TRIUNE SELF-GIVING:
ONE KEY TO
THE PROBLEM OF SUFFERING

S

OME YEARS AGO a witty friend of mine used to make
a pretense of defending the view that this is the worst
of all possible worlds. Though undoubtedly far from the
worst possible, this world plainly falls short of some conceivably
better, if not best, scheme of things finite. Discerning savants
of the next century or two may look with pity, mixed with a
good bit of anger and contempt, on the atrocities committed or
officially condoned by that curiously arrogant and morally obtuse creature that some glorify as twentieth-century man. But
whatever the judgment from whatever vantage point passed
on our period, the current rising tide of troubles raises anew,
perhaps more poignantly, the problem of evil in a universe traditionally held to be cradled in the everlasting arms of an allloving Father. As men, all of us at one time or another must
struggle with pain and injustice. As thinkers (at least in some
modest sense) , we must come to grips with one of the murkiest
of puzzles, that, even where it may not afflict the heart, perplexes the mind: how are we to square the dreadful fact of
evil with the sweet face of an all-good and all-powerful God?
In recent years the problem has been somewhat recast: how
can an all-loving God remain unaffected by the suffering of the
men he has created? It is to this narrower formulation of the
question that this essay addresses itself. The God of classical theism is totally other and unchangeable; as wholly other,
he has no need of human love; as unchangeable, he cannot be
touched by whatever transpires for the weal or woe of his rational creatures. No matter what evils agonize man in or outside time, God remains self-subsistent, holily self-loving, serene
in boundless beatitude. The chasm infinitely dividing God and

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man apparently annuls any humanly meaningful sense we
might assign to. his being all-loving and all-caring. From
one angle such a God evokes, along with trembling awe, a certain moral and aesthetic repugnance. He seems to be mysterium tremendum et repellens. Affective disenchantment
intimates that an infinitely distant God may he an irrationality, a vestigial idol of an outmoded theology. In place of
an Absolute, process-thinkers, notably A. N. Whitehead and
Charles Hartshorne, have vigorously argued for a supreme but
limited God. Finitist theism has also proved alluring to minds
not ordinarily catalogued under process-thought, and of these
we have chosen to take a quick look at Nicholas Berdyaev, a
legatee in part of Boehme, and Peter Bertocci, an avowed
disciple of the American personalist, Edgar Brightman.
First, we shall sketch the main lines of these four finitist
approaches. While initially prepossessing, the finite-God case
is saddled with a number of difficulties, some of which appear
mortal. For all the obscurity that clings to any conceptualization of the strictly divine, the God of classical theism turns out
to be incontestably loving and caring not in spite of but because of his immutability and infinity. Nothing inferior to a
being of limitless wisdom and power can explain the otherwise
paradoxical harvesting of good and harmony out of the evil and
poisonous discord in the universe. Secondly, for further light on
the still enigmatic features of a loving but nonsuffering God's
tie-in with creation, the rational theist who is a Christian can
cross the border into theology. In Jesus God suffered and died
in some reasonable sense. The suffering of the God-man, however, leaves God impassible. Yet because Jesus is the incarnate
revelation of divine life, his death out of love signalizes the selfgiving within Godness itself. A nonsufiering but self-giving
trinity of persons in God serves as a model for making each
man a god. One key to analytical and existential mastery of
suffering lies in the renovation of finite spirit in the image of
the triune self-giving of infinite spirit.

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I
Whitehead and Hartshorne present apparently compelling
briefs for a limited God enriched by as well as enriching the
world he oversees. Their fundamental position receives, outside a processive perspective, broad substantiation and corroboration from Berdyaev and Bertocci. But any gains accreditable to a more understandable finite status seem outbalanced by losses in the depth and width of divine power and
love. In becoming finite, God forfeits Godness: he is nothing
but a superhuman, but less than supreme, spirit. Though the
precise mode of eternal operation always lies beyond human
ken, only an infinite being can bestow his love on finites so
as to transmute the devastation spewed by evil into per se
goods for the upbuilding of the whole universe.
1. (i) According to Whitehead, the God of classical theism,
that is rooted in the power-oriented Semitic idea of the one
creator, "is a concept which is clear, terrifying, and unprovable." 1 The only available route to his existence seems
to he the misnamed ontological proof originating with Anselm,
today by and large dismissed as invalid. 2 Too, an infinite
transcendence puts him " completely outside metaphysical rationalization." Thus both the existence and the nature of an
infinite God are undisclosable by rational analysis. Moreover,
in patterning God after an absolute imperial ruler, the Church
has rendered unto God the things that are Caesar's. Enthroned
in the sanctuary of classical theism is a Caesar stripped of all
human attributes save a naked power, now bafflingly infinitized.
In place of this absolutized Power Whitehead conceives of a
God that blends reinterpreted features of Aristotle's sel£thinking thought and the virtues of Jesus Christ. Like Aris1 Alfred North Whitehead, Religion in the Making
(New York: World, 1960;
first published in
p. 72.
2 Ibid., pp. 68-69. From the vantage point of the twenties Whitehead
was unable to foresee the upsurge of a surprising interest in and a more surprising support for the Anselmian proof, some of which was stimulated by Hartshome's
persuasive elaboration of the argument (especially in The Logic of Pmjection [La
Salle: Open Court, 1962] and Anselm's DiscO'Very [La Salle: Open Court, 1965]).

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totle's God, Whitehead's highest entity is not utterly outside
the world but is the topmost part within the universe, so
grounding and possessing forms that in some sense he thinks
them. Unlike Aristotle's God, the supreme actual entity is not
only of the world but in the world as well, for, Whitehead maintains, it is more blessed for God to receive as well as give: the
world God forms and finalizes, in turn, fashions him. God is
dipolar, manifesting two natures or sides, the primordial and
the consequent. When we think God abstractively, simply as
the repository of the forms and aims that determine and attract
entities, we are focusing on his primordial nature, in virtue of
which he is an unmoved mover unlimited and dissociated from
the world. But in his consequent nature God is a moved mover
profiting from the reciprocal causation of the entities whose
subjective aims he ordained; in this respect he grows with the
development of the world. Through the consequent nature all
the tragedy born of contingency is overcome in final harmony;
God tenderly gathers up all the fragments of the good and
beautiful of perished actual occasions lest they be lost. Poet of
the world, he molds its welter into an intellectual beauty and
joy to last forever. Further, God not only immortalizes the
data of perishing entities but, on his superjective side, capitalizes on them so as continually to endow ever-fresh entities
with their income. Making the kingdom of heaven come, superjective action evidences divine love for each individual; God
so loves the world that he ceaselessly gives it of himself-a
generosity that brings with it divine providence, supreme solicitude for each of his creatures. Indeed not only is he father
but brother of us all: " God is the great companion-the
fellow-sufferer who understands."
In these real-relational dealings with the world God reflects,
with due measure of metaphysical refinement, the virtues of
Jesus Christ. "The world lives by its incarnation of God in
itself." Here the stock theological term does not mean that
God clothes himself in nature as the Word incarnates himself
in human nature. However, its use is not whimsy but an indicator that elsewhere the God of and in process metaphysically

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idealizes lineaments Christians believe to be unique in their incarnate God. Jesus enfleshes the revelation of the love of God;
Whitehead's God is primarily a God of love, tenderly holding
all to his bosom. So in the image of the Good Shepherd, he
does not drive but persuades his flock. Again, Jesus is sent,
as his name signifies, to be savior; in his consequent nature God
saves all perished occasions. As Jesus salvifically abandoned
himself to suffer with and for his fellowmen, God suffers with
and for all creation, compassionating with every least occasion.
A God-with-us is no Absolute steelily sequestered in infinite
changelessness. His very suffering tempers and helps overcome
variegated creaturely sufferings as his sympathy enfolds in
divine harmony all that looks fragmentary and dissipated. 3
(ii) While not strictly classifiable as a disciple, Hartshorne
has developed many of Whitehead's insights into a more systematic natural theology that resembles, with the intention of
superseding, the scholastic version of God. He trains his guns
on two incongruities of traditional theism: an Absolute divorced
from creation and an inaccessible Autocrat that is unloving and
therefore unlovable. First, asymmetry in the relation between
God and the world is indefensible. Divine infallible cognition
is necessarily relative: from " God knows there are men " we
are bound to infer" There are men." Again, God's knowledge
must be actually different if this actual world differs from some
hypothetical other world. 4 Just as a world without a creator
is unthinkable, so a creator without a real relation to his crea•Ibid., p. 68. Alfred North Whitehead, Process and Reality (New York: Macmillan, 1929), pp. 520-26, 532; Religion in the Making, p. 149.
•Charles Hartshorne, The Divine Rdativity (New Haven: Yale University
Press, 1948), pp. 9, 11, 14. In Two Process Philosophers (Tallahassee, Fla.: American Academy of Religion, 1973, ed. Lewis S. Ford), David Griffin, " Hartshorne's
Differences from Whitehead," pp. 35-57, and Lewis S. Ford, "Whitehead's Differences from Hartshorne," pp. 58-83, call attention to points of divergence between two major process thinkers not uncommonly taken to be related as master
and disciple. However, whether or not we accept Hartshorne's estimate that his
relationship with Whitehead might be better designated " pre-established harmony "
rather than " intellectual descent," the general and particular lines of affinity
between the two seem more numerous and much more significant than several
marked dissimilarities.

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tion is unintelligible. Secondly, in one respect the God of tradition bears a disquieting likeness to a transcendent tyrant
supreme in jealousy of his prerogatives and in infinite £rigidity
toward his subjects. In another respect he seems monstrously
cruel. A father utterly unconcerned about the well-being or
unhappiness of his children would be shunned as shockingly inhuman. Yet a wholly changeless God, perched infinitely high
above the flux, has to be literally unmoved by the sorrows and
joys, miseries and glories of his creatures. Enwrapped and enrapt in himself alone, he remains totally unruffled by and uninterested in the incalculable suffering of the human realm.
In preference to this internally incoherent monopolar God
Hartshorne proposes a highest being that seems consistently
both absolute and relative. Absolutely taken, God is metaphysically unique; no other being can be divine. But devoid of
all relation to other entities, God reduces to an absolute that
is absolutely empty. Hence God is relative, sovereignly so,
responsive to the feeblest pulse of actuality. A similar strategy
of qualified relativization refurbishes the divine attributes. God
cannot not be perfect, all-knowing, all-powerful, and all-loving,
but the all of knowledge, power, and love is delimited by rational possibility. He is perfect but only as far as possible, only
as thinkable in reference to lower-order beings, only as modifiable through the impact of other actual entities. His allembracing cognition does not descend to every particular, and
his grasp of the future is only vague. Again, God's power is
without question the greatest possible, but its exercise must
make room for and be fenced .in by spontaneous causal activities. Similarly, divine love, which is not cloistered apart
from the causal influx of creation, does not chillingly turn its
back on the hurly-burly of events. A loving father, God makes
the joys and sorrows of creatures his own, sympathetically
resonating with their songs and groans.
From this standpoint the curious gap between Jesus and
the heavenly Father is bridged. Jesus truly reveals the inner
suffering of God himself. The life and death of Jesus prove
that " God really is love-just that without equivocation." The

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cross symbolizes the outgoing care of and generosity of God
in His divine nature. God is inexpressibly co-suffering, taking
our cross upon himself, ultimately bringing light and consolation out of humanly uncontrollable evil with its potency for
destruction that would otherwise stun the mind and shatter
the heart. 5 Thus a concrete God dissolves paradoxes ramifying
from an immutable (unrelatable to creation) yet creating (related) God and supplies literal backing for the Christian claim
that Jesus as friend and savior is the sign and image of the
Father. Yet the relativity of God, we must not forget, does
not derogate from genuine supremacy. Not only in but above
process, God remains perfect, all-knowing, all-loving, and allpowerful within the limits of intelligibility.
(iii) Though bursting into flower from different soil under
another sky, the concept of God in Berdyaev seems remarkably
similar to the notion constructed by Whitehead and Hartshorne.
The primordial factor is not God but the Ungrund, a pre-divine
Nothing out of which course God and a freedom uncreatable
by God. The creative act betrays a limited creator rather than
a stonily immobile Absolute: " Creation of the world implies
movement in God, it is a dramatic event in the divine life." 6
God has to be finitized also because man is the offspring of freedom or nonbeing as well as the child of God. The myth of
the Fall dramatizes the powerlessness of God vis-a-vis beings
able to rebel. In response to the fact of evil, God incarnationalIy plunges into the cauldron of human living. The death of the
Son lifts the veil from tragedy within God himself. A God of
sacrificial love, he confronts evil and winces under its blows,
•Ibid., pp. 83, 26, 86, 20, 123-24, 54. Man's Vision of God and the Logic of
Theism (Chicago: Willett, Clark, 1941), p. 165; quoted in Ralph E. James, The
Concrete God (New York: Bobbs-Merrill, 1967), p. 133.
•Nicholas Berdyaev, The Destiny of Man, trans. Natalie Duddington (New
York: Harper, 1960; first published in 1935), p. 29. See Hartshorne's remarks
on Berdyaev in Philosophers Speak of God, ed. Charles Hartshorne and William
L. Reese (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1953), pp. 285-87 and 293-94,
and the comments and strictures on this self-styled philosopher of freedom in
Charles Journet, The Meaning of Evil; trans. Michael Barry (New York: Kenedy,
1968). pp. 97-102.
.

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JOHN M. QUINN, O.S.A.

undergoing the tragedy of the cross to triumph over the tragedy
of freedom. The extraverted propensity of God arises from his
trinitarian personality. The loving give-and-take between God
and creatures reflects the personal communion at the heart of
his inner life. An inwardly personalistic God has to be outwardly communicative, sharing with creatures even to the
point of drinking the cup of sorrow to its dregs. 7
(iv) The finitist conception of Bertocci also takes its rise
from a critical restructuring of traditional Christian experience,
this in an American setting. 8 The Mind necessarily superintending and directing agencies to their ends is first and foremost
a Person, a cosmic Knower and a cosmic Loving Agent. Though
God creates ex nihilo, two facts, the one natural, the other personal, block any ascription of infinity. A co-eternal Impediment, a brute given akin to the Receptacle of the Timaeus,
resists God's efforts to maximize the harmony in the universe.
The very creation of free co-creators, moreover, fixes boundaries
to his power. Because free, persons map and work out their
cosmic careers in partial independence of God. The maturitycreating insecurity that co-creators endure is felt in and by
God. His control over future particulars subjected to the
checks of freedom, God experiences a certain tension, a suffering
through which he grows along with companions he elects to
help shape the moral universe. Jesus stands out as the unparalleled example of the fruits of the cosmic Lover in man. Jesus's
total openness to divine love releases the re-creation on which
God spends his energies to effect in each man and in the whole
history of man. 9
•Ibid., pp. 80, 81, 82, 57.
Under the influence of Brightman, Whitehead, Bergson, and Hartshorne he
was converted, Bertocci confesses, to a conception of " change in God in ways
similar to Hartshome's view." Peter A. Bertocci, The Person God ls (London:
Allen and Unwin, 1970), p. 25, n. I.
•Ibid., pp. 22-80, 85-87, 290, 814-15; "Theistic Temporalistic Personalism and
the Problem of Good-and-Evil," Proceedings of the American Catholic Philo•
sophical Association (Washington: Office of National Secretary, 1977), 51, pp.
61-65. The notion of a co-eternal obstacle derives from Brightman, Bertocci's
first major and probably most influential teacher; see Edgar A. Brightman, A
Philoflophy of Religion (New York: Prentice-Hall, 1940), pp. 286-87, 887-89.
8

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2. The advantages of a finite-God concept are undoubtedly
numerous. He is not exasperatingly inaccessible and not ineffably transcendent to nor imperturbably walled off from the
petty round of creaturely comings and goings. Depths within
depths of divine knowledge that classical theism declares impenetrable by rational understanding become in principle available to our minds. While present knowledge may be slim, the
human spirit can legitimately aspire to lay hold of the inner
workings of a kindred finite spirit, albeit the highest possible,
that we call God. But these benefits are purchased at a price
that many may judge exorbitant, indeed impossible, to pay.
First, qua finite, such a top entity cannot strictly qualify as God.
Second, only by being transcendent can God be omnipresently
immanent. Third, infinite power is not the antithesis but the
executive vehicle of infinite love. Fourth, an anthropomorphism
partially undermines the finitist case. Fifth, not irrationality
but a certain ineliminable dimension of mystery due to the
eternal mode of operation envelops an infinite God.
(i) Only in a Pickwickian sense can a finite God be equated
with a supreme being. A nontranscendent part of the universe
has to fall short of being its ultimate ground. No matter how
superior his metaphysical endowments, a so-called God that
functions as a component of the universe has to be reciprocally
dependent on lower agencies and, as dependent, must himself
be caused. The dependence of a process-imbued God on inferior executive and final causes demands a further explanatory
factor. What is ultimately responsible for the ordination of the
world to a finite God and a finite God to the world? Surely
not God; surely not the world; surely not God and the world
taken jointly; for these are precisely the things ordered that
need explanation. A cause locked within the system ordered
is not the explanation but an explanandum. Compelling a
caused cause to act as first cause traps the mind in a vicious
circle or an infinite regress. The source of a finite-God-world
interlinkage must lie in a cause dwelling outside the factors
ordered. In short, to account for agency and order among dependent things, we are bound to conclude to an uncaused or

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absolutely first cause usually synonymous with the God of
classical theism. 10
(ii) The finitist thesis posits a false contrast between the
transcendence and immanence of God. The super-eminence of
God, it is implied, puts him outside the reach of and makes
him void of concern for creatures. But transcendence and immanence are not contradictorily but only relatively opposed.
Indeed so closely do they comport with one another that in the
line of causation God is most immanent in things because he
is absolutely transcendent. Immanence does not cancel out but
depends on transcendence. The higher the entity, the farther
its causality extends. Since an infinite God is pure act or subsisting existence, he causes as his proper effect the existence
of each and every actual entity. Since God properly causes
the existence that we may take as the most radical, the most
formal determination or principle in a thing, he is most intimately present, most formally immanent, in the being and
operation of all created things. Lack of absolute transcendence,
however, may shorten the entitative gulf of essence between
God and man but it also constricts the ambit of divine causality.
The nearer the divine nature comes to ours, the more distant
becomes his influence on creatures. The closer God is en10 Summa
theologiae (Madrid: Biblioteca de Autores Cristianos, 1961), I,
2, 8 (henceforth referred to by numerals alone). Though specifically different
because of distinct middle terms, all of the five. ways terminate in a supreme
being variously viewed as an unmoved mover, first cause, and per se necessary
being. The second obj.ection argues in terms of what is today called Ockham's
razor that nature and reason (plus will) can account for all events without resort
to the God-hypothesis. If in the answer to the difficulty we alter nature to read
primordial stuff or undifferentiated creativity and substitute a superhuman intellect for reason (and will), the response becomes a repudia:tion of the finitisttheistic case. Pared down to essentials, a finite God is ordinarily equivalent to
an angel or super-angel (see n. 16 below), a mighty finite spirit fashioning the
universe with the cooperation, or sometimes in the teeth of the opposition, of a
co-eternal stuff or creativity. But no matter how towering the spirit, finite intellect
and will fail to qualify as primary " because these are mutable and defectible;
we have to reduce all mobiles and defectib1es to some primary principle that is
immobile or per se necessary." Limitation bespeaks mutability, and mutability
bespeaks limitation; this reciprocal implication dooms every brief, however brilliantly presented, for a finite God.

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titatively brought to our level, the more he is causally withdrawn and uninvolved. Only the entitatively highest can be
causally closest. Only an infinite God can be roost intimately
present in every fiber and most sensitively attuned to every
pulse of finite things. 11
(iii) Proponents of a finite God also tend to dichotomize
divine power and love. The upshot of the arbitrary splitting
of these two attributes is nothing short of a grotesque caricature. A God of unchecked power, process thinkers tell us,
tramples on pitiable creatures; super-power makes God a supertyrant ever inclined to hurl thunderbolts down on cringing
subjects. So this quasi-Moloch must be toppled and his place
ceded to a God of love exquisitely persuading creatures to ideal
ends. But transmogrification of an omnipotent God into a neardevil rests on a misconception of the relation between divine
power and love. Infinite power does not operate in resplendent
and sinister isolation. The zeal with which finitists repudiate
infinite power as irrational stems from selective disregard of the
overarching wisdom and love that direct and impel divine
power. Not classical theists but finitists, in attaching the label
"God" to irresponsible power, fabricate the bizarre apotheosis
that leaves the intelligent God-seeker disenchanted. For the
power of God operates within the constraints, so to speak, of
a divine nature untainted by the slightest proclivity for the
irrational. The action of God cannot violate a nature one with
infinite intelligence. The power of God is the outflow of the
11 III, 6, 1 ad 1:
". . . creatures are caused by God and depend on him as
the principle of their existence. And then because of the infinity of his power,
God immediately attains any one thing by his causation and conservation." As
I, 8, le and ad 1 and ad S make clear, God entitatively transcends all things but
fa causally immanent in every created entity. Sinoe he is essentially existence, he
is immediately present in all things as the cause of their existence. While immediately causing existence, God mediately or instrumentally applies causes
secundum fieri (which cause this dog to exist) and causes s.ecundum esse (which
cause dog, the form of species); I, 104, 1. Unfortunately, this precision is blurred
in one widely circulated translation that throughout infelicitously renders ease, the
act of being, as being (which seems as analytically and linguistically misguided
as translating anima, the act of a living body, as living being).

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divine nature or, more specifically, the executive expression of
his wisdom and love.12 From the side of the per se good, God
is first of all love that, with reference to the misery of men,
becomes mercy. It is through the exercise of his power that
his mercy is effectively broadcast over all his works. God applies infinite power to procure all the goodness possible within
a lovingly designed finite frame. 13 In short, divine power at
work in the world is an ordered omnipotence. It is limitless
power operative within limits, it is power ordered to the delimited goodness appointed by infinite wisdom.14 Moreover, the
refusal of infinite power tends, contrary to the finitist averral,
to assure the obstruction rather than the release of God's love.
A finite God is a crippled God. He is therefore not more but
less loving than an infinite counterpart. The shrinkage of his
power drastically curtails the energy and variety of his love.
A :finitized God bears a likeness to a gifted brain surgeon whose
vision has been blurred and hands made wooden by a stroke.
Visual distortion and loss of manual flexibility reduce to nearzero efficiency the dexterity that prior to paralysis skilfully
canalized his medical wisdom and humane concern. Boxing divine power within finitude also hamstrings the persuasiveness so
prized in a nonabsolute God. Persuasion cut off from the resources of omnipotence has to be notably enfeebled, and a good
number of the plans to which it is tied have to prove abortive.
But infinite power in the ministry of infinite love, infinite power
serving as an organ of goodness without stint, guarantees an
unrestricted sweep of persuasion that is nothing else than the
free play of infinite wisdom and love toward the optimum
sowing and reaping of shared divine values in the universe.
Only a God of infinite power can be maximally persuasive. His
wisdom disposes all things sweetly according to his love and
all things firmly according to his power. The sweetness is firmly
12 I, 25, I. Power is differentiated from knowledge and will in God not "secundum rem but merely secundum rationem insofar as power conveys the import
of a principle executing what the will commands and knowledge directs."
1 • I, 21, 4 and I, 25, S ad s.
"I, 25, 5c and ad I.

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applied and the firmness sweetly applied, for his power is, to
repeat, nothing but the executive expression of a loving command articulated with infinite discernment. In an infinite God
alone is power maximally loving and love maximally powerful.
(iv) An anthropomorphism lies behind the misrepresentation of God as heartless and despotic. Finitists misuse an otherwise indispensable analogical cognition when they compress
God into a rigidly human mold and render a verdict on the
good or evil implications of his attributes by measures appropriate only to the human situation. God, because he is God,
can be commendably and nonegoistically self-sufficient and allpowerful. To put an infinite God down as cosmically powerdrunk seems to be as illogical as upbraiding a father for dictatorial behavior because he sanely thinks himself wiser than
his three-year-old son and accordingly directs the child in a
nondemocratic fashion that makes only small provision for the
exercise of his son's freedom. Apart from its image-ridden character, this anthropomorphic misconstrual springs from a partially univocistic concept of God. In a blunt, arbitrary manner
Whitehead lays down the stipulation that the ultimate reason
for the world cannot be " wholly transcendent " but must be
in and of " the actuality of this world." 15 Like other finites,
God is potential, temporalized, growing along with his world
that stamps him exclusively as its own. Simple fiat probably
canonized by Kant's self-denying anti-metaphysics of God determines a priori that only a finite God can meet the requirements of divine attributes scaled down to a finitist framework.
Even an infinite God rationally accessible by causal analysis
and proper analogy is doomed to fail any test drawn up in
accord with finitist standards. Furthermore, as mentioned earlier, unbending insistence on the finite in God erases his Godness. However humanly consoling and pictorially appealing,
a finite God is an incoherent admixture of attributes. He is
eternal and temporal, perfect and always growing, all-knowing
and partially ignorant. Univocally conceived, he possesses
18

Religion in the Making p. 59.

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JOHN M. QUINN, O.S.A.

strengths and deficiencies that, while tolerable in a sublimated
human spirit, seem inadmissible in God.16
(v). It would be naive and pretentious to think that these
few brief remarks have let the daylight in on every aspect of
the problem of the one and the many. 11 Indeed if we fully
16 I, 3, 7. A finite God would seem to be self-stultifying: as finite, he has to
be composed of diverse fact<?rs unified by an extrinsic agency-in short, every
fi..'lite is caused; yet as God, he is purportedly the first or uncaused cause.
Though usually not consciously modeled after an angel, the God of finitists
bears a striking resemblance to a super-angel (as suggested in n. 10 above) or,
in accord with angelic hierarchy, a super-seraph. As unrestricted by matter,
the pure form that is angel is relatively infinite (I, 50, 2 ad 4) . The aevum, or
aevitemity, the mode of duration measuring its substance, is relatively tatum
simul (I, 10, 5 ad 2} and, as unbound by time, is relatively infinite (I, 10, 5 ad
4). Its intellect stocked with the forms of things, a top angel can know the universal causes of nature and causally help shape the course of the universe. Quasieternal (insofar as the aevum measures its substance) and temporal (insofar as
it operates in a spiritual time) an angel grows in knowledge through its contact
with beings that it causes. (Much of this is verifiable in the treatise on the
angels from I, 50 to I, 60.) In " In What Sense Is God Infinite? A Process
Perspectice," The Thmnist, 42 (January, 1978), pp. 1-13, Lewis Ford's heroic
efforts to re-infinitize the explicitly finite God of Whitehead and to disengage himself
from the embarrassments of finite theism only serve to underscore further the
paradoxes of a finite God or a supreme seraph. He achieves at best an uneasy
compromise of irreconcilables: an infinitely actual God everlastingly open to fresh
actualization: " God is infinitely actual, yet he can be enriched by the temporal
determinate actualization of the present" (p. 11). While agreeing with Whitehead
that an infinitely determinate being is self-contradictory (p. 13}, he fails to
see that the notion of a supreme (the greatest or infinite in this order) finite
(determinate) being is just as intractably self-refuting. A finite God than which we
can conceive nothing greater is as impossible as the swiftest possible motion or
the greatest possible number; indeed, in the case of a finite God, we must think
of a beyond-the-finite being to account for the universe. As Fr. William Hill, 0. P.,
shrewdly remarks from another angle in a reply, "A Thomistic View,'' in the same
issue, pp. 14-27, both Whitehead a11d Ford miss the meaning of properly infinite actuality becaustl they cannot or do not conceive of a pure act whose essence is subsistent existence (pp. 16-18}. As maximally formal, God is indeterminate-uncontracted by any restrictive potency (I, 7, 1); but as maximally formal, God is
also determinate-he subsists as his own existence. Because a constricted Whiteheadian conceptual vocabulary keeps him from focusing on a God that is, because
maximally existential, maximally formal, · Ford has to fall back on a relatively
infinite bei11g, a super-spirit consanguineous with a super-seraph.
11 Like paradoxes also mar the anthropomorphic God of Berdyaev and Bertocci.
In addition, space limitations bar a thorough scrutiny of the foundations of process
thought. Whitehead's philosophy 0£ nature, with its disastrous a:ppointment of

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understand God, we are not understanding God at all. An infinite God whose eternal mode of operation lies beyond our
experience can never be more than partially intelligible to finite
intellects. The question of the freedom of the creative act
seems especially baffling and shrouded in profoundest mystery .18
But confession of ignorance arising from frank recognition of
the outer bounds of metaphysical knowledge does not retroactively blot out or cast doubt on propositions already established, however skimpily here, about the existence and nature
of an illimitable God.
3. While the eternal mode of an infinite God may forever
slip through the meshes of rational comprehension, the mind
can rest analytically satisfied in the knowledge that precisely
primacy to becoming, is ridden with inner contradictions. Unfortunately, some
Catholic thinkers enchanted with process-thought oversimplifications seem blind
to the numerous incoherencies bedeviling an exaltation of becoming.
18 The problem of precisely reconciling God's immutability
with his decision
to create the universe remains for many an impenetrable enigma. I, 19, 8, obj.
4 explicitly raises the difficulty: Because creation is a free act, it was possible
for God not to will to create; thus the divine will seems contingent ad utrumlibet,
and in opting for creation, God introduced change into his nature. Aquinas's
response (in Sc and ad 4) uncompromisingly stresses the necessity in divine willing.
God's willing of his own goodness is absolutely necessary, and his willing of
created goods suppositionally necessary. (The latter is a sort of factual necessity:
on the supposition that you are reading this sentence, you must be reading this
sentence.) The nonnecessary feature of creation is traceable not to the cause but
to the effect (ad 4) . A similar question is similarly answered in I. 19, 7: God's
will remains unchanged in his willing change in things; and since He cannot be
God without being immutable, his free willing of creation does not introduce the
potential and novel into divine life but betokens what is suppositionally necessary. The reason for Aquinas's insistence on necessity in divine willing is, as
just indicated, clear. Once we do away with immutability, we abandon a rationally
tenable God. The thorny problem -0f meshing absolute and suppositional necessity in God shades off into mystery rooted in the impossibility of our analytically
comprehending the mode of eternal operation, whereas the insertion of change in
the divine nature mires the mind in the paradoxes of a processive God-an irrationality that comes down to a God that cannot be God. We are face to face
with a boggling, an insuperable mystery because we cannot precisely conceive or
properly represent how an eternal being operates. We are brought up short by
the humanly inapprehensible; but such limited knowledge admitting mystery without contradiction seems preferable to a self-contradictory knowledge of a mutable
God without mystery.

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JOHN M. QUINN, o.s.A.

because he is infinite, precisely because he does not sink into
process, he can and does love without limit. The whole meaning
of creation and the key to the mystery of human existence lie
packed within love without limit: only an infinite God can
love creatures with an infinite love. A finite being, sheerly on
its own, has nothing to attract, nothing to contribute to, an
infinite being. The creation of :finites can gain nothing for an
infinite being. How could, why would, God create finites? The
only reasonable answer is that he creates because he is God,
because he is infinite love: finites are made in view of his infinite goodness.19 He loves them, once created, with an infinite
love because they bear within them the imprint, the likeness, of
his infinite goodness. Just as God knows created things in himself as sharers in his divine being, so he wills creatures as
imitators of his goodness with the very same love with which
he loves his own divine goodness.20 The very self-sufficiency
deprecated as the introversion of a tyrant, furthermore, grounds
the divine freedom in creation that betokens a love far greater
than that conceivable in the partly necessitated emanation of
creatures from a process-dominated God. Since God requires no
other good than his all-satisfying infinite goodness, the manysplendored forthgoing of his goodness in creation has its fountainhead not in inexorable necessity but in free generosity.
Bonum est diffusivum sui refers not strictly but only congruously to divine operations ad extra. 21 Out of infinite love
God has freely communicated his goodness. Only an infinite
being could have freely and lovingly fashioned a finite sharing
in the goodness that is himself.
However, the removal of necessity from the creative act, one
perceptive historian of ideas charges, makes the act of creation
irrational and baseless in itself and in its product.
I, 20, 2. The love of God, in contrast to ours, is creative and infusive of good.
I, 19, 5. Here Thomas indulges in a bit of witty word-play: " Hence he
[God] wills that this exist for the sake of this: but not for the sake of this does
he will this." In other words, God wills that this means be ordained to this end,
but he does not will the means in order that he himself may acquire the end.
21 Summa contra Gentiles (Turin:
Marietti, 19!!7), 2, 28 and 85 (henceforth
referred to as CG) .
19

20

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189

... God, even though he did create a world, could have no reason
for doing so. Nothing in his essential nature made it necessary or
desirable for him to bring a universe of imperfect beings into existence: the creative act must therefore be conceived to be entirely
groundless and arbitrary in itself, and therefore in its inclusions and
exclusions ... a created world is a groundless superfluity .... 22

Unfortunately, Lovejoy is unable to see how an intelligent action can be anything other than a spiritually necessary action.
But the world did not emanate from God by natural necessity
or from " his essential nature," nor was God ineluctably determined to create by one overriding reason or motive within his
intelligence. Yet while not necessitated, his creative act cannot be put down as motiveless and his creation as sheer incidental triviality. He did not create for a necessary reason but
for a sufficing reason. Not for a necessary reason: as utterly
actualized and fulfilled, he cannot will this or any universe as a
means to reaping some fresh benefit. But for a sufficing reason:
out of the abundance of his generosity he wills that the universe
exist to reflect and to be ordained to his divine goodness.
Among an indefinite number of possibilities God freely chose
to create this world; freely, but not groundlessly or capriciously,
since his choice rests upon a sufficing reason in his wisdom.
Analogously, human beings are motivated to make rational
choices by nonnecessitating but sufficing reasons. 28 A well-to-do
person who generously desires to give an extra $10,000 to one
of five possible charitable causes (i.e., he is not bound to distribute any of this money) at length decides to offer the gift to,
say, a foreign mission congregation-a decision not necessitated
but surely reasonable. Similarly, God, out of an infinite range
of options, created this world. His nonnecessitated decision
22 Arthur Lovejoy, The Great Chain of Being (Cambridge:
Harvard University
Press, 1936), pp. 156-57.
23 Ruling out as impossible a rational action that is both caused and free, many
contemporary thinkers, whether empiricists or idealists, become trapped in a
mechanical or psychological determinism. In Reason and Analysis (London:
Allen and Unwin, 1962) , pp. 492-93, Brand Blanshard, after rejecting volitional
behaviorism, holds that the rational man must choose " the intrinsically greatest "
of alternative goods in a particular situation.

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JOHN M. QUIN;N, o.s.A.

could not be iITational, since it sprang from his wisdom as well
as his love. It was not determined but arose from a sufficing
reason. Precisely why God opted for this world rather than
another, however, is a secret hidden in the abysses of divine
wisdom.
Part of the mystery of this particular sufficing reason is of
course the inclusion of suffering. This massive fact darkens the
universe that wells up from creative wisdom. Suffering is permitted by an all-loving God to take its origin from nature and
man. Physical evil is the inevitable outcome of a universe
principled in part by matter. The necessity of matter, the iron
law of matter, results in decline, disaggregation, dissolution,
death. 24 Moral evil, along with the pain it inflicts and punishment built into it, is the bad fruit that is always an imminent
real possibility in beings empowered with free will who can
and (as the sordid chapters in history testify) often do elect
to follow twisted paths. 25 It is incoherent and does no good,
we have maintained, to fasten strict suffering upon the divine
nature. To deform God because the universe is deformed frustrates rather than promotes hope of solution. A God in any
way less than impassible is a God destitute of essential Godness.
To make God suffer is to unGod God. A suffering God, we saw
too, is a maimed God. His disability severely cramps the
scope of relief and remedy he can apply to suffering. It is, however, a God blessedly incapable of suffering who enjoys infinite
rein for his knowledge and concern. An actus purus unscarred
by change can, with infinite ingenuity and most tender care,
orient to a superabundance of goodness all the suffering due to
nature and man. A disadvantaged divinity, its powers contracted to finitude, could not, as the infinite does, consistently
and unerringly draw the greatest good out of the vastest conglomerate of evils.26
CG, !il, 80.
Jacques Maritain, St. Thomas and the Problem of Evil (Milwaukee: Marquette
University Press, 194!il), pp. 15-19.
••I, 49, !il. A God only relatively infinite cannot control and direct all contingencies and human evils to the' intrinsic good (the order) or the universe.
2•

23

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191

Here we reach a resignation point. No doubt much more
refinement and rigor can be brought to the foregoing few slight
remarks, but even this scanty presentation does set down in
essentials the range and limits of the light that reason alone
can throw upon the mind-staggering and heart-gnawing problem of a nonsuffering God vis-a-vis a creation harrowed by suffering. Though a dead end brings to a halt the human mind
on its own, suprarational pathways to perhaps further illumination beckon to a Christian believer.

II
In partial justification of a suffering deity finite-God theorists, we saw, limned God the companion as a sort of Jesus
writ large. A super-heroic but naturalized Jesus is one unparalleled mythic symbol of a strictly co-suffering God. An
analysis principled by Christian faith repudiates rationalist
mythology to validate the supernatural in Jesus and pursues
some fertile leads toward a tenable conception of the nexus
between God and suffering exhibited in the theandric being of
Jesus. Recognizing Jesus as the way to the interior of God, we
shall explore two points: first, the sense in which God suffered
in Jesus and, second, the analogical kinship with suffering in
the trinity that we catch sight of through the crucifixion.
1. The curious blurring of the line between the divine and
infra-divine in a process perspective permits a quick review of
the basis in concrete naming for the familiar statement, " God
died on Calvary." Then we shall glance at the everlastingly
ongoing character of the divine mercy represented in the death
of Jesus.
(i) The de-supernaturized reading of Jesus advocated by
Whitehead, Hartshorne, and Bertocci mistakenly portrays God
as like Jesus when, in reality, Jesus is like God. Less ambiguously, their account falls shy of the mark by finitizing God
Our second or theological part deals in more detail with the transcendently
ordained production of good fruit from the bad tree. See nn. 50-55 and 65-67
below, along with corresponding material in our text.

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and by simply failing to grasp that Jesus, while human, is truly
divine. Their strategy of what today is question-beggingly
labeled demythologization saddles the core of the New Testament with Enlightenment-derived prepossessions. The Jesus
of history " purified " by rationalistic exegsis turns out to be
a figure overlaid with and distorted by the " dogmas " or myths
of what we may style the rationalist faith of anti-faith-on
a priori grounds Jesus is debarred. from enunciating supernatural truths and working miracles. A picture of Jesus stripped
of his proper Godness does violence to the Gospel message
and defaces the perfect image that is the Word equal to the
Father. Undeniably an odor of paradox initially clings to the
juxtaposition of the claims, " The author of life died for our
sins " and " God cannot die." What looks like a Credo quia
absurdum dissolves in the light of the familiar (but in our day
somewhat disregarded) communication of properties. Proper
attributes are commonly shared because the divine person personalizes and acts in two distinct natures. " Operations belong
to supposits," goes the scholastic maxim, and therefore the one
I of Jesus expresses itself in a double field of operation. Without incoherence he can make the superficially conflicting
avowals, "Before Abraham was, I am" and "I will be crucified in Jerusalem." From a linguistic angle, only positive concrete terms are veridical vehicles for the communication of
properties, because only a concrete name signifies both supposit
and attribute. Thus the Christian daringly proclaiming that
God died on Golgotha also reverently avers that the holy and
immortal God as such did not die. 27
(ii) In an analytically sharp argument in a moving devo27 III, 16, 1. This rehearsal of a basic solution to one crux in Christology may
not be altogether tedious in a period of theological semi-decadence when, one
hears, certain European theologians have tried to resurrect the hoary error that
there are two persons in Christ. And even a distinguished Anglican theologian
of the caliber of John MacQuarrie oddly feels driven to surrender divine impassibility and thereby abandon divine infinity: "A God of love is inevitably vulnerable for there is no love without suffering"; The Humility of God (Philadelphia: Westminster, 1978), p. 69.

TRIUNE SELF-GIVING

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tional essay Gerald Vann sees the death of Jesus as a sign of
everlasting divine pity. Clearly Jesus died at a certain point
in time, but since the willing of his death originates in the
eternal love of God, the death of Christ is an instant perpetually
operative in events past, present, and future in the eternal
present of God's knowledge. Precisely because God is immutable, he can be constantly there, always involved, timelessly
empathizing with men through his mercy manifested in the
temporal but time-transcending death of Jesus. In God, Calvary shows, there is an infinite will-to-sorrow and joy. God
can experience neither our sorrow nor joy, but his love is a
super-magnificent sympathy that gathers up in itself all the
richest elements (now purged of imperfections) of our sorrow
and joy. So meditation on Calvary pulls back the curtain to
show God not as suffering but as boundlessly caring, as illimitable will-to-share, as infinite love giving himself in the
making and remaking of man. 28
A further step seems plausible. Infinite self-giving tells
the story of God's relation to man only because his self-giving
is inward-directed in a triune fashion. First, the primary analogate of the self-sacrifice of Jesus, which can have no strict
counterpart in God, is the triune self-giving that constitutes
the Godhead. Second, with this self-giving serving as a model
for suprarational moral fulfillment, man is potentially programmed to become Godlike by converting evil into a means
for achieving per se goods. Third, though not a tool of philosophical or theological analysis, prayer is required existentially
to understand evil and to assimilate triune life. Fourth, thus
the human spirit is able to become all things not only by knowledge but also by love that is living union with infinite spirit.
(i) A certain divine logic is lent to suffering when we regard
Christ's life-giving death as a pointer and symbol, first :figurative and then acceptably analogical, of the infinite self-communication of Father, Son, and Holy Spirit to one another
28 Gerald Vann, The Son's Course (London:
pp. 189-44.

Fontana paperback, Collins 1959),

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JOHN M. QUINN, o.s.A.

within the unfathomable center of the divine nature. "Philip,"
Jesus said, "he who sees me sees the Father." 29 · Jesus is the
incarnate revelation of the wisdom and love of God, his whole
life an epiphany of the mind and heart of God. The crowning
point of Jesus's earthly pilgrimage discloses one surprising
meaning of the mysterious divine interior. The words of Jesus
to Philip seem most tellingly verified in the crucifixion. Even
now, in pondering a crucifix, we may discover in the dead Jesus
coercive evidence for what unstoppingly transpires in the
abysses of divine existence. " Greater love than this no man
has, than that he lay down his life for his friend." 30 The physical suffering as such that the innocent Christ bore makes the
crucifix a thing of horror, a close-to-diabolical invention, but
in perfectly accomplishing sacrificial love, the crucified Jesus
is exquisitely beautiful. He is the nonmythical hero second to
none, without exact precedent or like in myth, who abases himself to \Vin back all men to God.31 In Jesus on the cross is perfectly realized selfless love, measurelessly prodigal self-giving.
It goes without saying that Jesus precisely as crucified no more
than metaphorically represents self-sacrifice in the depths of
the Godhead. Plainly God as such cannot immolate himself
for his creatures. Plainly neither Father nor Son nor Holy
Spirit immolates himself for the other two. The holocaust of
Jesus on the cross richly suggests inner divine love but it would
be philosophically fatal and religiously disastrous to press one
side of its import beyond the sheerly figurative.
Nevertheless, Jesus in his moment of unexampled interior
self-sacrifice does reenact, with some analogical literalness, the
infinite love circulating within the Godhead. In a manner impossible to comprehend, the one Absolute that is God is tripersonally relativized so that each of the three persons totally
possesses the one divine nature. The infinite act that is God
John 14:9.
John 15: 18. See I-II, 26, 5 ad 8 and III, 47, 8.
81 Karl Adam, The. Son of God, trans. Philip Hereford
(New York:
Books, Doubleday 1960; first published in 1984), pp. 209-11.
29

•0

Image

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195

is wholly enjoyed by each of the three persons in an unceasing
indwelling and interpenetration of nature and operation. The
one God is infinite three-personal love. The Father eternally
loves the Son and Spirit, the Son eternally loves the Father and
the Spirit, the Spirit eternally loves the Father and the Son.
The Father gives himself completely in the generation of the
Son, then the Father and the Son give themselves to one
another in the spiration of the Holy Spirit.
The triple relativity within God is radicated in infinite immateriality. Only because he is infinite spirit or pure act can
God be truly God. He is absolutely unchangeable, but since
He is infinite, in him nature and action perfectly fuse: so his
nature is changeless activity at its highest pitch. A nature less
than infinite is marked off from operation. Because God is
infinite, he can be three persons yet undivided in nature. Were
he other than infinite, the generation of the Son and procession
of the Spirit would introduce irremediable cleavage among the
persons, with the result that there would not be one God but
three gods. On the plane of spirit the more perfect the procession, the more closely united is the fruit with the source of the
procession. The more elevated and potency-free the intellectual conception, the more intimately joined is it with the
intellect from which it proceeds. Since in God intellection and
intellect are utterly without differentiation, the Word is substantially indistinguishable from the mind of the Father from
which he proceeds. 32 Because divine knowing and willing are
at the summit of immateriality, Son and Spirit can proceed
from the Father without splitting the divine nature into three
distinct beings.
Furthermore, only because God is infinite can each of the
divine persons totally give Himself to the others. In this connection one text seems remarkably pregnant with meaning.
"All things have been delivered over to me by my Father; and
no one knows the Son except the Father, and no one knows the
Father except the Son and anyone to whom the Son chooses to
••I, 27, I ad 2.

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JOHN M. QUINN, O.S.A.

reveal Him." 88 The Father gives all. " It is a word embracing infinities." 34 The Son receives all from the Father: all existence,
all life, all knowledge, all love, an infinity of these. But it is
worth a moment or two, in addition, to fix our eyes on a simple
truth, seemingly almost tautologous at first glance, whose implications are unexpectedly rewarding: if the Son receives all
from the Father, it is only because the Father gives all to him.
Not only does the Father possess the whole of the divine nature
but in fathering the Son, he gives the whole of the divine nature
to the Son. To be an infinite Father means to generate an
infinite Son. 35 To be Father is nothing else than to give all to
the Son.36 As Father, he transmits all his Godness to the Son.
In turn, Father and Son totally give their Godness to the Holy
Spirit, and, to close the circle, the Spirit totally gives himself
in return to the Father and the Son (not of course in the mode
of procession) . Thus God inwardly exists, God is internally
constituted in infinite love because each of the persons is totally
giving himself in the other two. God is infinite self-giving in
virtue of the circumincessory communication of the three persons to one another. Indeed this three-personal co-interactivity
is infinite self-giving; it is God himself. It is as if the Father
emptied himself in pouring himself into the Son and Spirit. It
is as if he laid down his life for the Son and the Spirit. It is
as if he utterly divested himself of self in an infinite gesture
of generosity toward the Son and the Spirit. Each of these
propositions is of course a fagon de parler garbed in metaphorical dress. The Father cannot evacuate himself, cannot strictly
sacrifice himself, cannot de-self himself to the point of nothingness. Yet while imprecise, each of these propositions does con••Matthew
••Karl Adam, The Christ of Faith, trans. Joyce Crick (New York: Mentor
Omega Book, New American Library,
first published in 1957), p. 155.
85 I, 88,
ad 4 and I, 88, 8. The ratio or objective intelligibility of father is
primarily and perfectly realized in the first person of the trinity. The union with
difference between father and fathered could not he closer, for so like the Father
is the Son that they are distinct not in species or substance but in relation only.
Because infinitely Father, he is eternally fathering.
••I, 40,
and I, 41, 8.

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vey some intimation of the unconditioned self-giving within the
life of God. Because immutable, the Father totally pours himself into the Son and the Spirit without loss of his own being.
Because supremely deathless, he hands over all his life to the
Son and the Spirit without forfeiting infinite life. Because infinite spirit, he delivers all of himself over to Son and Spirit
without nothing-ing his own perfection.
Here the thrust of the medieval axiom, Bonum est diffusivum
sui, 37 assumes its fullest necessitarian sense. For those, like
Plotinus and Avicenna, for whom nonnecessary action introduces deficiency in God, the One or highest being has to pour
itself forth rung by rung into inferior beings. 38 Since it is the
Good, the primal entity is ineluctably required to engender
lower orders of being out of itself. The eternal One cannot not
produce the many as gradated participations of itself. However, this inexorably determined proclivity to expand, to express itself in the multiple and various, inserts dependence in
the One and thereby compromises its all-sufficiency along with
its corollary attributes. The irrepressible urge to expression in
the manifold, by rooting the many in the One, makes the One
implicitly, and incongruously, many. Because this necessitarian
interpretation of cosmic origins brings in its train the awkward
37 According to De veritate (Turin:
Marietti, 1927), 21, 1 ad 4, diffusion properly refers to the activity of an efficient cause and is said only in the broad sense
of other species of causation. But diffusion of the good as such pertains to the
final cause, because the good bespeaks perfection and possession of the entire being
of a thing, both attainable only in the line of finality. Lesser beings do not
spontaneously and automatically irrupt from the divine substance, because God
creates with free intelligence (CG, 2, 23). Nor are all possibles poured forth
infinitely since creation springs from a definite form of the divine mind (I-II, 4
v_d 1). Contrary to Lovejoy, op. cit., p. 76, not "by inconsequence" but by
rigorous consequence does Aquinas refuse to assign an infinity of effects inexorably
flowing from God. A God bound to generate such an actual infinity could not
be actually infinite.
88 A. C. Pegis, "Necessity
and Liberty: An Historical Note on St. Thomas
Aquinas," Proceedings of the American Catholic Philosophical Association (Washington: Office of National Secretary, 1941), Q6, especially pp. 15-21. Benignus
Gerrity, F.S.C., Nature, Knowledge and God (Milwaukee: Bruce, 1947), pp.
565-66, incisively criticizes emanationism.

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fusion of the One with the many, medieval creationists were
chary about attaching more than a loose or accommodated
sense to the axiom as regards divine operations ad extra. Yet
the axiom may be accorded the strongest literal force in the
divine operations ad intra, for no being is more necessary than
God, no life more necessary than his interior life. God is necessarily one in nature and three in persons. The Father has to
engender the Son, the Father and Son have to spirate the Holy
Spirit. The Father has to father, the Father has to give all of
himself, all that is the divine bonum, to the Son. Circumincessively each of the divine persons is everlastingly "diffusing"
or communicating all of himself to the other two. In the perspective of love Bonum est diffusi,vum sui may be called one
law of divine Iife.39 God has to love God, each of the divine persons has to love totally the other two, each of the divine persons has to pour himself unstintingly into the other two. 40

••In the light of the good (the eliciting or finalistically diffusive factor) identical
with the divine substance the Father communicates the whole of the divine nature
to the Son (I, 41, 3) . The same good one with the divine nature of course elicits
the joint spiration of the Holy Spirit.
Only while reworking these notes did I run across a like application of this
dictum to trinitarian life in Pedro Descoqs, S. J., lnstitutio-nes metaphysicae
generalis (Paris: Beauchesne, 1925), I, p. 411: ''. , , in the Trinity- God communicates himself in the most complete, the most intimate fashion and realizes
in the highest degree that perfection of the rarest essence that consists in giving
itself to itself: diffiisivum sui." However, while emphasizing that the divine love
of friendship is absolutely disinterested and totally devoid of egoism (pp. 402-04),
Descoqs does not find in the total self-giving of the holy three the divine superequivalent of crucified love.
••A word or two may be in order concerning expressions that at first blush
may look ambiguous or slipshod. (i) If, departing from some contemporaries,
we demur at apotheosizing freedom, we cannot be expected to fret over the fact
that God, as necessarily centered on his divine goodness, is not free not to be
God. (ii) In speaking of law as a necessary pattern of operation within the Godhead, we are of course not using law in its strict Thomistic sense (God cannot
prescribe a rule for himself; eternal law applies to the universe; I-II, 93, 1) but
with contemporary import, according to which law signifies a uniform pattern
of activity in a thing or events. (iii) Our afl'ectivity-laden language is only
apparently at loggerheads with the Thomistic theory that the Word proceeds
by way of knowledge and the Spirit by way of love. The outstreaming of the
:Father's originative life that is the generation of the Son is more than just knowing;

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God in his triune life is not, as Whitehead's grating and careless (though not necessarily incorrect) phrase would have it,
"the ultimate irrationality." 41 Rather, he is, in a less catchy but
more appropriate description, the ultimate rationality or selfsufficient reason for all things, expecially for his rational creatures. His law of life is meant to serve in a participated way as
the law of human living. With the light it affords, suffering and
foulness in evil may begin to take on some wider and deeper
"rationality" or intelligibility. One reading of the verses immediately following the above-quoted line from Matthew
promises strongly persuasive, perhaps coercive, support for the
claim that out of his ineffably intimate communion with the
Father Jesus came to bear witness to this inwardly divine truth,
to reveal the great law of trinitarian life as the paradigm for
perfected human existence. (Unfortunately, in spite of the
fact that they follow fast on the heels of verse 27, verses 28-30
are ordinarily not glossed as the specific sequel to verse 27, i.e.,
as spelling out unmistakably what Jesus came precisely to reveal about the inner life of God.) lmbedded in these three
verses, unquestionably among the most alluring and consoling
of New Testament passages, is the secret of human victory
over suffering. " Come to me, all of you who labor and are
heavy-laden, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you
and learn from me: for I am gentle and lowly in heart, and
you will find rest for your souls. For my yoke is easy and my
burden light." 42 When we acknowledge Christ as the suffering
servant, we penetrate to the bosom of the Father, we learn the
Father's inner meaning by existentially learning the meekness
and lowliness of the Son. Jesus borne to the ultimate point of
it is a loving-knowing. Though secondary, love is unmistakably present. The
Father knows the Son (and the Son the Father) with the most intimate, most
love-suffused sort of knowledge.
"Alfred North Whitehead, Science and the Modern World (New York: Macmillan 1925), p. 257: " God is the ultimate limitation and his existence the ultimate irrationality." Yet a few lines later less cumbersome language makes the
point without straining for effect: "No reason can be given for the nature of
God, because that nature is the ground of rationality."
••Matthew 11:28-80.

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JOHN M. QUINN, O.S.A.

self-sacrifice mirrors the triune self-giving that originates in
the Father. The self-diffusiveness of God in God is absolutely
necessary, for without the self-donation of the Father to the
Son in the Holy Spirit there would be simply no God. The
participated law of life of self-giving, however, is only relatively necessary. If this fallen world was to be justly redeemed,
it was necessary that the Son of Man suffer and so enter into
glory; and therefore every man must suffer as Jesus did so as
to share in his exaltation. At the center of the humble obedience whereby Jesus subjected himself to death on a cross was
a self-surrender in union with the will of the Father-a will with
which is identified the self-giving that, we saw, is the law of
divine life. Schooling in the selflessness of the Father consists
in embracing the cross. Out of the self-giving of the holy three
well peace and joy, and out of the self-giving exhibited in
bearing an " easy " cruciform yoke stream an analogically like
serenity and rejoicing.
To some this may sound suspiciously like a thinly disguised
effort to pass off a slight reworking of an old and soft spiritualtheological reading of Matthew 11: 28-30 as hard theological
analysis. Yet familiarity may breed contempt inasmuch as
familiarity breeds myopia. Customary acquaintance with persons, things, or texts tends to fuzz perception of striking features below the surface. Our formulation of hopefully fresh
analytical probing of this text may limp, but lameness of expression should not entirely deter one from noticing that, apart
from its usual spiritual-theological resonances, this text compactly records the intimate association of God ad intra with
suffering. Though wholly other, the God of Christians does not
stand off at an infinite distance from and cold as a polar night
to the suffering of man. If each divine person could, he would
empty himself, he would lay down his life and nothing himself
for the other two. In triple self-giving is achieved the divine
super-equivalent of consummatory self-sacrifice.
But there is more; or the more in the awesome fact that man
is to ascend to a divine estate may be more aptly and forcibly
put. The Two Sources of lJ!loralif;y and Religion comes to a

TRIUNE SELF-GIVING

close with the profound words: ". . . the universe
is a
machine for the making of gods." ' 8 The human universe has
been designed and redesigned to equip men to share in and be
built into the very divine life of Jesus. In becoming like Christ,
men become like God, or, in the bolder yet tradition-ratified
phrase, men become gods. St. Augustine sums up the divine
program in a rhetorically striking but theologically sober line:
" God became man so as to make men gods." 44 God became
incarnate in Jesus so that in him everyone could become an incarnate god. Each is intended to become by adoptive appropriation what Jesus is by nature, a son of God. No antecedent theoretical impossibility forbids the Word of God to
assume all human natures (but such an assumption brings with
it one inconvenience-it would blot out all ontically personal
differences among the individual human natures; each one's I,
while indicating a distinct individual human nature, would signify the numerically one and the same personal referent) .45 Yet
in fact, only one human nature has been personalized by the
Word. This anointed individual mediates participation in his
personal Godness. Inscribed in a human spirit, this shared impress of God revolutionizes him, turns him into a new mannew because, despite the prima facie ring of paradox, he is now
a god.46
••Henri Bergson, The Two Sources of Moral,ity and ReUgion, trans. R. Ashley
Audra and Cloudesley Brereton (New York: Holt, 1985), p. 806. Bergson is
not theologizing but dialectically or hypothetically philosophizing about what he
takes to be indubitable religious data, the encounters with God of Christian mystics.
According to Madeleine Barthelmy-Madaule, Bergson Adversaire de Kant (Paris:
Presses Universitaires de France, 1966), pp. 19-97, Bergson's venture neither presupposes nor necessarily disposes toward Christian faith. Inasmuch as Bergson
confiines himself to a religion within the limits of experience, his exploitation of
mystical experience represents an experimental approach to the problem of God.
But the insight quoted in our text leaves off probability and becomes a strict
truth in a Christian context.
l; PL 88,
For other texts see the fine textual study of
•• SeNno
Victorino Capanaga, 0. R. S. A., " La deificaci6n en la soteriologia agustiniana "
in Augustinus Magister (Paris: Etudes Augustiniennes, 1954), II, pp. 745-54.
43 Ill, 1, 4, 5.
•• Elsewhere Augustine clarifies his .bold but accurate language about the deification of man by specifying that we are " deified by his [God's] grace, not bom

JOHN M. QUINN, O.S.A.

BD'num est diffusivum sui operates with absolute necessity
within the Godhead; the circuminfluent good totally possessed
three times over constitutes the necessarily triune God. Communicated to mankind by a relative necessity whose particular
reason lies in the divine wisdom, the self-expansive good issues
in participated gods. The world of man is then a nonpantheistic
theophany. Human life is surcharged with the presence of God,
big with a shared Godness, transfigured by the presence of God
in gods.
(ii) Any temptation to romanticizing about a swift, painless, and near-automatic ascent to the plane of the divine is
deflected by fresh meditation on the law of self-sacrifice in between the lines of the law of the diffusiveness of the good. Man
does not simply evolve into a god over a period of time. Nor,
contrary to the claims of gnostics and Spinozists, does he start
to dwell in realms divine merely by coming to discern by intellectual discipline alone that he is already a god. Man normally rises to full Godly estate only along the path beaten
out by the Word made flesh. The imitation of God mediated
through the imitation of Christ is the imitation of the cross.
The image of the cross carved in the human spirit transforms
a man into a perfect image of God. Humiliation works exaltation, suffering flowers out into power and glory. Every yes said
to suffering says no to the old self and more and more shapes
a man into a living god imaging the living God. 47
Of itself suffering tends to disfigure rather than to transfigure
the self within. 48 When hotly raged against or bitterly defied or
of his substance "; we are gods in virtue of adoptive grace, not in virtue of the
generative divine nature; Enarratfones in Psal,mos, 49, 2; PL 86, 865. According
to St. Thomas, grace deifying man (I-II, 112, 1) is a subjective divinization
only in the line of quality (I-II, llO, 2 ad 2). See M.-M. Labourdette, "Consortes
divinae naturae" in Melanges a la memoire de Charles De Koninck (Quebec: Les
Presses de l'Universite Laval, 1968), pp. 199-204.
• 7 This seems implied in the great hymn to Jesus the Lord in Philippians 2:5-11.
The disciple existentially proclaiming Jesus Lord shares his lordship by personally
reenacting, in some measure, the passion.
••Thomas Merton, No 11!fan Is an Island (New York: Doubleday Image paperback, 1967; first printed in 1955), pp. 70-74.

TRIUNE SELF-GIVING

208

grimly endured in the Stoic manner, suffering can debase,
brutalize, savage, or, at best, toughen the personality. Only
by divine redirection can suffering ennoble man. Power that
is the exercise of divine wisdom and love turns suffering into
a vehicle to humanize and superhumanize man. What is of itself evil can be made to fructify, consistently and over the long
haul, in the per se good. The centuries-old dilemma challenging
the reality of God through the problem of evil is not to be
lightly dismissed. If, the difficulty runs, God is all-powerful
when evils flourish, he cannot be all-good--else he would provide for the abolition of evil; but if he is all-good, he cannot
be all-powerful-else he would not hesitate to wipe out all evil.49
The strength of this argument lies in an insight into the inevitable emergence of evil from evil, but its weakness lies in an
oversight, neglect of the import of divine transcendence. Hence
the conclusion, which effectively denies an infinite God, is a
non sequitur. For it is precisely because God is infinite that
he all-lovingly and all-powerfully uses evils for, or extracts from
them, equivalent or greater goods. The existence of evils
transcendently oriented toward per se goods does not contest
but attests a God at once all-good and all-powerful. 50
God's transcendent ordination of evils to goods may be instructively compared to his transcendent direction of chance
events to the intrinsic good of the universe and to the transhistorical goal of history. Flukes happen rarely and lie outside
the lines of any proper determination. A chance event may be
described as the result of, or simply as the point of intersection
of, two independent causal lines. 51 To no proper or determinate
cause can be traced the occurrence of an incidental or indeterminate event. In the line of nature only an incidental effect
can follow upon an incidental cause. But on the level of divine
•• I, 22, 2, second objection.
50 I, 22, 2 ad 2.
51 The description bears on a chance event or chance as an effect.
Viewed
properly, as a cause, chance may be defined as an incidental cause of things that
happen rarely in the line of finality. In octo libros Physicorum Aristotelis e:xrpositio,
ed. P. M. Maggiolo, 0. P. (Turin: Marietti, 1954), II, 1. 8, n. 10 and 1. 10, n. 8.

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JOHN M. QUINN, O.S.A.

transcendence or the universal cause casual events are made
to subserve a per se good, the intrinsic good of the cosmos or
the universe. 52 It would seem pedantic, while listening to a
homily or common-sense remark, to cavil at statements like
" Because divine providence runs everything, there is no such
thing as chance." But laid open to rigorous scrutiny, a proposition of this sort seems technically erroneous or, at best, cumbrously ambiguous. 53 Chance events, while subsumed under a
higher order of determination according to transcendent wisdom, remain immanent and naturally nonnecessary and indeterminate.54 Analogously, but perhaps more ingeniously, infinite goodness and power permit evils, which are only incidentally causative of good, to issue in goods per se intended on
the plane of transcendence. Just as the death of the zebra helps
preserve the life of the lion, so in the more delicate dimension
of moral evil the murderous cruelty of tyrants is divinely exploited as an occasion for the heroic patience of martyrs. 55 On
the level of immanence the good tree bears only good fruit and
the evil tree only evil fruit, but through divine ordination good
fruit can be plucked from evil actions. Infinite wisdom weaves
destruction due to malice into a dazzling pattern of moral
beauty. Still, it would be a mistake similar to a transcendent
suppression of chance to speak as if providential ordination of
evil to good rubs out the per se distinction between good and
evil. Transcendent determination of essential evil to essential
good does not cancel the incidental and indeterminate nexus
between good and evil on the level of immanence. Good as
such cannot flow from evil as such; only incidentally at times
does evil spin off from good on the plane of immanence.
••I, 49, :l.
••In Prevoir et savoir (Montreal: Edition de l'Arbre, 1944), pp. 82 ff., Yves
Simon rejects as unsatisfactory Bossuet's reduction of chance to a mere formula
to paper over our ignorance. Chance, Simon astutely observes, remains ineliminable
at the level of immanence. " Indeed only at the level of the First Cause, at the
level of the divine decree that organizes chance in a design whose ways are unsearchable, is the plurality of causes ultimately unified."
••I, 22, 2 ad I; 108, 7 ad 2; 116, 1 ad !l; CG, 8, 74.
•• I, :l2, 2 ad 2. I, 48, 2 ad 8.

TRIUNE SELF-GIVING

205

The tendency to absorb the immanent within the transcendent is conspicuously reversed among some religious and philosophical rationalists who collapse into immanence what belongs
to transcendent finalization. One perceptive contemporary,
straining to bar all doors against all possible intrusions of
empiricism, casts a causal net so wide that there are no events
past or present which are not causally related. The shooting
of a gun in Yorkshire and the writing of a poem in Bloomsbury
are causally linked because the ancestors of both sportsman
and poet crossed the English Channel with William the Conqueror. All events in nature and the human world are knotted
together by direct or indirect causal interconnection. 56 A world
void of incidental factors and stripped bare of chance, however,
is a natural world from which nature has been evacuated, 57
a world in one way not less but more irrational than one with
acausal events. The devouring of the indeterminate by the
determinate spawns a freakish pseudo-causal network. Thus
a Philadelphia congressman is advocating a new energy policy
in Washington, D. C., because it is raining in Seattle; and
these are happening because Carla, a German shepherd, has
just delivered a litter of nine puppies, from which two art; to
be culled; because the congressman's niece is repainting her
apartment; and so on and on and on. What happens to happen,
whatever occurs with collateral contemporaneity, whatever is
just factually conjoined but causally disjoined-all these incidentals are now oddly invested with a hard-and-fast necessary
connection through an indiscriminate use of the term " because" that comes to connote absurdity. 57 "
Perhaps worse than a super-rationalized nature breeding irrationals without end is a necessitarian scheme that conjures
56 Blanshard, op. cit., pp. 472-78. Though this impressive work devastates recent
brands of positivism and linguistic analysis that have gained a stranglehold on large
sectors of English-speaking philosophy, its epistemologically oriented idealism
unfortunately lacks a sound philosophy of nature.
• 1 CG, 8, 72.
57 " Charles De. Koninck acutely discusses necessity and contingency in (Reflexions
sur le probleme de l'indeterminisme," Revue Thomiste, 48 (1987), pp. 227-52.

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JOHN M. QUINN, o.s.A.

away moral evil, as is the case in Spinoza's monism. In his
geometrized fusion of God and nature all features of the universe emanate from God as inevitably as properties spring from
the nature of a triangle. In a first stage lumping moral with
physical evil and extruding free choice as illusory, murderers
are no more blameworthy than poisonous snakes or ill-tempered
dogs-their individual essences are aberrant. In a second stage,
on the heights of intuitive knowledge, the mind no longer fettered by sense-laden and passion-twisted judgments sees all
evil as mere lower-order appearance. From the vantage point
of eternity, at the apex named the intellectual love of God, the
mind healed of delusions grasps the entire universe as exceptionlessly ordered and wholly beautiful. In the unbroken sunlight of divine understanding of all things in their causes, flaws
evaporate, and every bit of experience falls into place as part
of the stupendous concert of nature one with the matchless
divine substance. 58 The apparently uncompromising scientific
rigor and masterly simplicity of this vision have charmed and
disarmed some ordinarily hard-headed naturalists, 59 but for
all its lure, the Spinozistic outlook betrays, at bottom, an ugly
justification of evil. Behind the austere mathematical visage
of Spinoza's God lie the mind and heart of a fiend. Out of his
nature flows all evil; with cold calculatio_nhe directly causes not
only disease but all the vile hatred of man for man. 60 More58 Benedict de Spinoza, Ethics, trans. W. Hale 'Vhite, revised by Amelia Hutchison Stirling (London: Oxford University Press, 1980), I, 17, Scholium, pp. 20-U;
I, Appendix, pp. 48-46; IV, Preface p. 179; IV, 64, Corollary, p. 238; V, 25, 27,
28, pp. 270-72. A. Wolf, Spinoza's Short Treatise on God, Man, and His WellBeing (New York: Russell and Russell, 1968; first printed in 1910), I, 10, pp.
59-60. Metaphysica Cogitata, I, 8, in Benedict de Spino%:< Opera quae supersunt
omnia, ed. Charles H. Bruder (Leipzig: Tauchnitz, 184<l), p. 182.
••John H. Randall, The Career of Philosophy (New York: Columbia University
Press, 1962), I, pp. 449-50, rhapsodizing over the fruits of Spinoza's determinism,
incongruously hails its " causal knowledge " as the ground of freedom to " do
whatsoever things are best." Determinism is theoretically unthinkable and practically unlivable; only academics dialectically clever in word-play can cherish the
illusion that human choices can be free because they are rigidly determined.
••In Opus imperfectum contra Julianum, V (quoted in Journet, up. cit., p.
78, n. 85) Augustine writes: " I have not gone mad nor do I say: God creates
evil." A God that apes the devil seems morally insane.

TRIUNE SELF-GIVING

over, Spinozist beatitude is not liberation from all illusions but
is itself a new, suffocating illusion of the academic mind that
can support only a bogus serenity. Spinoza's single-mindedness
locks him" in the well-lit prison of one idea." 61 Thinking away
all of moral evil and its horrors as mere illusions theoretically
banishes and practically surmounts evil no more than tearing
out one's eyes does away with the fact that lying battered and
bloodied at our feet is the corpse of our murdered mother. The
final satisfaction of Spinoza's intellectual love of God is a
pseudo-peace because it is grounded in a pseudo-eternity. The
sub specie aeternitatis of Spinoza is really a sub specie immobilitatis rnathematicae. What passes for the eternity of God
is simply the timelessness of mathematical forms. 62 Spinoza's
God is, in truth, an idealized mathematician engrossed in the
contemplation of a mathematical order cognitively detached
from the bite of material existents, the corruption due to matter, and the malice erupting from the human heart. But retreat
to a redoubt of mathematicized determinism cannot go on forever. Formal abstraction from tension and the dynamic toward
the good is an abstraction, not an existential separation- 63 the
physical world remains one of movement and final causes, one
of conflict, breakdown, and, among men, wickedness. A mathematically rationalized annihilation of suffering and sin is a moral
irrationalism. Deducing the total unreality of evil leaves intact
brute moral data that cannot not continue to rend the minds
and hearts of the most dedicated Spinozists. 64
81 This telling phrase occurs in one of G. K. Chesterton's better-known works,
but I have not been able to pinpoint the precise place.
82 Whereas for Aquinas
(I, 16, 7 ad 2) universals betokening truths, while
timeless and everywhere the same, are eternal only as resident in a transcendent
mind, for Spinoza the mind of God is eternal after the model of an immanent
mathematicizing intellect.
88 The dictum, " The good does not exist in mathematicals," is verified in mathematicals that, in abstracting from motion, lack the ratio of an end (though the
good from the angle of being does belong to mathematicals); In Metaphysicorum
Aristotelis commentaria, ed. M. P. Cathala, O. P. (Turin: Marietti, 1925), Ill, 1.
4, n. 885; I, 5, 8 ad 4.
•• As the title indicates, Errol Harris in Salvation from Despair: A Reappraisal
of Spinoza's Philosophy (Nijhoff: The Hague, 1978) discovers in Spinoza revisited

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JOHN M. QUINN, O.S.A.

Immanental extrusion of chance and evil not only robs existence of its poignancy but strips nature and human nature of
all meaning. The removal of chance, we saw, denaturalizes
nature. The erasure of moral evil turns the human drama into
a tale without pungency, almost without point, that, from one
angle, resembles a farce. History without tragedy is a derealized story, a fantasy of nursery-school mentality. Absolutely speaking, in the line of nature and human action, chance
and moral evil do indeed exist as massive and, in part, fearsome
facts. But relative to God, on the level of transcendence, they
are ordered to the determinate and the per se good. No metaphysical legerdermain, no deductionistic waving of the dialectical wand, can make moral evil vanish. In itself it stays
intractably evil, but infinite wisdom, we saw, extrinsically ordains it to the production of per se good. The death of God
in Jesus, we remarked also, was the most execrable act in the
history of the world. Yet out of this most abominable of
horrors sprang the best of goods-the redemption and divinization of the human race. Of itself the crucifixion was unspeakably evil, yet English-speaking people can nonparadoxically
designate this darkest of days Good Friday because the love
of the Father operative in Jesus directed, on the level of
transcendence, his death to the sovereign supernatural good of
mankind. Similarly, all the evils plaguing the human spirit
can be finalistically turned into a source of greater goods.65
All the efficiency-killings like those at Auschwitz and in the
antiseptic abortion mills, all the crookedness, all the towering
malignancy of human existence-all these indelible blotches on
human history in themselves defy systemization. They remain
a salvific message for minds tortured by the prospective nightmares of ecological
disasters and a nuclear holocaust. His rereading wisely but nonSpinozistically
interprets Spinoza's determinism out of existence. Purportedly Spinozistic in inspiration, his kerygma is a nonSpinozistic rationalism promising beatitude through
the " measured cadence of the confident yet sober march of triumphant reason "
(p. :'l58).
65 III, l, 8 ad 8. "God permits evils to occur so that he may then draw forth
something better. Hence Romans 4:20 says: '"Where sin abounded, grace
abounded all the more '."

TRIUNE SELF-GIVING

moral irrationals, without analytical rhyme or reason, yielding
no definable raison d'etre, disclosing no specifiable theoretical
and practical intelligibility. Of itself a world in which much
moral imbalance is never redressed does not, at bottom, make
sense. The sufficient reason of moral evil and its fruits is not
of this world; it is not" subjectified" in human history. 66 Evil
becomes understandable only in the light of the cross symbolizing the infinitely transfiguring power of divine wisdom and
love. The way of the cross, exemplified in patience under
hammer-blows and pinstabs clue to moral evil, is, we saw, the
route to upbuilding in Godness. But on this side the greater
number of the details of this divine conquest of evil slip through
our fingers. Only on the day of the Lord, the transhistorical
moment crowning history, will there flash before our eyes the
whole drama, the unimaginably complex pattern first unfolded
on the day of creation, in which in a trillion-times-a-trillionfold
manner contingencies subserve determinate ends and moral
evils fructify in per se goods.67
(iii) But it takes more than the dry light of the intellect,
however valuable, to enter fully into Godness. Besides concatenated discourse there are other avenues, extra-analytical
but broadly rational, for examining more searchingly the problem of God vis-a-vis suffering. Surely one of the most precious
of these is prayer. 68 To recommend prayer is of course not to
disrecommend hard thinking. Prayer serving as an additional
channel of light is neither escape from nor substitute for strenuous ratiocination. If it is naive to hold that praying can do
double duty as philosophizing, it seems pseudo-sophisticated to
hold that philosophy practically dispenses with need for prayer.
Here we can only touch on a single point: as communion with
God, prayer experientially dilates mind and heart to fuller reception of the loving plan that mysteriously permits evil.
••Charles De Koninck, "The Nature of Man and His Historical Being," Laval
theologique et philosophique, 4 (n.2, 1949), p. 274.
67 Supplementum,
88, le and 2 ad 2.
68 In our sketchy account prayer epitomizes, i.e., implies rather than excludes, all
the constituents of the historic Christian cultus, notably sacrifice and sacraments,
that mediate union with God.

JOIIN M. QUINN, O.S.A.

For Bergson Christian mystics are the highest flowering of
human life in union with the creative currents of divine life.
Apparently acentric, they represent the central vocation of man
lived to its fullest in dynamic religion. Drinking continually
from the fountain of divine life, they become stupendous coworkers with God in molding the spiritual universe. 69 In them
fire that spurts out like rockets from divine creativity burns
afresh with the most brilliant intensity. Many succeed in accomplishing what is vocationally next-to-impossible, the simultaneous enjoyment of completely contemplative and active
lives. A Catherine of Siena and a Teresa of Avila were nearly
wholly absorbed in the divine, and through union with the Wisdom that is Love authored masterpieces of spiritual literature.
Yet both consumed themselves in revitalizing institutions of
the Church and indirectly in helping to remake the society of
their day. 70 According to the pragmatic (not pragmatistic)
text of Matthew 7: 16, "By their fruits you shall know them"
(dialectically applied here by Bergson) , the irrefutable witness
of their lives certifies the soundness and fundamental truth
of mystics' claims to be in intimate commerce with God. No
victims of self-hallucination could produce mystical literature
of their sinew or shrewdly succeed in demanding practical pursuits. No moral charlatans could embody the day-in-and-dayout purely spiritual single-mindedness and selflessness observed
by clear-sighted companions. In line with the problem of
wrestling with evil, we may add, mystics are generally gifted
with tremendous capacity for suffering and a facility for
exuding a fragrant peace amid the storms and shocks of living.
Whatever theory of spirituality we favor, we have to bow to
•• Bergson, op. cit., pp. 221, 243.
70 Ibid., pp. 216-17.
Within a strictly Christian framework we can accord
Bergson's conclusion only qualified approval. In To Deny Our Nothingness (New
York: Dell, 1967), pp. 70-71, Maurice "Friedman perceptively catches two discrepancies between Bergson's concept and the Christian image of a man. In
addition to overrating the sheerly pragmatic effects of mysticism, Bergson tends
to subordinate the traditional meanings of God and Christian love to creative
energy.

TRIUNE SELF-GIVING

211

the fact that some individuals seem to be souls of predilection,
religious geniuses of a sort, dwelling in skyey realms of the spirit.
Few can scale the heights of mysticism, yet all can aspire to
walk the less elevated path of prayer that without mystical
marriage and inward thaumaturgy lead to fruits essentially the
same as, but of a lower degree than, those mystics achieve.
Through prayer mind and heart become more and more existentially assimilated to the mind and heart of God, with
the result that an individual acts as co-creator with divine
love stamped with wisdom and expressing itself in power.
Prayer frees the mind to see the hand of God not only in a
blood-red sunset and snow-capped mountains but also in disease
and pain and man's inhumanity to man. 71 Philosophy and theology prove God personal but in prayer we come to know him
personally and converse with him in a I-Thou encounter. Addressing God familiarly, loving him as his truest friend, the individual who prays is enabled to judge evil with a modicum
of God's wisdom and to accept lovingly ravages of a cancer and
brutal blows of enemies (and, at times, friends) as Fatherly
discipline toward purification and humility.
(iv) The rationalist outlook itself, is not disenthralled from
illusions, and one of the most seductive and longlived is the
doughty conviction that knowledge can usher in felicity in
abundance. Perhaps the paradigmatic case of philosophy assuming the prerogatives and aims of religion is found in
Spinoza's cognitive blueprint for blessedness. Drop the monism
and mathematicism; benignly neglect the crude contradiction
in a rigid determinism coupled with exhortations to throw off
bonds of passion; skip the counter-realistic suppression of evil;
and what remains is an initially attractive program for salvation by reason alone, an ideal not uncongenial to some contemporaries. Individual troubles bedevil us and social woes
swamp us because, we are told, we shrink from fearlessly constructing the bigger concepts required to solve or avert our
71 Evelyn Underhill, Practical Mysticism (New York:
Dutton, 1948; first published in 1915), pp. 168-68.

JOHN M. QUINN, O.S.A.

problems. Meredith's prayerful lines (with perhaps the reference to the Lord deleted or designated mythical) encapsulate
rationalist hopes:
More brain, 0 Lord, more brain! or we shall mar
Utterly this fair garden we might win. 72

More brain, more unveiling of the secrets of nature, a surer
grasp of the whole sweep of cosmic causation-in this lies the
promise of a new Garden of Eden. But the moral barbarity
of this scientifically brainiest of centuries belies the easy equation of maximized cognition with salvation. Theoretical knowledge is a bonum honestum, an intrinsic good, but not a bonum
per se, a moral good; it can be used for evil ends. 73 Theoretical
knowledge, even the truly metaphysical, exercises small influences on the regimen of appetities making for moral virtue.
Thus farflung understanding of the reasons for and the implications of evil and suffering does not empower the human
spirit to surmount them. At best a rationalist sage can dispassionately withdraw from evil and suffering by a lonely retreat to a quasi-metaphysical eyrie.
72 Quoted in Jacques Barzun, Of Human Freedom (Boston:
Little, Brown, 1939),
p. 275. The source, uncited by Barzun, is sonnet XL VIII of poems of "Modern
Love" in George Meredith, Poems:, I (New York: Scribner, 1910), p. 278. We
are using these lines (which in Meredith's context bear on the need for practical
wisdom in husband-and-wife exchanges) in Barzun's accommodated sense, with its
commitment to pragmatistic meliorism.
78 Because sought for its own sake, every intellectual good, whether theoretical
or practical, is a bonum hones:tum (I, 5, 6c and ad 2) . But a mathematician and
a physicist are only relatively good, i.e., as regards the perfection of the speculative
intellect, for their knowledge can be turned to evil purposes. Only the man of
good will, whose actions are governed by prudence in line with right desire, is
absolutely good. Thus only the good of moral virtue is bonum per se or an absolute
good; I, 5, 1 ad I; De virtutibus: in communi (Turin: Marietti, 1927), 7 ad 2. Even
practical knowledge limited to the mode of the knowable (such as moral philosophy), i.e., detached from the mode of inclination, cannot necessarily guarantee a
bonum per se through good action. On this last point see Charles De Koninck,
" The Moral Responsibilities of the Scientist," Laval theologique et philosophique,
6 (n.2, 1950), pp. 353-54. For a penetrating, wide-ranging critique of the modem
lumping of the bonum honestum with the bonum per se, described as an identification of freedom and virtue, see Reinhold Niebuhr, Faith and History (New York:
Scribner, 1949), pp. 70-101,

TRIUNE SELF-GIVING

It is prayer that brings with it the existential knowledge and
love required to face rather than fly from evil and suffering and
to triumph interiorly over them. In the line of knowledge, according to Aristotle, the human soul can become all things. 74
This cognitive infinite potentiality is surpassed by the gift of
God that " infinitizes" man, i. e., endows him with a share in
the very life of infinite spirit. Insofar as he is graced, insofar
as he participates in the divine nature, an individual may be
said subjectively to become God. But God does not become
this individual. In virtue of grace God dwells supernaturally
in a soul, where he is present not subjectively but objectively
(otherwise God or the soul would forfeit personal identity) .75
In the famous phrase, God is present in the soul " as the known
in the knower and the thing loved in the lover." 76 The knower
becomes the other as other; the graced soul cognitively becomes
God in his Godness, albeit in a dark manner. This knowledge
is achieved not in the line of doctrine and discourse but in the
affective and intuitive mode. In virtue of the gift of wisdom,
so salient in the holy, the mind is connaturally assimilated to
God, sympathetically uttering his presence. Because wisdom
is rooted in and transfused by charity, the more God is loved,
the more he is affectively known, concretely grasped in a loving
embrace. In the spiritually mature, discourse effectively drops
away, and the mind intuitively gazes upon the truth that God
is charity. 77 In a certain sense the will also becomes the good
it desires but after the fashion of an outgoing likeness. As a
part, each man is naturally and completely ordered to God as
a whole. Charity supernaturally explicitates this deepest direcMarietti, 1925), ed.
a In Aristotelis librum De anima commentarium (Turin:
Angelo M. Pirotta, 0. P ., III, 1. 13, nn. 788-90.
75 In "Uncreated Grace-A Critique of Karl Rahner," The Thomist, 27 (AprilMay-October, 1963), pp. 333-56, William Hill, 0. P., cautions against dangers implicit in Rahner's endeavor to go beyond an efficiently caused immanence to a
formal-causal presence of God in the just.
10 I, 43, S.
77 II-II,
45, 2. Super Epistolas sancti Pauli lectura, ed. Raphael Cai, 0. P.
(Rome; Marietti, 1953), II, Ad Ephesios, c. 8, · 1. 5, n. 181 (henceforth referred to
as Cai). II-II, 180, 6 ad 2.

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JOHN M, QUINN, O.S.A.

tiveness. Deiformed and thus transformed into a true friend
of God through love poured forth by the Holy Spirit, the will
lovingly surrenders itself to God. Now through charity it lives
the life of God, for it lives by and for the God who is the life
of the soul. Stamped with the likeness of the holy three, the
soul participatively images their activity. Living by the originative life of the Father, the soul expresses a word spirating or
bursting forth in love. The will remains extraverted, weighted
toward more of the all-good, striving to become in appetite
wholly love in act and term, a fruition of possession possible
only on the other side.78 More intense prayer causes a deeper
penetration of the super-essential life of God. As the intellect
embraces God the more, as aspiration is drawn the more into
him, the life of God occupies more and more of inner psychic
space. The divine super-world-outlook becomes the Weltanschauung of the person: God's thoughts become his thoughts.
Divine love inflames him with agape; God's ways become his
ways. 79 Bonum est diffusivum sui, the necessary principle of
trinitarian life, expands its hegemony over his thoughts and desires. In prayer the soul is more and more quickened with the
existential-one might say, the super-existential-or divine understanding that the self-giving of the trinity is analogically
mirrored in the crucifixion of Jesus; that the self-giving making
suffering fruitful streams from and images the law inscribed in
;divine life; that every man yearning for full stature has the law
78 De veritate, 24, 10 ad 2. I-II, 109, 8. Expositio super Dionysium, De divinis
nom.inibus, c, 4, 1. 10 in Opuscul,a omnia, ed. Pierre Mandonnet (Paris: Lethielleux,
1927), II. II-II, 28, 1. Cai, Ad I Corinthios, c. IS, I. 1, n. 76. II-II, 25, 7. I, 48.
5 ad 2. I-II, 26, 1, 2. For a thoughtful textual presentation of love see Joseph
LeGrand, S. J., L'Univers et l'homme dans la philosophie de saint Thomas d'Aquin
(Brussels: Desclee de Brouwer, 1946), I, pp. 81-99. See T. C. O'Brien's excellent
comments on love and trinitarian presence in Appendix 2, " The Holy Spirit:
Love," and Appendix 8, "Mystery for Salvation," in volume 7 of the New English
Summa, Father, Son and Holy Ghost (I, 88-48), trans. with notes and appendices
by T. C. O'Brien (New York: McGraw-Hill, 1975), pp. 252-58 and 259•65.
••Isaiah 55: 8: " For my thoughts are not your thoughts nor are your ways my
ways, says the Lord." But in the new dispensation the Father shares His
transcendent thoughts and ways with men through the gift of the Spirit of Jesus
the mediator.

TRIUNE SELF-GIVING

215

of self-giving written in himself by undergoing suffering; that
the problem of suffering is solved, beyond analysis, by suffering-solvitur patiend-0. Through wisdom one with love the
soul is enfolded in peace. The bitterness usually concomitant
with the yoke of suffering is changed into sweetness, the labor
of daily cross-carrying into rest. 80
In an autobiographical passage on the effort crucial to initial
freedom William James writes:
The large world that girdles us about puts all sorts of questions
to us, and tests us in all sorts of ways. . . . But the deepest question that is ever asked admits of no reply but the dumb turning
of the will and the tightening of our heart-strings as we say, " Yes,
I will even have it so!" ... And hereby we become one of the
masters and lords of life.81
An inward fiat creates the light and life of each inner world.
Counteracting the downward drag of the passions and trampling
under scores of past failures, the soul fired by fresh courage
itakes itself in hand and utters the yes that launches it toward
higher realms. But only through prayer does this yes rarely
falter and steadily wax more vibrant. Growth is stepwise, and
it violates experience to reckon upon other than daily passional
recalcitrance and therewith travail, to be met by daily renewed
affirmation. Fortified by union with the everlasting yes that
is God tripersonally knowing and loving himself, the yes of
love-infused wisdom can continually override nay-saying appetites and the noes of evil and suffering. In prayerfully affirming the holy three imaged in the crucified Lord of life, the
mind and will (whether of naturally feeble or rugged determination) can, without romanticism or arrogance, aim to be80 11-11, 45, 8 ad 8. The allusive paraphrasing of Matthew 11: 28-80 is unmistakable (see n. 42 above and related material in our text). Solvitur patiendo comes
from James Brodrick, S. J., "Father William Doyle, S. J.," in Tke lriak Way, ed.
F. J. Sheed (New York: Kenedy, 1982), p. 826. ,
81 William James, Tke Principles of Psyckology (New York:
Holt, 1890), II,
p 578. According to Rollo May, Love and Will (New York: Dell, 1974; first published in 1969), p. 269, this passage reflects the willed act of freedom whereby
a younger James unshackled himself from an inertia due to depression.

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JOHN M. QUINN, O.S.A.

come a master and lord of life by electing to be a humble
servant and obedient subject to the God who is subsistent
charity. 82
Self-giving and the yes articulating it, while witnessing to
awesome super-being, super-wisdom and super-love, also evoke
the charming, the endearing, the intimate. By not too forced
a figure, Father, Son and Holy Spirit, we may say, are wedded
to one another. Each is wholly espoused to the others; each
endlessly utters a yes that is the divine super-equivalent of the
yes of nuptial love. The soul saying yes to God in prayer is
gradually more espoused to the holy three as they are espoused
to one another. Man giving himself in suffering overpasses man;
he becomes, adoptively, son of God; his strong yes to suffering
is an amorous yes of espousal to the sweet call of the infinitely
espoused holy three. 88
To summarize briefly and conclude. The problem of evil and
suffering confronts the mind at the outset of a metaphysics of
God. Prior to the compact demonstrations named the five
ways, an initial predicament seems to pose an insuperable
obstacle to the real possibility of the being all men call God:
if an infinitely good being existed, no evil nor its concomitant,
suffering, would be despoiling the world. 84 Whitehead and other
proponents of a finite God, conceding the point as irrefutable,
opt for a God concreted with and involved in the universe, cosuffering and creatively growing along with the creatures he
persuasively guides. Unhappily, this appealingly appareled
Cai, Ad Philippenses, c. 2, 1. 2, nn. 63-66. Ad Ephesios, c. I, I. 7, n. 56.
According to In libros Ethicorum Aristotelis ad Nicomachum expositio, ed.
Angelo Pirotta, O.P. (Turin: Marietti, 1934), VIII, I. 6, nn. 1609-11; IX. I. 3, n.
1794 and I. 14, nn. 1946-48, most men can enjoy virtuous friendship with only
a small number, for this requires common life with another or others over a long
period; many times it seems best realized in the graced union of Christian husband
and wife. The utmost intimacy in the perfect love eternally uniting the persons of
the trinity would seem to lend warrant to a figurative espousal among the holy
three. The analogical notion of the espousal of God or the Word to the soul
has been employed by many spiritual wTiters and notably developed among others
by St. Bernard and St. John of the Cross.
8 ' I, 2, 8, obj. 1.
82

82

TRIUNE SELF-GIVING

217

position is infected with fatal flaws. A God only part of the
universe seems only a God by courtesy, for he is not the ultimate explanation of things but one more thing to be explained.
A nontranscendent God is less than omnipresent and therefore
less perceptive of the needs of creatures. Divine love deprived
of infinite power is hamstrung and its ambit of persuasiveness
drastically constricted. Infinite good and finite evil are not
incompatible. Indeed because God is infinitely good, evil is permitted. God does not cause evil and suffering but causes the
evils permitted to effloresce into goods. A God that can produce being out of nothing can be counted on to produce moral
good out of the "nothing" of evil. 85 Out of the most revolting
of events, the tragedy of the cross, God drew the greatest good,
human redemption and elevation to Godliness. The self-immolating love of the crucified Jesus analogically imitates the
incessant giving of one person to the other persons that constitutes the inner life of the trinity. The self-giving of Father,
Son, and Holy Spirit to one another eminently and maximally
realizes what is only imperfectly achieved in laying down one's
life for one's friend. The nonsuffering God whose self-giving is
reflected in the sacrificial love of the crucifix is the model for
understanding and triumphing over suffering: the self-crucifixion entailed in suffering is the price the finite spirit must pay
to live as a god by participation. Thus the answer to the
mystery of suffering is not the paradox of a God-in-the-making
but the revelation of gods-in-the-making. The key lies in the
infinitely loving power of a non.temporal God to share his own
life for the formation of temporalized gods. In giving himself,
God gives a share in his self-giving, which, while immune to
suffering, stands as the paradigm for all self-donation in pain
that overcomes evil and suffering. Through prayer a divinized
•individual gradually mounts to a purer and more piercing affec85 Moral evil is of course strictly privative but every evil action springs from a
voluntary yet nonevil nonadvertence of the will to right reason. Commenting on
I, 49, 1 ad 8, 1-Il, 75, 1 ad 8, CG, 5. 10, and De malo, 1, 88, Maritain shrewdly
illuminates this point in op. cit., pp. H-86: " ... a mere nothingness ... is the root
proper of evil action" (p. 81).

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JOHN M. QUINN, O.S.A.

tive knowledge of divine wisdom's direction of suffering. This
rdivine light irradiates from the lives and writings of those
dowered with choicest gifts of mystical prayer. Soaked in
divine life, certain mystics have hungered and thirsted for suffering as for the most delicious bread and supersensible wine.
Yet even loyal Christians plodding a more pedestrian path
grasp to a notable degree existential truth about suffering: it
is purposed to make men more Godlike, and the more Godlike
men grow through wisdom and love in prayer, the more
meaning suffering takes on. In manfully presenting their backs
to burdens, in unpretentiously " offering it up " as they drink
deep from the bittersweet chalice, these little ones in their
obscurity are attesting that suffering is illumined and vanquished not by the de-deifying of God but by the divinizing
of man by gift: the aim of a universe made by an infinite God
is the making of finite gods.
JOHN M. QUINN,

Augustinian Historical Institute
Villanova Univm-sity
Villanova, Pa.

0. s. A.

A NEW APPROACH TO GOD'S EXISTENCE

I

N CATHOLIC PHILOSOPHY and theology the old hegemony of Scholastic thought has crumbled. New categories, biblical, scientific, and existential, have been introduced. Now, instead of academic disputes within a scholastic
framework about the real distinction, the meaning of esse, etc.,
the problem of fundamental communication hits us full in the
face. " Your categories are not mine; how, therefore, do we
agree upon a method of research? " Everywhere one finds the
methodological question and intellectual pluralism. Once various view-points have been admitted as legitimate, however, the
question of truth is unavoidable. To reply that the Hebrew
notion of historical fidelity to God or to people does not coincide with the Greek notion of timeless, abstract truths does not
resolve the tension but sharpens it for a Christian thinker. K.
Rahner rightly attacked H. Kting's Infallible? not so much for
questioning papal infallibility as for denying man the possibility
of validly affirming speculative truths that transcend the
temporal conditions of the knower. 1 Amidst the welter of theologies and philosophies, how does one avoid relativism? How
can one justify a permanent commitment to Christ that can
be rationally defended and not judged merely a psychological
aberration of equal or less value than other personal quirks?
This paper intends to offer an exit from the relativistic conundrum bedeviling modern thought. We do not start with a definition of truth and deduce everything from there. The limitation of such a narrow, Procrustean bed is too obvious. To
overcome relativism one must find an Absolute. The only true
Absolute in human experience is God. Hence our starting point
1 K. Rahner, S. J., "Kritik
an Hans Kung," Stimmen der Zeit 186 (1970),
368-376.

U9

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JOHN M, MCDERMOTT, S.J.

must involve an affirmation of God's existence. Not that the
Absolute is known directly in this life; rather He is known
mediately in and through an experience that may be qualified
as absolute. We intend to offer: 1) a phenomenological description of the moral experience, 2) a proof of God's existence and
the continuance of the human person after death, 3) a critique
of the proof offered, 4) a reflection on the basic philosophic
problem, 5) a redemption of the proof offered, and 6) an indication of some of the dilemmas of thought which the new approach resolves.
PART I:

PHENOMENOLOGICAL

DESCRIPTION

To avoid the charge of Christian bias, our phenomenological
description employs mainly examples of moral behavior elaborated in classical antiquity. Both Achilles and Socrates have
haunted Western consciousness from the beginnings of our
civilization. The angry son of Thetis rebelliously overturned
the heroic code by refusing the huge bribe of Agamemnon communicated by Odysseus. He softened only to the pleas of other
members of the embassy for friendship's sake, Patroclus's tears
brought a further relentment from ire; finally, the death of this
dear friend drove him to commitment, the revenge demanded
by justice, knowing full well that his own death followed Hector's. Socrates explicitly imitated Achilles's example, preferring
death to betraying the task of philosophizing assigned by the
god.2 In such classical examples four essential characteristics of
the moral imperative may be discerned.
1. The moral imperative is absolute. Both Achilles and Socrates knew that they should do what they did. This " shouldness "
is basic to morality. It is unique, elevating the moral experience above all other value experiences. Possible penchants for
ease, quiet, beauty, glory, and science must yield to it. Even
family affections may be severed by its demands. No other
value gives rise to such heart-rending qualms or exuberant
•Plato, Apology 28 b-d.

A NEW APPROACH TO GOD'S EXISTENCE

221

ecstasy: Fiat justitia, pereat mundus. Ultimately grounding
this primacy in the hierarchy of values is the absoluteness felt
in its demands. One must be ready to die in heeding its voice.
That is the first meaning of Achilles and Socrates for us: faithfulness even unto death. They illustrate the limits to which
the demand can go. In bidding man to die the moral imperative reveals itself as absolute. It is the ultimate Reality, Being,
before which finite being apparently becomes non-being; it is
the total fullness into which everything is subsumed. All of
finite reality apparently expanding infinity before the individual-the past which constituted him, the present which sustains him and of which he is conscious, and the enticing future
of unrestricted possibilities-does not weight in the balance
against the absolute demand. As such the moral imperative cannot be equated with any finite experience. For any object which
is sensibly or conceptually perceived by a man is thereby
limited by him. Once something is recognized as limited, this
recognition has already relativized its claims.
The same conclusion may be approached from another point
of view. If the distinction between good and evil were not
absolute, the very meaning of good and evil as "that which
should be done (and avoided)" would be destroyed. Their
linguistic significance would have to be judged in terms of some
other value. This second normative value could also be relativized, and no compelling reason might be found to move the
intelligent man to action. For every conceptual argument can
be distinguished. Either the validity of the abstraction taken
from a limited sampling or its application to the concrete
instance might be questioned. 3 All rules of conduct might be
reduced to avoiding pain and seeking pleasure (self-fulfillment),
and reason would become merely a tool for exploiting life. The
unconscious would rule and death would dissolve in contradiction the natural struggle of the finite subject to perpetuate
8 Even such a determined defender of the validity of concepts as J. Maritain
admitted the difficulty of adequately abstracting a nature from its material
instances. J. Maritain, The Degrees of Knowledge, trans. G. Phelan et alii, 4th
French ed. (New York: Scribner's, 1959), pp. 8-0-S!l?, llO, 176, 205-!l?09,

JOHN M. MCDERMOTT, S.J.

and absolutize himself. All would be reduced to the equality
of the unconscious. 4 The implicit insufficiency of pure, finite
reason leads to the next characteristic of the moral imperative.
2. The moral imperative is supra-rational. Not only does the
moral C}..rperiencefail to find its sufficient ground in sensible experience, but also it lacks a purely rational grounding. What
reasons might be advanced to persuade one person to die on
behalf of another? This question was brought into sharp focus
through the simple plot of Euripides's Alcestis. The days of
Admetus, king of Pherae, though relatively few, were at an end.
The Fates had announced his death. Fortunately for him, however, Apollo in return for a past favor managed to make the
Fates drunk and so persuaded them to accept a substitute. At
first things seemed easy. Admetus could offer anything at his
disposal to the volunteer. He was quickly disillusioned. What
were riches to a beggar when dead? What was the use of honor
and power if death was to follow immediately? His :friends
could not be persuaded; even his aged parents could not be
budged. However old they might be, a few more hours in the
sun were preferable to nothing at all. Men prefer known evils
to the darkness of death. Finally, as despair clouded Admetus's
heart, his young wife Alcestis offered herself as a sacrifice for
him-and the cad accepted! There is no need to relate how
Hercules came to assure the reward of virtue by wrestling with
Death and winning back Alcestis. The point has already been
made: the moral imperative does not depend upon human reasoning or persuasion for its validity.
The same lesson is to be learned from Achilles. He remained
unmoved before the clever tongue of Odysseus. Who could
fault the experienced one's cajoleries, supported as they were
by Agamemnon's royal munificence? By all the standards of
the heroic code Achilles must have accepted. He had attained
the humiliation of the king and the recognition of his own pre•Cf. H. U. von Balthasar, Theodramatik I. Prolegomima (Einsiedeln: Johannes,
1973), pp. 474-499, where the author indicates how Freud, Jung, and Adler con·
sistently reduce consciousness and its strivings to the desire for the unconscious.

A NEW APPROACH TO GOD'S EXISTENCE

228

eminence. Yet his wrath, or-if one prefer-the consciousness
of his own personal worth that could not be bought, relativized
all previous standards of value. The weakness lay not in
Odysseus's lack of talent, but in the inherent constitution of
human persuasion. Every word, every concept employed is
necessarily finite, limited to its own finite content. No matter
how many concepts are piled on top of each other, the final sum
must always remain woefully un-absolute. Finitude + finitude = more finitude.
For the same reason the moral conscience cannot be interpreted as the obedient acceptance of a permanent set of
precepts regulating action, whether grounded in rational ideals
or in a divine revelation a la Sinai. They are but finite expressions. Rather the moral imperative is constituted by an immediate awareness, previous to all rationalizing, that one should
do or avoid a certain act in certain circumstances. This awareness may later be universalized, as has been the case countless
times in systems of philosophical ethics. Nevertheless, since
universal concepts always abstract from the concrete situation,
it is possible that other circumstances may invalidate the universality of the conceptual formulations. This possibility has
always been recognized in traditional morality by the primacy
of place given to prudence, the ability to straddle the gap between principles and their concrete applications. Many times
the moral imperative may be a completely unique calling; others
might even interpret their conscience in a contrary way.
Shakespeare canonized Brutus as " the noblest Roman of them
all " for acting in view of the common good. Dante had previously assigned him to the seventh circle of hell for betraying
a friend. Achilles knew that he should avenge Patroclus. Moral
men today would never dream of justifying the duty of such
an" eye for eye" morality, but Achilles knew no other. It was
clear to him at the time what should be done, and he gave his
life in consequence.
This description apparently presents a very individualistic
grounding of morality. Indeed it apparently opens the way to
situation ethics and exaggerated theories of the fundamental

JOHN M. MCDERMOTT,

S •.T.

option. 5 We are forced at first into such a position by the
heavily subjectivistic epistemology of modern philosophy. Universal rational objectivity has long since been heavily attacked,
though most philosophers, with the exception of Nietzsche and
some existentialists, have attempted to mitigate the consequences in the moral realm. Our starting position, however,
is not to be confused with subjectivism as it is commonly understood in the pejorative connotation of the term. Here we
are concerned with no private matter of whim or bowing to
social pressure. Very often conscience demands an outright resistance to these influences. As has already been indicated,
there is an absolute quality about it. All subjective desires
for life and happiness are subject to it. 6
3. The moral imperative is personal. This certainly signifies
that only a person, one possessing intellect and will, encounters
the moral imperative. Still more is intended: the moral imperative is a reality only vis-a-vis other persons. This is un5 The initiator of the fundamental
option theory, B. Schuller, S. J., Gesetz und
Freiheit (Diisseldorf; Patmos, 1966), is much more nuanced and balanced than
many subsequent enthusiasts who have draped themselves in his mantle. Nevertheless, the seed of later excesses was contained in Schiiller's transposition of Transcendental Thomism to the realm of moral theology insofar as finite laws \Were
referred to the finite subject's acceptance of God's absolute grace. If the latter
is decisive for the judgment of moral conduct, laws may be helpful guidelines, but,
as non-absolute, they can be infringed without guilt in particular circumstances.
Thence flows the danger of situation ethics with its nominalistic stress on the
uniqueness of each particular decision and its neglect of the magisterium's normative role. This dilemma parallels the acceptance of pluralism in speculative and
dogmatic theology championed by Transcendental Thomists. If pluralism is
irreducible, what is the authority of the magisterium and how is truth to be
found? Indeed, what is the value of Transcendentalism Thomism itself, if it
is only one of any possible number of theological-phllosophical systems? Cf. K.
Rahner, S. J., "Der Pluralismus in der Theologie und die Einheit des Bekenntnisses
in der Kirche," Schriften zur Theologie IX (Einsiedeln: Benziger, 1970), 11-33;
R. Harvanek, S. J., "Philosophical Pluralism and Catholic Orthodoxy," Thought
fl5 (1950), fll-51; "The Unity of Metaphysics," Thought flS (1953), 375-412.
6 The development
of this article indicates that this " subjective " approach is
at least as " objective " as the more intellectualistic attempts to prove God's
existence. For the value of reason as a true reflection of reality is maintained.
Insofar as reason has objective and universal validity, our proof is objective and
universal.

A NEW APPROACH TO GOD'S EXISTENCE

225

doubtedly clear in the case of Achilles. Odysseus's bribe hardened his resistance. He gave way only to the pleading of friends:
Aias, Phoenix, Patroclus. The profound truth of the Iliad consists in this, that after Achilles recognized his own power
of transcending every finite norm-like Nietzsche's Superman-he also recognized-unlike Nietzsche-that the whole
value of being a man, of being himself, rested in the free acceptance of the chains of loyalty that bound him to his friend.
Socrates similarly felt himself bound to philosophize because
of his duty to the god. In the Crito Socrates resisted all entreaties to flee. His arguments all rested upon the relation that
he had with the Laws of Athens, who in a personification identified themselves as his parents and guardians to whom he found
himself bound by birth and to whom he had bound himself
by living in the city so long. Having profited from their care,
it would be wrong for him to renounce them once something difficult was required. Though some have interpreted Socrates's
argument as an affirmation of the social contract theory of law,7
the very personification of the Laws encourages us to recognize
that just as no rational reasons can persuade a man to surrender his life, so also no commitment to a mere written record
of laws can be total. Only before a person does one acknowledge
the full implications of morality. 8
Some might wish to quibble about this personalistic interpretation of Socrates's death. They might prefer to see him dying
for some ideal such as justice, truth, humanity. What could
be the content of truth or justice? Just previously was demon7 A. E. Taylor, Plato: the Man and His Work, 2nd. ed. (New York:
Dial Press,
1936)' pp. 168f., 171£.
8 Compare this personification with Socrates's
impersonal handling of the laws
in Apology 24 d-e and his refusal to obey human laws in Apology 29 c-d and
3!Z c-d. Far from considering laws as subject to men's wills, Crito 53 c-d distinguished clearly between men who apply laws and the Laws whose brothers guarantee justice in the life after death. There is a "justice by nature" (51 b) to which
human formulations of laws should refer. On the personal, final reference point in
Plato's philosophy confer the perceptive article of R. O'Connell, S. J., "The Unknown Socrates's Unknown God," God Knowable and Unknowable, ed. R. Roth,
S. J. (New York: Fordham U. Press, 1978), 1-22.

JOHN M. MCDERMOTT, S.J.

strated the insufficiency of any concept to ground the absolute
claim of morality, which, in this case, is the function that some
would attribute to the idea of truth or justice. This is not to
deny that men actually do die for such ideals-and rightly so!
But the correctness of an idealistic course of action is not ipso
facto justified by pointing to intellectual ideals. Too often they
serve but as cloaks for an egotistical affirmation of one's own
ideas and desires. My idea of justice too easily becomes my
idea of justice, a finite tool which my selfishness manipulates
unconsciously or not. The ethereal purity of ideals " exculpates " the bloody hands of too many terrorists. Rather the
idealistic appeal is justified only when the abstraction fairly
accurately applies to the situation at hand, i.e., the exigencies
of the concrete situation justify such abstractions. Once again
the primacy of the individual concrete over abstractions
emerges.
Two further arguments can be introduced to argue for the
basically personal character of true " ideals." First, ideals as
instances of thought arise only with language in a social context. They receive their primary denotation from their usage
by people in certain circumstances. Though they may later
undergo refinements, the process is itself based on the original
personal determination of meaning common to all language and
thought. Second, a protest in terms of some ideal is only sensible when there is a case of culpable negligence that can be
avoided-in other words, when persons are involved. It is vain
to protest against sticks and stones, beasts and trees. One does
not usually dedicate oneself in the name of an ideal to conserve
nature for the sake of the greater glory of redwood trees, but
for the men who will receive benefit of spirit from them.
By now it has become clear that the moral imperative as
absolute, supra-rational, and personal is not any different from
love, that total love which found its perfect expression in the
self-sacrificial death of Jesus Christ: "No man has greater love
than to give up his life for his friends" (Jn. 15: 13) . Love is
beyond reason but it is far from blind. For love alone gives

A NEW APPROACH TO GOD'S EXISTENCE

227

the lover eyes to read reality correctly. 9 Some late medieval
paintings portrayed Jesus mounting His cross on a ladder in
order to emphasize the complete voluntariness of His death.
That brings us to the fourth characteristic of the moral imperative.
4. The response to the moral imperative is free and liberating.
Despite the necessity that one experiences in the moral imperative there is an awareness that what should be need not be.
The imperative mood is not the indicative, for there exists an
immense abyss between moral and physical necessity-as
Immanuel Kant recognized so well. There is a freedom beyond
the necessitating concepts and rational laws which reflect
the laws of nature. For men there is a higher type of life,
a life properly human, that surpasses mere existence. " I dare
do all that may become a man; 'Vho dares do more is none,"
(I, vii, 50 f .) , was the anguished cry of Macbeth before his
wife's temptations to kill his liege lord Duncan. Paradoxically
enough it is only in accepting one's own humanity, in submitting to the moral imperative that the human person is
liberated to transcend all finite values. Achilles's love for
Patroclus enabled him to escape the fetters of his pride and to
be most himself. The mightiest of all enemies, death itself,
holds no terrors more for the man who loves. Its mystery can
be accepted with the passion of Achilles or the tranquility of
Socrates, depending on the different temperaments of those involved. Only in accepting one's own finitude does one transcend, overcome the world.

p ART II:

THE PROOF

Now that the investigative description is completed, the
proof of God's existence resulting from the perception of the
moral imperative may be presented. The language necessarily
0 This Augustinian insight was revived in modern times for the Thomistic tradition by P. Rousselot, S..J., "Les ycux de la foi," Recherches de Science Religieuse
1 (1910),
444-475. It is central to the thought of H. U. von Balthasar,
Herrlichlceit I (Einsiedeln: Johannes, 1961), pp. 168-170.

JOHN M. MCDERMOTT, S.J.

becomes more abstract and technical, but it refers to the basic
situation wherein one person in his relations to another or to
others perceives the summons to absolute fidelity-even unto
death.
In the moral experience the subject is aware of a value
greater than himself because an absolute claim is made upon
him. This claim is very concrete both in its circumstances and
in its demand. Its absolute content demands ultimately faithfulness even to death. As greater than the subject the value
reveals itself as independent of the subject. It does not depend
upon his good pleasure. Certainly as the call to death it contradicts every natural desire of the subject (nature, as the
principle of continuity in change, strives for self-realization and
self-preservation). At the same time the value is a very personal one, for it exists only in relation to the subject perceiving
it. Unless Brutus had been there to hear the call 0£ duty, duty
would not have spoken in Rome. Combining these two aspects
0£ the moral imperative yields an important conclusion: in
obeying the moral imperative unto death the subject cannot
totally cease to exist. 'Vere he to be obliterated, the value,
which exists only in relation to the perceiving subject, would
also cease to exist. But that is impossible. For in such a case
the value would be dependent upon the subject-a contradiction 0£ the original experience where the value was recognized
as absolute, i.e., greater than the subject. Therefore, if the
original value experience was authentic, the subject must somehow continue to exist in relation to the value.
It remains to define more accurately the order in which this
moral experience occurs. It is primarily a personal order, i. e.,
the three terms of the experience are at least personal. The
perceiving subject is personal since he is freely addressed by
the value. The concrete, finite object which is the occasion for
the absolute call is, as already indicated, in the last analysis
personally characterized. Finally the Absolute acknowledged
and heeded cannot be less than personal. It is certainly different from the personal element encountered in finite men.

A NEW APPROACH TO GOD'S EXISTENCE

229

Nothing finite can ever sufficiently ground an absolute, and no
man of sane and honest mind would ever demand that another
die for him. Yet if the Absolute were less than personal, the
personal in man, his freedom, his own highest worth, would
be subject to something beneath itself. But the original experience of the Absolute showed itself to be greater than man.
Hence the Absolute cannot be less than personal. This is what
men call God, Christians the tripersonal God.
This argument is not, of course, to be construed in such a
way that the Absolute has to have a world in order to exist.
Rather it considers the relation of Absolute and finite from the
viewpoint of the finite subject, i. e., given a real world of
finite subjects, what are the ontological conditions of that relationship? By acknowledging the Absolute in freedom the finite
subject joins himself to that Absolute in the most real way
possible and so participates in the very reality of the Absolute
to one degree or another. (The degree of union would also depend upon the freedom of self-revelation that is the Absolute's.)
While remaining personally and naturally distinct from the
Absolute the finite subject nevertheless exists totally immersed
in the Absolute ruling him. 10 It is this juncture with the Absolute, this unity in diversity, that ensures the continuation of
the subject after death. Once the Absolute has freely inserted
Himself into the world in the order of love and fidelity established by His very call and presence, the relation of fidelity
must continue to hold. Otherwise the Absolute of fidelity and
love acts in a way contradictory to the very essence of His
Absoluteness. "He remains faithful, for He cannot deny Himself" (II Tim. 13) . He does not so contradict Himself that
in the very moment in which He actuates the human person to
its highest pitch He destroys it. For it is only when confronted
by a death to be freely chosen that the finite subject faces inexorably and must answer the questions "Who am I that I
10 Personal distinction does not necessarily imply distinction
of natures, as the
dogma of the Trinity assures us. For creatures the personal distinction implies
a natural distinction from God because the finite subject is capable of sinning.

230

JOHN M. MCDERMOTT, S.J.

give my life?" and" Who is the Other who demands my life?"
For that insight of highest self-awareness and other-relatedness
the God of love does not simultaneously love and hate in
destroying the creature loving Him. He who has all power
over life can also maintain it in demanding it.

p ART III: A CRITIQUE
The argument to God's existence from the moral experience
generally enjoys the greatest favor and acceptance among ordinary believers; even the greatest of all the rationalists, Immanuel Kant, was moved by it. Yet, whatever its grass roots
appeal, the proof just offered will not satisfy professional philosophers in its present form. Leaving aside questions about
the possibility of psychological conditioning and subjective delusion, the logical contradiction seems obvious: how can one
maintain, on the one hand, that the Absolute is independent
of the subject lest it be limited by the perceiving subject and
so relativized by his limited perspective and, on the other hand,
that the moral imperative, as absolute and implying the Absolute, exists only in relation to a subject, i.e., is somehow dependent upon the subject?
PART

IV:

THE MoRE BASIC PROBLEM

To consider that vital objection a thorough study of Western
philosophy would be helpful. That being impossible in the
limits of the present paper, the fundamental conundrum of
Western thought, the problem oi the One and the Many, will
be developed.
Let us examine the basis of the central paradox. In order
to think at all, the mind must do so consistently, i.e., according to certain laws of thought. The most basic of all laws
is the principle of contradiction: 11 something cannot both be
11 Some interpret the principle of identity as the most basic law of thought.
Actually the principles of identity and contradiction imply each other. The principle
of identity is affirmed as a law because there is the possibility of diversity, a
non-x as well as an x, and because contradiction must be avoided. In any case
the following paragraph of the text also covers the statement " x is x " insofar
as this tautology has any reference to reality.

A NEW APPROACU TO GOD'S EXISTENCE

and not be in the same place at the same time under the same
circumstances .. This law is apparently all-embracing since it
concerns being itself; whatever is outside its scope is not only
unknowable but also non-existent for man. For a law to be
valid all the instances that fall under the law must have some
common principle, e.g., animals are not constrained by the law
against perjury; the law of gravity pertains to all beings having
corporeal bodies, but not to angels. What then do all things
thought or capable of being thought have in common? The
element common to all beings is precisely their being. Being
makes everything one. Simultaneously we must confess that all
beings are also different; otherwise we would not need a law
to keep them in order. In what are they different, i.e., many?
Is it being or non-being? Obviously it must be being since nonbeing is unknowable and consequently cannot be affirmed. So
we are left with the startling rational contradiction that being
simultaneously makes everything one and many, the same and
different. 12
This Parmenidean paradox may be illustrated by analysing
the structure of the simplest sentence that is employed in discursive thought: " x is " where " x " stands for any possible
subject of the predicate " is." Obviously " x " is different from
" is " ; otherwise nothing could be said or thought. There
12 Plato avoided this conclusion by postulating the existence of non-being, or
matter. How the non-existent can be affirmed to be boggles the mind as much
as Kant's affirmation of the unknowable noumenon. These antinomies result
for anyone who considers that reality is known primarily through universal concepts. Aristotle's and Thomas's understanding of matter as relative non-being
depends upon their affirma tion of the reality of the singular instead of the universal idea. But if the singular is the primary reality, from which an abstraction
is drawn, does not the abstraction always fall short of representing the richness
of the concrete real? P. Rousselot, S.J., L'intellectualis:me de saint Thomas, !'tnd.
ed. (Paris: Beauchesne, 199l4), pp. 90-95, 108-l!'t4, maintained that Thomas was
inconsistent in maintaining the axiom, " science is of the universal." If matter
is relative to form, is not the universal form then relative to matter, hence dependent upon it in some way? Or is matter the inverse of the Aristotelian Prime Mover,
pure form, viz., that which is related to all and to which nothing is related? The
Christian God of St. Thomas, however, transcends Aristotle's pure form and is
identified with infinite esse in which all singulars participate.

JOHN M. MCDERMOTT, B.J.

would just be a vast, undifferentiated" is." What differentiates
" x " from " is? " It cannot be being since then it would be
identical with "is." Similarly it cannot be non-being; in such
a case "x" which is constituted as "x" by non-being alone
could not be joined to " is," could not be affirmed. Before such
a contradiction rational thought is radically put into questiontruth cannot be discerned from untruth.
This is much more than mere word-play, for every problem
of thought is reduced to the same difficulty. Consider the problem of change. Against the Heraclitean view that nothing remains the same Aristotle made the distinction between substance and accident. A substance is that which remains the
same in change, an accident is that which inheres in a substance and disappears to be replaced by another accident, as a
man changes his clothes, or a chameleon its color. Yet there is
also the fact of substantial change: men and chameleons die.
Lest this be seen as a sudden, inexplicable jump from being
to non-being, the usual explanation is that the accidental modifications accrue upon the subject, disposing it for a substantial
change, as a man is disposed for death by the accidental
changes of old age: rickety bones, hardening of the arteries,
etc. This solution is most clever, but does not avoid a rational
contradiction. For in the instance of accidental change the
substance was considered as independent of the accidents; in
substantial change, however, the substance was modified by
accidents, i. e., somehow dependent upon them. One cannot
have his cake (accident) and eat it (substantial change). With
that recognition comes a destruction of the mental scheme. If
accidents modify the substance, then the substance is always
changing just as the accidents are. Consequently there is
nothing stable in change. Everything is change. But here we
have run into a contradiction again: change only occurs when
something goes from one state to another. If change is everything (or everything is changing) , there can be nothing stable
to go from one state to another. Therefore change is not
change.

A NEW APPROACH TO GOD 1S EXISTENCE

No further examples need to be developed here. Let us notice
the structure common to both problems just mentioned. In
the first example, that of the One and the Many, there is the
one being that includes and distinguishes the beings different
from itself. Being is limited by nothing; it is absolute. Yet
it includes in its absoluteness beings different from itself, beings
that are finite. If one is to think at all one must affirm both
sides of the dilemma: being and beings. Otherwise there is
the static pantheism of Spinoza (Parmenides), the fluid
pantheism of Hegel (Heraclitus), or the unrelated chaos of
positivism. A similar structure is present in the second example, that of change: there is a substance that is changeless,
affected by nothing, absolute in its order. The accidents which
are included in the substance as its accidents are finite accidents, not comprising the totality of the substance. If one is
to think change at all one must affirm both aspects of change:
the absolute and the finite relatives. Yet both cannot be
thought together without rational contradiction. 13
We observe something similar in the problem of Plato's universals, or-in modern parlance-the problem of induction. To
think at all one has to employ concepts, yet each concrete
instance is different from the universal and stands outside it.
An absolute universal embraces all its instances while remaining
distinct from them-the structure is the same.
It does not take much reflection to subsume much of modern
philosophy under the problem of the One and the Many. Kant
18 The problem of change must be studied in its primum analogatum, the human
experience of change. Somehow there is a unity to my being in all the years of
change; accidental determinations: my sex, my size, my family relations, my
choice of vocation, etc., have all influenced me profoundly, yet the mere sum
of such conditioning and choices does not exhaust the " me" who combines them
all in a personal unity. There is a strange diversity in unity in me that the moral
exhortation "Be yourself! " points out. Who am I if I am not myself? Yet I
realize that I am not completely myself. The mystery of my total unity in
diversity eludes the potency-act categories which oppose act to its potencies. Such
is the limitation of conceptual thought, which by the necessity of abstraction must
oppose ideas like external things. The more apt metaphysical category that preserves the mystery is the principle that the whole is greater than the sum of
its parts, as will emerge later on.

234

JOHN M. MCDERMOTT, S.J.

divided reality into phenomena and noumenon while simultaneously uniting them by predicating existence of them both.
Whether this existence is considered as the all-inclusive One
and the phenomena and noumenon as the l\1any or the
noumenon is regarded as the One of which the phenomena are
the many manifestations, the basic structure remains the same.
Hegel's pure Spirit constantly transcends itself per omnia
saecul,a saeculorum since it finds the duality of Itself as Object
within its own Subjectivity. 14 Whether the One is unlimited,
pure Spirit trying to overcome the multiplicity of its past or
whether unending Time constitutes the One in which the finite
duality of the Spirit's Objectivity and Subjectivity constantly
call each other to transcendence, again the problem of the One
and the Many has manifested itself. Heidegger for his part
wrestles with the relation of Dasein to Sein and refuses to make
a definite statement lest he be caught in a contradiction. This
is debilitating to action and love. Moreover, it is a practical
impossibility since, in the face of the moral imperative summoning one beyond his own wishing, not to choose and not to
decide is already a choice. On a more theoretical plane Heidegger's hesitancy constitutes the methodological problem of today: if every statement reflects only a partial perspective on
reality, how can truth be attained? Even the original question
of meaning already implies a specific point of view that by its
abstraction excludes various aspects of reality. The reality
(Sein) desired to be known by a specific point of view (Dasein)
represents the problem of the all-embracing totality and the
finite member so embraced. Since the :finite is defined by reference to another limiting, hence finite, object, the problem of
the One and the Many has wreaked havoc under a new guise.
"Cf. Q. Lauer, S. J., "Hegel's Pantheism," Th1JUght 54 (1979), 1-23, for a
different view of Hegel. Actually Fr. Lauer's interpretation of Hegel and the
doctrine of the present article are very close, built as they are on ever higher
syntheses of lower elements. For this author, however, the syntheses are not
a final product of history; instead their fulness has been given in Christ. The OneMany probfom also underlies the Whiteheadian-Thomistic dialogue. Cf. D. Schindler,
"Whitehead's Challenge to Thomism on the Problem of God," Intematicmal Philosophical Quarterly 19 (1979),

A NEW APPROACH TO GOD'S EXIS!l'ENCE

235

It would be relatively simple to find the same structure in the
classical philosophical questions: Idealism-Empiricism, necessary-contingent, subject-object, form-matter, etc. Their implications might be illustrated in other fields: science, law, linguistics, history, etc. But the point has already been made.
From these reflections we can conclude that thought keeps
batting its head against the same contradiction. Does one keep
on blindly trying to think oneself out of these constant frustrations? Or does this contradiction mark the death of thought?
Such a conclusion is much too brutal for most men to contemplate. Not only would an affirmative answer reduce men
to beasts, but philosophers would point out that the affirmative
answer, being a statement, involves its own contradiction.
What a maddening circle!
Fortunately there is a way out of the labyrinth, a thread of
hope supplied by love-or, better still, by way of a leap over
the walls by those courageous enough to arm themselves with
the wings of love.
all that has been demonstrated so far
has been the incapacity of reason to justify itself. Finite reason
can never establish itself as an absolute and so distribute meaning to life. But is our first apprehension of meaning based on
an intellectual insight? Does a philosophical argumentation dissuade a despairing suicide case? Meaning has to be perceived,
at least seminally, before philosophy starts questioning, or else
man would have no clue to what he was seeking. Hegel would
have been merely a clever sophist had not his Christian conviction of meaning led him to postulate, in the absence of complete, present lucidity, a fulfillment in the future. The very
search for meaning implies an affirmation of meaning-not primarily, as we have indicated, on the level of pure reason, but
as a vital reality much more profound. The meaning is given
as a gift at the beginning of life. It is love known and craved
by every child. As a fact, children deprived of love, however
well nurtured in the way of material necessities and luxuries,
simply die.15 The reasoning about love and life comes later.
15 R. A. Spitz, The First
Year of Life (New York: International Universities
Press, 1965), esp. pp. ft67-284, has clearly indicated the utmost importance of

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JOHN M. MCDERMOTT, S.J.

One may explain the awakening of intellect in the Empiricist
tradition as the reaction to pain, the first felt absence of love,
or in the Idealistic tradition as the wonder in response to the
complete gratuity of love, the wonder that seeks to express
itself and grow into greater love. In either case love is the
presupposition of thought, the maternal womb from which
thought emerges.
p ART v:

REDEMPTION

OF THE PROOF

Love alone gives meaning to life. This is more than a hackneyed phrase sung by crooners to infatuated teen-agers. For
the sake of love men can suffer all sorts of losses and dangers,
even death. As love justifies life, it also justifies reason. HERE
WE PLACE THE KEYSTONE IN OUR ARCH. The philosophers have erred in attempting to justify life by human reason
alone. Unwittingly they absolutized finite reason and tried to
analyze the structure of love by means of reason. It did not
take them long to discover the rational contradiction in love,
how the Absolute's claim can never be perceived by a relative,
finite being. What they did not sufficiently reflect upon was
the coincidence of the contradiction of love with the contradiction of rational thought. The structures of love and reason are
identical. Love involves at least two finite beings, united in
and by the absolute claim of love, the Absolute that transcends
both of them; in the realm of thought the One is all-embracing,
all-powerful Being, limited by nothing outside itself-it is Absolute-the Many are at least two finite beings, separate but
joined in and by the thought Absolute of Being that transcends
them. Thought reflects love; since love is the meaning of reality,
thought reflects reality. By this slight twist of perspective the
validity of thought is justified, the structure of human love
saves the meaning of life, even in its intellectual expression.
The Absolute of the love experienced is God-or, in other
the young child's relation of love with his mother as the basis of future human
life and growth. Cf. also J. Bowlby, Child Care and the Growth of Life
(Harmondsworth: Penguin, 1953), pp. 5Q, 18!?.

A NEW APPROACH TO GOD'S EXISTENCE

words, " God is love " (I Jn. 4: 7) . Since thought is the faithful
image of this reality, man can arrive at a natural knowledge
of God by the light of his intellect through the experience of
created reality, i.e., other human beings whom he loves. There
is no intellectual certitude stronger than the intellect's certitude
about God, for if God does not exist, thought collapses into
self-destroying contradictions (cf. DS 3004, 3026). In fact, all
attempts to explain away the moral imperative as a type of
psychological determinism have the feet on which they stand
cut out from under them. Insofar as they rest upon purely
rational analyses for explaining the determinism of psychic
functions-no finite experiment or sum of them can justify a
necessity of fact-this reasoning only makes sense if freedom
is a reality.
This proof of God's existence just offered is clearly not a
denwnstratio in the Scholastic definition of the term. Rather
it presupposes a basic act of natural faith in reason's validity
and argues that such a faith involves contradictions unless a
greater faith in love and the God of love is maintained. Only
in view of this further, natural belief in God is reason justified
and recognized as mediating a true knowledge of God.

p ART VI:

CONSEQUENCES

We now turn to the consideration of some serious objections
and to drawing some conclusions which might recommend better to our audience this somewhat strange manner of thinking.
A. The preceding pages might have rendered some philosophers
uneasy. The exposure of rational contradictions seems at first
to place into question all discursive thought, a conclusion somewhat ridiculous not only because the average man finds order
in the universe through his intellect and orders his life accordingly but also because it would destroy its own premises,
the concepts and reasonings which the argument has employed
until now. Actually human reason has only been shown its
proper limits, not destroyed. Man's reason with its abstract
concepts and necessitating laws of logic is not the measure of
God's reality.

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JORN M. MCDERMOTT, S.J.

Only after the mystery, or paradox, of God's love is acknowledged, does human reason find itself justified. For our argument had indicated only the insufficiency of concepts alone to
grasp reality, or, in other words, that there is no exact correspondence between concepts and reality. The exact correspondence was between the overall structure of thought and the
structure of love in terms of the One-Many paradox. Since
thought's structure, found in every judgment, contains the
affirmation of a finite reality, capable of conceptualization,
joined to an absolute of existence, the relative validity of
conceptual formulations must be preserved. Otherwise the
structure of thought would dissolve and our whole argument,
previously developed in conceptual formulations, would be
destroyed.
An even more forceful justification of the concept results
from its necessary link to the concrete reality of love. Were
the world without humanly perceptible order, love would be
frustrated. An effective response to those needing help would
be impossible unless the results of one's efforts were relatively
predictable, e.g., to save a drowning man it must be known
that the propulsion of a life preserver in a certain direction
would normally result in its reaching the one in need; without
basic regularity all free activity would be ineffective senselessness. Indeed, only against a relatively consistent world order
could love have been perceived in the first place. Without it
words and gestures, since uncontrollable, would be totally
arbitrary, the mere flatus vocis of the nominalist nightmare, incapable of communicating love. Thus the fundamental question concerns not the validity of concepts, but the manner in
which concepts grasp or reflect reality. Bak'y stated, they are
abstractions, and they only approach the mystery of the
totality of a given species (or concrete universal) as a limit. 16
Let us indicate briefly the steps to such a conclusion:
16 Despite major differences the notion of man's conceptual knowledge as an
asymptotic approximation to reality is common to both J. Maritain, pp. lif., and
C. S. Peirce. Cf. V. Potter, S.J., Charles S. Peirce on Norms and Ideals (Worcester:
U. of Mass. Press, 1967), pp. 63-67, 76f., 83, 101-109, 141-147, 193-203.

A NEW APPROACH TO GOD'S EXISTENCE

239

1) The materiality of things, though a barrier to a comprehensive grasp by human reason, is intelligible to the infinite
God. This follows from our phenomenological description of
morality insofar as morality involves the concrete subject here
and now in a particular situation demanding a response. This
subject is loved and known by God in his individuality. Love
is suprarational because it concerns the individual who ultimately resists all rational categorization. 17
2) The universe is limited in time and space since the synthetic judgment necessitated by love would be contradicted and
relativized if there were an actual, mathematically infinite series
(cf. Kant's first antinomy of pure reason). An actual (not potential), infinite series of material realities, which are intelligible in their very singularity and therefore defined by their
mutual relations, would contradict every human attempt to
abstract a universal concept. For the whole universe enters
into the definition of every singular-omnia se invioem perambulant, in Rousselot's phrase 18-and the infinite as such resists
conceptualization. Infinity extends so immeasurably beyond
finite attempts at measurement that even a degree of approximation could not be recognized. Were the series limited, however, the possibility of an asymptotic approximation to a reality
by finite abstractions would be guaranteed. Not that the abstraction of any man in history exhausts the full set of relations
constituting the individual members of a natural set. History
extends beyond the birth and death of any individual, and the
inherited knowledge of the past possessed through language,
abstract as it is, never fully substitutes for concrete experienceas the young learn again and again in repeating the mistakes
17 The real is the singular which is known as snch to the infinite God. Because
human reason cannot exhaust the intelligibility of the singular, its abstractions are
subject to revision, and it is referred ultimately to God as the guarantor of the
validity' of its rational approximations to reality.
18 Rousselot,
op. cit., p. 18. Like Hegel Rousselot recognized the connection
between the intelligibility of matter and the relational composition of finite
entities. Cf. J. McDermott, S. J., "Un inedit de P. Rousselot," Archives de
Phuosophie 42 (1979), pp. 91-Hl6.

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JOHN M. MCDERMOTT, S.J.

of their ancestors. Rather the regularities discovered throughout a series or a set would be seen as a sign of a reality still
revealing itself on the way to its historical fulness, something
much more than just haphazard events in an unending series
not subject to measurement. 19
8) Eternity is therefore to be conceived neither as timelessness, a point outside and above the linear temporal flow
(Augustine, Thomas) ,20 nor equated with the temporal flow itself (Hegel). Rather eternity embraces the temporal flow within itself, always present to each moment of time, as the whole
which is greater than the sum of its parts (the distinct moments of the temporal flow), itself enjoying simultaneously rest
and motion.
4) The relation of eternity to time, or God to the world,
serves as the prime analogate for our conception of reality. The
relation of the One and the Many discovered between Being
and beings reappeared in the problem of universals. The full
reality of the world or man is the totality uniting all beings or
19 The mathematician's
measurement of an infinite series in terms of a repeating,
or summarizing, function does not contradict this statement, for mathematics
itself is an abstract science and cannot claim a one-to-one application to reality.Though our previous argument rejected the absoluteness of any logical law, thB
principle of contradiction included, we have employed the principle of excluded
middle in the preceding paragraph of the text validly since the relation alone
of parts to parts was considered, the parts of an infinite series escaping the grasp
of the human intellect. The principle of excluded middle, like the principle of
contradiction, does not apply to the relation of parts to whole, only of pm-ts
to parts.
20 Augustine, Confessiones XI, 11, 13-15, 29-31; De Trinitate III, 2f.; IV, 18; V,
5, 16; VI, 10; VIII, 1. Thomas's notion of infinity is much richer than Augustine's.
Cf. E. Gilson, "L'inflnite divine chez saint Augustin," Augustinus 1\!lagister I
(Paris: Etudes Augustiniennes, 1954), 569-574; L. Sweeney, S. J., "Lombard,
Augustine and Infinity," Manuscripta II (1958), 24-40. Nevertheless, Thomas's
notion of eternity is not radically different from Augustine's. Certainly Thomas
maintained that God's eternity "includes all times" (S. T. I, q. 10, a. 2, ad 4),
but only insofar as the immobile explains change. For Thomas God is " extra
motum.' In the definition of eternity as interminabilis vitae tota :nmul et perfecta
posses8io, the " tota simul " is affirmed "ad removendum tempus," the "perfecta"
"ad excludendum nunc temporis" (a. I, ad 4). In our view time and change are
included within the very Being of God; His infinite eternity is simultaneously
motion and rest.

A NEW APPROACH TO GOD'S EXISTENCE

241

all men. For the whole of any species comprises more than an
a posteriori, assembled conglomeration of individuals. Pure
atoms do not exist in a finite world, as is especially clear in
the case of man who needs parents and love in order to come
to be and to survive. Rather the whole includes individuals
in their mutual relations. This metaphysical whole is present
to God who intuits simultaneously the one in the many and the
many in the one. Our intellects, which cannot join such apparent contraries, can only approach the reality of God's idea
by way of asymptotic approximation through ever more comprehensive and exact abstractions.
This reality of universals transcending and embracing all the
concrete instances not only restores the medieval theory of the
divine ideas and Scotus's natura c01nmunis, neither abstract
nor a material individual, but also provides a way of understanding the doctrine of original sin and the Mystical Body of
Christ (the fall from the original, created unity of mankind in
love and the restored, supernatural unity in Christ) that surpasses a sociological, posteriorly constructed unity of individuals
initially unrelated. Moreover, the principle that the whole is
greater than the sum of its parts can serve as the basis for establishing the hierarchy of the sciences.21 Each lower science is
assumed into the higher, where a new principle of unity employs all the lower laws to attain its own new synthesis not exhaustively governed by those lower laws. At the most fundamental, sub-atomic level, physics can only hope for probabilities.
21 That the whole is greater than the sum of its parts has been recognized by
many modern Catholic thinkers: e.g., M. Blonde!, L'Action, (1893) 2nd ed. (Paris:
Presses Universitaires de France, 1950), pp. 250f.; P. Teilhard de Chardin, S .•J.,
Le phenomene humain (Paris: Seuil, 1955), p. 197; K. Rahner, S. J., Grundkurs
des Glauben£ (Freiburg: Herder, 1976), pp. 40f. That insight, common to all
transcendental philosophies, is implicit in B. Lonergan's ascending hierarchy of
the sciences as the non-systematic manifold, Insight (London: Philosophical
Library, 1958), pp. 205ff., 255-257. All these thinkers conceive the whole primarily
as a future goal of human thought or action. H. U. von Balthasar, llerrlichkeit I,
pp. 22-26, considers it the mystery underlying the form-matter distinction. Like
him we understand the principle as the explanation of the unity of reality and
realities.

JOHN M. MCDERMOTT, S.J.

As higher sciences study more complex molecules and organisms,
the increasing complexity allows for greater possibilities of
divergence (or development), lower probabilities of prediction.
In man and in human society there is freedom within the
bounds of nature. Paradoxically, it is on this level of freedom,
which admits the lowest probability of prediction, that the
more exact probabilities of sub-molecular physics find the norm
of their accuracy. In freedom it is acknowledged that reality
is composed of tensions between unity and diversity surpassing
one-sided, rational simplifications. On the level of freedom is
solved the difficulty often raised against attempts to employ
probabilities for a basic understanding of reality, viz., probabilities can only be recognized in view of a certitude. The perfect correspondence of mind and reality is achieved in the recognition of the One-Many structure in both mind and love. This
correspondence serves as the norm of perfect certitude which
conceptual formulations approximate as a limit. 22
B. The preceding pages may appear at first to break with the
Catholic tradition of St. Thomas. Certainly Thomists as far
apart as Marechal and Maritain made the principle of identity,
or contradiction, the foundation of their systems. 23 Nevertheless, we suggest that there is a deeper continuity between the
tradition and this new approach. P. Rousselot, the founder of
Transcendental Thomism, espied certain " deformations " or
"inconsistencies" in the natural order of Aristotle's metaphysics which necessitated the postulation of a double finis for
human nature and led him to speak of the " natural " desire for
the intuitive vision of God. 24 He acknowledged the " impotence
22 This should allow a reconciliation
of American pragmatism's insistence on
probabilities learned through trial, error, and correction with the Scholastic
notion of truth as adaequatio rei et intellectus.
2 • J. Marechal,
S. J., Le point de depart de la metaphysique V (Louvain:
Museum Lessianum, 1926), pp. 43-53, 430-436; Maritain, pp. 76f., 214-216.
2 • P. Rousselot, L'intellectualisme, pp. 185-187, 181, 183-184. As an example of
Aristotle's "incoherence" Rousselot, p. 186, mentioned, among others, his doctrine on the soul: though the soul is essentially the form of the body, the separated
soul serves as the measure of the soul's nature and operation.

A NEW APPROACH TO Goo's EXISTENCE

243

and irreality of human concepts " and " the disproportion between our intelligence and being" when engaged in the realm
of material essence.25 For him the enunciable formulations of
logical principles were not sufficient to ground metaphysical reasoning. 26 In later works he criticized certitudes relying on the
abstract principle of identity:
It is a great question to know what this identification is that supposes the disjunction of the same and the abstraction. But the
perception is interior to the perceived, at least one does not wish
to attribute an absolute of existence to an abstraction, to an axiom,
which is precisely the error of the [Hegelian] panlogism considered
previously .27

In Being and Some Philosophers E. Gilson illustrated through
history the impossibility of constructing any consistent system
in the purely rational, conceptual order. In Le Thomisme he
acknowledged the validity of the Kantian antinomies if philosophy stays wed to the mere combination of concepts. 28 Thus
he could show the need for moving from the order of concepts
and problems to that of esse, or "mystery," as; long as continuity between the two orders was maintained and they were
not played off destructively against each other. A. Sertillanges
seemed to recognize the approximate quality of the Thomistic
tools when he spoke of the "mysteries" involved in Thomas's
understanding of being, or substance, act and potency, matter,
number, relation, action and passion, and continuity. 29
Despite his strong commitment to the concept of being and
the principle of contradiction, even Maritain was forced at
times to employ the language of paradox. He acknowledged
••Ibid., pp. 95, 91.
•• Ibid., p. 25, n. 1.
27 P. Rousselot, S. J., "Metaphysique
tbomiste et critique de la connaissance,"
Revue Neoscolastique de Louvain 17 (1910), 502, n. 2; cf. also P. Rousselot, S.J.,
" Amour spirituel et synthese apperceptive," Revue de Philosophie 16 (1910), 240;" Les yeux de la foi," 462, n. I.
28 E. Gilson, Le Thomisme, 5th ed. (Paris: J. Vrin, 1944), pp. 517f., Being
and Some Philosophers, 2nd ed. (Toronto: Pont. Inst. of Med. Studies, 1952) .
••A. D. Sertillanges, 0. P., La philosophie de S. Thomas d'Aquin, 2nd ed. (Paris:
Aubier, 1940), I, pp. 68, 65, 68, 72, 84, 88, 91, 104; II, p. 8.

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JOHN M. MCDERMOTT, S.J.

the " apparent scandal to the principle of identity " in the
unique unity in diversity of knower and known. 80 Indeed, the
fundamental convertibility of truth and being is apparently
called into question when the basic law of being, the principle
of contradiction, maintains, "I am not another," and the primary law of knowledge reads, "I is another." 81 The analogous
concept of being contains a diversity in unity, 32 but its "paradox " is admitted by Maritain only in his attempt to reconcile
Cajetan's triple abstraction with Thomas's doctrine of the
separatio effected by a judgment to produce the notion of being;
he appealed to an intuition ultimately expressible in an analogous concept to join a supra-intelligible, non-conceptualizable
existence to a concept through the mutual causality of judgment and concept. 33 In this way, the static and the dynamic,
once juxtaposed, are united. He admits also the " paradox "
of consciousness caught between the poles of objectivity and
subjectivity that can only be reconciled in God's love. 34 Similarly the " paradox " of the person, part of society while above
it, is recognized and resolved with the insight that the person
is the source of freedom and love in the existential order; 35
so Maritain, p. Im.
81 J. Maritain, Creative Intuition in Art and Poetry (New York:
New American
Library, 1974), pp. 169f.
32 Maritain,
Degrees of Knowledge, pp. !i!H?-9!14. In Sept legons sur l'etre (Paris:
Tequi, 1933), pp. 74f., 77-85, U?5, Maritain's concept of being not only contains
within it the essence-existence polarity but also allows for motion through a
superabundance of being, or a surcroit, despite the " apparent conflict of motion
and the concept of being." Does not motion introduce plurality even into the
heart of this unity? Maritain admits that the action is always distinct from
the agent in all beings except God and that essences have primacy over action:
Sept legons, p. 19!7; Creative Intuition, p. 9!69!.
33 J. Maritain,
Existence and the Existent, trans. L. Galantiere and G. Phelan
(Westport: Greenwood, 1975), pp. 9!9!-34. Other instances where Thomists appeal
to mutual causality, e. g., essence-existence and will-intellect in free choice, also
exhibit the structure of unity in diversity.
34 Ibid., pp. 68-79.
85 J. Maritain,
Scholasticism and Politics, trans. M. Adler (New York: Macmillan, 1940), pp. 71, 58-68. In the later The Person and the Common Good,
trans. J. Fitzgerald (Notre Dame: U. of Notre Dame Press) Maritain recognized
the same paradox, or tension (p. 77), but attributed the transcendence of the
individual person over the
whole to grace, the calling of the personal God

A NEW APPROACH TO Goo's EXISTENCE

245

the person is the superabundant unity of the soul in knowledge
and love, in interiority and communication. 86 Furthermore,
Maritain's pre-philosophical, i.e., pre-conceptual, approach to
God in terms of the subject's intuition of the thing and himself as limited, fragile existences, which immediately concludes
to the God who is love, possesses great similarities with the
position of this article. 31
l\farechal's early writings mentioned the " antinomy" arising
from the conflict between man's "natural desire" to possess
pure Being and the necessary restrictions of intellection by
means of sensible phantasms. 38 This "antinomy" was overcome only by supernatural grace which leads man to the beatific
vision. 39 But, if the natural order contains a contradiction, one
may well question the absolute application of the principle of
contradiction as a natural principle of reason. In a later article
on the natural-supernatural relation M'arechal no longer spoke
of an antinomy. Instead, he reduced the "natural drive" to a
desire " ineffacacious per se," distinguishing it clearly from natural appetite. Though a natural appetite cannot be frustrated
"infra fines naturae," the natural desire for perfect beatitude
transcends the entire order of nature. 40 Such an explanation
to intimacy (pp. 20-22, 42, 61). Here and elsewhere I find a certain ambiguity
in Maritain's distinction of the existential from the supernatural order.
30 Maritain,
Creative Intuition, pp. 105-107; The Person and the Common
Good, pp. 38-42, 47. The notion of person developed in those works possesses
more breadth and flexibility than the two expressions of it in Degrees of Knowledge,
pp. 431-444. This more flexible notion might have served him well in On the
Grace and Humanity of Jesus, trans. J. Evans (New York: Herder and Herder,
1969), pp. 55-60, 72, 84, where he could have avoided the necessity of positing
a divinized supraconsciousness of self, uniting knowing and loving in a higher
region of Jesus's soul beyond the faculty distinction of intellect and will, from
which lower region it was divided by a partially permeable partition. Instead
of a duality of consciousness within a single soul, could not the supraconsciousness
of love and knowledge in unity be identified with the person?
87 J. Maritain, "A New Approach to God," The Range of Reason (New York:
Scribner's, 1957), 86-92.
88 J. Marechal,
S. J., "A propos du sentiment de presence chez les profanes
et les mystiques," Revue de Questions Scientifiques 15 (1909), 424.
•• Ibid., 426.
•• J. Marechal, S. J., "De naturali perfectae beatitudinis desiderio," Melanges
Jose:ph Marechal I (Paris: Desclee de Brouwer, 1950), 327f.

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JOHN M. MCDEm.10TT,

S.J.

adequately distinguishes natural and supernatural orders, but
the positing of the vision of the desired God beyond the natural
order might also put in question the validity of his argument
for God's existence in the transcendental order of egse. That
argument, implicit in Cahier V, relies upon the Aristotelian
potency-act analysis of :finality.41 But how may the Aristotelian
analysis, based on the dynamism of finite beings to their proportionate goal, be applied to an infinite God ultra fines naturae, sought by the desire to know ever more completely?
Were the potency-act analysis applicable to the soul's desire
for God, it is not clear how any natural, finite potency orientated to an infinite object might be stilled. Yet the impossibility of reaching a term would destroy the basis of the potencyact analysis.
By going beyond these conflicting Thomistic interpretations
we have hoped to reconcile their divergent understandings of
the existential order, whether it be attained through a concept,
an intuition, or a judgment. The grounding of universals in the
divine intelligence would prevent the fundamental systematic
pluralism (and chaos) into which more recent Transcendental
Thomism has tended to drift; the infinite mystery of love would
allow real novelty to be joined to the basically conceptual
frameworks of Maritain and Gilson. The " sacramental " view
of reality, which we uphold in affirming the inherent consistency
and meaningfulness of the world without absolutizing it, is in
total accord with the teaching of the New Testament and the
doctrine of Chalcedon as explicated by St. Maximus Confessor.42
In relation to modern thinkers, our position is perhaps closest
to that of H. de Lubac and H. U. von Balthasar. Both see
"Cf. J. P. Burns, S. J., "Marechal's Approach to the Existence of God,"
The New
42 (1968), esp. 78-86.
•• The basis of continuity with the teaching of the Scriptures may be seen
in the following articles: J. McDermott, S. J., "The Biblical Doctrine of Ko<vw,.,a,"
Biblische Zeitschrift 19 (1975), 64-77, 219-233; "Luke XII, 8-9: Stone of Scandal,"
Revue Biblique 84 (1977), 523-537; "Le. XII, 8-9: Pierre de base," Revue Biblique
85 (1978), 881-401. The consequences of these articles are still to be fully developed. For Maximus the Confessor the best introduction remains H. U. von
Balthasar, Kosmische Liturgie (Einsiedeln: Johannes, 1961); Maximus's teaching
about " person " has not been fully exploited.

A NEW APPROACH TO GOD'S EXISTENCE

247

the paradoxical, or the bi-polar, synthesis as the seal of Catholic
truth which keeps its balance in avoiding extremes. 43 In Surnaturel de Lubac affirmed the natural desire 0£ the soul to see
God intuitively. Lest this seem to place God in obligation to
the creature, de Lubac realized that a radical change of perspective had to be effected. Man's desire is really only God's demand implanted in him. In explaining how the natural desire
and the divine exigence are reconciled he referred to the mystery of love, " where the paradox is the necessary sign of
truth." 44 The experience of the divine love essential to Christianity serves as the norm of Christian thought. De Lubac laid
himself open to criticism insofar as he attempted to translate
this central mystery into the rational categories of potency and
act, desire and its necessary term, and then realized the impossibility of that effort. Many saw therein at least an inadequate
formulation, if not a denial, of a natural order capable of supplying a knowledge of God. 45 But, had the experience of love
(which need not be supernatural) served as the natural basis
of knowing God, de Lubac's position would agree with our
own and perhaps escape the criticism of H. U. von Balthasar. 46
••Cf. H. de Lubac, S. J., Le 11iystere du sumaturel (Paris: Aubier, 1965), pp.
209-222, for a list of some of the paradoxes impliit in faith.
u H. de Lubac, S. J., Surnatui·d (Paris:
Aubier, 1946), pp. 484, 490-494. In
Le mystere du surnaturel de Lubac emphasized even more strongly the paradoxical
quality of the mystery of love that was the heart of the natural-supernatural
problematic, as the most fleeting glance at the chapter titles reveals. In this
later work his position remains fundamentally the same as in Surnaturel, although
a certain mellowing vis-a-vis the supporters of the " pure nature " hypothesis
is perceptible (p. 103). Insofar as he added precision to his position, he conceived a "pure nature" statically, as it were, before a supernatural finality is
bestowed on it (pp. 28, 80-89, 106-110). But the very notion of a static nature
is unsatisfying, and de Lubac continually stressed man's inability to conceptualize
totally the mystery not only of God but also of man (pp. 203-206, 259-!iW9).
This lack of clarity has left the great French theologian open to criticism. We
hope that our attempt, which radicalizes his critique of rational systems, will
justify his brilliant intuitions.
•• K. Rahner, S. J., "Uber <las Verhii.ltnis von Natur und Gnade," Schriften
zur Theologie I (Einsiedeln: Benziger, 1954), 829-836; L. Martelet, S. J., "La
gratuite du sumaturel," Nouvelle Revue Theologique 75 (1953), 675-689.
•• H. U. von Balthasar, " The Achievement of Henri de Lubac," Thought 51
(1976), 28, n. 38.

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JOHN M. MCDERMOTT,

S.J.

This Swiss theologian has concentrated his attention on surpassing the cosmological and anthropological presuppositions
of previous thought in order to open man to the paradoxical
mysteries of divine love. 47 In the unity of God's plan the glory
of the divine love is revealed in such a way as to transcend all
conceptual formulations without destroying the distinction between natural and supernatural orders, even if the line of demarcation must necessarily be left vague. Whereas von Balthasar' s method leads the believer circuitously into the heart
of the mystery from which he might meditate the identity in
diversity of both orders, we have attempted here a more
straightforward approach to a natural metaphysics that reveals
the structure of a love both human and divine.
In the final analysis this position may not be far removed
from B. Lonergan's. In an early paper he spoke o:f the philosophical " paradox " :for the finite intellect in the natural desire
to see God. 48 His later writings have concentrated on moral
conversion and, ultimately, on the gift of divine love which
causes the religious conversion that supports all other conversions in the " paradox " of the existential subject who is called
to make himself what he is.49 With this turn to the primacy
of the supernatural, must not the self-affirmation of the knower,
the heart of Insight, he subordinated to the self-affirmation of
the lover who knows himself as loved in loving the beloved?
In such a case, however, a new understanding of the naturalsupernatural relation, overcoming the antinomies of the earlier
debate, can be developed.
C. From the understanding of the world-God relation elabon

H. U. von Balthasar, Glubhaft ist nur die Liebe, 3rd ed. (Einsiedeln, Johannes,

1966), which is a brief sketch of his multivolumed Herrlichkeit (Einsiedeln: Johannes, 1961-1969).
48 B. Lonergan, S.J., "The Natural Desire to See God," Collection, ed. F. Crowe
(New York: Herder and Herder, 1967), pp. 87, 90, 91.
• 9 B. Lonergan, S. J., " The Subject," A Second Collection, ed. W. Ryan and
B. Tyrrell (Philadelphia: Westminster, 1974), pp. 79, 80-82, 83, 84; Method in
Theology (New York: Herder and Herder, 1972), pp. 106£., 122f., 235, 240, 248,
278, 840-342; Philosophy of God, and Theology (Philadelphia: Westminster, 1973),
pp. 8-10, U-14, SS, 41, 50-52, 59.

A NEW APPROACH TO Goo's EXISTENCE

249

rated in the previous pages flow several important advantages.
No longer need the problem of divine omnipotence and human
freedom be shunted aside as a mystery not quite fitting into
Aristotelian metaphysics. Instead, this mystery stands at the
heart of life's mystery and of philosophical thought. God's
omnipotence forces the moral subject to break out of the pleasure-pain syndrome and choose his apparent self-destruction.
Yet precisely when under the pressure of the moral demand
the subject knows that he is free to reject as well as to accept
the divine omnipotence. This conception of freedom likewise
places the Thomistic analysis of freedom in its proper context,
i.e., a rational attempt to delimit the conditions of freedom
and to characterize it as neither irrational nor necessitated.
D. This way of conceiving the world's relation to God offers
a solution to the natural-supernatural problematic. Man by
his nature can know God, but in a world of sin, exploitation,
and suffering the reality of a God who is love may easily be
put into question. Only Christ who surpasses the brokenness
and ambiguity of human experience can assure man that love
is real and that God is love, and by raising the divine claim for
fidelity in His own person (Lk. 12: Sf. par.) He alone establishes the new, divinized humanity in love. 50 The supernatural
revelation is not so much a collection of ideas as the new reality
of love rejoining man to God in Jesus Christ. Ultimately this
structure of reality is seen to be sacramental. The sacrament
may be defined as the unity in diversity of the finite with the
infinite in such a way that in and through a finite form the
infinite God makes Himself present to man in a call for the
total response of love, and upon man's response is based the
eschatological judgment. This is the structure of reality that
" 0 The problem of evil and suffering " necessitates " morally, or existentially,
a supernatural revelation that surpasses the answers of natural theology. Herein
the absolute superiority of Christianity over all other religions is manifestly recognized. Indications of such an argument are given in: J. McDermott, S. J., " The
Loving Father and the Tormented Child: Professor Flew and St. Irenaeus,"
Thought 59 (1978), 70-82.

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JOHN M. MCDERMOTT, S.J.

found its conscious culmination in Jesus Christ and is continued
in the visible Church, the Eucharist, and all the other sacraments (cf. I Cor. 11:
.
E. Finally, it should be noted that, in this new conception,
Greek and Hebrew notions of truth are joined. By remaining
faithful to God man is rendered capable of perceiving intellectually the objective structure of the reality that reveals God.
JoHN M. McDERMOTT, S. J.
Fordham University
Bronx, New YO'l"k

ANALYTIC PHILOSOPHY REEXAMINED

A

ALYTIC PHILOSOPHERS COMMONLY hold three
theses which, taken collectively, put them in a hopeless
bind as regards the identification of the bearer of truth.
These are: a) that analytic statements are not about any extralinguistic fact, b) that truth consists in the correspondence of
statement to fact, and c) that analytic statements are necessarily true. By accepting a), b) and c) our analytic philosopher
is saddled with the following dilemma from which escape appears
to be impossible. Either he holds that any proposition, analytic
or synthetic, can be called true, or else he holds that only synthetic statements can be said to be true (or false). But given
his commitment to a), b) and c) neither alternative is open to
him. If he takes the former option he must either deny a) or
b) above. If all statements, analytic and synthetic alike, can be
the bearers of ' true ', then either analytic statements are about
extra-linguistic facts or else truth is not definable as the correspondence of statement to (extra-linguistic) fact. On the other
hand, if he takes the latter alternative, namely, that synthetic
but not analytic statements can be called true (or false) then,
while he may then consistently hold both a) and b), he must
abandon c). Unless, therefore, our analytic philosopher gives up
either a), b) or c) above, he is ensnared in a dilemma from
which there is no escape.
But the trouble is, since a), b) and c) are central to the programme of philosophical analysis, abandoning either a), b) or
c) proves to be unpalatable for most analysts. First, as regards
a), to admit that analytic statements are about facts would
resurrect metaphysics in the old and grand style, as a science of
necessary truths about reality. It would then have to be conceded that philosophy does not begin with Kant, that since
there is a realm of' transcendent eternal facts which are ex251

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JOHN PETERSON

pressed by analytic truths, pre-critical dogmatic metaphysics is
thereby reinstated in full dress. Second, as regards b) , to deny
the correspondence view of truth is for our analyst to affirm that
the fact, say, that it is now snowing is not itself a sufficient condition for making the proposition " It is now snowing ", true. If
truth does not consist in the correspondence of statement to
fact, it either does not consist in this at all, or else it does not
consist only in this. But in either case the proposition that it is
now snowing would not be made true just because it is as a matter of fact now snowing. But quite apart from how, if at all,
such a view would be defended, the point is that no analytic
philosopher would ever dream of defending it. Finally, with respect to c), since he holds that analytic truths are logically
necessary truths, our analyst clearly cannot deny that analytic
statements are true. While a proposition can be true without
being necessary, it cannot be necessary without being true. Further, to deny that analytic statements are true is really to deny
that they are statements at all. For by no stretch of the imagination can analytic statements be false, so that, if they are
not true either and if, as he holds, all and only statements are
true or false, then our analyst must deny that analytic statements are bona fide statements in the first place. But then his
own division of statements into analytic and synthetic statements is undermined.
If, then, he can abandon neither a), b) nor c) and if his holding these three theses precludes his identifying the bearer of
truth either with analytic and synthetic statements both or with
synthetic statements alone, then our analyst is in trouble as regards the referent of truth, it being impossible for him to hold
a), b), and c) consistently with holding either that analytic
and synthetic statements both, or that synthetic statements
alone, are true.
In the face of this difficulty, what is our analyst to do? How
can he continue to affirm that analytic statements are verbal
truths, that truth consists in correspondence to fact, and that
analytic statements are true without thereby sacrificing any fit
and proper referent or bearer for' true' and' false'? In answer,

ANAI.YTIC PHILOSOPHY REEXAMINED

253

I think it must be freely conceded that there is just nothing the
analyst can do to loosen the bind in question, that he simply
cannot continue to affirm a), b) and c) and at the same time
find a suitable bearer of truth. But if this be the case and if, as
was said, a), b) and c) are all three of them central to the programme of analytic philosophy, the conclusion would seem to be
inescapable that that same programme in philosophy is seriously
deficient.
But it is one thing to find a programme deficient and another
thing to correct the deficiency. Still, it may not be too presumptuous on our part to suggest a remedy for the analysts'
predicament. To begin, let us take as a fixed datum the view
that any proposition, be it analytic or synthetic, is the fit and
proper bearer of truth. Since this datum is incompatible with
the joint truth of a) and b), we must now decide which of these
two theses must go. But now, it seems to me that the choice is
not at all difficult to make, that there is simply no contest so far
as priority and truth go between a) and b) . For while it is
scarcely deniable that truth consists in a correspondence of some
sort as between statement and fact, it seems far from being evident that analytic truths are not truths about any matter of
fact. In fact, this long-standing denial that analytic truths have
any reference to fact has in recent years been called into question by Professor Veatch. As I understand it, Veatch's telling
criticism comes down to this: in any proposition the S-term must
be used or else it must be mentioned. But on the assumption that
analytic propositions are not about any objective fact, neither
alternative makes sense. To explain, suppose, to use Kant's
celebrated example, I say " Bodies are extended." Here it is
clear that the subject-term "bodies" is not being mentioned;
otherwise, I would be predicating the attribute of being extended of the word " bodies " and not what the word signifies. The
only other option, then, is to say that " Bodies " is not being
mentioned here but is rather being used. On this analysis
" Bodies " is being used to signify that which is meant by the
word, the objective content or meaning (in the sense of object

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JOHN PETERSON

meant) of the word. But in that case the analytic statement in
question, " Bodies are extended," turns out to signify an objective fact after all, namely the fact that being extended belongs
to the objective essence of body. But this could not be admitted
if analytic statements were construed as not expressing any objective fact at all. As, therefore, the denial that analytic statements express any matter of fact invites the absurdity that the
subject terms of such statements can be neither used nor mentioned, it follows that that same denial must simply be mistaken.1
Nonetheless, it may be objected here that to the extent that
the foregoing argument wrongly assumes that analytic statements are statements of the subject-predicate form, it really
comes to nothing. For if analytic statements are hypothetical
and not categorical in form, the question as to whether in analytic statements the S-term is being used or being mentioned
could not even arise in the first place. But in that case, the
supposed absurdity to which the standard view of analytic
statements leads, namely, that the subject-terms of such statements could be neither used nor mentioned-that supposed absurdity-would simply go by the board. In other words, so the
objection would run, only if analytic statements are wrongly
construed as subject-predicate or categorical statements (as
they were, for example, by Kant) would the argument which I
have just attributed to Prof. Veatch serve to falsify the denial
that analytic statements express objective facts.
To answer this objection, we must go to its source and uncover the reason why it is held to begin with that analytic statements are hypothetical rather than subject-predicate statements. That reason, it seems to me, is that analytic statements
are construed as being a relation between universals or concepts
only. The hidden assumption here, of course, is that no proposition which expresses a relation between universals or concepts
can ever be a statement of fact. But to press further, just
why should the fact that a state:i;nent expresses a relation be1 Veatch,

Henry, Two Logics, Evanston, Ill. 1969, pp. 76-89.

ANALYTIC PHILOSOPHY REEXAMINED

tween universals or concepts only preclude its being a statement
of fact? Why, in other words, must all statements of fact refer
to particulars and not to universals? More concretely, why
should anyone want to hold, for example, that the inherence of
the attribute of being extended in the concept or universal body
is not a fact, whereas, say, the inherence of the property of
" thinking about facts " in me now is a fact? To these very
crucial questions the only answer seems to lie in the presumption that a fact is something which exists in space and time, or if
not in space and time both, at least in time. And since no relation between subsistent universals exists in time and since any
and all analytic truths express such relations, then no analytic
truths express any matters of fact. On the other hand, though,
since subject-predicate statements refer to particulars and since
particulars are in time, subject-predicate statements are or can
be statements of fact.
But surely this presumption is not only wrong but the very
reverse of what is the case. For so far from its being the case
that all facts are in time, it seems to be true that no facts are in
time, that to put facts in time is to confuse facts with events.
Events, not facts, are just those sorts of thing which begin, last
and cease to be in time. I can say of the writing of this paper
that it began at 9: 00 A.M., lasted two hours and ended at 11: 00
A.M. But the fact that the writing of this paper began at 9: 00
A.M., lasted two hours and ended at 11: 00 A.M. is not itself
something which began or ceased in time. If, then, not even
such a concrete fact as this is in time, then why should it be
required that an abstract relation between two subsistent universals be in time in order to qualify as fact? No, so far from
being in time or space, facts would seem to be kinds of things
which are entirely timeless. But in that case, there would seem
to be no truth at all in contrasting analytic propositions like
" Bodies are extended " with empirical propositions like " I am
now writing about facts" on the point that the latter (when
true) do, whereas the former do not, express a matter of objective fact.
But then, if it cannot really be denied that analytic state-

JOHN PETERSON

ments are statements of fact, and if we were right in saying that
the reasons why analytic statements were in the first place classified as hypothetical rather than as subject-predicate statements
was that they supposedly failed to express a matter 0£ fact, then
there would seem to be no good reason for that classification, no
good reason for construing analytic propositions as hypotheticals rather than as categoricals. But in that case, it would follow
that the foregoing objection to Professor Veatch's criticism of
the concept of analytic truth, namely that that criticism falsely
assumes that analytic truths are subject-predicate statementswould simply be groundless.
But even if our would-be analyst cannot accept this rejoinder
and continues to insist that analytic statements are hypothetical statements, and hence, statements which fail to designate
any matter of fact in or about reality-still, where is he then?
For he must then continue to cling to a) , in which case he
can no longer hold that analytic and synthetic statements both
are true unless, of course, he gives up the correspondence view
of truth. Or, should he insist on retaining both a) and the correspondence theory b), he would then be forced to deny c),
namely, that analytic statements are really and strictly speaking true. But the trouble is, he cannot drop either b) or c)
any more than he can drop a) without losing the title of analytic
philosopher, since b) and c) no less than a), are necessary ingredients in the analysts' programme.
There is, of course, one other move our analytic philosopher
may make. That is to deny that ' true ' is predicated univocally
of analytic statements and synthetic statements. That is to say,
he can continue to hold a) and c) simultaneously by denying
that, when predicated of analytic statements, 'true' does not
mean " correspondence to extra-linguistic fact " but something
else instead, " correspondence to fact " being the sense of ' true '
when the latter is predicated of synthetic statements. This
would allow him to say, consistently, that analytic statements
are true but yet do not signify any matter of fact, since now,
" correspondence to fact" is what ' true ' means only when
' true ' is predicated of empirical or synthetic statements. True,

ANALYTIC PHILOSOPHY REEXAMINED

257

he would then be abandoning b) or the view that' true' means
nothing but " corresponds to a fact," but he would still be salvaging the correspondence view of truth with respect to synthetic
statements.
And yet, when carefully scrutinized, this halfway-house position scarcely affords shelter to the analyst. For, for one thing,
it is not at all clear what' true' as predicated of analytic statements would mean, if it does not mean' corresponds to a fact'.
But second, and what is decisive, it would not even seem to be
possible to say with sense that 'true' applies equivocally to
analytic statements and synthetic statements. The reason for
this is that by the logic of equivocal predication that which is
predicated equivocally is so predicated of totally different sorts
of things in totally different senses. For example, the word
' pen ' is rightly said to be predicated equivocally of an enclosure for animals and of a writing instrument only because an
enclosure for animals and a writing instrument are totally different sorts of thing. But by contrast, analytic and synthetic
statements are things of the same sort, namely, statements. Accordingly, since they are not totally different sorts of thing,
analytic and synthetic statements cannot be subjects of which
'true' is equivocally predicated.
Stated in summary form, our argument is as follows:
I)

Terms which we predicated equivocally are predicated m
totally different senses.
2) But the referent of a term varies according to its sense, so
that if a term has two totally different senses there are, if
the term has reference each time, totally different referents.
3) Thus, one and the same term which has totally different
senses, must, if the term has reference at all, in each of its
senses have totally different referents corresponding to each
of its totally different senses.
4) Therefore, since 'true' and 'false' are predicated of the
same referent, namely, a statement, it follows that 'true'
cannot be predicated equivocally of analytic and synthetic
statements.

It seems, then, that it remains only to prescribe the best medicine by which analytic philosophy may be cured of its ills. That

258

JOHN PETERSON

medicine, though, may prove to be too bitter a pill for the ana.
lyst to swallow. There are, it seems, three possible remedies, the
best of which may be determined by the effects of each one.
These are, (1) denying a), (2) denying b), or (3) denying c).
Taking them in reverse order, to deny that analytic statements are true (c) is to deny either that statements or propositions are the sorts of thing which are true or false, or else to
deny that analytic statements are genuine statements. But
statements are the very sorts of thing which are ' true ' and
' false ' and it is simply arbitrary not to count sentences like
" Bodies are extended" as expressing, or as capable of expressing, statements. Second, to deny the correspondence view of
truth is to deny, incredibly, that what is meant by saying that
" Snow is white " is true is that that statement corresponds to
the way things are. We are left then, with denying a), namely,
that analytic statements do not express any matter of fact.
Not only is this denial not counter-intuitive (as is the denial
of b) , but no dire consequences follow from it. Of course, one
could protest that to deny a) is to resurrect metaphysics in the
old style, to lapse into that pre-Kantian dogmatic slumber
under the spell of which necessary or analytic statements are
construed as signifying matters of fact about the way things
really are. But there are fates far worse than this for philosophy, not the least of which is embracing a wide-awake philosophy of analysis which avoids the metaphysical slumber in
question at the cost of either denying that analytic statements
are true or of abandoning the correspondence theory of truth.
JOHN PETERSON

University of Rhode Island
King&ton, Rhode Island

TRANSCENDENT TIME IN MAXIMUS
THE CONFESSOR

A

THEY ATTEMPTED to rethink the biblical tradition
in terms of Greek philosophy Christian theologians
found it natural to relate the contrast between Creator
and creation to the Neo-Platonic contrast between transcendent and phenomenal reality. In Neo-Platonism the two poles
are tied together by a great chain each link of which represents
a phase of the diffusion of reality from the timeless to the
temporal plane: from the radical unity of the One beyond all
categories, through the unity-in-plurality of intelligible being
on its higher levels and its plurality-in-unity on lower levels,
through the still more diffuse plurality-in-unity of soul and
finally down to the actual flow of time. Eternity (awn) is at the
highest levels of intelligible reality and embodies its unity as a
dimensionless point or timeless present which expands in time
into the serial order of past/present/future as well as into the
actual succession of moments. Between time and eternity and
closely associated with soul is a transcendent time which combines the absence of process in eternity with the serial order of
time. In later Neo-Platonism it is conceived of as a' number'
or formula embracing the life span of the universe and of its
parts. Timelessness is thus seen from this point of view in structural terms, i.e., it is (in the case of transcendent time) the
serial order of time stripped of process or (in the case of true
eternity) it is that order contracted to radical unity. 1
Maximus's concept of time rests on his division of reality
into three stages (beginning, middle and end) which are de1 S. Gersh, From lamblichua lo Eriugena (Leiden: Brill, 1978), p. 72, n. 212;
P. Plass, 'Timeless Time in Neo-Platonism,' The Modern Schoolman, vol. 55
(1977)' p. If.

259

PAUL PLASS

fined in a variety of ways. The most important of the triads are
'becoming/motion/rest'
(genesis/kinesis/stasis) and 'being/
well-being/ ever-well-being.' 2
'Coniing to be is presupposed by the natural motion of all
created things and motion is naturally presupposed by all rest
(91.1£17D) .' 'Becoming' or 'being' is the brute, unaccountable fact that there is a creation; it is the absolute dependence
and contingence of created being. 'Motion' (or 'change') is
the cosmic process-characterized by space and especially by
time-in which things achieve individuality and develop toward their destinies. Though it may be diverted into 'evilbeing,' Maximus takes a decidedly positive view of creation 8
and sees in it not merely motion but directed motion; as ' being '
corresponds to 'genesis,' 'well-being' corresponds to 'motion.'
Hence time generally answers to 'well-being' because it has a
natural goal-the cessation of motion in ' rest,' i.e., the perfecting of well-being in ever-well-being.
Maximus borrows the Cappadocian notion of ' extension '
(diastema) for the middle member of the triad. Time and space
are generated by motion from' beginning' to ' end ':
' All that is created has a beginning of existence since it has
come to be and an interval (diastihna) from the time when it
began (91.1397B) .' Diastema includes both intelligible and sensible creation (91.1072A) and is not only' extension' of the creature through time but ' distance between,' i.e., the infinite gap
2 For a brief review of early theological views on time and motion cf. Hans
von Balthasar, Kosmische Liturgie; (Einsiedeln: Johannes-Verlag, 1961), 2nd ed.,
p. 60lf. Other triads are being/choice/grace; power/activity/rest; being/relation/
(90.1084B; 91.1073C; 1217Cf; 1237A; 1325B;
grace; birth/baptism/resurrection
l392Af) . All references to Maximus are to the Migne Patrologia Graeca edition,
volumes 90 and 91. For parallels among the triads cf. Polycarp Sherwood, The
Earlier A mbigua of Saint Maximus the Confessor and his Refutation of Origenisrn
(Rome: Herder, 1955), Studia Anselmiana, XXXVI, p. 42£; Balthasar, p. 139f.
For faith/hope/charity
cf. Lars Thunberg, Microcosm and Mediator (Lund:
Gleerup, 1965), Acta Seminarii Neo-Testamentici Uppsaliensis, XXV, p. 338. For
a detailed outline of Maximus's ontology cf. W. Volker, Maximus Confessor als
Meister des Geistlichen Lebens (Wiesbaden: Steiner, 1965), p. 23f.
8 Cf. J. Meyendorff, Byzantine Theology (New York: Fordham U. Press, 1974),
p. 133.

MAXIMUS THE CONFESSOR

261

which separates creature from Creator (91.1077A) .4 The single
most important characteristic of time is its finitude. What is
created is complex (composed either of form/matter or of form/
being, 91.1400C), and what is complex is always finite (91.1184B) . The universe, then, is finite space, and its time is finite
motion (90.757D; cf. 90.1109A). Both are 'qualified' (pi5s
echon) and finite because they are limited by the infinity which
contains them (91.llSOBf) .
The Aristotelian cast of the triad genesis/kinesis/stasis
(= telos) comes out clearly when Maximus argues that all
created beings move insofar as they have not yet reached their
end (91.1072C). Time flows on until it reaches its end and will
not flow at all unless it has an end. In criticizing the Origenist
doctrine that the soul may fall back into time after it reaches
God Maximus observes that nothing could be more pitiable
than a creature never certain whether it has :finally reached its
true rest (91.1069C) .
Like many Christian writers Maximus uses both ' chronos'
and ' aion ' as words for ' time '.
Beginning, middle and end are marks of things divided by time
(chronos) and of things thought of as being in aion. For time
(chronos) has its motion measured and is limited by number; aion
includes the category ' when? ' in its existence and displays extension (diastasin) since it has a beginning. If, then, chronos and ai6n
are not without beginning, so much more are things in them not
without beginning (90.1085A; cf. 91.1377D).

This follows the common biblical (and Gnostic) use of aion as
'large stretch of time' or ' world period' in which the divine
purpose of history emerges on a larger scale than it does in the
moment to moment flow of chronos. 5
4 Thunberg
(above, n. 2), p. 60f; Ba!thasar (above, n. 2), p. 132f and 600,
where diastema is rendered 'Abstandigkeit von sich selbst.' Gersh (above, n. 1),
p. 59f; 246, n. 195.
5 Cf. Balthasar (above, n. 2), p. 134ff and 558 for a discussion of aiiin; Balthasar
compares it to the Indian kalpa. Theodore of Mopsuestia (PG 66. 897D) remarks
that aiiin is not to be thought of as an independent hypostasis but as a diastemct
of time, either large or small. Theodoret distinguishes God's true eternity from

PAUL PLASS

Maximus's model of reality is completed by a principle of expansion and contraction (diastole/systole) .6 Being itself and
not just the being of things subject to birth and death is in motion according to the principle of expansion and contraction.
For being moves from the most general genus through intermediate genera to the species into which it is divided and by
which its expansion is limited. Thus being has its beginning and
end at the points of maximum expansion and contraction (91.1177 Bf) . If we visualize the triad genesis/motion/rest as flow
from the beginning to the end of time along a horizontal axis,
we can visualize expansion and contraction as the typically NeoPlatonic fan-shaped flow of being starting from a point and
spreading down. It lies on a vertical axis because Maximus
thinks of it as a permanent ontological structure. But his sense
of biblical history and of eschatology shifts expansion and contraction to the horizontal axis of actual temporal process as
well. Christ was incarnated or ' thickened ' to bring mankind
together to himself and make it one; in proportion, then, to his
making us contract toward unity he expanded himself on our
behalf (91.1288A). The pattern thus applies to history: incarnation is God's expansion, deification is our contraction at
the end of time. At times Maximus seems to have both ontological structure and historical process in mind. ' God joins together for me the principle of my being and of my well-being in
order to reunify the split (tomen) and separation (diastasin) of
these two which I have created. He thus in his wisdom directs
me to ever-being' (91.1848D) . That is to say, as the diffusion
of the creature's being (conceived of partly in' vertical' Greek
tern11l) is contracted upward, the diffusion of his life (conceived
of in 'horizontal' terms) is refocused at the end of time. In
terms of the incarnation we can say that as Christ expanded
the extension of aii5n. The latter applies only to created beings and is not a true
ousia but ' anhypostation ' (PG 82. 680Bf) . The elusiveness of aion is nicely illustrated when Volker (above, n. 2, p. 24, n. 8) cites 91.1164BC to show that
aian and chronos 'have no basic difference ' and then (p. 33, n. 4) cites the same
passage to show that they ' are clearly distinct.'
6 Thunberg
(above, n. 9.!), p. 6Sf and 420.

MAXIMUS THE CONFESSOR

268

down into history it becomes possible for history to converge
'forward' to its end.
The most radical form of contraction-God in his total transcendence-corresponds to the One in the Neo-Platonic chain.
God can be said to be beyond beginning, middle or end (90.1085B) or to be beyond' container and contained, beyond time,
awn and space' (91.1153B) all of which are relative or 'middle' (90.llOSC) while he is the infinite end (90.llOSCD) . He
is' infinitely infinite beyond all things' (90.673D) . The paradox
of such a negative theology is all the more striking if God is
thought of as man's end. For if finite man has an infinite end, he
must ' depart from himself ' to reach his final silence and rest
(90.1116AB), and apparently along with the cessation of time
he himself will be destroyed in order to be fulfilled. 7
But the biblical Creator is in fact intimately related to creation, and Neo-Platonic ontology itself involves a spectrum of
being whose various bands shade into and out of each other.
Maximus, too, generates a hybrid state through overlapping
categories. If God is the infinite end, he does after all fall into
a category and can actually be said to be beginning, middle and
end because he is creator, provider and completor of creation
(90.1088A; cf. 91.Hll 7). This is not so much the flat paradox
that God both does and does not fall into certain categories as
it is an effort to bracket or subsume time so that it reappears in
a higher form between ordinary time and eternity. Thus as the
infinite beginning prior to time/space and the infinite end subsequent to time/ space God is a new ' space ' (and a new ' time ')
of the saved (90.llOSCf). In terms of the Neo-Platonic structural view 0£ reality we can say that Maximus is taking account
of a level at which the order or plan of temporal events (pre/
post) exists without actual process.
7 On the paradox of nature destroyed in order to be completed cf. Balthasar
(above, n. !i!), p. 141£, 851, 605; Sherwood (above, n. !i!), p. no. For the implicit
danger that individuality is lost in Platonic universals cf. Endre v. Ivanka, Plato
Christianus (Einsiedeln: Johannes Verlag, 1964), p. 802. The status of the Eelf
is problematic for similar reasons in Neo-Platonism; cf. G. O'Daly, Plotinus.'s
Philosophy of the Self (Shannon: Irish U. Press, 1978).

264

PAUL PLASS

Maximus's elaboration of this category naturally centers
around the Logos, who also is beginning, middle and end (90.808C) , who is immanent and transcendent, multiple and single.8
The logoi of creation-both visible and invisible-were themselves 'prepared' by God before time (90.298Df). They exist
in two modes: they are unified in the Logos (' all the logoi exist
in unity and single simplicity ', 91.681B) , and they are also
plural because they are patterns for creation in all its complexity
('things which differ do so because of their logoi ', 91.1256D) .
The status of the logoi is inherently vague much as it is in Origen and other earlier theologians who borrowed Platonic intelligible being and revised it in various directions. Logoi are both
immanent and transcendent, existing prior to creation yet not
identical with God. They can stand in contrast to the temporal
created world made up of visible and intelligible being yet they
can also be grouped with intelligible being against visible being
and can be thought of as intelligibles in highly unified form. 9
Though both the intelligible and visible realms are created and
therefore extended, moving and temporal, ' intelligible motion '
s Cf. Gersh (above, n. 1), p. 240f, 263f, 27lf. On the relation of immanence
and transcendence cf. Gersh, p. 138, 236£. Maximus occasionally uses the familiar
Neo-Platonic metaphysical diagram of center and radii. At the end of time
God/Christ will stand in the center of the resurrected saints distributing rewards
'without spatial separation (diastasis) from them' (90.1136BC). Here creatures
are fused with Christ in the center yet are also spread around him just as radii
are at once in and distinct from their common center. In 90.1133B the phrase
' place (topos) of prayer ' used in a discussion of h-0w prayer transcends space
is a similar fusion of two orders of reality; cf. Balthasar (above, n. 2), p. 588. The
man who reaches God will grasp ' in simple and undivided knowledge all of the
logoi which pre-exist creation in him, just as the center of a circle contains undivided the ends of the radii extending from it' (90.1U!5Df; cf. 91.1081C). God
is beyond discursive stmcture, yet in the spaceless divine center there is still an
articulated cosmic plan. Balthasar (594) aptly observes that the 'center' here
does not so much symbolize the absolute unity of God as the point of transition
to the finite world. The visible world is in the intelligible world in the form of
logoi, as in Ezekiel's vision wheel lies within wheel (91.669Bf). On the shifting status
of Forms (in God's mind, in the Logos, separate) cf. H. Wolfson, The Philosophy
of the Church Fathers (Cambridge: Harvard U. Press, 1956), vol. I, p. 257ff.
9 Volker (above, n. 2), p. 23; The Cambridge History of Lateqo Greek and Early
Medieval Philosophy, ed. by A. H. Armstrong (Cambridge: Cambridge U. Press,
1967)' p. 497f.

MAXIMUS THE. CO.NFESSOR

(91.1072A) is superior to perceptible motion and thus constitutes a higher mode of time. The correspondence between the
two realms is reciprocal. ' Visible things are symbolic [or ' typical '] of intelligibles, intelligibles are the. logoi of visibles,' 10 and
visible things are known by ' pneumatic ' knowledge which
works through the medium of intelligibles (91.669Cf) . Maximus can also point to this hybrid ontological level by speaking
of the logoi as 'results of God's will' (thelemata, 90.296A)-a
word which neatly combines dynamic and static, temporal and
timeless aspects. 11
In this way the intelligible/sensible polarity reappears as a
dialectic fusion of time and timelessness, i.e., as an' unextended
extension' which answers roughly to the Neo Platonic conception of a transcendent ' frozen ' time mirroring the actual flow of
time. Like the transcendent 'number' of time, the 'primary
logoi ' created by God are universals or sketches whose details
are then worked out in the relative contingency and freedom of
time (90.272Af). The Logos has the logoi of each thing prior to
time (pro ton awn0n) and creates each thing visible and invisible at its proper time (chronon) in accordance with them
(91.lOSOA). God 'has known' timelessly and never comes to
know all things. The logoi preexist and are manifested at the
proper time (lwiros) by 'times and aeons' as time unfolds
(91.1328Bff). Christ is foreknown by the Trinity only in his
human and not his divine nature, for only the former has any
relation to time. The logoi of created things preexist monadically and are revealed to creatures who then come to know themselves [historically] for what they are (90.624Df).
10 Cf. Plotinus's principle of reciprocity:
' Intuition is bright p0rception, perception is dim intuition' (VI.7.7.30).
11 Cf. Gersh
(above, n. 1), p. 266; 160, n. 156. In Neo-Platonism creation
is the result of unwilled, autonomous emanation; hence the phenomenal universe
is eternal. Patristic emphasis upon creation as a free act of a sovereign God
leads to a corresponding emphasis on the contingency of creation, a view which
permits Gregory of Nyssa to offer a striking explanation of the ceaseless ' becoming' of phenomenal existence. Since the universe is unstable (temporal) because it was called into being out of sheer nothing, change is (so to speak) the
symptom of a radical ontological anxiety (PG 44.l84C).

266

PAUL PLASS

In Neo-Platonism the numbers which make up transcendent
time do not seem to be Forms, since Forms are not directly
connected to temporal processes. They are rather an aspect of
Forms, yet are also substantial in their own right insofar as
they occupy an independent ontological plane. So, too, the
logoi are for JVIaximus closely associated with the serial order
of time yet are aspects or expressions of God which do not compromise his unity. In so far as the pretemporal Logos is radically simple it is not a pattern of time: it contains the ' bare
patterns of universal truths ' and not ' parables or riddles or
histories' (90.1149D) . This is the higher, 'unextended' aspect
of transcendent reality. At the same time, as the incarnate Son
of God the Logos does contain the ' power of all the riddles and
types of scripture and the knowledge of all visible and invisible
creatures ... He who knows the mystery of the Resurrection
knows the purpose for which God created the universe' (90.1108A). Here the Logos appears as a lower, quasi-' extended'
principle corresponding more directly to the course of events
and making them a ' typical ' reflection of the transcendent pattern which gives time meaning.
There is accordingly room for an intermediate gnosis by
which logoi are grasped without reference to matter but still as
a plurality of intelligibles (90.292A). Such gnfJS'is reflects the
temporal structure of creation and can provide insight specifically into providence, which embodies the complex divine
economy and especially the plan of the incarnation. During the
Transfiguration Moses and Elijah were told about coming
events in Jerusalem and about how Jesus's death would fulfill
the Old Testament, and they also gained insight into the divine
plan for history. The specific 'when', 'how' and 'what' of
that plan is knowable only to God, but man can know that there
is a providential end toward which the flow of events is moving
(91.1169A). Moses is the 'type' of providence because he
traced for men [the Jews] the complex path leading from the
material world [the desert] to the intelligible world [Israel]
(91.1168C) . Motion (time) itself reveals providence, since in

MAXIMUS THE CONFE)SSOR

267

time we can detect the essential, changeless identity and course
(diexagoge) which binds and preserves the plurality-in-unity of
things according to their logoi (91.1183C) . When our mind
passes through the order of nature and the intelligible world, it
comes to a halt at the ' infinite abyss ' of God and there reaches
not bare unity but some grasp of the ' ways and logoi of the
divine providence for the universe' (91.1408Df). Similarly the
reward which Moses received £or his ascent of Sinai was ' knowledge outlining the genesis of time and nature' (91.lll 7B). Such
passages point to a supratemporal divine plan which catches up
the order of time but eliminates its actual flow.
That idea appears in other contexts. The incarnation 12 guar12 The specific theory of the communicatio idiomatum poses a special problem
because to avoid placing Christ below the Father and above man Maximus denies
that an intermediate category emerges from the combination of natures (91.1056Df) .
The unifying factor here is the one person of Christ, at once a ' field ' and a ' focus '
in which divine and human attributes can be held in suspension. Insofar as
' person ' is not thought of as a single focus of consciousness it does not constitute
an intermediate. But when it is seen as a coherent divine/human personality,
it naturally does become in structure something like transcendent time, e.g.,
omniscience entails simultaneous (timeless) consciousness of the whole content of
time. On circumincession cf. Gersh (above, n. 1), p. 253f; Thunberg (above,
n. 2), p. 2lf.
Maximus's discussion at 91.1049ff is especially interesting in this respect. The
birth of Christ 'creates a new principle of coming-to-be and of birth' (arche geneseos
and genneseos, 1051D). Maximus mentions the paradox of the virgin birth, but
there is also an implicit allusion to the first members of the triads arche/mesotes/
telos and genesis/kinesis/stasis., with the new 'beginning of genesis' arising from
the intersection of time and eternity within time itself. In 1049Af he speaks
similarly of Christ's incarnation as the creation of a 'new mysterious nature'
which arose from his 'transcendent (hyperousion) genesis,' and in an analysis
of Christ's walking on water he notes that spatial (and temporal) motion is a
function of his human nature, yet the functions of both natures are wholly drawn
together in the one person. Christ suffered as God since he was not bare man; he
did miracles as man since he was not bare God. Thus his sufferings were miracles
insofar as divine suffering was a totally new phenomenon (' theandric '). Christ
is both ' not man ' and ' not not man ' ; he limited human nature in a new way, as
' man beyond man ' (91.1053Df) . A heated sword ' cwts ' and ' burns ' separately
and simultaneously; so, too, as man Christ went through the experiences of our
nature in a divine mode (1059Af). In 91.120B Maximus uses a series of linked
polar adjectives for the incarnated Son: ' suffering/beyond suffering, created/
uncreated, finite/infinite.' Christ's free will excluded the need to make moral
choices insofar as choice implies uncertainty about outcome (91.29Df; cf. Sher-

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antees that we toowill become divine (91.1280D), for the Son
who is ' wholly motionless [i.e., timeless] actualized in his human
self before their time the things that will be' (90.1186B). That
is to say, in the incarnation of the timeless Logos the perfecting
of human nature which lies in the future is also present. The
doctrine of contraction and expansion reinforces this pattern.
As timelessness enters into time, so our temporal being is raised:
'As far as he became man we become God' (91.1885B), and
this is the consequence of the ontology undergirding existence.
For each man and each angel has his own ' pre-existent logos in
God' (91.lOSOB), hence deification is the ultimate supratemporal realization of the timeless pattern which lies behind the
lives of all creatures.
All of this also serves to reinforce a typological or allegorical
interpretation of temporal events, and Maximus follows his
predecessors in using it. He often sees the culmination of time
simply as a future event. The closing of the doors in a church
shows that the saved will enter the intelligible world; the appearance of the sacraments is the beginning of the revelation
which will occur in heaven (91.698CD); the 'Thrice Holy' indicates the union with higher powers which will take place
(91.696BC); the end of the ages ( aionim) has reached us because
we are 'just about to ' receive the gift of things ' beyond the
ages' (aiOnas, 91.821B). Here we are on the horizontal axis of
past/present/future.
But 'future' also means the cessation of
time, and Maximus can also see the future as the divine plan
complete and present as a whole. Hence he proceeds in
to
link present and future by noting that our present virtue and
knowledge are ' types ' of the future beyond time. That is to
say, to the temporal 'type' there answers not only a future
consumation but also a fully realized, timeless ('beyond the
ages') history. Through these present tense types, then, God
wood above, n. 2, p. 196, 202f and Ancient Chris.tian W1"iters: St. Maximus ihe
Confessor (London: Newman Press, 1955), p. 59, 61, 259). Christ, then, apparently had the whole of the future present to him at once yet also shared our
temporal human nature. Maximus refers to this kind of free will as ' stable
motion' (stasimon kinesin), i.e., as temporal choices stripped of time's uncertainty.

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always 'becomes (ginetai) man in those who are worthy,' and
he who has experienced deification has completed the 'geneS'is
of the mystery of undergoing the experience of having become
(genesthai) divine through grace, though he will never reach
the end of always becoming (ginesthai) divine.' This intricate
Byzantine dialectic of tenses 13 suggests that the deification
which lies beyond temporal process is (as something realized in
the aorist tense) always present and that it also begins an extended process which is at once complete (in its divine aspect it
belongs to the category of the' unextended end') and infinitely
expanding (as creatures we will never be totally complete). 'In
future ages (aiosi) we experience deification by grace and not
by our own effort, hence we never cease being deified' (90.320D). In much the same way, Maximus can say that Christ was
present' intelligibly' and' pretypically' in Old Testament times
and that now after his earthly life he ' pneumatically ' anticipates his future parousia by influencing believers. In his glorified incarnate form he is the precursor of his own ultimate
'pneumatic' parousia, for he 'is always creating his parousia
through virtue and will create it at the end of the aeon' (90.1137Bf) .14 Process and completion, time and timelessness, past,
present and future somehow overlap in a realized eschatology
that embraces every moment of time. Hence while Scripture is
finite in the sense that the historical events it describes have
happened at points in time, it is infinite and eternal pneumatically because the God who is in it is unbounded (90.465B). The
Logos put himself in finite structures (logoi) and thus can be
present ' as a whole and always the same in individual things
... he is without beginning in things which have beginning ...
as he has contracted (systeilas) us to himself so he has expanded (diesteilen) himself for us' (91.1285Cf) . In this dialectic of opposites the flow of temporal events is brought to a
halt and given coherence in proportion to the presence in it18 Cf. 90.llSlAf.
On the metaphysical significance of tenses cf. Gersh (above,
n. 1) p. 71; 115, n. 173; Plass (above, n. I), p. Sf.
"For Christ as his own forerunner cf. Balthasar (above, note 2), p. 522. On
the parousia in Maximus cf. Balthasar, p. 552ff.

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through' contraction/expansion '-of the timeless divine Logos
for history.
Maximus thinks largely in terms of Greek metaphysics, and
does not himself raise the question of how faithful he is actually
being to the biblical sources to which he appeals, though it is
often not clear how much convergence or how much conflict
there is between the two traditions which he uses. It is, of
course, difficult to isolate specific biblical conceptions without
distorting them into issues which biblical writers did not directly entertain or did not entertain at all, and it is equally
difficult in many cases to isolate the biblical view.15 The general
contrast between Greek and biblical views of time is more properly restated as a specific contrast between Neo-Platonic theories about time and the biblical attitude toward history, and
even then ' history ' cannot be taken in an abstract sense.
The familiar contrast between biblical linear and Greek circular time also needs qualification. Time was linear for the
later Platonists, too, insofar as the circumference is from one
point of view itself linear because time flows forward along it.
Time became cyclic largely through its connection with the
spatial shape of cosmic motion in a spherical universe. Moreover, a cyclic view of time does not necessarily entail that events
repeat themselves exactly; because of the irrational factor inherent in phenomenal existence the perfection of the intelligible
paradigm may be reflected simply in an overall similarity of
events. The Neo-Platonic conception of time is relatively abstract because it is a general theory covering the fact of process
as such; it does not apply to historical process in particular.
Because transcendent time embodies only the general life cycle
of species, it is a general sketch rather than a detailed plan for
the life o:f individuals. The biblical view, on the other hand, is
more specifically linear insofar as it does not arise from speculation about an inclosed universe and its processes but reflects
15 Cf. J. Barr, Biblical, Words for Time, Studies in Biblical Theology, 88, flnd
ed. (Naperville: Allenson, 1969); A. Momigliano, 'Time in Ancient Historiography,'
History and Theory, Beiheft 6 (1966), p. lff.

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rather awareness of a succession of divinely ordained individual
events starting with creation and leading toward a goal. Apart
from this, biblical writers do not have a theory of history or a
theory of time and eternity.
If we grasp time from the outside speculatively, it becomes
part of an abstract structure: radii lying together in the center,
logoi converging in the Logos beyond time and the Logos itself
converging with the One. This is typically Neo-Platonic. If
our prime point of reference is time itself, we look along its flow
to past or future and see events foreshortened. This is a more
typically biblical perspective. The Neo-Platonic model rationalizes time by integrating it into a fixed geometric scheme; it literally 'figures' things out. A biblical model, on the contrary,
rises from a sense of the unaccountability of things-the premise
for grace-and yields a ' surreal ' vision of history which resists
rationalizing by metaphysical or historicist schemes. It thus
leads to a distinctive conception of the ' date ' of events. The
'Lord's Day', for example, need not be simply the specific date
on which the present world will come to an end; it can be any
point of time that is shaped by (i.e., both anticipates and participates in) the divine purpose embracing the whole of history.
The Lord's Day thus can be present in various contexts: it is
every day of watchful decision; it is the day of each man's
death; it is the Friday of Christ's death when (in appropriate
apocalyptic manner) darkness fell on Jerusalem and the dead
arose; it is the Sunday of his resurrection; it is the fall of Jerusalem or the fall of Rome; in later theology it may even be the
First Day insofar as creation was supposed to revert to Eden
at the end of time. It is all of these, because in eschatological
perspective the end of time penetrates the whole of time; since
there is a pattern of history, events separate in time are drawn
together and superimposed on each other to make up a series
all of whose moments coexist simultaneously. When the incarnation is set into this conception, the Logos-at once eternal
and immanent-acts like a singularity bending and binding the
historical environment to itself. The scattered points of time
are linked or 'realized' so that time ceases to be autonomous

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process because it becomes, so to say, a clock pointing to every
hour. In patristic theology the two traditions are explicitly
brought together. On the one side, the abstract Neo-Platonic
intelligible paradigm becomes the Logos and transcendent time
becomes typological history; on the other side, biblical historical
events are linked to eternity and thus integrated into a general
' intelligible ' conception of time. 16
Biblical writers, of course, share the common-sense understanding of time as a linear flow along which events are separated from each other; they are, for example, interested in the
chronicling of past events and in prediction of future events.
What is distinctive and elusive is their view of a dimension
which is somehow beyond time. To deal with this, they speak
of a Creator not bound by time yet typically grasped only
through time.
The frequently puzzling use of tenses in Paul's epistles is in
part a linguistic phenomenon reflecting koine idiom, but it is at
the same time an example oi how much an immanent metaphysics affects the very texture of language. That is to say, it
is an intuitive, linguistic version of the 'unextended extension'
which Maximus works out in conscious metaphysical reflection.
Paul's striking use of the aorist may well not so much represent
a past tense as the non-durative aspect inherent in the aorist.
He is not thinking in temporal terms but grasps aspects-as the
grammatical term 'aspect' suggests-of divine activity which
do not fit exclusively into temporal sequence. And even a temporal,' tensed' reading of his verbs comes to the same thing.
16 Cf. IL Urs von Balthasar, Man in History:
A Theological Study (London:
Sheed and Ward, 1968), trans. W. Glen-Doepel, p. 33f: 'The time-transcending
point as the point of Christ lies not only 'over,', 'before,' and 'after' time; it
tramcends it in such a way that it simultaneously contains it ... r1Ie1 contains
it, however ... by taking time into himself ... [He] enters time and thus hrings
his eternity with him into time and transience.' For the contrast b2tween the
Greek ' above/below ' and the biblical ' old/new ' cf. R. A. Markus, 81.wculum
(Cambridge: Cambridge U. Press, 1970), p. 79f. For the telescoping effect on time
of biblical eschatology cf. G. Ladd, A Theology of the New Te.stament (Grand
Rapids: Eerdmans, 1974), p. 198£. Cf. Simon DeVries, Yesterday, Today and
Tomorrow (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 19'75), esp. p. 33.5f for a study of time and
history in the Old Testament.

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278

Those whom he foreknew, he also foreappointed to be .shaped in
the image of his Son so that he might be first among many brothers.
And whom he foreappointed he also called, whom he called he also
justified, and whom he justified he also glorified (Romans 8.29,30).
Foreknowledge and foreappointment are parts of an eternal
plan, though there is no real difficulty in speaking about them
as past events. Calling and justifying are even more naturally
thought of as past temporal events within the lives of the elect.
But when Paul fits glorification into the sequence of past tenses
he is suddenly shifting his focus. He is now looking at the whole
of existence-from the creator's initial intention to the creature's final perfection-from a point of view which is proleptically retrospective and thus ' surrealistically ' timeless: what will
happen in a sense has happened in a timeless aorist' past' tense.
We who died to sin, how shall we still live in it? Do you not realize
that we who were baptized into Christ Jesus were baptized into
his death? Hence we were buried with him by baptism into death
so that as Christ was raised from the dead through the Father's
glory we, too, should walk in a new life. For if we have become
true sharers of his death, we shall be true sharers of his resurrection.
We know this: our old man was crucified with him so that our
body of sin should be freed and we no longer be slaves to sin. For
the one who died is freed from sin, and if we died with Christ we
trust that we will also live with him, knowing that Christ, who
rose from the dead, is no longer subject to dying (ouketi apothneskei) , for death no longer has power over him. When he died, he
died once for all to sin. Now that he lives, he lives to God. So,
too, you should th:ink of yourselves as dead to sin but alive to God
in Christ (Romans 6.2-11).
In this dialectic tour de force the ordinary relationship of tenses
is again reshuffled so that while Christ's past life and our future
destiny retain their ordinary relative positions they are also
telescoped into a new kind of present: he who is alive is dead
because he died but also came back to life in order to rise in us
again during life and after death. For Paul, talk of present
' death ' to sin and ' resurrection ' to new life involves more than
a metaphorical parallel to the past death and resurrection of
Christ or to the believer's own future death and resurrection.

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But it is also less than formal metaphysical language. New life
depends on the 'Spirit', which is an objective divine reality
(' power ' to Paul) not bound by ordinary temporal structures
and not to be confidently manipulated in metaphysical categories either. As carrier of a radically 'new age' or' creation•
the Spirit is equally future and present. And because the new
creature is absolutely dependent on the free grace of a sovereign
creator, the present can no longer be seen as an independent,
self-contained part of an autonomous structure. Paul can thus
think in terms of new laws of nature governing the new creation,
laws which will one day completely supersede the laws of our
present universe though now they are only simultaneous with it
(much as Augustine's two cities are interwoven) . Up to a point
he does think in terms of a timeless, ' metaphysical • design articulated in a set structure which comes to expression in the
temporal order of past, present and future. Hence he speaks of
the ' fullness of time ', the law is specifically a thing of the past,
salvation of the future and the elect are chosen as part of a plan
which predates their creation. But a metaphysical, intelligible
design accessible to human understanding is not definitive as it
is the Greek philosophical tradition. Rather, Paul grasps time
and eternity under the category of parenetic, direct address
pointed to the present without being bound in it. From this
point of view, history-or at least its significance-is transformed into a function of the present, or rather, the rigid natural sequence of tenses is dissolved by the absolute' metaphysical' freedom of action of divine grace. Hence the freedom of
Paul's own perspective on time and of his interpretation of history: in the extant epistles, at any rate, his eschatological
scheme is largely an ad hoc response to present issues, and he
simply imposes the categories of present faith on the past
(Abraham, the Mosaic law) . It is, moreover, only natural that
such a fluid relationship among events would call for a new
mode of understanding, and he does characteristically speak of
faith or hope rather than simply of knowledge or wisdom.17
11 In Romans 4.17f Abraham views his own and Sarah's physical impotence as
death, but through the potency of faith they are able to procreate life: so we

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This conception of history seems again to be at work in the
Synoptic eschatological addresses (Mark 13; Matthew 24; Luke
21). Predictions of future events are there couched in notably
vague terms and are accompanied by the explicit insistence that
only the Father knows specific times. The vagueness is due not
merely to the stylized nature of apocalyptic imagery; Jesus's remarks are for the most part concerned specifically with the fall
of Jerusalem, but at points they expand to include the final
parousia, and it is not clear precisely what the relationship between the two events is supposed to be. Both fall under the
rubric ' in those days ' and, in fact, may be thought of as simultaneous, yet the parousia is placed ' after the [political] trouble '
(Mark 13. 18 and 24). Whatever the redactional pre-history of
our texts may be,18 they now present a binocular vision slightly
out of focus so that events appear as both single and plural.
Since the time of divine judgment is unknown, it is seen as possibility, but as real possibility rather than mere possibility, and
that, in turn, transforms history into a parenetic present tense.
Moreover, real possibility here is not simply a matter of psychological attitude, i.e., anxious anticipation of the end. The
decisive factor is God's sovereign freedom in and over history.
That freedom becomes specific by being tied to a particular
moment of history, but as a divine judgment it can never be
specified or dated in any definitive way from the point of view
should have faith in him who resurrected Jesus from the dead. Paul uses the
life ' as a formula for temporal existence, but a formula
sequence '
which is independent of time insofar as it can appear in any part of time-in
the past of Abraham, in the present new life, in the future resurrection. The
formula which shaped Abraham's life reappears 'timelessly' in our present and will
reappear in our future. In Colossians 2.20-34 the flow of thought moves easily
from 'death' with Christ in a largely present-tense ethical sense to 'death and
resurrection' with him in a future eschatological sense. The former is death to
outmoded ritual during life, the latter is its ontological corollary: discovery of the
'life hid with Christ in God.' 'Hidden life' comes functionally close to the logoi
or' seeds' which in later theology embody the transcendent divine intentions (thelemata ) behind our lives. Present, future and timeless aorist are again brought together in I Corinthians 13.12: 'Now I know partially, then I shall know [fully]
just as I was known.'
18 Cf. L. Gaston, No St0ne on Another (Leiden: Brill, 1970),

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PAUL PLASS

of time-hence the use of vague apocalyptic imagery. Hence,
too, as in the case of Paul, prediction is cast in parenetic form. 19
Time appears in the imperative mode, which naturally overrides
the ordinary linear scheme of time. It is as though points on the
line of history are separate but also indistinguishable insofar as
they are all equally divine interventions and insofar as their
significance derives solely from that fact. 20 In Romans 8 the
' anxious expectation ' of man and of creation as a whole for
liberation is apparently closely related to the eschatological distress predicted in these passages in Gospels (cf. I.uke 21. 26 for
' expectation ') . In Romans the distress extends throughout
time and points to the end. It is a permanent background condition of fallen creation, and because it is not merely immanent
(e.g., despair at the transience of life) but reflects the Creator's
intention for his creation, it is fully present at any point of history. The divine plan thus appears less as a static timeless
scheme than as a dynamic permanent or persisting futurepresent. The Synoptic accounts of Jesus's eschatological address
focus somewhat more narrowly on specific days or crises, but
they too run' dates' together and conceive of divine intervention in history in the first instance in terms of immediate
parenesis rather than of a linear scheme.
The even more radical dislocation of ordinary time-sequence
in John (his 'realized' or 'anticipated' eschatology) has been
much discussed. In the farewell address of the Johannine Jesus
(John 13:ff) there is no mention of' days' at all; the future becomes entirely generic and stands in contrast to the specific
present crisis of Jesus's departure. As he speaks mysteriously
about his ' coming and going ' all the contours which normally
specify the future become indistinct and are replaced by the
19 For the connection between eschatology and parenesis cf. Gaston
(above,
n. 18), p. 54f, 340, 364.
20 Again as in Paul there can be proleptic dislocation of tense. Mark (13: 20)
has 'If the Lord had not shMtened the days, no flesh wouU have survived. But
for the sake of the elect he shortened the days'. In Matthew 24.22 this is partially
adjusted to a future perspective: 'If those days had not been shortened, no flesh
would have survived, but for the sake of the elect those days will be shortened'.

MAX.IMUS THE CONFESSOR

277

promise of the ' Spirit ' or of ' agape ', whose power so fundamentally transforms life that conventional concern with time
seems irrelevant. Accordingly, like the Synoptic writers, John
can speak without sharp distinction of earthly and eternal life
and can play on the overtones of the word mone. 21
We might say, then, that in the Platonic tradition one comes
to understand time only insofar as one (1) knows (2) the
structure (3) of reality. Biblical writers, on the other hand,
prefer to speak of (I) trusting (2) the promises (3) of God,
and though the divine intention for creation is accessible to us
only through temporal categories it is not a product of time. In
Maximus this functional parenetic transcendence has shifted
toward a formal metaphysical structure in terms of which the
divine plan of creation pre-exists in quasi-temporal form answering to a Platonic intelligible paradigm of time. At the same
time, Maximus preserves an authentically biblical perspective
by adapting the Aristotelian notion of kinesi,s through time to
an end.
PAUL PLASS

University of Wisconsin
Madison, Wisconsin

21 Cf. Gersh

(above, n. 1), p. HO,

HUMAN NATURE AND VALUE THEORY

T

HE CONCEPTION OF VALUE that I wish to propose in this essay has both classical rootage and
contemporary awareness. The classical roots are to
be found in Plato, Aristotle, and what came to be called natural
law theory. I have not been accustomed to using the term' natural law' for my views because of the ambiguous interpretations
which the term seems to invite. To some, of course, it inevitably suggests scientific laws, to others fixed orders of creation,
and to others perhaps even papal encyclicals. Since none of
these is to the point, it seems easier simply to state what one
believes without wrestling with a complicated label. Besides, I
would not want to be committed automatically to everything
that has been put under the heading of natural law. The only
point of relevance for the present purpose is the belief that an
adequate understanding of value can be based on an adequate
understanding of human nature.
Still, within this framework, I claim that in what follows
there is a modest contribution to natural law thinking, and this
is the contemporary awareness I mentioned. On the whole natural law is probably thought of by most people as a system of
ethical principles rather than as value theory. To be sure, the
good is a central notion in natural law theory, so that values
can hardly be ignored. But the paramount focus is ethical principles. Yet it seems possible, and worthwhile, to single out values as such, in the spirit of contemporary value theory, and try
to show that they can be interpreted through an understanding
of human nature, that is, the "laws " of our nature. This is the
contribution I propose. I would go further and suggest the speculation that natural law theory may be more fruitfully considered as a basis for value theory than as a source for particular
moral precepts. An analogous assessment has been made by

HUMAN NATURE AND VALUE THEORY

279

others regarding normative ethics vs. metaethics, with natural
law being held to be more applicable to the latter than to the
former. Without disagreeing with that assessment, the present
account focuses strictly on the nature of value.
Four theses need to be established in order to make good on
this project. They are:
(1) There is such a thing as human nature.
(2) This nature inclines us, barring interferences, in certain

definite directions of activity.
(3) The satisfaction we call value experience is found in the

fulfillment of these very inclinations.
(4) Values are thus perfections of our nature, as measured by
the good of all-round perfection or, as John Cooper puts it,
interpreting Aristotle in Reason and Human Good in Aristotle, "human flourishing."
To underscore that these theses are not just truisms, I add
the following:
(1) The first thesis is a kind of essentialist principle and is opposed to any nominalism, existentialism, or positivism that
would deny an essence of man.
(2) The second thesis is a teleological principle and is opposed
to any naturalism, mechanism, or pragmatism that would
deny natural purposes or ends.
(3) The third thesis is similar to what John Rawls has called
the Aristotelian principle and is opposed to any hedonistic
or interest theory of value which ignores the role in value
experience of human nature and its inclinations.
(4) The fourth thesis is a perfectivist principle and is opposed
to any empirical or descriptive account of values which ignores the role of excellence or normative fulfillment in value
experience.

Human Nature
To believe that there is a human nature is to believe that
there is an essence of man. An essence in this sense comprises

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DONALD W ALHOUT

traits or characteristics or properties or capacities possessed by
all human beings whatsoever. This essence is the general essence, in contrast with what some modal logicians call the
individual essence, the latter being a property possessed necessarily, or in all possible worlds, by an individual.
The rejection of a general human essence is sometimes based,
I suspect, on a confusion of questions. The question about essence is this: Are there characteristics necessary to man such
that any being without them would not be human, or, on the
other hand, is the term ' human ' only a rough designation for
a variety of characteristics any one of which might be dispensable? Now there are other related questions about man
which are different from this one but which are often called
philosophies of man or theories of human nature. Such questions include: (1) What characteristic of man is most determinative of his behavior? (2) What characteristics are unique
to man as compared with other animals? (3) Are there any
characteristics of man as a cultural being that are unchangeable, or can he be altered so as to acquire any set of characteristics? These are questions about the dominance, the uniqueness, and the alterability of human traits. Regarding dominance,
a thinker might claim, for example, that the survival instinct,
or economic interest, or the will to power, or the desire for
pleasure, or the love of the good, is all-determining in man's
life. Regarding uniqueness, one may focus, for example, on
rationality, or language, or political organization, or esthetic
capacity, or religious sentiment. Regarding alterability, one
may deny that any human characteristics are culturally unalterable, while another may hold that there is some persisting
trait, such as a predatory instinct, or a territorial imperative, or
an oceanic feeling, or an innate cognitive structure. Such theories are often dubious and in any case controversial. And so,
lacking any definitive answer to such questions, someone might
conclude that there is no such thing as a human nature-at
least none that we can know. But such questions, interesting
and important as they are, are not our question about essence.

HUMAN NATURE AND VALUE THEORY

fl81

Ours is more of a logical question, in the broad sense, a question
of adequate classification.
Others may reject a human nature because they think the
whole thing is a matter of linguistic stipulation, that is, oi how
one decides to use the word ' human.' But the question of essence is not about the word ' human.' It is about the beings
themselves who happen to be called human, namely, whether
these beings have any properties that are essential to them.
Still another concern may be about criteria for establishing
such a belief. Is there any evidence to justify, or rationale to
prove, that there is a human nature or essence? The classical
answer is perhaps the best here: the essence of something is
known intuitively by reason through a process of abstraction.
That is, one experiences particular things, intuits their common
traits, and abstracts the essence conceptually. Nevertheless, if
someone does not agree with what is said to be intuited, more
help may be needed.
At this point I suggest that we can also appeal to the common procedure used to establish so much of man's natural
knowledge, namely, empirical evidence. By this procedure we
seek data to confirm a hypothesis and are scrupulous about possible negative instances to the hypothesis. I submit that empirical evidence supports the hypothesis that there are certain
essential human characteristics. Below I shall propose a list of
such characteristics. My empirical claim is that these characteristics qualify all beings that we call human, with no reported
instances to the contrary. Now if any of these characteristics
came to be replaced, or significantly modified, in the future, we
should have to alter our conception of human nature, or else,
were the changes radical enough, it would be the case that the
concept of human nature no longer had instances. But such a
historical eventuality would not disallow that, under actual
world conditions as we know them, there is a stable, identifiable
human nature, an essence of man.
A further, but purely speculative, question is whether any oi
the characteristics I shall list belong to man with necessity-a

DONALD W ALHOUT

de re necessity such that replacement would be impossible. One
task in this question would be to state what such necessity could
even mean, and a second would be-granted the first were accomplished-to examine whether any characteristic had such
necessity. A promising idea for the first task is possible-world
semantics. That is, a characteristic would pertain to a human
being with de re necessity if that human being has the characteristic in any possible world in which that human being
exists. No matter what world was created, or instantiated, if
human beings exist in that world and possess some of the same
characteristics they would have in any other world in which
they existed, then those characteristics could be said to be necessary to man. Now in this sense I am inclined to think that
some characteristics might well be necessary to man. For example, it seems inconceivable that human beings in any possible
world could lack individuality of personal identity. On the other
hand, a characteristic like physical embodiment does not seem
to be indispensable, perhaps even in the actual world we know.
But this whole subject of necessity belongs to speculative philosophy and is in no way vital to my strictly valuational concerns in this paper. An experientially derived concept of human
nature would remain as the basis for our value theory even if
the notion of de re necessity were judged to be unintelligible or
inapplicable.
I propose as a thesis, then, that, whether from direct intuitive
abstraction or from empirical confirmation, the following are
essential characteristics in man's nature:

1. Physical embodiment
2. Life processes
8. Consciousness, or awareness of environment and self
4. Feeling, or the capacity for pleasure and pain
5. Emotions
6. Reason
7. Free choice, or the ability to initiate action
8. Moral capacity
9. Esthetic sensitivity

HUMAN NATURE AND VALUE THEORY

10. Creativity
11. Individuality, or uniqueness 0£ self-identity
12. Sociality, or association with others
13. Culture, or susceptibility to constructed patterns of living
14. Cosmic dependence, or reliance on what transcends the human.
To do justice to the claim being made, one ought to go over
each item and add remarks to try to convince the reader that,
empirically and rationally, the characteristic in question is indeed essential to man. But that would take more space than is
available. One or two samples must suffice and then the whole
set left as a proposed hypothesis.
Let us pick the first item as one example. Suppose that St.
Anthony Hospital has announced that a unique kind of baby
was born yesterday and the public is invited to visit it. We
rush over to the maternity ward and are told by a nurse that
the unique thing about this new baby is that it was born without a body. "What," we exclaim," no crying, no little fingers,
no hairless head?" "No," he replies, "nothing like that, no
body at all. But stay and enjoy the little thing as long as you
please." Surely we would conclude that St. Anthony had given
birth to a thought rather than a baby. Human beings just do
have bodies in the actual world as we know it.
Regarding the last item, we might argue that if we were not
reliant on that which transcends us, it would seem that we could
avoid our death at will, contract an expanding universe at will,
perform miracles at will. But we cannot do these things. Therefore, we must depend for our mode 0£ existence on a cosmic
order and the way it functions. So cosmic dependence is an
essential characteristic. Of course i£ this cosmic order were itself
dependent on something more transcendent, we would be too,
by transitivity. But that is a further point.
These are dialectical considerations in support of certain
characteristics. But I must leave this thesis by appealing to the
reader's own empirical and rational scrutiny to determine
whether the list needs addition, subtraction, or perhaps nega-

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DONALD W ALHOUT

tion. The question is whether there have ever been, or could
ever be, any human beings in the world as we know it who are
devoid of a body, of life, of consciousness, of feeling, of emotion,
of reason, of choice, of morality, of the esthetic, of creativity, of
individuality, of sociality, of culture, of cosmic dependence. I
believe they are all essential and constitute our human nature.
But it should be noted that the general thesis about there being
a human nature might still hold up even if the particular list of
traits were modified.

Inclinations
The second thesis is that, not only do we have these essential
traits or capacities, but they lead us to act in certain specific
ways. They are not totally open-ended as to what comes out of
them. We shail call these leanings, these directional tendencies,
in our nature, ' inclinations.' The term is thus broader than
Kant's usage, where it means a deterministic natural tendency
in contrast to free causation and duty. In our sense free choice
and duty are also inclinations of our nature. In our sense inclinations are any tendencies that we would follow out unless
there are interferences or blockages.
It will now be relevant to review our list of essential traits to
identify for each trait what its inclinations are, that is, the sorts
of activities it leads to. These identifications are also to be based
on empirical and rational considerations-sometimes more on
empirical observation, as in the case of feeling, and sometimes
more on a rational understanding of the essence of a trait, for
example, reason. I shall only be able to suggest the inclinations
briefly, with a minimum amount of gloss.
Firstly, then, to have a body, in the human sense, is to have
a living body, so that it is hardly possible to separate the first
two traits on the list. We can even speak of the human body,
qua human, as having an inclination to support life. But aside
from this, we do speak of certain physical activities qua physical, for example, basic movements and developed skills. These
too can be considered bodily inclinations.

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285

Life processes in turn incline us toward survival or preservation, toward growth in obvious ways, that is, maturation of
organs and functions at certain stages, and toward flourishing
health if there are no interferences. Death is a special problem,
since death appears as natural in the end as health does earlier.
However, we can look on death as an outside interference, an
intrusion of the larger realm of nature upon us, and not the
inclination of life per se, which is simply preservation and
health.
Consciousness as such may seem not to have an inclination as
life does. However, I think it is meaningful to say that consciousness inclines us, by its nature, toward a clarity of awareness, or unclouded attention, as contrasted with blurred, depressed levels of awareness. The fact of peculiar distortions
that are possible, through drugs and other means, seems to
suggest a natural level of clarity that is inherent.
Of feelings, it is obvious from experience that we are inclined
toward pleasure rather than pain, except in cases of pain as a
warning signal. So obvious is this that some thinkers have tried
to make psychological hedonism a supreme law governing all
human inclinations and therefore values. But we need not go so
far in order to list the obvious inclination, within feeling, toward
pleasure over pain.
Emotions are numerous, perhaps innumerable. Rather than
name all the ones to which we could say with accuracy that we
are inclined, we can at least say that there is such a thing as
emotional health to which we are inclined, unless there are interferences. Hope, love, and joy, for example, are healthy emotions, whereas despair, hatred, and morbidity are not. It seems
right to say we are inclined toward emotional health rather than
illness, just as we are toward physical health.
·when we use reason we inquire after knowledge, we contemplate truth, we engage in reasoning, we make theoretical and
practical evaluations, we prescribe courses of action.
Volition inclines us to make choices deliberately and act autonomously, rather than respond as compelled puppets. Our na-

DONALD WALHOUT

ture leads us to be actors, to initiate actions, and not merely
react passively.
When we exercise our moral capacity without derailment, we
seek to do actions that are right and because they are right, and
to cultivate dispositions or virtues that enable us more regularly
to do this. These are the moral inclinations.
Esthetic sensitivity in man leads to the appreciation of beauty
and to a fascination with esthetic objects generally.
The creative impulses in our nature lead us not only to the
creation of art works, but also to inventions, innovations, and
construction of new forms generally. Change, exploration, originality, improvement-these are inclinations of creativity.
Our individuality inclines us to seek and maintain a sense of
self-identity as persons throughout life. It also leads us to desire an active self-stature which the existentialists have called
authenticity in contrast to being mere slaves or captives of
others.
Our sociality leads us to associate in various ways with other
people. No man is an island by inclination. Rather we are inclined toward cooperation, toward friendship, toward family
life, toward group associations, and toward organization in a
state.
As a culturally susceptible being man is predisposed to take
on and reflect the customs, institutions, ideas, and other forms
of life constructed by man for living in the world. But he is also
predisposed to criticize, alter, adapt, these forms, and be a cultural developer anew.
Response to our cosmic dependence leads us, in one important
direction, to the expression of this relationship in religious acts,
attitudes, and beliefs. Man's religion is the inclination of his
sense of the transcendent and his dependence upon it.
We can thus give a list of natural human inclinations that
corresponds to our previous list of essential characteristics:
1. Support of life; movement; skills

Preservation; growth; health
3. Clarity of awareness

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287

4. Pleasure
5. Emotional health
6. Inquiry; contemplation; reasoning; evaluation; prescription
7. Uncompelled autonomous action
8. Right motives; carrying out obligations; acquiring virtues
9. Appreciation of beauty; fascination with esthetic objects
10. Invention; innovation of new forms
11. Self-identity; authenticity
12. Cooperation; friendship; family; group association; state
13. Participation in and shaping of cultural forms
14. Religion.
I must now answer a very evident objection. It is that many
people do not exercise such activities as these and hence appear
to lack such inclinations and even therefore some of the alleged
essential characteristics. There are people who are in poor
health, who have little pleasure in life, who do not use their
intellect much, who escape their freedom, who choose wrong and
vicious actions, who are esthetic blanks, who isolate themselves
from other people, who scoff at religion, and so forth. Do not
such persons have the same human nature as everyone else? If
so, such inclinations must not be inherent in that nature.
In answering this objection, two points must be made. The
first concerns the ancient Aristotelian distinction between potentiality and actuality. To identify inclinations in the abstract
is to cite potentialities. They designate " the ways we would
go," or " what would be the case," provided things went normally, as usual, as accustomed. They are the directions we
would follow if not deflected.
The second point is that there are numerous deflecting interferences in the world that prevent these potentialities or inclinations from being unfolded. Some of these obstacles are in the
outer cosmos, some in our social arrangements, some in our own
traits, such as freedom which has the power to act apart from
moral restraint. Inclinations do not enjoy unopposed paths. So,
for example, it is no argument against the idea that movement
is a natural inclination of the body to point out that some peo-

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DONALD WALHOUT

ple are paralyzed, and it is no argument against clarity of awareness as an inclination to point out that some people do not have
it because of seli-administered drugs; and so forth.
I introduce a term of Latin coinage, sine impedimentis, to
cover this qualification regarding interferences. It serves a
similar purpose to " other things being equal," but is more precise. It means " without impediments," that is, " provided
there are no impediments," " barring any obstacles," " unless
there are interferences," etc. Our view is, then, that human
inclinations indicate "the ways we would go" sine impedimentis.

Satisfaction
So far we have a theory of essential characteristics and a
theory of human inclinations. The particular items listed in
each case are not so crucial as the general theses, namely, that
there is a human nature and that there are resulting inclinations, although I would also like to think that my particular
lists are reasonably complete and accurate.
Now to furnish the link with values we need also a theory of
satisfaction. This theory is that the satisfaction which is characteristic of value experience is found precisely in those very
sorts of inclinations we have been listing. That is the theory.
Any verification of it must, I think, appeal directly to intuitive
self-reflection on value experience.
I am taking the term ' satisfaction ' to denote the central
subjective experiential tone in value experience. Other terms
can be used. ' Pleasure ' is too limiting because it suggests mere
hedonism. ' Sense of accomplishment ' is too sparse in feeling
connotation and too oriented toward skills. ' Interest ' is also
short on feeling connotation and is closer to mere ' attention.'
'Sense of well-being' would be good, and so would 'sense of
fulfillment.' But 'satisfaction,' or perhaps Frankena's 'satisfactoriness,' seems best capable of conveying the finality of the
feeling and the rewardingness of the subjective experience of
value. In any case the factor in question, here called ' satisfac-

HUMAN NATURE AND VALUE THEORY

tion,' will have to be understood from personal experience of
intrinsic values and not from definition. H one does not know
from experience what is alluded to by ' satisfaction ' or ' sense of
well-being,' an abstract definition will not provide it.
The term ' value experience ' must here be taken in a normative sense, that is, as referring to intrinsic values judged from
a rational, critical point of view. It is true that some empirical,
descriptive studies call anything in which people have an interest, or find some enjoyment, 'values.' And people do take an
interest in, or find enjoyment in, many things opposed to normative intrinsic values, for example, in arson, in misuse of power,
in debilitating drugs, and so on. These things are, as we say,
their values. There is nothing wrong with this usage if it is clear
that the study is merely describing de facto likes and dislikes.
But normative intrinsic values are what are worth experiencing
in themselves regardless of actual likes or dislikes at the moment. It is this sort of normative intrinsic value experience that
we refer to throughout when speaking of satisfaction or wellbeing.
Our claim, then, is that the satisfaction or well-being experienced in normative intrinsic values is an accompaniment of,
indeed an inherent associate of, the fruition of our basic human
inclinations. We find satisfaction or well-being in the fruition,
the fulfillment, the excellent development, of the capacities in
our nature. Aquinas puts it thus in his treatise on law (Summa
Theol. I-II, 94, 2: "all those things to which man has a natural
inclination are naturally apprehended by reason as being good,
and consequently as objects of pursuit." Rawls states a similar
thesis as follows: "Other things equal, human beings enjoy the
experience of their realized capacities (their innate or trained
abilities), and this enjoyment increases the more the capacity is
realized, or the greater its complexity " (A Theory of Justice,
p.
But do not people have capacities for hate as well as love,
war as well as peace, evil as well as good? Does not everything
human come out of human nature?

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A complete answer to this objection requires an appeal to a
normative criterion of value, which we shall discuss shortly in
the next section. The criterion to be defended is that of perfective attainment, or simply human perfection or human flourishing. l£ I may anticipate that criterion, an answer to the current
objection would run as follows: Yes, everything human does
come out of human nature; but not everything fulfills, unfolds,
perfects the human nature in us. Some things weaken or stunt
its flourishing, destroy its perfective realization. Our capacity
for freedom allows us to do many things that go against the
fruition of our other basic inclinations, and so it needs to be
governed by the moral inclination so that the total person may
flourish. Thus not everything descriptively human need be
considered a normative value.
From another perspective the inclinations can be seen as
needs. That is, prior to fulfillment the potentialities in us can
be considered lacks that require certain sorts of completion in
order to attain ends. Thus it would not be inconsistent with our
approach to speak of values as satisfactions of basic human
needs, or, simply, satisfactions in need-fulfillment. This language is more popular but also subject to more vagueness unless
appended to a theory spelling out the context, as we have done
in this" natural law" approach to values.
One may ask about satisfaction itself: is it an inclination like
the rest? I think we must say it is a general inclination accompanying, or inherent in, all the rest. That is, there is a general
tendency in the kind of being we are to take satisfaction in the
fulfillments of our various potentialities.
Perfection

Another way of speaking about the flourishing of our potentialities, or the fulfillment of our inclinations, is to say that these
represent perfections or partial perfections of our human capacities. Thus values can be said to be satisfactions in the perfections or partial perfections of our human nature.
The term ' perfection ' signifies some kind of maximum attainment, that is, a point of unsurpassability regarding the trait in

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291

question. Absolute perfection would be a maximum that is unsurpassable by any being whatsoever. God is usually thought of
as perfect in this sense, in regard to goodness, knowledge, power,
and so forth. In the present context, of course, we are talking
about relative perfection, that is, the maximum attainments for
human beings and, not only that, attainments open to individual human beings with the particular capacities or talents they
happen to have.
Our fourth thesis, then, is that human beings find value-satisfaction to the degree that they reach such perfection of their
capacities as is open to them. Value would thus be satisfaction
in the perfection of our essential capacities. But that would not
be literally accurate, since seldom do people reach their maximum attainment in anything. Witness how little of brain capacity we are frequently told we use, not to mention esthetic
capacity, moral potential, and so on. Partial perfection-some
distance along the way to the maximum-is our common human lot. Consequently, for accuracy, we must revise and say
that value is satisfaction in the partial perfection of our essential capacities. We could cover both the common lot of partial
perfections and the rare cases of maximum development by the
adjective 'perfective,' and thus speak of "perfective attainments." Our final definition, then, and happily the simplest as
well, would be this: value is satisfaction in perfective attainment.
This definition refers to what we have had in mind all along,
namely, the various types of intrinsic human value. Let us now
list these various types with labels corresponding to our two
previous lists of essential characteristics and resulting inclinations:
1. Physical value
2. Biological value
3. Psychological value
4. Hedonic value
5. Emotional value
6. Intellectual value.

DONALD WALIIOUT

7. Volitional value
8. Moral value
9. Esthetic value
10. Creative value
11. Existential value
12. Social value
13. Cultural value
14. Religious value.
The main difference between this conception of value and
many other approaches to value is that we do not view values
as isolated, fragmented states of consciousness in which one
tries to identify some common subjective element such as interest, hedonic tone, esthetic balance, or what not. Rather, all
these values are seen as resulting from perfective attainments.
All these values reflect in some way the overall fulfillment of
our essential human nature.
We are thus brought in the end to the notion of overall, unified human perfection or fulfillment, that is, "human flourishing." If the various types of value are distinguishable perfective
attainments (more exactly satisfactions in these perfective
attainments), then their collective integration would be the
total perfective attainment of our nature. Such attainment
would be man's highest good; his summum bonum, or simply
the good for man. The good is satisfaction in man's nature
perfected. Values are partial contributions to that end.
Finally, can we incorporate the traditional notion-familiar
in both philosophy and common life-that happiness is somehow the end of human life? Of course. Happiness can be thought
of as the general unified satisfaction that we have in all our
perfective attainments. Happiness, unlike pleasure, refers to
our whole life pattern or plan of life. It is the overall satisfaction in the perfection of our nature. Thus happiness is the subjective completion in the good, as perfection of human nature
is the objective completion. For short, happiness can be spoken
of as the end of life, provided there is implicit understanding of
the objective road to happiness, so that happiness is not reduced

HUMAN NATURE AND VALUE THEORY

to some kind of vague inner feeling. Overall satisfaction in the
perfection of our nature is happiness and as such is the valuational end of life. The moral end, of course, would be to have
such a state for everyone. Happiness is not sharply contrasted
with virtue here, a>s it is with Kant, for the perfective attainment integral to happiness includes the moral capacity as well
as the others.

Priorities
In this final section I want to ask whether human nature, or
rather this human-nature-based value theory, has any relevance
for settling certain questions about priorities among values. We
are asking this question, remember, not from the moral point of
view, which would obviously be central here, but indirectly from
the point of view of human nature. Is there any indirect light to
be gained from this quarter?
First, we confront the question of whether there is any inherent precedence in the claims of some values over others. Are
some values more valuable than others? All depends here on
the perspective of such precedence, for there are different sorts
of priority. Let us consider three of these in which the essential
traits do seem to suggest some precedences. These may be
called etiological priority, generic priority, and ontological priority.
Etiological priority refers to any characteristics that are
causally prerequisite, at least in the sense of necessary conditions, for the emergence of other values. From this perspective
it seems obvious that the elementary psycho-physical characteristics-body, life, consciousness-are causally prior. If we do
not have bodily maintenance and conscious awareness, the other
values, dependent on these, cannot come to fruition.
Generic priority refers to any characteristics that may be so
pervasive in human life that they are qualitatively ingredient
in, and required for, the flourishing of other values. And here
there seems good reason, rooted in an understanding of human
nature, for the traditional prominence given to moral and intel-

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lectual virtues. It seems that other values cannot flourish without, or at least are greatly enhanced by, the moral ordering of
life conducted by wise practical intelligence. And if moral and
intellectual " virtues " does not exhaust what we mean by moral
and intellectual " values," since the latter include dimensions
and satisfactions beyond the former, it can still be the case that
moral and intellectual characteristics have a generic priority
among values.
Ontological priority refers to man's relation to the reality that
transcends him. This is the characteristic we have spoken of as
cosmic dependence, and if this is the natural origin of religious
value, then religious value could be thought of as having ontological priority. That is, the effective attunement with that
which is ultimately and veridically transcendent would have the
greatest ontological claim. This point is different from an
analogous point, often made by theological writers, that one's
ultimate commitment to what is ultimate determines all other
commitments. The latter contention seems to be a point about
obligations, or perhaps determinism, rather than about values.
Concerning values, the question is simply whether there is a
kind of culminating satisfaction-in-fulfillment through relation
to the ultimately transcendent. And on this point there is no
lack of historical tradition affirming this to be the case. Thus
Plato focuses on the Forms and the Form of the Good as the
culmination; Aristotle on emulation of the supreme mover; Biblical tradition on personal communion with God; Spinoza on
intellectual love of God; and so on. One difficulty is that the
nature of reality, or of the transcendent, is the thing most in
dispute in philosophy, dividing theists and materialists, etc.
Many would deny that religious value is veridical, let alone
prior. Another difficulty is that ontological priority is confused
with moral priority, leading to other-worldliness; with esthetic
priority, leading to pietistic art; and so forth. But the existence
of these difficulties would not be incompatible with saying that,
from a normative point of view, if a maximum satisfaction-infulfillment were obtained through a veridically understood at-

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295

tunement with transcendent reality, that would have a certain
claim of priority from the ontological perspective.
A related question concerning priorities is that of the serial
ordering or ranking of values. Is it possible to take all the
intrinsic values and rank them all qualitatively from maximum
to minimum, highest to lowest? I know of no attempt to do
this literally with all possible values and subvalues. But it
might ·seem feasible to make some broad groupings of families
of values and endeavor to rank these. The principle of classification here would presumably be the degree of value, that is, the
degree of fulfilling satisfaction in perfective attainment. Suppose, then, for example, that someone proposed a ranking like
the following:
(1) religious values (14 from the above lists)

(2) freedom and morality (7, 8)
(3) intellectual values (6)
(4) existential values (11)
(5) esthetic and creative values (9, 10)
(6) social and cultural values (12, 13)
(7) affective values (3, 4, 5)
(8) psycho-physical conditions (1, 2, 3) .
Would such a ranking he plausible? More exactly, is there
anything about human nature that would justify it? This seems
very doubtful. For one thing, such a ranking is controversial,
would hardly be accepted by all, and yet there seems nothing
about the fact that certain capacities are essential to man that
places them in such a ranking. Essentiality by itself does not
settle hierarchy. For another thing, much depends on the context in which values are experienced. To a person threatened
with paralysis, the relearned ability to walk may be a more rewarding satisfaction, intrinsically, than confronting a Picasso
or a work in mathematics. Finally, there is the inevitable matter of individual differences. People simply differ in their capability for intellectual work, for moral leadership, for esthetic
taste, and so on. It seems incongruous to specify a ranking of

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DONALD WALHOUT

values to consist of a fixed list of abstractions apart from the
personal centers who are to experience those values.
It follows that if individuality is an essential property in human nature, its presence will be a deciding factor in the composition of the total human good. That is, the pattern or ranking
of value emphases will show some variability depending on the
individuality, the haecceitas, of each person.
But if this is so, does it mean that the experience of the good
is entirely r·elative in content to individual preference, taste, or
declaration? Is this a valuational relativism of a privatistic
sort? The answer must be no, for there are several governing
conditions to the contrary that are drawn from other aspects of
human nature.
First, since every individual has a common human nature,
the types of fulfillment possible, i.e., the intrinsic values, must
be the same for all. We are talking, presumably, merely about
patterns in Paradiso, or at least Purgatorio, not arrangements
in Inferno. One man's food here is not another man's poison;
rather, one man's food emphases may differ from another's but
have similar nutrition. Intrinsic values may be variably displayed but cannot be replaced by disvalues.
Second, the moral capacity of man is perfected in similar
ways, namely, by the execution of obligations and the cultivation of virtues. Among these obligations and virtues are duties
to oneself and virtues of proper self-regard. Thus the moral
factor would require some ordering of values with a view to
maximum personal good. Not any old pattern of value ordering
could be acceptable from a moral point of view.
Third, it is certainly possible to look upon ranking statements
as hypotheses or generalizations about how most human beings,
sine impedirnentis, would find maximum value satisfaction. For
instance, one might propose that, if etiological priorities are met,
rational contemplation, given a fair chance, will be found by
most people to be one of the most satisfying values in life. One
might identify a small group of topmost intrinsic values, meaning by this that on the whole most people would find these

HUMAN NATURE AND VALUE THEORY

values most rewarding to their individualized human nature.
This is what Mill was worried about in trying to establish qualities 0£ goodness to avoid quantitative hedonism, and there is no
reason to think he is not right in his generalizations, though his
proof and his hedonism need not be accepted. Plato wants to go
further and give a fixed ranking of different types of life, presumably based on their proximity to knowledge. Such proposals
too can be considered as hypotheses about degrees of actual
human perfective satisfaction, and there may be much truth in
some of them. But from the standpoint of human nature, as
well as actual experience, it seems that people can derive comparable levels of value experience whether their primary source
be that of a thinker, a moral activist, a religious, an artist, or
something else.
Of course any life would be enhanced by including as much as
possible of all the intrinsic values, provided there were no disproportionate loss in the primary source. And no doubt there
are vast differences in the levels of value £ulfilhnent possible to
different people due to given capacities and deficiencies. But if
different individuals have realized their individual human nature, which might also be called their ideal self or destiny, it
does not appear that they must necessarily be inferior to some,
or superior to others, in the satisfaction that comes from perfective attainment. Perhaps it might be so in fact; but human
nature does not suggest that it must be so.
Finally, for any who believe that human nature has a perfective destiny beyond the natural order, speculation about a more
settled ranking of capacities might seem in place in reference to
that further realm. The speculation might seem in place since
"it does not yet appear what we shall be." But such speculation should probably not count any longer as philosophy.
DONALD WALHOUT

Roclcford College
Roclcford, Illinois

BOOK REVIEWS
Two Views of a Recent Book on Cajetan's Role in the Reformation.
Cajetan Responds: A Reader in Reformation Controversy. Translated and
Edited by JARED W1cKs, S. J. Washington, D. C.: The Catholic University of America Press, 1978. Pp. ii + 292. $19.95.
A FIRST VIEW-The principal part of this work is a translation into
English of the lesser works of Cajetan which are related to the Reformation of the 16th century (pp. 47-244). While Fr. Wicks did not judge
it necessary to provide a complete version of the writings (he gives only
a summary of the less important passages), his book gives us a view,
well conceived and put together, of all the writings of the " Cardinal of
St. Sixtus " on the Reformation. This is an advantage not furnished to the
reader of the original text.
This central part of the work is preceded by an introduction divided into
two sections of unequal length. The first is a biographical essay on Cajetan,
followed by a brief evaluation of the Cardinal in relation to the Reformation (pp. 1-46) . A bibliography (pp. 244-253) and the notes for the introduction and the text of the translation (pp. 255-292) terminate the work.
Clearly, the principal aim of the introduction is to furnish the background
against which the twenty-five short works were produced. In fact, we are
treated to a presentation of Cajetan's entire life, although some parts of it
are analysed with a very special care, as, for example, the years surrounding
the trial of Luther. The work of A. Cossio, Il Cardinale Gaetano e la Riforrna (Cividale, 1902), despite its uncontested merits, has been surpassed
by the works of P. Kalkoff. Influenced, however, by certain theses and
prejudices, the German scholar, in more than one place, arrived at conclusions which have to be called too precipitate (cf. Baumer, Der Lutherpro:zess in Lutherpro:zess und Lutherbann, KLK 32, Munster, L972, pp.
18 ff.) Fr. Wicks, bringing together the fruits of contemporary research,
presents a more objective summary, well-balanced and precise, of the events
into which Cajetan was plunged at the beginning of the Lutheran Reform.
In passing, it seems well to underline some of the suggestions and attitudes of Father Wicks. He is not taken in by the hoary and tiresome accusations frequently hurled against Cajetan on the condemnation of Reuchlin
(p. 8), nor does he trifle with the idea that the Legate was author of the
letter sent by Maximilian to Leo X (p. 259, n.41) . Fascinating are the
reflections based on the information furnished by W. Link after the meeting
at Augsburg: "Cajetan told Luther that the second point (faith in the
Sacrament) could remain open for the present, since, with some refinement,

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or a slight re-definition Luther's view might well stand " (pp. 24 ff., cf.
pp. 260 ff., n. 53) . To understand better the attitude of Cajetan, if Link's
information is correct, it is necessary to take into account what Cajetan
will write in his article on the faith (cf. p. 222 ff.).
In preparing for the meeting at Augsburg (Oct. 1518), Cajetan had before
him two writings of Luther. The notes made by the Cardinal, in themselves,
constitute the first series of articles, which revolve around two points: the
relationship between faith and the sacrament, and the doctrine of indulgences. A note, which is implicitly an answer to Luther's pamphlet on
the excommunication, completes the Cardinal's series (pp. 47-98). Wicks
notes that a passage of Sacred Scripture cited by Cajetan in favor of Luther,
in one of the Cardinal's works, is not found in the writings which antedate
his meeting with the Augustinian. Also, he thinks, and with good reason,
that the addition was made by Cajetan after reading the written defence
presented by Luther, October 14, 1518 (cf. p. 267, n.9). From 1519 to 1521
date his writings on the use of Sacred Scripture, on the institution of the
Roman Pontificate and on the propositions of Luther which were condemned by the bull Exurge Domine: the 7th, 10th, 15th, 17th, and 28th
(pp. 99-153).
Some years later, at the request of Clement VII, Cajetan drew up a
memorandum for use by an envoy who was to discuss Zwingli's doctrine on
the Eucharist (pp. 154-173) . In 1530, and again in 1534, the Cardinal was
asked for his views on the marriage of Henry VIII and Catherine of Aragon,
a decisive question in the religious future of England (pp. 175-188; 241244) . In relation to the Diet of Augsburg, the Roman Curia envisaged the
possibility of an agreement with the Lutherans, based on some concessions.
The Pope and a group of his councillors were reluctant to summon a Council, in spite of the urging of Charles V. From another point of view, because
of the constant threat from the Turks, the Pope needed to be careful not
to alienate the princes who were favorable to the " innovators." He sought
from Cajetan, then, advice on possible advances to the Lutherans. Clement
VII was interested in at least three of Cajetan's suggestions. It is worthy of
note that the idea of dispensing priests of the Latin Rite from celibacy was
fiercely fought, for very different reasons, by two laymen: the King of
France and the Emperor of Germany (pp. 201-203) .
At this time, constantly concerned about Lutheran doctrine, Cajetan
composed a series of small works, entitled " Against the Lutherans." The
first, written May 3, 1531, is well-known and it has been much used by
Catholic theologians. It involves an enigma not yet resolved. Father
Wicks indicates its principal elements (p. 287, nn.1-7). The Cardinal knew
very well the line to take in answering a work which taught a strictly
Lutheran view on the real presence but which rejected the sacrificial value
of the Mass and its application to the dead. While, in identifying the
sources of the Lutheran pamphlet, it is quite legitimate to appeal to the

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Confession of Augsburg or to the Judicium de Missa of Melanchthon, it is
another thing to try to find in the works of Luther a passage which assembles the texts from the Epistle to the Hebrews on which the principal
argument of the Lutherans depends. Indeed, any true argumentation on the
subject seems to be lacking in the writings of both Luther and Melanchthon. The book which Cajetan had before him at the time remains unknown until the present day. It should also be noted that the passages of
Sacred Scripture to which the Cardinal refers, as well as the form of his
argumentation, are much like his way of writing about Zwingli (De Canone
Missae Epicheresis, in Siimtliche Werke, I, Leipzig, 1906, pp. 288 ff.). The
other writings in this series are concerned with communion under both
species, the complete accusation of sins, satisfaction, and the invocation of
the saints (all themes brought up in the Confession of Augsburg) and,
finally, faith and works, one of the principal objects of disagreement between Cajetan and Luther.
The subjects treated by Cajetan are highly varied. Father Wicks relates
them both to the events of the period and to the life of the Cardinal. In
addition, he makes reference to other outstanding facts of Cajetan's life:
the dispute on Averroes and his doctrines at Padua, the reform in the
Dominican Order, the Fifth Lateran Council (in which he gave a discourse
on the Reform of the Church) . In this area, it is of importance to note that
all the editions of the Acts of the Councils from the time of Cajetan (15U)
to modern times contain texts that are mutilated. Much to be preferred is
the edition of Rome, of 1512, which contains the lesser works of Cajetan.
Father Wicks does not pass over the exegetical works of the Cardinal. It
has often been said that Cajetan's interest in Sacred Scripture was the
result of his meeting with Luther at Augsburg, but Father Wicks shows
that this contact had only a secondary influence on the Cardinal's scriptural
studies. This seems a truer assessment of the facts of history (cf. A. F.
von Gunten, " La contribution des Hebreux a !'oeuvre exegetique de Cajetan," in Histoire de l'exegese au XVIe siecle: Etudes de philosophie et
d'histoire, 84; Geneve, 1978, pp. 57-60).
It is well to be on one's guard, not to be deceived by the brevity of
Father Wicks's work, or by the title of the Introduction, " A Biographical
Essay." This author has a complete acquaintance with all the recent
studies on the subject which he treats. The bibliography itself is an indication of this fact (pp. 286-258) . Every work of any importance is cited. The
number and choice of the citations, the questions raised, or even suggested,
in these pages show that Father Wicks absorbed and judged intelligently
the entire problematic, and that he has given space only to the points which
are related to his chosen theme. His presentation is well-balanced and free
from polemical spirit. From my own knowledge, I conclude that this biography, in spite of its succinctness, is one of the very best. With some addi-

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tions, it merits a separate publication, and it should be translated into other
languages.
To present an exposition of the doctrine of Cajetan, to defend it, or
merely to judge its value, to say that Thomas de Vio (Cajetan) resolves all
the questions which he raises-all these are far from the intent of Father
Wicks. His aim is simply to provide those who are interested in the problems of the Reformation with a tool for studying the theological works of
one who was a witness of this movement of the 16th century. The choice
of Cajetan was a happy one. Grasping the actual climate of the times, without the passions which affected many generations of historians and having
a profound understanding of Cajetan's encounter with Luther, the author
penetrates to the heart of the teachings of the Legate of Leo X in the innovative movement of the 16th century. Elsewhere, in the present day, one
looks in vain, among Protestants as among Catholics, for such a precise
delineation of the Cardinal of St. Sixtus, free from superficial or preconceived theses-for example, in G. Henning, K. V. Selge, or 0. H. Pesch.
Even so, this is not to say that the author has succeeded in describing
perfectly the theological and spiritual viewpoint of Cajetan, nor in portraying exactly its relation to the attitude of Luther. That question remains
partially open.

A. F. VON GuNTEN, O.P.
Univei·sity of St. Thomas Aquinas
Rome, Jtal,y

AN ALTERNATE VIEW-Jared Wicks has made available for the
first time in full English translation, or in synopsis, the eleven controversial
treatises of Thomas Cardinal de Vio Cajetan, spanning the years 1518-1534.
Excellent notes accompany the translations. A brief biography of Cajetan
serves as an introduction. Of special interest is Wicks's account of the
background and circumstances surrounding Cajetan's meeting with Luther
at Augsburg in October, 1518. He provides us with the chronology of the
meetings and a summary of the matters discussed. His research does much
to put Cajetan's role at Augsburg, and his later involvement in the Reformation controversy, in a new perspective, one most favorable to the
Dominican Cardinal.
Eight of the eleven treatises deal with his response to Luther and his
movement, two with the Marriage Question of Henry VIII, and one is a
critique of the Eucharistic doctrine of Ulrich Zwingli. Readers familiar with
the controversial writings of Cajetan's contemporaries, both Catholic and
Protestant, will discover in his works a marked difference in style, methodology, and argumentation. They are devoid of all polemics against person-

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alities, reveal a conscientious use of sources available to him, are brief and
clear. He did not attempt, as did his Catholic colleagues, a line by line
response, but rather isolated major dogmatic issues, clarified his opponents'
objections, and responded with his own concise arguments.
The treatises dealing with the Lutheran question cover two periods:
1518-1521, the early years of controversy, and 1531-1532 when Cajetan
commented on the Augsburg Confession and the Apology of Melanchthon.
The Augsburg Treatises of 1518 are in reality a collection of thirteen position papers written by Cajetan for his own benefit in preparation for his
meeting with Luther. They reveal his careful analysis of Luther's Explanation of the Ninety-five Theses, the Sermon on Penance, and the Sermon on Excommunication.
In these writings Cajetan discerned two major issues at divergence from
Catholic teaching. The first involved a new understanding and description
of the nature of justifying faith, which Luther claimed rested solidly on
the authority of Scripture. The traditional Catholic formulation of justifying faith as fides caritate formata had become in Luther fides certitudine
remissionis peccatorum f ormata. Cajetan quickly perceived the far-reaching
doctrinal consequences of such a position.
The second point of difference concerned Luther's rejection, on the
grounds of the lack of clear scriptural evidence, of the authoritative teaching of Clement VI on the nature, extension, and efficacy of indulgences.
Thus in the Augsburg Treatises Cajetan responded to various aspects of
Luther's doctrine bearing on these two issues. It is significant that at this
early date he perceived in germ what will later become the central theses of
the Reformation controversy: sola fides and sola scriptura.
Two treatises of significance followed in 1521. The Divine Institution of
the Pontifical Office was occasioned by Luther's published Resolutio of the
thirteenth thesis of the Leipzig debate of 1519, wherein he denied the unique
role of the Pope in defining matters of faith. Cajetan's disciplined response,
based on carefully selected scriptural and patristic sources, was highly
praised by Erasmus.
The ambivalent reaction to Luther's condemnation in Exurge Domine
of Leo X prompted Cajetan to write The Five Articles of Luther-A Justi,..
fication for Their Condemnation. This was a concise statement of formal
theological reasons for the condemnation of certain key Lutheran theses,
some of which he previously dealt with in the Augsburg Treatises.
These works reveal Cajetan's growing conviction that Luther before all
else had to be answered by argumentation from Scripture. His experience
in Germany had made him aware of the distrust and deep antipathy felt
by the German Humanist and early Lutherans toward arguments from
Scholastic Theology and Canon Law. To meet the challenge he assiduously
dedicated himself from this period on to the study of Scripture, and by the

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303

end of the decade had produced several commentaries of note on the Old
and New Testaments.
As Wicks observes, Cajetan's exegetical approach sets him apart from
most of his Catholic contemporaries. For example, he insisted, like his
master Aquinas, that only the literal sense of the text provides a valid
basis for theological argumentation. He also had for his day the rare perception that the Latin Vulgate was a quite fallible translation and needed
to be checked frequently against the original. To insure for himself the
accuracy of the biblical text he employed Hebrew scholars as assistants, and
made consistent use of the New Testament studies of Lefevre d'Etaples and
Erasmus. At this time he also advanced a Catholic understanding of the
formula sola scriptura, the principles for which he had already enunciated
in his commentary on the Summa of St. Thomas. It was unfortunate for
the Catholic cause that Cajetan's scholarly creativity met vehement opposition and only the Pope's intervention saved him from condemnation by
the theological Faculty of Paris.
But this study did bear fruit in his treatises of
which are a
high point of excellence in the controversial literature of the pre-Tridentine
period. In response to the Augsburg Confession of 1530 he published in
May of 1531 The Sacrifice of the Mass and its Rite-Against the Lutherans.
With arguments drawn exclusively from the New Testament, notably the
Epistle to the Hebrews, he offered a solution to the Lutheran objection
concerning the sacrificial nature of the Eucharist by showing the unity of
Christ's unique sacrifice with the Church's sacrifice, the Mass. Again he
earned the enthusiastic praise of Erasmus.
In August of the same year came his treatise on the Four Lutheran
Errors in which he defended the Catholic position on the question of Communion under both forms, integral confession, satisfaction for sins, and the
invocation of the saints.
The treatise Faith and Works of
addressed questions raised by the
Apology of Melanchthon concerning the human response in faith to God's
gracious action in the human heart. Cajetan's argument included an insightful description of what it means to live in the love of mutual friendship with God, an analysis clearly based on his own exposition of Paul's
Epistles and I John. Another point of Faith and Works concerns the
meritorious character of the works of the man reborn by God's grace. In
this regard Cajetan utilized as the basis of his response the Pauline theme
of the believer's incorporation into Christ. Works are meritorious because
they are performed in Christo et per Christum.
It would be a serious mistake, however, to limit Cajetan's involvement in
the Reformation crisis to a mere defensive and apologetic role. The reform
of abuses within the Church, even before the events of 1518, was his passionate concern. Nor was he intransigent and inflexible in his attitude to-

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ward the Reformers. His Guidelines for Concessions to the Lutherans of
1581 is perhaps the most significant of his Reformation treatises. Written
as a memorandum to Pope Clement VII, Cajetan with courage and wisdom
outlined a plan for the restoration of the unity of the Church which in his
judgment would preserve the essentials of the Catholic faith and, at the
same time, make possible an honorable and painless reconciliation for the
Lutheran teachers. Based on topics suggested by Melanchthon in the summer of 1530, he proposed, among other things, that clerical marriage in
accord with the custom of the Greek Church be permitted for the Germans,
that Communion under both forms be allowed in the German liturgy, and
that all laws of purely ecclesiastical origin be declared for the whole Church
as not binding under serious sin. The Guidelines met overwhelming opposition at the Roman Curia.
Wicks gives a probing analysis of why Cajetan had no appreciable influence in changing the course of events in the early Reformation period.
His genius itself is in large measure the reason. Two different levels of
discourse characterize the dialogue with Luther, especially as regards the
1518-1521 period. Always confining himself to the scientific and formally
theological, he failed to perceive and take into account the pastoral and at
times deeply religious intent of Luther. In the Reformation war of words
Cajetan's disciplined responses had nothing of Luther's passionate appeal
to the religious aspiration of the German people. Even his late treatises,
with their profound biblical insights, had no impact on the Reformers. They
had come too late, but perhaps more significantly, they too were on a
different level of discourse. For much of Luther's biblical exegesis rested
upon a Christological or tropological interpretation of the sacred text.
His writings did bolster Catholic confidence and self-identity. But he
failed to communicate his vision for the renewal of Catholic biblical studies,
and to convice his contemporaries that the use of the best of the humanist methods of textual criticism would at the same time effect the revitalization of Scholasticism, especially Thomism. His genius stood alone.
It goes without saying that Jared Wicks has made another major contribution to Reformation studies. Cajetan Responds will be welcomed by
Roman Catholic and Lutheran scholars who are once more engaged in the
task of the reconciliation of the Churches.
WILLIAM

Dominican House of Studies
Washington, D.C.

A. NEWMAN, O.P.

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sos

Meister Eckhart, Mystic and Phuosopher. By REINER ScHUID>i£ANN. Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1978. Pp. 9l69. $17.50.
Have there been five books published in English on Meister Eckhart in
this century? The past eighteen months alone have brought us three:
C. F. Kelley, Meister Eckhart on Divine Knowledge (Yale, 1977); a symposium on Eckhart printed in The Thornist (April, 1978); and finally this
volume by the professor of philosophy at the New School for Social Research.
Although this book is a translation of a French edition, it owns a fine
English style, bright and succinct. Schlirmann recently published in France
a book of autobiographical reflections, Origines, which attracted wide attention as a first view of life after World War II by a young German. So the
author's literary talents enhance this study of Eckhart, for it is aesthetically
as well as intellectually captivating.
Schlirmann wants not to explain everything about Eckhart but to unlock
the central spark of the mystic: the unavoidably and permanently dynamic
Eckhart. "As long as Eckhart's readers attempt to grasp his thought in
relations among entities, isolating different philosophical currents like musical motifs, the simple source from which everything springs remains hidden.
Eckhart's thinking is such that probably any list of 'theses' drawn from
his works will provoke objections and rejectien for diverse reasons " (p.
164).
The format of this book is novel and avoids the labored structure, inspired by dissertations, of a superfluity of quotations and references culled
from all the great man's writings. Instead, Schlirmann has carefully chosen
three sermons which through exposition and hermeneutic allow the Meister's
word to emerge and to impress. Each of the sermons contains central motifs
of Eckhart's philosophico-theological view of the world and the self: detachment and birth; the quaternity of dissimilarity, similarity, identity and
dehiscence; the concluding juxaposition of ontic nothingness opening to the
nothingness of the Godhead; and being-born in the being of the Son of God.
Schlirmann points out that these moments are " intensities " for every
or for any moment of a person's life; they are not stages in a methodology
of prayer or interior ascent. For each of the three chapters exegeting one
sermon newly translated, the author provides a second sermon: an expansion upon, an illustration of the teaching in that particular chapter.
The professor at the New School expresses lucidly an approach which has
been on the tip of the tongue of other, European scholars. He observes that
to remain with a metaphysics of substances is inevitably to be incapable of
expressing what Eckhart, as mystic and writer, wants to say.
Eckhart, no more than any other speculative mystic, thinks of God and the mind
as united by some kind of fusion of entities into a common substance; rather,

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Got entwird: in the disappearance of the God-Person and of the man-person, in
detachment and the great forgetfulness of self, being accomplishes itself. Only
this process "is." Breakthrough, on the one hand, birth on the other, are reconciled in the itinerancy of the detached man. (p. 164)

The critical apparatus of the book is sparse, but this should not delude
readers and scholars into the opinion that the volume ignores the intellectual sources and milieu of Eckhart. Schilrmann knows medieval thought
very well, and his uncovering of Eckhart's words and ideas in Albert or
Aquinas is thorough. He unravels and intertwines in a sophisticated way
the interplay of Neoplatonism and Aristotelianism in Eckhart. He makes
a good case in the final sections for showing that Eckhart finds the different
kinds of theories of analogy inadequate for his thought. Schilrmann explains
how Eckhart saw true prayer and mystical insight attaining the Godhead
beyond God. This "breakthrough" (the word is Eckhart's own creation)
to the Godhead-through radical detachment and Zen-like focus upon the
present existent-must mean that the philosophical categories which were
at hand for the Thuringian Dominican appeared inadequate: not false but
inadequate. "The authentic core of Meister Eckhart's thinking is releasement. In the history of ideas, each epoch has its own language, and perhaps
releasement precedes its own epoch. Our experience is that it reveals the
framework of established metaphysics as too narrow, for releasement is as
inexhaustible as being itself .... (There is) an interval in the itinerary of
Eckhart into which the theory of analogy cannot reach." (p. 191 f)
No reader will wish that the final pages on Eckhart and Martin Heidegger
were absent from this book, but it is not clear why Heidegger enters at this
point with such a prominent position. Not that Heidegger has no extensive
relationship to Eckhart: as John Caputo's writings also show, he does.
Nevertheless, there is a certain aesthetic intrusion as one thinker, among
the many influenced by Eckhart, assumes such a major role. Schilrmann's
style, not as an author but as a philosopher, resembles Heidegger's. For
the reader will find this book to be not only a study of Eckhart but an
exposition so lucid and original that it crosses the line from exposition to
philosophy.
The final appendix on Eckhart and Zen will lead readers, I hope, to
Schilrmann's longer article on this topic in the Eckhart symposium published in The Thomist recently.
The book is most controversial and inevitably limited as it reaches its
denouement in the question of the Godhead. A valuable discussion of the
Neoplatonic influence upon Eckhart's understanding of analogy is interspersed within a slow crescendo leading to the Godhead beyond God.
A perfectly released man literally represents nothing. Being as present and as
nothingness arises on the path which Eckhart describes as that of solitude, of the
desert and of forgetfulness. Both the philosopher of analogical identity and the

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thinker of peregrine identity articulate some kind of presence ... , Releasement
knows that things are there for nothing. Hence nothingness is as valid a title (for
God), in Eckhart's ontology, as being." (p. 189)

One can understand that, from the horizon of created beings, God is nonbeing. Are not, however, some nuances left undeveloped as the pleroma of
nothingness in the Godhead is mentioned along with the ontic nothingness
of a created, contingent being? How does the nothingness of sin and of
grace-enabled apophatic spirituality enter here?
It is rare to find a book on a complicated thinker which is creatively
conceived, at times inspiringly written, and always intellectually challenging.
A lasting question which the book raises---one which is both superficial and
profound-is that of a point of translation. Is " releasement " a satisfactory
English word for Gelassenheit? Overtones in English from the prefix " re- "
unsettle the reader. Is not this German form of letting with a syllable of
abstraction at either end best reworded as " letting-be? " The author seems
to agree, for in the section on Heidegger this English translation is employed.
THOMAS F. O'MEARA, 0.P.
Washington, D.C.

Meister Eckhart on Divine Knowledge. By C. F. KELLEY. New Haven:
Yale University Press, 1977. $18.50.
As readers of this journal know, in recent years there has been a quantum
leap in Eckhart scholarship in English. Meister Eckhart has always been
a controversial and enigmatic figure, whose works have yielded an astonishing variety of interpretations. It is therefore not surprising to find him
once again the subject of intense scrutiny and discussion. Several recent
studies have modified our understanding of the fourteenth-century Dominican. Among these, C. F. Kelley's Meister Eckhart on Divine Knowledge
attempts a sympathetic reconstruction of Eckhart's vision in terms of divine
or " principial " knowledge. With this theme as his focus, Kelley uses the
full range of Latin and German works to develop a systematic interpretation of Eckhart. He also lays claim to a more than historical inquiry, when
he states that the book's purpose is " to introduce the reader not only to
the insights of Meister Eckhart, but primarily to the doctrine of Divine
Knowledge which, as expounded by him, is to be found in the Word" (p.
16). Kelley thus takes the standpoint of a believer who thinks with Eckhart on the theme of divine knowledge.
Kelley claims that the Thomistic influence is decisive for Eckhart, and
that Aquinas in tum must be viewed in light of the Pseudo-Dionysius's

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negative theology (p. 108). Kelley therefore takes the Neoplatonic strain
in Thomas as normative for Eckhart. In particular, Thomas's affirmation
of " the isness of Divine Knowledge as supreme Principle " (p. 88) is central to Eckhart, and becomes the focal point for Kelley's interpretation.
The foundation of being in divine knowledge is a major theme in the
Parisian Questions, where Eckhart states that " God does not know because
he is; rather he is because he knows, in the sense that God is unrestricted
knowledge and understanding, and knowledge is the foundation of his
isness" (p. 174). With this presupposition, Eckhart attempts to preach
and write from within the divine intellect and its unity, prior to differentiated, individual being; he speaks not as one on the way to divine knowledge, but as one who has already arrived. Kelley thus defines " principial
knowledge " as " the consideration of all things and all manifestations as it
were from within the Godhead, the unconditioned principle, or tamquam
in p1'incipio infinito" (p. 250). Meister Eckhart on Divine Knowledge is a
sustained, well-documented argument for this principal mode of knowing.
We may distinguish the following themes in Kelley's presentation of
principial knowledge: the role of knowledge in Eckhart's anthropology; the
birth of the Word in the soul; inversion and detachment. First, Eckhart
distinguishes between God and the human self primarily in terms of knowledge. God's being consists in unrestricted knowledge, while man's being qua
individual and creature consists in an unrestricted will to know (pp. 56-58) .
Second, only the divine Word satisfies the human will to know. As the
believing soul receives the Word's revelation, a radical shift of perspective
occurs. :For the Word's "birth" in the soul restores it to its primal identity
within the Godhead, where the soul becomes one with God himself. Eckhart writes that the Father " begets me as his Son and the same Son ... not
only does he beget me as his Son, but he begets me as himself, and himself
as me, and me as his being and nature" (p. 129). Kelley notes that this
identity is not substantial, but principial; that is, it represents not a fusion
of discrete substances, but the original and fecund unity of all things in
God, since "that which is in God is God" (p. 100). More precisely, God's
unrestricted knowledge embraces all things in its unified act. Further,
dwelling within God, the soul comprehends all things in their original unity.
As Kelley states, " The end of the intellect is the realization of oneness
with the Word, and when this realization is actualized in the ground [of the
soul] then all is known principially-' gleichwie in the Word.' It is there
and only there that the transposition to principial knowledge is effected "
(pp. 125-126). The revelation, birth, and reception of the Word thus constitutes the condition and essential content of principial knowledge.
The unity of the Word and the soul requires inversion and detachment.
Eckhart distinguishes " a double isness of the creature-in God and in itself" (p. 161). In itself created being remains finite and

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and qua creature man's knowledge of God proceeds from this individual,
subjective standpoint. Principial knowledge, however, inverts this perspective, as it "starts within God and then proceeds to understand all things
from the standpoint of divine insta.sis" (p. 142). Eckhart's identification
of being and intellect leads to a full coordination of the noetic, ontological,
and logical dimensions of inversion: the intellect's inversion into the Word
as its principle; the ontological inversion of manifest being into the unmanifest Godhead; and in logical terms, the " negation of the negation," that is,
the turn to infinite affirmation through negating its restricted-and therefore negative-forms. If we cling to our finite standpoint, this inversion
and principial knowledge are inconceivable. Hence, Eckhart insists that
only a radical detachment can effect this inversion. Detachment involves
" utter dispossession of the self" (p. 217) , and acknowledges created being's total dependence on God and nothingness in itself. More precisely,
the detached self becomes "poor in spirit": wanting, knowing, and having
nothing in itself, the self becomes pure receptivity and "lets God be God"
(pp. QQ2-2Q7). In this way, detachment yields inversion and principial
knowledge.
Kelley has written a challenging and difficult book. Indeed, Meister Eckhart on Divine Knowledge may be a little more difficult than it need be.
Its style is somewhat stiff, and Kelley's translations occasionally seem
forced. In general, the book's argument could be more clearly delineated.
Another problem is a recurring
polemic, which interrupts
basically sound analyses and makes Eckhart appear more remote from the
reader than necessary. On this point, John Caputo's and Reiner Schiirmann's comparisons of Eckhart and Heidegger provide a corrective to
Kelley's denial of contemporary analogues to Eckhart's thought. These
minor reservations aside, Meister Eckhai·t remains a very useful study. It
has been painstakingly researched, with extensive notes and a helpful index.
From a speculative point of view, the book compels interest not as a definitive study but as suggesting directions for further research. For instance,
Kelley's heavily Neoplatonic reading of Thomas is controversial, but may
accurately reflect Eckhart's own interpretation of Thomas. Here we see
the need for further inquiry into Eckhart's use of Thomas and Albert, and
into the Dominican milieu of Cologne. More significantly, Kelley's analysis
of principial knowledge provides a powerful, organizing focus that clarifies
many of Eckhart's ambiguities. Yet Kelley gives insufficient attention to
Eckhart's oscillation between the principial and the distinctively human
perspectives. Eckhart himself emphasizes the contrast and tension between
the " here " of the human subject and the " there " of its being in God.
While detachment and the Word's birth in the soul unify these perspectives,
their difference and tension remain in Eckhart's language. In part, the
achievement of Eckhart lies in his style, whose vigor, symbolic richness, and

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paradoxes enable him to speak from "here" as though from "there." By
focusing on prineipial knowledge, Kelley has disclosed one pole of this contrast, and surely for us the more fundamental pole. By minimizing the
human standpoint, however, Kelley overlooks both Eckhart's dialectical
play between perspectives and his uncanny knack for expressing divine
knowledge in human language. A more comprehensive interpretation would
attend precisely to those " edges of language " (Van Buren) where the
inversion of perspectives occurs. Such an explicitly hermeneutical approach
would also involve thinking with Eckhart, and would owe a great deal to
M ei.ster Eckhart on Divine Knowledge.
DoNALD F. Ducww
Gwynedd-Mercy CoUege
Gwynedd VaUey, Pennsylvania

Just and Unjust Wars. By MICHAEL WALZER. New York: Basic Books,
1977. Pp. 861. Cloth. $Q5.00.
Modern weaponry, ideology, and disregard for the moral rules dictated
by the right to life have combined to made modern warfare savage beyond
compare. An important attempt to reestablish the authority of moral rules
in warfare has been made in Michael Walzer's ]itSt and Unjust Wars. This
book is a much-needed study of the judgments of contemporary international lawyers and moral philosophers of the justice and morality of modern
forms of warfare. Most of the evaluations he presents in this work are
correct and accurate, but the moral reasons he gives for many of these
evaluations are superficial and obscure because of his apparently positivist
view of moral rules and principles (p. 13). Walzer refuses to state explicitly
the relevant moral principles that govern the conduct of war, and this must
be counted against him. His study would have been more cogent and coherent if he had developed the notions of the community of nations, threat,
reconciliation, the right to life and of discrimination in action, and related
these more directly to the specific cases he reviewed. I wish to do this and
show how an elaboration of these concepts would enhance our understanding
of the moral character of some aspects of modern warfare.
He states that the community of nations has rights, and that the violation of these rights constitutes a necessary and sufficient ground for organized political violence (p. 61). He does not state what these rights are, or
why their violation is so grave, and what needs to be asserted here is that
the community of nations is an interdependent community in which individual member nations can only survive and flourish when their interdependent relationships are just, fair, and equitable. When these qualities

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311

are extracted from these relationships, then interdependent relationships are
destroyed, nations cannot flourish, and in some instances, they cannot survive (p. 110). War is a crime when it destroys these interdependent relationships without warrant, and directly threatens the survival of individual
member states. No individual state has the right to employ organized
political violence to jeopardize these relationships in the absence of a sufficient warrant or due cause.
Because the very vitality of individual states depends on the maintenance
of these relationships, it is then the positive duty of all states to promote
justice, fairness, and equity in these relationships, and their negative duty
to refrain from acts that destroy these values and relations. This negative
duty entails the necessity of all states acting so that these values are reasserted if intentional acts of organized political violence have destroyed
them. The only moral purpose for the prosecution of war is the actualization of conditions in the power relationship among adversaries which will
permit a process of reconciliation to be initiated upon the termination of
hostilities which will end in a state of reconciliation and not just " a better
state of peace " (pp. 115-6) . This is the only morally permissible purpose
for the prosecution of war because it alone will reassert the conditions of
justice, fairness, and equity in the relationships of interdependency required
for the vitality and flourishing of the community of nations. Winning a
war will not guarantee the reestablishment of these relationships, but prosecuting it so that a state of reconciliation is realized will achieve this end.
War is not morally prosecuted for the purpose of totally destroying the
capabilities of self-defense of an adversary, but only so that power relationships may be reasserted that will permit the initiation and successful completion of a process of reconciliation. And soldiers who die in war for anything more than this have died for a morally impermissible objective (p.
110).
The principle which grounds all calculations concerning the morality of
war is the principle of the unconditional and absolute claim of persons to
the right to life. The rule of war which cannot ever be permissibly overridden is that which prohibits the imposition of threats on those who pose
no direct or indirect threat to others. Individual persons, and persons in
the associations of nation-states or ethnic groupings, have an absolute and
unconditional right to life, existence, and survival. The capability of persons, individually and collectively, to assert radically superior orders of
logic, value, and meaning into existence in all domains of human existence
is the basis for possession of this right. Claims to this right may be permissibly waived only when heroic, saintly, or conspicuously virtuous deeds
are entailed by this forfeiture. Moral agents invalidate their claims to the
right to life only when they freely, voluntarily, intentionally, and directly
pose a threat to another valid claimant of the right to life. A certainly

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permissible condition under which organized political violence may be undertaken is when a threat of this type is proximately and actually present,
for this makes the initiation of war identical in morally relevant terms to
acts of self-defense by individual persons (p. 12Q) . 1£ violence is threatened
which is capable of certainly endangering the existence of a state or ethnic
group, then the prosecution of war is permissible. Those who have posed
a free, intentional, direct, positive, and proximate threat cannot claim the
freedoms and protections offered by the right to life because this threatening act directly entails the destruction of higher orders of logic, meaning,
and value. Consequently, any act that entails protection for valid claimants
is permissible if it does not in turn threaten those who have a valid claim
to this right.
These acts of defense, however, must be discriminating to the point where
they only inflict violence on those agents who pose the threats. It is never
permissible to perform acts or deploy weapons, tactics, and strategies that
cannot discriminate between those who pose threat of this nature and those
who do not. In war any act that intentionally and indiscriminately kills
is a murderous act. And it must be recalled that the intention of the agent
does not constitute the moral value of the act, but only contributes to or
detracts from its moral value.
I wish to relate these principles to some of the problems Walzer confronts to show why they provide stronger moral reasons for prohibiting certain acts in war. He faces the issue of the conditions necessary for a permissible intervention by a state on the behalf of an adversary in a conflict,
and rightly notes that the legalist paradigm is inadequate for determining
these conditions (p. 86) . In the case of an officially sanctioned governmental act of massacre or massive violation of human rights, it is certainly
permissible for other states to intervene to protect those whose right to life
is being violated, but it is not obligatory for them to do this. Intervention
such as this to protect another's right to life is a conspicuously virtuous
deed, and, like all deeds of this type, is non-obligatory. Intervention in this
situation is permissible, not because of the manner in which certain acts
shock the conscience of humanity, for this is not a moral reason but only
a reference to moral psychology. It is permissible when this is the only
means available of stopping a massive, positive, and proximate direct threat
to those who validly claim the right to life. However, a failure to perform
acts of this nature on account of fear is often morally reprehensible. Violent
intervention by a state is only permissible when the threat is actual and
present, and when it is actualized on account of a governmental policy. If
the threat posed is less serious than this, it is permissible to refrain from
intervening, and if it is only remote or potential, or if it is the result of
the action of a private citizen, then intervention is impermissible.
Walzer objects that the killing of occupation troops by disguised par-

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313

tisans after a formal surrender is an impermissible act of assassination. Because partisans have supposedly abandoned the right to kill after the surrender, Walzer contends that this act of political resistance is murderous. I
do not believe that this is as clearly certain as he thinks. For if the
partisans' nation was unjustly attacked, then it is not certain that the
victors retain a valid claim to the right to life on account of their successful
aggression. And the surrender of the defeated nation to an unjust aggressor
does not entail an acknowledgment of the validity of the aggressor's claim
to the right to life. Hence, killing after the surrender to an unjust attack
is not necessarily murder because it is not clear that a valid claim to the
right to life has been violated. A valid claim to the right to life does not
necessarily attach to victorious but unjust aggressors simply on account
of their victory. If this form of disguise is impermissible, then the use
of enemy uniforms by commando units should also be prohibited. Any
killing done while using this disguise would also be assassination according
to Walzer's principles, because of the identity between this and the act
of the partisans. I doubt that Professor Walzer would wish to prohibit this
form of commando action, but the principle which prohibits partisans from
killing occupation troops would prohibit commandos from killing their
enemy while under disguise.
The indiscriminate use of organized political violence is correctly condemned by Walzer, but the moral reasons he gives for this are rather weak.
The direct, intentional, positive, and voluntary killing of those who surrender, civilians, or neutrals is impermissible because their valid claim to the
right to life is violated. And the unintentional killing of these individuals
for the purpose of military expediency is either negligent homicide or murder.
Weapons that cannot be deployed discriminately, or whose deployment
strongly implies the deaths of those with valid claims to the right to life,
are also prohibited in these instances. And tactics, strategies, and weapons
deployments that pose free, voluntary, positive, and proximate threats to
those who pose neither direct nor indirect threats are impermissible violations of the right to life. Reprisals are condemned according to this principle
on the grounds that they are unwarranted threats to individuals who are
not direct or indirect threats to those making the reprisals. It cannot be
assumed, as Walzer does, that wounded combatants have reacquired a
valid claim to the right to life on account of their injuries, for they can
still conceivably pose a direct or indirect threat if they remain under military command. And those who are directly engaged in the production of
weapons or munitions that can only be rationally deployed in a threatening
manner may be indirectly and unintentionally killed by attempts to destroy
the means· by which these are produced. This is the case on account of
the fact that the labor of these individuals poses a free, intentional, and
proximate, but indirect threat. And because this threat is only indirect,

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these noncombatants may not be directly killed, but only indirectly
threatened by attacks on the facilities that produce their weapons.
Siege warfare is a particularly difficult form of violence to evaluate because it poses an indirect, but positive, proximate, intentional, and voluntary threat to noncombatants who themselves are neither directly or indirectly threatening. This strategy has the purpose of forcing the surrender
of the besieged army by starving it, but it also entails the same threat
to noncombatants who are not in any way threatening, and is therefore impermissible. The only type of siege that is permissible is that which allows
noncombatants to be released and interred in the prison camps of the
besieging army, for this does not violate their right to life, even though
it does expedite military victory. This limitation is permissible because
it is never permissible to obtain military advantages by directly threatening
those who have a valid claim to the right to life. Military expediency
alone is not sufficient to warrant the violation of the right to life of those
who have not invalidated their claim to the right to life.
Walzer's study of the moral character of nuclear deterrence and weapons
is faulted by his failure to understand the inherently immoral character
of strategic nuclear weapons. This is seen in his analysis of Truman's use
of the atomic bomb. Truman justified his use of the bomb against Japan
on the grounds that the force it demonstrated saved many Japanese and
American lives by making further resistance out of the question. But if
he had wanted to demonstrate American power, he could easily called a
halt to military operations, and summoned Japanese observers to witness
the dropping of the bomb in the uninhabited regions of the Pacific ocean.
This would have demonstrated the fearsome power of one plane and one
bomb without violating the right to life of thousands of non-threatening
noncombatants. In spite of his contentions, the traditional categories of
moral discourse apply to nuclear weapons, and they unconditionally condemn their strategic deployment (p.
. These weapons are absolutely
prohibited on account of the fact that they cannot possibly be deployed in
a discriminating manner. Nuclear deterrence is immoral, not because it
holds noncombatants hostage, but because it uses weapons that cannot be
deployed in a discriminating manner. It is impossible to use these weapons
without indirectly and unintentionally posing a threat to those who have
a valid claim to the right to life. For not only do the blast and fallout from
these weapons threaten presently existing claimants to the right to life, but
the effects of radiation threaten those born after the conflict. Nuclear deterrence is an inherently immoral form of deterrence, for it repels threats
by means of reprisals rather than by prohibiting military forces from
reaching their designated targets. And the reprisals threatened by the use
of nuclear weapons are identical in morally relevant terms to any other
form of reprisal or retaliation.

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The study of the moral dimensions of military command by Walzer is
quite valuable, and his point that the moral responsibility of commanders
is directly proportionate to their freedom is correct. This principle is an
application of the moral rule which holds that the non-possible is the nonobligatory. Walzer notes that commanders must exercise their authority
with moral responsibility, but he fails to note that it is exercised on behalf
of those who have a valid claim to the right to life. Commanders must
assume that orders will be misunderstood, poorly executed, and sometimes
disobeyed, and this prohibits them from issuing vague or imprecise orders
that do not positively prohibit violations of the right to life of valid
claimants. Deaths of these individuals that result from imprecise, vague,
and ill-defined orders must be considered as negligent homicide.
Much of Just and Unjust Wars is devoted to studying the notion that
some actions that violate valid claims to the right to life are permissible
when they are required by military necessity. Walzer rightly contends that
most often the principle of military necessity is invoked for the purpose
of reducing risks to military personnel or to expedite swift victory. While
combatants and noncombatants may use any means available against those
who pose unwarranted threats, these means must not threaten those who
pose no threat. In conditions of extreme emergency, those who do not pose
threats may not be attacked directly or indirectly, intentionally or unintentionally, for they still retain a valid claim to the right to life. Military
necessity cannot warrant direct attacks on those who pose no threat, and
if these noncombatants are caught in combat zones, discriminating weapons,
strategies, and tactics must be used to protect their valid claim to the right
to life. For it is never permissible to pose proximate threats to those
with a valid claim to the right to life if discriminating but costlier tactics,
strategies, and weapons may be deployed.
Walzer's work is flawed by an inadequate theory of the structure of
the international community and by the absence of explicit elaborations
of the moral rules and principles that govern the evaluation of organized
political violence. This is not entirely his fault in that the explicit purpose
of his work is that of analyzing contemporary positivist theories of international law. The defective character of these theories is seen most clearly
in situations of military necessity and extremity where its rules and principles collapse into act-utilitarianism. W alzer's work remains, however, the
most complete and comprehensive study of the morality of war to appear
in this decade.
ROBERT BARRY,

Dominican House of Studies
Washington, D.C.

0. P.

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Thinking About Religion: A Philosophical Introduction to Religion. By
R1cHARD PURTILL. Englewood Cliffs, N. Y.: Prentice-Hall, 1978. Pp.
175.

Richard Purtill's Thinking About Religion leaves the reader without the
slightest doubt concerning its thrust. He attempts to defend, with the
strongest arguments and best methods of justification, the crucial beliefs
of Christian religion. Reacting to a current climate of everyday religious
opinion which he perceives as" ... a generally more emotional and less intellectual approach to religion in recent generations .. ," (p. xi) , his book
is a challenge not only to skeptics but to believers who would hold that
religious beliefs are not subject to rational scrutiny and who are wary of
entertaining arguments offered by the agnostic or atheist. The book is
especially directed towards students whose perplexity leads to the position
that religious belief is, finally, an irrational " leap of faith." Purtill indicates that these students "need to understand why anyone holds any
religious belief and to consider whether there are grounds for holding one
set of religious beliefs rather than another" (p. xii). Therefore, I believe
the central question which implicitly unifies his entire book is the following:
"Is it 1·easonableto believe in God and an afterlife?", where "reasonable"
suggests an appeal to proof, justification, reasoning, and evidence. His
answer is an unqualified "yes."
But the reader should not conclude that Purtill's text is merely an
exercise in proselytizing. The structure of discussion in each chapter is
always dialectical. Positions are met with objections; objections are met
with counter-objections. Purtill attempts to be as fair as possible to each
aspect of a dispute.
Although Purtill indicates that his book covers " a somewhat different
range of material than the usual introductory book " (p. xi) in either
"Philosophy of Religion" or "Introduction to Religion," the range of
topics is, for the most part, still rather standard. After an introductory
chapter which describes " Religion Today " and " Why don't we believe
anymore ... ?," there are chapters on the problem of evil, arguments for
the existence of God, miracles, the historical nature of the Bible, and life
after death. Those topics discussed which Purtill conceives of as " different " from the normal range of material are, I suppose, those considered
in chapters on eastern religion and " mysticism and drugs," chapters which,
'.I might add, are the weakest parts of the book. There is little discussion
of such standard topics as the nature of religious langauge and the relationship between faith and reason.
As with Purtill's former book, Thinking About Ethics, each chapter begins with a story or parable " designed to arouse student interest and to
raise questions which lead into the discussion of the topic of the chapter "

BOOK REVIEWS

817

(p. xii) . I found these introductory parables for the most part satisfactory,
and I do think that they might provide a helpful teaching instrument; but
at least two of these stories reflected a lack of balance which would conflict
with the pedagogical intentions of the author. The story introducing the
chapter entitled " Knowledge of God: ls God Really Dead? " presents the
" Death of God " theologian as a modish immature young man who could
not stand up to a devastating attack authored by a more experienced critic,
leaving the student with little doubt about who " won " the intellectual
skirmish, while the story introducing the chapter on eastern religion is
almost a parody of helpless young souls who mindlessly embrace a foreign
tradition.
While I cannot discuss the entire range of topics treated by Purtill, I
will consider the two topics examined at greatest length by Purtill (he
spends two chapters apiece on each) : the existence of God and life after
death. He indicates that " Historically this describes the central core of
belief in the two major Western religions, Judaism and Christianity, and in
the Near Eastern religion which most resembles them, Islam" {p. 12-18).
Additionally, I found Purtill's discussion of each topic to be the most interesting parts of his book.
The introductory chapter provides a solid foundation for the later discussions. In a clear and nontechnical style (which is characteristic of the
entire book) , Purtill wonders "Why Don't We Believe Anymore ... ? " and
offers three typical reasons often cited: the failure of the arguments for
God's existence, the problem of evil, and the incompatibility of the scientific
perspective and the religious W eltanschauung. It is the supposed incompatibility of science and religion which dominates the discussion in Chapter
l, and it is Purtill's response to this problematic which provides not only
the core of that argument for God's existence which Purtill defends but
also an underlying motif throughout the book. Purtill suggests that many
people are hesitant to embrace religious beliefs because " ... questions about
the existence of God or about life after death cannot be settled by methods
like those of science ... " (p. 4). But, he responds, there is no reason to
think that only scientific methods can settle any question, and an appeal
to scientific method to support such a claim obviously would be questionbegging (p. 4). In fact, Purtill argues, it is the success of science and the
universe itself which is properly explained by God's existence.
The existence of science as embodying successful techniques for dealing with
the universe and apparently successful techniques for understanding the universe
can be taken as a piece of data: a fact which itself needs to be explained. The
religious believer has an explanation for the success of science; in his view the
universe
orderly and understandable because it has been made by an intelligent
Being and made in such a way that we can understand it and learn from it about
its maker. (p. 7)

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Not only are science and religion compatible, but the metaphysical hypothesis of God's existence is, according to Purtill, the only satisfactory ultimate explanation for the success of science.
Purtill comes back again and again to this same theme. In chapter 4, he
presents a combination of the traditional " cosmological " and " teleological "
arguments as the " strongest possible argument " (p. 57) for God's existence. Arguing that there must be a necessary being which "always exists
whether [or not] anything else exists" (p. 54), he says that the necessary
being could not simply be the material universe itself. In so far as the
material universe is not just a random collection of things, only the supposition that an intelligent Being brought it about explains the order of the
universe. I'lence, Purtill argues that " ... the view that the universe was
created by God seems to be the only view that accounts for all the facts,
that gives reason a place, that leads us to expect continued regularity and
understandability in the universe " (p. 57) . Unless we admit the existence
of God, we fall into hopeless skepticism: "Arguments of this kind try to
show that unless God exists the universe is not finally understandable" (p.
57). Or, we are" trying to convince the critic that he must choose a view
which admits ultimate explanations, or else give way to skepticism " (p.
59). Finally, even in his discussion of miracles, he comes back to the same
point: " If we really accept the idea that our minds were the accidental
result of the workings of mindless forces, we should be haunted by doubts
as to whether our apparent understanding of the universe is illusory " (p.
69). Positively, his defense of a "cosmological-teleological" argument is a
forceful and compelling discussion in which the student will clearly see that
the order and intelligibility of the universe provides at least some rational
support to the metaphysical necessity of positing the existence of God.
Negatively, although certain objections are offered, Purtill does not discuss
some of the more obvious replies to his argument, e.g., Hume's criticism
of the teleological argument.
Purtill's discussion of "Life after Death" (Chapters 9 and 10) is a
curious blend of philosophical argumentation and unabashed speculation.
First, he attempts to show that the notion of disembodied survival is intelligible by responding to some current objections to this notion. For example,
critics claim " ... that there is no criterion or standard of personal identity
which does not depend on bodily continuity" (p. 129), and mental criteria
are also inadequate. Therefore, since the believer cannot properly explain
what constitutes the uniqueness of the individual soul, the notion of disembodied survival is unintelligible. Purtill responds by defending two criteria
for personal identity: the "personality pattern" criterion and the "body
animation capacity" criterion (p. 129-80). He sums up his argument by
saying the following:
Though these two criteria are not the ones we use now, it is plainly reasonable
to identify as me a future disembodied person with memories identical, with mine,

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319

with my unique personality pattern, and with the capacity to re-animate a body
recognizably mine, which began to be conscious at the very instant of my death.
While it might be logically possible that this individual is not me,_ it would be
irrational to hold that it is not me. (p. 132)

Purtill ends his discussion of " Life after Death " with a chapter which
attempts to " make real " for the believer what life after death would be
like. He thinks that a major barrier preventing some people from believing
in life after death is their inability imaginatively or reflectively to conceive
of this as a real possibility. He speculates that" ... our perception of time
and the operation of our memory in life after death might be different from
anything we can experience now ... " (p. 138), because our relation to time
would be fundamentally changed, seeing or experiencing our past "by
somehow participating in God's ' eternal now ' where past events are still
present" (p. 141).
As I have already noted, I found two chapters the weakest parts of the
book: that on mysticism and drugs and that on eastern religion. First, in
the chapter on " Mysticism and Drugs," Purtill argues that " ... the kind
of experiences which could in principle be induced by drugs would differ in
important ways from what are understood to be mystical experiences within
the religious tradition" (p. HW). Certainly a discussion of mystical experience is appropriate in a book like Purtill's, but one wonders whether relating
this to " drug experiences " warrants an entire chapter and whether this is
a capitulation to a false canon of relevancy. Second, the chapter on" Eastern Religion " is extremely weak. While attempting to compare and contrast
western religious beliefs with " eastern " beliefs, the generalizations are so
large concerning " Eastern Religion " that Purtill ends by saying things that
either require qualification or are plainly inaccurate. I will give two examples. 'Vhile criticizing eastern notions (God, soul, Karma, reincarnation,
which are never adequately explained), he says" ... we run up against the
Hindu and Buddhistic idea of the identity of atman and Brahman " (p.
104, emphasis mine). Of course, one of the most important ideas concerning even an elementary understanding of Buddhism is the Buddha's initial
rejection of pre-Buddhistic (especially Hindu) notions of soul and God and
his outright rejection of the Hindu notion of atman with his doctrine of
anatta or no-self. In addition, Purtill indicates that" ... defenders of Eastern religion have shown little tendency to give rational arguments of any
kind in support of their beliefs " (p. 107) . I think this is plainly false, and
·indicates that little, if any, attention has been given by the author to the
vast tradition of eastern philosophy and religion. There are many other
examples of misleading or inaccurate statements in this chapter, especially
when his statements do not accord Buddhism its unique stance.
Overall, Purtill has written a clear, interesting, and challenging book in
the philosophy of religion. I predict a substantial classroom success for the

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BOOK REVIEWS

text, although I would hope that he will correct the numerous inaccuracies
in the chapter on " Eastern Religion."
RANDOLPH

M. FEEZELL

Creighton
Omaha, N

The Ideas of Newman: Christianity and Human Religiosity. By LEE H.
YEARLEY. Pennsylvania State University Press, 1978. Pp. xii + 188.

$rn.5o.
Interpreting Newman is no easy task. He is such an original and personal
thinker that commentators all too frequently find themselves with inadequate categories for analysis. His fate at the hands of the late 19th- and
early 20th-century scholastic writers is well documented. The sectarian
nature of his conversion from Anglo- to Roman Catholicism often puts
many critics in clearly opposing camps. Finally, the very power of his
rhetoric and the clarity and candor of his spirit beg some kind of engagement that often enough clouds scholarly objectivity.
By setting his study of Newman in the larger context of comparative
religious studies, and by applying the methodologies of that discipline, Lee
Y earley provides a fresh and provocative reading of one of the most important thinkers in the history of Christianity. At first blush, the title,
" The Ideas of Newman," might seem either naive or presumptuous. Quite
the contrary. The author's purpose and focus are sharply set. He addresses himself to an understanding of Newman's life-long foe: religious
liberalism. By moving away from traditional theological methods and
applying those drawn from the comparative study of religion, Yearley is
able to sort out Newman's key ideas, to eliminate or explain apparent
contradictions in his thought, and to pull together under the name" Liberal
Religion " many of his disparate statements on liberalism. Most importantly, this study highlights Newman's stunning relevance to the religious predicament of our own time. This is one of the most valuable
studies of Newman to appear during the past twenty years.
In Chapter 1, "Natural Religion," Yearley examines what he calls "human religiosity," the basic human potential for religion. Key to all of
Newman's thought is his belief that human nature is naturally religious.
This approach clarifies what might seem a contradiction in Newman's use
of the term " natural." Sometimes he opposes " natural " to supernatural.
At other times " natural " refers to that which is characteristic of human
nature. Thus when he writes of Natural Religion in the Grammar of Assent he speaks of our natural capacity for fulfillment through a religious
experience of God. At other times he insists that this natural capacity

BOOK REVIEWS

is merely nature, i. e., impotent without supernatural grace. The characteristics of this religious type (Natural Religion) are: providence, prayer,
revelation, sacrifice, and the mediatorial power of a holy person. In
showing how Newman formulates these characteristics Yearley suggests
how closely he anticipates the thought of writers like Eliade and Van der
Leeuw. The chapter is an admirable summary of all Newman says on religion in general and contains a superb study of his tenet that conscience
is central to the religious experience.
Chapters and 3 examine Christianity according to two further types of
religious ideas one finds in Newman: the fulfillment model and the authority
model. These are both types of revealed religion as opposed to natural religion {needing the supernatural) . The fulfillment model is more irenic
and stresses the continuity of religious growth. The authority model is
more divisive and stresses or at least implies the discontinuity inasmuch
as revelation "intrudes" into the human process. Here Newman develops
his idea of the economic communication of revelation and the process of
"assimilation" which is one of the characteristics of true doctrinal development. Yearley finds one major difficulty in Newman's use of the fulfillment
model: his unawareness, not to say ignorance, of other world religions
than Judaism and the classical Graeco-Roman religions. He thus feels
that, if Newman had made a distinction between phenomenological and
historical preparation for the fulfillment of human religious potential by
Christianity, he would have been on safer and more consistent ground in
facing the problems posed by the claims to truth by other religions and
by the difficulty of tracing the historical connections in the gradual " economic " unfolding of revelation to mankind through the ages. In using this
fulfillment model Newman thus stresses Christianity's completion and perfection of human religiosity (natural religion) but would have been unable
to face, methodologically, the claims of other religions to do the same.
The second religious model Y earley finds in Newman is the authority
model. In this model human religiosity is completed not only by the
revelation of a revealing deity but by the eventual investing of that revelation in one absolute religious authority. It is in Newman's espousal of this
type that Y earley finds the greatest conflict and contrariness in his thought.
First of all, it is hard to reconcile this with the fulfillment model. Secondly,
even Newman in his insistence on submission to absolute religious authority
was increasingly riled by the actual situation within the Roman Catholic
community. To remedy this Newman began, largely in correspondence and
unpublished writings, to make a distinction between an ideal church
authority and the reality of 19th-century Roman Catholicism. Yearley
admits, however, that Newman's genius consisted in survival during a
period of profound cultural transition between the old and the new and that
his temperamental affinity was to a religion that allowed a dynamic tension
of opposites rather than one that moved toward total resolution. Thus,

BOOK REVIEWS

along with liis stress on conscience, Newman always felt quite comfortable
with the ultimate mysteriousness on which true religion focused.
In the next chapter, on" Liberal Religion," Yearley pulls together Newman's many diverse statements made over a period of forty to fifty years.
In doing this he constructs a composite picture which he sets up as still one
more religious "type," Liberal Religion, which has six "principles: (1)
human nature is good;
private judgment is obligatory; (3) deity is a
principle discoverable through examination of evidence; (4) revelation is a
manifestation not a mystery; (5) useful goods are primary; and (6) education is salvatory." He then applies Newman's views, positively outlined in
the first three chapters, to this religious type and shows quite convincingly
how even when rejecting aspects of liberalism Newman was sensitive to its
sincere efforts to make religion acceptable to the modern age and did himself lean toward certain valid "half truths" it contained. The conflicts
pointed out between the fulfillment and authority models again surface
when dealing with these six principles of Liberal Religion.
A final chapter evaluates two aspects of Newman's analysis: "the relation of Christianity to other religions and the view that Liberal religion deforms humanity's religious potential." In dealing with these points Yearley
uses further religious models: "(1) one religion is true and all others are
a single essence underlies all religions; (3) one religion is the fulfillfalse;
ment of all others; and (4) a plurality of true religions exists and a person
just affirms one." Yearley suggests that these theoretical models be looked
at in this way: the first two models ate poles of a problem that the second
two models try to solve. In the final analysis Yearley sees Newman reflecting the fulfillment model and moving toward the plurality model. This
conclusion is persuasive when one considers the great stress Newman put
on the centrality of conscience and the validity of internal perception.
While Yearley cannot accept totally Newman's attempt" to affirm both the
sacral quest and the sacral foundation," he does agree with his assessment
of liberal religion's inability to fulfill human potential and states that he
pevhaps more than any other religious thinker has moved toward a validation of the sacral quest and sacral foundation type of religion for moderns.
Lastly, the book provides a healthy antidote for Harold L. Weatherby's
Cardinal Newman in His Age (1973), which wrongly argues that Newman
relinquished traditional Christian theology for modernist ways. And it deals
in a more structural way with matter covered by Stephen Prickett in his
recent admirable study, Romanticism and Religion (1976). No student
of Newman can afford to miss this excellent analysis of the key ideas that
underlie all of his writings.
PHILIP

The University of Detroit
·Detroit, Michigan

c. RULE, s.

BOOKS RECEIVED
Beauchesne: Theologie de l'agonie du Christ by F-M Uthel. Pp. rn4;
24.Fr.
Blackwell: Cognitive Systematization and Leibniz: An Introduction by
Nicholas Rescher. Pp. 2H!; £ 4.95.
Cornell University Press: Paradox and Identity in Theology by R. T. Herbert. Pp. 197; $H!.50.
Editorial San Esteban: La essencia de la caridad and Los dones del Espiritu
Santo by Santiago M. Ramirez, 0.P. Pp. 384, 318; no price given.
Eerdmans: The Holy Spirit by C. F. D. Moule. Pp. mo; $3.95.
Fortress Press: Studies in Lutheran Hermenetltics edited by J. Reumann.
Pp. 370; $14.95.
Franciscan Herald Press: Bonaventure and the Coincidence of Opposites by
Ewert H. Cousins. Pp. 316; $rn.95.
Gill and Macmillan: Doing the Truth: the Quest for Moral Theology by
Enda McDonagh. Pp. 217; £ 7.50.
Humanities Press: Radical Phenomenology: Essays in Memory of Martin
Heidegger edited by John Sallis. Pp. 318; $15.00.
Kaiser: Gotteserfahrungen: Hoffnung, Angst, Mystik by Jurgen Moltmann.
Pp. 71; DM 8.80.
l,oyola University Press: Doing Evil to Achieve Good: Moral Choice in
Confiict Situations edited by Richard McCormick and Paul Ramsey.
Pp. 267; $11.95.
Martinus Nijhoff: The Changing Profile of Naf1tral Law by Michael B.
Crowe. Pp. 321; DM. 29.80.
Pustet: Gott der Eine und Dreieine by Joseph Ratzinger and Johann Auer.
Pp. 600; DM. 29.80.
Routledge and Kegan Paul: Meaning and the Moral Sciences by Hilary
Putnam. Pp. 145; £ 4.95.
Tyrolia: Verantwortung und Gehorsam: A.spekte der heutigen Autoritas
und Gehorsamsproblematik by R. Toon. Pp. 155; DM 28.
University of Nebraska Press: Heidegger and the Language of Poetry by
David A. White. Pp. 246; $18.00.
Uppsala University Press: Christus Redemptor et Consummator: A Study
in the Theology of B. F. Westcott by Victor Waranch. Pp. 340;
Sw.Kr. 107.50.

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