon, " Spirit, Matter, Becoming:
Karl Rahner's Spirit in the World
(Geist in Welt)" The Modern Schoolman, vol. 48, no. 2 (January, 1971) 151-165
(hereafter MS) .
• Karl Rahner, S. J., Hearers of the Word (translated by Michael Richards;
preface by Johannes Baptist Metz; New York: Herder and Herder, 1969, x plus
ISO pp., no index or bibliography), hereafter HWE.
3 Karl Rahner, S. J., Geist in Welt. Zur Metaphysik der endlichen Erkenntnis bei
Thomas von Aquin (Innsbruck: Verlag Felizian Rauch, 1939), hereafter GW.

presented a series of fifteen lectures "on laying the foundation for a philosophy of religion." 4 The primary aim of the dissertation had been to offer
• " Zur Grundlegung emer Religionsphilosophie," which became the subtitle of
Harer des Wortes.

908

SPIRIT,

FREEDOM,

HISTORY

909

The setting for these lectures was the Salzburger Hochschulwochen. In
1941 Rahner published the lectures, leaving them unchanged. 5 In 1963,
Johannes Baptist Metz, having already brought out the second edition of
Geist in Welt in 1957,6 now did the same for Horer des Wortes.7 But it was
not the same. Metz had made very few changes in revising Geist in Welt;
his revision of Horer des Wortes, however, was far more extensive, involving more than 1300 changes, some small, such as a word added,
changed, or deleted, some large, such as deleting whole paragraphs or pages,
the latter justified, for Metz, because they were repetitions, appropriate for
spoken style with connecting reviews, summaries, and transitions, but
superfluous in written style. Further, to the single footnote in the original,s
Metz added 123 notes of his own, some merely reference notes, some content notes, many very long. The reader cannot judge himself concerning
these changes because they are not identified, and one never knows, without access to the first edition, long out of print, whether he is reading
Rahner or Metz. Though grateful to Metz for the work of making this
book available at all, one cannot help regretting all deletions and most substitutions; as for the additions, 9 some are actually quite welcome, and they
5 Karl Rahner, S. J., Horer des Wortes. Zur Grundlegung einer Religionsphilosophie (Miinchen: Kosel-Verlag, 1941). hereafter HWl.
6 Karl Rahner,
S. J., Geist in Welt. Zur Metaphysik der endlichen Erkenntnis
bei Thomas von Aquin (Zweite Auflage im Auftrag des Verfassers iiberarbeitet
und erganzt von Johannes Baptist Metz; Miinchen: Kosel-Verlag, 1957), hereafter
GW2. In English translation by William Dych, S. J. as Spirit in the World
(New York: Herder and Herder, 1968), hereafter GWE.
7 Karl Rahner, S. J., Harer des Wortes.
Zur Grundlegung einer Religionsphilosophie (Neu bearbeitet von J. B. Metz; Miinchen: Kosel-Verlag, 1963), hereafter
HW2.
8 On pp. 71-72, n. 1; and one can count seventeen
differences between editions
in jnst this one note.
9 Partial
List of Additions by Metz:
HWE 5 lines 6-8. 9, last 2 lines -10, lines 1-2. 9, lines 6-7. 9, lines 11-13. 12, last
line- 13 line 1. 15, last 2 line- 16, lines 1-2. 17, lines 15-17. 20, lines 9-10. 23, lines
24-25. 25, lines 27-28. 25, lines 30-31. 27, last 5 lines. 35, lines 22-26. 36, lines
16-17. 36, lines 21-22. 37, lines 17-22. 38, lines 3-5. 38, lines 16-17. 39. lines
1-2. 39, line 24. 40, line 21. 41, line 2. 45, lines 7-11. 45, last line- 46, lines 1-2.
46, line 31. 46, last line- 47, lines 1-3. 47, line 21. 49, line 30. 50, lines 16-17.
50, lines 23-25. 56, lines 11-16. 59, lines 5-9. 61, lines 11-21. 63, lines 10-22.
63, line 32. 63, last 3 lines- 64, lines 1-11. 65, lines 33-35. 66, lines 12-14. 67,
lines 10-11. 73, lines 11-12. 75, lines 6-8. 77, line 3. 77, lines 12-15. 78, lines 14-16.
79, lines 5-6. 83, last 3 lines- 84, lines 1-7 and 9-14. 85, lines 27-32. 86, lines
31-32. 87, lines 28-31. 89, line 10. 90, lines 4-5. 90, lines 12-13. 91, line 13.
91, lines 18-21. 92, lines 29-30. 100, lines 12-14. 111, line 5. 114, line 16. 116,
line 14. 119, line 4. 121, line 12. 122, line 2. 122, line 8. 123, lines 27-28.
127, lines 23-25. 138, lines 11-13. 141, line 1. 141, lines 21-22. 141, lines 28-29.

910

ANDREW TALLON

at worst constitute nothing lost; still, although Rahner expressly endorsed,
in advance, all of Metz's changes, perhaps fewer, and those clearly identified,
would have been preferable. Unlike the German edition, or the English,
the excellent French translation, by Joseph Hofbeck,1° set Metz's changes
in another typeface or otherwise indicated differences so that now that
little volume is almost more useful than the original.
But it is the exceptionally poor English version by Michael Richards
(et alii-for the translator of the text is not the unidentified translator
of the notes!) which is the occasion of this study. It would not be enough
to say that the translation is " loose," or " broad," or " free " ; it usually
tries to be fairly literal. Its fault is not so easily named and tolerated. Nor
is it even enough to say that it is often misleading, 11 sometimes quite careless,12 and, finally, just plain wrong, in very obvious and thus all the
144, lines 33-35. 146, last line- 147, lines 1-2. 150 and 151: all "having-being."
161, lines 28-32. 168, lines 14-18. 169, lines 5-6. 170, line 15. 175, lines 31-35.
179, lines 11-12. 179, line 29. 180, all (6 lines).
1 ° Karl Rahner, S. J., L'homme a l'ecoute du Verbe. Fondements
d'une philosophie de la religion (Paris: Maison Marne, 1968; Traduction et edition comparee
par Joseph Hofbeck.
11 Many examples will appear in the list of corrections offered below.
12 For example, while it is quite obvious, though nowhere stated,
that there
were at least two translators, and that the translator of the main text was not
the translator of the notes, effort could have been made to get some agreement
between the two so as to avoid situations of a whole note about a word that
doesn't even occur in the very text to which it refers; specific instances will be
listed below. Also, the page references to GWE are all incorrect, as are some
of the references internally to HWE itself; the page numbers given are always
to the German; apparently the editor or translators did not bother to note the
difference; a list of correct readings is provided immediately below.
Corrections to References in Notes:
HWE 35, n. 2: For: Spirit in the World [hereafter GWE], pp. 71 f., Read: GWE
57-61.
HWE 40, n. 6: For: GWE pp. 80 ff., Read: GWE 68-71.
HWE 48, n. 2: For: GWE pp. 84 ff., Read: GWE 71-77.
HWE 55, n. 1: For: GWE pp. 129-242, esp. 173 ff., Read: GWE 117-236,
esp. 163-169.
HWE 64, n. 7: For: GWE pp. 192 ff., Read: GWE 183-187.
HWE 125, n. 3: For: GWE pp. 325 ff., Read: GWE 323-330.
HWE 128, n. 5: For: GWE pp. 345 ff., Read: GWE 344-355.
HWE 135, n. 5: For: GWE pp. 91 ff., 311-366, Read: GWE 78-116, 309-366.
HWE 141, n. 1: For: GWE 243 ff., Read: GWE 237-309 [esp. 246-264, 279-286].
HWE 142, n. 2: For: HWE above p. 123, Read: HWE 100 above.
HWE 148, n. 4 For: GWE pp. 387 ff., Read: GWE 387-408.
HWE 149, n. 7: For: HWE p. 177, Read: HWE 143.
HWE 150, n. 1: For: HWE p. 81, Read: HWE 62.

SPffiiT,

FREEDOM,

HISTORY

911

exasperating instances. It is, in a word, a bad translation, severely faulty
enough that it should be immediately withdrawn ..
In order to make do, at least until a revision (hopefully) appears, or,
more realistically, because one probably will not appear, I offer, besides the
interpretation as introduction (I) an extensive list of textual corrections,
along with reasons (II) ; for the French language reader I can suggest
Hofbeck's fine work, which has only a few mistakes, to be noted in their
proper places. For the reader limited to English I suggest that the corrections be copied in, or at least read along with the translation. Let what
follows in Part II not be taken as a documentation or justification of my
condemnation of the translation (I have no such intention nor would such
detail be needed had 1: I have graduate students, as do others, who
try to use this book.) Let it be taken for what it is, namely a temporary.
let us hope, but necessary supplement to a job that does a real disservice
to a very important work, one which should have been even more carefully presented than Spirit in the World because many continue to bypass
that larger, more difficult, yet necessary work in favor of reading Hearers
of the Word, thereby becoming insufficiently prepared and repeatedly confused.
I
Let us turn first now to the work itself, Harer des Wortes, for its ideas,
leaving the textual corrections to Part II. What we find is a restating anJ
application of the concept of finite knowledge worked out in Geist in Welt,
with the important additions of the concept of freedom, minimally mentioned in Geist in Welt, and the term person, the central concept of
Rahner's entire transcendental anthropology, both philosophical and theological, which, absent from Geist in Welt, occurs for the first time in this
work.
The Contents pages show fourteen chapters 13 divided into five parts.
The first help in reading this work is to ignore this division. We really
have a two-chapter Introduction and a one-chapter Conclusion sandwiching a single, continuous argument. That argument, most simply summarized, is that 1) despite the openness (chapters 8-5) of God as pure
being and thus as the perfectly knowable in himself, and despite the open·ness of man to being-SPffiiT, 2) because of the hiddenness (chapters
6-8) that is a personal being's in his being free to open and to be open to
others or not-FREEDOM (PERSON), 8) God can (but need not) reveal
himself to man, who, though spirit, is finite spirit (= in matter, Geist in
Welt) , that is, spirit whose knowing of being is by V orgriff and whose intuition is limited to space and time; thus man is a being to whom God
can reveal himself precisely by entering space and time (chapters 9-18)HISTORY (INCARNATION [INCARNATE PERSON]).
18

HWl had fifteen lectures, which Metz reworked into

fourteen chapters.

912

ANDREW TALLON

Hearer and Word are, further, synecdoches for man and God,14 and it
will be another aid to clarity not to make too much of the title of the work.
We find, therefore, between the Introduction and the Conclusion, three
central ideas: spirit, freedom, and history. These correspond to openness,
hiddenness, and place, that is, in HWE, Part II: The Openness of Being
and Man, Part III: The Hiddenness of Being, and Part IV: The Place
where the Free Message is Found. And these three ideas really constitute
one comple xidea, namely, that to be spirit is to be open to being, to be
person 15 is to be spirit free to open or not to another, and to be finite
14 Note that nothing is said, in the previous summary
sentence, of hearing or
listening for the word, something which the title of the work would lead us to
expect. In my judgment Rahner tries a bit too hard to make a case for hearing
as the special way man is to be open to God's possible self-revelation. Despite
the centrality of speech in defining man, and despite the mission of God the Son
as God's Word (Logos), ther.e seems no a priori basis for literally singling out the
one sense of hearing. We are not, I presume, to see ourselves today as literally
searching history for words, spoken or written, but for a person. Only if word
and being-a-hearer symbolize synecdochically God and man can the title and the
emphasis given to hearer and word carry full meaning; thus this is a study of
the possibility of an encounter of man (hearer) and God (word), that is, a
study of the possibility of theology, and thus an attempt to ground, to lay the
foundation for, religion, the task of a philosophy of religion.
16 It is true that to he a person one must be spirit since both presence-to-self
and presence-to-other ( = intellect, cognition, mind, etc.) and self-disposability (will,
freedom, love, etc.) are rooted in the nature of spirit. It is also true, however,
that for many, spirit and mind or intellect (or self-presence) seem co-extensive,
while person and freedom (or self-disposability) seem to go together. I believe
this is true of Rahner. Theoretically, when speaking of a pure spirit, one could
equally well use spirit or person. The trouble is, again, that one's interpreters will
hear spirit and think mind (Geist and esprit, in fact, can both be translated as
either mind or spirit [among other possibilities] and are thus neither altogether
unambiguous nor innocent of blame for continual confusion; the Baillie translation
of Hegel's Phiinomenologie des Geistes as Phenomenology of Mind is a case in
point, although he later uses spirit where mind is obviously too narrow in meaning) .
Is one then to drop spirit and use person instead? Or is one to use both, to cover
both meanings (as Rahner often does in his theological writings), in such theoretically redundant but perhaps clearer expressions as " personal spirit " and
" spirit-person " ? The problem today is that any mention of person is 1) either
reduced, most exasperatingly, right back to mind (as by the linguistic analysts
and ilie British tradition of philosophy of mind in general), or 2) equated with
personalism, which can mean a) nothing but subjectivism (as some would label,
wrongly of course, anything smacking of existentialism), b) just another name
for idealism, with the absDlute as personal, as in British and especially American
forms (where Geist again becomes almost reducible to mind), or c) a railier tenderminded, voluntaristic, love-centered (always pejoratively meant by the tough-

SPffiiT,

FREEDOM, HISTORY

913

spirit is to be person in history, in space and time, the where and when
of God's incarnation in order for it to reach and be reached by finite spirit.
Let us now examine in just a bit more detail the Introduction, and then
the development of the concepts of spirit, freedom, and history into a
foundation for a philosophy of religion.
To speak of the possibility of religion is to speak of the possible relations
between God and man. To do this today, after (for the Christian, but
not for him alone) God has already revealed himself, is no longer to speak
of mere possibility, and thus seems to place religion in the realm of theology rather than in that of philosophy. A philosophy of religion would
then seem to be superfluous, a merely academic affair, unnecessary
no one need demonstrate the possibility of an actuality.
But what of the man or group whose anthropology (in the sense of a
philosophy of man, of an understanding of the nature of man) is such
that what some say is actual must be denied as illusion for the simple
reason that, according to that already defined human nature, no such actuality is even possible. Then it becomes the apologetic task of theology,
as a necessary prelude to itself, to establish its own possibility, which, once
established, becomes, as it were, its very necessity since that which is
proved possible has already happened. 16
Now it is obvious, from the above, that two points are pivotal, everything else turning on them, namely, the nature of man, especially the limits
of his powers, particularly his ability to know, and the nature of God, especially his "limits" 17 in making himself known. But this is inevitably
minded logician), sort of sticky, pseudo counseling psychology or ethics, looked
on suspiciously as a derivative of religion and (thus?) based on an emotional,
even irrational (contra Geist as mind and reason) principle (precisely became
Geist is mentally excluded from person by the one who insists on thinking this
way). The upshot is that now when one says "man as person," he must be prepared to, must expect to, and, at least partly, must intend to have his listeners hear
" man as will, freedom, love, relation, community, etc.," which is fine and good
(we need a word to convey just this), but partial, since he cannot intend to exclude mind, intellect, consciousness, rationality, etc., that is, " man as spirit." Both
terms include both realms; intellect and will are the person's powers of selfenactment as well as Geistfunktionen. Note, however, that in man spirit and person
are not coextensive; finite; spirit is incarnate spirit, spirit in matter, in world
(Geist in Welt), spirit that becomes, and thus a human person always means
embodied spirit and besouled body.
16 To disdain all philosophy, including philosophy of religion, as some theologians
seem to do, is to choose to talk only with oneself and other believers. To discuss biblical texts presupposes assent to their nature as revelation, the possibility
of which is not self-evident.
17 These "limits"
really amount to the limits built into the creature to whom
he would reveal himself. His "willingness" so to rev.eal himself can only by a
stretch of language be called a limit, in the sense of a self-limitation.

914

ANDREW TALLON

to get involved again in philosophy, and so the whole question of the interrelations of the various thoughtforms, and especially the interrelations of
philosophy and theology need clarification. In chapters 1 and
Rahner
tries to handle this question and introduces the problem o£ how one lays
the foundation (that is, shows the very possibility) of something answering
to the name of philosophy of religion. Special emphasis is placed on two
points, namely, the fact that since a philosophy is grounded in a metaphysics and a theology is also ultimately grounded in a metaphysics, metaphysics or an understanding of the nature of being in general is at the
heart of and grounds both and so could be common to both.
How this metaphysics is worked out occupies the next eleven chapters.
Rahner, in GW, had already worked out such a metaphysics, an explicitly
Thomist metaphysics, based squarely on texts of Thomas, especially on
question 84, article 7 of the first part of the Summa theologiae. There
Thomas summed up his metaphysics of cognition, a metaphysics that is at
once a metaphysics of being and of knowing. There he affirms the ultimate
and original oneness of being and knowing: 18 knowing is but the selfpresence of being, the non-distinctness of being from itself, the absence of
absence from itself, and thus the presence of being with or to or through
or within itself. Being as such is thus described in terms of itself, that is,
in terms of whether there be " anything else in " being to come between
itself and itself, and this lack-of-anything-else is called knowing, the Beisich-sein of Sein; and God is the name man gives to the sole " place "
where this event occurs perfectly.
But for a metaphysics to speak of God and man and thus provide the
ground on which both can meet, it must speak now also of man in these
metaphysical terms. Man is thus called the being whose being is mixed
with something other than being; call it matter, potency, or relative nonbeing, that opaqueness and obscurity at the heart of the finite luminosity
it possesses at least to the degree that it is " in," or does have, being. Man's
knowing act is the manifestation of his level of being since knowing is but
the Beisichsein of a being, according to the analogy of being (or of having
being).
Thus GW is most truly a metaphysics of man by being a metaphysics
of finite cognition, of the way a being is present to being; it is thus an
ontology by being a metaphysical anthropology. Its most important conclusion is that man knows being by Vorgriff (while knowing a being by
Begriff). What Rahner does in HW is take the last part of GW and
spell it out: revelation is possible because man does know being by Vorgriff
and only by Vorgriff; not by perception (Wahrnehmung), nor by intuition
18 This has led some to see Aquinas's metaphysics as a sort of Hegelian ldentitiitsystem.

SPIRIT,

FREEDOM,

HISTORY

915

(Anschauung), 19 but by reaching past the objects thus grasped toward a
horizon too "distant" to be any more than touched by fingertip, at arm's
length, as it were, in no way able to be grasped, allowing no hand to close
firmly around it.
This is not the place to repeat the analyses, even in summary, of GW, nor,
certainly, those as they recur in HW. It would be quite a task just to
restate the way Rahner gets to his concepts of spirit, of freedom, and
of history. Let us put the matter into a revisable question: If being is
in se knowable and man is openness to being without restriction, then how
is revelation possible (and why necessary)? In other words, if our metaphysics, our common ground for speaking of God and man, names man
as knower of being and God as being most knowable, then not only must
we ask what need has God to "reveal" himself (what more, indeed, is
there to be or do than be most pure being, that is, most perfect selfpresence, knowability) but also, and more crucial, we must ask how can
God be more and do more than absolutely be and thus be knowable?
The heart of this entire metaphysics, and it is easily missed in the midst
of so much abstraction and especially with so much discussion of and
terminological orientation around cognition, is that being is personal. That
is, as a person is free to reveal himself or not, to obscure or veil himself or
not, so at the very core of knowing and knowability (and thus of being),
is will, and thus love. 20 Being is inadequately described or defined, therefore
(and one cannot help wishing that Rahner had put this even more forcefully), only as Beisichsein, as self-presence, consciousness, or self-consciousness; being is also good and will.21
Besides the personness of God, and thus of being as such, there is another
ground for possible revelation, namely, man's finitude, his limitation to
knowing being only by Vorgriff. Man has no intttitio intellectualis but onlJ
19 One might ask the question:
Even were man possessed of an intuition of
being as such, would not revelation remain possible just because God as free
personal spirit could still choose not to reveal himself, to open himself to another,
the power to be being and still remain unknown (not as merely existing, but as
to one's self, one's personness or "personality," which no one can pry from the
unwilling person) ?
20 I have tried to emphasize this in reference to human personal becoming h
"Rahner and Personization," Philosophy Today, vol. 14, no. 1 (Spring, 1970) 44-56.
21 In H'V Rahner does reach this position and thus advances over GW which,
although it places desire and will at the heart of spirit, does so in terms of its
dynamics toward being, a dynamics which ends up being at the service of being
as the true (or simply as being, which, rather indicatively and revealingly, for
Rahner seems, or seemed then, to be a case of synonomy, that is, that being as
true-as the goal of knowing-is being as being) . In HW he shows that he \s
Thomist in agreeing to three transcendentals: being is itself (one), self-presence
(true), and will (good).

ANDREW TALLON

sense intuition. A being beyond space and time cannot be grasped by
human cognition. Thus God can reveal himself by entering space and
time, that is, history, and make himself available to man's sole intuition,
and this would be something more, something new.
Now these two metaphysical bases for revelation are in fact one: the
first (freedom) and the second (history), both possible because man is
spirit, really can be interpreted to name one event: Christ, God as free
person entering history (incarnation), an event Rahner leaves unnamed
while issuing, as a rhetorical question, the challenge to anyone who would
follow his analyses to do the naming for himsel£.22
By way of conclusion I would like to take a moment to emphasize something not explicit in GW and too easily overlooked in HW, namely, this
" personism " of Rahner's. By personism 23 I mean that contemporary
focus on freedom (will, love) and relationality rather than on knowledge
(consciousness, thought, mind, intellect, etc.) and substantiality as characteristic of man; both are there, of course, as " faculties " of spirit, but it
is a matter of emphasis, 24 which is no small thing since "noticing" and
knowing are so intertwined. To claim, now that so much of Raimer's
theology is available, that Rahner's metaphysics is personist, is no news.
But with only GW to work with, that would be news; with HW the implicit became more explicit, although less explicit than Metz, for one, would
have liked, as witness his prefatorial comment and five substantial notes
in HWQ which more or less apologize for the actually too object-ive treatment of the other, the other who is really primarily personal. Still, in HW, we
do find Rahner beginning to break away from his dependence on Aquinas
and Hegel (and it is, after Aquinas, Hegel and Heidegger who have influenced the content of Rahner's metaphysics of being and knowing), that
is, on their neglect of freedom as constitutive of person, especially of person
as capable of enacting relations, with another, whether man to man or man
to God.
I do not insist, as was made clear at length above, on the word person,
which is theoretically dispensable but practically indispensable, nor c
fortiori on personism (we need no more precious isms) -nor does Rahner.
22 Rahner
does not identify Gott and Sein, but metaphysically grounds the
meeting of God and man by understanding both in terms of being. Not that
being is " more than " God, thus making God a Seiende, a being; rather God
in his free act places in being a being who knows all he knows in the light of
being (a doubly apt expression, given knowledge as the self-luminosity of being):
man is the being whose openness to being (an openness with no a priori limitations,
which man is as spirit) is an openness to God, the very ground of being.
28 I choose the term personism rather than personalism to avoid suggesting any
connection with either American or European personalism.
•• See note 14, above.

SPffiiT,

FREEDOM,

HISTORY

917

Had Rahner avoided the term person (despite tradition), so might we. Spirit
itself is an adequate term theoretically, including intellect and will and thus
everything required to define spirit, finite spirit being incarnate intellect
and will. To borrow some very apt expressions not found in GW or HW
but, despite the critical intent of their author, 25 in my judgment fully in
harmony with the mind of Rahner: Erkenntnis ist das Beim-Selbst-Sein
des Andern; Wollen und Liebe das Beim-Andern-Sein des Selbst, 26 which
can be rendered: for me to know is for the other to be present to me; for
me to will and to love is to be present to the other.27 Although this overworks the little preposition bei, which seems less correct than fur would
be in the second clause (know-as being-with-the-other; love as being-forthe-other), the formula is useful to point out something very important.
To point this out I again refer to Kern. In the discussion following the
above-cited formula, Kern is disputing the characterization of spirit as
Bei-sich-Sein (self-presence, presence-to-self) and matter as Beim-AndernSein (presence-to-other), which he attributes to a Thomism influenced by
Hegel. He correctly says that matter as the opposite of Bei-sich-Sein
self-presence) is really self-absence (Nicht-bei-sich-Sein), in the sense of
Hegel's basic definition of matter as Ausser-sich-Sein. He then concludes
that matter is incorrectly called presence-to-other, his intention being to
require something more positive or active, rather than the mere negativity
25 See
Walter Kern, S. J., "Einheit-in-Mannigfaltigkeit:
Fragmentarische
Uberlegungen zur Metaphysik des Geistes," in J. B. M.etz et al., eds., Gott in Welt
(Festgabe for Karl Rahner) (Freiburg: Herder Verlag, 1964, 2 vols.) I 207-230.
That Kern intends to use these formulae to correct Rahner is clear from his
reference to GW (and to Coreth's Metaphysik) in the next sentence (after the
one cited), which says: Dem steht entgegen, dass sich innerhalb des modernen,
an der Transzendentalphilosophie orientierten Thomismus die Charakteristik des
Geistes-im Anschluss an Hegel-als Bei-sich-Sein, die der Materialitiit als BeimAndern-Sein einzubiirgern scheint (p. 231).
26 Op. cit., p. 231.
27 Or, as I put it (approximately)
in "Rahner and Personization," knowledge ls
the enactment (or actualization) of the other in myself, love the enactment of
myself in the other (pp. 47 and 51); actually in both cases we would have to
speak of a self-enactment, though in knowing my self-enactment is my co-enactment of being from the other while in loving my self-enactment is my own enactment, my active self-appropriation, as one willing being for another; in knowing,
the act of another takes place in me; in love my act takes place in another. In
the mutual self-revelation of persons, these acts of knowing and loving are intertwined; that is, when I know you as a person (as free) I enact as mine only that
" about " you freely revealed by you; thus my knowing you depends on your
loving me, on an act of yours taking place in me. In Rahner's immediate context
in HW, man's possibility of meeting or knowing (hearing) God depends on God's
freely loving man enough to reveal himself.

918

ANDREW TALLON

of not being self-present, to explain a being's knowledge of an other. But
what if we say that in fact only matter " automatically," " by nature,"
without further ado is ausser sich, and that for a spirit to go outside himself
is to will to do so.28 In other words, we need not see Rahner and Kern
in dispute here; rather Kern's point throws light on why Rahner sees revelation as possible, namely, that God as pure spirit is not "automatically"
outside himself, as is a material thing, but must will this Ausser-sich-Sein
in order for him to be a Beim-Andern- (man) -Sein. But this would mean
that all meeting of spirits as such is impossible (since all going-out would
be a materialization), which thus seems itself an impossible position. Is
there a way a spirit can will to reveal himself to another spirit without
his Beim-Andern-Sein (his presence to another and thus his being known
by that other) being an Ausser-sich-Sein (a materialization or incarnation) ? That question recalls, of course, traditional speculation about God's
knowledge of himself and of his creatures, which is not the problem that
interangelic knowledge is. Unless we simply have recourse to God's infusing
all angelic knowledge (which, although it is the traditional answer, seems
to require us, uncomfortably, I feel, to think the angels less free than ourselves), there seems no way for one angel, in himself luminous and thus,
apparently, perfectly available to any other angel's desire to know him, to
prevent that other's knowing him or to make that other's knowledge depend on and wait for the angel's free act of self-disclosure. But this begins to sound suspiciously like a pseudo question (How do angels " talk "
to one another-and not become men?!) . Obviously the conclusion, shared
by Kant and Rahner, that all receptive cognition is sensible and thus
material, does not apply to angels. But our pseudo question is not so
absurd when it becomes: How does God talk to man, and not become man?
These concluding reflections, prompted by Kern's reflections on GW,
serve to emphasize the significance of HW and the difference between the
two works. In HW we move beyond the realm of spirit as pure thought
(and beyond endless noetic theorizing) into that of spirit as freedom,
love, incarnation, and history-thus, once again, the centrality of person
in Rahner's metaphysics, in his philosophy of religion, and consequently
in his theology.

II
In the list of corrections and emendations which follows I do not claim
exhaustive coverage but hope that nothing important went unnoticed.29 In
•• This reflection meets partly the question in note 18, above.
•• Because the same main terms treated in MS recur here, there is no need for
the equivalent of MS's section A (" some notes on meanings and translations of
important terms "); too much of such a section would be repetition. On the
other hand, while GWE was a good translation, and thus required few corrections

SPIRIT,

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919

general, once a frequent term has been noted, its recurrence will be left
to the recognition of the reader.
HWE 16, note 15: Unverftigbarkeit 30 is not uncontrollability but indisposability (indisponibilite in French 31 ), that is, man's inability completely
to dispose of himself in one act, thus his need to enact (vollziehen) himself,
again and again (time and again, as the expression goes), each time being
a partial self-enactment (Selbstvollzug), in space and time. It is just
another term for concupiscence, 32 for man's limited freedom (and freedom
is self-disposability, Selbstverfiigbarkeit), and thus for man's finitude.
HWE 34: Sein and· Seiende 33 occur so often that to cite a page number
is only to choose an occasion to say once what would otherwise have to be
repeated too often. The translator of the main text likes ' being ' for Sein
and' that which is' or, more often,' the thing which is,' for Seiende. However, 'being' remains the best translation for both, with a being or the
plural beings used, along with the context, to distinguish between Sein and
Seiende. To use ' that which is ' leads to confusion like: What is the being
of that which is itself? 34 To use ' the thing which is ' misleads one to exclude persons.
HWE 36: For the reason given in the last sentence above, ein An-sich 30
should not be ' a thing in itself,' but simply ' an in-itself,' as one would
expect Hegel and Sartre (en soi), to mention the most obvious, to have
made familiar coinage.
HWE 36: The phrase zwischen Sein und Seienden 36 is rendered: between
being and existing, and dem Sein eines Seienden is rendered: the being
of a thing which exists. I suggest: between being and beings, and: the
being of a being. Existing, existence, and existent, since existentialism,
have no place rendering Sein. Thus: being and what actually exists 8 1
poorly translates Sein und Seiendes. 3 s And: the existence-question 3 9 is
to be listed (MS, section B), HWE is an inferior translation, thus necessitating
a comparatively much longer list of corrections.
80 HW2 80, n. 15.
11 Unavailability,
in the sense of not being at one's disposal, of not having disposition over.
•• See Karl Rahner, S. J., "Zum theologischen Begriff der Konkupiszenz," pp.
877-414 in his Schriftem zur Theologie, Band I (Einsiedeln: Benziger Verlag, 1954).
In English translation by Cornelius Ernst, 0. P., as Theological Investigations I
(London: Darton, Longman, and Todd, 1961), pp. 847-882, "The Theological
Concept of Concupiscence."
•• HW2 51.
•• HWE 84: the text is: das Sein des Selbst sei.
85 HW2 52.
•• HW2 58.
87 HWE 37.
•• HW2 54.
•• HWE 87, n. 8; also HWE 61, n. 5.

920

ANDREW TALLON

incorrect for Seinsfrage,4° the question about being (frequently also found
as die Frage nach dem Sein) .
HWE 38, n. 4: Erkennbarkeit 41 is not realizability, of course, but knowability. The strange thing is that this term is translated as knowability
in the main text, 42 which inevitably leads one to wonder whether the same
person did the notes. And there are more such instances of disagreement.
HWE 42: Aktuell 43 is not, here in a philosophical context, currently (despite its being a word taken over from the French actuel, where it often does
mean currently). Again it seems strange that so obvious a translation be
missed; I say obvious because the context is Rahner offering a translation
of the Latin in actu.44
HWE 47, n. 1: Sein und Seiendem 45 is here rendered, as 'being and beingness,' on its first occurrence, then, as ' being and existent,' on its second,
that is, the very next sentence.
HWE 48, n. 1: God is not the being whose ontological difference is complete, as the translation would have it, but is the one being in whom that
distinction is overcome; thus fulfilled or completed are better translations
than complete, which suggests that in God the distinction is deepest, which
is, of course the very opposite of the point, which is that in God, because
of his perfection, there is no such distinction. HWE 50, n. 7 has: perfected.46
HWR 53: Die Transzendenz auf Sein iiberhaupt 47 is not: transcendentality
with regard to being in general, but: transcendence toward being as such. 48
HWE 56: Der Mensch ist jenes (und zwar das erste) Seiende, das sich
als eine reditio completa, Read: Man is that being {and indeed the first
one) who can enact himself as a reditio completa.
' 0 HW2 54, n. 3; also HW2 80, n. 5.
" HW2 55, n. 4.
•• HWE 38, 39, 40.
•• HW2 58-59.
•• The German text is: Dieser ansatzpunkt muss vielmehr daren gesucht werden,
dass Sein von sich aus Erkennen und Erkanntheit ist, das Sein Bei-sich-sein ist.
lntellectus in actu perfectio est intellectus in actu. Das aber heisst deutsch: Die
vollendete seinsmassige Wirklichkeit [actuality] des lntellekts ist das aktuell
Erkannte. The English translation has: The initial starting point must rather be
sought in the fact that being intrinsically is knowing and being known, that
being is being-present-to-itself. lntellectus [etc.] In English: The perfect ontological
reality of the intellect is the currently known thing.
45 HW2 65-66, n. I.
•• HW2 69, n. 7.
•• HW2 71.
•• Sometimes Rahner writes sein im Ganzen, sometimes absolutes Sein, sometimes Sein als Horizont, sometimes Sein tiberhaupt, sometimes Sein schlechthin, and
a few others; the meaning remains the same.
•• HW2 75.

SPIRIT,

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HISTORY

HWE 57: Sinnlichkeit 50 has entered the tradition as sensibility, and a
translation as 'sense perception' is misleading. Not an act is meant but
a power, capacity, faculty, or, most simply, a principle of the dual nature
of human cognition. Whenever in HWE one meets ' sense perception ' or
' through the senses,' and both occur often, Sinnlichkeit is usually being
translated, although sinnliche Erkenntnis sometimes also has the same fate.
HWE 57: Erkenntnismetaphysik 51 for Rahner never is simply epistemology, but, as the word says, metaphysics of knowledge.52
HWE 57: Stichwort 53 is keyword, here, not catchword.
HWE 57: Washeit 54 is whatness, or quiddity, not thisness, which is exactly the opposite and thus seriously misleading and thoroughly confusing
to say the least. One again wonders how this mistake could have been
made when the German text just a bit later 55 says: Die Washeit (die
forma oder quidditas in scholastischer Terminologie) .56
HWE 58: Instead of: Abstraction is thus the recognition of the nonrestriction of the " thisness " that is given in the particular in this sense.
It is also grasped as a possible determination of other particulars, Read:
To abstract is thus to know that a whatness given in a particular is not
restricted to it, in the sense that the whatness is grasped as a possible determination of other particulars. 5 7
HWE 59, n. 2: Vorgriff 58 is badly translated as pre-concept. The dictionary definition for this important term (which is not a neologism) is
anticipation. This is also the literal definition, in English as well
as German, if we transliterate vor as ante and greifen as capere; thus
vorwegnehmen is close in meaning. Spanish and French translations have
used anticipation. 59 Some previous English translations have been anticipaHW2 76 and frequently hereafter.
HW2 76 and occasionally hereafter.
•• See GWE 19. The term occurs frequently and is consistently mistranslated
as epistemology.
""HW2 76.
6 • HW2 76 and frequently hereafter.
15 HW2 76; HWE 58 (five times on this page).
66 The
English, incredibly, translates this: The " thisness " (the f01WUJ, or
quidditas in scholastic terminology) .
"'HW2 76.
•• HW2 77, n. 2.
59 See Karl Rahner, S. I., Espiritu en el mundo.
Metafisica del conocimil:mto
finito segun Santo Tomas de Aquino (Barcelona: Editorial Herder, 1963, translated
by Alfonso Alvarez Bolado, S.l.)-anticipaci6n;
and Karl Rahner, S.J. L'esprit
dans le monde. La metaphysique de Ia connaissance finie chez saint Thomas
d'Aquin (Paris: Maison Marne, 1968, translated by Robert Givord and Henri
Rochais) -anticipation.
60
61

ANDREW TALLON

tion,6° transcending anticipation; 61 prehension, 6 2 pre-apprehension, 63 and
illuminating anticipation. 64 Having discussed this term before, 65 I shall be
brief. The term is not Vorbegriff; pre-concept and pre-apprehension are
misleading because they say too much, while the others say too little. There
is no concept before the concept, no apprehension before the apprehension;
nor does anticipation work as a translation because by it we understand
that one can mentally or in thought be " somewhere " before he is there
" actually " or physically. For example, when you anticipate what I am
going to say or do, you have already " arrived," in thought, at the place
where I have yet to go. But when the entire context is conceptual, in the
wide sense, then there is no readily understandable meaning for this term
(anticipation) because while the concept of an action can precede the action, the concept of that concept cannot precede that very concept itself.
Thus we see that Vorgriff means not a concept before an act, nor a concept
before a concept, but an act before a concept. This act (of the intellectus
agens) precedes and makes possible conceptual knowledge. It is more than
poetry to say, therefore, that man's reach exceeds (excessus) his grasp:
man reaches for (vorgreifen, Vorgriff) being (Sein) but grasps only (begreifen, Begriff) a being (Seiende), and vice versa. Thus other terms used
in German are hinausgreifen and sichausstrecken (HWQ 86), a reach or
stretch beyond or over the finite (Seiende) toward the infinite (Sein)
transcendence. Our translator is not unaware of this if we can judge by his
translation of Gott ist das Woraufhin des Vorgriffs des Menschlichen
Geistes, as: God is the objective of reaching out of the human spirit. 66
HWE 58: For some reason, in translating Sein als Horizont, 6 1 horizon was
dropped.
HWE 58: Grund 68 is better translated as ground or basis or foundation
or principle than as cause (which is Ursache).
HWE 58: For: close to, Read: present to.69
60 Emerich Coreth, S. J., Metaphysics
(New York: Herder and Herder, 1968,
translated and edited by Joseph Donceel, S. J.), p. 56.
61 Joseph Donceel, S. J., Natural Theology (New York:
Sheed and Ward, 196!'l),
pp. 86-88.
62 Otto
Muck, S. J., The Transcendental Method (Now York: Herder and
Herder, 1968, translated by William D. Seidensticker) , p. 199.
68 GWE 142.
6 • Helen James John, S. N.D.,
The Thomist Spectrum (New York: Fordham
University Press, 1966), p. 175.
65 MS 155-156.
•• HW!'l Ill; HWE 89.
67 HW!'l 78.
68 HW!'l 78, and very often,
•• HW2 78: bei.

SPIRIT,

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923

HWE 58, n.
Grenzerfahrung 70 is experience of limit or limitation, which
is not conveyed by ' liminal experience.'
HWE 61: Metz replaced a whole paragarph here {the first new paragraph
of the page). The original is much more interesting and clear, and I give
here a translation of it. 71
In the history of western philosophy there are three types of solution to
this question. First that of the philosophia perennis, which means from
Plato to Hegel; next Kant's; and then Heidegger's. For the first the answer
is: The reach of the Vorgriff is toward being pure and simple and, as it
includes no intrinsic limit whatever, thus includes as well the absolute being
of God. For Kant: the horizon within which objects are given conceptually
to man is the horizon of sense intuition which in principle does not reach
beyond space and time. For Heidegger: the transcendence, which grounds
the existence of man, is a reaching toward nothing.
HWE
For: inner, here and elsewhere, Read: intrinsic.
HWE
Instead of the meaningless: Now because the pre-concept relative to "more" is the particular object, read: But since the Vorgriff is
a reaching out beyond the individual object toward something more. 72
HWE 63: Vorgriff auf Sein 73 is not: the pre-concept of being, but: the
reaching out toward being.
LWE 63: Here God is called a thing (Seiende 74 ).
HWE 65: das Vermogen des Vorgriffs auf das esse 75 is not: the faculty
of the pre-concept of the esse, but, again: of reaching out toward esse. The
same goes for later on (same page): 'the illuminated pre-concept of being
in general,' which translation ignores the problem that auf means toward,
not of.76
HWE 66: In the passage: 'man "is" absolute receptivity for being pure
and simple, in perpetual, unfulfilled ontological differential,' the last two
words are the way the translator of the main text translates what the
translator of the notes calls (correctly) the ontological difference {Differenz 77 ) • But the translation ' unfulfilled,' is more misleading. The mean77, n.
and often after (first mention is HWE 11, n. 11).
Since I do not now have access to HWI, this translation is from HWF 116.
81.
88.
88.
84.
7"
84.
76
88: der Vorgriff zielt auf-is a text which shows this to be so: the
Vorgriff aims at, drives toward (HWE 64: the pre-concept is directed towardsis a translation which puts it too passively).
77
86. See also HWE 75 and n. 4, where differential is in the main text
and difference is in the note
96 and n. 4).
70

n

924

ANDREW TALLON

ing, once again, is that man who as spirit is openness to being without
qualification, opens his " spirit-hand," as it were, and reaches out, stretches
toward being without being able to close his hand around it: there is a
gap he cannot close, the gap between a being and being, between man's
being a being and his possessing (having: Seinshabe) being. That a
being knows by Vor-griff (that is, by a movement of reaching-towardwithout-grasping, without Be-griff) is a sign of that being's Seinshabe, its
analogical relation to being, namely, that it is a being, and not being without qualifications; but this can also be expressed by saying that in man this
difference (of having being rather than being being-the analogy of
Seinshabe-called ontological for the obvious reason that it is about the
difference between a being and being) is not overcome and remains unovercome.78
HWE 67: 'transcendence of knowledge correlative to being in general',
is another mistranslation of auf das Sein schlechthin. 79 Knowledge cannot
and does not, of course, transcend being in general (or as such) but
transcends a being, indeed all beings, toward being as such.
HWE 67: For: 'He must necessarily actualize this already perfected
transcendence', (and note that the three sentences ending with the one
just quoted translate one German sentence, the whole being in the conditional structure of an if-then), Read: ' and [if the foregoing is to be accomplished] man will have to make that transcendence of which he already
is the constant enactment .. .' 80
HWE 68, n. 13: For: the transcendence in-itself-permanent and the
transcending in-itself-permanence of the human spirit, Read: the human
spirit as self-subsisting transcendence and transcending self-subsistence. 81
HWE 78 and n. 6: Mystik 82 again shows two translators at work: we
find mysticism (correct) in the main text and mystique in the note.
HWE 79: For: Begard, read : Beghard. 83
HWE 81: Raum 84 is space, not function.
HWE 85: Geworfenheit 85 has become thrownness, thanks to the translations made of Heidegger, who is the acknowledged 86 source of this term
for Rahner; it is preferable to the less neutral: abandonment.
86: in bleibender unvollendeter ontologischer Differenz.
87; twice on this page.
80
87: und er diese immer schon vollzogene Transzendenz auch notwendig
thematisiert. This clause was added by Metz.
81
88, n. 13.
••
99 and n. 6.
88
101.
103.
••
108.
•• In HW1 106, deleted by Metz.
78

••

SPIRIT,

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925

HWE 86: For lines 18-21 read instead: Insofar as he must ask, he affirms
his own contingent 87 finitude; insofar as he must ask, he affirms this contingency 88 necessarily. 89 HWE badly misuses this sentence by inserting an
extra 'necessarily' in the first clause (sentence, in HWE) where there is
none in the German, and then, by omitting the italics in the second, the
parallel is destroyed; finally, he runs, in English, one sentence into another
distinct sentence, thus blurring the matter quite thoroughly.
HWE 86: Setzung, setzen, gesetzt 90 cause problems; they are usually
translated in HWE as delimitation and delimited 91 which leave much to
be desired because too negative. Hofbeck uses position and pose.92 HWE
in one place, for the reflexive form, sich setzen, 93 uses: posit (s) himself.
Rahner sometimes seems to be using this verb instead of create. The
meaning, plainly, is to place in being, a more awkward phrase, as usual,
than one would hope to find for use in repeated instances. For example:
In der Absolutsetzung eines Zufalligen aber erfahrt sich Wille, 94 which is
in HWE as: In the absolute delimitation of an accidental as absolute we
experience will; 95 besides the fact that that second ' absolute ' is not in
the German text, a certain discomfort is experienced with the translation.
The point is, of course, that for the non-necessary to be at all requires
explanation and implies will. The source of anything but being (and thus
of every being and of all beings) is will, the will of being (that is, God as
the one necessary being who freely posits, places beings 'into being '-creation). Man also experiences will when he recognizes that the non-necessary
(which is not an accident in the Aristotelian sense of substance and accident, another point on which HWE is misleading here: the Zufallig is the
contingent, not the accidental) must be affirmed necessarily: what is and
must be said to be, might not be and would not be but for will, and thus
for freedom; thus all placing of the non-necessary into being must be
willentlich: willed (voluntary).
HWE 89: For: answer to a free world, Read: answer to a free word. 96
HWE 89: For: a free autonomous powerful person, Read: a free person,
at his own disposal.97
"Thrown," in HWI 107, changed by Metz.
Thrownness," in HWI 107, changed by Metz.
89
108: Insofern er fragen muss, bejaht er seine kontingente Endlichkeit;
insofern er fragen muss, bejaht er diese Kontingenz notwendig.
90
108-109.
91 HWE 86-87.
•• HWF 155-156.
108.
108.
""HWE 86.
••
111: auf ein freies Wort.
07
einer freien, ihrer selbst miichtigen Person, that is, 'one who having
87

8 ·8 "

926

ANDREW TALLON

HWE 90: Perhaps it should be mentioned that the phrase: material knowledge, refers to the content rather than to form or structure. 98
HWE 90 n 2:. For: moduus, read: modus.
HWE 95: willentlich 99 (voluntary), in one of its occurrences on this page
(line 15) is translated: deliberate, and in the next (line 17) : reflexive;
the first is at least admissable here; the second is not.
HWE 98: A case of one mistake confirming another: Oder steht sie ihm
selbst in ihrer " Zufiilligkeit," ihrer " GrundlOsigkeit " unbegriffen gegeniiber? 100 HWE renders Zufiilligkeit (contingency) as non-contingency,
and then makes Grundlosigkeit mean causelessness, which misleadingly
suggests the causa sui, God as uncaused, when the very opposite is meant,
namely, that something contingent is without ground (groundlessness),
without basis or foundation, without self-explanation. Thus the sentence,
meant to pinpoint the problem of how a free act can be luminous, since
a free act is supposed to be non-necessary (that is, contingent: if it were
necessary it couldn't be free) ends the paragraph in confusion instead.
HWE 98-99: For the last 5 lines of 98 and the first of 99, Read: The
free act, however, in its original nature, is not so much one's bringing into
existence something other than or extraneous to himself, not the production
of a product existing in a kind of otherness distinct from the producer, but
rather the fulfillment of one's own essence, a taking possession of oneself,
a making actual one's creative power over oneself .... the act is free, undeducible placing-in-being.1o1
HWE 99, lines 15-17: mitvollziehen 102 in this instance might better be
'co-enact' or 'enact with', that is, to participate in the act by placing
one's own act as a ratification or seconding of the act of the other.
HWE 99, line 86: For: objection, Read: object-1°3
HWE 100, lines 8-9: Denn Liebe ist der gelichtete Wille zur Person in
ihrer unableitbaren Einmaligkeit. 104 Instead of: For love is the selfluminous act of movement towards a person in his underived uniqueness,
Read: For love is luminous will to person in his undeducible uniqueness.(The very ground, we must remember, of the being and the becoming of
the non-necessary is will. To love someone is to will the being and the
becoming of that person.)
power over himself (is master of himself) ', a phrase which essentially repeats
free (self-disposable) .
•• HW2 ll3. See also HWE 74, n. 3 (HW2 94, n. 3) where ' materially explain,'
has the same meaning. Also HWE 91 (HW2 ll4).
•• HW2 118.
100 HW2 121.
101 HW2 122.
10 • HW2 122-128.
101 HW2 US
(Woraufhin).
10 'HW2 128.

SPIRIT,

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HISTORY

HWE 101: willentlich 105 modifies Verhalten three times on this page;
Read: voluntary, For: deliberate (thus placing will where it belongs).
HWE 101, line 23: Grund 106 is, again, ground, basis, foundation, not cause.
HW 101, line 32: Wille 107 is will, not desire.
HWE 102, line 2: die Erkenntnis selbst lebt 108 is: knowledge itself lives,
not: knowledge loves itself.
HWE 102, lines Q9-30: For: This deliberate self-delimitation, which occurs
through transcendence over being in general, Read: This voluntary selfaffirmation, which happens in one's transcending toward being as such. 109
HWE 103: werthaft 110 is: valuable, not: desirable.
HWE 103, line 24: Instead of: it is presented in knowledge as will, Read:
insofar as it is always also will.111
HWE 103, line 30: der wertende Geist 112 is: spirit as will, not: the
knowing spirit. A few lines above these words, spirit as knowing was
mentioned and referred to being as the known; here Rahner was obviously
drawing a parallel, with spirit as will referring to being as good, a parallel
destroyed by the translation.
HWE 105: For: synteresis, read: synderesis.
HWE 106, line 18: gesetzt 113 is here translated as implanted.
HWE 106, lines 21-22: Instead of: Metaphysical knowledge certainly
never grasps its object before it grasps itself, read: Metaphysical knowledge indeed never has present before itself its object in its own self.1 14.
HWE 107, lines ll-12: For: to contradict the deliberate understanding
of being through the method of free love, Read: to place in opposition
one's voluntary understanding of being and his way of loving freely. 115
HWE 107, line 3: For: a true philosopher must lead the religious life of
the cloister, Read: Ultimately only he can be a philosopher who in spirit
dwells in temple and cloister.ns
105

and frequently elsewhere.

108
107
108
109
Diese willentliche Selbstsetzung, die in der Transzendenz auf
Sein iiberhaupt geschieht. See HWE liS where deliberate translates intentionale.

111

118
1"

131; see discussion of HWE 86 above.
131: Die metaphysische Erkenntnis hat ja nie ihren Gegenstand in

seinem eigenen Selbst vor sich.
115
116

und Klostern wohnt.

Philosoph kann schliesslich nur sein, wer geistig in Tempeln

928

ANDREW TALLON

HWE 108: For: our metaphysical-religious-philosophical anthropology,
Read: our metaphysical anthropology applied to philosophy of religion.117
HWE 111: in sein "Inneres" is here translated as: in the depths [which
should be in quotation marks J of his own being.118
HWE 112: For: thou-to-thou, read: you-to-you.l1 9
HWE 112, n. 2: For: self-revelation [in the first clause], Read: self-communication.120 In this same sentence (in the third clause), Offenbarung is
correctly translated as revelation.
HWE 113, n. 2 and n. 3: categorial 121 is sometimes rendered as ' categorical', sometimes as 'categorial ', the latter being correct. 122 There is no
textual or contextual basis for two translations.
HWE 113, n. 3: For: chiffres (untranslated), English is: ciphers. 123
HWE 114, n. 3: For: substantial, the German has inhaltliche 124 which
means, in this context (note the contrast with "formally" in the prior
clause), 'non-formal', that is, 'material', or 'having content'.
HWE 114, n. 3: For: regaining, Read: gaining. 12 5
HWE 114, n. 3: For: apriority, Read: "aposteriority." 126
HWE 116: Seven lines (four sentences) of the German were unaccountably
dropped from the end of the paragraph (top of the page) ending: he is
finite spirit (line 11) .12 7 Here is a translation:
We have to ask: what is the specific way in which man is spirit? By
way of clarifying the direction of the following reflections we can in anticipation give the answer to this question: It is as an historical being [as a being
in history] that man is spirit. The place of his transcendence is always an
historical place [a place in history]. Thus the place of a possible revelation
is always and necessarily the history of man.
HW2 133: unserer metaphysisch-religionsphilosophischen Anthropologie.
HW2 137.
119 HW2 138:
Du-zu-Du.
120 HW2 139, n. 2:
Selbstmitteilung. On p. 155 the other translator
this as self-imparting (HW2 142).
121 HW2 139-141.
122 Once also appears:
categirical, an obvious misprint.
123 Metz's
(for this is one of his additions) allusion is possibly to Jaspers's
doctrine on ciphers.
12 ' HW2 140, n. 3.
125 HW2 140, n. 3.
126 HW2 140, n. 3:
"Aposterioritat"; the English also omitted the quotation
marks.
127 HW2 123:
Es muss nach der bestimmten Weise gefragt werden, in der der
Mensch Geist ist. Urn das Ziel der folgenden Uberlegungen schon vorwegzunehmen,
damit die Richtnng dieser Uberlegnngen jetzt schon klarer sei, ist zu sagen: Der
Mensch ist als geschichtliches Wesen Geist. Der Ort seiner Transzendenz ist
immer auch ein geschichtlicher Ort. Und damit ist der Ort einer moglichen
Offenba.rnng immer und notwendig die Geschichte des Menschen.
117

118

SPIRIT,

FREEDOM,

HISTORY

929

HWE 116: Another bad translation obscures the meaning. Instead of:
An initial general and metaphysical understanding of history shows it always to exist where free delimitation exists, Read: For in a primary,
universal, and metaphysical understanding, wherever there is free action 12 R
there is history ,129
HWE 117: For: 'how does the spiritual nature of man, in his historical
context, arise out of his fundamentally constituted transcendental make-up?
Note that man is not an historical character de facto but he becomes one
by his openness to the transcendent, that is, to God.' Read: how is it so
from the basic constitution of man's transcendence that man as spirit
stands in history, that man's historicity is not something that merely
happens to him de facto but something he is primarily WJ spirit, as one
whose being is open to God. 13 0
HWE 118: For: The cat is black, the German is: Dieses ist ein
Derartiges. 131
HWE 118, line
For: deliberate, Read: intentional. After the consistent mistranslation of willentlich as deliberate, this mistranslation is
especially misleading. One would have to ignore or be ignorant of the
whole tradition, so clear in Aquinas, but also in Brentano and Husserl,
which uses the concept of intentionality, to miss the point here. In fact
this whole passage (lines
is so garbled that a re-translation is here
offered; thus, instead of: The previous conclusion is this: being is beingpresent-to-itself. This we concluded earlier from the analysis of the general
problem of being. This means, as we said earlier, that cognition in its first
and original concept is not some kind of grasping of an object or the deliberate putting oneself into a relationship with something else. But it is
the self-presence of an existent thing being reflected in one's own being and
the attribution of " having being " that is thus recognized by this act.
Read: Recall an earlier conclusion: to be is to be self-present, a conclusion
we previously arrived at through analyzing the general question of being.
But this means, as we also said before, that to know, in its primary an;l
original concept, is not somehow to grasp an outside object [literally;
Gegen-stand], not to place oneself in an intentional relation with some being
other than oneself, but rather, knowing is a being's being-with-self, is being's
Literally: free placing-[in-being].
HW2 143: Denn in einem ersten, allgemeinen und metaphysischen Verstiindnis
ist Geschichte iiberall dort, wo freie Setzung ist.
180 HW2 145: Es ist also die Frage, wie sich aus der Transzendenz des Menschen
in ihrer Grundverfassung selbst ergibt, dass er als Geist in der Geschichte steht,
class die Geschichtlichkeit des Menschen nicht etwas ist, was ihm faktisch eben
;tuch zukommt, sondern etwas, was er gerade als Geist, also auf Gott him ofTener
zu sein hat.
181 HWg. 146.
128

129

930

ANDREW TALLON

self-reflectedness, which belongs to a being to the extent that it has being,
to the degree that it is.132
HWE 119: For: of the single nature of a man, Read: of the one nature
of man. 133
HWE 119, line
Before the sentence beginning: It is, Add: Rather.
HWE 119, line
For: being-present to himself, Read: return-to-sel£. 134
HWE 119, line 88: Delete: 'the', Before: 'cognition'.
HWE 120, line
and line
For: 'profound' (line
and 'interior'
(line
, Read: ' intrinsic .13 5
HWE
For: an original receptive knowledge [which, changing original
to originally, would be literally correct], Read something like: a knowledge
with its origin in receptivity, Or: a knowledge that originates in receptivity.-' Original' (incorrect here as an adjective in the first place 136) and
'receptive' go uncomfortably together, each elbowing out the other.
HWE
lines
For: the being of any existent being must be
being which has its origin outside itself, Read: the being of this being
must be the being of an "other."137
HWE
n. 1: For: subject-like, Read: subjective. 138
HWE
line 18: For: concerned as, Read: conceived as.
HWE
line
For: "having being," Read: being.139
HWE
n.
For: final cognition, Read: finite cognition. 140
HWE
n. (twice): For: accepting cognition, Read: receptive cognition.141
HWE
For: knowledge through the senses, Read: sense knowledge,
and For: sense perception, Read: sensibility. 142
132 HWZ 146: Es ist an ein friiheres Ergebnis zu erinnem:
Sein ist Bei-sich-sein,
so haben wir friiher aus der Analyse der allgemeinen Seinfrage festgestellt. Das
heiss aber, wie auch schon gesagt wurde, dass Erkennen in seinem ersten und
urspriinglichen Begriff night irgendwie das Erfassen eines Gegen-standes, das
intentionale Sichbeziehen auf ein fremdes andere ist, sondem das Sein eines Seienden
in dem Mass zukommt, in dem es Sein hat, seinsmiichtig ist.
183 HWZ 147.
134 HW2 147-148: Riickkunft.
135 HW2 148:
innere in both cases.
186 HWZ 150:
urspriinglich hinnehmenden Erkenntnis.
187 HW2 151:
das Sein dieses Seienden Sein eines "anderen" sein muss.
188 HW2 152-153, n. 1:
subjekthaft.
189 HW2 154:
Sein (not "Seinshabe ").
140 HW2 153, n. 2:
endliche Erkenntnis.
1 u HW2 153, n. 2:
hinnehmend. This is the sort of exasperating inconsistency
that makes one wonder.
142 HWZ 156:
sinnliche and Sinnlichkeit. Perception is an act, involving man
as a whole, as spirit and matter; thus perception is wrong to use here. Rahner
is trying to characterize the material component in the one composite human
knowing, which the tradition calls sensibility, the power of receptive cognition.

SPffiiT,

FREEDOM,

HISTORY

931

HWE
For: describing ... a description, Try: offering ... a description.
HWE 127: For: If being-present-to-itself and knowing are the beingpresent-to-itself of the existent thing as a mode of its " having-being," then
the thing initially known is always the specific " being " of the knower
himself. Thus the structure of the thing known, and vice versa, Read:
For if to be is to be self-present and if for a being to know is to be selfpresent (as its way of participating being) 143 then the first known is always
the being of the knower himself, such that the structure of the knower as
a being is the structure of the known and vice versa. 144
HWE
and n. 4: Here the note begins: We here say "existingness,"
and the note refers to a text which reads: what is this existent thing?;
a careful proofreading alone should have caught this. The German is
Seiendheit in both places. 145 The sentence and the note are both by
Metz.
HWE
Once again (lines
Washeit 146 (whatness, quiddity) is
translated as thisness and, incredibly, again placed in apposition with
quidditas.
HWE
For: profound (line 6), and inner (line 10), Read: intrinsic. 147
HWE 130: For: manifold actualization, Read: multiple individualization.148
HWE 130: For: it is the cause of space and time, Read: It is the principle
[or: ground] of spatiality and temporality. 149
HWE 130: For: "thisness," Read, again: whatness. 150
HWE 131: "existentness" is here (line 14) translating Seiendheit. 151
HWE 131, line 17: here" quidditas" translates Washeit. 152
HWE
line 10 and 11: For: an interior spatiality and an interior
temporality, Read: intrinsic (both times).
HWE 132, line 17: this time the expression: " has-a-being," is translating
Seiendheit. 153 The idea Metz is trying to get at requires using Seinheit,
This phrase is added by Metz.
'" HW2 156-157: Denn wenn Sein Bei-sich-sein und Erkennen Bei-sich-sein des
Seienden als Weise seiner "Seinshabe" ist, dann ist das Ersterkannte immer das
eigene Sein des Erkennenden selbst, so dass die Struktur des Erkennenden als
eines Seienden die Struktur des Erkanntcn ist und umgekehrt.
145 HW2 157 and n. 4.
""HW2 158.
147 HW2 159: inner.
"" HW2 161: vielfache Vereinzelung.
149 HW2 161: Sie ist Grund der Raumlichkeit und Zeitlichkeit.
150 HW2 161:
Washeit (no quotation marks).
'"'HW2 162.
'""HW2 168.
'""HW2 168.
143

932

ANDREW TALLON

the quality of being being; Seiendheit then becomes the quality of being
a being.
HWE 132, line 18: For: one of a race, Read: one of one race. 154 The
reference to racial unity and monogenism in the note would be otherwise
pointless.
HWE 133, lines 6-7: For: Man is real only as a part of humanity, Read:
Man is actual [actually human] only with other humans. 155
HWE 133, n. 2: For: derivation, Read: deduction; For: accepting,
Read: receptive; For: " the (personal) other," Read: " the personal
other"; 156 and For: mutual exchange and mutual dismissal, Read: mutual
comings and goings.
HWE 134, line 1-3: For: value of position, Read: the masses. 157
HWE 134, line, 11: For: society, Read: community. 158
HWE 134, line 34: For: perception, Read: knowledge; 159 line 35: For:
perception, Read: intuition; 16 ° For: through the senses, Read: sense (or
sensible) .161
HWE 135, line 5: For: sense perception, Read: sense knowledge. 162
HWE 135, line 22: For: If the materiality of the human existent thing
HW2 163: einer eines Geschlechtes.
HW2 164: Der Mensch ist nnr in emer Menschheit wirklich. Note that
my translation is free yet accurate. Despite the earlier context of man as one
race, which would suggest humanity as translating Menschheit, that term, as well
as Mensch, in German contains in its meaning a contrast with things, with the
not-human. HWF confirms this, and even puts it more strongly: L'homme n'est
reel [en acte would have been better] que dans une communaute humaine (HWF
231). Metz's note attached to this also confirms a more " social " translation: see
next note below.
156 HW2 164, n. 2: "der (personale)
andere "-here HWE gives us an example
of "literal " translation without thought as to meaning. Metz is contrasting das
andere (the neuter or impersonal other) with der andere (the personal other),
which in German can be indicated by the article. But in English, of course, this
is not so, thus requiring both that personal be italicized and that the parentheses
(whose sole purpose is to make the article change even more explicit for the
German reader) be dropped as superfluous. Note that this correction also removes
another misleading suggestion, namely, that there were only one other (God?) involved, something commonly indicated by italicising the.
157 HW2 165:
Stellenwert. We have here a contrasting of Einmaligkeit und
Eigenwert with Fallhaftigkeit und Stellenwert. The contrast is between my value
as an individual and what would be valued because from or of many, done by
a number of people, etc.
108 HW2 165:
Gemeinschaft (not Gesellschaft) .
159 HW2 166:
Erkenntnis.
160 HW2 166:
Anschauung.
161 HW2 166:
siunliche.
162 HW2 166:
Erkenntnis.
1 "'

155

SPIRIT,

FREEDOM,

HISTORY

933

is conceived as something that knows itself in the receptive knowledge of
things, Read: If the materiality of the human being is conceived as that
of a being who knows himself in a receptive knowledge of things. 168
HWE 136, line 1: Place colon after examined.
HWE 136, line 34: For: specification); it, Read: specification); and
it.
HWE 137, lines 16-QQ: The term Indifferenzpunkt 164 is left out of HWE
in the sentence here cited. The idea is that matter provides that point in
itself indifferent to its actualization: Matter in se as potency to all act.
HWE 138, lines 8-9: For: an ontological reality gives way, Read: an
ontological reality (forma, actus) gives itself away. 165
HWE 138, line 10: Delete: particular.
HWE 138, n. 6: This whole note needs redoing. But, instead of that,
note the following; For: givenness (line 1) , Read: given-away-ness; line
Q: Delete: strange; line 9: For: existence-completion, Read: actualization [or enactment] of his existence; lines 16-17: For: in our hands, Read:
at our disposal. 1 66
HWE 140, line 11: For: interiorly sensate, Read: intrinsically sensible.167
HWE 141, lines 1-7: For: Such a conception of human sense perception
is completely in harmony with Thomistic epistemology, which conceives
sense perception explicitly as a faculty which arises out of the spirit in its
self-examination of its own intrinsic nature-to be openness to being in
general. Read: Such a conception of human sensibility corresponds fully
with the Thomistic metaphysics of cognition which explicitly conceives the
sensibility as a faculty which emanates [or springs] from spirit in its own
movement forward to its own proper end: 168 to be openness for being as
such.169
HWE 141: This page 170 has two couplets: 1) Ausgang and Eingang
168 HW!'l 167:
Ist so die Materialitiit des menschlichen Seienden als eines in
Hiimahme des Wissens von den Dingen selbst Erkennenden begriffen. (Materiality
does not know itself.) Rofbeck, HWF !'l85, is incomplete here.
16 ' HW2 169. HWF !'l87 mistranslates
this twice as point d'interference.
165 HW!'l 170: eine Seinswirklichkeit (forma, actus ) sich von sich selbst weggibt.
166 HW!'l 170-171, n. 6.
167 HW2 178.
168 Metz substituted
essence for end at this point, no doubt having in mind
that spirit as intellect emanates the sensibility in its becoming itself, in reaching
its own essence; the substitution is not smooth in this instance, however.
169 HW2 174:
Eine solche Auffassung der menschlichen Sinnlichkeit entspricht
ganz der thomistischen Erkenntnismetaphysik, die ausdriicklich die Sinnlichkeit
als ein Vermogen auffasst, das dem Geist entspringt in dessen eigenem Vorsprung
auf sein ihm als solchem eigenes Wesen: Ofl'enheit fiir Sein iiberhaupt zu sein.
Note again that sense perception is not a faculty but the act of a composite being.
170 HW2 174.

934

ANDREW TALLON

(and Eingehen) and
Einkehr and Auskehr. Basically 1) means going
out and going in, and
means turning in toward and turning out away.
The underlying notion is, of course, that of the conversio ad phantasmata
(the turning to phantasms), the heart of Geist in Welt. HWE unhelpfully
uses terms like penetration, approach, access, return, and out-going.
HWE
lines
Delete: or "thisness."
HWE
n.
For: the closer characteristics, Read: the precise
nature of.171
HWE
n.
line 4: For: as being an inner moment, Read: as an
intrinsic element.112
HWE 143, line
For: horizon of perception, Read: horizon of reception.173
HWE 143, line
For: through a sensate and receptive cognition,
Read: solely through sensible, receptive knowledge as such.174
HWE 143, line 36: For: in its sheer sensile (sic) givenness, Read: in its
mere sensible givenness.175
HWE 144, line
Seiendheit eines Seiende 176 is this time translated as:
"act of existence " of an existent thing.
HWE 145, line 8: Delete: of an object.
HWE 146 (and before): The translator of the text has consistently used
appearance for Erscheinung, which is fine, even handy when the time comes
to use the verb appear (phenomenon, though also possible, is less handy for
this reason) . But then in n. 3, explicitly referring to the single word ' ap ..
pearance ', 177 the again obviously different translator of the notes writes
" apparition " (!) .17 8
HWE 146, n.
3: Delete the first 'as.'
HWE 146, n.
15: For: clear the, Read: clear that the.
HWE 146, n.
lines
For: ultimate, Read: ultimate.
HWE 147, line 6: For: sensate, Read: sensible.
HWE 147, line 17 and line
For: definitions, Read: determinations.
HWE 147, line
For: the will, and the good, Read: will and good.l79
HWE 147, line
For: particular, Read: determined. 180
HW2 175, n. 2: die genauere Eigenart personaler, etc.
HW2 176, n. 2: als inneren Moment.
173 HW2 176:
Horizont der Hinnahme. (Note that Kant's word perception,
Wahrnehmung, does not occur in HW1 or HW2.)
1"
HW2 177: durch die sinnlich hinnehmende Erkenntnis als solche allein.
175 MW2 177:
in ihrer blossen sinnlichen Gebenheit.
176 HW2 178.
177 HW2 180:
Erscheinung.
178 HW2 180:
"Erscheinung."
17 " HW2 182:
Wille und Gut.
180 HW2 182:
bestimmtes.
171

172

SPIRIT,

FREEDOM,

HISTORY

935

HWE 149, n. 7: Here is a case of sheer carelessness again. The single
sentence of this note ends: 'and phenomenon (see above, p. 177) '. But,
of course, here on p. 149, there is no p. 177 above (the translator merely
took over the page numbers of the German text; since this was done
thirteen times, a list of correct references has been provided in my note
12), nor does the word phenomenon appear in any case.
HWE 150, line 4: For: world. (3) All, Read: world. Thus (3) all. 181
HWE 151, lines 11-12: For: palpably, Read: intuitively. 182
HWE 151, line 33: For: emerge and grow, Read: emerge (cpv€u0at) and
grow.1sa
HWE 152, line 1: For: inane, Read: superfluous. 184
HWE 154, lines 9-10: For: a supra-mundane existent thing cannot be, in
itself, a receptive cognition, Read: an extramundane being cannot be in
itself the recipient of [literally: cannot be given] a receptive cognition as
such.185
HWE 154, line 18-155, line 1: For: the whole of supra-mundane existence, Read: every extramundane being.
HWE 155, lines 17-21: A two line phrase from the German 186 was left
out; For through the human word, we are now, Read: through the human
word, which is a synthesis of negated appearance and negating transcendence, we are now.
RWE 157, lines 6-8: We have here a doubly misleading apposition; For:
This presupposes on the one hand the finitude of man, on the other his 187
absolute transcendence or delimitation of man by God, Read: given on
the one hand man's finitude and on the other his absolute transcendence,
even already presupposing God's placing of man in being .... 188
HWE 162, line 9: For: in the word, Read: "in the word." 18&
HWE 162, line 15: For: scarcely, Read: naturally. 190
HW2 185: also: 3. Alles.
HW2 186: anschaulich.
183 HW2 186.
184 HW2 187: iiberfliissig.
185 HW2 189-190: ein ausserweltliches Seiendes in seinem Selbst einer hinnehmenden Erkenntnis als solcher nicht gegeben werden kann.
186 HW2 191: in dessen Einheit von verneinter Erscheinung und verneinender
Transzendenz.
187 Whose? Substituting
man's or God's, for his, is no clearer, given the last
four words.
188 HW2 194: bei der Endlichkeit des Menschen einerseits und seiner absoluten
Transzendenz anderseits, auch die Setzung des Menschen durch Gott schon
vorausgesetzt. Note that Metz changed Rahner's word creation to placing-in-being
(thereby giving some notion of how he meant to use Setzung, which thus seems
especially poorly translated as delimitation) .
189 HW2 200: "im Wort."
190 HW2 200:
natiirlich.
181

18 "

936

ANDREW TALLON

HWE 167, lines
For: .theology and anthropology, Read: theo-logy
and anthropo-logy.191
HWE 175, line 24: For: loses itself in, Read: is taken up into. 192
HWE 175, last line -176, line 1: For: Philosophy, rightly understood, is
always a praeparatio evangelii and is intrinsically Christian, Read: Philosophy, rightly understood, is always adventist, is a praeparatio evangelii, and
thus is of itself Christian. 19s
HWE 176, line 33: For: history, Read: " history."
HWE 176, lines 33-34: For: supernatural, Read: " supernatural." 194
HWE 177, lines, 19-23 and lines 33-36: HWE makes both of these sentences declarative, whereas they are both questions, which is no small
matter given their content. Even rhetorical questions, if that's what they
are, allow one to get something said and still hedge a bit. 195
ANDREW TALLON

Marquette University
Milwaukee, Wisconsin

HW2 205: Theo-logie and Anthropo-logie.
HW2 215: sich . . . " aufhebt " (later: aufzuheben). We all know the
ambiguities, welcome and useful though they be, of aufheben, the problem being
one of preserving in translation the positive along with the negative (Hegel's intention and task in the dialectic, thus his fondness for this word) .
198 HW2 215: Philosophic, richtig verstanden, ist immer adventistisch, praeparatio
evangelii, ist ·so von sich a us christlich.
194 HW2 217:
" Geschichte " ; " iibernatiirlich; " I have no doubt missed many
more small discrepancies like these.
195 HW2 217-218. I would guess that Rahner would not, especially today, be
completely happy with this sentence as it turned out, in translation, as a declarative sentence: Anyone who takes unbiased account of these things will find it difficult
not to recognize the holy Roman Catholic Church as the seat of the genuine revelation of the living God (HWE 177, lines 88-86).
191
192

BOOK REVIEWS
Friar Thomas d'Aquino. His Life, Thought, and Work. By JAMES A.
WEISHEIPL, 0. P. Garden City, N. Y.: Doubleday & Company, Inc.,
1974. Pp. 476. $8.95.
The seventh centenary of the death of St. Thomas Aquinas (1224/51274) has evoked an outpouring of articles and commemorative studies on
the Common Doctor, but few will be able to match this superb monograph
on his life, thought, and work by Father W eisheipl. The result of long
years of study, of personal research into 13th-century intellectual and institutional history, and of critical comparison with the very detailed but
unpublished lecture notes on Aquinas by the late Father I. T. Eschmann,
0. P., Weisheipl's book emerges as the closest one can come to a definitive
biography of Aquinas at the present time, and as the standard against
which any future serious scholarship in this field will have to be measured.
The style of writing is engaging and clear, well suited to carrying a message
of considerable profundity, although hardly qualifying the work for endorsement as light reading. That the author should have been able to pack
so much new information and critical appraisal into the pages allotted him
is no small tribute to his command of the subject matter and to his own
intellectual acumen-features that should especially commend his treatise
to readers of The Thomist.
The burden of Father Weisheipl's message is carried in seven chapters
that develop the following themes: (1) Thomas's boyhood in the kingdom
of Sicily and his young manhood in the Dominican Order, to 1252; (2)
his early days at Saint-Jacques and as Sententiarius at Paris from 1252 to
1256; (3) his inception in theology and his career as Regent Master at
Paris from 1256 to 1259; (4) his return to the Roman province and the
various services he rendered there to the Order and the papacy from 1259
to 1265; (5) his founding of the Dominican studium at Santa Sabina and
his role as lector in the priory at Viterbo, to 1268; (6) his return to Paris
for a second regency in theology and the attendant controveries from 1269
to 1272; and (7) his return to Naples, the last years of his life, and the
events leading to his canonization on July 18, 1323. Interwoven throughout this historical account are summaries and analyses of Aquinas's more
important writings, particularly as these reveal the development of his
thought in philosophy and theology. Appended material includes a summary chronology, a catalogue giving most of the factual material available
on Aquinas's authentic writings, a bibliography of sources and of secondary
literature, notes, and two indices, of persons and subjects respectively.

937

938

BOOK REVIEWS

From the wealth of scholarly detail thus provided it is difficult to disengage a few points for particular comment. What most impressed this reviewer, however, was the author's skillful handling of two topics that have
offered difficulty to previous historians, the first being Thomas's double
career at the University of Paris and the second the numerous hagiographic
legends that have grown up around him. With regard to the first, Weisheipl
has shown conclusively, against common teaching up to now, that Aquinas's
initial teaching role as a bachelor at Paris was never that of cursor biblicus,
a function he had already performed at Cologne under Albert the Great
before being sent to Paris, but was rather that of a baccalarius Sententiarum. It was only after functioning for four years as a Sententiarius that
he incepted as a magister in theology in the Spring of l!t56, and so the
entire seven years of his first stay at Paris were devoted to the teaching oi
theology in the systematic sense. The second Paris regency was likewise
devoted mainly to systematic theology, and particularly to the defense of
Aristotelianism in its employ; in discussing this period Weisheipl is especially good at delineating the apostolic as well as the intellectual motivation behind Aquinas's Aristotelian commentaries, and the way in which he
himself, by his skillful defense of the pagan Aristotle against the Averroists,
actually provoked the renewal of Augustinism at Paris under Franciscan
auspices.
With regard to the legends, W eisheipl is neither pietist nor rationalist in
their evaluation, although he is professedly more concerned with intellectual
history than with hagiography. There is some unevenness, however, in his
treatment of the preternatural events in the saint's life: for example, he is
not prepared to accept completely the traditional mystical account of the
happening at Naples on December 6, l!t73, preferring to join to its explanation some type of physical breakdown, whereas he accepts without question
Aquinas's alleged ability to dictate to three or four secretaries on different
subjects at the same time, and even to continue dictating after he had
fallen asleep! Yet, in the matter of the " breakdown " and the events
leading to the saint's death, it must be admitted that Weisheipl has sifted
through all the facts with great care and presents an intriguing thesis that
makes sense of many otherwise unexplained phenomena. His account surely
takes nothing away from the Angelic Doctor; rather it accentuates the
frailty of the all-too-human frame that the saint's towering spirit drove
to its final point of exhaustion.
Few are the defects that mar this excellent study. There are one or two
misspelled words, on p. 179 the date 195!t appears for what was obviously
intended to be l!t5!t, and on p. !t6!t the eleventh line is a repetition of the
first line and should be deleted. On p. !t09 the author states that " for
Thomas the soul is created within the embryo when it is disposed by the
powers of sperm and ovum," thereby unwittingly attributing to Aquinas a
more sophisticated knowledge of embryology than one could possess before

BOOK REVIEWS

939

the invention of the microscope. And in the " Brief Catalogue of Authentic
Works" at the end Weisheipl frequently makes the notation "No English
translation" when in fact such translations do exist: for example, the
Sententia de caelo et mundo, Sententia super libros de generatione et corruptione, and Sententia super Meteora have all been translated into English
by R. F. Larcher and P. H. Conway, Columbus: College of St. Mary of the
Springs, 1963-1964; the polemical treatise De aeternitate mundi contra
murmurantes has been done by Cyril Volaert et al., Milwaukee: Marquette
University Press, 1964; and the De mixtione elementorum, by V. R. Larkin
in Isis, 51 (1960), pp.
Yet these are but minor defects, hardly
worthy of mention, that in no way detract from what is obviously the best
biography of Aquinas now available, in English or in any language.
WILLIAM A. WALLACE, O.P.
The Catholic University of America
Washington, D. C.

Pia IX e La Rinascita del Tomismo. By ANTONIO ProLANTI. Citta del
Vaticano: Libreria Editrice Vaticana, 1974. Pp. 113.
The sixth centenary of the death of St. Thomas (1874) was hailed by
the then Pontiff, Pius IX, as paralleling the significant celebration of a
few years earlier (1867) of the 18th centenary of the deaths of Saints
Peter and Paul:
Hos inter laetos eventus sicut iam anno millesimo octingentesimo sexagesimo
septimo celebravimus decimi octavi saecularis anni, quo Principes Apostolorum
proprii sanguinis testimonio traditam confirmavit Evangelii doctrinam, sic celebraturi
nunc sumus sextum saecularem annum depositionis Angelici Doctoris, Sancti
Thomas Aquinatis, a Divina Providentia largiti ad eamdem doctrinam miro modo
illustrandum ....

These words of Pope Mastai express the genuine high value in which
throughout his life he held the Angelic Doctor and for the rebirth of whose
teaching he labored unceasingly. For this reason it should be noted that the
later encyclical Aeterni Patris of Leo XIII, together with his proclamation of St. Thomas as Patron of Catholic Schools, were the fruits of the
long period of promotion and encouragement on the part of Pius IX to
reawaken in the Church and in the world an appreciation of St. Thomas
and his teaching.
The author of this brief account of the rather forgotten relationship of
Pio Nono to the rebirth of Thomism is Postulator of the Cause of canonization of Pius IX, Secretary of the Pontifical Roman Theological Academy,
Vice President of the Pontifical Acardemy of St. Thomas Aquinas, and,

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among other achievements of publication, founder and director of the
Biblioteca per la Storia del Tomismo, of which this monograph is number
8. His study is based on hitherto unknown or forgotten or undervalued
and thus not previously considered testimonies. It is divided into nine
chapters.
Chapter I introduces us to the thomistic formation of Giovanni Maria
Mastai Ferretti. His early acquaintance with St. Thomas was augmented
and deepened in his further studies at the Collegio Romano and the Accademia Ecclesiastica where he had as professor the convinced Thomist
Canon Giuseppe M. Graziani. The latter's influence on the Thomistio::
orientation of Mastai as theological student and as pontiff was immense.
Chapter II surveys the magisterial documents of the thirty-two year
pontificate. The first, the encyclical Qui Pluribus (1846) , was the charter
of the pontificate, the leitmotiv of the papal teaching: the concord and
mutual assistance of reason and faith. By means of the many documents of
Pius IX the teaching of St. Thomas found its way into the Constitutions of
Vatican I.
Pius IX (Ch. III) defended the value of the scholastic and thomistic methods (cf. Denz.-Schon. fl814, fl880, fl876-2880, fl918). Monsignor Piolanti
(Ch. IV) singles out the Dominican Order as one of the recipients of the
papal encouragement in the revival of Thomism and the Jesuit Order with
its role in the Civilta Cattolica.
Chapter V describes the efforts of the pope to protect, develop, and increase Thomistic centers both in Rome and throughout Italy, such as the
schools of Perugia under Cardinal Gioacchino Pecci (Leo XIII) and Naples
under Cardinal Sisto Riario Sforza. His interest naturally extended to
the doctrinal formation of the clergy.
Chapter VI relates the pontiff's promotion of the sixth centenary of
St. Thomas's death, chapter VII singles out the various Thomistic academies
in which Pius IX showed interest, especially Naples and Bologna, and
Chapter VIII describes the papal encouragement of the movement which
shortly after the pope's death resulted in the proclamation of St. Thomas's
patronage of all Catholic schools.
Chapter IX draws up a balance sheet of the activities and teaching of
Pio N ono in favor of Thomism. The conclusion is that, when he ascended
the chair of Peter, he found the thomistic movement in its first and timid
beginnings; when he died, he left it to his successor in the full vigor of its
mature development.
It is to be hoped that, as further research into the life of Papa Mastai
opens up, the direction set forth by Monsignor Piolanti may be developed
and enlarged and the perennial relevance of St. Thomas, which was the
conviction of this Pontiff, confirmed.
NICHOLAS HALLIGAN, o. P.
Dominican House of Studies
Washington, D. C.

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941

Summa Theologiae. By THOMAS AQUINAS. Latin Text, English Translation,
Introduction, Notes, Appendices and Glossaries. New York: McGraw··
Hill Book Company, and London: Eyre & Spottiswoode, 1978.
Vol.
Effects of Sin, Stain and Guilt
86-89). Translated
by T. C. O'Brien. Pp. 168. $10.00. Vol. 36. Prudence
47-56).
Translated by Thomas Gilby, 0. P. Pp.
$15.00. Vol. 47. The
Pastoral and Religious Lives
183-189). Translated by Jordan
Aumann, 0. P. Pp.
$15.00.
With the appearance of these three volumes almost fifty of the projected
sixty volumes of this series are published. And the rest, according to
General Editor Thomas Gilby, are in the barn. One can only applaud the
work of this good Thomist scholar, applaud too the British publishers, Eyre
& Spottiswoode, whose courageous and magnanimous financial backing made
the project possible.
David Tracy, in a recent Christian Century article, pointed to this series
and especially to its editor as witness " to the continuing importance of
a critically appreciative approach to the work of Thomas Aquinas."
.Prudence does not disappoint that witness. It also exemplifies his superior
use of the English language in translating his brother's Latin. " Prudence
deals with contingent actions, in which bad may be mixed with good, as
true with false. This is because human deeds are multiform; rights are
often entangled with wrongs, and wrongs wear the air of good."
49, 8) . And it breathes the same spirit Gilby finds in the Summa: "a
spacious Summa for theologians, not a practical handbook for spiritual
plumbers. It is unembarrassed by the imbroglios of the casuists."
appendices-in this volume four of them, discussing prudence and laws,
casuistry, conscience, and certainty-are always provocative but tantalizingly brief.
O'Brien's work is a much tighter rendering, based no doubt on his own
philosophy of what a translation should be about. " It should not by flare
or folksiness put the reader off from the requirement of getting inside (the
impersonal Latin) to the idea." Well, yes, but I prefer a controlled flare.
It helps the readability. The Latin, which is always there to consult, is
awfully dry going. Gilby's phrase translating the virtue gnome (which
Thomas left in the Greek) is "the flair for the exceptional" {q. 51, 4,
sed contra), and he manages to exhibit that virtue frequently in his translation.
O'Brien's appendices on guilt and punishment, mortal sin, venial sin,
and a long commentary on 89, 6 are excellent. This last commentary
compares the position of Thomas that a man cannot commit a venial sin
until he has chosen an ultimate end to the recent thought on the funda-

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mental moral option. It is enlightening and I think quite accurate. So also
his addenda on venial sin. This is a brief history of the problem of the
"finality" in venial sin, O'Brien's choice of solutions and his defence of that
choice; all done with a masterly knowledge of the corpus of St. ThomCM's
thought. Both he and Gilby are superb in finding other texts of Aquinas
substantiate their points. I think, however, both should bring in modern
discussions more explicitly. O'Brien remarks somewhere that the best
interpreter of Aquinas is Aquinas himself (Sanctus ThomCM sui interpres).
But a too great dependence on that rule shuts the door on modern criticism,
tends to make a self-sufficient universe of the thought of Aquinas. E. L.
Mascall has written in this journal recently of the gulf in philosophy, how
philosophers are simply not listening to one another. He wonders if
Thomism can act as a bridge. Of course, I think it can, and should; and
I am certain Gilby and O'Brien think so too; but a greater explicit awareness of other people's thought in the appendices of these Summa volumes
would help make that conviction more available to the scholarly world.
Aumann's translation is accurate but even drier than O'Brien's, and that
again is based on his deliberate approach to the job: "It is as close as
possible to the original Latin without being a transliteration." I cannot
agree with that approach, though I know the rationale behind it. And
Aumann's assignment was so large-a hundred pages longer than either of
the others-he evidently felt he could not do much by way of appendices or
long introduction. It is disappointing, then, in not grappling with some
recent problems in religious life or in placing the thought of Thomas more
securely in its historical setting.
THOMAS HEATH,

0. P.

Dominican House of Studies
Washington, D. C.

De Hominis Beatitudine. In I-II Summae Theologiae Divi Thomae commentaria (QQ. I-V). By JACOBUS M. RAMiREZ. Consejo Superior de
Investigaciones Cientificas. Institute de Filosofia "Luis Vives,"
Madrid. 1972 (Obras Completas de Santiago Ramirez, 0. P. Edici6n
preparada por Victorino Rodriguez, 0. P. Torno III, vol. 1-5}
The Spanish Dominican, J. M. Ramirez, is unfortunately little known
and has remained for all practical purposes unacclaimed outside his native
Spain. And for all that he was one of the profoundest Catholic theologians
of modern times and, it may safely be asserted, one of the Church's greatest
thinkers in the period of crisis and upheaval-both on the level of doctrine and on that of practice-that preceded and followed the second
Vatican Council. When he died in Salamanca 18 December 1967 he left

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943

behind him a large corpus of unpublished work on theological, philosophical,
and cognate problems. His thought was firmly rooted in the living anJ
authentic scholastic and thomistic (thomasic!) tradition, but his mind was
ever open to the very real problems of the day, as his three lengthy volumes
on the thought of Ortega y Gasset (La Filosofia de Ortega y Gasset; Un
ortegui.mw cat6lico? ; La zona de Seguridad) and his shorter studies on the
history and structure of the ius gentium (El derecho de Gentes) , on the
political teaching of Aquinas (Doctrina Politica de Santo To'ITIAis), and on
the notion of the common good (Pueblo y Gobernantes al servicio del Bien
Comun) clearly show. These studies were all published in Spanish, as was
also a large work on the essence of Christian hope (La esencia de la
Esperanza Cristiana) and on the nature of philosophy (El Concepto de
Filosof'la). The bulk of his work, however, was written in Latin and of this
only a minor Part had been published until his friends and admirers decided
to bring out an edition of his opera omnia. The problem of analogy, sa
fundamental in all philosophical and theological thinking, was the subject
of a short study written whilst Ramirez was a young professor in Rome
and Salamanca (De analogia secundum doctrinan aristotelico-thomisticam,
Madrid
. This problem occupied his mind down the years and on
his death a major, full-length study of the problem was amongst his papers,
now edited as tome II of the Opera Omnia. During and after Vatican II
he published two important studies: one on the concept of order (De ordine
placita quaedam thomistica, Salamanca 1963) and the other on the sacramental character of the episcopate and episcopal collegiality (De episcopatu
ut sacramento deque episcoporum collegio, Salamanca 1966) .
Ramirez spent the greater part of his professorial career teaching moral
theology at the University of Fribourg, Switzerland
where
his task was to expound the principal treatises in the second part of the
Sumrna Theologiae (I-II and 11-11) of Aquinas. He was always fully
conscious of the difficulty of the work, for precisely the second part of the
thomasic Summa is admittedly the most original and the most difficult
of the whole thomasic corpus and the one perhaps of most immediate relevance to-day. Ramirez decided to compose a full-scale commentary on
the text, a commentary that would lay bare the authentic thought oi
Aquinas in all its richness and profundity. The undertaking was immense.
Before he died he had published no more than three volumes of his proposed
commentary covering the first three questions of the tract on beatitude or
the final end and completion of man (De Hominis Beatitudine
t. II, 1943, t. III. 1947) . At that time he had reTheologicus, t. I,
turned to Salamanca and found himself burdened not only with professorial
duties but also with a multitude of administrative responsibilities. The
manuscript of his commentary on the rest of the I-II and II-II was by and
large completed, but Ramirez never found the time or leisure to revise and
supplement it and thus get it ready for publication. The editors of his

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Opera Omnia have undertaken the difficult business of preparing the master's work for publication and of making it available to the theological
public. For that we must be deeply grateful to them.
Ramirez was ever convinced of the supreme importance of the tract on
beatitude, that is, on the final end of man and on his completion in human
goodness. He rightly saw it to be the cornerstone of every scientific
presentation of moral theology. As distinct from a philosophical analysis
of human and moral life, where the reality of completion and perfection
(that is, happiness) can be determined only at the end of the whole investigation (see Aristotle's Nichomachean Ethics, Bk. X), St. Thomas saw
that the question of the final end of man must of necessity come at the
beginning of every theological investigation into the structure of human
being and activity. It is one of the data of revelation and faith that man
is called to glory and perfection (and consequently to happiness or beatitude) in the intuitive vision of God, the ground of all being and in a special
way of human being. This vision, promised to man, is a perfection that
is proper to divine and infinite being (see I-II, q. 3, a. 8 obj. fl) and is thus
seen to be improper (and supernatural) to every created being and intellect.
It is for that reason that the eighth article of the third question of beati ..
tude (Utrum hominis beatitudo sit in sola speculatione qua per essentiam
videtur?) is seen to be the supreme point of the whole investigation, the
point up to which everything leads and from which everything else, not
only in the tract on beatitude itself but in the whole second part of the
Summa (and even in the whole third part!), can be theologically deduced
and clarified, both essentially and existentially. It is precisely for that
reason that Ramirez devoted so much time and care to his detailed and
most complete commentary on the first five questions of the I-II. It was
assuredly his treatise of predilection. And in its detail and completeness,
both historical and speculative, his commentary is unique. Not only every
article, almost every phrase and word is commented in text and context
and set solidly in its doctrinal and historical background. In that way
Ramirez succeeds in presenting to the modern mind in the most objective
way possible the mens germana of Aquinas.
Perhaps one of the profoundest and most important things written in
all of modern theological writing is the commentary of Ramirez on article
eight of question three (in the present edition vol. 4, pp. 169-387) . It is
a brilliant account of the existence and structure of the beatific vision,
that is, the vision of God without any objective species of any kind eithe>:'
impressa or expressa, and its prerequisite on the part of the human spirit,
the light of glory, which alone, as subjective medium, renders possible the
beatifying union of the created human intellect and being with the uncreated divine source of that being, a union so intimate and immediate
that St. Thomas can claim in it the human mind becomes one with God
(see Camp. Theol. II, ch. 9, n° 587). In view of this penetrating account

BOOK REVIEWS

94.5

of the beatific and facial vision of God one is somewhat surprised at
Ramirez' lack of sympathy and understanding for the mystical teaching of
the famous German theologian and mystic and confrere of Aquinas, Meister
Eckhart (see vol. 3, pp. 20-22) . A careful study of the writings of the
mystic Eckhart would show that his thought was substantially in accord
with that of Aquinas, and that he was no more pantheistic in his teaching
than was Thomas. Quandoque et bonus dormitat Homerus!
The scholastic method of the commentary and its Latin may well be an
obstacle to many. However, the method, it should be remembered, is no
more than a vehicle of thought and exposition and should not be a barrier
to becoming acquainted with the profound insights of the author. Any
effort expended in becoming acquainted with and even mastering the
method will be amply repaid. And it should not, one may think, be too
much to expect of the scientific theologian a sufficient knowledge of Latin
to render this uniquely important source of theological thought accessible.
The style is elevated and fluid, characterized by clarity and precision of
expression, the whole redolent of Augustine rather than of Cicero. Ramirez
is verily an Augustinus redivivus.
The present edition was prepared by the disciple and confrere of Ramirez,
Victorino Rodriguez. It has been done with care and exactitude. One might
regret that the format of the first edition was not retained, which the
present reviewer finds more pleasing, as was indeed also the general typographical layout of the original edition. Volume 3 of the first edition has
been divided so that in the present edition volume 3 contains the commentary on I-II, q. 3, a. 1-5, and volume 4 the commentary on q. 3, a.
6-8. Otherwise the volumes have been edited unchanged except for the
incorporation of minor emendations that had been made by Ramirez himself in his own personal copy. Volume 5 contains the commentary on questions 4 and 5, which had been revised for publication only in part (up to
q. 4, a. 5) by the author himself. In an appendix is added a very important
and highly interesting excursus on the controversy concerning the beatific
vision and its possibility before the resurrection of the body at the time of
John XXII.
The publication of the Opera omnia of J. M. Ramirez, and in a special
way of his entire commentary on beatitude, must be regarded as a major
event in the field of modern theology. It is to be hoped that a fillip will
thereby be given to authentic theological, and above all moral theological,
thinking, which, whilst plunging its roots in tradition, must ever be prepared
to come to grips with the very real problems of the day, the solution of
which must be sought under the light of the revealed word of God. In
that way alone can theology ever hope to remain, as Augustine might have
it, ever ancient and ever new and fresh (see Conf. X, 27). In this connexion and in conclusion a word of Ramirez himself may be adduced. It
gives an example of his style and affords an indication of his theological

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thought and method. Towards the end of his preface to the whole work
he writes: "Commentarium sat prolixum me fecisse non diffiteor. At, ni
multum fallimur, commentaria non sunt iudicanda ex eorum prolixitate aut
brevitate, sicut neque ex vetustate aut novitate. Si vera, si solida, si profunda sunt, unquam erunt nimis longa, semperque nova erunt; sin autem
falsa, si imbecilla, si superficialia, unquam erunt nimis brevia, semperque
erunt vetustissima." (p. XVII)
CoRNELIUs WILLIAMS, 0. P.
Salvatorplatz 2a
Munich, West Germany

The Remaking of the Church. An Agenda for Reform. By Richard P.
McBrien. New York: Harper & Row Publishers, 1973. Pp. 179. $6.95.
The avowed purpose of this book is to present an exercise in practical
ecclosiology taking into consideration not only the why of change, but
also the how; not only the mystery of the Church, but its remaking (p.
XV) . In order to attain this end, Fr. McBrien adresses himself to two
inextricably related issues:
... the theological and political conflict in contemporary Christianity, with special
reference to recent years of change in Catholic attitudes and practice (Chapters
I and II) ; and the determination of specific proposals for institutional change
through which such conflict can constructively he resolved (Chapters III and IV) .
(pp. XIV-XV).
These, indeed, are ambitious goals which the author sets out to attain
in 175 pages. The brevity of the book forewarns the reader that he can
expect no more than a broad analysis of the present situation, as well as
a schematic presentation of an agenda for reform. Once this remark is made,
it must be added that the author presents a very thought-provoking
analysis of the present situation along with worthwhile suggestions for
institutional reform.
In Chapter I, entitled "The Passing of the Torch," Fr. McBrien vividly
recalls the hope and the optimism generated in the Church, the churches,
and the world by the documents of Vatican II. Yet, less than a decade
later we find the Church marked by excessive conflict, polarization, and
a debilitating drainage of human resources while the membership and even
its leaders are often beset by a widespread sense of frustration. The two
root causes of this development, according to the author, are:
. . . the failure of church leadership to provide the general membership with
adequate reasons for change and, second, the failure of church leadership to
demythologize its own self-image, in the light of contemporary theological perceptions. (p. 14)

BOOK REVIEWS

947

Seen in these terms, the solution to the problem would lie in more participation, on the part of all members, in the life and mission of the Church.
It is especially in Chapter II, " The Fallen Torch," that Fr. McBrien
tackles the problem outlined above. The root cause of this problem is a
theory-and-practice gap which has existed in the Catholic Church since
1965. Practice must be firmly based on theory and flow from it. Practices,
especially new ones, imposed by authority without adequate presentation
of the explicit and implicit underlying theory cannot be maintained for
long without disorienting the people. On the other hand, theory which is
not allowed to run its normal course can only lead to frustration and discouragement among its advocates. The author presents a tripartite schema
of Theories with their corresponding Practices:
Theory A: Scholastic, Counter-Reformation ecclesiology-Practices
A:
Pre-Vatican II Catholic Church.
Theory B: Vatican II ecclesiology-Practices B: Moderate conciliar and
para-conciliar reforms.
Theory C: Post Vatican II ecclesiology-Practices C: Movement toward
more radical reform.
As might be expected, it is Theory A and its corresponding practices
which bear the brunt of the attack. The author proves beyond doubt that
the convocation of Vatican II was well inspired, and yet it is in this section
that I find that his schema suffers the most from generalizations which
weaken rather than strengthen his position. During the Time of the
Church, which is characterized by growth and development, it is inevitable
that there be divergent schools of thought. To label any one of these as
THE teaching of the Church may serve the purpose of rhetoric but not
that of historical truth. To state, for instance, that the notion of the
Church as the Body of Christ without spot or wrinkle was an assumption
which largely controlled the preconciliar Catholic Church (p.
without
further clarification is, I feel, to overstate a point since it leaves aside the
long standing debate between Yves Congar and Charles Journet, to mention
merely one example. (Y. Cougar, Vraie et fausse reforme dans
[Unam Sanctam 7Q; Paris: Cerf, 1969]; first published in 1950; C. Journet,
L'Eglise
Verbe lncarne [Paris: Desclee de Brouwer, 1951] "Excursus
VI," 1115-11Q9; Y. Congar, Bulletin Tlwmiste VIII [1947-1953] 746-756).
One could also question the statement that " The most sophisticated and
academically serious preconciliar exposition of the mystery of the Church
is available in the so-called' Spanish Summa' (Sacrae Theologiae Summa)"
(pp.
&
What of the works of such men as J. A. Mohler, M.-J.
Scheeben, in the 19th century; E. Mersch, M.-D. Koster, C. Journet, S.
Tromp, Y. Congar, etc., in the BOth century, to mention merely a few
who influenced the thought of the Church? Nor can we afford to overlook
the publication of lvfystici Corporis Christi by Pius XII in 1943. Furthermore, I do not find in the author's presentation of preconciliar thought,

948

BOOK BEVIEWS

namely, that: "Ordination and religious profession elevate the recipient
to a status of spiritual superiority," (p. 30) an adequate formulation of the
Church's traditional teaching. As for the Church's traditional teaching on
sacraments working ex opere operata, (p. 33) the author himself later
nuances his preliminm·y presentation. (pp. 43 & 46) Moreover, whatever
might have been Salaverri's teaching on the extension of infallibility to include almost all papal declarations, (pp. 28-29) it should be noted that
he received criticism rather than approbation from his peers (Y. Cougar,
Ministeres et communion ecclesiale [Theologie sans Frontieres 23; Paris:
Cerf, 1971] 1.51 and note 24). Other examples could be produced in order
to prove
what the author presents as Theory A is merely one tendency
which existed in the Universal Church as he himself is forced to admit on
page 42. One cannot deny the existence nor the importance of this tendency
in the concrete life of the Church. But, the question should be asked, if
we ever wish to benefit from past history, why it was given such importance.
How is it that one school of thought could so influence the life of the
Church? Is it because of the tenacity of its exponents? Because of the
role of certain Roman Universities in the formation of "promising" candidates drawn from throughout the world? Is it because of a concerted effort
to simplify catechesis to the point of presenting the position of merely one
school of thought, and this in matters still being debated? Is there an unavowed desire to replace here on earth the certitude of faith with the
certitude of the Vision? And who is at fault, the leaders or the theologians?
Who formed the local leadership? Were they furnished with the "intrinsic
reasons for the changes " brought about by Vatican II? Was their seminary
training presented as the beginning of an on-going process? The author
lays the blame squarely on the shoulders of the Church's leadership. (pp.
22, 41-42, 67-68) If this is meant to include theological as well as pastoral
leadership, I would be inclined to agree. There is enough blame to go
around for everyone.
Fr. McBrien then goes on to present some of the highlights of Theory
B, Vatican II ecclesiology compared to the teaching of Theory A as
represented by Salaverri. (pp. 41-45) This section is rather short but in
the main good as far as the teaching of Vatican II is concerned.
Fr. McBrien then goes on to show the connection between Theory B
and Practices B in order to bridge the gap betwcc::1 theory and practice.
(pp. 45-56)
Here again, we find statements which are unilateral. To state that:
" Five or ten years earlier, an individual theologian or catechetical writer
expressing such views (the royal priesthood of the faithful) would have
been dismissed as a ' Protestant ' or a ' heretic'" (p. 47) is to overlook the
fact that Vatican II refers back to the works of Pius XII (Lumen Gentium
10, note 2), and that Fr. Cougar published, in 1952, his work Jalons pour
une theologie du la'icat in which the whole of Chapter IV is dedicated to

BOOK REVIEWS

949

the laity and the sacerdotal function of the Church. A cursory inventory
of the authors quoted in the footnotes manifests that Fr. Cougar was
not alone of this opinion. Fr. McBrien also makes a lot out of the fact
that some, after Vatican I, considered the bishops as mere vicars of the
Roman Pontiff in spite of the collective Letter of the German Bishops
(February 1875; D.S. 311:2-3116) which was approved by Pius IX (March
4, 1875; D.S. 3117). If by Theory A, the author refers to the Ultramontanists, then perhaps he is right. But, this school of thought can hardly
be characterized as the teaching of the Pre-Vatican II Church. Would
it not be closer to the truth to say that it is the position of a school which
based its ecclesiology, not to say its whole theology, too unilaterally on
Canon Law where the question of jurisdiction rather than that of sacramental power can become dominant? A school which did not distinguish
enough between Tradition and traditions?
Then again there is the statement: " ... Because the conventional
theology of the Church held that the Church was already the Kingdom
of God on earth. To criticize the Church is to criticize the Kingdom, which
is to criticize God himself." (p. 3:2) On the other hand, once the Church
is seen to be subordinate to the Kingdom of God and not identical with
it, a new critical attitude toward the Church is possible. (p. 56) I cannot
help but ask to whom the author is referring when he uses the term " conventional theology." When Charles Journet states that Church and Kingdom are identical he is careful to distinguish between the Militant Church
and the Triumphant Church, as well as between the historical and the
future state of the Kingdom (L'Eglise du Verbe Incarne, IT, cf. Index:
"Royaume de Dieu," 1369-1370), going so far as to refuse to identify
the present and crucified Church with the future and glorified Kingdom.
We need not accept his categories, but we should at least recognize his
efforts to distinguish certain aspects of reality. I find it hard to believe
that a sufficient amount of theologians could be found to justify their
teaching being qualified as" conventional theology" and who would purely,
simply, and categorically identify the militant Church with the Kingdom
of God thus withdrawing the Church from all criticism on the part of its
members. I am rather inclined to believe that too many in the past as
well as in the present choose to neglect the " niceties " of theological reflection preferring to concentrate their efforts on the memorization of
"practical" solutions found either in Canon Law, the decrees coming from
Rome or, to mention a modern facet of the problem, the conclusions of wellknown theologians. In other words, we are forever confronted with the
temptation to over-simplify the Mystery of God revealed and realized in
Christ and into whose fulness of truth the Spirit leads us.
Theory C is described as taking a principle enunciated by Vatican II,
disengaging it from the residue of Theory A, and setting it in a different

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context in order to bring into greater relief the element or elements that are
new and distinctive. (p. 67) The specific application of this theory is to be
found in Chapter III but already we can surmise that it intends to be progressive and on-going. The conciliar documents are considered as points of departure for future development as well they should be since the Church is
a Pilgrim Church on its way to the fullness of the Kingdom of God which
will be established definitely with the Second Coming of Christ. The author
ends Chapter II by reprimanding once again Church leadership for both
failing to provide the faithful with the justifications for change and for
trying to rigidly and authoritatively control both the changes and theological discussions. He calls for a greater convergence between perception
and behavior theory and practice. (pp. 67-69)
Chapter III, entitled " An Agenda for Reform," begins with the statement: " Practices, both institutional and personal will have to be brought
into conformity with the best theory; and alternate theories will have to
be modified to correspond with the practical reality."
I doubt if anyone would want to quarrel with such a principle. On
the other hand, this is precisely where most if not all of the problems take
root. Who is to decide what is the best theory? How is a consensus to
be reached on this point? I should hope that it would be through dialogue
within the Church as a whole where each person would be informed
sufficiently to make a prudent judgment leading to a personal commitment.
Such a process demands of all members " metanoia." It would also have
to be agreed that the " best " theory is, in fact, the best at a given moment
in the on-going life of the Church. The ideal proposed here seems to be
the one which has motivated sincere Christians from the very beginning,
and history is there to show just how difficult it is to attain. Persuasion,
conversion, and love should be the guiding lights in our efforts to attain this
ideal. Authoritarianism on the part of Church leaders, be they pastors,
theologians, canonists, etc., might engender robots but hardly committed
Christians. And was not the central purpose of Vatican II geared to redirecting our efforts toward the essentials in faith: our union with the
Father through the Son in the Spirit? In such a context, all structures are
secondary in the sense of being merely means which should help us to
attain this end.
Fr. McBrien presents thirteen proposals which he and others feel belong to any agenda for serious ecclesiastical reform. But, before doing so,
he identifies two principal goals which serve as guideposts:
(1) to bring the organizational operations of the Church into conformity with,
and place them at the service of, the historical goals, or mission, of that Church;
and
to draw upon the resources of the whole Church in the fulfillment of this
mission, by motivating the general membership to accept and pursue the Church's
goals. (p. 73)

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9.51

The membership is to participate actively in the identification and pursuit
of these goals. The leadership is to work toward the clarification of organizational goals and motivate the people to accept and pursue them.
Faced with reform, the institutional response can be one of either tenacity,
elasticity or self-determination. (pp. 74-77) The response of the Church,
because of her being and mission, should be one of self-determination. (pp.
79-81) As for motivation, the people must become willing, and indeed
enthusiastic, participants in the process of reform. (p. 81) This can best
be brought about through participative management in accord with good
canonical and theological principles. (pp. 85-86)
In the remainder of the Chapter Fr. McBrien indulges in an exercise in
practical ecclesiology. (pp. 86-136) It is here that he presents his thirteen
proposals which make up an agenda for reform. This section is divided
into two major sections: 1. a presentation of problems and proposals (pp.
86-108);
a presentation of theological arguments and counterarguments
(pp. 108-136). Each of the thirteen proposals is considered in both sections. For the purpose of this review, I shall treat of each proposal im.
mediately under both aspects.
1. Principles of Constitutionalism.
The author argues here in favor of constitutionalism in the Church as
opposed to a feudalistic and monarchical form of government. According
to Fr. McBrien, constitutionalism involves three basic elements:
a) The limitation of power achieved by a division of power between central
and regional governing bodies; the separation of legislative, executive, and
judicial power; and a guarantee of individual rights, including the right
to due process of law.
b) Accountability ensured by the electoral process; freedom of information; freedom of discussion and debate regarding the policy and performance of office holders as well as the ultimate assumptions of the community itself.
c) Openness to correction ensured by regular meetings of legislative bodies;
reinterpretation of law by the tribunals; and permanent commissions
charged with the responsibility of proposing legal reforms. (p. 87)
Constitutionalism is theologically feasable since divine authority is vested
in the Church, the whole People of God including laity, religious, and clergy
alike with the hierarchy at the service of the Church. Moreover, since the
Pilgrim Church is not identical with the Kingdom, reform, and more precisely a change in form of government, is possible as the past so amply
proves, e. g., the Gregorian Reform of the 11th century. (p. 109) Nor
can the belief that the Church is, by the will of Christ, an absolute monarchy be substantiated biblically, doctrinally or theologically. The notion of
the Church as a communion as well as the notion of collegiality are ir-

BOOK REVIEWS

reconcilable with the notion of absolute monarchy. (p. 110) Much of
Y. Congar's latest book, Ministere et communion ecclesiale, is in substantial
agreement with this position. The Tradition of the Church also manifests
institutional pluralism both within the New Testament and during the
first 9l50 years of the history of the Church. (pp. 111-119l)
While modern scholarship corroborates much of what the author states
here, I believe that he should also mention that ministry, although known
under different names, is a characteristic element which is necessary for
the life of any authentic church (A. Lemaire, Les ministeres aux origines de
L'Eglise [Lectio Divina 68; Paris: Cerf, 1971] 199). In other words, the
Christian community was never an amorphous group of individuals. Mention of this fact would give greater equilibrium to the author's position
by showing that, although he is proposing a change of models in Church
government, he is maintaining the characteristic values of the Church of
Christ. As for the new structures he does propose, I cannot help but feel
that it would be adding structure to structures. I would prefer a greater
emphasis on the fact that all ministry in the Body of Christ is service, is
for the good of the whole, is for the building up of the Body of Christ.
The Pastors are accountable to Christ (I P. 5:4; I Co. 8:10-15), to the
Holy Spirit (Ac. 9l0:9l8) and to the Gospel (Ga. I:6-10) as well as to one
another (Ga. 9l: 9l-8; 11-4). No doubt, the sensus fidelium also has its
role to play (I Th. 5: 19-9l9l; I Co. 19l: 10; I Jn. 4: 1-8). But, I doubt if
structure, be it modelled after the system of checks and balances written
into the Constitution of the U. S. A., will replace or even evoke the Spirit
of service, love, and mutual growth into the fulness of Chirst (Ep. 4: 10-16)
which is constitutive of the Body of Christ. Besides, my mind boggles at
the thought of the investment in men and moneys which the application
of the author's model would necessitate. If it be absolutely required, then
by all means let us proceed to establish it with haste. But let us also
recognize that the simplicity and spontaneity of the Early Church will be
lost forever. I just pray that we do not suffocate under the weight of such
structures. Agreed that the Son of God took on flesh and became like us
in all things except sin. But, he is also the pneumatic Christ in whose
Spirit we all share, be it in the first-fruits of the Spirit. Then again, there
is that statement by Jefferson, I believe, "He who governs least, governs
best." In the last analysis, if constitutionalism implies all Fr. McBrien
suggests, I would prefer some other form of incarnation for " Communion."
9l. Decentralization of Power.

The author echos here a plea for the concrete application in the life of
the Church of the principle of subsidiarity, i.e., a higher agency or group
should never do for a lower group or agency what the latter can do for itself. He calls for deliberative as well as consultative power for parish,
diocesan, as well as national pastoral councils. Furthermore, they should

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953

meet regularly according to their own rules, chose their own officers, and
determine their own rules of procedure and their own agenda, hold open
and public deliberations, have their own secretariat with full access to
relevant information and with the assistance of experts. (p. 88)
The theological arguments in favor of this proposition are the same as
those presented for proposition I. The contentious point here is that of
giving deliberative power to the various councils. Fr. McBrien argues that
deliberative authority does not preclude distinctive executive leadership
since the executive can always veto the decisions of th legislative branch
while running the risk of seeing its veto overruled by a larger majority in
the legislative branch or by a judicial decree.
What the author proposes here is merely the application of the three
branches of government theory to the life of the Church. The monarchical
model had the advantage of symbolizing the Headship of Christ. I suppose
that the three branches of government theory could symbolize the Trinity
of Persons. But, then again, in Trinity all is one except what distinguishes
the Persons among themselves-the Father remaining the principle without
principle. Furthermore, I do not find within the New Testament models
of ministry the Apostles or their collaborators fulfilling the role of mere
executives. They are present and active along with the presbyteroi and
the church members at the deliberations held in Jerusalem (Ac. 15), for
instance. I am not certain that either communion or collegiality could
withstand the effects of the three branches of government theory. Church
government cannot be modelled purely and simply on civil government
(J. L. McKenzie, Authority in the Church (New York: Sheed and Ward,
1966) 1Q-18) .

3. Planning and Research.
Fr. McBrien decries the fact that the Church at present has no institution dedicated to research and planning in order to determine what it
is doing, how much it has accomplished, and where it is going. If the
response of the Church to its environment is one of self-determination,
then planning and research become essential to the Church. Consequently,
offices devoted to such a task are necessary on every level, so is an office
of financial management, a permanent means of assessing public opinion in
the Church, and finally a public relations department to disseminate policies,
procedures, and related matters. (pp. 88-89)
Theologically, this proposal is based on the fact that all baptized
Christians make up the Church and are responsible for its mission. If they
are to carry out this mission effectively, they must be furnished with all
the information and data that can practically be gathered. (p. 113)
I have no qualms with the theological principle stated here. But, I think
another should be added: It is ultimately the Spirit who guides and enlightens the Church. He can certainly make use of scientifically established

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procedures, but he can also speak through events and through prophets.
Furthermore, I believe that each member should be furnished with the
information not only that can be " practically " gathered but also practically assimilated according to the " charisma " which he has received. There
is, after all, a diversity of spiritual gifts of services, and of works in the
Body of Christ. As for where we are going, our hope is that we are moving
toward the fullness of the Kingdom of God which, ultimately, is his work
alone. The Church must constantly re-assess its fidelity to the presence
of the Kingdom in its midst and wait in joyful anticipation for the coming
of Christ in Glory.
4. Principles of Accountability.
The Author advocates a public adversary system which will provide
a check and balance in the area of decisions affecting large numbers of
people and large amounts of money on all levels of the Church. A given
adversary system would last no more than three years before being replaced by a new team. (pp. 89-90) Theologically, such a system would
manifest both that the whole Church is missionary and that sin still exists
among the People of God requiring that appropriate means be taken to
combat its effects. (pp. 113-14) Theologically, I feel that the arguments
are sound, but I would hope that those who are called to assume administrative tasks in the Church would do so in the spirit of service and that the
administrators judge the administrators. If that be too idealistic, then
perhaps other means should be taken without adding too many structures
to an already highly structured institution. We should also ask if all
administrators need participate in the ministerial priesthood.
5. Selection of Bishops.

The selection of bishops should be made by the local communities
are called upon to lead. All major elements within a given local community
should be included in the process of election. A committee, whose members
would have limited terms of office, would examine the candidates once they
have been provided with all the pertinant information. Outside influences,
such as other bishops, papal delegates, and the Pope would be considered
only if reasons are furnished for the rejection of a given candidate. This
manner of selecting bishops would restore confidence in Church leadership. (pp. 90-91)
The author has no difficulty in showing that the practice of a local
community electing its bishop is indeed the " traditional " one and that the
historical circumstances which brought about its abeyance have sufficiently
disappeared. (pp. 114-116)
The community elected its bishop whose authority, however, comes from
Christ. Yet, I am somewhat surprised that Fr. McBrien does not speak
of the importance of the co-consecrators. Not only is consecration necessary

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955

for the conferring of sacramental and juridical power, the presence of coconsecrators manifests the communion which must exist among the local
communities or churches. On the other hand, the belief expressed by the
author that election of the bishop by the community he will lead will
restore confidence in Church leadership leaves me somewhat sceptical.
When consultations of this type were carried out in a neighboring diocese
recently, the "job description" which emerged could only be filled by
Christ himself and even then only in his Glorified State. Compromise, of
necessity, is part and parcel of such a process with the disappointments
it entails both for the minority and the majority. Nevertheless I agree
that such a process should be re-established in the Church. However, I
would emphasize the need for the local community to be open to the inspirations of the Spirit and to the fraternal interventions of surrounding
bishops and of the Bishop of Rome. After all, the local church is not an
entity unto itself but part of a communion which embraces the Universal
Church.
6. Papal Power.
While recognizing the role of the papal office in the Church, Fr. McBrien
proposes that its perception be brought into closer harmony with the New
Testament writings (on this point, one may consult, R. E. Brown, K. P.
Donfried, J. Reumann, eds., Peter in the New Testament [Minneapolis:
Augusburg Publishing House; New York: Paulist Press, 1973]). The model
of absolute monarchy should be abandoned. The fundamental principle
of subsidiarity should be applied in church life. General policy decisions
affecting the Universal Church should be the fruit of the joint efforts of
the Pope and the International Synod of Bishops who should also elect
the Pope for a ten year term, renewable. The function of the Curia would
consist in the execution of these decisions, etc. (pp. 91-93)
The basic theological argument behind this proposition is that the Church
is essentially a communio ecclesiarum. (pp. 116-117) The union of all
local churches in the one Spirit as well as legitimate diversity in the same
Spirit would be better manifested by a decentralization of power and the
election of the Pope by the International Synod of Bishops elected to
that body by their brother bishops themselves elected by their local communities.
This last point brings to mind an objection: Why should not the
Bishop of Rome be elected by his local church rather than by an international synod? The Author answers that by the fact that the Pope is
elected by the College of Cardinals the Church has already conceded the
principle that the Pope can have title to his office only after he has been
designated officially by a more or less representative group within the
total membership. (p. 117) I find this argument from history rather weak.
We know that cardinals are a relatively recent invention and that they

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were originally pastors of local Roman parishes-a legal fiction which existed until very recently, If indeed the Pope is the Bishop of Rome, why
should not the process described in Proposal Five apply to his election?
True, he is also the leader relative to the College of Bishops, and from
this position one could argue that they have a say in his choice. But, bv
the same token, should he not have a say in their choice? On the other
hand, if the autonomy of the church of Rome were respected, would not
the authority of the Pope take on an altogether different aspect? Does not
participation in an election already commit a person in a very real sense to
a certain type of government? Perhaps we should look to the Early
Church for lessons in this domain; and wlule we are at it why not look at
the evolution which took place in the relationships which exist between
the Federal and State governments in the U. S. A.
7. Episcopal Power.
The main points developed in Propositions 1, 2, and 4 are now applied
to episcopal power. The episcopal office must be brought into greater
conformity with New Testament and historical scholarship as well as with
contemporary theological reflection. The notion of a bishop as an absolute
monarch in his diocese limited only by personal and canonical loyalties to
the Pope should also change. The diocesan community is to be governed
by its pastoral council, and decisions should be reached on the basis of a
consensus between the bishop and the council. A bishop should be elected
by the people for a limited term of office, and he should remain faithful to
his diocese instead of moving from one to another. He should also remember that he is a member of a College of Bishops and act accordingly
in his pastoral care of his people. Finally, bishops should remember that
there are other successions in the Church besides episcopal succession,
namely, succession of prophets and of teachers, which are also to be
respected and encouraged. It is the Spirit who will see to the unity of
the Church in the last analysis. (pp. 93-94)
The theological foundation for these suggestions is to be found primarily
in the notion of the Collegiality of Bishops and in the meaning of the
expression "successor of the Apostles." (pp. 117-121) Collegiality implies
that a bishop be in communion with not only the leader but also with his
fellow members of the College of Bishops. As for the expression " successor
of the Apostles," the author states:
A bishop is not himself a successor of the apostles. As most, a bishop is, by
episcopal ordination, introduced into the college of bishops which, in turn, understands itself as being in continuity with the college of apostles. (p. 119)

He goes on to say:
The Church as a whole is successor to the apostles insofar as it remains bound
to the word, the witness, and the service of the first apostolic generation. Apostolic

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957

succession, therefore, is primarily a succession in apostolic faith, apostolic service,
and apostolic life. There may also be succession of offices, but it would be wrong
to suggest that the only office in apostolic sucession are the papacy and
episcopacy. There are also a succession of prophets and a succession of teachers.
(p.

The general impression one gets from these necessarily brief pages is
that Fr. McBrien rushes in where angels fear to thread. What he states
is, no doubt, based on the conclusions of some very learned scholars. But,
conclusions often lack all the nuance a full development usually fumishe.'l.
If we ever hope to bridge the gap between theory and practice, it would
be well to furnish as much information as possible so that a person may
make up his own mind as to the value of the arguments. It would be
unfortunate if the "teachers" were to assume the authoritative stance
which the author has so rightly criticized when speaking of other functions
in the Church. I would like here to present some background material
for further discussion.
Since Vatican II, Lumen Gentium, QQ, the notion of collegiality has been
accepted at least in principle. The working out of this notion, however,
still leaves much to be desired. Fr. Congar situates the problems which
arise from the notion of collegiality vis a vis the Universal Church and
the Papacy in their proper context, that of the Church as Communion, in
several chapters of his recent book: Ministere et communion ecclesiale. All
problems are not necessarily solved just by saying that the Church is a
communion of believers, but I have to agree with Fr. Congar when he
insists that they be attacked from this point of view and that the solutions
produced be judged in its light. The Church is a communion of believers
united to the one Christ in the one Spirit. The Universal Church is the
communion of local churches in the same Spirit. There is both diversity
(individual Christians, individual local churches) and unity (one local
church, one Universal Church). Both unity (oneness) and diversity
(catholicity) must be respected. Unity, then, is not uniformity either in
the" expression" of dogma or discipline or liturgy. Yet, there must be basic
and profound unity in faith, life, and worship. In other words, diversity
cannot be allowed to degenerate into contradiction if unity is to continue
to be meaningful.
Consequently, I have to agree with Fr. McBrien when he insists on communion among bishops of a given region or nation, and, I would add, of
the whole world. However, I would also plead for a legitimate diversity in
the expression of the one faith, life, and worship. This might " confuse "
momentarily the " people," but it could, if well defined, furnish a very
meaningful object lesson in the catholicity of the Church and help the believers to distinguish between what are the basic values of Christianity and
what are merely temporal, historically conditioned models. I do not find
this preoccupation expressed very often in the work under review. The

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catch, of course, is to insure that the models do indeed incarnate and not
suffocate the basic, fundamental values of the Christ-Event.
Turning to the notion of apostolic succession, it is quite true that it
has been the object of intensive study for nearly a century. Scholars have
scrutinized both the notion of "apostle" and that of "succession." The
author seems to rely heavily on the works of Hans Kling and R. E. Brown
in his discussion of this point, and rightly so. A. Lemaire has recently
published a very interesting bulletin on the subject ("The Ministries in
the New Testament," Biblical Theology Bulletin 3 [1973] 133-166). Recent.
studies have shown that the Twelve were not the only apostles (there is
at least the case of Paul which has to be taken into consideration as well
as the enumeration found in I Co. 15:3-8). Furthermore, it is theorized
that the term "apostle" was first used in Antioch to designate those who
were sent out on mission (Ac. 13:3; 14:4,14) and only later reserved par
excellence to the Twelve by Luke when writing independently from any
given tradition. As for Paul's notion of an apostle, Josef Hainz, Ekklesia.
Structuren paulinischer Gemeinde-Theologie und Gemeinde-Ordnung [Biblische Untersuchungen 9; Regensburg: F. Pustet, 1972] has pointed out
the importance he places on the foundation of a local church as well as
upon the call from and vision of the Resurrected Christ. Hainz also brings
out the role of the helpers of Paul in his apostolate going so far as to
say that Paul foresaw the need of successors already on the level of
Philippians (Ekklesia, 210-214; 303-306), although not in the sense of a
juridical apostolic succession. Antonio Javierre, "Le theme de la succession
des Apotres dans Ia litterature chretienne primitive," L'Episcopat et
l'Eglise universelle (Unam Sanctam 39; Paris: Cerf, 1962) 171-221, maintains that the reality if not the term of succession in relation to the apostolic
deposit of Faith (paradosis kata diadochen) can be discerned already in
2 Tm. 2:2 and I Clement 44:1-3, and consequently was not merely borrowed
from the Gnostics by Irenaeus. The question of how exactly this succession took place is admittedly complex. As for functional succession, it
would seem that we can admit with A. Lemaire, Les ministeres aux origines
de L'Eglise, 199-200, that from the beginning there existed in each community members exercising specific and recognized functions. In this sense,
ministry, diaconia, can be considered as a characteristic and necessary
element of the life of any authentic church. However, the terms used to
denote this ministry were often different from church to church. A proof
that terminology, in this case, was secondary. The triple hierarchy of
deacon, priest, and bishop is found definitely established in Antioch at the
time of Ignatius and spread to the Occident by the middle of the second
century. The question of how the bishops came to be the successors of
the apostles is the task of historical research and of historical reconstruction. A very good study on this subject is to be found in the article
of Pierre Benoit, "Les origines apostoliques de l'episcopat selon le

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Nouveau Testament," L'Eveque dans l'Eglise du Christ (Textes et Etudes
Theologiques; Paris: Desclee de Brouwer, 1963) 13-57, which I am surprised not to find quoted by R. E. Brown, Priest and Bishop Biblical Reflections (New York: Paulist Press, 1970). While the apostles (the missionary apostles of the Antiochene tradition as well as those among the
Twelve who were in fact missionary apostles, Peter in particular) were
alive, there was no need for successors in the strict sense of the word but
rather of collaborators and of local ministers. After the death of the major
apostles, their collaborators or " second-grade " apostles continued their
work. But, as they died out, eventually one member of the episcopoipresbyteroi of the local church, having previously been installed by an
apostle or his collaborator or by some other means, took on the succession.
There are indeed "gaps" in this theory, but does not God reveal his
Plan of Salvation in history, and does not the Spirit lead the Church to
the fullness of truth (Jn. 16: 13) in time? No doubt crises, especially in
the form of heresy, helped the Church to become aware of its ministerial
reality (See what is said about the Petrine magisterium in R. E. Brown
et alii, Peter in the New Testament, 154-156), but the same may be said
of its awareness of dogmatic truths. All of which boils down to say that
we must turn to the living Tradition of the Church for a suitable answer
to this question. I would highly recommend Fr. Yves Cougar's treatment
of this whole question in two recent publications: L'Eglise Une, Sainte,
Catholique et Apostolique (JJfysterium Salutis 15; Paris: Cerf, 1970), and
"Apostolicite de ministere et apostolicite de doctrine," JJfinistere et communion ecclesiale, 51-94.
We certainly have to agree with Fr. McBrien when he recalls (p. UO)
that the whole Church is apostolic. Such, at least, is the teaching of
Ephesians
and Revelation
in the sense that the Apostles are
the witnesses of Christ who remains the cornerstone (Ep. 2: 20), the
basic foundation (I Co. 3: 10f) . This fact, however, still allows for men to
be called to serve the Church by continuing the apostolic office of pastor
and leader just as the common priesthood of the faithful leaves room for
the ministerial priesthood. On the other hand, it is equally true that the
Church is gifted with a diversity of gifts or services which are all to be
respected and fostered "with propriety and order" (I Co. 14:40) as well
as with discernment (I Th. 5:
I Jn. 4: 1-4). When we ask who is
to perform this discernment, the answer seems to be tripartite: 1) the
people (I Jn. 4: 1-4) ;
those who are granted the same gift (I Co. 14: 32)
or the special gift of discernment (I Co.
10); 3) the Apostle (I Co.
14:36-38). All the gifts come from the one Spirit (I Co. 12:4-11) for the
building up of the Body of Christ (I Co. 14:4,12,26; Ep. 4: 12). Vatican
II furnished some light on this subject in Lumen Gentium,
Ad
Gentes,
Presbyterorum ordinis, 4,9; Apostolicam actuositatem, 8,80.
Among the gifts of the Spirit are to be found the prophets and the

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teachers enumerated along with the apostle (I Co. 12: 28; Ep 4: ll) . But
can we speak properly of a " Succession of prophets and of teachers " as
Fr. McBrien does? (p. 120) If so, does this imply a continuous succession
in time from the Apostles to this day, a material succession from, say,
teacher to pupil as we find both in hellenistic philosophical schools and
jewish rabbinical schools? When Georg G. Blum, Tradition & Sukzession.
Studien zum Normbegriff des Apostolischen von Paulus bis Irenaus
(Arbeiten zur Geschichte und Theologie des Luthertums 9; Berlin und
Hamburg: Lutherisches Verlaghaus, 1963) 56-59, 66, 76,86,189,194, speaks
of the Teacher-Pupil succession on the level of the Pastorals, Justin, Papias,
and Irenaeus, it would seem that the pupil was at the same time a officeholder. Furthermore, it would seem that the use of the term "prophet"
quickly disappeared in the post-apostolic period (E. Cothenet, " Prophetisme," Supplement au Dictionnaire de la Bible (Paris: Letouzey et
Ane, 1972] 1331-1337), and that the function of teacher was assumed by
the presbyters and bishops (G. Hasenhiittl, Charisma. Ordnungsprinzip der
Kirche (Okumenische Forschungen I: Ekklesiologische Abteilung V;
Freiburg: Herder, 1969) 205-207; A. Lemaire, Ministeres aux origines de
l'Eglise, 180-182). More basically, we must ask who were these prophets
and teachers? Did they form a permanent group in the Early Church?
According to I Co. 14: 1,5,31, it would seem that prophecy would be open
to all members, and this in accordance with Acts 2: 17-21. According to
I Co. 14:26, everyone should be ready to present a psalm or a teaching at
the meetings of the community whereas, in Ep. 4: ll, pastor and teacher
are so closely associated that one article is used in the Greek for both
terms (J. Hainz, Ekklesia, 87-88; G. Hasenhiittl, Charisma, 204, n. 14).
The point I am trying to make by these remarks is not that the Spirit
does not furnish the Body of Christ with prophets and teachers but rather
that it does not seem clear that these gifts were ever considered in the
Primitive Church as offices calling forth a material succession say by
the laying on the hands or some other means. Nor does it seem legitimate
to equate the modern theologians with the teachers of the New Testament
who would seem to embrace a much larger group of teaching activities.
On the other hand, it must be admitted that the gift of "teacher " is
granted to the Church and should be recognized and fostered unless one
would doubt that the Spirit continues to work in the Body of Christ
granting his gifts as he sees fit (One might consult the issue of Concilium
1972 on Ministry in the Church) . And since it is the one Spirit who is
at work, order, harmony, and propriety should exist among the various
gifts.
8. A Bill of Rights.
The Bill of Rights Fr. McBrien calls for (pp. 95-96) is meant to protect
the individual's rights as a Christian, i.e., his Christian freedom (2 Co

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3: 17). He claims that it is necessary for the mutual protection of one
another's freedom. (p.
It would afford legal protection rather than
rely on benign paternalism. It would include the right to search for truth,
to publish one's opinions, to have access to objective information, to develop
one's potentialities and personal traits, to meet the challenges of the
present time, to a decent wage, to assembly, to due process, to protection
against discrimination, etc.
I am quite sure the author would agree that our Lex fundamentalis,
our Bill of Rights, is the Gospel. No doubt, the Gospel Message has to be
explicated and applied during the Time of the Church. But, any explication
or application finds its basic norm in the Gospel. This is equally true i.rt
the case of Canon Law. Furthermore, the call for a Bill of Rights and
other laws makes one yearn for the simplicity of the New Law as exposed
by St. Thomas in the Summa Theologiae I-II, qq. 106-108. The New Law
is primarily the grace of the Holy Spirit which is granted through the faith
of Christ and, secondarily, those realities which dispose one to receive the
grace of the Spirit or to make good use of it. Precepts are kept to a
minimum, and the rest left up to the free will of the faithful (Summa
a.3,ad 3). Laws, be they Church
Theol., I-II,q.107,a.4,c.;
laws, cannot replace the Law of the Spirit; they can only hope to translate
mto all too human terms the dynamic and ever present inspirations of the
Spirit who alone remains the ultimate protector and source of Christian
freedom. If Churchmen ever forget this, they are proclaiming the bankruptcy of the Church. If, on the other hand, we could only live the teaching
of Jesus that authority in the Church is essentially service (Mt. fl0:25-28;
Jn. 13: H-15), that it is given for the building up and not for the destrucCo. 10: 8; 13: 10), that our virtue must
tion of the Body of Christ
surpass that of the scribes and the pharisees (Mt. 5:
that "there are
no more distinctions between Jew and Greek, slave and free, male and
female, but that all of you are one in Christ Jesus" (Ga. 3: 28), then
what need would there be for the proposed Bill of Rights? It could
probably serve as a reminder and a concrete realization of the New Testament Message. Granted, just so long as our freedom in Christ is founded
on the Spirit and not on the Law for: " ... the written letters bring death,
but the Spirit gives life"
Co. 3:6). St. Thomas (Summa Theol., I-II,
q.l06,a.2,c.) goes so far as to apply this text to the written letter of the
New Testament considered aside from the interior grace of faith which
cures. How much more can it be applied to the proposed Bill of Rights
or to Canon Law in general. Are abuses so rampant that we have to
shackel ourselves with laws? If so, I for one, doubt that laws are the
solution. They can engender a false security and thereby distract from
what is essential: the continuous putting on of the new man in Christ.
In a civil society laws are no doubt necessary to defend the freedom of
citizens, but in the Church there is one ultimate authority to whom all

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may appeal in the depts of their conscience: God Father, Son, and Spirit.
(c£. T. R. Potvin, "Authority in the Church as Participation in the
Authority of Christ According to Saint Thomas," Saint TluYmas Aquinas
Commemorative Colloquium (1274-1974) [Eglise et Theologie 5 (1974).
227-251]).
9. Ecclesiastical Courts.
Under this heading Fr. McBrien makes an insistent appeal for reform in
the ecclesiastical courts, and especially in the case of the Marriage Tribunals. He asks for greater simplicity and speed in order to insure justice.
(pp. 97-99) Practical measures should be taken in order to assure this
end with the accent again on decentralization. At the same time, he suggests that the holiness and indissolubility of marriage be better lived and
taught in the Community. Pastoral care of divorced and remarried
Christians should also be taken into consideration.
Theologically, (pp. 121-123) he calls for a renewed and closer look at
the whole question of marriage. This, of course, is already taking place,
and at a fairly fast pace. Theologians and canonists have been actively
studying the question for over a decade. A consensus does not yet seem
to have been reached, but some important scriptural as well as historical
points have been clarified. One important point which seems to rally the
support of all is that of the holiness and indissolubility of Christian, sacramental marriage as the ideal, eschatological situation. But, during the
Time of the Church, which is characterized by the "already" and the
"not yet" of eschatology, would there not be room for the Father's
mercy, forgiveness, and love? The Church has come to recognize this possibility in so serious a case as murder. Why not in the case of sinful or
non-sinful marriage failure? (For further details see: Le divorce: L'Eglise
catholique ne devrait-elle pas modifier son attitude seculaire a l'egard de
l'indissolubilite du mariage? [Travaux du Congres de Ia Societe canadienne
de theologie, tenu a Montreal du 21 au 24 aout 1972; Heritage et Projet
6; Montreal: Fides, 1973]) .
10. Women in the Church.
The Author proposes that the Church finally admit women to full participation in her life and in her ministry. (pp. 99-100; IQ3-125)
This is a domain which is under full and intensive review in the Church
today. The idea is making its way slowly but surely within the living
thought of the Church today. There are still many who hesitate or
are frankly against the idea of women being called to participate in the
ordained ministry. (See for instance the remarks of Y. Congar, "Mon
cheminement dans Ia theologie du laicat et des ministeres," Ministere et
commnion ecclesiale, 25: "Sans affirmer qu'elles en soient exclues de droit
divin, je demeure reserve et meme negatif. Mais je pense que la tMologie

BOOK REVIEWS

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des ministeres exposee plus haut ouvre de larges possibilites, en de!;a du
presbyterat.").
Personally, I believe that we are faced here, once again,
with a case in point of the difference between Tradition and traditions,
between models and the Gospel Message, between the Eternal Word of
God and its historical and cultural incarnation.
I am of the opinion that the touchstone of this whole debate is to be
found in Ga.3:28: " ... nor are you Jew or Greek, nor are you slave or
free, nor are you male or female, for all of you are one in Christ." This
tetx, which no one can doubt resumes a very fundamental aspect of the
Gospel of Paul (I Co. 12: 13,27; Col. 3: 11,15; Ep. 4:4-6, 13-16), is the
Magna Carta for the establishment of women's rightful place in the Church,
the Body of Christ. If there is no longer male or female, but we are all
one in Christ, why should not women take up their share of " slavery "
and " service" (Mt. 20: 27) in the Body of Christ? Because of historical
reasons?
There are serious reasons for believing that when Paul speaks disparagingly
of the role of women in the Church he is echoing the customs of the Jerusalem
Community (J. Hainz, Ekklesia, 235, 250-252; L. Cerfaux, La theologie de
l'Eglise suivant saint Paul [Unam Sanctam 54; Paris: Cerf, 1965 2 ] 98-100;
" La Tradition selon saint Paul," Vie Spirituelle, Supplement 5 [1953] 178188; reprinted in Recueil Lucien Cerfaux II [Gembloux: Duculot, 1954]
253-263; Y. Congar, La Tradition et les traditions [Paris: Fayard, 1960]
I, 22-23; H. Holstein, La Tradition dans L'Eglise [Eglise et le Temps
Present; Paris: Grasset, 1960] 52-53) . That these customs do not have
the same binding force as the Gospel (Ga. I: 7-10) is seen in the very
use Paul makes of them. In I Co. 11:5, Paul is content to ask women not
to pray or prophesy unveiled, whereas in I Co. 14:33-34, he asks them to
remain quiet in the communities. A similar uneasiness with the teaching
on the submission of women to men is seen in I Co. 11: 71-6. In verses
11-12, Paul is obliged to admit: " ... though woman cannot do without
man, neither can man do without woman, in the Lord; woman may come
from man, but man is born of woman-both come from God." Indeed,
union through Christ, in the Spirit, transcends all barriers.
More enlightening of Paul's attitude toward these customs of the
Jerusalem church is his interpretation, in I Co. 8-10 and Rm. 14: 1-12, of
what ". . . has been decided by the Holy Spirit and by ourselves " at
the meeting of Jerusalem (Ac. 15: 28-29). No doubt, Paul's interpretation
is in line with James's statement that the converts were not to scandalize
the Jewish Christians (Ac. 15: 21) but rather live their freedom in the
Spirit in a context of love and consideration for one's neighbor. But,
it not instructive to see that customs held fast to by the church of
Jerusalem could and have been surpassed in the Time of the Church? As
the whole Church is led to fuller knowledge of Christ's Message by the
Spirit and penetrates deeper into the core of the Message and reality of

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the Christ-Event, certain customs, which were part of the traditional and
primitive cathecesis (while entertaining certain similarities with stoic and
judeo-hellenistic household and civil ethics, cf. H. Schlier, Der Brief an die
Epheser. Ein Kommentar [Dusseldorf: Patmos, 1964 4 ]
were
dropped altogether or transformed substantially. However, it is important
to note that the seeds of fulfilment were present from the very start since
there is only one true Lord, Jesus Christ, in whom all men are called to
become one. It took time for the Primitive Church to realize that there is
no longer Jew and Greek. It took the Church and mankind nearly 19
centuries to realize that there is no longer slave and free, and the process
is not yet over. How long will it take before we realize that there is no
longer male and female, but that we are all one in Christ?
The New Testament does not, of course, ignore the presence and the
role of women. The Childhood Narratives express in eloquent terms the
role of Mary in Salvation History. During Jesus' public ministry, women
are present among his followers as they are at the Crucifixion. Then, of
course, it is women who discover the Empty Tomb and are sent to announce Christ's Resurrection to the Eleven. After the Ascension, Mary and
several women gathered with the Eleven and the brothers of Jesus in
prayer (Ac. I: 14). It is probably to this verse, and not to verse 15, that
Acts
1 refers when narrating the Gift of the Spirit. However, it may
be argued that these and other texts do not refer to public, church ministry. Yet, we read that the four daughters of Philip were prophets (Ac.
9; comp. I Co. 11: 5; A. Lemaire, Les ministeres aux origines de L' Eglise,
69-70). But, more important for the study of this question, are the indications found in Rm. 16: Iff. In verse 1, we read that Phoebe was a minister
(diakonon) of the Church at Cencheae. If this section of Romans be
Pauline, the term diakonos should be interpreted according to Paul's usual
as well as his collaborators
use of the term, i.e., as denoting his (Col. I:
task in the Church (A. Lemaire, Les ministeres ... , 94; cf. J. Hainz,
Ekklesia, 8520ff) . Verse 8 speaks of Prisca and Aquila as co-workers
(synergoi) of Paul, another term which Paul uses to describe both his
ministry and that of his helpers (J. Hainz, Ekklesia, 816-818). The same
holds true for the term " labor " which is used in verse 6 as a verb to
qualify the work of Mary (A. Lemaire, Les ministeres ... , 95) . True,
we cannot furnish the exact "job description" of the tasks which lay
behind these terms at this given period of time in the history of the
Church, but it is indicative of their importance that they are also used to
describe the ministry of Paul and of his male associates. This fact merits,
I believe, more attention from exegetes and theologians.
Finally, there is the controversial verse 7 which may be translated either
as: " ... to those outstanding apostles Andronicus and Junias "; or " ...
to Andronicus and Junias "; or " ... to Andronicus and Junias who are
outstanding among the apostles." Nor is it certain whether we are dealing

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965

with the masculine Jounias or the feminine Jounia (J. Hainz, Ekklesia,
196-198, 295; A. Lemaire, Les ministeres ... , 95). It would seem advisable to leave this verse aside in the present study until more light can
be shed on its interpretation as well as on the interpretation of the term
" apostle."
In order to avoid as much as possible another theory-and-practice gap
in the Church, this whole question of the role of women in the Church
should continue to be
discussed, and prayed upon in the whole
Church. It has been my experience that not only men but also women
need to be informed of the discussion which is going on and of the biblical,
patristic, and theological arguments involved. The Church must realize
that in this domain, as in the domain of social justice for instance, she
has a prophetic mission to accomplish within the context of today's culture.
The Word of God to which the Church testifies judges customs and cultures.
11. Renewal of Religious Communities.
Fr. McBrien calls religious orders to reassume their prophetic miSSion
within the Church, to be hotbeds of renewal and reform. In order to
perform this task, he points out that they themselves must actively seek
renewal and reform within their own communities. The members of religious orders should be provided with all those modern benefits which
social progress sees as basic for one's well-being, given to participate in
decisions which determine their own lives, reemphasize their solidarity with
the poor, be apostles of peace and social justice, etc. (pp. 100-102)
The theology behind the call for renewal is that the whole Church is
the People of God, and a pilgrim people at that. There is need for
constant growth with the accompanying changes in the institutional aspects of the Church. This should also be reflected in the religious orders.
Their prophetic mission comes from the fact that religious are called to
testify to the presence and activity of the Kingdom of God already at
work in this world. However, in order to accomplish this mission, religious are not called to abandon the world. Although they are not of
the world, they are called to witness in the world. This task calls for
a lucid assumption of freedom in the Spirit. In a word, the renewal
of religious communities can make them be for the Church what the
Church is called to be for the rest of the world: the avant-garde of the
Kingdom of God. (pp. 125-128)
This general outline for renewal of religious communities leaves unsaid
one point which I feel merits closer scrutiny: authentic reform can only
come if it touches the individual in the very core of his or her being.
Reform of structures can succeed only if it favors and manifests a deeper
reform, metanoia in the heart of the religious; if it leads to a more living
contact with Christ in the Spirit. This, I feel, is the essential task on

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which we should focus all our efforts and from which all our activity and
ministry should flow. This, in no way, implies a return to an individualistic
piety since to be in Christ is to be members one of the other; to be in
the Spirit is to be one with he who unites us in and through Christ. But,
it does reemphasize the fundamental Christian truth that our communion
is in the Father and the Son (I Jn. I:3; comp. Jn. 17: 21). Structural
reforms are meaningless if they do not find their ultimate drive and
purpose in Christ.
The religious who is aware of his union in Christ with all the members
of the Body of Christ will exercise his charisma so as to foster the growth
of the Body of Christ. He will be aware of the fact that we are members
one of another and consider the growth of the community and of the
Church as his business. He will also be respectful of the charismata found
in the other members. As a prophet, he will allow himself to be guided
by the other prophets, the People of God, and the apostle. Moreover,
in the exercise of his ministry, he will not consider himself as either above
or over and against the Church but as a member seeking the building up
and not the destruction of the Body of Christ. The exercise of his ministry
of prophet will be characterized by that humility which comes from the
realization that he is not perfect but seeking perfection, and consequently
the Word of God which he proclaims judges him as well as others. His
ministry will also be qualified by love so that when he, in fidelity to
God's Word, must condemn attitudes and works, never condemns persons.
If he challenges the Church, he is careful not to identify the Church with
the hierarchy so that he is, in fact, challenging himself as well as well
as others with the implications of the Word of God for today. The
prophet, like the apostle, is not self-righteous, but" ... only an earthenware
jar that holds a treasure." (2 Co. 4: 7) On the other hand, he is one who
is always open to the inspirations of the Spirit seeking his security not in
institutions but in the Word of God. I repeat that I think we have flogged
the horse of structural reform long enough. It is time we get a little
spirit, or better still the Holy Spirit, into this scene. I am confident that
if and when we do so the extent of structural reforms which will sprout
up will surprise even the most progressive members of Theory C. But,
of course, absolute openness to the Spirit is the most difficult renewal
possible. It is always easier to fall back on traditions, sociology, psychology
when it is not the " old man." In fact, re-creation in Christ is destined
to be fully achieved only with the Parousia (Rm. 8: 23; 2 Co. 5: 1-10).
Since Vatican II the notion of religious life has come under full review.
I am thinking here especially of the well-documented works of my confrere,
Jean-M. Roger Tillard. It is encouraging to note that the accent is being
placed on the essentials and not merely on external reforms which, without
love, are gongs booming and cymbals clashing. There is hope for religious
life if only we learn to discern the workings of the Holy Spirit from those
of the spirit of man and of the adversary.

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12. The Ministry of the Ordained.
Fr. McBrien begins by recalling three well-known facts: dissatisfaction
among the clergy with the exercise of ecclesiastical authority and the
traditional life-styles; the resignation of thousands of priests; the sharp
decline in candidates for the ministry. He then proposes the implementation of three basic principles: the collegial character of the Christian
priesthood; the principle of subsidiarity; and the fact that priests have
the same personal rights as any other member of the Church. These principles should be translated into such practices as the deliberative participation of priests in the decisions taken in the diocese; the freedom to minister
in another diocese; the liberty to resign from active ministry without
exclusion from employment in church-related organizations; the freedom
to innovate parish structures; accountability not only to bishop and fellow
priests but to parishioners; the right to marry. (pp. 102-106)
Objections to these proposed changes in the presbyteral ministry spring,
according to the author, from the understanding of the Church as a
monarchical institution (Theory A catholics) ; or a mistaken understanding
of collegiality; too little regard for the principle of subsidiarity and an
exaggerated regard for the status of the ordained minister over against
the rest of the Church. Deliberative power should be granted to priests'
senates because of the collegial nature of the Church, the sharing, by
bishops and priests, in the one priesthood of Christ, and the fact that the
mission belongs radically to all, and therefore all must have, at least in
principle, a share in the decision-making processes whereby the mission
is determined, planned, and executed. (pp. 128-129)
I have no quarrel with the principles of collegiality, subsidiarity, and
the common sharing in the priesthood of Christ both as regards the
ministerial priesthood of the ordained and the priesthood of holiness of all
baptized. However, I hesitate to translate these basic principles into the
theory of " one man, one vote." There is a variety of spiritual gifts,
services, and works in the " one " Body of Christ. Even within one given
charisma there are the " major " and " secondary " apostles or helpers.
Historically, it is even possible that the "episcopoi" were the executive
body of the " presbyteroi." There would, then, seem to be evidence of
a variety of ways of sharing in the authority-service of the Primitive
Church. I doubt very much that we will correct a situation where authority
tends to be interpreted as dominative power instead of service by granting
more people to participate in it. The more authority in the Church is
seen for what Christ intended it to be, i. e., service, the more, I believe,
members called to assume this burden will be willing to share it in order
to fulfil the mission to proclaim the Good News of the Kingdom to all
men.
I doubt also that one can ascribe merely to a monarchical understanding
of ecclesiastical authority objections against freedom of movement for

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priests as well as the resistance to alternate forms of ministerial leadership
and of community. (p.
Basing himself on the theology of the local
church the author has already argued against the translation of bishops
from one diocese to another. (pp. 118-119) But, is not the community
equally involved in the call of its immediate pastors, priests? Conversely,
is not the person who accepts such a call " committed " to a local church
if not a local parish? No doubt, the needs of a parish community have to
be weighed in the light of the diocesan community, the diocesan community in the light of the regional community, the regional community in
the light of the Universal Church. But, it would be exaggerated to say
that merely a monarchical understanding of ecclesiastical authority is at
work here. I would suggest that the theology of the Body of Christ as
found especially in the Epistles of the Captivity is at work here. As for
resistance to alternate forms of community and ministerial leadership is
concerned, besides inertia which plagues us all, we might be faced with
the question of allowing the necessary time for trial and error; the question
of the right man at the right time; the question of taking the time to
bridge the gap between theory and practice; etc. As for the question of
granting men who have resigned from the active ministry some form of
ecclesiastical employment, I must admit that it is a very real problem.
There does seem to be a tendency to treat them as if they had " fallen "
from the " clerical state " and consequently can be of no further service
to the Church. Perhaps some need to break away completely from the
clerical milieu in order to find their own way in life. But, the Church
as a whole must not forget that there is a diversity of ministries granted
to it by the one Spirit and that she should be attentive to these gifts,
especially the gift of love. There are many services which can be performed in the Church which do not require an active exercise of the
ministerial priesthood, and even the " simple faithful " can be brought to
a realization of this fact.
Objections against evaluation of ministerial performance (pp.
may very well be based, for Theory A priests, on the view that accountability is always upward, but it might also be based on the fear all men
have when it is question of seeing our work evaluated by others. Theological arguments may be brought into play in order to butress one's
position, especially when one's livelihood is at stake, but I would hope
that they would not be as crude as those evoked here. I find it hard to
imagine that a Catholic, be he of Theory A, B or C, would not admit that
Pastor, Bishop, and Pope are accountable to the Father's Will as revealed
in Christ Jesus whose message comes to us in the normative testimony of
the Apostles, the New Testament witnesses, and the living Tradition of
the Church. Such, at least, is the teaching of Trent, Vatican I, and Vatican
II. ·There is even a long canonical tradition on the possibility of deposing
an heretical Pope. The author himself is well aware of the official teaching

BOOK REVIElWS

969

of the Church, and even pleads against granting Salaverri's views a longer
life span than they deserve. (cf. R. McBrien, The Infallibility Debate
[J. J. Kirvan, ed.; New York: Paulist Press, 1971] 45-46) On the other
hand, throughout this question of accountability the Church must remain
faithful to the Spirit and allow for the possibility of his speaking even
through ordained ministers in a way which is not always popular. The
whole Church is accountable to its Head, the Lord Jesus Christ. The whole
Church must remember that it is in constant need of conversion. The
best service an ordained minister can render is to recall this need for
metanoia whether it be popular or not. I have my doubts as to whether
or not sheer popularity is a good indication of the " sensus fidelium," and
I make this remark in relation to what the author states about popular
books on page 58.
I must admit that I find Fr. McBrien's selection among the arguments
proposed by the supporters of celibacy somewhat perfunctory. A better
case in favor of celibacy can and has been made than what we find in one
brief paragraph on page 130. If celibacy for parish priests is ever to become elective, as I believe it should be, the question will have to be
treated with a great deal more seriousness than is the case here. I find
it hard to believe that a celibate is more dependent on the organization
than is a married man who has to shoulder the financial responsibilities
of a wife and family. How many married men have had to learn to toe
the company, the union or the faculty line in order to keep their jobs,
and this even at the expense of their personal views? Furthermore, I
know of no ecclesiology which fosters celibacy in order to keep the troops
in line. If one should exist, I personally fail to see in it any reflection of
the Good News of the Kingdom.
13. Ecumenical Relationships.
In this final proposition (pp. 106-108), Fr. McBrien presents some practical suggestions for getting the Ecumenical Movement off the ground once
again. No one can deny that there is less talk of ecumenism these days
than there was in the not too distant past. Yet, important studies have
appeared, dialogues have gone on on official levels. The issues have been
identified more precisely and have been studied in great detail by both
parties. Important points have been made. Perhaps we have come to the
stage of reassessment and assimilation before going on. The author has
often called for a closing of the gap between theory and practice. He
knows as well as anyone that this requires time and conversion. The results of the various studies need not only be publicized at greater length,
they need also to be critically examined by other specialists and by the
whole People of God. Infallibility, after all, has not been transferred from
the Pope to the theologians of a given study group. Intercommunion,
for instance should be the source but also the sign of our union in Christ.

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If there are still important doctrinal differences between two communities,
what happens to the sign-value of the Eucharist celebrated in cominon?
Is there room for " mental reservations " in so meaningful a gesture as
the Eucharist? On the other hand, no true Christian can forget Christ's
prayer that we all be one in him and the Father. Communion must realize
and symbolize this union, otherwise it is unauthentic.
As for public acceptance of the validity of some non-catholic ordained
ministry, recent studies on ministry in the New Testament and on the
notion of succession have opened up some positive vistas. There would
seem to have been a variety of ministries, even as regards the celebration
of the Eucharist, in the Early Church. But, there is also a long tradition
concerning the succession of ministers which was established universally in
the Church by the second half of the flnd century. Are we in the presence
here of Tradition or of a tradition? Is the triple hierarchy the only valid
realization of Christ's will, or are there other possibilities open for the
realization of ministerial services in the Body of Christ? What must be
ascribed merely to the cultural milieu of the times and what to the Holy
Spirit who leads us to the fulness of truth in time and space? These are
some of. the questions still under review among the specialists. No doubt,
we must pass from study to action one day lest we all become set in our
ways once again. But, there is equal necessity for conversion on all sides
if union is ever to be achieved. Our desire, after all, is for union in Christ,
through the Spirit, for the Glory of God the Father.
Fr. McBrien is right in saying that non-Catholic Christians who are
properly baptized in the name of Christ are brought into a certain, though
imperfect, communion with the Catholic Church, and that their communities are even called "church."
(p. 131, quoting the Decree on
Ecumenism, 3) He is also correct in stating that oneness, holiness,
catholicity, and apostolicity are eschatological goals, i.e., "already" given,
" not yet " achieved. The Catholic Church is not purely and simply
identified with the Church of Christ which is said rather to subsist in
the Catholic Church (Lumen Gentium, 8; Decree on Ecumenism, 8) ,
while very important elements of the Church of Christ are found in
other churches (Decree on Ecumenism, 3; Lumen Gentium, 15) . With
Vatican II the Catholic Church has firmly embarked on the road of an
" ecumenism of restoration." (pp. 131-138) It is also important to note
with the author (p. 133) that a greater understanding of the positions
of the various churches on the " Real Presence " has been achieved in
recent years. But, that this is not the only question is manifested by the
fact that it is the Catholic-Orthodox dialogue which explicitly rejects
eucharistic sharing under any circumstances. The author terms this
"ironical." Perhaps it is an effort to safeguard the "sign-value" of the
Eucharist.
The Lutheran-Catholic Dialogue in the U. S. A. has indeed furthered

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971

a better understanding of the ministry within the ecclesiastical community
in general starting from New Testament times. (pp. 133-134) Vatican
II has recognized the decisive role of baptism as means for incorporation
into the Body of Christ, the ecclesial character of the community of
baptized, and the universal call to the mission of Christ. But, baptism
is inwardly ordained to the Eucharist. Eucharist and Mission require
ministry. These points, I feel, have been clearly established. But, there
is also another aspect which requires study: historical sucession or the
incarnational aspect of the Church even in its ministry. Man is an historical being. Tradition is part and parcel of his historical reality. Most,
if not all, will admit of the necessity of doctrinal apostolic succession, and
this, no doubt, is the essential point (yet even here some will call for
a canon within the Canon) . Real Tradition, formal succession are accepted on the whole without much ado. Material transmission or succession for awhile were attributed to the influence of Gnosticism on the
Church. More and more, it would seem that the philosophical and
rabbinical schools offer more than enough background for the notion of
Tradition through Succession (Paradosis kata Diadochen). That the
Church became aware of this principle because of the teaching of false
prophets and the gnostics may be termed an historical situation. On
the other hand, if the Father revealed his Plan of Salvation in the Event.Christ, and if the Spirit leads us to the fulness of truth in time and space,
the Church must learn to discern what is normative and what is merely
cultural in its Tradition since both come to us through history. The
sayings: " Where the Spirit is, there is the Church," " Where the Church
is, there is the bishop," could easily lead to an anhistorical, disincarnate
Church, at least as far as ministry is concerned. On the other hand, can
the Spirit be present, can Scriptures be read and believed, can baptism
be celebrated, can mission be undertaken without, at the same time, the
presence of the gift of a valid ministry? Ministry is for the Church, and
not the Church for ministry. But, the Church is not a purely spiritual,
in the sense of anhistorical and disincarnate, reality. Is there not place
for historical as well as doctrinal continuity with the Apostles? Both
Scripture and Tradition must, it would seem, be taken into account even
in a practical ecclesiology (For further details, see: J.-M.R. Tillard,
What Priesthood has the Ministry? [Grove Booklet on Ministry and Worship 13; Bramcote Notts.: Grove Books, 1973]; Ulrich Brockhaus,
Charisma und Amt [Wuppertal: Theologischer Verlag Rolf Brockhaus,
Collaboration, Le ministere et les ministeres selon le Nouveau Testament [Parole de Dieu; Paris: Seuil, 1974]). I for one fee) that the theory
needs further elaboration and confirmation before it is put into practice
even though a clear trend towards a more comprehensive notion of validly
ordained ministry seems to be emerging. It is time, however, for these
findings to be presented and debated in theological schools and in study

BOOK REVIEWS

groups. It would be most unfortunate if one day, out of the blue, the
faithful learn that the hierarchy now recognize the validity of the ordained
ministry of other churches. I agree wholeheartedly with Fr. McBrien
when he states that we must bridge the Theory-and-Practice gap while
adding that development in theory must be properly discerned before it
is proclaimed as Church theory. Information must be furnished to the
People of God so that they may exercise their "sensus fidelium."
The final Chapter (pp. 139-148) deals with the future of the Church.
The absolute and ultimate future of the Church, the final establishment
of the Kingdom of God, rests in the hands of God alone. The relative and
proximate future of the Church, its role as sign and instrument of the
power of the Kingdom of God at work now in the world, depends on the
Church's openness and response to God's call. In this latter sense, the
Church should constantly foster renewal, self-criticism and reform. This
is part and parcel of the Church's pilgrim state. Reform, renewal, progress,
development, are not the exception in such a Church but the rule. Security
and stability are to be found not so much in well established, traditional
structures as in the Spirit who unites us to and in Christ. Structures, of
all shapes and forms, are valid only insofar as they are means of our
union through Christ, in the Spirit, with the Father.
How can one bring about the necessary changes in the Church structures? Fr. McBrien reiterates the five words of counsel offered in the
March 197£ statement of Catholic theologians from the United States,
Canada and Europe (pp. 145-146): Do not remain silent. Do something
yourself. Act together. Seek provisional solutions. Don't give up. The
author feels that hard times are still in store for the Church, and I tend
to agree. But, is the disciple greater than the Master?
I stated at the beginning of this review that Fr. McBrien's book, although short, was thought-provoking. After all these pages I am aware
that I have merely scratched the surface of the many questions he brings
before the reader. I have found myself very often in agreement with the
substance of his presentation. I do tend to disagree with what seems to
be his insistence on structural reforms. It is my firm hope that the remarks made here will help further dialogue within the Church of Christ
in general and among " teachers " in particular.
THOMAS

Dominican College
Ottawa, Canada

R. PoTVIN, 0. P.

BOOK REVIEWS

Ecclesial Cybernetics. By PATRICK GRANFIELD. New York:
1973. Pp. 280. $8.95.

973
Macmillan,

The Church has survived persecutions, heresies, schisms, apostasies, and
a host of other assaults upon its staying power. To this familiar catalog
of institutional problems Patrick Granfield has now added the threat of
entropy, "a random state of disorder" with affiicts "a closed system insulated from its environment." Where previously the blood of martyrs,
councils, reforms, and other sustaining forces enabled the Church to ride
out the storm, Granfield points out that now it is negative entropy which,
apart from "the guarantee of indefectibility," will enable the Church "to
persevere and flourish." In the perspective of cybernetic analysis negative
entropy is a function of the flow of information within an organization.
The more open a system is, the greater its interaction with its environment,
then the greater are its possibilities for maintenance and development
through an increased flow of information. Translating this mechanism
into political terms, Granfield identifies an open system with democracy
and thus arrives at the thesis of his book: "that the Church needs cybernetic reform through democratization."
The author, a member of the faculty at the Catholic University of
America, presents a well-developed case for his prescription. After introducing the reader to the perhaps unfamiliar world of cybernetics (the study
of information transmission for communication and control in large organizations), Granfield describes the current organizational framework of
the Church. He then offers four case studies of the cybernetic model applied
to decision-making within the Church. The issues of slavery, birth control,
ecumenism, and priestly celibacy are analyzed in terms of the interaction
of inputs, the conversion process, outputs and feedback. He concludes that
such an approach " reveals the forces in conflict within the Church " and
that these issues "reflect the growing demand for ecclesial democratization."
Granfield then constructs a foundation for such a radical change in
Church organization by examining the historical and theological justifications of ecclesial democracy. In this analysis he seeks to answer the question: "whether the democratic ideals of majoritarianism and decentralization are compatible with the hierarchic structure of the Church." He concludes that they are, while at the same time saving the other principles
peculiar to ecclesial government, namely, the monarchical (papal) and the
hierarchical (episcopal). Specifically, Granfield argues that it is the recognition of the egalitarian and the charismatic elements in the Church, implemented by the greater participation of the membership in selecting bishops and in other non-doctrinal decision-making, which can redress the
current entropy-inducing imbalance among the three principles of Church
government.

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Granted the appropriateness and, indeed, the necessity of democratic reform within the Church, does democracy have a future in the Church,
Granfield asks. Citing the immobility, ineffectuality, and isolation of the
hierarchy and the docility and passivity of the lower clergy and the laity
he recognizes that such a development will be most difficult, but not impossible, to achieve. This brings the author to his specific recommendatiom
for implementing democracy within the Church: the fostering of commitment to community among the members; the development of a freer environment for dissent; a more highly developed system of communication;
the use of study commissions as " input-processing " vehicles; and, last but
not least, making the selection of bishops a community decision. This
latter reform seems to be the major cybernetic mechanism of Granfield's
hope for the democratization of the Church; appendices contain the 1971
plan for choosing bishops for the United States drawn up by the Canon
Law Society of America, and the Vatican's norms for selecting bishops
issued in 1972. Thus ends Granfield's highly innovative approach to the
study of ecclesiology.
There is much to approve of in Ecclesial Cybernetics. The author writers
clearly and skillfully; he is exceptionally well-balanced in developing his
insights into so complex a subject, and he provides a well-researched instrument for the benefit of readers who may seek additional enlightment. Theologians can find here a very competent effort to approach the study of the
Church on an interdisciplinary basis. Latter-day-twentieth centurians may
come to agree with Granfield that the cybernetic analysis of the Church
" is a normal and predictable development, and a necessary one as well."
Given the author's effort to use a heuristic device such as the cybernetic
model to develop insights into the complex life of the Church, there is no
doubt that he has broken some new ground.
As with anything new, however, problems are encountered, and the
questions they raise may help to map out the frontier in clearer detail.
From my perspective as a political scientist I can cite a few problems which
arise in conjunction with Granfield's thesis arguing for a cybernetic reform
of the Church through democratization.
Any one-dimensional model of an organization tends to over-simply its
problems and their solutions. In the case at hand the cybernetic model does
not escape this limitation upon its capacity to capture the full sense of
the reality to which it is applied. While one can agree that an improved
communications system within the Church may tend to improve the ability
of its decision-making outputs to maintain unity among its members, there
is no assurance that this consequence will be an unmixed blessing. If, for
example, the racial attitudes of the laity are influenced more by the racist
culture in which they live than by Christian values (and there is some
evidence that such is the case), then a decision in which they participate
and which embodies their racism may well achieve the cybernetic value

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975

of homeostasis and at the same time betray the mission of the Church.
This illustration points out (as does Granfield) that any democratic adaptation of the Church's decision-making structures which is not accompanied
by an interior renewal of Christian values among the participating members
would not be an improvement over authoritarian structures which do uphold those values.
Indeed, there is a value far more important than system - persistencPwhen one advocates change in the Church's decision-making structures. The
purpose of the Church is not to survive but to serve the mission entrusted
to it by Christ. If its own man-made structures are impeding this mission,
then they certainly should be changed, and insights derived from a cybernetic analysis of its structures may assist this task. But, again, the leap
from this judgment to specific recommendations is one made hazardous by
the presence of latent assumptions. In advocating popular participation
in the selection of bishops, for example, Granfield tacitly assumes that the
current method will not provide the kind of bishop needed in present
necessities, and that popular participation will. However, one can conceive
that a surer and faster method of obtaining better episcopal leadership in
the United States could be to have an Apostolic Delegate (one enjoying
great influence with the Vatican) who would nominate the kind of leaders
which the American Church needs. Such a procedure might be repugnant
to a democratic ideologue, but it would nevertheless solve the problem of
providing the type of episcopal leadership which Granfield calls for. Thus,
a much greater need than the democratization of the Church's structures
they
is the need for political prudence in its decision-makers-whether
be found in the traditional authoritarian structures or in new participative
ones.
All of this is simply to say that a rigorous evaluation of the latent implications of any cybernetic reform of the Church's strutcures should accompany specific recommendations for changes. Granfield cannot be taken
to task for what he did not do; he is to be commended for what he has
done. He has given the reader a base from which to develop one's own
insight into the full life of the Church.
BERNARD F. DoNAHUE, 0. S. F. S.
Allentmvn College
Center Valley, Pennsylvania

The Present Revelation: In Quest of Religious Foundations. By GABRIEL
MoRAN. New York: Herder & Herder, 1972. Pp. 318. $8.95.
One of the mvst important books to come from a Roman Catholic theollogian in the United States during the 1960's was Gabriel Moran's Theology of Revelation (New York, 1965). The book was notable, not so much

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as a piece of original theology but as a synthesis of the developing understanding of revelation among Catholic and Protestant theologians, a sythesis
forged by Moran in his light of the ongoing efforts of the Second Vatican
Council. Theology of Revelation had, along with Catechesis of Revelation
(New York, 1966), been the substance of a doctoral dissertation in the
religious education department at the Catholic University of America. The
basic thrust in both works was away from a conception of revelation as
the communication of authoritative and immutable " truths " from God to
man towards a conception of it as " a personal union in knowledge between
God and a participating subject in the revelational history of a community."
Revelation was thus not a past event in the lives of certain people but
a relationship which could, indeed must, obtain for men of all times and
all cultures. It is not hard to see how this understanding would affect the
sort of catechesis to be advocated in Catechesis of Revelation.
Despite its universalist tendency, Theology of Revelation was essentially
a Christo-centric and ecclesio-centric book. Once the author had established
some general principles on the question of revelation, he moved from a
chapter on " Christ as Revelatory Communion " to chapters on " The
Apostolic Sharing of Christ's Consciousness," " The Literary Objectification
of Revelation," and " The Continuing Revelation in the Church." "Revelation to all the Earth " would come only in the penultimate position.
Moran's more recent effort, The Present Revelation: In Quest of Religioug
Foundations, proceeds in the opposite direction. Once again, the opening
remarks are about the state of the question among Roman Catholics, but
now he is remarking the peculiar breakup of traditional Roman Catholicism
in the years since Vatican II rather than the advances among theologians.
The concern is with " the first generation of Catholics who have been able
to suspend belief and yet remain Catholics." Moran would raise the issue
of revelation for this generation within which he surely stands. The order
of the four chapters he presents is significant: " The Question of Revelation"; "Revelation: Human Aspects"; "Divine Aspects"; and finally
"The Jewish and Christian Experience." His conviction is that the discussion of revelation in the context of the Jewish and Christian experience
will make sense only if talk of revelation apart from this experience makes
sense. The central portions of the book state the case for acknowledging
revelation as a fruitful category for interpreting experiences which would
ordinarily qualify as quite secular.
The closest Moran comes to a definition of revelation in The Present
Revelation is " relation qualified by the fact that the poles of the relation
initiate activity toward the other." And, instead of tying it to one relationship, he makes it 'the entire set of relations that constitute the universe."
He admits that he is stretching common usage, but he attempts to justify
such stretching by a brief analysis of the everyday situations in which one
might speak of revelation. What he describes in these situations is the prom-

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977

inence of mutual initiative. Having laid this groundwork, he applies the
category to human experience insofar as it qualifies as " relationship in
which the relata really relate." The main preoccupation throughout is to
avoid the classical dissections of experience as active or passive, conscious
or unconscious, bodily or spiritual, subjective or objective, dependent or
independent, exclusive or inclusive, past or present or future. Moran would
bridge all of these splits-however much he might acknowledge that the
distinctions are valid and valuable. Even in saying that his usage of revelation " always includes the note of a human subject who is engaged in the
revelational process," he refrains from associating the usage uniquely with
the meeting of persons with each other.
The divine aspect of revelation comes to the fore in attending to the
more-than-human dimension in human experience. Moran focusses on a
dimension of common experience although he gives considerable play to the
peak experiences remarked by thinkers like Abraham Maslow. His desire
is to join theology with a phenomenology of the everyday which would
not, to take a phrase from Peter Berger, reduce human possibilities to
those of " the middle-aged businessman drowsily digesting his lunch." He
draws heavily on Rudolf Otto, Mircea Eliade, and Gerardus van der Leeuw
in making the basic religious act " one of being enveloped by an ' other ·
in a way which involves the subject while leaving no doubt that there is
some power that confronts the subject," and he insists that the image of
life which would eliminate this envelopment and this power must surely
be incomplete. Revelation is Moran's preferred category for elucidating the
religious, and he makes revelation as relationship central in all genuine religion. If one can describe the Jewish and Christian experience as revelational, it is not because there is a collection identifiable as Jewish or Christian revelation but because this experience, too, involves the relationship or
envelopment and power. Moran's concluding point is that religious communities will have purpose, for Catholics or for anyone else, only as the
setting in which the relational, social and practical aspect-that is, the
revelational aspect-of existence is cherished. Their chief purpose today
will be to prevent " the closure of judgment on the past and collapse of
imagination in considering the future," and, in doing this, they will be
genuinely the loci of revelation.
Theology of Revelation and Catechesis of Revelation, for all their merits,
had been afflicted with a species of intrinsicism: they did not provide an
adequate point of connection with ordinary experience. The Present Revelation represents a noble endeavor to make the connection. It is a book
abounding in wisdom and insight, and Moran argues cogently for his various
positions. Nonetheless, the work has a somewhat disjointed and abstract
quality about it. The problem is basically that the author has not developed the notion of revelation sufficiently in the first chapter to carry
the subsequent chapters and that he has not dwelt sufficiently on concrete

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experience to give the presentation flesh and blood. The two difficulties
are intertwined. Defining revelation as " relation qualified by the fact that
the poles of the relation initiate activity toward each other " is, as Moran
notes, a stretching of common usage where revelation invariably has some
implication of " making known." It seems obvious that " making known "
can be understood in terms of the qualified relation of the definition, but
it does not seem at all obvious that one can talk about revelation intelligibly
simply in terms of this relation and in abstraction from the implication of
"making known." Moran widens the usage much too casually, and he does
not link his elucidation of the widened category to any close depiction of
situations for which it would be appropriate. Not only would the depiction
have clarified the import of stretching common usage, but it would also
have made it simpler to see whether extending it can hold under the
proposed criterion that it " makes sense out of a great amount of data."
The consequence of this neglect is that The Present Revelation breaks up
into a series of successful arguments with principal religious thinkers of
the contemporary epoch.
MICHAEL

J. KERLIN

LaSalle College
Philadelphia, Pennsylvania

A Theology for Artisans of a New Community. Vol. I The COMMUNITY
CALLED CHURCH. Vol. II GRACE AND THE HUMAN CONDITION. Ed. by J, L. SEGUNDO, S. J. New York: Orbis Books.
Pp.

Cloth $4.95, paper $3.95.

Intended, according to the publisher, for college and seminary courses
and adult discussion groups, both volumes have the same format. The
Community Called the Church has five nuclear chapters, on The Church:
A Reality Particular and Universal; The Essence of the Ecclesial Community; The Function and Necessity of the Church; Obligations of the
Ecclesial Community; and Church-World Interdependence. Grace and the
Human Condition has an introduction on what name we give to Christian
existence, followed by four chapters on Length (the pre-human, the human
condition), Height (eternal life, the new earth), Breadth (humanity, the
people of God), and Depth (love, the definitive power). Each chapter is
complemented by three to five " clarifications," which attempt to " develop
and apply more concretely the central lines of thought, to suggest study
topics and related issues, and go over one or two more points in detail "
(vol. I, p. ix) . Each volume ends with a summary " conclusion" of two
pages, several appendices of conciliar and biblical texts, and springboard
questions.

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979

By way of judgment it should be said that these volumes could hardly
serve as college or seminary text books but rather are suited for discussions
or seminars under an experienced teacher. The basic defect of these works
is lack of depth, theological and historical. For instance, in each volume
there is a discussion of the distinction between the natural and supernatural; the " failures " of past theology are presented, but the author's own
solution to the problem is not clear at all.
Despite the lack of depth, these volumes are recommended for maturing
Christian students, and even for preachers. Quite a few good ideas are
presented, in pithy sentences, and these are valuable in this time of transition in the Church. These works show how the basic teachings of the faith,
re-read and expressed according to the signs of these times, are still valid.
They do not provide solutions to current problems: rather, they are
catalysts for thinking Christians. This alone is valuable, to help the whole
Church toward a more adult Christianity.
JAMES J. DAVIS, o. P.
Providence College,
Providence, Rhode Island

Good News and Witness. By L. LEGRAND, J. PATHRAPANKAL, M. VELLANICKAL. St. Peter's Seminary, Bangalore, India: Theological Publications in India. Pp. 190. $1.00.
It was not with high expectations that the writer agreed to review this
book, if only because he was unaware of scholarly works in the biblical
field coming from India. It was, therefore, a very pleasant surprise to find
an excellent presentation of a contemporary subject, that of evangelization.
The word is generally associated with the missionary activity of Christian
countries taking the Gospel to the pagan countries. " Its favorite biblical
hero is St. Paul; its key text is the missionary command to ' go and teach '
found at the end of the Gospel of Matthew." (p. vi) The approach taken
here is that of the incarnational theology of St. John. " Ours is a situation
of a local Church, aware of her mission to witness to the Gospel and to
continue the incarnation of the Message in India." (ibid.)
In the first part (pp. 1-60), the work of L. Legrand, "Jesus and the
Gospel " is studied in three chapters that portray the missionary character
of Jesus' message inasmuch as he radically identified himself with" God's
Revolution." (p. 16) It is a masterly presentation that takes into account
the best of modern scholarship. Jesus was missionary not primarily because
of the campaign he conducted but because of the Gospel he preached. And
the Cross " is the supreme act of evangelization " because, as crucified,
Jesus" is the perfect image of the new man in the Kingdom who saves his

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life by giving it and is set free by making himself a servant even unto
death .... " (p. 45)
The second part (pp. 61-1fl0) takes up "The Early Church and Paul"
and is done by J. Pathrapankal and L. Legrand. Here the complexities of
the early missionary work of the Church and particularly of St. Paul are
analysed. While Paul evangelized in the traditional sense of the word, he
was also a missionary in the more radical sense because of his constant
and primary witness to Jesus Christ.
The third part (pp. 1fl1-168) deals with "Evangelization in the
Johannine Writings" and is done by M. Vellanickal. Here evangelization
is expressed in its most profound sense since it is more than mere verbal
communication; it is bearing constant witness to an experience of faith.
" Evangelization in Jn is a twofold process of experiencing and sharing
the Christ-event. This takes place through the realization of the life of
faith in Christ, whereby Christ, the Word, becomes the interior source of
a genuine Christian life. Hence evangelization in Jn takes the concrete
form of ' Witnessing! " (p. 167)
The work cannot be praised too highly as a positive contribution to New
Testament theology and as a basic study of a most important issue in
Christianity today. Although no publishing date is given, the date of
December 8, 1978, appears at the end of the preface. There is an inde'IC
of Scriptural quotations.
EuGENE H. MALY
Mt. St. Mary's of the West
Norwood, Ohio

Inspiration in the Non-biblical Scriptures. By IsHANAND VEMPENY, S. J.
Bangalore: Theological Publications in India, 1978. Pp. 280.
This is an intriguing book for many reasons. The author apologizes unnecessarily for his sometimes quaint English, which is usually quite acceptable. His choice of language, of course, has been dictated by pragmatic
considerations in respect to the situation of the Church in India. The same
considerations have dictated the abandonment of some scholarly paraphernalia, and rightly so: " After spending some thirty working hours in consulting the available books and and the readily accessible libraries and
pandits for finding out a reference to a Mahiibhiirata saying which the
ordinary Indians versed in the vernacular literature can quote from
memory, the author felt that the spending of so much time with so little
advantage to the general topic, is an unjustifiable luxury in the present
Indian situation." The scholarship, like the language, is quite adequate to
its purpose.

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981

The book deals with a problem that is not unique to India but is particularly acute in India where the Church has long existed-we are reminded that the Church is older in India than in most European countriesand has existed alongside other religious traditions even more venerable
and, for that matter, deserving of veneration. The scriptures possessed by
these traditions are only one aspect of a larger ecumenical question, it is
true, but they nevertheless do pose the question.
The author's basic thesis is fairly simple, and fairly plausible. First of all,
the great world religions may no longer be regarded as so many aberrations
by an ecumenical church but rather as genuine ways to God divinely willed
as such for a majority of mankind, in the past as in the foreseeable future.
The writings which these religions regard as sacred ought, therefore, to
be related somehow by the Church to the writings of the Judeo-Christian
scriptural canon, the writings which the Church has always regarded as
sacred. The traditional term that expresses the sacred character of Scripture is inspiration.
So far so good. The book bogs down through no fault of the author or
of his thesis but only because of the inadequacies of the categories within
which the question of inspiration has traditionally been argued, which occasion all sorts of difficulties for him. He wants to establish a basis for
the sacred character of non-Christian scriptures by appealing to the canonizing process while at the same time precluding additional sacred scriptures from Christianity. Thus he is forced into the questionable distinction
between Old Testament religion as scripture-producing (namely, the scripture which the Church inherited) and Christianity as not. One would
preferred a fresh assessment of the relation of the scriptural canon to other
Christian scriptures, just as one would have preferred to find here a less
rigid concept of the definitiveness of revelation in Christ and of the
magisterium, a finer distinction between canon as juridic formulation and
as historical process, and so forth. And one would have preferred to find
the category of biblical inerrancy simply discarded, since it can be retained
in this connection only with the result of leading into an ultimate cul-de-sac.
It is not surprising that the author finds his easiest parallels to the Hindu
scriptures in the wisdom strata of the Judeo-Christian writings. Nor is it
surprising that he is much indebted to Rahner, as we have suggested above,
in making the Old Testament pretty much a " provisional " religion with
a provisional scripture in relation to the New Testament. He does not
intend this judgment to be taken pejoratively, but inevitably it will be
so taken. It would have been much better had he frankly recognized the
fact that what the Church was so long concerned with under the rubric
of inspiration is a rather different thing from the reality we are now trying
to cope with.
We would repeat that we believe the author has done a very good joh
within his self-imposed limitations. He has had the courage to raise some

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excellent questions and to deal with them in an entirely honest and creditable way. He has been assisted, of course, by his cultural background.
The Indian tradition is one thing, a generally admirable thing (the author
even has some sobering words to say about caste, which sanctimonious
" westerners " would do well to read) . But considering his argument from
the universalism of the divine salvific will to the positive value of the
world religions and their scriptures, we also need, perhaps, some other witnesses and other voices. Surely, not all the religions of man have been
divinely willed? But if not or if so, where are the grounds to judge?
BRUCE VAWTER, C.M.
DePaul University
Chicago, Illinois

Ancient Patterns in Modern Prayer. By THOMAS A. KRosNICKI. Edited
by Johannes Quasten. Studies in Christian Antiquity 19. Washington,
D. C.: Consortium Press, 1973. Pp. 317. $fl0.00.
This dissertation, completed under the direction of Dom B. Neuenheuser,
0. S. B., understakes a study of the postcommunion prayers of the Roman
Missal of Paul VI (=MRN) of 1970. The text of 150 pages is followed
by a supplement of H9 pages which includes the latin texts of the 414
new prayers together with the sources of each prayer. Indexes of all the
postcommunion prayers and MRN numbers cited in the text are included
together with a somewhat broad bibliography. The ordering of the book
is excellent and the ten charts are well executed, providing extremely useful summaries of the material under consideration.
In ch. I the author calls attention to the original purpose of these prayers:
petition and not thanksgiving, which is affirmed in the MRN. He then
proceeds to analyze the basic structure of the prayers which adopts the
form of classical euchology: 1) invocation of God; fl) petition; 3) grounds
for the petition. This chapter closes with a detailed study of the sources
of the new prayers which serves to supplement and, in ten cases, correct
the work of A. Dumas.
In ch. II five working principles which appear to have been employed
by the architects of the new prayers are formulated and discussed: 1)
functionally precise; fl) theologically contemporary; 3) stylistically sound;
4) historically accurate; 5) textually correct. Here the author brings into
focus the main concern of the Concilium which may be characterized as
" re-creative conservatism." There is no doubt that an attempt was made
to formulate integrally modern (i.e., expressing the religious sensibilities
consistent with our age) and radically conservative prayers. The balance
was weighed, as one might expect, in favor of the traditional prayers.

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Changes were made in a number of the older prayers which find place alongside completely new creations. However for the most part they were made
to correct obvious anachronisms and doctrinal inadequacies. Krosnicki is,
perhaps, not critical enough in his assessment of the changes. There is a
fundamental problem which has been raised by commentators on the new
Eucharistic Prayers and which can be formulated with respect to the new
postcommunion prayers in this way: Should a set of postcommunion
prayers equally orthodox and entering more completely into the language
and culture of men of today be formulated as an alternative to the more
traditional prayers? The author alludes to this problem (pp. 55-56) but does
not deal with it in any depth. One will certainly have to agree with the
author's statement that the" Roman Missal of Paul VI ... has not uttered
the last word in contemporary euchology " (p.55) but at the same time
affirm with the author that these prayers are " a vast improvement over
the previous missal of Pius V " (p. 75)
It is heartening to find, as the author points out, (p. 56 ff.) that the
phrase " terrena despicere " has been dropped and that in other respects
the new prayers are purged of any trace of a Manichaean interpretation
of the temporal world. The tendency found in these prayers to avoid the
body-soul distinction and to stress the integrity of the human personality
in view of its total resurrection is likewise commendable, (p. 63) as is the
removal of petition made through the intercession of saints in favor of
direct address to God. (p. 51)
Ch. III points out how the eucharistic terminology is essentially scripsural, in continuity with Roman liturgical texts, and refects belief in the
sacrificial nature of the eucharistic action and the sacramental presence of
Christ. Here attention is called to the fact that no particular theories of
sacrifice or sacramental presence are advocated in the new prayers.
In ch. IV the theme of the liturgical spirituality of the postcommunion
prayers is considered with its two basic characteristics: Christocentric and
Ecclesial. Since this chapter is only intended to offer a broad outline o£
the eucharistic spirituality of these prayers, there is only a cursory treatment of the major themes of Christocentric spirituality, ecclesial spirituality,
Eucharist as source of spirituality, Eucharist in relation to Church, purification from sin, faith, hope and love, world and Kingdom to Come. For the
most part the author is content to point out what the prayers say on these
subjects. Where he adds his own reflections the results are only fair and
do not give evidence of a firm grasp of the literature and fundamental
problems connected with these themes.
The treatment of the presence of the eternal redemptive act of Christ
in the liturgy, for example, consists of a summary version of Dom Odo
Casel's view. (pp. 116-117) There is an apparent lack of awareness of the
research carried on in the last few years which has attempted to correct
Cast>l's excessive objectivizing of the mystery presence of the redemptive

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act of Christ in the liturgy. In Casel's presentation the subjective-objective
aspects of anamnesis are not satisfactorily integrated or interrelated. The
newer approach appeals to the role of the Spirit in the Church which makes
it a participant of the memory of Christ and so through memory in the
Spirit the community is rendered present to Christ's Passover. Within this
perspective it is possible to give a better explanation of the role of faith in
the realization of the eucharistic event.
Influenced, perhaps, too much by Casel's rhetoric, the author states that
" For a person ... to be effected by the mystery of redemption he must
come into contact with the person of Christ through this time-transcending
eternal redemptive action made present sacramentally here and now." (p.
116) Whatever be the author's understanding of this sentence it surely
needs to be more nuanced lest it give the false impression of the actual role
of the sacraments in the life of the Church. The eternally redemptive
act of Christ, and so Christ, is present to the Christian at every moment
of life calling the believer to deeper union with himself in the Spirit and
so with the Father. What takes place in the sacraments as events of grace
also takes place in the totality of our Christian lives. But what extends
over all our lives receives explicitation in the sacraments which celebrate
fundamental situations of life in Christ.
On the important question of the relationship between the Eucharist and
purification from sin the author touches on the underlying theology but
does not adequately explain how the Eucharist can be considered as " the
sacrament of reconciliation." (p. 120) Some of the literature which would
have aided him in this matter is not found in his bibliography.
One might dispute Krosnicki's explanation of the dichotomy expressed
in the Tridentine Missal between the things of this world and the next.
Rather than atributing this dichotomy to hard social and economic conditions and to the concern that Christians be not too emersed in the world,
(p. 57) the more basic cause appears to lie in an undeveloped theology of
history. The author's dissatisfaction with the removal of the phrase
" tremenda mysteria " from the postcommunion prayer of the feast of St.
John Chrysostom (p.
seems to indicate a bias in favor of historical
accuracy over relevancy. In his judgment the deletion is unfortunate since
it was characteristic of Chrysostom to instill in his hearers an attitude of
holy awe with respect to the sacrament of the Lord's Supper. Yet it was
such preaching, with emphasis on " the table of holy fear " and " the
frightful mysteries," which served as one of the main causes of infrequent
reception of the Eucharist in the East during the patristic period. In any
case it is questionable that the use of such terms as " tremenda " would be
pastorally advisable in the modern Church not because it might inspire an
unhealthy fear of the Eucharist but because this type of rhetoric usually
makes little impression on most modern Western believers.
These last few critical remarks are not intended to detract from the fine

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work accomplished by the author but simply to point out some of the
limitations of this project. It may be hoped that the success of this work
will serve as an inspiration to him to continue in this area of basic research
in which he displays real competence.
EDWARD

J. KILMARTIN,

s. J.

Weston CoUege, School of Theology
Cambridge, Massachusetts

An Ontology of Understanding: Karl Rahner's Metaphysics of Knowledge
in the Context of Modern German Hermeneutics. By VINCENT P.
BRANICK, S.M. St. Louis: Marianist Communication Center, 1974. Pp.
The purpose of this book is to compare Karl Rahner's ontological analysis
of human understanding with the account of understanding found in modern
German hermeneutics. Noting what H. Kimmerle calls the "ontological
turn " in hermeneutics, Fr. Branick sees in Rahner and modern hermeneutics, (especially in the work of H. G. Gadamer) a common concern for
ontology. Rahner arrives at his concrete method of interpretation and
textual analysis through his metaphysics and particularly through his
ontology of human understanding, while vice versa, modern hermeneutics is
led back to metaphysics and to theoretical accounts of understanding as
such through its empirical, factual studies of and problems with textual
interpretation.
As a point of departure, the author takes up the question of humanistic
understanding and with respect to the latter compares two schools of
thought, namely, what he calls the Dilthey-Schleiermacher school and the
school of Gadamer, who is much influenced by Heidegger. The ultimate
purpose of this comparison is to show how and in what sense Rahner's
metaphysics of knowledge incorporates the views on humanistic understanding expressed by these two principle schools of thought. According
to Fr. Branick, Rahner's ontology is "the full expression of the goal and
method of modern hermeneutics." (p. 38)
Turning directly, then, to the above-mentioned views on humanistic
understanding, the author compares the salient features of each of these
schools. According to the Dilthey-Schleiermacher school, the objects of
the humane sciences (as opposed to the natural sciences) are life (or spirit)
together with its objectifications. But if so, this means that humanistic
understanding must consist in grasping spiritual reality in and through its
objectifications, in a tracing back from the exterior objectifications or expressions of spirit to their psychological or interior sources. This means
that humanistic understanding consists in tracing an expression or text

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back to the motives, intentions and, in general, the frame of mind of the
author. It is only by thus reconstructing the psychological conditions in
which an expression or statement arises that one comes to a true understanding of what an author is saying.
And yet, Fr. Branick suggests, there is surely something wrong or at
least one-sided with this Dilthean picture of humanistic understanding.
For even granted that the humanities express life or spirit whereas the
natural sciences do not, and granted further that the spirit of an author in
the humanities, as opposed to the spirit of an author in the natural sciences,
is intensely and ineluctably present in his expressions, still, as Fr. Branick
correctly observes, " this life is present in the expression of something else."
In other words, even though an author in the humanities can scarcely avoid
offering his own personal insights and points of view, still they are insights
and points of view with respect to some matter. Hence a school of humanistic understanding which reduces the understanding of a text to
knowing the state of mind of the author who wrote it errs by substituting
for what an author says how or why he says it.
With Gadamer and Heidegger, however, we find a movement away from
such psychological reductionism in hermeneutic method. For Gadamer sees
humanistic understanding not in terms of tracing the meanings of expressions back to their psychological origins but rather in terms of coming to
grips with the subject-matter itself thmugh the mediation of time and
language. Matter must be allowed to " exercise its rights," as it were, on
the understanding. As Fr. Branick puts it, "for Gadamer, if there is any
transposition by the interpreter into the author, it is not into his psychological interiority but into his perspective in which he attained his thought,
into the perspective in which he sees the matter." (p. 78)
But how does this contrast of Dilthey's with Gadamer's views on understanding an author's work relate to Rahner's ontology of understanding?
Fr. Branick suggests that Rahner strikes a kind of synthesis of these two
views-a synthesis in which the interior life of the author stressed by the
former and the depth of the subject-matter emphasized by the latter converge in the concept of the act to be. On this view humanistic truth turns
out to be " the manifestation of this act to be " and humanistic knowledge
turns out to be an understanding of this act to be.
This synthesis can be elucidated by investigating the concept of transcendental experience in Rahner. According to Rahner, just as Being or to
must be distinguished from limited concrete objects or beings, the former
being the ground or horizon of the latter, so too individual subjects experiencing being and to be must be distinguished from the horizon within which
subjects arise. Thus, just as the objective pole of transcendental experience
is not an object but the field or ground out of which subjects arise, so too
the subjective pole in such experience is not a subject but the ground out
of which subjects arise.

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987

Now the goal in true humanistic understanding, Rahner holds, is to
understand the matter not in the sense of individual beings or objects but
in the sense of the primordial ground of these objects which is to be itself.
But the paradox in this is that in striving to understand to be, the intellect
is striving to know something which is the very condition of its knowing,
since to be is not only the horizon against which (objective) beings arise
but also the horizon against which understanding subjects arise. Thus in
understanding or finding the other, the knowing subject understands or
finds himself, since the act to be is the origin as well as the term of understanding. In other words, the ultimate goal of knowledge, the primordial
to be is at the same time the a priori or transcendental condition of knowledge. To use Fr. Brancik's illuminating metaphor, "the advance of understanding is a movement to the rear, and the mind goes forward to find its
point of departure." (p.
And the immediate consequence of this, one
which Rahner draws, is that the interpreter can never remain detached from
or indifferent to what he understands. For since he is, and since he understands what is, the interpreter himself belongs to the very subject-matter
he is investigating.
To sum up, we can see how Rahner's views on understanding as such
both engender his own hermeneutic method and synthesize on a higher
level the views of both Dilthey and Gadamer. For if true understanding
always and necessarily consists in grasping the ground or horizon of beings,
namely, Being or the act to be itself, it follows that to understand a given
text will be to understand the ground of the " what " or matter it expresses.
But that ground is nothing other than the act of to be itself. Also, given
the same condition, it follows that to understand a text is to understand
not just the subjectivity of the author who produced it but more fundamentally the ground of that subjectivity, which, once again, is the act of
to be itself.
To conclude with some critical commentary, the value of this booK
would have been enhanced had the author raised some critical questions
about Rahner's entire programme in philosophy. For example, to what
extent and in what ways is Rahner's ontology susceptible of the same sorts
of criticism that have been levelled against Heidegger's philosophy, especially by contemporary analytic philosophers? To what extent, if at all, does
Rahner's metaphysics arise out of a failure on his part to carefully distinguish the various usages of the verb "to be." Further, does Rahner's
concept of personal engagement in understanding lead to skepticism as
regards our knowledge of extramental objects? Does that same concept rule
out the possibility of objective understanding and objective truth? It
may be that these as well as other such critical questions can be answered
by Rahner. But if so, it should be made clear just how he goes about
answering them.
JoHN PETERSON

University of Rhode Island
Kingston, Rhode Island

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The Problem of the Criterion. ByRoDERICK M. CHISOLM. Milwaukee: The
Marquette University Press, 1974. Pp. 4Q. $Q.50.
In the history of Western philosophy the problem of the criterion-i. e.,
how we distinguish our true ideas from our false ones-has functioned as
the fundamental problem for many philosophers. More especially, it has
dominated the history of epistemology since the time of Descartes. In fact,
since the Meditations and the Discourse on Method, much epistemology
has been regarded as almost co-extensive with the problem of the criterion.
It is to this issue that Professor Roderick M. Chisholmn directed his 1973
"Aquinas Lecture," The Problem of the Crite1·ion. Chisholm himself regards this issue as a fundamental problem:
The problem of the criterion seems to me to be one of the most important and
one of the most difficult of all the problems of philosophy. I am tempted to say
that one has not begun to philosophise until one has faced this problem and has
recognized how unappealing, in the end, each of the possible solutions is. (p. 1)

Pushed to its Cartesian extreme, however, I suspect that this problem is
fundamentally non-Aristotelian. I grant, however, that the "Transcendental Thomists " influenced by Kant have been tremendously concerned
with the problem of the criterion. I will note later in this review that
Chisholm appears to resurrect an essentially Aristotelian position. I su,;gest, in fact, that scholastic philosophers who read Chisholm's text closely
will find many congenial themes. The overt thrust of the text is realist,
empirical yet non-Humean, and thoroughly non-sceptical.
Interestingly enough, Chisholm remarks that what first set him thinking
about the problem of the criterion-and he admits being " obsessed by
it "-were two treatises of scholastic philosophy, P. Coffey's Epistemology
and Cardinal Mercier's Criteriologie generale ou theorie generale de la
certitude. Chisholm notes that Coffey and Mercier have " set the problem
correctly" and have " seen what is necessary for its solution." As he
proceeds, Chisholm uses Coffey and Mercier more as " touch-stones " for
delineating the problem rather than philosophers providing a solution to
the problem. Nevertheless, Chisholm's own elucidation of the problem anJ
proposal for a solution have strong Aristotelian elements.
The question which gets philosophers involved with the problem of the
criterion is "What can I really know about the world? " Put differently,
how are we to decide, in any given case, whether we have a genuine piece
of knowledge? Or again, how are we to distinguish the real cases of knowledge from what only seem to be cases of knowledge? That this problem is
couched in Cartesian worries should be obvious.
What precisely does Chisholm understand by the problem and why is
it so fundamental a problem for him? It is philosophically problematic

BOOK REVIEWS

989

because a proposed solution often leads into a vicious circle. And the
vicious circle pushes the epistemologist into Scepticism. Chisholm paraphrases Montaigne's formulation of this puzzle. In order to know if our
ideas really correspond to things-which is, in effect, the old philosophical
chestnut of Representative Realism as elucidated by Locke and Descarteswe need a procedure for distinguishing ideas (or appearances) that are
from ideas (or appearances) that are false. But in order to know whether
our procedure is a good procedure, we must know if it really succeeds in
distinguishing ideas (or appearances) that are true from ideas (or ap··
pearances) which are false. However-and here is where the circle becomes
vicious-we cannot know whether the procedure really does succeed unless
we already know which idea (or appearance) is true and which is false.
Therefore, we are caught in a vicious circle. Yet, as with most philosophical
paradoxes, a few precise distinctions can go a long way to clear the muddle.
This is precisely what Chisholm does.
Chisholm formulates the philosophical issues involved in the problem of
the criterion by distinguishing two pairs of questions. These questions are
used throughout the book:
A. What do we know? What is the extent of our knowledge?
B. How are we to decide whether we know? What are the criteria of
knowledge?
Chisholm remarks that if we have an anwser to Question A, then we
could derive a solution for Question B. And vice-versa, if we could provide
an answer to Question B, then we could derive a solution to Question A.
Granting this interrelation, the position of the Sceptic becomes apparent:
You cannot answer question A until you have answered question B. And yoa
cannot answer question B until you have answered question A. Therefore, you
cannot answer either question. You cannot know what, if anything, you know,
and there is no possible way for you to decide in any particular case. (p. 14.)

The brunt of Chisholm's text is to provide a philosophically
response to the Sceptic's position.
By distinguishing positions, Chisholm remarks that there are two alternative positions other than Scepticism. He suggests the following names and
descriptions:
1. Methodists: Those who think they have an answer to Question B,
and granting this solution, they hope to figure out an answer to Question
A. (Obviously, "Methodist" has no reference in this discussion to the
religious followers of John Wesley.)
Particularists: Those who think they have an answer to Question A,
and granting this solution, they hope to figure out an answer to Question B.
In response to the problem of the criterion, therefore, there are three
possible alternatives: Scepticism, Methodism, and Particularism.

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Chisholm provides as examples of Methodism John Locke, David Hume,
and most Nineteenth-and Twentieth-century radical empiricists. Why is
empiricism a form of Methodism? Because the empiricists concentrate primarily on the "method of verification." According to the empiricist criterion, the " method " used in distinguishing veridical from non-veridical beliefs is whether or not the belief is derived from sense experience. We must,
the Methodist-empiricist tells us, see whether the belief has certain relations
to sensations. Pushed to its consistent conclusion this leads to Hume's
critique of ontology and theology. Hume asserted that you could take his
criterion to the library and, if you were to find a book in which the author
makes claims that do not conform to the empiricist criterion, then you
should " ... commit it to the flames; for it can contain nothing but sophistry
and illusion." (Inquiry, XII, iii)
Chisholm, however, finds two serious problems with the Methodism of
the empiricists:
I. The criterion is ". . . very broad and far reaching and at the same
time quite arbitrary." The Methodist " ... leaves us completely in the
dark so far as concerns what reasons he may have for adopting this particular criterion rather than some other." (p. 17}
2. When we apply the criterion of radical empiricism (i. e., Berkeley
without the Super-Perceiver, Hume, and most Nineteenth- and Twentiethcentury empiricists) , " ... we seem to throw out, not only the bad apples
but the good ones as well, and we are left . . . with just a few parings or
skins with no meat behind them." To be a consistent radical empiricistand Hume concedes this-entails that the only matters of fact which can
really be known pertain to the existence of sensations. In effect, using this
criterion, we cannot know whether there are any physical things (trees,
houses, beer cans) much less whether there are atoms or other microscopic
particles. Chisholm's criticisms of empiricist methodology should again
indicate to those readers not familiar with contemporary analytic philosophy that Linguistic Analysis is neither equated with nor co-extensive with
radical empiricism.
Thomas Reid, G. E. Moore-and, I submit, Aristotle, although Chisholm
does not explicitly mention him-are examples in the history of philosophy
of Particularists. The Particularist provides an answer to Question A an.:l
then attempts to work out a solution for Question B. Chisholm illustrates
Particularism with Moore's famous example from his influential paper, "A
Defense of Common Sense " : Moore raises his hand and says: " I know
very well this is a hand, and so do you. If you come across some philosophical theory that implies that you and I cannot know that this is a hand,
then so much the worse for the theory." That there is a fundamental
structural similarity with Aristotelian epistemology should be apparent. I
will have more to say on this point at the conclusion of this review.

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991

Chisholm himself admits the following: " I think that Reid and Moore are
right, myself, and I'm inclined to think that the ' Methodists ' are wrong."
(p.
Therefore, in regard to the three positions-Scepticism, Methodism and
Particularism-Chisholm
suggests that the third alternative-Particularism-is the "most reasonable." The rest of Chisholm's text is an
elucidation of his theory of Particularism and its role in establishing an
epistemologically adequate criterion.
In adopting a Particularist position Chisholm argues that there are many
things which we obviously do know. Our knowledge of" particular things"
in situations similar to Moore's illustration mentioned above is Chisholm's
realist example. Chisholm quotes Spinoza: " In order to know, there is no
need to know that we know, much less to know that we know that we
know." It is important to realize the force of Chisholm's assertion here.
We know particular objects as particular objects and not as "bundles of
sense data " or other " constructs " proposed by the radical empiricists.
This is, I suggest, structurally similar to the Aristotelian claim that we
can know the " incidental object of sense," which is an " individual " and
not a collection of sense data. In opposition to Descartes Chisholm argues
that, from the fact that our senses do sometimes deceive us, it hardly
follows that your senses and mine are deceiving us right now. Following
both Augustine and Russell-strange bed-fellows indeed-Chisholm remarks
that it is more reasonable to trust the senses than to distrust them. " In
short, the senses should be regarded as innocent until there is some positive
reason, or some particular occasion, for thinking that they are guilty on
that particular occasion." (p.
To quote Russell from An Inquiry into
Meaning and Truth: " ... beliefs caused by perception are to be accepted
unless there are positive grounds for rejecting them." Again, there is a certain Aristotelian bent towards Chisholm's description of the Particularist
position.
Granting this Particularist position Chisholm then proceeds to develop
his answer to the problem of the criterion. In order to solve this problem,
he claims we must " ... start with particular case of knowledge and then
from those we generalize and formulate criteria . . . telling us what it is
for a belief to be epistemologically respectable." (p. 14) With this,
Chisholm begins his response to Question B above.
Chisholm remarks that a theory of evidence-a " method " used in response to Question B-presupposes an objective " right and wrong." This,
in turn, presupposes a concept of " right preference " : i. e., " The concept
of one state of mind being preferable epistemically to another." (p.
Chisholm explicates his theory of evidence through the concept of "Epistemic Preferability." This is what Mercier referred to by his demand that
the criterion be "objective." Chisholm elucidates this objective character
in the following way:

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If a state of mind A is to preferred to a state of mind B, i£ it is, as I wouid
like to say, intrinsically preferable to B, then anyone who prefers B to A is mistaken in his preference. ( p. £5)

With " Epistemic Preferability " Chisholm delineates the following hierarchy of epistemic propositions:
a) Propositions which are "certain" (Absolutely certain)
b) Propositions which are "evident"
c) Propositions which are" beyond reasonable doubt"
d) Propositions which have "some presumption in their favor."
An adequate epistemology would have a criteria for each class of propositions. Chisholm considers two such criteria in the rest of the text.
In formulating the criteria for certainty-i. e., for " certain propositions,"
Chisholm follows Leibniz's distinction regarding two kinds of " immediately
evident propositions " :
i. First Truths of Fact
ii. First Truths of Reason
These are propositions which are immediately evident and certain. As
examples of First Truths of Fact Chisholm includes various propositions
about a person's own state of mind at a given time. Using Meinong's term,
these are" self-presenting" states. For example: thinking certain thoughts,
entertaining certain beliefs, or being in a certain sensory or emotional state.
Chisholm notes, however, that perceiving external things and remembering
are not states that present themselves.
An Aristotelian epistemologist should be reminded here of the distinction
between those propositions which are indubitable and those which are not.
Aristotle-and Aquinas following him-insisted that an awareness of a
proper sensible is per se veridical while an awareness of an incidental object of sense-the individual- is not per se veridical. This Aristotelian
position is, I suggest, structurally similar to Chisholm's distinction between
the "self-presenting states" and the "perception of external objects."
As First Truths of Reason Chisholm notes what scholastic philosophers
would call per se nota propositions. These are the a priori axioms or
propositions which are evident, as Leibniz says, "ex terminis." Or, to
quote Aquinas from the Commentary on Aristotle's Posterior Analytics,
propositions which are " .... manifest through themselves."
Granting that we do know some things (Question A) , Chisholm has
provided a criterion for establishing the category of " certain propositions,"
both the " First Truths of Fact " and the " First Truths of Reason." The
former are certain because they are "self-presenting states," and the latter
are certain" ex terminis." In other words, this is how we know the propositions are " certain."
In The Problem of the Criterion, Chisholm does not thoroughly develop

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993

a " theory of the indirectly evident," which would serve as his criterion for
both propositions which are " evident " and " beyond a reasonable doubt."
He refers the reader to his Theory of Knowledge (Prentice-Hall, 1966) for a
further consideration of this problem. Those philosophers interested in
veridical perception will be disappointed because Chisholm merely sketches
a solution to this most important criterion problem. Yet he is consistent in
maintaining his Particularist framework even in sketching a response:
Yet, as " particularists " in our approach to the problem of the criterion, we

will fit our rules to the case. . . , Knowing what we do about ourselves and the
world, we have at our disposal certain instances which our rules or principles
should countenance, and certain other instances which our rules or principles should
rule out or forbid. (p. 35)

The theme of Moore's expressed in "A Defense of Common Sense" is
reiterated in this passage from Chisholm.
In the end, however, Chisholm notes that the Methodist and the Sceptic
will tell the Particularist that he started in the wrong place. To this
Chisholm responds:
What few philosophers have had the courage to recognize is this: we can deal
with the problem only by begging the question. It seeems to me that, if we do
recognize this fact, as we should, then it is unseemly for us to try to pretend
that it isn't so.
One may object: " Doesn't that mean, then, that the sceptic is right after all? "
I would answer: "Not at all. His view is only one of the three possibilities and
in itself has no more to recommend it than the others do. And in favor of our
approach there is the fact that we do know many things, after all." (pp. 37-38)
Chisholm concludes by restating the Particularist gambit.

This gambit, as I have suggested, is structurally similar to the Aristotelian
position. Think of the question Aristotle puts to the epistemologist: how
can you come up with a criterion if you do not know the things which
are known? This is the Particularist position. We do know certain things.
Yet it does beg the question. However, not to beg the question against
the Methodist-who indeed must show the Particularist why his position is
to be accepted-is to be caught either in scepticism or, I submit, forced to
introduce something extraneous into your ontology-like Descartes's Godin order to provide veridical beliefs.
This is an important little text. Professor Chisholm comes to terms
nicely with the problem of the criterion. His distinctions are extremely
useful and most important. Yet this text really just whets the appetite
of those epistemologists interested in casting off the " Cartesian slumbers "
in favor of an Aristotelian realism. I strongly recommend that the interested reader, after carefully studying The Problem of the Criterion, read
Chisholm's Theory of Knowledge (mentioned above), his" On the Observa-

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bility of the Self," Philosophy and Phenomenological Research, 30 (1969),
7-21, and Empirical Knowledge (Prentice-Hall, 1978), a most impressive
anthology Chisholm edited with Professor Robert J. Swartz. This latter
selection of readings is constructively edited around the very same issues
Chisholm raises in The Problem of the Criterion.
In conclusion, the Department of Philosophy at Marquette University
is to be commnded for its continuation of the impressive series of Aquinas
Lectures. The 1973 Lecture-The Problem of the Criterion-certainly
merits its place among the distinguished listing of previous presentations.
ANTHONY J. LISSKA
Denison University
Granville, Ohio

Letters from the Desert. By CARLO CARRETTO. New York:
Orbis Books, 1972. Pp. 146. $3.95.

Maryknoll

Why is the Third World Poor? By PIERO GHEDDO. New York: Maryknoll
Orbis Books, 1973. Pp. 143. $3.95.
The Desert is Fertile. By DoM HELDER CAMARA. New York: Maryknoll
Orbis Books, 1974. Pp. 61. $3.95.
These three books represent fairly well the kind of help Maryknoll's Orbis
Books are offering these days. The Carretta book is on prayer. The author,
a very active layman in Catholic Action in Italy for twenty-five years, gave
it up at the age of forty-four to become a Little Brother of Jesus. He heard
the call to prayer and went into the desert. After a while he began to
jot down things. "Nothing systematic, nothing important. A few ideas
matured in solitude and taking shape around an activity which has been
without a doubt the greatest gift the Sahara has given me: prayer." The
book was an instant success in Italy where, since its appearance in 1964
it has gone through twenty-four editions. It has been translated into
Spanish, French, German, Portugese, Arabic, Japanese, Czech, and now,
gracefully enough, into English. I hope it goes into twenty-four more editions. It breathes with life, with fresh insights, with wisdom, with love.
Dominicans will surely appreciate the brief meditation on the rosary as a
contemplative prayer (pp. 47-51).
The Gheddo book, also a translation from the Italian, is by a missionary
priest who is also editor of Mondo e Missione. I don't suppose the word
" prayer " appears in the whole book; it nonetheless could have been written
only by a man deep in the spirit of Christ, i. e., the spirit of Christian
intelligence and love. The book's obvious virtue is its balance. The main
point is that the poverty of the Third World cannot be blamed on any

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995

one cause: colonialism, neocolonialism, capitalistic or communistic exploitation, or whatever. No, the causes are very complex, beginning with a
fatalistic view of life in many of the peoples of the Third World, a lack
of any inner drive to progress, a static rather than a dynamic culture.
All this is aggravated by the exploitation of the developed countries, but
the solution is not now to banish the industrial sophisticated countries from
the underdeveloped ones. Gheddo hates easy slogans and quick put downs.
He cites facts and figures; he points to world conferences and studies on
poverty and development, shows how experts differ in their analyses and
programs. He is very practical. Still, the book does not leave the reader
with a feeling of hopeless frustration. On the contrary, it is an excellent
primer for anyone truly interested (and what Christian cannot be?) in understanding the serious problems of the Third World, in doing something
about them.
As everyone knows Dom Helder Camara, archbishop of Recife in northwest Brazil, is the most notable Christian spokesman for the poor in
Latin America. This book is a collection of short meditations and poems
written for those individual men and women who feel themselves born to
serve their neighbor, who are ready for any sacrifice to help the vast human
family seek unity through love and justice. Dom Helder has in recent
years become disenchanted with institutions. " I dreamt for six years of
a large, liberating moral pressure movement. I started Action for Justice
and Peace. I travelled half the world. I appealed to institutions, universities, churches, religious groups, trade unions, technicians' organizations, youth movements, etc. After six years I concluded that institutions
as such are unable to engage in bold and decisive action for two reasons:
they can only interpret the average opinions of their members, and b
capitalistic society they have to be directly or indirectly bound up with
the system in order to survive." (p. 2) His appeal in the book, then, is
not to systems but to people, Christians, Jews, Muslims, humanists, believing or not, who share his anxiety for the poor and are driven by their
conscience to help.
THOMAS HEATH, O.P.
Dominican HCYUSe of Studiu
Washington, D. C.

IdeM About Christian Education in India. By A. VERSTRAETEN, S. J.
Bangalore, India:
$1.20.

Theological Publications in India, 1973. Pp. 218.

In a country of approximately 550 million people Christians constitute
a minority of twelve million. In such a situation what should be the extent
of the Church's involvement in education? More precisely, since the num-

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BOOK REVIEWS

her of Catholics in schools remains obviously quite limited, what should
be the Church's educational stance vis-a-vis non-Christians? Such is the
kind of question explored by the writer of this book published in India.
No indication is given as to the author's own background, but the reader
can readily conclude that he is a Jesuit missionary. Some of the material
had been published previosuly in various journals and this may account
for some repetitiveness that surfaces throughout the book.
The author argues a case for Christian education as an effective mear.s
of evangelization. For Christians, education becomes a means to freedom
in Christ; for non-believers, a means to encourage dialogue and cooperation
in furthering basic human values. This thesis mirrors a twofold thrust of
mission activity today, evangelization proper (Kerygma and Koinonia) and
service to mankind (Diakonia). Whether an extensive involvement of the
Church in education is the best form of rendering service to the people of
India is still not conclusive from this presentation. The term church here,
incidentally, is taken almost exclusively to mean Catholic Church and thus
limits somewhat the scope of the inquiry.
Two major documents repeatedly referred to are the Kothari Report,
1966-an appraisal by a Government of India commission of the country's
educational program-and the UNESCO Report on Education,
Both
provide a framework for an analysis of several complex problems identified
by the author. Thus, more than three quarters of the country's vast population reside in rural areas but they have only one quarter of the openings
in vocational and professional institutions. The majority go to families in
the services and professions. The stark inequalities of educational opportunities strengthen the case for the Church's involvement in education. On
the other hand, certain reforms in Church-run schools seem called fo!',
especially a democratization of organizational structure to allow for greate1·
participation and shared responsibility. Here, too, the old bugaboo of
State involvement or interference in school management keeps recurring.
Is there not a challenge here to Church educators to establish new frontiers
and models of community control in education?
Taking his lead from Paulo Freire and Ivan lllich, the writer makes a
convincing case for defining education as a liberating process and as an
instrument for effective social change. In this context the Church's edu ..
cational mission in India should obviously be one primarily of service given
the fact that non-Christian enrollment numbers some eighty million.
In planning for the future Fr. Verstraeten sets forth five priorities for
the Church's (i.e., Catholic) educational enterprise: (I) pastoral objectives rooted in a Christian philosophy of educating the whole person,
service to the nation in quality education and training for leadership, {8)
overcoming social and economic inequalities, the liberation of the underprivileged, (4) a commitment to higher education, teacher training and
research, (5) formation through non-institutional education, especially the

BOOK REVIEWS

997

media. Obviously, some would disagree with the placement of those priorities.
Which should come first, evangelization or service? That question only
makes sense in the context of a well-developed ecclesiology, something still
in the making. Regrettably, the book does not explore the religious education dimension and to that extent the term " Christian Education " in the
title has to be taken in a very restricted sense. This lacuna only highlights
the need for a sound theology of education, an urgent need as this inquiry
into Catholic education in India shows.
MICHAEL DoNNELLAN

University of Dayton
Dayton, Ohio

Man as Infinite Spirit. By JAMES A. RoBB, 1974 Aquinas Lecture. Milwaukee: Marquette University Press. Pp. 64. $2.50.
In this highly personal essay based upon his rethinking of the ontology
and epistemology of St. Thomas Professor James Robb argues that in
Thomistic philosophy the following proposition is true: "A human being
is an infinite spirit." The force of the argument hinges on an analysis of the
objects of intentionality as demanded by Aquinas's epistemology.
Robb suggests that St. Thomas, although freely using the categories and
language of Aristotle, provided an analysis of human nature that none of
the Aristotelian commentators prior to St. Thomas had found in the
Aristotelian texts. Moveover, Robb argues that it has taken 700 years for
scholars to do justice to the profound insight and uniqueness of Aquinas's
teaching on human nature. Robb agrees with the suggestions of Maritain,
Gilson, and Pegis denying that Aquinas's position is strictly Aristotelian.
Nevertheless, he proposes that we go beyond their work which placed
emphasis on the "intensified existential dimension" of Aquinas's ontology
of man, which in turn translates out as "incarnate finite spirit." To
substantiate his claim that man is an " incarnate infinite spirit " Robb
presents an elucidation of the nature of intentionality as found in Aquinas's
texts, dealing especially with the ontological (" existential ") status and
the epistemological function of the intellectus agens. Much stress is laid
upon the concept of immateriality as the fundamental characteristic of
beings capable of intentionality. Although at times difficult to follow, the
argument appears to go something like this:
I. There are objects of intentionality.

2. The intellectus possibilis knows whatever is intelligible.
2 (i). In Aquinas's ontology, there are no limits to what is intelligible.
2 (ii). Being is intelligible.
2 (iii) . Being is finite and infinite.

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BOOK REVIEWS

8. The intellectus agens as an " abstractive power " is a necessary con
clition for knowledge.
4. There is a necessary relation between the " reception " of concepts
in the intellectus possibilis and the "actuality" of the intellectus agens.
5. Human knowers possess an epistemological power as fully actualized
as the inteUectus possibilis is potential.
6. The object of intentionality-Being-has
an infinite dimension.
7. The intellectus agens is infinite.
("That is to say, it-the intellectus agens- is actually, somehow, the
likeness of all that is or can be." p. 10.)
The structure of the argument depends upon the nature of intentionality,
which, regretfully, Robb does not explicitly mention until the very end
of the essay. Infinity is necessarily related to the concept of "immateriality," which in turn is the basis of intentionality in Aquinas's ontology. As
there are degrees of immateriality (e. g., God-as-knower, human person-asknower, dog-as-knower), so too are there degrees of infinity. Obviously, the
isomorphism between knower and object known is fundamentally important
for Robb's analysis. " Man, like any intellectual being, is open unreservedly
to the infinity of being, truth and goodness." (pp. 41-42)
The status of the intentional object and the relation of isomorphism are
crucial for Robb's argument. Yet one wonders if this concept of " infinity "
says anything more than the concept of "immateriality." And this latter
concept as used in Aquinas's thesis of intentionality is, I am afraid, ill
dire need of close elucidation. Furthermore, one might ask the questiondoes " immateriality " demand a total and complete isomorphism between
object known and knower? Obviously, in knowing" red," the knower does
not become red. Why, then, in knowing "being "-which has an infinite
dimension-must the intellect be infinite? Put differently, does every esse
intentionale demand a corresponding ontological counterpart ? If read too
strictly and in a reverse direction, then what stops Aquinas from going
down the slippery slope to all Meinong's possible worlds? Professor Robb
may very well be correct in his conclusion, but I suggest that the concept
of immateriality and the relation of intentional isomorphism demand further
elucidation.
ANTHONY

Denison University
GranviUe, Ohio

J. LISSKA

BOOKS RECEIVED
Academie Internationale des Sciences Religieuses: La Portee de l'Eglise
des Apotres pour l'Eglise d'Aujourdhui. Colloque Oecumenique de
Bologna 10-13 avril 1973. (Pp.
Alba House: Man: Believer and Unbeliever, by Francis M. Tyrrell. (Pp.
$5.95)
Barnes & Noble: Aristotle and his School, by Felix Grayeff. (Pp.
$11.50); Philosophy of Psychology, by S.C. Brown. (Pp.
$16.50);
Metaphysics. An Introduction, by Archie J. Baum. (Pp.
Les Editions Bellarmin: A la Rencontre du Christ Jesus. Precis d'Eschatologie chretienne, by Jean-Marc Dufort, S. J. (Pp.
Quand les
Eglises Se Vident. Vers une theologie de Ia pratique, by Guy Bourgeault, Jean-Louis d'Aragon, Julien Harvey, Gilles Langevin, Gilles
Palland. (Pp. 160)
E. J. Brill: The Greek Commentaries of the Nicomachean Ethics of Aristotle. Vol. I Eustratius on Book I and The Anonymous Scholia
on Books II, III, and IV, critical edition with introductory study
by H. Paul F. Mercken. (Pp. 505, 108 guilders)
Citta Nouva Editrice: Studi Tomistici I San Tommaso Fonti e Reflessi
del Suo Pensiero. Saggi. Pontifica Accademia di San Tommaso
d'Aquino. (Pp. 438, 6.000 Lire)
Consejo Superior de Investigaciones Cientificas: Jacobus M. Ramirez, 0.
P. Opera Omnia Tomus VI De Habitibus in Communi. In I-II
Summae Theologiae Divi Thomae Expositio (QQ. XLIX-LIV) . Two
vols. (Pp. 830, 1.100 ptas); Tomus VII De Donis Spiritus Sancti
deque Vita Mystica. In II P. Summae Theologiae Divi Thomae Expositio. (Pp. 606, 550 ptas)
Consortium Press: Studies in Christian Antiquity. Vol. 19 Ancient Patterns
in Modern Prayer, by Thomas A. Krosnicki. (Pp. 317,
Heirs & Ancestors. Studies in Philosophy and the History of Philosophy. Vol. 6, ed. by John K. Ryan. (Pp. 301, $15.00)
Creation House: The Chicago Declaration, ed. by Ronald J. Sider. (Pp.
144,
10 Teachings, by J. Rodman Williams. (Pp.
$1.95)
Duke University Press: Medieval Aspects of Renaissance Learning. Three
Essays by Paul Oskar Kristeller ed. & trans}. by Edward P. Mahoney.
(Pp. 187, $7.50)
Fides Publishers: New Perspectives in Moral Theology, by Charles E.
Curran. (Pp.
$8.50)
The Free Press: Religion, Politics, and Social Change in the Third World.
A Sourcebook, by Donald Eugene Smith. (Pp. 801, $8.95)

999

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BOOKS RECEIVED

Indiana University Press: Aristotle. A Contemporary Appreciation, by
Henry B. Veatch. (Pp. 214, $7.95 cloth, $2.95 paper)
International Universities Press: The History of the Concept of the Association of Ideas, by David Rapaport. (Pp. 202, $8.50)
Inter-Varsity Press: The Goodness of God, by John W. Wenham. (Pp.
223, $2.95)
Libreria Editrice Vaticana: Biblioteca per la Storia del Tomismo. 2 Mons.
Andrea Cappellazzo. Tomista Lombardo, by Ercole Brocchieri. (Pp.
91); 3 Pio IX e la Rinascita del Tomismo, by Antonio Piolanti. (Pp.
113) ; Textus Breviores Theologiam et Historiam spectantes. Collezione della Pontifica Accademia Teologica Romana. 1 Bartolomeo
Carranza, 0. P., Arcivescovo di Toledo ( t 1576) De Mysticis Nuptiis
Verbi
cum Ecclesia et Animabus Iustorum, by Antonio
Piolanti. (Pp. 55); 2 Agostino Favaroni da Roma, 0. S. A., Arcivescovo di Nazaret (t 1443) De Sacramento unitatis Christi et Ecclesiae
sive de Christo integra by Antonio Piolanti. (Pp. 77) ; 3 Guglielm..?
Amidani da Cremona, 0. S.A. Vescovo di Novara (t 1356) De
Primatu Petri et de origine potestatis Episcoporum by Antonio
Piolanti. (Pp. 52); 4 Domenico de' Domenichi Vescovo di Brescia
(t 1488) Oratio in laudem Beatissimae Catharinae de Senis, by
Antonio Piolanti. (Pp. 38); 5 ( t 1635) Le lacrime di Maria per i
suoi figli addotivi, by Antonio Piolanti. (Pp. 40)
Macmillan Publishing Co.: Anatomy of the New Testament. A Guide to
its Structure and Meaning (second edition), by Robert A. Spivey &
Moody D. Smith. (Pp. 556, $9.95); The Twelve Apostles, by Ronald
Brownrigg. (PP. 248, 12.95); The Jesus Party, by Hugh J. Schonfield. Pp. 320, $7.95) ; Anya. A Novel, by Susan Fromberg Shaeffer.
(Pp. 489, $8.95)
Marquette University Press: Man as Infinite Spirit. 1974 Aquinas Lecture,
by James H. Robb. (Pp. 64, $UO)
Martinus Nijhoff Publisher: Authority, ed. by Frederick J. Aldemann, S. J.
(Pp. 131, 27.50 guilders}; God and Evil, by H. J. McLoskey (Pp.
139, 25. guilders)
McGraw-Hill Book Co.: St. Thomas Aquinas Summa Theologiae. Vol. 49
(3a. 7-15) The Grace of Christ, by Liam Walsh, 0. P. 259, $12.50}
Francesco Nerone: Teologia del Progresso delle Realta Spazio-Temporali,
by Francesco Nerone, C. P. (Pp. 226, 1.900 Lire)
Notre Dame Institute Press: The Science of Sacred Theology for Teachers.
I Introduction to Theology (Pp. 70}, II Revelation (Pp. 129) , III
The Channels of Revelation (Pp. 84) , by Emmanuel Doronzo.
Orbis Books: Marx and the Bible. A Critique of the Philosophy of Oppression, by Jose Miranda. (Pp. 359, $8.95)
Pontifical Institute of Mediaeval Studies: The Historical Constitution of
St. Bonaventure's Philosophy, by John Francis Quinn. Pp. 981,
$25.00.

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1001

Paulist Press: Process & Permanence in Ethics: Max Scheler's Moral
Philosophy, by Alfons Deeken. (Pp. 291, $5.95); How Catholics
Look at Jews. Inquiries into Italian, Spanish and French Teaching,
by Claire Huchet Bishop. (Pp. 164, $4.50)
D. Reidel Publishing Co.: Boston Studies in the Philosophy of Science.
Vol. XII Philosophical Problems of Time and Space (second enlarged
edition), by Adolf Griinbaum. (Pp. 907, $17.90)
Scarecrow Press: Thomas Merton: A Bibliography, by Marquita Breit.
(Pp. 197, $6.00)
Seabury Press: The Recovery of the Sacred, by James Hitchcock. (Pp. 187
$6.95); Prophets, Poets, Priests, & Kings, by F. Washington Jarvis.
(Pp. 298, $7.95); The Hebrew Lord, by John Shelby Spong. (Pp.
201, $5.95); The Church in the New Testament, by Rudolf
Schnackenburg. (Pp. 2:1!2, $4.95); The Future Present. The Phenomenon of Christian Worship, by Marianne H. Micks. (Pp. 220,
$3.95); Death's Single Privacy. Grieving and Personal Growth, by
Joyce Phipps. (Pp. 143, $5.95); The People of the Center, by Carl
Starkloff. (Pp. 144, $5.95)
Sheed & Ward: Thomas Merton, Monk. A Monastic Tribute, by Brother
Patrick Hart. (Pp. 229, $8.95)
Simon & Schuster, Inc.: Religion and Sexism, ed. by Rosemary R. Reuther.
(Pp. 356, $9.95 cloth, $3.95 paper)
Charles Scribner's Sons: Man's Responsibility for Nature, by John Passmore. (Pp. 223, $7.95)
The University of Chicago Press: Sartre and the Sacred, by Thomas M.
King, S. J. (Pp. QOO, $8.95)
University of Notre Dame Press: Bernard Lonergan's Philosophy of God,
by Bernard Tyrrell, S. J. (Pp. :1!16, $1:1!.95)