THE GRAMMAR OF ESSE: RE-READING THOMAS
ON THE TRANSCENDENTALS
SIGLA. For ease in argument, Thomas's works will be cited according to the
following sigla: DV, De Veritate; Sent, Smiptum on the Sentmices; SCG, Contra
Gentiles; ST, Summa Theologiae; InMet, commentary on the 1Vfetaphysics; Quod,
Quaestiones Quodlibetales; lnDivNom, commentary on the Divine Names. The
number appearing before the siglum indicates a Book or Part number; thus, ' 1
Sent' means the commentary on the first book of the Sentences and '4 SCG'
means the fourth Book of the Contra Gentiles.

0

NE OF THE ADVANTAGES of the desuetude into
which Thomism has lately fallen is that interpreters
of Thomas Aquinas must address fundamentals.
The effect of the last decade's convulsions was to break up a
discourse within which Thomism figured as something immediate. For such discourse, Thomas was a thinker rather than
an artifact; he was an interlocutor, not an instance. But in the
immediacy of discourse, peripheral issues often acquired disproportionate force. Familiarity with the basic formulae passed
for intelligibility. Today, when scholasticism seems to have the
bad odor of an ancien reginie, the interpreter of Thomas must
work to secure the first things, the central insights, since it is
these that are controverted and misunderstood. 1 There is no
time for the peripheral and no ground for assuming familiarity.
If this is the only advantage of the change of fortune, it is still
an important one.
The first thing in Thomism is the doctrine of esse. It is first
in two ways, as a distinguishing characteristic and as a structuring principle. Its being first as a characteristic needs little
demonstration. Even if Giles of Rome is seen as a vulgarizer of
1 Michel Corbin has described the present state of Thomist exegesis with great
acuity in Le chemin de la theologie chez Thomas d'Aquin (Paris: Beauchesne,
1974), pp. 26-35. His own solution to the current dilemma-the project of the
"lecture speculative "-resembles the present reading in result, but not in justification.

1

MARK D. JORDAN

authentic Thomism, he is evidence that the doctrine of esse has
characterized Thomism-even constituted it in its uniquenessfrom the earliest days. 2 The doctrine of esse serves as centerpiece in the encyclopedic commentary of Capreolus, in the
Thomistic fundamentalism of certain Renaissance masters/ and
even in the unfortunate " Approved Theses of Thomistic Philosophy." 4
But if the doctrine about esse has characterized historical
Thomism, it is not the case that the doctrine has informed the
reflection of Thomists. The twenty-four "Theses" illustrate
the inverse relation between doctrinal peremptoriness and reflective appropriation. The more one insists on esse as the
shibboleth of some ' true Thomism,' the less room there is for
showing how full of questions are Thomas's texts about esse.
The force of these questions became apparent in the half dozen
works published in the years around 1940 by Fabro, Rahner,
Gilson, de Finance and others. 5 The questions remain. To
insist that the doctrine of esse is characteristic of Thomas's
thought can only underscore that its work as a principle has
yet to be grasped.
As a step towards clarifying this first thing in Thomism, I
2 See the introduction
to the edition of his Theoremata de ente et essentia by
Edgar Hocedez (Louvain: Museum Lessianum, 1930). The authenticity of
Giles's reading of Thomas was challenged as early as Robert Orford's Reprobationes
dictorum a Fratre Egidio in primum Senfontiarum (1288-1292).
3 See the essay on Dominic of Flanders by Armando F. Verde, "Domenico
di
Fiandra, intransigente tomista non gradito nello studio Fiorentino," in Tomismo
e antitornismo, Memorie Domenicane, N.S. 7 (1976), 304-21, but particularly pp.
310-311.
•The list was published in Acta Apostolicae Sedis, 6 (1914), 384 ff., and reprinted in the Enchiridion Symbolorum, 32nd ed., ##36fll-!i!4. Its native defects
were exacerbated in the exposition of Guido Mattiussi, p;-':1led in the Osservatore
and published as Le XXIV tesi della filosofia di S. Tornrnaso d'Aquino (R-0me:
Gregorian Univ., 1925); esp. pp. 28-34 and 45-51, where the doctrine of esse
becomes almost mechanical.
5 The
concurrence of the following books marks something like a turn in
the reading of Thomas: C. Fabro, La nozione metafisica di partecipazione secondo
S. Tommaso d'Aquino (1939); K. Rahner, Geist in Welt (1939); the revision of
saint ThlYlnas (l942);
Gilson's Le Thomisme (1942); A. Hayden, L'intentionnel
J. de Finance, Etre et agir dans la philosophie de S. Thomas (1946, composed
1928-37); and L. De Raeymaeker, Philosophie de l'etre (1946), revising a Dutch
w-0rk of 1944.

THE GRAMMAR OF 'ESSE '

want to pick up the theme of esse at a point which is often overlooked. It is an obvious one, nonetheless. In Thomas's thinking,
there are certain features which accrue to esse as such. These
are called, somewhat anachronistically, the 'transcendentals.' 6
The transcendentals are, to characterize them logically, terms
convertible with ' being ' which are not synonyms for it. They
are, to sketch them ontologically, ubiquitous features which express the character of esse itself. 7 Thomas's doctrine of the transcendentals is surely familiar in these, its basic claims. But the
doctrine is routinely taken as another fact about beings, something to be secured by deductive stratagems, something to be
presented. It is rarely plumbed. It remains, to use Breton's
phrase, " classic and yet poorly known." 8
I want to re-read Thomas's teaching about the transcendentals. This re-reading will entail, in the first section, a recapitulation of the chief Thomist text which treats of them. Then,
second, the reading will penetrate the text by asking about the
' grammar ' of the transcendentals considered as expressions of
esse. The third and concluding section can then ask about the
purport of what the transcendentals do express.
1. The Chief Text on the Transcendentals.
Thomas's most famous handling of the transcendentals opens
6 Anachronistically,
since 'transcendentia' does not occur in Thomas's writings,
with the exception of two dubious works. ' Transcendentium ' is found only once,
at DV q. 21 a.3. The Index Thomisticus also gives nine authentic instances of
'transcendentibus ', largely in the Scriptum and 1 ST. Coinage of the modern
sense of the term is attributed by Suarez to a sixteenth century Dominican,
Chrysostom Javelli; see Joseph Owens, An Elementary Christian Metaphysics
(Milwaukee: Bruce, 1963), p. 111, n. 1. On the alternate medieval tei·minologiespassiones entis, proprietates entis, universales intentiones-see Francis J. Kovach,
Philosophy of Beauty (Norman: Univ. of Oklahoma, 1974), p. 237, n. 2.
7 A standard
account of convertibility can be had in J. B. Lotz, Metaphysica
operationis humanae, methodo transcendentali explicata (Rome: Gregorian Univ.,
1958), Analecta Gregoriana #94, pp. 125-27. Kovach argues that the transcendentals are defined by just three characteristics:
convertibility with ' being ',
convertibility with each other, and a merely logical distinction among them giving
way to a real identity. See Kovach, Philosophy of Beauty, p. 238.
8 Stanislas Breton, "L'idee de transcendental
et la genese des transcendentaux
chez Thomas d'Aquin," in Saint Thomas d'Aquin aujourd'hui (Paris: Desclee de
Brouwer, 1963), 45-74, p. 45.

4

MARK D, JORDAN

the set of disputed questions anthologized under the caption
"de veritate." The aim of that first article is, of course, a definition of truth. By way of definition, Thomas gives a derivation
or genealogy of the transcendentals. Truth is to be defined
precisely as one of the features of beings. The genealogy, then,
is not done in its own right. It would be inexact to read it as a
discrete essay on the transcendentals, though this is often done.
But the genealogy can be used in place of a treatise on the
transcendentals if one follows two cautions. First, it must be
remembered that the text is a quaestio disputata. Second, it
must he remembered that this quaestio is part of an inquiry
into truth.
A quaestio disputata is a specific form with its own rhetoric
and its own semantic. Historical studies have described the
genesis of the quaestio, especially in its legal origins with
Irnerius and the jurists of Bologna. 9 The practice of the quodlibetal questions in thirteenth century Paris is equally well
annotated. 10 But these studies have not raised with sufficient
force the issue of the quaestio' s mode of discourse. The quaestio
is not only a rhetorical shape, it is a semantic mode. The
quaestio is not the same sort of speech as the tractatus or the
surnma; it does not mean in exactly the same way. Much less
is it a monograph in the Cartesian or Humean or Kantian mode.
The mode of discourse peculiar to the quaestio disputata is an
exercise of that human ratio which is never brought completely
to rest, even in the believer. 11 It is, moreover, an' imitation' of
the publicly performed exercise of ratio. A quaestio has, in this
respect, important affinities with the chain of philosophic dia9 Most familiarly in Joseph de Ghellinck's Le mouvement
theologique du Xlle
siecle (2nd ed., Brussells: Eds. Universelles, 1948), pp. 233-49 and throughout.
The importance of the birth of scholastic discourse in earlier ' technical ' discourses,
whether legal or medical, has not been sufficiently appreciated. These origins
might explain the idea of the resolution or disposition of a disputed question,
which seems to combine a technician's solution with public persuasion.
10 See the long introduction
on the practice of quaes.tiones quodlibetales in P.
Glorieux. La litterature quodlibetique, II (Paris: J. Vrin, 1935).
11 Recall Thomas's
insistence on the continued motion of mind within faith
at DVq.14 a.I, Compare 4 Quod d.9 a.3 on the necesary use of discursive reason
in the teaching of theology.

THE GRAMMAR OF ' ESSE '

5

logues which runs from Plato to Abelard. Because it is an act
before a community which it repeatedly constitutes, and because it is an ongoing exercise of ratio, what is said in a quaestio
is not said once for all. The determination is not made in the
specious eternity of Cartesian meditation. Rather, the master
responds on a particular holy day, within the limits of the status
viae, explicitly awaiting further inquiry and alternate disposition. The devices of construction in a quaestio are not apodictic; they are expository and persuasive. Of course, what a
quaestio 'records ' is not therefore trivial. But what is recorded
has built into it a pedagogical plurality, a plurality of demonstrations and devices. This plurality can become crucial in
reconstructing a doctrine spoken through qua-estiones.
The second exegetical caution to be kept in mind is that the
first quaestio disputata in the anthology De V eritate intends to
answer the question, what is truth? It does so by situating
truth in the frame of the transcendentals. But its theme is
truth. The turn of the article is thus primarily cognitive; it
does not pretend to off.er an ontologist's treatment of the transcendentals. Thomas commonly treats the groundwork of one
issue in discussing another. There is nothing wrong with this;
it shows his admirable pedagogical aim. But it is wrong to
forget which theme is primarily being treated. Certain abridgements come easily when discussing the transcendentals on the
way to a notion of truth. These abridgements would have an
entirely different significance if the theme were the transcendentals themselves. Part of the work of reading this text
from De Veritate is to expand its abbreviations.
With such a cautionary prologue, which should be justified
in the sequel, it is possible to read the text. Thomas's response
begins with an analogy to syllogistic logic. Just as demonstrations must be 'reduced' to certain first principles which are
known through themselves, so must it be with the investigation of what anything is.12 Else there will result a lack of intel12 This reductio is not merely an ordering procedure
in demonstrations; it is
not, say, a rudimentary axiomatization. The reductio of logic is a reflection of
an ontological hierarchy of dependences and inclusions. See I ST q. 41 a. 2 ad 4m.

6

MARK D. JORDAN

ligible grounding and an indefinite regress. What takes the place
of syllogistic first premises in the inquiry about what something
is? "That which intellect first conceives as most knowable, and
into which all conceptions are resolved, is ens" (DV q.I a.I [p. 5,
lines 100-103]) .13 For the moment, I will leave 'ens' untranslated, noting only that it looks like a participle of' esse '.14 This
might suggest that ens is an instanced acting out of what ' esse '
names more directly.
Thomas continues: " it follows that all other conceptions of
the intellect are to be taken by addition to ens. But nothing
can be added to ens as something extraneous, in the way that
a difference is added to a genus, or an accident to a subject,
since any nature whatever is essentially ens. ... [O]ther things
are added on top of ens in this way, in so far as they express its
mode (modus), which this name ens itself does not express"
(DV q.I a.I [p. 5, lines 104-114]). No nature other than ens
can he added to ens by way of dividing it, since every nature is
already ens. The divisions of natural genera into species and
the variety of ' accidents ' which inhere in subjects occur at a
level below the modal differentiation of ens. How, then, is ens
to be differentiated? Thomas distinguishes two sorts of modes
for differentiation, one special and one general. The first sort is
that of the ten categories. The second sort, the general one, is
that of the transcendentals. The transcendental modes lie
' above ' or ' behind ' the categories and stand to ens in another
way. While the categories divide the grades of being into exclusive groups, the transcendentals express modes of ens which
"follow upon every ens" (DV q.I a.I [p ..5, line 125]) .15
13 I translate from the Opera Omnia, Editio Leonina, Tomus XXII:
Quaestiones
disputatae de veritate, cura et studio Fratrum Praedicatorum [Antoine Dondaine
ed.] (Rome: Ed. di San Tommaso, 1970-76) . Parenthetical citations will be to
the page and line numbers of volume I, fascicle !'l, of this tomus, where the text
of the Article is found on pages 8-8.
14 It is indeed a surrogate participle which seems to have been coined by Caesar
on analogy to the Greek. See Dictionnaire etymologique de la langue latine, ed.
A. Ernout and A. Meillet (4th ed., Paris: Kincksieck, 1959), pp. 196-197.
15 For an elaboration of the difference between the categories and the transcendentals, see Lotz, Metaphysica operationis humanae, pp. 18!'l-188.

THE GRAMMAR OF 'ESSE '

7

Thomas next derives the transcendental modes of ens by a
series of disjunctions. The first of them separates the general
modes which accrue to ens in se from those which accrue to it in
ordine ad aliud. The second disjunction divides the modes of
ens in se into affirmative and negative. The affirmative mode of
ens in itself is res. The negative mode is unum. The third disjunction divides ens in relation to another: ens can be distinguished from the other (divisio) or fitted to it (convenientia).
The mode of ens as distinguished is aliquid. The mode of ens as
fitness is in turn divided by a fourth disjunction. Fitness can
be with respect to appetite or to intellect. The mode of ens as
fit for appetite is bonum. The mode of ens as fit for the intellect is verurn. This step yields a first definition of the true: the
true is the general mode of ens as it is fit for the intellect. The
step also completes the argument. Whatever the mind conceives is reducible to ens, which comprises five general modes:
res, unum, aliquid, bonum, and verum. A first account of truth
is finished.
What is most obviously lacking in this reading of the text is
a meaning for ' ens'. Every subsequent question about the
sense of the text hinges on the construal of that term. The
construal is hampered on two counts, one accidental and one
substantive. It is an accident of linguistic history that English
cannot render 'ens ' as part of a trio of sibling terms-' ens ',
' esS'e ', ' essentia '. The closest one can come is some device of
orthography or of coinage. Perhaps it will come to devices for
the scrupulous translator; it did in Latin. But what is more
difficult about construing ' enS'' is its participial status. Heidegger has written about the implications of the participial
form for metaphysics. 16 He takes the participle as an echo of
Platonic participation-as a symptom, that is, of the difference
between Being and beings. Setting aside Heidegger's own ends,
it is possible to see with him how full of questions is the ontologist's use of participles from the verb ' to be '. Thomas gives
18 Martin Heidegger, What Is Called Thinking?, trs. F. D. Wieck and J. G.
Gray (New York: Harper & Row, 1968), pp. !t19-!t!t!t.

8

MARK D. JORDAN

some help for those questions. He writes, in the text at hand,
that " ens is taken from the act of esse, while the name res expresses the whatness or essence of ens" (DV q.I a.I [p. 5, lines
I37-I39]) .17 This suggests that 'ens' names something consequent upon the act designated by the infinitive ' esse '. Used as
if it were a gerund,' ens' seems to name the concrete instantiation of what the infinitive names more generally .18 Thus, to say
that 'ens' is taken from 'esse' is more than a lexical remark;
it is a remark about the dependence of an instance of being on
the act of being.
The same point is made in Thomas's Scriptum on the Sentences, which was being polished at about the time of the disputation 0£ the first seven Questions in De Veritate. 19 In the
Scriptum, Thomas holds that ' Qui est' is indeed the most
proper name for God (I Sent d.8 q.I a.I). His fourth argument
invokes Avicenna's distinction between a thing's quidditas or
whatness and its esse. The name' res' is imposed with regard to
quidditas; but the name ' qui est ' or ' ens ' is given in response
to the actus essendi. Since God is the only being whose quidditas is His esse, it is most proper that He should take the name
' Qui est '. This is standard Thomistic fare. Similar arguments
are given some ten years later in the great Summa's Question
Compare 4 InMet lect. 22 n. 553, where the point is reiterated.
Though participial in form, ' ens ' behaves as if it were a classical gerundthat is, as if it were an oblique case of a reified infinitive. This is what I mean
by saying that it is an instance of the infinitive. But this suggestion remains
obscure inasmuch as the status of the infinitive is itself unclarified. Philology
is only of marginal help. It
that Latin infinitives were originally verbal
nouns which named the action of the verb's stem. This remained the colloquial
use throughout Antiquity and was taken over in philosophic writing as convenient for rendering Greek articular infinitives. See L. R. Palmer, The Latin
Language (London: Faber & Faber, 1954), pp. 317-318, 320-321, 325-326; and
Paul Perrochet, Recherches sur la valeur de l'emploi de l'infinitif subordonne
en Latin (Paris: 'Les Belles Lettres ', 1932), pp. xiii and following.
19 According to the testimony of Tocco, the Scriptum was still in work at the
start of Thomas's first Parisian regency (1256). The first set of Questions in DV
was disputed during the academic year 1256-57. See James A. Weisheipl, Friar
Thomas d'Aquino (Garden City: Doubleday, 1974), pp. 358-59 and 362. I will
translate from the text of the Scriptum in Opera Omnia (Parma: 1852-73, rptd.
New York: Musurgia, 1948-50).
17

18

THE GRAMMAR OF 'ESSE '

9

on divine names (I ST q.13 a.11). What is not standard is any
grasp of the import of the relation between ens and actus essendi. The dependence of ' ens ' on the act of being-its being
imposed in response to that act-is crucial to the reading of
Thomas's teaching on the transcendentals.
This is not primarily a point about terminological constancy
in the texts. The terminology is too fluid for that. Not only
does Thomas revalue the vocabulary accumulated in Augustine,
Boethius, Avicenna, William of Auxerre, and others, he goes on
to employ the revalued terms with great flexibility. 20 (This is
to be connected with the mode of discourse in Thomas's writings.) Mondin cites various passages in which' ens' and' esse'
seem to be used interchangeably. 21 He even thinks that 'esse' is
sometimes equivalent to 'essentia.' 22 It is not the case, then, that
' ens ' is everywhere used with the full sense of its conceptual
relation to esse. But when Thomas emphasizes that relation, he
is speaking carefully.
What is the esse of which ens is properly a consequence or instance? Clearly, forms of 'esse' can serve either as copulas or
as existential predicates. The infinitive 'esse' used nominally
means something more. 23 Again, passages from the contemporaneous Scriptum make this clear. The infinitival 'esse'
designates the first act and intelligibility of entia. " Esse is the
20 See Battista Mondin, " St. Thomas Aquinas's Hermeneutics of Being," Doctor
Communis, 29 (1976), I46-74, pp. I50-56.
21 For example, I Sent d.19 q.5 a.I ad Im, 2 Sent d.37 q.I a.2 ad 3m; Mondin,
p. I57.
22 I Sent d.19 a.5 a.I, 3 Sent d.6 q.2 a.2 & ad 4m. Mondin also finds ' ens'
equated with 'essentia' at I Sent d.I9 q.5 a.I ad !Olm and d.23 q.I a.I.
•• That ' esse ' means something more for Thomas than the existential predicate
is what Fabro means by saying that esse is not just facticity. See the long Introduction to his Participation et caus.alite selon S. Thomas d'Aquin (Louvain: Pubis.
Universitaires & Paris. Beatrice-Nauwelaerts, 196I). This has been challenged at
various points recently by Frederick D. Wilhelmsen, "Existence and Esse," New
Scholasticism, 50 (1976), 20-45. If Wilhelmsen's able critique is not wholly convincing, it is in part because he does not engage himself in Fabro's hermeneutic
presuppositions. One might also recall, on the question of the distinction between
esse and existence, that debate sparked earliel' this century by one of Descoqs's
pieces. See especially Fabro's epilogue to the fray, "Neotomismo e Suarezismo,"
Divus Thomaa (P), 44 (1941), I67-U5, 420-98.

10

MARK D. JORDAN

act of the ens ... just as light is the act of what gives light" (1
Sent d.19 q.2 a.2). The intelligible primacy of esse is reflected
in the hierarchy of attributes belonging to entia: " whatever
exceeds in ess'e is simply m.ore noble than all those which exceed
in any one of the things which follow upon esse" (1 Sent d.17
q.1 a.2 ad Sm). The hierarchy of attributes includes the attribute of essence, which is nobler as it is more like the highest esse:
" By however much a quiddity is closer to the divine esse, that
much less has it of potency, and thus it is a greater simplicity;
and thus the more noble those will be which receive a nobler
esse" (2 Sent d.1, expos. of the first part) . If an ens instances
esse, it must exhibit the features of esse as first act, as source of
intelligibility, and as chief member of the hierarchy of attributes.
To repeat Heidegger's grammatical pun: the beings named by
the participle' ens' participate the characteristics of esse. Ens is
an instancing of the source of act, intelligibility, and every perfective attribute. For this reason, ens can be construed as the
ground (principium) of the other transcendentals. It is not the
subjectum to which they are added; it is, rather, the fullness out
of which they are ' abstracted '.
That should suffice for the construal of ' ens', which was the
first difficulty in the reading. It raises a second difficulty about
the genealogy of the transcendentals in De Veritate. This second difficulty concerns the status of the five transcendentals as
discrete. The transcendentals express general modes of ens, but
are neither restrictions of it nor additions to it. Neither are the
transcendentals parts of ens. Thomas summarizes these points
in the ScriptU1n by saying that the various terms are one in
supposit but many in meaning, in intention (1 Sent d.8 q.1 a.3).
The distinctions among them are notional and not real. What
the transcendentals express as many are 'really' one.21
In this respect, the Thomist transcendentals are unlike the
Platonic " great kinds " of the Sophist, especially as these are
rendered in neo-Platonism, and much like the "attributes"
"On the exact type of this diatinctio rationia, see Lotz, Metaphysica operationis
humanae, pp. 130-81.

THE GRAMMAR OF ' ESSE '

ll

which Aristotle associates with being. Such comparisons are
worth outlining for what they say about the status of the transcendentals. The Eleatic Stranger selects the kinds (y€vri) as
case studies in the inquiry about the "weaving together of
forms" (Sophist, 245c-255e, Q60a) . Their plurality is the starting point; the task is to explain their mixture in discourse
(25la-d; cf. 259a-b) . The combination of these kinds-Being,
Rest, Motion, Sameness, Difference-illustrates and secures the
intelligible combination of attributes reflected in speech. The
kinds are originally discrete and derivatively combined.
There is also a plurality of" attributes " in Aristotle. But the
plurality is not raised to the level of ontological primacy. Indeed, it is quickly reduced to unity. A case in point is the
relation of being to unity, which Aristotle treats in
Gamma of the Metaphysfos (Gamma 2, 1003b23-1005a18).
Aristotle argues that being and unity share " a single nature "
though they differ in meaning; " they are associated as are
source and cause, and not as being named in one definition "
(1003b23-25). The analogical unity of the instances of being
enahles the metaphysician, by the practice of his single science,
to consider being as being. That unity also seems to ground a
reduction of the Contraries (or Forms) of being to an original
dyad, which is itself reduced to being considered as ovo-la
(ens) .25 All Contraries reduce to Unity and Plurality (1005a35) .26 But Plurality can be reduced to Unity and Unity equated
with Being. Thus, the Contraries fall on an analogical scale
organized around the foci of being-and-unity. The Contraries
are originally unified and only derivatively discrete. 27
Thomas's own treatment of the transcendentals is not identical with Aristotle's treatment of the Contraries. This is due at
25 For a discussion of the Contraries and a reading of the whole passage,
Joseph Owens, The Doctrine of Being in the Aristotelian Metaphysics (2nd ed.,
Toronto: P. I. M. S., 1963), pp. 276-77 and 259-80 generally.
26 Apparently the reduction was performed in a (lost) treatise titled 'Selection
of the Contraries." See the allusions at 1004a2 and 1005al; compare Owens, Doctrine of Being, p. 278.
27 For additional passages which might be patched together as a doctrine of the
transcendentals, see also Metaphysics, 1004bll-20, and On the Heavens, 268a3.

M4RK D •. JORDAN

·

least in part to the Augustinian and neo-Platonic lineage of the
medieval handling of the transcendentals. 28 But Thomas's remarks on the status of discrete transcendentals seem to be like
Aristotle's remarks on the reduction of the contraries (cf. 4
InMet lect.2 nn.549,533.) Thomas does distinguish the various transcendentals, especially the couplets res-aliquid and
aliquid-umim, which might seem to overlap. For Thomas, ' res ' names the essence of an ens,. while ' aliquid ' refers to its being different from another. Similarly, 'unum'
asserts that an ens is not more than one, while ' aliquid ' says
that it is not something else. But it remains unclear to what
extent these distinctions are fixed. Indeed, in contemporaneous
texts Thomas lists only three transcendentals beyond ensbonum, unum, and verum (1 Sent d.8 q.1 a.3; DV q.21 aa.1,3)
There aliquid and res seem to have been combined in some
fashion with ens or unum. Let me postpone the question of the
exact number of the transcendentals until the second section.
For the moment, it is important to see that the distinctions
among the transcendentals, whatever their exact number, are
not hard and fast. Their arrangement according to a particular
scheme in De V eritate may be only a heuristic device of the sort
typical to quaestiones. Again, the flexibility in the enumeration
of the transcendentals shows the fundamental unity of the
transcendental features within esse, despite their conceptual
plurality. Here, too, the difference between the categories and
the transcendentals becomes apparent, since the number of the
categories seems fixed.
The text at hand raises a third, and final, difficulty on first
reading. The schematic derivation and cognitive import might
mislead one into thinking that the fact of the transcendentals
28 For a chapter in the pre-history of Thomas's genealogy, see Henri Poui!lon,
" Le premier Traite des Proprietes transcendentales: La ' Summa de bono ' du
Chancelier Philippe," Revue N eo-scolastique de Philosophie, 4£ (1939), 40-77.
29 The shorter list of three is also repeated some eight years later in the QQ.
DD. de Potentia, q. 9 a. 7 ad 6m. The variation in the length can be traced historically to Avicenna's addition of res and aliquid to an already established list
(his Metaphysica, I. 6). Thomas's use of the two lists recognizes the various stages
in the question.

THE GRAMMAR OF 'ESSE •

derives from grammatical rules. It might seem that Thomas is
after merely logical entailments among the terms. But, clearly,
Thomas sees thait the transcendentals are features of being
and not only of talk about being. He does not intend to give
an a priori deduction; the terms of his disjunctions are drawn
from experience. The division into appetite and will, for instance, depends on an acquaintance with souls. Even the distinction between divisio and convenientia might rest on the experience of participation. This is important. The Thomist
derivation of the transcendentals is not meant to be like the
Kantian deduction of the categories. It is, rather, a perspicuous
arrangement of features discovered in beings. This can be seen
clearly in one of the first phrases of the Article in De V eritate.
Ens is what first" falls (oodit)" into the view of mind. Mind
does not beget beings; it is ' gotten ' by them. The arrangement
of the features of being derives from an insight into the experience of beings, and not from postulates about the rules which
shape human thinking.Bo
Q.

The Grammar of the Transcendentals.

Troubled by a lack of rigor in the deduction of De Veritate,
a number of exegetes have wanted to add other transcendentals, or to re-arrange the list, or somehow to touch up the
argument. Some have suggested modality as a transcendentalor the pleasing, or sufficiency, or persistence.B1 The longeststanding suggestion has concerned the transcendental nature
of the beautiful, which was included as a transcendental by
Thomas's predecessors and by many of his admirers, down to
the most recent.B2 But these proposals are premature until one
has grasped what the transcendentals are. This can be re8° Kant's attack on the doctrine 0£ the transcendentals is wide of the mark (see
Critique of Pure Reason, BUS-16). Bnt even so sympathetic a reader as Kovach
slips into a mistakenly a priori and judgment-centered rendering 0£ the De Veritate
argument; see his Phil,osophy of Beauty, p. 241.
81 See the summary
in Joseph de Finance, Connaissance de l'etre. Traite
d'Ontologie (Paris & Bruges: Desclee de Brouwer, 1986), pp. 98-100.
••Most notably, Kovach, Phuosophy of Beauty, pp. 245-64.

14

MARK D, JORDAN

phrased as the demand that one understand the sense of the
discourse in D'e V eritate before attempting to edit it.
The derivation of the transcendentals in De Veritate rests
on the distinction between ens in sie and ens in ordine ad aliud.
This is the crucial disjunction: res and unum are only the negative and positive ways of characterizing ens in itself; aliquid,
bonum, verum are the negative and positive sides of ens in
relation to another. If the in se/ad aliud distinction is indeed
the root of the discourse, then it ought to contain the sense
of the list in De V eritate. I am not now concerned with the
suggestions which have been made for emending the list, though
the root distinction could be used to evaluate them. I am concerned rather with the differences between the list of transcendentals Thomas gives in De Veritate and the lists he gives elsewhere. Can the root distinction between in se and ad aliud be
used to reconcile the various lists? To repeat, those lists-some
of them contemporaneous-give
only three transcendentals:
unum, bonum, verum. It seems thait res and unum are to be
combined under ununi, while aliquid is to be subsumed under
one or both of bonum and verum. 33
Such a reduction of the transcendentals can be explained in
light of the root distinction. Ens taken in se is both res and
unum. Since res and unUJn are related as positive and negative,
they can be grasped in one. The same is true, though more
discursively, of the features of ens in ordine ad aliud. Aliquid
is a negative expression o.f ens as related; bonum and verum are
specific positive expressions of the same. Since, then, aliquid
is comprised in either bonum or verum, it can be expressed by
both of them. The reduction of transcendentals from five to
three underscores the root distinction, since the reduction is
made by bringing out the two disjuncts resulting from the dis•• Breton treats this dynamic aspect as something much like the Hegelian
dialectic. He thus justifies his ' circular ' reading of the genealogy, his exposition
of the movement from being through negation to indivision and plurality, and his
dislike for the disjunctions in Thomas's text (respectively, pp. 47-48, 52, and 57
in "L'idee de transcendental ") . This r.eading obscures the basic argument of the
text, which is not so much dialectical as hierarchical.

THE GRAMMAR OF 'ESSE '

15

tinction as more important than the differences within each of
them. By choosing the last member of each side of the distinction, the reduction also suggests that the genealogy in De
V eritate is ' dynamic ' rather than ' static '. Res is taken up
into unum, aliquid into bonum and verum; the second terms
seem to be understood as comprising the first.
But this reduction of the transcendentals is still only a step
towa.rds discerning their grammar. It runs the risk of being a
superficial re-arrangement. The reason for the arrangement has
yet to be grasped. It can be found, again, in the root distinction
between in se and in ordine ad aliud. That distinction suggests
that ens lends itself intrinsically to being understood as both
' in itself ' and ' in relation '. To be an ens is to be a member of
an order of entities in which the singular is held by relations of
c07lvenientia. The phrase ' in ordine ad aliud ' now becomes
helpful. Its use of ' ordo ' is crucial. The profoundest sense of
the in se/ ad aliud distinction is the understanding of ens as a
singular ordered within a whole. Ens as such is intrinsically
ordinahle. This ordinability is not one of the categories of relation which accrue to being per accidens. 84 It is, rather, the
fundamental source for the supra-categorial features of ens.
Understanding ens as intrinsically ordinable clarifies the
grammar of those three irreducible transcendentals. By' grammar ' I mean the pattern which renders sense apparent. The
grammar of the transcendentals is their internal structure as it
is understandable. Unum comprises the aspects of ens in se, of
ens as the singular thing which is ordered. It names immediately the unity of a particular. But it also names the particular
thing as one thing among many, as one ens among many such
34 This sort of relation is something like the real transcendental
relation which
was mooted by various neo-Thomists and
at length by Krempel, La doctrine de la relatfon chez saint Thomas (Paris: J. Vrin, 1952), pp. 554-62. It seems
to me that Krempel is plainly wrong; see the reply by M. A. Fiorito and A.
Navarrete, "Notas de exegesis tomista: La relaci6n de creatura a creador," Ciencia
y Fe, 19 (1968), 59-71. But the fundamental !.'elatedness of ens is not any real
transcendental relation. It is the source of all such relations and is particularly
expressed as the relation of creature to creator.

16

MARK D. JORDAN

entia. 'Unum' carries the implication of membership in an
order of like things, using 'order' as it is used in biology. It
names both the unity of this being and the unity of such beings. Unum might, then, be glossed as completeness-the completeness both of the singular and of the array of all like
singulars.
' Bonum ' means, immediately, the fitness of ens for the will.
This might seem to be a remark about a relation to human
will; men desire something and so deem it good. But the relation of things to human wills is a secondary and dependent
relation. It depends on the relation of things to the divine will.
'Bonum' refers most properly to the place of the entity in a
divine providence. But this suggests that ' bonum ' names the
place of the entity in the teleological movement of the creation
back to God. Here the notion of order has been enriched. It is
not an array of likeness only, but also a duration and a movement. Bonum might best be glossed as finality. To be good is
to fall under the willed plan of divine providence.
Verum must be understood in the same way. The truth of
the human mind depends on the prior truth of things with respect to the divine mind (DV q .1 a.2) . The truth of the thing
is its showing forth the divine ' thought ' in it. This serves once
again to expand the notion of ens as ordinable. What was before understood as a teleological array can now be seen as an
intelligible showing forth. Ens is ordinable not opaquely, not
mutely, but significantly and intelligibly. Verum specifies the
order comprised in ens as an intelligible one, as eminent in
range of attributes and in complexity of hierarchical disposition. Verum can be glossed, then, as manifestness, understanding this as the communicability and complexity of what is
radically intelligible.
Ens itself is intelligibly ordinable.. Seeing this, one understands unum, bonum, and verum as completeness, finality, and
manifestness. This may sound like the results which Rahner
and others derive by a ' Transcendental ' reading of Thomas.
Rahner's first principle of ontology, for example, is phrased in

THE GRAMM,AR OF ' ESSE '

17

terms of the ''being-present-to itself" of a "luminosity ". 35
Coreth places the analysis of the transcendentals after chapters on ' the question ' and immediately after a section on being
as horizon. 36 But the resemblances between those readings and
the present one are superficial. 'Transcendental Thomism'
begins always with the ground and horizon for the possibility
of human experience. Its justification for this seems to be a
sense for the "anthropocentric" elements in Thomas. 37 The
present reading begins with the opposite sense-that of Thomas's profound subordination of natural to supernatural in a
hierarchy of discourses. It takes as starting point Thomas's
fundamental insight into the features of esse, which is an antimodern claim about the dominion of being over mind. It tries
to discover the grounds for the possibility of ens as ordinable,
insisting that such order is inherent in ens. The starting place
is not with the possibility for human experience, but with the
foundation for the hierarchy within which human experience
will stand. Any resemblances ought to be suspect.
Ens itself is intelligibly ordinable; its transcendental features
are completeness, finality, and manifestness. This reading of
the transcendentals as the constituents of order finds support
from two different doctrines in Thomas. The first, and more
obvious, is the notion of the pure perfections of esse. The second is the analysis of the beautiful. I will take them up in
order.
The pure perfections appear, among other places, in that
same article on the Divine Names from the Scriptum. Thomas
there argues that " esse is the first among all perfections of
divine goodness, such as vivere, intelligere, and the like; and it
3 ° Karl Rahner,
Hearers of the Word, tr. M. Richards (New York: Herder &
Herder, 1969), p. 37.
••Emerich Coreth, Metaphysilc
ed., Innsbruck, Vienna, & Munich: Tyrolia,
1964), pp. 3£3-4£3, but especially the introductory remarks at pp. 323-£4.
87 See the measured defense by J. Donceel, "Transcendental
Thomism," Monist,
58, (1974), 67-85, particularly pp. 67-68. Donceel fails to see the presumption (and
radical historicism) in the claim that we ought to revalue Thomas's thought because
we have questions he could not have had (p. 84). Such a program can only deafen
one to a text.

18

MAR!{ ]), JORDAN

is something like the principle of the others, having in itself all
of them, somehow united into one " (1 Sent d.8 q.1 a.I). Later,
in the commentary on the Divine Names, Thomas describes
three such
vivere, intelligere.38 That
treatment of the perfections is secured by refeernce to PseudoDionysius. It is not hard to find still other roots for the doctrine. A similar trio is described in Plato's Sophist (248e) . It
is greatly elaborated by the neo-Platonists. 39 Aristotle uses
these perfections to describe the divine life. 40 They correspond,
again, to the levels of Aristotelian science: metaphysics/physics,
biology, and metaphysics/psychology. 41 Augustine offers them
to Evodius as an exemplary hierarchy in an hierarchical argument for God's providence. 42 They appear in more refracted
fom1 as the three parts of knowing in the City of God.43 But
the most telling parallel for the three pure perfections in
Thomas is precisely the three irreducible transcendentals: existere, vivere, intelligere correspond to unum, bonum, verum.
To exist is to be one. To live is to be expressly moving towards
a good. To know is to stand in relation to the truth.
One should expect such correlations between the perfections
and the transcendentals for two related reasons. First, created
esse is an image of the divine esse; Thomas says this explicitly
in the same comment on the Sentences. The pure perfections of
38 Especially paragraphs
#633 and following. Cf. 1-2 ST q.2 a.5 ad 2m; 1 ST q.4
a.2 ad 3m. See the discussion in Fabro, Participation et causalite, pp. 22529 and 252-60.
39 For an extensive analysis of the doctrine as it figures in Plotinus, see Pierre
Hadot, " :Btre, Vie, Pensee chez Plotin et avant Plotin," in Les sources de Plotin,
Entretiens Hardt #5 (Vandoeuvres-Geneva: Fondation Hardt, 1960), 103-41. For
the doctrine in Proclus, Stephen E. Gersh, KlP?]O'IOS aKlP?]TOS: A Study of Spiritual
Motion in the Philosophy of Proclus (Leiden: E. J. Brill, 1973), pp. 16-24 and
throughout.
•o Metaphysics, Lambda 7, 1072b26-28.
41 Alternately, in Aristotle's own terms, the perfections correspond to the triplet
Physics-Ethics-Logic
(Topics, I.14, 105bl9-20). This division became classic
from Xenocrates forward and came to influence the doctrine of the perfections; see
John Dillon, The Middle Platonists (Ithaca: Cornell Univ., 1977), pp. 23, 63; and
Hadot, pp. 125-27.
•• Augustine, De Libero Arbitrio, II.3 and following.
••Augustine, De Civitate Dei, VIII.4; cf. De Trinitate, VI.IO.

THE GRAMMAR OF 'ES.SE '

19

divine esse must be adumbrated in the transcendental features
of created esse. "[T]he esse found in creatures allows one to
see the divine Qui est by exemplary deduction" (I Sent d.8 q.l
a.I ad
. " [T]he esse of the creature imperfectly represents
the divine esse" (ad 3m). There is also a second reason for
expecting the correlations. The transcendentals are grasped by
seeing ens as itself intelligibly ordinable. They are, to speak in
formulae, the elementary constituents of hierarchy. The pure
perfections, in contrast, are grasped by seeing the topmost
member of the hierarchy, who sums eminently all of the hierarchical relations. If the transcendentals constitute the minimum view of order, the perfections are the maximum.
But even more fascinating corroboration for the reading of
the transcendentals as expressions of order is found in Thomas's
aesthetic theory. Thomas analyzes the beautiful as integritas.
consonantia, and claritas (e.g., at I ST q. 39 a.8). But integritas,
or perfectio, is equivalent to unum. Consonantia, which Thomas
also understands as proportio, can be linked with the providential and intentional bonum. Finally, claritas marvelously expresses the sense of verum as manifestness. That there should
be this further analogy between the transcendentals and the
aesthetic notes can be seen in recalling the connection between
order and beauty. Indeed, what is intelligibly ordinable becomes present to the mind most powerfully; a basic aesthetics,
one that is ontological, tries to explicate precisely this presence
by reference to the innermost structure of ens. Unambiguous
textual warrant for reading the features of beauty ontologically
can be found in Thomas's commentary on the Divine Names. 44
The analogy is exact. Just as the features of ens culminate
in veruni, so the aesthetic features are summed in claritas. Integritas is completeness or totality; the beautiful thing is itself
complete and forms part of a whole. Consonantia is the principle of finality by which various members of the whole are re.. Consider the place of pulchrum in the argument of the commentary on the
Divine Names, especially c.4 lect.8 and c.5, where Thomas treats the causality of
the beautiful and the divine exemplarity.

MARK D. JORDAN

lated to a first
explains the principle in just
this fashion while annotating the Divine Names. 45 But both
integritas and consonantia presuppose claritas, as the order of
beings and its return to the topmost member presuppose the
manifestness of the members for each other, and the still deeper
irradiation of God in all. Claritas is the "communication of
the divine ' beams ' of light, which is the source of all light." 46
It is the work of the ontologically basic "manifesting light",
the lumen manifestans. 41
The analogy to the aesthetic notes helps solve some of the
perplexities raised at the beginning of this section. The number
of the irreducible transcendentals is three because there are
three properties of hierarchical order-whether this order is an
order of beings, of perfections, or of resplendence. These three
' properties ' can be understood as themselves part of a hierarchy of types of order. There is the order of array, the order
of the end, and the order of reflection. The alternate ' transcendentals '-modality, sufficiency, persistence, or whatevermust be understood as further specification of these three types
of order which constitute ens as ordinable. Perhaps each of
these irreducibles ought to be understood as a focus for a set of
secondary features. 48 But all such secondary' transcendentals'
are to be re-interpreted with an eye to the fundamental insight
into ens as ordinable. There is no other ground on which a
transcendental could stand except this intelligible ordinability.
So far as the beautiful is concerned, the present analysis suggests that it should not be considered a fourth irreducible transcendental. Nor is it a species of the good, or some combination
of the good and the true. 49 It is, rather, another way of construing the same irreducible attributes of order. If one were
going to include it in the scheme of De Veritate, it would fall
InDivNom c.4 lect.6 #36\!-67.
c.4 lect.5 #340.
47 For example, 2-2 ST q.142 a.2; see Edgar
de Bruyne, Etudes d'Esthetique
medievale (Bruges: 'De Tempel ', 1947), vol. 3, chap. 10.
48 This is the suggestion of de Finance, Connaissance de l'etre, p. 100.
•• Kovach's proposal, Philosophy of Beauty, pp. 241-42.
45

46 InDivNom

THE GRAMMAR OF 'ESSE 1

!U

not at the level of unum, bonum, verum, but at the level of ens
itself. To say that all beings are beautiful is to state explicitly
the importance of intelligible order in the very notion of being.
To summarize: The basic syntax of the transcendentals is
contained in three isomorphic triplets. The irreducible transcendentals, unum, bonum, verum, are reflected both by the pure
perfections, existere, vivere, intelligere, and by the marks of the
beautiful, integritas, consonantia, claritas. The last term of
each triplet sums the intelligible ordinability of ens. To be is to
be true, to be intelligible, and to irradiate the divine ' light '.
The grammar of the transcendental features of ens suggests that
what is instanced by ens-esse itself-must be understood as an
active manifestation, as an intelligibility, and as an illumination-irradiation. If the transcendentals do form a grammar of
ens, and if ens in some manner expresses esse, what does esse
itself 'mean'?
3. The Purport of Esse.
The three irreducible transcendentals are the general modes
of ens. But ens itself stands in some relation to esse. The first
section suggested that the participle ' ens ' was to be read as an
instance of the infinitive 'esse '. That relation has now to be
broken into its parts. These are two. In instancing a verb, any
participle makes concrete some act and makes it concrete as
this act. Thus, ens makes some act concrete and so participates
in it as some particular act. But since esse is a curious sort of
verb and since it is also tied in some way to the topmost member of the universal hierarchy, it seems that ens makes concrete
act itself and is participation itself. Ens instances not just
some activity, but act as such. It participates not any quality,
but that ordinability which makes participation possible. It
will not be possible to study either of these elements in detail.
That is not requisite for a reading of the text in De V eritate.
But it will be possible to connect Thomas's handling of esse as
act and as participated with other handlings of it. This should
complete the reading of De Veritate by fleshing out its language.

MARK D. JORDAN

The kernel of the Aristotelian notion of act is found in the
ninth Book of the Metaphysics (Theta 6). Act, Aristotle
writes, is the " existence o:f the thing " not in the way of potency. It is like " the one who builds with respect to the one
who has the ability to build; like the one who sees with respect
to the one who has his eyes closed, but has sight; like what has
been separated from the material with respect to the material;
and the finished work to what is unworked " (1048a36-b4; other
examples at 1048a30-35). It is interesting that so crucial a term
is defined by Aristotle ostensively. Thomas explains this procedure as due to the simplicity of act; it is a " first simple notion." 50 Aristotle goes on to distinguish various senses of' act';
he distinguishes, for instance, motions from actualizations
(1048b28-30). In subsequent chapters, he discusses the senses
of potentiality and the priority of actuality over potentiality
(cf. 1048b35-36) . He seems to take the sense of act itself as
sufficiently established.
"What has he established? Two things come clear in the induction. First, act is an analogous term. Second, it is, in its
purest sense, a term of intention and purpose. The technical
term ' evreA.exeZa' is introduced precisely to denote act as ordered to an end (1047a30-3Q). These two points hint at a
richer notion of act as what is constitutive of an intentional
hierarchy, a 1Tpoc; iiv analogy which is also ordered to an end.
But the discussion of Book Theta does not posit this hierarchical actuality as the principle of being. It leaves the matter to
be grasped inductively. Thomas thus requires something more
for his notion of the actus essendi than what he finds in the
Aristotelian discussion of act.
Thomas finds other warrants in the tradition for his reworking of the notion of act, and not only in the Arabic commentaries. The chief warrant-one that colors the commentaries as
well-is the neo-Platonic analysis of evepye'ia.51 Thomas in•• See 9 InMet lect.5 nn.1826-27.
61 Some neo--Platonists want to take this over as Aristotelian, especially by
exegesis of a passage in Metaphysics, Lambda 7, 1072b26-28. See Gersh, p. 4. Dillon
remarks on the Aristotelian accretions in neo-Platonism, but does not focus on the
transformation of the doctrine of €11ep'Yela.

THE GRAMMAR OF 'ESSE '

herits this directly from Pseudo-Dionysius and the Liber de
Causia. The neo-Platonic re-interpretation of Evepye'ia serves
both to expand the the Aristotelian notion and to connect it
with notions of intrinsic hierarchical order. This can be seen
very easily in Pseudo-Dionysius. In one illustrative passage,
Dionysius defines hierarchy as order
activity (Evepye'ia),
and intelligence
.52 One might see here another
variation on the existere, vivere, intelligere triplet. But what is
more interesting in the present context is the inclusion of
within the definition of hierarchy. 'Evepye'ia is explained by Dionysius as the activity of assimilation to God
according to an hierarchically determined aptness. 53 This activity of assimilation according to hierarchical order is in turn
divided into purification, illumination, and the giving of perfection.54 These are distributed by Dionysius among various
celestial ranks, but the distribution is then relativized by the
assertion that each rank may share in each activity. 55 All are
eminently realized in the Godhead. Indeed, all activity proceeds from that Godhead and returns to it. 56
The parallels with Thomas are striking. In holding for the
profound constitution of created beings in the hierarchical
transmission of evepye'ia, Dionysius has meditatively appropriated Proclus's teaching. But he has also provided the means
for opening Aristotle to the Thomist reading. The hierarchy
of participated Evepye'ia.-the hierarchy which is constituted by
the participation of €vepye'ia-allows one to explain the order of
creation, the teleological movement of that order back to God,
and the thoroughgoing intelligibility of the order as rooted in
02 See the exposition in Celestial Hierarchy, IILl-2.
For an analysis based on
these passag.cs, see Rene Roques, L'univers dionysien. Structure hierarchique du
1nonde selon le Pseudo-Denys (Paris: Aubier-Montaigne, 1954), pp. 35-131.
58 Celestial Hierarchy, 164D, 165A; Roques, p. 92.
04 Celestial Hierarchy, 165-BC.
55 See the discussion in Roques, pp. 97-99. Compare Hadot, pp. 128-29.
58 Divine Names, 693B; Ecclesiastical Hierarchy, 508D.
Roques, pp. 111-16. I
leave aside the infinite ' distance ' between creature and creator which is seen as an
unlikeness between divine power and created power.

MARK D. JORDAN .

God. In other words, something very much like the Dionysian
model of the hierarchical mediation of evEpyE'ia is taken over by
Thomas to explain the order of beings and, thus, the grammar
of the transcendentals. But the model is equally powerful in
explaining the purport of esse itself. In the same way that all
created esse is for Thomas by participating in the divine esse,
so all the Dionysian hierarchical orders are actualized and can
act by participation in the one act, the one evEpylia of the
Godhead. 57 Just as Thomas will say that God, the giver of esse,
is more intimate to any entity than all secondary causes, so
Dionysius will imply that each entity in the hierarchy is closer
in its evEpy{ia to God than to other entities. 58
These similarities of formulation and of explanation are helpful for many reasons, though they are not meant to imply any
identity of ontology between Thomas and Dionysius. In the
reading of De V eritate, they are most helpful in suggesting how
esse might be conceived so that it could be instanced as an ens
with just the transcendental features of unum, bonum, verum.
If created esse is an act which comprises hierarchical order, and
if divine esse is such that it stands to created esse as topmost
member of the universal hierarchy, then one can see how the
instance of esse will necessarily have the features unum, bonum,
verU?n. The transcendentals are no more than the hierarchial
participability of the divine esse itself. This connects with the
all-too-familiar but never comprehended Thomist doctrine
about the absence in God of a distinction between essence and
esse. God stands as the topmost member of the most comprehensive hierarchy. God is Qui est. He gives to the hierarchy,
then, what He is as Qui est. He gives, that is, the ordering of
beings by participation in Himself. That infuses into created
beings the three transcendentals understood as the properties
of ordinability, that is, as completeness, finality, and manifestness.
57 I Sent d.4 q.I a.I ad 2m, d.8 q.l a.I ad 2m, d.19 q.2 a.I; Celestial Hierarchy,
168A, Divine Names, 698B.
58 2 Sent d.I q.I a.4; Celestial Hierarchy, 168A. See Roques, p. 115.

THE GRAMMAR OF 'ESSE '

Here one reaches an understanding of the intrinsic ordinability of ens. The ordinability derives from the hierarchical participation of creatures in esse. This should not be viewed
passively, as if God's esse suffered itself to be participated by
creatures. Nor is it to be conceived mechanically, on analogy
to some textbook version of neo-Platonic emanationism. Rather,
the participation of esse is a willed resemblance of the divine
esse made in creatures. It is the cause of the verum, of the
intelligible likeness of the divine esse and the esse in creatures.
It is the possibility for both the divine and the human intelligere, since it is the unity in likeness of esse that allows God to
see Himself in creatures and creatures to see each other as
images of God. Finally, this gift of esse is the ontological basis
for the aesthetician's claritas. The creation of esse can be described metaphorically as a willed irradiation of the light of the
divine esse. This metaphor is approved in a striking phrase
from Thomas's commentary on the Libe1· de Causis: "Actualitas
rei est sicut lumen ejus "-the thing's actuality is something
like its light (I.6) .59
To the question, What does the relation of ens to esse imply
for the doctrine of the transcendentals?, there are now two answers. First, the transcendentals make manifest the intrinsic
actuality of esse. Second, they make manifest the hierarchical
structure of the creature's participation in the divine esse. There
is also a third answer, though it can only be adumbrated here
by way of ending.
The transcendental features of esse were seen to be isomorphic with the pure perfections of the divine life-existere,
vivere, intelligere. The only entities which have the capacity
for intellection are persons. Thomas understands by 'person'
nothing but a subsisting thing within the genus of an intellectual nature. 60 The transcendental features of esse are the characteristics of persons. The transcendentals are shadows of the
Compare the metaphor of light at I Sent d.19 q.£ a.£.
Thomas borrows the definition of person, with modification, from Boethius's De
Duabus Naturis, c.3. It runs throughout Thomas's works, e.g., 4 SCG c.10 n.4,
c.48 n.£; I ST q.£9 aa.1,£.
69

60

26

MARK D, JOIIDAN

entity which is ·eminently personal. In this way, the Thomist
ontology is always to be read from the top down. The question
is not, How does one climb up to God on the ontological scale?
The question is, rather, How does one truncate the divine wayof-heing in order to see its reflection in creatures?
Because it is read from the top down, any problem in Thomist
into
ontology about the status of the transcendentals is
another context. It is not helpful to ask about the inherence of
the transcendentals in esse, as if they were accidents. Nor is it
helpful to ask how one gets from esse to the transcendentals, as
if there were an Hegelian mime to be performed. The purest
esse is a divine being with the attributes of personhood. In
Him, all transcendentals are brought together into an existing,
living, and knowing unity. That is the ultimate subjectum in
which the unification of the transcendentals takes place. 61 The
three irreducible transcendentals seem to be the constituents of
the sorts of order. But the highest order, the one which is the
cause and principle of the others, is the order within the personhood of God.
It is in this sense that Thomist ontology is ineradicably
theocentric. Its first principle and last resort are a person. This
person enacts in eminent fashion the features of being which
are participated in hierarchical order by other entia. By a
happy chance of rhetoric, then, the relations among the transcendental features of any ens do make up what is truly a grammar. They make up the grammar of the speaking which is
creation. The words of that speech are the various entia. The
purport of that speech is the image of God in created esse. This
shows how appropriate is the handling of the transcendentals
in a question on truth, and how comprehensive is the argument
of De Veritate.
MARK

D. JORDAN

University of Dallas
Irving, Texa.s
01 Recall Lotz's concluding remark: " Cum ergo transcendentalia de se simplicitatem et illimitationem includent, etiam immo maxime de ente infinito valent;
omni vero enti finito ipsa simplicitatis et infinitatis communicant" (Metaphysica
operationis humana, p. 133).

DISPLACING DAMNATION: THE NEGLECT OF HELL
IN POLITICAL THEORY

Man, as by good or ill deserts, in the exercise of his free choice,
he becomes liable to rewarding or punishing justice.
-Dante to Can Grande della Scala, Commenting on The
Divine Comedy.
The most significant consequence of the secularization of the
modern age may well be the elimination from public life, along
with religion, of the only political element in traditional religion,
the fear of hell.
--Hannah Arendt, Between Past and Future, Viking, 1968, p.
133.

P

ROFESSOR J. W. ALLEN once remarked about the
man who forms the intellectual transition to Machiavelli
and modern theory, that for Marsilius of Padua, "the
function of the priest, in fact, is to supplement the action of the
police and the judge by the fear of hell." 1 Even Marsilius
seemed uneasy with this curious thesis, but his whole political
thought was an effort to add to Aristotle's causes of revolution
the one he could not have foreseen, the Christian clergy. Since
Marsilius had reduced the spiritual power already to pure interiority, this left the priests with nothing to do except perhaps
make mischief and civil unrest. And yet, in recalling this hesitation, that perhaps police and judges did need something more
than themselves and bare reason to preserve the very public
order itself, Marsilius unconsciously placed himself within an
aspect of political reflection going back at least to Plato and
forward to Hannah Arendt and Lezak Kolakowski.
The very idea o:f "judges and police," moreover, recalls the
1 J. W. Allen, "Marsilius
of Padua," Social and Political Ideas of Medieval
Thinkers, F. Hearnshaw, (Ed.) New York, Barnes and Noble, 1923 p. 180.

27

28

JAMES V. SCHALL, S. J.

Stoic and Christian notions of the origin of coercive government in a Fall, while the modern theoretical effort to gain for
politics complete autonomy from " the priestly causes of revolution," from the claim that not all things belong to Caesar,
has resulted in an attempt to identify " hell " with a worldly
political movement or event-a Hitler, a holocaust, a tyranny.
In this sense, " hell " has come to be identified with the question
known since the Greeks as the worst form of government.
" Hell on Earth " has become a viable political polarity against
which to define and practically justify political movements and
thoughts. This idea seemed stable enough in a culture based
on known natural law and values such that the evils to be described were commonly agreed upon. With the introduction of
Hegelian methodology in its various forms, however, the distressing possibility that the worst could become the best came
to be posed at the heart of practical politics because of the nature of a certain kind of abstract metaphysics.
The intellectual history of political theory, of course, recalls
with uneasy equanimity the last days of Socrates, when the best
state condemned the best man, the long discourse on the immortality of the soul, the classic context even yet about the
relation of human politics to human happiness and meaning. 2
The end of The Republic, however, presented something of a
different issue. Socrates, in a passage of much power, had raised
the still startling issue of immortality at the heart of political
discourse. But this time, in The Republic, not in the face of
death by the state but rather in the inability of the public order to rest if justice was not rewarded and injustice punished
did the question of absolute punishment come up. This, be it
noted, was already one very large step beyond the Sophoclean
notion that vengeance can only be stopped in the polis. And so
it seemed clear that since no existing order less than the one
formed by the philosopher-king as a direct result of his clear
2 Cf. the author's "The Death
of Christ and Political Theory," Worldview,
March, 1978; "The Best Form of Government," The Review of Politics, January,
1978.

DISPLACING

knowledge of the Good could guarantee this, the idea of future
rewards and punishments was necessary for the good of the existing political order itself as well as for the apparently theoretically inadequate idea of justice.
Hell is not an exclusively Christian concept, of course, but its
history and necessity arise out of justice questions. Certainly,
Homer and Vergil themselves remind us of the places below.
None the less, the long theological refinement on what precisely
" hell " might mean has given it in our eyes distinctly Christian
overtones as it has been narrowed and explicitated over the
centuries. Here, perhaps, it is well to cite The Oxford Dictionary of the Christian Churches to recall the theological point of
the idea of hell, a point that conditions western political reflections:
... In the New Testament Hell ... is an ultimate state or destiny
into which souls pass only by God's final and irrevocable judgment .... According to traditional scholastic theology, souls experience in Hell both the poena damni, i. e., the exclusion from
God's presence and loss of all contact with him, and a certain
poena sensus, denoted in the Bible by fire, which is usually interpreted as an external agent tormenting them.
Modern theology tends rather to stress the fact that Hell is but
the logical consequence of ultimate adherence to the soul's own
will, and rejection of the will of God, which (since God cannot
take away free will) necessarily separates the soul from God, and
hence from all possibility of happiness. This exclusion from Heaven
(in which the unrepentant person would from his very character
be both unable and unwilling to share) is held to be contrary
neither to God's justice nor his love, since he will not force response
to the good from any creature against his will.3

From this, it is evident that "hell" is a doctrine about the ultimate reality and possibility of human freedom, as well as a
recognition that logically evil must be punished and good rewarded. Hell, then, is not so much a doctrine about God as
about man and the importance of his actions both within and
transcending the polis.
8

F. L. Cross, (Ed.) Oxford University Press, 1958, p. 620.

30

.JAMES V. SCHALL, $, J.

The effect of these ideas is nowhere more clear than in
Augustine. And as Augustine is in the direct line of both
Plato and the New Testament, himself a political philosopher
of the greatest moment, it is well to recall that the ultimate
" City of Man " and hell are irreversibly connected in his
thought. Augustine, in The City of God, still wanted to know
about the "fire" of hell, about its eternity, its permanence. 4
Yet, the essential point-and this is again the characteristic
Christian emphasis-is that the question of hell is the question
of the nature of will, not cosmological place or material.
From this point of view, then, Augustine's great contribution
to political theory falls precisely within the platonic tradition
of properly political thought, namely, can we legitimately expect a rearranging of the civil order to give us all our proper
places within the true Good? Can politics, in other words, yield
the kind of happiness to which we seem ultimately called? This
is the issue that will lie at the heart of all political theory
proper and wrench the very minds and states of men. In defining the City of God and the City of Man so that they be not
identified with Church or Empire, then, Augustine was careful
to deny to actual politics the burden of guaranteeing man's
ultimate good. All pecularily "modem" political theory will be
a valiant, if vain, effort to retain this impossible burden for
itself. And yet, Augustine himself, paradoxically, did not deny
that there was such an ultimate good and happiness, nor did he
deny it was open to man. What he denied, following Paul, was
that it was the product of a political construction or reconstruction depending on mainly human genius, will, or merit.
Augustine, then, placed the center of the whole discussion
clearly in will. What unites and divides is the very will, not law
or polity. This is why Augustine, in a momentous act, denied
justice to be the constitutive element in any existing state. Instead, he replaced justice with a common " love," a will, a recognition that men can in fact choose a politics that is not just and
often do. Augustine, therefore, was not concerned with the
•Cf. Augustine, The City of God, Book XXI, Chapters 9-15.

DISPLACING DAMNATION

Sl

ultimate status of the City of' Man so much to keep men
in order in the state as he was to confront the platonic and
aristotelian questions about the ultimate locus of human happiness and its relation to political life. Hell, in this sense, was a
metaphysical and religious issue, flowing out of the refusal to
choose justice and salvation, or rather, flowing out 0£ the choice
of one's own form 0£ justice. So Augustine held that it is a
choice, a love, that has built the two cities. With this profound
insight, Augustine became the founder 0£ " political realism,"
(along with Thucydides), the notion that more or less unjust
societies had to deal with more or less unjust men and that of
such will be the abiding condition 0£ men in all generations
wherein there are men.
Aquinas, in his Treatise on Law, likewise was concerned with
the legitimate place 0£ politics. Aristotle was £or him the main
guide, though Aquinas ought never to be read without also
realizing that he is Augustine's greatest follower. This meant
that the political order does address itself to a certain kind 0£
happiness, to the question that came to be known since Plato's
Laws, as the Second Best State. Thus, politics has a legitimate
area. There are things that do belong to Caesar. But politics
does not exhaust the meaning of man nor his happiness even
though he be precisely the " social and political animal," as
Aquinas translated Aristotle.
In his famous question about the philosophic " necessity " 0£
the divine law, of revelation, therefore, Aquinas argued clearly
that civil law could not directly 0£ its own force reach the internal forum of conscience, that it could not punish all wrongs
nor reward all rights. 5 Consequently, without some revelation
of divine justice and mercy, men would not be able to accept
the " rightness " of the whole cosmic order nor of their own
political systems, which could never be themselves direct responses to transcending issues. Again, the issue 0£ hell, o:f our
ultimate punishment, arose in a political context, this time in
Aquinas's question about whether all evils had to be punished
5

I-II, 91, 4.

by civil law; but here it served to restrict the civil order from
claiming absolute power over all mind and act as well as to
uphold the basic sense of justice that logically demands the
punishment of politically undetected wrong. 6 And "wrong" is
conceived in Aquinas to be an act against the kind of rational,
free being, whose explanation for what he is lies ultimately in
God, not in men. This is precisely why there is a hierarchy of
laws so that the law of freedom cannot be set against the law of
God that made man to be man in the first place, as Aristotle
said.
Aquinas, in the Contra Gentiles, wherein he treated of the
ultimate consequences of serious fault, again argued on a political analogy but on the Augustinian-Christian premise that it is
free will that makes the eternal punishment justifiable, that a
" free " creature with no possibility of choosing God or refusing
his world is an intrinsic contradiction. Hell thus is part of the
necessary consequences to being human in the first place.
Thomas Aquinas thus argued:
Natural equity would seem to argue that one would be deprived
of that precise good against which he acted. Because of his act
then, he renders himself unworthy of that good. Thus it is that,
according to civil justice, anyone who acts against the common
good is deprived of that same commonweal either by death or by
perpetual exile. Nor is the issue how long the crime took, but what
it is against when it did take place.
The same comparison is valid if the whole present life is referred
to the earthly estate, and of all eternity to the Society of the
Blessed which achieves the ultimate end eternally. So whoever
sins against this ultimate end and against charity, through which
in the first place exists the society of the Blessed and those tending
towards it, ought to be punished eternally even though he only
seemed to act for a brief moment of time. 7
From this point of view, then, the purpose of eternal punishment is to allow freedom the consequences of its metaphysical
choice, its own ,seriousness, which is taken against the kind of
• I-II, 96,2.
•Contra Gentiles, III, CXLIV.

DISI'LACING :PAMNATION

83

" good " for which classical political philosophy somehow proposed searching from its beginning in Plato and Aristotle. Hell,
thereby, frees politics from an impossible worldly burden inasmuch as it enforces a contingent, imperfect civil order in such
a way that the same civil order is not required to exercise absolute justice and punishment.
So long as hell was conceived as a purely religious problem,
no doubt, it was largely ignored by political theory, though a
reading of the last book of The Leviathan will readily show that
even the most rigoristic materialist philosopher acknowledged
its need to be accounted for, if only to prevent his own political
construct from itself becoming the " hell," which indeed it appeared to be. The tendency of liberal theory in modern times, in
any case, has been systematically to deny that anything done by
man within society, or even without, could be so horrendous as
to deserve such a consequence known from theology as hell.
This indeed did seem "liberal," though whether the elimination
of the absoluteness connected with hell results in a liberal consequence remains to be discussed. Thus from the Enlightenment, we supposedly learned that this doctrine of hell was one
that so shackled men that they did not eliminate the social ills
they could remove because they assumed hell would ultimately
correct all unpunished wrongs. But if hell is " demythologized,"
so to speak, then it logically follows that evil and destructive
social orders, the classical forms of bad rule, need not be seen
cyclically as with Thucydides, but programmatically in order
that they become objects for political elimination.
This is the project of Rousseau, when he, prophetically, decided to identify the source of evil in the state and civilization
not in the Fall as in classic Christianity and in its consequences
-in labor, birth in pain, and coercive government, as Augustine
and Aquinas saw it-but in the property and governmental relationships themselves. When Aristotle had previously hinted
that the human condition itself has a tendency to rebel against
its proper limits, its seeming bondage as the lowest of the spiritual beings, because the highest good was properly contemplative

.tAMES v. $CH:ALL, s. J:

and therefore not directly the product of man's own political
making, his own " action," he set the stage for a political theory
refusing to accept Aristotle's own limits. This meant, as it historically worked itself out, that the goal of politics could be
conceived as an effort to produce a full and proper happiness
for man, one proper to him because formed and chosen for him
not by " nature " but by man himself. The " optimism " of
Enlightenment thought and that flowing from it, even until
today, is based upon the rejection of any metaphysical limits to
this project.
The other side of reducing the proposal for ultimate happiness to a political project, however, was already revealed in the
French Revolution, wherein it became clear that the terror
seemed the logical consequence of the optimistic theory. Burke,
from his post in England, was not wrong in suspecting that
something was radically dangerous about the perfectionist project. His words linger still to echo the thesis that even kings and
queens remain human against the first signs of utopian ideologies in modern world:
This king, to say no more of him, and this queen, and their
infant children, (who once would have been the pride and hope
of a great and generous people) were then forced to abandon the
sanctuary of the most splendid palace in the world, which they
left swimming in blood, polluted by massacre, and strewed with
scattered limbs and mutilated carcases. Thence they were conducted into the capital of their kingdom. Two had been selected
from the unprovoked, unresisted, promiscuous slaughter, which
was made of the gentlemen of birth and family who composed
the king's body guard. These two gentlemen, with all the parade
of an execution of justice, were cruelly and publicly dragged to
the block, and beheaded in the great court d the palace. Their
heads were stuck upon spears, and led the procession; whilst the
royal captives who followed in the train were slowly moved along,
amidst the horrid yells, and shrilling screams, and frantic dances,
and infamous contumelies, and all the unutterable abominations of
the furies of hell, in the abused shape of the vilest of women. 8
•Edmund Burke, Reflexions on th:e Revolution in France, Chicago, Gateway,
19.55, pp. 105-06.

l>lSPLACINGcDAMNATION

And ever since this time, especially since the post-World War
I era, there has been an underground tendency that recognized
that an actual this-worldly "hell" was the other side of the
perfectionist endeavors. Dostoyevsky had already foreseen that
the old theory of tyranny would have to be replaced by a devil
incarnate, a hell on earth, which made men believe that bread
was really their goal.
Thus, hell has not been abolished as theologically untenable
but rather it has reappeared in secular guise. No longer is
evil seen to result from the choices of responsible, fallen human
persons in their historical ambiguities, but evil has become
incarnate. Classes, nations, beliefs are the causes of evil and
must be rejected in toto since there can be no compromise. The
Hegelian dialectic not only broke the absolute dichotomy of good
and evil, the one symbolized in the very account of creation
in Genesis, but it also showed how evil in the world could be
"overcome." From the classic point of view, then, this had the
effect of assigning evil to groups and movements so that the
personalist evolution of western thought was reversed. Individuals could be eliminated-beginning
with the king as
Burke saw and ending with just anyone as our current revolutionaries teach us-because they bore the sign of visible evil
on their foreheads. And their lives literally became a hell since
no human traditions governed their existence and limited what
could be accomplished against them.
It is at this point that the problem of hell enters modern
political thought. For the effort to establish an absolute happiness by political means-a heresy still very prevalent in various
Third World religious trends-has its correlative in the elimination of the causes of evil as such so that its embodiment does
not lie in human will but in a group or class with no reference
to individual choice or moral status. 9 This is why modern vio• Burke's observation is worth recalling here: " History consists, for the greater
part, of the miseries brought upon the world by pride, ambition, avarice, revenge,
lust, sedition, hypocrisy, ungoverned zeal, and all the train of disorderly appetites,
which shake the public .... ·These ·vices are ihe causel of those storms.
morals, laws, prerogatives, privileges, liberties, rights of men, are the pretexts.
Jbid., p. 20}.

36

.TAMES V. SCHALL, s. J.

lence pays relatively little attention to personal guilt but justifies itself in terms of variously disguised forms of " collective
guilt." Again the old theological issue of original sin becomes
re-enacted in a perverse manner within a political context. And
in a perfectionist political theory, be it noted, when ultimate
happiness is conceived as arriving within the movement down
the ages, the elimination from this life through terror is equivalent to hell, to the absolute destruction. The belief that evil
can be removed by political action, thus, turns out to be the
cause for the secularization of hell as a political instrument to
justify the good life. The good life arrives when the evil classes
or movements are eliminated. Eric Voegelin touched upon this
in The New Science of Politics:
The death of the spirit is the price of progress. Nietzsche revealed this mystery of the western apocalypse when he announced
God was dead and that He had been murdered. This Gnostic murder
is constantly committed by the men who sacrifice God to civilization. The more fervently all human energies are thrown into the
great enterprise of salvation through world-immanent action, the
farther the human beings who engage in this enterprise move away
from the life of the spirit. And since the life of the spirit is the
source of order in man and society, the very success of a Gnostic
civilization is the cause of its decline. 10

The life of the spirit thus comes to be challenged precisely by
the life of politics seen as a means to salvation, something consistently denied it in the classical Christian tradition, as well
as in Aristotle.
What this consideration suggests, therefore, is an issue rarely
faced any more in the heart of political theory, but nevertheless
one continually present in often undetected forms. This is
whether the modern project of a completely rational politics is
possible without a revelation to save reason. The Thomist implication in the Treatise on Law (I-II; 92-4) was that for most
reason did need revelation. And it would be deceiving, even on
empirical grounds, to maintain that this is still not the question.
10 Eric Voegelin, The. New Science of Politie$, Chicago, University of Chicago
Press, l95fl, p. 131.

DiSPLACING DAMNATION

87

Leo Strauss, with his ,usual perception, put his finger on the
exact issue:
The natural law which is knowable to the unassisted human mind
and which prescribes chiefly actions in the strict sense is related
to, or founded upon, the natural end of man; that end is twofold: moral perfection and intellectual perfection; intellectual perfection is higher in dignity than nioral perfection; but intellectual
perfection or wisdom, as unassisted human reason knows it, does
not require moral virtue. Thomas solves this difficulty by virtually
contending that, according to natural reason, the natural end of
man is insufficient, or points beyond itself or, more precisely, that
the end of man cannot consist in philosophical investigation, to say
nothing of political activity. The natural reason itself creates n
presumption in favor of the divine law, which completes or perfects
the natural law. At any rate, the ultimate consequence of the
Thomist view of natural law is that natural law is practically inseparable not only from natural theology-i. e., from a natural theology which is, in fact, based on belief in biblical revelation-but
even from revealed theology. Modern natural law was partly a
reaction to this absorption of natural law by theology.11

Now, of course, Thomas is somewhat more nuanced than
Strauss implied, but Thomas did hold that revelation is necessary for most men to know and keep most of the natural law,
while one of the reasons £or this same revelation was precisely
the inability of civil law to punish all violations. This clearly
suggests that modern theory insofar as it explicitly rejects the
idea of reason's limits, so that it claims the possibility to construct rationally the good life, cannot be reconciled with Christianity. And this is the precise origin of the reappearance of
hell as a political doctrine and practice, however it be called,
in the need to find a cause in public life of human evil.
How is this to be understood? Hannah Arendt has argued
that Christianity, when it became established, £aced the same
problem in the public order as did Plato in The Republic. She
argued further that even the French and American revolutionary founders were concerned to emphasize the public function
11

Leo Strauss, Natural Right and History, Chicago, University of Chicago

Pres, 1958, pp. 163-64.

38
of hell. In the context qf Leo StmJiss's
Arendt's reflections are of uncommon significance:

Hannah

For the obvious re.asou why the men of the revolution of all
people should be so strangely out of tune in this respect with the
general climate of their age was that precisely because of the new
separation of church and state they found themselves in the old
platonic predicament. When they wamed against the elimination
of the fear of hell from public life because this would pave the way
to " make murder itself as indifferent as shooting plover, and the
extermination of the Robilla nation as innocent as the swallowing
of mites on a morsel of cheese (John Adams)," their words may
sound with an almost prophetic ring in our ears; yet they were
clearly spoken not out of any dogmatic faith in the " avenging
God" but out of mistrust in the nature of man. 12 (Italics added)

This latter, of course, is a remarkable line, since it locates the
political necessity for the doctrine of hell exactly where Aquians
located the need for revelation with respect to reason.
Naturally, if pure reason closed off from any revelation-the
modern project-ends up creating a kind of political hell, then
it would follow that political theory must reassess Strauss's
restriction about the kind of reason that would save us. John
Hallowell was one of the few contemporary theorists to grant
the necessary conclusion. In his Main Currents in Modern
Political Thought, he wrote:
... The basic insights of the Christian faith provide the best insights we have into the nature of man and of the crisis in which we
find ourselves. That crisis is the culmination of modern man's progressive attempt to deny the existence of a transcendent or spiritual
reality and of his progressive failure to find meaning in some wholly
immanent conception of reality. Modern man's worship of the
Class, the Race, or the State has only further alienated him from
reality, plunged him deeper into despair and impelled him further
along the road to destruction and annihilation. Only through a return to faith in God, as God revealed himself to man in Jesus Christ,
can modern man and his society find redemption from the tyranny
of evil.13
12

Hannah Arendt, Between Past and Future, New York, Viking, 1968, pp.

138-84.
18

John Hallowell, Main Currenfa in Modern Political Thought, New York, Holt,

1950, p. 651.

l>lSPLACINa DAMNATION

89

For Professor Hallowell, then, the alternative to an actual
tyranny of evil, a "hell," is not an exclusively rational project,
even though, at least in Thomistic metaphysics, rationality
need not be opposed to revelation, no matter how much the
latter aids the former. The systematic thinking out or the
politically activist rooting out of precisely those Christian
supplements to pure reason, has left us with the kind of man
motivated by no corrective influence. The penalty for thinking
in a purely rational manner has been precisely that, pure reason.
Jacques Ellul's recent study, The Betrayal of the West, is
an effort to trace this consequence. And its essence is the victory of the modern political project, the founding of all right
and history and nature on man himself. Classical Christian
metaphysics, as Maritain once wrote,
is a philosophy of being; more than that, a philosophy of the superabundance of being .... Christian philosophy, better than the
Greek, has seen that it is natural that immanent activity should
superabound, since it is superexisting. Purely transitive activity is
transitory .... Immanent activity is "generous," because, striving
to be achieved in love, it strives to achieve the good of other men,
disinterestedly, gratuitously, as a gift. Christian theology is a theology of divine generosity .... 14

And it is the disappearance of this universality, this "superabundance," that is most gravely affecting the present civilization. Ellul himself put it quite well:
It is in our day that Jesus is, in the fullest and most radical sense,
being rejected by everything-I mean literally everything-and in
every area of man's endeavors: his thinking, his willing, his undertakings, his building of his world, his consumption. It is in our day
that Jesus is being, in the fullest and most radical sense, humiliated:
simply left aside as possessing no interest or significance in comparison with what man discovers for himself and bestows upon himself....
"Jacques Maritain, Scholasticism and Politica, Garden City, N. Y., Doubleday
Image, 1960, p. 174. Cf. also F. Wilhelmsen, "The. Christian Undertanding of
Being," The IntercollegiateReview, Winter•Sprlng, 1978, pp. 87-98.

40

JAMES y. SCHALL, s. J.

, .. God's silence means that the world that wanted to be left
alone is now indeed alone... ,13
What is thought to have been unnecessary to reason, then,that is, revelation-and "what is feared from human nature"
combine to make the classical Christian solution almost empirical. The doctrines of revelation and hell are both legitimate
and pertinent to the political order itself.
To speak of the absence of precisely what Christianity has
said must be added to us if we .would be whole, if we would
achieve our very happiness, is, no doubt, paradoxical. Yet,
in a real sense, if we consider that much of the duty and function of the modern state is to bureaucratize and organize, to
make public, as it were, all the human concerns with poverty
and sickness and weakness that Christianity brought initially
into the world, a theme R. H. Tawney used to touch upon,
then we can see the significance of Edmund Fuller's recent
remarks about Professor Gaylin's "Doing Good" : The Limits
of Benevolence:
One hates to face the limits of benevolence. Ideally, it should be
infinite, yet probably only saints could be trusted fully with the
care of the helpless, and saints are in short supply. Perhaps true
human benevolence is necessary one-to-one, few-to-few, ad hoc.
That saintly woman of Calcutta, Mother Theresa, knows that she
and her sisters cannot minister even to all of Calcutta, but they
minister lovingly to each individual's needs as they encounter
them. 16
Benevolence, that secular rendition of Christian charity, cannot retain its value apart from its original inspiration. Ellul
himself argues that the contemporary heresy is precisely the
belief that what men lack is clothing, food, shelter, and that
this is the definition of religion, that of helping the brother. 17
And yet, this is a complete, enclosed humanism, out of which
there is no escape, a perfect definition of " hell " in which all
relationships are defined exclusively in terms of justice, in
'"Jacques Ellul, The Betrayal of the West, New York, Seabury, 1978, pp. 78-79.
Edmund Fuller, Review in The Wall Street Journal, May, 1978.
" Ellul, pp. 184-85.
.

· · 1•

})lS'.PUClNG DAMNA'l'ION

41

which no one is related to· any one else except by legitimate
obligation. From another tradition, this is the implication of
the widely-read thesis of John Rawls's A Theory of Justice.
Men, consequently, end up precisely alone-again the classic
definition of hell, the existence of a world totally of our own
norms and makings, a world of no relationships except those
of justice.
Perhaps the best analysis of this result in its Christian implication is in Lezak Kolakowski's "Le diable, peut-il etre
sauve? " 18 The question Kolakowski addresses himself to is
the significance of the . Christian doctrines of evil and hell,
epitomized by the figure of Satan. To do this, he places himself squarely before the modern political enterprise which sets
up as a project the proper elimination of evil, again defined
variously through Rousseauian tradition as the elimination of
property, labor, and coercive government. Is evil, in other
words, contingent? Is hell an illusion? To put it in still other
terms, what happens if these doctrines are relativized, as they
have been in modern thought? Can we reconcile evil, as
Kolakowski sees many contemporary Christian thinkers trying
to do? 19
Kolakowski's answer, then, is directly related to the remark
of Strauss as to that of Hallowell about the need for what the
Christians call "grace" even to be fully natural-a theme
also stressed often in Chesterton's Orthodoxy. Kolakowski
wrote:
The two complementary ideas which are at the very heart of
Christian culture-namely, that humanity has been fundamentally
saved by the coming of Christ and that, since man has been chased
from a terrestrial paradise, every human being is fundamentally
condemned if we consider him in his natural state, without the aid
of grace.:___oughtto be considered together to avoid a heady optimism or a despair which could follow a consideration of the two
ideas independently of each other.
1•

Lezak Kolakowski, "Le diable, pcut-il etre sauve? " Contrepoint, Paris, #20,

1976, pp. 129-39.
1 • Ibid., p. ISi.

· Without dQubt the Church has {Qr.ma;llydecided that very many
are saved and has never formally declared that anyone was condemned. There is nothing in the teaching of the Church which
formally excludes the possibility of hell being empty, but we are not
permitted to affirm it does not exist. The existence of the devil
affirms without ambiguity that evil constitutes a permanent element
in the world, that it can never be totally uprooted, and consequently it is vain to hope for a universal reconciliation. One of the
fundamental principles of the Catholic Church is that Christ has
died not only for the elect but for all. But one of the central theses
of the Council of Trent is that the liberty of man is to accept grace
or to refuse it, without being able as a result positively to increase
its force and that affirmation seems to be a natural consequence of
the doctrine of original sin.
Kolakowski, then, went on to argue that these concepts of
original sin and the existence of the devil have almost disappeared even in Christian circles. In fact, "the faith in the
unlimited perfectability of natural man, in that Parousia that
man himself prepares for progressively is prevailing among
Christians." 20 Yet, the ideological concepts of a man-made
paradise and a society in which all capacities are fulfilled would
undermine both the ideas of love and creativity for which they
are said to aim. " Complete satisfaction is equivalent to death
and partial satisfaction implies suffering. Thus, the whole
ideological project is itself a failure. Human corruptibility is
not contingent. . . ." 21 Few people would work for progress
if they really knew the cost to be paid. And at a more fundamental level, the promise of a terrestrial paradise, to return
man to his innocence, attacks the very right we have to remain the individuals we are. 22 Every good work can become
corrupt so that some doubt is healthy against the prevalent
promethean principle.
Our natural forces are able to find no sure support against evil:
all that which we are able to do is to practice the art of placing in
balance the contrary dangers. It is precisely this which the ChristIbid., p. 186.
Ibid., p. 186.
H Ibid., p. 187.

20

21

48
ian tradition affirms when it maintains that c:ertain e:ffects of original sin are ineluctable and that there can only be salvation through
grace.28
·

The reality of grace and devil, the ronviction that mankind is
free, yet not able by its own efforts to achieve its highest happiness, that being is ultimately gift-oriented, that evil is definable
and permanent, that hell is a surety for the belief that not all is
compromisable-these
serve to refashion our thinking on
political theory. This era is caught between a relativism that
compromises all and a belief that only the right should and
shall prevail. Ultimately, the tyrannies of the QOth Century
have been clearly moral evils acting against the human good,
a good which is not an abstraction but something in real humans born into this world.
Hell, consequently, does have a proper function in political
theory. Like original sin, whenever hell is neglected, it merely
returns under another form. The tradition of Aquinas is that
all evil will be punished ultimately, that all human evil is
precisely chosen. But it need not be the function of politics
to punish all evils or to correct all evil choices. This latter
is a central political proposition. The effort to create a perfect,
self-conceived society on earth invariably seems to result in
a kind of incarnate hell. And yet, it seems such an attractive
idea, for it does witness to the questions Aquinas asked in the
first part of the Prima Secundae, to the human search for
absolute happiness. When modern political theory decided to
base its initial proposition, contrary to the classics, on moral
indifference to good and evil with Machiavelli and before him
with Marsilius's reduction of all morality to interiority, it set
off on a project that was metaphysically impossible. The limits
of pure reason, the paradox that man usually cannot know his
own good or happiness-the impact of Aquinas's argument
for a divine law-seems to be an affront to modern theory.
Nevertheless, again and again, the political consequences of
the denial of the existence and definition of evil and its
18

Ibid., p. 188.

44

,JAM'.ES V. SC.HALL) S. J,

permanent punishment cannot be ignored. Hell is not a neutral
or mythical element in the political context. The essence of
this means that good cannot evolve from evil, even though
out of evil God can draw good, as Paul of Tarsus taught. All
of this makes the political enterprise distinctly different from
its manner of presenting itself in modern thought. In the
modern era, then, evil and hell have become objects and movements to be overcome rather than mysteries lying deeply in
the heart of human choice, where Augustine properly placed
them. Political theory, in other words, is conditioned by our
metaphysics and our theology, as the very structure of the
Summa suggests to us. What we believe about hell, therefore,
remains the touchstone of what we believe about politics. The
mystery of evil, of hell, its consequence, is neglected at a very
high cost. Plato was not wrong at the beginning of political
thought to suspect that immortality, that final punishment
and reward, all grew out of the way men must begin their reflections on politics. What finally made it all fit together was
when men learned that there were in fact things that did not
belong to Caesar. And the first of these is precisely hell, the
doctrine of eternal punishment.
JAMES

Geo1·getown University
Washington, D. 0.

v. SCHALL, s. J.

THE ACT OF ANALYSIS

I

T WOULD SEEM FAIR to say that the prevailing view of
analysis has been largely shaped by Kant's account of the
analytic judgment. In the Critique of Pure Reason that
judgment is presented as one in which" the predicate B belongs
to the subject A, as somewhat which is contained (though
covertly) in the conception A." It is a judgment " in which the
connection of the predicate with the subject is cogitated
through identity." Forming it, therefore, involves no " recourse
to the testimony of experience," no need to "go outside the
sphere of my own conceptions." For example, " I need not go
beyond the conception of body to find extension connected with
it." I have but to " analyze the conception "-that is, to "become conscious of the manifold properties which I think in that
conception." The judgment upon any notion demands only
that we " analyze it into its constituent conceptions," thereby
bringing into the full light of consciousness those elements
"which were already in the subject, although in a confused
manner." The product of the analytic act is thus " a proposition that stands firm a priori;" the mind needs" only to extract
the predicate from the conception, according to the principle of
contradiction, and thereby at the same time become aware of
the necessity of the judgment." 1
The core of the above is also found in the Prolegomena to
Any Future Metaphysics: "Analytic judgments express nothing
in the predicate but what has already been thought in the concept of the subject, though not so distinctly or with the same
full consciousness." 2
1 Critique of Pure Reason, trans. Meicklejohn, pp. 7-8.
(Willey Book Company,
New York, 1900).
•Prologue to Any Future Metaphysics, p. 14. (The Library of Liberal Arts,
Bobbs-Merrill, New York, 1950).

45

46

JOHN D. BEACH

Important problems attach to Kant's account of analysis and
its product, problems rooted in the stated covert, confused or
indistinct presence in the subject-concept of the elements that
reflective thought brings to the light of day. Granting the
product of analysis that initial status, we are led to ask what,
if anything, is given overtly and distinctly to thought. Putting
this somewhat differently, we must ask in terms of what, if anything, the subject of analysis is initially known or identified.
This, in turn, prompts a question concerning the relationship
between what is initially known and that which analysis yields.
But these are matters more appropriately dealt with in another
context. Let us proceed for now on the assumption that the
product of analysis, the extracted predicate, is so given as an
element of the subject-concept that the act of analysis unfolds
exclusively in accordance with the principles of identity and
contradiction. The prevailing view of analysis is based upon
that very assumption. Its adherents stress that, as initially
present to thought, the subject is seen to contain the predicate
-i.e., the subject is known as a complex having the predicate as
one of its discrete parts. Accordingly, they would note, the
analytic proposition is simply the expression of the knowledge
that the predicate, the extracted constituent, is such a part of
the complex. And this is to say that there is a relation of direct
and complete identity between the relevant part of the complex
and the extracted predicate, and a relation of direct but partial
identity between the extracted element and the initial complex.
The favored examples of the latter, partial identity are the relationship between male and bachelor, or unmarried male, and
that between sibling and brother, or male sibling.
Proponents of this essentially conventional approach toward
analysis also emphasize that the necessity involved is based on
the laws of identity and contradiction. Contracted to the case
in hand, these principles tell us, respectively, that a given cogitated element 0£ a subject-concept must be such an element
and that it isimpossible for it not to be such an element. Thus
male must be and cannot not be an element of unmarried male.

THE ACT OF ANALYSIS

47

Rephrased, an unmarried male must be and cannot not be a male.
Whence what is now the standard characterization of analysis
and its expression in a proposition. Both are held to be unqualifiedly repetitive of what was originally present to thought. To
perceive y within xy, to assert that xy is y, is to undertake what
need not be undertaken, to grasp what has already been grasped, to proclaim what need not be proclaimed. We can indeed
note that a bachelor, i.e., an unmarried male, is a male; we are
indeed allowed-better, compelled-to assert that an unmarried
male is a male; but in neither case have we added one tittle to
our initial knowledge, in neither case gone beyond what can
only misleadingly be called our starting point. In the words of
Anthony Quinton, " an analytic statement is a tautology that
repeats itself, asserts no more than it assumes, is an instance of
the law of identity whose denial is an explicit contradiction." 3
The above interpretation o:f analysis permits its adherents to
say something of seeming significance relative to the verbal expression of the analytic proposition. The sentence " a bachelor
is a male " will of course signify a necessarily true proposition
by virtue of the meanings of " bachelor " and " male." Spelled
out, " a bachelor is a male " represents a necessary truth because
the meaning of " male " is one element in the meaning of " bachelor." In this limited and precise sense, then, we are here
concerned with a verbal truth and necessity. But, clearly, that
an unmarried male be, and of necessity, a male has no intrinsic
connection with, let alone dependence upon, any word or set of
words. The actual identity expressed by the proposition
grounds its truth and its necessity; it is hardly the sentence
signifying the proposition which brings it about that a male is
and must be a male. 4 We could say with equal force that the
•"The A Priori and the Analytic," Proceedings of the Aristotelian Society,
LXIX, pp. 31-54. This is one part of what Quinton calls the "analytic thesis."
Here, he grounds the truth and necessity of the analytic proposition in the principle of identity. But, as we shall see in the two notes that follow, he also presents
them as following from words and the conventions governing their use.
• Quinton proposes, ibid., that " a:n analytic statement is one true in virtue of
the meanings of the ternts it cohtaufs." Since he defines a statement as "a form

48

JOHN D. BEACH

truth and necessity of the proposition a bachelor is a male are
conventional in nature because the proposition is signified by a
sentence, " a bachelor is a male," the meanings of whose terms
are determined by convention. But conventions do not dictate
the only necessity found here-that a male be a male.5
Despite their properly incidental and extrinsic relationship to
the truth and necessity of the analytic proposition, the roles
played by language and its conventions do allow for an empirical study which might virtually pre-empt that reflection upon
the elements making up a given concept which constitutes
Kantian analysis. To discover the elements that by convention,
formal or otherwise, are signified by the words " bachelor " or
" brother " is not far removed from the reflection upon the parts
that make up the concepts bachelor or brother. Published, such
a discovery would lessen interest on the part of others in any
pronouncement by an individual on the results of his personal
reflection upon the elements composing the presumably common concept of bachelor or brother. And assuming Kantian
analysis to be the only kind, much the same point could be
made concerning the words " cause," " relation," and " good,"
for example, and the corresponding notions of eause, relation,
and good. If, then, analysis in the Kantian sense constitutes the
discipline of philosophy, the consequence of this point for the
public expression of that discipline is clear: the study of language will be governing.
It is quite possible that the ordinary understanding of the
word " analysis " itself would be compatible with all that has
thus far been presented. Do we not mean by " analysis " precisely an inspection of a conceived object and the detailed deof words with a meaning attached," he should have said that by virtue of the
meanings of its terms a statemcnt-i. e., a sentence-signifies a proposition that
is analytic, true and necessary. He has confused sentence and proposition.
5 Quinton, ibid.:
"necessary truth is a matter of convention." The claim is
thus proved: " The meanings that words have is assigned b.y convention. Therefore it is linguistic convention that makes a form of words express a necessary
truth." While true, the two statements are irrelevant. He is here speaking of
a sentence (" a form of words "), and illicitly transferring what holds of it to the
proposition, the "necessary truth," that this form of words expresses.
·

THE ACT' OF ANALYSIS

49

termination of what; in all its parts or features, it is-a
determination manifested in the proposition that we term
analytic? And what can either act, the inspection or the consequent assertion, amount to other than the acknowledgment of
what the object of the inspection, the subject of the assertion,
is actually conceived by you or by me to be? To analyze, it
would seem, can only be to mark, to note, to tick off one by one,
the conjoined or co-present features of any complex object that
is given to thought. Could we conceivably do other than to
duplicate, first in the act of analysis, then in the affirmation,
what we have before us when we apprehend a given complex?
And is it not equally certain that what we here offer as the layman's grasp of the word" analysis" must carry with it a commendation of today's professional emphasis upon the linguistic?
In the verbal enunciation of what our conceptual inspection has
yielded, we perforce present the elements which, normally by
informal communal agreement, are brought to mind by the
word used to designate the subject of the proposition. Hence
analysis in the ordinary sense may be substituted for by an
inquiry into a community's use of words. No doubt there will
be required careful study of the various contexts in which a
word is used. No doubt, as well, artfully constructed translations of sentences in which a word is found will be required in
order to reach agreement in the community as to how its members use the word. But such complications need not essentially
change matters. H analysis reveals, for example, that jazz is a
form of music involving improvisation, certain types of harmony and tone colors, and different syncopated rhythms, the
same information could be made available by observing that
the word "jazz" is used to signify these very elements. 6

*

*

*

•It is of course only a contingent truth that any word has a given meaning;
it is thus not necesary that a given set of words signify a necessary truth. In
fact, though, to this individual, group or community, a· given set of words may
signify a truth that is seen to be necessary. It is contingent that " a bachelor
is a male " has the meaning that it is-but what it does signify is necessarily true.

.50

We must now ask the questions to which all of the above has
been introductory. Does the proffered account of analysis
apply to every operation which involves the inspection of an
object of thought and the drawing from it of a feature with
which the object can in truth and of necessity be identified? Is
the acquired and distinct consciousness of the features or elements of the object nothing more than the noting of one actually given discrete element after another? Is every intelligible
complexity on the part of an object of the form unmarried male
and male sibling? Is every assertion that expresses the analyzed
object's possession of an element or feature of the form an unmarried male is a male? Is it the case that such an assertion
can present, in Quinton's words, "no more than it assumes?"
Moving to the area of language, must we hold that the signification by a sentence of a necessarily true proposition is only
possible by virtue of the inclusion of the predicate in the meaning of the word used to designate the subject, as in the case of
"a brother is a sibling"?
One reading, admittedly questionable, of Kant's statements
on analysis would have it that this is not actually his view. The
English logician, Joseph, calls attention to the seeming implications of Kant's remark that the predicate extracted through
analysis is covertly contained in the subject-concept. 7 This
would suggest that, despite his subsequent description of the
analytic judgment, Kant sees analysis as yielding something
that is not initially given, something not grasped when the subject is first known. Thus analysis would not be an act in which
we do no more than focus upon the y within xy, but one in
which we draw from the subject that which, cognitively speaking, is latent within it.
At this point our attention might be called to another understanding of the word " analysis," one quite at odds with the
interpretation of this word noted a while back. Interestingly
enough, the terms apt to be used in characterizing this other
view of analysis are those often favored by adherents of today's
1

An Introduction to Logie, H; W. B. Joseph, pp. 208-09 ,{Oxford, 2nd ed., 1916).

THE ACT OF .tU-fALYSIS

lH

analytic school in describing their own proper endeavors. The
terms in question are "clarifying," "explicating," and " elucidating." If themselves not utterly transparent in meaning, they
would at least seem to be inappropriately applied to the act of
extracting y from xy, rnale from unmarried male. And it involves no great leap to see them as consonant with the second
view of Kant's doctrine on analysis, in which this act is one
with discerning the element or elements covertly contained in
the object present to thought.
Whether or no, consistently or no, such significant elucidation
of the subject-concept enters into Kant's understanding of the
analytic act, whether or no, as interpreted by those who most
frequently use them, such terms as "explicating" and "elucidating" preclude that position on analysis which sees it as
essentially akin to the second counting of the patches and colors
of an Appalachian quilt, there does exist a notion of analysis
radically opposed to that presented at some length above. It is
an interpretation of analysis as an act that, in the words of
Arthur Pap, involves "cognitive effort " and progress in knowlcdge.8 A similar understanding of analysis would seem to be
present in J. 0. Urmson's claim that contemporary British
analytic philosophers see it as their task " to deepen their understanding of . . . such concepts as ' time,' ' relation,' and
' thing ' .... and to master all their nuances, and through an
exact and thorough analysis of these concepts, and of commonsense ways of thinking ... to arrive at a better understanding
of common sense itself, and, at the same time, a better understanding of reality." 9 The cognitive enterprises there sketched
are surely a far cry from the analysis of brother into male sibling.
Paradoxically, much the same cognitive effort and progress in
knowledge would appear to be involved in Anthony Quinton's
8 Elements of Analytic Philosophy, Arthur Pap, pp. 445-47, (Macmillan, New
York, 1949).
• " The History of Philosophical Analysis," Royaumont Colloquium, trans. R.
ltorty, The Linguistic Tum, (University of Chicago Press, Chicago, 1967).

JOHN b. BEACH

understanding of the relationships among the various elements
(necessity, the logical or formal, the conventional, etc.) that
:make up the standard position on analysis. For he presents
more than one element of the thesis as a " development," a " development or elucidation" of another element. 10 Here, too, we
would appear to be far removed from the notion of analysis as
a plucking of one or more of its distinct parts from a complex
conceptual whole. And remaining within the contemporary
scene (though with a bow to Pelagius), should we not see as
involving a pronounced cognitive effort, a definite progression
in thought, a truly penetrating intellectual act, the declaration
that ought implies can, that obligation entails ability? How
disconcerting it would be were we told by an appropriate authority that only the habits and rules of the English language
lay behind the claim-that, a study of the language revealed,
by " ought " we simply mean " can " plus some other discrete
but, as it happens, unnamable (indeed unknowable, because
non-existent) human state juxtaposed in thought to the notion
of ability.
But more of this and like instances later, when we shall seek
to probe and elucidate the competing notion of analysis which
they would seem to embody. Though today no more than a
minority would hold to it, this second view of analysis is fairly
widespread, accepted, if only implicitly, by all who take philosophy to be more than the detailed exposition of the various
features of a given language. However, even its open proponents, unlike the supporters of the more conventional doctrine on
analysis, have not spelled out their position in anything like
adequate detail. There is, for example, very little in the way
of an account of what is surely the decisive factor in any theory
of analysis, the precise relationship between the subject of
analysis and that drawn from it, between the subject and the
predicate of the analytic proposition. This stands in strong
contrast to the utter clarity of the subject-predicate relationship
central to the dominant contemporary position on analysis, that
10

Op. cit.

THE ACT OF ANALYSIS

5$

of direct identity revealed in the propositional form xy is y.
Certainly, if intelligibility is to be had by the claim that analysis involves cognitive effort and progression in the move from
knowledge of the subject to knowledge of the predicate, it must
be determined what sort of subject-predicate relationship obtains other than that of direct identity-and what sort of necessity binds subject and predicate other than that rooted in direct
identity. Beyond that, there must be brought out whatever is
essentially involved in that analytic act which escapes the
status of the inconsequential and simply repetitive. A difficult
task, perhaps an impossible one. It may be that only the barest
sketch of this sort of analysis is possible, and one largely based
on the way of negation: whatever lends triviality to analyses,
whatever leads to propositions of the form xy is y, must be lacking in that having cognitive significance. Help might also come
from instances, presumed or undeniable, of significant analytic
sequences. One of these, of course, is ought implies can. Another might be a common declaration of the limits of existence:
to be is to be singular, i.e., only the .singular, as opposed to the
universal, can exist. Then there is the hoary but steadfast red
is a color. It may be that each of these, and others, will embody
the features that we are led in a priori fashion to attribute to
progressive analyses. Aided as well by a spirit of conjecture, let
us turn to the task of uncovering the features of non-Kantian
analysis.

*
1. A starting point:

*

*

the subject of analysis determinately

identified.
Perhaps nothing more obvious could be said concerning any
analysis than that it must begin with knowledge of the subject
undergoing analysis. It must be known what is being subjected
to the pondering, the probing, the discriminating, the explicating, the elucidating that we see as one with the act of analysis.
In a word, analysis must begin with the identification of the
analyzed-that from which we draw the given predicate, that

J'OHN D. BEACB

whose relationship to the predicate we express in the proposition, that which we perceive as necessitating the predicate. So
obvious is this that it might appear to be insignificant. But consider anew Kant's account of the analytic judgment.
Setting aside the qualification "covertly" in his statement
that the predicate is contained in the subject-concept, our account of his doctrine on analysis proceeded on the assumption
that every " extracted " element is from the beginning explicitly
present to thought. This approach was called for, ultimately, in
view of his claim that" the connection of the predicate with the
subject is cogitated through identity." Were the given constituent element which, extracted, became the predicate not explicitly grasped in the subject as initially known, there would be
no ground for equating element and predicate. Accordingly,
asked to identify, for example, that from which male is analytically drawn, we could only reply unmarried male; asked to
identify that from which the complete analysis, male sibling, is
drawn, we could only reply male sibling. It is this, of course,
that renders Kantian analysis specious as knowledge, that
makes of it an exercise in the trivial.
Yet, Kant did speak of the extracted predicate as covertly
present in the subject, as what was first known confusedly or
indistinctly. This might justify other responses to the requirement that we identify the subject of Kantian analysis, and perhaps justify a different interpretation of that sort of analysis.
One response could be that the subject as initially known is in
its entirety confusedly or indistinctly grasped, with all of its
constituents covertly contained. In effect, then, the subject
would not be identified-a rather fatal flaw. Another response
would be that the subject first grasped by us is a mixture of the
overtly and covertly present. In this case, of course, what is
overtly present would be the identifying note of the presumed
subject of analysis. But here, too, decisively different options
would be available to us, options bearing upon the very nature
of the analytic act. That which is initially present in covert
fashion could then be perceived merely as conjoined to the

Tl-I:FJ AdT 0¥ ANALYSl;s

55

overtly present and identifying feature, in the way that a de'."
terminate color or density might be conjoined to a threedimensional reality first captured by thought, or a flavor conjoined to a fragrance. The corresponding moment in linguistic
analysis would be the discovery that another shade of meaning
attached itself to the word as initially understood. In neither
case, though, could the relationship between starting-point and
the subsequently grasped element properly be termed analytic,
for there would be no difference between it and that connection
which we term factual or empirical. There would be, that is,
no derivation of that subsequently known from, no discrimination of it within, that initially known.
We are left with the option that the overtly apprehended
and distinguishing feature be the proper source of whatever is
revealed through the discerning act-through, in a word,
analysis. Clearly, only what is explicitly grasped could be the
ground of what is subsequently apprehended, of what is apprehended as pertaining to the subject of necessity. And since we
can attain the subject only in terms of what is initially and
overtly given, the upshot is that, formally speaking, the identifying feature is the very subject of analysis. The source of
our subsequent, our analytic, knowledge and the subject of
our successive discriminations are one and the same. It is, for
example, obligation which we probe, and which, probed, yields
ability; redness which we first know and from which we draw
color; and existence that we first grasp and then know as singular.
This provides another counter to the possible claim that the
subject of analysis is a confusedly known whole, all of its
features covertly present. That latent within the subject is
what we come to know through analysis, not its subject. Whatever might lie within that initially discerned, whatever is initially unknown, is surely not what we analyze, not what, meta-phoricaily speaking, we break down into its component features.
Nonetheless, there no doubt remains the inclination to see
analysis as bearing upon the relatively indistinct or confused.

JOHN I>. BEACH

Within this scheme, the subject would first be given in general
outline, followed by the revelation, presumably through analysis, o£ its specific contours or features. This would perhaps be
reinforced by the consideration that analysis is conceived to
be progressive in character. As well, because there is the tendency to equate analytical and precise knowledge, there is a
like tendency to construe pre-analytic knowledge, that knowledge of the subject with which analysis begins, as relatively if
not simply confused.
In fact, the notion of analysis as progressive, as yielding
what is initially unknown, demands that the subject of analysis
be, relative to that derived from it, both distinctly known and
at least as specific in its structure. The examples of analytic
derivation that have been offered most certainly embody that
relationship. We must know distinctly that specific human
state of obligation if we are to discern within it and to draw
from it the notion of ability-if we are to be justified in asserting that ought frnplies can. Similar conditions must hold
if we are to move from red to color and from existent to singular. It can of course be maintained that what is known through
analysis is first present to thought in an obscure way, but this
is quite a different matter from holding that what is initially
known, the subject of analysis, is indeterminately grasped.
There would be more than a slight problem in claiming that
the indeterminate could, via analysis, yield the specific. We
are hardly able to claim, for example, that the analysis of can
will yield ought, or that the analysis of color will yield red.
And it is equally clear that an indeterminately known subject
could not ground the assertion of a necessary link running
from it to the predicate. Color need not be red, ability need
not be obligation.
It is indisputably true that thought does move from the confused to the precise, from the general to the specific-from, to
cite an example, the knowledge of something as a plane figure
to knowledge of it as a trapezium. But why conceive of such
a process as analysis? Why suggest that it involves the deriva-

THE ACT OF ANALYSIS

tion of trapezium from plane figure? Why suggest what is
even more obviously not the case, that a plane figure is of
necessity a trapezium? Much the same points should be made
concerning the linguistic counterpart of the move from the indeterminate to the precise. We may well grant that the meaning of a word is at first but vaguely known, and then, through
one procedure or another, known in its precise sense. But this,
surely, is utterly different from the derivation, through analysis,
of the precise from the initially general meaning. Call the
movement from the confused to the determinate what you
will, call "techniques of analysis" whatever devices permit the
dispelling of the original confusion, but stop short of equating
this operation with analysis in either the Kantian or the present
sense, since it is impossible to assert that the mind draws the
determinate from the indeterminate, just as it is impossible to
assert that the general feature first known is necessarily the
distinct object subsequently known. Nor would it do to hold
that because the process undergone led to the realization that
the object or meaning first vaguely apprehended is actually of
the determinate structure xyz, the expression of this must take
the form xyz is xyz, which " analytic" proposition reveals that
the process engaged in was that of analysis. That tack would
be based on a confusion central to Richard Hare's understanding of analysis, of which more later. The point to be made
now is that the object or meaning first indeterminately grasped
cannot be known as necessarily of the .structure xyz.
A final matter here. Were any "linguistic" approach to involve a process which began with a determinate meaning of a
word and which culminated in the discrimination within that
meaning of a notion at first latently present, then no quarrel
at all would exist. But then it would clearly differ in no
germane respect from the sort of non-Kantian analysis that
we are trying to articulate. Were we, for example, to start
with the precise sense of "ought" and to draw from it that
signified by the word " can," we would simply be analyzing
ought and grasping that it entails can. We could, .if we chose,

58

JOHN l>. BEACH

add the probable claim that the conventions of English dictate
that when we use " ought " we also use " can " and that when
" can " is not applicable we should not use " ought," but this
would not change one whit the nature of the fl.ow of thought
from ought to can, upon which, we may surmise, the conventions in question rest.
No direct identity between subject and predicate.
We come now to a matter referred to more than once a while
back. It is that the notion of analysis now under study precludes the relationship of direct identity, whether partial or
total, between the initial notion and that analytically drawn
from it. A paradoxical assertion, given that analysis is precisely
the grasp of what the subject is? Perhaps. But the absence
of such identity is demanded by the strategy of denying to
the present notion of analysis whatever rendered the Kantian
variety nugatory-and central to analysis as conceived by Kant
is the stated "cogitation through identity." Besides, the examples of analytic derivation relied upon thus far prove valuable here as well. Unlike bachelor in relation to male, the notion of obligation does not contain ability as a distinct element,
any more than red contains color as that sort of part. If it is
held that ability and color are each distinct elements of the
appropriate whole, we must, as was .suggested a while back,
ask what the other part is to which each is joined. What is
it that, joined to ability, constitutes ought, and, joined to color,
constitutes red? The search for it will be long and vain. Nor,
though the example is doubtless more obscure, can we conceive
of existent as a composite of discrete notes, one of them being
singular and the other-what? Something, we may be certain,
which involves the note of singularity, something from which
we could draw singular, and thus not something which, externally related to singular, constitutes with it what would then
be the contingent whole existent. Here, needless to say, we
touch upon the key features of
analysis: a complexity other than that embodied in, for example, male

59
an identity other than that holding between male sibling and
male, and thus a necessity other than that expressive of direct
identity. We will again take up these matters when we deal
properly with the necessity binding subject and predicate in
this kind of analysis.
3. Knowledge of the subject without knowledge of the predi-

cate.

It is in knowing the subject that we know the predicate, in
knowing the subject's identifying feature that we know the
discriminated feature. It is in knowing ought that we know
ca.n, in knowing red that we know color. Yet, knowledge of
the subject is to be distinguished from knowledge of the predicate; more precisely, knowledge of the subject does not have
knowledge of the predicate as one of its components, in the
way, for example, that knowledge of unmarried male contains
knowledge of rnale. Rather, it is an act in which we first know
the subject as identified, and then come to know the predicate-e.g., we know red and then come to know color. Moreover, analysis is knowledge of the predicate as derived from the
identified subject. Thus even while perceiving and enunciating
that the subject is the predicate, the two objects of thought
are held apart. Originally conceived without reference to the
predicate, then conceived as that which entails the predicate,
the subject is throughout a distinct object of thought.
4. Analysis is independent of the verbal.

It is necessary that what is signified by " red " be what is
signified by " color "-assuming the standard understanding of
each word. Hence what we call " red " we must also call
"color," again assuming standard meanings. It may even be
that a convention exists which forbids us to call " red " what
we would not call "color." Like conventions might forbid us
to apply " obligation" where we would not apply " ability"
and to speak of " existent" where ·we would not speak of " singular:" None of this should surprise us, given the bonds of

60

JQ;IIN D. BEACH

necessity linking the objects brought to mind by the words
mentioned-red and color, obligation and ability, existent and
singUlar. In at least one case the bond would be grasped by all,
and in the others, no doubt, by those who pronounce on conventions and prepare dictionaries. Hence none of this renders
the perceived necessity in one case of the other essentially one
with that appropriate to, say, "bachelor" and "male." The
one meaning of " bachelor " is unmarried male, and to this
cognitively terminating function nothing corresponds in the
signification of " red " or " ought " or " existent," for each of
these represents a unified object from which that analogous
to male is derived, not marked off as one member of an accidental whole. Here, words and their meanings either set the
task or reflect one performed, they do not of themselves complete it. It would be safe to assume that no one would accept
the presence of color in the definition of " red " unless this were
supported by the analytic derivation of color from red. Like
observations could be made with respect to the definitions of
"ought" and " being," in the case at least of those who pbnder such states as obligation and existence.
5. The subject is not, through analysis, transformed into the

derived predicates.
Analysis reveals what a subject is. Hence, following analysis,
we might think it required of us to conceive of the subject in
terms of the derived predicate. And thus a complete analysis
(if such be possible) would lead to the substitution of its product, the set of appropriate predicates, for the subject. Whatever other difficulties might be involved in this view, one crucial
problem cannot be ignored. Were a subject to be transformed
into that drawn from it, that which had, by supposition, served
as the source of the derived set of predicates would have
vanished, and the set of predicates would be groundlessly asserted. At best we would be reduced to asserting that the complex of attributes before us is indeed itself. .
Both the transformation of the subject through analysis and

THE AC':r ·OF' ANALYSIS

61

the consequent tautological character of the judgment which
this transformation might yield figure in Richard Hare's account of analysis. In an article entitled " Philosophical Discoveries " he offers the study of a Scottish dance, the eightsome
reel, and its subsequently gained definition as analogously illustrative of the analytic process and its product. 11 The movement to the definition involves what he terms an element of
"discovery," which would be lacking were we to begin, as
does the writer of a dancing book, with a stipulative definition
of the dance. In the latter case, he notes, statements such as
the "eightsome reel is danced in the following way, viz .... ,
followed by a specification of the steps, will be seen as analytic "-analytic, that is, in the Kantian sense, for "eightsome
reel" would mean a dance involving the steps specified. Hare
would not have the process leading to the discovery of the
<lance's definition "start off" in this way. Such a process will,
rather, "start off with a determinate meaning for the term
' eightsome reel '," and then, through analysis, reach the definition. What " we have to start with is not a definition, but the
mere ability to recognize instances of correct performance of
the dance," while " what we have at the end is the codification
in the definition of what we know." Thus "what we have at
the end is different from what we had at the beginning." He
then notes: " It is in the passage to the definition that the
mystery creeps in." The "mystery" (or "puzzle"), we may
take it, is in the derivation of the definition from the " determinate meaning" initially grasped, in the perception of the
link running from the dance as first known to the set of predicates manifesting its structure.
At this point, allowances being made for the weakness of the
analogy drawn, Hare seems to be on the verge of explicating a
notion of analysis very much like the one that we have been
considering. We are disappointed. When the passage to the
definition from the determinate but " unformulated " grasp of
the eightsome reel is made, another puzzle enters the scene.
11

R. M. Hare, "Philosophical Discoveries," Mind, LXIX, pp. 145-62.

62

.lOHN' l>. BEA.CH

For, the analysis completed, "we settle down in the comfortable analyticity " provided by the stipulative definition of
the eightsome reel found in the book of dancing instructions.
That is, we know the truth of that represented by "the eightsome reel is danced thus and so " because by " eightsome reel "
we mean what is danced thus and so. Gone is the starting point
of the passage, gone the determinate notion of the dance which
Hare had first contrasted to that given by the dancing book
and which had thus precluded the analyticity now proclaimed.
That starting point has been changed into the set of predicates
which, we were led to believe, had been analytically derived
from it. And so, the subject of the analysis-indeed, the analysis itself-has dissolved, leaving us with the fruits of a verbal
convention.
The confusion found here is compounded, not dissipated,
when Hare states that the "comfortable analyticity" of the
dancing book is achieved " after we have discovered that this
definition of the term 'eightsome reel' "-the book's-" and
no other, accords with our pre-existing but unformulated idea
of how the dance should be danced." We thus return to the
starting point of the analytic sequence, the " determinate meaning" that was contrasted to the definition achieved at the end
of the sequence, and, with that, to a view of analysis that precludes the analyticity related to the stipulative definition. For
the exclusive accord of the definition achieved with the initial
determinate concept of the eightsome reel, the accord between
what Hare insists are two" different" notions-" what we have
at the beginning" and "what we have at the end "-can, if
relevant, only be the analytic derivation of the one from the
other. It is thus odd that Hare should use this as the basis
of the claim that the result of the analytic process-any analytic process-is a tautological proposition. His approach here
may, however, be understood as a moment in the attempt to
overcome a flaw in the standard contemporary view of analysis.
If analysis is to be minimally significant and not utterly and
transparently trivial, it must start somewhere other than at the

THE ACT OF ANALYSIS

68

end; it must, that is, have a starting point conceived and identified as other than the product of analysis. Further, there must
be a relation between the starting point and the product, one
that runs from starting point to product-which is to say that
the starting point must analytically yield the product. On the
other hand, an analytic proposi,tion, as it is grasped in contemporary thought, can only involve a direct identity between
subject and predicate. Somehow, then, the bond between
starting point and product, when it finds expression in a
proposition, must be one of direct identity. This is made possible by converting the starting point of analysis into its product-at the cost, needless to say, of rendering the whole procedure nugatory. Hare's mention of an accord between initial
and subsequent conceptions of that which is analyzed may be
seen as a gesture in the direction of progressive analysis, as an
attempt to mitigate the trivialization of the whole affair that is
the clear import of the position that analysis ends in a tautological proposition. 12
12 Another possible source of Hare's confusion is that he has brought together
these two different views of the process under study: I) we discover that what
we first had before the mind, the dance as initially known or identified, is the
eightsome reel as defined in the book of dancing instructions, and Q) we discover that this, the eightsome reel as defined in the book of dancing instructions,
is what we initially though confusedly had before us. View number one would
involve the notion of analysis that we are sketching, while the second would see
analysis as akin to the emergence of a defined figure out of a fog, each phase
of the process prompting the realization-to which no necessity whatsoever attaches-that what was confusedly comprehended the moment before is indeed the
more distinct object now present.
Such disparate views of analysis would have their counterparts in the accounts
of the act, cited here more than once, presented by Anthony Quinton. Though
analysis is explicitly defined as the direct repetition of what was initially given
to thought, we have already noted that one of the elements of what Quinton calls
the "analytic thesis" is held to be the "development and elucidation" of another.
It is fair to assume that the elucidation in question is itself an act of analysis-which means that in this most interesting case analysis is conceived as quite diff.erent
from the mere duplication of what has already been assumed. But that is not
all, for there is also the position suggested by the following statements made by
Quin ton concerning certain analyses, offered, ironically, in support of the assertion that every analysis turns about a perceived direct identity: " What is hard
is to discover the identity in the first place. But an identity is none the less

.JOHN 1). BJMCH

6. The necessity found in analysis not based on the principle

of identity.
All would agree that analysis is a determination, an explication, and the analytic proposition an expression, of what its
an identity for being deeply hidden." (op.cit.) Here too we are certainly to believe
that it is through analysis that the deeply hidden identity is discovered. And this
means that thel'e is an analysis in which the subject-that which is discovered lo
be this and that-is initially known and identified in terms of features other
than those, initially deeply hidden, which we come to realize pertain to it. Finally,
Quinton offers a notion of analysis as a movement from the general to the specific.
Speaking of the relationship between that element of the analytic thesis which
concerns necessity and that which has to do with the meanings of terms, he observes: " 'Analytic' as 'true in virtue of meaning' gives a little more clarity
of outline to the relatively amorphous notion of the necessary as that which is
true in itself, no matter what." (ibid.)
As stated above, such conflicting conceptions of analysis may be seen as rooted
in the desire to mitigate the trivializing of analysis that is consequent upon the
understanding of it as mere repetition. Another attempt to modify this result.
is perhaps found in A. J. Ayer's objection to Strawson's "stress on the difference
between analysis of the facts of language and analysis of the facts which language describes." He adds: " after all, these two kinds of analysis come down
to the same thing. Take, for example, belief-the fact of believing this or that.
One may ask what belief is, or one may ask what one is saying when one says ' I
believe.'" (The Royaumont Coll., Rorty, op.cit., p. 329) Though on this occasion
we are given nothing in support of the claim, Ayer could have had in mind the
trivial truth that since belief is that signified by the word " belief," to determine
the sense of " belief " is to determine what belief is, the latter being a " factual "
affair if belief happens to be imbedded in the factual order. However, on another
occasion the approach taken by Ayer is quite different; and while not trivial,
it is unacceptable. He writes: " a child who has gained the idea of whales from
picture books may learn something new when he is told that whales are mammals ... what he learns, surely, is an analytic truth." ("Phenomenology and
Linguistic Analysis," The Aristotelian Society, Symposia, Supp. Vol. XXXIII)
This attempt to identify knowledge of fact and analytic truth is wholly in vain.
The fact, the "something new," that the child learns is: that seen in the picture
book is a mammal. The analytic truth supposedly one with this fact is: a true
air-breathing, warm-blooded, viviparous mammal inhabiting the sea (the meaning
of "whale") is a mammal, or something of the sort. Whatever Ayer might say,
the two propositions are not the same. What the child actually learns is the purely
factual conjunction of attributes, those revealed in the picture of the whale and
that signified by " mammal," not an analytic truth of the kind offered.
Of course, the interesting question in all this is whether any of the British
analysts do acknowledge an act of analysis which yields a non-tautological proposition. If so, would that they were clear about it. Hare, in the article cited, comes

THE ACT OF ANALYSIS

65

subject is-of what its subject necessarily is. An act which one
ought to perform is an act which one can perform, is necessarily
an act which one can perform; an existent is an individual, and
is necessarily an individual. This might seem to justify the contention that each and every analytic proposition, even that
distinguished from the trivially true (one of the form xy is y),
even that cognitively effortful and progressive, is at its core
an embodiment of the principle of identity, and that its necessity has a like basis, supported, as it were, by this law's obverse,
the principle of contradiction, which forbids what is something
not to be that something. It might be granted that such a
proposition is not so evidently an instance of identity / contradiction as is a proposition of the kind a bachelor is a male. Still,
it could be maintained, we are entitled to hold that what ought
to be done is necessarily what can be done only because it is
what can be done, that red is necessarily a color because it
is a color, and so on. An appealing approach, but one that overlooks a crucial fact. The bond of necessity involved here does
not, for example, link the ability to act with the ability to act,
but the obligation to act with the ability to act. We do not
claim that what can be done is necessarily what can be done;
we assert that what ought to be done is necessarily what can
be done. It is ought, this precise and distinct notion, that necessitates can, just as it is ought that implies can. In every instance of significant analysis we claim that it is the subject
as identified, as possessed of a determinate attribute or feature,
that we perceive to be, that we declare necessarily to be, this
or that sort of thing. If this were not the case, if we did not
draw the predicate from the subject as necessitated by that subject in its specificity, and if the sole ground of the necessity
were that S is P, then it could always be countered that perhaps
Sneed not be P. If it is P, given that it is P, then it must be P,
just as if it is given that the fruit before me is green, then it
very close to acknowledging just that. But, in that same article, he expressly states
his willingness to abandon the act of progressive analysis-the move from initial
determinate conception to the definition-which is such a " puzzle " and a " mystery."

66

JOHN D. BEACH

must be green. But a priori, precisely as S, need it be P-need
the fruit be green? However, the necessity here questioned
or denied is the very necessity claimed in the proposition linking ought and can, being and individual, red and color.

*

*

*

Our sketch is completed. Can we go beyond it? Can we, that
is, grasp and adequately express a complexity on the part of a
subject other than that having the form xy? Can we grasp and
manifest a subject-predicate relationship other than that of the
structure xy-y? Can we discern and display as intelligible a
necessity other than that found in xy is y, a necessity that links
a unified whole and one of its features rather than a necessity
that holds between an element (y) and itself?
In some manner each of these has at least been detected. To
deal with the first and basic question, should a complexity other
than that of the form xy be declared unknown, we need only
note once more that our favored example, ought, defines resolution into that form. Can is undeniably a feature of this state;
but when it is abstracted, that left behind is precisely the notion
of ought itself, a notion that involves the predicate in question,
can, not something standing apart from that predicate. But
even in the case of this grounding condition we seek more.
Granting the discerning of a subject whose structure is not
molecular, what of a positive nature might be said of it? Continuing, what is the relationship between such a subject and its
predicate that we can properly term analytic? And what is the
necessity that we conceive of as consequent upon the analytic
relationship? Better, what are the relationships, the necessities?
For we may not assume that all analytical derivations are identical in the paths that they traverse. We would no doubt hold
that in all cases the derived predicate is intrinsic to the analyzed
subject. The same idea is surely expressed by the use in extended senses of such terms as included, continued, involved,
and the like. But we may ask whether any of these take us beyond the initial view of analysis as a determination of what a
given subject is. The characterization of the predicate as an

THE ACT OF ANALYSIS

67

aspect, a facet, a feature, a side of the subject would also point
to the fact that analysis reveals a relationship of identity between subject and predicate, though these terms would have as
well the function of emphasizing the non-direct nature of that
identity. They might also represent the predicate as that which
emanates from the core or center of the subject, a conception
that, as Hare would put it, seems to accord with our original
understanding of the link between analyzed subject and derived
predicate. A like emphasis on the active, though this time with
respect to the analyzing subject, is found in the use of elucidating, unfolding and discrirninating to represent the drawing
of the predicate from the subject. It is a far cry from any of
these notions, however, to a comprehension of either the emanation of the predicate from the subject or the corresponding cognitive derivation of the one from the other.
What, then, does permit us to hold with utter conviction that
the subject must be the predicate-that red must be a color,
that what one is obliged to do must be what one can do, that
what exists must be individual? Not, we should note, the inconceivability of the subject apart from the predicate. This approach rests upon the view of the subject-predicate relationship
as having the form xy-y, and is thus no more than a slight variation on the claim that the principle of identity accounts for the
necessity encountered. Its simple inapplicability to the present
case is clearly shown by at least two of the examples often cited.
Red is in fact conceivable apart from the proper notion of color,
and ought is conceivable apart from a discriminated can.
No doubt recourse to the xy-y structure and to the corresponding criterion of inconceivability lies behind one interpretation of the argument that the predicate pertains of necessity to
the subject because it is part of the subject's definition. However, this argument also takes the form of maintaining that the
subject-predicate relationship is a necessary one because the
predicate enters into the definition of a unified subject. But
does this would-be explanation amount to anything more than
another version of what we have been probing and trying to
understand? We are doubtless to assume that each one of the

68

JOHN D. BEACH

set of predicates that constitutes the definition is seen as what
emanates from the subject, as an aspect or facet thereof, and
thus as what pertains of necessity to that subject. We must
grant, then, that it either rests upon or is wholly identical with
the relationship which it is held to elucidate. The same weakness, manifestly, would afflict an explanation which claimed
that a given predicate belongs of necessity to a subject because
it is the genus of that subject. We would have to know that the
proffered generic notion is a necessary aspect of the subjectwhich would present to us the very relationship under study.
Nor would we be helped at all by the account which bases the
necessity in question on the fact that the predicate presupposes
the subject-as, to choose the likeliest illustration, the obligation to perform an act presupposes the ability to perform it. At
bottom what would this come to other than that ought implies
oan, and that, accordingly, if one is not able to perform a given
act he is not obligated to, with the latter formulation being the
proximate source of the claim that obligation presupposes ability?
The unsatisfactory character of the above explanation might
lead us to settle for the affirmation in this case or that of an
analytic derivation grasped merely as different from that found
in a:y is y, its distinctness vouched for by an insight whose content is not to be probed, the precise nature of the perceived
subject-predicate relationship being dismissed as irrelevant. Or
perhaps we should even cast aside as lacking in pertinence the
grasp of a distinct subject-predicate bond, and simply note the
tendency of thouQ'ht to move from knowledge of subject to
knowledge of predicate in this case and that, with such movements involving varying degrees of compulsion, each instance
measured against the utter coercion found in xy is y. But of
course it is precisely this approach that would lack pertinence,
taking us away, as it does, from the starting-point of our inquiry, the perceived distinctness of certain subject-predicate
relationships, and inappropriately emphasizing, if only as a
quasi-reference point, the xy-y structure. And given the perceived uniqueness of the objective relationship traced in non-

'.l'iIE AC± o:F ·ANALYSIS

69

Kantian analysis, it is bootless to challenge ·the significance of
our queries concerning it. 13
Very well, what is grasped, represented, duplicated in the
analytic derivation? What do we fasten upon when we link
ought and can, existent and individual, red and color? What is
expressed when, in this case and that, we claim that S must be
P? Other apparent examples of the sort of structure noted and
of the bond asserted are also of interest. We would no doubt
claim to know that what exists possesses of necessity an inner
character or essence. Essence, we would insist, quite as much
as individuality, pertains to the ratio entis, and is not a feature
merely conjoined to the notion of the existent. Moving to a
narrower sphere, assuredly the same points can be made with
respect to the predicate sound and each of these subjects in
turn, a trumpet blast, a piano chord, and a screech. Or action
and, say, sawing wood, pushing a car, and putting a shot. In
each instance, the predicate is clearly intrinsic to the subjectthat is, expressive of what the subject in its unity is-is a proper
object of thought derived from the subject, and is known to be
a necessary feature of that subject. Is more given to us? Seemingly not. Whatever its obviousness and relative simplicity, not
one of these reveals any more definitely the precise pattern that
the mind traces when it undertakes an analytic derivation and
perceives the necessity involved. Nor, it would seem, do such
instances as these: what acts exists, what acts separately exists
separately, love implies knowledge, moral sincerity implies the
willingness to universalize. We would not take seriously the
assertion that such relationships involved no more than the
factual co-presence of certain features. We would, that is, have
no difficulty in distinguishing such relationships from the following: gold-malleability, copper-conductivity, platinum-ductility, and gas pressure-volume. Nor-to hint at the near
1 • Reference is made to the "degrees of analyticity"
approach taken by W. V.
Quine in his famous " Two Dogmas of empiricism," From a Logical Point of View,
Harvard University Press, Cambridge, 1953; by M. White, " The Analytic and
the Synthetic," Pragmatism and the American Mind, Oxford University Press,
New York, 1973; and by A. Pap, Semantics and Necessary Truth, Yale University
Press, New Haven, 1958.

70

- .JOHN D. BEACH

universality of the commitment to the analytic bond-would
any such difficulty consciously affiict the advocates of the pronouncements central to the doctrines of ontological monism,
epistemological subjectivism, and ethical nihilism, or to those
involved in the claimed impossibility of a private language, of
a language that is not behavior, of an intellectual operation
independent of language, and of a free act. But who would dare
to claim, however strong his convictions concerning the presence
or absence of an authentic analytic bond, that he is able to comprehend lucidly and able to express quite adequately the nature
of that bond?
This might lead us to consider yet another approach to the
matter. Two of its embodiments have been of marked influence
in the history of philosophical speculation. On the one hand it
has been held that our determined and convinced acceptance of
certain propositions-our display in some cases of an irresistible intellectual compulsion-is rooted in the native structure of
our minds, which causes them to conceive of or shape their objects along specified lines. On the other hand mind has been
seen as the free and creative source of forms imposed upon the
experienced flux, imparting to it an intelligibility that in itself
it lacks. Now, from another perspective, these views might play
a fruitful role. In relation to present needs, they are irrelevant.
Our concern is with the analytic bond as it is given to us,
whether its source be mind or its pristine object. This is the
relationship that the mind presumably discerns and finds intellectually compelling or gratifying. An intelligible account and
manifestation of such a relationship, whether springing from the
native constitution of the mind or freely fashioned by the mind,
is thus what we seek, not its simple assertion, not the simple
claim that the mind finds it compelling. We want to know why
the mind finds it compelling. If the relationships said to be imposed upon experience are without intrinsic intelligibility, and
if their power to satisfy the mind is held to derive from the unknown structure of mind, they are quite worthless by way of
explaining the nature of analytic propositions.
Perhaps we will be forced to apply generally what C. I. Lewis

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THE ACT OF ANALYSIS

presents in his account of the most fundamental " a priori ...
definitive or analytic " forms thrust upon reality by the mind.
These are the " modes of thought embodied in the forms of logic
and language .... the forms of valid inference." And they, we
are told, can only be caught "in some vague and fleeting insight, because they are so nearly the marrow of our being " and
"go back to the point where mind is continuous with the objective and indistinguishable from it." 14 Should we hold that
something similar operates when the mind seeks to grasp in
their fullness the relationships embodied in various acts of analysis? Were we to take that approach, a problem would arise.
However inadequate in an ultimate sense our grasp of this or
that analytic bond be, surely it is clearer than our grasp of the
mind's asserted continuity with the objective and of the influence that this continuity supposedly has upon the mind's
insight into certain cognitive forms. As grounds, then, for abandoning the search for a deeper understanding of what we are
about in analysis they must be considered deficient. In fact, as
a flawed attempt to explain our inability to comprehend clearly
the analytic relationship, the words of Lewis might well prompt
us to continue the search. A further source of stimulation
should be the dictum concerning mind, or its object, or the relationship of one to the other, that lies behind the flat rejection of
any analytic link other than that of direct identity. Even the
more modest ah-if-I-could-but-understand-what-is-meant
response to asserted instances of non-Kantian analysis should
provoke effort here. The task may not in every case be utterly
urgent. It is unlikely that the failure to complete it will cause
very many anxious spirits to draw back before proclaiming that
red is a color or that ought implies can. Still, we should grant,
without laying stress upon any particular analytic bond, that it
would be of worth to know what we are about when engaged in
this distinctive cognitive act.
JOHN

D. BEACH

Marquette University
J"\!Jilwaukee, WU!consin
14 Mind

and the World Order, pp. 284-36, Dover Publication, New York, 1956.

THE PROBLEM OF SYMBOLIC REFERENCE

I

T IS PERMISSIBLE THESE DAYS for theologians to
dwell on the existential meaning of religious symbols. It
is not permissible, however, for a theologian to dwell on
just what it is to which these symbols refer. To do so elicits
responses such as " that language has no meaning " or " how
can you verify that?"
It seems to me that there has grown up a subtle yet unmistakable correlation between two different sets of distinctions.
The distinction between symbols and signs common to theology
is correlated with the distinction between meaning and reference reported by some philosophers. Religious symbols are accepted as having meaning, but the nature of their reference is
either left to obscurity or denied entirely.
I submit that this assumption in theology is in error on two
counts. First, symbols are in fact a sub-class of signs; hence,
they have reference just as do other signs. Second, the critical
thrust within theology as an academic discipline demands that
the reference character of symbols be explored. In doing so, I
contend, the referent to theological statements becomes the
same referent to which religious symbols point while they are
giving meaning to our faith and our daily lives.
SYMBOL AND SIGN

It is part and parcel of contemporary theological discussion
to distinguish between signs and symbols. Signs are understood
as denotative, pointing to a specific object and available for
univocal or literal interpretation. Symbols, in contrast, are said
to be connotative, open-ended in reference, and not subject to
univocal or literal interpretation.
Signs are said to be arbitrary. They have no intrinsic or essential relationship to that which they signify. Signs are em-

THE PROBL'.EM OF SYMBOLIC RlJJFERENCE

73

ployed in scientific, empirical, or objectivist thinking. A hexagonal shaped road sign means" stop." A triangular shaped road
sign means " yield." We know this by convention. There is no
intrinsic resemblance between these shapes and the phenomenon
of stopping or yielding. Yet a hexagonal sign means "stop" and
only " stop." It does not mean anything else. It has a univocal,
not an equivocal or ambiguous, signification. Signs are objective and precise in their designation.
Although common parlance relies upon the term " symbol "
to include what we have just described as a sign, theologians
and philosophers of religion are accustomed to reserving this
term for more specific definition. 1 Symbols, like signs, point
beyond themselves to something else. They do not exist for
their own sake but for the sake of their referent. Beyond this
common factor, however, symbols are said to differ from signs.
First, symbols are born out of real life situations. They are
not the arbitrary creations of human subjectivity. They cannot be simply replaced by substitute signs at the whim of convention, because their meaning cuts too deeply to allow reformulation without some loss of meaning.
Second, symbols have surplus meaning. They speak to us of
many things. A sign may have a one-to-one relationship with
its referent, but a symbol has a one-to-many relationship. A
symbol is both constant and flexible, thereby making it ever
ready for new applications and new insights.
This leads us to a third important feature of a symbol,
namely, its ability to open up new levels of reality which are
otherwise closed to us. Symbolic language attempts to reach
out and grasp that which is not directly known and which re1 The present discussion is intended to represent
the views offered by Paul
Tillich, Dynamics of Faith (New York: Harper and Row, 1957) Chap. III; Paul
Ricoeur, The Symbolism of Evil (Boston: Beacon Press, 1967); Philip Wheelwright, Metaphor and Relility (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1968),
noting that Wheelwright's vocabulary of " steno-symbol " and "tensive-symbol "
correlate roughly with "sign " and " symbol " as we are using them; Thomas
Fawcett, The Symbolic Language of Religion (Minneapolis: Augsburg 1971),
Chaps. I and

74

TED ..

sists exhaustive linguistic description. It takes us beyond appearance to communicate a sense of primary reality.
In so doing, fourthly, it opens up not only external reality but
also new regions within one's own soul. Symbols not only designate objects, they also involve the subject. Symbols unlock
dimensions and elements of our inner being so as to make us
feel at one with that which is most real. Symbols-especially
religious symbols-give meaning to life. We orient our action
and reflection around our primary symbols. Symbols carry existential significance.
Because symbols are capable of bringing us into touch with
reality, fifthly, they themselves must participate in the very
reality they seek to represent. They have ontological force and
serve to reveal to us being itself. Symbols are not arbitrary
projections of human subjectivity. We do not produce them.
Rather, they come to us, we might say, by the grace of being
itself.
:Finally, it is observed that symbols grow and die. When the
situation is ripe, a given symbol works with power. It influences. When the situation changes, one of two things happens.
Either new meanings are opened up by the symbol so that it
works in new ways, or else it appears irrelevant to human existence and atrophies until it disappears from our awareness. It
may then be picked up like any other object and put into a
museum to remind us of what life was like in the past.
·Thus, of these two words, " symbol " is the richer multivalent
term that is asked to perform countless theological duties. One
such duty it is asked to perform, unfortunately, is to mask or
hide some equivocal and imprecise theological thinking. But
before turning to an example of this in theology, let us examine
the distinction between meaning and reference as employed in
twentieth century philosophy.
MEANING AND REFERENCE

The distinction between symbol and sign in theology has
been quietly and perhaps unobservedly correlated with the dis-

THE PROBLEM OF SYMBOLIC REFERENCE

75

tinction between meaning and reference in the philosophy of
language. This is an unwarranted mistake. Although there is
no justification for this association, there may be at least a partial explanation.
In retrieving the roots of contemporary philosophical discussion, our attention is drawn to the germinal essay of 1892 by
Gottlob Frege," Uber Sinn und Bedeutung." There is some debate over the precise English rendering of this title, but agreement seems to be emerging over the translation of Sinn as
" meaning " or " sense " and Bedeutung as " reference." Although the hermeneutical theologian Friederich Schleiermacher
drew the same fundamental distinction between Sinn and
Bedeutung some three quarters of a century earlier, it is to
Frege that we customarily attribute the influence on twentieth
century logic and linguistic philosophy.
Frege argued that meaning and reference are to be distinguished and not confused. Some who followed Frege did not
obey his dictum, and the resulting confusion in philosophy just
may be a relevant cause of the present confusion in theology.
" Reference " indicates the capacity of a word or sign to point
beyond itself, to signify something extra-linguistic. The referent, then, is that to which it points, that which it signifies. The
referent need not be only an empirical object, because we often
talk about or refer to other things, e.g., ideas, feelings, eras,
moods, etc. It is in the very nature of a word that it should
function as a sigmtm, that there should be something that it
signifies, something referred to.
The meaning or sense of a word is its Sinn. Meaning indicates
the necessity for taking seriously the word's context. Words all
by themselves do not have any one specific meaning. They are
polysemic, i.e., they have the capacity for having many meanings. The particular meaning of a word is determined by its
context in the sentence or statement.
Hence, on the basis of Frege, we may say the meaning or
sense of a statement is what it says, whereas the reference is
that about which it says it. What a statement says is basically

76

TED PETlllRS

an internal affair; it concerns the internal arrangement of words,
sentence, and context. That about which the statement speaks
is external; it is extra-linguistic. It is the real insofar as the real
can be presented or re-presented by language. It is what is said
about the world.
In the philosophical thinking following Frege, the distinction
between meaning and reference became temporarily blurred.
The logical atomism of Bertrand Russell neglected meaning in
the sense of Sinn and allowed Bedeutung or reference to dominate his language theory. Russell's theory contended in effect
that there is no " meaning," only " denotation." Words as the
basic atomic signs were considered more fundamental than context. One must understand the words before one can understand the whole, he said. Understanding begins, then, with the
direct acquaintance with the objects which are the referents to
simple signs. For Russell, in short, referring took the place of
meaning and even co-opted the term, " meaning."
It was this step that eventually made the verification principle of logical positivism so deadly to theology. The verification
principle asserts that the meaningfulness of a statement is determined by its correspondence to an empirical referent. If one
is unable to demonstrate that a given proposition can be verified empirically, then it has no cognitive meaning. Empirical
verification has to do solely with the referent of a proposition,
not with its contextual meaning. The question of verification
-and later the question of falsification-is connected with
Bedeutung and not Sinn. 2
The body blow this dealt to theology is a story well known.
Theological statements could not be verified or in principle falsified in any direct empirical sense because their referent, God, is
not subject to independent investigation. Theology appeared to
lose the power to make· literal univocal statements about the
•Cf. Anders Nygr.en, Meaning and Method: Prolegomena to a Scientijfo Philosophy of Religion and a Scientific Theology (Philadelphia: Fortress, 1972) pp. 22942; Wolfhart Panncnberg, Theology and the Philosophy of Science (Philadelphia:
Westminster, 1976) pp. 206-208; and Earl R. MacCormac, Metaphor and Myth in
Science and Religion (Durham: Duke University Press, 1976) pp. S9ff.

THE PROBLEM OF. SYMBOLIC REFERENCE

77

divine. Religious and theological propositions were not permitted to make any cognitive assertions about the reality denoted by a word such as " God " or a phrase such as " Kingdom
of God." Such propositions were denied the status of assertions
and were said rather to be expressions, i.e., statements which
tell us more about the subjectivity of the speaker than about
that which is spoken of.
To parry the punch thrown by the philosophers-that theological language is meaningless-theology needed to :find meaning somewhere other than in the reference quality of signs. The
univocal designative nature of signs could not provide a foundation for theological language. So theology turned to the
symbol. The task of the symbol would not be to refer us to
God but rather to give expression to our human existence. The
question would no longer be: to what does the religious symbol
refer? It became: what is the function or meaning of the symbol in religious discourse? And the notion of meaning adopted
here is not meaning dependent upon Bedeutung or reference; it
is rather subjective or existential meaning.
The symbol-that rich multivalent bearer of essential meaning-came to the rescue of an ailing theology. Through a rejuvenated theory of symbol and myth (myth as symbols in
narrative form) , theology excluded God from empirical reality
in order to immunize religious belief from objectivist attack.
With symbol we could have meaningful talk about God but do
so without reference; and this would avoid the pesky criticisms
of the verificationists. It is in this situation that all the distinctions between symbols and signs earlier adumbrated became
widely accepted. I suggest that the motive for drawing these
distinctions was strongly guided by the desire to avoid the
trouble caused by the notion of reference. 8
8 I am aware that the precise chronology of this development does not show a
cause-effect relationship between the schools of logical positivism and theological
existentialism. Bultmann, Tillich, and the Niebuhrs had begun formulating their
basic positions in the 19!i?Os and 1980s without direct response to the publications
of B. Russell or A. J. Ayer in the 1980s. My argument still stands, however,
because the precise articulations· of positivism reflect ·intellectual currents that

78

TE}) PETERS

The problem is that modern theology has tacitly accepted
meaning without reference. But by jettisoning reference we
have also left behind the question of truth. With the gradual
dissolution of the verification principle due to its shrinking
sphere of influence, it is time once again for theology to explore
the possibility that its propositions-as well as the more primary religious symbols upon which they are based-may have
some reference.
SIGN OF THE KINGDOM

Let us look briefly at a sample argument wherein the wedge
between sign and symbol is driven so deep as to leave theology
with existential meaning but no reference. The example I am
choosing is drawn from a wide discussion on the symbolic
nature of the" kingdom of God" as proclaimed by Jesus.
To begin with we point to the observation of Rudolf Bultmann and others that Jesus was mistaken in thinking that the
world would end soon. It can be empirically observed that
Jesus did not return as the Son of Man and that the eschatological kingdom of God has not been firmly established. Nevertheless, contends Bultmann, what Jesus said about the end of
the world expresses Jesus's understanding of life. The fact that
what Jesus said is not true does not make what he said meaningless. Despite Jesus's mistake regarding the kingdom of God,
his message is still valid for us because it presents us with a
saving understanding of human existence; it leads to deeper
self-understanding. Jesus's prediction that we would on the last
day see " the Son of Man coming on the clouds with great
power and glory" means that Jesus sees humanity as confronted by the immediacy of God and being challenged to
decision. The symbol of the Son of Man coming to inaugurate
God's total rule on earth does not refer to the Son of Man coming to inaugurate God's total rule on earth. Rather, it means
something personal or existential to the one who is influenced
go back to the 19th century. Verificationism simply represents the most forceful
articulation of the challenge to orthodox theology posed by modern science and
philosophy.

THE PROBLEM OF SYMBOLIC REFERENCE

79

by the symbol. (If the term " refer " is actually employed in
such a discussion, it usually intends to point out the existential
meaning.)
What Bultmann has accomplished with this method for interpreting scripture is to bridge the gap between the first and
the twentieth centuries through the employment of both historical criticism and hermeneutical appropriation. Historical
criticism recognizes the temporal distance between the text and
the interpreter, and it seeks to understand the phrase " kingdom
oi God" in its original context of Jewish apocalyptic. The symbol of God's kingdom had a particular meaning in the time of
,Jesus, and historical criticism is capable of recovering the context that gave it that meaning. Bultmann's existential application of this meaning in the act of interpretation serves to bridge
the gap between the ancient Jewish context and our context in
the modern world. In both contexts, human beings are concerned with understanding life; therefore meaningful dialogue
can take place between people in worlds that are millenia apart.
Norman Perrin extended the Bultmannian hermeneutical approach in his treatment of the " kingdom of God " as a symbol.
Perrin added tools drawn from two philosophers: Philip Wheelwright's distinction between steno-symbol and tensive symbol
plus Paul Ricoeur's distinction between sign and symbol.
Ricoeur's scheme conforms basically to the distinctions listed
earlier in the article. Wheelwright's notion of the steno-symbol
corresponds to a large extent with what we have been calling
a sign, and his notion of tensive-symbol corresponds with what
we have been calling symbol.
In the case of Jewish apocalyptic, Perrin says that the symbols used there are steno-symbols, i.e., signs. "Each figure in
the story told by the apocalytic seer bore a one-to-one relationship with that which was depicted." 4 The meanings of apocalyptic signs are said by Perrin here to be exhausted in their first
or literal intentionality. I interpret Perrin to be saying that
•Norman Perrin, "Eschatology and Hermeneutics," Jourruil of Biblical Litera(Summer
ture, 9S: 1 (March 1974) pp. S-14, reprinted in Theology Digest,
1975) pp. 149-55; Cf. by same author, Jesus and the Language of the Kingdom
(Philadelphia: Fortress, 1976) pp. !l9-S!l.

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TED PETERS

the function of signs ·or steno-symbols is to ref er to something
beyond themselves in univocal fashion. In the case of apocalyptic writing, the form of such referring was allegory. Perrin
writes, " this thing stood for Antiochus IV Epiphanes, that
thing stood for Judas Maccabee, and so forth." 5
Although Jewish apocalyptic which provides the historical
context for Jesus 's teaching was sign-oriented, Perrin wants
us to believe that Jesus spoke not in signs but in symbols. On
what grounds? Perrin says: "Jesus refused to give a sign." 6
This statement of Jesus's refusal appears in four synoptic gospel
passages: Matthew 12: 39 and 16=4; Luke 11: 29; and Mark
8: 11-13. With Bultmann in the background, Perrin says Jesus's
proclamation of the " kingdom of God " is therefore a tensivesymbol, i.e., it is a "true " symbol and not a sign. Because
Jesus refused to give signs, then our responsibility as scriptural
interpreters is to explore the manifold ways in which the symbol
of the kingdom of God can become existentially meaningful to
us.
To the extent that Perrin' s argument depends upon what
Jesus did or did not say, it can be dismissed immediately because it hinges upon the logical fallacy of equivocation. Perrin
equivocates on the word "sign." One need not go into a lengthy
historical discourse defending the multi-level tensive character
of apocalyptic symbolism. One need only note that Perrin has
taken a definition of " sign " worked out by twentieth century
philosophy and superimposed it without qualification upon a
first century dialogue. He has employed literary criticism to
the complete neglect of the principles of historical criticism,
wherein we would first ask just what " sign" could have meant
in the context within which Jesus himself used it. Perrin's
argument would be valid only if we could be certain that Jesus's
own definition of "sign " is identical to that of Wheelwright's
7
"steno-symbol" or Ricoeur's
•Perrin, "Eschatology and Hermeneutics."
•Ibid., Perrin's italics; Cf. Jesus and the Language of the Kingdom, p. 45.
7 Although ·Ricoeur and Perrin are in· general agreement over the relationship
between Jewish apocalyptic and Jesus's proclamation of the coming kingdom of

THE PROBLEM OF:.SYMBQLIC :REFERENCE

81

In the biblical passages upon which Perrin relies," sign" has
its place in phrases such as "sign from heaven" or "sign of
Jonah" (cr7Jµ,e'2ov, semeion) . The historical context seems to
indicate two things .. First, the people are asking for a sign
from heaven, perhaps a definitive revelation, which would establish the authority of Jesus. A second and more dominant
dimension to " sign " implied by the context is its reference to
judgment, perhaps the judgment scheduled for the end of the
world foreseen in the apocalyptic vision. Jesus refers to it as
the "sign of Jonah." Jonah, recall, went to the sinful city of
Nineveh and proclaimed God's forthcoming wrath. This advance warning allowed the people of Nineveh an opportunity to
repent and avoid destruction. Jesus refuses to give the people
of his time a similar sign, calling them an " evil generation." The
implication is that God's wrath will come suddenly without
warning. Jesus criticizes the evil generation for wanting a sign,
because they are indirectly asking for the license to continue
sinful and debaucherous living right up until the last possible
moment. Like John the Baptist, Jesus sees the kingdom of
God not only as future but also as having a reality that impinges on the present. Consequently, the message includes the
challenge to "repent now."
The sign of Jonah is not the sign of Ricoeur. It would be
premature to assert on the basis of these four synoptic passages
that Jesus used signs strictly in the sense of either tensivesymbol or steno-symbol. (The gospel of John may be different;
many of Jesus's activities are referred to as "signs," e.g., the
miracle at Cana in John 2, and these signs elicit the multidimensional levels of meaning in vrnys characteristic of what we
have been calling " symbols.") And crucially in this regard,
the apocalyptic discourses of Jesus in the synoptics come in
response to a question posed by his disciples: " Tell us, when
God, it is interesting to note that Ricoeur avoids Perrin's fallacy by, first, employing the term " steno-symbol " instead of " sign " in reference to apocalyptic
and, second, by not hinging his argument on• Jesus's use of the term "sign." Cf.,
Ricoeur, "Biblical Hermeneutics," Semeia 4 (Missoula, Montana: Scholars Press,
1975)' p. 113.

82

.TED PETERS

will this be, and what will be the sign of your coming at the
close of the age?" (Matthew 24: 4 and Luke 21: 7). In contrast
to the evil generation whom Jesus did not answer because
they wanted a sign like Jonah's, Jesus answers his disciples.
He does not reveal the precise time of the end-" But of
that day or that hour no one knows, not even the Son, but
only the Father "-but he lists a number of signs, e.g., nation
will rise up against nation, earthquakes in many places, persecutions, etc.
Perrin would have us transpose all these signs into tensivesymbols, and in this process the normal or literal referent would
be dropped. He contends that the passages mentioned above
dealing with the expected kingdom of God do not refer to what
will really happen in the future but mean rather, in Perrin's
words, " ... that I experience Jesus as ultimacy in the historicality of my everyday, and that experience transforms my
everydayness ... " 8 Although the tensive symbol is described
as having multiple references, what is subtly promulgated here
is that the one reference it no longer has is the literal or objective reference. What Perrin says is that the tensive-symbol's
reference is really its existential meaning.
THE REFERENCE

CHARACTER

OF SYMBOLS

It is my position that the subtle association of symbol with
existential meaning to the exclusion of external reference is unwarranted. Even the philosophers of religion who distinguish
symbols from signs grant that symbols too have reference.
Symbols are a sub-class within the class of signs. Paul Tillich
writes: "symbols have one characteristic in common with
signs; they point beyond themselves to something else." 9 Philip
Wheelwright's tensive-symbol still has reference just as does
the steno-symbol; and on occasion the tensive-symbol may
" achieve a high precision." 10 Paul Ricoeur repeatedly makes
•Norman Perrin, The Resurrection According to Matthew, Mark, and Lulce
(Philadelphia: Fortress, 1977) p. 88.
•Tillich, Dynamics of Faith, p. 41.
10 Wheelwright, Metaphor and Reality, p. 94.

T1IE PROBLEM OF SYMBOLIC REFERENCE

83

the point that every symbol is a sign, even though every sign
may not be a symbol. What characterizes a sign as a symbol
according to Ricoeur is its double intentionality. 11 A symbol
is not a symbol because it allegedly lacks reference.
H theology is going to come to grips with the reference character of symbols, then certain features of symbols must be
once again taken into consideration. First, we acknowledge
that symbols have a double intentionality. The two intentionalities are from our perspective inseparable-distinguishable but still inseparable. Paul Ricoeur sees symbols functioning with an analogy of proportion.
Analogy is a nonconclusive reasoning that proceeds through a fourth
proportional term (A is to Bas C is to D). But in symbol I cannot
objectivize the analogical relation that binds the second meaning to
the first. By living in the first meaning I am drawn by it beyond
itself: the symbolic meaning is constituted in and through the literal
meaning, which brings about the analogy by giving the analogue.
Unlike a comparison that we " look at " from the outside, symbol is
the very movement of the primary meaning that makes us share in
the latent meaning and thereby assimilates us to the symbolized,
without our being able intellectually to dominate the similarity.
This is the sense in which symbol "gives'; it gives because it is a
primary intentionality that gives the second meaning. 12

This recognition that the symbol " gives " meaning leads
to our second consideration: coming in contact with the reference to something beyond the symbol is experienced as a kind
of grace. The symbol provides meaning for us; it does not wait
for us to superimpose meaning upon it. Though a symbol provides meaning we implicitly recognize it has a stability that
transcends the context in which it is found meaningful. In
Philip Wheelwright's definition of a symbol, he points out that
it is "a relatively stable and repeatable element of perceptual
experience," which is " of a more permanent kind than those
11 Ricoeur, Symbolism of Evil, p. 15; see also Freud and Philosophy
(New
Haven: Yale University Press, 1970) p. 8, and The Conflict of lnterpretat-ioris
(Evanston: Northwestern University Press, 1974), p. 289.
12 Ricoeur, Conflict of Interpretations, p. 290, Ricoeur's italics.

S-4

TED.l'ETJllRS

transient wisps of suggestiveness" resulting from the occasional
manipulation of words by poetic genius.13 Symbols are anchored. They have a kind of staying power that permits them
to speak again and again in new ways as the horizons of
meaning grow and shift. Such staying power is due to our
confidence that there is a referent beyond the symbol.
The meaning a symbol gives to our lives certainly presupposes that we have an existential relationship with the symbol.
It is part of our horizon or context of meaning. But if a symbol
by definition has a reference to something beyond itself, then its
real power is to bind us to that which is beyond. To be related
to a symbol that does not refer us to anything further is to
be related to a mere object; the symbol becomes a mere thing.
What makes a symbol live is its power to mediate a relationship between us and that to which it refers. It is only due to
this quality of the symbol that we are able to see the meaning
it provides as a gift, as coming to us from beyond us.14 It is
this referential dimension of the symbol that gives it the ability
to draw us up into its world of meaning and unite us with essential reality, with the sacred. "Every symbol is finally a
hierophany, a manifestation of the bond between man and the
sacred." 15
A third consideration is that symbols for linguistic beings are
equi-primordial with experience. Humans are linguistic beings.
Reality is mediated through language. And language itself is
a part of reality. To continue Wheelwright's definition of symbol begun above, " a symbol, in general, is a relatively stable
and repeatable element of perceptual experience, standing for
some larger meaning or set of meanings which cannot be given,
or not fully given, in perceptual experience itself." 16 In other
words, human experience is already meaningful in the experiencing and one is unable to get behind or under the symbol to
Wheelwright, Metaphor and Recdity, pp. 92 and 68 respectively.
"Ricoeur, Conflict of Interpretations, p. 9188.
18 Ricoeur, Symbolism of Evil, p. 356.
10 Wheelwright, Metaphor and Realit11, p. 9!l.

13

'i'HE PROBLEM OF SYMBOLIC REFERENCE

85

a more primal level where experience has not yet attained
meaningfulness.
Ricoeur goes so far as to say that there are certain primary
symbols (e.g., symbols of evil) which are more basic than
mythical narratives. Myths enjoy a higher level of articulation;
they are narratives or dramatic stories of fabled characters and
adventures that employ strings of these more primary symbols.
Religious discourse-and then reflective thought in the form
of theology-represent a still higher level of articulation. There
is no form of human discourse, then, that gets closer to the
elementary experiences than the symbol.
A fourth consideration prescinds from the third. If the symbol is co-primordial with experience, then it is impossible for
us to locate its referent independently of the symbol itself.
The referent of an ordinary sign, in contrast, can be so located.
We can clearly distinguish the act of stopping our automobile
from the hexagonal sign that signifies such an act. The experiencing of stopping can be had in a context without that sign, e.g.,
we may stop the car in a driveway or a parking lot; the astronauts may stop their moon buggy
miles away from the
authority of any such sign. There is no intrinsic relationship
between the hexagonal sign and its referent. We could by simple convention decide henceforth to represent the act of stopping with a circular shaped sign, an electronic whistle, or even
an artificially induced odor. We are able to separate an ordinary
sign from its referent.
But we cannot get our hands on the referent of a symbol
without the symbol also being present. There is limited access
to the reality revealed by the symbol. The symbol provides the
only door. If you change symbols, you change realities. One
can experience praying to God, for example, with a symbol such
as " Our Father who art in heaven." Without such a symbol the
prayer does not refer to God. Hence, it ceases even to be what
we know as prayer.
This characteristic of symbolization is important when it
comes to the question of verification. If we have no access to

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TED PETERS

the symbol's referent except through the symbol, then there is
no extra-symbolic empirical experience on the basis of which
verification can be made. But just because verification of this
sort is impossible, we need not jump to the conclusion that there
is no reference and hence no truth in symbolization.
The existentialist interpreters of symbols are correct when
they contend that there can be authentication of religious symbols even though there may be no verification. If symbols lead
to authentic human living, then further verification is said to be
unnecessary. I concur with this notion as long as it applies to
precognitive faith and meaning for daily life. But when it comes
to theology-which is reflection upon faith and meaning in
daily life-then more must be said. We will return to this
shortly. But first two more in our series of considerations.
The fifth consideration is that symbols are dynamic. Their
dynamism concerns us here in two respects: (1) they grow and
die and may be resurrected, and (2) they constantly function
to open us to newer dimensions of thought.
That symbols grow and die was pointed out at the beginning
of this article. As long as the symbol resonates within the horizon of meaning of a people it has power. When the context of
meaning changes, the symbol may become irrelevant and die
due to lack of attention. The heel-clicking and straight-arm
salute that accompanied the "Heil Hitler" during the Third
Reich lost its potency in the post-World War II context.
Symbols are historically contingent. There may be some
near-universal symbolic structures-e.g.,
water symbolizing
purification, the sky symbolizing transcendence, etc. 11-but the
form taken by the actual symbols of a given historical community are conditioned in part by its unique language and culture.
As times change so also do symbols change (although symbols
often demonstrate more durability than the times) . If the symbol fails to orient meaning in the newer context, it atrophies.
Some symbols, however, have been able to perdure through
11 Mircea Eliadc, Patterns in Comparative Religion (Cleveland and N.ew York:
World, Meridian edition, 1963).

THE PROBLEM OF SYMBOUC REFERENCE

'S7

repeated changes in cultural context, picking up new nuances
with each change yet providing long historical continuity. The
symbols of the great religious traditions would provide us with
many examples.
It is not impossible to think of a symbol being.retrieved from
the past after an intermittent generation or two of neglect. The
principles 0£ reinterpretation and application enunciated by the
contemporary study of hermeneutics have shown us how this is
done. Ancient symbols carry with them an unspoken horizon
of meaning. True understanding 0£ such symbols from the contemporary viewpoint requires a fusion 0£ the ancient horizon
with the contemporary horizon. 18 Understanding includes participation in the world or meaning in which the symbol had or
has its power. It includes a listening to what the symbol says;
understanding includes a standing under or submitting to the
voice of the symbol. In principle, then, symbols can be resurrected from their death through hermeneutic retrieval.
Another element in the dynamism 0£ symbols is what Paul
Ricoeur calls "opening." Ricoeur seems to have two things in
mind when he uses this term. On the one hand, he means what
Paul Tillich did when he said the symbol opens up or "unlocks
dimensions and elements of our soul which correspond to the
dimensions and elements of reality." 19 The example Ricoeur
gives is the symbol of the Exodus. The story of the Exodus
" opens " in the listener a " certain state of wandering which is
lived existentially as a movement from captivity to deliverance." 20 This is an opening to meaning, however, not to reference.
On the other hand, and more pertinent to us here, I would
like to press Ricoeur into using " opening " to indicate reference
as well. Ricoeur says that symbolism " marks the breakthrough
of language toward something other than itself-what I call
'opening.' This breakthrough is' saying;' and saying is showing.'' 21 Ricoeur believes language in general and symbols in
18

Hans-Georg Gadamer, Truth and Method (New York:

pp. 267-74.

Tillich, Dynamics of Faith, p. 42.
Ricoeur, Conflict of Interpretations, p. 66.
"'Ibid.
1•

20

Seabury Press, 1975)

88

particular have an ostensive function, i.e., they point out something. If a living symbol has the ability to point out new things,
Ricoeur is quick to remind us, then if we listen to what symbols
say we will never relax into a smug " I know it all already"
attitude. Symbols will keep us open-minded, looking forward to
new and fresh revelations from being. 22
This brings us to the sixth and last consideration which will
finish my enumeration: the symbol gives rise to thought. Earlier
we said that if symbols are equi-primordial with experience then
reflective thought is unable to cut through to a level underneath
the symbol. But we are now saying more. The symbol plays an
active not just a passive role in giving rise to thought. Paul
Ricoeur stresses: "The symbol gives." 23 What the symbol
gives is prompting for thinking. Thinking is basically a process
of interpreting symbols. Before thinking becomes speculation
it is reflection on something prior, namely, its own presuppositions in the form of symbols. However, thinking eventually
redounds to inform the symbol. Reinformed, the symbol gives
rise to further thought; and thinking takes on the dynamic form
of the hermeneutical spiral.
If religious symbols appear first at the level of faith and lived
experience, and if theology is basically a thinking discipline,
then theology is a thinking about religious symbols. The symbol percepts are reflected into concepts. But beyond simply
reflecting cognitively the meaning that is expressed existentially, theology goes on to speculate about the reference to these
symbols. Does " God " refer to God or just to a meaningful
human experience? Does Jesus's proclamation of the eschatological "Kingdom of God" refer only to our present self-understanding or to an actual reality coming in the future? Theology
22 " For philosophy, the Last Day cannot be the dream of some happy ending
which lies on the imaginary horizon of our battles. It is in this sense that ' the
kingdom of God is at hand.' It is this nearness which keeps history open .... the
concept of the ' Last Day ' works as a limiting concept in the Kantian sense ...
(it) shatters the pretension of philosophies of history to express the coherent
meaning of all that has passed and all that is to come." Ricoeur, History and
Truth (Evanston: Northwestern University Press, 1965) p. 12, Ricoeur's italics;
28 Ricoeur, Confiict of Interpretations, pp. 288, 289; Symbolism of Evil, p. 848.

THE PROBLEM OF SYMBOLIC '.REFERENCE

89

raises questions regarding the ground and referent of the sym:.
bol.
SYMBOLOGY

AND THEOLOGICAL

EXPLANATION

Theology is the re-presentation (Ogden, Tracy) or re-description (Ricoeur) at the cognitive and rational level of discourse
of what has been experienced at the more basic symbolic level.
At the theological level of discourse we seek to say with some
specificity just what it is that is referred to by religious symbols.
Although theology as a reflective and speculative discipline is
grounded in symbols which are more basic, in itself theology
seeks to become a system of signs with univocal references. It
has a built-in urge to explain, a desire to become precise and
objective. It attempts to translate the double intentionality of
the symbol into the single intentionality of the statement or
proposition. It may require more statements than there are
symbols to be interpreted, but the supply of statements available seems to be almost infinite. Is theology, then, attempting to do the impossible? Is it trying to explain systematically
the intransigently enigmatic and mysterious dimensions of life?
Is it seeking an objectivity about the transcendent unconditioned that Kant has declared unattainable? Is theology by
definition intellectual idolatry, creating its own conceptualized
gods and then worshipping them?
Although systematic theology occasionally forgets that it is
a second order discipline dependent upon symbols more basic,
we can not do without it. It is practically inevitable due to
human nature. We think. Authentic human living can not be
achieved except through self-transcendence and self-affirmation.
The human intellect must traverse the road of cognitive distance and critical self-examination before it can come back to
itself and affirm itself. Theology may exist at a level once or
twice removed from elementary experience, but this is no
license for theology to avoid such experience. In our postEnlightenment culture, theology is necessary for religion to become authentic.
If theology is unavoidable and perhaps even necessary, then

90

TED PETERS

it behooves theology to attempt to reflect in its own systematic
movement the same opening that characterized the primary
symbol. From the outset, then, the theologian must recognize
that theology is fundamentally interpretation-a re-presentation of what was previously revealed in the symbol-and then
accept the finitude and provisionality this implies. Be open, but
proceed!
What then is the referent of religious symbols which will be
thematically pointed to in theological statements? If, as we
said before, we have no access to the referent of the symbol
except for the access which the symbol itself provides, then to
what do statements refer that are abstracted from the symbol?
The answer is that which giV'es. The breakthrough, recall, is
that symbols say; and saying is showing. The reference for
theological assertions is that which speaks to us through the
symbol. It is being itself. If our experience with the symbol is
that it gives meaning and impetus to reflect upon that meaning,
then in reflecting upon the giving we will naturally think about
the giver.
By what name shall we know this giver? By the name given
us in the symbol. We know there is a giver because a name was
given in the symbol. But critical reflection makes us able to
distinguish abstractly between the name given in the symbol
and the giver beyond. Critical theology is capable of remaining
open to that which is beyond the name, to that which the symbol itself refers. Theological statements must employ one name
or another due to their historical contingency. Nevertheless,
they seek to be open to that which lies beyond the name. The
important point here is that theology must seek for the transcendent referent of a religious symbol just to be able to recognize the mystery to which the symbol attunes us. Bernard
Lonergan comments, " The transcendent is nothing in this
world. Mystery is the unknown. Without a transcendental notion of being as the to-be-known, transcendent mystery can
come to be named nothing at all." 24
.. Bernard Lonergan, Method in Theology (New York:
1972) p. no.

Herder and Herder,

TllE PROBLEM OF SYMBOLIC REFERENCE

91

The mysterious and transcendent giver has revealed itself in
different chapters of human history through such contingent
symbols as theos, Yahweh, Father, Prince of Peace, Emmanuel,
Tao, om, The Great Spirit, and God. Theological reflection interprets ·these symbols and then proposes speculative statements referring to that which spoke through these symbols, to
that which Tillich calls the god beyond the god of theism.
We have no direct access to that original source of the giving.
We must begin with the symbols which are already subject to
the contingencies of finite historical experience. Theology consists in a speculative questioning back, in a Ruckfrage, that
points our attention toward that transcendent giver. In this
sense, theology has an element of heuristic fiction. It is a constructive re-description of life's experience. Though a fictional
re-description, its aim, as is the aim of theoretical models in
science, is finally to gain a more adequate understanding of the
real world. It does not lose its concern to make reference to the
god beyond the idea of God. 20
Seeking the answer to the Riickfrage is the transcendental
move in theology. From the level of discourse found in the religious community we trace our steps back to the more primary
level of meaningful symbolic experience. We recognize that the
symbol gives meaning and gives impetus to reflect upon that
meaning. To ask about that which gives from beyond yet
through the symbol is to ask the question of God. Theology
eventually must direct its attention in at least a pointing fashion
toward the transcendent ground of reality which comes to expression in the symbol. Such transcendental questioning will
lead eventually to metaphysical speculation and construction.
This is the lot of theology. 26
One of the few philosophers of religion who has demonstrated
awareness that this distinction between meaning (sense) and
"° Ricoeur, "Biblical Hermeneutics"; see also Patrick Bourgeois, "Hermeneutics
of Symbols and Philosophical Reflection in Paul Ricoeur," Philosophy Today XV
(Winter 1971) p. 235.
••Cf. David Tracy, Blessed Rage for Order (New York: Seabury Press, 1975)
pp. 52-57.

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TED PETERS

reference could be applied to religious symbols is Paul Ricoeur.
Ricoeur has in his own way raised the question I am raising
here: what is the referent to religious symbols? His answer is
slightly different from mine. Ricoeur says the referent is a limitexperience. In the context of discussing parables of the kingdom
of God, he says the " ultimate referent of parabolic language is
human experience centered around the limit-experiences which
would correspond to the limit-expressions of religious discourse." 27
It is difficult to get clear on just how what Ricoeur has said
here applies to my own thesis, because Ricoeur is in this instance talking about religious discourse rather than the primary
symbol itself. Because religious discourse is already discourse
and, hence, like myth, already at a higher level of articulation
than the primary symbol reflected in it, for all practical purposes the symbol has become the referent for religious discourse.
On one occasion Ricoeur even states it: "The symbol' kingdom
of God ' can be termed the common referent of these types of
discourse [Jesus' s parables] and thus also of their functioning as
limit-expressions .... It is this limit-referent which presides over
what I shall call the limit-experiences which religious language
claims to redescribe." 28
Later, in order to avoid any whispers that he might be flirting
with Barthianism, Ricoeur loses heart in the battle for transcendent reference. He turns again to existential meaning in the
spirit of Bultmann and Perrin. " ... we must say that the ultimate referent of the parables, proverbs, and eschatological sayings is not the kingdom of God, but the hitman reality in its
wholeness, as this is indicated by numerous expressions in the
works of Norman Perrin." 29
On this basis, if we press Ricoeur to say just what is the
referent of the primary symbol itself, he would have to say the
symbol is its own referent. The symbol, recall, is co-primordial
27 Ricoeur, " Biblical Hermeneutics," p. !14, Ricoeur's italics.
•• Ibid., p.
2 • Ibid., p. IQ7, my italics.

THE PROBLEM OF SYMBOLIC REFERENCE

98

with the experience of limit. Is he saying that religious discourse can refer us to the symbol but beyond the symbolwhich is the limit-there is no further reference? Do we finally
end up with only contextual or existential meaning yet no reference? This I take to be the result of Ricoeur's position. Alas, he
has surrendered too soon.
Theological method cannot be satisfied with this position.
Because the symbol is a sign it must finally refer to something
beyond itself. If it does not, the symbol risks absolutizing its
own power and adopting the role of an idol for those who come
under its religious power. A symbol must somehow cancel itself
out, and it does so by permitting us to acknowledge that it
points to a reality that transcends it. Religious discourse is
usually already aware of this; certainly transcendental theology
must reaffirm it.
CONCLUSION

Theology needs to be concerned about the existential meaning of symbols, to be sure, but it should be concerned equally
with the reference of those symbols. The symbols themselves
give rise to reflective and even speculative thinking, and we
should not frustrate the desire to pursue such thinking just because of the scare put in us by the verificationists.
The giving quality of symbols implies at minimum that being
itself is a giver. Particular symbols of that giver which appear
in certain historical contexts reveal a good deal more in addition. The symbol of the cross conveys to us that self-giving is
cosmic in proportion. The symbol of the Easter resurrection
and the concomitant promise of the kingdom of God has as its
referent a future consummation of all things in the life of the
great giver.
TED PETERS

Pacific Lutheran Seminary
The Graduate Theological Union
Berkeley, California

THE "NEGLECTED ARGUMENT" REVISITED:
FROM C. S. PEIRCE TO PETER BERGER

I

N AN OBSCURE but not entirely neglected article, the
American pragmatist Charles Sanders Peirce developed an
argument which was designed to lead those who follow its
directions to an affirmation of the reality of God. The essay,
"A Neglected Argument for the Reality of God," is actually
only a rough sketch of the author's theory, and in some sections the barest outline of his thought. It first appeared in
Hibbert Journal in 1908, and can be found together with a later
and important addition in volume six of the Collected Papers
of the author. 1 Maddening for those who look to Peirce for logical and scientific rigor, it excited for its author, nevertheless, a
" peculiar confidence " and, when its intricacies are explored, it
continues to do so for subsequent generations of scholars. In
the" innermost nest" of this argument, Peirce has identified an
activity of the mind which he describes as a form of pure play;
this he proposes as one of the simplest and most certain ways
of arriving at the hypothesis of God's reality.
The argument is not entirely original, nor is it, in itself, a
proof. In effect, Peirce takes elements from traditional arguments for the existence of God from design, contingency and
causality, the immediacy of religious experience, and universal
consent. These he places within a prior context to illustrate
1 Collected Pap!N's of Charles Sanders Peirce, Vols. I-VI, eds., Charles Hartshorne
and Paul Weiss; Vols. VII-VIII, ed., Arthur W. Burks (Cambridge, Mass.:
The Belknap Press of Harvard University, 1960-66),
The article, but
without the later "additament," appears in Charles S. Peirce: Selected Writings
(Values in a Universe of Change), ed. Philip P. Wiener (New York: Dover,
1958), pp. 358-879. Subsequent references to this article and other material from
Peirce will be incorporated in the text in the standard notation that indicates
volume and paragraph from the Collected Papers.

94

THE " NEGLECTED ARGUMENT " REVISITED

95

their intuitive source and their warrant for truth. 2 The source
is the activity of musement which Peirce presents as a peculiarly
effective and trustworthy environment for generating the hypothesis that there is indeed a God. The hypothesis must then be
tested, and much of the article is a complicated apparatus of
deductive and inductive logic to be utilized in the testing process. Peirce's own original contribution to logical theory, abduction, is exhibited in the process whereby the hypothesis is
first generated.
Any attempt to fathom the unfathomable will be hazardous,
and subject to criticism from those who demand for the Godquestion more (or less) analysis and precision; Peirce's Neglected Argument is no exception. 3 Yet it contains in its phenomenology of play the hint of an insight which Peirce found
intellectually compelling and which later research has remarkably reinforced. In the pages that follow I hope to aileviate
some of the neglect of this obscure piece of philosophical literature by exposing its complicated structure for the sake of clarity
in pinpointing where, for Peirce, it reveals its particular force.
I shall then relate Peirce's notion of musement to some of the
subsequent literature dealing with the religious implications of
human play. I shall conclude with some reflections on the peculiar qualities of play which may account for the attraction it
held for a pragmatist like Peirce, the social historian Johan
Huizinga, and the sociologist Peter Berger.
A" NEST" OF THREE ARGUMENTS

An "Additament"

to the original article, written m 1910,

•Recent articles have used Peirce's "Neglected Argument" to defend and
strengthen arguments from design (Bowman Clarke, "The Argument from DesignA Piece of Abductive Reasoning," lnte:rnational Journal for Philosophy of Religion 5 [Summer 1974]; 65-78) and from religious experience (D. Wiebe, "The
Religious Experience Argument," Sophia 14 [March 1975]: 19-28). Peirce himself,
in a letter to William James (July 23, 1905), claimed that he held a form of
the ontological argument (C.P., 8.262).
•One of the most thorough and balanced criticisms can be found in John E.
Smith, "Religion and Theology in Peirce," in Studies in the Philosophy of Charles
Sanders Peirce, First Series, eds. Philip P. Wiener and Frederic H. Young (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1952). pp. 251-67.

96

RUTH CASPAR, O.P.

supplies a helpful guide through the ·labyrinthine ways of
Peirce's thought. 4 The author tells us that the essay contains
a " nest " of three arguments, the innermost of which he terms
the " Humble Argument " because no sophistication is needed
to follow it through to its conclusion. The process is that of
musement, and the conclusion is (technically) only a hypothesis, but one which will be so attuned to the human mind and
heart that it will normally issue in belief. The second argument,
designated by Peirce the" Neglected Argument" proper (frequently simply the "N. A."), consists of the kind of apologetic
needed to vindicate on pragmatic grounds the efficacy of the
Humble Argument. These grounds are the natural spontaneity
of the act of belief as it originates in an unprejudiced attitude of
wonder, and its near-universal occurrence in human nature.
Peirce notes that this argument ought to appeal to theologians
-an ironic comment, no doubt, considering his caustic contempt for that profession. 5 The third argument, designed for
minds trained in logic and science, consists in the application
of " logical methodeutic " to the hypothesis and its consequences, to test for validity. Peirce notes, however, that certain
peculiarities of the God-hypothesis preclude the type of scientific validation demanded for other hypotheses (6.466, 488490) .

Before developing each of these in turn, it will be necessary
to deal briefly with Peirce's idiosyncratic language, insofar as
some key terms function in this article. Pierce distinguishes
here between ' argument ' and ' argumentation '. The fom1er he
•Rather early in the article (6.468) Peirce warns: "I can only hope to make
the residue of this paper a sort of table of contents, from which some may possibly
guess what I have to say; or to lay down a series of plausible points through
which the reader will have to construct the continuous line of reasoning for himself."
Even after the suggestions in the "Additament," the reader must do considerable
work on this article on play!
5 Peirce
views theologians as those who ought to be the scientific-minded
students of religious questions, approaching them with impartial objectivity and
unprejudiced minds. Instead he can say of metaphysics that " the chief cause of
its backward condition is that its leading professors have been theologians " (6.3;
cf. 6.438).

THE " NEGLECTED. 4.RGUMENT " REVISITED

97

defines as " any process of thought reasonably tending to produce a definite belief"; and the latter as " an Argument proceeding upon definitely formulated premisses" (6.456). In
terms of logical rigor, the argument is more informal; argumentation must conform to the regulated procedures of scientific
methodology. (Throughout the article the author takes pains
to identify each section as either argument or argumentation.)
The act of wonder arises when one contemplates any one or
combination of the' three universes of experience'. These three
are related to various triadic categories in Peirce's philosophy;
in this article they are defined as (1) the universe of ideas, (2)
of brute facts and forces in reaction against each other, and
(3) of those things (e.g. signs) which can serve as intermediaries between objects and consciousness (6.455). Finally, it is
God's 'reality' and not his existence that concerns Peirce,
since he assigns existence to the category of secondness-his
universe of brute facts and forces (6.495; 8.262).
The " Humble Argument " and Musement
Peirce, the pragmatist, begins his first, "humble" argument
by stating at the outset his assumptions: If there is a God, and
if this God is benign, and if religious knowledge of God is a good
to be sought above all, then
we should naturally expect that there would be some Argument for
His Reality that should be obvious to all minds, high and low alike,
that should earnestly strive to find the truth of the matter; and
further, that this Argument should present its conclusion, not as a
proposition of metaphysical theology, but in a form directly applicable to the conduct of life, and full of nutrition for man's highest
growth (6.457).

The author finds such an argument in the activity of a mind
set free from all concerns, unprejudiced as to the outcome,
meditating on the wonders of the universe in an attitude of
musement, the pure play of the mind.
Musement is described as" a certain agreeable occupation of
the mind" involving" no purpose save that of casting aside all

98

RUTH CASPAR, O.P.

serious purpose." Such mental play " has no rules except the
very law of liberty." The muser is encouraged to release his
mind to enter states of reverie and fantasy. These may take the
form of aesthetic contemplation, imaginative castle-building, or
the consideration of " some wonder in one of the Universes."
This ludic operation of the mind functions indeed as " interlude "; Peirce proposes that it be "indulged in moderately-say
through some five to six per cent of one's waking time." It is not
purely passive, but begins in attentive receptivity and moves to
more active and inquisitive states: "Impression soon passes
into attentive observation, observation into musing, musing into
a lively give and take of communion between self and self "
(6.458-61).

Since he has determined that musement defies all regulation,
Peirce must permit the mind to engage in any activity, and to
dwell upon any object of attention, real or imagined, but he
does caution against confining its operation to anything so taskoriented as logical analysis, reserving that operation for a later
moment (6.461). Given human pre-occupation with self, he
assumes that the muser will quite possibly move from considerations of the wonders of the external world, to the wonders of
the mind, and then from psychological considerations to metaphysical speculation. Peirce suggests several paths such musing
may take: the consideration of various instances of beauty
throughout the universe; recognition of homogeneities of chemical elements on earth and in the distant stars; perception of
similar laws, e.g. the law of growth and development, in each
of his three " universes." Seeking beyond these phenomena for
their cause, the mind is led to conceive the God who is Ens
necessarium. 6 It is indeed when the pure pb.y of the mind be• This is the term used most frequently for God by Peirce in this article.
Peirce also characterizes God as Creator of the Universes (6.483), au infinitely
incomprehensible object (6.466); in the Additameut he adds the attributes of
omniscience, omnipotence, and disembodied spirit (6.489). Although there is
an evolution in Peirce's theism, my own discussion will be limited to the theism
inherent in this " Neglected Argument " and other fragmentary comments dating
from this later stage of his career. For discussions of development and inconsistency
in Peirce's statements about God, see Joseph De Marco," God, Religion, and Com-

THE " NEGLEC'l'ED ARGUMENT " REVISITED

99

comes a more attentive search for causes that Peirce identifies
it specifically as ' musement ', and this state of mind will " in
time flower into the N. A." (6.458), hypothesizing a God to
account for such a universe.
In the Pure Play of Musement the idea of God's Reality will be sure
sooner or later to be found an attractive fancy, which the Muser
will develop in various ways. The more he ponders it, the more it
will find response in every part of his mind, for its beauty, for its
supplying an ideal of life, and for its thoroughly satisfactory explanation of his whole threefold environment (6.465) .7

The " Neglected Argument"
During the development of the Humble Argument Peirce
noted that a more scientific mind would wish prematurely to
begin critical analysis, but that this should be postponed
(6.464) . The foll elaboration of the process for scientific validation is the third of his arguments. In between, very lightly
sketched, is the argument which he terms specifically the
"N.A. ", although it is clear that he uses this designation more
commonly for the entire fabric of reasoning presented in the
article. This argument, he remarks, ought to appeal to theologians since theirs is the task of making credible on philosophical grounds the natural impulses of religious faith (6.484).
"Were the theologians able to perceive the force of this argumunity in the Philosophy of C. S. Peirce," Modern Schoolman 49 (May 1972):
881-47; and Charles Hartshorne, "A Critique of Peirce's Idea of God," Philosophical
Review 50 (Summer 1941): 516-22.
7 In a set of responses entitled "Answers to Questions concerning my Belief
in God," dating from 1906, Peirce "models " this activity: " I have often
occasion to walk at night, for about a mile, over an entirely untravelled road,
much of it between open fields without a house in sight. The circumstances are
not favorable to severe study, but are so to calm meditation. If the sky is clear,
I look at the stars in the silence. . . . Let a man drink in such thoughts as come
to him in contemplating the physico-psychical universe without any special purpose of his own; especially the universe of mind which coincides with the universe
of matter. The idea of there being a God over it all of course will be often suggested; and the more he considers it, the more he will be enwrapt with Love of
this idea. He will ask himself whether or not there really is a God. If he allows
instinct to speak, and searches his own heart, he will at length find that he
cannot help believing it" (6.501) ..

100

RUTH CASPAR, 0 .P.

ment, they would make it such a presentation of universal
human nature as to show that a latent tendency toward belief
in God is a fundamental ingredient of the soul, and that, far
from being a vicious or superstitious ingredient, it is simply the
natural precipitate of meditation upon the origin of the Three
Universes" (6.487) .
The element which seems to be dominant in this second stage
is the pragmatic force of the conviction arrived at in musement.
The God who is assumed to be responsible for the universe, for
the mind, for beauty and change, is a God to be loved and
adored. One does not merely rest in theoretical contemplation
of such a God; one is moved to shape one's life and behavior in
certain ways that will be consistent with the God believed to
be cause and creator of the universe. For Peirce, it is specifically when the force of a conviction leads to practical results
in some overt action that one achieves rest in a state of belief.8
Assured from his own experience with the activity of musement, and from knowledge of similar experiences on the part
of others, he argues that
any normal man who considers the three Universes in the light of
the hypothesis of God's Reality, and pursues that line of reflection
in scientific singleness of heart, will come to be stirred to the depths
of his nature by the beauty of the idea and by its august practicality, even to the point of earnestly loving and adoring his strictly
hypothetical God, and to that of desiring above all things to shape
the whole conduct of life and all the springs of action into conformity with that hypothesis. Now to be deliberately and thoroughly prepared to shape one's conduct into conformity with a
proposition is neither more nor less than the state of mind called
Believing ... (6.467)

This assumption of universal applicability-a generalization incapable of verification but easily disproved-is tempered in a
later section where Peirce acknowledges that "unfortunately,
it happens that there is very little established fact to show that
this is the case" (6.484) . His grounds for defending the assumption in the face of such counterevidence are his convictions
8

See esp. the essay, "How to Make our Ideas Clear,"

THE" NEGLl!i'CTEDARGU:MENT'" REVISITED

101

that his own intellectual disposition is normal and, on matters
that affect the practical conduct of life, the optimistic viewpoint is more reliable. It is the pessimists who will disagree and
they are dismissed as simply deviating from the norm.
Peirce's doctrinaire
of the indefensible weakens the
total argument, but the more significant issue in this section
seems to be his optimism concerning the ability of the human
mind to arrive at true hypotheses and theories in the advance
of human wisdom. He terms it the " very bedrock of logical
truth" to recognize in scientific advance over the ages that
"man's mind must have been attuned to the truth of things in
order to discover what he has discovered" (6.476). The attunement of mind to the universe is best illustrated in human ability
to generate hypotheses-those " spontaneous conjectures of instinctive reasoning "-which prove eventually to be true. Invoking Galileo's notion of il lume naturale by which the human
mind is guided to truth, Peirce argues that some hypotheses
possess as a " sign " of their truth the remarkable confidence
they engender. " The N. A. excites this peculiar confidence in
the very highest degree" (6.477).
The " Outermost " Argument
The third in Peirce's nest of arguments for the reality of God
is an outline of the various procedures for critically analyzing
both the hypothesis and its consequences. The summary contains a general set of steps to follow in critical inquiry, not all
of which are applicable to the N. A. Peirce outlines three stages
of inquiry: retroduction (abduction) , deduction, and induction.
Retroduction is a process of reasoning from an unexplained
phenomenon, as consequent, backwards toward a conjecture or
hypothesis that, as antecedent, will account for it. The elements of the newly articulated hypothesis comprise the premisses of a syllogism from which the " surprising phenomenon "
can then be inferred as conclusion. Abduction is the " neglected
argument" in logical theory; Peirce, however, has developed
this process in some detail. 9 In this article he describes it in
• 2.755 ff, 2.776 ff, 5.180 ff, 5.196-7.

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RUTH CASPAR, O.P.

strong metaphors and assigns to it a pivotal role in the Neglected Argument for the Reality of God:
·The whole series of mental performances between the notice of the
wonderful phenomenon and the acceptance of the hypothesis, dur. ing which the usually docile understanding seems to hold the bit
between its teeth and to have us at its mercy, the search for pertinent circumstances and the laying hold of them, the dark laboring, the bursting out of the startling conjecture, the remarking of
its smooth fitting to the anomaly, as it is turned back and forth
like a key in a lock, and the final estimation of its Plausibility, I
reckon as composing the First Stage of Inquiry. Its characteristic
formula of reasoning I term Retroduction ... (6.469).

In the terminology of this article, abduction (retroduction) is
argument, not argumentation; it yields only some degree of
plausibility and must be tested before one rests in it with belief.
For Peirce the peculiar plausibility of the N. A. sets it in a class
by itself.
Deduction, the second stage of inquiry, has for its purpose the
collecting of consequents of the hypothesis. It operates in two
steps: explication of the hypothesis for conceptual clarity, and
demonstration, using a method similar to that of Euclid's Elements (6.471). Explication remains at the level of argument
but demonstration is characterized as the more rule-governed
argumentation. Peirce notes that this stage of inquiry if properly performed possesses scientific validity, but, following Kant,
the validity guarantees only internal, analytic necessity. "This
kind of reasoning deals exclusively with Pure Ideas attaching
primarily to Symbols and derivatively to other Signs of our
own creation" (6.474). Deduction, therefore, provides only a
validating process internal to the logic of the question and
cannot guarantee the truth of the hypothesis.
Finally, if one is to lmow if the hypothesis has any bearing on
expe1·ience,whether it can be verified at the level of sense, one
must move to the third stage of logical inquiry: induction
(6.472). This too involves a number of steps-classification, by
which the ideas demonstrated in deduction are attached to experience; the "probations" or testing-argumentations; and a

THE" NEGLECTED .ARGUMENT" REVISITED

103

final evaluative step called by Peirce the " sentential " part of
induction. Various degrees of inductive certainty are possible
at these stages.
Critical Theory Applied to the N. A.
Only after the survey and evaluation of abduction, deduction,
and induction does Peirce assess the bearing of these procedures
on his Neglected Argument. Abduction has resulted in the hypothesis that there is a God. This hypothesis, for Peirce, has
unique status exempting it from some of the critical tests required for evaluating other hypotheses. It is peculiar in that its
object is believed to be infinitely incomprehensible. "This
leaves the hypothesis but one way of understanding itself;
namely, as vague yet as true so far as it is definite, and as
continually tending to define itself more and more, and without
limit" (6.466) .10 In the Additament (6.488-490) he designates
three additional ways this hypothesis is unique: 1) a remarkably high degree of plausibility. "So hard is it to doubt God's
Reality, when the Idea has sprung from Musements, that there
is great danger that the investigation will stop at this first
stage." 2) the obscurity of the object of the hypothesis does
not permit of the type of explication and prediction outlined in
the deductive stage of analysis. "How, for example, can we
ever expect to be able to predict what the conduct would be,
even of an omniscient being, governing no more than one poor
solar system for only a million years or so? How much less if,
being also omnipotent, he be thereby freed from all experience,
all desire, all intention! " 3) the pragmatic force of the hypothesis over the conduct of human life. This aspect is directly
related to Peirce's pragmatism and his truth-theory. "According to that logical doctrine which the present writer first formulated in 1873 and named Pragmatism, the true meaning of any
10 Vincent G. Potter,
S. J., discusses the semantic value of vagueness invoked
by Peirce for his notion of God in the essay, "Vaguely like a Man": the Theism
of Charles S. Peirce," in God Knowable and Unknowable. (New York: Fordham
University Press, 1978), PP• fl41-54.

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RUTH CASPAR, O.P.

product of the intellect lies in whatever unitary determination
it would impart to practical conduct un.der any and every conceivable circumstance, supposing such conduct to be guided by
reflexion carried to an ultimate limit. 11
Unique and peculiar though it may be, the God-hypothesis
must nevertheless be submitted to critical inquiry by those
whose minds are trained in the disinterested pursuit of truth.
The uncritical may well be overpowered by the " adorability "
of the hypothesis as it arises from the euphoria of musement,
but this will not be sufficient for those with access to the " edgetools" which are the "higher weapons in the arsenal of
thought" (6.461). These will see that
The hypothesis, irresistible though it be to first intention, yet needs
Probation; and that though an infinite being is not tied down to
any consistency, yet man. like any other animal, is gifted with
power of understanding sufficient for the conduct of life. This brings
him, for testing the hypothesis, to taking his stand upon Pragmaticism, which implies faith in common sense and in instinct,
though only as they issue from the cupel-furnace of measured criticism. In short, he will say that the N. A. is the First Stage of a
scientific inquiry, resulting in a hypothesis of the very highest
Plausibility, whose ultimate test must lie in its value in the selfcontrolled growth of man's conduct of life (6.480) .12

This appeal to the " cash value " of religious belief, its observable impact on the life of the believer, is fundamental to
pragmatism as expressed in philosophy of religion. Peirce's colleague, William Jam es, brings his monumental Varieties of
Religious Experienae to a close with his own " over-belief," the
11 Bowman Clarke, in "Peirce's
Neglected Argument," Transactions of the
Charles S. Peirce Society 18 (Fall 1977): 277-87, argues that the Additament
goes beyond the original article in that it prescribes a more critical evaluation of
the hypothesis. He suggests (contrary to the original article and sections of the
Additament) that Peirce, in the spirit of Critical Common-Sensism, would no
longer grant immunity from explication to the God-hypothesis, requiring for it
the same clarity and precision as for other elements in his system of thougl;tt,
with which it stands or falls as part of a unitary whole (pp. 285-87).
12 Peirce originally invoked the name ' pragmatism ' for the type of empiricism
he and others were developing iri Cambridge, Mass. After the term became more
commonly used, and took on a sense he had never intended, he chose for himself
the more unwieldy ' pragmaticism' (6.490).

THE" NEGLECTED ARGUMENT'' REVISITED

105

hypothesis that God must be real since real effects can be observed in the lives of at least some of those who claim encounters
with him, and these effects require an adequate cause:
The further limits of our being plunge, it seems to me, into an altogether other dimension of existence from the sensible and merely
'understandable' world. Name it the mystical region, or the supernatural region, whichever you choose ... Yet the unseen region in
question is not merely ideal, for it produces effects in this world.
When we commune with it, work is actually done upon our finite
personality, for we are turned into new men, and consequences in
the way of conduct follow in the natural world upon our regenerative change. But that which produces effects within another reality
must be termed a reality itself.... God is real since he produces
real effects.13
Since Peirce does little more than sketch the methods of deduction and induction, resting his case rather on the pragmatic
efficacy of the belief engendered in the free-play of musement,
we are directed once more ha.ck to the second, " neglected "
argument and to the prior "humble" argument it seeks to vindicate. Rising indeed in play, the argument involves a measure
of the more laborious exercise of both intellect and will. The
testing of the hypothesis must be accomplished through openminded criticism and the efficacy of the belief to promote the
conversion of one's life in the direction of religious and ethical
ideals. For Peirce, the burden of proof for a Christian was not
doctrinal orthodoxy, but the gospel of love (6.435-48) .
Nor does the Neglected Argument arise entirely from instinct.14 The careful direction to the muser that he must begin
William James, Varieties. of Religious Experience (Gifford Lectures 1901-1902),
XX (New York: University Books, 1953), pp. 515-17. James confesses
his debt to Peirce, quoting his 1878 article on pragmatism (" How to Make Our
Ideas Clear"), ibid., Lecture XVIII, pp. 444-45. The correspondence between
James and Peirce reveals a deep friendship and mutual respect in spite of James's
admission of his inability to understand the logical and mathematical aspects
of Peirce's philosophy, and Peirce's chagrin at James's lack of concern for precision
and scientific accuracy. See Ralph Barton Perry, The Thought and Character of
William James (Boston: Little, Brown, & Co., 1936), esp. II, pp. 421-440.
" This point has been developed in Richard L. Trammell, " Religion, Instinct
and Reason in the Thought of Charles S. Peirce," Transactiona of the Oharlea S.
Peirce Soeietv 8 (Winter 197!!): 8-25.
10

.106

RUTH CASP.An, .O.P.

his contempiation with no expectations as to the outcome, in
an attitude of open inquiry, identifies musement with the scientific search for truth. A disinterested, detached approach is
associated by Peirce with reason, science, and theoretical speculation; and distinguished from instinct, with its tei:idency to
serve as a guide for the more practical pursuits of life. Thus, in
spite of the fact that the belief engendered in the Neglected
Argument can never meet the standards of scientific proof, the
believer will be " logically justified in crossing the Rubicon with
all the freightage of eternity" (6.485).
It will be helpful at this point to summarize in outline form
the main elements in Peirce's" nest" of three arguments:
I. Humble Argument
Directed toward: the uncritical and pre-critical mind
Operation: Musement-the free-play of the mind contemplating the wonders of the universe
Result: the spontaneous generation of an hypothesis concerning the reality of God: intellectual satisfaction,
belief, and adoration
Degree of certitude: highest degree of plausibility
II. Neglected Argument
Directed toward: natural theologians
Operation: apologetic; exhibiting the universality and
connaturality of the Humble Argument
Result: vindication of the pragmatic force of the Humble Argument and of its uniqueness as a hypothesis
compelling belief
Degree of certitude: pragmatic certainty correlative
with the compelling nature of the hypothesis and its
tendency to affect the conduct of life
III. Critical Analysis
Directed toward: minds trained in logic and science
Operations: abduction, deduction, induction
Results: abduction accounts for generation of hypothesis; deduction explicates and demonstrates; induction evaluates
Degree of certitude for N. A.: "Peculiar confidence"

THE" NEGLECTED ARGUMENT" REVISITED

107

Play and Transcendence
We return now to the activity with which Peirce begins and
which, in the end, accounts for his peculiar confidence, remarked in each subsequent stage of this argument. It is a ludic
or play-like activity of the mind; one that can be shown to
bear a family resemblance to other ludic phenomena and experiences which more recent studies have found to be "signals
of transcendence." H
Huizinga's Homo Ludens
The phenomenology of play sketched by Peirce in his description of musement is remarkable in one sense, in that it predates
by thirty years Homo Ludens, the seminal work on play by the
historian of culture, Johan Huizinga. 16 Although it was not
the first theoretical study of the phenomenon of play, Homo
Ludens was more thorough and far-reaching than its predecessors and has become the touchstone for further research on
play, particularly in terms of its implications for philosophy,
religion, and anthropology.
The exploration of play-elements in various facets of culture
is Huizinga's primary project. For our purposes, however, we
must confine ourselves to his phenomenology of play and to
the suggestions he makes concerning the relevance of play to
the supernatural. These latter are never fully developed, but
are suggested throughout his exposition.
In the opening chapter, " Nature and Significance of Play as
a Cultural Phenomenon," Huizinga lists the following play
characteristics. Although it is the " fun " element in play which
he finds to be irreducible, defying interpretation, for Huizinga
the primary characteristic of play is freedom. Play involves
a voluntary stepping-out of the ordinary routines of life, away
from seriousness, beyond the antitheses of wisdom and folly,
15 Peter Berger, A Rumor of Angels: Modern Society and the Redis.covery of
the Supematu.ral (Garden City, New York: Doubleday, 1969), chapter 3.
18 Johan Huizinga, Homo Ludem: A Study
of the Play-Element in Culture
(1938; reprint Boston: Beacon Press, 1955) .

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RUTH CASPAR, O.P •.

truth and falsehood, good and evil, into a sphere of activity
recognized as illusion (from il-luclere, 'in play') . Its locality
as well as its duration are part of this illusion. Play-spaces
are the defined boundaries of court, board, stage, or the universe of fantasy;
are the chronologies of second
quarter, opponent's turn, third act, or 'once upon a time'.
Huizinga's models are forms of social play, primarily games,
each of which determines its own space and time and creates
a world superimposed upon the ordinary world, entered only
by assuming the " rules of the game " and agreeing to the illusion. The conscious element, recognizing when one steps into
and out of the ludic sphere, is central to Huizinga's analysis.
Play must be disinterested, serving no material, biological
or utilitarian function. Its value and significance reside in the
activity itself. Play is interlude, intermezzo, a regularly recurring relaxation and the complement to the more serious and
confined activities of life. Within the space and time of play
a peculiar order reigns. Huizinga explores the overlapping characteristics of the playful and the aesthetic, discovering the elements of rhythm, harmony and beauty in both. Social play
is rule-governed and competitive; it tends to promote the formation of play-communities: clubs, teams, secret societies. This
latter element and the secludedness of play heighten an aspect
of secrecy common to many forms of play, sometimes expressed
in costumes, masks, or other garb designed to set the players
off from ordinary life.17
The parallels with Peirce's notion of free and spontaneous
musement are significant. Omissions, where they occur in
Peirce, can be accounted for by the fact that he is describing
a form of solitary and mental play rather than the rule-structured games and rituals of interest to the historian of culture.
Like Huizinga, Peirce suggests ideal times for such activitythe half-light of dawn and dusk-and describes the entrance
into the play-sphere in words that underline Huizinga's insistence that human play is characterized by a conscious decision
1'

Ibid., pp. 1-27.

THE " NEGLECTED ARGUMENT·" REVISITED

109

to move from the ordinary world into that of illusion: " Enter
your skiff of Musement, push off into the lake of thought, and
leave the breath of heaven to swell your sail. With your eyes
open, awake to what is about or within you, and open conversation with yourself; for such is all meditation" (6.461).
Both Huizinga and Peirce find the experience of play a gateway to realities that are more than natural, more than human.
Huizinga proposes a theory of adult human play that interprets
it as a meaningful activity that transcends materiality. Observing the pervasive occurrence of play-forms throughout human culture, in instances as diverse as law, philosophy, religion,
war and poetry, he explores the special quality of the playphenomenon that links it with the spiritual nature of the human person. Huizinga's theory, hinted at throughout Homo
Ludens, identifies play with a level of significance beyond the
rational. "The very existence of play continually confirms the
supra-logical nature of the human situation. Animals play, so
they must be more than merely mechanical things. We play
and know that we play, so we must be more than merely rational beings, for play is irrational." 18
At the end of a long and thorough development, in the course
of which the author explores the phenomena of play in religious
festivity and traces sacred ritual and myth back to primitive
play-forms, Huizinga concludes that the activity of play must
be uniquely suited for offering access to the divine: "The human mind can only disengage itself from the magic circle of
play by turning towards the ultimate." Plato and the Book of
Proverbs are quoted in support of this final ludic :fl.ing.19
It is important to note the method used by Huizinga in arriving at this final statement concerning play. The social hisIbid., pp. S-4.
Ibid., p. 212, citing Plato, Laws, 803-4, and Proverbs. 8: 22-31. E. H. Gombrich,
in "Huizinga's Homo ludens," advises those who wish to come to terms with
the book to start with the last chapter and work backward. "As the book grew
under his hands it changed from a book about man and play to a meditation
about man and God." See Johan Huizinga 1872-1972; Papers delivered to the
Johan Huizinga Conference, Groningen, December 1972, ed. W. R. H. Koops,
E. H. Kossmann, Gees Van der Plaat (The Hague: Nijhoff, 1978), p. 158.
18

19

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RUTH CASPAR, O.P.

tori an is also by profession an etymologist, and much of his
progress through Homo Lud,ens is achieved by tracing through
various languages and cultures the linguistic expressions for
play and its related terms. In addition he uses the play-characteristics assembled in the opening chapter as criteria for viewing
such activities as philosophical disputations, warfare, the creative design of a poem or work of architecture, and the formality
of legal procedures sub specie ludi. The method does not pretend to be scientific, nor is the reference of play to the ultimate
offered as the conclusion of an argument. It is, rather, the concluding invitation of a series of provocative insights. During
the centenary celebration of Huizinga's birth, one member of
the symposium captured his method in these words: "Huizinga,
who knew the importance of hypotheses in scholarly research
perfectly well himself, it appears, only rarely had use of them.
His major works are not based on hypotheses, checked, rejected,
reworded and reworked, but on these visions, elucidated, enlarged, commented upon rather than demonstrated." 20 His
vision and his invitation were left to another generation of
scholars to pursue.
One measure of the truth of Huizinga's vision and insight
into the character of play is the influence of Homo Ludens
on subsequent research. Any survey of the literature of play
invariably reveals the frequently acknowledged debt of the
authors to the Dutch historian. Prominent among these are
works in the history of religion (Hugo Rahner, Man at Play,
German edition 1948) ; sociology and anthropology (Roger
Caillois, Man, Play and Game.'J', French edition, 1958; Iona and
Peter Opie, Children's Games in Streets and Playgrounds,
1969) ; theology (Harvey Cox, Feast of Fools, 1969; Jurgen
Moltmann, et al., Theology of Play,
; psychology of religion (Robert E. Neale, In Praise of Play, 1969); and sociology
of religion (Peter Berger, A Rumor of Angels, 1969) .21 Space
•• E. H. Kossmannn " Postscript," in Koops, et al., op. cit., p. 231.
11 Rahner (New York:
Herder and Herder, 1972); Caillois (New York: Free
Press, 1961); Opie (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1969); Cox (Cambridge, Mass.:

THE " NEGLECTED ARGUMENT " REVISITED

111

does not permit treatment of all of these. For our purposes,
we shall focus on the argument concerning the power of play
to disclose the transcendent developed some thirty years after
Homo Ludens by a sociologist attempting a rediscovery of the
supernatural. 22
Berger's A Rumor of Angels
Although Peter Berger's professional competence lies in the
sociology of knowledge and of religion, 23 the task he undertakes
in A. Ru11wr o.f Angels is a deliberate stepping beyond the limits
of those disciplines and into questions that are or ought to be
0£ concern for the professional theologian and philosopher. Well
aware that the relativizing perspective of sociology is alternately cause and effect of what he characterizes as the" alleged
demise of the supernatural," he exposes the vulnerability of
current secularity to the same type of critique. It too is culturally conditioned. One may still ask questions about truth:
Once we know that all human affirmations are subject to scientifically graspable socio-historical processes, which affirmations are
true and which are false? We cannot avoid the question any more
than we can return to the innocence of its pre-relativizing asking.
(p. 40) 24

Berger's quarrel is not with the relativizing methods of historians, psychologists and sociologists, whose diagnostician he is
by profession, but with those theologians who have seemed to
capitulate to them, surrendering their birthright in the name of
Harvard University Press, 1969); Moltmann (New York: Harper & Row, 1972);
Neale (New York: Harper & Row, 1969); Berger, op. cit.; subsequent references
to this work will be from the Anchor edition, 1970, and incorporated in the text.
22 For other
aspects of the religious significance of play, see the author's
"Play Springs Eternal," New Scholasticism 5Q (Spring 1978): 187-201.
23 Peter
Berger and Thomas Luckmann, The Social Construction of Reality
(Garden City, N. Y.: Doubleday, 1966); Peter Berger, The Sacred CanopyElements of a Sociological Theory of Religion (Garden City, N. Y.: Doubleday,
1967); Peter Berger, The Precarious Vision (Garden City, N. Y.: Doubleday,
1961).
•• Here and elsewhere, italics by the author.

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RUT.H CASPAR, O.P.

"relevance." 25 He extends to "professional. philosophers and
professional theologians (or perhaps, who knows, to teams that
combine both types of expertise)" the challenge to explore the
anthropological foundations for theological faith (p. 52).
Admitting his lack of expertise in philosophical anthropology
and theology he nevertheless proposes the guidelines for a
search within the human condition for " signals of transcendence," in an attempt to rediscover empirical foundations for
religious belief in the supernatural. For Berger, the supernatural is the designation for that reality which has traditionally
been the object of religious faith, "one of ultimate significance
for man, which transcends the reality within which our everyday experience unfolds" (p. 2). The signals of transcendence
he discloses in his own brief exercise are described as certain
" prototypical human gestures " which point beyond the level
of human experience toward realities that transcend and give
ultimate meaning to that experience:
By signals of transcendence I mean phenomena that are to be found
within the domain of our " natural " reality but that appear to
point beyond that reality .... By prototypical human gestures I
mean certain reiterated acts and experiences that appear to express
essential aspects of man's being, of the human animal as such. (p.
53)

It is in this role of " signal of transcendence " that Berger identifies and discusses the phenomenon of play.
The phenomenology of play sketched in the context of his argument is basically that of Huizinga, to whom Berger acknowledges his debt. In particular, he selects for discussion Huizinga's analysis of play as an activity that sets up a separate
universe, with its own rules, space, time, and mode of discourse.
For Berger, "play always constructs an enclave within the
25 Berger's quarrel with theologians continues into the present decade.
See
his article, " Secular Theology and the Rejection of the Supernatural: Reflections
on Recent Trends," Theological Studies 88 (March 1977)-: 89-56; also "Responses
to Peter Berger" by the theologians he takes to task: Langdon Gilkey, Shubert
Ogden, and David Tracy, in Theological Studies 89 (September 1978): 486-507.
Berger seems to share Peirce's disdain for professional theologians.

THE" NEGLECTED ARGUMENT" REVISITED

118

world of everyday social life, and an enclave within
the latter's chronology as well " (p. 58) . In addition, play
provides for adult and child alike a type of elation that is more
significant than mere pleasure. Joy is the more appropriate
name for this phenomenon, and it is related to the suspension
of ordinary time and space:
Joy is play's intention. When this intention is actually realized, in
joyful play, the time structure of the playful universe takes on a
very specific quality-namely, it becomes eternity .... in joyful
play it appears as if one were stepping not only from one chronology into another, but from time into eternity. (Ibid.)

Thus joyful play signals a transcendent order with "rumors"
of deathless childhood, liberation and peace. Play suspends or
brackets the ordinary world of high seriousness and shabby
triviality for moments of ecstasy.
In addition to play, the author proposes other clues embedded
in humanitas pointing to the supernatural: the human propensity for imposing order on reality, humor, hope, and-as countergesture-moral outrage in the face of inhuman atrocities. The
supernatural order thus signalled is that of Western monotheism. Berger's approach is non-denominational, moving by a
method of " inductive faith " from anthropological data to belief in the God who is" not the world and who was not made by
man, who is outside and not within ourselves, who is not a sign
0£ human things but of whom human things are signs, who is
symbolized and not a symbol" (p. 89) . Such a God, the God
of Biblical faith, is totally other yet accessible in human experience and history.
How this can be the case is an aspect of Berger's essay that is
very lightly sketched, but strongly evocative of Peirce. 26 Noting
that Marx, Freud, Feuerbach and all sociological theories of
religion inspired by them interpret religion as a human projection, Berger suggests an alternate model: reflection. The relig••As is, of course, his analysis of play, and his interpretation of the capacity
of play to lead to religious belief. Berger gives no indication of having been
influenced by Peirce's "Neglected Argument."

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RUTH CASPAR, O.P.

ious symbols that are dominant in human consciousness may
well be at the same time proj·ections and reflections because of a
basic analogy between human reality and asupernaturalorder. 27
At any rate, theology ought at least to consider such a possibility. "If the religious projections of man correspond to a
reality that is superhuman and supernatural, then it seems logical to look for traces of this reality in the projector himself "
(p. 47).
This leads Berger to propose a method of moving inductively
from anthropology to theology. The conclusions will not be
susceptible to empirical proof; rather they will require a form
of faith. But that faith will be empirically rooted. "Put simply,
inductive faith moves from human experience to statements
about God, deductive faith from statements about God to interpretations of human experience " (p. 57) .
Concluding Reflections
Huizinga, Berger, and others who have explored the phenomenon of play in the spirit of Homo Ludens have paid no
homage to the American pragmatist who designed an obscure
argument for God arising out of musement. Yet in Peirce, Huizinga and Berger we can observe over three generations the
intellectual "play" of an idea which still eludes empirical analysis. Peirce knew well that too much clarity or precision could
distort rather than disclose the truth when one is exploring ultimate realities. Vagueness and obscurity are the best one can
hope for as the finite mind peers through conceptual lenses at
the infinite. Huizinga and Berger explore the enclave created
by the ecstasy of play within the world of serious work, and
discover there sacred space, sacred time. The God glimpsed by
21 Peirce, before him, had relied on Galileo's notion of il lume naturale
(C.P.,
6.10, 6.567, 6.476-77), a type of human racial wisdom resulting from an attunem.ent
with the universe, to account for the progress of knowledge, and the ability
of human persons to guess (via "abductive leaps") correct theories in the face
of an infinity of possible hypotheses. Peirce's God, though infinite, can be conceived only as " vaguely like a man " (5.536). " The hµman mind and the human
heart have a filiation to God " {8.262).

THE" NEGLECTEJ> ARGVlVIENT" REVISITED

ll5

each of them remains a hidden God, elusive, yet profoundly present, appealing to human consciousness and affectivity in ways
that forever alter the course of individual lives. For Peirce,
there was a far more direct mode of encounter: "As for God,
open your eyes-and your heart, which is also a perceptive
organ-and you see him" (6.493).
There is a sense in which the theoretical speculations, cultural
and literary evidence, and experiential data assembled by Johan
Huizinga, Hugo Rahner, Robert E. Neale, Harvey Cox, Peter
Berger and Jurgen Moltmann constitute inductive "probations " of the hypothesis whose abductive origin is exposed in
the Neglected Argument. Peirce expressed optimistic assurance
that anyone who entered his type of contemplative play with
appropriate openness and freedom from prejudice would arrive
at belief in God. The combined research and theory of the later
additions to the literature on play are instances of those who
in one way or another have performed his experiment and arrived at similar results. Even the scholastic philosopher, Josef
Pieper, who disavows any claim to Huizinga's analysis, adds
additional confirmation to Peirce's theory in a work whose title
has a Peircean ring: In Tune with the World. 28
These approaches are indeed of a different cast from the
formal proofs for the existence of God designed by metaphysicians and logicians. In syllogistic inference, the model that suggests itself is not play but the more work-like process of moving
according to a set of rules, within the rigid confines of analysis
and deduction toward a conclusion which emerges as a product
from this process. None of the freedom, spontaneity, and
creative fantasy of play is permitted. Discipline prevails. The
phenomena of play examined in these pages and found to be
conducive to religious faith are the very elements restricted by
more rigid scientific analysis. Peirce provides for the latter, but
only after the free-play of mind and the "homing instinct" of
mind and heart have generated the hypothesis to be examined
critically.
28 Josef Pieper, In Tune witk the Wo-rld: A Theory of Festivity
(New York:
l{arcourt, Brace & World, 1965).

116

RUTH CASPAR,O.P.

I would suggest that there is a phenomenological source that
grounds the speculations of the authors examined in these pages.
Each of course draws from a shared experience of the human
condition. In that community of experience it seems that the
spontaneous activity of play and the impulse of religious belief
are rather commonly linked phenomena, especially insofar as
they involve also an insight or intuition of cosmic order. This
is the factor alluded to in each of these studies which I would
wish to bring to the fore for final consideration.
In Peirce it is the order of the " universes " which will initially
arouse the wonder of the muser and which-after attentive contemplation-will ultimately lead to the hypothesis of God as
Cause and Creator. In Huizinga, one of the remarkable qualities of play is its capacity to fantasize a universe in which absolute order prevails, reflection of an ultimate and eternal order. And in Berger the ecstatic impulse of play dares to hold
out as an object of hope a transcendent order characterized by
peace, liberation and deathless joy. If the argument for the
existence of God from design and order is the most vulnerable
to logical criticism, it remains nevertheless the most spontaneous, most natural, and most perduring. And if, as Peirce, Huizinga and Berger suggest, there is an " attunement " of the
human person to the universe; if the human person is homo
ludens precisely because man and woman are each first imago
Dei; if the transcendent is reflected and " signalled " in the
empirical order of human experience-then we can account for
the spontaneity of the God-hypothesis though we never adequately demonstrate its conclusion. Nor will it be surprising
that belief in God will be the fruit of a mind that is most attentive, most open and most free-a mind at play.
RUTH CASPAR,

Ohio Dominican College
Columbus, Ohio

O.P.

TOWARDS A DEFINITION OF LATE MEDIEVAL
AUGUSTINIANISM

( ('. PLANE NOBISCUM EST AUGUSTINUS."
Although these are the words of John Calvin in his
Christianae Religionis lnstitutio,1 there were few
theologians in the Middle Ages or Reformation who would not
have said the same. Throughout the Middle Ages, the influence
of Augustine was so comprehensive and his authority so unassailable that virtually no one would have dared to deny his
" Augustianianism." Every medieval theologian, at the very
least, paid lip-service to the authority of Augustine. 2 In the
Reformation too most of the parties involved appealed constantly to the authority of Augustine, and in fact, the entire
controversy, in its early stages at least, can be understood as
a " Kampf um Augustin." 3 This almost universal desire among
theologians to have Augustine on their side persisted well into
the modern era when not only Jansenius and Pascal, but also
the Dominicans, the Jesuit Molinists, and countless others
claimed the authority of Augustine for their respective positions.4 Obviously then, there is a problem here for the historian
of Christian thought. Who and what is to be designated as
1 Quoted in H. Oberman, " ' Tuus sum, salvum me fac .' Augustinrevcil zwischen
Renaissance und Reformation" in Scientia Augustiniana, eds. C. Mayer and W.
Eckermann, (Wiirzburg, 1975) , pp. 849-898, p. 871.
2 This of course does not imply an extensive familiarity
with Augustine's works
themselves. Often Augustine was known primarily through the various florilegia.
Besides these, Lombard's Sentences was perhaps the most influential in transmitting
a knowledge of Augustine to the late Middle Ages.
3 On this, see Karl Baur, Die Wittenberqer Universitatstheologie und die Anfiinge
.
der Deutsch en Reformation (Tiibingen,
•Accordingly, as one would expect, "Augustinianism" has become an endless
source of grist for the scholarly mill. In one decade alone there appeared well
over 500 s,tudies on the influence of Augustine. Cf. T. Van Bavel, Repertoire
Biblcographique de Saint Augustin, 1950-1960 (The Hague, 1963), nos.
and C. Andresen, Bibliographia Augustiniana (Darmstadt, 1973).

117

118

DENIS R. JANZ

" Augustinian " when virtually every theologian makes some
claim to that term? Would it not perhaps be in the best interests of historiographical clarity to abandon such an ambiguous
concept?
The use of the term " Augustinianism " is particularly problematic in relation to late medieval theology. 5 In this field of
scholarship, the problem is more than simply one of definition;
it involves the very character and configuration of late medieval
theology itself, and the concept is an important one in the effort
to discern accurately the theological currents of the time. And
it is also significant from the point of view of the Reformation
" Kampf um Augustin." It is not surprising then that the
scholarly debate on this issue has already been carried on for
at least three quarters of a century.
The initial impetus behind this debate was, as is still often
the case, an interest in the significance of late medieval theology for the Reformation. Thus, at the turn of the century,
scholars such as Carl Stange first seriously raised the question
of Luther's relationship to the theology of his Order, and more
particularly, to the theology of Gregory of Rimini. 6 Soon thereafter, A. V. Muller argued that there was an Augustinian tradition in the late Middle Ages which adhered more closely to the
teachings of Augustine than had Thomas Aquinas or Bonaventure.7 This tradition found its representatives in such figures
as Simon Fidati of Cascia (d.1348), Hugolin of Orvieto (d.1373),
Augustinus Favaroni of Rome (d.1443), and Jacobus Perez of
Valencia (d.1470). Moreover, this tradition existed both inside
and outside of the Augustinian Order. But the most important
• B. Decker distinguishes between a philosophical and theological Augustinianism
in the Middle Ages: "Augustinismus" in Lexilcon fiir Thwlogie und Kirche I, 10921094. Philosophical Augustinianism, with its distinctive metaphysics, epistemology
and psychology, is not our primary concern here. Rather, we are concerned with
a specifically theological Augustinianism.
• Carl Stange, " Uber Luthers Beziehungen zur Theologie seines Ordens " in
N eue lcirchliche Zeifachrift, 11 (1900), 574-585.
7 This argument was developed in a series of books and articles, the first of
which was Luthers Theologische Quellen, (Giessen, 1912) . For a complete list
of Miiller's relevant works, see E. Stakemeier, Dl!!I' Kampf um Augustin· auf dem
T1identinum, (Paderbom, 1987), p. 241.

LATE MEDIEVAL AUGUSTINIANISM

.119

person in this tradition, according to Muller, was none other
than Martin Luther in his theological protest against the moderni. Muller's attempt was thus to establish the existence of an
unbroken late medieval Augustinian tradition which extended
into the Reformation.
In 1937 E. Stakemeier took up and defended Muller's basic
thesis. In his book, Der Kampf um Augustin auf dem Tridentirmm,8 he pointed out the genuinely Augustinian position taken
by the General of the Augustinian Order at the Council of
Trent. Here then, Stak:emeier argued, was a legitimate heir to
the late medieval Augustinian tradition which Muller had tried
to demonstrate.
But the Muller-Stakemeier approach was not met with an
easy acceptance among scholars. Many were of the opinion
that much more research was required before their basic thesis
could be substantiated. Thus scholars such as M. Schiller and
H. Jedin began to produce major monographs on individual
members of the Augustinian Order. 9 Other important studies,
such as those of A. Zumkeller on Hugolin of Orvieto and
Dionysius of Montina, contributed greatly towards :filling the
lacunae in modern scholarship's understanding of late medieval
theology .10
By mid-century, some scholars felt that more general conclusions could already be drawn from this growing body of
literature. R. Weijenborg, for instance, felt justified in denying
completely the existence of a late medieval Augustinian school.11
Others with less confidence in the state of scholarship simply
8 (Paderborn,
1937) . Cf. also Stakemeier's article, " Die theologischen Schulen
auf dem Trienter Konzil. Die Trienter Augustinerschule " in Theologische Quartalschrift, 117 (1936), 466-504.
9 M.
Schiller, Pradestination, Sunde, und Freiheit bei G1·egor von Rimini,
(Stuttgart, 1934) . H. Jedin, Papal Legate at the Council of Trent, Cardinal
Seripando, tr. F. Eckhoff, (St. Louis, 1947); first published in 2 vols. in 1937.
Although Schiller emphasized Gregory's Augustinianism in a somewhat uncritical
way, Jedin was especially cautious in regards to the Miiller-Statemeier thesis.
10 A. Zumkeller,
Hugolin von Orvieto und seine theologische Erkenntnislehre,
(Wiirzburg, 1941), and Dionysius de Montina: Ein neuentdeckter Augustiner Theologe des Spatmittelalters, (Wiirzburg, 1948).
11 R. Weijenborg, " La charite clans la premiere theologie de Luther"
in Revue
d'histoire ecclesiastique, 45 (1950), 617-669.

120

DENIS R. JANZ

denied. the influence of any such school on Luther. 12 Most
scholars, however, still regarded such conclusions as simply
premature, and accordingly, they continued the painstaking
scholarly work on the problem. As a result, the :fifties and
sixties witnessed the production of many new studies. G. Leff
for instance wrote two controversial works on Thomas Bradwardine and Gregory of Rimini. 18 Zumkeller added considerably to his previous studies in four major articles. 14 And W.
Werbeck produced a monograph on Jacobus Perez of Valencia. 15
What is notable about all these studies is that they embodied,
more or less implicitly, assumptions and presuppositions on the
question of late medieval Augustinianism. Werbeck, for instance, remained skeptical about the legitimacy of positing a
late medieval Augustinian theological tradition until much
more research was done.16 In 1965 Bernhard Lohse, in an important article, followed the approach of Werbeck. According
to him, the existence of a late medieval Augustinian theological
tradition has not been demonstrated. And in any case, Lohse
argued, the writings of Augustine himself were more important
for Luther than any one current in late medieval theology. 11
Hubert Jedin too, while recognizing the importance of Augustinianism at the Council of Trent, took much the same position.
According to him, " the relatively uniform attitude of the Au12 E.g. L. Cristiani, "Luther et saint Augustin"
in Augustinus Magister, (Paris,
1954), vol. 2, pp. 1029-1038.
18 G. Leff, Bradwardine and the Pelagians, (Cambridge,
1957), and Gregory
of Rimini: Tradition and innovation in fourteenth century thought, (Manchester,
1961).
"A. Zumkeller, "Hugolin von Orvieto (d.1373) iiber Urstand und Erbsiinde"
in Augustiniana, 3 (1953), 35-62, 165-193; "Hugolin von Orvieto iiber Pradestination, Rechtfertigung und Verdienst" in Augustiniana, 4 (1954), and 5 (1955), 5-51;
"Das Ungeniigen der mcnschlichen Werke bei den deutschen Predigern des
Spatmittelalters " in Zeitschrift fiir katholische Theologie, 81 (1959), 265-305; and
" Die Augustinertheologen Simon Fidati von Cascia und Hugolin von Orvieto
und Martin Luthers Kritik an Aristoteles" in Archiv fii.r Reformationsgeschichte,
54 (1965)' 15-37.
15 W.
Werbeck, Jacobus Perez von Valencia. Untersuchungen zu seinem
Psalmenkommentar, (Tiibingen, 1959).
1 • Ibid., pp. 210ff.
17 B. Lohse, " Die Bcdeutung
Augustins fiir den jungen Luther" in Kerygma
und Dogma, 11 (1965), 116-135.
'

LATE MEDIEVAL AUGUSTINIANISM

Ul

gustinian hermits at Trent does not postulate the survival of a
late medieval Augustinian school," as Mi.iller and Stakemeier
had argued. 18 Here then, in Werbeck, Lohse and Jedin we have
a second approach to the question of late medieval Augustinianism, namely, that the very existence of such a school is highly
dubious.
A third approach to the problem, already evident in the early
works of Zumkeller, has been to use the term "late medieval
Augustinianism" simply to designate the theology of members
of the Augustinian Order. In this way scholars can hold in
abeyance the question of the degree of faithfulness to the teaching of Augustine himself, and direct their efforts exclusively to
understanding the theology of those who were in the Augustinian Order. Among scholars who follow this approach, Adolar
Zumkeller and Damasus Trapp are clearly the most important.
In his book-length essay of 1956 Trapp takes" Augustinianism "
to designate the theology of members of the Augustinian Order .19 Augustinian theology thus understood falls into two distinct periods. The first period extends from Giles of Rome
(d.1316) to Thomas of Strassbourg (d.1357), during which
theologians of the Order were heavily influenced by Thomas
Aquinas and Giles of Rome (this is known as the schola
Aegidiana). The second period followed Gregory of Rimini
(d.1358) , and is characterized by a heavier dependence on
Augustine himself, even though Giles of Rome remained the
official teacher of the Order until 1926 (this is known as the
schola moderna Augustiniana). Zumkeller takes much the same
approach as Trapp in his many earlier studies, and especially in
18 H. Jedin, A History of the Council of Trent, vol. 2, The First Sessions at
Trent 1545-47, tr. D. Graf, (London, 1957), p. 259. According to Jedin the
very attempt to demonstrate the existence of such a late medieval school is mistaken. Ibid., p. 258, n.l.
19 D. Trapp, "Augnstinian Theology in the 14th Century:
Notes on Editions,
Marginalia, Opinions and Book-lore" in Augustiniana 6 (1956), 146-274. This
brilliant essay is not only indispensible for any study of late medieval theology,
but it is also a gold mine of historical trivia. One of the most interesting aspects
of this work is Trapp's attempt to document the emergence of a genuinely historical consciousness among 14th century Augnstinians by examining the invention
of the footnote as a scholarly device.

122.

DENIS R. JANZ ·.

his 1964 essay on the medieval " Augustinian school." 20 In this
latter work, Zumkeller brings Trapp's essay up to date in regard to the more recent research. Zumkeller argues that the
theologians of the Order can be regarded as a " school " in the
sense that they were unified around Augustine, as understood
and taught by their own masters in theology. Moreover, he
draws attention to the fact that some members of the Order
regarded themselves as a" school": Hugolin of Orvieto, Facinus
of Asti and Johannes of Basel spoke not only of" doctores nostri" but also of a" schola nostra." 21 Accordingly, we have here
in the work of Trapp and Zumkeller a third answer to the problem of late medieval Augustinianism: such a school existed
within the Order of Hermits of St. Augustine.
Before turning to a discussion of the most recent literature on
the question, something should be said here about the approaches already described. The first approach-that of Miiller
and Stakemeier-rested upon what were clearly premature conclusions, as most scholars now recognize. The second approach
-that of Werbeck, Lohse and J edin-must be seen as a reaction to the earlier Miiller-Stakemeier approach. This reaction
rightly stressed the need for caution in drawing any general
conclusions about late medieval Augustinianism until much
more work was done in this area. But now, in the light of recent
scholarship, this reaction appears to be somewhat one-sided and
over-cautious. Surely, if one can speak of " schools" at all, one
can now speak of a late medieval "Augustianianism," provided
that this term is properly defined.
The third approach-that of Zumkeller and Trapp-does in
fact do this. But the problem here is in their definition of " Augustinianism." First, it has become increasingly evident in recent years that late medieval theological currents crossed the
boundaries of the Orders. And secondly the Zumkeller-Trapp
ao A. Zumkellcr, "Die Augustinerschule des Mittelalters. Vertreter und philosophisch-theologische Lehre" in Analecta Augustiniana, 27 (1964), 167-262. This
work, together with Trapp's, constitutes the most important effort to give a
comprehensive and synthetic account of late medieval "Augustinianism " to date.
"' Ibid. p. 173.

LATE MEDIEVAL AUGUSTINIANISM

123

definition presupposes a theological unity within the Order for
which there is inadequate evidence. Indeed, many theologians
outside the Augustinian Order were more heavily influenced by
Augustine than some of those within the Order. For instance,
from within the Order, Thomas of Strassbourg held what might
be regarded as a Semi-Pelagian teaching on predestination (i.e.
that there is a ratio praedestinationis in the creature and that
predestination is post praevisa merita) .22 And some scholars
have contended that Luther's own teacher in the Augustinian
Order, Johannes Paltz (d.1511), held some very different teachings from those of Augustine. 23 On the other hand, from outside
of the Order, Thomas Bradwardine (d.1349), a secular priest,
mounted a vigorous anti-Pelagian protest in his famous De
Causa Dei contra Pelag,iurn. Examples such as these could be
multiplied. What they indicate is that it is simply inadequate
to the complexity of the situation to define " Augustinianism "
as the theology of the Order of Hermits of St. Augustine, as
Zumkeller and Trapp do.
With these criticisms in mind, we now proceed, in the search
for a definition, to the most recent literature on the question.
This literature exhibits a properly critical attitude towards
previous research, and exercises a degree of caution in its attempts to characterize and define late medieval Augustinianism.
The works of Oberman, Steinmetz, Grane and Courtenay are
representative of this new trend.
Already, in his Harvest of Medieval Theology, Oberman was
critical of much of the previous research. 24 A decade later, in
his introduction to Eckermann's monograph on Hugolin of
Orvieto, Oberman made his criticism more explicit, 25 and sug22 On this, see Joseph L. Shannon, Good Works and Predestination According
to Thomas of Strassburg, 0. S. A. (Washington, 1940), p. 99.
23 According to Lohse ("Die Bedeutung Augustins," p. 117, n,4), Paiz "vertrat
eine ganz andere Theologie." Cf. Lohse's book, Monchtum und Reformation.
Liithers Auseinandersetzung mit dem Monchsideal des Mittelalters, (Gottingen,
1963)' pp. 160ff.
••2nd revised ed., (Grand Rapids, 1967), e.g. p. 181, n.112.
••Introduction to W. Eckermann, Der Physikkommentar Hugolins von Orvieto
OESA, (Berlin, 1972), pp. x-vii-xxvi, p. xx. Eckermann's work is vol. 5 of "Spat-

124

D,ENIS R. JANZ

gested that it would perhaps be helpful to describe secular
priests such as Bra_dwardine as "Augustinschiiler" rather than
as " Augustinians." 26 According to Oberman, one can legitimately speak of a schola moderna A ugustiniana from the time
of Gregory of Rimini, whose influence then extended itself to
the establishment of a " via Gregorii" at the University of Wittenberg in 1508, as well as to the discussion of justification at
the Council of Trent. 27 In a more recent treatment of the
problem, Oberman has seen fit to make some further distinctions within late medieval Augustinianism. 28 Within the schola
moderna A ugustiniana one must distinguish, according to him,
between the theology of the Order and what he calls " academic
Augustinianism." This " academic Augustinianism " found its
foremost representatives in Thomas Bradwardine and Gregory
of Rimini in the sense that they best exemplified the movement's unifying characteristic-the attack on the Pelagiani
moderni in the name of Augustine. 29 For various reasons Gregmittelalter und Reformation Texte und Untersuchungen "-a promising series of
monographs and texts published by the Sonderforschungsbercich of the lnstitut
fiir Spiitmittelalter und Reformation, Abteilung Spiitmittelalterlicher Augustinismus,
Tiibingen. This series will include a volume on the Stand und Aufgaben der
spiitmittelalterlichen Augustinismusforschung, a bibliography of late medieval
Augustinianism, and critical editions of Gregory of Rimini, Hugolin of Orvieto,
Johannes Hiltalingen of Basel, Johannes Paiz and Johann Staupitz.
26 Ibid., p. xxi.
27 Ibid., p. xxii. The establishment of a "via Gregorii" at Wittenberg is disputed.
This is owing largely to a paleographical ambiguity in the 1508 revised statutes
of the University. What Oberman reads as "via Gregorii," others such as Karl
Baur, following Otto Scheel, read as "via Guilelmi" (William of Ockham). See
K. Baur, Die Wittenberger Universitiitstheologie und die Anfiinge der Deutschen
Reformation, (Tiibingen, 1928), p. 9. More recently, Leif Graue has argued convincingly in favor of the " via Guilelmi " reading. See his Modus Loquendi
Theologicus. Luthers Kampf um die Erneuerung der Theologie (1515-18), (Leiden,
1975)' pp. 136ff.
28 H. Oberman, " Tuus sum, salvum me fac '.
Augustinreveil zwischen Renaissance und Reformation" in Scientia Augustiniana, eds. C. Mayer and Vt. Eckermann, (Wiirzburg, 1975), pp. 349-394. For a restatement of the position taken
here, see Oberman's W erden und W ertung der Reformation: Vom W egestreit zum
Glaubenskampf, (Tiibingen, 1977), pp. 82-140.
29 Ibid., p. 350. Oberman points out
(p. 355) that, while Gregory adopted the
same philosophical presuppositions as the various Pelagiani moderni, he succeeded
in making them the basis of his anti-Pelagianism.

LATE MEDIEVAL AUGUSTINIANISM

ory's influence far surpassed that of Bradwardine, and culminated in the publication of the 11-volume Amerbach edition of
Augustine's works (1490-1506) . Gregory's influence then receded, according to Oberman, because of the ready availability
of Augustine's works themselves. 30 And "academic Augustinianism" as such ended with Erasmus, for whom Jerome-not
Augustine-was the theologus summus. Thus there developed,
during the time when the confessional lines were hardening, a
new and more distanced relationship to Augustine. 31 A third
current within the schola moderna Augustiniana, represented by
Johann Staupitz (d.159l4), Oberman calls an" Augustinreveil."
In Staupitz, the schola moderna A ugustinana begun by Gregory
of Rimini was taken out of the university and transformed into
a living teaching and preaching for the lay person. 32
·whether or not one agrees with Oberman's entire schematization of late medieval Augustinianism, it must be acknowledged
that some form of what he designates as "academic Augustinianism " was indeed a reality in the late :Middle Ages. There
can be no doubt that, through the universities at least, there
flowed a current of anti-Pelagian protest in the name of Augustine. It is this aspect of late medieval Augustinianism which
David Steinmetz fastens upon as the focus for his discussion of
the entire problem. 33 Steinmetz explicitates the most important
(and perhaps obvious) principle to be remembered in any discussion of Augustinianism: " The question is not whether a
theologian is indebted to Augustine but rather what is the deIbid., p. 357.
Ibid., pp. 357-363. Oberman argues (p. 363) that the authority of Augustine
receded in the face of an increasing number of direct appeals to Scripture and a
wider Patristic basis of authority. Thus Casper Contarini (d.1542), for example,
felt free to disagree explicitly with Augustine. While this may be correct, scholars
will not be as ready to concede that what Oberman calls "academic Augustinianism " ended with Erasmus. Against this position one could cite the work
of Stakemeier on the Augustinians at Trent (cf. above, n. 8), the work of Jedin
on the Augustinian Seripando at Trent (cf. above, n. 9), and indeed, Oberman's
own statement on Gregory of Rimini's influence at Trent (cf. above, n. 27).
•• Ibid., p. 389.
88 D. Steinmetz, Misericordia Dei: The Theology of Johannes von Staupitz in
its Late Medieval Setting, (Leiden, 1968), pp. 30-34.
"0

•1

126

DENIS R, JANZ

gree and nature of his indebtedness.'' 84 Bearing this in mind,
together with the full complexity of the late medieval situation,
Steinmetz defines late medieval Augustinianism in the following
way:
There was in the later Middle Ages a tradition of theology which
stressed the centrality of grace for justification and which minimized, without eliminating, the significance of the human contribution. It was a tradition which attempted to preserve the
Augustinian heritage against the corroding acids of contemporary
semi-Pelagianism .... Wherever the moral capacities of fallen man
were overestimated, wherever the sovereignty of the prevenient
grace of God was threatened, Augustinian theologians . . . raised
their voices in protest. 35

This then is the fourth approach to late medieval Augustinianism.

Given the inadequacies of the Miiller-Stakemeier approach,
of the Werbeck-Lohse-Jedin approach, and of the Trapp-Zumkeller approach, this last one makes abundant sense. Certainly
from a theological point of view, the anti-Pelagian emphasis
was ultimately the most significant unifying aspect of the entire
movement. Following Steinmetz, therefore, we should like to
suggest that" late medieval Augustinianism" be taken to designate the anti-Pelagian protest in the name of Augustine which
arose in the late Middle Ages against the various Pelagiani
rnoderni. Thus, for example, Gregory of Rimini should be regarded as " Augustinian " even though he may have adopted
nominalistic metaphysical and epistemological presuppositions.36 And likewise Thomas Bradwardine must be seen as
"Augustinian" despite the fact that he was not a member of
the Augustinian Order.
Ibid. p. 88.
Ibid., p. 88f.
36 William
Courtenay's warning against seeing in the late Middle Ages a
radical polarization on all fronts between Augustinianism and nominalism
significant. "Ockhamism Among the Augustinians: The Case of Adam Wodeham"
in Scientia Augustiniana, eds. C. Mayer and W. Eckermann, (Wiirzburg, 1975),
pp. Q67-Q75. It must always be borne in mind that late medieval Augustinianism,
as it is defined here, did not necessarily preclude adherence to distinctively nonAugustinian positions on other questions.
04

35

127

LATE MEDIEVAL AUGUSTINIANISM

This approach, however, cannot be accepted wholesale without insisting upon some provisos. First, the work of Leif Grane
on the relationship of late medieval Augustinianism to Luther
serves as a warning against drawing hasty and simplistic conclusions in this regard. 37 Luther's relationship to this movement
remains in many respects ambiguous. And, secondly, Steinmetz's intimation that late medieval Augustinianism was in
some way a purer form of Augustinianism than that of Thomas
Aquinas or Bonaventure cannot. go unchallenged. What must
be remembered is that Thomas and Bonaventure were not
driven to a vigorous anti-Pelagian protest by their contemporaries. But, as Johannes Capreolus (d.1444) was at great pains
to point out, the fundamentum of such an anti-Pelagian protest
is without doubt present in Thomas's emphasis on the sovereignty of grace, at least in his mature writings. 38 Thus it is
misleading to speak of a "purer" form of Augustinian antiPelagianism in the late Middle Ages. For it is only in an age
marked by Pelagian tendencies that anti-Pelagianism can become the distinguishing feature of an Augustinian theology.
DENIS

R. JANZ

Loyola University
New Orleans, La.
37 Leif
Grane, " Gregor von Rimini und Luthers Leipziger Disputation " in
Studia Theologica, 22 (1968), 29-49. Grane demonstrates that, contrary to a
scholarly assumption, Luther did not know or cite Gregory of Rimini until 1519
(p. 82). Grane also points out that on the issue of ecclesiastical authority,
Gregory and Luther were far apart at this time (p. 49). See also Grane's "Augustins 'Expositio quarundum propositionum ex epistola ad Romanos' in Luthers
Romerbriefvorlesung" in Zeitschrift fur Theologie und Kirche, 69 (1972), 804-880;
and " Divus Paulus et S. Augustinus, Interpres eius fidelissimus. Uber Luthers
Verhaltnis zu Augustin" in Festschrift fur Ernst Fuchs, eds. G. Ebeling, E. Jiingcl
and G. Schunack, (Tiibingen, 1978), pp. 188-146. In his recent book, Modus
Loquendi Theologicus. Luthers Kampf um die Erneuerung der Theologie (151518), (Leiden, 1975), Graue analyzes in depth Luther's use of Augustine in his
lectures on Romans, and argues that Luther was influenced more by Augustine
himself than by any late medieval Augustinian.
88 Capreolus's Augustinian interpretation
of Thomas and its importance for the
Reformation is examined at length in my forthcoming study, Luther and Lale
Medieval Thomism: A Study in Thoological Anthropology.

INFALLIBILITY:

A REPLY

M

ICHAEL VERTIN has written a review article on
my Infallibility: The Crossroads of Doctrine.* In
the following pages I shall try to clarify what I
believe are a number of Vertin's misunderstandings. I shall
first summarize my book, and then I shall make a few brief
remarks on his criticisms.
SUMMARY

1) The Meaning of Infallibility. Human infallibility refers
to a certitude in understanding (many would call it a certitude
in judg-ment) v.rhich is equal to the certitude that a person has
of his/her existence as a human being in the world.
2) Infallibility can be enjoyed only with regard-to universal
meanings. The certitude of infallibility can exist and be shared
with others only if the aspect of reality which is understood is
a universal condition of human existence. Thus, while I have
a practical certitude that I am sitting at a typewriter on November 12, 1979, this could not be the object of shared infallible
certitude. This concrete fact could be known by others at other
places and times only with historical moral certitude. However,
universal aspects of existence can be known and shared by all
with infallible certitude. Thus, there are universal structures of
the human person in relationship to .society which can be infallibly known and shared: each person is open-ended and capable
of further growth; the experiential pattern of each person is
unique; the uniqueness of each person's experiential pattern, the
subsequent uniqueness of each person's total understanding, and
the vastness of possible knowledge coupled with the concrete
limitations of each person-all these together make inevitable
*Michael Vertin, "Infallibility and the Demands of Epistemology: A Review
Article," The Thomist, October, 1979, pp. 687-65!'.l.

INFALLmILITY:

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129

intellectual and personal pluralism. These are examples of universal meanings, aspects of reality present to all places, times,
and cultures which can be grasped by each individual under appropriate circumstances. These universal meanings may be recurring characteristics of the process by which individuals know
and grow, or they may be recurring characteristics of the world
in which subjects live-a world which includes other human
subjects, the risen Christ, and ultimately the uncreated God.
3) Universal meanings can be grasped explicitly only by
those with appropriate experience. Experience is here not
limited to sense experience but is defined as the actualization
of any human potential. This actualization may be occasioned
by external stimuli, by internal movements such as the reflecting upon past experience, or even directly by God (as exemplified by the consolation without cause of St. Ignatius). The
totality of actualization undergone over a lifetime is called the
experiential continuum. All understanding depends upon one's
experiential continuum, and the act of understanding represents
a further actualization of that continuum.
The potentiality (= possibility) of grasping explicitly that a
certain meaning is universal depends upon the possession of an
appropriate experiential continuum. Thus, to have the potentiality of grasping that all are conditioned by their environments, one might have to live in a number of environments and
witness what happened to the self and others in those environments. This potentiality of grasping becomes an actuality on
the occasion of an appropriate insight. Thus, one can actually
come to understand explicitly that the self and others invariably adapt to and are changed by the succession of environments.1
1 I italicize the
words "potentiality," "actuality," and "actually" because I
wish to alert the reader to the fact that these words in this context have no
deep philosophic meaning. They arc used in an ordinary English sense. I mention
this became one of my mistakes according to Vertin is to use explanatory terms
like " potency " and " act " indiscriminately with descriptive terms such us
" experiential continuum." However, the terms he refers to are the terms " potentially " and " actually " used in the ordinary English sense exemplified in
the text above.

ISO

PETER CIDRICO, S. S,

4) In addition to the universal meanings accessible to all,
there is a universal meaning accessible to those who are initiated
into the faith experience of Christianity. That universal meaning is constituted by the resurrection of Jesus Christ. In his
risen humanity Christ becomes Lord. He fulfills as man the possibilities of relating to all creation and to the creator which each
human nature is called to but never achieves in visible creation.
As human he is present in power to all creation until the end of
time. He constitutes an aspect of every encounter with reality
whether persons know it or not, just as the attraction of gravity
is an aspect of every encounter of material beings whether they
know it or not. He is the living Christian universal person. He
is known as such by those who share the Christian faith experience.
5) Christian dogmas are universal meanings implied in the
resurrection or in the resurrection as combined with other universal meanings. Thus, Christ as man is risen, and so he
reveals that the salvation and completion of persons is to share
the resurrection. Implied in his resurrection is our own, as Paul
saw. Further, we know that persons grow by authentically expressing themselves and their relationships. Since Christ is
present and related to us at all times, the celebration and expression of his living presence is a source of growth in him. This
is what the Mass is. Each dogma is derived from the universality of the risen Christ or from a combination of his universality and one or more universal aspects known by the exercise of reason. Because these meanings which are dogmas
are universal, that is, aspects of reality for all places and times
(including all future times), they are rightly called irreformable.
6) Dogmatic meanings constitute universal saving truth.
Salvation occurs to the degTee that a person is expanded by a
full relationship to all of creation summed up in Christ and
through Christ to the uncreated Trinity. Hence, union to reality
can be said to be saving. Since dogmatic meanings (not the
mere verbal formula which points to these meanings) refer to
the universal and enduring aspects of the reality which saves,

INFALI;IBILlT-Y:

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131

they are rightly called universal. saving truths. To have internalized the great dogmas is to have been established in the
way of salvation in a basic manner.
7) The conclusive proof that a meaning is a dogmatic meaning is the acknowledgment by the universal faithful of its presence as an aspect of their faith experiential continua. Thus,
the " proof " of the universality of the risen Christ is the
continuous testimony of the great Christian faithful over the
centuries. This recognition by the faithful does not make a
meaning universal. Rather, it manifests that such a meaning
has been, is, and always will be dogmatic.
8) The whole theory in the prior seven points is congruent
with the teaching of Vatican I on papal infallibility and with
the Orthodox notion of reception. According to Vatican I, the
pope exercises the infallibility of the Church when he acts in
the fullness of his office as head of the universal Church, when
he defines a doctrine of faith or morals binding on all persons of
all ages and cultures, etc. All the conditions of papal infallibility are consonant with the notion that one can be infallible only
with regard to universal meanings. However, one cannot know
certainly that the pope has actually acted as universal head of
the Church and actually fulfilled the conditions of universality
(a judgment that individuals have to make) unless the meaning articulated by the pope actually resonates with the faith
experience of all the faithful. This is the apparent meaning of
the Orthodox notion of reception. Hence, whenever the pope
realizes the universal conditions set down by Vatican I, he exercises the infallibility of the Church and his teachings are
irreformable ex sese. But one can be sure that he actually fulfilled the conditions only when the entire Church receives his
teaching.
CoMMENT

oN VERTIN's

REMARKS

My summary differs from that of Professor Vertin. His contains far more cognitional theory material and far less theological material. He barely adverts to the significance of the

PETER CllllUCO, s. S.

universality of the risen Christ (my points 4 and 5) , and he
says nothing of substance about the theological content of my
points 6, 7, and 8. His summary appears to come from his special epistemological interests. I suggest that he is more concerned with these interests and less with the overall purpose
and contents of my book. As a result, despite his evident desire to be fair and accurate, his criticisms consistently misinterpret my meaning and my purpose. Let me rapidly illustrate
this generalization in the brief space at my disposal.
Vertin lists three ambiguities. Basically, he desires distinctions of a Lonerganian type. I was aware of all his distinctions
when I wrote the book, but I avoided making them because
(I) I was focusing on a single point-the infallible grasp of
universal meanings-and not on a complete cognitional theory,
and (2) I was not writing for professional philosophers but for
theologians of infallibility, most of whom have manifested no
acquaintance with the intricacies of cognitional theory. Rightly
or wrongly, I restricted the distinctions I made to those that
were essential for grasping a theory of infallible judgment on
universal meanings. I foresaw difficulties enough in getting
across these necessary distinctions.
With these points in mind, I shall examine Vertin's assertions
of ambiguities. First, I do not distinguish experience, understanding and judging as he would like. Vertin simply overlooks
that for me experience is not sense experience but the actualization of any human potential. Hence, understanding and judging
are necessarily kinds of experience. Next, he desires that I state
whether understanding is reflexive or not, implicit or not. I do
not make this distinction because for me understanding can be
both. There is an understanding implicit in activity (such as
the understanding the bicyclist has of the principles by which
he keeps the moving bike upright). There can be explicit understanding. For my purposes both are important kinds of
understanding. The implicit kind is often found in the faithful
and because of this we can speak of an unarticulated sensu8
fidelium. The explicit kind is often present in theologians and

INFALLIBILITY:

A REPLY

in official church teachers. It derives from and can illuminate
the implicit sensus fidelium.
Secondly, Vertin wishes that I would clarify whether consciousness refers to the expli<;!it reflexive realm only or also to
the implicit unreflexive realm. The answer is that it refers to
both; I saw no point in making a distinction that was unnecessary for the purposes of the book.
Thirdly, he wonders whether knowing includes judging or
not. The answer is that it does. I regularly use " infallible understanding" for what he would call " infallible judging." As I
indicate in the Introduction (p. xvii) I vary terminology to
challenge readers to get beyond familiar categories so as to
grasp my meaning in terms of their experience. I do not think
it unreasonable to use the wording " infallible understanding "
to indicate a certain judgment.
Vertin lists four mistakes I allegedly make. First, I view
knowing on the perceptualist model. Vertin simply misreads my
intent. Thus, he cites as an example of my perceptualist mistake the following: "The more a being can immediately perceive reality, the less it needs of theories. God does not theorize; he simply immediately 'knows.'" In this sentence the
word "perceive" (just like the word "seen" in the second
text he cites) does not mean visualize but "achieve understanding of." This is a good dictionary sense. The gist of my
statement is that man's capacity to understand by the slow
path of cumulative insight is both his glory and the sign of his
limitation. The more perfect a being is, the more it grasps immediately without inferences, deductions, and gradual growth.
The example I use has no more to do with the perceptualist
model of knowing than has Lonergan's phrase that "God sees
in his essence ... the series of all possible world-orders .... " 2
Vertin also states that I do not portray human understanding
as " the shrewd, progressive, and sometimes slow and difficult
elaboration of intelligible forms; rather, it is fundamentally a
•Collection: Papers by Bernard Lonergan, S. J., ed. F. E. Crowe, S.J. (New
York: Herder and Herder, 1967) p. 88.

·

CHHUCO, S.S. · ·

:rpatte1'.just of observing unities in data." He is correct in observing that I do not explicitly portray the difficulties involved
in understanding (and judging). I assumed that every intelligent reader would be aware of. these difficulties. However,
Vertin is incorrect in saying that I believe that understanding
is a "matter just of observing unities in data." My context is
the question of the requirements for infallible judgment. The
point I make is that for the making of such a judgment a single
individual must possess all the data relevant to the question
asked. I do assert that the possession of such data is necessary
for such a judgment; I do not say that it is sufficient. To grasp
what unifies the data demands more than observation; it demands an insight. Thus, Watson observes all the clues; he lacks
the ordering intelligence which unifies them and indicates their
significance with regard to the crime. Vertin infers from my
emphasis on the need to possess all the data (central to my
purposes of showing why infallibility is impossible in concrete
cases where data are complex) and from my failure to highlight
the place of difficulties in gaining understanding and judgment
(in no way central to my purposes) that I think understanding
and judgment flow automatically from observing data. To note
the unities in data is never an automatic process. If it were,
there would never be a lack of insight.
Secondly, Vertin says I confuse descriptive terms like "experiential continuum" with explanatory terms like "potency"
and" act." He makes the unusual mistake of imputing to me
his technical meaning of" potentially" and" actually," whereas
I use these terms in an ordinary dictionary sense. This usage
is exemplified in #3 of my summary above and in the footnote
connected with that part of the summary. There is no confusion at all because I am not using Vertin's meanings of" potency" and "act."
Thirdly, Vertin faults me for confusing a priori and abstract
contents. This distinction is irrelevant to my purposes. Universal meanings, whether abstract or a priori in Vertin's sense,
can be infallibly grasped.

INFALLIBILITY:

A REPLY

185

Finally, Vertin identifies what is perhaps my "most egregious conflation of all." According to him, I fail to recognize that
the risen Christ refers to an empirical content whereas the presuppositions of reason express an a priori content; hence, I mistakenly combine them. Let me say that I was quite aware that
some of my natural universal meanings (not all of them, as
Vertin appears to assume) are what he calls a priori contents.
I was also aware that Christ risen is what he calls an empirical
content. My point is that in different ways both are universally and continuously present to the knowing subject-one as
an object outside the subject and the other as a continuous
process within the subject. Because both are universal, though
in different senses, they can be infallibly grasped either independently, or when operative in the same relationship.
In summary, I believe that Vertin has written a review article
which frequently misunderstands my meaning. His failure to
grasp the significance of my non-Lonerganian notion of experience, his tendency to read into my account ambiguity and error
when I fail to make the kind of distinctions that pertain to his
concerns and not mine, his assignment to me of technical terminology when ordinary English meanings are employed, his
overlooking of the crucial significance of the universality of the
risen Christ, and his tendency to assume that what is not stated
is either unknown or rejected-all these, it seems to me, make
his review an unfortunate and inaccurate introduction to my
thought. I trust that my presentation will help the readers of
The Thomist to understand better my purposes, concerns and
overall view in attempting to rethink the doctrine of infallibility.

REv. PETER CHIRICO, S.S.
St. Thomas Seminary
Kenmore, Washington

BOOK REVIEWS
Marx and the Bible. By JosE: P. MmANDA. New York:
Pp. 202. $7.95.

Orbis, 1978.

Jose P. Miranda's Marx and the Bible is an extraordinarily erudite and
persuasive exegetical study written from the point of view of a passionate
commitment to the liberation struggle in the third world.
In the introduction, Miranda states that after years of exegetical study
he came to the conclusion that " the Bible, especially Exodus and the
prophets, is the revelation of the Transcendent God, the Liberator of the
oppressed who fights against the oppressors in their behalf " (p. vii) . This
essential message of the scriptures has been eluding us for centuries, claims
Miranda. The purpose of his study is to give voice to this message, using
the best and most rigorous exegetical methodology. Whether Miranda is
successful the reader must judge for himself. In the opinion of this reviewer,
this is an important theological work. The tight argument, which reveals
intimate familiarity with an enormous corpus of the best contemporary
biblical scholarship, is open to question at many points. The study is far
too significant, however, to be ignored or to be countered with any but the
most serious investigations and logical and theological counter-arguments.
Early on, Miranda declares that his intention is not " to find parallels
between the Bible and Marx, but simply to understand the Bible. Our
method will be the most rigorous and scientific exegesis." (p. xvii) Except
for the Introduction, Chapter I, which Miranda says he included by way
of example, and the final Chapter (V) , Miranda remains quite faithful to
this intention. Chapters II through IV, which make up the body of the
book, are indeed an effort to understand the Bible using the most rigorous
scientific exegetical methods.
Before getting into the exegetical body of his book, however, Miranda
sheds some light on the role Marx will play in his attempt to understand
the Bible. Miranda affirms what various Christian authors have pointed out,
namely that " Marx belongs to the category of the prophets of Israel and
... both his messianism and his passion for justice originated in the Bible "
(xvii). Because of this messianism and passion for justice, Marx opened
up the way for a rediscovery of the Bible's
message. In Marx, the
biblical polemic against idolatry (the objectifying of God) is reactivated.
Marx's social and political iconoclasm represents an attack on the idolatry
of the System parallel in many ways to the biblical attack on false gods,
who were always the ultimate legitimation of the given system of which
they were the apex. Such gods were not gods, but objects used for the

136

BOOK UVIEW:S

187

purpose of domination and
the purpose of justifying a
given social order. They were, in fact, reifications of that order. As his
critique of religion makes clear, Marx understood this relationship between
the system and its gods, but was unable, in part because of the theology of
the time, to distinguish between the false Gods of the System and Yahweh,
God of Israel.
Miranda points to the recent papal encyclicals on social issues as evidence
of the importance of Marx in the rediscovery of the biblical message. The
social encyclicals of Pius XII, John XXIII, and Paul VI have, according to
Miranda, all been " riding on Marx's shoulders " (p. xiii. This is actually
a quote from Oswald von Nell-Breuning, S.J., in Stimmen der Zeit, 180,
1967, 365-74). They have not only taken their diagnosis of capitalistic
society from Marx but have also followed Marx in moving beyond a plea
for the reform of persons and attitudes to a call for the transformation of
structures and institutions (p. xiii).
The introduction thus articulates the hermeneutical orientation from
which the exegetical study will be pursued. It is a Marxist orientation insofar as it is committed to the proposition that Capitalism is " the culture of
injustice and of the crushing of men carried to extreme perfection and systematic refinement " (p. 254) . The axis of this oppressive culture, which
according to Miranda is " the transformation of labor into merchandise,"
has its roots in Greek philosophy, "which conceives of reality only in the
form of object."
What Miranda is attacking here, as he makes clear in the following pages,
is the millenia-old western epistemology which centers on "the ideal of
objectivity " (p. 260) . Such an epistemology is capable of producing only
one type of knowledge-external, objective, impersonal, manipulative, controlling and dominating knowledge. On this type of knowledge is built not
only western science but also western (capitalistic) society, which is the
most refined, sophisticated creation of the western " scientific " mind and
therefore the most comprehensive and successful attempt to reduce all
reality, including human subjects, to objects-the better to manipulate and
control them.
One of the merits of Miranda's book is that he articulates this presupposition openly and clearly in his introduction. One can disagree with his
Marxist hermeneutic, but, as Bultmann has pointed out, no one reads the
scriptures without a pre-understanding. Why should Marxist pre-understanding be any less acceptable, in principle, than one based on the works
of Heidegger, Whitehead, or Levi-Strauss? What is important in any
exegetical effort is that the interpreter be conscious of his pre-understanding.
Miranda is not only clear but lets his readers in on the secret. Any hermeneutic must justify itself by its results. Once again, the reader must be
the judge.
Chapter One of the book, which treats private ownership, is somewhat

138

BOOK .REVIEWS

perplexing in that its connectioh with the rest of the book is unclear. Mi·
randa says that. it is offered by way of example. One must guess of what
it is to be an example. Apparently it analyzes the institution of private
ownership as an example of the objectifying, dehumanizing, and alienating
mentality ·of western society. The real point of the chapter is Miranda's
insistence that the Church, to be consistent with her own social teachings,
should be against private ownership as it exists in the west today. His
argument runs like this:
1. The distribution of ownership (differentiating ownership) is simply the ac-

cumulated distribution of income. To put it in Miranda's own words,
" the injustice in ownership depends ... on the injustice of income."
The Biblical tradition and the teaching of the church have denounced
unjust distribution of income.
3. The Popes, therefore, ought to draw the conclusion that differential ownership, which is dependent on unjust distribution of income, is incompatible
with Christian faith.
4. If they do not take this position, it is because they do not see the relationship between distribution of income and distribution of ownership.

The exegetical study itself, which according to the introduction is Miranda's primary concern, is developed in Chapters II through IV. In Chapter II, "The God of the Bible," Miranda discusses the biblical polemic against
idolatry, which he believes is at the heart of the biblical message. This
polemic is the biblical authors' way of insisting on the radical difference
between their God and any other gods. According to Miranda, " the Bible
speaks of nothing but this difference" (p. 43). The difference between
Yahweh and other gods is that Yahweh cannot be objectified-i.e. made
into an Idol. This Miranda interprets to mean that the relationship between Yahweh and his people is an " imperative, nonneutralizable one "
(p. 40) . God exists in relationship to his people as Lord, as the one who
commands. " Israel was obligated to submit to the voice, to the sound of
the words and renounce all images ... For Paul the gentiles are under
the same obligation " (p. 40, quoting from Otto Michel). To break away
from this imperative relationship with God, to prescind from it in order to
discuss as a theme of theology and to accumulate knowledge about him as
an object, is to turn God into an Idol.
These formal considerations regarding the nature of God and his relationship to his people are not unique to Miranda's study. There are clear echoes
of Bultmann and Barth to be heard here. Miranda moves beyond a formal
discussion of the nature of God and his relationship with his people, however. His major emphasis throughout the book is on the content of the
command through which, and only through which, the true God is known.
God's command is a command that justice be done! When he is perceived
in any other way than. as. the One who demands justice, he is misperceived.

B.OOK ·REVIEWS

1'39

Rather, it is not he who is perceived at all, but an Idol, a figment of the
human imagination. To know God is to exist in this indissoluble, nonneutralizable, imperative relationship to him and to heed his voice, the
voice of the One who commands justice. To know God is to keep his command and to do justice. In support of this position, Miranda not only calls
on the prophets (Jer. 22: 13-16; Hos. 4: lb-2; 6:4-4, et al.) but also Paul,
who in Romans points out that it is injustice which is suppressing the truth
of God (Rom. 1: 18-32) .
Becoming more specific, Miranda specifies what " justice " means in the
Bible. Arguing that liesed in the New Testament and the Septuagint is
understood as " interhuman compassion," and that in the Bible hesed often
occurs in synonymic parallelism with sedakah and miSpat, Miranda declares
that justice as interhuman compassion is God's will for all people but that
God reveals himself as the special Advocate of those who are in greatest
need of justice and who are powerless to enforce it themselves. These are
the poor, the weak, the oppressed. To know God is to practice justice, i.e.
interhuman compassion, toward the poor. " God clearly specifies that he is
knowable exclusively in the cry of the poor and the weak who seek justice."
This is so not merely because of the limitations of the human understanding
but because of the transcendence of God, which does not mean that he is
an unimaginable and inconceivable God, but that he is accessible only in
the act of justice. It is this acute sense of justice and compassion which
distinguishes Yahweh from all other Gods.
This understanding of God and of the way he is known in Israel is at the
root of the prophets' polemic against the cult. The prophets do not deny
that cults can be a sincere seeking for God. But since Yahweh, God of
Israel, can be known only as the One who reveals himself in his imperative
Word, and since his Word is a command that justice be done towards the
poor, a cult which separates knowledge of and service of God from the
practice of justice is obviously idolatrous. For the prophets, God is not
known through the cult, no matter what form it takes or whose name is
invoked, but through the doing of justice. This is merely a corollary of
God's transcendence. God cannot be known directly (through cult), but
only indirectly, through the cries of the neighbor for justice.
This critique of the cult raises serious questions for Christian worship.
If Miranda's observations are correct, what then is the function of cult in
the life of the Christian community? Is cult itself simply a pagan anachronism which needs to be eliminated from the life of the believing community?
Even if Miranda's analysis should be judged valid according to exegetical
criteria, this would not be the only possible conclusion. What would be
required is a rethinking of the role of cult in the life of the community.
Perhaps the purpose of the cult is not at all to serve as a channel through
which God is known or served, but through affective symbols and actions
to incorporate believers into the mystery of the God who is known only

140

BOO!\ QVIEWS

through the cries of the poor. Whatever the response on the part of liturgiologists to this critique, it is imperative that it be heard and understood.
At the end of Chapter II, Miranda draws .a conclusion_which is central
to all liberation theology-praxis is prior to knowledge. God is known
through discipleship, through obedience, through the practice of justice
(interhuman compassion) or, as the New Testament puts it, love.
The central thesis in Chapter III is that God's intervention in history
takes place according to a definite plan and serves a very concrete goal.
Yahweh's intention in all his interventions is to save the oppressed, punish
the oppressors, and ultimately to establish his definitive justice on the entire earth. Miranda appeals to all strands of Biblical traditions in attempting to establish his point. Referring to a crucial passage in the P source,
Miranda points out that the important self-revelatory formula, "I am
Yahweh," is followed by the words " and therefore I will free you of the
burdens which the Egyptians lay on you " (Ex. 6: 6-7} . He points out how
the same or similar formulations are used by the prophets in conjunction
with Yahweh's revelation of himself.
"The poor and needy ask for water; and there is none,
Their tongue is parched with thirst
I, Yahweh, will answer them
I, the God of Israel, will not abandon them " (Is. 41: 17) .

Miranda refers then to a long series of verses from Isaiah and the Psalter
which link the self-revelatory " I " of Yahweh with liberating actions on
behalf of the poor and needy. In an extensive section on the Yahwist's
theology, he develops the thesis that for the Yahwist, also, God is the One
who responds to the cry of the oppressed. Exodus 3: 7-9, the Yahwist's
equivalent of Exodus 6:6-7, is a key passage. Here Yahweh has heard the
cry of the oppressed and determined to deliver them. Already in Genesis
4: 10 Yahweh curses Cain because he has heard the cry of his brother's
blood. According to Miranda, the Yahwist constructs the story of God's
intervention in Genesis 12 in direct contrast to the Cain story. As punishment for Cain's murderous act and in vindication of the blood of Abel, God
cursed Cain, and brought a curse into history. Through Abraham, however,
God intervenes to bless all the people of the earth. Abraham will be a blessing for all, because God signaled him out to " keep the way of Yahweh by
observing justice (sedakah) and right (1nispat)" (p. 94). Miranda presents
many more scriptural arguments from the Y ah wist material supporting his
thesis that God's interventions in history are directed towards the realization on earth of interhuman compassion (justice) through the liberation of
the poor and the putting down of the mighty. The New Testament references with which the chapter closes are sketchy, but are developed in more
detail in Chapter IV.

BOOK REVIEWS

141

Chapter IV ·(" Law and Civilization ") is the· most complicated and
problematic of the book, but also the most intriguing. The first section of
this chapter seeks to clarify the biblical understanding of the law and its
function. The chapter begins with an attempt to establish the meaning of
the Hebrew root shpt which is ordinarily translated " judge " or "judgment." :Miranda amasses what seems to me significant evidence that this
word originally meant "Deliverer," and always of the poor and oppressed,
or that it meant " justice." The primitive meaning then would be, " One
who does justice by delivering the poor and oppressed from their suffering."
This more primitive meaning of the root shpt clarifies what the Old Testament means when it speaks of God as judge. God is the One who, in response to their cries, delivers the needy from the hands of their oppressors.
It is this intense commitment to the poor of the earth, not primarily his
great power, which makes the God of Israel unique among the Gods.
Matthew interprets Jesus's work in this context. Through Jesus's ministry miSpat is being realized on earth (p. ms). And in John's gospel
Jesus's works are works of interhuman compassion which deliver the needy
from their suffering. These works testify to the fact that Jesus is of God,
since God has already revealed himself to be the One who delivers the poor.
In refusing to recognize the witness of Jesus's works, in rejecting Jesus himself, his enemies reveal that they do not know God or what his interventions in history have been about. They are thus judged by the works
themselves.
In the second section of this chapter, Miranda discusses the Law. His
concern here is to show the relationship between positive law and mispat
(right). MiSpat, the doing of justice to the poor, "is the only theophany
of Yahweh " (p. 137) . All positive legislation must justify its existence in
terms of its relationship to miSpat, which is, in fact, interhuman compassion.
This is vividly illustrated, says Miranda, in the original word for laws in
Israel-miSpatim (Exodus in: 1, Exodus 15: 9!5). Our understanding of the
law, however, is formed by the Sinaitic tradition of the Pentateuch which,
as Noth and von Rad have shown, "is the latest of all the themes of the
Pentateuch." The Sinaitic tradition presents a particular and a late theologization of the Law, one which is both more religious and at the same
time more positivistic than the more primitive understanding of Exodus Ql
and 15. The original theologization of the Law should be associated not
with the Sinai tradition but with the older Exodus tradition. It is elaborated most concisely in Exodus 18. This chapter shows that the origin of
legislation in Israel was not religious at all in the narrow sense. Legislation
arose as an attempt to regulate the interhuman affairs of the community in
accordance with the demands of the miSpat of Yahweh as he revealed them
when he delivered Israel from Egyptian slavery. Law thus understood is
seen as " the indispensable continuation and apex of Yahweh's intervention

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in history " (p. 157) . Since miSpat is God's will and the goal of the Law,
it is also the criterion for judging positive laws. Only those laws which serve
to protect and deliver the poor and the needy are legitimate because only
they are in accord with the will of Yahweh. Once again, one may ask
whether Miranda has formulated this dialectic between law and justice
(miSpat) adequately, but there is no doubt that he has carefully argued his
case and has found considerable scriptural support for it.
In the last section of Chapter IV, Miranda argues that the Law, which
was originally an effort to achieve justice on earth and thus a means to an
end, has been turned by human civilization to its own rather than God's
purpose. Injustice, which entered the world through one man, has become
incarnated in the social structures of civilization. The Law, detached from
its origin in God's will for miSpat, becomes the epitome of these structures,
the structure of structures, " the most symptomatic and concentrated expression of a culture and a social system " (p.
. As such, the Law is
the primary structure through which the entire system seeks to justify and
defend itself against any criticism or attack. It is precisely this function of
the Law in society and in religion which Paul saw so clearly and in opposition to which he lived his faith and developed his theology. Likewise
Jesus's life and teaching was an uninterrupted protest against this perverse
understanding and use of the Law. It was essentially this protest which
led to his conflict with the scribes and pharisees and to his death. For both
Paul and Jesus, God's purpose remain fixed-the establishment of definitive
justice on the earth. Justice cannot be definitively established through
Law, however, which human civilization perverts to its own manipulative
purposes. Justice will be established only through faith in the God who
hears the cries of the suffering and delivers them, thereby himself establishing justice on the earth. God will save humankind through faith, says
Paul, but to do so it will be necessary to " destroy without a trace the
entire old civilizing, axiological and organizational structuralization of mankind," a structuralization based neither on faith nor on justice (mispat)
but on the Law of self-justification.
This, of course, leads into the final chapter titled, " Faith and Dialectics "
which we have treated in the beginning of this review. The significance of
Marx's dialectical thought is that it makes possible an understanding of the
radical critique of human civilization which we confront in the scriptures.
Marx, perhaps more than anyone, shares the Bible's passion for justice and,
like the Bible, understands justice not as adherence to the positive Law of
the land but as deliverance of the weak and the poor, as the overthrowing of
the mighty. Marx, like the scriptures (according to Miranda), never loses
hope in the triumph of justice on the earth. Marx, like Paul and the other
scriptural authors and like Jesus· himself, understands sin as a cosmic reality
structured into society. For him, sin is incarnate in the capitalist system.
Finally, and perhaps most profoundly, both Marx and the scriptures attack

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148

the epistemology on the basis of which.western society has been constructed
epistemology based on the "ideal of objectivity." The ethical and
social consequences of this epistemology are perhaps best expressed in the
statement of Aristotle that "Truth is incompatible with the condition of
the slave" (p. 262), i.e. with the condition of that 5/6 of Greek society
which had been reduced to objects (commodities). Unfortunately, it never
occurred to Aristotle to see that as a judgment of society, but only as a
judgment on the slave. Since the essence of the biblical God, however, is
to hear the cries of the slaves, to establish community with them, and to
fight with them against their oppreosors, it is precisely with their condition
that biblical truth about the biblical God and the biblical world is most
compatible. Marx shared in this biblical rage against the Powers of this
age who rule the earth as though it belonged to them. According to Miranda, however, in rejecting the resurrection Marx is insufficiently dialectical. He thus refuses to entertain the ultimate hope in the capacity of
matter, under the guidance of God, to transcend death. For Miranda," the
negation of the resurrection of the dead is an ideology defensive of the
status quo ... it is to kill the nerve of the real hope of changing the world "
(p. 284). Miranda ends this fascinating study with the intriguing declaration that the authentically dialectical Marxist and the biblical Christian
will be the last to renounce this hope.
GERALD FOLK

Augustana College
Sioux Falls, South Dakota

The Historical Constitution of St. Bonaventure's Philosophy. By JoHN F .
. QUINN. Toronto: Pontifical Institute of Mediaeval Studies, 1973.
Pp. 981.
In this long and detailed study, Quinn attempts to realize three objectives: 1) to establish the historical constitution of Bonaventure's philosophy, while respecting its theological context; 2) to compare that thought
with the philosophical doctrine of St. Thomas; 3) to contribute insofar as
possible to resolving the issues dividing recent and contemporary historians
with respect to the first item. In order to set the stage for realizing these
objectives, Quinn devotes pp. 17-100 to a careful review of recent and contemporary scholarship on the historical constitution of Bonaventure's philosophy. Here the views of scholars such as De Wulf, Mandonnet, Gilson,
Van Steenberghen, Robert, Ratzinger, and van der Laan are considered
in chronological sequence. Fundamental points of disagreement still obtain
between some of these interpretations, especially between those of Gilson
and Van Steenberghen. For instance, is Bonaventure's philosophy (as dis-

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BOOK REVIEWS

tinguished from his theology) to be described more properly as Augustinian
or as Aristotelian? To what extent may his philosophy be described as
anti-Aristotelian, if at all? Is. one justified in attempting to extract
Bonaventure's philosophy from the theological context in which it is presented? To what extent may his philosophy be described as "Christian,"
if at all? Quinn will return to these issues in the final part of the book, but
before doing so engages in a long study of Bonaventure's philosophy.
Quinn's presentation of Bonaventure's philosophy has as its central theme
the latter's teaching on natural knowledge. Under this theme he singles out
four basic doctrines to which the four . parts of his volume correspond.
Thus Part I ("Foundations of Natural Knowledge") is itself divided into
three chapters: c. I, "Composition of Body and Soul in Man;" c. 2, "Essence and Nature of the Human Soul;" c. S, "Problem of Plural Forms."
Part II (" Powers and Operations of Human Knowledge ") includes c. 4,
" Potencies of Human Knowledge; " and c. 5, " Acts and Modes of Human
Knowledge." Part III (" Certitude and Illumination of Knowledge ") encompasses c. 6, "Certitude of Natural Knowledge," and c. 7, "Ilumination
of Natural Knowledge." Part IV ("Formation and Development of Theological Knowledge ") consists of. c. 8, " Order of Reason to Faith in Theology;" and c. 9, "Problem of Christian Philosophy." In the "General
Conclusion " Quinn returns to issues raised in his Introduction such as
those mentioned above. His work concludes with an extensive Bibliography
(522 entries) and Indices (Analytical, Authors, Historians).
While limitations of space preclude any attempt on our part to summarize
the wealth of information contained in this volume, certain points of interest from Quinn's doctrinal exposition will first be noted. Then we shall
devote more attention to his final chapters and his concluding section. First
of all, it should be observed that Quinn's study of individual doctrinal
points in Bonaventure is followed by a comparison with the views of
Aquinas. Although this comparative work does prolong his study considerably, it is of interest to any reader already familiar with Thomas's
thought. It should also be noted that Quinn's analysis of particular philosophical doctrines in Bonaventure usually leads him to the conclusion that
the position in question is neither Augustinian nor Aristotelian, but a truly
original solution that can only be styled Bonaventurean.
For instance, in examining Bonaventure's account of body-soul relationship in man, Quinn finds him conversant both with Aristotle and with
Augustine, but going beyond them both. In order to account for this union
Bonaventure appeals to the natural and inseparable property of unibility,
a property that is essential, not accidental, to the soul. It is not a mere
relation but an aptitude found in the soul for it to be united to the body
(see pp. 125-29) . While Quinn judges Aquinas to be infundamental agreement with Bonaventure in holding that the rational soul is naturally inclined toward the human body, the two differ with respect to the natural

145
generation of man. Rather than appeal to. Bonaventure's adaptation of
Augustine's theory of seminal reasons, Thomas defends the succession of
forms in the human body. Hence Quinn finds the Aristotelian influence more
pronounced on Thomas than on Bonaventure. Still, as Quinn observes,
Bonaventure endeavors to show that his interpretation of Augustine is not
opposed to a proper understanding of Aristotle on this matter.
In defending matter-form composition in the human soul, Bonaventure
.seeks support in Aristotle. While Quinn acknowledges that Aristotle himself does not defend this position, he suggests that Bonaventure has applied
Aristotelian principles to the problem without resolving it in Aristotelian
fashion. Bonaventure's solution is also influenced by Augustine and by
Boethius. Again, therefore, Quinn concludes that Bonaventure has developed a personal and synthetic solution. Quinn finds another " remarkable
blending of doctrines from Augustine, Aristotle, and Boethius " in Bonaventure's defense of matter-form composition in angels (p. 157) .
In c. 3 Quinn adverts to the fact that some kind of theory of plurality of
forms has been assigned to Bonaventure by almost all historians of medieval
philosophy as well as by many Bonaventure specialists. Nonetheless, surprisingly different interpretations of Bonaventure's thought on this matter
have been proposed. Thus Bonaventure's view of light as a form might be
taken to imply plurality of substantial forms in certain inanimate bodies.
With painstaking care, Quinn attempts to show that this is not the case.
If Bonaventure posits light as a substantial form in heavenly bodies, this
does not imply plurality of substantial forms therein. Nor should he be interpreted as positing light as a substantial form in terrestial bodies (pp. Q4448). Nor should seminal reasons be identified with substantial forms in
mixed bodies. ·when a new form is received, the " preceding form remains in
the matter, but not as a form; rather, perfected by a nobler form, the preceding form is present as a material disposition with respect to the new form "
(pp. Q76-Q77) . As regards the forms of animate bodies, including man,
Quinn arrives at the same conclusion. Bonaventure defends unity of substantial form, along with plurality of substantial dispositions. In comparing
Bonaventure with Aquinas on this point, Quinn suggests that Bonaventure's position allows for plurality of substantial dispositions whereas
Thomas's does not. Hence, if one may attribute to Bonaventure " unity in
substantial form," one should rather assign to Thomas " a doctrine of
uniqueness of substantial form" (p. 311, n. 252).
In c. 4 Quinn considers the various cognitive potencies distinguished by
Bonaventure. Regrettably, he finds it necessary to omit consideration of the
distinction between memory, intelligence, and will, on the one hand, and
the soul on the other (see p. 323, n. 1). While one can hardly fault him
for not adding further to this sizable volume, clarification of this issue
might have more perfectly set the stage for his consideration of the various

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BOOK 'REVIEWS

powers of the soul, and especially for his later discussiOn of the relationship
and distinction between the agent and possible intellects (see pp. 348:ff.) .
The precise distinction between them defended by Bonaventure according
to Quinn's analysis remains unclear to this ..reviewer.
In discussing the certitude of natural knowledge in Bonaventure, Quinn
presents his division of certitude into different kinds. His distinction between an infallible certitude, on the one hand, and a probable certitude, on
the other, is interesting (pp. 450-51). In this same chapter 6 Quinn presents a brief but enlightening discussion of Bonaventure's doctrine on analogical knowledge. His comparison of Bonaventure with Thomas on this
point should be read with caution, however, since he seems to take as
Thomas's final position his espousal of proportionality and rejection of
proportion in the De veritate when treating of naming God and creatures
(see pp. 484-86, 515) .
In c. 7 Quinn devotes considerable attention to the difficult issue of
Bonaventure's doctrine of divine ilumination. Here he concentrates on the
illumination involved in natural knowledge and distinguishes this both from
God's general influence on all things as creative principle of their being and
from his special influence on creatures insofar as they share in the life of
grace. In sum, he rightly insists that Bonaventure does not here confuse
the order of natural reason with that of revelation. The illumination of
science is available to man on the purely natural plane (see pp. 539-40} .
Here again Quinn finds Bonaventure combining Aristotle and Augustine.
With Aristotle he assigns certitude to a sense power because of its ordering
to a determinate object, and allots to the intellect a capacity to know all
things in some way by means of its own lumen, principles, and the similitudes that it abstracts from created things. But to account for the immutable and infallible character of that which it may grasp with certitude,
he turns to Augustine's doctrine of illumination. Bonaventure also allows
for a natural illumination of wisdom in addition to the illumination of science, and in distinction from an infused wisdom grounded on faith. If the
influence of Augustine is predominant in Bonaventure's synthesis on the
illumination of natural knowledge, Quinn denies that it is a formally
Augustinian position. Augustine's doctrine is modified by so many other
doctrines " particularly from St. Anselm and especially from Aristotle," that
it can only be regarded as Bonaventurean, not as Augustinian or as Aristotelian (p. 661).
In c. 8 Quinn first concentrates on the constitution of theological knowledge in Bonaventure. In considering different ways in which the " subject "
of a science can be understood, Quinn notes that Bonaventure speaks of a
subject in one sense as that to which all things in the science are reduced
as to a universal whole. So understood, the subject of theology is the object
of belief insofar as this is understood by the " addition of reason " (p. 678) .
This understanding of "subject" is to be distinguished from another usage,

REVIEWS

147

wherein the subject is that to which a11 ·things in the science are reduced as
to an integral whole. Taken broadly and in this sense, the subject of theology includes many things by composing and uniting them with one another
and by establishing an order between them. Thus the integral parts of
theology consist in truths· concerning both God and creatures. Taken
separately, each of these truths can stand on its own merits and yet, when
taken as part of a whole, each is a composite element of theology " in
which it is united and ordered to other truths " (p. 678) . It would seem,
observes Quinn, that faith and philosophy can stand together, "each on its
own ground, as parts of the same integral whole of theology" (p. 674). If
philosophy is first ordered to faith in an integral way (as part of an integral
whole) , therefore, once the two are seen to be compatible, they are ordered
to one another to constitute a universal whole (p. 678) .
In continuing his examination of the union of faith and philosophy according to Bonaventure, Quinn considers the case of the Christian who is
also a philosopher. Such a person should be guided by his faith, first of all,
to avoid falling into error. Here Quinn apparently has in mind the Christian's reliance on his faith as a negative norm. In addition, he needs the
illumination of faith in order to be directed to philosophical consideration
of certain truths which he has already accepted on faith. Granted that
faith influences the Christian thinker intrinsically insofar as the light of
faith is an intrinsic perfection of his mind, still the lumen and habitus
of faith are distinct from the lumen of his reason and from his habitus of
science or philosophy. Hence for Bonaventure, insists Quinn, the illumination of faith remains extrinsic to his philosophical science. It is the man
who is a Christian and a philosopher, but his philosophy is not Christian.
Quinn continues to examine this problem in c. 9. It is sometimes contended that Bonaventure's philosophy can be called " Christian " because
it is thought to be inseparable from his theology and because it follows a
theological order of development. Moreover, Bonaventure holds that an
illumination given by faith is required if the philosopher is to avoid error
in treating of certain matters, especially divine things, that are accessible to
natural reason. Again, certain texts from Bonventure are taken to imply
that he has very little respect for natural reason's ability to arrive at truth.
Once more, then, the need for Christian philosophy. Quinn counters that
if one views Bonaventure's philosophy solely on the universal ground of his
theology, then Christian philosophy is not its proper title. So viewed, his
philosophy is inseparable from Christian faith. But when it is viewed on
the integral ground of his theology, his philosophy can be set apart from
his Christian faith. Under this perspective it is neither inseparable from
theology nor dependent on a theological order of development. So viewed,
the control exercised by faith over the Christian's philosophical thinking is
extrin.sic to .his philosophy. Hence, the title "Christian philosophy" will

148
not accurately name the "science of philosophy as Bonaventure· forms and
develops it on the integral ground of his theology" (p. 790).
In short, therefore, there is for Bonaventure a " truly Christian science,
which is theological science, but not philosophical science". (p. 808) . As
regards Bonaventure himself, Quinn acknowledges that he is a Christian
theologian, to be sure. But he proceeds as a philosopher whenever this is
necessary for him in his effort to make the object of faith intelligible. When
he does so proceed, he is a Christian philosopher, but his philosophy is intrinsically and formally philosophical, not Christian (p. 816).
In the " General Conclusion " Quinn returns to the varying interpretations of Bonaventure's philosophy proposed by recent and contemporary
historians. Rather than pursue this in detail here, we shall attempt to discern his answers to the questions raised in the opening paragraph of this
review. According to Quinn, Bonaventure's philosophical synthesis should
not be regarded either as fundamentally Augustinian though supplemented
with Aristotelian principles nor as fundamentally Aristotelian with Augustinian inclinations. While he has acknowledged the influence of these and
other sources therein, he insistes that its proper title is " Bonaventurean "
(see p. 844). Nor does he find support for the Augustinian opposition to
Aristotle in Bonaventure proposed by Gilson (pp. 847-51). But if he
agrees with Van Steenberghen and others on this point, he rejects Van
Steenberghen's view that the most important sources for Bonaventure's
philosophical doctrines are Aristotle and his commentators. Rather, according to Bonaventure's own testimony, his most important sources for
philosophical doctrines are the Fathers, especially Augustine, and Doctors
of the Church. Among the philosophers, however, concedes Quinn, Bonaventure's most important source is surely Aristotle.
Quinn rejects Gilson's contention that Bonaventure's philosophy could
not remain true if it were separated from the illumination of faith and the
single order of a Christian wisdom. Here he judges De Wulf, Van Steenberghen, and Robert to be correct. Quinn finds that in treating of philosophical problems Bonaventure proceeds according to the method proper
to philosophy. His philosophy can be separated from his theology insofar
as it is viewed as developed within the integral order of his theological
synthesis, though not in accord with its order therein as within a universal
whole (that is, as transformed into theology). Hence, as already noted,
Quinn rejects efforts to describe Bonaventure's philosophy as " Christian,"
strongly differing here from Gilson. At the same time he takes exception
to Van Steenbergen's complaint that Bonaventure's philosophy is heteronomous, and that he failed to work out fully the proper role of reason and
philosophy in developing his theology. When reconstructed according to its
own principles, method, and object, Quinn concludes that Bonaventure's
philosophy does have its own unity and does constitute a solid philosophical
synthesis (see pp. 874-75).

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BOOK REV1EWs

In spite of its great length and its tendency to be repetitious at times,
this book is indeed a valuable contribution to Bonaventurean scholarship.
Moreover, Quinn's precisions with respect to the problem of Christian philosophy are not only quite helpful with respect to Bonaventure himself, but
should admit of application to other medieval thinkers as well, Aquinas
included (as Quinn has himself suggested). In sum, his study will be required reading for all future students of Bonaventure and for other serious
students of thirteenth-century philosophy.
JOHN

F. WIPPEL

The Catholic University of America
Washington, D. C.

Toward Vatican III: The Work That Needs to be Done. Ed. D. 'TuAcY,
H. KuNG, and J. METZ. Seabury, 1978, pp. 333. $5.95.
to June 1, 1977, a colloquium was held at the University
From May
of Notre Dame. It was sponsored by Concilium, which was holding its editorial board meeting at the time, and hosted by Notre Dame's Center for
Pastoral and Social Ministry and The Catholic Theological Society of
America. Seventy-one theologians and social scientists gathered to discuss
the topic which provides the title of this volume: Toward Vatican III: The
Work That Needs to be Done. Rev. Theodore Hesburgh, President of
Notre Dame, had this to say concerning the purpose of the colloquium in
his letter of invitation to the participants: " The meeting is not designed
to be a call for 'Vatican III '-a title which is intended to be symbolicbut rather to block out scholarly research in the theological and in the social
sciences which needs to be done before the Church can come to its next
critical turning point .... The participants will be asked to articulate the
new questions which should occupy our scholarly concerns in the years
ahead " (p. 3).
The topic of the colloquium is exciting, and the calibre of those delivering papers is impressive; e.g.: Roland Murphy, Hans Kiing, Edward
Schillebeeckx, Avery Dulles, Johannes Metz, Charles E. Curran, Rene
Laurentin, Myles Bourke. However, while the present volume, which
emerged from the. colloquium, has some high points, many of the contributions are rather disappointing. The disappointment is not so much that
there is a great deal that one disagrees with, although there is some of that,
but rather that much of what is said seems dry, stale, and unimaginative.
In a volume that purports to look to the future and articulate new questions, much concerns old questions and problems and much has been said
before. Nonetheless, there are a number of worthwhile pieces, and a few of
those deserve comment.

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BOOK REVIEWS

The colloquium· (and resulting .volume) is divided into eight parts. The
first part contains opening addresses. The next seven parts delineate different topical areas of discussion: Church and Doctrine, Church and Ecumenism, Church and the Individual, Church and Society, Church and Reform,
Church and Worship, and Social Scientific Perspectives. There are twentyseven articles altogether. The following is a sample: "Vatican
lems and Opportunities of the Future: The Bible" by Roland Murphy;
"Doctrine and the Future: Some Suggestions" by Carl Peter; "Vatican
III: Problems and Opportunities for the Future" by Hans Kiing; "Ecumenism: Problems and Opportunities for the Future" by Avery Dulles;
"The Lethargy of Christian Spirituality in Developed Countries: Reasons
and Perspectives " by Christian Duquoc and Casiano Floristan; " Canon
Law and Reform: An Agenda for a New Beginning " by William A. Bassett;
" A Sociology of Belief and Disbelief: Notes toward a Perspective on Religious Faith and Community" by James T. Barry.
One of the more interesting papers was delivered by Myles Bourke:
"The Future of the Liturgy: Some New Testament Guidelines." Bourke
points out the obvious fact that the liturgy has been a critical area since
Vatican II. What is or is not right with the new liturgy has sparked many
an argument. One of the points that Bourke wishes to stress, and feels may
be overlooked, is that the liturgy is a participation in the present heavenly
liturgy of Jesus at the throne of the Father. " The eucharistic worship is
united to Jesus's ministry in the' heavenly sanctuary' (Heb. 8:2) ... (p.
244) ." Bourke believes that it is this reality which evokes worship and
praise of God in the liturgical participant and the realization that God is
the wholly other in their midst.
E. Schillebeeckx in the section on Church and Doctrine has an interesting article: " Questions on Christian Salvation of and for Man." It is not
so much a doctrinal or speculative study of the meaning of salvation for
the Christian as a proposal of practical criteria for discerning what a salvation situation or context looks like in reality if it is Christian. Schillebeeckx
puts forward such criteria as man's right relation to his ecological environment, his proper relation to social and institutional structures as well as to
his culture. For Schillebeeckx Christian salvation has to do with making
man whole in himself and in all his relationships. What Schillebeeckx has
to say is basically not new, but he does say it in a new and challenging
way.
. John Kotre contributes one of the most imaginative papers: "Of Human
Fertility:" The title is a little misleading, for it deals with human fertility
not in the sense of physical begetting of children, but rather in the sense
of bringing to life the spiritual dimensions of human beings. Religion has
the "capacity to nourish this very phenomenon " (p. 261) .
Kotre points out that popular psychology has helped people to let go of
pasts- that were harmful and tci cope with insecure and fluid situations of

B.OOlt;· REVIEWS·

151·.

modern society. However, Kotre feels that if we are to beget creativity and
spiritual life in a child or people in general there need· to be stressed. and
engendered such" skills" as" permanence, loyalty, fidelity and duty." He
hopes that psychology will "begin to see that limited, contained, rooted
selves are the. only kind capable of creativity 1J,nd generativity. Whether
psychology will ever do so is another matter altogether " (p. Q67) . Kotre
may be laying too much stress and hope on psychology. A vibrant Christian
community could create the proper environment for growth with or without
the aid of popular psychology.
Kotre believes that we.need to stress permanence and fidelity in relations
after the manner of Yahweh and his people. He points out that we do not
belong to ourselves and therefore cannot look to our own self-fulfillment.
We are stewards of our lives. We are owned by God and therefore our first
priority is to serve him. Moreover, he says that we need to be pruned if
we are to bear fruit. Unlimited and uncontrolled freedom bears no fruit.
It just sprawls all over. " To be fertile one cannot grow without limitation " (p. Q69) .
Just a few final thoughts on the volume as a whole. In a volume that
purports to be global in intention and scope there were large areas that
received little or no coverage. Missions and Missionaries, Evangelization,
Third World Countries, Eastern European Countries are examples. There
was no discussion of the present and future role of Bishops, priests, and
religious within the Church. The future development of Church life
through World Synods, Bishops' Conferences, parishes, covenant communities was overlooked. The participants also seemed to be unaware of large
areas of activity in the Church which could have great bearing on the
future. There is, for example, little mention of popular and grass roots
renewal among God's people. The Charismatic Renewal is the biggest and
most obvious example. The theological, ecumenical, liturgical, and social
implications of this renewal are vast and its import on a future Council
could be immense, and yet it was mentioned only twice and briefly. The
participants seemed to be very much caught up in Western European and
American concerns and then only from within a rather narrow academic
perspective.
It would be good to gather all of the participants together for another
colloquium on the same topic. There is still a great deal of work that needs
to be done.
THOMAS WEINANDY, 0. F. M. CAP.
Georgetown University
Washington, D. 0.

BOOK QVIEWS

Logic: 1'he Art of Predication and Inference. By DENNIS. C. KANE, O.P.
Providence, R.I.: Providence College Press, 1978. Pp. 241.

This book, under new cover, is a photo-reproduction of the 1969 edition
published by Sheed and Ward, Inc. The text is exactly that of the earlier
edition, except for two corrections, which appear in. a different -type face in
chapter 9. The text is adequate for an undergraduate course in logic. An
attempt is made to present traditional logic and the fundamental concepts
of modern logic. One chapter is devoted to noncategorical syllogisms from
a nontraditional point of view. This consists of a summary of the kinds of
propositions dealt with in the propositional calculus and some rudimentary
truth table exercises. In addition, there is use of some nontraditional
terminology here and there in the text. In a single undergraduate course
one could hardly cover traditional logic to any degree of depth and still
present a substantial amount of material from the nontraditional point of
view. All textbooks for such courses necessarily emphasize one approach
over the other. Thus Father Kane's text, as he himself states in the preface,
must be considered a text in traditional logic with a brief introduction to
nontraditional logic.
There are quotations at the end of almost each chapter which provide
good opportunity for open-ended discussion. The exercises following each
chapter are well balanced and require comprehension of the material presented in the chapter. One might also wish for inclusion of quotations and
exercises at the end of the chapter on " Logic and Scientific Knowledge."
This would provide a more natural transition from the study of logic to its
application in other sciences. The text lacks smoothness as a whole. The
overall plan of the work is not clearly stated, although the general outline
of the Organon is followed. The first three chapters deal with predication
and words, concepts, and definitions; the next three, with propositions.
Argumentation and the categorical and noncategorical syllogisms are treated
in chapters 7 through 10. The final chapter, as stated before, is meant as
a bridge to dialectical and demonstrative reasoning. The chapter transitions
are often rather abrupt.
No logic text is complete without some treatment of induction, this text
being no exception. In chapter 7 a brief note is made to distinguish induction from deduction. A fuller treatment of induction is made in the final
chapter. The earlier mention of induction describes it as argumentation
a posteriori. This is to distinguish it from deduction, which is reasoning a
priori, going from the more universal to the less universal. Such terminology is an unfortunate choice in the face of the many modern understandings
of a priori and a posteriori reasoning. Without further clarification, of which
none is given, this usage leaves the impression that traditional logic, i.e.
Aristotelian logic, precludes reasoning a posteriori from the realm of dem-

158
Analytics, chapter 12, reveals the
onstration. A reading of 11
creative use Aristotle and St. Thomas, in his commentary on the Aristotelian text, make of demonstration from effect to cause. This kind of
a posteriori demonstration is heavily used in natural science.
In summary, Fr. Kane is to be thanked for providing undergraduate
teachers with a good basic text in traditional logic which can easily be used
to provide college students with a well founded introduction to logic. The
text does have some shortcomings. To those already mentioned in this
review should be added the regret that a new edition under a new publisher
yields neither updated examples nor any more extensive textual revision
than two error corrections. However, in a day when most contemporary
texts approach undergraduate logic from the nontraditional point of view,
this text presents a viable alternative. The format is flexible and openended, leaving the teacher much freedom for personal adaptation in his or
her own course. This may well be the book's greatest asset. This reviewer
would seriously consider such a text for an undergraduate course, and could
recommend the text to others for similar consideration.
LAURA L. LANDEN,

0.P.

The Catholic University of America
Washington, D. C.

Images for Self Recognition: The Christian as Player, Sufferer, and Vandal.
By DAVID BAILY HARNED. New York: The Seabury Press, 1977. Pp.
224. $10.95.

In his introductory remarks Harned makes some interesting generalizations about what he conceives the theological task to be. These preliminary
observations are important for an understanding of what Harned's extremely suggestive work is all about. Theology has a single object: the
self-disclosure of the triune God as it is confessed by faith and expressed in
the stories and imagery of the Bible. Theology is, furthermore, a practical
endeavor and, as such, cannot be divorced from ethics. Thirdly, true to his
first two premises, Harned sees theology as a unique discipline among the
sciences in that "persons are themselves called into question by their cognitive object instead of finding themselves free to ask of it whatever questions
they devise" (p. xi). Next, theology is designed for the nurture of persons
and, almost as a corollary, it is as much an art as it is a science since it
deals with the life of the imagination. This last point is crucial for Harned's
methodolo<:!"y. He insists (following the suggestive work of Austin Farrer)
that the Bible is irreducibly imagistic and hence any theological investiga-

}30QKi .REVIEWS

tion that is genuinely scientific is " one that recognizes the aesthetic component of a self-disclosure in which substance and form cannot be disjoined " (p. xiii) .
Harned calls his work a " natural theology," but the reader must understand that his description does not mean foundational theology or theodicy.
Natural theology, for Harned, accepts the a priori of the Gospel but is " natural " in the sense that its object is not an application of God's self-disclosure but rather concerns itself with " the ordinary experience and
self-understanding of people in the light of that revelation" (p. xiii).
Natural theology in that sense is "not so much a questioning but a response to being questioned" (p. xv).
It should be clear from these preliminary remarks that Harned is finnly
in that tradition that sees theology as being fides quaerens intellectum, that
his orientation is strongly biblical, and exhibits a major preoccupation with
the current interest in image, metaphor, story, and narrative. In that sense
his work is not unlike the studies in religion done by Michael Novak or the
creative theologizing of John Dunne, but it seems to this reviewer that his
work is closest both in theological method and in temperament to that being
done by Stanley Hauerwas in the field of ethics. Serious background reading for Harned's work would have to include, beyond the classical theological sources, such " boundary " thinkers as Walter Ong and William
Lynch, as well as philosophical phenomenologists such as Maurice MerleauPonty.
At the heart of this book is the argument that three "master images",
i.e. player, sufferer, and vandal, derived from our common social world, are
important both in relation to the Christian tradition and in ordinary experience. For purposes of explanation we might take the image of vandal.
A deep understanding of the image of the vandal, an image that might
puzzle the theological reader at first glance, helps us to understand one
great mystery of our common life: the human capacity for motiveless evil;
the deep urge in the human psyche to destroy or maim just " for the hell
of it ". In the case of the vandal the human person is not the subject of
multiform natural evils (as in the case of the sufferer) but the initiator
of evil. The seemingly irrational evil or destruction causes severe disequilibrium in the human community (alas, we are all aware of this as an
existential reality in our culture} . The vandal, then, undermines the basic
trust which sustains the normal social acceptance of "playing fair". This
master image of the vandal was, of course, laid bare in the brilliant discussion of capricious evil provided by Saint Augustine in Book II of the
Confessions in the famous "pear tree " episode. The notion of the vandal,
then, helps us to understand the self at its weakest, that is, in the state in
which the person is most patently in need of, at the very least, a humanizing therapy.

BOOK .llEVIEWS

155

Other chapters pursue· similar analyses of the sufferer and the player. In
his summary chapter Harned uses the biblical figure of Adam to tie the
image2 together. The " master images " are condensed and crystalized as
one reads the story of Adam, who falls through capricious evil. The figure
of this fallen Adam stands in dialectical relation to the Christ who becomes
Adam as sufferer and player. The biblical image, then, allows us to experience the human images of vandal, sufferer, and player in their deepest, and
most salvific, fashion.
This book is not an easy one to read. It demands the close attention of
the reader because of the density of the language and the closeness of the
argument, and because of the wide-ranging learning that the author brings
to bear on his subject. Nonetheless, the attentive reader will be rewarded
amply, not only because of the arresting insights in the work but also because the book provides a model that could be emulated with profit.
Harned, beginning from a rather conservative theological base, has shown
how it is possible to use the resources of contemporary culture without
being either reductionistic or naively apologetic. As Vernon Ruland has
observed about many works that try to " do theology and literature " or
"theology and culture" (in his excellent 1975 publication Horizons of Criticism), we often end up with plot summaries and pious homilies. Harned
is free of such charges. He makes ample use of modern literature, both
fictional and critical (in the section on the vandal Harned uses William
Golding's fiction and W. H. Auden's criticism to good purpose), with full
respect for the integrity of literary texts and an evident sensitivity to the
autonomy of the critical and literary disciplines. He is a close reader of
literature and never " forces" the text for his own argument. He is, in
short, secure in his theology while open to the latent riches of the human
imagination.
It is a compliment to any writer to say that his work is unfinished if the
quality of the work means, not that it is incomplete, but that it opens new
possibilities of speculation for the reader. What engaged my attention was
thinking about other " master images " that would be suggestive not only
for self-disclosure but for enlarging our understanding of the religious situation. One image that comes immediately to mind is that of the pilgrim.
Pilgrimage has both a corporate character (Christians were early on described as People of the way; we describe our corporate character as a
" Pilgrim Church ") and an individual one, as Western literature from the
time of Dante and Chaucer down to the novels of the contemporary
Catholic writer, Walker Percy, clearly shows. Furthermore, the pilgrim-as
opposed, say, to the wanderer-travels purposefully towards a definite goal
and, in the Christian dispensation, the goal is an eschatological one. The
goal is not separated from the pilgrimage itself. When Saint Thomas
Aqu.inas called the Eucharist the esca viatorum, he expressed the profound

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BOOK IU!:VIEWS

notion that the Eucharist nourishes in via while· pointing to the messianic
banquet which is the goal of. the pilgrimage itself. The Christian pilgrimage, in turn, is judged and illumined .by the pilgrim way of Christ
whose Gospel journey moves purposefully to Calvary and Beyond.
Images for Self Recognition enlarges on two earlier works of Harned
(Grace and Common Life in 1971 and Faith and Virtue in 1973) which
explore in depth some of the ideas which are taken up and advanced in
this work. Together they make up a striking contribution as Professor
Harned continues to show the nova et vetera of the theological enterprise.
LAWRENCE

s. CUNNINGHAM

The Florida State Univerttity
Tallahassee, Florida

Naming, Necessity and Natural Kinds. Edited by STEPHEN SCHWARTZ.
Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1977. Pp. Q77; $5.95. Paperback.
The traditional theory of references holds that meaning is given to terms
by specifying a conjunction of properties. Any item possessing all of the
specified properties is considered to be an object of that species or natural
kind, and the meaning of terms is considered to be analytic to the concept
of the term. When this theory is applied to proper names, it holds that
each proper name refers to a set of descriptions and the item which satisfies
all of the descriptions is the referent of the proper name. And this theory
also holds that identities obtaining between referents such as the identity
" Cicero is Tully " or " Hesperus is Phosphorus " are contingent identities.
This theory has been rejected by a group of philosophers who propose a
totally different account of reference. They theorize that names have no
intension, that names defining naturally occurring species (natural kinds)
are not determined in their meaning by intension, and that reference is
determined by a causal chain rather than by description. Stephen Schwartz
has collected a number of articles by these theorists which criticize various
aspects of the traditional theory of reference, and has created a work that
should prove to be of importance to natural law theory. This new theory is
worthy of serious attention, and I would like to consider some of its points
here.
Keith Donnellan's article, "Reference and Definite Description," makes
a major contribution to the new theory of reference by noting that reference
can occur when description does not take place, or when . it is mistaken.
This is so because descriptions can be either referential or attributive. Referential descriptions enable the audience to pick out whatever is being

157
spoken of and are merely a tool or instrument of· communication.
tive descriptions assert something of whatever fits the description. Attributive description .is such that misdescription is logically impossible, while
referential description must be admitted so that the. fact of misdescription
can be explained. Attributive description does not assume the existence of
the referent, while referential description does. Thus, if it is true that reference is possible when description is absent, then what is the means by
which reference is made? Donnellan suggests that the causal theory of
names will provide an answer.
Saul Kripke asks in his "Identity and Necessity" how it is logically possible to have contingent identity statements. How are statements such as
" Cicero is Tully " possible in contingent and non-necessary terms? Kripke
asserts that such an identity is necessary if it is true because the names are
what he calls "rigid designators". This means that the term refers to the
same individirnl in all actual and counterfactual worlds. If "X " is identical
to" X" and is also identical to "Y", then Kripke contends that it is necessary that " X" be identical to " Y ". If this were only contingently true,
then it would be logically possible for " X " to be identical to " X " and not
be identical to "Y " at the same time. Kripke justifies the necessary status
of this relationship by distinguishing necessity from analyticity or a priority.
Necessity refers to the logical or practical impossibility of a state of affairs
being other than what it is. Kripke is not saying that identity statements
are analytic or a priori, but only that they are necessarily as they are if
they are true. That the statement that " Aristotle is the teacher of Alexander " is true of necessity can only be known after the properties of these
individuals are known, and this shows that the identity is neither analytic
nor a priori. Because these terms are rigid designators that refer to the same
individuals, and hence to each other in each and every possible world, there
is no possible world in which they might not be identical. The traditional
theory of reference holds that there are few properties to be identified with
an item that were identified with it of necessity, and Kripke's radical approach contends that all traits and properties identified with a name are
identified of necessity. This thesis becomes most interesting when applied
to the mind-body problem, for it holds that if pain is brain state " Q" then
it must be that particular state of necessity, and it cannot possibly be any
other state.
Hilary Putnam's article, " Is Semantics Possible?," points out a number
of problems involved in modern semantic theory. Contemporary semantic
theories developed by Katz, Carnap, and others simply elevate all of the
errors of the traditional theory by suggesting that reference is made by
description of essences and division into natural kinds. Katz argues, for
instance, that meaning is a string of " semantic markers " that stand for
concepts of the referent. Meaning of the term may be determined analyt-

158

BOO!{. llEVIE'WS.

ically ·by reading off the content of these mEt-rkers. Putnam·. rejects this· by
holding that meaning is not to be found by stating a few facts, and adds
that terms are defined: because a " stereotype " is accepted as a description
of a normal member of a class of items. The " stereotype " facts are determined by a set of core facts that 1J,re adequate to the ta;ik of communicating the meaning. Natural kind terms, such as "lemon" or "gold,'' are
such that certain traits are possessed by normal members, and the " stereotype" is associated with these traits. This "stereotype" determines the
normal member and intension of the natural kind item, and the extension
and abnormal use of the term can be determined by reference to expert
knowledge.
In "Meaning and Reference", Putnam asks whether meaning is determined by analysis of the concepts held by the speaker, citing a rather
interesting example. Twin Earth is a planet that is iden.tical to Earth in
all respects except that water has the chemical structure " XYZ " rather
than "H20 ". This substance is referred to by the same term and acts
identically on both planets. Putnam argues that meanings are not in the
head because the extension of water is radically different even though
the same concept is present in the minds of the inhabitants of Earth and
Twin Earth. The mental states of speakers do not dete1mine the meaning
of terms, for meaning is not world bound but is the same in all worlds.
Terms such as " water" have the same meaning in all worlds in spite .of
the intensional content of this term in some worlds. This notion supports
the theory of the necessary status of identities obtaining between proper
names and also the causal theory of names. The extension of terms is not
determined by the concepts of the user but by social factors and the division
of linguistic labor.
The traditional theory of reference holds that meaning is prior to reference, and that the specification of properties of an item will lead to meaning and proper reference. William Goosens's article, "Underlying Trait
Terms," asks what it is that makes a property relevant in and of itself for
the meaning of a term. He contends that a term is semantically relevant
if it provides information about whether a term applied to the item has that
property. By holding that reference is prior to meaning because of the possibility of referring by methods that do not convey meaning such as ostentation or enumeration, Goosens suggests that reference is determined by
noting underlying trait terms. There is no necessary and sufficient relationship obtaining between properties and terms, even though he contends that
there is a relationship of this type between underlying trait terms and
names. Underlying trait terms confer meaning on terms, but they do not
define the referent. The subset of associated properties defines the object
and is the basis of characterizing theory. Properties serve many functions,
none of which are associated with the meaning of the terms, which is only

BOQK RE'\TIEWS

159

provided by the reference of the term, coupled with the core conceptions of
the underlying trait terms and the underlying trait terms themselves.
Goosens contends that this permits knowledge of the world and not just
of language.
The traditional theory of reference holds that reference is made when
natural kinds of objects are identified by specifying their essence. W. V.
Quine in his " Natural Kinds " suggests that the notion of natural kinds is
dubious in that it is foreign te logic and set theory. Quine points out that
a relation of similarity is notoriously unclear, even though it is innate in a
sense and is almost a necessary condition for ostensive learning. In spite of
this, it remains alien to set theory and mathematical logic and may be
inadequate for a comprehensive theory of reference. Things are considered
to be similar when a common property is shared. But what counts for a
property? Set theory would dictate that any two individuals are members
of any number of given sets. The problem is exacerbated when the issue of
comparative similarity is raised, for sets overlap in these instances. The
theory of natural kinds is dealt a fatal blow by the indefinability of terms
of similarity. Quine rightly points out that natural science advanced by
classifying items on grounds other than similarity, and he suggests that
substitutes for the theory of natural kinds be found. Natural kinds are
crucially important for subjunctive conditionals, disposition terms and
singular causal statements, all of which are alien to scientific theory. If
semantic theory and referential theory are to advance, then it would seem
that developments of alterations in the theory of natural kinds be made.
Irving Copi replies to Quine's criticisms in a very classical Aristotelian
manner. Predication of properties of objects only includes those which are
causally related to the existence of the thing in its unique individuality.
Science strives to know the essences of things, and considers its task to be
complete when it does so. He contends that natural scientists discover necessary truths when they discover the essences of objects, and the discovery
of these essences permits natural scientists to predict not only the existence
of unknown objects, but their properties also. Modern science can make
these predictions because it determines what is essential to objects and
then divides them into natural kinds. And while this predictive action is
foreign to scientific theory, it is obviously not without value.
Gareth Evans's article, "The Causal Theory of Names," rejects Saul
Kripke's theory of reference which holds that a speaker will denote an object if there are reference-preserving links leading back from its use of the
term to the item being involved in the name-acquiring transaction. Like
upholders of the various description theories, Evans contends that this
version of the. causal theory of names ignores the social character of naming.
1Ie amends the causal theory of Kripke so that both the intentions of the
.speaker using the. term and.the contextual forces involved in proper refer-

160

BOOX: REVIEWS

ence are accounted• for. The intention of the speaker must be
accounted for because it is incoherent to hold that reference occurs when
denotation is temporarily and physically removed from the speaker. Names
are not formed simply because someone dubbed an item with ·-a name at
some prior time. There must be ·a proper description of the referent and
also a correct causal linkage between the various usages of the term. He
then proposes that a name is properly given to an item when a speaker in
a community uses a name that comes to be commonly used in that community to refer to the item, and when the success of reference relies on the
common knowledge existing between the speaker and hearer that the name
is used to refer to the item by the members of the community. Evans contends that the connection between a speaker's use of a name and the use of
the same name previously is not an important connection, for many names
can be used without prior use by other individuals. Reference is made to
the dominant source of information, in his theory, and this source does not
change from case to case. This does not deny the importance of the community, for proper reference usually requires the existence of procedures for
applying terms to items. The advantage of his theory is that it seems to
secure the contentions of both the traditional description theory and the
new causal theory of reference.
Keith Donnellan's "Speaking of Nothing" poses a paradoxical situation
to the causal theory of names by asking how it is possible to have reference
to non-existent individuals. He divides statements about the non-existent
into those which refer to purely fictional individuals whose existence was
never presupposed and those that presuppose the existence of the referent.
Statements of the latter type pose problems if it is true that reference requires accurate description. If reference is only possible after properties
have been identified, then reference to non-existent individuals is impossible. He resolves this by suggesting that " blocks " develop in the historical
communication of the name which terminate the historic explanation of the
term. These blocks prohibit any proper reference and also permit mistaken
negative existence statements. Statements such as "the present king of
France is wise " are logically possible on account of a blockage in the historical communication of this term, which permits reference to non-existent
individuals by mistake. The traditional theory of reference would have to
contend that such a statement is impossible because no individual in fact
exists as a referent that could properly possess the properties required for
description and reference.
Alvin Plantinga's " Transworld Identity or Worldbound Individuals"
asks how it is possible to refer ·to individuals existing in counterfactually
existing worlds. If the identity of individuals is worldbound, then it is im-possible to refer to them in other worlds. But. if the individual is identical
in all actual and counterfactual worlds, then identification is possible. This

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BOOK REVIEWS

view, however, en.tails the necessity of
relationship obtaining between
the individual and its properties and traits. For if traits and properties
change as an individual moves through possible worlds, then it would not
be possible to identify the individual. But if this is the case, then every
change in an individual's properties from world to world entails a change
in the identity of the individual, and the impossibility of identifying the
same individual through possible worlds. Plantinga resolves this problem by
arguing that essential traits and properties retain transworld identity while
other traits that are not essential for this purpose are not necessary 11nd do
not retain transworld identity.
Naming, Necessity and Natural Kinds should be recognized as an important work in light of the current status of natural law theory. This theory
refers to ite:rns by their essence, and then divides them into natural kinds.
The essence of the object stipulates the proper end of that individual, which
is related of necessity to moral goodness in the case of man. This new
theory of reference rejects the notion that the extension of terms is determined by the specification of properties, that natural kinds are logically
valid forms of classification, and that reference is made to essences. If
these contentions are true, then a fatal blow has been delivered to natural
law theory. For the necessary relation between essence and the proper end
of an individual is broken if reference is not made to the essence and if the
procedure of dividing into natural kinds is invalid. This is a difficult book
to understand fully and completely, but the implications of the theories
presenteq in it are of such significance that close attention to the work is
justified.· Natural law moralists must either invalidate the causal theory of
reference, which may not be exceedingly difficult to do on account of the
numerous admitted weaknesses in the theory, or they may reconcile this
new theory with their own position. This would require natural law moralists to identify a necessary relation existing between moral goodness and
some other trait, fact, condition or property in man or related to human
existence. That, however, will not be possible unless the notions presented
in this work are clearly and fully understood and grasped by whoever
chooses to meet this challenge.
ROBERT

Dominican House of Studies
Waahington, D. C.

BARRY, O.P.

BOO:J{ Rll}VIEWS

'the Theory of Morality. By ALAN DoNAGAN. The University of Chicago
Press, 1977. Pp. xvi +278.
That religion and morality iuay be conceptualized as genuinely distinct
entities is hardly all that novel a notion, as the long natural-law tradition
in Western thought bears ample witness. The potential problem posed for
moral theory· by this distinction may be obscured by the clear and obvious
fact that functioning moral traditions tend to be associated with religious
traditions and that most people's ordinary moral judgments therefore reflect the general influence of whatever composite religious and moral tradition they happen to be a part, more often than not by inheritance. In
secular society, however, the problematic element in the distinction between
religion and morality has manifested itself with a vengeance as it were and
has taken the form of· the conflicts between the inherited moral tradition,
which in the West is, of course, Christian, and various systems of philoophical ethics which seem so contrary to that tradition. It is this situation
and its attendant confusion concerning matters moral which serves, so to
speak, as the basic background for this book, the stated purpose of which
is to determine, first, what a theory of morality is a theory of and, second,
what a philosophical theory of morality would be.
With regard to the first of these issues, the author, whose goal after all is
a philosophical system which will do justice to traditional morality (and to
do so without the problems associated with that other noteworthy philosophical attempt at this, namely intuitionism) , is quite clearly concerned
with conceiving morality in terms true to what it has historically meant to
moralists themselves, that is, " a standard by which systems of mores,
actual and possible, were to be judged and ·by which everybody ought to
live, no matter what the mores of his neighbors might be" (p. 1). This
way of approaching the subject naturally leads him to consider the contribution made to moral theory by the Stoics, whom the author sees as having
been the first to have formulated. a reasonably clear conception of morality
understood as a standard for judging systems of mores. Of particular importance, therefore,-especially in view of the actual moral traditions, the
Jewish and the Christian, with which the book is most concerned and to
which repeated references are made-is the Stoic assumption that there is
a divine law, which expresses divine reason and for the ascertaining of
which law human reason is, in principle at least, adequate.
divine law
can, moreover, be distinguished from all other divine commands which do
not express divine law, in this sense of divine law, and which are knowable,
therefore, only by revelation.
It is in this Stoic spirit that the author rejects both Anscombe's contention that morality can intelligibly be treated as a system of law only by
presupposing a divine lawgiver and also her inference that those who deny

BOOK REVIEWS

168

the existence of such a divine lawgiver, if they choose to discuss ethical
topics, should follow Aristotle's example and do it by way of a theory of
the virtues. In response, the author' argues that the conception of morality
as virtue is not really an alternative to the conception of morality as law
and sees a counterpart "precept of moral law" for each "precept of moral
virtue." Moreover, as undoubtedly befits an approach based on such manifestly universalistic principles, he praises the Stoics for having conceived
the divine law as valid for all men in virtue of their common rationality in
contrast to Aristotle, for example, who " did not succeed in distinguishing
moral virtue as such, the virtue of a man as a man, from political virtue,
the virtue of a citizen of a good city " (p. 4) .
Like Stoicism (although less obviously so, according to Donagan), Judaism and
also distinguished between the divine law, which is
binding on all and is in principle at least ascertainable by all, and other,
more particular divine commandments which are binding only on some.
Obviously, it is these inherited moral traditions which constitute our common morality and with which, therefore, a philosophical theory which seeks
to do justice to common morality must come to grips, for " the traditional
morality of the Western world must remain largely unintelligible to anybody unwilling to investigate its philosophical and religious foundations "
(p. 26) . Making the most, therefore, of the problematic but genuinely
traditional distinction between religion and morality as found in Stoicism,
Judaism, and Christianity, the author attempts to construct his system of
common morality by trying to develop as a philosophical system that part
of the Hebrew-Christian tradition which does not depend on beliefs about
God.
One of the most intriguing features of this discussion-one which is, unfortunately, treated far too briefly, however-flows from the author's readiness to recognize that, even apart from the obvious linkage in historical
communities between Judaism's and Christianity's religious beliefs and the
rest of their ethics, there is the additional problem that the common morality of the Hebrew-Christian moral tradition " rests on presuppositions about
the nature of the world, of man, and of human action, which are rejected
in some venerable cultures, such as Hinduism and Buddhism, and in some
post-Christian theories of man, such as B. F. Skinner's radical behaviorism"
(p. 28) . Indeed, he actually approaches what is distinctive in the HebrewChristian moral tradition's presuppositions in part by a comparison between
the implications in its prescriptions for human conduct and the implications
in Hinduism's prescriptions.
As perhaps befits a philosophical theory of morality, all this is by way of
preparation for the definitive determination of what specifically is to be
considered as the fundamental principle of morality, with regard to rational
creatures' relations to themselves and to each other. This turns out to be,

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BOOK IU!lVIEWS

not the ;familiar "Golden Rule," but that other traditional candidate for
recognition as morality's fundamental principle-" Love your neighbor as
yourself "-which Saint Thomas Aquinas recognized at one point as one of
the prima et communia praecepta legis nat1trae, but which Donagan prefers
in what he sees as its simpler and more suitable Kantian form. Of particular interest, perhaps, in this C!,mnection is his attitude to what was,
however briefly, a fashionable form of ethical discourse within the not too
distant past.
And finally, there are those who, confounding agape with diffuse affectionate sentiment have reduced " Love, and do what you will! " to " Having ascertained the
facts of your situation, allow nothing-and especially not the precepts of traditional
morality-to deter you from what your affectionate sentiments may prompt!" It
should surprise nobody that the results of this vulgar " situation ethics " are sloppy
and incoherent (pp.

This is but one of several significant instances in which, while it is only a
philosophical and not as such a theological theory, its :fidelity to much of
the inherited moral tradition is made decisively manifest, in curious contrast to those recent theological, ethically debilitating tendencies which
Phillip Rieff had in mind when he referred to " the strange mixture of
cowardice and courage " with which certain religious professionals " are
participating in the dissolution of their cultural functions" (The Triumph
of the Therapeutic, Harper and Row, 1966, p. 16).
A major concern of Donagan's is to elaborate with an appropriate degree
of detail and precision the prescriptions of a philosophical theory of morality. Accordingly, the classification and the identification of specific :firstorder precepts is of intrinsic importance in his analysis as he has structured
it. Admitting that such first-order precepts may be variously classified, Donagan divides them into three groups: "(1) the duties of each human being
to himself or herself; (fl) the duties of each human being to other human
beings as such; (3) duties arising out of participation in human institutions." This third group he further subdivides according to whether the
institutions involved "(a) are among the varieties of purely voluntary contract or (b) are in one way or another imposed on individuals by the civil
or noncivil societies of which they are members" (p. 75}. Obviously, it
would hardly be possible to comment here on each of the particular prescriptions proposed under these headings. A few, however, call for attention
as being both symbolic of the issues involved in this kind of approach to
ethical argument and also symptomatic of some special problems such an
approach may entail.
Thus, with regard to the first group of duties, the most obvious moral
issue is, of course, suicide, with regard to which Donagan quite conspicuously deviates from the direction dictated by the Christian tradition.
Sigrii:ficantly, the very way the question of suicide is fl'.amed here is, in-

l:JOQKUVU!lWS

165

advertently one suspects,· indicative of the tension entailed: " Are there
circumstances in which a human being would not fail to. respect himself as
a rational creature by killing himself? " (p. 77) . Despite this use of the
word "creature,'' clearly the idea that the human being's condition as a
creature of a Creator constitutes in itself a principal ethical limitation upon
the legitimate exercise of human freedom is manifestly much too overtly
religious an idea to be raised in this analysis. Indeed, were it to be raised
could it even hold its own in secular competition with the more modem,
amorphous notion of " the possibility of genuinely human life? " Common
Christian morality to the contrary notwithstanding, when it is perceived
that the possibility of a genuinely human life will cease before biological
death, then, as the author sees it, " the case for the permissibility of
suicide is strong " (p. 79) .
With regard to the second group of duties, another obvious testing ground
for fidelity to tradition is abortion. On the basic question of the ontological
status of the not-yet-born, Donagan frankly classifies it as a biological
question which biology answers " simply and unequivocally: a human life
begins at conception, when the new being receives the genetic code " (p.
83) . Accordingly, abortion fails as " a possible solution of Malthusian
problems within common morality " (p. 171) ; and it is interesting certainly
to observe (given the author's ambition to construct a nontheologically
based morality) the way he refers to" the recent revival of the pagan doctrine that abortion is permissible " (p. 168) , thus highlighting, inadvertently
perhaps, the connection in practice between religion and morality and the
specific connection between the Christian religious tradition and the prohibition of abortion. Thus, it would seem that, while this philosophically
formulated common morality may be occasionally out of harmony with
traditional Christian morality, in some instances it may almost depend on
the latter's presence for full effectuation. Significantly, Donagan himself
calls clear attention to this by pointing out that " it was as contrary to
common morality " that slavery was abolished by a still formally Christian
Europe (p. 84) . One is reminded of Maritain's view that " Only when the
Gospel has penetrated to the very depth of human substance will natural
law appear in its flower and its perfection" (Man a:nd the State. The University of Chicago Press, 1951, p. 90).
With regard to the third group of duties, Donagan deals in rather quick
succession with contracts, property, the family, and, of course, civil society.
The discussion of contracts gives him an opportunity to reject the Hobbesian notion that contracts themselves can directly create moral bonds.
The problem of property causes him to observe that " all existing civil
societies abuse their authority to regulate the access of their members to
natural resources " and thus " have brought into question their own legitimacy." (p. 100). Since, however, he considers membership in civil society

166
essential to a full human life, only extreme cases can, according to the
author, justify direct disobedience, general civil disobedience, or rebellion.
The institution of the family raises the question of what variety of family
structures seems permissible, the permissibility of divorce, and certain varieties of sexual activity. As might be expected at this point in time, what
is proposed is somewhat more liberal than the traditional moral positions
on these subjects.
Civil society presents the problem of the permissibility of war. Donagan
accepts the traditional notion distinguishing between just and unjust wars.
If a war is just, he considers it permissible to volunteer to serve in it and
impermissible to serve in an unjust war under any circumstances. The
problem with just-war theory is, of course, how one determines whether a
war is just or not. Incredibly, Donagan declares that it "will usually be
the case " that " a member of a civil society can to his own satisfaction
determine whether a given war is just or unjust" (p. lll). Obviously,
Donagan wants to reduce the practical effects of the presumption of legality
accorded to civil authorities' actions and also to counteract the historically
observable reluctance of Christians to challenge civil authorities on the issue
of whether a war is just or not. These are valid concerns, to be sure, but
surely they have their origin-in some significant part at least-in the very
real difficulties ordinary people must experience in reaching judgments about
so complex a question as the justice or the injustice of any given war.
As these several selected examples should serve to indicate, a serious attempt has been made on a philosophical level to elaborate both the content
of and the justification for a rational theory of morality, one which, while
it certainly breaks with our inherited common morality on certain specifics,
also attempts, with some success, to take more seriously the suggestions of
that inherited moral tradition than do some other approaches to the problem of creating and providing a rational foundation for an acceptable common morality. How adequate a moral theory has been produced remains,
as it was at the outset, a matter for judgment; and, here, one's own moral
tradition-even perhaps a religious one--will inevitably enter into that
judgment.
RONALD FRANCO

Marquette University
Milwaukee, Wisconsin

BOOK rREVIlllWS

167

Hegel's Retreat from Eleiisis: Studies in Political Thought. By GEORGE
A&-v.rsTRONG KELLY. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1978; Pp.
ix, Q59. $16.$0.
This book is a collection of eight essays, three of which have been
written especially for the present volume, the others having appeared
earlier in various journals. It is not a work of one piece, but rather a
series of reflections on Hegel's political thought. Yet there is a continuity
to it; for Kelly sees his work as an attempt simultaneously to do " archeology " and " renovation," resting on the dictum that " interpretation
without renewal is empty; renewal without interpretation is blind" (6).
His work is informed by a humanistic concern for the preservation of
our cultural heritage as well as for the control of our own destinies through
reason. In this way he might be said to be continuing the task begun
in his earlier Idealism, Politics, and History, now giving Hegel his full
attention as well as attempting to " refute" Pelczynski's claim that Kelly's
approach cannot speak to our present concerns. Furthermore, the book is
not " genealogical," as the title might suggest; it does not trace Hegel's
development from his early years to the times in Berlin. Rather, Kelly
studies specific and recurring prohlems which arise in any attempt to
understand
thought and reflect on it in our own context.
The first essay attacks straightforwardly the question of the relationship
of Hegel's political writings to his philosophy in general and of politics
to philosophy. Against the notions of Pelczynski and others, Kelly argues
rightly that Hegel's political thought is inextricably bound up with his
system as a whole, with metaphysics in particular, and, above all, with
the problems of knowledge. A major aspect of the importance of this
is that when Hegel's political thought is understood in this way in its
proper context, the ideologizing which has plagued his thought in the
hands of others can finally be laid to rest. Hegel is not an ideologist but
" a philosopher-like Plato and Aristotle-who was constantly preoccupied
by the relationship of the quality of the political order to the generation
of knowledge " (8).
After a general but remarkably clear description of Hegel's own conception of philosophy in relation to the history of philosophy and the
culture of the times, Kelly argues for the relation of politics to philosophy,
the main points of which are summed up in the following passage. In
viewing Hegel,
it is important to grasp what he takes philosophy itself to be, especially in its relationship to living culture, since it is to the creation and preservation of culture in
time and through time that the task of politics is ultimately addressed. Second, as
the effective v::ssel of culture, the state must be so arranged as to "know," to miderstand, its conscious _purposes.. Third, .culture is the vital substance of a people,
and philosophy is its culminating expression; they are and exist, not as noble fan-

168

BOOK'tU!lVlJ!lWS

tasies that the pain of the present inflicts on the imagination, but llll shared spiritual
realities that reveal the eternal in the human; Similarly, the state exists to incubate
and transmit them: there is no transcendence; it is fatuous to theorize something
that cannot operate, when the real stakes are in our lives and this world. Fourth,
the human wound administered by self-consciousnessto naturalness must, in a sense,
be healed by the medicines of .speculation, which restores, remembers, salvages,
reconciles, and justifies. This is also the fate of Europe, transcribed in its arduous
recovery of politics. (27)

In this first essay Kelly articulates Hegel's true realism and true idealism
in a way that demands our attention and careful thought.
This first essay forms, together with the last chapter, what Kelly describes as "an envelope" for the rest of the book. He is correct in this,
but here more than anywhere else one wishes rather that it were the first
page of the letter, continuous with succeeding pages, rather than an envelope. Questions of the relationship between wisdom in one generation or
epoch and succeeding political events, questions of the extent and nature
of philosophy's impact on politics, and the perplexing question of the rela.tionship between time and eternity are left unanswered. But such questions
must be answered if "renovation" is to be fruitful. Nevertheless, Kelly's
articulation of the philosophy-politics question does give a ground upon
which one might begin to tackle these questions.
The second essay is on the famous " Lordship and Bondage " passage of
Hegel's Phenomenology, probably one of the most abused by Hegel's interpreters. Kelly does Hegeliap. studies and politics in general-especially
among English- and French-speaking thinkers-a service in reprinting this
classical essay here. His attack on Kojeve and on the latter's rape of
Hegel's texts is necessary reading for all who have come under the influence
of the Frenchman. It should be carefully read by all who would give a
Marxist or anthropological twist to Hegel's work. His refutation of Kojeve
is unquestionably correct. Kelly shows that Kojeve takes the section of
self-consciousness completely out of context and consequently is totally unable to relate it to the rest of the Phenomenology and to the task which
Hegel set himself. My only criticism of this essay is that Kelly is too polite
and too ready to give Kojeve some justification in the latter's anthropological interpretation. Whatever merits belong to the Kojevean discussion of man and his condition-and one cannot deny that therp are somethey come under the aegis of Kojeve himself and not that of Hegel.
The third essay continues to build on the Hegelian view of the relations
between politics, culture, and philosophy. Here, in a study titled "Social
Understanding and Social Therapy in Schiller and Hegel," Kelly turns his
focus of attention upon the relation between Hegel, Schiller, and the general culture of the time. His general text here is the leitmotiv of the unhappy consciousness, linking the generally religious background of . this con.sciousness to the secular cultural realities. Kelly argues that it is clear that
unhappy consciousness is

BOOK 'REVI'EWS

169

anchored in .the Jorfeits of Judaism and Christianity, but it also refers to the isolation ' of the artist or political actor in a Philistine world. . . .
Turn-of-the-century Germany was indeed the land of the unhappy consciousness.... The awareness among German intellectuals of building a high culture, a
" classicism," and conceivably· of forging keys for unlocking the secrets of the
philosophical universe clashed with their all-too-human sensation of local space-time
discordancies. Yet, paradoxically, the intellectuals came to recognize that these
very tensions of life and work, politics and art, arid fact and airy ideal, made their
innovative flights not 0 nly the more urgent, but the more universally valid. (55-56)

The tension between the whole and the particulars, the failure of any and
every particular act or segment of society to speak to the universal concerns and to the " general will " is the basis of politics. The unhappy
consciousness is condemned to unhappiness and alienation so long as it, as
a mere "we", as only social, continues its attempts to be completed in a
unified whole. Kelly's thesis in this essay is that Schiller laid out the problem which Hegel then took up, first accepting Schiller's aesthetic solution
to it, later rejecting it for his own political solution.
The foundation for the problem of the modern state has been posed in
this critical chapter. It has been posed as a condition of being divorced
from the aesthetic Sittlichkeit of the Greeks and yet still related to it in
the acute awareness of the "wound" caused by self-consciousness and the
advance of the human spirit. In this advance the development of Christianity, which takes within itself a like wound in "the Fall" and, as we
shall see shortly, is in time annulled as the true and highest unity of society-this development also adds to the consciousness of alienation: the
tension between the natural or physical and the moral, the seeming incommensurability of freedom and duty and beauty, and most of all the clash
between humanism and the search for a healing of the wounds of the " we "
and the Machiavellianism which governs the philistinism and egocentrism
of the developing civil society.
In the next chapter, " The Problem of the Modern State," Kelly's analysis continues, for the moment seemingly independent of Hegel's own
thought. This chapter, I think, is Kelly's own bridge between Hegel and
our own time. On the background of a brief analysis and criticism of the
positions of Rawls, Nozick, Hayek, and Nisbet, Kelly offers a" provisional
definition" of the state. The state is not a referee for civil society, not a
mere servant of competing interests, not something that civil society itself
can "create"; rather, quoting with approval Georges Burdeau, Kelly
argues that the state is " the form by which the group finds its unity in
submission to law" (101). An extended quotation of his full provisional
definition is necessary in order to do him justice here.
Provisionally we may say ·that the state is a network of exchanged benefits and
beliefs, a reciprocity between rulers and citizens based on the laws and procedures
amenable to the maintenance of community. These procedures are expressive of the

170
widest. range Qf mutual initiative and compliance that the members· can regularly ·
practice, and they depend on a consensus that asserts individual freedoms while
accepting such constraints as are necessary to the cohesion and self-respect of the
whole. Conventional in. its origins as a product of human convenience and reason,
the state is "natural" by its mission of creating a climate for· human fulfillment. . . . It is au amalgamation of human inter.ests ·and demands: as such 'it
mediates the will of the individual with the claims of the primary groups such as
the family or profession, with the intense participation of spiritual communities
such as churches, philanthropies, guilds, or even " nations," and finally with a
discordant catalogue of universal values described as "humanity."
(100)

The ultimate basis for this definition is Kelly's argument that the " state
emerged historically when the vital aspects of human control and welfare
were taken from the spiritual power," the latter being, of course, the
Church (99). The development of man's total capacities and culture, the
unifying, actually existing locus of the "general will," is no longer the
Church and its divine doctrines. When economics and civil society were
" freed " from the unification in God's will, nothing took its place. The
" idea " of the state arises at this point. Here is the core of Kelly's reflection on Hegel, the polity, and our own human condition. Its further articulation is the concern of the remaining chapters of the work.
Kelly's insight is essentially sound, and we are indebted to him for this
work. The union of the Greek polis (and of the Platonic-Aristotelian reflection upon it) and the modem civil society, in the face of the very
contradiction between 'polis ' and ' nation-state ', was clearly Hegel's task.
His subsequent arguments showing how this Hegelian " solution " differs
from any reactionary religious political doctrines as well as from both
liberal and conservative trains of thought within liberal-democratic theory
and states and marxist theory and states in. any of their numerous forms
further clarifies the Helegian idea and the possible ways in which Hegel
might still speak to us.
In "Hegel and the Neutral State" Kelly employs a "syntagmatic analysis " of the state, arguing persuasively that the syntagmata are not
simply civil society . . . state, but rather that there is a syntax between
the terms ' state ', ' religion ', ' knowledge, 'conscience', ' caprice'. But
the state is not simply a sublimated religion or religious bond; in the face
of the collapse of religion as the place of both regnum and sacerdotium and
its reappearance in the private sphere alone, religion remains in the private
or civil sphere. In the face of the subsequent rise of civil society and of the
glorification of the arbitrary individual wills in competition, the modern
state arises as itself the foundation and " encompassing " for both individual and collective realization of· humanity. There is no "either-or " in regard to individuals and the whole, but a unity of identity and difference
which is the general will as that which must be if individuals and humanity
as a whole a.re to be rea,lized.
In the concluding three chapters Kelly entertains the question of " Hegel

171

BOOK REVIEWS

today." He argues that the "gravediggers" of Hegel's neutral state did
not succeed in burying him or the idea of the state, but instead substituted
either a relatively weak, "referee" idea of neutrality or some other equally
ineffective idea. All of the arguments seem to be based upon a fundamental
argument that the state cannot be founded on the social whole; the social
whole, to be a whole, must be founded on the state. But this is notably
not a power state or any repressive form of state. We are not urged to
find our wholeness in an '' organism " which reduces us to mere elements.
Throughout the. book one is reminded of Hannah Arendt's attempts also to
bring something of the reality of the polis to our own time. Kelly is certainly not Arendt, but the two do share a notion of ' authority' and of the
problematic nature of attempting to have a state which is socio-economically founded. In fact, in the masterful essay, "Hegel's America," Kelly
turns to Arendt's discussion of 'authority' and its distinction from 'coercive power ', ' tyranny ', etc. He then formulates the idea of authority
which must be central to the idea of the state. ' Authority '
means collective faith in the foundations or fundamental principles of a state and
the capacity to translate this faith into leadership, political virtue, and public confidence. Authority is not power; it does not inhere in persons or even exclusively
in role-playing persons. It is a subjective sensing of an objective pattern of relations built on social confidence. This is the type of relationship which Hegel's
sovereign is intended to cement. (220)

Such a cement and such a subjective sensing are clearly lacking not only
i:n the United States but in most modern nation-states. There is indeed no
"public," but rather only the "publics " which Dewey so much glorified
and which are the unstable anchors in our contemporary alienated life.
The response one makes to this great effort of Kelly to be both true to
Hegel in his archaeology and true to us in his renovations will vary according to the perspective of the reader. Secular or non"secular, right, left, or
center, there are criticisms to be made and they will be forthcoming. Rather
than try very briefly to offer a criticism here-brief and therefore superficial given the complexity of Kelly's task-I would prefer to utter a wish.
If Kelly's position, which has now been developed at least in the two works
I have· read, is to be adequately criticized and thus inake its optimum
contribution to the ideals he holds so dear, then it must be devefoped now
in tei·ms of itself. He has laid a foundation through historical
for
some original thought in politics, the state; and society; he has clearly
shown the need for a more adequate theory of the state; I would wish now
that he bring his learning and insight to bear directly on a· unified work of
one piece which w6uld address directly and systematically; the ·problem of
the inodern state.
JOSEPH'

The Pennsylvania State University
University Park, Pennsylvania

c. FLAY

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