TWO MODELS OF POSITIVE LAW IN AQUINAS:
A STUDY OF THE RELATIONSHIP OF
POSITIVE LAW AND NATURAL LAW

F

INTRODUCTION

OLLOWING HIS TREATISE On Law, Thomas Aquinas
offers two models of positive law, the first model the
laws of worship of the Jewish people of Biblical times,
the second model the civil laws of the Jewish nation as reported
in the Bible. These models of positive law have been largely
ignored in studies of Thomistic legal theory . The neglect is
surprising, since Aquinas introduces both types of law as models of his theory, widely studied, that all of the positive law
should be derived from the natural law. The religious laws or
"ceremonial precepts", Aquinas states, are "determinations"
of the natural law principle of worship, while the civil laws or
"judicial precepts" are determinations of the natural law principle of the justice which is to be observed among men. 1
This article utilizes Aquinas's two models of positive law and
his model of natural law, the "moral precepts", to interpret
Aquinas's theory of the relationship of positive law to the natural law. The major component of that relationship, in Thomistic theory, is the idea that positive law ought to be the" determination" of general principles of natural law. In determin1 Summa Theologiae, Prima Secundae, Question 99, articles 8, 4. Hereafter, Q. 99,
a. 8, a. 4. References are to the Prima Secundae (I-II) unless otherwise indicated,
e.g., II-II (Secunda Secundae). For a Latin and English edition of the treatise On
Law, see St. Thomas Aquinas, Summa Theologiae, Volume 118, Law and Political
Theory (Cambridge: Blackfriars, 1966). For an English translation of the treatises
On Law and on The Old Law, see Anton Pegis, Basic Writings of Saint Thomas
Aquinas, Volume 2 (New York: Random House, 1945), pp. 742-948. The Leonine
text of the Summa Theologiae (Rome: Marietti, 1950) is principally relied upon
here.

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DANIEL A. DEGNAN, S. J.

ation, as Aquinas states it, the general principles of natural law
do not dictate the content of positive law. Rather positive law
determines or specifies, in some way, the general principles of
natural law. 2
The relationship of determination contrasts with another,
more familiar type of relationship of positive law and natural
law asserted by Aquinas, the derivation of positive law from
naitural law " by way of conclusion ". In this relationship, positive laws are enacted which closely resemble specific natural
laws or moral rules. For example, the legal prohibitions of homicide and theft resemble the moral injunctions against murder
and stealing. In the way of conclusion, the natural law does dictate in some fashion to the positive law. 3 In Thomistic theory,
this form of relationship of positive law and natural law, however, is limited to a relatively few moral injunctions; it accounts
for very little of positive law; and it contrasts with determination, in which the natural law furnishes no specific guidance to
positive law. Almost all of the positive law, according to
Aquinas's two models to be studied here, is related to the natural law not by way of conclusion, but by way of determination.4
Probably the reason why Aquinas's models of "determination " have been neglected in Thomistic studies is a difficulty
a. 2 and replies 1, !l, S.
a. 2 and reply 2. On the "conclusions", see Q. 99, a. 2; Q. 100.
4 See Q. 104; Q. 105. See Anton-Hermann Chroust, "On the Nature of Natural
Law:", in Paul Sayre (ed.), Interpretations of Modern Legal, Philosophies (New
York: Oxford University Press, 1947), page 77, note 21, page 83: "Perhaps the
gravest and most deeply rooted misconception of the true nature of Natural Law
is to be found in the assumption that Natural Law has a specific and concrete content and that this content is absolute and self-evident." See also Chroust, " The
Philosophy of Law of St. Thomas Aquinas: His Fundamental Ideas and Some of
His Historical Precursors", 19 American Journal of Jurisprudence 1 (1974); Michael
B. Crowe, "Natural Law Theory Today: Some _Materials for Re-Assessment", 109
Irish Ecclesiastical Review 353 (1968); Jacques Leclercq, "Natural Law the Unknown", Natural Law Forum 1 (1962); Mark R. MacGuigan, "The Problem of
Law and Morals in Contemporary Jurisprudence", 8 Catholic Lawyer 293 (Autumn
1962); George M. Regan, "The Need For Renewal In Natural Law:", 12 Catholic
Lawyer 135 (Spring, 1966); Joseph O'Meara, "Natural Law and Everyday Law",
5 Natural Law Forum 83 (1960).
2 Q. 95,

3 Q. 95,

TWO MODELS OF POSITIVE LAW IN AQUINAS

3

which arises from the models themselves, especially from the
model of the judicial precepts or civil laws of the Jewish people.
In Aquinas's study, these laws seem to bear little or no relationship to the natural law. Examining laws ranging from the form
of government to the liability for the loss of a cow, Aquinas
never once refers to the natural law. When Aquinas states the
reasons for the difforent laws, his arguments are practical and
pragmatic. The appeal is to what is reasonable or effective in
the particular case and to the consequences of the law. There
is no appeal to the natural law.
Discussing the Jewish constitution, for example, Aquinas
states that it provided for a single ruler, and for a senate consisting of " elders in virtue ". The ruler was chosen by all of
the people, and all of the people were eligible to become ruler.
This system, Aquinas reasons, rested on the principles that the
people should share in the rule and that the best person should
be chosen as ruler. The senate of elders in virtue was designed to
bring additional virtue and good judgment to the government.
Aquinas urges that the people would love and respect a government in which all were eligible to rule and in which all participated in the choice of the ruler. The argument, which borrows
from the Politics of Aristotle, does not once appeal to the natural law. 5
The Jewish law of inheritance provided that the eldest surviving son should be the heir, but if there were no sons, daughters were to share equally in the inheritance. Aquinas reasons
that the purpose of this law was to keep property evenly divided among the tribes, since if a daughter married outside the
tribe her property would shift to another tribe. The exception
for female inheritance in the absence of male heirs is justified,
since in this situation parental love should not be defeated. 6
Aquinas discusses the liability of the borrower of an animal
when the animal has sickened and died while in the borrower's
hands. Jewish law reasonably provided, Aquinas states, that if
5 Q, 105, a. 1.
o Q. 10.5, a. 2 and reply 2.

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DANIEL A. DEGNAN, S. J.

the animal died from the neglect of the borrower, then the borrower should compensate the owner for his loss; otherwise the
owner should bear the loss.7
The reasons advanced by Aquinas for the different constitutional and civil laws are practical, relatively detailed, and
related to the Jewish people's tribal economy and culture. Although there are appeals to principles of government, to the
fair allocation of loss between two persons, and to the fair distribution of wealth among the tribes, there is no appeal to the
natural law. Aquinas insists, nevertheless, that these positive
laws of the Jewish people a11e the determination, by positive
law, of general principles of natural law. It is the premise of
this article that Aquinas must be taken seriously and that his
own models of determination off.er an understanding of the relationship he asserts between positive law and natural law. The
method followed is to use the models of positive law to offer
insights into Aquinas's theory of determination and to confirm
and illustrate the theory.
The relationship of most of positive law to general principles
of natural law in Thomistic theory, it is the thesis of this article,
is a relationship of means to ends. This means-to-ends relationship of positive law and natural law is qualified and modified,
however, by the structure of justice. The general principles of
natural law express the structure of just relationships among
humans. Positive law, as the means to the end of justice, undertakes to create a system of just legal relationships.
More broadly, Aquinas's theory of determination has a fourfold meaning: (1) it is a theory of the drive to justice as the
moral source and end of positive law; (2) it is a theory of the
capacity of legal reason to know justice; (3) it is a theory of the
moral quality of positive law; and (4) it is a theory of the common good, the end of law.
In section I, Aquinas's theory of the relationship of natural
7 Q. 105, a. 2, replies 4, 5. The ceremonial precepts and the judicial precepts, in
Aquinas's view, are divine positive laws, but, as determinations of the general principles of natural law, they are like human laws. See Q. 99, a. 4.

TWO MODELS OF POSITIVE LAW IN AQUINAS

5

law and positive law is reviewed. Section TI examines the model
of the ceremonial precepts. Section III studies the judicial precepts, the equivalent of modern positive law. Section IV then
states a general theory of determination.
I
Natural Law and Positive Law:
The Process of Practical Reason
Natural law and positive law are presented by Aquinas as
two parts of a single process of practical reason ordering and
ruling actions for an end, the common good. In this process,
natural law represents general principles of action formed by
practical reason. Aquinas then defines positive law in terms of
a process from these general principles. In the enactment of
every positive law, Aquinas holds, practical reason" proceeds"
from general principles of natural law to the particular enactments of positive law. 8 Aquinas's meaning, it will be seen, is
that positive law is, or should be, ordered to general ends expressed in the general principles of natural law. In this section,
Aquinas's theory of natural law is first presented, then his
theory of positive law.
1.

Natural Law.

Thomistic natural law is usually identified with a set of specific moral judgments such as the prohibitions of murder and
s Q. 94, a. 2. Practical reason proceeds from its principies by investigations of
reason, the product of which is not natural law. Q. 94, a. 3. See also, Q. 94, a. 4.
See D. O'Donoghue, "The Thomist Conception of Natural Law", 22 Irish Theological Quarterly 89 (1955); F. C. Copleston, Aquinas (London: Penguin Books, 1955),
chap. 5; R. A. Armstrong, Primary and Secondary Precepts in Thomistic Natural
Law Teaching (The Hague: Martinus Nijhoff, 1966); John E. Naus, S. J., The
Nature of the Practical, Intellect According to Saint Thomas Aquinas (Rome:
Analecta Gregoriana, 1959). For a specialized, but important study on natural law
as practical reason, see Germain G. Grisez, "The First Principle of Practical Reason: A Commentary on the Summa theologiae, l-2, Question 94, Article 2 ", 10 Natural Law Forum 168 (1965). See also Walter Farrell, O.P., The Natural, Moral,
Law According to St. Thomas and Suarez (Ditchling: St. Dominic's Press, 1930),
p. IOL

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DANmL A. DEGNAN, S. J.

theft. Such rules are important in Thomistic moral theory, but
to focus on them can obscure the nature and source of Thomistic natural law. Natural law, in Aquinas's view, consists primarily in the general principles of every human act. In every
action practical reason, ordering or directing the action, should
proceed from general principles of natural law to its decision
concerning the particular action or conduct. This process is not
deductive. 9 It is an ordering of means to ends, in which natural
law expresses general ends which are at the base of all moral
action.
This process of practical reason is analogous, according to
Aquinas, to the process of speculative reason. These two types
of reason are in reality one power of reason or intellect exercising different functions and operating by different principles.
Speculative reason is human reason engaged in knowing the
truth of things; practical reason is reason engaged in directing
human action. Aquinas explains that in speculative reason the
first principle of knowledge is the principle of contradiction, the
principle that one cannot both affirm and deny the same thing
at the same time. This principle rests upon reason's understanding of the idea or notion of being: "being is not non-being".
All knowledge, Aquinas holds, is founded upon the principle of
contradiction. 10
In practical reason there is, analogously, the first precept of
natural law, the precept that good is to be done and sought
after, evil avoided. This precept is founded upon reason's perception of the nature of the good: the good is what everything
seeks. Based upon this understanding of the good, practical
reason forms the first precept of natural law: the good must be
done, evil avoided. All action is founded upon this precept, just
as all knowledge is founded upon the principle of contradiction.
In both forms of reason, speculative and practical, however,
9 Q. 94, a. iii. See F. C. Copleston, Aquinas (London: Penguin Books, 1955),
chap . .5, pp. 178-186; John E. Naus, S.J., The Nature uf the Practical Intellect According to Saint Thomas Aquinas (Rome: Analecta Gregoriana, 1959), pp. 17-34 and
10 Q.

94, a.

TWO MODELS OF POSITIVE LAW IN AQUINAS

7

the process of reason has only its roots or beginning in the first
principle or precept. 11
In practical reason, Aquinas also proposes a set of general
principles of action which he calls general principles of natural
law. The general principles of natural law are based upon natural inclinations in mankind. There are, Aquinas states, certain
natural inclinations in mankind: the inclination which man
shares with all beings to preserve himself in being; the inclination which man shares with other animals to the procreation
and education of offspring; the inclinations which are proper to
man as human to live in human society and to know the truth
about God. 12 By natural inclinations Aquinas means basic
tendencies or drives in man. The natural inclinations are not
sense appetites or even rational appetite or will. Man's natural
inclination to the procreation and education of children, for example, is closely related to the sex appetite, but the inclination
is more general and more fundamental than the appetite, embracing other aspects of man's nature. The natural inclinations
are man's tendencies or drives to his own good.13
In accordance with each of these inclinations, Aquinas says,
practical reason forms general principles of natural law.
Through the inclinations, practical reason naturally and immediately knows certain human goods or ends. 14 The first principle
of human action, the precept that the good is to be done and
sought after, thereby applies to these naturally known goods.
Naturally knowing a good or end such as life in society, practical reason naturally and universally judges that this good is to
be sought after, its contrary avoided. Thus the general principles of natural law are founded both upon the first precept of
natural law and upon natural inclinations to certain general
11 lbid.

"Man" is generic, meaning the human.
see F. C. Copleston, supra note 9 at 218; William E. May, "The Meaning and Nature of the Natural Law in Thomas Aquinas", 22 American Journal of
Jurisprudence 168 (1977).
14 " Because good has the nature [' ratio ' or intelligibility] of end . . . . that
[end] to which man has a natural inclination, reason naturally apprehends as
good ... " Q. 94, a. 2.
12 Jl;id.

1. 3 Ibid.;

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DANIEL A. DEGNAN, S. J,

human goods or ends. 15 At this point, Aquinas does not identify
the general principles formed according to the natural inclinations. At different points in his later text, however, Aquinas
identifies various general principles: the principle that harm
should be done to no one; the principles of love of God and love
of neighbor. The substance of these natural law principles, it
will be seen, rests upon a complex view of natural law and of
justice. The natural inclinations, however, are at the root of
Aquinas's theory of natural law.
Besides the general principles of natural law, there are also
natural law "conclusions" related to the principles. Reason in
a few cases knows naturally and immediately that certain actions are to be done, their contraries avoided. Reason judges,
for example, that murder and theft are wrong. These judgments, according to Aquinas, are like conclusions drawn from
the general principles of natural law. The drawing of conclusions is not a deductive process, however. Aquinas explains that
the conclusions are so " close " to the principles that they are
known naturally and at once from knowing the principles.
When the principles are known, no extended reasoning is necessary to know a certain few moral judgments. 16
The conclusions prohibit or prescribe specific actions: murder
,and theft are prohibited, the honoring of one's parents is commanded. The conclusions are relatively few in number. Not
many specific actions are so close to the principles that they can
be known at once as good or evil, from knowing the principles. 17
Aquinas also proposes a difference in man's knowledge of the
1 5 "This is the first precept of the law, that good is to be done and pursued,
evil avoided. And upon this precept all the other precepts of the law are founded:
in that things which ought to be done or not done belong to the law of nature
when reason naturally apprehends them as human goods." Q. 94, a. 2, including
replies 1, 2. See Germain G. Grisez, "The First Principle of Practical Reason: A
Commentary on the Summa theologiae, 1-2,
94, Article 2 ", 10 Natural
Law Forum 168 (1965) .
1a Q. 94, a. 4, a. 5, a. 6; Q. 99, a. 2. The conclusions are "close" to the principles.
Q. 95, a. 5. See also Q. 99, a. 2 and Q. 100, a. I, that the conclusions are explicit
almost at once from knowing the principles.
11 Ibid., and Q. IQO,

TWO MODELS OF POSITIVE LAW IN AQUINAS

9

general principles and the conclusions. The general principles
are known to all men, since they are based upon man's natural
inclinations, but the conclusions are not always known to all
men. For example, through ignorance or moral corruption, men
have thought that the£t was proper. In general, however, from
their natural knowledge 0£ the principles, men do know the conclusions or first applications 0£ the principles. 18
In this explanation 0£ natural law, there are goods to which
man has a natural or fundamental tendency and practical reason knows them, therefore, as human goods or ends. In accordance with the inclinations, the general principles 0£ natural law
are then formed by reason. These principles require and command that the ends be pursued, their contraries avoided. The
explanation 0£ this moral ought or absolute is practical reason's
first precept, based on reason's understanding 0£ the nature 0£
the good, that good is to be pursued, evil avoided. In practical
reason, these general principles 0£ natural law are first principles 0£ action, in a manner analogous to the role 0£ the general
principles 0£ speculative reason. 19
This idea 0£ natural law as first, general principles 0£ practical
reason is essentially incomplete without a theory 0£ positive law.
Natural law offers only a "first direction" to our acts in
Aquinas's words, the first principles 0£ the work 0£ positive
law. 20
18 Q. 94, a. 6.

See also, Q. 94, a. 5, on change in the natural law.
91, a. 3 and reply l; Q. 94, a. 2. A problem, in natural law, is that
each man's individual judgment forms the general rule of action. How can an
individual's reason be called law? Only the ruler representing the community can
make such rules of action for the common good. (Q. 90, a. 3) In general, Aquinas's
response is that the first principles of practical reason, the natural law, are orderings for the common good, although constituted by man's reason. See Q. 94, a. l;
Q. 91, a. 2 and replies 1, 2, 3. Theologically, natural law is an active sharing,
through human reason, in God's Eternal Law. The Eternal Law, however, is not
known directly by us. See Q. 91, a. 1 and replies; Q. 93, a. 2 and replies. See
Copleston, Aquinas, supra note 9, at 212, 213. Aquinas places moral law in a metaphysical or philosophical setting more than in a theological one, according to Copleston.
20 Q. 91, a. 2, reply 2; Q. 91, a. S.
19 See Q.

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DANIEL A. DEGNAN, S. J.

2. Positive Law.
Aquinas's entire theory of positive law is developed in terms
of a process of practical reason from general principles of natural law to the particular enactments of positive law. Natural
law, Aquinas states, is not sufficient to regulate human conduct.
Aquinas invokes the parallel to speculative reason. Just as the
naturally known principles of speculative reason (the principle
of contradiction and the principle of identity) do not furnish
knowledge of particular truths, so the general principles of natural law do not provide the directives for particular laws. Human reason must proceed from these principles to the particular
sanctions of positive law. 21
This process of reason is explained by Aquinas as the " derivation" of positive law from general principles of natural law.
There are two methods of such derivation, one resembling the
drawing of conclusions from principles, the other like "the determination of certain common things ". The first way is analogous to the operations of speculative reason, where from principles of knowledge conclusions are demonstratively produced.
Certain things, Aquinas continues, are derived from natural law
by way of conclusion. Thus " Do not kill " is a kind of conclusion drawn from the principle that evil ought to be done to no
one. 22 Aquinas is not suggesting that these practical conclusions
or rules of action are drawn deductively. He is, rather, repeating his analysis of the formation of natural law in which general
principles of action are formed in accordance with natural inclinations and certain conclusions or specific rules of action,
such as " do not kill ", are known at once because they are close
to the principles.
The second way of derivation introduces a new concept, one
not developed in Aquinas's theory of _natural law. This method,
according to Aquinas, resembles the method in the arts, "where
common forms are determined to something special." Thus an
21 Q. 91, a. 3 and
22 Q. 95, a. !l.

replies 1, !!, 8.

TWO MODELS OF POSITIVE LAW IN AQUINAS

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architect, when he draws the plans for a house, necessarily determines the common form of house to this or that particular
figure or form. Aquinas also offers an example of this method.
The law of nature requires, he states, that one who sins deliberately should be punished. That a person be punished with this
or that punishment for a particular sin, however, is a kind of
determination of the natural law. 23
It is the second method of derivation, the way of determination, which sharply distinguishes positive law and natural
law. What is contained in positive law in the second way, by
way of determination, Aquinas states, has its force solely from
its institution as law. Determination is equated by Aquinas with
Aristotle's concept of the legally just or the just by convention.
In determination, it does not matter in the beginning whether
a thing be this way or that. 24 In determination, reason proceeds
from the general principles of natural law directly to the particular enactments of positive law. In this process, no natural
law conclusions are involved. Such immediate judgments
(known at once from knowing the principles) do not guide the
enactment of positive laws. 25 The likeness is to the arts. An
architect determines or specifies the common form of house by
designing a particular house. In determining the common form,
the architect exercises judgment and imagination. By analogy,
a general principle of natural law is determined by positive law
23 Jbid.
24 Q. 95, a. 2, replies 1, 3. In contrast to determination, the things contained in
positive law by way of conclusion are not attributable solely to their institution or
enactment by positive law. Positive laws prohibiting homocide, for example, embody
the natural law conclusion that murder is evil and some of their force is from the
natural law. Aquinas is careful to say, however, that the force of a positive law
prohibiting homicide also comes from its institution. Its existence as positive law,
and its particular form and content, are the product of legal enactment. The legal
process has ends and means distinct from the purely moral. See Q. 95, a. 3, on the
quality of human law, and Q. 96, on the power of human law. See Jean Dabin,
General Theory of Law, in Legal Philosophies of Lask, Radbruch, and Dabin (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1950), sections 134-165, pages 353-382.
'25 See Q. 95, a. 2, reply 2, distinguishing the "natural right", derived by way of
conclusion, from the determination described in reply 1.

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DANIEL A. DEGNAN, S. ,J.

when the lawmaker, eXjercisinghis judgment, enacts a particular
law.
Although a general principle of natural law does not prescribe
what law should be enacted, the principle, it appears, is the
principle or standard by which particular laws should be measured. In the example of punishment, natural law requires that
a person be punished for sin or fault, but it is positive law which
provides the punishments for specified crimes. The principle
that deliberate fault be punished is implemented in a specific
and concrete way in the legal enacitment. In the metaphor of
the architect, the common form of house, while not prescribing
the particular house to be built, is a standard of some kind for
the architect's work. At this point, Aquinas ends the discussion
of determination abruptly, to resume it with the models of natural law and positive law presented in his study of the Old Law.
Based upon his explanation of natural law and positive law,
however, Aquinas has presented a fairly complete theory of
determination. Natural law is identified primarily with first
principles of reason directing human acts to ends. Naturally
tending to certain things, man knows them as human goods or
ends. From reason's recognition of the good, practical reason
forms general principles or rules of action related to these ends,
the general principles of natural law. Positive law also represents an ordering to ends. In practical reason, the end is the
principle of an action. Particular ends, further, are ordered to
more general ends. Thus in the process of practical reason from
general principles of natural law to particular legal enactments,
the natural law principles express general ends and the general
demand for action to achieve those ends. Positive law is the
instrument for the achievement or accomplishment of the general demands stated in the principles. In the concept of determination, positive law is an ordering toward the general ends
expressed in the general principles of natural law. This view of
determination is confirmed in Aquinas's model of the ceremonial precepts.

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II
The Ceremonial Precepts
The general ends to which the ceremonial precepts are addressed are found in the model of the moral precepts. The
ceremonial precepts are an ordering to those ends.
I.

The moral precepts: the model of natural law.

Aquinas's model of natural law is found in his study of the
Decalog or the Ten Commandments given by God to Moses.
Aquinas explains that when the Decalog was promulgated, the
general principles of natural law were known to men and it was
therefore unnecessary to announce or promulgate them. The
conclusions drawn from the principles, however, had become
obscured to natural reason because of sin, and so God promulgated these conclusions or moral precepts in the Decalog. 20
The Decalog represents two distinct " tables " of natural law
·conclusions. The first table consists in commands relating to
God, such as the prohibition of idolatry. The second table consists in commandments relating to one's neighbor, such as the
prohibition of murder. Both types of conclusions are natural
laws in that they are known at once to reason from knowing
the principles. The commandments concerning God, Aquinas
states, are immediately evident to one having faith, while the
commands concerning one's neighbors are immediately evident
to reason. 27
The moral precepts of the Decalog, Aquinas explains, are
conclusions derived from general principles of natural law. The
general principles direct men to the community of men with God
and with one another. To dwell rightly in the community under
20 Q. 99, a. 1, reply !!; Q. 100, a. 1, a. 8.
21 Q. 100, a. 5. Strictly speaking only the second table, the precepts based upon
reason, would seem to be natural law. The conclusions of the first table, however,
are derived by reason from the general principle of the love of God. Assuming
faith in God, the principle of love of God and the conclusions based on it are
natural laws in the sense that they are known naturally and immediately to reason
and are formulated by reason. See Q. 100, a. 4, reply I.

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DANIEL A. DEGNAN, S. J.

God requires fidelity, reverence and service to God, the head of
the community. Hence the precepts of the first table forbidding
polytheism and idolatry and requiring reverence and worship
of God are known. The community of men with one another requires that injury be done to no one, by deed or word or even in
one's desire. Thus, the precepts of the second table forbidding
murder, theft, adultery, false witness, and covetousness are
known immediately. These conclusions are "first dictates of
reason '', forbidding things that are most repugnant to reason.
In the community of men, the value of life is first, and so the
percept forbidding murder is the first thing formulated by reason. The owning of possessions follows life, so the precept
against theft is next in order. 28
The precepts of the first table of the Decalog, Aquinas states,
can be " referred " to the general precept of love of God or, as
he of ten puts it, the general principle of worship of God. (Similarly, the precepts concerning the community of men can be
referred to the general precept of love of neighbor, or, as
Aquinas more often expresses it, the principle of the justice
which is to be observed among men.) 29 Given faith in God,
Aquinas asserts, the general principle of love of God is immediately evident. Moral precepts concerning worship and reverence of God are then known almost immediately from knowing
the principle. This assumes that faith in God has a certain content, belief in a loving creator-God who is also man's savior. In
this faith as Aquinas sees it, a person's union with God, through
love, is synonymous with human happiness. Given this faith,
the conclusions of the first table are first applications of the general principle of love of God. The precept that God alone is to
be worshipped, for example, is a first formulation of the general
demand of love of God. 30
100, a. 5.
8 and reply l; Q. 100, a. 4, a. 5, a. 6. The study of the moral precepts is based upon the process of practical reason. Q. 100, a. I. For formulations
of the principles of worship and of justice, see Q. 99, a. 3, a. 4; Q. 101, a. l; Q. 104,
a. I.
ao Q. 100, a.
a. 4, a. 5; Q. 101, a. I.
28 Q.

29 Q. 100, a.

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15

2. The ceremonial precepts: the determination of natural law.
Beginning his discussion of the ceremonial precepts, Thomas
asks if they pertain to the worship of God. His answer is that
the ceremonial precepts " determine " the moral precepts in the
ordering to God, just as the judicial precepts determine the
moral precepts in the order to the neighbor. 81 This determination by the ceremonial precepts, it quickly appears, is an ordering to the ends of worship and love of God.
The study of the ceremonial precepts is entitled: " Concerning the causes of the ceremonial precepts ". 32 As precepts or
laws, Aquinas explains, the ceremonial precepts are something
ordered. 33 For something to be ordered, two tJiings are required: first, that it be ordered to the end, which is the principle
o:f order in actions; secondly, that what is ordered toward the
end be proportioned to the end. Thus, " causes" are the reasons for the ceremonial precepts taken from their proportion or
relation to their end. 34
The meaning of the ceremonies was that they promoted man's
interior order to God. The ceremonial precepts regulated outward ceremonies designed to foster the knowledge and love by
which the soul was united to God. Like poetry and metaphor,
s1 Q. 101, a. 1.
3 2 Q. 102.
33 See Q. 99, a. 1: "[l}t is of the nature of law that it imports an order to an
end .... " l;n Aquinas's general definition of law, law is an ordering of reason for
the common good, made by him who has care of the community, and promulgated.
Q. 90, a. 4. The definition incorporates Aquinas's primary identification of law as
a rule of practical reason directing human acts; followed by the identifying of law
as type or species of practical reason. Law is identified by its end, the common
good. From this it follows that laws axe general rules of action for all of the members of the community. Laws axe the product of the practical reason of the ruler,
ordering actions generally for the common good. Laws also exist in the reasons of
the citizens, to whom they must be promulgated, as rules of action directed to an
end, the common good. Q. 90, aa. 1, 2, 8. See also Aquinas's theory of the human
act (expressly referred to in Q. 90, a. 1): Q. 8, aa. 1, !?; Q. 9, aa. 1, 8; Q. 10, a. 2;
Q. 12, aa. l, 8; Q. 13; Q. 17, aa. 1, 2: F. C. Copleston, Aquinas (London: Penguin
Books, 1955), ch. 5; F. C. Copleston, History of Philosophy (New York: Newman
Press, 1950), Vol. II, pages 898, 899, 406.
34 Q. 10!?, a. 1.

16

DANIEL A. DEGNAN, S. J.

Aquinas explains, the ceremonies of the Old Law used sensible
images to convey truth. 35 Thus the Passover ceremony, when
the Passover lamb was eaten, reminded the people of their deliverance from Egypt. By itself, the meal would have been
another dinner, but in the context of religious ceremony and
in light of Jewish history, the meal was a memorial of the deliverance from Egypt, a reminder of God's love for his people. 36
Aquinas asks: "Can a fitting reason be assigned to the ceremonial precepts which pertain to the sacrifices? " The sacrifices,
Aquinas answers, were designed to stimulate the right ordering
of the mind to God. In the sacrifices man offered his own possessions to honor God, in recognition that these things came
from God. Aquinas quotes from Scripture: " ' All things are
thine; and we have given thee what we received of thy hand'".
He then concludes: " And so in the offering of the sacrifices man
publicly acknowledged that God was the first principle and
ultimate end of everything, to whom everything should be referred." 37
The reasons for particular sacrifices are stated by Aquinas
through
to objections. The objection is offered that
sheep and goats were offered in sacrifice, but nobler animals
such as lions were excluded. Aquinas replies that this selection
was designed to exclude idolatry, since the pagans offered the
animals excluded from Hebrew worship. The animals selected
for the sacrifice, moreover, cattle, sheep and goats, were those
that sustained human life.38 Sacred things such as special vessels and special times and places were prescribed so that man
should be brought to greater reverence of God. Man's tendency,
Aquinas asserts, is to reverence things that are uncommon, as
the custom of clothing kings and princes in special robes testifies.39 The sacrifices were offered in one place, the Temple in
Jerusalem, in order to strengthen man's belief in the Divine
85 Q. 101, a. 2 and replies

ss Q. 102, a. 5, reply ii!.
37 Q. 102, a. S.
ss Q. 102, a. 3, reply ii!.
39 Q. lOii!, a. 4.

1, 2, 3; Q. 102, a. 1, reply 1; Q. 102, a. S, a. 4.

TWO MODELS OF POSITIVE LAW IN AQUINAS

17

oneness. 40 Through certain observances the people were rendered fit for worship. Thus the dietary laws forbade the partaking of blood, so that the people would abhor the shedding of
blood and would avoid cruelty. 41
In this model of determination, Aquinas appeals to the role
of symbolic action in worship, to the meaning of particular symbols for the Jewish people, and especially to the purposes of
particular symbols and their effectiveness in arousing gratitude,
love and reverence for the God of Israel. The reasons for the
particular ceremonial laws, since they concern the proportion
of means to ends, are relative and uncertain. They are related
to historical events such as the Exodus, and to the social, cultural and economic circumstances of the Jewish people. The
animals chosen for sacrifice were the animals on which the pastoral economy of the Jewish people was based. The Temple
worship in a single place, Jerusalem, was able to begin only
after the nation was unified. Before that the laws provided
that the Ark of the Covenant should be moved about among
the tribes, in order to prevent jealousy, as Aquinas explains it.
In this explana:tion of the ceremonial precepts as means to the
end of worship, several elements appear: (1) The general principle of worship offers a standard for enacting the ceremonial
precepts and for judging their effectiveness. The principle of
worship is not an abstraction, since faith in the God of Israel
is faith in God as the source and end of human life. This God
is also the protector of Israel, its loving savior.
Some of the
content of the principle of worship is known through the first
table of the Decalog. Practical reason immediately formulates
certain natural law conclusions relating to worship and reverence of God as first applications of the principle of worship. The
general principle of worship includes the recognition, expressed
in the conclusions, that God alone should be worshipped, and
that ma.n should love and reverence God. (3) Although the end
or principle of worship is an absolute demand, the means to the
40 Q. 102, a. 4, reply
41 Q. 102, a.

3.
5, a. 6, reply 1.

18

DANIEL A. DEGNAN, S. J.

end, the ceremonial precepts, are judged in terms of their effectiveness or usefulness in achieving the end. This judgment is
relative to the end; it can never have the moral quality and
certainty of the end. It is conceivable, for instance, that no exterior worship or ceremony would be required of the Jewish
people in certain circumstances, such as exile and persecution.
(4) The principle of worship is the moral source and explanation of the ceremonial precepts. Assuming faith in a saving God
who is the source of all good, practical reason demands a response of love and reverence. A part of this vesponse is the exterior symbol and ritual called for in the ceremonial precepts.
(5) The ceremonial precepts, prescribing a system of worship,
are specifically demanded by the principle of worship. The demand of the principle of worship, in relation to the precepts, is
that external worship by the people of Israel be accomplished
through a general ordering of law.
The model of the ceremonial precepts is a simple, precise
model of determination as the ordering, by positive law, of
means to ends expressed in the natural law. This simple model
is the foundation for the more complex model of the judicial
precepts, but there are striking differences between the two
models of determination.
In the model of the judicial precepts, Aquinas discusses " reasons " for the judicial precepts, and these reasons are not presented as a simple relationship of the means adopted for the
sake of achieving an end expressed in the natural law. 42 Instead, Aquinas presents relatively detailed arguments for particular judicial precepts, arguments which make no explicit
appeal to a natural law principle or end.

III
The Judicial Precepts
The judicial precepts, Aquinas states, are determinations of
the general principle of the justice which is to be observed
42 Q. 105, a. !ii, reply 4. See Q. 99, a. 5, reply !ii, that the judicial precepts share
a likeness with the moral precepts in that they are derived from reason.

TWO MODELS OF POSITIVE LAW IN AQUINAS

19

among men, just as the ceremonial precepts are determinations
of the general principle of worship. The end to which the judicial precepts are ordered is a structure of justice in society. The
institution of the actual, detailed structure of justice in society
is the work of positive law.
1.

The principle of Justice.
(1) The content of justice.

The second table of the Decalog concerns the community of
men. The natural law conclusions of the second table of the
Decalog express an ordering of just relationships in that community. Men are related to their neighbors, Aquinas says, by
deed, by word and by thought. In the matter of deeds, the prohibitions of murder, theft and adultery protect the personal existence, human relationships and the possessions of one's self
and one's fellows. The prohibition of false witness protects
against injury by words, and the prohibition of covetousness
protects against injury by thought and against the potential of
thought to lead to deeds. 43 When the first and second table of
the Decalog are compared, it is clear that the demands concerning one's neighbor are as fundamental to the principle of justice
as the demands relating to God are basic to the principle of
worship. In observing the commands relating to his neighbor,
Aquinas states, a man "stands well" to his neighbors. 44
In the model of the moral precepts, Aquinas actually works
back from the natural law conclusions to the general principle
of justice. Judgments concerning actions such as murder and
theft, it appears, are the first moral judgments made by us. The
explanation of these judgments, and their source, is the general
principle of justice, a general principle or debt expressing the
demand for the common good.45 Thus in the model of the moral
precepts, recognition of the principle of justice is synonymous
with recognition of its natural law conclusions. Practical rea43 Q. 100, a. 5.
44 Id.: " Ad proximos

autem bene se habet .... "
l; Q. 100, a. 4, a. 5, a. 6.

45 See Q. 100, a. 8, reply

20

DANIEL A. DEGNAN, S. J.

son naturally knows a basic content 0£ the principle 0£ justice as
it regulates the community 0£ men with other men. 46
The natural law conclusions concerning one's neighbor express a few demands 0£ conduct out 0£ a vast field, relationships
0£ justice among men. In the process 0£ practical reason, however, they offer a basic content to the principle of justice. Identifying the conclusions as first applications 0£ the principle of
justice, Aquinas intends that the conclusions, although they are
specific applications 0£ the principle, are so fundamental to it
that they can be considered a part 0£ the principle. As first
applications of the principle of justice, the conclusions are revelatory of the meaning of the principle itself .47
(2) The structure of justice.

The central concept utilized by Aquinas in describing the
natural law conclusions of the Decalog is the idea of the debt
of justice, the action owed to another person. Aquinas identifies two kinds of debt, one the rule of reason, the moral debt,
the other the rule of determining law, the legal debt. 48 The
Decalog is about the moral debt, since it expresses natural laws
or " rules of reason ", debts known naturally to reason. Among
the debts to one's neighbors, the debt to one's parents is first
because it is the best known. Debts to one's neighbors then
follow the order of life: the debt to the life of one living-do not
kill; then the debt to the life of the unborn child-do not commit adultery; and next the debt arising from the possession 0£
external goods-do not steal. 49
The concept of the debt complements and modifies Aquinas's
previous treatment of law. It focuses on the natural law as the
ordering 0£ justice, the prescription of an act owed to another.
When Aquinas discusses the moral precepts 0£ the Old Law and
the ceremonial and judicial precepts, ea,ch is analyzed in terms
of the debt, the action owed to another man (or to God) .50
100, a. 8, a. 5.
1, a. 8.
48 Q. 99, a. 5 and reply I. See also, Q. 100, a.
objection
and reply.
49 Ibid., and Q. 100, a. 1, a. 3 and reply S, a. 5 and reply I.
50 Q. 100, a. fl and i·eply
a. 8, reply !I, a. 5, reply 1 (on law as justice); Q. 99,
46 Q.

47 See Q. 100, a.

TWO MODELS OF POSITIVE LAW IN AQUINAS

21

The problem is to relate Aquinas's concept of the debt of
justice to the end of law, the common good. Up until the discussion of debts owed to other men, Aquinas's analysis of law
had centered on a relationship of means to ends. As an ordering
for the common good, law was a general ordering to ends,
stating general rules of action, applicable to all members of the
community. 51 Now the debt describes an action owed to one's
neighbor, not to an end. In the community of men with one
another, Aquinas states, a man's neighbor is not his end. 52 The
solution for Aquinas is that the debt of justice has two components: the debt is an action (or omission) owed to another
person, and the debt is owed to the end of law, the common
good. The ordering of law is an ordering of just relationships
among men and this ordering is, at the same time, an ordering
to the common good.53 The moral debts expressed in natural
law are almost identical with aspects of the common good, in
fact. Through these moral debts Aquinas proposes that the
common good, the end of law, is a structure of just relationships
among men.
The moral precepts of the Decalog, Aquinas states, contain
the very intention of the legislator (that is, of God) and therefore they are indispensable. The first table of the Decalog contains the order to the common and final good, who is God. The
a. 5; Q. 100; Q. 101; Q. 102; Q. 104; Q. 105 (on law as expressing the debt of
justice).
51 " [I]t is of the nature of law that it imports an order to an end .. , ." Q. 99,
a. I; see Q. 90, a. 4, for the general definition of law. And see note 33, supra, outlining this.
52 Q. 104, a. 1, reply 1.
53 Q. 90, a. I. The moral precepts are ordered to the community of men with
one another and with God. The poBitive law is ordered to the civil community.
Q. 100, a. 2; Q. 90, a. 4; Q. 96, a. l; Questions 95, 96, passim. In question 99, article
5, reply l, Aquinas notes that justice is the only moral area which can be determined by positive law, because justice, alone among the virtues, concerns actions
or debts owed to others. There are only two types of determination: the ceremonial
precepts, regulating exterior acts of worship; and the judicial precepts, regulating
acts or debts of justice among men. Moral injunctions concerning the other virtues
(courage and temperance) relate to justice in a metaphorical sense: the debt of
the interior powers t9 reason. Q. 100, a. 2! replies 1, 2.

DANIEL A. DEGNAN, S. J.

second table contains the very order of justice to be observed
among men, namely, that no one should do the unowed or undue
thing, and that the debt or owed action should be rendered to
everyone. The Decalog ought to be understood according to
this idea of the debt, Aquinas adds. Aquinas is in effect identifying the moral debts of justice with the common good. The
moral debt expresses the order which is " in " the common good,
as Aquinas puts it. Although the moral precepts of the Decalog
express only a few basic elements of the order of justice, they
are "first elements" 9f the law. These debts, expressing the
order of justice and virtue, are constitutive of the common
good. 54
Thus, the natural law conclusions not only reveal the basic
content of the principle of justice, they reveal its structure as
well. It consists in fundamental debts or obligations of justice
owed by one man to another. At the level of general principles
of natural law, of which the moral debts are a part, these debts
of justice are constitutive of the common good. One man is not
another man's end, 55 and neither is each man's end a collective
good to which he is subordinated. Rather the common good at
this fundamental level is a structure of just relationships, consisting of debts of justice owed equally by each person to all
other persons.
In the model of the judicial precepts, the legal debt, the rule
of determining law, shows the same structure of the debt of
justice. Positive law's end, the common good, is achieved
through an ordering of just relationships among men.
2.

The Model of Determination: the Judicial Precepts.

The judicial precepts are divided by Aquinas into four categories: constitutional laws; laws regulating the " bond " among
men, such as the laws of property, contracts, and inheritance;
laws regulating the family or houseaold; and laws concerning
54 Q. 100, a. 8, and reply I. A legal debt or determination can fail of course in
contributing to the common good. Ibid. See Q. 104, a. 1; Q. 94, a. 1, reply 2; Q. 94,
a. 2; Questions 94, 95, 96, passim.
55 Q. 104, a. 1, reply I. "Man" means man and woman, of course. See note Ii!,

BUpra.

TWO MODELS OF POSITIVE LAW IN AQUINAS

29

foreigners. Aquinas's source for these laws, the Bible, is hardly
a legal text, and the laws are reported in a selective and imprecise way. Aquinas's own understanding of these laws is often
rudimentary and his argumentation cursory, relying heavily
on Aristotle's Politics. The judicial precepts, nevertheless, serve
as a model of the theory of determination. In this section, the
constitutional laws and the laws concerning the bond among
the people are examined and Aquinas's reasoning with regard
to each is related to his theory of determination. 56
(1)

Constitutional laws.

Aquinas's reasoning concerning the judicial precepts follows
a pattern. The laws are described in general outline, and general reasons are then advanced by Aquinas for these laws. In
replies to objections, some laws are looked at more closely, with
Aquinas's reasoning taking on more detail.
The Jewish constitution, according to Aquinas, accords with
the two basic principles of right government. The first principle
is that all should have some part in the rule or government,
since this conserves the peace of the people, and all love and
guard such a government (as Aristotle says). The second principle concerns the species of rule: the type of government or
rule must be designed so that the ruler should rule according
to virtue, principally justice. In the best type of rule, one ruler
presides according to virtue; under him there are others ruling
according to virtue; and the rule or government belongs to
everyone, in that the ruler is chosen by all, and from among all
the people. Israel had such a rule. Moses and his successors
presided in a kind of kingdom; there were seventy-two others
chosen to rule according to their virtue, and these rulers were
chosen from among all the people. In the Jewish government,
it is true, God chose the ruler, and God retained the ultimate
rule for himself. Aquinas explains that Israel was under the
special care of God and that these measures were designed to
protect the people from tyranny. 57
56 Q. 104, a. 4; Q. 105, aa. 1-4.
s1 Q. 105, a. 1 and replies 1, !l.

l>ANIEL A. DEGNAN, S. J.

Aquinas's reasoning concerning these laws of government appeals not to general principles of natural law, but to principles
of government. These principles are not formed, as natural law
is, by immediate, naturally known judgments; they are not
moral rules or moral debts of justice. These principles are intermediate principles of action, formed in the process from the
general principles of natural law to the particular enactments
of positive law. These principles, however, bear a close relationship to what are in Aquinas's view the nature and sources of
natural law and positive law.
The first principle of government, that all should share in the
rule or government, can be related to several elements of
Aquinas's legal theory. (a) Law's end, the common good, belongs to all of the people and so lawmaking, according to
Aquinas, belongs to the people or their representative. That
the people should have a share in choosing their representatives
arises not only from practical considerations, therefore, but
from the end of law as belonging to the people. 58
(b) The nature of law is that of an ordering of reason for
the common good. Law exists primarily in the reason of the
ruler ordering acts generally for the common good. Law also
exists, however, in the reasons of citizens who order their own
actions through the rule of law. This double existence of law,
in the reasons of the ruled as well as the reason of the ruler,
supports the idea of a shared or elected government. Those
who intelligently shape their actions according to law ought to
share in its making, one can argue. This consideration takes on
greater force when the end of law, the common good, is seen as
belonging to the whole people. 59
(c) In Aquinas's idea of natural law, the notion of shared
rulership has its strongest base. Natural laws are formulated
by the reasons of individual men and women. Thus law at its
fundamental level originates in the ·individual judgments of
citizens, judgments which form both general principles of nat58 See Q. 90, a. 2, a. 8.
59 See Q. 90, a. 8 and reply I; Q. 90, a. 4; and see note SS. BU'JYT'a, on Aquinas's
definition of law.

TWO M,ODELS OF POSITIVE LAW IN AQUINAS

25

ural law and certain specific moral rules or natural law conclusions. When the fundamental, universal law is formed by the
judgments and conscience of the citizens, it follows that the
same citizens ought to share in the formation of the positive
law. 60
Aquinas's second principle of right government is that the
type or species of rule must be chosen for its tendency to secure
the virtues of justice and prudence in the ruler. This principle
rests on the end of law, the common good. It also rests on
Aquinas's idea of law as the effectuation of justice. 61 The effort
must be to choose the best ruler, chosen for his virtue, and to
have with him a senate of others, also chosen according to virtue. Justice is required in its highest form and fullest development in the ruler, since his will and reason must encompass the
good of the entire community. 62 As justice in the ruler or legislator is the highest virtue, its absence is the greatest vice. In
Israel, the injustice of rulers was guarded against, for a time at
least, by God himself, since God at first retained the rule to
himself. God later provided, however, for the method of choosing rulers. 68
(2) The Bond Among the People.

Most of the judicial precepts are treated by Aquinas under
the heading of laws relating to the bond among the people.
60 See Q. 94, a. l, a. 2; see Q. 96, a. 4, that human laws which are unjust do not
oblige in conscience.
s1 See Q. 90, a. 1, a. 2; Q. 96, a. 1, reply 2; Q. 99, a. 4, replies 2, S; Q. 99, a. 5,
reply 1. The judicial precepts are the product of " judgment ", which " signifies
the execution of justice, which is according to the application of practical reason
to particular things determinately." Q. 99, a. 4, reply 2. See II-II, Q. 60, a. I,
that "judgment" is an act of justice.
s2 See Q. 90, a. S; Q. 96, a. 1. See II-II, Q. 58, a. 6 (general justice); ibid., Q. 60,
a. l, reply 4, that justice is in the sovereign or legislator "architectonically ".
Judgment is the virtue existing chiefly in one who h[!s authority. Ibid. On prudence, which is closely related to justice, see ibid., Q. 47, a. 8, a. 10, a. 11; and Q. 50,
a. 1, a. 2, that prudence is a virtue in the ruler.
6 3 On injustice, see II-II, Q. 59, a. l; Q. 60, a. S, a. 5. See also ibid., Q. 53, on imprudence. See I-II, Q. 96, a. 4, on unjust laws. On the Jewish nation, see Q. 105,
a. l, reply 2.

DANIEL A. DEGNAN, S. J.

These laws regulate " communications " among men. In one
category these communications take place by authority of the
ruler. This category relates to the establishment of a just judicial system. It also includes an order of "just judgments" and
this appears to refer to criminal laws. In a second category,
communications among men may take place through the will of
private persons themselves, as in selling, buying, and so on.
This Siecond category covers more than private transactions
such as contracts, however. It includes, for Aquinas, the distribution of goods or wealth among the people and the regulation
of their use. The single principle which governs the communication of men with one another, Aquinas states, is that it must
be ordered by just precepts of the law. This demand is immediately translated by Aquinas into the principle that the law
should prevent irregularity in possessions, the disproportionate
accumulation of wealth. The institution of private ownership
of property is subordinated to this principle, and to the principle that the use of property should be partly common. 64
Aquinas begins with the fact that possessions were distinct
from one another, appealing to Aristotle's discussion of the reasons for the institution of private property. By possessions
Aquinas appears to refer principally to land, although at times
the meaning seems more geneml. Aquinas's general argument
is that " irregularity " or disproportion in possessions must be
guarded against in a state or nation. The law's first remedy for
irregularity in possessions related to the division of land among
the tribes and families. The land was allocated equally when
the Israelites entered Canaan. The law then provided that the
land could not be alienated forever, but must be returned to its
possessor at intervals, in order that shares should not become
disproportionate. Finally, the law of inheritance was designed
to preserve the shares of each tribe by requiring that women
who were heirs should marry men of their own tribe. The law's
second remedy against irregularity in possessions was to require
that the use of property be common in some respects. Thus
64 Q. 105, a. 2.

TWO MODELS OF POSITIVE LAW IN AQUINAS

2.7

people had the "fructum ", the right to enter a vineyard and
eat its fruit, although not to oarry it away. The law also provided that whatever grew in the seventh year was common
property, and that forgotten sheaves in the fields were to belong to the poor. The third remedy was the transfer of goods.
The law regulated and facilitated buying and selling, loans and
deposits, and so on.65
Aquinas offers further details and reasons in his replies to
objections. It is objected that the law provided that in the
fiftieth year of jubilee, land should be returned to its vendor
and this destroyed the force of sales. Aquinas's rather general
reply is that indiscriminate buying and selling tends to the
piling up of possessions in the hands of a few. The law did not
apply to moveable goods, Aquinas explains, or to houses built
in town. Land was a fixed quantity, however, and it was necessary to prevent its accumulation in the hands of a few.66 Concerning loans, the law forbade usury and the accepting of
necessaries of life as security. It also provided that debts should
cease altogether after the lapse of seven years. Aquinas reasons
that, if a man could not pay within that time, it was better to
forgive the debt. Aquinas enters into a detailed discussion of
the liability of borrowers or depositaries for the loss of the thing
loaned or deposited. In assessing the liability, he distinguishes
standards of care, depending upon whether the transaction was
gratuitous or made for a consideration. 67
Aquinas's reasoning concerning irregularity or disproportion
in possessions echoes Aristotle's The Politics. The standard of
the constitution of the polis for Aristotle was whether it served
the common interest rather than the interest of any class. In
Aquinas's legal theory the end of law is the common good and
Aquinas denounces 1aws which serve selfish interests. Aquinas's
65 Ibid. One suspects that Aquinas is aware of the gap between the law and the
high purpose or principle he assigns to it, as when provisions for common use of
property amount to the plucking and eating of fruits of the field. Aquinas supports
severe measures to ensure equality among the tribes in the distribution of wealth,
however.
ae Ibid., reply 8.
s1 Ibid., reply 4.

. DANIEL A. DEGNAN, S. J.

standard for measuring laws regulating the bond among the
people is whether such laws maintain a generally fair distribution of goods and whether they insure that property be held in
common to the extent, at least, that the requirements of life
can be obtained. Aquinas moves beyond Aristotle when he justi:fies the equal distribution of wealth among the tribes. This
rests on a general citizenship, in which the common good belongs to all.68
Like Aristotle, Aquinas deals with justice in a separate treatise, and the theory can only be referred to here. Distributive
justice, as with Aristotle, follows an equality of proportion,
based upon merit and contribution to the community. 69 Thus
the equal distribution of wealth among the tribes would not
demand equality of wealth among individuals. Private transactions are subject, however, to the principles of distributive
justice. The restrictions on what can be given in pledge, the
provision for forgiveness of debts after an interlude, and the
periodic rescission of sales entail the principle that the end of
law, the common good, calls for a relatively equal or at least
adequate share of society's goods.
Probably the most difficult point in Aquinas's model of the
judicial precepts is the apparent leap from the natural law conclusions of the Decalog to the reasoning concerning distributive
justice. Aquinas's theory of determination, however, is not designed to show that the decisions of positive law can be deduced
from natural law, or even to show that determination represents
a simple, direct ordering of means to general ends expressed in
the natural law.

IV
Determination
When Aquinas's analysis of the principle of justice, found in
the models of the moral precepts and the judicial precepts, is
68 For Aquinas, the entire Jewish nation enacted law through its representative;
all were eligible to be the ruler and all shared in choosing the ruler. Q. 105, a. 1.
Concerning unjust law, see Q. 96, a. 4. Compare Aristotle, The Politics (ed. Ernest
Barker) (New York, Oxford University Press,
Book III, c. VI.
69 See II-II, Q. 61, on distributive justice.
.

TWO MODELS OF POSITIVE LAW IN AQUINAS

combined with his earlier theory and model of positive law as
an ordering to ends expressed in the natural law, the general
theory of determination appears. In determination, the natural
law principle of justice is the principle and end of positive law.
This end is a structured end, the general debt or demand for
just relationships among men. Determination is also a theory
of the capacity of legal reasoning to know justice; a theory of
the moral quality of positive law; and a theory of the common
good, the end of law.
(1)

The general debt of justice.

The principle and end of positive law is the general principle
of the justice to be observed among men. For Aquinas, the
principle of justice, based upon the inclination to life in society
associated with human reason and will, is the demand for justly
shared human goods, in which the claims of other men are honored as well as our own. The natural law conclusions, the first
applications of the principle of justice, express debts of justice
owed generally to other men. These debts reveal the structure
and some of the content of the general debt of justice. The
building of a just system of positive law has its end and principle in this general debt of justice.
(2) The capacity to know justice.
Determination is also an explanation of the capacity of legal
reasoning to know the just. Positive law does not represent a
direct ordering to specific ends expressed in the principle of justice. Positive law is, rather, the product of judgments of reason
concerning what is just in human relationships, and concerning
particular means and ends associated with achieving just relationships. The capacity of legal reason to discern the just thing
in legal relationships, however, rests on the principle of justice.
At the base of positive law, Aquinas holds, is the form and
structure of justice, the recognition of the claims of others expressed in the natural law principles and conclusions. These
claims are general laws, the very order of justice and virtue.
These claims are constitutive of the common good.

so

DANIEL A. DEGNAN, S. J.

Legal r:easoning in this view begins with a principle which
expresses the nature and form of law and of justice. From this
base, legal reasoning proceeds to the detailed ordering of human
affairs in which relationships of men to one another are established in a system of positive law. The meaning of the general
debt of justice is not only that man is a social being, but that he
is a legal being. In the ordering of natural law, men know debts
of justice, universal claims which men have on other men. The
structure of justice, naturally known, is the source of legal reason's capacity to know the just. This and the power of practical
reason itself, proceeding from its naturally known principles to
the weighing and judging of particular relationships, accounts
for just judgments in a given system of positive law. 70
(3) The moral quality of positive law.

The moral quality of positive law is derived from its nature
as the determination of the general debt of justice. Justice,
Aquinas states, is first among the virtues, since it regards the
good of another person. Legal justice in turn is the highest form
of justice, since in legal justice, law (both moral and positive)
orders human relationships and human affairs for the common
good. Positive law, in this analysis, is the most important of
the moral tasks, since its end is the institution of the order constitutive of the common good.
Positive law is not identical with morality or justice, however. The necessity or morality of the means is from the end;
it is not identical with it. Law is a coercive, limited instrument,
dependent upon the capacities and dispositions of those subject
to law. Law is equally subject to the limited capacities and
virtues of the lawmakers. The appraisal of the justice of particular laws or of a system of law must take into account these
limitations, as well as the nature of law as a means to an end.
10 Aquinas would add that a man or woman requires the moral virtue of justice
in order to execute justice in any consistent way, and the intelledual virtue of
prudence in order to know justice. See II-II, Q. 58, a. 1, a. 6; Q. 60, a. 1, reply 4;
Q. 47, a. 8, a. 10, a. 11; Q. 50, a. 1, a. !l.

TWO MODELS OF POSITIVE LAW IN AQUINAS

31

As in the model of the ceremonial precepts; law as the means
to the ends of justice is relative to the economy, culture and
history of any given people, as well as to the limitations of the
instrument itself.
The end of positive law, the common good, is itself relative
and uncertain. The idea of law as the product of the process of
practical reason demands this conclusion. In the process from
general principles to the particular judgments of positive law,
the common good is not a given. It is, rather, the product
of the investigations of reason. Except for the natural law conclusions, the justice of legal arrangements is not naturally
known.
Aquinas's idea of the debt of justice, nevertheless, accounts
for an objective quality of justice in both the moral and the
legal debt of justice. At the level of natural law, certain acts
and their resulting consequences for human relationships are
patently unjust and should be immediately recognized as such.
In the process of practical reason, one can make similar judgments concerning some of the effects of positive law. A distribution of wealth or other goods may be unjust, or the judgment
rendered in a contract action may be unfair. Although the
limited character of law as a means to an end and its relativity
to circumstances such as the economy of the country or the
capacity of a people to be just must be taken into account, laws
may nevertheless be known to be unjust.
(4) The concept of determination as a theory of the common
good.
The common good in Aquinas's thought is not a given. It is
shaped by the process of practical reason instituting a system
of just legal debts. The distinctive feature of this concept of
the common good is that it is achieved through the work of
positive law. Despite the importance of the natural law conclusions, the primary meaning of natural law as expressed in the
general principle of justice is that it calls for the process of practical reason to the particular enactments of positive law. In

32

DANIEL A. DEGNAN, S. J.

Aquinas's theory of law, the common good is not something
known in advance, although some of its content and structure
is naturally known. The common good is the product of law's
institution. Aquinas calls positive law the art of establishing or
ordering human life.71
DANIEL

Seton Hall University School of Law
Newark, New Jersey

n Q. 104, a. 4.

A. DEGNAN, S.J.

EXPERIENCE OF GOD AND EXPLICIT FAITH:
A COMPARISON OF JOHN OF THE CROSS A.ND
KARL RAHNER

I

T IS TRADITIONAL in Catholic theology to insist that
there is an experiential dimension to faith as well as an
explicit, propositional dimension. The central importance
of the experiential aspect of faith is clear in the Scriptures, in
the Latin and Greek Fathers, and in medieval theology, right
up to and including St. Thomas's emphasis on the place of the
lumen fidei in the assent of faith. The Thomist position endured, side by side with other views (like the Scotist and Nominalist theologies) into the sixteenth century, where it enjoyed
a period of great importance at the University of Salamanca.
But the Thomist position gradually lost ground to more extrinsic views of revelation and Faith. The Church found it
necessary to defend itself against what it saw as excessive appeals to private experience made in the Protestant Reformation,
in Jansenism, in Illuminism, in Fideism, in Protestant Liberalism and Catholic ]\fodernism. The result in Catholic theology
was stress on the objective, historical and dogmatic dimensions
of revelation. Schillebeeckx has said that " the experiential aspect of faith" had " disappeared in post-Tridentine speculation
about the act of faith " and that "neglect of the ' mystical aspect of faith ' in the Fathers and scholastic authors of the high
Middle ages has led to the act of faith being regarded more or
less as a conclusion drawn from successful reasoning." 1
The mystics themselves, however, did stress the experiential
dimension of faith. John of the Cross, perhaps the greatest theologian of the mystics, developed a systematic theology of the
experience of God which he firmly grounded in St. Thomas's
theology of faith, learnt by him in the halls of Salamanca.

1 "The Non-Conceptual Intellectual Element in the Act of Faith: A Reaction,"
Revelation and Theology (New York: Sheed and Ward, 1968), !'l:SO-Sl.

33

34

DENIS EDWARDS

In the twentieth century we find a dramatic return to the
thought of St. Thomas Aquinas on the light of faith. At the
same time we see the development of a major school of Catholic
theology which returns to experience as basic to its understanding of revelation and faith, and yet attempts to keep this experiential dimension in balance with objective and historical
aspects of faith. This is transcendental theology exemplified
by, amongst others, Karl Rahner. In Rahner's thought the experiential dimension again finds its proper place in the theology
of faith, a theology which Rahner develops in dialogue with
Thomas Aquinas and the classical doctrine of the lumen fidei.
There is interest in seeing to what extent Rahner's transcendental theology is compatible with the mystical theology
of St. John of the Cross and to what extent it can illuminate
the traditional teaching. If it can be established that the two
theologies are compatible and mutually illuminating it should
be possible to use the insights of both authors to develop a picture of the place of experience in the pattern of growth in faith.
We will compare the two authors by examining their respective positions on each of the following areas of thought: epistemological foundation, theological foundation, theological system, theology of revelation, theology of faith, explicit dimension
of faith, the nature of the experience of God, the location of the
experience of God, defining characteristics of the experience of
God, and the nature of the dynamism in faith.
The method will be to summarize briefly each author's position and then offer some critical reflections. These reflections
will arise from asking the following questions: Are the positions
of the authors irreducibly different? If they are different which
view is preferable? Are their positions complementary? If they
are complementary, what total picture emerges from the dialogue between the two positions?

Epistemology
John of the Cross
The human person, in the view of John of the Cross, is made
up of body and soul. The soul itself has two parts, the sensory

EXPERIENCE OF GOD AND EXPLICIT FAITH

35

part and the spirit. The sensory part of the soul includes five
senses corresponding to the bodily senses and it also includes the
imagination and the phantasy. The higher part of the soul (the
spirit) has three spiritual faculties: memory, understanding,
and will.2 Because of original sin the lower part of the soul is in
rebellion against the higher.
John of the Cross believed that human knowledge (at least
in its natural state) is limited by the senses. We know through
the process of sensation, abstraction, and conversion to the
phantasm. We can know only through the use of forms and
phantasms of things perceived by the senses. The faculties of
the higher part of the soul are limited by what is available to
the sensory part of the soul.
The power of abstraction, by which we learn from sense experience, is called the agent intellect. But there is also, in each
person, a passive or possible intellect, a term which is used to
describe the receptive capacity of the human mind. 3
The natural process of human knowledge, by which the agent
intellect abstracts from what is made available through the
senses, is entirely inappropriate for union with God. He totally
transcends anything that can be learned from the senses, any
concepts we might form, or any image we might have.
The only proximate and proportionate means to union with
God is through dark, contemplative faith. In contemplation,
God himself acts in the soul, which is entirely passive and receptive. God acts upon the passive intellect. 4 The agent intellect
must be stilled so that God may act without interference.

Karl Rahner
Rahner's thought is built upon a theory of knowledge which
is really a metaphysics. For him there is a fundamental unity
between being and knowing. The human person inquires about
being. This already suggests that being is basically knowable.
2 On this

and what follows see Ascent 2.6.1 and the following chapters.

s Canticle, 14-15: 14.
4 Canticle, 39.12.

36

DENIS EDWARDS

For Rahner, the conclusion is that being and knowledge constitute an original unity. But the human knower does need to ask
about being, showing that he or she is limited in both knowledge
and being. In Rahner's view, being is self-luminous, but only in
correspondence with the intensity of being. Knowledge is not a
coming on something from outside, but takes place in the return
of the knowing subject to itself. 5
What is the process of knowledge? Rahner, in Spirit in the
World, discusses three moments in knowledge: sensation, abstraction, and conversion to the phantasm. When human consciousness reaches out to grasp a being in the world it does this
only by reason of a pre-grasp (Vorgriff) towards infinite being.
This pre-grasp is the condition for abstraction and the forming
of concepts. It is also the condition for self-awareness. But the
pre-grasp can occur only in the going out from self to concrete
objects of knowledge. This pre-apprehension towards absolute
being occurs by reason of the faculty of abstraction which is the
agent intellect. 6
Metaphysics is possible, then, only if this Vorgriff towards
absolute being can be the basis for valid knowledge. Rahner
believes that it can. The pre-apprehension can be reflected upon
and converted to the phantasm. When this occurs, it too can
only take place against a V orgriff towards infinite being, and in
this is revealed the limitation of the reflex knowledge of infinite
being. The pre-grasp of infinite being reveals the limits of our
objectification of infinite being.
Infinite being can be known by way of comparison (comparatio) with finite beings, to which is added the conscious removal (r'emotio) of limits and the excessus towards the infinite
that is always given in the Vorgriff.7 Metaphysics is possible as
a reflection on this excessus towards absolute being.
There are, then, two forms of knowledge. There is the predicamental, objective knowl.edge of beings in the world, and
Spirit in the World (New York: Herder and Herder, 1968), p. 18!'l.
Spirit in the World, p. 187. See Foundations of Christian Faith (New York:
Seabury, 1978), p. !'lO.
7 Spirit in the World, pp. 398-399.
5 See
6

EXPERIENCE OF GOD AND EXPLICIT FAITH

87

there is also a transcendental knowledge which is an a priori
light of the intellect opening up towards infinite being. This
transcendental knowledge is within the reach of consciousness
and can be objectified through the process of comparatio, remotio, and excessus.
Comparison and reflections

There would be little point in attempting an exhaustive comparison of the epistemologies of John of the Cross and Rahner.
This discussion is focused on their theologies and not their epistemologies. And their attitudes to epistemology are so different
that there would be little interest in such a comparison. While
John of the Cross integrates aspects of epistemology from the
scholastic tradition and from the writings of other mystics, he
has no formal treatment of epistemology as such. Rahner, on
the other hand, grounds his whole thought in formal metaphysics of knowledge, which is both original and controversial.
Our interest is not in their different epistemologies as such, but
in the way in which their epistemological positions determined
their different approaches to experience of God and explicit
faith.
It is interesting to notice where they agree. Both of their
epistemologies allow for two dimensions of knowledge of God,
the thematic and the unthematic. John of the Cross makes use
of the distinction between the agent intellect and the passive
intellect. The agent intellect is dominant in our normal process
of knowledge, including our discursive, propositional knowledge
of the truths of faith. But another kind of knowledge occurs
when God himself acts upon our passive intellect, bypassing the
agent intellect. This is the experience of God which occurs in
the darkness of faith as contemplation. In Rahner, a different
epistemology allows for the same double_ modality in faith.
There is the objective knowledge of being in the world, which
is the same knowledge by which we know conceptually the
truths of faith. But such a knowledge takes place against a
V orgriff towards infinite being as a priori horizon. This Vorgriff

38

DENIS EDWARDS

towards God is (in this graced order) an unthematic experience of God. This experience of transcendence occurs in Rahner' s thought, through the action of the agent intellect in the
process of abstraction.
If both epistemologies allow for the two moments in faith,
the unthematic and the thematic, they are radically different in
the way they explain the process. For John of the Cross, the
contemplative moment is explained by God's action on the one
hand, and by a new supernatural mode of operation of the theological virtue of faith on the other. His emphasis is on the
supernatural nature of the gift of contemplation and on the
passive role of the human subject. For Rahner, by contrast,
nonconceptual awareness of God occurs as part of the structure
of human knowing. Our transcendence towards infinite being
always occurs, as a pri01'i horizon and ground of our knowledge
of beings in the world. Because of God's supernatural elevation
of human existence, we experience the God of grace in the movement by which we go out of ourselves to know others. Our
awareness of transcendence is always necessarily linked to both
our knowledge of beings in the world and our presence to ourselves.
The different epistemologies of the two theologians (along
with their different theological interests) lead them to stress
different dimensions of the experience of God. For Rahner, the
emphasis is on the experience of transcendence that occurs in
ordinary secular life, rather than in the specifically religious activity. John of the Cross, by contrast, stresses the encounter
with God in the particular religious activity of prayer. This
difference is real, but we need to qualify it, since Rahner is also
interested in prayer 8 and John of the Cross does have a theology
of the" I-don't-know-what" (rw se que) in everyday life.9
Because of his epistemology John of the Cross teaches that
discursive awareness is quite opposed to the nonconceptual
s Rahner has written much on prayer, but the most important work is " The
Logic of Concrete Individual Knowledge in Ignatius Loyola" in The Dynamic Ele1nent in the Ch1irch (London: Burns and Oates, 1964), pp. 84-170.
o Canticle, 7.9.

EXPERIENCE OF GOD AND EXPLICIT FAITH

89

awareness of contemplation. Discursive awareness, even the
conceptual dimension of faith, operates through the natural
mode of the agent intellect and the process of abstraction from
know1edge that comes through the senses. Contemplation is
totally separated from natural knowledge. In fact, normal cognitive processes have to be purged and voided. Contemplative
awareness is a supernatural mode of knowledge which bypasses
the agent intellect and is infused upon the passive intellect. 10
This position demands a new action of God, a new supernatural
gift, which is not present in the everyday exercise of faith. This
new grace is responsible for the new mode of faith.
Rahn er' s epistemology pushes him in the opposite direction,
towards an intimate union between nonconceptual and conceptual dimensions of experience of God. For Rahner, the nonconceptual experience always occurs in connection with conceptual
awareness. Even the moment of pure prayer, the consolation
sine causa, occurs in reference to an original movement out from
self to beings in the world. 11 Nonconceptual experience is the
necessary condition for the normal process of human cognition
and volition. In our graced order, both dimensions, the conceptual and the nonconceptual, are
and supernatural
revelation and faith include both conceptual and nonconceptual
dimensions.
Here we have a distinct difference between the two theories.
While John of the Cross demands a new action of grace in contemplation, a new supernatural mode of faith, Rahner will insist
that mysticism occurs " within the framework of normal
grace." 12 When we discuss both writers' views on experience
of God we will need to return to this question and ask whether
the two views of contemplative experience are compatible in the
light of the difference we have been discussing.
10 Canticle, 39.12; Flame, 3.84.
11 See Rahner's " The Logic of Concrete Individual Knowledge in Ignatius Loyola" particularly pp. 145-146.
12 "Mysticism"
in Encyclopedia of Theology: A Concise Sacramentum Mundi,
p. 1010.

40

DENIS EDWARDS

Theological Foundation: The Theology of Grace
John of the Cross
There are three major emphases in St. John's theology of
grace: the possibility of experiencing God's grace, the indwelling presence of God, and the different kinds of presence of God.
We have seen how John of the Cross was trained in the theology of Salamancan Thomists. They placed such emphasis on
the inner lumen fidei in the assent of faith that they called this
inner light revelation. 13 The grace of God draws the soul interiorly, and this attraction is certainly experienced by the soul.
Contemplation, which always occurs in faith, is the experience
of loving union with this unthematic light.
The major emphasis in the thought of John of the Cross on
grace is on the indwelling Trinity. The indwelling God invites
us and draws us towards a union in which we become God by
participation. What is demanded of us in the process of divinization is the active cooperation by which we strive for conformity to the will of God.
In St. John's view God is always present to the individual.
God is present ev.en to the sinner by the presence of immensity
(the "substantial" presence, or presence of "essence") by
which the creator holds creatures in being. This kind of presence is contrasted in the Ascent with the union of " likeness"
which presupposes grace and the development of Christian life
by which the human will is brought into conformity with the
will of God. 14 In the Canticle St. John describes three kinds of
presence: "immensity," "grace," and "spiritual affection." 15
The presence of spiritual affection describes a union with God
which includes affective experience of his love.

Karl Rahner
Rahner, can also be said to have three particular emphases
13 See Melchoir Cano: De Locis Theologicis 2.8; Banez: In Primam partem 1.3, cf.
Rene Latourelle: Theology of Revelation (New York: Alba House, 1966), pp. 191192.

14 Ascent,

2.5.

15 Canticle, 11.8,

EXPERIENCE OF GOD AND EXPLICIT FAITH

41

in his theology of grace: the possibility of experiencing grace,
the primacy of uncreated grace, and the supernatural existential.
The a priori light of faith of the Thomist school becomes, in
Rahner's thought, the permanent horizon of human knowing
and loving. We experience God's grace as horizon of our human existence, and, if we have already been justified, in the
transforming union of sanctifying grace. But Rahner insists
that God's gracious presence is always an element within the
reach of our consciousness, even if we only become reflexly
aware of this at certain special times, or even if we constantly
incorrectly thematize our experience of grace and, perhaps, declare ourselves to be atheists. 16
Grace is always, for Rahner, to be thought of as the selfcommunication 0£ God. 11 The primacy is always with uncreated
grace. Created grace is but the effect in us of the transforming
presence of God himself. Rahner attempts to describe the intimacy of the indwelling union of God with the soul, and the
divinizing effect of this union by his use of the concept of
quasi-formal causality. 18
Finally, there is Rahner's doctrine of the "supernatural existential." 19 By God's supernatural gift we are ontologically
constituted with a hunger for God and a capacity to receive the
gift of God's self-communication. We are all always constituted
in this supernatural existential and this ordination to the God of
grace is what is most central to the human person. In Rahner's
later writings he explains that the supernatural existential is
constituted by the fact that the God of grace is always present
to us as offer, as supernatural formal object of human knowing
and loving.
1s Foundations of Christian Faith, p. 129.
11 Ibid., pp. 116-137.
18 Ibid., p. mo.
19 See "Concerning
the Relationship between Nature and Grace", in Theological
Investigations 1:297-317; "Existential" in Encyclopedia of Theology: A Concise
Sacramentum Mundi, p. 494; Foundations of Christian Faith, pp. 126-132.

42

DENIS EDWARDS

Comparison and reflections
It might be expected that John of the Cross and Karl Rahner
would have radically differ.ent theologies of grace. In fact, this
is not so. There are real differences between them, but there are
more important areas where they are in agreement.
The first of these areas of agreement concerns the experience
of grace. Both inherit the Thomist tradition of the a priori
formal object of faith which is constituted by God's grace. For
John of the Cross, it is through this light of faith that we experience God in contemplation. For Rahner, it is through this
graced horizon of human knowledge and love that we can experience God in everyday life. It is true that Rahner has
extended the traditional Thomist position. But it cannot be
denied that the two writers can find in the Thomist position
reason to believe in the possibility of experiencing God's grace.
Furthermore, there is real agreement between the two authors on what constitutes the heart of the mystery of grace:
for Rahner, this is uncreated grace, the presence of God himself, while for John of the Cross it is the indwelling Trinity.
John of the Cross, because of his contact with the scriptures
and the mystical tradition, was able to make good use of the
ancient biblical and patristic theme of the indwelling. This is
precisely the tradition that Rahner recovers in his theology of
grace, whe:ve it is described as the self-communication of God.
Both authors recover the ancient doctrine of divinization. John
of the Cross speaks of becoming God by participation. Rahner
will speak of God's union with the human person by way of
quasi-formal causality.
It would seem that there is good reason, then, to speak of a
functional equivalence between the two theologies of grace, insofar as they form a basis for a theological understanding of the
experience of God and its role in the life of faith. Both writers
agree that grace can be experienced and both agree that the
heart of grace is the indwelling, divinizing presence of God.
This major coincidence of thought is extremely important,
but it must also be noticed that the two theologies are quite

EXPERIENCE OF GOD AND EXPLICIT FAITH

43

different in one important area. Prior to sanctifying grace, in
St. John's view, there is a natural presence of God by immensity. Rahner, goes further and holds for a supernatural presence
of God (the supernatural existential) by which God constantly
offers himself to men and women, even the unjustified and the
srnners.
It is natural, then, for John of the Cross to see the life of
faith and contemplative experience of God as developments of
the life of sanctifying grace, occurring in the life of baptized
Christian believers. Rahner's theology of the supernatural existential enables him to speak of a universally available experi,ence of the God of grace. He can appeal to an experience of
God and the possibility of an implicit supernatural faith available to all men and women at all times, including the unevangelized, atheists, and sinners.
The focus of John of the Cross, then, will be on the movement within the faith life of a justified Christian believer towards contemplative experienoe. Rahner's focus will be on an
experience that already occurs in every person's life and on the
path from this experience to explicit faith.

Theological System
John of the Cross
It can be argued that there are two major elements that
structure St. John's theological system: the theological virtues
and the active and passive nights of sense and spirit.
If his system has its foundation in the indwelling Trinity and
the dynamism towards deification, then we have to ask how
this deification is accomplished. How can the soul be led to
union with a God who is absolutely transcendent? This can
happen only through the theological virtues. St. John divides
the higher part of the soul into memory, understanding, and
will. To these faculties, he relates the three virtues of faith,
hope, and love. The virtues lead the faculties to union with
God. Their first function is to void the normal operation of the
faculties, since human understanding, memory and will are

44

DENIS EDWARDS

entirely inappropriate (in their natural state) as means to
union with the transcendent God. The faculties are, then,
transformed by the virtues and operate in a supernatural way.
The theological virtues, by God's grace, do constitute a proximate and proportionate means to union with him. 20
The two active nights are described in the Ascent of M aunt
Carmel. The active nights emphasize the active role of the soul
in the movement towards union. In the active night of sense
John of the Cross describes the ascetical path as it concerns the
sensory part of the soul. In the active night of spirit he describes the purification of intellect, memory, and will by the
theological virtues. The passive nights stress God's action on
the soul, and they are described in the book The Dark Night.
The passive night of sense describes the movement from the
way of sense to that of spirit, the movement from meditation
to contemplation. The passive night of spirit describes God's
action in leading us, through an intense purification of faith, to
the joy of union with him.

Karl Rahner
Karl Rahner's system of theology is built upon a method of
doing theology, the transcendental method. This method structures his system.
The transcendental method develops from Rahner's metaphysics of knowledge (found in Spirit in the World) , his philosophy of religion (found in Hearers of the Word), and his theology of grace. It involves an inquiry into the pre-conditions by
which a human person is enabled to hear an historical word of
God. It means ther:e are always two interacting dimensions to
any theological inquiry: there is the a priori experience of supernaturally elevated transcendence to consider; there is also the
historical revelation in Jesus Christ, his_Gospel, and the Church
which proclaims his teachings. Both dimensions are essential
and they are intimately related to each other.
Theology, then, can inquire about the transcendental depths
20 See, for example, Ascent

2, chapters 6, 8 and 9.

EXPERIENCE OF GOD AND EXPLICIT FAITH

45

of a given human experience and it can also look to the message
of Jesus Christ and his Church to enlighten that experience.
This method becomes a system of theology, as can be seen by
a glance at Rahner's Foundations of Christian Faith. The system involves, first of all, a discussion of our transcendental experience of mystery and our readiness to hear a word of historical revelation, and then a reference of the truths of faith back
to this original experience of mystery. The theological system
relates the truths of faith to each other and to the original mystery of God's self-communication in an organic fashion.
In theology, then, the truths of faith must be ordered to the
experience of grace. In this way theology can offer support to
the life of faith of individuals in which the doctrines of faith
must be integrated with the experience of grace in each person's
life.

Comparison and reflections
It seems clear that the systematic structures of thought of
the two authors are quite different. For John of the Cross the
frame of reference is the journey of the individual soul towards
the spiritual marriage in this life, and glory in the next. The
theological system concerns the stages of this journey (the
nights) and the gifts that empower us for this journey (the
theological virtues). Rahner's system is built around the twofold movement in the Christian life (and in theology) from the
unthematic and implicit to the explicit and the historical, and
from the explicit back into the mystery. Rahner's system is
built around the dialectical interaction between the transcendental and the historical, the unity in difference between them.
As a system of thought the two theologies deal with different
dimensions of the life of faith and attempt to explain different
things. Although Rahner has dealt with_ the stages of Christian
life, and in a special way with Christian death, yet he does not
construct a synthesis that parallels the Ascent-Night of John of
the Cross. And John of the Cross has no direct parallel with
Rahner's transcendental reflection, although, as we shall see, his
comments on the nature of contemplation can be brought into

46

DENIS EDWARDS

dialogue with Rahner's transcendental analysis of the experience of God.
In terms of their systems of thought, it is clear that the two
authors do not contradict one another, but rather should be
seen as complementary. The system of John of the Cross involves him in a concern for the stages and the movement in the
journey in faith. Rahner's system is more interested in the
focus, at any one stage of the spiritual journey, on the interaction between transcendental experience and predicamental
dimensions of Christian faith.
We have not, at this stage, attempted to decide whether Rahner's transcendental analysis is consistent with St. John's concept of faith and of contemplation. This will have to be considered in another section of this article. But we can say that
the two systems of thought, as systems, are not contradictory
but are concerned with complementary approaches to the theological task.

Theology of Revelation
John of the Cross
St. John does not develop a formal theology of revelation,
but there are two important texts which indicate his general
approach to such a theology.
In chapter 7 of the Spiritual Canticle he speaks of three kinds
of knowledge of God. There is a knowledge of God through
creatures, which in another context 21 he speaks of as God's
trace, discernable in creation. Then there is the knowledge of
God through the Incarnation and the mysteries of faith. Finally there is that knowledge which is a touch of God himself that
the individual soul may experience in contemplation.
But John of the Cross does not call this dark contemplative
experience of God "revelation". In chapter 22 of the second
book of the As0ent of Mount Carmel, he completely repudiates
all requests for new revelations from God. We should not look
to God to give us new information. St. John's reason is simple:
21

Canticle 5.S.

EXPERIENCE OF GOD AND EXPLICIT FAITH

47

all is already given in Jesus Christ. His position is radically
Christocentric. We are called simply to unite ourselves in silent
prayer with this Lord who is Word and Wisdom of the Father.

Karl Rahner
Rahner's theology of revelation has two aspects, the transcendental and the predicamental. 22
Transcendental revelation is constituted by (1) human transcendence towards infinite being experienced as an a priori
Vorgrifj in the knowing and love of beings in the world; (2)
God's supernatural elevation of human nature so that the horizon of our existence is always the God of grace. This a priori
formal object of our human activity is experienced, not as object amongst objects, but as nonconceptual ground and horizon
for objective knowledge. This original experience of grace constitutes a kind of supernatural revelation that Rahner calls
transcendental.
Because of the structure of the human spirit, and also because
of the dynamism of God's will to communicate himself, transcendental revelation necessarily is thematized in some way.
When it is objectified in concept and word, Rahner calls it predicamental or categorical revelation.
Transcendental revelation and its predicamental objectification are found throughout human history. Revelation is a universal phenomenon. But such objectifications of transcendental
experience are subject to human sinfulness and error. But there
does exist a special categorical revelation in the history of
Israel and Christianity. This special categorical revelation is
distinguished by its unambiguous awareness that it is directed
by God and reaches proper objectification with his help.
In Jesus Christ we find the unique and final culmination of
both transcendental and predicamental revelation. The incarnation is the definitive and normative revelation. In Jesus we
have the only adequate criterion for interpreting our tran2 2 See Revelation and Theology (London: Burns and Oates, 1966), pp. 9-1!5;
Foundations of Christian Faith, pp. 188-175.

48

DENIS EDWARDS

scendental experience of God. In terms of Trinitarian thought,
Rahner would argue that the one God communicates himself to
us both in Spirit (as universally available grace) and in Word
(as definite, historical norm). Both dimensions are part of the
one act of self-communication.
Comparison and reflections
Although John of the Cross does not develop his theology of
revelation, nevertheless his scattered statements on this matter
show a profound and comprehensive view of God's self-communication. God reveals himself to us in creation and in an
absolute and normative way in Jesus Christ. In our present
life we encounter the revelation of Jesus in the Gospels and the
teachings of the Church and we encounter the living Lord himself in a non-conceptual way in contemplation.
Rahner's theology of revelation is, of course, so much more
sophisticated and much more developed. But it seems to me
that there is nothing in John of the Cross's view that Rahner
would reject. He would simply point out that his own theology
of revelation has another dimension, that of transcendental experience. Rahner's transcendental revelation offers two changes
to the position as John of the Cross understood it. It both extends revelation beyond the boundaries of John of the Cross's
categories and it also becomes a means for explaining the categories that John of the Cross would take for granted.
Rahner extends revelation so that it becomes co-extensive
with human history. The nonconceptual encounter with God
occurs, not only in mystical contemplation, but always and
everywhere in human life. The two authors, then, necessarily
have quite different views of the place of the experience of God
in life.
The transcendental approach to revelation not only attempts
to explain how revelation occurs in the prophets but also attempts to explain contemplation. We will need to return to this
question (the transcendental approach to contemplation) in
our discuss'ion of experience of God in this article.

EXPERIENCE OF GOD AND EXPLICIT FAITH

49

Theology of Faith
John of the Cross
In the writings of John of the Cross we find two dimensions
of faith, which can be called the discursive and the contemplative.
St. John presumes that the people he is addressing in his
books are believing Christians who seek a closer union with
God. He presumes in them a discursive, propositional faith by
which they assent to the truths revealed by Jesus and proclaimed by the Church. This discursive faith is the supernatural, theological virtue, but it operates through the faculties: it
comes by hearing, is shaped into images and concepts by the
intellect, and is assented to in an act of will. In St. John's terms
it has a " natural mode" of operation. 23
But St. John is really interested in the contemplative dimension of faith and the movement whereby an individual is led
from meditation (the discursive mode) to contemplation. Contemplation is a mode of faith in which the natural light of the
intellect is nullified, and we are united to God in a non-discursive way, without images or concepts. This faith is the" proximate and proportionate" means to union with God. 24 This
dimension of faith is entirely "supernatural" in its mode, and
since the faculties of the soul are stilled, it is described as a
"passive" experience. 25

Karl Rahner
For Karl Rahner, as well, there are two dimensions of faith:
the implicit (often called " anonymous ") and the explicit. 26
Every human person always and everywhere is constituted
in the " supernatural existential " by the fact that the God of
2a See Ascent 2: 13-15; Flame S: 84.
24 Ascent

2.9.
39.rn.

25 Canticle

26 " Faith 1. Way to Faith" in Encyclopedia of Theology: A Concise Sacramentum Mundi, pp. 496-500; Anonymous and Explicit Faith" in Theological Investigations 16, pp. 52-59.

50

DENIS EDWARDS

grace is present to human freedom, offering himself in love. All
human persons have already experienced this God of grace as
the transcendental horizon of their knowing and loving of beings in the world. In this way, at least, the content of the
preacher's message (God's self-communication) has already in
some way been experienced. In fact, the individual may have
responded to this experience of grace by living in fidelity to
conscience and so be justified. Such persons have an implicit,
supernatural faith and are, at least, " anonymous Christians."
This already existing faith has to be brought to its full, explicit, and professed form. This happens through the mediation
of the word: it comes through hearing. The word of the Gospel
interprets and illuminates the already existing implicit faith.
Implicit faith has a dynamism towards its complete, explicit
form. The two forms of faith respond to God's self-communication in the Spirit (encountered in the experience of grace) and
in the Word.
The minister of the Gospel and the theologian have to begin
from the transcendental experience of people and show the lines
of connection with the explicit content of Christian revelation.

Comparison and reflections
Both theologians have sophisticated theologies of faith that
are central to their theological systems. St. John's whole system in the Ascent-Night is a journey "in faith", depending on
the articulation of faith in the second book of the Ascent. Mysticism is the fruit of the theological virtues, and never exhausts
them or transcends them. For Rahner, the theology of revelation and faith is the point of integration of the pre-conceptual
and the transcendental with the revelation in Jesus and the
propositions of faith of the Church. It is at the heart of his
system of theology, and of his transcendental method. On other
points of comparison the two authors are unequal in the emphasis and attention they give to the particular matter in question, but this can certainly not he said of their theologies of
faith. Here both writers can be compared on an issue in which
they have offered sustained systematic reflection.

EXPERIENCE OF GOD AND EXPLICIT FAITH

51

There is a real agreement in the two theologies in that both
describe two moments in faith, one of which is discursive and
propositional, the other of which is non-discursive and experiential. Both dimensions are essential for both authors. There
is further agreement in that in both theologies there is a dynamic interaction between the two dimensions of faith.
We can go a step further and state that both John of the
Cross and Karl Rahner are in agreement on the explicit, propositional side of faith. This will be explored in more detail in
the next section. If it is clear that they have a similar concept
of explicit faith, it is also apparent that there are real differences in their views of the experiential dimension of faith. St.
John's contemplation and Rahner's experience of grace are not
exactly the same and they will need careful analysis in another
section of this article.
If we put off a comparison of the two poles of faith, the experiential and the explicit, to later sections where they are
dealt with explicitly, then we can, at this stage, simply point
to the major structural differences between the two concepts
of faith.
John of the Cross begins his analysis of faith with Christians
who already live the life of explicit faith. He presumes discursive, propositional faith. In fact, he also presumes that the
believer is serious about the life of prayer. He points the way
from this discursive and meditative faith towards contemplative experience. Contemplation, then, is a development in the
life of faith which occurs as a specific experience for a particular
group of people.
Rahner, by contrast, begins his consideration with everyday
life experiences which precede explicit faith. He finds in this
everyday life that there is an experience of God that is universally available as an a priori horizon of human knowledge and
love. Rahner's universal, transcendental experience precedes
explicit faith. The movement in faith is from this universally
available experience of God towards explicit faith. Rahner also
believes that the believer is called to prayer in the way that
John of the Cross describes.

DENIS EDWARDS

If the two concepts of experience of God are found to be
compatible, then we could suggest that the two structures of
faith might be put together. The synthesis of the two positions
would be as follows: there is a universal experience of God
available to all men and women; this experience has an inbuilt
dynamism to be completed as full, explicit Christological faith;
this explicit faith must lead to contemplative experience which
is non-conceptual. This synthesis suggests the analogue of a
spiral: faith, in any individual life, can be seen as a continuous,
upward, spiralling movement between the conceptual and nonconceptual dimensions of faith. This hypothesis will be tested
in the comparisons that are made in the following pages.
Explicit Dimensi-Ons of Faith
John of the Cross
For beginners in the spiritual life, faith is exercised in a discursive and "natural " mode. This does not rule out the nonconceptual dimension in propositional faith: we have seen that
for John of the Cross, we assent to the truths of faith by reason
of the lumen fidei, which is the a priori formal object of faith.
But it is "natural" in its mode in the sense that it comes
through hearing, is exercised by acts of the intellect, imagination and will, and is expressed in prayer which has a discursive
and imaginative structure. In this mode of faith the faculties
have an active role.
We can consider the content of faith, in St. John's theology,
by reference to his Christology, his attitude to biblical revelation, and his attitude to the propositions of faith of the teaching
Church. We find that John of the Cross is profoundly Christocentric: Jesus Christ is our model in the path to union; he is
the eternal mediator in our union with God; he is the spouse in
the mystical marriage. 21 With regard to St. John's attitude to
the scriptures, we find that scripture serves three functions for
21 See Ascent 1.13.3-4; 2.29!.6; "Prayer of a Soul Taken in Love" in Kavanaugh,
The Collected Works, pp. 668-669; the whole poem and commentary: The Spiritual
Cantide.

EXPERIENCE OF GOD AND EXPLICIT FAITH

5$

him: it is the source of prayer; it is the norm of interpretation
of contemplative experience; it provides the images and the
words for expressing the experience of prayer. 28 In considering
the propositional faith of the Church we find that the truths
of faith are intimately linked to contemplative experience. In
contemplation we encounter the very reality which is spoken
of in the propositions of faith. 29

Karl Rahner
Explicit faith, for Karl Rabner, is faith in a mode which is
conceptual, verbal, consciously professed, communal, Christological, and ecclesiastical. It is the fullness and the goal of implicit faith.
The heart of the explicit content of faith is expressed in the
formula: God has given himself to us in direct proximity. 30
This one mystery of God's self-communication has two mutually conditioning aspects, grace and Incarnation. God's
movement towards us in the outpouring of the Spirit and the
Incarnation of the Son J'leflectsthe inner life of the Trinity. God
has willed to communicate himself to us in two modes and both
are central and irreducible in Rahner's thought. The other
truths of faith are related to this" canon" of mysteries: Trinity, Grace, and Incarnation. 31
For Rabner, Jesus Christ is the absolute norm of transcendental experience. The grace that we experience is the grace of
Jesus Christ and he provides the only adequate interpretation
of this experience. We need the illumination of historical revelation to know even that it is God's grace that we experience
in our transcendence, and to be able to name properly the mystery that surrounds us.82
2s See Jean Vilnet, Bible et mystique chez saint Jean de la Croix (Bruges: Desclee de Brouwer, 1949).
29 Canticle 12.
so "Anonymous Christians " Theological Investigations 6, p. 894.
3 1 " The Concept of Mystery in Catholic Theology " in Theological, Investigations 4: 72-78.
32 Foundations of Christian Faith, p. 181.

54

DENIS EDWARDS

The truths of historical revelation articulated in the scriptures and in the defined dogmas of the Church have a normative function for individual faith life. Rahner sees the faith life
of an individual as one movement of the spirit towards God in
which the nonconceptual awareness of God in grace is illuminated and interpreted by the Word of historical revelation. 88

Comparison and reflections
Both John of the Cross and Karl Rahner have been accused,
at different times, of neglecting historical revelation and the
person of Jesus Christ. St. John of the Cross, because of his
emphasis on dark, contemplative prayer experience, has been
accused of neglecting the Incarnation and the humanity of
Jesus. Critics have accused Karl Rahner of being too interested
in the transcendental and the unthematic at the expense of the
historical and predicamental.
Insofar as these criticisms have any foundation in fact, they
are based on the little space or attention given to Jesus of Nazareth in certain works of both authors. It is often pointed out
that the Dark Night of John of the Cross has very little direct
reference to Jesus Christ in the pages of commentary on the
poem. It is a standard criticism of Rahner that he makes little
use of the New Testament in his theological discussion. These
comments are accurate enough.
But it cannot be claimed that in the structure of his thought
either author neglects the importance of the Incarnation or the
historical dimensions of religion. Commentators sometimes
seem to presume that a theological interest in the transcendental and the contemplative excludes an interest in the historical and the categorical. A genuine study of their works
shows that these assumptions, in the case of John of the Cross
and Karl Rahner, are quite wrong. The textual evidence in the
writings of the two authors shows that both the transcendental
and the historical are seen as irreducibly important dimensions
of faith.
ss " The Faith of the Christian and the Doctrine of the Chut()h ;', f!teological
'
·
InvestigatioM 14:89.

EXPERIENCE OF GOD AND EXPLICIT FAITH

55

Both authors agree on the importance of the explicit side of
faith. They differ in the way they articulate the content of
faith. For John of the Cross, this is incidental to his articulation of the way to union with God. He does not develop a general systematic theology. Rahner, by contrast, treats all the
major areas of theology, and orders them so that they can be
seen as the answer to the deepest transcendental experience of
the person. For Rahner, the truths of faith must be shown to
speak to the original unthematic experience of God that occurs
in each person's life.
The Nature of the Experience of God
John of the Cross

]!'or John of the Cross, contemplative faith is the only proximate and proportionate means to union with God. Knowledge
that comes through the senses, through imagination, or through
conceptual understanding are all excluded as proximate means
to union. At the heart of the journey in faith is the movement
from the way of sense to the way of spirit. In this movement,
which occurs in the passive night of sense, the soul is led from
meditation to contemplation. Experience of God begins, for
John of the Cross, in this contemplative moment of faith. Contemplation, he tells us, is " nothing else than a secret and
peaceful and loving inflow of God." 34
We find three kinds of contemplative experience in John of
the Cross. :First, there is the unrecognized experience in which
the soul really does encounter God but is not reflexly aware of
the gift that is being given, perhaps because of an unreadiness
for the ways of the Spirit or because of the purging effects of
the inflow of God. 35 Then there is the normal experience of
contemplation, the general loving knowledge of God, the experience of peaceful union with him. 36 Finally, there is the kind of
34 Night

1.10.6.
for example, Ascent 2.13.7; Night 1.9.4.
aa See Ascent 2.13.4.

05 See,

Dl!JN1S 1IDWARDS

experience of union with God which is highly affective and described as a touch of God or the flame of love. 87
The experience of God is always an experience of darkness
and obscurity. Sometimes the experience is that of the blackness of midnight, while at other times it is more like the gentle
and luminous darkness that precedes the dawn. But God is
always encountered in unknowing and never in intellectual
comprehension. The experience of God is characteristic as a
general and global kind of experience. It is never a knowledge
of particular and concrete things. It has an ineffable character
and is an experience which is so simple and subtle that the encounter takes place without the mediations of images or concepts, or the normal operations of the faculties. 38 It is always
a gift which is received passively by the soul.
Ka.rl Rahner

Our experience of God is constituted in Rahner's view by the
fact that (1) our knowledge and love of beings in the world has
as a priori formal object and horizon a transcendence towards
infinite being, and (2) this transcendence is supernaturally elevated by God's grace. 39 This experience of God is always related
to an experience of going out from self to beings in the world,
and is always related to the experience of return to self that
occurs in the process of knowledge of these beings. This means
that experience of God occurs in and with the experience of the
self and in and with the experience of the neighbor. These
relationships mutually condition one another.
The unity between experience of God and experience of self
can be seen by a reflection on the process of knowledge. Experience of self arises only in confrontation with beings in the
world, which are grasped in the light of a V orgrifj towards infinite being. Without this Vorgrifj there would be no basis for
37 Canticle

11.4.

ss Ascent Z.4-6, 13; Night 1.9-10; Canticl.e 39.12; Flame 3.
39 See Foundations of Christian Faith, p. 119.

EXPERIENCE OF GOD AND EXPLICIT FAITH

57

self-differentiation. But it is also true that without self-presence
there can be no experience of God in the Vorgriff. 40
In a similar way our experience of God is related to our experience of neighbor. The one basic act in which we reach
fully human self-consciousness is the act of going out of self,
not just to any object in the world, but to the personal Thou
of the neighbour. God is always encountered as transcendental
depth and horizon of our love of neighbor. The explicit religious act of love of God is always dependent on an original
experience of the Vorgriff towards God that occurs in our interhuman encounters. 41
But God can draw us more deeply into his love. The conceptual object, on which the Vorgriff is dependent, can become
transparent and almost disappear and transcendence itself becomes the centre of our awareness, without, however, necessarily becoming objectified in consciousness. Such non-conceptual but central awareness of God is Rahner's explanation
of St. Ignatius's "consolation without previous cause," where
the soul is drawn into loving union with God. 42
For Rahner, the experience of God is always experience of
darkness and mystery. God is always encountered in non-conceptual and unthematic experience, which can be described as
immediate. But Rahner speaks of" mediated immediacy" because non-conceptual awareness of God (1) is always conditional on union with the neighbor and experience of the self,
and (2) is mediated by the concepts, symbols, language, and
community in which the originally unthematic encounter finds
express10n.
Comparison and reflections

In this section we will first discuss the major difference in
the two views on experience of God: the fact that for Rahner
40 " Experience of Self and Experience of God " in Theological Investigations 13,
p. 125.
41 "Experience
of Self and Experience of God '', p. ms; " Reflections on the
Unity of the Love of Neighbour and the Love of God" in Theological lnvestigagations 6: 231-49.
42 "The Logic of Concrete Individual Knowledge in Ignatius Loyola", p. 145146.

58

DENIS EDWARDS

there is a universal experience of grace while John of the Cross
deals with the specific experience of contemplation. Then we
will ask about the compatibility between St. John's description
of contemplation and Rahner's transcendental analysis of experience of God. Finally, we shall discuss the relationship
between everyday experience of God and mystical experience.
Our first concern, then, is with the major difference between
the two views of experience of God. John of the Cross concentrates on the experience of contemplation which occurs in the
life of faith of those Christians who have committed themselves
to prayer and asceticism and who have passed beyond the
stage of beginners to that of proficients. It is true that he does
have a concept of the encounter with God in the beauty of
nature and particularly in human relationships, but this experience seems to depend upon an already existing contemplative
life. It can certainly be said that contemplation is the center
of his thought and is the only proximate and proportionate
means to union with God.
The experience of God for Rahner, however, is universally
available and is the condition of ordinary human cognition and
volition. It is true that there ar.e certain times when awareness
of God's presence is more conscious than others. These" peak"
times of transcendental experience are the ones which Rahner
attempts to describe and evoke in his mystagogies. 43 In these
cases transcendence towards God is still experienced as horizon
of an encounter with beings in the world. But there is a further
kind of experience of God that Rahner says is qualitatively different from the experience of God as horizon to knowing and
loving of beings in the world. We can be drawn towards the
God of grace in love without the mediation of conceptual objects. Our focal awareness, 44 then, is on God himself. But it is
still an unthematic experience.
The diflerence between the two views lies in the fact that
43 See, for example, " Reflections on the Experience of Grace " in Theological
Investigations 3: 86-90.
44 The term "focal awareness" is from M. Polanyi Personal, Knowledge (University of Chicago Press, 1958), p. 55.

EXPERIENCE OF GOD AND EXPLICIT FAITH

59

John of the Cross describes contemplation, while Rahner describes universal experience of grace which, in a particular,
higher stage, becomes a prayer experience comparable to St.
John's contemplation. There are two questions, then, about
compatibility of these views. First, is Rahner's view that God
is experienced in everyday life incompatible with anything in
John of the Cross? Secondly, is Rahner's description of the experience of the consolation without cause and his transcendental analysis of this compatible with St. John's concept of
contemplation?
With regard to the first question, there is nothing to suggest
that John of the Cross would reject Rahner's concept of universal experience of grace, as long as the special character of
contemplation is respected. St. John of the Cross himself was
able to find God in all things and, I think, would be open to the
idea that God's grace is always the horizon of our conscious
existence. Certainly his comments about the experience of transcendence in inter-personal relationships (the nose que) and his
comments about the traces of God that he found in nature tend
to support rather than deny Rahner's concept of a universal
experience of transcendence.
But what about Rahner's analysis of St. Ignatius's consolation without cause? This is, for Rahner, the highest case of the
experience of God. Is Rahner's approach to this experience
compatible with the treatment of contemplation by John of the
Cross? Rahner has argued that the highest and most selfauthenticating prayer experience, the consolation without cause
of Ignatius, is to be understood precisely as the experience of
God drawing the soul into love in a non-conceptual way. It is
explained, in tierms of transcendental analysis, as an awareness
of God in which the conceptual object of experience fades or
becomes transparent, so that the true focus is the God of grace.
But this focal awareness of God is still nonconceptual in character .45
It seems undeniable that what St. Ignatius describes as con4 5 " The

Logic of Concrete Individual Knowledge in Ignatius Loyola", p. 145.

60

DENIS EDWARDS

solation without cause corresponds to contemplation in the
language of St. John of the Cross. Both experiences are described by the authors as experiences of being totally drawn
into love by God, and both experiences are of a non-conceptual
union with God (this is clear in John of the Cross's description
of contemplation and it is argued convincingly by Rahner that,
for Ignatius, the consolation without cause refers to non-conceptual experience). Can Rahner's explanation of the consolation without cause be applied to St. John's contemplation? It
seems to me that it can. There is no reason why contemplation,
as described by John of the Cross, cannot be seen as the highest
case of a universally available experience of grace, differentiated
from this more general experience by the lack of conceptual object, and the consciousness of being drawn by God to a focal
awareness of him as the center of our loving attention.
But there is still a problem to be resolved. For John of the
Cross, contemplation is a new supernatural mode of the virtue
of faith. What constitutes contemplation for him is this supernatural mode and the fact that the normal human faculties are
stilled and the soul receives God's gifts passively. Rahner's
position is quite different. He insists:
Moreover, it cannot be assumed that mystical experience leaves the
sphere of faith and becomes an experience that is no longer faith.
J\1ysticism occurs, on the contrary, within the framework of normal
grace and within the experience of faith. To this extent, those who
insist that mystical experience is not specifically different from the
ordinary life of grace (as such) are certainly right. 46

John of the Cross and Rahner are in complete agreement that
the mystical experience always occurs within the sphere of
faith, but Rahner goes much further than John of the Cross
when he insists that "mystical experience is not specifically
different from the ordinary life of grace." This means he would
certainly reject the new supernatural mode of faith in mysticism which is taught by John of the Cross. Rahner agrees that,
46 "Mysticism"

in Encyclopedia of Theology, pp. 1010-1011.

EXPERIENCE OF GOD AND :mxPLICIT FAITH

61

theologically speaking, there is no intermediary stage between
Christian grace and the beatific vision.47
Rahner has insisted that mystical experiences are different
psychologically from everyday conscious human life only in the
area of nature, and therefore they can be learned. The precise
difference between a non-mystical and a mystical experience is
in the fact that God is experienced in "focal awareness" in a
mystical or contemplative experience. Rahner has often insisted that the everyday experience of God's grace is not mysticism in the strict sense.48 Psychologically, in Rahner's view,
mysticism begins with focal awareness of God, and this focal
awareness is natural and able to be learned.
Rahner's understanding of "focal awareness" as a learned
ability is in absolute agreement with that dimension of St.
John's thought which we have called the prayer of loving attention, the human stance before God that opens the soul to contemplative union. 49 This attitude of loving attention (later
called by other writers" active" or" acquired" contemplation)
can be learned. Both Rahner's "focal awareness" and St.
John's "loving attention" ar.e not yet infused contemplation,
but the necessary human, learned, pre-condition for the inflow
of God.
While both agree about this pre-condition, John of the Cross
explains the actual human experience of the inflow of God in
terms of a new supernatural mode of faith. For Rahner, the
experience of God's inflow occurs through the same human faculty of nonconceptual "focal awareness." For John of the
Cross, then, the psychological human awareness of God is due
to two steps, the natural " loving attention " which opens the
soul to God's action, and the new supernatural mode of faith
which bypasses normal cognitive processes. For Karl Rahner,
there is only one attitude necessary, nonconceptual " focal
47 See Rahner " Mystische Erfahrung und mystische Theologie " in Schriften
rn:482.
48 See The Priesthood (New York: Seabury Press, 1970), p. 9; "The Experience
of God Today" in Theological Investigations 11, p. 154.
49 Ascent 2.15.5; Night 1.10.4; Flame 3.33.

62

DENIS EDWARDS

awareness", which bypasses conceptual cognitive processes, but
it is still a normal human awareness. Rahner's transcendental
theory allows him to deal with the human experience of God
through a normal psychological process (transcendental awareness) which is yet totally other than discursive and conceptual
cognition.
So the greater personal depth of the mystical experience beyond the experience of grace in everyday life and the greater
purity of the transcendental experiences are to be considered,
in Rahner's theory, as natural human abilities. The specific
difference between the extraordinary mystical experience and
the ordinary experience of God's grace lies in the domain of the
natural and the psychological. 50 The psychological specificity
of the mystical lies, as we have already seen, in the fact that
there is a pure experience of transoendence in a focal awareness
when the mediation of categories ceases, or becomes transparent.
While this is being said, it must not be forgotten that the
whole mystical experience for Rahner is an experience of God's
grace. It is not a purely natural experience. It is simply that
in Rahner's view God's self-communication is already experienced in the grace of everyday life, and the further stage in this
experience that is called mystical is distinguished from the general experience not theologically, but in terms of human, psychological openness to the experience. And Rahner would not
deny, but rather insist, that if we move into truly mystical
experience it is because of God's enabling grace and invitation.
He certainly agrees with St. Ignatius that we become completely open and receptive to God only when he himself draws us
into his love.51
Rahner is not suggesting that infused contemplation can be
achieved by psychological effort. The human psychological
mechanism does not control the action of God. Infused con50" Mysticism" in Encyclopedia of Theology, p. 1011; Mystische Erfahrung und
mystische Theologie: in Schriften 12: 434-36.
51 See "The Logic of Concrete Individual Knowledge in Ignatius Loyola", p.
135.

EXPERIENCE OF GOD AND EXPLICIT FAITH

63

templation, Rahner tells us, is prayer "in which God gratuitously makes himself known to an individual. 52 So when Rahner is insisting that the difference between experience of God
in everyday life and mystical experience is natural, he is talking
about the structure of contemplative experience in human consciousness. He in no way wishes to compromise the gratuity
of God's self-communication. The degree of union to which God
calls an individual cannot be predetermined or limited. " Mystical contemplation," Rahner tells us, " is always experienced
as a gift." 53 But grace respects nature, and the possibility of
focal awareness of transcendence is, in Rahner's view, a natural
structure.
At this point we have a real difference between the two authors. For Karl Rahner, the distinguishing difference between
the ordinary life of grace and mystical contemplation is not
theological (a new supernatural mode of faith as John of the
Cross suggests) but a natural openness to unthematic experience.
Can the two positions be reconciled? It has already been seen
how Rahner has argued that Ignatius's "consolation without
cause " can be adequately translated into modern theology as
non-conceptual focal awareness of transcendence. In a similar
way, it seems to me, St. John's "supernatural mode" and his
emphasis on the passivity of the human person in the mystical
experience can be interpreted as referring to non-conoeptual experience of God.
Such an argument depends upon a hermeneutical approach
to John of the Cross which inquires about his intention in
speaking of a supernatural mode of faith in contemplation. He
speaks of contemplative wisdom as " so simple, general, and
spiritual that in entering the intellect it is not clothed in any
sensory species or image". He continues: " The imaginative
faculty cannot form an idea or picture orit in order to speak
of it; this wisdom did not enter through these faculties nor did
52" Contemplation"
in Theological Dictionary, ed. Karl Ralmer and Herbert
Vorgrimler (New York: Herder and Herder, 1965), p. 99.
53 "Mysticism",
in Theological Dictionary, p. 802.

64

DENIS EDWARDS

they behold any of its apparel or color." 54 There is no doubt
that in such descriptions as this John of the Cross is pointing
precisely to the unthematic and the non-conceptual. Now if
John of the Cross wanted to speak of an experience which is
not tied to concepts or images, he would have no alternative
but to suggest that the experience is radically other than normal
discursive understanding and reflection. But the opposite of
normal human understanding, in his epistemology, could only
be a supernatural action of God on the passive intellect. This
was the only possibility available to John of the Cross. But
Rahner's epistemology allows for a kind of experience which is
totally other than normal cognition and its limitation to concepts and images, and yet is still a natural and normal human
experience. Rahner can appeal to an experience of transcendence which escapes the limits of conceptual cognition yet does
not demand a new intervention of God.
It seems to me, then, that Rahner's concept of non-conceptual transcendental experience does meet the real intention of
John of the Cross, in his concern to stress that this experience
of God is radically other than cognitive, discursive, or imaginative reflection about God. John of the Cross used the word
"supernatural" somewhat freely and did not always mean
exactly what we mean when it is used in modern theology. 55 It
seems helpful to drop the distinction between natural and supernatural modes of faith. The natural mode for John of the
Cross was faith which worked through discursive reflection and
imagination. The opposite of this is best described as a nonconceptual mode of faith. Both modes are human and natural
in that they reflect two kinds of human awareness, the conceptual and the nonconceptual, and both are supernaturally
elevated by God's grace.
Both authors would agree that genuine mystical experience
54 Night

2.17.3.
Sanson, "L'Esprit humain selon saint Jean de la Croix" (Madrid:
Publication de la Faculte des Lettres d'Alger, 1953), p. 105; Jean Orcibal, St. Jean
de la Croix et les mystiques rhenofiammands (Paris: Desclee de Brouwer, 1966),
p. 185; Georges Morel, Le Sens de l'existence selon saint Jean de la Croix (Paris:
Aubier, 1960-61) 2: 52-52.
55 See Henri

EXPERIENCE OF GOD AND EXPLICIT FAITH

65

is itself a grace and a very special one. But mystical experience
is best distinguished from propositional faith by reason of the
distinction, within the one supernatural faith, between conceptual and non-conceptual elements. Mystical experience is
further distinguished from the everyday experience of God's
grace by the fact that it is a focal awareness of transcendence
and therefore a pure openness to God.
Our argument is that the two views of experience of God are
quite complementary. What Rabner adds to the classical concept of contemplation, as articulated by John of the Cross, is
a broad context of the experience of God's grace in everyday
life. Contemplation is then seen as the highest case of the experience of grace. We have agreed with Rahner's analysis of the
distinction between propositional faith and the experience of
God and with his analysis of the precise difference between
everyday experience of grace and the moment of infused contemplation. These are Rahner's major contributions to mystical
theology.
John of the Cross brings to the dialogue the classical exposition of the whole path to union with God. His understanding
of the role of faith in mysticism, the genius of his exposition of
the Dark Night, his understanding of contemplation in its different stages and phases right up to the mystical marriage, and
the many other contributions of his mystical theology are urgently needed today for a proper understanding of the development of the life of faith. Rahner's concept of the experience of
God needs the illumination that John of the Cross offers. The
synthesis of the insights of the two thinkers can do much to
contribute to a revitalized theology of faith.
Such a synthesis is possible because, in spite of apparent difficulties, the two theologies can be reconciled and found compatible without doing violence to the insights of either thinker.
Location of the Experience of God
John of the Cross
St. John believes that contemplative experience of God may
be first experienced in either the intellect or the will, although

66

DENIS EDWARDS

it is more common that it is first perceived in the will as a
movement of love.56 The will has a certain priority for John of
the Cross as a location for the experience of God. It puts fewer
obstacles to the inflow of God than does the intellect. And the
goal and the bond of union is love. But John of the Cross constantly unites love and knowledge together when speaking of
contemplation, speaking often of knowledge through love, or
of loving knowledge. 57
With regard to the location of the experience in life, we find
that for John of the Cross the emphasis is on the time of contemplative prayer. But this does overflow into life and the
whole of the created universe can lead the dispossessed soul to
God. We find that human relationships not only can lead the
soul to God, 58 but that there is a transcendental depth in interpersonal encounters so that the mystery of God can be experienced in the other person. 59
Karl R<ihner

For Rahner, it is possible to begin a transcendental analysis
either from knowledge or love. But, in fact, Rahner does not
believe in a strict faculty psychology. The basic movement of
the human spirit always exists as a union of knowledge and love,
so that neither can be understood except as directed towards
the othrer, and as conditioned by the other. But there is acertain priority of love. Knowledge is ordered to incomprehensible
mystery which it can attain only by transforming itself in selfsurrender and becoming love. 60
In the life of an individual we have seen that Rahner believes
in a universal experience of transcendence as the necessary a
priori horizon for all human knowing and loving. God is encountered in the movement out from self to others in the world
56 Night

2.13.1-5.
2.12.4; Canticle 27.5.
s8 Night 1.4.7.
59 St. John describes an ineffable " I-don't-know-what " that can occur in interpersonal encounters. See Canticle 7.9.
so" The Concept of Mystery in Catholic Theology", p. 43.
57 Night

EXPERIENCE OF GOD AND EXPLICIT FAITH

67

(love of neighbor) and in the return to self that is necessary
in knowledge (experience of self) . But this experience of God
as a priori horizon can lead to an experience of loving union
with God in which he becomes the center of our awareness, but
still in an nonconceptual way. So God is encountered in the
neighbor, in the experience of self, and in the movement of
prayer.
Comparison and reflections
There is an interesting parallel between Rahner and John of
the Cross in their views on the location of the experience of
God in the faculties. The major difference, of course, is that
John of the Cross inherits and uses the scholastic faculty psychology while Rahner does not use it to the same extent. But
in many ways John of the Cross too transcends faculty psychology. Both authors believe that the experience can have its
origin mainly in either the intellect or the will. Both authors
believe that union with God involves the activity of the whole
spirit, and that intellect and will are involved in a mutually
conditioning way as loving knowledge. Both authors believe
that the last word is with love.
With regard to the location of the experience in life, it is clear
that Rahner and St. John are quite different in their emphases.
John of the Cross is essentially interested in contemplation as
an experienoe that occurs in prayer ..Rahner's major emphasis
is on the experience of grace that occurs in everyday life. But
John of the Cross does believe that we can be led to God
through nature and that there is a transcendental depth to human relationships where they open up to the mystery of God.
In this he is quite easily reconciled with the more developed
conoept of experience of God in everyday life which we find in
Rahner. On the other hand, Rahner does have a mystical theology, as is best seen in his treatment of S-t. Ignatius's consolation without cause. His transcendental reflections on mystical
experience are consistent with the much more developed mystical theology of John of the Cross. And Rahner's transcend-

68

DENIS EDWARDS

ental. reflections illuminate our understanding 0£ contemplative
experience by situating it as the highest stage in a range 0£ unthematic transcendental experiences that occur in the life 0£ an
individual. The views 0£ the two authors on the location 0£ the
experience in life are complementary and mutually illuminating.
A total view 0£ the development 0£ faith will include the experience 0£ God's grace in everyday life (Rahner's emphasis),
and the high point 0£ contemplative union in prayer (St. John's
emphasis).
Defining Characteristics of the Experience of God
John of the Cross
A study 0£ the works 0£ John 0£ the Cross suggests that the
defining characteristics 0£ the experience 0£ God are the following: a sense 0£ the radical transcendence 0£ God and our total
dependence on him as creatures; 61 its general and indistinct
character; 62 its non-conceptual and global character; 63 its obscurity and darkness; 64 its immediacy; 65 its subtlety and delicacy; 66 its ineffability; 61 the union 0£ love and knowledge in
"loving knowledge:"; 68 its personal character; 69 its passive
character; 10 its effects: peace, calm, quiet, etc.; 71 its inferiority
to the vision 0£ the divine essence in glory. 12
a 1 Ascent 2.8.
6 2 See Ascent

!U4.2; Canticle 916.8, 17; Flame 3, 48··49.
Ascent 91.8-9; 91.15.8-5; Night 91.17.3.
6i Night 1.9-10; Canticle 14-15.9191-913.
65 See Night 2.23.12; Canticle 19.4;35.6. St. John insists on immediacy, in the
sense that no image or concept or creature mediates the encounter with God. But
his position is not that of absolute immediacy. He does not claim that we have a
direct knowledge of God as he is in himself, but that we are united immediately
with him in 'loving knowledge', which is still darkness to the intellect. For him,
too the experience is mediated by a faith tradition and must find ·expression in
image, concept and word.
66 Ascent 2.13.7; Night 1.9.4-6.
67 See the Prologue to the Canticle; Night 2.13.1.
68 Ascent 2.14.12; Night 2.l'il.4.
69 See Canticle 85 and 36.
10 Night 1.9.7; Flame 3.34.
71 Ascent 2.24.6; Flame 8.35.
12 Canticle 14-15.5, 16.
61

EXPERIENCE OF QOD AND EXPLICIT FAITH

69

Karl Rahner

In Rahner's writings the following are the defining characteristics of the experience of God: the transcendence of God and
our creaturely dependenoe on him; 78 the fact that God is not
experienced as object amongst other objects but as ground and
horizon of other experiences; 74 the non-conceptual and unthematic character of the experience; 75 the abiding character of
mystery; 76 the "mediated immediacy " of the experience; 77
the subtlety of the experience, so that it is often experienced
"anonymously"; 78 its indefinable and ineffable character; 79 its
unity as an act which includes knowledge and love together; 80
the fact it is always accompanied by a sense of self-presence; 81
its character as an experience of pure openness and receptivity; 82 its effects: peace, joy, tranquility, quiet, gladness, interior
joy, warmth, and favor; 88 its two forms: as horizon to everyday knowledge and love of beings in the world on the one hand,
and as focal awareness of transcendence itself and the experience
of being fully drawn into the love of God on the other; 84 its
ambiguous nature, and the fact that it still needs historical
revelation; 85 its inferiority to glory, to which it is ordered as
preparation to fulfillment. 86

Compm·ison and reflections
These two summaries make it clear that John of the Cross
73 "Experience

of Sell and Experience of God'', p. 125; Foundations of Chris-

tian Faith, pp. 75-81.
74 See Foundations of Christian Faith, p. 54.
75 See Foundations, p. 21 and following.
7G "The

Concept of Mystery in Catholic Theology", especially p. 55.

Foundations, pp. 83-84.
78 Ibid., p. 54.
10 Ibid., p. 61.
77 See

80" The

Concept of Mystery in Catholic Theology", p. 48.
of God and Experience of Self'', p. l'.i!5.
82" The Logic of Concrete Individual Knowledge in Ignatius Loyola'', p. 149.
83 Ibid., pp. 162-163.
84 Ibid .. pp. 145-146.
85 Foundations, pp. 129-133.
se Foundations, p. 120.
81" Experience

70

DENIS EDWARDS

and Karl Rabner are in remarkable agreement in what they see
as the defining characteristics of the experience of God. The
only real difference occurs when Rahner distinguishes between
the universal experience of grace and the mystical experience.
We have seen, as well, Rahner's insistence that everyday experience of grace has an ambiguous character and needs historical revelation for its proper interpretation.
If we combine the insights of the authors, then, we can say
that the defining characteristics of experience of God (including both the everyday experience of grace and mystical experience) are that it be an experience which is (1) of radical transcendence, (2) general and indistinct, (3) non-conceptual and
unthematic, (4) obscure, dark, and mysterious, (5) immediate
in a qualified sense, (6) subtle, delicate, and not always noticed,
(7) indefinable and ineffable, (8) of loving knowledge, (9) interpersonal, (10) passive and receptive, (11) with effects:
peace, joy, tranquility, etc., (12) preparation for glory but inferior to it.
These characteristics define experience of God as such. This
includes the everyday life experience of God's grace, and it includes the mystical experience. What further characteristic
defines the mystical experience over against the everyday experience of grace? Rahner has provided the answer to this question. The soul finds itself wholly drawn to the love of God and
God becomes experienced no longer as boundary or horizon but
in a " focal awareness " which remains unthematic. It is the
experience of being drawn into this loving and unthematic
awareness as focus of the whole person's spiritual activity that
constitutes contemplation and the mystical.

The Nature of the Dynamism in Faith
John of the Cross
For John of the Cross, there are two dynamisms in the growth
of faith; the primary dynamism which is from the discursive to
the contemplative and the second dynamism which is from the
contemplative to the discursive.

EXPERIBNCE OF GOD AND EXPLICIT FAITH

71

The most important movement in faith is that by which we
enter the life of contemplation through the passive night of
sense. It is the movement from the way of sense which involves
a conceptual mode of faith and a meditative approach to prayer, to the way of spirit, which is a non-conceptual contemplative mode of faith. This movement is worked in us by the Holy
Spirit. The soul, when called to this prayer, should take a receptive, quiet attitude: the prayer of loving attention. 87 It is
St. John's belief that this movement is a normal part of the
development of Christian faith. 88
There is another movement in St. John's thought by which
this unthematic experience is brought to reflective awareness
and to expression. The experience itself is thematized in terms
of biblical images, and the theological language of the tradition. It is expressed in dialogue with a spiritual director. 89
There is a return to the market-place, at least in the sense that
the whole world of the everyday is integrated in prayer. 90

Karl Rahner
In Rahner's theology there is a major dynamism in faith: the
movement from the nonconceptual to the conceptual. But there
is also explicit treatment of the movement from conceptual
faith to nonconceptual union with God. There is also the suggestion of a necessary return to the marketplace from this nonconceptual union.
Most of Rahner's work in the theology of faith hinges on the
nonconceptual awareness of God that arises as necessary a
priori condition and horizon of our knowledge and love of beings in the world, and the movement from this nonconceptual
awareness towards its interpretation and illumination in full,
explicit faith in Jesus Christ. This movement from the experience of grace to confession of faith in Jesus Christ (and the
81 Flame 8.83.
88 Night 1.8.4. It is normal, at least, £or those serious about personal relationship
with God.
89 Ascent 2.22.16.
110 Canticle 14-15.5.

72

DENIS EDWARDS

articles of faith contained in the scriptures and the teachings
of the Church) is part of the normal faith life of an individual
Christian.
But there is a movement back in the other direction. The
concrete object of our knowledge and love can become transparent and open, so that transcendence is not simply the horizon of our encounter, but is itself the center and the focus of
our awareness. The thematic awareness, e.g., of meditation, can
become the unthematic union of contemplation.
Finally, the nonconceptual union with God, in Rahner's view,
always precedes a return to the marketplace, with a transformed
consciousness.
Comparison and reflections

John of the Cross emphasizes the movement from conceptual
faith to contemplative prayer, while also speaking of the movement whereby contemplative union finds expression in reflex
consciousness and in word. Rahner begins a step before John
of the Cross and argues that there is a movement from nonconceptual awareness of God, available to all men and women,
towards explicit faith. Rahner will also speak of the movement
from this explicit faith to nonconceptual prayer. He also indicates the importance of the necessary move back into the
marketplace.
We have already suggested that Rahner and John of the
Cross are in broad agreement on their understanding of the explicit and conceptual dimensions of faith. We have also argued
that Rahner's transcendental approach to mystical prayer is
compatible with the teaching of John of the Cross on contemplation.
If we were to combine the insights of both authors, we might
say, then, that explicit propositional- faith is preceded by the
transcendental experience of God (as Rahner suggests) and
followed by contemplative experience (as John of the Cross
and Rahner suggest), at least in a normal, healthy development
of the life of faith. As we say (when we compare the two au-

EXPERIENCE OF GOD AND EXPLICIT FAITH

73

thors on their general concept of faith), this suggests a cycle in
the life of faith which is made up of three phases: the noncon..,
ceptual experience of grace which occurs in everyday life, the
explicit faith in Jesus Christ, and the moment of contemplation. Each of these moments occurs often in a normal Christian life. There is a dynamism in the original experience of God
towards explicit faith. There is a further dynamism whereby
the imaginative and conceptual in explicit faith is transcended
in prayer and gives way to a new unthematic encounter with
God in contemplation.
At this stage, then, we are in full agreement with Jan Walgrave that " faith begins and ends in experience ". He comments:
Such, then, is the whole way of Christian experience: entering the
stream of experience as a particular experience, namely the instinct
of the inviting God, worked in us by God alone, by his operating
grace. Faith accepting dogma as definitive truth about God goes
forward in the process of Christian life beyond all propositions towards a simple loving contemplation of God in Himself. 91

The broad structure of faith, then, can be described in terms
of the dynamism from transcendental experience to explicit
faith and the dynamism from explicit faith to contemplation.
But this is not yet the full picture. It must be remembered too
that both Rahner and John of the Cross believe that contemplative experience necessarily receives thematic expression,
even though not all that is experienced is able to he adequately
thematized. Finally, the Christian, like the Buddhist monk,
must return to the marketplace with his or her transformed
consciousness. 92
If we take all these factors into account, then we can say that
the dynamic in faith involves the movement among these six
steps: (1) the movement out from self to other beings in the
world, which finds its highpoint in our knowledge and love of
Walgrave, "Experience and Faith" Louvain Studies, Spring 1978, p. 14.
this phrase see William Johnston: Silent Musfo: the Science of Meditation
(New York: Harper and Row, 1974), pp. 80-91.
91 Jan

9 2 For

DENIS EDWARDS

other persons; (2) the transcendental experience of God as a
priori horizon of this knowledge and love; (3) the act of explicit
faith in Jesus Christ, his teaching and the teaching of his
Church; (4) the transcendence of the conceptual and the imaginative in contemplative union with God; (5) the thematic reflection on contemplative experience in the light of the symbols
of the tradition and the expression of this in word; (6) the return to the marketplace with transformed consciousness.
This outline is not meant to suggest that in the development
of faith in a particular Christian these six steps necessarily
occur in exactly this order. But the outline is suggested as an
appropriate and normal sequence. It is designed to show how
experience of God and explicit faith occur in essential interaction in the life of faith. It is designed to show how experience
of God and explicit faith occur in essential interaction in the
life of faith. It is meant to show, too, how this faith life is
rooted in the historical and the evieryday and finds its beginning there and must return there.
DENIS EDWARDS

Centre for Continuing Religious Education
Ascot Park, South Australia

A FEW REFLECTIONS ON
"THE THIRD WAY: ENCORE"

A

ITS TITLE INDICATES, Professor Theodore Kondoleon's recent article, "The Third Way: Encore," ventures still another look at a proof for God that has
worried minds for nearly sixty years. 1 In leveling strictures on
opinions that, on his showing, inadequately justify the passage
from each possible to all possibles, he does this writer the honor
of evaluating a solution published in this journal a few years
back. 2 In spite of the acuity and learning Professor Kondoleon
brings to his task, I must reluctantly disagree with some main
claims of his probing and stimulating essay. First, his dismissal
of the prima facie illogicality of the first part stems from a failure to appreciate Aquinas's contrary-to-fact strategy. Second,
he misreads one part of my case and inaccurately brands another part scientifically obsolete. Third, inflation of primary
matter into something necessary mars his rethinking of the first
part. Fourth, his reconstruction of the second part turns the
third way into an exceptionable piece of reasoning. 3
1. Kondoleon's attempt to spare Aquinas from an indictment
of false generalization is nullified by disregard of the counterfactual texture of the argumentation. Again, his reworking of
the argument is undercut by an analogy aimed at buttressing it.
(i) Some who put down the passage from each possible to all
possibles as fallacious, Kondoleon tells us, maintain that the
illicit inference B (I) to B (3) has hidden within it another
1 Theodore

Kondoleon, "The Third Way: Encore," The Thomist, 44 (1980), pp.

325-856; henceforth cited as K.
2 John

M. Quinn, 0.S.A. "The Third Way to God: A New Approach," The

Thomist, 42 (1978), pp. 50-68; henceforth cited as Q.
3 Because this short reply cannot do justice to all the nuances concerned, may I
ask the discerning reader to weigh textual and other evidences in my earlier article
against Kondoleon's reshaping of the third way so as to assay the competing claims?

75

76

JOHN M. QUINN, O.S.A.

premise, B (2): "B. (1) Each thing possible not to be at some
Therefore, all things possible not to be at some
time is not.
time are not (missing premise). (3) Consequently, if all things
are possible not to be, at some time in the past nothing existed" (K, p. 329). But, says Kondoleon, Aquinas would not
condone the insertion of B (2) " because he was philosophically
prepared to allow that beings possible not to be could, as a
class, continue in existence indefinitely provided that not all
beings are possible not to be" (K, p. 329; his italics) . However, this observation seems wide 0£ the mark. Here Aquinas
is relying on contrary-to-fact argument, i.e., ascertaining the
existence of some necessary being by showing the absurdity entailed by a world made up of possibles alone. 4 Since the text
does not so much as allude to physical factors bridging the gap
between cessation of one possible and that of all possibles and
since logical critics of our day are hardly versed in equivocal
causality, it is understandable why this bare inference, otherwise unvindicated, invites the charge 0£ faulty generalization.
His like criticism of a refinement of B (2) encounters a like
pitfall. To be in accord with B (3) , Kondoleon further remarks,
exponents of B should make B (2) read B (2') : "All things possible not to be at some time in the past are not" (K, p. 330,
his italics). But, he goes on, it is "abundantly clear" that the
interpolation of the italicized words is without ground, for " St.
Thomas admits the existence, even now, of beings possible to
be" (K, p. 330; his italics) . Yet what is crucial is not that
Aquinas never denied the present existence of possibles but
that his certifying of such actual possibles serves to expose the
falsity of the view that only possibles exist in the universe. In
other words, Aquinas puts his reference to the total cessation
4 The text in Sum. theol., 1,
3 goes: "It is impossible ... that all beings be
such [i.e., physical possibles]: because what is a possible able not to exist, at some
time does not exist. Hence if all beings are possibles able not to exist, there was
at a certain time nothing at all in existence. But if this is true, there would even
now be nothing in existence: this consequent is plainly false. Therefore not all
beings are possibles: but there must be something necessary in things." For a restatement clarifying the counterfactual pattern see Q, pp. 54-55.

REFLECTIONS

ON "THE TRIRD WAY: ENCORE"

77

of possibles in the past in a contrary-to-fact framework. Because he was employing counterfactual conditionals to demonstrate indirectly the existence of some necessary being, he
not only did but had to speak of the disappearance of all possibles in the past. Indeed Aquinas's counterfactual conditional,
labeled B (3), has as its in-other-words consequent the very
phras e that, Kondoleon holds, Aquinas could not have resorted
to. Explicitated in this sense, (B (3) reads: "Therefore, if all
things are possible not to be, all things possible not to be ceased
to exist at some time in the past, i.e., at some time [in the past]
nothing existed." The italicized words are the cognitive twin
of the consequent employed by Aquinas, " at some time [in the
past] nothing existed."
(ii) According to Kondoleon, the following reasoning is disburdened of misconceptions in B: "C. (1) If each thing possible not to be at some time is not and if all things are possible
not to be, then at some time in the past nothing existed. (2)
Each thing possible not to be at some time is not. (3) Therefore, if all things are possible not to be, at some time in the past
nothing existed" (K, pp. 330-31; his italics) . However, this
recourse to exportation still leaves the apparently invalid move
from each to all unrectified. 5 The very example Kondoleon adduces to reinforce his logical recasting backfires-it lights up
rather its illiceity. Suppose, he says, we argue: since at some
time each woman ceases to exist, all women (as a class) at some
time go out of existence. Clearly fallacious, he notes, but we
can sidestep the fallacy by introducing an assumed premise,
"All human males (as a class) at some time cease to exist." The
inclusion of this premise issues in a satisfactory argument:
"E. (1) If all human males at some time cease to exist and each
woman at some time ceases to exist, there would be a time
when, by then, all women would have_ ceased to exist. (2)
There is a time when all human males cease to exist. (3)
1

5 Exportation or any other ordinary technique of symbolic logic cannot effectively
handle contrary-to-fact conditionals. Errol E. Harris, Hypothesis and Perception
(London: Allen and Unwin, 1970), p. 63; Bangs L. Tapscott, Elementary Applied
Symbolic Logic (Englewood Cliffs: Prentice-Hall, 1976), pp. 46-47.

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JOHN M. QUINN, O.S.A.

Therefore, if each woman ceases to exist, there is a time when,
by then, all women would have ceased to exist" (K, p. 331; his
italics). Without the assumption of the disappearance of all
males it would be logically sinful to leap from the cessation of
each woman to the extinction of all women. When, however,
wie provisionally supply an additional physical factor, the appearance of fallacy fades: the vanishing of all males ratifies the
(at first suspicious-looking) link between the cessation of each
woman and all women. But unhappily, it is right at this juncture that the projected parallel between arguments C and E
becomes a disparallel. Kondoleon's restatement provides no
physical explanatory factor to dissipate the seeming invalidity
of the movie from the cessation of each possible to that of all
possibles. If E succeeds by explicitly inserting a physical explanatory factor to account for a passage from each to all
women, C has to fail because of the lack of an equivalent factor. Contrary to Kondoleon's avowal, E throws in high relief
not the validity but the invalidity of C. Instead of confirming
the logical purity of C, E illustrates what we pointed up two
paragraphs back: taken as it stands, i.e., without specification
of some intermediate physical factor, Aquinas's terse transition
from the nonexistence of each possible to that of all possibles
apparently wears the face of fallacy. 6
Kondoleon misconstrues my position on equivocal causation, appeals to supernatural phenomena to annul natural possibility, and objects that a collapse into nothingness through
suppression of a mediate cause, though hypothesized by
Aquinas himself, is metaphysically impossible.
(i) According to C. G. Prado, the apparently erroneous step
from each to all is overcome by Aquinas's suppositional extrusion of the Unmoved Mover functioning as a final cause. In
the absence of such an external cause a kind of Aristotelian
entropy occurs: all motion stops, and its stopping amounts to
6 According to Thomas Mautner, "Aquinas's Third Way," American Philosophical Quarterly, 6 (1969, p. 301), Aquinas's faulty-seeming generalization resembles the
dubious inference: " All men are mortal; therefore the human race will become
extinct."

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79

the annihilation of the cosmos.7 Unfortunately, Kondoleon
reads some of my approach into Prado and some of Prado's
into mine. In Kondoleon's eyes Prado holds that "the existence of necessary beings (the heaviens, their unmoved 'movers ') is absolutely required to explain the continuing cycle of
generation and corruption" (K, p. 384). But Prado speaks not
of the heavens or necessary cosmic agents but only of one extracosmic cause, the Unmoved Mover. (Nor does he mention unmoved movers-a plurality of these is as impossible for Aquinas
'as a series of first causes or a multitude of actually infinite beings.) Far from being "very similar" (K, p. 336) to my view,
Prado's vaguely expressed guesswork lacks even a tenuous textual basis, oddly urges that the first cause in the third way is a
final cause, and gleans from the third way a possible corollary
of the second law of thermodynamics. But such an outcome of
entropy is impossible on Aristotelian lines: a static universe
containing mobile beings is unthinkable, for mobile beings, if
they are truly mobile, have to be moved (nowhere, significantly,
does Prado strictly prove that all process will come to a halt).
Indeed no realistic philosopher of science, to my knowledge,
claims that a hypothecated total stoppage of the exchange of
usable energy would be tantamount to annihilation of the universe.
Kondoleon also reads some of Prado into my analysis when
he comments, " Quinn (like Prado) has apparently confused
an inert and biologically lifeless worl<l with a non-existing one
or, at any rate, has erroneously inferred that with no generation
of new individuals all species of material things would eventually cease to exist" (K, p. 338; his italics). In the first part
of this proposition Kondoleon saddles me with Prado's textually and empirically unfounded contention that an inert but actually existing cosmos is equivalent to nothing. The second
half of this proposition deems mistaken my view (backed by
textual evidence that Kondoleon never meets head on) that
7 C. G. Prado, "The Third Way Revisited," The Ne0 Scholasticism, 54 (1971),
pp. 500-01.

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JOHN M. QUINN, O.S.A.

the hypothetical withdrawal of the universal physical cause
carries with it the extinction of all species. However, he does
go on to concede that removal of a universal physical cause
would result in the total disappearance of " beings that would
be actually subject to corruption" (K, p. 331; his italics) . As
shall be shown below, Kondoleon calls upon a supernatural
setting to establish (of course mistakenly) the natural incorruptibility of the elements. Thus since the elements are, contrary to Kondoleon, corruptible, the cessation of generation, as
Aquinas holds, implies the vanishing of all beings of nature.
But more of this presently. Let us now turn to the second
major argument I offered for the annihilation of all natural beings: eliminate the primary physical cause, and all natural species totally disappear almost immediately (Q, pp. 62-63).
Against this Kondoleon contends that Aquinas's case for equivocal causation is tied too closely to a now discarded medieval
physical theory. Surely the scientific revolution exploded the
concept of quintessential matter guaranteeing that celestial
bodies be incorruptible. Yet as decisive texts (never referred to
by Kondoleon) prove, our natural knowledge has to differentiate a cause of becoming (a univocal cause) from a cause of
being (an equivocal cause)-a general-level distinction not subvertible by specialized scientific progress. A cause of becoming
is responsible only for this horse. The stallion cannot be the
cause of the very nature of its offspring; otherwise it would be
the cause of its own form or nature, i.e., the cause of itseliwhich is plainly impossible. Substantial change, while taking
place without medieval celestial bodies, still requires an equivocal cause to produce the nature of the new entity. Since it
goes beyond the production of this entity, it is a universal cause
of species, indeed of all species. In line with the proportionality
of causes the universal cause immediately actuating natural
species must be a natural agent, not an extranatural agent such
as an angel or God. 8 If, out of a misdirected reverence for mods Sum. theol., l, 104, 1. De subst. sep., 10, n, 105. For a bit more detailed attention to general natural knowledge vis-a-vis specialized science see Q, pp. 66-67. May

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81

ern science, we drop the equivocal cause (which pertains not to
specialized science but to philosophy of nature), we utterly
abandon as beyond explanation by natural causation the transmission and persistence of species at the heart of substantial
change.
In the Aristotelian view elements also, it should be noted,
undergo substantial change. Each of the elements is subject to
transmutation (proximate or remote) into one of the other
three species of simple bodies and, Aquinas explicitly says, can
be generated from one of the other simples, because each is potentially in any one of the others. Hence, contrary to Kondoleon's theologistic stance (more of this below), a hypothetical
withdrawal of the proper equivocal cause entails the disappearance not only of mixed bodies but of elements as well.9
However, the unavailability of such a cause to direct empirical verification, Kondoleon holds, renders it unAristotelian,
and appeal to such an inaccessiblre agent smacks of the ad ignorantiam fallacy (K, pp. 339-40). Regrettably, Kondoleon fails to
notice that not uncommonly in philosophy of nature and its
allied branches we can demonstrate the existence of a natural
entity or attribut:e without being able to pinpoint its concrete
physical situation. Presumably Kondoleon considers the physical universe finite. Suppose that a physical philosopher espousing an infinite cosmos challenges him in this fashion:
"Your concession that we may nevier catch sight of the boundaries of your finite world gives spine to a prima facie argument
against the existence of a finite world." In response, we would
hope, Kondoleon would distinguish between the truth that the
cosmos is finite, analytically verifiable from common experiI mention also that here, as in my earlier article, I am restricting analysis to a
single physical necessary being? In line with the medieval scientific demarcation of
the celestial from the sublunary domain St. Thomas- of course made room for a
number of equivocal causes essentially ordered to one another.
9 Con. gent., fl, 76; 3, lOfl. In phys., VIII, 1. 8, nn. 5-6; In phys., IV, 1. 14, n. 11.
In meteor., I, 1. 3, n. 16. For these and other texts see Thomas Litt, O.C.S.O., Les
corps celestes dans l'univers de saint Thomas d'Aquin (Paris: Beatrice-Nauwelaerts,
1963)' pp.

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JOHN M. QUINN, o.s.A.

ence, and the exact empirical determination of its borders.
Again, there cannot be two simultaneous times; the two times
hypothesized reduce to only one time-else we are forced to
posit an infinite number of times successively measuring one
another. In other words, one worldwide time numbers all the
motions in the cosmos and, by implication, the flow of one
cosmic now constitutes the one ongoing time-line. But we may
never be able empirically to descry the physical subject and its
motion in which the now and time reside. 10 Yet since more general propositions are not voided by inability to hit on particular
disclosures of greater concretion, the truths that there are one
worldwide time and one cosmic now are not affected by ignorance, even invincible, of their physical subjects. A similar epistemic procedure obtains in an allied discipline, philosophical
psychology. No Thomist rules out the cogitative power simply
because its exact correlate in the brain remains unspecified, with
slight expectation that it will be discovered in the foreseeable
or remote future. Nor does ready admission that he cannot
precisdy determine this physiological correlate lay him open to
the charge of lapsing into an ad ignorantiam fallacy.
(ii) For Kondoleon the key role of the equivocal cause is
swept aside by texts in De potentia according to which the cessation of celestial movement brings with it not the annihilation of all physical entities but only the termination of substantial changes in a renewed world in which human bodies, without
other complex bodies, will exist in an environment of unchanging elements (K, pp. 335, 337) . Without a doubt Aquinas
thinks that the nonoperation of higher equivocal causes at the
end of the world does not lead to annihilation. But without a
doubt also Aquinas is here analyzing in a theological context:
" ... according to the teachings of holy men we maintain that at
some time the movement of the heavens will cease, although
this is held by faith rather than demonstrable by reason." 11 In
In phys., IV, 1. 16, n. 2 and 1. 23, n. 9. Sum. theol., I, 66, 4 ad S.
The world will come to an end once the supernaturally appointed
number of the elect has been achieved. The exact time of the final consummation
is a secret of divine revelation, inscrutable to reason and communicated by the
Father to Jesus alone (ibid., 5, 6).
10

11 De pot., 5, 5.

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viciously abstracting from this context, Kondoleon has slipped
into theologism, i.e., an illegitimate use of theological methods,
principles, or data to resolve a strictly philosophical question.
The scenario he invokes, because supernatural, cannot be counted on to veto an annihilation along natural lines attendant upon
a hypothetical removal of the equivocal cause. Features developed in the Christian account of the last things are received on
faith instead of being achieved by reason. There is not one
scrap of solid natural evidence for the resurrection on the day
of the Lord or for the post-resurrection perdurance of men
thriving without food or sleep in subtle bodies. Hence if the
end-of-the-world picture Kondoleon relies on arises from purely
natural inquiry, human bodies have to be regarded as naturally
free from all pain and immune to death, needing neither nutrition nor rest as they effortlessly speed from place to place. We
forestall such inconveniences once we recognize that phenomena
connected with the last times are wrought by miraculous intervention.12
(iii) Kondoleon poses a metaphysical difficulty against the
annihilation supposed in the third way: not a finite agent but
nothing short of " an infinite being" can bring about the
nothing-ing of entities (K, p. 338; his italics) . This is a strange
objection, savoring almost of a quibble, since Aquinas's text, as
Kondoleon is aware (K, p. 336) , argues that in the absence of
some necessary being all natural beings would be reduced to
nothing: it bars Aquinas's own understanding of the third way
as metaphysically impossible. Beneath this self-refuting stumbling-block lies a confusion between a hypothesized occurrence of
annihilation and the mode of the occurrence. In its initial stage,
which concludes to no more than some necessary being, the
third way makes no reference, explicit or implicit, to an infinite
being; nor could it bring God on the scene without falling into a
vicious circle. Not including yet not excluding an infinite being
as the ultimate source of such annihilation, it simply runs: as1 2 Sum. theol., Suppl., 82, l; SS, l; 84, l; 85, 1. Con. gent., 4, 82-86. De pot., 6, 2c
and ad 2, S, and 4.

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JOHN M. QUINN, o.s.A.

sume contrary to fact that there is not one necessary being in
nature; then in the absence of its species-causing activity all
physical possibles would be totally destroyed. Nothing is said
about the mode of such hypothetical annihilation, for this is a
question properly treated after nailing down that God exists, is
infinite, and is creator and conserver of the universe. Since God
conserves all things, it is within his power, absolutely taken, to
annihilate creatures. Supposing that this counter-factual annihilation happens, how would it occur? Not by divine action
but by the cessation of such action, with God functioning as the
per accidens cause of cessation. God can withdraw conservation
in two ways: he can cease immediately to cause the existence of
physical possibles or cease to cause the existence of the top physical cause (through which God mediately causes species)-and
in this second case the removal of the cause of species would
bring in its train the nonexistence of all physical possibles since
their existence follows upon their forms. In this second alternative the equivocal cause would not withdraw itself nor could it
be called an instrument of annihilation (its very removal would
annul any operation as an instrument) .13 Kodoleon overextends
the similarity between creation and annihilation when he avers,
" ... the removal of any creature, no matter what role we assign
it with respect to change and new being, would not result in the
annihilation of any other creature" (K, p. 358) . As noted just
above, such an averral wipes out the cogency of the first part
of the third way, which explicitly hypothesizes what Kondoleon
decrees metaphysically impermissible. Though not unrelated to
creation, annihilation is more the countertype of conservation.
While immediately creating all things, God does not immediately conserve all things. Secondary causes, applied of course
by God, are also missioned to conserve things. The top physical cause is responsible for " the contiµuity of generation," i.e.,
for the persistence of species. In short, God immediately conserves beings of nature by supplying existence and mediately
conserves natural species by secondary or equivocal causes.
ta Sum. tkeol., I, 104, Sc and ad I.

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ON" THE TR!RD WAY: ENCORE"

$5

Now, since annihilation is simply the subtraction of divine conservation, annihilation, like conservation, can occur immediately or mediately. Thus in contrast to Kondo1eon's textually unsupported allegation, because the equivocal cause exercises a
conserving influence, its removal would entail annihilation of
all the natural species it ordinarily sustains. 14 In short, if God
conserves mediately as well as immediately, he can annihilate
mediately as well as immediately.
3. Having disposed, to his satisfaction, of the need for equivocal causation to produce species (effects, we saw, outside the
ambit of univocal causes), Kondoleon revamps the first part
of the proof by interpreting something necessary as matter. We
may also stretch "necessary," he suggests, to embrace "the
laws of mass-energy and motion " rooted in the natures of physical beings (K, p. 345) . However, neither of these proposals
bears scrutiny.
(i) Two misconceptions throw doubt on the selection of matter as something necessary. Since primary matter as ultimate
substrate cannot undergo substantial change, we should designate it, Kondoleon reasons, as something necessary (K, p. 353) .
Yet this reconstruction radically departs from the sense that
Aquinas deputes to something necessary. For Aquinas something necessary signifies an actual, determinate agent empowered to sustain species, but for Kondo1eon it is applicable to a
purely potential, indeterminate, passive principle that is formally nothing and therefore corruptible indirectly (via the cessation of all forms). Only in a loose and shuffling acceptation can
primary matter, which is the principle of possibility, the source
of all breakdown and corruption, be named necessary. Thus it
seems misleading to ask, as does Kondoleon (K, p. 354), why
does matter exist? Strictly, matter is actualized only through
14 Sum. theol., I, 104, !le and ad 1. According to Kondoleon (K, pp. 344-45), the
solar system and " the regular causality of physical agents " can adequately take
care of the sustenance of species. But the causes instanced, because univocal, are
powerless either singly or collectively to bring about more than the this of a physical being. Without some equivocal cause univocal agents would have (absurdly) to
cause themselves.

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JOHN M. QUINN, O.S.A.

forms upon which existence follows: strictly, only physical substances exist. Thus after determining that primary matter and
substantial form are the per se ingredients of natural substances, Aquinas raises the question whose solution underpins
the first part of the third way: what causes and sustains the
species of these univocally causative substances? 15 Secondly,
Kondoleon tells us, to make his reconstruction inviting to moderns who reject primary matter, we may regard, as do "most
empiricists," matter as mass-energy (K, p. 854) . This infelicitous proposal, however, depicts matter as both material substance and quantified matter. Thought of as material substance
(K, pp. 854-55), it has to be directly corruptible and therefore
cannot be something necessary. Taken as quantified matter
that, for empiricists, supersedes natural substance, it suggests
a monistically oriented actualized matter serving as the subject
of sheerly accidental-formal and individual differentiations.
From this empiricistically sanctioned matter it is only an analytical step or two to a matter ruling all natural events with absolute necessity, the upshot of which is a higgledy-piggledy world
of finality-free determinism that incongruously has the per se
always springing from the per accidens. 16
(ii) "Something necessary," Kondoleon thinks, can be understood to include also natures, the fixed patterns of material
entities. Through natures, along with " the regular causality of
material agents " (K, p. 845) , we can explain the continuance
of species. Unfortunately, Kondoleon employs the term "necessary" too elastically. Certainly necessary factors are at work
in the physical world; this is simply the other side of causation
-" a cause is that upon which something other follows with
15 De pot., 5, 3. In phys., I, 1. IS, nn. 4 and 9; 1. 15, n. II. In meta., II, 1. 4,
n. 328. Con. gent., 2, 30. See also Q, p. 63, n. 30. Though " not a necessary being "
(granted in K, p. 342; his italics), matter possessces a necessity that may be reduced
to the first mode of necessity (In meta., V, 1. 6, nn. 827, 837): it is a cause indispensable in the analysis of natural operations. But form, agent, and end are similarly
necessary as causes (In phys., II, I. 5, nn. 4-6; Sum. theol., 1, 82, 1). Thus the
thrust of Kondoleon's reconstruction, when itself critically reconstrued, is to demcm•
strate a per se constituent of nature rather than the first cause Qf i;ia,tl!re,
1a In phys., II, I. 15, nn. !l-4 and I. !l, n. 1.

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necessity·." 17 Water behaves along determinate or necessary
lines markedly different from those of hydrogen and oxygen.
But uniform operation does not make a thing a necessary being-else there would be no possibles in the universe. Each
natured entity we observe is enmattered and therefore corruptib1e: as able not to be, it is not a necessary but a possible being.
Again, it seems self-stultifying to equate possibles with their
polar opposites, necessary beings. A being of nature that is a
physical possible, however inwardly patterned, cannot be transmogrified into a necessary being drawing its necessity from
another. Aquinas makes a similar point: "A thing whose nature has the possibility of nonexistence does not receive a necessity of existence from another in such a way that this necessity
belongs to its nature because this would entail a contradiction,
namely, that a nature would be able not to exist and that it
would have the necessity of existence .... " 18 Here natures
themselves are not explanatory factors but explananda calling
for something necessary beyond mere physical possibility. Why
do natures in corruptible beings go on and on through the cycle
of generation and corruption? Not, we saw, because of individual agents: these can effect only the this of the generated entity.
Not because of natures themselvies: these are the very ingredients conserved, whose source of conservation we are bound to
look for in something truly necessary, in something that has a
nature not able not to be and therefore able equivocally to
cause and sustain natures.
4. Kondoleon's misconstrual of the first part paves the way
for a misguided reconstruction of the second part. According to
this latter part, since the necessary being reached in the first
part has its necessity from another, and since we cannot proceed to infinity in a series of beings whose necessity is caused,
17 In meta., V, 1. 6, n. 827. The comment in n. 15. above deals with this ambiguity from a slightly different angle.
18 De pot., 5, 3 ad 8. Interestingly, earlier Jacques Maritain, Approaches to God,
tr. Peter O'Reilly (New York: Collier Books, 1962; first published in 1954), p. 48,
besides portraying primary matter as something necessary, perceived filaments of
necessity in "intelligible structures or natures " and their laws.

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JOHN M. QUINN, O;S.A.

we arrive at a being that is necessary of itseli. For Kondoleon,
however, raising" the question of the cause of a necessary being's necessity ... simply makes no sense" (K, p. 348) . In this
altered appraisal we are bade focus on the existence of some
necessary being which is traced not to a being whose necessity
is of itself but to a self-existing being. On this reckoning the
reference to an infinite regress becomes either an echo of De
ente et essentia's posing and scouting the conceivability of an
infinite regress in causes of existence or a historical residuum,
analytically dispensable, from Maimonides's earlier statement
of the argument. However, in the light of conservation rather
than creation we can reasonably envisage a series of caused necessary beings. Too, Kondoleon's substitution of a self-existing
being as the terminus of the third way rests upon dubious metaphysical and historical speculation.
(i) " ... necessary beings, if caused, can only be caused by
creation and only God can create" (K, p. 346; italics his): so,
Kondoleon thinks, it " makes no sense" to pose the question of
a series of essentially subordinated caused necessary beings.
Since only God can cause, i.e., create, a necessary being, such a
series seems unthinkable. But a mature Aquinas did unmistakably and repeatedly speak of a conceivable series of caused
necessary beings, a higher causing the necessity of a lower cause.
While Aquinas was certainly not unaware that no higher caused
necessary being could create a lower necessary being, a chain
of caused necessary beings makes sense in his outlook because,
as he plainly states, a higher necessary being causes the necessity of a lower not by creating but by conserving its necessity.
Conservation exerted by a superior necessary being causes the
necessity of an inferior and insures continuance of its equivocal
causation. Aquinas remarks: " Hence to higher causes, even in
corporeal things, are ascribed the conservation and permanence
of things." For" in the very creation of things [God] established
an order in things with the result that certain entities depend
on others, through which they are secondarily conserved in existence." If, as stressed earlier, the determination of the existence of a universal physical cause is achievable in general

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physical knowledge (philosophy of nature) independently of
the rise of specialized modern science, such a physical necessary
being must have its necessity caused. As my original essay
argued, it is instrumentally applied to its conservation of natural species by a higher necessary being, an extra-cosmic agent
"belonging to the order of created separated substances" (Q,
p. 61). This extra-cosmic agent also conserves the form (the
intrinsic source of the necessity in a necessary being) in a manner analogous to that set down by Aquinas: "But after it induces a form or disposition in its effect, it conserves, without
another change in the effect, the form or disposition in question." 19
(ii) In overlooking infra-divine conservers as serial causes of
necessity, Kondoleon finds himself forced to do away with reference to a series of caused necessary beings. The third way as
he reformulates it should then move nonserially from a nonselfexisting being to the self-existing being that is God. Yet how
explain consideration given to a series of caused necessary entities in the third way? Kondoleon tentatively suggests two
plausible answers.
First, mention of a causal series perhaps harks back to De
ente et essentia, in which Aquinas ponders, then repudiates an
infinite regress in a chain of causes of existence (K, p. 350) .
This regress, however, turns out to be untenable not, as Kondoleon holds, because we cannot conceive of a series of causes
causing "a necessary being's existence" (K, p. 351; his italics)
but because we cannot strictly think of a series, even finite, of
causes causing any being's existence. The reason for the inconceivability is that God immediately causes and conserves the
existence of all entities possible and necessary. Evidently, when
writing De ente, Aquinas was not fully alerted to the inconceivability of such a series.20 Evidently too he emended this early
19 Con. gent., 1, 14. In meta., V, 1. 6, n. 840. De pot., 5, 8 (cited in J{, p. 847,
n. 85). Sum. theol., 1, 104, Sc, ad 1, and ad 8.
20 De ente et essentia, 5. Even discounting this defect, it seems curious that some
erudite Thomists consider De ente, hardly a work of the fully grown Thomas, a
paradigm for understanding the five ways as proofs of subsistent existence. Yet

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JOHN M. QUINN, O.S.A.

stance; never again does he posit an essentially ordered series
of causes of existence. Curiously, after jettisoning a series of
causes of a necessary being's existence, Kondoleon later endorses a kindred series: "Since matter, therefore, is not its own
existence, it must receive its existence (prime matter would receive existence through its form) from another-ultimately
(assuming instrumental causes to be operative in the communication of new existence) from a self-existing being" (K, p. 344;
his italics). But, to repeat, existence is the one effect in the
universe that God immediately causes and conserves, and therefore it is impossible to posit even a finite series of causes of the
existence of beings, whether necessary or not.
Kondoleon's other conjecture, that reference to a series of
caused necessary beings is an analytically incidental piece of
historical embroidery taken over from Maimonides, does not
seem strongly grounded. Were discussion of the series of causes
eliminab1e, it seems most likely that the Aquinas who expressly
commits himself to brevity in this Summa would have eschewed
resort to scholarly voguish but analytically irrelevant material.
In fact, the third way expressly draws attention to a similar
critique of an infinite regress in the second way. Inspecting,
along with rejecting, an infinite regress is a probative step as
essential to the third as to the second way. 21
Since the third way deals with the cause of the necessity, not
the existence, of necessary beings; since it considers an infinite
regress of causes (a point undiscussable if the cause of existence
were at issue); and since the text says not a single word about
existence or a self-existing being, it is not surprising that the
analysis terminates in a being necessary of itself instead of a
these historically rich thinkers would probably demur if an interpreter adopting a
similar methodology rashly set out to gloss the Summa theol<>giae within the framework of still revisable opinions of In sententiarum.
21 Sum. theol., I, 2, 8: "Every necessary being, moreover, either has or has not
the cause of its necessity from another. Now, it is impossible to proceed to infinity
among necessary beings that have a cause of their necessity, just as it is not possible among efficient causes, as we have already proved. Therefore it is necessary to
posit a being necessary per se. . . ."

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self-existing being. 22 Though proceeding from specifically different analytical standpoints, all five ways generally conclude
to a first or uncaused cause. Only in the following question
does Aquinas open inquiry into the what of God. The first of
the three arguments in this subsequent article turns on the
truth that God is uncaused. While reproducing in essentials
the compact
of De ente, Aquinas now corrects the
focus: the argument establishes not that God is the cause of
esse but that in him as uncaused essence and existence are identified. A text further on supplies warranty for divine omnipresence through the uncaused cause seen as properly causing
the existence of every finite thing. 23 A mature Aquinas evidently came to understand that we cannot at one analytic stroke
rieach both the existence and the nature of God.
JoHN

Augw1tinian Historical Institute
Villanova University
Villanova, Pennsylvania

22 Sum.
23 Sum.

theol., I, 8, 4.
theol., I. 8, I.

M. QurNN, O.S.A.

THE POVERTY OF POPPERISM

((OUR

AGE", WROTE Immanuel Kant, in his Critique of Pure Reason, " is, in especial degree, the
age of criticism, and to criticism everything must
submit." 1 Of all the intellectual legacies that Popper inherited
from Kant, none was more formative and deeply influential
than the distinction between the so-called " dogmatic " and
" critical " attitude. Early on in his intellectual career, we see
Popper claiming the " critical " attitude as the distinctively
scientific oll!e, and opposing this to the "dogmatic", which is
rejected as the hallmark of the pseudo-scientific. Just as in
Kant's ' Critique' we encounter the rejection of " the dogmatic
procedure of pure reason " whose endemic sin is to proceed
"without previous criticism of its own powers ", 2 so in Popper's
autobiography we are told how early on in his life he was led
to contrast the " dogmatic attitude of Marx, Freud, Adler and
even more so of their followers " with " the true scientific attitude " of Einstein: " Thus I arrived, by the end of 1919 " (at
the raw age of seventeen) " at the conclusion that the scientific
attitude was the critical attitude, which did not look for verifications but for crucial tests; tests which could REFUTE the
theory tested, though they could never establish it." 3
The division of the process of human reasoning by Kant into
the two fundamental attitudes of the " dogmatic " and the
" critical " is, of course, parallelled by that other hoary philosophical distinction to be found in his writings between the " a
priori" and the" a posteriori", that is, between reasoning that
proceeds independently of experience and reasoning which is
derived from, or remains connected with, experience. However,
1

Critique of Pure Reason, (London: Macmillan, 1933). Preface to first edition.

A xi a.
2

Ibid., Preface to second edition. B xxxv.

a Unended Quest, (London: Fontana, 1976), p. 38.

92

THE POVERTY OF POPPERISM

98

the making of such distinctions need not be-and historically
has not been-the only way of approaching an understanding
of how the acquisition of knowledge takes place. One need only
consider the term " a priori " in its historical context to realise
that it originally indicated that which is prior in NATURE,
rather than that which is gained by the mind independently of
experience. 4 Thus, for Aristotle:
" The path of investigation must lie from what is more immediately
cognisable and clear to us (a posteriori) to what is clearer and more
intimately cognisable in its own nature (a priori); for it is not the
same thing to be directly accessible to our cognition and to be intrinsically intelligible. Hence, in advancing to that which is intrinsically more luminous and by its nature accessible to deeper knowledge we must needs start from what is more immediately within
our cognition, though its own nature is less fully accessible to understanding." 5
That the " a priori " came to acquire the meaning which it did
in Kant's philosophy points to the state of affairs that had come
to prevail in the consciousness of civilized Europeans by the
18th century: namely, that the ideas which men conceive are
not felt to have an ontological foundation in nature, that what
is" prior" in the human mind could have no correspondence to
that which is " prior " in nature, and that the latter is something from which, according to Kant, the human mind is irrevocably estranged.
The comparative novelty of this outlook in the history of
philosophy becomes evident when we turn to consider, for example, the assumptions that underlay epistemological theory
in
times. We find there that nothing could be further
from the presuppositions concerning man's relationship to nature than those set forth in the 18th century by Kant. Not only
were ideas regarded as residing within nature, but as a consequence of this view the distinction most widely adhered to regarding the activity of the mind in the acquisition of knowledge
-far from being the polarity between the dogmatic and critical
4 The Philosophy
5 Physics

of Aristotle (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1952), p. 148.
184a 17-22, (London: Heinemann, 1970).

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JEMMY NAYDLl!lR

process of reasoning-was drawn between the faculty of RATION AL INSIGHT (" intellectus ") and the discursive or
critical faculty of reasoning (" ratio ") . The medieval scientific
ideal was that knowledge proceeded through the interaction of
the process of gaining insight into things, their inner essential
nature, with the more ponderous rationalisation by the " ratio "
of what was intuitively arrived at by the " intellectus ".
The concept of there being a faculty of insight, of course, presupposes that the human mind is not cut off from nature, and
that there is an intelligible aspect of nature into which it is possible to have insight. Thus, St. Thomas Aquinas could write:
" The word ' intellectus ' contains in itself a certain inner perception: for 'intelligere' means at the same time 'to read inwardly'.
And this is quite clear if one considers the difference between intellect and sense: for perception by the senses is occupied with external sensible qualities; but perception by the intellect penetrates
to the essence of things." 6

It will be apparent that the ancient a.nd medieval scientific attitude, of which St. Thomas was a representative, emphasized
what is commonly referred to by modern philosophers of science
as "the context of discovery", while in relation to this "the
context of justification " held a secondary place. The " intellectus" was regarded as a more perfect instrument of knowledge than the "ratio", for the reason that it "saw" whereas
the "ratio" at best merely inferred. The ideal of scientific
knowledge was thus an ideal connected with a certain type of
EXPERIENCE of the world, but an experience higher than
that attainable by the senses. It was an "inward reading", a
participatory indwelling of the mind in the intelligible forms
and archetypes of which the outer aspect of nature is a manifestation.
I mention these older philosophical attitudes because I think
they throw light on certain presuppositions of the modern attitude which, I would suggest, reaches a kind of zenith in the
writings of Karl Popper. In medieval terminology, the emphasis
s Summa theologiae II-II, q. 8, a. 1.

THE POVERTY OF POPPERISM

95

of Popperian epistemology is on the " ratio ", on the process of
discursive reasoning by which the validity of statements are to
be judged. Not only do we find the faculty of rational insight,
or " intellectus ", either shunned or disparaged, but the concept
of " intelligere " or " inward reading " is displaced by that of
"conjicere" or "throwing together". Instead of the cultivation and development of inner faculties of understanding and
insight, there is advocated by Popper a science based on guesses
and conjectures. Thus in his 'Poverty of Historicism' we read:
"it is irrelevant from the point of view of science whether we have
obtained our theories by jumping to unwarranted conclusions or
merely by stumbling over them (that is by 'intuition ') or by some
inductive procedure." 7

If we venture to ask from what standpoint such a bold statement of the " point of view of science" could have been made,
we are told in plain tem1s that it is based on the assumption
that human knowledge begins and ends, as it were, in the dark.
Even if we did happen to stumble upon a true theory, we should
never know for sure that it was true, for the human condition
is " that we search for truth, but may not know when we have
found it; that we have no criterion of truth, but are nevertheless
guided by the idea of truth as a regulative principle ... " 8 This
is indeed the epistemology of men fumbling around in the dark,
and Popper's invocation of the confession of Socrates that he
only knows that he does not know, indicates to us simply that
Popper ends where Socrates begins. No more fitting allegory
could be given to describe the Popperian ethos than the Platonic allegory of the cave:
"Imagine an underground chamber, like a cave with an entrance
open to the daylight and running a long way underground. In this
chamber are men who have been prisoners there since they were
children, their legs and necks being so fastened that they can only
look straight ahead of them and cannot turn- their heads . ." 9
7 The Poverty of Historicism (London: Routledge and Kegan Paul, 1957), p. 185.
s " Truth, Rationality and the Growth of Knowledge " in Conjectures and Refutations, (London: Routledge and Kegan Paul, 1968), p. 2!?6.
9 The Republic (Penguin, 1955) VII, vii.

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JEREMY NAYDLER

I do not suggest, however, that Popper is unaware of the fact
that the science he is advocating is the science of the cavern.
Fallibilism is boldly proclaimed as the very attitude appropriate
for mere mortals such as we. Science is, for Popper, precisely
nescience-it is but an arabesque of conjectures; it is not knowledge but opinion or "doxa ": He himself writes:
" natural science-as opposed to pure mathematics-is not ' scientia ' or ' episteme " . . . because it belongs to the realm of
' doxa '." 10

It is therefore scarcely surprising that the " luminous " realm
that Aristotle spoke of, and the essential aspect of reality that
Aquinas strived to gain insight into, should have withdrawn
beyond Popper's" horizon of expectations".
But while accepting Popper's confession that, for him, to
speak of essences is equivalent to speaking of "permanent
ghosts '', 11 we cannot accept such an equivalence as a universal
law for all men, nor as a final statement concerning the definitively scientific attitude towards nature. In this essay I shall
argue that the Popperian attitude, far from opening science to
the possibility of coming ever closer to the truth, as he urges us
to believe, has the effect of restricting the pursuit of knowledge
to within the confines of the cavern.

*

*

*

*

*

*

The problem of induction is, so to speak, the egg from out of
which the chicken of Popperism hatches. First formulated by
David Hume in the early part of the 18th century,1 2 the problem, simply stated, is:
" Are we rationally justified in reasoning from instances or from
counter-instances of which we have had experience, to the truth or
falsity of the corresponding laws, or to instances of which we have
had no experience?" 18
1o " Humanism and Reason " in Conjectures and Refutations, p. 880.
11 The Poverty

of Historicism, p. 186.
Treatise of Human Nature (London: Fontana, 1962) I.8.vi.
'l:i Popper: "Replies to My Critics" in The Philosophy of Karl Popper, ed. P. A.
Schilpp (La Salle, Illinois: Open Court, 1974) vol. II, p. 1020.
12

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97

According to Hume we are not logically justified in doing so,
and consequently all human expectations that future experience
will be conformable to past experience have, not a rational, but
an irrational basis, namely habit. The only kind of judgments
that Hume will allow science to make are what Kant would call
" synthetic a posteriori " judgments; that is, generalisations
formed on the basis of present and past experience but which
have no validity when extended beyond this experience into the
future. This is, of course, tantamount to the denial of the possibility of scientific knowledge, which is characterised by its
universal and informative nature.
It was largely as a consequence of these bold anti-rationalist
assertions of Hume that Kant awoke from his "dogmatic
slumbers", to assert the possibility of the so-called "synthetic
a priori " judgment, which both informs us about the world and
is also universally valid. This Kant achieves by assuming the
existence of certain innate ideas in human consciousness, to
which the phenomena of nature are made to conform. 14 That
is, he accepts the Humean assertion that experience cannot
reveal to us any necessary laws, but seeks a way out of this by
asserting that such laws can, however, be SET INTO EXPERIENCE.15 Thus Kant's reply to the Humean attestation that
we can never be sure that next autumn the apples will fall from
the trees onto the ground and not fly into the air is that although we may know nothing of the nature of apples or the
forces that draw them towards the earth in autumn, yet we may
be sure that OWING TO THE HUMAN MENTAL ORGANIZATION we shall necessarily experience the apples as falling
and not flying into the air. Such is the nature of Kant's " Copernican revolution" in epistemology.
Now, Popper sees the difficulty of the Humean position, but
he is equally aware of certain difficulties in Kant's solution. It
is not that he wishes to return to a" pre-Copernican" (nature
centered) epistemology, but rather that Kant's epistemological
revolution, by invoking the " a priori " to insure the validity of
14 Critique of Pure Reason, Introduction, A2, B xvii.

u Ibid. B xii.

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JEREMY NAYDLER

scientific statements, entails an unsavory metaphysical aspect
that Popper would rather science was without:
"He (Kant) was right to believe that knowledge was GENETICALLY or PSYCHOLOGICALLY a priori, but quite wrong to suppose that any knowledge could be a priori VALID. Our theories
are our inventions; but they may be merely ill-reasoned guesses,
bold conjectures, HYPOTHESES. Out of these we create a world:
not a real world, but our own nets in which we try to catch the real
world." 16
The conception that Popper is led to advocate is thus one which
is a kind of hybrid between the Humean and Kantian approaches: to overcome the Humean problem of induction Popper insists, with Kant, that the world of experience is our creation;
but to avoid the metaphysical problems of Kantianism, he
maintains, with Hume, that our scientific theories can never
have the necessity of a priori validity-they are, at best, conjectures. As such, they are essentially fallible, and thus the
distinctively scientific attitude will be the critical attitude that
seeks to refute the theories that are conjectured. Popper's solution to the problem of induction thus comes to rest on the
premise that, although the universal statement cannot be inferred from singular statements, yet the former can be refuted
by the latter; 17 thus the scientific status of a statement rests on
its refutability or falsifiability:
"In this formulation we see that natural laws might be compared
to ' proscriptions ' or ' prohibitions '. They do not assert that something exists or is the case; they deny it. They insist on the nonexistence of certain things or states of affairs: they rule them out.
And it is precisely because of this that they are FALSIFIABLE. If
we accept as true one singular statement which, as it were, infringes
the prohibition by asserting the existence of a thing (or the occurrence of an event) ruled out by the law, then the law is refuted." 18

The reason why Hume found
problematic was that
he assumed that the ideas conceived by the mind are derived
16 Unended

Quest, p. 60.
Logic of Scientific Discovery (London: Hutchinson, 1959), p. 41.
18 Ibid., p. 69.
17 The

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99

from sense-impressions; they are, as it were, at the opposite pole
of the same continuum as sense-impressions, being just faded
copies of them. 19 This being the case, what is most real is, for
Hume, the particular sense-impression given in experience: universals are like dull pictures, so faded that only general outlines
are visible; as such they are useful for grouping together disparate experiences, but for Hume the way is barred to any
experience of the universal in nature. Now, the assumption that
all that is given to us in experience is individual, unrelated
sense-impressions is accepted by both Kant and Popper, though
in order to solve the problem of induction they insist on the
psychological independence of ideas from sense-impressions.
However, the consequent dualism that they advocate as the
alternative to Humean scepticism has the effect of leading
them even further away from the perception of the universal in
nature. Popper aptly describes the situation he finds himself
in, with his doctrine of the "three worlds":
" if we call the world of things-of physical objects-the FIRST
WORLD, and the world of subjective experiences (such as thought
processes) the SECOND WORLD, we may call the world of statements in themselves the THIRD WORLD." 20
The world of statements, theories, or ideas is, for Popper, the
net we cast to catch " world one ",21 the world of nature. It is
the product, however, of" world two", the world of subjective
thought prooesses, and is thus literally" worlds apart" from the
world of nature.
Let us investigate some of the difficulties into which Popper
is led by such doctrines. Two examples should suffice. According to Popper, the observation of a "non-black" raven would
falsify the universal statement," all ravens are black". Hence
the statement is scientific (because falsifiable). No one would
wish to deny this. But some people might wish to question further how it is that we know that the non-black raven is a raven.
A Treatise of Human Nature I, I, i.
Quest, p. 181.
2 1 The Logic of Scientific Discovery, p. 59.

19

20 Unended

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JEREMY NAYDLER

If we were to list all the distinctive features of ravens, all those
features by which we know ravens TO BE ravens, would such
a list of properties be open to the same principle of refutation?
That is to say, is it not necessary, in order for us to know that
the non-black raven is a raven, to draw a distinction between
those features of the raven that are accidental features, and
those which belong to it essentially or definitively? The latter
will not be subject to the principle of refutation for the reason
that counter-instances will simply be classified under a different
species. There is thus a difference between universal statements
which characterize a generic object, and those which simply
predict the occurrence of certain events. Such a distinction Popper fails to make, with the result that all universal statements
alike are treated as if they were mere conjectures, subject to
falsification by future observation, which is clearly not the case.
My second example illustrates further this tendency away
from realism in Popper's thinking. Owing to his failure to differentiate between essential and accidental features of objects,
Popper is led into saying some remarkable things. One of these
is that the general statement, or natural law, that " all men are
mortal " has in fact been refuted in more recent times, by two
discoveries: one, that the bacteria in a corpse are not bound to
die since multiplication by fission is not death, and (two)
that living matter is not in general bound to decay and die
(e.g. cancer cells go on living) .22 No doubt were Kant alive
now, he would be delighted that the question of human immortality has been so deftly rescued from the realm of faith and
given a solid factual basis in science. God and freedom have yet
to await the application of Popperian expertise! But, for myself, I find this one of the less reassuring proofs of immortality
that, over the ages, philosophers have produced. The mistake
is glaring enough; the functioning of the living organism as a
whole is exchanged for the functioning of some of its aberrant
parts, or even for the very processes by which the organism
decays. The living human being is bartered for some bacteria
22 "Replies

to My Critics", in the Philosophy of Karl Popper, p. 1028.

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101

on a corpse and renegade cancer cells. That Popper can make
absurd assertions like this is, I think, due precisely to a failure
to grasp the " essence" of the object under consideration;
though some may plead that in time such errors will be rectified
through the steady exercise of the critical faculties of various
scientists working" in the field", I would suggest a more fruitful approach might be to examine the cause of such blunders,
which lies less in a temporary abeyance of the critical faculty,
than in an atrophied faculty of INSIGHT-intellectus tabitus!
efficacy of the soThis, of course, raises the question of
called " Darwinian" view of science that Popper advocates 23 as
a supplement to his solution of the problem of induction. Epistemological Darwinism consists in the idea that the mechanism
by which knowledge advances is none other than the critical
faculty, which, through its rigorous application to the theories
of the day insures the survival only of those able to withstand
its austere demands. These demands consist in the twin requirements of fitness: that the more informative a theory is the
better, and that if a theory is falsified by observed counterinstances, then it is deemed " unfit " for service:
"How and why do we accept one theory in preference to others?
The preference is certainly not due to anything like an experiential
justification of the statements composing the theory; it is not due
to a logical reduction of the theory to experience. We choose the
theory which best holds its own in competition with other theories;
the one which, by natural selection, proves itself fittest to survive." 24

The progress of science is accompanied by an elimination of the
unhealthy or infirm by the "severest criticism ", 20 while every
new theory is, in true Spartan fashion, mercilessly exposed to
the critical onslaughts both of its progenitors and of those in the
scientific community whose business it is to advance knowledge.
In this way Popper seeks to escape the Humean snare of irra23 Unended

Quest, p. 86.

24 The Logic of Scientific Discovery, p. 108.
25 Unended Quest, p. 86.

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JEREMY NAYDLER

tionality towards which his rejection of the Kantian" a priori"
drives him. For if there can be rational preferences for competing conjectures, in that some are more informative and can
stand up to more severe tests, then the basis of our accepting
certain universal statements rather than others can not simply
be irrational habit or custom, as Hume suggested. The rigor of
this procedure is emphasized by Popper's insistence that any introduction of auxiliary hypotheses to enable a given theory to
" adapt " itself to new conditions (by accommodating itself to
new falsifications) should be regarded less as propping up an
old system and more as the generation of a new one: 26 in this
way the health and vigor of science is preserved, and the progress of knowledge insured.
The foundation of this " biological " view of knowledge is the
belief that all scientific theories are, by definition, falsifiable.
But an examination of the sub-structures of falsificationism reveals, I think:, just how unstable is the Darwinian superstructure that Popper has fabricated. The weight of Popper's antiinductivist argument rests on the " modus tollens " of medieval
logical,26 a or as he puts it:
"My proposal is based upon an ASYMETRY between verifiability and falsifiability; an asymetry which results from the logical
form of universal statements. For these are never derivable from
singular statements, but can be contradicted by singular statements.
Consequently it is possible by means of purely deductive inferences
(with the help of the 'modus tollens' of classical logic) to argue
from the truth of singular statements to the falsity of universal
statements." 27

In developing this theme in his " Logic of Scientific Discovery ",
Popper emphasizes the role of so-called " basic statements " that is, self-consistent singular statements of fact-as the potential falsifiers of universal statements. Thus the existential
statement" this is a white raven" is- a basic statement that can
be used to test the universal statement" all ravens are black".
2e The Logic of Scientific

Discovery, p. 83.
then q; not q; therefore not p.
21 The Logic of Scientific Discovery, p. 41.
26a If p,

THE POVERTY OF POPPERISM

103

A cursory examination of the above basic stateillent (or "test
statement"), however, reveals that it is not simply a report of
raw experience, unmediated by conceptualization. Popper himself is at pains to distinguish his system of basic statements from
the " protocol sentences " of N eurath and Carnap, which simply
describe the contents of immediate experience. Not only do his
basic statements include" all conceivable statements of fact ", 28
but also " they are, like all language, impregnated with theories." 29 We must remember that Popper is working within a
Kantian epistemology, according to which the act of experience
does not consist in objects simply presenting themselves to consciousness, as much as human consciousness REPRESENTING
objects to itself, mediated by concepts which it has impressed
into the data of experience. Thus, according to Kant, in natural
science reason "must adopt as its guide ... THAT WHICH
IT HAS ITSELF PUT INTO NATURE" so and so also for
Popper "even ordinary singular statements are always INTERPRETATIONS OF 'THE FACTS' IN THE LIGHT
OF THEORIES" 31 For Popper, as for Kant, the very possibility of observation is conditional upon the observing subject
setting concepts into what he observes:
"We do not 'have' an observation (as we may 'have' a senseexperience) but we 'make' an observation ... An observation is
always preceded by a particular interest, a question, or a problemin short, by something theoretical." 82
The status of basic statements is thus not as straightforward
as it originally might have appeared. They are not the simple,
singular statements that they first seemed to be, but are, like
the universal statements they are supposed to be able to refute,
themselves "theory laden ". So we read:
" the customary distinction between ' observational terms ' (or
' non-theoretical terms ') and theoretical terms is mistaken, since
Ibid., p. 84.
p. III.
so The Critique of Pure Reason, Preface to second edition. B xiii-xiv.
31 The Logic of Scientific Discovery, p. 49l8.
32 Objective Knowledge (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1979l), p.
2s

29 Ibid.,

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JEREMY NAYDLER

all terms are theoretical to some degree, though some are more theoretical than others; just as we said that all theories are conjectural,
though some are more conjectural than others." 33
We might be forgiven for mistaking the above for a passage
from George Orwell's" Animal Farm". What, or who, is it, we
are prompted to ask, that decides the degree of "conjecturality" of a theory?
I think we are now in a position to see more clearly what the
foundations of falsificationism really are. Popper himself is
adamant that they are not empirical or experiential, but neither
are they a priori in the Kantian sense or rationally necessary.
For Popper we have, instead, the agreement or decision of scientists, which is itself conditioned by what he later came to
describe as their "horizon of expectations", or to put it less
euphemistically, their preconceptions. We have here, in effect,
rthe completion of the circle, for given this THEORETICAL
basis of experience it is, as Popper says, "the hypothesis which
becomes our guide, and which leads us to new observational
results." 84
If then, we return to our original question concerning the
substructure of falsificationism, we find Popper eventually replying with the following parable:
" Science does not rest upon solid bedrock. The bold structures of
its theories rise, as it were, above a swamp. It is like a building
erected on piles. The piles are driven down from above into the
swamp, but not down to any natural or ' given ' base; and if we stop
driving the piles deeper, it is not because we have reached firm
ground. We simply stop when we are satisfied that the piles are
firm enough to carry the structure, at least for the time being." 35
The bellicose rhetoric of epistemological Darwinism is but a
facade concealing the language of the swamp. But it is precisely
because Popper refuses to allow hypotheses and theories any
ontological basis in nature, that he is reduced to speaking in this
83 " Three Views Concerning Human Knowledge'', in Conjectures and Refutatiom,
p. 119.
34 Objective Knowledge, p. 846.
The Logic of Scientific Dwcovery, p. 111.

a•

THE POVERTY OF POPPERISM

105

uliginous way of mutual agDeement amongst scientists and " decisions ", 36 whose basis, if we are to accept what Popper says
elsewhere, may be arbitrary and irrational guesses or conjectures. Popper is indeed driven back into the Humean snare, for
it would seem that in his system custom and habit will, after all,
play a prominent role in the choice of basic statements. By
undercutting the experiential basis of science he has, in effect,
undermined the very status of science as science. I propose that
this is a direct consequence of the dualism that is embodied in
the " three worlds doctrine " and which refuses to recognise
that the basis of the world of ideas is to be found nowhere but
in nature, and that the goal of science-one could say the very
definition of truth-consists in THE EXPERIENCE OF, or
THE PARTICIPATION OF THE MIND IN, the ideas inherent in nature.
Now sometimes Popper comes very close to stating that universals are to be found in nature. Now here is his writing more
tantalizing than when he speaks of universals as dispositions,
and insists that dispositions are real. 37 But we are constantly
disappointed to find that their reality is but the shadow reality
of all other" world three" objects: that is, they have no experiential base. They are, in terms of the Platonic allegory, the
conjectures of men who see but the flicker of shadows on the
cave wall, and know not whence they have come. Human thinking remains forever external to reality; it remains forever conjectural and uncertain. 38 As we have seen, according to Popper
even if our theories actually gave us insight into nature, we
would have no means of knowing this. The beginning and end
of knowledge is that we know that we do not know. Of all the
myths, parables and analogies to be found in Popper's writings,
the following is the plum:
" The status of truth in the objective sense; as correspondence to
the facts, and its role as a regulative principle, may be compared
36

The Logic of Scientific Discovery, p. 104.
Views Concerning Human Knowledge", in Conjectures and Refutations,

37 "Three

p. 118.
ss Ibid., p. 117.

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JEREMY NAYDLER

to that of a mountain peak usually wrapped in clouds. A climber
may not merely have difficulties in getting there-he may not know
when he gets there, because he may be unable to distinguish, in the
clouds, between the main summit and a subsidiary peak. Yet this
does not affect the objective existence of the summit; and if the
climber tells us 'I doubt whether I reached the actual summit',
then he does, by implication, recognise the objective existence of
the summit. The very idea of error, or of doubt (in its normal
straightforward sense) implies the idea of an objective truth which
we may fail to reach." 39

What more futile imag.e could we dream up than that of this
mountain of " objective truth " that exists in Olympic splendour, oblivious of the efforts of the feeble mortals who scramble
over its crags and sit on its ledges at dizzy heights, peering
through the mists, unable to see how close they are to the summit? For if we can never know that we know, then what is the
use of our scurrying up the mountainside of knowledge? Traditionally the goal of knowledge has been associated with " vision " rather than the chronic lack of it. Truth is not something
" there " existing outside of me; it arises in the very act of cognition in which the separation between knowing subject and
known object is overcome. Thus, according to St. Thomas
Aquinas, in the act of knowing, the intelligible aspect of the
object is " actualised" in the mind of the knowing subject" intellectus in actu est intelligibile in actu ". 40 But such a doctrine rests on the assumption that nature is, in a certain sense,
a system of realized ideas. 41
I do not mean to suggest that scientific theories necessarily
grasp hold of reality in its fullness, for, as the medievals said, all
knowledge is acquired" per modum cognoscentis "-in dependence on the cognitive powers of the knower. Whether modern
science dwells more in the realm of " doxa" or "episteme " is a
debatable question. Our concern here is with ideals and pos39 " Truth, Rationality, and the Growth of Knowledge", in Conjectures and Refutations, p. 226.
40 Summa theologiae, I, q. 12, aa. 2 and 3.
41 W. R. Thompson, Science and Common Sense, (London: Longmans, 1937),
p. 21.

THE POVERTY OF POPPERISM

107

sibilities. What is required, if we are to free science from Popperism, is that we cease to regard human thinking as irrevocably cut off from nature. Only then will the distinction between
the " a priori " and the " a posteriori " be restored to its original
connotation of differing degrees of knowledge or insight into the
natural world. The separation of the world of ideas from the
world of nature must be seen as an ARTIFICIAL separation
that WE have brought about and which it is the task of science
(in the sense of " episteme " or " scientia ") to overcome.
" World three " is not IN REALITY separate from " world
one ". The answer to dogmatism lies not in the elevation of the
critical faculty to the supernal status it has in the writings of
Popper, but rather in the reawakening of our slumbering faculty
of insight. For, in truth, there can be no science without vision.
JEREMY NAYDLER
Oxford University
Oxford, England

THE THOMIST SOURCES OF LONERGAN'S
DYNAMIC WORLD-VIEW
HROUGHOUT HIS CAREER, philosopher-theologian Bernard Lonergan has been intensely preoccupied
with the problems of emergence and development. These
problems are central to many of his essays of the last two decades.1 In his courses on the theology of the early church he
has traced the emergence of the doctrine of the consubstantiality of Christ. 2 In his book, Method in Theology,3 one finds a
lengthy discussion of doctrinal development. Major sections of
his philosophical work, Insight,4 are devoted to the issues of
emergence and development in general. Indeed, Lonergan's
earliest scholarly investigations into Aquinas's theory of operative grace 5 were devoted to showing how St. Thomas's thought
on the subject developed, in contrast to interpreters who had
attempted to formulate a single system embracing all of
Aquinas's writings on grace. Even the briefest survey of Loner1 See, for example, Lonergan's "Mission and the Spirit", pp. 69-78 in Experience
of The Spirit, Concilium, vol. 99 (Peter Huizing and William Bassett, eds., N.Y.:
The Seabury Press, 1974/76), "The Ongoing Genesis of Methods", Sciences Religieuses/Studies in Religion 6 (1976-77), pp. 341-355, and most of the Articles in
A Second Collection, (W. Ryan and B. Tyrrell, eds., Philadelphia: The Westminster Press, 1974), hereafter cited as Second Collection.
2 Lonergan originally published his lecture notes in 1964. These lecture notes
have recently been edited and translated by Conn O'Donovan, and published as
Bernard Lonergan, The Way to Nicea, (Philadelphia: The Westminster Press,
1976).
8 Bernard Lonergan, Method in Theology, (N.Y.: Herder and Herder, 1972), pp.
300-330.
4 Bernard Lonergan, Insight: A Study of Human Understanding (N.Y.: Philosophical Library, 1958), pp. 115-139, 259-267, 444-483. -Hereafter cited as ln!fight.
5 Bernard Lonergan, "St. Thomas's Thought on Gratia Operans ", Theological
Studies, 2 (1941), pp. 289-3M, 3 (1942), pp. 69-88, 357-402, 533-578. These articles
were later edited into the collection, Grace and Freedom, (J. Patout Burns, ed.,
N.Y.: Herder and Herder, 1970). All references to those articles will be from this
volume, hereafter cited as Grace and Freedom.

108

THOMIST SOURCES OF LONERGAN's

WORLD-VIEW

109

gan's writings will reveal that Lonergan is committed to a view
of the universe in which emergence and development play an
essential role.
Lonergan's commitment to a dynamic world-view comes
somewhat unexpectedly, since he has always understood himself
to be firmly within the Thomist tradition. It had been comthe
monly supposed that the Thomist tradition-including
thought of St. Thomas Aquinas himself-is intrinsically committed to a static, not a dynamic, world view. That is, it has
been assumed that the foundational principles of St. Thomas's
philosophy and theology themselves require a commitment to a
static world-view.
According to critics, a static world-view implies that all possible types of beings were present in the universe from the moment of creation onward. Such a world-view, it is further
objected, is incompatible with modern scientific findings which
have led to the theories of biological evolution, general relativistic cosmology and the theories of embryological and cognitive
development. In short, a static world-view is one where evolution, emergence or development of new forms of being has no
place.
On the other hand, not only has Lonergan always regarded
himself as an authentic Thomist, he has also insisted repeatedly
that his own philosophical and theological principles-the principles which ground his discussions of emergence and development-were themselves derived from his earliest researches into
the writings of Aquinas. 6 To take Lonergan's assertions seriously demands a new way of thinking about St. Thomas's
world-view. First, one would have to admit that Aquinas's
thought is not necessarily committed to a static world-view and
is in fact open to a dynamic world view. Second, one would
have to go still further and acknowledge that St. Thomas's
thought is not only open to emergent and developmental
6 See, for example, Insight, pp. 747-84, "Aquinas Today: Tradition and Innovation", The Journal of Religion 55 (1972), pp. 165-180, and in Second Collection,
"The Future of Thomism", pp. 48-58, and "Insight Revisited", especially pp. 265-

!!69.

110

PATRICK H. BYRNE

processes, but contains within its principles the elements of a
dynamic world-view.
The purpose of this essay is to trace the evolution of Bernard
Lonergan's thought on emergence from his earliest researches
into Aquinas's writings on grace and the Holy Trinity. I believe that the principal value of such an essay lies in the way
it can amplify Lonergan's thought on the topic of emergence by
showing how his later writings relate to a series of earlier problems which have been too frequently neglected. Yet I believe
there is a further value to this study because, for the reasons
stated above, it sheds new light on St. Thomas's own thought.
This essay is divided into three parts. First, an examination
of Lonergan's interpretation of Aquinas's theory of operative
grace will be undertaken. That examination will reveal how
Lonergan became aware of the " statistical " dimension in
Aquinas's thought. Second, Lonergan's analysis of the notion
of ' operation ' as St. Thomas employed it in his trinitarian
theory will be surveyed. It will be shown how Lonergan came
the
to understand the first act of intelligence-intelligere-as
paradigm for emergenoe. The final section will show how Lonergan brought these elements together to provide an explicitly
formulated framework for the philosophical discussion of the
process of emergence.
A. The Problem of Premotion in the Gratia Operans Articles
In 1940, Bernard Lonergan completed his studies at the Gregorian University in Rome. Between 1941and1942 he published
the results of his dissertation investigations in a series of four
articles in Theological Studies.7 The topic he set for himself was
the explication of St. Thomas Aquinas's theory of operative
grace. It was a topic which held more than mere academic interest for him. Lonergan believed that he had found a way of
resolving the divisive seventeenth century debate between the
Baiiezians and the Molinists in the writings of St. Thomas. I
believe Lonergan chose his dissertation topic in the hope that
1 As in footnote

5.

THOMIST SOURCES OF LONERGAN'S

WORLD-VIEW

111

he could contribute something of lasting worth to theology and
philosophy.
Lonergan's interpretation of Aquinas's theory of grace involved several distinctions. First, he claimed that St. Thomas's
thought on the topic passed through several stages, from early
discussions in the Commenta.ry on the Sentences, through the
De veritate and the Summa Contra Gentiles, to its culmination
in the Summa Theologiae and the De malo. Further, Lonergan
felt that the later stages were best understood in relation to the
problems raised in the prior stages. Second, Lonergan realized
that an accurate understanding of the distinctions among habitual, actual, operative and co-operative grace was crucial to
understanding Aquinas's theories. Furthermore, he felt that St.
Thomas's greatest original contribution was in the clarification
of operative actual grace. Third, Lonergan discovered that the
key to Aquinas's concept of operative actual grace was St.
Thomas's transformation of Aristotle's doctrine of " premotion ". In turn, Lonergan realized that a proper interpretation
of Aquinas's doctrine of premotions involved a "statistical"
way of thinking. It was in his discovery of the statistical elements in Aquinas's theory of grace that Lonergan took his first
step toward his ideas on emergence. Let us consider in detail
Lonergan's account of these elements.
Lonergan's first use of statistical categories in the investigation came in his analysis of Aquinas's treatment of habitual
grace as operative and cooperative. According to Lonergan,
both in the Commentary and the Summa, Aquinas looked to
habitual grace as a divine solution to a statistical problem in
human performance. Lonergan wrote: " since [for Aquinas] the
good is ever unique and evil manifold, the odds always are that
man will do what is wrong ". 8 On this view, habitual grace is
necessary over and above natural virtues (good habits). A
natural habit is formed through repeated performance, and
makes future regular performance likely. However, if odds are
that man will do what is wrong, virtues (good habits) have
s Grace and Fi·eedom, p. 4!it. Italics are mine.

PATRICK H. BYRNE

little chance of forming, much less of conditioning, future performance. Hence, only God's supernatural infusion 0£ supernatural virtues (habits) through grace would make good
performance likely and regular, rather than unlikely and
sporadic.
Lonergan amplified this discussion by considering Aquinas's
accounts of the proportion for the true and the good in God,
angels and humans. 9 In those accounts, according to Lonergan,
God alone is held to be fully proportionate (identical with) the
true and the good, so that God's proportion guarantees that
God's operation is absolutely right. Angels, while not identical
with the true and the good, are highly proportionate to them.
Hence, the operations of the angels are for the most part right.
In man, however, the proportion to the true and the good only
establishes the possibility of right action; so chances are that
humans will do what is wrong. However, when God's grace infuses supernatural virtues in humans a dramatic shift in probabilities takes place. Lonergan described that shift in the following terms:
" Nevertheless, give man the virtues and in place of the statistical
law governing humanity one will have an approximation to the statistical law governing the angels." 10

In other words, with habitual grace humans for the most part
spontaneously do what is right. 11
Lonergan's way of describing the effects of habitual grace as
a shift in a statistical law was the first indication in his writings
of his idea of a shift in probabilities of emergence, which is given
a more detailed treatment in lnsight. 12 Still, there is at least
one significant difference between the infusion of habitual grace
and natural emergence. In the infusion of supernatural virtues,
God operates immediately and, in a manner of speaking, internally to the soul. Natural emergence -of intelligible events, on
9

Ibid., p. 45.

10 Ibid.
11 Aquinas,

of course, does not use the term, ' statistical.'

12 Insight, pp. 120-l!ll.

THOMIST SOURCES OF LONERGAN's

WORLD-VIEW

113

the other hand, is externally conditioned. Thus, while Lonergan' s efforts at understanding Aquinas's thought on habitual
grace led him to adopt a statistical way of thinking, it was not
until Lonergan took up Aquinas's writings on actual grace that
he encountered the appropriate source for the statistical character of natural emergence.
According to Lonergan, while Aquinas could take over the
" ready made " idea of habit from Aristotle, St. Thomas had to
think out a natural analogy for the operation of actual grace.13
The history of Aquinas's developing thought on the topic, as
Lonergan described it, began with a heavy reliance on certain
Aristotelian ways of thinking only to go progressively beyond
those Aristotelian influences. The key to this interpretation of
the movement of St. Thomas's thought on actual grace was
provided when Lonergan discovered the role played by the
"Aristotelian doctrine of premotion" in Aquinas's writings. 14 In
his assertion that a distinctive Aristotelian doctrine of premotion played the fundamental role in Aquinas's thought, Lonergen deliberately placed himself in opposition to the Bafiezian
interpretation of St. Thomas's theory of grace via the doctrine
of the praemotio phymca. 15 According to Lonergan Bafiez's doctrine implies that God is indirectly responsible for sin, a view
inimical to Aquinas's thought. 16
Lonergan introduced the Aristotelian doctrine of premotion
by considering the problem of why a cause acts at the time it
does, and not sooner or later. The problem arises because the
mere existence of a mover and a mobile is a necessary but not a
Grace and Freedom, p. 63.
Ibid., p. 71. Lonergan had also considered Aquinas's discussion of a prior motion (or premotion) as it pertained to habitual grace. There Lonergan showed how
Aquinas drew on Aristotle's physics to analyze the prior motion of the mover
when God infuses a supernatural habit, the subsequent motion of the moved when
the will receives the habit in an act of faith, the term of the movement in the
remission of sins, and the subsequent righteous acts that follow from the infused
habit as principle. God's infusion of habitual grace, then, is a premotion to both
the act of faith and consequent remission of sins, as well as to subsequent good
works. Ibid., pp. 55-61.
15 Ibid., p. 71.
rn Ibid., pp. 109-110.
is

14

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PATRICK H. BYRNE

sufficient condition for the occurrence of the movement, operation, act. Lonergan summarized Aquinas's account of the Aristotelian doctrine as follows:
A motion taking place at a given time presupposes more than the
existence of mover and moved, else why did the motion not take
place sooner? Obviously, there must have been some inability or
impediment to account for the absence of motion. With equal evidence this inability or impediment must have been removed when
the motion was about to take place. It is even more evident that
such removal must itself be another motion, prior to the motion in
question; and though St. Thomas did not use the term, we may
refer to this prior motion as a premotion. Finally, the premotion
necessarily involves a premover and, if the problem of causation in
time is to be solved, the premover must be distinct from the original mover and moved. 11

The statistical element entered Lonergan's interpretation of
Aquinas's theory of actual grace when he considered the pattern
of the Aristotelian premotions. For Aristotle, insofar as these
premotions were terrestrial (as in the case of acts of human
will) , they were as contingent as the terrestrial motions they
conditioned. Hence, the premotions were understood to be dependent upon the per accidens--" the fortuitous combinations
and interferences of causes and the fortuitous coincidences of
unrelated predicates in the same subject ". 18 In the Aristotelian
cosmos, the per accidens did not imply an infinite regress of
causation, because whenever a terrestrial motion occurred, it
was traceable through an orderly succession of terrestrial and
celestial movements to the first mover. Terrestrial movements
were nevertheless contingent, because every terrestrial motion
required that the mobile and mover (whether terrestrial or
celestial) must first be in the right relation, and at any time the
right relations are given only per accidens. In contemporary
speech, one might say that the relati_ons between movers and
mobiles are randomly distributed. The unintelligibility of the
per accidens, these random distributions, was absolute in Aris11 Ibid., p. 70.

1s Ibid., p. 77.

THOMIST SOURCES OF LONERGAN's

WORLD-VIEW

115

totle's view-that is, unintelligible to the intelligence of the
unmoved mover as well as to every lesser intelligence-because
it arose simply from the multiple potentialities of the prime
matters. 19
According to Lonergan, Aquinas accepted Aristotle's position
that terrestrial events including acts of will were contingent.
However, Christian faith also led Aquinas to maintain that divine providence was certain, and therefore that the pattern of
terrestrial events could not be unintelligible to God. 20 Lonergan showed that Aquinas's attempts to reconcile these two elements also passed through stages. Lonergan again employed
statistical categories to interpret Aquinas's progression. Regarding St. Thomas's position in the De veritate, Lonergan wrote:
" In the case of contingent causes such as terrestrial agents, it [the
causal certitude of providence] is affirmed with regard to general
results but denied with regard to each particular case. However,
there is an apparent exception to the rule, for dogmatic data require
the affirmation of causal certitude with regard to the predestination
of the elect. Still, this exception is only apparent. Not each act of
the elect but only the general result of salvation is causally certain;
just as God makes certain the perpetuity of the species by the vast
numbers of its members, so also he makes certain of the salvation
of the elect by imparting so many graces that either the predestined
does not sin at all or, if he does, then he repents and rises again." 21

Again, in contemporary terms, one might say that Aquinas
thought in terms of coupling low probabilities with large numbers of occurrences to insure average or probable ("general")
results. 22
Lonergan claimed that Aquinas went beyond this transitional
stage in thinking out the problem to arrive at a more adequate
solution. In the Contra Gentiles, Aquinas worked out the
theorem of divine transcendence which, according to Lonergan,
enabled him to place God beyond the created orders of necessity
1 9 Jbid.

20 Ibid., pp.
21

78-79.

Ibid.

22 On this,

see Lonergan's discussion in l'Mi.ght, pp. 118, l!!fl-l!M.

116

PATRICK H. BYRNE

and contingence. 23 Moreover, Lonergan indirectly showed how
Aquinas could accept the denial of intelligibility of the per accidens for human knowledge. Lonergan stated that for Aquinas
objective truth is commensurability of the object to the intellect. Since intellects are either created or divine, relative objective truth is commensurability to a created intellect, while
absolute objective truth is commensurability to the intellect of
God. 24 Hence, the per accidens may lack relative objective
truth-i.e., be humanly unintelligible-yet may have absolute
intelligibility " inasmuch as coincidences, concurrences, interferences are reducible to the divine design " that is, reducible
to divine understanding. 25 In this fashion, Lonergan explained
how Aquinas could account for the universal causality of God
through the succession of contingent motions.
After developing this background of the Aristotelian doctrine
of premotions, Lonergan turned to consider how Aquinas applied it to the topic of actual grace. According to Lonergan,
Aquinas's application of the Aristotelian doctrine to the problem of actual grace shifted dramatically with developments in
Aquinas's thought on related topics such as the nature of the
will and the transcendence of God. Lonergan claimed that in
the Commentary on the Sentences Aquinas "described the preparation for justification in terms of an Aristotelian premotion
that was either an object for the will, such as an admonition,
or else as a new factor in the apprehension of the object, such
as ill health or finally anything of the sort ". 26 Such premotions,
on this view, would be grounded in the per accidens. In other
words, God moved sinners toward justification by means of the
kind of external conditioning or external premotion. 27 Lonergan
2a Grace and Freedom, pp. 79-80, 103-109.
24 Ibid., p. ll l.

2s Ibid., pp. 113-114. In the section from which this quotation is drawn, Lonergan
was occupied with how Aquinas admitted that objective sin constitutes a part of
the per accidens which is absolutely unintelligible. In other words, the humanly
unintelligible per accidens divides into two parts: a "natural " part which is absolutely intelligible, and a sinful part which is absolutely unintelligible.
26 Ibi,d., p. 100.
21 Lonergan uses the term, " external premotions ", ibid.

THOMIST SOURCES OF LONERGAN'S

WORLD-VIEW

117

claimed that Aquinas moved to a kind of middle ground in De
veritate, when he admitted that preparation for justification
could be due either to external conditioning or to an actual
grace. Actual grace, at this point, was considered merely an
alternative, not a necessity for justification. 28
Aquinas subsequently denounced these early positions as
Pelagian. 29 The Pelagians, as Lonergan put it," asked the gods
not for virtue but only fortune; that was their citadel ". 30
Clearly, Aquinas's early positions on the preparation for justification allowed for the possibility that God's grace could operate merely through the provision of fortune by premotions,
without the provision of virtue. 31
Yet Aquinas was not satisfied merely to denounce the errors
of his earlier thought, for he sought to synthesize the need for
actual grace with the fact of external conditioning of the objects
of the intellect. According to Lonergan, Aquinas's original contributions to the theory of the will plus the theorem on divine
transcendence provided the keys to this synthesis. Lonergan
claimed that in the De malo Aquinas went beyond Aristotle's
understanding of the will as a passive potency to the intellect.
On that Aristotelian view, the intellect moved the will by providing objects for its appetition. Aquinas, as Lonergan explained, grasped that besides the intellect which apprehends the end
of an act of willing and thereby specifies the act (quoad specificationem actus) , there is a distinct agent which moves the will
to the act of willing that end (quoad exercitium actus) .82
Aquinas identified God as the agent quoad exercitium actus.
The distinction between specificationem and exercitium pro2s Ibid., p. 101.
29

Ibid.

30 Ibid., p. 2.
31 Of course Aquinas's thought on the preparation for justification was balanced
in this early period by his discussions of habitual grace. Still, Aquinas seems to have
been forced to develop a theory of actual grace when the Pelagian implications of
an exclusively habitual theory of grace become clear to him. It was the limitations
of an exclusively habitual account of grace which led to the idea of external conditioning, according to Lonergan. See ibid., p. 48.
a2 Ibid., p. 101.

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PATRICK H. BYRNE

vided Aquinas the field within which actual grace could act
directly and internally to change the will.33 Finally, Lonergan's
way of paraphrasing the Aristotelian doctrine of premotionthat there is a " premotion whenever a cause acts in time," 34admits a differentiation in view of the nuanced theory of will.
There is an indirect and external premotion of the objects of
intellect quoad specificationem actus due to the per accidens,
and there is God's direct and internal premotion of the will in
the form of actual grace, because both act in time. 35
Lonergan went on to focus on how St. Thomas differentiated
the cooperative and operative modes of actual grace, and what
he learned from St. Thomas regarding actual grace has borne
fruit in his recent writings concerning conversion and religious
experience. 36 Interestingly enough, however, Aquinas's mature
understanding of actual grace as an internal premotion had no
direct impact on Lonergan's later notion of emergence. Rather,
it was in clarifying how Aquinas overcame the limitations in
his earlier thought that Lonergan took his first steps toward an
understanding of emergence. Through his interpretation of
these earlier stages in Aquinas's thought, Lonergan hit upon
three central ideas. First in order of importance was the idea
that God moves the intellect in a statistical fashion by means
of an ·external, indirect premotion which, from the human point
of view, is reducible to a non-intelligible (or random) per accidens set of circumstances. The external premotion brings a
moved and its mover-in this case, intellect and the mover of
intellect-into the right relationship. Once the relationship is
right, intellect will be moved to a state where it can provide a
content or object to the will in order to specify the act of the
will. Since the premotion which brings this right relationship
about is ultimately reducible to the per accidens, the intellect
will be moved to this content, not necessarily, but only as a
matter of statistical chance.
33 Jbid., pp.

102-103, 115-116.
p. 71.
85 Jbid., pp. 115-116.
36 See for example Method in Theology, pp. 105-107, 237-244, 288-290,

a4 Ibid.,

THOMIST SOURCES OF LONERGAN's WORLD-VIEW

119

Second, Lonergan discovered in St. Thomas's account of the
salvation of the elect a statistical way of thinking about God's
design, insofar as a determinate result which is highly improbable can occur with general regularity insofar as large numbers
of occasions are provided to offset the low probability. Third,
in the analysis of habitual grace, Lonergan came to the idea that
probabilities need not be eternally fixed, but may undergo
" shifts " if certain conditions are provided.
In his analysis of Aquinas's theory of operative grace Lonergan discovered how a statistical field could set the conditions
under which emergence could occur. However, Lonergan's
study of the theory of grace did not lead to any discovery concerning the kind of event or process which emergence is. That
discovery came in his subsequent study of Aquinas's trinitarian
analogy, and, in particular, his clarification of St. Thomas's account of the acts or operations of the intellect. The present essay now turns to consider Lonergan's treatment of these topics.
B.

The Theory of Operation in the Verbum Articles

Lonergan published a series of five articles, the Verbum articles, in Theological Studies between 1946 and 1949.37 Those
articles were investigations of Aquinas's treatment of the procession of the inner word. They were a rich stimulus for Lonergan' s later thought on the problem of emergence, although the
topic of emergence was not the principal objective of those investigations. Lonergan's purpose in the Verbum articles was to
explicate Aquinas's analogy for the trinitarian processions, and
to show that virtually all previous commentators had misunderstood Aquinas on crucial points.
The central thesis of the V erbum articles was that Aquinas
affirmed two distinct acts of intellect-a first act, referred to
37 Bernard Lonergan, "The Concept of V
in -the Writings of St. Thomas
Aquinas", Theological Studies, 7 (1946), pp. 349-392, 8 (1947), pp. 35-79, 404-444,
IO (1949), pp. 3-40, 359-393. These articles were later collected into the volume,
Bernard Lonergan, Verbum: Word and Idea in Aquinas, (David B. Burrell, ed.),
(Notre Dame: University of Notre Dame Press, 1967). All references to the
Verbum articles in this essay are taken from this volume.

PATRICK B. BYRNliJ

either as intelligere or as dicere and a second act. The second
act of intellect is a receiving of concept (word) . Intelligere refers to the first act as a receiving of the intelligible species,
while dicere refers to one and the same act as producing the second act. Although it seems contradictory to hold that a receiving and a producing can characterize one and the same act (and
indeed this led to considerable confusion historically), Lonergan
argued that such was nonetheless Aquinas's position. Lonergan
further claimed that the relation between these two acts formed
for Aquinas the appropriate analogue for the divine procession
of the Word from the Father. 38
According to Lonergan, a series of circumstances led previous
commentators to believe that Aquinas indifferently used both
Latin terms (intelligere and dicere) to refer only to intelligence
as producing the concept. Lonergan further claimed that this
mistaken interpretation brought about a serious, long-term neglect by philosophy and theology of the presence and the importance of a prior act of intellect, understanding. Much of the
V erbum articles is devoted to demonstrating that Aquinas indeed held this is an act of intellect distinct from conceiving, and
to explaining the nature and significance of this distinction.
In the first of the V erbum articles, Lonergan described the occurrence of this first act of intellect in the following terms: "The
act of understanding leaps forth when the sensible data are in
a suitable constellation." 39 This description has a clear relationship to what Lonergan discovered in Aquinas's writings on
actual grace. The11e Lonergan noted that the mover of intellect
must first be brought into the right relationship with the intellect, that this movement occurs not necessarily but as a matter
of statistical chance, and that once the intellect is so moved it
38 More fully, the theses of the Verbum articles were that:
(a) Aquinas distinguished between two modes of the first act of intellect (intelligere and dicere) as
well as between two modes of the act which precedes judgment (a distinct intelligere and iudicare); (b) that the analogue for the procession of the Word from
the Father was either dicere or iudicare, while (c) the analogue for the procession
of the Holy Spirit was to be found in the way a further act of will, velle, proceeds
from iudicare.
39 Verbum, p. 14.

THOMIST SOURG'ES OF LONERGAN'S

WORLD-VIEW

will be in possession of a content or object which can specify
the act of the will. But just what is this content? How does it
relate to the " motion " of the intellect and, for that matter,
what kind of motion occurs in the intellect? Just what is the
mover of the intellect, and how does the external premotion
influence its right relation to the intellect?
Lonergan's brief description of the act of understanding provides a preliminary answer to some of these questions. The
mover of intellect is sensible (or more generally, imaginable)
presentations. Furthermore, the external premotions of natural
occurrences in the universe gradually and statistically modify
until their constituent elements are in the
such
" suitable constellation " or right relation for intellect. Once
this happens, the intellect is moved to understand, and the content is the content grasped by understanding. One instance of
the pre-moved motion of the intellect, then, is understanding.
The short description provides only a preliminary answer,
however, to the several questions concerning the emergence of
understanding in the intellect. In order to obtain a more complete set of answers, and in order to show that Lonergan's account of the first act of intellect (understanding) is indeed
based on St. Thomas's own thought, it is necessary to consider
in greater detail the analysis Lonergan set forth in the Verbum
articles.
i ¥!
It is clear enough that, in his writings on the Trinity, Aquinas
held that there is an analogy between the processions in the
human intellect and the processions of the Divine Persons in
God. What is not as clear is precisely what St. Thomas understood the human analogue to be. In other words, what was
Aquinas's theory of the human intellect? At the time Lonergan
undertook his V erbum investigations, there was a prevailing
theory of intellect which Lonergan later_ termed " conceptualism ". Furthermore, St. Thomas's writings on the human intellect were, according to Lonergan, commonly interpreted as embodying the principles of conceptualism. Although particular
versions of the conceptualist theory differed in details, all ver-

PATRICK H. BYRNE

sions shared a common set of assumptions which, m outline
form, went something like this:
The species of particular objects impress themselves upon the sensitive potency. Once a sufficient number of similar objects had so
impressed the sensitive potency, the species pops into the intellect,
automatically and even unconsciously, in the form of a universal
separated from the sensible matter. This automatic, unconscious
process was called ' abstraction '. (In extreme cases, such as the
Kantian categories, the universal species was held to be innate to
the mind.) The only act of intellect was to supply a rubber-stamp
recognition of the already present universal concept, or possibly to
compare the already present concepts in order to determine whether
one was contained in another, whether they possessed the qualities
of necessity and so on. 40

Unfortunately, a process so conceived holds no adequate analogues for the trinitarian processions, for those processions are
neither automatic nor unconscious. Furthermore, each step in
the process of intellection, in the prevailing view, involved a
series of perfections of the intellect, while the processions of the
Word and Holy Spirit do not perfect the Father. 41 Lonergan
recognized these facts and he assumed that Aquinas did as well.
Hence Lonergan was led to search for a different theory of intellect in Aquinas's writings as the basis for the trinitarian analogy of the Doctor Communis. It was in reconstructing the
theory of intellect which Lonergan claimed to be genuinely
Thomist that he encountered problems related to emergence.
Lonergan asserted that he had faced a " terminological jun40 See, for example, Lonergan's

remarks in ibid., p. 25, fn. 122, and pp. 152-161.
the other hand, Lonergan was able to show that Aquinas's account of the
procession of dicere from intelligere did not involve the limitations of other accounts.
Other accounts (e.g. procession of Word from Father is like the procession of image
from imagination or act of inteUect from intellect) always involved the perfection
of a potency-processio operationis. Clearly, the analogue for divine procession
could not be a processio operationis, for then the Word would have to be a perfection of the Father. If that were so, the Father would not be God. The distinction
between intelligere and dicere pointed to a different kind of procession-processio
operati. Because the human act of understanding (intelligere) is not perf.ected by
conceptualizing (dicere) what is already fully understood, it provided a more adequate analogue for the divine procession.
41 On

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gle " 42 in trying to discover Aquinas's theory of intellect. Thus,
his interpretation of Aquinas frequently required elaborate distinctions of meanings and ordering of terminological complexities. This is especially true in the third V erbum article, " Procession and Related Notions" 43 where Lonergan sorted out the
complexities involved in Aquinas's use of such terms as actio,
pati, potentia. activa, S'pecies and obiectum. The primary purpose of this massive interpretative exercise was, of course, to
clarify St. Thomas's account of the distinctions and relations
between the two modes of acting in the first act of intellect
(understanding or intelligere, and conceiving or dicere). In particular, Lonergan had to discover the type of motion appropriate to each of the two modes. Hence, a secondary benefit of
the interpretative exercise was a more complete set of answers
to the questions concerning the way the first act of intellect
moves, and these answers served as important sources for his
later thought concerning emergence.
Lonergan made two major discoveries which helped him cut
through the "terminological jungle" and reach the genuinely
Thomist account of the motion of the first act of intellect.
Those discoveries were: (1) that Aquinas clearly held that the
act of understanding (intelligere) had the distinctive character
of a" passive operation"; and (2) that St. Thomas variously
adopted what Lonergan called Aristotelian and Avicennist
schemes of analysis in order to discuss different aspects of understanding. By means of the first discovery Lonergan could
show that the type of motion proper to intelligere was sharply
distinguished both from continuous physical motion on the one
hand, and the productive activity of conceiving (dicere) on the
other. By means of the second discovery, Lonergan could demonstrate: (2a) that Aquinas consistently maintained the passivity of understanding even when referring the act to its potency; (2b) that Aquinas never held species to produce its act;
4 2 Verbum, op. cit., p. xiv. On the hermeneutical procedures Lonergan needed in
order to unravel this "terminological jungle", see pp. vii-x, xiii-xiv, 188-189.
48 Jbid., pp. 97-140.

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PATRICK H. BYRNE

(2c) that the object of understanding (phantasm) instrumentally produced both the species and act, unlike the object of
conceiving (concept) which was produced by the act. Let us
consider these points in greater detail.
(1) When Lonergan wrote the Verbum articles over thirty
years ago, he stated that people" seem to think it a contradiction in terms to speak of operating [acting] subjects as being
moved ". 44 The idea of the independently operating subject is
no less prevalent today than it was when Lonergan wrote those
words. Although Aquinas's multiple uses of the terms actio and
operatio can seem to reinforce this attitude, Longeran contended that a proper reading of Aquinas leads to the conclusion that
he indeed held a passion to be an act. 45 To substantiate his
claim, Lonergan adverted to an Aristotelian distinction, carried
over by Aquinas, between movement and operation. In movements, one part succeeds another in time. A projectile moves
through this part of space and then through that part of space;
it cannot be both moving through and hav.e moved through the
same part of space at the same time. The whole of the movement is given only in the whole of time. Furthermore, there is
a distinction between the occurring movement and the totality
or end of the movement. In this sense, then, the act of movement is imperfect (acti{,S imperfecti in Aquinas's terms). An
operation, on the other hand, does not become through time but
endures through time. At any instant it is completely what it
is to be (act'l{,S perf ecti) . The end of the operation is coincident
with operating itself. 46
Lonergan claimed that the acts of intellect, including understanding, were instances of operation and not movement. There
is a tendency within the conceptualist theories of intellect to
regard the intellect as a material container or receptacle. Within
such views, acts of intellect tend to be conceived of as spatial
movements. For example, the species of an object is impressed
44 Ibid., p.

110.
pp. 130-131.
46 Ibid., p. 10!2.
45 Ibid.,

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upon the intellect (possibly by sensation) as wax receives the
outline of a hot seal.47 Or again, one might conceive of the mind
as lifting the species of an object out of one container (sensation) and placing it into another (intellect) in order to compare
concepts by juxtaposition. In all such cases, there would be
merely continuous movement in space and time, actus imperf ecti. Intellect would merely rubber-stamp sensation, adding
nothing of its own. There would be no actus perf ecti and no
emergence; rather, there would be only rearrangement. However, Lonergan contended both that the acts of intellect-and
especially understanding-in fact are instances of actus perf ecti,
and that this was Aquinas's position as well.48
Equipped with this clarification, Lonergan could demonstrate
Aquinas's consistency in speaking of understanding as a passion
as well as an operation or act. Accordingly, he stated: "There
is no difficulty in thinking of movement in the strict sense of
actus imperfecti as a pati [passion]. But there appears to be
enormous difficulty in thinking of movement in the broad sense,
which includes the actus perfecti [operation], as a pati ".49 But,
as Lonergan demonstrated in great detail, Aquinas in fact did
call the act of understanding a passion. 50 In order to show the
legitimacy of Aquinas's claim that understanding was both an
operation and a passion, Lonergan explained that Aquinas was
using what is now a somewhat unfamiliar Aristotelian meaning
of ' passion '. Aristotle, and therefore Aquinas, distinguished
between passion in the usual sense, pati proprie (alteration for
the worse, suffering, the human passions) and passion in an
extended sense, pati communiter (simply a receiving by a subject according to its potency) . Hence, pati communiter is not
47 Indeed Lonergan showed that Aristotle and Aquinas used the wax-seal analogue
to illustrate their teachings regarding the intellect. Indirectly, therefore, their
illustration may have lent support to this conceptualist tendency. But Lonergan
also claimed most emphatically that both Aristotle and Aquinas held the intellect to
be immaterial, and carefully avoided such conceptualist tendencies themselves.
Ibid., p. 149.
48 Ibid., pp. 126-128, 188-189.
49 Ibid., p. 107.
so Ibid., p. 180-188.

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PATRICK H. BYRNE

a worsening but a perlecting 0£ the recipient. Lonergan further
noted that for Aquinas there is " an acting which is simply being in act and which is not opposed to being changed and being moved ". 51 The same naturally holds true when 'being
moved' means being moved to receive, that is, receiving. Lonergan brought his analysis on this point to a close by stating:
" To conclude, the influence of Aristotle did lead Aquinas to use
operatio and actio in the sense of act or of being in act; and in that
sense there is no absurdity-on the contrary, there is a necessityin saying that such act in a creature is a pati communiter [passion]." 52

(2a) Lonergan's analysis of pati c01nmuniter had in principle
established the possibility of conceiving of a passive operation.
Nevertheless, Lonergan still had to show that the passages
where Aquinas ref erred the operation of understanding to its
potency did not contradict the position that understanding is
passive. The interpretative problem arose because of an ambiguity in Aquinas's usages of the term, potentia activa, which still
seemed to favor the idea that intelligere could not be passive,
and Lonergan considered this problem next.
In certain Thomist texts, potentia activa is an active principle, while in others it is a passive principle. To eliminate this
ambiguity, Lonergan noted that Aquinas in fact had two distinct definitions of potentia activa, and introduced the English
terms, ' efficient potency ' and ' active potency ', in order to
distinguish linguistically what Aquinas distinguished intentionally. 'Efficient potency' denoted the definition of potentia activa found in what Lonergan called an Aristotelian scheme of
analysis. He translated the corresponding use of potentia passiva by 'receptive potency'. According to Lonergan, the Aristotelian scheme of analysis defined efficient potency and receptive potency as follows:
"Efficient potency was defined as the principle of movement or of
change in the other or, if in self, then in self as other. Receptive
51 Jbid., p.

109.

52 Ibid., p. 111.

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potency was defined as the principle of movement or of change by
the other or, if by self, then by self as other." 53
The example given was of the efficient potency to heat and
the receptive potency to be heated. According to Lonergan,
the relational element between efficient and receptive potency
is clear: " efficient potency is not conceived apart from a corresponding receptive potency; and receptive potency is not conceived apart from a corresponding efficient potency; to have
either one must have both ". 54
Lonergan continued by noting that, in addition to efficient
and receptive potency-each of which is related and therefore
presupposes some " other "-there was the Aristotelian concept
of " nature ". Nature is a principle of action in the thing, and
especially its form. Nature or, as Lonergan later phrased it,
" natural potency " is a principle of action in the selfsame.
Lonergan attributed Aquinas's second definition of potentia
activa. (active potency) to an Avicennist scheme of analysis
and translated the corresponding potentia passiva by ' passive
potency '. Passive potency is the potency to receive form. Active potency, on the other hand, is simply the principle of
operation or action. The operation or action may have an external effect-as when heat heats something-or it may not
involve any effect over and above itself, 55 as when understanding (intellectus) simply understands (intelligit) . In the latter
case, the active potency does not require some other. Hence,
active potency and passive potency can be subdivisions of the
Aristotelian natural potency and, according to Lonergan, St.
Thomas at times employed precisely those subdivisions. 56 Finally, the act of understanding can also be the act of an active
potency (or natural potency) in just this sense.
Having clarified the distinction between the Aristotelian and
Avicennist meanings of potentia activa, Lonergan proceeded to
5a Ibid., p.

118.

Ibid.
55 Ibid., pp. 116-117.
56 Ibid., p. 188.
54

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PATRICK H. BYRNE

show how Aquinas applied each meaning to the act of understanding. Intellect as a receptive potency is intellect as capable
of being moved to reception. Intellect as passive potency is
intellect regarded in its capacity to receive form as new-that
is, to understand something for the first time. Further, intellect
considered as an active potency is an intellect not presently
understanding, but capable of re-actualizing a prior act of understanding in virtue of the habit, species or form acquired
through p11evious learning. In no case, however, did Aquinas
ever regard this first act of intellect, understanding, as the operation of an efficient potency as in the conceptualist scheme,
where the unconsciously received concept provokes conscious
recognition of the already present concept. Aquinas always
took understanding to be passive, to be the operation either of
a receptive potency (receiving its operation from a mover) of
a passive potency (the receiving of a form or species for the
first time) or of an active potency ·(the operation or re-actuation of an already received form or species) .57
(2b) The distinction between the Aristotelian and Avicennist schemes of analysis enabled Lonergan to clarify the way
in which one act can give rise to a second act-a clarification
central to the V erbum investigations. The need for clarification
arose because Aquinas had used the Avicennist scheme in a way
that seemed to supply a natural analogue for the trinitarian
processions. Insofar as passive potency is conceived of as potency to receive form, its correlated act is form (species) 58-i.e.,
the element of reality known in defining. But form can also be
the principle of an operation or act. 59 In that sense, form (or
informed passive potency) can be understood as active potency
correlated with an act which is the operation of that form. For
example, the form or habit of science is potency to the operation of thinking scientifically. This is one sense in which it
might be possible to speak of act giving rise to act. One could
57 lbUl.,

pp. 188-140.
124-125.
59 IbUl., p. 122.
58 Jbid., p.

THOMIST SOURCES OF LONERGAN's

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rn9

think of form or species (identical with active potency) as first
act (i.e., act of a passive potency) giving rise to the operation
of the form as second act (i.e., act of the active potency) .
Lonergan claimed that several commentators had taken this
scheme of second act following upon first act as Aquinas's own
analogy, and he disagreed emphatically with that interpretation. The scheme fails as an analogy, for the operation of a
form or species is a perfection of the active potency, but in no
sense is the Word regarded as a perfection of the Father. Furthermore, the scheme fails as an interpretation of Aquinas's
theory of intellect, for it implies that the species or form effects
its own operation (i ..e., according to the conceptualist account,
when the received concept produces intellectual awareness of
that concept). By way of contrast, Lonergan set forth a detailed argument grounded in textual evidence that Aquinas did
not conceive of species (form) as producing the act of intelligere. Since the less perfect cannot produce the more perfect,
species as potency to the operation (intelligere) is less perfect
than it is and so cannot produce it. Nor, according to Lonergan, does Aquinas ever claim that species is the principle of an
effect (i.e., an efficient potency) . Rather, Lonergan claimed,
the Thomist position was that whatever produces the species
also produces its operation, intelligere. 60
The true Thomist scheme of first act giving rise to second
act which, in Lonergan's interpretation, was the basis for the
trinitarian analogy was quite different from the metaphysical
scheme of active potency and operation favored by the commentators. According to Lonergan, Aquinas based his analogy
on the specific kind of metaphysical scheme which distinguishes
two modes of intellectual operation: understanding (intelligere)
and conceiving (dicere). Lonergan summed up his interpretation as follows:
Finally, while we have seen that the terms, operatio and actio,
sometimes mean simply act or being in act and sometimes mean the
exercise of efficient causality we now find that the precision of triniso Ibid., p. U7.

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PATRICK H. BYRNE

tarian theory led Aquinas to distinguish exactly between these two
meanings with regard to the operation or action of intellect: when
that operation is meant in the sense of act, it is termed intelligere;
but when by operation is meant that one act is grounding another,
it is termed dicere.61

(2c) While the relation between intelligere and die-ere is ?Wt
what Lonergan would later mean by emergence, a by-product
0£ the efforts he made toward clarifying this relation was a
breakthrough on the topic of emergence. A crucial discovery
both for the reconstruction of the Thomist theory of intellect
and for the resolution of the problem of emergence was that the
species did not produce the operation of intellect. This quite
naturally led to the question, what did produce the operation
as well as the species? Here, as before, Lonergan responded by
adverting to a distinction in Aquinas's writings between an
Aristotelian and an Avicennist scheme of analysis. This time the
distinction in schemes of analysis pointed to a corresponding
distinction between the objects of intellect. Lonergan noted
that Aristotle maintained that essences were distinguished by
bheir potencies, the potencies by their acts, and the acts by
their objects. 62 The metaphysical analysis found in both Aristotle and Aquinas proceeds backwards, beginning with objects
and eventually yielding the essences. According to Lonergan,
Aquinas described the relations between the objects and acts
of intellect in terms of efficient causality. 63 That is, Aquinas
analyzed the objects of the acts of intellect according to the
Aristotelian definitions of potentia activa (efficient potency)
and potentia passiva (receptive potency). Where the potency
is efficient, the act produces the object as its term, i.e., a terminal object. Such is the case in the relationship between conceiving, dicere, and its terminal object, the inner word or con61 Jbid., p.

126-127.
viii, 128, 140. Lonergan contended that this metaphysical method of
analysis needs to be supplemented, when conscious acts were being investigated, by
a phenomenological or intentionality analysis method which studies conscious acts
not by deduction from their object, but in themselves as given in consciousness.
Ibid., p. ix.
63 Jbid., p. 129.
62 Jbid., pp.

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131

cept. However, where the potency is receptive, the object
produces the act-i.e., is the moving or agent object. Such is
the case where illuminated phantasm moves the intellect to
understanding, intelligere.
Since Aquinas sometimes spoke of an act of intellect as the
act of potentia activa in the Avicennist sense of an act of an
active potency (namely, intelligere, the act of understanding),
and sometimes spoke of an act of intellect as the act of potentia
a,otiva in the Aristotelian sense of an act of an efficient potency
(namely, dicere, the act of conceiving) confusion resulted. If
one failed to distinguish between the Aristotelian and Avicennist meanings of potentia activa, how would he try to make
sense of St. Thomas's treatment of intellect? First, intellect
could act in only one mode, because there would be but one
potentia activa. Second, if this single mode were understoood
only as the act of potentia activa (=efficient potency, as happened in conceptualist interpretations), then the problem of
the mover of intellect becomes confused. The potentia passiva
of the intellect must be understood as a receptivity to form but
not as a potency to the intellectual activity of receiving form.
The species must, then, somehow get into the intellect without
operation on the part of intellect, which is possible only if the
impression of species upon intellect occurs unintelligently and
indeed unconsciously. Further, something must trigger the
single operation of intellect and species in an obvious candidate.
Thus, the species in the intellect causes the intellect to act in a
kind of rubber-stamp acknowledgement of the mysteriously appearing species. According to Lonergan, this is how the conceptualist interpretation of St. Thomas and the conceptualist
theory of intellect came about. It is but a short step from a
conceptualist doctrine that the species enters the intellect unconsciously to saying that it was always present a priori as did
Kant. The conceptualist account is forced to deviate from St.
Thomas's statements at several points (for example, that there
is no act of receiving which occurs intelligently, consciously),
and if the Aristotelian-Avicennist distinction is overlooked this
is inevitable.

PATRICK H. BYRNE

By way of contrast, Lonergan quoted several Thomist passages to show that Aquinas did indeed hold that there was an
act which was a reception and that its object was its mover.
He concluded his discussion as follows:
Equipped only with the A vicennist scheme of analysis, an interpreter will " explain " these passages right up to the point where
he debates whether Aquinas conceived the operation of sensation
[or intellect] to terminate at some species sensibilis expressa or else
without any such immanent product, to terminate with magnificent
realism at the present external real thing. No doubt such a debate
must arise if the object is always a term. No doubt the object must
always be a term, if the potency can be passive only with respect
to the reception of species, for then the active object can be active
and so can be object only with respect to the species and not with
respect to the subsequent act, action or operation. No doubt finally one arrives at these conclusions when one proceeds in light of
general principles formulated by attending only to the Avicennist
scheme of analysis. But I would submit that taking into consideration the Aristotelian scheme of analysis, one can omit such explanation and accept what Aquinas wrote as a satisfactory account of
what Aquinas thought ... Aquinas states that the passive potency
is active, not with respect to species alone, but with respect to the
act, the action, the operation of the potency ... it would seem that
the object is active, not merely inasmuch as it causes the species,
but also inasmuch as it causes the act, action, operation .... 64

According to Lonergan, the confusion which resulted from the
neglect of the distinction between the Aristotelian and the
Avicennist schemes of analysis, caused difference between understanding in its relation to phantasm on the one hand, and
conceiving in its relation to concept on the other, to be obscured
for centuries of philosophical investigation. Little wonder, then,
that Lonergan found so much significance in the rediscovery of
intelligere and entitled his philosophical magnum opus, "Insight: A Study of Huma.n Understanding".
Once he had clarified St. Thomas's account of the two distinct modes of operation of intellect, Lonergan completed his
reconstruction of Aquinas's theory of intellect by integrating
64 Ibid.,

pp. 130-131.

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the less problematic· statements concerning possible intellect
and agent intellect into the pattern of relations among the operations. The possible intellect is simply the intellect regarded
as a natural potency that receives. 65 The possible intellect of
one who is understanding something for the first time is a passive potency to the reception of species. It is intellect as potens
omnia fieri (potency to become everything) .66 The possible intellect of a subject reactualizing what it already has understood
and understands habitually is active potency in the sense of
form as ground of operation or act. 67
The relationship between dicere and possible intellect is
slightly more complicated. The complication arises from the
fact that as act or operation, dicere is identical with intelligere.
Metaphysically, there is no real distinction between dicere and
intelligere. Temporally, however, we ordinarily first understand, and then formulate or conceptualize our understanding
at some later point in time (although there is no necessity that
this be so) . Conceiving is nothing other than understanding
producing another act (the receiving of the concept, word) in
the possible intellect. Strictly speaking, then, dicere, the first
act of intellect, is the principle of motion of the production of
the concept, and is therefore the efficient potency, while the
possible intellect is the receptive potency which receives the
concept or word in a second act. This way of putting the matter can be misleading, however, insofar as it suggests that dicere
could accomplish all this independently of intelligere. This is
impossible, of course, since dicere act-ually is intelligere. Perhaps the best way of stating the matter is to say that" conceiving occurs because of understanding." 68 Viewed from this
perspective, it is apparent that dicere, as an act of possible intellect, acts on possible intellect or, as Lonergan put it, dicere is
efficient potency moving "self as other."
Agent intellect is intellect as po tens omnia f acere (potency to
65 Ibid., p.

149.

66 Ibid., p. 85.

67 Ibid., pp. 139-140.
as I owe this phrasing to Dr. Thomas Loughran.

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PATRICK H. BYRNE

make everything) .69 It is a unique sort of potency. It doesn't
directly "make everything", the way, say, that fire acts directly by heating that which has a potency to be heated. It acts
both externally and indirectly, as God acts in Creation. Agent
intellect acts by illuminating phantasms (images) and thereby
transforming them from mere presentations to the moving objects of intellect. 70 (Mere presentations as such have no capacity
to move the intellect. They are merely instrumental to moving
the intellect.) Lonergan identified agent intellect with the human capacity for wonder-what he later called the pure, unrestricted desire to know-which issues in endless questions.
Illuminated phantasms, according to Lonergan, means nothing
more than the presentations (of sense or imagination) as inquired about-those presentations as one asks the what, why,
how of it. In the process of illumination (identified as inquiry)
one witnesses the intellect bringing itself to act. But in order
to do so, the human intellect requires the intermediation of
presentations which it cannot supply itself. These are supplied
by the statistical premotions.
With these elements assembled, it is possible to summarize
the theory of intellect which Lonergan claimed to have reconstructed from Aquinas's writings.
A phantasm (presentation) is received in the sensitive or imaginative potency. Agent intellect illuminates the phantasm, transforming it into a moving, agent object of intellect. The agent object
moves the natural potency of possible intellect to a passion/operation (intelligere, understanding) which is the reception of the species understood. In certain circumstances, the intellect in act may
further act, out of the capacity of intelligere to act, conceiving
( dicere) a concept as a terminal object.

The whole process is far more complicated than the commonly accepted view and lacks the mechanistic aspects of the conceptualist theory.
This rather lengthy survey of how Lonergan reconstructed
St. Thomas's theory of intellect puts one in a much better posi69 Verbum,

p. 85.

10 Ibid., pp. 164-166.

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135

tion to answer the questions regarding the motion (or operation) of the intellect which were left unanswered by Lonergan's
discussion of the external premotions in the Gratia Operans
articles. 71 First, the external premotions modify the sensible or
imaginable presentations until they form a suitable phantasm.,
a particular phantasm. which is capable of moving the intellect.
Second, a suitable phantasm. moves the intellect to understanding, not concept. Thus, the external prem.otions move the intellect to its first, not its second, act. Third, the motion of the
intellect is a receiving, is completely " all at once " operation
and is radically discontinuous with the continuous modification
of the sensible or imaginable data by the external premotions.
Fourth, because the operation of intellect so moved is a receiving, the relation between the operation of the intellect and the
object provided to the will is the relation between the receiving
of a content and the content received. Fifth, the content received is species, form or in the most general terms, intelligibility. Yet the species so received is not the conceptualized univ,ersal. Rather, the species received is the species as understood
to be immanent in the particular moving phantasm and which
usually contains a nexus of universals. 72 It is the work of conceiving to distinguish the concepts and relations in the nexus
from one another, and to formulate the universality of what is
so understood apart from the particularity of the moving
phantasm.
In the first section of this essay, it was shown how Lonergan's
study of Aquinas's theory of grace enabled him to realize that
the intellect operates only insofar as the chance occurrences of
a statistical external premotion make its operation possible. In
the second section it was shown how Lonergan came to understand what took place when the intellect operates (understands). It remains to be shown how Lonergan assembled
these elements into a generalized notion of emergence which
enabled him to integrate and to anticipate the :findings of modern science.
11 See

this essay, pp. U-13.

1 2 Ibid., p. 5!!.

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PATRICK H. BYRNE.

C. The Notion of Emergence in Insight
Any account of emergence which hopes to integrate the discoveries of modern science must come to terms with at least
four basic problems. First, insofar as emergence is taken to be
an objective of empirical scientific investigation, which Lonergan claims it is, emergence cannot be explained teleologically.
Teleological explanations commonly posit either some sort of
" pull " on the present by the future or some conscious desire,
purpose or pre-conceived plan of a future end to guide present
functioning, even when that functioning is not conscious. Modern science has systematically rejected both as unverifiable.
This, then, constitutes the problem of how to explain emergence.
Second, emergence is clearly change, but it is not just change.
Continuous physical motion through space and time is change,
but it is not emergence. Emergence is discontinuous and must
be differentiated conceptually and methodologically from continuous motion. This is the problem of how emergence occurs.
Third, while all modern formulations of physics, whether Galilean, Newtonian, or Einsteinian, deny that anything new is
added from one instant of inertial motion to another, emergence,
on the contrary, is the addition of novelty to what went before.
The need to provide a precise specification of what is novel is
fundamental to any modern account of emergence. This constitutes the problem of what emerges. Finally, without the precision brought by a technical account of emergence, modern
empirical investigators in the natural and human sciences have
no critical basis for distinguishing between emergence and degeneration. Indeed, Lonergan's chief criticism of Karl Marx
was that what he took to be the principle of historical progress
is, in fact, a principle of historical decline.73 Thus the problem
of specifying the sense in which emergence is progressive must
also be met.
Now Lonergan had arrived at the basic ideas needed to meet
all four of these problems in his researches into Aquinas's
13 fnsight, p.

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thought on grace and the Trinity. First, St. Thomas's explanation of the emergence of understanding in the human intellect,
as Lonergan interpreted it, is not teleological. Intellect has a
definite capacity to be moved and to each act of understanding
there corresponds a more or less definite moving image. Yet
neither the receptive potency of a given intellect nor the actuality of a given sensation or imagination could guarantee the
occurrence of an act of understanding. Rather, understanding
emerges only through the statistical interplay between the agent
intellect and the external premotions modifying the presentations. Understanding emerges, then, not through some teleological pull or push but merely as a matter of chance, and in statistical theories, matters of chance have become legitimate
objects of scientific explanation. The emergence of understanding in human intellect was explained by Aquinas through a
combination of causal factors (e.g., potencies) and statistical
factors.
Second, Lonergan found a solution to how emergence takes
place in Aquinas's distinction between continuous motion (actus
imperf ecti) and operation (actus perfecti) . Continuous motion
is only partially whole at any given instant. Operation is radically discontinuous, however, for one either understands something or one does not. 74 Befor,e one understands, the act is not
even imperfectly present; once one is understanding, there is not
further perfection of that understanding. Moreover, the external premotions modify the sensible or imaginative presentations in a continuous fashion, yet the intellect will operate only
74 This may seem to be at odds with the common experiences that (a) over time
one seems to get a clearer and clearer understanding of a problem, and (b) that one
may understand some aspect or aspects of something (e.g., of a friend) but does
not fully understand it. There is no real divergence between these experiences and
the position of Lonergan and St. Thomas. The problem arises because of an
equivocation regarding the " something " which is understood in any act of understanding. As Aristotle pointed out, there is always a concomitance of many essences and accidents in any concrete subject. Each essential or accidental predicate
must be understood before it can be truly predicated of the subject. Thus, while
no one act of understanding is a complete understanding of the subject, each essence or accident is either understood or it is not. There is no middle ground.

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PATRICK H. BYRNE

if the particular, suitable constellation is chanced upon. Thus,
understanding emerges discontinuously from the continuity of
presentations.
Third, because St. Thomas affirmed that understanding is the
operation-reception of form (species), Lonergan also hit upon
an answer to the problem of how emergence allows for novelty.
It adds an intelligible order wher,e previously there was only
sensible " order" (or more properly, disorder) . Unless understanding operates, the intelligible order will not be present in
consciousness.
Fourth, because the emergence of understanding is an act of
intelligence, the progressive character of emergence is clarified.
For progress is orderly, normative change while decline is arbitrary change. But to understand is to be intelligent (to change
or operate intelligently) and to be intelligent is to operate in an
orderly, normative fashion. To be intelligent is quite the opposite of being arbitrary.
Clearly Lonergan had found an account of an instance of
emergence which met the basic criteria of a modern scientific
account in Aquinas's writings on the first operation of intellect.
Yet this was an account of only one type of emergence-the
emergence of the act of understanding in intellect. It remained
for Lonergan to generalize the basic ideas he learned from St.
Thomas so that they could apply to other instances of natural
emergence. He underook this task in his book, Insight.
In Insight Lonergan first took up the general problem of
emergence in the sections devoted to "emergent probability."
Our Darwinian heritage has made us accustomed to thinking in
terms of the emergence of things, that is, types of plants and
animals. However, Lonergan has made the emergence of things
derivative from a more general notion, 75 namely the emergence
of what he has called " schemes of re_currence." Lonergan gave
a generalized answer to the problem of what emerges in terms
of this notion of " schemes of recurrence ". Let us, therefore
consider what Lonergan means by " scheme of recurrence."
He defined scheme of recurrence as follows:
15 Insight, pp. !t59-:t67.

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"The notion of the scheme of recurrence arose when it was noted
that the diverging series of conditions for an event might coil
around in a circle. In that case, a series of events, A,B,C, . . .
would be so related that the fulfillment of the conditions for each
would be the occurrence of the others. Schematically, then, the
scheme might be represented by the series of conditionals. If A
occurs, B will occur; if B occurs, C will occur; if C occurs, ... A will
recur. Such a circular arrangement may involve any number of
terms, the possibility of alternative routes, and in general, any degree of complexity." 76
Lonergan illustrated this general notion of a scheme of recurrence by the periodicity of our planetary system, the nitrogen
cycle whereby biological nutrients are replenished, and the
cycles underlying the ups and downs of economic production
and distribution. One might add as further examples the hydrogen-helium cycle of stellar fusion, the Krebs cycle by which
cells secure biologically useful energy and the routines constituting most of our daily living which Erik H. Erikson has called
" ritualizations of experience ". 77
According to Lonergan, each conditional in such a recurrent
pattern is derivable from the natural, causal laws which are the
objects of modern scientific research. Yet insofar as each conditional pertains to concretely occurring events, natural causal
laws alone do not suffice to show that if A in fact occurs B will
in fact occur. By way of illustration, suppose "A occurs"
stands for" a baseball at an altitude of 144 feet is stationary at
exactly 1: 00 p.m." and B stands for" the same baseball strikes
the ground at a velocity of 96 feet per second at precisely 1: 00
p.m. and three seconds." The conditional is derivable from the
general relation which is called Galileo's law of falling bodies.
Yet Galileo's law will deliver up this particular conditional only
when a baseball in fact happens to be in the initial state described, only if there is no air resistance, only so long as a body
whose mass is equal to that of the earth continues to exist, and
so on. Each of these conditions, in turn, depends upon the prior
1s Ibid., p. 118.
77 Erik

H. Erikson, Toys and Reasons (N.Y.: W. W. Norton and Company, Inc.,

1977), passim.

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PATRICK H. BYRNE

occurrence of other conditions. Thus, each of the conditionals
constituting the scheme of recurrence-and therefore the entire
scheme itself-is dependent upon the prior occurrence of several
series of conditions. Longeran described this dependence as
follows:
Let us suppose that the set of events, A,B,C, ... satisfies a conditioned scheme of recurrence, say K, in a world situation in which
the scheme, K, is not functioning but, in virtue of the fulfillment of
prior conditions, could begin to function. 78

Thus, in Lonergan's generalization, that which emerges is a
scheme of recurrence. It emerges-or begins to operate-" all
at once " the moment any one of its interdependent constituent
events occurs. What emerges is a set of interconnections made
intelligible (species) by scientific laws, and by" emergence" is
meant the actualization (or operation) of what previously was
merely a possibility. Thus Lonergan was able to explain in
what sense new kinds of being can emerge, for schemes are distinguished by their combinations of causal laws, and each distinct combination is a " new" type of being when it first
operates. Finally, such a scheme actually begins to operate
only when prior conditions are fulfilled (that is, the events are
brought into right relation), and those prior conditions are fulfilled not by the operation of the scheme, but by what could
only be called external premotion.
Lonergan went on to exploit the statistical way of thinking
he learned from Aquinas in connection with the scheme of recurrence. He wrote that " schemes begin, continue, and cease
to function in accord with statistical probabilities." 79 By this
he meant that, while prior conditions are fulfilled only randomly, still there is a definite probability that the requisite conditions will become fulfilled and will continue to be fulfilled. Lonergan further realized that, the lawful interdependence of the
events in the scheme of recurrence held a very significant statistical implication. He wrote:
78 Insight,

p. 120. Italics are mine.

79 Ibid., p. 117.

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It follows that, when the prior conditions for the functioning of a
scheme of recurrence are satisfied, then the probability of the combination of events, constitutive of the scheme, leaps from a product
of fractions to a sum of fractions. 80

Not only schemes of emergence, but in a sense probabilities
themselves emerge through the workings of statistical premotions.81 Thus Lonergan referred to his account as "emergent
probability". There can be little doubt that in the idea of the
fulfillment of prior conditions Lonergan found a natural analogue for the shift in probabilities occasioned by the infusion of
habitual grace as described by Aquinas.
It is clear that Lonergan generalized his account of the emergence of schemes of recunence from his discovery of St. Thomas's account of the emergence of the act of understanding in the
intellect. Indeed, in Insight Lonergan explicitly situated the
emergence of the act of understanding within the context of the
schemes of recurrence. 82 Now one might be impressed with Lonergan's achievement and yet wonder whether there was a solid
basis for this generalization. That is, one might question
whether some broad similarities between the emergence of acts
of understanding and the emergence of natural processes
(schemes of recurrence) are sufficient to provide a general and
critical account of emergence. Was Lonergan's theory of the
emergence of schemes of recurrence based upon anything but
a mere, crude analogy?
The answer to this question is affirmative. The critical
grounding for this answer was not, however, provided in the
sections where he described the relations between causal and
statistical laws and the emergence of schemes of recurrence.
Rather, it was in his explicitly metaphysical reflections that
Ibid., p. ml.
s1 More precisely, one could say probabilities of s<;hemes emerge in cases where

80

the conditions of possibility of certain schemes of recurrence are provided by the
actual functioning of prior schemes-where there are what Lonergan calls a " conditioned series of schemes of recurrence." Only once earlier members of the series
have emerged could one say that later members begin to have concrete probabilities. Ibid., pp. 118-US.
s2 Ibid., p. 481.

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PATRICK H. BYRNE

Lonergan established the legitimacy of generalizing a comprehensive notion of 'emergence from the particular though strategic case of emergence of understanding. Thus, the final topic
of this essay is the explication of how Lonergan's metaphysics
brought his thought on emergence to completion.
In the Preface to Insight, Lonergan stated that one of his
aims was to produce a verifiable philosophy and metaphysics. 83
By "verifiable ", Lonergan meant that it is possible to show
that any philosophical or metaphysical claim presupposes certain statements regarding the nature of human cognition. Lonergan further claimed that these statements, in turn, can be
confirmed or refuted by an appeal to the facts of human cognition, by an appeal to the data of human consciousness.
Lonergan's own approach to metaphysics began with a painstaking examination of the field of the data of human consciousness, terminating in what he called his cognitional theory. The
rough outline of that cognitional theory-that cognitive consciousness is a structure differentiated into three levels (experience, intelligence, reasonableness) each level consisting of many
different conscious acts but each characterized by one principal
act (experiencing, understanding, and judgment respectively)
-is by now familiar to many. What is not nearly so familiar,
however, is how Lonergan effected the transition from cognitional theory to philosophy. This transition consisted in raising
and answering a series of questions about that cognitional
theory. The chapter on "Self-Appropriation of the Knower"
addresses the question as to whether the cognitional theory is
true. 84 A subsequent chapter is addressed to the problem of
whether cognitional performance so described yields objective
knowledge. 85 Likewise, the meaning of 'being', the complete
intelligibility of reality, and the problem of transcendence are
all approached through putting further questions about the cog·
nitional structure. 86
[bid., p. xi.
Ibid., pp. 319-339.
s3 Ibid., pp. 375-884.
86 Ibid., pp. 348-374, 634-646,

83

84

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143

For present purposes, however, the way in which Lonergan
worked out his metaphysics is most relevant. The transition
from cognitional theory to metaphysics took place when Lonergan asked whether the set of noetic relationships which constitute the cognitional structure have an objective counterpart.
His answer was that, because reality is humanly known
through the interrelated acts of experiencing, understanding
and affirming, the reality proportionate to human knowing has
a structure isomorphic to the structure of those acts. 87 In other
words, to know the structure of human cognition is to know the
structure of proportionate (finite) being. That is not to say
that in knowing the human cognitional structure one knows all
of proportionate being. One knows only the structure, not the
complete content and detail.
It was Lonergan's theorem on the isomorphism of human
knowing and proportionate being that enabled him to provide
that precise specification for the meaning of ' emergence '. In
opposition to what he has termed "counterpositions ", Lonergan claimed that his use of the term ' emergence ' has a " quite
determinate meaning to denote a quite unmistakable fact." 88
He further claimed that this precise determination of meaning
is possible because " the prototype of emergence is the insight
[act of understanding] that arises with respect to an appropriate
image." 89 That is, Lonergan took the act of understanding to
be more than a mere analogue, because the theorem on isomorphism transformed it into a prototype. The prototype
character of the act of understanding is explained as follows:
One " unmistakable fact" in human cognition is the way understanding adds something novel to what is presented in a sensation or image. To understand this fact is to understand how
understanding emerges in human consciousness. But to understand the emergence of understanding is to understand the relationship between two conscious acts-experiencing (sensing or
81 Ibid., pp.
88 Ibid., p.

ss Ibid.

899-400, 444-451, 499-502.
481.

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PATRICK H. BYRNE

imagining) and understanding. Therefore, knowledge of emergence in consciousness is knowledge of part of the cognitional
structure. But, according to the theorem on isomorphism, this
part of the structure has an objective correlate in proportionate
reality. That objective correlate is what one might call "objective emergence " or " natural emergence ". To understand
the objective correlate as emergence is not different from understanding insight as emergent, owing to the theorem on isomorphism. Therefore, the understanding of the emergence of
understanding provides a precise meaning of the term, ' emergence'.
The argument presented here thus far might lead one to believe that Lonergan's work on emergence in Insight was merely
the matter of putting together Aquinas's theory of operation
with the Aristotelian doctrine of premotions by means of the
theorem on isomorphism. While the argument here is intended
to stress the remarkable continuity between Aquinas and Lonergan, such an impression would not do justice to major innovations Lonergan himself implemented. First, whereas in the
gratia operans articles Lonergan identified only two components
in Aquinas's treatment of the per accidens-its relative unintelligibility to human science and, excluding sin, its complete
intelligibility to God-Lonergan set forth three components in
InS'ight. He held, with Aquinas, that " from the viewpoint of
unrestricted understanding [God], the non-systematic vanishes ". 90 However, on the basis of his examination of the methods
of modern empirical science, Lonergan distinguished between
the unintelligibility of randomness as an dement of the empirical residue (prime matters) and the intelligible normativity of
probability. 91 In Lonergan's view, therefore, emergence does not
occur in a humanly unintelligible fashion. Emergence can be a
proper object of human empirical science. Again, an important
element in Lonergan's world view of generalized emergent probability was that earlier emergent schemes of recurrence can pro90

Ibid., p. 649.

91 Ibid., pp. 58-60.

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145

vide partial fulfillment of prior conditions for later schemes,92
an element which goes beyond Aquinas and Aristotle and is
related to what Lonergan termed" vertical finality ". 93 Finally,
by inverting the Aristotelian-Thomist procedure of approaching
the problem of human intellect metaphysically, Lonergan was
able to provide a methodological approach to problems of emergence. That is, he was able to offer solutions to the question,
"Was this indeed an instance of emergence? " independent of
the dazzling genius of an Aristotle or St. Thomas. The purpose
of the present essay, then, was not to show that Lonergan's
discussion of emergence was already worked out in Aquinas's
writings, for it was not. The purpose here was to show the
several important sources of Lonergan's thinking in Aquinas's
work.
Finally, one may be led to wonder, if Lonergan found the
crucial elements of a dynamic world view which is compatible
with the discoveri,es of modern science, why has Aquinas been
for so long regarded as a thinker committed to a static world
view? I believe that Lonergan was led to discover the elements
of a dynamic world-view in the thought of St. Thomas because
he didn't look for them in the obvious places. That is, while
others may have attempted to identify Aquinas's world-view
by attending to those passages where Aquinas explicitly spoke
of world process in terms of Aristotelian biology and cosmology,
such was not initially Lonergan's interest. Rather, he originally
set out to clarify St. Thomas's ideas on operative grace and the
Holy Trinity. This clarification, he discovered, required an understanding of St. Thomas's transformation of the Aristotelian
psychology. It was in his discoveries regarding Thomas's uses
of Aristotle's psychology-not his biology or cosmology-that
Lonergan discovered the seeds of a dynamic world-view.

p ATRICK H. BYRNE
Boston College
Chestnut Hill, Massachusetts
02 Ibid., pp. 118-119, 122.
93 Ibid., pp. 444-451. See also Bernard Lonergan, "Finality, Love and Marriage"
in Frederick Crowe (ed.), Collection, (N.Y.: Herder & Herder, 1967), especially
pp. 18-22, 87-58.

BOOK REVIEWS
Wagnis Theologie: Erfahrungen mit der Theologie Karl Rahner. By
HERBERT VoRGRIMLER, editor. Freiburg-Basel-Wien: Herder, 1979.
Pp. 624. 69 D.M.
The criterion for contributions to this Festschrift for Karl Rahner's
seventy-fifth birthday is unusual. Only those who were doctoral students
(43), habilitation candidates (2) or academic assistants (insofar as their
addresses were known) of Karl Rahner were invited to submit contributions. The principle of this selectivity was to provide readers in general
with accounts of " the experiences which others have had with your [Rahner's] theology" (p. 12), as the editor, Herbert Vorgrimler, explains in the
introduction which is in the form of a letter to Rahner. Among the contributors are two Americans (Leo O'Donovan and Harvey Egan), three
women, and other theologians from Spain, Italy, Africa, Poland, South
America and India. Clearly, the Rahner connection is not limited to central
Europe. A difference in" feel" for Rahner's teaching is discernible between
those whose experiences of theology began with Rahner and those whose
did not.
The contributors are divided into five groups: 1. Theology from the experience of God for Christian praxis; 2. Thinking the Mystery; 3. Concerning the theological dignity of man; 4. In the service of the Church's tradition and praxis; 5. For an open and liberating Church. It is customary in
reviews of Festschriften to note the unevenness of the contributions. Such
is certainly the case here. Some are anecdotal, some are scholarly and some
are phthisic on all counts. This third category will be mercifully uncommented.
Generally the first group (nine chapters) is the least satisfactory, probably because these authors are concerned with what Rahner himself has
done most originally and best-theologize out of personal and ecclesial
(tradition-al) religious experience. Theology is the conceptual, propositional unveiling (a-letheia) of the ontological relationship/ experience of
God by human subjects. In this section Fraling and Scannone, on the
existential dimensions of the Spiritual Exercises, are the most interesting.
Egan's article is also good, but the ideas are basically available elsewhere
(for example, the Marquette University Rahner Festschrift edited by William Kelly, Theology and Discovery, 1980, pp. 139-158).
From the second section Cabada-Castro on the philosophical idea of God
is good. Also good is Puntel, although much too brief, on the transcendentalcategorical distinction in Rahner, well defended as necessarily present in all

146

BOOK REVIIilWS

147

philosophy and theology, whether known by this or any other name. Di.implemann explains energetically that the precise philosophical background of
Rahner's thought is neither Kant's (" transcendental ") approach nor Husserl's, but Heidegger's "phenomenological " approach, which is itself, however, transformed and given a new identity by Rabner. Of all the contributions Mayr's "Vermutungen zu Karl Rahner's Sprachstil" is the most
delightful, in spite of the gratuitous, as snotty as it is superficial, remark
about " Keep smiling" Americans. Mayr's article is both defense and
celebration of Rahner's style and language. It is a welcome counter claim
to those constant complaints about Rahner's style-all the more strange
in an age which still rejoices in Marshall McLuhan's "The medium is the
message." Mayr's defense is not only of the linguistic style in a narrower
sense, but also of the thinking style-indeed, of the whole style of presentation typical of Rahner's spoken as well as written word. Thus, he well
notes the humor present throughout Rahner's presentations, even the most
abstract and speculative. For such reasons is Mayr's article not only valuable, but fun. Its greatest importance, however, is its contention that
Rahner's language and thought have been the vanguard in de-Latinizing
and enabling truly domestic (read " local Church ") theology within the
Roman Catholic tradition (for English speaking countries he notes that
Bernard Lonergan has attempted something similar). He also notes an
incipient recognition that Rahner may also be included among the process
theologians because of his " doing process theology " (p. 158, referring to
S. A. Matczak, ed. God in Contemporary Thought, 1977). I am reluctant
about this, not because it is simply untrue, but because, given the defacto
history and status of process thought in the United States, such denomination of Rahner as process theologian seems to me to explode the nomenclature. I suspect, though, that Mayr would invoke Gadamer's hermeneutic
"Wirkungsgeschichte" in his defense.
The third section is the most successful. Ohlig's article is very interesting
because of its assertion of the primacy of soteriology in Christology. TeraDutari's article is valuable because it comments on Erich Przywara, the
generally unknown and unrecognized source of much (most?) of the theological revival in contemporary Catholicism, at least insofar as this revival
has German roots. Splett and Peukert devdop some socio-politico-philosophical consequences of Rahner's thesis on the unity of the love of God
and man. Klaus Fischer is one of the very best interpreters of Rahner's
thought. His considerations on the definition of death, as the separation of
body and soul, is thorough. The difference between Rahner's theory of
death as the finalization of the human being's identity in freedom and grace
and Boros's theory that this final decision takes place in the final momentthe moment of death-is emphasized once more. Rahner's relinquishment
of his theory that the " soul " does not lose its relationship to the world in
death, but becomes " allkosmisch '', is noted. Whatever the difficulties of

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this idea, it seems to me to have something right about it-especially in a
creationist, incarnational, anti-gnostic ontology. The invocation of the
resurrection as" ganzmenschlich" is certainly insufficient of itself. Herbert
Vorgrimler presents a vigorous defense of the fundamental Rahnerian idea
of self-transcendence (from a different and complementary viewpoint
O'Donovan's article on evolution can be read in this connection) . In so
doing, he explicitly points out the inadequacies of objections by Kasper,
von Balthasar and van der Heijden. Whatever the benefits and deficits of
Rahner's theology for the present and the future, it remains an enigma to
me how such theologians can continue to accuse Rahner's thought of lacking personal-dialogic, socio-relational dimensions and of being consequently
unhistorical, merely transcendental idealism. Of course, it is fairly easy for
van der Heijden to do this. For, as Vorgrimler and many others have
pointed out, he simply omits from consideration those writings of Rahner
(the spiritual, ecclesiological, sacramental, and pastoral) which counter his
interpretation of Rabner as a misled and misleading transcendental idealist.
Kasper even summons up the energy to inquire of Rahner's trinitarian theology, which and because it speaks of " distinkten Subsistenzweisen,"
whether " one can still really pray to such a conceptual idol " (Begriffsgi:itzen). That is, of course, not only tacky, but would also be destructive
of any serious theoretical, speculative systematic theology. In any case,
among contemporary theologians whose theology has been more prayable
than Karl Rahner's? Finally, Vorgrimler defends Rahner's concept of selftranscendence against the "vernichtende Kritik" {p. !i.!58) of John Baptist
Metz. He details the fundamental error in Metz's application of his beloved
hedgehog and hare metaphor to Rahner's theology, although this whole
Metzian approach is so patently inept and glaringly perverse that it is
self-refuting. Metz's absence from this volume has, of course, been widely
noted. Whether Metz was not invited (Vorgrimler could hardly not have
known his address, p. l!i.!) or whether, for whatever reason, he could not
contribute, is not known (at least to me). I do know that it appears
strange to me that Metz continues to dedicate books to Rahner (Glaube
in Geschichte und Gesellschaft, 1977) and that Rahner continues to defend
Metz theologically, that he is even able to say that "Metz's critique of my
theology {which he calls transcendental theology) is the only criticism
which I take very seriously " {" Introduction " to James Bacik, Apologetics
and the Eclipse of Mystery, 1980, p. xi). This I take to be a manifestation
of Rahner's loyalty to a former student and of his Christian kindness and
charity, not of his theological acumen and insight.
The fourth section concentrates on the Church and sacraments. The
most interesting is Pissarek-Hudelist's article on the ordination of women,
in which she notes the development of Rahner's thought in regard to both
sacramental theology and feminism. She tells of her utter surprise in hearing Rahner say, in regard to canon 968 which restricts valid ordination to

BOOK REVIEWS

149

males, " It is not dogma! " This was in the Autumn of 1962, after Haye
van der Meer had completed his doctoral dissertation under Rahner's direction on this topic. She adds that Rahner added then, " Too bad that one
must simply put many things on ice." She also notes that in 1969 the ice
age had passed and the dissertation could be published. This section also
reflects the confusion still obtaining in the Ursakrament and Grundsakrament terminology. Although Pissarek-Hudelist correctly notes Rahner's
suggestion that Ursakrament be reserved for Christ, Grundsakrament for
the Church (p. 421), she refers to the Church as Ursakrament only two
pages later on, as does Knoch on pages 495 and 496, where he even emphasizes that "einzig die Kirche ist Ursakrament." However, most seriously
alarming in this section are the articles by Schuster and Knoch, which are
not free of the tendency to elitism in Church life, especially sacramental
practice. This is at least partly rooted, for them as for others, in the absence (of which they are apparently unaware) of well defined criteria for
what constitutes a good or practicing Catholic.
This elitist tendency (it is not more than that) is nevertheless especially
disappointing in a book inspired by Rahner's theology, which is itself not
only un- but positively anti-elitist, as Couto points out in section five, of
which the articles on" anonymous Christianity" by Weger and Evers {who
applies the idea to the Catholic dialogue with the Jews) are the most interesting. In "Western Theology and Indian Christianity" Sequeira poses a
critical question, but the answer is thin, even for a short article.
Interesting anecdotal insights are provided by Vorgrimler's introduction
(especially footnote 5 on p. 15), Neufeld's early history of Karl's and
Hugo's mutual theological endeavor and above all Helga Modesto's article,
in which she recounts her alternating moods of despair and exhilaration as
she first began her study of Rahner's theology.
Themes which are emphatically present and recurrent in this collection
are anonymous Christianity, theology's source and starting point in the
{mystical) experience of God, the everyday experience of God and grace
(the mysticism of daily life), the conceptualization of transcendental-categorial, the unity of the love of God and man, and, finally, the proper
understanding of Rahner's method, which is best understood as a transcendental Ruckfiihrung, absolutely presupposing the double "fact" of personal religious experience and historical religious tradition.
There are printing mistakes, especially in the otherwise very helpful
bibliography of secondary literature (p. 601, #59, 67; #222) , but also in the
text itself (on page 13, footnote four refers to tne subsequent sentence in
the text; on p. 335, footnote 141 probably refers back to footnote 138, certainly not to 140). These are obviously Spitzfindigkeiten in a book of 624
pages, which also includes a short chronology of significant Rahner dates,
a detailed description of the contributors and, most importantly, an updating of Rahner's bibliography (1974-1979).

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In sum, this book is valuable, for it shows the diversity of Rahner's
thought and disciples, who are clearly revealed to be other than the devots
and sectaries of an introverted conventicle, where, as in a monastic choir,
the verses of the master are liturgically recited and repeated. On the other
hand by this book I am also reminded of sage advice given me at the beginning of my philosophical studies, " If you can't figure out Cajetan or
Capreolus or John of St. Thomas, try St. Thomas himself." In a finite
world of limited time, the transposition is obvious. In any case, though, let
the last words of this review belong to the editor of this volume, the longtime friend and interpreter of Karl Rahner, Herbert Vorgrimler, who says
to his mentor," You [are] yourself your own best interpreter" (p. rn).
ROBERT

KRESS

The Catholic University of America
Washington, D.C.

Marxism: An American Christian Perspective. By ARTHUR F. McGOVERN,S.J.
Maryknoll, N.Y.: Orbis Books, 1980. Pp. 839.
This book by Arthur McGovern, a professor of political philosophy with
a wide and penetrating knowledge of his field, and a committed Christian
and Jesuit priest, is, I think, a very important contribution to Christian
thought in the United States. This is especially true for American Catholics,
since the author devotes a good deal of space to the papal social teaching
and to common Catholic attitudes regarding Marxism and socialism. Yet
Christians of other churches will also greatly benefit from it, since the common American perspective on Marxism crosses church lines and is more
defined by cultural and socio-political determinants than by ecclesiastical
or theological ones.
The book is important for various reasons. First, it provides an informative and analytical study of Marxist theory and practice which is wellbalanced and fair, with no axes to grind nor bandwagons upon which to
jump. McGovern tries to be very critical and objective-" dialectical": an
" effort at understanding by looking at both sides "-but also does not hide
the values and commitments which form his own perspective. Second, he is
not afraid to acknowledge the positive contributions of Marxism to both
social science and Christian theology. He repeatedly challenges American
Christians to be ready to see the positive side of Marxism as they are to
criticize its negative side. Third, while the book does have a good deal of
the theoretical analysis which is necessary to understand Marxism, the concern of the book is " a very practical one": whether Christitm!l i;an.,

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sistently with their Christian commitment, use Marxist analysis and even
collaborate with Marxists in the human struggle for a more just society.
The author at least wants American Christians to understand why Christians in Third World countries have affirmed the possibility of doing so and
acted accordingly.
Thus I think McGovern's is the type of book American Christians should
read both in order to form a different perspective on critical social problems
and in order to form a new perspective on their own Christianity. His perspective is open and sympathetic to the challenge of the Marxist critique
of society and socialistic solutions. Yet he himself acknowledges that it is
different from one which would " grow out of 'praxis ' and a commitment
to socialism," " one perhaps far more critical of the Church and less critical
of Marxism." As one who has worked for many years in Latin America
and has attempted to understand, develop, and practice a liberation theology perspective, I will note my difficulties with certain of McGovern's
analyses and evaluations, as well as underline his positive grasp and exposition of ideas that will help the development of this new critical theology,
especially in the United States. McGovern himself is wholesomely selfcritical and honest about his limitations: his " dependency on books rather
than direct experience "; his awareness that " one's experiences, class origins, values, and temperament all influence judgments reached and what
one selects to emphasize or overlook."
The book attacks the problem of Marxism and Christianity from three
perspectives which form the three main parts and which are interdependent.
Part I offers an historical perspective. It is crucial because the basic method
used by McGovern to analyze Marxism and its compatibility with Christianity is the "historical-genetical " method. Both Christian and Marxist
positions develop out of a historical context and continue to develop (and
change) in new historical situations. So the first section deals at the outset
with Marx's own writings and the evolution of his ideas. Then it turns to
the development of Marxism after Marx, both " Classical Marxism," the
dominant Marxist tradition, and "Critical Marxism," the critique of and
challenge to many of the classical " dogmas " of official Marxism by certain
European Marxists. Finally, in order to understand how the Church's response to Marxism, like the Marxist critique of Christianity, is always relative to a social and historical context which changes and modifies previous
positions, McGovern studies the history of the Church's attitudes toward
Marxism and socialism, all the way from early papal anathemas to modern
Christian Marxists who seek to apply modern papal social teaching.
With respect to McGovern's analysis of Marx's thought and its continuation and development in later Marxism, what is needed to complement and
enhance his study is another book on Marxism and Christianity, also recently published by Orbis, and authored by the Mexican Christian Marxist,
Jose Miranda, who is not only a Scripture scholar but also a careful student

BOOK REV11llWS
of Marx and Marxists, as Marx against the Marxists: The Christian Humanism of Karl Marx proves. It is essential reading for anyone who wants
to understand the relationship between the heritage that Marx left and the
heritage that Jesus Christ left. McGovern certainly recognizes that the
legacy of Karl Marx has given rise to many different interpretations, and
that the followers of Marx (especially Engels, Lenin, and Stalin) developed
ideas and strategies that have no direct connection with Marx's thought or
writings. But Miranda makes a clearer distinction, substantiated by texts
from Marx, between Marx and classical Marxist ideas, and he uses this to
show that contradictions between fundamental Marxist ideas and Christianity are more apparent than real. As Miranda says in his Preface, " It is
not just the satanic image of Marx concocted by conservatives that is
demonstrably false. Equally false is the image of Marx presented by certain revolutionaries who call themselves' Marxists'." McGovern could have
greatly benefited from Miranda's book if it had been published before his
own.
McGovern, in his analysis of Marx's thought, stresses a couple of ideas
that he considers useful for Christians in qualifying their fears of Marxism
as essentially atheistic and totalitarian-ideas that Miranda will develop even
more. One is that " Marx became an atheist prior to becoming a socialist,"
and there is no intrinsic connection between his atheism and his advocacy
of socialism (p. 246} . It was Engels who developed after Marx's death the
idea of scientific atheism based on a philosophical materialism (different
from Marx's " historical materialism "); and it was Lenin who developed
a militant atheism as a revolutionary strategy for radical social change.
But modern critical Marxists, such as Lukacs, Bloch, Machovec, and Garaudy, have begun a reappraisal of religion and have discovered positive and
even revolutionary elements in the Christian religion. Thus McGovern
thinks that " it is historical tradition far more than any inner logic which
has linked Marxist atheism and socialism together" (p. 272}.
Another idea found in Marx that has great significance in Christianity is
that, at the same time that he relentlessly attacks the individualism found
in Western societies and promoted by Capitalism, " Marx stresses throughout the ' individual ', not the sacrifice of the individual to a collectivity-as
critics of Marx often charge" (p. 80). For Marx the evil of Capitalism is
that it does not allow the majority of individuals to be served by the productive forces of society, nor to achieve freedom, nor to be fulfilled, not
alienated, by their productive work.
In his treatment of Marxist development- since Marx, McGovern shows
that not all Marxists agree with what the dominant Marxist tradition of
the Communist Party holds: that Marxism should be identified with the
actualized dominant form ("praxis") it has taken in history. Again, there
are critical Marxists who consider true Marxism "an open, constantly
changing system of ideas," and who " tend to treat Marxism primarily as

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a method of analysis and not as a complete system of all knowledge " (p.
50). It is this open, self-critical Marxism, and not the closed, dogmatic
Marxism imposing its worldview as absolute truth, that McGovern thinks
gives an opening to Christians to enhance, from a Marxist perspective, their
own perceptions and commitments. Yet he frequently expresses an extreme
caution and fear about adopting Marxist strategies or tactics for social
change, on the ground that " Marxist regimes have a dismal record of imposing a social order and ideology rather than allowing people to express or
develop their own hopes, plans and worldviews" (p. 311). What McGovern does not seem to be sufficiently aware of is that Western Capitalist
societies, including the United States, also have a " dismal record of imposing a social order and ideology" (the "American way of life," consumerist
values, efficiency above all, etc.) through means that are perhaps less violent and more subtle, but nevertheless effective. One could also question
his statement that " The power of a state to impose its ideology is certainly
far greater than the power of a church to bind by conscience and guilt .. .,"
if by " power " one means effectiveness. Has the power of the Polish Communist Party, for example, to impose its atheistic ideology on Polish Catholics been more effective than the power of American society to " impose "
the ideology of the profit motive on American Catholics, or more effective
than the power of American Christian churches to impose an ideology of
uncritical anti-communism on American Christians? One of the most useful
things we can gain from Marxist analysis is an awareness of ideological
influence or manipulation on all levels, and I do not think McGovern is
sufficiently aware of that in the " democratic " societies.
The author's treatment of the development of Catholic social teaching
and official attitudes toward Marxism and socialism, from Pope Leo XIII
up to the present day, should be very helpful and enlightening for most
readers. He states that the Church's stances against Marxism and socialism
have been mainly motivated by " the need for a balance between societal
or state power and protection of the individual," and that the Church has
now gotten to the point where it " seems clearly more open to the possibility
of a democratic, participatory socialism ... " (p. 123). Further progress in
shaping future Church actions and teachings will come about, thinks McGovern, mainly from " A new consciousness of the Church as ' the people of
God ' [which will] make the influence of popular movements far more important." The social teaching of the Church will proceed less from the top
down and more from Christian praxis.
Part II of the book studies the impact of Marxism on Christian social
thinking and action. It studies the case against Capitalism from which the
appeal of Marxism stems. Then it attempts to explain and evaluate liberation theology in Latin America which has become the focal point for contemporary Christian-Marxist relations. McGovern argues that it is incorrect

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simply to accuse liberation theology of using theology to justify Marxist
revolutionary views. As a case in point he analyzes the Church in Chile
under Allende and the movement of Christians for Socialism which began
there and then spread to other parts of the world. He thinks that the
Marxist criticisms of Capitalism are for the most part true in substance,
though he believes various charges are exaggerated and one-sided. He
stresses the impoverishing effect of Capitalism on poor, Third World countries, but he also deals with the poverty and inequality in the United States
that result from the operative absence of Christian value norms and priorities. When he talks about the importance of moral norms and values, I
think McGovern makes too sweeping a statement when he says that
" Marxists tend to look at values only as part of ideology reflecting the prevailing economic system" (p. 150; my emphasis). It depends upon the
Marxist, the values, and the system. And the author recognizes that one
of the distinguishing marks of Marx's method was to treat economics and
its productive factors not simply as " things " (human beings included) but
as "social relationships" (with qualitative values).
McGovern's treatment of liberation theology is generally good and shows
that he grasps its methodology and concerns. But some statements are
weak or misleading. It is true that "Praxis is not a final criterion of truth,
for the praxis itself must be evaluated "; but what must be said is that
neither theory (abstract truths or norms) nor praxis stands alone at any
point, and the criterion of truth is their reciprocity or dialectical relationship and interdependence ("doing the truth": truth in action, truth as
experienced, truth as real liberation) . Truth is always re-thought as theory
and re-done as action in such a way that both are constantly new. When
McGovern comments on the ideological critique that liberation theologians
espouse, he seems to fail to grasp its full implications. When theologians
like Segundo call all present activities of the Church " ideological " (conducting a school, hearing confessions, etc. [p. 188]), he is not saying that
they are only or totally ideological. He is simply pointing out that when
the Church operates in society and inserts itself into the real world (as it
must), the dominant ideology of that society affects the Church and its
members on all levels of activity, no matter how religious or " interior"
they may be. Everything we do and think is linked to our particular place
in society, our class, race, and sex interests, our attitude toward social
change, etc.
When McGovern, in dealing with the biblical perspectives of liberation
theology, criticizes Miranda's Marx and the Bible for being one-sided, he
expresses a certain truth, and yet at the same time, I think, misses the
intention and effectiveness of Miranda's monumental study. The latter
wanted to bring out some central themes in the Bible in such a clear and
powerful ("moving" says McGovern) way as to get Christians to re-read
the Bible in a totally different manner. I know several Catholics for whom

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the reading of Miranda's book was a turning point in their theology, even
though, like myself, they did not agree with all his conclusions. Miranda's
intention, in this and other books, is also to bring modem exegesis to the
radical conclusions that Scripture scholars and theologians are reluctant to
accept since they are so radical and challenging (both for theological tradition and social life). It is not true, I think, to say that "Miranda often
does impose a Marxist framework on the Bible " (p. 194) . Miranda simply
wants to show that the kind of radical critique Marx could make, and his
passion for justice, are still weak compared to the prophetic critique and
passion that comes out of Scripture.
Part III addresses the major difficulties raised as Christian objections to
Marxism. It treats of the key issues of atheism and materialism, and the
political-moral problems evoked by classical Marxist views on property,
violence, class struggle, and democracy. Miranda's most recent book fills
many lacunae in this part, which is already good. Its concluding section
offers McGovern's personal reflections on Marxism and Christianity, especially focusing on the feasibility and desirability of socialism as an alternative for the United States.
McGovern makes an important point when he says (p.
that in
countries where socialist movements are pressing for change there has been
greater interaction between Christians and Marxists, and the tensions and
conflicts are no longer on pro-communist vs. anti-communist lines (nor, I
could add, Catholic vs. Protestant lines) but are rather conflicts or divisions
within the Church itself, "between Christians still hostile to or fearful of
Marxism and those advocating socialism," between those who want to hold
on to the old despite its problems, and those who are willing to risk (in
general I think McGovern is too fearful of the risks-part of a life of faithinvolved in seeking a new future in which not everything is known or certain) and to pay the price for the new. Especially important is the author's enlightening treatment of how the concept of " the right of private
property " has developed and changed in Catholic thought. What Catholic
social teaching always sought to defend-responsible ownership for all-can
now perhaps only be achieved in modern conditions by some kind of socialist system.
McGovern's treatment of the difficult and delicate problem of revolutionary violence is fair and balanced, and he leaves the problem where it
should be: to be ultimately answered prudentially in the concrete situation
in which there is no absolute principle of violence or non-violence, and
always with the goal of bringing violence (institutional, contestatory, or
repressive) to an end. (One comment: Can one say the revolutionary
struggle which succeeded in Nicaragua " did not trigger broad revolutionary
hopes throughout Latin America "? It certainly has raised such hopes in
Central America (especially in EI Salvador), and its impact has been great

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on Latin Americans in many other countries who seek for a new socioeconomic order.
In the concluding section McGovern reiterates his central thesis that
" Marxism viewed as a self-critical method of analysis is not incompatible "
with Christianity. "When tactics and strategies of social change are added
on, Marxism may or may not prove incompatible " (p. 310) . He is convinced that " socialism and Marxism both raise the right issue-ownership
and control of the means of production" (p. 315). Yet he remains extremely wary of Marxist political groups-or any " ideological " party
(Does McGovern think that the American Democratic and Republican
Parties are not ideological?) , and his great fear of any kind of revolutionary
Marxism is that it will not produce or maintain the value of " democracy "
(which tends to become almost an absolute for him). Thus McGovern
would advocate a" democratic socialism " similar to what Michael Harrington espouses and actively promotes in the United States.
McGovern's final point, in " A Christian Epilogue," is well taken: as
Marxism can contribute something important to the Christian perspective
on human society, so do Christians" have a precious and important heritage
that bears upon Marxism and social change " (p.
. As Christian Marxists like Miranda have said, what has been historically lacking in socialism,
keeping it from being what we would expect and want it to be, is precisely
the great and necessary element of Christian faith and the absolute human
dignity of every human person it implies. Christians know the Marxists
have erred in offering Marxism as a substitute for Christianity. The same
Christians have an extremely important mission in the cause of justice
within a socialist perspective. McGovern's book can help American Christians to be open to that cause and to further it out of their own heritage.
JACK RISLEY, 0.P.
Union Theological Seminary
New York, N.Y.

The Philosophical Approach to God. By W. NORRIS CLARKE, S.J. WinstonSalem, N.C.: Wake Forest University Press, 1979. Pp. viii + 115.
In his The Philosophical, Approach to God (the published version of
three lectures delivered as the sole invited lectures at the Fourth James
Montgomery Hester Seminar at Wake Forest University in 1979) Fr. W.
Norris Clarke looks to "update" as well as to explain his own particular
brand of Neo-Thomism as it applies to the area of philosophical theology:
1) to update it by accommodating it, in part, to certain recent currents of
thought, namely, Transcendental Thomism and process (i.e. Whiteheadian)

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philosophy; and Q) to explain it in terms of what he and other QOth-century
followers of St. Thomas see to be the central doctrine of his metaphysicsparticipation. In his first lecture, " The Turn to the Inner Way in Contemporary Neo-Thomism," Fr. Clarke describes for his (one presumes)
largely non-Catholic audience the movement called Transcendental Thomism and expresses a decided sympathy for it. While acknowledging that
this movement is by no means accepted as an authentic development of
Thomism by all Thomists today, Fr. Clarke views it as offsetting a too
one-sided " cosmological " approach to the question of God's existence
characteristic of more familiar forms of Thomism. As he would define it,
the essence of Transcendental Thomism consists in the following achievement: "It has brought out of obscurity into full development St. Thomas's
own profound doctrine of the dynamism of the human spirit, both as intellect and will, towards the Infinite-a dynamism inscribed in the very nature
of man as a priori condition of possibility of both his knowing and willing
activities" (p. 16). Accordingly, Fr. Clarke proceeds to show how he believes such an approach can lead to the affirmation of God's existence by
arguing that the natural tendencies of intellect and will are, respectively,
for the knowledge of something supremely intelligible (absolute being) and
the love of something supremely good (absolute goodness) . What this
means, according to Clarke, is that only God can completely satisfy the
human spirit, Who must therefore exist under pain of allowing that the
natural tendency (or dynamism} of the intellect (or the will) is unintelligible or in vain. However, he would also insist, in light of what he describes as the astonishing capacity for self-negation found in modern man,
that one is still free to accept or reject God's existence. One is still free in
this regard, Clarke observes, since one has the option of believing that the
natural tendency of his intellect (or will) is absurd.
Although Fr. Clarke obviously finds much merit in the argument from
the dynamism of the human spirit to God's existence, an argument based
upon final causality, he also thinks that it only concludes to the existence
of God understood as " my God, my ultimate fulfillment of both intellect
and will." (This reviewer finds this point perplexing since, presumably,
such an argument would conclude to the existence of God as the ultimate
good of all human spirits.) Consequently, he contends, this argument has
to be completed by an argument based upon efficient causality--one which
shows God not only as my God, my ultimate good, but also as the creator,
the ultimate source of all being and goodness in the universe. Thus the
" inner way " (from myself to God) of itself does not suffice; one must
also, Fr. Clarke insists, make use of the" outer" (or" cosmic") way from
the world to God. Accordingly, his second lecture, "The Metaphysical
Ascent to God Through Participation and the Analogical Structure of Our
Language about God," is devoted to a metaphysical argument from partici-

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pation to God's existence and also to a discussion of our analogical knowledge of God based upon the participation-efficient causality doctrine. To
begin with, Fr. Clarke dismisses the quinque viae as too incomplete as they
stand. Indeed, he rejects the first three ways based on motion or change
as either defective in form or as failing to conclude to the existence of the
Source of all being. While he thinks the Fourth Way capable of repair, he
criticizes it for employing an improper, because inverted, order of premisses,
an order not observed in other versions of this argument in St. Thomas,
in arguing to God first as the standard or measure of finite beings and only
then to Him as their efficient cause.
According to Clarke, the best argument for God's existence in St. Thomas
(indeed, from what he has said, the only sound one) is the one rooted in his
metaphysics of participation, a doctrine which links Aquinas more with
Neoplatonism (which traces multiplicity to some prior unity) than with
Aristotelianism (which always features an argument from change to its
first principle). Fr. Clarke recognizes in Aquinas two forms of the participation argument: one which argues from the many to the One, the other,
from the finite to the Infinite. The first contends that since existence is
common to all things, yet not intrinsic to their essences (if it were, they
would not differ from one another), it must be received from some one
extrinsic source, namely, a Being Who is Existence Itself. The second takes
cognizance of the degrees of existence to be found in things and argues that
where existence is possessed according to a limited degree the possessor
itself cannot account for it (since, if it could, there would be no reason why
it should have it only to a limited degree); hence it must be received from
an Infinite Being. Clarke also points out that any perfection not implying
limitation must be received, by those which participate it, from an Infinite
Being in Whom it exists perfectly or without limitation. According to him,
this " profound, original and personal participation metaphysics of St.
Thomas is perhaps his greatest contribution to philosophical thought " (p.
44) and may properly be described as at once a synthesis of Neoplatonic
participation, Aristotelian act-potency (with potency now understood as a
principle of limitation for act) and efficient causality, and Aquinas's own
notion of existence as intensive act and the core of all perfections. Moreover, it is this doctrine of "causal participation," Fr. Clarke argues, that
enables us to apply to God names signifying perfections without defect or,
in other words, establishes St. Thomas's doctrine of analogical knowledge of
God. Thus, in his discussion of this important Thomistic doctrine, Clarke
clearly favors the supremacy of the analogy-based upon cause-effect similarity over the analogy of proper proportionality, St. Thomas's earlier doctrine.
Finally, he views this analogical-type knowledge of God as valid only
within the context of a cognitive-affective dynamism involving the whole
human psyche (he identifies it, in other words, with an " affective " type
of knowledge, or a knowledge by " connaturality ") .

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In his third and final lecture, " Christian Theism and Process Philosophy," Fr. Clarke turns to a consideration of modern Whiteheadian process
philosophy to determine whether it is compatible with Christian theism
and attempts to address its challenge to the traditional Christian philosophical view of God as unchanging. He marks the greatest weaknesses in
Whitehead's philosophy to be 1) its repudiation of the Christian doctrine
of God as creator, 2) its rejection of causal influence of one being upon
another, and 8) its view that each " actual occasion " or entity is selfcreative. Clarke traces Whitehead's rejection of the Christian teaching of
creation to the latter's view that this doctrine conflicts with human freedom (for, as Clarke points out, Whitehead draws no distinction between
an actual entity and its act so that, for him, what is the cause of one would
also be the cause of the other) and also makes God responsible for evil. He
also notes certain difficulties he sees connected with Whitehead's rejection
of creation, among which are the latter's failure to reduce multiplicity to
a prior unity (in Fr. Clarke's words, "In Whitehead there is an original
priority of the many over the One ") and his failure to account adequately
for the energizing of new being. As Clarke remarks concerning Whitehead's
theory of the self-creativity of each actual occasion, "why this creativity
should bubble up unfailingly and inexhaustibly all over the universe
through endless time, with no active causal influx or gift of actuality from
another already existing actual entity, remains a total enigma" (p. 78).
However, Clarke goes on to indicate a certain ambiguity in Whitehead's
discussion of the emergence of new entities that leaves open the possibility
for a recognition of the role of an efficient cause as essential to the production of new being. He notes in this connection, how certain young Whiteheadian philosophers are currently exploring the presence of such a notion
in Whitehead's philosophy. Clarke even suggests a possibility of adapting
Whiteheadian philosophy to a creationist metaphysics by allowing for the
one limit situation of a beginning of the universe, an idea which he says
is ordinarily in opposition to Whitehead's philosophy of nature (Whitehead's original philosophical aim) but not necessarily to a Whiteheadian
philosophy striving to be complete and metaphysical.
For his part, Clarke willingly gives witness to the influence of his dialogue with Whiteheadian philosophers upon his own philosophical thought.
One of the features about Thomistic philosophical theology Whiteheadians
have most opposed is its concept of God as absolutely unrelated to the
world. As Clarke suggests, this gives the appearance of an indifferent God
so far as His creatures are concerned, a somewhat· chilling notion from the
standpoint of most religions and even difficult to justify philosophically. In
an earlier paper he had argued that God, even in St. Thomas's philosophy,
may truly be said to be related to the world in terms of the content of His
intentional consciousness, although this relationship could not properly be
_considereda real relationship sh1ce creation entails no change in God. How-

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ever, Clarke admits that he is now willing to go on record as saying that
" God is really and truly related to the world in the order of His personal
consciousness" (p. 91). He is willing to concede that God does change
since, as he says, He " experiences joy precisely because of our responses "
(p. 9Q). Moreover, His knowledge of what transpires in the world involves
a " succession in the order of relational consciousness " (p. 94) and the
determinations that His free creatures give to His concurrence result in a
" determinate new knowledge in the divine consciousness " (p. 97) . Thus,
on the part of His relational consciousness (precisely in its content of intentional being) God, according to Clarke, is " growing " (in which respect
He may be called " finite ") and is " affected by new expressions of joy
resulting from our responses to Him" (p. 99). Nonetheless, Clarke still
wants to say that God is not acted upon by His creatures, does not move
from potency to act, and does not increase in His perfection!
In this reviewer's opinion Fr. Clarke should be commended for a number
of things about these lectures. Aside from maintaining, throughout the
lectures, a remarkably clear and interesting manner of presenting his subject, Fr. Clarke nicely balances a generally praiseworthy readiness for
dialogue with philosophers outside his own tradition and for understanding
new modes of thought with a willingness to exercise critical philosophical
judgment when he deems it necessary. Certain Thomists would also wish
to compliment him for affording proper recognition to the importance, in
St. Thomas's metaphysics, of the doctrines of participation and the analogy
of intrinsic attribution (Fr. Clarke refers to this analogy as one of " causal
participation " but this expression would seem more properly to apply to
the creature's participation in the divine causality). Still, there are a number of statements made and positions defended by Fr. Clarke in these lectures to which the traditional Thomist would strenuously object. To begin
with, there is his statement, in his succinct description of Transcendental
Thomism, quoted earlier, to the effect that the dynamism of the human
spirit towards the Infinite is " a priori condition of possibility of bis
(man's) knowing and willing activities." While obviously intended to
sound Kantian, this statement is never explained and hence would seem
to be deliberately vague. There is also his defense-an apparently needless
one-of the argument for God's existence which runs: if God is possible,
He must actually exist, since, if He did not, He could not (as He cannot be
brought into existence by an efficient cause) (cf. p. 19; also p. 25). While
this piece of reasoning formed an important part of Scotus's (and Leibniz's) argument for God's existence, Thomists, generally, have rightly mistrusted it, for it entails an equivocation on the term " possible." For
"possible" can mean (1) what is logically possible (i.e. not involving a
contradiction), (Q) what can come into existence (and God'is never possible in this sense), and (3) what can be, barring a certain supposition. Thus,
for example, that I should be standing is, absolutely considered, something

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logically possible, although it is not something possible if I am sitting
(sense 8); in other words, it is not logically possible for me to be standing
at the same time that I am sitting. So too, on the supposition that God
does not exist, it is not possible for Him to be (and this without reference
to time); yet it is something possible in the sense that, absolutely considered, His existence does not involve a contradiction. But the most serious
quarrel the traditional Thomist would have with Fr. Clarke concerns his
position that God is changing and really related to the world. For it must
be recalled that in St. Thomas's philosophy God's act of knowing, His act
of willing, and His act of existence are all one and the same. And while,
admittedly, there is a philosophical difficulty in seeing how the divine
immutability squares with the fact that God, out of the wealth of His
goodness, freely wills to create a universe, that He knows His creatures as
existing (i.e. as participating His own existence as their Exemplary Cause),
and that He loves them (by willing their goodness as participations of His
own Goodness)-'-and Fr. Clarke (and others) must be commended for
tackling this problem-I think he has conceded much too much to the
process theologian in his newly developed position.

J. KoNDOLEON
Villanova University
Villanova, Pennsylvania

The Essential Wittgenstein. Gerd Brand. Translated by ROBERT INNis.
New York: Basic Books, 1979. Pp. 182; $18.50.

In this compact book Gerd Brand, who has written on Husserl, undertakes an exposition of Wittgenstein's thought, which, he hopes, will make
clear the constructive phenomenological insights to which Wittgenstein
attained. For Brand Wittgenstein is much more than the therapist who
relieves us of the perplexities into which our misuse of language has gotten
us. He is someone who had much to say about the working of language in
bringing our world into being, and he addressed the persistent questions in
modern philosophical investigation and provided us with a wealth of insights in answer to these. But how is this side of Wittgenstein, his productive as opposed to his critical, destructive side, to be presented? For Brand
Wittgenstein himself offers little help in this regard. His collections of
unsystematic observations have left us with what appear to be only the
beginnings of lines of thought which are suddenly broken off. Consequently, more often than not interpreters of his work have given us what Brand
aptly terms " Wittgenstein orphans, as it were, lying around on the field
of interpretation " (xx) . Here no cohesiveness is made evident in Wittgenstein's endeavor. To remedy this circumstance Brand takes two steps: first,

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BOOK REViEWS

instead of proceeding from one of Wittgenstein's works to the next or from
the early to the later works, as is so often done, he has ordered his selections under specific topics-certainty, temporality, language, understanding,
meaning and givenness, to name a few. Second, he has woven together
actual Wittgenstein texts and his own paraphrasing of other relevant Wittgenstein passages. This last is carried off most artfully. Brand preserves
Wittgenstein's style so well that the transition from paraphrase to citation
is scarcely noticeable. (There is a slight difficulty too for that reason: it is
next to impossible to keep track of when we are reading Brand and, when,
Wittgenstein.)
The result is much more than a Wittgenstein reader, which the title, The
Essential Wittgenstein, unfortunately suggests the book might be. It is an
elaboration and explication of Wittgenstein which does indeed place Wittgenstein in a new light, the light of phenomenological research. In the discussion of certainty, for instance, we see how extensively Wittgenstein
devoted himself to those same questions which concerned Husserl: doubt
and the necessity of a foundation beyond doubt. In the chapters on
" world " we come close to Husserl's Lebenswelt. In the chapter on the
" subject " Brand succeeds in showing that Wittgenstein, though avoiding
any kind of egological science, by no means failed to rai;;e.questions regarding consciousness. And in the discussion of temporality Wittgenstein's insights into memory and expectation are set forth in a way which ties these
into the traditional phenomenological exploration of time consciousness and
the theory of Retention and Protention. The continuing theme of the book,
however, is definitely more Wittgensteinian than Husserlian. It is language,
not consciousness, which receives principal consideration. In Wittgenstein
there is no going behind language to acts of a constituting consciousness.
Language and language games are to be described as they work; they are
not to be explained by anything outside of them.
As a consequence, Brand's Wittgenstein displays something rather like
Heidegger's "turn " away from transcendental philosophy's founding in
consciousness, the " turn " to Sprache. And that raises the central question
regarding this work. In his Preface Brand expressly states that what he
seeks in order to remedy the deficiencies of previous interpretations is a
systematization of Wittgenstein's thought. Now it is evident from the
start that systematization here cannot have the sense it has in German
Idealism or even 'in Husserlian Phenomenology. But can there be a systematization of any sort, a systematization which is inore than a mere
compilation under a series of headings, without a keystone around which
the material is to be organized? In Husserl, for instance, systematization
is possible because of an overarching concern with grounding the phenomena under investigation in acts (Leistungen) of consciousness. Of
course one might say that in Wittgenstein language replaces consciousness
a.S the keystone of systematization. But that would be mistaken. For Witt-

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BOOK REVIEWS

genstein saw as well as anymie, Heidegger included, that language is something within which we find ourselves under way. Thus we never have a
vantage point outside of it which would allow us to survey it; we have
only the partial insights, "landscape sketches," which can be formulated
in fragmentary remarks and observations. Thus in Wittgenstein there is
no principle to which things might be reduced or from which they might
be deduced-neither language nor any other. Hence systematization here
could only mean sorting out under a variety of topics of inquiry. Still that
seems to fall short of what one expects of a system and short, I think, even
of what Brand expects. Brand argues that he has been true to the spirit
of what Wittgenstein maintained must remain philosophical remarks. But
has violence been done after all?
In his terse and intelligent introduction, the translator, Robert Innis,
leaves it open to the reader to decide whether or not it has. In my judgment
violence of a sort has been done. In reading Wittgenstein himself one
always has a sense of the inclusiveness of philosophical inquiry, or as H.-G.
Gadamer would put it, of the priority of the question over the answer. Precisely the sense of puzzlement and astonishment, Wittgenstein's sensitivity
to human finitude, is diminished in Brand's reassembling and paraphrasing
of Wittgenstein texts: we have answers, it seems, definitive answers. No
doubt, too, violence is done insofar as the all-pervasive critical-therapeutic
motif in Wittgenstein's philosophizing is lost from view, but in this regard
I must admit to being in sympathy with Brand's project. It is the Wittgenstein who sees philosophy as tentative probing that I miss.
Finally, I have a question regarding the audience for whom this book is
intended. The book would seem meant as an introduction to Wittgenstein,
to the circle of problems which he treated. Yet it cannot really be that,
for it presupposes familiarity with Wittgenstein. For example, one must
know much more of what Wittgenstein says of language games to evaluate
the references to these in Brand's text. The book serves better, I think, as
a provocation to the Anglo-American tradition of Wittgenstein interpretation. It will force those who have already learned their Wittgenstein
within that framework to deal with the speculative dimension in Wittgenstein's thought. Speculative philosophy is not the fashion in analytic
schools of thought, but Brand's book shows that the stock objections to it
need not apply. He demonstrates that the precision and exactitude characteristic of analytical thought need by no means be sacrificed if one widens
the range of that thought to include the speculative issues raised in phenomenological research. And is it not in the .widening of the range of
analytic thought that Wittgenstein is most valuable? If Brand is right,
Wittgenstein provides the bridge to the continental tradition.

P. CHRISTOPHER
The University of Lowell
Lowell, Massachusetts

SMITH

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BOOK REVIEWS

The Moral Meaning of Revolution. By JoN R. GuNNEMANN. New Haven:
Yale University Press, 1979. Pp. xi + 227. $15.00.
" Revolution " in the title of this work has a restricted meaning. It does
not refer to the right of resistance against tyranny justified on the basis of
the natural law, i.e., on the assumption of a" fundamental moral community of the human race." Rather it refers to the Marxist concept " that a
revolution brings into being a mode of human existence that has no precedent. The revolution is not for the purpose of restoring justice in the face
of a contemptible violation of God's law, but rather to change fundamentally the relations people have with one another " (p. 6) . By way of
analogy the author makes use of the well-known theory of scientific revolutions of Thomas S. Kuhn, according to which a " paradigm shift " in our
way of perceiving the world is prepared by the discovery of more and more
data which cannot be easily fitted into our old world-view. Ultimately the
new view is accepted, although it can never be " proved " because there is
really no neutral ground common to the two views in terms of which the
new could be fairly judged as better than the old.
Gunnemann shows that in a political system these anomalies which do
not fit are perceived as "evils" which have to be explained by a "theodicy " (" the justification of God in the eyes of man ") . Thus " political
and social revolutions are innovative responses to the problem of evil " (p.
19). Since, however, there is no neutral ground between the old and the
new value systems (as there is, for example, in the Just War Theory), it
seems out of the question to give an ethical justification of revolution. If
our society is simply evil, then the oppressed have no reason to justify their
actions by its perverted ethical norms. Thus whatever succeeds in bringing
about the revolution is by that very fact morally justified. Gunnemann,
therefore, wishes to raise for Christian liberation theologians the problem
of how they can consistently argue for Marxist revolution on Christian
ethical grounds.
In pursuit of this aim Gunnemann discusses three authors: Frantz Fanon,
Karl Marx, and Jilrgen Moltmann. Fanon is an example of a kind of
apocalyptic theodicy which the author calls " revolutionary dualism."
Since the existing order is pure evil, revolution takes the form of its destruction by any means available. Indeed violence, even when pragmatically ineffective, can be justified as a necessary act in order for the revolutionaries to purge themselves of all lingering inhibitions imposed on them by
their oppressors. Today we see the effects of this theory in the increasing
use of mindless terrorism, and even (in milder form) in feminist misanthropy. Hatred is encouraged as a catharsis of the slave mentality.
Marx, to whom Gunnemann gives a much more extensive and penetrating analysis, is not a dualist. His theory of revolution is based on the

'.BOOK REVIEWS

165

Hegelian dialectic according to which the new order, although radically
other than the old, emerges from it by an Aufhebung which in destroying
the old also assimilates it. Building also on Feuerbach's idea that modem
man must become atheist because he is coming to see that " God " is only
a projection of his ideal self, Marx attempts to end all theodicy by showing
that the revolution will at last make it possible for us to overcome our
self-alienation and become truly human, fully responsible for both the
good and evil of our world. Gunnemann shows that for Marx the fundamental dialectical opposition is not between man and man, nor within
man's own nature, but between man and nature. The revolution thus
brings us at last face to face with our real enemy, the natural world, which
we must master through science and technology, no longer wasting our
human energies in class-warfare masked by ideological and religious illusions.
Gunnemann's fundamental criticism of Marx is that, while Marx rightly
saw that revolution is not an apocalypse but a carefully prepared development of the contradictions inherent in capitalism, he has been proved
tragically mistaken in his blind faith in the proletariat. Marx believed that
the proletariat, because it was entirely marginal to capitalist society, and
yet the really productive and technologically educated and organized motive power of capitalist society, would be capable of constructing a truly
universal, free, and humane society directly and creatively confronting
nature. Yet in the Soviet Union, China, and other socialist countries we
have not seen the emergence of any such mature humanity. Instead Marxist revolution has resulted in new oppressive and militaristic bureaucracies
ruling over masses of people even more passive and hopeless than under
capitalism. Gunnemann argues that Marx's own arguments for his faith
in the proletariat were never really coherent.
Gunnemann has chosen Moltmann for discussion, because he is a brilliant
Christian theologian who has attempted to develop a political theology
largely inspired by Hegel and Marx. The author's main criticism of Moltmann is that in the end his " political theology is strangely antipolitical."
The Lutheran doctrine of the " two kingdoms " shows up in Moltmann's
theologia crucis, according to which the Cross exposes the total evil of the
existing political order and gives hope of God's eventual intervention
through revolution, but in no way casts light on how Christians are to
engage in this revolutionary activity. For Moltmann political power seems
itself to be inherently sinful, so that the Christian who seeks to use political
power becomes inevitably the accomplice of evil. -Clearly Gunnemann prefers the Calvinist tradition which teaches that Christians must accept the
responsibility to use power because power belongs to the order of creation
antecedent to evil. He might have noted that Aquinas is clearer on this
point than Calvin, whose teaching is not free from ambiguity, as Gunnemann himself admits (cf. p.
note 41).

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BOOK REVIEWS

In his final chapter Gunnemann, -speaking as a Christian, rejects the
dualistic espousal of violence. He also rejects the notion that Christians
should support revolutionary causes as advocates of the oppressed while
bewailing the inevitable evils involved. Nor can he accept Moltmann's
passive hope in God's intervention. Finally, Gunnemann refutes the view
of those who say that commitment to moral standards amounts to a static
acceptance of the existing social order.
Gunnemann's own position seems to be that Christians have the obligac
tion to work actively for profound social changes not by promoting revolution (in the Marxist sense) but by the patient restructuring of social relations. If this effort, however, is to go beyond a superficial liberalism, it
also entails a profound cognitive restructuring of our theodicy, i.e., of how
we perceive and understand the evils in our world. He believes that the
Christian Gospel provides such a theodicy but not in the form of a single
static understanding. Rather it is open to a genuine historical development
in which we can incorporate the valid insights provided by Marxism and
other efforts at social analysis.
I found this work somewhat too abstract and difficult in style, yet at
the same time illuminating. Gunnemann's analysis of his three revolutionary theorists, especially ·of Marx, is balanced, precise, and penetrating,
and makes an important contribution to the current debate on liberation
theology, especially because it focuses on the fundamental weakness of
Marxism, its groundless faith in the proletariat. At the same time Gunnemann does not fall into the opposite error of faith in some conservative
elite. It seems to me that the greatest political problem which faces Christians today is how we can find ways to promote active participation by all
the members of the community in the decision-making of the community.
Marginality cannot be overcome simply by the destruction of an oppressive class, but only by the acceptance by all of responsibility for the common good. Liberation theology has begun to look to the formation of the
communidades de base as a possible strategy to develop such universal
participation.
BENEDICT M. AsHLEY, O.P.
Aquinas Institute of Theology
Dubuque, Iowa

The Cult of the Saints: Its Rise and Function in Latin Christianity. By
PETER BROWN. Chicago: The University of Chicago Press, 1981.
Pp. xv + 187. $15.00.
Here is another one of Peter Brown's marvelous books on Christianity
in late antiquity-one of those books that approach issues in a refreshingly

BOOK REVIEWS

167

new way and challenge the long-held assumptions concerning them. In this
case the issue is the extravagant devotion paid to· the saints in the fourth,
fifth, and sixth century Western Church, and the long-held assumption is
the idea that such devotion was something foisted on the Church by the
vulgar mob and initially, at least, only countenanced by the upper echelons
of the Church. Brown demonstrates quite clearly, however, that it was in
fact the leaders of the Church who fostered the cult of the saints. They
not only wrote their biographies and passiones; they also gave lavishly of
their riches to building and adorning shrines over the graves of the holy
dead, which sometimes they had themselves discovered: bishops in these
early centuries, the new patricians and men of considerable wealth, had
hardly any other way of spending their money in a socially acceptable
manner. In addition, the practice of devotion to the saints as it was· carried
out en route to and at the shrines erected in their honor provided the
occasion for fleeting democratic moments. In pilgrimages and processions
rich and poor, men and women, marched together, jostled one another, and
prayed together without any sense, it would seem, of class distinction. So
notorious indeed was this intermingling that Jerome could write in his
letter to the virgin Eustochium that " the martyrs should be sought by you
in your own bedroom " rather than at the festivals (Ep. 22,17) . And the
greatest minds were no. less
by the miraculous activity of the saints
at their tombs and shrines (witness De civ. Dei 22,8, which has constantly
that they have reason to admire Augusastonished many who otherwise
tine) than were the humblest.
But Brown is concerned with more, of course, than simply challenging
this particular assumption. In six chapters he also speaks about the differences between the pagans' view of their heroes and the Christians' view of
their holy men and women: the dissimilarities are more significant than
the similarities. He deals as well with the differences in their understanding of death and of the dead-of dead bodies, to be specific. (In this respect it might be said that, while lamenting on p. 158, n. 6, that "we lack
a study of the meaning of death in the early Christian world, and its expression in burial practices and attitudes to
Brown neglects to
mention Alfred C. Rush, Death and Burial in Christian Antiquity, Washington, 1941.) Perhaps most important, throughout the book he explores
the theme of the dead saint as patron
protector. This is a subject
that, with variations, has interested Brown since at least the publication
of his article on " The Rise and Function of the Holy Man in Late Antiquity " in the Journ<il of• Roman Studies 61 (1971), 80-101, in which the
saint was the fifth century monk of the Syrian hills and villages. Ultimately
the cult of the saints, with its emphasis on human beings and human relationships, ideal as they may have been, represents for Brown part of the
history of what he calls the "hominization" of Western Europe--the replacement of sacred objects and places with sacred persons.

168

BOOK· REV11ilWS

These are all matters that Brown treats in a style characteristically both
brilliant and charming. His readers know that it is part of his gift to draw
upon, and to illustrate his points by using, a wide variety of sources, many
of these not exclusively from the ancient world: in the present volume, for
example, he can quote Hegel and Nietzsche as easily as Augustine and
Gregory of Tours. And he is as at home in the economic and artistic realms
as in the social and theological. Another aspect of Brown's genius is his
ability to develop ideas that the texts anl monuments merely suggest or
hint at. How legitimately he does this his readers must-of course decide for
themselves, but that he does it with a rare mastery of his materials no one
will be able to deny.
BoNIFAci!: RAMSEY, O.P.
Dominican HOU8e of Studies
Washington, D. C.

The English Catlwlic Enlightment: John Lingard and the Cisalpine Movement 1780-1850. By JosEPH P. CHINNICI, O.F.M. Shepherdstown,
W. Va.: Patmos Press, 1980. Pp. 261. $24.95.
The obvious point of this book is that John Lingard was a visionary. He
was not merely-what he is best remembered for-the historian who put
forth such an accurate history of England, but an articulate commentator
on the relations between Church and State, on religious toleration, and on
the bases of theology. What Lingard in particular, and the Cisalpines in
general, had to say about such things needs to be repeated today. There
is a cogency to their message which is remarkable in light of the difference
in time between our age and theirs. 150 years should render polemic literature outdated, unless there is a quality to the message which transcends
the polemic. Such is the case with John Lingard and the Cisalpines. Their
message of understanding, of sympathy with opposition, and of intellectual
integrity, is one which transcends the particular problems of their day, and
is as urgent today as it was in the early lSOO's.
The whole theme of the Cisalpine Movement could best be summed up
in the expression In necessariis unitas, in dubiis libertas, in omnibus cariteut,
a saying in some opposition to the arrogance of later Catholics. If there
was a bridge which could be built between Catholics and Protestants, Lingard insisted that Catholics should build it, that Catholics should take the
initiative and be the ones to make the conciliatory gestures. Lingard
thought that the greatest bar to union was mistaking principles for details
and details for principles. He had a great pride in his Church, and a strong
belief that his Church was right, but he tempered these sentiments with the
conviction that Ultramontanism was, as John Tracy Ellis once said," devotion to Rome above and beyond the call of duty."

169

llOOK REVIEWS

The Cisalpines- were acutely (almost painfully) aware that there was
much to the Roman Church which was characteristically un-English, such
as litanies, processions, the Latin language, and fasting; and that these
should be de-emphasized. These things, they maintained, should not present
such an imposing facade as to prevent prospective converts from " coming
over." A Catholicism freed of such cultural elements could, they added, be
made very appealing to the Anglican of their day.
The English Catholic Enlightenment is more an appreciation of the Cisalpine Movement than it is a criticism. The author attempts to bring the
neglected Cisalpines to light, and presents so admirable a case for them that
we are forced to take notice. The result is a trifle one-sided. Ultramontanists
are mentioned or quoted not so much to add to the complexity of the argument as to provide the Cisalpines with a suitable foil.
If there is a stylistic defect in the book, it is that it reads too much like
a dissertation. There are too many names mentioned too frequently. At
each juncture we must be told not only what so-and-so thought, but also
who agreed with him, who disagreed with him, and which books or articles
they wrote in support of their various positions. This frequent cataIOguing
slows down the pace of the book and would best be consigned to footnotes.
The author also has a bad case of the sics; far better to reserve this word
for lapses more startling than antiquated spellings.
What is disappointing is that Chinnici hesitates to take on issues related
to the Cisalpine Movement. Why, for example, did the Liberal Catholic
response in France and Germany take a distinctively Ultramontanist turn,
at least in its initial phases, while taking a distinctively Cisalpine turn in
England? And is there not a recognizable continuity between the Cisalpine
Movement and the tone of such later Catholics as Newman and Acton?
Yet this is a valuable book, and one which is impeccably printed. Joseph
Chinnici has done us a great service in presenting the Cisalpine contribution, and in reminding us that we have a lot to learn from history.
JOHN VIDMAR,

Ohio Dominican College
Columbw, Ohio

O.P.

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