THE RELATION BETWEEN INTELLECT AND
WILL IN FREE CHOICE ACCORDING TO
AQUINAS AND SCOTUS

I

T IS COMMON KNOWLEDGE that important differences exist between Thomistic and Scotistic theories of
free choice. In another paper I have tried to show that
these differences are important for moral theory. 1 Yet it seems
to me that the points on which these theories agree are at
least as important as those on which they differ. The basic
difference between the theories has often been described as a
contrast between an intellectualist view (Thomistic) and a
voluntarist view (Scotistic). Significantly, Scotistic commentators seem to have been less satisfied than Thomists with this
characterization. Some have claimed that this labelling is unfair to Scotus and obscures his views. Yet a difference can be
exaggerated in two directions, and it may be that this labelling
has also obscured Aquinas's position. In fact, it may be that
exaggerating the contrast has led some commentators to explain Aquinas's views in a way that is a.pt to be mistaken for
intellectual determinism. 2
The purpose of this pa.per is to determine exactly where
Aquinas and Scotus differ on free choice, and where they do
not. I will first examine Scotus's position and then Aquinas's.
1 "Aquinas
and Scotus on Liberty and Natural Law," Proaeedings of the
Ameriaa;n Oatholio Philosophical Assoaiation, 1982.
dictum tossed about has been, " The intellect specifies
2 A very incautious
the will." See below, p. 335f, for an account of the ambiguity in this expression.
The common resort to the mutual causality of intellect and will does not
answer the problem raised by this passage. The problem is this: if the intellect specifies that this object rather than that be willed, then the choice
is not free but intellectually determined. If the objection is stated in precisely this way, I think it can be answered only by denying the antecedent.
Yet Thomists have often been loath to deny it, for fear of falling into
"voluntarism."

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PATRICK LEE

Scotus on Free Choice
In the central texts where Scotus discusses the relationship
between intellect and will in an act of choice he asks:
"Whether the act of will is caused in the will by an object
moving it or by the will moving itself? " 3 The first time he
addressed this question, which is recorded in the Opus Oxoniense (Bk. II, d. 25) , he maintained that the known object (or
intellect) has no intrinsic causal role in the act of will at all,
but is only a sine qua non-not intrinsically causing, but
something whose effect is required for the effect in question
(here, the act of will) .4 The will alone was cause, and total
cause, of the act of will: "Nothing but the will is the total
cause of the act of willing in the will: " 5
Yet later in his life he altered this position, and we have the
record of that alteration in some manuscripts of later writings.
Carl Balic edited these manuscripts for publication, and attested to both their authenticity and their significance.6
In these later texts Scotus says there are three possible answers to the question: first, that only the known object is the
cause of the act of will; second, that only the will is the cause
of its act (his earlier position) ; or third, that the will and object concur in causing the act of will. He adopts here the third
position.
s Scotus, Opus Omoniense, Bk. II, d. 25, q. un., Vives ed., vol. 13, 196a;
see also next note. Two incisive articles on Scotus's position are: Bernardine
M. Bonansea, "Duns Scotus's Voluntarism," in J. Ryan and B. Bonansea,
(eds.), John Duns Scotus, 1265-1965 (Washington, D.C.: Catholic University
of America, 1965), pp. 83-121; Lawrence D. Roberts, "Indeterminism in
Duns Scotus' Doctrine of Human Freedom," Modern Schoolman, 51 ( 1973),
1-16.
4 Ibid., n. 18-19, vol. 13, 210-212.
s "Dico ergo ad quaestionem quod nihil aliud a voluntate est causa totalis
volitionis in voluntate." (Op. Om., II, d. 25, n. 22, vol. 13, 222b.)
de J. Duns Scot sur les quatre livres des
6 C. Balic, Les commentaires
sentences. (Bibliotheque de la Revue d'Histoire FJcclesiastique, I) Louvain,
1927, pp. 264-301; hereafter, Additiones Magnae; C. Balic, "Une question
inedite de J. Duns Scot sur la volonte," Recherches de Theologie Ancienne et
M edievale, 3 ( 1931), 191-208, hereafter, Secundae Additicnes.

FREE CHOICE ACCORDING TO AQUINAS AND SCOTUS

323

Scotus rejects the first position-that the known object is
the total cause of the act of willing-on the basis of several
arguments. By known object, here, he means either the intellectually proposed object or the object as it exists in the
phantasm. Taking the object in either of these senses, the
position must be rejected essentially because it would lead to
a denial of free choice and of moral responsibility.
In explaining his point Scotus introduces his distinction between natural agents and voluntary agents-two types of
causes that act in radically different ways. A natural agent is
one that acts in a determined and necessitated way, so that if
the action is not impeded by an extrinsic agent, and the dispositions of the action and that on which the agent acts are
the same, then its effect will always be the same. Voluntary
agents, on the contrary, act freely. But the known object is a
natural agent-and so too is the intellect-and so if the object (or the intellect) were the total cause of the act of will,
then our acts would not be free; our acts would not be in our
power:
Again, it is principally argued against the first opinion: the same
natural agent, not impeded, cannot cause opposite effects in the
same patient, equally disposed, for this is the character (ratio) of
a natural agent. Hence in II De Generatione <Aristotle>, it
says: the same, insofar as it is the same, is naturally ordained always to act the same, and this is specifically understood of the
natural agent. But the object is merely a natural agent; therefore
in the same patient, <the agent> remaining the same, it cannot
cause opposite effects; therefore if the known object causes notwilling <nolle> in the will, it cannot cause willing, or vice versa.
But to posit this is to destroy all liberty in the will, and contingency in human acts, which are in the power of man. 7

Scotus also rejects the second position, the one he himself
held earlier, namely, that the will is the total effective cause
of its act, and the object (or intellect) only a sine qua non. He
proposes eight arguments, but two will be considered here.
First, if the will were the total cause of its act, then it would
1

Secundae Additiones, 195.

PATRICK LEE

have within itself all that it takes to be in act, and so it could
be permanently in act:
If therefore the will alone were the sufficient cause in respect of the

act of willing, and were itself the sufficient receiving patient, then
the will could always will just as a combustible would always burn
itself if it had the active power of burning .... 8
Second, the very notion of a. mere sine qua, non, something
that does not intrinsically influence the effect but whose own
effeot is required, is not clear. The action of a sine qua non is
required for the effect, and yet its action is supposed not to
induce a disposition in the effect. But, to look at it the other
way, how could the inaction of the sine qua non impede the
action of another agent, unless it did induce some disposition
in the effect? The very notion of a mere sine qua non, Scotus
says in this later writing, does not seem reasonable. 9
Hence Scotus rejects both erlremes, and takes a middle position, namely that the will and the object (or intellect) concur
in causing the act of will:
I reply therefore to the question, that the effective cause of the
act of willing is not the object alone, as phantasm, because this in
no way saves liberty as the first opinion affirms; nor is the effective
cause of willing the will alone in the way the second extreme
affirms, because then all the conditions that follow upon the act
of willing cannot he saved, as was shown. Therefore I hold the
middle way, that both the will and the object concur in causing
the act of willing, so that the act of willing is from the will and
from the object known as from an effective cause.10
Scotus's next task is to examine how the known object and
will concur in causing the act of will. He explains that causes
can concur to produce an effect in three ways. First, the causes
may have only a per acoidens order among them. In this case,
each cause contributes the same type of causality, and if one
cause possessed sufficient power it could produce the total effect by itself. His example is many men rowing a boat. In a
B [bid.,

199-200.
Magnae, 279.
10 Seo. Add., 202.
9 Additiones

FREE CHOICE ACCORDING TO AQUINAS AND SCOTUS

second way, one cause could receive its power of causing from
another, as, he says, a particular terrestrial agent receives its
power of causing from a celestial body. 11
In neither of these ways do the object and will concur to
produce the act of will. First, because the object and will are
essentially ordered; their kinds of causality are not the same,
but each is a distinctive, partial cause, presupposing the causality of the other. Second, because: " The object known by
the intellect does not have its power of causing from the will,
or vice versa, with respect to first act." 12
That last addition, " with respect to first act," is an important qualification, for as we shall see, Scotus does hold that the
object's transition to second act in influencing the act of will,
is given to it by the will. That is, it is up to the will whether
the object will actually influence the act of will (second a.ct),
but its power and type of causality (first act) are not received
from the will.
In a. third way, many causes can concur unequally to produce the effect, without, however, any one of the causes receiving its power of causing (with respect to first act) from the
other. His example (relying on the biology current in his day)
is the procreation of a. child by the father and the mother, the
father being the principal cause but the mother having her own
distinctive causality. In this way the object and the will concur in causing the act of will. Both have their distinctive causality, but the object's causality is subordinate to that of the
will.
The object's causality is subordinate precisely because the
will is in itself free or undetermined:
Thus in the proposed case: the will has the nature of one cause,
namely of a particular cause in respect of the act of willing, and
the soul having the act of knowing the object, has the nature of
another partial cause, and both together are the total cause in
respect of the act of willing. Yet the will is the more principal
cause and the knowing nature a less principal cause, because the
11

Ibid., 202-203.
203.

12 Ibid.,

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PATRICK LEE

will moves freely, to the motion of which it moves the other; hence
it determines the other to acting; but the nature knowing the object is a natural agent, since on its part it always acts; yet it cannot be sufficient to elicit an act unless the will concurs. And therefore the will is the more principal cause.... 18

This is a significant text for understanding Scotus's final position. Because the will is free, the intellectually proposed object is not sufficient to detemline the will to act toward it. A
known object actually influences an act of will (i.e. specifies
it) only if the will freely acts (inclines) toward it. Scotus expresses this point by arguing that the known objecit's transition to second act (its actual concurrence in causing the act of
willing) depends on the concurrence of the will.
Put otherwise, the intellect does not specify that the will
will x rather than y. l£ this type of specification is meant when
someone says, " The intellect specifies the will," then that
sentence is false. Given thrut the will wills x, then x, which is
presented to the will by the intellect, specifies this act of willing. But the willing of x rather than not willing it, and hence
the willing of x rather than y-is due to the will. Or: nothing
prior to the will's response to an object presented it is a sufficient condition of that response. The sufficient conditions of
the choice include the choice itself. This proposition, Scotus
argues, is a logical consequence of the fact of free choice and
moral responsibility. 14
Thus in this later writing Scotus admits that the known object is a partial cause of the act of willing, and tha1t it has its
own perfection in causing, not received from the will.15 But
the known object makes its unique contribution to the act only
if the will acts. Scotus expresses this point by saying that the
will is " the more principal cause."
1s Ibid.
14 This was the point of St. Augustine's
claim that the only reason why
two men in the same situation with all of the same dispositions make different choices is their different acts of will. See: On the Oity of God, Bk.
XII, chap. 6. Scotus frequently cites this text.
15 Sec. Add., 203.

FREE CHOICE ACCORDING TO AQUINAS AND SCOTUS

327

Given this relationship between intellect and will in an act
of choice, there is a further question: namely, is the will free
just of itself, or are there conditions explaining why the will
is free or undetermined? Scoitus's position leaves no doubt as
to the answer to this question: the will is free just of itself, i.e.,
it does not make sense to ask why the will is free; that is simply the kind of agent it is.
This becomes clear when Scotus discusses the objecition that
the known object in some way does necessarily determine the
will, namely when it is a question of practical principles. Scotus
notes that some thinkers hold that the will is determined with
respect to practical principles (or the end) but not with respect to practical conclusions (or the means toward the end) .
On this view the will is free only with respect to that which
is ordered to the end (practical conclusions) . Scotus seems to
have Aquinas's position in mind here.
Sco1tus rejects this position. On this view, the indetermination of the will with respect to means would be due in part to
(and hence partly explained by) the indetermina.tion in the
intellect's practical conclusions-the lack of necessity in its
deductions of practical conclusions (means) from practical
principles (ends). But whatever indetermination might be
saved in this way (he argues) the will would be made a passive power, and its act would be determined by another. The
will would be related to intelligibles just as the sense appetite
is relaited to sensibles. This position would not in fact preserve
freedom at all:
Therefore through this indetermination toward knowing something, liberty in the will is not saved ... because it would only incline toward intelligibles as the sensitive appetite inclines toward
sensibles, and it would not be free ... ,16

Also, Scotus argues, the indetermination in the intellect with
respect to opposite choices is a defect, a lack of certa.inty. If
liberty rested on the indetermination of the intellect, then it
would rest on a defect, it would be a wretched thing and not
16 Ibid.,

196.

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PATRICK LEE

(as Scotus wants to insist it is) a perfection. 17 The known object does not necessitrute the will either to principles (ends) or
to conclusions (means). In other words, Scotus resists any
move to make the will's freedom (indetermination) depend on
some factor other than itself. The root of freedom-that on
account of which the will is
simply the will itself. The
following texts illustrate this position:
The first potency is generally called nature, and the second is
called will. Hence the first division of active principles is into nature and will.18
The will is an active principle distinct from the whole genus of
active principles which are not the will, distinct because of its
opposite mode of acting. 19

The will's intrinsic indetermination also explains why Scotus
insists that the will remains intrinsically free not to love God
even when the soul has the beatific vision. That is, even when
the intellect has a clear vision of the object that is pure goodness, that object containing no evil or lack of goodness, the will
is not necessitated to it, but can either elicit its act or not, can
either choose it or not choose it. 20 The root of freedom is
intrinsic to the will, rather than grounded in any characteristic
of the objects presented to it.
The will's indetermination is of a special kind. Scotus calls it
an indeterminati.oillimitati.onis,as opposed to an indeterminatio contradioti.onis. The second kind of indetermination is
merely that of a passive potency, which is undetermined only
because iit lacks a form or a.ct. (The prime example is matter.)
Its indetermination is removed when another agent determines
it to act, and so in the end it is not open to various effects;
17 Ibid. Cp.: Op. Om., II, d. 25, n. 23, vol. 13, 222b.
1sin IX Metaph., q. 15, n. 4, vol. 7, 609a.
19 Ibid., n. 8.
20 That is, the will remains intrinsically free or undetermined.
But for the
blessed in heaven God e:l!trinsioally IJ'I'events any rejection of God. Hence the
impeccability of saints is preserved in this doctrine. See Robert Prentice,
O.F.M., "The Degree and Mode of Liberty in the Beatitude of the Blessed,"
in Deus et Homo ad Mentem I. Duns Sooti, pp. 327-342.

FREE CHOICE ACCORDING TO AQUINAS AND SCOTUS

329

given the same conditions, the active agent always determines
it to the same effect. 21
But the indetermination of the will, the indeterminatio illimitationis, springs from perfection and act, rather than from
any lack, and it removes its own indetermination rather than
being determined by another. Hence its indetermination is
open to various actions. That is, its indetermination results
from its power to determine itself to various effects:
And therefore I say that the will is an active power that is undetermined with an indetermination of a different nature from the
indetermination of any other cause. Hence it is an active power
indifferently relating to opposite things, which power can determine itself to either of these.22
According to Scotus the will moves itself, without need of
being moved by another to this act (Scotus denies the principle, "Whatever is in motion is moved by another"). Because the will is an active power, it can move itself; the will
reduces itself from first act to second aot:
But how does the will move itself as another? I say that the will
has first act, and is ·in first act, and has an equivocal effect, so
that it moves the volition insofar as it is in act, because it is not
moved according to first act but moves according to first act; but
it is in potency to second act and is moved according to second
act. Hence, existing in first act, it is moved insofar as it is in
potency to second act. 23

In sum: (I) For Scotus the intellect and will are related in
the following way. Each is a partial cause of the act of will.
But the intellect contributes its influence (its specification)
only if the will elicits its act, and in the presence of any object the will determines itself to act or not. (2) As to the question why the will is free, Scotus answers that the will is free
of itself, that is the kind of agent it is. The will's freedom is
21 Sec. Add.,

207, Cp. Op. Ox., II, d. 25, n. 22, vol. 13, 212a.
207.
23Jbid., 206. See also: Roy E. Effler, O.F.M., John Duns Scotus and the
Principle" Omne Quod Movetur Ab Alio Movetur" (St. Bonaventure, N.Y.:
Franciscan Institute, 1962), especially pp. 52-98, 159-167.
22 Sec. Add.,

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PATRICK LEE

not a function of the kind of objects presented it, or of its relation to reason. The will has an intrinsic indetermination, independently of its relation to any other power in the soul.
That is, the root of freedom is precisely the will itself. 24
Aquinas on Free Choice
The chief difference between Aquinas and Scotus appears
even in their terminology. Unlike Scotus, Aquinas does not say
unqualifiedly that the act of willing is free. Rather, for
Aquinas only the act of choice (electio) can be free. 25 Moreover, because there are conditions for the act of choice, and
because these conditions can be indicated, it follows that freedom of choice can be partly explained.
For Aquinas there are three types of appetite or inclination:
natural appetite, sensitive appetite, and rational appetite (or
will) . The natural appetite is an inclination that follows upon
the natural form of a thing. Aquinas posits such a principle
to account for the constancy in the actions and reactions in
natural (as opposed to artistic) things: things act and react in
characteristic ways because there is in each a principle inclining it toward, and making possible, certain actions and reac24 It has sometimes been claimed that Scotus denies that one wills whatever
one wills under the aspect of good. But this is not his position: "I reply,
that an act of positive assent <volitio> with respect to misery is impossible
to the will and also an act of positive rejection <nolitio> with respect to
beatitude, because misery is not naturally apt to be the object of a positive
assent, nor beatitude the object of a positive rejection; just as the act of
seeing is excluded from sight with respect to blackness, because it is not
naturally apt to be an object of such an act." (Op. Om., IV, d. 49, q. 10, n. 7).
It is true that Scotus holds, contrary to Aquinas, that the will can act
against its own natural inclination (Op. Om., IV, d. 49, n. 3). But that is
not because he thinks someone can will to be miserable but because he has a
different notion of natural inclination from that of Aquinas. Scotus seems to
view natural inclinations as egoistical, whereas for Aquinas there is already
in the natural inclination a tendency to the goods for others (cf. Summa
TheoZogiae, Pt. I, q. 60, a. 4). For Scotus when someone acts against the
will's natural inclination he pursues an objective good (hence sub ratione
boni) even if per accidens this means a sacrifice of his own good.
25 See, for example, ST, I, q. 82, a. I; I-II, q. 8, aa. 2-3.

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tions and not others. 26 Because the actions and reactions serve
to enhance or preserve the thing, Aquinas says that the things's
natural appetite inclines it toward its appropriate fullness or
perfection. 27
The sensitive and rational appetites are similar in that they
also incline toward a thing's perfection, and are also specified
by a form, but in these cases the form is a cognitional form, not
the thing's nature. The sensitive appetite follows upon, and is
specified by, goods apprehended by sensation. The rational appetite follows upon and is specified by goods apprehended by
intellect. By these inclinations, animals (including persons)
can desire what they apprehend and not only what they are inclined to by their natures. 28
For Aquinas each power in a living thing also has a natural
appetite, the object of which is called its "proper object," for
example color in relation to sight. Hence the will also has a
natural appetite, a natural inclination to its proper object. 29
According to Aquinas this natural appetite is a natural and
spontaneous desire to be happy (a desire for beatitude) ,30 a
desire that also includes a natural love for all of the objects of
the several powers of man (such as life, truth etc.) .31 Hence
this inclination is an act, and not as in Scotus merely a pondus
voluntatis, a " leaning toward " or tendency prior to act and
cognition. Aquinas also argues that since the will is a spiritual
power, and since the object of this natural act is goodness as
such, the will is moved to this act by God Himself. 22
In addition to its necessary natural inclination, the will also
has inclinations over which it has control, which are free. Given
a natural love for the end (including a natural love for the objects of all of the human being's natural inclinations) the person begins to reflect or deliberate about possible courses of ac2a ST, I, q. 80; I-II, q. 1, a. 2.
27 ST,

I, q. 5, a. 1; I-II, q. 8, a. 1; Oontra Gentiles, Bk. III, Ch. 2-3.

2s ST, I, q. 80; OG, III, 2.
29 ST, I, q. 82, a. 1; I-II, q. 1, a. 2.
so ST, I-II, q. 1, aa. 4-7; q. 10, a. 1; Cf. De Malo, q. 6.
s1 ST, I-II, q. 9, a. 1; q. 10, a. 1.
s2 ST, I-II, q. 9, aa. 4 & 6.

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tion in order to realize the end (s) .a 3 In deliberation different
possibilities occur, each of which has some aspect of goodness
in it. Aquinas asserts that in such a condition the will is free:
For man can will and not will, act and not act; also he can will
this or will that, do this or do that. The -explanation of which is
drawn from the very power of reason. For whatever reason can
apprehend as good the will can tend toward. Now reason can apprehend as good not only that it will or act, but also that it not
will and not act. And again, in particular goods reason can consider an aspect of some good and a lack of some good, which has
the aspect of evil, and according to this it can apprehend any of
these goods as to be chosen or to be avoided. 34

In certain situations (not all) the will is free or undetermined in relation to objects that it is within its power to incline toward. This is the basic meaning of " free " as applied
to choice according to Aquinas, that is, not necessitated by
other forces or conditions, having the inclination toward a particular good within one's own power.
The passage quoted above does not seem to be meant as a
proof that there is free choice.35 Rather, it seems to presuppose that the will's choice is free and then in some wa.y to give
an account of why it is.
Two points are involved in this account. First, Aquinas asserts that the will can tend toward anything that reason can
apprehend as good. In other texts he makes this point by saying that the will has a natural inclination toward goodness in
general. That is, the will is not, like sight for example, necessitated to a limited formal object. The formal object of the
will is just goodness in general. 36 Second, at least in some situas3 ST, I-II, q. 9, a. 4.
34 ST, I-II, q. 13, a. 6.
35 Perhaps a proof could be constructed from various texts of Aquinas: viz.,
by listing all the possible determinants of the will's act in relation to particular goods other than the will itself (e.g., in the orders of final, formal,
and efficient causality), and then excluding all of them. The difficulty would
be to make sure one had listed all possible determinants. Moreover, the proof
that the will is not necessitated by an efficient cause presents particular difficulties. See ST, I, q. 82, aa. 1 & 2.
saST, I-II, q.10, a. l; De Malo q, 6.

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333

tions each object (alternative for action) is good in one respect
and lacking or bad in another respect. In the context this
would mean that each alternative offers some good not offered
by the others. This argument does not of itself prove there is
free choice, for it has not excluded every possible way the will
could be necessitated. But the argument does give, in some
way, an account of why the will's choice is free. The will is free
at least partly because reason can present to the will irreducibly attractive alternatives for action.
He elaborates somewhat on this point when, in discussing
free choice in the Summa Theologiae, he considers the objection of intellectual determinism. The objection quotes PseudoDionysius to the effect that one does not will evil as such. It
concludes that therefore the will necessarily tends to the good
that is proposed to it. 37 Aquinas answers that:
The will cannot tend to anything except under the aspect of good.
But because good is multiple <multiplex>, on account of this the
will is not determined to one.38
The point seems to be that what is better from one perspective might not be better from another. That the good is multiplex implies that it is not univocal, and therefore that there is
no single scale one is compelled to use by which to measure the
goodness of the various alternatives. 39 Hence in another place
Aquinas says that nothing prevents two things being equal
from one consideration while one excels the other from another
consideration. 40
Unlike Scotus, then, Aquinas holds that the question of why
the will is free is legitimate, and he seems to propose an (at
least partial) answer to it. The will is free in relation to particular goods (partly) because of two fa.cts: 1) the will has a
37 ST, I, q. 82, a. 1, obj. I.
ss Ibid., ad. I.
_.
39 For a precise exposition and development of this point in a contemporary
context, see: Joseph M. Boyle, Jr., Germain Grisez, Olaf Tollefsen, Free
Ohoice: A Self-Referential Argument (Notre Dame, Ind.: University of
Notre Dame, 1976), 15-26, 66-77.
40 ST, q. 13, a. 6, ad 3.

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PATRICK LEE

natural inclination open to any intelligible good whatever;
reason grasps in each alternative for action an aspect of goodness not had by the other alternatives. 41
Yet this position does not settle the question of how the
intellect and will are related within an act of choice. According to Aquinas the free choice occurs in the following way.
The will is initially actualized by an act of love for happiness.
Given this act, the will remains indifferently related to the particular goods that arise as alternatives to pursue. 42 The free
choice consists in the will, being thus actualized, inclining itself toward one of the possibilities being deliberated. " And
similarly the will, through this, that it wills the end, moves itself to willing those which are toward the end." 43
This act is an actuation of a. capacity, a transition from potency to act, in two respects. It involves an actualization both
in the order of exercise (to a.ct or not act) and in the order of
specification (the kind of act done) .44 The act is essentia.Ily an
act of will, but Aquinas argues that it also includes the influence (virtus) of an act of intellect. Already actualized by its
tendency toward the end (happiness) the will must move the
intellect to deliberate (or take counsel) :
And indeed, as was said, the will moves itself. Insofar as it wills
the end, it reduces itself to the willing of those which are toward
the end. Now it cannot do this except by means of counsel: for
when someone wills to be healed, he begins to reflect <cogitare>
about how he can attain this, and through such reflection he comes
to the conclusion that he can be healed through medicine, and this
he wills.45

Aquinas argues tha.t the act of intellect alone (or reason
a.Ione) could never put an end to deliberation or counsel, be41 This point explains
why Aquinas and Scotus differ on the question of
the will's relation to God, pure Goodness. For Aquinas the conditions for
free choice obtain only in relation to particular goods. Hence he holds that
if the person has the beatific vision the will loves God by an intrinsic
necessity. See ST, I, q. 82, a. 2; I-II, q. 4, a. 4; q. 5, a. 4.
42 E.g., ST, I-II, q. 10, a. 2.
43 ST, I-II, q. 9, a. 3c.
44 ST, I-II, q. 9, a. le & ad 1.
45 ST, I-II, q. 9, a. 4c; cf. q. 9, a. 3; q. 6, aa. l & 2.

FREE CHOICE ACCORDING TO AQUINAS AND SCOTUS

335

cause none of the particular goods is necessary in relation to
the end. What ends deliberation is the act of election: the will
moving itself to a particular object, but moving itself to that
object according to an order of reason, so that its act contains
a specification from reason. The act is simultaneously volitive
and reasonable (not necessarily of right reason, though). The
following text explains this point:
Now it should be observed that, in the acts of the soul, the act
which is essentially of one potency or habit, receives the form and
species from the higher potency or habit, according as the inferior
is ordained by the superior .... Now it is manifest that, in a way,
reason precedes the will, and ordains its act: namely insofar as the
will tends to its object according to the order of reason, since the
apprehensive power presents the object to the appetite. Therefore,
that act by which the will tends toward something that is proposed
as good, in that it is ordained to the end by reason, is materially
an act of the will, but formally an act of the reason. 46

Several things should be noted here. First, although the
will's act is influenced by reason, it is Aquinas's doctrine that
the act of electio (choice) is essentially an act of will. To say
that it is formally an act of reason is only to say that the form
or specificrutionof the act is from reason. Second, the assertion
that the will tends to a particular object according to the order
of reason could he misunderstood. Aquinas does not mean
that one wills what he wills only because of reason's judgment.
In fact, in a situation of choice there is not jus·t one order of
reason; there are many-as many as there are alternatives for
action.
The point is that whatever is willed is willed according to
some order of reason. Whatever is willed is willed because one
has grasped through reason some goodness in the object, either
as good in itself or as having an order to something good in
itself. Aquinas puts it this way: the object is willed because
of its order to the end, that is, because it has an order to one's
overall flourishing, one's beatitude or happiness. That is,
Aquinas is not saying that reason specifies which order will be
46 ST,

I-II, q. 13, a. 2c.

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PATRICK LEE

followed, but that reason provides the orders of the particular
objects to beatitude (or happiness), no matter what object is
eventually chosen. Hence for Aquinas the power which settles
which object (along with its order to the end) is followed is
precisely the will. "The will moves itself. Insofar as it wills
the end, it reduces itself to the willing of those which are toward the end." 47 The will determines itself to will this or that
particular object, even though the order of each particular object to the end, and hence its ability to attract the will, is provided by reason or intellect.
For Aquinas, then, the intellect's work is not sufficient to
determine the will's choice. What ultimately settles which
good will be followed is the will's moving itself to a particular
alternative. But this is another way of saying: a) that the intellect and will are partial causes of the act of choice; b) that
the intellect contributes its influence only if the will elicits its
act; and c) thait in the presence of any particular object the
will determines itself to act or not. And that, of course, is the
core of Scotus's doctrine. In other words, on the question of
how intellect and will are related within an act of choice,
Aquinas and Scotus are in fundamental agreement.
It might be objected that Aquinas's doctrine on apparent
goods and their role in bad choices does not support this interpretation. Aquinas distinguishes between true goods and
merely apparent goods, and holds that the will, "is never
moved to an evil, unless that which is not good appear good
in some respect to the reason; so tha,t the will would never
tend to evil unless there were ignorance or error in the reason." 48 In other words, it might seem that Aquinas holds that
somehow all evil choices, i.e. sins, are due to intellectual failures, not to failures in the will. And if this so, then it could not
be the will that ultimately settles whait is pursued in every
free choice, as I have interpreted his position.
According to Aquinas the primary subject of sin is the will,49
47 ST, I-II,

q. 9, a. 4c.
q. 71, a. 2c.
49 Ibid., q. 74, a .. 1.

48 Ibid.,

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337

but the other powers of the soul can be the subjects of sin
secondarily, inasmuch as they either are commanded by the
will or are somehow causes of the sinful act completed by the
will.50 The question is, wha.t does Aquinas mean by " causes "
in this context, especially with respect to the intellect?
Aquinas argues that a sin is essentially a free choice with
a lack of due order to the rule of right reason or of divine law.
In speaking of sin's causes, these two components, one positive and one negative or privative, must be distinguished. 51
His doctrine here can be divided into three points. (1) The will
is the direct efficient cause (per se causa, agens) of the sinful
act insofar as the act is positive. 52 (fl) The will is only the indirect (per accidens) cause of the lack of due order in the act:
this is because a lack is not something one can directly will.
The sinner chooses an act that he knows is disordered, and he
accepts this disorder as part of his act, in that he could do another act that does not have that lack. But this disorder is
neither good in itself nor contributive to anything he views
as good in itself, and so is not directly willed.53
(3) The direct cause of the lack of order in the free choice,
in the sense of being a lack which is a necessary condition of
the disorder, is a lack in the reason, namely, the lack of consideration of the rule of right reason or of divine law. Aquinas
summarizes his position in the following terse passage: " Therefore the will lacking the direction of the rule of reason and of
the divine law, and intending some mutable good, causes the
act of sin directly, but the inordinateness of the act indirectly,
and beside the intention: for the lack of order in the act comes
from the la.ck of direction in the will." 54
Aquinas's position here is a metaphysical analysis of the
necessary conditions of a sinful act, and so the language is perhaps misleading. Nevertheless, he clearly holds that reason (or
q. 74.
q. 71, aa. 1, 2, 6; q. 75, aa. 1-3.
52 fbid., q. 75, a. 1.
53 [bid., q. 73, a. 3, ad 2; a. 6c; q. 72, a. 5, ad 1.
54 fbid., q. 75, a. le.
50 Ibid.,
51 [bid.,

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PATRICK LEE

the defect in reason) is not a sufficient cause of the sinful act,
but only a. condition of it. In another place, speaking primarily
of a sin's external conditions, he says:
The internal cause of sin is both the will, as completing the sinful
act, and the reason, as lacking the due rule, and the appetite, as
inclining .... Therefore something external can be a cause moving
to sin, yet not as sufficiently inducing to sin: but the will alone is
the cause sufficiently completing the sin.55

That is, for an act to be sinful one must act according to some
consideration other than the moral rule; hence the non-consideration of the moral rule is a necessary condition of the sinful
act. 56 This doctrine in no way conflicts with the pre-eminence
of the will in free choice but rather reaffirms it.
Two further points should be noticed. First, for Aquinas
the consideration or non-considera.tion of the moral rule is within the will's control. On Aquinas's doctrine one is guilty for
voluntarily acting according to some rule other than right reason or divine law, for he holds that the sinner thereby shows
con.tempt for God's law. 57 Second, this non-consideration is
not an ignorance or a forgetting of the moral rule; it is merely
a focusing of one's attention elsewhere, on the limited good
(pleasure, wealth, power, etc.) to be attained in or by the
act. 58
As for Aquinas's use of the term " apparent goods," he does
hold tha.t the sinner chooses an " apparent good " and not a
true good. But, when he uses the term in these contexts, it
55 Ibid.,

q. 75, a. 3c.; Cf. q. 75, a. 2, ad 1.
the causes of sin, Aquinas writes: "Now two causes may be
assigned to a negation. First, the absence of cause, i.e. the negation of the
cause is the cause of the negation as such. For the removal o·f the effect follows the removal of the cause." (ST, I-II, q. 75, a. le.) Applied in this
case: the removal of what would cause order in the will is the direct cause
of its disorder. The cause of due order in the will would be the direction of
right reason. Hence the lack of this direction, Aquinas says, is the per se
" cause" of the disorder of the will's act. And yet the lack of direction from
right reason, he makes clear in the same article, is due to the will preferring
a mutable good to the following of the moral rule.
57 ST, I-II, q. 73, a. 3, ad 2; a. 6c; q. 72, a. 5, ad l.
58 Ibid., q. 77, a. 2c.
56 Explaining

FREE CHOICE ACCORDING TO AQUINAS AND SCOTUS

339

does not mean an object that has absolutely no good for a
human being in it. Rather, in these contexts, the term refers
to an object that may be good for a limited aspect of the person, but does not lead (at least in these circumstances) to the
person's true ultimate end. 59 It is good in a certain respect,
but not unqualifiedly .60 When Aquinas says that the sinner
chooses a merely apparent good, by " apparent good " he
means simply any object the choice of which is immoral.
He uses this language to make a moral point. As we have
seen, for Aquinas, in a situation of free choice the will is presented with various possibilities each of which has some goodness not had by the others. From one consideration one of
the possibilities appears best while from another consideration
another possibility appears best. To call the immoral object
an apparent good is to say that the various considerations, according to which the alternatives can be compa.red, are not
equal. One could consider the alternatives on the basis of
pleasure, of wealth, of power, or so on. Depending on what
perspective one takes, a different alternative will appear best.
But the perspective of right reason denotes the whole perspective (not a utilitarian standard, but the love of God and neighbor and the respect for the human goods this entails) .61 This
perspective is not equal to the others. Hence one can say, if all
the alternatives except one are contrary to right reason, that,
absolutely speaking, the morally good alternative is the best
and the others are only apparent goods. Yet the other alternatives may offer some limited, real goodness. Moreover, the
perspective of the whole takes on a kind of particularity in respect to human reason and will: following right reason, for the
time being at least, brings one only some goods and not others.
So, paradoxically, the whole perspective can appear to us in
this life as limited.
But acting on this limited perspective is a deliberate, volun59Jbid., q. 73, a. 8, ad 2; q. 74, a. I, ad I; q. 75, a 2c; a. 4, ad I; q. 77,

a. 2, ad 2.
60 De Malo,

61 ST, I-II,

q. 11, a. le.
q. 94, a. 2; q. 100, a. 3, ad I.

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PATRICK I,EE

tary act, not an intellectual error. Sin is a deliberate choice to
do what one knows is morally wrong, accepting this moral
wrong a.s the price one pays for obtaining the good one
primarily intends.
At other times, when not speaking directly about sin,
Aquinas uses the term " apparent good " to mean an object
that is not really perfective of the agent at all but merely apparently so.62 Yet, obviously, the fact that such an object can
be chosen does not entail that such a choice is due only to a
fault in reason. As indicated, for Aquinas there is no sin unless there is a conscious fault in the will. An object's appearing
good, its appearing best, and its appearing morally good, are
not the same at all. If one chooses what merely appears to be
morally good then one is simply acting on an erroneous conscience, and if the conscience is inculpably erroneous there is
no sin. And, as already noted, in a situation where free choice
occurs none of the objects ever appears best from every perspective. Hence Aquinas's position that something can appear good which is not, is not incompatible with his position
that it is the will, ultimately, that settles which alternative will
be pursued, in bad choices as well as good ones. Aquinas's
doctrines on " apparent goods " and reason as a " cause " of
sin are not valid objections to my interpretation.
In sum, Aquinas and Scotus agree that the intellect causes
the act of will in one sense and not in another. The intellect
causes the act of will in the sense that, given that the will
wills x, x specifies this act of willing and it is the intellect that
presents to the will the object x. The intellect does not cause
the act of will in the sense of specifying or determining that x
rather than y be willed. Aquinas and Scotus agree on what
free choice essentially means, though for Scotus the will's
freedom has greater scope (extending even to the intrinsic ability not to love God, while seeing Him as He is in Himself) .
They agree on how intellect and will are related in the act of
choice.
Where they differ is on the following points. First, for Scotus
62 For

example, ibid., q. 8, a. le.

FREE CHOICE ACCORDING TO AQUINAS AND SCOTUS

341

the will is free of itself; that is just the kind of agent it is. It
seems that for Scotus, The will is free is a per se nota. proposition.63 For Aquinas the will's freedom has certain conditions,
namely its relation to reason and the kind of objects presented
to it. That is why for Aquinas, but not for Scotus, there are
situations where the will is not free.
Nevertheless, one must be careful to distinguish two distinct
questions. "Why does the will have the ability to choose
freely? " is, according to Aquinas, a legitimate question. But
this is different from asking, " Why did someone choose this
rather than that; or in other words, what is the cause of someone's willing this rather than that?" For Aquinas as well as
for Scotus, this last question has no sufficient answer other
than, " Because he did." For Aquinas as well as for Scotus,
there are no sufficient conditions of the choice antecedent to
the choice itself.
Second, for Aquinas the will is moved to its initial act by
God; in Scotus there is no need for this, since he denies the
principle, "Whatever is in motion is moved by another." (For
Scotus, God holds everything in being, including acts of willing, but He need not move the will to act.) Aquinas calls this
initial operation the will's "natural appetite." For Scotus the
will's natural appetite is not an act; it is only a pondus or a
"leaning-toward," and it precedes cognition. It does not necessitate any act, but only makes actions consistent with it
easier and more pleasant. 64 Hence for Aquinas the will's freedom occurs entirely within the scope of its natural appetite;
for Scotus the will's freedom is identified with an ability to
restrain its natural inclination (to self-perfection). Hence their
theories of why the will is free seem to influence their attitudes
toward natural inclinations; and their different attitudes to
natural inclinations seem to influence their ethical positions. 65
These seem to be important differences, and perhaps they could
68 Cf.: " Voluntas,
quae est libera per essentiam."
17, q. 3, n. 5.
64 Cf. Scotus, Op. Om., IV, d. 49, q. 10, vol. 21, 318ff.
§5 See note l.

( Scotus, Op. Om., I, d.

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PATRICK LEE

justify calling Aquinas an " intellectualist " and Scotus a
"voluntarist (in that the will is less integrated with the rest
of the person for Scotus than it is for Aquinas)." 66 Nevertheless, to use these terms with any other senses in order to divide their positions would seem to me to be misleading.
Despite their theories about the source of the will's freedom-an inherent property for Scotus, an indifference resulting from the will's initial act given it by God together with its
relation to reason, for Aquinas-the fact remains that Aquinas
and Scotus agree on the fundamental tenet that, ultimately, in
a free choice it is an act of will that settles which alternative
will be pursued.
PATRICK LEE

Genter for Thomistio Studies
University of St. Thomas
Houston, Tewas

66 While Aquinas calls the will a " passive power " and Scotus calls it an
"active power," this difference seems to be only verbal. What Aquinas
means by " passive " when speaking of operative powers is simply a power
whose object is related to it as measure of its immanent act ( cp. ST, I, q.
77, a. 3c. with ibid., q. 56, a. le). Being specified by an object (hence "pas·
sive " for Aquinas) is compatible with not being necessitated by the object.
Scotus, however, seems to take "passive power " as meaning one for which
the object necessitates its act. See above, pp. 9-ll.

THE MORAL-NONMORAL DISTINCTION IN
CATHOLIC ETHICS: THE STERILIZATION OF
MORAL LANGUAGE

Introduction.

!{

CHARD McCORMICK has achieved an ascendency
among Catholic moral theologians, a position he has
earned after two decades of reporting developments
in moral theology and articulating his often judicious moral
positions. He also stands as a principal partner in the dialogue
between Catholic and Protestant ethics. McCormick's gradually emerging moral methodology and the ethical positions
which he takes have received mixed assessments. The litera.ture abounds with supporters who praise him for contributing
to a nuanced and sensible aggiornamento in Catholic moral
thought and with opponents who accuse him of serious deviation from the Catholic moral tradition.
I suspect that a weariness is developing in the debate over
(1) whether McCormick holds a strictly teleological theory of
moral justification; (2) whether such a theory is (a) compatible with Catholic moral teaching at least as far back as
Thomas Aquinas and (b) philosophically tenable; and (3)
whether the thrust of McCormick's position will be to (a) undermine a coherent Catholic morality or (b) make the entire
enterprise epistemologically more humble and honest.
Not wanting to enter the debate on any of these points, I
wish to probe McCormick's moral methodology at another,
and I think, neglected level. I would like to subject his position, especially his employment of moral terminology and
moral notions, to an analysis which moral theologians often
fail to attend adequately to themselves, often at the expense of
the cogency of their positions. One cannot avoid the impression that the language of Catholic moral theology has in the
343

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MICHAEL K. DUFFY

recent past obscured rather than clarified Catholic moral
teaching. In addition to the magisterial use of Latin phrases,
the employment of scholastic distinctions unfamiliar to modern
folk contributes to the impression that Catholic moral theology
is written in a private language inaccessible to the unschooled.
My reading of McCormick is that he strives for clarity. At
the same time, he is acutely conscious of having been misunderstood at a fundamental level, namely, rut the level of moral
terminology, which, in turn, has made his moral position
suspect.
McCormick's own moral methodology has been influenced
decisively by continental theologians Peter Knauer, Louis
Janssens, and Bruno Schuller. It is their approaches, albeit
with refinements, which McCormick has adopted; consequently, an evaluation of their employment of moral terms and notions applies to McCormick's use of moral language as well. I
shall argue below that Catholic moral theology these days suffers most from a lack of conceptual clarity that is perpetuated
by-and perhaps originates in-the ethical analysis by these
men. My modest contribution shall be to suggest why their
moral arguments potentially obscure and misstate the moral
issues at hand.
In a recent issue of the "Notes" McCormick faults opponents for not understanding the distinction between " moral "
evil and " nonmoral " (or " premoral " or " on tic ") evil. Defending the distinction he writes
For centuries Catholic theologians have referred to certain effects
of our conduct as mala physica, in contrast to mala moralia. For
example, what are we to call the killing that occurs in legitimate
self-defense? ... Malum (mere) physicum was the traditional way
of describing such evils.
Contemporary theologians rightly think the world physicum is
almost invariably misleading, as suggesting and being restricted
to bodily harms and harms due to commission. The concept is
far broader. It includes not only harm to reputation, etc., but even
the imperfections and incompletions due to our limitations. 1
1

"Notes," Theological Studies, Vol. 42, no. 1 (March, 1981), p. 78.

THE MORAI,-NONMORAL

DISTINCTION

345

In a footnote to the same passa.ge he again tries to clarify the
distinction:
If my legitimate self-defense resulted in the killing of a person, that

killing would be classified as a nonmoral or ontic evil ...

The distinction, he notes, has been " so badly misunderstood,
frequently distorted, firmly resisted." What of this moral
terminology-which of course he has inherited from these
European moralists? I will argue that it contains serious misconceptions and must be used very carefully, if not avoided
altogether.
Two centuries ago David Hume spawned a serious misconception by clajming that our moral perceptions do not depend
upon any " matter of fact or real existence" (Treatise, Book
III, Part I, Section I). Other moral philosophers have followed suit, arguing that the ability to describe a human activity (its is-ness) bore no immediate relationship to making a
moral evaluation of it (its oughtness). The history of modern
moral philosophy has been one of attempting to correct the
mistaken judgments about the nature of morality which have
derived from the is-ought dichotomy. In what follows it will
become clear thait McCormick and those moralists who have
influenced him are echoing the distinction that has plagued
our moral life and discourse ever since Hume. My analysis
and critique of the current distinction being made between
"moral" and "nonmoral" will rely on Julius Kovesi's excellent analysis of the status of moral logic and language (Moral
Notions, 1967) , perhaps the best refutartion of the is-ought
distinction to be found.
Recall that McCormick a.spires to reconcile two moral perspectives which he believes are only apparently opposed. From
the first perspective certain specifiable acts, if done intentionally, are always morally wrong. Thus, if an act is accurately described as " killing an innocent person " then its evaluation
a.s "murder" and "morally wrong" follow automatically.
Description and evaluation are not separable operations but
are done simultaneously. From the second perspective, act-de-

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MICHAEL K. DUFFY

scriptions (e.g., "killing an innocent person") are never sufficient grounds for mom.I evaluations (e.g., the moral wrongness implied by the term "murder") ; rather, additional deliberation is necessary to determine whether there are reasons
to warrant either a positive or a negative moral evaluation.
McCormick wants to affirm both perspectives. The first perspective accurately reflects what happens much of the time:
act-evaluations follow almost automatically from act-descriptions. But McCormick also supports the second perspective
from which moral justification can be done. In principle, he
argues, there is another step between description and evaluation, a decision-making process he calls" proportionate reasoning." The latter requires a determination of our course of action according to whether it produces or preserves a " basic
human good " without sacrificing a more important human
good. If this can be done, an act is evaluated as "morally
right."
Although I have already indicated that I would not enter
the debate concerning where McCormick belongs on the spectrum of moral teleologists, I must still remark in passing that
the two moral perspectives McCormick wants to pull together
cannot be merged because the first accepts a class of acts which
always merit moral condemnation (if done intentionally) and
the second does not. Although McCormick writes at length of
the " virtually " exceptionless prohibitions of certain acts,
it is never the nature of the acts themselves which makes
them morally wrong but the negative effects which they can be
expected to produce. As I conceive the matter, as long as a
weighing of anticipated good and evil plays a, decisive role in
the moral evaluation of our acts, then there are no acts which
in principle merit simultaneous description and (negative)
moral evaluation (e.g., "killing an innocent person" if done
intentiona.lly is " murder " and thus "morally wrong ") as is
presupposed by the first perspectives. It is clear that McCormick cannot hold both perspectives and is in fact a proponent of the second position. My immediate objection to his
position lies in the distinction he presumes between the de-

THE MORAL-NONMORAL

DISTINCTION

347

scription and evaluation of moral acts. It is one of two distinctions that have contributed to muddled moral arguments.
McCormick's advocacy of the second moral perspective relies upon his adoption of certain moral concepts from Janssens,
Knauer and Schuller, concepts that mislead and do not serve
McCormick's purposes well. Recall that by advocating the
second moral perspective McCormick is claiming that in principle there is always more to moral evaluation than correctly
describing an act (the " more " being a calculation of the possible good and evil consequences). Now McCormick is surely
right that judging a moral agent requires more than description. It will be necessary to examine the circumstances: perhaps the agent was not fully responsible for his conduct or his
action was "inadvertent," allowing for the agent to be excused
from full or even partial moral blame. But McCormick's discussion of proportionate reasoning suggests that an act is first
of all morally neutral, neither morally right nor morally wrong
until its consequences can be assessed. In other words, acts are
" morally open "-that is, they are open to more than one
moral evaluation. I will argue that there are human acts which
are not morally open in this sense and that to describe them is
also to evaluate them. By making the distinction between
"moral" and "nonmoral" (or "ontic" or "premoral ") evil
and between act evaluation and description Janssens, Knauer,
Schuller and McCormick are making the claim that the moral
evaluation of many ads remains an open question. While they
may be providing a necessary corrective to the excessive certitude with which Catholic moral teaching is often advanced, I
believe that they are doing so at considerable expense to the
proper use of moral logic and language. These Catholic moralists ought to be especially wary in light of the heavy price
moral philosophy has been paying ever since Hume made his
distinction.
Moral and N onmoral Evils

In arguing that the directness or indirectness of an agent's
intention is never the decisive factor for determining the moral
rightness of an act, McCormick writes

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MICHAEL K. DUFFY

... if there are higher values, and if they will be lost or threatened
unless one sacrifices the lesser values, and if this choice will not
subvert the relevant values in the long run, then what is wrong
with choosing, reluctantly to be sure, to do the nonmoral evil that
the greater good may be achieved? Is there a reasonable, defensible alternative to this? If there is, I do not see it. This leads to
the conclusion that in those instances where nonmoral evil has
been viewed as justified because it is indirect, the psychological indirectness was not radically decisive at all. What was decisive is
the proportionate reason for acting. Similarly, in those instances
that have traditionally been viewed as immoral because the intentionality was direct, psychological directness itself is not decisive. The immorality must be argued from lack of proportionate
reason. 2

McCormick is not alone in making the distinction between
moral and nonmoral, but follows the lead of a number of other
Catholic moralists. For instance, William Van der Marek
maintains that physical acts alone are not decisive for moral
evaluation and that whiat is required is consideration of
whether or not an act is " community-enhancing." 3
Louis J a.nssens argues that there are two distinguishable
kinds of evil effects of human acts, antic evil and moral evil.
The execution of a convicted criminal produces an ontic evil
(death) and is an ontically evil rather than morally evil act.
Likewise, killing an unjust aggressor in self-defense produces
an antic evil but is not morally wrong. In the first instance,
the act of killing has been justified (though in many quarters
that is being questioned) for preserving the common good and
in the second instance for preserving one's own life. But despite
Janssens's copious quotation of Thomas what is noticeably absent from both Thomas Aquinas's and subsequent accounts of
2 " The Ambiguity of Moral Choice," in Doing Evil to Achieve Good, ed. by
Richard McCormick and Paul Ramsey. (Chicago: Loyola University Press,
1979)' p. 41.
a Cf. Toward a Christian Ethic. There Van der Marek writes that the
evaluation of an act can only be made "after its human significance and content have been established," and that "to call something 'good' or 'evil' is
. . . a highly pragmative statement that can be made only after the event,
after one has been able to establish the ' results ' actually produced by the
action" ( p. 61).

THE MORAL-NONMORAL

DISTINCTION

349

these moral issues are any references to an " on tic " evil being
occasioned by capital punishment or self-defense. Furthermore,
the killings involved are held to be justified exceptions to the
prohibition against killing ra.ther than immoral acts. Nowhere
are they referred to as " ontic " or " non-moral " acts.
What does Janssens meain by "ontic" evils? He does not
only mean negative states of human affairs such as the pain
resulting from cancer or being hit by a falling tree, and dea.th
(" which radically defeats our will to live ") , but he sees ontic
evil as the result of universal human "handicaps and shortcomings" and " invincible ignorance and error which frustrate
the reason and the will." That ontic evil is closely connected
to what human beings do to one another becomes apparent
when Janssens asserts that ontic evil exists because we are
mortals who are unable to be all things to all people and to
do everything we ought to do. This is, Janssens acknowledges,
" our sinful situation," which I suspect he would agree involves
more than simply evil which happened to us as part of our
condition as mortals but is something we actively bring about
by what we do (or neglect doing) to other people. After all,
St. Paul's sorrow (Romans 7) for being unable to do the good
which he knew he ought to do is more than a recognition of
the human condition but is an acknowledgment of moral
failure.
What is the relationship between ontic and moral evil and
how are we to evaluate the acts which produce them? Janssens argues that while moral evil does produce ontic evil, ontic
evil does not entail moral evil. While he concedes that ontic
evil is significant because it is
harmful and detrimental to the development of individuals and
communities [about which] morality is chiefly concerned,4
he believes that a moral evil is present (and the act which
produced it is evialuated as immoral) only when the production of the ontic evil is the ultimate object of an agent's intention. So unless an agent has as his primary intention to
4 " Ontic Evil

and Moral Evil," Louvain Studies 4 ( 1972), pp. 67 and 69.

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MICHAEL K. DUFFY

bring about an ontic evil there is no moral evil present. Hence
according to J anssens, " moral " evil is a very small class of
evils and" immoral" acts a narrow range of human acts.
Bruno Schuller's definition of an immoral act is an equally
narrow stipulation of moral evil. In his account, the only evil
that is surely moral stems from acts whose effect is to turn the
agent or others away from God. Thus, " leading another into
sin " and " cooperating in the sin of another" are always
morally evil acts. Schuller seems to have in mind only those
acts solely intended to turn us away from God (e.g. apostasy,
blasphemy) since all acts of hostility against other persons can
be construed as alienating us from God. Does this mean tha.t,
strictly speaking, only acts directed against God are morally
evil? Schuller would deny this, I am sure. Yet, he writes that
under certain circumstances the killing of innocent persons
may be a " nonmoral " evil, depending on the presence or absence of a " commensurate reason" for doing such. Schuller
places other acts (e.g. infidelity, lying and acts of injustice)
in the same light of moral neutrality as well.
The distinction McCormick makes between " moral " evil
and " noninoral " (or premoral or physical) evil is surely akin
to if not directly informed by Van der Marek, J anssens and
Schuller. Like Janssens, McCormick includes as nonmoral
evils not only illness, accident and death but also acts done by
human beings which have a significant impact on the welfare
of other human beings. What makes these acts nonmoral (initially at least) from McCormick's point of view is the fact
that they cannot be summarily evaluated for their human
meaning and moral significance. ·While we can describe " what
happened " as the producing of an evil effect, the evil has only
the status of "nonmoral" until we consider two items: (I)
such act-features as circumstances, agent intentionality and
agent knowledge of what he was doing; and (2) the presence or
absence of a proportionate reason (the preservation of a good
of at least comparable value to the good not being preserved)
which' would render the act and the evil it produced "nonmoral" or" moral," respectively.

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We are left with a number of senses in which an act may be
called "moral" or "nonmoral ": Janssens suggests the distinction rests on whether the agent's ultimate intentionality is to
produce harm; Schuller suggests that the only real moral evils
are those which cause irreversible alienation from God; Van
der Marek and McCormick suggest that moral evil is at hand
when no comparable moral good is being served. Schiiller's
definition of " moral " has more to do with our relationship to
God (i.e. acts done directly against God which have the effect
of causing our (or another's damnation) than with human relationships. The other definitions are equally odd because they
miss the fact that a moral ad and a moral evil effect are defined as such because they are recognized as having a significant impact upon other human beings. By creating the category " nonmoral " in reference to these kinds of human acts
two confusions are likely to arise.
First, although acts need not necessarily be described and
evaluated from a moral point of view (grounds such as etiquette, aesthetics and efficiency could also come into play)
what would it mean to describe " nonmoral" or evaluate from
a nonmora.l point of view? The fact that it did not pertain to
human beings? That it did not pertain to serious matters?
That an agent could not be held fully responsible for it? What
is suggested is that a range of human acts having serious effects on human beings, not only undesirable states of affairs
such as pain and death, but also acts which human beings do
to bring ahout these states, may be bracketed off from acts
legitimately described as moral. Obviously, McCormick does
not mean this, but only resorts to the term " nonmoral " to refer to acts and the evils they produce which there is proportionate reason for allowing. McCormick will respond that certainly the acts in question may properly be described as concerning a moral matter, but that we do not necessarily evaluate them as immoral from the agent" perspective" (i.e., something to blame the agent for doing) because we need to know
more (e.g. did the agent intend it, was it unavoidable, was the
agent fully responsible etc.). What McCormick has in mind

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MICHAEL K. DUFFY

by "non-moral" is "not immoral under the circumstances."
But what "nonmoral " suggests is " not in the moral arena at
all."
A second and related misreading is liable to occur as well.
By suggesting that what is at some point a nonmoral (or premoral) evil may become a moral evil, the misconception is
being created that at a "preliminary" stage of moral evaluation there are only " brute facts " (to use Elisabeth Anscombe' s phrase) which, taken alone, have no moral significance
until certain moral criteria are introduced. Thus, it is being
erroneously suggested that description and evaluation are logically distinct operations which are done in that order. 5
It may be most helpful at this point to ask why the distinction has been viewed as an important one by a number of
Catholic moralists. An answer would seem to lie in an excess
of the manualist moral tradition which these moralists wish
to correct, namely, the excessive moral certitude with which
the manualists undertook moral evaluation. As a necessary
corrective, what is now being said is that certain moral acts
ought not to be given automatic moral condemnation, and that
another evaluative step, determining the "proportionality " of
the good and evil which is being brought about, must be done.
To which moral acts do they refer? While they do make passing references to killing, lying, stealing, etc., it is the issues of
birth control and sexual ethics in general where they think a
corrective is most needed.
Peter Knauer cites as the "severe" moral position on contraception the one in which any form of artificial contraception
for any reason is immoral. That position, he argues, rests on
a misreading of Casti Connubii, which states that contraception is immoral when the conjugal act, by nature directed to
the procreation of offspring, is deprived of this natural mean5 McMormick implies this once more in a recent issue of the " Notes ":
" Thus moral evil, in contrast to premoral evil, is understood in an objective
sense-as harm (deprivation, etc.) unjustifiably caused. But before we know
whether it is justifiably caused, it is said to be ontic, premoral, or nonmoral
evil." Theological Studies, Vol. 43, no. I (March, 1982), p. 81, n. 33.

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ing and power by intention. What is being misread, argues
Knauer, is the sense of "intention." For if the " commensurate
reason " of intending to promote marital unity is present this
intention gives the act its moral meaning (and rightness).
Knauer writes that
In a case where there is a commensurate reason for the prevention
of pregnancy, the moral content of the act is not the fact of contraception but the nature of the commensurate reason.

He continues:
In ethics, care must be taken not to identify the physical or
psychological order directly with the moral order. A physical evil
may be caused or permitted and willed in a psychological sense,
and yet the act is not necessarily a moral evil. It is a moral evil
if the act has no commensurate reason but in its existential entirety contradicts the value sought. It then becomes in a moral
sense contrary to nature. 6

Here, then, is the distinction between a moral evil and a physical evil. Louis Janssens's discussion of the moral-nonmoral distinction also takes as a primary example the morality of contraception. Given the dual ends of marital intercourse and the
need to promote both of these "goods," he concludes:
Marital intercourse can be called neither moral nor immoral when
it is the object of a judgment which considers it without due regard for its end. A moral evaluation is only possible if it is a study
of the totality of the conjugal act, viz., when one considers whether
or not the conjugal act (means) negates the requirements of love
and responsible parenthood. 7

While Knauer, Janssens and a number of other Catholic
moralists who argue along the same lines may be right on the
issue of contraception, their arguments are tortuous and misleading. Apparently the only effective strategy they can think
of to counter the sin-against-nature charge of the tradition
in the area of sexual ethics is to say not only that nature is
of Double Effect," Readings in Moral Theology, Number
6 "The Principle
One, ed. by Charles E. Currnn and Richard McCormick, S.J. (New York:
Paulist Press), pp. 31-32.
1" Ontic Evil and Moral Evil," pp. 72-73.

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MICHAEL K. DUFFY

no moral teacher but also that the issues are not moral ones
until we know more a.bout them. A linguistic confusion is also
apparent. Although they refer to precisely the same thing,
Knauer distinguishes moral from physical acts while Janssens
makes the distinction between moral and immoral acts.
After demonstrating the distinction in the area of contraception, Janssens goes on to suggest that moral evaluation in other
(all other?) acts as well may find us mentioning" moral" evil
prematurely; having failed to consider adequately the end of
an act and the agent's purposes, we now confuse "moral"
and " on tic" evil. J anssens argues, for example, that simply
to equate " saying something which is not true " with " lying "
would involve an insufficiently discriminating moral judgment.
Originally applied to sexual momlity, the distinction has
been generalized to apply to all other moral categories, including acts once judged to be intrinsically wrong (e.g., the killing
of innocents). McCormick recently insisted that we keep
straight the difference between " evaluative" terms and " descriptive" terms. There are, he wrote, only a few value terms
(" compound value terms," he calls them) which " contain
their own negative moral evaluation." 8 From the acts he lists
which do not contain their own evaluation, we can conclude
that there are few value terms indeed. He says
... individual actions independent of their morally significant circumstances (e.g., killing, contraception, speaking falsehood, sterilization, masturbation) cannot be said to be intrinsically morally
evil as this term has been used by tradition and the recent
magisterium. 9

It is my fear that if we take the moral-nonmoral evil distinction and apply it to issues beyond contraception and sexual
conduct we will create serious misconceptions both in moral
discourse and moral practice, especially in the area of lifetaking.
To see why this is the case, let us consider McCormick's
s "Notes on Moral Theology," Theological Studies, Vol. 43, no. 1 (March,
1982)' p. 84.
9 [bid.

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reliance upon the distinction in discussing the issue of killing
non-combatants in wartime. McCormick has taken great pains
to clear up what he views as a misinterpretation of his earliest
position. If I understand him correctly, McCormick first
argued that killing noncombatants is immoral because in the
long run the practice would undermine respect for international law and thereby jeopardize future noncombatants. To kill
in this instance would be " a capitulation to and encouragement of a type of injustice which in the long run would render
more lives vulnerable." 10 McCormick viewed the prohibition
as " virtually exceptionless " because we cannot, in practice
though not in theory, avoid these disproportionately harmful
effects. This seemed as close as McCormick would come to
claiming that certain acts are wrong by their very nature.
When McCormick's explanation for the wrongness of killing
noncombatants came under heavy criticism by other Christian moralists, he tried to meet their charges of "utilitarianism " by refining his position. Killing noncombatants, he
wrote recently, is unexceptionally prohibited because the disproportion of evil over good is " intrinsic." 11 This is so, he
argued, because there are a number of interdependent and inseparably connected " basic human goods " which constitute
a sine qua non of human flourishing. Life is one of the most
basic; to attack it is to undermine the others as well. So now he
speaks of an " intrinsic disproportion."
McCormick's latest argument may be conceding more than
his theory of proportionality allows if that theory of moral
justification is to cover all areas of moral judgments. For he
now acknowledges a cluster of moral goods or values that dictate the moral norm prohibiting the killing of an innocent person. Has not McCormick rightly identified life as the most
basic good, the sine qua; non. for the realization of other human
goods? Does this not vitiate a maxim which McCormick would
also wish to defend (" Only kill an innocent person if a value
10 "The

Ambiguity of Moral Choice," p. 33c.
on Moral Theology," Theologioal Studies 40 ( 1979), p. 61.

11 "Notes

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MICHAEL K. DUFFY

weightier than his or her life will be preserved by so doing ")
since there is no value commensurate with life itself?
In a commentary on McCormick's methodology, Cahill defends her treatment of this moral issue and sees no difficulty
with a weighing of the values at stake as the proper moral
methodology. She concludes:
If the principle of noncombatant immunity can be absolute, it is

not because premoral evil (killing) can be absolutely prohibited,
but because moral evil can, and the principle specifies a disproportionate value relation, that is, a moral evil. Discussion about
the viability of this prohibition should revolve around the relative gravity of the values at stake, and their relation to the greatest
good, God.12
Do we, in fact, need to discuss the " viability " of this prohibition? Many statements made by Cahill, McCormick and
others make the relationship between description and evaluation too distant. Note how ambiguous the prohibition is in the
following statement:
' Killing noncombatants ' is not a value term in the sense that
' murder ' is, but it is more than a premoral term like ' homicide.'
It contains a description of a situation in which killing takes place,
and therefore enables a judgment expressed in a norm.13
Cahill is of course correct that our moral estimation of the
variety of human acts is closely tied to our descriptions of
those acts. For it is by getting the meaning of acts right that
we are able to say whether they are right or wrong. Moral reflection is such a demanding (and frustrating) enterprise just
because there are so many different human acts requiring our
evaluation and there are no simple formulae for judging them
all. Yet, over time, communities have come to formulate particular moral notions, based on their wants, needs, and interests, to assist in evaluating acts from the moral point of view.
Let us examine the killing of noncombatants in light of the
12 Lisa
Sowle Cahill, " Within Shouting Distance: Paul Ramsey and
Richard McCormick on Method," The Journal of Medicine and Philosophy,
Vol. 4, no. 4 (December, 1979), p. 409.
18 Ibid.

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moral notions that we, as a community of moral discourse,
possess.

Moral Notions and Descriptions of Acts
In the above pages I have examined the way a number
of human acts (e.g., adultery, killing noncombatants, lying,
contraception and masturbation) have been discussed by contemporary moral theologians. I have not entered the debate
over whether the moral significance they ascribe to certain
acts is consistent with the meaning the earlier Catholic tradition ascribed to such acts. I am more interested in examining
how it is we come to possess certain moral notions and are then
able to recognize certain acts as requiring moral approval or
blame. I rely upon the analysis of Julius Kovesi, which provides a clear account of how moral notions arise, how they
are distinguished from other notions, and the limits within
which moral notions function. 14 Kovesi's analysis helps us to
see why the nonmoral-moral distinction and the distinction between " description " and "evaluation " of human acts are
conceptually misleading if not properly understood. I will illustrate my discussion of moral notions by considering the acts
of lying and killing. I will then argue why killing noncombatants in wartime is an act displaying the same morally significant feature as the notion of murder and is, therefore, an act
having the same negative moral evaluation.
Contemporary moral analysis sometimes suggests that our
moral notions are different from notions about the physical
world because moral notions " evaluate " reality while the
other notions " describe" it. Hence, our notions of " tables "
and " lying " are alleged to be different kinds of notions because the former involves straightforward perception and the
latter, interpretation. But Kovesi correctly points out that
recognizing an object as a table and an act as a lie requires
first that we know what makes an object and an act what they
are (a table, a lie) and second that we are able to see an obi4 Moral

Notions (New York: Humanities Press, 1967).

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MICHAEL K. DUFFY

ject or act we encounter as displaying those features especially
relevant to tables and lying.
Kovesi distinguishes between two elements in all of our notions, the material and the formal, both of which must be understood in order to comprehend and to use notions correctly.
The material elements of a. notion "table " include the great
variety of physical materials and designs by which a table can
be made. The formal element of the notion " table " answers
the question, What purposes do tables serve? (or, What is their
point?) thus enabling us to say what will count as a table despite the many varieties of table constructions. Likewise, there
are various ways of being false in speech (the material element of the notion of lying) but only when we have grasped
the point of or reason for lying (the formal element) are we
able to recognize a. particular instance of lying and call it by
the right name. While stressing that the material and formal
elements are " one pair of concepts," Kovesi emphasizes the
centrality of the formal element, saying
... without [it] there is just no sense in selecting, out of many
others, those features of a thing or an act that constitute it as that
thing or act. Not only is there no sense in selecting those features,
but some of those features simply would not exist at all, e.g. in the
case of inadvertent acts there just would not be a by-product of
an act [without a formal element having as its point "inadvertence "]. That without the formal element we cannot see the sense
of selecting the material elements is especially important in connection with our moral notions. For the contemporary distinction
between ' evaluation ' and ' description' sometimes assumes that
facts just are outside in the world waiting for us to recognize
them; and that evaluation consists in selecting some facts on
' purely factual grounds ' and then expressing our attitudes toward
them, or making a decision about them. 15

What distinguishes moral notions from other notions is not
that moral notions evaluate acts while the latter only describe
them. The prominent feature of moral notions is that their
formal features are different. They are about reality as it pertains to us in a particular way. Kovesi notes
15 Kovesi,

p. 24.

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In the case of our moral and social life . . . it is our wants and
needs, aspirations and ideals, interests, likes and dislikes that provide the very material for the formation of our notions. 16

This is the subject matter from which our moral notions a.rise.
The raison d'etre of moral notions is our desire "to avoid or
promote something, excuse or blame people for certain happenings or acts .... " 11 Furthermore, our moral notions have
been formed to reflect the wants, needs and interests of anybody, and the " function and purpose of these notions in our
lives must be such that anybody should be able to and would
want to use them in the same way and for the same purpose." 18
This being the case, contemporary references to acts or evils
as "non-moral" contain a two-fold misunderstanding. First,
it is incorrect to speak of acts as governed by " nonmoral " notions (prior to coming under moral evaluation) which are only
descriptive. All of our notions about the world assist us in
correctly identifying objects and acts. Whether we are identifying objects as tables or acts as lies, we are evaluating reality.
Hence, our use of both moral and other notions involves us in
evaluating, although from differing points of view. Second,
since our wants, needs, and interests as well as our need to
ascribe blame or excuse are closely associated with these allegedly " nonmoral " acts and evils, such acts and evils are subject to moral evaluation from the beginning or " automatically." Let me explain further why this must be the case.

The Misuse of Moral Notions
Confusion can arise in our use of moral notions if we misapprehend either their material or fonnal elements. For example, if I fail to tell my doctor about my allergy to penicillin
and I die from the penicillin he prescribes for an infection, he
cannot be said to ha.ve " murdered " me. Because of the lack
16 Kovesi, p. 53.
11 Kovesi, p. 15.
18 Kovesi, p. 57.

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MICHAEL K. DUFFY

of the formal element of his intention to kill me, the prescribing of penicillin cannot count as a material element of " murder." On the other hand, to err in the use of the formal element would be for an individual to acknowledge that while he
intentionally killed an innocent person, it is not morally wrong
for him to have done so. What gives the variety of ways in
which killing is done the form murder is that the life of an innocent person has been intentionally taken. It is the presence
of that formal feature, the " point" of murdering, which
renders an act displaying that feature wrong and blameworthy. To the extent that we comprehend both the material
and formal elements of the moral notion " murder" we are
able to use it to describe certain acts (which of course includes
a moral appraisal of them) . Obviously, we readily recognize
both of the above violations of a moral notion. But there are
other ways in which confusion can arise in our use of moral
notions. To this I now turn.
So significant is the act of killing that in addition to the notion of "murder " other moral notions exist to deal with the
variety of acts of life-taking. For each notion there is a different formal element present " shaping the life and use of our
term," 19 which range from one specifying full blame (murder) ,
to specifying degrees of excusability (e.g., killing in self-defense, killing while not in a rational state), to specifying no
blame (e.g. capital punishment, accidental killing) . This
variety of formal elements reflects our social need to make
moral discriminations. They have been formulated as a result
of a slowly emerging consciousness concerning what kinds of
killing will and will not be tolerated.
If the act of killing noncombatants has been judged " intrinsically " or " unexceptionally" wrong for many centuries
in Western societies, as I believe it has, it is because such an
act shares the same formal element as the notion of" murder.''
Quite simply, the term" noncombatants" has the force of "innocent persons." The innocence of the victim and the inten19 Kovesi, p. 15.

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tionality of the agent combine to be the central formal feature
of both. When McCormick classifies the act of killing noncombatants as "nonmoral" (until it becomes clear that no more
valuable "basic human good" is being served) he suggests
that something else about the act-some fact not yet specified-must be known in order to make a. moral judgment. In
principle, it is implied, no formal element like " intentionally
killing innocents" immediately evaluates an act, allowing us to
say, "Ah, this is an instance of murder and, thus, is wrong to
do (or to have done)!" When Cahill says that "'killing noncombatants ' is not a. value term in the sense that ' murder '
is, but is more than a premoral term like ' homicide ' " she suggests that there is no moral notion quite covering cases like
killing noncombatants. But our variety of moral notions about
killing do cover this instance, and " murder " seems to cover it
quite adequately. Killing noncombatants is never a premoral
act, since that would mean that it had no meaning, i.e., that
we possessed no specified formal element applying to it. Our
most significant moral acts are not so neutral, waiting for us
to load them up with a moral meaning by finding a relevant
moral notion. The notions are already present, or no moral
discourse could exist, no moral reality be present.
Perhaps McCormick and others are only saying that in many
areas of moral judgment we have too hastily identified the
morally relevant facts and have excluded others as irrelevant.
Their point is worth heeding in our reflections on sexual conduct and birth control. Seldom are our moral notions about
such matters " complete."

Complete and Open Moral Notions
It is necessary to distinguish between open and complete
moral notions. The formal element of an open moral notion
does not tell us all that we need to know to declare acts always morally wrong. Open moral notions require further specification to enable us to make moral judgments of cases covered by such notions. Lying is such a notion since although we
say that lying is wrong, we admit that under certain circum-

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MICHAEL K. DUFFY

stances it would be justifiable (e.g., verbal deception in order
to save someone from a crazed pursuer). Hauerwas observes:
The great majority of our moral notions are [open ones] as our
everyday experience does not require the rigor of definiteness envisaged in the idea of completeness.20
Open moral notions function like challenges, obliging us to cite
more relevant facts to justify our acts.
Complete moral notions, on the other· hand, have definite
formal elements sufficient for us to make moral judgments. We
do not need to specify acts covered by complete moral notions
to determine their wrongness. To say that murder is wrong
only serves to remind us of our consensus about murder and to
call a specific act "murder" describes a particular a.ct having
the formal and material features of murder. Calling an act
" murder " precludes the possibility that other facts could arise
which would allow us to judge the act as morally right. Again
Hauerwas notes:
. . . the more basic a moral notion is in regard to the significance
of our lives together the more it tends to be a complete notion. For
example murder, even in our common-sense usage, is a rather complete moral notion .... because killing is such a significant human
act we have learned by experience how important it is to understand it rightly. 21
I have reminded readers that murder is a complete moral
notion and, further, that killing noncombatants is covered by
the notion of murder because of the status of noncombatants.
May I suggest further why these notions are well-formed in
order to avoid any misconceptions about and misuses of them.
One of the most powerful arguments for " holding the line "
against attempts to reevaluate the morality of several categories of killing is made by the moral philosopher Philip
Devine. Recognizing the high regard for human life which is
covered in our social norms and langua.ge, Devine argues sim20" Situation
Ethics, Moral Notions, and Moral Theology," p. 21, in his
Vision and Virtue (Notre Dame, Ind., 1974).
21 Hauerwas, pp. 21·22.

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ply that members of the human species, which includes "persons " however they be defined, ought to be protected and preserved because they have "interest" and "desires" for certain
"goods" which should be respected and which cannot be realized if human beings a.re dead. 22 After examining the various
philosophical reasons given for the moral wrongness of killing
human beings, Devine offers a simpler explanation in two
theses:
(1) Acts of homicide are prima facie wrong because they are acts
of homicide, and not for any supposedly more fundamental
reason, such as that they tend to produce disutility or are unjust or unkind.
... it is not possible to determine by calculation whether a
given life is worth living or not. This means not only that
the ' rational suicide ' defended by many utilitarians is impossible, but also that our ordinary desire to go on living cannot
be explained as based on a calculation that we are on the
whole better off alive than dead.23
I do not see how Devine's reasoning could be defeated. It is
supported by a number of other philosophers, most succinctly
by R. E. Ewin's remark about the observable structure of our
moral world, that " our concepts are the way they are because
the world is the way it is and because people believe, want, and
need what they believe, want, and need." 24 This is not a rhetorical flourish, but a recognition that we have certain moral
notions and that we need those notions or we could not exist
as a society. (To claim that we need certain moral notions
does not mean that their primary function is one of social
utility.) Nor is it the case that we might have had another
set of moral notions and moral rules derived from them.
22 The Ethics of Homicide
(Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1978). For
Devine, interests entail rights. I do not follow Devine in claiming that because human beings have interests they therefore have rights. While I do
think there is a "claim" present, I find the language of "rights" inappropriate although Devine has the support of many contemporaries in using the
legal notion of rights.
23 Devine, p. 11.
24" What is Wrong with Killing
People?" Philosophical Quarterly 22
(1972), p. 130.

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MICHAEL K. DUFFY

What can be said of "nonmoral" notions? First, we must
be careful not to mistake either open or complete moral notions for " nonmoral " ones. Moral notions, both open and
complete, are formed from the point of view of the wrongness
of acts. An act is wrong which is correctly described by both
complete and open moral notions, except that in cases covered
by open moral notions certain facts might sometimes render
acts morally right. Nevertheless, moral notions are formed
from the point of view of the wrongness and bl·ameworthiness
of acts. Nonmoral notions of human acts also require more
facts, but not in the same way open moral notions may. Here
is the second thing we need to recognize about " nonmoral "
notions: nonmoral notions by themselves never describe human
acts. They only describe physical features of human acts. In
this sense they are" nonmoral," that is, neither right nor wrong
under their description. Further description, from the moral
point of view, is necessary. Clearly, it would serve no one's interests to use nonmoral notions extensively. We need-and
want-to get to the heart of the matter in our speech. Describing only one dimension of a human act does not serve our
needs; in fact, to speak of acts in nonmoral terms is to construe acts in an unre1ated way, unrelated to their human meaning and significance. Hence, nonmoral notions of human acts
are not part of our moral language-at least not until moral
theologians and philosophers have recently tried to import
them.
I hope my point is clear: the moral-nonmoral distinction,
like the description-ev:aluation one, is not real. "Nonmoral"
notions are an empty set, just as the distinction between " describing the way things are " and " evaluating reality from the
point of view of my attitudes, likes, dislikes" is nonsense.
Kovesi is surely right in both what he denies and affirms:
... it [is not J the case that moral judgments express our attitudes,
decisions or even evaluations of a different world, the world of
our interpersonal life, for without moral notions there would be
nothing to express an attitude to, nothing to make a decision
about, nothing to evaluate. 25
25 Kovesi,

p. 148.

THE MORAL-NONMORAL

DISTINCTION

365

Since moral language shapes the realities to which it refers,
if we were to use that language in an unusual way we would
either be accused of not knowing the rules for its proper use
(material and formal features) or of attempting to change
both our public language and the moral reality to which it
refers. For this reason moral commentators must be careful
in their treatment of formal and material elements, open and
complete moral notions and " nonmoral " notions. There has
been a tendency in contemporary ethics to regard certain complete notions as open ones and to create another category, the
" nonmoral," whereby a number of acts are removed from the
moral purview. McCormick and the other moralists I have
examined may respond that I have misunderstood what they
intend by their moral terminology. I can only respond that
the use of language is very important. They must say what
they mean in such a. way that others will know what they
mean.
My limited task has been to examine the use of a distinction
that has borne much weight in the contemporary debate over
moral methodology and specific moral problems. Calling an
act or an evil " nonmoral " intends to make the point that
certain moral judgments and norms need to be subjected to
more data and testings. That is a point worth making. But
we should not make it by using a peculiar distinction leading
those who read and hear it to conclude that description and
evaluation are separate functions and that the " nonmoral "
and " moral " are distinct realms. What that invariably leads
to is the conclusion that moral conceptions do not arise out of
human life and action so much as they impose a meaning upon
human activity. McCormick, I am sure, would not want to
contribute to that conclusion. My hope is that he will want to
avoid language which leads to such a misinterpretation of the
moral life.
A final observation concerns the agenda of Catholic moral
theology. While Catholic moral theology seeks to be more
theologically related, it nevertheless retains its commitment to
being catholic. Its desire to speak to all requires a philosophi-

366

MICHAEL K. DUFFY

cal mode of speaking. Catholic moralists need not become
moral philosophers to do so. Nonetheless, they must be familiar with the philosophers' efforts to clarify moral language
and concepts. H moral theologians are familiar with the various versions of the is-ought distinction that have held our notions of morality captive and are appreciative of recent efforts
at releasing us from them they will proceed more cautiously in
developing their ethical arguments.
MICHAEL K. DUFFEY
Marquette University
Milwaukee, Wisconsin

KARL RAHNER ON MATERIALITY AND
HUMAN KNOWLEDGE

I

T IS DIFFICULT to think of any recent Christian theologians who have denigrated the materiality of human
existence deliberately and in a straight-forward manner.
Nevertheless, in as far as Christian theologians entertain
the possibility of a connection between human finitude and the
need for redemption, a certain ambivalence towards human
materiality and its consequences often remains.
Karl Rahner presents an example of this ambivalent stance
towards human materiality. The first part of this essay will
provide a discussion of Rahner's use of the concept of materiality in his metaphysics of human knowledge. The second part
of the essay will show that Rahner's anthropology, as found
in his metaphysics, contains two strands of argumentation
which define the limitations of human materiality in different
ways. One of these strands of argumentation seems to affirm
that human materiality is essential and good, whereas the
other strand seems to deny the goodness and the permanence
of human materiality.
I
Materiality functions as an important concept in Rahner's
metaphysics of human knowledge. 1 Rahner uses materiality in
of knowledge in the greatest detail in
1 Rahner explains his metaphysics
Spirit in the World. Our quotations will be from the English translation by
William Dych, S.J. (New York: Herder and Herder, 1968.) The original
German edition is Geist in Welt (Munich: Kosel-Verlag, 1957.)
We will also refer to sections of Hearers of the Word which deal with the
implications of materiality for human knowing and existence. Our quotations from this book will be, where possible, from A Rahner Reader, edited
and translated by Gerald A. McCool (New York: The Seabury Press, 1975)
and where not, from the English translation, Hearers of the Word, translated

367

368

TIINA ALLIK

order to explain such limitations of human knowledge as receptivity, spatiality and temporality, and potentiality.
1. Materiality is an explanation for the receptivity of human
knowledge.
Rahner starts out with the assumption that knowing and
being are one, adds to that the fact that human knowing is in
fl).ct receptive, and ends up with the concept of human materiality.
The problem that Rahner deals with in Chapter 10 of
Hearers of the Word, " Man as a Material Essence," and in
large portions of Spirit in the World is the following: if knowledge is defined a.s self-presence, how can one conceptualize
human knowledge, which is receptive? Materiality is part of
the solution to this problem, because " the materiality of the
human existent thing is conceived a.s something that knows
itself in the receptive knowledge of things." 2
The problem of the seeming contradiction between the essential nature of knowing and the fact that human knowing is receptive is set up by the fact that Rahner conceptualizes human
knowledge on the basis of a model which is a conceptualization of God's knowledge. 3 He starts out with the presupposition that knowing, in its essence, is the being-present-to-itself
of the knowing subject. Thus knowing is perfectly actualized
only in God. The cause of God's knowledge of other existing
by Michael Richards (New York: Herder and Herder, 1969.) The original
German edition is Horer des Wortes (Munich: Kosel-Verlag, 1963.)
2 Hearers of the Word, p. 135. (German edition, p. 167.)
a Rahner conceives of the problem of the metaphysics of knowledge as the
problem of demonstrating that there is indeed a gap between the subject and
the object and that human knowing is consequently receptive. It is well to
keep in mind that this is exactly the reverse of what is usually seen as the
basic problematic in epistemology. He sees himself as following St. Thomas
in this regard: " for the Thomistic meta physics of know ledge the problem
does not lie in bridging the gap between knowing and object by a 'bridge'
of some kind: such a 'gap' is merely a pseudo-problem. Rather the problem is how the known, which is identical with the knower, can stand over
against the knower as other, and how there can be a knowledge which receives another as such." (Spirit in the World, p. 75. [German edition, p. 88.])

RAHNER ON MATERIALITY AND HUMAN KNOWLEDGE

369

beings is always his own essence. He knows other beings
through his eternal knowledge of himself. Human knowledge,
on the other hand, is receptive. The initial cause of the human
person's knowledge of anything is always other than the self.
Human persons are present to themselves, i.e., know themselves, only through meeting other things in the world. In
Rahner's language, one can return to oneself only through
going out into the world.
Rahner wants to preserve both sides of human knowingboth the assumption that human knowing conforms to the
basic structure of knowing as self-presence and also the fact
that human knowing is in fact receptive. What he needs is
an ontological category that is an aspect of the human person-that is a being present, not to the human subject himor herself, but to something else. This other ontological category cannot be being, since, given Rahner's definition of being,
it would be the cause of knowledge of itself and not of something else. Instead it must be another kind of ontological reality, which is nevertheless a real part of the human person.
"This 'something else' is thus the subjective possibility of
'having being.' ... That is, it is not itself in a state of actual
'having being.' Accordingly, man's being is the being of an
empty, unspecific, subjective possibility of being that is really
distinct from actual 'having being.'" 4 Thus Rahner modifies
the perfect self-presence of absolute being by describing one
aspect of the ontological reality of the human person as potential self-presence to another.
This ' something else ' that is essential to the structure of
the human person as a receptive knower is, according to
Rahner, equivalent to the Thomistic concept of matter. The
being of the human person is actualized when the unspecified
possibility of the human person, which is matter, is informed,
not only in the sense that the basic constitution of the human
person as an existent being can be conceptualized as the form
of the soul informing the matter of the body, but also in the
4 Hearers

of the Word, pp. 123-124. (German edition, pp. 152-153.)

370

TUNA ALLIK

sense that the receptive act of knowledge of the human person can be conceptualized as an informing of the material
aspect of the person. Rahner would maintain that matter, defined as the basis of the possibility of receptive knowing, is
equivalent to matter, as it is defined by St. Thomas when he
says that the body, in relationship to the soul, can be understood as prime matter, "the empty, real possibility of being." 5
2. Materiality explains inner-worldly causality, which is a
precondition for receptive knowledge.
Another way that Rahner argues for the necessity of the
materiality of human knowing is by starting from the fact of
inner-worldly 'real-ontological' influence and showing that
materiality is a precondition for inner-worldly causality, which
is itself a precondition for receptive knowledge.
This line of argument is also an answer to the objection that
the equation that Rahner has made between the thing other
than the knower, that must exist in receptive knowledge, and
the thing other than the knower, " in relation to which the
knower exists ontologically and in which he is supposed to
subsist," is purely verbal. Rahner presents this objection in
the following way:
One might think that we had wrongly denoted two totally different things by one and the same phrase, " the thing other than
the knower," in which the knower is understood as existing and
as knowing in like manner. It is true that the other thing known
is a determination of the object that is distinct from the knower,
whereas the "thing other than the knower," in relation to which
the knower exists ontologically and in which he is supposed to
subsist, is the materia prima.

Rahner overcomes this objection by showing that "the effect
of one existent thing upon another which subsequently results
in the substantial constitution of both the active thing and of
the thing that it determines, is the reality of the active thing
itself." 6
5 Hearers of the Word, p. 125. (German edition, p. 154.)
6Hearers of the Word, p. 136. (German edition, p. 168.)

RAHNER ON MATERIALITY

AND HUMAN KNOWLEDGE

371

In other words, what must be shown is that the action 0£ the
mover and the action 0£ the moved are identical, even though
they may be distinguished by logical analysis. The only way
in which they can be identical is i£ there exists a neutral, unspecified area 0£ possibility, which is in £act what matter is.
The region of the possibility of the contact between the mover
and the moved is the non-specific, empty, and yet real possibility
which utterly permeates all material essences ... 7

Thus materiality is necessary for inner-worldly causality to
take place. And it is also necessary in order for both kinds 9£
' otherness ' to be more than verbally identical.
Without this common medium of an empty " being other " which
in itself is one, it would not be possible for specific uniqueness with
respect to " quidditas " to be at once that which is proper to the
active agent and that of the other that is determined. 8

l£ one applies this model to human knowing, the active agent.
is the object known by the subject and the other that is determined is the knowing subject. The knowing subject could
not be externally determined by the known object, i.e., could
no.t know in this ontologically defined kind 0£ way, unless it
were material.
The answer to the objection is ultimately based on Rahner's
assumption that being and lmowing are one, though seen from
a slightly different angle. The way in which the matter 0£ the
subject, in which the essence 0£ the subject constitutes itself,
is external to the subject even though it is, in another sense,
part 0£ the subject, is not very different from the way in which
the known object is external to the subject, even though, in
order to be known, it must modify the interior 0£ the subject.
These two kinds 0£ externality are really not so different, because the nature 0£ knowing is not very different from the nature 0£ being what one is essentially. The ontological constitution 0£ the knowing subject, in itself, is analogous to the structure 0£ its relations with the world, precisely because the
7 Hearers of the Word, p. 137. (German edition, p. 169.)
BHearers of the Word, p. 138. (German edition, p. 170.)

372

TIINAALLIK

human spirit is constituted as spirit by going outside itself
and can gain knowledge of itself only through its knowledge of
external objects.
Rahner's demonstration that matter is necessary for innerworldly causality is thus also a demonstration of the necessity
of matter for the constitution of human persons, regardless of
their relations with external objects. In fact, it does not seem
that relations with external material objects would be possible, unless the human person were inherently, in and of itself,
material. That would seem to be the meaning of the materiality that is asserted to be a precondition for receptive human
knowledge. The intimate connection, if not identity, of the
materiality of human persons, as it is defined in terms of the
relations of human persons with external objects in the world,
and as it is defined in terms of the essential constitution of
human persons as bodily beings, is revealed by the fact that
Rahner's description of the aspects of the essential constitution of the human person which a.re due to materiality borrows
to a great extent from vocabulary that is prima.rily applicable
to the external world and not so obviously applicable to the
structure of the human person as such. This is particularly
evident in Rahner's discussion of spatiality and materiality.
3. Materiality explains human spatiality and temporality.
According to Rahner, materiality is the basis for both human
spatiality and temporality. It is the basis for spatiality in the
sense that it is the principle of the possible repetition of the
same fomn, and thus the basis of number and quantity because
it makes possible multiples of the same unit. But materiality
is also the basis for the spatiality of the individual material
being within itself.
Now the repetition of the same within one and the same thing is
nothing but its spatiality, its being innerly affected by quantity,
the real diversity of the same thing within its unity. Thus we may
say: a being whose innermost make-up contains matter as an
inner essential principle is spatial. 9
9 A

Rahner Reader, pp. 52-53. (Hearers of the Word, pp. 130-131. German

edition, p. 162.)

RAHNER ON MATERIALITY AND HUMAN KNOWLEDGE

373

In a similar way, matter is the basis for the temporality of
the individual material being. This is so first of all because
matter's potential for determination is never exhausted, no
matter how many times a certain kind of ' whatness' or quiddity is repeated in the material world. Thus the material world
always remains to some degree potential and consequently also
in a state of becoming. This applies to the individual in the
material world because the individual material being is also
always potential, to the degree that it is material, and is always in motion towards new determinations of its potentialities. Since the possible realizations of matter's unlimited potentialities partially exclude one another, the totality of possible realizations of potentialities is never given at once. The
total realization of the possibilities of an individual material
being is possible only in a succession of moments, i.e., in time.
In this way, a material being is intrinsica.Ily temporal. As
Rahner puts it, " temporality is meant here in the original
.sense, not as the extrinsic measure of the thing,
as the
inner protracting of the thing itself in the realized totality of
its possibilities." 10
Spatiality and temporality seem to be a kind of complexity
which is the direct result of materiality, and they also seem to
constitute an essential many-la.yeredness of the human person.
Rahner argues that materiality is a necessary condition for receptive knowledge and the conclusion of his argument is not
only that materiality opens the human person to possible determinations from the outside world, which is necessary for
Rahner's ontologically oriented epistemology, but that materiality also makes human persons, within themselves, essentially non-simple, i.e., stretched out over both time and space so
that all the potentialities of the human person are never present " in the same place," on the same level, nor at the same
time.
It is interesting to note that, according to Rahner, one of
10 A

Rahner Reader, p. 53.

edition, p. 163.)

(Hearers of the Word, pp. 131-132. German

374

TIINA ALLIK

the reasons that all the possible determinations of a material
being cannot be present at the same time and place is that
some of them are mutua.lly exclusive. It seems that materiality
is the basis for the possibility of conflict within the human person. If one were to relate this to psychoanalytic concepts, one
might say that the possibility of dynamic conflict within the
person, between what is conscious and what is not, i.e., the
possibility that one portion of psychic content can be pushed
to another level or transformed in some kind of way because
it conflicts with another portion of psychic content, is provided by a kind of structural diversity within the human person. For Rahner, it seems that one hand can possibly not know
what the other hand is doing because the human person is
stretched out in space and time.
4. Materiality explains the potentiality of human beings and
their knowledge.
As we have already seen in our discussion of human spatiality and temporality, materiality also crea,tes a conception of
the human person which includes the ideas of potentiality and
becoming.
Andrew Ta.llon, for whom this conceptualization of the
human person is very welcome, discusses this aspect of Rahner's metaphysics in "Rahner and Personization " 11 and
"Personal Becoming." 12 He sees it as a positive step that Rahner conceives of the human person as a potential entity which
must actualize itself and which is, as part of its essential na.ture, in a process of becoming. The classical definitions of
'person' have usually made every human being automatically
a person, leaving no room for becoming a person through the
historical actualization of possibilities within the person. This
is because the human person was for a long time defined in
11 Andrew Tallon, "Rahner and Personization,"
Philosophy Today, Volume
14 (1970), pp. 44-52.
12 Andrew Tallon, "Personal Becoming," The Thomist, Volume 43 ( 1979),
pp. 1-177.

HAHNER ON MATERIALITY AND HUMAN KNOWLEDGE

375

terms of substance and consciousness, whereas contemporary
philosophy tends to deal more with the relations of a person
to other beings and human freedom. In the latter kinds of
definitions of personhood, greater attention is paid to the potentialities of the person. The actions of persons themselves
are necessary for their becoming persons, and their relationships with others, which are not given immediately and all at
one time but rnther must develop, are essential to the process
of fulfilling personhood.
In Tallon's discussion of Rahner, it is crucial that human
finitude results in human materiality and not the other way
around, 13 but the fract of the finitude of the human spirit is
not enough to explain why becoming is an essential feature of
human existence. In both Hearers of the Word and Spirit in
the World, Rahner contrasts human beings with angels concerning the ability to dispose of oneself completely and in one
act. The reason for the angels' ability to dispose of themselves
completely is their immateriality. As Tallon puts it, "our inability to match the self-disposability of the angels is rooted
in materiality, i.e., in the fact that finite spirit's mode of reaching for the horizon is materiality; multiplied spatio-temporal
acts, which construct habits and stable attitudes, acts which
' take place' and ' take time,' are our attempt to match the
self-enactment of an angel, which happens all at once, beyond
space and time." 14 According to Rahner, "the self-realization
of something immaterial as such takes place essentially all at
once." 15 Thus it is human materiality which makes human
existence essentially a becoming.
Tallon's analysis results in the formula that human finitude
causes human materiality, which in turn results in becoming as
an essential feature of human existence. Materiality is the way
in which the finite human spirit becomes spirit, and it is prern See "Personal Becoming," pp. 32 and 75 and "Rahner and Personization," p. 50.
14 Andrew Tallon, "Personal Becoming," p. 81.
15 Spirit in the World, p. 351, n.46. (German
p. 352, n.47.)

376

TIINA ALLIK

cisely materiality that implies a kind of becoming, since it
necessitates a ' going out ' and return of the spirit.
For human action and knowing, this means that the materiality of human existence always involves the actualization
of potentialities. For a material being, actualization always
requires another being. As Tallon puts it, "there is no way
metaphysioally to understand how a being could be conceived,
could be intelligible, that had totally within itself the power
fully to actualize itself and had not already done so ... " "Becoming means that there is ' something from the outside ' as
well as ' something from inside ' ... " 16 In other words, because
of the fact that the human person is in some ways only a potentiality, it must be conceived of as needing other beings or
external objects in order to actualize itself, since otherwise the
potentiality of the human person would not make sense. The
definition of potentiality is the need to be actualized from the
outside. Human finitude and materiality necessitate a passive
and dependent relation of the human spirit to others, since they
imply a process of becoming. Thus materiality, the specifically
human form of the limitation and weakness of finite spirit, involves becoming and receptivity and partial dependence on the
external world.
Human beings are potential, not only in their relations to
objects in the world but also in relation to themselves. Human
materiality means that the emanation of the powers of the
person from the core of the person is the embodiment or, literally, the bodiliness of the person, the essential constitution of
the person, aside from his or her relations to other objects in
the world. When Rahner discusses the concept of emanation,
he makes a distinction between the powers of the soul and the
substantial ground from which they emanate.
According to Thomas the powers ·emanate from the substantial
ground. From this conception there follows the relationship, conceivable only dialectically, between the essential core of an existent
and the powers emanating from it.11
16 Andrew
17

Tallon, "Personal Becoming," p. 10.
Spirit in the World, p. 256. (German edition, p. 260.)

HAHNER ON MATERIALITY

AND HUMAN KNOWLEDGE

377

The origin is active in its emanation of the powers but it is
also receptive, in that it receives its fulness and perfection from
what it allows to emanate.
Thus the origin which lets emanate reveals itself as a receptive
origin: susceptivum principium. The origin as receptive receives
in itself what emanates as its fulfilment; it would be less perfect
without the emanation which it retains in itself; it is related to it
as being in potency for it; it grows to its fulfilment only through
less perfect stages.18
The act of emanation is passive as well as active. For
Rahner there is already a kind of receptivity of the subject
that is identical with its activity, in the self-constituting act of
the subject. 19 In order for emanation to be a true actualization
of potentiality and in order for it to found a true plurality of
powers, emanation cannot be "a simple essential determination." On the other hand, in order for the powers of the soul
to form an essential unity with the soul, emanation cannot be
merely an accidental determina.tion from the outside. There
must be an identity of the active and the passive, of what is
internal in origin and what is external.
In this way, Rahner describes a potentiality which results
in a plurality or non-simplicity within the human knowing
subject, as it is in itself. The human soul is, in itself, irrespective of possible relations to objects, already embodied. Because of this, it is, in effect, already related to an "other," to
matter which is the possibility of being related to external objects. It is as if the soul's essential relationship to its own body
is already a relation to a kind of object, since it is already a
relation to materiality. And the soul's essential embodiment,
i.e., the emanation of its essential powers, is already an encounter with the external realm of matter, which the soul has
in common with all material beings.
To summarize, for Rahner the human person is defined both
essentially and functionally as a potential being who is, by
18

Spirit in the World, p. 257. (German edition, p. 262.)
in the World, p. 254. (German edition, pp. 258-259.)

10 Spirit

378

TIINA ALLIJ(

nature, always in a process 0£ becoming. This potentiality
means the permanent openness to external, determining influences and the need for external agents in order for human subjects to actualize themselves. This means that human persons
are always in a relation of receptivity and partial dependence
and passibility with respect to the world, since they are themselves a part 0£ that world.
5. Materiality is both the weakness and the strength 0£ the
human spirit.
In our discussion so far, it is apparent that materiality, in
Rahner's anthropology, results in certain limitations 0£ the
human person. Nevertheless, it is also apparent that limitations such as the receptivity and potentiality 0£ human persons
are a kind 0£ strength as well as a kind 0£ weakness 0£ the
human person.
Take for example the notion 0£ sensibility. Human knowledge, because it is receptive, is possible only through sensibility.20 This means that human knowledge must be both act
0£ spirit and act 0£ matter. To put it another way, human
knowledge, as sensibility, is dependent both on otherness and
the spirit's own structure. It is dependent both on the spirituality of the human spirit and the limitedness 0£ the human
spirit as material. Rahner describes " the being 0£ the sentient
knower" as "the mid-point between a real abandonment to
the other of matter and an intrinsic independence 0£ being over
against matter, so that the sensible act is in undivided unity
and, as material, the act of the assertion 0£ being (0£ form)
over against matter." 21 The spirit is logically prior to materiality, but it asserts its priority in the emanation 0£ sensibility
as its own power, which makes it receptive. 22

20 A Raimer Reader, pp. 49, 51. (Hearers of the Word, pp. 126, 129. German edition, pp. 156, 159.)
21 Spirit in the W01·ld, p. 81. (German edition, pp. 93-94.)
22 It is important to keep in mind that the term 'matter' as used by both
Thomas and Rahner is a metaphysical concept and has no direct correlation
to the chemical or physical concept of matter. It is not only the human body

HAHNER ON MATERIALITY AND HUMAN KNOWLEDGE

379

In his analysis of Thomas's concept of "possible intellect"
Rahner points out, in another wa.y, the weakness and limitedness of the human spirit.
The soul is essentially the lowest conceivable possibility of intellectual being, since it is understood as a being that is really able
to come to itself, but of itself alone it is not present to itself. To
that ·extent, and only to that extent, Thomas compares it with
prime matter and calls it a "clean slate." Not as though, like
prime matter, it were completely indeterminate in itself and received every determination only from another and absolutely
passively. It really apprehends itself in every act of knowing, and
what is really intelligible is its own light which it imparts to its
objects actively and spontaneously, so that all of this is not given
to it from without. But nevertheless it apprehends all of this only
insofar as a sensible object of itself manifests itself to it, and must
rnanifest itself, for the intellect of itself is only in potency to apprehend itsel£: it is possible intellect. 23
The possibility of the possible intellect means that it only apprehends itself potentially. What it needs in order to actualize
its self-apprehension is external objects that present themselves to sensibility. The human person has its own structure
as spirit, but the human spirit needs external objects in order
to actualize itself as self-apprehending, self-present spirit. Thus
Rahner ties the 'possibility' and potentiality of possible intellect directly to the fact that human knowledge is receptive
and dependent on external objects.
Rahner distinguishes angelic knowing from human knowing
by saying that angels i;lo not have possible intellect. Part of
the receptivity and potentiality of human knowing is the poswhich is limited by materiality but also the spirit. The materiality of human
existence is not limited to the notion that human beings have a body that
can be measured and controlled by the methods of the physical sciences. It
is the materiality of the human spirit, the fact that human persons live in
a material world, including the chemical and physical senses of that word,
that makes the human spirit subject to limitations; but since it is the
human spirit which is limited in this way, the implications of materiality
cannot be measured and evaluated purely by means of a materialistic point
of view. Cf. Hearers of the Word, p. 136. (German edition, p. 168.)
2a Spirit in the World, pp. 245-246. (German edition, p. 250.)

380

TIINA ALLIK

sibility of hiding from the object of knowledge and thus knowledge itself. 24 Human knowledge can be absent in a way that
angelic knowledge cannot.
It is fairly clear that sensibility, materiality, receptivity,
and potentiality bring an aspect of passibility to the human
spirit, which constitutes its relative weakness compared to the
standard of pure spirit. Nevertheless, sensibility is also itself
a power of the finite human spirit, which is still spirit, even
though it is finite. And possible intellect is still intellect, even
though it is only possible. Sensibility and materiality are the
strength of the human spirit, since they are the way in which
the human spirit becomes spirit. This point is related to the
reasons for Tallou's insistence that materiality is the result of
finitude, and not the other way around. He wants to emphasize the fact that spirit has a position of eminence over matter
and that, consequently, materiality is the strength and not just
the limitation of spirituality.
II

Because the receptivity and potentiality of human knowledge are necessary consequences of the fact that the human
spirit becomes spirit by going out into matter, it seems that,
in as far as materiality is a good and necessary feature of
human existence, the limits of human knowledge should also
be seen as neutral with respect to sin and as something that
cannot and need not be done away with. Rahner often talks
a.bout the receptivity and potentiality of human knowledge in
a way which makes clear that these limits are part of human
finitude and creatureliness, but at other times it seems that
these limits function as hindrances to the fulfilment of human
nature.
This is so because Rahner, in his metaphysics of knowledge,
provides two types of explanation for how human materiality
results in a limitation of the human spirit and in a limitation
of human knowledge. Rahner himself does not clearly distin24 Spirit

in the World, pp. 243-244. (German edition, pp. 248-249.)

RAHNER ON MATERIALITY AND HUMAN KNOWLEDGE

381

guish between these two types of explanation, but it is the contention of this essay that they are logically distinct and separable.
I. In one kind of explanation, materiality is seen as a necessary means for the human spirit to go into the world in
order to become conscious of the self as a subject, i.e., in
order to become spirit. This involves certain limitations to
human knowledge, since any knowledge of objects or of the
self is indirect and mediated through encounters with objects in the world, which in effect actualize the subject's
knowledge of objects and the self in a way that can never
be exhaustive and complete. Nevertheless, from this point
of view, these limitations are seen as a good and necessary
feature of human existence.
!il. In another kind of explanation, materiality is seen primar-

ily as an unfortunate limit to human spirituality, i.e., as a
limit to the striving towards union with God in the beatific
vision. We have already seen that Rahner uses his conceptualization of God's knowledge as the model for his conceptualization of human knowledge. An implication of this
perspective is that human materiality can only be seen as
a hindrance, since it makes it impossible for human persons
to reach the implied goal of fullness of being-the perfect
unity of being and knowing which is God.
We would contend that the function of materiality in the second type of explanation, in comparison with the function of
materiality in the first type of explanation, is more amenable
to the Christian doctrine of the permanent and essential materiality of human existence.
Talion's work is useful for us because he also points out this
ambiguity in Rahner's thought-the fact that both matter
and the fullness of being, i.e., God, provide unreachable horizons for the human person and thus both define human nature
as receptivity and potentiality, but in different
2s See Andrew
Tallon's discussion of the reference of Rahner's use of
Worauf, Woraufhin, and Woran as nouns. ("Spirit, Matter, Becoming: Karl

382

TIINAALLIK

Human receptivity and potentiality are defined in terms of the
human spirit's inability to express itself completely in matter,
but they are also defined in terms of the human spirit's inability to reach or know all being as such, except in the anticipatory way that Rahner calls the Vorgriff. 26
Tallon provides ·a schema for dealing with the two ways in
which the human spirit falls short of its goal in Rahner's
thought. He distinguishes two kinds of gap, " the first gap "
and "the second gap," both of which are related to the fact
that human beings have to become persons.
1. The first gap is set up by the spirit, as self-presence, find-

ing itself up a.gainst matter as the necessary medium of its
self-expression. It is " constituted by the very composition
of man as spirit and matter, because matter prevents-absolutely-the perfect self-identification that is the privilege
of pure spirit; this is the metapliysical meaning of concupiscence, man's inability to dispose of himself perfectly
and completely in any one act, but rather needing time and
space, a whole lifetime, to actualize his potential, to become
a person." 27 This first gap is natural, the result of the incarnate condition of human beings.
The second gap, on the other hand, seems to be created by
the Vorgriff, i.e., the human spirit's openness to all being,
and by the supernatural existential. It has to do with the
transcendental horizon for knowing. The Vorgriff and the
Rahner's Spirit in the World," The Modern Schoolman, Volume 48 [19701971], pp. 151-165.)
26 Rahner's explanation
of the 'possibility' of possible intellect in terms
of the Vorgriff seems to be related to the inability of the human person to
fulfill the goal of the supernatural existential. Rahner wants to distinguish
the Vorgriff and the supernatural existential because he wants to maintain
the gratuity of the latter. We would question whether Rahner does in fact
succeed in explaining why the Vorgriff does not inherently demand the supernatural existential. Consequently, our criticism of the second line of explanation for human potentiality and receptivity may, at times, seem to conflate
the Vorgriff and the supernatural existential.
21 Andrew Tallon, "Personal Becoming," p. 37.

BAHNER ON MATERIALITY AND HUMAN KNOWLEDGE

383

supernatural existential seem to represent something that
lies beyond the grasp of human beings, something that is
less natural than the goal described in the first gap. Thus
the second gap seems to have to do with' all being as such'
or God as the horizon of the human spirit, whereas the first
gap has to do with matter as the ground and the limitation
of human spirituality.
Tallon occasionally expresses doubt as to whether the two
gaps are in fact distinct from one another. He says that since
matter is the human spirit's way of trying to close the second
gap, the two gaps are really one and the same. 28
But Ta.llon also says that the twp gaps a.re parallel to the
human duality of spirit and matter, or intellect and sense.29
Since this duality is constant, it would seem that the two gaps
would also have a permanent basis for being distinguished
from one another. Also, it does not seem consistent that the
two gaps should be identified, at first, with the spirit-matter
distinction versus the issue of openness to all being as such,
and that the two gaps could then also be identified in terms
of spirit or intellect (the second gap) versus matter or sense
(the first gap.) It seems likely that when Tallon identifies the
first gap with the spirit-matter distinction, he means to emphasize the fact that the first gap is created by the spirit having to express itself in matter. 80
The ambivalence of Rahner's stance towards human materiality is expressed in the ambiguity of how the two gaps are
related in Tallou's schema. The problem is that the human
spirit, even if it is seen in a more immanent, inner-worldly way,
is nevertheless transcendent in the sense that the aim of its
going out into the material world is self-presence, i.e., the
knowledge of itself as a subject distinct from the objects of
Andrew Tallon, "Personal Becoming,'" pp. 40-41.
Tallon, " Personal Becoming," p. 42.
so The issue of what the exact relationship and status of the two gaps is,
is further confused by the fact that Tallon seems to switch his labels on pp.
95-96 of "Personal Becoming", calling what was previously the first gap
the second gap and vice versa.
28

29 Andrew

384

TIINA ALLIX

its knowledge. Consequently, when one speaks of the human
spirit's confrontation with matter (Tallon's first gap), even
though the emphasis is on the issue of materiality, the second
gap is already implicit. This is part of what Tallon means
when he says that the first gap is created in order to close the
second gap-the human spirit becomes material in order to become transcending, self-present spirit. The second gap includes
the kind of spirituality we have just described, but it also includes a kind of spirituality that is defined in terms of the
transcendence of the human spirit towards something which
is not naturally within the capacity of the human spirit. This
is pointed out by Tallou's statement that the second gap can
be seen as created by the supernatural existential. It is as if
the human spirit had been set the task of becoming more like
God's spirit and in this way transcending its natural created
capacities. Because the human spirit is nevertheless still
creaturely and material, it must tum to the first gap in order
to attempt to close the second gap.
It is clear that this kind of description of transcendence gives
a new sense to the transcendence that is already implied in the
first gap and in that way also ascribed to the second gap. This
sense of transcendence has to do, not only with natural creaturely knowledge, which is limited because it is material, but
also with the fact that the human spirit strives to be transcendent more in the way in which God's absolute spirit is
transcendent.
This second, expanded meaning of the second gap is not
made explicit by calling the second gap the human spirit's
openness to all being. Openness to all being can mean a potential openness to the influence of all other beings, which is
already included in the definition of the materiality of the
human spirit. '!'his kind of openness always remains, for the
most part, a potential openness, since the actualization of all
possibilities cannot and will not take place. The openness to
all being which is characterized in the expanded version of the
second gap seems to strive to go beyond the potential openness
to the influence of all being; and from this point of view, mate-

HAHNER ON MATERIALITY AND HUMAN KNOWLEDGE

385

riality, reversion to the first gap in order to close the second
gap, seems to be almost like giving up the goal which constitutes the expanded version of the second gap. Conversely, the
successful bridging of the expanded version of the second gap
seems to exclude the materiality of the human person.
The fact that there are two senses to what is characterized
as openness to all being in the second gap is related to what we
talked about earlier as the two basically differing ways in which
Rahner explains how ma.teriality results in the limitedness of
human knowledge. The first type of explanation relies on comparatively immanent descriptions of the structure of human
knowing and does not locate the final impenetrability and incomprehensibility of the human self in the basic unity of the
mystery of God and the mystery of human persons. The second type of explanation of the limitations of materiality relies
mainly on the intended unity of God and human persons in the
beatific vision.
The confusion surrounding Tallon's description of the second
gap is due to the fact that the transcendence and openness to
all being, which constitutes the goal involved in the second
gap, are colored by both these lines of argument. Tallon seems
to define the second gap more in terms of the openness to all
being which is the potential union of the human person with
God, which is why it becomes confusing when the same openness to being is said to be present already in the first gap. It
is as if ' spirit ' were being defined in two different kinds of
ways, which are not clearly distinguished but instead slide from
one definition into the other. 31
s1 Our argument also calls into question Rahner's attempt to distinguish
between the Vorgriff and the supernatural existential. For Rahner, the intended goal of the unity of God and human persons in the beatific vision is
based on the philosophical notion that God, as the transcendental horizon,
already, in this world, makes possible human knowledge of the self as distinct from all possible objects of knowledge. I.e., the supernatural existential
is based on the Vorgriff.
The problem is that it seems that the Vorgriff must be both a natural
transcendence and yet also, implicitly, a supernatural transcendence which is
possible only for God. The Vorgriff is an openness to all being, which, as it

386

TIINA ALLIK

The ambiguity in Rahner's definitions of human spirituality
and the limitedness of the human spirit is certa.inly, to some
extent, deliberate. Rahner believes that the openness to all
being which is the openness to God and the portender of the
unity of the mystery of God and human persons, is in fact also
the openness to all being which makes it possible for the knowing subject to distinguish itself from the known object, which
is a necessary condition for receptive knowledge. But it is the
contention of this essay that the way in which Rahner explains
the limitedness of the human intellect, in terms of the relation
of the human spirit to matter, and the kind of transcendence
of the human spirit that is necessarily implied in that, can be
distinguished from the way in which Rahner explains the limitedness of the human intellect, in terms of the absolute being
of God and the knowledge of God which is coterminous with
his being.
The problem with Rahner's latter line of explanation, in our
opinion, is that it tends to confuse the distinction between the
creatureliness of human beings and the infinity of God. As a
Catholic theologian, Rahner wants to affirm the goodness of
all creation, including the materiality of human existence, but
some of his explanations of the role of materiality in producing
limitations of human knowledge seem to imply that human
materiality should, ideally, be done away with in the process
of redemption.
TnNA ALLIK
Loyola Marymount University
Los Angeles, California

were, possesses all being only in anticipation. This is repeatedly affirmed by
Rahner in his discussions of the implications of human materiality for human
spirituality. Nevertheless, the fact that the Vorgriff is, in a sense, a possession of all being, in a kind of all-encompassing knowledge, even if only in
anticipation, shows that the goal for creaturely spirituality is the being of
God. This is also apparent in the fact that Rahner, in his metaphysics of
knowledge, makes perfect self-presence and an active knowledge of all being
the standard by which creaturely spirituality and knowledge is measured.

HARMAN'S "REFUTATION" OF THE
FLOURISHING ETHICS

I

N HIS "Human Flourishing, Ethics, and Liberty," 1 Gilbert Harman argues that an ethics of flourishing-roughly of the sort I have called classical ethical egoism 2-implies "moral relativism, since what counts as 'flourishing'
seems inevitably relative to one or another set of values" (p.
3rn) . He adds that " it is difficult to see how one rather than
another conception of flourishing is to be validated simply in
' the nature of things ' or in the ' nature ' of persons-except
in the sense in which different sets of values yield different conceptions of nature or of the nature of a person" (p. 313).
Harman dislikes the argument that maintains we have basic
(negative) rights since these rights are necessary for one to
pursue one's happiness or flourishing: "From the mere fact
that it ought to be the case from my own point of view that
others not prevent me from developing my potential it does not
follow that this ought to he the case (is desirable) from anyone
else's point of view and certainly does not follow that others
have sufficient reason to refrain from interfering with me" (p.
319). So Harman thinks an ethics of flourishing fails to support natural individual human rights. Finally Harman concludes that " the source of morality lies not in the nature of
things hut in human arrangements" (p. 321). He suggests
that such a conventionalist view of morality also gives support
to the doctrine of rights to (negative) freedom.
t Philosophy and Public Affairs, vol. 12 (Fall, 1983), pp. 307-322. A difficulty with arguing with Harman arises from the fact that although he
mentions many people who advance a version of the flourishing ethics, he
does not provide us with any of the arguments in their own terms. Moreover
Harman does not fully develop any of his arguments, partly because he is
aiming at too diffuse a target to be very specific.
2 Tibor R. Machan, "Recent Work in Ethical Egoism", American Philosophical Quarterly, vol. 16 (January 1979), pp. 1-15.

887

888

TIBOR R. MACHAN

There are several ways in which one could respond to Harman's criticism and I will put forth only some of the points
one could advance.
First, Harman misunderstands the kind of value theory advanced by those who talk about the kind of flourishing relevant to ethics. They have in mind flourishing as the framework by which to evaluate conduct and institutions. By claiming that "what counts as ' flourishing ' seems inevitably relative to one or another set of values " he betrays his misunderstanding. Any set of values pertinent to ethics is theoretically
tied to flourishing for those who advance the viewpoint he is
criticizing. For these philosophers, to know whether some
course of conduct or some institution is of value, to evaluate
some act, to criticize someone's behavior, the standard for
doing so is supposed to be whether human flourishing is enhanced or thwarted. Flourishing, then, cannot itself be " relative to one or another set of values" since there are no values
apart from flourishing, not at least in the morally relevant
sense.
Harman appears to hold that one somehow has some values
or standards of value (judgment) and then draws on these
whenever some evaluative task arises. But what those who
are talking about human flourishing are after is something Harman seems to take for granted, namely, where these values
for judging various matters come from, what is their actual,
best source. Their answer is, consider what constitutes flourishing for human beings, and that is where your standards lie. It
is akin to medicine. If you want to know what doing well or
badly comes to as regards your physical constitution, see
whether it enhances or thwarts your life processess. There can
be a lot of variation within all that, but at least in a very
broad sense a standard of evaluation is availahle. If one appreciates the significance of this analogy, one will also see how
Harman's talk about the alleged relativism of any flourishing
ethics really amounts not to relativism but to contextualism:
given certain basic valuations or theories of the morally good,
just what these will mean for the wide variety of human con-

1IARMAN's "REFUTATION "

THE FLOURISHING ETHICS

$89

duct and institutions we need to evaluate will depend on many
variables, including the individual person involved and his or
her unique attributes. But this is not relativism, any more than
it is relativism in medicine to recognize that general principles
of human health apply differently to different people.
Now Harman might answer in the spirit of G. E. Moore by
noting that "flourishing" is itself a term which invites such
questions, " Ought one to flourish, or ought one perhaps attend
to other matters?" Which then would suggest that a standard
of values exists independently of flourishing by reference to
which this question could be answered. That, in tum, would
suggest that "flourishing " fails to be an ultimate standard, just
as Harman claims.
But the Moorean approach is itself open to objections. It
fails to appreciate that frameworks of value are theories and
when others disagree with them, they can 'ask questions as if
these frameworks were false. So the question, " Ought one
to flourish, etc.?" would be answered by the reply, "But you
fail to see that what I am trying to do is develop a standard
for answering questions about what one ought and ought not
to do." In short, the question is itself presumptuous since it
treats the issue at hand as if it had already had a good solution. The reason that is common is that, after all, concepts
such as " ought" and " good " are in common use and people
speak a.s if they already had a good enough framework of
values by which to justify their employment of them. Instead
the matter should be viewed roughly as one views scientific discussions about theoretical entities which have common enough
names-e.g., quarks, black holes, light, etc. When a theory
is advanced as to what light is, people can ask " But is that
really light? " as if they already know what light is. But what
they are really asking is whether that is how light ought to be
understood. And when one asks whether flourishing is really
so vital to human conduct, what is really at issue is the more
theoretical matter of whether flourishing is the best candidate
for serving as the standard for value judgments.

390

TIBOR R. MACHAN

Various recent efforts to secure a clear idea of human nature
should serve to answer some of Harman's other criticisms,
especially his doubts about attempting to validate a conception of flourishing by reference to human nature. His claim
that the human flourishing approach to ethics leads to moral
relativism and thus to the failure to establish any universal
human rights would seem to be most vulnerable to serious
doubt. If a conception of human nature can be found that is
quite stable over time, moral relativism would hardly flow from
it.
Harman claims that moral oughts are based on human values
and because human beings are so drastically different, their
values will be equally diverse. This denies the unity of human
nature, which is a denial that seems unwarranted. As Professor
Laszlo Versenyi has pointed out:
Barring all knowledge of human nature-that which makes a man
a man-the word man would mean nothing and we could not even
conceive of man as a definite being distinguishable from all other
beings. Consequently anything we might say about man would
be necessarily meaningless, including the statement that human
nature as such is unknowable to man.3
Let me close with noting that Harman's confidence in the
capacity of human arrangements to provide " the source of
morality " is curious in light of the fact that morality is just
the sort of system of standards which we need to invoke so as
to assess, among other matters, the merit of various human arrangements. The sort of conventionalism Harman seems to
have in mind-whereby we suppose that tacit or explicit agreements among people lead to the adoption of certain standards
of conduct-fails to provide a standard which is fundamental
enough and meets the criterion of universalizability so as to
be able to judge the very actions which initiate the convention. Those who assemble, even hypothetically, may want to
know whether they are doing the morally right or wrong thing.
a Laszlo Versenyi, "Virtue as Self-directed Art," The Personalist, vol. 53
(Spring, 1972), p. 282.

HARMAN'S" REFUTATION" OF THE FLOURISHING ETHICS

391

But if they must wait for their work to be done before any
such judgment is possible, then they will be pa.ralyzed.4 Morality is supposed to give us a standard for judging any human
conduct, including "various arrangements ". 5
It is interesting, incidentally, that Ha.rman's conventionalism
might even involve a form of naturalism. After all, one reason
Harman rejects the flourishing ethics is that he does not think
we can agree on values-values, he claims, are relative. From
this he concludes that we need first to convene and reach some
minimal agreement for social life, which is how morality arises.
But isn't this a form of naturalism? Based on the fact that
human nature involves the relativity of values, we must arrive at some kind of arrangements for cooperation. Man, by
Harman's account, is the disagreeing animal, and this implies
a certain way of reaching moral conclusions.
TIBOR R. MACHAN

University of San Diego
San Diego, Oalifornia
Reason Foundation
Santa Barbara, Oalifornia

4 See T. R. Machan, "Social Contract as a Basis of Norms: .A Critique,"
Journal of Libertarian Studies, vol. 7 (Spring, 1983), pp. 141-145.
5 I develop some of these points in detail in Tibor R. Machan, "Toward
a Theory of Natural Individual Human Rights," The New Scholasticism
(forthcoming).

REVISIONIST AND POSTLIBERAL THEOLOGIES
AND THE PUBLIC CHARACTER OF THEOLOGY*

W

HAT DAVID TRACY calls "revisionist theology"
has come to dominate academic theology in the
United States. Those familiar with Professor
Tracy's analysis will recognize how much I am about to oversimplify it. But for present purposes suffice it to say that
revisionist theology seeks to carry on the tradition of Schleiermacher and liberal theology, with its nineteenth century optimism appropriately chastened by the insights of neo-orthodoxy, indeed by the whole grim history of the twentieth century. Revisionist theologians tend to think that both theological language and Scripture symbolically convey a religious
dimension of experience or a possibility for human existence.
Many of the most creative developments in Catholic theology since Vatican II have adopted such a revisionist model
(often with results far more exciting than those of Schleiermacher' s twentieth-century Protestant descendants). When
Catholic theologians seek dialogue with their Protestant counterparts, it is generally revisionist theology with which they enter into conversation. To cite a somewhat random list.
Catholics like David Tracy, Leslie Dewart, Gregory Baum, and
Michael Novak, and Protestants like Langdon Gilkey at Chicago, Edward Farley at Vanderbilt, Schubert Ogden at Perkins, Gordon Kaufman at Harvard, John Cobb at Claremont*.An earlier draft of this essay was presented to the American Theological
Society (Midwest) in November 1984, and I am grateful for the unusually
helpful discussion it received there. I wish I could have responded to all
the critical questions raised on that occasion without turning an article into
a book. I owe much of my understanding of "postliberal theology " to the
continuing discussions of the Yale-Washington theology group, and several
conversations with Stephti:ii Webb led me to a better grasp of "revisionist
theolo!P'."
·

REVISIONIST AND POSTLIBERAL THEOLOGIES

893

most of the leaders of this country's academic theological community-share the assumptions and methods of revisionist
theology.
On the other hand, persistent rumors hint at something different by way of theological method emerging principally at
Yale. Even sympathetic observers must concede a certain air
of mystery. Partly, there's a long Yale tradition of legendary
manuscripts in progress that interminably fail to get completed
and published. But even when books and articles appear after
long gestation, they often address an idiosyncratic set of issues
in a way that makes comparisons difficult, and they sometimes
refuse on principle to discuss systematically questions about
method and assumptions.
George Lindbeck's recently published book The Na.ture of
Doctrine clears up some of the mystery .1 Lindbeck makes it
possible to see how a number of projects share some of the assumptions of what he calls " postliberal theology." In addition to Lindbeck's own work, a list could include David Kelsey's The Uses of Scripture in Recent Theology, Charles
Wood's The Formation of Christian Understanding, Paul
Holmer's continuing studies of Wittgenstein and theology,
Brevard Childs' interpretation of the Old Testament as canon,
William Christian's philosophical analysis of inter-religious
dialogue, Ronald Thiemann's discussions of Biblical authority,
and above all the work of Hans Frei-all published by people
connected with Yale, most in the last ten years. 2
George A. Lindbeck, The Nature of Doctrine, Westminster Press, 1984.
David H. Kelsey, The Uses of Scripture in Recent Theology, Fortress
Press, 1975; Charles M. Wood, The Formation of Christian Understanding,
Westminster Press, 1981; Paul L. Holmer, "Wittgenstein and Theology," in
D. M. High, New Essays on Religious Language, Oxford University Press,
1969, "The Nature of Religious Propositions," in Ronald S. Santoni, Religious Language and the Problem of Religious Knowledge, Indiana University
Press, 1968, and other articles; Brevard S. Childs, Introduction to the Old
Testament as Scripture, Fortress Press, 1979; William A. Christian, Oppositions of Religious Doctrines, Herder and Herder, 1972; Ronald F.
Thiemann, Revelation and Theology: The Gospel as Narrated Promise, University of Notre Dame Press, 1985; Hans W. Frei, The Eclipse of Biblical
Narrative, Yale University Press, 1974, and The Identity of Jesus Christ,
Fortress Press, 1975.
1

2

394

WILLIAM C. PLACHER

I do not want to claim too much. This is not a " school " the writers I have mentioned would disagree on many issues.
Moreover, they have as yet produced only preliminary sketches
of a new theological approach-though even these " sketches "
involve more detail than I can summarize here. Postliberal
theology remains a minority position within Protestant theology; it has so far received little attention among Catholics.
Yet perhaps it is time for conversation to begin. A number of
important young Catholic theologians have done graduate
work under Yale's "postliberal " influence. Lindbeck himself
has been one of the Protestant theologians most active in ecumenical dialogue ever since he served as a Lutheran observer
at Vatican II. Postliberal theology draws on many sources,
from Clifford Geertz's anthropology to the philosophy of Wittgenstein and Gilbert Ryle to Thomas Kuhn's reflections on the
history of science to Eric Auerbach's literary analysis, yet
in theology it owes most to Karl Barth. And Barth often said
that it was his Catholic interpreters who had understood him
best.
As a way of introducing postliberal theology, I want to present Lindbeck's account of the nature of doctrine and Frei's
analysis of biblical narrative. These seem to me the most substantial contributions this emerging movement has yet produced, and the hermeneutical questions of how we understand
doctrinal language and how we interpret Scripture are central
to any theological method. In a concluding section I will then
turn to the public character of theology. Revisionist theology
argues that theological discourse ought to be public. Christian
theologians, on the revisionist view, should not simply address
other Christians. They should not rest content with tracing
the conclusions which follow if (but only if) one grants Christian assumptions. Rather, they should seek to " provide evidence to fair-minded critics inside and outside Christianity for
the meaning and truth of the central Christian symbols." 3
a David Tracy, Blessed Rage for Order, Seabury Press, 1975, p. 9. To cite
three of the basic theses of Tracy's revisionist model: " The two principal
sources for theology are Christian texts and common human experience and

REVISIONIST AND POSTLIBERAL THEOLOGIES

395

Postliberal theology is not " public " in the revisionists' sense
of the word. It does not consciously ground theology in evidence and warrants acceptable to any intelligent, rational, responsible person. But I will maintain that theology can be
"public " in other, possibly more important, ways, and that in
those other ways postliberal theology affirms theology's public
character.
I
Lindbeck defines his own postliberal way of understanding
how doctrines function by contrasting it with two others-the
cognitive and the revisionist. To oversimplify all three positions: On the cognitive model, doctrines function by making
truth claims about objective states of affairs. On the revisionist model, doctrines express experiences and attitudes. On the
postliberal model, doctrines specify rules for Christian speech
and action. 4
(1) According to cognitive theories, "church doctrines function as informative propositions or truth claims about objective realities." 5 " God is three persons in one substance " may
be a good bit more complicated than " The Supreme Court has
nine justices," but it is the same sort of proposition. We judge
it by how accurately it corresponds to the state of affairs to
which it refers.
language .•.. The principal method of investigation of the source ' common
human experience and language ' can be described as a phenomenology of the
' religious dimension' present in everyday and scientific experience and language. • . . To determine the truth-status of the results of one's investigations into the meaning of both common human experience and Christian
texts the theologian should employ an explicitly transcendental or metaphysical mode of reflection." Ibid., pp. 45, 47, 52.
4 Lindbeck, The Nature of Doctrime, pp. 46-47. In order to avoid a morass
of terminology, I am describing as "revisionist" what Lindbeck calls the
"experiential-expressivist
model " and calling " postliberal " what he labels
the "cultural-linguistic"
or "regulative " model. As I shall note later,
Lindbeck's models may oversimplify some issues, and I may make matters
worse by simply identifying his "experiential-expressivist
model" with what
Tracy calls "revisionist theology." With luck, however, even oversimplified
models can help clarify the crucial issues.
5 Jbid., p. 16.

896

WII,LJAM C. PLACHER

Most contemporary theologians seem to assume that a cognitive model would interpret many doctrines too literally. Doctrines seem to develop over time, without our wanting to condemn either the earlier or the later stages as heretical, but on
the cognitive model, "if a doctrine is once true, it is always
true, and if it is once false, it is always false." 6 A cognitive
model shuts off a good bit of ecumenical dialogue by implying
that in most cases of disagreement one side must simply be in
factual error. Lindbeck mentions how ecumenical discussions
sometimes produce a result that seems paradoxical. The two
parties arrive at agreement on an issue where they once disagreed. Yet neither party admits that it was wrong earlier. 7
A cognitive model cannot explain this. If two communions disagreed, somebody must have been wrong. If they now agree,
somebody must have shifted.
Revisionist theology can deal with many of these problems. The revisionist, according to Lindbeck, " interprets doctrines as noninformative and nondiscursive symbols of inner
feelings, attitudes, or existential orientations." 8 On this model
a doctrinal claim is more nearly like, say, the proposition,
" My love is an angel." I do not literally mean to claim my
love a place among the heavenly choirs. Rather, I seek to convey a feeling or an attitude, and my utterance ought to be
judged by my success in doing so and the human authenticity
of what I seek to convey, not by literal correspondence to some
external state of affairs. Bultmann's demythologizing of the
New Testament provides a familiar analogy to this kind of
interpretation. The real, demythologized meaning of New
Testament passages is not to present cosmology or predict history but to offer a. new possibility for human existence.
A theory in which doctrines convey feelings and orientations through symbol and metaphor can explain things which
the cognitive theory found puzzling. Doctrines develop as we
find new and better symbols-but we need not say the earlier
a Ibid,.
r Ibid,., p. 15.
s Ibid,.

REVISIONIST AND POSTLIBERAL THEOLOGIES

897

symbols were "false." Similarly, different religious communities may use different symbols without ultimately disagreeing,
if their symbols express the same experience. Indeed, given the
revisionist commitment to public theology, revisionist theologians tend to claim that religious symbols point to universal
human experiences.
(his
Lindbeck's account of "experiential-expressivism"
term for what I have been calling " revisionist theology ") may
oversimplify an actually more nuanced position. Tracy (or
Schleiermacher, for that matter) does not claim that there is
some universally identical religious experience which different
religions simply express in different languages. For thoughtful
revisionists, the relations between experience and language are
more dialectical than Lindbeck sometimes admits. That said,
it is still the case that when revisionists talk about inter-religious dialogue (often with Karl Rahner's category of" anonymous Christians " in mind) or the communication of Christianity to secular folk by beginning with limit-experiences or
the religious dimensions of ordinary experience, they do seem
to presuppose a universal human something-or-other which
various religions, in their various ways, express. Any slogan
or label oversimplifies, but " experiential-expressivism " does
seem a convenient first approximation of these admittedly diverse theologians.
(S) Postli:beral theology, on the other hand, interprets doctrines in "cultural-linguistic" or "regulative" terms. Doctrines function primarily " not as expressive symbols or as
truth claims, but as communally authoritative rules of discourse, attitude, and action." 0 To accept a doctrine is to agree
to speak and act in particular ways-not necessarily to make a
claim about a state of affairs or to express a particular experience.
On this model, " God is three persons in one substance," is
less like " The Supreme Court has nine justices " or " My love
is an angel " and more like "Pronouns agree with their anteo Ibid., p. 18.

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WIJ,LJAM C. PLACHER

cedents." It states a rule for using language in a properly
Christian fashion. Perhaps Trinitarian doctrine actually states
three rules:
(i) Preserve monotheism.
(ii) Insist that the stories of Jesus refer to a historical
human being.
(iii) Ascribe every possible importance to Jesus that is not
inconsistent with the first two rules.1°
Similarly, the doctrine of predestination might express the rule,
"Treat any hope or confidence that you have of salvation as
an occasion for gratitude for God's grace, not pride in your own
accomplishment."
Doctrines need not point to some shared experience. Nor
need they claim accurately to describe some objective state of
affairs. I might well say for instance, " I have a great deal of
trouble with the ousia/hypostasis language of Nicea and Chalcedon, and I'm not sure I buy into that metaphysics . . . but
still, those creeds seem to me to provide the best guide to how
Christians ought to speak and avoid speaking about Jesus
Christ." Even as I doubt the cognitive claims of the creeds, I
find them good rules.
Of course even a doctrinal proposition can also function to
convey an experience or to state a fact. Lindbeck indicates two
ways in which doctrinal statements could function cognitively
in the context of a generally postliberal, regulative model:
(a) One might believe that a doctrine in fact describes some
objective state of affairs without making this belief doctrinally
binding. Consider the analogy of grammatical rules. An Aristotelian might believe that the subject-predicate pattern of
sentences corresponds to a substance-attribute pa.ttern in finite
entities, but one could agree with the Aristotelian about how
language works and follow the same grammatical rules without accepting this metaphysical correlate. Similarly, a theo10 Ibid., p. 94. It is interesting
that Newman could define the nine
" separate propositions of which the dogma consists" without mentioning
"substance" or "person." See John Henry Newman, An Essay in Aid of a
Grammar of Assent, Doubleday, Image Books, 1955, p. 119.

REVISIONIST AND POSTUBERAL THEOLOGIES

399

logian might hold that Trinitarian language does correspond
to the metaphysical structure of the Godhead, but acknowledge that one need not to agree to this in order to speak correctly a.bout Jesus Christ. 11 Thus, for instance, Augustine
might have himself believed the speculations in the later books
of De Trinitate without wanting to accord them doctrinal
status.
(b) We may manage to say things correctly about God in
our doctrines without understanding our words. Aquinas
seems to say something like this when he proposes that in statements about God the modus signiffoandi does not correspond
to anything in the divine being, but the significatum does. To
say that God is good does not mean that our concept of good
(our mode of signifying) applies to him, but that there is a
concept, namely God's own concept of good (what is signified),
which does apply. It is as when a non-physicist says, "Spacetime is a four dimensional continuum.'' The statement says
something correct about physical reality, but one would not
want to claim much for the speaker's understanding of it. 12 On
a cognitive model we need to understand what our doctrines
mean. If doctrines function to make claims about states of
affairs, then, if we do not understand the claims, they do not
function at all. On the other hand, if doctrines function primarily as rules, then they could regulate our speech and action without our always understanding their cognitive meaning-a meaning which we might nevertheless accept as a matter of faith that they have.
Different rules may apply in different circumstances, and
this can explain otherwise puzzling features of doctrinal
change. Take the case mentioned earlier, where ecumenical
dialogue produces agreement in the face of prior disagreement
p. 106.
pp. 66-67. See Aquinas, Summa Theologiae 1.13.3. Since it is a
point I will not have the chance to develop elsewhere, this is a good occasion
to mention that revisionist theology tends to appeal to process metaphysics,
while Lindbeck's work and some other postliberal theology turns to the new
interpretations of Aquinas by David Burrell, Victor Preller, and others.
11 Ibid.,

12 Ibid.,

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WILLIAM C. PLACHER

without either side admitting error. Protestants might insist
that sola. scriptura offered a valuable rule for Christian speech
and action in the circumstances of the sixteenth century.
Roman Catholics might say the same of Trent's affirmation of
the author,ity of tradition. Yet they might be able to agree on
rules for speaking and acting on these matters today. On a
cognitive model, what's true is true, and what was false still
must be. On a postliberal, regulative model, rules can apply
differently in different circumstances. Each side could continue to affirm that its forebears had said the right thing in the
past, without that standing in the way of current agreement
(on everything but historical questions).
Treating doctrines as rules also seems more compatible both
with some aspects of how doctrines work and with some philosophic conclusions than the revisionist interpretation. It is
often hard to identify what it is that a revisionist would claim
a particular doctrine symbolizes. Particularly when the revisionist commitment to public theology leads to the conviction that doctrines express a universally human religious dimension of experience, then either the nature of that experience becomes so vague that it suffers the " death of a thousand
qualifications," or else we end up asserting that other religions
" really mean " to describe our Christian experience-only they
use different language. 13 Even within Christianity-Matthias
Grunewald and the creators of Byzantine Pantocra.tors affirmed essentially the same Christological doctrines, yet their
art conveys radically different experiences of Christ. 14 As I
gather with some of my fellow Presbyterians to draft a brief
statement of faith for our newly reunited church, I have some
hope that we can agree on rules for Christian speech and action; I am doubtful that we can or should insist on locating a
13 Rudolf Otto and Bernard Lonergan come to mind because their insight
and sensitivity make one doubt that anyone could do the job better, yet it
seems to me that both finally see other religions in terms of Christian categories. See Bernard J. F. Lonergan, Method in Theology, Herder and Herder,
1972, pp. 101-124, and Rudolf Otto, The Idea of the Holy, trans. John W.
Harvey, Oxford University Press, 1958, especially the conclusion.
14 Lindbeck, The Nature of Doctrine, p. 84.

REVISIONIST AND POSTLIBERAL THEOLOGIES

401

shared religious experience which our statement will express.
On a postliberal view, we need not try to do so.15
Some anthropological evidence and philosophical argument
also indicate that a. model in which, however dialectical the relationship, language seems to express a prior experience gets
things backwards. We do not have human experience and then
cast about for a language in which to express what we already
mean. Wittgenstein's attack on the possibility of private language shows many of the problems with such an understanding. Lindbeck offers some empirical evidence: " It seems, as
the cases of Helen Keller and of supposed wolf children vividly illustrate, that, unless we acquire language of some kind, we
cannot actualize our specifically human capacities for thought,
action, and feeling." 16 Only living in a language, created by a
community, makes some kinds of emotions and dispositions
even possible. One anthropologist tells how the members of
a tribe with only one word for what we would call " blue " and
" green " made only with difficulty if a.t all distinctions that
seem obvious to us.17 They lacked something more than the
words to express what they saw. William James somewhere
reports a deaf-mute who ha:d learned language only in adulthood, describing how as a child he had often passed the time
in thinking about God and matters religious. I do not believe
it. Religious ways of speaking and acting do not simply express prelinguistic experiences, feelings, attitudes, ways of
being-in-the-world. They create such possibilities. "Luther
did not invent his doctrine of justification by faith because he
had a tower experience, but rather the tower experience was
made possible by his discovering (or thinking he discovered)
the doctrine in the Bible." 18
15 Partly because of the influence of oversimplified
versions of the revisionist model, partly because of the increasing influence of amateur psychology in seminary curricula, church bodies often waste a great deal of time
these days looking for a common experience.
1s Lindbeck, The Nature of Doatrine, p. 34.
17 Ibid., p. 37. The experiment is controversial.
See B. Berlin and P. Kay,
Basic Color Terms, University of California Press, 1969.
18 Ibid., p. 39.

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WILLIAM C. PLACHER

Of course this way of thinking about religious beliefs is hardly new. Anthropologists and sociologists look at religions as
communal systems of speech and action all the time. Postlibera.I theology wants to use some or that sociological approach to religion within theology. Part of the debate here
concerns the way one thinks about a. human self. Frei, Lindbeck, and Kelsey have all been influenced by Gilbert Ryle's
arguments that our true self is not something distinct and
separate from our speech and action. Revisionist theologians
often draw on models from idealism and its heirs which put
more emphasis on the interiority of the true self, so that speech
and action can at most only manifest who one really is. Postliberal theology therefore urges that we not treat Christian
wa.ys of speaking and acting primarily as ways of expressing
something else.

II
Similarly, Hans Frei has argued that we should not treat
the biblical narratives primarily as ways of expressing something else-a religious dimension of experience, a new possibility for human existence, or whatever. Rather, our interpretation should preserve their narrative character and recognize
that, precisely as narratives, they could define the shape of a
Christian world. Doing this, Frei admits, involves overturning a dominant trend of the last 250 years of biblical interpretation.
Until the seventeenth century, "Christian preachers and
theological commentators . . . envisioned the real world as
formed by the sequence told by the biblical stories." 19 Except
for occasional cases like the school of Origen, even the most
enthusiastic proponents of allegorical interpretation never
abandoned the sensus literalis as the starting point for understanding Scripture. As Erich Auerbach has shown, unlike
Homer, the Bible does not invite us to escape from the "real
world " for a few hours. It claims that the world it narrates
19

Frei, The Eclipse of Biblical Narrative, p. 1.

REVISIONIST AND POSTLIBERAL THEOLOGIES

403

is the real world. Our lives have significance only if they fit
into that narrative framework. 20
Since the world truly rendered by combining biblical narratives
into one was indeed the one and only real world, it must in principle embrace the experience of any present age and reader. Not
only was it possible for him, it was also his duty to fit hims·elf into
that world in which he was in any case a member .... He was to
see his disposition, his actions and passions, the shape of his own
life as well as that of his era's events as figures of that storied
world. 21

Then round a.bout the eighteenth century a change took
place. For many Christian writers, the world of their own getting and spending came to seem the " real world." The Scriptures could be true only if the scriptural world fitted into this
newly primary world. One could employ the new methods of
critical history to show that what the Bible narrates, or some
of it, is really part of history. Or one could discover the truth
of Scripture in the moral lessons it provides for our lives. Or
some Pietists could a:ffirnn the reality of the Bible virtually as
an event in their own autobiographies-" I was a sinner until
Jesus came into my life." In any event," It is no exaggeration
to say that all across the theological spectrum the great reversal had taken place; interpretation was a matter of fitting
the biblical story into another world with another story rather
than incorporating that world into the biblical story." 22
All this changed the task of hermeneutics. When biblical
narratives presented the primary world, then understanding
them meant simply getting clear on the meaning of the wordsthe kind of low-level hermeneutics Frei's hero J. A. Ernesti
continued to do in the eighteenth century. When I read about
David fighting a battle or Jesus washing his disciples' feet, I
Auerbach, Mimesis, Princeton University Press, 1968, p. 15.
The Eclipse of Biblicai Narrative, p. 3. "A scriptural world is
thus able to absorb the universe. It supplies the interpretative framework
within which believers seek to live their lives and understand reality." Lindbeck, The Nature of Doctrilne, p. 117.
22 Ibid., p. 130.
20 Erich

21 Frei,

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WILLIAM C. PLACHER

know about battles and I know about feet, so I can understand what the story means. But if the truth of the story depends on some relation it bears our world, then its meaning
needs redefinition. Following the story as a story no longer
suffices for understanding it. Rather, the story has either (1)
an ostensive reference, and it means by referring to a set of
historical events, or (2) an ideal reference, and it means by
teaching a moral lesson, symbolizing experience, or presenting
a possibility for human existence. Since the methods of critical history soon implied that much of the Bible was not reliable
history, the second alternative became the more popular-and
we are back to revisionist theology.23
Frei maintains that this interpretative shift distorts the
meaning of Scripture. As we read much of the Bible, its narrative structure is one of its most obvious characteristics. As in
a realistic novel, the story means what it says; it invites us into
a narrated world. We distort the meaning of a realistic novel
if we ignore the irreducible particularity. of its interaction between character and incident. The " moral of the story " is
not the story. And yet, Frei says, for 250 years nearly all
Christian theologians have been convinced that a narrative as
narrative could be true only by making ostensive reference to
history. Since they thought the Bible did that badly, they felt
that to save its truth they had to claim that it did not mean
what it said, that " the meani11{] of the stories was finally
something different from the stories as depictions themselves,
despite the fact that this is contrary to the character of a
realistic story." 24
If we start with the framework of critical history, Frei
would agree, much of the Bible won't fit. Nor does much of
Scripture seem to intend historical accuracy. The Gospel
2s David Tracy's emphasis on the referent rather than the sense of the
text follows in the tradition of Ernesti's opponent J. S. Semler-what the
Wolffians called the SacherkUJ,rung rather than the WorterkUirung. See Tracy,
Blessed Rage for Order, pp. 51, 76-77; Frei, The Eclipse of Biblical Narrative, pp. 97-101, 248.
24 Frei, The Eclipse of Biblical Narrative, p. 11.

REVISIONIST AND POSTLIBERAIJ THEOLOGIES

405

stories of Jesus, for instance, often function more as anecdotes
to illustrate the sort of person Jesus was than as historical
claims that he did this particular deed. 25 We can remain faithful to the obvious narrative character of the Bible, therefore,
only if we consciously seek to recover something of the unconscious assumptions of an earlier age. That is, we need to take
the biblical narratives as defining the shape of our world. Frei
believes that Karl Barth has an important contribution for
contemporary theology in part because he did just that in the
Church Dogmatics. He could find a place for any imaginable
topic, it seems, within a framework set by the biblical narratives.26
In order to interpret Scripture in this way, it is critical that
one not begin with our questions, or contemporary issues, or
a general phenomenology of religious experience. Any such
starting point must assume that the biblical narratives have
meaning by reference to our reality. When they fail to stand
up under the scrutiny of critical history, one then saves their
truth by ignoring their narrative character. To avoid these pitfalls, one must simply describe the world as seen from a Christian perspective, the world imagined within the framework of
the biblical narratives. That description may have its own
kind of persuasive power. Sometimes, as Barth said, a good
dogmatics is the best apologetics. But, " there is no single road
to Christianity, either as a matter of universal principle or in
practice." 21 Often, indeed, that road " has very little to do
25 See Kelsey, The Uses of Scripture in Recent Theology, pp. 43, 45; William C. Placher, "Scripture as Realistic Narrative," Perspectives in Religious
Studies 5 (Spring 1978), pp. 32-41.
2a "This world is a world with its own linguistic integrity, much as a
literary art work is a consistent world in its own right •.• but ••. unlike
any other depicted world, it is the one common world in which we all live
and move and have our being." Hans W. Frei, "An Afterword," Kari Barth
in Re-View, Pickwick Press, 1981, p. 114. See also Kelsey, The Uses of
Scripture in Recent Theology, p. 48; Lindbeck, The Nature of Doctrine, pp.
117-118.
21 Frei, The Identity
of Jesus Christ, p. xii. Kelsey, similarly, argues
f,hat th!) rell,SO)lf! for accepting a particular set of books as "authority" are

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WILLIAM C. PLACHER

with any kind of talk and much more to do with the eloquence
of a consistent pattern of life that has seemingly suffered an
inexplicably wounding and healing invasion, rare though that
sort of thing is." 28
Critics of Barth-and Frei-often insist that their theologies
must rest on a specially defined doctrine of the authority of
Scripture. Lindbeck's Wittgensteinian analysis rejects efforts
to " base " theology on a doctrine of authority as surely as
efforts to " base " it on philosophical presuppositions. 29 A
language-system does not" rest" on anything, and Descartes's
metaphor of a secure foundation has gotten philosophy into a
great deal of trouble. Only within the context of a set of beliefs does it make sense to talk about doubt. So, specific questions about the authority of Scripture or the magisterium may
emerge in the context of a Christian life, and may even reach
such an acute level that one no longer finds it possible to be a
Christian, but general methodological doubt which can be resolved only by securing some foundation does not precede all
theological inquiry:
With Lindbeck and Frei in mind, we can see some of the
ways in which postliberal theology differs from the revisionist
model. Revisionist theology is expe'liential. It takes doctrines
to convey symbolically a religious dimension of experience or
possibility for existence. It argues that, to understand Scripture, we must break down its narrative form and find the ex-.
perience or possibility for human existence it presents to us.
Postliberal theology is descriptive. The postliberal theologian
takes doctrine, rather as an anthropologist might, to describe
the rules which guide a community in its speech and action.
One takes Scripture, in its narrative form, to describe a world,
a world which we may take to be the world in which we live.
" as complex, unsystematic, and idiosyncratic as are the reasons individual
persons have for becoming Christians." Kelsey, The Uses of Scripture m Re·
cent Theology, p. 164.
2s Ibid., p. 8.
29 See also Ronald F. Thiemann, "Revelation
and Imaginative Constn,ie,"
tion," Journal of Religion 61 (July 1981), pp. 242-263.

REVISIONIST AND POSTLIBERAL THEOLOGIES

407

III
All that makes a difference when we ask about the public
character of theology. A good many discussions of this issue
seem to me to conflate several different senses of "public," so
it may be useful to begin by making some distinctions. Theology can be public in at least the following ways:
(1) It appeals to warrants available to any intelligent, reasonable, responsible person.
(2) It understands a religion as fundamentally a public,
communal activity, not a matter of the individual's experience.
(S) It effectively addresses political and social issues.
My argument will be that revisionist theology is, or at least
intends to be, "more public " in the first sense, postliberal
theology is " more public " in the second sense, and neither is
clearly "more public " than the other in the third sense.
(1) Revisionist theology views with suspicion the appeal
to warrants available only to Christians. In fundamental theology, David Tracy has written," The theologian should argue
the case (pro or con) on strictly public grounds that are open
to all rational persons." 30 " Personal faith or beliefs may not
serve as warrants or support for publicly defended claims to
truth. Instead, some form of philosophical argument (usually
either implicitly or explicitly meta.physical) will serve as the
major warrant and support for all such claims." 31 Systematic
theology, on the other hand, seeks primarily to reinterpret a
tradition and therefore works more within the assumptions
and texts of that tradition. 32 Yet Tracy's theory of "the
classic" provides a public context for systematic theology too.
The great Christian texts, from Paul to Augustine to Aquinas
to Calvin, are clearly among the classics of our culture, and
therefore they (and contemporary reflection on them) "are
not merely 'private' to the individual or the particular tradi30 Tracy,

Bl David

The Analogical Imagilnation, p. 64.
Tracy and John B. Cobb, Jr., Talking about God, Seabury Press,

1983, p. 9.
32 Tracy, The Analogical Imagination, p. 66.

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WILLIAM C. PLACHER

tion. Their authentically public status should be honored." 88
If theology fails to address a public audience in this way, Professor Tracy has written, it reduces Christianity to "no more
than a set of personal preferences and beliefs making no more
claim to either publicness or universality than the Elks
Club." 34 Thus revisionist theology seems fully " public" in
the fIDst sense.
Postliberal theology is not. As we have seen, for the postliberal neither doctrine nor Scripture functions to express some
universal dimension of experience aga.inst which it can be
measured. Postliberal theology need not on that account turn
to irrationalism or radical relativism. Although influenced by
Wittgenstein in these matters, it does not adopt what has been
called "Wittgensteinian fideism." 35 According to that view,
at least on an extreme interpretation, different language
games-the scientific language game, the Christian language
game, the Buddhist language game-are self-contained and
radically incommensurable. Each can be understood and justified solely in terms of the form of life of which it is a part.
That seems to me neither true nor faithful to Wittgenstein.
Productive dialogues can and do occur both among the different points of view that lie within each of us and among adherents of different religions.
To take the first case first, when Bultmann observed that no
one who uses the electric light can accept the mythical view of
the world, he may have been oversimple and (as Barth said)
humorless, but he did raise a legitimate issue. I have one life,
in which I am both an electricity user and a Christian, and I
cannot cordon off one realm from the influence of the other.
Wittgenstein meant rather that language functions in many
different ways, and their interconnections will always be unp. 133.
p. 132.
35 The classic critique is Kai Nielsen, "Wittgensteinian
Fideism," PMlosophy 42 (July 1967), pp. 191-207. It is partly because he moves in this direction that I have not treated Paul Holmer's work as central to my account
of postliberal theology.
33 Ibid.,

34 Ibid.,

REVISIONIST AND POSTLIBERAL

409

systematic. I should not try to interpret religioL,, language
scientifically or vice versa, or to establish some uuversal criteria of truth and meaning to interpret both. N.Jvertheless,
where their concerns overlap, I must compare therL-in ways,
however, that will always be ad hoc.
The discussion of large-scale scientific theories uy philosophers of science like Thomas Kuhn and Imre Lakaws provides
analogies to this understanding of dialogue between a religion
and other points of view--or among different religions.36 According to Kuhn's familiar account, a scientific "paradigm"
provides a way of looking at the world which seems to make
sense of things and sets an agenda for research that we continue to find fulfilling. The paradigm shapes how we see data.
and what count as data and arguments. We cannot appeal to
" objective data " or rules outside the context of any paradigm
to settle a dispute between paradigms. Indeed, there is " no
neutral algorithm for theory choice, no systematic decision
procedure which, properly applied, must lead each individual
... to the same decision." 37
That does not mean that scientific theories cannot be compared or that choices between them are utterly arbitrary. On
his view, Kuhn has insisted, there are "good reasons for
theory choice. These are, furthermore, reasons of exactly the
kind standard in philosophy of science: accuracy, scope, simplicity, fruitfulness, and the like. I am, however, insisting that
such reasons constitute values to be used in making choices
rather than rules of choice." The simpler theory may be less
accurate, and one cannot measure simplicity and accuracy on
36 For Kuhn, see Thomas S. Kuhn, The Structure of Scientific Revolutions,
2nd ed., University of Chicago Press, 1970. For Lakatos, see Imre Lakatos,
" Falsification and the Methodology of Scientific Research Programmes," in
Imre Lakatos and Alan Musgrave, Criticism and the Growth of Knowledge,
Cambridge University Press, 1970. Kuhn has had substantial reservations
about the application of his theory beyond the natural sciences, but I mean
here to claim only that the religious cases are analogous in some respects.
For a good discussion of such issues, see Basil Mitchell, The Justification of
Religious Belief, Oxford University Press, 1981.
s1 Kuhn, The Structure of Scientific Revolutions, p. 200.

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WILLIAM C. PLACHER

the same scale. Different scientists may see simplicity differently.38 Choices between scientific paradigms cannot be settled
by simple calculation. The choice depends on something far
more like what Aristotle called " practical wisdom." 39 On the
basis of a range of factors recognized by thoughtful practitioners, one can make intelligent choices and persuasive arguments, but one cannot specify a set of paradigm-neutral criteria to settle all questions definitively, or always " prove"
one's point.
Similarly, we do preach the Gospel to non-Christians, and
we listen to the views of our Jewish or Buddhist or atheist
friends. Sometimes we do not even seem to be seeing the same
data, but at other times we can see the power of a different perspective or recognize a problem within our own. The postliberal claim is only tha.t, while such connections do take place,
we cannot systematically develop religion-neutral criteria for
adjudicating them. What Christians share with partners in
conversation may differ from one to another. Perhaps all
human beings share some common assumptions-but perhaps
not. In any event, dialogues need not wait until we find
them. 40
as Thomas S. Kuhn, " Reflections on My Critics,"
Critiaism and the
Growth of Knowledge, pp. 261-262.
a9 See Richard J. Bernstein,
Beyond Objectivism and Relativism, University of Pennsylvania Press, 1983, for a superb discussion of Kuhn, Gadamer,
and Rorty as exemplars of a move toward a recovery of the tradition of
practical wisdom.
40 Further, dialogues need not begin by assuming that at an ultimate level
we really agree. It is often, to my mind, more respectful of conversation
partners to say that they are wrong than to say that we know what they
" really mean." As Lindbeck writes, " There is something arrogant about
supposing that Christians know what nonbelievers experience and believe in
the depths of their beings better than they know themselves, and that therefore the task of dialogue or evangelism is to increase their self-awareness."
Lindbeck, The Nature of Doct1·ine, p. 61. See also Christian, Oppositions of
Religious Doctrines, and J. A. DiNoia, "The Universality of Salvation and
the Diversity of Religious Aims," Worldmission 32 (Winter 1981-82), pp.
4-15. The postliberal model as I am describing it also resembles H.-G.
Gadamer's argument that we should not try to free ourselves from " prejudices "-as if we could-but rather begin where we are and seek in dialogue

REVISIONIST AND POSTLIBERAL THEOLOGIES

411

When conversations between revisionists and postliberals
occur at the level of polemical slogans, revisionists tend to dismiss postliberalism as " fideism," while postliberals attack revisionism as " foundationalism." I have tried to show the unfairness of the first of these charges; the second no doubt also
represents a distortion. Revisionist theology does not adopt
the simple Cartesian model which seeks an absolutely certain
foundational truth on which to rest the other parts of the
theological ediface. For both Tracy and Lonergan, for instance, " fundamental theology " is one functional specialty
among others within theology, not an enterprise which must
be successfully completed before any other theological task can
be undertaken. 41 This becomes ever clearer in Tracy's more
recent work, as when he insists that, " Each of us contributes
more to the common good when we dare to undertake a journey into our own particularity." 42
Nevertheless, the revisionists' own polemics sometimes seem
to justify-at least in part-the charges of their opponents.
They deny that they are foundationalists, yet they often reject Barth-and Frei-as methodologically misguided from
the start. They dismiss " fideism." Yet they do not make it
clear to me what is so wrong with Barth or Frei-not merely
in detail, but in fundamental starting point-unless it is the
lack of a philosophical " foundation."
I recall a recent meeting of the American Academy of Religion where, after having spent three days listening to Thomists,
Marxists, phenomenologists, process metaphysicians, and poststructuralists, I heard an impassioned plea for theology to
ground itself in philosophical warrants so that it could be pubto expand our horizons. Even if one takes some universal horizon as the
ultimate goal, the process does not presuppose it-and certainly does not
presuppose that we can know it in advance. See Hans-Georg Gadamer,
Truth and Method, Seabury, 1975, pp. 239-241.
41 See Lonergan,
Met hod in Theology, pp. 127-133; Tracy, The Analogical
Imagination, pp. 54-98.
42 David Tracy, "Defending
the Public Character of Theology," Christian
Century 98 (April 1, 1981), p. 353. See also Tracy, 'I'he Analogical lma,qination, pp. 66-100.

412

WILLIAM C. PLACHER

lie discourse. I had seen no universal, public realm of commonly held assumptions, and so I find myself skeptical about
the call for a. public theology in this first sense. Phenomenologists and process thinkers and ordinary language philosophers
all have their own paradigms. A Christia.n's paradigm may well
have, ad hoc, points of contact with each of them. But buying
into one of them completely as a starting point does not, to my
mind, make theology unambiguously " more public."
Indeed, the effort to ground Christianity in the broader traditions of Western culture may make it less universally accessible. Tracy's theory of the classic says that reflection on the
great texts of Christianity counts as a " public" activity because those texts stand among the classics of our culture. That
suggests the kind of cultural argument for " Christendom "
Kierkegaard attacked with such fervor. Somehow, I keep
thinking of a missionary in a former colony once oppressed by
its Western masters. Admittedly a postliberal approach which
said, " This is the way the world looks to Christians," would
not make direct contact with the missionary's audience and
their presuppositions. But it would still, I think, get a better
hearing than saying, " This is how the world looks to Christians, and that's worth your sympathetic attention because of
the role Christianity has played in Western culture." Such
identification with a culture seems a high price to pay in order
to be public. 43
(2) If being public means appealing only to universally accepta.ble warrants, then postliberal theology is not public. But
in a different sense of the word, it can arguably make theology
more public. Revisionist theology's claim that religious language expresses a dimension of experience always risks (I do
not claim more than that) implying that religion is fundamentally, in Whitehead's phrase, something that individuals
do with their solitude. Of course it will have corporate expres43 In connection with the question of how postliberal theology addresses the
non-Christian, I cannot resist noting that Frei grew up a Jew and Lindbeck
grew up in a missionary family in the middle of China. One presumes they
have thought about these issues, anyway.

REVISIONIST AND POSTLIBERAL THEOLOGIES

413

sions, manifestations, but these express something that is in
the end-well, priva.te. Lindbeck argues that the institutional
place of religious studies departments often encourages such attitudes. Teachers feel they can encourage students to explore
the religious dimensions of their experience, even to engage in
various forms of meditation, but it would be inappropriate in
a " secular " college or university to urge someone to join a
religious community. Such pedagogical values shape one's
sense of what " religion " is. Religion takes " the experientialexpressivist form of individual quests for personal meaning." 44
Postliberal theology, on the other hand, sees religion as
something that exists irreducibly in communities. Doctrines
define rules that grow out of a communal praxis. The authority of Scripture comes in the way a community uses it as norm
for its communal speech and life.45 Christianity is something
we say and do, together, not something internal that our speech
and action merely express. In that sense, this is a more public
model of religion.
(3) Theology can also be more or less public in its ability
to speak effectively to contemporary political and social issues.
44 He continues, with uncharacteristic
sarcasm, " Religions are seen as
multiple suppliers of different forms of a single commodity needed for transcendent self-expression and self-realization. Theologians, ministers, and perhaps above all teachers of religion in colleges and universities whose job is
to meet the demand are under great pressure in these circumstances to
emphasize the experiential-expressivist
aspects of religion. It is thus that
they can easily market it." Lindbeck, The Nature of Doctrine, p. 22. See
Michael Novak, Ascent of the Mountadn, Flight of the Dove, Harper and Row,
1971, for an "invitation to religious studies" on this model. Novak's subsequent career, of course, provides an object lesson in other respects.
45" Biblical writings come to bear authoritatively
on theology only in the
context of Christian pr=is, that is, only in the context of the intentional activities of individual persons and communities who understand themselves to
be having their identities shaped in distinctively Christian ways." David H.
Kelsey, "The Bible and Christian Theology," Journal of the American
Academy of Religion 48 (September 1980), p. 386. The role of praxis in
postliberal theology offers some interesting possible connections with liberation theology. For a polemical look at such issues, see George Hunsinger,
"Karl Barth and Liberation Theology," Journal of Religion 63 (July 1983),
pp. 247-263.

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WILLIAM C. PLACHER

Professor Tracy has argued that theology ought to be public
in my first sense (appealing to universally acceptable warrants) in part so that it can be public in this sense. If Christians appeal only to other Christians, using only intra-Christian warrants, he says, they opt out of our pluralistic society's
debate on its direction. " Narcissus may be allowed his curious
pastimes. The polis, however, is both unaffected and unimpressed." 46
Rather oddly, things do not seem to work that way. One
would not want to claim complete methodological consistency
for Reinhold Niebuhr. Sometimes he argued that the power of
Christian categories to illumine our experience counted as the
important evidence of their truth. But he never systematically developed a philosophical basis for theology, and he generally more nearly followed the postliberal model of simply
describing a Christian point of view as powerfully as he knew
how. 47 Yet no American theologian since has had Niebuhr's
influence on the body politic. James Cone appeals to his experience growing up in the Macedonia A.M.E. church and to
black spirituals without worrying overmuch about whether he
is touching on universally shared experiences. Yet few contemporary theologians so forcefully address political issues. As
James Gustafson has remarked concerning the Roman Catholic
bishops' recent pastoral letter on the nuclear issue, " the bishops did not need to forge a hermeneuticaI theory, or a theory
about 'public theology,' or a moral theory on which all rational persons could agree (when the moral philosophers quit
arguing with each other because they have reached consensus
I will be more persuaded that such is possible) in order to write
a document that has been taken very seriously by some important persons in public life." 48
46 Tracy, The Anafogioal Imagination,
p. 9. This particular remark addresses the role of the humanist, but Tracy later draws similar conclusions
with respect to theology.
47 Tracy, Blessed Rage for Order, p. 242.
48 James
M. Gustafson, "The Bishops' Pastoral Letter: A Theological
Ethical Analysis," Oriterion 23 (Spring 1984), p. 10.

REVISIONIST AND POSTLIBERAL THEOLOGIES

415

On the other hand, Schubert Ogden provides an example of
a theologian determinedly public in my first sense-he addresses any intelligent, rational rea.der and grounds his Christology in Heidegger's ontology as a way of establishing its universal human reference. Yet as Dorothee Soelle has remarked,
in Ogden's Christology, "salvation has been reduced to privatistic categories; in other words, it has been reduced to a matter that affects only the individual as an individual." 49 Ogden
fails to be public in my second sense-he makes religion primarily a matter of the transformation of the individual rather
than something that happens in and to communities. Partly
as a result, he has a hard time being public in my third sensehis theology's central concern does not seem to involve social
and political issues.
To be sure, thinking of Christianity as a description of a
way of looking at the world can. reduce it to a marginal aestheticism. Theology which addresses only the Christian community can consciously pull out of the wider public debate. On
the other hand, theology for which religion expresses a dimension of experience can make Christianity a private matter for
the individual. I deny only the possibility of a priori judgments in such matters.
Nevertheless, postliberal theology admittedly sometimes
takes an elegiac tone. Frei describes how the biblical narratives
once defined reality for Christian preaching-but he sometimes seems doubtful they could do so a.gain. He thinks of
Barth's effort to recreate a linguistic world single-handedly as
heroic-but is Don Quixote the hero who comes to mind? Lindbeck's account of doctrine would make Christianity a disciplined linguistic community, not a collection of individuals
seeking various forms of self-transcendence, but he admits,
49 Dorothee Soelle, PoUtioaZ Theology, trans. John Shelley, Fortress Press,
1974, p. 93. Ogden's most recent work has tried to address the concerns of
liberation theology, but, symptomatically, the question he thinks we should
bring to the New Testament is still, "'Who are we?' or better, 'Who am
I?'" Schubert M. Ogden, The Poiint of Ohristology, Harper and Row, 1982,
p. 28, emphasis added.

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WILLIAM C. PLACHER

The conditions for practice seem to be steadily weakening. Disarray in church and society makes the transmission of the necessary skills more and more difficult. Those who share in the intellectual high culture of our day are rarely intensively socialized
into coherent religious languages and communal forms of life. . ..
The implications of these observations do not bode well . . . for
the future of postliberal theology.50

On the other hand .•. Harvey Cox's recent Religion in the
Secular City finds in the disciplined communities of liberation
theology and fundamentalism the most powerful sources of
energy for the future of Christianity. Alasdair Macintyre
argues in After Virtue thait only communities deeply committed
to shared values can make meaningful moral discourse possible
agaiin. If our hopes lie with " communal enclaves ... of concern for others," 51 communities shaped by Christian language
and dedicated to a Christian life, that would bode well for the
future of postliberal theology.
Comparisons between revisionist and postliberal theologies
thus need to take place on at least two levels. At the theoretical level, we can ask which captures the way doctrines function more accurately and interprets the Bible more faithfully.
We can compare their views of the relationship between language and experience. At the level of praxis, perhaps the issue
becomes one of tactics. Does one influence society most effectively by beginning with society's shared assumptions and trying to move in a new direction (revisionism) or by simply describing one's own world-view as forcefully as possible (postliberalism) ? Should the moral and spiritual leadership of our
society, and the future of the church, lie more with those who
work within the common discourse, the established institutions
(revisionism), or with those who create exemplary enclaves of
speech and action (postliberalism) ? I concede that it is too
early to tell, though I trust I have made my own sympathies
clear.
WILLIAM

Wabash Oollege
Orawfordsville, Indiana
10 Lindbeck, The Nature

UJbid., P· 127.

of Doctrine, p. 124.

c. PLACHER

THE RULE THEORY OF DOCTRINE AND
PROPOSITIONAL TRUTH

P

ROFESSOR GEORGE A. LINDBECK'S theory of
doctrine * is developed in a connected series of closely reasoned arguments which are often difficult in their
details. At the same time his work is unified by two related
themes which are well-defined. There is, first, the theme of
ecumenical discussion. The author notes how much he has
been impressed by the fact that participants in such dialogue
insist tha.t they have been compelled to conclude " that positions that were once really opposed are now really reconcilable,
even though these positions remain in a significant sense identical to what they were before" (15). The second theme appears explicitly in the final chapter which outlines what might
be the characteristics of a postliberal theology. In terms reminiscent of Karl Barth's wry plea (in The Humanity of God)
for permission to use " a little of the patois of Canaan ", Prof.
Lindbeck proposes an "intratextual " theology which " redescribes reality within the scriptural framework rather than
translating Scripture into extrascriptura.I categories" (118).
In this context he alludes to Reinhold Niebuhr as " perhaps
the last American theologian who in practice (and to some extent in theory) made extended and effective attempts to redescribe major aspects of the contemporary scene in distinctively Christian terms " (124) .
The second theme represents, no doubt, the broader outlook
that the author would have us share; but in order to clear the
way to his point of vantage he is obliged to confront two theological assessments of religion and doctrine which, for very different reasons, are in apparent opposition to his own under*The Nature of Doctrine: Religion and Theology in a PostliberaZ Age,
The Westminster Press, Philadelphia, 1984. Numerical references in the
present article are to pages.

417

418

COLMAN E. O'NEILL, O.P.

standing of these phenomena. The first of these " emphasizes
the cognitive aspects of religion and stresses the way in which
church doctrines function as informative propositions or truth
claims a.bout objective realities". Irt is identified as the approach of traditional orthodoxies, of many heterodoxies, and is
said to have certain affinities with much modern Anglo-American empiricist analytic philosophy " with its preoccupation
with the cognitive or informational meaningfulness of religious
utterances" (16). The second, named by the author the "experiential-expressive" approach, "interprets doctrines as noninformative and nondiscursive symbols of inner feelings, attitudes or existential orientations " and is found to be typical
of liberal theologies descending from Schleiermacher (16) and
dependent on " the Continental tradition of idealism, roma.nticism, and phenomenological existentialism" (63). A third
approach is also recognized, tha.t of the "transcendental
Thomists ",which attempts to combine the two foregoing emphases: " both the cognitively propositional and the expressively symbolic dimensions and functions of religion and doctrine are viewed, at least in the case of Christianity, as religiously significant and valid". While recognizing advantages
in this " hybrid " with respect to the " one-dimensional alternatives", Prof. Lindbeck considers that it may generally be
subsumed under the two main approaches (16).
The strategy the author adopts when faced with his adversaries is one of a vast outflanking movement followed by deep
penetration behind their lines; he then calls for an armistice.
He starts off, innocuously enough, by defining the question at
issue as one of a lack of adequate categories for conceptualizing current problems concerning doctrine. "We are often unable, for example, to specify the criteria we implicitly employ
when we say that some changes are faithful to a doctrinal tradition and others are unfaithful, or some doctrines are churchdividing and others are not" (7) . Both liberalism and preliberal orthodoxy have shown themselves to be unhelpful in
this crisis, the latter because of its unbending rigidity, the
former because of its unstructured excess of flexibility. There-

DOCTRINE AND PROPOSITIONAL

TRUTH

419

fore a third way must be found, and the one suggested here
" derives from philosophical and social-scientific approaches "
(7), specifically from a cultural-linguistic understanding of
religion and, consequently, of doctrine. At first sight it appears
as though what is beini r proposed simply a method adapted
to the scientific study of religions, and the way in which it is
applied seems to confinn this. Quite to the contrary: Prof.
Lindbeck does not intend to withdraw from the theological
enterprise; he wishes to carry over into it a method already
established outside it. He readily concedes that there is nothing new about cultural-linguistic analysis; it is in fact the approach currently adopted by most non-theologians with respect
to an increasing number of human phenomena. What is new,
he claims (and he is undoubtedly correct), is the use of such
a theory within theology in the conceptualization of doctrine.
Very far from being an incursion into a. distinct, even if related,
science, his first move is aimed at the fundamental presuppositions of the alternative options within theology itself. It is
these presuppositions that stand in the way of ecumenical
agreement and Christian relevance. The path forward lies, if
not in renouncing them, at least in agreeing that they are nonessential.
Ecumenically and religiously neutral

This strategy brings to light a feature of the work that must
strike the reader as at least initially puzzling. The author insists at regular intervals that his approach to doctrine is neutral, with the implication that there is no reason why it should
not be adopted by all parities to the discussion. Nevertheless,
in the development of his proposal, he argues forcefully against
both liberals and cognitivists. This is clearly an unusual form
of neutrality. It is, however, an integral part of the view being
put forward. In the cultural-linguistic approach" the function
of church doctrines that becomes most prominent ... is their
use, not as expressive symbols or as truth claims, but as communally authoritative rules of discourse, attitude and action"
(18). This suggests to Prof. Lindbeck a way of thinking about

420

COLMAN E. O'NEILL, O.P.

doctrines that is " meant to be ecumenically and religiously
neutral", at least within Christianity (10-11). He goes to to
say:
It would be a mistake, however, to suppose that this attempt at
doctrinal neutrality involves theological neutrality when theology
is understood as the scholarly activity of second-order reflection on
the data of religion (including doctrinal data) and of formulating
arguments for or against material positions (including doctrinal
ones). Much, perhaps all, theology in this specific sense is to some
degree implicitly or explicitly dependent on ideas derived from
one or other theory of religion, and is therefore subject to criticism
from contrary theoretical perspectives.... Whatever else might
be said about it, the recommended mode is clearly in conflict with
traditionalist propositional orthodoxy and with currently regnant
forms of liberalism. (10)
I find this passage difficult and have had to revise my reading
of it several times. It is clearly stated that there is a methodological hierarchy at work. First there is a theory of religion
which is avowedly
next, and deriving from the
first, there is a theory of theology; in the third place logically
is constructed a theory of doctrine. Doctrines themselves appear here as something that is given with the phenomenon of
a religion. The theory of doctrine, therefore, forms part of a
theology that is controlled by a theory of religion; and neither
of these last is neutral because they are both subject to criticism from contrary theoretical perspectives. In spite of this,
the theory of dootrine is meant to be neutral.
The crucial point, it would seem, is to be found in the definition of theology as second-order reflection. It is a second-order
activity in the sense that it is reflection, not on a supposed object of belief, nor on religious experience, but on the culturallinguistic function of religions and their doctrines. This entails
the postulate that doctrines are simply " rules ", comparable
to the rules of grammar which govern ordinary language. As
such they are given as an integral part of a religious cultural
tradition; they are prior to religious experience and they prescribe ways of speaking religiously that make no claims to objective truth but (what is much more important) impress on

DOCTRINE AND PROPOSITIONAL

TRUTH

421

those who accept them a wa.y 0£ life that is in conformity with
the religion in question. In the case 0£ Christianity this means
conformity with the story related in Scripture.
All 0£ this seems perfectly coherent-except for the claim
that the theory of doctrine is ecumenically and doctrinally
neutral. How can it be, seeing that it is logically deduced
from a particular theory 0£ religion which requires that doctrines are no more than formal rules? It is this pre-established
theory of doctrine which then determines how doctrines are to
be interpreted. It is presumably because 0£ his ecumenical interest that Pro£. Lindbeck would like his readers to accept the
neutrality 0£ his theory of doctrine. It is a neutrality that is
very like that of the mathematician (several examples are
taken from mathematics) or 0£ the formal logician. Neither of
these, however, would accept the responsibility 0£ formulating
arguments for or against the use their respective rules are put
to; both of them are content to remain at the formal or abstract level of discourse. But for Prof. Lindbeck the very formality of his approach justifies his taking up very decided positions concerning the content of doctrine. If such an approach
is to be carried through, it inevitably requires that doctrine itself be formal or " second-order"; or, more plainly, that it be
contentless in the way that formal logic is, or in the way that
the paradigm of a verb is contentless while still fixing a rule of
conjugation for whatever other suitable verbs one substitutes
for it. There is, indeed, a language that corresponds to the
metalanguage 0£ doctrine and theology, but it is the "language" of a life in harmony with a religion's myths or foundational story. The proposed armistice, then, is to be based on
an agreement to restrict the use 0£ the term " first-order statement" to non-informative, performative utterances.
When, in Chapter 5, the theory is tested by seeing how it
can make sense of the doctrines of Christo logy, Mario logy and
infallibility, tJhe recurring theme is that the theory "allows
but does not require " various doctrinal formulwtions. This is
because of the radical formalism 0£ the theory; it is sufficiently
abstract to allow for several logical possibilities in the way be-

COLMAN E. o'NEILL, o.P.

lievers choose to talk. Still, Prof. Lindbeck does not hide the
fact that he is distressed by the dialects spoken in some Christian churches and he would clearly have us purify the language by ridding it of extra-linguistic accretions-in particular, the intrusion of reference to objective reality. In the end
the only thing that matters is scriptural discourse verified by
action.
It will be seen that there are far-reaching consequences when
a theoretically neutral method belonging to one of the sciences
of religion is transferred unchanged into theology. Prof. Lindbeck is aware of the surprise his project is likely to provoke;
he therefore advances his proposal in two stages. In Chapter
2 he adopts a pretheological perspective in order to discuss
whether the cultural-linguistic approach is conceptually and
empirically better than current alternatives as a way of picturing the phenomena of religion. Chapter S argues for its
adoption in theology.
The pretheological enquiry

The shift from the "experiential-expressive model" to the
cultural-linguistic approach defines the postliberal aspect of
Prof. Lindbeck's project. His criticism of the former is at its
most devastating when it echoes the anguished debates within
German neo-orthodoxy of the ' thirties (" Christian fellow
travelers of both Nazism and Stalinism generally used liberal
methodology to justify their positions" [126]). A list is made
of the psychosocial, religious and theoretical factors that favor
the present dominance of the approach (19-24), and these are
referred to again at the end where the author seems resigned
to a continuation of this situation (132-4). There is little here
that will allow the author to ingratiate himself with his colleagues of the liberal or transcendental Thomist schools. He
gives point to his criticism when assessing the capacity of the
three theories (cognitive, experiential-expressive and culturallinguistic) to give an account of the anthropological, historical and other non-theological data of religion. Of Bernard Lonergan's six theses on the nature of religion, "four, and to some

DOCTRINE AND PROPOSITIONAL TRUTH

49l8

extent, five" are found to be characteristic of experiential-expressivism in general (81). Prof. Lindbeck is most critical, at
this non-theological level, of the thesis postulating an underlying unity of religious experience. " Because this core experience is said to be common to a wide diversity of religions, it is
difficult or impossible to specify its distinctive features, and
yet unless this is done, the assertion of commonality becomes
logically and empirically vacuous" (82). The author is as little
impressed by Karl Rahner's description of preconceptual experience " in which what is meant and the experience of what
is meant are still one". Such characterizations "create a nest
of problems "(89l) .
The major contrast that is drawn up between the two approaches, the experiential-expressive and the cultural-linguistic, is formulated in terms of the origin of the inner experience
admitted by both:
When one pictures inner experiences as prior to expression and
communication, it is natural to think of them in their most basic
and elemental form as also prior to conceptualization. If, in contrast, expressive and communicative symbol systems, whether
linguistic or nonlinguistic, are primary-then, while there are of
course nomeflective experiences, there are no uninterpreted or unschematized ones. On this view, the means of communication and
expression are a precondition, a kind of quasi-transcendental (i.e.,
culturally formed) a priorifor the possibility of experience. We cannot identify, describe, or recognize ·experience qua experience without the use of signs and symbols. (36)

A number of arguments is presented in support of this contention. One set is empirical (the author admits they may be
falsifiable); there is an appeal to Wittgenstein's contention
that private languages are logically impossible, this being applied to private religious experiences that are claimed to be independent of any particular language game (87-8).
Of particular interest here to realists is the author's attempt
to refute transcendental Thomism (with its hypothesis of unthematized yet conscious experience) by the simple expedient
of pointing out that its hypothesis is superfluous. He formu-

424

COLMAN E. O'NEILL, O.P.

lates this in terms of the classic medieval distinction between
first and second intention. I do not think Prof. Lindbeck is
altogether covrect in applying the distinction to mental activities as follows: "the first intention is the act whereby we grasp
objects, while the second intention is the reflex act of grasping
or reflecting on first formal intentions ". This is indeed what
is meant by first intention; but the interpretation of second intention appears to confuse logic and rrutional psychology. Second intentions are predicates that are attached to the concepts
we form of objects; this is the realm of logic, which is concerned with the relations we establish among concepts or
propositions. Whatever else about this, the point he is making
is that we are not consciously aware-or only unthema.tically
or tacitly aware-of first-intentional activities while we are engaged in them; " Yet this does not lead us to suppose that the
first-intentional experiences . . . are somehow preverbal or
linguistically unstructured". Surely, he argues, the same could
be said of religious experiences." They can be construed as byproducts of linguistically or conceptually structured cognitive
activities of which we are not directly aware because they are
first-intentional. The sense of the holy of which Rudolf Otto
speaks can be construed as the tacit or unthematic awareness
of applying a culturally acquired concept of the holy in a given
situation" (38).
Whether transcendental Thomists will be convinced by this
use of Ockham's razor is a matter only they can answer for.
Certainly a simple Thomist will see the point. He may perhaps
wonder whether Prof. Lindbeck is prepared to take seriously
the metaphysical epistemology that, for the Thomist, is implied in the judgment that Karl Rahner's prehension (Vorgriff) of being and Bernard Lonergan's dynamic state of being
in love are, both of them, unnecessary criteriological hypotheses. It may be that the author does not sufficiently appreciate the epistemological soul-searching which went into the
whole post-Kantian project of the Marechal school.
This is not to say that Prof. Lindbeck ignores the problem
of the cognitive theory that his approach involves. There oc-

DOCTRINE AND PROPOSITIONAL

TRUTH

curs, in fact, at this point one of several suggestions that the
approach is one that should be acceptable to Aristotelians and
classical Thomists. He recalls that affective experiences, for
the Aristotelian, always depend on prior cognition of objects,
and the objects available to us in this life are all in some fashion
constructed out of (or, in medieval terminology, " abstracted
from ") conceptually or linguistically structured sense experience
(39).
Certainly it is true that, for the Thomist, all knowledge and
affectivity have their origin in sense experience. This means
moreover that the Thomist will have a basic sympathy for the
cultural-linguistic analysis. But, of course, a lot depends after
that on how one construes the participation of the subject in
the influences brought to bear from the cultural context.
As regards knowledge, a Thomist would agree that the intellectual concepts formed of the object are "a.bstracted"
from sensible images; and, if he were prudent, he would insist
at this stage on the imperfect grasp of concrete reality that is
afforded by such necessarily universal concepts (even in the
case of such a seemingly simple object as Prof. Lindbeck's
Fido) . But he would not be at all happy with the proposition
that the object is therefore" constructed" out of sense experience. This is where first intention reveals its full significance:
the knower is precisely the person who " intends " intellectually the object, in and through sense knowledge. More simply
put, he forms the judgment: " Fido is an animal-in fact, on
the evidence, I will go further and say that he is a dog". It
is in this judgment, according to the Thomist, that the knower
grasps, or is grasped by, the act of existence of what he knows.
This is not any dramatic kind of "onto-logical" field of existence--just the simple (but marvellous) existence of Fido; (a
developed metaphysics comes later). I think it is clear enough
that Prof. Lindbeck is not willing to pursue his proferred alliance with Thomists as far as this. If he were, the whole discussion could take a new turn. ·
Turning next to "affective experiences" whicih, as the author states, are to be considered as subsequent to cognition,

426

COLMAN E. O'NEILL, O.P.

we find that things are not so simple. Are these experiences to
be understood as no more than vague feelings related to sense
knowledge? Or is one prepared to analyse them in reference
to the kind of knowledge that is proper to the human psychosomatic subject in whom they may occur? The Thomist, at
any rate, will want to distinguish, on the one side, sensible affectivities (which may or may not-but ought to-be integrated into the human personality as a whole) and, on the
other side, deliberate acceptance of ends and choice of means
(following on often prolonged deliberation and intellectual
judgments). It is only in terms of the latter that he will find
himself able to view with sympathy (and with awe) the dynamic state of being unrestrictedly in love of the Lonergan
school. It is only in terms of one or the other or both (according to the case) that he will be able to evaluate the experiential school in general.
Given these admittedly far-reaching precisions of cognitive
and affective theory, and at the pretheological stage, the
Thomist should find no difficulty about accepting the culturallinguistic approach in so far as it posits tJhat affective experiences always depend on prior cognition of objects. Whether
Prof. Lindbeck is right, at this sta.ge, to suggest that this principle " raises questions regarding the meaningfulness of the
notion that there is an inner experience of God common to all
human beings and all religions" is another question {39-40).
lit is one which I can consider only in theological terms (by appealing to Christ's identity as the divine creative Word). But
even on purely anthropological grounds, though not empirical
ones, might not one suspect that ultimate questions concerning human values, to the degree that they are raised, would
provoke answers bearing some similarities? Does the culturallinguistic approach suppose that man is purely the creature of
his environment? I wonder at this point whether a Protestant
positivistic theology of the Word-with its radical separation of salvation and creation-may not have influenced the
application of the pretheological theory. (The section on the
salvation of those outside an " unsurpassable " religion, with

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TRUTH

its purely eschatological solution, tends to confirm this.
Regrettably, space does not permit discussion of this point.)
In fact, Prof. Lindbeck concedes that the pretheological enquiry ma.y not be able to settle theological questions. While
insisting that an experiential-expressive theory is unprovable,
he goes so far as to allow that it might be superior for theological purposes (
. He does not, of course, think that this
is really so since he is committed to transferring the non-theological method unchanged into theology.
The theological application

The discussion of the proposal becomes particularly difficult
at this point. What the author puts forward in Chapter 3 pertains to what the Catholic tradition calls fundamental theology. n does not, in its primary inspiration, correspond to
the apologetic function of fundamental theology in which the
believer uses non-theological concepts and arguments in order
to persuade non-believers as to the reasonableness or at least
the meaningfulness of the religious way of life. The chapter is
rather concerned with the definition that a religion gives of itself, with the concept of a possibly unsurpassable religion, with
relations between religions, and with the question of the salvation of non-believers. Chapter 4, on doctrine, is an integral
part of this line of thinking.
Now, Prof. Lindbeck proposes, and this is at the heart of his
project, that these questions should be discussed in terms of
his avowedly non-theological cultural-linguistic theory. This,
of course, raises in its proper context the question, already
touched on, of whether a religion can adequately express its
self-awareness from this purportedly neutral point of view. It
begs the question when the author writes:
Depending on the model that one uses, religions can be compared
with each other in terms of their propositional truth, their symbolic
efficacy, or their categorial adequacy. (47)

By using the term "model", which belongs properly to the
method of the empirical sciences, and by applying it to all

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COLMAN E. o'NEILL, o.P.

three approaches, now understood as theological, he tacitly reduces them all to the level of his own explicitly empirical
method. Whatever may be the case for experiential-expressivists, this simply will not do for those who claim some measure
of truth for doctrinal propositions. They do not make the
claims they do except from a context of faith (and this is
why, for them, fundamental theology is an integral part of
the theology of faith) . To the degree that a claim is made to
truth, the term " model " does not apply since it denotes, by
definition, a refol'IIlable hypothesis-one, moreover, that (in
the proper sense of the term) is based on empirical evidence.
Prof. Lindbeck is, of course, quite well aware of the claim
made by some traditions to doctrinal truth; he thinks it shows
insecurity and naivete (21) and can easily be accused of vacuity (99), though he sometimes takes it more seriously. I venture to suggest that on the evidence of his book he is much
more familiar with liberalism and its off-shoots than he is with
what he terms cognitivism and propositionalism (so that one
wonders about what goes on in some ecumenical discussions).
A preliminary point needs to be made. I very much doubt
that any theory of religion or doctrine exists, at least within
Christianity, which corresponds to the description given of
cognitivism. Reasonaible theories about such complex realities
must themselves be complex. I have already granted that anyone who shares the metaphysical epistemology of Aquinas is
likely to be open to the cultural-linguistic approach; but that
means that a Thomistic theory of religion and of doctrine cannot be simply intellectualist, much less simply propositionalist.
The Catholic tradition has plaiced too much emphasis on symbolism, as much in the realm of doctrine as in that of sacraments, for that to be true. Evidently, within this, a place must
be found for truth expressed in propositions; but the latter
(a.part from the explanations it calls for itself) will be understandable only in the context of the whole Christian life,
viewed-as it is put in linguistics-both synchronically and
diachronically.
Prof. Lindbeck deals with the question of truth in Chapter

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429

3, Sections I and IV, in particular. He proposes that the questions raised in comparing religions have to do, not with propositional truth, nor with symbolic efficacy, but with the adequacy of their categories:
Adequate categories are those which can be made to apply to what
is taken to be real, and which therefore make possible, though they
do not guarantee, propositional, practical and symbolic truth. . . .
A categorially true religion would be one in which it is possible to
speak meaningfully of that which is, e.g., most important. (48)

It may then be that different religions have:
incommensurable notions of truth, of experience, and of categorial
adequacy, and therefore also of what it would mean for something
to be most important (i.e., " God ") . (49)
Now, here Prof. Lindbeck is being disingenuous a.t least in
what he says about the openness of his position with respect
to the possibility of propositional truth. His statement is no
doubt correct so far as the cultural-linguistic approach itsel£
is concerned, that is to say as it is used in a philosophy of
religions. But now we are in theology. As transpires in wha.t
follows and as is indeed already implicit in the Foreword, the
author attaches to the term "propositional truth " a purely
pragmatic signification. Truth, it turns out, consists in correspondence between the way a religion is lived and " what a
theist calls God's being and will". A religion as lived may be
pictured as " a gigantic proposition " which is true:
to the extent that its objectivities are interiorized and exercised
by groups and individuals in such a way. as to conform them in
some measure . . . to the ultimate reality and goodness that lies
at the heart of things. (51)
There is little trace left here of the professed neutrality of the
cultural-linguistic approach. A quite precise philosophical option ha;g been made in favor of the moral or pragmatic definition of truth. We find later:
Despite its informational vacuity, the claim that God is true in
himself is of utmost importance because it authorizes responding

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COLMAN E. o•NEILL, O.P.

as if he were good in the ways indicated by the stories of creation,
providence, and redemption which shape the believers' thoughts
and actions. 67 (my italics)

This is, of course, classical post-Kantianism. I am not persuaded that it derives from the cultural-linguistic method; it
seems rather a presupposition that determines how the method
is used. 'JJhere is nothing at all surprising about this. The
non-theological method is bound to be modified when it is
transferred to the realm of ultimate convictions. This means,
however, that the debate switches from Prof. Lindbeck's
chosen ground to that of philosophical presuppositions. Despite his life-long refusal of the theology of the " and " (faith
and reason, and so on), even Barth was a philosopher.
I leave it to members of the school to decide whether it was
wise on Prof. Lindbeck's part to call upon Bernard Lonergan's
notion of the systematic differentiation of consciousness in
order to explain why some people still persist in thinking that
propositions can be true because of their reference to the real.
If I am not mistaken, the only way suggested out of that supposed intellectual crisis is that of "conversion" to unrestricted
love. For the purposes of the discussion let us stay with the
charge that these people " are likely to be suffering from vulgarized forms of . . . rationalism " of suspect modernity and
unknown in the early centuries of the church where " ontological truth by correspondence had not yet been limited to propositionalism" (51).
The theme is developed, though with much greater caution,
in an excursus on religion and truth (63-9). Christians, it is
noted, genera.Ily act as if an affirmation such as "Jesus Christ
is Lord " is more than a categorial truth; they assert that it is
propositionally true that the particular individual " is, was,
and will be definitively and unsurpassably the Lord". It is
a "crucial theological challenge to a cultural-linguistic approach " to ask whether it is able to admit the possibility of
such truth claims. A distinction is made between the "intrasystematic " and the " ontological " truth of statements:

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481

Utterances are intrasystematically true when they cohere with the
total relevant context, which, in the case of a religion when viewed
in cultural-linguistic terms, is not only other utterances but also
the correlative forms of life. [Ontological truth is] that truth of
correspondence to reality which, according to epistemological
realists, is attributed to first-order propositions. (69)

Prof. Lindbeck is concerned to maintain, despite what he has
said earlier in the chapter, that his approach can accommodate
ontological truth so defined. He does this, however, by supplying his own definition of first-order propositions:
For the cognitivist, it is chiefly technical theology and doctrine
which are propositional, while [for the author] truth and falsity
characterize ordinary religious language when it is used to mold
lives through prayer, praise, preaching, and exhortation. It is only
on this level that human beings linguistically exhibit their truth
or falsity. 69)

This leads to the crucially important conclusion:
Technical theology and official doctrine, in contrast, are secondorder discourse about the first-intentional uses of religious language. (69)

This, in turn, leads on to the evaluation of doctrinea as rules.
It is quite clear what Prof. Lindbeck is getting a.t in his
novel definition of " ontological truth " and no Christian will
dispute his point that doctrine is purposeless if it is not incorporated into a way of life. But normally this is called sincerity, commitment, authenticity or something of the sort. The
search for a different term indicates that the term " ontological truth" has already been preempted for another signification. Prof. Lindbeck knows this and he says himself that "Paul
and Luther, at any rate, quite clearly believed that Christ's
Lordship is objectively real no matter what the faith or unfaith of those who hear or say the words ". But he at once
weakens this by adding: "What they were concerned to assert
is that the only way to assert this truth is to do something
about it " (66) . Cognitivists are said to hold, on the contrary,
that the truth of propositions is " independent of the subjective
dispositions of those who utter them" (66). The distinction

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COLMAN E. o'NEILL, o.P.

between formed and unformed faith (not to speak of the whole
range of non-casuistic moral theology) would be useful to rebut this last claim; but this might complicate the discussion.
Would not the principle, simul iustus et peccator, also suggest
that there is too often a dichotomy between what one holds
with genuine conviction and what one actually does? In any
case it seems necessary to provide, even in a cultural-linguistic
theory, for the tra.ditional "become what you are", which suggests that, if moral exhortation is to have any persuasive force,
it must be able to appeal to ontological truths which ought to
be reflected in religious life. This would, of course, entail restoring to doctrine (and to a great deal of theology, I am
happy to say) a first-order function.
Once again Prof. Lindbeck demonstrates his ability to anticipate difficulties such as this. He is led to make an interesting
attempt to enter into the position of St. Thomas. He is prepared, as a final resort, to allow that the
performatory conformity of the self to God can be pictured in
epistemologically realistic fashion as involving a correspondence
of the mind to divine reality. This is true, at any rate, when one
conceives of this correspondence in as limited a fashion as does,
for example, Thomas Aquinas." (66)
He adds his customary warning that cultural-linguistic theories
need not exclude, even though they do not imply, the kind of
modest propositionalism represented by theologians such as
Aquinas.
Citing Summa theologiae, I, q. 18, a. 3, and Contra Gentes,
I, c. 80, he recalls St. Thomas's distinction between the human
mode of signifying God (modus significandi) and the divine
being, the signified (significatum). He takes this to be used
in the sense that
although in statements about God the human mode of signifying
(modus significandi) does not correspond to anything in the divine
being, the signified (significatum) does. Thus, for example, when
we say that God is good, we do not affirm that any of our concepts
of goodness (modus significandi) apply to him, but rather that
there is a concept of goodness unavailable to us, viz., God's own
understanding of his own goodness, which does apply." (66)

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433

Were this what St. Thomas really thought there would be no
need for the inverted commas used by Prof. Lindbeck when he
refers to it as agnostic (67) . It is of absolutely no use to us if
the only concept of goodness that applies to God is the one he
is supposed to have of himself; not only is this unavailable to
us; we would not even have the right to say that he has it or
even that "he " is capable of having " it".
In fact, St. Thomas, using a. rather undeveloped linguistic
approach, but one that is guided by a highly developed theory
of how we know God, says that some of the words we predicate
of God apply to him properly as regards their formal signification (quantum ad id quod significant huiusrnodi nomina). ·But
not even these words apply to him properly as regards their
mode of signification (quantum ad modum significandi) ; by
which is meant their linguistic structure and syntax which inescapably belong to a language shaped in terms of the material
world (the tenses of verbs, concrete and abstract nouns, and
so on) . In the context of his theory of our knowledge of God,
this distinction regarding predicates is wlmost a. banality, as is,
it may be useful to add, the fact that he compares such a
transfer of predicates, from normal use to propositions about
God, to what the medieval rhetoricians called analogy (I, q.
13, a. 5) . What the theory of knowledge has already established is that some of the concepts we draw from sensible experience (we have no other source to draw on) may be" properly " applied to God, though clearly they are incapable of expressing a.dequately his infinite perfection. Still, what they do
express mediates a true knowledge of God. In logical terms
this is termed "proper predication". This theory of knowledge, in its turn, is based on a metaphysics which moves from
the act of existence of, for example, Fido, to judgments con.
cerning the divine act of existence. This appeal to the order
of esse implies a most profound criticism of all concepts applied to God (I, qq. 2-12). This results, however, not in agnosticism, but in the assimilation of the whole tradition of negative theology into a higher synthesis. It is a higher synthesis
because it allows St. Thomas to claim that the significatum,

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COLMAN E. O'NEILL, O.P.
'

the divine being, is just that: our language can signify him because our thought is able to attain him.
What needs to be insisted on is the fact that one who enters
into this way of thinking would refuse to define (propositional) truth in terms of concepts or categories; and the idea
that any religion could have "adequate" categories with respect to its Ultimate Concern strikes him as entirely rationalistic. He locates truth exclusively in the judgment which
possesses its own dynamism towards reality and which can
make do with conceptual imperfection; it has to make do with
that even in the case of sensible objects and a fortiori in the
case of God. A great deal of theology has to do with sorting
out concepts and symbols, both scriptural and non-scriptural,
and deciding on the way in which they may legitimately be
a.pplied to God. It is an occupational hazard of the theologian
that he is easily led into thinking that concepts and symbols
are all that enters into the act of faith.
St. Thomas's defense of human thought and language applies not only to philosophical approaches to God. It is just as
much required to make sense of the " story " of the Scriptures
to which Prof. Lindbeck appeals. Finally, ultimate questions
have to be asked. Why should the sufferings of Christ be held
to be meaningful for our existence, any more than those of
Hamlet (to take the author's example)? Does not this imply
the truth, prior to any action of ours, of the proposition, " God
was in Christ reconciling the world to himself" (1 Cor .• 5.19)?
St. Thomas, at any rate, makes his own position clear:
The act of the believer is terminated, not by the proposition, but
by the reality. For we form propositions only in order that,
through them, we may have knowledge of reality; that is the case
for ordinary knowledge; it is also the case for faith. (II-II, q. 1, a.
!!, ad 2)

He is, of course, quite clear that we can affirm the propositions
of faith and so attain the reality of God only through the
power of the Holy Spirit. He is equally clear as to why some
limited knowledge of God is revea1led to us, and here he is
found in agreement with Prof. Lindbeck's principal concern:

DOCTRINE AND PROPOSITIONAL TRUTH

485

Man is directed towards God as towards his end ... an end which
exceeds the understanding of reason .... But the end must already
be known by men for they are required to direct their intentions
and actions to the end. (I, q. 1, a. l; cf. II-II, q. 1, a. 1)

We may not know how God is good, but we can draw a whole
series of non-tautologous consequences from the true affirmation that he is good (cp. 67) . Even more important, we can
·accept as true the promises of the New Testament; and we
can take seriously the way of life it proposes. I cannot see
how the narration of a story, without such a. background of
conviction, can fulfil the hopes that Prof. Lindbeck attaches
to it in his final chapter.
There are, in £.act, places where Prof. Lindbeck seems to caU
on first-order affirmations about God. This happens, significantly enough, when he adverts to failures in the performativity of Christians-in spite of their confession of Christ as Lord
and as the express image of the Father (60). It seems to happen also in at least the first of the three regulative principles
said to have presided over the formation of the early creeds
(the monotheistic principle) and, it seems likely, in the third
(the principle of Christological maximalism) (94).

Testing the theory
In Chapter 5 Prof. Lindbeck proposes to test his theory by
applying it to certain Christian doctrines. Given his method,
it is ha.rdly surprising that this turns out to be the kind of testing favored by Procrustes. The taxonomy of doctrines
(Chapter 4, Section III) has already formulated a series of
logical categories judged to be adequate for catologuing doctrines in terms of the cultural-linguistic theory. Unfortunately,
this division is based on the following hypothesis:
The disagreement centers on beliefs about what is ontologically
true, rather than on practical doctrines (which are by definition
rules rather than truth claims). This makes it desirable to start
with practic9.I doctrines in considering the various ways in which
rules can be permanently valid. (85)

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COLMAN E. O'NEILL, O.P.

This is unfortunate because it assumes a purely positivistic
concept of moral Ia,w (though the" law of love" is possibly excepted-why?). Some Christian traditions hold that truth is
involved in moral law (and so are more hesitant about judging traditional sexual norms than is Prof. Lindbeck [85, U6]).
This division means (as it was obviously meant to mean) that
the formal possibilities estahlished for categorizing beliefs
postulate an abstraction from truth that ignores what, for some
Christians, is constitutive of doctrine. This is highlighted in
the discussion of infallibility which is given a purely empirical
interpretation and could be exercised, so it seems, by anyone
who took the trouble to find out what most Christians actually believe. The question of truth is not raised; nor is the (presumed) need for an infallible authority when the community
is faced with a crisis of interpretations. As far as the First
Vatican Council goes, it is quite accurate to say that the bishops never envisioned the possibility of " permanently conditional " doctrines (" whenever such and such conditions prevail, such and such a doctrine applies") (87). But that is because they construed the permanence of doctrines in terms of
truth (cf. Dogmatic Const. "Dei Filius "; DS 3000-45; in
particular, 3017) . All of this stands in the way of accepting
for theological purposes the proposed taxonomy of doctrines.
Nevertheless, there are many points made about particular
doctrines that merit attention. Given the limitations of space,
it is preferable to look at one example discussed by Prof. Lindbeck-that of the definitions of Nicaea and Chalcedon (Chapter 5, Section !)-because of the interesting linguistic questions it raises.
For the sake of discussion, let us allow that the concepts
used by the early councils are not only post-biblical novelties
(though the fathers of Nicaea found themselves obliged to
adopt homoousios because the Arians could give their own interpretation of any of the relevant scriptuml texts), but also
"dependent on the late-Hellenistic milieu" (though what the
philosophical consequences of this may be is a question that
merits discussion). (The comments in brackets are mine.)

DOCTRINE AND PROPOSITIONAL

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437

Prof. Lindbeck goes on from this to conclude that, if doctrine
is not to be irreversibly tied to Greek philosophy, it is necessary to distinguish between " doctrine and formulation, between content and form". The symbolic view of doctrine is
unable to maJke this distinction while at the same time preserving the distinctiveness of a doctrine. " In contmst to this,
it is self-evident that both first-order and second-order propositions (e.g., rules) are separable from the forms in which they
are articulated" (93) . Since there is
no way of stating independently what that content is ... the only
way to show that the doctrines of Nicaea and Chalcedon are distinguishable from the concepts in which they are formulated is to
state these doctrines in different terms that nevertheless have
equivalent consequences." (93)

Here we return to the pragmatic or intrasystematic view of
truth; and when the problem is put the way it is, there is probably no alterative.
What is wrong with this argument is that it assumes that
the form of all first-order propositions is identical with the concepts they employ. If the concepts are historically conditioned,
then so are the propositions in their entirety. I would maintain, on the contrary, tp.at at lea.st in some cases this is not so.
What Nicaea was concerned to define was the proposition that
"the Son is God", just as "the Father is God", though "the
Son is not the Father ". Likewise, Chalcedon was concerned
to define thait Our Lord Jesus Christ is "one and the same"
as the divine Son (hena kai ton auton; DS 301). Unless one
wishes to take up the question of the conceptuality involved
in the proper names of " Father " and " Son " (which is a
legitimate line of inquiry but not to the point here), one cannot separate the doctrine from the form of these basic propositions. That is because the terms " is " and " is not ", which
signify judgments and not concepts, do not, in this context,
admit of substitution.
One who adopts a linguistic approach would be expected to
pay attention to these essential words and to the significance
attached to them in a given context by those who use them.

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COLMAN E. o'NEILL, o.P.

When, by the use of " is " (or by some other linguistic device
in certain languages), it is asserted that what is signified by
the Subject is identified in reality with what is signified by the
Predicate ("one and the same ") , a statement is being made
(whether one agrees with it or not) that transcends the (by
hypothesis) historically-conditioned concepts employed. This
much at least is unchangeable in the doctrine of Nicaea. The
way is open for theologians or others to suggest, if they can,
-alternatives to the concepts used by this council or by Chalcedon, provided that the identity (or non-identity), unequivocally asserted, be preserved. This is not so ea.sy as it sounds
since the concepts in question are in direct relation to the order
of existence with which the judgment is formally concernedand this is why they are not widely understood today; but in
any case they need to be explained by further discourse. Even
more important, there is an untold number of ways in which
may be developed the significance of the basic doctrines in
terms of Christi,an living; and there is nothing that guarantees
that those who are the most strictly orthodox will be open
either to the hidden riches of the truth expressed in the doctrine or to the needs of mankind today. Nevertheless, it is
more likely that those who maintain orthodoxy will have a
firmer grasp, at least theoretically, of what is meant by saying
that the Kingdom is not of this world-that humanity's Godgiven destiny in Christ is not immanent in history. And this is
a criterion of action that is more likely to escape the notice of
the pragmatist.
In support of his rule theory of doctrine, Prof. Lindbeck cites
Bernard Lonergan's admirable studies of the development of
the Trinitarian doctrine, while disagreeing with his conclusions
concerning the desirability of the metaphysical precision
brought by medieval theology (94, 105). What attracts Prof.
Lindbeck's approval is the evidence that Athanasius expressed
the meaning of consubstantiality in terms of the rule that
whatever is said of the Father is said of the Son, except that
the Son is the Father. This is taken as proof that the early
theologians considered the doctrine to be a second-order rule

DOCTRINE AND PROPOSITIONAL TRUTH

439

of speech. This is quite arbitrary interpretation and one that
could be entertained only by projecting post-Kantian scepticism onto the Fathers. Once again, one who promotes the
linguistic approach should be ready to recognize the role that
language plays both in insisting on a real state of affairs and
in clarifying how to conceptualize it. It was not until the Cappadocians dimly perceived the possibilities of the concept of
" relation " that the fourth-century theologians disposed of a
set of categories that might serve to express, however, inadequately, the universally acknowledged mystery of real distinction in real unity. Before that time, and after it too, the only
sure way to preserve the revealed mystery was to revert constantly to the simple (first-order) judgments that can be
traced to New Testament origins. Even St. Augustine failed to
develop a fully satisfactory theory so that he frequently has
recourse to the propositions that simply restate the doctrine.
When St. Thomas succeeded in formula.ting the complex notion
of "subsisting relation "-which is a chimaera unless it is deployed within his basic judgment concerning the transcendent
esse of God-a. great part of his discussion of the Trinity is
taken up with linguistic analysis and rules. Most of these have
an exegetical purpose, being used to interpret the textual
sources; the hermeneutic employed is one of reference to the
real, grasped in the judgment of faith and elaborated, more or
less successfully, in the new conceptualization. Throughout
the whole historical development the rules of language are
formulated in the light of the insight of faith and are concerned with what is held to be objectively true. Needless to
say, theologians did not always succeed in maintaining the
necessary balance.
Prof. Lindbeck concludes that, given the rule theory, propositional interpretations are superfluous; there is no need to go
beyond their formal content and insist on an ontological reference. Rule theory does not entirely prohibit speculations regarding the latter but " simply says that these are not doctrinally necessary and cannot be binding" (106). - In fact,
when they are indulged in, " language idles without doing any

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COLMAN E. O'NEILL, O.P.

work". The real question is not here but in asking" how contemporary Christians can do a.s well or better in maximizing
the Jesus Christ of the biblical narratives as the way to the
one God of whom the Bible speaks " (107) . I conclude, on the
contrary, that the ontological reference is given; speculation
about it may not be binding but history continues to prove
that it is necessary in order to preserve the simplicity of the
revealed message. It is, besides, the tribute that the mystic
as well a.s the theologian has always paid to the Triune God.
Orthopraxis, on the contrary, appears to be an entirely speculative position and I take it to be characteristic of liberal theology. It may be that the cultural-linguistic approach marks
an end to expressivist liberalism. I think it can become postliberal only if it rediscovers the modest non-agnosticism of the
Christian tradition. Perhaps Karl Barth, in spite of his philosophical hesitations, was moving in this direction.

The question of method
I am clearly in sympathy with Prof. Lindbeck's desire to
maintain the epistemological priority and ethical significance
of doctrine. I can agree with him when he speaks of doctrine
as " the framework and the medium within which Christians
know and experience" (84, 80). Equally clearly I am unable
to agree with him when he distinguishes the doctrinal framework and "what [Christians] think they know" (84). This
means that my disagreement centers on the crucial distinction
between doctrines " taken to resemble grammatical rules " and
taken as true propositions. Nor is my opinion changed when
Prof. Lindbeck, reverting to his neutral stance, adds that the
same sentences in which the rules are stated may function also
as propositions or expressive symbols. I agree that they also
function as expressive symbols; but I am unable, when it
comes to doctrines, to distinguish between their function as
rules and their truth, even though I am conscious of the historical and ecumenical problems that have to be solved.
The fundamental problem is one of method. The culturallinguistic approach, with its affinities to the philosophies of

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441

Aristotle and Aquinas, is one that I think is, in itself, valid.
But what distinguishes the down-to-earth attitude of the
Aristotelian tradition is its refusal to construct theories prior
to examination of the facts. Now, in the case of church doctrines, the facts are only to be found in the particular understanding that a particular community has of particular doctrines. There is no possibility of generalizing about such matters; and ecumenical discussions (whether the participants be
Aristotelians or not) can only adopt the painstaking research
and dialogue concerning individual doctrines that this implies.
Prof. Lindbeck, on the contrary, with his outflanking movement, wishes to propose a general theory which is not built up
in this way. I am not, of course, forgetting that his own ecumenical experience suggested to him the idea of his strictly
formal theory. But, in spite of this, the theory is formulated,
not in terms of the "facts "-the way language is used in a
in terms of an avowedly non-theologigiven
cal theory of religion. For this reason it remains non-theological; and it would be understandable if it were greeted by certain philosophers of religion as a valuable development and application of their method.
Prof. Lindbeck may well protest that theologians, in their
present disarray, need some such help from external sources.
This is no doubt true. The Catholic tradition, at least, formally recognizes the role that scientific reason plays in the
elaboration of doctrine; and all the main Reform traditions
recognize this in fact. The difficulty obviously lies in the adaptation of the non-theological method to the context of faith.
This is the classic problem of faith and reason. It is much more
difficult to resolve when the contribution of reason is taken
from contemporary human sciences because there is a material
over-lapping between these sciences and the explicit or implicit
anthropology of faith. This can easily confuse the issue for the
theologian by blurring the necessary distinction of methods. If
the human science is not to supplant theology, the latter must
dispose of its own criteria and its own method. The only criteria-indeed the only conceivable criteria-are to be found

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COLMAN E. O'NEILL, O.P.

in doctrines with real content which are accepted as defining
the wider perspectives on reality that are characteristic of
faith and therefore of theology.
This does not attribute a massive power of veto to theologians of the churches that insist on doctrine so understood. Vatican H's Decree on Ecumenism, without further elaboration
referred to an order or hierarchy of truths " since they vary in
their relationship to the foundation of the Christian faith " (n.
11; W. M. Abbott ed., p. 354) . Whatever else this may mean,
it clearly takes it for granted that there are fundamental truths
that can be plainly stated. I have already indicated that it
seems to me tha.t such truths are to be found in the simple
identity or non-identity judgments which issued from the
Trinitarian and Christological debates. If to these be joined
a like interpretation of the words of Eucharistic institution, an
ecclesiological dimension is added to the theological and
christological. The three, not surprisingly, correspond to the
three major doctrinal crises of Christianity. The hypothesis
might then be put forward that these are the propositions that
constitute the foundation of the Christian faith. I venture to
think that what is affirmed in such propositions is a.t once
astonishing and plain. Their meaning is at the same time unfathomable and sufficiently clear as to constitute an invitation to ongoing meditation and discussion. The discovery ofand the debate about-their moral implications in ever new
situations is the constant task of the churches. Still, the assent
to their truth claim is simple since no one can say " Jesus is
Lord " except by the Holy Spirit (1 Cor., U.3) . The culturallinguistic approach rightly suggests that there is more to any
church's tradition than these central truths. But as one moves
away from them (or " down " the hierarchy) the opportunity
for diversity of insight is more likely to increase and, with it,
the need for complementarity. Nevertheless (to revert to
Aristotle), ea.ch significant element needs to be looked at on
its own merits.
COLMAN E. O'NEILL, O.P.
University of Fribourg, Switzerland

DOCTRINE IN THE DIASPORA

G

EORGE A. LINDBECK'S The Nature of Doctrine:
Religion and Theology in a Postliberal Age 1 is one of
the very few novel theological proposals to appear
since the collapse of Protestant and Catholic neo-orthodoxies
in the 1960s. Indeed, I know of no other single text that in
such brief compass-there are just over 100 pages of actual
text-so effectively re-maps the theological scene. My aim
here is to raise three questions about Lindbeck's proposal, but
a sketch of the book's two main tracks will suggest why my
questions risk doing an injustice to the book as a whole.
On the first track Lindbeck argues for-maps or sketches or
charts might be better-his own theories of religion, doctrine,
and theology. The centerpiece of his proposal is an interest in
those respects in which religious resemble languages together with
their correlative forms of life and are thus similar to cultures ....
The function of church doctrines that becomes most prominent in
this perspective is their use ... as communally authoritative rules
of discourse, attitude, and action (17-18).

Lindbeck calls this theory of religion " cultural linguistic " and
this theory of church doctrine a " ' regulative ' or ' rule '
theory" (18). He unfolds the proposal in increasingly particular stages. That is, after a foreword describing the background and characteristics of his argument (7-13), he first
sketches the ecumenical and cultural context (c. 1). His case
is that cultural linguisticism is preferable 1) for non theological purposes, i.e., for those interested in " how religions work
for their adherents" (130) whether such religions are meaningless or meaningful, true or false (c. 2) . It is also preferable
2) for theological purposes-whether on a) the interreligious
issues of the " unsurpassibility " of a religion, dialogue between
t (Philadelphia:
The Westminster Press, 1984). 142 Pages. $16.95 H;
$9.95 P. References in this essay are to chapter (e.g., c.l) and page (e.g.,
1). Italicized English words within quotes are mine.

443

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JAMES J. BUCKLEY

religions, and the universality of salvation (c. 3), b) more
christianly intrareligious doctrines dealing with christology,
mariology, and ecclesial infallibility (c. 4-c. 5), or c) the
more particularly theological issues raised by demands for
dogmatic faithfulness, practical applicability, and apologetic
intelligibility (c. 6) .
A second and subordinate track in this movement from nontheological to theological uses of the cultural linguistic theory
is a sustained dialogue with the three main rivals: cognitivepropositional theories (emphasizing the cognitive aspects of
religion and the truth-claiming features of doctrines); experiential-expressive theories (emphasizing the experiential aspects of
religion and the non-informative force of doctrines), and
"two-dimensional" theories (attempts to combine-correlate
or mediate, we might also say-propositional and experiential
theories) (16). The argument with experientialism is largely
in chapters
and 3; the argument with propositionalism is
largely in chapters 4 and 5. Lindbeck's dialogue with these alternatives manages to compare and assess them on topics
ranging from their theories of truth and scenarios of the
eschaton to their christologies and views of Scripture.
What we have here is obviously something more than a narrowly honed treatise on doctrine. It is not only " a contribution to the theory of religion and religious doctrine" but also
" prolegorµena " to a future book " on the current status of
the doctrinal agreements and disagreements of the major
Christian traditions" (8). What makes evaluation difficult are
what Lindbeck calls" the characteristics of the argument" (8).
The Nature of Doctrine is " more concerned with how to think
than with what to assert about matters of fact" (9), more
concerned to provide a framework for settling issues than to
settle material issues (10). The movement of the argument is
from religious (c.
3) and ecumenical (c. 4-c. 5) "neutrality" to theological (c. 6) non-neutrality (9-10). Further,
the argument as a whole is " suggestive rather than demonstrative" (10, 134); and, because the case is circular rather than
linear, the " order of the topics is in some respects optional "

DOCTRINE IN THE DIASPORA

445

(11). Lindbeck wants to suggest the "availability" of cultural-linguisticism a.s a " serious option " whose ultimate test
is "performance" (134, 78, 91); although he is candid about
his own view of " the superiority of the regulative view "
(104), the central argument of the book is that there is no
non-theological, doctrinal, or· theological reason for rejecting
his proposal (134). Thus, despite his criticisms of propositionalists, experientialists, and mediators, Lindbeck appeals to
various strands of their thinking in positive ways throughout
the book.2 Even further, Lindbeck's diagnoses of how his own
position might be criticized are probably as suggestive as we
will see in any review-certainly in this one (e.g., 28-24, 124,
126, 128, 134-135). In short, the book raises a number of interesting issues that are important but not essential to the
book's main argument. For example, Lindbeck thinks that the
future of church and world will require some kind of " sociological sectarianism ", i.e., sma.11 communal enclaves " like
those of the early Christian movement (or of the more recent
international communist one), or . , . eoolesiola in ecclesia
similar to those of monasticism, early pietism, or some portions
of the contemporary charismatic movement " dedicated to
socializing " members into highly particular outlooks supportive of concern for others rather than for individual rights and
entitlements " and so inculcating " the moral and creedal absolutes that are necessary to maintain openness in a pluralistic
democracy." (78, 127) .8 But, as befits an ecclesiology which is
sociologically sectarian but ecclesiologica.lly other regarding,
this scenario is not essential to the book's thesis.
2 Readers of the The Thomist may want to attend in particular to the critical as well as constructive use of Thomas, Lonergan, and Rahner; see the
book's index for references.
a On this score, Lindbeck might be read as doing for dogmatic or systematic
theology what Alasdair Macintyre has done for a-theological, philosophical
ethics in After Virtue: A Study in MoraZ Theory (Notre Dame, Indiana:
University of Notre Dame Press, 1981). Needless to say, Lindbeck is not
only clearer about the Christian character of these communes but also (because of his quasi-universalism [55-63]) less pessimistic about what God, at
least, can do with a fragmented culture.

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JAMES J. BUCKLEY

This complexity becomes less perplexing than playful the
more one tries to test the flexibility of the book, but it does
make one cautious. As Lindbeck emphasizes, there are no
neutral criteria for evaluating the " availability " of such comprehensive frameworks (11, 42, 78, 118, 181) . If we use the
criteria in Lindbeck's final chapter (which is "an addendum
to the main argument of the book," although some might argue
that the theological issues raised here are " more crucial and
interesting than the doctrinal ones " raised in the body of the
text) (112, 120), we ought to evaluate Lindbeck's proposal primarily on the basis of its intratextua.l faithfulness to the biblical world, secondarily on its futurological applicability, and
thirdly on its cumulative intelligibility. But it is precisely such
criteria-or, better, the priorities Lindbeck assigns to these
criteria-that critics will dispute.
Given these two tracks and the characteristics of Lindbeck's
argument, my three questions will focus more on the book's
constructive proposal than on its criticisms of the alternatives-and more on its theological than its non-theological import. Further, although the three questions will not dispute
Lindbeck' s criteriological priorities (faithfulness, applicability,
and intelligibility), they will call for a tighter systematic relationship between the criteria than Lindbeck advocates or perhaps even permits. This strategy might end up unfairly asking too much of a text with whose central thesis-the availability of the cultural linguistic theory-I thoroughly agree;
but Lindbeck's proposal is such that I believe it demands this
risk be taken.
I. Idiom and Agency
Lindbeck's view of doctrine is firmly embedded in what he
sometimes calls the Christian " idiom." Theology is parasitic
on ordinary, common-sensical, and idiomatic life and language,
e.g., on the "activities of adoration, proclamation, obedience,
promise hearing and promise keeping which shape individuals
and communities into conformity to the mind of Christ" (68)
-or those " liturgical, kerygmatic, and ethical modes of speech

DOCTRINE IN THE DIASPORA

447

within which ... affirmations from time to time occur" (69).
Lindbeck allows for a range of arguments about exactly who
are the competent practitioners and speakers of this idiom
(113) , although he himself prefers to find generally accepted
instances of such competence in the manner of "the contemporary linguist" or other non-theological investigator, i.e., by
drawing from the mainstream " a sample from as large a cross
section, as wide a consensus as is possible" (99-100; cp. 79, 82,
90 [n. 21], 113) . And, Lindbec:k suggests, what guides and
holds together the diversities of the Christian idiom are those
uses of Scripture (the exemplary instantiations of Christian
communal language) as "an overarching story" embracing
diverse materials (120).
One way to explore and test these claims is to consider how
Lindbeck handles a contrast between two different ways he
speaks of this idiom. On the one hand, he says that our cultural, linguistic, and religious idiom " functions," does things;
on the other hand, he also says that individuals and groups
"use", do things with,. our cultural, linguistic, and religious
idiom. The relationship between these two is obviously "dialectical" and "reciprocal" (33), but priority is consistently
given to the first side. Thus, " cultures " are to be understood
" semiotically as reality and value systems-that is, as idioms
for the construing of reality and the living of life" (18, cp.
114). "Language," in turn, is a communal phenomenon shaping who we are (even some physiological states) by its distinctive patterns of lexicon and grammar, syntax and semantics
(29) [n. 31], 33, 37, 42). "Religions" are, then, "comprehensive interpretive schemes, usually embodied in myths or
narratives and heavily ritualized, which structure human experience and understanding of self and world" (32; cp. 18, 22,
33, 34, 40, 42, 47-48). Thus, our culture, language and/or
religious idiom is prior to my or our efforts to acquire them;
language is prior to experience, the " outer " to the " inner," or
(in theological terms) the verbum externum is prior to the
verbum internum, the fides ex auditu to the fides implfoita (334, 43) . Becoming Christian consists of "prolonged catechetical

448

JAMES J. BUCKLEY

instruction," including practicing " new modes of behavior"
and learning "the stories of Israel and their fulfillment in
Christ" until the catechumens are "deemed ahle intelligently
and responsibly to profess the faith, to be baptized." (132)
More generally still, " the heights and depths of human knowledge, faith, and love are the effects and not the causes of the
skill (whose acquisition is largely beyond conscious control)
with which men and women learn to use their cultural and
linguistic resources" (62). Religions, cultures, and particularly languages thus shape who we are.
On the other hand, Lindbeck also uses a network of (crudely
put) agential concepts to emphasize that the priority of cultures, languages, religions, the verbum externum, and the fides
ex a,uditu makes possible rather than evaporates my and our
agency, the verbum internum, and fides implicita. Thus God
is clearly a character or personal agent (rather than Being,
a Natural Force, Pure Form, or Horizon) (121) best depicted in narratives of " the interaction of his deeds and purposes with those of creatures in their everchanging circumstances" (121)-narratives climaxing in the Gospel renditions
of Jesus Christ unsubstitutably enacting divine and human intentions (121). The only way to assert the sort of truth Lindbeck proposes is " to do something about it, i.e., to commit oneself to a way of life" (66). Further, theology and doctrine are
" second order activities" (69) specified by their purposes.
Thus, theological intelligibility " comes from skill, not theory,
and credibility comes from good performance, not adherence
to independently formulated criteria" (131). The applicahility of a theology is its ability " to shape present action to fit
the anticipated and hoped for future " (125)-for Christians,
" to discern those possibilities in current situations that can
and should be cultivated as anticipations or preparations for
the hoped for future, the coming kingdom" (125) . Again,
"the task of descriptive (dogmatic or systematic) theology is
to give a normative explication of the meaning a religion has
for its adherents " (113) and meaning " is constituted by the
uses of a particular language ... rather than being distinguishable from it" (114).

DOCTRINE IN THE DIASPORA

449

Or, to give further examples of this agential agenda, Lindbeck recognizes that his theory of religions is " not the only
angle from which religions can be studied "-different theories
might be useful for other "particular purposes" (30) . And
even Lindbeck's own definition of religions (e.g., as ritualized
narratives structuring experience) depends on the stories involved being told " with a particular purpose or interest," i.e.,
with an interest in " identifying and describing what is taken
to be more important than everything else in the universe, and
to organizing all of life, including both behavior and beliefs,
in relation to this" (32-33). More generally still, "hammers
and saws, ordinals and numerals, winks and signs of the cross,
words and sentences are made comprehensible by indicating
how they fit into systems of communication or purposeful, action, not by reference to outside factors" (114).
These are, I realize, large claims. But I do not cite them to
dispute them. Indeed, I think that they form a rich network
of interrelated concepts (e.g., skills and abilities, actions and
practices, intentions and purposes, narratives and community)
of which propositionalists, experientialists, and correlationalists
cannot make good sense. The problem is that there might be
two distinct reasons why Lindbeck does not sort out this agential agenda from the cultural linguistic framework that generates his theory of religions and the Christian idiom. First, to
highlight the agential agenda might undercut Lindbeck's insistence that the key theological issue is faithfulness, not applicability or intelligibility (128) . Put in confessional terms,
highlighting the agential agenda might undercut the priority
of " faith " over " works " (cp. 128) and (perhaps) of the viva
vox evangelii over sacramental enactment of the story (cp.
118-19). This may be why the analogy of religions to languages so controls their analogy to cultures, ways of living, and
forms oflife (cp. 27-28 [n. 16]).
I am not claiming that such priorities are mistaken or that
they are confessionally motivated. I am one of those Catholics
who agree with Lindbeck's priorities, although I would locate
the paradigms of the Christian idiom not only intratextually

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JAMES J. BUCKLEY

but in the" heavily ritualized" use of the Gospel stories at the
Lord's Supper. 4 My point is that Lindbeck's agential agenda
provides the tools for further elaborating the priority of what
our cultural linguistic idiom does to us and what we do to our
cultural-linguistic idiom. What he needs to do is tighten the
link between the two, the better to provide a thicker description (cp. 115) of the many ways we can, for good and ill, move
and be moved into and out of our various and conflicting selves
and communities and languages in our storied pilgrimage to
the kingdom. 5
Then a.gain, this may be one of those cases of trying to develop complex explanations when simple ones will do. Perhaps
the reason for not highlighting the agential agenda is simply
that the subject matter of the book is " doctrine." For some
purposes, Lindbeck might argue, we certajnly do need to
sharpen the agential agenda, expanding on the relationships between culture and language, skills (virtues?) and agency, narratives and rituals so central to any religion (32). But, for
purposes of doctrine, what needs to be emphasized is that
religions are like languages embedded in forms of life so that
the nature of doctrines emerges from the background of competent speech and (other kinds of) competent practice. Thus,
while Lindbeck's emphasis on the priority of the idiom to our
uses of it may come to make a difference when he moves from
prolegomena! to other issues (e.g., justification), I believe he
makes a strong case that only such a priority can move for4 I would emphasize that Lindbeck's theory of doctrine permits this alternative. But could not one go further, even on non-theological grounds?
That is, what better place for the stranger to find a religious idiom than
those times when religions are "heavily ritualized "-in particular, for
Christians, at Baptism and the Lord's Supper?
s The agential agenda might also suggest ways to hold together Lindbeck's
insistence on the importance of "neutrality" with his conviction that there
is no " neutral standpoint" from which to adjudicate comprehensive " outlooks on religion, not to mention religions themselves. • • • ( 11; cp. 42, 73,
113, 130). Short of perfect conformity to the being and will of God at the
eschaton, we are left with the movement from neutrality toward non-neutrality (and vice versa) depicted in Lindbeck's ordering of his chapters.

DOCTRINE IN THE DIASPORA

451

ward our discussions of doctrine. It is time, then, to turn directly to Lindbeck's notion of doctrine.
II. Rules and Reconciliation
Doctrines are "communally authoritative teachings regarding beliefs and practices that are considered essential to the
identity or welfare of the group in question" (74) . It is important to note the soteriological context of Lindbeck's elaboration of this description. That is, Lindbeck intends to come
to terms with anomalies he finds in the unity and diversity,
permanence and change, conflict and compatibility of doctrines
(9, 15). In particular, presuming that doctrines are both unified and diverse, permanent and changing, compatible and
conflicting, Lindbeck wants to focus on the problem of "doctrinal reconciliation" (15). Presume Christians follow certain
doctrines and that some of these doctrines are opposed. How,
then, is it possible to account for the massive doctrinal reconciliation taking place among Christians without claiming
doctrinal capitulation? How can we have " doctrinal reconciliation without doctrinal change" (15)? The function of Lindbeck's rule theory of doctrine, then, is to make room for doctrinal reconciliation. He is about the task of" seeking concepts
that will remove anomalies" (8). In still other words, the ruletheory is doing soteriological work.
What, then, are "rules"? I think we can distinguish two
feaitures of Lindbeck's answer. The first, I shall suggest, solves
doctrinal anomalies while the second creates some. First, doctrines as rules are extraordinarily various. Some rules have to
do with the lexicon of a religion; others are syntactical rules
and still others "provide semantic reference" (81). Rules can
be informally operative and or formally stated (74-6). They
can also be unconditionally and permanently necessary (e.g.,
perhaps, " Feed the poor ") , conditionally necessary and irreversible (e.g., perhaps, doctrines against slavery or, for Catholics, doctrines about the papacy and Mary) , conditionally
necessary and reversible (e.g., perhaps, early Christian pacifism, the immortality of the soul) , simply " accidentally nee-

452

JAMES J. BUCKLEY

essary " (e.g., perhaps, post-Scriptural liturgical developments;
for Protestants, the papacy). Some doctrines "define" correct
usage or are " explicit statements of general regulative principles " (perhaps the sola gra:tia or sola fide) . Most doctrines
"illustrate correct usage rather than define it"; they are "exemplary instantiations or paradigms of the application of
rules" (e.g., perhaps, Nicaea) (81, 95) .6 Other doctrines
might be characterized as tragic in the sense that they involve
" a decision between two alternatives, both of which are bad,
but one of which is worse than the other" (98; cp 103-104).
As these examples suggest, Lindbeck's vision of the various
kinds of doctrines is rich in potential for settling doctrinal conflicts. From this point of view, the mistake of the propositionalists and experientialists is to give one function of doctrines
(e.g., referential or expressive) unwarranted precedence over
these other functions. 7 Once we handle doctrines as rules parasitic on the Christian idiom, there is no such need to give one
function such unqualified dominance.
What, then, is communally essential (i.e., doctrinal) about
doctrines? In sum, a community must develop the sort of
skills it takes to obey or follow (rather than "interpret") its
rules, i.e., " to specify the circumstances, whether temporary or
enduring, in which a doctrine applies" (107, 18). A second
feature of Lindbeck's theory of doctrine is at work here, viz.,
a particular theory (in a loose sense) of truth. A religion is
" ca.tegorially true," Lindbeck says, if it has the categories
" which can be made to apply to what is taken to be real and
which therefore make possible, though they do not guarantee,
6 For these categories and examples, see the taxonomy of doctrines on pp.
84-88. It is important to add the "perhaps" before each example because
Lindbeck is here interested in establishing the plausibility of his taxonomy
while leaving room for arguments over which doctrines function in which
categories.
7 See the argument of William David Soloman, "Ethics II. Rules and
Principles" in The Encyclopedia of Bioethics, Warren T. Reich, ed. (New
York: The Free Press, 1978), Vol. I, pp. 407-413, The reference to discussions
of rules in ethics is important, for Lindbeck claims that "practical doctrines " are "by definition rules " ( 85, 104).

DOCTRINE IN THE DIASPORA

453

propositional, practical, and symbolic truth " (48) . Utterances are" intrasystema.tically true when they cohere with the
total relevant context which ... is not only other utterances
but also the correlative forms of life " (64) . A statement is
"ontologically true" if it corresponds to reality, i.e., in a cultural-linguistic context, if what it signifies is part of a way of
life which corresponds to "God's being and will" (51, 65-66).
Given these senses of " true," doctrines (in contrast to first
order Christian idiom) make intrasystematic rather than
ontological truth-claims; like grammar, they are" second order
rather than first order propositions and affirm nothing about
extralinguistic or extrahuman reality" (80, 69). Such doctrines "recommend and exclude certain ranges of-among
other things-propositional utterances or symbolizing activities" (19). In sum, as the analogy of religions to languages
controls their analogy to cultures, so the analogy of doctrines
to grammatical rules controls their analogy to rules taken more
generally.
A number of epistemological issues are involved here, but the
central issue would seem to be this: how does this theory of
doctrinal truth help in dealing with doctrinal reconciliation?
Lindbeck's theory of doctrinal truth (in contrast to his theory
of the variety of kinds of doctrines) seems to make doctrinal
reconciliation enormously difficult-in the following way.
Faced with an opposition of doctrines, we need to ask questions like " what understanding of doctrine would make such a
view intelligible without, however, excluding the contrary position" (9)? We need "to specify the circumstances, whether
temporary or enduring, in which a doctrine applies" (107, 18),
ultimately to track the " consequences " of such doctrines for
ordinary life and language (93, 99, 100), including description
of the way such rules will handle " the usages, especially the
innovative ones, that prove acceptable or unacceptable in a
given community " (109 [n. 10]) . Doctrinal reconciliation can
thus occur without doctrinal change by showing that apparently opposed rules apply in different circumstances.
But, to do this-to "specify the circumstances "-involves

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JAMES J. BUCKLEY

discovering or crea.ting a narrative embracing diverse circumstances. Given Lindbeck's storied reading of the Christian
idiom, we Christians-perhaps it is different for a non-theological interpreter-seem to be able to have doctrinal reconciliation without doctrinal change only by changing the Christian idiom. Whereas Lindbeck's view of the diverse sorts of
doctrines renders doctrinal reconciliation possible, his theory of
doctrinal truth makes doctrinal reconciliation seem an almost
impossibly arduous affair.
The recent Lutheran-Catholic document on justificationwhich Lindbeck knows quite well-is instructive here. 8 The
opposed parties engage not in "compromise" but in a "common search"; 9 and most of the document is the construction
of a narrative embracing the diverse circumstances of the opposed parties during and after the Reformation, eventually
proposing that what is at stake are distinct (perhaps even
theologically opposed) but doctrinally compatible models
(grammars, Lindbeck might say) of growth and change-one
soteriology modeled on " progressive transformation under the
power of grace," the other modeled on the "simultaneity " of
the simul iustus et peccator.10 The document, I believe, succeeds in suggesting how Lutherans and Catholics can each
claim doctrinal reconcilia.tion without doctrinal capitulation.
But, to make good its claim, it must make good the narrative.
Even if, for example, Catholics do not have to learn a different
doctrine of justification, they do have to learn how to employ
skillfully a different storied context for their doctrine-but
to learn a. storied context is to change, if not a doctrine, the
idiom in which Lindbeck (rightly, I think) proposes doctrines
are embedded.
s See "Justification

By Faith. U.S. Lutheran-Roman

Catholic Dialogue,"

Origms. NO Documentary Service 13 (# 17, October 6, 1983), pp. 278-304.

Hereafter referred to by paragraph number ( #).
9 "Justification
By Faith," Preface.
10 "Justification
By Faith," # 25 and # 154. It might be interesting to
ask in what respects Lindbeck's theory of doctrinal reconciliation is and is
not a subspecies of a more general soteriology.

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455

In sum, Lindbeck's theory of doctrinal diversity opens up all
sorts of possibilities for doctrinal reconciliation, but his theory
of doctrinal truth seems to make doctrinal reconciliation extraordinarily difficult. Perhaps this is all any theory of doctrine
can do. Perhaps a theory of doctrine can only offer hope for
doctrinal reconciliation-where hope's object is a future good
which it is difficult but possible to attain (bonum futurum
arduum possibile haberi [Summa Theologiae Ila IIae. 17, 1]) .
But perhaps the hope can be increased by tying Lindbeck's
theory of doctrinal diversity not exclusively to a theory of
doctrines as intrasystematically true but to a doctrinally (not
necessarily theologically) more eclectic gestalt of distinct
"senses of 'true'." Using the ad hoc strategy Lindbeck recommends for apologetics generally (Hl9, 131), we could refuse
to take one function of doctrines (i.e., referential, expressive,
or grammatical) as the paradigm for the others while leaving
room for theologians to construct (or deconstruct) epistemologies as is necessary to deal with the very real problems raised
by competing theories of truth. This might encourage a more
fluid distinction between intrasystematic and ontological truth
and leave room for intelligibility more systematically to inform
applicability, all the while maintaining the priority of applicability to intelligibility. 11
11 I am not trying to avoid the issues raised by Lindbeck's discussion of
various " senses of ' true' " but instead to focus the dialogue on Lindbeck's
own terms, i.e., the contribution such discussions make to reconciling opposed
doctrines. In matters epistemic, I believe that Lindbeck's key achievement
may be the suggestion that the "correspondence theory of truth," christianly
speaking, .is not about the correspondence between an autonomous mind or
Geist and a monistic abstraction "reality " but between the cultural linguistic "system" and God's being and will ( 51) ; thus, "the isomorphism of
the knowing and the known can be pictured as part and parcel of a wider
conformity of the self to God" ( 65). This suggests that competing theories
of "truth" can only be adjudicated by theories of "reality" and that the
metaphysics at work in theologies which aim to systematically wed faithfulness (contemplation, a Catholic might say) and applicability and intelligibility will be a descriptive, pluralistic, and corrigible map of a pluralistic narrative of which only God can ultimately be the judge. There is no space here
to elaborate the meaning and truth of this wild claim.

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JAMES J. BUCKLEY

But perhaps all this is unnecessarily abstract. The ultimate
way to evaluate Lindbeck' s theory of doctrine would be to
focus less on doctrines in general than on the several dozen
doctrines Lindbeck discusses. The next section is a modest
start at doing just this by rather arbitrarily focusing on one of
Lindbeck's sample doctrines.
III. Word and Spirit
Do Lindbeck's trinitarian and christological rules account
for his own appeals to the work of the Holy Spirit? The question arises this way. Lindbeck proposes that the classic Christian trinitarian and christological consensus was the product
of " the joint logical pressure " of " at least " three rules:
First, there is the monotheistic principle: there is only one God,
the God of Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, and Jesus. Second, there is the
principle of historical specificity: the stories of Jesus refer to a
genuine human being who was born, lived, and died in a particular
time and place. Third, there is the principle of what may be infelicitously called Christological maximalism: every possible importance is to be ascribed to Jesus that is not inconsistent with the
first :rules. (94)

Using these three rules, Lindbeck persuasively argues that
his rule theory " allows (though it does not require) " treating
Nicaea and Chalcedon as " permanently authoritative paradigms, not formulas to be sla.vishly repeated" (96) . The rules
also leave room for Lindbeck's theological (in contrast to doctrinal) claim that the story of Jesus yields not primarily Jesus's
"historicity, existential significance, or metaphysical status"
but Jesus's identity as unsubstitutable enactor of divine and
human intentions (120-121).
But where, one might ask, is the rule governing appeals to
the Holy Spirit? This question would be less important if
Lindbeck's appeals to the Spirit were not crucial to his treatment of the Christian idiom as well as Christian doctrine.
Thus, the demand that competent Christian speakers and practitioners ultimately test the truth of doctrines is " the empirical
equivalent of insisting on the Spirit as one of the tests .of doc-

DOCTRINE IN THE DIASPORA

457

trines" (100) . Here we find doctrines working "as part and
parcel of a wider conformity of the self to God" (65, 51). The
work of this Spirit is catholic in its broadest sense, i.e., the
linguistically competent "are to be sought in the mainstream
rather than in isolated backwaters or ingrown sects uninterested in communicating widely" (100).
On the other hand, in dealing with the Christian idiom, Lindbeck excludes Christian boasting by claiming that the Spirit is
at work in Christians as " the pledge of, not the participation
in, future glory" (60). Like children learning a language, even
mature Christians have only begun "speak the Christian language, the language of the coming kingdom" (60). They
therefore stand ready to recognize that other languages can
speak of truths of which they know nothing and from which
they can be enriched and even that" there is a sense in which
those unskilled in the language of faith not only fail to affirm
but also cannot deny that 'Jesus is Lord'." (54, 61, 68) It is
this eschatology tha.t, it would seem, partly accounts for the
priority Lindbeck gives to the verbum externum over the verbum internum (the latter" traditionally equated by Christians
with the action of the Holy Spirit" [84]), to prospective or
eschatological accounts of the salvation of all humanity rather
than presentist accounts (although both are doctrinally permissable) (56f) , to decisive confirmation of the Christian God
and the Christian life at the end of history rather than now
(181).
Once again, I agree with Lindbeck's priorities, viz., the priority of Word to Spirit. My intuition is also that Lindbeck is
right in claiming that in "cultural-linguistic categories the
role of the Spirit can be more easily stressed than in cognitivist
ones, and is less subject to enthusiasm or Schwarmerei than
in an experiential approach" (100). My problem is that the
rules for the perichoresis of Word and Spirit are unclear. The
strain is particularly apparent when Lindbeck relates economic
and immanent Trinity, asserting at some points that the biblical stories do not depict God in se (121) and at other points
that, while assertions about God quoad nos involve assertions

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JAMES J. BUCKLEY

about God in ae, we can only know how this is so at the
eschaton (67) .
Perhaps the relationship between Word and Spirit could be
clarified by expanding the three rules: the monotheistic principle could be expanded to include a God of Adam and Eve as
well as Abraham and Isaac; the principle of historical specificity could be expanded to include not simply the unique individual Jesus of Nazareth but also other specific individuals
(e.g., Mary and Peter and Paul) and groups (e.g., at Jerusalem
and Antioch and Rome); the principle of christological maximalism would then apply to the Spirit's work of judging and
guiding the Christian community's pilgrimage toward the kingdom. The "maximal Christ" would then be the totus Christus.
Such revisions might also help assure that the three rules operate jointly. In Lindbeck's formulation, the principle of
christologica.I maximalism seems clearly subordinate to the
other two principles, perhaps suggesting (in Chalcedonian
terms) granting firm priority to the divine nature (the monotheistic principle) and the human nature (the principle of historical specificity) over Christ's " person." But, if the Holy
Spirit is the maximalizer of Jesus Christ by creating a new
heaven and earth out of sinful Church and world, the regulative principles could leave such issues open to theological debate. If the first section a.hove called for a tighter link between
faithfulness and applicability and the second section for a
tighter link between applicability and intelligibility, the proposal here calls for a tighter systematic link between intelligibility and faithfulness: our faithfulness follows on God's
faithfulness in Word and Spirit.
With this last point, I have clearly gone beyond the scope
of Lindbeck's book. Undoubtedly my proposed expansions
generate rules which are not as compendious as Lindbeck's
three principles. But I do not think he would disapprove of
such efforts to test his theory. All the issues I have raised
propose a tighter link between faithfulness and applicability
and intelligibility than Lindbeck requires-a link preserved
from skewing Lindbeck's priorities by the Spirit's activity

DOCTRINE IN THE DIASPORA

459

transforming us into a. new humanity. I did not, I should say,
set out to do this. More than a decade ago, Lindbeck's course
"on the current status of the doctrinal agreements and disagreements of the major Christian traditions" (8) awoke me
from sundry skeptical and dogmatic slumbers. Knowing that
Lindbeck thrives on reconciling the apparently irreconcilable,
I originally thought I might oblige by unthinking his characteristic weave of the Christian idiom, doctrine, and theological speculation. I will have to leave it to others to succeed (or
think they succeed) where I have failed (or think I have
failed).
It should be noted that Lindbeck knows his proposal " may
not fit the needs of religions such as Christianity when they are
in the awkwardly intermediate stage of having once been culturally established hut are not yet clearly disestablished"
(184) . This will not be the :first book that had to wait its time.
But if postliberal inclinations are "undeterred" by this (184),
it will be not primarily because of the "younger theologians "
Lindbeck mentions (185) but because of the exciting way
Lindbeck maps the complex tasks before us. The Nature of
Dovtrin.e will also whet any reader's appetite for the deployment of these prolegomena throughout the whole range of
Christian doctrine. Tolle lege, if you dare.
JAMES J. BUCKLEY
Loyoia OoZlege im MaryZand

LINDBECK'S NEW PROGRAM FOR THEOLOGY:
A REFLECTION

G

EORGE LINDBECK HAS WRITTEN an important
and what promises to be an influential book. In a
sense he has written two books. One study (as the
title indicates) is on the nature of doctrine. There his original
and suggestive 'rule-theory' reading of doctrine is developed.
The second study (as the sub-title indicates) is yet more ambitious. Here Lindbeck articulates a new paradigm (a culturallinguistic paradigm ' borrowed ' principally from Wittgenstein
and Geertz) . This paradigm is geared to understanding religions as analogous to languages and cultures as well as to
understanding theologies as largely grammatical enterprises.
No minor ambition this. The book, therefore, is not simply a
modest programmatic statement of the new ' Yale school 'however couched in the typically modest and cautious prose
we have all become accustomed to from Lindbeck.
I will forego summary of the argument of the book as a
whole, and instead confine my remarks to three major moves
in this argument. Two issues I shall discuss at some length: viz.
Lindbeck's interpretation of the major alternative model for
theology as 'experiential-expressive'; and, second, Lindbeck's
own ' cultural-linguistic ' approach to 'truth' claims in
theology. A third issue I will discuss very briefly-viz. his suggestive interpretation of doctrine by means of rule-theory. All
these issues are clearly major strands in the overall argument.
It must be clearly stated, however, that, even if Lindbeck is
erroneous (as I shall suggest he is) in his interpretation of
what he names ' experiential-expressive ' theologies, he might
still claim that his cultural-linguistic model for theology nonetheless is more adequate than alternative models. He could
still claim, for example, that a cultural-linguistic model is more
460

LINDBECK'S NEW PROGRAM FOR THEOLOGY

461

comprehensive in its scope or more attuned to some contemporary social-scientific and some linguistic philosophical analyses of religion than alternative models. Similarly, even if his
model has problems which this present book does little to resolve (e.g. on truth-claims) , Lindbeck could still claim that the
interpretation of doctrine, as principally second-order rules not
first-order referential propositions, could still stand. My own
beliefs, indeed, can be summarized as follows: first, Lindbeck's
analysis of the alternative model he names 'experiential-expressive' is seriously, even fatally, flawed; second, his own
' cultural-linguistic ' model needs to manifest far more than the
present work does its ability to handle the question of truthclaims in theology to avoid (as he himself sees) the obvious
charges of 'relativism', 'confessionalism ', and even 'fl.deism';
third, Lindbeck's interpretation of the nature of doctrine is
nonetheless both original and suggestive, although questions on
the non-propositional character of the 'rules' he enunciates
are, to me at least, not yet clear.
To state my own conclusions thus bluntly should not indicate that even I (' experiential-expressivist ' as Lindbeck clearly believes I am) should be unable to learn from this learned
and careful programmatic work. Indeed, I believe, as my second and third beliefs cited al;>ove suggest, that, even if my
other criticisms are correct, Lindbeck has nevertheless aided us
all by his interpretation of doctrines as principally second-order
rules rather than simply first-order propositions. If that is true,
then the title of the book (The Nature of Doctrine) and thereby the sections of the book on doctrine are his most important
and enduring contribution. The sections discussing the subtitle ('Religion and Theology in a Post-Liberal Age ') are the
most problematic. To provide a. new paradigm for interpreting doctrine is a major contribution. It is an especially welcome contribution from George Lindbeck, the major theological contributor in North America to genuine ecumenical dialogue among the major confessions. Although Lindbeck's interpretation of doctrine clearly does cohere with his interpretation of religion and theology, I fail to see how his grammati-

462

DAVID TRACY

cal reading of doctrine entails a grammatical reading of
theology or a cultural-linguistic reading of religion. But just
this question of ' coherence ' or ' entailment ' between the title
and sub-title of this programa.tic work seems to me the greatest
puzzle of Lindbeck's argument as a whole. In fact, this book
is really two books which roughly cohere with one another.
The first book (on doctrine) is, I believe, one that any theologian, however different his or her paradigm for theology, can
and should learn from. The second book (on religion and theology in a post-liberal age) is, at least for this theologian,
provocative but thoroughly unpersuasive.
The first issue is Lindbeck's analysis of what he call the
' dominant ' liberal theological paradigm since Schleiermacher.
This liberal trajectory he describes as using an 'experientialexpressive ' model for theology. He has many comments on and
critical descriptions of this model. But all these sometimes disparate descriptions seem geared to m'ake, as the name indicates, one principal point: viz. that all these models are based
on typically modem liberal ' tum to the subject ' paradigm.
All of them, willy-nilly, are grounded in the mistaken belief
that 'inner experiences (are) prior to expression and communication ' (p. 86) . Indeed, " whatever the variations, thinkers
of this tradition all locate ultimately significant contact with
whatever is finally important to religion in the prereflective experiential depths of the self and regard the public or outer
features of religion as expressive and evocative objectifications
(i.e. nondiscursive symbols) of internal experience' (p. 21).
In sum, the theologians in this dominant tradition understand
inner-pre-reflective experience as 'foundational' and all language and culture as merely ' expressive ' of that foundational,
non-discursive experience. They possess a ' unilateral' understanding of the relationship of experience and language as well
as of experience and culture when what we need is a ' dialectical' understanding of these complex relationships.
The problem with Lindbeck's descriptions of the' dominant'
theological model is not that his analyses do not point to real
problems within the tradition from Schleiermacher to Tillich,

LINDBECK'S NEW PROGRAM FOR THEOLOGY

468

Eliade, Rahner, Lonergan, et al. The problem is that Lindbeck
is apparently unaware that thinkers in the very tradition he
targets for criticism have addressed precisely these issues as
their own major questions for at least fifteen years. Indeed,
the turn to an explicitly hermeneutical position by many theologians in this ' dominant ' tradition as well as the turn to a
radical 'de-privatizing' of the same tradition by political,
liberation, and feminist theologians a;re the major attempts
within the general ' liberal ' paradigm to address both the
'linguistic' (hermeneutical theologies) and the' cultural' (deprivatizing social-political theologies) issues which Lindbeck
announces as news.
Indeed, anyone who has read modern hermeneutics in either
philosophy or theology can discover that the major claim from
Gadamer ( whom Lindbeck does not mention) through Ricoeur
(whom Lindbeck bizarrely lists as one more 'experiential-expressivist ') has been to rethink the dialectical (not unilateral)
relationship between experience and langu,age. They have, to
be sure, attempted to do this without abandoning the classical
liberal insight into a non-empiricist notion of experience which
both the Continental tradition and the American tradition
(James, Whitehead, Dewey, et al.) first forged. But such attempts, if successful, would prove ' dialectical' -indeed fax
more dialectical than a. seeming new ' unilateral ' move from
'experience' to 'language' in Lindbeck's 'cultural-linguistic'
model. In fact, the major argument of the hermeneutical tradition since Gadamer has been against Romantic ' expressivist '
understandings of language's relationship to 'experience'.
This work, in turn, has been what has allowed a major transformation of the Schleiermacher-Tillich-Rahner-Lonergan ex,.
periential pa.radigm into an explicitly hermeneutical one.
Moreover, this hermeneutical transformation has been continuous with the major ' correlation ' schema of the liberal
theological tradition, and with its discovery of a non-empiricist
notion of ' experience '. Hermeneutical theologians (in the
broad sense) have also argued for the correctness of the linguistic-experiential performance of the great liberals and neo-

464

DAVID TRACY

orthodox as distinct from some of their theories on experience
and language: witness B. A. Gerrish's work on Schleiermacher
and Troeltsch, or L. Gilkey's work on Tillich and R. Niebuhr.
The argument among explicitly hermeneutical theologians
has been consistent: one can maintain the richer and broader
understanding of ' experience ' forged by the great liberals
(both European and American) only by dialectically relating
it to recent understandings of 'language' (and thereby, inevitably, also to history and society). 'Experience' cannot be
understood on a Romantic ' expressivist' model (or any other
purely instrumentalist model). But this crucial insight does
not mean that we should, in effect, abandon half the dialectic
by simply placing all experience under the new guardianship
of and production by the grammatical rules of the codes of
language. Insofar as these familiar hermeneutical claims hold,
theologians can continue the liberal analyses of the broader
notion of ' experience ' without yielding to the earlier ' expressivist ' temptations of that tradition. To do so, of course,
theologians in the liberal tradition must become both explicitly hermeneutical and explicitly socio-political-cultural. But
this, indeed, is exactly what most of them have become: consider Schillebeeck's recent work in hermeneutics and critical
theory in relationship to his own earlier work and to Rahner;
consider Ogden's use of Toulmin and, more recently, Habermas and Apel in relationship to Whitehead and Hartshorne;
consider, if I may cite it, my own explicitly hermeneutical turn
in The Analogical Imagination in contrast to the hermeneutically informed but underdeveloped position on 'common
human' experience' in Blessed Rage for Order.
Hermeneutically informed theologians, moreover, usually
also find themselves called to become (via their own analyses
of the dialectical relationships of experience and language)
more cultural-historical-political. At the same time, explicitly
'political ' theologians like Metz and Moltmann as well as
' liberation ' theologians like Bonino and Segundo and feminist
theologians like Schussler-Fiorenza have found it necessary to
concern themselves with hermeneutics in order to achieve an

LINDBECK'S NEW PROGRAM FOR THEOLOGY

465

adequate political theology. None of these theologians, to be
sure, would describe their positions as ' cultural-linguistic' as
distinct from something like 'hermeneutical-political '. Why
they resist this formulation can be a concern in our next section. For the moment, it seems sufficient to state that the
'betenoires' of Lindbeck's position should hardly feel overwhelmed by his charge of 'experiential-expressivism' when
their own work has challenged the 'expressivist' and 'privatist' tendencies of the earlier liberal experiential traditions.
They have done so by developing explicitly hermeneuticalpolitical theologies: theologies critical of the earlier liberal accounts of language and experience and self-critical of some of
their own earlier formulations. But they have also done so
without ·abandoning the noble correlative enterprise of the
great liberals and their self-critical successors, such dialectical
or neo-orthodox theologians as Tillich, Bultmann, early Barth,
Rahner, and Lonergan. To recognize an ' anomaly' is not necessarily to abandon completely a paradigm. It is to rethink
the paradigm in such manner that its accomplishments are not
rejected in the transformation of its problems.
Lindbeck's problems with this ' liberal ' tradition, I suspect,
a.re finally less methodological or formal than his paradigmanalysis would suggest. His problems are substantive or material. As his frequent references to Barth and his colleagues
at Yale, H. Frei and P. Holmer, make clear, Lindbeck's substantive theological position is a methodologically sophisticated version of Barthian confessionalism. The hands may be
the hands of Wittgenstein and Geertz but the voice is the voice
of Karl Barth.
In sum, the label 'experiential-expressivism' does not fit as
an accurate philosophical description of the alternative ' liberals' Lindbeck paints in such broad strokes. For Lindbeck's
real problem, I repeat, is theological: like Karl Barth (of the
Churvh Dogmatics rather than Romans) and like some of his
colleagues at Yale he is theologically troubled by the liberal
tra.dition. He wants theology to be done purely from ' within'
the confessing community. He wants a new ecumenical con-

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DAVID TRACY

fessional theology. He does not, therefore, finally approve even
of such 'dialectica.l' methods of correlation as Tillich's or
Rahner's or Lonergan's. He wants something purer, cleaner,
more economical-a 'cultural-linguistic' model from the social sciences become a 'confessionalist' model for theology.
Lindbeck's 'cultural-linguistic' model is, I fear, less a new
paradigm which eliminates the anomalies of the old than a new
paradigm which first ignores the accomplishments of the old
and then develops new-old anomalies of its own (as on' truthclaims ').
Moreover,
cultural descriptions of the need for
our American theologies to become ' Anglo-American empiricist ' rather than remaining trapped in ' nineteenth-century '
German idealism and romanticism and twentieth century existentialist phenomenology are curious as cultural descriptions.
Such analyses of what constitutes ' Anglo-American ' culture
conveniently overlook three cultural facts: first, as mentioned
above, the very traditions he cites as the problem have all been
involved for some years in rethinking hermeneutically and politically-culturally precisely the issues he requests they address;
second, even the Anglo-American linguistic philosophical tradition in many of its major proponents (e.g. Rorty, Putnam,
Hampshire, Toulmin, Cavell) no longer understands itself
as culturally alienated from the Continental tradition in its
explicitly hermeneutical form; third, the major accomplishment of the American philosophical tradition from James
through Dewey has been to challenge the British empiricist
traditions ' narrow understanding of experience as sense experience alone-further cultura.I proof, perhaps, that the ' American' part of Lindbeck's 'Anglo-American empiricist culture'
needs rethinking.
In sum, I am not persuaded by Lindbeck's interpretation of
the alternative theological paradigm presently available as
'experiential-expressive'. That title, as Wittgenstein might
say, is a good example not of 'naming' but of 'language
idling'. Lindbeck may, of course, have good reasons to dispute my claim that the hermeneutical-political model works in

LINDBECK'S NEW PROGRAM FOR THEOLOGY

467

addressing the issues of language and experience and the related issues on language-experience-history-and-culture. But
until he interprets the easily available and familiar texts employing that model, I and others must remain as unpersuaded
by his charge of 'experiential-expressivism' as I remain unpersuaded by his theological call for a new confessionalism.
The second issue is the 'cash-value' of Lindbeck's own
' cultural-linguistic' model for the crucial issue of ' truthclaims ' in theology. For perhaps Lindbeck would claim that,
even if his description of the alternative model I name 'hermeneutical-political' and he calls 'experiential-expressive' is
inadequate, nevertheless his own 'cultural-linguistic' model is
still preferable. The reasons for that preference would perforce
have to be different from those he actually gives for rejecting
his own 'experiential-expressive' construction. What those
reasons might be is, inevitably, a guessing game. The fact is
that a fruitful and critical discussion between Lindbeck's 'cultural-linguistic' model and a 'hermeneutical-political' model
has not yet been posed sharply by anyone-and surely not by
Lindbeck's description of the alternative as 'experiential-expressive '.
His puzzling and rather begrudging comments on the transcendental theologies of Rahner and Lonergan (viz. that they
are too ' complicated ' and ' hybrid ' or not ' economical '
enough) lead me to infer that the paradigm I name ' hermeneutical-political ' would prove, for Professor Lindbeck, too
'complicated' and' non-economical' for his Occam-like tastes.
These hermeneutical-political models are ' complicated' (like
reality itself) . They do demand the employment of several
disciplinary approaches including ones (e.g. transcendental
analysis or metaphysics) which Professor Lindbeck seems to
find (without argument) admirable candidates for Occam's
razor. Moreover, he also seems to believe that any theologian
who agrees with the basic thrust of Rahner or Lonergan (as
I clearly do) must also end up agreeing with Rahner's 'anonymous Christian' position or Lonergan's belief that F. Heiler
had located a unified essence to all religions. If this material

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DAVID TRACY

theological issue of the possible unity of essence of religion is
the real theological problem for Lindbeck (he devotes considerable space to it), this one difference, at least, is easily resolved. For no one of their later hermeneutical-political descendents any longer agrees with the positions of their great
predecessors on this ' unity of essence ' issue: witness Gilkey
vis-a-vis Tillich, Metz or Kiing vis-a-vis Rahner, or Burrell or
myself vis-a-vis Lonergan on these crucial issues of' dialogue',
' essence ' and ' unity-plurality'.
But, Lindbeck might say, why work with the complexities
of hermeneutics, metaphysics, and critical theory if all theology
really needs is a clean ' linguistic-cultural ' model? We can
understand religion as like a language or a culture (i.e. ' a comprehensive interpretative scheme with an interest in the maximally important). We can understand theology as a grammatical analysis of the depth grammar or logic of the religion.
This seems, and indeed is, one plausible social-scientific way
to describe religions and to analyze one crucial task of theology. The question for theology is: is it adequate for the full
range of theology's task? Lindbeck, with his admirable desire
to avoid relativism and ii.deism, is fully aware of this larger
theological task. Indeed, he devotes two crucial sections of his
compact book to addressing these issues: his ' Excursus on
Religion and Truth' (pp. 63-73) and his entire last chapter
entitled 'Toward a Postliberal Theology'. I regret to say that
I do not believe that he has resolved the issues he has set for
himself (viz. relativism and fideism)-at least on the basis of
the analysis set forth in those sections.
There the strength of his 'cultural-linguistic ' model, to be
sure, does come through. It is the strength of the truth of ' intra-systematic' coherence or of fidelity to interpreting the tradition by maintaining a rigorous notion of ' intratextuality '.
No theologian should deny that one major task of all responsible theology is to show how it is the tradition itself that is
being interpreted and not interpreted away or invented. Lindbeck's grammatical model for this task is illuminating. This
remains the case even if hermeneutical-political theologians like

LINDBECK'S NEW PROGRAM FOR THEOLOGY

469

myself would hold that, on Lindbeck's own grounds, grammar
alone is not sufficient. Theologians also need rhetorical anal-.
ysis (i.e. the ancient discipline which is the correlate of modern
hermeneutics) to encompass adequate interpretations of the
concrete plural narratives, symbols, doctrines, etc, and not only
of the narratological (or doctrinal or symbolic) codes. Moreover, Lindbeck's long footnote (p. 136) on the Yale deconstructionists leads me to believe that he has not reflected very
much on the rhetorical (hermeneutical and/or deconstructive)
aspects of the question of interpretation of texts and thereby
on how grammar and rhetoric (like code and use) inevitaibly
interact in all concrete interpretations-even of grammatical
codes. But even this important issue, however central to many
modern discussions of the interactive relationships of grammar
and rhetoric (e.g. P. De Man and W. Booth) , need not detract
from the power of Lindbeck's partial but real contribution: his
kind of grammatical analysis does illuminate one way to analyze the rules and codes, especially of ' doctrines '. Further
rhetorical-hermeneutical analysis can illuminate how those
codes become actual discourse.
But however pressing the concern with the relationship of
grammar and rhetoric for interpreting the concrete discourse
of the tradition, the major problem lies elsewhere: how can
theologians assess the truth-claims of Lindbeck's grammatically analyzed traditions? Professor Lindbeck is fully a.ware of
this set of problems and tries many ways to meet it: by distinguishing between the intrasystematic truth of coherence and
' performative ' ontological truth, by agreeing with the need for
ad hoc apologetics, by appealing to the need for skill and practice over theory, by disputing illusory claims to pure neutrality, by developing a notion of applicability as futurology, etc.
Even those who agree that a ' purely neutral ' theory of rationality is never ' purely neutral ' and who agree that skill,
practice, etc., a.re crucial ingredients in any attempt to assess
rationally all theological claims will remain unpersuaded that
Professor Lindbeck's 'epistemological realism' is other than
relativism with a new name or that his 'cultural-linguistic'

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DAVID TRACY

grammatical model for theology is other than confessionalism
with occasional ' ad hoc ' apologetic skirmishes.
Professor Lindbeck's position, as far as I can see, is one new
linguistic version of one side of classical pragmatism. More
exactly, the one aspect of pragmatism's response to assessing
truth-claims he clearly holds is an analysis of 'consequences '
in life as criteria of assessment (note his analysis of assessing
the truth-claims of God-language exclusively by seeing how
that claim' performs' to order a whole life). Two other aspects
of even William James's pragmatic position receive, at best,
shorter shrift. First, consider James's insistence on assessing if
one's present religious belief is an illuminating suggestion (or,
as James put it, a 'luminous possibility'). Here, at least in
hermeneutics, the understanding of truth as manifestation
(with the categories disclosure-concealment and recognition)
is, I believe, available-and in non-Romantic-expressivist
ways. Second, recall James's insistence on assessing how what
we believe through our religious tradition coheres or does not
cohere with what we otherwise know, practice, and believe.
This latter nest of issues, it should be emphasized, does not
necessitate a capitulation of traditional religious beliefs to contemporary secular beliefs. Rather as the revised correlation
model for theology implicitly or explicitly involved in all
hermeneutical-political positions suggests, any correlation
should be, in principle, one of mutually ctritical correlations of
an interpretation of the meaning and truth of the tradition
and the interpretation of the meaning and truth of the contemporary situation. Such a revised correlational model provides a heuristic guide; no more, no less. The model, like all
models, guides. The concrete subject-matter at issue alone
rules. And there all the rational and religious skills available
are needed to discern the proper response here and now. On
the correlation model, a response may, logically, be one of
identity, similiarity-in-difference, or pure non-identity (existentially confrontation) between tradition and situation. That
heuristic correlation model is one way to keep alive the noble
project of our liberal and neo-orthodox predecessors without

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471

claiming either control through purely neutral, a-historical notions of ' rationality ', nor purely Romantic notions of ' inner
feelings ', nor deceptively ' economical ' notions of the purely
gramma.tical task of theology.
To conclude: I have discussed only two crucial aspects of
Lindbeck's provocative and programmatic book. If I have
contributed suggestions that Lindbeck himself may find helpful for developing or revising his program I shall be very content. I, in turn, certainly have learned much from his book.
This is especially the case on two questions which have aided
me greatly in my own distinct theological program: viz. his
sophisticated and illuminating analysis of one way to formulate the grammatical aspect of theology's wider task and his
original interpretation of the nature of doctrine via rule-theory.
I hope to continue to learn on these and other questions from
the careful and compact writings and ecumenical spirit of
George Lindbeck.
I wish to emphasize these gains as strong and solid ones.
For even if I believe that the interpretation of the tradition, as
suggested above, is more complex than a grammatical analysis
alone can encompass, any hermeneutical thinker can and
should still learn from Lindbeck's careful analysis of one way
grammatical analysis can function in theology. On his analysis
of doctrine, moreover, I still have some lingering questions as
to the adequacy of Lindbeck's rule-theory interpretation of
doctrine: for example, the ' rules ' he actually cites as implied
by Nicaea and Chalcedon do make sense as rules; however, at
least the first two rules (on the 'one God' and on 'Jesus of
Nazareth') are also clearly referential propositions. Nevertheless, the interpretation of doctrines as ' regula fidei ' is genuinely illuminating. Lindbeck's interpretation of doctrine does
seem a way forward out of many propositional-confessional
impasses.
As for the rest, I have given some reasons why I cannot
count myself among those for whom Lindbeck wishes, in the
final line of his book, ' May their tribe increase '. But then I
'from within' the 'cultural-linguistic'
have not

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DAVID TRACY

world of the present Yale school. Can we meet? Can we converse critically? Can we even 'translate' our positions to one
another? I believe we must try-as I have here, however inadequately. So, despite his protestations against 'translation'
to the contrary, does George Lindbeck. That is why he wrote
his book. That is why I read it. That is why others read reviews like this along with the book itself. That whole criticalconversational process is what hermeneutics is finally all about.
And no labels of his or my minting, 'whether experientialexpressive' or 'hermeneutical-political' or 'cultural-linguistic'
or ' Yale ' or ' Chicago ') should becloud our common ethical
and religious-theological responsibility to converse and translate. George Lindbeck is foremost among those who have
proved themselves those rarest of theologians-confessionally
and doctrinally really ecumenical. I hope he can also carry
that same rare ecumenically confessional spirit into becoming
more ecumenical with theologies as well. Then a genuinely
new paradigm for theology, and not only for doctrine, may
be forthcoming.
DAVID TRACY

The Divinity School,
The University of Ohicago

BOOK REVIEWS
Rational Theology and the Creativity of God. By KEITH W .ARD. New
York: The Pilgrim Press, 1982. Pp. 240. $17.95.
This volume, an expanded and revised version of the Edward Cadbury
Lectures of 1980 by the Dean of Trinity Hall, Cambridge, proposes that
the traditional picture of God as a self-existent and necessary being is
intelligible and coherent only when elements of potency and temporality
are attributed to Him. To use a reviewer's quick schema, the author has
in mind a theism which stands mid-way between Thomism (or neoThomism) and process metaphysics. God is per se notus, in this argument, precisely because necessity and eternity are registered in and with
the time-bound careers of free creatures; the aseity of God is a doctrin&
based primarily on the experience of agents in the midst of a moral
struggle-by those who find themselves exploring a standard of action
or an objective set of obligations seemingly devised to fit the freedom
of their wills like a glove. Thus the absoluteness of God is the sheer
freedom in such contingent decree; his self-sufficiency is the singular
accrual of temporal value, regarded and loved, bringing His purpose to
consummation.
This picture of the relation of God and man is the overriding worth of
the book and I suspect that the image of man as a moral explorer who
finds his freedom and self-becoming as he finds the temporal off-print
of divine decree will be the empirical generalization behind the final
schema of those theists who want to assert both the " priority " of God
(as Ward terms it) and real human freedom and independence. This is
enough to commend the book. But Ward offers little or no metaphysical
scrutiny of this relation; nor does he seem to feel the need to do so. He
sustains his position by pure dialectic, aimed at St. Thomas for the most
part, and, briefly, the process thinkers. One finds here the learning and
precision and persuasion found in his other works; but without a new
battery of categories and concepts, and a new analysis, the reader, in fact,
cannot know finally what it is he is to accept. Most of his time will be
spent returning a volley.
Ward's dialectic also consistently disregards the categories and the analyses of his opponents. He begins the book, for instance, by including the
first three "ways " of St. Thomas into his own argument for the priority
of God. But he approves of them for the sole reason that first mover,
efficient cause and necessary being are needed for a full explanation of
the universe and a valid commitment to its intelligibility (pp. 12-48). We

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have no word from him on the propriety of substance metaphysics, or St.
Thomas's use of it, which accounts for explanatory force and intelligibility.
I think that here at the outset Ward has combined two tasks, that of
giving the reader an overview of the incorrigible convictions of traditional theism, and that of beginning his own case for his partial acceptance of it. (My criticism applies to the latter project only. Perhaps it
is possible to defend the Thomistic vision entirely through appeals to explanation and intelligibility.) This confusion mars his procedure, for
Ward wants to use explanation and intelligibility as the sole warrants for
a fiat dismissal of the fourth way, the way of timeless simplicity. His
claim is simply that God, the designer, the Being of all possible perfections, is incoherent: " How can there be," he asks, " a being which combines in itself all possible properties, since a very large number of them
are incompatible with each other" (p. 52) '! If the world begs, according
to this argument, a designer, we need only say that there exists a being
who contains the "ideas" (p. 63) of all possible properties, together
with a principle governing the " actualization" of some of them. This is
at the heart of the book's appeal. For if he can establish, he claims, a
creation which does not derive from the simplicity of essence, but from the
conceptions and acts of a mind perfect in conceptualization and final actualization, then he will have a world of such freedom. But to do this one
must use categories and analyses. In particular, one must specify the
ordo of the Designer; one must say how the ordo already at work in the
first three ways as thing moved, efficiently caused and, thus, contingent,
fails, as metaphysical schema, to provide an answer to the question of
design. Further, Thomas's natural scale is the principle upon which the
impossibility of infinite regress is based. (Summa Contra Gentiles Ch. 13,
par. 14). What should take its place'! The argument from design is the
support of analogical attribution. How now, we need to ask, does human
language apply to God'!
This usage of St. Thomas not only disregards subtleties, it also misreads, flagrantly, the few subtle arguments taken into account. St.
Thomas did say that God possesses all possible perfections, but he said
it with extreme caution. Perfections, he said, are attributed to God only
by a " certain extension of the word:" What is not made (f actum) cannot really be called perfect (per-fectum); the word properly applies
only when the journey from potency to act is complete and the thing is
made. The word may be " extended " to God only in that he is already
and always complete act (Contra Gentiles Ch. 28, par. 10). In this wise,
we liken the thing made to that actuality through which it is made. The
reverse does not hold; we do not say that God is what the creature becomes, that God is likened to the creature, so that he could contain incompatible properties.

BOOK REVIEWS

475

Ward shows all the animosity of a Hartshorne for this God of utter
simplicity, this "monarch," this absolute of abstract form who "leaves
everything in the world basically unimportant " ( p. 71) . The doctrine, he
says, is not only morally unacceptable, it is finally incoherent. And, like
Hartshorne, he traces the problem to St. Thomas's theory of relations. St.
Thomas, he recalls, said that " the relations that God is said to bear to
creatures . . . really exist not in God but in creatures." Taking this statement at its face value, Ward argues that it is " analytically true that if
I am related by relation r to God, then he is related by some cognate relation to me; and any view which issues in a denial of this logical truth
must be mistaken (p. 77). This plea for common sense concludes that
this theory is evidence of the " strain " St. Thomas must have been under
in his attempt to affirm both the simplicity and creativity of God. But a
careful use of the distinction noted in the last paragraph-claims about
God based on inherent qualities or natures and claims based on finite reason-will at least clarify St. Thomas's point and show that he was not
propounding a logical absurdity. For St. Thomas, any relation is either
realis or rationis. If realis, the relation refers to a natural process or
property; if rationis, it is "set up as part of our thinking." Thus, St.
Thomas said that God is not really related to his creatures, for no process
or property in Him necessitates his creative act. His relation to us is
"part of our thinking" because we cannot fathom, as creatures down the
cwusal scale (admitted in the first three ways), the nature of the voluntary and intellectual act through which we are made and in which God
is related to us. Such explanation, no doubt, may be verbal sleight-ofhand, but it is evidence that St. Thomas is not " straining." If this explanation breaches a logical commonplace, Ward needs to give the categorical and analytical reasons.
His treatment of St. Thomas is so hasty and unanalyzed that at one
point he takes from St. Thomas with his left hand what he has granted
with his right. He has granted, we have seen, the validity of the third
way-the way of necessity. But necessity, he later states, will not square
with a doctrine of creation through intellect and will. If God is a necessary being "all that he does will have to be done of necessity" (p. 73).
Here, Ward claims, is an " old dilemma" of tradition : " either God's acts
are necessary and therefore not free, or they are free and therefore arbitrary" (p. 73). But if the third way is accepted, there should be no
dilemma here. God is a necessary being, St. Thomas said, for those creatures arguing from effect back up to cause, but what they reason towards,
necessarily, is ipsum esse, one whose act is Himself, whose existence is the
freedom of His own will. In this sense God is moved by no other and is
the efficient cause of other existences.
The misunderstanding also leads one to believe that Ward's reading of

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St. Thomas is hampered by a common notional absurdity: [viz.,] that the
reasons necessary to a self-defining act are constraints upon the freedom
of the will. The absurdity, obviously, is doubled when applied to God
seen as a necessary being. Then the freedom of simply being one's own
act becomes a total constraint so to act. Perhaps St. Thomas did not
foresee that we would one day think this way.
If Ward is committing this fallacy here, he implicitly rejects it in his
own portrayal of God's activity. The ratiocinative yet prior God whom
he offers as the final explanation of a free universe is in no way constrained by the conceptual and complex set of best possibilities he chooses
to actualize. And Ward's moral creatures, too, know that obligations and
objective foundations of irreducible moral claims bear the stamp of sanctioned freedom. These are " temporal applications" ... of eternal values.
But why should the notion of a conceptualizing God make for an easier
fit for necessity and freedom than a God who simply has what is necessary in his own being and who, then, simply is the creativity so to act f
The burden of such an essay will obviously be one of squaring the eternal nature of God with his temporal nature. On this issue Ward is, again,
more suggestive than metaphysically exact. He claims that we may understand the eternal nature of God under the heading of "evaluative perfections " (p. 161) ; from this, Ward thinks, His mutability logically follows: "Any cause of (such) contingent entities (viz., valued actualizations) must itself be contingent, since its causal acts could be other than
they are." But this merely restates the empirical generalization which
raises the issue : How, the critic must ask, can one be in time and out of
time, if time itself, as opponents of a purely formal and simple God contend, is a function of created process, and not vice-versa 7 Is God's act
of coll<leptualization literally a process 7 Does he thumb a copy book of
possible worlds 7 Or is his action so conditioned by what he creates that
he is literally in this process, part of finite time itself 7 Ward does not
want to be this precise, though he does write the phrase, "divine time"
(pp. 164 ff.). By it he means a divine relating to each phase of the infinity of created space-time systems, and a divine sustaining of the alternatives charting each course and each existence. But this would seem
to make God profoundly non-temporal. It would make Him the focus of
all temporal process, the final act in which they all comprise a world.
Perhaps we could speak of a temporal " dimension " to God's knowledge,
since His act is to sustain temporal careers; perhaps we could qualify
this as " part of our thinking "; it remains that God does not relate sequence A to sequence B by any sequence C, which is what it means to
be in time, or to have a time.
Ward claims that such notions as " God's time" are the points at which
we must rest content with the " silence of wisdom" and bow before God's

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BOOK REVIEWS

incomprehensibility (p. 167). The theist must specify such points, but
the reader of this text cannot be satisfied with this advice at this juncture. Ward has built his theism on explanatory force and final intelligibility. Had he structured his appeal with rigorous metaphysical scrutiny
we might know the terms of silence. As it stands, his advice has the ring
of indiscriminate fideism: What is simply explanatory and intelligible is
supported with ultimate silence. This is a shame, for his image of the
moral agent sets forth the true nobility of the religious life, and his "suggestion" that God is the free determinator of free determinant agency
incites the best of met111physicalspeculation.
WILLIAM

MoF. WrLSON

Loyola College
Baltimore, Maryland

Heidegger and Aquinas: An Essay on Overcoming Metaphysics. By
JOHN D. CAPUTO. New York: Fordham University Press, 1982. Pp.
308. Clothbound and paperback.
Heidegger's thinking has inspired many fine critical dialogues with the
history of philosophy-Pierre Aubenque on Aristotle, John Sallis on
Plato, Jean-Luc Marion on Descartes, Jean-Fran(,lois Courtine on Suarez,
Gerard Granel on Kant-but a substantial study of Thomas Aquinas
from a Heideggerian standpoint has yet to be produced. John D.
Caputo performs an invaluable service of demystification in pointing out
the various confusions from which Etienne Gilson, Johannes Lotz,
Cornelio Fabro, Bertrand Rioux, John Deely, Gustav Siewerth and Max
Miiller suffer in their differing efforts to situate Heidegger on a Thomistic
map. He makes it clear that Thomistic thought falls under the rubric of
what Heidegger calls onto-theo-logy and that the attempt to present
Thomas as the unique exception to the general " forgetfulness of being "
in Western metaphysics is based on an inadequate grasp of the phenomenological, or, as Caputo prefers to write, "aletheiological ", sense which
the word "being" has for Heidegger. No doubt this has been pointed out
before, for instance in Josef Van de Wiele's Zijnswaarheid en Onverborgenheid (Louvain, 1964), and in reviews of the above-named authors'
works but Caputo's is perhaps the most lucid and meticulous treatment
of the issue, providing a foolproof antidote to the tiresome misunderstandings which the interferences of Thomistic and Heideggerian diction can
generate.
Even more valuable than this critique of his predecessors is Caputo's
nuanced account of the stages of Heidegger's dialogue with scholasticism,

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from his early efforts " to bring the results of medieval logic to bear on
the problems of contemporary German logic " (p. 21) to his critique of
scholasticism from the position of Being and Time in 1928 and the more
radical critique worked out in the Nietzsche lectures of 1941. Caputo's
discussion of Carl Braig's influence on the young Heidegger (pp. 45-57)
reveals how a blend of Schelling and scholasticism could nourish the
project of a phenomenology of being, for instance when such words as
the following are translated into phenomenological observations: " All
the attempts to give Being conceptual determinations are defective and
contradictory. Being is a 'position,' 'positing,' 'doing,' 'energy,' 'affirmation,' ' ground of possibility ' : these and similar definitions mix up the
primary characteristic marks found in beings with the essential character
of Being" (Braig, cit. p. 51). Caputo suggests that the young Heidegger's reflections on " the Being of meaning, the status and 'realm' of
meaning" (p. 31) might have led to "a breakthrough in Scholastic
thought comparable to the initiatives of Marechal and Rahner" ( p. 17).
But his quest for "a really philosophieal assessment of Scholasticism"
(Heidegger, op. eit., p. 18) was abandoned during 1917-1918, years in
which he sought "a fundamental clarification of my philosophical standpoint" (Heidegger, op. eit., p. 56) which made "the system of Catholicism problematic and unacceptable to me-but not Christianity and
metaphysics (the latter, to be sure, in a new sense)" (ibid) .
In 1928 Heidegger sees the obscurities in the scholastic discussion of
existence and essence as arising from a failure to trace these concepts
back to their foundation in experience. " On this account, Scholasticism
is a species of objectivism; that is, it takes the products of thought to
be things in themselves which have somehow entered our world without
our cooperation" (p. 72). Heidegger finds the origin of both concepts in
the horizon of human productivity; they represent being as
duced; other modes of being cannot be constrained within their limits,
least of all human being. Thus " medieval ontology, despite all its talk
about the ' analogy ' of Being, in fact moved within a univocal horizon
of Being as presence-at-hand" (p. 80), missing the many other ways in
which the ontological difference comes into play. A transcendental,
phenomenological Thomism could elude this critique, in Caputo's opinion.
But when Heidegger later situates medieval ontology in a " history of
being " it becomes clear that the basic structure of Thomistic ontology,
as a participational interplay of esse and ens, is only one of the epochal
variants of the difference between being and beings, all of which fall short
of the underlying dif-ference (.Austrag) whose phenomenality metaphysics
cannot apprehend. " In opening up the difference which prevails at any
given time, the dif-ference determines the whole horizon of manifestedness, the whole shape of appearance in a given epoch" (p. 156). Caputo

BOOK BEVIEWS

479

dvelops superbly the implications of this view for Thomistic participationalism.
But he then lamely describes the limit of Thomism in the following quite
different terms : " Though he· knows that there are matters higher than
scientia, such as faith itself, mystical and finally beatific union, he is
nonetheless content to confine his experience within the concepts and
propositions of a science, without insisting that the meaning of esse is
destroyed by the very scientific mode of expression " (p. 157). What is
wrong with this is that faith, mysticism, and the beatific vision do not
seem to have anything to do with being in Heidegger's aletheiological
sense and that Heidegger's effort to trace the texture of metaphysical
thought back to its non-metaphysical origins is here simply abandoned
in favor of a stark contrast between experience on the one hand and
concepts and propositions on the other. Caputo has run together two
possible deconstructive approaches to Thomas, a theological deconstruction which would contrast his experience of faith with its conceptual
articulation (by playing on the internal tensions of that articulation) and
a philosophical one which would overcome his ontological categories in
view of an underlying experience of being. The result of this conflation
is that both the goal and the target of the deconstruction are blurredundifferentiated " experience " is a far less precise goal than Heidegger's
" clearing " (which is not at all mystical and has nothing to do with
faith) and a war against "concepts and propositions" in general is a
poor substitute for the patient and strategic questioning of a particular
set of concepts in view of their inadequation to a particular theme. A
deconstruction of Thomas is immensely difftcult by reason of the seamless, dispassionate character of his thought, which reveals no failles to the
naked eye. The latent tensions between whole mountain ranges of argument would have to be uncovered before a deconstruction could begin.
A theologian might seek tensions between the biblical material and its
rational formalization. Caputo indicates a promising opening for a
philosophical deconstruction when he suggests that "the unmediated unity
of intellectus and esse" (p. 256) is the goal of Thomist thought and that
the "enigmatic and non-conceptual element" (p. 257) of esse generates a
paradox at the heart of his otherwise so rational and conceptual system.
Yet he goes on to admit that " the paradigms of Being as presence and
of thinking as the beholding (intuitus) of pure presence " (p. 273) are
quite essentially metaphysical. This would not be such a damaging concession if Caputo had traced the tensions between esse and its formalization in the actual texture of Thomas's writing and shown how they point
beyond the explicit content of his texts. But as it is Caputo does not
even convincingly demonstrate the existence of these· tensions; form and
the formless have happily coexisted in metaphysics at least since Plotinus.

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Much less does he sollicit these tensions in order to prise open the text
of Aquinas to a counter-metaphysical reading.
Instead Caputo looks to what he calls the "sphere of possibilities which
inhere in [Thomas's] thought" (p. 274) and to which he is guided by
tales of Thomas's last days attributed to Reginald of Piperno, his secretary, and by Meister Eckhart who is seen as :finally making explicit the
mystical sense of Thomistic esse and intellectus. Heidegger is accused
of losing his earlier sensitivity to "the depth dimension in the medieval
experience of Being" (p. 251) and of taking medieval ontology at its
face value instead. But this depth dimension as Caputo explains it
seems to have little to do with being at all. He says that Thomas is
largely free of ontotheology because " reason is subordinate to faith, to
mysticism" (p. 250) in his thinking. But this seems to be not a philosophical freedom (a freedom in view of the phenomenality of being) but
a theological one (the Christian vision is not absorbed by metaphysical
reason). The principle of sufficient reason may still be at an incubatory
stage of development in Thomas and its hold may be broken when the
mystery or freedom of God are in question. But what intrinsically philosophical opposition to this principle can be found in Thomas is never
clarified by Caputo. To speak of Thomas's statement that " all that I
have written seems like straw to me" as "a ' step back' out of metaphysics which enables him to see the ' essence ' of metaphysics, to see
metaphysics for what it is, the straw of scientia" (p. 254) and as an admission "into the very Sache of metaphysics, which metaphysics itself is
unable to name without distortion " (ibid.) seems to me an abuse of
Heideggerian terminology. Heidegger's elegant account of the history of
being depends for its coherence on the notion that being is the matter for
thinking, rather than for faith or mysticism. The " step back " out of
metaphysics is a return to the origins of metaphysical thinking, origins
which cannot be located in biblical faith or mystical experience.
It is true that Eckhart's Gelassennheit can be interpreted as "the
sheltering of the mystery of God from the assault of metaphysics " ( p.
278) and that Heidegger can imitate the Eckhartian attitudes in his
thinking on being. One might also trace a certain ontological Gelassenheit
in Thomas, differentiating it from more strictly religious attitudes with
which it is conjoined. But the relation of this to the overcoming of metaphysics as a philosophical project may not be as direct as Caputo supposes. In Eckhart's abandonment to God " the paradigm of the Greek
spectator, of the onlooker, which reaches all the way from Parmenides to
Husserl, is entirely overcome" (p. 277). But are Eckhart's images of
" the naked unity of the soul and God" (ibid.) really so non-Hellenic?
Are we not still within the orbit of Neo-Plafonism? As for poor Parmenides, it is odd to find him transferred to the divine bosom as follows :

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" There in the Godhead itself, a concealed unity of Being and thought
holds sway, which eye has not seen and ear heard" (p. 280). This togetherness of being and thinking has nothing in common with the Parmenidean one Heidegger tried to explicate phenomenologically. Caputo
points beyond Heidegger to "a thinking which has been released from
th conditions of finitude " and for which " there is only presence and only
manifestedness " (p. 280). But to the ear of those as yet unbeatified
such language can only be understood as that of the metaphysics of
presence, which occludes the true phenomenality of being as a wresting
from concealment. It is unclear how these religious representations can
help us in the thinking of being, which is a rather sober, this-worldly task,
since by "being" Heidegger never means anything transcending world.
For its account of Heidegger and scholasticism and for its critique of
previous studies on the topic this book is of great value. The positive
suggestions of its last chapter remain, however, unconvincing, and leave
unmet the daunting challenge of a deconstructive Heideggerian reading
of Aquinas. Every student of philosophy or theology concerned with the
task of "overcoming metaphysics " will nonetheless be gratefnl to Caputo
for his original and thought-provoking contribution to the debate.
JOSEPH

STEPHEN O'LEARY

Wittgenstein on Rules and Private Language. By SAUL KRIPKE. Cam150. $12.50.
bridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1982. Pp. x

+

Saul Kripke's Wittgenstein on Rules and Private Language is an account of the argument in ## 137-243 of Philosophical Investigations. This
central section of the book, as Kripke reads it, constructs a " sceptical
paradox" concerning rule-following, and then presents a "sceptical solution" restoring the intelligibility of rule-following through appeal to actions performed in the context of public practices. The paradox is stated
in PI 201: "No course of action could be determined by a rule, because
every course of action can be made out to accord with the rule." This
problem amounts to a paradox that destroys the notion of acting in accord with a rule, since "there would be neither accord nor conflict " in
such a situation. The solution is also stated in PI 201 : " There is a way
of grasping a rule which is not an interpretation, but which is exhibited
in what we call ' obeying the rule ' and ' going against it' in actual cases."
Both paradox and solution involve rejection of the idea that our assurance that we are following a rule stems from private, " internal" awareness of the rule's guidance through our
apprehension of its

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import in the particular ease. But this idea seems especially difllcult to
reject in two sorts of eases: our recognition of our own sensations, and
our application of mathematical rules. In these eases the persistent intuition that private mental activities actually constitute rule-following
seems very attractive. The chief apparent counter-examples, then, to
Wittgenstein's approach to rule-following lie in two fields: philosophy of
mind and philosophy of mathematics. Thus his otherwise disparate interests in these two areas are united by their supplying the cases in which
as Kripke puts it, "Wittgenstein's basic approach is most likely to seem
incredible" (p. 4). So the so-called "private language argument" following PI 243 is " a special ease of much more general considerations
previously argued" in the book (p. 2).
This way of fitting the " private language argument " into the thematic
structure of the Investigations will be familiar to readers of Robert Fogelin's Wittgenstein and of the collection of essays called Wittgenstein: To
Follow a Rule, edited by Holtzmann and Leich. Kripke, however, noting
in his preface the recent prevalence of this view, mentions his own dil'lcussions of it stretching over the past twenty years. Wherever its origins
may be in published and unpublished discussions of Wittgenstein's work,
Kripke's approach is more than a current fashion in the long and complicated process of interpreting Wittgenstein. It rests on an insight that
allows Wittgenstein's later work to be organized, in large part, around
a central theme whose defense and application unites much that seems
otherwise only loosely related. It also allows Wittgenstein to be located,
in the history of philosophy, with those who have taken the chief philosophical task to be the deflation of the pretensions of rationalism. Kripke,
for instance, devotes considerable attention to the comparison of Wittgenstein's arguments with the mitigated scepticism of Hume.
Though he designates the problem of rule-following as "the central
thread" in Wittgenstein's later work, Kripke is aware that many stlidents
of Wittgenstein are likely to find troublesome any strategy that treats his
literature as a skein of argumentation. He says that the argument is
neither quite his own nor quite that af Wittgenstein's teXt. Rather, it is
" Wittgenstein's argument as it struck Kripke" (p. 5). Within this
understanding, he keepl'l to his role as expositor rather than commentator.
He reminds the reader repeatedly that he is just unpacking, not endorsing, Wittgenstein's position. These disclaimers convey the impression
that Kripke has much to say-critically-about Wittgenstein's arguments,
and that he is only holding his fire for the time being in order to preserve
the stylistic unity of this book as an expository essay. Indeed, after an
unflattering comparison of Wittgenstein's tactics with Berkeley's extravagantly counterintuitive claim to be defending common sense, Kripke
lets his prose tr&il off intq !tll. \llleonch1ding"series of dots. The reader is

BOOK REVIEWS

48$

struck by the impression of the author's having exercised great forbearance.
The dominance of Humean parallels in. Kripke's exposition reflects his
vision of Wittgenstein's position as "a new form of philosophical scepticism" (p, 7). His main example is an elaboration of PI 185: the continuation of a series of numbers .derived according to an ordinary computational rule. The sceptic challenges whether there is any fact of mean,..
ing a computational rule that justifies its extension to new cases in one
way rather than some other. What justifies our oonfidence that in summing 57 and 68, and coming out with 125, we have consistently followed
the rule we followed in saying that "57 + 66 = 123," and that " 57
+ 67 = 124 "T When doing those earlier sums, did we already mean
that the sum of 57 and 68, when we came to it, would be 125 7 If so, what
did that " meaning it " consist in, and what gives that act of meaning its
remarkable force! Or if not, what justifies our confidence that in the new
computation we have gone on in the same way7
Wittgenstein, of course, devotes much of the Investigations to the repudiation of the idea that an inner act of meaning travels ahead ·of our
actual practice, fixing as it were in advance what will count as following
the rule in all future applications. Then in what does rule-following consist T Without appeal to a private apprehension of the rule that guides us
in its application,· how can we meet the sceptic's challenge and show that
we do know what counts as going on in the same way? Unless the challenge can be met or evaded, we cannot distinguish following a rule from
acting against a rule, or acting indeed in the absence of rules. The very
notion of regular, intelligible action would vanish. The problem of rulefollowing, thus, is at the very center of our concerns about the nature of
rationality.
Because a dispositional account of rule-following has enjoyed some
currency as the resolution of this sceptical predicament, and because
Wittgenstein's own solution has sometimes been read as dispositionalist,
Kripke, at some length, criticizes dispositionalism as neither adequate nor
properly Wittgensteinian. He argu.es that the dispositionalist misconceives the sceptic's challenge. The appeal to dispositions cannot tell me
what to do in applying the rule to a new case; it can only describe whatever it is that in fact I do. By way of arguing this point, Kripke offers
a valuable aside : " Wittgenstein does not base his considerations on any
behavioristic premise that dismisses the 'inner." On the contrary, much of
his argument consists of detailed introspective considerations" (p. 44).
Having rejected dispositionalism, he moves to his own reading of Wittgenstein's "scepticism." The main exl'lository device here is a series of
comparisons to Hume. Like Hume, Wittgenstein eschews what Kripke
calls " straight solutions " in favor of a " sceptical solution." A " straight

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solution " is one that directly refutes the sceptic's challenge. A " sceptical solution," on the other hand, begins by conceding that the challenge is
unanswerable, but goes on to justify the belief or practice in question by
showing that it does not need the kind of justification which the sceptic
has shown it to lack. On the strength of this Humean parallel, Kripke
enters an extended discussion of Wittgenstein's later philosophy of language, blending in useful remarks on the thematic structure of the Investigati.ons.
The idea that dominates Kripke's account of this topic is, naturally,
the essentially public nature of rule-following: its dependence on social
convention, accepted practice, and the fact that-in a case like additionwe agree in our results sufficiently to give our rule-governed procedures
their continuity and coherence. He discusses, briefly, " agreement,"
" form of life," and "criteria," concluding the main body of his essay
with a recapitulation of the ''private language argument " in which its
major thrust is construed as a general refutation of the " private model "
of rule-following. Whatever his own reservations about its adequacy,
Kripke here articulates succinctly and accurately the central themes of
Wittgenstein's later philosophy.
In an extended " Postscript," he applies this reading of Wittgenstein's
" sceptical solution " to the problem of other minds. Kripke traces Wittgenstein's concern with this issue from the Tractatus (where he again
emphasizes the parallels with Hume) through the transitional literature
(where he emphasizes the influence of Lichtenberg). Recognizing both
that these problems antedate Wittgenstein's stress on the sceptical problem about rule-following and that these problems involve traditional issues
rooted in Descartes and Hume, Kripke's project in this postscript is to
show how Wittgenstein handles them in the Investigations as instances of
his more general " sceptical solution."
The "sceptical paradox" in this case, as Kripke puts it, is that " it
seems impossible to imagine the mental life of others on the model of
our own" (p. 133). He says that Wittgenstein concedes this conclusion,
rather than attempt a " straight solution" by overcoming the challenge
with an inferential argument from my own experience to the existence
of other minds. So the " sceptical solution " must be to show how it is
that our practices of ascribing sensations to others can be intelligible
without backing from the kind of theory attacked by the sceptic. In his
portrayal of that solution, Kripke manages adroitly to avoid certain
typical misconstruals of Wittgenstein's view on other minds. He avoids
the pitfall of reading Wittgenstein as a behaviorist (especially tempting
in third person sensation language) and the opposite trap of reading him
as a dualist who supposes that we infer the sensations of others on the
basis of behavioral criteria. These misconstruals share the idea that the

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485

logic of sensation language differs drastically between first and third persons because I possess in my own case a privileged, arlicul«te acquaintance with my own sensations. But this notion is just what the repudiation of private rule-following makes impossible. My acquaintance with
my own sensations becomes articulate (becomes part of a rule-governed
system of identification, description, etc.) only in a setting that already
involves a complex of learned and instinctive behaviors and practices in
which others-and their pains-are intimately implicated. Thus the logic
of all sensation language is pushed into a public domain, in which alone
the idea of consistent, intelligible practice can gain a footing.
But Kripke concludes with an expression of dissatisfaction over Wittgenstein's handling of the issues. He writes: " Clearly much more needs
to be said here: a few sketchy remarks . . . hardly give a complete
theory" {p. 145). But what sort of theory is it that Kripke, in the face
of Wittgenstein's " sceptical paradoxes and solutions," believes to be
both needed and possible'! One sort of theory would be a more complete
account of the ways in which sensation language is taught and acquired,
a detailing of the place various sorts of sensation language hold in human
Jives, a deeper account of the social conventions supported by or required
by our talk about sensations, and so on. But what philosophical problems would these explorations into what Wittgenstein called " our natural
history " solve 'I Or does Kripke aim for a theory in a more ambitious,
more traditionally " philosophical " sense-a theory that would overcome the " sceptical paradoxes" and provide a " straight solution " to the
problem of other minds'! If so, is such a theory to be more general, anchoring perhaps all our rule-following in something other than human
agreement in the use of public criteria 'I Would the theory constitute an
attempt to restore the rationalism under attack in Wittgenstein's
" scepticism 'I "
JOHN CHURCHILL

Hendrix College
Conway, .Arkansas

Supererogation. By DAVID HEYD. Cambridge:
Press, 1982. Pp. 191. $29.50.

Cambridge University

This book remedies the lack of proportion between the importance of
acts of supererogation in everyday life and the attention they have received from philosophers. Relying heavily on both the Christian origins
of the theory of supererogation and on J. 0. Urmson's seminal article
"Saints and Heroes" {1958), Heyd shows: (1) how supererogation fits
(or does not fit, as the case may be) into the major ethical theories in the

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history of philosophy; and (2) how a contemporary philosopher can defend a theory of supererogation.
(1) The idea of supererogation was, strictly speaking, alien to the
classical ethics of virtue, since arete was not above and beyond the call of
duty. Nonetheless, some distinctions between what is strictly required and
what is virtuous but partly optional can be found in Aristotle and others.
Thus, classical ethics is pre-supererogatory rather than anti-supererogatory. The theological roots of supererogation in Christianity can be
traced back to the New Testament and to the Church Fathers, and especially to Saint Thomas Aquinas's treatment of the distinction between
precepts (like the ten commandments) and counsels (like perfect chastity). Opera supererogationis aroused one of the most heated theological
disputes in the sixteenth century when Protestants criticized the idea of
supererogation, largely because of the Catholic view that supererogatory
acts created a surplus of merit that could be tapped in the form of indulgences (even though the Protestants also indirectly held this view by
believing that Christ redeemed humanity from sin).
Perhaps because of this Protestant background, Kant became the most
forceful philosophical anti-supererogatonist. Deontology conquers axiology, so that an act is moral only if it is a duty. Even here, however,
Heyd finds Kantian texts that grant the intrinsic value of moral conduct
which transcends what is strictly required. The wider definition of
" moral " maintained by utilitarians makes it easier for them to explain
supererogation than Kant, especially if they are defenders of what Heyd
calls "negative utilitarianism." The most successful of all major ethical
theories, however, in explaining supererogation is contract theory, since
it takes justice (rather than virtue, duty, or utility) as the fundamental
concept of morality; Rawls and Richards are treated here.
(2) Heyd's own theory of supererogation is based on the following
definition: An act is supererogatory if and only if (A) it is neither obligatory nor forbidden; (B} its omission is not wrong; (C) it is morally
good, both by virtue of its consequences and by its intrinsic value; and
(D) it is done voluntarily for the sake of someone's else's good (p. 115).
Two further features of supererogation are needed to distinguish it from
duty: correlativity and continuity. The former means that supererogation
derives its special value from being more than duty requires. The latter
feature is necessary to show some interdependence between duty and supererogation. This feature is needed to avoid a Nietzschean escape from duty
altogether. Supererogation generally presupposes that one has already
met one's duties.
The author is to be commended for giving supererogation a solid footing in eontllmporary philosophy, and for rehabilitating the moral hero or
saint as paradigms in moral education. One small criticism : Heyd ad-

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487

mits that most moral heroes or saints say (perhaps mistakenly) that they
were only doing their duty when they performed their heroic or saintly
actions. One wonders whether a virtue-based morality or a version of
Kantian.ism which distinguishes between perfect and imperfect duties
might be better able to account for supererogation than Heyd admits.
DANIEL A. DOYBROWSKI

Creighton University
Omaha, Nebraska

Euthanasia and Clinical Practice: Trends, Principles and Alternatives.
Report of THE WORKING PARTY OF THE LINACRE
CENTER. London: 1982. Pp. 73 with Glossary and Note by A. J. L.
GOID.ULLY.

£2.75.

On June 28, 1980, John Pearson was born in Derby City hospital in
England. Four hours after his birth. Dr. Leonard Arthur learned that
his parents did not wish him to survive on account of the fact that he
suffered from Down's Syndrome. Dr. Arthur ordered "nursing care
only " which meant that the child was to be placed in a corner of the
nursery, given only water, and sedated so that he would not cry out for
food. After the baby died from starvation because the duodenal atresia
from which he suffered prohibited his taking food and because an operation for this condition was not permitted by the family, Dr. Arthur was
charged with attempted murder. However, on November 5, 1981, Dr .
.Arlhur was acquitted. Euthanasia and Clinical Practice: Trends, Principles and Alternatives is a book written by a number of noted physicians, moralists, jurists, theologians and health care professionals in response to this ease, and it challenges this decision and the arguments
proposed by euthanasiasts and courts to justify this and similar decisions.
This work is of topical interest on account of the recent decision of the
Indiana Supreme Court which forbade ordinary life-saving surgery on
a Down's Syndrome baby in order to uphold the supposed right of
parents to allow their handicapped child to die. As an attempt to reverse
the trend to give legal protection to infanticide, this work is a good and
noteworthy contribution. For the current practices of euthanasia are
reviewed in this book, along with criticisms of the arguments supporting this practice.
The ethical rurguments presented by the .working party are generally
in agreement with the principles enunciated by the magisterium. But, as
I will try to show here, the understanding of the authors of this work of

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these principles is not as complete and adequate as one would expect
from a group such as this. The principle of double effect is regularly
invoked by the authors to deal with difficult cases, but their understanding
of this principle is not fully clear, ·and this unclarity may confuse some
readers. This principle is explained as permitting an act that does not
intend the death of another even if the act does cause the other person's
death. Legitimate purposes and necessities can permit this kind of act
in which death is a side effect. A fuller explanation is needed if this
principle is to be properly used by clinicians and health care professionals. One may not only not intend the death of the other person as an end
in itself, but also as a means to another end, and the death of the person
cannot be entailed by the act of the agent as being caused necessarily,
universally and principally. The means chosen by the agent must be such
that the good effect which is brought about by the cause is not subordinated to the bad effect in the intention of the agent and in what the act
itself does. For, if there is a subordination of the good effect to the evil
effect, then the good effect will be brought about by means of the evil
effect.
The authors of this book appear to base their rejection of the morality
of euthanasia on the principle that euthanasia violates the rights of persons, and hence is a violation of the virtue of justice. There is nothing
inherently wrong with this view, but it does not go to the real heart of
the Roman Catholic criticism of euthanasia. The principles of the rights
of persons and of justice can be invoked, but the ultimate principle that
prohibits euthanasia is that which demands that life not be attacked in
either its being or its becoming. This principle is the foundation of the
magisterial teachings on contraception, abortion, murder and euthanasia.
The qualities and traits of human life are such that human life can never
be directly and intentionally destroyed or attacked. But what are these
qualities that warrant this absolute and unconditional prohibition of direct attack? What is it about human life that justifies such a severe restriction? In the mind of the magisterium and noted Catholic theologians,
human life is inviolable not precisely because it is a gift from God, as the
authors of this book contend, but because human life is created in the
image of God. The authors miss this point when they refer to a pronouncement of Pope John Paul II who said that human life was not only
a gift from God, but was also created in the image of God. As human
life is made in the divine image with reason and knowledge, it shares in
divine sovereignty over the universe by exercising dominion over creation and giving it reason and order. Human life shares 1n divine wisdom,
glory, power, life and knowledge and is created with the capacity to act
virtuously which enables it to share in the divine struggle against evil in
the universe. Even after the sin of Adam, this image was retained, and

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489

it permitted a limited knowledge of God. Because human life is created
in the image of God, a certain intimacy between God and the human being exists, and on account of this intimacy, it was believed by certain
Fathers that one who touched the human being was in a sense touching
God Himself. This intimacy with God on account of being made in His
image is not without responsibilities, for it is necessary to undertake certain duties to be faithful to this image. It is on account of the divine
image existing in human life thait sacredness is ascribed to human life,
and not precisely because human life is a gift from God. The mere fact
that human life is a gift from God does not generate an absolute and
unconditional prohibition againgt direct killing, as does the fact that
human life is created in the image of God.
This perspective is critical to any attempt to deal with the contentions
of euthanasiasts that selective killing of individuals is a better way to
preserve respect for the value of human life. They contend that it is pel"mitted to take human life when it is of very low quality, when the prospect of life with dignity is poor, and when human life will have very
little ability to function in a fully mature, responsible and independent
manner. In opposition to this view, it must be stressed that the theological opinion that human life is never to be directly taken is not only
theologically sound, but is an opinion that serves the ultimate ends of
seculax humanism better than does the opinion allowing selective
euthanasia. For these humanists claim that the dignity, freedom, order and
reasonableness of human life and community is served better by selectively
killing handicapped individuals. But an absolute prohibition of any direct killing serves this aim better because it never allows human life to be
intentionally and directly destroyed even when its supposed dignity, freedom, intelligence and capacity for exercising its capabilities is most burdened, debilitated and handicapped. For if one allows human life to be
taken when it suffers from these conditions, then one is not acting in behalf of and in alliance with reason, freedom, knowledge and dignity, but
in alliance with those elements and forces that handicap and destroy these
human qualities. In destroying human life that suffers from these handicaps, one is doing more to harm human life than what these diseases and
handicaps axe able to do. In proposing euthanasia as a solution to probblems of debilitation, the euthanasiasts are being unfaithful to the aims
of secular humanism which they claim to be so sincerely and faithfully
espousing and defending.
The sections of this book that deal with medical practice axe probably
the best as they delineate the rights of patients to refuse medical treatment and the duties of health care professionals to treat patients. The
discussion would have been helped if more emphasis was given to the
neces8ity of prudence and discretion in providing and accepting medical

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care. This work contends that one of the criteria which would allow a
patient to refuse medical treatment is that the patient be unable to cope
with the treatments for the reason that they are too burdensome. This
formulation could cause confusion as a clear distinction between the subjective capabilities of the patient and the objective characteristics of the
treatments was not drawn. And further confusion could result from the
failure to clarify what it is that constitutes a treatment as burdensome.
Burdensome treatments are those which cause or are associated with such
conditions that they are beyond the common and ordinary capabilities
of persons to tolerate. These treatments require an exercise of extraordinary or heroic fortitude, and therefore they cannot be made obligatory. There are burdens and risks that are common and ordinary, and
it can be expected and demanded that ordinary persons tolerate these
burdens. But others are so radical and extreme that only persons of rare
and uncommon fortitude can tolerate them, and even for them, there is
no moral guilt incurred if they should choose to refuse to tolerate them.
If a definition of this nature was proposed by the working party, more
light might have been shed on this difllcult problem.
This work is of value in that it is a clear and concise statement of the
substantial arguments and principles to be made against euthanasia. It
also presents a clear and up-to-date picture of the practice of euthanasia
in the English-speaking world. More works from this working party
are planned, and they should be eagerly awaited, for their quality should
be quite superior. Euthanasia and Olinical Practice: Trends, Principles
and Alternatives is of great value of health care professionals who are
in need of a brief and clear statement of the Church's teachings on
euthanasia. And moralists and theologians who are interested in this
issue will find the picture of current p:ractices of euthanasia to be enlightening.
RoBERT L. BARRY, O.P.
Pope John XXIII Oenter
St. Louis, Missouri

Psychoanalysis and Religious Experience, W .W. MEISSNER, S.J., M.D.;
New Haven, Yale University Press, 1984; pp. 244 with index. $25.00.
The title of this book, "Psychoanalysis and Religious Experience ",
should rather read, "Religious Experience and Psychoanalysis", since the
subject directly discussed is religious experience, and psychoanalysis is
only the investigative tool. Perhaps the reason for inverting what would
ordinarily be chosen as the appropriate .order is to emphasize the func-

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491

tfon of the tool-that psychoanalysis provides uniquely effective devices
for understanding religion.
The author, priest and psychoanalyst, has been researching and publishing on the interface between psychoanalysis and religion for more
than twenty years. This, his latest opus, is intended to move the status
quaestionis several steps further towards a mutually more beneficial interaction between Freudian theorists 'and Christian theologians. During
the past thirty or more years, the climate of psychoanalytic/theological
diitlogue has ripened to a degree, with attitudes on both sides of the issues
expanding and compenetrating. Theologians are more aware of the
darker, less tractable sides of human nature; psychoanalysts have expanded their systematic accounts to embrace the freer, more responsible
dimensions of the mind. Fr. Meissner sums up the advances that have
been obtained, presents some thoughtful analysis of issues that profit from
a cross-disciplinary exchange, and points to future directions.
The book is divided into three parts. In the first part, Freud's works
on religion, especially " The Future of an IDusion ", are re-examined,
with closer attention to the inner dynamics of Freud's own personal attitudes, how they emerged out of his early life experiences and how they
influenced his later conceptualizations and evaluations. Reading this
section of the book, one can get the impression that Freud's writings are
to be taken as a kind of scripture, to be interpreted and enlarged upon
and modified in the light of broader perspectives, to be sure, but always
to be taken reverent1ally, acknowledging a privileged position for them
in the corpus of psychoanalytic literature. For non Freudians, this reverential concern can seem to lead to an over-investment of time and energy
in a debate that is no longer intrinsically active. On the other hand, this
section can be read simply as a speculative psychoanalysis of Freud's own
religious complexes.
The second section of the book, which is for this reviewer the more
illuminating and valuable study, analyzes phases of religious development in the light of psychoanalytic concepts · and .formulations, and proposes an ·epigenetic view of religion in which various beliefs, attitudes,
practices and rituals are related to stages of psychological growth, and
represent successful developmental achievements integrated into the
healthy, mature personality, along with residual deficits and archaic
remnants which reflect difficulties which were encountered in the process
of moving from one stage to another, and the persistence of unresolved
elements from various developmental strata.
In particular, the author designates five modes of religious experience
which he relates to five stages of psychological development, four of
which are presented from the psychoanalytic perspective. Primary narcissism is the. original psychic condition, which proceeds successively to

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the first and fundamental differentiation of self and other, then to the
achievement of a cohesive self capable of relating in a stable fashion
to others, and then to the formation and consolidation of the superego.
The fifth and final mode of religious experience is signaled by the integration of drives and their derivatives with autonomous ego functions,
representative of a religious sense which is mature and realistic.
The author indicates that there is also a sixth mode of religious experience, the experience of the mystics who, while maintaining a high degree of ego structure and function in their day-to-day relationships with
the real world and real people enter from time to time into an embrace
with the Transcendent in which ego boundaries are dissolved in ecstatic
union. His interesting speculation is that the energies involved on the
human side of ecstacy and the psychic level touched in the embrace belong to the level of primary narcissism-.the most primitive and deepest
drive components of the psyche obtain expression and discharge at the
point where reality is touched by the Beyond and nature is raised to
supernature.
The author suggests the use of the concept of the 'transitional object',
as this concept is being elaborated in contemporary psychoanalytic literature, as a tool for examining the whole array of religious beliefs, attitudes, conceptions, symbols and rituals. A transitional object is an object which has its own reality independent of the psyche, but is also invested with instinctual energies which create a psychic reality that may
be called illusion or· symbol. The transitional object functions as an intermediary tool, enabling the psyche gradually to relinquish attachments
appropriate to one stage of development and to move on to the next
stage with its greater degree of reality orientation. In this understanding, religious beliefs and attitudes and rituals of one stage of psychic
development are illusions, or contain illusory components, which are
only perceived as such and relinquished when a higher stage of development is achieved. Meanwhile, although illusory, they exert a valuable influence by facilitating transition. Perhaps .St. Paul expressed it when he
wrote: " When I became a man I put away the things of a child" and
yet in· this life we never get beyond seeing things as in a mirror darkly.
It would be interesting to see what Scripture scholars could produce,
using these psychoanalytic concepts and formulations as tools for interpreting the Bible, starting from the earliest and most primitive expressions of religious beliefs and attitudes, which are akin to representatives
of the second and third modes of religious experience, oomparing them
with the sense of religion in post-exilic Judaism, which shows developments characteristic of the fourth mode, and with the New Testament,
which opens to the fifth mode and invites to the sixth.
In· the third section of the book, Meissner closes in on the gaps which

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separate psychoanalytic theorizing from the concepts and formulas of
theologians, beginning with the over-all image of man. He expresses
satisfaction that middle grounds are emerging in which fruitful dialogue
can :flourish. Freud's original models of human nature were dynamic
but also mechanistic and reductionistic, in sharp contrast to the static
theological models focusing on free will, human responsibility and openness to Divine grace. Now the lines have shifted and blurred. Psychoanalysis has developed an ego psychology and in its clinical literature
relies more on concepts of interpretation and meaning to further its research. Theology has moved from ontological to phenomenological perspectives wherein interpretation and meaning are also central issues. The
rapprochement is evident.
The particular issues which illustrate the rapprochement to greater or
lesser degree are the tensions and balances of consciousnesses vs. the unconscious, freedom vs. determinism, teleology vs. causality, epigenesis vs.
reductionism, morality vs. instinct, and the supernatural vs. the natural.
On the issue of consciousness vs. the unconscious, the author sees little
ground left for serious disparity between the points of view of religion
and psychoanalysis. The debates over the issues of freedom and determinism, teleology and causality and epigenesis and reductionism have
similarly diminished in intensity. The two areas in which a deeper and
perhaps ultimately irreconcilable tension remains are the issues of morality vs. instinct and the supernatural vs. the natural. However the disagreements in these areas do not arise precisely from the psychoanalytic
point of view as psychoanalytic but from broader and deeper divergencies
wherein psychoanalysts assume the postulates of naturalism and scientism.
There is nothing inherent in psychoanalytic techniques or theories wliich
necessitates these particular philosophical stances and nothing to prevent
psychoanalysts from assuming others.
In sum, Fr. Meissner's study makes a healthy contribution to the ongoing dialogue between religion and psychoanalysis. On the side of religion, a serious reading would profit theologians, biblical scholars and
students of comparative religion, although a pre-requisite is a fairly
thorough-going grasp of psychoanalytic concepts and theories. On the side
of analysts, the book provides insights into religion from perspectives
familiar to them and compatible with their habits of thinking, and undoubtedly useful for understanding the religious attitudes of their patients. Hopefully, this study will provide impetus for further research on
the same interface.
MIOHAEL STOCK, O.P.
St. Stephen's Priory
Dover, Mass.