FROM EPISTEMOLOGY

W

TO METAPHYSICS

HAT I HOPE to do in what follows is to sketch
how one might go about constructing a rational,
ritical, and in a sense 'scientific' metaphysics.
It goes without saying that a great many current conceptions of ' metaphysics ' are abusive. On one account, ' metaphysics ' is whatever isn't science or common sense, where
science and common sense are assumed to be good things. On
another, 'metaphysics' consists of an abuse of language which
is brought about by a wrenching of it out of its normal context.
Again, ' metaphysics ' is supposed to substitute a bloodless
dance of categories for the spontaneous outflow of religious
feeling, or idolatrous human constructions for the Word of
God. However, it seems in general much clearer that metaphysics is to be contemptuously repudiated than exactly what
it is.
A traditional definition of metaphysics is ' the study of
being qua being'. It is perhaps understandable that many
should complain, when confronted by such a sententious
formula, that such an inquiry is a waste of time, and one had
much better get on with the more fruitful business of pursuing
one of the particular sciences. (Ezra Pound once remarked
that, since the Renaissance, a philosopher had been someone
who was too damned lazy to work in a laboratory; and the
same may be felt to apply a fortiori to the metaphysician.)
And yet there are problems which do not seem to go away,
however often it is confidently asserted that they have done
so or are about to do so, problems which might be said to be concerned with ' being ' or ' reality ' at a very high level of generality. Those who brush the problems aside may perhaps sometimes be suspected of arbitrarily taking sides on them. For
example, the psychological doctrine known as behaviorism is

206

HUGO MEYNELL

based on the assumption that all talk about thoughts, feelings,
and emotions is in the final analysis reducible to talk about the
behavior of organisms. But it is one thing to allow such an
assumption to dominate one's work, another to set it clearly,
another still to examine and to justify it. If any examination
of the account of the relation of mind to matter implied by
behaviorism has to be of such generality as to enter the realm
of the 'metaphysical ', it would seem to be still worth carrying
out, unless indeed we are to accept behaviorism quite uncritically as a dogma. Just the same applies to writing which
assumes the existence of non-existence of a Deity. The fact is
that every passage of speech or writing which exists, and
makes claims as to matters of fact, involves certain assumptions about the ultimate constituents of things, and about the
nature and interrelations of appearance, reality, mind, matter,
experience, causality, things, properties, events, space, time,
God, and so on. Let us call each such set of basic assumptions
(including the ones mentioned earlier, that talk about minds
is reducible to talk about the behavior of organisms, that there
is or is not a God) a 'metaphysic'. Let us say that 'metaphysics ' is an attempt to discuss, and to come to well-founded
conclusions on, the question as to whether any such ' metaphysic ' is to be preferred, as more closely approximating to
the truth about how things are in the world, to any other.
Empiricism, idealism, materialism, critical realism, and naive
realism, will at this rate each be a 'metaphysic'; that is to
say, each consists of theses about the existence, nature and interrelations of actual or alleged basic constituents of reality like
those listed above. Any attempt to discuss the rival merits of
any of them, or .to defend any one as more appropriate than the
others, will count as ' metaphysics '. The arguments by which
Plato, Leibniz, or Hegel established their conclusions about
the ultimate nature of things evidently count as ' metaphysics '
according to our conception; and this does seem in conformity
with ordinary usage. Perhaps it is obvious that one such
'metaphysic' (say, materialism) is to be preferred to the rest;

FROM EPISTEMOLOGY

TO METAPHYSICS

207

or at least that another such (say, idealism) should be repudiated; but it would be as well all the same to have the
reasons for this spelled out, just in case they turned out to be
prejudices. So many things which have seemed to go without
saying, like the geocentric cosmology, have turned out to be
wrong. And the notion of ' absolute rest' seemed obviously
applicable and unproblematic to most people, until Einstein
showed otherwise.
' Metaphysics ', as I have already mentioned, is often abusively contrasted with science. But what is it, it may reasonably be asked, except the acclaim of persons who are well placed
socially, that makes science science, as opposed, say, to opinion
or speculation? What is the essence of science, and on what
articulate basis is it to be distinguished from what is not
science? Science, it would commonly be claimed, is constituted
by a method which makes its statements liable to approach
the truth about the world. What is this method, and why do
those who use it tend to approximate to the truth about
things? I believe that attention to the ramifications of this
question is a good way of finding the right method for metaphysics. As Thomas Kuhn asked, in what kind of world
is scientific inquiry possible? 1 This question is of too great
a level of generality to be itself scientific, but it does not appear at least at first sight to be either senseless or unimportant.
I do not think that attention to the implications of the possibility of science in the world leads ineluctably to the crude
metaphysics known as 'scientism '. But scientism is, I believe,
a plausible parody of the truth, which is perhaps the reason
why it is as dogmatically accepted by some as it is passionately
rejected by others. 'Science is the measure of all things' says
Wilfred Sellars, 'of what is that it is, and what is not that it
is not '. 2 Now if one means by 'science' the application of the
1 T. S. Kuhn, The StJ·ucturc of Scientific Revolutions
(Chicago: Chicago University Press, 1962), 172. '(The) problem-What must the world be like in
order that man may know it:- ... is as old as science itself, and remains unanswered.'
2 W. C. Sellars, Science, Perception
and Reality (London: Routledge and
Kegan Paul, 1963), 173.

QOS

HUGO MEYNELL

methods 0£ physics, chemistry, and biology exactly as they
are to all phenomena, it seems to me that Sellars's remark
is certainly false, for rerusons which I will give presently. However, if one means by 'science' a generalized employment of
methods exemplified by science at its best, with each type of
case handled in the manner appropriate to it, it seems to me
correct. I will also try to bring out that the application of
such methods, so far from being destruotive of anything worth
calling a metaphysic, not only provides a viable approach to
metaphysics, but issues in a metaphysic of a recognizably
traditional kind.
The error of scientism is that it applies uncritically to the
whole of reality a series of conclusions which have been arrived
at by the investigation of one aspect of it, typically the physical
and chemical. How can we know that it is an error? The pattern of argument by which we can know it will be found to be
applicable, interesitingly enough, to every erroneous type of
metaphysic. Scientism can be shown to be self-destructive, in
the following way. Why does anyone reasonably believe what
the scientist says about his speciality? He can only do so on
the assumption that the scientist says what he does because
it is reasonable for him to do so. And what does the scientist's
reasonableness consist in? It implies that he has, or at least
that his authorities have, attended to the available evidence
relevant to the subject; that he or they have envisaged a
number of ways of accounting for that evidence; and that he
or they present their conclusions as the ways in which that
evidence may best be accounted for. Let us say that a person
is attentive to the degree that he takes account of evidence;
intelligent so far as he envisages a large rather than a small
range 0£ hypotheses to account for it; reasonable to the extent
that he judges any hypothesis to be true on the basis of the
available evidence. Now, in accordance with scientism, human
behavior, including human expression of opinion, is never
to be accounted for as due to attentiveness, intelligence, and
reasonableness, since these are not and cannot be reduced to

FROM EPISTEMOLOGY

TO METAPHYSICS

the laws of physics and chemistry. Therefore it is not really
the case that the physicist or the chemist propounds his theories
because there is good reason for him to do so; or that anyone
accepts their theories for good reason. The scientism which is
often supposed to be a corollary of science, in fact, is destructive
of science. 3
Denial that attentiveness, intelligence, and reasonableness
really exist is of course not only destructive of science; it is
also destructive of itself. Suppose someone makes a such a
denial. Has he (or perhaps his authority) attended to the
evidence on the matter? Has he envisaged ways in which that
evidence might be accounted for? Does he make his denial
as the most satisfactory way of accounting for that evidence?
If he has not done all these things, there is no point in listening
to him; what he says is not advanced for good reason. But if
he has, he has used attentiveness, intelligence, and reasonableness in support of the judgment that attentiveness, intelligence and reasonableness do not exist. But is the emphasis
on these mental activities as constitutive of science at all subversive of the results of science? Not at all. On the contrary,
it encourages submission to the opinions of scientists within
their speciality, as they will be more likely than anyone else
to have attended to the relevant evidence, and to have canvassed the widest range of possible explanations; and hence
they will be best placed to make the correct judgments about
the aspects of the world with which they are concerned. But
it is one thing to have faith in scientists with respect to
matters within their expertise; quite another to put up with
deliverances on the overall nature of things put out by themselves or others on the basis of their work.
Someone might pel'haps say (though he would be less likely
to say it now than he would a few decades ago) that logic and
experience alone are enough for science.4 But, as has been clear
a Cf. B. .T. F. Lonergan, lYI et hod in 'l'heology (London: Darton, Longman and
Todd, 1972), 16-17.
4Cf. J. Monod, Chance and Necessity (London: Collins, 1972), 154.

210

HUGO MEYNELL

since the work of Hume, 5 there is no valid logical inference from
any series of particular observations to a generalisation; and
a fortiori, there is none to an explanatory hypothesis. A range
of observations may well be adequate grounds for supposing
that a white dwarf star may exist at a certain point in space;
but the hypothesis cannot be strictly inferred from the observations. And what applies to the exercise of intelligence appJies
also to that of reasonableness. I cannot logically infer any
observation statement from typical judgments of theoretical
science. Presumably the relevant observations support the
view that neutrinos exist against rival suppositions; but I cannot directly infer the relevant observations from the judgment
that there are neutrinos, or vice versa. Logic enormously
facilitates the exercise of intelligence and reasonableness, but it
cannot replace them in the diiScovery of what is so.
In expounding the work of W .V.0. Quine, Alex Orenstein
says in effect that what commits us to a metaphysic (Quine
would say an 'ontology')
is 'our moiSt literal referential
uses of language, our sciences. Hence the question of which
ontology we accept must be dealt with in terms of the role
an ontology plays in a scientific world view '. 6 It will be seen
from what I have iSaid that a dangerous ambiguity lurks in
this statement. What is presented as a 'scientific world view'
ought to make room not only for the objects actually described
and explained at any time by scientists, but for the activity and
achievement of scientists themselves; however, it very often
does not. In particular, a general account of things which
dismisses, in the name of science, all talk of inquiry, framing
of hypotheses, marshalling of evidence, and so on, as mere
'mentalism ', replaceable without remainder by a more ' scientific' way of talking, should be rejected out of hand.
One common objection to this kind of 'mentalism ' is that it
must lead to Ca.rtesian dualism, with minds cut off from each
Enquiry Concerning Human Understanding, Section IV, Part II,
Willard Van Orman Qu-ine (Boston: Twayne Publishers,
1977)' 52-3.
a A. Orenstein,

FROM EPISTEMOLOGY

TO METAPHYSICS

211

other and from extra-mental reality apart from the special
grace of God. Now the implied metaphysic is Cartesian to the
extent that it involves the possession by persons of properties,
and their entering into relations, which cannot be analysed
exhaustively in physical terms. But this by no means implies
that persons are cut off from knowledge of the real world or
of each other. For the real world is nothing other than what
one tends to get to know by the exercise of attentiveness, intelligence, and reasonableness. The notion that ' reality ' could
be utterly outside the range of our knowledge, in the manner
of Kant's' things in themselves', merely makes nonsense of our
conception of ' reality '. We learn the meaning of the term
' real ' (here is a useful leaf to be taken from the book of the
linguistic philosophers) by contrast with expressions like
'merely apparent' and 'unreal', in the context of making
judgments over-hastily or on insufficient evidence, and subsequently revising these judgments.
Husserl remarked that Descartes was on the track of discoveries still more important than those which he actually
made. If the sketch I have given of the foundations of knowledge is correct, then Descartes was largely right. He was by
no means misguided, in spite of what has been claimed by so
many recent philosophers, in searching for a reliable basis for
our knowledge of the world; he was also right in finding this
basis in facts supposal of the contradictory of which was selfdestructive, like doubt that one is a doubter. However, he
was wrong in thinking that the existence and veracity of God
hrud to be proved before we could be confident of our ability
to know the world by use of our intellectual and rational
powers. God, his argument runs, as a perfect being, will not
be such a cad as to allow Descartes to he deceived if Descartes
exerts himself as far as possible to achieve clear and distinct
ideas on every matter about which he inquires. But the underlying supposition, that the real world might somehow be other
than what we tend to get to know by intelligent and reasonable
investigation of evidence, is not really a coherent one. (I think

HUGO MEYNELL

that Descartes is right in seeing some connection between our
ability to know about a real external world and the reasonableness of belief in God; but that is another matter.) 7 The way
to the correct view on the matter is to attend first to the self-destructiveness of the theisis that true judgments are impossible,
and that one does not tend to make them by the envisagement
and testing of hypotheses in relation to experience; and second
to the fact that the real world is and can be nothing other than
what true judgments are about. Certainly, I can on the basis
of evidence make true judgments about myself; but, just as
certainly, I can on the basis of evidence make true judgments
about what is other than myself. There is, I suppose, a sense
(emphasized by Locke with his talk about ' secondary qualities ') in which my sensations are internal to myself, in my
ears or eyes or skin or (perhaps more strictly) in the relevant
parts of my brain. It seems to me that it is the assimilation of
judgment to sensation which has given rise to the Cartesian
bogey that one might be solitary in the universe. As the object
of my own judgment and that of others, I am and am as I am
as distinct from other persons and things.
The real world is not, at this rate, in spite of the claims or
the assumptions of empiricists, merely what we perceive or
might perceive; it is what we tend intelligently to conceive
and reasonably to affirm on the basis of experience. The socalled ' problem of obher minds ', a typica,l artifact of empiricism, is simply dissolved once one has grasped this principle. I cannot see or hear what you are thinking and feeling.
On the other hand, I can come up with various suppositions
as to what you may be thinking or feeling; and confirm one or
other as more likely to be so than the rest, by attention to your
noises and gestures. Operationism in physics may be seen to
be based on just the same error as behaviorism in psychology.
The fact that I cannot see or smell a neutron by no means
implies that I may not form the hypothesis that such a particle
1 I have tried to argue this at length in The Inteligible
mologiaal Argument (London: Macmillan, 1982).

Universe: A Oos-

FROM EPISTEMOLOGY

TO METAPHYSICS

exists, and propound the judgment that it does so as the best
explanation of a range of phenomena oonnected with bubblechambers and so forth. Similarly, the fact that I cannot perceive any person or event of the remote past does not imply
that I cannot have knowledge of such persons or events; since
that such a person acted in a certain way, or that such an
event took place, may account better than any rival supposition for evidence available in the present.
Something should be said about the role of questioning in
this account of knowledge. Though Plato and Aristotle were
both very interested in questioning, the subject has been comparatively neglected by later philosophers.
(Among the
moderns, R. G. Collingwood is a conspicuous exception.) One
comes by a hypothesis or hypotheses as a. consequence of
asking, with respect in typical cases to evidence available to
one's senses, 'What may this be?', or 'Why may this be so?'
The final step in coming to know consists in getting an answer
to the next question which arises, with respect to any hypothesis one has excogitated, 'Is that so?' It will be seen that
what I have called 'intelligence' is a matter of skill in asking
and answering the first kind of question, what I have called
' reasonableness ' the same with respect to the second. It is
characteristic of the second type of question, as opposed to
the first, that it can be answered ' Yes ' or 'No '. I cannot
answer ' Yes ' or ' No ' to the question, ' 'Vhat is the normal
temperature of human beings on the Fahrenheit scale? '; but
I can to the question ' Is the normal temperature of human
beings on the Fahrenheit scale 98.4?' I cannot answer 'Yes'
or' No' to the question 'Why, when I pass an electric current
through water, does the level of the water slowly go down,
and colourless and odourless gases appear at the terminals? '
But I can answer ' Yes ' or ' No ' to the question ' Does water
consist of hydrogen and oxygen?'
How are these epistemological principles to be applied to
metaphysics, and how is a metaphysic to be derived from
them? The main thing to be borne in mind is that the right
metaphysic is the obverse of the right epistemology; if this is

214

HUGO MEYNELL

the way in which one comes to know, that cannot but be the
fundamental nature and structure of what thus comes to be
known, or is to be known. The varieties of defective metaphysic on the market are all due to a relative emphasis on
one or two of the three mental faculties essentially involved
in coming to know at the expense of the rest. The naive realist
assumes, as Bernard Lonergan has expressed it, that ' what
is obvious in knowing is what knowing obviously is '; 8 before
you have taken a look, you have to make do with fantasies,
hunches, or theorizing, but once you have taken a look you
can just brush these mental constructions aside. This may seem
to do very well for some common-sense examples of knowledge; before I take a look, I may suppose that the cat is or
is not in the furnace room; but once I have taken a look, I
know that she is or is not. But this certainly will not do for
knowledge in history or theoretical science, or indeed for knowledge of the thoughts and feelings of other persons, since I
cannot take a look at Robert the Bruce, or a black hole, or
your toothache or musings on the demerits of my paper. The
idealist notices what is wrong with naive realism, and is impressed by the amount of mental construction involved in our
knowledge of things. But he infers from this that what naive
and critical realists both think of as the real and objective
world is nothing but a construction by the human mind. However, if the naive realist and the empiricist exaggerate the
role of experience in knowing, the idealist exaggerates the role
of constructive intelligence; both neglect the role of judgment
and of the exercise of 'reasonableness'.
The critical realist
agrees with the naive realist so far as he is convinced that what
we get at by our mental constructions exists and is as it is
largely prior to and independently of our mental constructions;
but he takes the idealist's point that mental constructions are
involved in getting at it. You do not make advances in knowledge in the manner of Kepler, Darwin or Einstein just by piling
sB. J. F. Lonergan, Insight: A Study of Human Understanding (London:
Longmans, Green and Co., 1957), 416. The account of metaphysics given here
is largely based on Lonergan's thought.

FROM EPISTEMOLOGY

TO METAPHYSICS

fll5

up observations. But that does not entail that such great
men made up their (and our) world by their brilliant intellectual constructions.
To which traditional brands of metaphysic does what I have
called critical realism most closely correspond? The first
Western philosopher to envisage ultimate reality as an intelligible somehow lying behind the sensible was Plato. Remarkably, he affirmed the importance of mathematics for apprehending that intelligible reality, a very long time before it
became a cliche that mathematics is the language of science.
The next important step was taken by Aristotle, who saw that
one got to know this intelligible reality, 'things in their causes'
as he put it, by dint of putting questions to experience. 9 He
also distinguished, though only in passing, the two types of
questions which I mentioned. Now whatever was made of
Aristotle and his influence at the time of the Renaissancewhen he was the pretext, as Bacon complained, for the substitution of ' agitation of wit ' for the detailed investigation of
has remained, and must remain in order
to be itself, a basically Aristotelian activity. After all, it can
only yield an increase in knowledge of the real world so far
as it asks the two types of question we have distinguished in
relation to an ever-widening range of phenomena. The next
important step was taken by Thomas Aquinas. On his view,
there are two a:spects of reality, ·each one corresponding to one
of the two types of question, 'what '-ness and 'that '-ness,
essence and existence. 'One might suggest that scientists will
find the philosophy they seek ', or perhaps rather ought to
seek, ' by reflecting on their method and through its structure
arriving at the corresponding, isomorphic epistemology and
metaphysics ';1•0 and this seems to turn out, in broad lines, to
Posterior Analytics, 11, 2.
J. F. Lonergan, Isomorphism of Thomist and Scientific Thought:
(Collection [London:
Darton, Longman and Todd, 1967], 151). Lonergan
remarks shrewdly that the traditional attachment of scientists to a mechanistic
view of reality is in fact due to a confused apprehension of the requirement
that reality should be intelligible.
9 Aristotle,

10 B.

HUGO MEYNELL

be Thomistic Aristotelianism. Observation is related to hypothesis as Thomist matter to form, hypothesis to verification
as Thomist essence to existence.
It is time to look at common objections to the metaphysical
enterprise, in the light of what has been said. Metaphysics, it
is complained, does not investigate the nature and structure of
reality, as it is often claimed to do, since this is done by science.
If the metaphysician protests that his business is to investigate
the whole of reality, while science only investigates a part, then
he ought to do this by compiling an encyclopaedia of the
sciences, which in fact he does not do. If he maintains that
he should not only assemble the results of scientific enquiry,
but integrate them into a world-picture, it is by no means
clear what such a thing would amount to. One possibility
would be the reduction of all other sciences to physics. There
might be difficulties of a philosophical nature in reducing the
mental to the physical, or the organic to the inorganic; but
from that point on the problems would be scientific, so once
again the meta.physician's supposed special contribution would
be superfluous. Another conception of metaphysics sets it in
competition with the natural sciences, claiming that while they
deal with mere appearances, it deals with the underlying
reality. This may be attractive to those who associate science
with a materialism which they find unpleasant; however, it
does not seem in the last resort intelligible. Certainly appearances may be deceptive; but their deceptiveness is a matter of
their conflict with one another, rather than with something of
another order. 'What possible experience could authorize our
making a distinction between appearances as a whole and a
quite different reality?' Some have sought to cast mystical
experience in this role. But there are no convincing arguments
that such experiences, however impressive they are to those
who enjoy them, yield information about anything more than
their own psychological condition. 11
11 This paragraph is based on A. J. Ayer, The Central Questions of Philosophy
(London: Weidenfeld and Nicolson, 197 3), 1-5.

FROM EPISTEMOLOGY

TO METAPHYSICS

217

On t!he account I have given, however, it is by no means
the case that the metaphysician has the melancholy choice of
either being an encyclopaedist of the sciences, or carrying out
a physicalist reduction while prepared to deal with a few
residual philosophical problems, or setting up a fruitless rival
intellectual enterprise to science in the name of mysticism or
something else. The sciences, for all their differences, are at
one in advancing as they do by attending to experience, propounding hypotheses, and judging provisionally as true those
hypotheses best corroborated by experience. The metaphysician sets out in general terms o.f what nature and structure the
world must be for this to be possible. It is on the basis of this
that he may construct the world-picture (materialist, idealist,
monist, critical realist, or whatever it may turn out to be) into
which the particular sciences are to be fitted. As to 'appearance' and 'reality', the wise metaphysician will admit that it
is absurd to say that all appearances are deceptive. And yet, if
the account which I have sketched is at all on the right lines,
he will have reason to say that appearances are rather clues
to reality than reality itself; this is because our knowledge is
not achieved merely by attending to appearances, but by investigating, hypothesizing and judging on the basis of them.
Consequently, the metaphysician does not claim that reality
transcends appearances as a result of some mystical intuition;
he affirms it on the basis of attention to the process of coming
to know. As to the materialism apparently implicit in science,
it is quite correct so far as it amount to the view opposed to
idealism, that there reaUy is a world which we tend to get to
know by scientific investigation; but it is incorrect so far as it
either amounts to naive realism, or self-destructively entails
that the mental operations involved in knowledge are reducible
to physical processes.
It may be held that the most general conceptions in terms of
which we conceive the world do not belong to the world itself,
but are rather imposed upon it by our understanding. This
was in effect Kant's way of treating the traditional problems

218

HUGO MEYNELL

0£ metaphysics. In more recent times, what Kant explained
<in terms 0£ human und·erstanding has been seen rather in terms
0£ 'human language, as was done by Rudolf Carnap. Carnap,
as befitted a logical positivist, regarded himself as a sworn
enemy of metaphysics; and was understandably distressed and
affronted when 'ontological ' or metaphysical commitments
were attributed to him. ' I should prefer not to use the word
" ontology " for the recognition of entities by the admission 0£
variables . . . It might be understood as implying that the
decision to use certain kinds of variables must be based on . . .
metaphysical convictions '.12 In order to cope with the difficulty, Carnap distinguished between ' internal ' and ' external '
questions about existence.13 For example, within the framework
of talk about things, we can ask the ' internal ' question
whether cows exist. The ' external ' question about the existence 0£ things would either be metaphysical and therefore meaningless, or a question about whether we were to adopt a certain
form of language. But Quine, in opposition to Carnap, asks
what the fundamental difference is between ordinary predicates
like ' is a cow ' or ' is odd ', and ones like ' is a thing ' or ' is a
number '. He answers that the difference is only a matter 0£
degree of generality. According to Carnap, 'cows' refers to
cows in a straightforward way, while 'things' covertly refer
to the language of things. But Quine finds this arbitrary. Why
could one not just as well say that ' cows ' makes covert
reference to the language of cows? 14
It will be clear from what I have said that I would agree
with Quine against Carnap on this matter. As is by now
notorious, a thoroughgoing empiricism, such as that underlying
Carnap's position, cannot be made sel£-oonsistent (how could
you conceivably test in experience the non-analytic proposition,
that all non-analytic propositions must be capable of being
12 R. Carnap, Meaning and N eoessity (Chicago: University of Chicago Press,
1956), 43; Orenstein, op. cit., 69.
1a Carnap, op. cit., 205-21; Orenstein, op. cit., 70.
14 Orenstein,
loo. cit.

FROM EPISTEMOLOGY

TO METAPHYSICS

219

tested in experience?). But clearly Carnap is right to the
extent that there is some difference of kind here, in that the
existence of oows is a straightforwardly empirical matter in a
way that the existence of things as such is not. One might
put the distinction summarily, from my point of view, by
saying that questions are metaphysical when they relate to
the world as it is by virtue of the very fact that it is knowable,
rather than to how it just happens to be and may be found
to be by investigation of experience. One can in a sense test
propositions alternative to the truth on each matter, but by
appeal to the nature of knowledge as such rather than to
particular items of expevience. The manner in which one might
establish the existence of things-rather than saying, for example, that they were logical constructions out of sense-datais perhaps a good way of illustrating the application of the
method of metaphysics which I have sketched. The real world,
I claimed, is whait is to be known in judgments arrived at by
putting questions to experience. Among such judgments, I
find that a certain man called Brian Mulroney is one and the
same as the Prime Minister of Canada in 1986. The more
data I investigate which bear on the subject, the more possibilities I envisage and test, the more strongly this judgment
tends to be confirmed. On the other hand, one's supposition
that Ronald Reagan is one and the same as the constitutional
monarch of Great Britain tends not to survive such investigation. What applies to persons applies also to ordinary physical
objects, 'things' in the narrower sense. A sustaiined course of
inquiry would culminate in the judgment that the block of wood
lying on the table beside the front door of my house is the
same as one removed from an ancient English oak a few
years ago; and that the open yellow pen lying beside me on
this desk is the same as the one my daughter took to school
last week. So it is that judgment divides up the world into
different things each characterised by its own properties and
relations. Just because they (and we) are causally interrelated, it does not follow that there is only one real Thing or

220

HUGO MEYNELL

'substance' (as in Spinoza's system); just because things can
be shattered and cut asunder, it does not follow thait I and
this pen cannot be genuine things after all (as on Leibniz's
view) . True, for a thing to be a thing it has to have a degree
of independence of other things, and of indivisibility; but such
requirements do not need to be carried to extremes, to help
to found the reasonable judgment that A is one and the same
thing as B (as the morning star is one and the same thing as
the evening star), or another thing than C (as the morning
star is another thing tJhan the planet Mars). And if reasonable judgment is the criterion of reality, and not experience as
such, there is no ground for the radical empiricist view that
things and persons are subjective constructions out of sensedata.
Aristotle has often been blamed for reading the structure of
language, and in particular of the subject-predicate proposition, into the world. Yet if the real is known in judgments,
and judgments are typically expressed in subject-predicate
propositions, one might say that it is a la.rge part of Aristotle's
genius that he saw that this was precisely what one had to do.
Many philosophers have contrasted metaphysics with analysis. But it seems a consequence of what I have said that every
analysis presupposes a metaphysic. Suppose, for example, that,
following David Hume, 15 one 'analyses' the relation of cause
and effect in terms of constant conjunction between sense-data.
The whole activity seems to presuppose that sense-data are
real, whereas relations of cause and effect are unreal, or at
least less real. No wonder that, as W. H. Walsh remarks, 'few
self-styled analysts have contrived to stick to pure analysis
without the open or covert advocacy of a metaphysical point
of view '.16
Karl Popper has e:xJpressedhimself as more in sympathy with
metaphysics than were the logical positivists, or indeed most
15 Enquiry,

Section VII, Part II.

1s W. H. Walsh, "Metaphysics,

Nature of' (Encyclopaedia
Vol. 5; London: Collier-Macmillan, 1967, 301).

of Phifosophy,

FROM EPISTEMOLOGY

TO METAPHYSICS

221

modern philosophers. As he sees it, the role of metaphysics is
to propose somewhat nebulous theories which may later be
cast in a testable, falsifiable form, and so become scientific. 17
I agree with Popper that it is very important that persons
should speculate in the way that he mentions, and indeed
that much metaphysics has been thus useful. However, I
maintain that the sort of aims which I have described have
been more central to metaphysics as it has traditionally been
understood. And, in fact, it may well be argued that the right
metaphysic as I have sketched it amounts virtually to a making explicit of the overall view of the nature of things implicit
in Popper's own thought. Popper is well-known for his insistence that investigators should be very fertile in hypotheses,
and stringently attempt to falsify each hypothesis in confrontation with the empirical evidence. 18 What is this but the
demand for the utmost attentiveness, intelligence and reasonableness, together with the conviction that only thus can the
truth about things come to be known? And I have already
argued that these principles issue in a metaphysic of a very
traditional stamp.
I have tried to show that metaphysics is not only a possible
but a very important activity; that the arguments against it
can be refuted, and the prejudices against it ought to be
dispelled.
HUGO MEYNELL

The University of Calgary,
Calgary, Alberta

11 K. R. Popper, Objective Knowledge
1972)' 28-9, 38, 40, 96, 196, 203-4, 323.
18 I6id., 12-14, 20, 38-9, 196-7, etc.

(London:

Oxford University

Press,

ESSE AS THE TARGET OF JUDGMENT
IN RAHNER AND AQUINAS

0

NE OF THE commanding currents of thought in
Catholic circles since the Second Vatican Council has
been Transcendental Thomism. Though its proponents differ among themselves, it is safe to say that the common
inspiration is that Thomistic metaphysical conclusions can be
arrived at through a Kantian-style transcendental method. The
emphasis is on the knower's conditions of knowing, not upon
the known.
Karl Rahner was a significant figure in this movement. Rahner's popufarity is undoubtedly connected with his ability cogently to work out attractive theological positions from his
version of Transcendental Thomism. In any case, his theology
does have this basis. It is a basis that receives extensive elaboration in Rahner's Spirit in the World. This article critically
investigates that basis. My conclusion is that Spirit in the
World contains a massive misconstrual of the esse grasped in
judgment. This is no esoteric point of Thomistic exegesis. A
correct appreciation of the esse targeted in judgment shows that
no necessity for making a transcendental turn exists. As will
be noted, such a turn, at least in Rahner's case, ineluctably
leads to a curtailment of metaphysics. Kant is not defeated
at his own game.

I.
The heart of Rahner's philosophy is his understanding of
abstraction. Representative descriptions of this understanding
are the following. Speaking of the function of the agent intellect, Rahner says,
We must therefore ask how the agent intellect is to be understood so that it can know the form as limited, confined, and thus

" ESSE " AS THE TARGET OF JUDGMENT

223

of itself embracing further possibilities in itself, as bordering upon
a broader field of possibilities. Obviously this is possible only
if, antecedent to and in addition to apprehending the individual
form, the agent intellect comprehends of itself the whole field of
these possibilities and thus, in the sensibly concretized form, experiences the concreteness as limitation of these possibilities,
whereby it knows the form itself as able to be multiplied in this
field. This transcending apprehension of further possibilities,
through which the form possessed in a concretion in sensibility is
apprehended as limited and so is abstracted, we call "pre-apprehension." 1

The agent intellect grasps the universal because it pre-apprehends the form so that the form's apparent limitation in the
sensible thing reveals the form's in itself universality. Again,
The intellect abstracts the forms given in concretion in sensibility
insofar as it knows their limitation produced by the already
realized synthesis of sensibility, and it does this by the fact that
in apprehending them, it comprehends the breadth of their possibilities in a pre-apprehension. 2

Finally,
Therefore the form must be known as limited by the "this"
whose form it is; only then can it be known that it is "broader"
in itself and so able to be related to other "this's," and then for
the first time can it appear as ontologically different from matter,
from its supposit, and as universal in itself. 3

I understand Rahner to be saying this. To gras:p a form as
universal we must first apprehend it as limited in the individual. Seen as limited in the individual, we realize that in
itself it is universal. But we see the individual as a limited
instance of the form only because we have first pre-apprehended
the form itself. Against this pre-apprehension, the individual
appears as an instance of the form.
For example, conscious of this thing as a dog, I realize that
"dog" is limited here but in itself is broader. My awareness
1 Karl Rahner, Spirit in the World, translated by William Dych (New York:
Herder and Herder, 1968), p. 142.
2 Ibid., p. 146.
3 Ibid., p. 140.

224

JOHN F. X. KNASAS

of this as an instance of dog generates the awareness that of
itself dog outstrips this instance. But this key awareness of the
instance is itself generated by a pre-apprehension of dog in itself.
Because of the pre-apprehension, I realize the limiting of dog
here in Fido.
The crucial factor in this understanding of abstraction is
the pre-apprehension. Unless the pre-apprehension remains objective and correct, the objectivity and correctness of all subsequent awareness is threatened.
Such is Rahner's basic model for the abstractive process.
To the model he adds two innovative moves. First, before any
abstraction of the thing's form, the thing must be set up in
consciousness as a being. Without this setting up, abstraction
of the form cannot be accomplished. 4 There would be nothing
to abstract from. On Ra.hner's model of abstraction, this apprehension of the thing as a being implies a pre-apprehens·ion of
esse. As Rahner remarks.
In the individual judgment, an esse is ascribed to (or at least
implicitly affirmed of) the object of the judgment designated
by the subject, which does not necessarily belong precisely to this
object alone, but is in itself broader, universal and unlimited. 5

This is argued for in the following manner.
The natures, both essential and accidental, that come together in a thing are said to be real not in virtue of each having
its own esse. For this would mean " ... there would be just as
many real things as there are determinations, and not a single
real thing." 6 Rather,
... the one esse which bestows reality upon the essence and its
accidents must have the intrinsic freedom and infinity to bestow
reality as much upon one quiddity as upon another. 7

Again, natures are not recognized to be real by an e8se belonging properly to each. They are called real in reference to a
4/bid.,

pp. 170-1. Also Karl Rahner,

Continuum, 2 (1964), pp. 67, 68, 70.
6 Rahner, Spirit, p. 171.
B Loe. cit.
r Ibid., p. 172.

"Aquinas:

The Nature of Truth,"

"ESSE" AS THE TARGET OF JUDGMENT

225

universal esse that is not properly the esse of any one nature.
For Rahner a nature is a being through an extrinsic reference
to a universal esse.
This universal and non-proper esse is expanded to transcategorical proportions.
So the esse of an individual being appears first of all at least as
the intrinsic, sustaining ground of all the determinations which
can possibly belong to the existent in question. But it is also
in itself the fullness of all possible determinations absolutely. For
in every judgment it is the same to-he-in-itself that is pre-apprehended.8

Hence:
From this it also follows that the universality of esse in itself is
of a transcategorical kind. For it is the one ground of all categorical determinations. 9

All categories appear as real in reference to this one universal
esse.
Finally, the scope of this universal esse is claimed to be
absolutely infinite, i.e., as without any intrinsic finiteness.
Obherwise, esse would be apprehended in the light of nothing
and so nothing would be made something. An absurdity.to
It is worth repeating that a form appears as a reality, a being,
because it is placed in juxtaposition to a universal and nonproper esse. This esse is not a principle in the thing. In fact,
for Ra,hner, things of experience are concretions of an individual
plus a universal. 11 Any talk of the thing's esse reduces to the
above thing being in reality.t 2 At best, the thing's esse is a
state of the thing, not a unique intrinsic principle.ta
.fbid., p. 177.
.fbid., p. 178.
10 Ibid., pp. 184-5.
11 lbid., pp. 126-7.
t2 lbid., pp. 125 and 163.
ta On the Suarezian character of 8pirit in the World, see Denis J.M. Bradley,
"Rahner's Spirit in the World: Aquinas or Hegel?" The Thomist, 41 (1977),
pp. 180-3. Cornelio Fabro remarks, "II n'est done pas douteux que l'esse
designe ici [in Spirit in the World] la r€aliw des concrets existants: il est
8

9

JOHN F. X. KNASAS

Interestingly, Rahner describes that universal and non-proper
esse in reference to which a form appears real in these terms:
" the original unity of the possible objects " and " the totality
of the objects." 14 So much is esse something extrinsic to the
thing that absolute esse is used to judge the thing itself. Absolute esse is not used to judge the thing's esse understood as a
unique principle in the thing.
All the above leads to understanding judgment in these
terms:
Rather, the judgment which ascribes certain quidditative determinations to something which exists in itself, to the exclusion of
other possible determinations, is implicitly and precisely a judgment that esse does not belong in all its fullness to this thing which
exists in itself. 15
Thus, every judgment is precisely a critique of the object, an
evaluation of the measure of esse which belongs to what is judged. 16

The Thomistic tenet that judgment bears upon esse is interpreted in this vein. Esse is absolute esse, the totality of objects.
In this judgmental light an object or thing comes across as a
being. It appears as an instance of esse. Rabner is holding
true to his model of the abstractive process.
Rahner's second innovative move upon his model of abstraction is this. The agent intellect's pre-apprehension of absolute
esse is given a transcendental and apriori twist,
But in the intellectually known, an apriori element which spirit
brings with it from itself is known simultaneously (the light of
the agent intellect is seen), and this is the condition of every
objective knowledge. It is not known unless it is illuminated by
light. This apriori element of all knowledge is therefore not
an innate idea, since it is only known simultaneously as the condition of the possibility of the intellectual apprehension of what
'l'esse in actu', l'en-soi comme synthese r·eelle en acte de la multiplicite
determinations formelles." Quoted by Bradley at ft. 64.
14 Rahner, Spirit, p. 185.
15 Ibid., p. 178.
16/bid., p. 179. See also, pp. 206-7.

des

"ESSE" AS THE TARGET OF JUDGMENT

is given sensibly-namely then, when it exercises a "formal"
function in respect to the material of sensibility .. .17

The pre-apprehension of esse is the intellect's own. Far from
being drawn from objects of experience, it is constituitive of
them. This apriori twist is not surprising. As mentioned,
things of experience are finite through and through. They are
concretions of an individual plus a universal. Any knowledge
that we have of the infinite must, then, be understood to come
from an apriori source. It could never be drawn from things. 18
To summarize Rahner. The intellect can abstract form, i.e.,
know the form taken from the sensible thing 19 only because it
has objectified the thing as "a being." This objectification
occurs thanks to a juxtaposition of the thing against the apriori
background of absolute being. This background is the intel11 Ibid., p. 221.
Also, "Insofar as [the agent intellect] apprehends this
material of sensibility within its anticipatory dynamism to esse, it 'illumines'
this material, ... " Ibid., p. 225. Actuality of the agent intellect is given the
same interpretation on p. 225. Vd., also Rahner, "Aquinas: the Nature of
Truth," p. 67.
18 Joseph Donceel makes the point this way, "I have mentioned above serious objections which may be raised against any attempt at arriving at God
while starting from creatures. How can we ever hope to pass from the finite
to the infinite, from the relative to the absolute, from the contingent to the
necessary? How can the conclusion be stronger than the premises? How can
we ever hope to bridge the infinite gap between God and the things of our
experience? The fact is that we do not have to bridge it; we do not really
arrive at God. We start with him; we are with him from the beginning. He
is already in our mind when we known our first object, when we make our
affirmation, since only he makes them possible for us." The Searching Mind,
(Notre Dame: Notre Dame Press, 1979), p. 89. Cf. Rahner, "That, however,
the objects of possible knowledge existing in themselves do not coincide simply
and absolutely with the in-itself of the spatial and temporal world follows
for Thomas ... only from the fact that the affirmation of a real and yet not
worldly in-itself belongs to the conditions of the possibility of knowing the
real, worldly in-itself." Spirit, p. 16;"). In this vein Lonergan remarks, " ...
how is it that we have precisely such an intellectual notion of being that
( 1) we can conceive the ens per essentiam and ( 2) we can pronounce the only
beings that we do kuow directly to be merely entia per participationem?"
Lonergan's reply is the affirmation that "our natural intellectual desire to
know was a natural intellectual desire to know being,"" Insight: Preface to a
Discussion," Proceedinus of the American Catholic Philosophical Association,
32 ( 1958)' pp. 74-5.
19 Rahner, Spirit, pp. 122-3.

JOHN F. X. KNASAS

lect's original constitutive contribution to knowing. As a being
the thing can be related to its form, seen as an instance of it,
and finaily the form itself can appear as broader, as universal.
This moment completes the abstraction.

II.
What is to be thought of Rahner's interpretation of Aquinas's
doctrine of abstraction? I have two comments. First, does not
the interpretation place the doctrine in an intolerable bind? It
seems so. As is evident from the preceding description of abstraction, all objective knowledge is mediated by the apriori
dynamism of the human spirit to absolute esse. What appears
appears in function of that. Obviously crucial is some guarantee
of the truthfulness, or objectivity, of this mediating factor.
My concern is easily understood by a consideration of an
analogous situation. An object's precise length becomes apparent when the object is placed up and against a measure.
In that relation, it appears as so many inches long. Yet if the
measure itself is crooked or inaccurate, the apparent length will
be other than the real length. Crucial is a knowledge of the
correctness of the measure. Without the correctness of the
measure established, any measuring is pointless. Likewise,
Rahner's apriori is the measure that we bring to the objects of
sensation. Its usefulness is dependent upon our ability to know
its inherent correctness.
Rahner and other Transcendental Thomists are aware of and
sensitive to this concern. The move made to address it has
been generally referred to as retorsion. 20 In sum, retorsion
20 See Joseph Donceel, "Transcendental
Thomism," The Monist, 58 ( 1974),
pp. 81-3. Donceel remarks, "\Ve have no intuition of our basic certitudes_
We do not see that or why they are true. \Ve do not see that or why some
of our knowledge is absolutely certain, that or why every event has a cause,
that or why the Illimited Being exists. But we cannot not affirm it" ( p. 83).
See also his translation of Emerich Coreth's, Metaphysics (New York: Herder
and Herder, 1968), pp. 8-10; Bernard Lonergan, "Metaphysics as Horizon,"
ibid., pp. 200-1. This approach to first principles can be contrasted with Robert
Henle's, "The principle f of contradiction] is, in fact, merely a recognition of
the necessity of being in a given act of existence." Met hod in Metaphysics

" ESSE " AS THE TARGET OF JUDGMENT

attempts to establish something as true by illustrating that
the attempt to deny it only affirms it. Here is Rahner,
. . . man necessarily and implicitly affirms these metaphysical
principles; and he would, in his thought, commit an offense against
the principle of contradiction (since this is a formal law of
thought), if he were to deny or doubt explicitly the ontological
laws of being implicitly affirmed. Human evidence of metaphysical principles is not based ultimately then on an identity of
concepts as such, conceived on the basis of evidence . . . but
rather on the evidence of the formal logical contradiction between
one's implicit affirmation and explicit negation of the value of
those principles. 21

Whatever may be the value of retorsion in other contexts, in
the present context one has good reason to wonder if it performs its assigned task. Retorsion may be bringing out only
ways we have to think as distinct from ways reality is. Retorsion is just what you would expect if the projection were
merely an apriori one and not objective at all. But transcendental Thomists would say, "Any attempt to question the
framework only employs the framework." To which again the
reply is, "Just what you would expect if the framework is
merely apriori!" Objectivity remains the nagging issue. 22
This difficulty is no mean one. If Kant is not transcended,
are not the praeambnlae fidei non-existent? It seems so.23
(Milwaukee: Marquette University Press, 1980), p. 56. Joseph Owens, says the
same, An FJlementar11 Christian 1Jletaph11sics (Milwaukee: Bruce, 1963), pp.
269-71.
21 Rahner, "Aquinas:
The Nature of Truth," p. 69.
22 Kant seems to be using retorsion
for the subjectivity of space and time
in Prolc,qornenn to _4ny Future JJ1 etaphysics, paras. 10-11.
23 In his "Seeking
Foundations for Faith," The 1'homist, 45 ( 1981), pp.
223-4, Vvilliam Hill finds an "aura of voluntarism" in both Lonergan and
Ralrner. For the voluntarism in Hans Kiing, see his Does God Exist?, translated by Edward Quinn (New York: Vintage Books, 1981), pp. 427-77. Also
Richard McBrien in Catholicism (Minneapolis: Winston Press, 1980), I, pp.
187-8, mentions the consistency between his approach and Kii.ng's. Both Kiing
and McBrien confuse demonstrnting a creator and demonstrating the identity
of it with the actual God of Christian Revelation. As a result both perceive
a threat from reason to the act of faith. But one can admit the first and not
the second, leaving plenty of room for a personal faith choice.

230

JOHN F. X. KNASAS

And the case has been made that transcendental method is also
incapable of allowing any real ethical obligation. 24
It is precisely at this point that the question of whether
Ra;hner understands Aquinas correctly becomes relevant. This
question bring me to my second comment. My opinion is that
Rahner misunderstands Aquinas. In sum, for Aquinas a thing
is called a being not by a judgmental extrinsic reference of the
thing to absolute esse, but a judgmental grasp of the esse intrinsic to the thing. It is a being because it is grasped in judgment as a habens esse. No appeal to an apriori of the intellect is necessary. Moreover, as grasped in judgment this esse
is revealed as accidental and prior to the thing it actuates. The
esse must, then, be dependent and ultimately upon esse subsistens. Far from threatening our knowledge of God, this "empiricism " seems to provide the mind with " the sole direct path
leading us to the throne of God." 25 What is emerging as crucial
is the exact nature of the esse grasped in judgment? Is it absolute esse in reference to which things appear as beings, or
is it an intrinsic principle of each thing making the thing a
being in the sense of habens esse? A look at Aquinas seems
apropos.

III.
Aquinas first sets out his understanding of the grasp of esse
in his commentary on the Sentences of Peter Lombard. The
text could be translated as follows:
24 Henry Veatch remarks, " ... when it is a case of our moral obligationsobligations which in the very nature of the case often go counter to our desires
and inclinations and place serious restrictions upon our choices-would we
be willing to settle for any appearance of obligation (as contrasted with its
reality), however persistent, pervasive, and ineluctable the appearance might
be? In short, appearances may suffice well enough in our case, but hardly in
the other, where our very interests and desires and wills are at stake." For an
Ontology of Morals (Evanston: Northwestern University Press, 1971), p. 93.
Veatch's discussion of" good" as a supervenient property shows that he is not
insensitive to how one thing can appear in the light of another; see pp. 105-10.
It is just that the interpretative context must have a realist basis and not
be given a transcendental twist.
25 Words of Louis-Marie Regis quoted by Joseph Owens, An Interpretation
of Emistenee (Milwaukee: Bruce, 1968), p. 9.

231

" ESSE " AS THE TARGET OF JUDGMENT

There is a two-fold operation of the intellect. One of these is
called by some the "imaginatio intellectus." In the third book of
his De Anima, the Philosopher names it the understanding of indivisibles (intelligentiam indivisibilium). It consists in the apprehension of the simple quiddity. By another this operation is
called by the name "formatio." The other of these [operations]
is what they call "fidem," which consists in the composition or
division of the proposition. The first operation looks on the
quiddity of the thing; the second looks upon its being (esse) .26

To the contemporary reader the text is undoubtedly enigmatic.
What does Aquinas mean when he says that there is an operation of the intellect that has the esse of the thing as its object?
A good way to proceed may be to follow the order of the text.
What is the other operation that consists in the apprehens ion of
the simple quiddity?
In the early 1250's when writing his commentary on the
Sentences, Aquinas also wrote a brief metaphysical treatise
entitled De Ente et Essentia. There Aquinas extensively describes a way of considering what he calls essence that leaves
out the essence's esse. Earlier in this work, Aquinas equated
the terms" essence" and "quiddity." 27 Hence, it appears that
a study of this description will furnish us with an understanding
of the operation that "looks upon the quiddity of thing."
The topic of the De Ente text is the absolute consideration
of the essence:
1

... a nature or essence can be considered in two ways. First,
absolutely, according to its proper meaning. In this sense nothing
is true of it except what belongs to it as such; whatever else
may be attributed to it, the attribution is false. For example,
to man as man belong ' rational', ' animal ', and everything else
included in his definition; but 'white' or 'black', or any similar
attribute not included in the notion of humanity, does not belong
to man as man. If someone should ask, then, whether such a
nature understood in this way can be one or many, we should
reply that it is neither, because both are outside the concept of
humanity, and it can happen to be both. If plurality belonged
2a In I Sent., d. 19, q. 5, a. I, ad 7m.
21 De Ente,

ch. I, n. 4.

JOHN F. X. KNASAS

to its concept, it could never be one, though it is one when present
in Socrates. So, too, if oneness belonged to its concept, the nature
of Socrates and of Plato would be identical, and it could not be
multiplied in many individuals. 28

Our De Ente text gives a procedure by which to attain the
absolute consideration of the essence. In this consideration
we are interested only in what is true of the essence as such.
Hence, to man as man belong "rational" and "animal," but
not " white " or " black." What is this saying? Evidently the
starting point of the procedure is a number of composite instances. One instance may be characterized as rational, animal,
and white; the other instance as rational, animal, and black.
Contemplating these instances, the intellect forms an understanding of man as such, viz., a rational animal. Why are the
features of black and white placed aside? The last lines of our
text give the answer. As I understand them, their concern is
whether any definite number is part and parcel of the meaning of "man." The text answers no. The argument is that if
"man" included in its meaning being six, then any one man
would be six men. An absurdity. Likewise, if "man" included
in its meaning being one, then every man would be identical
with every other. Hence, any definite number is not part and
parcel of what "man" means. White and black are put aside
for the same reasons. In this way the meaning of " rational
animal " is lifted out of the mentioned composite instances as
a case of an essence absolutely considered. White and black
are left behind. In sum, the operation of the intellect that
grasps the quiddity, or essence, grasps the commonality pervading a number of composite instances.
This procedure provides the rationale for Aquinas calling
the quiddity " simple " and for Aristotle referring to it as an
"indivisible."
Insofar as the intellect is grasping the commonality pervading a number of composite instances, it is
attaining one element in each of the composites, the common
2s De Ente, ch. 3, n. 2; Maurer trans., On Being and Essence
Pontifical Institute of Mediaeval Studies, 1968), p. 46.

(Toronto:

" ESSE " AS THE TARGET OF JUDGMENT

QS3

element. The grasped quiddity is a simple in relation to the
initial composite that also includes non-common features as its
other parts. For instance, " rational animal " is seen as the
simple quiddity in Socrates and Plato who also include, as noncommon features, different heights, weights, complexions, etc.
Note that the grasped quiddity may itself be composite, e.g.,
" rational animal." This does not infringe upon its being called
"simple," for, again, it is called simple in relation to the
original composite instances in which it is grasped. It is not
necessarily called simple in relation to itself.
The procedure of absolute consideration of the essence is
then applied to the existence (esse) the essence is noticed to
have. The result is that the essence absolutely considered does
not include any existence (esse).
This nature has a twofold being: one in individual things and
the other in the soul, and accidents follow upon the nature because of both beings. In individuals, moreover, the nature has
a multiple being corresponding to the diversity of individuals;
but none of these beings belongs to the nature from the first
point of view, that is to say, when it is considered absolutely.
It is false to say that the essence of man as such has being in
this individual: if it belonged to man as such to be in this individual it would never exist outside the individual. On the
other hand, if it belonged to man as man not to exist in this individual, human nature would never exist in it. It is true to say,
however, that it does not belong to man as man to exist in this
or that individual or in the soul. So it is clear that the nature
of man, considered absolutely, abstracts from every being ... 29
Note again the apparent starting point-a number of composite
instances. In this case, the parts are man and the various
existences man is seen to have. "1VIan" is grasped as really
existing in Tom, Dick, and Harry. " Man " is grasped as cognitionally existing in a reflection upon my thinking about it.
Same thing, two ex,istences. Aquinas claims that none of these
existences can belong to man as such. He makes his point, as
he did when employing the procedure earlier, by showing the
29 De

Ente, ch. 3, n. 4; Maurer trans., p. 47.

JOHN F. X. KNASAS

absurdity of the opposite opinion. The absurdity is drawn as
follows. Assume that " to exist in Tom " is part and parcel of
the meaning of "man," then man would be found nowhere else.
This existence now held to be proper to man would rivet man
to that instance. There would be no other men. The same
absurdity can be produced if any existence proper to man as
such is admitted. In each case, the evident multiple instances
of the nature would be denied.
'flhe only conclusion is that to man as such there belongs no
existence. Just as the absolute consideration of man as such
was seen to leave out particularities in its instances, e.g., white,
black, one or many, so too it is seen to leave out the existences
of those instances. Hence, as Aquinas says elsewhere in the
De Ente: "Now, every essence or quiddity can be understood
without knowing anything about its being. I can know, for
instance, what a man or a phoenix is and still be ignorant
whether it has being in reality ." 30 Aquinas is evidently speaking about the absolute consideration of the essence. Absolute
consideration of the essence seems to be the nature of that intellectual operation that has as its object the simple quiddities
of things. In the object of such an activity, no existence for the
object can be read off.
Before returning to the Sentences text and the other intellectual operation spoken of, one clarifying note. Some find it
difficult to distinguish between accidents, like white and black,
and existence. In other words, the meaning of "man" joined
with the accident white and innumerable others, say tall, handsome, witty, etc., is the existing man. The existence of
man means the addition of certain accidents to man as such.
Aquinas's further speaking of an abstraction from existence in
absolute consideration is, then, a redundancy. But, in reply,
is man as such with certain accidents an existing man? Is to
add the accidents to move into the realm of existence? Is a
particular thing an existing thing? To ask these questions is
to begin to see their answers. There are many things conceived
30 De Ente,

ch. 4, n. 6; Maurer trans., p. 55.

" ESSE " AS THE TARGET OF JUDGMENT

down to their smallest detail that do not yet exist. For example, a tunnel under the English Channel. The object of
thought can, then, be brought down to the level of accidents
and still not be an existent. In other words, there can be an absolute consideration of a particular, a consideration of it as such,
from which it is perceived as existentially neutral. Aquinas's
argument can be run not only with man as such but with John
as such. The individual named John is observed to exist in
reality and in my cognition. Neither existence, nor any for
that matter, can belong to John as such without riveting John
to just that existence and preventing him from existing otherwise. In this fashion the individual can be considered as essence
or quiddity. 31
One finds Aquinas talking about an absolute consideration of
the individual when he speaks of the world, or any created
thing, as possible before it exists. This is the absolutely possible. It is determined by the compatibility of the rationes of
the terms. Here the rationes are some created thing and its
esse.32 Likewise, Aquinas clearly uses the phrase "possible
esse et non esse" to designate an absolute consideration of the
individual generable and corruptible thing vis-a-vis its esse.33
Such then is what Aquinas understands by the intellect's
first operation.

IV.
The second operation that grasps the esse of the quiddity was
described as consisting in the composition or division of the
31 "We can say 'Socrates is an essence' ... " De Ente, ch. 2, n. 13. The
nature of abstraction is described in these terms: "But if one thing does not
depend on another with regard to what constitutes the intelligibility of the
nature, then the intellect can abstract the one from the other so as to know
it without the other." In de Trin., V, 3c; Maurer trans., The Division and
Metods of the Sciences (Toronto: Pontifical Institute of Mediaeval Studies,
1963), p. 30. There is no attempt to identify abstraction with the leaving out
of designated matter, foough this is an example of abstraction.
32 For the texts, see my "Making
Sense of the Tertia Via," The New
54 ( 1980), p. 492. Also, S.T. I, 25, 3c.
33 Ibid., pp. 503-4.

236

JOHN F. X. KNASAS

proposition. This description sounds strange. Propositions may
express the existence of something, e.g., "Socrates est." But
does simply formulating a proposition grasp the existence being
e:icpressed? Obviously not. Daily experience gives us many
propositions the truth of which is not evident. There appears
to be more to the second operation than is meant here.
The richness of the second operation is brought out by a
study of its presentation in Aquinas's mature work, Summa
Theologiae. The text I have in mind is the following:
The human intellect must of necessity understand by composition
and division. For since the intellect passes from potentiality to
act, it has a likeness to generable things, which do not attain to
perfection all at once but acquire it by degrees. In the same
way, the human intellect does not acquire perfect knowledge of
a thing by the first apprehension; but it first apprehends something of the thing, such as its quiddity, which is the first and
proper object of the intellect; and then it understands the properties, accidents, and various dispositions affecting the essence.
Thus, it necessarily relates one thing with another by composition or division. 84

First, the above text clearly parallels the texts from the commentary on the Sentences. Here the object of the first activity
is referred to as quiddity. Also, this first activity is what
Aquinas means by the intellect's abstraction, but abstraction
is absolute consideration at 8.5, 1, ad Im. Finally, according
to the Summa text the object of the intellect's composition is
the accidents of the quiddity. But Aquinas does consider esse
an accident. 35
Second, what help does the Swnma text provide in understanding the second operation of the intellect? Most importantly, the article makes us understand that the compos84 S.T. I, 85, 5c; as translated by Anton Pegis, The Basio Writings of St.
Thomas Aquinas (New York: Random House, 1945), I, p. 823.
sG For the texts see Joseph Owens, "The Accidental and Essential Character
of Being in the Doctrine of St. Thomas Aquinas," edited by John R. Catan
in St. Thomas Aquinas on the Existence of God: Collected Papers of Joseph
Owens (Albany: State University of New York Press, 1980), pp. 63·66.

"ESSE" AS THE TARGET OF JUDGMENT

ing in this second operation is more than the composing of a
proposition. According to the sed contra:
Words signify the conceptions of the intellect, as the Philosopher
says. But in words we find composition and division, as appears
in affirmative and negative propositions (propositionibus). Therefore the intellect acts by composition and division. (Pegis trans.)
Evidently the composition of the proposition indicates another
and more fundamental composing activity. What is this more
basic composing activity?
In the body of the article, the composing of the second activity is said to bear upon the accidents of the quiddity. These
are found in the singular thing. At S.T. I, 86, le, Aquinas
discusses how the intellect knows singular things. He says,
Hence our intellect knows directly only universals. But indirectly, however, and as it were by a kind of reflexion (quasi
per quandam reflexionem), it can know the singular, because, as
we have said above (84, 7), even after abstracting the intelligible
species, the intellect, in order to understand actually, needs to
turn to the phantasms in which it understands the species . . .
(Pegis trans.)
This text makes clear the composing activity of the intellect.
The composing is the intellect's reintegrating of its awareness
of the quiddity with its awareness of the individual,. The intellect can always perform this act of reintegrating because
abstraction must always begin with the phantasm. As a result
of this composing, the object of our awareness is now no longer
just the quiddity, but the quiddity-in-the-individual.
This is
a complex object of consciousness. Hence, it can only be expressed in the complex way of a proposition. It is no surprise,
then, that interpreting this composing of the intellect in terms
of the above reflexion, Aquinas says that so the intellect ". . .
forms the proposition Socrates is a man."
Though the above text is speaking of reintegrating the universal with the particular, there is no reason why it cannot
be extended to reintegrating the individual with its existence.
Remember the individual can be made an object of the in-

JOHN F. X. KNASAS

tellect's first activity; it can be absolutely considered. All that
is required is that it be placed in a multiple that includes its
real existence and cognitional existence.
The intellect's second operation of composing is evidently
like a " rebounding " of one's attention back off the commonality to the particular instances in which it was spied. In the
first operation there is a narrowing of one's attention upon the
commonality, upon the one in the many. It is not for nothing
that this first operation is also called intellectus. 36 For we are
going, attentively speaking, into the data, leaving other things
behind. In the second act of the mind, our attention regains
its original perspective but without the loss of what it had
spied in its first act. The intellectual movement might be compared to the visual movement in which one first looks at a
crowd, picks out a familiar face in that crowd, then finally
brings the crowd back into his attention all the while holding on to the discerned friend.
Evidently, also, the description of the second operation of
the intellect as a " composing " is ambiguous. The composing
of the intellect has two meanings. It can refer either to the
composing of propositions or to the composing of that complex
act of consciousness marked by an awareness of the commonality in the individual. Though these composings are different,
they are related. The second is the basis for the first. Aquinas
also labels the intellect's composing of propositions a judgment.
At De Veritate I, 3c, Aquinas remarks:
Moreover, the intellect judges about the thing it has apprehended
at the moment when it says that something is or is not. This
is the role of " the intellect composing and dividing."

The intellect's activity of judging is its activity of composing
and dividing. The noted ambiguity of the latter should carry
over to the former. "Judging" will be ambiguous. On the one
hand, to judge will mean to compose propositions; on the other
hand, to judge will be to reflectively compose one's awareness
36 De Ver.

I, 12 and XV, 1.

" ESSE " AS THE TARGET OF JUDGMENT

239

of the object of the intellect's first operation with one's awareness of the starting point of that awareness. 37
These considerations enable us to understand existents as
composites of thing, or essence, and existence (esse). How so?
If in judgment one returns to what has been left behind in the
intellect's first operation, then one now realizes that that starting point is a composite of the commonality and particularities
left behind in the first operation.
Here is an example using the approach of the De Ente. The
instances with which one starts out are: John really existing
and that object cognitionally existing. One is an object of sensation, the other an object of reflection upon our thinking.
This multiplicity is delivered over to the intellect for the exercise of its two-fold operation.
The first operation commences and the individual that is
John is picked out as the commonality. There is quite a narrowing of attention here. Consciousness "zooms" or focuses
in on only the commonality in the original multiplicity. To
do that certain aspects of the multiplicity must be left behind.
These aspects are the particularities found back in the originally
given instances. In the case of the above example, the particularities are .John's real and cognitional existences. Grasped
in the object of the intellect's first operation, John is understood as bereft of any existence. As such, John can be characterized as existentially neutral.
There follows the intellect's second operation of judging.
One's attention "rebounds" off the object of the first operation to the original instances. But now what had been left out
in the first operation is distinctly picked up. What had been
given originally as a seamless whole in instance one is recog37 Owens has noted the ambiguity
of "judgment," " ... 'judgment' has
two meanings that require careful distinction. In one meaning it is the dynamic
intellective act by which synthesizing existence is being grasped. In the other
meaning, it is the statfo, frozen representation of that action's cognitional
form." "Judgment and Truth in Aquinas," in Catan, op. cit., p. 47. Also,
"Accordingly, 'judgment,' in its technical sense of knowing existence, is a
different activity from the consiructing of propositions." Interpretation, p. 22.

JOHN F. X. KNASAS

nized to be a composite. In the judgmental viewing of instance
one the situation is no longer described smoothly as "really
existing John," but as "John with real existence." A distinction of parts becomes evident. The object goes from glossy
to grainy. Likewise for instance two. In the activity of judgment things appear as composites of themselves and their
existence.
Such a judgmental consideration of the existent individual
is behind the formation of those logically anomalous one-term
propositions spoken of by Gilson. 38 These propositions are
existential ones, e.g., "John exists." They are logically strange
because they do not fit the standard logical form of attributing
a concept to a subject, e.g., "John is a man." Yet from the
viewpoint of judgment, existential, one-term propositions fill
the bill. They perfectly express what one sees as going on,
viz., the composition of an individual with its own unique esse.
In fact with this existential function of the verb " to be " in
mind, its copulative uses become understandable. The latter
express the judgmentally grasped existential synthesizing of
the individual with its essential or accidental natures. 39
Yet what Aquinas calls the thing's esse does not merely come
across as distinct in judgment. In judgment the proper relation of esse to the thing is also spied. This most important
point is just " read off" in the object of the activity of judgment. In sum, the thing's esse is not only grasped as distinct
from the thing but as most precious for the thing. What is
meant by this?
Since the thing has already been grasped in the first operation as existentially neutral, the thing's esse as picked up
within the activity of judgment reveals itself as that apart from
ss Being and Some Philosophers
(Toronto: 'rhe Pontifical Institute of
Mediaeval Studies, 1961), pp. 190-201. For a survey of the issue, see Ambrose
McNichol, "On Judging Existence,'' The Thomist, 43 ( 1979), pp. 507-80.
39 " The 'verb 'to be' is used as a copula because all judgments of attribution which are true or intend to be true aim to affirm or to deny a certain
way of being. In short, is has correctly been chosen as a copula because all
judgments of attribution are meant to say how a certain thing actually is."
Gilson, Being, p. 200. See also Owens, Interpretation, pp. 32-6.

" ESSE " AS THE TARGET OF JUDGMENT

241

which the thing is nothing. Any actuality that the thing has
is owing to its esse.410
Moreover, because it is the thing's very actuality, esse is
most basic and fundamental for the thing. As Owens remarks,
esse is the axis and core around which the thing revolves. 41
Likewise Aquinas. In the thing, esse is what is innermost (magis
intimum) and most deeply set (profundius) .42 The thing
should not be understood as in some sense " already there "
with its esse, real or cognitional, coming to rest upon it. Rather,
as picked up in judgment, the relation is just the opposite.
Esse is first and the thing subsequent. 43 The priority here is
not a temporal one. As the very act of a thing, esse cannot be
there without understanding the thing to "blossom around "
the esse as soon as the esse is posited. Hence, in his The Christian Philosophy of St. Thomas Aquinas, Gilson remarks: "Each
essence is set up by an act-of-being which it is not and which
includes it as its own determination [in French ed., autodetermination]." 44
How does this understanding of the esse grasped in judgment compare to Rahner's? Obviously, Aquinas regal'ds this
esse as the esse of each thing. It is radically diverse 45 and is
the very actuality of the thing, most profound and ·deeply set
in the thing. The esse originally grasped in judgment is not
Rahner's universal and non-proper esse in reference to which
a thing is called a being. Rather, esse is truly "had" by the
thing so that as a being the thing is a habens esse.
From a number of acts of judgment a richer multiple can be
set up in cognition upon which the intellect's first operation
can once again go to work. Since each instance of this multiple
40 De Pot.

VII, 2, ad 9m and 8.T. I, 4, I, ad 3m.
p. 71.
42 8.T. I, 8, le.
43 For texts on the priority of esse, see Joseph Owens, "The Starting Point
of the Prima Via," in Catan, op. cit., p. 279, ft. 49.
44 The Christian Philosophy
of Ht. Thomas Aquinas (New York: Random
House, 1956), p. 36.
45 For texts, see Owens, "Diversity and Community of Being in St. Thomas
Aquinas," in Catan, op. cit., pp. 97-99.
41 Interpretati-On,

JOHN F. X. KNASAS

is set up by an act of judgment, each instance will be corning
across as a thing plus its esse. The one in many will be the
notion of ens. It is already analogical because e8se, which is
its distinguishing note, is analogically realized in each thing. 46
In light of this notion each instance of the multiple is seen
as a being, an existent. This apprehension has nothing apriori
about it. Everything proceeds from really existing things.
Things are not intellectually grasped as beings in the light
of an apriori dynamism to absolute es8e. Rather, this happens
in the light of a notion of ens formulated from the grasp of esse
in things.
Rahnerians would undoubtedly remark that at this point the
notion of en8 of which I am speaking is still material. Its meaning is" existent body." Hence, I have failed to secure, first, the
subject of metaphysics 47 and, second, a sufficient starting point
for demonstrating an infinite First Cause. 48
In reply to the first point. A case can be made that Aquinas's
delineation of the subject of metaphysics, ens qua ens or en8
commime, as what can exist in matter but need not, was in
large rnea.sure only an historical necessity. 49 In brief, the de46 On this conceptualizing
of the object of judgment, see Jacques Maritain,
Approaches sans Entraves (Paris: Fayard, 1973), pp. 264-5. Hence, when
Aquinas says that " Being (ens) falls first ( primo) in the conceptualizing
of the intellect" (S.T. I, 5, 2c and In I Sent., d. 8, q. 1, a. 3, Solut.), the
sense of primo is not a temporal one but one of intelligible rank. "Ens" or
"'habens esse" is the underlying conception of everything grasped through
the the intellect's two-fold activity.
Finally, Owens has gone over the
Thomistic texts leading to the judgment of truth and concluded: " [The
cognitive activity's] structure comes from the thing known, and not from
any apriori in the intellect. In the cognitional order, consequently, the human
intellect is something purely potential. In the real order it is a power of
the soul, a faculty, and accordingly something actual. But from the viewpoint of providing anything in the constitution of its object, it is but a potency
to be actuated by what comes from the existent thing before it." "Judgment
of Truth" in Catan, op. cit., p. 51. In Aristotle the apprehension of the universal always seems to be a post-apprehension, see Meta., I, 1, 98la 5-7 and
A Po., II, 19 ff.
47 On the difficulty, see Rahner, Spirit, pp. 190-1.
48 Supra ffn. 18.
49 On the historical
necessity that I speak of, see Owens, "Aquinas as
Aristotelian Commentator," in Catan, op. cit., pp. 4-12. For a full-length dis-

" ESSE " AS THE TARGET OF JUDGMENT

243

lineation was required at the time to achieve verbal agreement
with Aristotle's understanding of the subject. For Aristotle
the subject of metaphysics is a multiplicity of purely formal
beings. In a Christian context this would mean that the divine
itself is studied by philosophy and not theology. To safeguard
the autonomy of theology, the phraseology describing the subject matter of Aristotelian metaphysics was given a different
interpretation. The phra:seology was: what is separate from
matter both in meaning and existence. Borrowing a move from
Avicenna, Aquinas made the words refer to ens commune. Immaterial beings, like God, are still considered in metaphysics
but only insofar as they are causally related to its subject
matter.
Today no need exists to achieve verbal agreement with Aristotle. The judgmental grasp of the esse of sensible things sets
up a distinctive enough view point to start metaphysics.
Apart from this reply, the judgmental approach to ens presented here can easily be supplemented by reasoning from
natural philosophy for immaterial beings. With this knowledge
of the immaterial, a judgment of separation can be maide on
ens. In this way ens is proportioned to ens commune as that
expression denominates the subject of metaphysics in the texts
of Aquinas. 50 To be noted is that still no need exists for an
apriori, to establish metaphysics.
cussion, see my "Immateriality and Metaphysics," forthcoming in the 1987
volume of Angelicum.
5o On the need of argumentation
from natural philosophy, see Vincent Smith,
"The Prime Mover: Physical and Metaphysical Considerations,''
The Proceedings of the American Catholic Philosophical A_ssociation, 28 (1954), pp.
90-3; Thomas C. O'Brien, Meta11hysics and the Existence of God (Washington:
The Thomist Press, 1960), pp. JG0-2; James A. Weisheipl, "The Relationship
of Medieval Natural
to Modern Science: The Contribution of
Thomas Aquinas to its Understanding," Manuscripta, 20 (1976), p. 194. In
his "A Note on the Approach to Thomistic Metaphysics," The New Scholasticism, 28 (1954), pp. 468-72, Joseph Owens points out, however, that to grasp
existential act, esse, the natural philosophy approach to Thomistic metaphysics
needs the judgment approach. Indeed, this seems true. Smith, op. eit., PP·
91-3, claims that the notions of essence and existence are crafted to solve
the problems of the one and the many among immaterial beings. Yet the
Aristotelian notion of form is sufficient of itself to explain its multiplicity:

244

JOHN F. X. KNASAS

In reply to the second point. Owens shows that as grasped
in judgment esse is not a thing. Hence, it is not originally
manifested as either finite or infinite. 51 Rather, esse is an
analogous instance of what itself is infinite. As the accidental
and prior actuality of the thing, esse is ultimately dependent
upon a subsistent instance of existence. As subsistent, existence
is pure existence; hence, infinite in the sense of universally
perfect. 52
In conclusion, according to the interpretation of this article,
Aquinas does everything Transcendental Thomists desire but
without running the risk of the restrictions of transcendental
method. In Rahner, at any rate, there seems to be a massive
ignorance of esse as the intrinsic act of the thing. 53 This under"The Aristotelian form, moreover, of its very nature denotes difference, and
therefore intelligible content. The form of anything is most properly expressed
by its ultimate difference. Consequently, the form does not require anything
else to differentiate it. Difference of forms, either in the material or the
immaterial order, nowhere appears as a problem in Aristotle." Joseph Owens,
The Doctrine of Being in the
Metaphysics (Toronto: Pontifical
Institute of Mediaeval Studies, 1963). pp. 458-9. O'Brien, op. cit., p. 160,
appears to claim that reasoning from natural philosophy not only demonstrates the immaterial but also gives the distinction between essence and
existence that sets up ens: "Negatively, this is the understanding that to be
is not necessarily to be material and changeable. The occasion for such a
realization is the discovery that there are beings, existent things, that exist,
and are not material." The problem that I find in O'Brien's position is this.
If esse is not distinctly appreciated before the demonstration of the immaterial, then how does such a demonstration say anything about esse? Does not
the demonstration show only that our concept of substance is not identical with
body? It seems so. In contrast to O'Brien, it is worth noting that Aquinas
lists ens along with substance at De Trin. V, 3c. But our initial grasp of substance dos not wait upon a demonstration of the immaterial. Likewise for
ens. Finally, that the subject of metaphysics is not secured through a natural
philosophy demonstration of God, see John Wippel, "Metaphysics and Separatio according to Thomas Aquinas,' Review of Metaphysics, 31 (1978),
pp. 446-468.
51 "Immobility and Existence for Aquinas,'' in Catan, op. oit., pp. 211-217.
52 For a sketch of the reasoning
for subsistent existence from the accidentality and priority of existence, see Interpretation, pp. 77-85. On the universal perfection of subsistent existence, see ibid., pp. 92-3.
sa For a survey of different appreciations
of esse among 20th century
Thomists, see Helen James John, "The Emergence of the Act of Existing in
Recent Thomism," Interncitional Philosophical Quarterly, 2 ( 1963), pp. 595-

" ESSE " AS THE TARGET OF JUDGMENT

standing of esse has been patiently worked through in a line
of thinkers that stretches from Gilson, Maritain, to Owens. It
has the advantages of being both Thomistic 54 and philosophically cogent. On the Thomistic spectrum many points exist.
Besides the transcendental and existential interpretations
spoken of here, interpretations show-casing natural philosophy
and Aquina:s's notion of participation are found. 55 Nevertheless, for those interpretations focusing upon the judgment of
esse, the time seems appropriate for a dialogue.
JOHN

F. X. KNASAS

University of St. Thomas,
Houston, Te:»as
620. One Transcendental Thomist who is sensitive to Aquinas's doctrine of
actus essendi is Bernard Lonergan. See liis "Insight: Preface to a Discussion,"
pp. 79-81. Yet for Lonergan there is no intuition of concrete, actual existence.
Rather, we know "being" contains existential act by a reflection upon our
activity of questioning: "But, then, what can be the origin of the notion of
existence, if neither sense nor understanding suffices? I think that, if you
will go back over the process just described, you will see that the notion of
existence emerged with the question whether the particularized concept, this
thing, was anything more than a mere object of thought. In other words,
just as existence is the act of being, so the notion of existence is the crowning component in the notion of being. But the notion of being is our desire
to know, our desire to ask questions. The crowning question is the question
for reflection, an sit? Is it so?" ( p. 80) . As I understand Lonergan, our
questioning is propelled by the notion of being implicit in the intellect's
natural desire. ( p. 75) But that questioning peaks out in existential questions. Hence, reality must include existential act. Obviously, this approach
to actus essendi makes sense only if the objectivity of the notion of being
is assured. Like other Transcendental Thomists, Lonergan appeals to retorsion
here; see John Haught, Religion and Self-A.cceptance (New York: Paulist
Press, 1976), pp. 134-141. But as I mentioned, as used by Transcendental
Thomists, retorsion has difficulties transcending Kant's strictures on metaphysics.
54 I cannot agree with Gerald McCool's claims that the 20th century switch
to a post-Cartesian subjective starting point in Thomistic epistemology and
metaphysics is the " outcome of the historical rediscovery and systematic
development of the genuine possibilities of the Angelic Doctor's own thoughts,"
Catholic Theology in the Nineteenth Century (New York: The Seabury Press,
1977) p. 235.
55 For the natural philosophy
approach, see Smith and O'Brien references
in ft. 50. For the participationist approach, see Cornelio Fabro, "The Intrinsic Hermeneutics of Thomistic Philosophy: The Notion of Participation,"
The Review of Metaphysics, 27 (1974), 449-91.

THE INSCRUTABILITY O:F
MORAL EVIL IN KANT

((W:HENCE COMETH EVIL?" Late in his career,
Immanuel Kant would turn his attention to this
perennial question with an elaborate account of
" radical evil " in Religion within the Limits of Reason Alone.
His discussion produced consternation among his admirers,
such as Goethe, and continues to produce puzzlement among
his commentators. Among the chief difficulties facing the
modern-day interpreter has been the welter of complex terminology tossed up by Kant's attempts to tame his topic.
The Kant specialist can justifiably suppose that if only he
or she could un-scramble the terminology, grasp the intended
interconnections among the terms, and set the discussion within
the context of the entire critical philosophy, the result would
be a reasonably clear view of Kant's theory of the nature and
source of moral evil.
There is of course some justification to this vaguely masochistic approach to the matter, yet such an approach, I fear, leads
inevitably to frustration. This is because, despite all the appearances to the contrary, Kant never really explains moral
evil in the discussion of radical evil in Religion. To be sure,
he offers a definition of what moral evil is, by the terms of his
philosophy. Nevertheless, he never really accounts for evil,
nor does he offer anything remotely approaching an answer
to my opening question. The deepest part of Kant's analysis
is not a response to that question, but a link between moral
evil and human freedom, and this link is utterly inexplicable,
for the same reason that freedom itself is, for Kant, ultimately
inexplicable.
Thus, by this reading of the theory of radical evil, we are not
finally led to comprehend Kant's view of evil. Instead, we are

246

THE INSCRUTABILITY

OF MORAL EVIL IN KANT

247

reminded of the contingent nature of the exercise of freedom,
the unfathomable quality of the process of character-building,
and, finally, the sheer inscrutability of moral evil itself. Kant
is theorizing about human nature in a way that gradually discloses the futility of domesticating this topic conceptually or
rationally. This point is worth stressing, partly because of
certain stereotypes that persist regarding the things Kant's
philosophy supposedly renders in rational form. And, obviously, the point can be stressed in the present context by pursuing further the notion that moral evil is, for Kant, inscrutable.
The inscrutability of moral evil does not pop into view all
at once, for Kant's discussion in Religion is set in the context of a complex account of the structure of the will, the
nature of the incentives capable of determining the will, and
the issue of freedom. Consequently, in what follows I shall
attempt to trace the Kantian line of thought lying behind his
agnosticism regarding the source of moral evil.

-IFor Kant, moral evil resides in a maxim. 1 A maxim is for him a
special kind of principle, one which guides or informs actionin effect, a "practical principle." The very idea of a maxim
is a key element in Kant's efforts to determine how reason can
be practical. Discourse about maxims is Kant's way of accounting for those practical principles by which we actually do act,
instead of only those principles by which we ought ideally to
act. 2 In effect, a maxim is the guiding principle that I could
state to myself were I to reflect upon the overall policy determining a given act (" I should enrich myself by whatever
1 Kant, Die Religion innerhalb
der Grenzen der blossen Vernunft, ed. W.
Weischedel (Frankfurt am Main: Suhrkamp, 1978), p. 6*7. English translation, Religion within the Limits of Reason Alone, trans. Theodore M. Greene
and Hoyt H. Hudson (New York: Harper and Row, 1960), p. 17. Hereafter
referred to as Religion, followed by page numbers in both Weischedel and
Greene/Hudson, with all translations taken from the latter.
2 Kant, Foundations
of the Metaphysics of Morals. trans. Lewis White
Beeck, (New York: Bobbs-Merrill, 1950), pp. 17 n.l, 38 n.9.

Q48

GORDON E. MICHALSON

means possible," " I should at all times tell the truth ") . This
distinction between guiding principles by which we actually
do act, and those by which we ought ideally to act, arises
because Kant understands a person's maxim necessarily to be
subjectively valid (it really is t'hat person's practical principle)
even though it may or may not be objectively valid (embodying the requirements of the categorical imperative). A maxim
is thus a subjective determining ground of the will, and its
relation to the objective demands of the moral law determines
the maxim's morality.
Despite Kant's familiar insistence that the morality of an act
should not be judged by its end products or results, it is important to notice the sense in which the language of ends remains relevant to his conception of a maxim. For, as Kant
flatly tells us in The Metaphysics of Morals, " every maxim
contains an end." 3 The relevant sense of " end " here is of
course not the material result of a given act, but the goal
or " good " that is served or honored by this maxim-be it
personal enrichment, respect for the truth, or something else.
The maxim embodies the end, and the capacity to fashion
maxims (whether moral or immoral) is what keeps us from
being creatures of sheer whim or perpetual childlike spontaneity.
Obviously, the notion of a maxim is a major component in
Kant's general account of the will. This is because the will,
for him, is the faculty that acts according to a conception of
law in its efforts to bring about certain ends 4 and, as we have
just seen, every maxim contains an end. In effect, maxims
articulate the ends determining the will in its successive acts.
The " will can be appraised as good or evil only by means of
its maxims," Kant tells us. 5 A morally good will is reflected
through maxims that contain the moral law as their end. In
such cases, that which is already objectively valid (the moral
s Kant, The Doctrine of Virtue (Part II of The Metaphysics of Morals),
trans. Mary J. Gregor (New York: Harper and Row, 1964), p. 56.
4 Lewis White Beck, A Commentary on Kant's Critique of Practical Reason
(Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1960), p. 38.
s Religion p. 676, p. 24.

THE INSCRUTABILITY

OF MORAL EVIL IN KANT

249

law) is made subjectively valid through the production of a
maxim: I make the moral law my personal practical principle.
The condition of the possibility of the production of a moral
maxim is thus the agent's capacity for respect for the moral
law. This capacity reveals the important fact that the moral
law can in fact serve as an incentive in the agent's free production of maxims.
Alternatively, a genuine free agent may choose to produce
maxims containing some end other than the moral law. When
this happens, the maxims do not cease to be subjectively valid
(they still really are our practical principles), but they do
cease to be objectively valid (which is to say, they are immoral maxims). In such cases, the agent has succumbed to
sensuous inclination, or the law of self-love, as his or her incentive. It is in this context that it is correct to say that moral
evil resides in a maxim.
In his discussion of radical evil in Religion, Kant deepens
his general account of the problem of freedom and maximmaking by denying that some maxims simply have a morally
good content while others have a content that is evil. The
moral character of a maxim, Kant tells us, is not a matter of
content at all, but of form. This claim represents a deepening
of his position, not in the sense of a change or alteration, but
in the sense of a reinforcement of the central putative insight
of the Foundations of the Metaphysics of Morals and the
Critique of Practical Reason-namely, the insight that the
morality of an act is determined by the form, and not the
content, of our willing. This insight, after all, is what accounts
for the purely formal nature of Kant's categorical imperative.
Kant's position had already been succinctly expressed in the
Critique of Practical Reason:
If a rational being can think of its maxims as practical universal
laws, he can do so only by considering them as principles which
contain the determining grounds of the will because of their form
and not because of their matter. 6
s Kant, Critique of Practical Reason, trans. Lewis White Beck (New York:
Bobbs-Merrill, 1956), p. 26.

Q50

GORDON E. MICHALSON

The account in Religion examines the formal structure
of volition with a particular concern for the incentives informing a given maxim. The reason we cannot simply sort maxims
into two camps-those with a moral incentive and those with
an incentive that is sensuous-is that every maxim contains
both moral and sensuous incentives. 7 This standpoint is in keeping with Kant's general view of human nature as simultaneously rational and finite. Since a rational yet finite being is
always affected by both moral and sensuous incentives-by the
moral law and the law of self-love-any given maxim must
necessarily be a mix of the two types of incentives. We do
not " suspend " or bracket one set of incentives in the course
of fashioning maxims; to conceive of the maxim-maker as driven
solely by one sort of incentive or the other would be to falsify
our real situation. Consequently, the question of the moral
worth of a given maxim cannot simply be the question of
whether the moral law, or a sensuous impulse, furnishes the
incentive. For to pose the issue this way-in light of the presence always of both types of incentives-would be to fall into
the contradiction that the same person " would be at once good
and evil." 8
Moral evil, then, must reside not in the content of a given
maxim, but in the form. Kant describes the issue in terms of
the motif of "subordination"
(Unterordnung)-that
is, in
terms of the question concerning which of the two types of
incentives the moral agent "makes the condition of the
other." 9 We can perhaps be a little more precise than Kant
here and say that, whereas the distilled product of moral evil
resides in the form of a maxim, the evil itself is a property
of the act of will that freely subordinates one incentive to another, the moral to the sensuous. That is, moral evil finally
resides not so much in the form of the maxim as in the free act
that creates or makes real that form. Moral evil becomes a
reality in the course of maxim-making.
Religion, pp. 684-85, p. 31.
s Ibid., p. 685, p. 31.

1

9 Ibid.

THE INSCRUTABILITY

OF MORAL EVIL IN KANT

251

Evil is thus 1a kind of free " doing " that gets crystallized in
,a maxim, and nort 1a static mode of " being " or a given essence
that is simply given with human nature. The free production of
evil is an act of what Kant calls Willkur, the faculty of choice
that is subject to both rational and sensuous incentives. 10
Evil is not compelled by any aspect of human naiture, nor is
it an aot of the whoHy rational Wille, which (in contmst to
Willkur) is the source of our respect for the moral law rather
than our actual capaeity for agency. If Wille muld act, it could
only 1aot ornt of respect for the moral law. Burt it cannot act;
it can only provide an impe:mtive of duty to Willkur which,
in turn, can be elect to subordinate this rational incentive to the
sensuous. "The Will [Wille] itself ha1s no deteirmirning ground;
but, insofar ,a:s it can determine will [Willkur], :iit is practical
reason itself." 11 By discriminating in this way between the
aspects of 1an ultimately unified will, Kiant is able to explain
how i!t is that we remain mtional (and thus free and responsible) even when we act immorally. The distinction between
Wille 1and Willkur thrns enables him, among other things, to
insist that we never become wholly devilish, actively repudiating the moral 1aw.12 Immoml ads are not simply rthe forfeiture of our freedom, a circumstance that would make it
potentially impos1sible to attribute immorality to us. Moreover, we cannot conceive of an autonomous will that could will
to give up its autonomy without falling illlto stmk contradiction. In other words, Kant's depiction of the two 1aspects of
the will helps him rto avoid the trap of only being able to
impute vi11tue or a brutish, amoral heterornomy to the moral
agent. Even when i1t is subordirnating the moral law to sensuous inclination, Willkur remains subject to the incentive provided by Wille. Moral evil is not equivalent to the destruction
of the m1tional capacity .13
1

1

1

lOKant, The Metaphysical Elements of Justfoe (Part I of The Metaphysics
of Morals), trans. John Ladd (New York: Bobbs-Merrill, 1965), pp. 12-13.
11 Ibid., p. 12.
12 Religion, p. 684, p. 30.
13 Emil Fackenheim's
failure to distinguish between Wille and Willkiir
lies behind his misleading interpretation of the theory of radical evil. Facken-

GORDON E. MICHALSON

-IIThis general overview suggests that mo·ml evil for K 1ant
results from how we freely mobilize and order our natural stock
of human potentialities. It is in oonneobion with the theme of
human potentialiities that
introduces his veX!a.b.ious vocabu1ary of" predisposition" (Anlage) and" propensity" (Hang).
We have 1an "original predisposition 'lo good," together wiith a
"natural propensity to evil," Kant tells us, and the burden
of the first two Books of Religion is to examine these two
of human nature •and their relationship to one another. Broadly construed, the point of his language is to enable Kamt to argue thwt evil arises from what we freely do
with what we are nrutumlly given, rather than from what we
are narturally given taken by itself. Obviously, Kant could not
make any natuml human ohariacteristic the root cause of evil,
for evil ·could then be said to be necessitated by sometJhing
given in human nature, .severiingthe connection between moral
evil and freedom of the will. The 1sou11ce of moral evil must be
something for which 1a rational agerut can be held aooourntable.14
At the same time, the source of moml evil must have an intrinsic mnnection witJh what is unique to mitional beings, rin
order to set moral evil off from natural evi·l (of the sort we
associarte,•say, with earthquakes, disease, :and floods) . FurtJhermore, any convincing account of moral ·evil must keep in view
our finirte, sensuous nature, taking care not to ascribe to us
the sort of "holy will" that would he immune to natural
human drives aind incentives, thereby •robbing virtue of its
merit by rn!akingit automatic.
1

1

1

1

heim, "Kant and Radical Evil," University of Toronto Quarterly 23 ( 195354) : 339-53. Helpful correctives to Fackenheim's interpretation include Beck,
Commentary, pp. 176-81, 202-205; and John Silber, "The Ethical Significance
of Kant's Religion," in Religion, English trans., pp. xcv-cvi. For an account
of the wider historical context of the terms Wille and Willkiir, see Ralf
Meerbote, Wille and Willkiir in Kant's Theory of Action," in Moltke Gram
(ed.), Interpreting Kant (Iowa City: University of Iowa Press, 1982), pp.
69-8414 Religion p. 683, p. 30.

THE INSCRUTABILITY

OF MORAL EVIL IN KANT

Thus, Kant must walk a fine line between attributing moral
evil to something natureUy g,iven in human nature ,and 'attributing it to some force or capacity utterly irrelevant to basic
human na1ture. The purpose of tihe vocabula,ry of predisposiition
and propensity is to enable him to walk this fine line.
The notion of a "predisposition"
Kant's way of talking
about basic human niwture as it is prior to 'any ,aictual exercise
of freedom. We 1are not" really" what we essentially are until
we exercise our freedom; but we are something prior to that
point, and the idea of ian original predisposition enables Kant
to map out what tl:uwt is. K1ant specifies three original predispositions: the predispositions to animality, humanity, and
personaliity.15 These three correspond, roughly, to: physica.l
"self-love" (providing for our preservation as a species); a
self-love thwt is both phys:ioal 'and mtional (producing the
inclination " to acquire worth in the opinion of others ") ; and
" the capacity for respect for the moval law " as a. su:ffiicient
incentive for the wiU.16
" Personality " is virtually synonymous with what Kant calls
"moral feeling." 17 Mor:a:l feeling, a product of Wille, represents a peculiar cross-breeding of the rational and 1affective
in Kant's et:Jhical theory. In effect, moml feeling is ·the form
taken by the moml 1'aw when the moral law serves as an incentive for WillkUr: the moral 1aw presents itself to a :riartional
yet finite being in the form of mo11al feeling.18 Strictly speaking, •the moral Iaw taken by itself is never our incentive, for
(a:s Beck puts it) a "l1aw is just not 1the sort of thing .that can
be 1an incentive." 19 Instead, the consciousness of the moral law
is our incentive, and tihis consciousness is mediated to us in
15 Ibid.,

pp. 672-75, pp. 21-23.

1s Ibid.,

p. 674, pp. 22-23.

17 Ibid., p. 67 4, p. 23. On the notion of " moral feeling," see also Kant's
Critique of Practical Reason, pp. 76-79.
is " Respect for the moral law ... is a feeling produced by an intellectual
cause .... This feeling, under the name of moral feeling, is therefore produced
solely by reason." Oritiq,ue of Practical Reason, pp. 76, 79.
19 Beck, Commentary,
p. 221.

GORDON E. MICHALSON

the form of moral feeling. Moml feeling is synonymous wirth
respect for the mo:ml law, 20 and "personality," 1as we have just
seen, is the capacity for respect for the moral law as a sufficient incentive for determining the will. The predisposition to
personality thus gives us the potential to be truly rational
beings in our moral conduct, while the two other predispositions 1are Kaint's ways of giving full credit to our finite, fallible
side, understood both in strictly sensuous ·and in social terms.
All three pred:i1spositions-and not merely the predisposition
to
good in themselves. 21 Kant goes further
even than ·this 1and staites that natuml "inclinations, conside1·ed
in themselv-e.'I, m·e good." 22 Again, moral evil is never understood by Kant as sheer sensuousness or sensuous inclinaitions in
themselves (a position for which he criticizes the Stoics 23 ),
but as the free subordination of the moral law to sensuous inclinations. "Evil could have sprung only from the momllyevil (not from mere limitatiorns in our nature) .... " 24 Kant's
account of the predispositions thus exemplifies his view of our
potentiali1ties as rational yet finite creatures. These potenti alities have very clear limits on both ends of the spectrum, for
Kant specifies that we cannot become purely animal-like
(operating solely by sensuousness) or truly devilish (actively
repudiating the moral law so that it could no longer be an incerntive) ,25 :any more that we could reasonably expect ever to
have a genuinely "holy" will (Wille without Willkur) .26 All
three predispositions remain in place, effectively channeling our
potentialities in wiays 1tha1t are roughly fixed.
1

20 Religion,

p. 674, p. 23 ;Critique o.f Practical Reason, p. 76.
p. 675, p. 23.
22 Jbid., p. 710, p. 51, emphasis Kant's.
23 Jbid., pp. 709-710, pp. 50-51.
24 Ibid., p. 693, p. 38.
25 Ibid., p. 683, p. 30.
20 On the limits of "moral rebellion"
within Kant's scheme, see Allen ,V.
Wood, Kant's Moral Religion (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1970),
pp. 212-13. Wood disputes the interpretation given this issue by John Silber,
"The Ethical Significance of Kant's Religion," p. cxxix. See also Sharon
Anderson-Gold, "Kant's Rejection of Devilishness: The Limits of Human
Volition," Idealistio Studies XIV (1984) : 35-48.
21 Religion,

THE INSCRUTABILITY

OF MORAL EVIL IN KANT

255

Goodness or evil are thus the result of what we do with these
potentialities. Though ibhe potentialities 1are fixed-in the sense
tha1t we cannot be held accountable for them-what we do
with them is not fixed. The o·rigina:l predispositions effectively
constitute the hand we are initially dealt, while what we make
of this hand, or how we play it, depends upon the way we ourselves intvoduce the wild card of freedom. The concept of
predisposj,tions enables Karut to exploit the difference between
saying we me "c11eated for good" (which he endorses) and
saying we are " 1already 1actually good " priur to any act of
freedom (which he denies) .27 It is just here that Kant's notion
of a "propensity" oomes into play. There is considemble confusj,on over just what he means by this term, produced in
large part no doubt by his itorrtmed basic definition of a propensity a.s "the subjective ground of the possibility of an inclination." 28 On the whole, Kant seems less interested in elaborating a general theory of pl'Opensit:ies (along the lines of his
general theory of predispositions) than in utilizing the concept
of a pl'Opensity to zero in on one particular "subjeotive ground
of the possibility of .an inclination." The particular subjective
gl'Ound in question is the one lying behind our gener.,al tendency
to deviate from the moral law-this general tendency, ra:ther
than episodic or
and disconnected lapses, is what
interests Kant. The ent:i:r1e discussion of 11adical evil is in fact
directed toward the notion that there is an inevitable pattern
connected with our willing of evil maxims, and the notion of
the propensity is K ant's way of transcendentally delineating
this pattern without allowing its inevitability to turn into outright necessity.
Consequently, we find Kant say.ing .that the "propensity to
evil must consist in the subjective ground of the possibility
of the devirution of the maxims from the moml law." 29 Keeping
1

1

1

1

21 Religion,

p. 694, p. 40, emphasis Kant's.
p. 675, p. 23. On the confusion concerning
especially Wood, Kant's Moral Religion, pp. 215-17.
29 Religion, p. 676, p. 24.
2s Ibid.,

Kant's meaning,

see

256

GORDON E. MICHALSON

in mind the original definition of a propensity as the subjective
ground of the posSJibility of an inclina,tion, we see that the
crucial ,aspeot of this comment is the way it links up the
pr:oblem of moral evil with the Kantian theory of the inclinations. As we have seen, evil consists in the subordination, within 'a maxim, of .the iincentive of the morial law to that of sensuous
inclination. We now learn tha.it the idea of a propensity suggests the way in which sensuous inclinrutions get the upper
hand, so to speak, in the formation of maxims. The propensity
to evil, to be sure, does not explain how or why the subordination of the moTal to the sensuous occurs, but it does account for
the potentiality nooessary for there to be morial evil. For Kant's
theorizing about our original pr:edispositions left a gap in respect
of just this potentiality, due to his insistence that all of our
predispositions 1are good in themselves. That is to s,ay, the
theory of 1the pr:edispositions accounts for all of our potential,
except for our potential to pmduce mora1 evil.
Even so, propensity to evil is not evil itself any more than
a given predisposition or inclination is evil in and of itself.
Instead, this propensity is bhe sheer tendency to subordinate
the moral law to sensuous inclination in the fashioning of our
maxims. Whether or not we ,actually do deviate from the moral
law in this way is not predetermined but depends in each instance upon a discrete act of freedom. As Kant explains, by
the notion of a propensity " we understand a subjective determining ground of the will which precedes all acts and which,
therefore, is itself not an act." 3° For reasons that-somewhat
surprisingly-stem a;s much from a survey of empirical data 31
as from :a priori reasorung .about human nature, K,a.nt clearly
believes that all rational beings do in fact succumb to the
1

30 Ibid., p. 679, p. 26, emphasis Kant's.
Kant immediately qualifies-and
vastly complicates-this point by distinguishing between two senses of "act":
one sense bears on the free choice of one's subjective " disposition;" and the
other bears on the specific acts undertaken in accordance with the underlying
disposition. For an elaboration of the notion of the "disposition," see my
account below, Part III and IV.
31 Ibid., pp. 680-83, pp. 27-30.

THE INSCRUTABILITY

OF MORAL EVIL IN KANT

257

propensity ito evil 1and deviate from the moral Law as a regular
tendency. Inv,a,riably-but not necessiarily-a capacity for
evil in principle booomes the production of evil in fact. Since
moml evil must ultimaitely arise out of freedom (instead of
from 'a fixed human natme), Kant is thus foreed to observe
tha;t propensities, unlike predispositions, can be brought upon
ourselves, which can only mean that we have some control over
our inclinations or perhaps even over what inclinations we
actually have. 32 Moreov,er, because Kanrt thinks that the propensity to evil is virtually universal (" this propensity can be
considered as belonging universally to mankind . . ." 33 ) , he is
finally led to the seemingly parado:idcal judgment that ev:i,l
is both freely elected 'and " innate," 34 a view that would appear
to vob either "freedom " or "innateness " of its point. It is
because of this daim of " a radical innate evil in human
nature" 35 ,that Kaint concludes that "man is ,evil by natuve." 36
Yet since he hrus reached
conclusion thl'ough an account
of human potentialities-all of which requives specific a,cts of
freedom fo beoome actualities-Kant is evidently satisfied that
he ha:s avoided making the phrase, "evil by nature," synonymous with the phrase, "evil by necessity." "We are accountable," Kant tells us, " for the propensity to evil . . " 37
1

-III-

The specific locus of moml evil is thus the free act by which
we execute the transition from 'a set of poitentialities to 'a certain
actuaHty. This actuality is the form that our free act gives
to maxims that, upon inspection, turn out to be evil maxims. A
moment's ,reflection clearly suggests tha:t to appreciate that it
is the form and nort the conrtent of a maxim that determines
its moral character is not yet to apprehend how and why we
p. 676, p. 24.
p. 676, p. 24.
34 Ibid., pp. 668, 680, 692, pp. 17, 28, 38.
35 Ibid., p. 680, p. 28, emphasis Kant's.
3s Ibid., p. 680, p. 27.
a1 Ibid., p. 683, p. 30.

32 Ibid.,

33 Ibid.,

258

GORDON E. MICHALSON

become morally evil, even given Kant's comments about the
human p:mpensity to evil. The crucial underlying quesrtion
would seem to concern the connecticon between freedom and
the form of a given maxim. By turning our aittention away
from the content of a given maxim to its form, Kant is redil'ecting our attention to the autonomous act by which the
moral agent subordinates one sor:t of incentive to another. Evil,
like virtue, somehow arises out of this process of subordination and becomes a p11operty of this process of free election.
But what can be said about this process? How is the form of a
maxim determined? What can be said about the connection
between freedom and the form of a given maxim?
It is just here that things become increaisingiy problematic
¥ery quickly, for Kant is eliciting questions that his ethical
theory is ,incapable in principle of answering. Together with
his claim rthat moral evil resides in the form, and not the content, of a given ma:irim, Kant offers the re1ated claim that the
form of the maxim is freely determined by "an underlying common ground itself a maxim." 38 The underlying common ground
of all of our maxims turns out to be what Kant calls the subjective" disposition (Gesinnung) ". 39 The disposition, Kant tells us
is " the ultimate subjective ground of the adoption of maxims,"
and must be understood as unified (not fragmented or chaotic)
and 1as applying to the individual's total exercise of freedom. 40
Yet, a:s itself a kind of maxim, the disposition is nm produced
by or g11ounded in anything other than freedom.
The unity of the disposition, together with the fact that it
serves as the ground of the production of maxims, is what
lies behin.d Kant's use of the expression, "radic:;tl evil." If
individual maxims· are the formal locus of moral evil, and if
all maxims find their source in a unified ground that has become wicked, then moral evil pervades the entire being of the
moiral agent in a " radical " way: " 'Dhis evil is radical because
1

38 fbid.,

s9 fbid.,
40 Ibid.

p. 666, p. 16,
pp. 671-72, p. 20.

THE INSCRUTABILITY

OF MORAL EVIL IN KANT

Q59

it oorrupts the ground of rull maxims .... [T]he cast of mind is
thereby corrupted at its root (so far as the moral disposition
is ooncerned) . . .. " 41 Moreover, the unity of the disposition
is also what allows us (in principle, if not in fact) to characterize the moral agent by a single, unambiguous moral
valuation, despite the potential diversity of the agent's phenomenal acts. That is, as the "supreme maxim " 42 the disposition accounts for any distinctive tendencies characteristic
of a given moral agent's lower-order acts of maxim-making, including the tendency to fashion immoral maxims. We infer
something about a person's disposition from the types of acts
we associate with that person over time. When, in ordinary
disoou1"se, we 'l."efer to someone as having a good or a bad
"chamoter," we are-from the Kantiam standpoint-addressing
the question of that person's disposition. A morally-sound disposition (1that is, a person of " good ohamcter ") regularly
produces actions based upon maxims in which the incentive of
sensuous inclinations has been subordinated to that of the
moral law. Kamt wants to legitimize this common human
tendency to evaluate the moml chairacter of people we meet
in everyday life, but he reminds us that, again from his standpoint, such evaluations (even of oneself) are the product of
inferences and not of theoretical knowledge.
[F]or outer experience does not disclose the inner nature of the
disposition but merely allows of an inference about it though not
one of strict certainty. (For the matter of that, not even does a
man's inner experience with regard to himself enable him so to
fathom the depths of his own heart as to obtain, through selfobservation, quite certain knowledge of the basis of the maxims
which he professes, or of their purity and stability.) 43

Three important things come into view at the point where
Kant makes the connection between the form of a given maxim
and the underlying ground of our maxim-making, the disposi]bid., pp. 686, 677, pp. 32, 25.
p. 679, p. 26.
43 Jbid., p. 716, pp. 56-57.
41

42 Ibid.,

260

GORDON E. MICHALSON

tion. First, Kant has confronted a difficult question (namely
"How is the form of a maxim determined?") by introducing
the possibility of an infinite regress into his account of moral
agency. For if Kant is going to tell us that freely produced
maxims .have a certain underly.ing ground which is also freely
produced, we will inevitably •ask what the " ground of the
ground" is (and so on). Otherwise, it is not clear why Kant
cannot simply suspend his analysis at the point where the
determination of the form of any particular maxim is described. Second, Kant ha:s signalled bhat, :vt perhaps its most
critical juncture, his account of moral agency must trade
heavily on a metaphor, the notion of a " ground." He cannot
say, directly, what the source of evil (or, for that matter,
vi11tue) is. This second point gives way to the third, which
concerns the way Kant m-ies to domesticate the problem of
infinite regress. He responds to it by invoking a systematic
agnosticism in his account of the ultimate ground of maximmaking and the source of evil. The " ultimaite ground" determining our moral status is, Kant tells us, "inscrutable to
us." 44 The moral disposition constituting this ground is unified
and freely chosen, for otherwise we would be forced to say
that the ground underlying the production of maxims is
"caused," robbing morality of its poin:t.45 But no more can be
said regarding this underlying ground: " we are unable to derive this disposition, or rather its ultimate ground, from any
original act of the will in time. " 46 The disposition is the
product of a noumenal free act, outside of time, regarding
which nothing of a theoretical or cognitive nature can be ·said.
'Ilhis insight, in turn, means that no more can be said about
the source of moral evil.
All three of these is·sues-the threat of a regress, the invocap. 667, p. 17.
pp. 671-72, pp. 20-21.
•6 Ibid., p. 672, p. 21. This quotation brings into view the deeply problematic-and utterly unresolved-issue of the relation between moral agency
(with its noumenal basis) and temporality (with its relevance to phenomena.
only) in Kant's ethical theory.
44 Ibid.,

45 Ibid.,

THE INSCRUTABILITY

OF MORAL EVIL IN KANT

261

tion of metaphor, and the appearance of a philosophically
timely agnosticism-hear in important ways on my central
ooncern, which is the question of how much we can say about
moral evil in a Kantian framework. It should be readily apparent at this point that ·a. good way of sifting through the
relevant problem al'eas, on the way to justifying the suggestion that moral evil for Kant is ultimately inscrutable, is to
inquire ful'ther into Kant's theory of the subjective disposition.

-IVThe disposition can perhaps be thought of provisionally as
the knot in the thread that is unraveling in Kant's hands as he
attempts to specify tihe locus of moral evil. The crucial feature
of the disposition that potentially helps it to be this knot is
its unity. Whereas there can be no accounting for the fact that a
given disposition is either virtuous or wicked, we can, thinks
Kant, account for the fact that the disposition is a unity.
Since the disposition is the seat of our moral character, it oannot he rendered or thema.tized in public, phenomenal terms.
This means in turn that the agent's disposition, due to its
noumenal and thus profoundly private quality, eludes all descriptions involving temporal order or transformation through
time: the disposition deflects all attempts at periodization and
thus can only be descr.ibed as a "unity." In Kant's words,
the " subjective moral principle of the disposition ... is not
susceptible to division into periods of time, but can only be
thought of as an absolute unity." 47
We therefore have, on the one hand, a single, timeless disposition .that constitutes the definitive feature of one's moral
wor:th and, on the other hand, the worldly manifestation of
this disposition in countless acts of maxim-making. What
obviously needs to be accounted for here in any assessment
of the pro blem of moral evil is the exact relationship between
the free act by which the agent chooses his or her disposition,
47 Ibid.,

pp. 724-25n., p. 64n.

262

GORDON E. MICHALSON

and the free aots arising out of the disposition in individual
ads of maxim-making. Kant comes closest to resolving this
difficulty by distinguishing between two senses of the word,
"1act ": it can apply to the exercise of freedom in the adoption
of the disposition; and it can apply as well to the exercise of
freedom by which particular actions are undertaken in accordanoe with the underlying disposition. 48 In fact, however, this
distinction does not so much account for the relationship between the disposition and individual aots of maxim-making
a.s it re-emphasizes the problem, for Kant offers no principle
of integration of the two senses of "act." At stake here finally
is just bhe issue that Kant wants to put to rest with his employment of the notion of the disposition: namely, the issue
of the unity of the moral agent. Despite his efforts to do so,
Kant never succeeds in accounting for this unity in his elaborate portrayal of moral agency in the discussion of radical
evil, and this failure evinces the general tendency of the critical
philosophy to multiply Ka.ntian "selves" without ever showing how they all relate to one another. 49
Whatever the difficulties here may be, it is clear that the
very idea of an underlying moral disposition serves an important Kantian purpose. For part of the point of having the
disposition ground all discrete acts of maxim-making is to avoid
the sheer indeterminacy that would obtain if individual aots
of maxim-making were construed as simply spontaneous, disconnected, and utterly unrelated to any common ground 50 Indeterminacy of this sort would cripple all efforts to describe
moral worth in the enduring terms that make meaningful the
very idea of imputing mornl worbh to the a.gent. The role
played by the disposition in helping Kant to avoid the dangers
p. 679, p. 26.
a helpful account of the difficulty of relating the disposition to our
individual acts of maxim-making-discussed
in the context of the multiple
Kantian "selves "-see Lee Carlton Barrett, "Sin and Self-Identity: Two
Responses to Kant," unpublished Yale University Ph.D. dissertation ( 1984),
Chs. I-II.
so See Wood, Kant's Moral Religion, p. 220.
4s Ibid.,
49 For

THE INSCRUTABILITY

OF MORAL EVIL IN KANT

of indeterminacy suggests the intimate and profound connection here between the doctrine of the disposition and the
Kantian doctrine of autonomy. Autonomy is sometimes characterized as freedom in the " positive " sense-involving the
ability to prescribe laws to oneself--in contrast to freedom in
the "negative "
only the absence of empirical
determination and restraint. 51 Individua1 acts of maxim-making ,are not scatbered disjointly, their range limited only by
the degree of external constraint imposed on the moral actor
(1as they might be, for example, in a Humean account of moral
agency) . Instead, individual acts of maxim-making have intelligible internal relations to one another by virtue of the unifying function of the freely adopted disposition. Just as autonomy (in contrast to mere freedom from empirical determination) is the capacity to prescribe laws to oneself, the
underlying moml disposition involves our latent tendency to
adopt characteristic and enduring courses of action. The nexus
of the theory of autonomy and the theory of the subjective
disposition is very close to the heart of what might constitute
a Kantian theory of personal identity. 52
The connection that Kant dra,ws (but never really explains)
between the disposition and the continuity and regularity of
our moral endeavors makes it tempting simply to conceive
of the disposition as the static "basis" of maxim-making.
Kant's habit of invoking the metaphor of a "ground" when
addressing the issue of the disposition increases this temptation. Yet it is important to recall that Kant calls the disposition itself a maxim. 53 This is because Kant wants to avoid at
all costs a theory of the production of maxims that ultima.tely
locates the source of our maxim-making in a "natural impulse" 54 or in any other fixed attribute of human nature for
Commentary, p. 122.
A complete Kantian theory of personal identity would, of course, also
have to integrate the empirical self and the transceendental ego of the Critique of Pure Reason.
53 Religion, pp. 666-68, pp. 16-17.
54/bid., p. 667, p. 17.
51 Beck,
02

264

GORDON E. MICHALSON

which the moral agent could not finally be held accountable.
The " ultimate ground of the adoption of our maxims ... must
itself lie in free choice" (Willkiir), Kant insists,55 and the
term "
" is, for all practical purposes, a philosophical
device for protecting the requisite element of freedom. Thus,
the disposition is both the ground of our maxim-making and
itself a maxim, yet one that cannot be further analyzed or
accounted for. A f.ree •act-the making of a maxim-rests on
another free aot-the making of the supreme maxim.
Kant seems to be a.ware of the potential problem of a regress
attending his view of moral rugency. And, as I have indicated,
it is in connection with this regress that he invokes a systematic agnosticism with respect to the ultima.te determining
ground of the will. In the search for tJhe ultimate determining
ground, he tells us, " we are referred back endiessly in the
series of subjective determining grounds, without ever being
able to reach the ultimate ground." 56 In a manner that could
he extremely troublesome for his entire account, Kant may he
running together here the question of whether we could ever
know the ultimate determining ground of the will with the
quite different question of wha.t the ultimate determining
ground of the will is. By systematically cl•aiming we can never
know what the ground is (it remains " inscrutable" to us) ,
Kant assumes the correctness of the view that the ultima.te
ground of the will is freedom. But of course it is precisely
because of the .prior assumption that the moral agent is free
that Kant cla.ims that we cannot finally " know" tihe determining ground of the will.
Despite the eme11ging problem of circuiarity compounding
the already evident threat of regress, Kant must argue in the
wa.y he does in order to protect his general theory of moral
agency. His entire position rests heavily on the principle
that any given act of freedom can only arise out of another
act of freedom. Even to disclose a fixed ground or basis for
DD Ibid.

u Ibid., p. 667n., p. 18n.

THE INSCRUTABILITY

OF MORAL EVIL IN KANT

265

freedom would imply that freedom is ultimately " caused,"
and even the hint of such a possibility would obviously be fatal
for Kant's position. It is probably correct to sa.y that virtually
anything other than a regress with respect to an account of
moral aigency leaves us with an "explanation" for freedom.
As a good Newtonian, Kant naturally appreciates that explanations consist in locating the explanandum (in this case, freedom) in a causal series so as to pinpoint the relevant antecedent terms. Actually to do this, of course, would be to deny
freedom, in the sense that it would deny freedom's capacityat any moment-to initiate a new series of acts undetermined
by what went before. Consequently, as one commentator has
aptly framed the issue, for Kaint "it is logically necessary that
freedom be incomprehensible." M An implicit yet clear corollary of this observ·ation is the claim that moral evil is finally
inscrutable. Moreover, evil is inscrutable in a "hanl " sense,
by reason of what is necessarily entaiiled by deep-seated feat!llres of Kant's position that cannot be shaken, and not in
the" soft" sense that would result from our having inadequate
information or insufficent theoretical data at our disposal. The
insOl'utability of evil stands squarely before us if we recall the
"act" by which the disposition is chosen. This "dispositional
act," it has been noted, " determines the basic motivation of
Willkilr and the kinds of" lo·wer-order" acts of maxim-making
characterizing a given agent's exercise of Willkur. 58 But it is
Willkiir itself that is responsible for this act! There can be no
solution to this conundrum that does not jeopardize the meaning of freedom, by Kant's terms.
In contrast to most philosophers-who typically enjoy knowing what they are talking about-Kant thus takes ironic pride
in knowing what he cannot talk about. 'Dhe metaphor of a
"ground," then, in his depiction of the subjective dispositiop
is considerably misleading, in the same way that the elaborate
apparatus of the first two Books of Religion is misleading.
57 Silber,

58 Ibid.,

"The Ethical Significance of Kant's Religion," p. cxi.
p. cxvi.

GORDON E. MICHALSON

For the image gives the appearance of curtailing the regress
and disclosing the underlying foundation (" ground ") of
maxim-making-but it is only an appearance. To return to
my own provisional metaphor, it turns out that, upon inspection, there really is no knot in the thread running through
Kant's hands as he specifies the locus of moral evil. What
seemed to be the knot must itself be freely chosen, and there
can be no accounting for this act of W illkur that does not
also explain away freedom. Consequently, the term "disposition" in Kant's moml philosophy does not really characterize
a certain human "essence" or a "state," a fixed point within
human nature disclosed in the process of moral valuation.
Instead, the term simply plays the role of a useful :fiction or
heuristic device that conveys two important Kantian insights:
the ultimate unity of momI agency and the unfathomable
character of freedom itself. These insights, in turn, translate
into the inscrutable character of moral evil.

-VExactly how and why we would choose an evil disposition
rather than a good one-mow and why, in other words, we
would " will " to have an evil will-is, in light of the preceding
discussion, utterly unaccountable on Kant's terms. The ela.borate explanatory apparatus set up in the first two Books of
Religion thereby turns out to be vastly misleading. We
seem to be getting a detailed account of both the source and
nature of moml evil. As it turns out, however, most of the
key concepts-such as " disposition "-are not rea.Ily definitive
explanations of momI evil and its source but mere phceholders on the road to the Kantian insight that " there is
then for us no conceivable ground from which the moral evil
in us could originally have come." 59 Again, Kant's point is
not that moral evil is illusory, but that it arises out of the
free act of Willkiir that can never be trapped conceptually. 60
Religion, p. 693, p. 38.
so It is presumably for this reason that Kant turns to biblical narratives to
explain both the rise of radical evil and moral regeneration.
59

THE INSCRUTABILITY

OF MORAL EVIL IN KANT

267

The appearance of an explanation of moral evil conveyed by
the terminology of Religion probably accounts for no small
part of the difficulty that commentators have traditionally had
with the doctrine of radical evil.
If Kant's account leaves the commentator with difficulties,
it leaves the moral agent with something even worse. For the
entire thmst of Kant's approach would seem to put in question one's capacity to have moral self-knowledge adequate to
the Kantian demand that we make ourselves virtuous. 61 The
unfathomability of freedom connects-virtually analyticallywith the unknowability of one's subjective disposition. Such a
situation, it would seem, severely jeopardizes the moral agent's
ability to gain a foothold or pivot point, as it were, from
which to exercise an informed moral capacity. Adopting a good
disposition begins to look like a hit-or-miss matter of sheer
chance or blind luck. To be sure, Kant has tried to head off
the problem of the potentially fragmented and absurdly contingent nature of given acts of freedom through his theory of
tJhe disposition. But the disposition cannot do the same chore
for itself-and there is no further Kantian term which eliminates this very threat of indeterminacy when the issue is the
choice of the disposition. Just as serious is the question of how
,an underlying disposition that has become evil could ever make
itself good again. For if the disposition is, as Kant tells us,
truly unified (either virtuous or evil) , it is not at all clear how
an evil disposition could be influenced by the incentive of
respect for the moral law. A unified, evil disposition will presumably detect the moral incentive, but it will always subordinate it to the sensuous incentive; otherwise, it is not truly
unified or it is not truly evil. 62 The absence of a. genuinely
61 Peter Laska, "The Problem of an Ultimate Determining Ground in Kant's
Theory of the Will," in Lewis White Beck (ed.), Proceedings of the Third
International Kant Congress ( Dordecht: D. Reidel, 1972), p. 390.
62 "This evil is radical, because it corrupts the ground of all maxims; it is,
moreover, as a natural propensity, inemtirpable by human powers, since extirpation could occur only through good maxims, and cannot take place when the
ultimate subjective ground of all maxims is postulated as corrupt. . •. "
Religion, p. 686, p. 32, emphasis Kant's.

GORDON E. MICHALSON

Kantian roaid out of moral evil and into virtue is no doubt
why Kant himself, when speaking of moral regeneration, falls
back on the biblicaJ motifs of " rebirth " and " new creation," 63
in effect admitting the failure of concepts to account for such a
transition.
All of these problem areas ultimately stem from Kant's
theory of freedom and the exercise of Willkiir that is the expression of this freedom. The Kant of the textbooks often
seems to provide us with a mathematically precise universe,
dependable transcendental footholds, a theory of moral obligation firmly grounded in the moral law, and an ambitious authorship designed to explain how all of these fit together. Yet, as
this account of moral evil suggests, the free will that is at
the heart of his theory of human nature has the look of something raw and arbitrary. Kant may truly be the great deontologist and purveyor of moral religion. Yet he also stands very
near the source of a tradition that passes through Schopenhauer, Nietzsche, and, finally, the Sartre of Being and Nothingness. Kant himself would no doubt shudder at the thought
of being placed in such company, for he has a clear-cut normative sense regarding how we " ought " to exercise our freedom,
together with some basic metaphysical commitments that
assure him that truly moral action relates intelligibly to the
wider moral-religious universe of which we are a part. But
if the skeptic rudely asks, " Well, why should I choose a good
disposition? Why shouldn't I be evil?," Kant can only reply
through appeal to what he thinks is the binding force of an
objectively valid moral law. Since such a reply is parasitic
upon prior acceptance of Kantian morality's own language
game, it is least likely to convince the true skeptic, the point
of whose question is precisely to put that language game into
doubt. The Kantian reply will be convincing only to one who
63 Ibid., p. 698, p. 43. Karl Jaspers suggests that the difficulties attending
moral regeneration amount to a Kantian theory of the limits of human freedom. Jaspers, "Das Radikal Bose bei Kant," in Rechenschaft und Ausblick
(Munich: R. Piper and Co. Verlag, 1951), p. 106.

THE INSCRUTABILITY

OF MORAL EVIL IN KANT

269

is already convinced, a point that has not changed since
Kierkegaaard first made it over a century ago. 64
What comes into view here, then, is the truly radical nature
of Kant's theory of freedom. If we eliminate the Kantian trust
in the objective reality of the moral law-but keep everything
else-we really do get something like Sartre. In both cases,
that which is finally most " real " and which somehow possesses the greatest metaphysical "weight" in all of the universe is the radically contingent and inexplicable a.ct of human
freedom. Kant can no more explain the choice of an evil disposition than Sartre can account for a decision to join the
French resistance. In Kant's own words, the" lapse from good
into evil (when one remembers that this originates in freedom)
is no more comprehensible than the re-ascent from evil to
good .... " 65
GORDON E. MICHALSON
Oberlin College,
Oberlin, Ohio

64 It was the Kierkegaard
of Either/Or who made this point as has, more
recently, Alasdair Macintyre in After Virtue (Notre Dame: University of
Notre Dame Press, 1981), pp. 38-45.
65 Religion, p. 695, p. 40.

THE THEORY AND PRACTICE OF DISCOMFORT:
RICHARD RORTY AND PRAGMATISM

0

VER THE LAST twenty years, one of the most consistently incisive critics of traditional Anglo-American
philosophy has been Richard Rorty. Few contemporary writers can match the vigor, breadth, and intelligence
of his books and articles, even as few readers can accept the
radicality of the views they express. Rorty disturbs and astonishes like spring weather. His pages mount like cumulus
clouds in our intellectual sky, saturated by the past and promising (ambiguously) either to irrigate or to inundate the present
fields of our culture. Almost everybody complains about him,
but can anything be done? This essay is an attempt to come
to grips with aat least part of Rorty's multi-faceted and troubling corpus. His diagnosis of the root problems of epistemology
and their larger significance (or insignificance) for Western
intellectual life is often brilliant, but I shall argue that his
prescription for the future is unattractive. His uncompromising
war on dogmatism is based on a rejection of conventional
notions of objective truth and metaphysical comfort and is
presented in the name of human freedom. It represents, however, a potentially disastrous kind of pragmatism which can
be criticized on both theoretical and practical grounds. Of the
two, the practical considerations may perhaps be the more
telling.

I. The Problems of Reading Rorty
In Philosophy and the Mirror of Nature, Rorty evaluates
modern philosophy's comon self-understanding. 1 One as1 Richard Rorty, Philosophy and the Mirror of Nature (Princeton:
University Press, 1979).

Princeton

RICHARD RORTY AND PRAGMATISM

271

sumed occupation of the discipline, on his view, is the discovery of the " foundations " of knowledge and thus the validation or invalidation of specific claims to know made in such
various fields as science, ethics, art, and religion. Philosophy
can claim to take the measure of these other areas of intellectual life because it claims to understand the nature of the mind
and its capacity for accurate representation of reality. Philosophy can claim to be foundational with respect to the rest
of culture because it claims to encompass the rest of culture,
because it claims to know better than science and religion, for
instance, what communion with reality they can and cannot
attain to. Or so many modern philosophers would (perhaps
only implicitly) believe.
Rorty suggests that this conception of philosophy stems
largely from intellectual developments beginning in the 17th
Century, and in this vein he isolates three key contributions:
(1) Descartes's idea of the mind as a separate substance, the
" inner" workings of which are uniquely knowable to itself;
(2) Locke's idea that a "theory of knowledge" is both necessary and possible on the basis of an understanding of the mind
and how it works; and (3) Kant's idea that philosophy both
can and should provide other fields with overarching canons
of reason by dissecting a priori the structure of reason itself.
These three contributions to modern philosophy's self-image
are interrelated but nonetheless distinguishable. Each played
its own crucial part in suggesting a foundation for that discipline, philosophy, which claimed to be foundational for all
others.
Over against this common picture of philosophy and its
proper labors stand Rorty's "heroes": Wittgenstein, Heidegger, and Dewey. These three men agree, in Rorty's estimation, that the picture (common to Descartes, Locke, and
Kant) of knowledge as needing certain foundations and of the
mind as locus of privileged epistemic processes, needs to be
abandoned. They agree that both epistemology and metaphysics can and should be " set aside as possible disciplines "

272

TIMOTHY P. JACKSON

in the name of a therapeutic form of life and a postmodernist
self-image. 2 It is this deconstructive, therapeutic line that
Rorty wishes to champion. Philosophy should no longer conceive of itself as underwriting links between the human mind
and the "objective " world; we have no access to the objective
world as it is in itself; so most of traditional epistemology is
misguided.
Rorty characterizes his efforts as more akin to moral surusion
than rigorous argument, claiming that the epistemological positions with which he takes exception are immune to such argument but objectionable (or at least optional) even so.3 It is
not unusual, for example, to find him remarking that major
philosophers on the Continent (like Derrida) no longer take
epistemology-much less scepticism-seriously, the implication
being that others should do the same. But this presents a problem. One should always be interested in what intelligent people
have to say about important matters, and it would be narrowminded simply to dismiss Rorty's comments as instances of
fallacy, but one is still left to wonder why the fashion on the
Continent (or elsewhere) should be of concern per se. It is
clear which philosophical positions Rorty does not like, yet
how are we to construe the force of his recurrent recommendations to " set aside" such positions? Indeed, do they have any
real force, other than the personal?
One strategy might be to prop up these recommendations,
recasting them in the form of traditional philosophical arguments. Such a strategy could take one of two turns, or per(a) it could mold Rorty into somehaps both intermittently:
thing like an old-style dogmatist, whose opposition to some
particular doctrine (such as realism) is to be understood as
an endorsement of one of that doctrine's contraries (such as
idealism); or (b) it could mold him into something like an
old-style sceptic, whose opposition to a particular doctrine is
to be seen as an endorsement of that doctrine's contradiction.
2 Ibid., p. 6.
a Ibid., pp. 364-365.

RICHARD RORTY AND PRAGMATISM

273

In reality, however, both (a) and (b) trade on the perceived
legitimacy of sceptical questions, differing only on whether
(or perhaps how) they can be answered. And Rorty protests
not to seek to address sceptical questions, but rather no longer
to take them seriously. A key step in this therapeutic approach is to deny the need for a theory of knowledge, or, more
specifically, to deny the "objectivity " of those truths the
knowability of which the sceptic claims to doubt. The attempt
to explicate "objectivity " in terms of neutral apprehension
of realities as they ar.e in themselves, for instance, is seen as
self-deceptive, even though it has defined traditional Western
philosophy and even though some such attempts have claimed
to be successful. All apprehension involves interpretation, and
interpretation entails the use of criteria and faculties conditioned by time, place, and various human purposes. If we cease
to worry whether "objective" truths exist beyond such conditions, then there is nothing for a traditional theory of knowledge to explain.
The bad faith of epistemology stems in part from the fact
that historically conditioned metaphors for knowing (e.g.,
such ocular metaphors as the mind as "mirror of nature") are
treated as necessary and timeless. When one realizes, however,
that modern philosophy has been shaped by three such questionable influences as Descartes, Locke, and Kant, one sees
that the traditional conception can be abandoned in favor of
pragmatism. When warrant and justification are a matter of
social convention,4 philosophical scepticism (and, therefore,
much of modern philosophy) withers away.
Skepticism and the principal genre of modern philosophy have a
symbiotic relationship. They live one another's death, and die
one another's life. One should see philosophy neither as achieving
success by "answering the skeptic," nor as rendered nugatory by
realizing that there is no skeptical case to be answered. The
story is no more complicated than that. 5
in The Enovolopedia of Philosophy, Vol. 4 (New York:
4 Rorty, "Intuition,"
Macmillan & The Free Press, 1972) , p. 211.
5 PhilosophJ! and the Mirror of Nature, p. 114. Contrasting perspectives on

TIMOTHY P. JACKSON

If Rorty's way with scepticism is correct, it suggests, 0£
course, that a third interpretive-critical strategy is open to
his reader. Rather than casting him in the role of dogmatist
or sceptic and attacking or defending him as such, one might
aidopt Rorty's own technique and point out that his "Wittgensteinian " line is also timebound and hence optional. In the
absence of more substantive criticisms of the tradition, the
question becomes that of specifying more or less personal rea.sons for choosing one " philosophical " option over another:
therapy over scepticism, or, better, therapy X over therapy Y.
And if the issue is the vitality or utility of particular metaphors
rather than the representational accuracy of particular statements, a defender of the correspondence theory of truth might
simply claim that the traditional metaphors for knowing are
optimally vital or utilitarian. Apart from suffering from selfcontradiction, however, this attempted peritrope would distort
Wittgenstein himself. To point out that an idea has a history
and that to hold it has consequences is not thereby to say that
it is either mistaken or dispensable, regardless of utility.
Rorty does not adopt just one polemical strategy; so he
must be read in a number of ways. As we shall see, despite
protests to the contrary he does employ sceptical arguments
against a realist understanding of truth; he does endorse at
times an idealist metaphysics; and he does argue (via Sellars
and Quine) that a foundational theory of knowledge is impossible, not just uninteresting or wearisome. 6 This is not to say
that the claim to advocate, as opposed to argue for, a radically
new intellectual vision is disingenuous, or even completely false.
But one of the effects of this claim is to suggest, spuriously,
a queer sort of neutrality or unexceptionability for Rorty's
work. If Rorty simply " chose " an idiosyncratic vision and
the significance of scepticism and its relation to modern philosophy are represented by M. F. Burnyeat, " The Sceptic in His Place and Time," in Philosophy
in History, ed. by Rorty, Sclmeewind, and Skinner (Cambridge: Cambridge
University Press, 1984), and Barry Stroud, The Significance of Philosophical
Scepticism (London: Oxford University Press, 1984).
a Rorty, Ibid., especially pp. 165-188.

RICHARD RORTY AND PRAGMATISM

275

beckoned others to follow, he would be quite uninteresting.
There are junctures at which major aspects of his view of
philosophy are (and must be) merely contrasted with their
alternatives, but it is a virtue of his work that important facets
of the Cartesian-Lockean Kantian legacy are grappled with
on their own terms. ·without some such dialectical overlap,
Rorty's concerns would be, by definition, totally discontinuous
with those of his "interlocutors." Genuine conversation would
not be possible.
Rorty, like
Lyotard, distrusts dogmatic metanarratives that appeal to some superhuman Reality to explain
or justify our situation. No prediction concerning the noumena]
self or Absolute Spirit or the Proletariat can deliver us from
our contingency. 7 Rorty too offers a kind of metanarrative,
however. Apparent denial of this is neither plausible nor necessary.8 Short of a lobotomy, one cannot live without some
metanarrative about how our theoretical and practical lives
hang together. Rorty has written two books and many articfes
arguing the metacase that there is no justification for our beliefs and practices beyond themselves, no intrinsic values or
a priori principles. So the truth is that he prefers a metanarrative of a particular (hyper-romantic) sort, not no metanarrative at all. Any other suggestion would be disingenuous.
What makes Richard Rorty's corpus interesting is its de
facto departure from its own paradigm of good philosophy.
If epistemology is to have no successor subject, as he contends,
and the postmodern philosopher is to concern him- or herself
only with socio-historical patterns of agreement among persons,9 then there is no room to write such a revolutionary, critical volume as Philosophy and the Mirror of Nature. If truth
and justification are both completely socially determined,1°
1 Rorty,
"Postmodernist Bourgeois Liberalism," in The Journal of Philosophy, Vol. 80, No. 10 (October 1983), p. 585.
a Ibid., p. 589.
9 Cf. Rorty, "Realism and Reference," in The Monist, Vol. 59, No. 3 ( 1976),
p. 336.
10 Cf. Philosophy and the Mirror of Nature, p. 196.

276

TIMOTHY P. JACKSON

then the good philosopher need only document the shifting
tides of social practices; but, as Ian Hacking allows, " to talk
of practices is not even to begin to ask a question." 11 Unquestionably and happily, Richard Rorty asks questions-malgre
lui. The real question is whether his answers can be correct
without also being self-refuting, either in theory or practically.
Can his view of language and thought as non-representational,
in the classical sense, leave room either for historiographical
contentions or for historical continuity and progress?

II.

Questions, Theoretical and Speculative

It is a commonplace that the classical Greek gods were not
really supernatural. They were products of and partially subject to natural forces, including error and violent emotion, and
not the transcendent or impassive creators of all that is. Men,
women, and gods were all subject to the Fates, the three daughters of black-winged night-a child of Chaos. If we think of
reference to the gods as a primitive attempt to justify beliefs
or actions, the seniority of the Fates should not be overlooked.
It represents the conviction (however mythically or symbolically expressed) that brute causality is intellectual l'ockbottom.
The Greek gods were, ultimately, fallible middlemen; the Fates,
on the other hand, could not make a mistake; so scepticism
could gain no foothold with them. A human being could have
doubts about them, but they could not have doubts about
themselves; and if ever a mortal were able to see the world
sub SJJecie Parcae, this would guarantee both knowledge and
power. Some version of the latter has always been the foundationalist ideal in epistemology, and it has not been abandoned
in the present day-however demythologized.
The problem of unraveling the connection between knowledge and causality has seemed quite acute to several of the
best philosophical minds of this century. Some moderns (e.g.,
Kripke and Swain) have turned to causal theories of meaning
11 Ian

Hacking, "Is the End in Sight for Epistemology?,"

Philosophy, Vol. 77, No. 10 (October 1980), p. 587.

in The Journal of

RICHARD RORTY AND PRAGMATISM

Q77

and reference in an effort to "naturalize" epistemology, in an
effort to eliminate intentional relations between words and the
world and thus to guarantee mechanically that certain terms
refer, certain propositions describe, etc. If language is to hook
up with nonverbal reality, they reason, something like ostensive definition must provide the meaning connection between
individual words and individual things. In this way, the philosophical interpretation of a sentence is able to cut out the
fallible middleman, so to speak-to bypass the particular language user's desires and beliefs to appeal to some sure, "neutral" convention for picturing reality. If a speaker's linguistic
behavior stands in the right causal relation to an object, then
he has named it whether he realizes it or not. The problem
with this scenario, however, as Richard Rorty points out, is
that nonintentional relations are as theory-relative as intentional ones. 12 There is simply no theory-independent, "mechanical" way to determine the meaning (or truth) of a piece
of language; the meaning of an appeal to causes will itself
always be a function of our best current understanding of such
relations, one which is mutable and fallible. Thus modern
philosophy of language cannot give us what lesser Greek heroes
longed for and what traditional foundationalist epistemologies
have failed to provide.
Rorty is unsurpassed in exposing the pretensions of contemporary linguistic analysts to have done the impossible, but he
makes too much of a good thing. He so presses his denunciation of epistemic hubris that even the humblest of annunciations seems impossible. Having granted that the attack on
foundationalism is brilliant and devastating, the reflective individual is still left to wonder, How am I to separate the wheat
from the chaff in my own culture? It is not just The Philosopher
(in some pejorative sense) who asks, more mundanely, How
am I to justify important personal judgments on everything
from whether to vote for a prolife politician to whether there
is a God? One does not have to be a self-deceived founda12 Philosophy

and the Mirror of Nature, p. 299.

278

TIMOTHY P. JACKSON

tionalist to ask and answer such questions intelligently, and
neither does being an anti-foundationalist deliver one from the
responsibility of such asking and answering. It is because Rorty
fails (at least in places) to appreciate this, that his admirable
critique of dogmatism tends to lapse into a too easy subjectivism. Although he commends the model of "skillful conversation " over that of " quest for certainty," he is still mostly
silent about the positive role of philosophy in the future. (Ian
Hacking, in public conversation, has gibed that Rorty appeals
to" conversation" where he has nothing to say.)
A distinctive charm and largeness of mind shines through
Rorty's pages, together with a deep love of intellectual freedom
and concern to preserve pluralistic social institutions. These
qualities and preferences seem oddly detached from good reasons, however. They are not grounded in views about the
intrinsic nature of human beings or the inherent value of certain human societies. As Rorty puts it,
[O]nce we say that what human beings are in themselves suits
them to be described in terms which are less apt for prediction
and control ... , we are off down the same garden path as when
we say that what atoms are in themselves suits them to be described in terms which are apt for prediction and control. . . .
Why not just say that there are lots of things you can do with
people-for instance, dwelling with them, loving them, and using
them-and that you should employ different vocabularies depending upon what you want? 13
The upshot seems an almost schizophrenic divorce between
theory and practice: the avuncular professor as nihilist. The
Greek ideal of unity between life and thought seems almost
totally absent. In contrast to Rorty's postmoderism, the
classical mind at its best seeks to meet the challenge of discerning and describing reasons for acting and willing in a particular way, even while displaying Aristotelian scruples about
not expecting more certainty in an area than the subject mat1a Rorty, "A Reply to Dreyfus and Taylor," in Review of Metaphysics,
(September 1980) , p. 44.

34

RICHARD RORTY AND PRAGMATISM

ter allows. He or she insists that the demise of foundationalism
gives neither carte blanche for arbitrariness nor reason for
despair. Such an insistence turns on the belief that traditional
foundationalism and postmodern nihilism do not represent an
inevitable either /or: there is a defensible middle ground. 14
A critical, " sceptical " realism seeks to preserve some relation between subject and object as the nature of truth while
acknowledging both the absence of incorrigible beliefs and the
presence of many different kinds of objects in the world.
Though difficult to argue for without begging major questions,
this Peircean perspective seems to me intuitively compelling.
It suggests that Rorty's mistake stems from two related, and
more or less self-conscious, conflations: that of alethiology
(theory of the nature of truth) with epistemology (theory of
the test for truth) , and that of epistemology with ontology
(theory of what there is) . With respect to the first pair, he
is quite right to argue that correspondence to reality cannot
be appealed to in epistemology as a criterion against which to
measure knowledge claims. We cannot hold up candidates
for belief opposite unmediated reality and see if they correspond, for if we already grasp reality there is no need to test
beliefs. In fact, the correspondence theory is an alethiological
theory only and thus does not enter into the justification of
claims to know. The "Given" in epistemology is a foundationalist myth, as Sellars has shown. Rorty sometimes goes
beyond this observation, however, to indicate that the demise
of foundationalist epistemology implies the end of realist
alethiology as well. He goes out of his way to license the
inference from " not incorrigible " to "merely conversational";
14 Compare Richard Bernstein's argument in Beyond Objectivism and Relativism (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 1983). His critique
of modern philosophical trends is lively and informed but somewhat marred
by a failure to distinguish adequately between foundationalism and realism
(pp. 8-9). As I argue below, one can and should let go of the former while
preserving the latter. See also Hilary Kornblith, "Beyond Foundationalism
and the Coherence Theory," in The Journal of Philosophy, Vol. 77, No. 10
(October 1980), 597-612.

9280

TIMOTHY P. JACKSON

thus truth either disappears altogether (a-alethiology) or in
fact become synonymous with "intersubjective agreement,"
"what our peers will, ceteris paribus, let us get away with
saying," and the like. 15 These latter phrases all conflate epistemology and alethiology; they all conflate tests of truth with
the nature of truth. Rorty's excess is to suggest, at least in
places, that the absence of the indubitable and timeless test
for knowledge demanded by Descartes leaves us without anything objective to test for here and now-a kind of philosophical
thanatopsis.
When talk of "truth" is de-emphasized in favor of "warranted assertability ," the sceptic's worry that even our best
justified beliefs might be mistaken is less pressing. But when
Rorty explicitly identifies desirable or warranted belief with
truth, 16 he is contradicting his own best insights and drifting
into nihilism. He opens himself to the standard rebuttal that
many assertions that were once justified have since been discovered to be false. Elsewhere, Rorty acknowledges that there
are semantic differences between truth and assertability. 11 Warranted assertability (as opposed to " Justified true belief ") is all
that erJi,sterrwlogyproper can be about, but this leaves open the
possibility of realism in alethiology.
The move from anti-foundationalism to emphasis on conversation is the outgrowth, Rorty implies, of ceasing to think
of the mind as a mirror of nature. But his critique of mirror
imagery can be misleading. It may seem to suggest that some
other relationship between subject and object besides seeing
is characteristic of knowledge, when, for Rorty, no relationship
at all seems appropriate. 18 Ocular metaphors are out; but
15 See Rorty,
"Solidarity or Objectivity?," in Post-Analytic Philosophy,
ed. by Rajchman and West (New York: Columbia University Press, 1985),
p. 6; "Science as Solidarity,'' draft of a paper discussed at a Legal Theory
Workshop held at Yale University (November 1984), p. 4; and Philosophy
and the Mirror of Nature, p. 176.
16 Ibid., pp. 10, 176, 308.
11 Ibid., p. 301 note.
1s Ibid., pp. 156-157.

RICHARD RORTY AND PRAGMATISM

281

neither smelling, hearing, nor making love to an object is an
appropriate model either. In rejecting a realistic alethiology,
Rorty radicalizes the standard critique of representational
epistemology by denying the subject/object distinction lying
behind it. A denial of the subject/object distinction undoes
dogmatic foundationalist theories of language and knowledge,
meaning and justification; but it also undoes alethiological
realism in favor of what must be for most an implausible
idealism or an even less plausible nihilism.
Rorty claims not to be an idealist, but it is hard to know
how to read this. 19 His postmodernism seems distinctive precisely in pushing the second conflation (of epistemology and
ontology) for idealist effect. His remarks on the "ubiquity
of language " and the impossibility of a theory of knowledge
are too extensive to be dismissed as pithy overstatements; and
they do imply that sense-independent objects have dropped
out of his meta-metaphysics. 20 Rorty does not want to say
that philosophy has " proved " that language cannot refer beyond itself and rejects what he calls " weak textualism," because both these moves suggest one more old-style ontology. 21
But just as a rejection of demonology as senseless implies (by
default) a denial of the existence of demons, so a rejection of
ontology as senseless denies the existence of its subject matter,
being (s) in the world. There is little difference, finally, between denying the intelligibility of objective facts and values
(as Rorty does) and just denying their existence. If, faute de
mieux, conversation can only be about other bits of conversation, then words as epistemic signs have been conflated with
words as things signified. Hence in the end, as in the beginning, is the word--'but now the word is with us and is us.
Rorty's "strong textualism" defines intellectual success as
the adoption of whatever vocabulary allows us to get what
19 Consequences of Pragmatism
1982), p. xxxix.
20 Ibid., pp. xxxix-xl.
21 Ibid., pp. 153-155.

(Minneapolis:

University of Minnesota Press,

282

TIMOTHY P. JACKSON

we want, and this is to happen without "something [being]
discovered to be the case " and " without argument." 22 But
then what does motivate it? Must I not at least have discovered by a method thought reliable that, as a matter of fact,
my old vocabulary did not get me what I wanted? Rorty can
only ,sidestep this epistemological question by, in turn, deconstructing ontology-by denying that there are facts and that
people, objects, and desires have natures. It is this move that
presses a form of idealism, if somewhat paradoxically: words
or ideas are the only condidates for reality left, even as they
inform us that nothing is the case. But it is one thing to say
with the romantics that no vocabulary (e.g., natural science)
is primary or capable of seeing reality unmediated; it is quite
another to say with the idealists that none represents nonverbal
reality or with the nihilists that none represents anything at
a11.2s

If I am right, Rorty does not simply follow in the tradition
of philosophers who criticize the monolithic conception of
language as only referring. His is not the pluralistic point that
words can convey meaning in a wider variety of ways than a
"picture theory" can communicate; his is not the humanistic
point that speakers have other things to do with their time
more important than describing the world. Since the world
as it is in itself is " well lost," the attempt to apprehend it is
vanity. Thus Rorty stands in approximately the same relation
to Ryle and Austin as an anarchist stands to a suffragette, as
22 fbid., pp. 141-142, 155.
2a Cf. Ibid., p. 142. The elusiveness
of Rorty's position is highlighted in a
footnote to his Introduction to Consequences of Pragmatism.
In otherwise
praising Nelson Goodman's Ways of Worldmaking, he writes: "I think that
Goodman's trope of 'many worlds' is misleading and that we need not go
beyond the more straightforward' many descriptions of the same world' (provided one does not ask, 'And what world is that?') " ( p. xlvii). It would
seem that talk of "many worlds" is misleading only if there is just one world,
but in eschewing ontology Rorty is in no position to comment on this issue.
And what do "descriptions" amount to for a pragmatist anyway? Quite a
lot of metaphysical cake is being simultaneously had and eaten here.

RICHARD RORTY AND PRAGMATISM

Emma Goldman stands to Susan B. Anthony. 24 He encourages
individuals to treat their own art, religion, ·science, and politics
as they would treat ancient or distant variations never personally embraced, i.e., as forms of life and shards of culture
rather than as true or false, good or bad. One continues to want
certain things and defend certain views-:his pragmatism is
peculiarly American in its "healthy-mindedness "-but in the
absence of reasons other than convenience this seems not so
much phronesis as alienation.

Ill. Questions, Practical and Political
The theoretical merits of Richard Rorty's work are worth
debating. As is apparent, however, such debates tend to run
up against conflicting basic conceptions of truth, knowledge,
and being. The really fascinating questions then turn out to
be practical, the theoretical issues being perhaps forever moot.
Assume that Rorty's (sometime) nihilism is accepted: how are
we to think and feel about ourselves without realist appeal to
truth, goodness, and the like? And how does such thought and
feeling bear on how individuals and groups behave across time?
Which personal virtues and cultural legacies can be preserved,
which must be let go-and why? These are questions not primarily of logic but of human nature and human history.
To begin, consider the three " theological" virtues of faith,
hope, and love. If Enlightenment philosophy left religious
language with a problematical status vis-a-vis empirical science, it might seem that Rorty's postmodernism promises to
restore some of religion's lost prestige. Pragmatism does seem
a great leveller. By its lights, no discipline can claim a monopoly on " truth " or " rationality " for the simple reason that
there is no interesting sense to be assigned to either of these
terms. The success of empirical science does not stem from
its corresponding to the way the world really is or from its
speaking "Nature's Own Language."
Science is useful be24 I am grateful to Cornel West for the Goldman/ Anthony analogy, though I
do not think he would apply it to Rorty.
2s Consequences of Pragmatism, pp. 191-192.

TIMOTHY P. JACKSON

cause it allows us to predict and control our environment, but
other vocabularies may he just as utilitarian for other equally
important purposes. Might not theology be legitimated in a
postmodernist culture, together with physics and poetry? I
think not. 26
As I indicated in Section II, pragmatism is not ontologically
neutral. The conflation of alethiology, epistemology, and ontology-the loss of realism generally-means the loss of any and
all realities independent of or transcendent to inquiry. In this
respect, God must suffer the same fate as any other transcendent subject or object. Because faith makes sense only when
accompanied by the possibility of doubt, Rorty's distancing
of scepticism means a concomitant distancing of belief in
"things unseen." He, unlike Kant, denies both knowledge
and faith; but for what, if anything, is this supposed to make
room? Faith may perhaps be given a purely dispositional reading, being seen as a tendency to act in a certain way, but any
propositional content will be completely lost. The pull toward religious faith is at best a residue o1 metaphysical realism
and of the craving for metaphysical comfort. The taste for
the transcendent usually associated with a religious personality
will find little place in a Rortian world. Similarly, hope and
love, if thought to have a supernatural object or source, lose
their point. The deconstruction of God must leave the pious
individual feeling life F. Scott Fitzgerald after his crackup:
"a feeling that I was standing at twilight on a deserted range,
with an empty rifle in my hands and the targets down." 27
26ln The Nature of Doctrine (Philadelphia: The Westminster Press, 1984),
George Lindbeck offers an innovative account of theology " in a postliberal
age" which seeks to skirt the realism-pragmatism debate, remaining neutral
on major questions of truth and justification.
For an argument against this
possibility, see my review "Against Grammar," in Religious Studies Review,
Vol. 11, No. 3 (July 1985), 240-245. Rorty himself characterizes pragmatism
as "a thorough-going abandonment of the notion of discovering the truth
which is common to theology and science" (Consequences of Pragmatism,
pp. 150-151, emphasis in original).
21 F. Scott Fitzgerald,
The Crack Up, ed. by Edmund Wilson (Boston:
Beacon Press, 1964), pp. 77-78.

RICHARD RORTY AND PRAGMATISM

The deconstructed heart is ever restless, yet the theological virtues stand only as perpetual temptations to rest in inauthenticity, We live in a world without inherent telos; so there
simply is no rest as Christianity has traditionally conceived
of it.
What of the possibility of naturalizing or humanizing faith,
hope, and love, so that genuine (though secular) virtue is
possible? The taste for the Wholly Other is clearly passe, for
Rorty, but might not the taste for the human other be preserved, even cultivated? This is the central issue for an intelligent critique of Rorty's larger cultural program. It is not
obvious, at least to his admirers, that Rorty's views are antithetical to the best of humanism; indeed, his attack on "objectivity" as the West's central intellectual virtue goes hand
in hand with advocacy of " solidarity " as a preferable and
viable alternative. Culture is to be construed as public conversation involving many diverse voices, rather than as the
quest for indubitable knowledge pursued by an elite few. This
strikes some as proposing a very happy marriage between
epistemological pragmatism and political liberalism: an effort
to preserve democratic institutions while, in Rorty's words,
"'abandoning the traditional Kantian backup." 28 Rorty, the
grandson of Walter Rauschenbusch, carries Protestantism to
its natural conclusion: a world without hierarchies and priestcraft, but full of voluntary associations; a world without dogmas and regulations, but full of neighborly talk. Just as Protestantism sought to recapture religious spontaneity by breaking down Pharisaical fixations on The Law, so Rorty seeks to
recapture philosophical spontaneity by breaking down Cartesian fixations on The World. With this, the many goods of
human society effectively replace the one God of divine science
and the divorce between free commitment and abstract reason
is complete.
The two main problems with such a postmodernist philosophy parallel those with past-Reformation theology: antino28 "

Postmodernist

Bourgeois

Liberalism,"

p. 584.

286

TIMOTHY P. JACKSON

mianism and irrationalism. Those very beings with whom one
is to have solidarity and hold conversation, for example, appear no longer to command moral respect. This is evident from
Rorty's view of the social sciences. According to Rorty, "the
demise of logical empiricism means that there is no interesting
split between the N atur- and the Geisteswissenschaften." 29
Because neither the natural nor the human sciences can be
seen to describe reality as it is in itself, it is impossible to found
a sharp contrast between them in terms of the " essence " of
their respective subject matters. It is not the case that differing subject matters dictate differing methods and conclusions.
The utility and relative precision of the empirical sciences are
not due to their depicting physical objects "in their own terms,"
any more than the social sciences, in leaving room for freedom, are r ceognizing something about h uman beings " in
themselves." 30 The vocabulary and grammar of any science
are human constructs formulated for human purposes within
human language. The upshot is a radicalization of fideist conceptions of commitment, with respect for persons not something due them because of who they are but an unpredictable
and unmerited favor, like the grace of God. It is not that
Rorty thinks people are actually unworthy of respect, but
rather that the question of inherent worthiness or unworthiness does not even arise for him. How then does one justify
loving others rather than using them? Not even" faith alone"
will suffice, it seems. For the individual conscience (" what
you want") is now entirely unfettered by external authority,
either human or divine.
I do not think, on balance, that the political center can
hold with such voluntarism at its core. Liberal ideology has
traditionally appealed to objective truths as the basis of
rational social philosophy. When Hobbes, Locke, Rousseau,
29" A Reply to Dreyfus and Taylor,"
p. 39. For a critical appraisal of
Rort's relation to Gadamer on this point, see Georgia Warnke, "Hermeneutics
and the Social Sciences: A Gadamerian Critique of Rorty ," in I nquwy, Vol.
28, No. 3 (September 1985), 339-357.
30 Rorty, "A Reply to Dreyfus and Taylor," p. 44.

RICHARD RORTY AND PRAGMATISM

and Kant revolutionized political discourse by replacing appeals to revelation with appeals to reason and reference to the
Kingdom of God with reference to the social contract, they
ushered in a new self-image for Western society. Two centuries
of religious strife seemed to demonstrate the need for a new
vocabulary and syntax with which to address pressing public
concerns, from the legitimacy of a particular government to
the morality of a particular economy. Explicit talk of God
and a confessing community tended to lead to sectarianism
and holy wars. Yet, however much this new language may have
represented the beginning of a shift from a theistic to a secula;r
and (to a lesser degree) from a communitarian to an individualistic paradigm, it did not eschew general truth claims about
reality as the basis of social ethics. God tended to recede into
the background of the Enlightenment picture in favor of natural
law or the common good, but (with the possible exception of
Hume) human choice was seldom in and of itself considered
constitutive of all binding norms and moral truths. The character of justice and of the social contract was determined by
the nature of the world and of the people in it, so that some
imperatives were universal and categorical. Many protested in
the 17th and 18th centuries (and be some still protest today)
that foregoing divine sanctions for public policy must lead to
anarchy, however democratically validated, and Rorty suggests that these and his own critics are similarly alarmist and
narrow-minded. He claims to have glimpsed the possibility
of a" better way," even as did Locke and Rousseau. In effectively embracing nihilism, however, Rorty is offering a vision
discontinuous with the entire Western realistic tradition of
which the bulk of the Enlightenment is still recognizably a
part. 31 It is not therefore mistaken, necessarily, but we must
appreciate its radicality.
31 Figures such as Hobbes and Pufendorf complicate the Enlightenment
picture. I would maintain, even so, that despite the voluntarist elements in
their work, their understanding of reason and natural law saves them from a
nihilistic social philosophy. Thomas Hobbes, at any rate, though seeking
generally to found morality on prudence, never doubted that self-preservation

288

TIMOTHY P. JACKSON

Rorty declares that both the emperor and the democrat have
no clothes. Nothing and no one is the ground of authority,
save insofar as we choose to recognize them as such; thus political legitimations (like epistemic justifications) are more than
tentative and dialogical; they are relativist. The question, to
repeat, is whether a liberal society, thus convinced of the bankruptcy of those realist traditions by which it has been supported, can continue to function. Rorty asks for one more turn
of the screw, but can Western civilization stand the strain? I
doubt it, though the historical evidence is not clearly decisive.
There are few exceptionless generalizations about the connection between philosophical theory and political practice.
The permutations are multiple. Mussolini was a student of
James's pragmatism, and Heidegger was, at least for a time,
pro-Nazi; but the nexus between anti-realism and totalitarianism is not consistent. 32 John Dewey is a recent and great
was a universal duty. The lex naturalis preceded and governed the social
contract, not vice versa. More recently, John Rawls has claimed Locke and
Kant as his precursors, but itis less clear whether his theory of justice is a
departure from their moral realism. [See A. Theory of Justice (Cambridge:
Harvard University Press, 1971] and "Kantian Constructivism
in Moral
Theory," in The ,Journal of Philosophy, Vol. 77, No. 9 (September 1980), 515572.] Several commentators have argued that the ontological theses about
reason and human nature grounding the contract theories of both Locke and
Kant are (or must be) jettisoned by Rawls, leaving him with a rather bare
voluntarism implied by the "original position" and the "veil of ignorance."
[See Michael J. Sandel, Liberalism and the Limits of Justice (Cambridge:
Cambridge University Press, 1982), pp. 115-122 and George Parkin Grant,
English-Speak·ing Justice (Notre Dame: University of Notre Dame Press,
1985), pp. 13-46.] If this is so, then for Rawls, as for Rorty, philosophy can
make no connection between general truths about reality and how we ought
to live together. I believe, however, that Rawls should (or at least can) be
read as a limited moral constructivist. He views justice as "constructed" but
also as premised on truth claims about who and what a "moral person" is
("Kantian Constructivism,"
p. 520). The principles of justice agreed to
from behind the veil of ignorance are "pure procedural" and thus do not
themselves follow from antecedent moral rules or correspond to external
moral facts. But they depend on a form of moral realism inasmuch as " moral
personality itself" is counted as "a source of claims" (Ibid., p. 544).
a2 Georg Lukacs, The Destruction of Reason, trans. by Peter Palmer (Atlantic Highlands, N.J.: Humanities Press, 1981) attempts to link various

RICHARD RORTY AND PRAGMATISM

289

counterexample. Neither is the link secure between realism
and respect for human rights or for political pluralism: many
Marxist-Leninists insist they are "scientific realists," however
repugnant their social policies. Nonetheless, the case can be
made that alethiological realism coupled with epwtemological
fallibilism is a necessary (if not a sufficient) condition for a
viable (codification of) political and economic democracy.
Max Stackhouse has argued persuasively that acknowledgment of universal human rights has historically depended upon
a marriage between creedal commitments to intrinsic human
value and philosophical commitments to finite but shared human reason. 33 Such a happy union emerged in the 17th and
18th centuries between Puritanism and the Liberal Enlightenment, and is reflected in the franchise (though not always the
practice) of the United States. It remains the bulwark of
whatever pluralism and tolerance now exist in the West and is a
missing ingredient in such nonliberal societies as East Germany
and India.
Dogmatism and intolerance of whatever kind are enemies
of an open society, but these are endemic to foundationalism,
not to realism, per se. One may reject foundationalism, moreover, without endorsing nihilism; one may acknowledge the
perpetual uncertainty and fallibility of any human judgment
without letting go of a realist theory of truth. In fact, fallibilism assumes an objective world of physical and moral fact
about which one may be mistaken. Conversely, letting go of
realism will in all probability leave a society without the wherewithal to found or sustain a commitment to liberty, equality,
or fraternity-much less sorority. Such a society may live for
a time on past cultural capital embodied in liberal institutions
and traditions, but a purely conventional virtue will not last
long. The issue is one of motivation and consistency.
"irrationalists"
with modern German fascism. Others note, in turn, that
for Karl Popper it is the political left that is irrational.
33 Max L. Stackhouse,
Creeds, Society, and Human Rights (Grand Rapids:
Eerdmans, 1984) .

290

TIMOTHY P. JACKSON

Rorty's emphasis on innovation and his distaste for all forms
of hegemony (intellectual and practical) unite him with the
libertarian strand of Anglo-American political thought, but in
pure form this strand must lead to chaos. The loss of moral
realism radicalizes libertarianism beyond even the appeal to
self-interest. One must act, presumably, but now both selfinterest and interest in others fail as reasons for action. It is
hard to see how one can truly value what is not thought to be
objectively valuable or be loyal to what is not thought to be
worthy in itself. 34 Why respect oneself or the rights of minorities and women if there is nothing of intrinsic value in people
that demands it, independent of mere power? With no appreciation of innate human dignity on which to build, how does
a nation or a people fashion consensus on justice and the nature
of political community? To Rorty, these may seem two questions too many, but they are pressed on us by the very grammar
of liberal ideology itself. A purely "constructivist" view that
what cannot be discovered may yet be created seems not the
fulfillment, but the death, of that ideology; for it implies that
in the absence of their being granted, no one has substantive
rights or freedoms to be denied. 35
Individual liberty and political pluralism lie at the heart of
Western civilization. One can distinguish, however, between
a merely tactical tolerance and an in-principle respect for such
values. Tolerance-being a limiting of the means to disagreement rather than an agreement on ends-is liable to change
with changing circumstances. Respect is less mutable because
more heart-felt. To respect personal freedom and social plural34 Cf. Rorty's

"Science as Solidarity," p. 10.
Sandel, op. cit., elaborates a radically constructivist brand of
"liberalism," but only to go on to criticize it as incomplete and false to experience. As William Galston has argued, entirely formal or consensual accounts of liberalism are untenable: they inevitably appeal to substantive
conceptions of the good and must be justified on that basis. [See Galston,
"Defending Liberalism," in The A.merican Political Scimice Review, Vol. 76,
No. 3 (September 1982), 621-629.] When defenders of liberalism begin with
the premise that it is morally empty, they simply play (unnecessarily) into
the hands of its critics.
35 Michael

RICHARD RORTY AND PRAGMATISM

ism is to agree on the virtue of disagreement itself, a show of
confidence in human nature paired (ironically) with a kind
of epistemic humility. Human beings, especially human groups,
are subject to error, but the promotion of competing ideas
by free inquirers is thought to offer the surest method for
arriving at truth. Power and the means to power are not to
be concentrated in any one group or any one ideology, for this
leads inevitably to either tyranny or stagnation or both. In
a Rortian world, however, despite his explicit wishes, respect
for persons would be hard to come by: even tolerance might
well be in short supply.
Consider this now notorious passage from the Introduction
to Rorty' s Consequences of Pragmatism:
Suppose that Socrates was wrong, that we have not once seen
the Truth, and so will not, intuitively, recognize it when we see
it again. This means that when the secret police come, when
the torturers violate the innocent, there is nothing to be said to
them of the form " There is something within you which you are
betraying. Though you embody the practices of a totalitarian
society which will endure forever, there is something beyond
those practices which condemns you." This thought is hard to
live with .... 36

Rorty does more here than deny the Socratic doctrine of
recollection: he denies objective knowledge as such. Rorty
does more than deny the Socratic thesis that justice ultimately
pays: he denies justice (and, simultaneously, injustice) as
such. Thus one reads the quoted passage with a sense more
of uncanniness than of disagreement. The insouciance about
lack of moral truth, in particular, seems altogether too sublime. The pragmatist's claim to live without comfort sounds
as incredible as the fakir's claim to live on air. Hard to live
with is the thought that you may be a coward or that your
wife is dying of cancer or that the Nazis killed millions of innocents before the Allied governments protested. It no more
seems "hard " to live without real values, however, than it is
ss Consequences of Pragmatism,

p. xlii.

TIMOTilY P . .lACKSON

"ha,rd" to live without food and drink. The neo-pragmatist,
unlike the more traditional nihilist, wills value; but just as willing that hunger be satisfied does not always make it so, so willing that aims and associations be respectable does not always
make them so. We are not that free. To think otherwise is
to believe ourselves capable of creating all good ex nihilo.
A great deal of what I have said is anticipated by Rorty as
possible criticism, yet he tends to shrug it off as an acceptable
consequence of his preferred intellectual vision. Much of his
polemical impact depends, in fact, on an avant-garde willingness simply to place many standard philosophical concerns
under the rubric "Don't care" or "No need." This approach
is not without power-a kind of dying to the world-but it
remains unsatisfying. Rorty presents a personality of immense
grace and geniality, thus cha.llenging his critics to integrate
ideology with biography, to explain where he gets his virtue
and why he isn't telling. He embraces liberal sentiments but
can give few reasons why, other than upbringing or taste.
And what of those not similarly reared?
In any event, the turn from discovering objective truth to
prescribing subjective therapy, from emphasis on theory to
emphasis on praxis, does not itself guaarantee absence of dogmatism. The long history of intolerance bears this out. Even
Stoicism and Epicureanism, which originally emerged as pragmatic philosophies of life, tended toward dogmatism and in
turn called up sceptical reactions. Similarly, Rorty's modern
accent on solidarity over objectivity by no means insures freedom, tolerance, or pluralism. One can just as easily be tyrannical and dogmatic in one's views of social status and the good
life as in one's views of epistemology and (meta-) physics. In
fact, there is often rnore of a tendency to hegemony and closedmindedness here since claims a.bout inclusiveness and purpose
generally elicit more of a personal stake than empirical or
logical claims. More common than intellectual arrogance is
the will-to-power, and illiberal use of power is not ruled out
(even in theory) by democratic procedures or institutions alone.

RICHARD RORTY AND PRAGMATISM

293

Conclusion
There is much to appreciate about Richard Rorty. He is
most at home and most impressive in the role of iconoclast,
less so however, in that of prophet. He wishes to rescue VI/estern
philosophy's good fruits from its bad epistemology via a moral
critique of the foundationalism and reductionism to which it
gives rise. And insofar as belief in incorrigible intuitions or
immutable dogmas leaves tolerance with little point-" eITor
has no rights "-he is correct to resist such schools in the name
of human freedom. Even the general appeal to natural law
can, at times, lead to the squelching of diversity. But nihilism
as a therapy is at least as problematic as dogmatism as a
disease. It tends as readily to oppression, inasmuch as disbelief in objective values or impersonal norms leaves respect
with no subjects. Pragmatic tolerance has a distinctly solipsistic
charncter and can mount no theoretical objection to deference
being given to convention or power or nothing at all; vide
Nietzsche's instructions to look to the likes of Cesare Borgia
for his prototype. With no consistent conception of truth or
epistemic justification, I fear that modern pragmatists such
as Rorty are incapable of supporting the liberal values on
which genuine respect for individual rights and the common
good is founded. They represent a critical menace to the very
roots out of which many of their ideas have grown. The Rortian
turn from accent on discovery to accent on choice may not
necessitate oppression or wantonness, but it tends to undercut
the virtue that supports the alternatives. Intellectual and moral
virtue (even prophecy itself) makes no sense if no room is
left for fallibility or peccability.
Here the proper mode of response is counter-prophecy: thus
I have suggested that the political and cultural tradition characteristic of the modern West is incompatible with a Rortian
future. If we believe that we must invent right and wrong,
that " there is nothing deep down inside us except what we
have put there ourselves," 37 then that tradition has simply
a7 Ibid.

294

TIMOTHY P. JACKSON

died. No society-especially a liberal, and increasingly secular
one-is likely long to survive without some common sense 0£
virtue and the good life founded not on power or preference but
on principle. Solidarity and objectivity do not represent an
either/or, as Rorty implies; 38 for solidarity as a personal virtue
is only possible in a community that fosters objective sel£scrutiny and attention to others as they are in themselves. To
advocate solidarity is to assurne a view of human nature, not
just of language. 39 Our cultural memory is very short and
precarious as it is, and without some fundamental convictions
about the true, the right, and the real informing community
life, we are likely to decline into the very war of all against all
that Rorty sometimes ridicules. Whether tragic or comic or
merely absurd, such a £ate is all too predictable given human
proclivities.
In his 1979 presidential address to the American Philosophical Association, entitled "Pragmatism, Relativism, and Irrationalism," Rorty, too, worries about the practical question,
"about whether we can be pragmatists without betraying
Socrates, without falling into irrationalism." 40 But he ends
his piece quite inconclusively:
38 As with the title (and contents)
of his essay" Solidarity or Objectivity?,"
cited above.
39 Rorty has recently elaborated a " mechanistic"
account of the self in a
piece entitled "Freud and Moral Reflection," appearing in Pragmatism's
Freud: The Mom! Disposition of Psychoanalysis, ed. by Smith and Kerrigan
(Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1986). This creative defense of
"Macht durch Freud" (Chambers) appeared after my present critique was
already in manuscript, but it tends to reinforce my basic point. Odd though
characteristic is the work's preoccupation with "vocabularies " and its often
wonderfully insightful depiction of human nature (including its multiplicity)
coupled with a denial that such can be had or is needed. It may be that an
individual has no one "true self" ( p. 9), but presumably one attends to this
truth by honoring a pluralistic version of Delphi: "Know thyselves."
(Not
all views of who we are need be ahistorical or reductionist.)
And only Richard
Rorty could write the following sentence and make it sound even remotely
plausible: "The availability of a richer vocabulary of moral deliberation is
what one chiefly has in mind when one says that we are, morally speaking,
more sensitive and sophisticated than our ancestors or than our younger
selves" ( p. 12).
40 Oonsequences of Pragmatism,
p. 169.

RICHARD RORTY AND PRAGMATISM

Nothing that I have said ... is an argument in favor of pragmatism. At best, I have merely answered various superficial criticisms which have been made of it. Nor have I dealt with the
central issue about irrationalism. I have not answered the deep
criticism of pragmatism ... : the criticism that the Socratic virtues cannot, as a practical matter, be defended save by Platonic
means, that without some sort of metaphysical comfort nobody
will be able not to sin against Socrates.41
I have noted that the historical evidence on these matters is
not decisive, but such pure ambivalence is not very persua;sive
either. In any case, prophecy cannot wait for certainty. It is
just possible that Rorty has foreseen our intellectual future in
a way which will allow him, under the new dispensation, to
be an early and effective voice for political liberalism and
personal decency. I have no knockdown argument to the contrary (could there be one?), but I am sceptical. He too often
downplays the fact that human arrogance and pride are seldom
checked without reference to a reality or realities larger than
themselves.
It seems a psychological, if not a theological, truth that in
the absence of standards and interests " not just our own,"
we tend to be incapable of any standards at all, even of prudence. This fact mainline Protestantism never lost sight of.
Our conceptions of individual and civic virtue cannot have
(and do not need) incorrigible foundations, but they do need
(and, I believe, have) rational justifications. These justifications rely on provisional but reasoned opinions about the world
and the nature of the individuals in it; and such practical wisdom and moral nihilism are incompatible. At its overly cautious
worst, scepticism can lapse into the "avoidance of love"
(Cavell); but the sceptic can at least still hope to know and
be known-the nihilist lacks any such virtue. Mainline Protestantism denied the authority of Rome and the possibility of
justification by works, but it preserved an objective correlative to faith. It insisted on the reality of a transcendent Deity
whose will was normative for, and whose grace was redemptive
41 Ibid.,

p. 17 4.

296

TIMOTHY P. JACKSON

of, human nature. An omniscient and righteous God continued to provide a goal for human theory and practice beyond
any temporal convention, just as He continued to be capable
of self-revelation as " the very Spirit of Truth." On this basis,
Reformed epistemology (unlike Rortian pragmatism) can even
today respond to the charges of antinomianism and irrationalism, without going foundationalist. 42
If the willingness to believe that objective reality may fail
to be as we think lies at the heart of both scepticism and faith,
the refusal to believe that it may be as we think lies at the
heart of nihilism. The willingness is essential for self-criticism;
the refusal leads logically to radical pragmatism, merely "internal" realism, historicism, etc. At its best, the willingness
gives one a hardwon (but not necessarily " comforting") respect for the "otherness " of other minds, other places, other
things; the refusal is, I believe, an acoustic illusion tending
at its best to complacency and at its worst to cynicism. To be
sure, reference to practical consequences, unsupported by further considerations, counts very little against the truth of
Rorty's nihilistic version of pragmatism. Even a lot of knowledge can be a dangerous thing, but it is no less knowledge for
that; so if nihilism can be shown to be cogent, my comments
have the
only the force-of a lament. To deny
this, one would have to cling, a priori, to the principle that
some things (e.g., the non-objectivity of values) are too bad
to be true. Religious faith may entail this, but in the absence
of a compelling theory of the goodness of God or the order of
the universe, this amounts to a petitio. Nothing may be too
42 Alvin
Plantinga and Nicholas vVolterstorff are two recent examples.
[See Plantinga, "How to Be an Anti-realist," in Proceedings and Addresses
of the American Philosophica,l Association, Vol. 56, No. 1 (September 1982),
47-70 and "Reason and Belief in God," in Faith and Rationality, ed. by
Plantinga and Wolterstorff (Notre Dame: University of Notre Dame Press,
1983) ; and Wolterstorff, "Can Belief in God Be Rational If It Has No
Foundations?," in Ibid.] For a general treatment of the relation between
Protestantism and modern epistemology, see w·. W. Bartley's The Retreat to
Commitment (LaSalle and London: Open Court, 1984).

RICHARD RORTY AND PRAGMATISM

bad to be true. Something may be too true to be bad, however.
If nihilism is true (a contradiction?), then in fact nothing at
all is morally bad (or good). And even if theoretical considerations are a draw, which is debatable, the implications of this
last fact must be significant, especially for an erstwhile pragmatist.
So what can be done? Ludwig Wittgenstein informed us that
the philosopher is like a fly caught in a fly bottle; Richard
Rorty has the philosopher (the epistemologist) apparently
trapped in a house of mirrors. The critical realist can finally
only beg the question and contend that, in either case, the task
is the tedious one of determining which passages and doorways
are actual outlets. Whatever faculties or criteria are used will
be finite and partial, but that need not preclude them from
apprehending reality. For a die-hard realist, this affirmation
is simply what it means to trust in reason while acknowledging
its limits. One does not believe in the truth because one thinks
one's best ideas correspond to reality, but rather the other way
around. (The theological equivalent to this is Descartes's' conviction that " God is no deceiver.") A degree of faith will be
implicit in any empirical, moral, or theological truth claim;
but it is arguably more plausible and more prudent to believe
ourselves capable of thinking vailid thoughts and our societies
capable of respecting real values than to see both language
and community as having no outside. (Should we doubt, for
instance, that pain-as opposed to " pain "-is real and not
to be visited upon innocents?) Rejection of re<ilism is both
unnecessary and ineffective as a means of combating intolerance. Therefore, in Coleridge's words, "Let us beware of that
proud philosophy which affects to inculcate philanthropy while
it denounces every home-born feeling by which it is produced
and nurtured." 43 With a grace and sympathy no less than his
43 From The Political
Thought of Samuel Taylor Coleridge, as quoted by
Michael D. Clark, Coherent Variety: The Idea of Diversity in British and
American Conservative Thought (Westport, Conn.: Greenwood Press, 1983).

p. 78.

TIMOTHY P. JACKSON

own, Rorty's peers must not let him" get away" unanswered.
We may never know anything with absolute certainty, but it
will not do to settle in a bottle or to be content with a reflection: that would be to live in a cramped or inverted world. Such
a world would be uncomfortable indeed. 44
TIMOTHY

P. JACKSON

Yale Divinity School,
New Haven, Connecticut

44 I would like to thank Richard Hays, Gene Outka, David Smith, Rulon
Wells, and Cornel West for helpful comments on an earlier draft of this
article. I have also profited from the discussion of Rorty's work in a Legal
Theory Workshop held at Yale, especially the comments of Michael Williams.
Finally, special gratitude is owed to Jeffrey Stout, whose extended correspondence saved me from substantive errors.

' CHRISTOLOGY FROM ABOVE' AND
' CHRISTOLOGY FROM BELOW'

TI

E TERMS ' Christology from above ' and ' Chrisogy from below' are much used today, nort only or
en primarily in the serious literature of teology, hurt
rather in V'aJiious polemical contexts, both theological and ecclesiastical. Here they often serve as symbols which distinguish
one's own Chrristological position from those with which one
disagrees. In this way they have become practically equa.ted
with two other terms, ' high ' Christology and ' low ' Christology, the former representing a position in which the divinity
of Ohrist is stressed (its opponents often holding that this is
to the detriment of the humanity), the latter a position in
which his humanity is stressed (its opponents often holding
that this is to the detriment or even exclusion of the divinity).
'Dhe position taken in this ess·a.y will be that such use of
the terms ' Christology from above ' and ' Christology from
below' is indeed a misuse, that it is an error ,to equate them
' high ' Christology and ' low ' Christology respectively.
Rather, our position will be that ' Christology from above' and
' Christology from below' should refer both to an initial process
from which Ohristo1ogy originates, as well as to a method for
elaborating Ghristology on the basis of that process, while
' high ' Christology and ' 1ow ' Christology refer to the possible
terms of Christologies ' from above ' ·and ' from below '.

'Christology from Below'
The Process, or the Proximate Ground of Christology
' Christology from below ' as a process refers to the proximate
origins of Ohristology in the apostolic response to Jesus of
Nazareth, and in the deV'eloping understanding of the implications of that response in the history of the early Church. Although God's action in t:he Incarnation preceded in absolute
priority the public ministry of Jesus •and the apostolic re-

300

EDWARD L. KRASEVAC,

O.P.

sponse to it, that action was only fully understood in all of its
implications in a gradual historical process thait took place
over many years. In a re.al siense, the foundation or proximate
source of Ohristian faith is the apostolic witness to God's
salvific actions, rather than those actions themselves (which
aire its ultimate source) . Christofogical faith is an apostolic
faith that has its origins in a historical process which began
with the public ministry of the Lord, and which was developed
and clarified over many centuries.

'Christology from Above'
The Process, or the Ultimate Ground of Christology
The final term of the process 'Christology from below '-the
' high ' Christology of ithe Church-brought to light the ultimate ground of the historical phenomenon that was Jesus of
Nazareth. It made possible the insight that Christology really
did not begin at the public manifestation of Jesus (his baptism), but rather began in the eternal moment when God decided to send his son into the world, and had its first decisive
tempmal moment when the humanity of that son wais conceived in the womb of Mary. In other words, the historical
process, 'Christology from below', was grounded in an ontological reality-the hypostatic (or personal) union (or identificrution) of Jesus with the eternal Word of God-thait preceded it. In this sense the ' above ' in ' Christology from above '
refers to God's actions in the Incarnation, and the ontological
result of that action (the hypostatic union), whereas the
' below ' in ' Christology from below ' refers to the gradual
process by which the ·apostolic understanding of that action
developed. As a process, ' Christology from above ' holds absolute priority over ' Christology from below.'
1

'Christology from Above:' The Method
Only when the final term of the process of ' Christology from
below' was reached-a 'high ' Chrisrtology thait recognized both
the full humanity and the full divinity of Christ-was it possible to recogn:ize the :actions of God which were prior to the

' CHRISTOLOGY

FROM ABOVE AND BELOW '

301

historical public manifestation of Jesus. It was only at this
point that it became possible to ' trace', as it were, the ultimate origin and ground of Jesus Christ in the Godhead and
the ontological 'process' of t·he Incarnation. Only now was
it possible to evolve a method for the academic construction
of a Christology that would begin with a consideria1tion of the
term of the process through which the apostol.ic faith developed,
only now was it possible to have a 'Christology from above'
as a theological method.
In such a methodology one would examine, first, the nature
of the Trinity; second, the decision of God to pour himself out
by the c11eaition of the humanity of His Word; third, the
manner of the Incarnation; fourth, the ontological ' structure '
of Christ; and finally, the historical life of the eternal Word
seen and interpreted from the perspective of its ultimate origins.
In this methodology, there is indeed an analysis of the historical humanity of Jesus Cfri.-ist, but it is from the standpoint
of his divinity. An example of such a ' Christo logy from above '
is to be found in the Third Part of Aquinas' Summa Theologiae.
1't must be noted-indeed, stressed-that this is not the
same thing as saying that one begins with faith; all true
Christologioa.l met.hods, it is hoped, are motivated and enlivened
by faith. Rather, a. ' Christology from above ' makes the truths
of faith its methodological starting point, in distinction to a
' Christology from below ' which, as we shall see, does not.

'Christology

from Below': The Method

There is another option, however, for the academic construction of a Christo.logy, an option which tmces " the genesis of
·the apostolic faith," 1 or the process of ' Christology from
below'.' Christology from below' as a method makes the proxima,te origin of Ghristology-the historica1, public manifestation
of Jesus Christ which evoked the apostolic faith response-the
methodological starting point of Christology, rather than maki Peter Hebblewaithe,
The New Inquisition? The Case of Edward Schillebeeckx and Hans Kiing (San Francisco: Harper and Row, 1980), p. 134.

302

EDWARD L. KRASEVAC,

O.P.

ing the term of that process (which is the mature Christian
confession of faith in the Incarnation) the methodological
starrting point. In other words, ' Christology from below' does
not begin, as does ' Ohr:istology from above ', with the ' high '
Christology of the Gospel of John or of Chalcedon, nor with
a ' low ' Christology of an early Synoptic tradition, but rather
with no Christology at all; it begins by looking at the historical phenomenon of Jesus of Nazareth-his words, actions,
manner of prayer and message, located in their original social,
cultural, and religious contexts (reconstructed, as far as possible, by the use of the critical-historical method) -and then
seeks to trace the developing apostolic responses to that phenomenon. What was it, historically, that gave rise to the faith
of the Church? What was it, historically, that led the early
Christians to personally identify this pa.rticular man with the
long-expected Kingdom of God?
In the course of such a project one traces the initia1 absence
of a Ohristology (the initial contact of the apostles with Jesus)
through the development of a' low' Ohristology (the apostolic
recognition that God was involved with this great prophet in
a special way) and finally to the 'high' Christology of the
mature •apostolic faith (the recognition of who this man really
and ultimately was). The term of a 'Christology from below'
should indeed be a 'high' Chr:istology, that is, the recognition
and analysis of the foll humanity and divinity of Christ; methodologically, however, this is not its starting point. Unlike
a ' Christology from above ', a ' Christology from below '
analyzes the historical life of Jesus of Nazareth, not from the
perspective of its absolute origins in the Godhead, but rather
from the perspective of those who first knew him as he walked
the earth. An example of this method is to be found in many
contemporary works, of which Edward Schillebeeckx' Jesus: An
Experiment in Christology 2 is representative.
H must be repeated that a 'Christology from below', as a
2 Edward Schillebeecx, Jesus: "in Experiment in Ohristolo,qy, trans. Huoort
Hoskins (New York: Seabury Press, 1979).

' CHRISTOLOGY

FROM ABOVE AND BELOW '

808

' Christo logy from above ', is motivated throughout by faith;
unlike the latter, however, it does not make the mature faith
of the Church the methodological starting point of the academic construction of a Christology.

The Values of the Methods
The value of a ' Christology from above ' is obvious: in this
methodology for constructing a Christology the person and
historical life of Christ are seen from the perspective of their
ultimate meaning and ground, in a sense, from the perspective
of God. Christians do in foot believe in the divinity of Jesus
when we undertiake the task of building a Christology, they do
in fact believe that it was the eternal Word of God who was
personally acting in the historical man, Jesus of Nazareth. A
' Christology from above ' makes this perspective an intrinsic
methodological pa.rt of Christology.
On the other hand, a ' Christology from below ' itself makes
impor tant contributions to the wOTk of Christology, both as a
tool for understanding the confessions of the Chuvch's faith, as
well as an apologetic enterprise by which Christian faith can be
presented to others as being grounded in the history of Jesus
of Nazareth.
In the first instance, a ' Christology from below ' is, in the
WOirds of Schillebeeckx, a " faith in search of historical understanding," 3 ,a faith seeking to understand the manner in which
the early kerygma arose from the life and death of Jesus, in
order to better understand the kerygma itself, and ultimately
the various later confessions of faith which articulated and
developed it under the impetus of changing historical circumstances. By starting with the " ... impression that the eaiithly
Jesus made upon his loyal followers," one is able to better
understand the "theological drif.t of the Chmoh's kerygma and
of the first
formulations." 4
1

a Idem., Interim Report on the Books "Jesus" and "Christ",
Bowden (New York: Crossroad, 1981), p. 29.
4Jesus, p. 485.

trans. John

304

EDWARD L. KRASEVAC,

O.P.

This purpose of 'a ' Christology from below' involves a
'process of discovery' which retraces the genesis of the kerygmatic formulations in order to understand those formulations.
It is much the same in the teaching of a subject such as physics:
a good pedagogue does not begin. by telling students the conclusions of physics which have already been discovered. Rather,
the student is led to discover-and hence to understand-those
conclusions by retracing t:he experiments that led to the original
discovery. One does not begin with conclusions, not because
one does not know them, but because one sees that they will
not be understood if their genesis is not understood. In like
manner, a ' Christology from below ' will seek to understand
the kerygmatic confession of the forgiveness of sins in terms of
Jesus' table fellowship with tax collectors and sinners; the
confession of salvation in terms of Jesus's miracles of healing;
the confession of the Trinity in terms of Jesus's concrete prayers
to his " Abba;" the confession of the infinite mercy of God in
terms of Jesus' tears for those who suffer; the confession of
the divinity of Jesus in terms of his extraordinary historical
humanity.
As an apologetic enterprise, a ' Christology from below ' allows the theologian to find in the life of Jesus that which
could constitute an invitation for others to make the assent of
faith, to find
... pointers that could direct man's query regarding his 'wellbeing ' to the Christian tender of a reply that refers to a particular saving action of God in this Jesus. 5

A' Christology from below', again in the words of Schil1ebeeckx,
lS

... intent on searching (in faith and a critical spirit) for possible signs in the historical Jesus that might direct the human
quest for "salavation" towards what Christian faith proposes as
a relevant answer. 6
5 Ibid.,
6 Ibid.,

p. 34.
p. 104.

' CHRISTOLOGY

FROM ABOVE AND BELOW '

305

This method has the pmpose 0£ attaining ". . . to the actions
and words of Jesus which could act as signs for all men to good
will,"' signs which would direct their hearts and minds to the
Christian proffer 0£ salvation. 7 This is done by showing that
. . . the Apostolic Faith is not an arbitrary superstructure, but
that it was brought into existence by the person, the message,
the words and the death of Jesus himself.8
Its point is to raise a religious question in unprejudiced minds,
thereby
them to make the respo11se of Christian faith.
'High' and' Low' Christology

It should by now have become clear that the question
regarding ' high ' and ' low ' Christology is no't to be confused
with that regarding ' Christology from above ' and ' Christology
from below '. A ' Christology from above ' normally presupposes a 'high' Christology (the recognition 0£ the foll divinity
0£ Christ), and makes it to be its methodological starting point,
wherea:S a ' Christology from below ', also presupposing such
a ' high ' Ohristology, should lead to it .as its methodological
conclusion. If a ' Christology from below ' stops, as it weTe,
with the ' low ' Christology 0£ an eairly New Tesfament tradition (a Christo logy which does not folly recognize the perfect
divinity 0£ Christ), it is to be faulted for failing to carry
through consistently its own method to its full historical term.
The primary purpose, aga,in, 0£ a ' Christology from below ' is to
understand the ' high ' Christology of the mature Christian
confession of faith in terms 0£ its historical development.
Conclusion
Both Christological methodologies are respectable and valuable, for each mirrors one of the processes that was either the
proximate or the ultimate origin of Christo logy. ' Christo logy
from below' is the method of preference today, on account 0£
7 The

s Ibid.

New Inquisition,

p. 131.

306

EDWARD L, KRASEVAC,

O.P.

the fact that the tools necessary for it (the critical-historical
method) were not available before this century, because it is
recognized to reflect the actual apostolic process upon which
our faith is historically founded, and finally because it holds
less danger of betraying the fully human condition of Jesus
Christ to the confession of his divinity (as has sometimes been
the case in ' Christologies from above ') .
EDWARD

Dominican School of Philosophy and Theology,
at the Graduate Theological Union,
Berkeley, California

L. KRASEVAC, 0.P.

LUBLIN THOMISM 1

T

HE TEXTS of the philosophers associated with the
Catholic University of Lublin, thanks to the tireless
work and energy of an editorial board under bhe direction and support of Marie Lescoe, are at last appearing in
English. 2 'Dhe Lublin school is Thomist in inspiration and
avowed adherence. It is Thomist, however, in a manner which
makes liberal use of the works of Continental philosophers in
the phenomenological and "existentialist" traditions: hence
the label, "existential personaiism." 3 A supplementary label
of this sort is needed if we are to include within the Lublin
school the work of one of its most iIIustrious members, Karol
Wojtyia, whose writings employ the phenomenological method,
eschew scholastic argument, and acknowledge a chief indebtedness to Max Scheler. Even the more recognizably scholastic
Lublin philosophers, such as Mieczylaw Krapiec, O.P., President-Rector of the University, whose I-Man is the first complete book to be translated and printed in English, quote
Roman Ingarden generously, speak familiarly about man as
Being-towards-death, and discuss religion and culture in terms
of intentionality.
1 Mieczylaw A. Krapiec,
O.P., I-Man (New Britain: Mariel Press, 1983);
(an abridged, student edition of I-11.fon-Mariel Press, 1985-is now available
also); Karol Wojtyla, The Acting Person, (Boston: D. Reidel, 1979); Edmund Morawiec, "L'Objet et La Tache de la Philosophie Chretienne" in J. N.
Zycinski, ed., The Human Person and Philosophy in the Contemporary World
(Krakow: The Pontifical Faculty of Theology, 1980).
2 It may interest readers to know that a Chinese translation
of I-Man is in
preparation. The project is coordinated by Dr. Audrey Donnithorne involving
the collaboration of Louis Chow and Matthias Lu.
s Of. Andrew Woznicki, A Christian Humanism; Karol Wojtyla's Existential
Personalism, and Ronald F. Lawler, The Christian Personalism of John Paul II
( Fransciscan Herald Press, 1981).

307

308

ROGER DUNCAN

Just because of their deep indebtedness to and immersion
in Continental philosophy, it is important to begin by stating
what the Lublin philosophers are not. They are not, first of
all, phenomenologists or existentialists in the strict sense, by
which I mean they do not hold the sceptical epistemological
premises usually associated with these labels. Existentialists
deny the classical doctrine of truth according to which truth
is the adaequatio ad rern of the intellect. Instead they maintain that when I look at, say, an egg, and say to myself,
" Here I am, one being among others like this egg here ", I
am being naive because I have not yet seen that the distinction between myself and the egg arises within t:he phenomenal
field and therefore cannot be uncritically assumed in an account of knowing. The subject-object distinction, they say,
is not one more distinction between objects, like that between
the egg and the chicken it came from; it cannot be understood
as an intellectual grasp of one individual substance by another
individual substance. For this reason, according to the existentialists, we must not think of knowledge as an overcoming
of the isolation of self-consciousness, but rather as the origination of a distinction, a negative act identical with that of selfconsciousness in its self-transcendence. Awareness of the egg
is not a grasp of the egg in itself so much as a self-conscious
mitosis which incidentally constitutes the egg as object. 4
The realist answer, as Chesterton said, is that eggs are eggs.
The fact that the distinction between the egg and the chicken
appears within consciousness, and that the subject can see a
similarity with the distinction btween himself and the egg,
.provides no argument for the unreality of either distinction
unless you assume from the start that intentional objectification falsifies or fails to reach being " in itself". But this is a
decision, not an a.rgument. Of course once you make it all
kinds of curious and very deep condusions follow, conclusions
which the Lublin Thomists deny.
4 Jean-Paul Sartre, Being and Nothingness:
An Essay on Phenomenological
Ontology (New York: Philosophical Library, 1956), p. 174; Karl Rahner,
Spirit in the World (New York: Herder and Herder, 1968), p. 75.

LUBLIN THOMISM

309

Nevertheless, it does not seem advisable to have to proclaim an
anthropocentric (as is the case with many phenomenologists) or
ontological (characteristic of the existentialists) theory of knowledge to appreciate the full weight of man's mystery and role. 5

Believing that eggs are eggs, the Lublin Thomists are realists
within the tradition of classical-Christian philosophy. The
great, even central, importance they attach to
anthropology stems not from Kantian premises but rather from
methodological considerations and from an appreciation of the
reflexivity of consciousness. The reference above to Karl
Rahner reminds us to observe that the l,ublin Thomists are
not transcendental Thomists either. In fact, they implicitly
reject what characterizes Transcendental Thomists generally,
and explicitly deny specific Transcendental Thomist claims.
What Transcendental Thomism holds generally is that philosophical methodology, particularly in the area of metaphysics,
reduces to an exercise of reflective self-awareness. The argument goes this way: metaphysics is a priori, because it is
non-empirical; but whatever is a priori is a condition of the
possibility of experience; whatever is a condition of the possibility of experience is an intrinsic structure of the intellect
in its illuminating function. This is wha,t we are supposed to
have learned from Kant. Transcendental Thomists to be sure,
reject the subjective idealism of Kant. They transcend scepticism about the possibility of metaphysics in the traditional
sense by way of a critical recasting of Thomism a.s an a priori
philosophical anthropology. But according to Krapiec:
... Kant and the post-Kantian transcendental school (e.g. Rabner)
perceive the irreducibility of self-cognition and they consider
that anthropology is the a priori knowledge (as self-cognition)
of every kind of cognition. This is a classical confusion of a real
function of cognitive affirmation in judgments connected with
"I," transcending reality, with an idealistic apriorism, which is
completely unnecessary and harmful and which deforms the essential sense of cognition. 6
5 Krapiec,
6 /bid.,

p. 370.
p. 126.

310

ROGER DUNCAN

Despite the high importance they attach to the relatively
new discipline of philosophical anthropology (invented by
Scheler, according to Kaminski) 7 the Lublin philosophers do
not concur in this reduction of metaphysics to anthropology.
The difference can be expressed simply: Transcendental Thomism foresakes an Aristotelian focus on objective being for a
Platonic "recollection " of subjective being. For Coreth, for
example, once you ask the question, any question, and start
reflecting on it you do not ever, qua metaphysician, have to
look at another tree, or automobile, or peach. 8 But for the
Lublin Thomists:
The most significant characteristic for (metaphysics) is the procedure of cyclically returning to contacts with reality, repeatedly
seeking analogies between various types of existence ... 9

reminding us of Maritain:
A metaphysician asleep or dreaming is for St. Thomas a sheer
impossibility ... His equipment of senses must be in good order.
He must be keenly and profoundly aware of sensible objects.
And he should be plunged into existence, steeped ever more deeply
in it by a sensuous and aesthetic perception as acute as possible, and by experiencing the suffering and struggles of real
life ... 10

The Lublin Thomists, then, do not make the "transcendental
turn". Even the most phenomenological among them, Karol
Wojtyla, is no kind of Transcendental Thomist. It has been
asked whether he is a Thomist (the answei' is a qualified yes),
but no one has confused him with a Tmnscendental Thomist.
What, then, if anything, is so different and important about
this Polish Catholic philosophical movement?
First, it is phenomenological in the sense that these thinkers
1 Ibid., pp. 363 ff.
scf. Emerich Coreth, Metaphysics (New York: Seabury Press, 1973),
passim.
9 Krapiec, p. 372.
io Jacques Maritain, A Preface to Metaphysics (New York: Sheed and Ward,
1939)' pp. 23-4.

LUBLIN THOMISM

311

use phenomenological description to reinforce metaphysical
insight. They participate, for example, in the phenomenological
overcoming of Cartesianism. If Aristotle and Thomas teach
that the soul is the form of the body, attentiveness to our experience reveals the lived-body .
. . . " My " most sublime cognitive functions ... all the moments of
" spiritual " life recognized as "mine " are also performed through
that same, identical "I" which digests, breathes, feels pain. And
I do not feel more "myself" when I think than when I eat, when
I go for a walk, when I breathe. Furthermore, it is sometimes
precisely " my " physiological functions that allow me to become
more conscious of" myself" ... The" Self", therefore, as "center"
and performer of " my " functions stands before us as something
that at the same time can be both material and immaterial. 11

Second, this school is "existentialist" in the sense that it
takes for granted the notion that it is the business of philosophy
to engage in phenomenological description of familiar modes
of human life-experience. Ever since Nietzsche and Kierkegaard (whose forerunners were Augustine and Pascal) continental philosophy has been "humanist" in the sense that it
considers the qualitative description of human " existence " in
its subjectivity and even its " spirituality " to be capable of
analysis on a philosophical level, that is, in a context of dialogue, independent of assumptions of revelation or faith-commitment. Whether its proponents have been atheists (Sartre)
or theists (Marcel, Buber) it has attempted this kind of
analysis. The Acting Person, a 300-page analysis of the phenomenon of human action, which never mentions God, is well
within that tradition, as is Fr. Krapiec's less methodologically
radical work. Though not strictly a work of " phenomenology "
I-Man makes liberal use of phenomenological description.
Sophia Zdybioka's chapter in I-Man is a case in point. 12 The
very discipline of " philosophy of religion " often employs a
phenomenological approach involving the presupposition that
11 Krapiec,
12 Ibid.,

p. 93.
pp. 271-312.

312

ROGER

DUNCAN

a sympathetic description of various religious beliefs is possible
and capable of yielding general patterns. The chapter provides
a helpful analysis of the distinctiveness of religious experience
and its irreducibility to other forms of human experience; a
good description of the general features of all religion making
helpful use, though pe11haps insufficient acknowledgement of,
John Smith's categories of Absolute, Flaw, and Deliverer, a.nd
a clearly written argument for man's need of a personal centering toward which to commit himself in "ultimate concem ".
One is led to ask, however, whether the boundaries dividing
philosophy, theology, and apologetics are observed scrupulously
enough here. Is there a distinction between "fait:h seeking
understanding" and phenomenological analysis? Only methodological clarification will head off accusations of loaded description.
In any case, all the existentialist thinkers have taught that,
in the midst of all that the modern technological world does
to trivialize and deaden human awareness, there lies some difficult but discernible possibility of transition to personal life
in its higher ranges, and that the point of describing the lifeworld is to increase conscious aptness for this "conversion".
One need think only of Kierkegaard's " becoming an Individual," Heidegger's and Sartre's "authenticity", Marcel's "personhood ". Krapiec too argues in this vein. The chapter on
death,1 3 for instance, makes free use of Heidegger's being-towards-death and argues that human life makes sense only if
death can be construed as the possibility of an absolute gift of
oneself in an I-Thou response to the Absolute.
Thirdly, the Lublin philosophy is "personalist," and "existentialist persona.list " at that, at a depth where the originality
of its analysis carries it far beyond suspicion of eclecticism. In
the writings published so far, the real thrust of the Lublin
contribution lies in its serious recasting of two traditional
definitions: Aristotle's "Man is a rational animal", and Boethius's definition of person as an "individual substance of a
13 Ibid.,

pp. 335 ff.

LUBLIN THOMISM

313

rational nature", all the while remaining within a genuinely
Thomistic framework.
Briefly, the trouble with defining man as a rational animal
is that this definition needs to be complemented by reference
to man's personal being, " forming from within his spiritual
image internally." 14 Another way of saying this is to point
to the need for a characterization of the specific mode of synthesis by which the union of rationality and animality is
achieved. This synthesis is called "action" .15 Human existence
is ineluctably temporal, and human rationality, pervading all
aspects of human life, is likewise temporal. Whether in the
relatively disengaged exercise of its own business, as in pure
theorizing, or in the guidance of action or in the enhancement
of pleasure, rationality appears as temporally projected action.
The key to the concept of action is decision,16 which must
be distinguished from choice. 17 Choice involves delibera.tion
between alternatives. But decision happens even when there
is only one "live option ". A decision takes place when, rising
above the flux of all that is happening to me, I autonomously
commit myself to a particular course. I may have been functioning as a philosophy professor for many years, for example,
but have I really decided to be one? If and when I make that
decision, it makes a difference.
This autonomous self-direction of the person, advancing
beyond the "I want" to the "I will ", 18 is the characteristic
activity of the will, which cannot for tha.t reason be understood simply as intellectual appetite. 19 Of course the will
should not be understood as some sort of separate, irrational
faculty either. Instead, we must speak of the self-determinative
capacity of the person, the " acting person," as precisely the
way rationality exists temporally, in its combination, if you
will, with animality.
p. 326.
p. 11, passim; Krapiec, pp. 321 ff.
16 Ibid., pp. 185 ff.
17 Wojtyla, p. 130.
1s Ibid., p. 111.
19 Ibid., pp. 124-5.
14 Ibid.,

15 Wojtyla,

314

ROGER DUNCAN

Action so understood is much more "interior " than the
action which is contrasted with contemplation, or the political
concept of action so well set forth by Hannah Arendt. And
from this interiorization of the concept there follow some serious
consequences. For instance, there is much less reason than
ever to try to draw up hierarchies of types of human activity
on the basis of how disembodied they are. Rather, we will
want to speak about that potentiality to be turned into genuine
action which characterizes the most diverse forms of human
activity. Pope John Paul H's encyclical on work (Laborem
Exeroens) rings some of the changes on this theme.
According to Gabriel Marcel, a philosopher much appreciated
by the Lublin Thomists, we become true persons as opposed to
mere human egos, through decision and commitment, that is,
though action. 20 The Lublin Thomists embrace this sort of
"existentialist" talk, and thereby find inadequacies in Boethius's celebrated definition of person. Once again the definition is not exactly wrong so much as incomplete, by its incompleteness falling short, functioning dully, like a knife without an edge. A person is an individual substance of a rational
nature, to be sure, but to leave it at that is to miss what is
analogically distinctive about the kind of " substance " a person is.21 In traditional Thomist terminology an individual
material substance is individuated by matter; the difference
between two ducks is given in the difference between them qua
two different lumps of proximate matter. To be sure, eacI1
possesses a distinct act of existence, but each esse is given, as
it were, totally specified, in the form-matter union which each
is. But a human personal being is a project toward a selfcreated spiritual individuation. He possesses a "human nature'', but that is not the complete story about what he is;
part of this is up to him. A duck doesn't know he's a duck; a
person, just in knowing he is a human being, is already beyond
20 Gabriel Marcel ('The Ego aand its Relation to Others" in Homo Viator
(New York: Harper and Row, 1962), pp. 20-28.
21 Krapiec, pp. 316, 388; Wojtyla, pp. 73, 302, n.8.

LUBLIN THOMISM

315

" what " he is; self-consciousness is transcendence. The person
simply is not identical with an (already individuated) essence. 22
A human being, then, is " individuated " in two ways, from
"below", to be sure, but also from "above".
And hence the direction of Christian thinkers, who were under the
influence of Greek thought and who sought persons through an
analysis of nature as the supreme moment of nature's activity,
was wrong ... man is not merely some kind of determined nature,
some kind of " human nature" that is particularized ... Rather,
man is, above all, a subsisting personal being who is conscious
and who experiences as an "I "-as a subject who organizes his
own individual nature . . . we are witnesses in our " personal "
life that it is exactly I who am organizing, through performed
or freely emanated acts, a personality and my own nature. And
hence human nature is not merely given to me; rather, the transcending person " I" creates this nature from the accumulated
elements of nature .. ,23

Of course it could be retorted that this is mere quibbling:
these thinkers are merely spelling out in more detail what it
is precisely to possess a rational nature. But this objection
would miss bhe point: A duck is finished as a duck at its birth;
a person is not. Attentiveness to this difference shows that we
cannot define a person in terms of its individuation according
to nature; to do so would be to obscure the fact that a person
in this sense, important as it is from a legal and moral point
of view (the rights of persons, etc.), is unfinished precisely as
person. Person in the full sense refers to the actualization of
this active potentiality for personhood, a spiritual determinateness achieved, in the case of a contingent being, through decision and commitment, and always, finally, in relation to the
Obher.
It might be noticed that these distinctions suggest that the
only perfect, " all-in " ca:se of person in the complete ontological
sense, would be one of the Divine persons, complete always
through free self-disposal. And this is so. It has often been
19, 1 ad 1; Quodl. II, a. 4, ad 1.
p. 324.

22 Cf. S.T. III,
2a Krapiec,

316

ROGER DUNCAN

remarked that the revelation of the Incarnation and the
Trinity taught us that there is a distinction between person
and nature, a distinction which, while perhaps discoverable in
principle, had eluded the philosophers. The great contribution
of St. Thomas himself on this question was to link person with
act of existence, esse, so that later theologians like Capreolus,
and then De la Taille, could argue that at the level of human
personal existence, and not below, the distinction between act
of existence and nature grounds a difference between person
and soul which alone allows for a non-contradictory account of
the hypostatic union. The Lublin philosophers, then, have
taken another step in allowing the distinction demanded by
revelation to illuminate philosophy and have forged a link
between these ontological distinctions and the phenomenological analyses of personal existence engaged in by the existentialists. In my experienced freedom-for-decision existence
does transcend essence, person transcends nature.
The need for a clearer grasp of these issues is nowhere more
in evidence than in the Schillebeeckx controversy. 24 He maintains that in using the term " human person " to refer to
Christ he is merely accommodating a popular, contemporary
use of the word. Without such accommodation, the claim
runs, we would be forced to propagate the error that Christ
was not fully human. This new language in no way denies
what was intended by the classical formulations asserting that
there is only one person, the Logos, in Christ, although the
Hellenic language of these formulations has in itself no eternal
validity and is in fact largely meaningless to contemporary
man. In response, Schillebeeckx's interrogators covrectly point
out that without some reference to the traditional teaching and
without putting anything in its place, the effect of Schillebeeckx's language can only be that of obscuring or losing the
teaching contained in the Chalcedonian christology. But when
they state, or restate, the traditional position, they do so in a
way that only reinforces Schillebeeckx's question: How can we
24Ted Schoof, O.P., ed., The SchiUebeeckw Case (New York: Paulist Press,
1984)' pp. 58-60, 92-103.

LUBLIN THOMISM

317

say that Christ had a fully human nature without admitting
that he is, in every ordinary sense of the word, a human person,
whatever else he may be besides? Merely to restate the traditional position in a way that implies that Christ, unlike
everyone else, possesses a distinction between his person and his
human nature is not to answer Schillebeeckx's question. What
is needed is a philosophical perspective which recognizes how,
even apart from all theological special pleading, each individual
human being already exemplifies a kind of dialectical tension
between person and nature which makes Christ not only the
ultimate exception but at the same time the analogical exemplar of the fulness of personal existence as it is experienced.
Schillebeeckx's determination to ignore philosophy creates a
problem here, but so does the failure, so far, of the examiners
to develop their Thomism in the direction being forged by the
Lublin school.
The reason why many Thomists have so far resisted interpreting personal existence as a transcendence of a " given "
nature and failed to correlate the essence-existence distinction
wibh the person-nature tension may have much to do with
fear of Sartrean consequences. After all, if we are to speak of
human existence as transcending essence do we not begin to
think of consciousness as a negation, as non-being instead of
being? It is not enough, Thomists see clearly, simply to answer
in terms of the ultimacy of existence as opposed to essence.
Doesn't Sartre argue consistently (and with atheistic consequences) when he points out that if pour-soi is really ahead-ofitself in transcendence, it is a rupture of self-identity, and therefore can less truly be said to be than the nearest wastebasket?
It is customary in Aristotelian-Thomist circles to observe at
this point that a person, who can remember his childhood and
whose bodily organization serves a common center of free
action, is more of a unity in time and space than the wastebasket, which is a sum of its parts and which cannot remember
two minutes ago. But though true and important enough, this
argument is insufficient. In fact, Sartre is right if consciousness is identified with intentionality. In the final analysis, for

318

ROGER

DUNCAN

Sartre, there can be no ego known to itself in immediacy becaiuse each act of conscious reflection must objectify another,
according to the requirements of intentionality. Therefore there
can be no real self; there is only the continual disruption of the
repose of self-identity. 25
According to the Lublin veiw, however, consciousness must
be clearly distinguished from intentionality.
As a glow above the conflagration, so consciousness rises above
cognitive acts. And if we reflect the object of cognition on our
"I" there comes into being self-cognition, in which we must carefully distinguish the content-side, which is marked by our physiological-psychical acts, from the non-content side ... grasping the
existence of our" I" .26

Accompanying any act of intentionality and yielding to introspection is a penumbra of consciousness by which I am
present to myself as well as to things. Recognizing it we do
not have to reduce our knowledge of a self to a mere inference,
which a Hume or a Sartre, with some justification, would not
allow. Nor do we have to claim a direct intentional focus on a
self, a position which leads to idealism of the Hegelian sort.
Instead we can see now how the "I am" which accompanies
all representations (to adapt Kant) provides a basis for the
actual unity experienced by the person in and through temporal a,dventures and at the same time provides a potentiality
for the becoming of the person through decision and increased
reflexive self-possession, self-governance, and self-determination.21 Of course this view of the matter demands a more
nuanced appraisal of Descartes's cogito than has been customary in Thomist circles, an appraisal already begun by Maritain.28 St. Thomas may teach that the subject judges his own
existence only through the objectification of an "already" ac25 Sartre, op. cit., p. 75fi; cf. Miguel de Unamuno, The Tragic Sense of Life
(New York: Dover Publications, 1954), p. 85.
26 Krapiec, p. 126; cf. Wojtyla, p. 32.
21 Wojtyla pp. 106-7.
2sJacques Maritain, The Degrees of Knowledge (New York; Charles Scribner's Sons 1959), pp. 178-202.

LUBLIN THOMISM

319

complished act of knowing, but it must not be forgotten (and
the transcendental Thomists have been insuring that we do
not forget it) that consciousness, indeed knowledge, in its
fullest actualization, that is to say, in God, grasps itself in
perfect self-transparency devoid of subject-object division. The
distinction between consciousness and intentionality allows us
to subordinate the intentional focus on the self to the primary
judgment "something exists" accomplished through the experience of objective being, without denying the equiprimordial non-intentional presence of self to itself which forms the
basis of later objectifications. Recognizing this a.llows us to see
the rupture of consciousness with its past as an occasion for
the amplification of the self through transcendent acts which
choose precisely to preserve and foster that already present
self-unity.
It would be rash to claim that the Lubliners have it all
down. Much of this work is not sewn together as tightly as
one might wish. For example, Krapiec's chapter on "Intentionality of Knowledge and Culture " makes the important point
that cultural products such as works of art are irreducibly intentional and thus, while not " merely subjective " are related
as constituents of a total reality constituted by intending
beings in ways more complex than an unsophisticated realism
might think. Well and good, with interesting eschatological
ramifications. But the lengthy and difficult quotes from Roman
Ingarden 29 epitomize the methodological distance between the
work of IngaJ.1den and that of these scholastically oriented
philosophers.
Another case in point is Krapiec's use of Scheler in the
chapter on human freedom. In general, Scheler takes a more
or less Kantian position on free will, believing that the experience of freedom is compatible with theoretical determinismthe two languages have nothing to do with each other. Specifically, Scheler argues here, through an equivocation on "predictable," that this compatibility can be established through ob29 Krapiec,

pp. 174-6.

ROGER DUNCAN

servation of the inverse ratio between predictability and
mature personal freedom. 3 ° Krapiec probably does not hold
either of these (perhaps mutually contradictory) versions of
of the compatibility thesis. Should these quotes, then, be allowed to stand uncriticized? Their presence may indicate an
insufficient attention to the relationship between questions of
a " physical " or cosmological nature and the sorts of philosophical questions Krapiec wants to address, a weakness of the
existential-phenomenological school in general. In any case
the example makes us aware of how much we await the publication in English of Karol Wojtyla's work on Scheler, to
understand the Lublin evaluation of, and indebtedness to, this
philosopher.
Again, we find in Fr. Krapiec's fine chapter on death an
argument for the immortality of the soul which it is only more
surprising to find in the mouth of Jean-Paul Sartre. 81 According to this argument I cannot think of the non-existence of
myself; ergo, when I try to think of my death I am involved
in " a concealed affirmation of the transcendence of existence
in relation to its various forms." But is this true? I can
imagine my own death, if I do not confuse imagining a scene
with imagining myself in it. In any case it seems that I can
think my own non-existence unless we are to say that I cannot
understand a statement implying that I did not exist in 1840.
Surely the Cartesian inescapability of the coaffirmation of my
own existence only proves that I cannot think " perhaps I do
not exist now." At the very least this argument needs more
defense and clarification.
It would be quite a reproachable oversight to leave out of
a consideration of the Lublin publications some mention of
the social philosophy to which these Polish thinkers have devoted so much energy. Opposition to totalitarian Marxism has
characterized their personal struggles and their philosophical
ao Ibid., p. 190.
31, Ibid., p. 340·1; Simone de Beauvoir, Adieux: A Farewell to Sartre (New

York: Pantheon Books, 1984).

I,UBLIN THOMISM

321

self-definition. It would be close to the truth to say the Lublin
brand of Thomism was forged in the struggle of these thinkers
to define themselves over against, but in dialogue with, the
reigning Marxist philosophy.
This social philosophy is a part of philosophical anthropology. Man is a social being; he is constituted not only by
the "I-Thou' but by the "\Ve ", 32 he seeks participation, 33
which in an alienated situation may have to become resistance;
mere indifference is sub-personal. Because of this need for
participation, man may not choose a dehumanizing individualism where the society or community exists only as an enabling
means for the realization of the individual's pursuit of happiness. At the same time, the community, which is not a superperson, exists for the individual person, and this " totalism "
forgets. 34
This clear position provides a weapon against totalitarianism
and at the same time, as the speeches and encyclicals of Pope
John Paul II have manifested, a hesitation about Western
" liberalism ". It leads rather to Solidarity and to things like
the Holy Father's recommendation of worker collectivities
where participation is actualized This is an exciting political
position which steps on everyone's toes.
The practical side of the Lublin movement is instructive.
We do not fall into historicism by admitting that philosophy
draws its life from the historical situation in which it finds
itself. Philosophy is theoretical in Aristotle's sense, yet it is
also practical in the sense that its questions draw their ordering
from existence, as Jaspers says. 35 Nowhere is this more evident
than in the tangled question of "Christian philosophy." Philosophy as such seeks to establish its conclusions independently
32 Karol Wojtyla, "The Person:
Subject and Community" in The Review
of Metaphysics, vol. XXXIII, no. 2, Dec. 1979, pp. 297 ff.
33 Wojtyla,
pp. 261 ff.
34, Ibid., pp. 271-6.
35 Karl Jaspers, "On My Philosophy"
in "\Valter Kaufmann, ed. Existentialism from Dostoevsky to Sartre (New York: Meridian Books, 1956) pp.
138-9.

ROGER DUNCAN

of revelation, and this is tme of Christian philosophy as of any
other. What makes a Christian philosophy Christian has to do
with its orientation toward questions that are a special focus
of interest for the Christian person with his faith perspective,
for example, the existence of God and the nature of the human
soul. 36 When we read Thomas's philosophy we know that it is
Christian; its very questions are oriented within a milieu of
faith. We may go further and note that St. Thomas is " historical" in a more particular sense. He is "existentially" concerned with a " refuting the Manichees," securing the rights
of the mendicants, drawing clear lines of discussion with
Islam, instructing beginners, championing Aristotle, with
building the Dominican order within a bustling and expanding
Christendom. He responds to the particular pressures, concerns, and opportunities of his time and place.
These Lublin philosophers are doing the same thing. Concerned with Marxism and the problems, theoretical and practical, which it raises, they are developing a philosophy of man,
in dialogue with the whole of contemporary European philosophy. They are building a seminary system. They are developing a Thomism which, in spite of its roughness in places,
lives and breathes.
What these Lublin works are giving us certainly includes a
goodly amount of theoretical food to chew on. But perhaps
even more importantly they point a way, and challenge us to
ask ourselves what the point of reference is for our own philosophy, we Thomists in the English-speaking world. Where
does our theory influence practice and where is it fed and directed by the demands of practice? Theory touches practice
where the truth we explain relates to what we are building
(not just, God help us, defending) .
It makes good sense for the editorial board to have produced I-Man first. As a work of philosophical anthropology it
expresses, not only in its social philosophy but in the totality
of its concerns, an emphasis of the Lublin school expressed at
36 Morawiec,

p. 470.

LUBLIN THOMISM

a theological level in Redemptor Hominis. And Thomists have
been repeating for some time that it is the knowledge of man
that human reason has the best shot at. 37 What is more, I-Man
introduces the reader not only to Fr. Krapiec but also to Sofia
J. Zdybicka and to Stanislaw Kaminski, who provides an extremely interesting methodological appendix 38 (which has been
deleted from the student edition, sensibly) . Apparently we are
to expect a philosophy of religion next (Zdybicka), followed
by Krapiec's Metaphysics. This last should be especially significant as Krapiec has specialized in the development of the
theory of analogy and has pointed to the analogy of being as
the backbone of Thomistic metaphysics. Kaminski's epistemology will be next, followed by two works on ethics.
Though we are told that the Lublin thinkers have developed
texts in all areas of philosophy, no work on cosmology or philosophy of nature appears so far in the front ranks of this
advance of Polish theism into the English-speaking world. This
absence has of course been characteristic of phenomenology and
existentialism, which gave up on the cosmos a long time ago,
but we expect more from Thomists, who are committed by
definition to the larger view. The new philosophy of nature
called for by Maritain is yet to appear and our confusion on
this score is only the measure of the uneasy relations between
philosophy, to say nothing of theology, and science, which have
characterized the last four hundred years of increasing alienation. As long as there is no "physics" defining itself clearly
and creatively in relation to modern science, mediating between
the world of everyday experience and our metaphysics, the
metaphysics totters. It may be true that the most needful
intellectual enterprise at this moment is philosophical anthropology, but in the long run we cannot, without a cosmology,
close the gap that opened with the Galileo controversy. It is
worth noting that some of the transcendental Thomists, particularly Rahner, have contributed quite a bit on these issues. 39
The Degrers of Knowledge, pp. 31, 177, 209.
pp. 363-73.
39 E.g., Karl Rahner, Hominisation
(New York: Herder and Herder, 1966).
37 Maritain,

38 Krapiec,

324

ROGER DUNCAN

It is to be hoped that the Lublin philosophers will provide us
with further insights.
Given the influence of Descartes and Kant on modern philosophy, "modern" Thomists often derive inspiration from
Kant-" Transcendental"
Thomism-or from Descartes" Existential Personalist" Thomism. The Lublin philosophers
go the latter route; they explore the implications of a greater appreciation of the reflexiveness of consciousness within a realism.
There results a pleasant irony. They are able to contribute
to the overcoming of the Cartesian dualism which still infects
much contemporary thought, including Thomist thought,
precisely through this phenomenological attentiveness to the
embodied condition of human being-in-world. At the same
time, they are able to establish philosophical anthropology as
a distinct philosophical discipline. What is more, with a deepened understanding of person, they are able to provide philosophical sophistication of potentially great service to theology
in its attempt to speak the meaning of Incarnational and
Trinitarian belief for our time.
ROGER DUNCAN

85 Lawler Road,
West Hartford,

Oonnecticut

THEOLOGY AT FRIBOURG

S

INCE ITS FOUNDATION in 1889, the faculties of
theology and of philosophy at the University of Fribourg in Switzerland have been under the auspices of
the Dominican Order. Unlike the Catholic University at Lublin
(Poland) where a consciously developed school of phenomenological Thomism exists, one can speak only in the broadest
terms about a "Fribourg school" of philosophy or theology.
The reason for this lies in the fact that members of the Faculty
have professionally proved themselves in varied and highly
specialized areas of theology, in dogmatic and moral theorology,
in exegesis, canon law, liturgy, etc. Historically this appraisal
finds verification when one considers the contributions made in
the first half of the century by such men as N. del Prado, F.
Marin-Sola, and G. Manser in dogmatics; D. Prummer in
morals; V. Zapletal and M. Sales in Scripture; and P. Mandonnet in historical theology. 1 A similar list of distinguished philosophers and theologians who have taught in the more recent
past or who are actually teaching at the University could be
drawn up, although it would be too long to include here. The
books chosen for discussion in this article have been recently
published by three members of the Faculty of theology-two
of whom are emeritus. Although they represent a small part of
the present Faculty's scholarly output, they do provide, as the
titles indicate, substantial samples of the full range of systematic theological inquiry in ethics and dogma. Nonetheless,
the shared conception of theology which directs each author's
approach to his respective discipline warrants joint consideration.
1 Information
on the early period of the University may be found in J.
Bondallaz, "Suisse" in the Dictionnaire de Theologique Oatholique, Vol. 14
(Paris, 1941) : Cols. 2733-2760.

325

326

ROMANUS

CESSARIO,

O.P.

Broadly speaking, this shared conception derives from the
strongly unified view of theology as sa.cra doctrina set forth by
St. Thomas Aquinas at the very beginning of his Summa theologiae. By definition Christian theology results from intelligent
reflection upon the revealed Word of God. As such it embraces
within its range of concerns everything which has to do with
God himself and the real world He created. Still, because of
his capacity for an authentic relationship with the blessed
Trinity and the special destiny implied in the status of adoptive sonship, the human person holds a privileged place among
theology's interests. As a result, the starting point for theology
is the words and deeds of Jesus Christ as they have been
recorded in the canonical Scriptures. These acta et gesta Christi
hold a unique place in the life of the Christian Church precisely because of who Jesus is, a man, one like us, hypostatically
united to the divine Logos. For Aquinas theology finds its
starting point in the very depths of God's Being where the
Eternal Father speaks the personal Word which perfectly reflects the Godhead. In this St. Thomas reflects the clear
Johannine teaching on the Trinitarian origins of all Christian
life and thought, " Now they know that everything that thou
hast given me is from thee; for I have given them the words
thou gavest me .... " (John 17 7,8). This shared conception of
the nature and purpose of theology as well as the common site
of their teaching careers unite the Dominican authors whose
works are discussed here. 2
I
In his book, Theologia, which received much attention in
theological educational circles, Edward Farley described a
2 Jean-Herve Nicolas, O.P., Syn these Dogmatique:
De la Trinite a la Trinite
( Fribourg [Suisse]: Editions Universitaires and Paris: Editions Beauchesne,
1985). Pp. xii+ 1248. FS 120,-. Servais (Th.) Pinckaers, O.P., Les sources
de la morale chretienne. Sa methode, son contenu, son histoire. Etudes
d'ethique chretienne, Vol. 14 (Fribourg [Suisse]: Editions Universitaries and
Paris: Editions du Cerf, 1985). Pp. 523. FS 45.-. Ceslaus Spicq, O.P.,
Oonnaissance et Morale dans la Bible. Etudes d'ethique chretienne, Vol. 13
( Fribourg [Suisse]: Editions Universitaires and Paris: Editions du Cerf.
1985). Pp. 186.

THEOLOGY AT FRIBOURG

327

process he called the fragmentation of theology. 3 Arguing from
within the Protestant experience, Farley points to certain historical circumstances which explain the disintegration of the
classical understanding of theology as an intellectual habitus
(or sapientiaI instruction of the whole person) into a variety
of distinct, and sometimes unconnected, areas of scientific investigation. Leaving aside the question of whether one requires faith to do theology, practitioners of the spin-off sciences
generated by the disintegration of theology developed distinctive scholarly methods. Towards this goal the new, specialized
theologians usually borrowed heavily from whatever secular
discipline dealt with related material. Thus, to take a wellknown example, scriptural hermeneutics came under the dominant influence of literary criticism 4 and Ancient Near Eastern
studies. This process of fragmentation resulted in a situation
familiar to contemporary students of theology. Theology
amounts to a collection of highly-specialized areas of study
whose intrinsic unity seems to be founded largely on the basis
of its organization in a,cademic catalogues under the general
heading of religious studies.
Historically, Farley suggests that this direction was accelerated, and to a certain extent shaped, by the removal of theological studies from places where shared life and common
thought were, ideally at least, united-for example, in monasteries or Church-sponsored schools. In these settings where
together faculty and students lived, prayed, and studied, the
medieval conception of lectio, praedicatio and disputatio, insofar as these exercises provided the essential context for theological development, directed and assured the accomplishment
of theologys' goals. All this transpired, one assumes, within a
context of shared belief. However, once theology was removed
to the secular universities it no longer could maintain this ex3 Edward Farley, Theologia.
The Fragmentation and Unity of Theological
Education (Philadelphia: Fortress Press, 1983).
4 See A Guide to Contemporary
Hermeneutics, edited by Donald K. McKim
(Grand Rapids: Eerdmans Publishing Company, 1986) for a good sample of
the concerns generated by this paradigm for scripture studies.

ROMANUS

CESSARIO,

O.P.

periential connection with the life of faith, which remains a
quality of the whole person and not simply a matter of right
thinking. Instead, and quite unobtrusively, the theological
disciplines came to be treated as simply other rational disciplines. Once settled in the secular forums of higher learning,
these stepchildren of theology, vying to claim hegemony over
one another, began to ape both the scientific methods of the
academy, and, consequently, the rationalism of the academicians. In effect, the post-Enlightenment situation of theology
may be compared to that of the Hebrews who, although settled
in the Promised Land, nonetheless succumbed to the untoward
practices of their pagan neighbors.
The ascendance of empiricism and positivism in theology,
especially in English-speaking countries, may be viewed as one
result of theology's placement within the university. On the
other hand, much that is considered useless in neo-scholasticism,
especially as developed in the late nineteenth-century derives
from too close an association of Thomist thought with Continental rationalism, a:s the philosophy manuals of J. Gredt amply
illustrate. 5 It could be argued that the present concern over
orthopraxis and the skepticism that some claim Christian practice raises against orthodoxy stems in large measure from a
reaction to Cartesian skepticism about the role of sense knowledge in human cognition. Ironically, this Cartesian spirit infected even Thomism with the result that certain authors
exaggerated the importance of unformed faith in Aquinas's
thought and ignored his insistence on the constitutive elements
of affect in Christian believing. Whatever else may be the
result of theology's removal from monastery to university, the
inner connectedness of faith and theology suffered a blow from
s See Etienne Gilson, Thomist Realism &i the Critique of Knowledge, translated by Mark A. Wauck (San Francisco: Ignatius Press, 1986) for an interesting account of how one school of Thomism sought to address this concern.
Pierre Faucon de Boylesvc, 0.P., Etre et Savoir. Etude du fondement de
l'intelligiibilite dans la pensee medievale (Paris: Vrin, 1985) offers a more
contemporary view of how to retrieve Aquinas's thought from the grip of
scholastic rationalism.

THEOLOGY AT FRIBOURG

which it has not recovered. Today the opinion that theology
flourishes only when derived from a lived Christian faith seems
a remnant of a pre-Enlightenment mentality that has yet to
discover the essential role " objectivity " plays in the modern
search for scientific certitude.
It is not uncommon today to discover systematic theological
writing either beleaguered by concern for hermeneutical questions or pre-occupied with a self-consciousness about method.
Within Roman Catholic circles those who discover the inability
of such theology to interpret God's Word for the benefit of the
Church, turn to the thought of theologians such as Hans Urs
von Balthasar. There, in the Herrlichkeit, they find a refuge
from the ravages of an unrelenting historicism or the aridity of
linguistic or social analysis. The diligent inquirer, however,
discovers that a theological aesthetics cannot supply the kind
of philosophical infra-structure available in a theology employing realist metaphysics. A principal merit of the three books
under discussion lies in the contribution they make towards
providing an alternative to doing theology from within a
tightly-drawn circle of belief. At the same time, the authors of
these works recognize that premature surrender of theology to
the methods and procedures of the secular disciplines and the
complete abandonment of faith's role in its development betray the unique status theology possesses as a science subalternated to the very knowledge God has of Himself. For this
reason their common efforts may be described as seeking to
continue the program set for theology by Aquinas when he
affirmed that theology "uses human reasoning, not indeed to
prove the faith, for that would take away from the merit of
believing, but to make manifest some implications of its message." 6
In addition to belonging to the same theological faculty,
6 See Summa theologiae Ia q. 1, a. 8, ad 2. Based on the work of the noted
Dominican psychologist and theologian, Victor White, Thomas Gilby provides
a concise explanation of this Dominican view of theology in Appendix 6 of
Christian Theology (Blackfriars, 1964) ; 67 -87.

330

ROMANUS

CESSARIO,

O.P.

Nicolas, Pinckaers and Spicq share then a common conception
of theology. Perhaps, this results from having been trained
within the same Dominican tradition tha;t produced their somewhat better-known colleagues, M.-D. Chenu and Yves Congar. 7
For at the base of this common conception of theology lies
Aquinas' view of sacra doctrina (Cf. Summa theologiae Ia, q.1)
as a constructive enterprise aimed at both deepening the believer's comprehension of the Word of God and drawing the
non-believer to salvific faith in that Word. A chief means of
accomplishing this latter task includes showing the congruence
which divine revelation exhibits with respect to human reasoning. These books are samples, then, of theology done in
the classical way; a full appreciation of what this entails can
only result from their careful study.
The largest in scope and size of the three books, the systematic vcolume represents the fruit of some thirty years of teaching at Fribourg by the French Dominican, Jean-Herve Nicolas,
O.P. His book covers the entire body of systematic theology
with the exception of materials belonging to the prima pars
such as the doctrine of God (treated in an earlier work Dieu
connu comme inconnu, Paris, 1966) and anthropology (considered as part of moral theology in the Thomistic plan of
studies and treated by the author in Les profondeurs de la grace,
Paris, 1968). Although not as thorough or as thick as Synthese,
Pinckaers's work likewise represents a comprehensive treatment
of its field of inquiry. The manuscript comes out of the courses
in moral theology presently taught at Fribourg by Servais
Pinckaers, O.P., who also serves as Prior of the international
Dominican convcent at Fribourg, the Albertinum. The little
volume of Pere Spicq represents another kind of achievement.
The 185 pages present a well-done, erudite word study of the
biblical terms for intellectual activity as these are used by the
biblical authors to communicate moral instruction. The remarkable fact, however, that the work has been produced by a
7 For a recent evaluation of this school see M.-D. Chenu et al., Une ecole de
theologie: le Saulchoir (Paris: Les Editions du Cerf, 1985).

THEOLOGY AT FRIBOURG

331

man who, at 85 years of age, can claim a productive record in
the biblical sciences for nearly half a century should not be
overlooked. As the publicity correctly indicates, this research
fills a lacuna in current theology since it explores the relationship of knowledge to morality from within the pages of the
Bible itself.
II
Because it provides a compendium of practically the entire
body of theological discussion over the past thirty years,
Synthese dogmatique stands within a venerable tradition of
theological education which begins with the summae of the
Middle Ages. Summae should be distinguished from their
earlier counterparts, the books of Sentences, insofar as the
author of a summa consciously put his materials in a theological
framework which served to make the reader aware of the
organic unity of theology. Of course the framework itself had
to be congenial to divine revelation. The subtitle of Nicola:s's
book, de la Trinite a la Trinite, shows how well his theme fulfills this function. Contemporary scholars debate how to interpret the framework chosen by Aquinas himself for his Summa
theologiae, but the neo-Platonic exitus-reditus design surely appears there in some form. Father Chenu has pointed out in
his classic work on the subject, Toward Understanding St.
Thomas, that St. Thomas's design exhibits his theological acumen by the fact that he could use this model without implicating the Christian Gospel in a series of necessary movements
(emanations) that would ultimately compromise the sovereign
freedom of the God of Christian revelation. In this Aquinas
brings to relative perfection a movement which had its origins
at the start of the high Middle Ages. It will be useful to consider this in detail in order to see how the correct use of theological method results in the development of quality theology.
With the progressive introduction of the works of Aristotle
comprising the logica nova (above all the two Analytics) in
the twelfth century, the issue of theological methodology ac-

332

ROMANUS CESSARIO,

O.P.

quired new importance and self-consciousness. The question
was: in what respect does theology measure up to the Aristotelian canon of scientific knowing as that canon is expressed in the
Posterior Analytics? For scientific knowing involves universailty and necessity (cf. St. Thomas Aquinas, In I Anal. Post.,
lect. 4, 5) . It is the knowledge of what cannot be other than
the case and of the necessary connection between cause and
effect. Christian theology, by contrast, depends upon a God
who is utterly free in his address to human freedom and tries
to render an account of the intersection and dialogue of divine
and human freedoms, which is salvation history. The methodological question for theology can be posed more precisely, therefore: how can there be a scientific account (one that matches
up to Aristotle's scientific ideal ) about what is contingent, free,
gracious, and historical? The genius of a solution to this question of theological methodology is to find an intelligible connection between theology as "sacred history", where the intelligible connection between the mysteries is simply narrative
chronology (as in Hugh of St. Victor's De sacramentis), and
theology as necessita.rian emanationism (as in Plotinus's Enneads).
Aquinas himself confronted this issue in two ways: in the
methodological treatment of Summa theologiae Ia, q.l, and in
the structure of the Summa itself as he planned it. He adopted
the exitus-reditus scheme from Dionysian neo-Platonism, but
fine-tuned it by building the nuance of analogical understanding into the scheme. In fact, it is perhaps more accurate to
view the exitus-reditus in the pattern of the Summa not as a
singular circular movement, as M.-D. Chenu maintains, 8 but
rather in terms of concentric circles, each possessed of its own
degree of necessity. Three kinds of necessity receive treatment in the Summa: that possessed by the divine Nature itself,
by created natures, and in historical happenings. Thus, one
may see in Summa theologiae Ia, qq.
one cycle, an ens See his Toward Understanding St. 'l'homas, translated
and D. Hughes (Chicago, 1964), esp. pp. 310-318.

by A. M. Landry

THEOLOGY AT FRIBOURG

333

tirely intra-Trinitarian coming-forth in the Word and recoil in
Personal Love; here the movement enjoys necessity-that is,
God cannot be other than a Father speaking a Word and together with the Word breathing forth the personal Bond of
Love. Broadly speaking, the material in the remainder of the
prima pars and in the secunda pars is considered under the
aspect of nature. The necessity here is hypothetical (i.e., given
that God has freely chosen to create as He has). Nevertheless,
given the divine will to create, there is a certain intelligibility
and consistency, certain intrinsic requirements, to the natures
that have been freely posited: man cannot be other than man,
given that God has freely willed to create man for beatific communion. The final scheme of coming forth and return would
be represented in the tertia pars, which is expressive of the
content of actual history. Jesus Christ comes forth and returns as the perfect and consummate historical agent in a
personal history; he realizes human nature as a perfect history.
The necessity here is even more tenuous, in one respect; for
there is no necessity that God accomplish the consummation
of human destiny and human salvation from sin by the incarnation of the Logos/Son. Nevertheless, God's election of this
mode of accomplishing his loving design for human history and
the excellence of a human history that is hypostaticaUy that of
the Second Person of the Blessed Trinity confers the necessity
of an unsurpassable exemplar and final causality upon Jesus
of Nazareth. These necessities-that of salvation-history, that
of natures as constituted by God, and that of the divine triune
reality itself-are interlocking: the former two being grafted
on to and deriving consistency and intelligibility from the
divine " necessity " that God as Father utters a Word with
whom he breathes forth the force of loving recoil who is the
Holy Spirit.
Nicolas's massive theological project unfolds from within this
conception of how God acts within human history and how
human thought grasps the meaning of that action. Obviously,
inspiration for this choice comes from Saint Thomas's own plan

334

ROMANUS

CESSARIO,

O.P.

for a theological summa. Nicolas takes Aquinas's system as his
guide but in a way that gives full play to its openness for development and its capacity for fruitful encounter with other
systems of thought. Umberto Eco has written that were
Aquinas to do his work today " he would realize that one
cannot and must not work out of definitive, concluded system,
like a piece of architecture, but a sort of mobile system, a looseleaf Summa, because in his encyclopedia of the sciences the
notion of historical temporariness would have entered." 9 Eco
does not realize that he has explained exactly wherein St.
Thomas's genius lies. Synthese dogmatique provides proof that
Aquinas's method can fruitfully be employed in contemporary
theology.
In effect, what Nicolas really inherits from St. Thomas is
a conception of theology (what he refers to as "une certaine
idee de la theologie ") . Nicolas describes this as a theology
rooted in the Scriptures and Tradition without being either
simply biblical theology or merely historical theology. The
Medievals, after all, had learned the limitations of that approach in Hugh of St. Victor. Furthermore, Nicolas wants a
theology that heeds the magisterium, but does not claim authority as the sole or primary ground for its authentication,
since this result in a kind of theological positivism better serviced by canonists than theologians (as, in fact, happened at
times with moral theology). Still he wants a theology congenial to the spiritual life, as opposed to a rationalism that
satisfies the mind's desire to know but leaves the heart arid.
Indeed as rationalism has the unhappy consequence of making
most of what the saints wrote unintelligible, on the contrary
Nicolas wants a theology which addresses the present existential condition of the human person, without compromising
beatific union with God as man's ultimate goal. This final
goal surely becomes the most difficult challenge. to Nicolas's
theological realism because it requires a strong stand against
9 Umberto
Eco, "In Praise of Thomas Aquinas,"
(Autumn, 1986), p. 87.

The Wilson

Qiiarterly

THEOLOGY AT FRIBOURG

335

both the reductionist leanings of liberalism and the tendency
of theological forms of idealism to compromise the distinction
between God and creation. The former is particularly evident
in schools of theology where social theories or psychological
opinions substitute for the Gospel and the latter in theological
systems which suppose beatitude far too early on in the Christian life-drama as a result of ambiguously positing divine grace
as existentially present in the human condition.
This ambitious theological project unfolds in three sections:
the Trinity, the mystery of God in three Persons; the Incarnate
Word; the Church and the sacraments. The sub-divisions of
these sections into parts and chapters comprise over twelve
hundred pages of dense and subtle theological prose in which
the author shows himself to be a master of his craft. A small
sample of Nicolas's work gives moment for pause to those who
seek to achieve progress in theology without giving due heed
to all that proper theological argumentation entails. For instance, the chapters which treat the sacrament of penance
consider the tensions which arise from historical developments
in the celebration of this sacrament as well as the dispute between Scotists and Thomists concerning the relationship of
the Church's sacramental power to the penitent's inner movement from attrition to contrition for past sins. Three general
issues are raised from historical theology: Since baptism accomplishes a definitive " death to sin," how can further sacramental provision for the forgiveness of sin become part of the
Church's practice? What place should a severe discipline for
serious misconduct hold in the dispensation of divine mercy?
Can a secure relationship be established between the visible
action of the Church's minister and the inward experience of
divine forgiveness? Admittedly, these questions simply open
up more complicated issues concerning the sacramentality of
reconciliation. The author balances two lines of argumentation
on this matter. He incorporates the central positions of those
who emphasize the formula of absolution as constitutive of the
sacrament and of those who prefer the inner acts of the penitent

336

ROMANUS

CESSARIO,

O.P.

as accounting for what is essential in the
In brief
he argues that the justification of the sinner embraces two
moments in the undivided action of reconciliation: the free act
of conversion towards God from some sinful attachment and
the gratuitous gift of divine grace which accounts for this. In
this attention to balanced theological development the author
proves himself the peer of the leading theologians of the century. However, the range of topics covered in Synthese obliges
a reviewer to limit his remarks to the more general features of
the work.
As a work which results from classroom instruction, it comes
as no surprise to discover the author following the ordo disciplinae. The three academic courses from which the book developed were cycled in the Fribourg program of studies. Consequently the notes, or scripta, as they are called, along with
pertinent bibliographical materials were revised and brought
up to date by the author every three years. This means, for
example, that the bibliography can be counted upon as current
to the early part of this decade when Nicolas retired in 1981.
Representative research in scriptural exegesis and the history
of theology prefaces each article, or item of theological investigation. Historical conflicts that do have special bearing on the
present shape of the Church's belief in a particular area receive special and detailed attention.
The properly systematic work, however, demonstrates the
author's theological craftsmanship and provides a collection of
high quality theological essays. Confirmation of this lies in the
fact that in each area of discussion Nicolas achieves one or
several of the purposes systematic theology strives to attain.
These goals of the systematician include the use of theoretical
understanding to discern the intelligibility of the faith from
the interconnectedness of the mysteries themselves; the illumination of what man knows through faith by analogy from what
he knows naturally; the articulation of the praeambula fidei,
those truths which are naturally knowable, or what the Scholastics spoke of as supernaturale quoad modum tantum. Fur-

THEOLOGY AT FRIBOURG

337

thermore, insofar as the distinction between moral and dogmatic theology rests on a fundamental misconception of the
sacra doctrina, the systematician must also take whatever the
faith posits about the ultimate destiny of the human person
and, by a kind of reversal of the analogical process, address, in
a theological light, issues that pertain to the human condition
and destiny.
Although Synthese provides a sample of contemporary
Thomist theology, the work does not belong to the so-called
transcendental variety of Thomism. For Nicolas does not work
out of the program for theology set by the dominant philosophical forces at German universities during the first half of
the 20th-century. Rather he continues and develops the rich
heritage of classical interpretation of St. Thomas's thought before German idealism gained ascendency as the princeps Thomistarum. Nicolas then represents what I prefer to call a more
straightforward Thomism. l£ his particular intellectual tradition were examined, one would discover that Nicolas' work
shows the influence of the late Jacques Maritain and that of
another Fribourg scholar, Charles Journet. In fact, these
thinkers shared that kind of intellectual camaraderie which appeared frequently within the scholastic schools. However, some
of Nicolas's disagreements with Maritain or with other neoscholastics may appear, at least to some readers, of little importance, or strike others as the kind of theological nit-picking
for which renaissance humanists reproached late scholasticism.
An unavoidable multiplication of points of view results simply
from the fact that the number of ways the pieces of a theological argument can come together equal the number of minds
capable of picking up all of the pieces. Of course, a close
examination of arguments results whenever disputation inter
doctores forms a part of theological discussion. As the
adage, toties capita, qU-Oties sententiae, suggests, uniformity of
opinion requires long and patient effort. A careful balance
must be maintained, however, to insure that dialectical argumentation actually attains truth instead of swallowing it up

338

ROMANUS

CESSARIO, O.P.

by endlessly prolonging the search. Such caveat serves well
for certain forms scientific biblical exegesis as much as for
systematic theology.
The reintroduction of a proposal for realist theology ranks
among the chief contributions Nicolas's work makes to contemporary theology. Although a number of candidates claim
to provide the theology with its definitive hermeneutic, none
of these serve the purposes of the sacra doctrina as classical
realist metaphysics does with its capacity to provide an account
of reality and man's ability to know the real. Challenges from
schools attentive to the impact of historical consciousness or
social learning on modern thought may serve to attune
classical theology to the special concerns of 20th-century
thinkers, but only a theological realism, one free to express
itself in the language of metaphysics, can exhibit the harmonies
that exist between the real world of created natures and the
supra-real world of created grace. Rightly undertaken, realist
theology accomplishes this in a way such that neither grace
nor nature loses its unique identity in the interest of affirming
the full existence of the other. Obviously, Karl Rahner serves
as one of Nicolas's chief interlocutors. The positions of the
transcendentalist theologian receive courteous treatment from
the author. Nor should the reader be surprised to discover
that Nicolas incorporates certain elements of Rahner's thought
into his own arguments.
Cardinal Ratzinger provides a preface for this volume. What
significance can be attached to this expression of official ecclesiastical support? The Cardinal undoubtedly views Nicolas's
work as a model for contemporary theology, claiming it will
contribute to the healing of theology. Nonetheless one should
not conclude that every opinion expressed by the author of
Synthese represents the Cardinal's personal view. Insofar as
this work exemplifies a kind of dogmatic theology scarcely
visible in the Church today, the Cardinal's support may simply
indicate his view that the Church needs more of this kind of
approach to theology.

THEOLOGY AT FRIBOURG

889

Good will is not enough to make good theologian. Nicolas's
conception of theology builds upon the conviction that the God
who created the human mind has revealed himself as humanly
intelligible in the person of Jesus Christ. Such theology allows
both mind and heart to find reasons that break open the
meaning of the Christ event in such wise as to express to each
generation the riches of Christ's wisdom and love. Theology,
after all, according to the Thomist viewpoint, develops out of
faith's seeking to deepen its understanding of revealed truth.
Rationalism reduces theology to a purely human enterprise.
Practitioners of this kind of theology perceive themselves either
as peers of secular professors in academic circles or the religious
counterparts of other learned professions, like social work or
psychology. Whatever are the merits of the science of religious
studies, theology in service to the Church requires more than
academic credentials to communicate a revealed doctrine. Theological positivism, on the other hand, which relies on authoritarian pronouncements to support Church doctrine, closes off
the theological project by replacing demonstration with the
weakest form of argument, authority. Its practitioners find
satisfaction with repetition of what the Church teaches, but
recoil from the hard work of making that teaching intelligible
to contemporary hearers. Father Nicolas offers the theologian
a model to avoid these unfortunate and disserviceable alternatives.

III
St. Thoma.s's conception of sacra doctrina gives a unity to
theology in which dogma and moral do not constitute two independent fields of study. Nonetheless, the methods of these
two areas of theological investigation differ insofar as the speculative intellect, which serves the development of dogmatic theology, operates according to a different dynamic than does the
practical intellect, which principally controls moral decisionmaking. At the heart of the operation of the practical intellect
lies the synergetic operation of right reason and human appetite

340

ROMANUS

CESSARIO,

O.P.

peculiar to moral reasoning. Indeed the role of appetite in the
formulation of a dictamen of the practical reason counts among
the most misunderstood features of Roman Catholic moral theology at present. Moral theologies of compromise provide but
one example of the contemporary neglect of this principle even
as their proponents risk serious pastoral harm for those who
otherwise would benefit from correct moral theology. Historically, however, the process of decline in moral theory goes
back, at least, to the 14th century when the foundations of
modern casuistry were laid by the nominalist theologians. Les
sources de la morale chretienne takes for its overall purpose the
reasserting of what Servais Pinckaers judges to be the classical
way of presenting Christian moral instruction. This goal
achieves realization in a slow and deliberate way as the author
marks out a positive path for moral theology's future which
avoids both the naarrow legalism of casuistry and the broad uncertainties of proportionalism.
Recent Roman Crutholic moral theology in the United States
has been preponderantly influenced by German thinkers, such
as Josef Fuchs, Bernard Haring, and Bruno Schuller, either
,directly or derivatively through writers like Charles Curran and
Richard McCormick. For instance, the latter's "Notes on
Moral Theology " provided American readers for nearly the
past twenty years with regular summaries of European moral
thought. Although the German schools show diversity both
in the methods they employ and in the conclusions they reach,
among them no significant exponent of Thomist moral theology
can be found. The Swiss Dominican A. Utz, who has made
a significant contribution to the field of social ethics in the
German-speaking countries, counts as a notable exception. As
a result English-speaking students of theology are largely unacquainted with the approach to general moral theory in the
way la;id out by Pinckaers.
The author introduces the study by presenting a working
definition of the science of moral theology. In his view moral
theology comprises that part of theology which studies human

THEOLOGY AT FRIBOURG

341

action as ordered to the ultimate Goal of human existence: the
loving vision of God Who is the only true and complete Beatitude. Furthermore, this kind of Christian life is specified and
achieved by grace, the moral and theological virtues, and the
Gifts of the Holy Spirit. Insofar as moral theology constitutes
a science formally distinct from natural ethics, its development
depends upon the light of divine Revelation. However, since
moral theology, as a constitutive part of the sacra doctnna,
must adapt to human ways of knowing and speaking, the moral
theologian relies upon the structures and categories of moral
philosophy for the articulation of his science.
Such a definition reflects the conception of moral theology
found in Aquinas, especially as it unfolds in the secunda pars of
his Summa theologiae. Some authors, in an attempt to sort out
the confusion in categorizing moral theories, choose to call his
view of moral theology decidedly teleological because of the
role that "object "-in this case, beatific union with Godplays in specifying the end-point of the whole moral enterprise.
Yet there does not exist complete agreement among scholars
as to how to characterize Aquinas's ethical theory. To take but
one example of another view, John Langan intm·prets the ethical
theory of Aquinas as a kind of deontological intuitionism. 10
Pinckaers, however, in the second half of his introduction, insists on a teleological interpretation of Aquinas as pa.rt of his
overall consideration of the topics usually discussed in moral
theology: moral obligation, human flourishing, the meaning and
purpose of human life, the roles of suffering, love, jUlltice, and
sin in Christian life. Moreover each of these will require full
discussion within the schema established by Pinckaers's working definition of moral theology. Some authors, of course, have
developed entire moral theories centered around a focal point
other than beatific union with God. Those who follow the
suggestion of either Plato or Kant in making the virtue of
justice serve as the first principle from which all of morality
10 John Langan, S.J., "Beatitude and Moral Law in St. Thomas," Journal of
Religious Ethios 5 (1977) : 183-195.

ROMANUS

CESSARIO,

O.P.

derives provide an example. When, however, some other principle than union with the blessed Trinity serves as the endpoint for morals, an architectonic shift in the discipline occurs
which radically changes the way morality figures in the Christian life. In the example cited, those who would choose justice
as roughly the equivalent for morrality experience difficulty incorporating other virtues, such as those of personal discipline,
in the Christian life.
However, the principle of moral obligation represents the
clearest option for a different pattern in moral theology. In
fact, the major Roman Catholic alternative to Aquinas's teleological morals lies in a system founded upon personal responsibility and obligation towards moral obligations. Emphasis on
the role of human autonomy and responsibility accounts for
the popular reception given to theories such as that proposed
by B. Haring in Free and Faithful in Christ. But, even when
the role of freedom and self-determination are given a central
place in working out a basically deontological model, the pattern of the moral life remains controlled by two created forces,
obligation to moral laws and conscientious responsibility for
their fulfillment. God, unfortunately, remains necessarily extrinsic to such systems of morals, much as He does in the
schema of Newtonian physics. Even the contributions of the
revisionist moral theologians, although they allow considerably
greater flexibility than the old-school casuists, develop out of
this kind of deontological model. Of course, there are features
of deontology which must figure in a secondary way even in a
teleological system. In the enlarged and final definition of moral
theology at the end of the introductory chapter Pinckaers incorporates some of the major emphases from other alternative
paraidigms in morals into his own view. Significantly, the role
of moral laws and commandments finds a secondary placethey are said to aid in the discovery of God's ways.
As the sub-title, "method, content, and history," indicates,
Les sources de la morale chretienne is comprised of three distinct parts. The first part discusses the method of moral the-

THEOLOGY AT FRIBOURG

343

ology under the heaiding of " a moral theology: human and
Christian." In these chapters the author treats the contemporary question: " What constitutes the specificity of Christian
ethics?" and presents a unique approach to what has become
a central question for Roman Catholic moral theologians. After
a brief statement of the problematic, Pinckaers prefaces his
statement of the question with a long analysis of what he calls
"moral theology's human character." In short he explains the
difference between a classical understanding of what constitutes
practical knowledge and a contemporary conception of what
makes for the development of scientific knowledge. Authentic
moral knowledge, since it issues from a synergy of activity in
the cognitive and appetitive faculties of the human person,
finds its validation in the interaction of the person-as-subject
with a given moral object. The cardinal virtue of prudence,
according to the classical theory, operates only when rectified
appetite and correct moral science join together for the production of a virtuous moral action. On the contrary, modern
scientific knowledge, since it strives to conform to the canons
of impartiality essential in the empirical method, develops in
a way that consciously avoids being influenced by the subjective dispositions of a person's character. Furthermore, this
method, according to some thinkers, is able to serve the purposes of scientific investigation even when it seeks knowledge
about human behavior itself.
Some reason for this eschewal of the human passions in the
method of doing moral theology may be discovered in the
history of ethics. In Three Reformers, Jacques Maritain wrote
that Rousseau's man is Descartes's angel acting like a beast. 11
11 Jacques
Maritain wrote: "The rationalist self had wanted to be selfsufficient, it refused to lose itself in the abyss of God, where it would have
found itself, and now it can only seek itself in the abyss of sensitive nature,
where it will nevermore find itself. Love, which was the panting of the spirit,
and which pre-supposes as a condition of self surrender of the self and its
immanent life, has gone. Nothing but egoism remains and there is no ego,
but only a stream of phantoms. Rousseau's man is Descartes's angel acting
like a beast". Three Reformers (New York: Scribner's Sons, 1929).

344

ROMANUS

CESSARIO,

O.P.

The Cartesian revolution in morals, by reason of its dualistic
skepticism about mind-body unity, effectively eliminates the
function of appetite in the development of moral knowledge.
Once this separation has been accomplished, moral norms
either disappear, as Maritain suggests is the case for Rousseau,
or develop as the product of unadulterated intellectual activity.
Something similar occurs in Kant's moral theory with the result
that moral virtue for Kant never develops beyond what Aristotle calls continence or perseverance-that is, the will exercising despotic control over the passions. On the other hand,
Pinckaers's preferred theory of moral knowledge and development requires the exercise of the whole person, intellect, will,
and appetite, towards the realization of a practical wisdom.
In this insistence he favors, of course, the Aristotelian view
that both thought and feeling should work together towards
the establishment of a right measure for human conduct and
that moral virtue does accomplish a real shaping of the person
such that each human capacity, including the sense appetites,
operates with facility in the performance of good actions.
Pinckaers's comparison of what he describes as the reflective
method of classical moral knowledge with the positive methods
of the behavioral sciences provides one of his most instructive
sections. Here the theoretical grounds for an intelligent resolution of what some judge the inherent conflict between Christian
moral teaching and clinical psychology are examined. Two
schools of thought exist: (1) the " safe school" which allows
the behavioral sciences to advance positions only within the
boundaries established by positive moral law, and (2) the
"popular school" which would distinguish in the human psyche
two distinct areas of formal interest, the psychological and the
" spiritual." The former includes all that affects the psychic
activity of the human person; the latter hypothetically touches
those matters traditionally associated with the Church, for
example, religion as a value in life. In response to these unsatisfactory alternatives, the author ably elaborates a position
which avoids this highly dubious way of dividing, even method-

THEOLOGY AT FRIBOURG

845

ologically, the spiritual in man. Although his view takes full
acoount of the differences between moral theory and psychology, it claims the distinct advantage of moving towards an
integration of psychological studies and spirituality. The artificial division of these two sciences, as adopted by some practitioners of psychotherapy, risks marginalizing of moral truth
in favor of therapeutic procedures, granting supremacy to reason in the moral life, and, consequently, threatening an individual with the loss of authentic interiority.
Accordingly, the author renews his criticism of the modern
pre-occupation with objectivity. He cites the example of the
psychotherapist whose professional standards demand that he
remain but a friendly therapist for his patient and forbid he
become a therapeutic friend. Yet to exclude the love of friendship from the therapeutic task of helping people grow in love
belongs to the theory of Freud, but not to the Christian tradition. Granted a psychoanalyst may counter that such ob,,,
jectivity insmes the patient impartial analysis, and consequently the right kind of help, in the same way as detachment
from outcomes guarantees an objective, and therefore successful, reading of statistical data. Nevertheless, this kind of personal isolation, for both patient and therapist alike, impedes
the growth of charity and destmys the expression of social
solidarity which provides the human analogue for the development of the Mystical Body. Again Pinckaers deserves commendation for signalling the dangers posed to Christian life
insofar as believers appropriate the life sciences without critical theological evaluation.
Next the author presents a series of impressive arguments
for the Thomistic conviction that reason, even in moral theology, should not become an enemy for the faith. This conviction, however, becomes increasingly difficult to maintain in
the face of the importance attached to reason's abstract neutrality by schools of rationalist moral theology that restrict
the influence of Christian revelation to the level of personal
intention. Such neutrality may be seen to operate, for example,

346

ROMANUS CESSARIO,

O.P.

in certain forms of proportionalist thinking where compromise
judgments about moral matters are based upon reason's
weighing of projected consequences without any reference to
the requirements of human nature. As a result such reasoning,
although it may conform to certain a priori philosophical categories, does not fulfill the requirement of good moral theology,
namely that it take seriously into consideration the theological
doctrine of the imago Dei. Moral philosophers, as G.E.M.
Anscombe reminds us, 12 may be hampered by the absence of
a thoroughly worked-out anthropology, but theologians can develop an authentic moral teleology on the basis of a revealed
doctrine concerning the place of Beatitude in the formal specification of complete and happy human life for men and women
created in the image of God.
Pinckaers makes the transition to a discussion of specifically
Christian morals by examining the suggestion of J. Fuchs 13
and others that the Christian moral life conveniently divides
into two levels, categorical and transcendental. The former
consists in the kinds of actions moral philosophy can describe;
whereas the latter includes all that gives ultimate meaning and
value to an otherwise theologically unclassified set of moral
actions. Based on this division, several theorists attempt to defend a specifically Christian moral theology only at the level
of the transcendental where, they contend, personal attitudes
and intentions control and determine the ultimate moral character of an act. On the other hand, the categorical level which
includes, materialiter, all that human reason can prescribe for
a correct moral life cannot claim specifically Christian status.
Rather the categorical level holds a quasi-universalist place
among all moral systems, similar to the way the doctrine of
God functions in unitarian theology.
12 See G.E.M. Anscombe, "Modern
Moral Philosophy " in Collected Philosophical Papers. Volume III (Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press,
1981), pp. 26-42.
13 See for example Josef Fuchs, S.J., Personal Responsibility
and Christian
Morality (Washington: Georgetown University Press, 1981), especially Chapter 7, "The Absoluteness of Behavioral Norms."

THEOLOGY AT FRIBOURG

347

Dissatisfaction with this way of construing the moral life
increases insofar as scholars realize the distinction between the
categorical and transcendental levels of morality promotes an
unmanageable bifurcation of the human act. Potentially this
results in the unfavorable situation where actions judged
morally bad on the categorical level may co-exist with approved attitudes or intentions at the transcendental level.
Pastors-to consider the issue from the side of Christian praxis
-will find this view of sin and virtue difficult to apply in
concrete situations of pastoral care. It has the further disadvantage of making the sacrament of reconciliation difficult to
celebrate, at best, and unnecessary, at worse. Again it may be
helpful to recall that, according to its original purpose, the
satisfaction the priest enjoins on the penitent overcomes the
effects of sin in the whole person. The sacrament, after aU,
does not simply correct a sinner's frame of mind.
Father Pinckaers clearly rejects this approach in favor of
his own novel and richly suggestive solution to the question
of the specificity of Christian ethics. The novelty, at least in
terms of approach to this particular issue, lies in juxtapositioning three essays in which he exposes the views of Saint
Paul, of St. Augustine, and of Aquinas respectively on the relationship between philosophical ethics and revealed morality.
Undoubtedly, the suggestion for this approach comes from the
medieval view that theology has three sources, the sac,ra
pagina, the patres, and the doctores or scholastic theologians
of such merit as to be considered authorities. Each essay explains the saint's reply to the question, "What is a distinctively Christian ethic? " Admittedly none of these thinkers
treated the issue in exactly the same way as it is posed today.
Notwithstanding Pinckaers allows the authors to speak for
themselves and, in their own terms, to elaborate a position concerning the nature of moral theology.
According to the author's presentation, St. Paul's teaching
centers on the radical difference that living by faith makes for
human existence, a difference not only in how men and women

348

ROMANUS

CESSARIO,

0 .P.

obtain the motivation to live according to Christian ideals,
but also about what those ideals prescribe for life. For St.
Paul, life according to the Spirit, as other commentators have
noted, entails a transformation of the whole person, including
one's emotional life. Gospel living, for the one who takes the
letters of Paul seriously, can never amount simply to coping
with the way God made me. Christianity, rather, means a new
pattern of life, with emphases derived from the imitation of
Christ himself, such as chastity, humility, peace of soul, and,
above all, salvific suffering. The transformation accomplished
by the life of faith touches intimately all of the moral virtues,
making each of them " new creations " inasmuch as they are
animated by divine charity. Nothing in the way St. Paul speaks
about the moral life suggests that the only difference between
Christian and pagan virtues lies in the transcendental intention
possessed by the former. The specificity of Christian ethics for
St. Paul results from the transforming power of Christian
love in the moral life which, for the believer, becomes nothing
less than his or her share in the very life, and sufferings, of
Christ himself.
Saint Augustine's conception of the unique status of Christian morality derives from his exegesis of and instruction on the
Sermon on the Mount. In particular, Pinckaers enumerates
what he calls five key "intuitions " found in Saint Augustine's
writings on this and other key biblical teaching. These are:
(1) the Sermon serves as an overall and comprehensive guide
for the Christian life; (2) the Beatitudes, however, mea:sure
levels of perfection realized in living such a life and, (3) in
turn, are meant to serve as mediums of interpretation for the
Sermon on the Mount; (4) a relationship exists between the
Sermon on the Mount and the Gifts of the Holy Spirit; (5)
the seven petitions found in the Lord's Prayer derive from
the Sermon.
In fact modern interpreters of the Sermon on the Mount
frequently commit the intellectual error of " schizoscopia"
(Pinckaers's neologism) insofar as they promote a reading of

THEOLOGY AT FRIBOURG

349

the text that cuts off (schizein) from view (skopein) important
elements of its content and meaning. Schizoscopia is the result
of choosing either categories of interpretation or principles of
exegesis which restrict rather than enlarge the reader's approach
to a text. In Pinckaers' view, Augustine's reading of the
Sermon on the Mount does not suffer from schizoscopia. As a
result, this patristic teaching centers squarely on the positive
features of the moral life as these promote happiness £or the
Christian. The goal and motive £or the moral life in St. Augustine's, though, derives from Christ's a;ssurance of beatitude £or
those who live according to the positive precepts of the new
law of grace. Negative precepts and prohibitions hold second
place in shaping Christian morality, as, £or that matter, do
ethical considerations in general. What matters for Christian
life, according to St. Augustine, lies in the believer's search and
attainment of happiness. Although Pinckaers gives only suggestions £or the task, he argues convincingly that a renewal of
moral theology in the Church must take seriously these five
intuitions of St. Augustine on the Sermon on the Mount, above
all the central intuition that only union with Christ can fulfill
the desire of the human heart for perfect rest and contentment.
Pinckaers' presentation of St. Augustine's moral theology deserves careful consideration; it compares favorably with other
older attempts, such as B. Roland-Gosselin's La moral de Saint
Augustin (Paris,
to exhibit the harmonies that exist between a certain patristic conception of the moral life and the
plan of the Summa theologiae.
Pinckaers' discussion of the achievement of St. Thomas
Aquinas in moral theology occupies but twenty pages so as
to show how the Angelic Doctor builds upon St. Augustine's
model in the construction of the secunda pars of his Summa
theologiae. He draws the reader's attention to the tract on the
New Law of Grace (Summa theologiae Ia-Hae qq. 106-114),
the keystone of St. Thomas's moral theology, and points out
the significance of the Dominican insistence on treating the
theology of grace as part of moral theology. However, the

350

ROMANUS

CESSARIO,

O.P.

principal focus of this section centers on the celebrated question, at least for Dominican theologians, of how the reality of
human freedom perdures under the impulse of divine grace.
The author clearly indicates that only freedom conceived as a
quality of human action, and not as its absolute goal, offers
the correct interpretation of the New Testament's teaching on
Christian liberty. Such a construal of freedom as a quality of
action allows for the incorporation of Beatitude into the moral
paradigm as the sole goal or theme of human existence. Rather
than allow absolute indeterminacy and unregulated self-realization to serve as principal perfections of the human spirit, St.
Thomas's theology unequivocally places objective Beatitude,
God loved for himself, as the end-point of each person's human
development.
Unfortunately, only a brief account of the debates surrounding the thorny question of the natural desire for God appears
in connection with the author's treatment of St. Thomas. Since
one impasse in contemporary theology develops around how to
determine what R. Garrigou-Lagrange, using admittedly awkward language, referred to as the "point of insertion" for the
supernatural into the natural order, more attention could have
been given to the nature and function of the obediential potency
in Thomist thought. Even so, when Pinckaers does address the
question, he adopts a strong position on the harmonies between
grace and nature. For example he asserts that ". . . Saint
Thomas shows rationally that eternal beatitude alone can respond to the natural desire for happiness in man, as evidenced
by his inclination towards the truth and the good" (p. 194).
Consequently, this desire, which Aristotle judged ordered to
natural contemplation, bears witness, by its very existence, to
the possibility of man's being elevated, always under the movement of divine grace, to the possession of the vision of God.
Although further discussion of human nature's finality appears
later in the book, some reference at this point to the disagreements among Thomists themselves about value egalitarianism

THEOLOGY AT FRIBOURG

851

and the enumeration of basic human goods would add rational
support to the author's contentions. 14
A similarly optimistic perspective on the harmonies between
nature and grace finds expression in the author's remarks on
the natural law which, he affirms, "can re-discover an exact
resonance, supple but faithful, to the workings of grace in man "
(p. 299). Although such a view undergirds the properly theological character of Aquinas's conception of natural law, it tends
to accomplish this at a price. Failure to maintain the distinction between nature's own dynamics and those of divine grace
risks a false harmonization of nature and supernature that
serves neither the one nor the other. Natural law discussion, if it would serve a theological purpose, requires that
nature's autonomy be respected. Similarly, natural law theory
serves no purpose in theology unless it can enter into theological debate as a full, although necessarily subordinate, participant. Unquestionably Pinckaers realizes this. His purpose in
adopting such a strong faith-perspective on the natural desire
for God and the reality of the natural law suggests a decided
effort to refute forms of neo-rationalism which treat revealed
morality as nothing more than a divine re-publication of the
laws of nature.
Carl Becker points out in an essay on the Encyclopedists,
The Heavenly City of the 18th-century Philosophers,15 the
verbal similarity between Aqunias's definition of natural laws
and that of the rationalist Volney. In the latter's view natural
law means "[t]he regular and constant order of facts by which
God rules the universe; the order which his wisdom presents
to the sense and reason of men, to serve them as an equal and
common rule of conduct, and to guide them, without distinc14 See Ralph Mclnerny,
Ethica Thomistica (Washington, D.C., 1982), pp.
54-62. Brian V. Johnstone, C.Ss.R., provides a broader treatment of the question in "The Structures of Practical Reason: Traditional Theories and Contemporary Questions," The Thomi-st 50 (1986): 417-446.
15 Carl L. Becker, 'l'he Heavenly Oity of the Eighteenth-Century
Philosophers
(New Haven: Yale University Press, 1932), especially Chapter 2 "The Laws
of Nature and Nature's God."

352

ROMANUS

CESSARIO,

O.P.

ti on of race or sect, towards perfection and happiness "
(Oeuvres (2d ed.), I, 249). Some writers on the specificity of
Christian ethics appear to have forgotten the lessons not only
philosophy, but also history can teach. Christian morality, if
it holds true to its theological charter, always remains formally
distinct from rational ethics. Although certain elements of
moral theology may be materially identical with the contents
of some ethical systems, the difference that a formal difference
makes amounts to nothing less, in Aquinas's way of talking,
than what St. Paul affirmed of the "new creation " made possible by love. Pinckaers never allows his reader to forget that
the theological structure of the Summa theologiae, especially
the place of the vision of God in the secunda pars, gives radical
new meaning and significance to whatever good philosophy may
be in it.
The second part of the work treats the hidory of moral
theology. It should be noted that apart from standard encyclopedia articles and small sections of some text books, e.g.
about twenty-five pages in B. Haring's Free and Faithful in
Christ, no comprehensive treatment of the history of moral
theology exists in English. Although he recognizes the difficulties involved in the task, the author devotes six ample
chapters to this part of his study. He agrees with Schopenhauer's view that one can preach morality more easily than
demonstrate the foundation for moral theory. Consequently, to
write a history of moral theology requires a thorough grasp of
the various philosophical positions which influence and control
its development. Pinckaers's sketch of the history of moral theology intends to emphasize these philosophical issues. However,
when the author treats the patristic period, no mention is made
of the influence of certain ancient philosophies, for example,
Stoicism, on the moral theology of the Fathers. Similarly the
survey of the scholastic period provides a scant treatment of
St. Thomas and the Thomist school. Rather, the author remains satisfied with providing some suggestions for giving due
attention to St. Thomas's historical development as a theologian when reading his moral theory.

THEOLOGY AT FRIBOURG

353

On the other hand Pinckaers presents a well-developed account of nominalist moral theology. Of course nominalist theology, at the twilight of the Middle Ages, began the revolution
in morals that subsequently generated the era of casuistry and
the removal of St. Thomas's teleological morality from currency. Before Kant crystallized the Reformation's religious
intuition of a duty-based morality and gave it a permanent
place in moral theory, the nominalist theologians introduced
into Western Christianity the conception of a morality based
upon a divinely enjoined obligation to fulfill a moral duty. In a
theological period that looked toward the eschaton more as a
time of reckoning than of fulfillment, sanctions for such moral
obligations could be expected not only through punishment in
this life but in the hereafter as well. This revolution in morals,
of course, forms part of a much larger change in philosophical
paradigms whose roots can be traced to the thought of the
late medieval thinker Scotus. 16
However, the full impact of diminished confidence in man's
ability to know human nature and its characteristic properties
is felt in theology only when, several centuries later, David
Hume decries the naturalistic fallacy. 17 Pinckaers clearly places
Hume within a movement in moral theory begun nearly four
centuries prior and, to the author's credit, explains the ill consequences of an impaired perspective on the part of moral
theologians towards both natural law and nature. As a result
of his exposition of Humean skepticism and nominalist morality, Pinckaers poses a question to historians of theology and
moral theorists alike: What happened to the kind of moral
theology described by Saint Augustine in his writings on the
Sermon on the Mount? Again, where is the confidence shown
by Aquinas in identifying union with the Blessed Trinity as
rn See Douglas C. Langston, God's WiUiing Knowledge: The Influence of
Scotus' Analysis of Omniscience (University Park: The Pennsylvania State
University Press, 1986) for further discussion of this point.
17 See Anthony Flew, David Hume.
Philosopher of Moral Science (Oxford:
Basil Blackwell, 1986) for a general study of Hume's thought.

354

ROMANUS

CESSARIO,

O.P.

both ultimate goal of life as well as that which gives formal
specification to the whole of the moral life?
Whatever the answer to this basically historical question
may be, the fact remains that the classical understanding of
moral theology
integrated so well the various arenas of
Christian life, moral, ascetical and sacramental, does disappear
in the 15th and 16th centuries. A long range effect of this eclipse
means that the Church presently possesses a collection of distinct and increasingly disconnected treaties on speculative
moral, ascetics, and pastoral theology. Another more serious
effect, however, may be seen in a moral teaching that ea:sily
delineates the extent of moral obligations, but less successfully
explains from where the Christian receives the spiritual energy
to fulfill them. Accordingly, one could interpret Protestant
ethics as beginning the moment a believer, burdened by an
overwheming number of moral requirements, began crying out
for a merciful God. Several chapters consider the post-Reformation period, treating both Catholic and Protestant positions.
Specialists will find the section on Juan Azor and his Moral
Institutes especially rewarding since Pinkaers identifies in this
Jesuit's work the first example of the structure later adopted
by manuals of moral theology. Proof of the complete loss of
confidence in the teleological scheme conceived by Augustine
and perfected by Aquinas appears in the Institutes' notable
omission of tracts on beatitude, the Gifts of the Holy Spirit,
and the workings of divine grace in the moral life.
The author's exposition of manualist moral theology ranks
among the book's most significant achievements. The modern
period, at least up until the Second Vatican Council, constitutes
the era of the manuals. Although the historical reasons for
this development are noted, the author turns his foremost
attention to the theological implications of the manualists for
Christian life. In effect, influenced by what the author titles
an "atomized" view of the human act, the manuals adopted
and promoted a highly individualistic outlook on morality.
Furthermore, their conception of the human person as the locus

THEOLOGY AT FRIBOURG

355

for the exercise of freedom led the manualists to exaggerate
freedom's role in the overall schema of moral activity. Since
the manualist tradition inherited a nominalist notion of freedom, the classical understanding of freedom as a quality of
moral action was gradually replaced by what the author calls
the "liberty of indifference." Broadly speaking, this means the
actual state of a person insofar as one remains entirely undetermined by either external or internal factors. Among the unhappy results coming from this position ranks a suspicion of
spontaneity and of the Gifts of the Holy Spirit. In place of
these charismatic elements in moral theology, once firmly
counted upon to lead towards a moral behavior that surpassed
the narrow confines of precept and laws, comes a preoccupation on the part of moral theologians with negative factors insofar as these potentially affect the liberty of indifference.
Here the author discovers an explanation as to why sexual
morality typically received so much attention in the manual
tradition-for what constituted a larger threat to the liberty
of indifference than the sudden upsurge of passion?
Pinckaers ably explains the easy transition from this way
of doing moral theology to contemporary theories of conscience and responsibility which center so much of the Christian
life on moral decision-making. Furthermore, the author shows
the connection between the manuals' juridical model of moral
theology and the development of the various schools of casuistry by pointing out the need for a moral jurisprudence in a
legal system of morality. The schools of casuitry, in effect, represented different theoretical positions for adjudicating the
competing claims made upon the Christian's sense of duty.
Such a condition could only have arisen as a result of the vast
complex of laws and obligations developed over the course of
the modern period by moral theologians who had lost their
teleological viewpoint. The supremacy of moral deontology is
signaled by the re-introduction of the treatise of beatitude into
the manuals. To be sure it was not placed at the beginning of
the casuist moral textbooks, where indeed St. Thomas put it in

356

ROMANUS CESSARIO,

O.P.

the secunda pars to control all that was discussed afterwards.
Rather beatitude fell at the end of the manuals, as if to suggest that happiness were a reward for successfully completing the struggle of the Christian life. The clear exposition
and theological analysis of moral theology's development since
the pre-Reformation era stands out as another of the quite
successful elements of this work.
Finally the author surveys the state of moral theology at
the present and evaluates both the advantages and inconveniences of post-Conciliar moral theology. His emphasis on
the benefits personal reading of the sacred scriptures brings to
the moral theologian provides a welcome corrective to the
sometimes exaggerated consideration given to scientific exegesis
when certain authors discuss the function of the sacred scriptures in moral theology. As a theological adaptation of the
monastic practice of lectio divina, this kind of meditation on
the Word of God goes far to insure, in Pinckaers's judgment,
the authenticity of theological development. The author reserves some of his strongest rhetoric to lament a condition of
" secular Christianity " in which the Bible itself becomes regarded more as an occasion for humanist learning, and less a
source for divine Revelation. " The consequences of restricting
access to the Bible to specialists are serious," Pinckaers writes,
"because of the implicit supposition that one can no longer
understand what the Bible is saying without having first performed the scientific exegetical task" (p. 319).
On the other hand, Pinckaers does point out that the biblical
renewal in moral theology made a significant contribution at
the beginning of the 19th-century when the German schools,
influenced by the Tiibingen theologian, J.M. Sailer (17511832), tried to re-integrate moral theology back into a larger
theological framework. The effort, however, did not succeed
very well in rescuing moral theology from the casuists. Rather,
the biblical work of authors such as F. Tillman-made accessible to English-speaking readers in L.-B. Gillon's little volume
Christ and Moral Theology (New York, 1967)-which sought

THEOLOGY AT FRIBOURG

357

to describe the moral life in terms of the "nachfolge Christi"
failed to gain influence in the field. One may ask whether a
simple biblical moral, no matter how profound it may be, could
have replaced the casuist manuals such as P.H. Jones's Catholic Moral Theology (recently popularized in Graham Green's
novel, Monsignor Quixote) or the well-known Vademecum of
the Fribourg theologian D. Priimmer, which provided a pocket
version of his three volume M anuale Theologiae Moralis for
the confessor. 'Vhatever the serious limitations of casuist moral
theology, these authors showed their expertise in providing as
complete replies as possible to specific moral questions. They
remind us that any moral theology serious about addressing
the complex ethical issues of modern life will require greater
elaboration than kerygmatic theology alone can provide.
In fact one of the chief attractions of casuistry lies in its
ability to answer concrete questions of the moral life. No
moral theory can be successful if it fails to accomplish this
task. For this reason the author writes that the casuist " conception of morals possesses more strength than one may wish
to imagine, for it discovers resonances which lie deep within
the human spirit" (p. 304). All who undertake revision in
moral theology should heed the warning. An adequate substitute for the casuist spirit will have to provide the same degree
of specific moral direction for Christian life, but without recourse to the juridical categories that multiplied, in the end,
the burdens placed upon Christ's faithful.
The third part of this work consists of four chapters devoted
to systematic moral theology; in these the author discusses the
chief issues of fundamental moral theology. In particular, he
identifies as the content of moral theology questions dealing
with human freedom and the natural law. The choice of these
topics results, it appears, from the central place held by these
subjects in the two chief systems of Roman Catholic moral
theology: human nature in realist moral theology and human
autonomy in schools emphasizing self-determining choice and
responsibility. Some rationale for the abbreviated treatment

358

ROMANUS

CESSARIO,

O.P.

of St. Thomas's moral theology in part one may be discovered
in the author's providing a lengthy explanation of Aquinas's
conception of moral autonomy and natural inclinations. Pinckaers accepts the challenge Hume's exposure of the naturalistic
fallacy poses with a straightforward defense of the existence in
man of natural inclinations for the good, for conservation in
being, for knowledge orf the truth, for life in society, and for
sexual gratification. This exposition proceeds critically and
without apology. The strength of Pinckaers' approach lies in
the intrinsic connection he shows between freedom and authentic natural inclinations perfoctive of human well-being. Like
his mentor, Aquinas, the author flatly rejects human freedom
as an absolute good for human fulfillment. Consequently, this
systematic approach can very well explain Roman Catholic
theology's difficulty with moral theories which promote human
autonomy but show indiffer:ence to the good of the human person. However, the question may be raised whether Pinckaers
gives adequate consideration to some of the philosophical questions raised by theories of human flourishing. Even sympathetic readers may be forced to reconsider arguments presented
by such members of the English analytical school as P. Foot 18
and G.E.M. Anscombe. Certainly it is fair to say that the substance of Hume's objections does not detain the author in elaborating a view of human nature; some may judge this lack of
attention an example of Continental a priorism.
Whatever difficulties attend the author's discussion of nature,
this discussion of Thomist natural law and human freedom
displays some of his best scholarship and research. Pinckaers
provides a magisterial account of the distinction between freedom as a quality of human action and freedom understood a:s
the simple fact of the will being able to choose among options.
This latter, the liberty of indifference, was previously described
when Pinckaers underscored the damage done to the classical
conception of morals by the 14th-century Ockhamist insistence
1s See for example Philippa Foot, "Hume on Moral Judgment" in Virtues
and Vices (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1978).

THEOLOGY AT FRIBOURG

359

on the role of this kind of willing in morality. But, the author
writes, " [f]or Saint Thomas, reason and will unite to produce
an act of free choice; the intimate connection between practical
judgment and free decision makes it difficult to distinguish
in a concrete free human action the two moments a;s distinct"
(p. 341). This synergy of reasoned appetite and appetitive
reason, along with the virtuous formation it receives in the
cardinal virtue of prudence, disappears when a moral theory
refuses, on principle, to allow any influence to affect the absolute indeterminacy of the will. The view that free will, a:s
Kant insists, derives its excellence from the absolute character
of its freedom of exercise threatens the place of moral wisdom
in determining a moral act. In such theories factors such as
knowledge insofar as they influence the will in choosing are
viewed a:s inimical to human autonomy in the same way Aristotle described the enemies of the voluntary as threats to the
poise required for human choice. Thus, a reasoned judgment
of the practical intellect-the dictamen, to use the technical
term-rather than insuring the congruence of a particular
action with the totality of revealed moral wisdom, as Aquinas
taught, would serve to alienate the will from its cherished indeterminacy.
Since such a conception leaves no way for recta ratio to enter
into human choosing from the insirle, as it were, of the moral
agent, all moral formation finds its source in factors extrinsic
to the subject. The source or dignity of moral norms does not
alter the plain fact that they represent a challenge to human
autonomy. It should be a matter of little surprise that moral
theologies of conscience receive so much attention in the
Church today. What other recourse can be had from oppressive moral legislation-whether it comes from official Church
teaching or from private theologians? Significantly these chapters precede the discussion of natural inclinations. The author
suggests by this arrangement that convictions about natural
law, at least as understood by Aquinas as an irradiatio legis
aeternae, are better supported by a view of freedom which

360

ROMANUS CESSARIO,

O.P.

welcomes the influence of truth in moral decision-making, than
by theories which use conscience to escape the restrictions of
moral law.
Just as the Copernican revolution marks a paradigmatic
shift in the way science works in the modern world, so also the
Ockhamist revolution marks a change in the way moral theoreticians develop their science. In fact, the change occurs at
the level of the transcendental properties of being. Ultimately
the issue revolves around the convertibility of the good and the
true with being. What allows St. Thomas to explain all human
action as a movement towards " objects " or "ends " derives
from the philosophical conviction that insofar as these possess
reality, they also possess goodness and truth. Now both goodness and truth possess a power to draw the rational creature
towards themselves as to a goal. Although confusion on this
point allows some authors to bring Aquinas into support for
consequentialist arguments, Thomist teleology does not concern itself with the end-result of an action as a way to determine its moral nature. On the contrary, it supposes that a person finds perfection in the acquisition of good moral "objects "
in the same way he or she discovers harm in acquiring vices.
These "objects", once acquired in virtuous activity, reduce
the potentiality of nature's desire to the actuality of being-inpossession of life's true goods, both human and, since this is a
theological discussion, divine as well. Because the sought-after
objects can both be known as true and desired as good, heart
and mind play a role in the moral life. On the other hand,
modern theorists, influenced by the heritage of Ockham and
Kant, reject this teleological view of the moral life as well as
the synergy of appetite and intellect which actualizes it. This
put Christian moral theology in a very perilous situation. Twice
in his text the author cites Augustine, De Trinitate I, VIII, III,
4, where the Doctor of Hippo explains progress towards the
good. The final stage " is such that we should love God, no
longer as such or such a good, but as goodness itself." Moral
theologies of the head, whether old school casuistry or new

THEOLOGY AT FRIBOURG

361

school transcendentalism, fail because in the end they treat
God as if He were a particular good for the intelligence and not
the entire Good of mind, heart, and soul.
Some attention is given to the liberty of quality from the
point of view of devdopmental psychology. Pinckaers emphasizes the role of the Decalogue a:s a moral tutor in the initial
stages of growth when a full appreciation of freedom's perfect
law is hampered by the pull of unrectified emotion. This approximates the Pauline conception of the law as a pedagogue.
Then the author provides a re-interpretation of the classical
" Three Ages " of the spiritual life using the categories of freedom and moral growth developed heretofore. Throughout this
section Pinckaers demonstrates the need for a reintegration in
moral theology. According to the author's plan this will result
in a moral theology with dogmatics as its source and with
spiritual or ascetical theology as its expression or practice.
Finally a helpful chart summarizing the differences between
the liberty of indifference and freedom as a quality is found
towards the end of this part (pp. 375, 376) .
Father Pinckaers has done the students of moral theology
a great service in this volume. Although moral philosophers,
such as G.E.M. Anscombe, P.T. Geach 19 , P. Foot, and J. Finnis 20 in England and Germain Grisez 21 and Joseph Boyle 22
in the United States have sought to escape the tangles of consequentialist ethics, especially as these impinge on theological
debates, no current English-speaking author does moral theology the way Pinckaers does. Indeed, to this reviewer's knowl19 For example see P. T. Geach, The Virtues
(Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1977).
20 See John Finnis, Fundamentals
of Ethics (Georgetown: Georgetown University Press, 1983).
21 See his compendious Christian iJforal Principles
(Volume 1 of The Way
of the Lord Jesus, four volumes). Chicago: Franciscan Herald Press, 1984.
Reviewed by Benedict M. Ashley, O.P., in The Thomist 48 ( 1984) : 450-460.
22 See Germain Grisez and Joseph M. Boyle, Jr., Life and Death with Liberty
and Justice: A Contribution to the Euthanasia Debate (Notre Dame and
London: University of Notre Dame Press, 1979 )-

362

ROMANUS CESSARIO,

O.P.

edge, only D. Mongillo in Italy and M. Labourdette in France
(now retired from active teaching) could be counted representatives of a speculative moral that takes human nature and
what derives from it seriously. Considerable conflict has resulted from the attempt to reconcile ecclesiastical teaching on
morality with the philosophical paradigms chosen by the revisionist theologians; like the wicked step-sisters' feet that do
not fit in Cinderella's shoe, proportionalism or compromise theology cannot co-exist with ecclesiastical magisterium. The inappropriate use of natural law thinking in magisterial pronouncements does not account for this situation. The explanation lies rather in the refusal of proportionalist arguments to
take human nature as seriously as Christian revelation requires.
Facile dismissals or reinterpretations of natural law thinking
attempt to reduce the magisterial teaching, for example in the
case of artificial birth control, but also regarding homosexuality 23 , to simply another option along side other learned
opinions for conscience to consider. This is unsatisfactory. The
reason, however, becomes not just a matter of ecclesia;stical
authority enjoying supremacy over all other forms of intelligence. Rather, the reason lies precisely in a human nature
so created in the image of God as unable to suffer the kind of
compromise revisionists claim a complex modern world requires.
Yet this truth should not have to be taken on faith! A good
moral theology should be able to establish this as a kind of
rational preamble, something human reason discovers, even if
for the many who lack the leisure, intelligence, or enthusiasm,
the faith, through the ordinary magisterium, must teach it.
Because he understood the immense implications of the hypostatic identity between the divine Word of creation and the
Incarnate Son of our Redemption, Saint Thomas could develop a moral theology respectful of both nature and grace.
Pinckaers's book provides the basis for a moral theology which
gives full import to this central truth of Christian revelation.
23 See the Congregation
for the Doctrone of the Faith's Letter to the World's
Bishops on the Pastoral Care of Homosexual Persons, October 1, 1986, especially
no. 14.

THEOLOGY AT FRIBOURG

363

IV
Although its 186 pages make Connaissance et Morale dans
la Bible the shortest book of the three considered here, Father
Ceslaus Spicq's most recent contribution to theology at Fribourg richly deserves mention. It provides a rare sample of
the harmony professional exegetes and systematic theologians
can attain in their work. Spicq's work shows the remarkable
talent this undaunted scripture scholar possesses for ordering
a vast amount of data into a coherent, meaningful essay. Each
of the six chapters which comprise the book deals with some
aspect of religious knowledge in the Bible: man's knowledge of
God, its status after the Fall, knowledge of God's will through
law, by science, and, finally, in practical wisdom or prudence.
Two appendices consider more technical materials related to
the meaning of the Greek words " nous " and " gnome ".
This work provides an example of how a biblical study can
serve the purposes of theological development. Those who
pursue this latter goal approach the sacred scriptures as if they
were a field of raw data from which, under the guidance of the
correct scientific method, theology would be built up after the
fashion of the positive sciences. But, theology, as Pinckaers's
repeated referral to Augustine's illuminationist view of it recalls,
develops as much from above as it does from below. The reason
for this lies in what the scholastics called its' subordinated
status as a science; theology's first principles are contained in
the knowledge God has about himself and in which the saints
share. l£ a role for induction in the development of theology
may be discovered, its dynamics will require control by this
methodologically prior principle.
Raymond Brown's recent work, Bible Exegesis and Church
Doctrine, 24 on the relationship between scripture and dogma
24Raymond E. Brown, Bible Exegesis and Church Doctrine (New York:
Pau!ist Press, 1986). An alternative view of the function of exegesis in
theology finds able elaboration in Rene Laurentin, Comment reconcilier l'ewegese et la Foi (Paris: O.E.I.L., 1984).

364

ROMANUS

CESSARIO,

O.P.

provides a good example of an alternative approach to the work
of scriptural exegesis. Brown proposes a categorization of truths
based upon their more or less discernible presence in the Bible.
Faced with the obvious fact that some truths proposed for
Roman Catholics to believe are less scientifically verifiable than
others, e.g. the Marian dogmas, Brown suggests a version of
the two-truth theory of revelation. Consequently, the magisterium holds the responsibility for those truths which Catholics
must believe despite their (apparent) absence from the pages
of the Bible. Such an approach, apart from its fideistic implications for the doctrine of revelation, does not hold much
promise for what the combined efforts of exegetes and theologians can be expected to produce.
The merit of Spicq's method of doing biblical word studies,
however, does not lie primarily in the fact that his conclusions
allow for easy incorporation into the systematicians' overall
structures. Such a utilitarian view of exegesis has been set
aside by the decided advances in theology over the past decades. Rather, the value of seeing exegesis as a theological work
means the exegete accepts the full responsibilities of being a
theologian. He does this insofar as he seeks to develop positive
theological intelligibility. Spicq, of course, ably accomplishes
this work because he has been trained as a theologian and has
practiced as a theologian, even as he gained a world-class reputation for his skill as a biblicist. A good example may be found
in his work on love in the New Testment. Although the primacy of charity in the pages of the New Testament has impressed countless moral theologians in the past, different theological, or even confessional, perspectives influenced the way
theologians wrote about the New Testament's teaching on love
and morality. Spicq's classic work, Agape dans le Nouveau
Testament (Paris, 1959) , provided a needed rebuttal to Anders
Nygren's thesis that the authentic interpretation of the New
Testament doctrine on agape supports Luther's understanding
of the role divine charity plays in the Christian life.
The present treatise on the importance of the cognitive in

THEOLOGY AT FRIBOURG

365

morals responds to a similar challenge. For systematic theologians, by their insistence on the role of unaffected willing
in the moral life, have created a situation in which moral theology rests, ironically, it may appear, more firmly on the basis
of autonomous principles of proportion and compromise than
it does on the basis of what can be known to perfect human
nature. On the other hand, biblical theologians, by their insistence on the primacy of doing the loving thing in imitation
of Christ, have worked towards a Christian ethic which resists
rational formalization of any kind. Against this tendency, the
author shows convincingly that the role of knowledge in morals
receives due recognition by the Bible in both testaments. He
does this, however, with the same even-handed treatment which
characterized his Theologie morale du Nouveau Testament
(Paris, 1965) . Specialists, for example, will be satisfied with
the range of the source materials surveyed in the copious footnotes. Moral theologians, on the other hand, will discover how
the moral categories of wisdom and prudence figure in the
biblical author's view of Christian life. Connaissance et Morale
dans la Bible is the work of a master which opens up ways in
which human intelligence serves to unite both to God and to
the knowledge of his law. The author deserves an attentive
reading by a wide audience, if for no other reason than the
example provided by this kind of biblical theologian can be
followed with profit by others in his field.
Theology flourishes at Fribourg. Although each of these
volumes merit translation into English, I believe the work of
Nicolas, above all, should be made available to English-speaking audiences. Were someone to undertake the task, a certain
amount of editing would be required and, perhaps, an updating of the bibliography; these are minor considerations in
comparison to the cost and labor for such a task. Such energies
would be greatly appreciated, however, by those who are
weary of reading dense Germanic philosophy as the condition
for theological investigation as well as by those who have discovered how easily God can disappear from theologies which

366

ROMANUS

CESSARIO,

O.P.

compromise the darkness of Christian faith for the light of
rational intelligibility. Great benefit could derive to Englishspeaking students of theology from exposure to a concrete
alternative to the transcendentalist categories of German
idealism. The development of this possibility urges Cardinal
Ratzinger to affirm that Nicolas' book gives one the opportunity to discover anew theology's authentic purpose. The retrieval of this purpose should result in nothing less than to
unite men and women, by all the energies of their hearts and
heads, with the living God of Christian revelation.
RoMANus

Dominican House of Studies,
Washington, D.O.

CEssARIO,

0.P.

BOOK REVIEWS
The Logic of God Incarnate. By THOMAS V. MORRIS. Ithaca:
University Press, 1986. Pp. 220. $19.95.

Cornell

Thomas V. Morris, Assistant Professor of Philosophy at the University
of Notre Dame, has written a technical yet provocative study on the
Incarnation. As a faithful Christian he believes in and desires to defend
the traditional Christian doctrine of the Incarnation proclaimed in the
New Testament and defined by the early councils of the Church, especially
Chalcedon, that is, that Jesus is the One eternal Son existing in two
natures. He also holds that, while the truth of the Incarnation is revealed,
it must nonetheless stand the test of logic and reason. The Incarnation
cannot be illogicaJ or meaningless. " If the church has been guided by
God in such matters as the formulation of its creeds, conciliar decrees,
and catechisms, . . . . we would not expect glaring logical flaws in its
central doctrinal affirmations" (p. 46).
The stated purpose of Morris's study is to defend the traditional doctrine against those who would hold it to be logically incoherent and meaningless. "In the course of thinking about the Incarnation for some years
now, I have come to see that a few simple metaphysical distinctions and
a solid dose of logical care will suffice to explicate and defend the doctrine
against all extant criticisms of a philosophical nature" (p. 9). Morris
meticulously analyzes and critiques a number of arguments that oppose the possibility of coherence of the Incarnation by attempting to
demonstrate that such arguments are .either false and illogical themselves, or that they do not apply to a true understanding of the Incarnation.
Moreover, Morris proposes a novel understanding of the Incarnation
which he believes is both logical and intelligible, and which conforms to
the Christian tradition.
This goal of upholding the intelligibility of the Incarnate leads Morris
to a three-fold task. He first of all must refute his chief adversaries,
those who would deny the sensibleness of saying God became man in
Jesus. Such critics deny the validity of the Incarnation on the ground..'!
that it is meaning·less, and the'l'efore impossible to juxtapose the incommensurable. attributes of divinity and humanity, e.g., perfection/imperfection, immutability/ corruptibility. They hold that Jesus could not have
had both these sets of properties at once (cf. p. 20). Morris refuses to
capitulate to such arguments. He nevertheless insists that any solution
to the issue which would undermine human logic or which would fail to
uphold the Christian's belief is no solution at all (cf. p. 32).

367

368

BOOK REVIEWS

Secondly, Morris's task leads him to refute any attempts at a " OneN ature" solution, which would "squash" together the human and divine
natures in Jesus to form a single nature. Such proposals jeopardize either
the integrity of Jesus's divinity (Arianism) or his humanity (Docetism,
Monophysitism), inevitably composing a mythical tertium quid (cf. pp.
33-38). Morris presents a clear case against such corruptions of the
Incarnation.
Thirdly, Morris's task brings him to analyze contemporary kenotic
Christology. He thoroughly discusses this approach, for the reason that
it is directly involved in the issue at hand, namely, the incompatibility
between divine and human properties in Christ. Secondarily, however,
Morris's interest in kenoticism reflects his own hope that some variation
of the approach might posibly arrive at a Christological solution (cf. p.
92). While he ultimately rejects kenoticism, Morris flirts with the various
alternatives, and, as we shall see, his own perception of the Incarnation
remains tinged with a kenotic flavor.
How then is it possible to predicate of one and the same individual
divine and human attributes intelligibly and coherentlyT To use contemporary computer jargon, the question might be phrased: is it possible
that God and man can he "incarnation-friendly¥"
Morris believes so.
Morris first of all sets out to define the terms-divine nature and human
nature. He believes part of the incompatibility problem lies in attributing to Jesus's humanity unnecessarily hostile aspects. He distinguishes
between being "merely human" and being "fully human"· To be
" merely human " is to possess not only those properties that narrowly
define one's nature or kind, such as rationality, but also those elements
that are common, but not necessary, such as sinfulness. To be "fully
human " is to possess those properties that actually are essential for
being a human being. Armed with this distinction, Morris believes that
he can ma,ke the humanity of Jesus more "incarnation-friendly"
by
maintaining that such attributes as " coming into existence," and "contingent crea.tion " are part of being "merely human " rather thaR being
" fully human.' 1
" We considered the properties of coming into existence at some time,
being a contingent creation, and being such as to possibly cease to exist.
Apart from the case of the Incarnation, Christians would all, I think,
agree that the first two of these properties characterize all human beings.
But they are properties not compossibly exemplmable. by one and the
same individual with all the attributes traditionally held to be constitutive of deity. If they had to he exemplified by an individual in order
for that individua.l to have a human nature, then on this standard, and
quite orthodox, understanding of deity, a divine incarnation would be
an impossibility. But armed with a firm distinction between commonality

BOOK REVIEWS

369

and kind essences, the orthodox Christian can deny that they are properties essential to being human, thereby blocking this objection to the
Incarnation" (pp. 71-72).
Having upgraded the human nature to an " incarnational " level, Morris
believes he has cleared away many stumbling blocks concerning the Incarnation, but a true positive articulation is still wanting. Morris proposes wha.t he calls the "two-mind" view of the Incarnation (cf. p. 102).
In the God incarnate there are two distinct "ranges of consciousness."
One is " the eternal mind of God the Son." The other is the " distinctly
earthly consciousness " of ,Jesus. " "'' e can view the two ranges of consciousness . . . as follows: The divine mind of God the Son contained,
but was not contained by, his earthly mind, or rangeg of consciousness.
That is to say that there was what can be called an asymmetric accessing
relation between the two minds. Think, for example, of two computer
programs or informational systems, one containing but not contained by
the other. The divine mind had full and direct access to the earthly human
experience resulting from the Incarnation, but the earthly consciousness
did not have such full and direct acc.ess to the content of the overarching
omnisc.ience proper to the Logos, but only such access on occasion as the
divine mind allowed it to have. There thus was a. metaphysical and personal depth to the man Jesus lacking in the case of every individual who
is merely human " (pp. 102-103).
For Morris Jesus was human, "but he was not a created human being,"
that is, he was not " endowed with a set of personal cognitive and causal
powers distinct from the cognitive and causal powers of God the Son."
The powers of J esus's earthly mind were " none other than the cognitive
and causal powers of God the Son " operative under " the constraints
proper to the conditions of a fully human existence." " Thus there can
be two minds, the earthly mind of God incarnate and his distinc.tively
divine mind, but two minds of one person, one center of causal and cognitive powers" (pp. 161-162).
On the practical level of how this view of the Incarnation works itself
out, Morris tackles the problem of bow Jesus as God can be perfectly
good and yet as man actually be tempted to sin (cf. p. 137). "On the
two-minds view, it can held that within the beliefs naturally accessible
to his earthly consciousness, it was epistemically possible for Christ
that he sin. From bis earthly stream of consciousness, it was possible
for Jesus to be tempted to sin. The information that he is necessarily
good was not contained in his human range of thought. That allowed
for his temptations " ( p. 149).
What can we now make of Morris's study¥ Obviously, Morris is
addressing a c.cntral issue in Christology today and he does so with a
sharp logical mind and an ardent desire to defend the traditional under-

870

BOOK REVIEWS

standing of the Incarnation. However, there are some serious weaknesses
in Morris's work, which lie not so much in his criticisms of others, which
are often valid and insightful, as in his own proposed solution.
First, Morris's understanding of the humanity of Jesus is problematic.
In arguing that Jesus is "fully human" rather than "merely human ",
l\forris denies the "hostile" aspects of the humanity, e.g., contingency,
creation in ,time. Such logic leaves one wondering what kind of humanity
Jesus really had, and how much resemblance he bears to the rest of the
human race, for example, in his temptations (cf. Heb. 2 :17, 4 :15). Has
he actually taken on lowly flesh ( sarx, cf. Jn. 1 :14) ? Has he really
sanctified all aspects of human life from conception to
In Morris's
view, Jesus may be of the same species as man, but he is more of a
super-hybrid than "one born of a woman, under the law" (Gal 4 :4).
Secondly, it is difficult not to conclude that Morris's view of the Incarnation is ultimately adoptionistic. The traditional declaration is that
the Son became man. This is an ontological judgment. The eternal Son
took on human existence, came fully to exist as a human being in every
respect. Morris's "two-mind" view of the Incarnation, however, is
ambiguous at best. If Morris sees the Incarnation as the coming together
of divine and human minds, then that is purely a moral/ adoptionistic
union with no ontological depth. J esus's human mind may be more closely
united to the .divine mind than say Moses's or Isaiah's, but as long as the
unity is on the level of the mind one is always in the realm of a moral/
adoptionistic union, and not in the realm of an ontological union. In
traditional Christology the two minds of Christ were the result, not the
cause, of the Incarnation. Because the Son actually came to .exist as man,
he possessed a divine as well as a human mind, will, and consciousness.
Morris does not adequately address the ontological nature of the Incarnation.
Thirdly, Morris's views of J esus's humanity and of the Incarnation are
symptomatic of a deeper problem. In both he is attempting to alleviate
difficulties of the Incarnation, namely the seeming incompatibility of
divine and human attributes. By arguing that the human mind was subsumed by the divine mind without overpowering it, he hopes to give a
coherent representation of the Incarnation. However, what he fails to
realize is that, like those whom he criticizes, he has a faulty conceptual
"model " for the Incarnation; his notion of the " becoming " is wrong.
The incarna,tional notion of "become", that is, what it me.ans for the
Son "to become " man, does not mean the coming together of two natures,
one divine and one human, to form an ontological divine/human being
To see the Incarnation as the compositional union of natures forming
·the reality of Jesus fatally forces one into a position where either the
divinity or humanity or both are irreparably jeopardized. If one con-

BOOK REVIEWS

371

ceives of the Incarnation as a divine nature with its attributes of omnisciece, absolute perfection, immutability, etc., coming together in
compositional union with a human nature with its attributes of limited
knowledge, passibility, and growth then necessarily the Incarnation becomes incoherent and absurd. By such a jux.taposition, one is forced
either to acknowledge a " one-nature " union which destroys one of the
two nature'S, or to uphold a moral union which unites the two natures
but which also jettisons a true ontological union. Historically, this was
the difficulty for Nestorius. His view of the Incarnation held for a
moral union of the two natures sinee he realized that any compositional
union, any union on the level of the natures, would imply a "mutation "
of the divinity or the humanity. For precisely this reason Nestorius
attacked the "one-nature " (mia physis) formula of Cyril of Alexandria.
The kenoticists are under the same illusion. The whole reason they
"empty " the divinity is to bring it down to a huma.n level-making it
" incarnation-friendly".
This " emptying" is predicated on a false
understanding of "be-coming", that is, the compositional union, the
" squashing together," of divine and human natures and attributes. Even
though Morris criticizes kenoticism he is forced into a modified form of
it when he speaks of the divine mind working "under the constraints
proper to the conditions of a fully human existence " ( p. 162) . .A similar
misguided principle is at work when Morris attempts to upgrade the
humanity of Jesus to a " divine• " level. Such attempts not only undermine the status of the divine mind but also demean the human mind as
well. The human mind merely becomes a truncated version of the divine
mind, a " humanized" divine mind, which is not then truly human at all.
What needs to be grasped is the grea.t insight of Cyril of .Alexandria
which was sanctioned by Chalcedon, that the incarnational notion of
"become" is a personal/ existential notion rather than a compositional
notion. In the Incarnation the person of the Son comes to be, comes to
exist, as a man. In the Incarnation the divine and human natures do not
coalesce to form one being/nature. Rather the person of the Son, remaining unchanged as God, takes on a new mode of existence, that of
being a full and complete man with a human consciousness, mind, and
will. The IncarnationaI union resides not on the level of the natures
but on the level of the person. This is why Chalcedon stressed that "One
and the same Son" exists in two natures "without confusion, without
change, without division, without separation ... conceiving in one prosopon
and one hypostasis." The Incamational " becoming " terminates not in a
composition.al union of natures which would necessarily compromise each,
but in the person of the Son existing as man. This personal/existential
understanding of the " becoming " and union dissolves the problem of the
incompatibility of the divine and human natures and attributes, which
is a false conception from its inception.

372

BOOK REVIEWS

This understanding, moreover, gives ontological validity to the communication of idioms, which Morris surprisingly sees as accomplishing
nothing but" muddying the water" (p. 49). As God, the Son is omniscient,
immutable, all-powerful, etc., but in his new mode of existence as man,
he is truly ignorant, passible, and limited. Existing as man, the Son
experiences all that pertains to historioolly conditioned humanity. In
the Incarnation the "·who", the person, remains the same, but the
manner of the experience of the " Who " is distinctly different-divine and
human-without confusion, change, division, or separation. The mystery
obviously remains, but it is meaningful and coherent. (For a more complete presentation of these arguments see the author's : Does God
Change? : The Word's Becoming in the Incarnation, Still River: St.
Bede's, 1985).
As stated at the outset, Morris presents a thorough and provocative
study which should be read and studied by scholars. While he aptly
critiques his opponents, he fails to challenge their understanding of the
incarnational notion of "become" and the ensuing union. Rather, he
himself presupposes that the Incarnation implies a compositional union
of natures which in turn leads to an unresolvable incompatibility between
the divine and human attributes in Christ. Morris may have been aided
had he been more acquainted with the early Christological controversies
and councils. Nevertheless, Morris has clearly raised many important
contemporary Christological issues and has admirably attempted to provide answers which are faithful both to the Christian tradition and to
and logic.
human
THOMAS WEINaNDY O.F.M., Cap.
Mother of God Community,
Washington, D.O.

Community: A Trinity of Models. By FRANK G. KmKPATRICK. Washington, D.C.: Georgetown University Press, 1986. Pp. 248. Cloth $17.95;

paper $10.95.
In recent years the pathology of atomistic individualism has been variously described by the Council Fathers of V ahlcan II, liberationist and
feminist theologians, Stanley Hauer.was, and countless other theological
and secular critics. According to Frank Kirkpatrick, therapeutic intervention will not be effective in the long run unless it is based upon an
alternative conceptual "model" of human oommunity. Of course, Kirkpa.tric.k has something specific in mind. Not just any alternative will
do. Marxian models of human association, for example, are prone to

BOOK REVIEWS

373

totalitarianism and the denial of proper individuality. Thus, he offers
what he calls "the mutual/personal model of community" as "a substantial grounding for a Christian vision of community congruent with
liberationist and feminist concerns " (vii).
Western culture has generated a welter of perspectives on the nature
and ground of human association. Within this motley, Kirkpatrick discerns three models of oommunity which have shaped Western social
these traditional
philosophy and religious thought. The book
models by identifying their controlling metaphors, accounts of human
nature and its fulfillment, and the social, economic, and political practices
and institutions they undergird. The author appraises the strengths and
weaknesses of the models and attempts to reconcile their positive features
within the Christian vision of Koinonia.
The first model is "the atomistic/ contractarian" wherein persons are
regarded as "independent atoms rationally contracting with each other
for the terms of their enforced relationship" (2). Kirkpatrick locates
its sources in the thought of Hobbes, Locke, Bentham, James Mill, Adam
Smith, and Rousseau. Observing that the individualism of this tradition
has always flourished in America, Kirkpatrick surveys some of its c001temporary expressions in the work of George Gilder, F. A. Hayek, Michael
N·ovak, Robert Nozick, and John Rawls. The fruits of the atomistic/
contracta.rian model are, to Kirkpatrick's taste, mostly bad-isolation,
alienation, oppression, injustice-and are ineongruent with Christian
Koinonia.
His second model, " the organic/functional," views persons as "organs,
interdependent and functionally related to each other within a larger
organism" (2). Conceived by Edmund Burke, this model became fully
formed and viable in the thought of Hegel and Marx, and was instrumental
in the analyses of sociologists such as Ferdinand Tonnies and Charles H.
Cooley. Kirkpatrick is troubled by this model's tendency to view human
relationships exhaustively in terms of co-operativ.e function. He worries
that there is an insufficient" sense of individual difference and self-identity
to permit the pursuit of mutuality for its own sake between loving persons" (94-95). His concerns lead him into a chapter-long discussion of
" the metaphysics of the organic community " in conversation with Whitehead, Hartshorne, and Edward Pols. The upshot of this is that, while
these thinkers show how it is possible for persons to enter into community
with others, they do not sustain Kirkpatrick's oonviction that entering
community is the most important intention of persons" (133).
The inadequacies of the first two models are overcome in his third and
model, "the mutual/personal."
Here community is understood
"as a mutuality in which distinct persons find fulfillment in and through
living for each other in loving fellowship" (2). The Bible and Martin

374

BOOK REVIEWS

Buber's concept of " I-Thou" employ this model but fail to provide it
with an adequate metaphysical foundation. For this, Kirkpatrick looks
to the Srottish Christian philosopher, John Macmurray whose " philosophy
of the personal" maintains that self-realization can only be achieved by
intending the welfare of others. Although Kirkpatrick esteems Macmurray very hig·hly, he admits that the philosopher was prone to inflated
language and was insufficiently thorough in argument. Despite some
unorthodox beliefs (e.g., a low Christology), "Macmurray's metaphysics
comes much closer than do the philosophies of a.tomism and organism
to representing the fundamental convictions of the biblical and Christian
story " ( 203) .
Is Kirkpatrick's enthusiasm for "the mutual/personal model" of community hopelessly idealistic and
Readers will make their own
judgment. However, Kirkpatrick believes that his model "provides the
dialectic which holds tog.ether in delicate synthesis both the concessions
to 'realism ' demanded by those who focus upon the need for power
relations in the world as it is, and the hopes of a future community demanded by those who focus upon the promise of loving relations in the
world as God intends it to be " ( 218).
In his conclusion, he allies himself and Macmurray to H. Richard Niebuhr's classic description of agape ("Love is rejoicing over the existence
of the beloved ... ") and attempts to defend them against Reinhold
Niebuhr's corrosive rea.lism. He argues that Reinhold's disregard for the
possibility of positive change in patterns of social relations is the result
of his releg·ating God's action in history to the eschatological future. Kirkpatrick wants ' realized eschatology' and believes that Macmurray's
metaphysics of community is a foundation strong enough to bear the
weight of their hopes. For the author, the church is a concrete model of
the fully inclusive mutual/pe.rsonal community God intends and a catalyst
f·or actions which will bring that community into existence on a global scale.
Those who are familiar with the social contract theorists and with Hegel
and Marx will discover in this book little that is new and may be impatient with the sketchy treatment of so many significant philosophers and
arguments. Those unfamilinr with Whitehead, Hartshorne, and Macmurray may be bewildered by Kirkpatrick's abstract reflection. At several
po}nts there seems to be a disproportion between exposition of the views
of others, their critique, and the author's constructive a.rgument. Nevertheless, those who seek a new metaphysical foundation for efforts to
combat socio-political ills or those who wish to learn about Macmurray
may find this book stimulating. Readers of all sorts, however, will be
hindered by the omission of an index.
PAUL NELSON

Wittenberg University
Springfield, Ohio

BOOK REVIEWS

375

7 he Westminster Dictionary of Christian Ethics. Edited by JAMES F.
CHILDRESS and J mrn MACQUARRIE. Philadelphia: The Westminster
Press, 1986. Pp. xvii + 678. $29.95.
This is a second, revised edition of The Dictionary of Christian Ethics,
prepared by John Macquarrie and published in 1967. This new edition
follows Macquarrie's conception of a dictionary, but expands it. It includes several subject areas, basic ethical concepts, biblical ethics, theological ethics, philosophical ethics, non-Cbistian ethics; psychological,
8ociological, political, and other relevant concepts; and articles on substantial issues such as war and abortion. The criterion for selection, as
stated by the editor, was the importance of the topic for Christian ethical
reflection. The aim was to indicate both what is agr.eed upon and what
is controversial. About 40% of the entries from the first edition have
been included. These are generally updated so as to include recent developments.
The selection of subjects, the way in which they are treated and the
list of contributors, reflect the ecumenical character of contemporary
Christian ethics. The dictionary includes a host of valuable contributions.
Readers who consults the work will no doubt evaluate the entries in terms
of their particular purposes. This reviewer found most useful the entries
which
particular basic concepts, for example Autonomy; those
dealing with schools of thought, for example, Platonic Ethics, Marxist
Ethics, or the contribution of particular traditions, for example, Jewish
Ethics, Puritan Ethics, Official Roman Catholic Social Teaching, Eastern
Orthodox Christian Ethics, and the many entries dealing with Biomedical
Ethics and peace issues. 'rhere are a number of articles on topics which
are most important, but for which it is often difficult to find a succinct
and comprehensive treatment; such are the contributions on "Embodiment," and " Feminist Ethics." There are a number of useful entries on
urg.ent contemporary questions such as Energy and Environmental Ethics.
Practical questions such as the care of the aged and the ethics of counseling
are also addressed. Each article has a short bibliography appended.
Numerous cross-references to other relevant entries are most helpful in
providing complementary information. There is a thorough index of names.
The dictionary is not conceived as a compendium of the accepted or
" official " ethical teachings of churches or religious traditions. Mention
could be made, however, of the entry on " Official Roman Catholic Social
Teaching." '¥here such teachings exist, they am usually indicated. There
are some cases where the churches and/ or traditions clearly differ. The
approach which is most helpful to ethical debate is to acknowledge such
differences clearly, with an appropriate statement of the relevant teaching.
The editor himself (James F. Childress), in his own contributions, fol-

376

BOOK REVIEWS

lows this p1'0cedure. Some Roman Catholic readers may find the articles
on Abortion and Contraception, while excellent in other ways, less satisfactory in this respect. The general focus seems intended to be " middle
of the road "; more conservative or radical groups may find their views
insufficiently represented.
No doubt some of the positions presented
would be disputed by Christian ethicists. But the treatment of difficult
points is balanced and fair.
There are, unfortunately, some inaccuracies. The following examples
deserve mention. In the article on Nullity, the Roman Catholic annulment is wrongly equated with papal dissolution of the marriage bond.
In the article on Virtue, it is said that St. Thomas held that along with
the infused supernatural virtues there are "infused natural virtues." St.
Thomas spoke ratht>r of infused theological virtues and infused moral
virtues (I. II, Q.63, 3.)
In the article on deterrence, it is stated that the strategy of "mutual
assured destruction ", dating from the 1960s, still provides the framework of American deterrence strategy. This point would be challenged
by some representat.ives of the military, who claim that M.A.D. has not
been policy for some years. The same article interprets the U.S. Bishops'
Pastoral Letter, The Challenge of Peace. as basing its (conditional) acceptance of nuclear deterrence on the distinction between threatening to
do an immoral aet without intending to do it, and threat coupled with
the intent. That is, deterrence is aceepted as a "bluff." This is not a
correct reading of the Bishops' position. The key point is, " It is not
morally acceptable to intend to kill the innocent as part of a strategy of
deterring nuclear war." Then there comes a question of fact. Does U.S.
targeting policy involve an intention to strike civilian
If it does,
it is clearly immoral. The argument of the text does not attempt to
justify deterrence as "bluffing." It takes the realistic position that, if
targeting policy, in fact, includes civilian centers, then the intention is
to attack, under given conditions, civilian centers. The logic of the Bishops'
position of conditional acceptance is problematical. But it is not based
on bluff. The criticisms mentioned in reg'ard to the bluff thesis are valid,
but they do not bear on the Bishops' statement.
However, the volume is of high quality. It is to be strongly recommended for scholars in the field and for the general reader.
BRIAN

The Catholic University of America,
Washington, ll.G.

v. JOHNSTONE, C.SS.R.

BOOK REVIEWS

377

Parmenides: Being, Bounds, and Logic. By S. AUSTIN. New Haven: Yale
University Press, 1986. Pp. xi + 203. $20.00.

Within carefully drawn limits Austin conducts a rigorous analysis of
Parmenides's poem that is both creative and forceful. His analysis reveals
a logical structure to the poem that is more intricate and subtle than has
previously been acknowledged. The result is a deeper insight into Parmenides's accomplishments in logic and methodology. Austin's view is
that Parmenides first establishes criteria for the formation of judgments,
and then uses a consciously systematic and comprehensive method to determine the sort of judgments that can describe being. Thus, Austin
argues, all the arguments and distinctions of the " Truth " section-and
to some extent those of " Opinion "-are necessary for a complete description of being. The argumentation is rigorous and Austin's thesis is
certainly plausible, though some modifications are in order.
The charge of anachronism presents the most fundamental challenge to
Austin's thesis. For him, Parmenides is not only the "first logician" and
" ontologist ", but the " founder of Western rational theology as well as
of scientific explanation." These accolades are commonplace, but nonethe less misleading. More serious is Austin's claim that Parmenides employs the principles of noncontradiction and excluded middle, and displays
an understanding-albeit
a partial one-of the functions of negation,
double negation, copula and predicate. Austin sees countless anticipations
of Parmenides's successors from Plato to the present, and has no qualms
about rendering parts of the poem in contemporary philosophical jargon.
For example, the phrase "not the same" in fr. 8.22 should, on Austin's
reading, be taken to mean, " having its numerical nonidentity secured by
means of qualitative difference" (p. 88). Austin recognizes the charge of
anachronism, but believes his interpretation best accounts for the poem's
logical structure. More specific anticipations of Plato and Aristotle are
tackled in chapter 5.
Chapter 1 ("Why Not 'Is
contains an ingenious solution to
a problem that has puzzled scholars and students alike for centuries. The
goddess of Parmenides's poem proclaims (fr. 2) : "that it is not and
that it is right for it not to be, this I point out to you as a completely
uninformative track." Why, then, do nearly all the signposts of being
in fr. 8 use negative language and indirect prooH This problem, Austin
suggests, has not been sufficiently appreciated. Austin shows forcefully
that no interpretation of fr. 8 can stand which explains away the goddess's use of negative language. Austin's own explanation results from
careful scrutiny of the grammar of predications and assertions in fr. 8.
Curiously, of all the negative expressions in fr. 8, the expression ovK e<Tn
("isn't") is never used assertorically to deny a predicate of being or to

378

BOOK REVIEWS

say that being does not exist. And this is precisely the expression the
goddess uses to describe the negative route in fr. 2. Indeed, the phrase
ovK fo·n does occur in fr. 8, but it is used modally, and such usage is implicitly permitted given the formulation of the positive route in fr. 2
("that it is, and that it is not possible for it not to be"). These facts
surely require explanation. Austin's hypothesis is that for Parmenides
sentences that assert what isn't ( ovK fon) cannot express a true or a false
judgment. Austin uses this hypothesis to develop Parmenides's canons for
judgments about what is, canons that are met unequivocally in " Truth."
On this reading Parmenides does not oppose the use of negative predicates,
but only of assertorically negated copulas.
In many respects chapter 1 is the most original, if also the most controversial, of Austin's book. But because it is controversial, Austin tries
to construct the remainder of the book so that it depends very little on
the thesis of the first chapter. He is not entirely successful in this endeavor. For, the Parmenidean canons are not sufficient to determine the
uniqueness of what is they allow the formation of true or false judgments
(e.g. " Being is divisible " would meet the requirements of the goddess's
pronouncement). Parmenides's task in the remainder of the " Truth"
section, then, is to examine all possible uses of terms, contraries, and
modal operators in order to rule out those canonical judgments that are
necessarily false. Terms, contraries, and modal operators are, respectively, the topics of chapters 2-4. Thus Austin's interpretation of fr. 8
is of a piece with the hypothesis of chapter 1. If the later chapters are
taken as standing on their own-indeed some claims are hard to make
consistent with chapter 1-they lose their force as part of a larger project
that begins with the formation rules of Parmenidean logic.
In Chapters 2-4 Parmenides's method becomes Austin's main concern.
All of Parmenides's subsequent discoveries about the uniqueness of being
result from a "calculus of variations" which progressively widens the
meanings of terms and systematically exhausts alternative modes of being.
Occasionally this part of the interpretation seems artificial. Austin admits
that the poem's catalogue of modes of predication is incomplete, but accounts for its incompleteness as a " deliberate test of the reader's understanding of the reasons for its construction" (p. 60). Also, the discussion
of contraries in chapter 3 dismisses the terms related to coming-to-be and
perishing "because they are not adjectives or adverbs envisioned as applying to what-is" p. 66). On the whole, however, the difficult and
thorough analysis contained in these chapters vindicates Austin's thesis.
Chapter 2 ("Terms") examines Parmenides's uses of single, double, and
triple predicates in fr. 8. Predicates are examined in terms of affirmation
and denial, positive and privative, and the kinds of relations that exist
between individual predicates. Every possible mode of affirmation and

BOOK REVIEWS

379

denial, and most of the possible relations between predicates is considered.
The thesis of chapter 2 is that Parmenides deliberately designed his poem
to reveal the relevant logical relationships among terms. There is a difficulty, however, in reconciling Austin's view with the analysis of chapter
1. One of the chief goals of chapter 2 is to show that Parmenides considers
four different possible modes of affirmation and denial of predicates
(affirmation of positives, affirmation of privatives, denial of positives,
denial of privatives). The affirmative modes of predication present no
difficulty-a priori they meet the Parmenidean canons for judgments. The
denials of privatives are also permissible, since in each case the predicate
is denied modally. But it is hard to see how Parmenides could allow the
denial of positive predicates, as Austin claims, without violating the prohibition against assertorically negative copulas in Chapter 1. If Austin
were to claim that the copula is not negated, but instead that the predicate
is, no logical difference remains between the affirmation of privatives and
the denial of positives. On the other hand, if the copula is negated, the
thesis of chapter 1 falls.
Chapters 3-4 contain the most thorough argumentation in the book. In
chapter 3 ("Contraries") Austin argues that Parmenides systematically
considers and rejects all the possible ways that contraries might appy to
what is. Using the contraries "later" and "earlier" Parmenides rejects
the situation that both contraries are true of being at every time. With
"more" and "less" he rejects the possibility that either contrary is true
of being at some place. And with "bigger" and "smaller" he rejects
the possibilities that either contrary is true at any place a.nd that both are
true at some pair of places. These situations, Austin points out, comprise
an exhaustive catalogue of the ways and contexts in which contraries might
apply to being. Their rejections entail affirmations of the "signposts"
( <Tfi1uira., fr. 8.2) of being, and so comprise a crucial part of the poem.
Chapter 4 (" Modals, the Other, and Method") completes the project
of showing that Parmenides's method is the outcome of deliberate logical
and inferential considerations. Austin's interpretation of the proof that
there can be no other besides what is (8.36-38) turns on his rejection of
Karsten's emendat1on rou for µ,fi in fr. 8.12. Austin adduces arguments
against the emendation that are surely correct (pp. 96-104) and shows
that only by retaining the manuscript reading "can we find Parmenides
rejecting all of the a priori reasonable possibilities for coming-to-be" (p.
100). The rejection of coming-to-be, along with the rejections of contraries,
entaiils the uniqueness of what is. Thus, the " Truth " section proves all
that it set out to prove.
Chapter 5, which locates the thought of Parmenides in Presocratic philosophy, is a necessary supplement to the close textual study in the previous
three chapters. Here Austin defends his attribution to Parmenides of

380

BOOK REVIEWS

logical and methodological distinctions that are usually hailed as developments by Plato or Aristotle. On the whole his defense is sound, though
Austin should feel uneasy when using Platonic dialogues to make inferences
about Presocratic thought. For example, one of Austin's claims is that
Parmenides's logic allows the dropping of predicate terms from a judgment, leaving only the subject term and a negated or unnegated copula.
His evidence that it is plausible to attribute such a logic to Parmenides
is that Plato saddles the sophists Euthydemus and Dionysodorus, younger
contemporaries of Parmenides, with the same logic in the Euthydemus.
But Plato is notorious for putting doctrines in the mouths of Presocratics
-and Socrates himself for that matter-which those philosophers were
unlikely to have held.
The final chapter ("The Bounded and the Unbounded") is an admittedly
speculative essay on the place of Parmenides's thought in the history of
religious and philosophical mysticism. Here Austin strays beyond the
bounds of rigorous argumentation. He considers the sum of Christian,
Buddhist, and Parmenidean metaphysics, as well the thought of Heraclitus,
Maimonides, Hegel, and Nietzsche. The chapter contains two intriguing
claims: (1) that the origin of many rules which were to dominate Western
thinking resulted from Parmenides's intuition of the real as finite/bounded,
and (2) that the conditions under which being can be related to the rules
of language and method are either Parmenidean or are derivable as transformations of Parmenides. With regard to the first claim Austin allows
some confusion in the argument by treating "bounded " and "finite " as
equivalent, a mistake he recognizes (p. 147) but does not correct. It is
arguable, at least, that Parmenides made this same mistake. It is in the
context of the second claim that Austin realizes a goal established in the
book's introduction: to cut across the boundary lines between metaphysics
and syntax, philosophy and philology, and thus discover why the first
" ontologist " was also the first " logician."

E. E. BENITEZ
The Catholic University of America,
Washington, D.C.

BOOK REVIEWS

381

Nature and Motion in the Middle .Ages. By FR. JAMES A. WEISHE,IPL.

Edited by William E. Carroll. Studies in Philosophy and the History
of Philosophy, v. 11. Washington, D.C.: The Catholic University of
American Press, 1985. Pp. xii + 292.
In this book the editor brings together some articles previously published by Fr. James W eisheipl which deal with various questions relating
to Aristotle's natural philosophy along with some medieval interpretations, mainly by St. Thomas Aquinas. The volume was not originally
intended to be a posthumous offering, but Fr. James's untimely death
has made it into one, and the editor provides a warm ' In Memoriam'
at the end.
During his fruitful scholarly career in medieval studies W eisheipl devoted much of his efforts to correcting what he took to be some basic
modern misunderstandings of Aristotelian and medieval natural philosophy. A long-standing and still commonly held view has it that modern
science became possible only after a total and unequivocal rejection of
Aristotle's understanding of physical science. According to this theory,
science as we now understand it appeared only in the seventeenth century.
which is to say long after the close of the Middle Ages (pp. 261 ff.) and
therefore, apart from purely historical interest, there remains nothing to
be gained from a study of the medieval view of science. In the last
century, however, Pierre Duhem argued that heretofore unrecognized
linkages exist between modern science and the much earlier efforts by
Aristotle and his medieval interpreters. Following Duhem's pioneering
work, more recent scholarship has increased still further our knowledge
of the relationship between early and modern science, with some (e.g.
A. Maier) emphasizing elements of discontinuity and others (e.g. Weisheipl) pointing out some long neglected but nonetheless philosophically
sound and therefore still valuable insights of Aristotle and his medieval
disciples.
Weisheipl argues that the Aristotelian/medieval
notion of nature is
perfectly compatible with what he terms the physico-mathematical approach so profitably adopted by modern science. (ch. 11) He rejects the
idea that the scientist, after the weleome advances of men like Galileo and
Newton, is henceforward correct in replacing the earlier concept of nature
with a purely mechanistic model of the universe. The more recent fruitful
application of the physico-mathematieal method in science, far from
requiring the rejection of Aristotle's concept of nature in favor of a
nature-less mechanical model, finds a needed complimentarity with its
inclusion as a sure foundation. Taking Aristotle's lead, Albert the Great,
Aquinas, and others in fact, W eisheipl argues, were quite well aware of

BOOK REVIEWS

the more mathematically grounded method in studying nature. The work
they did especially in astronomy, optics, and harmonics, W eisheipl points
out, clearly reveals their belief in the heuristic power of mathematics.
He readily admits that the earlier attempts to ' save the appearances '
with relatively primitive mathematical tools pale in comparison with
the modern achievement, but he thinks the fundamental instinct so remarkably exploited by later scientists is already evident in earlier times.
At the core of Weisheipl's exposition of Aristotelian/medieval
science
is the basic concept of nature, and the frequent failure of scholars to
understand this concept conectly is, in his view, the major underlying
reason for so much confusion. " For Aristotle . . . , <f>v<J'cs is a formal,
or active, principle of movement and rest in all of corporeal reality" (p.
5). Weisheipl stresses quite rightly the element of spontaneity in nature
which is not found in art, and he draws the needed contrast between
events that are natural and those which occur by chance. But his most
critical point and one he thinks most often neglected is the recognition
that nature is not always a cause ( a.lria.) of motion. In living things this
is the case, but more fundamentally, nature is the principle (cipx?j) of
motion and rest (p. 64 ff.). To imagine, for example, that the heavy
body 'by nature ' moves downward and the light body upward because it
' causes ' its own motion leads to hopeless and totally unnecessary muddles,
There is no parallel to be seen between the stick causing the ball to fly
through the air and the nature of the rock " causing " it to roll down the
hillside. W eisheipl insists that the rock's nature is the source, not the
cause, of this natural motion. The only cause for natural motion, taking
cause in the proper and strict Aristotelian/medieval meaning, is the agent
which brought the nature into existence in the first place; what the
medieval called the generans naturae. The failure to appreciate this
fundamental point, W eisheipl claims, lies behind what turns out to be a
cariooture of Aristotle's idea of nature and distorts his whole philosophy
of nature. It is this distortion or caricature which is appropriately deemed
to be incompatible with modern science; the authentic understanding,
however, does not conflict with more recent developments.
Indeed, the restoration of Aristotelian nature, properly understood, is
not a mere admissible but fruitless hypothesis; rather, on W eisheipl's
view, the abandonment of this perennially valid foundation leaves the
whole scientific enterprise considerably impoverished. In this connection,
W eisheipl appeals to Whitehead, who he says "strongly objects to the
lifeless and inert character of the Newtonian-Humean universe. He insists that ' nature is full-blooded; real facts are happening'. Thus Whitehead has reintroduced into philosophy spontaneous activity and finality,
the two essential elements in the Aristotelian conception of nature" (p 23).
Weisheipl believes that the correct gTasp of the principle Omne quad

383

BOOK REVIEWS

movetur ab alio movetur clears up much of the confusion surrounding
modern objections to Aristotelian and medieval science. In line with what
he considers to be the proper understanding of nature, he takes up the
problem of the projectile and discusses the various ways this was interpreted (pp. 91; 107; 123) giving preference to Aquinas, with interesting
suggestions relating to Francis de Marchia and Buridan (pp. 95 f.) What
W eisheipl calls 'the myth of the motor coniunctus' bedevilled many students of Aristotle, both medieval and modern, to the detriment of historical,
scientific, and philosophic accuracy. In his attempt to clarify things, he
turns to the frequently mentioned and often overlooked distinction between
nature as apx-fi as contrasted with &,,,.ta (pp. 103 ff.). The source of this
confusion he says goes back to Avicenna, Algazel, and Averroes who spoke
of the substantial form as mover. Although Scotus did not subscribe to
the myth of the motor coniunctus, Weisheipl regards his notion of 'universal self-motion' a.s less than helpful (pp. 115-120).
According to 'iVeisheipl the gTeat advancement of modern science over
Aristotelian/medieval
science has been largely a result of the greater
application of mathematics. The great Newton entitled one of his works
PrinC'ipia Mathematica Philosophiae Naturalis. In arguing his thesis of
continuity, Weisheipl points to much earlier representatives of this same
outlook. He quotes Roger Bacon, for example, writing in the thirteenth
century: "The neglect [of mathematics] for the past thirty or forty
years has nearly destroyed the entire learning of Latin Christendom.
For he who does not know mathematics cannot know any of the other
sciences." Bradwardine a century later puts it even more forcefully:
"It is [mathematics] which reveals every genuine truth, for it knows
every hidden .secret and be·ars the key to every subtlety of letters; whoever, then, has the effrontery to study physics while neglecting mathematics
should know from the start that he will never make his entry through
the portals of wisdom " (p. 266), Aquinas along with many other medievals
was also well aware of the productive use of mathematics in the study
of nature. But, having urged the case for a greater degree of continuity
than is often allowed, W eisheipl is quite conscious of the quantum leap
forward made by Galileo and his successors.
The articles assembled in this volume offer a fair sampling of W eisheipl's
contribution to the field of the philosophy and history of science. Anyone
wishing to capture the nub of his thought on medieval science and its
relationship to the present is advised to turn to this book.
FRANCIS

Franciscan Institute
St. Bonaventure University,
St. Bonaventure, New York

E. KELLEY

384

BOOK REVIEWS

Philosophy and .Atheism: In Defense of .Atheism. By KAI NIELSEN.
Buffalo, New York: Prometheus Books, 1985. Pp. 231. $18.95.
Kai Nielsen is among the most prolific, trenchant, and articulate critics
of religion now working in the world of English-speaking philosophy.
In a steady spate of articles and books, including (to mention a few) Contemporary Critiques of Religion, Scepticism, Reason and Practice, Ethics
Without God, and An Introduction to the Philosophy of Religion, he has
mounted a relentless and sophisticated attack on religious belief. The
collection called Philosophy and .Atheism: In Defense of .Atheism brings
together essays written over a number of years for audiences of various
kinds. The wpics range from popular or autobiographical material to
the complex technicalities of competing theories of rationality and justification. Of the eleven essays, seven have appeared previously. There is
no index, but the notes and bibliographies appended to the more scholarly
essays constitute a useful guide to a major segment of the literature in
philosophy of religion.
Nielsen's language sometimes betrays scorn for at least some types of
religious belief. But typographical inconsistencies sametimes diminish
the power of his phrases, as for example when on facing pages he alludes
to certain conceptions of God as "a kind of cosmic mickey-mouse" and
"a kind of cosmic Mickey Mouse." The number of typographical errors
and inconsistencies in the book-not all of them as pregnant as this one
with theological contrasts-is annoying.
The reader of these essays is constantly reminded of the sustained
attacks that some of the greatest minds of modern philosophy (Hume, for
example) have mounted on religious belief. But one also thinks of the
remark in Wittgenstein's On Ce1·tainty: "Very intelligent and wellpeople believe in the story of creation in the Bible, while others
hold it as proven false, and the grounds of the latter are well known to
the former." This remark suggests, perhaps, why issues in philosophical
theology tend w regress : Is there a God? Is it rational to believe in the
existence of God? What are the criteria of rationality appropriate to
the assessment of religious belief? Can we sensibly inquire about and
compare alternative or competing theories of rationality?
Readers of Nielsen's essays will find much to admire in his intricate
deployment of complex arguments, many of which operate at one or two
removes from the question of theism or atheism. But the energy and
complexity of his treatment contrasts sharply with the complex question
he poses in the last essay: " Why . . . is the philosophy of religion so
boring? " ( p. 224). Nielsen's own response, that there is little to be said
for theism, suggests that he misunderstands something basic-not the
point of arguments in favor of theism, but the nature of the interests that

BOOK REVIEWS

385

underlie religious belief and the sensibilities, among religious people,
that make his argumentation unpersuasive. Is the philosophy of religion
Wittgenstein penned a note, published in Zettel: "Some philosophers ... suffer from what may be called 'loss of problems.' Then everything seems quite simple to them, no deep problems seem t-0 exist anymore, and the world becomes broad and flat and loses all depth ... .'' One
need not embrace the fideism Nielsen attributed to followers of Wittgenstein, in essays now nearly 20 years old, in order to hold that a sympathetic entertainment of the interests and sensibilities at stake in an
undertaking is an essential ingredient in any fair and useful assessment
of its rationality, legitimacy, or defensibility. It is that sympathetic entertainment that Nielsen lacks in the case of religious belief. And so he
falls prey to the tendency Wittgenstein diagnosed in the case of Sir
Jam es Frazer: " His explanations . . . are much cruder than the sense
of the observances themselves.''
There is a delightful characterization of C. D. Broad's philosophical
method in A. J. Ayer's A Part of My Life: "He does not buITow under
the surface, but only few can do this with profit, and it is much to have
the surface properly scrubbed.'' In a similar way, Nielsen offers, in these
essays, a thorough scrubbing-perhaps scouring-of the surface of theistic
belief.
He is careful, in his "Introduction," to map out what atheism comes
to. It is not just the denial of theism, or even of all " spiritual beings "
(Nielsen's phrase), but also the rejection of non-traditional, non-theistic
affirmations of God (such as Tillich's). An atheist, writes Nielsen, rejects
belief in an anthropomorphic God as false, in a non-anthropomorphie
metaphysical deity as meaningless or unintelligible, and in a Tillichian
or similar concept of God as a subterfuge that "masks an atheistic substance " ( p. 21). He offers similar dismissals to theological possibilities
centered on the notions of myth and metaphor. Religious believers
(Christians, Jews, and Muslims, anyway) must, he thinks, be making
theistic claims of an either empirical or metaphysical nature, or they
are simply closet atheists. And if they are making such claims, thinks
Nielsen, his attacks are dispositive.
The power of such attacks depends, of course, on religious beliefs being
liable to rational assessment. What, if any, is the proper role of proof
in religious beliefs' Nielsen's answer to this question is that "we are not
justified in believing in God if no good evidence can be given for believing that God exists " ( p. 34). Consequently, he devotes himself to
the examination and refutation of the proffered evidence. The number
of issues discussed in that examination is enormous. The enumeration of
the issues relevant to Nielsen's discussions (even if not explicitly taken
up in them) would be virtually endless. But three salient topics deserve

386

BOOK REVIEWS

mention : his critique of revelation-claims, his examination of the canons
of rationality in their relation to religion, and his account of the formation
of his own attitudes on religion.
Drawing on works by Gordon Kaufman, Barth, Brunner, and others,
Nielsen sets up for criticism the view that theological beliefs are, because
of their roots in revelation, neither subject to philosophical critique nor
in need of philosophical justification. His criticism consists of a destructive analysis of the notion of divine self-disclosure. But his argument is
simply a series of abusive rhetorical questions ("Have you any understanding at all of . . . 'I " and "Do you have any idea at all . . . ? ").
These questions are linked by thinly supported assertions about what is
imd is not intelligible or possible. Concepts of revelation are, as Nielsen
suggests, inevitably entangled with problems about authority, its sources
and its scope. But he is content simply to point out that this connection
leads on to the problem of "theological ethnocentrism," without reckoning
with the fact that sophisticated contemporary discussions of authority in
religion recognize the community- and context-dependence of all linguistic
proceedi11gs, including uses of religious language in everyday life, liturgy,
doctrinal development, and attempts at justification. The fact that revelation language, on analysis, involves ungrounded beliefs and unjustified
judgments does not set it apart from any other human linguistic practice.
There are, needless to say, special problems and difficulties in the language
of revelation, but. Nielsen's cavalier treatment offers the reader no clue
what these might be.
The point of dismissing revelation claims is to make the fate of religion hinge on the suceess of attempts to justify it without sueh appeals.
Nielsen's attack on philosophical theology is complex and multi-faeeted,
but it ineludes these main claims: 1. that belief in God is a metaphysical
belief; 2. that the concept of God is therefore incoherent (though not
"utterly meaning 1ess "); 3. that the incoherence of the concept of God
lies in its being used to refer to, describe, and report experiences of beingitself or a being tr1mscendent to the universe; and 4. that this incoherence
precludes even the possibility of rightly asserting to have faith in God,
since that would presuppose "a minimal understanding of what you
take on faith" (p. 94).
Nielsen is aware that his analysis is often heavily verificationist, at least
in tone. He claims, though, that his sensibilities (perhaps neo-verificationisH) survive the critiques of that perspective offered over the last three
decades and that, therefore, his criticisms of religious belief succeed. He
rejeets more " permissive" forms of language analysis, saying that they
forfeit "one of the deepest rationales for doing philosophy, namely, that
of criticizing received opinions and . . . of providing a critical discussion
of critical discuS1Sions and forms of life" (sic p. 102).

BOOK REVIEWS

387

For example, taking the excesses of " fideists" as representative of
Wittgenstein's contributions to these issues, Nielsen construes that influence as consisting merely of impetus toward relativism and irrationalism. He is right in claiming that Wittgenstein shows insuperable obstacles
in the way of tackling at face value the question which world-picture is
"really rational" (p. 206), but wrong in supposing that these obstacles
must grow, if Wittgenstein is right, into impenetrable hedges, shutting
philosophy away from any critical functions. Post-verificationist understandings of language, factuality, intelligibility, and justification are either
ignored or given unsympathetically short shrift in his writings. At bottom,
philosophy must be, for Nielsen, either the discipline of disciplines-what
Rorty has called the scientia scientiarum-or it is nothing. The domesticated, pragmatized, and humanized visions of philosophy that have been
developing in the English-speaking world over the last couple of decades
seem to have had no effect on Nielsen's practice. Hence his critques of
religious belief are not as useful as they could be in aiding either adherents
or opponents of religion to orient their position in the contemporary
philosophical milieu.
Why is this the case? Nielsen, in the autobiographical " The Making
of an Atheist," describes his early acquaintance, " in depth and grippingly "
(p. 36), with the works of Kierkegaard. He states that since natural
theology is "broken-backed,"
only non-anthropomorphic, metaphysical
accounts of God were candidates for belief. But these he ultimately concluded to be either unintelligible or only verbally different from what
non-theists are willing to say. Oddly, it would seem, in view of his assertion that he was deeply gripped-at least for some period-by Kierkegaard, Nielsen shows no sympathy for what the Danish thinker, or Pascal,
or St. Augustine, or any other believer who combined rigorous reason with
passionate faith, may have been attempting to get at, however wrongly,
in a portrayal of the role of feeling and non-rational sensibilities in
moving us to religious belief. Religion, whether outright belief, attitudinal
commitments, or moral policies, is never simply an affair of the head.
vVhat Pascal called "the heart" plays a role. Of course appeals to religious passions as justifications are insufficient, even when supplied with
intentional objects and dignified as categories of experience. But attempts
to assess religious beliefs without reference to their engagement of these
dimensions of our experience will not do, either. The passions, like
competing canons of rationality, are rooted both in general facts about
human nature and also in particular, contingent facts about our cultures
and patterns of upbringing. The development of sound notions about
religious sensibilities is a part of the legitimate philosophical project of
studying the place held in human cultures by systems of religious belief,
and it should be an important corrective to the approach exemplified in

388

BOOK REVIEWS

Nielsen's essays. The development of such notions need not be a defense
of religion. It may weU be that passions elicited and developed in some
religious beliefs are not to be encouraged. (This is part of Hume's argument in The Natural History of ReUgion.) The chief shortcoming of
Nielsen in this area is his apparent inability to recognize any form of
religious interest other than a speculative, intellectual interest in an explanation of the world's existence. Again, in view of his profes!!ed intimate
knowledge of Kierkegaard, this is a puzzling shortcoming.
In the volume's closing peroration, Nielsen pronounces the demise of
the philosophy of religion. Its issues-the truth, justifiability, and coherence of religious beliefs (his list)-have been .settled: negative on one
or more counts. What needs to happen next is, he says, an examination
of religions as human phenomena and of the needs expressed through
them. This he regards as a new agenda. But, if our focus on the issues is
broader than Nielsen's, we can recognize that these studies (he mentions
Feuerbach, Marx, Nietzsche, Freud, Weber, Durkheim, and Fromm} are
a part of the philosophy of religion. From a perspective broadened in this
and other dimensions, it appears that the issues in philosophy of religiontruth, justifiability, and coherence-are not settled. Nor are they boring.
JOHN CHURCHILL

H endriw Oollege,

Oonway, Arkansas

The Architecture of Religion: A Theoretical Essay. By PAUL WIEBE.
San Antonio: Trinity University Press, 1984. Pp. 153; index.
The Architecture of Religion is a brave book. Not only does the author
outline the essential structure (the "architecture") of religion, he also
defines the essential task of the modern age, traces the general contours
of true religion, and suggests a corresponding design for the study of
religion, properly conceived. In fact, he could easily be criticized for
trying to do too much, especially in a first book. But, in this reviewer's
opinion, he should not be criticized on these grounds. There should be a
place in academic life for addressing life's most serious concerns in bold
new ways, even if the results are only provisional, and the publisher is to
be commended for bringing Paul Wiebe's attempt to construct a theory
of religion to a general audience.
None of this means, of course, that the theory itself should not be
criticized. That is what every theorist expects, and Wiebe is no exception.
He begins by telling us that religion is "that basic human reality in

BOOK REVIEWS

889

which humans master what they judge to be the one profound ill by confronting this ill with a good just as profound" (p. 29). Presumably,
everyone has an interest in profound matters in which goods and ills are
conceptualized and drawn into focus, and to this extent everyone is
basically religious, no matter what he regards as life's greatest good. This
idea has a Tillichian ring, which is not surprising given the author's background. Yet Wiebe criticizes Tillich for using the descriptive concept of
ultimate concern in a normative way, judging alien religions as idolatrous
faiths and claims that his own central concept of profound interest is
purely formal and perfectly neutral, being altogether free of the " hermeneutical imperialism " which mars Tillich's account. In view of the fact
that Wiebe uses his theory to discount traditional authorities in religion
and to outline the shapes of true religion, this promise of neutrality seems
overblown. Maybe the critical edge of his theory comes from other aspects
of the theory, not from the concept of a profound interest-but then why
couldn't the same be said of Tillich 7
In any cruse, Wiebe follows Tillich in supposing that all people are
religious. "No human life,'' he says, "is ever without religion" (p. 28).
But common sense deserves a word here. Surely there is a difference between people whose interests are scattered and ever changing and people
whose lives are ruled by dominant religious concerns. And surely there
is a difference between one who believes that life's ills have a (religious)
remedy and one who believes that there are no remedies at all. Such
differences tend to be obscured rather than illuminated in Wiebe's discuss10n.
In the three chapters that are the bulk of the book Wiebe analyzes in
turn traditional religion, which depends on authoritative grounds (e.g.,
scripture, revelation) ; nihilism, which denies the existence of any such
grounds; and critical religion, which continually seeks profound truth
under the guise of rational consensus. The discussion is long on methodological reflection and short on concrete examples. We are told, for example,
that traditional religion must be understood phenomenologically, that
nihilism must be grasped dialectically, and that critical religion can only
be imagined through a normative analysis. This is further complicated
by the author's drawing together generalizations about each of these
" modes of religion " and referring to them as if they proceeded from a
" traditional mind," a "nihilistic mind," and a " critical mind." This
appears to be merely a matter of convenient expression; but Wiebe goes
on to say that these minds exist, that they cause their corresponding
modes of religion, and that they can be recognized beneath the concrete
effects which they bring about. Perhaps the difficulty here belongs only
to the reviewer, but it is still difficult to understand what such "minds"
are and how they function as causes, despite Wiebe's attempts .at an
explanation.

390

BOOK REVIEWS

The analysis of religion's three basic modes is facilitated by a formal
analysis of judgment. Judgment has a geography, since judgments are
drawn either corporately or individually and since the agents of judgment
are empowered by their proximity to the source of judgment. Moreover,
judgment has a calendar, since it involves three temporal phases: the
interpretation of the past, the imagination of the future, and the actualization of the present. Ideally, judgment should be governed by the goal of
universal consensus among all rational agents, which means that the agents
of judgment should engage in dialogue with an ever-widening circle of
people. Wiebe's treatment of judgment is more complicated than this
makes it appear, but this simplified account should help to explain his
general criticisms of traditional religion and of nihilism.
Traditional religion is rejected for having an unduly restricted geography and an unbalanced calend. For traditional religion limits the goal
of consensus to those who are within the religion, excluding the opinions of
non-believers from the domain of consideration. And, though it does
adapt continuously to the future, it does so by reading new interpretations into its traditional heritage (its charter) so as to move forward by
looking backward. Nihilism, on the other hand, is denounced for denying
the very possibility of a rational consensus, thus forsaking any confidence
in tradition and hopelessly pursuing imagined visions of what might be.
Nihilism, therefore, lacks the anchor to which traditional religion is tied,
and neither is able to search for truth with the steady rudder of rational
dialogue. These are good points, regardless of what one thinks of the
way they are made.
C1·itical religion represents the balance between the extremes of confinement to a tradition and totally unrestrained freedom of judgment. In this
"mode," responsible judgment is unavoidably limited to those who have
the capacity to recognize the force of rational demonstrations. But these
agents of responsible judgment are to expand the geography of judgment indefinitely, until all agents are properly informed and properly
capacitated. They are to consider traditional modes of religion, but not
according to the severe limits imposed by traditional concepts of authority
-e.g., they are to consider biblical teachings but not under the assumption of biblical authority. Rather, they are to expose these teachings to the
critical opinions of non-believers in the effort to gain a consensus that
cuts across the religious divisions of the past, and all this is to be done
in the hope of approaching the universal consensus that is the one sure
sign of truth.
This rejection of authority in matters of faith makes the search for
spiritual wisdom more or less consonant with philosophy, and it makes
the responsible agents of judgment appear to be intellectuals or academics.
As for the dialogue that these agents would conduct in their search for
truth, that would presumably be institutionalized in some formal gathering,

391

BOOK REVIEWS

such as the American Academy of Religion. Here the author has more
enthusiasm for this prospert than the reviewer.
The author's enthusiasm for such prospects has its source in a simplistic view of the way that truth is ascertained in religion. He knows
that consensus is not equivalent to truth, since people can agree in holding
various beliefs which turn out to be erroneous. Rather, consensus is only
a criterion of truth when it is achieved by virtue of rational demonstrations (p. 98). Thus, beliefs which have the power to elicit our agreement
must be subject to p!'oof (p. 99). Compelling rational grounds for these
beliefs must be present to make consensus justifiable (p. 102). Consequently, religious beliefs which might evoke our affirmation must be
subject, ideally, to convincing rational justifications. Yet the notion that
religious beliefs might be justified on demonstrative or nearly demonstrative grounds is at best a dubious assumption. A moment's reflection will
tell us that all our beliefs must not be subject to the same sort of justification, since some beliefs must be given as grounds on which to judge other
beliefs, and these beliefs in turn must be justified on still firmer grounds,
and so on. Eventually we must come to some beliefs which are ungrounded,
or ungroundable, in any more certain beliefs. The reasonableness of
these beliefs must be understood in another way altogether-not as if their
reasonableness depended on their grounds. Religious beliefs may resemble
these fundamental beliefs more than they resemble testable hypotheses;
but, if they do, it may be possible to secure agreement on them in a
methodical way, since there may be no recourse to demonstrative grounds
for belief. In the end, this would mean that the notion of an ideal consensus on religous truths may be too idealistic. If it is not too idealistic,
then the reader needs to be told more about the possible justification
of religious claims. Serious doubts about the possibility of grounding
religious claims have been articulated in the philosophy of religion, and,
to the extent that Wiebe's theory of religion presupposes this possibility,
he owes us a defense of it.
Don Quixote is the symbolic hero of this theory-Quixote who pursues
his vision despite the skepticism of the world and the common sense o:i'
his squire. Wiebe would have us pursue the ideal of religious consensus
in the same way; but, if his picture of a justified religious consensus is
overly optimistic, then, I fear, we would be fighting windmills to pursue it.
JOHN

Loui3iana State University,
Baton Rouge, Louisiana

H. WHITTAKER

392

BOOK REVIEWS

Social Justice JJfinistry: Foundations and Concerns. By PAUL STEIDLMEIER, S.J. New York: Le Jacq Publishing, 1984. Pp. 325.
With the advent of political theologies and liberation theologies, a large
number of books have been published on social justice. But few scholarly
attempts have been made to develop a theology of social justice ministry.
This book sets out both the agenda and the process of such a ministry,
incorporating insights from 1891 to the present from magisterial teaching
and a wide variety of contemporary critical thinkers writing in the broad
spectrum of social justice.
Father Steidl-Meier develops a relational theology, founded on Christian
anthropology, on which he bases the central theme of his book, social
relations. Relational theology (p. 47) is an analysis of the human condition which rejects both an idealist and a monadic model of human nature
and consequently repudiates both a purely spiritualized/supernatural and
a privatized/pietistic form of religion. His model roots humanity in the
material world in an "I/thou " mode that is essentially relational. But,
just as the person is in the world in a certain relatedness, so the world
is in the person in a certain social relatedness. This is precisely because
existence is caught up in space and time. Within time and space the experience of relatedness in personal existence implies being here and now,
which implies a past, a present, a future. In human relationships there is
neither pure freedom nor pure determinism, but they are conditioned by
memory and relationships that are themselves finite and reveal the pervasive and radical finitude of human existence.
All human relations fundamentally reflect the struggle between good and
evil. Sin upsets the right order of human relations. Christ reveals the
right order by revealing people to themselves in His response to His
Father's call and their response to him. Ultimate meaning derives then
from the Word Incarnate who addresses people living in time and space
in their relatedness. But Christ incorporates this good news of the transformation into his Body. Thus the paradigm of social relations as expressed in the new covenant founded on Word and sacrament, in the
scriptures, and in the paschal mystery becomes the model of all salvation
and evangelical service. As a relational model "this covenant proposes
1) Koinonia, rather than alienation and the breakdown of relations; 2) the
priority of being over having; 3) the priority of service over use; and 4)
the priority of being with a neighbor rather than being alongside."
These reflections on Christian anthropology reveal the author's approach
to the subject of social justice ministry. This subject is an enfleshed
spirit, identified through its various relationships; its meaning is discovered in right relations and transformed through liberation from sin
and darkness into wisdom and grace.

BOOK REVIEWS

398

This method, relational theology, is used because relatedness is constitutive of the human person and therefore represents a broad critical
instrument in which justice and culture can be fused. Liberation theologies,
political theologies, and human rights traditions are various expressions
of such a relational theology.
In the past philosophical and narrative notions of justice have provided
a basis for discourse on justice, yet social justice is rooted in the world
of social relations which can change. This is why Christology provides a
key to understanding a Christian social teaching which encompasses the
principles of beneficence, nonmaleficence, and the common good. The
biblical vision affirms personal uniqueness, the gratuity of all created
existence and the twin vocations of stewardship and discipleship which
are constitutive elements in a theology of the kingdom so central to social
justice ministry. A social justice ministry of necessity raises the question
of history and social praxis. A thoology of history is not a static vision
but a reality of God's unfolding self-communication in our midst from
moment to moment. Praxis is a precise historical experience expressed in
memory and narration, a critical theological questioning of what, how, and
for whom we are doing something. Such a process in a Christian community is its affirmation of freedom and responsibility for itself and the
world, moving from conversion to transformation.
Precisely because praxis is rooted in a community's experience it will
constantly be faced with the twin problems of pluralism and authority,
both of which create tensions for the unity and governance of the church.
The key to this tension is to develop a social ministry spirituality. The
author develops eleven characteristics of such a ministry whose subject
is the believing community and who themselves exercise this ministry
bringing about a genuine collegiality in the unique fellowship of the
community of the people of God. Although ministry, especially social
ministry, is not identical with mission, it is a legitimate aspect of the
church's mission and therefore needs to be organized and structured. This
requires having dialogue and discernment over a prolonged period since
it involves ministers who are primarily lay persons organizing and with
the hierarchy in apostolic service within the existing culture.
Since the vision of this social ministry is global in scope, it will require a continuing aggiornamento for the church on the one hand and a
ministry which will become increasingly spiritualized, specialized, and decentralized on the other in order to speak to the myriad realities affecting
social relations and the Christian witness. A basic feature of a social
justice ministry will be its focus on planning, followed by openness and
communication in order that all may become engaged in implementing a
course of action within the culture. In the final analysis a new order
means not just having more but being more.

894

BOOK REVIEWS

In the past the church was concerned with the unchanging. Today
it is concentrating on the changing and developing dimension of human
existence. This struggle to develop historical consciousness will be one
of the principal characteristics of the newer epistemology in the Catholic
ethical lexicons. This is not entirely new since the church has always
been committed to the human. What is new is the focus on the changing
realities revealed by historical consciousness. An earlier era focused on
the individual conscience and individual salvation. Today our focus is on
the collective and the social injustices of poverty, racism, militarism, and
world hunger. The critical function of preaching the Kingdom of God in
the face of unjust social structures is the new focus of the church's ethical
task and her social justice ministry.
Father Steidl-Meier's book is both challenging to read and difficult to
put down. It is a scholarly text clearly outlining guidelines for a social
justice ministry. No one engaged in any form of ministry for justice,
peace and development should be without this book. Just as theologians
have recently published books on foundational concerns in theologyRahner, Fuchs, and Fiorenza, to name a few-this book too is foundational
for the scholar as well as the practitioner in this critical post-Vatican II
era of social consciousness.
WALTER

Unive1·sity of St. Jerome's College,
Waterloo, Ontario, Canada

J. BILD STEIN