THE THOMIST
A SPECULATIVE QUARTERLY REVIEW
OF THEOLOGY AND PHILOSOPHY

EDITORS:

THE DoMINICAN FATHERS oF THE PROVINCE OF ST. JosEPH

Publishers:

VoL. XXXIX

The Thomist Press, Washington, D. C.

JANUARY,

1975

No.1

EXPECTANCY OF AN IMMINENT PAROUSIA AND
CONCERN WITH CHURCH ORDER: AN
INVERSE RELATIONSHIP?

G

IVEN THE FACT that the Parousia, understood in
a futurist sense, has not come and that by the end of
the Subapostolic period there is evidence of a rather
dominant three-fold priestly structure, one is led inevitably to
the question of the relationship between the two.
However, deciding what that relationship is, is no easily
answered question. Certainly no direct answer is forthcoming
from the texts themselves for the simple reason that no writer,
either in the New Testament or among the Apostolic Fathers,
has stated explicitly why there was concern for Church Order
or how the early communities understood the " delay " in the
Lord's Coming. This silence in itself is not surprising; conscious
reflection often follows upon a lived experience.
Let us express the dilemma in its simplest terms: if the Lord
had come in glory shortly after his Resurrection-Ascension, the
1

LEWIS S. FIORELLI

question we are asking in this essay would be meaningless.
However, admitting that does not compel one to conclude that,
therefore, concern with Church Order must be directly inverse
to the problematic of the parousial "delay." Rather, such a
directly inverse relationship smacks of a simplistic solution to
a subtly complex problem.
Our aim here, therefore, is two-fold: (1) to attempt to show
that a directly inverse relationship between the expectancy
of an imminent Parousia and concern with Church Order,
though perhaps a significant factor, is not sufficient alone to
explain the fact of Church Order; (fl) to suggest that a more
fruitful avenue of approach to the whole question of Church
Order may lie in the examination of the antecedent probability,
given the more or less cultic character of Jesus and the Twelve,
of the rise of a cultic order within the early Church.
The first aim is certainly the more fundamental one as far
as we are concerned and therefore more attention will be given
to it. The second aim is a mere suggestion, via a concrete example, to bring home the reality that other factors may be
operative in the concern with Church Order beyond the factor
of the" delay" in the Lord's return. The first aim is in a sense
a negative contribution to the whole problematic; the second is
a more positive suggestion that one look beyond the categories
of Church Order and Parousia when attempting to understand
either one or the other or the relationship between the two.
Since it is not possible to ascertain directly (i. e., from explicit statements in the sources) the relationship between the
parousial delay and concern with Church Order, an indirect
approach must be used. Therefore, an overview of the rise of
Church Order will be given, tracing its development, in broad
strokes, from the New Testament writings through and to the
emergence of a dominant three-fold priestly class in the Apostolic Fathers. Once' this is done, two questions. must be brought
to the texts: (1) in the earliest New Testament writings, when
the expectancy of an imminent Parousia is most acute, is there
any concern with Church Order or conditions for its emergence?; (2) in the later New Testament writings and into the

IMMINENT PAROUSIA AND CHURCH ORDER

s

Apostolic Fathers, when one might legitimately expect a
lessening of imminent parousial expectation, are there nevertheless still traces of interest in the Lord's Second Coming?
If the answer to either or both of these questions is in the
affirmative, the conclusion would seem to suggest that at least
there is no directly inverse relationship between the categories
of Church Order and parousial expectation-while not thereby
suggesting that there is no relationship.

I. AN OvERVIEW oF THE RisE OF CHURCH ORDER IN THE NEw
TESTAMENT

AND THE APOSTOLIC

FATHERS

In studying the New Testament as a whole the fact of several
and apparently simultaneous types of Church Order is brought
to the fore. Variety rather than uniformity in ecclesial organization seems to be the rule. The scope of organization
runs the spectrum between the congregational-charismatic under Paul to the highly and centrally regulated hierarchy of the
Pastorals and 2 Peter. 1 Despite the wide variety, however, two
roughly inclusive categories emerge: the presbyteral and· the
pneumatic.
Not surprisingly, the presbyteral forms are found localized
in Palestinian communities and communities with a large number of Jewish Christians. The influence of the Jewish system
of elders is obvious in these communities (cf. Acts 15) .2
Further, there is ample evidence in Acts to suggest that this
development along Jewish lines was a natural one, given, for
example, the presence of many former Jewish priests in the
community (Acts 6: 7) ; these would naturally be influential
in establishing a continuity in structure between the Old Testament precedent of a college of elders (presbyteroi) and the
newly formed grouped of Christians. 3
1 Kenan B. Osborne, "A Rethinking
of the Special Ministries." Joumol of
Ecumenical Studies, 6,
(Spring, 1962), p. 209.
• Hans von Campenhausen, Ecclesiastical Authority and Spiritual Power. (Stanford, California: Stanford University Press, 1969), p. 77.
• Joseph Blenkinsopp, Celibacy, Ministry, Church. (New York: Herder and
Herder, 1968), p. 149.

4

LEWIS S. FIORELLI

Apparently more or less simultaneous with but not in conscious opposition to this presbyteral system arose the Pauline
system of pneumatic churches, dominated for the most part
by Gentile Christians and somewhat loosely structured. Blenkinsopp suggests that these Pauline communities in general
were similar in structure " to that of Antioch which was presided over by prophets and teachers." 4 However, these
churches, though loosely structured, were not without some
forms of administration. Nevertheless, these administrators
were in no way attached to what today would be called an
" office " which had to be filled and was somewhat fixed, for
". . . the imprecise terminology which Paul uses can hardly
be taken to imply a fixed 'office'." 5 As Acts 13:1 suggests,
the teachers and leaders of these churches arose from among
the community rather spontaneously, without necessarily a
mission from an Apostle or a laying on of hands. Further, as
Acts 13:2 indicates, the Spirit often directed these communities
and the selection of some of their number for specific tasks and
functions. Paul often includes these functions in the lists of
charismatic gifts and, for him, these charisms arise neither from
the community nor from an office existing apart from the
charisms: " Everyone can do that to which he has been called,
that which has been given him through the charism." 6 (sic)
Though everyone can do that to which he has been called, he
can do only that to which he has been called: no one was expected to have every charism. 7
In the early Pauline churches, therefore, there is little evidence for concern with establishing any kind of organizational
structure beyond what the Spirit would indicate and thi3
usually in the context of spreading the Word. (Acts 13: 4-5)
However, as evidenced in the Pastorals especially, various factors contributed to a growing concern for safeguarding and
'Ibid., p. 149.
• von Campenhausen, op. cit., p. 64.
8 Joseph Duss-von Werdt, "What Can the Layman Do Without the Priest? "
Ccmcilium, vol. 84, p. 107.
• Ibid., p. no.

IMMINENT PAROUSIA AND CHURCH ORDER

5

handing on the Tradition and right doctrine (cf. 1 Tim. 1: 10;
4: 1; 6: 13; 5: 17; 6:3, 20 f.). It is in fact the characteristic of
the Pastorals that all the stress is on "guarding," "which is
to be ensured by the men who represent the connection with
th apostle who has been entrusted with the doctrine." 8 In
this way the task of protecting the churches from false doctrine
came to be confided into the care of overseers (episkopoi) .9
Despite this growing concern in the Pastorals for the
guarding of right doctrine, no strict ministerial arrangement,
with a precise institutional form, is in evidence. Nevertheless,
these letters do add the notion-but not the word-of " succession " with their insistence that concern for right doctrine be
transmitted and faithfully preserved by a continuity of witnesses. (2 Tim. 2: 2) Yet there is nothing in the Pauline
churches to suggest that this succession of witnesses is linked
to the founding Apostle rather than to the college of episkopoi.10
It is becoming clear, though, in the Pastorals, that the
original pneumatic character of the Pauline communities is
being more and more institutionalized, with the episkopoi
gaining ground as a result of their role in guarding and transmitting right doctrine and tradition. Consequently, these pneumatic churches are becoming more and more similar in structure to the presbyteral churches, and it is at least antecedently
probable to expect that the two will fuse into one-once charism
and office, in the Pauline Churches, converge in one person.
That this in fact happened seems to be obvious and, since
there need not be opposition between Spirit and office, between
charism and official authority, charismatics like Barnabas and
Saul can receive official authority by the laying on of hands
(Acts 13: 2-3) , and men like Timothy can receive both authority and charism in the same way (1 Tim. 4: 14). In fact, the
laying on of hands seems to have become the usual way for
• Eduard Schweizer, Church Order in the New Testament. (London: SCM
Press, 1961), p. 80.
• von Campenhausen, op. cit., p. 81.
10 Maurice Villain, " Can There Be Apostolic Succession Outside the Chain ot
Imposition of Hands?" Concilium, vol. S4, pp. 101-102.

6

LEWIS S. FIORELLI

one to enter upon the service of the Lord (ibid., 5:
. In this
way, the more or less institutional roles of presbyteroi and
episkopoi gradually assume the importance which the community had earlier given to the charismatic prophets and
teachers. 11
While all this is happening in the Pauline communities,
though perhaps not independent of mutual influence, the elders
of the presbyteral system are also gaining greater prominence
and beginning to assume functions previously reserved to
charismatics. For example, in James 5:14 f., the elders assume
the function of anointing the sick and healing, which in Paul
are duties assigned to particular spiritual men with a special
charism. Further, in James the power to heal is connected with
office.12 On the other hand, Titus and Timothy are sent to
teach and, at the same time, to take on administrative functions. Timothy is sent to teach (1 Cor. 4: 14-17; 1 Tim. 4: 11)
and to administer (1 Tim. 5: 9-16) .
In brief, the elders of the presbyteral system are beginning
to look remarkably like their counter-parts in the emerging
episcopal system. Their fusion, therefore, was more easily
made, the consequent confusion in terminology more readily
understandable, and the coalescing of the offices of presbyteroi
and episkopoi more logically acceptable. Given all this, one
is not too surprised, for example, to find Clement and Hermas
calling the leading men of the community both presbyteroi
and episkopoi. 18
Let us pause for a moment to assess what we have seen. The
two categories of presbyteral and pneumatic structure, initially
so different, have each undergone internal re-shaping, emerging
with remarkably similar collegial structures. This similarity
in structure, no doubt coupled with the passing of strong men
like Paul and the encroaching threats from heretical teaching,
led the two to fuse into one, basically collegial order.
Osborne, op. cit., pp. !i!09-10.
von Campenhausen, op. cit., p. 8!i!.
1 ' Ibid., p. 84.
11

12

IMMINENT PAROUSIA AND CHURCH ORDER

7

The next question to answer, then, is how this basically
collegial structure becomes monarchical and hierarchical, with
the bishop placed above and over the presbyters and deacons.
In other words, how does one get from the later New Testament writings to the Apostolic Fathers, from emphasis on
collegiality to emphasis on episcopacy?
To begin with, one must immediately preclude any clear-cut
division between the New Testament and the Fathers. Such
an arbitrary division is not justified, for even as early as the
Pastorals, for instance, the episkopos is always referred to in
the singular/ 4 while Clement and Hermas still use it in the
plural and apparently makes little distinction between the
terms presbyteroi and episkopoi. 15 In other words, in giving the
broad strokes leading from the collegial structure to the monarchical structure it is not simply a question of moving chronologically from the New Testament to the Fathers, or simply
a question of an unnuanced jump from one emphasis to the
other, or, further, a simple shift on the level of ecclesial selfunderstanding: Briefly, then, in attempting to sketch the
movement in broad strokes, one runs the risk of oversimplification. Having listed some of the risks involved in giving a
general overview, let us now turn to the question at hand:
how did the movement from collegial to monarchical structure
realize itself?
Blenkinsopp tells us that, while the functions of teaching
and administration were performed by a college of presbyteroi/
episkopoi, there early and often existed the practice of appointing one of the members as president. 16 Gradually this function of president gained greater and greater prominence, giving
rise to the outlines of a monarchical structure and restricting
the term " episkopos " exclusively to the one functioning as
president. From within a community governed collegially by
episkopoi and (or) presbyteroi there thus emerged the monarchical structure, which soon became the established form. 17
14 Ibid.,

18

15

17

p. 107.
Ibid., p. 84.

Blenkinsopp, op. cit., pp. 149-50.
Osborne, op. cit., pp. 149-50.

8

LEWIS S. FIORELLI

Clement, for example, though there is a certain ambiguity
and fluidity in his terms in his letter to the Church at Corinth
(c. 97 A. D), attests to the presence of bishops-presbyters and
deacons. Further, he goes out of his way to ground these offices
in the explicit will of the Apostles. Indeed he is at pains to
trace a chain of succession from the present leaders to the
Apostles to Jesus to God (chs. 42 to 44). The general thrust
of what will later be called apostolic succession is grounded
by Clement, and "the sacrificial understanding of the Lord's
Supper here comes to the fore and is clearly connected with the
theme of apostolic succession." 18 As early as the end of the
first century, then, there is emerging a three-fold priestly class,
hierarchically structured, grounded on the principle of apostolic
succession, reaching back to God's will, and connected to a
cultic context. None of these points is as clearly etched in
Clement as in subsequent ecclesial thought, but with Clement
" the main lines of the later development are so plainly prefigured." 19
By c. 110 A. D. what is today understood as the three-fold
ministry is more clearly established, as Ignatius testifies to in
most of his letters. For example,
. . . I advise you, be ye zealous to do all things in godly concord,
the bishop presiding after the likeness of God and the presbyters
after the likeness of the council of the Apostles, with the deacons
also who are most dear to me, having been entrusted with the
diaconate of Jesus Christ . . . (Magn. 6; Lightfoot's translation)

The short period between Clement's letter to Corinth and
Ignatius's letters to the churches seems to have been sufficient
time for the fluidity and vagueness of Clement's terms to assume cogency and consistency in Ignatius, lending weight to
Depuy's hypothesis that the specific nature of the episcopal
ministry was fixed at Antioch at the end of the first century
but was definitively recognized only in the second century when
18 Cyril C. Richardson, Early Christian Fathers.
(New York:
Company, 1970), p. 89.
'"Ibid., p. 89.

The Macmillan

IMMINENT PAROUSIA AND CHURCH ORDER

9

Gnosticism posed a challenge. It was recognized everywhere
later, as a result o£ the crisis caused by Arius. 20
This is not to suggest that every Church at the time of
Ignatius was organized along the lines o£ monarchical episcopacy. Polycarp's letter to the Philippians, £or instance, is.
silent concerning episcopacy. Why? This silence " ... may
suggest that monarchical episcopacy had not yet come into existence at Phillipi or that the office was vacant at the time
Polycarp wrote." 21 Nor does the Shepherd of Hermas have
anything to suggest that any form o£ church structure, other
than the presbyteral, was present at Rome at the time o£ the
writing. In other words, monarchical episcopacy does not seem
to have been immediately universal.
However, the question before us now is this: though the
monarchical episcopacy may not have been universal at the
time o£ Polycarp and Hermas, it became the dominant structure before long, as history shows.22 What was the decisive
£actor which caused this trend toward a monarchical, hierarchical structure o£ a three-fold priestly class to become dominant?
With the tendency to institutionalize, the two collegial systems
(presbyt€ral and pneumatic) eventually fused and gave way to a
more monarchical structure. The administrative leaders of the
Christian community soon came to be the leaders of the cult. As
the Eucharist was more and more understood in a sacrificial
dimension, the leaders of the worship were associated ;more and
more with the priesthood of the Old Testament. Extrapolation into
the Old Testament gradually resulted in a separate cultic class
in contrast to the general priesthood of all the Christian faithful. 2 q

With that quotation we can conclude the consideration, admittedly brie£ and sketchy, o£ the overview o£ the rise o£
•• Bernard Dupuy, "Is There a Dogmatic Distinction Between the Function of
Priests and the Function of Bishops? " Concilium, vol. 84, p. 88.
01 L. W. Barnard, Studies in the Apostolic Fathers and Their Background. (New
York: Schocken Books, 1966), p. 89, note 8.
•• Dupuy, op. cib., p. 82.
•• Richard Forti, 0. S. F. S., " The Emergence of a Priestly Class." Paper delivered for Professor Carl Peter, C. U.A., May, 1970, p. 14. This work WllS useful
not only for bibliography but also for the general development of the first part of
this exposition.

10

LEWIS S. FIORELLI

Church Order in theN ew Testament and the Apostolic Fathers
The purpose has been to establish the fact of the rise of Church
Order and some of its contributing factors. Now we must turn
to the specific point: what is the relationship between the expectancy of an imminent Parousia and concern with Church
Order? Is this relationship directly inverse?

II.

Two QUEsTIONs BRoUGHT To THE TExTs:

a) While the communities of the earliest New Testament
writings are eagerly awaiting the Lord's Second Coming, are
they in any way concerned with Church Order?

Perhaps no one would seriously doubt that the earlier
writings of Paul deal heavily with the Lord's Second Coming. 24
That he deals exclusively with a futurist eschatology is in
doubt. Certainly Shires does not think so.25 But does the question of Church Order come to the fore in these writings? H.
F. von Campenhausen categorically denies any concern with
Church Order in the genuinely Pauline letters, 26 while Rudolf
Schnackenburg, agreeing with E. Schweizer that freedom of the
Spirit and juridical order cannot be opposed as they used to
be, i.e., as contradictory and mutually exclusive, affirms
that there is an order which derives from and is willed by God
and in which Christ is the head of his earthly community and
rules it by his Spirit. 2 7

Further, when Paul writes to his communities he writes as one
"conscious of' full power' (egovCT[a) which the Lord had given
Cor. 10: 8; 13: 10) ." 28 Paul's directions for divine
him
service also have an authoritative tone (1 Cor. 11:17. 33 f.)
In his letters to the Church at Thessalonica, and especially
•• Henry M. Shires. The Eschatology of Paul. (Philadelphia: The
Press, 1966), pp. 64-65.
•• Ibid., p. 58 and passim.
•• von Campenhausen, op. cit., p. 47 and passim.
27 Rudolf Schnackenburg,
The Church in the New Testament. (New York:
Herder and Herder, 1965), p.
•• Ibid., p.

IMMINENT PAROUSIA AND CHURCH ORDER

11

when he is concerned with the moral conduct of life, he directs
with authority from the Lord (1 Thess. 4: 2) and is definite
and concrete in his prescriptions (ibid., 4: 11; 2 Thess. 3:4, 6,10,
12) .29
Paul's authority is one thing. But does he, in his earlier
letters, also assign or approve of specific men to function in the
community?
. . . Men are mentioned who have undertaken tasks in church
life, and it is difficult to contend that among these functions of
presiding and governing are also meant such as we find in I
Thessalonians 5:
and also in I Corinthians
... 30
Kiisemann suggests that " those who are over you " in 1 Thess,
5:12 may well correspond to the pastors of Eph. 4:11 and the
bishops of Phil. 1: 1.81
Schnackenburg sees in 1 Cor. 12: 28, with its listing of
apostles, prophets, teachers, etc., a picture of an articulated
community with graded functions. 32 This is not exactly what
one would expect to find in a community upon whom the end
of the ages had come (1 Cor. 10: 11). Nor would one expect the
Thessalonians who are eagerly waiting for God's Son to come
from heaven (1 Thess. 1: 1) to be encouraged by Paul to aspire
to live quietly, to mind their own affairs and to work with their
own hands (ibid., 4.11) -in short, to plan to stay around for
awhile, an obvious precondition for concern with Church Order.
Other examples can be cited: in 2 Thess., for instance, Paul
tells the same community, concerning the coming of the Lord
Jesus Christ, that the day of the Lord has not yet come (2: 2);
further, if anyone does not work, he is not to eat: the Thessalonians are not to live in idleness but are to do their work in
quietness and to earn their own living (3: 10-12) . The expectation of the Lord's Coming is almost breathless in these letters;
yet Paul insists that they lead orderly and quiet lives and
•• Ibid., p.
•• Ibid.
81 Ernst Kasemann, Essays on New Testament
Themes.
R. Allenson, Inc., 1964), p. 69.
•• Schnackenburg, op. cit., p.

(Naperville, lll.: Alec

12

LEWIS S. FIORELLI

wait with patience. Such a disposition of " normalcy " encourages concern with order within the community, again fertile ground for concern with Church Order in the more technical
sense.
In 2 Cor. 11, where Paul is insisting that the community
test the spirits-even the spirit of possible false apostles-he
is doing this " in the context of ecclesiastical order and ecclesiastical authority " as according to Kiisemann who is not
altogether eager to find any traces of " office " in Paul. Yet,
Kiisemann understands all the charisms found in early Paul
as related to service and the good order of the community .84
The important point, then, is that he does see Church Order
in early Paul:
there is a concept in Pauline and sub-Pauline theology which
describes in a theologically exact and comprehensive way the essence and scope of every ecclesiastical ministry and functionnamely, the concept charisma. 85

We have seen a few instances of concern with Church Order,
or the necessary condition for such a concern, within some of
the earliest writings of the New Testament.
b) In the later New Testament writings and into the Apostolic
Fathers, are there any traces left of a parO'lt9ial expectation,
more or less imminent?
The Pastorals are concerned for the most part with Church
Order, for
here ... there is reflected the picture of a church that regards
itself as living, not through a short interval, but through an extending history .86

That the Pastorals reflect a later development in ecclesial consciousness and an increased concern with Church Order seems
evident. Yet does this exclude parousial expectation? Timothy
•• Kiisemann, op. cit., p. 67.
•• Ibid., p. 67.
•• Ibid .• p. 64.
•• Schweizer, op. cit., 77.

IMMINENT PAROUSIA AND CHURCH ORDER

18

is urged to keep the commandment untarnished and free from
reproach until the appearing of the Lord (1 Tim. 6: 14); he
is told that Onesiphorus who was hospitable to Paul will find
mercy from the Lord on that Day (when the Lord returns)
(2 Tim. 1: 16-18); he is charged by the Lord's appearing and
his kingdom (4: 1) ; he is told tha Paul has fought the good
fight and has finished the race and he will be awarded a crown
on that Day, and not only him but all men who loved the
Lord's appearing (4: 8). Titus is told that all Christians are
to live sober, upright and godly lives in this world, " awaiting
our blessed hope, the appearing of the glory of our great God
and Savior Jesus Christ." (Titus 2: IS) The Spirit which
Christians possess not only justifies but also makes them heirs
in hope of eternal life. (Titus S: 6-7)
The Pastorals, then, though greatly concerned with Church
Order, still witness to a parousial expectation, at times more
vivid than at other times, but nevertheless present.
If one accepts the opinion of the "great majority of scholars"
in dating the writing of Revelation during the persecution
that raged toward the end of the reign of Domitian (81-96) ,87
one is dealing with one of the latest of the New Testament
writings. And though the suggestion has often been made that
it is understandable that renewed interest in the Lord's Return seems almost inevitable during a period of harsh persecution, yet one is still impressed by the countless references to
this Coming and the eagerness with which it is awaited. From
the expression concerning" what must soon take place'' (1: 1)
to the" Surely I am coming soon. Amen. Come, Lord Jesus!"
(22: 20) , the eschatological future is vividly bearing down on
the present of the writer. The important consideration as far
as this study is concerned is that this interest in the Parousia
is simultaneous with the presence of concern with very concrete
conditions in various communities-i.e., with Church Order
in the broadest sense of this word. Yet concern with Church
Order in its narrower sense is not lacking either. For example,
87

Jerome Biblical Commentary, (64: 14), p. 469.

14

LEWIS S. FIORELLI

in his message to the Church in Thyatira the author is reprimanding the community for its toleration of Jezebel, a false
prophetess. (2: 20-3) Whether the author is encouraging the
communities to withstand persecution or whether he is urging
them to rid themselves of false teachings and practices-i.e.,
despite the more immediate context of concern with Church Order, the more ultimate context is always this "I am coming
soon; hold fast to what you have, so that no one may seize your
crown." (3: 11)
The Didache, depending on which scholar one follows, is
either a very early writing (Audet) or a very late writing. But
for Richardson " there can be little doubt that we are dealing
with a second century document." as There is also little doubt
that we are dealing with a document which is very much concerned with Church Order; in fact, the second part (chs. 6 to
15) is a manual of Church Order. 89 Nevertheless, "the eschatological attitude is prominent " 40 and one wonders if the
expression, "Let Grace come and let this world pass away,"
(10: 6) is already in the Didache only a more or less standard
part of Eucharistic prayers or whether it instances a time
" when the joyful and expectant note of the Messianic Banquet " 41 is still very much to the fore-a time when one said
" Let Grace come and let this world pass away" he was confident that his prayer was a pregnant petition that what was
coming would in fact come. There is also in the Didache an
urgent concern with watchfulness and being ready, for the
hour of the Lord's coming is not known to anyone (16: 2),
and one's life of faith will be of little advantage unless one is
proved perfect to the very end (ibid.). All of Chapter 16 is
suggestive of an apocalyptic attitude and ends on the note of
certainty that the Lord will come and all his saints with him
(16: 7). The co-presence of concern with Church Order and
Richardson, op. cit., p. 163.
Ibid.
•• Johannes Quasten, Patrology: Vol I: The Beginnings of Patristic Literature.
(Utrecht Antwerp: Spectrum Publishers, 1966, 4th printing), p. 35.
u Richardson, op. cit., p. 166.
88

89

IMMINENT PAROUSIA AND CHURCH ORDER

15

an expectancy of a more or less imminent Parousia in the
Didache is a significant factor in one's evaluation of the relationship between the two.
The letters of St. Ignatius of Antioch (c 110), as has already been seen, are at a stage when the three-fold structure
of ministry is on the ascendency and seems to be the dominant
structure in the Churches he is writing to. Church Order in
Ignatius is remarkably like we know it today and "a monarchical episcopate reigns over the communities." 42 Along with
this predominant concern with Church Order, however, there
are traces of a concern with a more or less imminent Parousia.
For example, he tells the Magnesians (5)' that" everything is
coming to an end, and we stand before this choice-death or
life-and everyone will go 'to his own place'." Further, in
the same letter, he calls Jesus Christ" our hope." (11) In discussing the evils of schism and the need for unity with the bishop, he warns the Smyrnaeans to come to their senses " while
we still have a chance to repent and turn to God." (9) It
would be misleading to see in Ignatius a breathless concern
with the Second Coming. Nevertheless, even to find traces of
this parousial expectation in a document otherwise almost exclusively concerned with various forms of Church Order is significant.
The letter of Pseudo Barnabas, which Quasten dates no later
than 138 A. D./ 3 is an enigmatic work concerned with explaining just how the Old Testament is to be used (allegorically) in discovering its meaning with reference to Christ and
to point out the moral life necessary in pursuing the right
way. Though it is not concerned explicitly with Church Order,
in the narrower sense, it does manifest a situation in which
some form of order is very much in evidence and in which
the sacrament of baptism and the Lord's Day, the Eight Day,
are part and parcel of this order.
At first glance this document, so taken up with Old Testa•• Quasten, op. cit., p. 66.
p. 91.

16

LEWIS S. FIOBELLI

ment exegesis and morals, seems an unlikely candidate for betrayal of parousial expectation. Nevertheless, there are not a
few references to hope; in fact it has been suggested that
Barnabas gives the primacy to hope in the triad of theological
virtues. 44 In Chapter 6 the reader is urged to set his hope on
him who is about to be manifested in the flesh. And, in Chapter 11 those who place their hope in the Cross will receive their
reward at his (the Lord's) proper time and he will repay.
Salvation itself, in Chapter 12, is grounded on hope in Jesus.
This deep parousial hope is made, in Chapter 15 and 16, to
assume a chiliastic cloak,45 but even this "corruption" belies
the seriousness with which the author anticipates the Lord's
return.
As with many of the Subapostolic writings, the Shepherd of
Hermas has difficulties relative to its dating. Quasten satisfies himself as to the dates by attributing the earlier portion to
the time of Clement of Rome (c. 96) and the later portions
to the reign of Pius I (140-150). A strong presbyteral system
is in evidence and Hermas himself acts as a prophet. A certain
form of Church Order, then, is very much to the fore. And
yet the whole work, which deals heavily with the theme of
penance, is apocalyptic in character. 47 In Vision 8,8, for example, Hermas is eager to know whether the consummation is
imminent and is given a severe rebuff for his curiosity (does
this betray an impatience on the part of the Church of his
day?); in Vision 4,1, he experiences a vision of the impending
tribulation; in Similitude 9, 82, the theme of the whole work
is recapitulated: repent while there is yet time! Repent before the tower is completed for unless one hurries to do what
is right the tower will be completed and the unrighteous will
be shut out. (Sim. 10, 4)
With the Shepherd of Hermaa the Church is well into the
second century and, for the most part, some form of Church
Order is everywhere present and presumed. This is certainly
45

Peter, Class Lecture, Fall, 1970.
Quasten, op. cit•• p. 89.

u Ibid..
AT

pp. 9!!-98.
Ibid .• p. 98.

IMMINENT PAROUSIA AND CHURCH ORDER

17

the more obvious side of the coin. But on the other side of this
same coin there are more than a few references to concern with
Christ's Second Coming. It is true that certain works (for example, I Clement and Polycarp) , while showing great concern
with Church Order, show next to no concern with parousial expectation. However, the bulk of the writings from the later New
Testament and into the Apostolic Period (c. 150) do manifest a
more or less vivid expectancy of some parousial manifestation.
Not only that, but this expectancy of the future is often seen as
bearing down on and determining one's action and Christian
living in the present. To dismiss this show of parousial concern as simply a didactic interest in giving consolation and
encouragement at a time of persecution (cf. the Apocalypse)
or to drive home the practice of penance (cf. Hermas) or some
other concern would seem to forget the whole thrust of the
earlier New Testament concern for the Parousia as part and
parcel of the Christian message and witness. That Jesus will
come again is not just an appendix to the Good News.
While enough has been seen to suggest that there is no
directly inverse relationship between the expectancy of an imminent Parousia and concern with Church Order, more than
that has emerged. The point has become clear that one must
go beyond these two categories and look for a hermeneutic
which, while taking into account the data from these two, is
also able to embrace the full thrust of the entire New Testament and the Apostolic period.
In the search for this hermeneutic there are innumerable
related questions which this essay must pass over. How, for
instance, is one to understand the category of eschatology?
Is it only future or only realized or both, in varying degrees?
Is it in fact
doubtless that the primitive Church's consciousnessand experience
of the presence of the Holy Spirit, rather than the ' delay' of the
parousia, (is the reality) that above all (is) responsible for the
development of 'realized eschatology'? 48
•• Jerome Biblical Co=entary,

(80: 47), p. 887.

18

LEWIS S. FIORELLI

And does this insight not in fact change the whole tone of the
question we have posed as title? How is eschatological thought
related to apocalyptic thought and how are they to be distinguished? 49 Is it simply a question of Jesus and the primitive
Church being wrong about the imminent Parousia or something a bit more complex than that? Is the whole question
about concern with Church Order an illegitimate one, given
the" fact" that every expression of Church Order, in a juridical
sense, is a " heresy " from the start and only came about as
a result of the non-occurence of the Parousia (Bauer and
Werner)? 50 Or is this non-occurence to be seen as a conditio
sine qua non rather than a positive cause for the heresies of
various Church orders? 51 Is concern with Church Order, in
any form, simply a wrong turn and a deviation from the
original freedom from the Law preached by Christ and concretized in the indisputable Pauline letters?
These questions, of course, have to be answered, but that
is not our concern at present Rather, we are in search of a
hermeneutic which is capable of handling all the data.
III

IN SEARCH OF AN HERMENEUTIC

Would it not be advantageous, therefore, to look to Jesus and
the Twelve in an attempt to see if there is any antecedent
probability that Church Order, cultically centered, would
emerge in the Early Church? If one can find indications of
this, the whole question is thrown into a new perspective.
Church Order could not then simply be dismissed as heresynor could one " blame" the non-occurrence of the Parousia for
the rise in Church Order. Rather, given the beginning, the end
should be antecedently probable and anticipated.
Coppens has shown just this, following the German bishops'
•• Karl Rahner, " The Hermeneutic of Eschatological Assertions" Theological
Investigations: Vol. IV. (Baltimore: Helicon Press, 1966), pp. S!lS-846.
50 Rudolf Bultmann.
Theology om the New Testamoot: Vol. II. (New York:
Charles Scribner's Sons, 1955), pp. 187-8.
•• Ibid., p. 188.

IMMINENT PAROUSIA AND CHURCH ORDER

19

letter on the origin and development of priesthood. What follows, then, is a resume of Part I of this article by Coppens. 52
Coppens and the German bishops investigate various texts
from the Gospels and other writings of the New Testament,
going back, in most instances, to the earliest strata of the New
Testament tradition. An analysis of these texts lets emerge
the sacerdotal character of the person, mission, and work of
Jesus. Coppens does not find it difficult to deduce from these
texts that Jesus came as the messenger of God's Word, announcing the arrival of the Kingdom of Heaven. He can also
easily see Jesus as a pastor, occupied with gathering the flock,
leading it to pasture, assuming their aspirations and needs, and
promising them a new status in the reign of his Father.
However, it is not quite so easy to determine if Jesus had
a sacerdotal consciousness in the narrower sense of that word,
i.e., having the awareness of exercising a cultic and sacerdotal
mission. One point is clear, though: Jesus was not content
simply to announce the Kingdom; he wished equally to realize
its coming. The exousia of Jesus situated itself in diverse ways
within the framework of, but passing beyond, the priests of
the Old Testament: he was the adversary of Satan, was capable of remitting sins and reconciling the world and men to
God-all of which was the domain, in the Old Testament, of
a ministerial priesthood, in the narrower sense. Especially in
the Last Supper, sealing as it did a new and definitive alliance
with God and conforming to the hopeful expectations of the
prophets, does the priestly character of Jesus emerge: effecting
the reconciliation of all men with God, in view of their entrance
into the Kingdom of heaven. The Lord's command that the
" Supper " be repeated betrays further its cultic character-the
cultic anamnesis.
The German bishops stop here in their analysis of the priestly
character of Jesus, wishing to build only on the most critically
•• Joseph Coppens, Le Sacerdoce Chretien: Ses Origines et son Developpement.
(Leiden: E. J. Brill, 1970), pp. 7-27 especially NouveUe Revue Theologique, tome
92, 1970, pp. 225-247; 337-364. In subsequent page references, the first page corresponds to the Brill edition and the second to the NRT edition.

20

LEWIS S. FIORELLI

solid ground. Coppens, however, suggests one can go further
in the attempt to see how the primitive church itself understood the person and work of Jesus. If there can be seen to
be a continuity between the earliest strata and the latest strata
of the New Testament, weight is given to the priestly character of Jesus.
Consequently, Coppens turns to Paul, in whose writings he
sees great evidence of attributing a sacerdotal interpretation
to the work and person of Jesus. Eph. 5: 2., Gal. 2:20, and
Rom. 8: 34-all interpret Jesus as himself offering his sacrifice
and discern in Christ " un ministre au plan cultuel, done un
liturge, un pretre auquel, selon les croyances de l'eoque,
1'o:ffrande des sacrifices revenait normalement." 53
The letter to the Hebrews, written before the destruction of
the Temple, is another instance of a sacerdotal interpretation
of the person and work of Jesus, even giving him the title
" priest " and High Priest.
Even in the Fourth Gospel Coppens sees instances of interpreting Jesus sacerdotally, especially in the farewell discourse. The Apocalypse too, in its image of Lamb, betrays not
only a victim but also a priest. And the long robe worn by
the Son of Man (1: 13) is generally interpreted as a symbol of
priesthood.
In brief, for one who receives the Scriptures as norm of the faith,
norma non normata, it is clear that the Apostolic Church understood the exousia, the power of Christ, as implying a sacerdotal
character under the triple plan of preaching, pastoring and of the
liturgy, notably sacrificial.S4
Did this sacerdotal character go beyond Jesus to others?
Even during his earthly life Jesus sent certain disciples on mission, communicating to them at least some of his power and
at least for a limited time. In particular the Twelve were invited to and admitted into Jesus' mission before the Resurrection. But, according to the Gospels, it was especially (but not
•• Coppens, op. cit., pp. 18,
•• Ibid., pp. 14,

IMMINENT PAROUSIA AND CHURCH ORDER

exclusively) after the Resurrection that Christ transmitted to
the Twelve a participation in his priestly power (Mt. 28: 18-19;
Jn. 20: 23) . Concerning these last two citations, the bishops
are especially eager to show by them that Jesus' sacerdotal
exousia was limited " a un groupe restraint de disciples et non
pas a I'ensemble des fideles, atoute la communaute ecclesiale." 55
An interpretation of Acts and Paul confirms, for Coppens
and the German bishops, that the Apostolic Church was aware
of prolonging, thanks to the ministry of the Twelve, the
sacerdotal mission of Jesus.
For the Gospels in general and Luke in particular, the exousia
of Jesus is not prolonged and perpetuated in the community
of believers as a whole but by the apostolate in the strict sense,
i. e., by the ministry of the Twelve, which is seen as a sacerdotal
continuation of Jesus as priest: they too are to announce the
Gospel of the Kingdom, pastor the flock (episkopos), pray for
the people (Acts 6: 4) .
It is true that explicit references to a liturgical, cultic, and
sacramental ministry of the apostolate are not numerous.
Nevertheless there are sufficient texts in Scripture that spell out
such a priestly role indirectly: mission, baptism, remission of
sins, obligation and right to celebrate the Supper, call to anoint
the sick, authority over the unclean spirits: all are supported
by Coppens with specific texts.
To illustrate the sacerdotal awareness of the Apostolic
Church, despite the lack of many instances of explicit sacerdotal terms, Coppens turns to Paul who, for example, betrays
a sacerdotal awareness of his person in Rom. 15: 15-16; he
sees his life as a sacrifice in Phil. 2: 17; his life aims at a reconciliation of the world with God (2 Cor. 5: 18); and he sees
his own mission as an extension in time of that of Jesus (2
Cor. 5: 18); further, he does not hesitate to qualify his mission
as an exercise in the name of Christ (2 Cor. 5: 20).
That Paul associated his ministry of reconciliation with the
celebration of the Eucharist is not explicitly stated in the texts,
•• Ibid., pp. 16, iS4.

LEWIS S. FIORELLI

but " dans le cadre de la doctrine eucharistique neotestamentaire, il n'est pas interdit de le penser." 56
Coppens feels he has established a sacerdotal mission of
Christ and a participation in this mission by the Twelve. The
third stage, which is the least easily established, 57 is to see the
participation in the sacerdotal apostolate of the Twelve by
diverse ministries, instituted and sanctioned by the Apostolic
Church in its interpretation of the will of Christ.
There are many touchy problems here. First, it must be
recognized that it took a while for the infant Church to define
itself clearly. Then one must recognize its hesitancy to employ
terms and functions-especially of a sacerdotal nature-which
might smack of too strong a continuity with Judaism or be
seen simply as a development out of the mystery cults or
Qumran.
Given all this, however, one can still trace, especially in Acts
and Paul, a development in the direction of a collegial organization of presbyters-bishops. Going from this collegial structure
to the eventual emergence of a monarchical episcopacy, especially in the Subapostolic churches, is the burden of Part II
of Coppens' article and would overlap too much with the earlier
part of this work.
Nevertheless, enough has been seen to suggest that, given
the cultic beginnings in Jesus and the Twelve, it is at least
antecedently probable that this cultic function will continue
in the Church and emerge as a priestly class, centering in a cult
and a cultic structure. A Church Order, then, is antecedently
probable even before one considers its relationship to the expectancy of an imminent Parousia. This insight cannot but
throw the categories of Parousia and Church Order into a new
perspective, one which would find a directly inverse relationship between the two as somewhat simplistic.

•• Ibid., pp. 19, 287.
•• Ibid.

IMMINENT PAROUSIA AND CHURCH ORDER

28

CoNCLUSION

We began this essay with a question: Is there an inverse
relationship between the expectancy of an imminent Parousia
and concern with Church Order? Since a direct approach did
not seem capable of providing an answer, an indirect approach
was opted for. Therefore, first an overview of the rise of
Church Order was presented, to establish the fact of such concern and to give the general directions it took. It was seen
that, initially, variety was the order of the day, giving way to
collegial and then to monarchical structures, centered around
the cult. Two questions were then brought to the texts: is there
concern with Church Order in the earliest New Testament
writings; is there parousial concern in the later New Testament
writings and into the Apostolic Fathers? An affirmative answer
was given to both, though in varying degrees. This seemed to
suggest that there was no directly inverse relationship between
the two, where one is seen as the only or principal cause of the
other. The need for a hermeneutic arose at this point, one
capable of handling both categories as well as all the data form
the New Testament and the Apostolic Fathers. Such a possible hermeneutic was seen to lie in the antecedent probability,
given the cultic character of Jesus and the Twelve, of the rise
of a cultic order within the early Church. That this is the only
or the best hermeneutic is certainly open to debate. But that
some hermeneutic, other than Parousia and Church Order, is
needed to determine the precise relationship between the two,
seems established.
LEWIS

DeSales llaU School of Theology
Hyattsville, Maryland

s. FIORELLI, O.S.F. s.

CHRIST'S "MEMBERS" AND SEX
(1 Cor 6, 12-!iW)

P

ROMPTED BY A STUDY of Batey/ just about two
years ago Burkill 2 raised a series of questions concerning, particularly, the passage 1 Cor 6:
This is the well-known passage which deals with the problem
of" fornication" of some kind (see below) practiced by some
Christians, and with the theological implications of such practice for Christians whose bodies are members of Christ, are a
temple of God, are " one spirit " with the Lord, since " the
body is for the Lord and the Lord for the body " ; whereas a
union with a prostitute makes a Christian's body a member of
this prostitute, and he "sins against his own body."
Here are the questions this passage suggests to Burkill, who
raises them against as many propositions by Batey. a) If
becoming one flesh with a harlot nullifies the presence of Christ
in the man concerned, why does not sexual intercourse within
marriage have a similar effect? b) If intimacy with a prostitute
is in some sense permanent, how can it differ from corporal
union between husband and wife? c) On the assumption that
Paul has a temple prostitute in mind, why cannot a Christian
who resorts to a temple prostitute communicate holiness (" of
the genuine sort") to her? Are we to say that Aphrodite is
more effectively potent than Christ, or that Paul was confused
about the whole matter and failed to give a clear answer? Then,
if concerning the question of sacred meat (1 Cor 8: Iff; 10;
23 ff) , " there is no idol," the same certainty applies to sacred
sex. d) What is to be made of the notion that all forms of sin
1

Richard Batey, "The mia sarx Union of Christ and the Church," NTS 1!!

(1966/7) 270-281
• T. A. Burkill, "Two into One: The Notion of Carnal Union in Mark 10:
8; 1 Kor 6: 16; Eph 5: 81," ZNW
(1971) 115-UO.

CHRIST'S " MEMBER " AND SEX

other than fornication are "outside the body"? Gluttony,
just as well as excessive sex, may adversely affect physical
health and become a sin against the body. Or does Paul's distinction derive from a deep-seated phobia of women? e) H
"body" in this context is taken to mean "personality," why
is becoming one personality with one's own wife not incompatible with Christian commitment but becoming one personality with a prostitute is? How can a Christian become and
be one " personality " with his/her marital partner and remain
at the same time one personality with Christ? Is this a " mystery " Paul himself did not understand? f) The respective
unions with Christ and with the prostitute are at once similar
and dissimilar; Paul switches from " body " to " spirit." But,
how can a person become a " member " of a spirit? If " body "
in 6:16 means personality, why should the apostle change his
figure of speech? 8
This list of questions discloses the problems which the text
poses even today and justifies a closer look at this passage.
Our purpose is not to contrast Burkill with Batey to establish
who is right and who is wrong but rather to consider 1 Cor
6: 12-20 in the light of these questions and bring out its doctrinal contents. It is hoped that from this study some answer
• The answer to these questions by Burkill is based on propositions by Paul
Winter (" Sadoquite Fragments IV 20, 21 and the Exegesis of Gen 1: 27 and
Jesus' saying on divorce," ZNW 70 (1958) 260-261 and by D. Daube ("Evangelisten
und Rabbinen," ibid. 48 (1957) 119, 126). Mk 10: 10-12 contains "an integral
element of the messianic secret of the Kingdom," namely, "the androgynous character of primordial man." In Jewish-Christian circles "it was held that man is
properly bisexual, and that there will be a return to a hermaphrodite type of
existence " at the end. Monogamous marriage " represented an approximation to
the supposed quasimetaphysical model of the primordial Adam." This applies to
1 Cor 6: 16: "a man who resorted to prostitutes would, like a polygamist,
approximate not to the ideal standard of human bisexuality, but to a freakish or
monstrous kind of organic existence in which a one-many sexual relation replaces
the one-one balance of the original and ideal specimen of the human race." Both
in I Cor 6: 15 ff and Eph 5: 21 ff the writer 'carries his analogical argument
beyond the bounds of rational experience ' ! What is more, the author wonders
whether the " great mystery" in Eph 5: 82 " may not to some extent be a confession of relative ignorance." The reader will wonder whether all this is convincing.

:1\1:, MIGUENS

will emerge also for the questions formulated by Burkill. In
the first place, the particular type of union between Christ and
his faithful in this passage will be explored. Then, the implications of the" fornication" Paul talks about will be considered.
The body for the Lord, the Lord for the body

It is obvious that in this passage Paul envisages the relationship between Christ and his faithful against the background of
some sort of fornication. In fact, Paul writes that " the body
is not for fornication" (v. 18). Fornication wag justified by
some elements in Corinth 4 on various grounds (v. U f). One
of them is that " food is for the stomach and the stomach for
food" (v. 18) .5 The meaning being that one is intended for
the other and their interrelationship and interaction is only
natural. The implication is that the body and "fornication "
are in the same relationship to each other.
It is not clear-nor tremendously important-in v. 18
whether the reference to the destruction of both food and
stomach by God is part of the Corinthian justification or rather
Paul's answer to their argument based on food and stomach,
as I would be inclined to think. What is obvious and important, however, is the literary and logical correspondence between v. 18a plus b, on the one hand, and v. 18c plus v. 14
on the other.
Food is for the stomach and the
stomach for food.
And God will destroy both this
and that.

The body (far from being for
fornication) is for the Lord and
the Lord for the body.
And God both raised the Lord
and will raise us (by his power).

This exact correspondence shows that it is in v. 18c that
Paul starts building his answer to the problem of fornication
• This is the generally accepted understanding of v.
13a, in spite of Ceslas
Spicq, Theologie Morale du Nouveau Testament, II (Paris: Gabalda, 1965), 6M
ftn 1, who maintains that v.
etc. are statements by Paul himself.
• F. Hauck-S. Schulz, ThW, VI
note that the Greek view of life regarded
sexual intercourse just as natural, necessary and justifiable as eating and drinking.

CHRIST's " MEMBER" AND SEX

27

on the relationship between the faithful and the Lord. Man's
stomach may find its correspondence in food, and conversely;
but a Christian does not find his correspondence in fornication
but in the Lord, and conversely. The correspondence between
these two sentences shows, furthermore, that v. I4 is an incidental expression intended to balance v. ISh: God will destroy food and stomach, but God's attitude towards the relationship Lord-body is different: he has already raised the
Lord and he will raise us also. This verification is evidence
that the thought of v. ISc continues in v. I5: the body is for
the Lord and the Lord for the body in the sense that " your
bodies are members of Christ." 6
Still, before we come to v. I5 some other details have to be
stressed. The notion "body" in v. ISh cannot indicate the
" Body " of Christ but the individual body of a Christian, of
each Christian. The evidence for this is that in v. I5 we meet
the plural " your bodies," i.e., the body of each one of you
(not Christ's), as "members" of Christ; and that in v. U
Paul replaces " the body " by " we " as different from Christ
himself: 7 this is the difference of v. I5 between" your bodies"
and Christ himself. This remark shows that Paul is thinking
of a personal and individual relationship of Christ with each
Christian, not of the general relationship of Christ to the group
(Body) of Christians. This is borne out also by the very
matter involved: this relationship is the counterpart of a "fornication " relationship, which obviously is an affair of individuals not of the Body-group of Christians as such. A further
consequence of this remark is that Paul in this passage disregards the social-like or organic interrelationship among the
several members of Christ .. He centers only on the direct and
• That is why Hans Conzelmann, Der erste Brief an die Korinther, (Meyers
Kommentar V), 11 ed. (Giittingen: Vandenhoeck und Ruprecht, 1969), 184, ftn
22, commenting on v. 15 speaks of a reciprocity: "There is a reciprocity: as I act
against the Lord I am thereby affected myself, and as I act against myself the
Lord is thereby affected. This reciprocity is unilaterally constituted by the Lord."
7 Notice that "our" resurrection is not linked here to the fact that Christ (as
"head") has been raised (cfr. Eph 2: 5) but to the traditional doctrine of "the
power of God " (Mk 12: 24 parall.)

28

M. MIGUENS

personal relationship between Christ and each single Christian. 8
In point of fact, Paul emphasizes that our bodies are " members of Christ," but he fails to say that we " are members of
each other " (Rom 12: 5) or to stress the social-organic functions of the community (Rom 12: S ff; 1 Cor 12: 4ff) . The
character of personal and individual relationship of each
Christian to Christ, or conversely, is strongly underscored in
this passage-to the point that the social aspect is entirely
disregarded or, rather, purposely omitted.
Another detail to be noticed is that, for Paul, " body " in
v. 1Sc is something different from stomach. The change from
stomach (1Sa) to body was obviously deliberate and intentional. What is more, Paul would admit that the stomach will
be destroyed (cfr. 1 Cor 15: 50 ff; 2 Cor 4: 16; 5: 4) but the
body will not, it will be raised. An immediate implication of this
is that it is not the stomach but the individual body of each
faithful that is for the Lord. It is not the stomach-or any
other particular physiological organ or member-but the individual " body " of each Christian that is " member " of
Christ. 9 It is important to notice that, in the same context (v.
14), Paul could replace body-bodies by a personal pronoun,
" we " : God will raise " us," which stands for our bodybodies.10
Obviously, in this understanding of body Paul stands on
semitic grounds, far from Greek dichotomy and " salvation."
8 The theological truth,
in fact, is that Christ's Body "is not constituted by
the sum total of Christians; but each one of them, by the mere fact that he
attains the Incarnate Word, through this humanity of the Word becomes Body
of Christ: " P. Michalon, "Eglise, corps mystique du Christ glorieux," NRT 74.

680.

• This is strongly stressed by Conzclmann Der erste Brief, 188, when he notes
that the relationship fornication-body is very different from food-stomach. In
fact, body---otherwise than stomach-" is I as I am not a thing but relate myself
(to others) . The relationship with the p6me is not a neutral one. It can never
be indifferent. Even for the p6rne he who is related to her is not a thing. The
relationship is a specifically human one. The Lord to whom! I belong is thereby
affected."
10 Robert Jewett, Paul's Anthropological Terms, (Arbeiten zur Geschichte des
Antiken Judentums und des Urchristentums, 10), (Leiden: Brill, 1971), i59 ff.

CHRIST'S ".MEMBER" AND SEX

29

Whether " body " in this and other similar passages should be
translated by "personality " or otherwise may be a question
of semantics. 11 It is clear, at any rate, that the notion " body "
does not imply a division in man between two elements which
repudiate each other or tend to dissociate from each other.
It does not exclude the simultaneous coexistence and co-operation or activity of another (invisible) dimension of man which
we usually call soul. It rather includes it, though it does not
stress it particularly. " Body " stands for the entire man as
he exists and acts in this world and indicates his " self " ; which
is particularly clear in Rom 6: 12 (cf. "yourselves" in v. 13).
This is generally admitted. 12
Still, the notion "body," in Paul's understanding, expressed
the external element of man: man " acts through his body" (2)
Cor 5: 10) ; it is in man's body that passions are seated (Rom
6: 12; cf. 7: 5); it is man's "members" that are the "weapons"
of justice or of sin (Rom 6: 13) , etc. That is, the notion
"body" stands for the entire "self" but stresses the "corporeal"
aspect of man, as the body is the means by which man manifests himself, expresses himself, relates to others by acting, reacting and being acted-reacted upon.
This is why Paul can say that " we," rather than our bodies,
will be raised by God. But this is also why, in this text, "your
bodies" rather than" you," are members of Christ. Obviously,
Paul does not mean that only man's body-with the exclusion
11 Cf. an analysis of different viewpoints in Joachim Gnilka, "Contemporary
Exegetical Understanding of 'the Resurrection of the Body'," Concilium 60, (1970)
129-141; particularly pp. 185-140 "What is Soma?"
10 R. Jewett, PaUl's • • . Terms, 250-804; Claude Tresmontant,
A Study of
Hebrew Thought, (trans!. from the French by Gibson, M.F.); (New' York, etc.:
Desclee, 1960), 88-106; Petrus Dacquino, "Ecclesia corpus Christi secundum
apostolum Paulum," VD 88 (1960) 296; B. M. Ahem, "The Christian's Union
with the Body of Christ in Cor. Gal and Rom," C B Q 28 (1961) !lOO f; Joseph T.
Culliton, "Lucien Cerfaux's Contribution concerning ' the Body of Christ "' ibid.
19 (1967) 59; Pierre Benoit, "L'Eglise corps du Christ," Populus Dei (Studi in
onore del Card. Alfredo Ottaviani) XI (Rome: Christen, 1969), 986 fl'. Cf.
Walter J. Bartling, "Sexuality, Marriage and Divorce in 1 Corinthians 6:1!l-7:16.
A Practical Exercise in Hermeneutics," Concordia Theological Monthly 89 (1968)
861.

30

M. MIGUENS

of other dimensions-is for the Lord or is a member of Christ;
he certainly understands that it is the whole of man that is
for the Lord or is a member of Christ. This is what he says in
Cor
"you" are the body of Christ (cf. Rom
5.1).
Still, he stresses the notion" body" on account of the problem
of " fornication " which is being discussed, since it is through
his "body " that man-the total man-acts.
It is within this framework of total and individual involvement of each Christian in Christ that the sentence " the body
is for the Lord, and the Lord for the body " is to be understood.
The continuation of this thought in terms of "members of
Christ " shows that Paul is reasoning on the basis of his favorite doctrine of the " Body of Christ " (I Cor 12:
ff; Rom
4 ff; etc.). The faithful Christian in his totality-expressed by
his body-is related to Christ as a member of his Body, since
it is from Christ that this Christian receives his " spiritual "
life or the Spirit (cf. v. 17) . It is a living and " fertilizing "
relationship or union through which Christ pours his own life
into the Christian to "regenerate " him. 18 All this, of course,
is projected against the background of " fornication " : the
"body" of a Christian is not for union in fornication (not for
a prostitute) but for the Lord (v. 13c).
In view of this fertilizing and individual union of each Christian with Christ we may consider the Greek formula to
soma. . . . . to kyrio ka'i ho kyrios to s6mati. This formula is
reminiscent of the saying in Cant !2: 16 "my beloved is for
me and I am for my beloved," which really means "my beloved is mine and I am his", 14 they belong to each other; still,
18 Lucien Cerfaux, The Church in the Theology of St. Paul (New York:
Herder,
1959), !262-286; Pierre Benoit, "Corps, Tete, et Plerome dans les epitres de !a
captivite," RB 63 (1956) 5-47 (particularly p. 9); id., "L'Eglise," 971-1028;
Culliton, "Lucien Cerfaux's ... ," 41-59; Ahern, "The Christian's Union, 199-!209;
G. Martelet, "Le mystere du corps et de !'Esprit dans le Christ ressuscite et dans
l'Eglise," Verbum Caro, n. 45 (1958), 31-53; J. Reuss, "Die Kirche als Leib
Christi und die Herkunft dieser Vorstellung bei dem Apostel Paulus," Bibl.
Zeitschr., n. F., !2 (1958) 103-127; Dacquino, "Ecclesia corpus Christi," !292-300;
id., "La formula paolina in Christo Gesu," La Scuola Cattolica 87 (1959) 278-!291.
" This is, in fact, the translation by S. M. Lehrman, The Song of Songs,
(Soncino Books of the Bible. The Five Megilloth) , (Hindhead, 1946) •

CHRIST'S " MEMBER " AND SEX

81

the Hebrew wording uses the dative case (li, lo) , which is
preserved also by the LXX where the text is very close to
Paul's. More important is another text of Paul himself where
he refers again to the Body of Christ. In Rom 7: Iff Paul refers to the marital bond uniting a wife to her husband. But
this is the way Paul, in agreement with the current Greek language, expresses this relationship: the wife ginetai andri
(heterQ) (v. 8), she is "for a (another) man." Immediately
Paul draws his conclusion: the marriage of the faithful Christian with the Law has come to an end " through the Body of
Christ, so that they ginontai heterQ, they are for another one,
for him who was raised from the dead." Obviously, a Christian
dies to the Law at the same time that he is incorporated into
the Body of Christ, and it is at this moment that he is for
Christ (and Christ for him). The similarity, both doctrinal
and linguistic, with our passage of 1 Cor 6: 18c is manifest.
What I would like to stress in Rom 7 is that the relationship
between the Christians (as members) and Christ (as Body)
is expressed in marital conceptions and in marital language.
This is a theology Paul teaches again in 2 Cor 11: 2f, and
which is somewhat developed in Eph 5: 28 ff.15
This is how Paul conceives of the relationship between Christ
and each Christian in 1 Cor 6: 18 ff. The sentence "the body
for the Lord and the Lord for the body " belongs to conceptions
and to expressions like those in Rom 7 and it is according to
them that it is to be understood 16-in spite of the literary correspondence with v. 18a, which remains a merely literary one,
whereas the fundamental thought and the words themselves
have changed: the situation between a Christian and Christ
is not just one of correspondence but one of " membership " ;
and " stomach " has been replaced by " body."
15 The concept goes back to the gospel traditions:
Mk 2: 19 f parall; Io 3: !!9
(cf. Ape 19: 7 fl'; 21: 2.9).
16 A. M. Dubarle,
"L'origine dans I'A. T. de la notion paulinienne de l'Eglise
corps du Christ," Studiorum Paulinorum Congressus lnternationalis Catholicus,
(Analecta Biblica, 17-18), I (Rome: Biblical Institute, 1963), 231-240, expresses
the view that it is the marital text of Gen 2: 24 that is at the basis of Paul's
conception of the Body of Christ.

MIGUENS

The marital imagery to express this relationship gives its
true meaning to kollasthai (to cleave), when, in our text, the
Christian is said" to cleave to the Lord" (v. 17). It is significant, in this sense, that the relationship between a man and
a woman (called here p6rne) is defined by the same word: a
man "cleaves" to the p6rne. This verb kollasthai is used by
Paul (and by the entire Pauline literature) in our passage
and in Rom 12: 9 only. Obviously it is not a Pauline term.
In Rom 12: 9 the meaning is very general, one is " to stick
to " what is good. On the contrary, in our text it has a very
specific connotation, as it is suggested by the context. In such
contexts this verb is a technical term expressing a marital or
marital-like relationship. The evidence for this comes precisely
from the basic text on marriage Mt 19: 5 (cf. Eph 5: 81),
which is a quotation from Gen 2: 24 (LXX has proskollasthai,
the reading of Eph 5: 81 and of the addition of Mk 10: 7) .
This text of Gen is very present to Paul's mind, in fact he
quotes it in v. 16. It is likely that Paul uses the simple instead
of the compound (of the LXX) because he is translating
directly from the Hebrew text, and he renders dbq (in Gen 2:
24) by kollasthai, which is the more usual equivalent of the
Hebrew term in the LXX. Now, this Hebrew term applies to
similar contexts (cf. Gen 84: 8: 1 Kings 11: 2). Other considerations will be added later on.
At this moment, however, we may anticipate that neither
the Greek nor the Hebrew term indicates primarily and directly
a sexual relationship. In fact, this: is certainly excluded when
kollasthai expresses the bond between Christ and his (" members ") faithful. At this point Paul stresses that the cleaving
of a Christian to Christ results in " one spirit," and precisely
" spirit." Again, Paul has the doctrine of the "Body of Christ "
in mind, according to which the union of a Christian with
Christ is as solid and real as the union of a " member " to the
the body from which it draws life and nourishment. Still, this
union- otherwise than the union between man and womanhas nothing to do with sex and nature. And this is why Paul
avoids saying that this union results in "one flesh," and de-

CHRIST'S " MEMBER " AND SEX

38

liberately chooses to say that it results in " one spirit." Paul
could say also that such a union results in " one Body," as he,
in fact, does on some other occasions (1 Cor 10: 17; U: Hl f.
27; Rom 12: 5) . But he has just used this expression to indicate the union of a man and a p6rne (v. 16), and he is
obviously careful to stress the difference betwen these unions.
That is why he avoids here, in this particular text, an expression which he otherwise uses unrestrictedly.
Now, the fact that the union between Christ and each
Christian results in" one spirit" does not imply in Paul's mind
and language any metaphysical incompatibility. The word
" spirit " does not necessarily imply an opposition to matter
or to physical entities. It may indicate something which is
related to God's world and activity in some way, something
which in some way or aspect is beyond the laws of the present
cosmos. Paul can say that the manna and the water from the
rock (Ex 16; 17) of olden times was " spiritual," and the rock
itself was "spiritual "-a qualification by which Paul certainly
does not intend to deny the physical nature of these elements;
rather he intends to stress the supernatural character of their
donation by God. In 1 Cor 15: 4 Paul speaks in terms that
for our metaphysics would be considered contradictory: he
refers to a "spiritual body," which is the risen body of every
Christian; this body is spiritual not because it is not a body
but because it does not belong to this creation any longer; it
obeys other laws and another way of existence. It is in a
supernatural state. In point of fact, the spiritual body is understood to be a "heavenly" (see the variant reading "spiritual")
man in v. 47. In the same context (1 Cor 15: 45) the risen
Christ becomes a " life-giving spirit," by which expression Paul
does not intend to say that Christ dropped his body or that
his body evaporated into spirit. 17 Again, what he says is that
Christ's body belongs to a realm where" flesh and blood" have
17 Didache, 10, 3, defines the eucharist as "spiritual"
food and drink but not
to deny the physical aspect of it. Ignatius, Eph., 7, 2, says that Christ was "at
the same time fleshly and spiritual." Cf. Gal 5: 22; Rom 7: 14.

S4

M. MIGUENS

no place, where mortality and corruptjbility are changed into
immortality-incorruptibility (I5: 50 ff) , i. e., where " mortality
is swallowed up by life " through this Spirit (2 Cor 5: 4f; Rom
8: 11; I: 4).
From this text of I Cor I5: 45 another element is to be
retained, namely, the risen body of Christ is a "life-giving"
body for others, for those who join his" body." It is with this
theology in mind that Paul states that " all of us have been
baptized into one body in one Spirit .... all have been given to
drink of one Spirit" (I Cor I2: IS) . Along the same line the
author of Eph 4: 4 stresses that there is " one body, one
Spirit ... one baptism."
The general concept intended in the " one spirit " resulting
from a Christ-faithful union (I Cor 6: I7) should be clear by
now. Through baptism 18 the body-self of the Christian becomes a" member" of Christ, is ingrafted into Christ's body
which, through his resurrection has become a life-giving supernatural reality, body fully and completely permeated by the
Spirit; through this " spiritualized " body " one Spirit "-the
same Spirit in Christ-is given to drink to the Christian man
in baptism. 19 Through this sacrament the channels of communication between Christ and the Christian are established
and opened, and Christ's very life and Spirit flow into this
Christian who now becomes " one spirit " with .Christ, in the
sense that he becomes a member of the " spiritualized " body
of Christ, i. e., a supernatural reality in union with Christ,
vivified by a " spiritual " life flowing from Christ which is, first
of all, the Spirit himself. The language of John is much more
radical still when he says that the regenerated of water and
Spirit is "spirit" himself (lo S: 6), not because he loses his
physical dimension but because he acquires a spiritual-supernatural dimension, a divine sonship which cannot be given by
blood, flesh or man but only by God (lo I: IS). This union
18

Cf. P. Dacquino, "De membris Ecclesiae, quae est corpus Christi," VD 41

(1968)' 117 fl'.
18

Cerfaux, The Church, !!70.

CHRIST'S" MEMBER" AND SEX

85

is in all truth a "fertilizing" union resulting in a "regeneration " of man, in a " new creation." 20
After all, the " one spirit," effected through baptism out of
Christ and his faithful, is not entitatively different from the
" one body " that Paul sees is effected through the Eucharistic
"communion" (koin6nia) between the "one bread and
many" (I Cor 10: 16 f). The "one bread" is not one loaf
but it is one Christ in both the bread and the cup, no matter
the number of loaves or the quantity of wine. Paul's reasoning
is very simple, but it is based on faith, the faith in Christ':";
presence in the Eucharist. Through "communion" in Christ's
" body and blood " Christ becomes particularly present in each
Christian as Christ is within him, active and operative; he is
living there and the recipient enjoys Christ's personal lifeSpirit. This is true of each and of all the faithful partaking in
Christ's body and blood. Christ is in each one of them. Since
Christ is only one, there is a dimension according to which all
those faithful are one or, more exactly, "one body," namely,
the body of Christ present and living in each and in all of
them. Conversely, what is true of the group is true of each
one: each Christian partaking of the Eucharist becomes " one
body " with Christ, as Christ through his Eucharistic body is
living in him. Still, this is not a material-physical body and
union, this is a body-union belonging to the realm of the " spiritual " world of God. The Christian does not lose his physical
dimension, but in his physical dimension he receives the lifeSpirit of Christ communicated to his (Christ's) "spiritualized"
body. Again, John is more radical when he maintains that
through the Eucharist " I am immanent in him and he in me "
(Io 6: 56), he" lives because of me" (v. 57), and the faithful
possess life in himself (v. 53) -the same Greek expression
which is used to indicate the presence of life in the Father and
in the Son (Io 5: 26) .
The Eucharist is a means of further " transfusion " of life
20 Benoit, "L'Eglise,"
991; Dacquino, "De membris Ecclesiae." l!M. Cf. Jewett,
Paul's .•. Tcmns,

36

M. MIGUENS

from Christ to the faithful, by which the union between both
is strengthened and tightened. But this process starts with
baptism when a man is first grafted into "one (Christ's) body"
to be given to drink of "one Spirit." 21 This man does not
thereby lose his human-physical nature, but it is through these
sacraments and communications of life that this humanphysical nature too begins the process of its " spiritualization "
which will end up in a total transformation into a " spiritual
body" thoroughly permeated by the Spirit. 22 This is how a
Christian's cleaving to Christ results in "one spirit," as overagainst" one flesh-one body" resulting from a man's cleaving
to a p6rne.
These developments show to what an extent the notion " to
cleave" (kollasthai) can be dissociated from the idea of sexual
union. This does mean, however, that the imagery of marriage
persists and that Paul, in fact, describes the relationship Christfaithful in marital terms-and this not only in Eph 5:
ff but
also in our text 1 Cor 6:
It is on the basis of this
marital imagery, I think, that an obscurity in our text seems
to become less enigmatic.
Paul writes that "whatever sin (hamartema) a man may
commit (poiein) is outside the body; but he who fornicates
(ho porneuan; see below) sins (hamartanei) against his own
body" (v. 18) .28 It has always been difficult to see how
"fornication" (only) is a sin against one's own body and other
sins (like gluttony, drunkenness, suicide) are not. Conzelmann 24 thinks that Paul is concerned only with the present
Cf. Ahem, "The Christian's Union," 203; Benoit, "L'Eglise," 990 f.
Which does not mean absorption. Cf. L. Bouyer, L'Eglise de Dieu. Corps
du Christ et temple deJ l'Esprit (Paris: Cerf, 1970), 603.
23 Hauck-Schulz,
ThW, VI 583, refer to the Stoic Muson (p. 65, 44 ff) who
maintains that he who has relations with a prostitute sins against himself. They
(ibid.) quote also Epictetus as saying that by all unclean acts a man defiles the
god in his breast.
•• Conzelmann, Der erste Brief, 135. C. K. Barret A commentary on the First
Epistle to the Corinthians (New York and Evanston: Harper and Row, 1968),
150 f comes close to this view when, following Calvin, he maintains that other sins
may be against one's body, but " comparatively speaking, they are outside the
body."
21

22

CHRIST'S " MEMBER " AND SEX

37

case and he stresses that this sin is against one's own bodyhe does not consider the inclusion or exclusion of other possible
sins against one's body: obviously, this is not very convincing.
Kempthorne 25 understands Paul's text to mean that the
" body " is the Body of Christ, and a fornicator sins against
this Body which is also his body. The problem is that it is
difficult to accept that at this point the text refers to the Body
of Christ (Christ with his community) and not to the individual body-self of each Christian.
It seems well, in fact, that Paul again is thinking of the
body-self of individual Christians. Whatever the case of 1
Clem 46: 7,26 Paul never refers to the Body of Christ as the
Body of a single Christian, nor can Paul's theological thought
admit such an expression since by that expression he means the
personal body-self of Christ to which Christians are incorporated as " members." Furthermore, there is no indication that
the perspective of vv. 13-15 is changed, and here "body" is
the individual self of each Christian. On the other hand, in
this entire passage Paul, as we have seen, does not consider the
relationship of Christ with the group of Christians but with
each individual faithful, and it is likely (see below) that he
has a single concrete individual in mind.
The very same Greek expression (to idion soma) appears
immediately afterwards in 7: 4 where it certainly indicates the
individual self of each partner in marriage. But it is above all
the marital aspect of this latter passage that we want to bring
into relief: a wife is not the lord of her own body-self, and the
same thing is true of the husband. This is a union (among
Christians) that Paul considers lawful, and in this case the
apostle maintains that each partner has committed his/her own
self to the other: it is the other who is the lord (exousiazei) .27
25 Kempthome, " Incest and the Body of Christ:
A Study of 1 Corinthians VI.
12-20," NTS 14 (1967/8) 572.
•• Cf. id., ibid.
27 In Rom 7: 2 Paul understands that a married woman is hypandros, is "under"
a man, which is a Hebrew way to say that one is married: H. Strack-P. Billerbeck,
Kommentar zum Neuen Testament aus Talmud und Midrasch, III (Miinchen:
Oscar Beck, 1926), 234.

38

M. MIGUENS

This, in Paul's understanding, is a lawful commitment, is a
legitimate submission to some other's authority and will, no
sin is involved in it.
The problem is different in a relationship when a man is
a porneuon of some sort (6: 18) . This man "sins" in such a
relationship, Paul understands. And the presence of " sin "
makes all the difference for Paul between a marital union and
a union in " fornication." In the former case where the mutual
commitment happens according to God's and Christ's will,
there is no slavery, there is no sin against one's own self.28
Such a slavery comes about, however, in the case of an unlawful union. This is what Paul says right at the beginning of the
text under discussion (1 Cor 6, 12) : to do everything may
mean to constitute something lord (exousiazein) over myself. The application to the practical case is that a union in
fornication constitutes someone lord (YI)er someone else. Besides the context, it is the verb exousiazein which suggests this
concrete and practical understanding. In fact, this verb is not
a Pauline term since Paul uses it only in the present context:
in 1 Cor 6: 12 and 7: 4. Now "to fornicate" means precisely
this: to realize an unlawful, sinful union by which I constitute
someone else unlawful lord over my body-self, I enslave myself
to the other, I give up my freedom and rights and put myself
in an awkward and degrading situation in theological terms.
There is a juridical flavor to the idea. In fact, Paul does not
say that such a Christian sins against God or Christ (1 Cor
8: 12), he sins against his own" self." The notion hamartanein
(to sin) itself is interesting in this context. Obviously, "to
sin" is the same thing as hamartema poiein (v. 18a). Now,
Paul (and the entire Pauline literature) uses hamartema only
in Rom 3: 25 and in our text (1 Cor 6: 18) . It is very difficult
to admit that, for Paul, it means the same thing as the recurrent hamart£a. Though hamartema includes the theological
qualification of something sinful, it rather indicates a wrong
deed or wrong doing, the sinful action rather than its sinful
18

See Bartling, Sexuality ... , 862 f.

CHRIST's "MEMBER" AND SEX

so

quality. So, hamartdnein against one self means to do wrong
deeds, or make mistakes against one self-and this, within the
particular context of constituting someone else as unlawful lord
over oneself. It comes very close to the concept of violating
one's own rights and interests, in theologoical terms, by enslaving onself to an unlawful and sinful lord. This does not
apply to any other sin. 29
This sin of fornication is against the body; 80 Paul does not
say that it is inside the body. From this angle, the correspondence with the foregoing sentence " every wrong deed one
does is outside the body" (v. 18b) is defective. Paul does not
say whether fornication is outside or inside the body, he does
say that it is against the body-self. On the other hand, the
sentence in v. 18b does not say that all other sins exc.ept fornication are outside the body; there is no compulsory reason to
make such an exception, in spite of the similar passage of Mk
3: 28 f parall. Both the lack of correspondence and of any explicit exception gives support to Maule's 81 contention that v.
18b is not Paul's doctrine but a slogan of the Corinthians, like
those in v. 12: 13 and 10: 23, to which Paul answers with v.
18c. The grammatical construction surely backs such a view:
just as in v. 12 f, v. 18b (the slogan) col).tains no joining particle, whereas Paul's answer is introduced by a truly adversative de. The meaning of the whole would be as follows. 'J.'he
Corinthians defend free sex on the grounds that " whatever
wrong deeds one may do lie outside one's own self," i.e., they do
not affect him, he is above every moral contamination. In his
answer Paul, as in v. 12 and 13, does not go into the merits of
such an assertion 82 but retorts that it certainly is against th0
And Sir 10: 28 says: "Who will justify him who sins against his own soul?"
A linguistically similar expression is found in the Rabbinic literature, but the
meaning is different, namely, "to sin with the body": Stract-Billerbeck, Kommentar sum NT, 866.
81 Charles F. Moule, An Idiom-Book
of the NT Greek (Cambridge: University
Press, 2d ed. 1959), 196 f.
82 It cannot be said, therefore, that Paul's
reply seems to accept the general
proposition, and makes an exception to it: Barret, A commentary, 150. Paul's
reaction may express acceptance or rejection-or neither.
29

80

40

M. MIGUENS

body-self. On this assumption no room is left £or the question
as to whether in Paul's view only· fornication is against one's
body or whether some (and what) sins are outside the body
and others (and what) inside it.
The marital imagery emerges again in v. 19 f when Paul
states that Christians (each Christian) are not in possession
of themselves, 33 they are not lords of themselves, as they H have
been bought with a price." True, the idea of Christians having
been brought by a price is used by Paul in 1 Cor 7:28 where it
connotes the concept of manumission from slavery to "serve"
Christ (cf. Gal 8: 18; 4: 5). But each context gives the final
shade of meaning to words. In the immediate context of our
passage (1 Cor 7: 1) Paul stresses that a partner in marriage
is not lord of himself. Of course, Paul would not say that Christ
is not Lord of himself, but this proves only that Paul carries
the comparison no farther than he can. The notion to " buy "
(agorazein) is not against a marital imagery. This very verb
is used in Neh 10: 81 (as a translation for the Hebrew lqh)
where it certainly indicates the dowry a man pays for a bride:
" we will not buy their daughters." 34 This usage is expressed
in· the Hebrew bible through some other terms which convey
the same concept o£ buying a bride: a man shall surely pay
(mhr; LXX
phern.iei) a dowry for her to be his wife" (Ex
22: 15; cf. Ps 16: 4); Boaz bought (qnh; LXX ktasthai) Ruth to
be his wife, just as he bought" the field, etc. (Rut 4: 10.9.5;
cf. 2 Sam 12: 8; Koh 2: 7) -this verb qnh is used also to express how Jahweh came to possess Israel (Ex 16: 16; Deut 82:
6; Ps 74: 2; 78: 54); the prophet Hosea also bought (krh;
LXX misthoUsthai) an adulterous woman for himself; the same
meaning is found in Gen 81: 15 where Laban is said to have
"sold" (mkr; LXX pipraskein) his daughters to Jacob. The
H

H

•• An expression which, according to Strack-Billerbeck, Kommentar zum N. T.,
III 367, belongs to the marriage language.
•• Cf. Gen 4 4 19; 6: !i!; Ex !ill: 10; 34: 16; 1 Sam !i!5: 43, where lqh applies
to the fact of " taking" a wife; this verb surely has the meaning of " buying "
(a field) in Prov 31: 16.

CHRIST's ";ME)_\IIBlj]R"

AND SEX

41

word "price" (time: 1 Cor 6: 20) is not foreign to this context: cf. Gen 20: 16 (LXX) .
The marital dimension of the thought " you are not in
possession of yourselves " is here the only acceptable one, on
account of its obvious relationship to v. 15 f; a Christian is not
supposed to take (away) a member (his own "body") belonging to Christ-possession of Christ-and make it a member
(possession) of a p6rne by becoming one " body-flesh " with
her. A Christian is supposed not to do so because-among
other things-he is not a possession of himself, he is a possession (consort) of Christ. To give this possession of Christ to
a prostitute is an adultery of sorts.

The body is not for fornication
The doctrine expounded thus far applies in any kind of unlawful sex, i.e., of any sexual relationship undertaken by a
Christian not in accordance with God's will which has its basic
expression in nature. Any sort of sinful sex is to give Christ's
members (i.e., Christian " bodies ") to fornication. In this
sense the doctrine above offers a solid theological basis for a
correct Christian orientation and evaluation of sex. The forms
that sinful sex can take are expressed by Paul in the immediate
context of 1 Cor 6: 9 and, then, in Rom 1: 26 f.
The reason why only in a marital relationship is sex correct
and therefore not sinful is that, being natural (according to
the Creator's will), only this sexual relationship can be taken
up by Christ who, through his" body" vivifies the" members"
atached to him; the life Christ infuses in his members can
perform and further only that relationship which is according
to the plans of God the Creator. Of course, a Christian keeps
the physical powers to perform the wrong union. But it is
precisely in this that the abnormality-and the sin-consists,
if he does so.35 The human being was ingrafted into Christ's
85 Cf. Conzelmann, Der erste Brief, 134 f.
Paul in: 1 Cor. 6: 20 requests the
faithful to " glorify God with their bodies," which certainly indicates that inordinate sex does not glorify God: cf. Walter Lowrie, "Glorify God in Your
Body, Theology Today 10 (1953/4) 492-500.

body so that it may receive life to act as a true "member,',
according to the "nature,, and interests of Chrises body (or
Body). If such a member does the wrong thing-in a wrong
sexual union- it is making use of itself in a manner which is
unnatural in some way, as it is doing something against the
very nature of the " body " which provides its (supernatural)
life. This is a sort of theological monstrosity or absurdity. 88
It is to force the members of Christ to do something the body
cannot do. The absurdity is all the more blatant when this
member constitutes someone as unlawful lord upon itself in
an unlawful relationship, when the Christian,s body is for the
Lord, it is the Lord's. That is why Paul cannot understand
such an attitude: it is just an absurdity in theological terms. 87
This doctrine applies to any sinful sexual activity, and even
to all other wrong doings. Still, the question is legitmate as to
whether Paul has something more concrete in mind. Not long
ago Kempthorne 88 proposed that our passage (1 Cor 6:
should be read in connection with the incestuous union dealt
with in 1 Cor 5. There is much that speaks for this view--:-much
more than the valuable remarks pointed out by Kempthorne
in order to explain how the text fits in very well with this
view'.89
In the first place, it is very strange that Paul goes into a
discussion about " general " fornication at this point of the
epistle. 4 ° For one thing, such a discussion can hardly be con•• Joseph Bonsirven, Theologie du Nouveau Testament (Paris: Aubier, 1951),
888: this sin "becomes for him a true monstrosity ... to join this living portion
of Christ to a harlot." Cf. Michel Barnouin, "Le caractere baptismal et les
enseignements de Saint Paul," Stud. Paulin. Congr. lntem. Cath., II 807 ff.
87 Jean Hering, La Premiere epitre de Saint Paul aux Corinthiens, (Commentaire
du Nouveau Testament VII) (Neuchatel-Paris: Delachaux et Niestle, 1949), 47:
" Man is a unit, and the body of the Christian cannot orient itself towards Christ
and depart from him at the same time." Cf. C. Spicq, Theologie Morale, 556, and
fnt 8 and 4.
•• Kempthome, " Incest," 568-574.
•• In spite of Jewett, Paul's .. , Terms, !!60.
'" It is not very convincing to say that here Paul argnes with an imaginary
opponent: John C. Hurd, The Origin of 1 Corinthians (New York: Seabury Press,
1965), 87, quoting from Craig.

CHRIST'S" MEMBER;; AND SEX

4S

sidered an appropriate introduction for his doctrine on marriage, which follows immediately afterwards in ch. 7. For
another, this doctrine inch. 7 begins a new section of the letter
in which Paul sets out to answer. the question " about which
you write (to me)" (7: 1). The implications are: first, that
our text (I Cor 6: 12-20) does not belong to the new section,
it is not an introduction to the doctrine on marriage; second,
that our text has to belong to the foregoing section. 41
Now, to maintain that our text is completely disconnected
from the foregoing context certainly is not the obvious assumption. One is rather entitled to assume that there is a connection, unless reasonable proof to the contrary is providedwhich has not been done so far. 42 On the other hand, this text
is the end of a development in the letter. It is difficult to avoid
the impression that this seemingly unprepared discussion on
" fornication " is the continuation-and the conclusion-of the
episode concerning the incestuous 4a " fornication " in Corinth
which marks the beginning of a new development in 5: I. The
discusion about law-courts in the community (1 Cor 6: l-9a)
is just a digression caused by the reference to real jurisdiction
in the community to deal with the incestuous man-and with
other affairs. Paul, in fact, wants the jurisdiction of the community to be exerted in the case of the incestuous man (5:
12 f.4) and not to let things go, both in this case and many
others (cf. 5: 11 f). This is why there are law-courts .in the
community, and no recourse to pagan courts is needed. But it
is obvious that this digression comes to an end in 6: 9a, and
Paul returns to the subject of ch. 5 in 6: 9b: 44 the list of vices
" In disagreement with Hurd, ibid., 87 f., who considers the text in question as
a " transitional passage " in spite of the realization that several details in it " have
marked oral information elsewhere " (p. 87) .
.. The different replacements and apportionments in 1 Cor proposed, v. g., by
Hurd ibid., are far from demonstrated.
••" It is most likely that he (the man in question) , after his father's death,
married his (father's) widow " : Conzelmann, Der erste Brief, 116.
•• Barret, A commentary, 144: "Verses 9-11 (in ch. 6) provide Paul with a
suitable way of working back to the theme of sexual license which he left at the
end of Chapter V."

44

M. MIGUENS

opens with a series of sex offenses (idolatry not excluded)
headed by the p6rnoi (fornicators) -no dubious reference to
the porneia of the young man in 5: 8.9.10 (cf. in v. 13 the
assonance (poner6n-p6rnon) .
Then in v. 12 Paul deals again directly with the incestuous
case, but not from the point of view of jurisdiction (5, Hl f)
and legal procedures (5, 4 f) , but from the point of view of
the grounds on which the Corinthians tolerated such a scandal
in their community: "everything is lawful for me" (v. 12);
" the food is for the stomach, and the stomach for the food
(and both will perish)" (v. 13); "every sinful deed that a
person may commit is outside the body-self" (v. 18) . There
can be little doubt that these were the grounds for the " inflation " and inactivity of the Corinthians which Paul denounces (5: 2 f. 6: 11-13) in connection with the incestuous
scandal.
The wrong relationship between a man and a " harlot "
(p6rne) to which Paul refers in 6: 15 f, seems to confirm this
view. Paul thinks that by such a relationship both persons
"are (are being) one body"; what is more, Paul thinks that
the basic marital doctrine of Gen 2: 24-" the two result in
one flesh "-applies to such a relationship. One wonders
whether Paul would really say that an occasional act of prostitution effects "one bpdy," a lasting and stable human compound. One wonders even more whether Paul would maintain
that the sacred text teaches either that (occasional) fornication is the means whereby two persons "result in one flesh,"
or that actual intercourse is essential to effect " one flesh."
To my knowledge, this would have been the only passage in the
entire Bible conveying such a message.
Furthermore, the concept of "cleaving" to a woman in no
way suggests the idea of sexual intercourse necessarily. Certainly such an idea is not suggested when, in the same context
(v. 17), one of the faithful "cleaves" to Christ. As pointed
out above, this Greek word is not a Pauline term. Except for
Rom 12: 9 ("to stick to what is good"), this verb is used
by the Pauline literature in our passage only; Eph 5: 31 uses

CHRIST's" MEMBER" AND SEX

45

proskollasthai which means the same thing, and the context
is that of marriage and of union between Christ and his community. In a context of marriage this Greek term is used again
in Mt 19: 5 and in Mk 10: 7 (prosk., in the addition) . The
rest of the occurrences in the NT has nothing to do with sex
at all. And where it is used in contexts of marriage it does
not connote the aspect of marital sex, let alone any idea of
occasional unlawful sex.
In point of fact, the Greek term under discussion when used
in marital contexts certainly goes back to the text of Gen
and corresponds to the Hebrew, dbq. Now, in the Hebrew
bible the verb dbq expresses, besides other connotations, the
concept of affectionate adhesion, loyalty, faithfulness. This
is particularly true when it applies to God (Deut 11:
13:
5; Josh
8; Kings 18: 6; Ps 63: 9; etc.) or to friendly per. In such contexts this Hebrew
sons (Ruth 1: 14;
verb connotes rather the idea of love and, in fact, both notions
appear in the texts side by side. Any connotation of sexual
activity seems not to be directly intended by dbq. This becomes apparent when man "cleaves" to God, but also when
Ruth "cleaves" to Naomi, her mother-in-law (Ruth 1: 14).
But this is true even of 1 Kings 11:
Solomon cleaves to
many women " in love," in fact he " loved " many foreign
women (11: 1)-the evil effect being that these women influence Solomon's "heart" and religion. Nor is the case of
Gen 34: 3 f different: Schechem cleaved to Dinah and "loved"
her independently of the fact that he " humiliated " her; he
wanted her to be his wife. I could not find any passage in
the Bible where dbq-kollasthai has a directly sexual connotation-not even in Sir 19:
(or in 1 Esdr 4:
It is worth
noticing, in this connection, that in LXX (pros-) kollasthai,
besides being the usual translation of dbq, occasionally translates also the Hebrew ngc and ngs-but, significantly, not where
these two terms have a sexual connotation (v. g., Gen
6; Ex 19: 15). Accordingly, in 1 Cor 7: 1 Paul uses haptesthai,
not kollasthai. The Hebrew dbq occurs also 6 times in Qumran,

46

M. MIGUENS

according to Kuhn's concordance; 45 it never has any connection with sex at all. 46 The implication is that not even in Gen
2: 24 or Mt parall (or Eph 5: 31) has the notion" to cleave"
a directly sexual connotation: it rather indicates that it is
through love, affection and faithfulness that man and woman
come to coalesce into "one flesh-body," into one single human
totality or compound. 47
The result of this survey shows that the situation contemplated by Paul in 1 Cor 6: 15 f can hardly be one of occasional
intercourse. It seems to be one of a stable relationship: they
"are being" one body-flesh, they "are cleaving" to each
other-just as Christ and the faithful " are being " one spirit
and "are cleaving" to each other. This is what the present
tenses suggest also. Now, this seems well to be the case of
incestuous "fornication" that Paul denounces in 1 Cor 5: 1:
this man "is having" the (former) wife of his father. Notice
that the Greek echein (to have) with a woman or man as its
object and " usually without gynaika, andra " means to " have
to wife or as husband " ; 48 the correct translation of the passage
15 (curses cleave to an evil man);
•• 1QS 1: 5 (to cling to good works);
1QH 5: 81 (tongne cleaves to the palate); 16: 7 (to cleave to the truth); CD 1:
17 (curses cleave to an evil man); Fragm.
with no connection.
•• The texts on which K. L. Schmidt, ThW, III
(f), bases a different view,
are Rabbinic and later than the N. T.
07 This is the meaning of " to result in one flesh " in Gen
The word
"flesh" in the Hebrew bible can indicate different relationships (cf. Lev 13: 18;
Dent 5:
Is 66:
Jer
Ps 84: 3) . A prominent use of this
word is made to indicate kindred people, one family (Gen 87:
Neh 5: cf.
Hebr
14). Still, I could not find any other place in the Hebrew bible where
" flesh " would be used to indicate sexual intercourse. Moreover, I could not find
any other passage in the Hebrew bible where " one flesh" occurs-not even in
Gen
it is obvious that husband
14; 87:
Sam 5: 1. Now, in Gen
and wife result in one flesh in the sense that the woman is "taken from man,"
is " bone from my bones and flesh from my flesh," i. e., in the sense that they are
intended to complete each other, to make one human compound out of two
matching elements. They never were united before, they become " bone from
my bones, etc.," when they become "one flesh "-and this happens, not necessarily
nor primarily by sexual intercourse but by spiritual "adhesion" (dbq), by love.
Cf. Dubarle, 'L'origine dans l' AT ... ,'
If.
•• Liddle-Scott, A, 4.

CHRIST's " MEMBER" AND SEX

47

being that the man had the wife of his father as his own wife.
It was an established way of life, it was a marital union effected
not only (not particularly) by sexual acts but by love, affection, fidelity.
These consorts had achieved a oneness, " one body-flesh," as
is the case in every other (lawful) marriage, with the only important difference that they did it in the wrong way, under
the wrong circumstances and between the wrong persons. Such
unions were forbidden by law. 49 And this is why such a" oneness" is" fornication" (porneia) instead of marriage. And such
an established fornication renders the theological situation of
a " member of Christ " all the more absurd-the only way to
deal with such a "member," if he persists in such oneness, is
excommunication (5: 4f.18) .
It is obvious that such incestuous union is called by Paul
porneia in 5: 1, which is.-Paul insists-" such a porne£a."
Nothing, therefore, hinders the same word porneia in 6: 18.18
(and, as a result, the entire passage) from referring to the same
fact. The assumption is that when Paul refers to p6rnoi-p6rnos
in 5: 10 f, by this word he indicates the man living in such
incestuous union. The implication is that p6rne in 6: 15 f can
indicate the female partner in such union, regardless of whether
she is Christian or pagan or a cultic prostitute. And the verb
porn.eUeinin 6: 18 can have a more particular meaning in this
connection as applying to any man who may live in such a
situation. 50 It is a situation like that of the incestuous man
that explains the sin (of slavery) against one's own body (6:
18) best.
The use of the concept " fornication " in such connections
is not unusual in the Hebrew language before Paul. The main
evidence comes from the Sadokite Fragment 4: 17,20 f; 5:
8 ff,51 where the writer uses zenut-the Hebrew equivalent of
••·Not only by the Jewish Law (Lev 18: 8; 20: 11) but also by the Roman
institutions cf. Barret, A commentary, 121; Conzelmann, Der erste Brief, 116, fnt
29; Abel E.-B., Premiere epttre aux Corinthiens (Paris: Gabalda, 1956), 119.
50 Similar reflexions also in Kempthorne,
" Incest," 570 f.
51 Chain Rabin, The Zadokite Documents
(Oxford: Clarendon, 1954), 16"18.

48

M. MIGUENS

porneia-in the sense of incestuous unions forbidden by the
Law (Lev 18: 18), and in the sense of some sort of polygamy.
Rabin 52 says that the Rabbis find a similar use of the concept
in the OT: cf. Lev 21: 7 (19: 29; 18: 17), where the verb
znh (usually translated by porneuein) is used also.
M. MIGUENS

Cluster of Independe;nt Theological Schools
Washington, D. C.

Abundant use of this concept in such sense in the Rabbinic literature is the basis
of the understanding of divorce in the NT by J. Bonsirven, Le divorce dans le
Nouveau Testament (Paris: Desclee, 1948), 50-60; in the same direction cf.
Hauck-Schulz, ThW, VI 589, 5;
•• Ibid., 17, fnt
3;
1

AUGUSTINE'S THOUGHT AND PRESENT-DAY
CHRISTIANITY:
A REAPPRAISAL

W

HAT FOLLOWS is an appraisal of the significance
of some aspects of Augustine's thought for presentday Christianity. There are at least five reasons
why this appraisal is a desideratum.
First, Augustine's interpretation of Christianity has been
widely rejected in recent years. Yet in view of the significant
role his work has had in Christian thought and Christian
spirituality it is important to examine the grounds of this rejection. Augustine's interpretation of Christianity has been
rejected on the grounds that all metaphysical language is without meaning. It has been rejected on the grounds that metaphysical thought is a waste of human creative effort, the true
concern of which is the natural and social sciences and their
technological application. It has been rejected for its supernaturalism, on the grounds that man's world is the sensory
world and not a suprasensory realm. And most recently it has
been rejected on account of the Hellenistic and specifically neoPlatonist character of his interpretation of Christianity.
Clearly the demonstration of the meaningfulness and of the
specific meanings of the linguistic expressions in which he
writes about his metaphysical insights and convictions would
be a service not only to Augustinian studies but also to the
perennially aluring metaphysical enterprise and to the unfinished work of language philosophy. This project, however, lies
outside the scope of this essay. Further, the charge that metaphysical language is without meaning is less likely to be made
today than it was several decades ago. An increased generosity
toward metaphysics is one result of the impact of the manifold
forms of phenomenological and existentialist thought on the
49

50

MARY CARMAN ROSE

philosophical community. (Despite, or rather, perhaps, because, of this increased generosity toward metaphysics the
question as to how the cognitive meaningfulness of metaphysical language can be demonstrated has been forgotten rather
than answered satisfactorily.) Yet many thinkers hold that
the traditional Christian metaphysics of the transcendent and
the suprasensory, if not totally without justification, is presently without a role in the interpretation of Christianity; and
few speak in its defense. Finally, Augustine's view is that the
metaphysics by which his work is informed is true and that his
own spiritual development has both followed upon and fostered
his ar:propriation of that metaphysics.
Second, some are reinterpreting Augustine's thought along
phenomenological and existentialist lines. Thus Augustine has
been said without qualification to be an existentialist. And
those aspects of his thought in which he is concerned with the
content of man's experience (e. g., man's experience of time)
are accepted as a variety of phenomenological-existentialist
thought. And some existentialists at least implicitly claim
Augustine as an ally. 1 And to be sure, Augustine does analyze
the human existential situation, as does virtually every thinker
who endeavors to illumine human spiritual potentialities, their
modes of development, and the individual's relation to his
world. Thus Augustine analyzes his initial doubts concerning
the truth of Christianity and the process of his overcoming of
these doubts. It is a disservice, however, not only to Augustine
scholarship but also to the philosophical enterprise to fail to
make the distinction between Augustine's inquiry into his existential situation and the thought which is informed by a type
of phenomenological and man-centered interpretation of being.
Augustine's existentialist inquiry is a part of his defense and
illumination of Christianity. He accepts a realist ontology,
1 William Barrett,
Irrational Man (Garden City, N. Y.: Doubleday and Co.,
1962) p. 95. Also, Restless Adventure: Essays on Contemporary Expressions of
Existentialism, ed. by Roger Shinn (New York; Charles Scribner's Son, 1968) Ed.
Introduction, p. 14.

AUGUSTINE's THOUGHT AND PRESENT-DAY CHRISTIANITY

51

and when he talks about God he does not believe that. he is
really talking about man. Augustine is not a precursor of
twentieth-century philosophical anthropology.
Third, Augustine's work repays examination because of its
intrinsic merit and quite apart from the fact that some have
called attention to it by rejecting it or by adapting it to their
own purposes. His work is a record of and has perennially been
productive of a type of spirituality which is prized by some
Christians. It is not prized by all Christians. But Christianity
has produced many types of spirituality, and no one of them
has been cherished throughout the Christian community. In
what follows I will try to demonstrate the timeliness of Augustine's Platonized, supernaturalistic interpretation of Christianity and the importance that it not be ignored, rejected, or
reductively analyzed into existentialist or phenomenological
terms.
As point of departure this passage from the Confessions will
be helpful:
But when will the voice of my pen have power to tell all Your
exhortations and all Your terrors, Your consolations and the guidance by which You have brought me to be to Your people a
preacher of Your word and a dispenser of Your Sacrament? ...
For a long time now I burn with the desire to meditate upon Your
law, and to confess to You both my knowledge of it and my ignorance of it-the first beginnings of Your light and what remains
of my darkness-until my weakness shall be swallowed up in You:r
strength ...
. . . Let Thy mercy grant my desire, since it does not burn for
myself alone, but longs to serve the charity I have for my brethren:
and in my heart Thou seest that it is so ... Let me offer in sacrifice
to Thee the service of my mind and my tongue, and do Thou give
me what I may offer Thee. For I am needy and poor. Thou art
rich unto all who call upon Thee. Thou art free from care for
Thyself and full of care for us . . .2
9 The Confessions of St. Augustine, trans. by F. J. Sheed (New York, N. Y.:
Sheed and Ward, 1948) Book Eleven: ll.

52

MARY CARMAN ROSE

Here Augustine reports his discernment of what he accepts
as an ethico-religious law. He tells of his former ignorance of
it and of its importance to him. He also tells of what remains
of his " darkness," i. e., of his ignorance of some aspects of the
law and of the difficulties he finds in obeying its commands.
The Confessions is the study of Augustine's seeking, finding,
and growing in the knowledge of a metaphysico-religious way
of life which has put an end to his restlessness and has satisfied
his desire for peace. What he describes has been a variety of
seeking. The seeking per se, however, did not satisfy him.
Rather, he continued to hope that what he sought he would
find. And above all, his seeking did not eventuate in a creation
(ala Sartre) of his own values, moral law, and ethico-religious
nature. Augustine has found his law. He has not made it.
This discernment of what is accepted as an objective moral
order, law, and values is an experience known to many persons.
And doubtless much of the perennial appeal of the Confessions
lies in Augustine's having called attention to and described
this significant experience.
There are two types of discernment of values and of a moral
order, only one of which is the discernment which has been
Augustine's experience. There is the discernment in which
what is discerned has been passive. In this case what I discern
I have found either by chance or by my own efforts. This kind
of discernment is at least implicitly present in the interpretation of human moral and valuational nature which, on the
one hand, is grounded in metaphysical naturalism and, on the
other hand, is essentialist. Thus the discernment of the relevance to man of what Erich Fromm called " the art of loving "
is the consummation of a type of empirical inquiry into the human spirit. 3 There is also, however, the discernment in which
what I seek has sought me and in which I accept my discernment as a gift. It is this discernment which Augustine describes.
One thinks, for example, of his assertion that, though he had
learned from the neo-Platonists that "in the begining was
8 Erich Fromm, The Art of Loving (New York, N. Y.: Harper and Row, 1956)
and Man for Himself (New York, N. Y.: Rinehart and Co., 1947) Chap. ll.

AUGUSTINE'S THOUGHT AND PRESENT-DAY

CHRISTIANITY

53

the word," he did not learn from them that " he came unto his
own." 4
There is a second mode of classification of instances of discernment which throws considerable light on Augustine's work
and its relevance for the twentieth-century Christian. First,
there is the discernment which is achieved by intellectual effort
alone. And second, there is the discernment which is achieved
only when several aspects of the self are called into play and,
moreover, work together in a particular manner. Whatever
may have been the conditions of Augustine's initial discernment of the law, in that experience he learned that increased
discernment of the content, relevance, and demands of the law
could be his only if he appropriated the law. That is, the law
gave Augustine a new goal: to endeavor to conform to the
law, to make it fundamentally the law of his life, and to endeavor to transform his desires, goals, and concerns in terms of
its requirements. And these endeavors, which were requisite
for increased insight into the law, were not the work of Augustine's intellect alone. Rather, they made demands upon his
capabilities for faithfulness, aspiration, hope, and love. Clearly
in this Augustine has followed Plato as well as the neo-Platonists in making spiritual and metaphysico-religious development a process which requires the activity of many aspects of
the self.
We turn now to Augustine's acceptance of the supernaturalistic metaphysics of transcendence which informs all his work
and which is a target of present-day critics of traditional
Christianity and of Augustinian Christianity in particular. In
examining this aspect of Augustine's thought I use traditional
linguistic expressions with their traditional meanings. There is
presently no other language with which to express precisely
those meanings. And in the examination of Augustine's work
it is important that his words be used with his intended
meaning rather than with a twentieth-century reinterpretation
of his language. Further, it is the meanings which I use which
• Op. cit., Book Seven: IX.

54

MARY CARMAN ROSE

have informed the perennially valued interpretation of Christianity which Augustine has provided. His appeal to the
transcendent has three aspects which I will call, ontological,
valuational, and explanatory transcendence.
Ontological trarz.c;cendencehas to do with the distinction between the being of God, the creator of the world and the giver
of the law, and the being of the world and of Augustine who
has discerned the law. Clearly the Confesmons is informed by
ontological transcendence. A corollary is that Augustine's interpretation of his discernment of the law cannot be comprehended wholly in terms of his experience of discernment. It can
be comprehended only if there is added to the existential as-pects of Augustine's discernment his belief that he has received
the law from a being who transcends both Augustine's experience and Augustine's world. For Augustine the law and its
giver are no more his " intention " than they are his creation.
An anthropocentric, phenomenological interpretation of being
and of man's world does not suffice for the comprehension of
what Augustine has intended to say about God in the Confesmons. When he talks about God, he is not talking about his
own expenence.
An existential analysis of the passage quoted above from
the Confesmons would call attention to at least some of the
content and experiential effects of Augustine's conviction of the
objective reality of the ontologically transcendent. This, however, is all that it would accomplish. It would not make clear
the grounds of that belief nor constitute a demonstration of the
philosophical legitimacy or illegitimacy of it. And an existential analysis of Augustine's work which was informed by a
phenomenological interpretation of being would falsify Augusine's metaphysical position by reducing his intended meanings
to their existential elements.
Valuational transcendence names Augustine's belief that the
values the cultivation of which the law enjoins are eternally
fulfilled in God. That is, his valuational transcendence is implicitly a rejection of the view that God is the non-personal
ground of his being; that values that are relevant to man are

AUGUSTINE'S THOUGHT AND PRESENT-DAY

CHRISTIANITY

55

only latent in God; and that these values ultimately find their
fulfillment in man.
And explanatory transoendence names Augustine's view that
the law and the divine giver of the law explain the ethicoreligious capacities which are aspects of the universally human
and which Augustine knows at first hand in himself. This law
explains the nature of Augustine's spiritual seeking and aspiration. And it illumines his spiritual potentialities. If Augustine's
nature explained the law, the latter would be dependent upon
him for its character and importance. Augustine's transcendent theism, however, is the view that only in God is the explanation of man; that eternally God is in a divine way what
man may become in a human way; and that God is not to be
identified with man or with any other aspect of creation.
The nature of Augustine's hope, as seen in the passage above,
will also repay examination. This hope has three aspects. First,
Augustine hopes that as time passes he will achieve increased
knowledge of the law and will discern more of its contents, of
the demands it makes upon him, and of its promise of spiritual
fulfillment: " Open thou those pages to me." Second, Augustine hopes that his character structure will be transformed according to the requirements of the law and that he will develop
increased capacities to appropriate it more successfuly: " Complete thy works in me, 0 Lord." Third, Augustine hopes for
the joy of fulfillment which is the accompaniment of the appropriation of the law and of the spiritual development: "Thy
voice, the law, is my joy, abounding in all joys."
Augustine's hope for his ethico-religious development derives
from his recognition that without increased spiritual development he cannot fulfill the law he has discerned. And this
recognition derives from his awareness of his own inadequacy
in respect to the demands of the law: "Do not abandon what
thou hast given nor scorn thy grass which is athirst for thee."
That is, in his belief in his inability to fulfill the law Augustine
is not reasoning a priori from a dogmatic acceptance of the
Christian view of the fall of man. Rather, he is expressing
what lies at the heart of his existential situation: he has tried

56

MARY CARMAN ROSE

to live by the law and has failed. His will remains committed
to lesser goals.
Augustine's awareness of his de facto ethico-religious inadequacy is in marked contrast to manifold twentieth-century misinterpretations of and rejections of the Christian view of man's
spiritual incompleteness, his unfathomed spiritual potentialities, and his need for grace in the overcoming of that incompleteness and in the development of those potentialities. For
example, there is the desire, which informs virtually all naturalisms, to prescribe only moral ideals for which there is ample
evidence that they can be realized and are, in fact, sometimes
realized. And there is the " new morality " which interprets
Augustine's law as a set of guidelines for decision. Augustine,
on the other hand, does not wish to modify the law. Rather,
he accepts it as a constant in his life and seeks to become able
to fulfill its demands. He accepts the discipline of the law as a
path to spiritual development. And in his obedience to the
law is his expectation of the fulfillment which can quiet the
restlessness of his heart.
Clearly Augustine's existential situation is informed by essentialism-i. e., by his conviction that all men, in fact , share his
relation to the law. Some individuals know of their relation
to the law; and some do not. Some know more of it than
Augustine does; and some know less. And some make more
progress than he does in appropriation of the law. Also a propos of the present interest in contextual ethics, it is noteworthy
that in The City of God Augustine has asserted that, though
the law is one, it is legitimately given different interpretations
and different applications, depending upon the conditions of
any one culture and upon the needs and spiritual development
of individuals within the culture.
If the acceptance of transcendent, personalistic theism and
essentialism are important ingredients in Augustine's existential
situation, then they are also important ingredients in the existential situation of the present-day Christian who finds that
Augustine's Confessions tells not only the author's story but
the reader's story as well. The experiences, the qu;:tlity of life,

AUGUSTINE'S THOUGHT AND PRESENT-DAY

CHRISTIANITY

57

the commitment, and the aspiration which are described in
the Confessions can belong only to the individual whose views
of himself and reality are informed by the ontological, explanatory, and valuational transcendence of Christian theism
and who in appropriating the law discovers his inadequacy in
relation to its demands and his dependence on the giver of the
law for the development of his ethico-religious nature.
Thus, Augustine's existential situation is informed by anumber of beliefs. First, it is informed by a complex metaphysics:
God is the divine Thou who responds to the creature who desires to fulfill the law. Second, it is informed by beliefs pertaining to Augustine himself. For if he has discerned the way
of life which promises to quiet his restlessness, he also has found
that he is incapable of fulfilling the law. Third, it is informed
by beliefs concerning Augustine's relation to God. God is transcendent, but he is also active within creation. God is the
eternal and perfect exemplar of the goodness with Augustine
longs to make his own. God's creative activity within Augustine's mind is the source of the light by which Augustine understands himself. And, fourth, it is informed by beliefs concerning all men. Potentially all can find their ideal peace in one
spiritual path.
The foregoing implies the inadequacy of late twentieth-century attempts to reinterpret the language of the metaphysics
of transcendent theism and, in particular, the language in which
Augustine talks about transcendent theism. Thus, there is the
view that this language is emotive and non-cognitive and that,
hence, truth and falsity are not relevant to it. And there is the
view that this language is an expression of the individual's self..
understanding and of the understanding of the world he has
made for himself. On the first view Augustine's language is
really his cry, an expression of his feelings. On the second view,
Augustine's language has a cognitive meaning but does not pertain to objective reality. What Augustine intended to say, however, is a question of fact. So is the question as to whether we
have understood him. In any event, the Confessions have had a
perennial appeal within the Christian community precisely be-

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MARY CARMAN ROSE

cause Augustine's language has been interpreted as pertaining
not only to his insight into his own predicament but also to
his insight into objective reality.
In general, twentieth-century naturalists have rejected traditional forms of metaphysical inquiry. And while Augustine
has not often been explicitly the target of their criticism, his
creative synthesis of Christianity, Platonism, and neo-Platonism is one type of metaphysical thought which they wish to
reject, in part, at least, on metaphysical grounds. Interpreted
so as to pertain to Augustine's conclusions their criticisms may
be classified as follows: Augustine's conclusions derive from
inquiry which has no clear epistemological structure; his conclusions do not bear the imprimatur of scientific inquiry; and
his conclusions are derivative from Hellenistic assumptions
which he does not explicitly defend and which cannot at
present be legitimately defended.
It is not to be expected that there will be an emphasis on
method in Augustine's work. The philosophical emphasis on
method is modern. In large part it takes its rise from the development of the scientific investigation of nature which ha;;;
been so successful as virtually to eclipse all other means of
seeking reliable beliefs. The history of man's search for reliable
beliefs concerning himself and his world is, however, almost
entirely the product of methods spontaneously accepted and
spontaneously developed or modified as they have been used.
Modern science, for example, was not preceeded by an explicit
development of scientific methodology. Rather, the .achievement of some insight into the method of science has been one
product of both the successes and the failures of scientific inquiry. Analogous comments hold for the many forms of religious faith. And in particular they hold for the Christian faith
that informed the Confessions.
The dogmatic assertion that scientific inquiry is the only
source of legitimate beliefs concerning reality violates the ethos
of science itself. For the ethos of science requires sustained
attention to whatever evidence indicates that there are important questions to which science as we know it provides no

AUGUSTINE'S THOUGHT AND PRESENT-DAY

CHRISTIANITY

59

answers but which for some individuals are answered by Christian faith. And, in fact, in the Confessions Augustine is concerned with topics in relation to which scientific inquiry has not
yet proved its usefulness. Without benefit of natural science
and by rejecting the detached investigative attitude of science
(i.e., by virtue of his aspiration to know the law, his willingness to appropriate it, and his capacity to love it and its divine
source) Augustine's seeking achieves its end.
On this point Augustine's view is similar to that of Plato.
Both thinkers deny that detached intellectual reflection is
sufficient for metaphysico-religious inquiry. Augustine's view
on this topic is, of course, not identical with that of Plato. For
the latter sees metaphysico-religious inquiry as reaching its
goal by human efforts alone, while Augustine sees it as successfully consummated only through grace. Nonetheless, the resemblances here between Plato and Augustine are too extensive
and too important to ignore. Thus, there is Plato's view that
metaphysical insight (i. e., what he calls knowledge) is essential
to spiritual fulfillment and that in metaphysical inquiry the entire self is called into play, each aspect of the self having its
distinctive role. One theme of the Republic, for example, is
the lack of success of this inquiry which follows upon neglect
of the investigative role of some aspect of the self or the giving
to some aspect of the self a role that is not its proper investigative role. And analogous comments hold of the Augustinian
metaphysico-religious inquiry. In this inquiry the intellect
plays a central role, but it is supported, taught, and led by the
individual's hope for the fulfillment of his spiritual potentialities, his appropriation of the law, and his love for God.
The criticism that Augustine accepts metaphysico-religious
conclusions in support of which there is no positive evidence
and against which there is what some persons accept as negative evidence fails to take account of the differences between
the naturalistic and the Christian supernaturalistic views of
man's moral and spiritual nature. It also fails to take account
of the differences between scientific inquiry and the Christian
faith of the Confessions. The various forms of metaphysical

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MARY CARMAN ROSE

naturalism, having taken most of their investigative cues from
the natural sciences, can legitimately prescribe only those
values which a secular society can foster and the relevance of
which can be verified by experience. On the Platonic-Augustinian view, however, the natural is no more a measure of man's
moral and spiritual nature than nature per se has been man's
origin and will be his destiny. The other worldliness of Christian supernaturalism asks the individual to pursue spiritual and
moral goals which the secular by itself can neither support nor
illumine and for the relevance of which the natural and the
secular do not provide adequate evidence.
Finally, the naturalists have perennially urged that Augustine has not offered us the individual's true good. A recurring
naturalistic argument is that the other-worldliness of Augustine's Christianity is a flight from life and that the individual
owes it to himself to seek his spiritual and intellectual fulfillment in this life and in the natural world which is his true home
and, in fact, his only home. The truth is, however, that Augustine enjoins a commitment to the suprasensory which is in no
sense a flight from this world and from life in nature. ·Rather,
this commitment entails the endeavor to bring the values which
are not grounded in nature to bear upon the world. And while
it gives a new perspective on this world, it does not reject it.
His hope for eternal life leavens, strengthens, and illumines
his Christian commitment; but while this life lasts, nature
is the scene of the Christian's activity.
First, there is the rejection of the Platonist and nco-Platonist
elements in Augustine's thought. These elements are many.
Some are Augustine's direct appropriation of certain aspects of
Platonism. Some Augustine accepted as truths explicitly shared
by the Christian revelation and Platonism. One thinks, for
example, of Augustine's careful working out of a Christian
version of the neo-Platonist elements of John 1: 1-14.5 Also
I have already called attention to the fact that Augustine
shared with both Plato and the neo-Platonists the view that
"Ibid.

AUGUSTINE'S THOUGHT AND PRESENT-DAY

CHRISTIANITY

61

metaphysico-religious inquiry makes demands on the entire self.
And there is Augustine's acceptance of the Platonic ontology
with its concept of degrees of being and his use of this ontology
to work out a philosophy of evil.6
A defense of Augustine's use of any aspect of Platonism can
be worked out by calling attention to the existential effects of
the individual's appropriation or rejection of a Christianity
which is informed by that particular aspect of Platonism. Examination of the existential effects of the present-day Christian's acceptance or rejection of Augustine's use of the logos
doctrine will serve as an example. At present many persons
who are members of the Christian community reject this aspect
of Augustine's thought on the grounds that it has no role in
late twentieth-century Christianity. 7 The truth is, however,
that there is not only one type of Christian existential situation. And the analysis of Christian experiences, interests, and
attitudes is not complete unless it takes account of the great
diversity of Christian existential situations and of the concepts,
beliefs, and concerns which inform them. Thus the analyst
who does not himself accept the logos doctrine may have examined only his own existential situation and, perhaps, those
situations that are akin to his own. Also, he may not be prepared-i.e., may not have the requisite spiritual developmentto discern the existential effects of appropriation of Augustine's
interpretation of the logos doctrine in the existential situations
which it does inform. And, in fact, the logos doctrine is present
in some present-day philosophico-religious thought, notably
that of Martin Buber and Pierre Teilhard de Chardin. Buber,
who writes from the Jewish point of view, does not interpret
the logos as the "Word become flesh." Nonetheless, this aspect of Buber's thought is important in the present context
because of his deliberate acceptance of logos in its Hellenistic
origins; because of the important roles he gives logos in nature;
• Op. cit., Book Seven: III-V.
7 See, for example, Leslie Dewart, The Future of Belief
(New York, N. Y.:
And Nels F. S. Ferre, The Living God of
Herder and Herder, 1966) pp.
Nothing and Nowhere (Philadelphia, Penna.: 1966), passim.

62

MARY CARMAN ROSE

and because of the role he gives it in the existential situation
of the person who cultivates his own relation to the divine
Thou. 8 And Teilhard de Chardin urges the appropriation within the Christian community of the view that the creator who
has become man is also present within his creation, his presence
accounting for the natural order which is the object of scientific
inquiry. 9
In any event, the total rejection of Augustine's appropriation
of the logos doctrine on the grounds that it has no legitimate
role whatsoever in twentieth-century Christianity fails to take
account of the spiritual and intellectual needs, convictions, and
expectations of some present-day Christians. Moreover, it is
important that the present-day Augustinian Christian achieve
intellectual clarity on this point. To his end he must seek evidence that his own Christian spirituality and commitment are
illumined, leavened, and strengthened by Augustinian Platonism. If he does this he will have used the criteria of adequacy of interpretation of Christianity which Augustine's
critics have used. That is, he will have examined the existential
effects of the philosophical concepts which inform the interpretation of Christianity which he has appropriated. But his
conclusion will be different from theirs. He will find that
Augustine's interpretation of Christianity illumines his spiritual
longing and points the way to his increased spiritual development. Specifically, he may find that his appropriation of the
logos doctrine has profound effects on his interpretation of
scientific inquiry and the status of scientific conclusions. He
may also find that it has profound effects on his aesthetic
appreciation of nature. This does not necessarily indicate that
he has unthinkingly accepted a now outmoded view of the
content of Christianity. It may indicate, rather, the continued
presence in the Christian community of more than one mode
of introducing philosophical concepts into Christianity, each
8 Martin
Buber, "What is Common to All," in The Nature of Man, ed. by
Maurice Friedman (New York, N. Y.: Harper and Row, 1965) pp. 189-198.
• The Divine Milieu, (New York, N. Y.: Harper and Row, 1960), passim.

AUGUSTINE'S THOUGHT AND PRESENT-DAY

CHRISTIANITY

63

of which provides adequate ground for some, but only some,
Christians.
Second, phenomenological and existentialist thinkers reject
either Augustine's thought per se or traditional interpretations
of it on the grounds that these are not " man-centered " and
not stated in human terms. This type of criticism derives from
the point of view that the only meaningful theological writing
is that which pertains primarily to man's existential situation.
On this view " to talk about God is really to talk about the existential significance of God for man." The truth is, however,
that if we translate Augustine's work into man-centered, human terms we miss his essential meaning. And this is so despite the fact that Augustine's writing so abounds in references
to the existential effects of his beliefs that selections from his
writings are used to illustrate the feasibility and fruitfulness
of an existentialist reinterpretation of traditional Christianity.
The existentialist reinterpretation of Augustine's work does not
provide either adequate illumination of what he intended to
say or of the content and goals of his spirituality.
For example, Augustine's "Thou hast made us for thyself
and our hearts are restless till they find their rest in thee " is
existentially reinterpreted as meaning" There is an alternative
to despair." In this passage, however, Augustine is not talking
solely or even primarily about man. He is, rather, talking about
God-about God's reasons for creating man, about God's
promises to man, and about the thirst for the divine which God
gives to man. The existentialist reinterpretation of Augustine's
assertion is related to this assertion somewhat as a corollary is
related to the theorems from which it is derived and on which
all its content and importance depend. If the existentialist reinterpretation is offered as Augustine's fundamental meaning,
it is false. If it is offered as a corollary of Augustine's meaning,
it is misleading since in the contexts in which the reinterpretation is offered no attention IS paid to Augustine's intended
meamng.
Summary. The foregoing is a defense of the current importance of Augustine's spirituality and interpretation of Chris-

64

MARY CARMAN ROSE

tianity. Of course, so far as the ethos of much twentieth-century philosophico-theological work is concerned such a goal is
anachronistic. It is, rather, criticism and rejection of Augustinian Christianity which are in order today. My suggestion is,
however, that the criticism and rejection of Augustine's thought
are primarily important as a means of once more bringing to
the fore the question as to the perennial value of his thought.
Clearly, Augustine's Platonic and neo-Platonic interpretation
of Christianity does not now-and never has-answered to the
spiritual needs of all Christians. I have emphasized the fact,
however, that Christianity premits of many interpretations
and many degrees and types of insights into man, God, and
the relation between them. No one of these interpretations has
been accepted by all Christians, but several have proved valuable to many Christians. And Augustine's Christianity as set
forth in the Confessions is perennially valuable to many members of the Christianity community-today no less than
formerly.
Augustine's work is not discredited but rather is served and
potentially strengthened by the critic who asks whether Augustine's words have cognitive meaning; whether Augustine's
Christian faith is a philosophically legitimate source of fundamental beliefs; and whether the Platonic elements in Augustine's Christianity have any significant role in present-day
Christian spirituality. The decisive answering of these critics
must wait upon the development of language-philosophy, of
our understanding of the epistemological structure of Christian
faith, and of an existential analysis which is carried out without
bias as to the contents, ethos, and dynamics of the Christian
life. This is to say, however, that the justification in twentiethcentury terms of the view from which this essay is written
must wait upon the development of the most fundamental aspects of philosophy.
MARY CARMAN RosE
Goucher College
Towson, Maryland

THE CASE AGAINST ABORTION

T

HIS ESSAY has but one purpose, namely, to attempt
to defend the view that abortion is morally wrong.
In seeking this end, the discussion will proceed as
follows: First, the main argument against abortion will be
critically analyzed and its weaknesses noted. This done, the
argument will be modified and, it is hoped, strengthened. Second, the traditional defenses of abortion will be considered and
the following two contentions supported: (I) No argument
for abortion has succeeded in establishing that such an act is
morally justifiable/ and (2) the reason this is so is that the
abortion advocates' moral judgment is based, not on fact but
rather on subjectively distorted "fact." Finally, my thesis
having been fully developed, one possible counter to my arguments will be anticipated. Here, the abortion advocates' position will be re-cast in such a way that it would appear to avoid
the thrust of my criticisms. It will be shown, however, that
no atempt to defend abortion along the lines thus specified can
hope for success.

I
To begin, how to do those unalterably opposed to abortion
usually defend their views? The argument takes various forms,
but in its strongest presentation it runs as follows: From conception on, it is claimed, the organism is a human being; and
as human it possesses human rights. One of these rights is,
as we all recognize, the right to life. Now, when an abortion
is effected, the zygote's right to life has been knowingly and
1 This statement may have one exception; viz., it may be legitimate to permit
abortion in cases wherein the expectant mother will die unless her pregnancy is
terminated. Incidents such as this occur so rarely, however, that they hardly seem
worth mentioning.

65

66

JAMES M. HUMBER

purposefully violated. Clearly, such action must be considered
immoraP
If the above fairly represents the conservative position, how
may those arguing for an opposing view hope to avoid its conclusion? The first line of attack is simply to doubt that the
conceptus is human. What, it is asked, is the basis for this
belief? In reply to questions of this sort the conservative usually answers as follows:
... humanity is an attribute which anyone conceived by a man
and a woman has. . . . A being with the human genetic code is
Homo sapiens in potency; and his potential capacity to reason
makes him share in the universal characteristic of man. 8

Or, put another way:
Indeed, microgenetics seems to have demonstrated what religion
never could; and biological science, to have resolved an ancient
theological dispute. The human individual comes into existence
first as a minute information speck, drawn at random from many
other minute informational specks his parents possessed out of the
common human gene pool. This took place at the moment of impregnation. . . . Thus it can be said that the individual is whoever
he is going to become from the moment of impregnation. 4

That is, microgenetics is said to demonstrate that it is at conception that a being with a human genetic code begins its existence. Since it is the possession of this " code " which makes
something human, it is that point (conception) which must be
taken as the start of human life. And if this is so, abortion
must be seen as halting a human's development by terminating
his or her existence. In short, abortion must be murder.
As thus stated, the conservatives' argument must surely fail.
• I shall refer to this as the conservative position or hardline view. Counted
among its proponents are: John T. Noonan Jr. "Abortion and the Catholic
Church: A Summary History," Natural Law Forum, Vol. 1!'l (1967); Paul Ramsey,
"The Morality of Abortion," in Life or Death: Ethics and Options (Seattle: University of Washington Press, 1968); David Granfield, The Abortion Decision (New
York: Doubleday, 1969); and Germain Grisez, Abortion: the Myths, the Realities,
and the Arguments (New York: Corpus Publications, 1970).
8 Noonan, "Abortion and Catholic Church," pp. 128-1!'l9.
• Ramsey, "Morality of Abortion," pp. 61-62.

THE CASE AGAINST ABORTION

67

Simply put, it neglects to consider all the relevant evidence
and may therefore be attacked in at least two ways. First, as
abortion advocates are quick to point out, drawing the " humanity line " at conception may be premature, for at this point
we cannot know we have a unique human being. Twinning
occurs later in the conceptus' development; hence, calling it
a human before that point is surely to jump the gun. And
second, defenders of abortion could claim that if the conservatives' reasoning is accepted, one should insist that it is with
the production of an egg that a human being begins existence.
After all, virgin births are possible. Here, no sperm unites with
the egg; rather, it becomes activated in some other manner.
The offspring, of course, are all females and virtually " carbon
copies " of their mothers. Still and all, the possibility of such
occurrences shows that the egg alone possesses the genetic code
requisite for humanity. But if this is so, must we now accept
the absurd conclusion that every unfertilized egg eliminated
from a women's body is a case of murder? On the other hand,
if the conservatives seek to avoid this conclusion by denying
the egg's human status, they are faced with an equally undesirable alternative, viz., since " humanity " is not taken to
be predicable of the egg alone, and since conception never
really takes place in cases of virgin births (no sperm and egg
unite), the conservatives must now admit that women born
virginally are non-human.
Defenders of the hard-line position are aware of the first
criticism, but they have not really succeeded in dealing with it
adequately. They still feel that conception marks the beginning of a human life, but they now admit that it is possible
that they are mistaken in the mater: it could be that humans
begin their existence at that stage when twinning occurs (one
or two weeks from conception) .5 At first glance it may appear
that this concession is of little importance, for few women know
they are pregnant within two weeks of conception. Upon closer
• Both Paul Ramsey and Andre Hellegers hold such a view. See, ibid., p. 63;
Andre Hellegers, "A Look at Abortion," The National Catholic Reporter (Mareh
1, 1967), p. 4.

68

JAMES M. HUMBER

examination, however, this illusion is quickly dispelled. Some
conservatives have claimed that microgenetics demonstrated
what religion could not, that it resolved an ancient theological
dispute. Certainly these must now admit that they have somewhat overstated their case, for if a human being begins his
existence one or two weeks from conception, abortive mechanisms like intra-uterine devices may be acceptable. Further,
if a " morning after " pill were to be developed, its use should
have to be condoned.
Given their indecision on the matter, how can the conservatives reply? Must they now admit that the discovery of a
" morning after " pill will end the abortion controversy once
and for all? Surely they would balk at this suggestion for, as
noted, they still feel strongly that human life begins with conception. Unfortunately, an appeal to their "strong feelings"
would do little to help their cause. On the other hand, if they
could explain why they feel as they do, if they could show that
there are facts which lend credence to their beliefs, then their
position would not be without support. I believe that there are
facts which augur in their favor, and it is in hope of bringing
them to light that we now move to discuss the second of the
above-mentioned criticisms.
The second criticism of the conservative's claims may be
stated in the form of a dilemma: either the egg must be human
and all unfertilized eggs considered murdered or, if conception
marks the beginning of human life, virginally born women must
be denied human status. What this criticism makes clear, and
what has heretofore gone unnoticed in all discussions of abortion, is that it is an analysis of " conception " and not " human" which is central to the abortion controversy. The second
horn of the dilemma assumes that " conception " means " union
of egg and sperm." But this is not what we ordinarily mean
when we use that term. " Conception" in its everyday use
means " beginning," " start," or " creation." And if, when
speaking of a woman conceiving, we are implying that a sperm
and an egg have united, this is only because such unions usually cause creations of the sort being referred to. That is to say,

THE CASE AGAINST ABORTION

69

an egg and a sperm may unite and still no conception occurthe union could take place and the egg not become "activated."
Then again, the " beginning " or " start " may take place with
some other impetus as its cause, as in the case of virgin births.
Thus, when one s;:tys that an egg and a sperm have united, he
has given us a good reason for believing that conception has
taken place; but he has not said that it has occurred, for " conception " does not mean " union of egg and sperm." Further,
when one says that a woman has conceived, he has not said
that a sperm and an egg have united in her body. This may
be inferred or " read in," but all he has really stated is that
something new has been created, or has had its beginning, within her.
Once one sees that " conception " means " beginning " or
" creation," the abortion advocates " are easily dismissed. On
the one hand, the second argument confuses one of the reasons
we have for using a term with the meaning of the term itself.
Because a conception is a beginning, even virginally born
women were conceived, i. e., these eggs also had a point at
which they started activation or development. As a result,
they may be referred to as human, even by those who deny the
egg human status. On the other hand, the abortion advocates'
first criticism is faulty precisely in that it neglects to consider
the meaning of " conception " at all. If " conception " means
" beginning," " start " or "creation," what is it that had its
beginning at that point? Surely it must be human life, for what
else results? It may well be true, as the defender of abortion
indicates, that we cannot know how many lives are present at
conception. But if we are to take seriously our ordinary ways of
speaking, we do have good reason for believing that human
life has begun. And this is all the conservative need show, for
the right to life is a human right, not a personal one. If twinning were to occur at time T, and the zygote was destroyed before that point, this only adds to the immorality of that particular abortion. Rather than destroying one human, the abortionist has now violated the rights of two. Quantitatively, at
least, the crime is even more despicable.

70

JAMES M. HUMBER

If our analysis is correct, one of the reasons for the conservatives' past failures is now clear. Put most simply, they have
sought certainty where there is none. Like Ramsey, they seek
to demonstrate or prove that abortion is murder; and to accomplish this task they cast around for a definition of "human" which is broad enough to include all pre-natal organisms
within that term's extension. In doing this, however, they
attack the problem in the wrong way. No analysis of "human" will solve the problem; two thousand years have been
spent trying to define that term, and as yet it still has " blurred
edges." What is needed, it seems, is an honest and open admission that there is no certain solution to be had, that the problem cannot be solved. Once this is realized, once the " quest
for certainty " is abandoned, a case can be made that their
moral position has strong factual support and that it is, for
this reason, probably correct. As fully developed, the conservative argument should run as follows:
First, it is undeniable that fetuses in the very late stages
of their development are often referred to as unborn children.
Then too, few would think it morally right to kill a fetus five
seconds before it was to be born. Clearly then, " humanity "
seems predicable of some pre-natal organisms. But granting
this, at what stage in their development did these " unborn
children " become human and thus possessed of human rights?
As we have seen, an analysis of" conception" indicates that it
was at this stage that their lives began. Of course, our conclusion here cannot be certain. " Conception," like " human," is
imprecise, and it may be that in using that term we mean only
to say that the egg's activation has begun and not that human
life has been created. But this seems unlikely. When I say
"conception has taken place" I think I mean to assert that a
woman has begun her pregnancy, that she is now " with child."
And this conclusion is not without outside " objective " support. Biology and genetics may not be able to prove the conservatives' case as some have thought, but it cannot be overlooked that various scientists who were not at all concerned

THE CASE AGAINST ABORTION

71

with the abortion controversy have arrived at similar conclusions.6
As thus stated, the case against abortion is a strong one. It
appeals to publicly accessible facts, and even if these facts
are in themselves inconclusive, they must carry some weight.
If nothing else, they must be seen as shifting the burden of
proof to those who would defend abortion. That is to say, unless the abortion advocate can show that there is something
wrong with the conservatives' argument, one seeking an abortion must, at the very least, be considered morally irresponsible.
For example, a woman who decides to have an abortion seems
much like a hungry (though not starving) hunter who sees a
motion in the bushes and fires, despite the fact that the movement was perceived to occur in an area in which she had good
reason to believe others were hiking or picnicking. If the abortion advocate is to avoid such a charge, he must give us some
good reason for believing either: (a) that the conceptus is
not human or, (b) that, though human, its right to life may
be denied. Efforts have been made to avoid the hard-line contention in both ways. What we must now do is see whether any
of these ploys can fairly be said to have been successful.

n
Without doubt, the most short-sighted of the attempts to
escape the conservatives' conclusion is offered by those who
feel that " human " can be defined in a purely arbitrary manner. As one advocate puts it:
Whether the fetus is or is not a human being is a matter of definition, not fact; and we can define any way we wish. In terms of
the human problem involved, it would be unwise to define the fetus
as human .... 7
8 James
D. Ebert, Interacting Systems in Development (New York: Holt,
Rinehart, and Winston, 1966), p. 12: " When does an individual first deserve this
name? In embryonic development, from the very moment the egg is activated."
See also, Bradley M. Patten, Foundations of Embryology (2nd. ed ; New York:
McGraw-Hill, 1964), p. 3; and Curt Stern, Principles of Human Genetics (2nd.
ed; San Francisco: W. H. Freeman Co., 1960), p. 38.
7 Garrett
Hardin, "Abortion-or Compulsory Pregnancy?" Journal of Marriage
and the Family, Vol. 30 (May, 1968), pp. 250-251.

JAMES M. HUMBER

Now the problem with this kind of an analysis, it is usually
claimed, is all too obvious. If we are free to define "human"
in any way we wish, no action need be morally
Negroes, Jews, the senile, the elderly, any group may be classified as non-human and exterminated. And our actions would,
by definitional legislation, be morally " neutral." That is, although such actions may not be morally right, they are not
morally wrong. To act in the manner described is not really
different from stepping on an ant. Such an act is not really
spoken of as one which ought or ought not be done; it is simply
neutral as regards moral quality.
As presented above, the position becomes so ludicrous that
one wonders how it could ever be accepted by anyone. In fact,
its obvious absurdity should count as prima facie evidence that
it has never really been advocated in this simple-minded fashion. Those holding to such a view are not fools, and when their
position is attacked in this way, it is really a straw man which
is being destroyed. Those who say that the definition of "human" is an arbitrary affair should not be taken as contending
that it is purely arbitrary. Rather, they would want to claim
that zygotes, embryos, and/ or fetuses should be classified as
non-human because there are "most important social arguments" for doing so.9 As thus amended, however, the position
is still not without problems, for when one inquires into these
" social arguments " he is inevitably disappointed. In general,
the arguments appealed to are of three types; we shall deal
with each in turn.
First, it is sometimes asserted-with statistical data to back
up the contention-that the majority of the people in the
United States are in favor of abortion. This being the case, the
argument goes, abortion should be permitted. And in order to
justify this action morally, pre-natal organisms need to be classified as non-human. Now even if the statistical data are true,
8 This appears to be the argument of Father Robert Drinan, " The Inviolability
of the Right to Be Born," 17, Western Reserve Law Review, 465,469.
• Glanville Williams, The Sanctity of Life and the Criminal Law (London:
Faber and Faber, 1958), p.

THE CASE AGAINST ABORTION

78

they have absolutely no bearing whatsoever on abortion as :t
moral issue. It may well be that in a representative democracy
such as the United States, the legal issue will be decided by a
majority rule doctrine; but no moral conclusions can be reached
by this means. Daniel Webster to the contrary, we do not
decide whether or not slavery is morally right by putting the
issue to a vote. And insofar as abortion is a moral issue, it too
will not be resolved in this fashion. To restate: given the kind
of " reasoning" here proffered by proponents of arbitrary definition, their decision to classify pre-natal organisms as nonhuman must still be seen as purely arbitrary, since it is not at
all relevant to the moral problem whether or not the majority
is in favor of abortion.
Second, appeals are sometimes made to the necessity of
"balancing values." Zygotes should be classified as non-human, it is said, because their status is uncertain and such action would solve the moral dilemma presented to us in cases
where an unborn child will be clearly deformed, or where the
mother already has many children and wants no more, etc. 10
The problem with this kind of reasoning, however, is that it
begs the question. Reasons such as these are good reasons for
permitting abortion only if pre-natal organisms are already
known to be non-human. What if the zygote really is human?
If it is, and if " reasons " of the sort just given allow contrary
definition, then it is one. short step to saying that deformed
babies and mistreated children should also be classified as nonhuman and exterminated. But, the abortion advocate will exclaim, there is a difference between the ontological status of
a zygote and that of a deformed child. The latter we know to
be human, while we have no such knowledge as regards the
former. This being so, do not the reasons enumerated justify
" taking a chance " in the case of a zygote? To this kind of
ploy the conservative has two possible replies. First, although
10 This is one way in which arguments such as these may be used.
As will be
seen, they may also be taken to support a more sophisticated position (see below,
pp. 81-S!l).

74

JAMES M. HUMBER

it is not certain that the zygote should be classified as human,
there are (as shown above) several strong indications that it
does belong to that class. This being so, those gambling that
it is not human are betting on a long-shot. Although gamblers
of this sort may not be immoral, they must still be seen as
morally irresponsible, for their actions are totally without
rational warrant. Second, pre-natal organisms are not the only
human products lacking clear-cut human status. As Locke observed, idiots and monsters are also difficult to classify. And
to this list may well be added schizophrenics, the very senile,
those in coma, etc. I£ reasons like " giving psychological pain "
justify classifying zygotes as non-human, they surely should be
efficacious in these cases also.
Clearly, two separate points are being made here: (I) Do
we really believe that it is right to kill an idiot just because
he is a bother to someone and may be non-human? And (2)
where do we draw the line as regards "clearly human" and
"uncertain as to human status?" Given the time and inclination, one could probably make a good case that neurotics are
not fully human. If we find a neurotic who is unwanted and
unhappy, may we thus "take a chance," classify him as nonhuman and exterminate him? Obviously we do not believe
so. Once again the conclusion seems clear: reasons of the sort
given justify abortion only if one is already convinced that prenatal beings are not human. This being the case, those defending abortion on the grounds just cited must be making
that assumption. But why? Hopefully, an analysis of the last
" social argument " will give us the explanation we seek.
The final argument appealed to in order to justify classification of pre-natal organisms as non-human is that social practices and attitudes illustrate that such organisms are usually
thought of in this manner (e. g., women do not mourn the loss
of spontaneously aborted zygotes as they do the death of a
child) .11 Now, at first glance this may appear to' constitute a
11 See Daniel Callahan, A. Callahan, Abortion: Law, Choice, and Morality (New
York: The Macmillan Company, 1970), p. 391.

THE CASE AGAINST ABORTION

75

reason for accepting the zygote as non-human. But consider
the following:
[In the late middle ages] no one thought of keeping a picture of
a child if that child had either lived to grow to manhood or had
died in infancy. In the first case, childhood was simply an unimportant phase of which there was no longer any need to keep any
record; in the second case, that of the dead child, it was thought
that the little thing which had disappeared so soon in life was not
worthy of remembrance .... Nobody thought, as we ordinarily
think today, that every child already contained a man's personality. Too many of them died. 12

So many children died in the late Middle Ages that people
did not identify with infants. It was a form of self-protection,
to be sure, but adults could not feel that their children were
human in the fullest sense of the word. And as it was then, so
it is now. The reasons for the lack of identification are not
the same, of course, but it is still their attitudes toward the
entity in utero which are causing those in favor of arbitrary
definition to insist that there is nothing moraly repugnant in
their actions. Why do so many believe that they may assume
by arbitrary definition that pre-natal organisms are not human? It is not just that the status of these beings is unsure;
rather, the abortion advocate finds it difficult to feel that such
organisms are human. First, they are not usually seen. And
when they are seen, they do not have human form. Further,
they are not (at least in the earlier stages of development)
conscious. On the other hand, a mother who threatens suicide
if she must bear another child is seen, she is identified with.
This is why the "reasons" cited by those favoring arbitrary
definition seem to have force, even though they carry no logical
weight. If some doubt remains in the reader's mind concerning
the truth of this hypothesis, let him consider the following
two facts:
(1) One must admit that it is not normal to grieve when
10 Philippe Aries, Centuries of Childhood, trans., Robert Baldick (New York:
Vintage Books, 1965), pp. 38-39.

76

JAMES M. HUMBER

a zygote is spontaneously aborted. Still, there do seem to be
some very rare exceptions. For example, a woman who wants
a child badly but has continually miscarried, may mourn such
a loss. Why? Does it not seem plausible that we here have a
person who, because of the abnormal depth of her feelings, is
able to identify with the zygote as human? That is to say,
she feels that she has lost a child, not simply an activated egg.
And if this is an adequate explanation for her action, is not
lack of identification an adequate explanation as to why those
arbitrarily defining pre-natal organisms as non-human feel
their actions are morally warranted? If not, some other explanation must be given for the fact that some can grieve
where others find it impossible. But what this could be escapes
me completely. I find it difficult to believe that those grieving
have freely and arbitrarily decided to define the lost zygote as
human.
(9l) Many a young nurse who favored abortion on demand
soon discovered that practice is the subverter of theory. When
she was the one handed a six month old wriggling fetus, when
she was the one who dropped it into a basin where it slowly
turned blue and suffocated, she somehow began to feel party
to a crime. Why? Quite clearly, to actually see the fetus die
is a shocking experience. She found, to her horror, that she
could empathize with it-that she could feel the fetus was
human, despite her earlier views. Obviously her attitudes and
feelings were here determining her beliefs as to what is and
what is not human. It would be safe to wager, I think, that
very few of those who now advocate arbitrarily defining all
pre-natal organisms as non-human would still hold to this opinion if they ever saw a six month old fetus being aborted.
If our analysis: is correct, the position of those holding that
zygotes may be arbitrarily classified as non-human has come
to this: either (a) their definitions are purely arbitrary, in
which case any action can be " excused " by being made morally neutral or, what is more likely, (b) their classifications are
not arbitrary, but are determined by their attitudes, feelings,
and identifications. If their position is fairly represented by

THE CASE AGAINST ABORTION

77

(a), then it may be rejected out of hand. If (b) characterizes
their views, however, they must be seen as subjectivists. That
is to say, if their theory has any force at all, it is because their
judgment regarding abortion's moral legitimacy rests, ultimately, on a subjectively distorted view of the facts. What I shall
now attempt to demonstrate is that it is not just the proponenents of arbitrary definition who base their moral judgments on subjective" facts." On the contrary, the view I shall
here attempt to defend is that all those who argue for abortion
operate in this manner.
In addition to those seeking to avoid the conservatives' conclusions by insisting upon the arbitrary character of our definition of " human," there are those who believe that lexical
definitions can be given for that term and that these uses clearly and consistently exclude pre-natal organisms from the extension of the term so defined. Upon analysis, however, it is
soon discovered that, though the definitions offered exclude
fetuses from the class of things we ordinarily call " human,"
they all have one serious drawback, viz., they also deny other
groups of commonly recognized human beings that status. 1 ''
Is a human being a rational animal? Then infants are not human and may be killed without risk of moral sanction. Is an
embryonic organism human only when it becomes viable? If
so, then on any ordinary use of " viable," a person being kept
alive on a heart-lung machine or respirator is also non-human.
These analyses could be continued indefinitely, but I think our
point may be made if we consider only one more definition.
In an issue of The Humanist Herman Schwartz defined
" human being " as follows:
A human being is a rational creature, with unique emotions and
feelings, intellect and a personality, a being with whom we can
identify. 14
18 This has almost become common knowledge.
Certainly no sophisticated advocate would hope to argue in the way just outlined. See Callahan, Abortion: Law,
Choice, Morality, pp. 886-895.
10 Herman Schwartz, "The Parent
and the Fetus," Humanist, Vol. !l7 (July/
August, 1967), p. U6.

78

JAMES M. HUMBER

The problems with this definition are all too apparent. Still,
it is instructive in that one of the necessary conditions listed
captures the real reason for the unwavering defenses of abortion we get from those offering lexical definitions in support of
their view. Why is it that Schwartz and others offering unsatisfactory definitions of "human" continue to believe that
a zygote or fetus is non-human, even after the problems with
their definitions have been demonstrated? The answer is simple. A zygote is not " a living being with whom [they] can
identify." As such, it is not considered by them to be human,
even though the lexical definitions they offer are defective.
Schw;:trtz's definition, for example, excludes (at least) babies,
and thus allows for infanticide-an implication of his view
which he wants to reject, though he never explicitly does so.15
In order to explain this oversight, one could claim that
Schwartz and others supporting similar positions are simply
confused thinkers. But this is not so. Rather, they know that
they do not mean to ascribe human status to a zygote or fetus.
And if one demonstrates that the definitions of " human »
which they offer cannot be used to support their thesis without
other morally undesirable consequences following, they still
remain firmly unshaken in their beliefs. Why? The answer
appears clear: if their position is rationally indefensible, the
only possible explanation for their tenacity is that their view is
not found on reason at all. If there are some who would claim
that this conclusion is purely speculative and wholly without
warrant, I ask that they consider the following.
I have often asked my students (who almost unanimously
support abortion) whether one who was worried about the
population explosion would be justified in stalking the maternity wards, killing fetuses just as their mothers were giving
birth. One can imagine the uproar! Any such action would be
wrong on two counts, they say, for: (a) the mother's permission has not been given (we are somehow violating her
rights), and! (b) killing the fetus at this stage of its develop.. See ibid., p. 126.

THE CASE AGAINST ABORTION

79

ment constitutes murder. Alternative (a) is easily avoided;
I simply amend my original example, stating that the mother
does not want the child, will undergo a nervous breakdown if
she has it, and thus gives her permission to kill it. Still, they
insist, such action is morally wrong. When I ask whether extermination would be acceptable :five seconds before birth, :five
hours before, or :five days before, their reactions slowly change.
When I have taken them back three or four months, some now
agree that killing is acceptable. Others wait until we have
traced the organism's development back six or seven months,
but whatever the point at which they deem abortion justifiable,
none can tell me why this action is permissible at just that
point they have selected. When pushed, they give reasons such
as: "It isn't human then," " It isn't even conscious," or, " It
doesn't look human." When I point out to them that consciousness or form can hardly be what makes a being human
(for then someone without arms and legs would not be human,
and one should be justified in killing a man whose EEG has
gone flat for even one second), they say no more though they
do not, I am sure, change their minds. Obviously, they have
not thought the problem through. They believe that " human "
is ordinarily being used in such a way that zygotes and embryos are being excluded from that term's extension, but when
pressed they find themselves, as they sometimes say, " unable
to say what they mean."
How does one go about explaining the unwillingness of these
students to reverse their moral stance on abortion, even though
they acknowledge: (1) that they cannot agree upon just that
point at which a fetus becomes human and, (2) that whatever
point they choose, they cannot give an objective justification
for its selection? Does it not appear that the " facts " upon
which they found their moral judgment are not hard facts, that
their judgment rather depends upon their ability to identify
or empathize with the developing organism at a certain point
in its development? Some feel that the organism is human
when it becomes conscious; other identify with the entity's
form. But whatever the case it seems clear that feeling, not

80

JAMES M. HUMBER

objective fact, is central. And if this is so, there appears to
be no significant difference between those who seek to justify
abortion by arbitrary classification and those who seek the
same end by attempting to specify a lexical definition. If
there is any difference at all, it can only be due to the depth
of feeling-proponents of lexical definition feel so strongly that
they refuse to believe that " human " can ever be used to include pre-natal beings within its extension. 16
Thus far in our discussion we have dealt only with those who
have tried to avoid the hard-line conclusion by seeking to
demonstrate the non-human status of pre-natal organisms. But
there is a more sophisticated way in which the conservatives
may be attacked. Some accept the fact that the conservative
has good evidence for accepting conception as the point at
which human life begins, but then seek to show that the conceptus' right to life may, for some reason or reasons, be
negated. 17 It may very well be true, they say, that human life
begins with conception, but there is no human person present.
Human life begins with impregnation, but the human as an
individual does not come into existence until somewhat later
in the process of development. This being so:
If the developing embryo is not yet a human person, then under
some circumstances the welfare of actually existing persons might
supersede the welfare of developing human tissue. 18

The problems with this position are once again all too apparent. First, if there is a problem in defining" human," that
problem simply re-arises in seeking a definition of " human
person." Different analyses have been given, but in general
16 This " depth of feeling " may well explain why members of women's liberation
fail to see the abortion controversy for what it is. Besides experiencing the inability we all have to identify with a pre-natal being, they are so zealously devoted
to their " cause " that they cannot see why abortion is anything more than :t
question concerning who has the right to control their bodies.
17 See Thomas L. Hayes, "A Biological View," Commonweal, Vol. 85 (March
17, 1967); Rudolph Ehrensing, "When Is It Really Abortion? " The National
Catholic Reporter (May 25, 1966). Daniel Callahan also seems to accept a variation of this view. See Callahan, op. cit., pp. 493-501.
18 Ehrensing, " When Is It Really Abortion," p. 4.

THE CASE AGAINST ABORTION

81

one finds that the traits previously taken to define " human "
are now being used to specify the meaning o£ " human person." 19 This being so, definitions o£ " human person " are subject to the same difficulty we found repeatedly plaguing definitions o£ "human," namely, i£ such definitions are accepted,
they exclude £rom the class o£ human persons beings to whom
we would ordinarily grant that status.
The most important flaw in the argument, however, is that
even i£ the distinction could be made between a zygote (as human non-person) and an adult (as human person), it is not
at all clear why the organism at its later stage o£ development
is better, superior, or more worthy than at the earlier stage.
That is, as we have previously noted, the right to life is ordinarily spoken o£ as a human right, not a personal one. Why
then may that right o£ the conceptus be revoked because it conflicts with a person's right to, say, peace o£ mind? For the
latter right to supersede the former, the abortion advocate
must show that a human person is better or more important
than a human life. And how this could be done escapes me
completely. (Indeed, given a pregnant woman o£ depraved
character, one could make a pretty good case that she is really
less important than the organism developing within her.) At
any rate, i£ the defender o£ abortion can give no proo£ o£ the
superiority o£ a human person to a human life-and I find no
such demonstration anywhere in the literature-then that
" £act " must simply be one which is being assumed. But why?
Why is this presupposition so easily made, and why does it
somehow seem the right thing to do? One seeking the answer
to this question must, I think, look to the emotions, £or it is
our empathic identifications which once again seem to provide
19 For example, some take self-awareness as being the condition necessary for
personhood [Roy Schenk, "Let's Think About Abortion," The Catholic World,
207 (April, 1968), p. 16]; others take viability as the criterion [Malcolm Potts,
"The Problem of Abortion," in F. J. Ebeling (ed.), Biology and Ethics (New
York Academic Press, 1969), p. 75]; still others seem to think that it is the form
which is essential [N. J. Berrill, The Person in the Womb (New York: Dodd,
Mead, and Company, 1968), p. 46].

82

JAMES M. HUMBER

the causal explanation we seek. Just as we feel that a zygote
is non-human because we cannot relate to it, so too we feel
the mother is more important than the zygote because we
cannot identify with the latter. This being so, we feel that the
mother's various rights negate or supersede the zygote's right
to life. Automatically, then, abortion is condoned. But if this
explanation is correct, the moral judgment for abortion must
once again seen to be without basis in objective fact.

TII
If our analysis of the dispute over abortion does not distort,
two further points need be mentioned. First, the conservative
position has strength precisely because it founds its moral judgment on objective, publicly accessible facts. One of the evidences for its objectivity is that the subjective "facts " upon
which the abortion advocates' moral position is based are true.
We cannot really identify with a zygote or embryo, and it is
for this reason that the defenses of abortion have force. In
short, we seem rationally driven to a conclusion which we do
not want to hold. Far from realizing this fact and stressing
it, many of those who oppose abortion have fallen into the trap
of adopting the abortion advocates' style of argumentation,
thus weakening their position. Germain Grisez, for example,
asks us to take the point of view of the fetus-in other words,
to try to "feel" its desire for life by identifying with it. 20 But
any such injunction is self-defeating. Anyone honest with himself must admit that under normal conditions such identification is impossible; 21 or that if it is possible, it is artificial.
By " artificial " I mean that we may be able to force ourselves into an empathic relationship, but once this forcing is
begun, where do we stop? May I not also force myself to identify with cattle and thus give up eating steak? May I not feel
towards the chicken just as I do towards my pet parakeet,
Grisez, Abortion: The Myths, pp.
I say " under normal conditions " here, because as we have seen (pp. 75-76),
there do seem to be abnormal cases wherein such identifications are made.
20

21

THE CASE AGAINST ABORTION

83

thus grieving when each bird dies? Clearly, the conservative
position is strongest when it presents itself for what it is.
Second, we have represented the abortion controversy as
though the contending parties were all trying to be ethical objectivists. We have done so because a thorough review of the
literature gave us no reason to assume otherwise. Of course,
there is no necessity that this remain the case, and the argument could be re-cast in the form of a methodological dispute.
The abortion advocate could claim, for example, that his subjective determination of the facts is proper in that it is only
by this means that we can get value-laden facts-facts, that is,
which are useful in deriving moral conclusions. But if anyone
were to argue in this way, he would be wrong. First, it may
well be true that we cannot know what we should do by a mere
survey of the facts. But even if ethics is subjective, it cannot
be so in the abortion advocates' sense. Whether or not an
entity is properly classified as human is a matter of fact; in
itself, this is not a moral judgment. But if ethics is subjective,
that subjectivity enters when one makes a moral judgment
about the facts. In the case of abortion, for instance, the subjective element would appear when one judged that it would
be morally wrong to kill something which was human. But
all those in favor of abortion admit that the capricious killing
of humans is wrong. Hence, even granting the subjectivity of
ethics, abortion must be considered immoral if the conceptus
can be shown to be human. And as we saw, there are very
strong indications that it is.
There is a second reason for rejecting the abortion advocates'
method, namely, it cannot be a proper method for arriving at
moral conclusions since it has, in the past, been used to " justify " acts which are clearly immoral. For example, when
slavery of African Blacks was accepted, one justification often
given for this action was that they were not quite human and
thus not possessed of human rights. Indeed, these poor souls
needed to be " cared for." If Americans and Europeans found
this kind of reasoning appealing, it was because they found
themselves unable to identify with the Africans' life-style-

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JAMES M. HUMBER

they simply could not feel that these" uncivilized" being were
fully human. But even if such an identification was at one time
impossible-even if it were impossible today-these " facts "
would not make slavery morally right. And when a method
purporting to resolve moral conflicts tells us that it is right,
this demonstrates, I think, that it is wholly unsuited to the
purposes for which it is intended.
We would all like to condone abortion. It is true; we cannot
identify with a zygote or embryo. Then too, we do feel for a
suffering mother and her family; we do deeply desire to spare
them needless pain and suffering. At the same time, a survey
of the facts indicates that we should stand in opposition to
abortion despite our feelings. Admittedly, such action is difficult. But then, nobody ever said it was easy to be moral.
JAMES M. HUMBER

Georgia State University
Atlanta, Georgia

THE NOTHINGNESSOFTHEINTELLECTIN
MEISTER
ECKHART'S "PARISIAN QUESTIONS "

I

T IS commonly supposed that the idea of the negativity
or " nothingness " of consciousness is of modern philosophical vintage. In our own times this notion has come to
be associated with the work of Jean-Paul Sartre, who has defended this thesis in Being and Nothingness. For Sartre, being
is the " massive " and " opaque," a Parmenidean plenum devoid of determination and meaning. Consciousness, on the
other hand, is completely translucent and empty. It is a "lack"
and desire of the fullness of being. It is a freedom which
cuts through the dead weight of matter. It is, and this will
especially interest us in these pages, not what " is " (being)
but the "revelation" of what is (non-being). Consciousness
is " not " being and that alone makes knowledge possible.
One also knows that Sartre, who heard Kojeve's lectures on
The Phenomenolgy of Spirit at the Eoole des Hautes Etudes
in the 1930's/ was to some extent influenced in this matter by
Hegel. The entire doctrine is couched in the language of the
Phenomenology. The opaque object of knowledge is " being"
or the "in-itself." The translucent consciousness is "nothingness" or the "for-itself." Indeed it is among the German
Idealists that the negativity of consciousness seems to have
been first introduced into Western philosophy. In Hegel and
the Idealist tradition one finds a metaphysics of becoming and
historical process in which the " negative" is the means by
which the " spirit " advances, by which it breaks up what has
1 Wilfred Desan, The TTagic Finale: An Essay on the Philosophy of Jean-Paul
SaTtTe (New York: Harper Torchbooks, 1960), pp. 24, 50, n. 21. See also George
Kline, " The Existentialist Rediscovery of Hegel and Marx," in Existentialism and
Phenomenology, ed. E. Lee and M. Mandelbaum (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins Press,
1967), pp. 118-88, especially 119-flO.

85

86

JOHN D. CAPUTO

become hard and lifeless and unfolds its full potentiality. The
" life " o£ the absolute rests essentially in its capacity £or sel£negation.
Our effort in these pages will be to show that the idea that
consciousness or knowledge is in some sense "non-being" can
be found much earlier in the the Western tradition. It was
proposed quite explicitly and formally, and in an unambiguous
way, in two "disputed questions" held at Paris in 1302-03 by
Meister Eckhart o£ Hochheim (1260-1327/9). Eckhart, of
course, is familiar to the modern reader as the leading figure
in 14th Century " Rhineland mysticism," and as one o£ the
greatest o£ all Western mystics. But his acumen as a scholastic
" master " (magister) at Paris-which earned him the very
name by which he is known to us today-is almost entirely
unknown or overlooked, except by a £ew specialists. Yet apart
£rom a careful study o£ these Latin works it is impossible to
reach a correct understanding o£ his mystical doctrines. The
" Meister " was a speculative philosopher o£ great depth and
originality-even though, as a Dominican master, he was committed to defend the views o£ his Church and his Order at Paris.
We hope to illustrate in these pages the subtle and fertile character o£ the Latin Eckhart by making as careful an examination o£ these two disputed questions as space permits.
Our study £ails naturally into two parts:
(1) a textual
analysis o£ the first two Parisian Questions; (2) a consideration
o£ their modern flavor. It will be important to show with respect to the second point that the parallel between Eckhart and
the later development o£ continental European philosophy is
not merely verbal, and that the sense in which he speaks o£
knowledge as "non-being" is not so different £rom the contemporary theories as to make a comparison o£ the two rest
on a mere equivocation. We will relate Eckhart's views to two
major movements o£ the last two centuries in Continental
thought: 19th Century German Idealism, especially Fichte
and Hegel; and contemporary phenomenology, especially Husser! and Sartre.
The notion that consciousness is in some sense non-being,

THE NOTHINGLESS

OF THE INTELLECT

87

we hope to show, is an important philosophical claim. It belongs to a philosophical tradition which stretches in one way
or another as far back as Aristotle and as far forward as JeanPaul Sartre. The general contention of this essay, then, is that
the scholastic Eckhart is an original and important speculative
thinker, and not only a great mystic. One proof of this is the
masterful way in which he puts forward this idea which, rightly
understood, is basic to any theory of knowledge and which,
apart from Eckhart himself, has been recognized in an especially vivid way only in recent times.
Before proceeding, it is important to observe that we are
not proposing that the Parisian Questions were historical influences on the Idealists or Phenomenologists. That is quite
out of the question if for no other reason than that the Parisian
Questions were not even discovered until
when Martin
Grabmann and Ephrem Longpre came upon them simultaneously although independently. 2 We argue only that the forceful
and original way in which Eckhart develops the notion of the
negativity of consciousness is akin to and anticipates some of
the most significant developments in recent thought, which is
convincing evidence that he is a speculative philosopher of
much importance, a fact not widely recognized today.
I. Intellect and Being in the Parisian Questions
The Parisian Questions 3 consist of five disputed questions,
• Ephrem Longpre, "Questions inedites de Maitre Eckhart, 0. P. et de Gonzalve
69-85.
de Balboa, 0. F. M." Revue neoscolastique de philosophic
Martin Grabmann, "Neuaufgefundene
Pariser Questionen Meister Eckharts,"
Abhandlungen der Bayerischen Akademie der Wissenschaften, PhilosophischB. 7 (Munich,
philologische und historische Klasse, Vol.
3 We will use the edition of the Parisian Questions found in the critical edition
of Eckhart's Latin works: Meister Eckhart: Die deutschen und lateinischen
Werke, Hrsg. im Auftrage der Deutschen Forschungsgemeinschaft, Die lateinische
Werke, Vol. V. (Stuttgart: W. Kohlmhammer, 1936). We will refer to this and
all the volumes of the Stuttgart edition as "LW," followed by the page and line
number. This will be followed by an abbreviation of the work cited-in this
case "QP I," "QP II "-followed by the Stuttgart paragraph number. Abbreviations of other works of Eckhart that we will cite are: Prol.: Prologi in Opus

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JOHN D. CAPUTO

the first three of which were composed in 1302-03, the others
in 1311-14. The first two questions, with which we are concerned in these pages, raise two problems which have been
dealt with at some length by another Dominican "master,"
Thomas Aquinas, whose teaching activity at Paris antedated
Eckhart's own by some thirty years. Eckhart asks: (1) whether
the being (esse) 4 of God and his act of intellection (intelligere) 4
are identical, and (2) whether the being of the angel and its
act of intellection are identical. Like" brother Thomas," Eckhart responds affirmatively to the first question and negatively
to the second.5 God is a being of perfect simplicity, Eckhart
and Aquinas maintain, and there can be no real distinction
between his being and his understanding, no more than between his being and his essence; whereas in the created and
composite nature-angelic or human-it is one thing to be
and another to understand. In the Latin sermon " Deus unus
est," Eckhart explains his procedure for identifying God and
distinguishing him from creatures:
I inquire of everything whether or not there is intellection in
it. If there is not, it is evident that a thing which lacks intellect
is not God or the first cause of all things which are ordered into
definite ends. If there is intellect in it, I inquire whether there is
any being in it beyond its intellection. If there is not, then I hold
that it is simply one, and again that it is uncreatable, first and
such like, and that it is God. If there is any being in it other than
intellection, then it is composite and not simply one.
(LW, IV, 267:10-268:4, Serm. XXIX, n. 301)
Tripartitum; In Joh.: Expositio sancti Evangelii secundum Johannem: Serm.:
Sermones; In sap.: Expositio Libri Sapientiae.
• We will translate "ens" and "esse" as "being" and, to avoid confusion.
put the Latin in parentheses afterwards wherever necessary. Esse, of course, is
a verbal noun and has the active sense of "be-ing" or " act-of-being," whereas
ens is a participal meaning "what is." We do not use "act-of-being" or "act-of
existence " for esse in order to avoid giving a Thomistic " existential " reading to
Eckhart, for it is a mistake to assimilate their theories of esse. See Vladimir Lossky,
Theologie negative et connaissance de dieu chez Maitre Eckhart, Etudes de Philosophie Medievale, Vo. XLVIII (Paris J. Vrin, 1960), pp. 82-9. In order to preserve
the connection between " intellectus " and " intelligere " we will translate these as
" intellect " and " act of intellection."
• Thomas Aquinas, Summa Theol., I, q. 14, a. 4; q. 54, aa. 1-2.

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Eckhart seems thus to adhere strictly to Thomas's position.
But the illusion is quickly dispelled that Eckhart is a somewhat daring but fundamentally faithful Thomist, a view that
is sometimes put forward by those of his commentators who
wish to defend Eckhart's orthodoxy. 6
The opening sentence of the First Question already suggests
an independent line of thought: not only are God's being and
intellection identical in reality (in re) but" perhaps" (forsan)
even "for reason" (ratione) as well (LW, V, 37:4 QP I, n.
1) . From the start Eckhart's position is more radical than
Aquinas's: God's being and intellection are so strictly identified, that it is dubious that one can even distinguish them conceptually, as Thomas held one could. But the decisive
ture from Aquinas-and the move which characterizes Eckhart's more radically" intellectualist" 7 posture-occurs a few
paragraphs into the question when, after (1) having recited
six arguments for the identity of the divine intellect with its
being drawn from Aquinas's works, and (2) having offered
another argument of his own, Eckhart makes the following
observation:
In the third place, I (will) show that it no longer seems to me
that God understands because he is, but rather that he is because
he understands; so that God is intellect and the act of intellection,
and the act of intellection is the foundation of his being.
(LW, V, 40: 5-7, QP I, n 4)

The phrase "no longer" (non modo) suggests that Eckhart's
views have undergone a change and that he once held the more
strictly Thomistic position that in God it is being which holds
the primacy and that everything else is attributable to God
only on the basis of his being. Be that as it may, 8 Eckhart is
• Otto Karrer, Meister Eckehart: Das System seiner religiosen Lekre und
Lebensweisckeit (Munich: 1926).
• The Dominicans taught that the intellect was superior to the will; Eckhart's
position is even more radical in that he teaches the superiority of the intellect over
being itself.
8 Actually, in a later text, the "Prologues " to the Opus Tripartitum, Eckhart
seems to return to the more Thomistic position. See n. II below.

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JOHN D. CAPUTO

striking out against the central tenet of Thomistic metaphysics,
the supremacy of being (esse) ,9 and setting up in its stead the
primacy of intellection (intelligere), a notion that is distinctively his own.
Eckhart's position is that being and intellection are identical
not because the divine intellection flows from and is reducible
to the divine being, as Aquinas held, but because on the contrary the divine being is nothing other than its intellection and
is reducible to it. Aquinas held that God is his being (deus est
suum esse) and that the divine intellection was but another
name for this same being. For Aquinas, God is the subsistent
act of being itself (ipsum esse subsistens) and so no quality or
attribute or perfection of being can be lacking to him. But
since intellection is a way to be (modus essendi), then Godwho is being itself-not only has intellectuality but he is his
very act of intellection, which is nothing other that his being.
In Eckhart's view, however, God is his intellection (deus est
intellectus et intelligere), and if one wishes to speak of being in
God then this can signify nothing other than the divine intellection. In the course of establishing this thesis, however, Eckhart
radicalizes his position even further: not only is it true that
God is his intellectuality and that his intellectuality is the foundation of his being, but it is furthermore true to say that God
does not, properly speaking, have being at all. Eckhart is thus
maintaining that God is so thoroughly identical with his intellectuality that it is no longer appropriate to attribute being to
him unless one adopts an imperfect mode of expression and
says that his intellectuality is his: "being." For Aquinas, God
is properly speaking both being and intellect, but he is intellect
because he is being. And indeed the two are in reality the same.
For Eckhart, God is: properly speaking intellect alone and not
being, and if in some improper sense one attributes being to
him, then one must recall that this " being " is nothing other
• It is in this rather misleading sense, incidentally, that neothomistic philosophers
speak of "Thomistic existentialism" or even of " authentic Existentialism." See
Jacques Maritain, Existence and the Existent, trans. L. Galantiere and G. Phelan
(Garden City Doubleday Image Books, 1956), pp. 11-9.

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than his intellectuality. Hence not only does Eckhart dispute
with Aquinas over which is to be taken as the primary name
of God-intellect or being-but he even contests their very
compatibility with one another. For if God is his intellectuality, then he is not being. For Aquinas, intellectuality is a
mode of being whereas for Eckhart-and this is the unique and
original thesis of the Parisian Questions to which we wish to
draw attention in these pages-intellect is the opposite of being
(LW, V, 43: 14) and a form of non-being.
Let us see how Eckhart is led to this surprising conclusion.
He states his case as follows:
.•.. God is not being (esse) nor any being (ens) , because nothing
is formally present in the cause and in that of which it is the cause,
if the cause is a true cause. But God is the cause of all being.
Therefore being is not formally present in God. And if you wish to
call the act of intellection being that is agreeable to me. But
nonetheless I hold that if there is something in God which you
wish to call being it belongs to him because of his intellection.
(LW, V, 45:
QP I, n. 8)

The argument turns upon what Eckhart means by a " true
cause," a phrase which he uses interchangeably with "universal
cause" and" essential cause." In his Commentary on the Gospel of St. John. he specifies the four conditions of an essential
cause:
First, that that of which it is the principle be contained in it as
an effect in a cause ... Secondly, that it [the effect] not only be
in it [the cause], but also that it prexist in it and be in it in a
higher way than it is in itself. Thirdly, that the principle itself
always be pure intellect, in which there is no other being than intellection itself, having nothing in common with anything, as the
saying of Anaximander cited in the Third Book of De anima puts it.
The fourth condition is that, being in and with the principle, the
effect be by its power coeval with the principle.
In Joh. n. 88)
(LW, III,

A true or essential cause enjoys a higher mode of being than
its effects and precontains its effects in a higher way. Now
God, the creator, is the cause of being. Being is found formally

JOHN D. CAPUTO

and properly in the creature. God is the source of being, the
principle of being, but not being properly so called. Being belongs to God not formally but only " in a higher way "
(eminentius) .
It is clear that there is a theory of "analogy " at work in
Eckhart's thought. For an essential cause is an analogical
cause, as the following text makes plain:
Further: in those things which are predicated analogically, what
is in one of the analogates is not formally present in the other, as
health is formally present only in the animal, whereas it is no more
in the diet or in the urine than it is in the stone. Therefore, since
all things which are caused are formally beings, God is not formally
a being. (LW, V, 46: 7-10, QP I, n. 11)
Vladimir Lossky has shown at some length that the kind of
analogy that Eckhart is employing is called in the scholastic
tradition the analogy of " attribution." 10 The standard illustration of this analogy in the Middle Ages, that of the health
of the organism and the health of the urine, is borrowed from
Aristotle's Metaphysics (1003 a 33). Only a living body is
healthy. Urine, a sound diet, a ruddy complexion, are signs of
health or causes of health but not formally speaking healthy.
Strictly speaking such things are no more healthy than a stone.
Health is only " attributed " to them by reason of their relation to health. But not every cause is an analogical cause; some
causes are "univocal "-as when fire gives rise to fire or when
one member of species gives birth to another (LW, II,
But an essential cause is always analogical. The effects of an
essential cause bear only an analogy to the essential cause,
which enjoys a fundamentally higher mode of being than its
effects. Hence if God is the essential cause of creatures one
may only " attribute" being to him. One may claim that God
precontains the being of creatures in a " higher way " but not
that he possesses being formally.
One might ask at this point why Eckhart has chosen to hold
10 Lossky, 812-!W. Actually this designation is used by Cajetan in his classification of the kinds of analogy found in Thomas Aquinas.

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that being belongs properly to creatures rather than to God.
Might he not have argued instead that God alone is being and
that, in comparison to God, creatures, who share nothing univocally in common with God, are "nothing " ? In other words,
if nothing is ever formally present in both the essential cause
and its effect, why, instead of saying that creatures are being
and God non-being, did Eckhart not reverse the analogy and
say that God is being and the creature nothing? The first
answer to this question is that in fact Eckhart does avail himself of this option. But this is another matter, and one which
we cannot hope to discuss in the present study. 11 A further
answer is to be found in Eckhart's neoplatonic sources. Eckhart frequently cites Proposition IV of the Liber de causis in
which it is said that" being (esse) is the first of all creatures"
(LW, II, 344-5, In sap., n.
"Thus as soon as we come to
being," Eckhart says, "we come to creatures" (LW, V, 41:7,
QP I, n. 4). In another place he remarks that "being is the
reason why something is able to be created" (ratio creabilitatis
est esse: LW, II, 344-5, In sap., n.
. To create is to bestow
being (LW, I, 160 Prol., n. 16). The formal notion of the
11 In the "Prologues"
to the Opus Tripartitum Eckhart develops the proposition
which he says is the fundamental principle of his speculation: that being is
God (Esse est deus: LW, I, 156, Prol. n. 1!'l) The relation between God and
creatures is like the relation between whitness and white: as all white things
are white by whiteness itself, so all things are beings by being itself. But being
is God. To say that God is the cause of beings means now not that he is above
being but on the contrary being itself. Accordingly the creature, insofar as it is
a creature, is nothing-not a little bit, but nothing. (This latter remark was to
be included in the list of propositions condemned by John XXII in 13!'l9.) The
reconciliation of this text with the Parisian Questions which is suggested by Lossky
is the most sound. Eckhart has not so much changed his mind as his perspective.
God and creatures share nothing univocally in common. If one begins with creatures and takes them to be real, then God is non-being or above being. If, on
the other hand, one begins with God and acknowledges his supereminent perfection,
then being is God and what is other than God is nothing. God is alternately being
or nothing: being and nothing. The two positions, Lossky holds, belong together
dialectically. God is being and he is above being. This is to say that God is the
"purity of being" (puritas essendi: LW, V, 45: 10-1, OP I, n. 9), that he isin the Parisian Questions-pure of (created) being, and that he is-in the
"Prologues "-pure (uncreated) being itself. Cf. Lossky, pp. !'l15-!'l0.

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JOHN D. CAPUTO

creature is of something that has been brought into being.
Creatures are those things which have been " ... causally
brought forth and produced, in order that they might be "
(LW, II, 342: 11-2, In sap., n. 21). Hence it is more suitable
to predicate being formally of the creature and to regard the
creator as the cause of being and so, to that extent, as above
being or other than being.
But the most basic reason of all for Eckhart's decision to
identify being with the creature and to hold that God is other
than being is the fact that God is intellect and the act of intellection and that intellectuality as such is non-being. Up to
now we have only been considering the first two conditions of
an essential cause. It is time now to consider the third:
Thirdly, that the principle itself always be pure intellect, in which
there is no other being than intellection itself, having nothing in
common with anything ....

If God is the analogical cause of being in which being exists in
a higher way, it is because he precontains being "intellectually":
Again it must be remarked that a thing in its essential or original
cause does not have being, either in its [the causes's] art, or in the
understanding of the artist. For the house in the mind is not a
house, as heat in the sun or in motion or in light is not heat. But
the house receives being, as is true of the being of heat, only insofar as it is produced and brought forth outwardly. But all things
are in God as in a first cause, intellectually, and as in the mind of
an artist. (LW, II,
6-10, In sap., n.

God precontains all things in such a way that they are found
there not in their being but rather as purified of being. "Intellect " is not-as it is for Aquinas-a mode of being but
rather the opposite of being, that which has been purified of
being, that which is " detached " from being, or, as the saying
of Anaxagoras has it, that which is "unmixed" with being.
It is in this context that Eckhart develops his direct arguments to prove that intellect is non-being. We find at least
two such arguments in the First Parisian Question. (1) The

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image precisely inasmuch as it is an image is a mode of nonbeing and not a mode of being. For the image is meant to
be the means by which the thing of which it is the image (re.<r
oujus est imago) is known. It is a pure means, an open window,
as it were, on being. To the extent that it is itself taken as
a being, knowledge is deflected and stopped short with the
image itself. In the Second Parisian Question this point is
formulated clearly:
A thing which is useful for some purpose is made according to the
of that purpose. Whence the saw, since it is made to cut,
is not made out of different material for a king than for a carpenter.
Therefore, since the purpose of the cognitive form (species) is to
present the thing to the intellect, it ought to be in such a way that
it best presents the thing. But it presents best if it is non-being
rather than if it is being. If on the contrary it were a being, it
would lead away from presentation. 12
(LW, V, 52: 6-10, QP IT, n. 6)

The image a,s, an image, therefore, is not a being but a means
of knowing being. It is not " what is " but the way " what is "
is known.
(2) Our ability to distinguish in the mind what is not
tinct in reality indicates that the conditions under which the
intellect acts are not the conditions under which things exist.
The mind is not bound by the conditions of being. Thus the
mind may distinguish fire from its heat; it may consider fire
while abstracting from its heat, whereas fire can never exist
apart from its heat. The intellect may combine what is not
combined in being; it may separate what is not separate in
being. Moreover, as he points out in the Seoond Parisian Question (LW V 53: 14-5, QP IT, n. 8), the "universal" is the
product of the intellect and the universal does not exist. The
12 The "species " is the sensible or intelligible likeness or form which resides in
the cognitive power and makes the act of cognition possible. Since the cognate
English "species " does not mean anything of the sort, we will always translate
this word as " cognitive form." Occasionally we will speak of a " species " in the
ordinary sense of that which is contained within a genus. To avoid confusion we
will speak there of a "natural species."

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JOHN D. CAPUTO

intellect thus operates in a realm which is other than being,
that is, non-being:
Those things which belong to the intellect are as such non-beings.
(LW V 44: 6, QP I, n. 7)

It is only because the intellect is free of the restraints of being
that it is able to perform these activities.
There are no further arguments of this type in the First
Parisian Question, as Eckhart is in the main content to rest his
case for the identity of being and intellect in God on his doctrine of the formally created (or " creatable ") character of
"being." It is to the Seoonil Parisian Question that we must
turn in order to find further direct arguments for the nothingness of the intellect. The second question, we will recall, deals
with the problem of whether the angelic being and its intellection are identical. Once again there is the apparent agreement
with the great Dominican master Aquinas. With Thomas,
Eckhart holds that the angelic being and intellect are not
identical and, just as before, he begins by reciting a proof
offered by Thomas. But then he adds the notable understatement: "But I will show this in other ways" (LW, V, 49: 11,
QP II, n. 1). Eckhart's tactic will be to show that being and
intellection are different things, that they differ indeed as being
and non-being. This, of course, is the same premise which is
used in the first question to show that in God there is no difference between being and intellection. In the first question
Eckhart demonstrated that God is his intellection and that
if one insisted on speaking improperly of God's "being"
this would refer to nothing other than that intellection, fo!"
God is not a being but the cause of being. In the second question, however, the problem is different because we are dealing
with a creature-the angelic being-and so with something of
which being is formally predicated (ratio creabilitatis est esse) .
Hence if being and intellection are demonstrated to be different
then, since being is formally present in the angel and not virtually or by eminence, it will have been demonstrated that in
the angel being and intellect differ. Ulllike God, the angel is

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properly speaking both being and intellect, and these are not
the same.
Since it is obvious that the angel is something created and
that being is to be formally predicated of it, Eckhart devotes
all of his time to establishing that the angelic being is not its
intellection. This Second Parisian Question, while it deals
with a remote and esoteric problem that could only exist for
a medieval philosopher, is of great interest to us and, we hope
to show, of considerable modernity.
We will extract from this question three further arguments
by which Eckhart attempts to establish his thesis that being
and intellection differ as being differs from non-being. (I) In
the first argument Eckhart reveals one of the major inspirations of this teaching. He refers to the Third Book of Aristotle's De anima, in which Aristotle says:
Therefore, since everything is a possible object of thought, mind
in order, as Anaxagoras says, to dominate, that is, to know, must
be pure from all admixture; for the copresence of what is alien
to its nature is a hindrance and a block; it follows that it too, like
the sensitive part, can have no nature of its own, other than that
of having a certain capacity. Thus that in the sou,l which is called
mind (by mind I mean that whereby the soul thinks and judges)
is, before it thinks, not actually any real thing. 13

In ·order for the mind to know it must be capable of receiving
the forms of all knowable objects without becoming, or being
determined by, any of those forms. But in order to be able to
receive the forms of all things the soul must itself be entirely
devoid and empty of any particular forms. For the presence
of any one form would determine it to understand all things
under that form-not unlike the way that Kant holds that the
sensibility is determined to have spatio-temporal intuition and
not any other kind because of the presence in it of the forms
of space and time. But if the soul is able to know all things
(that is, if it is· able to know at least something about any18 Aristotle, De anima, ill, 4
a
We use the translation by J. A.
Smith in The Basic Worka of Aristotle, ed. Richard McKeon (New York: Random
House, 1941).

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JOHN D. CAPUTO

thing, finite or infinite, material or immaterial) , then the intellect must be pure of or unmixed with everything.
Now while this teaching of Aristotle was familiar to all of
the great scholastics of Eckhart's time, in Eckhart himself it
takes on a special force and significance. In order that the intellect may know everything, he says, it must itself be nothing:
... the intellect inasmuch as it is intellect must be none of those
things which it understands; rather it is necessary that it be " unmixed," "having nothing in common with anything" as it is said
in the Third Book of the De anima, just as it is necessary that the
power of sight have no color, in order that it may see every color.
H therefore the intellect is nothing, then consequently the act of intellection [viz., of the angel] is not any form of being.
(LW, V, 50: 1-5, QP II, n. 2)
The intellect as such is nothing. It is a sheer, open-ended
capacity for knowing being. Were it any particular thing, were
it made into any particular nature, it would be closed off from
the totality of being. In order to be open to being it must be
nothing of itself.
(2) The second argument addresses itself to what is in one
sense an obvious objection to Eckhart's doctrine of the nothingnes of knowing, viz., that knowledge is a mode of being but of
a different kind than "real" being. The difference between
being and knowledge is not the difference between being
and non-being but rather between "real being" (en reale,
ens naturale) and "cognitive being" (ens cognitivum, ens
in anima). Eckhart deals with this problem as follows: The
"cognitive form" (species) is the principle of knowledge, i.e.,
the form which when present in the knower actualizes the intellect and determines it to know one thing rather than another.
Now if the cognitive form is a being, then it is an "accident"
in the substance of the soul, for it is certainly not another substance altogether. But Eckhart denies that the cognitive form
is an accident:
But the cognitive form is not an accident, because an accident
has a subject by which it has its being. A cognitive form, however,
has an object not a subject, because a place differs from a subject.

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Now the cognitive form is in the soul not as in a subject but as a
place [cf. Aristotle, De anima, 529 a 25- 30]. The soul is the place
of the species, not the whole soul, but the intellect.
(LW, V, 51: 8-12, QP II, n. 5)

Eckhart's argument is that the cognitive form, precisely inasmuch as it is a cognitive form, is a relationship towards something other than itself: an object. To say that it has an object
rather than a subject is to say that it is in a technical sense
" ec-static," i. e., projected out towards that of which it is a
representation (res cujus est imago), directing the knower out
beyond itself and into the object of knowledge. To say that
it has a subject is to ignore its character as outwardly projected
and to consider it merely as a possession of, or an accidental
characteristic of, a knowing being. But as soon as one prescinds
from the character of the cognitive form as " outwardly projected " one has ceased to consider it as a cognitive form.
Hence the cognitive form as such has an object, not a subject.
Thus it is not an accident. Nor is it a substance. It is neither
substance nor accident but that by which both substance and
accidents are made known. But " being " is divided into substance and accident, into the ten categories. Hence what is
neither substance nor accident is not a being at all. To the
extent that " cognitive being " is being it is not cognitive; to
the extent that it is cognitive, it is not being.
However, since cognition obviously " belongs " to the soul
in some way, and since one cannot say that the soul is the subject of the cognitive form, Eckhart has recourse to the expression which Aristotle approves in Third Book of De anima that
the soul is the place of the forms (locus speciorum.) 14 The soul
is " where " knowledge occurs; it is not its substratum, the
way marble is the substratum of white. It is worth noting that
in another argument Eckhart remarks that, while the act of
intellection is not a form of being, " science is quality and a
true being " because it is a habit which perfects the subject:
u

Ibid., 429 a 25-SO.

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JOHN D. CAPUTO

Whence science belongs to the realm of the subject, which is something within. But the intellect and the cognitive form belong to
the realm of the object, which is something without.
'
(L W, V, 52: 12-5, QP II, n. 6)
Thus while to know is a mode of non-being, the knowledge
that the knowing subject possesses and accumulates is a mode
of being.
(3) The last argument to which we wish to call attention
in the Seccmil Parisian Question is closely connected with the
first. A being is always something determinate, i. e., something
determined to a genus and species. This amounts to saying that
being is always finite, a position that Eckhart can maintain
in view of the fact that for him God as the cause of being is
above being whereas the formal notion of a creature is being
(ratio m·eabilitatis est esse). But the intellect is something
wholly indeterminate. It is neither this nor that. It has as
Aristotle says no nature at all:
... it follows that it [mind] too, like the sensitive part, can have
no nature of its own other than that of having a certain capacity.
One cannot say " what " the intellect is; one cannot determine
it at all, because it eludes every quality or characteristic. The
intellect is not anything determinate but that by which every
determination is made known. But all being is determinate.
Hence the intellect is not a being (LW, V, 53: 16-8, QP II,
n. 9).
II. The Parisian Questio'M and Recent Philosophy

It is time now to tum to the question of the contemporary
relevance of these two" disputed questions." As we have mentioned above, we will undertake to show the relationship o£
the Parisian Questions to two major movements in recent
thought:
(a) German Idealism and (b) the contemporary
phenomenological movement.
(a) From its very inception in Fichte's Wissenschaftslehre
German Idealism spoke of consciousness as a negative force
which is opposed to "being." Being is lifeless and motionless,

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but consciousness moves, overcomes, supersedes and returns to
itself. In the "First Introduction to the Science of Knowledge" of 1797 Fichte says:
The intellect, for it [idealism], is only active and absolute, never
passive; it is not passive because it is postulated to be first and
highest, preceded by nothing which could account for a passivity
therein. For the same reason it has no being proper, no subsistence,
for this is the result of an interaction and there is nothing either
present or assumed with which the intellect could be set to interact.
The intellect, for idealism, is an act, and absolutely nothing more;
we should not even call it an active something, for this expression
·
refers to something in which activity inheres. 15

For Fichte, "being" is the realm of the objective and passive.
It cannot initiate activity. It has no autonomy. In strict antithetic opposition to being stands the freedom and autonomy
of consciousness or of the " ego " (das I ch) . The ego is not
something which is but something which acts or more exactly,
pure activity itself. Activity is not being because being possesses stable and identifiable characteristics, but activity is
strife and becoming. As soon as the ego posits itself as itself,
it posits the non-self as opposite to itself in order, by the
mediation of the non-self, to unfold itself as both knowledge
and practical moral life. The ego is action, negation and selftranscendence, whereas being is passive and derivative.
Thus in opposing the intellect to being Fichte makes being
a product of intellect and identifies the absolute as itself intellect or "Reason" (Vernunft) . The same is true for the Eckhart of the Parisian Questions: being is the reason why a thing
is able to be created, and the proper nature of God lies above
being in intellect itself.
Of all the Idealists, however, the thinker in whom the notion
of the negative character of consciousness, and so of the absolute, is formulated most forcefully and explicitly is Hegel
16 Fichte:
Science of Knowledge (Wwsenschaftslehre): With First and Second
Introductions, Ed. and trans. P. Heath and J. Lachs (New York: AppletonCentury-Crofts, 1970), p. 21.

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himself. Some of the most striking texts of Hegel to this effect
are to be found in the " Preface " to the Phenomenology of
Spirit. Explaining his view that the absolute is both substance
and subject, i. e., both being and knowledge, he says,
The living substance is, further, that being which is in truth subject or-to say the same thing in other words-which is in truth
actual only insofar as it is the movement of positing itself, or the
mediation between a self and its development into something
different. As subject, it is pure, simple negativity and thus the
bifurcation of the simple, that which produces its own double and
opposition, a process that again negates this indifferent diversity
and its opposite. . . .1 a

If the Absolute were being alone for Hegel it would be without
life, without development. Consciousness would be " drowned "
in brute matter or being. But the real for Hegel is purposeful
activity, historical process, rational becoming. Hence behind
it, or within it, lies ". . . the tremendous power of the negative ... the energy of thought, of the pure ego." 17 The " living
substance" is not weighed down by the "gravity" of matter
but" makes itself (actualy) into that which is it potentially." 18
It is not surprising, then, that in a review in 1928 in the
Theologisehe Literaturzeitung of the simultaneous discovery
of the Parisian Questions by Longpre and Grabmann, Emmanuel Hirsch would be led to remark:
Here in fact nothing less than a piece of German Idealism makes
itself felt. 19

And this does not seem to be extreme an assessment if one
recalls the following text of Eckhart from the vernacular sermon " Quasi Stella M atutina," which is doctrinally akin to the
Parisian Questions:
18 Hegel: Texts and Commentary, Trans. and ed. Walter Kaufmann
(Garden
City: Doubleday Anchor Books, 1965), p. 28.
17 Hegel: Texts and Commentary, p. 50.
18 G. W. F. Hegel, Reason in History, trans. with an introduction by R. S. Hartman (Indianapolis Bobbs-Merrill Co., 1958), pp. 22-S.
18 Cited by Lossky, p. 216, n. 179.

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If we take God in his being, then we take him in his vestibule,

for being is the vestibule in which he dwells. But where is he
then in his temple, in which he shines forth as holy? Reason
(Vernunft) is the temple of God. God dwells nowhere more
authentically than in his temple, in Reason. As that other master
said, God is his Reason, which there lives in knowledge of himself
alone, abiding there only in himself, where nothing ever troubles
him. For he is there alone in his stillness. In his knowledge of
himself, God knows himself in himsel£.20
It would be a great mistake however to regard Eckhart as the
"first Idealist." Eckhart is so suggestive a thinker that he
continually provokes such comparisons to later writers, but to
push these comparisons too far is to invite disaster. When all
is said and done, Eckhart is a fundamentally orthodox thinker.
He held a theory of creation with all that this implies: that
God is transcendent and other than the world, and that he
is removed from time and matter and multiplicity. While it is
true that he liked to emphasize that the divine Trinity was in
some sense a "process," he was a neoplatonist who held that
God was the eternal One, far removed from all temporal process.21 Eckhart's God is the fullness or plenitude of being
(plenitudo esse), who stands in no need of" developing" himself, of becoming actually what he is potentially. When he
says that God is "reason" (Vernunft) or "intellect" (intellectus), this must be understood in terms of the nco-platonic
Liber de causis, as we have seen above, and not in terms of the
Wissenschaftslehre. Moreover, Eckhart subordinates reason to
faith and philosophical speculation to the Scriptures in a way
that Fichte and Hegel simply repudiate. 22
20 Meister Eckehart:
Deutsche Predigten und Traktate, hrsg. v. Josef Quint
(Munich: Hanser 1968), p. 197, ll. 25-88.
21 See John Loeschen, "The God Who Becomes:
Eckhart on the Divine Relativity," The Thomist XXV (July 1971), 405-22.
22 On this whole question
of Eckhart and German Idealism see: Ernst Benz,
Les sources mystiques de la philosophie romantique allemande (Paris: J. Vrin,
1968); Ernst Benz, "Die Mystik in der Philosophic des deutschen Idealismus,"
Euphorion 46 (1952), 280-800; E. v. Bracken, Meister Eckhart und Fichte (Wiirzburg, 1948).

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This is not to say that Eckhart is just another, but lesser
known, scholastic. He is a profoundly original and seminal
thinker. Even in his own historical setting his position is unique
and distinctive. For while all great scholastics of his time were
familiar with the Aristotelian doctrine of the mind as a pure
"tabula rasa" (De anima, 480 a 1), as "unmixed" with its
object, it was Eckhart alone who maintained that intellect and
intellection was a form of non-being. It is perfectly true, as
Lossky points out, that this teaching is foreshadowed in
Aquinas's distinction between the quod and the quo, between
" what " the mind knows, the object of knowledge (quod) , and
the pure means" by which" the object is known (quo) .23 But
the point is that Aquinas was never moved to call the cognitive
form "non-being," nor to explain the sense in which this could
be so. And it is precisely this particular twist, added by Eckhart, which makes the whole doctrine so fertile and fascinating.
The truth is therefore that Eckhart is neither the first Idealist nor simply a scholastic who has nothing in common with
later Idealism. He is instead a penetrating thinker who discovered in his own context and before the Idealists a principle
of which the Idealists made great use, viz., the negativity of
knowledge. That is why, if one studies the Parisian Questions,
one can see why the Idealists said a good many of the things
they did. Let us illustrate this point by recalling the following
argument for the first question:
Those things which pertain to the intellect, insofar as they are of
this kind, are non-beings. For we are able to understand something
which God is not able to make, as in the case of one who understands fire without having attented to its heat. Nonetheless, God
is not able to bring it about that there would be fire and that it
would not give forth heat. (LW, V, 44: 6-9, QP I, n. 7)

This is to argue that the intellect is free from the conditions
of being, that it is free to negate being as it is, to envisage other
possibilities, to make a disposition of things which does not or
even cannot exist. Mind is not confined to being but can in•• Lossky, pp. 2!!7-8.

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stead transcend it, modify it, reshape it. The point which Eckhart is making is quite comparable to the thrust of Hegel's
reference to the " tremendous power of the negative." To think
is to negate, to transcend. It is to surpass what is for the sake
of what is not, of what can be. It is by consciousness, as Sartre
will later say, that negations are introduced into the
Moreover, it is as short a step in Eckhart as it is in Fichte
and Hegel from a doctrine of the negativity of consciousness to
a doctrine of freedom. For Eckhart, as for Fichte and Hegel,
consciousness is free because it is not " weighed down " by
being and matter:
.... that power is higher in which freedom is principally found.
But freedom is principally found in the intellect because something
is free if it is pure of matter . . . But the intellect and the act of
intellection are the most pure of matter.

The intellect is free of being, not subject to its conditions.
Hence it is a power of autonomy and self-determination.
(b) The second point which we wish to make in connection with the contemporary relevance of the Parisian Questions
lies in its relationship to the phenomenological theory of consciousness. And because the phenomenologist owes a debt .to
Hegel, particularly in the case of Sartre, we shall see that this
second parallel is not unrelated to the first.
In the first place, Eckhart's doctrine of the nothingness of
the intellect is acutely sensitive to the danger which Husser!
first warned against in the first volume of his Logical Investigations and which continued to occupy him through his life,
viz., the problem of " psychologism." 25 Psychologism is a
theory of consciousness which holds that acts of cognition may
be treated as physical realities or natural events and that they
are subject to the same laws as other natural objects. It is a
form of " reductionism " which attempts to make conscious9 ' Jean-Paul Sartre, Being and Nothingness, trans. with an intro<l. Hazel Barnes
(New York: Philosophical Library, 1956), 6-12 (Hereafter "BN ").
•• Edmund Husserl, Logical Inveatigations, trans. J. N. Findlay, 2 Vols. (New
York Humanities Press, 1970), Vol. 1, Nos. 17-51, pp. 90-196.

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ness nothing more than a natural entity. For Husser!, psychologism was simply a form of "naturalism" and "relativism"
which reduced all ideal objects, in particular moral values and
cognitive "meanings," to matters of fact, i. e., de facto responses
of organisms of a given empirical constitution to their environment. Against this view Husser! struggled to establish the
independent and unique reality of consciousness.
When Eckhart argues that the intellect is a form of nonbeing he is making an argument very similar to Husserl's for
he is in fact maintaining that the intellect is not to be reduced
to a mode of natural being. 26 The intellect as such, according
to Eckhart, is "neither this nor that, neither here nor now."
By this he means that the intellect in order to know must be
able to abstract from every determinate place and time. If
the intellect comprehends the essence of a man, or of a circle,
or of justice, it must be able to abstract from any particular
man or particular circular object or particular just man. It
separates itself from all particular subjective and accidental
circumstances in order to reach an objectively valid understanding of the object. In order to do this the intellect must
have "nothing in common with anything." But every particular, natural being is determined to some time and some
place, to some genus and some species. Hence the intellect is
not a particular, natural being. If the intellect as an intellect
were of a determinate genus and species, then its considerations
would be colored by, and restricted to, the kind of being that
it itself is. But this, of course, is exactly the contention of psychologism. All of the principles of logic and mathematics for
psychologism are principles which have been formulated by the
•• Martin Grabmann has also noted the similarities of Eckhart's arguments to
Husserl's refutation of psychologism. Cr. Grabmann, pp. 73-4. It is also no accident that Martin Heidegger found some interesting anticipations of Husserl's
theories in his study of the medieval treatise De modis significandi, which he
erroneously attributed to Duns Scotus but which in fact was composed by one
Thomas of Erfurt. At the beginning of his study, which was the subject matter
of his Habilitationsschrift, Heidegger remarks upon how well the medieval author
has overcome the " un-philosophy of psychologism." See Martin Heidegger, Die
Kategorien- und
des Duns Scotus (Tiibingen: Mohr, 1916), p. 14.

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sentient organism which we call this natural species " man."
Logic and mathematics are then really " anthropological " logic
and anthropological mathematics, and so too is morality
nothing more than an anthropological value system. And if
this natural species " man " should change, should undergo a
modification of its physical make-up--for every natural species
is determined by the conditions of space and time, by the
" here" and the " now "-then so would logic and mathematics and morals change accordingly. That is why Eckhart
insists that the intellect is non-being. And in so doing, he
makes exactly the same point that Husser! does in his refutation of psychologism, viz., that if consciousness is made a determinate natural object, mathematics and logic and morals
will be hopelessly relativized.
The cognitive form, and the act of intellection based upon
it, ought not to be considered entitatively, as modes of being,
but rather in their purely cognitive character. To the extent
that the cognitive form makes knowledge possible it is not
being but that by which being is known. One cannot say that
the cognitive form is a substance or a quality or give it any
other categorial determination, for it is only through the intellect itself that such categories arise. One cannot reduce human
cognition to anything human, for man is a natural substance
in the real world, whereas the intellect has " nothing to do with
anything " ; it is pure of every this or that. Thus there is
nothing anthropological about human knowledge; for to the
extent that man has intellectual knowledge he is not a natural
being but a cognitive agent which transcends nature and being.
When man grasps the principles of logic and mathematics and
moral science, he does so not as man but as intellect, and intellect belongs to no category and no genus.
There is another important point of correspondence between
Eckhart's Parisian Questions and contemporary phenomenology, Yiz., their common belief in the "intentional" character
of consciousness. Of course, the very word " intentionality"
made its way into Husserl's vocabulary through Franz Bren-

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tano, who had himself learned of it through his studies in
scholasticism.
Eckhart says that the cognitive form is not a being but a
relationship to being. One ought not to treat a cognitive form
as a thing, an entity, but as a relationship of directedness towards entities. To the extent that the intellect possesses a
cognitive form it is carried beyond itself into something other
than itself. In virtue of the act of intellection the knower no
longer remains " within " but passes beyond itself into that
which is " without." All of this is contained in Eckhart's discussion of the cognitive form in which he says that it does
not have a subject but an object:
Further: an operation and a power, as a power, have their being
from the object, because the object is [here functioning] like a subject. But the subject gives being to that of which it is the subject.
Therefore the object also gives being to that of which it is the
object, viz., to the potency and power. But the object is without
and being is within. Therefore the act of intellection, which is
from an object, and in like manner the power, insofar as they are
such, are not any kind of being nor do they have any being.
(LW, V, 50: 6-11, QP II, n. 3)

What" is" is either a subject (substance) or something which
is "in" a subject. But the cognitive form, which is clearly
not a substance, is not in a substance either. For the cognitive
form does not lie in being in a subject but in being towards
an object. It is not a quality in a knower but the directedness
of the knower into the known. The cognitive form, as a cognitive form, is not sustained by a subject in which it resides but
by the object to which it is directed. This is to say that in a
sense the act of intellection is not sustained by the knowing
subject. For one cannot think without thinking " of " something. Thus the act of intellection is sustained by its object;
its very essence is to be related to its object.
And it is because of the intentional character of the intellect
and its act that Eckhart insists on saying that it is not a being,
for it is the property of a being to be " what it is " (quod)
and not to make itself invisible, as it were, so that we pass right

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by it into something else. Objects (being) are what " stand
before us," that with which we are confronted. But the cognitive form is a pure relationship to beings. Its essence is not
to be itself but to let what is "other" or "without" (extra)
be. To the extent that something "is," it is self-identical and
remains " within " itself as " something inward " (aliquid intraneum) . Whereas to the extent that someone " knows " he
is not self-identical but is carried over into what is " without."
If being is and is what it is, then the cognitive form-which
gives way to the other-is not being.
Eckhart's conception of the intentional relatedness of the
intellect to things represents the least common denominator of
almost any theory of intentionality. While the idea of intentionality is considerably more involved than this in Husserl,
while the intentional act is assigned a more complex role than
simply referring consciousness to an object, nonetheless Husserl
shares Eckhart's conviction that the essence of consciousness
is to refer to an object (ab objecto) and this forms a minimal
basis for his theory. Speaking of Brentano in the second volume of the Logical Investigations Husserl says:
Of his two principal differentiations, one directly reveals the essence of psychical phenomena or acts. This strikes us unmistak-

ably in any illustration we choose. In perception something is perceived, in imagination, something imagined, in a statement something stated, in love something loved, in hate hated, in desire de··
sired, etc. Brentano looks to what is graspably common to such
instances, and says that " every mental phenomenon is characterized by what the mediaeval schoolmen called the intentional (or
mental) inexistence of an object, and by what we, not without
ambiguity, call the relation to a content, the direction to an object
(by which a reality is not to be understood) or an immanent
objectivity. Each mental phenomenon contains something as object in itself, though not all in the same manner." This "manner
in which consciousness refers to an object" (an expression used
by Brentano in other passages) is presentative in a presentation,
judicial in a judgment, etc. etc.27
27

Husserl, Logical Investigations, V.

p. 554.

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The distinguishing feature of consciousness is that consciousness is always " directed towards" or " aimed at " an object.
To use the expression which is most frequently associated with
Husserl's theory, consciousness is always "consciousness of. .. .''
In order to understand what consciousness is one must view
it as a relationship to its object or " intentional correlate."
This is precisely what Eckhart means by insisting that the
cognitive form is to be considered as having its being " from
the object" rather than "in a subject.'' In fact, Husserl's employment of the expression " intentionality " is actually closer
to Eckhart's scholastic usage than Brentano's. This may be
seen by examining one of the criticisms which Husserl makes
of Brentano's theory. Brentano spoke as if intentionality
meant consciousness always " contained " its object, as if its
objects were " in " consciousness as something is " in " a box.
But this is to relapse into psychologism and to regard consciousness as one "thing" which "contains" another. For
Husserl, however, the object is not something " in " consciousness but rather that towards which consciousness is " referred
to " or " aimed at.'' The object is not present in consciousness
but to or for consciousness. Consciousness does not " have "
an object but " intends " it. One must not slip into a " box
within a box " conception of consciousness, by which consciousness is thought to contain its acts and its acts contain its objects.28
The force of Husserl's criticism of Brentano is thus to stress
the "directional " or " relational " character of the intentional
relationship. But this is exactly the point that Eckhart is
trying to establish when he argues that the cognitive form is
not in a subject, i.e., its essence is not to be in the knower, to
be the possession of a knower, but rather to be" from the object," i.e., to originate in and be sustained by the intentional
correlate to which consciousness is immediately drawn or
directed.
•• Logical Investigations, V. !11, pp. 557-8. Cf. Edmund Husser!, The Idea of
Phenomenology, trans. W. P. Alston and G. Nakhnikian (The Hague: M. Nijhoff,
1964), pp. 27-8 for Husserl's distinction between the two senses of "immanence."

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As we have already indicated, a wide gulf still remains between Husser! and Eckhart. For there is a good deal more to
intentionality in Husser! than " referring to " or " pointing at ''
its object. In Eckhart, the nothingness of the intellect" is the
nothingness of a " tabula rasa," of a blank slate on which only
the objects of experience write. Eckhart's doctrine in which
the cognitive form was a " pure medium " through which the
intellect was conducted into the presence of an integral and
undistorted object or " thing in itself." And while there are
similarities between phenomenology and realism, this is hardly
Husserl's view. Intentionality for Husser! is not the capacity
of consciousness to function like a tabula rasa. On the contrary,
it is an active process of shaping and "constituting" its object.
To " intend " for Husser!, to illustrate this point, is to "identify " its object, i. e., to recognize that it is one and the same
"meaning " which is intended in a succession of different acts.
Intentional consciousness unifies a series of perceptions, say of
a house into a series of acts intending the same intentional
object and differing only in the perspective from which the
house is seen. Consciousness thus is always " consciousness
of ... " its object by " constituting" its object as an object. 29
This position is not Eckhart's, nor any scholastic's; indeed if
there are any parallels for it at all these are to be found in the
Critique of Pure Reason.
All of this is as it should be. For it would be as foolish to
think that Eckhart is a phenomenologist before Husser! as it
is to think that he is the first German Idealist. It is enough
to show the suggestive and in many ways remarkably modern
character of his work, and in particular of the Parisian Questions, without doing violence to the history of ideas.
Perhaps the most striking testimony of all to the affinity of
the Parisian Questions with contemporary phenomenology is
to be found in the work of a more recent " Parisian " philoso•• Aron Gurwitsch, " On the Intentionality of Consciousness," in Philosophical
Essays in Memory of Edmund Husserl, ed. Marvin Farber (Cambridge: Harvard
Univ. Press, 1940), pp. 65-83.

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pher, Jean-Paul Sartre. For it is no accident that Sartre, whose
work has been deeply affected by both Husser! and Hegel, has
likewise chosen to speak of consciousness as negativity and
nothingness. It may seem too much to bear to compare the
author of L' EtJre et le neant with a medieval Dominican friar
and mystic who held a " disputed question" on the angels. But
the similarity is there to be seen.
What Sartre means by the nothingness of consciousness is
complex and multi-faceted. Indeed the whole of Being and
Nothingness consists in a subtle and ingenious unravelling of
the full sense of that expression. We will here select only one
section from this lengthy treatise to illustrate the similarity
that we think Sartre bears to the Eckhart of the Parisian Questions, viz., the section in Part Two entitled "Knowledge as a
Type of Relation Between the For-Itself and the In-Itself." 30
For Sartre, to know is to negate. For the only genuine knowledge is intuition, which is the immediate presence of the
knower to the known. But all immediate presence of the
known involves non-being.
Presence encloses a radical negation as presence to that which one
is not. What is present to me is what is not me. We should note
furthermore that this "non-being" is implied a priori in every
theory of knowledge. (BN, 178)
To know is to come immediately face to face with what one
is not. That is why the Idealists could speak of knowledge as
the unity of the ego and the non-ego. However in Sartre's
ontology the in-itself is never to be defined negatively (as the
non-ego, e. g.) , since it is the fully positive plentitude of that
which "is" and is "what it is" (BN, lxvi). Hence the immediate presence of the knower to the known is the act by
which consciousness posits the in-itself as what it is and by
80 BN, 17!!-80 To be sure, there are other points of comparison. Where Eckhart
says that the intellect is non-being because it can negate what God cannot separate,
he makes a point similar to that found in BN, as we have noted above, viz., that
the pour-soi is the source by which negations come into the world (cf. above,
n. !!4) . Moreover, both Eckhart and Sartre (like Fichte and Hegel) found their
theory of freedom on the " nothingness " of consciousness.

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which it posits itself as what is not that of which it is consciOus:
Knowing belongs to the for-itself alone, for the reason that only
the for-itself can appear to itself as not being what it knows.
(BN, 175)

The whole being of consciousness is to recede before the object,
to make itself vanish as it were, so that the object and the
object alone becomes present. Consciousness must become
nothing in order that the object may become something. Consciousness is nothing more than its relationship to the being
which it reveals. It is an "ekstatic" (BN, 179) relationship
which opens out onto "what is," by which the for-itself is
"outside itself" (BN, 177). So thoroughly and so completely
does the for-itself empty itself that Sartre is willing to say that
in knowledge all there " is " is what is " known," the " object,"
"being":
The knower is not; he is not apprehensible. He is nothing other
than that which brings it about that there is a being-there on the
part of the known, a presence . . . (BN, 177)

The most telling illustration of knowledge for Sartre is " fascination," in which the knower vanishes entirely so that the
object alone exists, the knower himself being nowhere to be
seen. Thus for Sartre consciousness is not something which
" is " but rather the process by which what is is made to appear. Consciousness is not being but the revelation of being.
In a sense these pages of Being and Nothingness bring together a good deal of what we have been saying all along about
the negativity of knowledge. In them one can see the Husserlian doctrine of intentionality-that consciousness is always
consciousness of an object-pushed to its extreme consequence:
in order to be a process of intending or revealing its intentional
correlate, consciousness must be nothing of itself. Moreover,
the whole Husser! doctrine is recast by Sartre into very
Hegelian language. The intentional object is the " in-itself,"
the self-identical, the merely positive. But the intending subject is the self-transcending life of negativity, the "life of

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knowledge," the " for itself." And one can certainly feel the
insights of Eckhart himself here. Compare these pages of
Being and Nothingness with what Eckhart says about the cognitive form:
.... if the cognitive form which is in the soul were to have the
character of being, the thing of which it is the form would not be
known through it. Because if it had the character of being it would,
insofar as it is such, lead into a knowledge of itself and lead away
from a knowledge of the thing of which it is the form.
QP I, n. 7)
(LW, V, 44:

To know is to be directly present to the object of knowledge
without any intermediary. 31 The role of the cognitive form is
to make itself invisible, to become entirely transparent, so
that the intellect passes directly into a knowledge of the object.
If Eckhart insists that the intellect and its cognitive form are
non-beings, it is because being is the object of knowledge and
the cognitive form must not intervene in this process by becoming " visible " or knowable itself. Knowledge is an ecstatic
relationship towards what is "without" (extra), towards
being. What is and is known is being. Intellect, to adopt
Sartre's language, is but the revelation of being.
Now the differences between Eckhart's and Sartre's views
of the nothingness of knowledge are innumerable and, for the
most art, too obvious to list. One difference, however, is worth
noting. For Sartre the nothingness of the for-itself is a lack
of being, an emptiness or desire for being. The for-itself is not
what it is and is what it is not, i. e., it is a continual failure to
achieve its projects and a continual refusal to acknowledge its
failures. For Sartre, then, the nothingness of the for-itself is
essentially a mark of finitude and limitation; accordingly it
is a condition which belongs only to a being in time. For Eckhart, on the other hand, intellect is non-being because it is
above being, higher than being. The intellect contains all that
81 The scholastics held that the "thing"
(res) was the "direct" object of the
mind because it is "what" (quod) is known; nonetheless, the principle of the
intellect's operation is the cognitive form, without whose " meditation " the thing
would not be known. Hence the thing is known directly but not immediately.

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is found in being " in a higher way " (eminentius) . Accordingly, the intellectual nature is removed from time and multiplicity and limitation, for these are conditions attaching to
being. For Sartre, being is the motionless and self-identical
Parmenidean plenum, and the for-itself lacks its wholeness and
stability. For Eckhart being is the multiple, impermanent
world of change and limitation, and intellect is " separate " or
removed from its imperfections.

* * * *
While Eckhart is a thinker who must be understood in the
context of his own neoplatonic and scholastic setting, we hope
to have shown in this study that he is nonetheless a philosopher of great originality and suggestiveness and of considerably
more universal appeal. In these two questions he develops an
insight into the character of knowledge which has animated
some of Western philosophy's most important epistemological
theories. Like Aristotle's "tabula rasa," Aquinas's medium quo
or Sartre's "pour-soi," the "nothingness of the intellect" in
the Parisian Questions is a penetrating attempt to deal with
the fundamental problem, indeed mystery, of knowledge, viz.,
the problem of how the knower is carried beyond himself into
the object of knowledge. Eckhart's Latin works as a whole are
punctuated by such insights and would repay the most careful
scrutiny by the contemporary thinker. One can only hope that
this will become more widely recognized and that the present
study has helped to show that Eckhart is not only one of the
leading figures in Western mysticism but also a distinguished
speculative philosopher whom Martin Heidegger has rightly
called a" master of thinking." 32
JoHN

D. CAPUTO

Villanova UniveTsity
Villanova, Pennsylvania

•• Martin Heidegger, V ortriige und A ufaiitze,
Neske, 1959), p. 175.

Auflage (Pfullingen: Verlag G.

AQUINAS ON THE RELATIONSHIP BETWEEN
DIFFERENCE IN KIND AND DIFFERENCE
IN DEGREE

M

UCH HAS BEEN written about the roles of both
genera a:p.d accidents in the metaphysics and epistemology of St. Thomas Aquinas. But no one has
heretofore drawn out the implications of a comparison of genera
and accidents for St. Thomas's very important theory of the
relationship between difference in kind among things and
difference in degree among things.
Genera and accidents can most fruitfully be compared in
terms of generic and accidental concepts since the unity of the
genus is conceptual only. A genus cannot be one in the way
that, say, a species is one, i. e., in terms of a formal identity in
things, since in things " generic forms " exist only as specified
in various diverse ways.1
The relationship between a generic concept and things is
nearly the contrary of the relationship between a concept of
an accident and things. We are able to know many things
by one generic concept because of its indeterminacy; all of the
things known by a generic concept are more determinate than
is the concept. Animal nature, for example, is perfected and
fulfilled as it exists in things-various kinds of animals. However, with accidents the concept is more determinate than are
most of the things to which it applies. Most things are not completely white, but our concept white is a likeness of perfect
whiteness, or nearly perfect whiteness, against which things
having various degrees of whiteness are measured, thus enabling us to determine just how white something is.
1 See Armand Maurer,
"St. Thomas and the Analogy of the Genus," New
Scholasticism, 1955 (29), 181. Cf. F. F. Centore, "A Note on Diversity and
Difference," THE TnoMIST, XXXVI (July, 1972), 472-482.

116

AQUINAS ON DIFFERENCE IN KIND AND DEGREE

117

The difference in relationships between generic concepts and
things and between accidental concepts and things reflects a
difference in things. Animal cannot exist except as a particular
kind of animal, but perfect whiteness can exist apart from all
the degrees of whiteness (although it cannot exist apart from
something which is perfectly white) . White things are not
equally white, but all animals are equally animals.
The difference in things between genera and accidents can
be traced to their different relationships to substance. Using
non-Thomistic terminology, the relationship between a genus
and substance can be called perfecting determination, which
produces differences in kind. The different kinds, or species,
of animals each perfect animal nature in their own ways. The
relationship between accidents and substance can be called
non-perfecting determination, which produces differences in degree. White things, in varying degrees, subtract from the perfection of pure whiteness. 2
Differences in kind and differences in degree are fundamentally distinct kinds of difference and are the ground for fundamentally distinct kinds of universals (that is, concepts related
to things as a one is related to a many), each generated by its
own type of cognitive process. A generic concept can be a universal because the mind has made it indeterminate in relation
to things, while a concept of an accident can be a universal because the mind has produced, from imperfect instances, a perfected image, or representation, which can be related to things
as a standard of measurement.
Although difference in kind and difference in degree are distinct kinds of difference, according to St. Thomas, one is more
fundamental than the other and is, in a sense, a cause of it.
Difference in degree is more fundamental than difference in
kind. Difference in kind is found most prominently in genera.
: The relationship between accidents and substance can properly be called nonperfecting determination only from the perspective of accidents, since substance
is perfected by certain accidents. But an accident itself is usually not perfected
by a substance in that the accident is, in varying degrees, instantiated imperfectly.

118

RALPH W. CLARK

Things differing in a genus differ in kind, as we have noted.
However, they also differ in degree:
In every genus there is something most perfect in that genus, by
which all the other members of the genus are measured: everything
is shown to be more or less perfect as it approaches more or less to
the measure of its genus. 3

What is true of generic differences IS, according to Thomas,
true of all formal differences.
Formal distinction, however, always requires inequality, because,
as is said in the Metaphysics [VII, 3, 1043b 34], the forms of things
are like numbers, in which species vary by the addition or subtraction of unity. Therefore, in natural things species are seen to be
ordered by degrees. 4
Likewise, every distinction Is either according to a division of
quantity, which exists only in bodies and therefore, according to
Origen, could not exist in the substances first created, or according
to a division of form. This latter cannot be without a diversity
of grades, since such division is reduced to privation and form;
and thus it is necessary that, of the forms divided from one another,
one be better and the other worse. Therefore, according to the
Philosopher [Metaphys. VII, 3, 1043b 36-1044a
the species of
things are like numbers, of which one is in addition to or in subtraction from another. 5
8

I Cont. Gent., c. 28: " In unoquoque genere est aliquid perfectissimum in

il1o, ad quod omnia quae sunt illius generis mensurantur: quia ex eo
unumquodque ostenditur magis vel minus perfectum esse, quod ad mensuram sui
generis magis vel minus appropinquat." All English translations of passages from
St. Thomas appearing in this paper are my own.
'Summa Theol., I, q. 47, a. 2, ad Resp.: "Distinctio autem formalis semper
requirit inaequalitatem, quia, ut dicitur in Mtrta., formae rerum sunt sicut numeri,
in quibus species variantur per additionem val subtractionem unitatis. Unde in
rebus naturalibus gradatim species ordinatae esse videntur."
• II Cont. Gent., c. 44: " Item. Omnis distinctio est aut secundum divisionem
quantitatis, quae in solis corporibus est, unde in substantiis primo creatis, secundum
Origenem, esse non patuit: aut secundum divisionem formalem. Quae sine graduum
diversitate esse non potest: cum talis divisio reducatur ad privationem et formam;
et sic oportet quod altera formarum condivisarum sit melior et altera vilior. Unde,
secundum Philosophum, species rerum sunt sicut numeri, quonum unus alteri addit
aut minuit.''

AQUINAS ON DIFFERENCE IN KIND AND DEGREE

119

Difference in kind is made possible by difference in degree,
or grade, of a perfection. Thomas's general rule is that the imperfect is derived from the perfect.
Furthermore, everything which is imperfect derives from something perfect: for what is perfect is naturally prior to what is imperfect, as is act to potency. 6
Likewise, if there is something imperfect in some genus, something
else which is perfect is found antecedent to it according to the
order of nature: the perfect, indeed, is prior in nature to the imperfect.7

But this poses a problem. If derivation of the imperfect
from the perfect produces a graded formal series, and such a
graded formal series results in the differences in kind among
things, it would appear that, contrary to what we have said
above, there is no fundamental distinction between the manner
in which things vary within a genus and the manner in which
things vary in terms of an accidental quality. In both cases,
variation is in degree, the species of animals, for example,
6

Ibid., I. c. 44: "Amplius. Omne quod est imperfectum, derivatur ab aliquo

perfecto:
7

nam perfecta naturaliter sunt priora imperfectis, sicut actus potentia."

Ibid., II, c. 91: "Item. Si est aliquid imperfectum in aliquo genere, invenitur

ante illud, secundum naturae ordinem, aliquid in genere illo perfectum: perfectum
enim natura prius est imperfecto." See also Summa Theol., I, q. 76, a. 8, ad Resp.:
" The species and forms of things are indeed found to differ from one another according to the more and less perfect. As in the order of things the animate are
more perfect than the inanimate, and animals than plants, and men than brute
animals; and in each of these genera there are diverse grades. For this reason
Aristotle, in Metaphysics, VIII [VII, 8 1043b 34], compares the species of things to
numbers, which differ in species according to the addition or subtraction of unity.
And in De; Anima, II [II, 3, 414b !28], he compares the diverse to the species of
figures, of which one contains another as a pentagon contains a tetragon, and
exceeds it. Thus the intellectual soul contains in its power whatever is had by
the sensitive soul of brute animals and the nutritive soul of plants." (" Invenientur
enim rerum species, et formae differre ab invicem secundum perfectius, et minus
perfectum. Sicut in rerum ordine animata perfectiora sunt inanimatis, et animalia
plantis, et homines animalibus brutis; et in singulis horum generum sunt gradus
diversi. Et ideo Arist. in 8 Meta ph. assimilat species rerum numeris, qui differunt
specie secundum additionem, vel subtractionem unitatis. Et in !2 De Anima comparat diversas animas speciebus figurarum, quarum una continet aliam: sicut
pentagonum continet tetragonum, et excedit. Sic igitur anima intellective continet
in sua virtute quidquid habet anima sensitiva brutorum, nutritiva plantarum.")

120

RALPH W. CLARK

varying as the more and less perfect in the same way that
different white things are more and less perfect in their whiteness. Of course, specific forms are more fundamental than
accidental forms in that the latter inhere in the former, and
not vice versa; and hence specific and accidental forms can
be distinguished in this way. But the kind of variation in both
cases would seem to be the same, that of degree.
It would seem to follow that the only distinction between
the way in which species vary within a genus and the way in
which different instances of an accidental quality vary is a
conceptual distinction: we conceive the species of a genus as
equal in that genus, while we conceive instances of an accident
as unequal. But, it would seem, we could as well conceive
species as unequal within a genus; we could as well conceive
horse, for example, as a lesser degree of man and rabbit, perhaps, as a lesser degree of horse. After all, we have quoted
Thomas as saying: ". . . the intellectual soul contains in its
power whatever is had by the sensitive soul of brute animals
and the nutritive soul of plants." In addition, there is a passage
in Sum. theol. where Thomas explicitly contrasts the equality
of a generic concept with the inequality of actual species within a genus:
To the first, therefore, it must be said that, when a univocal genus
is divided into its species, then the members of the division have
equality according to the concept of the genus, while according
to the nature of things one species is prior and more perfect than
another, as man differs from animal.B
But the conclusion we are drawing should make us suspicious. Is it not very strange to say that a horse is the same
as a man except less so? True, a horse lacks some of man's
abilities, his reasoning power for one, while a horse has other
of man's capacities, such as the capacities to grow and to reproduce, to see and to hear. But a horse also has capacities that
8 Summa Theol., I-II,
q. 61, a. 1, ad 1: "Ad primum ergo dicendum quod,
quando genus univocum dividitur in suas species, tunc partes divisionis ex aequo
se habent secundum rationem generis, licet secundum naturam rei una species sit
principalior et perfectior alia, sicut homo aliis animalibus."

AQUINAS ON DIFFERENCE IN KIND AND DEGREE

ismuch
a man does not have: ahorsecanrunfasterthanaman,
stronger than a man, can eat hay, etc. Moreover, it would seem
strange if the diversity of our ways of conceiving genera and
accidents-our way of conceiving things having the same genus
as equal in that genus, but things having the same accidental
quality as unequal in that quality-were merely arbitrary: if
there were no good reason in the nature of things for conceiving things differently under genera and under accidents.
In fact, according to Thomas, there is a good reason.
A form cannot vary in degree simply in virtue of itself.
Something in addition to the form is needed in order to reduce
that form to various grades of imperfection:
Furthermore, that which belongs to something from its nature,
not from another cause, cannot be diminished and deficient in it.
H, indeed, something essential be subtracted from or added to the
nature, there will be another nature: as happens with numbers,
in which the addition or subtraction of a unit changes the species.
If, however, the nature or quiddity of a thing remains integral,
but something is found to be lessened in the thing, it is clear that
this [lessening] is not derived simply from that nature, but from
something else, by the removal of which it is lessened. Therefore,
that which belongs less to one thing than to another, does not
belong to it from its own nature alone, but from some other cause. 9
In the case of accidents, that which causes a degree of imperfection is the substmwe in which the accident inheres:
... if there were a whiteness existing separately, nothing of the
power of whiteness could be lacking to it; for some white thing
lacks some of the power of whiteness from a defect in the recipient
of the whiteness, which receives it according to its own mode, and
perhaps not according to the whole power of whiteness. 10
9 II Cont. Gent., c. 15:
"Amplius. Quid alieni convenit ex sua natura, non ex
alia causa, minoratum in eo et deficiens esse non potest. Si enim naturae aliquid
essentiale suhtrahitur vel additur, iam altera natura erit; sicut et in numeris
accidit, in quibus unitas addita vel subtracta speciem variat. Si autem, natura vel
quidditate rei integra manente, aliquid minoratum inveniatur, iam patet quod illud
non simpliciter dependent ex ilia natura, sed ex aliquo alio, per cuius remotionem
minoratur. Quod igitur alieni minus convenit quam aliis, non convenit ei ex
sua natura tantum, sed ex alia causa."
10 Ibid., I, c. 28: ". . . si esset ali qua albedo separata, nihil ei de virtute albedinis

RALPH W. CLARK

In the case of species, that which causes degrees of imperfection cannot be the substance in which a species inheres because a specific form does not inhere in a substance. A thing
is a substance because it has a specific form, since a specific
form is most fundamental in a thing. Consequently, it must
be the case that what causes the degree of imperfection in a
species, insofar as that species is contrasted with the most perfect species in its genus, is something contained in the specific
form itself-something integral to the specific form, something
that can neither exist apart nor be thought apart from that
specific form. Now, when we conceive an accidental quality,
we can conceive it apart from its substance: we can conceive
whiteness, for example, as something which is not limited to
any given white thing, or to any given shade of whiteness. But
we cannot conceive the species of a genus in this way at all.
We cannot conceive of a " generic perfection " which is imperfectly realized in various substances. On the contrary, we
must conceive of each species as itself a substance. Consequently, species do not differ in precisely the same way as ac.cidents differ. We can conclude, after all, that species within
a genus differ in kind, while accidents differ in degree.
This is not to say that the less perfect is not derived from
the more perfect. It is to say that within species, the less perfect is not derived from the more perfect in precisely the same
way that the degrees of an accident are produced from the perfect instance of that accident. Something more is needed in the
case of species than in the case of accidents to produce diversity
in degree; this " something more " results in difference in kind.
It is probable that a human being can produce a new degree of
an accident by causing that accident to inhere in a subject
in a way which never occurred before. We could perhaps produce a new degree of whiteness, for example, by putting a thin
coat of white paint on a specially prepared surface. But no
deesse posset; nam alieni albo aliquid de virtute albedinis deest ex defectu recipientis
albedinem, qua earn secundum modum suum recipit, et fortasse non secundum
totum posse albedinis."

AQUINAS ON DIFFERENCE IN KIND AND DEGREE

lflS

human being, according to Thomas, can produce a new species.
God alone can create species. God created species in grades of
perfection in order that a hierarchy of species exist which
would include all possible perfection, from the most complete
perfection to the least complete. 11
In creating the world God did not simply subtract successively from the complete perfection of his own nature. God
really did create something new when he created the world:
he created specific forms in order that there would be something in addition to his perfection. Because God did create
something new, his own perfection has remained after the creation and is supplemented by the world of imperfect creatures.
Creatures do depend upon God for their being, but creatures
are not God. Hence, for St. Thomas, the fact of the creation
guarantees the reality of specific forms, and this guarantees the
reality of diversity in kind as distinct from diversity in degree.
For the same reason that specific forms do differ among
them8elve8 in kind as well as in degree, it is impossible that any
given specific form differ in degree: there is no substance in
which a specific form can inhere which would diversify it into
degrees. Hence, a specific form is indivisible.
If, truly, we consider a quality or a form according to its participation by a subject, thus also some qualities and forms are found
to receive more and less, and some not. Of this diversity Simplicius
assigns the cause [In Aristotelis Categorias Commentarium] from
the fact that substance in itself cannot ·receive more or less, because it is being per se. And therefore all forms which are participated substantially by a subject are without increase and
decrease; whence in the genus of substance nothing is said according to more and less.12
11 Summa. Theol., I, q. 48, a.
ad Resp.: " ... the perfection of the universe
requires that there be inequality in things, in order that every grade of goodness
be realized." (". . . perfectio universi requirit inaequalitatem esse in rebus ut
omnes bonitatis gradus impleantur.")
12 Summa Theol., I-II, q. 52, a. 1, ad Resp.: "Si vero consideremus qualitatem
vel formam secundum participationem subjecti, sic etiam inveniuntur quaedam
qualitates et formae recipere magis et minus, et quaedam non. Hujusmodi autem
diversitatis causam Simplicius assignat ex hoc, quod substantia secundum seipsam

124

RALPH W. CLARK

A specific form is subject only to accidental variation in kind.
We can conclude that difference in degree is mc!'e fundamental than difference in kind and is a cause of it, but that
difference in degree is not the only cause of difference in kind;
that is, difference in kind cannot simply be reduced to difference in degree. The reason for this is that something is always
needed to bring about the existence of degrees of something.
A form cannot, simply in virtue of itself, exist in degrees. Insofar as a form is taken as distinct from that which gives it each
of its degrees, we can say that the different instances of that
form differ in degree. This is the case with accidents. But
when a form cannot be taken apart from what gives it degrees,
we must say that the instances of that form differ among themselves in kind as well as degree. This is the case with species.
Difference in kind is not independent of difference in degree
because of the order of creation: the world was so created that
being could be manifested in all possible degrees of perfection.
At the same time, difference in degree presupposes difference in
kind, since no form can simply in virtue of itself manifest itself
in degrees. Degrees of an accident require that there be different kinds of substances, and substances themselves can differ
in degree only because they also differ in kind.
On should note how nicely balanced a view of reality Thomas
gives· us. Existing things, in fact, are diverse in kind, yet all
form a whole. An ordered hierarchy of diverse kinds is most
apparent in the realm of living things, but diversity in atomic
in and molecular structure is also clearly hierarchical. Thomas
accounts equally well for both diversity and unity. However,
lest it be supposed that Thomas's metaphysics is compatible
with the Taoist principle that reality is basically composed of
opposites (Yin and Yang) , it must be noted that according to
Thomas difference in degree is more fundamental than difnon potest recipere magis et minus, quia est ens per se. Et ideo omnis forma quae
substantialiter participatur in subjecto caret intensione et remissione; unde in genere
substantiae nihil dicitur secundum magis et minus." See also ibid., I, q. 9S, a. S, ad

s.

AQUINAS ON DIFFERENCE IN KIND AND DEGREE

lfl5

ference in kind because unity is more fundamental than diversity. As Thomas says:
It must be said that in any genus, to the extent that something
is first it is simple and consisting in few [principles], as primary
bodies are simple; and therefore, we find that those things which
are first in any genus are in some way simple, and consist in something one.13
Furthermore, in every genus we see that multitude proceeds from
some unity: and thus in any genus is found a prime member,
which is the measure of all things which are found in that genus.
In whatever things, therefore, is found some one agreement, it is
necessary that this be dependent upon some one origin. But all
things agree in being. It is necessary, therefore, that there be only
one being which is the foundation of all things. This is God.14

However, although diversity is derived from unity, diversity
does have reality over and above the reality of unity, just as
essence-the vehicle for diversity-has reality over and above
the reality of existence, although all of the reality of essence
is in relation to existence.
Thomas is fond of giving Aristotle's opinion that the species
of things are like numbers, " ... which differ in species according
to the addition or subtraction of unity." 15
In saying this, Thomas is emphasizing both the differences in
degree of species and their differences in kind. All numbers are
on a scale, each successively higher number including the
lower, and each successively lower number including some, but
not all, of the perfection of the higher. At the same time num18 Ibid., I-II, q. 19, a. fl, ad Resp.: "Dicendum
quod in quolibet genere quanto
aliquid est prius tanto est simplicius et in paucioribus consistens, sicut prima
corporae sunt simplicia; et ideo invenimus quod ea quae sunt prima in quolibet
genere sunt aliquo modo simplicia, et in uno consistent."
"I Cont. Gent., c. 42: "Amplius. In unoquoque genere videmus multitudinem
ab aliqua unitate procedere: et ideo in quolibet genere invenitur unum primum,
quod est mensura omnium quae in illo genere inveniuntur. Quorumcumque igitur
invenitur in aliquo uno convenientia, oportet quod ab aliquo uno principio dependeant. Sed omnia in esse conveniunt. Oportet esse unum tantum quod est rerum
onmium principium. Quod Deus est."
16 Summa Theol., I, q. 76, a. 8, ad Resp.: " ... qui differunt specie secundum
additionem, vel subtractionem unitatis."

126

RALPH W. CLARK

hers are composed of units, which in the final analysis cannot
be divided. Between one number and the next there is a discrete and " unbridgeable " interval, as there is between kinds of
things. 16
RALPH

w. CLARK

West Virginia University
Morgantown, West Virginia

16 It may be objected that numbers can be divided into continuously smaller
fractions. However, fractions themselves depend upon relationships among units.
As Thomas says, number must begin with the unit " ... each species of number
is constituted by an indivisible unity. ( ... unaquaeque species in eis constituitur
per indivisibilem unitatem.)" (ibid., I-II, q. 52, a. I, ad Resp.) Numbers themselves are not properly divided into fractions; rather, things are divided by fractions into smaller units. Regardless of how finely something is divided, it is still
thought of in discrete units.

ANALOGY

T

HE FIRST part of this essay is a discussion of a few
points concerning the interpretation of the Thomist
texts on anology} The second part is an attempt to
show how our actual use of language supports what St. Thomas
says quite independently of the question of whether any theory
of analogy is possible. The last concerns the use of analogous
terms in theological contexts.

I
"Analogy of proportionality" is understood in importantly
different senses by different authors, and it is not always entirely
clear what problem the analogy is designed to solve or how it
would solve it. The clearest interpretation of the analogy of
proportionality appears to be its construal as exactly like the
following simple mathematical case: x is to a as b is to c; a,
b and c are knowns, x is not; solve for x. This is then applied
to problems of meaning in religious contexts through its apparent exact analogy with (for example)," God's wisdom (x)
is to God (a) as a man's wisdom (b) is to the man (c);"
" solve" for God's wisdom. But as Geach 2 and others have
remarked, this is of no use at all for here a is an unknown also
(or, at least, as unknown as x). (Another sense of proportionality is considered later in this essay.) Proportionality is
often contrasted with analogy of attribution or proportion and
with analogy of inequality. The first (textual) question then
is how Aquinas intended his various classifications of analogy
1 I owe some of the references to Aquinas and their interpretation
in the first
section to Robert E. Meagher's valuable paper, "Thomas Aquinas and Analogy:
A Textual Analysis," The Thomist XXXIV, no.
(April 1970), pp.
• P. T. Geach and G. E. M. Anscombe, Three Philosophers (Oxford: Blackwell's,
1963), p. 128.

U7

128

TOBIAS CHAPMAN

to be understood. This question overlaps with two others:
what sort of analogy did St. Thomas think was theologically
important; and what sorts of relations are there between the
various types of analogy?
One view is that there is a development in St. Thomas's views
about analogy. In his early works he favors analogy of proportionality as the most useful in theological contexts and in his
later works, analogy of attribution. 3 But this seems to be
correct only in the following respect: that Aquinas allows a
(not the above one)
sense of "analogy of proportionality"
which has some application in religious discourse but this sort
of analogy of proportionality appears to be really just a species
of analogy of atribution and, further, depends on the prior applicability of attribution to give it a sense. (In some non-religious contexts the last condition need not be met.) This
constitutes a schematic answer to the first two questions above.
In the course of trying to justify this answer I hope to provide
an answer to the third question.
In the early Commentary on the Sentences of Peter Lombard
Thomas distinguishes 4 three sorts of analogy: (1) according
to intention and not according to being for which he gives his
stock example of "health" as applied to animals (properly),
to urine (a certain kind being an effect of health), and to diet
(a certain kind being a cause of health). The label here seems
confusing: what must be meant, I think, is that there is no
analogy" according to being" but an actual (causal) relationship whereas the term is being used analogously. (2) Analogy
according to being but not intention: here the analogous term
is used as if there were some property which the entities referred
to had in common but actually there is none (or, at least, if
there is a common property, it is not what is meant by the
term) . St. Thomas gives the antique example of " body" as
applied to corruptible and incorruptible bodies, but " existent,"
• H. A. Wolfson, "St. Thomas on Divine Attributes," Melanges offerts a Etienne
Gilson (Paris, 1959), 673-700. (I owe this reference to Julius R. Weinberg, A
Short History of Medieval Philosophy, Princeton, 1964.)
ad 1.
• I Sent., d. 19, 9. 15,

ANALOGY

129

" beautiful," " good," " thing," and " number " would, I think,
be acceptable examples. There is a ratio for the application of
" existent " to a fleeting mental image and to a stone, but the
explanation is not that there is a mysterious property, existence,
shared by both. (3) According to intention and being: "this
is when they are equally matched neither in a common intention [meaning] nor in being .... I maintain that truth and
goodness and the like are predicated analogically of God and
creatures. This means that according to their being [esse] all
these exist in God and in creatures according to their greater
or lesser perfection." Given that St. Thomas does not allow a
gradation of value but rather stresses the unlimited gap between God and creation/ the last phrase must just mean (in
part) , according to what properties they have. Given that " to
be " is "to b
" where the blank is filled with a general
term 6 this is clear from Thomas's next remark, "From this it
follows that since they cannot exist according to the same being
in both, they are diverse truths," i. e., they fall under different
concepts although the same word is applied analogously to
them.
There are three points worth noticing about these texts: (1)
none mention analogy of proportionality (in the mathematical
sense mentioned above; I will leave Cajetan's sense for the moment); (2) they suggest that the "theory" of analogy is both
logical and ontological (or, at the very least a theory about
words based on considerations about the nature of reality);
(3) all three sorts seem to have application in theological discourse: for example, the first in talking of God as Creator and
Sustainer of the world; the second in saying that God exists;
• See, for instance, Summa Theologiae, I, q. 4, a. 8: "Although we may admit
in a way that creatures resemble God we may in no way admit that God resembles creatures. (Ad quartum dicendum quod licet aliquo modo concedatur quod
creatura est similis Deo nullo tamen modo concedendum est quod Deus sit similis
creaturae.)"
6 In this I am following Geach's analysis of esse. It is not to deny either the
distinction between a thing's esse and its being a such and such, nor the identification of God with his Esse.

130

TOBIAS CHAPMAN

and the last in speaking of God as wise or benevolent. I conclude thus far that St. Thomas is mainly concerned to discuss
types of analogy of attribution (rather than to contrast this
with other types) and that this is the sort of analogy he thinks
is theologically relevant/ This is confirmed by what St.
Thomas says in the Summa, I, q. 13, a. 5 where he distinguishes
only two sorts of analogy, "of many to one" (multorum ad
unum) which corresponds to the first sort mentioned in the
Commentary on the Sentences, and " one to many " (unius ad
alterum) which roughly corresponds to the second two sorts in
the Commentary. Both are clearly analogies of attribution (or
proportion) .
At this point it is useful to consider a slightly different interpretation suggested by James F. Ross in his valuable paper,
"Analogy As a Rule of Meaning for Religious Language." 8
After quoting Aquinas on analogy of attribution (I Cont. Gent.
c. 34) Ross says, "This argument is useful only if enough
similarity has already been demonstrated between God and
other things to justify a statement that a causal relation
holds . . . Even if there is such an analogy, it cannot be
the basic one, for it supposes true statements about God." 9
This seems to me an extraordinary remark. Of course,
the analogy does presuppose " true statements about God,"
but according to Aquinas we have such statements by means
of the Five Ways or through Revelation. In any case there
can clearly be no question of analogy of any sort without some
statements the meaningfulness of which we are attempting to
explain. Ross might seem to be correct here on the grounds
that it does not appear coherent to hold both that a certain
statement, e. g., " God exists " is true, and yet that there is
some doubt as to its meaningfulnes. But this describes the
• I take it that Robert E. Meagher has successfully shown that Cajetan

(in his

De nominum analogia) was mistaken in his interpretation of St. Thomas on this
point. See Meagher op. cit., pp.
8 In A. Kenny, ed., Aquinas: A Collection of Critical Essays (Macmillan, 1969),
pp. 98-188.
• Ibid., p. 110, footnote IS.

131

ANALOGY

situation incorrectly; rather we have a statement known (or
believed) to he both true and meaningful, and then a question
arises as to how its meaning is to he explained. If an explicit
understanding of a philosophically adequate theory of meaning
were a necessary condition of using a language at all, we would
be in the position of not being able to speak. Ross's own view
appears to be that terms applying to God initially get their
sense by means of analogy of proportionality, 10 e. g., an acceptance of Aquinas's first argument for the existence of God enables us to say that God " moves" the world; an acceptance of
the third that he conserves the world. These can then be transferred into " names " of God which apply to him by analogy
of attribution; from " he causes the world " to " Causer," from
" he conserves the world " to " conserver." Ross is here using
the expression " analogy of proportionality " in a different sense
from that criticized by Geach; he simply means it to cover cases
where we have a similarity of relations rather than of one place
predicates. 11 Without intending to indulge in semantics in the
bad sense this would seem to make analogy of proportionality
a kind of analogy of attribution; this at any rate seems to be
closer to Aquinas's own mind on the matter. But there are
difficulties with Ross's view. How, for instance, can "wise" or
" omnipotent " be applied to God through transference from
a relation? One possibility, that" God is wise" meaw no more
than " God is the cause of wisdom " is explicitly denied by
Aquinas 12 (though it may be correct that the latter statement
gives us an initial hint as to the meaning of " God is wise ") .
Another possibility of explaining these terms relationally stems
from Aquinas's fourth argument for God's existence. Since
this purports to establish that God is the exemplar of wisdom,
goodness, and the like, it might be construed as providing the
basis of meaningful predications concerning God through
analogy of proportionality in Ross's sense (and not analogy
of attribution) by reason of our understanding of the ordinary
usage of " wisdom " and " good " and of the relational expres10

Ibid., pp. 135-137.

11

Ibid., p. l!'l9.

10

Summa Theol., I, q. 13, a. !'l.

132

TOBIAS CHAPMAN

sion " being paradigmatic with respect to." This would at least
have the advantage of not being open to Geach's objection to
analogy of proportionality, for in this case we would have three
knowns (wisdom or goodness, creatures and the relation, is
paradigmatic relative to) and one unknown (God) : we would
not be simultaneously trying to solve for the relation and one
of its relata. But this clearly will not work either because one
could not possibly understand the application of the relevant
relational term without at least tacitly understanding that the
first relatJum is a paradigm, i. e., without understanding something by the application of " wise " or " good " to God, i. e.,
the meaning of x is a paradigm with respect to . . . " depends
on the meaning of' x '." Hence, again, it is analogy of attribution which is fundamental/ 3 though we certainly have analogy
of proportionality (in Ross's sense) as well, as when it is said
that God's causing the world is somehow analogous to a composer's creation of a piece of music without the aid of any preexistent material. In short, we will have analogy with respect
to a relational or non-relational term depending on which sort
of predication we are attempting to make.
The answer to the scholarly question of what sort of analogy
St. Thomas meant to have application in religious contexts is
then, simply, all sorts depending on the type of predicate being
applied to God, with proviso that analogy of proportionality in
the mathematical sense has no application at all. (As St.
Thomas hints, nd classification of types of analogy of attribution can be complete unless the classification is a purely formal
one. This is discussed below.)

II
All this naturally suggests the question of whether we really
need analogous terms at all or whether analogy is just an unnecessary species of equivocation. This is easily confused with
18 Ross seems to reverse his position to one like this when he says ". . . these
terms wisdom, simplicity and the like in application to God can all he turned into
'relation predicates' ... " (ibid., pp. 186-187).

ANALOGY

133

a quite different question, viz., is it possible to construct some
general theory which will explain the mechanism of analogous
predication?
With regard to the first question, clearly some analogous
usages can be dispensed with, e. g., we could always speak of
" types of food which are productive of health " rather than
"healthy" foods. But, as I shall try to show by means of
examples, there are all sorts of analogous uses of terms which
are perfectly meaningful and are not reducible to non-analogous
uses, i. e., to univocal or equivocal ones. For purposes of giving
examples I will restrict" univocal" to terms which have their
meaning in virtue of some property common to the entities to
which the terms apply. (Color words and expressions describing the dimensions of things seem to be obvious examples
of such univocal usages.) Wittgenstein has already shown that
there are many unambiguous meaningful terms which are not
univocal in this sense. (These would be called " analogical "
by Aquinas according to the account quoted at the beginning
of this essay.) Two of Wittgenstein's examples are "game"
and "understanding"; there is, for instance, no single criterion
such as the presence of a certain internal " mental state " for
the application of " understanding." 14 Here are some further
examples. As Aristotle argued at length, " pleasure " is not
the name of a single sensation or other mental state which is
present whenever a person is enjoying himself: drinking whisky
and listening to Bach are both pleasurable but not through
the existence of a single " property" of both types of experience. Pleasure is defined in terms of its object, and these objects do not fall under a single concept except " pleasurable."
Nonetheless there is nothing obscurantist in the ordinary application of the word to these very various things and, in fact,
this usage could not be dispensed with. Hence the usage of
"pleasure" is both analogical and unavoidable. Similarly, conL. Wittgenstein, Philosophical Investigations, Part I, Sections 66-69 and 138philosophy could be an aid in understanding Aquinas to Anthony Kenny's very interesting paper "Aquinas and
Wittgenstein," The Downside Review (Summer-Autumn, 1959), pp. 217-235.
14

155. I owe the idea that Wittgenstein's

134

TOBIAS CHAPMAN

sider " perceives " in application to humans, dogs, and amoeba.
We certainly have grounds for applying the term to all three,
but in application to amoebas it seems to be an analogical
tension; similarly with " loyal " as applied to dogs. A different
kind of example is the use of " resolution " by psychoanalysts:
this obviously has important connexions with its lay usages in
application to the solving of purely intellectual problems. A
last example I will mention is " implication." This appears to
have both analogical and equivocal uses. In application to
propositions which state logical or causal connexions and to
those which express conditional intentions it is analogical. It
might be said to have a" root meaning," that expressed by the
material implication of truth functional logic but, although this
is certainly common to all its usages, it is not the meaning of
any of them.
Such examples might be claimed to arise from the (alleged)
" imprecision " of ordinary speech, but I think such a criticism
would be mistaken. " Pleasure " as used by a psychologist or
" matter " by a physicist have different meanings from the same
terms as ordinarily used, but these meanings have important
connections and we could not simply drop the one usage in
favor of the other: what we do say, rather, is that the physicist
has a more profound understanding of matter (ordinary usage)
than the layman does. Also analogical usages occur within
the sciences (e. g., "number" in application to natural, negative, transfinite, and ordinal numbers 15 ) •
These examples illustrate, I think, the important slogan that
analogy is itself analogous, i.e., there is no one
property or set of properties that all these analogous usages
have in common. Hence the misguided attempt to delineate
such a property is apt to leave the impression that the doctrine
of analogy is just a bit of specious obscurantism.
With this in mind I would like to comment briefly on the
idea of a theory of analogy. As I hope the previous examples
show, that there is correct analogous usage is just a fact about
15

The example is Wittgenstein's.

ANALOGY

18$

language. This fact is sometimes denied, I think, through approaching language with a preconceived and mistaken idea of
how analogous usage must function if it is really to be intelligible. This can be illustrated by some remarks of J. J.
Heaney 16 made in an article criticized by J. F. Ross. 17 Concerning Bochenski's example 18 of" sees" in" John sees a cow
here" and" John sees the truth of the first theorem of GOdel"
Heaney says, "First of all, the argument [sic] for ... these
two expressions being analogous ... relies on the rather tenuous
assumption that ' seeing ' a cow and ' seeing ' something which
is ' the truth ' of a theorem must be construed as sharing smnething in addition to being spelled the same way. In actual use,
however, this is not the case: physiological and intellectual
' seeing ' are in fact never confused with each other." (my
italics] Following Ross it seems to me obvious that these two
uses of " see " are analogous (though I would agree with
Heaney to this extent, that the analogy is a rather extended
one). Why should anyone deny this? I think in this case it
is simply due to a deep prejudice about language which
Wittgenstein has exposed, viz., the idea that if a term applies
unambiguously in two contexts then there must be some specifiable property (or set of properties) " referred to " by the term
in the two cases and which either is the meaning of the term
or that in virtue of which the term has the meaning it has. If
one operates on this erroneous assumption then, of course, one
will come to the conclusion that the use of a term which is in
fact analogous is equivocal, since one will be unable to discover
the single relevant property. That Heaney has made this mistake comes out in his insistence that the two uses of " see "
must share smnething if the term is to be unequivocal, and
in his remark that the second use of "see" does not have as
part of its meaning " the physical ability to see "-of course,
J. J. Heaney, "Analogy and "Kinds" of Things," The Thomist XXXV, no.
(April, 1971), pp.
17 J. F. Ross, "A Response to Mr. Heaney," ibid, pp. 305-11.
18 I. M. Bochenski, "On Analogy," Albert
Menne, ed., Logico-Philosophical
Studies (Dordccht-Holland D. Reidel,
pp. 97-117.
16

186

TOBIAS CHAPMAN

it does not since the two uses are (only) analogous. The only
reason there could be for Heaney making this remark at all
would have to be based on the mistaken presupposition that
either the two uses have this in common or the term is ambiguous.
It might be objected that, after all, I have not presented any
theory of analogy (even less of meaning in general) which
shows that Heaney's contention is incorrect; I've simply suggested that it is based on an erroneous assumption about language and appealed to our " intuitions" about the meaningfulness of terms (not intuitions in any metaphysical sense but
rather beliefs based on our observation of how the language we
use actually works). This is correct though I think real ex.,
amples do show that the relevant assumption is only a prejudice. I will now attempt some brief comments on the idea of
a theory of analogy.
The view I wish to defend is, quite bluntly, that one type of
theory of analogy is impossible, and that attempts to construct
theories of this sort are based on the erroneous presuppositions
discussed above. The type of theory I mean is the sort where
an attempt is made to delineate some set of properties which
all analogous usages have in common. Given that analogy is
itself analogous such an enterprise is bound to fail. Even
Bochenski's very valuable contribution to this problem seems
to suffer to some extent from this assumption, for his fundamental idea appears to be that if two relational terms are
analogous they must have the same fOT1'JW,l, properties. This
may be a correct and important point about analogy but it
is equally important to note 19 that (1) the formal properties
of the analogous terms cannot be construed as the meaning of
those terms; (2) having identical formal properties may be a
necessary condition of two terms (strictly: two usages of the
same term) being analogous but it is certainly not a sufficient
condition (e. g., " larger than " and " is more spiritual than"
10 This is in no sense intended as a criticism of Bochenski's work but only of
certain ideas which it might erroneously be thought to entail.

ANALOGY

187

have the same formal properties but they do not appear to
be analogous in any interesting sense). Thus (as I think
Bochenski would allow) although his formal analysis throws
a good deal of light on the problem of analogy, it does not
constitute a theoretical explanation of it.
Another example is this. Following Bochenski and others
one might be tempted to explain analogy in terms of a " continuum of meaning." The latter phrase is ambiguous but one
account of it is the following. For our purposes here let us
suppose that the identity relation is relative. 20 This really comprises two theses which have been called by Wiggins 21 the
D-thesis, viz., that if two "things" are identical they must
be identical with respect to some substantival concept, i. e.,
some general substantival concept (like "gold" or "sodium");
" a = b " must mean " a f b " where f is an abbreviation for
and the R-thesis (relativity thesis) that a may be identical
with b relative to one concept and not relative to another.
Let us allow that both these theses are true (Wiggins himself
argues only for the truth of the first) . Let A1 A2 . . . An be
second-order properties of terms (analogous and otherwise),
f and f stand for relational and non-relational terms, "=" be
identity and "= a" be, 'is analogous to.' Then one of Bochenski's points could be put in this way: if "f = af1 " is true then
it must be true that "f A' f1 " and "f A• f1 " etc. are true
where A1 and A2 etc. represent second-order formal properties.
We might then be tempted to generalize this. In the case of
pure univocation we have:
(VA) (f == f1)
A

i.e., the criteria for the application of f and f1 (which would
usually represent the same word) are exactly the same in all
contexts. In the case of less than pure equivocation we have:
20 P. T. Geach has argued for this position in his paper "Identity,"
Review
of Metaphysics (September, 1967), Vol. XXI, pp. S-12.
01 David
Wiggins, Identity and Spatia-Temporal Continuity (Oxford: Basil
BlackWell, 1967).

138

TOBIAS CHAPMAN

but we also have (3An) (f >" f 1 )
An

Then as we move further down the scale we have cases where
the two usages have fewer and fewer second-order properties
in common-these are the analogous usages-until we finally
reach pure equivocation:
-(3A)

(fA f 1 )

Even were this correct it would provide no precise way of distinguishing analogical from equivocal usages, but in any case
it suffers from the above mentioned defect for it reduces to
an attempt to explain " analogous similarity" in terms of a
(higher-level) identity with respect to some property. And we
have already seen that f and f1 can be analogous without this
similarity being explicable in terms of any identical property.
In general, given that analogy is analogous, it appears that
any general theory of analogy is likely to fail since any account
of the relevant similarity relation will be either too schematic
(and thus not really explain anything) or fallaciously attempt
to isolate some single property of the relation. The proper
conclusion seems to be simply that analogy is sui generis.22 (I
hasten to add that this conclusion must necessarily be tentative
since it is impossible to show that every type of explanation
must fail.)
It is undoubtedly possible to give particular accounts of
particular analogous usages (as Aquinas does o£ " healthy ") ,
but it is difficult to see how one could ever give a complete list
o£ types o£ analogy, although this does not seem to be precluded in principle, as is a general account in terms of a single
set of properties.
•• Cf. one of John E. Thomas's conclusions in his paper, "On The Meaning of
'Analogy is Analogous'." Theologique et Philosophique (Laval), Vol. XXII, 1966,
no. 1, pp. 73-79. On p. 79 Professor Thomas says, " ... clearly what stands in
the way of specifying the meaning of ' analogy is analogous ' is the failure to solve
the problem of the ratio communis of analogous expressions." If my own view is
correct, there simply is no ratio communis.

ANAI:.OGY

139

m
So far I hope to have established that (a) Aquinas held in
effect that various types of analogy of attribution are the ones
which have application in religious contexts, and that this position i$ correct (if analogy can be used at all in such contexts);
(b) that in ordinary contexts analogical usage is acceptable
and, indeed, unavoidable, but (c) there does not now exist
nor is it likely that there ever will exist some theory of meaning
which will explain analogical usage. There remain some special
problems about the use of analogical terms in theological contexts that I would like to briefly discuss. The standard general
problem is that the rerp.oteness of God makes it unclear as to
whether the application of our terminology to God retains any
content at all; more specifically, it is said, for example, that God
is wise but in different sense from that in which (say) Socrates
is wise, so we seem to have a piece of equivocation. There is
undoubtedly a certain (probably unavoidable) lack of clarity
here since, as Aquinas says, we do not have any insight in this
life into God's esse, but given that (b) and (c) above are
correct we can at least make the following negative remark.
Since there is no objection to analogical usage in general, the
onus appears to be on the objector to show why this particular
analogical extension is unacceptable (as one might explain why
the term " neurotic " cannot even be applied analogically to
an amoeba). Further, given (c) there can be no theoretical
logically conclusive grounds for rejecting the intelligibility of
theological language (as, for instance, the logical positivists
claimed) • As an example consider " good." The descriptive
content of good derives from the class of things to which the
term is applied 28 (e. g., a good cat is sleek, friendly etc.; a
good proof is original, perspicuous). Leaving aside for the
moment the fact that God is the Exemplar of goodness, it presumably follows that the word " good " in application to God
••on this point seeP. T. Geach, "Good and Evil," Analysis, Vol. 17 (1956),
pp. 88-42.

140

TOBIAS CHAPMAN

gets its sense from God's nature. Of this as such we have no
knowledge, but we have some knowledge of God's "actions"
from Revelation, or, to a lesser extent natural theology (for
those who believe it yields any results) or in some cases from
personal religious experience. 24 It is this, at least in part, which
must give " good " its content. Such a content must of necessity be incomplete, but it need not be any more imprecise than
the knowledge we can be said to have of a person some of whose
actions we are familiar with but whom we do not know very
well. This gives the appearance of a " meaning gap " 25 which
can be bridged only by belivers, a notion which is not obviously
intelligible: how, for instance, can a person try to believe what
he can only understand if he believes. I think it is just partly
true and partly false that there is such a gap, and I shall not
try to elaborate on this as D. Z. Phillips has already done so,2 d
except to point out that the unbeliever can sensibly be said
to understand what it is (in part) that the believer believes
in order to give his analogical predications substance, without
himself believing those things.
There is a second, more difficult, problem about analogical
predication, in religion. This stems from the fact that God
is said to be the paradigm of goodness, wisdom, truth, etc.
From this it would appear that the primary sense of such
terms is given in their application to God (as Aquinas says)
and that their application to temporal things is somehow
derivative. This is paradoxical to say the least: since we have
no knowledge of God's nature, to say that the paradigm of
the use of " good " is in application to God appears to be the
worse sort of mumbo jumbo. But this problem is not insurmontable. There are perfectly ordinary cases where we learn to
correctly use analogous terms without realizing that there even
•• Cf. Donald F. Duclow, "Pseudo-Diouysius, John Scotus Eriugena, Nicholas
of Cusa: An Approach to the Hermeneutic of the Divine Names," International
(June,
pp.
Philosophical Quarterly, Vol. XII, no.
25 I owe this expression to Brian Calvert.
· •• D. Z. Phillips, "Religious Beliefs and Language Games," Ratio,
(1970),
pp.

141

ANALOGY

is any primary application of the tenn (e. g., good as used in
non-theological contexts). Consider for example" proof." One
may begin by using this tenn (correctly) in application to very
imprecise examples, then (say) in application to simple truthfunctional examples, to mathematical ones, to meta-logical
ones, and finally realize that there is no realized limit to how
"good " a proof can be.27 We thus understand a hierarchy of
perfection with respect to proofs and the idea of a paradigm
without any exact idea of what the paradigm would be like (I
do not mean that here we are forced to say that a paradigm
exists); so, again, there does not seem to be grounds for a
general, theoretical objection to such an idea being used in
theological contexts.
ToBIAS CHAPMAN

University of Guelph
Guelph, Ontario
Canada

• 7 Cf. Iris Murdoch on the idea of perfection in The Sovereignty
(London Routledge & Kegan Paul, 1970).

of Good

BOOK REVIEWS
Aristotle: .A Contemporary .Appreciation. By HENRY B. VEATCH.
ton, Ind.: Indiana University Press, 1974. Pp.
$7.95 cloth,
paper.
While this book is addressed primarily to those students of philosophy
who have read, but have not seriously studied Aristotle, it is also a book
from which much can be learned even by those more familiar the Philosopher. One reason for this is the point of view from which Aristotle is
presented. Being one of those rare Aristotelians nowadays who is thoroughly
knowledgeable of contemporary analytic philosophy, Prof. Veatch is in a
position to show how Aristotelianism can be a " live option " in philosophy
today. And this he does by arguing that Aristotle's appeal to "common
sense " is, as Veatch puts it, " an antidote to the alienations of both
modern science and and modern philosophy." Thus, in being shown how
and in what senses Aristotle holds his own vis a vis contemporary philosophy, even the expert in Aristotle can, by reading Veatch's book, gain a
new appreciation of "the master of those who know."
Dubbing Aristotle as " the philosopher of common sense," i. e., the
philosopher who goes by the axiom that what most men most of the
time take to be true is likely to be true in fact, Veatch goes on to show
in succeeding chapters how this principle of common sense guides Aristotle's thought in his physics, ethics, metaphysics, and logic. Veatch's
theme throughout is that, in contrast with the kind of program Aristotle
offers us in these areas, the world presented to us by contemporary philosophy and science is a " world that humanly and commonsensically we simply
cannot live in."
Beginning then with Veatch's account of Aristotle's physics, we find
the author rightly unfolding Aristotle's doctrine of the four causes in the
context of change or becoming. Veatch not only shows how Aristotle's
view of change is an answer to the Heraclitean, Parmenidean, and Zenonian
views on the same subject but, what is more intriguing and important for
what he is about, he also contrasts Aristotle's view of causality with the
modern view of causality stemming from Hume. Specifically, Veatch points
out that, unlike modern and contemporary philosophers, Aristotle held that
an efficient cause and its effect are simultaneous, so that for Aristotle it
is not true to say that a cause precedes its effect in time. This temporal
separation of an effect from its cause in modern philosophy has, Veatch
suggests, precluded any explanation as to just why a certain event B follows
another event A. As Veatch puts it: ". . . Substitute for this notion of

BOOK REVIEWS

148

causation the one of a cause as preceding its effect, and there is no way
in which there can be either any causal action on anything or anything
for the cause to act upon. Rather, when the effect comes into being, the
cause will already have ceased to be. Hence there is no way in which
an efficient cause can any longer be thought of as acting upon something
so as actually to bring about its proper effect with the result that the
whole panoply of efficient, material, formal, and final causes simply goes
out the window." (pp. 58-54)
Turning next to Aristotle's philosophy of animate and human beings
Veatch concentrates on Aristotle's account of knowledge. First he attributes to Aristotle the following realistic dicta: (1) that things in the
world are what they are independently of our attitudes toward or opinions
about them, and
that despite the errors to which we are prone, we
human beings are capable of knowing things as they are in themselves. Accepting knowledge as a fact, Aristotle explains how that fact is possible.
In showing how he does this, Veatch discusses knowledge, as he did
causality, in the context of change. Knowledge and physical change both
involve the reception of form by something that is in potency to that form.
The difference between these two changes is that whereas something's
receiving the form of red involves its actually becoming red, my coming
to know red does not involve my actually becoming red. The reason for
the difference can only be that in the latter as opposed to the former case,
the form red is not received into matter but rather into some non-material
potency. In other words, our cognitive faculties are not material either
in the sense of being (primary) matter or a composite of form and matter
(a body). Now since Veatch treats Aristotle's account of knowledge in
the context of change and the four causes, the question naturally arises as
to what the efficient cause is of, say, my coming to know the nature of a
tree. How is it that the forms of things which exist in a particular way
in objects come to be received without matter in the intellect? It is on this
question that Aristotle's celebrated notion of the agent intellect is brought
to bear, according to Veatch. Finally, Veatch raises a difficulty against
Aristotle's view of the human soul which appears irresolvable. Veatch asks
whether Aristotle is really being consistent in holding both that the human
soul is the form of the body and also that a part of it (the agent intellect) survives death. It is difficult to understand how Aristotle can uphold
both these theses at once. Nor does Veatch offer any escape-route for Aristotle on this crucial point. To all appearances, at least, Aristotle must
either abandon his view that the soul is the form of the body or else deny
that a man can in any sense survive death.
Moving on to Chapter IV entitled " Varieties of Human Achievement "
we find Veatch presenting a brief summary of the key elements in Aristotle's ethics, politics, poetics, and the arts. As regards the ethics, Veatch
·shows how Aristotle's' penchant for common sense prevents him 'from

144

BOOK REVIEWS

expousing either an a priori ethics on the one hand or a moral nihilism on
the other. From the fact that we sometimes are not sure which is the
better course to follow in a moral situation it does not follow, as Sartre
would say, that there is no objective moral knowledge at all. On the other
hand, while there are certainly moral principles for Aristotle, it is fruitless to say that simply by knowing these principles one will have sure
knowledge of what we ought to do in concrete moral situations. For example, Aristotle would say that the proposition " Happiness consists in the
exercise of both moral and intellectual virtues " is universally and necessarily true. Yet, just how these virtues are to be exercised and just what
counts as being virtuous in a given concrete situation is not something
which can either be deduced from such a principle or which can always be
known for certain.
Aristotle's metaphysics is the subject matter of Chapter V. Here Veatch
distinguishes between Aristotle's metaphysics from his ontology. The concern of the latter was for Aristotle, as it is today, with the question of
what things may be said to be ultimately real or what things exists in
the most basic sense of the term. Aristotle answers that what in the strict
sense exists is (1) what exists independently and (2) what is individual
and particular. In other words, what really is is substance. Yet, if these
be the criteria for substance, it appears that neither matter nor form can
be called substance. For matter is neither independent nor individual and
form, while perhaps individual, is surely not independent, unless, of course,
it be a Platonic form. But there are also difficulties with identifying substance with the composite of form and matter. For whereas such a composite satisfies the criterion of independence in one sense, it does not
satisfy that criterion in another sense. Whereas composites of form and
matter do not exist in something as attributes exist in them, they are nonetheless dependent on form and matter as a composite is dependent on its
elements.
As regards Aristotle's metaphysics (as opposed to his ontology) Veatch
locates the focus of attention of this discipline, not so much on being, qua
being in the sense of what something must be or have to be a being, but
in the sense of the most perfect being. In a few lucid and closely reasoned
pages (pp. 148-150) Veatch unfolds Aristotle's argument to show that
there must be at least one agent or efficient cause which is pure act. Here
Veatch shows how Aristotle concludes from the fact that change is eternal
that not every efficient cause is changed qua cause, from a state of potency
to a state of act.
Finally, in this chapter Veatch takes up the claim that Aristotle's metaphysics is double-visioned. Concretely, is the subject matter of metaphysics for Aristotle that which makes a being a being or is it the most
perfect being a God? Veatch's answer is that for Aristotle metaphysics
has to do primarily with the most perfect, fully actual being and by pros

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hen equivocation with all other beings, since, to the extent that it is actual, every being but God depends on Pure Act to be. So it can be said that
metaphysics for Aristotle is primarily about Actuality itself and secondarily
about those things which are a composite of act and potency.
The final chapter deals with Aristotle's logic. Here, to a greater degree
than elsewhere, Veatch contrasts Aristotle with modern and contemporary
thinkers. The basic difference between Aristotle and modern logicians is
that, while the latter do not use logic to gain an understanding of the
world, the former sees logic as an instrument for disclosing what and why
things are. This difference in turn accounts for the difference in the
semantics between Aristotlelian and modern logic. No longer, for example,
are all propositions cast in the subject-predicate form and no longer is the
syllogism considered by itself an adequate mold into which all arguments
can be put. And the reasons for these changes is that for contemporary
logicians the disclosure of what things are in themselves and why they
are the way they are is in nowise the function of either logic itself or
the logic of scientific discovery in our own day and age. Rather, Veatch
suggests, modern logic and science has taken a " transcendental turn "
according to which logical forms and patterns are imposed by us on being
in order that we may organize, calculate, and predict things with accuracy
and efficiency. And so these same logical structures become instruments
of knowing not what and why things really are but how we must understand them to be if we are to successfully organize, control, and predict
phenomena.
JoHN F. PETERSON
University of Rhode Island
Kingston, R. I.

The Recovery of the Sacred. By JAMES HITCHCOCK. New York:
Seabury Press, 1974. Pp. 187. $6.95.

The

The Recovery of the Sacred is an expression of the anguish felt by a
great number of Roman Catholics in the face of a profound sense of loss.
For them, the liturgical renewal of the Roman Church has not brought
with it a deepening of the richness of the corporate prayer of the Church
but rather its impoverishment. There is no question that James Hitchcock's
work is an articulate and often moving commentary on the state of affairs
in present-day parochial liturgy in countless Roman Catholic parishes.
That situation is a cause for concern to other Christians for whom the
liturgical tradition of the Church has been known and lived as a great
sign of the unity of the Church at all times and in all places in a common
prayer which cuts through divisions of time and place. Hitchcock's com-

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ments are not to be dismissed as the ranting of a reactionary who has
failed to sense the need for reform; rather, his book is the thoughtful
expression of a person who is quite well informed about what the liturgical
movement set out to accomplish, is basically in accord with its principles,
and yet is pained to see how its development has gone awry. The chief
complaint of the present reviewer is not that Hitchcock's criticisms are
wrong-headed, but rather that he does not see the situation in the right
perspective and thus places the blame in the wrong quarters. This will
immediately appear as special pleading, because Hitchcock plaees much of
the blame on the liturgists who, he feels, perpetrated the situation. He
is not alone in this attitude: shortly before his death, the previous Archbishop of Canterbury, Geoffrey Fisher, said in an interview that the
liturgists are the true enemy of the Church today. The reviewer, who· is
a liturgist as well as a priest of the Episcopal Church who completed his
doctoral studies at the lnstitut Catholique in Paris and is currently Professor of Liturgics in an Episcopal seminary, begs to differ. For the most
part, those who have been trained in liturgy and sacraments are as concerned about the present state of pastoral liturgy as any in the Church.
Since Hitchcoek himself admits the sound quality of the principles of
liturgical reform expressed in the Constitution on the Liturgy of Vatican
II, the problem must be seen not as one of a working out of false principles
but rather the inadequate implementation of principles which were themselves valid.
Where, then, is blame to be placedP The issue is dazzlingly complex because the excitement of a more open attitude toward reform which flowed
from Vatican II faced all persons with liturgical authority with a new
responsibility: how could the new principles best be put into effect in
the corporate prayer life of the Church? Inevitably, mistakes were made
in implementation, and in these liturgists must share the blame with many
others of good intention but inadequate practical experience. The liturgical
norms had been fixed for so long-and this was as much a problem for
Anglicans as it was for Roman Catholics-that :no one realized that we
had taken our liturgical treasures for granted. Not only had changes
necessary for pastoral reasons not been undertaken, but the liturgical tradition itself had not been studied critically: most priests simply said the
appointed words and did the appointed rubrics; they did not have any
substantial formation in the underlying dynamics of the tradition which
they were celebrating. Faced with change, the response was one of panic
in many cases. If the need for change was recognized, many well-intentioned clergy implemented new rites with much good will but little. awareness of how they should be done except, it was assumed, with all the old
norms swept away. Those for whom the liturgical tradition was the
living center of personal devotion were faced with the loss of an essential
treasure; the response could only be one of resentment and pain.

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To say these things is to begin to see where the problem really lay, and
that was with the character of seminary formation in liturgy and sacraments. In Episcopal seminaries, the study of liturgy was usually approached within the department of historical studies; that is, liturgy was
understood as essentially a type of Christian archaeology seen through the
development of liturgical rites and with much attention given to their historical context. This was particularly important for Anglicans since our
Book of Common Prayer is so significantly grounded in our whole selfconsciousness. (In ecumenical meetings, Roman Catholics are so often
struck by the degree of emphasis placed by Anglicans upon history; this
flows quite naturally out of the character of our seminary formation.) In
the Roman tradition, on the other hand, liturgical and sacramental matters
were very often treated as a department of Canon Law; in other words, the
important thing in the formation of a future priest was that he know
what is requisite for validity in his celebration of the sacraments of the
Church. Both these perspectives-historical
context and canonical validity-are, of course, important; but if they are, either of them, the dominant
perspective through which one is formed for liturgical ministry in the
Church, their inadequacies are dangerous in terms of what seems to be
the true place of liturgy and sacraments in the life of the Church. All
liturgy in the end must be pastoral liturgy, that is, all liturgy is the living
prayer of a particular community of Christians at a particular place and
time. The community does not gather to celebrate a museum piece but
rather to pray as the gathered family of God. This perspective gives a
heavy theological importance to the worship of the Church: it is the
sacramental expression of what the Church is; the local community at
prayer constitutes the Church.
To point the finger at the problem of seminary training, however, does
not bring easy solutions to the present situation. Men trained to understand the liturgy as the fulfillment of the prescribed rubrics, as was the
case with so many Roman Catholic priests, were ill-prepared to implement
the freer liturgical norms which have emerged since Vatican II. One choice
for them was to carry over all the old rubrical pattern {as, for example,
the rather elaborate sequence of gestures which accompanied the Roman
Canon) and to superimpose it upon the new rites. This solution violates
the integrity of the new rites in that it fails to recognize the essential
integrity necessary to the union of word and gesture. The alternative was,
in the absence of precise rubrical specifications, to understand the new
rites as requiring no norms of celebration whatever. This solution fails
to recognize the essentially conservative character necessary to liturgical
reform if it is not to undermine the very nature of liturgical tradition
itself. It is in this latter regard that one sees so well the confusion of the
present situation, for on one side the liturgists and sacramental theologian.s
were viewed as dangerous radicals for proposing any changes at all; then,

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from the other perspective, they were held by others to have failed in their
work by not going far enough. When liturgists are accused both of being
too radical and of being too conservative, the answer may be that their
critics have not seen the problems dealt with in their total perspective.
The pastoral imperatives as well as the recovery of a richer liturgical theology demanded change in numerous aspects of liturgical expression. But
if one is to speak of liturgy at all, one is speaking of a conservative dimension of the Church's life-an element of continuity and tradition. It has
proved to be the case that it is far easier to deepen our understanding of
the value of a liturgical tradition which has become fossilized than to reject
that tradition, recognize its loss, and then attempt to recover its meaning.
Roman Catholics would be wise to profit from an Anglican perspective
from history: our debate with the Puritans was essentially on a conservative point in liturgical prayer, namely, whether or not fixedformsofthetradition might be used in public prayer. The Puritan rejection of the fixed
forms of the Book of Common Prayer led eventually to their separation
from the Anglican Church; yet today, much of the apologetic for the value
of a liturgical tradition comes from the pens of writers coming out of the
non-conformist tradition. As Hitchcock recognizes, values lost are regained, if at all, at enormous cost. The situation which his book delineates
is in fact a recurring phenomenon within the history of Christian worship.
The only adequate answers are those which see the Church's worship
grounded in a healthy awareness of what the Church is; choices based on
any other consideration will tend to emphasize the concerns of the present
or the preservation of the past, and fail to recognize the marvelous interrelation of the two.
Loms WEIL
Nashotah House
Nashotah, Wi8comin

Process and Permanence in Ethics: Max Scheler's Moral Philosophy by
ALFONS DEEKEN. New York, N. Y.: Paulist Press, 1974. Pp. fl91.
$5.95.

The year 1974 marks the first centenary of the birth of the erratic
genius Max Scheler (1874-1928). Introductions to the thought, work, and
influence of Max Scheler tend to repeat a number of exhuberant cliches
about his personal genius, the seminal character of his work, and the
many areas of contemporary thought which continue to feel his influence.
In· the eleven-page Introduction to Process and Permanence in Ethics
Alfons Deeken repeats this litany. But the other nine chapters of the book
are an admirable presentation of Scheler's ethical thought. Perhaps a

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149

corner has been turned. Introductions to Scheler in English are no longer
necessary, such as the 1965 book Max Scheler: A Concise Introduction
by Manfred Frings (Pittsburgh: Duquesne University Press, 1965.) We
can now move forward, confidently, with genuinely substantial works on
Scheler in English.
The careful, scholarly editing of Scheler's text is being ably carried out
by Manfred Frings, who has assumed editorship of the Gesammelte W erke
from his post at DePaul University in Chicago. At the same time, Frings
is overseeing the English translation of Scheler's major works, including
the formidable Der Formalismus in der Ethik und die materiale Wertethik.
Therefore, the basic homework on Scheler's thought is still being carried
out.
But a new and exciting development seems to be occurring in English
works on Scheler. Students of Scheler, with a true sense of scholarly fidelity,
but yet with a genius and imagination of their own, are now able to give
fresh, tantalizing constructions of Scheler's thought in English. It is like
Maritain giving us Saint Thomas. Arthur Luther's book, Person in Love:
A Study of Max Scheler's Wesen und Formen der Sympathie (The Hague:
Martinus Nijhoff,
is an excellent example of this new genre. Process
and Permanence in Ethics: Max Scheler's Moral Philosophy by Alfons
Deeken is the most recent example. This is not an " introduction " ; this
is not simply a careful textual chronological, critical analysis of Scheler's
thought. The book is a positive reconstruction of all the broad bold lines
of Scheler's ethical thought into a living synthesis, the likes of which
Scheler himself never lived to see.
The great Schelerian themes are here: the ontological status and
hierarchical ranking of values, the historical character of value comprehension, " resentment," repentance, love, ideal model persons, and the
approaching "era of harmonization." On the whole, Deeken is able to
present these themes, so enticing but so tangled in Scheler's corpus, as
clearly and as faithful to Scheler's thought as most any exposition available. Deeken's book has two major advantages. It wields these themes
into a single unified account, so that a fairly consistent, almost practical
piece of moral philosophy emerges. Therefore, students can study Deeken's
book simply as moral philsophy. As a matter of fact they will discover
here many, if not most, of Scheler's most fundamental and widely influential ideas. Yet Process and Permanence in Ethics is a work of genuine
moral philosophy. Students, reviewers, and critics of ethical theory may
not find the book wholly convincing nor completely satisfactory as a
unified, well-grounded and consistent theory of ethics, but they should
find it refreshing and stimulating.
Secondly, Deeken's contribution in Process and Permanence in Ethics
is to include the best Schelerian scholarship and correction to the various
themes of the book. All the later chapters give not only a positive ex-

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position of Scheler's ideas from his own works but a critique and a correction or a further application of the themes by such significant contemporary
thinkers as Bernard Haring, Karl Rahner, Johannes Grlindel, Manfred
Frings, and Johannes Hessen. This gives a certain rounded-out effect to
each chapter and to the book as a whole. Many authors never get over the
student-dissertation habit of giving a small piece of exposition with a large
piece of purely personal, individualized critique. Alfons Deeken is beyond
that. To read Process and Permanence in Ethics is like attending a first
night Broadway production and then spending the next whole day with
the drama critics. One is still free to like or dislike the work, but he feels
re-assured that he has discussed its merits (or de-merits} with competent
people. Deeken is not neutral: he feels strongly that Scheler's moral
philosophy has many valuable contributions to make to contemporary
ethical theory. He uses secondary sources to support and to extend
Scheler's insights. He does this with careful reading and notation of
primary sources and a valuable selected but up-to-date thirteen page
bibliography of secondary sources. It was a bold (and, it is to be hoped,
successful) decision of Paulist Press to publish a book as substantial as
this.
While Deeken's Process and Permanence in Ethics can be strongly recommended for its many strengths, with all good grace, some weaknesses can
be pointed out. First of all, the title itself is somewhat misleading. Process
connotes too strongly "process philosophy " and suggests many things not
part of Scheler's thought. Five chapters of the book use directly the word
history, and this is more faithful to Scheler's ideas. How can one discover
a catchy, selling title which does justice to the content of the book? "Absolute values in Historical Context? " " The Historical Character of What
is Permanent in Ethics? "
After 1922 Scheler's theism (and Catholicism) gave away to a kind
of anthropantheism by which man is the locus of God becoming aware of
Himself. The debate continues whether this meant a radical break by
Scheler from his earlier views or if his later position was a more-or-less
natural evolution and extension of his permanent basic metaphysical positions. Deeken sidesteps this very important issue all to easily. " Since
most of Scheler's ethical writings originated during the fertile second period
[of his life] this study will concentrate primarily on the philosophy of this
middle period. Even in his later period, Scheler never retracted the basic
moral insights of his middle years." (p. 7) This book alone reveals that
Deeken is far to good a Schelerian scholar to think that such a position
can go unchallenged.
Chapter IV," Kairos-The Demand of the Present Hour," is perhaps an
important chapter to make the book a unified piece of moral philsophy.
But the chapter (small as it is) is by self-admission on shaky ground to
prove that the kairos concept is either original or fundamental to Scheler

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himself. If, as the sub-title indicates, the book is meant to be Max
Scheler's Moral Philosophy, then one may wonder why the concept of
kairos need be introduced so dramatically.
Finally, the author's personal background prompts him at times to· make
applications to Oriental thought and especially to Japanese literacy and
social conditions. This adds a dash of spice which is a novelty to Schelerian
studies, but in a work so traditional and scholarly as this the Oriental
references seem almost out of place. The very last three pages of the book
conclude with comments on Japan and The Third World. Yet in the
harmonization of the Apollonian and Dionysian man through a re-sublimation of the life-force Deeken fails to use Marcuse's ideas in Eros and
Civilization which is much more widely known and more closely proximates
Scheler's ideas.
But one ought not cavil. Process and Permanence in Ethics by Alfons
Deeken is far to good for that. The book should initiate anew the great
perennial questions of ethics: how can moral values be absolute and unchanging in a sociologically conditioned historical context? Is love or
knowledge primary? Can ethics be grounded on anything but God and
the Holy? In discussions such as these (Deeken's book informs us) the
genius of Scheler has much to contribute.
ERNEST

w. RANLY

La Oroya, Peru

The Edges of Language. By PAUL VAN BUREN. New York:
1972. Pp. 178. $5.95 & $2.95.

Macmillan,

In the last ten years a number of writers have attempted to apply the
arguments and linguistic insights of the later Wittgenstein to Christian
discomse. Perhaps the best-known examples. are D. Z. Phillips' The Concept of Prayer 1 and W. E. Hordem's Speaking of God. 2 Paul van Buren's
The Edges of Language 3 is the latest in this genre.
Van Buren sets out to understand religious discourse in the Christia:'l
tradition by relying on Wittgenstein. He presents (in Chapter Three)
He sets about
a fairly adequate account of Wittgenstein's view of
applying this to his task in Chapter 4 by recognizing the key role of " God "
in religious discourse and formulating the question: " What is the contemporary Christian doing when he uses the word ' God ' as he does? "
(p. 76) He then puts forward his main thesis: that religious discourse
" ... lies along the edges of our language .... " (p. 76)
D. Z. Phillips, The Concept of Prayer (London: Routledge, 1965).
W. E. Hordern, Speaking of God (New York: MacMillan, 1964).
8 Paul Van Buren, The Edges of Language (New York: MacMillan, 197!l).

1

9

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Chapters 5 and 6 discuss the notion of the edges of language and put
forward humor (punning), love-talk, poetry, and metaphysics as examples
of speaking at the edges of language. In Chapter 7 he argues that speaking
at the edge of language is of the essence of religion, and in Chapter 8
he argues that the answer to the above question is that " ... the word
' God ' functions as the decisive boundary marker at the edge of [religious] language .... " (p. 131)
As students of Wittgenstein are well aware, his later work can be
dynamite. In the wrong hands the arguments and insights found there
can result in disaster. Anyone wishing to " ... work out ... the implications for Christian theology of Wittgenstein's Philosophical Investigations ... " (preface) had better have a lengthy immersion in post-war
Anglo-American philosophy if he is to handle Wittgenstein satisfactorily,
and not just because his writing is enigmatic-like any other philosopher,
he was sometimes wrong on fundamental issues. Background is especially
important where one is directing one's work at those who have little acquaintance with his philosophy. The latter may feel intimidated when
Wittgenstein is called forth to support a writer's position, so the writer
has an extra responsibility in this situation. Unfortunately there are more
than a few indications in this book that the author has not lived up to
it. A passage .on pages 32 and 33 (virtually duplicated in pp. 72, 73) is
typical.
Van Buren is arguing against the idea of propositional revelation. He
asks, " If God were to speak how could we know it? " (p. 32) He argues
first that " since he is utterly other than men, we cannot understand him,
for we understand only human language. . . ." Even granting that God
speaks as a voice from the clouds, his different nature does not necessarily
preclude his uttering words in a human language. He is, after all, considered to be omnipotent and his speaking and our understanding might
be a miracle.
Van Buren presents a Wittgenstein-like argument against this: ". . . if
we understand by a miracle, this understanding is radically unlike what
we call understanding." (pp. 32, 33) But why must the understanding
be " radically unlike " normal understanding simply because its cause is
abnormal? We can come to understanding by a variety of means. The
argument has force if we take God to be speaking in a non-human language, but we need not accept this. The third argument is prefaced by
a recognition that God would have to speak in a human language if we
are to understand him. But he argues that " Understanding presupposes
using language as we do, which involves behaving as we humans behave ...
[God] would have to be an exceedingly human God." (p. 33) Here van
Buren has fallen foul of an unclarity in Wittgenstein's work. The latter
does not always observe the distinction between understanding a speaker
and understanding what his words mean. Understanding God's words does

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not entail understanding God. The recipient of revelation need only assume that God can say what he means. Van Buren seems to have in mind
Wittgenstein's enigmatic remark that "If a lion could talk, we could not
understand him." 4 (Philosophical Investigations, p. flfl3) It is generally
agreed that Wittgenstein was thinking of a lion who uttered sentences in
German or English, but whose behavior did not correspond to what we
associate with these utterances. Without some behavioral regularities associated with utterances we cannot learn the" language" of a speaker, and
doubtless the behavior repertoire of the lion would not enable us to learn
to speak with him. There would not be enough regularity for us. But,
of course, if the lion utters words in our language we understand what
it says well enough. But we are in the dark about what it means.
Much of the force of these arguments of van Buren's depends on conceiving God's utterances as like ours physically. Few Christians would
take this naive view. Wittgenstein himself recognized a fundamental
difference when he said "You can't hear God speak to someone else, you
can hear him only if you are being addressed." 5 (Zettel, para. 717)
There is not space here to scrutinize the arguments of the book in detail.
The " linguistic-analysis " tone of the book makes it seem dated, and the
non-philosopher particularly will find the phraseology irritating at times.
For example, we are told that " To be part of this Christianity community
is to talk in a certain way .... " (p. 69) Most Christians would prefer
(to put it mildly) to say that it is a matter of what one takes to be true.
This example points to carelessness in the use of the term " rule." He
says that most of us ". . . have ruled out speaking of witchcraft and
black magic as explanations for human behaviour .... " (p. 69) In one
sense we have, but if someone tries to explain behavior in these terms he
is not breaking a linguistic rule.
This carelessness infects his characterization of speaking at the edges of
language. Sometimes the edge metaphor is applied to the points at which
the " ... rules which govern the employment of ... expressions ... " (p.
79) in a sentence result in our approaching nonsense when we try to say
something not easily said. Here the metaphor seems reasonably appropriate.
However, van Buren also has something different in mind sometimes.
In taking love-talk as an example he says: "Persons in love use words
wildly or loosely. They say such things as ' I love you more than all the
world.' 'The stars in heaven cannot be compared to you'." (pp. 103, 4)
These examples seem to be simple cases of exaggeration, and the very
fact that they can be seen to be speaks for their having clear literal
• L. Wittgenstein, Philosophical Investigations (Oxford: Blackwells, 1958).
6 L. Wittgenstein, Zettel, G. E. M. Anscombe and G. H. von Wright eds., G. E.
M. Anscombe trans. (Univ. California Press, 1967).

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meaning. Yet van Buren insists that "To call this exaggeration is too
weak and misses the point." (p. 104) These examples are supposed to
qualify as speaking at the edges of language because they are attempts
" ... to say the most that is possible .... " (p. ISS) But van Buren is
confusing stretching truth with stretching sense.
The two characterizations of edge-talk are not the same. Talk verging
on nonsense need not involve exaggeration, nor is it obvious that in trying
to say the most that can be said one must always approach unintelligibility.
Newton's Principia is an attempt to say the most that can be said about
material object behavior but does not approach nonsense in doing so. Why
should theologies, merely because they are trying to do this in another
sphere?
Besides presenting these very specific criticisms, I should like to express
doubt about van Buren's whole programme, about its appropriateness for
the goals chosen. He gives the impression that he is setting out to determine
what the status of " God " is and that he is trying to show that the term is
not the name of an individual. (see p. 15) His conclusion is that the
term is a marker at the edge of language. I fail to see how this is relevant
to the question of the logical status of " God," unless one takes " logical
status" as roughly equivalent to raison d'etre (I think van Buren does
think of it in this way, but this is not how philosophers use the expression). Van Buren's findings may increase our understanding of why the
religious person says the things he does, but they are of little help in
understanding what he says.
The reason van Buren's program is inappropriate or irrelevant from a
philosophical point of view is to be found in the way he states his problem.
In asking " What is the contemporary Christian doing when he uses the
word 'God' as he does?" {p. 76) he is adopting an approach often taken
in the classical period of linguistic philosophy {the 1950's). (It is distinguished by continual talk about " use," and it is this feature that gives
van Buren's book an old-fashioned tone.)
The phrase "the use of words " is ambiguous. John Searle, in Speech
Acts; 6 says that there may be five aspects to any utterance that counts as
a speech act: (1) the utterance act of uttering the words, either orally or
in script,
the illocutionary act, e. g., asserting, commanding, commending, etc., (S) the perlocutionary act, the effect the utterance has on
the hearer, e. g., the hearer may be persuaded, inspired, frightened, etc.,
(4) referring, and (5) predicating. To this list there could be added an
indefinite number of specific actions which a sentence can be said to be
used to perform by virtue of its role in story-telling, praying, etc. Some·
one who utters " What big teeth you have! " can more often than not be
• J. R. Searle, Speech Acts (Cambridge:

Cambridge University Press, 1970).

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said to be reading a story as well as doing each of the five afore-mentioned
things.
Which of these facets of the use of sentences containing the word "God "
is most relevant for establishing the logical status of the word? Surely it
is the referring and predicating acts. The word is used as a referring expression: is it a proper name or a disguised description, or something else?
Various expressions are predicated of it: which ones can be meaningfully
predicated? Answering such questions is the process of learning the
meaning of the term "God." Van Buren's account of the use of the term
comes closest to being an illocutionary account and represents an example
of what Searle has called the" speech act fallacy." 7 One commits it when
one tries to explain the meaning of a word by identifying some illocutionary
act that the word is characteristically involved in. Searle singles out attempts by R. M. Hare and others who try to say something about the
meaning of " good " by arguing that it is used to commend.
In The Secular Meaning of The Gospel 8 van Buren committed the same
fallacy when he adopted " functional equivalence " (p. 156) as a criterion
for an interpretation of statements of faith. He says that his " ... aim
has been to discover the meaning of their (the Gospel authors) words and
to find appropriate and clear words with which to express that meaning
today .... " (p. 156) The statements in question are to be interpreted
" ... as statements which express, describe, or commend a particular way
of seeing the world, other men, and oneself, and the way of life appropriate to such a perspective." (p. 156)
I should have thought that the aim set out above was a good description of what the translators who produced the New English Bible were
doing. Van Buren's result shows that he is trying to identify the illocutionary (and perhaps perlocutionary) acts performed by the Gospel
writers. I do not wish to suggest that this enterprise is of no use or interest,
but as a program there are certain technical difficulties it must face:
(1) To identify the illocutionary acts being performed one must know
meaning of words used: the sentence meaning partially determines the
illocutionary acts possible. For example, the utterance " That fresco is
awful " made by someone viewing the Sistine Chapel ceiling can be an
act of condemnation or an act of commendation depending on whether
" awful " is used in the sense of " reverential wonder " or used as a general
pejorative as it tends to be these days. This is the least serious of the
three problems.
(2) The first point introduces the speaker's intentions as a factor. In
particular there is the problem of whether the speaker intended the sen• Ibid., pp. 186-141.
Paul Van Buren, The Secular Meaning of The Gospel (New York: MacMillan,

8

1968).

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tence to be taken literally or figuratively. This is an especially crucial
question for religious language. When someone I encounter on the street
says" Jesus lives!", what am I to make of it? I really have to know what
sense he is giving to " live." And, of course, I can ask him. The intentions
of the Gospel writers are vastly more difficult to establish.
(3) Even given knowledge of the meaning of the sentence, it happens
that a particular utterance can be used to perform more than one illocutionary act at a time. Someone who says" Jesus is Lord" can be asserting
something about Jesus a;nd announcing his personal allegiance to Christianity and " ... commending a particular way of seeing the world. . .. "
Only the speaker could confirm which acts were being performed.
Besides these problems peculiar to illocutionary interpretation, van Buren
has a difficulty that arises for any investigator of the use of religious
terms: if use is to be the datum, whose use is the correct use? His answer
in The Edge8 of Language is that of" ... educated Christians in the West
in this last third of the twentieth century." (p. 1) In so delineating his
user-group he is in obvious danger of " fixing " the result of his enquiry.
Perhaps the motive behind the book is exposed in this passage: " ... if
'God' is conceived of as a word uttered when one wants desperately to
say the most that is possible . . . then the categories of coherence employed to attack the theist simply do not apply .... " (p. 133) " God,"
apparently, is not a concept in the center ground of language ". . , in
which concepts can be used coherently and incoherently ... ," (p. 141)
and as such is safe from philosophical attack. The project has been one
of securing a safe place for Christian discourse. But van Buren does not
seem to notice that a " concept " for which there is no contrast between
its coherent and incoherent uses is not a concept at all!
WAYNE GRENNAN
St. Thomas
Fredericton, New Bruwwick
Canada

Heir8 and Ancegtor8. Studies in Philosophy and the History of Philosophy.
Volume Six. Edited by JoHN K. RYAN. Washington: The Catholic
University of America Press, 1973. Pp. Q91. $15.00.
These ten essays range from Plotinus through Augustine, to Hume,
Sartre, and Frankl. The editor himself contributes a study of Vital de
Blois' Latin comedy Gita. Adding to this richness, B. M. Bonansea traces
the history of the ontological argument at the 'hands of both proponents
and opponents until the present day in a sixty-page survey and critique.
This width of vision is offset by sharply focused studies of Hume's notion

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157

of personal identity by John Driscoll and of interiority in Plotinus by John
Kelly.
The editor does not indicate any unifying theme beyond that suggested
in the title of this sixth volume in the series: each generation of thinkers
is simultaneously heir and ancestor to other ages. Although he does not
suggest a nomenclature for our present generation of humanistic philosophers, if this collection is typical we could describe it as concerned with
the valuing self, and this in a sense crossing the lines of ethics and epistemology.
In his exploration of the nature of philosophy in Ortega, Felix Alluntis reveals his own concern as much as Ortega's in observing: " ... a man
philosophizes when he has a living past and in view of a critical situation
he has reached." (p. 71) Alluntis claims that Aquinas too admitted this
but could not bring himself existentially to the moment of doubt. Perhaps
this cohesiveness in the atmosphere of medieval consciousness is the very
factor that motivates our present generation of thinkers to look back towards thinkers who do proceed from the underminding moment, some
intuition of dissolution in the moment of need. In a sketch of Frankl's
stress upon the uniqueness of the human spirit, M. G. Schneider says as
much: Frankl's anthropology is not solely the product of his professional
work; it is " a personal conviction, deeply felt and unceasingly defended
as the most decisive truth of our age." (p. 61) According to Thomas
Flynn, Sartre's almost un-noticed concept of the social Third is worthy
of attention, and perhaps his singling it out is as significant as the notion
itself. To an age looking for authentic selfness Sartre suggests there are
but two modes of reaching the self: the grammatical third person singular,
or psychological Other, and the first person plural. Flynn extricates
Sartre's view that the secret of the latter is the former. Multiplicity is
interiorized, i.e., retains subjectivity, solely through the mediation of the
Third. Confronted with what Sartre perceives as overwhelming need for
group action in a defective world, our French contemporary manages to
preserve a realm of freedom for the self precisely through the mediation
of the Third. It was a theory developed in the middle decade of the
present century, while Sartre was announcing to his descendants: "Social
imperatives and individual destiny are a true contradiction; their reconciliation is not obvious." (p. 38)
In an alternate formulation this plight attracts the attention of G. J.
Stack. In his essay, "Subjectivity, Facts and Values," Stack enumerates
reasons for the invalidity of " a pervasive characteristic ... I have called
the empirical ontological." This is the assumption that statements of fact,
or world situations, are free of prior valuation. Of course, this is not new
ground to break, but Stack's reflections on the issue in terms of Wittgenstein, Quine, Heidegger, and Poincare, are quite fresh. His conclusion: the
oft-assumed neutrality of scientific fact is best seen as a Kantian ideal of

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reason to which the actual procedure bears an asymptotic relationship.
(p. 120)
Throughout the collection the reader is brought to the curious feeling
that today's philosophers are drawn to the problem of the self alienated
from its world and from an identity it either once knew or longs to know;
perhaps both. It is appropriate, then, that John Kelly's essay on interiority
in the neglected Plotinus should conclude that no meaningful grasp d
reality can be achieved without a vigorous deciphering of the self's spiritual
experience. Indeed, if this collection represents today's philosophers at
thought, then they do their ancestors credit.
JoaN B. DAVlS, 0. P.
Oblate College
Washington, D. 0.

Il Problema della conoscenza. Filosofia della conoscenza e fondamenti di
filosofia della scienza. By GIOVANNI BLANDINO. Rome: Edizioni
Abete, 1972. Pp. 474. L. 4000.
Comunione e obbedienza nella liberta. Una dimensione della Chiesa d'oggi.
By ANDRE HAYEN. Milano: Editrice Vita e Pensiero, 1973. Pp. 232.
L. 3700.
The author of Il Problema della conoscenza aims at offering a contribution to Christian philosophical thought in the area of gnoseology. In modern
philosophy the gnoseological problem has replaced in many respects the
metaphysical. Blandino is well aware of this fact. Moreover, he realizes
that the spectacular development and success of modern sciences could
not leave untouched the area of the philosopher, though scientific knowledge differs from the philosophical. Having a degree in biology himself,
he is very sensitive to this aspect of modern investigation of the gnoseological question. What, in fact, characterizes his method is precisely to
tackle the gnoseological problem from two complementary sides: the
strictly philosophical and the scientific.
This volume, intended also as a textbook, is divided into two parts:
the first deals with the general theory of philosophy of knowledge, the
second with the basic problems of scientific knowledge, which is considered
as a further development of the philosophy of knowledge.
The author's conception is fundamentally intellectualistic-realistic. He
holds that man can know reality and that, in fact, man knows various
types of reality in two ways: the subjective reality immediately, and the
existence of realities distinct from the subject in a mediate way, that
is, by way of induction. His conception is therefore realistic as opposed

BOOK REVIEWS

1.59

to scepticism and phenomenalism, and it is intellectualistic as opposed to
sensism.
Blandino has assimilated the aristotelian-thomistic tradition, but he also
integrates into it insights of such authors as St. Augustine, Duns Scotus,
Suarez, Descartes, Hume, Kant. When he deals with the probablistic
theory-and it is worth noting that he insists on showing the probablistic
character of a great part of our knowledge-the influence of the neoposivistic approach is evident. The book, in sum, is an attempt to present
classical scholastic philosophy in a constructive dialogue with modern
science.
Comunione e obbedienza nella libert?L, a small and yet valuable book,
is the translation into Italian of a work originally edited in French under
the title "L'obeissance dans l'Eglise d'aujord'hui." The ecclesiological and
anthropological shift which we have witnessed in recent years has not
seldom led to a re-thinking of the vertical structures of the Church and,
as a direct consequence, contributed to a situation of crisis affecting the
virtue of obedience. "After Vatican II," the author writes, "it is not
possible for me in conscience to hold any longer to the structure of obedience which I have accepted up until yesterday." Hence his attempt to
discover the " theological meaning of the obedience that we are called to
live today in the Church." He draws his inspiration from St. Thomas,
from his master St. Ignatius of Loyola, but he is very sensitive to authors
such as the Little Flower and Blondel. A keen awareness of the ecclesiology
of Vatican II is also present in these pages.
Hayen rightly, it seems to me, centers his understanding of obedience
on a christological basis. The principle originating every kind of obedience
in the Church is nothing other than the obedience of Christ. Every obedience within the Christian community is the fulfillment in us of the paschal
obedience of Christ. This obedience of Jesus, in turn, is to be seen as the
assumption and fulfillment of human obedience. His obedience takes it
start from ours, but ours in created in his. If obedience has its basis and
its "causa exemplaris "in Christ, its end however is the building, or better,
to offer the conditions for the building of the Christian community by God.
Thus the christological principle rejoins the ecclesiological.
These sound theological principles are analyzed in the several chapters
of the book. First, the author examines the foundation and the meaning
of obedience in the structure of natural communities like the family and
the polis, what Hayen interprets as " the rise of human obedience toward
Christ." This is followed by a reflection on the obedience of Christ.
Finally, the most important part of the book, an analysis of the elements,
the structure, and the concrete path of obedience in the Church. The
author handles in a deep, frank, and suggestive manner such delicate and
complex issues as the figure and function of the superior in a community,
the role of conscience, and the meaning of law and guidelines.

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Hayen's book is both interesting and valuable, contributing to a deeper
comprehension of obedience in the Church today. It provides enriching
insights, and questions also, for Hayen does not offer easy solutions when
they are not possible. The style may not always be easy, but the stimulating substance is there.
ANTONIO

MATTIAZZO

Brasilia, Brazil

Teologia Del Progresso Delle Realta Spazio-Temporali. By FRANcEsco
NERoNE. Rome: Edizione Paoline,
Pp.
This work is largely an exploration of the meaning of technological development. It relies heavily upon the teaching of Vati, m II, especially as
given in Gaudium et Spes, and upon recent papal encyclicals, especially
Mater et Magistra and Pacem in terris of John XA.III and Populorum
Progressio of Paul VI. Besides recounting the teaching of these documents
the author works out a concept and metaphysics of progress which he
then situates in a theological context of creation and eschatological consummation.
An introductory chapter sets forth the importance and current interest
in the question of scientific and technological development. He then
elaborates a particular concept of progress as " guided becoming." After
making a series of distinctions and comparisons the author locates the
special object of his concern in the changes which man, as free and intelligent, is able to effect in the material world. A mutual openness between
man and spatio-temporal realities makes this kind of progress possible.
Man's place in creation lays upon him the responsibility to further this
progress. For God has created the universe with both the subject and
object of progress (man and infra-human material realities) and calls
man to bring it about. Confirmation for this view is found in the teaching
and example of Jesus, who labored with his hands and yet introduced a
supernatural dimension into his work. Progress of this sort has finally
an eschatological meaning, since it is related to the ultimate transformation of the material universe.
In spite of the real importance of this theme and in spite of the metaphysics, theology, and documentation which is brought to bear upon it,
the actual treatment in this book is finally unsatisfactory. There is a lack
of unifying insight which grasps the whole mater from within. The author
distinguishes many types of evolution, progress, and development, but
he never expresses clearly the unity underlying all of them so as to make
his particular consideration luminous in itself and illuminating for other
aspects. He sets out some very obvious matters as if they were profound
truths, e. g., matter can be affected by human activity (cf. p. 108 ff.). He

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never really makes clear from intrinsic reasons why this progress is good
and desirable, and how it corresponds to God's creative purpose.
JOHN H. WRIGHT,

s. J.

Jesuit School of Theology at Berkeley
Berkeley, California

Jacobus M. Ramirez, 0. P., Opera Omnia. Tomus I. De ipsa philosophia
in universum. 2 vols., ed. Victorinus Rodriguez, 0. P. Madrid: Consejo Superior de Investigaciones Cientificas. Instituto de Filosofia
' Luis Vives,'
pp. xxxii
881, with subject index, index of
Thomistic citations, and analytical index. 900 pts .

+

..,..,?

The two volumes here under review, which make up the first tome of
the Omnia Opera of the distinguished Spanish Dominican and Thomist,
Santiago Ramirez (1891-1967), are devoted to a full analysis of philosophy
in general, its nature, its component parts, and its distinctive characteristics. The work was begun over fifty years ago and approximately half
of the first volume has been published previously, in a series of articles
appearing in La Ciencia Tomista between 1922 and 1924. The remainder
of the first volume and all of the second were written between 1956 and
1958 but have not been published heretofore. Apparently Ramirez wished
to revise the manuscript in its entirety before putting the work into print,
and indeed set himself to this task in 1966 after he had finished his labors
on behalf of the Second Vatican Council. He was able to revise only
about fifteen pages before his death, however, and these now appear among
the introductory pages of the first volume. The portions of the work
that appeared in La Ciencia Tomista were translated into Spanish by Jesu
Garcia Lopez and published at Madrid in 1954 under the title Concepto
de Filosofia. The present Latin edition is therefore the first appearance
of the work in its complete form.
A superficial examination of the two volumes with their many distinctions and divisions could easily create the impression that this is scholasticism gone wild. The format, the concise Latin expression, the detailed
articulation of the treatise into parts, chapters, and articles, and the many
schematic diagrams will indeed appear formidable to philosophers who
have not had considerable scholastic training. But like all of Ramirez's
work, this is a truly exhaustive study of everything St. Thomas Aquinas
has to say about philosophy in general, its various fields, and their interrelationships among themselves and with other areas of knowledge. Not
only this, but the author ranges back into Greek antiquity for the sources

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of Aquinas's thought, and then surveys in detail and with extensive
quotation the entire commentatorial and manual traditions, as well as
opposing schools of thought, down to the present day. The serious student
cannot help but find the resulting work a treasure of information and rewarding insights that bear on recent discussions of the philosophical enterprise as a whole, even despite the fact that it eschews completely the
modern idiom and any reference to the contemporary problematic.
Ramirez tells us in his final attempt to reorganize the matter treated
in these volumes that he long wondered how to entitle it. His first thought
was to call it "The Essence of Philosophy" (Essentia philosophiae) , but this
he discarded as not broad enough for his purposes, since he wished to discuss
not only the nature or essence of philosophy but also its characteristic
method. Then he entertained the idea of naming it " The Philosophy of
Philosophy" (Philosophia ipsius philosophiae), a title which would enlarge
the scope all right but at the price of being too redundant and not properly
descriptive. His third choice was lengthier and more prosaic, " On Philosophy Itself, In General" (De ipsa philosophia in universum), but he
finally adopted this as accurately portraying his detailed reflection on the
nature, division, and method of philosophy, staying merely at a general
level and not descending into special problems associated with the various
fields into which the discipline is divided. It was his aim from the beginning, of course, to treat such a subject matter according to the mind and
spirit of Aristotle and Aquinas, and yet to do so without excluding the
thought of others. In this inspiration he acknowledges a debt to Leibniz,
who once remarked that having weighed all things he found the philosophy
of the ancients to be solid, needing only to be enriched, not destroyed,
by that of the moderns.
Part One is about one hundred pages in length and is concerned with
various definitions of philosophy, both nominal and real. In elaborating
the latter Ramirez first works out several descriptive definitions, some
based on the lives and activities of famous philosophers of the past, others
on various causes extrinsic to philosophy but nonetheless useful in defining
it, e. g., the way in which it develops in the mind of man, the goal or
inspiration behind it, and the characteristic abstractive and universal
knowledge that produces it. He concludes with a quasi-essential definition,
working first inductively through the characteristics of philosophy's various
fields, and then deductively, showing how from its end, the complete and
final perfection of man as this is naturally possible, can be deduced the
essential characteristic that philosophy is human wisdom, containing within
itself whatever truth and good man can attain naturally either by thought
or by action. He then contrasts the various aspects of his definition with
others that have been proposed, showing how these are either reducible
to his own or else are incomplete or even false.

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163

Part Two runs over three hundred pages and is concerned with the
different fields into which philosophy can be divided. It opens with a
historical account of various attempts at classification from antiquity to
the Renaissance, and then surveys in detail the schemata of Francis Bacon,
Descartes, Leibniz, Wolff, Kant, Gioberti, Comte, Durand, and Globot.
Then Ramirez provides his own division, approaching this through an
elaborate causal analysis to show the different parts that are required according to the exigencies of final, efficient, formal, and quasi-material
causality. Each causal analysis leads to the principal parts being enumerated as logic, mathematics, physics (including psychology) , ethics (including politics), and metaphysics. Having established the quantity or
number of the parts, Ramirez then turns attention to their quality, or
nature, arguing that as parts they are neither integral nor subjective but
rather potential and analogous. It is in establishing the latter conclusion
that the author's superb command of analogy comes to the fore and
sheds light on a significant problem that, to this reviewer's knowledge, has
previously never been discussed with any adequacy in the philosophical
tradition. Following this Ramirez discourses on the relationships between
the various parts of philosophy, ordering them again according to final,
efficient, and exemplary causality, and concluding with a reflection on
how all the other parts come to be arranged under metaphysics as first
philosophy.
Part Three is the longest, over four hundred pages, and is concerned
essentially with philosophical methods in investigation and in teaching
and with comparisons of such methods to those of other disciplines. With
regard to methods of philosophical investigation Ramirez argues steadfastly
for methodological diversity in the various fields; he is particularly critical
of those who would endorse either a mathematical or a metaphysical approach to every philosophical problem, the former exemplified by Descartes
and the rationalists and the latter by present-day scholastics. With regard to philosophy's order of teaching Ramirez surveys every opinion from
the Platonists to Ortega y Gasset, rejects most of the systematic and
manualist orderings, and reverts to that taught by Aquinas himself, namely,
logic first as a propadeutic, then mathematics, then physics and its extension into psychology, then ethics as subalternated to psychology, and
finally metaphysics. The last section of this part examines in special detail the relation of philosophy to theology and the consequences of this
for a proper understanding of the expression "Christian philosophy."
Ramirez rejects the interpretations of contemporary Thomists such as
Maritain and Gilson, using the analogy of Church-State relations in a wellordered realm to indicate how philosophy must be Christian in its search
for the truth just as civil society must be Christian in its pursuit of the
good,

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On the whole, as seen from this brief sketch of its contents, the work
is monumental. Viewed in the context in which it was written and considering the aims of its author, it would be difficult to conceive of a fuller
development of the nature and scope of philosophy in general as this
can be presented within the Aristotelian- Thomistic tradition. It is only
when one considers the work within broader contexts, and particularly
when Ramirez's views on philosophy are contrasted with those now current in Northern Europe and on the Anglo-American scene, that the work's
limitations become pronounced. In his discussion of method, for example,
Ramirez does not even mention analytical and phenomenological methodologies. In a particularly antiquarian way he continues to regard mathematics as a part of philosophy, and by this he does not mean philosophy of
mathematics but mathematical science itself. Indeed all of the modern
sciences, natural and social, are taken by him as branches of physics, although he does not articulate their interrelations in any way-probably
in accord with his intention to treat of philosophy only " in general."
Again, Ramirez does not countenance the expression " philosophy of ... ,"
and so perforce has no treatment of philosophy of religion, philosophy of
science, philosophy of art, philosophy of history, philosophy of language,
and so forth. But to have written a work that takes account of these
newer divisions of philosophy, and the piecemeal attacks on philosophical
problems now common among analysts and phenomenologists that such
designations reflect, clearly falls outside the task Ramirez set for himself.
A man's work, it would seem, should be judged in terms of the goals he
set for himself, and not in terms of other goals, however interesting, that
others might like to have set for him.
The two volumes are beautifully produced, and Father Victorinus
Rodriguez is to be congratulated for his editorial skill and dispatch in
making this material so quickly available to scholars. This reviewer noted
only one error of fact-the identification of John Dullaert of Ghent with
John of Jandun (p. 9)- and although there are numerous typographical
errors, as one might expect in any work printed in Latin these days, these
are corrected on a sheet of errata supplied with the volumes. All in all,
this is an auspicious beginning for Ramirez's Opera Omnia and augurs well
for the rest of the series.
WILLIAM

The Catholic University of America
Washington, D. C.

A. WALLACE, O.P.

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165

De Analogia. By SANTIAGO RAMiREZ, 0. P. Madrid: Instituto de Filosofia
'Luis Vives,' 1971. Editio praeparata a Victorino Rodriguez, 0. P.
Being Tomus II of the Opera Omnia of Ramirez in four volumes. Pp.
1947, with indices.
pesatas. (Paper)
Father Santiago Ramirez, 0. P. (1891-1967), who in the Twenties published through several issues of La Ciencia Tomista a study entitled " De
analogia secundum doctrinam aristotelico-thomisticam," the reading of
which has been de rigueur for subsequent students of the subject, spent,
as we now know, much of the remainder of a long lifetime in further reflection and writing on analogy in the hope of producing a massive and
definitive work. These four volumes, which make up Tomus II of his Opera
Omnia now in process of publication, contain the results of that lifelong
effort. They are not, however, quite the work he hoped to write. Like
the Summa Theologiae of his master, Ramirez's work on analogy remained
incomplete at his death but, again as with the Summa, projected parts
have been editorially completed by the substitution of earlier work of
Ramirez. The editor, Father Victorino Rodriguez, 0. P., gives us in his
introduction some idea as to how the work was conceived, planned, executed and prepared for the press, and we can see what the relation between the published version and the definitive plan is.
A first part of the work, devoted to the theory of analogy, was to comprise three sections: the notion of analogy; the division of analogy; the
properties of analogy. A second part was to comprise two sections, the
first of which would examine the use of analogy in philosophy, and the
second its use in theology. That was the plan. Father Ramirez did not
complete the historical survey of the development of the concept of analogy
meant for section one of Part One; he got as far as Plato. The projected
treatment of the properties of analogy was not written, but the editor has
found a treatment of this subject which dates apparently from the Twenties
and has included it here. None of Part Two was written, but Rodriguez
was fortunate in finding a lengthy treatise on the analogy of being which
dates, he thinks, from
as well as lectures on the use of analogy
in theology which were given in 1949. In this way, with the exception of
the incomplete historical survey, the present work can be said to be the
fulfillment of the plan Father Ramirez set himself and Father Rodriguez
is to be commended for his devotion, patience, and excellent editorial work.
Clearly it is impossible to review in any detail a work which spans some
nineteen hundred pages of text. I take my cue in what follows from the
editor's claim for what is particularly original in Ramirez' work. "Sed
specialiter originalis est nova propriaque interpretatio divisionis authenticae
thomisticae analogiae in analogiam attributionis intrinsecae et extrinsecae
et in analogiam proportionalitatis propriae et metaphoricae, superando

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limitationes et exaggerationes tam cardinalis Thomae de vio Caietani quam
Francisci Suarez, et, plus quam limitationem, extenuationem verae analogiae
Mcinerny diebus nostris." (p. ix) I need not say how heady it is to find
one's name on a list such as that, though the conditions of entry inspire
the thought of the man who was tarred and feathered: if it were not for
the honor I would forego the celebration. Since my views on analogy, in
a book the editor indicates Father Ramirez read (p. xv), amount to the
claim that the doctrine of analogy is a logical one, I suspected that this
low estimation of my contribution had something to do with that. And
indeed, in the text of the work, we find Father Ramirez, after a careful
examination of the claim that analogy is logical, rejecting it in favor of
the view that analogy is as such metaphysical. One is accordingly not a
little surprised to find the following rather solemn remark at the end of
the editor's preface: " Quandam retractationem quam auctor me rogavit
notandum in textu introductorio, forsitan edendo, malui hie animadvertere,
et textum traditum intactum servare. Discutiebat enim in articulo quarto
introductionis (pp. 20-4) cuius sit tractatum de analogia instituere, an
logici vel metaphysici. Tunc temporis Ramirez aestimabat veriorem et
profundiorem sententiam praevalentiae aspectus metaphysici in doctrina
analogiae, consentiens Dominico Bafiez, Joanni Sedefio et aliis, dissentiens
autem a Caietano, Joanne a Sancto Thoma et aliis. ' Modo autem-mihi
confitebatur ultimis diebus vitae suae-video veriorem esse sententiam
Caietani: quaestio analogiae est prae primis quaestio praedicationis sive
comparationis conceptuum proindeque logica prae primis. Corrigas, ergo,
quaeso, quae scripsi in Introductione hac de re.' " (pp. xii-xiii)
I cite this, not as an example of deathbed repentance, as if Ramirez
is to be thought of as having arrived at an interpretation his editor has
described as an "extenuatio verae analogiae "-after all, Cajetan is singled
out as the standard bearer of the view that analogy is logical-but as
an alteration of judgment which must have far-reaching consequences for
the issues subsequently taken up by Ramirez. It is a matter of great
and genuine lamentation that Father Ramirez did not adopt this interpretation of the status of analogy early enough for it to influence the writing
of this book.
What, in the text, are the arguments Ramirez considers on behalf of
the view that analogy is logical? They are two. (1) The science which
considers extremes should also study what falls between those extremes.
Analogy falls betwen univocity and equivocity. It falls to logic to study
equivocity and univocity. Ergo, etc. (p. 29) (2) It is for logic formally
to treat of the logical universal which is the second intention of universality
and thus an ens rationis. But analogy is formally a kind of logical universal, namely, the second intention of universality whereby the analogous
notion is such as to be in many analogates and to be predicated of them.
Ergo, etc. (pp. 29-30)

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167

How does Ramirez dispose of these in order to clear the way for his
adoption of the opposed view, namely, that analogy is metaphysical?
Ad primum: analogy is not sufficiently defined and made known by
negating and removing aspects of univocity and equivocity; the via
eminentiae must also be called into play if analogy is to be known positively by resolution to the supreme mode of analogy which is the analogy
of proper proportionality in real common being. Thus, in order to define
analogy, the terminus a quo pertains to the logician, but the terminus ad
quem is the province of the metaphysician. (p. 37) Ad secundum:
"Analogia in communi non est proprie loquendo universale logicum." There
are two kinds of universal, that properly so called, which is the univocal
universal, and this is properly studied by the logician.
Aliud est universale large et improprie dictum, quod est universalc analogum et
transcendens, sicut entitas, unitas, veritas, bonitas et ipsa analogia, quae transcendens est et transcendentalibus necessario et essentialiter imbibitur et hoc universalc
non est perfecta secunda intentio universalitatis, cum non sit perfecte et totaliter
abstractum a suis inferioribus, sed imperfectc tantum et secundum quid, eo modo
eaque ratione quibus secundum quid tantum et imperfecte abstrahit ab inferioribus
in quibus simpliciter imbibitur actu implicite ... Hoc ergo universale, quod melius
diceretur commune, non est formaliter secunda intentio, sed in recto dicit intentionem primam, connotando tamen secundam aut modum diminutum secundae
aliqualiter in obliquo; et ideo proprie exit limites considerationis Logicae, ut plene
cadit sub consideratione Metaphysicae.
(pp. 38-39)

It is easy to see why Ramirez came to abandon the view that analogy
is metaphysical, at least insofar as that view was grounded on arguments
like these. His refutation of the first argument for the logical character
of analogy assumes that there is logical analogy and that we understand
the former only by reference to the latter. That is why metaphysical
analogy is most truly analogy. This entails that the term "analogy"
ranges over both logical entities and real entities and the question then has
to be asked, how does it do this? If we say that " analogy " is analogous
as used in logic and in metaphysics, we must then be prepared to say
whether the explanation of this claim falls to logic or to metaphysics. But,
of course, the very contrast is set up in a way that is contestable. The
claim that analogy is logical is not tantamount to the claim that "analogy"
has a use in logic alone as, for example, to explain how " genus " ranges
over the predicable genus and the genus subiectum of science. But it is
the specter of the barber shop mirror consequence, the infinite regress,
that is most disturbing. If analogy is going to be invoked in explaining
what we mean by "analogy," we are either going in circles or embarking
on a voyage into that bourne from which no traveler returns.
The refutation of the second argument on behalf of the logical character
of analogy is no more forceful. Apart from the surprise one must feel to

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see " analogy " included in a list of transcendentals, it is clear that Ramirez
really wants to say that analogy attaches to being, one, true, and good.
To say that it thereby takes on the ontological properties of these carriers
is like saying that, since genericity attaches to animal, genus takes on
ontological or real properties of animal. Second intentions may all be said
to be connoted in obliquo by terms signifying the first intentions on which
the second intentions ride, so this is scarcely a distinguishing feature of
analogy.
The point in stressing the fact that Ramirez ended by abandoning the
position on the status of analogy argued for in the text is that his adoption
of the view that analogy is logical would necessarily have affected what
his editor, Father Rodriguez, regards as the chief contribution of the work,
its division of analogy. Perhaps "necessarily" is too strong; Cajetan is
taken to hold that analogy is logical, yet the cardinal's division of analogy
involves difficulties which seem to stem from his holding that real analogy
is somehow metaphysical and not merely logical.
De Analogia contains two extended treatments of the text in Aquinas
which, since Cajetan, has provided the locus for discussions of the division
of analogy, the famous passage in the exposition of the First Book of the
Sentences, d. 19, q. 5, a. f.!, ad 1m. (cf. pp. 1400-1417 and 18ll-1850) As
is well known, Cajetan thought he saw here a threefold division of
analogous names: Analogy of Inequality; Analogy of Attribution; and
Analogy of Proper Proportionality. The phrases of Thomas which respectively pick out these types, according to Cajetan, are: analogia secundum
esse et non secundum intentionem; analogia secundum intentionem et non
secundum esse; analogia secundum intentionem et secundum esse. The
originality of the interpretation of Ramirez resides in the fact that, leaving
aside analogia secundum esse tantum, he regards the remaining two to be
types of analogy of attribution with the difference between them founded
on intrinsic and extrinsic denomination. Ramirez's analysis of the disputed
passage is careful, detailed and, in many respects, illuminating. It represents a clear advance over that of Cajetan. Nonetheless, it falls heir to the
central difficulty of the cardinal's own interpretation of the passage, a
difficulty which arises from assuming that the text provides a division of
the analogous name into types. That the text does not support this initial
assumption is something I should like to show.
Prior to doing that, however, it may be well to give a preliminary
account of the analogous name which, relying exclusively on Aquinas,
employs throughout the second-order or logical vocabulary we should
expect. Once Thomas's own teaching on the matter is before us with all
its clarity and elegance, we can turn to the vexed text in the Sentences
and permit ourselves to be suitably surprised by what has been made of
it by otherwise careful and knowledgeable students of the Angelic Doctor.
One of the great merits of Ramirez' interpretation is that he has narrowed

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the difficulty that the logical view of analogy might seem to face in the
text to a single one. When that difficulty is faced and overcome, no impediment remains to accepting the teaching of St. Thomas that the doctrine
of analogous names is a logical one.
Is it possible to give a definition of the analogously common name in
second-order or logical terminology such that this definition will cover any
and all instances of analogous name which occur in the text of St. Thomas?
Such a definition would be of a piece with those given of names univocally
and equivocally common. Things are said to be named univocally when
they have a common name which means the same thing as said of each
of them. Thus we have a plurality of occurrences of the same name which
has the same meaning in each use. The phrase for that common meaning
is ratio propria and this is composite in a way we shall see.
Quando aliquid pr:wdicatur univoce de multis, illud in quolibet eorum secundum
propriam rationem invenitur, sicut animal in qualibet specie animalis. (Summa
Theol., I. q. 16, a. 6, c.)

Things are said to be named equivocally which have a name in common
but that name means different things as said of each of them. Thus we
have a plurality of occurrences of the same name and different meanings
of accounts in each use or occurence. This difference can be complete or
incomplete. How can this variation be expressed more clearly? If the
ratio is taken to be composite, made up of a res significata and a rrwdus
significandi, then the account given of a name used univocally can be said,
in each of its occurrences, to signify the same res and modus. A term used
purely equivocally will have quite different res and modi in the accounts
given of each of its occurences. A less than purely equivocal use of a term
will have accounts which are not the same but which are not completely
different. This is expressed by saying that a term may in a plurality of
uses involve the same res significata but different modi significandi. This
controlled equivocation is what Thomas means by an analogous name and
of it he speaks quite formally.
Sed quando aliquid dicitur analogice de multis, illud invenitur secundum propriam
rationem in uno eorum tantum, a quo alia denominantur.
(Ibid.)

It is because commentators have taken this to be true, not of any and
every analogous name, but of a particular type of analogous name that
they propose divisions of the analogous name which do increasing violence
to the text. In order that we might· see that this charge is not made
lightly, let us consider what Cajetan does with the texts we have been
quoting from Summa Theol., I, q. 16, a. 6, c., a text which is concerned
with precisely the same question as the disputed passage in the Sentences.
After the formal description of analogy just quoted; St. Thomas goes on

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to illustrate what he has said by reference to the venerable example of
"healthy."
Sicut sanum dicitur de animali et urina et medicina, non quod sanitas sit nisi in
animali tantum, sed a sanitate animalis dcnominatur medicina sana, inquantum
est illius sanitatis effectiva, et urina, inquantum est illius sanitatis significativa.
"Healthy" in the various uses of it in question here has one res aignificata,
health, which is differently signified in the various uses. " Healthy " as
it ranges over the various things of which it is here predicated may be
health." In each
thought of as involving the following form: "
of its uses the blank is filled in differently and this is productive of different
rationes which are the same insofar as they involve the same res significata
and different insofar as they involve different modi aignificandi. Thus, what
fill in the blank in the example of these various uses of "healthy " are:
a) subject of . . .
b) causative of
c) sign of ...
A variation of modi aignificandi is a necessary but not a sufficient condition of a name's being analogously common. To this must be added the
condition that one way of filling in the blank is privileged and takes
precedence over the others. How do we decide which ratio, which combination of res and modus, is the privileged one, is, in Thomas's phrase,
the ratio propria of the analogous term? Well, a sign that a ratio of the
analogous name is not its ratio propria is that it invokes, if only sotto voce,
what is the ratio propria. " Subject of health " is the ratio propria of
"healthy" because when we fill in the blank with "cause of ... ", say,
the full explanation of this meaning would seem to be: cause of health in
the subject of health. The ratio propria is not dependent on another modus
significandi.
What we have been doing is showing how a logical vocabulary is constructed on the basis of the example of "healthy." The doctrine can ·be
put quite schematically:
Let N be a common noun.
Let RS be the res significata, the denominating form.
Let MS be the modus significandi,the way of sigriifyingthe denominating
form.

Let MSA be an abstract mode of signifying, then
MSA/RS is the account of an abstract term: that whereby something is
such-and-such.
Let MSC be a concrete mode of signifying, then
MSA/RS is the account of a concrete term: that which has the form.

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171

The passage in I, q. 16, a. 6 which described univocity could be rendered
thus: When N is predicated univocally of many, it is found in each of
them according to the same MSC/RS.
Let AN be an analogous name.
The ratio communis of AN is "
/RS
The rationes of AN are MSC1/RS, MSC./RS, MSCa/RS.
The ratio propria of AN is MSC/RS insofar as MSC/RS implies, refers
to, involves, MSC1 /RS.

We can now construe the description of the analogous term thus: But
when N is said analogically of many, it is found according to MSC 1 /RS
in only one of them, from which the others are denominated.
Let me say that I am not particularly enamored of such schemata and
have every confidence that God loves the unlettered expression of our
views the best. The point of this quasi algebraic lapse is to underscore
what it is that the example of " healthy " is an example of. For what
happens when the text is read otherwise, let us glance at Cajetan's commetary on I, q. 16, a. 16. In paragraph V, Cajetan indicates that he
understands the phrase " illud in quolibet eorum secundum propriam
rationem invenitur," which shows up in Thomas's description of univocation, to be saying something ontological, something of a first intentional
kind, viz., that the form from which things are named univocally must be
intrinsically present in each of them. But " truth " said of God and
creature denominates both from a form or perfection each has. Divine
truth is not an ellipitical reference to created truth and vice versa. Given
this, Cajetan has a problem. Not only does he take Thomas's definition
of univocity to express the situation of " truth " said of God and creature,
he finds in Thomas's definition of analogy the denial of it. That is, he
understands the phrase " illud invenitur secundum propriam rationem in
uno eorum tantum," which occurs the description of analogy, to mean
that only one of the analogates is named from a form intrinsic to it.
Given all this, he does two things. First, he suggests that the ontological
situation he takes the description of univocity to express is not confined
to univocity. What is peculiar to univocity is that the formality intrinsically possessed by each of the univocates is signified in exactly the same way
by the term common to them. Surprising as it may seem, Cajetan is trying
to get the analogous term " truth " somehow under the umbrella of the
description Thomas has given of univocity. (n. V) This leads him, secondly, to dismiss the definition of analogy Thomas offers in the text: " illa
regula de analogo tradita in littera, non est universalis de omni analogiae
modo: imo, proprie loquendo, ut patet I Ethic., nulli analogo convenit,
sed convenit nominibus ad unum vel in uno aut ab uno, quae nos abusive
vocamus analoga." (n. VI) Among those guilty of abuse of terminology
would have to be counted Thomas himself, so that Cajetan is explaining

BOOK REVIEWS

this text, in effect, by saying if you want to know what Thomas means by
the analogy of "truth," forget what he says about analogy, what he is
calling analogy is not analogy at all, and rather reflect on his definition of
univocity. The definition of univocity, rightly and not abusively understood, will provide you with a clue to what real analogy is. Clearly something has gone seriously wrong here.
Since Cajetan's desire to stress the definition of univocity in explaining
true analogy stops short of saying that the analogous name is said
secundum rationem propriam of each analogate, he should have been prepared to see that " illud invenitur secundum propriam rationem in uno
eorum tantum " says nothing of whether the denominating form is intrinsic or extrinsic. The fact that the denominating form of "healthy,"
namely, health, is intrinsic to only one of the analogates is not what the
definition of analogy expresses at a level of generality. Cajetan has made
central to an understanding of analogy what is accidental to it, a feature
of the set of things called " healthy " which is not essential to seeing that
" healthy " is analogously common to them.
When we tum to the famous text in the Sentences we find that the
objection to which it is a response involves precisely the same confusion
Cajetan is guilty of.
Videtur quod omnia sint vera una veritate quae est veritas increata. Sicut enim
dictum est in· solutione praecedentis articuli, verum dicitur analogice de illis
in quibus est veritas, sicut sanitas de omnibus sanis. Sed una est sanitas numero
a qua denominatur animal sanum, sicut subjectum ejus, et medicina sana, sicut
causa ejus, et urina sana, sicut signum ejus. Ergo videtur quod una sit veritas
qua omnia dicuntur vera.

" like "healthy " is an analogous term. But the denominating form,
health, is numerically one form intrinsic to animal, which is its subject,
and medicine is called healthy as cause of health in the animal, and urine
is called healthy insofar as it indicates the health of the animal. But if
such is the case with the things analogously called "healthy," must not
the same be true of God and creature analogously called " true," viz.,
that the denominating form exits in only one of them?
A swift reply to this objection might go as follows. What makes a
name an analogous name has nothing to do with whether the denominating
form exists in one only or in all the analogates. The formally important
thing is that a term said analogously of several (a) while it signifies the
same res significata, does so in different ways, and (b) one way of signifying the denominating form is the proper sense of the term from which
the other (s) is (are) derived. This is what "healthy" and "true" have
in common as analogous terms. The first intentions to which these logical
properties attach will involve other and various features, but these features
being first intentional and expressive of the real, will not constitute a basis

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of dividing the second intention of analogous naming. The fact that the
denominating form of the term in question is an intrinsic form of one only,
each or none of the analogates, while a matter of importance from other
points of view, is accidental to what we mean by calling a term analogous.
Failure to take this into account is productive of the kind of objection to
which this is a reply.
That is not, however, the way in which St. Thomas handles the objection, though it contains the nub of his reply. He begins by saying that
something " dicitur secundum analogiam tripliciter " and there follow those
famous phrases:
a) vel secundum intentionem tantum, et non secundum esse,
b) vel secundum esse et non secundum intentionem,
c) vel secundum intentionem et secundum esse.

The second of these, (b) is discussed first by Cajetan. He calls it analogy
of inequality and denies that it is really an analogy. He calls (a) analogy
of attribution, and he takes the mark of it to be that the denominating
form exists only in the prime analogate so that the secondary analogates
are named by extrinsic denomination from the form in the primary
analogate.
third phrase is interpreted by Cajetan to be analogy of
proper proportionality, the chief notes of which are (i) that the denominating form exists in each of the analogates, and (ii) since each is
denominated from its own intrinsic form, there really is not a primary
analog ate.
Ramirez, while he devotes a great deal of careful and enlightening
analysis to (b), and indeed argues that it is truly analogy (Cf. p. 1560
ff.), disagrees most directly with Cajetan by saying that (a) and (c) are
types of analogy of attribution, their difference lying in the fact that (a)
involves extrinsic denomination in the extension of the term to secondary
analogates, while (b) does not; all the analogates are denominated from
their intrinsic form.
The second member of the threefold division Thomas gives is clearly
the crucial one. If, as seems to be the case, the meaning of analogia
secundum esse is such that it is perfectly compatible with the two things
so analogous being named univocally, then analogia secundum esse has
nothing to do with analogous naming. " Body " can be univocally common
to physical and mathematical bodies if we mean by the term " something
three dimensionally extended." Other features of these bodies not expressed
by such a definition may lead us to say that, however equalized (parificantur) they may be in this common notion, they are, in other respect,
unequal, analogous. Notice that we might then develop a number of
meanings for " body " which could be said to be related secundum prius et
posterius in that both meanings involve the same res significata but signify
it in different ways, and one of these may be taken to be controlling for

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the other. Once this has been done, however, we no longer have an example
of what is envisaged in (b). The inequality, the analogy, there spoken of
is one which is compatible with univocity. Very well. (b) does not express a type of analogous name. Therefore we cannot be faced with a
threefold division of the analogous name. (b) indicates that things which
are univocally named and are equalized with respect to the meaning of
the name in question may be unequal in ways not envisaged by that
name. Perhaps, then, (a) and (c) point out that the presence of an
analogous name leaves unsettled other matters, e. g., whether or not the
denominating form exists in each or only one or perhaps none of the
analogates. If so, such matters are accidental to an understanding of the
ordered set of meanings associated with the same name which leads us
to say that name is used analogously. But, just as obviously, since the
task of the philosopher is not to discover examples of logical relations but,
qua metaphysician certainly, to determine how it is with things, he will
not want to stop his inquiry with the recognition that a name is being
used analogously. He is interested in things, not simply as they are known
and named by us but as they are in themselves. It is a matter of the
utmost metaphysical importance whether perfections like wisdom, truth,
justice exist in God as well as in creatures. The metaphysician will want
to say that wisdom exists in God not as a perfection he has but as the
perfection he is, whereas our own wisdom is participated, distinct from
ourselves, something we can lose if we have it and must strive to get
if we do not. The importance of such issues is in no way diminished
by observing that they are not settled by saying that God and man are
called wise analogously. If we understood as the meaning of "wise" as
predicated of God " cause of created wisdom," our understanding might
be said to be less profound than it might be, but we could not be said to
misunderstand the analogy of names.
One cannot read this chef d'oeuvre of Father Ramirez without being
drawn into the discussion oneself, and I take it to be a tribute to its
author that the reader feels invited to agree or disagree, to take exception or to want to rephrase, in short, to engage in the life of the mind
which played so large a role in the spiritual vocation of Father Ramirez.
Throughout his long life he remained a faithful student of his master
and fellow Dominican, St. Thomas Aquinas. His writings are proof enough
that such docility is a stimulus and a good rather than an invitation to
intellectual laziness. It has long been the case that the student of analogy
had to turn to Father Ramirez. The present massive and masterful work
multiplies that necessity many times over. One can get lost for hours
at a time in these four volumes, each time to his profit. It is pleasant to
think that Father Ramirez, after a long lifetime walking faithfully in
the Dominican vocation to which he was called, is now among the saints,
in converse with Thomas and, infinitely more important, in union with
Truth itself.

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The editor, Father Rodriguez, is to be congratulated on a work which
besides being attractively printed and conveniently edited, contains an
index of names, a lengthy analytic index of the contents and, most Important, an index of the texts of St. Thomas cited and commented on.
RALPH

MciNERNY

University of Notre Dame
Notre Dame, Indiana

De Actibus Humanis: In I-II Summae Theologiae Divi Thomae Expositio.
By JAMES M, RAMiREZ. Madrid:

Instituto de Filosofia " Luis Vives,"

197Q. Pp. 64Q.
This fourth volume in Ramirez' Opera Omnia is a commentary on
Aquinas's Summa Theologiae, I-II, qq. 6 - Ql. The contents and their ordering are roughly determined by the Summa topics; the form of presentation (long prenotes, definitions, outlines, syllogistic argumentation, precisely logical replies to possible objections) is quite different from that
employed by Thomas in the Summa. Those unfamiliar with Aquinas often
find him too orderly, almost cold, when they first read him; Ramirez's terribly precise work makes one appreciate the pleasantly fluid movement
of Aquinas. The serious student of Thomas will be greatly helped by
turning to Ramirez, but he will soon find himself anxious to return to
Thomas.
The Catholic moral theologian should be interested in any commentary
on I-II, qq. 18- 21; he will want to learn how Thomas handled the circumstances of the situation, the consequences of the action, and the intention
of the moral agent within the framework of what has come to be known
as an "objective morality." The "prudence" of Thomas's Summa invites
an input from many sources other than the " moral object of the action " :
the contemporary moralist, faced with the popular emphasis on moral circumstances and/ or a calculus of consequences and/ or the moral quality
of the agent's intention, searches for a way to be honestly faithful to these
contemporary emphases as well as to the traditional emphasis on the moral
object of a human action.
A first glance at Ramirez will disappoint this searching moralist; a second,
and longer, glance should be rewarding. Unlike so many recent publications, Ramirez makes no attempt to dialogue with the contemporary scene.
His statement (one cannot truthfully call it a dialogue) is an attempt to
understand Aquinas, all the while taking note of other similar attempts
from the centuries which separate Ramirez from Aquinas. One can become
totally frustrated by the cascade of outlines rehearsed before almost every

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Question; nevertheless, it becomes clear that one's interpretation of Aquinas
will be influenced by one's outline of Aquinas's articles. Ramirez reports
the schemata proposed by other commentators and briefly argues about
their appropriateness; the reader is thereby led to appreciate the sublety
and underlying integrity of Aquinas's work. Similarly, seemingly endless
discussions of definitions and divisions of terms prove helpful in understanding Aquinas. Uneven attempts (" uneven " because some attempts
are far more persistent and fruitful than others) are made to recover the
intellectual milieu of Aquinas, thereby helping the reader understand the
significance of his teaching. (Especially valuable is the history included in
Ramirez's discussion of the nature and source of morality. Like today's
Catholic moral theologian, Aquinas had to concern himself with a seriously
proposed moral. positivism.) Again, the refinements of definitions and
divisions proposed since Aquinas are instructive in coming to understand
him and to appreciate the intellectual originality of each commentator.
Finally, the least useful part of Ramirez's work is the syllogistic arguments; these complete the Scholastic mode but seem especially jarring
vis-a-vis the more gentle argumentation of the Summa. The syllogism,
so presented, always threatens to " prove " more than can be proved, or
at least suggests greater rational certitude and logical completeness than
one likes to associate with the mystery of· man's return to God; here especially is the Summa more attuned to today's theologian.
Ramirez does not limit himself to these few questions of the Summa in
his commentary. He draws upon other sections of the Summa to complement and understand these few questions; he looks to AquinM's other
works to indicate growth in the Doctor's teaching. Even within the context of this single volume there is helpful cross-reference. While this reviewer is prejudiced toward the significance of qq. 18the psychology
of human acts developed in the earlier thirteen questions is not merely
helpful for, but is essential to any unde;standing of the four questions
which treat specifically of the morality of human acts. The contemporary
moralist who hears well-argued suggestions that determinism is the paradigm for understanding human activity will want to consult Aquinas's
words on free choice (it is intriguing to assert that a certain degree of effective attraction, a certain directedness of affection, one might say a certain
degree of determinism, is needed for the true exercise of freedom); Ramirez
helps us understand Aquinas. Likewise, as God's Pilgrim People grapple for
an understanding of the role of ecclesial authority in concrete moral
decision-making, theologians will want to understand the role of taking
counsel; here again, Ramirez casts some light on Aquinas.
.
I have said that Ramirez does not dialogue with the contemporary scene,
and yet I mean to assert that theologians on the contemporary scene can
profit from studying Ramirez. Theological discussion in a pluralistic atmosphere depends upon each party to the discussion understanding as best he

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can the various positions; indeed, the theologian not thoroughly familiar
with his own tradition sheds little light on an ecumenical stage. The
temptation is to nod graciously in the direction of whatever sounds nice;
this makes for pleasant tea but aimless theology. Even those whose discussion is quite intramural, within an increasingly pluralistic Roman
Catholicism, often fail to understand the depth and sophistication of other
points of view. Ramirez':; work should contribute to a better understanding
of a not uninfluential strain of thought in the Roman Catholic tradition;
dialogue with the pressing questions of today will be profitable to the extent that at least a few of the participants are familiar with the theological
school which Ramirez has served so well.
WILLIAM

J. FINAN, 0. P.

Dominican House of Studies
Washington, D. C.

Textus Breviores Theologiam et Historiam Spectantes. Collezione della
Pontificia Accademia Teologica Romana. Liberia Editrice Vaticana.
(1) Ba:rtolomeo Carranza, 0. P., Arcivescovo di Toledo ( t 1576) De
Mysticis Nuptiis Verbi Divini cum Ecclesia et Animabus Iustorum. By
ANTONIO PIOLANTI. Pp. 55. L. 400 (2) Agostino Favaroni da Roma,
0. S. A., Arcivescovo di Nazaret ( t 1443) De Sacramento Unitatis
Christi et Ecclesiae sive de Christo Integro. By ANTONIO PIOLANTI.
Pp. 77. L. 700 (3) Guglilemo Amidani da Cremona, 0. S. A. Vescovo
di Novara (t 1366) De Primatu Petri et de Origine Potestatis Episcoporum. By ANTONIO PIOLANTI. Pp. 52. L. 500 (4) Domenico de'
Domenichi, Vescovo di Brescia ( t 1488) Oratio in laudem Beatissimae
Caterinae de Senis. By ANTONIO PIOLANTI. Pp. 38. L. 400
(I) Bartolomeo was one of the Imperial theologians of Charles V at
the Council of Trent, a contemporary of the great Vitoria and of Melchior
Cano of the school of Salamanca. This is one of his unpublished works.
It aims at harmonizing the community aspects of the marriage of God's
Word with his Church and the more personal aspect of the marriage, so
dear to St. Bernard. This suited the trend of piety fostered by the reform
of Trent.
Shortly after becoming the Archbishop of Toledo the author passed
through a cloud of suspicion because of his commentary on the Christian
Catechism. He was imprisoned by the Inquisition, but his cause was
vindicated by Pope St. Pius V, during whose pontificate his work on the

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mystical marriage was written. This more than guarantees his orthodoxy,
and although it is not remarkable for originality, it succeeds in systematizing a treatise that was vaguely mystical, and it gathers together the
scattered sources on the subject, biblical, patristic, and theological.
The editor of these texts presents the second fruit of his painstaking
research in the hope that it will help students to understand neglected
periods and personalities in the history of theology.
The author of this work in mystical ecclesiology was born at Rome in
1360 and died in Prato in 1443. He was for two terms the Prior General
of the Augustinians. Nominated Archbishop of Nazareth in Italy he participated in the Council of Basle, which at its QQnd session condemned a
number of statements contained in his works, especially his lectures on the
Apocalypse. Although he commented on the philosophy of Aristotle, he
took little notice of St. Thomas, while attempting to give new and original
answers to questions already profoundly examined by him. This was due
to his critical reaction to the decadent scholasticism of his own time.
But his errors began from this arrogant originality. This work on the unity
of the Church was written to solve problems arising from the great schism
of the West.
(3) Msgr. Piolanti gives another reason for publishing this series of
textus breviores which is applicable to this fourteenth-century study of the
relations between popes and bishops: this question received new attention during and since the Second Vatican Council. The editor regrets the
haste with which articles were written and, in the light of this and other
neglected sources, sees the need for revising inaccurate statements bearing
on the history of the theology of this question.
To help scholars, the general editor of these texts has published this
work of Guglielmo Amidani, who was for sixteen years Prior General
of the Augustinians and later Bishop of Novara. The original title of the
treatise was Reprobatio Sex Errorum, an answer to Marsilio di Padova and
Giovanni di Gionduno in whose Defensor Pacis there were many disturbing
statements concerning the relations of Church with State and concerning
the origin and powers of the Roman Pontiff. Pope John XXII asked
Guglielmo da Cremona to give him a theological judgment of the work.
The errors tended to make the Church subservient to the State and contained a denial of the primacy of Peter. The six answers contain an interesting but neglected contribution to ecclesiolgy.
(4) In publishing this Oration in praise of St. Catherine Msgr. Piolanti
wished to show the saint's influence extended beyond her contemporaries.
He says: "After her disappearance from the stage of the world, there
began for her a second life, even on this earth, because her presence was
felt not only by her immediate and never to be forgotten disciples but by
all those who with sincere attention read her works." One of these was
Domenico de' Domenichi, Bishop of Brescia and Vicar of Rome under

BOOK REVIEWS

l'iO

Paul IT, during whose pontificate he fell from favor because· he opposed
the autocratic policy of Papa Barbo.
The oration was made at the Basilica of Santa Maria sopra Minerva
1468, on the occasion of the first celebration of the feast after
on May
Catherine's canonization. The solemnity was transferred to Good Shepherd
Sunday. The preacher built his oration around the text: "oves meae
vocem meam audiunt." Pope Pius IT was present with the entire papal
court. The oration is based on the documents of the process of her
canonization and on the biography of Blessed Raymond of Capua. But it
is her influence on this great figure of the fifteenth century that Msgr.
Piolanti seeks to evoke in bringing to light the only published work of
Domenichi. They were times when long orations were listened to as one
listens to good music, for oratory was still an art. After turning over
twenty pages the orator looked at the Pope and the Cardinals and said:
" Possem, Reverendissimi Patres, multa alia persequi, sed ea quae dixi
percipio fuisse longiora. Quamquam enim nihil ad commendationem eius
praeclarius sit, quam in eius laudibus quis finem reperire non possit,
habendum tamen est a me orationi modus, neque humanitate vestra, qui
me benigne audistis, abutendum." They knew the peroration was about
to begin.
JEROME TONER, O.P.
St. Charles' Seminary
Nagpur, India

Theology Today Series. 15. Why Were The Gospels Written? By JOHN
AsHTON, S. J. Notre Dame Ind.: Fides Publishers, 1978. Pp. 91. $.95.
The central position of the four gospels within the Christian tradition
is an acknowledged fact; we rely on them almost exclusively for our information regarding the person of Jesus of Nazareth, his life, his teaching,
and his message of salvation. How reliable are they as witnesses to the
events that they proclaim? Do they present us with objective history, or
interpreted history, or are they a combination of both? These and other
.related problems have been the subject of prolonged study by Christian
exegetes over many decades.
Fr. Ashton, in his little booklet, traces briefly the history of the different
solutions proposed by scholars to the problems posed by the gospels, evaluating the pros and cons of each theory as he goes along. In the central
chapters of the book he outlines in a simple and lucid manner the development of the gospel traditions from their oral beginnings through their
final written form as they are found in the four gospels, pointing out that

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these traditions are " neither biography nor memoir nor catechesis nor
kerygma, but a mixture of all four blended together." (p. 51) His treatment of the more important themes of each of the four gospels, e. g., the
messianic secret in Mark, salvation history in Luke, etc., is both helpful
and instructive.
MAURICE G. FEARON, O.P.
St. Charles' Seminary
Nagpur, India

The Science of Sacred Theology for Teachers. I. Introduction to Theology.
(Pp. 70) II. Revelation. (Pp.
III. The Channels of Revelation.
(Pp. 84) By EMMANUEL DoRONZO. Middleburg, Virginia: Notre
Dame Institute Press, 1978.
The style and method of these three booklets suggest a close dependence
on the Latin text of the author's Theologia Dogmatica. As they represent
an attempt to adapt the latter to the needs of teachers, the result would
have been more successful, one feels, had the author been prepared to
move further away from the categories and procedures of the Latin text.
The preponderance of terms that are crudely literal translations from the
Latin can hardly be helpful to teachers, who are after all expected to pass
on much of the information to their pupils. It would be preferable if the
meaning of technical terms were clear from the text itself without need
to refer to the glossary included in each booklet.
The author's treatment of his subject is quite satisfactory in Books
one and three, which are largely positive in character. In Book 2, Revelation, however, it is marred by a too exclusive concern with the rational
credibility of Revelation to the neglect of its more theological aspects and
its relevance to the conduct of life. It is clear from the rejection of the
.original schema of the Constitution on Revelation at the Vatican Council
that the Fathers were dissatisfied with the traditional approach. It is
surprising, then, to find the author using it so exclusively. These booklets
should appeal most to those who feel that the traditional approach of the
theological manuals safeguards the truths of faith better than that of
modern theological writing.
P. McCARROLL, 0. P.
St. Charles' Seminary
Nagpur, India

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181

Concepts in Education Philosophical Studies. Ed. by J. V. D'CRuz and
P. J. SHEEHAN, Melbourne, Australia: Mercy Teachers College-Twentieth Century Publications, 1973. Pp. 96.
This survey of educational theory by a group of philosophers is a useful
reference tool. That the writers are located in Australia and New Zealand
may come as a surprise considering how little attention professional journals
here focus on that corner of the globe. Of course, Australian novelists
like Morris West and Patrick White do make our best seller lists, but
philosophers from their homeland are a rarity in the academic pantheon.
In nine essays the authors discuss such topics as educating and indoctrination, education and creativity, and a critique of Ivan Illich's "Descholling
Society." Bibliographies accompany several of the essays.
Dr. I. A. Snook of New Zealand treats of "Moral Education," a timely
topic and one which has traditionally been a concern for Anglo-Saxon
thinkers. It is no mere fad that both in England and the United States
moral education is very much an "in" subject just now. The work of
John Wilson at Oxford and his associates on schemes of moral education
which are value neutral is summarized, as is the empirical research of
Lawrence Kohlberg at Harvard, with his famed six stages for moral development. On the related subject of "Religious Education" Dr. P. J.
Sheehan from Melbourne enquires first how it can be a form of education and, then, if it is a religious form of education. Can there be activity, he asks, an activity which is both concerned with a particular religion, and at the same time meets accepted criteria of education? This
activity is not to be equated with a study about religious phenomena.
The question raises the thorny issue as to whether and in what sense religious education is viewed as indoctrination. The paper on " Educating
and Indoctrinating" by Dr. John Kleinig offers some helpful insights here.
Dr. Sheehan acknowledges that his brief attempt to describe what the
concept of religious education means draws heavily on a thesis from the
University of Melbourne. The essay could be improved with some references to current catechetical literature. The absence of any bibliography
for this paper is particularly unfortunate.
The contributors to this collection have dealt with their specific topics
on the premise that educational questions do have a philosophical basis
whether they are concerned with improving the quality of teaching or
scrutinizing the values that are taught. One would like to supplement
this collection with still another which would focus on a much neglected
area, a theology of education.
MicHAEL DoNNELLAN, S. V. D.
University of Dayton
Dayton, Ohio

BOOKS RECEIVED
Barnes & Noble, Inc.: Religion and Philosophy, by Frederick C. Copleston.
Pp. 205, $16.00); Freedom and Resentment and Other Essays, by
P. F. Strawson. (Pp. 222, $11.50)
Les Editions Bellarmin: Augustin: Qui est Jesus Christ?, by Fernand
Arsenault. (Pp. 184} ; Lea Structures Dynamiques de la GTdce, by
Jean-Marc Laporte, S. J. (Pp. 244}
Consortium Press: Thomas Merton. The Man and his Work, by Dennis
Q. Mcinerny. (Pp. 140, $7.95)
Eglise et Theologie: Saint Thomas Aquinas Commemorative Colloquium
(127 4-197 4). (Pp. 190, $2.50)
Exposition Press, Inc.: Why Does Evil Exist? A Philosophical Study of
the Contemporary Presentation of the Question, by Colm Connellan,
0. M. I. (Pp. 18, $10.00}; Allodialism-The Ownership of an Estate:
The Pure Philosophy of Economy-The Case for a Non-Reciprocal
System, by Thomas A. Mulsow. (Pp. 95, $4.00)
Fides Publishers, Inc.: Theology Today. 17 The Theology of GTace, by
Cornelius Ernst, 0. P. (Pp. 96); 28 The Theology of Secularity, by
Gerald O'Collins, S. J. (Pp. 94, $1.25 each); Vision and Virtue. Essays in Christian Ethical Reflection, by Stanley Hauerwas. (Pp.
278, $5.00)

The Free Press: The Supreme Court and Religion, by Richard E. Morgan.
(Pp. 224, $8.95)
Alfred A. Knopf: Warriors of Peace, by Lanzo del Vasto. (Pp. !!86,
$7.95); Make Straight the Way of the Lord, by Lanza del Vasto.
(Pp. 266, $7.95)
The Language Press: Emotion. The Method of Philosophical Therapy, by
Warren Shibles. (Pp. 492, $8.00 paper, '$10.00 hardcover)
Littlefield, Adams & Co.: Reason and Violence, ed. by Sherman M.
Stanage. (Pp. 268, $8.50)
Macmillan Publishing Co.: Lions and Foxes. Men and Ideas of the
Italian Renaissance, by Sidney Alexander. (Pp. 886, $12.95) ;
Memoirs, by Josef Cardinal Mindszenty. (Pp. 870, $10.00); Crafts
of Israel, by Ruth Dayan with Wilburt Feinberg. (Pp. 175, $16.95)
Magi Books, Inc.: Jacques Maritain: Homage in Words and Pictures, by
John Howard Griffin and Yves R. Simon. (Pp. 76, $12.95)
Martinus Nijhoff, Publisher: The Commentary of Conrad of Prussia on the
De Ente et Essentia of St. Thomas Aquinas, by Joseph Bobik. (Pp.
208, Guilders 89.50)

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Ohio University Press: Heidegger on the Divine. The Thinker, the Poet
and God, by James L. Perotti. (Pp. 134)
Quadrangle/The New York Times Book Co.: The New Gods, by E. M.
Cioran, transl. by Richard Howard. (Pp. 120, $5.95)
Rinehart Press: Philosophy: An Introduction to the Art of Wondering,
by James Christian. (Pp. 553, $11.95)
Casa Editrice G. C. Sansoni: La filosofia di Marx. Studi critici. 5a edizione
riveduta e accresciuta a cura di Vito A. Bellezza, by Giovanni
Gentile. (Pp. 303, L. 3.000)
Dr. E. Sauer, Pragmatik. Bessere Politik durch besseres Volkerrecht. (Pp.
170, 12.- DM)
Libreria Editrice Vaticana: Pio IX e Antonio Rosmini, by Gianfranco
Radice. (Pp. 369); Il " Trattadello della Disposizione che si Ricerca
a Recever la Gratia del Spirito Santo " di Fra Lorenzo da Bergamo,
0. P., by Antonio Piolanti. (Pp. 42)