EDWARD SCHILLEBEECKX AS CRITICAL THEORIST:
THE IMPACT OF NEO-MARXIST SOCIAL THOUGHT
ON HIS RECENT THEOLOGY

'TI

HE FLEMISH DOMINICAN, Edward Schilleeeckx, published the Dutch original of his Christ the
acrament of the Encounter with God in 1960. In this
work, he transposed Catholic sacramental theology into the
anthropocentric mode which had been pioneered by Henri de
Lubac and Karl Rahner. So involved was he in the existential
categories of the anthropological turn that he described " religion " as " essentially a personal relation of man to God, of person to person." 1 The English translation of this influential
book appeared in 1963 while Pope John XXIII was in the
process of convening the second Vatican Council. Nearly two
decades later, the English translation of the second volume of
Schillebeeckx's Christological trilogy appeared, bearing the
title Christ the Experience of Jesus as Lord. To pass from the
first of these books to the second is to traverse a period of singular turbulence in recent Catholic theology. Both books express Schillebeeckx's long standing concern that theology enhance contemporary Christians' experience of Jesus. By 1977,
however, Schillebeeckx could no longer designate that experience as primarily one of " personal communing with God." 2
As he put it in his speech on September 17, 1982, accepting the
Erasmus Prize for his contributions to European culture, contemporary theology involves "a historical praxis of commitment to mysticism and politics." 3
1 E. Schillebeeckx, O.P., Christ the Sacrament of the Encounter with God
(New York: Sheed & Ward, 1963), p. 4.
2 Ibid.
a Schillebeeckx, God Among Us, The Gospel Proclaimed, trans. by John
Bowden (New York: Crossroad, 1983), p. 253.

341

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WILLIAM L. PORTIER

Over the past fifteen years Schillebeeckx has studied and
made a qualified theological appropriation of the critical theory
of society of the neo-Marxist Frankfurt School. In the present
article I will argue that the measure of the distance from Christ
me Sacrament of the Encounter with God to Christ the Experience of Jesus as Lord is the permanent impact of critical theory
on his theology. The exposition of Schillebeeckx's thought
which follows will have a fivefold purpose: 1) to consider in a
general way why contemporary Catholic theologians are interested in Marxist social thought, 2) to examine the stakes involved in a Christian theological appropriation of ideology
critique, 3) to situate the dialogue with the Frankfurt School
in Schillebeeckx's intellectual biography as a whole and to
delineate that dialogue's impact on his understanding of the
nature of theology, 4) to show how this conception of theology
is at work in Schillebeeckx's recent work on office in the church,
5) to raise some critical questions about the continuity between this latest development in his thought and its earlier
phases, and to question the extent to which Schillebeeckx has
succeeded in appropriating the tradition of ideology critique
into contemporary Catholic theology.
I. Why Marx?
For some in the Catholic Church, any dialogue between
Christian thought and the Marx-inspired tradition of ideology
critique is doomed from the start. Marxism is a closed materialist system, inherently atheistic. For his part, Schillebeeckx views the varying currents in the Marxist stream in a
more differentiated way. Marxist thought is a resilient body
of ideas, its thinkers capable of self-criticism. Noting what he
regards as its fruitfulness in Latin American liberation theology, Schillebeeckx feels that Marxism must "also be a constant source of inspiration tn us " in the political democracies
of the industrial West. 4 He locates Marx's claim to our at4 Schillebeeckx, God ig New Each Moment, in conversation
with Huub
Oosterhuis and Piet Hoogeveen;trans. by David Smith (New York: Seabury,
1983)' p. 95.

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AS CRITICAL THEORIST

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tention in his identification with the sufferings of those who
bore the physical burden of the industrial revolution. Thus
Marxist thought makes a present claim on us, not as a function of some pseudo-scientific system of materialist philosophy,
but as a function of the extent to which Marx, and those who
have attempted to revise his thought, share in what has recently been called the " hermeneutical privilege of the oppressed." 5
Jesus preached the gospel to the poor, healed the blind and
the lame, and welcomed sinners and ate with them. Schillebeeckx perceives a correlation between Jesus's characteristic
concern for the outcast and marginalized of first-century
Palestine and Marx's starting place in a genuine concern for
the victims of industrialization in the nineteenth century. He
speaks of a " convergence "
between the emancipative interest by which critical theory is
guided, and the liberating power which proceeds from the gospel,
although they are not identical. 6
By 1971, when he wrote the essay cited above, Schillebeeckx's encounter with critical theory had convinced him that
human communication in history, even the proclamation of
the gospel of Jesus Christ, can be systematically distorted in
the interests of maintaining unjust social structures. He therefore concluded that theological hermeneutics had to be extended systematically to include ideology critique. " Ideology" is any body of ideas whose relationship to reality has been
5 Lee Connie, "The Hermeneutical
Privilege of the Oppressed: Liberation
Theologies, Biblical Faith, and Marxist Sociology of Knowledge," OTSA. Proceedings, 33 ( 1978), pp. 155-81. As Monika Hellwig has noted, however,
those who claim this privilege for the oppressed are rarely poor. See her
eloquent case for poverty as a paradigm for the human situation before God
in Whose Experience Counts in Theological Reflection? (Milwaukee: Marquette U. Press, 1982), pp. 35-40.
6 Schillebeeckx,
"The New Critical Theory and Theological Hermeneutics,"
in The Understanding of Faith, Interpretation and Criticism, trans. by N. D.
Smith (New York: Seabury, 1974), p. 139.

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WILLIAM L. PORTIER

distorted in the interests of privileged groups.7 Such groups
need not be defined in terms of an easily disposed of notion
of "class." They can be designated on the basis of social
status, sex, race, etc. To do ideology critique is to ask who
benefits from the truth of a given body of ideas. Do they embody the veiled interests of dominant peoples or do they give
voice to the deep aspirations of the marginalized? Do they
work toward the maintenance of things as they are or would
the affirmation of their truth demand social change?
Theologians could conceivably " practice " this sort of ideology critique from the comfort of their desks. But in his more
recent works, Schillebeeckx has gone on to embrace the position, set out in some detail in the Christ book, that unless theologians have political commitments which set them against the
social injustice which leads to the ideological distortion of the
gospel, they will be unable to overcome that distortion and
communicate the gospel in truth.
II. What Is at Stake in the Theological Appropriation of
Ideology Critique?
To the extent that the church's preaching of the gospel becomes distorted in the interests of preserving unjust social
structures, Christianity will appear as the palliative spoken of
by Marx in his oft-quoted designation of religion as " the opium
of the people." In spite of the positive role he grants to religion earlier in the same text as the veiled bearer of authentic
human
the sigh of the oppressed creature, the heart of
a heartless world "-Marx nevertheless retains Feuerbach's
atheist premise that religion is a creation of human consciousness: " Man makes religion." 8
in ibid., p. 163, n. 90 and more recently
7 See Schillebeeckx on "ideology"
in "The Magisterium and Ideology," Journal of Ecumenical Studies, 19
(1982), pp. 5-17. Cf. Gregory Baum, Religion and Alienation (New York:
Paulist, 1975), pp. 34-5 and "The Impact of Sociology on Catholic Theology"
in The Social Imperative (New York: Paulist, 1979), pp. 119-27.
s Karl Marx, "Contribution to the Critique of Hegel's Philosophy of Right.
Introduction" ( 1844) in K. M arm and I!'. Engels On Religion (5th ed.; Mos-

SCHILLEBEECKX AS CRITICAL THEORIST

345

In this well-known text of Marx, we encounter the radical
difficulty in any theological appropriation of ideology critique.
The logic of Marxist analysis tends in a reductionist direction,
i.e., it tends to treat religious ideas thematically as products
of human consciousness. What then of the reality transcending
human consciousness at which religious ideas aim?
Even if one follows Schillebeeckx in his extension of theological hermeneutics into ideology critique, on'e must admit
that an unavoidable aspect of theological activity is the
acknowledgement, without apology, of an historical authority-a positive call or demand, an offer of salvation-which
theologians seek to make present. His acceptance of critical
theory's suspicion of hermeneutics must therefore be a qualified
one. This means an inevitable conflict between theology and
the complete autonomy of reason or absolute freedom abstractly conceived. This conflict involves weighty questions of fundamental theology. In an otherwise systematically reductionist
frame of reference, what is the impetus which accounts for the
introduction into the discussion of the reality of God? If, as
Schillebeeckx argues, human freedom and divine grace are
parallel realities only in our reflection, but are really two different perspectives on the same reality, what in our experience
justifies the introduction and maintenance of the religious perspective? 9
These fundamental theological considerations make it important to ask if there is anything of the " personal communing
with God " of 1960 in the "mediated immediacy " of 1977? In
short, is there continuity between the de Petter Thomist-cumphenomenologist of Christ the Sacrament of the Encounter
wi,th God and the critical theorist of Christ the Experience of
cow: Progress. Publishers, 1972), p. 38, and the commentary on the text in
Religion and Alienation, Ch. II, and Matthew L. Lamb, Solidarity With
Victims (New York: Crossroad, 1982), pp. 52-3.
theological discussion in Schillebeeckx, Jesus, An
9 See the fundamental
Ewperiment in Theology, trans. by Hubert Hoskins (New York: Seabury,
1979), pp. 633-35, and the critique of sacrahsm in " The Magisterium and
Ideology," pp. 7-8.

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WILLIAM L. PORTIER

Jesus as Lord? Has Schillebeeckx's performance in his appropriation of critical theory been consistent with his theological intent? Although a full treatment of these fundamental
theological issues is beyond the scope of this essay, they must
be kept in view as we trace the path of Schillebeeckx's encounter with the critical theorists.
III. Critical Theory and its Impact on Schillebeeckx's
Understanding of Theology
In 1934 a group of German-Jewish scholars from the institute for Social Research in Frankfurt came to Columbia University in New York seeking a refuge from National Socialism.
In Weimar Germany, they had begun a revision of Marxist
theory which they called the" critical theory of society." Chief
among its exponents were Max Horkheimer (1895-1973) ,
Theodor Adorno (1903-1969), Walter Benjamin (1892-1940),
who took his own life before he reached the United States,
Herbert Marcuse (1898-1979) and Erich Fromm. The critical theorists found themselves in a world which one hundred
years of Marxist theory and practice had failed to transform.
They perceived that the needless suffering and domination
under state socialism were easily the equal of the repression of
the forms of capitalism which had developed from the industrial economy criticized by Marx. In what appears as heresy
to more " orthodox " Marxists, the critical theorists turned
from an analysis of political economy to multidisciplinary
analyses of Western culture. They sought, particularly in
psychological categories, an account of what l\farx's own theory
had failed to explain. 10
Access to this critical theory of the Frankfurt School is
gained via two key ideas: the dialectic of enlightenment and
critical negativity. Horkheimer and Adorno viewed the his10 For a history of the Frankfurt
School up to 1950, see Martin Jay, The
Dialectical Imagination (Boston: Little, Brown, & Co., 1973). Cf. the discussion of critical theory in Lamb, Solidarity with Victims, Ch. 2. Lamb's
note 3 provides a bibliography of recent studies on critical theory in the U.S.

SCHILLEBEECKX

AS CRITICAL THEORIST

347

tory of reason, from the Greeks up through the Enlightenment
to contemporary science and technology, as profoundly ambivalent. While promising liberation from the domination of
irrational forces, be they nature, tradition, or religion, critical
reason has succeeded instead in creating new forms of domination which " science " now studies as part of nature.
This is the "dialectic of enlightenment." In One-Dimensional Man, Marcuse would apply it to the contemporary
United States. Mass culture, he argued, had integrated dissent
so successfully that the liberal ideals of reason, freedom, tolerance, pluralism, etc., had turned into their opposites. As he
brought the book to its conclusion, he wrote: " Dialectical
theory is not refuted, but it cannot offer the remedy. It cannot be positive." He closed the book with a call to the " Great
Refusal," citing the words of Walter Benjamin: "It is only for
the sake of those without hope that hope is given to us." 11
This is the " critical negativity " which passionately refuses
to recognize the identity of reason and reality in contemporary
society. For fear that they would only reflect present contradictions, critical negativity likewise refuses to propose positive
alternatives. Instead it maintains hope in what Horkheimer
called " the longing for the totally other " and engages in the
kind of critical imaginings and rememberings we find in Marcuse's Eros and Civilization (1955) .
To those who would require a theoretical account of this
hope, the critical theorist might reply that such an account
would be premature. Reason and reality are not in fact identical. For the philosopher to give the impression that they are
by joining them in theory could only redound to the advantage
of those who occupy positions of privilege in the present reality.
1·1 Herbert Marcuse, One-Dimensional Man, Studies in the Ideology of Advanced Industrial Society (Boston: Beacon Press, 1968), pp. 253, 257. For
a correlation of critical theory's analysis with the theological notion of sin,
see William P. Loewe, "Dialectics of Sin: Lonergan's Insight and the Critical Theory of Max Horkheimer," Anglican Theological Review, 61 (1979),
pp. 224-45.

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WILLIAM L. PORTIER

If asked how he/ she knew this, the critical theorist might ask
inquirers to put themselves in the place of those who suffer
needlessly, including those who have died.
In its negative dialectic, critical theory exhibits a characteristic concern for the liberation of human beings from needless domination, from what Marcuse called " surplus repression." This accounts for its heated opposition to the various
forms of " positivism " which, according to the Frankfurt
School, had invaded all of contemporary theory. "Positivism"
mistakes what is in good measure a product of society for what
is " natural," thus enhancing the power of this " nature " to
dominate people needlessly. 12
While he is committed to carrying on the critical theory of
Horkheimer and Adorno, Jurgen Habermas (b. 1929) finds
that critical negativity, in its inability to make positive proposals for political transformation, has itself become ideology.
He therefore devoted his efforts to seeking a " quasi-transcendental " ground from which to make such proposals. In
the early 1970's, this move took the form of his theory of
" communicative competence," according to which positive
political proposals should aim at the enhancement of the
" ideal speech situation " implied in the very structure of language itself. 13
The Frankfurt School's revision of Marx has implications
for the key question of whether Marxist analysis involves an
unalterably reductionist view of religion. Because they treat
culture as more than simply a superstructure for economic
12 On "positivism,"
see Max Horkheimer, Oritical Theory, trans. by Matthew J. O'Connell et al. (New York: Herder & Herder, 1972), p. 138 and
Jurgen Habermas, I1nowledge and Human Interests, trans. by Jeremy Shapiro
(Boston: Beacon Press, 1972), pp. 88-9.
13 For bibliography and discussion on Habermas, see Oontinuum, 8 ( 1970) ;
Philosophy of the Social Sciences, 2 (1972); Cultural Hermeneutics, 3
(1975-76); Quentin Skinner, "Habermas' Reformation," New York Review
of Books, Oct. 7, 1982, and the reply by Thomas McCarthy in the Jan. 20,
1983, Review; Dennis McCann; "Habermas and the Theologians," Religious
Studies Review, 7/1 (Jan., 1981), pp. 14-21.

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reality, it could be argued that critical theorists never totally
identified religion and ideology. Critical theory would then be
more open to religious reality and to at least the negative task
of theology than Marx himself is usually thought to be. Both
Adorno and Walter Benjamin were sensitive to the prophetic
and mystical strains of Judaism which gave impulse to their
thought. The same can be said of Horkheimer's claim that:
the traditional Jewish prohibition on naming or describing God
and paradise was reproduced in critical theory's refusal to give
substance to its utopian vision. 14

Schillebeeckx himself has noted the structural affinity between the prophetic tradition of Judaism and critical theory,
as well as the aptness of negative dialectic as an expression of
the future-oriented, eschatological faith in the God of Jesus
Christ. 15 In his recent theology, particularly in the Christ book
and its projected sequel, Schillebeeckx has made critical
theory's characteristic concern for the alleviation of needless
human suffering his own. He refuses to discuss Christology
apart from thematic reference to the "' barbarous excess " of
suffering and evil in human history. 16 He has thus begun the
process of making his theology thematically responsive to the
hermeneutic privilege of the poor.
Schillebeeckx encountered the critical theory which philosophically informs his recent theology during the years between
1968 and 1973. The English-speaking reader has access to this
14 See Jay, Dialectiaal Imagination,
pp. 56 and 32ff. On Horkheimer as
"negative theologian," see Rudolf J. Siebert, "Max Horkheimer: Theology
and Positivism I & II," Ecumenist, 14 ( 1976), pp. 19-24; 42-45. Walter
Benjamin wrote his "Theses on the Philosophy of History " in response to
Gershom Scholem's Major Trends of Jewish Mysticism. See Elisabeth YoungBruehl, Hannah Arendt, For Love of the World (New Haven: Yale, 1982),
pp. 161-63.
15 Schillebeeckx,
Understanding of Faith, p. xiii, and " Critical Theories
and Christian Political Commitment," Oonoilium, 84 (New York: Herder
and Herder, 1973), p. 51.
11s Schillebeeckx,
Ohrist the Ewperience of Jesus as Lord, trans. by John
Bowden (New York: Seabury Press, 1980), p. 725.

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WILLIAM L. PORTIER

dialogue with the Frankfurt School in the translations 0£ a
series 0£ essays written during that period. I have elsewhere
reviewed this dialogue and briefly indicated its impact on the
conception and execution 0£ Schillebeeckx's Christological
project. 11 In describing the development evident in these
essays it is difficult to overlook the role his experience of the
Church in the Netherlands played in this development. This
is especially true 0£ what he calls the '" critical communities "
or the "'basic movement" within Dutch Catholicism. He tells
us that, around 1969 or 1970, he made a conscious decision to
identify himself with this movement as a kind 0£ sympathetic
theological critic and spokesman. He sees in this movement a
promise for the Church's future.
Loosely associated with these critical communities in the
Dutch church at this time was a group 0£ young theologians,
some students of Johann-B. Metz at Munster, all under the influence 0£ the spirit of protest animating European university
li£e at the time. They included the Dutchmen Frans van den
Oudenrijn and Ben van Onna and the Belgian Marcel Xhaufflaire. I have the impression that it was this group-Schillebeeckx called them theologians 0£ "contestation "-which
challenged the direction 0£ his thought at this time. Although
he had been introduced to the negative dialectic of Adorno and
Marcuse by the time he wrote the "' Epilogue " to God the Fu11 See William L. Portier, "Schillebeeckx's
Dialogue with Critical Theory,"
Ecumenist, 21 (Jan.-Feb., 1983), pp. 20-27. The first two of the five essays
reviewed in this article are "Toward A Catholic Use of Hermeneutics" and
"Epilogue: The New Image of God, Secularization and Man's Future on
Earth." Both were translated from the Dutch by N. D. Smith and appeared
in God the Future of Man (New York: Sheed & Ward, 1968) as Chapters
I and VI. They appeared in Dutch as Chapters 1 and 7 of Geloofsverstaaen
( 1972) but not in the English translation of 197 4. "The New Critical
Theory" and "The New Critical Theory and Theological Hermeneutics"
originally appeared in Dutch in Tijdschrift voor Theologie, 11 ( 1971), pp.
30-50; 113-39. In English translation by N. D. Smith, both appeared in The
Understanding of Faith as Chapters 6 and 7. The fifth essay, "Critical
Theories and Christian Political Commitment," translated by David Smith,
appeared in Ooncilium, 84, pp. 48-61 in 1973.

SCHILLEBEECKX

AS CRITICAL THEORIST

S51

ture of Man in 1968, Schillebeeckx was still very much taken
by the theology of secularization and the death of God current
al this time. His trip lo the United States the previous year
had perhaps fueled this interest. 18
At about the same time, Marcel Xhauffiaire was putting the
finishing touches on his theology dissertation under Metz at
Munster, Feuerbach et la. Theologie de la Secularisation. In
Feuerbach the young Belgian found a type of modern theology's uncritical reflection of Western secularism. He denounced as " secularist ideology" the unquestioning acceptance of Western culture implied in the then current theologies
of secularization. 19
Theology in a "post-Feuerbachian" context, he argued, required a revolution in the way theologians conceive the relationship between theory and practice. 20 The alternatives would
be either the eager capitulation to the modern world of secularization theology or various forms of resentful rejection of
the world, both of which would be content to leave the world
exactly as it was. This is what Xhauffiaire and his friend Karl
Derksen refer to as Le.<s deux visages de la theologie de la secularisalion, the title of a collection of essays which they edited
in 1970. In place of theology as ideology Xhauffiaire called for
"a critical theology as critique of theology." Van den Oudenrijn pursued this task in his German work of· the same title in
is On the development of Schillebeeckx's thought up to this period, see
Mary E. Hines, " God After the Death of God: A Study of the Development
of the Theology of Secularization in the Works of Edward Schillebeeckx"
(Toronto: unpublished M.A. thesis, St. Michael's College, 1976) and T. M.
Schoof, " Masters in Israel: VII, the Later Theology of Edward Schillebeeckx," (Jlergy Review, 55 ( 1970), pp. 943-60.
19 Cf. Frans van den Oudenrijn,
"La theologie de la secularisation: une
ideologie religieuse de la societe imi-dimensionelle,' in Marcel Xhauffiaire and
Karl Derksen, eds., Les deum visages de la tMologie de la secularisation
( Tournai: Casterman, 1972) .
20 Marcel Xhauffiaire, Feuerbach et la TMologie de la Secularisation
(Paris:
Cerf, 1970), p. 382. Charles Davis reflects on the implications of this argument in "Theology and Pnixis,'' Oross Ourrents, 23 (1973), pp. 154-68 and
in his Theology and Political Society (Cambridge: University Press, 1980),
esp. pp. 5, 39, 60·64; cf. Lamb, Solidarity with Victims, pp. 72-73.

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WILLIAM L. PORTIER

1972. In 1970 Xhauffiaire could note that this new approach

to theology had begun to receive practical confirmation in the
formation of new communities in Belgium and the Netherlands. One of the chief organs for this new movement was the
short-lived journal Tegenspraak (Contestation) which flourished during 1970-71.
In the two articles on critical theory and theology which he
wrote for Tijdschrift voor Theologie in 1971, Schillebeeckx
gave a serious hearing to the theology of contestation of the
critical Catholicism movement. By the time he wrote the 1973
Concilium piece on "Critical Theories and Christian Political
Commitment," the position on critical theology from which he
would write the Christ and Ministry books had become clear.
In surveying these developments in Schillebeeckx's theology,
the young theologians of contestation seem to have had an undeniable impact on his direction in the early 1970's. Their
critique of the theology of secularization based on the understanding of the relationship between theory and practice in
Marx's thought, e.g., the " Theses on Feuerbach" (1845) , particularly the XIth, challenged Schillebeeckx to take more seriously the passing nod to " orthopraxis " he had made in the
1968 essay on hermeneutics. In addition, their use of Habermas's revision of the critical theory of Horkheimer and Adorno
in a more positive direction drew Schillebeeckx into explicit
conversation with Habermas. Although he exempted Xhauffiaire from the criticism, he saw in critical Catholicism's
tendency to reject all previous theology as ideology the danger
of dissolving theology into critical theory. 21 In developing his
critique of Habermas, Schillebeeckx formulated, in response to
the reductionist tendency he perceived in the theology of contestation, his own proposal for theology's specific contribution
to critical social thought. The Christ and Ministry books are
part of the concrete working out of this proposal.
21 Scl1illebeeckx, Understanding
p. 164, n. 107.

of Faith, pp. 138-42, and on Xhaufilaire,

SCHILLEBEECKX

AS CRITICAL THEORIST

353

In the series of essays under discussion here, we find Schillebeeckx wending his way from a " use " of the hermeneutics of
Heidegger and Bultmann as well as his prolonged flirta,tion
with the theology of secularization in the late 1960's to an extension o.f theological hermeneutics in the direction of critical
theory in 1971. He thereby moved from a rather traditional
understanding of theology as the present interpretation of
texts from the past (the theoretical demonstration of the identity of later expressions of faith with the original " data ") to
a less "idealist" notion of theology. "In the light of the salutary challenge presented by critical theory to theology," he
affirmed in 1971 that" orthopraxis" must be" an essential element of the hermeneutic process." 22 Thus Schillebeeckx undertook the revolution in theology called for at the conclusion
of Xhauffiaire's Feuerbach book.
The first and most significant result of his encounter with
critical theory, therefore, is this reformulation of the nature of
theology's task. This revision is based on his attempt to take
seriously the understanding of the relationship between theory
and practice in neo-Marxist thought. In this new context,
theology becomes reflective "self-consciousness of Christian
praxis" or "the critical theory (in a specifically theological
manner) of the praxis of faith." 23 The term praxis is here distinguished from mere practice (as in "practical" applications
of pre-given theory) by its co-constitutive relationship with
theory likewise conceived. In dialogue with the critical theorists he has become convinced that the question of the historical mediation of Christian truth which has preoccupied him
throughout his career cannot, short of the eschaton, receive a
definitive theoretical answer.
The second decisive influence of critical theory on Schillebeeckx follows from the first: namely, the shift of emphasis
from past experience theoretically considered to present ex22 Ibid,., p.

2s Ibi4.,

132.
pp. 143-44.

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WILLIAM L. PORTIER

perience or praxis as the object of the theologian's reflection.
This notion is clearly at work, for example, in his conception
of the Ministry book as a reflection on the praxis of critical
communities in the Netherlands. His discussion of the "authority of experiences " in the Christ book clearly bears the
marks of his having worked through the debate between
Habermas and Hans-Georg Gadamer on tradition and its ideological distortion. " The authority of experience," Schillebeeckx claims, "has a narrative structure." 24 In any such narrative, the memory of human suffering must be allowed to exercise a corrective function against ideological distortion.
At this point
thinks Christianity makes a distinctive contribution to the dialogue with critical theory in the
matter of their common concern: the redemption of the world.
This contribution has both negative and positive dimensions.
It is the latter which Schillebeeckx regards as distinctively
Christian. On the basis of theological warrants such as the
eschaitological structure of Christian faith in a promise of redemption from sin which has yet to be completely fulfilled, as
well as the critical remembering of the doctrine of original sin,
which would convict of Pelagianism any vision of human selfredemption, Schillebeeckx thinks that Christians must join
Horkheimer and Adorno in their radical " no " to all ideological attempts to bless and legitimate the present as realizing
what amounts to the fullness of God's Kingdom.
On the other hand, Schillebeeckx thinks that interpreting
the gospel and living its truth in the present has an inevitable
political dimension which consists in the commitment to transform unjust social structures which impede the communication
and realization of the salvaition promised in Christ. This move
from traditional Christian compassion for poor individuals to
24 Schillebeeckx, Christ, p. 38, and the discussion of the authority of experiences on pp. 36-40. For a guide to the literature in this debate, see
Dieter Misgeld, " Critical Theory and Hermeneutics:
the Debate Between
Habermas and Gadamer," in John O'Neill, ed., On Critical Theory {New
York: Seabury, 1976), pp. 164-83.

SCHILLEBEECKX

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355

a critical political involvement contesting unjust structures is
the most crucial and debatable aspect in Schillebeeckx's recent
theology. Space does not permit an adequate treatment of it
here. Theologically it would involve a thorough account of
why action on behalf of justice should be regarded as a constitutive part of the Church's preaching of the gospel. 25 Philosophically it involves Schillebeeckx in the debate surrounding
Habermas's theory of communicative competence.
Schillebeeckx concurs in Habermas's view that, because of
its refusal to make positive proposals for social transformation,
the critical negativity of Adorno functions as an ideology in
which critical theory becomes the scholar's only form of
praxis. 26 Against Habermas, however, Schillebeeckx argues
that the theory of communicative competence rests on a tacit
philosophical anthropology derived from the Enlightenment's
commitment to the liberal values of individual freedom, tolerance, etc. Thus the ideal of freedom toward which Habermas.'s
theory strives is empty, pointing only to an abstract utopia. 27
To put it another way, Habermas "identifies no clearly defined target group as a potential agent for social transformation." 28
Faith in the God revealed in Jesus Christ, on the other hand,
is a basis for political proposals which have both a specific direction and a concrete subject or carrier group. We find this
25 For an exegesis of the 1971 Synod of Bishops on this topic, see Charles
M. Murphy, "Action for Justice as Constitutive of the Preaching of the
Gospel: What did the 1971 Synod Mean?," 'Pheological Studies, 44 ( 1983),
pp. 298-311.
26 Schillebeeckx, God the Future of Man, p. 205, n. 8. Cf. Marcel Xhauffiaire, La "Theologie Politique" (Paris: Cerf, 1972), p. 89, n. 98.
2·1 Schillebeeckx, " Critical Theories and Christian Political
Commitment,"
pp. 58-59, and Understanding of Faith, pp. 126, 112-13. For his part, Habermas
denies having such a transcendental philosophical anthropology. See his "A
Postscript to Knowledge and Human Interests," Philosophy of the Social
Sciences, 3 (1973), pp. 160-61, and the arguments in Christian K. Lenhardt,
"Rise and Fall of Transcendental Anthropology," Philosophy of the Social
'
Sciences, 2 (1972), pp. 231-46.
28 M. Lamb, Solidarity
with Victims, P- 44.

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WILLIAM L. PORTlER

direction in the narratives which recall the past experience of
God in Christ with the hope of bringing new Christian experience to life in the present. In order to avoid ideological distortion, this narrative should be told, as Schillebeeckx attempts
to structure his Christology, as a part of the history of human
suffering. In solidarity with those in need of liberation
throughout the world, critical communities of Christians
should celebrate and recall this narrative in their worship.
Theologians should mine the history of its interpretation for
memories which will contribute to the alleviation of suffering
in the present.
In .addition, therefore, to performing a function of critical
negativity in the world, politically committed communities of
Christians carry on in both worship and theology the critical
remembering which can lead to fruitful political action in the
present. Thus such communities could become the concrete
agents for social change lacking in Habermas. Their expectation of and hope for salvation in the God of Jesus Christ beyond political efforts and achievements would move them to
seek God continually in prayer and worship. Thus the " historical praxis of mysticism and politics " of which Schillebeeckx speaks.
The third significant influence of critical theory on his recent thought is this move to expand traditional Christian compassion for those who suffer to include an evangelical call to
think and act politically on their behalf. Theologians must allow the interest and experience of the suffering to work as an
epistemological corrective to thinking and as an impetus to
political action. In all of this, the program does not differ
significantly from that proposed by Metz. What sets Schillebeeckx apart is that in both his Christological trilogy and the
Ministry book he has attempted to carry out this program on
a massive scale. In the next section I wish to consider briefly
how the views on the nature of theology described above have
been brought to bear on Schillebeeckx' s recent reflections on
the question of office in the Church.

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IV. The Ministry book as Ideology Critique and Critical
Remembering
Schillebeeckx addresses the question of the ordained ministry
in the Church from within the framework sketched above.
Theology is critical reflection on Christian praxis. He begins,
therefore, from the experience of the critical communities of
Christians with whom he has identified. He states explicitly
that the practice of such critical communities was "the stimulus and the challenge to this study." 29
The " modern so-called shortage of priests " (p.
and the
ensuing phenomenon of the "service priest" (p. 79) have, in
his view, given rise to a situation in which " a wave of alternative practices sweeps over the church throughout the world,"
with an accompanying attitude of non-acceptatio legis arising
"spontaneously, and on all sides" (p. 79). He is apparently
referring to situations. among the critical communities in his
own country, and situations in Africa and Latin America as
well, where trained pastoral workers and catechists who function as leaders in their communities have begun to preside over
what participants regard as true Eucharistic celebrations. 30
Because the shortage of priests arises from what he regards
29 Schillebeeckx, Ministry, Leadership in the Community of Jesus Ghrist,
trans. by John Bowden (New York: Crossroad, 1981), p. 101. Hereafter
page numbers will be given in the text. Cf. SchillebMckx, God is New Each
Moment, Chapters 9 & 10. From a comparison of these chapters with John
A. Coleman's The Evolution of Dutch Catholicism, 1958-1974 (Berkeley: U.
of California, 1978) it is clear that the "critical communities" to which
Oosterhuis and Schillebeeckx are referring derive from the Septuagint movement which Coleman incorporates into his sociological analysis of Dutch
Catholicism on pp. 239-47.
so See Coleman's statistics and commentary on the Dutch Catholic percep·
tion of a "priest shortage" in ibid., pp. 302-303; the statistical review on
the priest shortage throughout the world by Jan Kerkhofs in the first essay
in Lucas Grollenberg, Edward Schillebeeckx et al., Minister? Pastor?
Prophet?: Grass-roots Leadership in the Churches (New York: Crossroad,
1981) ; and the letter from the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith,
published September 8, 1983, and presenting the congregation's theological
objections to such practices as those discussed by Schillebeeckx.

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WILLIAM L. PORTIER

as non-theological factors, i.e., the exclusion of all but celibate
males from the ordained priesthood, Schillebeeckx is willing to
consider the possibility that the widespread " illegal " practices may constitute a valid criticism. of ideological elements
in existing church order (p. 77) . The purpose then of what he
openly refers to as "critical remembrances" (p. 3) of the history of the ordained ministry is to " indicate the ideological
elements involved in it" (p. 90). He is not trying to do
"neutral" history in any positivist sense. He has an admitted
interest (pp. 100-104). Through this critical remembering, he
hopes to arrive at a theological evaluation of these alternative
practices.
His rather brief overview of the history of the ordained
ministry in the Church yields two conclusions. First, there has
been a cumulative process of "' ontologizing " and " sacerdotalizing " which has served to remove the ordained ministry from
its ecclesial context and set it apart from the comm.unity.
Second, he thinks that the ministry should be understood
essentially in ecclesial terms, and not as an ontological qualification of the person or minister, apart from the determinative context of the church (p. 40).

There is nothing then in the apostolic or dogmatic witness to
prevent the alternative practice of the critical communities
from eventually being accepted in the church (p. 99).
Whatever one thinks of Schillebeeckx's reading of history or
of the conclusions he draws from it, it is essential to keep in
mind critical theory's influence on his conception of what he is
doing in this book. He does not think that he is engaged in an
abstract theoretical discussion about the nature of ministry,
nor does he wish to take the alternative practices unexamined
as normative (pp. 101-103). He is engaged in critical reflection on Christian praxis and accordingly disavows any position
which would expect a purely theoretical answer to the question
of legitimate contemporary forms of ordained ministry in the
church. Rather these forms must be determined in a" mutual-

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359

ly critical correlation . . . . between what the New Testament
churches did and what the Christian communities do now " (p.
37) . The old theoretical question of the identity of the apostolic faith with later interpretations has returned in the new
trappings of neo-Marxist theory-practice notions as the question of the continuity of Christian experience. 31 The relationship between orthodoxy and orthopraxis is thus one of the
central issues in Schillebeeckx's recent theology.
In trying to give the proposals in the Ministry book a serious
hearing on their own terms as critical theology, two difficulties
come to mind. Both arise from the requirements of Schillebeeckx' s own approach to theology. The first has to do with
the " authority of experiences," specifically the experience of
the critical communities upon whose alternative practices he is
trying to reflect. The second has to do with Schillebeeckx's
fidelity to the historical record in his attempt at a critical
remembering of the history of ordained ministry in the church.
Ideology critique is something of a boomerang. Unless the
critic is in unequivocal solidarity with those who suffer from
the present order of things, attempts at unveiling ideology can
easily be turned back upon the critic. In the case of the critical
communities, one wonders how truly urgent is their present
state of suffering at the hands of the institutional church.
" Felt necessity " in this case seems to arise more from ecclesiological opinions than from sheer shortage of numbers. One
wonders at the value of treating these so-called "critical communities" and their counterparts in Latin America and Africa
as instances of the same phenomenon. Their " critical " posture seems to be more of an inner-church than a political one.
In his conversation with Schillebeeckx which forms the basis
a1 On the issue of the continuity of Christian experience, see Louis Dupre,
"Experience and Interpretation: A Philosophical Reflection on Schillebeeckx'
Jesus and Christ," Theological Stu.dies, 43 ( 1982), pp. 30-51, and Maurice
Wiles's review of Christ in Religious Studies Review, 9 (Jan., 1983), pp.
44-46. For my own view, see " Schillebeeckx's Dialogue with Critical Theory,"
p. 25.

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WILLIAM L. PORTIER

of God Is New Each Moment, Huub Ooosterhuis describes
these critical communities as "middle-class, welfare state
Christians" who seek alternatives to present structures, but
whose solidarity with the poor is expressed primarily in worship. Schillebeeckx himself admits that in order to be absolutely consistent, he would have to abandon his life-style as a professional theologian. He describes his present environment and
way of life as "middle-class." 32 In addition he acknowledges
that his position as a professional academic in the dominant
culture renders his reflection "suspect." Nevertheless he does
not think that this can justify" the pure silence of complicity. 33
Fair enough. As one for whom the relationship between political commitments and theological reflection is a source of constant concern, I cannot honestly begrudge Schillebeeckx his
study in the Albertinum at Nijmegen. Nevertheless the suspicion of which he speaks is agitated in me by his apparent mishandling of the historical sources.
When a patristic scholar of the stature of Henri Crouzel, S.J.,
takes up Schillebeeckx's challenge to counter historical arguments with historical arguments (p. vi) and goes on to conclude that in the Ministry book Schillebeeckx has arranged history to suit his thesis, even the most sympathetic reader must
take pause. 34 If Crouzel is correct, then, in spite of his protest
that he has not sundered ministry from below from ministry
from above, Schillebeeckx has indeed exaggerated in distinguishing so sharply between the primarily ecclesial context of
the ministry and the ontological qualification of the minister.
Perhaps, as he has put it, " a liberal bourgeois conception of
s2 Schillebeeckx,
33 Schillebeeckx,

God Is New Eaok Moment, pp. 92-93.
Ghrist, p. 649. For an illuminating presentation

of critical theory's insight that the absolute consistency of which Schillebeeckx
speaks always favors the tyrant, see Horkheimer's ".A Fable of Consistency"
in Dialeotioal Imagination, p. 36.
34 Henri
Crouzel, " Le Ministere II, Temoinages de l'Eglise ancienne,"
Nouvelle Revue Tneologigue, 104 (Nov.-Dec., 1982), p. 748, and the English
translation in Olergy Review, 68 (May, 1983). In the first part of this
article, Albert Vanhoye critiques Schillebeeckx's use of the New Testament.

SCHILLEBEECKX

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881

freedom " has been allowed to intrude itself into his conception of evangelical freedom. This apparent mishandling of the
historical record may be an indication that the fundamental
theological opinions which his reading of history presupposes
owe more to Enlightenment ideology than Schillebeeckx
realizes.
Lest my raising of these questions be exploited by those who
oppose Schillebeeckx on doctrinaire grounds, I wish to state
clearly my belief that his questions are theologically legitimate
and deserve a serious hearing by his colleagues. Further, the
kind of history of the ordained ministry which he proposes in
the interest of declericalizing the priesthood is urgently needed.
Precisely because of these beliefs, I wish he had reflected more
carefully on his own position in the academic establishment and
its possible distorting of a view of history which is basically
correct in its perception of a harmful exaggeration of the
ontological character of priesthood.
V. Concluding Critical Questions
In my view, the basic thrust of Schillebeeckx's recent
theology in its dialogue with Marxist social thought deserves to
be affirmed. At the same time, it must be acknowledged that
in the encounter between critical theory and Catholic theology
many difficulties arise. In delineating two of them by way of
conclusion, I do not wish to detract in any way from the magnitude of what Schillebeeckx has accomplished over the past fifteen years. Both difficulties are foundational issues. The first
concerns Schillebeeckx' s relationship to his past as a metaphysician. The second concerns the ambivalence of his use of
historical-critical method in Christology. In both cases I am
unclear about whether the difficulties arise because of a conflict between the inner demands of Marxist thought and those
of Christianity or whether they are reflections of Schillebeeckx's
position (or perhaps it is my own) on the way from traditional
to critical theory in theology.

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WILLIAM L. PORTIER

One of the crucial functions of ontological language in the
Christian tradition has been to express the experience of salvation in Christ and to communicate its universal offer. Thus
positions which appeared as "merely moral " or exemplary or
"purely symbolic" or revelatory have been rejected as placing
these savings truths in jeopardy. On the other hand, as Schillebeeckx has argued in the Ministry book, ontological language
can acquire ideological elements which lend a certain divine
necessity to unjust situations, thereby impeding the experience
it is supposed to enhance. It is not difficult therefore to appreciate his recent reluctance to use such language. N evertheless this tendency to flight from ontology raises serious questions. Without such language, how can one address the question about whether Christians' liturgical remembering of Jesus
is any different from Marcuse's critical remembering of Orpheus
and Narcissus? Can the redemptive significance of Jesus's
death or the traditional confession of his divinity be adequately
voiced without reso,rt to this kind of language?
Schillebeeckx himself recognizes that in order for the concrete forms which he thinks Christian faith can give to critical
theory's unspecified hopes for emancipation to be plausible we
must be able to regard human life " even apart from revelation ... as more than simply meaninglessness." 85 Even if our
glimpses into this more than meaninglessness are only negative, such an affirmation seems to require a minimal, negative
realistic metaphysics. 36 Thus Schillebeeckx decries the antimetaphysical trend of modern thought and expresses his hope
for a " non-essentialist " metaphysics which would be more of
a conclusion than a starting point. 37
85 Schillebeeckx,

Understanding of Faith, p. 98.

as Those who have approached

critical theory from a Lonerganian perspective tend to converge on a similar, though not identical, position. It focuses
on what Lamb calls "internally related and recurrent concrete activities operative in both cognitive criticism and historically transformative action."
See Solidarity with Victims, p. 51, and the article by W. Loewe, cited in
note 11 above.
a1 Schillebeeckx, God the Future of Man, pp. 41, 46-47, n. 20; Understanding of Faith, p. 106; cf. T. Schoof, "Masters in Israel," pp. 951-52.

SCHILLEBEECKX

AS CRITlCAL THEORIST

$6$

In advocating the possibility of a "non-essentialist" metaphysics, Schillebeeckx seems to have been trying to protect the
reality of God and the affirmation that he acts in our history
from a reductionist materialist analysis, which would view
religious ideas as human creations with a. purely social basis.
In his earlier works, Schillebeeckx might have referred to something like our non-conceptual (non-social?) but real intellectual knowledge of God. A strict materialist analysis such as
that of Habermas would reduce anything like this non-conceptual, pre-apprehension of the absolute to pre-personal or
social conditions of meaning. Schillebeeckx's recent works
seem to be headed in a similar direction. 38 What then of the
reality of God?
In order to negotiate his theological appropriation of ideology
critique successfully, Schillebeeckx must retain at least a minimal, fundamentally negative, realist metaphysics from his
Thomist past. 39 To the extent that this is impossible within
the framework of Marxist social theory, it would be likewise
impossible to affirm intelligently the reality of the God upon
whose saving power our hopes rest. Further, if this reality cannot be spoken of as impinging "directly," as it were, on our
history at at least two crucial points, namely creation and the
resurrection of Christ, then talking about this reality is simply
another way of talking about human consciousness. This belief, that God can " act " in history apart from human agency
(as in the example of the resurrection) is essential to the natural sense of the scriptures and of all our credal and other
worship language.
The notion of some form of " direct " union of the human
soul with God has long been operative in the Christian understanding of prayer, and even in the account of the soul's knowing itself in authors from Augustine to Rahner and Schillebeeckx himself. That such a notion is operative in SchilleJesus, pp, 618-19.
an outline of such a metaphysics, see Germain Grisez, "Sketch of a
Future Metaphysics," The New Scholasticism, 38 ( 1964), pp. 310-40.
as Schillebeeckx,
39 For

$64

WILLIAM L. PORTIER

beeckx's earlier thought is clear from the notion of "encounter" or from his considerations on the non-conceptual but
real intellectual grasping of the absolute. 40 The general trend
of late-Enlightenment criticism is to banish such divine illuminations along with Platonic innate ideas or Kantian transcendental ideas to the realm of idealist transcendentalizing of
the social conditions of knowing at a particular period. What
happens to such traditional notions of human communion with
God in Schillebeeckx's later thought? Would he still, for example, describe the sacraments as encounters, with all the
"bourgeois," personalist overtones of that word?
In a beautiful section of the Christ book Schillebeeckx addresses the question of prayer and the relationship between
political and mystical activity for Christians. He explicitly
raises the question of whether the believer has a direct relationship with God. His answer in terms of "mediated immediacy " is not unlike the kind of negative metaphysics I
have been speaking of. Indeed this passage comes as close as
any I have read to a conversation between the early Schillebeeckx and the later Schillebeeckx.41
The clear religious intent of this moving passage is, in my
reading, at odds to some extent with the fundamental theological position systematically at work in Schillebeeckx's later
thought. In a discussion of "God's Saving Activity in History," he affirms that God manifests himself to us" only in an
' indirect revelation '."
Through the intermediary or agency of the liberating conduct of
men in quest of salvation-from-God, God reveals himself 'indirectly ' in history as salvation for men. 42

Although he "completely" dissociates himself from the position that " the resurrection was achieved not in the person of
40 Schillebeeckx,
Revelation and Theolo!J'Y, trans. by N. D. Smith (New
York: Sheed & Ward, 1968), II, pp. 157-206.
41 Schillebeeckx, Ghrist, pp. 804-821. On p. 809 he asks: "Does the believer
have a direct relationship with God or not? "; on p. 817 he asks: "Is praying an 'I-Thou relationship' between God and man?".
42 Schillebeeckx, Jesus, p. 634.

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365

Jesus but only in the believing disciples," it would seem tha.t
this intention comes to grief on the fundamental theological
position expressed above. In terms of such a position it seems
impossible to view the resurrection as manifesting " in a unique way ·a totally independent divine causality." 43 It is not at
all clear that this fundamental theological position is demanded
either by the Christian sources or by the interpretation of
human experience in terms of the categories of Marxist social
thought. It seems more at home in the milieu of secularization
theology with all of the attendant criticisms called down by
Xhauffiaire and others. 44
The same is true of Schillebeeckx's use of historical-critical
method in a manner consistent with the above fundamental
theological position. Western academic theology's commitment
to historical-critical method has served over the years to drain
from the scriptures their power to function religiously in the
churches. 45 Readers who smell an ideology of decline here are
urged to consider whether they can imagine a more telling instance of modern bourgeois thought than Bultmann's demythologizing of the New Testament. The pre-suppositions underlying much contemporary practice of historical-critical
method in theology are an obvious vestige of the naivete of
48 The last phrase is that of Gerald O'Collins in Fundamental
Theology
(New York: Paulist, 1981), p. 86. For Schillebeeckx on God's action in history, see Jesus, pp. 633-34; on the resurrection, see Jesus, pp. 644-50. See
also Germain Grisez's as yet unpublished " Ten Theses on the Resurrection
of Our Lord."
44 A related internal inconsistency in the matter of the redemptive power
of Jesus's death is addressed in George Vandervelde, "Creation and Cross
in the Christology of Edward Schillebeeckx: A Protestant Appraisal,"
Journal of Ecumenical Studies, 20 (1983), pp. 257-71.
45 Ever since Walter Wink proclaimed
the "bankruptcy" of historicalcritical method as an approach to the Bible, a considerable body of literature
has appeared on the desfrability of its continued presence in theology. For
two examples, see Charles Davis, "The Theological Career of Historical
Criticism of the Bible," Cross Currents, 32 (1982), pp. 267-84, and Dennis
J. McCarthy, "God as Prisoner of Our Own Choosing: Critical-Historical
Study of the Bible, Why and Whither," in Paul L. Williams, ed., Historicism
and Faith (Scranton: Northeast Books, 1980), pp. 17-47.

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WILLIAM L. PORTIER

early Enlightenment. Historical-critical method's integration
into the liberal theological tradition and its continued dominance in the academy testify to the depth of modem theology's
uncritical capitulation to the world. 46
In my judgment, one of the residues of positivism in Schillebeeckx's theology is his nearly total dependence on highly
speculative forms of New Testament criticism. Particularly in
the Jesus book, the text functions primarily as data and critical
remembering as narrative is rarely achieved. Schillebeeckx's
attempts in the Christ book to reconstruct the social world of
the New Testament are notable exceptions. His critical political intent might be better served by options in fundamental
theology which would free him to consider interpretations of
the New Testament which more skeptical forms of historical
criticism would exclude. I am thinking specifically of the resurrection and the New Testament miracles. Although the
present essay cannot even address the question of the relation
of historical-critical method to theology, I would like to submit
that the inner warrants of ideology critique require that the
dominance of historical-critical method in biblical studies in the
academic establishment be subjected to a searching hermeneutic of suspicion.
To speak in a more general way, it remains to be seen how
the classic biblical affirmation that truth is lived and done
will survive the attempts of Schillebeeckx and others to put
it into the categories of Neo-Marxist social thought. We must
certainly admit that this mode of analysis has revealed the
surprising extent to which modern theology, in both the scholastic and liberal traditions, has come to be dominated by uncritical early Enlightenment notions of theory.
Edward Schilleheeckx has been the first of the acknowledged
giants of contemporary Catholic theology to put together a full
scale critical theology. The ambivalence of this attempt is a
faithful reflection of the ambiguous posture of Western Cath46 See

Lamb, Solidarity with Victims, pp. 53-55.

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367

olic theologians both as members of a professional elite and as
members of the politically, economically, and militarily dominant culture in the contemporary world. Schillebeeckx as the
critical theorist of the praxis of faith challenges Western Christian theologians to make this position of privilege in the present order of things critically operative in their thinking. He
challenges them to seek the epistemological basis for theology
in solidarity with those who suffer. As did St. Luke, the
evangelist whom he ·reads as a commentary on our present
situation as middle-class Christians, Schillebeeckx preaches
" The ' Gospel of the Poor ' for Prosperous People." 47
WILLIAM L. PORTIER

Mount St. Mary's College
Emmitsburg, Maryland

47 Schillebeeckx,

God Among Us, pp. 175-79, a sermon on Lk 6: 17, 20-26.

THE HISTORICAL JESUS:
SOME OUTSTANDING ISSUES

E

DWARD SCHILLEBEECKX'S treatment of the historical Jesus is perhaps the best part of his two-volume work on Christo logy. Here, as nowhere else, he
shows himself to have thoroughly mastered the very complicated discussions that have gone on amongst New Testament
scholars during the past generation, a mastery all the more
remarkable since he is a systematic theologian with an expertise in a field which is not only different, but often on quite a
different wavelength from New Testament study. Of course
he is not infallible, and he has sometimes backed the wrong
horse, as for instance when he follows Theodore Weeden's interpretation of the disciples' role in Mark, or when he reduces
resurrection appearances to the level of conversion experiences,
thus confounding effect with cause. 1 But he has been amply
criticized for these misjudgments, and the present contribution will honor him not by a critical review of his work, but by
further discussion of some of the issues he has raised.

I
Jesus and the Kerygma
What is the relevance of the historical Jesus to New Testament theology and Christology? There are at least four possible views.
At one extreme there is the view that it is at once irrelevant
and impossible to "ask hack to" the historical Jesus. It is
irreleva.nt because the earliest Christian kerygma is a proclaof R. E. Brown in his review of Schillebeeckx's two
1 See the criticism
volumes in OBQ 42 ( 1980), 420-21. Brown speaks of Schillebeeckx's "unfortunate fascination for the Perrin-Weeden approach to Mark" (p. 421).

368

TBE HISTORICAL JEStTS: SOME OUTSTANDING ISSUES

$69

mation of the resurrected Christ, not of the earthly Jesus, and
impossible because we have no traditions which reach back
with certainty over the gulf created by the Easter event between the pre- and post-Easter Jesus. 2
At the other extreme is the view that the Easter traditions
are valueless and that the pre-Easter traditions are not only
of great historical value, but are our sole source even for postEaster faith in the resurrected Christ. 3
Occupying the middle ground between these two extremes
are two other views. One is that while the basis for Christian
faith lies in the Christ as preached in the post-Easter kerygma,
the pre-Easter Jesus is the essential presupposition and legitimation of the kerygma. 4 The other view is that the historical
Jesus compromises the fundamental revelation. Yet Easter is
necessary to assure the continuance after the death of Jesus
of Jesus's initial offer of salvation. 5 As a result of Easter, we
can say, "Die Sa,che Jesu geht weiter" (W. Marxsen). But
Easter does not add anything to the salvation already ofiered
in Jesus's lifetime. It merely extends it.
0£ all the views, Schillebeeckx's comes closest to the last
mentioned. 6 Is he right in his choice? In the present writer's
opinion, the last of these views does not square with the earliest kerygma, at least insofar as it is accessible to us in the
Pauline epistles and in the kerygmatic speeches of Acts. 7 The
2 The classic exposition
of this line of thought is W. Schmithals, Das
Evangelium naoh Markus ( Giitersloh: Mohn, 1979).
s This discussion has taken place almost entirely in German. It began with
R. Pesch, "Zur Entstehung des Glaubens an die Auferstehung Jesu. Ein
Beitrag zur Diskussion," ThQ 153 ( 1973), 201-228. For a report in English
on the discussion see J. P. Galvin, "Resurrection as Theologia Crucis Jesu:
The Foundational Christo logy of Rudolf Pesch," ThSt 38 ( 1977), 513-25.
4 This is the line followed by the right wing post-Bultmannians.
See e.g.,
F. Hahn, Historioal Investigation and New Testament Faith (Philadelphia:
Fortress, 1983) .
see e.g.,
5 This is the line followed by the left wing post-Bultmannians,
H. Braun, Jesus (Stuttgart: Kreuz, 1969).
6 Schillebeeckx speaks of Easter as entailing a "renewed offer of salvation
in Jesus" (Jesus, 390).
1 The proposal
has been made, apparently independently, by R. F. Collins,
Introduotion to the New Testament (Garden City, NY: Doubleday, 1983)

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REGINALD lI. FULLElt

Pauline kerygma is focused upon the death and resurrection of
Jesus. It is of course notorious that there are extremely few
Pauline references to the earthly life of Jes us prior to the terminal point of his death. Yet it is arguable that these few
references we have are all important. Paul characterizes the
earthly life of Jesus both in the (?pre-Pauline) christological
hymn in Phil. 2: 6-11 and in the discussion of the two Adams
in Rom 5: 12-21 as one of obedience to the Father's will and
plan of salvation. This is of decisive importance, and allows
us to argue that it was the pre-passion earthly life of Jesus
that determined the pattern and significance of his death.
Easter did not confer upon the death that significance, but revealed it for what it was already in itself, and vindicated its
own inherent claim. Paul also has other things to say about
the pattern and configuration of Jesus's earthly life. He became
poor for our sake (2 Cor 8: 9) and the historical context of his
earthly life was within the community of the covenant (Rom
15: 8) . Thus his death is indicated by Paul to have been the
culmination of a life of self-giving, and a death placed firmly
in the context of Israel's eschatological hope. The earthly
Jesus's proclamation of the kingdom, not otherwise explicitly
mentioned by Paul, is implicit here.
When we turn to Acts we find in the kerygmatic speeches a
frequently recurring reference to the earthly life of Jesus· as
a preface to the paschal kerygma:
Jesus of Nazareth, a man attested to you by God with mighty
works and wonders and signs which God did through him in your
midst . . . (Acts 2: 22) .
. . . how God anointed Jesus of Nazareth with the Holy Spirit and
with power; how he went about doing good and healing all that
were oppressed by the devil, for God was with him (Acts 10: 38).
At the same time, however, these kerygmatic speeches represent the paschal event as not merely the extension of the preEaster offer of salvatjon, but as an overplus, an enhancement
and by B. Meyer in a paper (to be published) read at the Symposium de Interrelatione Evangeliorum, Pascha 1984, Jerusalem, entitled "Objectivity and
Subjectivity in Historical Criticism of the Gospels."

THE HISTORICAL JESUS:

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of that offer: " God has made him Lord and Christ, this Jesus
whom you crucified " (Acts QQ: 36) . This post-Easter enhancement of the author was also accepted by Paul when he
reproduced a pre-Pauline formula in Rom 1: 4, "designated
Son of God in power according to the Spirit ·of holiness by his
resurrection from the dead" (italics mine). Hence the weight
of emphasis in the earliest kerygma is not upon the pre-Easter
Jesus, but upon the death-resurrection. It was this that made
the eschatological salvation definitively available as it had not
been in Jesus's earthly life.
Accordingly we conclude that the " asking back to the historical Jesus" (Riickfrage zu Jesus) is necessary in any reconstruction of the NT kerygma and Christology. But at the same
time it is not an enquiry into the NT kerygma and Christology
itself but into its presupposition and its legitimation. By legitimation we do not mean establishing the ultimate truth of the
kerygma, for that is accessible only to faith; we mean that it is
a demonstration of the continuity between the pre-Easter
Jesus and the kerygmatic Christ, that the kerygmatic interpretation of Jesus is within the same frame of reference as the
activity of the earthly Jesus.
II

Reconstruction of the Historical Jesus: The "Criteria"
of Authenticity.
Anyone who accepts the methods of historical criticism and
who wishes to " ask back " to the historical Jesus must first
decide upon the so-called criteria of authenticity. Since Schillebeeckx wrote his two volume work the discussion of this problem has continued. It has since been proposed that we should
speak of indices rather than criteria of authenticity. This is
because there is an increasing realization that these methods
do not take us beyond the realm of possibility and cannot
offer conclusive proof of authenticity. We may presume that,
had he written his book now, Schillebeeckx would have spoken

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REGINALD H. FULLER

of indices rather than criteria, for he is fully aware of their
limitations and of the fact that they yield probability at most,
and not certainty.
Subsequent discussion has also borne out Schillebeeckx's insistence that the indices should be applied positively rather
than negatively, that is to say, in order to establish what was
probably authentic to the historical Jesus rather than what was
unauthentic.
Of all the proposed indices, it is that of dissimilarity that is
the most controversial. This is because, as Schillebeeckx properly recognizes, it would, if applied consistently in a negative
fashion, detach Jesus completely from his Jewish environment
and destroy entirely ·any continuity between the pre-Easter
Jesus and the post-Easter kerygma. Yet the fact that on the
one hand there was an antithesis between Jesus and his contemporaries that ended in his rejection and crucifixion, and on
the other (as we have seen) that there was an enhancement
and an overplus between the proclamation of the pre-Easter
Jesus and the post-Easter kerygma, justifies our use of this index in a careful and cautious manner. The index of dissimilarity (or, as I prefer to call it, of distinctiveness) has to be
applied positively at the initial stage of our enquiry, in order
to discover what was distinctive of the earthly Jesus' message
and offer. It is the application of this index that pin-points
Jesus's distinctive eschatological proclamation as the clue to
understanding what he stood for. Once this has been established it is better to drop this index as having served its purpose and to take up other indices, namely coherence and multiple attestation, though of course we must be aware of their
limits in each instance.
It is useful, though not decisive for instance, to apply the index of coherence immediately after we have established by the
index of dissimilarity what is distinctive of Jesus, for other
matters that cohere with his eschatological message have a
good claim to authenticity. If however it is used as an excluding principle it could land us into circular argumentation. We

THE HISTORICAL JESUS:

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373

have no right to eliminate what lacks coherence with Jesus'
central message, since Jesus did not necessarily have a completely coherent system of tenets or convictions. Even great
people are not invariably consistent. This will be the case
particularly if we agree with Hans Conzelmann that Jesus's
enunciation of the will of God and his teaching about God
represent two quite distinct areas of proclamation, unrelated to
the eschatological message. 8
Multiple attestation by itself cannot of course take us back
further than the early post-Easter community. Even F. C.
Burkitt, who pioneered this index as applied to documentary
sources, admitted that the overlapping of Mark and Q took us
back only to the 40's and SO's of the first century, and not
necessarily to the pre-Easter Jesus. The same holds true of
multiple attestation as applied to the various forms of the
Jesus tradition as established by the form critics.
The linguistic and environmental tests, by themselves, do
not necessarily take us back beyond the Aramaic speaking
community, and not necessarily to the earliest Aramaic speaking community at that. They can only be used as additional
confirmation after the other tests have been applied. At this
stage it would be useful to bring in once more the index of
coherence. All in all, it would be wrong to use one index only,
as Kasemann proposed: each of them has to be used at appropriate stages in our investigation.
Although most scholars pay lip-service now to the positive
use of the indices, they do nevertheless widely apply the dis·
similarity index to the christological titles, eliminating them on
the ground that they originate in the post-Easter church. The
chief texts in support of this are Rom 1: 4; Acts 2: 36 and possibly Phil 2: 11. If the christological titles were predicated of
Jesus for the first time after Easter, it would be conclusive
proof that pre-Easter attribution of such titles: to him represents a post-Easter retrojection. Now there is another argument against their pre-Easter origin, namely, as far as the
sH. Conzelmann, Jesus (ed. J. Reumann; Philadelphia:

Fortre11s, 1973).

374

REGINALD H. FULLER

synoptists are concerned, their paucity of attestation, and their
almost complete absence from Jesus logia (the problem of the
Son of Man title will be discussed later) . l£ we eliminate the
titles from the accepted Jesus material this would be on the
ground of their rarity rather than because of the index of dissimilarity. But this is not the whole story, as we shall see below.

III
Th-e Message of the Earthly Jesus

We are generally agreed that the central message of Jesus
was the inbreaking of the eschatological kingdom of God.
Schillebeeckx translates this to mean a decisive offer of salvation: "the intercourse of Jesus of Nazareth with his fellow-men
is an offer of salvation-imparted-by-God." 9 A caveat however
needs to be introduced here. " Kingdom of God " is ·a strictly
eschatological concept, referring to what will happen at the
End. To claim that Jesus's offer was of salvation without qualification is to lapse into over-realized eschatology. The Bultmannians who participated in the New Quest were rightly more
cautious when they spoke of the proleptic presence of God's
eschatological kingdom in the words and works of Jesus. 10 l£
we opt for an over-realized eschatology in the proclamation of
Jesus it in fact removes the dissimilarity between Jesus and
later forms of the post-Easter kerygma. For the deuteroPaulines (Ephesians and Colossians) and especially the Johannine community practically eliminated the element of notyetness in the proclamation of salvation through Christ. We
would therefore pref er to speak of the proleptic offer of future
salvation in the proclama.tion of the pre-Easter Jesus. This
also leaves open the possibility that the realization of this
salvation was decisively advanced as a result of Jesus's death.
If eschatology is overrealized in the message of Jesus, it leaves
no room for any further achievement through the death of
Jesus.
1l

Schillebeeckx, Jesus, 179.
Jesus of Nazareth (New York:. Harper, 1960), 64-69.

:i,o Bornkamm,

THE HISTORICAL JESUS:

SOME OUTSTANDING ISSUES

375

Schillebeeckx follows the post-Bultmannian New Questers
in insisting that Jesus did have something to say about his
death. Gone is the view of Bultmann himself that we know
nothing about Jesus's interpretation of his death, a view which
he supported by the claim that all the passion predictions are
vaticinia ex eventu. The post-Bultmannians have sought evidence in the non-Marean passion prediction in Luke 13: 33-34
and in the eschatological saying and the saying about service
at the Last Supper. Schillebeeckx goes further than this and
claims that there is an original nucleus behind the Marean suffering Son of Man sayings. He formulates his position in quite
general terms: "All the gospels or attestations on the part of
the first Christians are quite sure that Jesus went to the cross
freely and deliberately. What we have here is post-Easter
theological reflection ' after the fact,' but also perhaps certain
historical reminiscJences."11 (italics mine) . No evidence for this
claim is advanced.
In addition to the sayings about service, Schillebeeckx follows J. Roloff in arguing for an authentic nucleus in Mark
10: 45b. 12 Much as we would like to follow these authorities,
caution seems to be advised in this insistence. The absence of
the lytron part of the saying in all the other service sayings
(Mark 9: 35; Luke 22: 27 and John 13: 1-20) makes it likely
that in Mark 10: 25b we have to do with a post-Easter addition, emanating probably from eucharistic reflections on the
Last Supper tradition and more specifically on the cup word.
The late Norman Perrin argued emphatically that all the
Son of Man sayings without exception are post-Easter creations
originating in a pesher tradition based on Daniel 7: 13-14. 18
His view has won fairly wide acceptance in the U.S. That the
future Son of Man sayings are largely the end product of a
pesher tradition we can more readily accept. But Perrin's fur11 Schillebeeckx,

Jesus, 303-6.
Schillebeeckx, Jesus, 303.
ia N. Perrin, "Mark 14: 62 The End Product of a Christian Pesher Tradi·
tion?" NTS 12 ( 1965-66), 150-55, repr. in A Modern Pilgrimage in Ohristology (Philadelphia: Fortress 1974), 10-22.
12

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REGINALD H. FULLER

ther argument that the present and suffering sayings so originate strains our credulity. For one thing, neither of these
groups of Son of Man sayings has any direct connection with
Dan 7: 13-14. And for another, the present sayings, at least,
are so widely attested (Mark, Q) . Further, if the Son of Man
as a christological title were a creation of the post-Easter
church, one would have expected it to show up in its direct
christological statements, and not only in Jesus's logia (Acts
7: 56 is of course the one exception, but an exception that probably proves the rule). "Son of Man" therefore satisfies the
index of dissimilarity. It is hard to avoid the conclusion that
Jesus did actually use "Son of Man" as a self-designation.
True, we do not know for certain where he got it from or what
he meant by it. Can we not therefore admit our ignorance?
That being so, we may argue that the suffering Son of Man
sayings contain an original nucleus which antedates a knowledge of the details of the passion story. Such a saying would
be: " The Son of Man is to be delivered up into the hands of
man" (cf Mark 9: 31; 14.41; Luke 24: 7). This saying, which
produces a word play in Aramaic, has good claims to be coherent with Jesus's message. In it he asserts that his rejection
by his contemporaries is within the purview of the Father. It
does not attribute explicit soteriological significance to his
death, but relates his rejection to his essence of mission (paradidotai as a divine passive denoting what God will do to him) .
Edward Schillebeeckx has placed us in his debt by coining
the phrase" theology of Jesus" to describe Jesus's central message. By this he meant that Jesus was concerned not so much
with who he himself was, but with what God was doing in him.
Even if christological titles were used in the ambit of Jesus, and
even if he accepted such titles on occasion or elicited them from
his disciples as the tradition of all four gospels represents him
doing, Jesus' concern is not so much with his own identity as
such, as with what God was doing through him. Jesus, to use
the terminology proposed by A. E. Harvey, presented himself

THE HISTORICAL JESUS:

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377

to his contemporaries as God's agent. 14 His own identity was
of concern only for the sake of God's activity in him. In this
sense we may go beyond the post-Bultmannian claim that
there is in the earthly Jesus an "implicit" or "indirect"
Christology and speak of a "direct theology of Jesus," for
Jesus claims directly to be the agent of God: " If I by the
finger of God cast out demons ... " (Luke 11: 20 par. Q). One
may object that such a theology is inadequate on the ground
that many other figures in Israel's salvation history were
agents of God, notably Moses. But the distinctiveness of
Jesus is preserved by the unique eschatological character of
God's activity in Jesus. Jesus is the agent not of some preliminary activity of God as were Moses, the prophets, or John
the Baptist, but quite specifically of his final redemptive act,
proleptically present.
In an important work Werner Grimm has shown how the
sayings of Jesus have been deeply and subtly impregnated with
the language of Deutero-Isaiah. 15 This is altogether different
from the rather mechanical way the later Evangelists cite
deutero-Isaianic and other material, and bears all the marks of
an original, creative mind. A wide range of Jesus material
bears this imprint: beatitudes, victory over Satan, forgiveness
of sins, prayer, sayings against fear and anxiety, the newness
of the kingdom, the messianic torah, the promise of salvation
for the nations, Jesus's self-giving to death-all these topics are
dealt with in language derived from Deutero-Isaiah. Jesus does
not have to say, "I am the eschatological prophet." He shows
himself to be such in his work and fate interpreted by his word.
Grimm maintains further that it was not the servant of
Yahweh passages that were decisive for Jesus's self-understanding and for his sense of eschatological mission. Rather, it was
the deutero-Isaianic message as a whole. Grimm goes so far as
to describe this self-understanding and mission as "messianic."
14 A. E. Harvey, Jesus and the Constraints of History (Philadelphia:
Westminster, 1982), 173.
15 W. Grimm, Die Verkundigung
Jesu und Deuterojesaja (ANTJ 1: Frankfurt am Main/Bern: Lang, 21981).

378

REGINALD H. FULLER

For those of us who have been influenced by Bultmann and
the post-Bultmann school there is a natural reluctance to admit
the term "messianic" as applied to the pre-Easter Jesus. But
it is meant as a description of the phenomenon, not as a claim
that Jesus explicitly designated himself as a "messianic" figure. Jesus's words and works show that he understood himself
to be activating the salvific prophecies of deutero-Isaiah. He
constantly looked back to his baptism by John the Baptist
as the moment of his authorization and sending (Mark 11: Q733). He may well have thought of that baptism as his anointing. Even if we dismiss the sermon in the Synagogue at
Nazareth, found only in I•1ke (4: 16-30), as Lucan redactional
composition, Isaiah 61 has played .a significant part in an undoubtedly authentic Jesus logion, viz., the answer to John
(Matt 11: 15 par Q). From this it would be legitimate to infer that Jesus regarded his baptism as a prophetic anointing.
In this sense Jesus could have understood himself to be Mesial).,
Christos. This would be the response he sought to elicit from
Simon and the other disciples at Caesarea Philippi. What they
did not understand was that this involved the further step of
self-giving even unto death. Simon was wrong, not because he
postulated a political Messiahship for Jesus, but because he
failed to understand that the fate of the deutero-Isaianic
prophet included rejection and martyrdom. As a description of
the Jesus phenomenon there we should prefer " messianic
prophet," that is, one anointed by God for eschatological mission, to proclaim and activate the proleptic presence of God's
eschatological salvation and to announce its impending consummation. This takes us a significant step further than
Schillebeeckx himself was able to go, and brings the title
"Messiah "-albeit in the very restricted and specific sense-within the orbit of the historical Jesus.
Schillebeeckx has further placed us ir: his debt by highlighting and describing what he called
"Abba experience." 16
He rightly sees in this Abba experience-granted to Jesus in
16 Schillebeeckx,

Jesus, 256-69.

THE HISTORICAL JESUS:

SOME OUTSTANDING ISSUES

379

his baptism-the basis for his eschatological mission. The
revelation of God as Father is not the disclosure of a general
religious idea, but the concrete call to a specific mission and the
endowment with the power to accomplish it. Schillebeeckx is
equally right when he cautiously refuses to draw from this
circumstance the corollary that Jesus explicitly designated himself as either Son or Son of God.
These explicit titles belong to the Christology of the postEaster church. However, Jesus's Abba experience certainly constitutes a basis for the later Father/Son language which was
developed in Mark 18: 32; Matt 11: 27 par. Q; and Matt 28: 19,
and above all in the Johannine discourse material.
This brings us to the question of the retrojection of the
christological titles. Raymond E. Brown, in his study of the
Matthean and Lucan infancy narratives, has reconstructed the
backward development of Christology. 17 Initially, he holds, the
" decisive christological moment " was (possibly) identified
with the parousia, then certainly with the resurrection. Then
it was pushed back into the earthly life of Jesus, possibly first
to the Transfiguration, then (certainly) to the baptism, then
to the birth or conception (in the Matthean and Lucan infancy
narratives) and finally in the Fourth Gospel to the pre-existent
phase of the life of the Son of God. Of course this development
is not to be understood as an orderly or linear one. No doubt
different communities identified the decisive christological
moment differently and continued to do so. But it is possible
to discern some of these varying Christologies in the NT. What
Brown does not make clear in his book is whether this retroj ection process is to be regarded as the christologizing of a life
previously regarded as un-christological. If we were justified in
the foregoing paragraphs in arguing for an implied messianicprophetic Christology in the earthly phase of Jesus' career,
then we must conclude that the retrojection process was not
a christologizing of an un-christological life. What happened is
17 R. E. Brown, The Birth of the M essia,h (Garden City, NY: Doubleday,
1977), 29-32 etc.

380

REGINALD H. FULLER

that as the titles were retrojected they were used to designate
what was already present in the pre-Easter Jesus. Indeed, one
might trace the process in both directions. Before Easter certain titles were used in the ambience of Jesus to designate him
as eschatological prophet. These titles would include MarKyrios and Mesial,i-Christos. After Easter they would have
been projected forward to describe what Jesus had become at
the resurrection, viz., the One who was to come again at the
end and then as the exalted, reigning One (Acts 36) . Thus
the statement that he was made Lord and Christ means that
he was made so in a regnant, glorified sense, not that he became
what he was not before. The other christological title which
comes' into consideration at this point is Son of God. We have
already agreed with Schillebeeckx that this title did not come
into use either as a self-designation or as a title used by others
during Jesus's earthly life. It was first introduced after Easter
as a title derived from Jewish Davidic messiology.18 But when
it was retrojected as Brown has traced the process it did have
something in the life of the earthly Jesus which it could latch
on to and describe, namely, Jesus's Abba-experience. Hence it
was not an arbitrary procedure when the voice from heaven
at the transfiguration and at the baptism was formulated in
terms of a Son Christology. For it was precisely at his baptism
that the historical Jesus received his Abba-experience. Thus
we can see the christological titles first being projected to the
resurrection, picking up the freight of post-Easter Christology
and then in course of time retrojected again, carrying that
freight backwards with them. 19 Easter did make a difference,
but the difference was one of degree, not of kind, in the development of Christology.
Grimm has further argued that we should not draw too sharp
a distinction between the eschatological prophet and the
18 See J. A. Fitzmyer,
".Addendum: The Implications of the 4Q 'Son of
God' Text," in A Wandering Aramean Collected Aramaio Essays (Ann Arbor,
MI: Edwards, 1979), 102-13.
19 Ferdinand
Hahn had already proposed a similar projection-retrojection
line of development for the title Mar-Kyrios, The Titles of Jesus in Ohristology (London: Lutterworth, 1969).

THE HISTORICAL JESUS:

SOME OUTSTANDING ISSUES

381

messianic Son of David. This concept or image was not, he
holds, interpreted exclusively in political terms in the OT or
pre-Christian Judaism. There was a line of tradition which
brought the Son of David expectation quite close to the idea
of the eschatological prophet:
The relation (between the ·eschatological prophet and Jewish
messianology) should not be defined onesidedly in antithetic terms.
Precisely in deutero-Isaianic logia we find traits suggesting that
Jesus regarded his eschatological mission and the way predestined
for him not only as the fulfillment of the ebed-prophesies, but also
in connection (often typologically) with the OT redeemer figure
of David. 20

We may compare this suggestive claim with Schillebeeckx's
depiction of a "Prophetic-cum-sapiential
Davidic messian21
ism."
This raises the question of the historical Jesus's affinities with wisdom. It is now widely accepted that phenomenologcally speaking Jesus appeared in the mode of a sage as well
as in that of eschatological prophet. But this is often propounded in a purely phenomenological sense, unrelated to
Jesus's eschatological claim: Jesus was simply one of wisdom's
envoys or spokesmen, one of a series of which John the Baptist
had been the immediately preceding envoy or spokesman. The
way seems to have been barred to relating Jesus's wisdom function to the finality of his prophetic mission. If howeyer we can
draw a connecting line between the eschatological-prophetic
and sapiential tradition via the Son of David Christology as it
is adumbrated in the Isaianic and deutero-Isaianic materials as
Schillebeeckx and Grimm have independently done, it may be
possible to argue that in presenting himself as sage, Jesus was
implicitly claiming to be the last, definitive envoy and spokesperson of wisdom. As in the case of his prophetic activity, it is
the content of his word rather than his explicit claim which is
decisive.
Grimm goes on to advance a similar claim for a Mosaic
Christo logy:
20 Grimm,

Verkiindigung, 311 (my translation) ..
,Jesus, 456-59.

21 Schilleebeeckx,

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REGINALD H. FULLER

"In his concrete activity and speaking Jesus latched on to the OT
redeemer figures David and Moses (as well as to prophetic ways of
speech and functions). But he did this critically, selectively and
interpretatively. His criterion was the deutero-Isaianic soteriological message and the redeemer mysteriously proclaimed by
deutero-Isaiah." 22

It is surely more than a concidence that quite independently
Schillebeeckx advances a similar claim for Jesus, although he
does so more directly in the context of Jesus' exorcisms:
Wisdom is bound up with authority of exousia, the authority of
whoever has sent the' wise one': the clean or the unclean pneuma.
Obviously the prophetic tradition is here blended with that of Son
of David ... The Son of David and' king of the Jews' is he who
shares God's dominion; and this becomes clear from his total authority over demons and all the elements. This was anticipated in
the late Jewish conception of Moses: Moses was the king of the
whole nation because he had full authority to do miracles ... In
the wisdom literature, after all, the ' wise man ' possesses ' the
whole world'. 23

Clearly there is more work to be done here. The investigation
should be accomplished along the lines Grimm has already
chosen when he established the deutero-Isaianic impregnation
of Jesus's logia.
Conclusion

This discussion of issues raised by Schillebeeckx's treatment
of the earthly Jesus and the attendant problems associated
therewith has, it is hoped, shown that he not only summed up
the New Testament work of several decades but advanced positions which have for the most part independently been taken
up by New Testament scholars since the appearance of his
work. It may therefore be regarded not merely as Forschungsberfoht, but as a truly seminal and creative contribution to New
Testament Christology.
REGINALD H. FULLER
Virginia Theologioal Seminary
Alexandria, Virginia
22 Grimm,

VerkllmUgung, 312.

2s Schillebeeckx, Jesus, 457.

CHRISTOLOGY IN THE CONTEXT OF EXPERIENCE:
ON THE INTERPRETATION OF CHRIST BY
E. SCHILLEBEECKX

M

AKING A CRITICAL JUDGMENT of Schillebeeckx's Christology is difficult. He has not dealt
with it in a comprehensive and formal manner, but
rather in association with other topics or under certain restricted aspects. Secondly, his remarks on Christology are only
partially systematic in character, being marked by a methodological pluralism which includes exegetical, dogmatic, and
empirically descriptive methods. This pluralism does not make
for the desired comprehensive presentation; it can blur ideally
distinct, though not separate, aspects and dimensions, and this
can prevent the attainment in turn of all the truth accessible
to any one of the given methods, rigorously pursued. Finally,
there are certain divergences among the author's many scattered statements over the years in which a critical reader might
see contradictions but which the author presents as the continuous development of a single, constant, and valid basic
thought.
If one were to try to bring these statements into some sort
of unity, one could single out the dimension of experience,
especially in the more recently formulated positions. The
author is primarily seeking an interpretation of Christ which
stems from present experience and aims at new experience.

I. "Precritical" Presentations and Positions
Among the many early presentations of his position, one deserves special attention. The author himself called it a "christological sketch", and it is paradigmatic for the dogmatic and
systematic point of departure of the whole way of thought. In

SSS

384

LEO SCHEFFCZYK

his essay on " The Mysteries of Christ and the Trinity " from
the volume of collected writings Revelation and Theology,1
the author displayed special interest in the condition hurnaine
of Jesus Christ. This interest is related in turn to the influence
of phenomenological philosophy and modern anthropology and
is called (not without a touch of exaggeration) a revolutionary
impulse for dogmatics (328) . Yet it was then quite clear to
the author that Jesus in his humanity is only " interesting" in
the end if the mystery of his personal union with the divine
person is taken seriously, and this mystery implies the mystery
of the Trinity as well. Thus Schillebeeckx rehabilitates the
classical christological development of dogma as he identifies
the underlying impetus of this development with the principle
"that Christ is not a human person alongside a divine person" (ibid.) and yet that the human nature of Christ must
not be understood as " depersonalized " (which corresponds
fully to the traditional doctrine of the Enhypostasis of the
human nature of Christ). One could argue that the statement
concerning the human form of God's appearance is not quite
precise and that the thesis of a continuous, progressive incarnation over the whole length of Jesus's life can hardly ground all
that is claimed for it as explaining the growth of Christ's
humanity. Nevertheless, nothing could be found in the descriptions drawn from phenomenology which would be unfitting in principle to explicate the life of Christ.
Other statements of this period 2 proposing a theology of the
sacraments rooted in Christ as the Ursakrament point in much
the same direction (25) . Here too the author remains within
the basic framework of the Chalcedonian dogma and its definition of Christ as" one person in two natures" (23). Entirely
1 E. Schillebeeckx, Offenbarung und Theologie I ( aus dem Niederlandischen
iibersetzt von H. Zulauf) Mainz, 1965, 328-331. The translation and pagination of this work and all the following am based on the German editions
cited.
2 <Jhristus, Sakrament der Gottbegegrvung ( deutsch von H. Zulauf), Mainz,
1960.

CHRISTOLOGY IN THE CONTEXT OF

385

in line with the tradition, the deeds of Christ are interpreted
as theandric acts, drawing even . on a distinction found in
Thomas between the mixed and the simply human activities
of Christ, each of which can claim the right to be termed sacramental causality. The Incarnation is described here with a
soteriological and historical realism as the mission and sending
of the Son to earth (26). Statements of the fourth Gospel are
heavily relied upon which later will be described as merely
secondary.
In this context, the meaning of the Incarnation is seen as the
"divinization of the human", following the at once realistic
and supernatural language of the Greek patristic tradition.
The fullness of grace proper to Jesus in his humanity belongs
to him " by virtue of his divinity" (26) . "As God, Christ is
equal to the Father in all things" (39). The "mystery of
Christ", also described as the "Incarnation" and the "mystery of Christmas", is the "self-realizing revelation of the
salvific mystery of the Trinity" (46) . The deeds of Jesus
Christ were thus his earthly worshipful obedience to the
Father, culminating in his sacrificial death, which was accepted
by the Father in the Resurrection, here understood in a salvifically realistic way. All these truths and realities can be
understood only in light of the mysterious but basic fact that
" Christ in his humanity is virtually the Son of God " and
"the second person of the Trinity, worthy of our worship".
As such the Son is " in unity with the Father the principle of
the Holy Spirit" (43) .
The author in this period obviously considers all these statements to be well-grounded on a biblical foundation, to whose
sense and spirit the tradition of the Church (Chalcedon) had
remained faithful, neither perverting nor abandoning the biblical message. The author's close ties to the tradition are not
placed in any serious doubt by occasional minor imprecisions
in his choices of words and phrases or by his somewhat popularizing formulations. To say that the divine person of the Son
" took on a human form of appearance " (23) could be seen as

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falling into the same fault ascribed often to traditional
theology, namely that of not safeguarding the true humanity
of Christ from continuing docetistic and monophysite tendencies. One might raise the same objection to the statement that
Christ is "God in a human manner and human in a divine
manner ", as it could appear that such a way of speaking reduced the two natures to two modalities, one nature becoming
merely a mode of appearance of the other nature; but of course
it is perfectly clear that such was not the intention of the
author. Nevertheless, even here it is evident that the author
was attempting to abandon strict, systematic conceptions and
to move towards a more fluid use of language, more accessible
to people of our day and making the truth more intelligible.
On the whole, in this phase in his interpretation of the mystery
of Christ, he used vital if somewhat redundant language. Both
the description of Christ as primal sacrament (a term taken
over from the patristic era and at the time this book was written already generally accepted) and the related association of
Christ with the notion of sacrament are well suited to illuminate the truth of the God-man in its significance for the present life of the Church and to be of help to modern Christians.
This occurred, however, without any concern for the exegetical and herrneneutical problematic, which was already then
much discussed and surely not unknown to the author.
Of special significance for the later development of the
author's views is the fact that already the theological, sacramental understanding of Christ is being developed with a certain recourse to the concept of experience. The category of
"encounter", which was introduced into the understanding of
the sacraments, is described as a " reference to our natural,
existential experience" (10) . Yet, according to his brief statements on this topic, the experience which is given with human
existence in general is not yet constitutive of revelation and
the faith. He states expressly that revelation and the faith
themselves constitute the encounter with God, an encounter
which of course gains its full meaning only as experienced en-

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387

counter. All of this has quite a modern turn to it; yet at the
same time it is balanced and closely bound to the doctrine of
faith.
The personalist category of " encounter " sets the tone as
well for the Answer 3 which Schillebeeckx gave in 1964 to Bishop Robinson's Honest to God. Although the Anglican bishop
rolled out the whole problematic of a hermeneutically oriented
theology, Schillebeeckx does not address the methodological
questions but instead works out, with the help of an ontology
of the person, an answer which was influenced by modern personalism and yet offers no substantial consideration of the
problem of understanding and the complicated issues associated with it. In the presentation of the mystery of Christ
the same familiar formulations appear once again, in which
Jesus is termed the "sacramental form" of God (72), where
God is "immediately encountered". This surely is meant of
the ontological, divine sonship of Jesus Christ, as Robinson's
functionalism is repudiated expressly. Regarding the significance for the efficacy of the grace of that " sacrament " which
the God-man embodies, the reader comes upon a sentence
which sounds today almost " hyperorthodox ": " ... We know
nothing about any meaningful possibility of being graced apart
from Christ" (73). Schillebeeckx argues against Robinson
that, although Jesus might very well be understood in the
sense of the Anglican bishop as one who was " for others "
(74), still this could never be the final word. The final word
of our author refers to that "metahistorical love of the Trinity" which appeared in Jesus, a love which is shared with us
in him, leading not simply to an encounter with a human being
but to an encounter with God in faith. Here it is quite clearly
the ecclesial faith of the Nicene-Chalcedonian tradition which,
even without applying much of the art of hermeneutics, the
author seemed still to consider as intelligible and communia Personale Begegnung mit Gott. Eine Antwort
( deutsch von H. Zulauf), Mainz 1964.

aii

John A. P . .Robinson

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LEO SCHEFFCZYK

cable, and the significance of which he wanted to elucidate in
marked opposition both to Robinson's total capitulation to the
spirit of the times and to any merely modish tendency.
At the same time Schillebeeckx writes elsewhere 4 of the
" coming of the son of God into the dimension of our worldly
historicality" (20), in which "salvation as a supernatural
reality offers itself to us in the form of an inner-worldly reality-the humanity of Christ" (20). As "God's Word",
Christ is God himself, the son who addresses us personally in
the human Jesus" (40). According to Schillebeeckx the whole
New Testament is carried by this faith, which would be passed
on undiluted to later times. " From what has been said it has
become clear that the christological confessions of faith found
in the sacred scripture would be unintelligible apart from their
trinitarian framework and that the later apostolic ' symbol '
is simply an explicit formulation of the basic inspiration of the
apostolic kerygma. In the apostolic kerygma, in the earliest
catechetics, and in the apostolic confessions of faith, the
mystery of Christ is seen from the fundamental point of view
of a comprehensive mystery of God" (172). Not only is the
unified, unbroken chain of the tradition upheld in the form of
the teaching office of the church, but even more: " This tradition is essentially bound to its living subject, the church, the
living people of God under the leadership of official church
ministry" (27), which includes-as if self-evident-infallibility as well.
There can be no doubt that these christological statements
were worked out in strict conformity with the Catholic rule of
faith. They are formulated in personal categories in a somewhat more pronounced manner than in traditional Christology,
and they are expressed in terms of the category of " encounter"; and yet in no way do they betray any withdrawal
from the dogma of the church, of which the author can still say:
"We must, however, remain conscious of the fact that dogma
4 Offenbarung

und Theologie I, Mainz 1965.

CHRIST0LOGY

IN THE CONTEXT OF EXPERIENCE

389

thoroughly reiterates the salvific reality of the content of revelation" (220). A hiatus between scripture and dogma is not
yet felt here. The problematic of epistemological movement
between text and author and between the author and his later
readers is not yet made thematic. The development of dogma
is accepted as needing no defence. And yet one remark almost
sounds like a warning: " New interpretations of the dogma can
have a legitimate but just as easily a heretical meaning"
(223). The hermeneutic problem as such is not yet taken up
and in any case not yet critically turned against the dogma of
the church, as is clear for example in the passing mention of
R. Bultmann (219f) .

II. The Shift towards Hermeneutics and C1·itical Theory
In contrast to the "pre-critical" period a certain shift makes
itself apparent in Schillebeeckx's writings in the post-conciliar
era. This change can be noticed already in the essays collected in the book: God-the Future of It! an." 5 The author
seizes on the whole "arsenal" of hermeneutical problems and
on the" mounds of hermeneutical material", in order to apply
them to the dogma of the church. This he does at first with
the positive intention of furthering the inevitable new interpretation of the conception of God as the " God who is our
future". However, the hermeneutical tools are merely laid out
and in a somewhat pedantic fashion prepared provisionally for
what is deemed the decisive task of " formulating anew for our
present day" (36f) the old truth of scripture. This is seen as
necessary because we ,understand each text "only in its application to our present time", i.e. from our contemporary selfunderstanding. And yet this hardly exhausts the hermeneutical
problem. The basic question would still have to be posed and
answered: What happens if the text and our self-understanding
or our pre-understanding of ourselves as human (VorverZukunft des M ensohen
5 Gott-die
Mertens) Mainz, 1969.

( deutsch von H, Zulauf und H. A.

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LEO SCHEFFCZYK

stiindnis) come into conflict with each other? In such a case
the self-understanding would seem to take precedence despite
protestations to the contrary affirming the normative role of
the text. Already at this point a certain doubt must arise
whether Schillebeeckx is in any better position than Bultmann
to maintain the normativeness of sacred scripture. The crucial
question as to whether the self-understanding can be questioned or even corrected radically by the text is in any case not
affirmatively answered here.
Another question does not admit of any definitive answer on
the basis of this work, namely, whether with such stress on the
self-understanding and on the "hermeneutical situation" the
(christological) content of the kerygma must not be prejudiced
and twisted. It is noteworthy that the few texts about Christ
say merely that God gave us in him "the possibility to create
a future " (153) ; " ... that which occurred in him is the basis,
norm, and criterion of every expectation of the future" (160).
The mystery of the person of Jesus Christ remains here merely
expressed in the formulation that" even for him that relationship to the God whom he calls his Father is the basis of his conception of the coming kingdom" (160).
Only with the book " Contributions towards a Hermeneutical and Critical Theology " 6 does hermeneutics seem to be
elevated to a central role in his judgments. The work begins
with the engaging question: " From where in the last analysis
do we draw our knowledge that a new updating interpretation of the Christian message or of any old dogma ... or of the
doctrine of the two natures (Council of Chalcedon) really does
correspond to the gospel and really is ' orthodox ' in this
sense?" (9). The techniques of the hermeneutical method appear now to have been expanded to include structuralist
linguistics, logical-linguistic analysis, and the phenomenological
philosophy of language, although the possible contribution of
a Glaubensinterpretation: Beitrage zu einer hermeneutischen und.. kritischen
Theologie (deutsch von H. Zulauf), Mainz 1971.

CHRISTOLOGY IN THE CONTEXT OF EXPERIENCE

391

these disciplines to a theological hermeneutics will be m1mmalized later on. The same fate awaits the whole hermeneutics
of the humane sciences. Whereas they are praised at the
beginning as the irreplaceable and necessary instrument for the
modern communication of faith, it is then maintained (with an
apparent logical gap) " ... that a purely humanities-oriented,
.
' Gadamerhermeneutics ' is insufficient for theology"
Thus the basic question in theology is " ... not so much about
the relationship between the past (scripture, tradition) and
the present as about the relation between theory and practice "
(71) . With this determination, the author distances himself
from
hermeneutics and turns more towards
" negative dialectics " (Th. W. Adorno) and the " critical
theory" (J. Habermas), which were becoming popular at that
time. Both appeared especially well-suited for a critical reflection on "orthopraxis," i.e. on the Christian ethical-political
"praxis," viewed now as decisive for every new interpretation
of the faith: " There is a notable convergence between the interest in emancipation by which the critical theory is motivated and the liberating power of the gospel, even though the
two may not be fully identified with one another" (154) .
Therefore ". . . the critical theory of society is an auxiliary
science for theology" (155). And yet much remained unclear
about the relationship between the gospel (church and dogma)
and the critical rationality of the modern Christian. On the
one hand, faith and dogma were supposed to be corrected by
social critique, to which even the church was subordinated;
faith and dogma were to be criticized by the standards of their
efficacy for social praxis, so that it had to come to an " understanding of the tradition against the tradition" (146). On the
other hand, however, dogma wa.s supposed to retain and exert
its critical power, at least as a "dangerous form of recollection" (164). But how could that which is supposed to be
criticized ever become itself the measure of the critique? The
answer to this question was to be provided by reference to
" praxis " and the experience which it brings forth: " 'Praxis '

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'LEO 'SCHEFFCZYK

is an essential element of a contemporizing and liberating interpretation" (159) of the Christian faith. For a faith come of
age it is not " orthodoxy " but " orthopraxis " which is decisive. The author, however, seemed unable to say what the
" orthos " in the concept of " orthopraxis " could possibly mean
or from where it could draw its content. It would have to be
something standing above "praxis", which would then be in
contmdiction to the binding standard of verifying the faith in
praxis and in the practical experience of life. True: the author
does allow at one point a certain reservation, viz. that the
truths of the faith could never be derived directly from life's
praxis and its experiences; rather such truths simply must reflect real human experiences (15) . But at this point the same
question returns which was posed above by the unresolved
problematic of the role of self-understanding: How can we be
prevented from simply identifying our own experience with the
truth of faith, turning the faith into a mere human product?
How can one avoid reducing the faith to the measure of one's
own small, private experience?
At still another juncture the quandary of the question about
God is expressed when the author admits that God cannot
actually be experienced. How could practical experience ever
serve, then, as a criterion of substantiating the truth of the
faith? The author seeks help here in a merely rhetorical
escape: God is said " ... to be experienced in human experience
as one not immediately experienced" (37). Clearly, the concept of experience remained still to be articulated, inasmuch as
precisely an aspect of immediacy (alongside transcendental
structures and aposteriori reflection) is generally thought essential to the definition of experience. 7
These principles of critical-practical hermeneutics already
had shown their influence on the christological statements of
the author, even if still in somewhat unthematic fashion. That
is made clear by formulations such as the following: the human
Jesus-event is the revelatory deed of God in history; Jesus is
7 Cf. J.

B. Lotz, Transzendentale

Erfahrung, Freiburg, 1978, 20 f.

CHRISTOLOGY IN THE CONTEXT OF EXPERIENCE

393

the revelation of God and " the eschatalogical presence of
God" for Christians (43); Jesus is the manifestation of God
(51). The altered point of view can be seen in the contention
that an "orthopraxis" in which Jesus is affirmed (even by
non-Christians) as something unique and absolute could be
" more orthodox " than the doctrine of the one person in two
natures (74). The dubiousness of such statements rests not in
their view of Jesus as God's event in history, which of course
is quite true, but rather in that they no longer reach to the
mystery of the God-man; indeed, they no longer seem even to
want to do so. Logical rigor is not lacking inasmuch as
Schillebeeckx stated that God could never be experienced in
the world without becoming simply an objectified part of reality. It must be clear, however, that experience and praxis,
which no one today would want to exclude from the interpretation of the faith, nevertheless must be brought into theology
and Christology in quite a different way from that proposed
here.

III. The Jesus of Experience
In his later, directly christological works, the author does
little to alleviate what is problematic about the experiential
starting-point; quite to the contrary, he even aggravates the
problem. Only at this point does the rich and varied arsenal of
hermeneutics receive a concrete application and determine the
systematic structure so pervasively that all contents are already prejudiced by the hermeneutical principles.
The subtitle of the book, Jesus: The History of One Still
Living [Jesus,. het verhaal va,n een levende]8 , was meant to express the experiential starting-point by claiming that the historical Jesus, as one who is alive, is capable of being experienced. Not much attention is paid to the special problem of
how a past event or life can be experienced, the question as to
the anamnetical or recollective experience and the unique mode
s Freiburg s1975,

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LEO SCHEFFCZYK

of contemporaneity which it demands between the subject and
the object of the experience. According to the Catholic doctrinal principle, only the church and her living tradition can
create such contemporaneity. As a matter of fact, there is an
acknowledgement of this function of the church in a few references of the book, such as when it is said that the Church is
" the norm for our understanding of the faith ", although this
sentence is followed by another, in which the author expresses
doubts about the " Church's Christ" (28) and wishes to abstract from dogma.
The author seeks to attain the necessary contemporaneity
in accord with " the demands of critical rationality " by reconstructing the origins of the faith in Jesus. The entire interest
of the work is concentrated on the question about the identity
of Jesus of Nazareth. Faith and historical critique converge
here, without deciding the question which the reader might well
want to pose as to which of the two instances should be decisive were they to come into conflict, especially as the author
has already declared his doubts about the " Church's Christ".
But not even the historical Jesus is, according to Schillebeeckx,
attainable, since historical research " never can bring out the
true Jesus of Nazareth" (28). With that, the author indicates
his critique of exegesis and the historical-critical method in so
far as they lead, at least in their exclusive application, to the
most divergent of views. He terms his own working instrument a "theological exegesis ", the theological dimension of
which is not, however, the dogma and faith of the Church,
but rather that Christian experience which already at the beginning was constitutive for faith in Christ. It is the basic disclosure-experience which not only provides a principle of verification for the biblical reports about Jesus but which also pervades the entire later history of faith in Jesus. In its content
this experience is defined by a concrete, lived experience of
" salvation in Jesus".
The problem posed thereby is that many divergent experiences and interpretations of Jesus are to be found already in

CHRISTOLOGY IN 'l'HE CONTEXT OF EXPERIENCE

$95

the New Testament. Thus some single, concrete, unifying factor has to be postulated, even though its definition turns out to
be purely formalistic. It is the "reference to the one Jesus",
which runs through all these experiences, or that phenomenon
which leads the people of the New Testament " ... to define
the highest sense of their lives by reference to Jesus of
Nazareth" (48). They actually experience not Jesus himself
but merely a kind of reflection from him and a reference to
him. Thus the origin of Christianity rests neither in Jesus alone
nor in the early Christian community, but in " both of them
taken together as offer and response ". It is the experience of
the community (together with every later experience), which
bcomes constitutive for the Christ-event and for Christianity.
The figure of Jesus himself becomes simply the counterpart,
the one pole of the experienced reality of salvation. It is not
a question of the disciples' and the earliest Christians' recognizing in Jesus the Lord, the Son of Man or the Messiah;
rather, since they first experienced in him certain changes in
their lives, they then gave him these names of distinction (49) .
Jesus was simply the departure-point, the pre-condition for
the faith of Christians, while the element which actually has
content and creativity came from the life-experience of the
community, which for its part was formed largely by its socialcultural environment. Accordingly, Jesus would be nothing
without the community. It appears here as if the constitution
of Christianity were still to be divided between these two factors; and yet in fact the inner logic of the position would demand that the experience of the community take precedence
over Jesus, since it is from this experience that the disclosure
of who Jesus was and what he did occurs. It is this experience
which first lends meaning and content to the Jesus-event." The
constant factor (both for the biblical origins of Christianity
and for its continuation) is the changing life of the 'community of God ' or the ' community of Christ ', an experience begetting community" (49) . A temporal priority is ascribed to
Jesus's offer, but what the offer is all about is defined first by

LEO SCHEFFCZYK

the response of the community. The question which would
need to be posed here is not formulated, viz. whether the community might not have deceived itself in its projections, expectations, and longings in regard to Christ. The theory of
projection, found, say, in Feuerbach or Freud, is neither answered here nor excluded.
At odds with the declared principle that historical-critical
research "never can bring out the true Jesus of Nazareth"
(28), that all searching for the historical Jesus is only the
"chasing after a phantom", the author then takes up-and as
if its possibility were self-evident-the task of "entering
genuine Jesus-terrain" (127) seeking " ... to carry out an
historical-critical investigation of what really was verbalized in
Jesus" (90), albeit only as mirrored in the reflection and reflexion of the community of disciples. Thus there follows the
attempt to determine the " real aspect ", the " trustworthy
tradition," and the correct relationships of the community to
the historical Jesus as opposed to simply arbitrary projections
and constructions or to the kerygmatic reworkings and accretions" (76). Viewed from the central principle of experience,
it is not easy to see why such painting-over should be held to
be anything other than experiences and genuine references to
that" pole" which Jesus is. In the further course of his book,
the author acknowledges only those experiences as genuine
which belong, as does the so-called " Q-source of sayings ", to
the earliest stratum of the history of the traditions entering the
New Testament and which omit every personal or authoritative claim by Jesus. This purpose can also be served by those
parts of the synoptic gospels. which reflect the purely human
"life-praxis" of Jesus. In this context even Peter's confession
that Jesus is the Messiah is presented as a misunderstanding,
which Mark (8, 27-33) supposedly corrects, since it is less a
confession of faith than a radical misunderstanding of what
Jesus's view of his life is all about. "For Mark it is a heretical
Christology of the ' theios after ' " (286) .

CHRISTOLOGY IN THE CONTEXT OF EXPERIENCE

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In the attempt to work out this historical picture of Jesus,
the emphasis is placed " upon that reign of God which is concerned with humaneness" (IQ4), that reign proclaimed by
Jesus. In his parables and beatitudes, Jesus contradicts conventional human practice and intends merely to express a
radical "No" to the previous history of human suffering.
(This interpretation reveals how influential modern patterns
and paragons of understanding can be for the interpretation of
the New Testament). By contrast, the summons of Jesus to
conversion is not especially stressed, since according to this
interpretation Jesus was not a preacher of doom, as was, e.g.,
John the Baptist. "John appeared to the folk like a dirge;
... Jesus appeared like a song" (123).
What the disciples found so impressive about the " lifepraxis" of Jesus is defined above all in terms of a humane
" doing the good " and of a manner of dealing with people
which made them rejoice" (177), such as the banquets held
with the lowly and the outcasts of society. All the characteristics of Jesus which go beyond the merely human are pushed
to the periphery or simply left aside. Although the childhood
history of Jesus theoretically could not be denied a certain relationship to Jesus on grounds of the "experience principle"
(Mt 1, 18-23; Lk 1, 5-2, 52), it is dismissed nevertheless as
irrelevant. "His birth in Bethlehem is a Jewish theologumenon,
i.e. an interpretative point of view, not an historical statement" (102). Here again, it is clear that only those experiences are allowed significance which correspond to the reductionistic scheme of the human Jesus.
That applies as well to the signs of power and the miracles
of Jesus, which are declared to be historically ambivalent and
incapable of being understood literally (161). It is obvious
that a category of judgment enters in here other than that of
the historical-critical judgment, which purportedly seeks to respond to the demands of the text and of the historical-sociological context of Jesus's day. This other category of judgment
remains through<:>utall interpretations the basic hidden catalyst

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LEO SCHEFFCZYK

and the standard of measure for legitimizing or denying any
experiences of Jesus. It is the subjective significance for people
today and for the modern self-understanding, as is shown by
the final statement about Jesus's signs and miracles: "Even
had Jesus historically and literally done all of this, still how
could that be of meaning for us today? What does a social
worker in the third world of today care about the miracles of
Jesus from way back then?" (16). Here it is clear that the
author is not concerned in the end with gaining access to the
historical Jesus, who despite all these efforts is claimed to be
inaccessible, nor is he interested in the final analysis in how the
disciples experienced Jesus's power and miraculous deeds;
rather, the purpose seems to be a critique carried out by a
modern self-understanding which is not that of ecclesial faith.
This completely selective use of the historical-critical method
and the related principle of experience can be seen especially
in Schillebeeck:x's attitude towards the saying of Jesus found
in Mt 11, 27, a passage important for the mystery of this person and in former years often termed the " J ohannine section "
of the synoptic gospels, since it seemed to stand like an isolated island in their midst. While many modern exegetes express their conviction that this saying cannot be demonstrated
to have derived from the post-resurrectional community, our
author himself at first admits that this saying " at its core "
could be considered as genuinely coming from Jesus, only then
to claim that it is saturated to the core by hellenistic, JewishChristian, late Jewish and even Hassidic influences, which are
in opposition to any possible derivation from Jesus himself
apart from the residue of a simple consciousness in Jesus that
he had a mission (235) .9
Despite all verbal protestations to the contrary, a nonkerygmatic, historical Jesus remains the postulate and leading
motif of the explanation, as is evident in the omission of those
der neueren Problematik
9 Cf. L. Scheffczyk, Tendenzen und Brennpunkte
un die Hellenisierung des Christentums. (Sitzungsberichte der Bayerischen
Akademie der Wissenschaften, Phil-Histor. Klasse, 1982/2) Miinchen 1982.

CHRISTOLOGY

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Pauline confessional formulae which also extend back into the
earliest tradition and where the " divine " picture of Christ is
characterized by preexistence and by an equality to the Father
despite the acknowledgment of the lowliness of the one who
became human (cf. Phil 2, 6-11; 1 Cor 15, 3-5).
That center from which the religious meaning of salvation
in the historical Jesus himself is said to stem and in which the
" salvation from God " finally is based is his unique relationship
to the Father, so that the judgment of Jesus himself is viewed
again here under the aspect of religious experience. After expressing certain reservations about the theological potential of
the concept and language of " Father " heard from the mouth
of Jesus, it is finally admitted that this concrete, immediate
" Father-experience " can be viewed ". . . as the soul, the
source, and the entire manner of his self-presentation" (235f.).
At this point the dilemma both of this hermeneutical startingpoint and of the systematic structure of this Christology comes
to light. Regarding the immediate, concrete Father-experience of Jesus, the question is posed which would be in principle of significance for all the experiences of the disciples as
well, viz., whether it might not well have been derived from a
deception, whether Jesus's exceptional experience was not the
result of an illusion in light of which, of course, all subsequent
Christian experience of the disciples and of all Christianity
would have to be termed illusory. The answer is interesting
for its logical consequence, which follows stringently from the
point of departure in an experience which in the end could
never be objectified. According to Schillebeeckx, one could
very well dismiss Jesus's Father-experience as an illusion; but
what is decisive is to put one's trust in Jesus. And yet, in that
case, one should draw the consequence that this trust is incapable of demonstration, that it is preceded by no plausibility
or judgment of its believability whatever. It is not objectively
based in Jesus himself, but rather in his reflection in human experience. It is a voluntaristic, at worst even an arbitrary, decision. This whole complicated hermeneutical manner of

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thought leads in the end to something very much like a merely
arbitrary option.
It can be understood easily enough that there is but little
room for a realistic view of the salvific dimensions of Christ's
death and resurrection in such a scheme of human experience,
measured as it is-at least in its remote meaning-by the
standards of the modern understanding of self. Although the
author admits that Jesus viewed his death as a consequence of
his service of love for humankind and solidarity with others,
he denies that Jesus considered his death as "salvation or a
propitiatory sacrifice". This death was proof of Jesus's fidelity to his mission, which implies already in the pre-resurrectional ministry a reference that the concern or " affair " of
Jesus should continue. Although the author himself occasionally admits that the reconstruction of this historical picture of
Jesus and his deeds is ''rather vague and weak"
still,
it provides the basis for the interpretation of the Easter events
and the reports of appearances, which present merely an expression of the conversion experience which the disciples
achieved through a reflection about the historical Jesus.
These " visions " were " extrapolations of the graced character " of the divine workings in the disciples. Everything beyond is but "supra-naturalist
hocuspocus" (576). The
author's subjectivistic principle of experience is confirmed once
again by this interpretation, in which the hypothetical nature
of method comes clearly to light. According to this explanation the Easter experience does not stem from a new, transsubjective event subsequent to the death on the cross but
rather begins simply as a process of recognition among the
disciples, an occurrence of conversion and a reminiscence about
the historical Jesus, who for his part serves only as the departure point and a point of reference for an internal, human experience.
It is for this reason that the " Easter experiences " lack the
significance and strength to reach (much less surpass) the
validity and normativiteness of the simple picture of the pre-

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401

resurrectional Jesus. The normative statement of the New
Testament about the mystery of the person of Jesus remains
that concerning the eschatalogical prophet: " It is from God
that Jesus is present for his fellow humans; he is God's gift to
all people. That is the New Testament's ultimate vision of
Jesus of Nazareth and at the same time the definition of his
essence" (493) . Accordingly, the statements about Christ
in the Fourth Gospel are assigned a lesser rank; they
are " theology of a second grade" (482) . " Logos " and
" Pneuma " are to be understood only as abstract concepts
which offer as little proof of Jesus's preexistence as do the contentions of preexistence in regard to the Jewish Torah (483) .
Even more obvious is that only a minor significance could be
attributed to the further christological development in the ancient Church, as it often expressed the one-sided influence of the
view of Christ in the Fourth Gospel, which is " not to be taken
in such an exaltedly christological fashion". For this reason,
too, Jesus may not be interpreted from the mystery of the
Trinity, since this is but "theology of the third grade" (593).
In the end, the author does try to link the life of Jesus with the
mystery of the Trinity, which in its turn receives a quite different interpretation. In his creatureliness and his humanity
Jesus is understood as son of the Father thanks to his essential relation to the creative God. He distinguishes himself from
other humans in the end only by his Abba-experience (583f.).
Thus the Nicene doctrine with its divergent formulation can
be said to have been unnecessary. Likewise, the doctrine
of Chalcedon is disqualified as the expression of the " lofty,
philosophical sophistries of these Greek minds" (500), a position which could easily be shown to stand in contrast to the
results of the history of dogma. Even the title " Son of God "
falls under this critique, since Jesus is not named in this way
anywhere in the New Testament (487). In line with this argumentation, the church's confession of faith in the God-man is
rejected, since" God-man" is an" equally conceivable and inconceivable mixture ". The " God-man " is " a divine icon ",

402

LEO SCiiEFFCZYK

by which "we neutralize the critical power of God himself"
(596). One can understand why the critics identified this interpretation of Jesus with liberal theology or brought it into
association with A. Ritschl's model of the ethical Jesus, where
the "divinity" of Jesus is understood only as an index of his
ethical significance.10 And yet one need not criticize or refute
our author's concept of Jesus on the basis of such extraneous
comparisons. A comparison between his own early writings on
the "sacramental Christ" and his final verdict against the
" divine icon" Christ could offer the basis of an internal
critique.
The book Christ and Christians: The History of a New
Praxis for Life 11 is constructed on the basis of much the same
hermeneutic and systematic principles, which represent more
of a "Jesusology" than a Christology, the latter being viewed
as ideologically suspect. In this work the emphasis is placed
more on the question as to how New Testament Christianity
experienced salvation and grace and how this experience could
provide us with orientation for today. Concerning positions on
Christology itself and their hermeneutical justification, there
are no major, essential differences from the previous work. In
connection with the description of the experience of grace,
Pauline theology is allowed a greater significance than before.
For Paul salvation is definitely and exclusively " salvation in
Christ from God" (171). The universal significance of Christ
(in Colossians) and the cosmic-political understanding (in
Ephesians) are expressly singled out and brought into connection with modern " political theology " and a theology of
liberation
. Even the majestic-authoritative statements
about Christ as the " glowing reflection of the glory of God "
Cor 4, 4) or as the image of God and the mediator of creation (Hebrews 1, 3) are mentioned as characterizing the New
Testament's faith-consciousness and are grasped as a way of
10 Cf.

R. Slenczka, in: Tkeol. Lit. Zeitung 103 ( 1978) 425.
1977.

11 Freiburg,

CHRISTOLOGY IN THE CONTEXT OF EXPERIENCE

403

contemporizing what is nonnative about the faith, viz. that
"salvation comes in Jesus from God" (293). This work also
speaks more positively than before of the Johannine Christology, albeit with the reservation, born of personal conviction,
that this Christology is merely functional and that for John
Jesus merely stands" in a unique relationship to God in a way
which surpasses all else " (417) . Even the splendid titles of
Christ in the Apocalypse are acknowledged to have been contemporizations of the core Christian creed in light of a specific
situation of persecution (422) . The apocalyptic features predominant in this sacred book are claimed as the basis of a
Christian theology of liberation, the recommendation of which
ends Schillebeeckx's own work (446) . Ignoring the likely objection that this is a henneneutically premature subordination
of the biblical statements to modern problems and needs, one
could understand these statements as building blocks for a
biblical Christology which erects a bridge to the dogma of the
ancient Church. But such is quite clearly not the author's
intention. He measures all such statements over against
what he considers to be the original Christian message of the
" eschatological prophet ". Measured by this standard these
statements appear to be quite secondary; this is a method which
tries to justify itself by implying that the scriptures as such,
taken as a whole, possess little formal but rather only a socalled existential authority, born of experience, which in the
final analysis is the original experience of the disciples with
the historical Jesus. All later interpretations stand under the
negative index of being " second " and " third grade" theologies. The first Jesus-book, in a passage often overlooked, contrasted these with " first-order " statements, where basic Christian orthodoxy is said to be already so fully constituted (485)
that everyone must be viewed as an orthodox Christian who
holds to the simple Jesus of the early biblical tradition. That
agrees with the clear attempt of the second Jesus-book to devalue the Pastoral Epistles for their " unaltered " and '' uncontemporized " repetition of the matter of the tradition, which is

404

LEO SCHEFFCZYK

offered " in the form of cliches " (283) . These biblical statements, too, are to be criticized by the standard of measure provided by the early, concrete experience of Jesus, especially
since an illegitimate, " institutional elevation " of the original
experience of Jesus through the juridical, formal authority of
the Church can be detected here (62). The canonization of the
sacred scriptures is judged critically, and the doctrine concerning the conclusion of revelation with the death of the last
apostle is dismissed; for where a legitimate contemporization
of the "original history" of Jesus takes place, revelation is
actually still going on. The revelation arising from an encounter with Jesus belongs to the authentic process of revelation. But, in all of that, there is one constant which controls
and permeates all successive " revelations " and which must remain acknowledged as the basic experience of " salvation from
God in Jesus", where Jesus is understood in terms of his merely human, pre-resurrectional, non-divine life. The various and
changing interpretative experiences remain at the level of dependent variables. When this variable is experiencd concretely
as corresponding to "the suffering prophet Jesus" (i.e. in the
non-argumentative, subjective experience) and when the current contemporization of the original life-witness is a success,
a " fifth Gospel " (2) comes into being, a claim which demonstrates how radically the temporal situation or even the individual with his or her experiences is meant to be related
constitutively to" revelation". "The contemporary life-report
of Christians belongs to the very core of Christology" (2).
Despite all this emphasis on the contemporary and ever-new
dimension of progressive, never-ended revelation, the question
remains what really is so new about the result. Even in the
first Jesus-book it was obvious that supposedly new interpretations of Jesus's person and works (to be a self in radical giving
of self, to defend fellow humans, to be a mystic or an exegete
of God, etc.) were in fact only rhetorical exaggerations of
Jesus's humanity; it is at least doubtful whether these interpretations really do correspond as well to the modem mind as

CHRISTOLOGY IN THE CONTEXT OF EXPERIENCE

405

is contended. That holds no less for the predicates suggested
for Jesus in the second book: the mystic of God; the defender
of humanity; and the fellow human, who has experienced
humanity to its depths and yet gives expression to God (828).
Basically, no truly, qualitatively new experiences are brought
about with Christ, but old ones are clothed with new terms.
Even these terms fall short of the mystery of faith in the Godman, Jesus Christ, as is clear in the Jewish conception of Jesus,
which is expressed in the " first-order " statements.

IV. Approaimation to the Christological Dogma?
The goal of both the large Jesus-books was to bring Jesus
and his concerns and "affair" in their human and natural
historical dimensions nearer to modern humanity, which is
supposedly incapable of belief in Christian dogma. On the
basis of the alleged original form of the gospel Jesus was to be
presented in the categories of everyday human experience,
which need not even be expressly religious. This attempt, which
only seeks to provide the "prolegomena" to a Christology, is
characterized often today as "' Christo logy from below ". Our
author rejects this title, probably not least because, in its valid
dimension of coming from above, faith is included already in
the development from below. But new problems are posed by
the Catholic principle of faith and doctrine-to the extent that
one still wants to hold to it. There follows a whole series of
questions, hermeneutical and systematic, wihch are especially
urgent in light of the unfinished task of permeating the masses
of material collected in these works with clear and consistent
theological thought. One question, for example, is this: What
kind of faith is it which can be directed towards a prophetic
human being and the history of his impact? The question becomes all the more unavoidable because in the whole context
of these works the reflection on the difference between faith
and experience is too abbreviated, as is the discussion of the
differences' between experience on the one hand and cognition,
judgment or insight on the other. The assent of faith, which

406

LEO SCHEFFCZYK

refers to divine truth transcending our reason and yet made accessible by revelation, is largely equivalent to the assent of
experience, where the motive is the evidentia sensibilis.
The emphasis on the subjective moment in experience, where
an inherent ambiguity could never be finally excluded, is exaggerated, so that in the end an arbitrary decision is made for
one particular experience, while other experiences, especially
those of the later Church, are minimalized in their claim to be
binding. This leads ultimately to a subjectivistic reinterpretation of revelation and of the normative witnesses of revelation, as is indicated in the rhetorically bold but again ambiguous formula of the " fifth Gospel ". If the consequences of
such contentions are considered closely, an understanding of
revelation would have to follow in which the authority of
revelation and the authority of (Christian) experience would
merge (Christ, 55) . Experience belongs constitutively to the
occurrence of revelation. By a sweeping condemnation of any
gross opposition between revelation and experience (which in
this form is maintained by no one), and despite occasional
protestations to the contrary, the a.uthor moves towards a
synthesis of both realities which is theologically and hermeneutically untenable. The synthesis suggested here is equivalent to misunderstanding the basic human hermeneutical situation, which is characterized not by a co-constitution of the text
itself by its interpreter, or of the letter by its reader, or of the
contents of a missive by those addressed, but rather by an understanding acceptance of the message, by receptivity and
hearing and by attention to what is said, after which one can
make what is said (or revealed) one's own or reject it. In
these later works of Schillebeeckx, one often gains the impression that he is making human conditions and human receptivity, including all that is human and so all that is experienced,
much more than instrumental causes of divine revelation; he is
making them its efficient cause in the full sense of the word or
even its formal cause. To use an extreme example, one might
object that the one addressed in a letter should have to deter-

CHRISTOLOGY IN THE CONTEXT OF EXPERIENCE

407

mine its content and even compose it, in order to understand
and accept it. To pursue this starting-point even further, the
question might be allowed why the ones addressed should need
ever to open and read the letter at all, since the content was coposited and co-constituted by themselves. As a matter of fact,
the question occasionally posed in these works as to why
salvifically significant human experience can come to existence
only with Jesus of Nazareth is never answered. H. Braun's
answer was of stricter logical consequence: viz., that he simply did not have any other experience at his disposal (which,
at least ideally, should call attention to the limits of experience).
Schillebeeckx seeks to answer or at least to dismiss the objections of his critics in several recent, shorter works. 12 They
show how, where the presentation is kept short, as is the case
here, many positions emerge more sharply, if somewhat more
crudely as well, whereas the explosive expansion of hermeneutical questions and preliminary inquiries can make the original movement of understanding more difficult and less clear.
Christian theology is led back to two sources, viz., revelation
and experience, both of which are constitutive for it. (Cf. lnterirn Report on the Books Jesus and Christ [=A], cited as
with the previous works according to the pagination of the
German translation, cf. here A 13). "Interpretative experience
belongs essentially to revelation" (A 20 f.), although the
human does not ground revelation itself (a statement which
actually should eliminate the claim that experience is essentially constitutive for revelation). It is now said of Jesuswith still greater clarity than before-that he is simply " the
point of departure for the concept of salvation in the New
Testament" (ME 31). It is also explained that Jesus merely
made an offer which people responded to with their own projections. He was simply a" stimulus, a catalyst of name-giving
12 Die Av,ferstehung Jesu als Grund aer ErUJsung (Quaest. disp. 78) Freburg 1979 (A); Mensohliohe Erfahrung und G"laube an Jesus Ohristus. ]j)ine
Reoken,sohaft, Freiburg 1979 (ME).

408

LEO SCHEFFCZYK

projections " (A 33) . In an interesting aside, it is said that his
catalytic role lay in what " he appeared to be from his life
and death" (A 33; italics mine). These projections relate thus
to something uncertain and merely apparent.
On the other hand it is hard to avoid the impression that the
author did not remain fully unimpressed by his critics. The
accepted pluralism of New Testament Christologies is qualified
by the addition that in their convergence a kind of unanimity
or harmony of the one faith quite well could have arisen (A
55) . In the same context, Christian tradition seems to experience in principle an increase in value, even if only as a tradition of experience. Assurance is given that " second order"
statements do not mean second rate statements (111). The
conception of the resurrection is clarified at various points to
show that. neither the empty tomb nor the visions concerning
appearances need to be denied a certain historical reality
(A 89 f) , even if later (e.g. A 102) the " bodily resurrection "
once again approaches being a mere model of
Schillebeeckx acknowledges a Christology which includes
dogma in its method from the start and seeks in its effort
merely" to lead believers to a Christology" (A 114). One may
perhaps thus see grounds for expecting the further step over to
an acknowledgment of the vere homo, vere Deus, even though
this does not yet seem to have occurred, at least if the author's
appended Credo is taken seriously. A confession of faith in
the "only-beloved son" is not yet identical in sense or content
with the Nicene-Constantinopolitan confession of faith in unum
Dominum Jesurn Christum, Filium Dei unigenitum. A good
theological hermeneutics will not overlook the difference.
(Translated by Richard Schenk, O.P., Munich)
LEo ScHEFFCZYK

University of Munich
Munich, West Germany

DOGMATIC PLURALISM AND THE
NOETIC DIMENSION OF UNITY OF FAITH

A

UNDAMENTAL PROBLEMATIC which underlies
contemporary ecumenical efforts is the question of
how ecclesial unity can be attained when churches
hold dogmatic traditions which collaborative efforts find impossible to reconcile on a conceptual level.1 Past approaches to
ecumenism from within the Roman Catholic tradition often
stressed the necessity of a unilateral conversion and adherence
to Roman Catholic dogma as a condition for unity. More recently, ecumenical efforts since Vatican II have probed ways to
arrive at a unity which respects the ecclesial traditions of each
church and entails a conversion for all. One contemporary approach of great import focuses on the Council's affirmation of
a legitimate pluralism not only in understanding but in dogmatically confessing the mysteries of faith. 2 Unquestionably,
unity of faith embraces the level not only of dogmatic confession but also of lived praxis, of worship and service together. 3
One issue raised in the context of the Vatican II affirmation,
1 The Orthodox dogma of the procession of the Spirit from the Father alone
and the Roman Catholic filioque are a case in point.
2 Decree on Ecumenism
III, 17; in Vatican Oouncil II: The Oonciliar and
Post-Oonciliar Documents, edited by Austin Flannery, O.P. (Northport, New
York: Costello, 1975), p. 466.
a Few would find cause to disagree with Rahner's reflections on this point:
"The community and the unity which are being achieved do not exist simply
or exclusively in the dimension of the word as such and at the conceptual
level. ... we must express this one creed in common, celebrate the Death of
the Lord in common in the physicality belonging to this, celebrate the sacraments in their physicality, serve the world in common in action, and then
through all this process community of creed is achieved in the midst of all
the pluralism of the theologies." Karl Rahner, S.J. "Pluralism in Theology
and the Unity of the Creed in the Church," in Theological Investigations XI
(New York: Seabury, 1974), pp. 21, 22.

409

410

MARY ANN FATULA, O.P.

however, is the question of what constitutes the specifically
noetic dimension of unity of faith when the possibility of an
irreducible dogmatic pluralism is recognized.
The Vatican I decree Dei Filius affirms at the heart of every
dogmatic formulation a core sensus which is understood and
declared by the Church, 4 and which is " ever to be retained." 5
Although theologians such as Fransen, Dulles, and Chirico
have distinguished between the perduring insight of a dogma
and its embodiment in the thought forms of a particubr historical epoch, words like " content," " intent," " signification,"
and " meaning " often are used interchangeably to denote what
it is that perdures within the historical relativity of a dogmatic
formulation. 6
This article seeks to clarify further the nature of the noetic
dimension of unity of faith in the context of differing dogmatic
traditions. After some pre-notes on the notion of dogmatic
pluralism, the first part of the study summarizes approaches
represented by Lonergan, Fransen, Dulles, and Chirico. The
second part of the study focuses on the contribution of Schillebeeckx to the discussion by examining some of his early insights on the noetic dimension of faith as it is constituted by
both conceptual and non-conceptual kinds of knowing. 7 The
last part of the essay utilizes Schillebeeckx's insights to clarify
further the nature of unity of faith in its noetic dimension, and
thus, also, the nature of legitimate dogmatic pluralism.
4 DS

3043.
3020. For a consideration of the context of this declaration see
Bernard Lonergan, S.J., Doctrinal Pluralism
(Milwaukee: Marquette U.
Press, 1971), pp. 40 ff.
6 David Tracy in Blessed
Rage for Order (New York: Seabury, 1975)
stresses the importance of reflecting on what meaning in a theological context means.
7 Convinced that the thought categories employed in these past essays are
foreign to a modern mentality, Schillebeeckx in recent writings has abandoned
this kind of thinking in favor of an experiential-existential
approach. This
article calls attention to the value of his earlier argument in its own right,
and its theoretical contribution to a pressing contemporary question.
5 DS

DOGMATIC PLURALISM AND THin UNITY OF FAITH

411

PRE-NOTE: THE CONCEPT OF
DOGMATIC PLURALISM
The notion of a legitimate dogmatic pluralism is related to
yet distinct from the concept of theological pluralism. Faith
itself unites the believer noetically to the unseen God, not in
the manner of the immediacy of the life of heaven, but in a
way that is mediated by concepts and symbols and yet which
transcends what can be contained in these representations.
Faith's impulse to understand and to express the reality to
which it clings finds expression in theology. If theology is faith
seeking understanding, theological pluralism is the diversity of
ways to understand and articulate these mysteries. A pluralism
of social-cultural settings and life experiences gives rise to different ways of experiencing and expressing the Christian mystery. This diversity includes conceptual frameworks involving
divergent philosophical and theological presuppositions. Often
these differences are of such proportion that they may be described, in Rahner's words, as an " insurmountable" theological pluralism. 8
A pluralism in theological opinions necessarily has implications for the dogmatic formulations of the Church. Because
of their power to express a fundamental faith experience of the
Church with a clarity of insight needed at a particular time of
crisis, certain theological understandings have attained an authority beyond that of theological opinion. The central mysteries of the faith thus articulated in an ecclesially authoritative way are dogmas. As faith confessions, dogmas necessarily
employ conceptual categories which serve the mind's and
heart's confessing of God. But every dogma is expressed in
the context of a specific sociological and historical setting which
conditions the choice of language used and, indeed, the choice
of one specific theology expressed in the formulation. As a
fruit of human reflection, dogmatic formulations of necessity
s Rahner, "Pluraiism in Theology," p. 12.

412

MARY ANN FATULA, O.P.

find expression through the use of a particular theological
stance.
Because they are ecclesiological proclamations addressed to
a Church called to believe and confess God together, dogmas
entail a communal linguistic terminology which is always historically conditioned. Dogmas thus point to the mystery but
do not exhaust it. Aquinas's insight that dogmas are a perception, a glimpse of the divine truth " tending thereto," captures
the truth that dogmatic formulas are meant to lead and open
the believer beyond the limitedness of concepts to the presence
of the saving mystery itself.9 Nevertheless, dogmas do express
the central mysteries of the faith in a way that is authoritative
for the believing community. Dogmatic pluralism, then, is a
diversity in the ways of understanding and authoritatively
confessing central mysteries of the faith.
The possibility of such a pluralism is recognized by the Vatican II Decree on Eoumenism:
The heritage handed down by the apostles was received differently
and in different ways, so that from the very beginnings of the
Church its development varied from region to region and also because of differing mentalities and ways of life. . . . What has already been said about legitimate variety we are pleased to apply
to differences in theological expressions of doctrine. In the study
of revealed truth East and West have used different methods and
approaches in understanding (cognoscenda) and confessing (confitenda) divine things .... 10

In commenting on the decree, G. Dejaifve has argued convincingly that the technical word confitenda employed in the document applies to a valid diversity in dogmatic formulations.
The decree acknowledges a legitimate pluralism involving different ways of experiencing and articulating the divine mystery
in an authoritative way. References in the document to the
" apostolic heritage " received and developed in diverse ways,
9 " Actus autem credentis non terminatur
ad e:imntiabile, sed ad rem."
Aquinas, Summa Theologia.e II-II, 1, 2, ad 2.
10 Deorw Qn Ji]cw»ienism Ill, 14; III, 17; Flannery, pp. 464, 466.

DOGMATIC PLURALISM AND THE UNITY OF FAITH

413

and to the legitimacy of differences not only in understanding
but in " confessing " divine things, suggest the validity of
Dejaifve's conclusion:
A theological pluralism, that is, an irreducible diversity of theological systems, is, in effect, possible in the framework of dogmatic assertions themselves, and this fact is verified precisely at that heart
of the Catholic Church itself. 11

Thus, the question addressed in this paper is not simply that
of a pluralism in theological conclusions deriving from dogmas,
a pluralism which has abounded from the earliest centuries of
the Church, but the more difficult question of pluralism in
those relatively few theological statements of truly central
aspects of the Christian mystery, articulated authoritatively
in ecclesial faith confessions, and explicitly affirmed precisely
as dogma by their respective churches. The Vatican II recognition of the legitimacy of precisely this kind of pluralism
serves to focus the problem of this study: in the context of a
legitimate dogmatic pluralism, can further clarity be brought
to the question of what constitutes unity of faith in its specifi·
cally noetic dimenison?

A SPECTRUM OF APPROACHES

Unity of Faith on a Non-Noetic Level
A first approach adopted by Bernard Lonergan situates unity
of faith in the non-noetic dynamism of the human spirit reaching out in unrestricted love for God. The unity of faith binding together ecclesial communities in their diverse beliefs is
transcendental religious experience. This latter is the "inner
word " constituting the reality of " faith." As a state of unrestricted being-in-love with God, the " content" of the experience which is " faith " is not a content given by knowledge,
and its object is not reflexively known. This experience is un11 G. Dejaifve,
S.J., "Diversite dogmatique
Nouvelle Revue Th6ologique 89 (1967), 21.

et unite de la Revelation,"

414

MARY ANN FATULA, O.P.

interpreted, unmediated by concepts, images, or words, and belies the universal validity of the thesis that nothing can be
loved unless it is first known. Through faith the believer grasps
transcendent value and experiences fulfillment of the human
dynamism toward unrestricted love. Faith is a judgment of
transcendental value, and is the " eye of religious love" which,
beyond the outer word of various religious beliefs, is the true
bond uniting all religious traditions. It is on this level of transscendental consciousness that true unity of faith lies.12
What is the value, then, of specific "beliefs?" Beliefs are
the fruit of value judgments, and these latter in turn come from
the inner word of faith as the " eye of religious love " able to
discern God's self-giving. Specific beliefs are the "outer word"
of faith and the concrete expression of the "inner word " of
being in love; they mediate this latter word to the levels of
meaning. Deeper than the differences of various beliefs lies
"faith " as the height of fulfilled consciousness surveying all
with the eye of love. This fundamental distinction between
faith and beliefs thus provides a foundation for an ecclesial
unity which transcends all specific religious traditions. Faith
as the power of unrestricted love is the bond making all traditions one.13 "Such a positive orientation and the consequent
self-surrender, as long as they are operative, enable one to dispense with any intellectually apprehended object." 14 It is love
which " replaces doctrine as the unum necessarium." 15
Lonergan thus situates unity of faith on the non-noetic level
of the immediate, uninterpreted experience of unrestricted love.
Thi:s position has evoked Pannenberg's caution that Lonergan
risks identifying "meaning" with an intentionality that is
volitional in kind. 16 To situate unity of faith on the level of un12 Bernard Lonergan,
S.J., Method in Theology (New York: Herder and
Herder, 1972), pp. 112, 115, 119.
ia Ibid., p. 119.
14 Doctrinal Pluralism, p. 26.
15 Ibid., p. 27.
1s See W. Pannenberg, "History and Meaning in Bernard Lonergan's Ap·
proach to Theological Method," in Looking at Lonergan's !Jfethod; edited by
Patrick Corcoran (Dublin: The Talbot Press, 1975), pp. 88·100.

DOGMATIC PLURALISM AND THE UNITY OF FAITH

415

interpreted transcendental experience risks clouding the specifically noetic character of faith, and obscures the intrinsic
value of faith confessions. As Schillebeeckx stresses, human experience is necessarily interpreted experience, and the place of
meaning is not simply the interior reaches of patterns of consciousness, but the reality of the objective world:
The faith of trust and confidence (fides fiducialis) is in Scripture
always accompanied by a formulated confession of faith. The personal, existential act of faith, as a fundamental choice, cannot, in
other words, be separated from "dogmatic faith," in which the
personal attitude is completely dominated by the objective reality
of the revelation that presents itself.11

Unity of Faith on a Noetio Level
A second approach to what constitutes unity of faith is represented by theologians such as Fransen and Dulles who argue
for a noetic dimension of unity of faith and who acknowledge
meaning as a specifically noetic reality. In an early article,
Piet Fransen suggested that dogmatic pluralism can be reconciled with unity of faith by distinguishing between the conceptual and symbolic elements of faith statements, and their
true "signification and intention" which "necessarily point in
a dynamic way towards the fullness of the divine mystery." 18
Fransen situated unity of faith on the level of the true " signification and intention" of faith statements, but he did not
distinguish between these two words. His approach raises the
question of whether the signification of a faith confession is its
" meaning," and whether this "meaning " is its " intention."
Adopting a similar approach, Avery Dulles distinguishes between the meaning intended in a dogmatic formulation, and the
always historically conditioned manner of expressing it. 19
11 Edward Schillebeeckx, O.P., "The Creed and Theology," in Rev·elation
and Theology I, translated by N. D. Smith (New York: Sheed and Ward,
1967)' p. 216.
18 Piet Fransen, "Three Ways of Dogmatic Thought,"
Heythrop Journal
4 (1963), 21-22.
19Avery Dulles, S.J., The Survival of Dogma (Garden City, New York:
Doubleday, 1971), p. 160.

416

MARY ANN FATULA, O.P.

Critiquing the " conceptual agnosticism " of Leslie Dewart,
Dulles argues for an " authentically cognitive role " of some
faith concepts, for they give noetic insight into the divine
mysteries and " mediate a contemplative union between the
knower and the known." 20 While acknowledging the objective
value of the conceptual content of faith confessions, Dulles cautions that " the truth of revelation is never known in its naked
absoluteness, but is always grasped within the perspective of
a sociocultural situation." 21 The " binding force " of a dogmatic confession is to be interpreted in the light of this always
historically limited formulation and its specific intent in guarding an aspect of the saving mystery in the face of a specific
error. The conceptual contents and terms chosen in a particular situation as a defense against an erroneous interpretation
of the mystery are thus always historically conditioned. The
binding force of the sta:tement is to be interpreted in the light
of its intention, and there can be more than one valid way of
conceptualizing and articulating that same intent.
In the light of this distinction, Dulles acknowledges that
logically irreconcilable dogmas can exist side by side in the
same Church:
The question still remains whether total unity in confession is a
prerequisite for full ecclesiastical communion. From what precedes,
it should be clear that simultaneous dogmatic pluralism is sometimes admissable without prejudice to church unity. If one and
the same faith can be differently formulated for different historical
epochs, a similar variety may be tolerated for different cultures in
a single chronological period. 22

Peter Chirico adopts a position which critiques the conclusion reached by Dulles. In response to the question of how
ecclesial unity can be attained when churches hold differing or
contradictory dogmas, Chirico focuses on the concept of a core
meaning at the heart of every dogma, and summarizes three
20 Ibid.,

p. 193.
p. 173.
22 Ibid., p. 167.
Zl Ibid.,

DOGMATIC PLURALISM AND THE UNITY OF FAITH

417

theological stances toward this concept. A first position either
explicitly denies the notion of a universal immutable meaning
of a dogma, or so stresses the historicity of dogmatic formulations that the effect is the same. Chirico rejects this first position because it implies that dogmas do not have a core meaning
and that nothing can be identified as a constitutive belief for
Christians of every age and culture. 23
A second approach appeals to the Vatican II Decree on
Ecumenism in its recognition of a hierarchy of truths. This
position distinguishes between dogmas whose meaning all
would accept, and less central dogmas whose meaning need not
be accepted by all. A future united church is thus envisioned
in which all groups need not explicitly confess every dogma of
the Roman Catholic tradition but would recognize the right of
other groups to hold them. Chirico critiques this position as
dismissing the inter-relation of all dogmatic meaning. Because
saving reality is one, the meaning of one dogma cannot be
denied without denying the meaning of all others. 24
Prescinding from a solution which would simply demand unilateral adherence to every Roman Catholic dogma, a third
" developmental " approach distinguishes between historically
conditioned meanings and formulations and the " core meaning " expressed by these formulations. This solution rests on
the supposition that certain Roman Catholic dogmas are unacceptable to other churches only because their " core meaning "
is not yet fully understood or developed. If Catholics and other
Christians work together to develop and articulate the " saving meaning" of the truths held by their respective churches,
there can be hope for a " moment of convergence in which the
two developments meet." In this way, no church will relinquish
its basic tradition. Rather, by developing what is central in
each, the riches of each will become the riches of all. 25
23 Peter Chirico, " Dogmatic Definitions as Ecumenical Obstacles," Journal
of 11Jcumenical Studies 16 (1979), 53.
z4 Ibid., p. 54, n. 10.
2s Ibid., pp. 55-56.

418

MARY ANN FATULA, O.P.

Chirico refines this last position. What is to be developed in
each tradition is: a) the " saving meaning" of a doctrine, that
is, the reality it points to that is a constituent of salvation; and
b) its " operational significance," that is, the expression of its
implications in one's attitudes, feelings, thoughts, and activities. Chirico is convinced that if the Roman Catholic Church
in particular develops the saving meaning and operational significance of its dogmas, it will find that other Christians had
rejected them not because they rejected the saving meaning of
the reality intended by the formulations, but only because the
saving meaning and operational significance of these dogmas
had not been clarified for them. 26
Chirico's solution rests on a three-fold assumption. a)
" Dogmas represent aspects of the one reality that all must accept in order to be saved." 21 b) Thus, no dogma is more dispensable than others. 28 c) Every dogma contains a core meaning that is universal and immutable and which can be distinguished from its encasements in historically limited meanings and formulations. Going beyond these latter to develop
the core-saving meaning will reveal a convergence enabling
non-Catholic Christians to accept the Catholic dogmas they
reject due to lack of clarity about the universal and saving
meaning of these dogmas. What is to be noted is that Chirico's
assumption that every Roman Catholic dogma bears a meaning that is universally compelling leads him to a solution which
in effect denies the possibility of an irreducible dogmatic
pluralism.
THE CONTRIBUTION

OF SCHILLEBEECKX

Lonergan locates unity of faith on the non-conceptual volitional level of the impulse of unrestricted love for God. Fransen and Dulles acknowledge the necessity for a unity that is
26 Jbid.,

p. 65.

21 Jbid.

2s Ibid.,

p. 54.

DOGMATIC PLURALISM AND THE UNITY OF FAITH

419

in some way noetic in character, while Chirico focuses on the
need for achieving a unity on the level of noetic articulation of
every dogma believed by Roman Catholics. But what, more
precisely, is the nature of this noetic dimension of unity of
faith, especially as it is investigated in the context of a recognition of legitimate dogmatic pluralism? It is this question
upon which some earlier writings of Schillebeeckx can be
brought to bear. The specific problem which Schillebeeckx investigated is how doctrinal development can be compatible
with the absolute character of the truths of faith. Although the
terms of the question are differently posed, it is nevertheless
possible to find in his thought insights helpful in further clarification of the specific question at issue in this study. 29
According to Schillebeeckx, the tradition of the Church has
guarded a two-fold dimension of the believer's faith knowledge.
a) Explicit faith confessions employing human concepts and
words are necessary and valid in conveying objective speculative intelligibility about the mystery believed. b) The believer
does truly attain to the reality of God through a noetic contact mediated by the faith confession, yet in a way which
transcends what human concepts can grasp or contain. 80 Thus,
the Church has constantly affirmed both the objective value of
its ecclesial confessions and the utter transcendence of the
mystery of God. 31 This two-fold affirmation has its basis in a
fundamental assumption: faith is a noetic contact with God
which is impossible without concepts, and yet it is a knowledge
which is more than conceptual. 82 This assumption provides
the perspective in which Schillebeeckx pursues the question of
how the relativity of doctrinal formulations can be reconciled
with the " absolute character " of the truths of faith.
29 See note

\

7 above.
30 Edward Schillebeeckx, "What Is Theology?" in Revelation and Theology
I (New York: Sheed and Ward, 1967), p. 125.
of 'Truth,' " in Revelation 11;11,d, Theology
· s1 Schillebeeckx, "The
II, p. 22.
· ·s2 ''What Is Theology?" p. 1.25.

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MARY ANN FATULA, O.P.

The Conceptual Dimension of Faith Confessiori.<J

Schillebeeckx begins with the thesis that grace is experienced
by a person only in and through the concreteness of his or her
humanity lived in history. He thus rejects the thesis of an immediate intuition and experience of God grounding faith. Faith
is grounded in experience, but not in the experience of God as
he is in himself, for this is the experience of heaven. Rather,
faith is grounded in the believer's experience of his or her own
historical human existence grasped by the reality of God.33
The created world is always the source of human experience
and knowledge of God. But if it is to be fully human, the
knowledge of God derived from human experience in the world
cannot be without a conceptual dimension: words and language
flow from conceptual ideas gained from knowing the created
world. Human concepts, however, are not, properly speaking,
concepts of God. Their content refers directly to and illumines
the intelligibility of the creaturely reality known, for no human
concept can grasp or contain the living God. 34
How, then, are we to understand the constant affirmation of
tradition that ecclesial confessions do truly mediate a noetic
union with the living God? Schillebeeckx here parts company
with Marechal and Lonergan by locating the believer's nonconceptual contact with God not only in the volitional dynamism of the human spirit but in a specifically noetic dynamism.
According to Schillebeeckx, this former position renders meaningless the objective value and intelligibility of faith concepts,
and ultimately denies the validity of a metaphysics of reality. 35
Schillebeeckx develops the alternative position that in and
through the conceptual content of faith confessions the believer attains a contact with God which is not ultimately conceptual in nature and yet which is truly noetic in kind.
38 Schillebeeckx, "The Non-Conceptual Intellectual
'Element in the Act of
Faith," in Revelation and Theology II, pp. 66, 67.
84 Schillebeeckx, "The Non-Conceptual Intellectual
DimensiOn of the A.et
of Faith," in Revelation and Theology II, pp. 165, 170.
35" The Non-Conceptual Intellectual Dimension," p. 161.

DOGMATIC PLURALISM AND THE UNITY OF FAITH

421

The Non-Conceptual Dimension. of Faith Confessions
If the believer does contact God through faith confessionsand this has been the constant affirmation of the Church-it
must be because there is a non-conceptual dimension of faith
knowledge, noetic in kind, and giving objective value to faith
concepts precisely because it transcends them. This nonconceptual dimension transcending the limitedness of human
concepts is grounded not in the volitional dynamism of the
human spirit but in the objective dynamism of being itself. 36
This last assertion is of central import for Schillebeeckx. The
reason that the believer can truly contact God through a faith
proclamation is not founded ultimately in the subjective patterns of human consciousness. It is founded rather in the objective reality of the created world whose very existence bespeaks an inner dynamism of be-ing revelatory of God himself
as its ineffable cause. That every effect participates in some
way in its cause implies not only a chasm of dissimilarity between the created world and God but also a reflection of the
God who is its maker. It is precisely this mysterious similitude
in creation reflecting its creator which Schillebeeckx identifies
as the natural foundation for the objective value of faith confessions in mediating contact with the living God.
The transcendental perfections like goodness and beauty to
which the human mind attains from experiencing the created
world are experienced only in the limited ways inherent in creaturely existence. Yet the fact that they can be conceived of as
concepts with unlimited content indicates that something more
is implied in the knowledge of them than the conceptual content alone contains. It is this " something more" which delivers to the believer the natural foundation for an objective,
non-conceptual, yet truly noetic perspective onto the mystery.87 Already naturally open to what is transcendent reality,
36 Ibid., pp. 161, 162.
a1 Ibid., p. 167.

MARY ANN FATULA; O.P.

these concepts are given through grace a new" matrix" or perspective which is the specifically non-conceptual dimension of
faith. Faith's experiential awareness thus is founded upon a
mysterious similitude of creation to its Creator-a similitude
which cannot be conceptually grasped but which is known in
an experientially noetic way. By virtue of the new and further
non-conceptual perspective opened up by grace, faith confessions deliver to the believer a knowledge which transcends the
limited content of the concepts employed. 38
What is the power enabling the believer to know more than
what is contained in the concepts of the faith confession? It is
not the natural power of the intellect but a graced formal principle of knowing which Aquinas calls " the light of faith." For
Schillebeeckx, this insight of Aquinas is central. Without the
" inner word " of faith, the graced inner inclination to believe
and to accept the gift offered, the outer preached word has. of
itself no power for conversion. The inner attraction to believe
which Aquinas termed the instinctus fidei effects a conscious
but not reflectively known experience within the believer. The
content of this experience is not God as he is in himself, but the
believer's own human existence being moved and drawn by
what, upon reflection, can be named only as " grace." 39
The instinctus fidei is the grace of a new "light " which illumines the believer's mind to experience noetically more than
can be conveyed through the conceptual contents of a faith
statement. 40 Since the lumen fidei is a graced formal principle
of knowing, it must of necessity be " informed " by the explicit
word. 41 It is the conceptual content of the faith confession
which informs or determines the lumen fidei. The lumen. fidei
in tum is an inner instinctus or sensus, non-thematic and experientially lost in the believer's consciousness, which enables
3BJbid., pp. 167, 170.
Non-Conceptual Intellectual Element," pp. 72, 74.
40 Schillebeeckx, "The Development. of the Apostolic Faith into the Dogma
of the Church," in Revelation and Theology I, p. 75.
41" The Non-Conceptual Intellectual
Element," p. 57.
39 "The

DOGMATIC PLURALISM AND THE UNITY OF FAITH

423

him or her to judge and discern the truth of the preached
word. 42
An important contribution of Schillebeeckx to the discussion
is to identify the lumen fidei as the created graced principle of
unity of faith as it develops in its explicitly conceptual content. He terms the light of faith " the fundamental principle
of orientation " in the development of faith into explicit concepts.43 Ultimately, however, it is the person of the Holy Spirit,
subsistent love uniting Father and Son, who, working through
the created grace of the lumen fidei in the believer, is the " living principle" of unity of faith. 41

The Noetic Level of Unity of Faith: Conceptual and
Non-Conceptual
What, then, is the objective validity of faith confessions?
The created concepts used do not of themselves contact the
living God. But included within the matrix of the non-conceptual awareness opened by faith, these concepts provide the
" direction " in which God is to be found, even though " we
cannot positively situate him more accurately within this definnite, noetically referential perspective." 45 It is not the conceptual content itself of the faith confession which is the noetic
contact of the believer with God. 46 Rather, the concepts objectively refer and direct the believer to God within. the perspective opened up by faith's non-conceptual awareness. It is
this latter implicit, unexpressed, and in fact inexpressible
awareness which allows the believer to contact God. The objective value of faith knowledge and ecclesial confessions is
42 "The

Development J:>f the ApO?!tolic Faith," p. 76.

43 Ibid.,

p. 83.

44 Ibid.,

pp. 76-77.
Non-Conceptual Intellectual Dimension," p. 175. William J. Hill,
O.P., presents a masterful explication of precisely this central insight on the
nature of conceptual knowledge of God in I(nowing the Unknown God (New
York: Philosophical Library, 1971·). See also his study, "Two Gods of Love:
Aquinas and Whitehead," Listening 14 ( 1979) : 249-264.
46 Schillebeeckx, " The Non-Conceptual Intellectual Dimension,"· p. 172. ·
45 "The

424

MARY ANN FATULA, O.P.

thus found in their character of being a " projective act in
which we reach out towards God via the conceptual contents."
Included within the non-conceptual awareness of faith, the
concepts employed by faith " impart a direction and meaning
to the transcending beyond the concepts to reality." 47
By thus distinguishing between the finite conceptual content
of faith knowledge and the non-conceptual noetic awareness to
which faith opens these concepts as the matrix or perspective
in which they are understood in a new way, Schillebeeckx lays
the foundation for his concluding thesis. The act of the knowledge of faith and of faith confessions is an act of " intending
God " which exceeds the signification or conceptual content of
the formulas employed. What is intended by the ecclesial faith
confession transcends the conceptual meaning of the words.
This excessus of the intending act does not render the conceptual content of the confession objectively without value.
Rather, it is through the conceptual content that the reality of
God is indeed intended:
The act of signifying goes further than the ratio nominis [the
conceptual content] but it exceeds this ratio in the direction indicated by its content itself, in such a way that the reality is really
envisaged but not conceptually grasped. 48

That the act of signifying God can transcend the conceptual
content of the words used is founded in creation's act of be-ing
which in a mysterious yet objective way is an inner dynamism
revelatory of and tending toward God. For it is God who, as
lpsum Esse Subsistens, is Be-ing itself and the cause of creation's participated be-ing.49
Schillebeeckx draws attention to the fact that, for Aquinas,
the " signification " of the faith confession is its conceptual
content. 50 But the act of "signifying" exceeds the "signification" of the words. A faith confession does not" apply" the
The Concept of ' Truth,' " p. 20.
Non-Conceptual Intellectual Dii:nension,'' p. 171.
49 Ibid., p. 177.
so Ibid., pp. 170, 171.
47 "

48 "The

DOGMATIC PLURALISM AND THE UNITY OF FAITH

425

conceptual content to God, " but in the direct line of this and
no other conceptual content, the divine reality is truly intended." 51 The objective value of ecclesial faith confessions
thus lies in their nature as an " intending act." 52 Through the
" objectively referential value " of their conceptual content,
faith confessions both " intend " God and " tend to " God: intendere Deum et tendere in Deum. 53 Thus both the mystery
of God and the limited though objectively noetic value of
ecclesial faith confessions are guarded. Through the latter the
believer does not contain yet truly contacts the inexhaustible
mystery of God. 54
The value of Schillebeeckx's thesis hinges on whether faith
in fact does involve a non-conceptual dimension which is properly noetic in kind. While the very nature of the thesis precludes a definitive and exclusively logical demonstration of its
validity, support for its truth can be found in the writings of
both medieval and modern theologians and mystics. Schillebeeckx's position is an explication of the insights of Aquinas on
the instinctus fidei, the non-conceptual dimension of the act of
faith. Aquinas is clear in identifying also a non-conceptual
noesis which accompanies the habit of faith. For Aquinas,
" to know, " precisely as an act of the intellect rather than the
will, is to "judge with certitude" (Summa ThJeologiae II-II,
9, 1). In God, knowing is sure judgment of truth not through
the process of conceptual reasoning, but through simple intuition (II-II, 9, 1, ad 1). In believers, created participation in
this sure judgment is through the gift of wisdom, given with
faith to all the baptized (II-II, 9, 2). Wisdom knows the divine realities not through concepts but through a union, with
them (II-II, 9, 2, ad 1). The cause of wisdom is the charity
residing properly in the will, but the essence of wisdom is in the
intellect, whose proper act is right judgment. Thus the gift of
51 "What

Is Theology?" p. 124.
pp. 123, 124, 125.
ss Ibid., p. 124; "The Non-Conceptua,l Intellectual Dimension," p. 177.
54 "What Is Theology?" p. 125.
52 Ibi4.,

4Q6

MARY' ANN FATULA, O.P.

wisdom involves a true knowing which is the result not of conceptual reasoning but of a " connaturality " caused by the
union of charity (II-II, 45, 2; II-II, 45, 4) . The contemporary
mystical theologian William Johnston has argued that William
James's study in Varieties of Religious Experience concludes to
the existence of this kind of intellectual knowing beyond concepts, and that the experience itself of contemplation confirms
Aquinas's insight. 55 The preceding offers a beginning indication that Schillebeeckx's thesis articulates a reality to which
faith experience can testify.
IMPLICATIONS
If Schillebeeckx's argument on the nature of conceptual and
non-conceptual faith noesis illumines the reality of faith knowing, as I believe it does, his insights suggest the following summary theses:
1) The human faculties of knowing and loving are meant to
be fulfilled by a union with God that is not only volitional but
noetic in kind. This latter noetic union begins on earth
through faith. 2) Unity of faith thus comprises not only the
volitional level of love of God and one another but also a specifically noetic level 3) The noetic dimension of unity of faith
is both conceptual and non-conceptual in kind. 4) The nonconceptual, experiential level of faith's knowing, given by the
Holy Spirit through the supernatural grace of the light of
faith, is the graced perspective which provides the " matrix "
in which the created concepts used in faith confessions are understood in an entirely new way. It is the graced non-conceptual knowledge of faith which allows the believer not only to
know-in a limited way-but also truly to contact and be
united to the God whose oneness, for example, is not that of
an isolated monad, but the unity of a God who is irreducibly
Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. 5) This non-conceptual, noetic
55 See, for example, William Johnston, S,J., The EJtiZi Point (New York:
Fordham University Press, 1970), pp. 126, 135,

DOGMATIC PLURALISM

AND THE UNITY OF FAITH

perspective constitutes a faith confession as an "intending
act" containing more than the conceptual content of the confession. This excessus of the intending act which is a faith
confession is able to be perceived through the grace of the light
of faith, and is founded in nature on the dynamism of be-ing
which, as created, bears a true but inexpressible similitude to
its Creator. 6) The created conceptual content of a faith confession, while it does not of itself unite the believer noetically
to God, nevertheless is indispensable for this union. Within
the non-conceptual noetic perspective opened by faith and
through which the believer truly contacts God, the conceptual
content delivers to the believer the objective reference or direction in which God is to be found.
What implications of practical import for continued ecumenical discussion can be drawn from these theses? In the
context of these insights, it is perhaps helpful to distinguish at
least four kinds of knowledge involved in a faith confession:
a) Possible non-conceptual content which is symbolic and
imaginative in kind. b) Properly conceptual content which objectively directs, refers, and points the believer to the reality
confessed. c) Knowledge which comes from and is praxis, or
what Chirico has termed the lived expression of the implications of a faith confession in one's attitudes, feelings, thoughts,
and actions. d) The non-conceptual experiential knowledge
caused by the light of faith, and which not only gives the believer access to but truly unites him or her to the reality objectively pointed to by the conceptual content.
Adoption of appropriate terminology to designate each of
these four kinds of knowing is matter for continued discussion.
But in view of the frequency with which terms like " intent,"
" significance," " signification," and " meaning " have been
used interchangeably to denote each, any, or all of these kinds
of knowledge, I would suggest the following terminology to
denote respectively the four kinds of faith knowing outlined
above: a) symbolic or imaginative content; b) conceptual content; c) lived significance; d) dogmatic intent. This last kind

428

MAltY ANN FATULA, O.P.

of faith knowing I have termed" dogmatic intent" rather than
" dogmatic meaning " in order to draw attention to the distinction between the faith knowledge which is properly conceptual and that which is noetic yet non-conceptual-the
graced awareness which unites the believer to God. Because
the word "meaning" can have a wide range of referents in
this context, the choice has been made here to adopt terminology which attempts to convey in a clear way the distinctions
involved in the kinds of faith knowing. This author's preference is to reserve the term " dogmatic meaning " for the properly conceptual content of a dogma.
Dei Filius speaks of a lasting sensus at the heart of every
dogmatic formulation; Dulles and others have distinguished
between the perduring intention of a dogmatic formula and the
historically conditioned ways of expressing it. This study suggests that what perdures in a dogmatic formulation is what
properly and formally constitutes unity of faith in its noetic
dimension. It further suggests that the graced non-conceptual
faith knowledge which Schillebeeckx's study has illumined, and
which we have termed "dogmatic intent," is precisely that
locus. It is this graced non-conceptual knowing which, formally and properly speaking, noetically unites the believer to God.
This study suggests, then, that what constitutes the noetic level
of unity of faith, formally and properly speaking, is the nonconceptual knowing caused by the Holy Spirit through the
light of faith.
To say this is not to suggest that the noetic level of unity
of faith is constituted by this kind of knowing alone. Two pitfalls are to be avoided. On the one hand, the noetic dimension
of unity of faith is not to be reduced to agreement on the conceptual level alone (agreement which in some cases would be
impossible to achieve; for example, over a thousand years of
East-West dialogue witness to the conceptual irreconcilability
of the Orthodox " the Spirit proceeds from the F'ather alone,"
and the Western filwque) . On the other hand, while the noetic
dimension of unity of faith is situated most formally and prop-

DOGMATIC PLURALISM AND THE UNITY OF FAlTH

erly speaking at the level of faith's non-conceptual noetic union
with God, it must of necessity embrace some fundamental level
of shared conceptual content as well. The recognition by Vatican II of a hierarchy of beliefs allows one to distinguish between what might be called "fundamental" and "derived"
faith confessions or dogmas:
Unity of faith requires the Church's ability to confess together in
a common vocabulary at least the most fundamental expressions of
its belief in the reality of the God to whom it clings in faith-for
example, that this God is one, and is truly and distinctly Father,
Son and Spirit .... Within this unity of faith there can be a diversity of ways to understand and articulate derived mysteries, for
example, how Father, Son and Spirit are distinct. 56

The distinction I make here between " fundamental " and
" derived " dogmas is not simply that between " dogma " and
" theological conclusions derived from dogma," where theological pluralism always has abounded. As I have stressed in the
first part of this article, dogmas differ from theological conclusions precisely in the former's authoritative status: in their
being articulated in an ecclesial creed, and confessed precisely
as dogma by their respective churches. " Fundamental "
dogmas are those few theological articulations at the very heart
of the Christian mystery to which it would be necessary for
churches to assent in a common language and common, faith
confession, thus, for example, that there is one God, not three,
and tha.t this one God is truly and distinctly Father, Son, and
Spirit. What I term " derived " dogmas are theological conclusions derived from these fundamental confessions which are
themselves recognized precisely as dogma in their respective
communions.
An example ilJustrative of these points is the Western
filioque and the Orthodox dogma of the Spirit's procession from
the Father alone. The two formulas are recognized as dogma
56 Mary Ann Fatula, O.P., " The Council of Florence and Pluralism
Dogma," One in Christ 19 ( 1983) : 16.

in

430

MARY ANN FATULA, O.P.

in their respective communions. 57 Years and even centuries of
dialogue have proved the formulations to be conceptually irreconcilable. The formulas embody divergent Eastern and Western conceptual frameworks and theological insights on hmv the
Father, Son, and Spirit are hypostatically distinct. Yet each
formula is rooted in the deeper and common affirmation of the
truth that the Father, Son, and Spirit are hypostatically distinct. Most importantly, both formulas bear fruit in their respective communions in worship of the one God who is Father,
Son and Spirit. 58
Unity of faith thus could be compatible with a conceptual
irreconcilability of formulation in some instances. The following criteria, which I have suggested elsewhere, allow for a
legitimate dogmatic pluralism guarding unity of faith on both
noetic levels suggested by Schillebeeckx:
(a) The formulations in question are recognized in their respective ecclesial communions as bearing an authority for the community that is not simply that of theological opinion but of dogmatic confession; (b) These diverse formulations are not simply
57 On the Orthodox recognition of the Photian formula as dogma, see, for
example, Serge Verkhovsky, "La Procession du Saint-Esprit d'apres la
triadologie orthodoxe," R·ussie et chretiente 4 ( 1950), p. 204. On the Roman
Catholic recognition of the filioque as dogma, defined at the Councils of IV
Lateran (1215), II Lyons (1274), and Ferrara-Florence (1438-39), see, for
example, G. de Margerie, La Trinite chretiervne dans l'histoire (Paris: Beauchesne, 1975), p. 230. There are, however, exceptions to this conviction that
each formula is held as dogma in its respective church. See, for example, VBolotov, "Theses sur le filioque,' " Istina 17 ( 1972), p. 282; P. Henry, S.J.,
"Contre le 'Filioque,'" Irenikon 48 (1975), 170-177.
58 The Orthodox theologian Vladimir Lossk;y argued that the divergency
between the eastern and western formulas on the Spirit's procession has not
resulted in the same orthopraxis in East and West, and that the filioque is
responsible for an ecclesiastical structure and spirituality in the West practically devoid of the Spirit. See, for example, his works The Mystical
Theology of the Eastern Church (Crestwood, NY: St. Vladimir's Seminary
Press, 1976) and In the Image and Likeness of God (St. Vladimir's Seminary
Press, 1974). While it is certainly true that western ecclesiastical structure
and spirituality need more awareness of the Spirit, it can be argued justifiably
that the West has not been as untouched by the Spirit as Lossky seemed to
think.

DOGMATIC PLURALISM AND THE UNITY OF FAITH

431

verbally different expressions for one equivalent meaning but are
truly and irreducibly distinct; (c) the diverse formulations are
rooted in and give concrete ·expressionto a more fundamental faith
confession to which both traditions can and do assent; (d) The
diverse formulations both bear fruit within their respective communions in the same orthopraxis and worship of the triune God.59
The above criteria relate to the different kinds of knowing
implied in adhering to a specific dogmatic formula. When
churches seeking union face an impasse posed by dogmatic
formulations proving irreconcilable on a conceptual level, examination of the formulations in light of the kinds of faith
knowing implied could be a helpful step in reaching accord.
This study suggests that unity of faith is situated most properly on the level of faith's non-conceptual yet truly noetic contact with the living God, that is, on the level we have termed
"dogmatic intent." In addition, unity of faith must comprise
a fundamental level of conceptual content that is held in common. Here the churches seeking union will need docility to the
Holy Spirit in discerning what truly are sine qua non formulations expressing their communion's most basic beliefs and what
are derived dogmas which, though perhaps irreconcilable on a
conceptual level, are rooted in and give concrete expression to
a more basic faith confession to which both traditions can
assent. Further, churches involved in such dialogue will need
to discern whether, in any symbolic or imaginative language
employed in diverse formulations, there is a deeper and common level of meaning implied to which both traditions can
assent. Finally, there is need for adverting together to the fact
that in many instances formulations which are conceptually
diverse still bear fruit in their respective communions in the
same worship and orthopraxis.
CONCLUSION
The possibility of recognizing legitimate dogmatic pluralism
as one contemporary approach to ecclesial unity gives rise to
Fatula, " The Counoil of

p. 16.

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MARY ANN FATULA, O.P.

the need to clarify the nature both of dogmatic pluralism and
of the noetic dimension of unity of faith. Schillebeeckx's insights on the nature and proper function of two kinds of knowing invlved in professing a dogmatic formula-conceptual and
non-conceptual-provide
a theoretical fundament for the following clarifications: The locus of unity of faith in its noetic
dimension, formally and properly speaking, is the graced nonconceptual knowing caused by the Holy Spirit through the
light of faith and uniting the believer noetically to God. This
non-conceptual knowing we have termed the " dogmatic intent" of a formula. This latter perspective constitutes a dogmatic confession as an " intending act " containing more than
its conceptual content. Within this graced perspective, the indispensable function of conceptual content is to refer and direct the believer objectively to the mystery of God. Finally,
distinguishing among various kinds of conceptual and non-conceptual knowing implied in adhering to a dogmatic formulation provides the basis for articulating criteria for a dogmatic
pluralism which guards unity of faith on both noetic levels
illumined by Schillebeeckx.
MARY ANN FATULA,

Ohio Dominican College
Columbus, Ohio

O.P.

THEOLOGY AND NATURAL SCIENCE:
BEYOND THE TRUCE?

A

A REVIEW DISCUSSION *

UMBER OF BOOKS and conferences in recent years
have given expression to a growing dissatisfaction
with " the uneasy truce between science and theology "--John Habgood's label for the state of affairs that obtains if we accept the popular thesis that, if properly understood, theology and natural science can have no bearing on one
another, so conflict cannot arise. 1 In the present political situation, in this country at least, that thesis has its appeal. Nonetheless, in a world in which natural science and technology
affect life and thought so pervasively, generating moral problems and dangers and (a point less often stressed in this context) turning situations we previously could do nothing about
into potentially tractable problems, many are convinced that
the truce isn't good enough.
Among recent manifestations of this conviction are an international symposium of theologians, philosophers, and scientists, held at Oxford in 1979 and now published as The Sci* A. R. Peacocke, ed., The Sciences and Theology in the Twentieth OenturyJ
(Notre Dame: University of Notre Dame Press, 1981). Thomas F. Torrance, Ohristia1i Theolog11 and Scientific Oulture (New York: Oxford University Press, 1981). Harold P. Nebelsick, Theolog11 and Science in Mutual
Modifiqation (New York: Oxford University Press, 1981). I was also invited to review W. A. Whitehouse, Oreation, Science and Theolog11: Essays
in Response to Karl Barth (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1981). The subtitle
better reflects its contents than does the main title. Of this collection of
essays and sermons by the Congregational theologian, mostly written between 1945 and 1970, only two deal to any great extent with science. Several
are expositions of Barth for British readers; the rest address a wide range of
topics, sensitively and thoughtfully.
1 John S. Habgood, " The Uneasy Truce between Science and Theology," in
A. R. Vidler, ed., Soundings (Cambridge: at the University Press, 1962),
pp. 21-41.

433

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WILLIAM H. AUSTIN

enoes and Theology in the Twentieth Century; and a series of
volumes published under the sponsorship of the Templeton
Foundation and the general editorship of T. F. Torrance, of
which the first two are Christian Theology and Scientific Culture (by Torrance) and Theology· and Science in Mutual
Modification (by Harold Nebelsick). I will be reflecting on
these books in this essay.
It may be helpful if I briefly indicate the perspective within
which I am writing. I write as a philosopher of, roughly speaking, the "analytic" persuasion (and of the subspecies oriented
toward logic and the philosophy of science), who once studied
theology (in a liberal Protestant setting) but is no theologian.
What is offered here, thus, is a not-completely-uninformed outsider's view of the discussion.
On an overall view of the books under consideration, three
general features stand out. The first is that the theology that
appears in these volumes is virtually exclusively the theology
of the Western religious traditions. John Bowker, as befits one
who teaches in Ninian Smart's department at Lancaster, mentions the importance of considering Eastern thought, and one
or two other contributors to the Oxford symposium allude to
it, but none pursue the matter. This may seem quite unremarkable. The problem of the relation between science and
theology, and the problem of the relations among religious traditions, are usually thought of as far removed from one another, and seldom do both capture the sustained attention of
one theologian. One can't talk about everything at once, even
in theology. But we will find that the plurality of religious
traditions turns out to be pertinent at more than one point in
our discussion.
The second striking feature is the wide diversity of views of
what " theology " is that informs the contributions of the various authors. Torrance and Nebelsick, along with several of the
Oxford symposiasts, have confessional theology in mind. But
some, notably the physicist Richard Schlegel, take " theology "
more broadly, to include the work of people like Whitehead

THEOLOGY AND NATURAL SCIENCE

435

and Hartshorne. And the confessional theologians differ notably among themselves in their conceptions of their task-in
particular, in their ways of understanding revelation and
dogma and how the.ir work is to be controlled thereby. This
too is no astonishing thing. Nor is it any great novelty to suggest that the nature of the dialogue that can take place between scientists and theologians will be greatly affected by the
extent to which, and ways in which, the theologians are constrained by requirements of faithfulness to dogma. But it seems
to me that this is one of those points that, just because they are
so familiar and obvious, tend to be insufficiently considered.
The third feature is that, among the authors who deal with
the substance of natural science, all concentrate almost exclusively on physics-extended in one direction as far as biochemistry, and in another to comprise astronomical cosmology.
Evolutionary biology, the focus of popular concern and controversy, gets virtually no attention. (The one author who attends to it, Philip Hefner, is concerned primarily with putative
moral implications, as in E. 0. Wilson's sociobiology, and devotes most of his paper to a survey of positions people have
taken or might take on the is/ought relation, urging that there
are questions here that can't be settled by murmuring " naturalistic fallacy.") I do not know the reasons for the neglect of
evolutionary theory. Perhaps it is just an accident of the personal interests of this particular combination of authors, but I
suspect there is more to it than that. Perhaps it is connected
with a reaction against anthropocentrism in theology, noticeable in several of our authors, most especially Torrance. Or it
may reflect an emerging consensus among theologians, and
natural scientists interested in theology, that reductionism is
the real issue, and evolutionary biology doesn't affect the
fundamentals of that issue, merely filling in an apparent gap.
One more hypothesis is suggested by an impressionistic generalization which I will now risk: in recent years physical scientists, when interested in theology at all, have been much
more likely than biologists to be sympathetic to traditional

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WILLIAM H. AUSTIN

religious beliefs; the biologists (Wilson, Jacques Monod,
Francis Crick, earlier Julian Huxley) have been more likely to
attack them and propose radical alternatives. It may be that
theologians, tired of being on the defensive (tired too perhaps
of Teilhard de Chardin?) have sought discussion rather than
controversy and preferred the conversational company of
physicists. In any case, I do not think that discussions between scientists and theologians can bypass evolutionary biology and continue to he fruitful.
In his introduction to the Oxford symposium volume, A. R.
Peacocke lays out a convenient typology of familiar views concerning the relation of natural science and theology resulting
from various combinations of views as to the nature and aims
of each. He then suggests that the typology is probably inadequate, because it leaves out a third dimension: critique of
both science and theology by practitioners of the sociology of
knowledge. He suggests further that it is too soon to tell how
valuable the sociologists' analyses will turn out to be, but it
"is already clear that the sociological critique, however unpalatable to both scientists and theologians, can only be
ignored at the peril of irrelevance of the whole exercise." 2
One of the most interesting divisions among the symposium
papers is between those that take this suggestion very seriously indeed and those that ignore it.
In the papers by those who take sociology seriously, two
rather different lessons are drawn. One is developed most fully
and systematically by Martin Rudwick, an historian of science
with a primary interest in geology and paleobiology. We have
long been familiar, he notes, with sociologists' and anthropologists' accounts of the social origins and functions of religious
beliefs and institutions. Traditionally, however, sociologists
have shied away from attempting similar explanations of natural science. More exactly, correct scientific beliefs have bee.n
exempted from such treatment; their correctness has been
z Peacocke (cited in note 2), p. xv.

THEOLOGY AND NATURAL SCIENCE

437

thought to provide sufficient explanation of their being held;
sociology comes in only when the acceptance of scientific errors
is the explanandum. Recently this procedure has been challenged by proponents of the " strong programme in the sociology of science," the leading theoreticians of which are Barry
Barnes and David Bloor of Edinburgh. According to the
strong programme, the acceptance of beliefs we regard as correct is to be explained in just the same way as those we regard as erroneous; social-functional explanations are equally to
be sought in both cases.
The significance of all this for science/religion debates is that
before the advent of the strong programme a kind of priority
or favored status was accorded to accepted scientific theories.
This situation served well the cause of what Rudwick calls
" scientific triumphalism " in its treatment of past and present
science/religion controversies. (He takes Jacob Bronowski as
his main example of a scientific triumphalist, but no doubt he
would be willing to add Wilson.) Under the strong programme,
science and religion are in the same boat; neither is entitled to
favored status.
Rudwick goes on to argue that sociologists and historians
working within the strong programme have overshot the mark
by trying to make social causes the only relevant explanatory
factors. They need to broaden their methods to include the
psychology of individuals and (crucially) the impingement of
objective reality among the determinants of theory-acceptance
and fact-acceptance in science. (In the usage of the strong
programmers, " knowledge " is defined not as philosophers
would have it, as "justified true belief" or some variant on
that formula, but simply as generally accepted belief; likewise
with " 'fact.") Rudwick does not try to sort out the relations
among the explanatory factors he advocates: he contents himself with insisting that objective reality should be counted
among the determinants of belief. Then-the last step-he
argues that since the presumption of special status for science
has been destroyed, consistency requires that we give the same

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WILLIAM H. AUSTIN

sympathetic consideration to the religious believer's claim that
the impingement of objective reality is among the determinants
of his or her beliefs as we do to the scientist's comparable
claim.
Many questions arise, which I cannot go into here. 8 I will
note only that this is one of the points where the diversity of
religious traditions becomes relevant. Scientists, from all sorts
of cultural backgrounds, are able to reach an impressive measure of agreement, and surely we must attribute this fact in
very large part to the uniform impingement upon them of what
is really out there. Believers of different religious traditions
reach little agre,ement. It seems then that (to put the point
quickly and crudely) we must either assume that Christians
and Buddhists are responding to quite different objective
realities, or look to social, cultural, and psychological factors
to explain their differences.
Mary Hesse, one of the foremost contemporary philosophers
of science, draws more radical conclusions than Rudwick's. In
her Retrospect of the symposium she stresses the importance,
not only of sociological but also of recent epistemological
critiques of the scientific and theological enterprises. Scientific
theories, especially on their ontological side, are radically underdetermined by data. They achieve a certain cumulativeness
and permanence of technical and instrumental results, but
their ontologies are (a) to a large extent functions of social
factors and (b) subject to revolutions. One conclusion Hesse
draws is that theologians should not worry much about whether
what they say about nature is in harmony or apparent cona I discuss some of them, in the context of a general discussion of the questions whether and when explanations of how beliefs came to be held would
have any bearing on their rational credibility, in "Rational Credibility and
Causal Explanation of Beliefs," forthcoming (in English) in the Neue Zeitschrift fur 8ystematische Theologie tind Religionsphilosophie.
Related matters are treated, with special attention to E. 0. Wilson, in my essay "Evolutionary Explanations of Religion and Morality: Explaining Religion Away?",
to appear in Evolution and Creation, ed. Ernan McMullin (University of
Notre Dame Press) .

THEOLOGY AND NATURAL SCIENCE

439

flict with what the scientists say. For one thing, it isn't clear
that they are concerned with the same aspects or features of
nature; for another thing, by the time theologians have harmonized their doctrines with the scientists', the scientists' are
likely to have changed.
Clearly, Hesse's line of thought could easily be developed
into an argument for reinstating the mutual-irrelevance thesis,
founded on instrumentalistic interpretations of both science
and theology. 4 But she does not take quite that line. She suggests, rather, that both theology and theoretical science should
be radically reinterpreted along Durkheimian lines as systems
of social symbolism. It is on that ground, rather than common
subject matter or method, that their relations should be
thought out. We cannot say now what the outcome is likely
to be, since the task of reinterpretation is one " in which, for
our culture, almost all remains to be done." 5 (She says this
specifically of theology, but presumably would say the same of
science.)
Not everyone would agree, of course, that the epistemological and sociological critiques force such drastic measures upon
us. Certainly many philosophers of science would join Ernan
McMullin in urging that scientific theories are better grounded
objectively than Hesse allows. Instead of trying to encapsulate
the current discussion of the status of scientific theories, I will
simply raise a problem or two about the proposed reinterpretation of scientific theories. Hesse suggests that we explore
" the positive symbolic function of science in expressing the
cosmology of a culture." 6 In the context it is clear that by
" cosmology " she means a view of the physical world as it
bears on people's hopes and aspirations, not a disinterested
measure of agreement with the thesis of
4 Hesse expresses a considerable
Rubem Alves of Brazil (the only third-world speaker) that science belongs
to the realm of contemplation, religion to that of action. According to Alves,
one should ask of religious doctrines, not whether they are true, but whether
they promote life and
of happiness.
.
5 Peacocke, p. 293.
6 Jbid., p. 291.

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WILLIAM H. AUSTIN

theoretical enterprise. But then what are all the experiments
and equations for? A really determined advocate of the scienceas-ideology (or science-in-the-service-of-ideology) thesis might
reply that they serve to provide an illusion of objective support, but that claim has yet to be convincingly supported. I
want to suggest (a) that theoretical science is probably not a
very good source for the kind of social symbolism Hesse has in
mind, and (b) that to the extent that it is a good source, it is
potentially universal-there is no reason to confine it to " a
culture." As to the former point: many physicists would insist
that you cannot really understand their theories without understanding the mathematics of their formulation and the experiments that support them. If that is so-and I admit
that physicists differ among themselves as to the extent
to which their subject can be popularized-then physical science is too esoteric to be a source of social symbolism (and
getting more esoteric all the time, in the realm of elementary
particle physics). As to point (b): since physics is now an
international, trans-cultural enterprise, such symbolism as it
can provide would seem to be available to all, not limited to
any one culture. Here there is a contrast with theology as a
source of social symbolism. While it is true that the major
religious traditions have in varying degrees transcended their
cultural origins, it is also true that none has any foreseeable
prospect of universal acceptance.
Participants were invited to respond to Hesse's Retrospect,
and two theologians, Torrance and Wolfhart Pannenberg, replied sharply (in Pannenberg's case, with overt anger). Pannenberg firmly declines Hesse's proposal for reinterpretation:
" Theologians can hardly be content with looking upon the
Christian tradition as a symbolic expression of something else
than God and his revelation." 7 The point that theological language is culturally conditioned he finds old hat: we theologians
have been aware of. that for a long time. One could reply that
T

Ibid., p. 298.

THl<JOLOGY AND NATURAL SCIENCE

441

longstanding awareness of a problem is not the same thing as a
solution. When people have lived with a problem for a long
time, it is likely to lose its psychological urgency, but may be
as urgently pressing as ever from a logical or epistemological
point of view. I am also a little uneasy about Pannenberg's
formulating the point as a matter of the conditionedness of
religious language. Theologians (so it seems to me) sometimes
grant cheerfully that the language they use is provided by the
ambient culture, and conditioned by it, while insisting that the
substance of what they say in faithful articulation of divine
revelation is unaffected. However, I hasten to add that I am
in no position to say whether somewhere in the vast theological
literature of our time, the problem has been dealt with
adequately.
In any case, in the volumes under review both Pannenberg
and Torrance seem to take talking about" God and his revelation" as a basically straightforward and unproblematic matter.8 Pannenberg is confident enough to pose a series of tough
questions to the scientists, concerning points at which their
ways of describing nature seem incompatible with fundamental
biblical affirmations about God's relation to nature, questions
which he thinks will have to be answered satisfactorily before
any profitable dialogue can take place. The rationale behind
the questions is this: "1£ the God of the Bible is creator of the
universe, then it is not possible to understand fully or even appropriately the processes of nature without any reference to
that God." 9 1£ this means that science, to be good science,
must include God among its explanatory factors, it is as bold
a claim as we have heard in some time. Whether that is actually what Pannenberg means to assert is not entirely clear.
On the one hand, he titles his paper " Theological Questions to
s In his hefty Theology and the Philosophy of Science (Philadelphia:
Westminster, 1976) Pannenberg indicates that doing theology today is a complex and delicate business, but he does not seem to have serious doubts about
the viability of the enterprise.
9 Peacocke, p. 4. Italics mine.

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"WILLlAM H. AUSTIN

Scientists." On the other hand, he recognizes that scientists
abstract mathematically-formulable regularities from the concrete processes of nature, and God need not figure in these
formulations. He goes on to suggest that discussion should
take place not "on the level of scientific description itself, but
first on the level of philosophical reflections on the work of
science. . . . It is on this level, then, that theologians should
address their questions to scientists since God the creator and
the nature of things as creatures belong to those aspects of
reality that are abstracted from in the mathematical language
of science." A familiar move at this point would be to say that
the abstractions are the business of science proper, and the
aspects of nature that scientists abstract from are the province
of metaphysicians. One would then suggest that Pannenberg's
questions should be addressed to scientifically-informed metaphysicians of nature.
But Pannenberg seems not to want to take this line. His
language in the passage just quoted, and the ways he formulates his questions and possible answers to them, suggest both
that he regards metaphysical reflection as part of the scientist's task, and that answers to his questions would involve
substantive changes in or additions to the body of· scientific
theory itself. The first and " most fundamental " of his questions has to do with the principle of inertia in modern physics.
Descartes had held that the principle of inertia (and, one might
add, conservation of motion) had to be explained by the immutability of God. But post-Newtonian physicists (not Newton himself, who was intrigued by these matters all his life and
held tha.t" to discourse of [God] from the appearances of things
doth certainly belong to natural philosophy " 10 ) , took the
principle of inertia to be an inherent property of matter, thus
eliminating any need for recourse to Deity. Pannenberg asks
physicists to consider whether this assumption is necessary or
10 General

31.

Scholium to the Prinoipia.

See also the Optir;:ks, Queries 28 and

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443

desirable, suggesting that " if it depends on a combination of
contingent conditions, the phenomenon of inertia or persistence
may tacitly imply the framework of a field of force to provide
the conditions for such a phenomenon to exist." 11
Pannenberg asks further, " Is there any equivalent in
modern biology to the Biblical notion of the Divine Spirit as
origin of life that transcends the limit of the organism?" Not
as yet; but certain phenomena may require for their explanation the assumption of something like Michael Polanyi's
" ' morphogenetic field ' that comprises all the boundary conditions of individual development " and " phylogenetic field that
governs the process of evolution." 12 It seems one could summarize without excessive caricature thus: Pannenberg is suggesting that scientists add to their theoretical apparatus a
God-field and a Spirit-field to account for phenomena of inertia
and life, respectively. Then there would be points of contact
in the corpus of scientific theory with which theologians could
link up some of their key affirmations, and conversation could
begin.
Leaving aside such questions as whether "field" is too impersonal a notion to be theologically satisfactory, and whether
anyone has any idea how to extend the field concept (as opposed to the word) into biology, let us ask about the potential
scientific status of Pannenberg's fields. If they are to be merely
hypothetical models, with the sole purpose of showing how divine activity could be consistent with scientific interpretations
of natural processes, they will not be part of the content of
science proper. To be so, they would have to be developed and
tested in the standard ways. In particular, they would have to
have testable consequences beyond the phenomena they were
invoked to explain, either directly or through theoretical linkages with other hypotheses. The source of an hypothesis is not
important, and perhaps at this stage of history scientists can
u Peacocke, p. 9.
pp. llf.

, 12 Ibid.,

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WILLIAM H. AUSTIN

afford to become a little less suspicious of hypotheses originating from religious sources. (Some elementary particle physicists
are finding fruitful sources of theoretical ideas in Taoist and
Buddhist doctrines.) 18 But the jiistifiootion of an hypothesis
cannot include extra-scientific considerations. The rationale
behind this familiar thesis is not merely an abstract concern
for the integrity of science, nor yet the historical observation
that deference to religious and political requirements has impeded the progress of science in the past. There is a further
point, simple but vital. Scientists have to be able to rely on
one another's work. They have to be able, most of the time,
to use others' results without repeating in detail the experimental or theoretical investigations that produced them. They
have to be able to assume that if they had carried out the investigations, they would have reached the same results. For
this reason, controverted doctrines (such as religious and political doctrines will inevitably be in any but the most close-knit
society, and certainly in the international, cross-cultural community of scientists) cannot figure in the justification of scientific hypotheses.
I have simplified, for the sake of brevity. But clearly, if it
is a precondition for profitable dialogue between scientists and
theologians that the scientists bring their theories into line with
biblical affirmations, profitable dialogue is a long way off.
Mary Hesse read Pannenberg and Torrance as advocatng a
complete break with a tradition dominant in Protestant theology for almost two centuries: a repudiation of hermeneutics
and a return to the elaboration of a metaphysical theology of
nature. Pannenberg replied that he had no intention of
abandoning hermeneutics, and sought only to redress an im13Fritjof Capra, The Tao of Physics (New York: Bantam Books, 1977),
esp. ch. 18. Whatever one may think of this book as a whole-and I am
skeptical of his view that the Eastern traditions are all saying essentially
the same thing, and wary of his tendency to assume that formal parallels
between formulations of modern physics and Eastern doctrines reflect similarities in substance-there seems no reason to question his reportage on
this point,

THEOLOGY AND NATURAL SCIENCE

445

balance caused by the theologians' long neglect of nature. She
seems to be right a.bout Torrance, though. His symposium
paper hints at a thesis that is a major theme of his book as
well as that of his student Nebelsick. On their view, the tradition begun by Schleiermacher and at last shaken off by Barth
was completely vitiated by anthropocentric subjectivism.
They were led astray by the N ewtonians' closed deterministic
cosmology and Kant's special brand of dualism. But now
Clerk Maxwell and Einstein have liberated us from the Newtonian cosmos, and we can return to the task of articulating
God's self-revelation, which has taken place within the spatiotemporal framework of nature, not in human subjective consciousness. Thus it is appropriate for theologians to seek
dialogue with natural scientists, not (at least not primarily,
and apparently not at all) with humanistic scholars or social
scientists.
Unlike Pannenberg, Torrance holds that "if natural science
is to be rigorously faithful to the nature of the universe, it
must bracket off the universe from relation to God and develop autonomous modes of investigation appropriate to the independent reality of the universe " to disclose the contingent
rational order which the Creator has granted it. Nonetheless,
" theology needs dialogue with natural science to keep it properly free and open toward God, and natural science needs
dialogue with theology to keep it properly free and open toward the universe." 14
Can we be more specific about the terms and benefits of the
dialogue? Torrance pursues the matter at length, in both his
paper and his book, but I find it impossible to state his theses
and arguments. I can most economically indicate the source
of my difficulty by quoting a typical passage at some length: 15
. . . The finite universe certainly has frontiers, but they are not
frontiers at which it is turned back to be imprisoned in itself so
1.4 Peacocke,

pp. 86, 87.

1s Ibid., p. 93.

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WILLIAM H. AUSTIN

much as frontiers where it is open indefinitely to what is beyond.
Hence the finite universe cannot be what it is even as finite without being relativised by what transcends it. This may be expressed
otherwise, in a more Einsteinian way. Instead of empirical reality
being construed in terms of absolutely certain mathematical propositions clamped down upon it, which would inevitably introduce
both rigidity and infinity into physics, mathematics is to be understood from its ground in objective, empirical structures of
space-time, without distorting idealisation which would make it
irrelevant to experience. Thus it is through open mathematical
structures appropriate to its nature that the universe really discloses to us the secrets of its latent order, which is of an open,
contingent, kind with variables and spontaneities which we are
unable to constrain and confine within our abstractive, logicist
and mechanist patterns of thought. Such an integration of the empirical and the mathematical in our interpretation of the universe
allows its immanent rationalities to articulate and resonate in such
a way that they point naturally and freely beyond their finite conditions and limits without being obstructed through artificial
foreclosure ....

I think I know how Samuel Clarke felt. In the exchange of
tracts between Clarke and Leibniz over the theological implications of Newton's system, Leibniz several times refers to his
doctrine of the "beautiful pre-established harmony," and refers readers to his Theodicy for details. In his first letter, perhaps having come to suspect that Clarke hadn't read his
Theodicy, Leibniz includes some brief expositions of some of
his distinctive metaphysical theses. Clarke, in his reply, faithfully collects these passages and adds: "all this, I acknowledge,
I understand not at all." 16
The best I can do is suggest that Torrance's view of what
theologians can expect to learn from dialogue with natural scientists lies somewhere between two positions. At a minimum,
he is contending that the dialogue can help theologians purge
themselves of their subjectivist tendencies, and learn what it is
like to let one's thinking be determined wholly by the require1s H. G. Alexander, ed., The Leibniz-Olarke Correspondence (Manchester:
The University Press, 1956), p. 109.

THEOLOGY AND NATURAL SCIENCE

447

ments of articulating as faithfully as possible what objective
reality discloses of itself to us. But he clearly intends more
than that. At times he and Nehelsick seem to come to the
verge of advocating a return to natural theology in the good
old Two Books manner (though without the old stress on
apologetics) ; but they are too good Barthians to go that far.
It would seem to be in accord with the thrust of their argument to challenge the Barthian equation, natural theology
equals Kultur-Protestantismus equals Hitler and "German
Christianity," and suggest that these bad consequences will
accrue only to a natural theology oriented toward culture and
the human spirit, not to one oriented toward Objective Reality
disclosed in nature. But they do not. In any case, Barth would
doubtless have thought they were on dangerous ground already. One of the more interesting sections of Nehelsick's book
describes the postwar efforts of some German physicists to
start up a dialogue with the theologians. They succeeded for
a while, but Barth " stonewalled " his friends' efforts to bring
him in-in part, apparently, because of the theological company he would be keeping, but clearly also from deep suspicion
of anything remoteiy hinting of natural theology. (It is also
interesting that the scientists wanted it very clearly understood
that they were not to be expected to buy into any church
dogma as a precondition of discussion-as C. F. von Weizsiicker put it, " they wanted to go only so far into the church
as they could take the whole of their physics with them.") 17
The title of Nebelsick's book, Th!eology and Science in Mutual Modification, might lead one to expect an account of the
kinds of change that might emerge on both sides, as a result
of dialogue. Instead, it is an historical survey of Protestant
theology since the seventeenth century, with special attention
to the question of natural theology and the perceived relations
(or purposeful non-relation) to natural science. The "modifications" he has in mind are as follows. First, traditional
i1Nebelsick

(cited in note 2), pp. 159-166, esp. p. 165.

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WILLIAM H. AUSTIN

theology made empirical science possible, by means of its insistence that nature has a discernible rational order, being the
work of a rational Creator, but that this order is contingent and
must be empirically discovered, being freely chosen from
among an indefinite number of logical possibilities. Second,
the Newtonians and Kant led theology down the long false
trail of subjectivism. Third, Clerk Maxwell and Einstein on
the one side, and Barth on the other, have opened the way to
do theology right again, with due attention to God's self-manifestation within the natural order.
Though not nearly so good a book as John Dillenberger's
Protestant Thought and Natura.l Science,18 Nebelsick's could
usefully be set alongside it as a survey of some of the same
territory from a quite different point of view. Its usefulness in
that regard, however, is limited by an abundance of mistakes
and eyebrow-elevating dicta. A sampling: John Ray's Wisdom
of God Manifested in the Works of Creation is attributed to
Robert Boyle (p. 26) . "Aristotle's God ... , the God who
capriciously intervened in the processes of nature, was dead "
(23) . It was the pervasive influence of Plato and Aristotle
that led Ptolemy to "turn his back on" Aristarchus's heliocentric hypothesis (69f). "For Hegel as for Thomas Aquinas,
philosophy and theology were essentially the same thing "
(74).
It cannot be said t:hat the Theology and Scientific Culture
series is off to a promising start. The Oxford symposium volume, on the other hand, is an important one. Almost all the
papers repay study. I have concentrated on a few of them, to
avoid the alternatives of undue length or bittiness. I chose
for discussion those that both (a) dealt with what I take to
be the most central issues and (b) · made strong and contentious claims. As a result, I have left undiscussed some good
and interesting papers. For example, Ernan McMullin gives
an admirably clear and judicious historical (up to and inis Garden City, New York: Doubleday, 1960.

THEOLOGY AND NATURAL SCIENCE

449

eluding current controversies) survey-discussion of scientific
the ways people have argued for their relecosmologies
vance or irrelevance to theology. Richard Swinburne mounts
a careful, ingenious, sustained argument for the thesis that
claims of religious experience have as much title to be taken as
evidential as 'any other kind of perceptual claim. Nicholas
Lash probes the question of the ideological character of theology, with special attention to Marxist analyses. And more.
The great diversity of topics and approaches at the Oxford
symposium suggests that at present the agenda for any dialogue over science and theology would be a long one; there is
little consensus as to what the central topics should be. Together with a similar lack of consensus among the theologians
concerning the nature of their task, this situation lends credence to Pannenberg's conclusion, at the end of his response to
Hesse, that " a real dialogue between theology and some other
disciplines concerned with science is still in a preliminary
phase."
WILLIAM

University of Houston
Houston, Texas

H. AUSTIN

CHRISTIAN MORAL PRINCIPLES
A Review Discussion *

G

RMAIN GRISEZ'S new treatise on moral theology
when complete promises to be the most important
work in the field (at least in English) to appear since
Vatican II. The second volume is to deal with the responsibilities common to all Christians, the third with those proper
to particular Christian vocations, and the last with those which
the members of the Church as such have to one another. It
will be difficult to ignore so comprehensive a work, but there
is danger it will be misunderstood and slighted because it challenges so many received opinions which now dominate the
teaching of Christian ethics in American Catholic seminaries
and theological schools. Its tone is aggressive and its criticism
of current trends severe, so that it is likely either to provoke
angry replies or the hostile " silent treatment."
Significantly its principal author (at present Professor of
Christian Ethics at Mount Saint Mary's College, Emmitsburg,
Maryland) is not a cleric, or even by former profession a theologian, but a layman whose University of Chicago doctorate
was in philosophy. Throughout the work the examples are
chiefly drawn from his experience as a married layman and the
father of a family. While it exhibits extensive and intimate
knowledge of the classical and contemporary theological literature, its freedom from clerical and academic bias is refreshing,
* Ohristian Moral Principles (Volume 1 of The Way of the Lord Jesus,
four volumes). By GERMAIN GRISEZ with the help of JOSEPH M. BOYLE,
JR., BASIL COLE, O.P., JOHN M. FINNIS, JOHN A. GEINZER, JEANNETTE GRISEZ, ROBERT G. KENNEDY, PATRICK LEE, WILLIAM E.
MAY, and RUSSELL SHAW. Chicago: Franciscan Herald Pte$s, 1984. Pp.
xxxiii
971. $35.00.

+

450

ClIRISTIAN

MORAL PRINCIPLES

451

and its philosophical precision and rigor reassuring in view of
the vague rhetoric all too common in recent theological writing
on moral topics. Above all it is inspired by a profoundly Christian sense of the transforming power of living faith through incorporation in the Lord Jesus (Grisez's favorite way of speaking of him) and the social and ecclesial character of Christian
life.
Those who might expect that Grisez's work, because of his
well known "hard-line" works on contraception and abortion,
would simply be the old manual theology warmed over, or a
commentary on Part Two of the Summa of St. Thomas
Aquinas, will be surprised, even shocked, to find that his is a
very original theory of morals, frankly critical of the Thomistic
moral system, and even more critical of post-Tridentine moral
theology. Because I think that Grisez's new theory is important and that its importance may be obscured by its invitation to polemics, I will first discuss the positive structure of
his theory, then deal with his refutation of current errors, and,
finally, briefly state my own reservations.
The fundamental insight which inspires his whole synthesis
is Christological. Just as in Jesus the divine and human natures are united without commingling or diminution of either,
so in the Christian life our participation by grace in the divine
life in no way diminishes human self-fulfillment. Grisez believes
that the influence of Greek ethics both in its dualistic Platonic
form and in its Aristotelian body (matter) -soul (form) unity
was based on the false, elitist notion that human perfection
consists in contemplation rather than in the fulfillment of
human nature in all its needs. This led, as is evident in the
thought of St. Augustine, to an ethics in which human values
are regarded as mere means to the achievement of the beatific
vision understood as an intellectual good.
The ethics of Aquinas is free of Platonic dualism but it has
retained from Aristotle this same elitist and intellectualist concept of beatitude as contemplation, as is evident from St.
Thomas's doctrine of the natural desire for the beatific vision.

452

BENEDICT M. ASHLEY, O.P.

Grisez' s program, therefore, is to revise traditional moral theology in a way that will do full justice to the fulfillment of
human nature in its own right but in relation to our participation by grace in the divine nature through incorporation in the
Lord Jesus and his Church. Moreover, this revision must also
free moral theology from the voluntaristic legalism which has
dominated it from the late scholastics, especially Suarez (pp.
103-105), and the conception of natural law which that tradition fostered, because that legalism also makes it appear that
God maintains his sovereignty by demanding that we sacrifice
our human self-fulfillment. The so-called "new moral theology" which dissents from magisterial teaching has failed to
achieve this revision because " ... the new remains as legalistic
as the old. It provides no account in Christian terms of why
one should seek fulfillment in this life, what the specifically
Christian way of life is, and how living as a Christian in this
life is intrinsically related to fulfillment in everlasting life"
(15).
Besides dealing with these questions, a revised moral theology " should be oriented toward preaching, teaching, and
counseling, while providing an adequate basis for studies leading to the formation of confessors. Finally, it must explain the
authority of the Church's teaching" (22). Its method must be
" dialectical " rather than " scientific " (even in the Thomistic
sense of that term) . " The use of dialectical method in Catholic
theology means that, accepting the truth of Catholic faith
present in the living Church of which one is a member, one
seeks a better understanding of this truth in which one already
lives" (7; cf. 31 f.) .
After stating this program in Chapter 1 the author follows
a very different plan for moral theology from the post-Tridentine schema of Conscience, Law, the Commandments of God
and the Church; or even the Thomistic schema of the Ultimate
End and Virtues and Acts which are Means to the End. In the
:first part of his treatise, Chapters 2 to 18, Grisez deals with
the " common principles of morality " which "' Although in-

CHRISTIAN MORAL PRINCIPLES

453

eluded in the teaching of faith ... are accessible to unaided reason" (459). In great detail and with admirable precision he
treats of all the fundamental questions of meta-ethics according to a philosophical methodology: freedom, self-determination, community, character, conscience, fundamental values,
the natural law," the modes of responsibility," the virtues, and
the solution of moral dilemmas. Chapters 13 to 18 make a
transition to the second part by discussing the fallen condition
of human existence, the notion of sin and of temporal and
eternal punishment.
The originality of this first part is evident in the manner of
treating many familiar topics (e.g. Chapter 7 on natural law
and Chapter 17 on sins of weakness), but is to be found chiefly
in his argument that the fundamental principle of natural
morality can be stated as "In voluntarily acting for human
goods and avoiding what is opposed to them, one ought to
choose and otherwise will those and only those possibilities
whose willing is compatible with a will toward integral human
fulfillment" (184). Consequently, the natural end of humankind (which is not abolished by grace but subsumed without
diminution) does not consist in one supreme good such as contemplation but in the integral fulfillment of all the essential
goods of human nature. These goods are of two kinds: substantive (life and health, knowledge of truth and appreciation
of beauty, satisfaction in play and skillful performances) and
existential (harmony within the self, between conscience,
choice and behavior, between human persons, and between
human persons and God) (ml f .) . Although these values are
not equal, yet they are incommensurable because no one of
them can simply be sacrificed to another, but all must be integrally fulfilled if the perfection of the human person is to
be attained.
Between the first principle of morality and concrete norms,
however, " modes of responsibility " are required to shape the
human will to seek integral human fulfillment. Grisez uncovers
eight. such modes, which he ingeniously correlates with the

454

BENEDICT M. ASHLEY, O.P.

eight Beatitudes of the Sermon on the Mount, the Christian
virtues, and the Gifts of the Holy Spirit (627 :ff.). These are
(to summarize in my own terminology): (1) moral zeal, (2)
team spirit, (3) self-control, (4) courage, (5) fairness, (6)
moral objectivity, (7) forgiveness, (8) prudence.
In the second part of his treatise, Chapters 19 to 35, the
author deals with the moral principles proper to Christian
morality as such, thus taking issue with the view of a number
of theologians today who deny the existence of specifically
Christian moral norms and who reduce the permanent significance of the moral teaching of the Bible to parenesis, i.e. exhortation to live by the best moral standards of our time and
culture. He treats of human fulfillment through incorporation
in Jesus, of the role of faith in moral understanding, of the
covenant and redemption, of Jesus as a model of living, of our
redemption and adoption as children of God, of love as the
supreme principle of Christian life, of the " modes of Christian
response," and the practicability of making this response, of
prayer as " the fundamental category of Christian action," and
the sacraments (especially those of initiation and the Eucharist) as specifically Christian acts of cooperation in the redemptive work of Jesus, of the apostolate and personal vocation, of
asceticism and of the eschatological expectancy of Christian
life. The remarkable feature of this part is the fullness and
richness with which the material is integrated by the author's
fundamental insistence on the harmony of the human and divine in the Incarnation and in the Christian community. In
concluding this treatment he writes:
Historically, much Christian theology and piety have tended to
regard life in this world only as a means of reaching heaven. The
result has been to divide Christian life into the religious and the
secular, the supernatural and the merely natural ... Heavenly fulfillment is reduced to the beatific vision, considered as a human act
of knowledge-individualistic, incommunicable, and even unappealing to non-intellectuals ... This view leads both to false ideas
of renunciation of the world and to religious totalitarianism.
Moral norms come to be regarded as arbitrary divine decrees, with

CHRISTIAN. ·MORAL PRINCIPLES

455

heaven the reward for obedience and hell the punishment for disobedience--a view which fosters legalism, moral minimalism, resentment toward God, and, ultimately, subjectivism. (822)
In contrast with these views [other-worldliness and secular humanism], the conception of everlasting life as completion in the Lord
Jesus includes the threefold unity of Christians in Jesus: unity in
divine life, in human acts, and in bodily life. Both human fulfillment and divine fullness are essential, for Jesus includes both.
Realized human goods contribute to the perfection of everlasting
communion-a true communion of persons united with one another in Jesus. (828)

In light of so splendid a vision of Christian humanism it is
no wonder that Grisez is passionately concerned to remedy
what seems to be a widespread situation in present theological
education in the United States, namely that the published materials available for teaching moral theology are largely the
work of theologians who treat biblical norms as time-conditioned and who openly dissent from the moral teaching of the
magisterium on many points or at least interpret it in such a
way as to deny that it presents any concrete moral norms that
are not subject to situational exception. Therefore, Grisez,
while disclaiming any judgment on the good faith of persons
(xxx) , devotes much space to detailed refutations of a number
of positions which he regards as false and destructive, e.g.
legalism, determinism, and emotivism in ethics.
Chapter 6 is devoted to an exhaustive (and I believe correct)
refutation of proportionalism, which has become so influential
in our theological schools. In Chapter l'2 he attacks the misuse
of probabilism as the basis for acting on opinions dissenting
from the magisterium, pointing out that the classical notion
of probabilism never justifies such dissent and that it is inconsistent to rely on this legalistic notion in theologies that pretend to be anti-legalistic. In Chapter 16 he criticizes the notion of " fundamental option " if that term is taken to mean a
mysteriously deep commitment to God compatible with seriously wrong acts. In Chapter 18 he attacks the denial of hell
or the assertion that damnation is a mere possibility. In

456

BENEDICT M. ASHLEY, O.P.

Chapter 21 he opposes current trends to regard Old Testament
moral teachings as obsolete and the New Testament norms as
mere parenetic exhortation or as ideals which can only be approximated. In Chapter 32 he discusses the infrequent use of
the Sacrament of Penance and the neglect of the doctrine of
purgatory and the contempt for indulgences.
This concern about some current fashions in theology leads
him to devote the third section of his treatise (Chapters 35-36)
as well as a number of the numerous appendices to various
other chapters and many of his notes to the problem of the
authority of the magisterium's moral teaching. He is especially
concerned to refute those who restrict the infallibility of the
magisterium to solemn definition, those who hold the
spread notion that theologians form part of the magisterium in
the conciliar meaning of that term, and those who make the
other common assertion that the Church has never defined concrete moral norms infallibly. Moreover, he argues that radical
theological dissent cannot be regarded as a legitimate " development " of magisterial doctrine. In a series of appendices
to the last chapter he presents a very interesting, if highly provocative, analysis of how, as theology has become more and
more academic, it has also become secularized, tending to serve
simply to accommodate the faithful to the mores of the culture
and times in which they live, thus losing its prophetic power.
The book is completed by a useful glossary and by indices of
names and subjects, of biblical references, and of references to
the works of Aquinas. Its typography is clear and remarkably
free of errors, but the print is rather small and the pages
crowded.
Several difficulties concern me as to the way Grisez has taken
to revise the traditional structure of moral theology, in spite of
my overall admiration of the results. First I regret that he
has abandoned the classical view that the ultimate end of
human life, subjectively considered, is naturally contemplation
and supernaturally the beatific vision. He has done so in order
fo free moral theology from Augustinian neo-Platonism-an

CHRISTIAN MORAL PRINCIPLES

457

important and necessary objective of any such revision-but
he has gone too far to the other extreme. As a result he presents us with a conception of the integral human good which
lacks any clear principle of unity, although he insists that this
collection of substantive goods must be existentially harmonized. As a result he is forced to adopt a number of antiThomistic positions which are certainly much debated, but
which I do not think he successfully sustains. Thus he rejects
Aquinas's doctrine on the natural desire for the beatific vision.
(459-47; 807-823), that every human act is for the one ultimate end (809 £.),and that all Christians are called to infused
contemplation (721-723) .
The root of this problem seems to be Grisez's understanding
of Aquinas's notion of contemplation as "individualistic, incommunicable, and even unappealing to non-intellectuals "
(822). In fact St. Thomas conceives the beatific vision as a social act in which all the blessed mutually share in the Trinity's
life of wisdom and love and communicate it to each other. In
this life, it is true, per ae-e-idenscontemplation requires times of
solitude, but even here it achieves communion in liturgical worship and shared prayer. Grisez is certainly right in emphasizing
that human self-fulfillment must include many kinds of good
(including the goods of the body-otherwise the resurrection
would be unnecessary) besides the good of the intellect; but
the perfect possession of these goods as an integral and harmonious whole must be achieved in consciousness, and this
consciousness is a contemplative act by which the blessed know
themselves as fulfilled in God and in their communal life in
God. Even in this life our real but imperfect happiness must
be achieved in conscious acts of self-knowledge, for as the
Greeks knew, "the unreflective life is not worth living", that
is, we must savor the meaning of all the events of our life if we
are fully to appreciate their values. It is true that " non-intellectuals " often do not appreciate this fact, but Christians
who have truly learned to pray, no matter how little gifted they
may be intellectually, soon come to understand why the Chris-

458

BENEDICT M. ASHLEY, O.P.

tian life is essentially contemplative. Grisez tries to escape this
difficulty by leaving the beatific vision as a "mystery" (464
f.) and says " To suppose that the beatific vision is properly a
fruit of the divine nature in which created persons are made to
share is not to exclude from eternal life an appropriate and fulfilling exercise of human capacities " (465) . Here he is in full
agreement with Aquinas, who does not conceive of contemplation as excluding or even devaluating other human activities
but as bringing them to completion in consciousness and integrating them into a unified life resembling the richness of the
divine life.
A second difficulty I have with his efforts to revise moral
theology is his too easy abandonment of the classical scheme of
the virtues as a structuring principle of the discipline. For
Grisez the virtues are simply embodiments of the eight modes
of responsibility which he proposes as norms intermediate between the first principles and the concrete norms. Of course
the doctrine of the virtues involves the question of the validity
of the scholastic psychology, generally rejected today as a
"faculty psychology." Nevertheless, this psychology has
played so important a role in the development of moral
theology that it deserves more attention than it is given here.
I also do not find very convincing the author's attempt to give
his eight modes of responsibility a biblical foundation in the
Beatitudes. The exegete Jacques Dupont in one of the best
studies of the Beatitudes has shown that they are probably
Matthew's expansion of the three original Beatitudes given by
Luke and that they all mean essentially the same thing emphatically expressed by parallelism. If this is the case they can
hardly ground eight distinct principles. In any case it seems to
me that one feature of any revision of moral theology must be
to omit the ingenious but forced correlations of the virtues, the
gifts, the beatitudes, the fruits, etc., which St. Augustine initiated and in which the scholastics delighted, but which are of
very dubious scientific value.
A third difficulty would require more discussion than,

CHRISTIAN MORAL PRINC1PUJS

459

allows. It relates to Grisez's very tentative and, it seems to me,
unclear treatment of the nature of grace. This vagueness is
evident sometimes in ambiguous language. For example, he
states that the act of Christian love " is not a human act "
(599). He means by this that it has an object which cannot
be obtained by us without the aid of grace, but surely it has
a human subject/ In an appendix (592-594) the author very
cautiously puts forward a theory that infused grace is neither
created nor uncreated and (note 24, 597 f.) relates this theory
to that of some Orthodox theologians. In fact this is to go even
further than Gregory Palamas, who taught that grace is uncreated yet distinct from the Divine Essence. I fail to see how
this odd notion of a entity which is neither created nor uncreated is going to be much help in a deeper understanding of
grace.
As for the discussion of the authority of magisterial teachings
in Chapters 35 and 36 I find myself in general agreement with
Grisez's position, but wish he had balanced it by giving serious
attention to the problem of" creeping infallibility." He rightly
attacks the current tendency to erode magisterial authority, as
well as the authority of Scripture and Tradition, by treating
the theories of fashionable theologians and exegetes as if they
were vested with that kind of authority. But in all honesty it
is necessary to recognize that there are real dangers for the
Church when magisterial pronouncements are not subject to
serious theological criticism in an atmosphere of charity and
trust. It is important, I believe, to distinguish this theological
criticism from "dissent" which encourages Christians to act
on the opinions of theologians or which carries on a propaganda
campaign to pressure the magisterium into modifying its teachings. Proper theological criticism does not aim at undermining the authority of the pastors of the Church but seeks to aid
them in formulating their teaching more accurately, consistently, and effectively.
My final difficulty is about the purpose of this volume. As
a courageous and responsible effort to revise our classical trea-

460

BENEDICT M. ASHLEY, O.P.

tises on moral theology it is invaluable and deserves the serious
attention of every theologian. If, however, it is intended as a
textbook for seminaries, as stated on p. xxix, I fear it will present serious practical problems because of its length, its density, and-yes'-its originality. In its favor are its clarity, the
fact that some of the more difficult topics are left to appendices
which a student may omit, and its excellent chapter summaries. I hope that at least it will provoke serious discussion
among theologians and usher in an important new phase of
Catholic thinking on moral theology.
BENEDICT

Aquinas Institute of Theology
St. Louis, Missouri

M. ASHLEY, O.P.

BOOK REVIEWS
Deconstructing Theology. By MARK C. TAYLOR. Introduction by Thomas
J. J. Altizer. New York: The Crosstoad Publishing Company, 1982.
Pp. xxii
129. $12.95.

+

Deconstruction and Theology. By THOMAS J. J. ALTIZER, MAX A. MYERS,
CARL A. RASCHKE, ROBERT P. ScHARLEMANN, MARK C. TAYLOR, and
CHARLES E. WINQUIST. Preface by Carl A. Raschke. New York:
The Crossroad Publishing Company, 1982. Pp. ix
178. $14.95.

+

For the last several years, it has been hard to go among philosophers or
literary critics in the United States without hearing talk of deconstructionism. Much of the talk has one group of people proclaiming the good
news to another group which can make little sense of it. On one level,
deconstructionism presents itself as a general method for destabilizing all
the standard philosophical positions from Platonism to phenomenology
and structuralism by pressing them to and beyond their limits. Unlike
the maneuvers of Hegel or Marx, the deconstructionist strategy refuses
any retrieval of the exploded systems in a dialectical synthesis. The
method is thus essentially negative, but it tends to be associated with a
set of particular claims arising in the work of Jacques Derrida: that every
sign has significance only in a set of infinitely receding " differences";
that these differences, known collectively as la difference, have as their
point of reference a " trace " which remains forever outside the system;
that presence is therefore always grounded in absence and consequently
that all theories based on intuition, perception, or vision must be unstable; that writing considered as trace-making is prior to speech ; that
self-contained books are a cultural illusion and should be reconceived as
texts pointing backwards and forwards; that authors and authority, indeed subjects generally, are secondary to the network of differenees from
which they spring; that every text is subject to infinite interpretation bea text without preyond the control of the author; that history is
defined unity or direction. Among Derrida's many forebears are Hegel,
Kierkegaard, Nietzsche, Heidegger, Saussure, Levi-Strauss, and Levinasall of them both inspiration and challenge and duly cited by him.
As one might expect, the biggest secondary impact of Derrida and
deconstructionism has so far been within literary criticism, particularly
in the United States, where younger scholars have been attacking the
orthodoxy of the New Criticism. However, Deconstructing Theology and
Deconstructionism and Theology advertise that the theologians have now

462

BOOK REVIEWS

seized the baton. It should be noted, though, that the first title is somewhat of a misnomer since not all Taylor's loosely connected essays seem
to fit the title. Half the book consists of fairly creative and thought-provoking considerations of Hegel and Kierkegaard on Abraham and of
Hegel's proofs for the existence of God. The remainder is more properly
as the essays probe " the ontology of relativism," " interpreting interpretation," and the " empty mirror" left after the loss
of the subject. The. title still seems contrived, however, and Altizer's introduction is an excellent model for literary hyperbole. Deconstructionism
and Theology, in contrast, assembles six voices in the closest thing yet to a
unified statement of the deconstructionist project in theology. The continuity of the project with philosophical deconstructionism becomes
evident not only from the repetition of themes but also from the reverent
citation of Derrida and nearly everyone in his intellectual pantheon. Only
Richard Rorty's dismantling of philosophy provides an additional source.
That Derrida might be taken up by theologians should not be surprising
since he often toys with religious images and since the Derridian critique
of culture has had plenty of parallel among theologians over the past two
decades. But the men writing in these two collections strive to do more
than toy with images. They are firing the opening salvos in what they
take to be a novel and urgent theological campaign of great proportions.
Their work is deconstructionist, first of all, in the broad sense of a selfconscious effort to shake the reigning tradition. However, all the specific
points of the first paragraph enter into the destabilizing. For all of the
writers, the premise of deconstructionist theology is that the God of yore
is dead, that is, that no total presence, hence that no self-sufficient, selfidentical authoritative being is possible or tenable. Deconstructionism is,
in essence, the hermeneutic of the death of God (Taylor). The word God
taken positively refers to " the negative that can be instantiated upon
any object and any subject by a saying of the word" (Scharlemann);
and the appearance of the unnameability of God as the original trace
" nevertheless names our history and names it as the absolute sublimation
of trace, which is simultaneously the total presence of God" (Altizer).
At times, trinitarian and incarnational metaphors sexve to capture these
new understandings although .traditional language is mainly an echo in
these essays and reminds the reader of Derrida's confession of needing
the old categories even as he undoes them.
The deconstructionist elimination of the authoritative subject (human or
divine) entails for theologians an openness of biblical and ecclesiastical
texts to an array of conflicting and complementary readings. Truth in
theology as in everything else is a woman who reveals herself only to
those who do not go directly after her, and meaning along with the reality
it constitutes must always be multiple and changing-a polysemia with

463

BOOK REVIEWS

both linguistic and sexual import (Taylor and Winquist). Some theolo•
gians, like conventional philosophers and critics, may be disturbed by the
lack of authority and stability, but the deconstructionist invites them to
relinquish mirroring and finality for a Nietzschean dance in the shifting
fields projected by la difference (Taylor and Altizer). Finally, the closest
thing to an ethical reflection in these pages is Max Myers's thoughtful but
sketchy attempt at constructing a theory of communication along the lines
of Jiirgen Habermas. It is the revelatory possibility of this discourse
which Christians express through the story of crucifixion and resurrection.
Synopsizing six authors in a few paragraphs may be unfair, but it has
justification in the common threads running through the books and in the
common references in current literature. Furthermore, the review does not
begin to show how complex and opaque the writing is. All the authors
prove themselves capable of crafting a clear sentence and careful paragraph, but too often they fall into linguistic contortions and pedantic
name-dropping. Above all, there is little thought given to supportive reasoning. For what reasons one should adopt deconstructionism, other than
that it is the newest wave, is not developed. Of course, the theologians
can adopt Derrida's tendency to dismiss people who ask for clarity and
argumentation as victims of the very rationalist bias deserving of defeat.
At that juncture, we are all left babbling. Yet, as I have indicated, these
deconstructionist essays do have positions and even rudimentary arguments; and, when they become clear enough to ponder, they can be taken
in ways which are as interesting and plausible as the best process thought
or negative theology of earlier periods. Still, pushed to their extreme,
even these proposals (on presence and difference, on truth and meaning,
on theism and atheism ... ) devolve into incoherence. Perhaps, in the end,
theologians and philosophers alike need to follow deconstructionism to the
depth where it self-destructs. From this depth, we might get a new and
better appreciation of traditional and revolutionary theologies. But the
deconstructionist theologians must come to write with Derrida's wit and
Rorty's lucidity if their theological endeavor is not to sink like the death
of God phenomenon before it in the slough of bad writing.
MICHAEL

La Salle College
Philadelphia,

J. KERLIN

Pennsylvania

Love and. Responsib.ility. By KAROL WoJTYLA. New York:
Straus, Giroux, 1981. Pp. 319. $15.00.

Farrar,

Love and Responsibility is the translation of a work by Karol W ojtyla
first presented as a series of leetures at the Catholic University of Lublin

464

B09K REVIEWS

in 1958-59, then published as a book in 1960. The book established
W ojtyla as an expert in marital ethics by presenting a thorough, insightful, and original analysis of the nature of sexual love and its moral principles. W ojtyla was subsequently appointed to the papal commission
which reexamined the issue of contraception prior to the appearance of
Humanae Vitae, and he may have influenced the content of that encyclical.
In any case, the strong personalistic approach of this book, together with
its equally strong rejection of artificial birth control, is consistent
with the encyclical and with W ojtyla's own later views. (See Karol
W ojtyla, Fruitful and Responsible Love, New York: Seabury Press, 1979,
and as Pope John Paul II The Apostolic Exhortation on the Family, November 22, 1981.)
The significance of the views on sexuality and marriage Wojtyla expresses in this book, however, is not limited to the admittedly important
issue of contraception. There is a danger that the book will only be read
polemically in the light of this currently central Catholic issue, and that
its greatest contribution will be ignored by both " conservative " and
" liberal " alike. That contribution is W ojtyla's presentation of an uncompromising personalistic sexual ethic based on the intrinsic value of the
human person and the consequent norm of love.
W ojtyla's sexual ethic is based on his insistence that a human being is
both a subject and an object (pp. 21-24). As a subject, a human being is
a person who is not merely a member of the species, "man," but a being
with its own inner life of knowledge and will. Only because of this inner
life can a person grasp human reality in its objectivity, and thereby both
know and will the human good. In addition, however, this inner life gives
to each person the dignity of a being having its own personal ends. Free
will makes each of us a law unto ourselves; our personality is thus
ontologically incommunicable to another. While another person may want
me to seek certain ends, no one can will those ends in my place.
The natural autonomy of every human person gives rise to a fundamental principle of ethics, which W ojtyla calls the " personalistic principle" or norm. He credits Kant with its first formulation, but reformulates it as follows :
Whenever a person is the object of your activity, remember that you
may not treat that person as only the means to an end, as an instrument, but must allow for the fact that he or she, too, has, or at
least should have, distinct personal ends ( p. 28).

We may educate others to seek the good: we may not, however, use them
merely as a means to an end of our own choosing, even when that end is
good for the person involved. Even God respects the human autonomy he
has created : he allows us to know the good and freely choose it, but he
does not force us to do so (pp. 2&-7).

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Since the natural autonomy of the human person establishes the ends of
that person as a good, the Christian commandment to love can be justified by the personalistic principle or norm. The somewhat negative formulation of that principle, prohibiting the use of another person as a means
to an end, can be supplemented by a more positive formulation requiring
love as the only proper and adequate response to another person (p. 41).
W ojtyla asserts, on the basis of this principle, that love for another person is demanded in simple justice (pp. 42-44). If sexual love is based
on pleasure alone as an end, he concludes, it can never live up to the
Christian ideal. This allows him to exclude three attitudes toward sexual
love as incompatible with Christian love: utilitarianism (since its prescription of universal happiness is contradicted by the absolute status it
gives to pleasure as an end}; a "libidinistic" view which advocates reducing one's partner to an instrument of pleasure; and puritanism, which
considers the use of another for one's sexual pleasure as evil, but which
permits it for the sake of procreation (thereby also reducing persons to
instruments of procreation) (pp. 34-39; 57-66).
Sexual love differs from other forms of love, of course, in that it is
based on the " sexual urge," a natural physiological and psychological
orientation by which the attributes of the other sex take on value. While
the sexual urge occurs passively in the human person, those actions toward which it is oriented and in which it finds its fulfillment are not passively determined by that urge. Sexual love consists in such actions, freely
and responsibily undertaken, rather than in the sexual urge itself. Sexual
love is thus a synthesis of nature and will : the sexual urge forms the
"stuff " out of which sexual love is made, but it is
in the
acts of the will which give it shape. Furthermore, the sexual urge is
always directed toward a particular human being, and is naturally fulfilled only in love between persons (pp. 45-51). In Wojtyla's view, therefore, sexual love is a mutually willed union between persons, freely and
responsibly formed on the basis of the sexual urge. The shaping or charuneling of the sexual urge into concrete acts of love must take place on
all those levels of human experience in which the sexual urge finds expression.
According to W ojtyla, the shaping of the sexual urge into sexual love
coincides with the freedom of the will responding to truth. Love has a
subjective truth which is marked by its psychological completeness and
genuineness of feeling. It must also have an objective truth, however,
marked by its ethical completeness based on adherence to the personalistic
norm of love. The value of the person as such is distinct from and prior
to the values that are present in the person, including all sexual values
to which one responds. The response to the value of the person is not as
immediate or spontaneous as the response (both sensual and emotional)

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to sexual values. Only if sexual values are integrated into the value of
the person and subordinated to that value, however, will our response be
one of love (pp. 119-23).
It is clear that, for W ojtyla, the essential components of sexual love
as an experience within the individual are emotional responses, sensual
desire, and goodwill. Emotional. responses include attraction, affection,
and sympathy. Attraction (pp. 74-79) is the "liking" one has for anot.her person because of the values that person appears to possess-intellectual, moral, and social traits as well as specifically sexual values. Attraction involves both understanding and " willing" the other, but its
primary component is emotional. Sentiment or affection (pp. 109-14) is
a response to the other as a person of the opposite sex, but focusses more
on the totality of the beloved's masculinity or femininity than on the beloved's body as an object of sensual desire and enjoyment. It is a " desire for nearness, for proximity, and simultaneously for exclusivity or intimacy, a longing to be always alone together" (p. 110). Like attraction,
affection focusses on the values possessed by the beloved. It frequently
blows such values up out of all proportion to reality and even projects
values one wishes to find in plaee of those traits which are actually present in the beloved. Directed ultimately toward persons and not merely
toward their traits, attraction and affection can form the basis of love as
a union between persons only if one's understanding of the beloved is not
seriously distorted by emotion. Sympathy (pp. 88-90) is a feeling of
sharing experiences with the beloved. Such a feeling brings two people
close together emotionally, but the emotion itself is the value experienced.
Sympathy forms the basis of love only when it becomes friendship by one's
willing the good of the beloved. W ojtyla's point concerning emotion in
all three of these experiences, then, is that it is essential to sexual love,
but must be subordinated to reason and will in pursuit of the good of both
lover and beloved.
Sensuality or sexual desire (pp. 80-82; 105-8) is what Wojtyla refers
to as" a sort of raw material for true, conjugal love" (p. 108). In itself
it is simply the urge to use the body of another for sensual enjoyment,
and occurs in the senses because of the biological need for intercourse as
a means of procreation. On the level of human beings, however, sensual
desire will always involve some attitude toward persons since it is accompanied by the knowledge that this is a person whom I desire. In accord with the personalistic principle, one cannot use another person as a
means for either pleasure or procreation; desire must be transcended,
therefore, in love of another person. Such transcendence of sensuality
turns desire into concupiscent love ( amor concupiscentiae, love as desire).
In desire, one can experience one's own limitation and consequently one's
need for another person in order to be complete. Once the value of the

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467

other person is grasped, the good which is seen as lacking in sexual desire is not only the body of the beloved, but the beloved person as such.
W ojtyla draws a parallel between sexual desire and love of God: both
are examples of amor concupiscentiae insofar as in each one experiences
the beloved as such as a good for oneself. Sexual values thus are secondary to the value of the person, and are enjoyed only in one's love of the
person.
Precisely because it is a person as such whom I love, I cannot love that
person as a good for myself. We have seen that a person, by its very
nature, has personal ends. To love the person as such, therefore, means
to will those ends which are good for the person and willed by the person. In short, love of a person demands goodwill (pp. 82-84).
According to Wojtyla, sexual love cannot remain a subjective experience of the two individuals involved; it must transcend their subjective
experiences to form " a single objective whole ... a single entity in which
two persons are joined" (p. 84). 2 The reciprocity of love is for Wojtyla
an essential part of the very meaning of sexual love; anything less would
be one-sided and incomplete-in fact, a failure of love's natural dynamic.
In the reciprocity of love, one's desire for the beloved coincides with one's
benevolence toward the beloved. For, on the one hand, the beloved gift
of self to me fulfills my need. On the other hand, however, to desire that
the beloved reciprocate my love is to desire that our love become a common good, a reality chosen by both of us as a personal end which fulfills
each of us. This common reality is missing when reciprocity aims at
pleasing another only for my own ends or purposes, which is an egoistic
form of reciprocity (pp. 84-88).
The unity of persons brought into being by reciprocal love is first of
all friendship (pp. 88-95). Friendship establishes a moral unity in which
each person's will is committed to the good of the other. This is a completion by the will of the unity experienced emotionally in sympathy.
The development of friendship in sexual love may be aided by comradeship: an objective common interest (e.g. work, school) in which both
persons are involved. This common interest gives the unity of love an
" objective" support outside the lovers
W ojtyla's emphasis
whole" Wojtyla has in mind
2 It is not clear what kind of "objective
here. Love as a reciprocal relationship is clearly a social reality, but it does
not seem to have any ontological status independent of the lovers' acts and
intentions. Even a vowed love such as marriage is both brought into being
and maintained in existence bv the concrete volitional acts of the lovers making and living up to their -iows. Such love endures through time because
one can commit one's future actions freely. If one does not live up to that
commitment, however, the "reality" of the love relationship ceases. Perhaps the "objective whole" to which Wojtyla refers is simply the fact of
mutual commitment to love in the lovers.

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on comradeship seems related to a view expressed earlier in the book (pp.
28-31), that subjectivism can be overcome by love only if both persons are
freely committed to a common good or aim which transcends the subjective desires of each. This seeking of a common aim together prevents
the subordination of one person to another, since both freely subordinate
themselves to the common end. W ojtyla claims that in marriage this
common good is the fulfillment of the "objective purposes" of marriagea point to which we will return. In any case, we saw that each of the
lovers must not only take the good of the other as an end (friendship),
but must take the love relationship itself as an end. It seems, therefore,
that this mutual commitment to the love relationship is a form of comradeship that not only supports sexual love but is essential to it: There
are many other forms of comradeship, on the other hand, that may be
helpful but not essential to sexual love.
While sexual love must become friendship, it is also called to something higher, achieving its proper fulfillment only in betrothed love (pp.
95-100; 125-30). In betrothed love, one gives to the beloved freely what
cannot be taken by force--one's self. One is not only at the disposal of
the beloved, ready to sacrifice one's own interests for the good of the beloved. In betrothed love, one renounces one's autonomy and freely places
one's life and will at the disposal of the beloved. One wills what the beloved wills, precisely because the beloved wills it, thereby freely becoming
the property of the beloved. This is not self-alienation but exemplifies selfpossession, since one can give to another only what one fully possesses
oneself. Nor is one's being diminished, since one finds a fuller existence
in another. Betrothed love requires an affirmation of my own value as a
worthwhile gift, rather than reducing my value. It also requires affirming
the value of the beloved as one who is worthy of receiving the gift of myself. The complete self-surrender of betrothed love finds expression in
all aspects of conjugal life, including of course the complete bodily giving of oneself in sexual intercourse. The personal meaning of sexual
love is thus found in total self-giving.
Using the analysis of sexual love examined above, W ojtyla reflects at
some length on the virtue of' ehastity (pp. 143-208). He criticizes contemporary soeiety for fostering an attitude toward morality which Scheler
called "resentment": a minimization of the significance of a value that
we are too weak or slothful to attain. Chastity is ignored, he says, because of the difficulty of affirming the value of the person in our sexual
actions. W ojtyla examines a number of ways in which our sexual practices devalue the person in favor of sexual values to which we respond
both sensually and emotionally. He also examines the relationship between sin and subjectivism, and tries to clarify the positive character of
chastity. It is not, he says, a denial of sexual values, but an affirmation

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469

of the person in relation to sexual values. He then examines the role of
both shame and continence in the virtue of chastity, again giving each
one a positive and original interpretation.
In view of the debate among Catholics for the last decade or so over
various aspects of sexual morality, there is one particular part of
·wojtyla's analysis of sexual love that deserves comment : his attempt to
integrate a personalistic sexual ethic into a traditional view of the purposes of marriage (pp. 66-69; 211-36). Like most Catholic theologians
at the time this book was written, W ojtyla accepts three· hierarchicallyordered ends of marriage: the primary end of procreation and education
of children; the secondary end of mutual sharing of a conjugal life; and
the tertiary end of remedying concupiscence. W ojtyla rejects all puritanical interpretations of these three ends in his insistence on a " synthesis of nature's purpose with the personalistic norm" (p. 67). On the
one hand, this means that, out of concern for their dignity as human
persons, husband and wife must " consciously seek to realize the aims of
marriage according to [their] order of priority ... , because this order is
objective, accessible to reason, and therefore binding on human persons"
(loc. cit.). On the other hand, these ends must be sought freely as one's
own ends and as expressions of reciprocal love. Love .is not one of these
ends (e.g. the secondary end, as some have maintained) ; it is a norm
governing the attainment of all three.
W ojtyla's position, then, is that the free pursuit of the objective ends
of marriage is essential to sexual love which adheres to the personalistic
norm. We have seen above how appeasement of sexual desire fulfills one's
need for completion by another person if it is based on the affirmation of
the value of the beloved. We have also seen how the existence of a common life of mutual betrothed love is necessary if love is not to become
egoistic. Thus both ends are essential to sexual love, and the former is
subordinate to the latter. Moreover, the very character of bethrothed love
makes the exclusivity and permanence of marriage essential to the conjugal life, the so-called " secondary end." For one cannot give oneself
totally to more than one person; nor can one give oneself to another only
for a time without holding something back-namely, one's future self.
But does procreation have the same necessity for sexual love, and does it
have priority over the other ends?
To show that this is so, W ojtyla must establish that procreation is an
essentim:J. good of the sexual urge for the human person, since it is the person one is obligated to respect. If procreation were not such an essential
good, sex could be used to promote a non-procreative conjugal life without violating the personalistic principle. W ojtyla does show the personal
value of procreation in which a new human being both expresses and embodies the betrothed love of its parents. He also shows how procreation

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makes husband and wife co-creators with God, thereby expressing their
love for him in their love for one another. He fails, however, to establish
the necessity of procreation for a sexual love which adheres to the per"
sonalistic principle.
The problem is that "in the sexual relationship ... two orders meet:
the order of nature, which has as its object reproduction, and the personal order, which finds its expression in the love of persons ... " (p.
226). W ojtyla believes, therefore, that a choice to marry and have sexual
relations must be a choice of both love and procreation. In trying to
establish the impossibility of love without procreation, he perhaps
proves too much. He argues (pp. 51-54) that the necessary end of the
sexual urge itself is procreation; it is material for love between persons
only accidentally, since "love between persons is essentially a creation of
the human will " and " there may be affection between people who are not
sexually attracted to each other" ( p. 51). This argument seems to separate the natural purpose of the sexual urge from its role in the mutual
love of husband and wife, rather than show the two are necessarily connected. Moreover, treating the object of nature as an end to which the
human person is subordinate without establishing procreation as an essential personal good runs the risk of reducing the person to a means of
procreation-a view W ojtyla rejects. Finally, if one must choose both
love and procreation together in marrying and having sexual relations, it
would seem that every sexual act would have to be motivated in part by
a procreative intent-another view which W ojtyla rejects.
STEPHEN A. DINAN
Holy Redeemer College
Waterford, Wisconsin

Opera Omnia, Vol. V: Quodlibet I. by HENRY OF GHENT. R. Macken,

O.F.M. (ed.). Ancient and Medieval Philosophy; De Wulf-Mansion
Center; Series 2. Leuven: Leuven University Press; Leiden: E. J.
Brill, 1979. Pp. xciii
260, plus 12 reproductions outside the text.

+

Opera Omnia, Vol. XIV: Quodlibet X. By HENRY OF GHENT. R. Macken,

O.F.M. (ed.). Ancient and Medieval Philosophy; De Wulf-Mansion
Center; Series 2. Leuven : Leuven University Press; Leiden: E. J.
331, plus 8 reproductions outside the text.
Brill, 1981. Pp. cxxvi

+

Scholars of thirteenth and fourteenth century philosophy and theology
have long stressed the need for critical editions of the works of Henry
of Ghent (d. 1293), the dominant theologian at the University of Paris

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471

between the death of Aquinas and the arrival of Scotus. Scholarship of
the last fifty years has demonstrated the enormous influence Henry exercised on his contemporaries and successors, including Giles of Rome, Godfrey of Fontaines, and above all Duns Scotus. Henry's two major works,
the Summa of Ordinary Questions and the Quodlibetal Questions, reflect
his long career as Master in Theology at Paris. The latter are products
of solemn university disputations held each year before Christmas and
Easter. In such a forum the master would entertain questions and field
objections from anyone on any subject, hence their designation as "quodlibethal " or " what you will." Henry held fifteen such quodlibetal disputes in as many years, a testament to his stamina as well as his intellectual prowess. The present editions contain his first (Christmas, 1276)
and tenth (Christmas, 1286) Q'uodlibets. Edited by Rev. Dr. Raymond
Macken, O.E.M., they mark the first installments of the ongoing critical
edition of Henry's Opera omnia by a team of scholars under the direction
of Macken at the De Wulf-Mansion Centre of the Catholic University of
Lou vain.
Although Henry's primary concerns are theological, these Quodlibets
contain a wealth of philosophical discussions. In Quodlibet I Henry
argues that the world cannot be eternally created (qq. 7-8), that there is
no real distinction between existence and essence in creatures ( q. 9), that
through the power of God matter could exist without form (q. 10), and
that the will is superior to the intellect ( q. 14). Quodlibet X returns to
several of these issues in an expanded form and thus is important for
precisions and developments of Henry's earlier views. Of particular interest is the renewed discussion in question 7 on the relation between
existence and essence. We know that in Quodlibet I, q. 9, Henry developed
his theory of an " intentional distinction" between existence and essence
in creatures in response to the extreme statement of the real distinction
by Giles of Rome. Some ten years later, Giles, upon returning to Paris
from exile, again defended his position in questions 9-13 of Quaestiones
d-isputatae de esse et essentia. Henry's arguments in Quodlibet X, q. 7,
that the real distinction is not needed to account for creation constitute a
detailed reply to question 9 of Giles's treatise. With these critical texts
of Quodlibets I and X we now possess a major part of Henry's treatment of the existence-essence problem and, thanks to Macken's full apparatus fontium, its relation to the views of his contemporaries. Also illlfportant are Henry's discussions of the hylomorphic composition of man
( Quodlibet I, q. 4; X, q. 5), the relationship between reason and will in
choice (I, qq. 15-19; X, qq. 13-15), and the being of accidents (X, qq.
Sc9).
The texts of these two Quodlibets have been established according to
ri!!orous critical principles. Macken laid the foundations for their edition

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in his monumental two volume Bibliotheca manuscripta Henrici de
Gandavo (Louvain, 1979) which contains descriptions of all manuscripts
known to contain or pertain to the writings of Henry, including later
abbreviationes and impugnationes. In the course of this painstaking research Macken first uncovered the university manuscript tradition of the
Quodlibets corresponding to the exemplar of 191 peciae mentioned in the
university taxation list of 1304 (Rech. theo. anc. med. 37(1970), 75-96).
He then isolated two peculiar manuscripts designated 'A '-Paris, Bibl.
Nat. lat. 15848 and 15350-as independent of the university tradition, the
former containing Quodlibet I and the latter Quodlibet X (Rech. theo.
anc. med. 40(1973), 5-51). Extensive collection of all manuscripts for
both Quodlibets led Macken to prefer the A manuscripts to the university
tradition in each case. The two A manuscripts are of singular importance
not only because of their high reliability but because they carry extensive
corrections, apparently by the author himself, which are maintained
throughout the entire manuscript tradition. While Macken was unable to
show for Quodlibet I that the university tradition derived from A, he convincingly demonstrated this for Quodlibet X. Indeed, because of the nature and extent of its revisions, Macken concluded that in all probability
Paris 15350 is the original manuscript of Quodlibet X. He was even able
to locate a copy of the apograph intermediate between the original and
the university family, thus providing a virtually complete account of the
manuscript heritage. Fr. Macken's success in sorting out the very complex tradition of these two Quodlibets is a tour de force of textual criticism and is required reading for anyone editing a medieval university text.
The importance of the corrected manuscripts of Henry's Quodlibets
for detailing the doctrinal history of the late thirteenth century is perhaps
unrivaled and thus deserves mention. In these manuscripts we find Henry
not only touching up slips here and there, but deleting whole columns of
text, filling margins side and bottom with additions, and even inserting
entire folios of new material. Many of these more extensive changes seem
to be final efforts by Henry to bring his Quodlibets up to date with the
views of his contemporaries. We cite two of Henry's more dramatic
revisions brought to light in Macken's edition of Quodlibet X. In question 5 (pp. 127-28) Henry deletes in several stages nearly two columns
of his original discussion, as can be seen on Plate V of Macken's edition.
In the purged passage Henry defends at length his view that the doctrine
of the unity of substantial form in man is heretical. The apparent occasion for this defense is a letter cited by Henry in which twelve members of the Faculty of Theology attest they have no knowledge of the
position having been condemned as heretical during their time at Paris.
It is not clear what pressures led Henry to retract this passage but they
must have been considerable given that Peckham had condemned the unity

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473

of substantial form in man in England earlier that year. In a second revision (pp. 92-105) Henry interfoliates two sheets of added material
again bearing on the problem of the unity of substantial form in man.
In the original text Henry defends his position of " dymorphism" against
the objections of Godfrey of Fontaines's Quodlibet II, q. 7, dated Easter,
1286. The inserted material contains additional defenses of this position
apparently in response to the renewed objections of Godfrey's Quodlibet
III, q. 5, of Christmas 1286, the same period Henry held his tenth Quodlibet. Macken suggests that the later arguments of Godfrey did not come
into Henry's hands until after he had made his final revisions, thus forcing· him to interfoliate his last minute replies. By preserving in the apparatus criticus the corrections of Quodlibet X in manuscript A Macken
has given scholars a unique historieal document for the study of Henry
and his period.
In his editions of these two Quodlibets Macken has more than answered scholars' requests for critical texts of Henry. He has supplied
them with invaluable introductions to the life and works of Henry, with
a critical procedure for the edition of medieval university texts, and with
important historical documentation of doctrinal currents in the late thirteenth century. We eagerly await the imminent publication of Quodlibets
II and IX.
STEPHEN D. DUMONT
The Catholic University of America
Washington, D.O.

One Hundred Years of Thomism: Aeterni Patris and Afterwards, A
Symposium. Edited by VICTOR B. BREZIK. Houst-0n: Center for
Thomistic Studies, University of St. Thomas, 1981. Pp. 210.
Atti dell' VIII Congresso Tomistico Internazionale, Vol. I: Enciclica
Aeterni Patris nell' arco di un secolo. Edited by ANTONIO PIOLANTE.
Vatican City: Pontificia Accademia di S. Tommaso, 1981. Pp. 511.
The first of these publications is of an after-dinner-speech tone quite
in keeping with its subtitle as a Symposium. Among the speeches, however, two are substantive. The historical entry of Leonard Boyle on Leo
XIII's encyclical presents the Catholic intellectual environment of the
restoration of Thomism as an alien, even hostile setting. The essay also
raises the question of what degree of intrinsic understanding of St.
Thomas's thought even the champions of the restoration possessed and
of what Leo XIII himself understood by " Christian philosophy accord-

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ing to the mind of St. Thomas Aquinas." (Boyle points out that this
title did not belong to Aeterni Patris.) Adjoined to Boyle's essay are the
reflections of the respondent, James W eisheipl, on the unpreparedness
and bewilderment of American seminary faculties once .Aeterni Patris was
issued. One other entry in the collection deserves special mention because
of the serious challenge it lays down. Robert Henle sums up his frankly
negative critique of " Transcendental Thomism" in these words: " one
must choose between the Transcendental Method and the experiential
realistic method of St. Thomas. One cannot have both. Transcendental
Thomism is a contradiction in terms and in substance" (p. 100).
The Atti of the International Thomistic Congress is only the first of
the eight projected to cover the Pontificial Academy's commemoration
of Aeterni Patris. The collection is obviously far grander than the
symposium from Houston. This reviewer regards as most useful the essays
of Paolo Dezza on the historical preparation for Aeterni Patris, partieularly the part played by the Society of Jesus, and three essays on
textual questions. The first by Robert Busa, editor of the Index Thomisticus, is on " Thomistic Lexicology and Lexicography"; the second is by
Louis J. Bataillon on the evolution of method by the Leonine Commission
for achieving the authentic text of St. Thomas's works; the third is by
Pierre-Marie Gy on the office for Corpus Christi. But much of the rest of
the volume is ponderous, apologetic, or panegyrical. There is a noticeable
effort to establish that Rome's official sanctioning of St. Thomas was
based on an intrinsic appreciation, not on political, ultramontane motives. One may suppose that the defense of such an appreciation lies behind the vain exercise in one essay of demonstrating a parallel between
Paul Vl's letter Lumen Ecclesiae and .Aeterni Patris. There are also many
words spoken in praise of Christian philosophy, but almost as many
different understandings of the term as there are extollers of its import.
Particularly jejune are the hackneyed details of its virtues brought out
by Battista Mondin, who also keeps alive Gilson's distorted interpretation of the term revelabilia. in St. Thomas, la. 1, 3, as the subject matter
of the " Christian Philosophy " in St. Thomas.
Each of these volumes in its own way gives rise to reflection on what
.Aeterni Patris accomplished. The review has singled out the historical
and textual essays. Historically it is clear that .Aeterni Patris created a
new era in ecclesiastical studies and that that era ended well before Vatican Council II. It is also clear that, if the era was characterized by the
study of philosophy and theology juxta mentem D. Thomae, only a small
minority ever studied the text of St. Thomas and that what was presented
as his thought was often diametrically opposed to his theological viewpoint. On the practical and pastoral level it is particularly regrettable
that his moral teaching remained virtually unexplored. On the level of

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understanding the teachings of faith, he came to be thought of as the
proponent of an eminently reasonable theism that somehow also integrated a few syllogistically illustrated mysteries. But the era of Aeterni
Patris has passed and with it, except for pro f orma nods, the official sanctioning of St. Thomas. In that fact, the textual studies, as also the Henle
challenge, provide hope. The text is still there, the unexplored wealth
of St. Thomas's genuine thought lies waiting in the text. The hope is
that the text approached not out of dutifulness or with alien and contorted epistemological presuppositions but for its intrinsic meaning and
worth alone will lead to the possession of the genuine mind of St.
'l'homas. Cela vaut la peine.
THOMAS c. O'BRIEN
Washington, D.O.

St. Thomas Aquinas. Summa Theologiae: General Index. Edited by
T. C. O'BRIEN. London: Eyre & Spottiswoode, 1981. (Blackfriars
Edition, vol. 61.) Pp. 383. £9.95.

Most indexers, if confronted with the task of indexing the text of the
Summw Theologiae of St. Thomas, would back away from the project.
And it is understandable. For although indexing the average book is not
all that difficult, indexing a series of volumes by many different authors
made up almost entirely of theological and philosophical concepts is admittedly overwhelming.
Good indexers have some things in common : a love of books, words,
and ideas; logic and intuition; retentive minds; ability to deal with the
responsibility they feel toward another person's work and toward all
future scholars. They are articulate, verbal, and have an uncanny sense
of coming up with just the right term for the idea expressed. They realize
the need to distinguish between actual information about a topic and the
incidental mention of it; the necessity of concentrating on the author's
meaning, being aware of the terms that have been emphasized, and always
staying within the scope and framework of the material being indexed.
These requirements· give some credence to the seventeenth-century bibliographer who stated that "the index of a book should be made by the
author, even if the book itself be written by someone else." They also indicate that the publisher was fortunate indeed to obtain the services of
T. C. O'Brien as the indexer for the magnificent 60-volume Blackfriars
edition of the Summa Theologiae published under the able direction of
Father Thomas Gilby, 0.P.
Thomas O'Brien, for many years an associate and close friend of Father
Gilby, edited six volumes in this edition of the Summa, and was the gen-

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eral editor of the Encyclopedic Dictionary of Religion and of the Supplement (vol. 17) to the New Catholic Encyclopedia. He is currently an
editor of documents for the International Committee on English in the
Liturgy (Washington, D.C.). All of the publications with which he has
worked required some indexing. This experience and his own expertise
have provided an ideal background for the compilation of the Summa
Index, a task that required courage, patience, and persistence.
It is now more than 70 years since the Dominicans of the English
Province issued the first of the 22 volumes of the translation of the
Summa and approximately 35 years since the compact 3-volume edition
appeared in the United States. This older version did not include the
Latin text nor did it offer the student any assistance in the form of notes
or references. The new edition is more perceptive of the needs of the
non-specialist, and the addition of the Index is a fitting climax to the set.
Although each volume carries its own limited index, the General Index
is a professional approach to the major themes of Aquinas's immense
summary of theology. It brings together more than 5,000 entries in one
alphabetical sequence with well over 25,000 subheadings. The depth of
indexing is indicated by the proportion of its 364 pages for approximately
5,500 pages of English translation, thus far surpassing the norm of 5
pages of index for every 100 pages of text. Moreover the Index not only
works, it also reads well and should give any reader a sense of the total
Summa. It also avoids the pitfall of trying to serve as a precis or analytical table of contents. Concepts, not words, are rightly the basis for the
work.
The general layout is excellent: clear, legible, easily followed, indicating
good imagination on the part of the designer. Specific entries have been
used so there is never a build-up of citations without qualifying aspects.
One can always turn directly to the specific passage one wishes to find.
This is in great contrast to the little-used index in the 1947 edition which
in some cases gives 50 citations after an individual entry without any
qualification, discouraging readers from even attempting to look them up.
The only major printing error found in the book is under " body, human"
where one block of references has been separated from the main entry,
and the omission of a comma confuses the arrangement.
There are four kinds of entries: the topics covered by the Questions
(given in full capitals); the topics covered by the Articles (with references to inclusive pages) ; the terms of discourse; and the authorities
cited. The question and Article entries provide access to the Summa org-anization and the treatment of " those matters that belong to sacra
doctrina." Single terms are the " elements of the medieval, theological/
philosophical vocabulary," the terms characteristic of St. Thomas, or specific points of religious relevance. The entries for authors, subdivided by

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the subject matter on which they are cited, are included because of the
place the authors' texts hold in the scholastic methodology embodied in
the Summa. Scripture citations are wisely not listed separately but ,are
indexed under the related topic in the main index.
The single, comprehensive alphabetical index is a great improvement
on the complicated set of indexes in the earlier translation. Nowhere in
the General Index is there a mere accumulation of page numbers after
a single heading, indicating the editor's awareness of the basic principle
that the more unqualified page numbers there are, the less useful the
entry becomes. The composite entries also aid the reader in finding the
particular context with which one may be concerned. Students who have
long struggled with the complexities of the earlier editions of the Summa
1'heologiae will welcome this aid to their use of the work of Thomas.
See and see also references are used effectively although one wonders
why there is no cross reference from Albumazar to Abu-Maaschor; or even
why the entry was not given under the former, since that is the form
g·iven in the text and is perhaps the one better known to the average
reader because of the plays by that name. In a few cases references do
not correspond exactly to the entry form referred to, but there is usually
no difficulty in locating the information. In only a few instances are
there any dead ends. When there are varying translations of the same
term in different volumes, the English word closest to the Latin has been
preferred, but cross references are given for the terms not used. References to footnotes and bibliographical data are not included directly but
can normally be located through the references to the text. Good use has
been made of the solidus or dash (/) and of the colon for qualifications
of an entry.
A helpful feature of the Index is the handling of the various authors
quoted by Aquinas. Augustine is represented by 41 columns of subheads;
Aristotle by 36; Gregory of Nyssa by 24; Gregory the Great has 11 and
Jerome, 5. A special feature, and one that will be fully appreciated by
those not having access to the Blackfriars edition, is the "Key to Summa
Part, Question, Article." This well-planned 15-page guide makes it possible to use the Index with any edition of the Summa.
The General Index to the Blackfriars edition of the Summa is a valur
able reference work that should be in every library even if the library
cannot afford the complete set. It should do much to familiarize contemporary readers with the immense range and depth of thought of the
Doctor Communis.
CLAUDIA CARLEN,

St. ,fohn's Provincial SeminMy
Plymouth, Michigan

I.H.M.

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The Rationality of Science. By W. H. NEWTON-SMrrH. Boston: International Library of Philosophy, 1981. Pp. 294. $19.50 cloth; $11.50
paper.
The author's purpose in writing this book is "to vindicate a rationalist
account of the scientific enterprise based on a realist construal of scientific
theories" (19). His attempts at vindication are successful and admirably
executed, but his attempt at establishing "a realist construal of scientific
theories " is problematic. The weakness that surfaces in the latter undertaking-specifically, his failure to produce a realism that differs in any
important sense from the blanket instrumentalism of Laudan, which he
rejects-does not, however, invalidate his arguments for the rationality of
science. I shall get back to this point later.
The two poles of the enterprise in which Newton-Smith engages are
described by him as " exciting " and " boring " attacks on the rationality
of science. The exciting attacks are those launched by Kuhn and Feyerabend, the thrust of which is that science is nonrational in that shifts
in the allegiance of the scientific community from one theory to another
occur more as the result of psychological and sociological factors than
as the result of factors pertaining to science and its goals. The boring
attacks are those which maintain that science is indeed rational, but not
so rational as the image it likes to project. Newton-Smith himself
launches a boring attack, ending up with a view of science which he calls
"temperate rationalism". The product is a thorough, rigorous, and sober
picture of science. The book's most valuable contribution is its precise
determination of the sense in which science is rational. In the course of
his investigation, Newton-Smith offers his readers valuable assessments of
the current leaders in the philosophy of science.
The book itself is attractively designed; the print is clear and aesthetically pleasing; it has an extensive, up-to-date bibliography, and an index of subjects and proper names. I did not find any typographical
errors. Although the writing is well organized and clear, Newton-Smith's
habit of not using commas after introducing a sentence by a dependent
clause left me initially confused more than once as to the sentence's
meaning.
The thrust of his argument comes down to this: It is obvious that science has been making steady progress. From Copernicus to Newton to
Einstein, science has gained an increasing predictive power; but increasing predictive power means an increasing correspondence between the
theories and the world; this increasing correspondence means that the
truth-content of the theories is increasing. The central concept in New-

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479

ton-Smith's argument is accordingly the theory of verisimilitude. He does
not wish to argue, however, that science is getting more truth but instead
that it is obtaining "increasing verisimilitude ", by which he means an
increasing approximation to truth (38 and 221). His distinction between
"verisimilitude" and "increasing verisimilitude" reflects his view that
no one has yet come up with an acceptable set of criteria for determining
verisimilitude ( 260). That agnosticism will return to haunt him, as it is
intimately bound up with " the realist construal of scientific theories "
which he insists is part and parcel of the defense of science's rationality. At all events, Newton-Smith insists that the shift in theories that
occurs as science increases its predictive power testifies to the rationality
of scientific change. For it is absurd to suppose that science has for its
primary goal anything other than the truth; and since it is the promise of
increasing predictive power that makes theory T2 more appealing than
theory Tl, it is only reasonable to hold that the change in theories which
occurs as science progTesses is rationally motivated. As Newton-Smith
himself acknowledges, that argument in itself is not enough to answer the
specific objections of nonrationalists such as Kuhn and Feyerabend. In
his Structure of Scientific Revolutions, Kuhn advanced the thesis that science as it is practiced in any given era, is dominated by a paradigm which
not only determines what good science is but confers meaning on the
terms that comprise scientific theories. The paradigm is taken for granted
until a theory which runs counter to it starts getting attention from members of the scientific community. A period of lawlessness then sets in
until a new paradigm is formed; then the entire cycle repeats itself. Kuhn
maintained that theories of different paradigms cannot be evaluated as to
which is the better one because, although they may use the same terms, the
terms have different meanings. Thus only nonrational factors, i.e.,
sociological and psychological, can account for our current preference for
Einsteinian physics over Newtonian physics. Similarly, Feyerabend, in
his Against Method, maintains that scientific change is more the result of
propaganda, political manipulation, etc., than scientific reasoning. His
plea is for society to give as much accommodation to astrology and acupuncture as to science as they are no less nonrational or productive of
discovery than science.
In answering the nonrationalists, Newton-Smith is aware that they
have made a couple of telling points against the image of science as the
epitome 0£ rational endeavor. For example, he criticizes rationalists, such
as Popper, Lakatos, and Laudan, for £ailing to see that models of what
constitutes good science evolve. Instead they set up an a priori model 0£
good science against which they measure all science, past and present.
When they cannot account for a scientific change in terms 0£ the model,
they conclude that the change was not rational and thus hand the matter

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over to the sociologists of knowledge to be explained in terms of factors
external to science. Newton-Smith correctly points out that all that is
needed to explain such a change as rational is that the scientist or scientists in question made the change according to what they understood to
be the best means to the goal of science as that goal was then understood.
Only if the change cannot be so explained will it be necessary to seek an
explanation in terms of external factors (4-5; 237-244).
In answer to the nonrationalists-specifically, the sociologists of knowledge-Newton-Smith calls them to task for trying to explain all shifts in
the allegiance of the scientific community by resorting to value-free
models. What they fail to see is that, given the fact of scientific progress,
value judgments are needed to account for the choice between rival
theories. Besides, without a rational basis for choosing one theory over
another, the sociologists of knowledge must face the grim reality that they
are left with no rational basis for expecting their theory of explanation
to be chosen over its rivals (256-257).
Against the " exciting attacks " of Kuhn and Feyerabend, NewtonSmith levels a powerful counter-attack. If scientific theories are incommensurable, there is a radical meaning variance (RMV) between them and
the terms that comprise them. But this violates the realist construal of
theories-i.e., over the centuries scientific theories have attained increasing predictive power-and must therefore be rejected. Insufficient attention, he points out, has been given in the discussion to truth and reference. The supporters of RMV hold that a term derives its meaning from
its function in a theory so that a term's referent is determined by its
meaning. Thus the acceptance of RMV would force us to hold the following untenable position: From the standpoint of our current theories, there
are no such things as Bohr electrons and no such things as Thomson electrons. After all, by the premises of RMV, nothing can be found that has
the properties which these respective theories attribute to an electron.
Both theories consequently make assertions about what does not exist. But
that means that every one of their assertions about the term " electron "
is false. Now that means that their theories are totally false. Such a conclusion "is incompatible with our assumption that there has been growth
in scientific knowledge to which their theories contributed" (161).
The" temperate rationalism" with which Newton-Smith ends up represents a middle course between the rationalist and the nonrationalist models
for explaining scientific change. He is alive to the truth----0verseeded at
the hands of Kuhn and Feyerabend-that the scientist is not a Cartesianself who pursues his experiments in a vacuum. A full account of a shift
in allegiance by the scientific community from one theory to another demands not only the internal factors of science and related evidence but
the external factors such as the climate of the
For
latter help

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481

to account for the emergence of a scientific theory to the forefront of
scientific attention (272).
We are now in a position to look at the problematic nature of NewtonSmith's " realist construal of theories." What gives rise to the problematic is not so much anything he says as what he leaves unsaid. For
he fails to support his realist construal with the inclusion of an articulated epistemological framework. Because he makes the rationality of science dependent on its realism, the resolution of the problematic is important to his entire project. Throughout his book, he takes pains to remind
us that the aim of scientific theories is to tell us about the way the world
is; in so far as they are true, they conform to it. He accordingly takes
instrumentalists, such as Laudan, to task for their position that the truth
of scientific theories is separable from their predictive power and therefore irrelevant to their validity. For their increasing predictive power is
a sure sign that their truth-content is increasing. Unless they were telling
us more and more about the world, how could th6!ir predictive power continue to
Moreover, we have seen above how Newton-Smith appeals to the notions of truth and reference to reject the nonrationalist explanation of scientific change.
So far so good.
But the difficulty surfaces when we consider his version of the theory
of verisimilitude. We have noted his claim that scientific theories do not
give us the truth; they do not even give us verisimilitude. The most that
we can expect from them is "approximate verisimilitude": The increasiing predictive power of scientific theories shows that we are approximating verisimilitude ever more closely. The difficulty, however, is that he
fails to provide a standard by which to judge more or less truth save
that of increasing predictive power. We must not forget his agnosticism,
his claim that no one has yet worked out a satisfactory theory of verisimilitude. What we are left with consequently is this: The warrant for
holding that scientific theories have increasing truth-content is their increasing predictive power. But because predictive power turns out to be
our only sign of truth-content, there is, in the end, no important difference between Newton-Smith's realism and Laudan's instrumentalism.
He is a realist by confession, but an instrumentalist in practice.
We are thus led to reconsider his critique of the nonrationalist position
as advanced by Kuhn and Feyerabend. For theirs is a neo-kantianism
against which his attempt to defend the rationality of science is somewhat weakened in the light of his inability to show an important difference between his brand of realism and instrumentalism. To be sure, Newton-Smith is no naive realist:
. . . there is no reason a p1·iori to assume that the items needed in
explanatory theory will be like the entities o! which we
e;xperi·
ence ... [E]vidence for the truth (or approximate truth) IS evidence

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for the existence of whatever has to exist for a theory to be true (or
approximately true). This will be called the causai imgredient in reaiiBm. For the commitment to theoretical entities most commonly arises
when we adopt theoretical hypotheses in giving causal accounts of ob·
servable phenomena. For instance, Thomson's theory of the electron was
introduced in an attempt to explain observed scintillations in a cathode
ray tube. Just what ontological commitments one takes on in believing
a theory will not be obvious. ( 38)

Although unassailable as a statement of what goes on in science, the above
passage does raise questions about the kind of philosophieal realism Newembraces. This is especially so in the light of the statement,
"Just what ontological commitments one takes on in believing a theory
will not be obvious.'' For what he calls the " causal ingredient in realism "
is just another term for his claim that increasing predictive power is the
basis for the " realist construal of scientific theories." How would he
answer the neo-kantians who maintain that we know things only as they
appear to us; only after we have organized the data of sensation according to the a priori forms of thought and
How would he answer the Bergsonians who argue that our predictive successes both in science and in practical life depend on our assuming that the future will be
the same as the past, an assumption, they insist, requiring a monstrous
distortion of reality' From both these philosophical viewpoints, successful prediction is not incompatible with a fundamental blindness to reality.
If Newton-Smith's realism cannot meet these challenges, then it will remain so purblind as to make his distinction between blanket instrumentalism and realism a distinction without a difference. "Just what ontological commitments one takes on in believing a theory will not be obvious."
"(N) ot obvious " indeed!
A careful reading of his book leaves me with the persistent suspicion
that, in the end, Newton-Smith's philosophical allegiances are with the
neo-positivists: ". . . it is surprising how rarely philosophers of science ... attempt to employ in their philosophical writings the patterns of
inference standardly employed in science. This is particularly surprising
in view of the additional fact that the methods of science and philosophy
are not as distinct as philosophers once fancied" (195). If my suspicions
are correct, then his position against the instrumentalists and the nonrationalists is all the more vitiated. For the realism of philosophy and
science are quite different. The data of science are the measurable, i.e.,
sensible, properties of things, as opposed to their essences, which are the
data of philosophy. Science at best yields only an indirect and symbolic
knowledge of things, so that what Newton-Smith says is in principle true:
namely, that all theories can be falsified ( 260). For, in so far as they are
not essential constituents of things, the sensible properties perceived in
a number of individuals of a certain class might not be found in other
individuals of the same class. Theories based on the former might be
falsified by the discovery of the latter.

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483

Now an articulated framework of philosophical realism, such as offered
in Maritain's Degrees of Knowledge, would have enabled Newton-Smith
to accommodate a " realist construal of scientific theories " to a method
that explains natural phenomena by prediction. Such a framework would
surround the valid and fruitful but nonetheless blind instrumentalism of
science with the "Seeing Eye" of a realistic philosophy, a philosophy
which rationally justifies our knowledge of things as things. The question
of the rationality of science is, in the end, a question of epistemology and
thus belongs in the domain of philosophical rather than scientific inquiry.
It will not do therefore to undertake an inquiry into the rationality of
science without a preceding discussion of epistemology and it will do even
less to begin the investigation on the premise that philosophy does not
have a valid object and method that is distinct from those of science.
Newton-Smith is guilty on both counts.
Despite the difficulty which I find with his "realist construal of scientific
theories," the argument he advances for the rationality of science seems
to retain its overall soundness and validity. I therefore stand by my initial
commendation of his book. It is an important contribution to the current
literature in the philosophy of science.
RAYMOND DENNEHY

University of Sari Francisco
San Francisco, California

The Flight from Authority. By JEFFREY STOUT. Notre Dame: University
of Notre Dame, 1981. Pp. 352. $25.
The subject of this book is the assertion that morality is logically or
conceptually independent of theoretical and religious positions, that
morality is autonomous. The book has basically two arguments against
this thesis. First, there is a long historical argument, whose point is supposed to be therapeutic, i.e., it argues that the thesis originated as a response to a problem which is no longer real. Second, the book argues directly against the foundationalist assumption of that thesis.
The historical argument is this. Stout claims that by Descartes's time
the mediaeval edifice of authority and scientia, as best represented in
Aquinas, had crumbled, and that Descartes also philosophized before what
St.out (following Ian Hacking) calls "the emergence of probability."
That is, he philosophized before the notion of an intrinsic degree of evi1dence less than absolute certainty had arisen-which occurred only in the
seventeenth century according to Stout. Unable to fall back on a degree
of evidence short of· demonstration, but recognizing that appeals to au-

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thority were by now (after the Reformation) futile, Descartes. tried to
bolster scientia by seeking secure epistemic foundations.
· Theism's troubles began at about the same time, says Stout, with the
rise of the idea of intrinsic probability. For Aquinas (and for the
mediaevals in general), Stout claims, probability simply consisted in
approval by recognized authorities. This situation changed in the seventeenth century, so that less authoritarian mentalities began to question
religious dogmas.
The new notion of probability created a dilemma for theism: either try
to show the intrinsic likelihood of theism or retreat into a subculture, with
a demand for blind faith. Trying the first tack produced Deism, but it
collapsed under the critical guns of Hume. Stout gives an exposition of
Hume's attack on miracles, apparently accepting his definition of a
miracle as an "event contrary to the laws of nature." From Hume's definition it follows that the weight of common experience lines up against
the testimony for miracles. The upshot is that whereas " for Aquinas
questions about the probability of miracle reports handed on by authority
were self-answering" (125), a critical scientist would not be disposed to
accept them now (he alludes to the Virgin Birth as an example).
It was in response to the breakdown of religious authority, Stout
argues, that the autonomy of morals was invented in the seventeenth and
eig·hteenth centuries. In addition to the emergence of the idea of probability, violent religious disagreements in the sixteenth century, as well as
the arrival of Newtonian science (undermining the Aristotelian-Thomist
notion of a goal of human nature) produced the need to base morals on
·Something other than religious or theoretical positions. Hence Kant faced
a crisis in the ethical domain similar to that faced by Descartes in the
epistemological domain, and gave an analogous response.
In short, Stout holds that there are basically three options concerning
the foundations of morrtls: a religious foundation, an absolute rational
foundation, or his historicist conception. His historical argument is meant
to show that the first option is no longer a live one and that the second
is based on a historically conditioned assumption which no longer holds.
The difficulty is that his historical interpretation seems so biased that it
would do little to persuade anyone holding either of the first two options.
For example, one need only turn to mediaeval theologians' discussions
of faith (for example Aquinas's in his Summa Theologiae, Part II-II,
Questions 1 et seq.) to see that they had an idea of various degrees of
certainty: " opinion,'' which they did not scorn, "suspicion,'' and so on.
One may also note Aquinas's repeated use of Aristotle's statement in the
Nicomachean Ethics that one should expect only as much certainty as the
type of inquiry at hand will allow. It is true the mediaevals had no idea
of the importance of statistical probabilities for the study of nature, and

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also that the term "probability" was linked with approval by some authority or other-but these facts do not show they lacked the notion of
less than absolutely certain evidence.
Second, theologians before Descartes's time, Aquinas for example, held
it was consonant with reason to accept Revelation by faith (which, by the
way, they considered to be not just believing human testimony but believing what God had spoken through the prophets and the apostles), they
discussed why they thought it was reasonable to do so, and hence their
reasons were open to inspection. Their real view, as well as the view of
faith found in Catholic teachings today, is quite different from the
childish fideism Stout implicitly attributes to them.
Third, one would like to know on what grounds one could calculate the
intrinsic probabilities of an event such as the Virgin Birth. One might
say, of course, that the frequencies of a woman virginally giving birth
are extremely low, but that is not a complete description of the alleged
event. The question for calculation would be, " How probable is it that
God would become man and choose to be conceived by some way other
than sexual
" How can one calculate the probabilities for anIs anyone in a position to do
Unless someswering that
one is, Stout's assertion that this miracle is antecedently improbable is
without meaning.
Fourth, Stout seems to advocate Hume's argument against the testimony of miracles without discussing any of the considerable critical literature concerning that argument. An opponent can deny Hume's definition
of miracles and thus deny that the weight of common human experience
must count against the testimony for miracles. He can hold that there is
free choice and that therefore some events are neither according to nature nor contrary to it (e.g., Stout's writing his book or my writing my
review).
In other words, Stout's notion that religious authority is much like a
scientific hypothesis long ago discredited to the satisfaction of all disinterested inquirers (such as the phlogiston hypothesis) is, at the very least,
open to debate. Further, it is not clear that the pre-seventeenth century
idea of morality was as authoritarian as Stout claims. He has trouble,
for example, with the case of Aquinas's ethics. Hence Stout has not shown
that the autonomy of morals thesis was invented only to fill the gap left
by a " crumbling " of religious authority, or that that could be its only
logical point. In sum, the historical argument is weak.
Nevertheless, Stout's book also contains a more direct polemic against
foundationalism, which is presupposed by the autonomy of morals thesis.
His arguments are for the most part drawn from Quine, Sellars, Davidson, and Rorty. Like Rorty, he wants "to present historicism as a natural
successor to analytic philosophy " (15).

so'

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The key premise in his argument is a holistic understanding of language, i.e., " the view that language cannot be divided up in the way
envisioned by proponents of the distinctions between the analytic and the
synthetic, theory and observation, or fact and value " (19). It follows
from this view that the plausible candidates for ultimate foundations in
either theoretical or ethical knowledge fail to qualify. On the holistic
view, the meaning of an expression depends in large part upon a pattern
of intersections in the web of belief. Hence " meaning·s " cannot provide
foundations for beliefs, a la conceptual analysis approach, since they
already reflect beliefs. Nor can observation-propositions serve the foundational role, since they cannot be understood apart from much of the theory
in which they are imbedded. In fact, any " basic" knowledge one might
propose as foundational "itself presupposes at least enough knowledge to
make the interpretation of that proposition possible, which is a great deal
of knowledge indeed" (19).
While this position denies foundationalism, fortunately, Stout argues,
it also dissolves the problem which gave foundationalism its raison d'etre,
i.e., the challenge of scepticism. Since understanding a proposition is
possible only within a framework of many other beliefs, it follows that
scepticism cannot be simultaneously understood and actually adopted.
Also, since foundationalism's point was to combat radical scepticism, Stout
argues that minimal foundationalism (corrigible foundations) is not significantly different from anti-foundationalism. The historicism Stout defends can admit that justification does in fact stop somewhere. But this
means only " that we should expect to find in any epistemic context some
stock of well-entrenched beliefs which set bounds within which current
enquiry proceQds" (33).
A good bit of the book is taken up with trying to show that historicism
does not succumb to the "inconsistencies and possibly pernicious implications of conceptual relativism" (3). Stout's position is that historicism
involves the denial of universal criteria of rationality, but does not lead
to conceptual relativism or its irrationalist consequences. One can " hold
the relativists at bay " without appealing to secure foundations or neutral
criteria of rationality. To show this point he uses Donald Davidson's argument against the very idea of an alternative conceptual scheme, applying
it to a question Davidson did not address. Davidson contends that one
could never have any reason for supposing there is an alternative conceptual scheme, i.e., a community whose language indicated its criteria of
rationality were simply diverse from ours. His argument is that the idea
of an alternative conceptual scheme involves the idea of a community
whose language is untranslatable into ours: if it were translatable it would
share basic concepts. But if there were a community whose utterances
seemed in l)rinciple untranslatable, then we would have no reason to
classify that behavior (the utterances) as linguistic.

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The translation of a language always involves a trade-off between belief-ascription and sentence-mapping. E.g., if a community seems to use
the word " dog " where we use the word " cat " and vice versa, we could
say either that their word " dog " means what our word " cat '' means. or
that they have strange beliefs. Since we have no direct access to meanings, we could never clearly distinguish between cases of " alternative
conceptual schemes " and mistranslations. " It will always be more plausible to assume major areas of agreement than to assume alternative conceptual schemes" (161). What this argument shows, Stout claims, is that,
even if there are no universal criteria-no privileged beliefs-nevertheless, any two language users must be united by massive agreement. There
will always be a stock of common assumptions to appeal to for rational
settlements, even though what the common ground might be may vary
according to times and cultures.
Stout applies these conclusions to the question whether morality is
autonomous from theoretical and religious beliefs. Of course, it follows
that it cannot be: " Ethical reasoning, like any other form of reasoning,
begins in a position defined by currently accepted principles, beliefs,
hopes, and plans, and moves from that position toward the resolution of
outstanding problems" (193). Stout argues that, on the one hand, a
" thoroughgoing holist " can agree with the prescriptivist that any moral
principle can be placed in jeopardy. On the other hand, he can maintain
with descriptivism that what counts as a moral reason is never a matter
of merely subjective choice.
The quality of his direct or logical discussion of foundationalism is
much better than his historical argument. Nevertheless, I would like to
raise some questions that seem to me to raise difficulties for the historicist
view Stout defends. First, Stout rightly points out that his historicism
excludes transcendental arguments as well as empiricist foundings, both
of which he refers to as attempts to attain a " perspective of eternity "
(3). On the historicist view historical genealogies must take the place of
conceptual analyses or transcendental arguments; a new style of philosophizing becomes the order of the day. Stout tries to a great extent to
follow his own prescription, arguing that the historical record tells against
proponents of the autonomy of morals.
However, in treating Aquinas's ethics in passing, Stout must admit
that this thirteenth century thinker has been interpreted as asserting a
kind of autonomy for ethical reasoning. As Stout notes, Alasdair MaClIntyre, for example, has interpreted Aquinas in this way. Macintyre
argues that for Aquinas the term " good " is not religiously defined, so
that the assertion, "God is good," is synthetic. Stout, however, replies
that "If the meaning of a term is partly defined by all the deeply entrenched lawlike sentences in . which it appears then Maclntyre's state-

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ment ... is misleading" (248). What is noticeable here seems to be an
oddity implicit in much of the argumentation presented in behalf of
historicism. It appears that Stout starts out claiming the historical record
should be allowed to have its say. Yet when the historical record seems
not to support his case he falls back on an argument based on the nature
of language. In the end it appears it is not so much the historical record
that carries through his overall argument as what looks very much like
a transcendental argument about the nature and possibility of language.
But that argument is itself supposed to show the impossibility of launcharguments. I wonder, in other words, whether any
ing any
argument for historicism can fail to have problems with self-referential
consistency, not identical but similar to those which plague conceptual
relativism.
It seems to me Stout has done a good job in distinguishing historicism
from conceptual relativism, and that is one of the book's merits. If historicism is in the end self-referentially inconsistent, as I suspect it may
be, showing this to be the case is a much more complicated affair than
showing it for conceptual relativism.
There is not time to try to develop such an argument here, but I would
suggest that Stout's treatment does not pay sufficient attention to the
question of truth and its relation to epistemic justification. It is of course
a controverted point, but I would want to argue that epistemic principles
of justification, as opposed to other justification principles, are just those
normative principles which we expect to lead to the attainment of truth
in the sense of correspondence. That is, a valid epistemic justification
principle would be one which guaranteed, at least to some extent, that
thinking in accord with it led to a cognitive union with reality (speaking here of theoretical knowledge). It seems to me that this point is
presupposed in the classical infinite regress arguments regarding the
foundations of knowledge. This point, if it can be established, together
with the infinite regress argument, would show the need for neutral, invariant principles of rationality (or epistemic justification principles).
For, if one's principles of rational justification are required in order to
guarantee, to some extent at least, a cognitive union with reality, then,
since reality (for the most part) does not vary according to language or
epistemic communities, incompatible principles of epistemic justification
cannot be equally rational.
This point does not suppose that reality itself could be a criterion to
which one can appeal to determine justification (which obviously leads to
a vicious circle). The position would rather be that operating according
to correct principles of epistemic justification leads to grasping reality as
it is. Many points in such a position require furtl:ier argument, but it
seems to me that hitting the question of truth head on, and keeping the

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489

question of principles of justification distinct but related to that issue, is
essential to further discussion.
Stout's treatment of these issues is incisive and is a genuine aid to the
task of sorting out the several distinct but related issues involved in the
controversy over the foundations of knowledge. Despite my disagreement
with most of the substantive conclusions drawn, I am grateful to the
author for many challenging and informative discussions. I recommend
the work to anyone interested in the central problem of the foundations of
knowledge, whether theoretical or ethical.
PATRICK LEE

Center for Thomistic Studies
University of St. Thomas
Houston, Temas

By RICHARD A. POSNER. Cambridge, Mass.:
Harvard University Press, 1981. Pp. 415. $25.00.

The Economics of Justice.

This is a collection of previously published essays. The author frequently admits that the reader might judge that there is no evident and compelling unifying thread in this compilation. The book is divided into four
sections. The first presents Posner's suggestion that the ethic of wealthmaximization is preferable to both utilitarianism and a Kantian ethic. In
the second group of essays he argues that the social and legal arrangements of primitive societies can be understood as insurance of wealthmaximization. In the third section he interprets both the concept of
privacy and American laws regarding privacy. Finally, he applies his
economic ethic to questions of discrimination and affirmative action.
Posner offers an intriguing interpretation of the development of
privacy practices and laws; he focuses on information costs. Primitive
cultures ·were intimate, information about others was readily available,
privacy was minimal. Language was more proper, more careful, to avoid
offending the many others who might be listening. Posner would say that
this care in communication was an increased "cost" accompanying a situation of relatively free information. More recently human beings are able
to have protected space, making information less available. Privacy laws
are interpreted as ways of protecting individuals from informationsearches launched by others. Posner tends to think that people want
privacy for bad reasons, as a protective device so that they can deceive
or dissemble. Privacy is not seen primarily as a necessary protection of
human dignity, a good to be encouraged and widened. Indeed, Posner
may well be nght in describing the yearning for .privacy as reflective of

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human evil. From the very beginning of the Bible, the J udaeo-Christiart
tradition has described the natural, good human condition as one of openness; only because of sin did Adam turn to clothing as protective of
privacy.
The category of " information costs" is Posner's device for tying together the discussions of privacy and discrimination. He suggests that a
possible economic argument for discrimination is that it is too costly to
gather detailed information about every individual job applicant (or potential home purchaser, or medical school applicant, etc.). If negative
personal qualities correlate with some easily-identifiable characteristic
(e.g., race, sex), then it is cost-efficient to discriminate against those members of the identifiable class. It is not then a matter of immoral prejudice
but rather an economic question of information costs. Posner does argue
that the negative economic effect on objects of discrimination (as a group)
can be so significant as to make discrimination unjust. This is an example
of his application of the ethic of wealth-maximization; discrimination can
so disadvantage a minority group as to offset the gains (in terms of information costs) realized by the majority.
Posner is speaking, then, about a social ethic, about social justice
in the sense recently popularized by John Rawls. He is explicitly
not speaking of a personal ethic or a private ethic. Indeed, upon
reflection the reader realizes that we have here an atypical use of " ethic."
Posner is dealing with social structures, with the organization of society.
He presumes that humans are " rational maximizers of their satisfactions "
(p. 1) and proceeds to discuss how a legal system might build upon such
a human nature to yield "just" structures. (In particular, as we have
already noted, he tests his ideas in the instances of privacy and discrimination.) It is instructive to compare recent Roman Catholic social teaching
with what Posner (and Rawls) says about social justice, or a social ethic.
1. Roman Catholic teaching is essentially positive in its evaluation of
human nature. True, sin is a dreadful reality, and injustice abounds precisely because of sin. But grace abounds even more, and human beings
are able to construct a social system from their goodness, from upright
motivation. On the contrary, Posner begins from a picture of selfish and
self-·centered humans; his task is to discern those structures, those laws,
those arguments which will lead satisfaction-maximizers into a non-destructive " just" condition.
2. Posner speaks of the common good, or the social good, in a way not
dissimilar to a utilitarian approach (even though he is at pains to offer
his economic ethic as a clear alternative to utilitarianism and its defects).
The society is looked at as a whole. The utilitarian seeks to maximize
pleasure, to minimize pain, across the society; Posner speaks of wealthmaximization. This contrasts with a Roman Catholic sense of the com-

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491

mon good wherein the individual good of each and every person must be
considered. For the Roman Catholic a structure is not for the common
good if it deliberately disadvantages some individuals (at least in the
area of basic human rights) while in the process of increasing the good
(whatever the good is, and however it is measured) for the society taken
as a whole. In my judgment, on this point Posner (and Rawls) is much
nearer the ordinary man's understanding of the " common good "; most
people seem willing to sacrifice here and there for this or that individual
in order to maintain as just a society as seems possible. The Roman
Catholic ideal seems impractical to many on this point.
Such brief comparisons might help readers of this journal to understand Posner a bit more easily. But he does not contrast himself with
Roman Catholic teaching; hence, this review must shift now to Posner's
own grounds.
Posner identifies Kant and utilitarianism as the two major alternatives
for a social ethic. (He accurately identifies Rawls as having rejected a
utilitarian approach and having opted for a more Kantian argument; still
Posner describes some of Rawls's arguments as being utilitarian. This is
only one example of how Posner can be inexact in his understanding of
ethical theory. It is true that Rawls at times weighs consequences but this
does not make him a utilitarian; many, if not all, ethical theories must
eventually seriously discuss consequences, but this hardly qualifies all such
theories as utilitarian.) Posner notes that the Kantian approach typically must account for exceptional cases, cases which powerfully challenge
the universal tenor of Kantian maxims. Without any convincing argument, Posner reduces such an embrace of the exceptional to utilitarianism.
In such manner he collapses all social ethical theory into utilitarianism.
He goes to greater lengths enumerating the weaknesses of a utilitarian
approach. One example is the issue of whether animal pain and pleasure
is to be included in a utility calculus; of course, if one opts to consider
the subjective states of animals, one must determine how to measure such
pains and pleasures. In general, the utilitarian approach is burdened with
too much uncertainty, too much subjective guessing about the subjective
results of this or that social arrangement. Posner's ethic of wealth-maximization is an economic alternative to utilitarianism. Posner does not
claim to have eliminated all the uncertainty and guesswork about human
motivation, but rather to have significantly narrowed it down by using
categories more precise than pleasure and pain.
To read Posner is to be reminded that reality is open to interpretation
from many valid points of view. It is instructive to read an economic
analysis of questions of social ethics. Typically ethics has been developed
in philosophical and/ or theological categories; behavioral imperatives
"fit " into philosophy and theology. Is it valid to speak of an economic
ethic'/ This question will focl,ls the remainder of this review.

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Let me begin by asserting that Posner (and Rawls) do ·not deny personal ethics even as they work at social ethics as a quite distinct endeavor.
It is clear that certain activity is to be judged good and other activity as
bad. As far as I can judge, both Posner and Rawls are intuiting personal ethics. Rawls explicitly rejects intuitionism as an ethical theory
and still he presupposes ("knows," intuits?) the moral evaluation of certain types of behavior. To be fair to both Posner and Rawls, I am not
here attempting to label them intuitionists; that is unnecessary and would
be gratuitous. I am surely saying that both of them reveal convictions
about personal ethics without systematically identifying the genesis of
such convictions. It is, then, tempting to speak of intuition.
More to the point here is that both Posner and Rawls have convictions
(Rawls speaks of " intuitions") about what constitutes a just society.
At least they can identify injustice when they see it. (Posner is explicitly
critical of the Supreme Court's use of " privacy " to forbid the sale of
contraceptives to minors, while the same court permits body-cavity
searches of prison inmates. Posner would more carefully protect the
rights of prisoners.) To put the matter as directly as I can: Posner does
not begin with a totally open ethical mind and apply his ethic of wealthmaximization, following it wherever it might lead. Rather, he has preconceptions about what is just (most usually based upon legal precedent)
and he attempts to show that using the model of wealth-maximization will
usually yield these just results.
It would be a mistake, then, to dismiss out-of-hand an economic ethic.
The primary question is how Posner knows what would constitute a just
society; as a matter of fact, I suspect that the insight is typically into
injustice, but that is not important here. Certainly both Posner and Rawls
take existing positive law seriously. Posner also convincingly argues for
the power of social custom. But he is not simply a legal positivist; Posner
is prepared to criticize existing law from some outside vantage points.
The ethicist asks Posner whence his convictions about justice (or injustice). No doubt, Posner presumes that others will typically share his
convictions; people will recognize justice (injustice) in society. But why?
How do human beings know the just'
Granting that Posner simply does not address this fundamental ethical
question, we can fairly ask whether his ethic of wealth-maximization is
appropriate as a model of how the just is socially achieved (whatever the
just is, and however it is known). After all, we are dealing with a strategic question, asking what line of argumentation rational humans will
follow toward just arrangements. In theory any strategy for effecting the
just is political; that is to say, one must remember the real situations and
real people involved. Or again, a strategy must be efficient, it must work.
This is typically a weak aspect of Roman Catholic social teaching; the

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493

ideal is easily enough asserte.d, but it is more difficult to deal with the limitations and imperfections which reality consistently presents. The social
strategist deals in imperfect (sinful) reality, and his strategy will reflect
an awareness of that imperfection and sin; Roman Catholics optimistic
about human nature frequently back away from the relative evil which
realistic efficient strategy so often involves. Posner is a good reminder that
strategy is inevitably realistic or it is doomed to fail.
Finally, what is to be said about Posner's picture of human nature' He
accurately describes contemporary Americans, but perhaps we are not
typically human. We are maybe homo economicus, but is that a true description of all humans T Are all humans over the ages "rational maximizers of our satisfactions "' Because Americans do meet this description, an economic ethic for social justice is attractive and presumably
consistent. But the real ethical question is not whether we are rational
maximizers of our satisfactions, but whether we ought to be such. Again,
Posner does not address such fundamental ethical questions. If he proposes to continue speaking of his work as an ethic, he must speak more
directly to a set of issues which underlie his present theory and which
perennially invite the insights of all thoughtful persons, including
economists.
WILLIAM J. FINAN, O.P.
St. Thomas House
University of Virginia
Charlottesville, Virginia

The Theory of Categories. By FRANZ BRENTANO. Translated by Roder-

ick Chisholm and Norbert Guterman. The Hague: Martin us Nijhoff,
1981. Melbourne International Philosophy Series, volume 18, Pp. 275.
$49.50.

Although the title of Brentano's study of the categories might call
Kant to mind, the book in fact develops from Aristotle's ideas and seldom
refers to Kant at all. The Kantian revival at the end of the nineteenth
century left Brentano cold. Instead, he drew his inspiration from his
Dominican training and from his teacher, the great Aristotelian scholar,
Adolph Trendelenburg. Brentano was too original a thinker simply to
repeat Aristotle, but he claimed just to be carrying on where that master
left off. Writers since Aristotle have just confused the issue, Brentano
says; and a true understanding of the categories will not be achieved until
one starts from Aristotle, at the same time feeling free to correct his ideas
when necessary.

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The Theory of the Categories thus takes its place along with Brentano's
four Aristotelian studies, three of which have recently been translated by
Rolf George. The relationship is especially close with Brentano's first
book, his dissertation On the Several Senses of Being in Aristotle, published in 1862. Two-thirds of this early book is taken up with the senses
of being that Aristotle distinguishes according to the figures of the categories. The Theory of the Categories consists of essays written at the other
end of his life, between 1907 and 1917, the year of his death. Yet it is
almost as if Brentano here, in one of his last books, is determined to complete and modify his dissertation, and the editor has therefore appropriately entitled the first third of the book on categories "The Strict and
Extended Senses of Being" to indicate the continuity with the earlier
work.
Unlike the four Aristotle studies, however, The Theory of Categories is
intended primarily as a contribution to systematic rather than to historical philosophy. The Aristotle volumes discuss one passage from the classic
works after another, and they are copiously footnoted to Aristotle and
bis commentators, so that their main interest for contemporary readers lies
in the way they elucidate Aristotelian texts. The book on categories, on
the other hand, dispenses by and large with citations from Aristotle and
other thinkers and deals with issues as they arise for Brentano's
own system. The difference between the early and the late work is also
partly the result of a change in Brentano. In the years since On the Several Senses, Brentano's thinking on epistemology and metaphysics had
gone through several stages and had become increasingly independent and
creative. By writing this late book on an Aristotelian theme, Brentano
thereby provided us a measure of the distance he had come since his
first book.
Strictly speaking, the book here translated as The Theory of Categories
is not the one Brentano intended to write. At the end of his life Brentano
evidently planned to provide a definitive account of his metaphysics, in
terms of Aristotle's categories, but he did not live to write that book.
The work here translated is instead an anthology of Brentano's dictations
on the topic and some preliminary drafts for the book, as put together by
the editor Alfred Kastil for the German edition of 1933. In many cases
fragments of larger writings have been pieced together in order to make
a presentation that will reflect Brentano's late ideas on a topic. Although
all this editorial work was no doubt done carefully and by someone who
knows Brentano's mind intimately, the published volume is still only a
substitute for the book Brentano envisioned and not the book itself.
The editor's organization of The Theory of the Ca,tegories is straightforward and logical. The book is divided into three sections, each of
which has three subsections, and the selections within each subsection are

BOOK REVIEWS

495

arranged chronologically. In part one, "The Strict and Extended Senses
of Being," the first two subsections lay the basis for Brentano's " reistic "
metaphysics, while the third takes up "'intensity," that is, for example,
the intensity of a tone or color. Part two, "Preliminary Studies for the
Theory of Categories,'' examines the traditional doctrine of categories and
its needed modifications, in terms of three themes- Aristotle's theory,
substance, and relations. Part three contains the final three drafts on the
theory of categories. All three of these were written in 1916; the first
two drafts were begun on March 2, 1916, and the third on March 29 of
that year.
The origin of this book in separately dictated essays means that the
arguments are harder to follow than they might otherwise have been.
Brentano has a clear, almost ascetic style, but his arguments are often
cramped by the short format. It is true that the same arguments come
up repeatedly in different essays, so that one can improve one's comprehension by re-reading, but some extra effort is required. In his introduction to the German edition (not translated in the English version), Kastil
recommends that the reader not try to read the book initially in the order
which he used in his edition. Instead, he suggests that a person look
first at the two subsections of part one, making constant references to
Brentano's book The True and the Evident, and then turn to the third
major part of the book and study the three 1916 drafts. The second
major section might then be examined to provide a comparison and expansion of the ideas in the 1916 drafts, and the third subsection of part
one, on intensity, should be left until last, because it is the most difficult
of the book.
Of special interest to workers in the scholastic tradition are Brentano's
views on being and on the individuation of things. The former comes up
repeatedly throughout the book, especially in the first two subsections.
There he holds that being in the strict sense, S eiendes (or " a thing," as
translated here), is the highest genus. That which is, in the strict sense,
includes "every individual thing, every multiplicity of things, and every
part of a thing " ( p. 19) . By this thesis he attacks doctrines such as that
of Meinong, who ascribes a kind of reality to any object of mental activity. Brentano's criticism here is also very general. He wants to dispense with ascribing being, in the strict sense, to any kind of universals,
abstractions, fictions, and the like. His Sprachkritik sometimes reminds
one of other attempts to purify language, such as Russell's theory of descriptions. But Brentano is no Russell; for among the things to which
Brentano allows being in the strict sense are souls and God. Brentano's
general viewpoint, which is called "reism,'' was developed earlier and
more clearly in The True and the Evident than here, but this book is nonetheless valuable for showing the implications of his view for the Aristo-

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BOOK REVIEWS

telian and scholastic traditions. He does not believe that he is overturning
these traditions, but only correcting them and releasing their power for
the twentieth century. If he is right-and the scholarly jury is still out
on that point-his method might lend scholastic methodology a new logical rigor and bring it into closer connection than before to some strands
of analytic philosophy.
On the topic of individuation, Brentano continued to develop new ideas
almost up until the end. He rejected Aristotle's view that matter is what
individuates things, but he changed in his own position. According to one
late view, " individual determinacy is a unification of the ultimate specific
differences belonging to different' lines of predication" ( p. 119), a point
which he thinks that Aristotle failed to see because he thought substance
could be specified in only a single line and any intersection of differences
was impossible. But Brentano later abandoned this view in the third draft
of the theory of categories; and one month before his death, he modified
his ideas once again.
Concerning individuation, as well as on many other issues in the book,
it is often difficult for the reader to follow the stages of Brentano's teaching. Brentano himself almost never indic.ates in his dictations that he is
changing his mind, and we are left dependent upon Kastil's notes. The
result is that the editorial notes, which run to a fifth of the whole volume,
are like a counterpoint to Brentano's melody, and it is sometimes hard to
tell where Brentano ends and Kastil begins. Kastil's notes need to be read
as a running commentary on Brentano, or one has no idea how the whole
book was put together or what the relationships among the parts are. It
is regrettable, therefore, that space did not permit the translation of
Kastil's introductory essay, and that the translators did not see fit to
make things easy for the reader by placing the notes at the bottom of
the page or at least, as in the German edition, putting references with
each note to show to what page in the text it refers.
A book like this invites commentaries of many kinds. Chisholm's excellent introduction, together with Kastil's notes, provides a thorough
account of the relation of this book to Brentano's other works. The relationship of the ideas to Aristotle is not so easy to work out, since neither
Brentano nor his editors have provided exact citations, but a comparison
with Brentano's Aristotle books can make up that lack. What is altogether missing, and what needs to be supplied, is some footnoting to show
Brentano's debt to the scholastic tradition. Unlike many other Aristotle
scholars, Brentano remembers his schooling in the Thomistic tradition,
and the terminology with which he discusses the categories displays that
influence.. Characteristic teachings of Aquinas turn up also; for example,
in the allowance for the possibility of a " creatio ex nihilo " ( p. 203), and
in the statement that Aquinas had, in a partial way, anticipated Brentano's

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thesis that accidents can be the subjects of other accidents (p. 86). Since
Brentano typically plays down his debt to Aquinas in favor of his debt
to Aristotle, however, some editorial notes here would have been helpful.
The translation seems on the whole well done. This volume is one of
many translations of Brentano's works that have come out recently under
the sponsorship of the Brentano Foundation and the general editorship
of Roderick Chisholm, and the hand of so capable a philosopher as Professor Chisholm gives a consistency to the terminology that will ease the
study of Brentano for English readers. Several minor typographical
errors mar the translation. I have not made a general comparison of the
German and English versions, but I was stopped by one major problem
because it introduced an incoherence into the text. On the bottom of page
16 a sentence about Aristotle has been translated twice verbatim, while
a sentence about Leibniz has been mistakenly introduced that makes
Leibniz take two directly contrary positions within the same paragraph.
With this translation another step has been taken toward the goal of a
complete English edition of Brentano's major works. In view of the
freedom with which some of the German editors cut and paste pieces of
his manuscripts, however, there is danger that even when all of Brentano
is translated, we will not be sure a view in the books is that of Brentano
rather than, for example, of Alfred Kastil. Perhaps it is too much to
hope that a reasonably priced microfiche version could be published of
the German Brentano manuscripts. But would it not be possible for
editors at least to indicate the manuscript numbers of each piece selected
for publication, so that readers can track down the original manuscript 7
This is, however, only a smaJl point and the nuisance occasioned by this
lack is nothing compared to the gratitude each reader must feel that the
Brentano works are finally appearing in translation.
One last note: When the essays in this book were written, Brentano was
blind and his ideas were dictated to his wife. Neither his German nor his
American editor mentions this fact, and perhaps their silence is wise. For
Brentano's writing needs no apology. His comments are the work of a
master, and if he repeats himself from one dictation to the next, this
adds to the richness as well as to the complexity of the book. Yet perhaps it is not out of place to mention his blindness nonetheless, not only
because of its pathos but also because the reader may thereby be better
prepared than before to bear patiently with the author, as he criss-crosses
through fundamental issues about the categories and continually casts
these issues in a fresh light.
ANDREW

University of New Memico
Albuquerque, New Memico

J. BURGESS

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Pascal, .Adversary and .Advocate. By ROBERT J.
Mass. : Harvard, 1981. Pp. 286. $22.50.

NELSON.

Cambridge,

No one would wish to hold an author responsible for his publisher's
dust-jacket claims, but it must be said that the contents of this book are
at variance with the label. This is not "the first rounded portrayal of
Pascal", if indeed it is a rounded portrayal at all, and the suggestion that
it "restores Pascal to the general reader after twenty years of scholarship
that has embroiled this historic thinker in academic quarrels " is too
ridiculous to be worth refuting. In fact this is a book for those' familiar
with modern linguistics, and with sufficient knowledge of past theological
and present psychological doctrines to assess the interpretations offered
under these three heads. At the same time such readers are apparently
assumed to understand French too little to justify giving anything but an
English version (sometimes a little odd) of Pascal's original. Moreover,
even for those who want to know something new about Pascal, this book
is not quite what it seems; only 33 out of some 270 pages are devoted to
the Pensees, and several of them to purely editorial problems. It may in
short be said that this is an attempt to present Pascal, the man and his
work, in terms of the dialectic presented in the title; not Pascal as he is
for the vast majority of modern readers, who know him as author of the
Pensees, nor Pascal as he was known to his contemporaries, the brilliant
scientist and religious controversialist, author above all of the Provincial
Letters, but in some sense a new, or hitherto unrecognized, Pascal, thrown
into relief by applying the techniques of psychology, theology, and linguistics to selected aspects of his life and work.
Such a presentation, and the methods employed, leads to some very
mixed results. We read (p. 9) that,. since little is known of Pascal's personal life, particularly the life of the flesh, " one is obliged to an unusual
amount of what is, in my case I hope, informed and fair speculation,"
but whether or not the author's hope is justified, speculation it remains.
Some very odd Aunt Sallies are set up only to be knocked down; thus
Professor Nelson writes of Pascal's two masterpieces (Provincial Letters
and Pensees) "an almost exclusively esthetic appreciation has isolated
[Pascal] for too many readers ... from the question ... 'How then shall
we live''" A lifetime of teaching Pascal (admittedly in Britain) suggests, at least to this reader, exactly the opposite conclusion.
Much of what Professor Nelson says is worth saying, even if it is not
necessarily new. Thus his analysis of Pascal's first religious controversy,
with Saint-Ange, and of his more protracted scientific dispute with the
Jesuits is valuable and well done, but then an interesting discussion of

BOOK REVIEWS

499

the important Writings on Grace is marred by the surprising observation
are not called
(p. 63) "the Molinists do come off rather well
' heretics' like the Calvinists." Naturally not; Calvinists were condemned
by the Church as heretics, Molinists never. On the same page capital is
made of the fact that the "banal metaphor 'Mother Church' " nowhere
occurs in the Pensees but is used to effect in the first Writing on Grace,
and while this is true, and even consistent with a Freudian interpretation
(if such an approach seems appropriate), it hardly justifies the long
speculative excursus into family relationships which follows. " One can
imagine Pascal's irritation at having to address the despicable adversaries
[Jesuits] by that name [fathers] "-can one? What about " Monsieur
l'aboe" from " abba, father"? And banal as the metaphor " Mother
Church" may be, its rarity, like that of other womanly metaphors noted
by Professor Nelson, is not a peculiarity of Pascal's style, and can be
parallelled in other religious writers of the age.
Nowhere does speculation play a more prominent, and less plausible,
part than in Professor Nelson's treatment of the relations between Pascal
and his sister Jacqueline. After we are told ( p. 90) that "most Pascalians " have seen in Pascal's condemnation of the " sins of the flesh "
confirmation of his lifelong celibacy and virginity, by the next page we
read, " it is possible that his feelings towards Jacqueline were incestuous."
After two references to " a possibly sensuous attachment" we suddenly
get (p. 94): "we can understand the anguish of the frustration to his
will in the sensuous realm " in connexion with Jacqueline's insistence on
becoming a nun. The transition from possible to accepted fact is applied
to one of the most important crises in Pascal's life, and only a few pages
later Jacqueline's letter to her brother is said to have " the ring of a
mistress abandoning a lover" and their subsequent relationship is described in terms of " a lovers' quarrel or divorce." While such an interpretation cannot be proved or disproved, the emphasis is not one that
previous critics have felt able to affirm in this way, and it is precisely the
slide from speculation to affirmation which is typical of all that is least
satisfactory about the book. By treating psychological interpretations of
imperfectly documented events as having the same weight as conclusions
from linguistic analysis, the author casts doubt on the whole enterprise.
What is certain, and agreed by everyone, is that Pascal's emotional and
practical dependence on his sister caused him selfishly to resent her entry
into religion, but there is, and can be, no warrant for the gratuitous charge
of incestuous feelings.
Despite Jean Mesnard's reservations about Marguerite Perier's recollections of her uncle, and specifically her anecdote about the sermon on
December 8, 1654, Professor Nelson accepts her unsupported assertion
that Pascal's break with the world occurred then and not two weeks

500

BOOK REVIEWS

earlier, after the nuit de feu. A few pages after mentioning this story,
he treats it as proven fact, and uses it to build up a view of Jacqueline's
role in Pascal's conversion which can certainly not be ruled out, but is
at odds with the usual view. The way another of Marguerite's anecdotes
is treated is, however, positively alarming. It seems that during a
childhood illness Pascal cried at the sight of water (p. 137), which could
clearly be explained in more than one way, but then we learn that this
hydrophobia's cause " may be that the sickly child was a rather bad bedwetter . . . The specifically theological implications of this hydrophobia
may manifest themselves in Pascal's ambivalent attitude towards infant
baptism."
There is a great deal more in this vein, some of it even worse (notably
the alleged discovery of an " androgynous" Jesus in the magnificent
Mystery of Jesus) which it is hard to reconcile with serious scholarship.
Great harm can be, and is, done when rightly respected scholars like
Professor Nelson indulge in what might be called the Rohrschach blot approach to Pascal (or any other author) in the absence even of authentic
blots.
The extended analysis of the Provincial Letters contains some excellent
points, lucidly and firmly established, but even here all is not well. Much
is made of the word " occult" as applied to malice, and on p. 132 we
read that it is "tinged with a strong tone of sensuality", whereas the
word means simply "hidden secret." Even worse is what first looks like
an odd joke, but turns out to be meant seriously (p. 206) : "As the French
word [ insigne] shows the Jesuits are without signs ( in-signe), without
a valid conception of signs." Is it necessary to mention that neither in
Latin nor in French has the in- suffix of that word the remotest negative
connotation? The remark is all the more unfortunate in that it comes in
a very worthwhile analysis of the respective attitudes to language of the
Jesuits (for whom "words refer to one another") and Pascal (for whom
language is necessarily referential).
As to the book's primary thesis, namely that Pascal went through successive phases of being adversary, advocate (beginning with the last two
Provincial Letters), and finally a mixture of both, it is neither true nor
false as stated. Right at the beginning of the book Professor Nelson
acknowledges that Pascal always adapted to the needs of his interlocutor,
and, in a century when polemic was universal in all spheres, the adversarial mode came naturally to most people, just as the same people
adopted the tone of advocacy when their aim was persuasion, entertainment, or edification. The dialectic, also expressed as " conservativeliberal-conservative", is accidental, not essential. For Pascal the true
break came with his determined, only partially successful, attempt at
denial of self after the nuit de feu, and the true dialectic came from his

BOOK REVIEWS

501

recognition that "both . . . and " offers a more balanced answer than
" either ... or." The general reader would do well to correct the portrait
presented in this book by, for instance, the work of Broome or Mesnard,
and, if the specialist (particularly in theology) can find his way through
games of free association and adventurous speculation, he will find much
of real worth.
A. J. KRAILSHEIMER
Christ Church
011Jford, England

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