SCRIPTURAL

GROUNDS FOR CONCRETE
MORAL NORMS

1. Is JJ1oral Theology Really Theology?
0 BE CHRISTIAN theology moral theology ought to
be firmly grounded in the Bible as understood in the living tradition of the Church. Yet the moralist who asks
help from the biblicist today is
to be met with a host cf
1
objections. I will mention eight I have encountered:

l) Attempts to develop a biblical theology unified by some
central concept such as
promise
fulfillrnent, salvation history, or liberation have all broken down. The Bible
contains many diverse, even contradictory, or at least dialectically opposed theologies and ethical
To har2
monize them is to distort them.
S.J., eds., The Use of
1 See Charles E. Curran and Richard A. McCormick,
Scriptures in Moral Theology (Readings in Moral Theology No. 4. New
York: Paulist, 1984) for a representative selection of essays, and Robert
J. DaLy, S.J. in cooperation with .J. A. Fischer, C.M., T. J. Keegan, O.P.,
A ..J. Tambasco, L. J. Topel, S.J., and F. E. Schuele, Christian Biblical Ethfos
Ji'rorn Biblical Revelation to Contemporary Christian Praxis, Method and
Content {New York: Paulist, 1984) for a more systematic argument.. In these
notes these will be referred to as US and CBE. See also William C. Spohn,
S.J., What Are '!'hey Saying About Bcriptiire a,nd Ethics? (New York:
Paulist, 1983) ; David Kelsey, Uses of Scripture in Recent Theology ( Philadelphia: Fortress, 1975); and Bruce C. Birch and Larry Rasmussen, Bible
and Ethics in the Christian Life (l\finneapolis: Augsburg, 1976). Valuable
hermeneutical suggestions ·will be found in Rudolf Schnackenburg, The Moral
Teaching of the New Testarnent (New York: Seabury, 1973) and the two
works of Pierre Grelot, Sens Oh1·etien de l' Ancien Testarnent 2nd ed. (Paris:
Desclee, 1962) and Problem es de ilforale JJ'ondarnentale: Un eclairar1e biblique
(Paris: Cerf, 1982) and the essa\)'s in :M:. Gilbert, J. L'Hour and ,J. Scharbet,
Morale et Ancien Testament, (Universite Catholique du Louvain, 1976).
2 See H. G. Reventlow,
Problems of Old Testament Theology in the Twen·
tieth Cent·ury (Philadelphia: Fortress Press, 1985, pp. 44,65; 125-133, and

1

BENEDICT

M. ASHLEY, O.P.

2) The predominant literary form of the Bible which holds
it together is narrative. How then can we draw moral principles
from such narratives? To treat them as cautionary tales with
an obvious moral does great injustice to their psychological
richness and moral ambiguity. 3
3) The Bible primarily uses not a literal but a symbolic type
of language appropriate to the mysteries it reveals. These symbols or images can mold ethical attitudes and affections but
they cannot be reduced to literal concrete moral norms without danger of distortion. 4
4) Granted that both Testaments contain many prescriptive
statements, they are so embedded in their historical contexts
and so related to situations that are now obsolete, that it is
impossible to believe they oblige us today. Can we really believe that women must be veiled (I Cor 11: 10) or that slaves
should obey their masters (Ti 2: 9) ? 5
5) The early Church, and perhaps Jesus himself, expected
the eschaton within a lifetime. Consequently, the New Testament provides only an " interim ethics " which is useless as a
guide in a continuing sinful world. 6
6) We read in Ephesians 2: 15 that Jesus "in his own flesh
John H. Hayes and Frederick Prussner, Old Testament Theology: Its Nature
and Development (Atlanta: John Knox, 1985), especially pp. 254-279 for a
discussion of the search for a unifying concept for the Bible and its present
status.
s James A. Fischer, C.M., "Story and Image", CBE, pp. 156-169.
4 CBE, pp. 289-295.
5 Thus James M. Gustafson,
in an influential article, "The Place of Scripture in Christian Ethics: A Methodological Study" (US, pp. 151-177) distinguishes the uses of Scripture as moral law, as moral ideal, as moral
analogy, and finally what he calls its "loose" use to inspire reflection on
current problems. He is especially critical of the first method and gives preference to the last.
s" To put the matter most sharply, Jesus does not provide a valid ethics
for today. His ethical teaching is interwoven with his imminent eschatology
to such a degree that every attempt to separate the two and to draw out
only the ethical thread invariably and inevitably pulls loose strands of the
eschatology, so that both yams are ruined." Jack T. Sanders, US, p. 62. See
also his book, Ethics in the New Testa.ment (Philadelphia: Fortress, 1975).

SCRIPTURAL

GROUNDS FOR CONCRETE MORAL NORMS

3

abolished (katargesas) the !,aw with its commands and precepts, to create in himself one new man." Is it not the whole
tenor of St. Paul's teaching that the Gospel frees us not only
from the Old Law but from every ethical system in order that
we may follow Christ in spontaneous gratitude for what he has
done for us? 7
7) Liberation theology, feminist theology, and deconstructionism are all making us aware the Bible must he read with a
"hermeneutic of suspicion " which exposes the political and social biases of the biblical writers and of the church officials who
canonized their works. Consequently, we must look for a
"canon within the canon" which expresses the essence of the
original Gospel as Jesus taught and lived it and frees it from
many of the precepts which reflect institutionalizing distortions
of that Gospel.8
8) Are we not making a mistake if we read the Scriptures as
prescriptive rather than as parenetic? Are they not really intended to motivate us sincerely to follow our own consciences?
If so, then does it not seem that the scriptural precepts only
represent the common ethics of New Testament times, and today must be replaced by the equivalent ethics of our own
times? 9
Protestant and Rornan Catholic JJJthios: Pros7 See James M. Gustafson,
pects for Rapprochrnent (Chicago: University of Chicftgo Press, 1978), pp.
1-29.
s Elisabeth Schussler Fiorenza, "Towar<l a Feminist Biblical Interpretation", US, pp. 354-382 and Bread Not Stone: The Challenge of Ji'erninist
Biblical Interpretations (Boston: Beacon Press, 1985). On deconstructionism
see Hugh J. Silverman and Don Ihde, eels. Herrnene·utics & Deconstruction
(Albany: State University of New York, 1985) and Mark C. Taylor, DeconstrucUng Theology (Chicago: Crossroads, CA: Scholars Press, 1982). On
liberation theology hermeneutics see Jose Miranda, Marx and the Bible
(Mary knoll, l'\"'Y: Orb is Press, 1974) and Jose Severino Croatto, Exodus: A.
H errneneutics of Freedorn (same, 1981).
9 See article of Bruno Schiiller,
S.J., in DCE, pp. 207-233, followed by the
criticism of J·ames Gaffney, "On Parenesis and Fundamental Moral Theology",
Journal of Religious Ethics, 11 (1983) : 23-24, and discussion of Richard A.
McCormick, S.J., "Notes on Moral Theology", Theological Studies, 45 (1984):
80 ff.

4

BENEDICT

M. ASHLEY, O.P.

If these objections are sustained, what becomes of traditional
moral theology, which aimed to provide concrete moral norms
for the ·assistance of preachers and confessors in guiding the
consciences of Christians?

2. Jesus and the Torah
What is odd ·about the objections I have listed is that, while
today we constantly emphasize the historicity of the Scriptures,
we so often neglect to ask ourselves whence Jesus and Paul
historically derived their own moral teaching. Did they present
is as simply new or as the culmination of a long tmdition?
Most moralists concerned with the revision of moral theology
are in agreement today that the fundamental principle of Christian ethics must be Jesus
teachings and his exemplification of his own teachings. 1 ° Christian ethics is an imitatio Christi in the fullest and deepest sense because Christian
life is an incorporation in Christ, a participation by grace in his
life and the life of his Body, the Church. St. Paul urges us to
live in Christo, and to imitate Paul as Paul imitates our Lord
(2 Cor : 17; Q Th 3: 7-9; Gal 6: 14-17). Thus the fundamental
norm of Christian ethics is not an abstract ideal, but an existential, historical person.
How then did Jesus live? If the imitatio is to be truly practical, something more than pious jargon, it must be based on
a concrete pattern, a way of life which excludes certain kinds
of action and promotes others. Of course the Christian today
cannot copy the life of Jesus in a absolutely literal manner (although saints like Francis of Assisi came pretty close) . Nevertheless, in adapting themselves to the conditions of modern life
Christians must still walk the same road that Jesus walked, a
"straight and narrow way" (Mt 7: 13-14). In fact the early
Christians were first identified as those who were " living according to the new way" (Acts 9: 1).
10 See Louis B. Gillon, O.P., Ohrist and Moral Theology (Staten Island:
NY: .Alba House, 1967) and the theses of Heinz Schiirmann, in the report
'·The Actual Import of the :Moral Norms of the New Testament", US, pp.
78-104.

SCRIPTURAL

GROUNDS FOR CONCRETE MORAL NORMS

5

The picture given us in the Gospel of this " new way " of
Jesus is, of course, incomplete. But one thing is certain: Jesus
was a faithful Jew whose life was shaped by the observance of
the Torah, as well as by the rest of the Old Testament. 11
Hence in trying to place before us the figure of the Incarnate
Word as the goal, the model, and the source of Christian life
we must began with the fundamental fact that Jesus is the
summation of the Old Testament, the realization of all the
values of the Law, the prophets, and the writings. He is the
New Adam-the True Human, Ecce Homo!
Of course the teachings of Jesus as recorded in the canonical
Scriptures do not provide us with a detailed system of ethics.
Even the Sermon on the Mount in its Matthaean version does
not claim to be a complete moral code. Nor do the other New
Testament writings supply such a code. Instead they interpret
the "Scriptures", which for them meant the Old Testament
centering in the Torah, which comprises a complete, detailed
code of life in which the rabbis came to discern no less that 613
precepts, 365 negative, 248 positive. 12
For the Jews this Torah ("instruction" rather than "law")
was and is the heart of the canonical Scriptures. The prophets
and writings, including the wisdom literature, serve as a kind
of context and commentary for the Torah which has only to be
completed by what is thought to be the oral tradition recorded
in the Talmud. Thus from a Jewish point of view the unity of
the Scriptures is to be found in the Torah. 13 Of course the
Torah itself contains many varied strands of tradition but its
11 On the Jewishness
of Jesus see Samuel Sandmel, We Jews and Jesus
(Philadelphia: Lippincott, 1967); also E. P. Sanders, Jesus and Judaism
(Philadelphia: Fortress, 1985).
12 See Moses Maimonides, The Commandments
(Sefer Ha-Mitzvoth) 2 vols.
trans. by C. B. Chavel (London/New York: Soncinco Press, 1967); and The
Guide of the Perplexed, trans by Shlomo Pines (Chicago: University of
Chicago Press, 1963) III, 25-50, pp. 502-617, for the medieval systematization
of the Torah.
13 On the role of the Pentateuch in the Hebrew canon, see the dissertation
of Daniel Patte, Earlv Jewish Hermeneutic in Palestine, (:Missoula, :Montana:
Society of Biblical Literature and Scholars Press, 1975, pp. 19-30.

6

BENEDICT

M. ASHLEY, O.P.

editors intended these to be ta.ken synthetically and this process of synthesis has been continued in the oral tradition of
interpretation.
Jesus was a Jew preaching to Jews and so in large measure
were the other New Testament writers. Thus the New Testament confinns the permanent validity of the ethical system of
the Torah as interpreted by Jesus. Jesus's criticism of the
Pharisees was not aimed at their fidelity to the Torah. He says,
" The scribes and Pharisees occupy the chair of Moses. You
must therefore do what they tell you and listen to what they
say." (Mt 23: 3) 14 He criticized them for hypocrisy, for
scrupulosity about the lighter matters of the Law while neglecting its weightier commandments or distorting them by legalistic
interpretations, and for their contempt for the common people
ignorant of the Law; but not for defending the Law.
Since there were various schools of interpretation, Jesus
could give his own interpretation of the Law from within the
Law. Moreover, attentive examination of the occasions on
which Jesus is accused of breaking the Law reveals that according to his own interpretation, not necessarily discordant with
that of some other rabbis, he was always careful to observe it
even to the letter. 15
What was special to Jesus' interpretation of the Law, as is
clear from the sayings on divorce (Mk 10: 2-rn; Mt 5: 31-32;
19: 3-12)) is that he regarded the Law of Moses as an imperfect law given by God " because of your stubbornness" (Mt
19: 8) and declared that with the coming of the Messianic age
which he was announcing the original law of God given in
14 See B. Lindars, " Jes us and the Pharisees " in Donuin GentiUcium:
New
Testament Studies in Honor of David Daube, ed. by E. Bammel, C. K. Barrett
and vV. D. Davies (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1978), pp. 51-63.
15 See the massive work of .J. D. M. Derrett, Law in the New Testament
(London: Darton, Longman and Todd: 1970), especially the Preface, pp.
ix-xlvi. Recently Malcolm Lowe and David Flusser, "A Modified Proto-Matthean Synoptic Theory'', New Testament l'!tudies, 29 (1983): 25-47 have
poinwd out how carefully Jesus avoidecl breaking the Sabbath when he asked
the cripple to stretch out his hand but did not stretch out his own to touch
him!

SCRIPTURAL

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MORAL NORMS

7

creation was to be restored. It was this mode of Torah interpretation that warranted St. Paul's later contention that the
Gentiles were not bound by the particularities of the Mosaic
Law, while at the same time Paul continued to instruct Christians in a more universal and perfect morality. 16
Thus the first, second, and sixth difficulties respectively concerning the unity of biblical moral teaching, its narrative form,
and its abolition of the Gospel can be resolved by taking the
Torah, interpreted and perfected by Jesus, as a divinely approved system of concrete ethical prescriptions which is permanently valid because it reflects the original intentions of God
which are now once again binding on those who would enter
His Kingdom "on earth as it is in heaven " (Mt 6: 10) .
This suggested solution, however, makes all the more acute
the third and fourth difficulties about the historicity and
escha.tological context of this New Testament ethics. The
Torah itself is a product of historical development and has been
subject to constant reinterpretation. Nevertheless, this necessity of reinterpretation does not invalidate its prescriptive force
or the genuine continuity of its ethical truth. Valid interpretations, like those of Jesus and Paul, demand that such precepts
be taken with complete seriousness, although not with blind
literalism. Rather, the interpreter should try to uncover the
true purpose of God (as Jesus did with the divorce law and
St. Paul with the circumcision law (Rom 4: 11) , freeing this
from its conditioning by particular historical circumstances so
as to give it a more universal formulation. 17
For example, the correct way to deal with those directives of
16 See W. D. Davies, .Jewish and Pau.line Studies
(Philadelphia: Fortress,
1984) c. 6, "Paul and the Law: Reflections on Pitfalls in Interpretation",
pp. 91-122 gives a very balanced
(cf. also pp. 2'78-288 on "The
Moral Tearhing of the Early Church").
17 Cf. W. D. Davies, 'l'orah in the Jf essian-ic Age and/or the World to Come
(Philadelphia: Society of Biblical Literature, 1952). Davies shows that some
of the Jews believed the Law would be perfect and universalized in the Messianic Age. See also E. P. Sanders, Paul and Palestinian Judaism (Philadelphia: Fortress, 197'7) and Paul, the Law, and the Jewish People (same, 1983).

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BENEDICT

M. ASHLEY, O.P.

St. Paul that seems to derogate from the equal dignity of
women is not to dismiss them as obsolete or as a mere reflection of sexist patriarchal culture, but rather to seek in them the
perennial ethical principles to which Paul gave a particular application which may no longer be appropriate in our times. 18
Thus in St. Paul's Epistle to Philemon sending a runaway
slave back to his master, an action which today would be
rightly considered unjust, we discover Paul's permanently valid
teaching on human brotherhood: " that you might possess him
forever, no longer as a slave but more than a slave, a beloved
brother " (Phlm 16) .19
The sixth and seventh difficulties concern a similar hermeneutic issue. To the question about the need for a " hermeneutic of suspicion " I concede that it is important in reading
the Scriptures for moral instruction, as in reading any text, to
consider the biases of the author and to read between the lines,
because what is not said is sometimes as important as what is
said. But the Scriptures are not only the work of human
authors, they are the work of God as principal author. The notion of a " canon within the canon ,. cannot be received except
in the very qualified sense that some portions of Scripture are
especially clear and provide clues to interpret the more obscure.20
What must be especially avoided in studying the ethical
1s If we accept the restricted view of the corpus of authentic letters of Paul,
his supposed anti-feminism is largely eliminated except for I Cor 14:34-45
and this may be an interpolation; see Jerome Murphy-O'Connor, O.P., "Interpolations in I Corinthians", in Catholic Biblical Quarterly, 48 (Jan.,
1986): 81-94. Nevertheless, sueh interpolations and the rest of the Pauline
letters are canonical and authoritative.
19 For a recent discussion of the Epistle to Philemon in its sociological
setting see Norman R. Petersen, Redisco1,ering Paul: Philemon and the Sociology of Paul's Narrative World (Philadelphia: Fortress Press, 1985, who
in his conclusion suggests that behind Paul's rhetoric is also a threat of
excommunication (p. 302).
20 Bevard S. Childs, The New Testa.ment as Canon: An Intt·oduction (Philadelphia: Fortress, l!l84), pp. 3-47, discusses current views on the theological
significance of the canon.

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9

teaching of the Scriptures is to refuse to subject the pre-understandings we necessarily bring to reading them, including our
political and ideological commitments, to correction by the
Scriptures. Unfortunately some writers today seem to begin
with a conviction that they are on the side of the oppressed so
that anyone who disagrees with them, even St. Paul, is an oppressor. Rather, it is necessary to listen to God's judgments
through the Scriptures. The God of justice and mercy alone
has the wisdom to define justice.
The third objection that scriptural language is symbolic,
metaphorical, parabolic and therefore loses its rich meaning if
reduced to literal norms neglects the plain fact that the Bible
contains both metaphorical and literal modes of language which
complement each other. In the law codes of the Pentateuch
there are scores of concrete, literal prescriptions, yet in these
same codes it is obvious that many of the liturgical precepts as
well as curious taboos such as the thrice repeated " You shall
not boil a kid in its mother's milk" (Ex 23: 19; 34: 26; Dt
14: 21) must also be interpreted metaphorically.
Jesus of course expressed much of his teaching in parables
for the sake of the crowds, but we are told that he interpreted
these parables quite literally to the Twelve (Mk 4: 1-20).
Moreover, very plainly some of the parables illustrate concrete
moral norms, such as the Parable of the Sheep and the Goats
(Mt 25: 31-46) which clearly enforces the commands to care for
the poor, the stranger, and the prisoner, or of the Rich Farmer
(Lk 12: 16-21) which condemns avarice, or of the Pharisee and
the Tax Collector (Lk 18: 9-14) which inculcates humility. 21
Finally, the thesis that the Scriptures are not prescriptive but
parenetic empties them of any prophetic power to correct the
accepted morality of our or any other culture. Surely the
wisdom literature teaches us that discernment of the true way
of life is a divine gift not a merely human ethics. 22 Recently
21 See Pheme Perkins, Hearing the Parables of Jesus (New York: Paulist,
1981 ) on their ethical role.
22 On meanings
of "Wisdom" see Roland E. Murphy, O.Carm., Wisdom
Literature and Psalms (Nashville: .Abingdon, 1983), pp. 29-36.

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M. ASHLEY, O.P.

there has been much controversy among moralists as to whether
there can be a specifically Christian ethics. 23 It is argued that
the biblical precepts can be duplicated in other religions and
philosophies. But ethics as a practical discipline is not specified by its concrete precepts which concern the means to the end
of action, but by the end itself. The biblical goal of life is
eternal life with the Father through the Son by the gift of the
Spirit (Rom 8: 16-17) , a goal unique to Christian ethics.
3. The Virtues

The precepts of Scripture, however, do not of themselves
constitute a complete ethics without considering the virtues or
character which they form and express, because as Jesus
teaches, "A good tree brings forth good fruit" (Mt 7: 17) .24
In the Old Testament we find emphasis on such key virtues
as righteousness (sedeq), mercy (hesed), and fidelity ('emet);
but it is clear from Jesus' teaching on the Great Commandment
(Mk 12: 28-34) and from Paul's discourse in 1 Cor 13 that love
(aqape equivalent to hesed) is the supreme Christian virtue
extending to both God and neighbor, and even to enemies
(Mt : 44) . Directly related to it are faith and hope. These
three, traditionally called the theological virtues, have always
been regarded in the history of moral theology as providing
the specifying form of Christian ethics and with full biblical
warrant. 25
2a For a selection of essays on this questions sec Charles E. Curran and
Richard .A. McCormick, S. J., eds., The Distincti-venes of Ohristian Ethics
(Readings in Moral Theology, No. 2), (New York: Paulist, 1980) which will
be referred to as DCE. See also Germain Grisez, The Way of the Lord Jesus,
(Chicago: Franciscan Herald Press, 1983), vol. 1, pp. 606-609 and the
bibliography in his notes pp. 624 f.
24 Stanley Hauerwas in Vision and Virtue (Notre Dame: Fides, 1974) and
Oharacter and Ohristian Life (same, 1975) criticized the tendency to reduce
Christian ethics to the decision-making process and since then .American
moralists are giving more attention to the topic of the virtues. The best
treatment of them remains C. Spicq, O.P., Theologie Morale du Nouveau
Testament, 2 vols (Paris: J. Gabalda, 1965) which, however, has never been
translated into English.
25 Ibid I, 29-380; II, 481-566.

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11

More problematic are the traditional four cardinal virtues:
temperance, fortitude, justice, and prudence derived from
Plato, reinterpreted by Aristotle, and transmitted by the
Stoics. 26 They are referred to in the Bible only in one verse of
Wisdom (8: 7) in which it is said that Wisdom "teaches
temperance and prudence, justice and fortitude, and nothing in
life is more useful than these."; but this one reference in a very
late work marked by Greek influence is hardly enough to give
them capital importance in biblical tradition.
Nevertheless, the traditional use of the four cardinal virtues
as organizing principles for ethics can be justified, I believe, by
the following considerations. Prudence is the equivalent of the
"wisdom" constantly praised in the Old Testament as a gift
of God without which a righteous life is impossible. Jesus and
Paul add that in the Messianic age such wisdom is given even
to " the little ones " by the indwelling Holy Spirit. "On one
occasion Jesus spoke thus:' Father, Lord of heaven and earth,
to you I offer praise, for what you have hidden from the
learned and clever you have revealed to the merest children "
(ML 11: 25), St. Paul writes to the Corinthians (1 Cor 1: 2627), "Not many of you are wise, as men account wisdom, not
many are influential; and surely not many are well-born. God
chose those whom the world considers absurd to shame the
wise " and goes on to say (2: 15) " the spiritual man ... can
appraise everything, though he himself can be appraised by
no one,"
Justice is, of course, a central theme of both the Old and the
New Testament and is necessarily included in the very notion
of "love of neighbor ", especially as this is formulated in the
Golden Rule, "Treat others the way you would have them
treat you: this sums up the law and the prophets" (Mt 7: 12).
Thus the Bible constantly exhorts and guides us to respect the
26 In Plato and the Stoics they are general qualities of a virtuous person
which qualify all his acts. For .Aristotle they are specific virtues facilitating
those acts which deal with the major difficulties of human life. See Thomas
Aquinas, Summa. Theologiae, I-II, q.61, aa.3 and ,1.

12

BENEDICT

M. ASHLEY, O.P.

rights of others and to do so with a practical wisdom (prudence) which exceeds mere legalism.
The mystery of the Cross illumines the central place among
the Christian virtues of martyrdom and the patient endurance
of suffering for the sake of Jesus, that is, of fortitude, and with
it of non-violence rather than the aggressiveness which predominated in the Greek notion of the virtue. Finally. the celibacy of Jesus, his teaching on marriage and divorce, as well as
St. Paul's celibacy and his pastoral instructions (e.g. I Cor
6: 12-7: 40) make clear that temperance in the form of chastity,
whether married, virginal, or celibate, has a special Christian
character.
Still more problematic is the traditional view originating with
St. Augustine that the theological and cardinal virtues are completed by the gifts of the Holy Spirit, the beatitudes, and the
fruits of the Spirit (Gal 5: 22-23). According to Aquinas 27 the
fruits are acts of the virtues and the beatitudes are perfect
fruits that proceed from the virtues operating under the influence of the gifts. The gifts, which are to be distinguished
from the special gifts of ministry (gratiae gratis datae) mentioned by Paul in I Cor 12, are prophesied in Isaiah 11:2-3 (cf.
Rev 5: 6) as proper to the Messiah. They are, again according
to Aquinas, 28 shared by all Christians through baptism so as to
facilitate the other virtues by rendering the Christian docile to
the guidance of the Holy Spirit in order that he or she may act
in a divine, rather than a merely human mode, since only a
divine way of acting can lead surely to the divinization of
eternal life with God.
This theory of the gifts is of considerable importance in the
history of spiritual theology. 29 To neglect it would be to reinforce the disastrous separation of moral from ascetic and mysti21 Summa

Theologiae, I-II, qq.69 and 70.
q.68.
29 Article
"Dons du Saint-Esprit" by G. Bardy, F. Vandenbroucke, A.
Rayez, M. Labourdette and C. Bernard, Diationnaire de Spiritiialite, iii, cols.
1579-1639 gives the history of the theological role of the Gifts and is of the
opinion this should not be exaggerated.
2s Ibid.

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13

cal theology which took place in the post-Tridentine period.
The biblical foundations of the theory, however, appear weak,
especially as to the number seven of the gifts which is not
found in the Hebrew text where only six are enumerated.
Nevertheless, this difficulty is not insuperable. There can be
no doubt that in promising the Paraclete (Jn 16: 4-16) Jesus
also promised that the outpouring of the Holy Spirit which
had been prophesied as a feature of the Messianic Age (Is 2: 2;
44: 8; JI 8: I-5; Acts 2: 14-86) was about to begin. The early
Church experienced the distinction between the observance of
the commandments in the human mode of dutiful obedience
and the Spirit-inspired and facilitated fulfillment of them with
profound insight and joy. St. Paul constantly urges his flock
to grow to Christian maturity and docility to the Spirit (Rom
8-17; Gal. 8: 2-5, etc.) Thus the numbering and classification
of the gifts is less significant than the fact they are given in the
plenitude symbolized by the number seven. Actual reference to
the various qualities of action and insight assigned to the traditional seven names of the gifts can be found scattered through
both Testaments.
These virtues which the scholastics classified, but which are
already present in less systematic form in the New Testament
(with a grounding in the Old), are of course existentialized in
Jesus as the New Adam. The imitatio Christi should not be
conceived as a mere Pelagian effort to copy a model, but consists in a participation through the Spirit in the very life of
Christ as Head of the body, the Church (I Cor 12; Jn 15: 1-17) .
The New Law, as Aquinas says, is nothing other than the Holy
Spirit moving the Christian from within to live in Christo.80

4. The Natural Law
How then is this pneumatic Christian ethics to be related to
a philosophical ethics? Protestant theologians usually make no
attempt to develop this relation, although Luther and Calvin
so Hurnma Theologiae, I-II, q.106, a.l.

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BENEDICT

M, ASHLEY,

O.P,

thought that the Scriptures acknowledge such a law. 31 Catholic
moral theology, however, has put great reliance on natural law,
not only in order to dialogue with non-believers on moral
questions, but also to complete its system of concrete moral
norms in the face of new moral problems that arise in every
age, and especially in our rapidly changing technological
society.
The question here does not concern the role of grace either
in the subjective recognition of God's wisdom in visible nature
or in accepting it as a guide to one's life, but whether or not
God's wisdom and will are objectively accessible to human reareson from the observation of creation, as well as from
vealed Law and the Gospel.
The Scriptural foundation for the concept of such an objective natural law is not really obscure. In the two halves of
Psalm 19 a comparison is made between the glory of God manifested in the visible creation and the Torah, and this theme is
found throughout the wisdom literature of the Old Testament.
Sirach (42: 15-50: 23) compares the wisdom of God manifested
in creation with the history of the great Hebrew saints who
have kept God's commandments; and Baruch (3: 9-4: 4)
mingles his thanksgiving for the gift of the Torah with the
praise of God's works in creation.
St. Paul in Romans 1, basing himself on this Old Testament
teaching, declares that both Jews and pagans are answerable
for their conduct to God, because the Jews have the Torah and
the pagans "who do have the law keep it as by instinct, these
men although without the law serve as a law for themselves,
They show that the demands of the law are written in their
hearts " (2: 14-15) ,32
s1 See Paul Althaus, 'l'he Ethics of llf artin Luther (Philadelphia:
Fortress,
1972) and Ronald S. Wallace, Galvin's Doctrine of the Christian Life (Grand
Rapids, Mich.: Eerdmans, 1959) pp. 141-147 for many references to texts.
s2 Ernst Kasemann, Commentary on Romans (Grand Rapids, Mich.: Eerdmans, 1980), pp. 61-68 gives a detailed discussion on the distinction of Paul's
teaching from Hellenistic concepts. See also A. Viard, O.P., Saint Paid:
Epitre aiwi Roma1is (Sources Biblique) (Paris: Gabalda, 1975) pp. 'l'7·8L

SCRIPTURAL

GROUNDS

FOR CONCRETE

MORAL NORMS

15

Granted there is such a natural law comparable to the revealed Law, what is their relation? For the Bible they seem to
be largely identical, as the quotation from Paul seems to indicate. Thus he declares that the pagans are inexcusable for their
practice of idolatry and homosexuality (Rm 1: 18-32) which,
of course, he knew were also condemned by the Torah (Dt
12: 2-3; 23: 18) . On the other hand Paul saw no reason to oblige
Christian Gentiles to obey the Law as regards circumcision or
diet (Gl 1: 12), yet he exhorts them to obey those moral norms
which were common both to ,Jews and Gentiles (1 Cor 5: 1);
" Circumcision counts for nothing, and its lack makes no difference either. What matters is keeping God's commandments" (I Cor. 19) .
Therefore, the distinction, made so clearly by the great Jewish student of the Torah Moses Maimonides and taken over by
Aquinas, between the moral, judicial, and ceremonial precepts
of the Law seems entirely justified by the Scriptures themselves.33 But does this mean that all the revealed moral norms
are accessible to reason
that reciprocally all the content of
the natural law has been revealed? The Scriptures do not seem
to make any such claim. What is clear is that there is a very
considerable overlapping so that much of what sages in all the
cultures of the world have proposed as norms accessible to
human reason and experience can be found more or less explicitly in the Torah. 34
V\Thy, then, not proceed directly to philosophical, natural
law arguments in developing a Christian ethics rather than
struggle with the rabbinic complexities of the Torah? The
answer, of course, is that a theology of Christian life must be
33 Summa Theologiae, I-II, q.99, aa.l-4. For Maimonides see references to
Guide in note 12 above. Maimonides distinguishes 14 classes of commandments,
but these group easily into Aquinas's three.
34 This is the empirical
reason that many deny the specificity of Biblical
ethics, cf. the article of Charles E. Curran "Is There a Catholic and/or
Christian Ethic? ", DCE pp. 60-89; but the theoretical reason seems to be
the influence of Karl Rahner's theory of the universality of grace, see the
article of Joseph Fuchs, S.J., DCE, pp. 3°19.

16

BENEDICT

M. ASHLEY, O.P.

grounded not in human reason but in revelation. The Torah is
the product of the historical experience and ethical reflection of
the Jewish people just as the Nicomachean Ethics is the product
of Greek experience and reflection culminating in the genius of
Aristotle. Yet the difference between the Torah and the Nicomachean Ethics is that the wisdom of the Old Testament is
guaranteed by the inspiration of the Holy Spirit and confirmed by Jesus Christ himself and then by his Church under
the guidance of that Spirit. Although the material content of
the ethical teaching of the Scriptures may be largely identical
with the natural law, it is known by us under a different
formality-that of faith.
Moreover, since the natural law is known through human
experience, and since the Jewish-Christian experience culminating in the encounter with Jesus Christ is the historically unique,
integral, and ultimate self-revelation of God, the insight which
this experience has given into what it is to be truly human
surely must also be uniquely complete. The natural law is
based on an understanding of human nature, but in a world of
sin human nature is nowhere perfectly exemplified except in
Jesus and his holy Mother.
The Magisterium, therefore, has not been mistaken in using
natural law arguments in arriving at certain concrete ethical
norms. 85 While magisterial authority directly extends only to
conserving and developing revealed truth, yet indirectly it can
sometimes discern that revealed ethical truth is also accessible
to reason: for example the Old Testament command against
incest (Lev. 18: 10, etc.) can also be supported by natural law
arguments. Hence it can use such arguments to defend teachings more firmly founded in revelation.
The Magisterium also has the authority to specify revealed
principles of morality so as to meet new ethical problems by
the use of accumulating historical experience and natural law
35 See Josef Fuchs, S.J., Natural Law: A Theological Investigation. (New
York: Sheed and Ward, 1965) pp. 155-162) and Grisez, The Way (note 23
above) p. 198 f.

SCRIPTURAL

GROUNDS FOR CONCRETE

MORAL NORMS

17

analysis. For example, magisterial documents since the last
century have condemned human slavery, although in the New
Testament frequently slaves are urged to be obedient to their
masters (Phl; 1 Tm 6;1-4; Col 4: 22-24; Ti £: 9-10) .
It would seem that such cases of development in Christian
moral teaching should be explained according to the same
principles used in explaining dogmatic development. I would
opt for the view that in these cases the Magisterium is not
deducing a new nonn through a syllogism in which one premise
is known only by reasson, but rather is using new human experience and reasoning as a help in expressing explicitly what
was already formally and implicitly contained in explicitly revealed principles. 36
Thus through historical e1'.vperience and theological dialogue
Christians gradually came to see that if they were bound by
St. Paul's teaching to treat their slaves as brothers (Phl 1516) they could no longer enslave them. Although this reflective
process can be expressed syllogistically, its theological force
comes not from this process of human reason but from faith
seeking to explicitate the full meaning of God's transmitted
Word.

5o New Knowledge frorn History and the Sciences
Thfost recent writers on the revision of moral theology stress
the need to take into account the great current progress in
the historical and scientific disciplines. 37 For some this progress
36 I here follow the view that doctrinal development takes place by explicitation of what is formally, although implicitly, contained in Scripture and
Traditiono For opinions on nature of doctrinal development see Jan Ho Walgrave, Unfolding Revelation (Theological Resources)
(Philadelphia:
Westminster, 1971) ppo 162-1780
statement of concern for such an expansion of
37 For an autobiographical
resources for moral theology see Charles E. Curran, "On-Going Revision:
Personal and Theological Reflections " in On-Going Revision (Notre Dame,
Ind.: Fides Press, 1975) ppo 260-2940 For examples of my own concern see
my essay "A Theological Overview on Recent Research on Sex and Gender " in
Mark F. Schwartz, Albert S. Moraczewski, and James Ao Monteleone, ed,
Sew and Gender: A Theologiccil Scientific Inquiry (Sto Louis: Pope John

18

BENEDICT

M. ASHLEY, O.P.

has rendered the notion of natural law obsolete and requires a
new approach. They argue that natural law theory is based on
the notion of a static, fixed, substantial, metaphysical, universal
human nature known by deduction from a simplistic definition
of what it is to be human, while the modern disciplines emphasize the processive, dynamic, evolutionary, historical, personal, and self-determining character of human existence known
from one perspective by the objective, behavioristic methods of
science and from the other by phenomenology centered in the
subject in relation to his or her perceived world.38 How, then,
are we to integrate this vast fund of knowledge, so different in
form from either Biblical thought or classical natural law
philosophy?
But are the Biblical, the classical, and the modern understanding of what it is to be human really so heterogeneous?
The Bible provides us with an inspired understanding of
humanity as created in God's image, disciplined by God's Law,
and perfectly realized in the New Adam, yet it does not present this understanding as a timeless Platonic idea, but through
historical narratives, codes of law repeatedly rewritten, and a
fund of practical wisdom accumulated through a long dialectical process.
A philosophical conception of natural law need not, as we
have seen, neglect the historical development of our understanding of that law and its application to new problems under
the guidance of the teachings of Jesus and the Magisterium of
his Church in the light of his Spirit. Why, then, need we assume that new knowledge about human origins, the human
body and psyche, the diversification of cultures, and the interaction of social forces must stand in opposition to past knowledge? If the Holy Spirit guided God's people in the past to
profit from their historical experience, why can we not trust
in his guidance now to make use of new truth wisely?
Center, 1984) pp. 1-47 and my book Theologies of the Body: Humanist and
Christian (Braintree, Mass.: same publisher, 1985).
as The survey of Richard M. Gula, What Are They Sayin,g About Mo'l'al
Norms? (New York: Paulist, 1982) seems to be based on this polarization.

SCRIPTURAL

GROUNDS FOR CONCRETE MORAL NORMS

19

Moral theology must be built on a faith which guarantees
that Jesus understood, with a wisdom that cannot be surpassed,
God's intentions for humanity. This understanding confirms
the Old Testament and is transmitted to us without essential
distortion in the New Testament. So grounded, moral theology
can be open to all that the modern disciplines offer as ways of
explicitating and deepening our understanding of Jesus' teaching and applying it practically to current problems. But the
moral theologian must also subject this new knowledge to a
critical analysis both in terms of its own methodology and assumptions and in terms of its consistency with revelation.
What can we hope from this critical employment of modern
scientific knowledge in moral theology? I hope for manifold
gains, but I would like to indicate one kind of help which may
at first seem (and in fact be) risky, but which could bear much
fruit. Moral theology, if it is to free itself from voluntarism,
must constantly seek to found its norms teleologically (but not
by the methodology of consequentialism or proportionalism 89 )
in sound arguments based on what really helps or harms integral human fulfillment. 40
Yet if we look at the classical arguments for many moral
norms we find that they are based on what to the modern mind
appears to be mere impressions or loose generalizations from
common experience that has never been verified. For example,
we forbid masturbation, but give little evidence to prove that it
does anybody any harm. We prescribe fasting but give no
evidence that it does most people any spiritual good. Today
when such assertions are made people rightly look for objective,
scientifically controlled evidence to verify them, because we are
well aware how such assertions can be rooted only in prejudice, old wives' tales, ideology, or manipulative propaganda.
39 On proportionalism
see Benedict M. Ashley, O.P. and Kevin D. O'Rourke,
O.P., Ethics of Health Oare (St. Louis: Catholic Health Association, 1986)
pp. 81-85 and Grisez, The Way (note 23 above) I, pp. 141-172 with references
to literature.
40 Ibid I, pp. 184-189.

BENEDICT M. ASHLEY, O.P.

Why then do we moralists not cooperate with scientists to
subject our practical norms to objective tests? If we were to
do so our teaching would certainly be more credible to the
modern public. Thus more women have been convinced that
contraception is wrong by the evidence of the dangers of antiovulant drugs than by a.bstract arguments.
The risk of subjecting our traditional moral norms to empirical verification of course is high. It will be valid only if such
studies are well planned through cooperation between theologians and scientists, if the limitations of the scientific method
are well understood, and if the publication of the results is free
of unwarranted claims.
To take the example already given: it is common to read
today that masturbation is physically and psychology harmless. When one inquires of medical and psychological experts,
however, one discovers that they have not asked themselves
the questions which are theologically relevant. A moralist wants
to know what effect the practice of masturbation has (I) on
the freedom of the agent; (2) on the dispositions of the masturbator toward the use of sex in marriage as the expression of
unselfish love. It is such questions that must be subjected to
empirical research (insofar as this is technically possible), before we can answer the question as to whether masturbation is
truly harmful in a way convincing to our contemporaries. 41
Of course some will say that moral values are of a totally
different order of reality from those which are subject to scientific observation. They wish to found ethics on an ontology
or phenomenology which completely abstracts from outward
experience or the pragmatic consequences of moral action. Such
an attitude, however, is difficult to reconcile with the down-toearth, practical attitude of the Bible, or even with the better
versions of classical natural law theory. St. Thomas Aquinas
gives as his sole reason for considering fornication morally
41 See

my essay, "A Theological Overview'',

note 37 above.

SCRIPTURAL

GROUNDS FOR CONCRETE MORAL NORMS

21

wrong the simple fact that it runs the risk of begetting children
deprived of the protections of marriage. 42

6. Conclusion
I have argued that if moral theology is to take as its first
principle the faith that Jesus Christ is the supreme norm of
Christian morality, then we must turn to the Scriptures as
authentically interpreted in the living tradition of the Church
for an account of him and his way. Although the Bible contains a great variety of literary forms and of historically conditioned theological perspectives, some of which are in dialectical rather than synthetic relations to each other, as canonical,
inspired Scripture the Bible finds its unity in Christ. The
moralist, therefore, must take into account all of the voices of
Scripture, none of which are to be neglected as irrelevant to
our times. Hence the foundation of Christian morality in
Jewish morality should be gratefully acknowledged and fully
utilized. This means a much more serious study of the Torah
than has been usual.
Jesus, and after him Paul, accepted and presupposed the
Jewish way of life as the framework for Christian life, although
they saw no reason that its liturgical, governmental, and dietary
customs should be imposed on non-Jews. Hence Christian
moral theology if it is to have a concrete normative character
and not be reduced merely to exhortation to follow one's personal conscience or to a philosophical ethics, must begin with
the system of moral norms of the Old and New Testament,
universalized, interpreted, and exemplified by Jesus and the
apostles.
Moral theologians in their work of universalizing and systematically analyzing this Biblical ethics and applying it to
new problems rightly make use of natural law arguments because the Bible itself acknowledges and confirms their validity
as rooted in the order of creation and the gift of human reason
42 .'Summa Theologiae

II-II, q.154, a.1 c.

BENEDICT

M. ASHLEY, O.P.

and free will. To have theological force, however, such natural
law reasoning must always be subjected to theological criticism
in the light of revealed principles and norms. Today it is important that this natural law argumentation should not rest
merely on common experience but should be verified by the objective and controlled methods of the secular disciplines (within the limits of these methods) both in order to further its intrinsic development, and also to make it more understandable
and credible to the modern public.
BENEDICT

Aquinas Institute of Theology
St. Louis, Missouri

M. ASHLEY, O.P.

INTELLIGO UT CREDAM:
ST. AUGUSTINE'S CONFESSIONS*

B

APTISM INTO the Catholic Church ended Augustine's
Odyssey through the intellectual and spiritual seas of
late antiquity. His Confessi.ons tells us how he joined
the Manicheans, became attached to astrology, imbibed Aristotle, was attracted to the Academy, learned Epicureanism, discovered the Platonists, and finally came home to Christianity. 1
From the first moment he read Cicero, then, Augustine became
a seeker of wisdom; few of humanity's questions and concerns
failed to move him. His initial conversion to Manicheanism, indeed, was prompted by its alleged ability to give a satisfactory
response to the questions raised by human experience. In the
same way, his initial aversion to Christianity in part arose
from its alleged inability to provide such an account.
Still, the nature of Augustine's ultimate conversion to Christianity is not entirely clear. He certainly indicates that a properly tutored biblical faith is the only solution to those questions
and concerns which so vexed him: " credo ut intelligam," as
Anselm formulated Augustine's understanding. But what is the
role of philosophical reflection in this? Does reason work only
within the context of faith? Is it merely the scullery maid for
explicating the understanding of divine revelation? Or does
Augustine say or at least show that unaided human reason has
another sphere of operation? Can human reason understand
*Earlier versions of this paper were read at the Twentieth International
Medieval Congress, Western Michigan University, Kalamazoo, Michigan, May
11, 1985, and at the University of Dallas Augustine Colloquium, November
22, 1985. I am grateful to Dr. Michael Platt for his helpful comments and
suggestions.
1 All references to the Confessions are from J. Gibb and W. Montgomery,
The Confessions of Augustine (Cambridge, 1927).

.JAMES LEHRBERGER,

O. CIST.

anything about God, human beings, and the universe before
the advent of faith? While Augustinian scholarship has tended
to stress the way in which philosophical thought. especially
Neo-Platonism, operates within Christian faith, I hope to show
that Augustine conceives the " faith and reason " relation in
broader terms. 2 More specifically, in this paper I hope to show
that the Confessions presents reason itself, without revelation,
as capable of assaying the possibility of any religious claim to
2 The problem of "faith and reason,"
or " authority and philosophy," in
Augustine's thought has a history of critical analysis reaching back to the
last century. The early discussions of this question have been traced by Sister
Mary Patricia Garvey, in Saint Augustine: Christian or N ea-Platonist
(Milwaukee, 1939), pp. 3-40, and more briefly by J. O'Meara, in St. A.ugustine,
A.gainst the Academics, "Ancient Christian Writers," XU (Baltimore, 1950),
pp. 19-22. The more recent discussions have failed to produce any consensus.
H. A. Wolfson, in The Philosophy of the Church Fathers, I (Cambridge, 1956),
pp. 127-140, sees Augustine as illustrating the patristic "double faith"
against Manichean credulity. R. Cushman, in "Faith and Reason in the
Thought of St. Augustine," Church History, 19, 1950), 271-294, awards the
primacy to faith on the basis of the perversity of the will. P. Courcelle, in
Recherches sur les Confessions de Saint Augustin (Paris, 1950), pp. 251-255,
understands Augustine to progress from Neo-Platonism to Christianity without abandoning the former.
R. Holte, in Beatitude et Sagesse: Saint
Augustin et le probleme de la fin de l'homme dans la philosophie ancienne
(Paris, 1962), pp. 373-386, considers the cooperation of reason and authority
in Augustine's use of Christianity to confront the philosophic problems of
his age. J. O'Meara, in The Young Augustine (New York, 1965), pp. 196197, admits a clarification in Augustine's thought but no basic change in his
understanding of the primacy of faith over reason. R. O'Connell, in Saint
Augusti.ne's Confessions: the Odyssey of a Soul (Cambridge, 1969), insists
on a strong N eo-Platonic influence on Augustine's understanding of the
human being as the " fallen soul." A. H. Armstrong, in " St. Augustine and
Christian Platonism," Plotinian and Christian Studies (London, 1979), Ch.
XI, 1-66, argues that the designation "Christian Platonist" is insufficient to
characterize Augustine; the way in which Augustine takes up and transforms
Platonism in light of his Christianity is critical. Alfred Matthews, in The
Development of St. Augustine from Neo-Platonism to Christianity (Washington, 1980), holds that Augustine's understanding of Christianity matured, so
that its tension with Neo-Platonism became more apparent to him. M.
Sciacca, in Saint Augi1.st·in et le Neo-Platonisme (Paris, 1956), pp. 15-19,
holds Augustine to have tried to establish an integral understanding of
human nature by Christianizing Neo-Platonic themes.

INTELLIGO UT CREDAM;

ST. AUGUSTINE'S

CONFESSIONS

25

be the divinely revealed truth. 3 While faith alone may be able
to give wisdom, reason of itself can discover :folly. There are
rational criteria against which not only every philosophic but
also every religious claim must be measured. Reason, in short .•
provides a norma negativa for faith. I intend to explore these
criteria as 'Stated or implied in the Confessions' critique of
Manicheanism especially, but also of the natural philosophers
and the astrologers.
Augustine himself gives warrant for considering reason as a
yardstick for measuring the claims of religion. In the context
of his long-awaited discussion with Faustus, Augustine compares Manichean doctrine with the teachings of the natural
philosophers and astronomers. After noting that the astronomers explained many things about the heavens which the
Manicheans did not, he adds: " But I was ordered to believe
[Faustus's] writings, and
belief did not agree with the accounts discovered by mathematics and by my own eyes, but
was very different." 4 Augustine had to accept " on faith "
what contradicted the evidence of his senses and reason. This
failure on the part of Faustus to resolve Augustine's difficulties on these points played a crucial role in his later rejection
of Manicheanism. 5 Human reason can discover certain truths
at least about the world around it. A religious claim that cona Among the very few studies devoted to the actual criteria of a rational
faith are the following. F. E. Van Fleteren, in "Authority and Reason, Faith
and Understanding in the Thought of St. Augustine," Augustinian Studies, 3
method" to establish that for
(19'72), 33-71, uses the "phenomenological
Augustine sanctity of life is a criterion of authority and catholicity is a sign
of the true Church (cf. Confess·ions V:3, 6, and 9; and VI:8). W. G. von
Jess, in "Reason as Propaedeutie to Faith in Augustine," International
Journal for Philosophy of Religion, 5 ( l!l7 4), 225-233, sees reason as being
for Augustine prior to faith in questions of certitude, of the origin of the
soul, and of natural theology. F. J. Crosson, in "Philosophy, Religion, and
Faith," Proceedings of the American Catholic Philosophical Association, 52
(1978), 168-176, sees understanding operative in the diverse contexts of myth,
history, and philosophy. In different ways Augustine finds God in all three.
4 See V, 6: "ibi autem credere
iubebar, et ad illas rationes numeris et
oculis meis exploratas non occurrebat et longe diversum erat."

5V, 13.

26

JAMES LEHRBERGER,

O. CIST.

tradicts what reason truly knows-with mathematical certainty, no less-cannot be true. Since neither Faustus nor anyone else could give an account reconciling Manichean doctrine
with astronomy, nor give an account showing the astronomers
wrong, there was a head-on conflict between faith and reason.
The first element of Augustine's negative norm thus comes to
light: religion may not contradict reason but must be in harmony with it. Augustine leaves no room for a" double truth"
approach to religion and philosophy. 6 That which is accepted
on faith cannot be religiously true and philosophically false; if
natural philosophy and astronomy teach rationally knowable
truth, no true religious belief can contradict them. Hence consistency with reason and the compatibility of reason and revelar
tion are basic for any religious claim to be valid. A religion
that denies a truth possessing 7
8 = 10 certainty cannot be
truly revealed. 7
It is important to understand precisely what Augustine is
and is not claiming. He is not saying that all truth must be
discovered by reason; nor is he saying that a religious claim
must be proved by reason. Either of these assertions would involve the unexamined assumption that the human mind is
fully commensurate to reality. Still less is he claiming that the
mind is utterly incapable of attaining any knowledge of reality.
Reason can find no grounds within itself for either rationalism
or skepticism. Rather, he is saying that the human mind can
know certain things-e.g., the heavenly bodies' motions-and
know that it knows them. Further, he is saying that no revelation can be true which contradicts or is incompatible with what
reason truly knows of itself. This and this alone is the claim

+

reference to the
6 By the use of the term " double truth," no anachronistic
later so-called "Latin Averroist" debates is intended. Rather, the term is
used only as a foil for Augustine's understanding of the proper response to
the perennial " faith and reason" question.
1 Cf. VI, 6. While Augustine moves from the belief that he must have " 7
3 = 10" certainty in order to have faith to the understanding that " 7
3
= 10 " certainty is a consequence of faith, he never denies that true faith
must be reasonable. In this sense "7
3 = 10" truth remains a criterion
of faith.

+
+

+

INTELLIGO UT CREDAM:

ST. AUGUSTINE'S

CONFESSIONS

27

of Augustine's principle of the noncontradiction of reason and
religion.
Why, then, did Augustine not abandon the Manicheans and
become a natural philosopher? By his own account the natural
philosophers discovered truth where the Manicheans imagined
falsity. A clue may be found in what he resolved to do after
meeting with Faustus. "But my every attempt by which I
had resolved to advance in that sect [Manicheanism] collapsed
as I came to know that man [Faustus]. Not that I altogether
separated from them, but as if unable to find anything better
than what I had in some way blundered into, I meanwhile
resolved to be content with it, unless perhaps something more
worthy of choice should chance to show itself." 8 Manifestly,
then, the natural philosophers did not seem to be " anything
better" or" something more worthy of choice."
The natural philosophers gave the right answers but did not
ask the right questions. They could explain solstices, equinoxes,
and eclipses; but they could not explain God, the soul, freedom,
or evil. They knew the creation but were unconcerned both
with the Creator and-what is in some respects even more important-with their own minds, by which they knew the creation.9 Augustine's point is not only that the natural philsophers did not find the true God. It is more that they did not
s See V, 13: "ceterum conatus omnis meus, quo proficere in illa secta
statueram, illo homine cognito prorsus intercidit, non ut ab eis omnino separarer, sed quasi melius quicquam non inveniens eo, quo iam quoquo modo
inrueram, contentus interim esse decreeram, nisi aliquid forte, quod magis
eligendum esset, eluceret."
9 Cf. the whole of Augustine's
discussion and critique at V, 3-5, passim.
Note especially this point: "sed non nouerunt uiam, verbum tuum, per quod
fecisti ea quae numerant et ipsos qui numerant et sensum, quo cernunt quae
numerant, et mentem, de qua numerant" (V, 5). The most exact astronomy
gives knowledge neither of God nor of self ( "ipsos qui ... sensum quo ...
mentem de qua").
The importance of self-understanding for understanding anything is itself
a central theme of B. J. F. Lonergan's work. A fairly recent attempt to read
the Confessions through Lonergan's eyes is David Burrell's "Reading the Confessions of Augustine: an Exercise in Theological Understanding," Journal
of Religion, 50 ( 1970), 327-351. Burrell criticizes the reductionistic interpre-

28

JAMES LEHRBERGER,

0. CIST.

seek Him. In failing to examine the very power by which they,
knew the heavenly motions, they cut off the very possibility of
searching for Him. The questions they asked could be answered without reference to God and the soul; their answers
did not provide a. springboard for these other questions.
This brings to light Augustine's second criterion for evaluating any claim to wisdom: reason demands the explanation of
every area of human experience, of the whole range of human
phenomena. No system of thought can be adequate which fails
to shed light on all the questions of specifically human existence. A system of thought which fails even to ask reason about
reason-its source, activity, and goal-is not 'rational." Systematic obliviousness to the questions of good and evil, the
soul and freedom, God and human beings, is not wisdom. This
principle operates as an instrument of critique against both
religious and philosophical claims. As the first principle is a
concretization 0£ the principle of noncontradiction, so the second principle is a concretization
the principle that the whole
is greater than any part. An explanation of any part, no matter how careful, which ignores the other parts, to say nothing
0£ the whole, cannot claim to be wisdom. Augustine's criticism
of the natural philosophers is on just these grounds: they confused an account of the motions of the heavenly bodies with an
account of the totality of being. Their explanation, in short,
was not " comprehensive."
It is to be noted that this criterion posits no particular answers to the questions involved. Augustine's point is not (or
not only) that the natural philosophers had some uncongenial
answers but rather that they had no understanding of the relevant questions. Thus Augustine's rejection of natural philosophy is to be contrasted with his rejection of Academic skepticism.10 The Academics asked the relevant questions but did
tations of Augustine by certain psychologists who fail to appreciate the way
"Mother Monica" functions in the Confessions. See also Crosson, cited in
Note 3 above.
10 v, 19.

INTELUGO UT CREDAM: ST. AUGUSTINE'S

CONFESSIONS

29

not answer them. With the natural philosophers it is the converse.
During his Manichean phase Augustine was taken with the
astrologers. Unlike the natural philosophers, they did not
ignore vast areas of human experience. Indeed, astrology at
once enabled him to deny responsibility for his evil actions,
since they were written in the stars, and to exercise a measure
of foresight over his own courses of action, since it seemed so
often to predict the future. Still, there were doubts and hesitations about it. Vindicianus from the first tried to dissuade
Augustine from an interest in the occult, saying that" chance"
and" instinct" accounted for the accuracy of astrology. 11 But
the authority of astrological literature held him in check. As he
writes: " I found as yet no certain proof ... that the true
things predicted by the man consulted were spoken by fortune
or chance, not by the stargazer's art." 12
The proof Augustine was looking for came first in Firminius's
story of his own father and his father's slave. Each conceived
a child;
children were born at the same
on the same
property, yet their lives were as different as the conditions of
their births. Again, Augustine himself reflected on twins he
had known and saw how their lives differed. The biblical story
of Jacob and Esau merely confirmed what was open for all to
see.13
Astrology attempted to provide a comprehensive account of
life in terms of the time and place of birth. But whatever other
true predictions astrologers made, they could not explain the
divergent lives of twins. Astrology's failure in this crucial test
case meant that it was incapable of explaining fully the phenomena it was supposed to explain. This led Augustine to reject it and to accept chance and intuition as the suitable explanation of any accuracy the astrologers might claim.
11 IV,

5.
IV, 6: ". . . nullum certum quale quaerebam documentum adhuc
inueneram, quo mihi sine ambiguitate appareret, quae ab eis consultis uera
dicerentur, forte uel sorte, non ante inspectorem siderum dici."
is VII, 8-10.
12 See

so

JAMES LEHRBERGER, 0. CIST.

By implication, then, the Confessions lays down a third criterion by which reason may evaluate the claims of any authoritative system. Any philosophical or religious system must have
within itself the elements necessary to explain all the facts
which it claims to be able to explain. Augustine's third principle is based on the analysis of what rational explanation is to
begin with. An explanation is nothing more than an arbitrary
hypothesis or unexamined opinion unless it shows that it can
render intelligible all of the facts falling within its compass.
Even if, of course, an alleged revelation, a religious belief, or a
philosophical system can explain all the facts, that does not
establish its truth; perhaps an alternative hypothesis could do
so as well. But if it cannot do so, it is certainly false. Reason's demand £or an explanation of each and every fact within
the entire range of human phenomena emerges, then, as Augustine's third criterion by which any system of belief may be
evaluated. Religion's acount of life must be" complete."
The principles of " comprehensive " and " complete " explanation are related but by no means identical. The former excludes the error of confusing an explanation in one area of inquiry with an explanation of the whole of reality. The latter
excludes any explanation in any area of inquiry which fails to
explain all the data of that area. By the former Augustine
criticizes the natural philosophers-not because their explanations of the heavenly bodies are false, but because their inquiries are too narrowly based. By the latter Augustine criticizes the .astrologers precisely because their explanations in
themselves fail to account for all the relevant facts.
Augustine treats Manicheanism and astrology as standing or
falling in close proximity. Book III recounts his conversion to
the former and Book IV his embrace of the latter; similarly,
Book VI recounts his abandonment of Manicheanism and Book
VII his repudiation of ·astrology. Still, however closely the two
are related, they are not identical. A rational critique of
astrology is different from a rational critique of Manicheanism.
The three principles of rational thought so far brought to light

INTELLIGO UT CREDAM:

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31

do not of themselves account for his rejection of Manicheanism.
However necessary, they are not sufficient for this. After all,
" something more worthy of choice " or " anything better " had
not yet showed itself.
In the fifth book of the Confessions Augustine sets forth in
a systematic way the principal tenets of the Manichean doctrines of God, freedom, and evil. In a considerable part of the
latter books of the Confessions these ·same points are discussed
from the perspective of Catholic doctrine. The Manicheans
held that God is an expanded mass of lightsome matter and
that the human mind is a particle of this mass; they held that
evil is a contracted mass of corporeal matter; and they believed that the real, inner self is not responsible for the evil
deeds done by the contracted mass of a person's physical nature.14 The intermingling of the two masses and the liberation
of the good particles from the evil mass characterizes the
Manichean solution to the problems of God, freedom, and evil.
Augustine, as we know, came finally to accept the Catholic
solution to these problems. God is completely good, and everything He creates-down to the lowest particle of almost formless matter-is good. 10 Evil, far from being physical matter,
is the utter absence of being; were something completely evil,
it would cease to be. 16 And the single human will, in turning
away from the fullest Good to incomplete creaturely goods, is
responsible for its own evil. 17 What is it, then, that opened the
way for Christianity, properly understood, to become attractive to Augustine? What did he see as the failure of Manichean
dualism?
In the first place, even if Manicheanism could offer a consistent account of the whole range of phenomena ·and individual facts, it could do this only by failing to "save the appearances " of things. Augustine introduces his readers to the
14

v, 18-20.

10

VII, 6-'7; cf. XII, 8.

1svn, is.
11 VII,

22.

.JAMES LEHRBERGER,

0. CIST.

Manicheans by relating the delightful little story about the figs
eaten by the elect. When one of the elect plucks a fig, both it
and the "mother tree "shed milky tears; and when he eats and
digests that fig, he breathes forth bits of god. 18 Augustine tells
this story in such a way that it evokes a chuckle; but there is
a deadly serious point at stake. The Manicheans failed to respect the fig as a fig; they anthropomorphized and divinized a
member of the vegetable kingdom. Thei:r dualistic materialism
enabled or compelled them to introduce the principles of a
higher genus-human o:r divine-to explain the reality of a
lower genus. By introducing "particles of god " into the fig,
they explained away the appearance of the fig. A simple fruit,
which should be explained by principles applicable to the vegetable realm, was now made a "god-bearer" requiring a divine
principle of explanation. A system which introduces elements
from a higher genus to explain that which can be explained
without them. fails to respect the appearances of things. Thus
a fourth criterion of the rational analysis of religion emerges:
no principles beyond those necessary to account for the phenomena may be part of a
explanation of reality.
The Manicheans sinned against this principle of thought by
raising a lower thing to a higher level but equally they sinned
in the other direction as well: they explained higher things in
terms of the lower principles. Not only did they raise the fig
to the level of a divine prison, but they reduced God and the
human mind to a level beneath that of figs-Le., to pure
matter.
In explaining why he could not escape from Manichean
dualism, Augustine notes that he could not conceive of spiritual
substance. 19 Indeed, he cites this as the key element which,
when finally understood, broke the stranglehold of Manicheanism on him. 20 Until he broke through to the notion of
spiritual substance he was unable to give an adequate account,
1s III, 18.
19

v, 19-20.

2l• VII,

20 and 26; cf. III, 12.

INTELLIGO UT CREDAM:

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83

as he tells us, of his own mind. 21 The problem lay in the fact
that mind was not given to him in the way that physical, material objects were. Augustine did not come to a knowledge
of his own mind by sensing it; his mind was not another object to be understood, but rather that by which he understood.22 Through memory, the mind's storehouse, all the sensed
objects were reviewed and then thought through. 23 The mens,
in other words, had to be explained as the subject which knows,
not as an object which is known. 24 But this required a nonmaterial mode of existence on the part of the mind.
Augustine's critique of Manichean dualism is reminiscent of
his critique of the astronomers. The astronomers and natural
philosophers understood some aspects of the cosmos but failed
even to seek understanding of themselves, let alone God. The
Manicheans did attempt to understand themselves and God,
but in terms derived from the material cosmos. Because the
physical cosmos manifestly differs from
by which the elect
are knowers, they tried to account for the difference by positing different kinds of matter. But no matter how Iightsome or
expanded the matter of mind or of God might be, it would
still be matter. As such it could not explain the activities of
mind, which require an immaterial principle or power. 25
This reduction of mind to matter was echoed by the reduction of God to the same status and nature as the human mind.
God as expanded mass, rather than as the archetype of which
the human mind is the image, would have to be finite and
limited by evil mass. Not only, then, did Augustine in his
Manichean phase fail to understand the human mind, but
21 VII,

22 VII,

2; cf. V, 13.

2. Book VII has a density of references to the " acies mentis"
which "sees" rather than "is seen." Cf. VII: 1, 5, 12, 16 (" oculum animae
meae "), etc. The importance of the "menR" as knowing subject rather than
as object known has been stressed by Lonergan, Verbum: Word and Idea in
Aquinas (Notre Dame, l!l67), pp. xii-xv.
23 x, 17-18.
24 X, 9 and 25.
20 VII, 2 and 20.

34

JAMES LEHRBERGER,

O. CIST.

equally he failed to understand its divine source and origin. 26
In recounting all of this, Augustine subtly brings to light the
principle of thought or reason which enabled him to reject
Manicheanism: all the principles sufficient to account for the
phenomena must be present and active in a credible religion.
Activities consequent upon ·a higher genus of being cannot be
explained by 'a lower genus. A mental reality cannot be explained by causal principles derived from the inframental order.
This fifth criterion is the natural complement to the fourth:
the appearances must not only he saved; they must also be
sufficiently explained.
Augustine's breakthrough, by this principle, to his own mind
as the key to understanding God enabled him to see the superfluities of the Manichean system. Because they had not understanding of the God Who Is Above the Cosmos, the Manicheans had to invent "five caverns of darkness" and postulate
a complex cosmology.21 None of this, of course, had the slightest empirical or rational basis; neither the astronomers nor the
natural philosophers had •any knowledge of these things. Nor
was any of this necessary for Augustine's pursuit of religious
truth; astronomical or cosmological truths are part of astronomy ·and cosmology, not of true religion.28 Indeed, by a kind
of early version of Ockham's razor, Augustine slashes away at
the " caverns of darkness " and the " five elements." These
have been introduced superfluously, both as cosmological facts
and as religious principles. On neither ground can they stand.
Augustine, then, indicates a sixth criterion for the rational
evaluation of a religion: assertions about the facts of the physical world must have an empirical foundation. Claims about
the make-up and constitution of this world, the world available
through human experience, whose only basis is the internal
logic of the religion itself, must be dismissed as fictions. The
proper principle for the discerning of facts-as distinguished
20VII, 3.
211II,

10-11.

2sv, s.

INTELLIGO UT CREDAM:

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CONFESSIONS

35

from the outpourings of uncontrolled imagination-is not
superfluity but empirical economy or simplicity.
In criticizing the Manicheans, astronomers, and astrologers,
then, Augustine has developed certain implicit but real criteria
by which to evaluate any religion. Let us recapitulate these six
criteria. (1) Religious belief must be in harmony with, not in
opposition to, what reason knows for itself. This may be called
the "principle of the noncontradiction of faith and reason."
(Q) Religious belief must address itself to the entire realm of
human life; it must 'avoid taking an explanation of one limited
set of observable facts for a successful account of reality as a
whole. This may be called the " principle of comprehensive
explanation." (3) To be credible, a religious faith must be consistent with each and every fact of human experience; if any
fact contradicts the belief, that religion becomes incredible. We
may call this the" principle of complete explanation!' (4) To
explain the appearances of things, a religion may introduce no
principles beyond those necessary; this is especially true in the
case of anthropomorphism, We may call this the "principle
of necessary conditions of explanation." (5) To be credible, a
religion must possess all the principles sufficient to account for
the varied phenomena of human life. This is especially cogent
against any reductionism. This may be named the " principle
of sufficient conditions for explanation." (6) Finally, a credible
faith must introduce no fictions into the world of experienced
phenomena; the experienced phenomena of human life, which
religion attempts to explain, are the same for the believer and
for the non-believer. This may he named the "principle of
empirical discernment of facts!'
These six principles, though, must be understood aright; that
is, they must be understood both in their unity and in their
diversity. Their unity lies in their being multiple dimensions
of a single norm governing the rational evaluation of religious
claims. These principles arise from and return to a unitary understanding of the requirements for rational faith; they a:re not
separate, discrete, and isolated precepts. On the other hand,

36

JAMES LEHRBERGER,

0. CIST.

neither ·are they six manifestations or modalities of one principle. Their differences from each other are revealed by their
being irreducible to each other. Every one of them brings rto
light another facet of religious belief for rational evaluation.
This diversity in unity appears in the fact that these principles bear on different objects. In the broadest terms, they
bear either on the character of the phenomena which require
an explanation or on the character of the religious belief which
claims to be the explanation of the phenomena. More specifically, three of these principles function -as criteria by which the
integrity of human experience may be secured; they prevent
the corruption of life experience both by including all facts and
excluding all :fictions. The other three principles function as
criteria by which the explanatory power of the religion may
be tested; they stand watch over the claim of any religion to
be the truth, the explanation of reality, by demanding of that
religion coherence with itself and consistency with the facts.
Concretely, Augustine's three criteria which have been called
here the principles of comprehensive explanation, complete explanation, and the empirical discernment of facts bear on the
experienced realities of human life. These principles are intended to ensure the integrity or wholeness of experienced
reality as the object of religious explanation. The astronomers
ignored vast areas of human experience, and so their very index
of reality was not " comprehensive." The astrologers failed to
reflect upon the divergent lives of twins, and so their inventory
of facts was not" complete." The Manicheans dreamed up an
imaginary cosmos, and so their universe was :fictional rather
than " factual." By the first two of these three principles
Augustine secures the inclusive character of the whole: no inconvenient fact or range of facts may be excluded from the
reality which religion is supposed to illuminate. By the third,
Augustine ensures the exclusive character of the whole: the
whole of reality is not only " whole " but also " real "; imagined
ingredients constitute no part of this whole. By the first two
of these three principles, then, Augustine demands of any reli-

INTELLIGO UT CREDAM: ST, AUGUSTINE'S

CONFESSIONS

87

gion that it encompass all the facts; by the third he demands
that it encompass only the facts, The three principles together
secure the whole of reality and all things within it, A rationally
credible religion accounts for this reality om,ni et soli,
The three principles herein named the noncontradiction of
faith and reason, the necessary conditions of explanation, and
the sufficient conditions 0£ explanation address the intelligibility of any religion's account of human life, Securing the whole
of reality is one thing; adequately accounting for it is another.
These three principles exclude ways of inadequately accounting
for the whole. The Manichean explanation of the cosmos was
mathematically false, and so it contradicted reason. The
Manicheans divinized figs, and so they introduced "unnecessary" principles into their religious account. Finally, they reduced mind to matter, and so they failed to have principles
"sufficient" to account for the reality. The first of this group
of Augustine's principles safeguards the credibility of religion
by insisting that it be at least a rational possibility. The second
protects the explanatory character of the religious account of
reality by insisting that it not negate the very facts it is supposed to explain: the fig must remain a simple fig. The third
of these principles secures the explanatory character of a credible religion by demanding that it actually account for the
phenomena it claims to be able to explain: matter is no explanation of mind at alL A religious account of life which either
(l) is not a rational possibility, (2) "explains away" the reality it is supposed to explain, or (3) fails to explain the facts of
experience is ipso facto incredible; a credible religion passes all
three tests,
By these six criteria, then, Augustine puts forth a unified
program for examining religious claims by reason alone. His
two-pronged investigation tests both the facts which any religion claims to be able to explain and the explanatory character
of any religious account of the facts, Only by meeting these criteria can a religion claim credibility. Of course Augustine is
far from claiming that mere credibility is sufficient .to com-

88

.JAMES LEHRBERGER,

0. CIST.

mand the assent of faith; that demands a healing of the will
by grace. But Augustine does understand rational credibility
to be a praeparatio evangelica. He derives his criteria from reason alone; they do not follow from but pave the way for his
acceptance of baptism. Moreover, while it would take us too
far afield to show how the Catholic religion fulfilled Augustine's
criteria and thus passed his test, for present purposes it suffices
to recall that Ambrose's preaching cleared up his misconceptions of Catholicism, just as Faustus in his own way had cleared
up his misconceptions of Manicheanism.
To conclude: religious claims are subject to rational investigation.29 Reason is a tool not only for articulating faith but
29 Augustine's
understanding of the relation of religion and reason may
illuminate more than one question asked by contemporary scholars in the
philosophy of religion. In particular his understanding seems relevant to the
question of the verification and falsification of religious statements. A. :Flew
denies meaning to religious statements which lack any criterion by which
they may be proved false; God as the " invisible gardener " is simply an
" imaginary gardener." On the other hand, R. Hare accuses Flew of confusing a "blik" with an explanation.
(See A. Flew and A. Macintyre, New
Essays in Philosophical Theology [London, 1955], pp. 96-103.) Augustine's
six principles do, nevertheless, answer Flew's call for criteria of falsification.
In particular Augustine does falsify the claims of the Manicheans and the
astrologers. Similarly, his understanding of the role of reason in religious
assent safeguards such an assent from being a mere "blik." Hare's lunatic,
who believes that all Oxford dons are intending to kill him, does not satisfy
Augustine's criteria. While the gentility of the dons need not contradict a
homicidal intent, such a suspicion as the lunatic's is neither necessary nor
sufficient to explain the dons' lives, manners, and behavior. The insanity of
the lunatic lies in the fact that his suspicion is as unnecessary for explaining
the dons' behavior as is the divinization of figs for explaining their nature,
<LS well as in the fact that the dons' behavior is as insufficient to express a
murderous intent as matter is to account for mind. In short, the lunatic's
insanity is revealed by the fact that he "explains away" rather than explains the dons' gentility.
Similarly, Leo Strauss claims that the relationship of philosophy and
revelation is one of primordial and unresolvable conflict. Each claims to be
the right way of life simply while neither can refute nor be refuted by the
other. In particular, Strauss argues that the personal experience of the
prophet, allegedly validatecl by miracles, gives no rational basis for credence;
on the other hand, philosophy has failed to achieve that "true and adequate"
account of the whole which alone disproves revelation by rendering it super-

INTELLIGO UT CREDAM:

ST. AUGUSTINE'S

CONFESSIONS

39

for criticizing it as well; it stands as a norma negativa against
which every religious claim must be measured. And only to
the extent tha:t religion passes reason's test is it truly credible.
Reason's test of religion is that it be able to give an account
of the whole of reality: an " account " is an account only insofar as it is noncontradictory, necessary, and sufficient; and the
" whole " is the whole only insofar as it is factual, comprehensive, and complete.
JAMES LEHRBERGER,

0. CIST.

University of Dallas and
St. Thomas More Institute
Dallas, Texas

fiuous. (See Leo Strauss, "The Mutual Influence of Theology and Philosophy", The Independent Journal of Philosophy, (3: 1979) pp. 111-118. See
also Michael Platt, "Leo Strauss: Three Quarrels, Three Questions, One Life"
in The Crisis of Liberal Democracy: A Straussian Perspective. ed. K.Deutsch
and W. Sofer (Albany:SUNY Press, 1987) pp. 17-28). Augustine's six principles, however, anticipate Strauss's difficulty; they look not merely to the
prophet's " personal experience" but to the revelation's power to provide a
"true and adequate " account of the whole. Hence, while revelation goes
'beyond" reason, it is insufficient to say therefore that it fa "possibly true,
possibly false or possibly good, possibly bad" (Strauss, p. 115). Augustine's
principles are designed to separate the "false and bad" from the "possibly
true and good". In short, Augustine claims that the Christian revelation
answers the philosopher's demand for a "true and adequate" account of the
whole.

THOMISTIC METAETIDCS AND A
PRESENT CONTROVERSY

X

OOD STARTING point for understanding the recent
controversy regarding the Grisez-Finnis interpretaition
oi St. Thomas Aquinas's ethical theory is Finnis's
claim that "by a 'Simple act of non-inferential understanding
one grasps that the objeot of the [natural] inclination which one
experiences is an instance of a general form of good, for oneself
(and others like one) ." 1 For here Finnis is denying an inferential process by which one moves from a theoretical understanding (" understanding this nature from the outside, as it
were" 2 ) of what inclinations humans ,as humans have to the
conclusion that the object oi the particular inclination in question is ·a human good. Instead, he is asserting that it is in a
practical context that one understands an object of an inclination to be a human good, and thus generates, via the practical
reason, ·a practical, prescriptive principle. An example of such
a principle is " Knowledge is something good to have " which,
for Finnis, is the same logically as " Knowledge is a good to be
pursued " 3 which, in turn, is equivalent to "Knowledge ought
to be pursued ", 4 which is a prescriptive ("normative") rather
than descriptive (factual) utterance. 5
1Natural Law and Natural Rights (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1980; hereafter NLNR), p. 34. Cf. Fundamentals of Ethics (Washington, D.C.: Georgetown University Press, 1983; hereafter FE), pp. 20-22.
2NLNR p. 34.
s Ibid., p. 63.
4lbid., p. 42, note 56; "The Basic Principles of Natural Law: A Reply to
Ralph Mclnerny," John Finnis and Germain Grisez, American Journal of Jurisprudence 26 ( 1981), pp. 21-31 (hereafter Reply to Mcinerny), pp. 23-24. See
also Germain Grisez's well-known article "The First Principle of Practical
Reason: A Commentary on the Summa theologiae, 1-2, Question 94, Article
2," Natural Law Forum 10 (1965), pp. 168-201 (hereafter FPPR), p. 194.
5 See, e.g., NLNR, pp. 44-45; Reply to Mcinerny, p. 23. Grisez and Finnis
attempt to distinguish imperatives and prescriptions, which I argue against in

40

THOMISTIC METAETHICS

AND A PRESENT CONTROVERSY

41

Finnis and Grisez, then, argue that practical principles, which
encompass value-judgments about human goods, are arrived
at through the practical reason and thus are prescriptive
("normative ") utterances, as opposed to descriptive or theoretical truths "of metaphysical anthropology ". 6 Hence these
principles cannot be derived from metaphysical claims. 7 To
argue for such ,a derivation would he to hold that prescriptivity
or normativity can emerge from pure descriptivity. Such a
derivation, of course, would not account for the appearance of
the prescriptive or action -guiding element.
An alternative position, to be returned to below, is that
value-judgments about human goods are descriptive in themselves. At the same time, owing to the natural inclination to do
what we understand to be morally or humanly good, human beings could prescribe to themselves the pursuit of such human
goods, once they are understood to be human goods.
It should be noted that for Grisez and Finnis the basic practical principles are not moral but pre-moraL8 Still, Grisez and
Finnis consider that they direct to ends completive of human
nature. Hence, although these authors reserve the characterization of "' moraily right choices " to those that are not simply
harmonious with one or another basic human good but rather
to those that also do not run counter to any other human good,9
my paper "Is-Ought: Prescribing and a P1·esent Controversy," The Thomist
49, l (January, 1985), pp. 1-23 (hereafter Schultz), esp. pp. 10-Hl.
s Reply to Mcinerny, pp. 23-24.
7 Ibid.; see note 13 below.
In the paper mentioned in note 5 above I point out that Finnis seems
to allow for the possibility of arriving at value-judgments through theoretical reasoning, since he says "I assert that judgments [about man's
natural goods, about what man should be] are primarily
(though
perhaps not exclitsively) judgments of practical reason .... " ("Natural
Law and 'Is'-'Ought'
Question: An Invitation to Professor Veatch,"
Catholic Lawyer 26, 4, 1981, p. 272, my emphasis. This article is subsequently referred to as Response to Veatch.) But he doesn't explain
this, and in Reply to Mcinerny and in other places he argues against
any move from speculative to practical principles.
s See Schultz, p. 8, including note 37.
9 Ibicl., including note 38.

42

JANICE L. SCHULTZ

they would seem to agree that the basic practical principles are
the starting points of moral choices.
The alternative position to that of Grisez and Finnis could
allow that acting morally well implies not only pursuing human
goods but also not acting directly against any human good.
Still, the prescription arising from the combination of the grasp
of human good as such and the inclination to do what one
understands to be morally good would be considered to be of a
moral nature. And then the prescriptivity of moral principles
would be seen to be due to human nature, while value-judgments about human goods could be understood to be descriptive in themselves. 10
As already noted, Grisez and Finnis would argue against this
possibility, inasmuch as for them the humanly good aspect of
an object of inclination is seen in a practical context which
yields formulations of value-judgments or principles as already
prescriptive. 11 However, without realizing it, at least Finnis
seems to recognize vialue-judgments about human goods to be
inherently descriptive. He says, for example, that the basic
human goods, or basic forms of human flourishing are (naturally) understood to be desirable and reasonable and thus to-bepursued.12 Now if something is grasped as to-be-done or pursued because it is seen as desirable, "desirable" must have a
descriptive formulaition, which represents qualities to which one
is attracted (or committed) and which, when understood to be
present, move one to action. Perhaps Finnis believes this descriptive meaning (to be elaborated upon below) is extracted
from the prescriptive formula. Still, an important consideration
emerges here: if value-judgments about human goods are
basically descriptive rather than prescriptive or normative, they
appear, by Finnis's own reasoning, to be from, or are part of,
1

1

10 Ibid., p. 20.
11 As noted above; see also Response to Veatch, p. 272.
12 Schultz, pp. 18-19. For basic human goods as basic aspects of human
flourishing, see NLNR, pp. 23, 67, 87, 144; Response to Veatch, p. 269. Finnis
also states that value-judgments can be true or false: FE pp. 3-4, 23, 30.

THOMISTIC METAETHICS

AND A PRESENT CONTROVERSY

43

"metaphysical speculations'', even if such judgments are sometimes formed in a practical context. 13
Consider the formula " Knowledge is a human good ". Regardless of how arrived at, this can be analyzed as descriptive
in itself: for " human good " can be substituted its descriptive
ratio (to be discussed below), although the prescription to pursue knowledge may arise immediately owing to a concomitant
natural inclination or decision to pursue what is understood to
be a human good. Further, it is reasonable to argue that a full
assessment of an end as a truly human good not only presupposes a descriptive understanding of " human good '', hut also a
checking process through which one compares one's own judgments with those things to which all humans, as humans, incline. This combination of " insight " and checking process requires the use of theoretical (descriptive) reason. 14
A few comments on rthe nature of practical reason according
to St. Thomars Aquinrus may help to illustrate this point. Practical reason is operative insofar as one is being attracted to an
object either by vintue of a decision or inclination; in the light
of this good the practical reason urges (prescribes) the pursuit
of it. 15 Now Aquinas considers prescription or commanding to
be the primary act of the practical reason; it is also the chief
act of prudence. 16 Thus a brief treatment of Aquinas's analysis
of a human act governed by prudence is in order. Aquinas holds
that, prior to the issuing of (self-) imperatives by the practical
reason regarding what is to be done in a concrete situation
(presupposing an adherence to a right end) , one must take
counsel about the means to the end, and, if there is more than
one appropriate means, judge one best, or select it. 11 Assuming
1s Schultz, p. 17. Again, I say by Finnis's own reasoning because of what he
says, for example, in Reply to Mcinerny, p. 23, where he associates normative
principles with practical reason and theoretical principles with truths of
"metaphysical anthropology." Cf. FE, p. 22, "descriptive and theoretical."
14 For Finnis on "insight", see FE, p. 51.
15 Schultz, pp. 6; 10-15.
16Summa Theol-Ogiae (hereafter ST) 2-2, 47, 8; Schultz, p. 11. For imperare and praecipere used interchangeably, see also 2-2, 104, 1-5.
11 See ST 2-2, 47, 8; 1-2, 57, 6; 1-2, 15, 3; Schultz, p. 13, note 51.

44

JANICE L. SCHULTZ

the continued effect of an end already embraced, command follows.18 Now counsel and selection are, in a sense, in the realm
of theory .19 More precisely, they are said to correspond to acts
of the speculative intellect which are inquiry and judgment. 20
So they are within the domain of practical reason because they
a.re occurring in a situation in which practical reason, as directing truth to operation, is operative. 21 But the determination
about the appropriate or best means, or the right act in the
situation, is formulated descriptively.
Similarly, if in the pursuit of an instance of a human good
(e.g., knowledge) one recognizes it as a human good, the corresponding formula (" Knowledge is a human good ") is descriptive. And if the good is attracting because it is first understood to be a human good, this could be owing to a commitment or a natural inclination humans have toward acting in a
way that is understood to be morally good-that takes into account human goods as such, as conducive to the development
of all humans, and hence as within the mo:ral domain. In this
case, the notion ' human good ' is first understood descriptivelyo
According to this analysis Finnis is mistaken in radically
separating "evaluations" and "descriptions", or "ought"
and " is "022 Thus he is mistaken in claiming that on logical
grounds, i.e., owing to the impossibility of deriving normative
from descriptive utterances, theoretical or non-prescribing reason cannot arrive at basic value-judgments. 23 Indeed, as has
18 Consent

and choice are sometimes one: ST 1-2, 15, 3 ad 3.
2-2, 47, 8. The similarity of this situation and a speculative one can
he gleaned from the seconcl ancl third kinds of speculative knowledge described in ST 1, 14, 16. In this paper these types of knowledge ani considered simply as speculative.
20 ST 1-2, 57, 6.
2,1 E.g., ST 1, 79, 11 and ad 2; 1-2, 5, 7, 6. They are also about operable
matters. An analysis of descriptive " ought "-judgments in a practical context forms part of my article "'Ought '-Judgments: A Descriptivist Analysis
From
Thomistic Perspective", The New f:foholcistiaism, 61, 4 (Autumn,
1987).
22 l!'l!J, p. 22; note 6 above.
2s See note 7 above.
19 ST

THOMISTIC METAETHICS

AND A PRESENT CONTROVERSY

45

just been shown, the operation of this reason is essential to the
understanding of evaluation regarding human goods, whether
or not the characterization of such activity is accurately conveyed by terms such as " metaphysical speculations ". Integral
to the total reasoning process in question is reflective activity
on the notion of terms .such as " human good ", and the understanding of human nature through the objects of universal inclinations, arrived at through experience and analysis. 24
Parallel ,to Finnis's conflating the descriptive formula identifying a human good and the prescription to pursue such a
good is the inclusion in the notion of " human good " the notion
of something's actually attracting or being desired. Perhaps
the latter bears on the former; that is, perhaps one might incline toward Finnis's analysis through an association between
the notion of an object-as-attracting and its resultant prescriptive " pull ". Indeed, there is evidence that Finnis himself
adopts a view of the general notion of " good " as including
this attracting or desired element. In this paper I shall present
such evidence, based both on an interpretation of Aquinas's
De veritate offered by Ronald Duska, which Finnis apparently accepts, and on Finnis's recent work, Fundamentals of
Ethics. I shall argue that principles faithful to Thomistic analysis require a revision of Duska's position, as is suggested by
Aquinas's discussion in the Summa Theologiae. I shall then
propose as the appropriate descriptive ratio of a " good X "
"an X suited to the desire anyone might have for a complete
X ". (By analogy, a non-rational, non-cognitive being "has
a desire " for the goods toward which a natural dynamism
drives it). This discussion will then turn to an analysis of the
notion ' human good ' as a subordinate use of " good ", but
also as descriptive. It will be seen that even a ratio of " good "
24 On p. 21 of FJJJ Finnis discusses the procedure of grasping inclinations
through grasping objects. He says the principal objects of human life are
the concern of practical reason, but he omits reference to the need for verifying
objects of truly human inclinations through reflection upon what all humans
incline toward.

46

JANICE L. SCHULTZ

that does include the notion of an elemenrt of actual attraction
can be descriptive through and through, and hence is compatible with purely theoretical reasoning about human goods,
A distinction will then be drawn between the notion of " a
good-as-attracting'' and goods-as-attracting. I shall explain
that just as no ratw of" good" discussed can support the claim
that value-judgments are inherently prescriptive, neither can
an analysis of singular prescriptions based on attracting objects. Finnis's theory, then, cannot be grounded in such con·siderations; consequently ·it remains perplexing,
Finnis, and Dusika's Interpretation of" Good"

In his book Natural Law and Natuml Rights John Finnis
refers the reader to Ronald Duska's article" Aquinas's Definition of Good: Ethical-Theoretical Notes on De V eritate,
Q.21 " 25 for a discussion of the "relation between desire, the
desirable, and the perfective in Aquinas' s notion of good ", 26
In the chapter preceding the note in which Finnis does this,
he relates attraction to (or desire of) an object and its goodness. Finnis says, for example,
1

I will ... use the term ' good ' to signify both the particular object
of a particular person's desire, choice, or action, and the general
form, of which that particular object is (or is supposed to be) an
instance. For there is typically some general description that
makes manifest the aspect under which a particular objective has
its interest, attracts desire, choice, and efforts and thus is (or is
considered to be) a good thing. 27

Again, Finnis describes the judgment " Knowledge is something good to have" "a's a practical principle .. , [that] fornmlates a want , , .", contrasting it to "a straightforward factual
judgment ". 28 In this quotation Finnis is offering his interpretation of value-judgments •as prescriptive, while the first ex1

25 The Monist

58 ( 1974), pp. 151-62; hereafter Duska.

2s NLNR, p. 79.

p. 61.
28/bid., p. 63.

21 Ibid.,

THOMISTIC METAETHICS

AND A PRESENT CONTROVERSY

47

cerpt reveals that Finnis's formulation of the notion of" good"
includes the notion of actual desire, for when an object " attracts desire, choioe, and efforts " it thus is considered to be " a
good thing ".29
Of course there is a long tradition of associating goodness
and actual desire. Ronald Duska, referred to by Finnis, offers
an interpretation of Aquinas's notion of " good " based on the
De veritate, according to which ,a necessary condition for applying "good" to an item is that it actually be desired and/or
enjoyed. 30 Duska holds that this notion of being desired is part
of the very sense or ratio of the term" good", as is the notion
of" being perfective ". 31 He arrives ·at this conclusion by pondering Aquinas's ratio of " good " in the De veritate: ". . . the
essence of good consists in this, that something perfects another
as an end . .. Now two things are essential to an end: it must
be sought or desired by things which have not attained the end,
and it must be loved by things which share the end, and be, as
it were, enjoyiable to them ".32 Again, "First of all and principally, therefore, a being capable of perfecting another after
the manner of an end is called good ". 33
It is important to realize that according to Duska the term
" perfective " indicates what is objectiviely completing for an
item according to its nature. He says, for example, that according to Aquinas " ... man's nature gives him a specific function to fulfill if he is to become perfected . . . [theories compatible with Aquinas hold that] .there simply are . . . some things
which cannot be perceived as perfective and there are others
which must be perceived ,as perfective ". 34 Duska then argues
that since Aquinas's primary ratio of " good " includes the notion of being objectively perfective as well ,as being enjoyed, a
p. 61.
p. 153.
31 Ibid., pp. 152ff.
s2 St. Thomas Aquinas, Quaestiones disputatae de veritate
ver.) 21, 2; Duska, p. 152.
38 Dever. 21, 1; Duska, p. 152.
H Duska, pp. 155-56.
29 Ibid.,

30 Duska,

(hereafer

De

48

JANICE L. SCHULTZ

thing's being desired is not independent of a thing's being perfective: ". . . What is perfectible in the case of man needs be
that which he does in fact desire and enjoy." 35
"Good ": De V'eritate
Yet a careful reading of Aquinas's early formulation of the
ratio of " good " reveals that " perfective " need not carry the
connotation of " objectively perfective ". For Aquinas says
" Inasmuch as one being by reason of its act of existing [esse]
is such as to perfect and complete another, it stands to that
other as an end." 36 In other words, to be an end for something
is to fulfill or perfect or complete it inasmuch as the end meets
the desire of the thing tending toward it. Hence Aquinas then
says " First of all and principally, therefore, a being capable of
perfecting another 1after the manner of an end is called good ".37
This notion is more appropriately considered that of a good,
an object of desire, following the Aristotelian characterization
of the good as "that which ,all things desire ". 88 Indeed, when
Thoma;s offers the above ratio of (a) good he refers to this
Aristotelian description.
Alongside this Aristotelian tradition is the N eoplatonic one,
according to which being and good are transcendentals-the
same in reality, differing only in concept. Aquinas also affirms
his adherence to this view.
Good must ... either add nothing to being or add something merely
in concept [ratio]. For if it added something real, being would have
to be narrowed down by the character (ratio) of good to a special
genus. But since being is what is first conceived by the intellect ...
every other noun must either be a synonym of being or at least add
something conceptually. The former cannot be said of good, since it
is not nonsense to call a being good. Thus, good, by the fact of its
not limiting being, must add to it something merely conceptual. 89
35 Ibid.,

p. 158.

as De ver. 21, I.
31 Ibid.
as Aristotle also holds that desire follows upon something's seeming good,
but "good" in this sense seems simply to convey the notion of an object that
holds promise of satisfaction and hence is desired: Metaphysi-Os 1072a29-30.
as De 'lier. 21, 1.

THOMISTIC METAETHICS

AND A PRESENT CONTROVERSY

49

In
Every being is good simply by its act of eristence (esse)
a move that apparently reconciles the two notions of " a good "
and "good" as just explained, Thomas points out that the
existence of each thing is desired inasmuch as everything seeks
to preserve its being. 41 Hence" ... by the mere fact that ...
[things] ... share .in the act of being they are perfected by the
good ".42 Thus all things seek to sustain their being, and the
act of being itself completes or perfects them with respect to
this desire by fulfilling it; continued existence is the most
fundamental end.
However, this notion of goodness as substantial being suggests no criterion for distinguishing good X's, good beings of a
kind, from not-so-good X's, or not-so-good members of a kind.
Every creature, says Aquinas, desires its continued existence.
And, Thomas remarks, " Although good expresses a special
status, that of an end, nevertheless that status belongs to any
being whatsoever and does not put anything real into being ". 43
Yet it cannot be doubted that for Aquinas ·at least natural
beings are subject to objective evaluation, as Duska himself
recognizes. And indeed, in Article 5 of Question
of the De
veritate Aquinas takes this into account. There he points out
that something is considered a being in the absolute sense
(absolute) owing to its substantial, not accidental, act of existing (esse). "But just the opposite is true of good. From the
point of view of its substantial goodness a thing is said to be
good in a cert·ain sense (secundum quid) but from that of its
accidental goodness it is said to be good without qualification
40 Ibid.,

21, 2.

41 Ibid.
42 Ibid., 21, 3. Aquinas also says that things that do not yet participate in
the act of being tend toward it "by a certain natural appetite." (De ver.
21, 2). But since these are only potential beings, they are only potentially
good.
43 De ver. 21, 1 ad 10. This point is applicable not only to the notion of
(a) good as an end, but also as something capable of being an end even for
others. In fact, Aquinas uses both interpretations, as some of the above
quotations indicate. Below I again discuss (a) good as perfecting others.

50

JANICE L. SCHULTZ

(simpliciter) ." 44 Although Aquinas uses the term" goodness"
(bonitas) here, the context makes it clear that he is referring
to the accidental being of a thing, since he has written at length
about the convertibility of goodness and being. In the First
Part of the Summa Theof,Ogiae he writes about the accidental
being that renders a creature good in the absolute sense as its
ultimate actuality [ultimum actum]; later he rephrases this as
"fullness of being [plenitudo essendi] ". 45
Here is the basis for considering something that is a fully
developed one of its kind as good in the proper sense. What is
of particular interest is the reasoning of Aquinas. He returns
to the basic notion of (a) good that is concerned with perfecting others, for he contends that something cannot
stand [se habere] as it should [debito modo] in relation to everything outside itself except by means of accidents added to the
essence, because the operations by which one thing is in some way
joined to another proceed from the essence through powers distinct
from it. Consequently nothing achieves its goodness absolutely
unless it is complete in both its essential and its accidental principles.46

At first glance it seems peculiar that Aquinas should argue
that only an X that is (to ,a high degree) complete can stand
in relation to other things as it should. Analysis of what
" standing in relation to other things as it should " might mean
supports this uneasiness: if Aquinas is holding that only complete X's can satisfy any desires of other beings-i.e., that only
complete X's are ends for other beings-this seems patently
untrue. For, in faot, some beings may desire immature members of a species for one or 'another purpose. If Thomas is
claiming that only complete X's help to complete objectively
other beings-which would involve satisfying natural desires
44 Dever. 21, 5.
45 ST

1, 5, 1 ad 1; 1-2, 18, 1: " ... since this same fullness

of being

[plenitudo essendi] is of the very ratio of good, if a thing be lacking in its
due fullness of being, it is not said to be good absolutely,
respect ... "
46 Dever. 21, 5.

but in a certain

THOMISTIC METAETHICS

AND A PRESENT CONTROVERSY

51

or inclinations of creatures-this, too, seems false, by similar
reasoning. 47 The immature members of some species of plants
and animals may very well be more healthy for humans to eat
than mature, fully developed members.
The connection then, between complete X's and the perfecting of other creatures does not seem to be established by
Aquinas here. 48 This may be the reason that .in the Summa
Theologiae Thomas shifts his focus with respect to the object
to be completed. Still he maintains his view that an object
that is good simpliciter is one that is complete. Indeed, even
if Aquinas did succeed in establishing a connection between,
say, a complete X and the objective perfecting of Y, he would
be operating on the ·assumption that X was good for Y. This
notion of " good for" is subordinate to the notion of " a good
Y ". For to say that X is good for Y is to say that X makes
Y a good Y, that is, •a Y that is complete, in some respect, as
a Y or according to its nature. 49
·Good: Summa Theologiae
In the Summa Theologiae, a work written later than the
De veritate, Aquinas repeats some of rthe points ·articulated
above. Goodness and being ·are the same, differing only conceptually: the ratio of " good " is that something be desirable
47 These arguments
were presented in my unpublished doctoral thesis
Thomas Aquinas and R.M. Hare: The Good anii, Moral Principles, for the
State University of New York at Buffalo, 1978, pp. 164-77.
48 It cannot be cogently argued that the proper goodness of creatures
is
inextricably linked with their being desired inasmuch as God wills them to be
good members of their kinds. For, strictly speaking, God's will is not an
appetite or desire, since that implies imperfection: Dever. 22, 2 ad 4; 22, 1
ad 11. Hence inasmuch as an end is completive of another, nothing other than
God himself can be an end for God, since He is all-perfect: ST 1, 4, 1 and 2.
Creatures, then, are not really ends for God; rather He is their end, since
He directs all things to Himself: De ver. 22, 2; ST 1, 19, 1 ad 3; 1, 19, 2.
49 Aquinas explicitly argues that when something (A) is said to be the cause
of goodness (or some other state or quality) in another being (B), the ratio
of the term "good" (or the other state or quality) as applied to B is the
primary notion, and the term is applied to A secondarily and analogously: ST

1, 13, 2; 1, 13, 6.

52

JANICE

L. SCHUL'l'Z

(appetibile) .50 Here, however, he writes of the connection between desirability (goodness) and being perfect, rather than
perfective. A thing is desirable insofar as it is perfect (perfectum), "for all desire their own perfection. But everything
is perfect so far as it is actual [actu]. Therefore it is clear that a
thing is perfect so far as it has being [est ens]; for being [esse]
is the actuality [act-ualitas] of everything ... Hence ... goodness and being are the same really ... " 51 True, there are two
kinds of completion or perfection, substantial and accidental,
corresponding to substantial and accidental being. 52 And, as
in the De veritate, Aquinas holds later in the Summa that
creatul'es do desire to preserve their (substantial) being. 53
But here, in his discussion of the ratio of "good", this notion
of substantial being ,as an end, fulfilling the basic appetite of
self-preservation, is
but ignored. Again, Aquinas reaffirms
his position that something is
to have being absolutely by
its substantial being but goodness simpliciter by its accidental
being or actuality. Thus a fully developed
of a kind
is called "good " in the proper sense. But this proper application of the term " good " is not grounded in the role of a being
as perfective of another. Rather, Aquinas simply says " ... that
which has ultimate perfection is said to be absolutely good
[ bonum simpliciter], but that which has not the ultimate perfection it ought to have [debet habere] ... is not said to be ...
good absolutely [ .simpliciter], but only relatively [secundum
quid] ". 54 As in the De 'Veritate, then, the goodness of something is correlated with its completeness, but here there is no
reference to the relation of the complete thing and other beings.
Aquinas elaborates on complete or perfect beings, which he
initially identified as good, by holding that " a thing is said to
be perfect if it lacks nothing according to its mode of perfec50 ST l,

5, l.

51 Ibid.

52 Ibid.
52 Ibid.

54 ST

l, 5, l. Cf. the notion of "order" as in Dever. 21, l:l and ST l, 5, 5.

THOMISTIC METAETHICS

AND A PRESENT CONTROVERSY

53

tion. But since everything is what it is by its form . . . in
order for a thing to be perfect and good it must have a form,
together with all that precedes and follows upon that form ". 55
This passage underscores
points that the goodness of a
natural being, properly speaking, depends upon its development according to its natural potentialities and that a thing
need not be referred to anything else to be denominated
" good ". Yet, as has been suggested, and as Aquinas reiterates,
in the Summa Theologiae he retains the connection between
goodness and actual desire. 56 From the above it seems clear,
however, that the goodness with which he is primarily concerned is goodness in the proper sense, and that the desire he
writes of here is not in another object, so that the item in question perfects it as an end, but rather is within the creature considered good. In short, in the Summa Aquinas stresses the
identity of completeness and goodness, attempting to include
in the ratio of " good " or " goodness " itself some suggestion
of the inclination or desire all beings have to fulfillment or completion as members of their kinds.
There are problems even with this attempt. For to the extent that a thing desires its completion not yet attained, the
sought goodness is only potential being, not the being convertible with goodness. However i£ the state of being good were
actualized, then it would no longer be desired in the strict
sense. Even in the De veritate Aquinas remarks that though
enjoyment (possession 0£ the object sought) is not properly
called appetite, seeking and enjoying are in the same genus. 57
In other words, as desired it is not yet existing; as existing it is
not, strictly speaking, desired.
Beyond this, if the ratio of the " goodness of X " included
not only the notion of X's completeness (or X's being-complete) but also that of this completeness being desired by X,
then to say that an (undeveloped) X desires its goodness (or
ST 1, 5, 5; Cf. 1-2, 18, l.
ST l, 5, 4; l, 6, 2 ad 2.
or De ver. 22, 1 ad 11; see also 21, 2; cf. S'l' l, 5, 6; 1, !!2, 4.

00

56 Kg.,

54

JANICE L. SCHULTZ

its being-good) would be true by definition. Now in very many
places Aquinas 'argues that all things desire the good.58 Although v1arious interpretations can be given to this saying-in
one place Aquinas himself says it means that whatever is desired has the ratio of (a) good 59-it is certainly consonant
with Thomas's thought to hold one explanation of that dictum
to be that all beings naturally desire to be m a state of goodness (or a strute of being-good); they seek to be good members
of their kind. Indeed, as has been seen, Aquinas explicitly
states that everything desires its perfection. 60 The question here
is: can one thing of this ·completeness or complete state in
terms of goodness and still consider as substantive (or nonanalytic) the claim that everything in nature seeks its state of
being-good?
There is an interpretation of the ratio of " a good X " that
would (1) maintain the conceptual connection of desire and
goodness; (2) be compatible with the substantive assertion that
1all natural beings desire to be good members of their kind (i.e.,
desire to be in a state of goodness); (3) allow for the application of " good '', without a change of meaning, to man-made
objects. (But one example of Aquinas's use of " good " to
such items is his discussion of good and bad artifacts. 61 ) Beginning with an analysis of " ,a good X " rather than simply
"good " conforms to Peter Geach's observation that " good "
is an attributive rather than predicative adjective. That is,
" A is a good X " does not legitimately split up into " A is an
X and A is good ". Hence one correctly predicates good of an
item, A, by saying that A is a good X: " there is no such thing
rus being just good or bad, there is only being a good or had
so-and-so ".62
58 E.g., De ver. 22, 1; ST 1, 5, 1; 1, 5, 5; 1, 19, 3; 1-2, 8, 1; 1-2, 9, 2; 1-2,
16, 4.
59 ST 1, 6, 2 ad 2.
so ST 1, 5, 1; De ver. 22, 1. In ST 1, 60, 3 he says that both angels and
humans naturally seek their own good and perfection.
s1ST1-2, 21, 2 ad 2; 1-2, 57, 4 and ad 3; 1-2, 57, 5 ad 1.
s2From "Good and Evil," Analylli8 17 (1956), pp. 33-42; rpt. in Theories
of Ethics, ed. P. Foot (London: c. 1967), p. 65.

THOMISTIC METAETHICS

AND A PRESENT CONTROVERSY

55

I propose that it is consistent with Thomistic principles to
explicate the proper ratio of " a good X " in this way: ' an X
suited to the desire anyone might have for a complete X ' or,
more briefly,' an X suited to any desire for a complete X '. In
other words, good Xs are (to a high degree) complete Xs, but
the meaning of " ia good X " includes a relation to possible,
rather than actual, desire. More, however is being said than
that X is capable of being desired. What is claimed when one
calls item A a good X is that it in fact would answer to the desire anyone might have for 1an X •ws an X-an X that has what
belongs to it. 68 Of course according to Aquinas, that which belongs to a natural being is determined by its nature. However,
the criteria of good functional items are also objective: inasmuch as these items are designed to perform a particular function, they can be said to be good if, in fact, they have, to a
high degree, the structure that enables them to perform the
task they were designed to do.
This ratio of " good " can be applied to the notions of both
the substantial and accidental (proper) goodness of a natural
being. To the extent that such a creature is, it is a member of
·a species, 1and hence ,is " complete " insofar as it belongs to that
kind. As such it would answer to the desire anything might
have for a member of that species. But, again, the creature's
substantial being is goodness only in the way that every member of that species is equally good. On the other hand, to the
extent that a being has (to high degree) that which enables it
to function according to the operation belonging to it by its
nature, it is a complete one of its kind. Anything desiring such
a fully developed specimen would desire a good specimen, and
the ratio of " good " as applied to this specimen conveys that,
by virtue of its completeness, it is suited to such seeking.64
68 This ratio of the term " good " is presented in my article " The Onto·
logical Status of Value Revisited," The Modern Schoolman 63, 2 (January,
1986), pp. 133-7.
64 In 1-2, 19, 1 ad 1 Aquinas distinguishes
what is truly good from what is
apparently good. Although here he is not speaking of good specimens, but
rather actions, he does identify the truly good as what is suitable absolutely
to· be desired [simpliciter convenientis ad appetendum].

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JANICE L. SCHULTZ

As real, the state of being (to a high degree) complete, constituted hy different characteristics for different beings, is already present or possessed, and thus cannot be desired by that
being as not possessed. So the desire aspect does not primarily
concern the actual desire of the subject itself-nor even that of
other creatures. Consider: when a particular item is viewed as
a good, as an object of desire, it is considered as a good whatever-kind-of-thing-is-desired, as having what belongs to the
kind of thing required by the desire, and so as suited to any desire for it as having this completeness. When the aspect under
which something is desired, or the " kind " of thing desired, is
determined only by the desire of the one seeking and not by
the nature (or, in the case of functional items, the design) of
the thing, the item is complete or good as the kind of being
established by desire, although not as what it is by nature or
by function. But the logic of "good" does not change. Of
course, if something does desire, say, a complete natural or
functional X, then a complete X becomes a good with respect
to the desire of the one seeking. As Duska claims, according to
Aquinas the state of perfection of a natural being is what it
desires-i.e., its being-good is a good for it. But this is true
not by virtue of word-meanings, but rather owing to the dynamism of nature. 65
The ratio of " good " offered above is descriptive, not prescriptive, expressing a conceptual relation which is not simply
that between an item and the desire for it. Rather it conveys
first, the relation a particular thing has to the totally developed
or complete state of a thing of that kind and, second, the relation the particular item would have or has to an appetite for
a thing of tha;t kind that is to a high degree developed or complete.
Finnis, Aquinas, and Human Goods
Finnis does not confine his remarks to good Xs, but rather
speaks of human goods. As mentioned in the first section of
es Again, this is implied in, e.g., ST 1, 60, 3.

THOMISTIC METAETHICS

AND A PRESENT CONTROVERSY

57

this paper, he identifies human goods with basic forms of
human flourishing, as good for humans inasmuch as they make
us more fully to be ,human. 66 Above it was pointed out that to
say that Xis good for Y is to say that X makes Y ,a good Y,
complete as a Y. In other words, the notion of "good for" is
subordinate to the notion of" a good Y ". Thus human goods,
understood as aspects of genuine human flourishing, are most
appropriately described as those objects or activities the possession of which completes human beings as such. They fulfill
humans according to their nature, making humans to be good
humans. 67 This is the notion that involves that which, when
present, makes something to be in a perfected state, a state
which perfects the object. Still, as the notion of " a good X "
is descriptive, so, too, is this notion of " human good ".
It is true that in speaking of goods rather than good Xs, it
is very easy to confuse the subordinate notion of " good " as
described above with the notion of a simple object of desirea good. But the discussion here is concerned with a good not
simply as something desired but as a means for achieving a
good X; hence the term " human good " indicates not (by
meaning) actual objects of desire for all humans, but rather
objects that complete all humans, that make humans good.
Aquinas's claim that such objects are in fact desired by humans
adds to the confusion about the meaning of "human good ". 68
NLNR, p. 103; Schultz, pp. 3-4.
are, of course, various kinds of human goodness, such as physical,
emotional, moral. The last involves possessing what belongs to an intellectual
being according to its faculties of intellect and will-i.e., virtue, which is concerned with promoting the flourishing of humans. For a morally good act
has what belongs to it according to what belongs to the being performing it.
es In ST 1-2, 94, 2, as well as in the earlier part of the Summa, .Aquinas
seems to maintain that "good" considered as "human good" includes the
ratio 'being-desired ': " Since, however, good has the ratio of end ... " This
does not affect the main argument of this paper. However, it might be pointed
out that in ST 1-2, 94, 3 Aquinas also considers human goods to be conducive
to well-being. (Here Thomas is speaking of things other than the objects of
inclinations) .
It is possible that Aquinas's argument in 1-2, 94, 2 is elliptical. (Finnis
himself notes that Thomas does not always spell out his theory fully: NLNR,
66 See also

67 There

58

JANICE L. SCHULTZ

Since, according to Aquinas, human beings (as all natural
beings) do by nature desire the characteristics and states the
possession of which complete them, one way for each of us to
begin to identify human goods is to be aware of the objects of
our own inclinations. Within this process, however, we can
justify considering these objects as human goods only because
we believe that what we as humans incline to is what completes
us as human-and what completes us as human is good for us,
is a human good. That is, we understand the notion ' human
good' to be descriptive, as ·already indicated. And again, even
if in grasping something which is in fact a human good we are
drawn to it, even if our practical reason urges us to pursue it
as that to which we are attracted, 69 we can assess the appropriateness of this attraction and self-prescription only by considering whether or not the object to which we are attracted
really .is a human good, understood in the descriptive sense of
"human good ". 70 This is not to deny that we may also be
attracted-even naturally inclined to-acting in a manner we
understand to be conducive to the flourishing of ·all persons,
i.e., to acting in a morally good way. But the subsequent commitment or decision to act in this way must follow a basic
descriptive understanding of what " acting in a morally good
way" means, which, of course, involves promoting the completion of human beings through human goods. And, as ·already
discussed, undertaking a realistic assessment of what really is
1

p. 46.) Human goods may be seen as morally attracting via the inclination to
do what one understands to be humanly or morally good-i.e., conducive to
human flourishing, completive of human nature. These goods can be identified
through the universal human inclinations. Without the prescriptivity of the
inclination to do what one understands to be morally good, how can, e.g., the
individual inclination to seek to preserve one's own life become the prescription to seek to preserve all human life? For even if human life were in a
practical context immediately understood to be a human good, the relevant
inclination Aquinas speaks of seems to be concerned with the self ("every
substance seeks the preservation of its own being": ST 1-2, 94, 2). See also
ST 1-2, 56, 6 where Aquinas notes that the ability to seek the good of one's
neighbor is due to virtue, and is not therefore immediately due to nature.
69 Cf. Schultz, pp. 19-20.
10 Cf. Schultz, pp. 18-19.

THOMISTIC METAETHICS

59

AND A PRESENT CONTROVERSY

a human good involves a checking process, an investigation of
the objects of human inclinations.
The role of theoretical reason in this regard was treated in the
first section of this paper, where I also pointed out a possible
relation between conflating the descriptive formulation of the
identification of a human good and the prescription :to pursue
such a good, and including in the very notion of " human good "
the notion of something's being attracting or desired. I have
attempted to show that Finnis appears to accept an interpretation of Aquinas's ratio of "good" that encompasses this attracting element, but that such a view runs into difficulties in
the context of Aquinas's mature thought.
Moreover, to the extent that ' good ' would be considered to
contain this being-desired element, it would be true by definition that all things desire their goodness, or their state of
being-good. If the discussion is confined to the notion of "(a)
human good", and if it is said that this includes the notion
' being-desired (by humans) ', then it would be true by definition that all humans desire human goods. Both these conclusions seem out of step with the way we speak or think,
especially when a human good is understood to be objectively
completive of human beings.
But even if it were granted that " human good " meant something like 'that which completes (perfects) all human beings
and which is (naturally) desired by them', it clearly would
not follow that judgments about human goods are prescriptive.
The ratio proffered is descriptive, and so also would be any
value-judgment about X being a human good. Ronald Duska
understands the role of theoretical reason here, for in suggesting a " decision procedure for determining whether certain
designations of things as good are warranted" according to
Aquinas's principles, Duska says" some things do ·appear to be
universally desired or pleasing, or not pleasing ". 11 He adds
" According to Aquinas what man is will cause some things to
be revoked as not enjoyable, others to be revok ed as not de1

1

71 Duska,

p. 159, my emphasis.

60

JANICE L. SCHULTZ

sired. · As a result of what is, some things cannot be seen as
perfective ". 72
Interestingly, Finnis directs his readers to only the first part
of Duska's article, the section prior to the points Duska makes
that are noted in the previous paragraph. 78 This is consistent
with his rejection of "metaphysical speculations " as intrinsic
to the identification of human goods. I shall not attempt to
show that Finnis himself coUrupses description and prescription
owing to an interpretation of a word-meaning. More plausible
would be a confusion arising from the fact that an object itself,
once desired, is understood as the source of normativity or prescriptivity. As Finnis says, "it is those conceptions [of attaining some form of good] that provide your reason for acting; it
is not merely that they guide you; they also motivate you ...
This conception of something as desirable provides, typically,
sufficient motivation to act." 74
Here Finnis does not distinguish clearly between something
thait is desired and something considered desirable as good according to some criterion. He says, for example, " ... practical
reasoning begins by identifying something wanted (or desired) ,
i.e., something considered (practically considered) desirable ...
And practical reasoning goes on to seek satisfactory ways of
getting, realizing, or otherwise participating in this 'object ';
this thing wanted." 75 But he denies that a desirable thing is
desirable according to " ' an independent desire ' "; rather, -as
a possible object of action it appears" in a favourable light ...
as somehow good to be getting, doing, having, being ... " 76
What is meant here by "good to"? Why would an object
appear ,in a favorable light, as ,important, or as an opportunity 77 when recognized as a certain kind of thing? It is difficult
to see how Finnis can ignore a basic orientation of will (rational
1

1

12 Ibid., p. 160.
nNLNR, pp. 78-79 (note).
74 FFJ, pp. 34-35.
75 Ibid., author's emphasis.
76Ibid.
n Ibid., p. 41.

THOMIS'fIC

METAETHICS

AND A PRESENT CONTROVERSY

61

appetite, desire) as the condition for the possibility of all activity, as grounding the natural inclinations which render
human goods human ends, and how, therefore, he can say that
practical activity can take place " for some reason which can
be fully specified without referring to a desire ". 78 Indeed, in
another place F'innis seems to allow for
role of a desire:
" Will is simply the capacity to act in order to preserve or respect, realize or participate in, goods which may at the time of
action be apparent only to intelligence ... the desire [here]
is simply that of rational ·appetite ... [which] is not the less
effective or real for being intellectual." 79 Perhaps because
Finnis, unlike Aquinas, sees such a desire as in our reason, he
would deny that desire as such, as underlying the natural inclinations themselves, is the condition for the possibility of
praotical ·activity. 80 But his use of "desire" here is enough to
support the claim, articulated above, that according to him,
the notion of " good " includes the notion of something's being,
in some sense, an object of desire. Further, undoubtedly Finnis
understands human goods as attracting-in-being-grasped, as,
when grasped as what they are (" under a description ") , exerting normative force. 81 It is possible that this acoounts for his
formulation of value-judgments as prescriptive, or "intrinsically action-guiding ". 82
However, in the context of any attracting object the practical reason may issue a simple prescription or imperative to
pursue the object. But such a simple prescription need involve
no value-judgment about the object as a form of human good;
it is quite appropriate to relegate the directive to the realm of
the "pre-philosophical ". 83 On the other hand, the grasp of
rn Ib·id., p. 35; cf. Schultz, pp. 13-lfi.
79FE, p. 47.
so Ibid. In ST I, 80, I Aquinas argues that the will is a special power of
the soul.
Cf. Schultz, pp. 14-16 and ST 1-2, l, 6.
s1 FE, pp. 45, 51, 35.
82 Ibid., p. 27.
83 E.g., Fl!J, p. 18.

JANICE L. SCHULTZ

something as a human good and therefore attractive requires
logically distinct moments: an understanding of a descriptive
notion of " human good '', and the subsuming of this good
under the description; and an orientation toward this good
(owing to natural orientation or commitment) based on the
correlativity of such orientation and a grasp of a human good
as such.
Hence value-judgments ·aibout human goods remain descriptive. Such utterances neither encompass the notion of actual
desire, nor express simple responses to attracting objects.
Neither metaethics nor an analysis of the apprehension of
human goods substantiate the thesis, advanced by Finnis, that
basic value-judgments are prescriptive, and that fact and value,
"is" and "ought", are radically distinct.
JANICEL. SCHULTZ

Oanisius OoHege
Buffalo, N.Y.

BEING IS BEING-PRESENT-TO-SELF:
RAHNER'S
KEY TO AQUINAS'S METAPHYSICS

W

I. Beisichsein: An Initial View

HEN CORNELIUS ERNST introduced the first
volume of Theological Investigations into English,
he took note of Rahner's guiding philosophical intuition, citing and translating a passage from Geist in Welt.
What I take to be the foundation runs as follows: ' Erkennen ist
Beisichsein des Seins, und dieses Beisichsein ist das Sein des Seienden ', ' knowledge is the being-present-to-itself of Being, and this
being-present-to-itself is the Being of any entity' (p. 82) .1

Fr. Ernst :found this formula a bit hard to take, especially
its second part. Lt begins by saying what the ontological structure of subjectivity is. To know is not just to have bumped
into something or gotten hold of some information. All this
presupposes something more primordial as its condition of possibility: a self-relaiting, self-present act of Being. "Intellect
reflects upon itself," Aquinas says (S.G.G., 4, 11) .2 Hence
knowledge is the being-present-to-itself of Being. But then the
formula concludes: this being-present-to-itself (or subjectivity)
is the Being of any entity. Apparently, Rahner is saying that
subjectivity is the mode of Being not just of some but all
beings. Taken as a whole the formula says, in effect, that being
is subjectivity-presence is self-presence.
Now while it is obviously true that subjectivity is a mode
of Being and that all subj.ectivities are beings, the converse1 Karl Rahner, Theological Investigations,
Vol. I, trans. Cornelius Ernst
(New York: Seabury Press, 1974), p. xiii, footnote 1.
2 St. Thomas Aquinas, Summa Oontra Gentiles, Book Four: Salvation, trans.
Charles J. O'Neil (Notre Dame: University of Notre Dame Press, 1975),
Chapter 11, p. 81.

63

64

BOB HURD

that ·all Being is a mode of subjectivity ·and all beings are subjectivities-does not register so easily, especially when many of
these beings are not only devoid of consciousness but devoid of
life a:s well. One sympathizes with Fr. Ernst's perplexity. "Put
in colourful terms," he says, " this amounts to saying that every
entity (every material entity too) is a more or less deficient
angel." 3 Deficient angel, Ernst says, because in Thomas's
hierarchy of Being the angel is essentially and immediately a
self-conscious being and so is the paradigm of subjectivity in
the created order. But even under the best of conditions and
in the best of times one does not normally look upon the cocker
spaniel or the philodendron or the inanimate material substance
as a deficient angel!
On the other hand, Fr. Ernst might have said more. For the
drift of his remark invites illustration by way of something
higher still in Thomas's hierarchy of Being. Instead of saying
every being is a deficient angel he might just as well have said
every being (the angel too) is a deficient God. Every being, in
other words, is a deficient imitation of God " in whom,"
Thomas says, " understanding is not other than being " (S .C.G.,
4, 11). This slight shift of perspective, which bids us consider
the Being of every creature no longer from the point of view of
the highest creature's mode of Being (angelic subjectivity) but
from that of the ground of Being itself, puts Rahner's formula
in its .true light. Now instead of absurdly and arbitrarily assigning the highest creature's mode of Being to all the restwithout .sufficient regard for the analogy of Being-the formula
radically gra:sps and expresses the implications of analogy for
the first time. For analogy is not ultimately about how one
thing may be simultaneously like and unlike another thing in
some respect. This secondary application of analogy is rooted
in a more fundamental metaphysical truth: every finite being
must really approximate its absolute, ground while nevertheless
falling infinitely short of it. Or put in another way, the complete transcendence of the absolute ground does not make it
s Op. cit

RAHNER's

KEY TO AQUINAS'S

METAPHYSICS

65

any less immanent to the ent,ities it grounds, but in fact makes
for this very immanence. If the interior indebtedness of the
created being to its ground is taken seriously, if a created being
is not just imagined as some already established in-itself with
an extrinsic though necessary tie to some First Mover, if in
short we have noticed with Thomas that Aristotelian causality
veils the deeper question
creation, then it will be seen that
the esse of the existent must be a limited and defident but real
participation
absolute Esse.
In this connection it must be remembered that in Thomas's
metaphysics of participation the ontological possibility of the
lower mode of Being is always grounded in the highest: the
Divine Esse is not only cause but exemplar of all finite beings.
Or as John Caputo writes in a recent study of Heidegger ·and
Aquinas, all beings are like God ". . . not in the sense of
shadowy imitations but in the sense of being intrinsically and
imperfectly what He is intrinsically but perfectly.'' 4 And what
is God intrinsically and perfeotly?
is-to
it awkwardly-the inner character or content of Being in absolute Esse ?
In God" being and understanding are identical," Thomas says,
"understanding is not other than being" (S.C.G., 4, 11).
From this thesis, which is central to Thomas's understanding
of Being and his theology of the Trinity, it follows that every
limited, participated esse'--precisely to the extent that it
shares in esse'-must be a real though imperfect approximation
of Being as presence- to-self.
1

II. Beisichsein as Hermeneutical Key
This much only suggests the direction we must take in oI1der
to reach a suitable understanding of Rahner's formula. Before
4John D. Caputo, Heidegger and Aquinas: An Essay on Overcoming JJfetaphysias (New York: Fordham University Press, 1982), p. 142. I am greatly
indebted to John Caputo's book for my mvn formulation of the difference
between the Rahnerian and neo·Thomist understanding of Being, although I
disagree with the conclusions Caputo reaches in his comparison of Thomas's
metaphysicR and Heidegger's Seinsdenken. See Robert L. Hurd, " Heidegger
and Aquinas: A Rahnerian Bridge," Philosophy 'l'odcty 28 (Summer 1984)
105-137.

66

BOB HURD

pursuing the matter further let us underscore the fact that
this formula [s Rahner's hermeneutical key to Aquinas. By
hermeneutical key we mean a guiding intuition or insight which
opens up an understanding of what a text explictly ,says. The
very idea of suoh a hermeneutical key presupposes that the
thought of a text is always strangely more than the words, so
that one who would really enter into this thought must do
more than repeat or restate what is explicitly said by the text.
Obviously there must be a dialectical reciprocity between ward
on the one hand and thought on the other. These two are not
to he hypostatised into separate independently constituted
items. But at the same time neither is their distinction to be
collapsed. With this distinction in view, we can differentiate
narrative restatement from philosophical interpretation, even
though every narration always involves some philosophical interpretation and every philosophioal interpretation always involves some narration. The point ,is that
" net" appropriation of a text can range from a mostly narrative retelling
of what the text explicitly says on the one hand to a more
philosophical thinking through of what lies behind the explicit
words of the text on the other.
A more concrete description of these two ways of relating to
a text could be put as follows. As narrator, one sees the
thought through the wol'ds of the text. The words .come in
between the narrator and the thought they disclose like hints
or clues. But the philosophical interpreter sees the words of
the text through the thought. Having become thoroughly engaged with the thought of a thinker, the philosophical interpreter understands why an Aquinas says the things he does
and can even anticipate what Aquinas will say in response to
various questions. Not only that-admittedly what follows
sounds presumptuous and yet it is perfectly true-the philosophical ,interpreter knows wihat the thinker ought to say and
thus can identify where an Aquinas, for example, has become
inconsistent, has lost his grip on his own original insight and
fallen back into an Aristotelianism or Platonism which the rest

RAHNER'S

KEY TO AQUINAS'S

METAPHYSICS

67

of his thought has already transcended. So much of what
Thomas writes in his various commentaries on Aristotle is to all
appearanoes simply narrative restatement of the text. But
when Thomas comes to explaining such matters as what Aristotle had in mind by speaking of the separable and imperishable part of the soul we know that we are in the midst of
genuine philosophical interpretation. Although Thomas seeks
textual support and confirmation of his interpretation, we know
that it is his understanding of what Aristotle "has in mind "
that allows him to see what he sees in the explicit words of
Aristotle's text. Let us say, then, that to the extent the philosophical .interpreter has grasped the guiding threa<l of a great
thinker-'has •actually re-lived and re-thought this intuitionshe or he has come into possession of what could be caUed the
hermeneutical key to the texts in question.
What is the significance of these hermeneutical reflections
for our present study? Only this: If Thomas saw and interpreted the te:x:ts of Aristotle differently than did the Arab
commentators, and if it is not simply assumed foom the outset
in an ad hominem fashion that he did so dishonestly to make
Aristotle conform to Christian dogma, then Thomas apparently had a different hermeneutioal key to Aristotle than the Arabs
and their followers did. And if in the present oase one does
not find in Rahner Thomism as that is usually understood and
conventionally taught, that is because Rahner has a different
hermeneutical key to Aquinas than the conventional neoScholastic does. The key in question has to do with nothing
less than the meaning of Being in the metaphysics of Aquinas.
At this point the interesting critical question arises: Who's
got the right key? For the view of conventional Thomism is
itself also an interpretation-it too brings a horizon of understanding to its reading of the texts and so possesses its own
hermeneutioal key. In this more usual understanding of
Thomas, Esse as " the actuality of all acts " and " the perfection of all per£ections " is ontologically prior to knowledge or
presence-to-self, which is ta.ken a.s a subsequent and further

68

BOB HURD

perfection. Thomas himself explicitly says that "Esse, as such,
is nobler than everything that follows upon it" and " this act
is nobler than the act of understanding (I Sent. XVII, 1, 2,
ad. 3) .5 This way of reading Thomas, ais we hinted at earlier,
finds immediate support in a common-sense view of things.
After all, there are many presences which are not self-presentthere are many beings which are not lmowers. Something can
really be without for all that being present-to-self. But something can't be present-to-self without first being. Obviously,
then, to be is not the same thing as to be present-to-self and
to be is ontologically prior to presence-to-self or knowing.
Now if Esse ,is in this manner shorn of any further characteristics, because these are understood in advance under the
guise of secondary and subsequent perfections, then the primordial and paradigmatic meaning of Being can only be
thought of in one way: sheer existence or actuality. What does
existence or actuality mean here? What is it that the participated, finite esse is participating in? What exemplar is it an
imperfect copy of? Something like the fol1owing: really existing as opposed to not existing, really being " there " as opposed
to being only a figment of someone's overactive imagination,
real presence a.s opposed to absence. Of course, those who understand Thomas's notion of Being in this way also know that
as self-subsistent being it self God cannot lack any perfection.
And so of course God's Being involves life and wisdom as well
as mere existence (S.T. I, q. 4, art. 3, ad. 3) . Nevertheless, the
Esse that is communicated to the creature, the Esse in which
the creature has a limited and imperfect share, oontinues to be
thought of as the power to be actual or present. Out of this
power to be present other things may follow in some oases, but
the fundamental meaning of to be is to be actually present. All
further metaphysical formulas, distinctions and elaborations
notwithstanding, one is really understanding Being according to
the brute presence of the merely physical object. Herein lies
1

5 Trans. James F. Anderson in An Introauction
Thomas Aquina.s (Chicago: Regnery, 1953), p. 23.

to the Metaphysics of St.

RAIINER'S

KEY TO AQUINAS'S

METAPHYSICS

69

the supposed objectivistic bias of Thomas's metaphyscis, according to some c:ritics.6
As brief and oversimplified as this sketch is, it perhaps serves
to illustrate how different the two approaches to the meaning
of Being in Aquinas are: for Rahn er Being is presence- to-self
,and every finite being is an imperfect and analogous approximation of presence-to-self; for the neo-Thomist (or at least my
pedagogically motivated Platonic archetype of the neoThomist) Being is sheer actuality in the sense of an unrestricted power to be " really " present and every finite being is
a limited actuality since its power to be present is :received.
These, then, are the two hermeneutical keys about which we
pose the question: Who's got the right key
Perhaps this way of posing the question sounds too restrictive. Is it not more likely that just as there are many influences
on Thomas, so too there a11e a number of different and even
competing approaches represented in hris understanding of
Being? Would it not follow that there are accordingly a number of keys to the thought of Thomas? While all this is to
some extent true, what really matters philosophically speaking
is precisely what Thoma's makes of the received tradition with
all its diverse and even conflicting currents. For example, in
Thomas's understanding of the soul-body relationship the influence of Plato is no less prominent than that of Aristotle, if
only because both Aristotle and Aquinas are replying to the
Platonic formulation of the issue. Not only Aristotle's way of
understanding the soul but also that of Plato will help us understand what Thomas finally comes up with. And although
Thomas's own understanding :represents an option for Aristotle
against Plato one can still find in this Aristotelian option a
Platonic residue. None of this, however, should obscure the
fact that on this specific question of the soul-body relationship
and despite the Platonic influence and residue, Thomas is decidedly Aristotelian. It is not the case that the Platonic view
and the Aristotelian view are equaily key for Thomas's final
6 See

Caputo, op. cit., Chapters l!'ive and Six.

70

BOB HURD

understanding of the soul-body relationship. A similar situation obtains with regard to Thomas's understanding of Be,ing.
Granted that one can find the notion of Being as sheer act in
Aquinas, in which act is taken in the sense of objective real
presence, does this represent the deepest reach of his thought
on the matter? Or is it the residue of an inherited way of thinking which Thomas is in the process of surpassing? However one
answers this question-whether one opts for the key marked
" Being = sheer actual presence " or the key marked " Being
=presence-to-self "-it does not seem tenable to hold that both
are equally key for Thomas's understanding of Being. In the
end, unless one is going to maintain that Thomas is fundamentally inconsistent, one of these pivotal intuitions about the
meaning of Being will have to be subordinated to the other:
either presence-to-self is one of the derivative modes that
Being as sheer real presence can take or sheer real presence is a
derivative, analogous mode of Being as presence to self. And
this means that in the end one must still face the question:
Who's got the right key? Which key represents the primordial
and paradigmatic meaning of Being in Thomas, in light of
which all other metaphysical formulations find their sense and
coherence?
Within the scope of the present essay we cannot answer this
question in a satisfactory way but we can make a beginning by
trying out the Rahnerian key. If, as Rahner contends, the
primordial and paradigmatic meaning of Being in Thomas is
presence-to-self-because in God, the prime exemplar and
efficient cause, Being and understanding are identical-then we
ought to find more indication of this in the ontological structure
of each mode of creaturely 1being. To be sure, only in the Divine Esse is the equation of Presence (Being) and presence-toself (knowing) absolute and simple. But the imperfect, limited
and less integral creature ought to mirror in some ana'logous
fashion this original unity of Being and knowing. What is at
stake for Rahner in exploring the original unity of Being and
knowing and the implications of this unity for the participated

RAHNER'S

KEY TO AQUINAS'S

METAPHYSICS

71

esse of the creature is not only a more profound understanding
of the ontology of the creature hut also a truly metaphysical
account of the possibility of knowledge. Only if primordially
Pure Act ·and Intellect are strictly one can the Intrinsic community of Being and knowing, even in its imperfect manifestation in creatures, find adequate metaphysical explanation.
Why, after all, should it be the case that to the extent something is it is knowable? What is the metaphysical basis of the
convertibility of intelligibility and Being?
III. Beisichsein and S.C.G., 4, 11: Emanatio
We begin, then, with a statement from Spirit in the World:
The knowability of an existent is not first of all the possibility of
being known by others ... but is originally being-able-to-bepresent-to-self (and only then derivately also a 'being-able-to-bewith-others'), and this being-able-to-be-present-to-self as an intrinsic determination of the essence of being itself varies with being's
intensity of being.7
The statement says that actuality or presence in the sense of
" really being there for a possible observer " is first of ·all act
a:s self-relation of the object. It is because the being exercises
this self-relation or presence-to-self that it can also "really be
there" for another. But to say this is to say that act as presence-to-self is not merely a subsequent perfection that might be
realized in some beings and not in others. Act as presence-toself precedes and makes possible actuality in the sense of
"really being there for another.'' Our normal habit of thought,
of course, goes in the opposite direction: since a thing may be
there for others without being present-to-itself-that is, without being self-conscious-Ease in the sense of bare existence is
taken as what is foremost. But this habit of thought is based
upon a univocal concept of presence-to-self. Presence-to-self is
assumed to mean simply conscious being. And then it follows
1 Karl Rahner,
Spirit in the World, trans. William Dych (New York:
Herder and Herder, 1968), p. 73. Hereafter Spirit.

BOB HURD

that since some beings are but are 1wt consciousnesses, Esse
cannot mean primarily self-presence.
If one looks to Thomas's hierarchy of Being for confirmation, ,all the while thinking of presence-to-self univocally as
self-consciousness, then the situation appears as follows. On
the face of it, Rahner's formula, Being is Being-present-to-self,
seems cogent enough so long as we confine its application to
those beings in the hierarchy which are intellectual. For the
formula basically says that the impetus hy which any being is
is presence-to-self or, more simply, Being is subjectivity. And
there is a well known hierarchy of subjectivities in Thomas's
picture of veality, stretching from the human knower (which is
only present to itself thvough the mediation of sense experience) through the angel (which knows itself by itself) to the
absolute identity of knowing ·and Being in God. This range of
intellectual life clearly illustrates the principle cited earlier:
finite intellectua,l beings are intrinsically hut imperfectly what
God is intrinsically and perfectly-the identity of Being and
knowing or Being as Being-present-to-self. But how can this
formula he carried any further down the hierarchy and applied
to non-intellectual beings, beings which are not in fact consciously present-to-themselves? At this point the formula seems
to falter and become ontologically uninstructive: it does not
seem expans·ive enough to take in the entire hierarchy of
Being. For now we cross over into that mode of Being which
is merely in-itself, not for-itself. And yet this in-itself surely
is. The in-itself, whose only act is " to be really there " would
seem to return us to the view that Esse as actual objective
presence is the foundational meaning of Being. By comparison,
Esse as presence-to-self is a more restrictive notion.
But if we ave to understand Rahner's equation of Being with
Being-present-to-self correctly, we must first resist the tendency
to forget the analogous character of Being precisely as presenceto-s,elf. To equate presence-to-self with self-consciousness is to
think presence-to-self univocally. In fact, not only are there
more or less perfect modes of self-consciousness, of which

RAHNER's

KEY TO AQUINAS'S METAPHYSICS

73

human self-consciousness is only one expression-there
are
more or less perfect modes of presence-to-self, of which rational
self-consciousness is only one expression. "If being," Rahner
says," means being-present-to-self, and if there are existents of
different intensities of being, then there are different degrees
of being-present-to-self." 8 Accordingly, one misunderstands
Rahner in advance if the self in the formula presence-to-self is
not allowed an intrinsically analogous and variable meaning, if
this self is taken univocally to mean personal self-consciousness.
Only at higher levels in the hierarchy of Being does the self of
presence-to-self take the form of personal self-consciousness. At
lower levels self simply designates the individual as a distinct
identity, the thing itself. When Kant, for example, refers to the
thing-in-itself he does not thereby mean person or personal
self-consciousness just because the word self occurs in the
formula.
With this in mind, let us reconsider the merely in-itself of
Thomas's hierarchy of Being and the impasse which this initself-which is not for-itself-apparently poses for the interpretation of Being as presence-to-self. The impasse seems insurmountable only so long as one assumes without further ado
that there is an utter ontological discontinuity between the initself and the for-itself. Thomas's own assumption or fundamental intuition in the matter runs in the opposite direction.
When he seeks to illustrate the principle that " the higher a
nature is, the more intimate to the nature is that which flows
from it " he begins not with the lowest rung of intellectual life,
nor even with the lowest rung of sensitive life, nor, finally, with
merely living things: he begins instead with inanimate material
substances which "hold the lowest place of all" (S.C.G., 4,
11). In other words, without attributing either life or consciousness to inanimate material substances, Thomas nevertheless places them under this sign: the more perfect the being
the more perfect its self-relation. Even the being of the merely
in-itself is essentially, though imperfectly and primitively, an
s Spirit, p. 73.

74

BOB HURD

expression or form of presence-to-self. Even the merely in-itself
has or is a self-relation and only on this basis can it he present
in the secondary objectivist sense of being present for another
as a possible object of encounter or knowledge. What is this
ontological self-relation or presence to self, since it can he
neither the rational self-consciousness of the intellectual soul,
nor the sensitive self-consciousness of the animal soul, nor even
the vital though non-conscious self-relating of the plant soul?
First of all, the self-relation that we are investigating here is,
in the technical language of Aquinas, an instance of the power
of emanation intrinsic to every being. In the famous passage
just alluded to from the Summa Contra Gentiles, Thomas plots
out the hierarchy of Being by reference to the successively
more perfect power of emanation displayed at each level of the
hierarchy. Within the unity of every being there is what is
unfolded (the emanated) and the origin or ground out of
which the unfolded flows (the emanating or the principle of
emanation) . This identity-in-difference of the emanated and
the emanating is supremely illustrated in the Trinitarian processions in which the diversity which emanates is simply and
absolutely one Being with the principle of emanation. The
Word which emanates from and whfoh constitutes the selfknowledge of God is God. In all other beings the power of
emanation is displayed in a less perfect modality. For example,
the word (i.e., the thought) emanated by the human knower is
not the substance of the knower but an accidental determination of that substance. Thomas's hierarchy of Being, then, is
a hierarchy of emanation and he assigns to inanimate material
substances the lowest rank within this hierarchy.
About these substances he says: " there can be no emanations
in these except by the action of some one upon another one."
One must note that the first part of the statement (i.e., " there
can be no emanations in these ... ") is qualified by its second
part (i.e., " ... except by the action of some one upon another
one ") . In other words, Thomas is not denying emanation to
inanimate material substances but rather locating the emana-

RAHNER'S

KEY TO AQUINAS'S

METAPHYSICS

75

tion proper to these substances in " the action of some one upon
another one." But such an emanation does not seem at first
glance to be of much help to us since we are looking for emanation in the sense of a self-relation, a relation of the emanated
to the emanating wi,thin a substance. Now Thomas appears to
be speaking of emanation in a quite different sense: no longer
the self-relation of a being but the relation of one being to
another, " the action of some one upon another one." Can the
action of one substance upon another be understood precisely
as an extension of the self-realization of the agent-substance?
Can the emanation of the agent-substance into the patientsubstance be understood as a further elaboration in the material potency of the patient of what the agent already is in its
own actuality, in its own intrinsic constitution? This would
mean that the agent-substance is already an emanation, a relation of the emanating and the emanated, in and of itself, and
it is just this unfolding actuality that is communicated to the
receptive potency (the matter) of the patient-substance. Unless something like this is the case, it is hard to see how the
transient causality of one substance upon another can count
for Thomas as a real though least perfect instance of that
emanation which is displayed throughout the rest of the hierrachy of Being. If emanation in the sense of the causal influence of one being upon another has nothing to do with emanation in the sense of the intrinsic self-constitution of a being,
then Thomas's analogy of emanation turns into equivocation
with respect to the inanimate material substance, the merely
in-itself, which supposedly holds " the lowest place of all."
In light of these reflections we can reiterate now, from the
perspective of Thomas's theory of emanation, what was said
earlier even the merely in-itself (the inanimate material substance): has or is a self-relation and only on this basis can it be
present in the secondary objectivist sense of being present for
another as a possible object of knowledge or encounter or as a
causal agent. In particular, the causal influence of one substance upon another is its emanation, the extension of its own

76

BOB HURD

unfolded actuality out beyond itself into the medium of the
patient-substance. Our only question now is how to understand
the ontological self-relation, the emanation, intrinsic to the inanimate substance even aside f11om its further expansion into
the medium of some other substance. How is the emanative
causal efficacy that the in-itself is able to have in relation to a
patient-substance a further unfolding of the emanation that it
already is in itself?
Rahner discerns in various commonplace doctrines of Scholastic philosophy the intrinsic though to be sure imperfect and
primitive (analogous) self-relating that constitutes the apparently undifferentiated and static being-there of the in-itself.
The in-itself of the inanimate material substance is not in fact
a simple static unity that is, as it were, placed into existence
by the addition of the ontologically more important principle
of esse. The only way for es'se to make real the meagre in-itself
is through the dynamic relation
form and matter in which
" ... the substantial form-' pouring itself out '-gives itself to
materia prima," realizes itself in the other of matter while at
the same time retaining this otherness to itself as its own selfe),_rpression and self-realization. 9 That the form is the act of
matter and nothing more than this in the case of the purely
material substance does not abolish the distinction and relation of these two ontological principles. The form of the merely material thing is completely diffused in matter and cannot
rise above this diffusion; but one must remember that this diffusion in which the form completes its own reality by actualizing the empty potency of matter is also simultaneously a holding sway, a stru.ctu.ring on the part of form over against the pull
of matter in its receptive potency to new forms and new becomings. In other words, the complete diffusion assigned to the
merely material form cannot be understood as though this
9 Karl Ralmer, "The Theology of Symbol," Theological Investigations,
Vol.
IV, trans. Kevin Smyth (New York: Seabury Press, 1974), p. 233. What
follows is a very brief summary of the material Rahner treats in this essay,
especia.lly pp. 222-35.

RAHNER'S

KEY TO AQUINAS'S

METAPHYSICS

77

form loses all act and becomes purely passive. If it did so it
would not be form but matter. The actual being is one-not
in spite of hut precisely in virtue of the tension between form
and matter. And so without contradiction this one being is also
spoken of as composite in the traditional terminology. Even in
this lowest mode of Being the form as formal cause is and remains ontologically (though not temporally) prior to the formmatter result of its causality. It is for this reason, ultimately,
that the form-matter result of formal causality, namely, the
quantitative spatio-temporal thing capable of bearing further
qualitative determinations, is really distinct from the essence
as such and the substance as such. In Rahner's words:
This quantity, which today we would call the given, concrete
spatio-temporality, or spatio-temporal figure ... is, according to St.
Thomas, to be definitely taken as the ' species,' the outward form,
aspect and figure, which the basic substance provides for itself, to
fulfill itself, to ' express ' itself and to manifest itself thus. 10

It is clear, then, that an intrinsic relation obtains between
the essence and that which flows forth from this essence as its
own self-enactment in space-time or materiality. This relation
is a self-relation because the form is both the being of the
formal cause and the being of the form-matter result of this
causality in a radical unity which is also truly plural or diverse.
On the basis of such considerations, Rahner concludes that the
in-itself of the inanimate material being is intrinsically an
emanation-in-relation-to-itself first and on this basis then also
a spatial-tempoml physical presence for another. The emanation so considered is ontologically so " weak " in its intensity
of Being that it does not rise to the status of an emanation in
the sense of vital activity, or sensation, or intellection; its
emanation can only complete and elaborate itself in being for
and at another in the mode of transient causality. In Rahner's
words:
Because in something purely material there really is no longer any
interior because of the ' total dispersion of the form over the
10 Ibid.

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BOB HURD

matter,' its ultimate self-realization is an expansion of its own
essence into the other (i.e., the matter)* of the other, is thus
transient causality, which is only a deficient mode of emanation in
the proper sense, which as self-realization takes place in the interior
* (parenthesis mine)
of an existent.11

Imperfect and primitive as this lowest mode of emanation is,
St. Thomas nevertheless understands it as a deficient mode of
higher possibilities. And these higher possibilities'-the self-relation of vital being, the self-relation of sensitive being, the selfrelation of rational consciousness-are themselves deficient and
imperfect analogies of that power of emanation or procession
which unfolds the Trinitarian relations of the Godhead.12
BoBHURD

Franciscan School of Theology
Graduate Theological Union
Berkeley, California

11

Spirit, pp. 357-8.

12 See, for example, 8.T. I, q. 14, art. 2.

DOES GOD HAVE A QUIDDITY ACCORDING
TO AVICENNA*

I

N THE NEW critical edition of Avicenna's MemphyS'ics
by S. Van Riet at Louvain (I, 1977; II, 1980; III, 1983),
Gerard Verbeke states that according to Avicenna,
"L'Etre necessaire n'a pas une essence qui est distincte de son
existence" (II, p. * 42, at note 159), i.e. that the Necessary
Being does not have an essence that is distinct from its existence. One looks in vain for a precise reference to an Avicennian
text.
On the other hand, in a three-part study, Albert G. Judy,
O.P., "Avicenna's Me1taphy8'icsin the Summa contra Gentiles,"
published in Angelicum, part I: 52 (1975) 340-384; part II:
541-586; part Ill: 53 (1976) 183-226, states quite clearly that
the "First" does not have a quiddity but only an "anity"
(anitas) . . . (546) ,

and that
Avicenna ... finds that the absolutely necessary being cannot have
what every other reality has, namely, a quiddity, a "whatness "
distinct from its" whether-ness" or anitas (547-548).

Moreover, the first appendix of Judy's article contains a redaction of the 1495 and the 1508 Venice editions of ltletaphyiscs 8.4, which differs chiefly in punctuation from the
excellent Van Riet text based on five Latin MSS.
A slightly more nuanced position is. found in Etienne Gilson's
Elements of Christian Philosoph;y (Garden City, N. Y.:
Doubleday, 1960), p. 127: " ... such exactly had been the con* Delivered before the Society for the Study of Islamic Philosophy and
Science meeting in conjunction with The American Catholic Philosophical
Association in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, on April 12, 1985.

79

80

E. M. MACIEROWSKI

clusion of Avicenna: the first has no quiddity (quidditatem
non habet) ," a claim that cites (305, note 28) secondary literature which one can trace as far back as Father M.-D. RolandGosselin's edition of the De ente et essentia.
What is at stake in this dispute? What if God does not have
a quiddity? It would seem that He should be utterly unknowable, if quiddity or essence is a principle of knowledge as well as
of being. Such would be plausible consequences of Gilson's and
Judy's position. What, on the other hand, if God does have a
quiddity? One possible inference, if we happened to have access or insight into the divine quiddity, is that we could have
a sort of mystical union with God, perhaps even in this life; or
again, one might draw pantheistic conclusions. Verbeke does
not follow such paths. His inference points toward a rawrochement between Avicenna's doctrine and that of St. Thomas
Aquinas, who maintained not only that God is His own essence
(and therefore that it is reasonable to speak of a divine essence)
but also that God's essence is no other than His esse, His being
or existence. Accordingly, for scholars to have such opposed
views about so important a topic even at the hermeneutical
level of Avicenna's position points to a serious difficulty.
Since Judy does offer texts in support of his interpretation,
let us consider the evidence, using his section numbers and Van
Riet's pages and lines:
Judy, section 4= Van Riet 398.83-399.84 goes thus in Latin:
Redibo igitur et dicam quod primum non habet quidditatem, nisi
anitatem, quae sit discreta ab ipsa.

This text he renders, "The first does not have a quiddity, except an 'anity,' which is distinct from it" (549). The other
text in Latin (Judy, section 13=Van Riet 401.31-32) goes
thus:
Igitur necesse esse non habet quidditatem nisi quod est necesse
esse, et haec est anitas,

which he renders, "Therefore necessary being does not have a
quiddity, but only the fact of its necessary being, and this is

DOES GOD HAVE A QUIDDITY

ACCORDING

TO AVICENNA

81

'anity'" (559). We wonder, however, why nisi should be
translated "except" in section 4 and "hut only" in section 13.
One would have expected a sed solum or a sed tantum to justify
the rendering "but only." Accordingly, the translation should
be corrected to read, " Therefore the necessary being has no
quiddity except that it is necessary being, and this is anity ." It
would seem to follow then (a) that the necessary being has a
quiddity and (b) that this quiddity is none other than anity,
whatever anity might mean.
Ought we then to reconsider Judy's section 4, as well? For,
as we have seen, it was taken to mean that "the 'First' does
not have a quiddity but only an 'anity '" (546), even though
the correct translation from the Latin was given: "the first
does not have quiddity, except an 'anity'" (549) . Accordingly, here too we would infer (a) that the First has a quiddity,
and (b) that this quiddity is none other than anity, again leav,ing the meaning of ' anity ' open. But, we may well share
Father Judy's perplexity at the phrase quae sit discreta ab ipsa,
since it would seem odd to claim that "the first does not have
quiddity except for an anity whioh is distinct from it." For
how would a thing's own essence be distinct from it? Is
Avicenna contradicting himself? Something is clearly wrong,
and the difficulty lies, as Judy rightly suggests, in a garbled
text. The Arabic underlying Judy's section 4
wa-na'udu fa-naqf1lu: inna al-awwala la mahiyyata la-hu ghair alanniyya; wa-qad 'arafta ma'na al-mahiyya, wa bi-madhii tufariquhu fl iftitahi tibyani-na. hadha ... (Cairo ed. 1960, 344.10-12)

may be rendered as follows:
Now we shall return to our topic and say that the :First has no
quiddity other than anity, and, in the opening of this exposition
of ours you have learned that meaning of quiddity and through
what it is distinguished.

presumably from anity. The internal reference to a semantic
distinction between quiddity and anity has dropped from the
Latin text. Accordingly, there is no reason to reject the real
identification of quiddity and anity (whatever that may mean)

82

E. M. MACIEROWSKI

in the case of God, Who, in Avicenna, also goes by the name
The First. One may have some compunctions and even say,
" We must not try to understand the meaning of the Latin
Avicenna by a reference to the Arabic text" (Judy, 550). Yet
can we not reconsider the corresponding Latin text
Redibo igitur et dicam quod primum non habet quidditatem nisi
anitatem quae sit discreta ab ipsa (398.84-85)

more closely, noting that the troubling clause quae sit discreta
ab ipsa is in the subjunctive not the indicative, and render it
Therefore I shall return and say that the First does not have a
quiddity except anity, which may be distinct from a quiddity

in some circumstances, not necessarily the present ones?
It would a;ppear, then, that God has a quiddity and that His
quiddity is anity. If 'anity' could be shown to mean being,
Professor Verbeke's position would seem at least reasonable.
Here it will be sufficient to note that ' anity ' is our transliteration of the Latin word anitas, which in its turn seems to have
been a transliteration of the Arabic word anniyya, which was
used by Astat in his version of Aristotle's Metaphysics to translate the Greek word einai, to be. M.-Th. d'Alverny's rich article
"Anniyya-anitas" in the Melanges offerts a Etienne Gilson
(Toronto: P.I.M.S.; Paris: J. Vrin, 1959) is helpful in this connection. It is not clear what sort of being-term anity is in an
Avicennian context. Hence Verbeke's claim, though plausible,
is not yet disoharged. Perhaps a few hints from Avicenna's
Introduction to the Logic of the Book of Healing may help.
(see appendix) From the uses of the term anity in logic, one
may infer that anity, as opposed to quiddity, seems to refer to
a thing as distinguished in its individual being.
Accordingly, in a preliminary way, we may accept Verbeke's
suggestion that for Avicenna the essence of God is the same as
His being in the sense of anity. Moreover there is an Arabic
text, noted by the indefatigable Van Riet at 401.82, that is not
preserved in any of the Latin MSS.:
(Between Judy sections 13 and 14:) And we say that if the anity
and being were accidental to the quiddity, then it is either (a) a

DOES GOD HA VE A QUIDDITY ACCORDING TO AVICENNA

83

necesary concomitant of it by the essence of the quiddity, or (b)
something extrinsic. Now it is impossible for it to come about
owing to the quiddity. For the consequent is not a consequent of
anything except a being; for (otherwise) it would necessarily
follow that the quiddity have a being before its being, and this is
impossible (Cairo 1960, 346.13-15).

Here anity (anniyya) is explicitly yoked with being (wujud).
Does this mean that
is right and Gilson is wrong to
claim that " the conclusion of Avicenna " is that " the First
has no quiddity" (Elements 127)? Can Gilson's position be
rescued?
Let us continue the immediate sequel, as the Latin version
continues (Judy, section 14 ff.):
Again I say that, whatever has a quiddity aside from anity, is
caused. (15) Moreover, you already know that out of anity and
being a quiddity which is aside from anity is not constituted in the
sense in which something is constituted out of a constituent; they
will therefore be among the concomitants; (16) and then it can
only be the case that either they will be concomitants of the
quiddity precisely because it is the quiddity itself, or they will be
concomitants of it owing to something else. The meaning of what
we say ' are concomitants ' is to follow in being and that being
follows not being. (17) If, however, it were the case that anity
should follow the quiddity and be a concomitant of it (402 Van
Riet) through itself, then it will be the case that the anity in its
own being will follow being; but (with respect to) whatever in its
own being follows being, that after which it follows has being
through essence prior to it; therefore the quiddity through essence
will be prior to its own being, which is unfitting. (18) It remains,
therefore, that being belongs to it from a cause. Hence everything
having a quiddity is caused; and all the others, except for the
necessary being, have quiddities which are through themselves
(instances of) possible being (mumkinat al-wujud), to which being
does not occur except extrinsically.
The first therefore does not have a quiddity, but rather being flows
from it upon the things having quiddities; (19) He Himself, therefore, is pure being ( esse ex.<?poliatum;Arabic mujarrad al-wujUd) ,
in a condition denying privations and other properties of Him.
Then all the others that have quiddities are possibles, since they
have being through Him (20) (Van Riet 401.33-402.51).

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E. M. MACIEROWSKI

In the first part of this text (13-17) it appears that the proof
establishes not that God has no quiddity, but that He is, as
the Necessary Being, self-identical; that the Necessary Being
is the Necessary Being seems to be taken in the sense that the
individual designated for consideration is the self-same as its
own quiddity. This seems to constitute its anity. The quiddity
of the Necessary Being is not in any way other than the Necessary Being. If it were, then what we had under consideration
would not really have been the Necessary Being. The Necessary Being has, or rather is, a, privileged quiddity free even
from the necessary accidents which proceed from a quiddity.
In other things, the anity would arise frmn the attendant accidents; in the Necessary Being, the anity is no other than the
quiddity itself. Otherwise the consequent would as such be
prior to its own principle, which is absurd.
How then is it that some have held that Avicenna denies that
the First Principle has a quiddity? It would appear that
Avicenna in fact holds that, in the case of the Necessary Being,
the quiddity is the being or anity, whereas in other things, the
quiddity is not the same as the being or anity. In them, their
being does not seem to be derived from the intrinsic principles
of the quiddity, but from a cause. Earlier Avicenna said that
the First has no quiddity other than anity (inna al-awwala la
mahiyyata la-hu ghair al-anniyya, Cairo 1960, 344.10); now he
says that everything possessed of a quiddity is caused (fa-kull
dhi mahiyyatin ma'lul) and all things other than the Necessary Being have quiddities (wa·-sa'ir al-ashya' ghaira al-wajib
al-wujud fa-la-ha niahiyyat, 347 .8) . Avicenna claims that
everything which has a quiddity other than anity is caused
(wa-naqillu inna lwlla ma la-hit mahiyya ghaira al-anniyya fahuwa ma'Ull, 346-:-Hm . From this starting-point he concludes
from the fact that the first has a quiddity, namely, to be necessary of being, that He has no quiddity; "hence, the First
has no quiddity, and being emanates from Him upon the possessors of quiddities." Gilson was relying upon Roland-Gosselin's quotation (from section 18, Judy) of Avicenna's conclu-

DOES GOD HAVE A QUIDDITY ACCORDING TO AVICENNA

85

sion, that since God is the quiddity that He is, namely N ecessary Being, He has no quiddity. The juxtaposition of premise
and conclusion is paradoxical, but seems to be founded on the
text.
Conclusion. In his early magisterial Commentary on the
Sentences, St. Thomas seems to have summed up our laborious
results rather pithily:
Quidam enim dicunt, ut Avicenna, lib. De intelligent., cap. 1, et
Rabbi Moyses, lib. I, cap. lvii et lviii, quod res ilia quae Deus est,
est quoddam esse subsistens, nee aliquid aliud nisi esse, in Deo est:
unde discunt quod esse sine essentia (1,
q.1, a.3, sol.; ed.
Mandonnet I, 67) .
For there are some who say ... that the thing which is God is a
subsistent being, and there is not anything else except being in
God: this is why they say that He is being without essence.

One is struck by what this text does not say as much as· by
what it says. If Avicenna, who would seem a plausible exemplar
of such a position, were in Aquinas's mind, why does Avicenna's
favorite divine name 'necesse esse' disappear? Why does St.
Thomas use instead the formula ' quoddam esse subsistens ',
"some subsistent being"? Here may we speculate that for
Aquinas, being is so much the central issue of metruphysics that
being, prior to any modalities or any transcendental features, is
what all metaphysical study must be reduced to. Esse is more
basic than N ecesse Esse.

APPENDIX
TEXTS FROM THE LOGIC ILLUSTRATING THE
USE OF THE TERM 'ANITY'
Text 1. Madkhal (Cairo
I 5;
But the reality of its being (wujud) is through humanity,
and so the quiddity of each individual is through its
humanity, whereas its individual anity arises from a quality, a quantity, etc.

86

E. M. MACIEROWSKI

MadkhalI7;38.13-16:
(Other logicians) do not make the one thing fit for being
related to the things ' anity ' and • quiddity ' in such wise
that, inasmuch as they have something in common, they
have a quiddity, and insofar as through it a thing is distinguished from other things, they have an anity, so that
the thing said of a multiplicity will, insofar as the multiplicity shares in it, be a genus or a species, and will, insofar
as it is distinguished (yatamayyazu) through it, be a difference.
Text 3. M adkhal I 8; 44.5-9:
The essential term for the thing which does not designate
the quiddity of something to which its essentiality is considered to belong either essentially or properly, cannot be
the most general of the common essentials. And if not,
ithen it designates in some way the common quiddity and
so is more proper than it; hence it is good for distinguishing (tamyiz) some of its inferiors from others; hence it is
suitable for the anity, and so every essential term that
does not in some way designate a thing's quiddity designates the anity
o

Text 4a. Madkhal I 8; 46.1-3 (cf. Logyca Venice 1508; fo.
6ra) :
So we say that the thing said in answer to the question
" what is it? " is what is said of the essential term signifying the quiddity; the thing said in answer to" what sort
of thing is it in its own right? " or " which what is it? "
( ayyu ma; Latin quale quid) is said of the essential term
signifying the anity
o

Text 4bo M adkhal I 8; 46A-8:
As for the accidental, it may perhaps be (1) something
proper to the nature of that of which it is a predicate and
not be the accident of anything else, in the way in which
laughing and writing are accidents of man, and such an

DOES GOD HAVE A QUIDDITY ACCORDING TO AVICENNA

87

accidental term is called a property; or it may be (2) an
accident both to it and to something else, in the way in
which white is accidental to man and to other things, and
such an accidental term is called a general accident. Every
essential universal term, however, designates either (1) a
more general quiddity and is called a genus, or else
a
more proper quiddity and is called a species, or else (3)
designates an anity and is called a difference.
Text 5. M adkhal, I 13: 72.13-15:
As for the first imposition of the term, they named every
notion by which a thing is rendered distinct from a thing,
whether it be individual or universal, a difference; then
they transferred it after that to that by which the thing is
rendered distinct in itself.
E. M. MACIEROWSKI
1

(Jhristendom College
Frnnt Royal, Virginia

RESPONSE TO DONALD KEEFE ON LONERGAN

D

ONALD KEEFE'S "A Methodological Critique of
Lonergan's Theological Method " in a previous issue
of The Thomist is one of the most challenging and
thought-provoking articles I have seen recently. 1 He appears
to mount a sophisticated and devastating critique of Lonergan' s theological method. I would like to suggest lines along
which a Lonerganian might respond.
Many points call for challenge, but I read Keefe to be making two central affirmations: (I) I,onergan holds to a distorted
understanding of the nature-grace distinction, by which nature
is the prior and determining reality, and grace an accidental
and extrinsic a.fter-thought:
Lonergan continues to hold to
the out-moded natural-supernatural
distinction. I believe
Keefe is half-right in both cases.
The two theses I attribute to Keefe are distinguished by the
words "distorted" and "out-moded." The first assumes (at
least for the sake of the argument) there is such a thing as the
nature-grace distinction, and claims that Lonergan misconstrues it. The second, more radical thesis is that this distinction was current in the Middle Ages as the natural-supernatural
distinction, but is now to be abandoned. In other words, it is
possible to misunderstand a tradition, and it is possible to belong to a mistaken tradition. I take Keefe to be accusing
Lonergan on both counts: Lonergan misunderstands the nature-grace distinction; but further, that distinction is itself
erroneous and so Lonergan, holding to it (with whatever misconceptions), stands doubly condemned.
I believe Keefe is half-right in both cases. In the first instance, he is right on the substance, but incorrect in his readThe Thomist 50 : 28-65 ( 1986) . All internal references to
1 Full reference:
Keefe will be to this article.

88

RESPONSE TO DONALD KEEFE ON LONERGAN

89

ing of Lonergan. That is, there is indeed a valid distinction between grace and nature; but Lonergan understands it correctly,
not incorrectly. In the second case, he reads Lonergan correctly, but is mistaken on the issue. That is, Lonergan does indeed
espouse the nature-grace or natural-supernatural distinction;
but that distinction is not out-moded, but perenially valid.
Point I. Thesis: "Lonergan holds to a distorted version of
the nature-grace distinction, by which nature is the determining reality, and grace an extrinsic after-thought." This is my
wording, but I am attributing the thought to Keefe. The following quotations from his article are intended to justify and
expand this thesis. "Lonergan's thought on the nature-grace
relation is finally moored to the supposition that created grace
(being in love with God) is a contingent modification of a preexisting natural entity ... " (Keefe, 33). Translated into
epistemological terms, this means that reason is the controlling
reality, faith an adventitious late-comer. A theology based on
such a notion is inescapably rationalistic. "To refuse such accountability ... is to suppose interiority to be self-validating
and autonomous: this is Lonergan's supposition, and it reveals
a rationalism little at peace with a gratuitous intellectual horizon, the horizon of faith " (Keefe, 34) .
Further, this transcendental method, as self-validating, is inescapable, and therefore deterministic. " Such a consequence is
the very hallmark of determinism" (Keefe, 36n). As such it
has no openness to history; the method thus in advance excludes the proper content of theology. "It carries an emphasis
upon fallenness and the need for redemption which, as has been
said above, is curiously absent from Lonergan's anthropology"
(Keefe, 41) .
In sum, Keefe outlines here the kind of extrinsic, twolayered theology of a self-enclosed natural world into which
grace penetrates adventitiously as a strange and foreign invery understanding
truder, an awkward after-thought-the
that Rahner was attacking in his early writings on grace. 2
2 Karl Rahner, "Concerning the Relationship
Between Nature and Grace."
Theological Investigations !:297-317. Baltimore: Helicon Press, 1961.

90

TERRY J. TEKIPPE

My response: Keefe is quite right to reject such a conception
of the nature-grace relationship. Unfortunately for his case,
Lonergan never held any such thing. Though Keefe is obviously familiar with a great range of Lonergan's writings, he has
missed the point of a whole number of crucial passages.
As Lonergan says very dearly, "But it would be a anthropomorphic blunder to transfer this succession to God. There
are no divine after-thoughts." 3 In the concrete, there is one
historical world, and it is, and has always been, a graced
world. Lonergan never envisions, as Keefe implies (Keefe, 50),
a temporally prior world of pure nature. This is precisely why
Lonergan insists " nature " is but an intellectual " line of reference." 4
In other words, if there are no divine after-thoughts, then
God could not have envisioned first a world of pure nature, and
then, in a second "moment" (in Lonergan's strict notion of
eternity, of course, there are no "moments " in God's life, but
only the tota et simul perfecta possessio) , a grace to be given
to that world. No, the divine plan is one, and envisions simultaneously nature and grace, with nature perfectly ordered to
grace as to its finality. 5 Consequently, there at no time existed
a world of pure nature. It is only what would have been had
God created the world without grace. As such it is only a
theological concept, a hypothetical construct, what Rahner
properly terms a Restbegriff.
Epistemologically, Lonergan stands in the tradition that
theology is faith seeking understanding; it is not reason seeking faith. This is why Foundations, in Lonergan's theological
method, the point where the systematic expansion of theology
begins, is based on religious conversion, not on reason or the
inevitabilities of conscious interiority.
s Bernard J.F. Lonergan. Insight: A Study of Human Understanding.
Green and Co. Ltd., 1957, p. 695.
London:
4 Bernard
J.F. Lonergan. Grace and Freedom. New York: Herder and
Herder, 1971, p. 16; Method in Theology. New York: Herder and Herder, 1972,
pp. 339-40.
5 See Bernard Lonergan, "Finality, Love, Marriage." Collection. New York:
Herder and Herder, 1967, pp. 16-53.

HESPONSE

TO DONALD KEEFE ON LONERGAN

91

More fully, Lonergan envisions eight theological specialties,
organized into two phases: a first phase of listening to the past,
appropriating the tradition: Research, Interpretation, History,
Dialectic; and a second phase of speaking a creative theological
word to the present and future: Foundations, Doctrines, Systematics and Communications. 6 Lonergan allows that the first
four specialties may be properly performed by a person without
religious faith. But the second phase begins with Foundations,
which is an explicitation of religious conversion. Therefore conversion is of the very essence of the creative and systematic
phase of theology for Lonergan. This is but a contemporary
restatement of the classical Augustinian-Anselmian-Thomistic
conception: theology is fides quaerens intellectuni, where the
faith is always presupposed to the understanding. Consequently it is inaccurate to term Lonergan a rationalist.
True, Lonergan points out that theologians have minds, and
use them, so that what is true 0£ mind remains so also in
theology. But this in no way limits theology, because the mind
is an open structure. Its object is being, which is whatever can
be intelligently understood and reasonably affirmed, and this is
to be understood not narrowly, but in a way wide enough to
include the small but precious understanding of which Vatican
I spoke, and the affirmation 0£ faith and the creeds. 7
Again, the claim that Lonergan's approach is a-historical is
belied by the texts. Lonergan makes a massive attempt in
chapter 7 of Insight to accommodate the Aristotelian-Thomistic tradition to history. 8 In Method in Theology, three of his
central categories are progress, decline and redemption. 9 Progress is the upward thrust of the pure desire to know, the trajectory the human race would traverse if it always followed the
guide of intellect, and never sinned against the light. Decline
is the obverse: the descending and contracting series of inte6 Method

im Theology, 125-45.

1 Met hod, 307, 321.

s Insight, 207-44.
s Method, 291.

TERRY J. TEKIPPE

grations that follows upon bias and the deliberate flight from
understanding. Left to itself, this direction would tend to a
human entropy of chaos, anarchy and absurdity. But a third
motive force in human history is God's work of redemption,
which has the power (if responded to) to lift man from the
counterpositions and bias and restore him, now in a higher
way, on the road to knowledge and freedom. Progress, decline
and redemption are, consequently, nothing other than the historicization of the medieval metaphysics of nature, sin and
grace. To say that Lonergan's thought is a-historical is to miss
entirely its dynamic and finalistic sweep.
Keefe also misses the structure of Insight, the implications
of its moving viewpoint. The viewpoint of each chapter is
superseded by the one following it, so that the ultimate viewpoint is that of "a believer, a Catholic, and, as it happens, a
professor of dogmatic theology." 10 Again, reason does not dictate to faith, but faith subsumes reason and its structures, as
the fourth level of decision sublates the first three levels of experience, understanding and judgment. Lonergan also points
out the normal occurrence of the three conversions: first religious, then moral, then perhaps intellectual. 11
In sum, Keefe reads Lonergan inaccurately on this point.
Point 'f.hesis: "Lonergan persists in holding to the naturalsupematural distinction, which contemporary theology should
abandon." Again, this is my wording of Keefe's intent, and
needs to be justified by his own words:
On this showing, the whole weary business of the Thomistic anthropology of human nature or substance as potentia obedientialis, and
of grace as a pure nominal accidens, disproportionate and unowed,
entirely incapable of eduction from that potency, may finally be
laid to rest, for grace is now no longer accidental, but substantial
... (Keefe, 44).

My response: Keefe is accurate here in his interpretation of
Lonergan; but I believe he is wrong on the issue. Lonergan
·10 Insight,
11

732; see also 731, xxiii-xxvi, 695.
Method, 243.

RESPONSE

TO DONALD KEEFE ON LONERGAN

93

does indeed hold to the natural-supernatural distinction; but,
I would maintain, that distinction, so far from being outmoded,
hr a perennial staple of Catholic thought. What should be noted
is that Keefe's quarrel is at this point not merely with Lonergan; it is also with Rahner, with the hulk of the Thomistic
tradition, with Thomas Aquinas himself and, I am convinced,
also with the doctrine of Vatican I.
Undeniably the distinction of nature and supernature, which
Lonergan envisions as a crucial and brilliant breakthrough of
the high Middle Ages,12 has lost much of its attraction in today's theology. But Rahner points out the key reason why it
cannot be abandoned: with it would fall the gratuity of gra.ce.18
If grace is so essential to the human essence that the latter cannot even be envisioned without it, then God can only create
humankind in a graced condition; which undermines the free
graciousness of redemption. Keefe is here tilting with practically the whole Thomistic tradition, and with Thomas himself,
who clearly distinguishes nature and grace, reason and faith,
philosophy and theology. Keefe's suggestion that some later,
refined Thomas would have pursued a trajectory ending in
Tillich's position (Keefe, 30) is quite unconvincing. Further,
Vatican I clearly affirms the distinction. " ... duplicem esse
ordinem cognitionis non solum principio, sed obiecto etiam distinctum ... " DS 3015. To pretend that this is a. Thomistic understanding imposed on Vatican I (Keefe, 33) is to fail to
understand how much that Council is based upon Thomas's
thought, often following him almost distinction for distinction,
as with the text on the absolute and conditional necessity of
revelation (DS 3005) . To suggest that nature should be understood here in an Augustinian rather than a Thomistic way
(Keefe, 54) is whistling in the dark. Ultimately, Keefe is himself forced to say that Vatican I cannot be read as a " literal
statement" when it affirms grace to be an accidental change of
the human reality (Keefe, 54-55) .
12 <hace, 14-1.5.

1s K. Rahner, Foundations of Christian Faith. New York: The Seabury
Press, 1978, p. 123.

94

TERRY J. TEKIPPE

Keefe refuses to accept that grace is related to human nature as accident to substance. That may be superficially convincing: but the alternative is that grace is of the substance
of the human, a necessary and intrinsic property. This means
that the world of pure nature is not only non-existent, but also
impossible: for God to have created man without grace would
have been to bring into being a mutilated human nature. But
this means that grace is not a free gift: if God is to create
humanity at all, then he must; create a graced humanity. What
then becomes of" God's gift" (Rom. 3: fl4, Eph. fl: 8) given to
us in Christ Jesus?
There is another implication to the collapse of grace into nature, so that grace is of the substance of the human: if a person falls from grace, then he or she also falls from human nature. In the Protestant tradition to which Tillich belongs, of
the total depravity of human nature, this result is not uncongenial; but it fits poorly in the Catholic tradition. This is the
nub of the problem: Keefie is reading Lonergan (and Rahner
and Thomas and the Thomistic tradition) within Tilli0hian
presuppositions: (Keefe, 38) .
I may summarize my basic thesis as follows: Lonergan is a
'Jihomist, whereas Keefe is a Tillichian. That puts Lonergan
in the Catholic tradition, and Keefe-though Tillich had
more respect for philosophy and reason than many Lutheran
scholars-in the Protestant-Lutheran tradition. As Keefe tries
to read the Catholic tradition, he inevitably does so with a
jaundiced or misconstruing eye. I think he is very ingenious
in his attempt to read Thomas this way, but in the end it won't
wash: no amount of wishful thinking is going to turn Thomas
into a Lutheran.
Keefe aspires to a creative interipretation of the Catholic
tradition; what he overlooks is that the Thomistic tradition
has become so thoroughly entwined in the Catholic. For example, Vatican I is practically a pastiche of Thomist texts and
theology. That is why Keefe finds Vatican I so embarrassing,
and almost literally seems not to know what to do with it-be-

95

RESPONSE TO DONALD KEEFE ON LONERGAN

cause it enshrines, not the mythical Thomas he is trying to
read out of the texts, but the real Thomas who stood very
clearly for the nature-grace, natural-supernatural distinction.
Keefe's ecumenical effort to join Protestant principle and
Catholic substance 14 is laudable. It must be noted, however,
that both Jansenius and Nikolaus von Hontheim (Febronius)
made a similar attempt, out of the same worthy motives. In
either case the decision of the Catholic Church has been unfavorable. I am not convinced that Keefe will be any more
successful in his own attempt to bridge the two traditions.
TERRY J. TEKIPPE

Notre Dame Semvnary
New Orleans, Louisiana

H Donald J. Keefe, SJ. Thomism
and the Ontological
Tillich. Leyden: Brill, 1971, pp. 334-45.

Theology

of Paul

A BRITISH COMMONWEALTH

DOGMATICS

HE APPEARANCE of a new dogmatics is always
ause for hope, hope sorely needed in Anglo-Saxon
ountries where the tradition of systematic theology is an
especially delicate growth. In the lands of the British Commonwealth, whence all the contributors to the series which I
shall discuss have so
come, the cultural and educational
tone has been set very largely by the English, and England, for
reasons bound up with the peculiar development of Anglican
theology, has never put forth much
the way of a dogmatictheological shoot. 1 Thus Dr. Alister McGrath, in his recent The
Making of 11/Iodern German Christology, has opined that the
last great English theologian was William of Ockham. 2 Although McGrath's reviewers have made out a case in this regard for S. T. Coleridge and J. H. Newman, it must be admitted
that the writing
neither man could really be called systematic. How, then, has Catholic theology in these countries preserved, if at all, that dogmatic systematicness which is an
accepted aspect of the coherence of Christian teaching in the
Catholic tradition? Either, it may
said, through creating the
institutional enclaves of its own seminaries and religious studia;
or ,by participating in foreign, largely clerical, faculties of theology; or by entering into contact with the mainstream, largely
Anglican, academic theology of the Universities and hoping for
the best, in the knowledge that here at any rate is an expertise
in biblical studies, patristics and Church history whose use can
1 See S. IV. Sykes, 'Germany and England:
An Attempt at Theological Diplomacy', in ibid. (ed.), England and Germany. Stttdies in Theological Diplomacy Frankfurt am-Main and Berne 1982), pp. 158-159, for an explanation of this phenomenon.
2A. McGrath, 'l'he iliaki:ng of Modern German Ohristology (Oxford 1986),

P· 5.

96

A BRITISH

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97

only be beneficial.3 The volumes which have so far appeared
of the new Chapman Introduction to Catholic Theology bear
marks of all three types of influence.
The foreword to the new series, setting the tone for what will
follow, is by Canon Michael Richards. For many years the
editor of the pastoral monthly The Clergy Review, now renamed Priests and People, Canon Richards is currently a parish
priest in that opulent district of the West End of London distinguished for the elegant jeunesse doree known as ' Sloane
Rangers'. As general editor of the new dogmatics he does not,
however, allude to the institutional background which I have
sketched, with its particular conjunction of limitations and
possibilities. Instead, he chooses to help the reader locate what
is being offered in terms of the call for a renewal of Catholic
theology made in the documents of the Second Vatican Council. The Council, Richards sugests, ' provided the Church with
a fundamental revision of its way of life in the light of a thorough investigation of Scripture and of our history, and with
fresh guidelines for studying and reflecting upon the Christian
message itself.4 Without citing chapter a.nd verse of the Council documents, Richards spells out these ' guidelines' in the following terms. Post-conciliar theology should:
(a) maintain scientific or scholarly rigor;
(b) succeed in expressing the Catholic tradition;
(c) utilise the contributions of other religions, and other
churches, to an understanding of God and the world;
(d) report on the insights made possible by drawing on a
number of different philosophical and methodological
approaches.
At the same time, Richards promises, the books that compose
the series will each supply the appropriate quantity of informational material and reflective stimulus that might reasonably
a For a discussion of the cultural context of theology in Britain, and especially England, see J. Coulson (ed.), Theology and the Unwe'rsity. A.n lilaumenioal Investigation (London 1964), passim.
"Forword ", reprinted with different pagination, in each
4 M. Richards,
volume of the series.

98

AIDAN NICHOLS,

O.P.

be assumed for any book purporting to be a text-hook in the
area which it covers.
This amounts to a very tall order, and two questions at once
suggest themselves. First, are these the desiderata of theological method suggested by the Council? Secondly, are they actually realised in the books before us? I shall return to the first
of t:hese questions at the end of this review. The second will be
dealt with, in effect, in the course of my remarks on the individual volumes, I simply note at this juncture that a certain
gap between the intentions of the editor and the work of the
contributors is already apparent if we compare the material
program set forth in the general foreword to the titles of
the hooks that have so far appeared. What the Editor originally promised was: a theology of revelation followed by a Christology, a theological anthropology and a pneumatology. This
sequence indicates a definite theological vision: the economy of
the Father reaches its climax in that of the Son; the two economies, in their interrelation, reveal, by the light of theology, the
human pole of a covenant dialogue whose medium is the Holy
Spirit. Unfortunately, it seems that somewhere along the line
a spanner has been thrown into the works. A de Deo and a
trinitarian theology have intervened, and the pneumatology
has not, so far, seen the light of day. Thus, the scheme proposed by the editor 'has come to naught, something 0£ serious
consequence for any dogmatics, which must have a wellthought-out structure, and especially important for a collaborative enterprise of this kind which can so easily collapse into a
series of monographs, deprived of explicit connections with
each other and limited by the personal interests proper to each
contributor--not to speak of possible attacks of myopia, or the
riding of hobby-horses. I shall return to this question of overall planning and theological method, once more, at the end of
this article.
A_ Theology of Revelation

Fr. Aylward Shorter's study was begun while the author was
teaching African Christian theology
Tanzania, and com-

A BRITISH

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99

pleted at Downside Abbey, near Bath (England) 5 The author's
bias is drawn from these two poles: a concern with cultural
anthropology and a theology suited to mission lands, on the
one hand, and, on the other, the native English Catholic tradition, notably as mediated by Newman.
The book is carefully structured. An opening chapter considers revealed religion as we find it embedded in the world
around us, namely, as a social reality. From there the author
moves on to consider revelation in the Old and New Testaments (somewhat disproportionately, there are two chapters
on the Old, one on the New), with a marked Christocentric
emphasis reminiscent of the preamble to Dei V erbum, the
Council's dogmatic constitution on divine revelation. Next, he
considers the transmission of the revelation
the Church, and
the possibility of speaking (synchronica1ly) of the existence of
divine revelation in other (contemporary) religions. Two concluding chapters deal with the act of faith, as the receiving of
revelation, and various practical (largely, missionary) ramifications of the theology of revelation as it has now been set
forth in the book as a whole. Fundamentally, this book deals
with four issues: revelation, and its anthropological pre-conditions; the Church; Christianity and other religions: these will
be considered in this order in what follows, and first, then,
revelation.
Shorter opens with a largely anthropological preamble, which
packs a huge amount of material into a somewhat confined
space, inducing a certain claustrophobia in the reader accustomed to more leisurely exposition. A short history of world
religions follows on a precis of the development of anthropological theory and is continued into an account of the Church's
place in the Western intellectual tradition, itself seen as a
further chapter
the saga of the vicissitudes of religion.
Such condensations are inevitably distorting: the question is,
whether the information offered is sufficiently more correct
5 A. Shorter, Revelation cmd its Interpretation
forth as 'Shorter'.

(London 1983). Cited hence·

100

AIDAN NICHOLS,

O.P.

than incorrect to be worth the candle. In cases where I felt
confident in judging this, I sometimes doubted the value of the
summaries offered. The claim that in Kant, for instance, the
' Absolute ' is the moral imperative, and in Schelling ' nature ',
overlooks the fact that in both these philosophies, unconditioned reality is predicated of God: in Kant, as the ens realissimum, in (the later) Schelling as the creative' I' of transcendent freedom. 6 Nor do I find the statement that Neo-Scholasticism was isolated from theological and political involvement a
convincing one. 7 The first part makes no sense: whatever one's
assessment of the value of N eo-Scholasticism as a mode of
practising Christian theology, it can hardly be denied that it
was such a theological form. The second part is simply untrue:
through a figure like Jacques, Maritain, Neo-Scholasticism
played a considerable part in the Church's eventual acceptance
of pluralist democracy in Southern Europe and Latin America.
Contemporary Catholic writers are too prone to take easy
swipes at the N eo-Thomists, as one may perhaps be forgiven
for pointing out in a journal founded from within that movement of Scholastic ressourcement. Admittedly, the wellnigh
universal animus against Neo-Scholasticism in Anglo-Saxon
countries does have one reasonable source: the attempt by the
Papacy to impose a single theological style in all Catholic
teaching institutions. Yet this was hardly the fault of the NeoThomist divines themselves. The unreasona;ble ground of hostility lies in a prejudice against propositions in the sphere of
revelation, dogma and theology. But as Dr. Julius Lipner of
Cambridge has recently reminded us, " it is the glory of human
consciousness that its tacit dimension can come to fruition in
propositions, in articulated meanings which can be true or
false ". 8
Such an espousal of propositions as what makes possible the
6 Shorter,

p. 19.

7 Ibid.

s J. Lipner, review of P. Avis, Ecumenical Theology and the Elusiveness of
Doctrine (London 1986), in New Blaokfiars 68. 804 (April 1987), pp. 203-204.

A BRITISH

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101

distinguishing of falsehood from truth, and the deepening of
the latter, in no way need deny the importance of imagination,
which is Shorter's privileged epistemological category in the
theology of revelation. Imagination, is, as Professor John
Mcintyre has argued in his recent study thereof, the most important cognitive form taken by our grasp of the revealed religion socially incarnate around us.9 Imagination plays a vital
role in our grasping the ' it ' of revelation, and as such is necessarily prior to the rational interpretation and, in part, justification of that revelation. Nevertheless, the theologian's final
aim, as Scotus pointed out, must be the greatest possible degree of rational explication of the mysteries--even though he
knows, and since the First Vatican Council, by divine faith,
that the reasoning intelligence can only approach the heart of
the revealed mystery in asymptotic fashion. More attention to
the relation of imagination and reason here would have enabled
Shorter to carry out more fully his evident intention to avoid
the Scylla and Charybdis of Modernism and its mere antithesis.
Shorter is, at any rate, encouragingly brisk on Christian
claims to have a revelation-something occasionally denied,
partly hecause of the infrequency of the vocabulary of ' revelation' in the New Testament, partly from the desire to safeguard the autonomy of human truth-finding. Over against
secular and death-of-God theologies (insofar as time has not
blown these ·quite away) , Shorter insists that Christianity is
only meaningful as a revelation. In the fact of the current conventional wisdom which ascribes the Church's lack of impact to
the moral mediocrity of its members, notably ministerial,
Shorter claims that what really counts in the last resort is the
capacity of Christian truth to enter a mind, inhabit it and become its very form. 1 -0
His account of the .symbolic vectors of revelation concludes
·by saying that the product of the divine revelatory activity is
a narrative memory that carries with it an eschatological
9 J. Mcintyre,
10 Shorter,

Faith, Theology and Imagination (Edinburgh 1987).
p. 28.

102

AIDAN NICHOLS,

O.P.

burden, and hence is more world-transforming than world-accommodated. A story, in other words, about the ultimate, with
the power to change the world. Although this conclusion is
chiefly indebted to Johann Baptist Metz and his ' political'
theology, the account of symbol which undergirds it derives
from many sources. Thus we find set to work here an anthropological account of symbol, drawn mainly from Clifford
Geertz; an ontological account, culled from the part-Scholastic,
part-Idealist source of Karl Rahner; a psychological account
taken from C. G. Jung; and finally a literary account, harrowed
from another Downside-connected scholar, John Coulson. It
may be that all of these concepts have important connections,
but on the other hand such an eclecticism could just be incoherent.
I shall deal much more briefly with Shorter's chapters on
the Bible, for these are relatively unproblematic. He sees the
history of Israel as, from the viewpoint of revelation, the prehistory of Christ. Confidence is not secured at the outset, when
we are informed that ' the Bible ' means ' the Book '. Ta biblia
signifies, of course, ' the books ', thus indicating, oddly enough,
precisely the plural and varied character of Scripture which
Shorter, at this point in his text, wishes to convey.11 Not that
he allows the unity of Scripture to dissolve into a welter of
competing and irreconcileable theologies. He offers, rather, a
bold interpretation of the totality of Israel-in-its-Scripture,
along the lines of the 'biblical theology ' movement associated
with G. v:on Rad, W. Eichrodt and J. L. Mackenzie. Revelation in Israel is primarily God himself, but God in the process
of his self-manifestation, a manifestation which is both the creation (' election ') of a personal relationship, and the communication of a meaning or message. This revealing activity was
soteriological: both positively, as redemption, and negatively,
as judgment. All these elements were found concretely in the
four forms Shorter sees as constitutive for the making of Israel's
distinctive religious existence: covenant, cult, prophetism and
11 Ibid.

p. 35.

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wisdom. Much of this is familiar reportage, nor is originality to
be over-prized in a textbook. But there are occasional genial
insights of an illuminating kind as in the statement that 'the
geography of the Holy Land was a mystical geography, a map
of the nation's collective religious experience ". 12 But references,
perhaps inadvertent, to the God of the Old Testament as 'a
person ' suggest a certain insoucianae towards the idea that this
pre-history of Christ is itself incipiently Trinitarian. Shorter's
account of the Old Testament concludes by stressing the emergence of a universalist hope-something which is not simply a
pre-supposition of Christianity, but particularly appeals to his
own concern with mission and inter-religious dialogue.
The central christological section is conservative on the historicity of the Gospels at large, though not to the point of
claiming untroubled access to the ipsissima verba Jesu. Shorter,
aware of the stubborn persistence of oral traditioning in an
African context, is the more open to the blandishments of the
Swedish school of
Testament exegesis to the effect that the
original disciples were trained rememherers. Although he has
comparatively little to say about the Atonement as a revelatory
form he is good on the Resurrection, which he describes as
manifesting Jesus as not simply source and object of revelation
but its goal. This comparatively short discussion ends with
the suggestion that, as between the original apostolic preaching and the later christological reflection of New Testament
writers we have an example of ' derived' or 'participant ' revelation which can serve as a model for the sections on the transmission of revelation which now follow.13 Unfortunately, the
effect of this suggestion is quite to obscure the distinction between the unrepeatable Origin and its mediations: as the existence of the Canon of Scripture ever reminds historic Christendom in every tradition, there is a difference in kind, and not
simply in degree, between the interpretative work of later
erations and that of the unique springtime when the charisms
12 Ibid.
13 Ibid.

p. 61.
p. 135.

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of inspiration and inerrancy played. As Charles Journet put it,
the Church raises Scripture above herself, just as she raises up
Christ above herself during the procession of Corpus Christi.u
We thus move on to the picture offered by Shorter of revela
tion as now found in the Church. An interesting prologue
affirms that the promise of such different philosophical or quasiphilosophical readings of the world as Platonism and Structuralism that the essence of finite reality is participation can be
realised only by reference to Christian revelation, as signalled
in the doxological confession of St. John in his prologue: "From
His fullness we have all received, grace upon gra.ce ". 15 This is
the sign under which Shorter wishes to place his account of
revelation in the Church: ecclesial faith is itself participant
revelation, just as ecclesial teaching authority is participant
apostolicity. Though I am happy with the idea that the root
metaphysical concept for an ontology of the finite (whether in
nature or grace) is that of participation, I am less convinced
of the particular manner in which Shorter works out this theme
in relation to the revelation" once for all given to the saints ". 16
Mol"e nuance is necessary here, else Catholics will rightly be
charged by Anglicans and Protestants with eliding the distinction between the development of revelation and the development of its understanding. In this respect, some unguarded
phrases in Newman's Essay on the Development of Christian
Doctrine have given hostages to fortune, as Owen Chadwick
pointed out many years ago at the close of his great survey of
the idea of development, thus starting a controversy among
Newman scholars which is by no means concluded. 11 What is
at stake here is nothing less, indeed, that the self-identity of the
essence of Christianity over time. This becomes acutely noticewble when Shorter identifies the concept of the ' signs of the
What is a Dogma? (ET London 1964), p. 51.
1, 14.
16 Jude, v. 3.
110. Chadwick, From Bossuet to Newman. The Idea of Doctrinal Develop·
ment (Cambridge 1957), p. 195.
14 C. Journet,

l.5 John

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times ' as found in pontifical, conciliar and synodal utterances
from John XXIII onwards as "the signs of the participant
revelation ". 18 Here the tension between general history and the
special history peculiar to the Gospel is collapsed in a seemingly undialectical fashion. Despite the author's evident intention
to avoid a sheer relativism, his insistence that the hermeneutic
commended in the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith's
1973 declaration M ysterium Ecclesiae is au fond indistinguishable from the historical situationism of Avery Dulles, 19 appears
to overlook one major factor, which his consideration of 'organic' theories of doctrinal development could have brought
home to him. The principal value of the metaphor of organism
lies in the notion of the irreversibility or perduringness of doctrinal ' features ' once these are acquired by the body of the
Church. Though development in the understanding of revelation is often staccato and discontinuous, its fruits in magisterial
definition, once they have appeared on the tree, can never justifiably be ignored. Though they may at the conscious level fall
into neglect their rediscovery is always a call for their re-appropriation in study, preaching and worship. It is situationism's failure to grasp this truth which distinguishes it from the
(very necessary and legitimate) recognition of the historicity
of doctrine comme telle. However, these difficult matters of
background assumption do not by any means destroy the value
of what Shorter has to say-briefly enough-on such matters
as the inter-relation of Scripture and Tradition, the interpretation of Scripture, and the roles of episcopate and laity in the
making of Church doctrine.
Mention of the pluralism of contemporary theological schools
at the end of his chapter on revelation in the Church leads
Shorter on to the topic of Christianity and other religions: the
issue of pluralism writ large for any would-be theology of revelation. Shorter's fundamental argument here is that, since
Christ is the source, object and goal of (all) revelation and sal1s Shorter, p. 143.
19 Ibid. p. 169.

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vation, and since (as may be alleged on grounds both of Scripture and Church teaching) he is active outside the Church, it
is legitimate for us to discern ' Christian' elements in various
cognitive aspects of the non-Christians faiths. Following the
Indian theologian Raimundo Pannikar, Shorter proposes that,
if the heart of Christian truth is the Trinity, itself disclosed
through reflection on the mystery of Christ, then the world
religions constitute so many disjecta membra of Trinitarian belief which only Christianity can re-integrate. 20 Buddhism in its
apophaticism represents the unseen Father; the iconomorphic
or personalist theisms of Asia and Africa, Judaism and Islam
the eternal Son, and the non-dual divine reality of Vedantic
Brahmanism the Spirit who ' fills the whole world '. That this
theory is ingenious can hardly be denied; but it forces its own
data into a strait-jacket which faith does not demand, nor rationality approve. However, my principal objection to this account of the relation between the Church and the non-Christian world faiths is rather to what Shorter frankly calls the
abolition of the 'separate historical "furrow" of 'special'
salvation history '. 21 Instead, the Church, by laying hold of
the justifying grace found in the Cross of Christ, enters into the
movement of his representative and substitutionary atoning
work, in such a way that her existence, as Christ's body, is a
condition of the gift of salvation to those outside her visible
communion. By eliminating the salvific function of the Church
and replacing it with an (admittedly, fascinating) noetic function of unifying the cognitive contributions of other religions,
the author departs from any philosophy of history which could
claim a secure New Testament foundation. Though generously meant, this is in danger of becoming a new gnos£s, that is, a
speculative, rather than gracious, unification of human experience.
The final two chapters of the book deal with a pot-pourri of
20 Ibid. p. 202; ef. R. Pannikar, The Trinity and the Religious ]i]xperience
of Man (London 1973).
21 Shorter, p. 192.

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practical ramifications on culture and liturgy, development and
catechesis, much of which is eminently marked by pastoral
good sense. The work ends, as books on revelation should no
doubt do, in the contemplation of heaven, understood in Gregory of Nyssa's sense of an unending epektasis, or reaching-out,
towards the vision of God.
A philosophical theology
Fr. Brian Davies's Thinking about God is a very different
kettle of fish, coming as it does from the pen of an Oxford
Dominican whose own background is in the Anglo-Saxon philosophy of religion. 22 Davies's structure is, like Shorter's, wellconceived. Part One considers arguments .for God's existence;
Part Two explores the concept of God; Part Three deals with
the specificity of the Christian form of belief in God, concluding
with a chapter on the philosophical problems raised by the
Church's practice of petitionary prayer. This is a much cooler,
more academic book; religious only in the sense that the exercise of rationality can itself be the service of God, and characterised by the typical exempla of modern English philosophical discussion, sometimes amusing, but irritating if over-employed. References to rum-punch and strip-clubs certainly enhance the readability of the prose, but is it pompous to suggest that the fit of style and subject should indicate a spot
more gravitas?
Part One resumes a great deal of discussion of the possible
grounds .for asserting God's existence: arguments from the
existence of the cosmos; from design and from miracles; from
putative experience of God, and of the moral life; finally, from
the concept of God: the ontological argument. Davies plunges
into his subject here with little or no indication of the concept
of God he is initially supposing. Apparently, this concept is
that of a creative ground to the world, a ground to which there
intrinsically belongs unconditional autonomy or aseitas.28 In
22B, Davies, Thinking
'Davies'.
2a Davies, p. 30.

about

God

(London 1985). Cited henceforth

as

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other words, at the opening of this book we find ourselves not
in the realm of Christian revelation charted by Shorter, but in
that of a philosophical theism which has submitted a religiously derived concept of God-that drawn from Judaism, Christianity and Islam-to a sheerly rational purification. The
establishment of the claim
such a rational concept of God
is instantiated in reality is indeed an aspect of the ' preamble
of faith ' as practised in Catholic theology in much of the
modern period: but it is not quite what is going on in the
Prirna Pars of the Summa Theologiae of St. Thomas, beneath
whose intellectual patronage Davies considers himself to be.
As the late Dominique Dubarle put it, in questions 2 to 26 of
that treatise, ' the Christian religion is constantly present ' in
the elaboration of Thomas's thought, as both the authorities
cited and certain of
issues raised make clear. 24 The divine
essence in its unity is simply that which is common to the
Father, Son and Holy Spirit of biblical revelation, though, once
in possession of this divine revelation, and taking seriously the
fact of human religiosity (which supplies us with the sense of
' what all men call God ') , :rational intelligence can repossess
the thought of the unitas
essentiae in ontological terms
of its own. As Etienne Gilson approvingly cited Lessing in this
regard, certain religious truths were revealed so as to become
rational. 25 It was Hegel's error to think that what is thus true
of some must be true of all.
However, Davies certainly adheres closely to Thomas in his
preference for approaches to the existence of God of a broadly
cosmological kind. Thus while, as he rightly says, he presents
sufficient argumentation for and against various positions to
enable the reader to attempt an independent evaluation of the
points at issue, his own defence of the existence of God-effectively, as Creator-would aippear to be by way of three moveso
24 D. Dubarle, L'ontologie du mystere chretien chez saint Thomas d'Aquin,
in Dieu avea l'J!Jtre. De Parmenide a saint Thomas. Essai d'ontologie theologale
(Paris 1986) , ch. 5 and especially here at p. 268.
25E, Gilson, L'Flsprit de la philosophie medievale (Paris 1932), p. 20.

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In a first step, he discusses the so-called ' Kalam' argument, a
designation drawn from the mediaeval Islamic schools, to the
effect that only personal choice could have started up the
world. Here Davies hesitates when faced with the claim that
persons must be bodily, a point of view which he associates
with Thomas who, though, describes persona as distinctum
subsistens in natura intellec"tuali:20 However, Davies's main
point here is that, while the Kalam argument is probaibly valid,
its proof of an initiator of the world is not that of the Creator
'in the full traditional sense '. 21 And so, by a second step, he
turns to the body of reasoning for which the universe requires
a first Cause in a sense not restricted by temporal reference.
The argument from design then functions in a third move to
corroborate the conclusion of the First Cause argument. Just as
the existence of the universe and its order cannot be prized
apart, for the universe is, precisely, a cosmos, so the First Cause
must be thought of integrally as a designing creator. 28
Reasoning to God's existence from religious experience, moral
practice and in the ' ontological ' manner classically expressed
in Anselm's Proslogicm receives much shorter shift, though not
shorter coverage. For Davies, there can be no argument to
God from religious experience, for it is impossible to say how
an experience of the Creator could be identified: ' there seems
to be no distinguishing property or activity that something
must have or display if it is, indeed, the Creator of the universe '. 29 This difficulty would, no doubt, be dissipated if one
selected a di:fferent root metaphysical concept of God than that
of creative Being. Should one regard the key notion here as allholiness, say, or the active power to satisfy the human capacity
for infinitude in intellect and will, the problem would hardly
present itself in such acute terms. And indeed, if no experience
26 C. I Sent., d. 23, q. 1, a. 4c, p. 566; De Pot. q. 9, a. 4; Ia. q, 29, a.3, ad
and q. 30, a 2 c.
21 Davies, p. 17.
2s Ibid. p. 50.
29 Ibid. p. 69.

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of God can ever he identified, and we are permanently restricted
here to the mode of inference, no theological epistemology
proper to the Christian mystery can ever he established, and
the visio facialis of heaven would be impossible. I entertain
doubts, too, a;bout Davies' dismissal of the claim that moral
(and not just religious, or mystical) experience provides us
with materials for affirming God's existence. He seems to think
that an ethics of the virtues such as, following the tradition of
Thomist Aritsotelianism, he wishes to embrace, excludes an
ethics of values wherein forms of the good might be described
as posited by the Supreme Good. And yet, as Jacques Maritain put it, ' in the eyes of Aristotle the good of the virtues is
at the same time bo111Um lwnestum (good worthy in its own
right) or good in itself and through itself, and the means of attaining happiness '. 30 And, as Dom Illtyd Trethowan of Downside, an early inspiration in Da.vies's work, would then comment, ' God is involved in this (first) meaning of the word as
the absolute standard of reference '. 31 As to Anselm's unum
argumentum, I have suggested elsewhere that it offers an investigation of the unique grammar of the word ' God ' which
we can accept as informative about reality if we hold, with
Anselm himself, to the 'fiduciary' character of language. 32
Davies' judgment that these approaches to God's existence
must be excluded from the club of successful arguments, and
his neglect of other potential members, though decisions to
which he is entitled, are inevitably bound up with the somewhat thin concept of God which Part One of the book in different respects both presumes and delivers. I also thought it
a pity that, in a series entitled 'Introducing Cathol,ia Theology ' no attempt was made to establish the historical contours
of the Catholic tradition in these matters, something which
30 J. Maritain, Moral Philosophy. An Historical and Oritical Survey of the
0.reat 8ystems (ET London 1964), p. 35.
a1 I. Trethowan, Absolute Value (London 1970), p. 209.
3:2 A. Nichols, "Anselm of Canterbury
and the Language of Perfection",
Downside Review (July 1985), pp. 204-217.

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would have enriched the largely Anglo-Saxon tonality of the
whole.
In Part Two the idea of God is, by contrast, more deeply
explored, largely thanks to Davies's e:Kploitation of Thomas's
notion of the divine simplicity. His crucial chapter on this subject, which he has subsequently refined, 33 then leads into a discussion of certain divine attributes, and of the problem of evil.
Unfortunately, Davies is not an entirely reliable reporter of
Thomas on the siniplicitas Dei which, were it to turn chiefly as
Davies leads one to suppose, on God's immateriality, would
also characterise the angels. The angels are not individuated
by matter, being subsistent forms, but nevertheless-and here
is the point at which the divine uniqueness appears to reason
for Thomas-they are still related to existence 'as a potency
to its actuality '. 34 The divine simplicity consists, by contrast,
in the absence of distinction in God between esse, existence, and
quod est, that which is 35 Though, to be sure, Davies mentions
this, he seems too wary of putting more than a toe into the
deep waters of the Thomist metaphysics of being to do it
justice. This is a Thomism from which nearly every trace of
Christian Platonism has been relentlessly expunged, and Gilson's discovery of Thomist 'Existentialism' de-potentiated, its
metaphysical exhilaration reduced to a study of those relationships in which the Thames Valley is most at home, since they
belong to, and are not simply reflected in, the logical and linguistic order.
A forthright defence of the divine unchangeableness follows
under the rubric of God's eternity. Though I am fully sympathetic to Davies's rejection of accusations that the classic notion
God as actus purus is static (of all things!) , something
more needs to be said about what the kenosis of the Word In33 B. Davies, 'Classical
Theism and the Doctrine of the Divine Simplicity',
in ibid. (ed.), Language, lJf eaning and God. Essays in honour of Herbert
]}foOabe OP (London 19S7), pp. 51-74.
s1 Ia q. 50, a 2, ad iii.
35 J. F. Wippel,
Metaphysiaal Themes in Thomas Aquinas (Washington
HJ84), p. 138.

AIDAN NICHOLS,

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carnate's earthly ministry represents in the eternal Godhead.
While a more theologically sophisticated account of the foundation in the divine nature of the Son's self-emptying than any
mentioned in Davies' discussion is that of Claude Bruiare, who
sees it as 'God's right' to be free even in regard to his own
absoluteness,a6 a version which Davies might be better able to
accept, in line with his own account of the divine attributes, is
that of Hans Urs Von Balthas·ar, who locates the eternal source
of the suffering and death of Jesus not in the divine nature, but
in the procession of the divine persons. Just as for the mediaeval Scholastics, the internal divine processions are the condition of possibility for the creation, so for von Balthasar the
'super-ken0sia' of the self-giving of the Father in generating
the Son pre-contains all the modalities of divine love found in
the history of salvation. 31 Davies' discussion of God's omniscience, though again more philosophical than theological, as
appears from the removal of the Molinist soientia media from
its context in the doctrine of grace and predestination, may
nevertheless be recommended as a clear guide in a conceptual
minefield. On the problem of evil, a topic to which Davies has
contributed several times before, the combination of a privative concept of evil and the claim that it is absurdly anthropomorphic to ascribe to God 'moral obligations' (yet, surely,
the divine goodness is a rule for the divine action?) seems to
lead to the conclusion that theodicy is a pseudo-problem. This
would appear to prove too much by rendering a religion of redemption otiose.
Further confirmation, if such were needed, of the fundamentally non-theological character of this book, is provided by the
sections on the credibility of the distinctively Christian doctrine of God. On the rational component in such credibility
Davies does not take into account the more existential view of
what should count as rationality here as that is found in Cath36 C. Bruaire,

Le Droit de Dieu (Paris 1974)
' Preface ', Pltques: le mystere (Paris, 1972), pp.

a1 H. U. von Balthasar,
9-10.

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olic apologetics or fundamental theology since the time of
Maurice Blonde!. Moreover, he reduces the act of faith to the
same level as the (justified) entertaining of beliefs that we
practise in other areas of life. Though there is an analogy here,
as Newman pointed out in the Essary in Aid of a Grammar of
Assent, to leave matters at this rpoint is effectively to discard
the supernatural character of the act of faith, and therewith its
value as the inchoate but foundational form of Christian mysticism. The chapter on the non-contradictoriness of Trinitarian
and Christological doctrine confirms my basic view of the
whole: it is a useful intervention in the Anglo-Saxon philosophy
of religion, exceptionally lucid and full of common sense, but
hardly theology. Readers will not be surprised to learn that it
is rounded off by a disquisition on the philosophical problems
connected with petitionary prayer; yet how much more than
this might a title like " God and Prayer " properly evoke.

The Trinity andMan
My hunch is that it was awareness of the limited character of
Fr. Davies' undertaking that encouraged the publishers to seek
from his confrere, Fr. Edmund Hill, an Augustine scholar who
for many years has worked in clerical formation in Southern
Africa, a Trinitarian theology as well as the originally announced investigation of the Christian doctrine of man. Hill's
The Mystery of the Trinity and Being Human may reasonably
be taken together since his preferred Church father, as is wellknown, regarded the first as the key to the second, and vice
versa. 88
Hill's basic position is that the mystery of the Trinity has
been revealed to us in a complex of mediate and immediate experience: mediate, through the Church's appropriation of the
apostolic witness, and immediate, through each believer's response of faith to God revealing. 811 The enuntiabilia of ecclesial
38 E. Hill, The Mystery of the Trinity
(London 1985), cited henceforth
'Hill MT'; ibid., Being Human (London 1984), cited as 'Hill BH'.
s9 Hill MT, p. 12.

as

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tradition are so heard and received that they terminate in the
res of the divine life itself. Derived originally from Christian
experience (a hornets' nest of a term, of course, and Hill does
not investigate its meaning in the manner attempted by, say,
Edward Schillebeeckx in his Christ or even in an older, but
epistemologically no less sophisticated writer such as Jean
Mouroux) ,40 Trinitarian faith must re-find its moorings in our
present version of such experience today. Else the doctrine of
the Trinity will be reduced to a magician's 'esoteric rigmarole '. 41 Yet, Hill insists, this interpretative scanning of experience cannot be made to bypass the authoritative truthclaims of Scripture and Tradition which provide it with its
canons and its keys. Here Hill strikes out on a via media between Shorter's tendency to flee propositions and Davies' propensity to practice proskunesis before them. Essentially, Hill
maintains, and in this the authentic tones of a disciple of
Augustine become audible, the divine Trinity did not choose
to disclose their constitutive inner personal reJationships except 'in terms of, and in the context of, our relationships with
them '. 42 This is not only neatly put: it is finely put.
But frankly, the book as a whole is misnamed. It should
have been entitled 'An Augustinian Theology of the Mystery
of the Trinity', rather than 'The Mystery of the Trinity'
tout oourt, since what it offers is, fundamentally, an expose of
Augustine's thought, with brief preludes and postludes appended.. Thus fifty-four pages of prelude invite us to consider
the biblical evidence for a Trinitarian concept of God; the
'economic' theologising of selected ante-Nicene fathers, and
the new agenda-the need to write an ' absolute ', ' immanent '
or, as Hill prefers to say 'transcendental ', theology of the
triune God-forced on the Church by the Nicene resolution of
40 E. Schillebeeckx,
Christ. The Christian Experience in the llf odern World
(ET London 1980), pp. 30-79; J. Mouroux, L'Experience chretienne. Introduction a une theologie (Paris 1952).
41 Hill MT p. 6.
42 Ibid. p. 16.

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the Arian crisis, with its systematic preference for the language
of being over against the language of willing. (That poor old
nag 'transcendental ': how much more can it be expected to
carry?) There then follow no less than eighty-nine pages of
exposition of Augustine's thought, much of it effective, all of it
readable. Finally, after a mere five pages on Abelard, Peter
Lombard and Aquinas, who however, obtained an occasional
earlier look-in as a student of Augustine himself, the author
pulls out his final stops for a concluding twenty-none pages of
postlude in which he passes judgment on the Trinitarian content of a variety of manuals, textbooks and catechisms. Whilst
I find myself in fundamental agreement with his chief desideratum, namely, that both the eternal processions and the invisible
missions should be approached from the starting point of the
visible missions in the public saving economy, I cannot think
that the literary structure of this book qualifies its author to be
such an astringent critic of other men's work. It may be that
the significant history of all Trinitarian theology since August
28, 430 is simply Augustine with footnotes-though the almost complete ignorance or neglect of Augustine's writings in
the Eastern tradition until the nineteenth century Russian
patristic renaissance renders this prima f a,cie unlikely. 43 Yet
a book which, whilst not claiming to be a history of the doctrine
of the Trinity, possesses nonetheless a fundamentally historical
structure cannot possibly proceed as though this questionable
hypothesis were certainly true. In this regard, a work like
Walter Kasper's The God of Jesus Christ is much to be preferred as an introduction to the theology of the Trinity. 44
From the Victorines to Barth and von Balthasar, there are
voices well worth listening to but given no chance to speak in
these pages.
En passant, it may be remarked that, while Hill is surely
right to regard the Nicene crisis as the fundamental matrix of
43 See my ' The Reception of St. Augustine in the Byzantine-Slav tradition ',
forthcoming in Angelicum 64, ( 1987), 437-452.
44 W. Kasper, The God of Jesus Christ (E,T London 1984).

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Augustine's Trinitarian thought, his discussion reflects an earlier generation of patristic scholarship. The debate sparked off
by the remarkable revisionist work of Robert Gregg and Dennis
Groh might never have been,45 nor is Professor Christopher
Stead's penetrating investigation of the chosen idiom of the
Nicene party in Divine Substance exploited. 46 Yet despite these
criticisms it is quite an achievement to have made not only
the manner of composition of the De Trinitate but also its subject matter so readily intelligible. In effect, Hill has made
available to a wider readership the interpretation of that work
which he put forward in a major article
the Revue des etudes
augustiniennes some twelve years previously. 47
Being Human takes further the anthropological reflections
which exploration of Augustine's psychological model (s) of the
Trinity had suggested. The book approaches the theology of
man as ' the study of the drama of the relationship between
God and the human race, and all its members from the beginning to the end of time '. 48 This offers the
of writing
an ontology of man, partially illuminated by the salvation-historical divine action and partially constituted by that action.
In this way, Hill would recreate the classical patristic anthropology, which sees man both as in the image of God, a state of
affairs given with his creation, and in God's likeness, a project
to be achieved throughout the history of grace. This attractive
program is indeed pursued through the course of the book
whose main sections are: man's origins, and notably his original
righteousness and sin; his body-soul unity; his being-towardsdeath and towards-resurrection; man as person and community;
man as male and female; the unity and pluriformity of mankind; and finally man's transformation by grace in the light of
the great theological realities of God, Christ and the last things.
45 R. C. Gregg and D. E. Groh, Jilarly Arianism:
a View of Salvation
(London 1981) .
46 C. Stead, Divine Substance
(Oxford 1977), especially pp. 223-266.
47 E. Hill, 'St. Augustine's
De Trinitate: the doctrinal significance of its
structure', Revue des etudes augustiniennes 19 (1973).
48 Hill BH p. xvii.

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The execution of the program is by and large well done,
being carried out within a framework which is formally
Thomistic, but fleshed out with material content from a variety
of biblical theologies within the Canon, notably those of the
Pentateuch as identified on the Wellhausen hypothesis, and
St. Paul. Unfortunately, the text is marred by a number of
flaws which, taken together, considerably reduce the value of
the book. First, and least seriously, there is a recurrent idiosyncracy of tone whose origin appears to be an English nursery
in the reign of George V: characters like Ole King Cole, Alice in
Wonderland, Winnie-the-Pooh, Albert and the Lion, float in and
out of these pages in a fashion which will be, one imagines, as
bewildering in Little Rock as in Lesotho. This is all the more
remarkable, in that the 8/uthor frequently warns against the
blandishments of purveyers of colonial culture, Eurocentrists,
et hoc genus omne. Secondly, there are some disappointing
lacunae: thus, for instance, the account of the body-soul relationship in the European philosophical tradition ' from Descartes to the present ' confines itself to Gilbert Ryle's somewhat
intemperate attack on Cartesianism. 49 But if we are not to be
enlightened as to the opinions here of Schelling or MerleauPonty, our expectations should not be raised and dashed so
precipitiately. Thirdly, in a volume designed to introduce
students to a specifically Catholic approach to anthropology,
Church doctrine is sometimes treated in very cavalier fashion:
we are told that the immortality of the soul is not as such
Christian teaching 5Q-but what should we make then of the
efforts of the fathers of the Fifth Lateran Council? Over against
the paganising N eo-Aristotelianism of Pomponazzi, they taught
that in the formula anima forma corporis Christian revelation
has enabled human rationality to acquire a just view of the
soul for the first time: the soul belongs to the body as its
form, yet the form of the body is nevertheless spirit. 51 Again,
pp. 96-97.
p. 104.
51 D.-S. 1440; cf. G. Bianca, PomponlU':zi e il problema deUa persona.Uta
umana (Catania 1941),
411 Ibid.

50 Ibid.

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Hill rejects the indissolubility of marriage, and the necessity of
its monogamous character for all the baptized, on the gorunds
that it is unthinkable that' Jesus Christ came to make laws '. 52
Hill's claimed insight into the thinking of the Deity is not
shared, as he alleges, by St. Thomas: for the angelic doctor,
whilst the primary content of the 'New Law' is indeed the
grace of the Holy Spirit, that Law also contains albeit in secondary fashion, those things ' de qui bus oportuit instrui fideles
Christi et verbis et scriptis, tam circa credenda quam circa
agenda '. 53 And it may be suggested that this indifference to
positive dominical determinations could underlie Hill's assumption of the evident rightness of liberal positions on such matters
as the ordination of women. Surely, in a textbook of this kind,
the teachings of the ordinary magisterium on such issues should
be presented intelligently and sympathetically with the full
range of their argumentative and evidential basis fairly deployed. This is the very least that can count as theological responsibility towards the tradition ' in possession ' in the wider
Church. But perhaps such self-restraint is too much to ask of
a writer who confuses the identification of moral norms with
moral motivation, both affirms and denies soteriological universalism, in general manifests a warmer heart than postlapsarian clarity of mind can easily survive, and finally disarms all criticism by telling us that something or other is probably in Philo but that he is much too old to start reading him
now!
A Christology

Father Gerald O'Collins, an Australian by birth and presently Dean of the theological faculty of the Gregorian University
in Rome, must surely be the best known of these four writers
as he is certainly the most prolific. He is an extremely experienced teacher, a fact reflected in the mellifluous pedagogy of
Interpreting Jesus. 54 With its numerous sub-divisions, each
BH p. 153.
q. 106, a. 1.
54 G. O'Collins, Interpreting Jesus (London 1983). Cited henceforth as IJ.
52 Hill

58 ST Ia Hae

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supplied with carefully tabulated main points, the book guides
the student in painless fashion across five great tracts of the
Christological countryside: the ministry of Jesus; his death; his
resurrection; Jesus as Redeemer, and as Son of God. An introductory chapter explains the method the author proposes to
:follow, whilst an epilogue considers the relation between fajth
in Christ and the experience of the non-believing world, thus
traspassing somewhat on the domain already claimed by
Shorter.
In the introduction O'Collins evokes the richness of the
Christologist's sources. Through a threefold schema of the
Christ of past memory, the Christ of present experience and the
Christ of future hope, he or she is able to press an enormous
variety of material into service, ranging from traditional
iconography to contemporary film. In practice, however, O'Collins' chief tool is a dogmatically aware biblical exegesis. Indeed, he holds that, by integrating biblical scholarship into
Christology modern theology has recreated the distinctive
Christological approach of St. Thomas as found in the account
of the mysteria Christi in the Tertia Pars.55 As O'Collins's
earlier books would lead us to expect, this is a Christology centred, like the Christian Liturgy itself, on the events of Good
Friday and Easter Sunday. 56 Those events, and the account of
the post-existent ' and 'pre-existent ' Son which they not only
permit but require, are seen here not just as Christological fact
but as soteriological meaning. They are the divine response to
human existence as' a radical quest for, and experience of, life,
meaning and love '. 57
On the historic ministry the author holds, rightly, that the
earthly Jesus's understanding of his own misission and identity
must be regarded as laying some basis for subsequent Christian belief in him as Savior and divine Son: an extreme
55 IJ p. 23.

ssG. O'Collins, The Calvary Christ
(London 19802) .
57 IJ p. 30.

(London 1977);

The Easter

Jesus

mo

AIDAN NICHOLS,

O.P.

kenoticism that would so circumscribe the human intellect of
the Incarnate Word as to leave that mind with no grasp of its
personal subject's ultimate identity or mission would, frankly,
generate a monstrosity. Backing off from use of the first-person
addresses of Jesus in the Fourth Gospel-despite the recent attempt of Pere Fram;ois Dreyfus to revive use of that Gospel as
a genuine source for our Lord's self-description, 58 O'Collins
finds in the Synoptics sufficient evidence that Jesus saw himself
as enjoying a unique relation to the Father, in virtue of which
his person and fate would be the means of the final in-breaking
of salvation upon the world.
On the death of Jesus, the author concentrates on Jesus's
own prior interpretation of his forthcoming death, leaving to
the later chapter of Christ as Redeemer a discussion of the theology of the Atonement. A brief section on Calvary as Trinitarian disclosure is too thin to be satisfactory: a pity, since the
best dogmatic Christology both Catholic and Protestant, of the
last hundred years has contributed much to developing M. J.
Scheeben's insight that Christ's sacrifice was 'the highest expression of the Trinitarian relations and the most perfect vehicle of their extension to the outer world '. 59 O'Collins shows
himself to be a firm believer in the Shroud of Turin which he
regards as the pictorial equivalent to the kerygma of the
Crucified. Though I agree with the late J. A. T. Robinson
that the onus of (dis) proof now lies on the Shroud's critics,
I think its going a little far to paraphrase John rn, 32 as 'When
I am lifted up in death and resurrection, I will draw all sciences
to myself-through the relic I will leave behind, my burial
cloth '. 60
On Christ's resurrection, O'Collins persists in the unblushingly objective line of thought which has gained him, in some
Catholic quarters, the sobriquet of 'fundamentalist': a wound
58 F.
59 M.

Dreyfus O.P., Jesus savait-ii qn!il etait Dieu? (Paris 1983).
J. Scheeben, The Mysteries of Christianity (ET London 1947), p.

445.
ao IJ p. 102.

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of honor, perhaps, in the contemporary climate. Over against
the account of the resurrection appearances found in Edward
Schillebeeckx, O'Collins argues courteously but firmly for the
category of embodied encounter, tracing the Flemish Dominican's scepticism about both empty tomb and the veridical quality of the appearance narratives to a prejudice against any empirical grounding to the assertions of faith, as well as an embarrassment over any strikingly ' special ' acts of the revealing and redeeming God within his creation. And yet, as O'Collins soberly sums up, ' It would seem appropriate that this
corpse which was the means of universal salvation should share
in a glorified existence and belong to the enduring work of redemption carried on by the risen Christ through the Holy
Spirit '. 61
On the redemption itself, the author suggests that to the
human condition as, characteristically, oppressed, contaminated
and interiorly wounded, Christ offers a redemption which is,
correspondingly, liberation, expiation and transformation by
love. By combining the soteriological approaches of Aulen,
Anselm and Abelard, O'Collins is able to offer a satisfying picture of the benefits won by the redemptor hominis. And in
:Something of a tour de force, he points to a possible Trinitarian
foundation for this triform salvation. For the Father is the
mate source of all life, the Son is limitless meaning and truth,
and the Spirit the inexhaustible power of love. My only
vation in this section concerns the fact and manner of the
author's insistence that Christ in his sacrifice was a representative victim, but not a substitutionary victim. The danger of
the language of representation, when taken by way of deliberate
and exclusive preference to the claims of the language of substitution, is that, whereas the relation between Christ and sinners is clearly a:ffirn1ed, the :relation between Christ and the
Father is left in shadow. The combination of the two types of
discourse, on the other hand, in permitting us to speak of the
a1 IJ p. 128.

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AIDAN NICHOLS,

O.P.

divine substitution of an all-encompassing representative agent
allows us to maintain the reality and primacy of the divine initiative vis-a-vis the consent of human beings to be so represented by the new Adam, their Head. 62 This is, however, no
penal substitution, but the expression of the love and concescension which marks the Trinitarian periohorem and is freely appropriated by the human will of Christ.
A meditation on Christ as personally the divine Son brings
the substantive part of the work to a close. Full-bloodedly
Chalcedonian, O'Collins' account of the union of the two natures in the single hypostasis of the Word appears to be indebted to Pere Jean Galot's re-working of the concept of person as ,etre relationnel. 63 On the much-disputed topic of whether
it is appropriate to ascribe to Jesus the theological virtue of
faith O'Collins takes up what is, to the best of my knowledge,
an original position: he holds that whereas that aspect of the
fides quae which is the New Covenant was known intuitively
by the human mind of the incarnate Lord, the confessional content which that Covenant presupposes, namely, the history of
revelation and salvation in the Old Covenant was believed by
him in the same manner as by other Jews (or Christians since).
It is only under this second aspect that the author would, then,
ascribe to Christ the fides qua, the act of faith.
All in all, this is an admirable textbook which is, 1 am sure,
already proving the answer to prayer for many hard-pressed
teachers, and for those students who are seeking clear orientations in this (in every sense) crucial area of Catholic belief.
Corwlusion
The Editor of this series did not, curiously, spell out two
vital requests of the Second Vatican Council for the theological
life of the Church in the future: that the Bible should be the
s2 Cf. the objections raised by various critics to the 'scapegoat soteriology
of Rene Girard, considered and responded to in R. Schwager S.J., 'Christ's
death and the prophetic critique of sacrifice', Semeia, 33 (1984), pp. 109123.
es J. Galot S.J., La, Personne du Ghrist (GemblolL'l:·Paris 1969).

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soul of theology, and that Thomas should retain his classical
status as the exemplary theological mentor of the Church. 64 To
varying degrees, his elected authors have made good this deficiency, though they manifest no common mind on theological
method as such. There is no clear advantage in reading these
books as a serial unity, since they possess none. The Editor and
publishers have thereby missed a golden opportunity to set
forth a vision of Catholic dogmatics for the English-speaking
world. The project really requires sustained reflection on the
scope, articulation and tools of a systematic theology. Within
such thinking, two major questions would be: In what way
should the biblical witness enter into the texture of Christian
theology? and,
does it mean to say that the theological
tradition, at least in the Church of the West, finds a classical
'moment' in the work of Thomas? Though these questions do
not by any means exhaust the content of reflection on the practice of theology, they would have helped the authors to identify, in terms consonant with the conciliar call for renewal, the
particular contribution which this specific dogmatics was meant
to make to the present pluriform universe of Catholic thought.
AIDAN NICHOLS,

Black friars
Cambri,lge, England

64 De,i Verbum

24; Optatam totiw; Hi.

O.P"

RECENT SACRAMENTAL THEOLOGY

HIS ARTICLE continues and complements an earlier
scussion of contemporary sacramental method pubhed in October, 1983, based on a review of eleven
books published in English on the sacraments from 1975 to
1983.1 That article dealt specifically with approaches to "contemporary systematic reflection on the Christian sacraments,
the relation of sacramental theology to other areas of theology,
the impact of liturgical studies on sacramental studies, and
aspects of pastoral practice." 2 The final section described the
elements that should be included in a contemporary approach
to a systematic study of sacraments. 3
The present article assesses seven more recent works in English on sacraments in general,4 again from the perspective of
method. In this connection the words of Stephen Happel are
helpful:
[T] he coalescence of historical data on the development of sacraments, emerging consensus on some general frameworks within
which to ask sacramental questions, and the need to provide textbooks for those who cannot wade through the jungles of .critical
Theology: A Review Discus1 See Kevin W. Irwin, "Recent Sacramental
sion," The Thomist 47 (October, 1983) 592-608.
2 Ibid. 592.
s Ibid. 605-608 for a summary.
4 The books discussed here are: Bernard Cooke, Sacraments and Sacramentality (Mystic: Twenty-Third Publications, 1983); Gerard Fourez, Sacraments and Passages Celebrating the Tensions of Modern Life (Notre Dame:
Ave Maria Press, 1983); Joseph Martos, The Catholic Sacraments, Volume One
in Message of the Sacraments series edited by Monika K. Hellwig (Wilmington: Glazier, 1983); David N. Power, Unsearchable Riches: The Symbolic Nature of the Liturgy (New York: Pueblo Publishing Co., 1984) ; John P.
Schanz, Introduction to the Sacraments (New York: Pueblo Publishing Co.,
1983); James F. White, Sacraments as God's Self Giving: Sacramental Practice ana: Faith (Nashville: Abingdon Press, 1983) ; Patricia Smith, Teaching
Sacraments (Wilmington: Glazier, 1987).

124

RECENT SACRAMENTAL

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Ul5

monographs have begun to produce new general theories of sacramental life. This is a vital move in the postconciliar church. It is
as though we feel that we have enough sense of the shifting sands
of time to use them in an hourglass to mark our age.5

Each of the books discussed here can be understood to propose
a new general theory of sacramental life or a new approach
to the systematic study of sacraments.
The works by Cooke and Schanz are clearly intended as texts
for college courses in sacramental theology. Martos's book
offers an interdisciplinary approach to sacraments. James
White offers a fresh look at the traditional dictum lex orandi,
lex credendi on a level useful for pastors and seminary students.
Gerard Fourez approaches sacraments from a social science perspective. David Power deals with symbol in liturgy and the relationship between sacramental study and contemporary culture. Patricia Smith offers a way of dealing with how to teach
about sacraments in the contemporary context of evolving
sacramental theories. Each book can be understood as an attempt to chart a path through the shifting sands of theological
method, liturgical reform and the varying approaches to sacramental theology in the past two decades.
Well known for his books Christian Sacraments and Christian Personality (1965) and Ministry to Word and Sacrament
(1976), Bernard Cooke presents an .approach in Sacraments and
Sacramentality that is grounded in human experience and
everyday life. The first six chapters demonstrate how Christian sacraments are grounded in human life; the remaining
chapters discuss individual sacraments and sacramental grace.
Cooke states that Christian sacraments are "specially significant realities that are meant to transform the reality of the
human by somehow bringing persons into closer contact with
the .saving action of Jesus" (8). Intent on broadening the notion of sacramentality Cooke writes that his work concerns
" the sacramentality of Christians and their everyday
5 From Happel's review of Colman O'Neill's work Sacramental Realism in
Worship 58 (May, 1984) 276-77.

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KEVIN W. IRWIN

lives" (4). He clearly succeeds in placing the seven sacraments
in this wide framework and in demonstrating the essential relationship between sacraments and human life.
Cooke begins his discussion of individual sacraments by
arguing that marriage is the basic sacrament (chapter seven).
He states that there is " good reason for seeing human friendship as the most basic sacrament of God's saving presence in
human life" (93) and that marriage is "the sacrament of
human love and friendship" (81). While this unique thesis is
intriguing we must assert that this predication skews the essential foundation of both Christian community and Christian
sacraments which is common conversion to the gospel in a
church whose self-understanding stretches beyond an intimate
understanding of community and sacrament. Christian conversion is based on commitment to the gospel and to a lifestyle
reflecting the values proclaimed and lived by Jesus and the
church. Cooke's approach sees baptism as initiation into a community based on intimacy, friendship and personal relationships, rather than into a specific community that is part of a
communion of believers in varying contexts and places. The
foundation of such a communion is a commitment to the Lord
that includes being related to others in a local church as well
as to others in the universal church. Here sacramental initiation marks and enters one on the journey of conversion.
Cooke's approach is based on a notion of marriage that is more
oriented to fulfillment in relationships than to living as a sign
of God's prior and foundational covenant love. It also serves
to ghettoize Christian communities rather than to stretch them
to include wider notions of church and sacrament. Such an
understanding of church and sacrament would include notions
of solidarity, mutual interdependence and com,munio.
Cooke emphasizes human reconciliation and forgiveness as
the foundation of the sacrament of penance rather than
grounding the sacrament in God's continual offer of forgiveness
and reconciliation through Christ (190-198). While he appropriately emphasizes the notion of social sin
his treatment of the sacrament of penance is ultimately not sufficiently

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theological. Cooke stresses formal and informal ways of seeking forgiveness in "liturgies of reconciliation" (213-219) but
he neglects important aspects of the revised rites of reconciliation in which penance is seen as communal prayer and communal liturgical experiences.
Despite his insistence on human community, Cooke's treatment of sacraments is ultimately individualistic-for example
his treatment of infant baptism and original sin (Ill, 117).
His discussion of adult initiation takes the Rite of Christian
Initiation of Adults only as a preparation for and celebration of
initiation rather than a vision of church life revealed and fostered from the precatechumenate to the postbaptismal period
of mystagogia (HO-UH). This example applies to Cooke's
treatment of the liturgy of sacraments as well where he betrays a certain extrinsicism. Unfortunately he ignores the
liturgy as a theological foundation on which to develop sacramental theology.
While Cooke is to be credited for amassing a great deal of
data on sacraments and related issues in a relatively short
space, at times his encyclopedic approach results in superficial
treatment of some topics. For example his discussion of ministry leaves out presidency at liturgy and the role of the ordained
deacon; his treatment of the historical evolution of ministry is
superficial (221-224) .
Cooke's notion of grace neglects the dimension of divine
efficacy. His treatment of eucharist as a covenant sacrifice
(104-UO) and covenant decision (160-167) recalls his earlier
work on eucharist as covenant renewal. 6 However, more recent
studies on eucharist as eschatologically-oriented or as grounded
in the variety of meals shared by the earthly Jesus and the
risen Lord are conspicuously absent. 7 This reflects a somes See Bernard Cooke, "Synoptic Presentation of the Eucharist as Covenant
Sacrifice" Theological Studies 21 ( 1960) 1-44.
7 See, among others, the helpful work of Xaxier Leon-Dufour, Le partage
du pain euaharistique selon le Nouveau Testament (Paris: Editions du Seuil,
l!l82).

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KEVIN W. IRWIN

what dated approach to sacraments, which is revealed in the
sparse and dated bibliography at the end of the book.
This work could be used effectively in college courses on
sacraments if supplemented with other more specifically theological works on sacraments. As it stands it is a helpful corrective to a view of sacramentality limited to seven sacraments.
Cooke succeeds in asking important questions and in providing
a popular summary of an intriguing approach to sacramentality. Unfortunately most of this work summarizes studies by
other authors on sacraments, hence it is disappointing in that
it breaks no new ground.
Joseph Martos's The Catholic Sacraments is divided into
two parts: part one (" Sacraments Transformed ") relates psychology, sociology, theology and history to the study of sacraments; part two (" Sacraments Transforming,") relates sacraments to personal, communal, ecclesial and global spirituality.
Part One is more thoroughly researched, logically argued and
carefully documented. Part Two is more speculative, thoughtprovoking and programatic. This volume is superior to
Martos's earlier book Doors to the Sacred with regard toquestions of method. 8 While not a unique or creative approach to
sacraments, the book summarizes the state of the question
based on the work of others over the past two decades.
Martos's treatment of psychology and sacraments (Chapter
One) deals with the notion of the "sacred" and the function
of symbol and ritual both in human life and in sacramental
events. He uses the work of Eliade, Turner and Erikson especially and the result is an adequate presentation of these key
aspects of sacraments. The relationship of symbol, myth and
ritual to Christian sacramental practice is clearly exposed.
Chapter Two on sociology and the sacraments deals in a
more functional way with myth and symbol as constitutive aspects of human culture. Unfortunately Martos's approach is
ultimately too functional and extrinsic to allow for adequate
probing of the role of myth and symbol in Christian sacras See "Recent Sacramental Theology," 598.

RECENT SACRAMENTAL

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129

ments. The author is insightful when emphasizing how cultural shifts a.frect religion and religious practice (70-83) . The
issue of the relationship of rites of human passage and Christian sacraments is touched upon and positively treated (63-66).
However, given the controversy surrounding this issue among
liturgists and theologians alike 9 , more cautious treatment of
this issue would have been in order.
Chapters three and four, the most complete in argument and
documentation, relate history and theology to sacramental
theory and practice. The historical overview of liturgy and
sacramental practice is understandably brief and generalized
given the space limitations of the work. However, the section
on medieval developments is particularly ambiguous and oversimplified (97-100). Martos understands our present situation
as one which understands sacramentality as pltlralistic in the
sense that "it both acknowledges the sequential pluralism of
the past and looks forward to the simultaneous pluralism of the
future " (106) . While he understands sacramentality as much
wider than the seven sacraments, Martos provides no criteria
for determining what actions are truly sacramental.
The treatment of theology and sacrament is the most fully
documented. He presents seven ways of studying sacraments:
from a scholastic, Vatican II, existential/phenomenological,
process, charismatic, liberation, and models a.pproach. The
existential/phenomenological approach uses Schillebeeckx and
Rahner and is a fair summary of their important contributions.
His treatment of the liberation model relies chiefly on Segundo's book The Sacraments Today.1° The result is a useful,
though general, summary. The sections dealing with the process and charismatic approaches are comparatively weak; his
almost total reliance on Lee (process) and Gelpi (charismatic)
mar this important chapter. The weakness of the models ap9 See David N. Power, "The Odyssey of Man in Christ," in Luis Maldonado
and David Power, eds., Liturgy and Huma-n Passage, Concilimn Vol. 112 (New
York: Seabury Press, 1979), pp. 100-111.
10 For a discussion of Segundo's work see " Recent Sacramental
Theology"
603-604.

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KEVIN W. IRWIN

proach to theology in general is revealed here in that Martos
provides a summary of different ways of approaching sacraments but does not choose from among them. Thus he leaves
the impression that each model is adequate. What is absent
from this chapter are theological and liturgical approaches to
symbol and sacramental theology. Also absent is a consideration of praxis as grounding and guiding theological reflection on
sacraments. 11
Part Two, dealing with sacraments and different " spiritualities," is more provocative than fully argued. Here Martos is
particularly careful in describing ex <Ypere <Yperato and sacramentum et res aspects of sacramental theology. When discussing sacramental symbols he asserts that sacraments are ecclesial, prophetic, kerygmatic, redemptive, eschatological and
liturgical symbols (206-07) . It would have been more useful
if Martos used examples from the present liturgies of sacraments to support this discussion. The book concludes with a
brief treatment of sacraments and global spirituality, based on
the prevailing notion of the importance of doing theology
within a " world church " perspective. Issues of justice and the
need to face oppression in society are noted but not considered
at length. Martos offers an overview o:f areas that need to be
addressed in a contemporary systematic approach to sacraments, but his treatment is so brief that it disappoints as an
example of how to execute such an approach.
John Schanz's text Introduction to the Sacraments is divided
into six chapters. The first locates study of the sacraments in
the study of religion and worship in general; the second places
the study of sacraments in an explicitly Christian context.
Chapter Three presents the New Testament evidence for ritual
sacraments, specifically baptism and eucharist-an important
discussion weakened by reliance on dated exegesis. In this
u See Henri Denis, Les saorements de la foi: La Pague dans ses signes
(Paris: Editions du Centurion, 1975) and Raymond Vaillancourt Toward A
Renewal of Sacramental Theology, Trans. Matthew J. O'Connell (Collegeville:
The Liturgical Press, 1979).

RECENT SACRAMENTAL

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chapter Schanz offers his definition of sacrament: "a sacrament is (I) a saving symbolic act
arising from the ministry
of Christ (3) continued in and through the Church (4) which
when celebrated in faith (by adults) joins us to Christ's worship of the Father in his Church and (5) forms us in Christlikeness, especially in the pattern of the paschal mystery" (47) .
Unfortunately this definition omits any reference to creation
as symbol or as the basis of sacramental symbols, as well as
any reference to communal activity in sacraments or to sacraments as eschatological actions performed in the power of the
Holy Spirit.
Schanz moves the discussion away from effects of sacraments
(reflected in his earlier work The Sacraments of Life and Worship) to the role of effective proclamation and appropriation of
the World (chapter four), to actualization of the paschal mystery in present sacramental actions (chapter five) and to the
role of celebration as an appropriate way to deal with how
liturgy influences sacramental theology and practice (chapter
six) . Schanz acknowledges his debt to many continental and
American authors and is especially careful to summarize the
groundbreaking contributions of Casel and Semmelroth (136147).
Among the authors on whom Schanz depends for his treatment of proclamation are Karl Rahner, Peter Fink and William
Shea. 12 He quotes the following from Rahner's essay on "The
Word and the Eucharist: "
The supreme realization of the efficacious word of God, as the
coming salvific action of God in the radical commitment of the
Church (that is, as the Church's own, full actualization), in the
situations decisive for the individual's salvation, is the sacrament
and only the sacrament (37) .
To make this same point more forcefully, t,o argue it more
fully and to offer ecumenical possibilities for sacraments based
12 He relies on the following in particular:
Peter Fink, " Three Languages
of Christian Sacraments," Worship 52 (November, 1978) 561-575 and William
Shea, "Sacraments and Meaning," American Ecclesiastical Review 169 ( 1975)
82-89.

KEVIN W. IRWIN

on the theology of the Word (conspicuously absent from this
book) Rahner's essay "What is A Sacrament?" would have
provided a more fruitful starting point. 13
Schanz discusses sacraments as actualization (98-127) in
order to overcome limitations of the scholastic and modern
treatments of causality and effects of sacraments. He relates
sacraments to Christ, the church and the human person and
by discussing the interrelationship among them offers an informative approach to the notion of actualization of the paschal
mystery in sacraments. However, his limited notions of liturgical ministry (priest only) and of the church (self-enclosed) betray a preconciliar outlook throughout that needs to be adjusted in light of contemporary sacramental practice. Specifically with regard to the notion of " actualization " it is clear
that Schanz wants to overcome reified notions of grace or effects in sacraments. However, how well he succeeds is questionable since he apparently assumes that " actualization " is
a substitute for these terms. More recent studies reveal some
inadequacies with this term and point to " memorial " as a
multi-dimensional reality. 14 More fully explored and systematically studied, the notion of " memorial " could prove more
central to sacramental theology than Schanz suggests-possibly
providing an integrating and comprehensive notion for the
theology of sacraments.
His final chapter deals with a celebration model of sacraments. Here the author relies on important liturgical studies
from the earlier part of this century. However, even when
summarizing easel's theory of "mystery presence" Schanz is
apparently unaware of critiques of Casel that demonstrate
ways in which he was as objective in his approach as was the
13 Worship

47 (1973) 274-284.
Fritz Chenderlin, Do This As My Memoriai. The Semitic and Conceptual Background and Value of Anamnesis in 1 Corinthians 11: 25, Analecta
Biblica 99 (Rome: Biblical Institute Press, 1982), as well as C. Giraudo, La
struttura ietteraria de/.la preghiera euoaristica,, Saggio sulla genesi Utteraria
di una forma. Toda veterotestamentaria, Be-raka giudaica, Anafora oristiana
Analecta Biblica 92 (Rome: Biblical Institute Press, 1981).
14 See

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liturgical theology he attempted to surpass. For example, some
have pointed out that while Ca.sel deals with the presence of
mystery in the liturgy he does not link this (objective) presence with the involvement or response of the church community
to this presence. 15
When dealing with the model of celebration Schanz relies on
the work of Fransen, Worgul and Vaillancourt (147-158). He
asserts that sacraments are celebrations of faith, celebrations of
the paschal mystery, of the inner presence of God in grace, of
self-realization, of ecclesial identity and of a new world of
meaning for sacraments (157-165). Schanz ends this chapter by
criticizing the celebration model and by offering pastoral observations derived from it. A more explicit linking of sacraments to the paschal mystery would have been desirable given
the importance Schanz ascribes to this point.
Sacraments and Passages by Gerard Fourez is a popular work
that treats of sacraments as activities that help celebrating
communities deal with conflicts and tensions of modern life.
As a social scientist, Fourez focuses upon the contexts in which
Christian sacraments are celebrated and the dilemmas which
people face in contemporary society. Hence this work is not
a comprehensive approach to sacraments but an effort to understand the role sacraments play in the lives of participants.
Chapters one, two and ten deal with these issues specifically;
chaptern three to nine relate these factors to the seven sacraments. Overall the book is thought-provoking and stimulating.
It is valuable for those who spend much of their pastoral ministry presiding at or celebrating sacraments. Its inductive approach to theology, its orientation to practice, its use of sociological data, and its integral understanding of the Christian
life with sacramental actions as constitutive of that life make
this work important. However, it is not without over-simplifi15 See, among others, T. Filthaut, La theologie des rnysteres, ea:pos'e de la
(Tournai:
Desclee, 1954), L Dalmais, "La 'doctrine des
controverse
mysteres' (Mysterienlehre) de Dom Casel," in A. Martimort, ed. L'Eglise en
Prwre (Paris: Desclee, 1984, ed. nouvelle) 275-281, Raymond Didier, Les
sacrements, pp. 12-14.

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KEVIN W. IRWIN

cations and overly-facile conclusions. While not intended to be
a complete theology of sacraments, the outline and scope of
the work make it appear to contain more than it actually does.
The absence of documentation and bibliography is regrettable,
especially since much of the history of religions and sociological material is treated so summarily as to be confusing £or the
non-specialist. At times this translation from the French original is inaccurate.rn From a liturgical point of view the book is
severely flawed since there is little reference to the liturgical
rites either as .sources for theology or as indications of what is
contained in the rites the church celebrates. Where the liturgy
of a sacrament is referred to the author's ignorance is clearly
betrayed. This is especially clear (and disappointing) in his
treatment of the eucharistic liturgy (66-72).
Fourez's interest in the liberative power of sacraments is
seen most clearly in his treatment of baptism and penance. He
explicitly cites the Exodus and the Red Sea as paraidigmatic
of the liberation offered in baptism (70); unfortunately he £ails
to discuss any link between baptism and Christ's resurrection.
When dealing with the sacrament of penance Fourez adopts a
rather functional approach by stating that we need penance to
relieve oppression and injustice in our society (11). He does
not speak of sin, redemption, identification with Christ or
sanctification through grace in this connection. What is positive in this liberation approach is how Fourez carefully explores notions of social sins, which have paralyzing effects on
the oppressed (110-113) . When discussing forgiveness (113114) the author does not addl'ess the difference between exis The French original is entitled Les sacrements reveillent la vie. Oelebrer
les tensions et les joies de l'emistence. A particularly disturbing misquotation
is found on p. 141. The author cites the Didaohe 10, 7 "Let the prophets
say the eucharistic prayer as they wish." This is clearly to take liberty with
the text which actually states "let the prophets pronounce the blessing as
they like." Such a translation leaves open the important question of whether
this section of the Didaohe is a eucharistic prayer or not. See, Allan Bouley,
From Freedom to Formula. The Evolution of the Eucharistic Prayer from
Oral Improvisation to Written Texts (Washington: The Catholic University
of America Press, 1981) pp. 90-99.

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185

pressing forgiveness in human apology and the reality of forgiveness effected in the sacrament of penance.
Fourez understands confirmation as a rite of maturity for
adolescents nearing adulthood (95). He understands the need
for this sacrament because of changing social relationships and
the tensions inherent in moving from childhood to adulthood
(87-89, 95-96). There is no reference to confumation as an
initiation sacrament or to the role of the Spirit in the sacraments of initiation. The sacrament of marriage is understood as
an expression of fidelity; it is based on God's fidelity to us and
to our expressing fidelity to each other through marriage vows
(ms). While Fourez argues that Christian marriage parallels
marriage as a societal institution (117-121), he does not deal
with more specifically theological aspects such as marriage as a
covenant, as an eschatological reality, or as a sacrament based
on mutual commitment for mutual fulfillment and the raising
of children in the faith. Most unfortunate is the approach to
ordination that sets this sacrament within the context of power
in human groups (130-182). His descriptions of power held by
the ordained are superficial and open to misunderstanding
(137-140). However, in speaking of the context of ordination
Fourez does discuss the church community and that ordination
is for the service of the church. The treatment of anointing of
the sick is too closely tied to the situation of the terminally ill
and of those near death. The important role of this sacrament
and funeral rites for the individual and for the family as a rite
of passage is clearly stated.
Theological weaknesses mar this book. While Fourez begins
and ends his treatment by referring to symbol, any further discussion in the intervening chapters remains superficial. Classical elements of sacramental theology are absent here, specifically divine initiative in sacramental activity and how grace operates in the community that participates in sacraments.
Jam es White's Sacraments as God's Self Giving is written
from a Protestant perspective of how sacraments work and
what sacraments mean. The title of the book contains its main

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KEVIN W. IRWIN

thesis: that God acts in sacraments in acts of self-giving.
White asks throughout about the required and appropriate response of those who celebrate them (27) . White calls his
method a " liturgical circle " based on the traditional axiom lex
orandi, lex credendi:
W·e begin the circle by observing what the church says and does
in its gatherings for worship. These experiences are considered very
significant expressions of the faith of the church. On the basis of
such observation, we then move to theological reflection, as to the
meaning of the faith thus expressed. We complete the circle by
using such reflection as the basis for suggesting worship reforms by
which the faith can be expressed in more effective ways. Practice
leads to theology, which then returns to practice (10).

This method reflects the approach of many liturgists to sacramental theology. The advantage in this formulation is that it
takes liturgical texts and rites seriously, and allows for further
development in them. He ca.re£ully argues for a theology derived from the sacraments rather than a theology imposed on
the sacraments or a theology about the sacraments (27).
White begins by discussing the " humanity of the sacraments " in chapter one. He states that he is concerned to explore " the human experience of self giving, which the sacraments reflect through their use of words and actions. We shall
also see how sacraments operate in the context of the community of faith known as the Church" (13-14). White avoids
using the term "grace" to describe God's operating in sacraments (27). He prefers to speak of God's self giving as determinative in sacraments. We use spoken words in worship in
order to speak to God, for God and to each other in God's
name (17) . Sacraments provide the setting in which this is
done. White reiterates a definition of Christian worship he
wrote in Introduction to Christian Worship 17 when he states:
"If, by words, we speak to each other in God's name, in the
sacraments we often touch each other in God's name. We act
17 See

22.

Jntroduoti-On to Christian Worship

(Nashville:

Abingdon, 1980), p.

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for God in acting to each other" (21). The material contained
in this first chapter describes the phenomenological approach to
sacraments argued throughout. While clearly provocative and
challenging, there is a certain functional approach to sacraments betrayed here.
White's treatment of baptism in chapter two is particularly
insightful for Roman Catholics because he discusses the place
of both infant baptism and confirmation in the process of initiation. The author clearly opts for the propriety of infant baptism because of all the sacraments infant baptism demonstrates
the priority of God's sustaining love. It is only after God acts
in sacraments that we can speak of comprehension and human
response in faith (45-49). White calls confirmation separated
from infant baptism a fractured initiation rite. His thesis is
that initiation is a lifelong process begun with water baptism
and chrismation performed at the same time. This is a helpful
corrective to much Roman Catholic popular writing that sees
adult initiation as the norm of baptism 18 or that calls for an
end of infant baptism to solve the contemporary problem of
how to deal with baptized non-believers. Such important pastoral problems call for more than tactical adjustments for their
solution.
In chapter three White deals with eucharist. He is particularly insightful when treating eucharistic memorial (54-55) and
faithful to Brilioth's work when dealing with New Testament
images of the eucharist. 19 He proposes that we ought to understand eucharist as joyful thanksgiving, commemoration, communion, sacrifice, presence, action of the Holy Spirit and foretaste of the final consummation of things. (53-60). While
these are decidedly important understandings commonly associated with the eucharist, one could fault White's liturgical
method since these seven ideas are not all equally clearly pre1s For a clear presentation of this position see .Aidan Kavanagh The Shape
of Baptism (New York: Pueblo Publishing Co., 1978).
19 See Euoharistio l!'aith and Praotice, Evangeiioal and Catholio: Trans.

A. G. Hebert (London: SPCK, 1930) .

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KEVIN W. IRWIN

sent in the eucharistic prayer, the chief source for eucharistic
theology. In fact, White neglects the anaphora as a source for
his eucharistic theology.
Chapter four deals with what White terms "apostolic and
natural sacraments." Apostolic sacraments include healing, reconciliation and ordination; natural sacraments are marriage
and burial. This chapter is the briefest of the book and clearly demonstrates White's unease with granting these rites equal
status with baptism and eucharist. Yet this chapter does
pose some important and interesting questions for Protestant
readers regarding an ongoing relationship with the dead
through prayer (91) .
White offers a direct challenge to Protestant as well as to
Roman Catholic readers about many liturgical and sacramental
issues. This is most clearly seen in chapter six where he offers
thirty-five suggestions for reforming Protestant sacramental
practice (rn5-l34). Here he discusses regular Sunday celebration of the eucharist, uniting water baptism and chrismation
into one initiatory sacrament, the importance of symbol and
the sign-value of celebrations, and rigorous preparation by
those entering the sacrament of marriage.
In chapter five White offers his approach to a. much discussed
contemporary issue: the relationship of sacraments and justice.
While his definitions of justice are decidedly non-biblical, his
overall approach is based on baptism as the fundamental sacrament which establishes and initiates one into experiencing
God's justice. Most compelling is his understanding of justice
from global and eschatological perspectives. The celebration of
eucharist and reconciliation is an essential means to challenge
and to strengthen communities in their sense and experience of
justice (108-113) . White states clearly that some sacramental
practices of the church themselves reinforce injustices and
ought to he avoided (100-105). Unfortunately White's discussion of ordination here is weak in that he does not link notions of leadership by the ordained with liturgical presidency.
His functional approach to ordained ministry seems to ignore
other important notions such as "oversight."

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189

The next book to be assessed, Unsearchable Riches by David
Power, is clearly the most thought-provoking and challenging
of those considered here. Careful reading and reflection yields
much insight into the present crisis of vision and hope regarding sacraments. The crisis of vision concerns the expression and
interpretation of " a sense of being in time and a sense of the
holy that are pertinent to contemporary fact and contemporary
models of reality" (1) . The crisis of hope concerns the present
when " humanity [is] continually compelled to consider whether
there are any hopes by which it is possible to face the future ,;
(1). Far from offering depressing answers to these questions
Power argues that a helpful model of sacramental practice derives from a careful consideration of symbol as the foundation
for liturgy and sacraments.
In his analysis Power uses the tools provided by hermeneutical theory and contemporary systematic theology. The names
Gadamer, Ricoeur, Langer, Rahner, Schillebeeckx, Geertz,
Metz, Turner and Eliade abound in the text and footnotes.
Many in the English-speaking theological world have come to
expect insight, proV'ocation and challenge from the pen of
David Power. 20 This work offers all of these. While a series of
articles in The Way provides the basis for what is presented
here 21 Power has made important changes in his thinking
which enable him to state that the book is effectively a new
work. It is clearly based on the new cultural context that has
evolved in the intervening years.
In chapter one Power reviews the " state of the liturgy " and
its " symbolic crisis," arguing for a retrieval of a consciousness
of symbol and a liturgy sustained in historical consciousness.
20 An example of how Power's thought has evolved and of important
insights he offers on liturgy is seen in his works on ministry: Ministers of
Ghrist and His Church: The Theology of the Priesthood (London: Chapman,
1969); The Christian Priest: Elder and Prophet (London: Sheed and Ward,
1973); and Gifts That Differ: Lay Ministries Established and Unestablished
(New York: Pueblo Publishing Co., 1980).
21 See, The Way 13 (1973) 310-325; 14 (1974) 57-66; 15 (1975) 55-64; 15
(1975) 137-146.

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KEVIN W. IRWIN

He maintains that today a dynamic and communitarian understanding of reality and of the universe replaces the ordered and
hierarchical approach that sustained understandings of the
liturgy from the neo-Piatonism of Pseudo-Dionysius (18) .
This careful critique leads to an awareness of the need for a
reinterpretation of liturgy
various cultures given the dynamism of contemporary thought and culture. Since the style
of the chapter is synthetic, much is left underdeveloped.
Chapter two (" Historical Interlude ") " indicates factors
from history that are pertinent to present need and that help
to better understand liturgy's symbolic nature" (35). Among
the more helpful sections is that dealing with the shift from
patristic usage about symbol, representation, sign and reality
to the vVestern medieval approach separating sign and reality
(46-57) . Power'.s thesis is sustained here and the evidence adduced is clearly presented. However some of the complexity
and nuance owed to each period reviewed may well be lost in
such a brief review.
Chapters three, four and five provide the key to understanding Power's thesis. Chapter three is entitled "Symbol Described," in which the author discusses three approaches to
meaning: ordinary, scientific and symbolic (64-65). Power
prefers to use these approaches rather than to argue for one
definition of symbol; however he uses Vergote's description as a
way to initiate this discussion (61). He concludes the chapter
by indicating two approaches to symbols of the holy. The one
gives importance to the word and" to the church's ability in a
poetics of word to express the contemporary encounter with
Christ" (78). In such an approach a teleological and eschatological understanding of time and history operates. Here many
sacramental elements are open to change and cultural differences are considerable. Power clearly chooses this approach
over one which gives emphasis to "the iconic ... the holiness
of place and time, to the aura of the mysterious and numinous,
and to permanent and unchanging elements in ritual celebration " (79) . While Power discusses each approach it remains

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doubtful whether he has presented the merits of the " iconic ,,
approach as fully as he might. Some aspects of the iconic approach have formed the foundation of much legitimate sacramental theology and practice.
Chapter Four on " Ritual and Verbal Image " is an intriguing
and stimulating essay. In continuing to argue that the holy
is found " in places distinctive of a historical revelation "
rather than " where cosmic ritual looks for it " (105) Power
discusses rites of purification, passage and mimetic rites as
these understandings help us interpret Christian liturgy (9096) . He offers six propositions about the verbal image and
symbol which are then applied to how we can understand and
interpret redemption in Christ (108) .
Power's thesis continues in Chapter Five about myth, narrative and metaphor. Both the A.damic and cosmogonic myths
undergird much of what is understood and celebrated in Christian liturgy. The concluding sections of the chapter help to
explain what the author means by a "generative poetics"
(1£8). This fresh look at the Adamic and exile myths is especially useful. The conjunction of narrative and ritual in
memorial, the notion of metaphor as a " yoking of unlikes "
and the discussion of confession as metaphor are especially
helpful and insightful (180-189) .
In Chapter Six Power states a thesis that dominates the
rest of the book. He states that: " the liturgy is an action
wherein the testimony of God is heard and appropriated, the
experience of the community is transformed, and a godly experience disclosed" (146). Clearly avoiding terminology of
sacramental efficacy or sacramental ontology as conventionally
understood. Power offers insight about what occurs in sacraments as transformative of the human community or person
and as disclosive of the divine (147). Here he considers the
importance of blessing prayers as ways of communicating the
community's appreciation of symbol and narrative in sacraments
. He speaks about the context for addressing
God in the liturgy, especially the Abba and Father images

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KEVIN W. IRWIN

(161-164) . He concludes by combining lamentation and
thanksgiving (164-168) .22
In chapter seven Power applies his discussion to liturgiology
(175-180) and to ontology in sacrament (180-196). He maintains that there are four ways that symbol changes human
perspectives. Thl'ough symbol we move from objects to meaning, from utilitarianism to human values, from the external to
the inner world, and from image to imagination (186-196) .
The practice of liturgy helps us see reality from a totally new
perspective, historically conditioned rather than hierarchically
ordered. Power summaries much of his argument by stating
that ontology is retained as a category of sacramental thinking
provided that efficient causality is replaced by symbolic causality, that divine self-communication takes place within history,
and that a Spirit christology offers a preferred basis for sacramental symbolization. This approach has the advantage " of
not appealing to a hierarchical vision of church and universe or
to a hierarchy of sacramental causes. Instead it appeals to a
creative and redeeming presence in the world, which shows itself in history through event and symbolization" (206) .
Power concludes by speaking about " the truth of sacrament:"
When . . . due to a retrieval of both collective and individual
subject, sacraments are considered in terms of consciousness, intentionality, and appropriation of a world, their truth becomes the
issue of their meaning and of their fidelity to the gospel tradition
(US).

He cites three criteria for validating sacramental practice which
are " fulness of language, adequacy to experience, and celehration' s relation to the o:rthopraxis of gospel freedom and solidarity with the suffering" (213) .
What David Power offers is one approach to a contemporary
understanding and reinterpretation of elements discovered in
22 See David N. Power, "Forum: Worship After the Holocaust," Worship
59 (September, 1985) 447-455 which contains a prayer te:x;t for "a eucharist
in an age of abandonment."

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every liturgical action: myth, symbol, language and metaphor.
This is an important work. However, some points need further
precision and elaboration. Whether sacramental efficacy can
be adequately treated when sacraments are analysed from
Ricoeur's writings can be debated. 23 Whether an historically
conscious approach to sacraments could lead to a relativism in
theology and meaning remains to be clarified. Whether Power
should have used" ontology" to develop his approach to sacraments because of this term's important place in traditional
sacramental theology can be questioned. However, Power himself states that his aim is not to settle issues. " My desire is
more precisely to offer room for thought and to allure those
who wish to think more deeply about liturgy and its symbolic
nature, knowing full well that they may disagree with me on
some points and find my work inadequate on others" (vii) .
Power's contribution lies in his providing an alternative context within which to consider sacramental questions, one sensitive to the crisis of vision and hope he outlines at the beginning
of his work. Of the works discussed here Power's will likely
stand the test of time. His understanding of symbol will likely
remain (in Happel's terminology) an important general theo.ry
of sacramental life.
The final book under review here, Teaching Sacraments by
Patricia Smith, is influenced among others by Power's method
in general, and specifically by his approach to symbol. The
author admits that her work is not a new book on sacramental
theology as such, but " a book about sacraments teaching and
about teaching the sacraments" (9). Each chapter begins
with sample questions and exercises for students (for example,
:reading p:reconciliar and postconciliar treatments of some aspect of sacramental theology) and concludes with (generaUy
well chosen) recommended :readings to supplement her discussion. The bulk of each chapter is text drawn from the author's
reflections used in class presentations. As such it is a useful
tool for sacramental pedagogy on an adult education level.
2a See Regis Duffy, "[Report on the] Seminar on Sacramental and Liturgi·
cal Theology" O.T.8.A. Proceedings 40 ( 1985) 207-208.

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KEVIN W. IRWIN

The book opens with a chapter on " setting the context " in
which the author describes how and why sacramental theology
is undertaken today and how this relates to the contents of
this book itself. The next :five chapters deal with the anthropological, theological, Christologica.I, ecclesiological and eschatological foundations of sacramental action. The book concludes with a consideration of "teaching sacraments," which is
a useful summary of the author's basic approach in this work
and could well have been included in chapter one to underscore Smith's objective in writing this book. Here the author
argues that sacraments " teach " through the imagination,
participation and the Word. Smith describes a dialogical approach to teaching which can form, reform or deform the
participants. For her the educative process leads to manifestation-disclosure and to covenant-dialogue. The goal of education is transformation and the result of the process is lifelong
lea.ming. '\Tith these as her premises it is possible to appreciate
both the structure and contents of this work,
In chapter one the author uses Power's thesis about the contemporary symbolic crisis 24 and Vaillancourt's division of
Christian sacramental understanding into three part.s, comprising the first millenium, the second millenium to 1960 and
from 1960 to the present. 25 Smith clearly asserts the characteristic Roman Catholic understanding of creation as symbolic
and sees this recovery as crucial for appreciating what sacraments are and do, She maintains that in the first millenium
liturgy was a " focused moment," a " principal teacher, a fonnative moment in the faith." (22) This was unfortunately lost
in the second millenium when the church came to emphasize
sacramental rites as opposed to the ·wider notion of sacramentality which held sway in the first millenium (to use Vaillancourt's thesis and terminology). She asserts that the present
24 See Unsearchable Riches Chapter One, "The state of Liturgy:
Symbolic
Crisis," pp. 5-34.
25 Raymond Vaillancourt,
Towa.rd a Renewal pp. 11-27. See, K. Irwin "Recent Sacramental Theology" 593 for a critique of this work.

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stress on the sacramental nature of the church is a positive
thing in order to allow a unification of liturgy and life. This
phenomenon, she argues, is a result of the return to the sources
of theology (largely influenced by Vatican II) , to an appreciation of modern philosophy and to contemporary pastoral need.
While this treatment is somewhat sketchy and oversimplified,
this chapter can be a useful tool to help adult education groups
appreciate the rationale for some of the liturgical renewal in
sacraments after Vatican II.
In treating the anthropological foundations of sacrament
(second chapter) Smith reviews some of the familiar territory
traversed in the other works reviewed here (as well as in
Vaillancourt's book) including the importance of the human
roots of ritual activity and symbolic expression (41-51). Her
critique of ritualism is influenced by questions raised by the
turn to the subject in contemporary theology (55) as well as
by challenges to sacramental practice raised by liberation theologians (59-60) .26 When dealing with the theological foundations for sacramental activity (third chapter) Smith discusses
Judaeo-Christian images of God, language about God and some
pastoral implications. When discussing grace in this chapter
Smith relies on some key insights from Rahner about the relationship between grace and how one experiences God (7980). Despite her reference to Rahner, however, the author apparently has chosen not to reflect the precision of his thought.
Not unlike Cooke's treatment of grace noted above, Smith's is
unfortunately too horizontal. She does not emphasize sufficiently how grace works through sacraments.
In discussing Christology and sacraments (chapter four)
Smith deals with what she calls the sacramental significance of
traditional Christological doctrines, specifically the incarnation
as well as the death and resurrection of Christ. She argues that
these doctrines function well when they incorporate us into the
mystery of God and that sacraments function as moments of
20 For a critque of Segundo's work, The Sacraments
Sacramental Theology" 603-605.

Today. see, "Recent

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KEVIN W. IRWIN

transformation in Christ (103). While her thesis is accurate
and her argument clear, reference to the liturgy of sacraments
in which this is explicitated would have been useful.
Chapter five on ecclesiology and sacraments contains much
more material than the chapter heading indicates (in fact it
summarizes many themes of De sacramentis in genere) and is
not well argued. In addition to asking whether the author has
done full justice to Rahner's thought on the church (she states
that he maintains that the church is " a partial though powerful expression" of God's self-revelation) one would have to
question whether her understanding of sacramental character
is totally accurate (118-120) . It is curious that when presenting " official Roman Catholic magisterial teaching " on sacraments, Smith only discusses (1) the morals of the minister,
(2) matter, form and ecclesial decision, (3) sacramental character and (4) recent directions (including .Lt!ediator Dei,
Mystici Corporis and Sacrosanctum Concilium). While she
asserts that "official statements [of the magisterium] are important for setting ' bottom line ' beliefs, they may lead to a
deficient understanding if they are taken out of context or if
they are presumed to provide a foll picture of sacramental
thought" (131). Unfortunately Smith's own presentation is
liable to just such a criticism.
The chapter on eschatology (six) is an interesting, if not
fully developed, approach to this classical category in the understanding of sacraments. Here Smith discusses ecumenism
and the relationship between eschatology and the concems of
liberation theologians about sacraments. While one can legitimately question why the ecumenical dimension is only introduced at this late stage in the book and why the Lima statement on Baptism, Eucharist and Ministry is the only ecumenical agreed statement on sacraments to be noted and discussed,
nevertheless it is important that these matters are noted, if not
fully discussed, in a work like this. Most useful is the author's
linkage of eschatology with issues of justice since all too often
these are separated so that eschatology comes to mean teleology

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and justice concerns are regarded as added to sacramental
theology rather than essential components of the sacramental
experience.
In general this work is more useful as a pedagogical tool than
as a work on sacramental theology. The title Teaching Sacraments is misleading because the work is actually a summary of
other authors' work (principally R. Vaillancourt and D.
Power) in contemporary sacramental theology. This information, however, is presented in a way that facilitates how it can
be taught. As presented this structure is very useful.
While the seven works discussed here reflect differences in
approach, when taken together they attest to the truth of
Happel's contention that at this point in the postconciliar
church we may well be at a stage where we can sketch the contours of an " emerging consensus on some general frameworks
within which to ask sacramental questions .... " 21
KEVIN W. IRWIN

Catholic University of America
Washington, D.O.

21 S. Happel,

review cited above, 276.

BOOK REVIEWS
Aquinas, Calvin, and Contemporary Protestant Thought: A Critique of
Protestant Views on the 1'hought of Thomas Aquinas. By ARVIN Vos.
Washington, D.C.: Christian University Press (a subsidiary of the
Christian College Consortium and William B. Eerdmans Publishing
Company), 1985. Pp. v + 178, with bibliography and index. Paper,
$9.95.
The author, profesRor of philosophy at \Vestern Kentucky University,
has presented a work that is admirably structured and written with both
clarity and an impressive command of the subject matter. The work examines Protestant views and St. Thomas Aquinas's thought in three areas:
the meaning of faith, the relationship between natural theology and sacred
theology (which entails the larger issue of faith and reason, philosophy
and theology), and the theme of nature and grace. In his Introduction
Professor Vos presents his own organization of these topics: "In Chapter
One I compare Calvin's definition of faith as 'a firm and sure knowledge
of God's benevolence toward us' with Aquinas's account of faith as
'thinking with assent.' ... In Chapter Two I address the issue of implicit
faith and the distinction between formed and unformed faith. . . . In
Chapter Three I begin to evaluate contemporary Protestant views of
Aquinas. Since the matter with which most Protestants are familar is
Aquinas's natural or philosophical theology, the obvious task is to show
how it relates to his view of faith. In the process we will consider various
views on the nature of this relation and attempt to clarify Aquinas's own
view of the matter .... In Chapter Four I consider the role of the preambles (of faith) and examine the Rtatus of the proposition 'God exists'
and its implications as both a starting point for sacred theology and a
conclusion for the theology of the philosophers. In Chapter Five I give an
account of how Aquinas relates the existence of God as it is known in
theology to the existence of God as it is known in philosophy. Chapter Six
is devoted to enlarging the discussion by setting the relation of faith and
reason in the context of nature and grace (pp. xiii-xiv)."
The themes and the language in which they are discussed would seem to
indicate that the author speaks to those who remain concerned with traditional, substantive issues of theology, both Protestant and Catholic.
This review will call attention mainly to the author's able choice and interpretation of texts from the works of Saint Thomas. Of the three main
areas covered, the first is the meaning of faith. The misperception argued

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149

against is that St. Thomas stands as the diametrical opposite of John
Calvin. Vos quotes Calvin's description of faith as a firm and certain
knowledge, whereas St. Thomas makes faith and knowledge (scientia)
mutually exclusive (see ST, 2a2ae. 1, art. 4 & 5). The author reconciles the
two views by showing that both theologians were attempting to describe
the character of faith as a unique response to God, the substantia sperandarum, argumentum non apparentium. Calvin's explanation means that
faith consists more in assurance than in understanding or comprehension;
it is more of the heart than of the mind. Believers are persuaded of what
they do not grasp because the Spirit has changed their hearts. For St.
Thomas's view Vos turns to the exposition of a definition of belief, the
act of faith, deriving ultimately from Augustine: cum assensione cogitare,
to ponder with assent (ST, 2a2ae. 2, 1). Vos explains that for St. Thomas
"to be imperfect as knowledge is of the very essenee of faith" (ST la2ae.
67, 2), because faith is of the unseen, but the assent of faith has its
firmness and assurance throug·h the influence of the will. Because belief is
assent to the truth it is essentially an act of the mind, but as motivated
by the will this assent is part of a total, loving, trusting response of the
person to God. As St. Thomas himself put the matter: " God is the end of
faith in that he is the unique good, who by his eminence transeends the
capacities of man, but by his liberality offers his own very good to be
shared in (seipsum communicabilem praebens; 3 Sent. 23.2, 1)."
On the relationship between natural and sacred theology, Vos faees the
charge that St. Thomas subordinates faith to reason, gives precedence to
natural over sacred theology. The authenticity of his argument can be
seen from the texts he uses to refute this misconception. St. Thomas recognizes the possibility, perhaps even the existence, of a natural theology
simply by his recognition of metaphysics in the schema of the theoretical
sciences. But by quoting In Boethium de Trinitate, 5.4 that a natural
theology deals with divine realities "not as subject, but as principle of the
subject " he explains St. Thomas's presentation of the superiority in
subject, principles. and certitude of sacred theology over the theology of
the philosophers. The key issue in the relationship between the two theologies is the proposition " God exists." It is refreshing (and, of course,
reminiscent of Thomas de Vio Cajetan) to read the following interpretation of the status of that proposition as St. Thomas explicitly handled it
within sacred theology.
In light of Aquinas's distinction between the two ways that God can
be known, something should be said with regard to the philosopher's
proofs for God's existence. When we look closely at what Aquinas
says in the Five Ways and in the proofs given in the Summa Contra
Gentiles, we discover that he does not say that philosophers have
proved God's existence, but rather that they have proved that we
must posit some unmoved mover-which we call God. Whether he is

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referring to a separate first mover, a first efficient cause, something
that is supremely being, or a being by whose providence the world
is governed, Aquinas always adds the phrase: " this we call God "
(see BOG 1.13, passim). The same can be seen in the Five Ways of
the Summa theologiae. In essence, he is taking a series of conclusions
that the philosophers have gained by a study of things, and he is
saying that each of these identify an aspect of the being whom Christians also know in another, higher way. This is why, then, belief in
God's existence does not have the same meaning for unbelieves that it
has for believers. It is one thing to grasp that there must be a
separate, immaterial unmoved mover; it is quite another to know
God himself (p. 104).
The mention in this paragraph of a distinction between the two ways
of knowing is a further indica,tion of Vos's perceptive reading of St.
Thomas, for he refers to a text that is crucial to interpreting both the
structure of the Summa and the overall theological vision it embodies.
After quoting the well-known response in the Summa, la. 3, 4 ad 2 on
the meaning of est in the proposition Deus est, Vos quotes the following,
perhaps less well-known or examined text on the presence of God:
God is said to exist in things in two ways. First, as an operative
cause, and in this way he exists in everything he creates. Second,
as an object attained by some activity exists within the acting subject, and this applies only to mental activities where the known
exists in the knower, and the desired in the one who desires. In this
latter way, therefore, God exists in a special fashion in those reasoning creatures that are actually knowing and loving him, or are disposed to do so. And since we shall see this to be the result of grace
to the reasoning creature, God is said to exist in this way in holy
people by grace (ST, la. 8, 3).
Even the proposition " God exists " stands before the mind of the be-Iiever as meaning far more than a conclusion deriving from God's causal
presence could signify, apropos of which Vos quotes another key text:
" even though the natures of things themselves were known to us, we can
have only a little knowledge of their order, according as divine Providence
disposes them in relation to one another and directs them to the end, since
we do not come to know the plan of divine Providence" (SCG 4. 1, 3).
This text coordinates with the following on why the existence of God is
professed in the Creed: " By faith we hold to many things that philosophers could not fathom, for example, the truths about his providence,
ominipotence, and sole right to adoration. All such points are included
in the article 'I believe in God'" (ST, 2a2ae.1, 8ad1).
In this same context Vos makes the following cogent remark about the
praeambula fidei, which he correctly notes are presuppositions not to the
act of belief but to the content of faith surpassing reason, the properly
ct·edenda.

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In response to Protestant criticism we have been trying to show both
that Aquinas has a place for natural theology and that he keeps it
strictly subordinate to revealed theology. He holds that what the
philosophers can grasp is properly speaking a preamble to faithand by a preamble he does not mean something that is necess·arily
or even normally prior to the knowledge of faith, indeed he argues
that it is far more typical that one will believe that God exists before
coming to know that he exists (if indeed, one ever proceeds to the
stage of knowing) . Only a few philosophers ever manage to arrive
at the point in metaphysics at which they can with confidence affirm
the truth that God exists, he asserts, whereas " God exists" is an
article of faith known with certitude by all believers (p. 112).
The third main area considered by Vos is the relationship between grace
and nature. His concern is to show that a traditional Protestant view
accuses St. Thomas of diminishing the meaning and need of grace: it
becomes an accidental addition to a nature already capable of attaining
its connatural end. Vos explains two possible sources of this misperception: one is that its proponents have simply repeated the view without
investigating St. Thomas's text; the other is that the concept of "pure
nature,'' introduced most explicitly by Cajetan (in his commentary on
ST, la2ae. 109,2) came to be identified as the position of St. Thomas.
Vos rightly corrects this ascription and reviews key texts of the Secunda
Pars on the distinction between the natural and infused virtues and on the
loss of the " goods of nature " caused by sin. In explaining that grace presupposes nature " just as all perfections presuppose what they perfect"
(la. 2, 2, ad 1), he develops that theme of man's natural desire to see
the divine essence in order to establish that grace is not a superfluous
addition to a self-perfectible nature, but necessary to the fulfillment of
that connatural desire. One might have hoped that in this discussion of the
theme homo capax Dei (ST, la2ae. 113, 10, which Vos rightly cites) he
would also have included St. Thomas's explanation of the " obediential
potency " as the grounds of the truth that " only the rational creature has
an immediate order to God" (2a2ae. 2, 3). St. Thomas explains this as
" potency toward those things surpassing nature which God is able to
effect in man'' (De veritate 8, 4 ad 13, and parallel places). But, as the
author acknowledges, it would not have been possible to treat the topic of
nature and grace comprehensively, and his main objective was to correct
misrepresentations of St. Thomas's position.
The final paragraph of the work states its objective: " Most contemporary Protestants look only to the Reformers for a model in their theology,
either ignoring Aquinas or using him as an example of how not to think
theologically. I have tried to show that the assumptions on which this
approach is based are mistaken. It is my hope that calling into question
certain misperceptions of Aquinas's view of faith will clear the way to a

BOOK REVIEWS

new appreciation of his thought. The differences between thirteenth-century and Renaissance humanism complicate the problem, but a more
accurate and sensitive understanding of Aquinas's thought is by no means
impossible. It is high time that Protestants put the old division behind
them, high time they reclaim this part of their heritage-and they can
rightly claim Aquinas as part of their heritage, since he did live and work
in the context of a still undivided Christendom. He is one of the teachers
we can ill afford to do without as we attempt to meet the challenges of
our own day (p. 174).'
Whether Professor Vos achieves this objective can only be judged by
those to whom the work is primarily addressed. Many of the misperceptions pointed out can be traced to misuse of St. Thomas's works in the era
when he was the mandated author for Roman Catholic studies in philosophy and theology. Those who value the genuine thought of St. Thomas
and regret the continuation of these misrepresentations by so-called Catholic traditionalists will welcome the contribution made by this book.
THOMAS c. O'BRIEN
Chambersburg, Pennsylvania

Christian Dogmatics. By CARL BRAATEN (editor), GERHARD 0. FORDE,
PHILIP J. HEFNER, ROBERT \V. JENSEN (editor) HANS SCHWARZ,
and PAUL R. SPONHEIM. Two Volumes. Philadelphia: Fortress Press,
1984, xxii + 569 (Vol. 1) and xvii+ 621 (Vol. 2).
Recent years have seen the proliferation among American Protestants
of a seemingly odd genre: group dogmatics. For whatever reason, the
present generation of' systematic theologians has not produced a dogmatics
or systematic theology text that the theology teachers of' America seem to
be happy with. So, a variety of' groups have banded together to divide all
theology into so many parts ,and as a team produce a usable theology text.
The best known of' these group texts is Christian Theology: An Introduction to its Traditions and Tasks, edited by Peter G. Hodgson and Robert
H. King (Philadelphia: Fortress Press, 1982), but there have also been
Methodist and Conservative Evangelical versions.
Christian Dogmatics is the latest example of' the genre, and an ambitious
one. While the authors are all teachers at American Lutheran seminaries,
their audience is the entire Christian Church. Their goal is to produce a
" complete dogmatics " which will serve as " a textbook in theological
instruction and a resource for those who practice the arts of ministry."
(!,xvii-xviii). The volumes are organized in twelve loci, where a locus is
" a point at which the historic teachings and theological investigations of

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153

the church are brought into focus" (I, xix) : Prolegomena to Christian
Dogmatics (Braaten, 78 pp.), The Triune God (Jenson, 114 pp.), The
Knowledge of God (Sponheim, 76 pp.), The Creation (Hefner, 94 pp.),
Sin and Evil ( S ponheim, 104 pp.), The Person of Jesus Christ (Braaten,
104 pp.), The Work of Christ (Forde, 100 pp.), The Holy Spirit (Jenson,
78 pp.), The Church (Hefner, 70 pp.), The Means of Grace (Schwarz
and Jenson, 142 pp.), Christian Life (Forde, 80 pp), and Eschatology
(Schwarz, 116 pp.). Each locus consists of 4 to 7 chapters, each chapter
beginning with a few summarizing sentences. The authors sometimes organize the loci "systematically" (e.g., the knowledge of God is organized
according to questions that parallel Aristotle's four causes); more often
the author's combine the systematic and the historical, moving through
Seriptures and tradition and modernity as well as providing a conceptual
frame for their topic. A lengthy index of names and subjects in volume
two (II,591-621) helps the reader track the overlap between these loci.
A variety of threads tie the disparate contributions together. The six
authors share
common outlook on contemporary theology, which might
be called a theological version of "the radical middle." Decisive for this
outlook is the conviction that there is a doctrinal core to the faith which
it is the central task of dogmatics to explicate (I,5). Although the problems and conceptualities of the modern world are addressed throughout
the text, they are not allowed to set the interpretative agenda. In keeping
their eyes fixed on this interpretative task, the authors avoid both the
left and right. Liberation theology, process theology, feminist theology
are appreciated here, but not espoused. The most important doctrines of
the eommon tradition are affirmed without compromise: creation must
be understood as occurring ex nihilo (I,311); the resurrection is an event
in space and time (I,550) ; "the Christian faith claims to represent the
,absolute, ultimate, unconditional, and everlasting truth of God in the
once-for-all event of self-revelation in the person and history of Jesus
Christ' (I,23). Conversely, fundamentalist approaches to the Bible are
clearly rejected (I,66.) and there is no tmce of an attempt to repristinate
the theology of Lutheran scholastic orthodoxy.
The middle ground the authors occupy, however, is not the safe middle
ground of an unimaginative traditionalism, but a radical middle. In each
case (although, of course, in some more than others), the topic at hand is
rethought from the ground up. Fundamental principles and criteria are
sought within the tradition by which the tradition itself can then be
judg·ed and reshaped. This immanent rethinking of the tradition produces
some highly imaginative proposals for theology and church life and some
sharp critiques of much that is said and done in the name of the faith.
The commonalities connecting the essays are not just those of outlook.
In chapter after chapter, a decisive organizing role is played by the

a

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doctrines of eschatology and the Trinity. All of the authors see the
Christian message as oriented toward an eschatological goal that colors
all that comes before it. This goal is an opening of God to humanity that
can only be understood in trinitarian terms. Surprisingly enough, these
two doctrines, and not an explicit doctrine of justification, are the material threads that run throughout the book.
The prev;alence of these doctrines raises a question about the book's
background. Trinity and eschatology have, of course, been important
themes in theology for the last twenty years, but much more in the Germany of Pannenberg, l\foltmann, and Jiingel than the America of Tracy,
Cobb, and Frei. Although the Preface confesses the desire for a textbook
that would "reflect the American context" (I,xvii.), the discussions in
much -0f the text calTy more echoes of Munich and Tuebingen than of
Chicago or New Haven. (Emerson, Bushnell, and Jonathan Edwards each
have only one entry in the index; compare the three lines of entries under
such German Lutheran figures as Paul Althaus, Werner Elert, or HansJ oachim Iwand.) This European orientation is particularly evident in the
sections written by Braaten, Forde, and Jenson, much less evident in the
other sections. This orientation may be for the best, but we are left
wondering how the authors see the connection between their Lutheranism
and "the Ameriean context."
We cannot hope to provide here an evaluation that will do justice to
each and all of these essays. In lieu of such an evaluation, we offer comments on these volumes first as an exercise in Christian Dogmatics and
then as an exercise in Christian Dogmatics. How well do these volumes
carry -0ut the tasks tha,t all dogmatics texts
How well do they deliver
on the claim to do Christian, rather than simply Lutheran, dogmatics?
As dogmatics, the main strength of these essays is the way each is
thoroughly informed by Scripture (particularly Paul), Tradition (particularly Luther, Aquinas, Augustine, Schleiermacher, Calvin and Kierkegaard as well as classic creeds and confessions), and contemporary theologians (particularly Barth, Tillich, Bultmann, Pa.nnenberg, and Moltmann) and philosophers (where the preferences are too eclectic to high
light any one, although there is a consistently negative treatment of Plato
and a qualified acceptance of Hegel). This is not simply a fine review of
the alternatives with some constructive suggestions, as is the volume by
Hodgson and King mentioned above; each essay is, in fact, scrupulously
devoted to the constructive task, wagering that dialogue will most productively occur as each unfolds his own position. The chapters are not
simply introductory overviews but carefully elaborated and relatively independent essays. Anyone interested in any of these loci will find all these
chapters informative, imaginative, and challenging. Indeed, each chapter
could well be published on its own for those interested in a single topic.

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155

This constructive strength may well be what yields a weakness of these
volumes. The authors suggest that there are differences, "consequent inconsistencies,'' and even disagreement " to the point of contradiction " in
these volumes. And yet they "leave it to the readers " to discover such
differences (I :xvii). It would be interesting to have the participants' reflections on these differences appear in some form, for questions abound.
The disagreements are sometimes sharp between the authors. Need we
posit a primordial perfection from which humanity fell? Hefner says no
(I,356) ; Sponheim says yes (I,390). Do we straightforwardly assert a
twofold outcome of judgment, as Schwarz does (II,578) or instead move
toward a Barthian "universalism in hope" as does Braaten (I,568)? Is
God's aseity a matter of Church dogma (Jenson) or a matter of" speculation" (I :259)? The discussions of ordained ministry by Hefner and
Jenson move in quite different theological worlds.
More troubling than the unmarked disagreements between loci are
issues that remain unclarified throughout. Can a text which so often
appeals to Tillich avoid Tillich's criticism of the notion of God presumed
throughout (rightly, we think), viz., God as personal agent? Is Braaten's
discussion of the role of the Bible in theology adequate to clarify the
quite different ways in which the other authors appeal to the Bible's
authority? Sometimes the appeal is to a theologically normative canonical
text (II,347) ; sometimes to a theologically normative tradition history reconstructed from the biblical text (I,277). Sometimes the appeal is to the
te:x;t as a set of symbols (I,475,545; II,555.); sometimes to the text as a
set of narratives (II,11). We are left wondering whether a consistent
understanding of biblical authority is at work here.
A final ambiguity is found in the question of the Christian (as distinct
from merely Lutheran) character of the text. The authors do not seek a
lowest common denominator approach to catholicity. Rather, "each communion best serves the interest of the one, holy, catholic, and apostolic
church when it remains true to the substance of its own confession and
humbly calls on other communions to listen to its witness in a spirit of
dialogue and mutual service" (I,53). This attitude is bolstered by interpretation of Lutheranism as a reform movement within the universal
church, rather than as a refounding of the faith. All of the authors seem
to write from the perspective Braaten states in the Preface: the "Lutheran commitment inherently bears an ecumenical significance when it is
true to its original nature" (I,xviii). The ecumenical goal here then is not
to produce a text that could be used by all traditions. (These texts will in
fact be difficult to use far from the Lutheran tradition.) The goal rather
is to make a contribution to the wider catholic tradition from out of the
specificity of the Lutheran perspective. On the whole, we think the

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authors have succeeded. Christians of all major denominations will find
their common Christian heritage illuminated by these volumes.
The ecumencal stance varies, of course, among the essays. Catholic
readers may be surprised by the openness evinced by Jenson on the questions of eucharistic sacrifice (II,310,353) and ordination (II,382). Braaten's discussion of the relation between Scripture and tradition (I,22),
while clearly different from the views of most Catholics, is open to new
perspectives that can perhaps overcome some of the old disagreements.
What may most surprise Catholic readers is the consistent aversion to the
Reformed or Calvinist tradition, which Braaten calls " in many ways the
polar opposite of Lutheranism" (I,36). Again and again, the authors
find themselves more at home with Anglicans and Catholics than with
other "Protestants".
Of course, all is not perfect here. Schwarz's discussion of purgatory
(II,573) tends toward caricature. Too often throughout the text the
Council of Trent is taken as the last word on Catholic teachings. One
wonders whether the plot would thicken in interesting ways if more
analysis were made of Vatican II (the major conciliar policy now in
effect for Roman Catholics).
The most important ecumenical judgment on the volumes, however, must
focus on how the authors deal with the Lutheran issue, justification by
grace through faith for the sake of Jesus Christ. As BraatEC>n states, this
article has been "the special principle of Lutheran theology." He differentiates, however, between two ways of using this principle. It can be
seen as a compendium of the gospel, from which the entirety of dogmatics
is to be deduced. This use he labels a "reductionistic error " that "has
produced a particularly inhumane form of Lutheran sectarianism." Or it
can be seen as a critical principle, a question to be placed before all that
the church says or does (I,xviii). This critical use is followed by all the
authors.
But how is the critical quest.ion to be stated' Braaten puts it this way:
"Does this particular act of ministry lead people to find their life's justification, their reason to be, in the fact that the crucified Jesus lives, or are
people left on their own, to depend on themselves for the ultimate meaning of life¥" (I,xix). Unfortunately, the two sides of the disjunction do
not constitute a true either/ or. In fact, the ambiguity reflects two different
ways of explicating the Reformation doctrine of justification. On the one
hand, one may stress that we are not justified by our own unaided efforts.
We must not depend on ourselves, but on grace. This interpretation is
broadly Augustinian and is in keeping with Catholic teaching. This interpretation is reflected in the second half of Braaten's question. On the other
hand, one may stress that grace allows Christians to find their justification
not in themselves, not even in themselves transformed by divine grace, but

BOOK REVIEWS

only in Jesus Christ. This interpretation is more specifically Lutheran and
is perhaps not in accord with Catholic teaching. This interpretation is
reflected in the first half of Braaten's question. Which interpretation, the
broadly Aug-ustinian or the specifically Reformation, does one find here 'l
Forde's explicit discussion of the question in the locus on the Christian
Life unashamedly opts for the more specifically Reformation interpretation. (For the most part, this choice is reflected throughout the text, although one wonders how Forde reacts to Schwarz's emphasis on the human
response to grace.) This choicH may seem to be ecumenically regressive.
Nevertheless, such is not the case. Forde rescues justification from the
purely legal images that have left Catholics with the well founded worry
that justification has become an event totally extrinsic to the Christian.
Instead, Forde interprets the doctrine through images that were important
in its original formulation, images of death and resuITection. We are
justified only as we die and rise with Christ. If the question is asked,
what must I do to be justified, the answer is, Nothing. If the question is
what must happen to me for me to be justified, then the 'answer is, I
must die and rise with Christ. But I cannot " do " death and resurrection,
even with the aid of grace. I can only suffer them. They must be the
work of the Spirit through the Word.
Forde's formulation is not without problems. As he admits, the implications for the continuity of the self who must truly die and of the God
who slays and then redeems are disturbing. Nevertheless, ecumenical
progress will not come through a discussion of watered-down versions of
the assertions that have divided us. Forde has succeeded in presenting
the Reformation understanding of justification in a way that does not
compromise its innovative critique of much of vVestern theology and piety
and yet also lays bare the roots of the Reformation in catholic piety. The
ecumenical problem raised by the Reformation is here posed with all its
ambiguity.
Unfortunately, the text does not give us many tools to solve this ecumenical problem. Questions of the relation of dogmatics and dogma receive little attention. What here is dogma and what adiaphora 7 Hefner
devotes a few paragraphs to the dogma/adiaphora distinction, but says
contradictory things. (Compare the comment on II,237, that Lutherans
should "resist the temptation to judge other bodies' insistence on specific
organizational forms as an implicit denial of the primacy of grace" with
the statement on II,239f. that "it is a violation of faith to insist that
adiaphora be accepted as a condition of unity.") vVhat are the conditions
of ecumenical agreement? Do Lutherans demand only the freedom to
preach the gospel as they hear it or a full agreement on the nature of the
gospel 1 Such questions deserve fuller discussion in a Christian dogmatics
than they receive here.

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What Christian Dogmatics offers then is an impressive attempt by
theologians of one tradition to think through the catholic faith they have
inherited and which they wish to pass on to the following generation of
students. What they have produced is not just a pedagogically useful
tool, but a collection of essays that rise well above wooden surveys, a
compendium of theology from which students of theology in and out of
school and in and out of the Lutheran tradition can profit.
MrOH.AEL RooT
Lutheran Theological Southern Seminary
Columbia, South Carolina

J .AJIIES J. BUCKLEY
Loyola College in Maryland
Baltimore, Maryland

The Church With .A. Human Face. By EDW.ARD SCHILLEBEEOKX. Translated by John Bowden. New York: The Crossroad Publishing Company, 1985. Pp. xii + 308. $19.50.

This work is an expansion of Edward Schillebeeckx's earlier book,
Ministry, published in 1981. Although The Church With .A. Human Face
is twice the length of the earlier book, the concerns remain the same. Those
concerns can be summarized in five points : first, the local church community (parish) has a right to ministers (priests); second, the fact that
we today face a severe shortage of priests in so many parts of the world
is a strong indication that something is wrong in the Church herself; third,
since the community has a right to ministers (priests), steps should be
taken to correct this shortage, that is, to correct what has gone wrong;
fourth, the fact that there are so many women and married men involved
today in various levels of ministry (apart from the priesthood) gives us
a strong indication that the shortage of priests stems not from a lack of
interest in ministry per se, but rather from specific barriers which now
attach to priestly ordination, namely, maleness and celibacy; fifth, we
should therefore eliminate those barriers, given the fact that they are not
intrinsic to the priesthood.
The author proceeds by way of an historical analysis of ministry in the
Church, beginning with "Jesus Christ and His Messianic Communities"
and proceeding through to contemporary " Complaints of the People "
regarding the priesthood as it is understood today. Employing the notion
of "models", Schillebeeckx attempts to demonstrate that different models
of the priest have prevailed at different periods in the history of the

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Church, each arismg out of historically-conditioned circumstances which
forced a change from the previous model employed. Schillebeeckx believes
that circumstances today require another shift in our understanding of
tlw priest and henee another working model, so to speak. Although he
notes the "normative significance of the New Testament model," Schillebeeckx believes that it cannot be understood as supplying the " last word "
in ministry (p. 207).
Although this book, as the earlier Ministry, has fatal shortcomings, the
author makes two important points which require a good deal more consideration than they have generally been given in theology today. The first
has to do with the relationship between ministry and ecclesiology. Schillebeeckx no.fas that too often theologians have developed a notion of the
priesthood which builds directly upon Christological foundations that contain "a suppressed and even concealed ecclesiology" (206). Hence, no
explicit attention is given to the relationship between ministry and community, beyond the axiom that there can be no church without priests. As
a result, ecclesiology becomes simply a sub-heading under ministry, nothing more than an extension of any given theology of the priesthood. The
temptation to reduce ecclesiology to ministry is one which theology should
avoid, although Schillebeeclor's own view that community be given priority
over ministry (p. 257) is equally problematic.
Second, Schillebeeckx points. out that theologians have often introduced
into theology non-theological notions drawn from Neoplatonic thought.
Primary among these is a suspicion and even dislike of the human body,
especially with regard to sexuality. As a result, false arguments regarding
sexual " purity " have been employed in the service of the notion of
priestly celibacy, producing that mentality which supposes that the priestly
calling is a higher calling than marriage, because the priest is uncontaminated by those physical impurities which are presumed to be a necessary
component of sexual intercourse. Such a notion of celibacy is, of course,
quite outside the New Testament concern with celibacy " for the sake of
the Kingdom," and Schillebeeekx quite rightly notes that such non-theological criteria ought to be purged from our theology of ministry and
indeed from theology altogether.
Unfortunately and ironically, however, the two great flaws of this book
are precisely those which Schillebeeckx locates in his theological predecessors, namely, a theological method which is quite Platonic and the absence
of anything even approximating a substantive eccesiology. Indeed, it is
the Platonic character of his method which precludes his developing an
ecclesiology; hence we must examine the former before looking at the
latter.
The single most striking feature of this book is the difficulty the reader
has in loeating anything normative in history. We are fairly warned of

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this early on, when Schillebeeckx tells us, " one can never give an absolute
cut-and-dried formulation of what is specifically normative for Christians,
since this can only be found in changing historical forms" (p. 2). Not
only are there no unchanging forms, there are also no unchanging facts,
since facts are always " interpreted " within the framework of particular
theories and hence change from theory to theory. And there are, of course,
no unchanging theories but only " changeable theories which we make ourselves" (p. 40).
Not only history in general, but also Church history in particular, presents us with this same phenomenon. There are no unchanging forms of
ministry in the Church. The forms shift according to historical circumstances. And, as we have already seen, although we can appeal to the
New Testament experienee as in some sense normative, it nevertheless
provides us with no final word on the subject. Nor can we appeal to the
Church, as unchanging, inasmuch as changes at the level of ministry
necessarily produce changes at the level of ecclesiology. Schillebeeckx
quotes Bishop Damert Bellido of Peru as having recognized a fundamental
truth when he said, "Any attempt at changing an infrastructure (in this
case the priesthood) within a greater structure (the church) without
changing this greater structure is a utopia." Schillebeeckx goes the bishop
one further, claiming that such thinking is not just utopic, but ideological (p. 218).
If nothing in history is unchanging or unchangeable, then what constitutes the bottom-line criterion by which the theologian can make any
judgments about ministry or ecelesiology or, indeed, any area of our faith
On one level, the answer Schillebeeckx gives would appear to
be sociology. The book is replete with sociological rules of thumb by which
judgments regarding the Church and ministry become not only possible
hut even transparent. To cite just one example, Schillebeeckx, in criticizing the Church for having failed to recognize the historically-conditioned
and hence changing character of her own existence, concludes by saying,
"This is true, even sociologically, of any system in society, but perhaps
in a special way of the institutional church which, rightly understanding
itself as a ' community of God/ often wrongly shows a tendency to identify even old and venerable traditions with unchangeable divine ordinances "
(pp. 210-211).
On another level, however, Schi!lebeeckx is careful, in words at least,
not to reduce theology to simply a branch of sociology. What is given to
us "from below" (i.e., out of historically-conditioned circumstances) is
also experienced as " from above " (i.e., as a product of grace). Hence,
theology can never he just sociology. There must be some specifically
theological norm, and Schillebeeckx thinks this norm can be located in
what he calls the Christian ' Logos ' or reason. This identification of the

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Logos with reason is the basis for Schillebeeckx's characterization of the
theologian, who always comes after church practice (praxis) is already in
place and operative, as " extremely necessary and irreplaceable, especially
when it comes to demonstrating in a rational way whether this practice
is authentically Christian" (p. 11).
Here, however, the entire theological method upon which the book is
based unravels completely, and for obvious reasons. The 'Logos.', understood as theological r.eason, cannot be understood as normative in itself,
since it cannot stand on its own. It can only be applied to something other
than itself. But there are, if we are to take Schillebeeckx seriously, no
facts, apart from interpretative frameworks (.theories), to which reason
can be applied, and these theories are not only changing but made up by
the theologian. Since the theory gives rise to the facts, theories clearly
cannot be based upon facts. How the theologian is, in the absence of
facts, to construct his theory is never made clear. What does clearly
emerge, however, is that the ultimate criterion of Schillebeeckx's theory
is his own constructed theory as to what constitutes an authentic Christian
community (and, by extension, ministry). As a result, Schillebeeckx has no
qualms about saying, "no practice of any kind is legitimated solely by
itself. Only theological theory can demonstrate whether the direction of
the practice is orthos, right ( orthopraxis), in the light of the inspiration
and orientation of the great Christian tradition, even if this practice
should be completely new " ( p. 11) .
" Only theological theory can demonstrate." This is an extraordinary
statement coming from a Catholic theologian who wishes to repudiate
Neoplatonism. To place the concrete material and historical order at the
mercy of such non-material and non-historical realities as changing, fabricated theories goes far beyond anything Plato himself ever dreamed of by
way of relativizing the world we live in. At least Plato understood material forms to participate in reality by participating in real immaterial
formal entities. SchilJebeeckx, on the other hand, not only refuses (as did
Plato) to locate permanent, unchanging rea.lity in the world; he supposes
(unlike Plato) that the relative (i.e., ehangable) reality (i.e., authenticity)
of any Christian practice lies in its ability to conform to something a
good deal Jess real than itself, namely, the made-up theories of Schillebeeckx. The fact that Rome has problems with this should surprise no
one. The fact that a theologian of the status of Schillebeeckx has no
problems with it should not only surprise, but stun, us all.
The central flaw of the book, which nothing else within the book
anc begin to overcome, lies precisely in the relationship between fact and
theory which Schillebeeckx supposes to exist. As he put it, "there are
no such things as ' facts ', even the 'hard facts ' which soociologists are
fond of posting. There are only interpreted facts. We can only arrive at

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facts within changeable theories which we make ourselves" (p. 40). Apart
from the irrationality of asserting as fact that there are no facts (which
assertion, in point of fact, is itself a theory, not a fact), this statement
fatally flaws the book in a number of ways. First, it requires the reader
to put theory above practice, which is an entirely Platonic way of going
about things. Second, it requires the reader to place Schillebeeckx's
theories above Catholic practice in order to agree with Schillebeeckx's
conclusions. Third, it makes criticizing Schillebeeckx's historical analysis
of ministry impossible at the outset, since the " interpreted facts " he
offers are, by his own accounting, not real in themselves but only pr-oducts
of his theory (they are quite liter-ally "theor-etical facts"). In short, it
makes a serious r-eview of the book very difficult.
That task becomes all but impposible, when one sees how such a notion
of the relationship between theory and fact actually affects facts. Until
r-ecently, for- example, most Chr-istians accepted as undoubted fact that
Christ was born in Bethlehem. The only two infancy narratives we have
in the New Testament, Matthew and Luke, agree on this " fact". Schillebeeckx, however-, tells us that "He was pr-obably born in Nazareth" (p.
18). This "probable fact", of course, is an "interpreted fact", i.e., a
fact which arises from and conforms to Schillebeeckx's theological theories.
And, of course, according to this method of reckoning, Christ's birth in
Bethlehem is also an "interpr-eted fact", arising from and conforming to
the theological theories of Matthew and Luke (theories which are no
longer relevant; hence Christ can no longer be understood as having been
born in Bethlehem) . The unwary Christian who asks, "Well, where was
he born 'f ", is asking an unreal question, because what he seeks is an
" uninterpreted " fact, and there are no such things, according to Schillebeeckx.
There are other, even more striking, instances of this method to be
found in the book. This reader, for example, was amazed by Sehillebeeckx's exegesis of Gal 3.28 as applied to Gen 1.27. As regards Gal 3.28
("there is neither male nor female"}, Schillebeeckx says, "The Greek
literally reads, 'the male and the female no long.er exist '-a clear reference to the Septuagint translation of Gen. 1.27, ' male and female He
created them'· In this line of thought the baptism of the Spirit is the
eschatological restoration of an order of creation with an equality which
was destroyed historically and in society-it is' new creation' (Gal. 6.15).
The baptism of the Spirit removes historical discriminations" (p. 38}.
One hardly knows, at least at :first glance, what to make of this. Our
CTeation in Gen. 1.27 as male and female is linked there to our imaging
of God. It is, furthermore, a part of the pre-fallen creation {the fall does
not occur until chapter 3) which Catholicism, like God, has always understood to be " very good " (Gen 1.31} . Genesis 1.27 cannot, therefore (or

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168

so one would suppose), be linked to "historical discrimination". Nor
(one would also suppose) could the " new creationg ", understood as " restoration", be interpreted as an annihilation of that sexual differentiation
which, as Genesis tells us, is intrinsic to the original good creation. And
yet that seems to be precisely what Schillebeeckx does intend us to understand as having happened "in Christ".
·when one later discovers, however, that facts, for Schillebeeckx, arise
out of theories, not only can one see that he does indeed intend this
reading of the facticity of our "new creation " in Christ, one can also
see just how such an interpretation is given legitimation. For Schillebeeckx's theory i·egarding the Church includes the notion of an /6 egalitarian" community (pp. 39, 47). An egalitarian community obviously
requires an egalitarion reading of Gal. 3.28, which in turn requires some
sort of overturning of Gen. 1.27. What we see here, in short, is not a
theology which serves the Christian revelation, but a revelation which
serves theological theorizing. (It should also be noted that Schillebeeckx's
identification of "democratic' with "egalitarian" [p. 47] betrays his
assumption that " equal" means "undifferentiated".
Hence, his theory
of sexual equality also requires that sexual differentiation be eliminated).
This process of interpretation, where OUl' creation as male and female
is concerned, culminates in Schillebeeckx's view that "maleness" is an
"untheological" concept and therefore has no application to the priesthood (p. 257). This, of course, is an obvious and even necessary conclusion, once one accepts that our new creation in Christ destroys that
sexual differentiation which was intrinsic to the human community in the
Genesis 1 creation account. That which had theological import to the
author of Genesis no longer has theological import to Schillebeeckx, because the interpretative framework (theory) he employs supplies no
categories by which the Genesis account of our creation as male and female
can be understood as theologically significant.
Schillebeeckx tells us that the actual practice of Christian communities
"must be justfiied in theory" (p. 10). Not only does this principle place
the Catholic theologian just about as far from Magisterial authority as he
can get ( Schi.llebeeckx's statements to the contrary notwithstanding), inasmuch as it hands that authority over to the theologian, whose theories
now become the basis for determining whether or not any given practice
is authentically Catholic, it is also effectively distances the theologian from
theological realism. A brief comparison with scientific method makes this
immediately apparent.
In science, hypothesis (theoretical science) does not justify practice
(experimental science). Quite the reverse is true. Scientific hypotheses
are tested by direct observation and experimentation. Scientific method is
precisely because theories do not give rise to facts (ex-

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perimental results); theories arise out of experimentation and are tested
by new experimentation. While it is true that theories determine the types
of experiments which are done, theories do not control the results of those
experiments. There always remans an objective, experimental base, beyond the control of the theoretical scientist, which can call, and, to date,
has called every major scientific hypothesis into question. The hypotheses
can be questioned, and even abandoned, with no harm done to science
itself. Science is only harmed when the hypotheses are given priority over
the data of experimentation, so that experiments are done solely to confirm hypotheses. When that happens, the "realism" of experimental
science is abandoned for the " idealism " of the theoretician.
Much the same thing is true in theology. Theological theories (as
Schillebeeckx correctly notes) are creations of the theologian and are
therefore subject to change. Theology is not harmed when such theoretical constructs are questioned or abandoned. For our faith as Catholics
is not a matter of theory and it requires no theortical justification. Just
as scientific theory arises out of the facticity of experimentation and
functions to demonstrate how the multiplicity of experimental data (facts)
might be seen to relate to one another, so theological theory arises out
of the facticity of Catholic worship and tradition and function to demonstrate how the multiplicity .of revealed truths (facts) might be seen to
i·elate to one another. To suppose the reverse, that theories give rise to
facts, is to engage in a form of idealism which out-Plato's Plato.
This ultraplatonic (for lack of a better word) approach to reality,
which relativizes all things historical, including the Catholic faith and
practice, in the name of theological theory, is incapable of producing a
defined or indeed definable ecclesiology, since the Church (like all other
historical entities) is, by such an account, changeable and hence incapable
of being authenticated apart from some particular theological theory
which can demonstrate her legitimacy. Furthermore, since both the form
the Church takes and the authenticity of that form are temporary and
contingent, no theory formulated today can speak to the historical circumstances of tomorrow (or yesterday). As a result, all ecclesiology is
temporary and contingent, no more capable of assuming some definitive
shape or form than is the Church herself. Hence, to seek in Schillebeeckx's
work a substantive ecclesiology is to seek precisely that which his own
particular theory about reality will not permit. It is therefore not at all
surprising that one cannot be found in this book.
In the final analysis it would seem, according to Schillebeeckx, that
only change can be viewed as normative. The statement which concludes his historical analysis of ministry in the Church suggests some
sort of rift between theologians and the Magisterium on precisely this
issue of change. " For better or worse, then and now, this ongoing history

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of the church regularly gives renewed expression to inspiration in constantly new existential contexts. There the Christian churches have sometimes done well, and sometimes less well, leading to disillusionment. We can
regard all this as a generally accepted consensus among contemporary
theologians, though the instruments of the church's teaching authority
often have a tendency to dwell on ' the letter ' of earlier statements and
to underestimate their historieal and hermeneutical dimensions" (208).
Those in the Magisterium who dwell on 'the letter ' believe, erroneously in
Schillebeeckx's judgment, that history can and does give rise to nonnative,
enduring facts and forms. Theologians who attend to historical relativizing
and hermeneutical theorizing, correctly in Schillebeeckx's judgment, know
better. His book is clearly designed to demonstrate this point.
There is one sense in which his hook docs not, and indeed cannot, fail,
given how the facts which he presents for the reader's judgment arise
out of the theory with which he begins and necessarily point to the conclusion which his theory already presupposes. This is a fail-safe method
for getting to where one wants to go. Unfortunately, it gets there by way
of an enormous detour around the facticity of the Catholic faith and
practice, a facticity which, despite the efforts of some of our best known
(if not finest) theologians over a two thousand year history, has consistently refused to submit to the hypothetical and the theoretical reason of
rationalist theologians. Our faith is centered on the Christ, the incarnate,
historical Logos of tradition and Scripture, not on the disincarnate, unhistorical logos of theoretical theology. Schillebeeckx is not the first, nor
will he be the last, theologian intent upon reducing the Catholic faith to
some hypothetical methodology. Happily, however, and perhaps even
miraculously, the Church always manages to survive her theologians, a fact
which cannot but offer solace to many of the readers of this book.
JOYCE

A. Ll'J'TLE

University of St. Thomas
Houston, Texas

The .Argument of the "Tractatus :" Its Relevance to
Theories of Logic, Language. Mind, and Philosophical Trust. By RroHARD
M. McDoNOUGH. Albany: State University of New York Press, 1986.

Pp. xii + 311.
This book attempts an analysis of the Tractatits Logico-Philosophicus
based on taking Wittgenstein's professed "fundamental idea' as the hermeneutic key. Tractatus 4.0312 states, in part: "My fundamental idea is

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that the 'log·ical constants' are not representatives." McDonough believes
that previous interpreters of the Tractatus have either ignored or downplayed the importance of this statement, and he writes in the conviction
that taking it seriously produc&s a reading of the Tractatits that is friendlier toward philosophical language and argumentation than " the strong
nagativ& views ... which have been hastily claimed " as the import of the
book ( p. 11). In order to establish this "fundamental idea" as an interpretative device McDonough reminds the reader of links among three ideas.
The first is the idea that the logical constants are not representatives. The
second is the idea that the sole (real) logical constant is the general propositional form ( T 5.47). The third is the fact that the status of the
propositions of logic as tautologies exhibits the logic of their constituents,
and hence, the logical properties of language and the world ( T 6.12). By
developing the relations among these ideas, and extending them to the
interpretation of the Tractatiis as a whole, McDonough aims to show that
Wittgenstein is committed to an explicit, only "technically nonsensical,"
philosophical doctrin& concerning the derivation of general metaphysical
facts about ontology from general facts about the philosophy of logic.
This doctrine he characterizes as "the argument of th& Tractatus." By
attributing to the book an argmnent or doctrine (in the sense just mention&d) he contradicts those commentators who have understood Wittg·enstein to be earnestly requiring real silence about philosophy and to b&
asserting seriously that the Tractatu,s is a self-refuting treatise, to be
kicked aside. once its lessons are learned.
J\1foDonoug·h begins with vVittgenstein's understanding of negation and
th& problem wheth&r there are negative facts. McDonough discusses Russell's attempt to sort this out, and claims that Wittgenstein diagnoses
Russell's mistake in this remark; "For it is difficult not to confuse what is
not the case with what is the ease instead of it" (p. 24). Wittgenstein's
view is that "negation does not enter into the representational content of
the proposition" (26). Rather, negation is the denial of the fact repr&sented in the proposition's sense. But this interpretation requires that
we find an ambiguity in 'Wittgenstein's notion of tlrn "sense" of a proposition: one sort of sense is the same in either affirmation or denial, while
another sort of sense is that in which affi.rmation and denial are opposed.
Th& status of logical propositions ean also be construed as an outworking
of "the fundamental idea." Again McDonough sets up the problem
through a treatment of Russell's 1918 lectures. He finds Russell's account
dehilitnted by the assumption that "the logical propositions are about
facts in some sense" (p. 49). " The fundamental idea" insures that th&y
cannot be about a class of logical facts. Furthermore, tautological propositions of logic are about the means of representation itself, not about
facts of any sort. Getting from this point to th& claim that the tautology

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shows the general form of a proposition involves McDonough's distinetion
between "presentational symbols," whose truth conditions are internal to
the proposition itself (e.g., tautologies), and "representational symbols"
(e.g., empirical propositions) which are about something external to the
symbol. McDonough regards this as the basis for the distinction between
"symbols which 'say' and symbols which only 'show'" (p. 61). But
this claim-that different symbols say and show, and that they are, respectively, representational and presentational-is inconsistent with Wittgenstein's assertion that a single symbol-the proposition-both "shows"
(its sense) and ",gays" (that things so stand) and with the elaim that a
proposition represents what it shows and presents, in its general form;
i.e., what it "says" (T 2.221, 4.022, 4.5). McDonough does acknowledge
that propositions both say and show ( p. 59). But how is that consistent
with his claim that these functions belong to different "types " of symbols?
However attractive McDonough's account of "saying" and " showing'"
may be, such a striking inconsistency makes it implausible to claim that
it is an interpretation of the Tractatus.
The absence of a Wittgensteinian tenor in McDonough's work can be illustrated further from the same stretch of text. In discussing the distinction
between signs and symbols, he writes: " Only the sign of a symbol is perceptible. There is a component of the symbol which is in some sence imthis idea by claiming: " Signs are
perceptible " ( p. 63). He
perceptible entities. Thoughts are imperceptible entities which are paired
with them" [to make up symbols] (p. 64). This interpretation is a classic
instance of a Rylean category mistake, and it is McDonough, not vVittgenstein, who makes it. The form of the mistake is to postulate an unobserved entity to explain the function of an observed one. Wittgenstein is
clear in stating that the syrnboHc function of a sign is tied to its use with
a sense ( T 3.326) ; nowhere does he suggest that a thought is another
entity whose presence paired with a mere sign creates a symbol. One
must compare "A thought is a proposition with a sense" (T 4), with
l\foDonough's claim that " The thought is the meaning component of a
symbol" (p. 64). This is the difference between a keen insight into the
distinction of entity and function, and an iroEic lapse into the very
reification of functions that Wittgenstein himself took such pains to expose as a chief source of philosophical confusion.
Unfortunately, MeDonough's account of the autonomy of logic is vitiated
by its dependence on this notion of a "thought." He appeals to the
thought as the "meaning component of a symbol "-presented in it--as
the explanation of what makes the tautology autonomously self-guaranteeing. He sees this eonstrual as rescuing Wittgenstein from the positivist notion that the symbolism itself does that work, but he fails to see
that on this reading logic does not take care of itself, as Wittgenstein

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insisted it must. Rather, thought takes care of logic, and what takes care
of thought we'd better not ask. Fogelin has given proper attention to one
of Wittgenstein's healthiest philosophical habits: stopping explanatory
regresses before they start. This is a fundamental instinct of the author
of the Tractatus: explanations have to stop somewhere, and they need to
stop in some medium that offers an alternative to appeals either to selfevidence or to convention. Logic in its application to the world is such a
medium, and Wittgenstein's gestures toward function and application show
how he can avoid those appeals (T 3.262, 3.263, 2.15, 3.326-3.328). McDonough's account of the way thoughts guarantee their own status isas it had to be-a disguised appeal to self-evidence.
If signs require an added substantive ingredient to link up with reality,
how does McDonoug·h account for statements of the following sort:
"Logic is not a field in which we express what we wish with the help of
signs, but rather one in which the nature of the absolutely necessary signs
speaks for itself" (T 6.124). It is clearly the view of the Tractatus that
logic pertains to signs which in their application become symbols, not to
imperceptible relations among occult entities somehow asosciated with
signs.
Applying "the fundamental idea" to ontological matters, McDonough
attempts to show the identity of logical form with the form of reality
( T 2.18). He does so by inquiring into the question how propositions
show that they are about something external to themselves. They do so,
he claims, through the "proxy" relationship of symbol and object. But
he misleadingly states, repeatedly, that "the genuine propositional symbol
mmit contain a proxy for [its] subject matter" (p. 98). Now, the proposition contains proxies for the object composing .the fact it depicts. But it
does not contain as one of its elements, a representative of the fact it depicts. Indeed, if it did, it wouldn't depict that fact, since it would have an
extra ingredient, i.e., another depiction of the fact itself imbedded in the
depiction ( T 2.15-2.1515; 2.172). What McDonough means is that any
g·enuine proposition must stand in a pictorial relation to a possible fact
(T 2.1513- 2.1515). It does so in its possession of logical form (T 2.162.182). To speak of logical form as something the picture contains, rather
than as the way its elements are arranged, is to invite the kind of reification discussed above as a category mistake. That McDonough does not intend this invitation is shown in his correct statement that "genuine propsitional symbol does not contain a proxy for the contingent state [i.e. possible
fact] involved" ( p. 103). Oddly, though, he calls this doctrine, which
.everyone recognizes under the name "the picture theory of the proposition" as one of the two or three central notions of the book, one of the
"most nnderemphasized views of the Tractatus" (p. 105). It seems
curious to call a doctrine underemphasized when all major commentators-

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Anscombe, Biack, Stenius, Fogelin, et al.-give it a central role in their
expositions of the text. McDonough states correctly, at length, that in
the proposition no proxy stands for the representational relationship or
for the pictorial form that makes it possible. Rather, the form itself
expresses (in Wittgenstein's sense, "shows") the possibility of that relationship.
The distinction between signs and thoughts, introduced earlier, McDonough puts to work to explain how everyday language, which does not
manifest logical form, is nevertheless language, i.e., a system of depictions
of possible facts. The account is this: the sign itself, lacking logical form,
is not by itself a symbol. But it becomes one when coupled with a thought.
The conjoined thought possesses logical form, and since it is, McDonough
says, the " meaning component" of the symbol, it furnishes the link-the
" something in common "-between the signs of everyday language and
the facts. This argument, which occupies McDonough's fifth and sixth
chapters, cannot get off the ground for reasons given above. And while
McDonough postulates a reified thought to show how everyday language
links up with reality, Wittgenstein makes plain that there is no linking
ingredient, but rather a use (LT 4.002, 4.011-4.016; 3.328). He says:
"What signs fail to express, their application shows. What signs slur
over, their application says clearly" (T 3.262). In the same regard one
can consult T 3.328, 4.002, and 4.011-4.016. Contrary to McDonough's
idea, Wittgenstein clearly thinks-rightly or wrongly-that expressions in
ordinary language already have logical form but don't manifest it perspicuously. From the discussion of the possession of pictorial (i.e., logical) form by gramophone records, musical notation, and sound waves
( 4.014) it is incredible to impute to Wittgenstein the view that perceptible
signs are merely amorphous associates of meaningful thoughts. It is the
genius of the Tractatus to insist that the signs themselves really depict
(see T 4.016), and any interpretation which loses sight of this point
has lost its way in the text.
Let us explore more fully MeDonough's notion of a thought, as he
attributes it to Wittgenstein. The thought has, he writes, "an essential
mental dimension" (p. 145), and the ancestry of the concept runs through
Russell to Brentano. To his credit, McDonough raises the obvious question that attaches to the postulation of meaning-conveying mental entities as mediators between language and the world. The question is this:
If the relation of sign to "the objective " (MeDonough's phrase) requires
a mediator, then why aren't mediators required to relate the mediating
thought to the
And as he might have gone on to ask: Why not a
mediator between sign and thought, and between those mediators and the
things they relate, and so on ad
McDonough has claimed that
Wittgenstein postulates one mediating entity and sees that, having done
so, he must stop the regress. How does he¥

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McDonough says that Wittgenstein's " thought" is developed in a way
parallel to Russell's adaption of Brentano's notion of the mental as denotative of an entity "which contains an object or state of affairs within
itself,'' or "is intrinsically related to that object or state of affairs" (p.
151). Plugging this doctrine into his idea that (according to Wittgenstein) the thought is the "meaning component" of the proposition, McDonough is able to say that the thought is intrinsically related to " the
objective" since it shares logical form with it, and is thus in a logically
determined relation to it without an intermediary. McDonough summarizes : " The argument of the Tractatus warrants the view that the propositional symbol involves a particular version of the notion of the meaning locus which is more highly articulated than Brentano's or even Russell's best formulations" (p.165). Of course, if one eschews McDonough's
construal of the thought, as has been urged above, one can stop the
regress a step earlier, avoid introducing occult mental entities, and say
with Wittgenstein that it is the proposition with a sense that is directly
related, without mediator, to the possible fact it depicts. " Tha.t is h°'w a
picture is attached to reality; it reached right out to it" ( T 2.1511). But
McDonough has the picture correlated with a thought, and then the
thought reaching out to reality. Why fly in the face of the texU
The answer lies in McDonough's wish to relate "the argument of the
Tractatits" to contemporary issues in psycholinguistics and the theory of
meaning. He links his reading of the Tractatus with hints of mentalistic
theories of meaning in Malcolm, Nozick, Kripke, and others. He credits
Wittgenstein with establishing " the notion of the mental" on a firmer
foundation by deriving it from " the concepts and views which pertain to
logic and the tautologies" (p. 171). He then brings his reading of Wittgenstein into contact with the theories of Chomsky, of Fodor, and of
Dummett. In this discussion McDonough's aim is to improve ' 1 the poor
condition of the theory of meaning " by advancing inquiry into the mental
entity called " the meaning locus" (p. 182). Coordinately, he aims to
initiate a reinterpretation of Wittgenstein's work " as a basis for a rethinking of the philosophical foundations of the theory of meaning and
of the field of psycholinguistics" (p. 183). If McDonough's work does
spark a revisionist reading of Wittgenstein, in which the Tractatus and
Philosophical Investigations appear as treatises written in defense of the
postulation of mental entities, this event will be a supreme irony in the
history of philosophy. Wittgenstein wrote in the latter work: "Nothing
is more wrong-headed than calling meaning a mental activity! Unless,
that is, one is setting out to produce confusion" (p. 693). And had the
author of the Tractatus, despite his nearly perfectly scrupulous care to
abolish mentalistic considerations from logic, not used the term Gedanke
as a tag-word for " a proposition with a sense " a scant dozen times in his

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171

text, McDonough's eccentric reading would have lacked even the slimmest
toehold.
The fundamental point at which McDonough differs from virtually
every other reader of the Tractatus surfaces late in his commentary. He
attributes to Wittgenstein the view that one can construct explicit logical
argumentation, constituting a philosophical system, leading from "the
fundamental idea" to certain explicit, systematic conclusions about ontology, mind, meaning, and so on. He disparages the reading demanded
by the passages he discusses as "dogmatic " or " mystical." But Wittgenstein's views really are-for better or worse-in certain senses dogmatic
and mystical. In myriad important passages in the Tractatus, he appeals
to what logic, or the world apprehended as a whole limited by logical
form, shows. And "what can be shown, cannot be said " (T 4.1212. See
also 4.121c). Whatever we think of the truth or plausibility of Wittgenstein's ideas, McDonough's attempts to save him from himself are the
weakest strands in an often tenuous skein of interpretation.
Wittgenstein expressed grave doubt whether his work would be understood. In Zettel ( # 314) he diagnosed " a remarkable and characteristic
phenomenon in philosophical investigation,'' namely, the impulse to press
past the solutions to our philosophical problems toward something further,
something like an explanatory theory. He connected this impulse with
"our wrongly expecting an explanation, whereas the solution of the difficulty is a description." McDonough's project of grafting large theoretical branches on to the truncated descriptive body of the Tractatus is
an instance of this tendency. Of such projee.ts Wittgenstein wrote (in the
same passage) : " The difficulty here is: to stop."
In McDonough's final chapter he faces the greatest single textual obstacle to his reading of .the Tractatus, the famous conclusion: "Whereof
one cannot speak, thereof one must be silent." His unconvincing argument is that Wittgenstein didn't really mean it, and that though in one
sense philosophical propositions are inexpressible, " there is another sense
in which one can say them " ( p. 215). It is important to note that McDonough is not merely making the familiar true remark that the Tractatus
is nonsense by its own criteria and that therefore there does seem to be
some sense in which one can say these things. That remark points to a
deep inconsistency in Wittgenstein's system; it takes him at his word and
offers criticism. But McDonough's move is to try to make his system
consistent by wriggling him out of the plain sense of what he wrote-and
out -0f what-if his behavior following the book's completion is any indication-he really meant. What a shame it would be if McDonough were
correct. Instead of seeing Wittgenstein as a sharp, a:ustere thinker, terse
in his elegance, and willing to grasp the nettle of a self-refuting philosophical discourse, we should have to see him as a weaseling meta.phy-

BOOK REVIEWS

sician, hiding the most important elements of his thought in obscure
passages, burying the central concepts of his theory of language, and
offering a sly double entendre (l\foDonough's reading of T 7) without
giving the reader the slightest clue. But McDonough's account does not
persuade; so we are not obligated to make this reassessment.
JOHN CHURCHILL

Hendrix College
Conway, Arkansas

The Nature and Limits of Authority. By RIOHARD T. DEGEORGE. Lawrence,
Kansas: University Press of Kansas, 1985. Pp. 305 with index.

Richard DeGeorge has produced a very thorough analysis of the nature
and limits of authority in general as well as of authority in such specific
domains as the family, political society, the labor place, religious bodies,
the domain of knowledge in general (epistemic: authority in general), and
the university.
DeGeorge draws some very useful distinctions among different kinds of
authority. His working model is: "someone or something (X) is an
authority if he (she, it) stands in relation to someone else (Y) as superior
stands to inferior with respect to some realm, field or domain (R) " (14).
On his analysis authority is sometimes a power and sometimes a right.
He divides authority most basically into executive authority and nonexecutive authority. Executive authority is the right or power of someone
to do something in some domain. N onexecutive authority, on the other
hand, concerns knowledge or example. N onexecutive authority can be
epistemic or exemplary (i.e., the authority of one who sets an example
to follow, as in art or morality). DeGeorge discusses all of these with
patience and clarity.
DeGeorge's justification for epistemic authority is that: 1) people are
not equal in knowledge (or competence), and 2) the reliance on epistemic
authority allows many more people to benefit from some people's knowledge than just those who directly know (38). There are criteria by which
rational acceptance of epistemic authority can be distinguished from irrational acceptance. For example, Y must have good reason for believing
that X has knowledge in the relevant domain.
DeGeorge takes seriously the challenge of anarchism, discussing in some
detail arguments by Bakunin, Marx, and Robert Paul Wolff as examples.
DeGeorge defines various types of freedom and concludes that, pace the
anarchists, the exercises of various kinds of authority, and, in particular,

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of political authority, can enhance, rather than limit, free choice and
"teleological freedom" (i.e., the ability of persons to conceive of and to
attain their goals). Thus he justifies political authority, not on the basis of
consent, but on the basis of its necessity in order to preserve and increase
effective teleological freedom. Consent is not the foundation for political
authority's legitimacy, but, if I understand DeGeorge correctly, a necessary
condition of its legitimacy.
DeGeorge argues that there is no such thing as executive moral authority.
That is, there is no one who makes something morally right simply by commanding it. In another chapter he distinguishes among various kind of
religious authority: delegated divine authority (e.g., to preserve revealed
truths handed down), operative authority within the church organization
(i.e., authority to represent or act for the church body, and religious
epistemic authority.
In a very enlightening chapter on university and authority, DeGeorge
defends the value, both intrinsic and instrumental to all of society, of
what he calls the objective-knowledge university. " The objective-knowledge university has as its primary end the traditional trio of discovering,
preserving, and transmitting objective, systematic, and unified knowledge" ( 251) .
DeGeorge often takes a very non-dialectical approach, which sometimes
inadvertently hides how controversial some of the issues are and how
significant the positions are which he calmly sets out. The book is extremely thorough; it brings analytic clarity to issues on which there has
been surprisingly little philosophical work done. It should be consulted
by anyone doing philosophical or theological work on any of the several
topics that demand clear thinking about the nature of authority.
PATRICK

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

LEE

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The Logic of Deterrence. By ANTHONY KENNY. New York: Oxford University Press, 1986. Pp. 101 . .$6.95 paper.
Professor Kenny should have entitled his book "The Logic of Nuclear
Deterrence ", for that is the subject he discusses. For Kenny the logic
of nuclear deterrence cannot meet either the jus ad bellum or the jus in
bello criteria of the just war tradition. It can fulfill neither the former
criteria because " there can be no hope of victory " nor the latter because
implementation of the deterrent threat can be neither proportionate nor
discriminate. Kenny does recognize a just cause for war; however, for
him the death and destruction caused by the use of nuclear weapons in a
just cause would be immoral.
Thus, on the one hand Kenny states :
The defence of the independence of the nations of the West against
aggression from the Communist bloc would in itself provide a just
cause for war. Leaving aside for the moment the nuclear issue, it
would be right to risk our own lives, and to take those of enemy
combatants, to preserve our independence and our traditions.

On the other hand, he does not believe that there could he any actual
use of nuclear weapons in defense of this just cause that would not
involve the massive destruction of population areas. Thus Kenny concludes that the use of nuclear weapons can never be materially or morally
proportionate. They can never be materially proportionate for :
(T)he differences which at present exist between the United States
and the Soviet Union would be insignificant in comparison with the
difference between the United States as it now is and the United
States as it would be after absorbing a full-scale nuclear attack, or
the difference between the Soviet Union as it now is and the Soviet
Union as it would be after such an attack.

And they could never be morally proportionate:
... for it is necessary to keep reminding people of what the world
would be like after (a nuclear war) in order to bring home that
there is no desirable goal which can rationally be pursued by launching such a war.

For Kenny, the material and spiritual costs resulting from the use of
nuclear weapons would always be disproportionate, whatever good was
being protected :
Respect for innocent human life and for international law is as much
a part of what gives us a right to defend the values of Western
democracy as is freedom of speech or rights against arbitrary arrest.
To the extent to which we forfeit our respect for life and law we forfeit our claim to have any moral superiority to defend against communist threat. As for democratic institutions, few of these are likely
to survive a war in which both sides suffer nuclear devastation.

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175

Kenny's view about the disproportionality of the use of nuclear
weapons, it should be noted, is a function of his belief that limited nuclear
was is not possible, and so the just war criteria of " probability of success" (not " hope of victory", to use Kenny's formulation) cannot be
met. For Kenny, "war is justifiable only if it can be limited".
Concerning the use of nuclear weapons in a "limited war" context,
Kenny holds that there are two principal questions to be asked:
The first is whether, on the assumption that the war remains as
limited as the strategists envisage, it would be in itself a morally
acceptable option.
The second is whether it is likely that a nuclear war, once begun,
could be kept under control and remain within the limits which were
planned at the outset.

It appears that Kenny has already answered the first question by denying
that it is possible, in practice, for any use of nuclear weapons to be either
discriminate or proportionate, even in a " limited war" context. Perhaps
Professor Kenny should have read what Fr. John Courtney Murray,
S.J., had to say on this subject:
First, there are those who say that the limitation of nuclear war, or
any war, is today impossible, for a variety of reasons-technical, political, etc. In the face of this position, the traditional doctrine simply
asserts again, " The problem today is limited war." But notice that
the assertion is on a higher plane than that of sheer fact. It is a
moral proposition, or better, a moral imperative. In other words,
since limited nuclear war may be a necessity, it must be made a
possibility. Its possibility must be created . .And the creation of its
possibility requires a work of intelligence, and the development of a
manifold action, on a whole series of policy levels-political (foreign
and domestic), diplomatic, military, technological, scientific, :fiscal,
etc., with the important inclusion of the levels of public opinion and
public education. To say that the possibility of limited nuclear war
cannot be created by intelligence and energy, under the direction of
a moral imperative, is to succumb to some sort of determinism in
human affairs.

With regard to the second question, after citing former Secretary of
Defense Harold Brown's view, as contained in the U.S. Catholic Bishops'
Pastoral Letter on War and Peace, and Paul Bracken, author of Command
and Control of Stategic Forces, Kenny concludes that nuclear war cannot
be controlled. However, Kenny apparently is not aware that the U.S.
Catholic Bishops quoted Harold Brown out of context:
First, I remain highly skeptical that escalation of a limited nuclear
exchange can be controlled, or that it can be stopped short of an allout, massive exchange. Second, even given that belief, I am convinced
that we must do everything we can to make such escalation control
possible, that opting out of this effort and consciously resigning ourselves to the inevitability of such escalation is a serious abdication

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of the awesome responsibilities nuclear weapons, and the unbelievable
damage ·their uncontrolled use would create, thrust upon us.
Also, what is one to make of Kenny citing Bracken ias an authority on the
inevitability of escalation when elsewhere Bracken has stated:
How many 'doves' understand that although a first-strike attack
poses great uncertainties for the Soviets, the uncertainties about our
own ability to strike back with untested weapons after receiving such
an attack are probably greater?
Even if nuclear weapons were discriminating and proportionate, Kenny
believes that American policy is not interested in using nuclear weapons
discriminately and proportionately.
Concerning targetting, Kenny believes that the U.S. Government has
been disingenuous at best, lying at worst, in asserting that in recent years
cities have not been targeted as such:
The ultimate threat of wiping out a large part of an enemy society
has remained the bedrock of American strategy from that day
(1950s) to this.
One wonders if Kenny has read the Challenge of Peace in full, or if
he has forgotten the following exchange between the bishops and the
government:
Particularly helpful was the letter of January 15, 1983, of Mr.
William Clark, national security advisor, to Cardinal Bernardin. Mr.
Clark stated: "For moral, political and military reasons, the United
States does not target the Soviet civilian population as such. There
is no deliberately opaque meaning conveyed in the last two words.
We do not threaten the existence of Soviet civilization by threatening
the Soviet cities. Rather, we hold at risk the war-making capability
of the Soviet Union-its armed forces, and the industrial capacity to
sustain war. It would be irresponsible for us to issue policy statements which might suggest to the Soviets that it would be to their
advantage to establish privileged sanctuaries within heavily populated
areas, thus inducing them to locate much of their war-fighting capability within those urban sanctuaries.
The bishops themselves acknowledge that the U.S. does not directly and
intentionally target noncombatants.
When he discusses the just war criteria of discrimination, Kenny either
ignores or excludes as irrelevant the distinction between primary use of
nuclear weapons and their indirect effects. This is a very important
distinction for determining whether acts meet the proporitionality and
discrimination criteria of the just war theory, and his failure to take it
into account significantly weakens his analysis of the criteria. As a result
of this he is unable to distinguish between doing "justifiable deadly deeds "
and culpable acts of killing in warfare.
After defining those who may become the legitimate targets as "only

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177

those who are engaged in making war, or in supplying those waging war
with the means to do so", Kenny considers that possibility of retaliatory
use of nuclear weapons on military targets is permissible, but he rules it
out " if military targets are in the centres of population." Notice this is
not an objection to the use of nuclear weapons on the grounds of proportionality, but on the grounds of discrimination which does not distinguish between direct and indirect effects.
Kenny's views, of course, represent his prudential ,judgments, and, like
anyone's prudential judgments, rest upon information which may or may
not be accurate, and which may or may not be complete, and conditions
which are subject to change over time. It would be worth examining in
more detail, if we had the space, the information which led Kenny to
make the prudential judgments he has made about the compatibility of
the use of nuclear weapons with the just war criteria of discrimination,
proportionality, and the "hope of victory".
Because, for Kenny, the use of nuclear weapons is not morally permissible, he argues for a radical reduction in arms by the West to induce the
Soviets into reciprocal disarmament. He says that the West must:
1. renounce explosive use of nuclear weapons;
2. cancel future development of weapons;

3. dismantle land and airborne nuclear systems;
4. dismantle theater nuclear weapons;
5. maintain a submarine-based arsenal as a bargaining chip for the
Soviets.
Kenny contends that the only morally acceptable form of arms control
would be unilateral dismantling of all American strategic nuclear weapons
with the exception of the submarine launched ballistic missiles ( SLBMs),
for this, he alleges, would provide a strong incentive for the Soviets
radically to reduce their arms. But this proposal fails to see that such
weapons are the least accurate weapons in the nuclear triad, and that
abolishing the other bomber and ground-based intercontinental ballistic
missiles (ICBMs) might not leave the United States with a credible
nuclear deterrent.
His proposal for virtually unilateral nuclear disarmament is fl.awed
because he fails to see that the presently invulnerable SLBMs could readily
become vulnerable if the airborne and land-based legs of the triad were
dismantled. If these two legs were to be dismantled, it is quite likely
that the Soviets would plow the tremendous resources they now use to
defend against American ICBMs and bombers into anti-submarine warfare and would concentrate all of their efforts on detecting and neutralizing
the submarines. He fails to see that relying solely on SLBMs would also
be ethically questionable because our deterrent would then rely entirely
on an indiscriminate system for attacking population centers, but with
virtually no capability to attack hardened military targets.

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Even when American SLBMs begin to acquire a capability against
hardened targets at the end of this decade, we would not only be putting
all om· deterrent eggs in one basket, but we would also be creating other
problems. Jl'or example, what Soviet hardened targets. could American
SLBMs
Certainly not many of the hundreds of mobile Soviet ICBMs
spread across the eleven time zones of the Soviet Union. (Some 75 such
missiles m·e already deployed today.)
What of the political i•amifications for extended deterrence? Our
.Allies believe we will defend them bi>cause our force deployment decisions, e.g., ICBMs in the United States "coupled" to American Intermediate Range Nuclear Forces in Europe put our territory at risk. If we
" decouple " this connection, what message does that send our Allies? It
sends a clear mesage that we are willing to fight a nuclear war in their
countries, but are not willing to expose our own territory to nuclear attack.
The key issue of the debate on deterrence, which Kenny rightly identifies, is what is to be done if deterrence fails. Since Kenny believes deterrence will fail catastrophically, any response to nuclear agreession would
be simple murder and therefore ethically intolerable. We would hope
that this is not true with conventional aggression, for then all who sought
to prevent the reign of Nazism were merely murderers. He argues that
retaliating against a nuclear first-strike could not be morally justified because so doing· would not prevent aggTession and to retaliate would therefore be murderous.
But what if we created not only the possibility, but the probability, that
deterrence, if it fails, will not fail catastrophically? Indeed, is there not,
as Fr. John Courtney Murray, S.J. asserted more than twenty years ago,
a moral imperative to work at this'? For example, what if variable-yield
weapons were used against strictly military targets and sueh weapons
could be specifically calibrated to yield only enough force to destroy the
target? What if such weapons were used not to destroy the target completely, but only to destroy some of its key components. to render the
target inoperable? V\tnat if only a few key installations in an entire industry were targeted? What if conventional weapons could be substituted
for nuclear weapons against some targets? What if some legitimate targets
were on a "withhold" list because the collateral damage which would
result from striking them would not be deemed proportionate to t.he destruction of the
These possibilities show that a failure of nuclear deterrence need not be
"catastrophic", 1U1d that the strategic deterrence resulting from a lessthan-catastrophic failure of deterrence need not be morally disproportionate nor indiscriminate always and everywhere. All of these uses of
nuclear weapons might cause less death and destruction than the use of
other more conventional means. It could be credibly argued that such

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179

uses of nuclear weapons would not involve more noncombatant deaths
than would the use of conventional ones. These situations, about which
Kenny seems unaware, either obtain today, or could exist before the end
of the century.
Eveu further, if a nuclear response would prevent a grave violation of
the order of justice from succeeding, it is conceivable that such a respons.e
might be morally obligatory. In making the point that responding to an
unjust nuclear attack would not deter aggression, Kenny fails to see that
deterrence aims not only at preventing aggression from breaking out, but
also at preventing it from attaining its objectives.
Kenny claims that present deterrent policies of the West are murderous
and immoral because they aim at preventing aggression by threatening
murder on a massive scale. However, deterrence does not aim at preventing the outbreak of aggression by making murderous threats, but by
persuading an adversary that aggression will not attain its. objectives.
Kenny argues for a " no first use" policy. But in proposing this, he fails
to see that successful deterrence must not only eommunicate to a potential
aggressor the capability of preventing the aggression from succeeding, but
it must also communicate the will to prevent it from succeeding. Because
of the nature of deterrence, it is impossible for a nuclear deterrent to be
credible if a policy of "no first use " or "no use " of nuclear weapons is
adopted.
He rejects pacifism because it is a policy that leaves its citizens vulnerable to aggression. While this is a valuable insight, he fails to develop
it and see that when the use of nuclear weapons against military targets
is the last and only reasonable means of defending an innocent nation
against unjust nuclear attack, the use of nuclear weapons against strictly
military targets would not be unjust or immoral. To fail to do so would
be to accede to injustice and to fail to protect the order of justice and to
abandon the duties of the state to its citizens.
It is true that turning the other cheek is morally praiseworthy, but
when the turning of one's cheek also turns the cheek of another who wants
to protect the order of justice, renunciation of arms might be unjust. We
can refuse to use force to defend ourselves, but it is not clear if the
renunciation of force is moral when it prohibits others who may have a
right to defend themselves from so doing.
There is also the possibility, as the Catholic bishops of Germany point
out, that failing to join with others in legitimate defensive activities may
provoke injustice :
Those who refuse to perform military service for reasons of conscience have also to live to an equal extent with another strain:
If everyone were to follow their example, this would create a vacuum
of power which can lead to vulnerability to political blackmail,

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something which they certainly wish to avoid. Moreover, the military
services which they themselves cannot render may possibly permit
a peaceful settlement of disputes which they too support in freedom
and for which they perhaps also demonstrate.

These show that Kenny does not see that an action which would be inherently immoral in some circumstances becomes ethically acceptable in
others. Thus, removing the uterus from a pregnant woman would be
murderous in all circumstances except where the woman suffered from
cancer and where so doing would be the last and only reasonable means
available of saving her life. Similarly, if the use of nuclear weapons became the last and only reasonable means available to prevent a grave
violation of the order of justice it might not only be ethically unobjectionable, but also morally obligatory to use them.
For a war to be considered just, Kenny demands that there be a "hope
of victory " but the traditional just war theory only demanded a "probability of success.'' This classical standard would mean that a deterrent
would be acceptable if it could prevent an unjust aggression from succeeding.
Kenny believes capitulation by the West to a nuclear threat or attack
by the Soviets might very well be ethically acceptable because it might
involve nothing more serious than a humiliation. It is possible that the
West might be treated like Romania or Finland. If there were some
assurance that "humiliation " would be the only outcome, that could certainly be unobjectionable. But it is also quite possible that we might be
treated like the Cambodians under Pol Pot. The difficult question, which
Kenny does not confront, is whether capitulation would be ethical in that
circumstance. Many sincerely believe that Marxists would not bypass an
opportunity to eliminate a weakened and demoralized Western alliance that
alone had prevented the realization of the Marxist-Leninist dream.
The German Catholic bishops do not share Kenny's view on the consequenc,es of Western capitulation:
... war is just for the purposes of Marxism-Leninism when it benefits the advance of the revolutionary process. This applies in particular where the "bourgeoisie" has to be eliminated and "socialism"
introduced. The abolition of class domination will lead to the disappearance of all wars. The collapse of capitalism after the end of
class warfare will be followed by the inception of world peace. (Emphasis added)

Kenny implies that Marxist victories over countries devastated by a
nuclear war would be hollow victories. Many would not see it that way,
particularly if victory meant the abolition of the major threat to Marxism
in the future.
In conclusion, this remains an important and intelligent book for the

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181

reason that it provides the best arguments available to date against
nuclear deterrence, but ultimately the arguments fail because the author
takes as an apodictic premise what is actually a prudential judgment that
no nuclear weapons could ever be used in a moral and ethical way. Professor Kenny is not only an Absolutist, but also a Determinist. The
present reviewers are neither.
ROBERT BARRY, O.P.
University of Illinois-Urbana
Champaign-Urbana, Illinois
MATTHEW M. MURPHY
Public Affairs Officer
United States At·ms Control and Disarmament Agency

Art and Beauty in the Middle Ages. By UMBERTO Eco. Translated by
Hugh Bredin. New Haven and London: Yale University Press, 1986.
Pp. 131. $12.95.

This is not a new work. As Umberto Eco himself states in the Preface
of this book, the text was written in 1958 and published in 1959 as a
single chapter of a four volume handbook on the history of aesthetics,
written by various authors (Momenti e problemi di storia dell' estetica,
Milano, Marzorati, 1959, vol. 1: 'Dall'antichita classica al barocco, pp.
115-230). No doubt it was due to the recent popularity in Europe and
America of Mr. Eco's novel, The Name of the Rose (which subsequently
inspired the film of the same title) that Yale University Press saw fit to
translate and reissue this seminal work of the author. He wrote it when
he was 26 years old and serving in the Italian army. Hugh Bredin, a
senior lecturer in scholastic philosophy at Queen's University, Belfast,
has simplified in the translation what the author claims was the "tortured
syntax" of his impressionable youth. Nevertheless, one suspects that the
style and context of this slim volume will appeal primarily to philosophers and not art historians, despite its ubiquitous presence in art bookstores and museum giftshops.
The scope of Mr. Eco's work enables the reader to gain an overview of
aesthetic problems which developed in Europe in the period between the
sixth to the :fifteenth centuries, when the classical tradition inherited by
the medieval world no longer provided adequate solutions. A thousand
years of artistic and philosophical history are barely penetrated in so
few pages, but Mr. Eco forthrightly proceeds to catalogue ideas and
thinkers in chapters devoted to such topics as Transcendental Beauty,
Symbol and Allegory, and the Aesthetics of Proportion and Light. As

BOOK REVIEWS

was evident in The Name of the Rose, the author has an encyclopedic
knowledge of both classical and medieval sources (he gently chides Maritain for his ignorance of one of Bonaventure's definitions of beauty, p. 24).
As professor of semiotics his understanding of words and images is impressive (he takes a whole page to explain the visual applications of
Vitruvius's use of the word euritmia, pp. 65-66). But after repeated
eitings of relevant quotations from various medieval works-some in outright conflict with one another-the reader has no satisfying sense of
what was the "medieval " view of art and beauty. Rather a mosaic of
interesting and diverse facts emerges in the thematic structure of the
book which cuts across chronological, geographical, and cultural boundaries. Thus, for instance, one learns in the chapter on the Aesthetics of
Light that St. Augustine preferred equilateral to scalene triangles, Hugh
of St. Victor considered green to be the most beautiful of colors, the
Limbourg brothers in painting miniatures had no use for sfiirnatura just
as Chretien de Troyes had no use for it in literature, and the Christian
image of God as Light traced its pedigree to the Semitic Baal and the
Egyptian Ra with heavy doses of Plato and Arab pantheism thrown in
as contributing influences. This dizzying effect of so much intelligent
trivia, forcibly pieced together in an effort to arrive at a persuasive conclusion, backfires and ultimately works ag:iinst Art and Beaiity in the
Middle Ages in much the same way that the plot in The Name of the Rose
suffered from a surfeit of scholastic argumentation. Mr. Eco, in an attempt
to bedazzle his readers with facts, merely blinds them to the point.
Other authors have written about art in the Middle Ages, and they were
successful in their approach because they narrowed the focus of their
consideration. J<"Jrwin Panofsky (Gothic Architecture and Scholasticism),
Hen.ri Focillon (The Art of the West), and Otto von Simson (The Gothic
Cathedral) concentrated on architecture and came to reflect on medieval
society by what they perceived in stone. Mr. Eco's book has no illustrations, although he does refer to works of art throughout the text. What
was merely a chapter in a previous work does not stand up well as a book
in its own right without the aid of visual maforial. A book purporting to
deal with the subject of art in the Middle Ages needs to have pictures.
Had Mr. Eco expanded his work with an added dose of art historical evidence, his philosophical musings on beauty would not seem so divorced
from material culture. Both Gilson (Painting and Reality, Pantheon,
1955) and Maritain (Creative Infaition in Art and Poetry, Pantheon,
1953) benefited when tl1eir words about art were wed to artistic works.
While the structure and style of this book are deficient, its content is
not without value. For instance, Mr. Eco points out how the Dominicans,
Albertus Magnus and Thomas Aquinas, developed a theory of beauty
which was rigorously objectivist, scientific, intellectual, and utilitarian-a

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radical move in the direction of humanism. Calling Aquinas's Summa a
"medieval computer" with logical concepts and implications exceeding
even its own author's awareness, Mr. Eco interjects that while Aquinas
·did not deliberately set out to develop his own theory of beauty one
certainly gets the impression that he did so by the way he synthesized his
material. Few authors have written directly about Aquinas's aesthetics (a
1947 Ph.D. dissertation, A .Theory of Esthetic according to the Principles
of St. Thomas Aquinas, by Leonard Callahan, 0.P., of Catholic University
of America, lists only a handful of scholars who have dealt specifically with
Aquinas's aesthetics since 1800), but it should be noted here that Mr. Eco
himself has penetrated the subject in an untranslated work, Il problema
estetico in Tommaso d!Aquino (2nd edition, Milan, 1970), which would
make up for the haste with which he treats the Thomistic synthesis in
this present volume.
The functionalism inherent in Aquinas's aesthetics would not appeal to
modern sensibilities about art, just as anonymous medieval craftsmen are
far removed from the personality cults of the contemporary art scene. In
his own day Michelangelo was called "Il divino!' The Scholastic theory
of art, which ignored the personal imprint of the artist upon his work
and treated "making" as inferior to pure intellectual thought, found
fewer adherents during the artistic explosion of the Renaissance. As
Mr. Eco shows us, more modern ideas about art and artists have their
roots in other schools of medieval thought: Christian mysticism contained
in its soulful outpourings the seeds of an aesthetics of inspiration and
intuition while the Franciscan emphasis on love formulated the nucleus
of an aesthetics of feeling.
This brings us back to the original observation that one cannot find
in the Middle Ages that strict homogeneity that the term " medieval "
often implies. By the time the scholastics had perfected their image of
a political and theological order in their 8ummae, that order was collapsing under the growing influence of secularism and the operative
principles of a society undergoing change. In Mr. Eco's thought-provoking book we gain a glimpse of the dynamism of that complex era,
but only a glimpse.
MICHAEL MORRIS,

The Dominican School of Philosophy and Theology
Graduate Theological Union
Berkeley, CaUfornia

O.P.

GENERAL INDEX TO THE THOMIST
VOLUME

(1988)

ARTICLES
PAGE

Ashley, Benedict, O.P. Scriptural Grounds for Concrete Moral Norms
Barry, Robert, O.P., and Murphy, M. Can Deterrence Be Moral?
Boyle, Joseph. See Grisez, G., et al.
Buckley, James J. Minding Our Own Business. [Christian, Wm.]
Clayton, Philip. Being and One Theologian. [Pannenberg]
Cortest, Luis. Was St. Thomas Aquinas a Platonist?
DiNoia, J. A., O.P. Authority, Public Dissent and the Nature of
Theological Thinking .
Dupre, Louis. A Note on the Idea of Religious Truth in Christian
Tradition .
Finnis, John. See Grisez, G., et al.
Griffiths, Paul J. Religious Diversity. [Christian, Wm.]
Grisez, Germain, et al. "Every Marital Act Ought to be Open to
New Life": Toward a Clearer Understanding .
Grisez, Germain. The Structures of Practical Reason .
Hanink, James G. A Theory of Basic Goods: Structure and Hierarchy
Hughson, Thomas S.J. Dulles and Aquinas on Revelation .
Hurd, Bob. Being is Being-Present-to-Self: Rahner's Key to Aquinas's
Metaphysics
Irwin, Kevin W. Recent Sacramental Theology .
King-Farlow, John. The Actual Infinite in Aristotle
Knasas, John F. X. Aquinas and the Liberationist Critique of Maritain's New Christendom
Lee, Patrick. Existential Propositions in the Thought of St. Thomas
Aquinas
Lehrberger, James, O.Cist. Intelligo ut Credam: St. Augustine's Confessions
Lo, Ping-Cheung. Are There Economic Rights? .
Macierowski, E. M. Does God Have a Quiddity According to Avi-

1
719
307
645
209
185
449
319
365

269
221
445
63

124
427
247
605
23
703

W
Mansini, Guy, O.S.B. Quasi-Formal Causality and "Change in the
Other": A Note on Karl Rahner's Christology
293
Martin, Francis. Literary Theory, Philosophy of History and Exegesis 575
May, William E. See Grisez, G., et al.

INDEX OF AUTHORS Continued
PAGE

Molnar, Paul D. Can Theology Be Contemporary and True? A Review Discussion. [Ratzinger]
Murphy, Matthew, and Barry, R. Can Deterrence Be Moral?
Nichols, Aidan, O.P. A British Commonwealth Dogmatics
O'Callaghan, Paul. The Holiness of the Church in Lumen Gentium
Power, William L. Literal and Metaphorical Uses of Discourse in the
Representation of God .
Schultz, Janice L. Thomistic Metaethics and a Present Controversy
[Finnis, Grisez]
Smart, Ninian. William Christian and Community Doctrines
Tekippe, Terry J. A Response to Donald Keefe on Lonergan
Zeitz, James V., S.J. Przywara and von Balthasar on Analogy

513
719
96

673
6£7
40

327
88

473

REVIEWS
Adams, James L., et. al., eds. The Thought of Paul Tillich. (Jelly,
F.M., O.P.) .
Adams, Robert M. The Virtue of Faith. (Meynell, Hugo)
Braaten, Carl, ed. Christian Dogmatics. (Root, Michael, and James
Buckley)
Chadwick, Henry. Augustine. (Berthold, George C.)
Ciba Foundation. Human Embryo Research: Yes or No? (Barry,
Robert, 0.P.)
Curran, Charles E. Toward an American Catholic Morality. (Krasevac, Edward, O.P.) .
DeGeorge, Richard T. The Nature and Limits of Authority. (Lee,
Patrick)
Despland, Michael. The Education of Desire: Plato and the Philosophy of Religion. (Yaffe, Martin D.)
Durant, John, ed. Darwinism and Divinity: Essays on Evolution
and Religious Belief. (Centore, F. F.)
Eco, Umberto. Art and Beauty in the Middle Ages. (Morris, Michael,
0.P.)
Elders, L. J., and K. Hedwig, eds. Lex et Libertas: Freedom and Law
According to St. Thomas Aquinas. (Owens, Joseph)
Gersh, Stephen. Middle Platonism and Neoplatonism. (Bussanich,
John)
Heft, James. John XXII and Papal Teaching Authority. (Portier,
William L.)
Hintikka, Jaakko, and Simo Knuutilla, eds. The Logic of Being:
Historical Studies. (Bussanich, John)
Howard, Dick. From Marx to Kant. (Henry, Michael)
Jordan, Mark D. Ordering Wisdom. (Moreno, Antonio, 0.P.)

568
755
152
347
551

751
172
343

357
181

539
740

763
544
350
745

INDEX OF BOOKS REVIEWED
PAGE

Kenny, Anthony. The Logic of Deterrence. (Barry Robert, O.P., and
Matthew Murphy)
Kerr, Fergus. Theology after Wittgenstein. (Churchill, John) .
Lee, Philip J. Against the Protestant Gnostics. (Maddox, Randy L.)
Lindberg, David C., and Ronald L. Numbers, eds. God and Nature:
Historical Essays on the Encounter between Christianity and
Science. (Austin, William H.) .
Mackey, James P. Modern Theology. (Buckley, James J.) .
McDonough, Richard M. The Argument of the Tractatus. (Churchill,
John)
McMullin, Ernan, ed. Evolution and Creation. (Dennehy, Raymond)
Miller, Edward J. Newman on the Idea of the Church. (Heath,
Thomas, O.P.)
Novak, Michael. Will It Liberate? Questions about Liberation Theology. (Kerlin, Michael J.)
Palmour, Jody. On Moral Character: A Practical Guide to Aristotle's
Virtues and Vices. (Krusch, Robert B.) .
Raedts, Peter. Richard Rufus of Cornwall and the Tradition of Oxford Theology. (Schenk, Richard, O.P.) .
Schillebeeckx, Edward. The Church with a Human Face. (Little,
Joyce)
Tobin, Frank. Eckhart: Thought and Language. (Woods, Richard,
0.P.)
Vos, Arvin. Aquinas, Calvin and Contemporary Protestant Thought.
(O'Brien, Thomas C.)

174
337
355

562
737
165
556
760
362
548
542
158
750
148