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.

JULY, 1975

No.3

IS LONERGAN'S METHOD ADEQUATE TO
CHRISTIAN MYSTERY?

( ( WHAT HAS Athens to do with Jerusalem?" Since
Tertullian's question of so long ago, the two
have hardly been sister cities; and the theologian who shuttles between these two centers travels a tricky
road. To what degree Christian faith has been hellenized by
Athenian philosophy; to what degree it has been the destruction
of hellenic theology, are large historical questions that continue to tease the current theological scene. Here, as a minor
variant to this great question of Tertullian, I would like to
ask what Christian faith has to do with theological method.
More specifically, what is the relationship of Christian faith
to Bernard Lonergan's Method in Theology?
St. Paul expressed his conviction that a certain madness
would be associated with the faith of Christians (1 Cor 1: 2025) . The Gospel disconcerts our presupposition, becoming a
scandal to the practised traditions of the religious and a folly

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to the rounded systems of the wise. And theology, as a
reflection on such a faith, is likewise vulnerable. In relation
to other disciplines, theology is often caught between defending its right to exist and pushing forward its own intelligent
concerns.
Now theology must surely aim at being an exact science.
However, this degree of exactitude is to be judged from its
own inner exigencies and not by its degree of conformity to
the precision of mathematics or psychology. Its method is
exact in the measure it respects the unique data that are
presented. For the Christian, such uniqueness is offered in
the Word Incarnate when faith asks "Who shall separate us
from the love of Christ? " (Rom 8: 35) and when such faith
states: " for God so loved the world that he gave his only
Son." (Jn 3: 16) There is a scandal, indeed, of particularity
at a time when we are beginning to have some inklings of
the universal history of man and the galactic proportions of
the universe. The tolerance of academe is affronted. If the
Christian theologian succeeds in not giving offence, it is probably because he is cautiously restating what to other disciplines
is obvious, or that he is regarded as something less than an
astrologer.
It is now a few years since Lonergan offered us his M etlwd. 1
Anyone engaged in the business of doing theology today will
recognize an outstanding contribution when he sees one. Such
a book builds up theology's self-respect and helps it to manage
its own household. It commends theology as a partner to the
other human sciences, as cooperative and concerned in terms
of modern culture. The obscurantist and especially the mystified academic colleague have a chance to see that the Christian
community is capable of a critical self-awareness along with
a sophisticated sense of history and the whole cultural enterprise. Since Lonergan has surefootedly occupied the vantage
point of critical self-appropriation, he is in the position to
send theology into the arena of learning, not as one of the
1 London:, Darton, Longman and Todd, 1971. Hereafter cited in the text as
MT with page number added.

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dull, four-footed beasts to be tormented but as a member
of the gladiatorial team. For faith shows forth a reasonableness
that draws its vigor from the summons that man experiences
to transcend himself in the direction of what is truly real,
really good, and ultimately holy.
Lonergan has differentiated his task as a methodologist.
Insight has stressed that any grasp of truth is the fruit of
authentic subjectivity. Method shows how this must be the
case also for religious truth. In his description of the polymorphic structure of consciousness the author of this book
brings some sense into the variety of .specializations that
theology employs. By developing the notion of religion as the
field of self-transcending love he opens the way for an appreciation of the enduring value of religion as a depth and redeeming force in human culture. He allows that such love
is expressed and promoted in a multiplicity of traditions,
Christian and otherwise. Thereby he secures a foundation not
only for tolerance but also for collaboration beyond the bounds
of creed and culture. By taking his stand on what is fundamental to all cultures, the self-transcending drive towards
authentic values, he offers the promise of a theoretical and
practical coherence for the total human enterprise. Through
a complex yet integrated analysis of the operations of theology
he overcomes any illusion of speaking with " modern man "
without becoming thoroughly modern in techniques of knowing.
Communication is the genuine fruit of a personal assimilation
of truth. And so it is that, if today's theologians are befuddled
at the ever increasing complexity of the task, whether they
are timidly fibrillating or wildly threshing, Lonergan's Method
makes a lot of sense.
Our author cites Friedrich Schlegel's words: "A classic is
a writing that is never fully understood, but those who are
educated and educate themselves must learn more from it."
(MT, 161) I apply such a statement to Method. The reviews
have been written. The Ph. D. theses are worming their way
to the light. But now I think it is appropriate to ask some
basic questions about the meaning of this book, so that, for

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ANTHONY J. KELLY

the treatment of whatever it is that ails theology, we might
begin to get beyond the prescription to the remedy.
Now, for me, the point at which this "classic ... is never
fully understood " turns on the manner in which it respects
the distinctively Christian character of theology. I think it is
obvious that in this book we have a quite beautiful treatment
of religion. The mind must reflect on it since a range of data
vitally relevant to man's making of man is openned up.
Therein, at least, we have a solid basis for "Religious Studies."
Further, in his specific allowance for Doctrines as one of the
eight functional sperialties, Longeran is demanding a thoroughgoing consideration of the force and content of religious beliefs.
This is naturally of special importance for Catholic Theology.
Yet, specific when compared to the religious character, and
fundamental in relation to the Catholic character, there arises
the issue of the Christian character of theological method.
And here precisely is my question: how does this theological
method take faith in Christ into its inner vitality? How is
Lonergan's Method alive to the unique, the original, the
absolute element in Christian faith? There are some puzzles.
The very asking of this question concerning the manner and
degree to which faith in Christ enters into theological method
might well indicate that I am thinking of method as a "set
of rules to be followed meticulously by a dolt." (MT, xi)
Perhaps, to borrow Chesterton's phrase, I am engaged in the
elephantine pursuit of the obvious. After all, Lonergan is
certainly a Christian theologian and, as a professor in Rome,
has written hundreds of pages in Latin on the Incarnation and
the Trinity. 2 Nonetheless, we are not discussing the faith or
the fortitude of the author; the message of the book is our
present concern, and I think there is a decent kind of question
there. Any method is, after all, a pattern of operations. To
write about such a pattern is obviously to bring such a set of
operations to expression and to locate them within a certain
• De Constitutione Christi; De Verba lnarnato; De Deo Trino (Rome: Gregorian
University Press, 1964).

IS LONERGAN's

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context. Such an expression communicates an approach to the
subject, for it implies a tone, a stress, an attunement, a range
of reference, and a field of experience-in a word, a feel for
the reality that is engaging the questioning mind. To adapt
the phrase of another sage of Toronto, the method is the
message.
What, then, is the message that Method communicates?
More precisely, what message is communicated about the significance of faith in Christ for our manner of doing theology?
How does theological method, implicitly or explicitly, arise
from and return to our living of the Mystery of Christ, the
Word Incarnate, dead and risen, living now in the community
of the faithful, continuing his ITJiission as universal Lord?
Such questions are almost fundamentalist in their bluntness
whilst Method is such a refined and delicately balanced piece
of work. But I have come to see that there is no easy answer.
On this precise and fundamental issue Lonergan is notably
elusive.
Before coming to the examination of some key references,
it might be as well to indicate some basic presupposotions about
Christian theology so that it will be clear with what frame of
mind I am reading Method. In the hope that I have escaped
complete eccentricity on this issue, this might be shared by
many others who read this book with attention to its Christian
orientation.
First of all, there is the possibility of forestalling this whole
question by the rather devastating " Why should Christ make
any difference to theological method? " This type of question
is quite illuminating. It suggests presuppositions about what
is absolute and original in Christian experience, and more
basically, an implicit approach to theological knowing. The
extremes are clear. Either make theological method into a
function of faith, or see faith as any faith, a mere range of
data that theology will dispassionately survey in the light of
a method designed to ensure such detachment and disinterestness. At this juncture, because of the irrationality of allowing
theology to become either the ideology of a sect or a stance

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ANTHONY J. KELLY

of concerned religious skepticism, all we can demand of a
method is that it be not so generalized as to suppress some
data for fear of disconcerting its anticipations. The mold
can so easily be prepared into which the mystery must fit. The
occupational hazard of the methodologist is, I suppose, some
kind of unwarranted anticipation of reality.
When, however, we actually consider Christian theology,
our question can he answered in one obvious way. Christian
faith affects method by demanding that there be a Christology.
There is an exigence to express with precision doctrines concerning Christ, the incarnation, the redemption, the saving
significance of his death and resurrection, his relationship to
the Church, and so forth. Systematics will explore the intelligibility of such doctrines, given a contemporary context, fresh
philosophical insights, the advance of scholarship, the extension of the human sciences. That is the obvious answer; but
is there not something more? Does not faith in Christ enter
into the very foundation of theological method? If our conversion is to him, if in him we see the Father, (Jn 14: 5-11)
if all things are made in him, through him and for him, (Col 1:
15-18) does not faith in Christ offer a basis of thought and
exploration that can never be reduced to the Christological
theory? Does it not become the principle for the revision of
all Christologies, and even, in an ultimate sense, of our knowledge of humanity itself? Theology treats of a datum, a
" donum," before it considers " data." Such a datum is God's
self-communication in Christ. Christ is a living presence to
the Christian community to which Christian theologians belong,
which invites them to exercise the special office of reflection
and teaching. If God has first loved us, (Jn 4: 10 f) theology
must promote to fundamental importance the "self-transcendence " of God enacted in the incarnation, death, and resurrection of Christ. The divine self-transcendence precedes and
provokes the human. Is not this self-gift of God the foundation
of theology rather than man's self transcendence in the
direction of the divine? Which is more fundamental to theological thinking? Here we have a question that I regard as
basic for a critical reading of M ethocl.

IS LONERGAN'S

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Then there is the reality of the theologian himself. His
personal faith affects his approach, his sensibilities, the range
of data he will consider pertinent, the kind of evidence he finds
convincing, the authorities he holds to be worth hearing, his
inspiration in expression, and the audience with whom he
presumes to communicate. Since, in a word, he enters into his
work, might we not expect that a specifically Christian experience will animate his explorations and make specific demands
on his method? As a member of the Christian community
he has access to a range of data and :t type of evidence that
has its own originality. His authenticity demands that he
appropriate his function with respect to this. Just as it would
be bad method to dismiss the judgments of other minds as
silly or irresponsible or impious (without due deliberation), it
would be just as deficient to hold back from the experience, the
insight, the evidences, the certainties of those who find the
culmination of their existence in the revelation of God in
Christ. Is he not challenged to give utterance to the selftranscendence of a redeeming God who summons man to
freedom, a mystery of giving and receiving that is brought to
definitive realization in Christ?
In regard to such faith, it is true that the theologian can
feel his role to be that of a detached observer, a kind of transcendental camera-man . Perhaps his involvement takes him
further so that he is at least a spectator in an interesting game,
from time to time contributing his encouragment. He may feel
that he is rejected as one who is desecrating the sacred temple
by his presence. On the other hand, he may accept a special
office within the community of faith, standing neither outside
the mystery he reflects on nor bracketting it as an essence to
be scrutinized. As radically engaged in the common faith he
may offer his critical and expressive powers as a service to
the community and as a homage to Mystery from which such
a community draws its life.
If a Christian theology is to facilitate a distinctive selfunderstanding and commitment in the world, it is to be
expected that there will be something distinctive about its

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ANTHONY J. KELLY

method and style as it seeks to bring its unique Word to
expression. The " subject matter " should command the nature
of the method, and certainly we must be alert against the
possibility of allowing a prior method b delineate the subject
matter independently. As Karl Rahner has remarked,
In the long run theological methodology will only be convincing
when it brings man into immediate contact with the subject matter
itself, and in the last analysis this is, once and for all, not faith and
the theology that goes with it, but that which is the object of
faith, because faith itself is only itself when it surrenders itself to
that which it itself is not, even while the man of faith is convinced
that this greater entity which he cannot comprehend can become
an event in this faith of his.3
Theology, let alone its subject matter, can never be reduced
to the methodology that the theologian may employ. 4
I have not the slightest intention of casting any doubt on
Father Lonergan's authentically Christian theology. Indeed,
his Latin tracts are firmly anchored in the " vera revelata fidei
Christianae "; "non a datis sed a veris incipit." 5 My concern
is with the way Method can be read; and since I consider it a
3 Reflections
on Methodology in Theology," Theolo{jicol Investigations II
(London: DLT, 1974), p. 84.
'Rahner, op. cit., p. 83. With specific reference to a chapter in Method (Ch.5),
see "Some Critical Thoughts on 'Functional Specialties in Theology'," in Foundations of Theology, ed. Philip McShane. S. J. (Notre Dame, Ind.: University
of Notre Dame Press, 1972) p. 194-196. Lonergan, on p. 233, makes this response:
" Clearly functional specialties as such are not specifically theological. Indeed
the eight specialties we have listed would be relevant to any human studies
that investigated a cultural past to guide its future. Again since the sources
to be subjected to research are not specified, they could be the sacred books
and traditions of any religion. Finally, while there is a theological principle
assigned, still it is not placed in authoritative pronouncements but in the religious
conversion that turns men to transcendent mystery; and while I believe such a
turn to be always God's gift of gmce, still it becomes specifically Christian conversion when the gift of the Spirit within us is intersubjective with the revelation
of the Father in Christ Jesus." The degree to which the specifically Christian
conversion is respected in Method is our present query.
• See De Deo Trino II, p. 20, and also on the development of Lonergan's
thought on this point, F. E. Crowe, S. J., "Dogma versus the Self-Correcting
Process of Learning," Foundations of Theology, pp. 22-40.

IS LONERGAN's

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445

work of outstanding importance, and hence should be read,
this is surely a valid concern.
Let us now approach the text more directly.

II
As we turn to the text of Method, we expect to find in " this
framework of creativity" a model, yet " something more than
a model " for the theological enterprise, relevant to more than
Roman Catholic theologians. (MT, xii) For this purpose
Lonergan draws our attention to the phenomenon of religious
conversion, the ultimate in self-transcendence, a dynamic state
of being in love with God. (MT, 104ff) Concerning this individual and social occurrence much data are to be found. The
theologian's own conversion will atune him to the task. (MT,
Q71) On this whole matter Lonergan has written with great
devotion.
We find it stated that this dynamic state of being in love
with God is, in fact, sanctifying grace. 6 As such, it is a gift,
indeed, the gift of love. To reinforce this conviction, Romans
5: 5 is cited with a repetitiousness worthy of St. Augustine. 7
This would indicate that the methodological presupposition is
that the Holy Spirit is flooding the hearts of all authentically
human beings with his love. I have some hestitation at this
point. Is this general reality of religious love as indicated
by the somewhat problematical testimony of Heiler to be immediately interpreted as the Christian reality of love communicated to us by the Spirit of Christ? 8 Can the theological theory
of grace be so summarily replaced? It seems that Lonergan
is suggesting a methodological, though implicit, interpretation
• " The gift we have been describing really is sanctifying grace but notionally
differs from it." (MT, 107)
7 For example, in Method we have this text cited on pp. 105, 278, 282, 327, 340;
also in his Philosophy of God and Theology (Hereafter cited as PGT) (London:
Darton, Longman and Todd, 1973) pp. 9, 50; "Theology and Man's Future,"
Cross Currents XIX (1969), 458; and many other essays.
8 A doubt
about Heiler's methodology is expressed in Heinz Robert Schlette,
Towards a Theology of Religions (Montreal: Palm Publishers, 1966), pp. 56-58.

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ANTHONY J. KELLY

of his own through the repeated citation of this text. 9 In his
description of the general religious structure of self-transcendence he makes good use of the " love texts " of the New
Testament. 10 But an obscurity looms when they appear to
illustrate a general transcendental piety rather than the specifically Christian experience to which they natively refer. If
the reference is to the specifically Christian, why is the person
of Christ methodologically excluded at this point? If not, why
cite specifically Christian texts to elucidate a generic religious
reality? Is the Holy Spirit really the power enabling such
general self-transcendence? I suspect that a more thorough
explanation of why Lonergan has used these texts so selectively,
and Romans 5: 5 so repetitiously, would give a clue to some
of the basic methodological issues that concern us. A slight
point? In itself, yes. Insofar as a methodology is being suggested, I think not.
But there is a further aspect to this general state of religious
love. It concerns the theologian himself. Is he a mystic enjoying such a reality or a scholar observing it, . . . or both?
Both, no doubt. (MT, 251) However, let us take the question
further. If, for example, I am a Christian theologian, hopefully
I enjoy this state of being in love with God, with God as
presented to me in and through Christ. That is, after all, the
determining factor of my religious faith. When, then, I observe
religious dedication in others, am I, to express it crudely,
looking at the same thing? Am I perceiving phenomenologically
what I experience and commit myself to in my Christian existence? Doubtless my Christian religious experience will attune
me to what is similarly religious in others, but is it to be taken
so uniformly as the one dynamic state of being in love with
God above all things? Method leaves this point fuzzy. In the
Background, such a state is made known through the data
9 It remains difficult to know whether Longeran might be adducing these texts
as examples from within the Christian tradition or is committing himself to a
Christian and theological interpretation of religious experience.
10 MT:I05f
for Mk 12:30; Rom 5:5; 8:88; Gal 5:22; and in PGT, 9£ there is
also Deut 6: 4f and l Cor 13.

IS LONERGAN's

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that various disciplines bring forward, Phenomenology, Comparative Religion, History, and so forth. In the Foreground,
this state of religious love has become the theologian's own
conversion. Now, of course, there is every reason for both
being basic to Method, the former as data to be interpreted,
the latter as the principle of interpretation, the theologian's
own horizon of conversion.
Yet a confusion begins and persists when both are named
" being in love " in this religious sense. The identification of
both as the one Christian love poured forth in our hearts by
the Holy Spirit is a theological option. It is nonetheless vulnerable. What might have been intended as a flexible methodological description seems to be already implicitly Christian, so
that the specifically Christian is read into the general phenomenon. It could be that the general phenomenon embraces the
specifically Christian, which not only raises a theoretical issue
but makes one ask what the New Testament texts are doing
here. I doubt that either is completely the case, but since
Lonergan is at pains to build up a framework of creative collaboration, this kind of latent confusion needs to be clarified.
Personally, I rejoice at this attempt to bring a strong spirituality back into the foundations of theology. However, many
ways in which the presence and activity of the Holy Spirit can
be linked with the process of self-transcendence (-the whole
nature-grace problematic is implied here). We invite confusion,
if not regression, by identifying the general impulse towards
self-transcendence with the activity of the Spirit of Christ,
especially when this is a basic, though admittedly implicit,
methodological position. Is charity a peak (religious) experience? Is all such experience to be subtly " christened " before
theology faces the delicacies of these questions? Hesitations
such as these militate against a whole-hearted acceptance of
Method.
Let us turn now from the general religious determinant of
theological method to the specific, in this case, the explicitly
acknowledged Mystery of Christ. Christian faith surrenders
to Christ as the definitive and irrevocable Word, the Incarnate

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ANTHONY J. KELt'Y

One, the revelation of the Father. In the complex event ot
the Paschal Mystery, we have the "concretum universale et
personale " which affords its unique data and stimulates theology to appreciate it as central to human existence. The
Christian community celebrates and mediates such a grace.
If as Lonergan desires, theology should ground itself in interiority, Christian interiority would give rise to a theology of
communion, an intersubjectivity with the Father in Christ,
through the love that is the Spirit's gift: "All things have been
delivered to me by my Father; and no one knows the Son
except the Father, and no one knows the Father except the
Son, and anyone to whom the Son chooses to reveal him."
(Mt 11: 27) There is no doubt that Christ is central for
Lonergan's theology: theology is a knowledge of God " as he
is known through the whole Christ, Head and members." (MT,
135) Further, he acknowledges the incarnation of meaning,
(MT, 73) that there is an essential intersubjective component
in the Christian religion, (MT, 327) that Christians do meet
God's love for man in Christ. 11
How then is Method affected by what is specific to Christian
faith? Is there a point where this faith in Christ enters into
the vitality of theology so that such an experience of God
becomes the living ground of theology? Perhaps we would
expect that Christian faith would form its own " realm of
meaning."
In his treatment of this Christian element Lonergan uses a
number of spatial metaphors along with a certain temporal
sequence. There is the "prior word " of love and grace that
is related to the" outward word of religious expression." (MT,
112) Why grace should be a "word" exactly, is not quite
clear; "state," "event," "inspiration," "transformation" might
have been expected in this context, since the word here is
"any expression of religious meaning or religious value." Whatever the case, this prior word introduces man into an immediacy
11 " ••• the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord."
(Rom 8:39)-one of the
texts Lonergan quotes in MT, 105. Neither here, nor, as we shall contend, later
does he sufficiently develop the methodological bearing of such a text.

IS LONERGAN's

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with God. It gradually draws him into an immediate relationship with the divine away from the diversity of history, into
a state where " image and symbol, thought and word lose their
relevance and even disappear." (MT,
One does wonder
immediately about such a mysticism. If image and symbol,
thought and word are ultimately so irrelevant and destined
for disappearance, what of sacrament, what of incarnation?
There is, of course, the outward word which is historically
conditioned. We are assured that this is not incidental, for it
has a constitutive role. ( (MT,
f) This outer word modifies
the reality of the meaning subject as when lovers confess their
love, when believers profess their faith, as when communities
so declared come to understand themselves. So for faith, there
is a word of tradition, of fellowship, of Gospel. And the Gospel
is a word announcing to us that God has loved us first, "and
has revealed that love in Christ, crucified dead and risen."
(MT, 113)
The prior word, then, is somehow complemented by the outward word. At least, it clarifies what is going on in the inner
realm of grace experienced in silent, dark zone of mysticism.
The experience of immediacy is interpreted through a language
of Divine love, through the narration of the mysteries of Christ
as the final revelation of the religious depth that man enjoys.
This outward word gives the religious a tradition and brings
them into a fellowship with one another. It offers them the
heartening message of the Gospel.
But it does tell about a revelation reaching, in the fullness
of time, a climax in Christ. What is the relationship of the
Incarnate Word of revelation with the outward word of religious expression? Is it like any other " outward word," the
declaration of an inner state? Does the incarnate event of
God's love and self-giving not enter more deeply into the
understanding of religious love? At this point, at least, Lonergan seems to make no methodological demand that it should,
for "the religious leader, the prophet, the Christ, the apostle,
the priest, the preacher announces in signs and symbols what
is congruent with the gift of love that God works within us."

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ANTHONY J. KELLY

(MT, 113) It appears that Christ, like the prophet before him
and the priest after him, merely expresses what is congruent
with the hidden, inner, mystic gift of love, through his use
of signs and symbols.
A reader might be forgiven for imagining two parallel zones
of religiousness, the one prior, inward, hidden, mystical, immediate with regard to God, common to all; the other, secondary,
outward, declaratory, historically conditioned, serving what is
going on within by way of expression, focus, announcement,
explanation, exhortation. It seems that Christ, revelation and
incarnation of such love though he be, is assigned to this outer
zone.
But soon we come to an elaboration that seems to correct
such a possible interpretation. " There is a personal entrance
of God himself into history, a communication of God to his
people .... " (MT, 119) This is "not just" the gift of love.
It is the advent of God's word into the world of religious
expression. To what purpose? How is the gift of love surpassed
by God's personal entrance into history? We grope for an
answer from the text before us:
Then not only the inner word that is God's gift of his love but
also the outer word of religious tradition comes from God. God's
gift of his love is matched by his command to love unrestrictedly .
. . . The narrative of religious origins is the narrative of God's encounter with his people. . . . Finally, the word of religious expres
sion is not just the objectification of the gift of God's love; in a
privileged area, it is also a specific meaning, the .word of God himself. (MT, 119) (Italics mine).

The inner word, the gift of God's love, and the outer word
are both from God. Yet this outward word is no objectification
merely. It can occur in a privileged area and thus have the
specific meaning of a divine word. It is not only " from God "
but is the word" of God." Clearly, then, when theology treats
of a " word about God," it treats not just the religious expressions of man but the communications of God himself in human
history.
How, then, will such a privileged area affect theological

IS LONERGAN'S

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451

method? Here, after all, we have a zone of unique data dealing
with the presence of God amongst men in human history.
Accordingly, theological method will need to adjust to such
an area of data, allowing, presumably, for revelation. But as
we come to the brink of an answer, the gentle slope suddenly
falls away and we are left dangling, for "here we come to
questions that are not methodological but theological, questions
concerning revelation and inspiration, scripture and tradition .
. . . To the theologians we must leave them." (MT, 119)
Indeed. The methodologist does not !eel constrained to leave
to the theologians the rather momentous questions concerning
the nature of grace, the universality of its occurrence, the significance of world religions; yet, he hands back to theologians
the specifics of Christian experience as outside the concerns of
method. What is specific does not determine the method,
neither as a ground, a scope, or a style of exploration. The
method is in possession independent of what is absolute or
unique in the field of investigation. I think theologians could be
pardoned for indulging a little disappointment when they have
such " methodological " matters handed back to them. I think
we could have hoped for an understanding of method in theology more responsive to the "subject matter," the occurrence
of a redeeming love for man in Christ, in his death, his resurrection, in the communication of his presence, in the vitality
of the Church and the promises of salvation beyond it. Yes,
we might still be looking for that set of rules that would bolster
the efficiency of the meticulous dolt. (MT, xi) But the fact
remains we have an obscurity where we are most in need of
clarification.
Such complaints may be premature. Lonergan does promise
that something will be said on these matters in Dialectic and
Foundations. Nonetheless, despite the immensely valuable
material that follows, this basic quandary persists. Theology
does indeed profit when the conflicts that agitate the members
of Christ are sensitively situated. A greater good would come
to Christian theology if we could promote to full awareness
the presence of Christ amongst us as the ground out of which

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ANTHONY J. KELLY

all theolog.ical reflection emerges, even, perhaps, to the point
of provoking such conflicts. "The threefold conversion introduces a fundamental and momentous change into the reality
that the theologian is." (MT, 270) If this is the case, if the
theologian is indeed converted to Christ, I would be inclined
to think that the Mystery of Christ would enter into the
fundamental vitality of methodology. We do not, after all,
make the surrender of faith to a generic reality called " conversion," but to him, as the "eye of faith discerns God's selfdisclosures." (MT, 119)
However, the decisive event of God's definitive presence in
Christ continues to be located in an awkward exteriority; the
inner/ outer language persists, with Christ seemingly situated
in the outer zone. Revelation events are related to the all
important inner gift as a " counterpart," though through such
events God discloses to a particular people the completeness
of his love. (MT, 283)
As for the initiating act of God's love, so for the dynamic
state of being in love through which man responds. The inner
determinants of such a state are God's gift and man's consent.
This is related to the outer determinants which include the
store of experience and " the accumulated wisdom of the religious tradition." (MT, 289) We presume that this outer determinant takes in the outer word of Christ and the revelation
made in and through him.
"The data ... on the dynamic state of otherworldly love are
the data on the process of conversion and development." (MT,
289) We note that the data on the meaning of God's love
are not drawn from the Paschal Mystery but from religious
experience. Doubtless, theology will be expected to interpret
such data in the light of the life, death, and resurrection of
Christ in a doctrinal or moral formulation. " The Christian
tradition makes explicit our implicit intending of God in all
our intending." (MT, 291) Theology, when it turns to the
loving source of love begins to talk
categories pertaining
to the economic functions of Father, Son, and Spirit. The
outer word declares the inner word; the explicit explanation
clarifies the implicit state. (MT, 291)

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So the question remains. Is this inner/outer model adequate
to the demands of a Christian theology? Is the decisive and
all-inclusive event of the Paschal Mystery really so exterior,
as an outward clarifying word, albeit a dramatic and symbolic
elucidation of the inner transcendental experience? Of course,
Lonergan is speaking of grace, but it is so very interior, this
"inner grace," (MT, 298, 361) this "gift of the Spirit within,"
(MT, 327) this "inner gift of God's love," (MT, 360) this
"hidden inner gift." (MT, 362) .
Yet our author reassures us toward the end of the book
when he cautions that " Religious conversion, if it is Christian,
is not just a state of mind or heart. Essential to it is an interpersonal, intersubjective component." (MT, 327) A rather
belated assurance, perhaps, but certainly an indication of the
solution to the problem we have been raising. We naturally
proceed to the question, what persons are involved in the interpersonal relationship, and what kind of intersubjectivity is
implied? We read: " Besides the gift of the Spirit within,
there is the outward encounter with Christian witness. That
witness testified that of old in many ways God has spoken to
us through the prophets but in this latest age through his Son."
Hb 1: 1.2) So for theology, there are special basic terms
naming "God's gift of his love and Christian witness." (MT,
348)
Obviously, we have a statement concerning the essential
Christian component of conversion and an indication of basic
terms for a specifically Christian theology. Nontheless, I still
have the impression that the person and mystery of Christ is
oddly exterior to theological method, even though there is no
doubt that Lonergan understands the Christian message to be
incarnate (in what sense?) in Christ, dead and risen. (MT,
364) Christ is present to Christian reflection through the outward mediation of a message, a testimony, as an outer word.
As it is with conversion, so it is with the Church itself as the
community of conversion. It is the result of " the outer communication of Christ's message and the inner gift of God's
love." (MT, 361) And the Christian principle at the founda-

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ANTHONY J. KELLY

tion of the church community" conjoins the inner gift of God's
love with its outer manifestation in Christ Jesus and in those
who follow him." (MT, 360) Such a message is constructive
since it " crystallizes the hidden inner gift of love into overt
Christian fellowship." (MT, 362)
We do not seem to get beyond a message which is " conjoined " to, " manifests," " crystallizes " the inner hidden gift.
In Philosophy of God and Theology 12 there are a few
tantalizing fragments that suggest an attempt at a more precise formulation of the specifically Christian component of faith,
and proportionately, of theology. The author continues with
his inward/outward model,. for the Paschal Mystery focuses
and inflames the love that is given inwardly. (PGT, 10) However, when pushed by his questioners, he locates the specifically
Christian element in " the intersubjective element of love ...
inasmuch as God is expressing his love in Christ as well as
giving you the grace in your heart. and this element in missing
when the incarnate Lord is missing." (PGT, 20) The function
of Christ is, accordingly, this outward expression of love, a
manifestation and a focal point. When invited to give a further
clarification, he answers:
The religious experience of the Christian is specifically distinct
from religious experience in general. It's intersubjective. It's not
only this gift of God's love, but it has an objective manifestation of God's love in Christ Jesus. That intersubjective component creates a difference and because it creates a difference,
insofar as you advert to that intersubjective element in you (r)
love with Christ, you're proceeding from experience. Your question is coming out of experience. It's insofar as you are related
to Christ as God. (PGT, 67) 13 (Italics mine)
12 These lectures given at Gonzaga University in
repeat a good deal of
the text of Mnhod on the points considered, though there are some valuable
clarifications and developments.
13 The question-answer
format of the discussion at the end of each lecture,
though informal in expression, allowed for particular points to be raised which were
very relevant. Naturally little could be developed. I hesitate then, to put too
much weight on them, though I regard these conversations as good indications
of the author's thought.

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So we have indications that (i) Christian experience is
specifically distinct from religious experience in general; (ii)
this distinction resides precisely in intersubjectivity; (iii) that
this intersubjectivity is not only the experience of the gift of
love but is aligned to an objective manifestation of such love
in Christ; (iv) such experience is finally a relationship to
Christ as God.
For the moment, we might overlook the possibility of a
certain terminological confusion between the genus and species
of religious experience on the one hand, and the actual experience of grace and the fully articulated Christian awareness of
such a state, on the other. The point at present is this: if we
are proceeding from experience, and if such an experience is
notably one of intersubjectivity with Christ, it would appear
that a good deal more is demanded of theological method than
the model of self-transcendence. The Eielf-disclosure and selfgift of God would appear to be the determinant, implying a
proportionate stress on the category of revelation, the experience of originality not unlike the impact of a great work of art.
Instead of this we have a stress on a self-transcendence on
the subject that bifurcates in an inner and outer dimension.
The outward word is subordinated to the inner, prior word.
It is the clarification, the crystallization, the focus of the
hidden inner gift, the manifestation of the interior grace. The
specifically Christian enactment of conversion is not concretely
appreciated, it seems to me, in the community being held to its
experience through special symbols and sacraments, through
a communication in a common Spirit issuing from the total
event of Christ. Rather, in Lonergan's presentation, the Christian component is more like the naming of an anonymous
experience. The Christian event is quite awkwardly placed,
and to accept this uncritically into a basic method of Christian
theology would dull the ability of such a method to respond to
its unique data.
Method, consequently, is pulled between the sophisticated
thesis of "Anonymous Christianity," 14 a rather uncritical as10

Cf. Schlette, op. cit. And, of course, the many occasions on which Karl

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ANTHONY J. :KELLY

sumption that there is a universal religiousness that eventually
gets itself baptized if it should occur in the right tradition, and
the full articulation of Christian and even Catholic faith.
Clearly Father Lonergran is attempting to combine (a) the
happy fact that "there's lots of evidence of people leading
extremely good lives without being Christians" (PGT, 19);
b) a maximalist exegesis of biblical texts concerning God's
universal salvific will as in 1 Tim 2: 4; c) an actual outpouring
of the Holy Spirit upon all men of good will (Rom 5: 5); d)
the conviction that love is the one thing necessary for salvation (1 Cor: 13); e) all this essentially associated with faith
in Christ (1 Cor 12: 3) ; f) the mediation of such grace in the
historical context of the Church; g) the dynamics of growth in
understanding within a cultural context.
How all these elements are united, how each bears on theological method, are large questions. Clearly a range of options
is legitimate. But to leave one's option imprecisely stated is
to allow a dislocation to affect one's method. If there are bad
joins in the framework, the collaboration and creativity suffer.
To round off these comments on the text of Method, two
general remarks will help to situate our line of critique more
precisely. The first deals with Lonergan's notion of the transcendental realm of the mystic; the second touches on his treatment of grace.
There is a strong mystical emphasis in Method. This is in
obvious contrast to the style of Lonergan's doctrinal works.
Because of this spiritual depth, some of the emphases that are
elsewhere apparent are brought into clearer light. Transcendence differentiates into a special realm when one enters into
the " ultima solitudo " and attains a state of mediated immediacy with the divine. 15 This mystical world of meaning is the
emergence of the gift of God's love as <t distinct realm:
Rahner has treated this matter, e.g., "Christianity and the Non-Christian Religions," Theological Investigations V (London: DLT, 1966) pp. 115-134.
16 On this matter
of mystical experience Lonergan seems to have constantly
in mind the "peak experience" category as developed by Maslow (Cf. MT, 29
note I) and the work of his fellow Jesuit, William Johnston, S. J., ibid., and
MT, 278, note 4; and 342, note 7. Johnston shows great familiarity with the Zen
mystical tradition.

lS LONERGAN 1S "METHOD

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It is this emergence that is cultivated by a life of prayer and selfdenial and, when it occurs, it has the twofold effect, first, of withdrawing the subject from the realm of common sense, theory, and
other interiority into a " cloud of unknowing " and then of intensifying, purifying, clarifying, the objectifications referring to the
transcendent whether in the realm of common sense, or of theory,
or other interiority. (MT,
The twofold effect referred to, would, I presume, resonate in
some way in performance of theology. The mystic is drawn
into the cloud of unknowing as his knowledge becomes more
dark and pure. The objectifications occurring in the other
realms of meaning are set in a more properly religious light.
Well, here we have an interesting question, especially if, in a
happy coincidence, theologians are also mystics. The incarnate,
intersubjective, sacramental mode of the divine presence will
call forth a special understanding of this transcendental realm.
What really is the nature of this realm for Christian faith?for John the Evangelist who contemplated the Father in his
vision of Christ, for Paul the Apostle who esteems all his
" anonymous Christianity " as loss for the sake of knowing
Christ (Phil 3: 4-11)? 16 I think Christian theology has reason
to be quite critical of any general mystical realm if only for
the reason that it does not look on Christ as an objectification
referring to the transcendent in some other realm of meaning.
It seems that the Christian transcendental realm is populated
by a John and a Paul, by an Ignatius of Antioch, a Bernard
of Clairvaux, a Francis of Assissi, by a Bonaventure contemplating the Cross and a Thomas Aquinas adoring the Eucharist,
by a Julian of Norwich, a Teresa of Avila and an Alphonsus
Liguori in their appreciation of the humanity of Christ, by a
Teilhard de Chardin when he perceives the whole cosmos
progressing in Christogenesis. Can we not recognize an espe16 I doubt whether the Pauline experience has been sufficiently accounted for in
the usual theology of the anonymous Christian. Before his conversion he would seem
to qualify on aU counts for that title. After his conversion he seems more impressed by " the surpassing worth of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord " than this
type of theology allows for.

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ANTHONY J. KELLY

cially incarnate realm of transcendent meaning? This would
give Christian theology a special confidence, and liberate its
proper creativity.
Lonergan's treatment of mysticism highlights darkness and
withdrawal. 17 Even if theologians are not mystics (they do
like books 18 ), they should not be distracted from the rich data
regarding specifically Christian ecstasy as it goes beyond even
a "methodological" realm of transcendence in the self-forgetfulness of a love that is both contemplative and active, energizing the believer with the mystery of vitality issuing from
him "who died but now lives for evermore." (Rev 1: 18)
There is, indeed, a tacit element in Christian theology. It
is a fundamental mysticism that leads not only to the darkness
of negation. The cloud of unknowing is also the cloud of God's
glory. The "via negationis" yields to the "via eminentiae
Christi." Human ideas are not only challenged but human
spiritualities are broken open by the presence of the Word
Incarnate. 19
With regard to grace. Lonergan has transposed the theoretical scholastic notion of sanctifying grace into an experience
17 "When finally the mystic withdraws into the ultimata
solitudo, he drops
constructs of culture and the whole complicated mass of mediating operations to
return to a new mediated immediacy of his subjectivity reaching for God." (MT,
29) Mystical experience is one instance of a "retreat from differentiation" (MT,
58f); a "withdrawal from objectification" (MT, 77); a withdrawal from other
realms of meaning (MT,266); " ... withdrawing from the world mediated by
meaning into a silent and all-absorbing self-surrender in response to God's gift .
. . ." (MT,278)
18 "Question
8: It seems, then, that the authentic Christian mystic is best
suited to explore the meaning of God.
Lonergan: The trouble with mystics is that they are not interested in these
questions. They consider all these books as rather silly and superfluous.
They don't even want to read books on mysticism. While they have certain advantages-they're
beautiful persons-you can't interest them in
joining any investigation.
Question S (Continued: What good are they to theology?
Lonergan: They're good to the Church ...... The mystical brings things to
life again and the organization keeps them going even though you have
no more mystics .... " (PGT, 62)
19 See Anthony J. Kelly, "The Gifts of the Spirit: Aquinas and the Modern
Context," The Thomist XXXVIII (1974), 198-281, especially 215-219.

IS LONERGAN's

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of being in love with God. To use the category of sanctifying
grace was to speak at a stage of meaning when the world
of common sense was neither sufficiently distinct from nor
grounded in the world of interiority. 20 On the other hand, to
speak in terms of the dynamic state of being in love with
God pertains to a stage of meaning when this world of
interiority has been explicitly made the ground for commonsense and theoretical speech. Lonergan's method, then, would
require that we first speak of the gift of God as an experience
and only after that go on to the objectification of grace in
more theoretical categories. (MT, 10'7) The older theology
did, however, speak of interiority ( but not with exact differentiation, for it used either a common-sense figurative type of
description or, in severe contrast, a metaphysically-based type
of langauge, as when it referred to grace as an infused entitative
habit. (MT, 120) However, in Method, when we have interiority promoted to a distinct realm of meaning, " we begin with
a description of religious experience, acknowledge a dynamic
state of being in love without restrictions, and later identify
this state with sanctifying grace." (MT, 120)
I cannot object to this general procedure. Nonetheless, I
must point out that there is more evidence of interiority in
the older language than the common sense descriptions of
figurative and symbolic speech. There is an awareness of
communion. It spoke of grace being the " gratia capitalis
Christi " with whom we constitute "unica mystica persona "
as in Aquinas's Summa Theologiae III, q. 8, a. 1; q. 19, a. 4;
q. 48, a. 2 ad 1). It spoke of grace as communion with the
Trinity, a possession and enjoyment of the divine persons as
they conform man to themselves. (Cf. I, q. 43, a 3; q. 43, a. 5
ad 3).
If this older theology related grace to the mystery of God
as revealed in Christ, the transposition that Lonergan has
attempted is not as neat as might appear. He omits the very
personal component essential to the older systematization. In
•• Cf. 'A technical Note.' (MT, 120ff)

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ANTHONY J. KELLY

his scheme the Christocentric and Trinitarian orientation seem
to become a casualty to the otherwise justifiable distinction
between the various stages of meaning. 21 There results an
empty space at the foundation of his method. Not only is the
Christian bearing of grace downplayed, but even the gratuitousness of the divine communication is blurred. If Lonergan feels
justified in taking over from the older theology the "unrestrictedness " and. " loving" quality of grace, why does he not
include the Trinitarian, paschal, ecclesial components as well?
Are not each of these susceptible to an experimental grounding?
What really are the criteria for such a selective process?
The phenomenon of the experience of a dynamic state of
being ultimately in love must certainly have a place in theology.
The Word resonates; and the unstinted creativity of the Spirit
is fruitful beyond the explicit confines of the Christian communion. But to use such a dimly sketched state to replace
the older theoretical system seems a little too pat. The Christian component becomes almost an afterthought, to be introduced after that general though profound impulse towards
self-transcendence governing Lonergan's methodology. And
this despite the amplification of this state with the seven
qualities that Heiler has discovered. 22 But that has its own
problems. 23
And so we return to our question. How does the definitive
reality of Christ belong to Method? How does the dynamism of
the Paschal Mystery modify the vitality o1 theological research?
Must the Christian Mystery conform to the pre-arranged process of a theological method? As we have said before, a method
has its own way of being a message.
21 The older theology, of course, treats
of the missiones visibiles et invisibiles
of the divine persons. This is not Lonergan's " inner and outer word," if only
for the reason that the scholastic theology is treating explicitly of the Trinity
and its self-communication.
22 " ••• there is at least one scholar on whom one may call for an explicit
statement on the areas common to such world religions as Christianity, Judaism,
Islam, Zoroastrian Mazdaism, Hinduism, Buddhism, Toaism," (MT,l09)
23 Cf. note 8.

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ill.
In a brief concluding section it will perhaps be useful to
indicate two areas in which Lonergan's method might be
brought into helpful confrontation with other theological
methods. These are Mystery and Aesthetics.
1. MYSTERY

The notion of mystery is beyond a doubt quite essential
for Lonergan. He cites Lateran IV and Vatican J.24 Further,
he writes of an orientation to transcendent mystery as basic
to systematic theology. (MT, 341) We have seen that he
stresses the apophatic nature of religious thought, yet at the
same time calls our attention to that other-worldly love that
holds and grasps the man of faith. (MT, !Z4!Z) Such a mystery
gives rise to problems as when believers begin to speak about
and question their religious meanings. God becomes an object
of enquiry inasmuch as questions about religious meanings
arise in a given world of meanings. (MT, 342) And adoration
itself does not exclude words, least of all when men worship
together. (MT, !Z44) Such words have meaning in a cultural
context; and here problems arise for theology. For this ongoing
cultural context in which mystery is to be adored is " anything
but free of problems." In such a context God is no comprehended object but the implied term of our transcendental
orientation, and it is this orientation that provides the primary
and fundamental meaning of the term "God." (MT, 341)
Undoubtedly, mystery is essential to Lonergan's scheme.
but I would hesitate to say that it was a formal determinant
of his method. The notion of problem seems to be a stronger
point of organization. Theology is to answer specific questions
in specific cultural contexts, to solve the problems that a
responsibility to mystery has given rise to.
It would be profitable to take, say, Karl Rahner's approach
and thoroughly contrast it to mystery in Method. This would
24

DS 806; 3019 (MT, 341).

ANTHONY J. KELLY

be a major task. Here, however, I might just indicate a few
points.
Rahner's method is also "transcendental." 25 Yet there is a
contrast. His primary and fundamental way of naming God
would come more from the divine self-disclosure and communication: the interrelated moments of the incarnation and grace
summon forth and sustain a transcendental orientation, to allow
eventually for a transcendental method within the " givenness" of the Christian event. 26 And transcendental method is
but one moment of theology. 27 The basic determinant is the
self-communication of the Mystery that has occurred in Christ.
The mystery is primary, and the transcendental orientation and
its subsequent methodological articulation is a secondary consideration.
Out of such a sensitivity, Rahner has criticized Lonergan's
approach. 28 He has further declared his radical mistrust of
anything that would reduce theology to a methodology. 29 For
him, the business of theology is to reduce all the variety and
complexity of human and Christian experience to the original
mystery. Mystery, not method, is fundamental. But theology
must speak about method, and he admits himself that he has
been rather slow to speak on this topic. 80 When it does, however, it will be convincing insofar as it brings man into contact
•• For example, "Reflections on Methodology in Theology," Theological Investigations II London: DLT, 1974), pp. 69-114. See especially pp. 84-101. On
p. 69, note 1, Rahner notes the places where he has treated of Mystery.
08 " • • • this transcendental-theological disclosure of an a priori reference on the
part of the knowing subject to its specific object is de facto possible only after
this object itself has revealed itself, and so communicated to the subject the knowledge of its own reference to that object as a matter for conscious reflection."
Rahner, " Reflection. . . ." 98.
•• " Certainly transcendental theology is not simply the whole of theology and
must not claim to be anything more than one part or aspect of it."
" Reflections . . .", p. 84. Also p. 99f.
•• Of. note 4.
•• " Thus I may be permitted to express by decided and radical mistrust of any
attempt to reduce theology in any adequate sense to the methodology employed
in it, or to reformulate it in these terms." op.cit., p. 88.
•• Op. cit., p. 68f.

IS LONERGAN's

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with the true "subject matter" of theology; when, in a word,
it is an introduction to the mystery. Rahner clearly understands theology more and more as a mystagogy. 31 The a priori
of method is always in the light of the a posteriori of Mystery,
whether theology talks of the Trinity, the incarnation. or
eschatology. All this is to say that the self-communication of
God is the possibility, the ground and the goal of man's selftranscendence. In this light, theological thinking emerges from
and returns to a presence.
I would consider, then, that the notion of mystery, for
Rahner, really enters into the inner vitality of his transcendent
method. His method is designed to be specifically responsible
to the mystery whereof its treats. Thus, " mystery " is a
rather powerful notion, and in considerable contrast to such
a category as Method describes, where it is more a surplus
notion, almost to the discomfort of theology, as the source of
problems. Because Rahner would view mystery as the incomprehensible nearness of God to man mediated to us through
Christ and his Spirit, theology must be considered as the
" science of mystery." 82 He recognizes that this may be a
hard saying for the modern scientific mentality, but, at least,
this is where its distinction lies.
In such an understanding theology is not in the first place
a solving of problems but a reduction to Mystery. 83 Every
aspect of man's increasingly complex existence must be led
back to the healing mystery from which come our origins and
our hope. Consequently, theology has a language to learn, a
31 " Precisely today it is of the utmost importance that we shall understand the
significance which theology has a reductio in mysterium, i.e., we must understand that this reductio constitutes not a regrettable imperfection in theology,
but rather that which is most proper to it of its very nature." op. cit., 101.
32 P. lOft.
38 Rahner poses the question: " It is not possible to understand even the history
of dogma and theology up to the present as a reductio in mysterium constantly
renewed, constantly made more radical, of all theological statements, so that precisely the believer actively engaged in theology knows better than anyone else
that any theological statement is only truly and authentically such at that point
at which man willingly suffers it to extend beyond his comprehension into the silent
mystery of God?" "Reflections . . .", p. 108.

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ANTHONY J. KELLY

way of speaking of, and I might say, toward mystery. 34 One
would presume that this would be a truly personal kind of
language, a communication of ultimate hope, a way of intimating, evoking, of wonder, surprise and joy. But this belongs
to communications, and to the communicators we must leave it.
To sum up, what is central for Rahner appears to be a
surplus for Lonergan. Method tends to repulse mystery to its
final impregnable outpost within the divinity. so agressive is
its scientific onrush. Rahner would see the business of theology
to be precisely the fostering of the sense of mystery that calls
forth, sustains, and pervades our theological procedures.
Q. AESTHETICS

There are a few points to be noted under this heading. The
simple fact is, I think, quite obvious: Lonergan has not given
aesthetics any central role in his theological methodology, and
he makes quite an early option on this. 35 He does give us,
however, the components of a certain kind of aesthetic theology,
for he has written about art, about feelings, about judgments
of value, about differentiations of consciousness. Indeed, he
considers the refinement and education of feelings to be of
great moment, even doctrinally, for the development of faith
and its authentic expression. (MT, 3QO) Nonetheless he has
made his options, and they are clear. He establishes his theological method by grounding it in transcendental method, the
method behind all the methods. He arrives at this by examining
the implications of the conspicuously successful natural and
" " I believe that theology today has very much to learn before it speaks
in a manner that man can achieve a direct, effective and clear recognition of
the special quality of this language." op. cit., p. 112. On this whole matter of
mystery in Lonergan's theology there is a very keen article by John Carmody,
"Lonergan on the Divine Missions." Laval Theologique et Philosophique XXX
(1974)' 315-332.
35 " Thought on method is apt to run in some one of three channels.
In the first,
method will be conceived more as an art than a science . . . Such, I think, must
be the origin of all thought on method ... Such also will remain the one way in
which refinements and subtleties . . . will be communicated." (MT,3) Lonergan's
own thought will run in the " third channel."

IS LONERGAN's

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human sciences of today. 36 As scientific emphasis becomes
stronger, any aesthetic concern is suppressed. It surfaces now
and then with a touch of humour, a disarming simplicity, a
mystical insight, and especially in the almost lyrical expressiveness that is occasionally manifest. So, from this more specific
point of view, the same question arises that has guided the
whole of this study: has he made methodological options insufficiently alert to the kind of reality that is being investigated?
More than anything else I know of, the work of Hans Urs
von Balthasar challenges Lonergan's approach, although I have
not discovered either of these thinkers offering any comment
on the other's work. 37 Von Balthasar's emphasis is to draw
attention to the " glory " of revelation as it is climaxed in
Christ. This is the startling originality of the Word of God
that cannot be anticipated by man's transcendental awareness.
It is a self-validating splendor like that of a great work of art
that does not fulfil any need primarily but rather provokes the
exigence to reorganize our cosmological and anthropological
knowledge for the purpose of being truly open to the radiant
form of the Word. 38 Accordingly, aesthetics must enter into
the very heart of theology; 39 and the task of the theologian
36 " First, we shall appeal to the successful sciences to form a preliminary
notion
of method. Secondly we shall go behind the procedures of the natural sciences to
something both more general and more fundamental, namely the procedures
of the natural sciences to something both more general and more fundamental,
namely the procedur.es of the human mind. Thirdly, in the procedures of the
human mind, we shall discern a transcendental method ... Fourthly, we shall
indicate the relevance of transcendental method in the formulation of other, more
special methods appropriate to particular fields." (MT, 4)
37 See especially the magisterial
Herrlichkeit. Eine Theologische Aesthetik, I-III,
(Einsiedeln: Johannes Verlag, 1961-1969). Also for a very convenient sketch
of the main thesis of the major work, see Love Alone (New York: Herder amd
Herder, 1969); and the essay, "Revelation and the Beautiful" in Word and Revelation (Montreal: Palm, 1964), 121-164.
38 See Love Alone, pp. 7-50, for a discussion
of the three basic approaches to
revelation.
89 Von Balthasar
sums up his method: " ... a theological aesthetic in the dual
sense of a study of perception, and a study of the obj•ective self- expression of the
divine glory; it will try to demonstrate that this theological approach, far from
being a dispensable theological by-road, is in fact the one possible approach to

466

ANTHONY J. KELLY

is like that of the art critic.. He must continually reduce the
many details and fragmentary perceptions of the masterpiece
to the one simple, unanticipated radiant form. 4 ° Concretely
this entails reducing all the images and experiences of Christian
life to the glory of God's love presented in the paschal mystery
of Christ.
Von Balthasar's approach has its roots in a dissatisfaction.
He thinks that, on the one hand, medieval thought tended to
comprehend all reality under the notion of object, in a time
when there was little development of the epistemological status
of the free personal subject. On the other hand, post-Cartesian
thought, despite its "subjective turn" remained insensitive to
the genuine otherness of personal reality, with its inclination
to" posit" things that it does not know with sufficient clarity. 41
He reacts vigorously to this tendency to be overdetermined in
one's methodological anticipations. 42 Indeed, he would take
knowledge of a " thou," a personal, free other to be the primary instance of the meaning of human knowing. 43 This brings
with it the implication of allowing for a self-disclosure that
cannot and must not be methodologically anticipated if we are
truly to know the other in his reality. 44
In such a context, he elaborates his theology of " Herrlichkeit," of a glory that bows to no necessity other than that of
being what it uniquely is. Consequently, he keenly guards
the heart of theology-the cosmic world-historical approach, and the path of anthropological verification, being secondary aspects, complementary to it." Love
Alone, p. Sf.
•• Love Alone, 44-50; Herrlichkeit I, 157; 588; "Revelation and the Beautiful,"
pp. 151-168.
01 On this matter, see the powerful pages contained in The God
and
Modern Man (New York: Seabury, 1967), Chapters
•• " Christianity is destroyed if it lets itself be reduced to transcendental presuppositions of man's self-understanding whether in thought or in life, in knowledge or in action." Love Alone, p. 48. See the whole of the Chapter, " The
Third Way of Love."
•• This is developed in an interesting and challeging manner in The God Question .. , pp. 81-89.
•• See the positive and negative consideration of the proposition, " only love
can be believed," in Love Alone, pp. 68-80.

IS LONERGAN'S

"METHOD"

ADEQUATE?

467

against any theological apriorism. He certainly allows for what
he calls the "religious apriori." 45 This is related to man's
nature as a spiritual being. A natural "light" calls forth the
experience of contingency and, in a negative way, of infinity;
and thus it allows for the formation of symbols of the divine.
All this leads to the longing and
sense of fragility
that is proper to the creature. 46
But this " religous a priori " is not the " theological apriori "
which is proper to revelation. 47 This comes as a surprise to the
human spirit. It is a " shock," overwhelming man with an offer
of intimacy with God. 48 This is experienced not as fulfilling
an essential need within man but as a final, yet gracious fulfilment of human existence. 49 We could say, then, that the glory
of revelation, as such a surprise and shock and even a scandal
to man " transcends " our experience of transcendence. It leads
to a unique mediation, a sole mediator, confronts us with the
drama of the cross, witnesses to the glory of the resurrection.
The Gospel contains too much failure and too much success,
being as it the story of an excessive love.
A consequence follows should we enter into this kind of
thought. We cease to think of human transcendence as a more
or less neatly integrated movement to successive levels of selftranscending. Even "ultimate concern" is not enough to
express the kind of love the Spirit gives. A sense of final
intelligibility and value, of wonder and even awe still stop short
at the transforming knowledge of Christ. The Gospel is at once
•• Herrlichkeit I, pgs. 31, !'l37, 433. See also, "Characteristics of Christianity",
Word and Redemption (Montreal: Palm, 1964) !'l3-48.
•• See "God speaks as Man", Word and Revelation (Montreal, Palm) pp.
10!'l-106.
47 Herrlichkeit I, p. 15lfl'.
48 A thorough and well-balanced statement
on the nature: grace problematic
is to found in von Balthasar's The Theology of Karl Barth (New York: Holt,
Rinehart and Winston, 1971) especially the concluding chapters.
•• " . . . the paradoxical events with which God 'shocks ' sinful man are
seen as an invitation and a stimulus to overleap the closed world of infinite ideas
and to share in God's self-manifestation and openness, something to which the
creaturely condition itself points, though unable to attain it." (" Revelation and the
the Beautiful," p. 147.

468

ANTHONY J. KELLY

a cross and a liberation for men, and to respect it theology
must refrain from positing its objects i.n this area of surprising
grace. If any " thou " can be obscureJ by the anticipations
of any " I," this is all the more so with regard to the living God.
The particularity of the God's Word in disconcerting. The Mystery remains incalculable, for such wisdom can be dismissed as
a folly and such love rejected as unholy. It might well elude
what we call transcendental and dislocate what we take to be
methodological.
Theology has its own essential, intrinsic aesthetics. In some
fundamental way, if it is to be aware of what it is about, such
a mode of knowing must acknowledge the ecstasy of its response to the glory of the Word, to become a poetry as well as
a prose, a story as well as a statement, a witness as well as a
research, a contemplation as well as an analysis, a joyful communication as well as the serious tension of science.
Here, then, from the points of view of Mystery and Aesthetics as such themes are representatively elaborated in
Rahner and von Balthasar respectively, we have areas of
general but, I think, wholesome critique of Lonergan's Method.
I have briefly indicated these two aspect of theological method
since they they are both related to a specifically Christian type
of methodology and hence have a bearing on the basic question
we have been asking, namely, how does faith in Christ affect
theological method?

Conclusion:
This preliminary probe into Lonergan's Method, especially
when it has been restricted to such a narrow area, has never
aimed to attack the author or his book in any radical sense.
He has offered a model, and in many ways I am sure it has
been more than a model, for we have been offered a way of
making sense of the many ways in which many religions and
faiths might be investigated. I have demurred at the point
where this general model might be uncritically applied to a
specifically Christian task. Those concerned to defend Method
at every point will understandably assert that everything I

IS LONERGAN's

"METHOD" ADEQUATE?

469

have commended is either implicitly there already in Longergan's thought under the headings of "conversion" and "sublation " 50-or that it has no place there, since in confusing faith
and theology, in failing to differentiate my consciousness, I am,
like Barth, 51 lacking in intellectual conversion. This is not
unlikely, and, what is more, I freely acknowledge that I am
lacking in moral and religious conversion as well. But this is
all the more reason why I prefer to regard theology as primarily
an intelligent " ministry of the Word " originating, even as
one thinks theologically from a receptivity and responsiveness
to the " datum " of God's communication in Christ, mediated
to me in the life, communion, and mission of the Church. I
prefer this to the elitist standpoint of my own conversion. It
seems to me that it is a less ideological stance, a less gnostic
attitude, to take as one's foundation the self-communication
of God instead of the general self-transcendence of man, however much that is sustained by the " outer word."
These few remarks have had, of course, an explicitly Christian concern. One does wonder, however, how the theologians
of Jewry, Islam, Hinduism. Buddhism would adjust to the
model Lonergan commends. The least that might be said is
that they begin to think from phenomenologies of self rather
different from "self" that our author commends, or at least
envisages. 52
Then, in this multi-media cultural context, Lonergan's mode
of approach strikes me as very visualist despite his disclaimers
about the visualist myth of knowing. His sensorium is hardly
aural or tactile, even though he has given a generous infusion
of mystical experience to theological method, even though he
•• " ... what sublates goes beyond what is sublated, introduces something new
and distinct, puts everything on a new basis, yet so far from interfering with
the sublated or destroying it, on the contrary needs it, includes it, preserves all
its proper features and properties, and carries them forward to a fuller realization
within a richer context." (MT, £41).
61 " Only intellectual
conversion can remedy Barth's fideism." (MT,318)
52 On this point, an excellent article by John T. Marcus, "East and West:
Phenomenologies of Self and the Existential Bases of Knowledge," International
Philosophical Quarterly (March 1971), pp. 5-48.

470

ANTHONY J. KELLY

knows " that fidelity to the word engages the whole man."
(MT,
His underlying metaphors are predominantly
spatial and visual: self-transcendence, horizon, horizontal and
vertical liberty, insight and perspective, levels of consciousness,
stages and realms of meaning, frameworks, inner and outer
words, transposition and contexts, and so forth. The accent is
on the linear, the progressive, the controlled, the methodical.
Other sensoria, as matrices of expression, would accent the
wholeness of reality and man's participation in it, with a consequent stress on mystery, symbol, and the personal word.
Finally, perhaps everything we have been saying adds up to
this: the need of theology to become more Marian as a service
to the given Word. Only such a feminism can make theological
method adequately Christian. But that pertains, perhaps, to
the theology of method rather than to method in theology.
ANTHONY J. KELLY,

Yarra Theological Union
Melbourne, Australia
10 Mojella Court,
Kew, Vic.

c. ss. R.

AN ESSAY ON THE DEVELOPMENT OF DOGMA
IN A HEIDEGGERIAN CONTEXT:
A NON-THEOLOGICAL EXPLANATION OF
THEOLOGICAL HERESY

0

NE ROLE that falls to systematic theology is that
of re-conceptualizing traditional doctrines in terms
of shifting cultural and theoretical frameworks. What
this essay attempts within modest limits is to show what dogmatic development would look like if it were considered within
a Heideggerian context. The theoretical framework in which
doctrinal development is usually considered is, we believe, implicitly Aristotelian. Development itself is as much a feature
of experience as permanence, and a discussion of the nature of
development leads into ontology, into the question about being,
about identity and permanence, change and becoming. Even
so diverse thinkers as Rahner and Whitehead acknowledge
this point: dogmatic development is one characteristic feature
of the world that must be comprehended in a general metaphysics of being and becoming. 1 But there is something about
Aristotle's ontology which is uncomfortable with change, which
favors the substantial and the permanent, and which supports
an understanding of truth as the permanently valid and immutable. In dogmatic theology this approach to being translates
into doctrines whose meanings can be fixed for all times and
which thereafter determine the limits of orthodoxy. Now, we do
not mean to deny any dogma, nor to shift the ontological
weights from being to becoming, from permanence to process,
although it does seem to us that a theory of dogmatic develop1 See Karl Rahner's
essays, " The Development of Dogma" and " Considerations on the Development of Dogma" in Theological Investigations, Vols. I and
IV (Baltimore, 1961 & 1966), and A. N. Whitehead's Process and Reality (New
York,
Part V, Chapte;r

471

472

WILLIAM E. REISER

ment must take novelty seriously; the history of dogma is not
the endless repetition or re-conceptualization of old truths. Nor
do we advocate a dehellenizing of dogma. Heidegger himself
moves behind the Greeks in his task of destroying the history of
ontology in order to recapture the meaning of the original Greek
inquiry about being. It is precisely because the question of being and becoming is so important to a given conceptual framework that we have tied our concern with dogmatic development
to ontology. However, our concern will be to show that the axis
of the discussion must be shifted somewhat, for the notion of
being, at least on Heidegger's terms, not only cannot be conceptualized but conceptualization itself is inimical to a proper
grasp of the question about being. For this reason he spoke
of destroying the history of ontology. In his manner of distinguishing art and science Aristotle elevated theoretical knowing to a primacy among the ways we have of appropriating the
real. Metaphysical knowledge in scholastic philosophy is dominated by the bias towards theory and science, yet it is out
of such a context that theology emerges as the fuller viewpoint
on man and his world, the divine science itsel£.2 In this essay
we shall try to move behind this context in Heideggerian
fashion.
In De Veritate, q.l, a.l, St. Thomas asked about truth and
in what sense the true is convertible with being. " True expresses the correspondence of being to the knowing power";
when the intellect conforms to things, to being, we can properly
speak of the true: "the knowledge of a thing is a consequence
of this conformity; therefore, it is an effect of truth." 3 Strictly
speaking, therefore, the true is not that which is; that is the
definition of being. But insofar as being, that which is, is
grasped by intellect, we add to the notion of being the notion
of truth. By their ontological conformity to the divine intellect things are true: " Even if there were no human intellects,
• For a neo-Thomist exposition of this see Bernard Lonergan, Insight: A
Study of Human Understanding (New York, 1957), Chapter 20.
3 St.
Thomas Aquinas, Truth, Trans. Robert W. Mulligan, S. J. (Chicago,
1952), Vol. I , p. 6.

AN ESSAY ON THE DEVELOPMENT

OF DOGMA

478

things could be said to be true because of their relations to the
divine intellect. But if, by an impossible supposition, intellect
did not exist and things did continue to exist, then the
tials of truth would in no way remain."'
St. Thomas points out in the same article that the divine
tellect measures things, just as the artifacts of man are
ured by human intellect. Our intellects are measured by
ural things. But what of artifacts? Are works of art true only
in the sense that they are measured by the intellect of the
ist? An affirmative answer to this question will mislead us, for
there is the prior issue of the relation of created to uncreated
truth; this is the primary sense in which things are called true
(ibid., a.4). The artist is in a world where the truth of things
derives from the divine intellect; what he brings forth in the
work of art always supposes this prior fact in the very content
and manner of his apprehension of things. To this we shall
return when we inquire whether dogmas are better understood
in terms of natural things or artifacts. For now let us point out
that when dogmas are defined and made binding sem;per et
ubique upon the faithful, the framework out of which dogmas
arise takes being as that which is and truth as our grasp of
being. Dogma is a truth expressed in a proposition, embedded
in a cultural and theoretical matrix, which concerns divine
revelation. But the notion of being and the notion of dogmatic
truth lie in some tension, because " that which is " as reflected
in dogmatic statements .sounds permanent and always identical,
while dogmas emerge from contexts that are themselves
torical, cultural, advancing, conditioned. Like the principles
of Aristotelian science, dogmatic statements sound distinctly
non-temporal, universal, and necessary against the background
of Aristotle's ontology and the few passages we cited from the
De V eritate. Temporality does not make a difference for that
notion of being. The tension between being and truth exists on
another level in the separation of God's immutability from
his involvement in a world of historical process wherein, by vir' Ibid., p. 11.

474

WILLIAM

E. REISER

tue of the Incarnation, God himself has a history. For various
reasons which we shall not explore, historicity was not a major
concern to Aristotle or Aquinas; it is so to us. And so our first
appeal to Heidegger can conveniently start with the historicity
of man.
In Being and Time, II, 5,
Heidegger raises the question as
to how we are to regard history and what makes history possible. The ordinary man thinks of history-his history- as a
series of moments strung out chronologically between the twin
poles of birth and death. These moments are connected from
within by his conception of himself as a subject enjoying
identity in the stream of change ("self-constancy") . But the
moments which span the twin poles do not fill up an empty, a
priori framework which unifies the moments of our daily experiences. The unity must focus in Dasein itself. The poles
and the interval between are: the basic unity of any Dasein's
history arises out of Dasein's Being as care, and the kind of
movement which characterizes Dasein's stretching along the
interval Heidegger calls "historizing." This characterization
precedes any attempt to make history the object of a science.
In analysing the historicality of Dasein we shall try to show
that this entity is not " temporal " because it " stands in history,"
but that, on the contrary, it exists historically and can so exist
only because it is temporal in the very basis of its Being. 5

Again, in Being and Time, II, 5, 73 Heidegger reviews some
common notions of history which are in their respective ways
unsatisfying. History is primarily a mark of Dasein and not
a mark of the various ways in which he might think about the
past. The ruins of a Greek temple, for instance, are still present, but the world in which the temple stood is past. But
Dasein is never past, though always historical. Still, what
makes Dasein historical? In II, 5, 74 Heidegger outlines how
Dasein, thrown into the world among all sorts of possibilities,
may authentically, that is, in freedom choose what is its lot:
5 Martin
Heidegger, Being and Time, Trans.
]:l9binson (New York, 1962), p. 428,

John Macquarrie

and E<\ward

.AN ESSAY ON THE DEVELOPMENT

OF DOGMA

475

Dasein can choose and affirm its own finitude and death. Because Dasein is capable of caring, of being and feeling guilty, of
being anxious, death and finitude become facts to reckon with.
The basic situation of the world is not something Dasein fashioned; it is thrown into it; it is powerless in the face of the fate
which presents itself as fact. But such powerlessness is transcended when Dasein resolutely hands itself over to its " there,"
the basic situation of the world. In short, the basis of Dasein's
historicality is the authentic facing of its Being-toward-death.
Historicality penetrates the world through and through;
everything which Dasein touches as entities-within-the-world
becomes historical as such. World-history takes on a double
meaning: it denotes " the historizing of the world in its essential existent unity with Dasein" and also" the historizing within the world of what is ready-to-hand and present-at-hand"
(II, 5, 75) .6 History intrinsically conditions the world even
without our grasping that fact through historical study. Inauthentic historicality leads Dasein astray so that it loses itself
in the present, the .scattering of moments which make up its
today; it misleads Dasein into understanding the past in terms
of the present. Heidegger apparently sees authentic historicality dependent on a self-appropriation or personal transformation prompted by a grasp of what it means to be finite. He
writes:
When, however, one's existence is inauthentically historical, it
is loaded down with the legacy of a " past " which has become
unrecognizable, and it seeks the modern. But when historicality
is authentic, it understands history as the " recurrence " of the
possible, and knows that a possibility will recur only if existence
is open for it fatefully, in a moment of vision, in resolute repetition.7
Several conclusions can be drawn for the science of history
(historiology). Heidegger states in II, 5, 76 that the very
idea of historiology is to be projected in terms of Dasein's own
historicality. The monuments,. records, and relics of the past
are above all signs of Dasein's " having-been-there." More• Ibid., pp. 440-41.

7

Ibid., p. 444.

476

WILLIAM E. REISER

over, the historical nature of Dasein is presupposed in the operations and procedures which historians perform and the success
of historical study depends on the authenticity of the historian
himself. If the historian has appropriated his own historicality, if he realizes that temporality is the ontological ground
of historiology, then the historicality of the past will disclose
itself to him. The nature of authentic historicality is the same
for all Dasein. In every age, as it were, Dasein can retrieve and
repeat the possibilities open to human existence:
When the possible is made one's own by repetition, there is adumbrated at the same time the possibility of reverently preserving the
existence that has-been-there, in which the possibility seized upon
has become manifest. 8
The development of dogma does not concern only the faithful transmission and re-formulation of necessary truths. Besides the historical and cultural adventures of dogmatic expression there is the matter of development itself. In a Heideggerian context timelessness is an inappropriate, indeed a false
description of anything which man touches and to which he
is related. Not only is expression radicated in historicality; so
also is development itself. On the other hand, it would be inaccurate to say that Being develops, not because temporality does
not refer to Being but because such a claim would betray a
misconception of Heidegger's thought as to how Being presents
itself. Development is not necessarily the first note which
attaches to the fact of temporality. Early in Being and Time
Heidegger introduces us to his endeavor to destroy the history
of ontology by retrieving the question of being. He also speaks
about destroying the history of philosophy historiologically:
what is philosophically primary is neither a theory of the concept-formation of historiology nor the theory of historiological
8 Ibid., p. 448.
This is remarkably close to Lonergan's treatment of foundational reality in Method in Theology (New York, 1972). Entrance to foundational
reality is mediated by a triple conversion; conversion is the event by which the
theologian appropriates the possibility of a radically re-oriented and authentic
horizon. Conversion is repeatable by many theologians; thus foundational reality
is also a shared reality. See Chapter 10, pp. 235-44, and Chapter 11.

AN ESSAY ON THE DEVELOPMENT

OF DOGMA

477

knowledge, nor yet the theory of history as the Object of historiology; what is primary is rather the Interpretation of authentically
historical entities as regards their historicality. 9

We would like to re-phrase Heidegger's words to say that we
must philosophically destroy the history of dogma in order to
discover what is dogmatically primary. If one were to argue
that new dogmas are squeezed out of an original deposit of
divine truths through the pressure of changing historical circumstances, he would acknowledge the presence of historicity
in dogmatic development, but he would also introduce nearly
insoluble problems about how the defined dogmas have been
contained in revelation. Are all dogmas implicit in Scripture?
Is Scripture the only repository of revelation or is there something else? If he were to have ultimate recourse to the sensus
fidelium, this would still not explain how dogmas are contained
" there." Or one might be tempted to argue that dogmas are
like new ideas hammered out in cultural settings where many
conflicting ideas- secular, sacred, scientific, and so on-have
forced religion to ask new questions and to develop new ways
of thinking. The new ideas are accepted or rejected depending
on how well they can be assimilated into the life of the Church.
Newman suggests this, and this position is closer to the mark
in that it respects historical contingencies; it is not, however,
without difficulties. The development of dogma would then
depend on the fluctuations of history and culture, and this not
only refers to the particular expression of a dogma but to dogma itself. For what is of concern to one culture may not be
of concern to another. The history of dogma would then be
skewed. One could speculate what the history of Christianity
might have been like had Luke the evangelist been a convert
from Buddhism. Finally, there remains the underlying problematic, where does anything new come from? This is the
question for ontology, the kind of question Heidegger addressed
to the history of ontology in order to destroy that history
historiologically.
9

Being and Time, p. 81.

478

WILLIAM

E. REISER

One can read Part One of Being and Time in the light of
Heidegger's later chapter on historicality. His material on
understanding, the as-structure of interpretation, language,
and truth then take on a further dimension. Since we shall be
discussing language shortly, and since interpretation and hermeneutics are ouside the scope of this article, we shall tum our
immediate attention to Heidegger's conception of truth in I,
6, 44; we want to project this conception in terms of historicality.
Heidegger's concern here seems to center on the traditional
definition of truth as adaequatio intellectus et rei. He explains
what this definition means, how it arose, and in so doing, what
is the primordial meaning of truth. First, he clears away Kantian and subjectivist mistakes about what is grasped in true
knowledge by insisting that the cognitional activity of asserting
is ordered intrinsically towards real entities, not towards mere
representations.
Our knowing is both a "Being towards
real entities" and a "Being that uncovers." Secondly, disclosedness is a general feature of Dasein and of the world; entities unveil themselves in the clearing (Lichtung: I, 5, 28)
which is Dasein. If this property did not belong to entities,
knowledge would be impossible. If Dasein were not a region of
illumination where entities could come to presence, questions
about knowing would not arise. It is important to see that
Heidegger is not trying to solve the critical problem, that he
is not setting down the conditions for a correct judgment or
correct knowledge. Heidegger is showing what the primordial
notion of truth is and, consequently, what the ontological basis
of knowledge consists of. All theoretical accounts of true knowledge are only derivative from what is ontologically primary:
To translate this word as " truth," and, above all, to define this
expression conceptually in theoretical ways, is to cover up the
meaning of what the Greeks made "self-evidently" basic for the
terminological use of
as a pre-philosophical way of understanding it ... In proposing our" definition" of "truth" we have
not 8haken off the tradition, but we have appropriated it primordially.lo
10

Ibid., p. 262,

AN ESSAY ON TliE DEJVElLOPMENT OF DOGMA

479

Judgment is not, according to Heidegger-nor, on Heidegger's
view, according to Aristotle,-the primary locus of truth. Assertions are derived from an original experience which encounters the uncoveredness of things, but we tend to think of
assertions or judgments as primary loci. Propositions and assertions make it possible to preserve and repeat the original
disclosiveness of entities. The reason for this is that what comes
first in the order of knowing is last in the order of being; assertion preserves uncoveredness as what is present-at-hand, but
what is present-at-hand is not first in the order of being. The
temptation is to forget this, as Aristotle was well aware.
Heidegger makes it clear that Dasein is also in the untruth
because it is essentially falling. Entities themselves are not
totally opaque and hidden from the clearing which Dasein is.
In the language of" On the Essence of Truth," 11 Being dissimulates itself when Dasein as falling is not authentically ex-sisting,
when lost in everydayness it does not allow Being to disclose
itself. Dasein loses sight of the primordial relationship between
itself and Being. (Heidegger's move here parallels the movement Ricoeur later adopted when he followed his eidetics of
the will with an exploration of the fault. The moves do not
designate something good become bad but a compenetration
based on a primordial relation to the true, or-in Ricoeur-to
the good.)
Finally, Heidegger formulates anew what Aquinas wrote
about the existence of truth and human intellect. " Before there
was any Dasein, there was no truth; nor will there be any after
Dasein is no more." Aquinas believed in ontological truth as
the relation between the divine mind and creation, but Heidegger is not so persuaded about the divine mind. The " true,"
therefore, is not a property of being (for it is not related primarily to intellect, as it was for Aquinas; see De Veritate, q.l,
a.3) . So, without Dasein, without that region where Being
comes-to-presence, without that disclosedness which constitutes
Dasein and Being, Being would n.ot be. "Being and truth
'are' equiprimordially." 12
R. F. C. Hull and Alan Crick in Existence and Being (Chicago, 1949).
Being and Time, p.

11 Trans.
19

480

WILLIAM E. REISER

Now, assertions are derivatively historical. The historicity
of truth denotes neither the saga of mankind's correct judgments nor the ways in which judgments have been conditioned
culturally and historically. Instead, the historicity of truth,
which is equiprimordial with the historicity of Being, directly
refers to that region where Being is disclosed, namely, to Dasein. Primarily we mean by the historicity of truth the :finitiude
which temporalizes all the different and multiple modes in
which Being comes forth, since that region of disclosure is itself
intrinsically :finite and temporal. This means that no assertion
can escape the ontological bounds which determine Dasein.
Whenever one claims an exempt status for any single judgment or proposition by insisting that it holds universally and
necessarily, always and everywhere, he offends against Dasein's
constitution. Being "comes forth" historically. Or, to turn
the matter around, propositions are derivatively true; they
have the status of being present-at-hand, preserving through
expression what was original. Expression, however, has its limits; it is derivatively conditioned by history. New expression
of the same proposition would require that we retrieve its
original meaning. But the original meaning is also limited in
that Being does not disclose itself at once, once for all time.
Truth is temporalized and thus foundationally conditioned by
history. Heidegger notes that concern is the characteristic of
Dasein that gives rise to historicality. Concern stems out of
Dasein's :finitude, and :finitude relates to temporality. We conclude here by saying that dogmatic statements are derivatively
true; the historicity of dogma is derivatively historical; that
not only is the expression of dogma historically conditioned
(and thus capable of being formulated anew) , but dogma itself
necessarily unfolds "historically," and there is no reason to
suppose that a complete body of dogmatic truths exists " .somewhere ,. or that the unfolding will ever be complete, or that
retrieving the meaning of a once-defind dogma by " repetition "
is not also something new, a new moment in the history of
dogma. The unfolding does not refer to a succession of moments in time bounded by the first and second comings of

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Christ; this is not the primary sense of historical. Dogmas do
not develop like the squeezing out of so many truths from an
original deposit along an imaginary chronological line. Nor are
dogmas universal and necessary truths. The predicates " universal," " necessary," inappropriately describe the way dogmatic truth comes forth. Whether or not the unfolding of revelation follows any law or inner logic of its own is not a question
that concerns us here. Still, if we are correct in our account of
the contingency of all coming-forth because of Dasein's historicality, then it would seem that no immanent law operates
in the history of dogma any more than history itself obeys
an inner law (as if God had determined either the pattern of
the unfolding of dogmas or of history in general) ; rather, the
unfolding happens within the graced-clearing where Being
comes forth, comes-to-presence, a clearing which is simultaneously finite, temporal, and historical.

From Language to Thinking
Heidegger's concern with language arises from a prior concern with thinking, and thinking gives rise to the absolutely
prior question about Being. We usually regard language as
our communication; it objectifies our knowledge; it is a universal, public forum for expression. Language guarantees that
objective expression can .survive from one generation to the
next and thus gives rise to tradition. It encapsulates the worldview of a people non-thematically in its structure, grammar,
syntax, origins; it is also historical. For the Heidegger of
Being and Time, Dasein has language and shows itself as the
entity which talks. But because language discloses the contents of consciousness, we start to regard it as a means of communication, as a tool for handling ourselves in the business of
the world. Insofar as its being is regarded as purposive, as a
tool, language also conceals the very thing it ought to reveal
about itself. The later Heidegger recalls us to that which lays
behind language, and this is accomplished by analysing two
ways wherein man allows Being, namely, thinking and poetry.
His path to Being through thinking is set forth in Was Heisst

WILLIAM E. REISER

Denken? 13 and the path through poetry in Unterwegs zur
Sprache. To keep our essay maneagable we have confined ourselves to the second path. (This, of course, is not to imply
a bifurcation between poetry and thought: " all great poetic
work always vibrates within a realm of thinking." (US, p. 69)
The point merely has to do with the invitation to rediscover
our roots, and the invitation can be addressed by inquiring into
thinking or poetry as parallel ways to essential thinking.)
" The Nature of Language "
In this section of On the Way to Language we find Heidegger developing his idea of discourse. Throughout the general
advance of this section he is slowly unfolding the connection
between thinking and poetry, and he repeatedly warns against
the inadequacy of calculative thinking. He begins with a poem
in order to raise the question about the nature of poetic insight:
how is one to express that for which one has no word? What
happens at the place where there are no words? "No thing is
where the word is lacking .... " (US, p. 60) At that point,
therefore, there are no things; but does it follow that this is
the point of mere nothingness, non-being? By the close of the
section Heidegger will argue the same conclusion he reached
in "What is Metaphysics?" on the nature of Nothing, where
"no thing" does not mean negation 15
Words commonly name things, entities, whatever is. Words
must give being to things because where there is no word, there
can be no thing either. If that is the case, then how do word
and thing relate? When a thing is named by a word, how is
this done? Why can a word be an appropriate name for a thing?
(US, pp.
For the poet, a word is the source, dwelling
18 What is CaUed Thinking?, Trans. J. Glenn Gray and Fred Wieck (New York,
1968).
14 On the Way to Language, Trans. Peter Hertz and Joan Stambaugh
(New
York, 1971). We have abbreviated this as US.
18 Also translated by Hull and Crick in the volume Existence and Being. "'Nothing' is more original than the Not and negation" (p. 881). "Nothing is that
which makes the relevation of what"is as such possible for our human existence "
(p. 840).

AN ESSAY ON THE DEVELOPMENT

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place, wellspring of Being. The poet's experience of language
is his realization of how word and thing relate to each other.
" The word itself is the relation which in each instance retains
the thing within itself in such a manner that it 'is' a thing."
(US, p. 66) The poet, therefore, stands in that strange domain
which is ever full, never exhausted, and never-to-be-handled.
He is called creative; but no poet simply creates ex nihilo, from
non-being: he" creates" from that domain where there are no
things.
Heidegger is summoning us to an experience of language
which has to be a thinking experience. This thinking is not
calculative or purposive but foundational, a thinking not
meant to produce knowledge but to " cut furrows in the soil of
Being." (US, p. 70) In this sense, poetry and thinking are
neighbors in the same soil. Authentic thinking is another side
of Dasein's openness; just like the openness which grounds
discourse, authentic thinking involves a listening. One does not
question what it means to think authentically, for
. . . the true stance of thinking cannot be put to questions, but
must be to listen to what our questioning vouchsafes-and all
questioning begins to be a questioning only in virtue of pursuing
16
its quest for essential being. (US, p.

In short, we discover that in asking about the being of language
itself, starting with a poet's word, we are engaged in thinking
that inquiries about the language of being, the domain of no
thing. Such thinking brings us into a region of openness where
thinking and poetry are neighbors. (US, p. 77)
The word, Logos, is unique in the history of thinking. It
applies simultaneously to Being and to Saying. (US, p. 80)
It may be that the essential nature, the being of language,
simply refuses to let itself be expressed in words, for it is prior
to and stands under language and words, words and things.
(US, p. 81) On the other hand, the word allows a thing to be
a thing, sustains it in the region of being. Logos holds together
18 We find this point elsewhere; for instance, see "Language"
in Poetry, Language, Thought, Trans. Albert Hofstadter (New York, 1971), p. !l09.

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WILLIAM

E. REISER

the Saying we associate with words and the Being we associate
with things. But how are Being and Saying related? Whatever
that relationship is, it holds for both poetry and thinking: both
of them entail Saying.
The poetic experience is content to let things be, to renounce
all claims at calculative thinking, even the calculative intent
of metaphor, for the sake of wonder. It realizes what the
philosopher meant: " Whereof one cannot speak, thereof one
must be silent." 17 But a calculating mind will ask whether words
too are things: " A thing is not until, and is only where, the
word is not lacking but is there." (US, p. 86) But " the word
for the word " is not to be discovered in ordinary vocabulary.
Like Saying, the word is no thing; Saying and word designate
what is there but "is "not. (US, p. 87)
Heidegger's point is that, when we speak about language,
we are not speaking of something distant, but of a reality close
to home. This point supposes his understanding of Dasein.
In fact, Saying defines a showing, revealing, setting free, and a
hiding: " This lighting and hidden proffer of the world is the
essential being of Saying." (US, p. 93) But how does the world
come forward as the being of Saying? Saying makes the world
appear, discloses the openness of the Open, the manifestness
of the manifest. Essentially, Saying gathers all things together
in a primordial, non-descriptive fashion. Calculative thinking
rebels at the idea. And yet, there is a profound nearness that
relates all things precisely in their manifestness and openness
to one another. Dasein already finds itself in this open region
characterised by the nearness that touches whatever is. It is
the region where all things are in their no-thing-like character.
The answer to the question about language is not remote from
and particius because Dasein is already
pates in the disclosedness of Being that simultaneously reveals
and conceals.
Saying and nearness go together; language is to be understood as Saying. (US, p. 96) Language, consequently, mani17

189.

Ludwig Wittgenstein,

Tractatus

LoiJico-Philosophicus (London,

p.

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fests in the rootedness of man's Being-in-the-world because man
is the one who speaks. The nearness resulting from Saying's
gathering, regioning sweep grounds the harmony of all the
earth's structures in a profound stillness. (US, p. 101) Saying,
then, is the being of language; Saying and nearness are the
same. (US, p. 107) We are to conclude, therefore, that language discloses the gathering of all things into nearness. Language is a sign of our own being drawn into the unifying sweep
in which the regions of the world come face to face. But Saying
is likewise a showing. That is why the word, Logos, is so rich;
it contained philosophy's originative insight into the manifestness of what is in the all-embracing nearness of things.

From No Thing to Art
The final step in our consideration starts with a familiar
theme, namely, the thing. We shall be moving with Heidegger
from " thing " through art to openness and truth. The essay
on art, like his essays on poetry, involve a shift to foundational thinking. 18
1. From Thing and Work to Truth

The phrase, " work of art," is our ordinary designation for
an artistic piece. We think of such works as things, entities,
that incorporate on canvas or in bronze or clay an " artistic"
insight. The art work is obviously not nothing, so it must be
some thing. (UK, p. 21) The problem is that "thing" is a
very ambiguous term. While we often refer to things
in contradistinction to animate beings, thing can refer
inclusively to whatever is, to beings. But what is a thing?
Traditionally, the most widely used conceptual distinction is
that of form and matter, substance and accident: the
most common, most familiar, and easiest of manipulative or
calculative notions. One has little difficulty explaining it because
its meaning is so readily apparent. According to Heidegger, the
originative Greek insight understood the meaning of thing as
being, without the form-matter distinction. (UK, p. 28) But
18 " The Origin of the Work of Art"
(Der Ursprung des Kunswerkes) in the
volume Poetry, Language, Thought. We have abbreviated this as UK.

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WILLIAM E. REISER

as he pointed out, originative insights have a way of getting
obscured in interpretation. (see Being and Time, I, 5, 33)
" Thing " can be defined in three ways which do not approximate the true sense of the word. Thing can be the core, the
substance to which properties adhere. (UK, p. 23) Or it might
indicate the unified perception of what is given to us through
our senses. (UK, p. 25) Or rejecting these as insufficient, we
could claim that a thing has to be allowed to be, " to do its own
thing," to stand forth in its own self-consistency. Yet this view
also supposes the form-matter distinction: and this distinction
is the general conceptual scheme lying behind most theories of
aesthetics. (UK, p. 27)
To give us a clue for uncovering what a thing is, Heidegger
recalls us to the notions of equipmental being and usefulness,
but this time we are to expand our understanding of useful
things in order to see the domain which gives rise to usefulness
in the first place. For the primary note which attaches to things
is not that of matter and form constitution but usefulness,
an equipmental determination. (UK, p. 28) The matter-form
distinction only appears to be the basic structure of all things
and works; we spontaneously want to think in these terms. Yet,
the most difficult task is allowing things to be things, allowing
the thing-being of things (UK, p. 31) and foregoing any definition of thing rooted in the equipmental being of equipment.
However, Dasein finds itself in the world relying on equipment. We are at home in the world because things are useful,
reliable; we depend on their being just what they are. Equipmental being is not characterized by form-matter distinctions
but by the intrinsic reliability of things, their oneness with
themselves that precedes the substance and property posture
of thought:
The equipmental being of equipment, reliability, keeps gathered
within itself all things according to their manner and extent. The
usefulness of equipment is nevertheless only the essential consequence of reliability. (UK, pp. 34-5)

In the analysis of Being and Time Heidegger founds equipment in care and finiteness. The deeper origin of things is, of

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course, the truth of being, what a thing is in truth; finiteness
discloses to us the meaning of " in truth." The piece of art,
then, rests on the coming forth, the coming to light, the unconcealedness of its being. (UK, p. 36) " Art is truth setting itself
to work." (UK, p. 39) In order to explain the nature of this
display Heidegger develops an example-the Greek templeto show how this work of art gathers, holds, and signifies a
world. 19
The temple brought together everything that the country
and its people were. Political life, social order, war and peace,
divine curse and grace, agricultural bounty, culture: all these
things were really the temple. But then there was the building
itself stretching heavenwards out of rocky soil, perhaps set on
a cliff overlooking valley and sea. Now, the Greek mind named
this rising out of the earth, nature: that dynamic principle
by which things came forth. The earth too was somehow set
forth by this rising up of mortar and stone, a periphrastic of
architectural design. The earth came forth as man's place, his
ground and abode. The temple, then, opened up a horizon or
world and put this world back again on earth. (UK, p.
The temple, in its standing there, first gives to things their look and
to men their outlook on themselves ... as long as the god has not
fled from it ... it is a work that lets the god himself be present
and thus is the god himself. (UK, p. 43)

The temple was a work that opened up a world and sustained
it in its openness. World is that ever non-objective " place "
where we are, we and all things with us-our values, life, grace,
peace, sorrow-all that we are, all that makes us to be. Work
19 Heidegger wrote: " The answer to the question " What is a thing?" is different in character. It is not a proposition but a transformed basic position or,
better still and more cautiously, the initial transformation of the hitherto existing
position towards things, a change of questioning and evaluation, of seeing and
deciding; in short, of the being-there (Da-sein) in the midst of what is (inmitten
des Seienden). To determine the changing basic position within the relation to what
is, that is the task of an entire historical period. But this requires that we perceive more exactly with clearer eyes what most holds us captive and makes us
unfree in the experience and determination of things." See What is a Thing?,
Trans. W. B. Barton, Jr. and Vera Deutsch (Chicago, 1967), pp. 50-1.

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WILLIAM E. REISER

engenders world, setting it up out of the stuff of earth which
neither destroys nor impoverishes but enhances by causing
it to come forth. What comes forth is the Earth. " The work
moves the earth itself into the Open of a world and keeps it
there. The work lets the earth be an earth." (UK, p. 46) By
its very nature the earth is not penetrated by calculative thinking; it resists this; it hides from us. A work sets forth the earth
in its openness; yet once set forth, the earth remains the ground
on which the work is set. (UK, p. 47) It is in the agitated tension of the opposing terms earth and world that work rests.
And so it is here that the work of art discloses truth; we are
far from the superficial vantage point of form and matter.
Work gathers into itself the most primordial conflict between
the closing and disclosing of Being.
Truth and Art as the Unconcealed
Heidegger summarizes the lines of his argument in the essay "On the Essence of Truth" by rapidly moving from a
definition of truth as propositional to an understanding of
truth as openness. We should remember that his intention
was to show that form and matter were residual traces of a
primal insight into the " rift " between earth and world, and
that this rift is a manifestation of the concealing-unconcealing
nature of truth. Yet, the essence of truth will point to the
truth of essence. And so we are raising anew the question of
Being in its manife.stness and hiddenness.
In brief, Being .stands in unconcealedness, and Dasein, Beingin-the-world, is already situated within the unconcealedness
of whatever is. " In the midst of beings as a whole an open
place occurs." This is the Liehtung, the lighting, clearing, open
center, place of unconcealment, though a clearing which is at
the same time a concealment. (UK, p. 53) Beings may conceal themselves by refusing to come forth or by simulating one
another. Their refusal to disclose themselves in fact reveals
the beginning of the clearing, the lighted region. Their concealment by simulating something else causes us to mistake
them one for another. The open place, moreover, is not a fixed

AN ESSAY ON 'l'HE DEVELOPMENT

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state but a happening-unconcealedness
happens: it is not a
property of beings or of propositions. The concealment belongs to the essence of truth as unconcealedness; untruth belongs to the essence of truth, for beings both disclose and hide
themselves. (UK, p. 54)
The open and the closed constitute a primal conflict: earth
rises up as the self-closing, while world, rising through work, is
set on the earth as disclosing. Truth accordingly happens as
"the primal conflict between clearing and concealing." (UK,
p. 55) In the case of the temple truth happens precisely in
the temple's " standing there " and gathering to itself earth and
sky, man and gods; it thus forms a world which is set upon its
counterpoint, the earth. The truth of a work consists in the
opposition of clearing and concealing. (UK, p. 60)
In so many ways Heidegger is portraying truth as openness,
the Open as the place of conflict, Being as allowing openness to
happen, and so on. Truth cannot be said to be pre-existent.
Truth is the stamp of a work, a creation, wherein things are
allowed to come forth. (UK, p. 61) On the other hand, in
his work man " creates createdness " in the product of his
hands. Createdness, in short, is what Being allows when the
conflict between earth and world issues in truth. What is
art?" Art then is the becoming and happening of truth." (UK,
p. 71).

What is Called Heresy?
We have now established a context for discussing a new
meaning of heresy. After so much talk about the being of
language, we must look into the being of heresy and dogma.
We want to see how the development of dogma could be framed
in a Heideggerian context. At the outset we might say that
development is one of the ways in which the manifestness of
being is disclosed to us. Development cannot be some thing.
It is not a category, a quality, a relation, a substance, a predicate. Development is one of the ways in which Being comes
forth.
But what is called heresy? What does heresy name, and

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what does heresy have to do with development? Truth, we have
seen, is not to be taken as a simple adaequatio, as a mental
duplication of a state of affairs. Heresy, therefore, does not
name a proposition, should not be taken as the mere denial
of dogma, a propositional statement touching on religious
matters. To be " in heresy " cannot mean that one has simply
refused assent to a dogmatic proposition. Then what is called
heresy? What does heresy name when that which it calls comes
forth?
Truth is bound up with the conflict between the unconcealed and the hidden. It is not something set up in a noetic
heaven, given through clear and distinct ideas. Truth is a
primordial relationship. To be in the truth means to stand
forth in the open center where disclosedness is illumined. It
means, on Heidegger's terms, that one is in the clearing in a
free, non-volitional, non-intentional, non-calculative stance. To
be in the truth does not merely mean to give assent to a
body of propositions, no matter how beautiful, revered, traditional, " correct," religious they may be. One stands in the
truth when in fundamental openness he is prepared to listen, to
behold whatever manifests itself. It is a matter of letting things
be so that they come forth as they are. No one, we must add,
has a once-for-all grasp on the truth. In fact, the very conviction that one does " seize " the truth as his possession betrays a fundamentally improper posture such that one closes
himself to the voice of Being.
What is called heresy? What calls forth heresy? It would
be easy to say that heresy is the foundational closing-off, turning away from the divine reality which in its comprehending
nearness reveals, gives, and conceals itself. This revealing and
giving has traditionally been termed grace. Yet, is not concealing also one of the ways that Being comes forth? And in
concealing, is not the clearing itself disclosed? Even the divine
reality's concealment, which is also a disclosure, is called grace.
Heresy would appear to consist of refusing the manifestness
of grace by not hearing, by closing oneself off, by calculating
the divine, by willing, intending or otherwise stepping out of

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open center which is given to Dasein as foundational grace.
Such a claim is justified. Still, what calls forth heresy might
itself be a refusal to be contained in merely propositional belief.
One may find himself rejecting what is considered orthodox out
of a profound belief that he is called. But called to what and
by whom? And how is that call named? Authentic listening
is what grounds all orthodoxy and heresy. We are not attempting to solve here the mystery of grace and faith or to argue
to a definition of the faith community which would impose no
limits on beliefs. Rather, we are moving to discuss development as it touches upon dogma, where development is of the
manifestness of things in their coming forth. Neither orthodoxy
nor heresy on this showing are essentially understood in terms
of propositional allegiance.
What calls forth heresy? To say it is dissent is to say too
little. Where there are no words, how can some thing be? What
does heresy name, or dogma either? Perhaps a dogma is a
thing. According to theological manuals, the revealed deposit
of divine truth does not undergo change. The deposit may be
re-conceptualized and reinterpreted for new generations of
believers; but it does not change: it is" ever ancient, ever new."
identity in difference. But this is exactly that application of
the form-matter device which we earlier found wanting. On the
one hand, change becomes the accidental and variant shell surrounding an unchanging matrix, and this view just bankrupts
the notion of novelty which is so familiar a component of human experience. Novelty does not deny the enduring, permanent features of experience; it rather takes seriously the fact
that human beings themselves are major instances of novelty.
Tragedy in love may be an age old occurrence, but each occurrence is something new, and the subject which experiences the
misfortune is a non-repeatable, novel subject. Similarly, a doctrine may signify a permanent feature in a given religious history but the appropriation of that doctrine by new believers is
always a novel occurrence. And the historicality of the individual believer requires us to admit the historicality of his appropriation

WILLIAM E. REISER

On the other hand, the form-matter device accents the permanent and recognizes the unchanging as especially valuable,
as an achievement of religious consciousness. The dogma may
even be taken as part of revelation itself. Yet if we recall
that the form-matter constitution is not our ontological starting point, that something more primordial stands behind it,
then we must say that the permanent aspect of dogma is not
what is religiously "first," primordial. Both its variable and
invariable elements are expressions of something more fundamental. Consequently, to avoid the ontological oversight
which overestimates the importance of either timelessness or
change, we must appeal to the fundamental ground, to reality
which is foundational. We initiate this appeal by asking, What
calls forth heresy? We initiate our answer by replying that
perhaps it is Being which calls forth heresy by its concealedness.
The work of art, like the poet's word, is framed against the
primal conflict of earth and world, the simultaneuos closure
and disclosure of Being. A dogma, like the work of art, expresses the tension between divine disclosure and the closure
which hides from our too calculative, too volitional, too intentional grasping. We designate this phenomenon in religious
terms " mystery." By this we mean the following.
In
later thought the fourfold of earth, sky, mortals, and divinity are the symbols which underlie his ontology.
For him there are no " principles of being " as such; Being is
spoken of in terms of disclosedness; Being is what is most universal and most concrete. The fourfold is the reality beneath
the infinite vari"eties of Being's coming forth in poetry, in art, in
essential thinking. We are not to regard the history of art, for
instance, as the history of the fourfold any more than we can
identify the history of the world with the history of Being.
Adding up all the moments of art history would not bring us
a bit closer to some imagined totality, nor to a closer approximation of the fourfold. No function of integration sums up the
whole of Being, for the unity of Being is not to be conceived in
a calculative way. The fourfold instead represents both the possibility of artistic creation and its underlying unity, however

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a particular artist might thematize it. The fourfold reveals
symbolically what disclosedness is all about. Similarly, we
want to think of dogmas not as increasing approximations of
a mysterious whole but as expressions of the disclosedness of
Being, expressions which gather and give rise to a world.
Between sound ontology and theology there can be no contradictions. What is the object of revelation-divine realityrelates to the fundamental presencing of things. Dogma, however, concerns more than divine reality. Dogma also bespeaks
the finiteness of man, his historicality, the conditions which
occasion the rise of any given dogma. While this observation
could be elaborated in concrete detail, we wish to do no more
than indicate the general sense in which dogma sets up a world.
Dogma, as a work, is true only insofar as it holds the tension
between the disclosedness of Being upon which it is based and
the domain of faith which it sets up. Dogma regions; it regions
that vast Open which is not distant and in which all things
dwell in profound nearness. Dogma arises when the man of
faith .stands in his own openness before and in the manifestness of Being. And like the artist's work, when the primal experience is gone, dogma, like art, dies. (UK, p. 79)
We have not answered our original query about development. Yet by repeating the question" What calls forth heresy?"
we have been drawing near to a reply. We appeal to Heidegger's view on the connection between word and thing, between
thing and nothing. Where there are no words, there is the
region of no thing, the region of fullness, of undisclosed Being,
of the language of Being. What calls forth heresy and what
constitutes the calling? Heresy is not the mere denial of
propositions, yet without that denial propositions would not
have been affirmed. While Heidegger does not attend to the
notion of development, in the notion of calling-forth we find
its Heideggerian analogue. What comes forth is Being; what
calls forth is thinking, poetry, or maybe art also. We are already proximally related to Being; in the openness of essential
thinking Being both summons and reveals itself within the
clearing, the lighting, the open center of Dasein.

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WILLIAM E. REISER

For us the answer to "What calls forth heresy?" must be
stated in similar terms. Faith regions. Grace is the lighting and
simultaneously the disclosure of divine reality. As in essential
thinking, so iu authentic faith, man as Dasein is already situated in the regions where no things are. The :finding of
words for where there is no thing is impossible without losing that for which, on account of which, and in the presence
of which we are. Nevertheless, we try to name even as the
artist creates a work, even as he responds to the call of Being
which both closes and discloses itself, even as the poet tries to
compose out of language what language resists Saying. Sometimes, in fallenness, forgetfulness misleads us and we go astray;
Being is dissimulated, conceals itself, and to speak theologically
heresy is called forth. " What is called heresy " and " What
calls it forth " bring us in faith face to face with the silence that
calls us to itself.
The development of dogma in a Heideggerian context, we
submit, is to be understood in terms of calling and lettingbe. " Out of what " does dogma develope To say revelation is
to .say both too little and too much. Should we ask this question within the calculative stance of much philosophy and
theology we shall never understand the coming to be, the coming forth that occasions the question in the beginning. We
have attempted to explain how the question about development
can take on altogether different dimensions if raised in this
context. When the history of dogma is taken as the cumulative differentiation of an initial deposit of revelation, we can
fail to notice that there may be truth in heresy, that dogma
also conceals, that heresy is a kind of interpreting that is
radicated in the "falling state" of man (Being and Time, I, 5,
38) and the dissimulation of Being. The internal relations of
dogmas to one another may be quite random because no law
or logic governs their historical unfolding. Any one dogma
by itself, or even taken conjointly with some others, does not
say all there is to be said about revealed truth. While dogmas
are an indication of what has been disclosed to us, they can lead
us astray into forgetting the limits of disclosure; they thereby

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conceal the all-embracing primal ground from which they
emerge. Or dogmas can lose their life by becoming disengaged
from their ground like the ruins of a Greek temple. In this
case dogmas become heretical insofar as they cut one off
from the truth; the truth has been dissimulated. And heresy,
on the contrary, may alert us to the limits of our slight grasp
of that ground, to how finite our grasp is. In short, heresy may
lead more quickly "into the truth" than dogma. As for the
novelty which is a feature of development, we suggest re-thinking this in terms of historicality. What the history of dogma
displays are successive moments in a differentiating grasp of
revelation, but their historicity is not primarily constituted by
a succession of moments. Where does new dogma come from?
The answer may be given through a second question, Where
does anything new come from? For now, our only answer in a
Heideggerian context is offered in terms of calling forth, lettingbe, disclosedness. One thing is clear: a theological grasp of the
relations between revelation, Scripture, tradition, and dogma
depends on a conversion to an ontology which respects all four
of these terms by refusing to identify the true with what is certain and unchanging, or with what is being approximated over
a long series of historical moments, or with anything else apart
from the disclosedness of Being and the Dasein where that disclosedness is allowed to happen.
WILLIAM E. REISER,

Vanderbilt University
Nashville, Tennessee

s. J.

PAUL RICOEUR'S HERMENEUTICAL THEORY AS
RESOURCE FOR THEOLOGICAL REFLECTION

T

HE WORK OF the French phenomenologist, Paul
Ricoeur, has become increasingly prominent among
American theologians, as well as philosophers and
psychoanalysts, and he himself continues to be an enigmatically promising figure on the American intellectual scene ,,
in general. Since he has been remarkably clear in setting forth
the various modes of reflection he has employed while working
toward the completion of his three-volume philosophy of will,
it is regrettable that many American readers are acquainted
with only isolated texts, such as his F1·eud and Philosophy:
Interpretation Theory (1965). Although the latter, together
with three collections of essays-Husserl, An Analysis of His
Phenomenology (1967), Le conflit des interpretations (1969),
and a collection of essays on metaphor (to be published late in
1976) -are important by themselves, they are not, in terms of
Ricoeur's life work, central texts. Then, too, it is unfortunate
that the English translations of his major volumes have not
permitted an easy overview of the development of his thought.
Even though book-length studies of Ricoeur's work have
appeared in English since 1970, a succinct introduction which
would clarify the availability of his work for theological reflection is lacking. 1 What makes his work immediately interesting
to theologians is his treatment of several keys terms in psychoanalytic and linguistic theory/ such as "symbol," "conflict of
1 Don Ihde designedly underplays
" religious concerns " in his excellent study
of Ricoeur's early work, Hermeneutical Phenomenology: The Philosophy of Paul
Ricoeur (Evanston: Nothrwestern University Press, 1971). David M. Rasmussen
focuses his investigation on the philosophical and anthropological aspects in
Mythic-Symbolic Language and Philosophical Anthropology (The Hague: Martinus Nijhoff, 1971).
2 Because Ricoeur has taken
seriously the injunction that a philosopher must

496

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HERMENEUTICAL

THEORY

497

interpretations," " second naivete," and " text-appropriation."
Beyond the suggestiveness these concepts have for constructive
theology, however, is another, more explicitly theological
achievement: namely, his demonstration of the subjectivist
bias of the nineteenth and twentieth century hermeneutical
tradition and his efforts to emend it.
In the first part of this essay I wish to present the aspects of
Ricoeur's hermeneutical theory that have already proved to be
helpful as theological resources but which, on the whole, have
lacked a systematic treatment. Finally, I shall try to indicate
why his understanding of the hermeneutical tradition, if taken
seriously, would seem to allow for a significant breakthrough
for the conception of religious consciousness in general, as well
as for particular doctrinal traditions, such as Christianity.

General Background
Ricoeur deserves to be presented as the most theologically
sophisticated of the major contemporary theorists of interpretation. Among them he is distinguished by his commitment
to "empirics " or the utilization of scientific explanation. He
is unlike Heidegger, who, having as his major interest the
question of " being," is concerned most about the " presencing "
power of language; 3 Ricoeur, on the other hand, is wary lest
the immediacy of such " presencing" may too quickly preclude
a maximally intelligent response to it. He is unlike Betti, who
stresses the autonomy of the object. 4 For Ricoeur focuses
on the relationship of theoretical understanding and praxis.
Having as his primary concern the relation of experience to
re-think the history of philosophical inquiry, his explication of these terms is
a powerful, initial reason for the trustworthiness of his works.
8 Cf., for examp1e, the poetic and descriptive,
as distinct from the systematic,
treatment of language in Martin Heidegger, Unterwegs zur Sprache (Tiibingen:
Neske, 1956).
vols. (Milan:
• Betti's major work is Teoria generale della interpretazione,
Dott. A. Giurffre, 1955). In it he tries to define valid interpretations objectively
by demonstrating their occurence in theological, psychological, and in particular,
juridical interpretation.
From these demonstrations he derives a specific set
of "canons" by which, he says, human actions can be sufficiently understood.

498

MARY GERHART

thought as it appears in language, he emphasizes neither theory
nor praxis; rather, he is always" on the way" to theory. 5 And
he is distinct from Gadamer, who in his interest in the relation
of the human sciences to truth, emphasizes the precedence of
understanding over method.
In the projected structure of Ricoeur's major work, the threevolume philosophy of will, we can see the guiding thread of
his method: from eidetics (Volume I, Freedom and Nature 6 )
through empirics Volume II, Fallible Man 7 and The Symbolism
of Evil 8 ) to poetics (Volume III) .
Volume I is an investigation of the voluntary and invountary
as the basic context for the phenomenon of human " will."
Discovering early in Volume II that, in a strictly descriptive
method, the concept of " fallibility " cancels out human " freedom," he moves in the second part to " hermeneutics" in order
to study the matter-of-factness of " fault " as it appears in
symbol and myth. His Freud and Philosophy is a further step
in his empirics. In it Ricoeur holds that the poetic imagination
is best understood by way of a " detour " through cosmic and
oneiric symbols. He holds that, before the interpreter can
appreciate the poetic image as a sensory vehicle, he or she must
know something of the total field of the experience of humankind, as revealed in the study of the cosmic, and something
of the subtlety with which individual experience comes to
knowledge, as this may be understood through empirics.
" Detour " is the notion by which Ricoeur emphasizes the
5 Cf. Ricoeur's
abjuration of the theory/practice dichotomy in his History and
Truth (Evanston: Northwestern University Press, 1965): " Saying and doing, signifying and making are intermingled to such an extent that it is impossible to
set up a lasting and deep opposition between ' theoria ' and ' pra"'is ' " (p. 5) .
6 Freedom and Nature;
The Voluntary and the Involuntary (Philosophie de la
volonte, I: La Volontaire et l'involontaire [Paris: Aubier, 1950]), trans. by Erazim
V. Kohak (Evanston: Northwestern University Press, 1966).
• Fallible Man (Philosophie de la volonte: Finitude et culpabilite, I: L'Homme
faillible [Paris:
1960]), trans. by Charles Kelby (Chicago: Henry Regnery
Company, 1967) .
8 The Symbolism
of Evil (Philosophie de la volonte: Finitude et culpabilite,
II: La Symbolique du mal [Paris: Aubier, 1960]), trans. by Emerson Buchanan
(Boston: Beacon Press, 1967).

PAUL RICOEUR'S

HERMENEUTICAL

THEORY

499

plurality of stages in the interpretative act and the distinction
between immediate perception and reflective thought. The
Syrnbolisrn of Evil and Freud and Philiosophy are the amplification of this notion. Ricoeur's latest publication in hermeneutics, Le conflit des interpretations, together with his later
studies of text-interpretation, the philosophy of ordinary language, metaphor, and action, represent a further detour as he
prepares Volume III, a poetics of the will

Toward a Theory of Syrnbol
Ricoeur's pre-hermeneutical work (F1·eedorn and Nature,
Fallible Man) treats of human consciousness (which he terms
"the essential structure" of human existence) as the threshold
of speech. In retrospect, his hermeneutical theory (beginning
with The Syrnbolisrn of Evil) can be best appreciated as providing the crucial insight that the philosophical threshold to
speech is itself accessible only through language, even though
Ricoeur's affirmation of this insight does not take place until
later. This delay is opportune, however, because it allows for
a greater emphasis upon the link between symbol and experience. Moreover, the polysemy of symbolic expression acquires
a "bodiedness" through this delay: by means of Ricoeur's
analysis of the complex thinking-acting and thinking-feeling
relationships, symbol is seen to be the linguistic structure best
suited to represent the full range of human experience.
Ricoeur introduces symbol as a cultural-religious phenomenon in The Syrnbolisrn of Evil. He regards symbol as primordial language, systematically relating it to myth (already
a first-level interpretation, according to Ricoeur) and speculation (a second-level interpretation). Here he employs several
diagnostics (" objective characteristics as signs for obscure or
border experiences ") 10 to highlight the linguisticality of the
symbol: namely, philology, exegesis, phenomenology of religion,
See forthcoming publications (University of Toronto Press).
See my forthcoming article "Paul Ricoeur's Notion of 'Diagnostics':
structive Interpretation "; also Don Ihde, op. cit., pp. 29-30.
9

10

a Con-

500

MARY GERHART

historical and theological criticism. The Symbolism of Evil
marks his formal entry into hermeneutics and illustrates his
use of the concept of limit, explicated in Fallible Man. Earlier,
in Freedom and Nature, where the descriptive approach (eidetics) is taken to be sufficient for the study of essential human
structure, Ricoeur appeals only to intentional experiences of the
Cogito-thereby excluding those transcendent experiences of
love, reconciliation, and poetry. For example, in describing the
self-reference which is not yet reflective, he cites the French
expression, "je me decide a ...," to indicate that even in selfreference there is a reference to the "project " of the will.11
In the last part of Freedom and Nature-in the discussion of
"consent and necessity "-however, Ricoeur already begins to
tum to myth and symbol to find typologies of this paradox
and expressions of the " upper limit " of reflection on self and
the world. As an example he presents the " dream of innocence" as an "unfulfilled intentionality "-albeit fully "intentional" when it appears as an object of consciousness. 12 As
unfulfilled, this direct intentionality requires an indirect expression. Pursuing the contrast between direct and indirect
expressions in The Symbolism of Evil, Ricoeur contrasts the
experience of innocence with the experience of guilt and points
out that in the matter of guilt, one can speak only of a contradictory fulfillment because the evil act cannot be accounted
for by direct intentionality. As such, the phenomenon of guilt
requires an indirect or even more complex expression than does
the dream of innocence. These two experiences-innocence and
guilt-both involving limit-questions, demonstrate the limit of
direct intentionality: pure reflection and direct expression leave
11 It is interesting
to note that the distinction between direct and indirect
language (although superseded in his later work) originates in Ricoeur's linguistic
analysis of isolated statements. Later Ricoeur becomes progressively more interested in the problem of contexts.
12 For a contrasting
theological use of this term-which demonstrates, I think,
the use of an inadequate philosophical foundation-see Paul Tillich's " state of
dreaming innocence " in his interpretation of Genesis 1: 11, according to the
Christian doctrine of original sin. Systematic Theology (Chicago: The University
of Chicago Press, 1957), II, 88-86.

PAUL RICOEUR'S

HERMENEUTICAL

THEORY

501

" everyday reality outside," particularly when everyday reality
involves "enslavement to the passions." From this it might
appear that, since pure reflection constitutes the condition of
anyone's realizing selfhood through ultimate consent to his or
her limitations and achievements, philosophy must stop short
of any appeal to myth or symbol. Ricoeur shows, however,
that the " need " of philosophy for symbol is substantiated
through a dual capacity of the symbol. On the side of intentionality it evokes, lights up and puts ''in order a whole field
of human experience, not otherwise accessible to pure reflection." On the side of the conscious subject, it "sensitizes our
outlook" toward a domain of experience which cannot be
reduced to " error or emotion or habit or even finiteness." 13
Symbol, then, becomes intrinsic to Ricoeur's philosophical
method. He uses the Kantian concept of limit to provide an
understanding of Husserl's ideality of consciousness, and Hegel's phenomenology of spirit to criticize Freud's naturalism.
In the end, Ricoeur's use of .symbol as the primary object of
his phenomenological investigations guarantees that his own
philosophy will not exhaust itself methodologically and that
it will keep as its goal an ontology, beyond both introspection
and anthropology.
The task of the philosopher guided by symbols is to break down the
enchanted wall of self-consciouness and subjectivity, to strip reflection of its exclusive rights to go beyond anthropology.

He moves steadily toward a dialectical relationship between
philosophy and symbol:
In contrast to philosophies wrestling with starting points a meditation on symbols starts right out with langauge and with the
meaning that is always already there. It takes off in the midst of
language already existing, where everything has already been said
after a fashion; it gladly embraces thought with all its presuppositions. Its big problem is not to get started, but, in the midst of
words, to remember once again.
13

Ricoeur, "The Symbol ... Food for Thought," Philosophy Today, IV (Fall,

1960)' 206.

MARY GERHART

This dialectical relationship is auspicious for our time: " With
the bleak sand of criticism behind us, we want a new hearing " 14
-that is, a hearing which will not reduce myth and symbol
either to explanation or to archaic truth, however necessary
it is initially to demythologize-but a hearing which is capable
of revivifying contemporary language.
Ricoeur's later work in psychoanalytic theory, structuralism,
and linguistic analysis all can be seen as elaborations of this
crucial problem: the reciprocal relationship between symbol
and thought. It is stated best in his own aphorism, " the symbol gives rise to thought" 15 and its converse, "thought is always informed by symbol." By means of this formulation, the
human sciences evidence the need they have for philosophythat is, for a clarification of the starting points of their analytic thought. Philosophy also, in Ricoeur's aphorism, acknowledges the limits of reflection in declaring its need to return to
symbol as the fullest expression of lived experience. We already
begin to see Ricoeur's basic argument: without symbol there
can be no fullness of expression; without comparison and interpretation, no authentic self..appiropriation; without philossophical thought, no truth.
From Symbol to Interpretation Theory
Symbol becomes Ricoeur's paradigm for the expression of
multiple meanings. His successive definitions of symbol-from
an implicitly religious thematization to an areligious, structural
possibility of sevel"al univocal thematizations-provide an index
to the development of his hemeneutical theory.
An avowal by which humankind witnesses to the actuality
of evil, in The SymboliMn of Evil, represents multiple
torical and cultural intentionalities: the " symbol-thing" is
distinguished from " image " by its function-" to gather toIbid., pp. 196-97.
It should be noted that in The Symbolism in Evil, this aphorism as stated
represents only " half " of the hermeneutical circle-even though, in the same context, Ricoeur speaks of the " whole circle made up of confession, myth and speculation" (p. 9) and also refers to the circle as "the believing for the sake of
understanding which is also understanding for the sake of believing" (p. 854) .
a

16

PAUL RICOEUR'S

HERMENEUTICAL

THEORY

508

gether at one point a mass of significations, which before giving
rise to thought, give rise to speech. The symbolic manifestation
as a thing is a matrix of symbolic meanings as words." But
the salient point in The Symbolism of Evil is that, even in the
most archaic expressions of evil, the symbol is intended to
express not just some thing but" the sinner's situation in the
dimension of the sacred." A spot or stain, for example, can
refer univocally to an obvious thing or event, or it may, in
addition, designate the way a man is situated with regard to
the sacred in his life.16 Hence the symbol depends upon the
sign, through which it intends something other than what is
immediately referred to by the sign: the intentionality is assumed to be religious, and Ricoeur, at this point, does not raise
the question of the adequacy nor of the relationship of the religious thematization to others.
Ricoeur's later definition of symhol in Freud and Philosophy
has suspended the exclusively religious thematization and is
designed both to accomodate the possibility of false consciousness and to raise the problem of multiple interpretation:
Symbols occur when langauge produces signs of composite degree in
which the meaning, not satisfied with designating some one thing,
designates another meaning attainable only in and through the
first intentionalityP

It is within the circumscription of these expressions of double
or multiple sense that his theory of hermeneutics is initially
16 Ibid., p. 26. It is interesting that Ricoeur's first definition of the symbol
is overtly ontological. The ontological referent disappears, however, as the definition is transposed into structural terms but returns after several "detours":
"Now I am prepared to say and to recognize that the ontological dimension of the
symbol is precisely ' world-disclosure." In other words, if I give only a semantic
definition of the symbol as a double-meaning structure, I still remain in a kind
of structural analysis. But the main function of a symbolic structure is to say
something in an indirect way about reality and therefore I should be inclined
now to emphasize the ontological dimension of the symbolic structure." (Faculty
Conference tape, University of Chicago, 1971) Notwithstanding this return to
ontology, both the subjective and objective referent of symbol have been profoundly illuminated by Ricoeur's "detours " through myth criticism, psychoanalytic theory, and structuralism.
17 Ricoeur, Freud and Philosohpy, p. 16. See also Le conflit, p. 16.

504

MARY GERHART

constituted. Later, as we shall see below, he defines symbol
entirely in terms of structure and function.
But before moving into this further investigation of symbol
by means of structuralism and phenomenology, Ricoeur enumerates three domains wherein symbols can be seen to emerge:
the cosmic, the oneiric, and the poetic. Cosmic symbolism is
closely tied to rites and hierophanies in primitive religions.
Ricoeur regards them as the exemplary models of expressions
for man's relation to the sacred and reaffirms Eliade's notion
of the "cosmo-theological function of symbols while emphasizing the factor of intentionality by which man is reintegrated
into the whole sacred past." Oneiric symbolism, dealt with
primarily in Part Two of Freud and Philosophy, has to do with
nocturnal dreams and has as its locus of investigation the individual psyche. Poetic symbolism differs from the cosmic and
oneiric, according to Ricoeur, in that it refers to a word-image
instead of a representation image. In the poetic symbol lanuage does not have "hieratic stability under the protection
of rites and myths." Instead, "it puts language in a state
of emergence." 18
These three zones wherein symbols reside-the cosmic, oneiric and poetic imagination-are not mutually exclusive. Rather,
they are initially somewhat like " world views " which serve
only to qualify the various ways in which symbols come to
be within human consciousness and how they might best be
explicated. None of these zones has any temporal priority with
respect to others, although the cosmic is more prevalent in
classical history and the oneiric and poetic are more easily
associated with the modern and contemporary. Nor are the
cosmic and oneiric, of themselves, generically different: "To
manifest the ' sacred' on the cosmos and to manifest it in the
'psyche' are the same thing.'' 19 It is helpful at this point to
recall Ricoeur's treatment of feeling in Fallible Man where he
showed that the condition for the possibility of " reading " feel18

19

The Symbolism of Evil, p. 14.
Ibid., pp. 12, 14. Cf. also Freud and Philosophy, p. 16.

PAUL RICOEUR'S

HERMENEUTICAL

THEORY

505

ing was an object or person on which felt qualities could be
manifested. vVe notice, however, that quite properly Ricoeur
does not refer to " feelings " in his discussion of symbol, for,
as he said in Fallible Man, "the affective aspect of feeling
vanishes as soon as its intentional aspect fades away, or it at
least sinks into an inexpressible obscurity":
It is only thanks to its aim, overspilling itself into a felt quality,
into an affective " correlate," that feeling can be expressed, said,
communicated and worked out in a cultural language. Our "affections " are read on the world they develop, which reflects their
kinds and nuances. 20

By eliminating the factor of feeling from his discussion of symbol, Ricoeur acquires an even more rigorous, through tentative reading of the object-intentionalities of feeling.
Ricoeur approaches the poetic imagination by way of " detour " in order to prevent a negative understanding of the category of the" imaginary":
Too often it has been said the imagination is the power of forming
images. This is not true if by image one means the representation
of an absent or unreal thing, a process of rendering present-of
presentifying-the thing over there, elsewhere, or nowhere. In no
way does poetic imagination reduce itself to the power of forming
a mental picture of the unreal; the imagery of sensory origin merely
serves as a vehicle and as material for the verbal power"' whose
true dimension is given to us by the oneiric and the cosmic. 21

The three zones through which symbols emerge are, after all,
united within language, for the symbols that emerge in any of
them are all lignuistic expressions of multiple meaning.
Ricoeur begins to differentiate the various levels of possible
meaning of the symbol by comparing it with other kinds of linguistic expressions. As language, first of all, symbol must be
studied as reflective consciousness, that is, consciousness twice
removed from
as an affirmation of a non-lingistic experience which is signified in direct expressions, and
2

° Fallible Man, p. 127.

21

Fri'!Ud and Philosophy,

p. 15.

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MARY GERHART

once as a self-reference which calls for indirection. What distinguishes symbol from sign, for example, is the subject's awareness of the primacy of the act of his own existence and of the
desire to signify the quality of his immediate consciousness indirectly. This double awareness constitutes the distinctive
intentionality of the symbol, whereas the sign has as its primary
intentionality, a direct signification. In every sign a sensory
vehicle is the bearer of a signifying function. This directly intended meaning may be, at the same time, the primary or literal
meaning of symbol. A symbol has " the peculiarity of designating an indirect meaning in and through a direct meaning";
it calls for " something like a deciphering, that is, an interpretation. . . . To mean something other than what is said-that
is the symbolic function." It is this relation of symbol to sign
that is signified by the term, " double-sense " of symboP 2
Ricoeur differentiates symbol from analogy on the grounds
that symbol cannot be satisfied with reasoning by proportionality: A is to B as C is to D. 23 Ricoeur argues that the meaning of symbol is not one constituted by likenesses apparent
" from the outside." Rather, it is " the very movement of the
primary meaning intentionally assimilating us to the symbolized, without our being able to intellectually dominate that
likeness." 24 Nor is symbol like allegory. That which is signified by allegory is directly accessible to understanding whereas the symbol "means " by way of suggestion: " the symbol
yields its meaning as enigma and not through translation."
Symbols differ from characters in a system of symbolic logic
in that the formal logic of the latter is maintained by translation which is similar to the higher mathematical functions.
Symbol is different from myth by virtue of temporality. As
•• Ibid., pp. 11-lS.
•• It must be conceded that not all theories of analogy are as unsophisticated
as that which Ricoeur cites as an example here.
•• Freud and Philosophy, p. 17. The 'need for an adequate interpretation of
symbol leads Ricouer to question the usual meaning of verification. He observes
that out of the many possible functions of an utterance, the logical selects only
one for the process of verification. His goal is to achieve an " existential verification" for symbol.

PAUL RICOEUR'S

HERMENEUTICAL

THEORY

507

a form of recitation, myth poses the problem of an originating,
"fundamental time "-a temporal orientation, directed from a
commencement toward an end-which must be treated over
and above the interpretation of the basic symbol. Moreover,
by incorporating a concealed social web in its relationship to
rites and multiple institutions, the myth does not have the inexhaustible "temporal potential " of the symbol. The narrative structure of the myth limits the fund of potential significations of the symbol. 25
Having defined symbol in relation to other kinds of linguistic
expression, Ricoeur finally comes to define symbolism and interpretation reciprocally in order to " contain them within the
strict limits of a semantic analysis." Symbol is that special
form of linguistic expression that " calls for" interpretation.
And interpretation (as distinct from translating, analogizing, or
allegorizing) becomes that approach to the symbol which will
be most adequate to what the symbol has to say. Just as
symbol is the model for that linguistic object which cuts across
all empirical categories in its complexity and fullness, interpretation is the model for that most difficult operation of the
subject who tries to articulate existential meaning for himself
or herself in the situation referred to by the symbol, through
and beyond known empirical categories.
Ricoeur's theory of symbol can be seen to have developed
out of his philosophical thought at a strategic point. His
move to symbol was not a " concession " to philosophical
thought but rather was essential to the philosophical task at a
specific point, namely, in Ricoeur's analysis of the question of
fault. This suggests that the relationship between philosophy
and symbol can be an integral one, only if it is properly structured-a point reinforced by Ricoeur's own careful reflections
on method.
Furthermore, such a structured context for the understanding of symbol can now be seen as necessary if polysemy is to be
discussed as a question rather than simply as a fact, contrary
•• Le conflit des interpretations, p. 81!!, #82.

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MARY GERHART

to the approaches of many theologians. The symbol is a problem for interpretation, according to Ricoeur, not only because
its meaning is unknown or because its many meanings can
never be completely known; rather, because it is legitimately
investigated from several disciplines, it continuously gives
rise to several univocal meanings.Ztl Basic to all meanings engendered by the symbol, however, is a " knowing "-an act always "constituted" by a subject and object of consciousness,
perhaps best described in Husserlian phenomenology. In this
view, the object becomes "object" and the subject " subject"
only in the constitutive act of consciousness. One cannot,
therefore, know anything about subject or object apart from
each other, hence, strictly speaking, can know nothing about
an a priori subject or object. 27 Ricoeur has, by way of explicating the complexity of the symbol as a linguistic expression, made self-evident the need for a highly sophisticated
understanding of the thought which may emerge from reflection
on symbol or from its cljtical interpretation.
Ricoeur's shift from his early consideration of symbol as
religious to his later consideration of symbol as structural, reinforces his discovery of the complexity, not only of symbol,
but of meaning. It is important to notice, however, that while
he no longer denominates certain symbols as exclusively or
26 The key insight is that interpretation
is always a mediation of meaning (cf.
Ricoeur, Freud and Philosophy, p. 18). See also Ibid., p. 24: " The notion of
being is but ' the problematic unity of an irreducible plurality of meanings.' "
Ricoeur notes that in ordinary language analysis-which assumes the priority of
univocal meanings-we are unable to construct a typology of questions. Without
philosophy, there is only an infinite regress of analysis.
27 Ricoeur
questions the adequacy of Husserl's concept of "constitution " as
follows: if one takes as one's starting point any privileged experience, which
is, by definition "constituted as revelatory of my ontological situation," one
incurs the possibility of an experience of deficiency, of "non-being.'' as well as
of experiences of sufficiency, of "being." On this basis Ricoeur censures as naive
" the pretensions of the subject to set himself up as the primitive or primordial being under the pretext that he has, in a limited but authentic sense, the transcendental function of 'constituting' the involuntary aspects of his life and world."
(Ricoeur, Ilusserl, p. 214). For another, more positive, interpretation of Husserl's
concept of "constiution," however, see Robert Sokolowski, The Formation of Ilusserl's Concept of Constitution (The Hague: Martinus Nijhofl', 1964), esp. pp.
167-223.

PAUL RICOEUR'S

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THEORY

509

necessarily "religious," he continues to find traditionally religious symbols as the most significant sources for thought, including religious thought. 28
Confiict of Interpretations

Ricoeur's concept of the" conflict of interpretation" is most
directly derived from his investigation of Freud's several notions of the term " overdetermination " and the problem of
"false" consciousness. Ricoeur designs the concept to relate
the "mediation" of consciousness to philosophical reflection.29
In Fallible Man Ricoeur already shows how intentionality
08 Cf., for example, his essay, "La paternite:
du fantasme au symbol," Le conflit, pp. 458-86.
•• Meaning, according to Ricoeur, is always "intentional," in the sense of its
involving consciousness of some object. From the beginning the object of understanding is whatever has appeared in man's consciouS'lless. These objects include
not only matters of conscious identification, but all the sedimented meaning of cultural objects of all the "disguised, substitutive, and fictive expressions of human
wishing or desire " (Freud and Philosophy, p. 5) . The overwhelming range of data
which presents itself to contemporary man is only one explanation for what Ricoeur
calls the " triple crisis of language, interpretation and reflection " (p. 55) . Then
too, many ways of explicating human experience have been shown to be incapable of dealing with the vast extent of the " modern horizon." One such waythe notion of "immediate consciousness "-has been found to be potentially misleading when it is employed in discussions concerning " meaning." It is a parlous notion
because, since consciousness is merely assumed in most descriptions of human
knowing, the fact of " mediation " is apt to be overlooked, not only in these
descriptions but perhaps with greater consequences in related epistemological issues.
In the major philosophical and theological traditions, for example, the notion
of" immediate consciousness " has been especially problematic: Nietzsche and
Freud attribute the rise of " false consciousness " to it. In order to replace the
inadequate notion of "immediate consciousness," Freud creates the notion of
the "unconscious," a region to which we have access only through " secondary processes" or "reflective consciousness." (Ibid., pp. 78-80, 109-118). Ricoeur,
therefore, turns to Freud as the one who most clearly presents the interpretative
dimension of human experience. It is true that, since Freud, more suitable therapeutic methods and more accurate descriptions of the structure of human experience have been developed. Nevertheless, Freud is to be credited with having
successfully argued for a primary world in which consciousness is rooted, a grounding world which is accessible to reflection only by way of " mediation." Cf.
Ricoeur's discussion of " illusion " in Alasdiar Macintyre and Ricoeur: The
Religious Significance of Atheism, pp. 61-67, where he compares Freud's and
Nietzsche's use of the term; Freud and Philosophy, pp.
and Le

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must be read in terms of the progressions of the thinking-feeling
and thinking-acting correlations as they are projected upon
objects. He claims that only by means of those readings can
one have some insight-limited though that always is-into
the basic project of the self. In his critique of Descartes Ricoeur
shows how the immediate consciousness is itself a forgetfulness
both of how it came to be and of its need for a critical judgment to confirm the truth or falsity of its way of being:
If it is true that the language of desire is a discourse combining

meaning and force, reflection, in order to get at the root of desire,
must let itself be dispossessed of the conscious meaning of discourse
and displaced to another place of meaning. This is the moment of
dispossession, of relinquishing. But since desire is accessible only in
the disguises in which it displaces itself, it is only by interpreting
the signs of desire that one can capture in reflection the emergence
of desire and thus enlarge reflection to the point where it regains
what it had lost.
In Freud and Philosophy he observes that "it is no doubt
necesary for us to be separated from ourselves, to be set off
center, in order finally to know what is signified by the I
I am.'' Ricoeur sees a special need for a notion of " reflective
consciousness " that will be faithful to the linguistic character
of consciousness-which is why he wishes to work toward a
general hermenuetics that will go beyond Freud's psychoanalytic attempt to heal the " rupture " caused by " false consciousness." Given the need to go beyond the mere positing
of the I think, I am, Ricoeur's theory of interpretation represents the necessary risk that a " true consciousness " must
undertake of submitting itself to " harsh hermeneutical discipline." 30
Psychoanalysis functions as the paradigm for the conflict of
conflict des interpretations, pp. 101-!'ll. Cf. also Emerich Coreth, Metaphysics (New York: Herder and Herder, 1968), pp. 192-95, where he states the
fundamental principle that there is no real immediacy without mediation nor
any mediation without immediacy . Cf. also Lonergan, "Dimensions of Meaning,"
Collection, pp. !'l5!'l-67.
•• Freud and Philosophy, pp. 424, 55-56. See also Le confUt, pp. 101-104, 149,
17!'l,

PAUL lHCOEUR's

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progressive and one regressive-in
two interpretations-one
Freud and Philosophy.
is for Ricoeur a"
ileged" interpretation because it preserves the centrality of
the subject as posing the question of meaning and ultimately
of being: we are confronted with " not a reduction to consciousness but a reduction of consciouness. Consciousness ceases to
be what is best known and becomes problematic." Moreover,
in psychoanalysis, even the object of intentionality becomes
suspect insofar as it is treated as a variable with regard to
basic desires and instincts. Intentionality does, of course, again
become the guide of analysis, but only later by way of a
" highly mediated reflection." Ricoeur credits Husserl with
sketching the boundaries of research for this problem by presupposing a " passive genesis " as the starting point for all
structuring of the investigation of intentionality. Freud's linking the "genesis of object with the genesis of love and hate "
and his notion of " primary narcissism " further enable Ricoeur
to speak of the "dispossession of the subject of consciousness"
and lead him to regard the question of consciousness to be as
obscure as the question of the unconscious.
Whereas Ricoeur previously refers to the empirical sciences
as diagnostics, he now regards them also as conflicting interpretations; hermeneutics becomes, in this sense, a way of arbitratmg among the conflicts. The " true " consciousness, as
opposed to the " false," is one that has been mediated through
reflective, as distinct from immediate consciousness. This mediation, to be best understood, must itself pass through conflicting interpretations in order to be thoroughly saturated
with " meaning " over and above its initial " meaningfulness,"
which is based on immediate consciousness.
One example of conflicting interpretations is seen in the
question of the validity of religious interpretation of human
experience. Ricoeur cites Freud's dual view of civilization as
the product of instinct and as the defense of man against the
crushing superiority of nature. In Freud's view, religion appears as an illusion employed by civilization whenever the
"war against nature runs aground"; then the gods are invented

in " order to exorcize fear, in order to reconc,ile man with the
cruelty of destiny and in order to compensate the malaise
which the instinct for death renders incurable." Illusion becomes, then, the most controversial point between the disciplines of psychoanalysis and a phenomenology or religion. But
it is precisely at this point that a critical self-understanding
becomes possible:
After Freud, the only possible philosophy of conscience will appearto be the Hegelian phenomenology of spirit. In this phenomenology of the immediate, consciousness does not know itself ....
Man becomes adult, becomes " conscient," if and when he becomes
capable of these new figures of which the succession constitutes
" the spirit," in a Hegelian sense. An exegesis of conscience will
consist in an inventory which conscience ought to re-encounter
and appropriate, in view of self-reflection as a Self, as a human,
adult, ethical me. This process is no longer an introspection and immediate conscience; it is no longer a figure of narcissism since the
threshold of self is not the psychological ego, but the spirit, i.e.,
the dialectic of the figures themselves. The " conscience " is only
the interiorization of the movement which it is necesary to recover
in the objective structure of institutions, the monuments, the works
of art and of culture. 31
In Le conflit des interpretations Ricoeur uses the phrase
" conflict of interpretations " in a strictly hermeneutical sense.
He explores the contemporary philosophical ways of grafting
the hermeneutic problem on phenomenological method. Recalling that the hermeneutic problem is both historically and
functionally located within the boundaries of exegesis, he
notes that exegesis itself requires a larger context:
[this] is because all readings of the text themselves-also bound to
" the what," to " the that in view of which " it has been writtenare always made at the interior of a society, of a tradition. or from
a stream of living thought, which develop presuppositions and
from exigencies.
Exegesis, in this sense, is always and only the origin of hermeneutics. In the introductory essay of Le con;flit des interu

Freud and Philosophy pp.

PAUL RICOEUR'S

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,513

pn§tations Ricoeur calls attention to the liason between interpretation (exegesis of texts) and comprehension (understanding of signs) and notes that all major interpretations influence
and are influenced by "modes of comprehension available to
a given epoch." Ricoeur again mentions myth, allegory, metaphor, and analogy as traditional forms of hermeneutics: "It
is signifying discourse which is interpreted, which ' inteprets '
reality in the same measure where it speaks something of something." 32
By means of this
of interpretation and comprehension Ricoeur relates the technical problems of textual exegesis to more general problems of the signification of language.
In order to do so, he describes the nineteenth century development of exegesis into general hermeneutics. Dilthey, who tried
to achieve a Kantian validity for the human sciences, is the
major figure in Ricoeur's account of this transition period in
the history of hermeneutics-along with Schleiermacher, who
before Dilthey, recommended that the theory of interpretation
start from the act of understanding rather than from texts.
In more recent hermeneutics Ricoeur sees the early Husserl as
the most important influence because of his efforts to replace
an epistemology of interpretation with an ontology of comprehension. Ricoeur contrasts Heidegger's voie oourt of
founding hermeneutics in phenomenology with his own long
route to ontology and proposes three successive states: (1)
a problematic of langauge, that is, a semantic stage wherein
the "form of interpretation is relative to the theoretical structure of the hermeneutic system being considered"; (2) a problematic of reflection, that is, a reflexive stage whereby the self
ascertains the conditions of the possibility of appropriating
the equivocal meanings derived from the first stage; (3) a problematic of existence, that is, an ontological stage whereby the
interpreting-being is himself indirectly apperceived in the act of
interpretation.
Viewed within Ricoeur's long route to ontology, hermeneutics
82

Le confiit, pp. 311-29, 7-8 (my translation).

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MARY GERHART

can be reformulated as the problem of relating exegesis to a
theory of understanding:
How can we arrive at an epistemology of interpretation, issuing
from a reflection on exegesis, on the method of history, on psychoanalysis, on phenomenology of religion, and so forth, by which it is
touched, animated and, so to speak, aspired after, by an ontology
of comprehension?
Hermeneutics, reconstituted in this sense, is no longer only a
method designed to compete with the natural sciences. In
Ricoeur's hermeneutics, comprehension is itself put on a different level; it is more of a mode of being than of knowing'' the mode from that which exists in comprehending." Accordingly, Ricoeur will substitute "for the short way of the
Analytic of Dasein the long original way of the analysis of
language." In so doing, he intends to guard " steadily the contact with disciplines which seek to practice interpretation by
means of a methodical manner " and will resist " the temptation to separate the trutft,, proper to comprehension, from the
method taken in works by the disciplines issuing from exegesis."
In essence, Ricoeur is seeking a new "problematic of existence "
based on the processes of interpretation as conducted in each
of the separate disciplines. 33
In the first stage of semantic analysis Ricoeur still uses
symbol as a paradigm, this time defining it, however, in terms
of linguistic function related to method of interpretation:
I call symbol any structure of signification where a direct, primary,
literal sense, designates in addition another indirect secondary
figurative meaning, which can only be apprehended by traversing
the first.
Correlatively, interpretation, in this view, signifies the work
of thought which consists not only in deciphering the hidden
meaning in the apparent meaning but " in deploying the levels
of implied signification in the literal signification." The initial
attempt to interpret very quickly engenders " disparate, indeed
•• Ibid. pp. 7-28.

PAUL RICOEUR'S

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opposed methods." What begins as an inquiry into the understanding of symbolic structures develops into " a confrontation of hermeneutic styles " and into a task of relating the
"diversity of hermeneutical methods to the structure of corresponding theories." Such conflicts of interpretations become,
according to Ricoeur, a true arbitration among the total claims
for each single interpretation: " in showing from what manner
each method expresses the form of a theory, it justifies each
in the limits of its proper theoretical conscription."
In the second stage of reflective analysis Ricoeur points out
the insufficiency of the first: semantic analysis itself demands
a reference to existence since langauge is a "signifying medium." Lest the first stage become absolute in itself, two other
aspects of comprehension must be recalled. First, the remoteness of the self to oneself must be surmounted in some way,
for example, in psychoanalysis or textual exegesis. Here the
reflection of the Cogito is " the appropriation of our effort to
exist and our desire to go through the works which give witness to this effort and of this desire." Second, the exegesis of the
text of conscience collides with misinterpretations arising from
the false conscience. For these two reasons reflection "ought
to be doubly indirect" -in the realizations that existence is
attested to only in the documents of life, and that immediate
consciousness is initially to be suspected as possibly false,
thereby needing always to be elevated from misunderstanding or premature understanding to comprehension by " a corrective critique."
Ricoeur only sketches the framework of how the third stage
of ontological analysis might be constructed:
The ontology of comprehension resides implicitly in the methodology of interpretation, according to the ineluctable " hermeneutic
circle " which Heidegger himself taught us to trace. Moreover, it is
only in a conflict of rival hermeneutics that we catch sight of
something of interpreted being: a unified ontology is inaccessible to
our method as a separate ontology; it is each time each hermeneutic which uncovers the aspect of existence which grounds it as
method.

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MARY GERHART

The question of ontology, even though it remains unresolved,
is for that reason not hopeless, according to Ricoeur. For it
is announced and anticipated, for example, through the dialectic of archeology, teleology, and eschatology in language: " This
coherent figure of being which we are, in which the rival interpretations will come to be implanted, is not given other than
in this dialectic of interpretation." In other words, the unity of
interpretations presupposes the conflict of interpretations for
the completion of the hermeneutical task:
Only a hermeneutics, instructed by symbolic figures, can show that
these different modalities of existence appertain to a unique problematic; because these are finally the more rich symbols which assure the unity of these multiple interpretations; they alone carry
all the vectors, regressive and prospective, that the diverse hermeneutics dissociate. The true symbols are the main part of all
hermeneutics, from ones that make their way toward the emergence of new significations and of those which make their way
toward a resurgence of archaic phantasms.

For truth is to be gained only through reflection and struggle:
reflection will no longer be the positing, as feeble as it is peremptory, as sterile as it is irrefutable, I think, I am: it will have become
concrete reflection; and its concreteness will be due to the harsh
hermeneutic discipline.

The uniqueness of Ricoeur's theory lies in this "concreteness"
of reflection. 34
In his most recent remarks Ricoeur reiterates that hermeneutics must not be regarded as being "everything." That is,
hermeneutics does not replace, for example, exegesis, comparative studies, philosophy or ethics. At the present time, however,
it seems to be the discipline most capable of illuminating the relationship among the other major disciplines that have to do
with interpretation. As exegetical, this discipline will encourage
men and women to interpret in order that they might underIbid. The implications of " concrete" reflection for an ontology, of course,
calls for a separate and more extended treatment that can be afforded by this
introductory article. In a sequel to this article I will discuss the concept of
"universality " in relation to the ontology sketched by Ricoeur thus far.

PAUL RICOEUR'S

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stand more comprehensively. As comparative, hermeneutics
prevails upon them to range ever more widely in order that
they may understand more selectively. As philosophical, hermeneutics demands that they order and relate their methods of
interpretation critically and that they understand themselves
as interpreters mov,ing through levels of reflection. Only in this
way is the circular character of the hermeneutical circle transcended: "By the comprehension of ourselves, let us say, we
ourselves appropriate the meaning of our desire to be or of our
effort for existence. Existence, we can now say, is desire and
effort." 35
Theological inquiry into religious symbols, then, presupposes the same kind of rigorous criteriology that is demanded
for a phenomenology of symbol in general. Theological understanding also participates in the conflict of interpretations in
an ongoing ontology, especially as theology pertains to the understanding of the history and practice of the proclamation of
religious symbols. 86

Text-appropriation
Ricoeur's clearest explication of the act of critical appropriation occurs in his most recent articles. 37 In "La meta35 Freud and Philosophy, p. 24. Much remains to be said about Ricoeur's concept of the hermeneutical circle. For this introduction, it may suffice to point
out that in a certain sense, the interpveter is always " inside" the hermeneutical
circle. Yet by Ricoeur's notion of critical appropriation the narcissistic self
is abandoned and a new self-image is literally made possible.
36 Several further questions on the relationship of history and theology need to
be asked at this point: for example, on the apparent paradox of the sense in which
theology is at any time contingent and also constituted once and for all times.
In another article I will further explicate how Ricoeur's hermeneutical theory is
helpful in understanding how theology can proclaim a universal link between
"then" and "now." (See footnote 34 above.)
37 See, for example, " Interpretation
Theory " (Paper presented at the University of Chicago Faculty Conference, Spring, 1971); "The Model of the Text:
Meaningful Action Considered as a Text" (Paper presented at the Gadamer
Conference, New School of Social Research, 1971); and "Creativity in Language:
Word, Polysemy, Metaphor" (Paper presented at Levi-Strauss Conference, Lexington, 1972) . Unless otherwise indicated, the quotations in this section are from
the published article " La metaphore et la probleme central de l'hermeneutique,"

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MARY GERHART

phore et la probleme centrale de l'hermeneutique," he suggests
that the notion of metaphor taken as " emergent meaning " can
illuminate the task of text-explanation by providing ways to
identify the " sense" of the text. His is an interaction theory of
metaphor: " a word receives a metaphorical meaning in specific
contexts within which they are opposed to other words taken
literally." The "sense" of a metaphor is an "immanent design "; it is that which is made manifest by the event of metaphor in the " clash " among literal meanings. The problem of
metaphor in one sense, then, is the inverse of the problem of
ideal meaning, where the invariability of the context is essential for the reidentification of meaning. According to Ricoeur,
" sense " is no problem in trivial cases of metaphor; only in
novel instances of metaphor is there need for " more than a
plain-language substitute." Indeed, the meaning of a fresh
metaphor is not " drawn from anywhere:
it is a momentaneous creation of language, a semantic innovation
which has no status in language as already established, neither
as designation nor as connotation.

The problem of identifying this " momentaneous creation "
makes it imperative for the reader to construct the meaning
from what he knows from other contexts and from his own past
as a counterpart of the metaphor to be understood. Ricoeur
suggests various ways of fulfilling this preparatory stage of
interpretation. One way is to substitute for the word-metaphor, the " system of connotations and commonplaces." This
way seems equivalent to the "commonsense " approach to
understanding a text. Another way establishes identities by
way of various scientific perspectives. Ricoeur suggests that it
is at this level that literary criticism is related to psychology
and sociology. Although Ricoeur does not speak of methods
by which the sciences might be employed in the act of interpretation, his own earlier work suggests that they might function as diagnostics. Commonsense and scientific approaches can
all intersect in the "conflict of interpretations":
Revue Philosophique de Louvain, LXX (February, 1972), pp. 98-112; trans. in
New Literary History, VI (Autumn, 1974), pp. 95-110.

PAUL RICOEUR'S

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The decisive moment of explication is that of the construction of
the network of interaction, which makes of this context an actual
and unique context. In doing that, we point to the semantic
event as to the intersection point between several semantic lines;
this construction is the means by which all the words taken together
make sense. Then-and only then-the " metaphorical twist " is
both an event and a meaning, a meaningful event and an emerging
meaning in language.
This stage is only preparatory to the task of interpretation.
It only sets the stage for understanding the " sense " of the
new meaning. Nevertheless, this stage is de facto necessary if
the interpreter wishes to claim objectivity for his or her interpretation.
Ricoeur points out that the way of deciphering the sense
of the text is similar to the identification of the sense of the
metaphor. In each case the movement of understanding is
from " local meanings to regional meanings " and vice versa.
For both the text and metaphor an understanding of the context or work as a whole " gives the key " to the understanding of a metaphor or to each part of the text. The process of
explanation, in this view, both obscures and devaluates the
"mental meaning" originally intended by its author. Moreover, the" validation" of this process of construction, although
assisted by passing through the conflict of interpretations,
is ultimately in terms of the clues offered by the text or metaphoric statement:
. . . the construction relies on the " clues " contained in the text
itself: a clue is a kind of index for a specific construction, both a set
of permissions and a set of prohibitions; it excludes some un-fitting
constructions and allows some others which make more sense.
Two principles determine the degree of adequacy attending
,any given construction. The principle of convergence permits
that construction to be more probable which is able to account
for the "greatest number of facts provided by the text " and
" offers a better qualitative convergence between the traits
which it takes into
The principle of plenitude
allows for all the connotations that can possibly fit " to be

MARY GERHART

attached." The principle of plenitude provides Ricoeur with a
transition from metaphor as "sense" (that is, the consideration of the intersection of a given work or word in the language
system) to a consideration of metaphor as "reference." If the
context or work as a whole has been significant in giving a clue
to the sense of a metaphor or text, a consideration of the whole
is even more essential to the deciphering of its reference. If
explanation is the process by which the "sense" of a text
is discovered and understood, then interpretation is the process
by which the two kinds of reference-world-reference
and selfreference-are understood.
On the level of appropriation, then-under which term
Ricour subsumes both world-reference and self-refernce-the
intention to intepret is fulfilled:
The interpretation of the text is completed in the interpretation of
self by a subject who henceforth comprehends himself more, comprehends himself in another way, or even begins to comprehend.
At stake here is what Ricoeur speaks of in Freud and Philosophy as concrete reflection-not an abstract reflection about
disengaged objects but a reflection arising from participation
by the subject in the concrete world:
Hermeneutical and philosophical reflection are here correlative and
reciprocal. On one side, the comprehension of self passes through
the detour of comprehension of signs of culture in which the self
documents and forms itself; on the other, the comprehension of the
text is not itself the end, it mediates the relation to the self of a
subject who does not find in the short-circuit of immediate reflection the meaning of his proper life.
Appropriation is not only the overcoming of cultural distance,
time, or strangeness. It is even more the contemporaneous
" constitution of self and that of meaning." Truly an event of
discourse, it completes the act of writing. From that moment
the movement of reference in the text, having been intercepted
in the act of writing, is retaken toward the world of the reader
and its subject becomes the reader himself. By its sense,
preserved by graphic signs, " the text has only a semiological

l>AUL RICOEUR}S HERMENEUTICAL

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521

dimension," but through its reference it gains a semantic dimension.38
By emph,asizing the appropriative function in interpretation
Ricoeur's own theory of interpretation avoids the subjectivistic
bias so derogated by contemporary scientists: for him, appropriation occurs only at the end of the processes of interpretation. It is the other end of the hermeneutical arc, the " last
pillar of the bridge." At the same time, since it must be understood as taking place within an indefinitely continuous dialectic
of explication and interpretation, Ricoeur cautions ag,ainst
three mistaken notions of appropriation:
(1) appropriation
is not a coincidence with the intention of the author, his experience, nor his representation of history or culture. Instead,
it is a " direction of thought opened up by the text." That
which is to be appropriated is the true reference of the text,
"the power of disclosing a world." (2) The text is not limited
to its original audience. Instead, there is a kind of " universality of sense " which is itself capable of generating new speech
events. The text-whether for its author or a subsequent
reader-is always already a "first interpretation."
The hermeneutical arc, then, can be taken in two senses: one, pertaining
to the movement in any single act of interpretation from Erkliirung through Verstandnis; another, pertaining to the meditation of the interpretation-appropriation
correlation through
a series of interpretants. In this view the "meaning" of the
series of appropriations is successively lost as it is re-taken.
The one " resaying " is both preserved in the hermeneutic arc
and reactivated in every interpretation of the text. (3) The
text is not at the mercy of its interpreters or their prejudices.
Quite the contrary:
what is "made one's own" is not something mental, is not the intention of another subject, presumably hidden behind the text,
but the project of a world, the pro-position of a mode of being in
the world that the text opens up in front of itself by means of its
38 Ricoeur, "Qu' est ce qu' un Texte?"
H ermeneutik und Dialektik, Vol. II
Sprache und Logik Theorie der Auslegung und Probleme der Einzelwissenschaften,
edited by Rudiger Bubner, et al (Tlibingen, 1970), pp.

MARY GERHART

non-ostensive references. Far from saying that a subject already
mastering his own way of being in the world, projects the a priori
of his self-understanding on the text and reads it into the text,
I say that interpretation is the process by which the disclosure of
new modes of being ... gives to the subject a new capacity for
knowing himself.

Appropri,ation, then, is not so much a " possession " of the text
as it is a " dispossession of the egoist and narcissist ego." By
passing through the level of explanation, a kind of " universality " is achieved, which suspends the text and reader from
ostensive reference for the time being.
Finally, it is through his analysis of the text and metaphor
that Ricoeur arrives at another elaboration of his earlier concept of the hermeneutical circle-introduced
as existential
in The Symbolism of Evil, developed as phenomenologial in
Freud and Philosophy, and formulated as methodological in
Le conflit des interpretations. In his most recent analysis
he places the circle on the ontological level:
The circle is between my way (or my mode) of being-beyond the
knowledge I may have of it-and the mode (or the way) of being
disclosed by the text as the work's world.

This revision-essentially a new context for the hermeneutical
circle, as distinct from a new formulation of it-enables Ricoeur
to venture as close as he has dared until now to an ontology.

Reconstruction of the Hermeneutical Tradition
In Ricoeur's work we find the possibility of reconceiving and,
I believe, of resolving the great hermeneutical debate of the
nineteenth century, beginning with Schleiermacher and Dilthey.
This debate is momentous because hermeneutics became philosophical with these two figures. Their departure from the older
concept of hermeneia as text exegesis, commentary or translation is the occasion for two levels of the hermeneutical problem to emerge: (1) the need for exegetical principles to be
understood over and against those of the natural sciences, at
that time dominating the field of human understanding; (fl)

PAUL RICOEUR'S

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the need for a theory of understanding in which the rules of
interpretation themselves might be better understood. In addressing himself to the latter
Ricoeur both utilizes the best
of the Romantic tradition and eliminates the adverse influences
that tradition has had on the contemporary understanding of
interpretation.
First of all, he recognizes that the formulation of a general
theory of interpretation is decidedly a post-Kantian enterprise,
for which Kant's theory of pure reason is of little help, however, since, for Kant, mind is an impersonal center of forms of
expression. Ricoeur sees the Romantics, among whom Schleiermacher was the first m,ajor figure in the hermeneutical tradition,
emphasizing a different aspect of mind. For them, mind is the
seat of the creative unconscious, most clearly manifest in the
phenomenon of individual genius. With this general notion
of mind Schleiermacher attempts to elaborate the conditions
for the possibility of developing universal rules of understanding which can relate literary and aesthetic works to all
processes of creation. The Romantic theory of understanding
depends, for the most part, on the marriage of reflection and
intuition. 39 Schleiermacher's hermeneutics, for example, has for
its ambition the reconstruction of another's intuition. As Dilthey later comments, Schleiermacher believes it is possible to
understand an author better than he understands himself. For
Ricoeur, Scheiermacher's hermeneutics emphasizes subjectivity at the expense of objectivity.
Eighty years later the context of the debate changes and
Wilhelm Dilthey faces a more intransigent positivist opposition,
one that eclipses even the Romanticist conception of mind,
philosophically best formulated by Hegel in The Phenomenology of Spirit (1807) . Dilthey shifts the starting-point of the
debate from nature to mankind: he proposes that the individual
is better understood against a whole history of mankind rather
•• Cf. Meyer Abrams' excellent literary-historical assessment of the Romantics'
understanding and employment of this concept, in Natural, Supernaturalism: Tradition and Revolution in Romantic Literature (New York: W. W. Norton & Co.,
Inc., 1971 esp. Chapters VI-VIII. It should be noted, however, that Abrams
does not avail himself of resources to be found in the hermeneutical tradition,

MARY GERHART

than in terms of an isolated natural being. He builds his theory
of understandjng, of which interpretation is to be only one province, against the positivist concept of Erkliirung (explanation),
which tends to reduce life to process. In attempting to give
a scientific status to interpretation Dilthey attaches his theory
of understanding to the human sciences, which although based
on psychology in his conception of them, have as their goal,
V erstehen (understanding) .
Dilthey's genius, according to Ricoeur, is to have united the
sense of a subjective dimension in historical knowledge to an
"object-structure"
of understanding.
His short-coming is
that he regarded life, rather than meaning, as the proper goal
of understanding. This conclusion leads Ricoeur to regard the
relationship of Erklarung to V erstehen as the major unsolved
hermeneutical problem for today. He thinks that Dilthey's
treatment of this problem as a dichotomy belongs to the "prelinguistic" era of interpretation theory. That is, Dilthey lacks
adequate epistemological tools to relate the Naturwissenschaften and the Geisteswissenschaften, even though he recognizes
the problem and tries to .solve it. Today, however, the availability of semiotic and semiological models points to a new situation which allows Ricoeur to reopen the problem in a dialectic of explanation and understanding. In this new situation the
dialectics and models belong to the same field, and there is no
need to borrow models from the physical sciences.
What strikes one initially as one examines Riceoeur'.s position in the whole debate on hermeneutics is Ricoeur's ambition
to provide a conceptuality to account for all real claims for
rendering a text intelligible and meaningful. Such a conceptuality would be no small achievement, since some of the oppositions within the debate, such as Gadamer's "truth versus
method," have, until now, appeared to be irreconcilable from
existing points of view.
Once also notices that Ricoeur is not especially interested in
winning the debate. His way of reconciling all the opposed
positions not only forbids one to think that he has found the
method by which one can unlock all texts but also prevents
one from believing that a merely attitudinal disposition, such

PAUL RICOEUR'S

HERMENEUTICAL

THEORY

5'25

as " openness " or" respectfulness " might be sufficient for the
work of interpretation. His is a truly critical reconciliation.
It is not surprising, therefore, that one finds an emphasis on the
drama of hermeneutics; this is especially evident in Ricoeur's
use of the metaphoric language of conflict and war. The point
of this imagery seems to be that, before any mature understanding can be received-usually referred to by Ricoeur in the
metaphoric language of " gift "-there is something to be
won. One cannot, in his hermeneutical theory, "wait on" or
read one's text passively. One must, so to speak, enter the
debate over meaning and take a position within the war of
opposing interpretations, for it is only by so doing that one can
authentically appropriate what has been understood within
one's world of many possible meanings. Such a position does
not preclude the so-called passive modes of being, such as
silence and receptivity. Indeed, they are presumed, since the
assertion of a position at any given time must be commensurate
with the point at issue. Nevertheless, Ricoeur's theory emphasizes that what is at stake is not merely a verbal game, but
an authentic way of being in the world. 40
Conclusion
I have attempted to show how Ricoeur's hermeneutical theory eliminates the subjectivist bias in the hermeneutical tradition and how it provides a splendid way of understanding the
act of critical appropriation. It remains to specify the implications these resources of his thought have for major tasks
in contemporary theology. I take these tasks to be (I) the
development of principles for a critical pluralism, ('2) a demonstration of how such critical principles can assist the retrieval
of central religious symbols of the major religious traditions,
and (3) a demonstration of how such critical principles can
force an enrichment of experience for anyone aspiring to a
religious consciousness.
' 0 It can be noted that in several ways Ricoeur's hermeneutical
posed to Heidegger's.

theory is op-

MARY GERHART

Regarding the first task, Ricoeur addresses the three-fold
crisis of contemporary culture-a crisis of reflection, interpretation, and meaning-on many levels. Since 1950 his underlying ambition has been to incorporate hermeneutic (e. g., in
this case, religious) discourse within a philosophy of essential
structure. His work allows for a maximum utilization of the
sciences as " diagnostics." At the same time, his philosophical
explication of subjectivity, in the first volume of his philosophy of will, discloses the extent and limits of scientific discourse. Without sacrificing the Reformation emphasis on the
subject's faith, as distinct from beliefs, Ricoeur's notion of
subjectivity enables religious and theistic interpreters to take
seriously the modernist critiques of religion and naive understandings of conscience, especially those of Marx, Nietzsche and
Freud. His discussions of " first" and " second " naivete
indicate both the need and the possibility of overcoming and
mediating the prejudice or fear common to immediate experience. His " detours " into psychoanalysis and structuralism
provide examples of how to arbitrate, by means of philosophical
reflection, the multiple interpretations to which symbolic and
narrative avowals of religious experience give rise. Since this
arbitration involves a multiplicity of methods, Ricoeur's approach promises a better accommodation of empirics and aesthetics than has been customary to philosophical theology. At
the very least, such arbitration enables symbol and myth to
acquire a cognitive status among other ways of re-presenting
and understanding human experience.
Ricoeur's contribution to the second task can best be seen in
his theory of symbol, together with his own comparative study
of Babylonian, Greek, Judaic, and Christian symbols in The
Symbolism of Evil. Here he initiates the notion of " existential
verification" which signifies the entire process of discovering the
" field of experience opened up by a myth." In his most recent
work the notion of " appropriation " may well be indispensable for understanding the culmination of " existential verification." " Appropriation," as the ultimate goal of all theological reflection, is traditionally formulated as part of the hermeneutical circle: believe in order to understand-where belief,

PAUL RICOEUR'S

HERMENEUTICAL

THEORY

527

according to Ricoeur, is a wager that one's investment will pay
off in " power of reflection, in coherent discourse." By his
careful insistence on the privileged status of the text and
methods of interpretation Ricoeur has made it possible for contemporary readers to hear anew the principal symbols of major
religious traditions and to work toward an authentic critical
pluralism among traditions as well as disciplines.
Finally, Ricoeur'.s emphasis on imagination provides a needed
counterpart to the faith-decision emphasis in recent theology
found, for example, in the Bultmannian tradition of Fuchs,
Ebeling and Ott, the radical theology of Bloch, Altizer, and
Hamilton, and the third world revolutionary theology of Metz,
Gutierrez, and Freire. Like these theologians, Ricoeur recognizes the centrality of decision: he begins his philosophy of
will with a study of decision as the most complex human act
which integrates, as it were, all the levels of the involuntary
and voluntary. He continues to see decision as the projection
of an integrated self toward some " event-like " possibility in
the world in his most recent articles, especially where he develops the notion of a dialectic between speech and action. But
his detour from an initially direct treatment of decision to
interpretation and imagination-both of which would seem to
be intrinsic to the maturation of faith-has crucial implications for the foregoing theologies. For other theologians, notably
the transcendental theology of Lonergan and Rahner, the revisionist theology of Tracy, and the process theology of Ogden
and Cobb, Ricoeur's hermeneutical theory satisfies the need for
a way of returning to the images and insights which give rise to
theological concepts. And while Ricoeur himself up to the
present has been more interested in retrieving symbols, myths,
and primordial religious expressions than theological concepts,
his work nevertheless offers a nuanced explication and exemplification of interpretation which can serve as a model for anyone engaged in any one of the many tasks comprising contemporary religious studies.
MARY GERHART
Hobart & William Smith Colleges
Geneva, New York

THE RELIGIOUS BASIS OF THE
RETRIBUTIVE APPROACH TO PUNISHMENT

K

CENTLY THE pros and cons of our prison system
and our modes of punishment have been seriously
questioned. Evidence seems to indicate that our
current modes of punishing have little deterrent effect. When
confronted with this fact the man on the street will usually
react in one of two ways. Either he will insist that our mode of
punishment does deter, or he will say that, even if punishment does not deter, we must still punish because a criminal
deserves to suffer since he has committed a moral wrong and it
is just that he be punished. This position has been termed the
" retributive " approach to punishment. It is apparent that the
retributive approach has wide appeal in the United States today, for otherwise it is inconceivable that we would continue to
punish in spite of the lack of evidence of its deterrent effect.
Given the fact that the retributive justification of punishment appears to be popular it is of utmost importance to make
explicit the following positions which it must assume. First, the
retributive approach must of necessity view the state as having
a moral obligation with regard to punishment (i.e., the state
must see to it that justice be done). Secondly, it must assume
that what is just can be known. That is to say, it must assume
that we know it is just that the criminal suffer for the evil he
has done.
These basic popularly held ideas did not simply arise
among us. This article attempts to analyze how it is that many
Americans hold these ideas. Specifically, I shall attempt to indicate how the retributive idea of punishment and its concomitant assumption is born out of Western religious notions.
Although secular retributivists give apparently secular arguments to back up their approach, their arguments really stem

THE RETRIBUTIVE

APPROACH TO PUNISHMENT

from a basically Western religious approach to punishmentspecifically, that it is just that the criminal suffer and that the
state should see to it that this religious or moral " duty" is
done.
The Old and New Testaments made the retributive idea of
punishment the accepted rationale for punishment throughout the ancient and Medieval world, but the biblical conception of punishment continues even today to strongly influence
the Western Mind.
The original rationale for the retributive approach derived
from religious ideas of rewards and punishments meted out
by God. The basis of the biblical idea of punishment is that
there is a Divine Justice in the world, that God will punish evil
doers because they are wicked, as he will reward the righteous
because of their righteousness. Thus the Bible says, "The
righteous shall rejoice when he sees vengeance ... So that a
Man shall say, verily there is a reward for the righteous, doubtless there is a God that judgeth the earth." 1 " As thou has
done, it shall be done unto thee: thy reward shall return upon
thine own head." 2 " For I will not justify the wicked." 8 " And
I will visit upon the world their evil and upon the wicked their
iniquity." 4 "And thou art full of the judgment of the wicked.
Judgment and justice take hold on them." 5 God " will render to every man according to his works ... to them that obey
unrighteousness, indignation and wrath, tribulations and anguish upon every man that doeth evil." 6
Whereas both the Old and the New Testaments consider
Divine punishment of the wicked as one of the primary pillars
of Divine Justice in this world, the New Testament and later
Christian thought are more terrifying in their emphasis on
torture of the wicked in an existence after death: "The fearPsalms 58:10-11.
• Obadiah 1:5.
3 Exodus 23:7.
• Isaiah 13: II.
6 Job 36:17.
8 Romans 2:8. See also Psalms 1:6, 94:12, 9:18, 37:28, 145: 20; Proverbs 10: 27;
II Chronicles 6:23; Isaiah 11:4.
1

530

CHANA KASACHKOFF

POUPKO

ful . . the abominable and murderers . . . shall have their
past in the lake which burneth with fire and brimstone, which
is the second death." 7 " The Son of Man will send forth his
angels and they will gather out of the Kingdom all scandals
and those who work iniquity, and cast them into the furnace
of fire, where there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth." 8
St. Augustine devotes much of his work to discussing the
meaning of the New Testament passages concerning punishment, the extent and type of suffering to be endured by the
wicked. Augustine expounds on how both the soul and body
feel pain from the fires of hell and how "living creatures can
continue in fire without being consumed in pain without
suffering death." 9 Augustine not only expounds on the meanings of types of punishments referred to in the Bible but he adds
to Christian thought the conception of eternal punishment of
the wicked after death. This is the meaning of hell-a place
for the everlasting punishment of sinners.
While there are references to eternal punishment in the New
Testament-for example "And these will go into everlasting
punishment, but the just into everlasting life," 10 and " Depart
from the accursed ones into the everlasting fire which was prepared for the devil and his angels " 11-Augustine takes these
passages and explains them unequivocably as referring to everlasting punishment of the damned in hell. His language is unambiguous, "One thing that will happen and most certainly
happen," says Augustine, " is what God . . . said concerning
the punishment of Hell being eternal." God will " raise bodies
from the dead and allow the bodies of the damned to suffer in
eternal fire .... " 12 This concept of unending punishment for
Revelations 19: 20.
Matthew 3:41-43.
9 St.
Augustine, City of God, Introduction by Etienne Gilson, Trans., by
Gerald G. Walsh, Demetrius B. Zema, Grace Monahan and Daniel J. Honan,
ed. by Vernon J. Bourke (New York: Doubleday and Co., 1950), Book XXI,
Chaps. 3, 9.
10 Matthew
25:4.
11 Matthew
25:41. See also Mark 9:42-47.
12 Augustine, op. cit., Book XXI, chap. 9.
7

8

TH]j RETRIBUTIVE

APPROACH TO PUNISHMENT

531

evildoers embodies the most thorough conception of retributive justice. Here it is most obvious that evildoers suffer only
because it is just that they suffer. It is obvious that punishment here serves no other purpose at all, for eternal punishment after death can certainly not benefit society, nor
can it benefit the transgressor in any way/ 3
St. Thomas accepts St. Augustine's basic ideas concerning
retributive justice. First, it is obvious that " all works, both
good and evil, will have to be judged " 14 and that " as reward
is to merit so punishment is to guilt. . .. " 15 Secondly, St.
Thomas accepts the fact that the wicked will be punished not
only in this world but in a world to come. Man is subject to
judgment after death since punishment in this world, "the
punishment which before the (final) judgment was not incompletely will be completed at the last judgment." 16 Third,
like St. Augustine, St. Thomas devotes considerable effort in
describing the nature of the punishment after death. Hence,
he considers " whether in hell the damned are tormented by
the sole punishment of fire." 17 And finally, like St. Augustine,
St. Thomas fully accepts " the everlasting punishment for temporal sins." 1 s
It should be noted that the conception of retribution in the
form of punishment after death had its origins in pre-Christian
pagan societies. One of the most thorough and articulate descriptions of hell in pre-Christian times comes to us from Plato.
At the end of his Republic Plato describes how after death
the soul reaps the consequences of its deeds; he describes the
divine origin of the soul, its fall, its incarnation in a cycle of
births as a penalty for former sins. The judgment after
death involves torments of the unjust and the happiness of
13 On the other hand, if we refuse to take these sources from the New Testament as what they purport to be (Revelation) and interpret them as human
inventions, then a tacit utilitarianism seems to be at work.
"Thomas Aquinas Summa Theologiae ITI, p.87, a.l.
15 Ibid., q.99, a.l.
16 Ibid., q.88, a.l.
17 Ibid., q.97, a.l.
18 Ibid., q.99, a.l.

532

CHANA KASACHKOFF

POUPKO

the just. Hence, Plato says, "We receive the prize o£ justice
... not here only, but in the journey o£ a thousand years.
• • ." 19
Therefore, when we see suffering o£ the righteous, it
is due to offenses in a former li£e.20 Similarly, says Plato, i£ the
unjust person suffers, i£ he
. . . is afficted with poverty or sickness or any other seeming evil,
all this will come to some good for him in the end, either in this
life or after death. For the gods, surely, can never be regardless
of one who sets his heart on being just and making himself by the
practice of virtue as like a god as man may.
No, naturally they would not neglect one who is like themselves.
And we must not think the opposite of the unjust man?
Most certainly. 21
The history of Western ideas concerning divine retributive
punishment is long and formidable. But while our religious heritage established the conception o£ retributive justice meted out
by God, still it did not directly establish the conception o£ retributive justice meted out by a secular government. For St.
Augustine, in £act, secular society did not dispense retributive
justice. This is because St. Augustine contended that while
justice was perfect, the justice of the earthly state was
imperfect. The state could not know, for example, whether a
punishment imposed was too heavy or too light. The judge
could never be sure that he was not condemning an innocent
man. 22 The purpose of punishment in a secular state was not
to realize any type o£ justice but to keep people in line. Peace
and order were made possible by £ear o£ coercion and punishments. Through fear of laws and punishment attached to
them, men could be kept from performing injurious actions to
others. 23 Hence, punishment by the secular government, for
Augustine, is in no way retributive; it is employed only because
of its utility and has nothing to do with justice.
Plato Republic, (New York: Oxford University Press, 1945), p. 859.
Ibid., pp. 346-348.
21 Ibid., pp. 347-348.
22 Herbert A. Deane, The Political and Social Ideas of St. Augustine (New York:
Columbia University Press, 1963), p. 134.
•• Ibid., pp. 140-141.
19

20

THE RETRIBUTIVE

APPROACH TO PUNISHMENT

533

To those familiar with Augustine's argument for state persecution of heretics, it would seem that punishment by secular
governments is retributive. Yet this is not so. It is true that
Augustine calls for state persecution of heretics. He could not
be more clear on this point. "How," he asks, "are kings to
serve the land with fear except by preventing and chastising
with religious severity all those aspects which are done in
opposition to the Commandments of the Lord?" 24 Yet Augustine is equally clear when he says that the sole purpose of persecution is to instill fear. "Through fear of suffering what he
does not desire, he (the heretic) either renounces his hostile
prejudices, or is compelled to examine the truth of which he has
been contentedly ignorant, and under the influence of this fear
(he) repudiates the error he was wont to defend .... " 25 This
punishment of heretics by the state is not because the state
dispenses true justice in the form of punishment; rather, punishment of heretics by the state is employed for its utilityto make heretics reconsider their position. Although St. Augustine defended imperial laws that provided for punishment o£
heretics, he did not seek to have the penalty provided by law
actually levied on the heretics who were actually tried and
found guilty. Herbert Deane, a known scholar on St. Augustine, states: "He seems to view the law and its penalties as a
threat rather than a direct punishment of heresy." 26 "The
purpose of the state's enactments against heresy . . . is to
admonish the wanderers to return to the church of Christ,
rather than punish them for thier crimes." 27 That punishment of heretics by the state is not retributive is emphasized
when St. Augustine clearly rejects the death penalty- for
that would defeat the purpose o£ state punishment-as a
threat to force one to reconsider his position. 28 Had punish24 Letters of St. Augustine, CLXXXV,
19, in The Political Writings of St.
Augustine, ed. by Henry Paolucci (Chicago: Henry Regnery Company, 1970),

p. 212.
25 Letters
XCII, 16-19, in Paolucci, p. 203.
26 Deane, p. 189.
27 Ibid., p. 202.
28 Letters
C, 2 and CXXXIII, 1, in Paolucci, pp. !291-!298.

584

CHANA KASACHKOFF

POUPKO

ment of heretics been retributive, capital punishment would
have been perfectly acceptable. But when the end of punishment is utility for the particular person who is punished, the
death penalty serves no purpose. Thus, for St. Augustine,
punishment by the state is strictly utilitarian.
At this point let me clarify that, when I refer to utilitarian
punishment, I mean punishment that is useful as opposed to
punishment that is just. Utilitarian punishment here, then,
refers to punishment that is useful in any sense, not only in the
classical utilitarian sense of useful in increasing happiness.
Thus utilitarian punishment includes punishment that is useful in keeping order in society, or that is useful in making men
good. Here punishment is utilitarian because the aim of punishment is to deter or reform, whereas the aim of retributive
justice is to punish in order to mete out justice. Thus, if the
aim of punishment is to deter someone from evil actions (which
have nothing to do with society's happiness), this is still utilitarian punishment.
Bearing this "in mind, it is apparent that even St. Thomas's
arguments for punishment by the state are partially utilitarian.
For the purpose of punishment, for St. Thomas, is to deter men
from evil-not to cause suffering among men because they deserve it. Thus Aquinas says, " From becoming accustomed to
avoid evil and fulfill what is good, through fear of punishment,
one is sometimes led on to do likewise, with delight and of
one's own accord. Accordingly, law even by punishing, leads
men on to being good." 29
Nevertheless given St. Thomas's general conception of law
and the state, he almost inevitably had to be led to a concept
of retributive justice. This is because, for Aquinas, " a law is
a dictate-of the practical reason." 80 Since human law was
derived from natural law based on reason, laws could objectively be called " good " and "evil."
Since human law was based on natural law, and one could
know what good and evil was, it seems only reasonable that a
"9

Summa Tkeol., 1-11, q. 92, a.!l.

80

Ibid., q.91, a.Sl.

THE RETRIBUTIVE

APPROACH

TO PUNISHMENT

585

secular court could mete out justice in the form of punishment
for violation of human law which was part of the natural law,
i.e., the just law. If those governing knew what justice was,
and knew what was good, they could reasonably punish those
who violated such laws. Such punishment would be deserved
and would be just, since the offender violated what was objectively " good." (Although St. Thomas' theory of punishment no doubt was largely retributive, it should be pointed
out that his theory of law and the state does not necessarily
lead to a retributive theory of punishment. For example, it
could be argued that, even if one knows the good and the evil,
he may still not think that it is just for people to suffer because
they have committed evil.)
St. Thomas was probably largely responsible for Christian
beliefs that men could know good and evil and that they should
impose God's justice on man through secular governments.
Thus, the concept of retributive justice was linked to religious
beliefs until modem times.
Modern retributionists abondoned the idea that violation of
God's laws should be punished by secular governments but
kept the core idea of retributive punishment-namely, that
punishment is given because it is deserved. But if punishment is deserved, then obviously some moral wrong has been
committed, which means that laws should reflect a true form of
justice. Once God and religion are eliminated from man's concepts of justice, it is debatable as to how one can know true
justice, unless it is socially defined (which the retributionist
cannot accept). In other words, if concepts of justice are not
derived from religion and if justice is not socially defined, it is
encumbent upon the retributionist at least to state from where
he derives his concepts of what morality or justice is. Modern
retributionists generally assume the Western religious conception of justice with regard to punishment but formally do
not state their case as such.
Most outstanding of the secular retributionists are Kant,
Hegel, and F. H. Bradley. Although in secular terms, their
theory of punishment re-echoes Biblical and Christian ideas
concerning the justness of punishment. One is punished be-

536

CHANA KASACHKOFF

POUPKO

cause he deserves it. Hence, Bradley says, " Punishment is
punishment only when it is deserved; we pay the penalty because we owe it .... " 31 Kant also maintains that punishment
is given because it is deserved and the consequences of such
punishment should have nothing to do with the decision of
whether or how much to punish. In order to stress this point,
Kant states that, even if a society resolved to dissolve itself, the
last murderer in prison ought to be executed beofre the resolution was carried out. " This ought to be done in order that every
one may realize the desert of his deeds and that blood guiltiness may not remain upon the people: for otherwise they will
all be regarded as participators in the murder as a public violation of justice." 32
In order to strengthen their theory Bosanquet and Hegel
developed the idea that retributive justice is a kind of tribute
to the moral personality of the criminal. It is precisely as a
morally responsible agent, recognized as capable of making
reasoned choices and accepting the consequences, that the criminal is punishable. 33 Hence, Bosanquet says that punishment
is the right of the criminal of which he must not be defrauded. 34
Punishment is thus to be distinguished from discipline administered to children. The retributive theory of punishment views
a criminal as a responsible moral agent who is accountable for
his actions. No one has the right to treat rational adults as
children or madmen. (These cannot know moral distinctions,
and therefore are not responsible.) 35 It diminished a criminal's
stature as a rational adult to deny that he is responsible for
ordering his life. 36 Hegel puts the matter succinctly when he
81 F. H. Bradley, Ethical Studies
(!'lnd. ed.; London: Oxford University Press,
1876), pp.!'l6-!'l7.
82 Immanuel
Kant, Kant•s Philosophy of Law, ed., and trans. by W. Hastie
(Edinburgh: T. and T. Clark, 1887), p. 198.
83 Stanley I. Benn, "Punishment"
in The Encyclopedia of Philosophy, Paul
Edwards, ed. (New York: MacMillan Co., and
Press, 1967), vol. 7, pp. 2935.
•• Bernard Bosanquet, The Philosophical Theory of the State (London: MacMillan and Co., 1899), p. 2!'l7.
85 Bradley, p. 6.
36 Benn, "Punishment,"
p. 34.

THE RETRIBUTIVE

APPROACH TO PUNISHMENT

537

says, " ... punishment is regarded as containing the criminal's
right and hence by being punished he is honored as a rational
being. He does not receive this due honor unless the concept
and measure of punishment are derived from his own act. Still
less does he receive it if he is treated as a harmful animal who
has to be made harmless or with a view to deterring or reforming him." 37
Modern retributivists also consider punishment as the will
of the criminal. " The injury (penalty) which falls on the
criminal," says Hegel, " . . . is his implicit will, an embodiment of his freedom, his right." 38
For Kant, "No one undergoes punishment because he has
willed to be punished, but because he has willed a punishable
action." Kant explains that it is, in fact, no punishment when
anyone experiences what he wills, and it is impossible for anyone to will to be punished. 89 But the penal action is regarded as
an expression of the will of the criminal since he has consented
to be part of this system with all its laws. Thus it is more
correct to .say that a criminal has tacitly consented to his
punishment by his very membership in the society which punishes him. Accordng to Kant then, justice demands that a person accept his part of the bargain and that a state must punish
for violating this moral obligation.
Bosanquet and Hegel both add the concept of " punishment as annulment" to the retributive theory. By punishment, .says Bosanquet, " we annihilate the wrong and manifest
the right." 40 Punishment is thus necessary to annul the wrong
done by the criminal. " The criminal has upset the balance of
the moral order which can be restored only by his being made
to suffer." 41 Punishment for Hegel, as well as for Bosanquet,
is " an exercise of force annulling the force originally brought
•• Georg Hegel, Philosophy of Right, trans. by T. M. Knox (New York: Oxford University Press, 1969), notes on Section 100, p. 91.
•• Ibid., Section 100, p. 70.
•• Kant, p. 201.
' 0 Bosanquet, p. 28.
41 Benn, " Punishment,"
p. 88.

538

CHANA KASACHKOFF

POUPKO

against it." 42 By use of his logical apparatus involving the negation of negation (or annulment) Hegel professes to establish
what is a mystical bond between wrong and punishment. He is
convinced that guilt of the offense is in some way wiped out by
the suffering of the offender. 43 This is indeed strange since
crimes, unlike marriages, cannot be annulled. One's death or
punishment after a crime does not make things as they were before. Further, it is perplexing as to how crime, which is an evil,
is apparently to be annulled by the addition to it of punishment, which is another evil. 44 Hegel himself is aware of this
predicament, and he explains, " If crime and its annulment
. . . are treated as if they were unqualified evils, it must of
course seem quite unreasonable to will an evil merely because
another evil is there already." But the point is that, according
to Hegel, punishment is not an evil. Rather, " punishment
is inherently and actually just." Therefore, it can right the
wrong. 45
For Hegel and retributionists in general punishment restores
a moral principle. 46 He explains that punishment may look
like revenge but it is not, for revenge is the act of a subjective
will whereas punishment is based on universal will of law.
is not private revenge but a demand for
• • ." 48 Punishment
justice. Bosanquet also stresses the point that social indignation is not the same as the selfish desire for revenge. 48 Interestingly enough, Emile Durkheim, while holding an entirely
different view of punishment, also maintains that " when we
desire the repression of a crime, it is not that we desire to
avenge personally, but to avenge something sacred which we
feel more or less confusedly outside, and above us." 49
•• Hegel,p. 67.
•• Hegel, p. 10 .
.. Edmund L. Pincoffs, The Rational of Legal PunUihment (New York: Humanities Press, 1966), p. 10.
•• Hegel, Section 99, pp. 69-70.
•• Ted Honderick, Punishment: The Supposed Justifications (London: Hutchinson and Co., 1970), p. 37.
47 Hegel,
additions to paragraph 101, 102, p. 244.
•• Bosanquet, p. 211.
•• Emile Durkheim, The Division of Labor in Society, trans. by George Simpson
(New York Free Press, 1965), p. 100.

THE RETRIBUTIVE

APPROACH TO PUNISHMENT

539

Thus the retributive theory views the state as an agent
which can and should enforce that which is above the subjective, that which it conceives to be moral. The state is viewed
as necessarily concerned with the moral quality of human existence. Hence retributionists constantly assert that" The end
of the state is moral purpose." 50 The connection between this
concept of the state and retributive punishment is obvious.
" The specific attribute of moral government is that it takes the
moral quality of men's actions as the basis of its rewards and
punishments. It " consists not barely in rewarding and punishing men for their actions which the most tyrannical person
may do, but in rendering to men according to their actions
considered as good or evil." 51
The retributionists thus conceived of the state as having a
moral purpose whose aim with regard to punishment is to
punish crime because it is evil. This theory also assumes
that man is a responsible moral agent who is therefore
rightly punished for his evil actions. Finally, this theory
assumes that what is " evil " or " just " can be known.
The retributive theory, as has been shown, was prefaced by
a long history of religious thought. Western thought has long
been conditioned to the idea that there is a Power who punishes
evil and rewards the just; that man, made in the image of God,
has a moral responsibility, and that God's justice, or objective
good and evil, can be known.
While modern retributionists have abandoned these religious
teachings, they have retained the basic ideas that man is a
responsible moral agent and that there is an objective morality
or justice which can be known. However, for the modern retributionist, the state, not God, fulfills the Divine function of
dispensing justice.
If these basic assumptions are challenged, if the role of the
state is not conceived as primarily having a moral purpose,
if justice is viewed as subjective, if man's total responsibility
•• Bosanquet, p. 188.
61 Joseph Butler, Analogy
of Religion (London: S. and P. Knopton, 1786),
p. 44-45.

540

CHANA KASACHKOFF POUPKO

for his deeds is questioned, a different conception of punishment
must emerge. It is the historical utilitarian concept of the
state and society which did challenge the above assumptions
and which subsequently developed an entirely different rationale of punishment. But despite the fact that these traditional
ideas concerning the role of the state have been challeged in
secular society, the very strong religious basis concerning punishment has continued to influence Western man even in that
secular society.
Given the fact that ideas concerning retributive punishment
have been heavily influenced by our religious tradition, one
might assume that the cruelty of our system of punishing also
has its roots in religious bases. Yet this is not necessarily true.
For cruel punishment cannot be based on the theory of punishments here discussed. The retributive theory in general does
not justify it. Sophisticated retributionists insist on decent
treatment while punishing the criminal. 52
It is true that, historically, theocratic states and the retributive theory which supported its form of punishment seems
to have justified the most extreme tortures. And it was the
utilitarian rationale for punishment which, in fact, brought
about more humane types of punishment. Indeed, the main
purpose of Beccaria's and Bentham's works were to make punishments themselves more humane and at the same time to take
certain crimes out of the realm of punishment. Yet, if one
appeals to history, one can find instances of the most barbaric
punishments used solely for their deterrent effect. Also, from
a logical point of view, " purely reformatory or deterrent theories of penalty-fixing which lack an upper limit to penalties run
the risk of becoming far more inhumane than even a purely
retributive theory." 53 Further, it is unfair to condemn retributionism as being responsible for cruel punishments .since
there is, in fact, no reason why a retributionist should call for
extreme suffering. A criminal may deserve punishment in the
J. D. Mabott, "Punishment," Mind, Vol. 48 (1939), p. 165.
K. G. Armstrong, "The Retributivist Hits Back," in The Philosophy of
Punishment, ed. by H. B. Acton (London, 1969), p. 158.
59

58

THE RETRIBUTIVE

APPROACH TO PUNISHMENT

541

form of loss of liberty but not in the form of any torture or
dehumanization.
But most often people do identify retributive punishment
with cruelty. Retributive punishment probably picked up its
bad reputation from St. Augustine who expounded on great
physical sufferings meted out in hell. Delight in such torture, however, is accidental, rather than essential, to the retributive theory. Biblical sources, for example, do not call for
torture and in fact condemn excessive punishment. The fact
that a criminal is viewed as deserving his punishment does
not mean that he deserves inhumane treatment. 54
Severe and brutal treatment of criminals as exists today
has nothing to do with any respectable theory of punishment.
It has not been justified by the retributive theory as the theory attempts only to justify the institution itself. That is to
say, retributivism views the criminal as deserving his punishment-but not necessarily as deserving inhumane punishment.
If the theory is to be rejected, it must be not on the basis that
it encourages inhumane punishment, but on the basis of rejection of the fundamental principles which underlie it. The principles underlying the theory must be clearly understood. The
purpose of this article has been to make obvious the roots of
some of this theory's most vital assumptions.
CHANA KAsACHKOFF

Georgia State University
Atlanta, Georgia

for 'example, Deuteronomy

PouPKo

MARITAIN'S THEORY OF SUBSISTENCE:
THE BASIS OF HIS "EXISTENTIALISM"

M

ARITAIN INTENDED his final metaphysical
work, Court Traite de l'Existerwe et de l'Existant
(Eng. trans. Existence and the Existent)/ as an
answer to contemporary existentialists, such as Sartre, 2 who
maintain that the doctrine of essence, with its emphasis on
necessity and universality, is incompatible with the contingency, uniqueness, and freedom of the existential realm. Maritain's reply was that an existentialism which denies essence
is really " apocryphal existentialism." 3 Such an existentialism
is self-destroying because an existent must exist as a specific
entity and, hence, must possess an intelligible structure. An
existence without essence is unthinkable. 4 Conversely, he insisted that Thomism is an " authentic existentialism,"" for it
not only affirms the primacy of the existent over essence but
also accounts for the possibility of the existential realm by
maintaining that the existent possesses an essence or intelligible
.structure.
But is Thomism-as Maritain interpreted it-really an " existentialism"? Or is this merely an effort to make Thomism appear fashionable? Can Maritain's position on essence be reconciled with genuine contingency, uniqueness, and freedom? It
is true that over the years Maritain developed a socio-political
philosophy which, although based on the immutability of the
1 J. Maritain, Court Traite de l'Existence et de l'Existant
(Paris: Paul Hartmann, 1947). Eng trans!.: Existence and the Existent, tr. by Lewis Galantiere
and Gerald B. Phelan (New York: Doubleday and Company Inc. Paperback,
1957).
2 Existence and the Existent, pp. 15-16.
3 Ibid., p. 13.
' Ibid., p. 15.
5 Ibid., p. 13.

MAlifTAIN's

THEORY d:i!' SUBSfS'I':ENCE

Natural Law and the universality of human essence,6 nevertheless focused on the uniqueness and freedom of each person, 7
the creativity of the moral act, 8 and on the demand that political society progressively adapt its socio-political institutions te
the individual person's capacity for self-expression and "freedom of personal expansion." 9 The question, however, is whether this dynamic, libertarian view follows from a metaphysical
view of the universe which emphasizes these things or is simply
coincidental to a static and basically essentialist view.
Existence and the Existent does contain a metaphysics which
purports to justify Thomistic existentialism. On a preliminary
level Maritain does there distinguish the manner in which
things exist in our minds-the manner in which they are represented to us via concepts-from the manner in which they
exist outside our minds in their existential state. We know
things by grasping their essences through simple apprehension.
This, to be sure, affords us a genuine knowledge of what is intelligible in them, i.e., of that by which they are what they
are. But, in apprehending the essences of things, we know them
as objects, which, for Maritain, 10 is to be recipients of action,
not sources of action. It is in the act of affirmation or judgment that we apprehend, by intuition, beings as individual
existents or subjects. 11 The existence (esse) of things, far from
being a static something that is received by essence or a mere
actualization of essence, is primarily an act that is exercised. 12
It is the being (ens) which exists, and it does so by exercising
its own act of existing (esse) according to the specifications
6 Maritain,
Man and the State (Chicago: University of Chicago Press. Paperback, 1956), pp. 84-89.
7 Maritain,
The Rights of Man and Natural Law, tr. by Doris C. Anson (New
York: Charles Scribner's Sons, 1943), pp. 4 & 7.
8 Maritain,
Neuf Lecons sur les Notions Premieres de la Philosophie Morale
(Paris: Pierre Tequi, 1951), pp. 31 and 165; Existence and the Existent, p. 60.
9 Maritain,
Scholasticism and Politics, translation edited by Mortimer J. Adler,
(New York: Doubleday and Company, Inc. Paperback., 1960), p. 84.
10 Existent and the Existent, pp. 23-24 & 74.

''Ibid.
10 Ibid., pp. 82-88.

544

RAYMOND })ENNEH"£"

of its essence. But only a subject can exercise an act, £or to do
something requires a central organization whence the activity
flows. Hence, Maritain states 13 that " . . . only subjects exist,
with the accidents which inhere in them, the action which
emanates from them, and the relations which they bear to one
another."
The distinction between subject and object, then, is intended
by Maritain to reveal the difference between the existential
and mental realms. But the profound difference that Maritain
sees between the two can hardly be appreciated apart from an
understanding of what he means by "subsistence."
What we call subject St. Thomas called suppositum. Essence is
that which a thing is; suppositum is that which has an essence,
that which exercises existence and action ... that which subsists.
Here we meet the metaphysical notion which has given students
so many headaches and baffies everyone who has not grasped the
true-the existential-foundations
of Thomist metaphysics, the
notion of subsistence.
We are bound to speak of this notion of subsistence with great
respect ... because, in the philosophical order itself, it bears witness to the supreme tension of an articulated thought bent on
seizing intellectually something which seems to escape from the
notions or ideas of the intellect, namely, the typical reality of the
subject. 14 (Maritain's emphasis)

Maritain regards subsistence as the positive mode or perfection15 which enables a being to exercise its act of existing
(esse); subsistence accounts for the fact that the existent,
whether a blade of grass, a dog, a human being, etc., is a subject.
It is argued below that an explanation of Maritain's theory
of subsistence establishes his interpretation of Thomism as
legitimately existential. Others in the Thomistic tradition, such
as Cajetan, have insisted upon the importance of subsistence;
Ibid., p. 70.
Ibid., pp. 70-71.
1 "Maritain, The Degrees of Knowledge, tr. supervised by Gerald B. Phelan (New
York: Charles Smibner's Sons, 1959), p. 438.
18

H

MARITAIN's

THEORY OF SUBSISTENCE

545

but, although heavily influenced by Cajetan's writings on
subsistence, Maritain evolved his own distinctive theory. Possibly the most difficult point in his philosophy, this theory is
nevertheless absolutely crucial to a proper understanding of
his metaphysics. An historical approach is used in order to
show that he was truly an existentialist early on in his philosophical carreer, even if it was only with the appearance of
Existence and the Existent in 1947 that he began to apply the
term in reference to Thomism.

I
Maritain presented the first outlines of his theory of subsistence in his Introduction Generale la Philosophie (Eng.
trans. An Introduction to Philosophy), which first appeared
in 1920. 16 Although lacking the philosophical argumentation
and fullness of his later, more mature presentations of the
theory, the presentation is nonetheless important, as it provides
clarifications of the terms " substance," " substantial essence,"
and " subject of action," all of which are presupposed by these
later presentations.
As noted above, Maritain distinguishes two ways in which
the being of a thing may be apprehended: from the standpoint
of its intelligibility, in which case the being of this man, namely,
Peter, is apprehended in its universality, i.e., in terms of its
essence or nature as man or humanity; or from the standpoint
of its existence, namely, this man, Peter, in which case it is
apprehended as an individual. 17 The being which the mind
apprehends primarily as existing is individual being, such as
Peter, this dog, this blade of grass, etc. What all these examples
have in common is that they are "individual concrete and
independent subjects, fully equipt to be and to act. . .. " 18
Hence, Maritain calls them subjects of action.19 In contrast,

a

16 Introduction
Generale a la Philosophie (Paris: Pierre Tequi, 1920). Eng
transl.: An Introduction to Philosophy, tr. by E. I. Watkin (London and New
York: Shecd and Ward, 1930).
17 An Introduction
to Philosophy, p. 164.
18
10

Ibid.
Ibid.

546

RAYMOND DENNEHY

being apprehended under the aspect of intelligibility, i.e., as an
essence, is an abstraction from the concrete individual.
Despite this distinction, Maritain applies the term " substance," in Introduction to Philosophy, not only to the subject of action but also to the essence or nature of the subject,
i.e., to what a thing is, to that in virtue of which Peter, say,
exists. 20 It might be supposed that the subject of action, Peter,
lays sole claim to the title of substance, since it alone exists
as a whole-not whole in the sense of a collective whole but
rather a " whole that is one in itself "-instead of as a part of
a being or subject, while its essence or nature, on the other
hand, is a part of it; for Peter is composed of more than an
essence: he also has distinctive, individual qualities which
individuate him from other men, to say nothing of the fact
that he also exists. Nevertheless, Peter's nature or essence
constitutes him in the .sense that he exists in virtue of it. Essence, for Maritain, is that in virtue of which a thing is what
it is. Since Peter's essence constitutes him, it cannot be said to
exist in the sense of being received in some previously existing
thing, as, for example, the theory of Relativity exists in Peter's
mind today, whereas last year he existed in ignorance of it.
This kind of observation leads Maritain to defend the correctness of maintaining that the essence is capable of existing
per se-not in the Platonic sense as a self-subsisting idea or
form but, rather, in the sense that, in order to exist, it does not
become part of another, previously existing being which receives
it into itself. On the contrary, it constitutes the subject
of action in the sense of being that in virtue of which the subject is what it is.21
Accordingly, Maritain defines "substance" as "a thing
or nature whose property is to exist by itself, or in virtue of itself (per se) and not in another thing." 22 He qualifies the
application of the term "substance" to essence, however, by
saying that the essence is substance in a secondary sense (sub•• Ibid., pp. 168-169.
21 lbid., p. 169;
""Ibid.

MARITAIN'S

THEORY OF SUBSISTENCE

547

stantia secunda), since it does not refer directly to the individual substance, this man, Peter, for example, which he calls
substance in the primary sense (substantia prima) .23
But the individual substance-substance
in the primary
sense-is not in itself what Maritain means by the existent, the
" individual concerte and independent subject . . . fully
equipped to be and to act. . . ." It is not, in other words, the
subject of action.
In the Aristotelian and Scholastic vocabulary the term substantia prima . . . denotes . . . the individual nature of the subject of action without determining whether or not it is terminated
by subsistence. Usually indeed it does in fact denote the terminated nature or subject of action, the hoc aliquid. It does not, however, denote formally the subject of action taken as such and contrasted with the (non-terminated) nature. That function belongs
to the terms suppositum and personna ... 2*
The subject of action ... is nothing but the substantial nature completed by a particular modality (subsistence ... ) which terminates
it, as a point terminates a line (without adding to it in the order
of nature) and renders it absolutely incommunicable ... 25 (Maritain's emphasis)

What does it mean to say that a substantial nature is "completed" or "terminated"? That it is rendered "absolutely
incommunicable"? What is this "particular modality" called
" subsistence " which terminates it?
Any attempt to answer these questions must take into account that by " subject of action " Maritain wishes to emphasize that, in order to exist, the existent must be capable of
existing entirely by itself alone. He does not suggest that it
is uncaused; after all, Peter has been procreated by his parents and now depends upon air, water, sun-light, and food,
etc., to keep him in existence. Rather, Maritain means that the
subject of action possesses in itself everything necessary to
It is
receive
98 Ibid., p. 176.
"'Ibid., pp. 176-177, n.l.
95 Ibid., p. 168, n. 1.
•e Ibid., p. 164.

548

RAYMOND DENNEHY

a being existing by itself (per se) or in virtue of itself, in virtue
of its own nature, ens per se existens. Since a being of this kind
exists as a whole and in no wise as a part of another being or subject in which it exists, we may also say that it exists in itself, in
se.27

The subject of action, that which is, possesses no distinctive
characteristics beyond those which constitute it what it is,
none beyond the individual nature. 28 Yet, Maritain insists that
a modality must be present to explain that Peter's individual
nature constitutes a whole which exists in nothing other than
itself. For, in contrast, Peter's essence, man, is an essence
that is distinct from the whole which it constitutes and instead exists in him, in that whole. 29 "In short, the subject
of action possesses a nature or essence; the concept of that
nature or essence taken as such (what or that in virtue of
which) is not the concept of the subject of action (that
which) ." 30
I£ the individual nature is not of itself sufficient to account
for the termination or completeness of the subject of action, to
account for the fact that it is a whole existing independently in
itself, then it seems that we can infer that, for Maritain,
individuation by signate matter is insufficient to account for
the termination. Maritain follows the Aristotelian tradition
in holding that matter is the principle of individuation. That
is to say, how are we to account for more than one member of
the same species? I£ Socrates and Plato are both human beings,
if they have the same essence, namely, man or humanity, then
something other than their essence is necessary to account for
individual men, this man, Socrates, and this man, Plato.
Hence, it can be argued that they are individuated by their
respective quantities of matter, this flesh and these bones, etc. 81
From the texts cited, it looks as though Maritain agrees that
Ibid., p. 164-165.
Ibid. p. 165.
29 Ibid., pp. 165-166.
80 Ibid., pp. 166.
81 Ibid., pp. U4 ff:
27

28

MARITAIN's

THEORY OF SUBSISTENCE

549

signate or designated matter accounts for the individuated
essence and for primary substance but not for its termination,
i.e., not for its being a subject of action.
It can fairly be asked why Maritain does not find the act
of existing (esse) sufficient to account for the termination or
completion of individual essence. For esse is what, in Maritain's view, makes the being (ens) actual, makes it an existent.
Yet, although not addressing himself to this question in An
Introduction to Philosophy, the general thrust of his words
points to his reason for rejecting this view:
The term substance signifies a thing ·Capable of existing in itself,
or of subsisting: that is to say, of being self-contained as an existent thing (its function subsistere) , so that, once it exists, it sustains in being the additional qualities or accidents with which it is
invested (its function substare). But it is only as a suppositum that
substance is immediately capable of performing these two functions. Considered as a nature or essence it merely seeks to perform them. 32
Note that "substance" refers to that which is "capable of
existing in itself," not to that which exists in itself; and that the
suppositum-which is produced by the mode called " subsistence "-renders the substance " immediately capable of performing " the functions substare and subsistere: it does not
render it an existent thing. Hence, rather than refer to the subject of action as that which exists per se, Maritain prefers to
designate it as " a being immediately disposed to exist per
se." 33 He prefers this formulation because he maintains that
existence itself cannot be a constituent part of the definition
of anything created. 34 This would be contradictory, since if
it existed by definition or by nature, then it would not be
created; it would exist by nature and, hence, exist necessarily.
To summarize: In An Introduction to Philosophy Maritain's
presentation of the theory of subsistence amounts to this: In
order for a substance to be a subject of action, it requires a
Ibid., p. 169, n.2.
Ibid., p. 165.
•• Ibid., n.I.

39

33

550

RAYMOND DENNEHY

termination which enables it to be a whole capable of existing
independently and for itself. It can be inferred from the texts
cited above that neither signate matter nor esse suffices for this
termination, but only the mode which Maritain calls " subsistence." Subsistence does not individuate the substantial essence
-i.e., substance in the primary sense-,nor does it make it
exist. Rather, it renders the substantial essence capable of
existing.
This view of subsistence raises fundamental questions, such
as, What exactly is the difference which subsistence makes in
the individual, substantial essence so that it is capable of existing? In what sense is the subject of action a whole, terminated and complete, while the primary substance, i.e., the individuated essence is not? How can subsistence effect any change
or mode in a being before it exists? And, perhaps, the most
formidable question: Since the act of existing (esse) is, by
Maritain's own admission, that which makes an individual
essence actual, makes it to be, why is not esse itself sufficient to
terminate it? As noted above, it can plausibly be inferred that
Maritain, when he wrote An Introduction to Philosophy, rejected this position on the ground that esse can be a constituent
of no created nature. Still, this point is not developed there
and must await the writing of Distinguer Pour Unir, ou Les
Degres Du Savoir (Eng. trans. The Degrees of Knowledge) 35
for its philosophical defense.
Although Maritain makes no attempt to argue the case for
the theory of subsistence in An Introduction to Philosophy, the
work remains the best source for an understanding of his use
of the terms " substance " and " subject of action," both of
which are crucial to the later presentations of the theory.

II
Maritain's argument for his original version of the theory of
subsistence, as he sets it forth in The Degrees of Knowledge,
•• J. Maritain, Distinguer Pour Unir, ou Les Degres Du Savior (Paris: Desclee de Brouwer, 1935).

MARITAIN's

THEORY OF SUBSISTENCE

551

rests on the doctrines of act and potency and the real distinction between essence and existence. It would be well, therefore,
to say a word about how he understands them before confronting the argument itself.
Adhering to the Aristotelian-Thomistic tradition, Maritain
seeks to explain the fact of change by appealing to the doctrine of act and potency. For example, the rib roast which I
eat for my supper is, before I eat it, actually a rib roast, i.e.,
it has actual being as a rib roast. After I eat it and assimilate
it into my body, it is actually my flesh and bone and no longer
a rib roast. This change is possible because the being in question, although actually a rib roast at t1, has a certain potential
or capacity to become part of my body at t2. This potential is
not mere nothingness, even though it is not actual before its
assimilation. For its potential to be assimilated into my flesh
and bone follows from what it actually is at t1, viz., a rib
roast. Conversely, a stone has its distinctive potencies, but
just because it is actually a stone, these potencies are the
potencies of a stone and, hence, do not include becoming flesh
and bone. Maritain, accordingly, recognizes a twofold division
of being: actual being or being in act and potential being or
being in potency. Potential being always presupposes actual
being; being is prior to change or becoming. 36
Maritain regards essence and existence as the ultimate examples of potency and act. 37 He maintains that every finite
existent is composed of an essence or nature, i.e., a whatness,
and an act of existing (esse). Consider for example, this man,
Peter. He actually exists, yet there is nothing in his nature or
essence which explains the fact that he does exist. To be sure,
there are many causes for this fact, such as his parents, etc.
But Maritain's point is that these causes arise from outside his
essence. His essence reveals that his existence is possible and
is, as discussed above a causal principle in that it specifies in
what manner he shall exist; it is that in virtue of which Peter is
what he is, i.e., a rational animal or a man, rather than a dog,
•• Degrees of Knowledge, pp. 133-134.

•• Cf. Introduction to Philosophy, Pt. III, Ch. 5.

559l

RAYMOND DENNEHY

etc. But his essence does not necessitate or imply his existence
as the notion of triangle implies the notion of two right angles.
Hence, in an existent being whose essence does not imply its
existence, a real distinction obtains between its essence and
its act of existing (esse). Maritain regards it as a real, rather
than a merely logical, distinction in that existence is not an
essence, but instead, belongs to an entirely different order. 38
Essence and existence cannot be deduced from each other
and yet they are components of the being that exists: essence
specifies what that being is, while esse causes it to be, makes
it an actual being.
Given the context of these two doctrines, Maritain argues, in
the original version of his theory of subsistence, from the
premise that, of all the instances of the potency-act relationship-cold to hot, strong to weak, ignorant to learned, ribroast to human organism-, the relationship between essence
and existence is unique.
In all other cases where we have to deal with the potency-act
couple-for example, in the case of a faculty in relation to its
operation-there exists between the potency and the act, which
are in the same line, a proportion such that, all the conditions being
given, the act received in the potency can be received only in it,
and is strictly adapted to it alone because in itself it limits that
act to itself, to the exclusion of every other potency. It is its act,
its determination, its actuation. 39 (Maritain's emphasis)

The example that Maritain uses to illustrate the proportion
that exists in every other instance of the act-potency relation is
the relationship between the intellect's capacity (potential)
to know and its actual knowing. In this case the potency and
act are in the same line in the sense that if cognitive capacity
is the potential and cognition the actualization of that potential, then cognition can be the act of no other potential than
that of cognitive capacity. It cannot be the actualization of
digestive potential or capacity, for example. Similarly, an oak
88

Degrees of Knowledge, p. 430.

•• Ibid.

THEORY OF SUBSISTENCE

553

tree can be the actualization of an acorn but never the actualization of any other kind of seed.
To be sure, these examples are quite different from that of
essence, since they refer to real potencies, i.e., to potencies
which already presuppose an actual substance, as the capacity
to know presupposes the existence of an intellect. Substantial
essence, on the contrary, is not a real potency, for it presupposes the existence of no faculty or power, or substance, of
which it is the actualization. But this radical disproportion
.seems to be exactly Maritain's point! The relation between essence and existence, Maritain insisted at the time, is unique in
the sense that, whereas cognition is properly the act of cognitive
potential owing to the very structure of the intellect, which
structure specifies its potential to cognition, existence is not
properly the act of essence. For there is nothing in the specific
capacities of any given essence which specifies it to this act
of existence rather than to any other. 40 Granted, a specific
essence, say man, certainly implies specific actualizations, such
as teachable implies that its actualization is taught. But, although the essence man has the potency to exist, this actualization cannot be said to refer to any of the potentials unique to
it, such as teachability and risibility. Rather, existence is an
actualization which comes to essence from the outside, so to
speak, for it cannot be deduced from essence. Maritain, therefore, described, at this point in his career, the relation that
obtains between essence and existence as a "transcendental
relation." 41 If cognition can be the actualization of no other
capacity or potential than that of cognitive capacity, existence,
on the other hand,
. . . is the act which, if it does not receive, at least holds essence up
and sustains it by causing it formally to be. In other terms, if I
may be allowed to put it so, there is a sort of transcendence of
the act of existing by reason of which (not being the achievement
of a potency in the order proper to that potency-for existence
•• Ibid., p. 431. How can essenee specify existence before it exists? This question
is discussed below in the third section of this article.
" Ibid., pp. 430, 437.

554

RAYMOND DENNEHY

is not the achievement of essence: it does not form part of the
order of essence) , the potency which the act achieves, considered
with respect to its quidditative constituents, has not in itself anything by which to make its own the act in question.42 (Maritain's
emphasis)
Maritain rests the claim asserted above upon the principle
" potency limits act." 43 and it is implied in the earlier claim that
the oak tree is the actualization of an acorn and, hence, in
the line of essence, can never be actualized by anything
else, e.g., a com stalk. In the light of this principle, Maritain's
argument so far can be synopsized in this manner: Since cognition is the actualization or realization of cognitive potential,. it is
specified and, hence, limited or confined to being the act of cognitive potential and of no other potential. But the potency
with regard to the actualization of the quidditative constituents
of essence has nothing in it which limits the act of existing to
it rather than to any other essence. From this Maritain draws
a remarkable conclusion: " Consequently nothing .stands,
metaphysically, in the way of its [essence] being joined with
another substantial essence in the act of existing; under this
aspect it is unterminated." 44
Maritain does not say that two substantial essences can
share the same act of existing. What he says is that" nothing
stands" metaphysically, in the way ... "of their doing so. This
adverbial qualification seems to have been intended as a caution against conceiving the substantial essences in question in
.such a way as to presuppose their existence per se separatim,
i.e., as subjects of action, already terminated by subsistence,
and then trying to conceive of them as sharing a single act
of existence. This would be contradictory; it would be to say
that two substantial essences at once enjoy the integrity of
their own respective existences and that they do not enjoy
it. What Maritain apparently had in mind in writing the first
version of the theory of subsistence, on the contrary, is that
u Ibid., pp. 480-481.
•• Ibid., p. 481.
•• Ibid.

MARITAIN's

THEORY OF SUBSISTENCE

555

without the termination conferred by subsistence, there could
be no existents, or subjects of action, which subjects we take
for granted. Since our experience testifies to the existence of individual things-subjects dominating their own respective
beings-a reality in addition to essence existence, and signate
matter is needed to terminate substantial essence. Then, just
as cognition can be the actualization of no potential other
than cognitive capacity, so the existence of a substantial essence
can be the actualization of no other substantial essence than
itself. Maritain calls this reality subsistence.
When it [substantial essence] is thus terminated, it will limit existence to itself and to its own finitude. It will be terminated in this
fashion by a substantial mode which is precisely subsistence, and
which is not a quidditative constituent of essence any more than
the point which terminates a line is itself an extent, a segment of
the line. On the one hand, this subsistence is not one of the quidditative constituents of essence, and, on the other hand, it is not
yet existence. Its proper office is to terminate substantial essence,
to bring it to pass that the essence be rendered incommunicableby which it is to be understood not to be able to com;m;uJnicate.
with another substantial essence in the existence that actuates it;
to cause it to be divided off from every other, not only as regards
that which it is (as individual substance) , but divided off from
every other in order to exist.' 5 (Maritain's emphasis)

The argumentation of this, the original version, proved unsatisfactory and Maritain eventually found it necesary to
revise his approach to subsistence. The argumentation contained two major difficulties which are illustrated by the questions raised above with regard to the presentation in An Introduction to Philosophy: 1) Why is not the act of existing (esse)
sufficient to account for the termination of the individual substance? 2) Exactly what reality does the mode of subsistence
confer on the individaul essence to make it a subject of action?
How do they differ?
It was essayed in section I above that in An Introduction to
Philosophy Maritain's implied answer to the first of these ques'"Ibid ...

556

RAYMOND DENNEHY

tions is that the act of existing (esse) can be an essential constituent of no finite being. The contrast between the potencyact relationship as it applies to essence and existence and to
other potency-act relationships was designed to provide a dialectical defense of this view; hence, the claim that, metaphysically, one substantial essence can share the act of esse
of another substantial essence unless these essences are terminated by subsistence. But, in his critique of the original version/6 H. Diepen objected that this whole argument rests on
a univocal rather than an analogous conception of the potencyact relationship of essence to existence. 47 If the act of existence
has only a single meaning, then Maritain would be correct in
holding that there is no reason why a given act of existence
should belong to one substantial essence rather than another;
nor, for that matter, would there be any reason why one substantial essence could not share with another substantial essence a single act of existence.
Diepen pointed out, however, that the act of existence has
an analogous significance, not a univocal one. 48 The to-be of
this thing and the to-be of that thing are two distinct acts,
acts which are uniquely specified by the essence. These acts
of existence actuate the distinctive potentialities of each respective essence. Two members of the same material species represent two individual, absolutely diverse acts of existing because they are two distinct singular things. 49 True, they have
a nature or essence in common; but, if potency limits act, each
individuated nature specifies and limits the act of existence
to itself. Far from representing a unique instance of the potency-act relationship, therefore, existence is specified to substantial essence in the same manner as the actuation of a faculty
is specified to that faculty alone. 5° From this Diepen con•• H. Diepen, "La Critique du Balsieme Selon Saint Thomas d'Aquin," Review
Thomiste, 1950 and 1950, II.
47 Ibid., pp. 114-115.
•• Ibid. p. 115.
•• Ibid., p. 114.
""Ibid., p. 116.

MARITAIN's

THEORY OF SUBSISTENCE

557

eluded that the exercised act of existing (esse) is of itself
perfectly adapted to a given substantial essence, which is the
act's formal principle, i.e., accounts for a thing's whatness.
So perfect is this adaptation that it can be joined to no other
substantial essence in the actuation of this one. For just as the
eyes can only see and the ears hear, so a human nature or
essence is the .sole principle-i.e., as opposed to any principle
in existence-of a subject which has a human existence. To be
a man, a human nature is necessary and to be a horse, a horse's
nature is necessary. All of which led Diepen to say that Maritain'.s .conclusion that it is metaphysically possible for two
substantial essences to share a single act of existence is a
contradiction. Presumably, Diepen's meaning is that it is a
contradiction in the sense of saying that it is possible for the
eyes both to see and hear. The substantial essence makes the
act of existence its own in that it is the only individual essence which can be its (the act of existing) formal principle. 51
Maritain' own writings show a recognition of the analogous
character of the act of existing. 52 Once reminded of this analogous character, Maritain conceded that Diepen was correct in
holding against him that the act of existing " is of itself perfectly adapted and accommodated to the essence which is its
formal principle; so perfectly that it can be joined to no other
essence in the actuation of the latter." 53 And, a fortiori, he
also admitted that he was in error in holding for the possibility
of two essences being joined together in a single act of existing.54 Maritain attributed these errors to his acceptance of a
traditional theological interpretation- mainly Cajetan's-of
the doctrine of the Incarnation of Christ. 55 Cajetan advanced
the theory of subsistence to account for the doctrine that Christ
is both God and man yet only one personality. According to
the doctrine, the Incarnation did not consist of two separate
Ibid., pp. 115 and 114.
Existence and the Existent, p. 40.
53 Degrees of Knowledge, p. 434, n.l.
54 Ibid.
55 Ibid.
51

52

558

RAYMOND DENNEHY

persons-a human person and a divine person; nor did Christ
lack a human consciouness, intellect and will, for it is dogma
that he became like us in all things except sin. The only solution to this which Cajetan found acceptable was that Christ
could assume an individuated human nature, without destroying that nature, and thereby becoming one being, only if that
individuated nature were unterminated, i.e., lacked subsistence. These two natures were terminated in a single being
by the subsistence of Christ's divine personality. 56
Hence, the only example of two substantial essences sharing
a single act of existing seems to be found in theological dogma,
not in natural experience. Grenet, who advances an argument
for subsistence that is, in essence, identical to Maritain's original version, proposes the myth of the god Pan, which symbolizes the oneness of all things, as an example of a plurality
of substantial essences or individuals sharing a single act of
existing.5 7 But it is hard to see how this example is helpful.
As myth, it is at best a poetic expression of an insight into
the harmony and mutual dependence of things in nature. It
does not purport to give a philosophical or literal account of
the interrelationship.
With regard to the second question-What is the difference
between the individuated substance itself and the individuated substance after subsistence has been conferred upon it?the original version fails, again, to provide a satisfactory answer. Maritain's assertion that subsistence is not a" quidditative constituent of essence any more than a point which terminates a line is itself an extent, a segment of the line," is unsatisfactory. In the same critique, Diepen called the aptness of
this analogy into question. 58 It tells us nothing about the
reality conferred by subsistence. Diepen pointed out that sub88 Cf. Thomas Mullaney," Created Personality," New Scholasticism, Vol 29, 1955
pp. 888-884, and James B. Reichmann, "St. Thomas, Capreolus, Cajetan, and the
Created Person," New Scholasticism, Vol. 88, pp.
1959.
87 Paul Grenet, Thomism: An lntToducticm. Trans. by James F. Ross (New
York: Harper and Row, 1967), p. 84.
58 Diepen, pp. 109-11.

MARITAIN's

THEORY OF SUBSISTENCE

559

sistence is a positive mode, for it adds a reality to substance
which renders it capable of existing. But it is far from clear
that a point adds anything to a line. To be sure, it terminates
the line, but this is a sense of the word " terminate " which
is quite different from the .sense in which Maritain uses the
word with regard to subsistence: the former sense is negative,
the latter positive. The most the analogy can be said to accomplish is to give rhetorical emphasis to the statement that
subsistence marks off or delimits the substantial essence, making it an entity which belongs to itself and cannot be absorbed
into the existence of another substantial essence.

III
In his revised version of the theory of subsistence which first
appeared in the 1959 edition of The Degrees of Knowledge,
Maritain stated his intention of keeping his speculations on
subsistence free from theological considerations, basing them instead on philosophical evidence.
Although admitting to the above errors, Maritain nevertheless insisted upon the fundamental correctness of the original
namely, that, in order to exist, the substantial essence
must be " sur-completed " or perfected by a positive mode
which, although adding nothing new to the essence in the line
of essence, confers an additional reality which renders it capable of existing. 59 But, whereas in the original version, he had
maintained that subsistence rendered the substantial essence
incommmunicable and, hence, incapable of sharing the act of
existing (esse) of another substantial essence, he here maintains that subsistence confers no new incommunicability. As
noted above, he subsequently agreed with Diepen that the
individuated, substantial essence is already incommunicable
in that its act of existing is perfectly adapted to it, since essence
is a thing's formal principle. What reality, then, does subsistence confer? Maritain's answer is that subsistence enables
the substantial essence to transfer its incommunicability from
•• Degrees of KndWledge, p. 437.

560

RAYMOND DENNEHY

the plane of essence to the plane of existence by rendering
it capable of exercising its act of existing (esse) .60
To appreciate what Maritain is getting at here, it is necessary
to examine the considerations upon which he bases the revised
version. First, he appeals to our experience of extra-mental
reality. We experience "things, subjects, existents." By abstraction, our intellect disengages from these existents essences, intelligible structures. Although these essences exist
in our minds as universals, where they are known as such,
they exist really in individual things in a state of singularity.
Thus, essences, because they are derived from existents and
apprehended under the aspect of their intelligible structure, as
"that by which the things, subjects, or existents are such or
such," do not confront the intellect as the existents themselves
but as their intelligible structures. 61 Essence is a principle quo,
i.e., not that which exists but that in virtue of which it exists
as a suchness or whatness.
Second, essence is related to the act of existing as potency to
act; the act of existing is " act and perfection par excellence."
Essence is form or act in a certain order, i.e., the order of specification or formal causality; but in the order of exercise or in
relation to the act of existing (esse), it is potency or capacity.
The relation which obtains between essence and existence is
analogous to that which obtains between intelligence and the
act of intellection, the will and the act of volition. 62
Third, Maritain insists, as we have already noted, that there
is an intuition of existence ". . . in virtue of which, within
the very analogy to which we have just referred between
esse in relation to the intellect or the will, the esse is perceived quite precisely- even as in their own order intellection
and volition-as an exercised act, exercised by the thing or the
existent subject, or as an activity in which the existent itself
is engaged, an energy that it exerts." 63 From these considerations Maritain concludes:
Ibid.
Ibid., p. 43.3.
62 Ibid.
63 Ibid.
60

61

MARITAIN's

THEORY OF SUBSISTENCE

561

Existence is therefore not only received as if by esse essences were
pinned outside nothingness like a picture hung on a wall. Existence
is not only received, it is also exercised.
And this distinction between existence as received and existence
as exercised is central for the philosophical theory of subsistence
. . . Truly-one can rightly maintain-since it is the potency to
esse, essence as such suffices by that very fact to limit, appropriate
or circumscribe to itself the existence that it receives (in order
to bring the subject to existence). But to exercise existence something besides the bare essence is necessary, namely, the supposit
or person. Actiones sunt suppositorum, actions are proper to
supposits, and especially and above all the act of exercising existence. In other words, to exercise the existence the essence must be
completed by subsistence and thus become a supposit. 64 (Maritain's emphasis)
All of which goes to show that the argument for the revised
version begins with the attempt to demonstrate that the recognition that not essences but things or existents exist leads to
the position that the mode of subsistence is needed, in addition
to the essence and the act of existing. The second and third
considerations, cited above, seek to establish that the act of
existing is not only received but exercised and, hence, requires
a quod, a subject or supposit capable of exercising the act of
existing. Essence is a principle quo, a that by or in virtue of
which a thing exists, not that which exists, not the existent,
subject or thing. Similarly, the act of existing is that which
actuates the potency of essence to exist, but, in Maritain's
estimation, it cannot do so unless there is a subject capable
of exercising that act of existing.
However, the second and third considerations require scrutiny, especially the second. Its claim is that the relation between essence and existence is analogous to the relation between
intelligence and the act of intellection. The point of relevance
which Maritain sees between the two relationships is that
the actualization in each case consists in an act that is exercised.
Just as the act of intellection presupposes an intellect to exero• Ibid.

562

RAYMOND DENNEHY

cise that act so the act of existing (esse) presupposes a subject to exercise it. But the two relationships clearly differ in
the fundamental sense that the potency of which the act of
intellection is the actualization presupposes the prior existence of the intellect whose act it is; conversely the potency,
namely, essence, of which the act of existing is the actualization, does not presuppose the prior existence of the essence
whose act it is.
What is there, then, to exercise the act of existing as long as
there is no essence to receive existence? Maritain thinks that
the difference of order between essence and existence poses no
problem that cannot be handled by the principle of reciprocal
causality. There is, he .says, a "transcendence," so to speak,
of existence in relation to essence.65
Since existence by its very notion demands as we have just seen,
that it be not only received but exercised, and since this exigency,
pertaining as it does to the existential order, places us outside and
beyond the order of essence, it must be said that (substantial)
essence or nature can receive existence only by exercising it, which
it cannot do as long as it remains in its own essential order. In
other words, it can receive existence only on condition of being
drawn at the same time from the state of simple essence and
placed in an existential state which makes of it a quod capable of
exercising existence. This state which completes, or rather surcompletes the essence-not at all in the line of essence itself, but in
relation to a completely other order, the existential order-and permits the essence (henceforth supposit) to exercise existence, IS
precisely subsistence. 68 (Maritain's emphasis)

This passage reveals that the analogy which Maritain asserts
between essence and existence, on the one hand, and intellect and the act of intellection, on the other, does not .suppose
that existence is received by essence in the sense that it is
received into essences as into a pre-existing subject, for, then,
essence would be in existential act before it existed! Rather,
the distinction between existence as received and existence as
" 5 Ibid., p. 437.
•• Ibid.

MARITAIN'S

THEORY OF SUBSISTENCE

563

exercised must be seen in the light of the axiom causae ad invicem sunt causae, i.e., in terms of the involution of causes.
The supposit exists by formal causality, for the essence is
actuated by esse; the existence is received by the essence in
the sense that, as esse actuates essence, essence specifies the
whatness of the existent, whether it shall be a man or a dog,
etc.: the existent must be a this or that; it must have a suchness. And from the standpoint of material causality-i.e., the
dispositions in the being, as marble is the material cause of the
statue-the cause of the essence receiving esse and being actuated by it is subsistence which transports the essence from its
essential order, making it a supposit capable of exercising existence. Hence, existence is exercised by the supposit because
existence is received by the essence, and existence is received
by the essence because it is exercised by the supposit. 67
This account seeks to render our experiences intelligible without mutilating them, i.e., without leading to the denial or distortion of any datum. Like essence and esse, subsistence is
not regarded by Maritain as a thing but, rather, as a principle
or component of the existent. Subsistence is a reality-a real
mode-because it produces a real difference in the existent.
Nevertheless, only the composite is the thing or existent.
But, although the realities which essence and the act of existing contribute to the existent are assignable, it is still not
clear what assignable difference subsistence makes to it. For
in the second version, Maritain says no more on this score
than that subsistence enables the substantial essence to exercise
the act of existing.
And so the proper effect of subsistence is not ... to confer on the
individual essence or individual nature an additional incommunicability (this time in relation to existence) or to make it limit,
appropriate, or circumscribe to itself the existence it received, and
hence prevent its communicating in existence with another essence
or receiving existence conjointly with another essence; it is simply to place it in a state of exercising existence, with the incommunicability proper to the individual nature. The individual
17

Ibid., pp. 489 and 487.

564

RAYMOND DENNEHY

does not receive a new incommunicability from the fact of subsistence. Facing existence as a subject or supposit capable of exercising existence, it is enabled to transfer into the existential order,
to exercise in existence itself the incommunicability which characterizes it in the order of essence and as an individual nature distinct from any other. This is not a new knid of incommunicability, but the promotion onto a new plane of the incommunicability which defines singularity. Subsistence renders the essence
(become supposit) capable of exercising existence.68 (Maritain's
emphasis)
Before proceeding to the question of what this pasage means
and, specifically to the question of what it means to say
that subsistence confers the capacity to exercise the act of existing on the individual essence, it would be well to summarize
Maritain's argument so far. Just as in the original version,
the suppositum or subject of action is not the mere individual
or substantial essence but the substantial essence made capable
of existing-this time made capable of exercising the act of
existing-by the mode of subsistence. To use a spatial metaphor, it is a real state in between the substantial or individual
essence and the existent. For if existence is exercised, and if
only a subject or supposit can exercise the act of existing, then
the substantial essence must be rendered capable of exercising
that act: it must be made into a subject.
At first sight, this version appears more exotic and difficult
to understand than the first version. Consider: On the one hand,
we are told that subsistence adds nothing new to the essence
in the line of essence; i.e., no new assignable properties; and, on
the other hand, we are told that subsistence renders the substantial essence capable of exercising the act of existence (esse).
It confers no new incommunicability on the individuated essence but, rather, enables that essence " to transfer into the
existential order, to exercise in existence itself the incommunicability which characterizes it in the order of essence and as an
individual nature distinct from any other."
But what reality does subsistence confer? What is it that
•• Ibid., p. 438.

MARITAIN'S

THEORY OF SUBSISTENCE

565

adds no new individuality or incommunicability to the individual essence and yet enables it to do what it could not do before
receiving subsistence? When we talk of a subject, do we not
have in mind a determinate thing, i.e., a particular person, a
table, etc.? Finally, what does it mean to say that, before
the individual essence can go from the realm of essence to
the realm of existence, it must be capable of exercising existence? Why is not esse sufficient to actualize the individual essence? After all, in this second version, subsistence is no longer
necessary to individualize essence or to make it incommunicable: Maritain has repudiated the position that it is metaphysically possible for two substantial essences to share one
and the same act of existing. To say that existence (esse) requires a subject which has that existence, or which exists, is
one thing; to say that the positive reality which makes an individual essence into a subject adds nothing new to its essential characteristics is something else again. We immediately
wonder, as with the original version, how the individual essence
and the subsistent individual differ. What difference enables
the one to exercise the act of existence and the other not?
Maritain's answer to these questions seems to be located precisely in the claim that subsistence enables the substantial
essence to exercise the act of existing, i.e., makes it a subject
or supposit. Consider the following passage from the revised
version:
. . . subsistence constitutes a, new metaphysical dimension, a
positive actuation or perfection, but under the title of a state
(according as a "state" is distinguished from a "nature") or
a terminative mode . . . Let us say that the state in question
is a state of active exercise, which by that very fact makes the
essence pass beyond the order of essentiality (terminates it in this
sense) and introduces it into the existential order-a state by
reason of which the essence so completed faces existence not in
order only to receive it, but to exercise it, and constitute henceforth a centre of existential and operative activity, a subject or
supposit which exercises at once the substantial esse proper to it
and the diverse accidental esse proper to the operation which it
produces by its powers and faculties. 69 (Maritain's emphasis)
•• Ibid.

566

RAYMOND DENNEHY

At first glance, this passage seems no more informative than any
of the others. Placed in the proper context, however, it can
furnish us with a clearer view of what Maritain is getting at in
his second version.
He says in this passage that the existent, e.g., this man,
Peter, this blade of grass, etc., can exercise the act of existing
because it is "a centre of existential and operative activity,"
which is to say, it is a subject of action, and that to be a subject of action is to be more than an individual essence. The
latter belongs to the essential order because it lacks an existential center; it lacks the capacity to exercise the act of existing.
But, we continue to ask, what, precisely is this existential
center? Maritain's answer would appear to reside at this very
point of discussion. Because the subject of action belongs to
the existential order rather than to the essential, the reality
conferred by subsistence cannot be described in terms of assignable properties; it is not a quidditative constituent of essence. To think so, is to fall into the error of essentialism, i.e.,
the tendency to view reality as a succession of reified essences.
Maritain has long criticized essentialism/ 0 and this criticism
seems to be at the bottom of his theory of subsistence.
Thus, to understand what Maritain seems to be getting at
in the revised version, it is necesary to view it in the light of his
criticism of essentialism. In Existence and the Existent, which
appeared seven years before the revised version, he distinguishes " authentic Thomism " from Thomist philosophies in
which "the spirit of Plato, Descartes or Wolff has insinuated
itself." 71 (He does not, however, indicate which Thomist philosophies he has in mind) . What distinguishes authentic Thornism from these others is the primacy which it gives to existence
and to the intuition of existential being. Maritain goes on to
say:
Even before these systems appeared [" contemporary systems of
existentialism "], I had already repeatedly pointed out the error of
7 ° C£. for example, Maritain's
The Dream of Descartes with Some Other Essays,
tr. by Mabelle L. Andison (New York: Philosophical Library, 1944), pp. 127132 and Existence and the Existent, pp. U & 43-44.
71 Existence and the Existent, p. U.

MARITAIN's

THEORY OF SUBSISTENCE

567

conceiving the philosophy of being as a philosophy of essences or
as a dialectic of essences (what I call thumbing through a picturebook) instead of seeing that philosophy for what it really is, what
constitutes its peculiar advantage over all other philosophies
and gives it its unique and eminent place among them, namely,
the fact that it is the philosophy of existence and of existential
realism, the confrontation of the act of existing by an intelligence
determined never to disown itsel£.72 (Maritain's ·emphasis)
And, as noted at the outset of this article, Maritain in the
same work refers to subsistence as " the metaphysical notion
which has given so many headaches and baffles everyone who
has not grasped the true-the existential-foundations
of
Thomist metaphysics. . . ."
What are these existential foundations? Not simply the act
of existing (esse) apparently, but more accurately, that
the existential order differs sui-generis from the essential. It
will be recalled that among the considerations upon which
Maritain bases his revised version of the of the theory of
subsistence is the observation that what we experience are
things, subjects, existents, and that by abstraction, our intellect disengages from them essences or intelligible structures.
These disengaged essences do not appear as the existents themselves but rather as that which is immanent in the existents
and in virtue of which they are what they are. Essence is
in its very notion a principle quo, i.e., a that by which a thing
is what it is,. not the thing itself.
In Maritain's judgment, the error of essentialism consists
in mistaking the manner in which things exist in our minds
when we know them for the manner in which they exist outside
our minds. But Maritain, to reiterate, argues that only subjects exist in the primary sense of the word "exist." This is
why he grounds the revised version in an appeal to our perceptions of the world: What we perceive are " things, subjects,
existents." Although a subject embodies an essence, it is more
than the essence: it is a being which exercises its own act of
existing (esse) according to the determinations of that essence.
••]bid.

568

RAYMOND DENNEHY

Now what makes a subject to be a subject is not an essence;
hence, subsistence cannot be captured by a concept.
The crux of the matter-and a point which Maritain believes
cannot be stressed too heavily-is that the subject is an existent, not an essence to which existence has been added but
a subject that is a source of existential activity. The existent
or subject is " the individual thing which maintains itself in
existence, this supremely .concrete reality " with " its irreducible originality .... " 73 This emphasis on the existential,
as opposed to the essential, basis of philosophy comes through
quite clearly when Maritain writes:
God does not create essences to which He can be imagined as
giving a last rub of the sandpaper of subsistence before sending
them forth into existence! God creates existent subjects or supposita which subsist in the individual nature that constitutes
them and which receive from the creative influx their nature as
well as their subsistence, their existence, and their activity. Each of
them possesses an essence and pours itself out in action. 74

Maritain seems to fear that the formula " essence plus esse
produces the composite being " leads to a construction of essence as it is apprehended by the mind, as an abstract universal-an object-which is then made actual by the addition
of the act of existing (esse). This is what he means by "conceiving the philosophy of being as . . . thumbing through
a picture book. . . ." The addition of esse in this case fails to
account for the existential reality of the existent, for it is simply a picture of an object, a static recipient of activity that is
bereft of the " supremely concrete reality " of the existent.
On the contrary, what makes a substantial essence capable of
exercising the act of existing is an existential mode, not the
mere actuation of a property belonging to essence. The latter is
the assumption of essentialism, starting as it does with essences
rather than with existents.
This emphasis on the existent would appear to be the import
78

74

Ibid. p. 71.
Ibid., p. 74.

MARITAIN'S

THEORY OF SUBSISTENCE

569

of Maritain's distinction between existence as received and
existence as exercised: Existence as merely received is the existence mistakenly ascribed to essence as disengaged by abstraction in the intellect; existence as exercised is the genuine
existence of individual, dynamic things. This, presumably, is
what he has in mind when he refers to the " supremely concrete reality" of the subject. In order to exist, the individual
essence must possess a "supreme achievement" which contributes nothing to that individual essence in the line of essence
and yet, this supreme achievement, namely, subsistence,
. . . terminates it in the line of essence (closes or situates it, constitutes it as an in-itself or an inwardness face to face with existence) in order that it may take possession of this act of existing for
which it is created ... 75

That is to say, a nature or essence as known, as it exists in the
intellect, exists not as an "in-itself" but as a "for-another,"
as an object to be known, for which purpose the intellect disengages it from the individual existent in which it is embodied.
Conversely, the existent, insofar as it is a subject and, hence,
a source of activity, exists as an" in-itself." To exist is to exercise the act of existing, which exercise requires a subject. The
existent is a subject just because to be a source of activity
requires a center of organization, an inwardness or "in-itself"
whence this activity emanates. This "in-itself" is, for Maritain, then, a perfection which is simply and entirely outside
the realm of essence, belonging, instead, to the existential realm.

*******
Thus, it looks as though the source of the difficulty in arriving at an understanding of the reality conferred by subsistence
-the difference between the substantial essence and the subject of action-is the very existential character which Maritain ascribes to the subject of action. Not being one of the
quidditative constituents of essence, it possesses no assignable
properties by which it can be described; yet, the reality con75

Ibid., p.

570

RAYMOND DENNEHY

£erred by subsistence is of fundamental importance in that
it makes the substantial or individuated essence into a subject capable of exercising the act of existing (esse). To use
Maritain's terms, it carries the substantial essence from the
essential to the existential order so that it can become an
existent; but the substantial essence can receive existence only
by exercising it.
What about the second question raised above, namely, Why
does not esse suffice to account for the substantial essence
being subsistent and a subject of action? The answer proposed
to the first question-What reality does subsistence confer?
-seems to furnish the clue for answering the second. If existence is an act that is exercised and if a subject is necessary to
exercise this act, then esse cannot suffice for subsistence; otherwise the act of existing would exercise itself. Hence, a real mode
is required to transfer the substantial essence from the essential
to the existential order, i.e., to make it a subject capable of
exercising-and receiving-existence.
This interpretation of the revised version appears to find
added confirmation in Maritain's discussion of subsistence on
the level of intellectual creatures. It is at this level, moreover, that the difference between the substantial, individuated
essence and the subject of action becomes somewhat clearer. In
Maritain's view subsistence at the level of intellectual creatures expresses itself in the form of personality, while the exercise of existence (esse) expresses itself in terms of independence
and autonomy.
And when the subject or supposit is a person, subsistence, from
the fad that the nature which it " terminates " or " sur-completes "
is an intellectual nature brings with it a positive perfection
of a higher order. Let us say it is then a state of active and autonomous exercise, proper to a whole which envelops itself (in this sense
that the totality is in each of its parts), therefore interior to itself,
and possessing itself. Such a whole, possessing itself, makes its own
in an eminent sense, or reduplicatively, the existence and the operations that it exercises. They are not only of it, but for it-for it as
being integral parts of the possession of the self by the self characteristic of the person. All the features we have just indicated belong

MARITAIN's

THEORY OF SUBSISTENCE

571

to the ontological order. They refer to the ontological depths of
subjectivity. Precisely here lies the ontological basis of the properties of the person in the moral order, of the mastery that it has
over its acts by free choice, of its aspirations to liberty of autonomy, of the rights its possesses ... 76 (Maritain's emphasis)

Does subjectivity terminate human essence in the same sense
that subsistence terminates the substantial essence of a subrational being, i.e., does it confer a new reality upon human
essence without adding anything to the quidditative consituents of that essence itself? The answer requires a brief explication of Maritain's claim, in the above passage, that subjectivity is ontological rather than psychological. The intellectual being, or person, knows itself because it has so perfect a
degree of being that it is self-unifying, unified from within.
Hence, subjectivity-the form of subsistence on the level of
intellectual creatures-is, in Maritain's judgment, the source of
the person's autonomy or freedom. Being self-unifying, he is
" a whole which envelops itself (in the sense that the totality is
in each of its parts), therefore interior to itself, and possessing
itself."
Is there an experiential basis for the claim that subjectivity
is ontological rather than psychological? To begin with, the
.subjectivity about which Maritain is speaking is not the awareness of myself which I have during my waking moments, as
when I say to myself: " Here I am, sitting at my desk, writing about subjectivity." For this is to make myself an object
of thought. When I know anything, I enter into a subjectobject relationship with that thing. In order to know an object
I must simultaneously know myself as the subject who knows.
If I did not have-in some profound sense not accessible to
conceptual conscious knowledge- 77 an awareness of myself as
the unique knower of this object, I could not be said to know
that object in the sense in which we apply the word to human
knowledge. If I were not aware of myself as unique, knowledge
.. Degrees of Knowledge, pp. 488-489.
Maritain, "The Immortality of Man," The Review of Politics, Vol. 8, 1941,
pp. 415-416.
77

572

RAYMOND DENNEHY

would be no different from the operation of the tape recorder: a
blind reception and response to impressions without any conscious subject.
The fact of subjectivity supports Maritain's dual claims that,
on the one hand, subsistence is a positive mode or reality, and,
on the other, that it confers nothing new to essence in the line
of essence. Consider: I, the person that I am, this unique center of conscious being, I am real. I am a positive entity, and
yet I am not an essence nor a property of essence. On the
contrary, the essence is part of me, for it is part of the subject that I am. Hence, the mere combination of essence, existence (esse), and signate matter cannot account for me, for
the I that I am. My essence accounts for the fact that
I am a man, a member of the human species. Signate
matter, by individuating my essence, accounts for my being
this man, possessing these bones and this flesh, etc. My existence (esse) accounts for the fact that I am a real, existent man.
But what about my self, my I, my existence as a unique subjectivity and center of moral action? My essence cannot explain it, for the essence man is in itself impersonal; it applies to
all men without applying to any man in particular. Signate
matter cannot explain it, for matter is not conscious; it does
not mark off and hence individuate my self, as if there were a
general self which matter constricts into individual selves. For
matter individuates things into parts, as it accounts for the fact
that there are several individuals having the same essence.
Finally, the I cannot be explained by existence (esse) , for existence is what I have, an act, the primary act that I exercise.
Do we not, then, require something further to explain the
subject, in this case, the person? Something which makes the
individual essence to be a subject possessing his own existence;
something which enables the individuated essence, this man, to
be a subject and, hence, to exercise his existence, and to do so in
an autonomous and unique way? Maritain's answer is that person implies perfection or completion by a real mode: subsistence. All my actions-my very existence-are the actions and
the existence of a being who knows himself as a self, as a sub-

MARITAIN'S

THEORY OF SUBSISTENCE

573

ject. Do not the locutions by which I refer to myself and my
body illustrate that essence is a principle of being, and of itself
cannot exercise existence for itself and for its own unique purposes? I do not say "my man" but rather, "the man that I
am." It is my body and my intellect. 78 I am a whole, whereas
my essence is a part of that whole. In this sense I am a totality
who am in each of my parts. Hence, personality, characterized
as it is by subjectivity, does not seem to be a property of essence but its perfection or completion. Personality, therefore,
goes hand in hand with subjectivity and may be regarded as
a perfection or completion in the sense that my subsistencewhich is to say, my subjectivity-follows
from my essence,
not as risibility follows from my essence as a rational being,
but, instead, as the demand of my essence for completion. And
this completion is to be a unique center of self-aware being and
activity.
In sum, Maritain's application of the theory of subsistence
to intellectual beings clarifies the real mode which, according
to him, is conferred by subsistence on substantial essence:
My unique self, the self by which I act, is not a quidditative
constituent of essence; it is not my act of existing, nor the signate matter which individuates me as an individual member
of the human species. Yet it is not the less real for all that.
To exist as a human being is to exist as a self, as the possessor
of an interior organization called "subjectivity." This is what
it means to exist-to be a subject of action-on the level of
intellectual beings.
Equally, what enables a substantial essence on the sub-in
tellectual level to be an existent-what makes it a subject,
thereby capable of exercising its act of existing-is " a supremely concrete reality," an "irreducible originality" that is
neither existence (esse) itself nor one of the quidditative constituents of essence. Yet the mode conferred by subsistence is
an indispensable condition for the reception and exercise of
existence (esse) by a substantial essence.

*******
'" Diepen, p. 101.

574

RAYMOND DENNEHY

It can be concluded that Maritain's claim that Thomism
is an existentialism was not merely, if at all, an attempt to
dress Thomist philosophy in the fashionable garments of the
day but, on the contrary, expresses a profound appreciation
for the difference between the essential and existential realms.
Moreover, the above examination has revealed that this appreciation was not inspired by contemporary existentialism nor
by a desire to answer Sartre. It was explicit and operative in
as is clear from his
his philosophical writings as early as
emphasis on the importance of subsistence in An Introduction to Philosophy. The significance of his final metaphysical
work, Existence and the Existent, is that it represents an attempt to respond to existentialists, such as Sartre, by showing
how Thomism achieves a fusion between the necessity and
universality of essence, on the one hand, and the contingency,
uniqueness, and freedom of existence, on the other. Indeed,
in the light of his claim that subjectivity, or personality, is
the form of subsistence on the level of intellectual creatures,
it is no accident that Maritain's socio-political philosophy is
libertarian and progressive, despite its grounding in the
Nat ural Law and the universality of human nature.
Lastly, although an interpreter of the writings of Thomas
Aquinas in the tradition of Cajetan and John of St. Thomas,
Maritain has, with the development of his own distinctive
theory of .subsistence, revealed himself as a creative metaphysician.
RAYMOND DENNEHY

Univm-sity of San Francisco
San Francisco, California

RISTOTLE ANNOUNCES at the beginning of his
treatise commonly called the Physics that his study
is "the science of nature"
cpvcrEwc;
•1
Again at the opening of Book II, which seems to be a second
introduction to the treatise, he says that nature belongs to
the class of things whose existence is obvious, and that to
attempt to prove nature's existence would mark one as a man
unable to distinguish the self-evident. 2 Elsewhere, he writes
that not knowing what needs demonstration and what does
not " argues want of education," 3 and only the uneducated
"demand a reason for everything." 4 They are not rational
beings. Indeed, they are no better than vegetables! 5 Nature
is. Its reality cannot be denied. But what is nature? That,
Aristotle tells us in Physics 193 a 1, has already been stated.
This sends the reader back to see where Aristotle offers a
definition of nature. The statement closest to a definition is
in Physics 192 b 22: " nature is a source or cause of being
moved and of being at rest in that to which it belongs primarily." Later we are informed, "Nature has been defined as
' a principle of motion and change.' " 6 And in the Metaphysics he says nature is " a principle of movement." 7 Since
he devotes the entirety of Physics Book I to establishing that
matter, privation of form, and possession of form are the three
factors of all change, we can conclude that a natural object
is one in which these factors inhere, i. e., to which they belong
primarily. A natural object has the internal power to originate-and to resist--change. This internal power is the dis1 Physics 184 a 15. All quotations
from the works of Aristotle are from the English translations edited by W. D. Ross and published by Oxford University Press,
except where otherwise noted.
5 Ibid., 1006 a 15.
• Physics 193 a 5.
• Metaphysics 1006 a 5-7.
• Physics 200 b 11.
7 Metaphysics 1049 b 10.
• Ibid., 1012 a 22.

575

576

TROY OIWAN

tinguishing characteristic of its naturalness; it is what makes
it a n,atural object. A natural object is one which without
appealing to anything external to itself can move from here
to there, can change from this to that.
Can one be more specific about this internal power of a
thing which makes it a natural object? Some have, says
Aristotle. Some think that matter is the locus of the internal
power, e. g., the wood of a bed, or the bronze of a statue.
Some locate the natural in the element earth, says Aristotle,
although he also tells us in Metaphysics 989 a 5 that no one
has selected earth for this role. Perhaps the difference is
that Aristotle means that no philosopher has selected earth,
although the common people 8 and Hesiod 9 have expressed
this opinion. This may be why he separates the two statements "some assert earth" and "others fire or air or water." 10
But whether it be the common people or philosophers who
affirm matter as the locus of the natural, this is an impossible
view, adds Aristotle. His argument is an analogy: an art
object is not art by reason of the material of which it is
made but by reason of the form imposed on the material;
so a natural object is not natural by reason of the material
but by reason of the form. At least a thing is more what it
is defined to be when it has attained its fulfillment, i.e., its
form, than when it merely exists potentially, i.e., as matter.
This, however, we must note is circular, since a definition
for Aristotle is a verbalization of the form. Aristotle's fundamental realism prevents him from supporting either the material or the formal locus of the natural. He next, in one of
those passages of the opera too often overlooked by Aristotelian scholars, tries a process philosophy alternative. Ross
translates the relevant passage, "We also speak of a thing's
nature as being exhibited in the process of growth by which
its nature is attained. 11 I translate this remarkable stateIbid., 989 a 9.
• Ibid., 989 a 10.
10 Physics 193 a 9ll.
11 Ibid., 193 b 13.
8

<I>vcns- AND

IN ARISTOTLE

577

ment: "We say that nature is as it becomes itself in nature."
The final cause operates in the changes which realize the final
cause. In other words, the actualization factor is both terminus
a quo and terminus ad quem. Oak tree as formal and final
necessary conditions operates as the efficient necessary condition in the growth of the acorn to its fulfillment as an oak
tree. Aristotle's process view of nature leads him to one of
his favorite parallels: the form-matter relationship is integral
like snubness and nose. 12 If anything has the characteristics
of snubness, it has to be a nose, for only noses are snub. Likewise, form cannot be except in the form-matter syndrome. Of
course, we must add that this holds only for all objects from
the center of the earth to the surface of the moon. The complex
of informed matter may be studied as only matter or as only
form, but in either case what is studied is an abstraction from
the existent object. The term "nature" denotes both, or
better, " nature " denotes the form-matter unit.
In spite o£ this clarification in the first two books o£ the
Physics, the £act remains that Aristotle is careless in his use
o£
He does not seem to desire to use
with one
fixed designation. One obvious malpractice is his use o£
to denote a mythological reification, e. g., "Nature is a good
housekeeper," 13 "an intelligent agent," H "an intelligent workman," 15 " a painter," 16 etc.
Since part o£ the problem in understanding Aristotle's view
o£ nature is rooted in the tendency to regard nature substantially, perhaps we ought not to seek £or the meaning o£
(nature) but o£ cpvcrH (by nature, or naturally). After all,
he does begin Physics, Book II with the words rwv 5vrwv ra
p,ev €ern
(0£ existing things some come into being
naturally.)
Another facet of the problem is that we usually try to
12

Ibid., 194 a 13.

On the Generation of Animals 744 b 16.
On the Breath 485 b 8.
15 On the Generation of Aninnals 731 a 24.
16 Ibid., 743 b 22.

13

14

578

TROY ORGAN

comprehend Aristotle's concept of nature by a frontal attack.
But if we appeal again to 192 b 8 we can see a suggestion of
an indirect approach, a comprehension by appeal to contradictories, i. e., an initial examination of the non-natural ways
of coming into being. The entire sentence is Twv ov'T(JJV Ta fLEV
€un cf>vuet, Ta S€ a)\)\ar; alTiar; (Of existing things some come
into being naturally. and some by other conditions.) (I prefer to avoid " cause " as a translation of ahia.) What would
be the result if we attempted to understand the other possible
conditions of existence first and then attempted to understand
cf>vutr;? In other words, instead of examining cf>vcnr; and then
a)\)\a<; ai'Tta<;, why not look at acf>vut<; (non-nature) and from
this study arrive at a comprehension of cf>vcnr;?
Aristotle in the opening sentence of Physics, Book II has
alerted us to the fact that things may come into being nonnaturally as well as naturally, so that after a succinct presentation in Chapter S of the four-fold ahia in its six modesparticular, general, proper, incidental, potential, and actualhe may turn to the other conditions by which a thing can be
brought into being. These non-natural conditions for coming
into being, which I refer to jointly as acf>vutr; are TEX.VYJ,
and avT6fLaTo<;. The adverbial translations I prefer for these
terms are respectively "coming into being artificially," "coming into being luckily," and "coming into being haphazardly."
The key text for this study of cf>vcnr; and acf>vutr; in Aristotle
is Metaphysics 1070 a 6-8:
yap TEX.VYJ
cf>vuet yiyveTat
,
,
'
,#.. ,
TJ-,\ TVX.TJ
TJ"' 'TW,.. UV'TOfLU'TW
7lt fLEV
OVV TEX.VYJ apx_YJ EV UJ\.I\W1 7lt OE 'I'VO"t<;
EV UV'TW ... ai S€ )\ot1Tat alT£at
'TOWWV.
>;"

,

!I

'

'

cf\_ \.

For things come into being either by art or by nature or by luck
or by spontaneity. Now art is a principle of movement in something other than the thing moved, nature is a principle in the
thing itself ... and the other causes are privations of these two.
(Ross)
Things come into being by art or by nature, or else by fortune
or by chance. When they are generated by art, their source is in
something else; when by nature, their source is internal to them
. . . and when they become by fortune, they do so by privation

AND

IN ARISTOTLE

579

of art; and when by chance, by privation of a natural factor.
(Hope) 17
Things come into being artificially or naturally, or else luckily or
haphazardly. When things come into being artificially, their source
of coming into being is in something other than themselves; when
they come into being naturally, their source of coming into being
is in themselves. When things come into being luckily, they do so
by privation of the source of coming into being artificially; when
they come into being haphazardly, they do so by privation of the
source of coming into being naturally. (Organ)

My translation is an effort to preserve the dynamic form by
the use of adverbs. Also I bring out the contrarieties and
privations in full.
Much of the meaning of this quotation hinges on the term
of opposition translated "privation." According to Aristotle
there are four kinds of opposition (avnKEtJ.LEva): (1) contradiction
"as affirmatives to negatives"; (2) contrariety
"as contraries to one another"; (3) relation
n), " as correlatives to one another"; (4) privation
"as privatives to positives." 18
The kinds of opposition among TEXVTJ, rvx?},
and
are contrariety and privation. Contraries, says Aristotle,
are " other in form." 19 Coming into being artificially and
coming into being luckily are forms of coming into being in
which the formal conditions are external; coming into being
naturally and coming into being haphazardly are forms of
coming into being in which the formal conditions are internal.
Externality and internality stand in the opposition of contrariety. They are other in form to each other, yet they are
" in a sense, the same form " 20 since they are both forms of
coming into being.
17 Richard Hope, Aristotle-Metaphysics
(Ann Arbor: The University of Michigan Press, 1960).
18 Categories 11 b 17; Topics 109 b 17; Metaphysics 1055 a 88, 1057 a 84-87.
In Metaphysics 1018 a
while making an excursion into ordinary language,
Aristotle mentions two other opposites: beginning-imd and incompatible attributes.
1 " Metaphysics 1058 b
•• "For even contraries have in a sense the same form." Metaphysics 1032 b
2.

580

TROY ORGAN

'!-r€pTJr:nc; comes £rom crrep€w (to deprive, to take away, to
rob a person o£ something) . !dpTJcrLc; is defined as " the denial

o£ a predicate to a determinate genus." 21 Hope translates it
"a privation o£ a thing's very being is a denial also o£ its
genus." F. E. Peters has it "the negation o£ something within
a defined class." 22 Aristotle also describes privation as " a
determinate incapacity." 23 His introduction o£ the term into
the Physics casts light upon its importance. In Physics, Book
I he argues that coming into being involves three principles:
a permanent substratum (imoKEtf:.tEVot:.t) and a pair o£ opposites
or contraries (f.vavria): "We have now stated the number o£
the principles o£ natural objects which are subject to generation, and how the number is reached: and it is clear that
there must be a substratum £or the contraries, and that the
contraries must be two." 24 Aristotle immediately rephrases
what he has said: " Yet in another way o£ putting it this
is not necessary, as one o£ the contraries will serve to effect
the change by its successive absence (a1Tovcria) and presence
(7rapovcria) ." 25 In Physics 191 b 15 Aristotle introduces the
use o£ the term crr€pTJcrLc; to connote the contrary in a state
o£ absence (a1Tovcria). This is in accord with his observation
that "every contrariety depends upon privation." 26 But the
shift o£ terms calls our attention to the important £act that
the f.vavria are not to be taken as contradictories. In Posterior
.4.nalytics 78 b 22 he says that f.vavria may denote either crrEpTJL<;
or avricpamc;: " For within a single identical genus the contrary
o£ a given attribute is either its privation or its contradictory."
Another very good reason £or the introduction o£ the term
CTTEPTJCTL<; is that f.vavriov understood as avricpacrL<; might be
understood as negation, but "negation means just the absence
21
22

Ibid., 1011 b 19.
F. E. Peters, Greek Philosophical Terms (New York: New York University

Press, 1967), p. 180.
23 Metaphysics 1058 b
•• Physics 191 a 4. The use of opposites was a common device in ancient
Greek speculation. The most notable was the Pythagorean ten sets of opposites.
25 Physics 191 a 6.
26 Metaphysics
1063 b 17.

<l>v<ns AND 'Acpvcns IN ARISTOTLE

581

of the thing in question, while m privation there is also
employed an underlying nature of which the privation is
asserted." 27
Privation must always be understood in context, as Aristotle
says in Topics 147 b 35: "a proper rendering of its [a-r€p'l'}<Tts]
essence must state both of what it is the privation and what
it is that is deprived." Again in Physics 191 b 13-15 he writes,
" We ourselves are in agreement with them [the Eleatics] in
holding that nothing can be said without qualification to come
from what is not. But nevertheless we maintain that a thing
may 'come to be from what is not' -that is, in a qualified sense.
For a thing comes to be from the privation, which in its own
nature is not-being-this not surviving as a constituent of the
result." The important words are " in its own nature," which
means that the privation is qualified, not unqualified. Thus the
change from a non-red thing to a red thing, as in the ripening
of an apple, is a change from the non-being of redness in
the nature of the apple to the being of redness in the apple,
not a change from non-being per se to being per se. Everything that becomes becomes not from being per se nor from
non-being per se, but from non-being in a qualified sense
There is another mode of explanation, says Aristotle, 28 and,
while using this other mode, he comes to the conclusion that
by making semantic distinctions even the Eleatic terminology
may be used: "In one sense things come-to-be out of that
which has no 'being' without qualification: yet in another
sense they come-to-be always out of 'what is.' For comingto-be necessarily implies the pre-existence of something which
potentially 'is,' but actually 'is not'; and this something is
spoken of both as 'being' and as 'not-being.'" 29
Privation shares properties with both contradiction and contrariety. Aristotle tells us that "privation is a kind of contradiction." 30 This is because the privation-possession opposition
Ibid., 1004 a 15.
Physics 191 b 28-29.
29 On Coming to Be and Passing Away 317 b 16-18.
30 Metaphysics 1055 b 3.
27

28

582

TROY ORGAN

can be stated as the affirmation and negation of some attribute.
But, unlike contradiction, some kinds of privation " admit of
an intermediate," 31 so "clearly all contrariety must be privation." 32 Privation is a kind of contradiction, and contrariety
is a kind of privation. W. D. Ross comments, "Contradiction
is the relation between two propositions of the type ' A is B,'
'A is not B.' Privation is the condition of a subject capable of
being B (let us call it Ah) when it in any degree fails to be B.
Contrariety is the relation between two conditions of Ah, that
in which it is fully B and that in which it is not B at all.
Thus contradiction includes privation as a particular case, and
privation includes contrariety as a particular case." 33 Privation
enables Aristotle to distinguish sentences like " This shirt is
not blue" (because its color is
from sentences like
" Sneezes are not blue " (because color is not a property of
sneezes), and it also provides intermediates between "seeing"
in the full sense and " blind " in the full sense, to use one of
Aristotle's examples of privation.
After this consideration of the essence of a-TEPTJfn<;, we are
ready to note that a-TEpTJa-t<; is the opposition which holds between coming into being artificially and coming into being
luckily, and between coming into being naturally and coming
into being haphazardly. The latter types of coming into being,
i.e., 7VXrJ and avT6/LaTo<;,SUffer a privation Of a pOSSession which
the former types of coming into being enjoy. In each case
what is deprived is the telic operation of the formal conditions.
T€xvTJ possesses and TVXrJ is deprived of the effective realization
of results through the purposive thought of an external agent.
<l>va-t<; possesses and avT6/Lan<; is deprived of the effective realization of results through the inner dynamics of nature. T€xVTJ
is COntrary to cpva-t<; and avT6/LaTo<;, and it pOSSeSSeS that Of
which TVXrJ is deprived. <l>va-t<; is contrary to TEXVTJ and roxr},
and it possesses that of which avT6/La-ro<; is deprived. The indirect approach to cpva-t<; is to examine first the contraries of
81 Ibid., 1055 b 9.
•• Ibid., 1055 b 14.
•• Aristotle's Metaphysics, Vol. II (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1924) pp. 291-292.

<t>v<Tts ANn 'Acpv<Tts IN ARisToTLE

58S

and its privative, i. e., Tvx'J]; then to examine
cpwts, i.e.,
the privative of cpv<Tt<; i.e., avT6t-taTo<;; and finally, to examine
cpvcn<; itself. Through such an approach the what of cpv<Tt<; is
determined by the examination of acpvcn<;.
The effort to define cpvcn<; through an analysis of acpv<Tt<; is
not foreign to Aristotle. In the Topics, after observing that
" opposites are always simultaneous by nature." 34 he indicates
that a thing can be defined through its opposite: " Some people
think, also, that both are objects of the same science, so that
one is not even more intelligible than the other. One must,
however, observe that it is perhaps not possible to define
some things in any other way, e. g., the double without the
half, and all the terms are essentially relative: for in all such
cases the essential being is the same as a certain relation to
something, so that it is impossible to understand the one term
without the other, and accordingly in the definition of the one
the other too must be embraced." 35 In this connection it is
interesting to note that Aristotle himself utilizes a discussion
as a means to prepare the way for a discussion of cpvcn<;;
of
in fact, in Physics, Book II he uses all three of the acpvcn<; concepts to clarify cpv<Tt<;. Again in Metaphysics, Book 0, Chapter
7 he first presents artificial production: "And (1) the delimiting mark of that which as a result of thought comes to
exist in complete reality from having existed potentially is that
if the agent has willed it it comes to pass if nothing external
hinders," 36 and then natural production: " and
in the
cases in which the source of the becoming is in the very thing
which comes to be, a thing is potentially all those things
which it will be of itself if nothing external hinders it." 37

In examining the types of coming into being beginning with
rather than with cpv<Tt<; we are forced to ignore the many
•• Topics 142 a 24.
35 Ibid., 142 a 25-32.
•• Metaphysics 1049 a 5-6.
•• Ibid., 1049 a 13-14.

584

TROY ORGAN

passages in which Aristotle describes art as imitating or completing nature. 38 However, Aristotle says not only that art
imitates nature but also that nature imitates art. 39 Students
o£ the history o£ Greek philosophy who seek to fashion an
Aristotelian system ought to heed the warning o£ Whitehead
that philosophy in its primary states is an "assemblage"
rather than a system. 40 But even Whithead slips when he
says, "Aristotle systematizes as he assembles." 41 Why didn't
Whitehead note that Aristotle was the first to write treatises
on the " adventures o£ ideas " ?
The first item to be noted about TEXVYJ is that, contrary to
what might be expected £rom the usual translation o£ TEXVYJ as
" art," Aristotle does not have primarily in mind what we
today call the "fine arts." " Craft" would be a better translation, i£ we insist on the nounal form. This, however, does not
convey the dynamic connotation Aristotle has in mind.
he tells us, denotes the sphere o£ becoming, and
denotes the sphere o£ being. 42 However, since he has in mind
not merely that TEXVYJ stands £or a coming into being but
especially £or a certain way o£ coming into being, an adverb
conveys his meaning better than a verb or a noun, e. g.,
"artificially" or "cra£tsmanly."
Coming into being artificially, according to Aristotle, is a
"making." 43 It is a making which seeks to fill up the deficiencies o£ nature. 44 While all comings into being or makings
require three things- (1) a something as agent by whose action
the coming into being takes place, (2) a something upon which
comes into being by reason o£ the agent's action upon the
something upon which the coming into being takes placePhysics 194 a 22, 199 a 16; Meteorology 381 b 6; On the Universe 396 b 11.
Physics 199 a 10-14.
' 0 Alfred North Whitehead, Modes of Thought
(New York: Capricorn Books,
38

39

1938), p. 2.
41 Ibid., p. 3.

•• Posterior Analytics 100 a 8.
•• Metaphysics 1032 a 25, 1140 a 16.
•• Politics 1337 a 1.

AND

IN ARISTOTLE

585

coming into being artificially is differentiated by the separation and pre-existence of (1) above. In traditional Aristotelian
language this is the form in its roles as efficient cause, formal
cause, and final cause which is homogeneous with the product.
There is no TEXVYJ unless there is a mind which images the
product prior to its production: "Art indeed consists in the
conception of the result to be produced before its realization
in the material." 45 An art object requires a pre-existent material
and a preexistent agent separate from the material. The agent
is the locus of the three-fold aiTia: plan, movement, and goal.
The distinctive feature of TEXVYJ is the imposition of form
from outside the something upon which coming into being takes
place. Aristotle says this in many ways, e. g., "in the case of
things made the principle is in the maker"; 46 "art is the
starting-point and form of the product; only it exists in something else, whereas the movement of Nature exists in the
product itself"; 47 "from art proceed the things of which the
form is in the soul of the artist"; 48 "if it happens by art, the
form is in the soul " 49 and " whose orif,rin is in the maker and
not in the thing made." 50 There is no power in the material
used in artificial production such that under proper conditions
the art object will come into being in the absence of the agent.
Aristotle's illustration, borrowed from Antiphon, is that if a
wooden bed were to take root and grow, it would produce a
tree, i. e., reproduce the wood from which the bed was made,
but never a bed. 51 Art objects have no nature (
i.e.,
no principle of movement and change. They do not contain
in themselves the source of their own production. 52 They do
not purpose; they are purposed. They are artificial in the sense
that they are brought into being by another rather than by
On the Parts of Animals 640 a 82.
Metaphysics 1025 b 21.
47 On the Generation of Animals 785 a 2.
•• Metaphysics 1082 a 88.
•• Ibid., 1082 b 28.
50 Nicomachean Ethics 1140 a 18.
51 Physics 198 a 18.
•• Ibid., 198 b 27.
45

46

586

'l'ROY ORGAN

themselves. This is why the paintings of trees and the sculptures of horses are art objects but trees and horses are not.
The process by which a canvas comes to resemble a tree and
a stone comes to resemble a horse is accidental to the canvas
and the stone. 53 But the process by which trees and horses
come into being is not accidental to the material component
of trees and horses.
The form external to the material in coming into being
artificially operates as form always does for Aristotle in three
modes: as plan, as movement, and as goal. The plan arises in
the mind of the external agent from notions gained by experience,S4 just as experience in turn arose from the memory men
share with some animals and the sensations men share with
all animals. TexV7J, however, men share with no animals, for
only man lives by " art and reasoning" as well as by " appearances and memories." 55 The form as goal in artificial production is noted by Aristotle as a coming into being for the
sake of some function of the craftsman, not for the sake of a
function inherent in the material, 5 6 e. g., a statue of Athena
is made because of the sculptor's desire to glorify Athens and
her patroness, not to display the beauties of Delphian marble.
The form as the locus of movement has already been sufficiently noted. Artificial coming into being may be described
in traditional Aristotelian language as the type in which the
moving cause, the formal cause, and the final cause are externally related to the material out of which the art object comes
into being.
The artisan has in mind the creation of a good specimen
of its kind. By this we do not mean that the sculptor desires to
make statues of only thoroughbred horses, but rather that
he wishes to represent well the sort of horse he chooses to
represent in the work, be it thoroughbred or mongrel. Art is
always of universals; experience is always of particulars. 57 As
•• Ibid., 198 a 15.
•• Mmaphysics 981 a 6; Posterior Analytics 100 a 7.
55 Metaphysics 980 b 25.
56 Physics 194 b 7.
57 Metaphysics 981 a 16.

<l>VCT£S AND 'ArpVCT£S IN ARISTOTLE

587

.for the hierarchy of values among the various kinds of art,
Aristotle as a consistent humanist contends that the best art
object is the state, and the best craft is statesmanship. 58
Coming into being artificially is limited to human beings,
since only in men do " logically indiscriminable particulars "
make a stand as " rudimentary universals " and finally become
" the indivisible concepts, the true universals," 59 and only a
mind capable of forming universals can operate upon materials
in coming into being artificially. There is no chimpanzee art!
However, sometimes a human being capable of acting as agent
in an art process acts in such a manner that an art object
comes into being, not intentionally but accidentally: " the
same result as is produced by art may occur spontaneously." 60
A subtle distinction however is made between art objects and
what might be called " look like art objects." The products
of art "require the pre-existence of an efficient cause homogeneous with themselves" and "this cannot possibly be produced spontaneously." 61 "Art indeed consists in the conception
of the result to be produced before its realization in the material" but "as with spontaneity (avr6fLaros), so with chance
(rvx-rJ) for this also produces the same result as art, and by
the same process." 62 This statement is curious. "The same
result as art " is not difficult to handle, since we can distinguish between a genuine art object and a "look like art
object" which appears the same as one which is the consummation of the conception of the result in the mind of
the agent and the activity of the agent. But what can Aristotle
mean by " the same process "? Obviously the process of a
sculptor making a sculpture out of a block of marble is not
the same as the process by which a young child playing with
modeling clay accidentally creates a statue, or the process by
which wind, rain, and snow have fashioned the Old Man of
58 The Great Ethics
b 1.
•• Posterior Analytics 100 a 16-b
60 On the Parts of Animals 640 a
61 Ibid., 640 a 31.
•• Ibid., 640 a

588

TROY ORGAN

the Mountain. The subtle and important difference between
a legitimate work of art and a "look like art object" depends
precisely on the processes, which are not the same. Aristotle
himself distinguishes doing something grammatical and doing
something grammatically: " Or is this not true even of the
arts? It is possible to do something that is in accordance with
the laws of grammar, either by chance or by the suggestion of
another. A man will be a grammarian, then, only when he
had both done something grammatical and done it grammatically; and this means doing it in accordance with the
grammatical knowledge in himself." 63 The meaning, of course,
is that it is " true even of the arts," i.e., one may make something which when examined as an object looks as it would look
were it brought into being by an end-seeking activity, or one
may make something which is in fact brought into being by
an end-seeking activity. Only the latter is an instance of
coming into being artificially.

Aristotle's discussion of
is confusing because he sometimes uses the term as practically synonymous with
and sometimes treats
and
as terms with differing
meanings. The confusion is identified when we realize that he
uses
both as the generic term " chance," by which
he means any form of action in which the results are not predictable and as the specific term which we are here translating
"haphazardly," the privative of "naturally" as opposed to
"luckily" which is the privative of" artificially." For example,
in Physics, Book II, Chapter 4 he treats
and
as distinct, but in Physics, Book II, Chapter 6 he informs us
that
is a wider term than
Translators make
matters more difficult by reason of the wide variety of translations offered for the relevant Greek terms, even when they
are aware of the two uses of the terms, e. g., William Ogle says
in a footnote to his translation of On the Parts of
•• Nichomachean Ethics 1105 !I;

ct>vcnc; AND

'Acf>vutc; IN ARisTOTLE

589

640 a 32 in the Oxford translations, "Accident is called Chance
-or preferably Luck-when the accidental agent acts with
intention, though not with the intention of producing the result
that actually -occurs. It is called Spontaneity when the agent
has no intention at all."
then, is that form of chance
(avT6f-taToc;) in which an agent acts with intention, but not with
the intention of producing the result which actually occurs.
involves a slip between the thought and the deed, as
is indicated in Aristotle's quotation from Polus: "Experience
made art, but inexperience luck." 64
Both luck and art function in the area in which the conceiving and acting of an external agent may be expected, only
whereas in the case of coming into bei.ng artificially the agent
does in fact conceive and act to bring about the result, in the
case of coming into being luckily the agent conceives and acts
but not for the purpose of bringing about the result which
follows. Aristotle's way of saying this is that "luck and
thought are concerned with the same sphere; for purpose cannot exist without thought." 65 Again, " Of the products of
man's intelligence some are never due to chance or necessity
but always to an end, as for example a house or a statue;
others, such as health or safety, may result from chance as
well." 66 But he does not mean that a chance act is one not
due to an end; rather he means that a chance act is the act
of a rational being acting for an end which acting will realize
another end he might have chosen, but did not. His example
is that of a man collecting subscriptions who goes to a place
for another purpose and there sees the man whom he most
wished to ask for a subscription. 67
is manifest only in
the actions of an end-selecting being. Aristotle says, "Chance
and what results from chance are appropriate to agents that
are capable of good fortune and of moral action generally.
Therefore necessarily chance is in the sphere of moral actions." 68
Metaphysics 981 a 5.
Ibid., 1065 a 32.
66 Posterior Analytics 95 a 3-5.
67 Physics 196 b 33-197 a 7.
68 Ibid., 197 b 1-2.
64
65

590

TROY ORGAN

Hardie and Gaye prefer "chance" as a translation of
This is allowable, although I prefer " chance " for the generic
term. However, their translation of 1rep'i nl. 1rpaKra as "the
sphere of moral action generally " is misleading and borders
on mistranslation. Hope's translation is far superior: "Hence
luck must pertain to practical affairs." In Nicomachean Ethics
1105 a 22 Aristotle says one may luckily write or speak in
accordance with the rules of grammar. The heart of the issue
is not that luck is located only in the area of morality but
that luck is appropriate to agents " that are capable of good
fortune and of moral action generally." Hardie and Gaye
indicate this in their translation of Physics 197 b 5: "Hence
what is not capable of moral action cannot do anything by
chance." Aristotle says inanimate things, lower animals, and
children are incapable of acting luckily. They may be affected
by
but only insofar as the rational agent who happens
to act luckily is dealing with them. 69
Conjunctions described as
yield no knowledge, " for
chance conjunctions exist neither by necessity nor as general
connexions but comprise what comes to be as distinct from
these." 70 All reasoning proceeds from necessary or general
do not meet
premises, and the premises established by
these criteria. Yet when Aristotle attempts a definition of
he usually says it is a species of alr£a which is the building
block of knowledge: " Wisdom is knowledge about certain
principles and causes," 71 e. g., "an incidental cause in the
sphere of those actions for the sake of something which involve
purpose "; 72 "an accidental cause at work in such events
adapted to an end as are usually effected in accordance with
purpose "; 73 " a cause by accident, but in the unqualified sense
a cause of nothing"; 74 " the cause of good things that happen
•• Ibid., 197 b 18.
70 Posterior Analytics 87 b
71 Metaphyiscs
a 1.
•• Physics 197 a 5.
•• Metaphysics 1065 a 80 .
.. Ibid., 1065 a 85.

<l>VO'"tS AND 'AcpVO'"tS IN ARISTOTLE

591

contrary to reasonable expectation." 75 In the Eudemian Ethics
Aristotle (or perhaps a later Aristotelian) denies that
is a
cause; instead it is a word we use to cover our inability to identify the cause: " ... we ought to say that nothing happens by
chance, but do say that chance is a cause simply because,
though there is some other cause, we do not see it." 76 A similar
observation is made in the Rhetoric: "The things that happen
by chance are all those whose cause cannot be determined,
that have no purpose, and that happen neither always nor
usually nor in any fixed way." 77 But in another passage in the
Rhetoric chance is listed as cause in a curious list of " seven
causes ": " Thus every action must be due to one or other of
seven causes: chance, nature, compulsion, habit, reasoning,
anger, or appetite." 78
Aristotle makes evaluative distinctions among events and
objects that come into being luckily. "Now many events
happen by chance," he says, " and events differing in importance." 79 Some are of good fortune; some of its opposite.
Good luck and bad luck, he tells us elsewhere, are distinguished
by the goodness or badness of the result. 80 By " good luck"
Aristotle means a state of affairs which comes into being accidentally in an area where choice and deliberate action might
have been exercised. In Rhetoric 1361 b 39-1362 a 12 he offers
the consolation that many of the good things of life are due
to " artificial contrivance," e. g., health, and many others are
due to nature, e. g., beauty and stature; yet he concedes that
many good things remain which can only be due to good luck:
"as when, for instance, all your brothers are ugly, but you
are handsome yourself; or when you find a treasure that everybody else had overlooked; or when a missile hits the next man
and misses you; or when you are the only man not to go to
Rhetnric 1362 a 6.
Eudemian Ethics 1247 b 5.
77 Rhetoric 1369 a 31.
78 Ibid., 1369 a 5.
79 Nichomachean Ethics 1100 b 22.
80 Metaphysics 1065 b 1.
See also Physics 197 a 25 and Eudemian Ethics
1247 b 3.
75

76

592

TROY ORGAN

a place you have gone to regularly, while the others go there
for the first time and are killed." Finally, in a strange passage
in the Nicomachean Ethics Aristotle says that art "is a state
concerned with making, involving a true course of reasoning"
and that " lack of art on the contrary is a state concerned with
making, involving a false course of reasoning." 81 "True" evidently refers to a form of reasoning in which the end produced
is the same as the end envisioned, and " false " refers to a
form of reasoning in which the end produced is other than the
end envisioned. This is an interesting pragmatic use of" true"
and "false." It gives us another dimension of the earthy
qualities of the Stagirite.

An evaluational consideration of the results attained in
coming into being luckily leads Aristotle to the third type,
i.e., coming into being haphazardly. Just as a process may
lead to good fortune or to bad fortune as a result of a line of
action controlled by an external agent seeking to realize a
different result, so " good fortune " or " bad fortune " may
follow a line of action of beings incapable of intelligent choice,
and one in which the direction of the process is not determined
directly or indirectly by an external agent. Furthermore, the
direction of the process cannot be predicted by an analysis of
the being, although one can predict that under certain conditions there will be a coming into being.
The examples Aristotle gives of a1rr6p,wror; reveal the problems he has raised. Inanimate beings, lower animals, and
children are mentioned by Aristotle as subject to coming into
being haphazardly. 82 "Good fortune" and "bad fortune," he
says, cannot be ascribed to them except by analogy. His
example of avr6p,aro<; in an inanimate being is a reference to
Protarchus who praised the " good fortune " of the stones of
altars as compared with the stones of the street which are
trodden by the feet of men. 83 This example raises no special
81
80

Nicomachean Ethics 1140 a 20-23.
Physics 197 b 6.

83

Ibid., 197 b 8-10.

AND •

IN

ARisToTLE

593

problems. But his other two examples do raise problems. A
horse, he says, comes haphazardly to a place which turns out
to be a place of safety. 84 A tripod falls "of itself" in such a
manner as to form a seat. 85 A horse is an end-desiring but not
an end-selecting creature. It is not rational because it is
incapable of forming the "rudimentary universals." That is,
it is not aware of the universal "safety," so it cannot select
the place to go which will give it safety. It can experience
safety, although it cannot conceive it. Hence, without deliberation the horse haphazardly moves to a place of safety.
Note also that the locus of the value safety is in the horse.
The tripod, on the other hand, is neither an end-desiring nor
an end-selecting entity. It falls "of itself." This, of course,
is not so strictly speaking, since the tripod in order to fall
must be activated by something-by wind, water, an animal,
a person, etc. Hope takes liberties with the Greek and adds
that the tripod was " tossed into the air "! Whatever were
the circumstances, the support of the tripod was removed and
-in Aristotelian terminology-the earth of the tripod moved
to its natural location. When the falli:ag tripod came to a stop,
it was in such a position that it formed a seat. But a tripod
forming a seat haphazardly is quite different from a horse
finding a place of safety haphazardly. If the horse were capable
of deliberative intention, it would have gone to this place, for
a place of safety is a value for a horse; but it makes no sense
to claim that if a tripod were capable of deliberate intention,
it would fall in such a manner as to form a seat, for forming a
seat or not forming a seat is irrelevant to a tripod. The "good "
fortune " of the altar stones is by analogy in the stones; the
" good fortune " of the horse in finding a place of safety is
actually in the horse; but " good fortune " cannot be ascribed
analogically or non-analogically to a tripod which haphazardly
falls to form a seat. This " good fortune " must be located in
the person who, desiring a place to sit, finds the tripod in a
seat-forming position.
•• Ibid., 197 b 16.

85

Ibid., 197 b 17.

594

TROY ORGAN

The relationship between rvx1} and avr6JLaTO<; is brought out
in Aristotle's observation: "Yet beings unable to act by luck
(rvx1/) may indeed in some sense be acted upon by luck,
namely, when an agent brings something about by luck in
dealing with them." 86 What he seems to have in mind is that
the same event can be said to come into being luckily or haphazardly depending upon the point of view. A weary traveler
leans against a tripod for support, and in so doing pushes it
over. He then notices that the tripod has fallen in such a
manner as to form a seat upon which he can rest comfortably.
According to Hope's translation, this would be a case in which
a being unable to act by luck is acted upon by luck. The fall
of the tripod from the traveler's point of view is an example
of rvx1}, but the fall of the tripod considered merely as a tripod
falling and coming to rest as a seat is an example of avr6JJ-aror;.
Aristotle's statement that rvx1/ "is due to an external factor "
whereas avr6p,aror; "is due to an internal factor " 87 needs
amplification and clarification. Tvx1/ is a type of coming into
being in which the intention of an extemal agent is operative,
only it is not operative in bringing about the result under
consideration. Avr6p,aror; is a type of coming into being in
which internal formal conditions are operative, only they do
not operate to bring about the specific result under consideration. The falling downward of the tripod can be accounted
for by the tendency of the element earth to seek its natural
location at the center of the planet earth, but coming to rest
as a seat cannot be explained in this manner. Tvx1/ is the
rY'TEpT)rYL<; 0 f 'TEXPT]; avrop,aror; IS th e rY'TEPTJrYL<; 0 f ,/..'
yVrYt<;.
If we may momentarily break our promise not to appeal
from cpvcYL<; to avr6p,anr;, We are able to note that avr6p,aror; is a
conception of the non-natural, not of the supernatural, or the
supranatural, or the transnatural, or the preternatural. The
fall of the tripod, the wandering of the horse, and the placement of the stones in the altar are all natural events. The
non-natural elements are the formation of the seat, the coming
to a place of safety, and the "good fortune" of not being
I

86

I

'

I

Ibid 197 b 11. Hope translation.

1

'

87

Ibid 197 b 34. Hope translation.

AND

IN ArusTOTLE

595

worn away by the feet of men and animals. Another example
of
offered by Aristotle is that of a stone which fell
and struck a man. 88 It did not fall for the purpose of striking
a man, although it might have been so directed by an agent.
The fall per se was an event which followed precisely what we
know about objects composed of earth when unsupported and
when not at the center of our planet. But the striking of the
man was a haphazard event.
Does Aristotle believe in a contingent universe, or does
he believe that the haphazard is merely the result of human
ignorance of operative factors. Ross summarizes his discussion of TVX'lj and
with this observation: " Chance is
simply a name for the unforeseen meeting of two chains of
rigorous causation. So far we have no reason to attribute
indeterminism to Aristotle." 89 Yet later in this volume-and
Ross calls the reader's attention to the passage in a footnote on
p. 78-Ross writes, "Aristotle is not an absolute determinist." 90
Aristotle describes both Tvx'1] and
as " incidental
causes." 91 This may be interpreted to imply that he does not
believe in genuine contingency. Furthermore, he clearly held
that the human mind is never able to grasp all the factors
in a process: " That which is per se the cause of the effect is
determinate, but the incidental cause is indeterminable, for
the possible attributes of an individual are innumerable." 92
The universe is indeterminable but not indeterminate. The
world is not chaotic, but man's knowledge of the world is
limited. An illustration in Metaphysics, Book E, Chapter 8
is that every man shall die, but the manner of his death is not
determined. However, once a man starts certain lines of behavior. e. g., an addiction to the drinking of hemlock!, the
manner of his death can be predicted with high probability.
Ibid., 197 b 80.
Aristotle. Third Edition, Revised (London: Methuen and Co., 1987), p. 78.
•• Ibid., p. 80. Ross also comments, " On the whole we must say that he shared
the plain man's belief in free will but that he did not examine the problem very
thoroughly, and did not express himself with perfect consistency." (Ibid., p.
201.)
81 Physics 197 a 88.
02 Ibid., 196 b 28.
88

88

596

TROY ORGAN

The unpredictiveness of the world lies in the accidental.
There is no science of the accidental. 93 The locus of the accidental is matter. 94 But in making matter the source of the accidental, the unknowable, and the unpredictable, Aristotle created
serious problems for himself, particularly in his biology. In the
generation of animals the female contributes the catamenia,
which is the material for the semen to work upon. 95 The male
contribution is the form which shapes the matter. In the formmatter struggle in the embryo, either the male element prevails
and " draws the female element into itself," i.e., makes the
offspring a male, or the male element is prevailed over by
the female and " changes into the opposite or is destroyed," 96
i.e., either makes the offspring a female or kills the embryo.
Elsewhere he calls a female "a mutilated male." 97 Aristotle
also explains the birth of monsters as the result of matter which
is improperly controlled by semen. 98 Although Aristotle does in
one place state that there are some animals which have no
female sex,99 he recognizes that reproduction in most animal"
is sexual. A species in which all conceptions resulted in the
proper births of males would soon pass out of existence.
Matter, the locus of the indeterminable, is also the locus of
the female. That which makes reality unknowable is also that
which makes living beings possible!
No discussion of avT6f:LUTOr; would be complete without mentioning spontaneous generation. According to Aristotle some
flora and fauna reproduce only spontaneously, e. g., eels,100
limnostrea/ 01 testacea/ 02 and mistletoe/ 03 and some can reproMetaphysics
a
o• Ibid.,
a 15.
06 On the Generation of Animids
a 31.
96 Ibid., 766 b 16.
97 Ibid., 737 a
98 Ibid., 769 b
99 On Plants 816 a 17.
100 The History of Animals 570 a 6.
101 On the Generation of Animals 763 a
102 Ibid., 763 a
108 Ibid., 715 b
03

<Pva-ts AND 'A,Pva-ts IN ARISTOTLE

597

duce either from eggs or spontaneously, e. g., certain trees 104 and
several species of mullet and whitebait/ 05 Aristotle claims that
spontaneous generation is the work of matter: " some matter
is such as to be set in motion by itself and some is not of this
nature." 106
Avr6p,aros is a type of coming into being in which a result
is attained in the absence of direct or indirect guidance by an
external agent and in such a manner that knowledge and prediction are impossible.
cf>va-ts

In our efforts to determine the ·what of nature we are
avoiding the " definition " of cf>va-ts in Physics 192 b 22, and
we are utilizing the classification of comings into being mentioned in Metaphysicsl070 a2-8. Coming into being artificially
and coming into being luckily are related in the kind of
opposition known as possession-privation, or, as Aristotle says,
another way to state this is that coming into being artificially
and coming into being luckily vis-a-vis a selected quality are
contradictories. The same opposition holds between coming
into being naturally and coming into being haphazardly.
Coming into being artificially and its privative, i.e., coming
into being luckily, are contraries of coming into being naturally.
Coming into being naturally and its privatives, i.e., coming
into being haphazardly, are contraries of coming into being
artificially. Finally, the contraries of coming into being naturally and the privative of coming into being naturally constitute the contradictory of coming into being naturally. In
other words, coming into being non-natmally is exhausted by
coming into being artificially, coming into being luckily, and
coming into being haphazardly. Coming into being naturally
is coming into being in a manner which can be designated
On Plants 820 b 30.
The History of Animals 569 a 10-24. See also Metaphysics 1034 a 9 and
1032 b 23 where he says health may be produced either spontaneously or artificially.
106 Metaphysics
1034 a 13.
104

105

598

TROY ORGAN

coming into being non-artificially-non-luckily-non-haphazardly.
is the term to apply to changes which take place which
are other than those modes of change in which the formal telic
operative factors are external and which possess that which is
privative in the haphazard mode of change.
The place to begin a definition of
by the method of
opposition is with coming into being haphazardly. Nature
possesses what is missing in a horse coming haphazardly to a
place of safety, a tripod falling to form a seat, and a falling
stone hitting a person. In nature such things happen, but not
haphazardly. Then do they happen by reason of a source of
coming into being in something other than nature? No, for
this is the whatness of the contrary types of coming into being.
Coming into being naturally is a type of coming into being
other than coming into being by reason of something other
than itself. In the natural mode of coming into being there is
no god directing the activity, and there is no completely haphazard coming into being. "Our first presupposition," says
Aristotle " must be that in nature nothing acts on, or is acted
on by, any other thing at random." 107 Further, "Now surely
as in intelligent action, so in nature .... Now intelligent action
is for the sake of an end; therefore the nature of things also
is so. Thus if a house, e. g., had been a thing made by nature,
it would have been made in the same way as it is now by
art." 108 The Greek translated " for the sake of an end " is
rov, and the translation is correct. This is part of Physics,
Book II, Chapter 8 in which Aristotle is giving his arguments
for a teleological interpretation of nature, his chief argument
being the uniformity of natural events: " But when an event
takes place always or for the most part, it is not incidental
or by chance." 109 But at this point in the Oxford translations,
for some puzzling reason, the translators, R. P. Hardie and
R. K. Gaye, translate
rov as "purpose": "It is absurd
to suppose that purpose is not present because we do not
Physics 188 a 3!'l.
Ibid., 199 a 11-l!'l.
109 Ibid., 199 b !'l4.

107
108

AND

'Ac/Jvcns IN .ARISTOTLE

599

observe the agent deliberating. Art does not deliberate. If
the ship-building art were in the wood, it would produce the
same results by nature. If, therefore, purpose is present in art,
it is present also in nature. The best illustration is a doctor
doctoring himself: nature is like that. It is plain then that
nature is a cause, a cause that operates for a purpose." 110
There is no good reason for this shift in translation, and there
are many good reasons for preserving the earlier translation.
Hope is consistent in his translation of these passages, making
it either " for any end " or " to some end." W. Charlton,
avoiding both "end" and "purpose," translates EVaKa TOV aS
"the 'for something.'" m Ross wants it both ways! His
analysis of the Greek text is as follows: " It is absurd to deny
purposiveness because of the absence of deliberation. Art does
not deliberate; and art differs from nature only in that the
motive principle is not in the thing moved. When it happens
to be so, as when a physician heals himself, we get something
just like nature. So if there is purposiveness in art, there is
purposiveness in nature. Nature then is a cause, and one that
works towards an end." 112 Elsewhere Ross concludes that
Aristotle has a doctrine of " unconscious teleology " which, he
says, is "unsatisfactory." He adds, "Unconscious teleology
implies a purpose which is not the purpose of any mind, and
hence not a purpose at all. But Aristotle's language suggests
that he (like many modem thinkers) did not feel this difficulty,
and that, for the most part, he was content to work with the
notion of an unconscious purpose in nature itself." 118 Note
that Ross equates " unconscious teleology " and " unconscious
purpose.'' Ross seems to have forgotten that he had translated
Metaphysics 1065 a 32 as " for purpose cannot exist without
thought." G. M. A. Grube in his volume, Plato's Thought
Ibid., 199 b !!6-82. The italics are mine.
W. Charlton, Aristotle's Physics, Books I and II (Oxford: Clarendon Press,
1970) p. 42.
119 Aristotle's Physics
(Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1986), pp. 857-858. The
italics are mine.
118 Aristotle, p. 186.
110

111

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TROY ORGAN

translates rexvYJ as " purpose." 114 This may be a bit extreme,
although Liddell and Scott do offer " skill," " cunning," and
" wiles." But Grube's translation helps, for if rf.xvYJ means
"purpose," then cfn1cn<;; as that which is contrary to purpose
cannot denote purposiveness nor non-purposiveness. The whole
notion of purposiveness is irrelevant to an interpretation of
cf>vo-t<;;.
Aristotle does not maintain that coming into being naturally
is coming into being purposively. Rather he says that in
coming into being naturally ends are realized in a manner
contrary to the purposive manner by which ends are realized
directly in coming into being artificially and indirectly in
coming into being luckily. The source of the ends in coming
into being naturally is within as it is in coming into being
haphazardly, only in coming into being naturally the source is
possessed rather than deprived. Nature is a kingdom of ends,
not a kingdom of purposes, and a kingdom of ends is no more
immune from errors than a kingdom of purposes. "Now mistakes come to pass even in the operation of art. . . . Hence,
clearly mistakes are possible in the operations of nature
also." 115 Nature works uniformly but not infallibly.
Neither Aristotle's conception of cf>vo-t'> nor his presentation
of the conception is flawless; but here, as has often been the
case, the problem is not with Aristotle but with Aristotelians,
for it is they, not Aristotle, who create Aristotelian systems.
How often we miss what Aristotle says either by trying to keep
him as a Platonist seeking knowledge as contrasted to opinion,
or by trying to turn him into a modern scientist confining
himself to empirical data. But Aristotle is neither. He is usually
a dialectician. I say this despite the fact that Aristotle condemns dialecticians as those who, assuming the guise of
philosophers, 116 forever raise questions without coming to a
conclusion. 117 The dialectics which Aristotle condernns is ques(Boston: Beacon Press, 1958), p. 17!'l.
Physics 199 a 34-36.
116 Metaphysics
1004 b 18.
117 Ibid., 1004 b £5.
114
115

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IN ARISTOTLE

601

tioning for questioning's sake-adisease for which it should be
the cure; the dialectics which Aristotle practices is the distilling
of knowledge from opinions-a dialectic whose telos is truth.
Aristotle's problems are both conceptual puzzles and puzzlements about empirical facts. His data are both that given
by sense observations and the A.ey6fLeva (things said) by the
common folk and the wise. How astute was Dante in describing
Aristotle not as " the master of knowledge " but as " the
master of those who know."
ThoY ORGAN

Ohio University
Athens, Ohio

BOOK REVIEWS
Man: Believer and Unbeliever. By FRANCIS M. TYRRELL. New York: Alba
$5.95 (paperback).
House, 1974. Pp.
Francis Tyrrell, formerly professor of philosophy and now professor of
fundamental theology at Immaculate Conception Seminary, Huntington,
New York, has given us in this book reflections that are obviously the fruit
of many years of study and teaching. The spirit that breathes through this
work is one of sympathetic understanding for the multiple faiths of our
modern world and a sustained effort at dialogue with them. The author
seeks to help men of our time appropriate themselves as orientated toward
God and as finding themselves in Christ, and to do this in a period of
conflicting humanisms. The book then is dedicated to help us to believe,
and so is in the field of foundational theology. There are three main parts
to Tyrrell's work.
In the first of these he analyzes the problem of belief in our time. Here,
in chapter 1, he presents the central positions of the formers of modern
consciousness (particularly Hegel, Feuerbach, Marx, Nietzsche, Comte,
Dilthey, and Freud), who have in common an interpretation of man
through his desires and values. For them, the Christian God is an alienating
factor for man, and they want to help man grow from the state of childhood
characterized by religious consciousness to an adult state, though they do
this, of course, in differing ways. Largely because of their cumulative influence, believers are now a cognitive minority, and we have witnessed the
demise of cultural Christianity. These men generally interpret the Christian
belief in God as man's projection. In the process of man's transcendence,
he forms projects; the projection of God occurs because of the difficulties
man meets in life; modern man is called to go beyond this stage so that he
may fully possess his humanity. As Tyrrell points out later in his book, this
theme of man's self-transcendence is common to Christian humanism and
atheistic humanisms:
at the core of every one of these diverse understandings of man is man's selftranscendence as the radical dynamic o' which all (their) themes are so many
formulations and by virtue of which the human dimension of being is set off from
every other existent form. (810)

It is then the signs of transcendence that we should study in a reflection
on belief today. Tyrrell goes on, in chapter
to analyze the main humanisms current today: an existentialist humanism, a Marxist humanism,
and a secular humanism. In the first, he dwells particularly on Heidegger

BOOK REVIEWS

6()8

and Merleau-Ponty. Here we have a vision of man as an intentional being,
with his intentionality particularly apparent in his insertion in the practical
world. Man is a finite transcendence characterized by time, a subject
in history. He is creative of himself, but not totally so; he acts within
a framework of goal or value that is partially given, but not within the
context of an absolute value. In his study of Marxist humanism, Tyrrell
summarizes for us not only Soviet orthodoxy with its view that society
creates man but also the positions of some revisionists. He presents the
central position of certain Eastern European revisionists who insist that
society cannot give the individual his freedom and who complain about
the alienating factors in socialism, of Mao Tse-Tung who "sinocizes"
Marxism, and of Bloch and Garaudy who have a rather positive evaluation of religion in their Marxist interpretation of man. Finally Tyrrell
studies the secular humanism of men like Dewey, Julian Huxley, and
Szczesny. These three hold that none of man's goals or values:
1mmune from his critical review, all are provisional, subject to the constant
test of experience and liable to even the most radical revision. Absolute only
is man's right to subject all systems and viewpoints to the norm of serving his
individual and collective well-being, and of enhancing his capacity to achieve a
better life in the future. (IOfl)
IS

It is, of course, this latter position that is particularly prevalent in the
United States.
In the second part Tyrrell dedicates himself:
to construct a Christian anthropology or understanding in the light of Christian
faith which is truly contemporary, that is, at once true to the image of man
proposed in Christian revelation and professed in the faith of the Church and
yet coherent with what the man of today experiences and understands himself
to be. (109)

In the first chapter dedicated to this purpose (chapter 8) Tyrrell examines
the thought of Marcel, Blonde}, and Teilhard de Chardin. These Christian
philosophers examine man's experience and find, respectively, that in
opening himself to another subject man is implicitly opening himself to an
Absolute Subject; in action for immediate values, man is really seeking the
Absolute Value, a union with God that he cannot realize; in the evolutionary process, the world and man are implicitly seeking an Omega point.
These men present generous evidence to support their interpretations, but
they also agree that " the progressive steps of their thought involve options
which are demanded by the evidence and yet are free human decisions."
(162) In chapter four Tyrrell analyzes man's transcendence as it is articulated by the Marechalian Thomists, and particularly by Karl Rahner. He
shows how Rahner defends man's knowledge of the Absolute and being by
his transcendental method, and how by the same method he defends man's

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BOOK REVIEWS

openness to an historical revelation. Historical man's orientation to God
and knowledge of God is mediated by that effect within man that comes
from God's universal salvific will, including that gift called by Rahner "the
supernatural existential." We can see by this analysis that anthropology
is really theology, since man can be understood only through his orientation
to God. In the following chapter (chapter 5) Tyrrell shows that anthropology is, further, Christology, since Christ is the norm of what man is and
is to be. Here he follows Rahner in showing how Christian revelation is
the thematization (as categorical revelation) of what is revealed to men in
a non-objective manner universally (transcendental revelation). We may
note that Tyrrell adopts Raimer's method that follows from such a relation
between these two revelations. That is, his defense of Christian anthropology is basically through presenting this to man in the hope that man
can recognize that it does indeed fit and fulfill his orientation and his selfawareness, as a thematization of this or a bringing of it to fuller consciousness.
In the third part of the book Tyrrell follows the dialogue between
Christian humanism (in its Catholic expression) and atheistic humanisms
into the present. He lays the basis for the dialogue through showing the
malaise of unbelief that affiicts even the believer (chapter 6) and the bases
of this doubt in the form of knowledge that faith is and in, the risk and
insecurity involved in any commitment. A central presupposition of the
dialogue:
is that all of us are believers of, some kind, that we are all committed to some
meaning of man or at the very least to some attitude regarding the possibility
of such a meaning. By the same token, we are all also unbelievers in the sense
that we are all open in some degree to being unfaithful to what we profess as
our faith commitment. (308)

Another basis for dialogue is our common acceptance of man's capacity
for self-transcendence. In chapter 7 Tyrrell surveys the Christian-Marxist
dialogue and the Christian-secular humanist dialogue. In the first he recalls
the encounters arranged in Germany in the mid-sixties, dwelling particularly
on Garaudy as a representative of Marxism and Rahner, Metz, and Quentin
Lauer as representatives of a Christian view of man. Garaudy credits
Christianity with " uncovering the constitutive dynamic of man's subjectivity, his uniqueness in nature as the self-transcending being who is selfcreative ... ," (311) but he judges that Christianity has "erred in the
definitive positive answers it has presumed to provide " to questions of
man's horizons and resources. In his survey of Christian-secular humanist
dialogues Tyrrell centers on one held in Brussels in 1970 and one held in
New York in
In the former, the main themes proposed by the
humanists were the common underlying values of humanism (e. g., "We
must shape our own ends and be the source of our own development,"

BOOK REVIEWS

605

the humanist creed of an open mind in an open society (i.e., the
the rejection of any particular creed as absolute or definitive), and men's
common responsibilities in world policy. In the New York dialogue the
discussion quickly centered on more concrete moral problems; the general
topic was conscience and morality: sources and sanctions of conscience,
issues of conscience and the state, including civil disobedience and questions
of sexual morality. What appeared here was the division among the humanists on these issues and the fact that in their dialogue they presupposed a pre-Vatican II stereotyped Catholic adversary. Divisions among
the Catholic representatives also appeared on many of these issues. The
dialogue between Marxists and Catholics seems to have gone to a greater
depth and to have been more focused than that between secular humanists
and Catholics. It is obvious from these dialogues that the modem believer
is faced with the problem of multiple human faiths, with an increasingly
secularized world, with humanisms that are social and political in emphasis,
and with an enormous stress on man's orientation to the future. Tyrrell
treats these themes in his final chapter (chapter 8) where he draws on
Metz (his interpretation of the Christian roots of secularity, and his
political theology) and on liberation theologies, without fully identifying
himself with either of these approaches. Finally, he shows the liberating
influence that is present in Christianity's understanding of man's horizon
as not limited to history:
The task of the Church in the world . . . is to witness to this faith and hope
in man's Absolute Future, already actualized in Christ. But it is to be achieved
by man, sinful and alienated, yet redeemed, by the gradual conquest of himself
and his world through the power of Christ's Spirit but also by the exertion of
his own labor and genius. (393)

Tyrrell has done a real service in writing this book; it helps to bring us
up to date concerning the internal development of atheistic humanisms
of our time and some Catholic dialogues with these views. With its rich
bibliographical references it is a help to the theologian, and it could well
be used in an undergraduate or seminary course on foundational theology.
Tyrrell's book also points to the need for futher developement in this
area of foundational theology. We are at a stage where the reflections on
man's transcendence given to us by the Marechalian Thomists, even with
Metz's criticism and the development of Rahner, are no longer sufficient.
In addition to their contribution we need a greater use of what modem
psychology and the social sciences can tell us about man and his transcendence. This is not a substitute for a philosophical reflection on this transcendence. In the area of man's orientation to value even the psychologist
and the social scientist begin with self-presence and an awareness of their
own orientation to value; their sciences implicitly depend upon their acceptance of the validity of what is manifested to them through this self-

606

BOOK REVIEWS

presence. They cannot interpret the behavior of individuals or societies
save in the context of their awareness of the relation of their own behavior
to themselves as agents acting for a goal or value. We need psychology and
social sciences in our reflection on man's transcendence in value orientation
for a number of reasons. Modern atheistic humanisms are both influenced
by and influence the findings of these sciences; they find support for their
interpretation of man in these sciences. To come to grips then with these
humanisms, we must interact with them on this plane. Also, in a way
parallel to the insight that modern evolutionary biology has given us in
our reflection on God's creative and redemptive activity, psychology and
the social sciences can illuminate our reflection on man's self-transcendence
toward God. The philosopher or theologian cannot grasp this simply by
self-reflection, because the self he is reflecting on is the product in part
of a psychological development and social influences. The transcendence
that he grasps is a part of a process that has been going on since infancy,
and developmental psychology can help us to know something of the stages
and factors of this process. There are factors in this process that are transcultural; for example, the organism and the stages of its maturation are
common to all men, as are the facts that man exists within a society and
that he is an active agent of his development and interaction with society.
There are cultural relativities also. As Erik Erikson brings out, different
cultures use the stages through which the infant develops to shape the
infant toward what the particular society needs in its adult members. Man's
transcendence toward God is the full context of more immediate stages
of his transcendence that are, in part, studied by biology, psychology, and
the social sciences. One of the major tasks then of foundational theology
in the immediate future is to evaluate what these sciences have to say
about the structure of man and his transcendence.
JoHN FARRELLY,

0. S. B.

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

Why Does Evil Exist? A Philosophical Study of the Contemporary Presentation of the Question. By CoLM CoNNELLAN, 0. M. I. Hickville,
N.Y.: Exposition Press, 1974. Pp. 218. $10.00.
The ancient question of evil still draws the active interest of our contemporaries. And Father Colm Connellan has set for himself a difficult
task. He has sought to reply to modern queries on the " why " of evil,
resting his case on the soultions that St. Thomas Aquinas worked out in
the thirteenth century,

607

BOOK REVIEWS

His undertaking causes the reviewer some disquiet, for if it be true that
the philosophic stake in the problem of evil remains constant, the historical
sensitivity towards the various forms that evil takes, has evolved considerably. And in justice, in the case of evil, philosophy must pay the
greatest attention to the insights of experience.
The present book, which is the reproduction of a thesis sustained at the
University of Fribourg, initially presents two brief expositions of the work
of the French thinker, Albert Camus, and that of the English philosopher,
Anthony Flew. Then the author summarizes with considerable exactitude
and finesse St. Thomas's definitive views on the subject.
Yet we may question whether his procedure of treating only evil's existence and not its nature according to St. Thomas is not a somewhat artificial methodological plan. Especially in a meaningful dialogue with modern
thought, can we restrict ourselves to the philosophical teaching of St.
Thomas on evil? It is manifest that his philosophical and theological views
are inextricably conjoined. In fact, dialogue between St. Thomas and
authors like Camus and Flew often resembles a conversation between deaf
persons. It could scarcely be otherwise. That is why the very purpose this
book is meant to serve is and remains a mystery to me.
What can be found in common between the existential tragedy of Camus
and the metaphysical serenity of St. Thomas before the unjustifiable character of evil? Camus is certainly one of the most eloquent witnesses of the
scandal that the suffering of the innocent gives to modern thought. But
why choose such a person if one wishes strictly to pursue a purely philosophic approach to the problem of evil? The outcome could only be deceptive, confusing.
Moreover, the author's conclusions consist simply in an underscoring of
the fundamental differences towards evil between St. Thomas and the
twentieth century authors. It is never made clear how, in strictly philosophical terrain, St. Thomas's conclusions, which are inseparably philosophico-theological, can satisfy the radical questioning of modern thought.
In any case, the fundamental question concerning the suffering of the
innocent cannot be resolved in the purely philosophical order. The only
response to the unjustifiable presence of evil is uttered by another presence,
that of the Passion of the suffering Just One, Jesus Christ.
CLAUDE GEFFRE,

Les Editions du Cerf
Paris, France

O.P.

608

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La portee de l'Eglise des Apotres pour l'Eglise d'aujourd'hui. Colloque
<Ecumenique de Bologne (10 - 13 avril 1973) (Academie Internationale
des Sciences Religieuses; publie sous les auspices de la revue Istina).
Bruxelles: Office International de Librairie, 1974. Pp. 130.
This volume contains eight papers read at the Ecumenical Colloquy
held in Bologna, April 10- 13, 1973, at the invitation of Professor Giuseppe
Alberigo. The theme of the Colloquy was: "The Bearing of the Church
of the Apostles on Today's Church." These studies represent yet another
effort to find common grounds on which to build unity among the Christian
Churches. The Church of the Apostles was thought to afford just such
grounds. However, as the papers manifest only too well, diversity in structure as well as in interpretation existed within a single purpose of conformity with the Gospel from the very beginning of Christianity. Furthermore, the Church of Christ is not merely turned towards a common past,
a Deposit of Faith, which she is called upon to live and deepen in the
Spirit today, but is also turned toward the future Coming of Christ.
Fidelity to the Gospel would seem to include the following aspects as
integral parts of its reality: historical continuity with the Primitive Church
as described in the New Testament; recognition that the "eschata" are
at work in the Church throughout time (Tradition); orientation toward
the achievement of the Kingdom with the Second Coming of Christ.
Professor W. Pannenberg, in his short paper: "What is the meaning of
a reference to a common past for the Separate Churches," (pp. 6-12) while
affirming strongly the role of the Primitive Church in the domain of faith
and church life, places the emphasis on the future Coming of Christ
as the decisive element in the search for unity. We must not merely
turn to a common past, a sort of Golden Age, but to Jesus Christ as the
common future of the Church and of the World. There is already diversity
in the Primitive Church both in teaching and life. There is already need to
distinguish what is essential from the cultural. Each church can find its
background in one section of the other of the New Testament. Furthermore, the historical conditions the Church must live today are other than
those of the past. The past of every church should be considered as part
of the common heritage of all churches. The future of Jesus Christ, taken
as the focal point of all churches, can bring unity to them.
Professor J.-L. Leuba's article: "What does it mean when divided
churches refer back to a common past," (pp. 13-19) recalls the specific and
normative role the epiphany or manifestation of Christ plays in Christian
faith. This is the " given " common heritage which comes to us through
the apostolic witnesses. The answers of man, throughout time and guided by
the Spirit, are new but always in relationship with that initial and perpetual
call which is the manifestation of Christ. In this sense, the call of God
remains the criterion of Church History and the ferment of unity among

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609

the churches. The wealth of the call is seen in the diversity of answers
it brings forth throughout time and space, whereas these answers are to
be judged in the light of the unique call. The ecumenical dialogue obliges
the churches to compare their various answers among themselves in the
light of the unique call.
Professor P. Bonnard, in his article: "The New Testament as Norm
and the Primitive Church as Exemplar," (pp. 20-30) addresses himself to
the principal question of this Colloquy. He is of the opinion that the New
Testament cannot be reduced to a unique and coherent doctrinal whole
especially in the case of Ecclesiology. He finds it even more problematic
to speak of the Primitive Church as exemplar of the Church and prefers
to speak of the churches of the New Testament, certain aspects of which
appear as exemplary and normative. The notions of historical " foundation " of the Church, Church ministry as well as Eschatological People
of God, are open to a variety of interpretations. As for the texts themselves, the Lucan, Pauline, Pastoral, and Johannine presentations of the
Community can hardly be lumped together. What, then, is common to
all New Testament Ecclesiologies? The proclamation and acceptance of
the Gospel (s), the celebration of baptism and of the eucharist, with the
emphasis being placed on the role of the Gospel even in its state of oral
Tradition. Ministry is given to the Church for its construction in collaboration with its Head. But, the Gospel is its own guarantee.
Professor P. C. Bori's article: "The reference to the Community of
Jerusalem found in the Christian Literature of the Orient and the West
up to the 5th Century," (pp. 31-48) relates the influence of the Summaries
of Acts on the doctrine and ecclesiology of the Early Fathers. The context
is that of reform and renewal based on a return to an idealized past, a
compact primitive community under the leadership of the Apostles in
Jerusalem (Cyprian and Origen). True, Eusebius of Caesaria speaks more
of continuity between the present Church and its past, while the
founders of monasticism keep alive a nostalgia for the primitive church
of Jerusalem as described in Acts 4:32, which becomes the model for the
material and spiritual needs of the local communities. All of the Fathers
are aware of the continuity which exists between their church and that
of the New Testament. Concurrently, they are conscious of the qualitative
distance which separates them both. The Summaries of Acts remain the
model of individual Christian life as well as that of the local community
and of monasticism. The latter remains the most perfect realization of
this ideal. The Fathers manifest by their works the creative power of the
New Testament in their efforts to meet the needs of their times.
Mgr. Damaskinos, in his article: " Openness to the Holy Spirit and
fidelity to the origins according to the Greek Fathers," (pp. 49-64) undertakes the thorny question of Scripture and Tradition within the more
general context of the procession of the Divine Persons and their missions

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with the past but also as fidelity to the Spirit in the present aspiring
eschatological consummation in the future.
"ad extra." Christology, Pneumatology, and Ecclesiology are closely linked
realities. Christ vivifies the faithful through the Spirit. The teaching of
Christ, found in the New Testament, can only be correctly interpreted
in the Spirit who is at work in the Church throughout time and space. It
is the Spirit who guides the Church in her endeavor to meet the problems
of today and to distinguish between the substance and the form of Truth.
Thus, the high esteem in which the Orthodox Church holds the teaching
of the Fathers, the decisions of the Ecumenical Councils, and Oral Tradition.
Professor J. D. Zizioulas, in his article: "Continuity with the apostoiic
origins in the theological conscience of the Orthodox Churches," (pp. 65-94)
begins by recalling that Tradition and the Liturgy play important roles in
the Orthodox Churches. These two elements can be translated as " history " and " theophany ." Continuity with the Church of the Apostles can
be considered in two ways according to the meaning given to the term
" apostle," i. e., men sent on a mission, or those exercising an eschatological
function. Mission implies the notion of being sent to the extremities of
the world, whereas " eschata " implies convocation to become the People
of God. In this latter sense, the Apostles can only be conceived as a College. These two aspects of the Apostolate were maintained in Post-Apostolic Times (cf. Ignatius of Antioch). Continuity, for the historical approach, is based on transmission, norms to imitate, psychological anamnesis
of the past. Apostolicity, for the eschatological approach, is based on
the future which is present "hie and nunc," i.e., the Resurrected Christ.
For the historical approach, Christology is primordial; for the eschatological, Pneumatology where linear historicity becomes as present as in sacramental anamnesis. A synthesis of these two aspects can be found in the
Eschatological Christ in whom the Church, his Body, lives through the
gift of the Spirit and is, thus, epicletic. This synthesis is realized and symbolized in the Eucharist which is at the heart of Church life. Continuity
with the Apostolic Kerygma is not only fidelity to an objective faith but
especially communion with and in the Spirit who gives strength to the
Word. Ministry, likewise, is to be considered as the work of the Spirit.
within the context of the community of the Church assembled around
Christ and the Apostles. In this way, both the historical and the eschatological aspects of ministry are maintained. Episcopal succession is seen as
essentially: a succession of communities in which the bishop presides over
the Eucharist. It is not so much the foundation of the local church which
is important but rather the Icon of the eschatological presence of Christ and
his Apostles in the persons of the bishop and the presbyterum, the bishop,
by his ordination, being a member of the College of Bishops. Authenticity
in the Church, be it in the domains of Tradition, Ministry or Ecumenism,
ehould not be seen :merely from the point of view of historical continuity

:Boo!{ R:EVl:EWs

611

J. J. von Allmen, "The Reformed Church of the XVI th Century and the
Ancient Church," (pp. 95-110) concentrates his attention on the attitude
taken by the Reformed Church toward the Ancient Church. From this
study, it is only too evident that, in the domain of faith, the Ancient
Church and in particular the Word of God, has a normative tole to play,
The four early Councils, especially Ephesus and Chalcedon, are very ifil•
portant though subordinated to the Canon of Scripture. The same principle holds true in the use made of the Fathers. However, much more
liberty is taken as regards Ecclesiology, ministerial practice, theology
of the sacraments, asceticism, and spiritual life. Consequently, solidarity
is maintained with the Ancient Church in the domain of doctrine, but
reticence and prudence are shown toward the ecclesial life in which this
doctrine was elaborated. The Author ends by asking to what extent is
it possible to separate the two?
G. Alberigo's article: "'Forma ecclesire' in Christian Humanism, and
in particular in the case of Nicholas de Cusa," (pp. 111-129) describes how
a humanist of the 15th century conceived of reform in the Church as a
conformity with the Resurrected Christ who is to come in glory. Nicholas
is, no doubt, interested in the Ancient Church, but, for him, the whole
of Tradition is considered as ancient without any special emphasis being
placed on the Primitive Church. What is important is for the Militant
Church to become one with the Triumphant or Eschatological Church,
i.e., the :Kingdom of God. In this way, conformity with Christ will be
realized. Platonism, biblical augustinianism, humanistic philologism as well
as a dynamic notion of history, all seem to have influenced Nicholas in his
insistence on " forma Christi " as the goal of reformation. It is possible
that Nicholas refrained from referring back to a Golden Age of the Church
for historical and political reasons since the reform which he fostered included that of the Empire.
These papers presented at the Colloquy of Bologna are certainly marked
by the church traditions of the participants. This is not necessarily an
evil since it gives us occasion once again to note the positive aspects of
these traditions. There are still questions to be solved, but the cause of
Ecumenism can only be fostered by such frank and open discussion. There
is much that we still have to learn from one another. In the present case,
it is evident that the role of Scripture and Tradition in the formulation
of Ecclesiology still has to be studied as well as that of Tradition and
traditions. It is also noteworthy that the notion of the Parousia has reappeared in ecclesiological discussions. If we all remain open to the
Spirit of Truth, he will guide us along the way of all truth.
TuoMAs R. PoTVIN, O.P.

Dominican OoUege
Ottawa, Canada

BOOK REVl:EWs
Augustin: Qui est Jesus Christ? Essai theologique et pastorai. By FERNAN!l
ARSENAULT. Hier-Aujourd'hui, XVI. Paris-Tournai: Desclee; Montreal: Bellarmin, 1974. Pp. 184.

There are many of us, I suppose, who are inclined to give only reluctant
attention to Augustine's various expositions of Scripture, and then chiefly
out of respect either for the text or for the interpreter. And it is true,
of course, that both the Bible and Augusine are often more accessible by
other paths. Yet we may find ourselves surprised on both counts when we
actually attend to one of the works of Augustine the interpreter.
This work by a French-Canadian professor and spiritual leader serves
amply to renew our respect for Augustine's interpretative writings, for in
manageable compass it surveys the major themes of the Fourth Gospel as
Augustine read it-Word, illumination, revelation, incarnation, faith,
Church-and in addition brings them into encounter with modern thought,
doing it with a light touch, not forcing contemporary assumptions upon the
past, not fearing to point up oppositions, yet suggesting even then that
it is often the same fundamental problems that are being adressed. Thus
it offers a useful and subtle invitation to the further study of Augustine's
sermons on the Fourth Gospel.
I could say more about the way many themes are treated-the emphasis
placed upon interpersonal relationship in discussing illumination and revelation, for example, or the way in which incarnation is related to these other
themes which suggest a more immediate access to God; but what most
struck me in reading this work is what it points up concerning Augustine's
understanding of the Christian consciousness and the time of the Church.
The Fourth Gospel, with its promises concerning the future activity of
the Paraclete, has always been a favorite source of prooftexts for those who
want to stress the gifts of the Spirit-and who are accused, in return, of
glorifying themselves, or their times, or the Church, at the expense of
Christ himself. Augustine like other Fathers was often tempted to use the
achievements of the Church within the space of a few centuries as proof
of its divine authorization-yet he was also aware of the dangers of this
kind of argumentation, and especially as the Pelagian controversy went
on he became more careful to qualify his statements about what is possible
in the era of the Church.
Arsenault highlights Augustine's treatment of these promises concerning
the Spirit at a number of points. He notes, for example (pp. 99-103), that
no new doctrines· are to be taught by the Spirit, and no older doctrines
are to be dropped away: Christ crucified remains the foundation of all later
growth (Tractatus 98, 2 and 6), and the Spirit's "teaching" is essentially
an increase in understanding which comes through car#as (Tr. 96.4). Or
again, in the case of the promise that Christ's followers will do even greater

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618

works (pp. 134-35) Augustine's emphasis is that these " greater works "
consist quite simply of the faith through which sinners are made righteous,
so that the preaching of Christ by believers accomplishes more than what
Christ accomplished through his direct words and actions, though all of
this is to be understood not as lack but as generosity on Christ's part (Tr.
7U-3).
Augustine's hermeneutical procedure is worth analyzing. It may be, of
course, that the Fourth Gospel itself contains all of these qualifications
upon its promises. But one cannot help but notice Augustine's abundant
use of passages from the Pauline epistles to reinforce the aspects of tentativeness and struggle in the Christian life and thus forestall a spirit of
triumphalism. He is not functioning purely as a historical or literary commentator concerned with the text of the Fourth Gospel alone. His interpretation comes out of a situation of conflict-many conflicts!-in his own
day, and it is executed by dealing with the New Testament as a whole,
not supposing, however, that it is a perfectly homogeneous whole, but
recognizing the diversity of voices with which it speaks and letting one
part " correct " or at least clarify what might seem to be implied in another
part. This is, of course, the usual procedure of the early centuries, when
the New Testament canon still retained its pluralistic character. It may be
worth closer examination in our own day, when we are confronted with
a newly reinforced awareness of the diversity within the Scriptures and
when questions concerning the meaning of the canon and the nature of
the hermeneutical process have gained new urgency.
EuGENE TESELLE
Vanderbilt University
Nashville, Tennessee

Pattern for a Christian according to St. Thomas Aquinas. By A. I.
MENNESSIER, 0. P. Translated by Nicholas Halligan, 0. P. New York:
Alba House, 1975. Pp.
$4.95.

Pattern For A Christian is a marvelous explanation of the meaning of
religion as transformed by Christ through the New Convenant of Faith,
Hope, and Love in him. At the same time the author is disclosing for the
reader the Christian rather than the so-called Aristotelian St. Thomas
Aquinas. In order to achieve his twofold objective, Father Mennessier
simply turns to Aquinas's commentaries on the Bible and those sections
of his theological writings which are more directly inspired by Sacred Scripture. In reality, the author is convinced that St. Thomas is Christian in
his use of Aristotle, for he used the writings of the Stagirite with his eyes
fixed on Christ rather than on Greek thought.

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BOOK REVIEWS

Another corrective that Father Mennessier supplies is for those who limit
themselves to one tract from the Summa and presume they have the total
doctrine of Aquinas on the subject. By so doing, the author feels, they
miss and at times distort the authentic teaching of the Angelic Doctor. One
example from the book is the doctrine on grace. (cf. chapter 4) However,
the main interest of this book is an adequate explanation of religion in all
its aspects as taught by St. Thomas in the Summa and as elaborated upon
in his commentaries on the Bible as' well as expressed in his preaching.
The methodology of the book is ideal for attaining the purpose of the
author. He sets up the doctrine, updated for our times, and explains it.
Then he selects texts from St. Thomas as a continuation of his own thought.
Father Mennessier introduces most of the texts with observations that focus
the attention of the reader on the precise thrust of the text which comments, as it were, on the author's presentation. The result is a profound
reenforcement of the central theme of the book, namely, how Christian
religion is an embodiment of Faith, Hope, and Love. Without much explicit reference to the Constitution on the Sacred Liturgy from Vatican
II, the book, nonetheless, is extremely helpful in disclosing the theology
involved in the new liturgy.
Pere Chenu has written the Introduction and must have done so with
great satisfaction. Father Mennessier has captured the message of Chenu's
classic Toward Understanding St. Thomas and put the doctrine into practice. In Pattern for a Christian we have the whole St. Thomas, the theologian, the preacher, and above all the Master of the Sacred Page expounding the rich and all embracive meaning of religion. The book becomes a journey into the essentials of the spiritual life, a most welcomed
event for all Christians. Also welcomed are the first English translations
of sections of St. Thomas's commentaries on the Gospel of John and
Hebrews.
RAYMOND SMITH, O.P.
Dominican House of Studies
Washington, D. C.

BOOK REVIEWS

615

Jacobus M. Ramirez, De Donis Spiritus Sancti deque Vita Mystica. In II
P. Summae Theologiae Divi Thomae Expositio, Opera Omnia, Tomus
VII. Ed. VICTORINO RoDRIGUEZ, 0. P. Pp. 606. 550 ptas.
St. Thomas Aquinas, Summa Theologiae, Volume 24(1a2ae 68-70). The
Gifts of the Spirit. Commentary and translation by EDWARD D.
O'CoNNOR, C.S. C. Blackfriars in conjunction with McGraw-Hill: New
York, and Eyre and Spottiswoode; London, 1974) Pp. 185. $10.00.
Theology does seem to be feeling the lack of an adequate Pneumatology.
The experience of the spiritual dimensions of the Church brought to light
by Vatican II, and the consequent recognition of a certain deficiency in
Ecclesiology in regard to the place of the Holy Spirit, and the present experience of charismatic vitality in piety and practice, invite a rereading
of St. Thomas's presentation of the Christian's new life in the Spirit. The
usual " Thomistic synthesis " on grace rarely gets to the point of mentioning
that Aquinas has any special doctrine in this area. The venerable commentaries have not given this theme prolonged consideration, and even in
the era of Neo-Thomism the bibliography is remarkably small. Both the
above books appeared in time for the seventh centenary celebrations of St.
Thomas's death. This is a happy providence indicating the desirability of
retrieving for modem reflection what is at once one of the most relevant
and beautiful sides of his thought.
There is something of a challenge for the reviewer in that enormous Latin
text of the eminent Spanish Dominican, Santiago Ramirez. Its size, its
language, its style, its frame of reference, even apart from its content, are
sturdy indication that there are more things theological in the world than
man, especially " modem secular man," might dream of.
The editor tells us that this volume is made up of three distinct treatises.
The first and largest, over three hundred and sixty pages, treats specifically the gifts of the Holy Spirit, as St. Thomas writes of them in I-II, q. 68
and II-II, qq. 8, 9, 19, 45, 5!l. This is the outcome of a course given in
Fribourg some forty-five years ago. It is, indeed, a highly organized commentary on the pertinent sections of the Summa and moves in the context
largely established by the medieval debate on the nature of the gifts. The
editor has added some bibliography, some enumerations, and an index. We
are told that Ramirez was rather unwilling to publish this disquisition on
the gifts, feeling the lack of positive sources together with the inherent
speculative difficulties of the question. It must be admitted that one has
the impression that the author was not at his best in handling these issues.
Of course, there is a well-divided and syllogistic treatment of the various
questions, a certain dialectical play with ancient adversaries, all requisite
attention to scholastic detail, leading to a careful restatement of general
Thomistic positions.

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BOOK REVIEWS

The editor, at least, is not lacking in enthusiasm. He assures us that
the "lector versatus" will readily recognize that his author's treatment
of this theme is quite outstanding (" vere princeps inter omnia ") , even
when compared to the classic work of John of St. Thomas in 1644. That
might be, but I would be of the opinion that Gardeil, Garrigou-Lagrange,
Maritain, Labourdette, and Philippe, all within the Thomist tradition, have
addressed themselves to these questions with more inspiration, insight,
and, most of all, with a sense of what the theology of the gifts really
stands for.
The second treatise is on the active and the contemplative life, essentially a commentary on II-II, qq.
This runs to some two hundred
pages and is the product of a course taught forty years ago. From then
we jump to the time of the third treatise in this volume, dealing with the
" recta aestimatio " of the contemplative life and of the religious institutes
which profess it. This comparatively brief (about fifty pages) statement
was writen during the time of the Second Vatican Council which Ramirez
attended as a "peritus." It is mildly polemical, written against "iudicia
minus sana minusque correcta" that were, apparently, in the air at the
time.
The editor connects these three treatises by suggesting that they show
a progressive development of the same theme, and hence follow one another
not only chronologically but logically as we progress from the more easy
to the more difficult (ordo arduitatis doctrinalis). The chronological point,
at least, cannot be contested.
I must confess that I leafed through the " conciliar " treatise first of all
in an effort to see in what way the " conciliar " Ramirez developed from
the scholastic, Thomistic one. Well, at least it is an edifying florilegium
of papal, patristic, and Thomistic texts, leading to the traditional conclusion, that, whilst the active and contemplative life are both necessary,
contemplation is always superior to action. I see no special doctrinal
difficulty in understanding such a conclusion, and, of course, St. Thomas,
in his own historical situation, does agree. Our author is making his point
against pastoral activism and more worldly forms of spirituality. I suspect,
however, that there is more to be found for modern spirituality than is
contained in such a conclusion, especially if one does return to Aquinas's
doctrine on the gifts. They are, after all, not all contemplative; and
fortitude is one of them.
These remarks hardly do justice to the great Spanish theologian. His
works on analogy, beatitude, human action are of enduring quality. It just
happens that this particular volume is a disappointment. Perhaps that is
the way it is with opera omnia: not all our works are perfect. The historian of doctrines will find this volume interesting as an example of what
can happen. What is so fundamentally pertinent to modern concerns can
be so immured in a forbidding labyrinth of scholasticism as to defer the

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617

hour when such riches are made available. The presentation of St. Thomas's
doctrine on the gifts in this manner does everything possible to deter
modem theology from showing any interest in such themes. There in lies
the peril and the promise of the great tradtion of which Ramirez is an
outstanding representative.
But now let us pass from a rather reserved acceptance of one volume
to an unqualified welcome of another. The Dominican editors of the New
English Summa, Volume 24, are to be congratulated. It is an outstanding
and most timely presentation. Fr. Edward O'Connor, CSC, Professer of
Theology at Notre Dame, has already produced a number of writings on
the Holy Spirit and the charisms. He was a good choice to translate and
comment on this section of the Summa. He does note, however, that the
title of this volume, The Gifts of the Spirit, might lead some readers to
expect a treatment of the charismatic gifts, but he indicates that St.
Thomas's treatment of that element in the Christian life is to be found
elsewhere, in volume 45 of the present series.
The English translation is accurate and readable, and supported by a
generous array of useful footnotes. There is always the problem of finding
the best translation of " instinctus." I am a little dissatisfied with " prompting," but since we have a special appendix on the meaning of this word,
there is no need to quibble.
The theme of the gifts of the Spirit is ably introduced: "This section
of the Summa represents the ultimate and most exquisite refinement of its
theory of the divinization of man by grace through the action of the Holy
Spirit." (xiii) O'Connor goes on to give a brief but thorough outline of the
place of the gifts in St. Thomas's theory of grace and the activity of the
Spirit in human existence. The seven appendices at the end of the volume
are very helpful. In a brief space they bring together perspectives
and information that make this Volume 24 of the New English Summa
an excellent theological resource.
The first appendix grasps the nettle: " The Scriptural Basis for the
Doctrine of the Gifts." This is very deft, stressing, on the one hand, the
gift of the Spirit as "the one in whom all God's promises converge and are
fulfilled" (80); on the other, the often mysterious role of the key text
Is 11: 2 for the development and articulation of this doctrine. In the second.
appendix, " The Fathers of the Church," we have this point developed more
historically. Augustine and Gregory are treated in a special manner. O'Connor wryly remarks that Augustine has a " penchant for basing his doctrine
on mistranslations of the Latin bible." (97) He proceeds to makes some
very sensible methodological remarks. The third appendix, " Scholastic
Thought before St. Thomas," offers a good range of material, and a competent organization of the same, all in a few pages. Hence, a very accessible
and valuable statement. Appendix 4 is a study in the development of St.
Thomas's own thought on the gifts. Three main stages are indicated: I.

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BOOK REVIEWS

The characterization of the gifts as a superhuman mode of action, especially in the Sentences; !l. A fresh way of explaining this mode of operation
through action of the Holy Spirit, as in I-II; and 8. An opening up of this
orginal position to make it more open to a comprehensive notion of the
activity of the Spirit. This is to be found in the II-II where the various
particular gifts are freed from " the uncongenial biases that have been
imposed on them by the pressures of Augustinian rhetoric and scholastic
systematization." {180) O'Connor suggests enough evidence to invite arereading of the relevant sections with such an hypothesis. I find this quite
plausible.
The next three appendices are more particular and are of great help to
anyone engaged in a textual and historical investigation of these matters.
Appendix 5, "lnstinetus and lnspiratio" (A comment on the work of Max
Seckler, E. Schillebeeckx and J. H. Walgrave on this point would have been
in order. Cf. A. J. Kelly, "The Gifts of the Spirit: Aquinas and the
Modern Context," The Thomist XXXVIII (April 1974), p. 198, notes 10,
11). Appendix 6, "St. Thomas' Use of the De Bona Fortuna; and Appendix 7, "Various Recensions on the fruits of the Spirit and the works of
the flesh."
After this, there follows a select bibliography, a glossary of terms, and
Index of scriptural references, and then the General Index. The whole
volume is a model of presentation.
With this kind of resource theological reflection today has a great opportunity. I imagine that theology will prefer to follow the line of Thomas's
own development and so seek to present the gifts more as a component
in the anthropology of " existence in the Spirit " than in the form of Aristotelian faculty analysis. Any relocation of the gifts might also tend to
bring out one of the intuitions of the " Franciscan theology " that accompanied the Thomist developments, namely, that the gifts conform man not
to some Greek ideal of heroism but to the reality of the " new man," Christ
in his suffering, death, and resurrection. The theology of the gifts emerges
more and more as a way of understanding the kind of humanity the Spirit
of Christ is forming, and, more intriguingly, a way of understanding the
God who is the Spirit of such a transformation.
A. J. KELLY, c. ss. R.
YaTra Theological Union
Melbourne, Australia

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619

Master Eckhart, Parisian Questions and Prologues. Trans. with an
duction and Notes by Armand A. Maurer, C. S. B. Toronto: Pontifical
Institute of Medieval Studies, 1974. Pp. 1Q8. $8.50.
For the reader who is fond of riddles and paradoxes, who savors the
dialectical contrarieties of a Cusa or a Hegel, these stimulating and provocative treatises by Master Eckhart which Armand Maurer has here collected together and translated are without a match. The central paradox
around which the discussions in these pages turns is Eckhart's insistence,
on the one hand, that Being is God and that creatures have no being of
their own while, in another treatise, he argues that God is intellect alone
and that in no sense is Being to be found in him. The former position
plies that creatures are nothing, " not even a little bit," while the latter
view is defended by showing that intellect is essentially a kind of non-being
or nothingness. Intrinsically paradoxical of themselves, the two theses are
equally incompatible with one another.
At one point in these treatises Eckhart himself is led to comment upon
his love of paradox. Adverting to his (Dominican) " brethren " who had
heard his original interpretations of the Scriptures and of medieval metaphysical theory and who wished to have it set forth in writing, Master
Eckhart says, ' They urged me to do this particularly because novel and
unusual topics are a more pleasant stimulant to the mind than ordinary
ones.... " Then, with an almost uncharacteristic caution, he adds: " ...
though the latter may be more valuable and important." (80) 1
Eckhart possesses a subtle, imaginative, and very fertile metaphysical
mind. He has long been recognized as a central figure in the history of
Western mysticism. His vernacular sermons and treatises on spiritual matters are classics of the German language, studied with equal fervor by
Germanists, philosophers, and students of the history of religion and mystical thought. The dialectical charm of his writings was to be his undoing,
however. He was called before the Inquisition for some twenty-eight
propositions which Pope John XXII would condemn in 18Q8, not long
after Eckhardt's death. As a result of this condemnation, Eckhart's Latin
works were all but ignored by Catholic theologians, except for an edition
of them by Nicholas of Cusa. It would not be until 1885 that the German
Dominican scholar H. S. Denifle would bring our attention back to them
again. In 1986 work began on the great critical edition of Eckhart's Latin
and German writings under the auspices of the Deutsche
schaft at Stuttgart. 2 Thus it has only been in the last forty years or so
that critical and reliable texts of either the German or Latin writings have
All references in parentheses are to Maurer's volume.
und lateinischen W erke, (Stuttgart:
• Meister Eckhart; Die
mer, 1986 fl'.) .
1

Kohlham-

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BOOK REVIEWS

been available. And while there has always been some interest among
English-speaking authors in Eckhart's vernacular sermons, there are, to
my knowledge, only two works of English translation of Eckhart's Latin
writings: one by Clarke and Skinner in 1958,3 and the other the present
selection by Armand Maurer. Though Eckhart's gifts as a mystic and
spiritual writer have long been recognized, the subtlety and innovations
of his work as a scholastic magister-the very name by which he is known
to us today-have all but been ignored.
Maurer has brought together here three separate selections: (I) the
Parisian Questions, five disputed questions held at Paris in 1302-03 and
1311-14 (Latin Works, v. V), discovered independently by Ephrem
Longpre and Martin Grabmann in 1927; (2) the Prologues to the Opus
Tripartitum (Latin Works, v. I); (3) a selection from the Commentary
on the Book of Exodus (Latin Works, v. III). The first three Parisian
Questions, especially Questions I and II, are important documents in the
Latin corpus. In the first two questions Eckhart argues, along with
"Brother Thomas" (Aquinas) that in God esse and intelligere are identical, while in angels they are distinct. His arguments, however, are quite
un-Thomistic. He holds that intellect and being belong to totally different
realms. Being is that which has been created or caused. As it is written
in the Liber de causis; being is the first of all created things. Intellect,
on the other hand, is not reducible to being: intellect can separate that
which is not separate in reality (47); it can think the universal which is
not found in reality (54); the essence of the intellect is not to be itself
a being but that which knows being. (52-3) Like the pupil of the eye in
Aristotle's de Anima, intellect must be totally devoid of that which it
knows-being. 4 The divine intellect is altogether above being, beyond it,
as its exemplary and efficient cause, while the created intellect is below
it and caused by it. (48) Thus God is above being and "if you wish"
to say that in God esse is this very intelligere "I do not mind. Nevertheless I say that if there is anything in God that you want to call existence,
it belongs to him through his understanding" (48) (Question I). In angels,
on the other hand, there can be no such reducibility of being to understanding, for angels are creatures, and so being is proper to them. There
is thus a real distinction between the created intellect and its being. (Question II) . In Question III Eckhart goes on to show the superiority of the
intellect over the will (which is hardly surprising, considering that intellect
is superior to esse itself.) Questions IV (whether there can be a motion
8 Meister Eckhart: Selected Treatises and Sermons, Trans. James M. Clark and
John V. Skinner. (London: Faber and Faber, 1958).
• I have explored the significance of these views in my "The Nothingness of the
Intellect in Meister Eckhart's Parisian Questions," The Thomist Vol. XXXIX,
1, pp. 85-115.

BOOK REVIEWS

without end) and V (whether Christ's body remained identical before and
after the crucifixion) are atypical of Eckhart's extant works and without
any relation to the matters treated in this volume.
The Prologues are made up of the "General Prologue" to the entire
Opus Tripartitum and the two special prologues to the Book of Propositions
(Book I) and the Book of Commentaries (Book III); the prologue to
Book II, the Book of Questions, is not extant. In these prologues Eckhart
argues a position directly contrary to the Parisian Questions: Being is
God (esse est deus) and creatures are nothing, not even something small.
This is defended by showing that in the same way that white things are
white by whiteness itself, the created being (ens) has being by esse itself.
But esse must be God, for otherwise God would have being by something
other than himself-which would in effect, then, be his God, which is
absurd. Eckhart does not want to grant the creature a being of its own.
A creature exists with the being of God. The creature has being the
way the air has light, or the way the body has being from the soul. Eckhart does not subscribe to pantheism, however. He means instead only
to deny an independent or autonomous being to creatures. It is usually
said that whereas Thomas Aquinas taught an analogy of proper proportionality between the creature and God, Eckhart held an analogy of attribution.
Which is it then? Are we to think that esse is God, or that God is
intellect and so devoid of esse? Is God Being or Nothing? The position
which Maurer takes, and quite rightly I think, is developed by Lossky:
Eckhart has not changed his views in these two treatises; he has merely
adopted different perspectives. 5 In the Parisian Questions, Maurer says,
" he looks upward to God from the perspective of creatures and sees
Him as pure intelligence devoid of the being He creates." But in the
Prologues, "Eckhart's stance . . . is now a descending one he looks at
creatures from the divine perspective and sees them in their pure nothingness." (38) Eckhart's constant position, in both treatises, is that God is
the " purity of being " (puritas essendi) ; that is, God exists with a being
(esse) which essentially transcends created being, which is pure of every
created imperfection. Thus if one begins with creatures and calls them
real, then God is being only in a higher way, which is, for Master Eckhart,
pure intellect. But if one begins with God, creatures have no being at
all-except what they borrow from him. From the point of view of God,
creatures are so low as to be nothing; from the point of view of created
being, God is so high as to be beyond being. God is-dialectically-both
Being and Nothing, because he is the purity of being. God is the purity
of Being where this " of " is both a subjective and objective genitive.
5 Vladimir Lossky,
Theologie negative et connaistmnce de Dieu chez Maitre
Eckhart, (Paris: Vrin, 1960), pp. fllO-fW.

BOOK REVIEWS

The final selection made by Maurer is Eckhart's exposition of Exodus
3, 13 (eg.o 81Jm qui 81Jm). For Eckhart this means: I am who I am.
Moses is told that God .dwells in a self-contained mystery which cannot
be disclosed; he .exceeds every name which is given to him, God's being
is pure and untouched by any name which is given to it. Here is the
common thread of both positions: God has being in such a supereminent
and mysterious way that it is barely possible to compare creatures with
him. God's being so transcends cre.atures that if creatures have being, .
God does not, and if God has being, creatures do not.
Maurer has translated Eckhart's terse Latin prose into a readable
English which is quite free .of Latinisms. The numbering of Eckhart's
arguments which he introduces into the text makes for increased clarity.
The one quarrel one can pick with this translation is Maurer's decision to
translate esse as " existence." In Thomas Aquinas esse is the animating,
active principle of being (ens) it is that which is actual about being.
But in Eckhart esse is related to ens the way whiteness is related to that
which is white, the way the abstract is related to the concrete. Esse is
the abstract perfection in which the individual entity (ens, ens hoc aut
hoc) participates. Now Maurer not only knows this, he gives a splendid
explanation of it. (34-7) But still he gives esse a translation which suggests more of the Thomistic existential act than of Eckhart's abstract
perfection. To my mind everything points to translating esse as Being
and ens as "(the) being." To illustrate, Maurer renders " ... deo non
convenit esse nee est ens" as " ... existence does not belong to God, nor
is He a being." I should have preferred " ... Being does not belong to
God, nor is He a being." As Maurer notes, Eckhart himself translated
esse into the Middle High German istikeit ("is-ness"). (29) Josef Koch,
in the German translation of the Stuttgart edition of the Parisian Questions, renders esse and ens as "Sein" and "Seiende (s)" which preserves
the connection between these words which Eckhart had in mind. Thus,
while one would not wish to render esse and ens in Thomas Aquinas by
Being and being, the opposite is the case, I believe, with Master Eckhart.
On the whole, however, there is little to quarrel with in Father Maurer's
admirable work. The translation is smooth and readable, the introduction
is informative and helpful, and the choice of texts is excellent. There
is a brief bibliography and a helpful index. Errata: p. 35, 3 lines from
the bottom: "(w) hile "; p. 55, n. 1: should say "above", not" below";
p. 115, line 3: vol. "5 " not "56."
JoHN

University
VillanO'Va, Pennsylvania

D. CAPUTO

BOOK REVIEWS

Divorce and Remarriage: Resolving a Catholic Dilamma. By DENIS J.
DoHERTY. St. Meinrad, Indiana: Abbey Press, 1974. Pp. 194. $8.50.
The author is quite forthright in stating the purpose of his book: " I
propose to urge that the present official teaching of the indissolubility of
marriage be changed because, as it stands, it is theologically untenable."
(p. 4)
The Council of Trent defended its teaching on the indissolubility of
marriage on the grounds that it was in accord with " evangelical and
apostolic teaching" (Sess. XXIV, Canon 7). One might expect that the
author would look for flaws in the Church's teaching on scriptural or
early historical grounds. But this is not the method to be used.
The author is quite candid in admitting that " exegesis is not my area
of competence," and in noting an observation of one who is competent,
Joseph Fitzmeyer, S. J.: "So far as the texts are concerned we have
Jesus's absolute command. [People looking for a change in the Church's
attitude towards divorce] can't look to the New Testament scholars to
provide them with loopholes." Doherty's own reply is somewhat startling:
"No need. Moralists and canonists have already provided them in abundance." (p. 153)
If we may judge by the Index of Authors the writer seemingly has
little competence in the area of early Church history or the history of
dogma. Augustine alone is cited from the early Christian writers and
Fathers of the Church who reflect and comment upon the data of Scripture.
Candor seems to be the author's strongpoint, and this is evidenced once
again when he informs us that he intends to urge a change in the Church's
teaching" from the standpoint of moral theology, both traditional and contemporary." (p. 4) But "traditional" moral theology begins with Gratian
in the twelfth century, and contemporary moral theology is reflected almost
wholly in the more advanced views expressed by Catholic and non-Catholic
moralists and ethicians who agree with the author's conclusions.
Admittedly there is a growing consensus among moralists, canon lawyers,
and theologians that it is time for the Church to change her teaching on
divorce and remarriage and to accomodate her practice to that of the
Eastern Christians and that of our separated brethren of the West.
Doherty's method of "resolving a Catholic dilemma" may appeal to some
moralists, and I am sure that they would report more favorably on the
author's efforts. As a sacramental theologian who has taught the theology
of marriage for some decades and who has been more recently engaged in
presenting a theology of marriage in terms of covenant, I find that the
twelfth century, with its new emphasis on marriage as a contract, is not
the best point of departure.
PAUL F. PALMER,

St. Vincent's Seminary
Boynton Beach, Floridn,,

s. J.

BOOK REVIEWS

The Ethics of Fetal Research. By PAUL RAMSEY. New Haven:
University Press, 1975. Pp. 125. $2.95 paper, $7.95 cloth.

Yale

This is an excellent little book-" must " reading for anyone interested
in bio-medical ethics.
Professor Ramsey begins by classifying and explaining the various kinds
of fetal research. A statement of method follows; and here Ramsey resolves
to set the discussion " within the context of the existing standards of medical ethics." (p. xvi) With this as his method, then, Ramsey's first task
is to determine what the existing standards of medical ethics are. But this
is no easy procedure. As a first step, Ramsey informs the reader that it is
medicine's primary duty to" do no harm." (pp. xvi, xiv) Still, this knowledge does not carry one very far. Is the duty to do no harm absolute
or merely prima facie? Does the fetus's prenatal status negate or somehow
"weaken" the duty? And what is the meaning of "harm " ? In an apparent attempt to answer these and similar questions, Ramsey does two
things. First, he introduces three efforts to formulate official guidelines permitting fetal research (I) the Peel Report, or the British attempt to
formulate such guidelines, (2) the provisional set of guidelines issued by
our National Institute of Health in 1973, and (3) the revised set of NIH
guidelines, proposed in 1974 but never accepted as official policy. And
second, because living, pre-viable human fetuses bear certain resemblances
not only to human infants but also to the dying, the condemned, and the
unconscious, Ramsey examines the restrictions placed upon experimentation
with these kinds of subjects and argues that they should be applicable
also in the case of fetal human beings.
The themes in ethical analysis having been introduced, Ramsey argues
that the recent Supreme Court decision on abortion has skewed medical
ethics in such a way that it gives rise to a twisted moral logic. In arguing
for the moral propriety of fetal experimentation, Ramsey says, at least one
author has held that" since we have given ourselves the right to medically
unnecessary abortion (given ourselves the right to do the fetus. . .. ' unimaginable acts of violence' . , .) , then we have given ourselves the right
to place the fetus at risk of lesser injury." (p. 42) But the fact that we
have given ourselves the legal right to kill a fetus entails nothing so far
as morality is concerned-" ought " cannot be derived from " is." If the
canons of medical ethics specify that a doctor is to do no harm, medically
unnecessary abortions are wrong. And to argue that because this wrong is
permitted under the law one is morally right in performing a lesser wrong
is to fall victim to a form of thinking which Ramsey calls the " one-wrongjustifies-a-lesser-wrong" fallacy. (p. 41)
After examining the relationship between abortion and fetal research
Ramsey evaluates the provisional and revised NIH guidelines, denouncing
the latter as allowing almost any experimentation, just so long as it is

BOOK REVIEWS

part of an abortion procedure. Once again, then, Ramsey finds the onewrong-justifies-a-lesser-wrong fallacy at work; only now its influence is
being felt in molding public policy.
Ramsey ends his book with a discussion of the doctrine of informed
consent. There is problem enough with the doctrine of consent in ordinary
doctor-patient-relationships; and when the issue concerns consent for fetal
experimentation, Ramsey quite properly concludes that it would be " ... an
extreme moral paradox to designate a woman who is planning a medically
unnecessary abortion to be the one charged with consenting or not consenting ' for ' the abortus and with protecting it from further avoidable
harm." (p. 98)
Ramsey's work is significant for many reasons: the reader is given the
background necessary in order to fully understand the current controversy
surrounding fetal experimentation; the layman is instructed concerning the
various kinds or types of fetal research; and moral issues are sharply drawn.
However, the real power of the book lies in its examples. One especially
bears mention. Ramsey describes the following research project as one
which was submitted for NIH funding:
The objective was to study the speed of disposition of minerals into the fetal
The protocol called for maintaining whole previable
mandibles (jawbone).
abortuses alive for up to three days, injecting the substance or substances being
tested into the umbilical cord, and then at five-minute intervals cutting off the
heads of a series of abortuses over the three day period in order to examine the
jawbones of each at that point in time. I (Ramsey) do not know how or what
major vital signs were to be maintained, but evidently the jawbones and the
abortuses as a whole were alive and well and growing, or else the protocol would
have been pointless. (p. 9l9l)

Funding for this study was first approved by NIH, and then later disapproved, ostensibly because the American public would not " understand "
the project.
Despite its excellence, Ramsey's book is not without its problems. The
main difficulties all seem to flow from Ramsey's desire to restrict the scope
of the ethical discussion. What does Ramsey mean when he says that he
will set the discussion of fetal experimentation " within the existing standards of medical ethics? " The implication is that there is a determinate
set of moral standards which can be applied by medical researches in order
to assess the rightness or wrongness of their acts. But this is not true. The
standards of medical ethics can be interpreted in a variety of ways; and
Ramsey admits as much, for he provides the reader with numerous examples
of moral disagreement within the medical community. (pp. 31-50) Thus,
the problem is not to determine what the standards of medical ethics are,
but what they should be. And any discussion of this sort carries one beyond medical ethics to a discussion of the nature of ethical reasoning in
general.

626

BOOK REVIEWS

Perhaps Ramsey does not mean to imply that there is a determinate set
of moral standards just awaiting application by members of the medical
profession. It is possible that by setting the discussion within the context
of the existing standards of medical ethics, Ramsey means only to justify
certain methodological assumptions, among them: {1) an assumption concerning the deontologic!Llcharacter of ethics, and {2) an assumption concerning the humanity of this fetus. This view is not without support.
Ramsey tells us that medical ethics is not a net-benefit ethics alone (p.
xvi) ILUd he resolves the question of the fetus's humanity by appealing to
the Peel Report and NIH guidelines. {pp. 27-28) But if this is what
Ramsey means he weakens his argument considerably. This comes out most
clearly in his discussion of the relationship between abortion and fetal experimentation. Those who deny the fetus's humanity will certainly argue
that there is no fallacy of one-wrong-justifies-a-lesser-wrong And if one begins by rejecting deontology in favor of teleology he might find numerous
grounds rejecting Ramsey's arguments.
Those of us who accept Ramsey's conclusions will look forward to his
developing a full-scale ethical argument in support of his views. In the
meantime, The Ethics of Fetal Research provides much food for thought.
The book is bound to generate discussion within the classroom and should
be required reading for anyone taking a course in bio-medical ethics.
JAMEs

M. HUMBER

Georgia State University
Atlanta, Georgia

The Supreme Court and Religion. By RICHARD E. MoRGAN. New York:
The Free Press, 1972. Pp. 224. $3.95.
" The inherited attitudes of the early settlers, the nature of colonial religious and legal practices, religious ' settlement ' at the federal constitutional convention, and the framing of the First Amendment are all matters
which need concern us." Thus does Richard E. Morgan in the opening
paragraph of his book The Supreme Court and Religion indicate the four
principles which he sees at work in Supreme Court decisions on religion
during the first two hundred years of this country's existence. Although
some contemporary observers once characterized the early American community as "tolerant" and "cosmopolitan" in behavior, the "cultural baggage of the vast majority of those who managed the affairs of the town
and colonies was, according to Morgan, " English," with two tendencies
deriving from the English Reformation: one, " an abiding hostility to
Roman Catholicism" and the other, "an implicit notion of the state as

BOOK REVIEWS

627

an inferior and potentially dangerous institution." These, he states, gave to
American culture and tradition, constitutionally embodied, the separationist
thrust which has characterized court decisions ever since. Morgan sees the
history of the Supreme Court decisions on religion as an uneven struggle
between accommodationists, on the one hand, and separationists, on the
other, the latter consistently, he would say, with the historically derived and
constitutionally expressed tradition.
While he acknowledges that "an important group of constitutional critics
has argued that the Madisonian reading given the establishment clause by
Black in Everson is simply incorrect on historical grounds," he brushes
aside their " superficially attractive advice " as somewhat irrelevant for the
reason that "the historical materials themselves will not settle anything."
The task of the constitutional court, says Morgan, " is precisely to choose
between conflicting traditions," using " the available historical materials to
legitimize the choice."
Summarizing his own position, the author declares that the Court " has
done well to the extent that it has retreated from the quite sweeping theory
of separation articulated by Black in the early pages of his Everson opinion." Moreover, he sees the possibility "in the coming decade" that
" sufficient support may develop " for the view (Kurland's) that, " providing the primary purpose of the governmental program be secular and
the legislative ends satisfy the public purpose requirement of the due
process clause, governmental programs which provide substantial support
to religious institutions are constitutional."
Contributing to this possibility, says the author, are five new conditioning
factors: (1) "The argument for separation based on creeded divisiveness
is weakening"; (Q) An increasingly urbanized or "mass" society is prone
" to encourage the development of a variety of private and charitable and
educational styles"; (8) Religious schools themselves are secularizing so
rapidly that talk of the dangers of proselytism "is losing force"; {4) "Far
from regarding religious schools as a menace, many minority parents are
enthusiastic about them, and only wish that more were available"; (5)
"American public schools simply do not need a monopoly position."
While the above factors may indeed be conducive to a change in constitutional thinking, this reviewer doubts that of themselves they will suffice
to overcome the formidable opposition to such change which the vested
interests of the public school establishment will most certainly continue to
maintain.
This book, though debatable in its easy dismissal of arguments against
the historicity of the alleged Madisonian view of separation, renders a valuable service to the changing but ineluctable dialog on religious and educational freedom.
OLIN 1. MURDICH

United States Catholic Conference
D. C.

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6fl8

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