TRANSIENT NATURES AT THE EDGES OF
HUMAN LIFE: A THOMISTIC EXPLORATION
PHILIP SMITH,

O.P.

Providence College
Providence, R.I.

T:

HE CONCEPT OF human nature as the intrinsic and
wdical source of characteristic human a;ctivity has great
mportanoe for natural law ethics. But olosely allied to
the concept of human nature is the possibility of there being
tmnsient natures in humans, and this rpossirbility has implications for human life at its outer edges. What transient natures
are wiill he discussed 1in detail below. Let us ,say for now that
they are the life principles of entities
transition from one
state of being to another. These forms enjoy only a temporary
existence before they disappear and are replaced by other
emerging forms. 1 When applied to the outer limits of human
existence, such transient natures offer useful insights for addressing the difficult problems of when personhood begins and
when death occurs.
Thomistic philosophy defines a human person a;s a combination of mrutte1· and ,form, more oommorrly referred to as a unity
of hody and soul. 2 Relativie to the beginning of Jife and the
1 Such natures
are discussed in William A. Wallace, 0.P., "Nature and
Human Nature as the Norm in Medical Ethics,'' in Catholic Perspectives
on Medical Morals, ed. E.D. Pellegrino et al., Philosophy and Medicine
Series, Vol. 24 (Dordrecht-Boston:
D. Reidel Publishing Co., 1989). This
essay was originally presented at an international conference held at the
Joseph and Rose Kenned,y Institute of Ethies of Georgetown UniYersity,
October 13-16, 1986. For further background against which Wallace's discussion should be situated, see his "Nature as Animating: The Soul in the
Human Sciences,'' The Thornist 49 ( l985) : 612-6'18, and "The Intelligibility
of Nature: A Neo-Aristotelian View," Rev,iew of Metaphysics 38 (1984):
33-56.
2 Thomas Aquinas, St., Surnrna Theologiae, I, q.29, a.4.

191

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PHILIP SMITH, O.P.

onset of death, this philosophy of person raises the question of
w:hen tihe soul is infused into the body and when :it is 1separated
from it. Is the newly-fortiilized zygote capable of :receiving and
sustaining the rational soul as its ,substantirul form? Or must
the genetic materials be informed by one or more transient natures before they achieve ithe internal unity and stability necessary :for personhood? At the end of life, the person dies when
the soul leaves the body. Does personail death coincide with the
death of the human organism as a whole? Or can the destruction of only an essential part of the body, e.g. tihe cerebral cortex, cause personal death by damaging the body so severely that
it is simply incapable of supporting a :rational soul, even
though the rest of the body remains intact and spontaneously
alive? If so, is the remaining organism informed by a succession of transient substantiail forms that maintain its existence
but at ever lower levels of life as it gradually declines toward
total death?
In examining these questions posed by the possibility of
transient natures, my point of departure will be an analysis of
transient natures themselves. Recently, William A. Wallace,
O.P., has 'begun to eX!plore the philosophical meaning and implications of transient natures for issues such as these.a His
findings will he summarized here. The insights gathered from
the exploration of transient natures will next he applied to the
questions of when personhood begins and when death occurs.
This will necessarily employ a fraiilework embracing both tihe
empirical and the philosophical, with the empirical looking to
the available biological data and the philosophical inquiring
about the impact o.f these data for determining the status of
human life at its outer edges. Since Aquinas's natural philoss Wallace, "Nature and Human Nature .. .," pp. 23-51. Additional background for his researches, apart from the essays cited in note l above, will
be found in his "The Reality of Elementary Particles," Proceedings of the
American Catholic Philosophical Association 38 (1964): pp. 154-166, and
"Elementarity and Reality in Particle Physics," Boston Studies in the
Philosophy of Science, 2nd ed. (Lanham, Md.: University Press of America,
1983), pp. 171-183 and pp. 185-212.

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193

ophy and metaphysics are grounded in the order reason discovers in nature and not in the order reason imposes on nature,4 his philosophy is well suited for this task. Gabriel
Pastrana, 0.P., has employed transient natures in the problem
of the beginning of personhood, 5 and Alan Shewmon, M.D., 6
has used a similar concept in exploring the notion of human
death. Since both Pastrana and Shewmon interpret their biological data in Hght of Thomistic principles, their arguments
will be presented here as representative of how transient natures can function at the beginning and end of life. Finally, I
will offer my o,wn reflections on the authors' positions and on
the issues involved.

The Concept of TTansient N a:tures
Father Wallace situates his discussion of transient natures
within the framework of the Aristotelian-Thomistic hy1omorphic tradition. 7 In this view, every rratural body is a composite
of substance and accidents. Natural substance is also a composite, being made up of two essential principles: prime matter
and substantial form. Of the two, ,subs:tantia'l form is the more
important bemuse it not only determines that a being will be
this kind of being and no other, e.g., a dog or a tree, but it also
stabilizes the substance and gives it durability. In Wallace's
words, " it confers on the protomatter (prime matter) a
stahle .form of being, so that the natural substance underlies
its accidents in more than transitory fashion." 8 Because it
4 Aquinas, Commentary
on the Nioomachean Ethics, trans. C. I. Litzinger,
O.P. (Chicago: Henry Regnery Co., 1964), Book I, 1, p. 5.
5 Gabriel Pastrana, O.P., "Personhood
and the Beginning of Human Life,"
The Thomist 41 (1977): 247-294.
6 Alan Shewmon, M.D., "The Metaphysics
of Brain Death, Persistent Vege·
tative State, and Dementia," The :J'homist 49 ( 1985) : 24-80; see also his
"Ethics and Brain Death: A Response," The New Scholasticism 61 ( 1987):
321-344.
refers to the Aristotelian-Thomistic
theory that every
7 Hylomorphism
corporeal entity is composed of two internal principles of being: prime matter
and substantial form.
s Wallace, "Nature and Human Nature," p. 29.

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PHILIP SMITH, O.P.

organizes matter into a determinate reality, the substantial
form is also the souroe of the entity's internal unity and the
root principle of its specific 1activities. This is the ontological
basis for the celebrated axiom agere sequitur esse, a thing acts
according :to its nature. In line with this principle, we come
to know the nature of a thing hy observing its ·activities and
hy reasoning from them to the powers that produced them and
ultimately to the nature of the entity itself.
In living things, the substantial form is also a life principle
called the ' soul.' Depending on the complexity of the life
]unctions involved, the soul can he classified as vegetative,
animal, or human. Plant ·and animal souls rare material forms
in the sense that they are ' educed ' from the potency of matter. Already pre-existent potentially in prime matter, these
forms await only the night material dispositions and the action
of the suitable 1agent to bring them into being.0 The human soul
is set apart from other souls became it is endowed with the
spiritual .fa.culties of intellect and wiU, giving it the power to
understand and the freedom to choose. Since this soul is immaterial and spiritual in its being and operation, it must have
an immaterial so1mce. That is why Catholic teaching insists
that God immediately and ,directly creates the human soule:v nihilo-not only when hominization first occurred in the
universe but ·also when ·each individual person is brought into
existence through an act of procreation. 10
Against the background of such stable, mature natures, Walface intl"oduces the .expression 'tl"3Jlsient natures'. While the
expression is recent, the concept is not new. Wallace notes
.that the scholastics ref erred to. this type of being as an ens
via.le, a ·being" on the way." However, the medievals applied
the expression mainly to semina, seeds, which could become
plants or ,animals. Wallace's understanding of transient natures is much broader. Drawing on his knowledge of contempol"ary physics, he finds a vast number of transient entities
u Ibid., p. 38.

Jbid., :P· 3§,

TRANSIInNT NATuRES

among the elementary partioles of the universe, including
neutrons, pDotons, electrons, and many hadrons and leptons.
While extDemely short-lived, their existence can be demonstrated and something can be known about their natures in
te])fils of their basic foDces.11 These entities, however, do not
have stable, mature natures. R:ather, as he puts it, they are
. . . transient forms that emerge from the potency of protomatter
under more or less violent conditions and then recede back into
that potency, only to be replaced by another emerging form. Their
organizing form is not a stabilizing form like those of [mature]
natures . . . and yet for the brief period of its existence it is a
specifying form. That is why I refer to them as transient natures,
e,njoying in most cases but a :fleeting existence, but still part of the
world of nature. 12

Wallaice forther proposes that transient natures have been
operative in one form or another throughout the various
stages of the universe's formation. At the beginning of time,
God created the transient natures we now know as the elementary particles. Under the impetus of the Big Bang, these
particles combined in increasingly complex ways, making new
levels of organiza.tion possible. The ·gradual prepaJ.'ation of
matter for the !'eception of new and higher forms continued
th11ough successive stages, from the formation of stable elements and compounds to the emergence of plant and animal
organisms, until the universe was ready for hominization. At
that point, God cDeated the human soul, ex nihilo, "to match
the ultimate disposition of matter as it has been prepared, over
billions of years, for its reception." 13
For this study, W allruce's perspective on the formation of
the universe is less important than his perspective on the generation of individual plants and higher animals, an outlook
" that respects natural history as we presently experience it,
where oaks come from other oaks, chimpanzees from other
chimpanzees, and so on." 14 His main concern here is the role
11 Ibid.,
12 Ibid.

p. 36.

1s Ibid., p. 40.
14 Ibid., p. 46.

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PHILIP SMITH, O.P.
.,

•!•

..

transient na.tures may play in preparing matter for new, individual, stable forms or natures. Applied to the matter of
procreation, the issue has special importance for deciding
whether hominization is immediate or delayed. Does God infuse the human soul directly when the sperm cell fertilizes the
human ovum, or does he allow transient natures to play a role
in stabilizing the organism in .being so that it is naturally
capable of receiving and sustaining a rational soul before he
actually [nfuses it?
Transient Natures in Generation and Procreation
In the ·generation of plants, Wallace argues, the seed contains a transient but specific form of life that makes it capable
of internal growth. This transient form sustains the initial
process, provides nourishment ,for the seedling and directs the
early growth of the organism. If external conditions are favorable and the genetic materials are not defective, the emerging
organism will continue to devdop until it 1becomes capable of
receiving and sustaining an individual ·form of the specific
plant nature. At that point, the stable plant soul is educed
from the potency of the matter. 15
The generation of ·a higher animal such ais a chimpanzee is
more complex than that of plants, for in this case the transient nature may have to undergo more than one stage of development in order to produce an organism of that ;particular
species.16 Immediately following fertilization, according to
Wallace, the chimpanzee zygote is animated by a transient nature tha;t supports the functions of vegetative life. Then, as
the organism continues to grow, the first transient nature is
replaced hy a second that sustains the basic characteristics
of ·animaJ life. This seoond transient nature directs the continuing development of the organism until the material conditions are finally ripe for the emergence of a new individual of
the species. At that point, the stable animal soul is educed
1s Ibid.,
16 Ibid.,

pp. 43-44.
pp. 44-45.

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197

:form the potency of matter and another chimpanzee comes
fully into heing. Wallace adds that even though the 011ganism
manifests only minimal functions in the initial stages of its
existence, its transient form still belongs to the same species
as the parent organism, since in the order of nature, chimpanzees come from other chimpanzees. He further observes
that the production of a new individual is not automatic.
Genetic and other material defects can lead to the abortion of
the incipient entity. Twinning, the division of the zygote before implantation, can also occur, resulting in a number of
chimpanzees rather than a single individual. 17
In human procreation, the issue is complicated by the requirement that the rational soul must be oreated directly by
God. Assuming this divine intervention, the question of hominization becomes: when precisely does God create the soul and
infuse it into the developing organism? Wallace sees the
dilemma posed by homin:ization as involv>ingthe larger issue of
God's relation to and respect for the order of nature:
1

The peculiar problem presented by hominization really relates to
the divine economy, namely, whether God would produce the summit of his creation-a new person, an immortal soul-without having the proper quantitative dispositions present to match it and
stabilize it in being. Throughout the entire course of nature new
substances are educed from the potency of protomatter only when
such conditions are met .... There is no theological reason to hold
that the human soul comes to be individuated in other than a natural way .... God creates the individual immaterial form with a
transcendental order to quantitative dispositions already present
in an incipient human form.18
Wallace opts for delayed hominization on the hasis that it
accords better with nature's ,other operations. Again transient
natures rpl'ovide a new wa.y of conceptualizing this process.
With the completion of fertilization, the zygote is animated by
a substantial form that, while pertaining to the human species,
is only transitory in its mode of operation. The organism's
11 Ibid.,

p. 46.

1s Ibid.,

pp. 48-49.

198

PHILIP SMITH, O.P.

initial starges of existence are characterized by activities that
a:ve essentially vegetative or ·animal in natrnre. While it may
not be possible to di:fferentiate clea!rly between the vegetative
and •animal forms of Hfe, or even to identify the precise number of transient forms involved, one may still maintain that
during its early stages the developing ·entity lacks the material
organization .and stability requisite for receiving and sustaining a irational soul. In this perspective, the initial stages of
development may .best be seen as a period during which transient natures prepal"e the o:riganism in a gradual way for the
reception of the spiritual soul.
Hominization and Dehominization
Wallace's application Oif transient natures to the problem
of delayed hominization rw:as developed in the context of his
work on the modeling of human nature. In subsequent discussions, he has taken ·aooount of Dr. Shewmon's study on
brain death .and has speculated about the possibility of a ' dehominization ' process •at the end of human me as the
correlate of the hominization process with which it may have
1begun.10
Jn theorizing .about ' dehominization,' W allare employs a
distinction between 'passive ' and ' active ' death developed
.by the Polis!h pil:rilosopherMieczyslaw Krl!pii.ec, 0 .P ;20 Death
10 These discussions .took place mainly at the St. Thomas Aquinas Colloquium held at the Dominican House of Studies, Washington, D.C., on the
weekend from January 30 to February 1, 1987. At the conclusion of the
colloquium, Fr. Wallace .prepared a brief paper with the title "Hominization and Dehominization," which summarized positions that had emerged
during the weekend. Though not intended for publication, Fr. Wallace has
made the paper available to me and given his permission to reproduce its
essential content in what follows. I also wish to thank Fr. Wallace for his
careful reading of a draft of this essay and for his numerous substantive and
stylistic suggestions that led to an improvement of the final version of this
study.
20See his I-Man: An Outline of Philosophical Anth'l'opology, translated by
Marie Lescoe, Andrew Woznicki, Theresa Sandok, et al. and a;bridged by F. J.
Lescoe and R. B. Duncain, (New Britain 1 Conn,; Mairiel Publicittions, 1985),
J?P· 166-lS6,

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199

" accepted passively " indicates the decomposition of the
human organism or the separation of the soul from the body,
while death " understood actively " rrefers to the real experience of death by the human spirit. This latter experience occurs iat the moment when the person hecomes carpahle of making a final decision ahout life, a moment that represents the
culmination of an the changeable acts performed during the
entire span of bodily e:icistence. Acbive death, Krq,piec a;rgues,
is a transtempora.l experience that takes place in the realm of
the spirit and beyond the point at which the individual can
return to the temporal and changeable condition of earthly
life.21 Thus, it does not coincide with the oo-ructivity of the
brain. The implicit conclusion is that the human soul at the
moment of active death has already departed from the body
and subsists as an individual substance.
Wallace focuses on the absence of brain activity in the personal experience of death to draw a further corollary. According to the Thomistic theory of knowledge, all human knowing
in the state of union with the body occurs by rreflection on
phantasms, 22 which a,re produced by the cogitative power
through the intermediary of various brain states. As long as
the soul operates with phantasms, it can maike changes through
its higher powers of intellect and will, :and it does not reach
the point o[ ultimate decision. Conversely, at the moment in
time when phantasmal activity ceases, these changes are no
longer possible and the individual's rational life is over. If the
intellect and 1will function fater, they do so :as separated substances and not 'as the operatiy;e powers of a natural body. In
other words, the person's truly human and changeable existence is ended, and the human soul, precisely as human, ceases
to have any proper function it can exe11cise in the body. The
moment of adiV'e death, viewed passively, heoomes the moment in which the human soul departs from, or is separated
from, the hody.
21

Ibid., p. 179.
Summa Theolo_qiae, I, q.84, a.7.

22 Aquinas,

PHILIP SMITH, O.P.

If this analysis is correct, and the body continues to manifest vital activities, it does so as a humanoid organism. The
1body is srpeci:ficallyhuman, and thus should be classified under
the human species, hut it no longer possesses a stable human
nature and will gradually decline rand decay. Its iife functions
in this state can he seen as those of a transient nature, human
in origin hut sensory and vegetative in actuarl operation. Thel'e
is therefore a succession of substantial forms in the humanoid
organism, rand the overaII dying pmcess can be referred to as
one of dehominization.

The Beginning of Personhood
With this we are pl'epared to focus on Pastrana's views on
the beginning of personhood. Although he makes only one
1referenceto transient natures, the concept is dearly operative
in his study. In his discussion of fetal personhood, Pastrana's
point of departure is the current biological information on
what takes place during the earliest stages of zygote existence.
He then subjects these data to a philosophical assessment in
which he poses two fundamental questions: "When does individual l1ife begin, that is, what ,is an 1indiViiduaIhuman being
and when is its individuation realized in the fetus?" and
" What is meant by personhood, and how and when can it be
applied to the fetus?" 23
Biological Data
Relying on the scientific data furnished by Hellegers and
Diamond, 24 Pastrana. notes sey;ernl ;stages of growth and organization in the zygote. The first sta:ge is cell division or
mitosis during wrhich the zygote divides into two carbon copies
of itself. These in turn divide into four, then eight, and so on.
Mitosis continues and results in the formation of a hollow
23 Pastrana,

p. 273.
E. Hellegers, " Fetal Development,"
Theological Studies 31
( 1970) : 3-9; .James J. Diamond, "Abortion, Animation, and Biological Hominization," Theological Studies 36 ( 1975) : 305-324.
24 Andre

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201

sphere of cells called the hlastocyst, with the embryo itself being referred to as a blastula. At this staige, the cells have already ,assumed an inner and an outer configuration. The inner
cell mass will assume the form of the fetus and eventually the
features of a child. Follo,wing a different pattern, the remaining outer cells begin the task of implantation and are destined
to hecome the placenta and the [eta.I membranes. 25 However,
despite the flurry of highly-organized activity that is taking
place at this stage of development, Pastrana is in full agreement with Helleger's conclusion " that, although at fertilization a new genetic package is brought into being within the
confines of one ·cell, this anatomical fact ·does not necessarily
mean that final irreversible individuality has been achieved." 26
For Pastrana, the reluctance of .biologists to affirm irreversible individuaility until .after implantation rests on their awareness that the zygote .and the cells .formed from it remain undifferentiated for two or even three weeks following fertilization. F11om conception up until the fourteenth day or so of
gestation, the zygote sometimes divides to produce identical
twins or even multiple offspring. Furthermore, experiments
seem to indicate that on rare oocasions the reverse phenomenon of twinning occurs and multiple zygotes recombine into a
single entity capable of subsequent normal ·growth. Twinning
and reoombina,tion point to the fact that in the early stages of
fetal development, biological individuality is not irreversibly
fixed. To explain these biological happenings, Pastmna appeals
to the notions of totipotency and cell differentiation. 27
As the zygote undergoes the process of mitosis, each cell is
totipotential, i.e., it is undifferentiated and capable of developing into any subsequent type of cell whatever (blood, brain,
etc.). Laboratory experiments offer some support for this conclusion. A
cluster of cells can be divided, 'and ii the
25 Pastrana, p. 276. Cf. also B. I. Balinsky, An Introd!uotion to Embryology,
4th edition (Philadelphia: W. B. Saunders Company, 1975), pp. 114-119.
26 Hellegers, p. 5.
·21 Pastrana, p. 276.

PHILIP SMITH, O.P.

parts are allowed to g:mw, each one will develop into a normal
adult. If the separated groups of cells are rejoined before they
become differentiated, a normal, single entity will result. Another point may be added. Prior to differentiation, cells from
one pai1_·t of the organism can be grafted onto another part
without affecting subsequent growth. However, if the grafting
is done after differentiation has taken place, some type of
monster will emerge. Differentiation, then " reveals much
about the process of formation and behavior of the zygote at
that early stage of pregnancy." 28
The decisive event for cell division and for .biological individuality and stability seems to be the arrival of what is
termed the primary organizer, an entity that appears toward
the end of the 1second week of gestation. Pastrana concedes
that much more is known about what this organizer does than
about its origin or how it produces its effects. However, regardless of how it performs its functions, Pastrana insists that
it plays an essential role in effecting cell differentiation and
establishing hiologica,l individuality.
If this organizer does not appear, or if it is removed, no subsequent differentiation will occur. No subsequent differentiation of
specific organ systems can take place unless this organizer orders
the pluripotential cells to differentiate into such specific organ systems. Another crucial point is that when the primary organizer
appears, the unity of the organism is established: twinning and/
or recombination can no longer occur. For these reasons, Diamond
concludes that we can justifiably hold that at fertilization are laid
down only the characteristics of the subsequently hominizable
entity (ies), the hominization and the individualization of which
cannot be posited until late-second or early-third week after fertilization.29

These considerations provide Pastrana. with the biological
information he needs to answer the philosophical question under consideration: Is the fetus an individual human being?
28 Ibid.

29 Ibid., p. 227.

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The possibility o[ twinning and ,recombination along with the
dramatic effects produced by the primary organizer force the
conclusion that the appearance of this organizer is crucial for
fetal individuality. But what bearing does this biological information have for the question: Is the fetus an individual
human heing in the philosophical sense? A response to this
question requires a brief glance at Pastrana' s philosophy of
individuality.
Philosophical Individuality
Since Pastrana's philosophy of individuality is relatively
brief, it may be cited in its entirety.
Philosophically considered, an individual is an entity which in and
by itself is one and indivisible. Thus, besides the specific difference
it has by being what it is, a numerical difference is added: it is
one entity within the species it belongs to and, being one, it seals
off the possibility of division, multiplication, or reunification. This
onE:ness is achieved through the determination brought about by
the full disposition of the matter for the advent of the form. 30

By stressing oneness, indivisibility, and numerical difforence,
this conoopt of indiv.iduality not only emphasizes uniqueness but also exdudes the possibility of division, multiplicatiou, or recombination once individuality has been definitively
established.
Pastrana is convinced that the scientist and the philosopher
can mmment on the biological behavior of the embryo in the
early stages of its existence in a remarkably similll!r way. '.Dhe
biologist speaks of the phenomena of twinning and l'ecombination, the totipotency of the cell mass, and the radical differences in the organism's behavior before and after implantation. The philosopher talks a,bout the necessity of the matter
having to go thmugh struges of preparation and organization
before it can be receptive of a particular form. With the appea;ranoe of the primary organizer and the radical changes it
so Ibid., p. 281.

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PHILIP SMITH, O.P.

effects, the scientist can then refer to the developing embryo
as " a biological human individuaL" 31 The philosopher interprets this change in biological activity as an indication that the
matter has been sufficiently organized to receiv;e and sustain
the substantial form that qualifies it both specifically and numerically as an individua1l ihuman being. When does the embryo become a human being? Both the biological evidence and
its philosophical interpretation point to " the period from the
seoond to the third week (14th to 22nd day) after fertilization
as the time of the appea:rance oif the biological individual
human being, or more strictly . . ., its nonapperuranee before
that time." 82
Pastrana moves from his discussion of individuality to that
of perso:nihoodwith the observation that the concept of person
" is much broader and richer than thrut of a, human individual
substance." 83 Persons are characterized by the following four
attributes: autonomy of being, incommunicability, distinctness, and dynamic openness. Persons are special among individuals because their substantial form is the rational soul.
In its role as form, the soul related to the body as act to potency. Since it is immortal in nature, the soul is also a selfsubsisting entity, i.e., it has its own act of existence. Thus,
the soul not only confers numerical individuation on the body,
hut it also communicates its own act of existence to the body
so that one being results, unified by sharing the same existence. This ontological oneness, stemming from the common
act of existence, so unifies a person that participation in its
heing orr self-oommunication of its being would amount to the
destruction of its very nature. 84 However, the ontologica l dimension does not exhaust the full measure of person. Pastrana
also includes a " dynamic openness " as an essential quality of
personhood. Everyone's life history includes unusual physical,
1

31 Ibid.

p. 282.
p. 284.
34 Ibid., p. 286-288. Cf. also Aquinas, Summa Theologiae, III, q.73, a.2.
s2 Ibid.,

3a Ibid.,

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9l05

psychological, and relationa,l changes as that person passes
foom fast existence, to fuU adulthood, and on to death. However, while remaining " infinitely open to new forms and actualizations," the person keeps its unity, incommunicahility,
and distinctness. 35
Fetal Personhood
Finally, Pastrana addresses the last question he raised when
beginning his philosophical analysis, namely: When can personhood be applied to the fetus? Since the philosopher must
theorize from the scientific information to the conclusion that
the human substantia,l form or the soul is present or not, the
beginning of personhood becomes a matter of determining
when there is a biological structure sufficient for receiving and
sustaining the human soul. Pastrana does not specify cleady
:when this event occurs. However, his line of reasoning indiwith the adcaites that the beginning of personhood
vent of the primary organizer. Certainly, this is when philosophical individuality takes place. Prior to the presence of the
organizer, the philosophical demands for hominization are not
fulfilled. Internal unity and stability have not been achieved,
nor has numerical individuality been decided. Thus, the
emerging entity does not meet the philosophical requirements
Pastrana considers necessary for personhood, namely: autonomy of being, incomnrnnicahility, distinctness, and dynamic
openness. On the other hand, the behavioral changes effected
by the primary organizer are dramatic enough to be interpretable as a signal of the soul's presence. Then, " the new individual substance subsists; . . . it becomes incommunicable,
so that no other form can substantially affect it without destroying it; it is distinct and specifically determined hy the
uniquely human rational formality; and it is open to new
actuaHzation .... " 36
as Ibid., p. 289.

aa Ibid., p. 291.

PHILIP SMITH, O.P.

Tmnsient Natures
Assuming that hominization does not occurr until about the
second or third 'week after fertilization, what is the nature of
the emerging embryo until that time? Pastrana acknowledges
that " the p'l'oduct of conception is from its very beginning a
certain ,entity, and as such we would be forced to assign it
some sort of form." 37 As indicated earlier, the substantial
fo11m is not only a specifying form but 1also a staibihlzing one,
that gives durability to being. The unstable and erratic beil:rnvior of the embryo during the initial stages of its existence
precludes the possibility of a stable sustantial form. However,
the exact nature of the " ongoing, undetermined entity " is not
an important issue for Pastrana. The particular kind of organism that is emerging is " ,better understood philosophicaily
by what the entity is tending to or is going to he than by what
it is when undergoing the p:mcess of change." 38 Thus, even
if the early stages of embry;onic life are charaderized by vegetative and sensory functions and activities, it is unnecessary to
revive the theory of the succession of souls for an explanation.
Transient natures pl'Ovide a better solution. Prior to the advent of the primary organizer, Pastrana declares that "it
would be more in agreement with the biological evidence to
consider the product of conception as animated by a transient
form." 39

The Demise of Personhood: Hylomorrphism and
Brain Death
Shewmon enters into his discussion of hylomorphism and
brain deatih through the " :haek door," as he puts it, 1by asking
" how much tissue can 1be removed from the original body and
kept independently alive, without killing the person? Another
way of phrasing it might he: What is the minimum part oif
31 Ibid.,
38 Ibid.

39 Ibid.

p. 283.

TRANSIENT

NATURES

fl07

the human body still capable of supporting the human essence?" 40 In an effort to answer this question, Shewmon
imagines a bizarre hypothetical lahorat()ry experiment on a
patient. One part after another is removed from this patient's
body until it is reduced to the" brain alone, :floating in a warm
solution and connected to the cardfopulmona:ry, dialysis, and
pal'enteral nutrition machines." 41 However, even in this truncated state, the person continues to exist, thinking, remembering, imagining, and wishing just as in the past, although no
longer able to communicate with others. Since consciousness
is still present, the spiritual soul continues to inform what little
matter is left. 42 A skillful neurosurgeon could perform a different version of this same experiment by carefully removing
the living brain from the skull and placing it in a nutrient
solution. With the aid of some mechanical devices, the remaining body would show some degree of .functional unity at
the vegetative level and could perform the whole gamut of
vegetative activities. However, though it may fook like a person, the body is not a person but a vegetative organism with
its own substantial :form. Shewmon maintains that the physical condition of this "brainless vegetative substance" is exactly the same as that of a person who has suffered total brain
death, except that the former condition is surgically induced." 43
Bobh versions of thrs experiment support Shewmon's conviction that the brain is the critical structure for sustaining
the human soul and mediating consciousness. In the laboratory experiment, the person does not die when the resp1irator
is removed from thi,s "vegetative human-looking organism"
but rather when the machines are disoonnected from tihe float40 Shewmon,
"The Metaphysics of Brain Death, Persistent Vegetative
State, and Dementia," The Thomist 49 ( 1985) : 44.
41 Ibid., p. 45. Shewmon begins his discussion of the hypothetical
experiment on p. 44 and concludes it on p. 47.
42 Ibid.
43 Ibid., p. 46.

PHILIP SMITH, O.P.

ing hrain. Shewmon concludes: "it should therefore he equally evident that, in the natural context, a. person will die (and
his spiritual soul will leave the hody) the moment his brain
dies, irrespective of whether the rest of the body maintains
some vegeta,tiv;e integrity or not." 44
Hylomorphism and Persistent Vegetative State
In a persistent vegetative state, the cerebral cortex is destmyed, but the hrainstem continues to function normally.
Since the hrainstem is responsible for ·regulating respiration
and such spontaneous, vegetative .activities as swwllowing,
sleep/wake cydes, etc., the victim remains a1live hut unconscious in .a "persistent vegetative state." In relation to the
laboratory experiment described above, She1wmon argues that
if the upper brain were removed and the brainstem left in the
vegetative body, the organism's condition would be identical
to the most severe instances of the persistent vegetative state.
In extreme cases of this condition, the neocortical tissues selfdestruct and eventmdly liquefy. In less sev;ere instances," only
the nerve cells themselves are lost, ·leaving a residual shrunken
hemisphere, ... totally lacking any functional potential." 45
Because the brainstem continues to operate, patients are able
to !breathe spontaneously and go through what appear to be
sfoep/wake ·cyeles. However, these periods of being awake
"aire not conscious wakefulness" since the patients do not have
any real awareness of bhemselv;es or of their environment.
When this condition is ir1'eversibie, there is no possibility of
recovery because the brain cells cannot be 1regenerated. Consequently, Shewmon concludes that patients in a severe and
ir11eversible v;egetative state are dead since they do not and
can nev;er exhibit any human functions. The stJ1Ucture of the
body is simply no longer capable of sustaining the human soul.
This state, therefore,. like that of brain death, implies that the person has already died, The moment the brain cells in the; hemis44 Ibid.,
45 Ibid.,

p. 47.
p. 35.

TRANSIENT

NATURES

fl09

pheres and upper brainstem become irreversibly damaged, the
body is rendered incompatible with the human essence, forcing a
substantial change. The spiritual soul departs and a vegetative
soul is actualized. 46

Shewmon hastens fo add that great caution must be exercised before diagnosing a persistent vegetative state as irrevcersible. Currently, thel'e are no reliable criteria ,available to
mak!e that judgment with certainty. Consequently, patients
in a persistent state should not be declared dead merely because their condition is probably irreversible. As a practical
guideline, Shewmon cites with appmval the recommendation
of the President's Commission that "extensive observation
should be made before diagnosing permanent loss of consciousness, and that in cases of hyporic/ischemic brain damage, at
least one month of observation should elapse. 47
While the i,rreversibi1ity of a cond,ition generally cannot be
determined with certainty, Shewmon cites .some exceptions to
this rule. Hydrocephaly is one of those ,conditions in which
the irreversibility of cerehml destruction is known definitively.
A hydrocephalic infant is one who appears normal but whose
developing cerebral hemispheres have been completely destroyed due to a massive stroke or a severe infection suffered
during gestation. At birth, "there is nothing but water in the
head." 48 The hrainstem remains intact so the infant looks and
behaves just like normal infants. However, it soon becomes
clear that the infant is not developing any functions dependent
upon hiigher brain structures. This condition can he dia:gnosed
accurately at birth hy a CT scan or by crania1l u1}trasound. Despite the infant's normal appearance and behavior at birth,
Shewman is forced " to conclude that the baby has actually
died in utero and that what was born was actua1ly an infant
humanoid animail." 49
p. 48.
p. 68.
48 Ibid., p. 72.
49 Ibid., p. 73.
46 Ibid.,
47 Ibid.,

PHILIP SMITH, O.P.

Hylomorpihism and Dementia.
At this point, Shewmon asks whether the line of reasoning
pursued for persistent vegetaJtive states can be extended still
further and applied to instances of dementia. This extension
would traice the irreversible damage not just to the cerebral
cortex in 'general but would attempt to pinpoint the specific
part of the cortex that controls human adions. The cogitative
sense of the scholastics is central to Shewmon's reasoning here.
He notes that St. Thomas envisioned the function of the cogitativ;e sense to be that of collating the sensory information
needed for the operation of the agent intellect. Although St.
Thomas does not mention it, Shewmon believes that the cogitative sense must have a similar relation to the will, i.e., a
motor ana1ogiue that " translates the oommands orf the will into
specific patterns of neuronal activity which regulate other
parts of the bra,in." 5 ° Consequently, he is convinced that the
physical hasis of the cogitativie sense 'is 1the area orf the cerebral
cortex critical for the functioning of the spiritual faculties of
intellect and will, the faculties that distinguish persons £rom
all other animals.. But in what part of the cerebral cortex is
the cogitative sense ·located? 'fo answer this question, Shewmon embarks on a detailed examination of the struotme and
of the cereibra.l cortex. His hasic point "is not a
neu:ro-anatomical one hut a philosophical one: that the death
of a person can 1come about through destruction of only tho·se
pa11ts of the brain which are necessary £m the proper functioning of the inte1lect and will." 51 A brief summary of his thought
will suffice here.
Structura.lly, the cerebral cortex is divided into primary,
secondary, and tertia.ry areas, with the latter two all'lo being
known as association areas. The primary and secondary regions are not essential for intemgenrce, freedom, and self-consciousness. Experiments indicate that these regions can be
50 Ibid.,
51 Ibid.,

pp. 52-53.
p. 59.

TRANSIENT

NATURES

dam!l!ged or removed without the person losing self-consciousness or the ,ability to think or choose. Since the cogitative
sense must he located in a structure that is essential for the
oper:ation of the intellect and will, the tertiary association cortex is the only remaining eandidate. Shewmon !relates tihis association's hemisphel'es to the intellect, its frontal lobe to the
will. Both the left and right hemispheres of the tertiary area
process information for the intellect .hut do so in different ways.
Lesions to the left hemisphe11einterfere "with ... the analytic,
semantic or meaning aspects of thought and language," while
lesions to the right one hinders" the synthetic, holistic, and
gestalt aprpilications."52 The motor anailogue of the tertiary a;ssociation region is located in the frontal lobe of the cortex and
affects ·the activities of the will. Thus, a bilateral prefrontal
lobotomy results "in impaired sequencing of .behavior, uninhibited interference from inappropriate distractions, thoughtless impulsivity in actions, and inability to formulate and
carry out .long-term goals, aU resulting in a lack of moral responsibility." 53
Here rugain, the hypothetical patient in the laboratory serves
as an illustration. If the primary and secondary sensory and
motor cortex are removed from the floating brain, the person
still continues to exist !and remains conscious, "thinking about
himself and wishing he were not in such a sorry state." 54 If
these same parts are put back into the original body from which
the brain was taken, it is now a " humanoid anim!l!l" with
vegeta;tive activities as well as "primitive sensorimotor functions." However, the floating brain is the person. Death occurs when the association cortices of the floating brain are destroyed, rega1rdless of what haippens to the humanoid animal.
For Shewmon, the conclusion is dear: " the life and death of a
person are dependent not upon the whole brain, but upon only
a critical part of the cerebral cortex." 55 It does not maitter if
this critical part is destmyed by surge1ry or by natural disease,
1

1

1

52 Ibid.,

Ibid.

p. 56.

54 Ibid., p. 58.
ss Ibid., p. 59.

PHILIP SMITH, O.P.

for the result is the same: " the death of a person, even though
a humanoid .animal body is left behind." 56
Shewmon does not ,consider his discussion of partial brain
dearbh to be a "far-fetched theoretical speculation." On the
contrrury, selective destruction of the neocortex occurs fairly
often in medicine. Alzheimer's disease is a case in point. While
this disease is accompanied by .a gradual degenera,tion of the
neocortex in general, it primarily affects " the prefrontal and
parietal tertiary association CO'J.tices."57 If the disease progresses to· the clironic .stage, it causes severe atrophy in the
critical structures of the brain, producing changes so profound
that the .body cannot sustain the human soul.
1

Patients at this stage of the illness have sensory perception and
can move around, but do not spe.ak or show any evidence of intellectual understanding of their surroundings; their behavior is
governed totally by primitive impulses. " Dementia " is really an
excellent term for this state, since it indicates that the mind is no
longer there. The body has been rendered incompatible with the
human essence, so a substantial change must have taken place.
The spiritual soul must have left the body, so that the person is
now in the next life, while an animal which looks like the former
person remains on earth. 58

Shewmon mges ev:en greater caution in diagnosing instances
of chronic dementia than he ,does for patients in persistent
v:egetative states. As yet, there is no reliable method of :finding out when the critica:l degree of brruin damage ha;s occwrred.
Thus, demented persons should be given the benefit of the
doubt and tvea.ted with all the love and respect due to any
sick person. Moreover, even if precise standards were av·ailable and they confirmed that the person had become demented
to the point of death, the life of the 11emaining humanoid
animal should not necessari·ly be terminated out of respect to
the person that the animal used to be. However, Shewmon
might make some exceptions to this rule in the future:
56 Ibid.

57 Ibid.

5s Ibid.,

p. 60.

TRANSIENT

NATURES

If there were sufficient reasons, however,. it would be
not
only to withhold simple means of life support as antibiotics and
intravenous, but even painlessly to put the animal " to sleep," as
is sometimes done: even to beloved pets which are terminally ill.
This would not be euthanasia, because we are speaking of some
future age when medical technology is advanced enough to determine that the patient has already died. 59

Virtual Presence and Transient Forms
When the death of the person does not coincide with that
of the entire organism, Shewmon characterizes the iremaining
entity as either a humanoid animal or a ¥egetative body as it
passes through stages of dehominization. To explain the
source of these vegetative and animal forms, he turns to St.
Thomas's notion of virtual presence. Acco11dingto St. Thomas,
lower forms axe virtually, not actually, present in compounds
and ihigher living things. For example, the forms of hydrogen
and oxygen are virtually, not actually, present in water. If
the right conditions arise, these virtual forms can become actualized. Acc01.dingto Shewmon, virtual presence accounts for
the natural tendency of things to change according to specific
patterns rather than in ra random or chaotic manner. 60 Thus,
when water undergoes a substantial change in electrolysis, it
will always be the virtual forms of oxygen and hydrogen that
become actualized.
'.Dhe concept of vi,rtual presence is crucial for Shewman's
process of dehominization. Although the spiritual soul incorporates the animal, vegetative, and spiritual levels into a single
individual, the animal and vegetative powers remain virtually
present in the person. Should the right material dispositions
occur, these souls can hecome actualized. Structural damage
to a critical part of the ,bra.in may be so severe that it forces a
substantial change and i:esults in the death of the person.
Then, Shewman argues, the human soul leaves the body and a
new vegetative or animal soul is educed from the potency o£
59 Ibid., p. 73.
ao Ibid., p. 42.

:t>1I1LIP SMIT:tr, O.P.

the remaining matter where it had heen virtually present all
a1ong.61 In irreversible persistent vegetative states, a vegetative soul will be educed; in se¥ere instances of dementia, an
animal soul will be educed.
Although Shewmon does not appeal to transient natures to
explain the activities of vegetative bodies and humanoid
animals, these natures are not incompatible with his thought.
The vegetative and animal souls that animate the human or1ganism after the demise of ·the person are certainly much more
stable than those that are operative prior to the beginning of
personhood. However, despite their durability, the vegetative
and 1animal me-principles are not the stable forms of human
nature. Rather, they are transient in the sense of being intermediary forms directing the life of the organism during the
process of dehominization.
1

Per8onal Refiectiorw
In 'general, transient natures can be helpful in discussing bhe
complex problem associated with the beginning of personhood
and the onset of total death. If a theory of delayed hominization is aooepted, one still has to account for the human organism that is present from the moment of fertilization. Not only
does this ,being have a unique and complete genetic package,
but it also has an innate orientation rto become ·an adult person. Transient natures provide some insight into the nature
and the behavim.· of the human embryo during the initial
stages of its existence. Similarly, if one holds the less plausible
theory of dehominization, the remaining organism is still
specifically human and its .activities need to be explained.
Transient nrutul'es 1can also be helpful here. However, the de·
scription of the entity during its tmnsient phases needs im·
:provement. Designating certain patients as " vegetative entities'' or, especially, as "humanoid animals" jars the sensibilities of rthe average pm-son. P erhaps a distinction between a
1

1

61 Ibid.,

pp. 42-43.

TRANSIENT

NATURES

215

human person and a human being would be preferable. While
there are some obvious difficulties with the distinction, it
neviertheless Tetains and stresses the humanness of the being
that is in transition.
The Beginning of Personhood
Pastrana's conclusion about the beginning of personhood is
quite plausible. While the precise relationship of the human
biological structure to the person remains a mystery, the
Thomistic philosopher must still have :vecourse to scientific information when deciding the presence of personhood. Pastrana
probes this relationship from both a philosophical and an empirical perspective. His philosophical app:rnach to individuality
reflects the Thomistic insight that an individual is a subsisting
being composed of matter and form, undivided in itself, and
divided
eV'ery other thing. 62 " Undivided in itself" perta.ins to the entity's indissoluble unity, while "diV'ided from
every other thing" situates the individual within the realm of
things as existing uniquely in its own way. This emphasis on internal unity and numerical di:ffe11ence ,exdudes the possibility
of division, multiplication, or recombination, once individuality
has ,been definitiV'ely established. Although the presence oi the
spiritual soul makes the person a special kind of individual, the
person nevertheless shares in the common properties of an individual. Therefore, what applies to the individua,l :velative to
the impossibility of division, etc., 'a.pplies equally to the person.
Pastrana's careful analysis of the biological information
available from the early staiges of embryo development indicates that the period of time from fertilization to implantation
is one of prepa.ration and organization. The crucial eV'ent in
this phase of ructivity is the appearance of the primary organizer. However, the numerous scientific phenomena that
occur before its arriva,l force the conclusion that biological individuality is not definitiV'ely established until then.
q2 A<Juinas1 Summa

Theologiae, I, q.29, a,4.

216

PHILIP SMITH, O.P.

Applying the agerre sequitur esse axiom, the behavior of the
organism reveals an instability in being that signals a corresponding instability in nature. In its initial phases of existence,
the organism simply does not fulfill the philosophical demands
for personhood and individuality. It is not a question of the
matter being inadequately organized. What is known of the
genotype and the life of the early cluster of cells reveals a very
complex or,ganization. Rather, the difficulty stems from the
lack of internal unity and stability in the dey;efoping human
being. It is not yet uniquely one entity. Prior to the presence
of the organizer, it is not determined if there will be one, two,
or more individuals. Thus, the emerging ·embryo does not meet
the philosophical requirements of internal unity, uniqueness,
.and incommunicabiJi,ty necessary for personhood until the organizer 'appears. I agree with Pastrana thrut the period between fertilization and implantation is best seen as one in
which transient natures gradually prepa11e the organism for
the reception of the spiritual soul.
The changes brought about hy the appearance of the primary organizer •are so prodlound that a Thomistic philosopher
can reasonably interpret them as an indication of the soul's
presence. Not only is individuality definitively settled, but the
human being can develop along definite lines. New structures
can emerge, new funcbi.ons can be .rucqufil-ed, and, ·eventuaUy,
self-oonsciousness, freedom, and personal relationships can be
experienced. When does hominization occur? Both the biological information and its philosophical interpretation point
to the second or third week after the mmpletion of fertilization, or ,about the time of implantation. 63
It should be pointed out that this conclusion is not at odds
with the teaching of the Catholic Church. In ·its Declaration
on Abortion, the Sacred Congregation for the Doctrine of the
Faith has 'explicitly addressed this problem:
63 Pastrana, p. 282. Cf. also Hellegers,
p. 5; and Diamond, p. 315. .Another helpful article for fetal development is Clifford Grobstein, "The Early
Development of Human Embryos," Journal of Medioime and Philosophy 10
( 1985) : 213-236.

TRANSIENT

NATURES

217

This declaration expressly leaves aside the question of the moment when the spiritual soul is infused. There is not a unanimous
tradition on this point and authors are as yet in disagreement. For
some it dates from the first instant, for others it could not at least
precede nidation. It is not within the competence of science to
decide between these views, because the existence of an immortal
soul is not a question in its field. It is a philosophical problem
from which our moral affirmation remains independent for two reasons: (1) supposing a belated animation, there is still nothing less
than a human life, preparing for and calling for a soul in which the
nature rece,ived from parents is completed; (2) on the other hand,
it suffices that this presence of the soul be probable (and one can
never prove the contrary) in order that the taking of life involve
accepting the risk of killing another man, not only waiting for but
alre.ady in possession of his soul. 64

While bey:ond the scope of this study, it is worth noting
that a theory of delayed hominiza.tion raises important ethical
issues. Questions about the beginning of personhood are not
ethically significant in the normal icourse of human reproduction .and fetal gestation. However, when posed in the context
of abortion, abortifacients, frozen embryos, ,experimentation on
zygotes, and embryo wastaige from in vitro fertilization, such
questions have far-reaching moral ramifications. What is the
nature of human life in its initial staiges and what moral claims
does it make on those from whom it developed and on society
at large?
1

1

Human Death
'.Dhe app:roach to personhood at the end of life parallels that
at the 1beginning, but it moves in a different direction. In
Thomistic philosophy, the person dies when the soul leaves the
.body, destroying its internal unity and its radical capacity for
human functions. That is clear enough. However, defining
what is meant rby death is much easier than determining when
it has taken plaice. In the not too distant past, the diagnosis
64" Declaration on Abortion," Sacred Congregation
Faith, November 18, 1974, n. 19.

for the Doctrine of the

218

PHILIP SMITH, O.P.

for death was .based on the permanent absence of heartbeat
and .breathing. However, the development of life-support systems has complicated the mwtter. Modern artificial !Vespirators
have made it possible to revive patients whose hearts and
breathing have stopped, or even to maintain ventilation and
circulation artificially, at least temporarily, beyond the deruth
of the person. On what basis, then, can a person ·be declared
dead, whose circulatory and respiratory functions are being
maintained by artificial me supports?
Since a person exists and functions as a single organism, I
will fall haok on the agere sequitur esse axiom and argue that
when the individual has suffered irreversible loss of the capacity £or human action, the person is dead. Current biological
dwta ·suggest that the brain is the organ which unifies and
integrates bodily life and that its dea•bh signals ·the demise of
the person. In what
I will first discuss the concept of
brain death, along with objections to that position, and then
focus attention on Shewmon's stance relating to persistent
vegetative states and dementia. But first, a word a.bout the
structure and function of the brain itself will be helpful.
Brain Structure and Death
The brain is made up of three anaitomical divisions: the
cerebrum, the cerebellum, and the brainstem. With its outer
1aye.r called the cerehrrul corlex, the cerebrum ha.is iheen traditionaHy referred to •a.is the ' higher ibrain' because it was thought
to control the higher human functions of intelligence, consciousness, foee choice, memorry, and emotion. The brain stem
was ilabeMedas the ' :lower brain ', being responsiible for respiration and such visceral .functions ·as spontaneous ya;wning,
swallowing, and sleep/wake cycles. While these generalizations remain essentially valid, they cannot he considered entirely accurate today. Scientists are coming to realize that activities that can be pinpointed to one area 0£ the brain likely
inv;olve other :regions also.
example, such 'higher-brain'
processes as thinking and self-consciou.sness are p11ohably not
1

TRANSIENT NATURES

Q19

controlled •solely by the cerebral cortex. 65 Howevcer, regardless
of whether or not specific functions can be traced to particular
a:reas, the brain as a whole can be identified as the command
oenter of the body, the organ that integrwtes and regulates the
body's vital activities.
Irreversible loss of brain operation usually stems either from
serious injury to it or foom some other factor that hinders or
cuts off the blood supply, depriving it of oxygen and other
nourishing materials. Depriving the brain of oxygen for fifteen
minutes causes its entire functional capacity to he destroyed
completely. The cerebral cortex is especiaJly sensitive to the
lack of oxygen and suffers permanent damf!Jge more quickly
than the rest of the brain. If it dies but the brainstem continues to perform normally, the victim will remain alive but
unconscious in a "persistent vegetative state." However,
when the entire brain suffers irreversible loss of function, all
the vital activities oontmlled by both the 'higher' and 'lower'
areas of the brain disappear oompletely, and death occurs. In
some situations, life support systems make it possible to maintain a brain-deaid body, but this can be done only for a limited
period of time. 66 Thus, the complete and permanent absence
of hrain functions establish a way of determining the state of
death that is as reliable as the customary lung and heart
standard.
In philosophical terms, total brain death reV"eals that the
physical basis ,for human unity and for human action has disintegrated. In line with the a.gere sequitur esse principle, the
remaining organism cannot be a person, since it no longer acts
or can eV"er act as a person. The body has undergone a substantial change destroying the physical organization needed to
sustain a human substantial form. Thus, I agree with Shew1

65 President's
Commission for the Study of Ethical Problems in Medicine
and Biomedical Behavioral Research, Defining Death: M edioal, Legal, and
Ethical Issues in the Determination of Death (Washington, D.C: Government
Printing Office, 1981), pp. 15-16.
66 Ibid., pp. 16-18.

PHILIP SMITH, O.P.

mon that the" person will die (and his spiritual soul will leave
the body) the moonent ib.is !bra.in dies .... " 67
Granted that death coincides with the irreversible loss of
.brain functions, is it possible to be sure that the dama;ge is
complete and the brain has in fact died? The President's Commission for the Study of Ethical Problems in Medicine and
Biomedical and BehavioTa.l Research ha.s studied this problem
in deprbh 'and .adopted the pmvisions of the Uniform Determination of Death Act (UDDA) which states:
An individual who has sustained either (1) irreversible cessation
irreversible cessaof circulatory and respiratory functions, or
tion of all functions of the entire brain, including the brain stem,
is dead. A determination of death must be made in accordance
with accepted medical standards. 68
Since the UDDA relies on " accepted medical standards "
for determining rwhen death has taken place, the commission
developed ·a set of criteria that reflect currently .accepted medical practice. These guidelines take into account .both the
triaditiona.l cardiovascular signs of permanent cessation of
breathing and circulation and the new .brain-death standards. 69
Carefully applied and keeping in mind the exceptions such as
hypothermia, drug and metabolic intoxication, young age, and
shock, I think that these criteria offer a reasonable and reliable 1guide for establishing when death has occurred.
The concept of death based on criteria relating to brain function has its critics. Some insist that the destruction of the
entire brain, not the irreversible loss of its functions, should be
bhe basis for determining death. Byrne, O'Reilly, and Quay 70
are representative of this position. These authors argue that
brain \function simply cannot be regarded as the equivalent of
67 Shewmon,

p. 47.
Commission, p. 160.
69 Ibid., .Appendix F, pp. 159-166.
10 Paul .A. Byrne, M.S., Sean O'Reilly, M.D., and Paul M. Quay, S.J.,
"Brain Death: .An Opposing Viewpoint," Journal of the American Medical
Association 242 (November 2, 1979) : 1985-1999.
68 President's

TRANSIENT

NATURES

human life. Such ·an identification, they claim, is in opposition
to the major American religious 'g'l'ioups-Protestants, Jews,
Catholics, Hindus, and Muslims-and is fl.awed from both a
medical and a philosophical perspective. Due to limitations m
.space, I will confine my ,comments to their ;philosophical objections.
Byrne et aJl.
that a standard of death hrused on main
.functions implies a strict materialism because it reduces the
essence of the person to the functioning of the human brain.
Thus, a material brain ,function is so de£ned as to take the
place of the human soul, the immaterial principle of life.71
11 Ibid.,

p. 1986.

From the perspective of this study, that conclusion is not .accurate. Thomistic philosophy envisions the human soul to be
the substantial form of the body. As such, the soul not only
gives the ibody its specific determination as human but it also
communicates its own act of existence to the matter of the
hotly so that one entity results, unified by sharing a common
aict of being. The functional unity that is so evident in a person stems [11om this ontological oneness. In its role as substantial ,form, then, the soul is the fir:st act of the body. Due to
this fundamental act, all the secondary acts, such as brain
functions, can take plaice. Although the brain can be identified
as the or:gan that integrates and regulates the body's vital
functions, it is human nature, not the brain, that is the intrinsic and radical source of all these characteristic human activities. Such an understanding of the relation between the
soul and the :brain clearly excludes materialism in any form.
A parallel can be drawn here between the role of the primary
organizer at the beginning of life .and that of the hrain at the
end. As noted above, the changes b11ought about hy the organizer can he reasonably interpreted hy a Thomistic philosopher as a sign that personhood has begun. However, this
coincidence does not reduce the human essence to the functions
of the primary organizer. As the substantial form, the soul
alone specifies the matter as human and endows the body with
1

PHILIP SMITH, O.P.

internal unity and stability. The activities of the organizer are
external indicators Tevealing the probable presence of the
human soul. Similarly, at the end of life, the ultimate philosophica1 cause of dea:th is not the irreversible loss of brain
function, hut the .departure of the human soul from the body.
The irreversible .Joss of function is the external indication that
the physical basis for human unity and the :radical capacity for
human action have rbeen definitively destroyed. '.Dhe remaining organism cannot be a person, not because the brain has
stopped functioning, hut because the :physical organization
necessary for sustaining a human substantial form has disintegrated, causing the soul to leave the body.
When Byrne et al. insist that brain destruction rruther than
foss of function be the standard for determining death, they
are perhaps afraid that acceptance of functional criteria might
lead to dangerous medical practices, especially in the hasty
harvesting of organs for transplanting. 72 By redefining death,
some unsc:mpulous physicians might remove vita:l organs from
:someone who is merely dying but not yet dead. While their
fear is understandable, it can be overstated. It is understandable because the pressure to ma.intain a constant supply of
fresh organs for transplanting might create the temptation to
disconnect life-support systems prematurely in brain-damaged
patients. That fear can he fueled by some paradoxical practices rega1ding organ donrution. Some states that do not have
·legislation will allow the removal of oTgans from
individuals who have given legal permission by
signing a Uniform Anatomical Gift Act Card. If organ donation is not involved, the patient is still alive. Thus, someone
can be considered dead or ali¥e on a basis as casual as having
signed a card.
On the other hand, I think the fear that •transplant teams
might rush death is overstated for the following reasons. First,
the criteria for total .brain-death provide a reliable norm for
12 Ibid.

TRANSIENT

NATURES

determining death. I also •think that the overwhelming ma.jority of physicians apply the criteria carefully and correctly,
mostly because they respect lifo enough to do so, but also because they fear malpractice suits if they diagnose death prematurely .for the sake of obtaining a rt.ransplantaJble organ.
Secondly, sincere attempts have been made Ito µiin:imize the
danger of .prematu11e diagnosis by establishing safeguards for
the procedure. Bor ·example, the Judicial Council of the American Medical Association requires that the medical team which
determines the death of the donor be different :from the one
·which performs the transplant. 73 The Committee on Morals
and Ethics of the Transplantation Society of the United States
demands that " acceptance of death should be made and declared by rut Ieasrt two physicians whose primary responsibility
is the care of the potential donor and who rure independent of
the transplantation." 74
Partial Brain Death
She1wmon examines •Ms .topic from ;both a pihilosophical and
an empirical point of view. His philosophy of person and of
death is very 'I1homistic and his ::i,pplicationof principles is accurate and consistent. Since the human soul specifies the body
as human, its departure means death. When does this take
place? The soul leaves when the body's physical organiz·ation
disintegrates to the degree that it is not longer capable of sustaining a human substantial form. At that point, the body
undergoes a substantia.I change, causing .the soul's departure
•and leaving behind ·an organism animated either hy a vegetativ:e or an animal substantial form. How do we know ·when
the body's internal unity and radical capa.city ior human activities have broken down? Guided by the agere sequitur esse
73 American

Medical Association Judicial

Council Opinions and Reports

(Chicago: .A.MA Press, 1977), p. 23.
74 J. P. Merrill, "Statement
of the Committee on Morals and Ethics of
the Transplant Society," Annals of Internal M edioine 75 ( 1971) : 631-633.

PHILIP SMITH, O.P.

axiom, She'WID.on answers rthis question by appealing to empiricail evidence.
Shewmon's
into the :pathogenesis of total brain
death, persistent vegetative states, and deteriol'a.ted mentail
oonditions is thoro:ugh and detailed. His conclusion thait personal deaibh occurs the moment the entire brain dies is fairly
widely accepted. However, the move from a total-brain standard of death to •a neocortical
is a. giant leap with far-reaching implications for both individuals and .society. What are
we to make of his conclusions about the demented, the hydmcephalics, and the vegetatives? Do hydrocephalic fetuses die
during gestation, resulting in the birth of an infant humanoid
animal? Hav;e some .A1ziheimer's patients actually undergone
personal death while "an animal which looks like the former
person remains on earth?" 75 Have some persistent vegetative
patients really died and left behind a v:egertativeorganism that
!l'emains intact and spontaneously alive? Such oonclusions are
troublesome to most people and downright shocking to many.
They affect the liv;es of thousands of patients and chaillenge
our most basic assumptions about the meaning of li[e and
death and the moral value of specific actions. However it is
important to note here that Shewmon's discussion of the various brain ·conditions has been concerned with analyzing levels
of ibrain damage in relation to the rphilosophieal meaning of
death and not with deciding ·whether a particular individual
has actually died.
The following will be a theoretical analysis of the natwre of these
states in general; we are not here. concerned with the practical
issues related to determining whether a given patient is in such a
state or not. The former is a philosophical issue, while the latte;r
is a medical one. Both are extremely important, as is the distinction between them .... The reality and nature of these. states in
individual patients should not be considered vague, simply because
of the difficulties in making an early diagnosis of the irreversibility .
. . One. should endeavor to have a clear understanding of the
75 Shewmon, .p. 60.

TRANSIENT

NATURES

metaphysical nature of these states, so that when they are diagnosed in a given patient, one will know how to apply the norms
of morality governing life and death. 76
Although I rum impvessed with his medica.l resea:rch, his understanding of Thomistic phi1osophy and his general sensitivity to the topic, I find '8hewmon's arguments about partial
brain death fo be far from conclusive. My disll!greement with
him concerns the amount of physical damage the body can
undergo and still be compatible with the ,spiritual soul. Shewmon 'argues that the irreversible destruction of only the cerebral cortex,. or of even a specific area within it, impairs the
hody so badly that it cannot support the soul. I disagree with
thait conclusion. As the substantial form of the body, the soul
integrates all the human functions, higher and lower alike, into
a unified system. To he indicative of the soul's sepamtion f,rom
the body, thel'ettore, partial brain death must destroy the physical :basis for human unity and human ruction. However, neooort1cal deaith is accompanied by the loss of only the higher
human :functions. While very few partially brain dead patients will ever regain oonsciousness, their hrainstems remain
intact enabling them to ma:intain spontaneous respiration and
a whole range of vegetative activities. They still retain enough
funciti:onal integrity to ,be compatible with the spiritual soul.
Before accepting 'the radical implications of pa,rtial brain
death, we need definitive answers to several important questions.77 First, can it be proven that the neocortex or a specific
area within it is solely responsible for controlling thought and
choice? That is not possible today. On the contrary, current
brain investigation indicates that the cooperative efforts of
1severa1 brain sysitems and regions may be needed for these
higher human functions. Moreover, while rationality is the
essential human characteristic, our entire worth cannot be
76 Ibid., p. 36.
77 Benedict Ashley, O.P., and Kevin O'Rourke,
(St. Louis: The Catholic Health Association,
from pp. 197-198.

O.P., Ethics of Health Oare
1986). These questions emerged

PHILIP SMITH, O.P.

collapsed into our ideas and choices. Secondly, can it be determined that only ra small segment of the brain is both the
necessary and sufficient srtructure for establishing the internal
unity and functional integrity of the person? While foture
medical TeseaJ."ch may he able to pinpoint the critical pihysical
basis £or the cogitative sense in either the neocortex or the
tertiary associrution, present empiricarl evidence cannot establish ra link between neocortical death and the death of the
human person. Finally, even assuming positive answers to the
first two questions, can the irreversibility of the brain damage
be diaignosed accurately? How can we know when the peTson
dies and the vegetative organism or the humanoid animal
emerges? As Shewmon readily admits, there is not enough
reliable evidence available to answer these questions in anything dose to a sabisfactory manner. Such evidence would
have to pl'ov:ide "unequivocal certainty, swbstantiated by
medical data and experience, empirica1ly verifiahle, and supported hy autopsy studies oonfirming the clinical anarlysis....
MeTely :a severe dysfunctioning is insufficient evidence for
pronounoing deatih." 78
Although l'equiring a, 'Separate study, the question of medical
treatment for severely bmin-impafred patients deserves a brief
mention. Traditionally, ordinary medical care was obligatory
:while extrao:rdinary treatment was optional. Health care
efforts were considered extraordinacry if they were useless, too
expensive, or experienced as too burdensome. Does the rejection of the neocortical criteria .for death automatically mean
that the vegetative, rthe hydmcephailics, and the severely demented should always be given aggressive medical treatment?
Should patients in a deep and irreversible coma always receive
artificially administel'ed nutrition and hydration? As the number of such patients increases and the strain on medical resources mounts, the medical care of such individuals will be
1

78 Ronald
Cranford and Harmon Smith, "Some Critical Distinctions Between Brain Death and the Persistent Vegetative State," Ethics in Science
and Medicine 6 { 1979) ; 207,

TRANSIENT

NATURES

227

among the most pressing and difficult choices confronting society in the future.
Conclusion
natmes may pfay
This 'Study has focused on the mle
at the outer edges of human me. In 1general,rthese natures have
been helpful in discussing the various problems associated with
the beginning of personhood. U delayed hominization is 1accepted, transient natures pmvide insight into understanding
the activities of the human embryo during the initial stages of
its existence. Becruuse I have not accepted the noocortical
standard of death, transient natures have less significance for
me at the ending of life. If the death of rthe organism as a
:whole does not coincide ·with the death of rthe entire brain,
there can be an interval during which transient natures come
into play and oontinue the Iif e of the bodily organism. In the
normail course of itotal hrain death, this interval is brief and
has ilittle significance. The use of artificial life-supports has no
bearing on this 1situation. They may enable the heart to continue heating and the cells to continue functioning, but the
source of these operations is a;I'ltificial and external. Nature
is an intrinsic principle of activity. However, if future medical research should vindicate the partiail brain death theory,
transient natures ·will ,be impoTtant for understanding the remaining organism during the final stages of its existence. 'Tihey
will also have significant moral implications for the medical
treatment of rt!he demented, ithe ,anencephal1ios,and the vegetatives.
1

1

NAMING GOD: MOSES MAIMONIDES AND
THOMAS AQUINAS
NEIL

A. 8TUBBENS

The Methodist Ohurch
Barnsley Oircuit, South Yorkshire

M

OSES MAIMONIDES (1135-U04) and Thomas
Aquinas (c.
two of the greatest theologians of the Jewish and Christian faiths, had much
in oommon.1 Like other Ohristian .writers, Aquinas made several criticisms of Maimonides' views on divine predication. In
this article l will discuss these criticisms and evaluate them by
means of a detailed e:iq>0sitionof Maimonides' position. I will
ithen offer an account of Aquinas's justification of analogical
predication and make some suggestions ais to the :role of causality in naming God.
1. Introduetion

Moses Maimonides was the middle-man in the interaction
of the three monotheistic faiths with Aristotelian philosophy.
He was a great admirer of the ancient philosopher, claiming
that Aristotle':s intellect reached the highest perfection attainable hy humanity-e:reept by the prophets and they WeTe divinely inspired. Maimonides :firrst work, the short Treatise on
Logic, clewly reflects ihis own interest in logic and language
and shows the influence of Afistotle mediated through the
Ambs. 2 It was The Guide
the Perplexed, his last major
work, that introduced the mostly Christian West to the
thought of the Islamic philosophers Alf.arabi, Avicenna, and

or

refers to Maimonides as a:ii. authority, e.g.,
1 On some matters Aquinas
De potentia, q.7, a.4, c; Summa theologiae (ST), I, q.68, a.2 ad 1.
2 Treatise on Logic, translated
by I. Efros, Proceedmgs of the American
Academy for Jewish Research 8 (1938): 1-65.

230

NEIL A. STUBBENS

Avermes.3 The Guide, however, is not so much a philosophical work as a iphilosoprucal interpretation of the Bible. Like
the thinkers of the Christian monastic anrd later cathedral
schools of the eleventh and rbwelfth centuries, Maimonides began his reflections with the wo;vds of Scripture. Soon after its
publication in 1190, two Hebrew triansla:tionsof the Guide were
produced from ,the original Arabic by Samuel Ibn Tibbon and
Jehudah al-Harizi; Aquinas wo:rked with_ a Latin translation
of the Harizi version.4
Feldman has complained that some of the scholastics misinterpreted Maimonides, foisting upon him views which were
clearly not his own. According :to Feldman, Giles of Rome
. (c. 1247-1316), in his ErrofJ'es Philosophorum, misformulates
Maimonides' theory of negative ·attributes and suggests that
he employs attributes ".by wa.y of causality." 5 Duns Scotus
(c. 1264-1308) cites Maimonides and Avicenna ws ·advocating attributes of efficient causality. Henry of Ghent (d. 1293) ,
in his Summa theologiae, moorrrectly construes actions as relations: "Indeed", writes Feldman, "he characterises them as
ruttributes 'hy way of causality.'" Aquinas's translators and
interp:veters come in d)or as much criticism from Feldman as
:Aquinas himself, e.g., R. Garrigou-Lagrange, 6 M. Penido,7 and
R. Mulligan: 8 all mistakenly say that a.ooordingto Maimonides
"God is good" means "God is the ca;use of good things.''
a See S. Pines, "Translator's Introduction: the Philosophic Sources of The
Guide of the Perplwed," in The Guide of the Perplewed, trans. S. Pines (Chicago, 1963).
4 The chapters of the Harizi and Latin versions are enumerated one less
than those of the Ibn Tibbon version. I shall use the latter scheme as is
common practice.
of Maimonides' Doctrine of
5 .S. Feldman, " A Scholastic Misinterpretation
Divine Attributes," in Studies in, Maimonides and St. Thomas Aquinas, ed.
J. Dienstag (New York, 1975), pp. 58-59.
6 See The One God, (St. Louis, 1944), p. 404.
1 See "Le role d'analogie en theologie dogmatique," Bibliotheque Thomiste
15 ( 1931) : 149 and 169.
s See his translation of De veritate, q.2, a.I, in The Disputed Question on
Truth (Chicago, 1952).

MAIMONIDES

AND AQUINAS

2. Aquinas's Criticism of Maimonides
There are five points of disagreement between Aquinas and
Maimonides. First, Aquinas argues that if expressions such
as " God is wise " and " God is angry " are used to indicate
only a likeness of effect, i.e., we say " God is wise" or " God is
angry " because in his effoots he acts lilre a wise or angry person, there would he no difference in the way such expressions
a11e used. But Aquinas ,wishes to distinguish between words
used analogically, e.,g., "God is wise," which are used to
s.ignify the divine essence, and those used metaphorically, e.g.,
"God is angry," which signify attributes which cannot properly speaking 1be said to be in God hut are used because of a
likeness of effect. Further, since creatures have not always
existed, it would he impossible to claim bhat God was wise or
good ·before their existence. 9
Secondly, Aquinas claims that Maimonides erred in many
ways on the matter of the relation between God and creatures
because he considered only the relations which
from
quantity, i.e., time and space, and not those which arise from
action and passion. 10
Thirdly, when Aquin,as explains his view of analogy he does
so by contrasting it with the univocal and pmely equivocal
ways of predication. 11 His objection to Maimonides' use of the
way of pure equivocation is five-fold but centers around one
point: Maimonides does not admit the relation of causation
between God and creatures. First, if one accepts Maimonides'
position, one must also 1aocept that ,there is no order of reference of one to another, because it would ,be entirely accidental
that the same word is used of both God and creatures-which
1

1

De potentia, q.7, a.5, c; De V'eritate, q.2, a.I, c.
q.7, a.IO, c.
11 For the significance of this in understanding
what Aquinas is doing by
means of analogy, see R. Mcinerny, The Logia of Analogy: An Interpretation
of St. Thomas (The Hague, 1961), pp. 32-36 and 67-69.
9

10 De potentia,

NEIL A. STUBBENS

is contrary to all other explanations of the divine names. 12
Secondly, and more fundamentally, one could not know anything about God, because the fallacy of equivocation would
render the proofs of even the philosophers mere sophisms. 13
Thirdly, getting to the heart of the disagreement, Aquinas
states, " The effect must in some way be like its cause." 14
Fourthly, when ,discussing God's knowledge in the De veritate,
Aquinas 0 bserves that if there were not some likenesses between
God and creatures, " He could not know them by knowing His
essence." 15 Lastly, even if one adopts the negative interpretation of the attributes, so that "God is living" denotes thwt he
does not belong to the genus of lifeless things, " it will at least
have to be the case that living said of God and creaitures
agrees in the denial of the lifeless." 16
This brings us to the fourth point of oontl'oversy, the negative interpretation of divine attributes itself. Again, Aquinas
says 1that on this view there can be no reason to use some
words of God rather than others, because theTe is not a specific term that does not exclude from God some mode of being that is unbecoming to him; thus we could say "God is a
body" because we want to deny that he is merely potential
being like primary matter. 11 Moreover, Aquinas claims that
the idea of negation is always based on an affirmation, because
unless we were to kno·w something about God we would be
unable to deny anything about him. 18 In the Summa theologiae he obser¥es that this is not what people want to say
when they talk about God. 19
Lastly, a causal interpretation of divine predicates is at1

12ffomma Contra Gentiles (HOG), I, c. 33, 2; De potentia, q.7, a.7, c;
De veritate, q.2, a.11, c.
1s SOG, I, c. 33, 3, 4 and 5; De potentia, q.7, a.7, c; ST, I, q.13, a.5, c,
where Aquinas also refers to Romans 1 :20; De veritate, q.2, a.11, c.
14De potentia, q.7, a.7, c; SGG, I, c. 33, 2 and 3.
1s De veritate, q.2, a.11, c.
16 SGG, I, c. 33, 7.
11 ST, I, q.13, a.2, c; De potentia, q.7, a.5, c.
ts De potentia, q.7, a.5, c.
19 ST, I, q.13, a.2, c; cf. De potentia, q.7, a.10, c.

MAIMONIDES

AND AQUINAS

trihuted to Maimonides in the Commentary on the Sentences. 20
There, Aquinas reports Maimonides as saying God is said
to be good because he produces goodness in his creatures. The
explicit reference to chapters 57 and 58 of the Guide is odd
since they do not support this view; 21 indeed, Maimonides did
not hold it at all. (It should be noted that Aquinas is not
critical of Maimonides' in this passage, for Aquinas himself
considered that God is said to be good because he produces
goodness in his creartures.)
an argument from silence could
he ma.de, we would conclude that Aquinas recognized his mistake since in his later works Aquinas did not attribute this
view to Maimonides, to the best of my knowledge. 22
2.1 Likeness of Effect

Before we can discuss the first of Aquinas's criticisms, we
need to understand what Maimonides means by ' acitions.'
Maimonides is noted for his five-fold division of affirmative
atbributes: ' definition,' 'par t of definition,' 'quality,' 'relation,' and 'action.' Actions are the only affirmative attributes
he allows 1to be predica:ted of God because, he argues, God
cannot he defined and, being simple, cannot
composite or
have elements added to his essence. 23 Although the explanation of divine attributes as actions was a commonplace by his
time and is traceable to Phi1o, Maimonides broke a,way from
all his Jewish, Moslem, and Christian predecessors who included actions under the relation of ' aigerrt and patient.' 24
1

1

20 I Sent.,

d.2, q.l, a.3, ad 3.
is the Harizi enumeration.
22 Cf. H. ·wolfson,
"St. Thomas on Divine Attributes,''
in Studies in
Maimonides and St. Thomas Aquinas, ed. J. Dienstag (New York, 1975), pp.
9-10 and 28; this has not prevented others from doing so, e.g., GarrigouLagrange, Peniclo, and Mulligan.
:23 Guide, I. 52-53; for a more detailed discussion
of this argument and an
exposition of Maimonides, five-fold division of aflfrmative attributes see my
Metaphor and Anafogy: Thomas Aquinas and Moses M airnonides- ( unpublished M. Phil. thesis, University of Cambridge, 1985), pp. 14-31.
24 H. vVolfson, "The Aristotelian
Predicables and Maimonides, Division of
Attributes," in Stud-ies in the History of Philosophy and Religion, ed. I.
Twersky and G. Williams (Cambridge, Mass., 1977), II, pp. 185-187.
21 This

NEIL A. STUBBENS

Feldman a:rgues that this distinction between actions and relations was the essential element of Maimonides' theory that the
scholastics f.ailed to recognize or, at least, to :appreciate fully. 25
Accmding to WO'lfson, in •spite of similarities to the Hsbs of
Algazali and Abraham Ibn David, Maimonides' five-fold division has no literary pcvecedent.26 Wolfson ofiers an etymology
of Maimonides' list and concludes that it is the result of the
combination of four types of classification: firsrt, Aristotle's
division of predicables into ' verbs ' and those connected with
their subject by the copula' is'; 27 secondly, Aristotle classification according to his categories; 28 thirdly, Aristotle's formal
four-:fold classification of the predicables; 29 fourrthly, Porphyry's augmentation of Aristotle's four predicables to five. 30
The figure on page 286 shows this etymology diagramaticaUy.
·'llhe first of these classifications is the one which concerns
us ihe11e. In On Interpretation, X, Aristorble desicribes 'is' as
being "additionally predicated as a thi11d element." 31 In his
Treati,se Maimonides explains:
1

Every proposition whose predicate is a verb, or a verb accompanie;d by other words, we call binary ... e.g., 'Zayd stood',
'Zayd killed Abu-Bekr ', 'Zayd did not stand', or 'He did not
kill Abu-Bekr '. All these propositions, we call binary, because
they require no third clement to connect the predicate with the
subject. But when the predicate of a proposition is a noun,32 we
call it a trinary proposition. Thus, when we say 'Zayd-standing ',
the expression does not indicate the connection of the predicate of
this proposition with its subject as to tense .... We must therefore have a third expression which will connect the predicate; with
25 Feldman,

p. 61.
op. cit., p. 174.
21 See On Interpretation,
V, I 7al0 and X, 19bl9-20.
2s See Topics, I, IX, 103b, 20-104a, I.
20 Topics, I, IV, IOI bl 7-25 and I, V, 10lb37-103bl9;
it should be noted
that Maimonides' synthesis includes classifications from different sources in
Aristotle, which were written at various times in Aristotle's life.
a-0 Porphyry's five-fold classification was 'species', 'genus', 'difference',
'property', and 'accident'; cf. Treatise, 10.
31 On Interpretation,
X, 19b20.
32 Note: this term includes adjectives
and participles; see figure on p. 235.
:26 Wolfson,

MAIMONIDES

AND AQUINAS

the subject; e.g. 'Zayd is now standing', 'Zayd was standing', or
'Zayd will be standing'; though it is immaterial whether this expression is or is not explicitly stated. 33 Hence we call it trinary. 34

A trinary p:mposition is imperfective in meaning and denotes
a continuous action, i.e., it has a descriptive function. A
,binary p11oposition,however, is perfoctive in meaning and denotes discrete or 1mmediate action. 'Do turn back to i::he Gitide,
Maimonides ma:kes it plain 1that by this fifth category of attributes he does not mean " the habitus of an art that belongs
to him who is described-as when you say a carpenter or a
smith." 35 'Dhis habitus belongs to the first of the four subdivisions of the third category of attributes (quality) and is
trina:ry in form, e.g., "
is a carpenter." .l'A:aimonides
means hy action, "the action that He who is described has
performed-as when you say Zayd is the one who carpentered
this door"; 36 it carries no hint of the existence of a habit
or disposition (which rvfaimonides has alrea;dy rejected in his
discussion of qualities when used of God) .
It appears, then, that Aristotle's .distinction between the
bina.ry
trinary fonns is a, precedent for understanding ac1tions differently from other predicates; Maimonides was probably the first to make use of this distinction in a discussion
of divine attributes. He probably did so because, as we shall
see in the next section, he considered a.U relations to be accidents. Maimonides used the distinction to show thrut actions
do not viola:te ibis first condition for divine predication. At the
close of the chapter we have been examining, Maimonides
ss Note: the copula "to be " might be expressed or merely understood in
.Arabic and Hebrew; this, however, does not make any difference as to whether
the proposition is binary or trinary.
34 Treatise, 3.
35 Guide, I. 52; see Efros's note 25 to chapter 13 of the Treatise, where he
points out that, of the Hebrew translators, both Tibbon and Ahitub use terms
meaning "habit" instead of "action" when rendering the .Arabic "verb";
Vivas alone seems to have the correct rendering.
36 Ibid. (my emphasis).

NEIL A. STUBBENS

Maimonides ' Division of the Affirmative A tt'libutes
predicables
'verbs'

those connected by the copula
(nouns, adjectives or participles)

I
accident
I

substance

species

genus

I

I

property

accident

difference property

accident

I

part
of
definition

definition

habit

I

genus
including
difference

definition

physical
quality

passive
quality

I

I

quality

relation actfon

I I

quality
resulting
from

I

I I

place time correlation some
relation

Notes
I. The first four lines are derived from Aristotle's various classifications of the predicables.
!2. The fifth line is the Porphyrian five-fold classification of the

predicables.
3. The sixth line is Maimonides' five-fold division of the affirmaattributes.
4. The seventh line is Maimonides' further division of the attributes of quality and relation.

MAIMONIDES

AND AQUINAS

summmrizes why actional predicates do not violate tJhe second
of 1thoseconditions:
Now this kind of attribute is remote from the essence of the thing
of which it is predicated. For this reason it is permitted that this
kind should be predicated of God ... after you havE; ... come to
know that the acts in question need not be carried out by means
of differing notions subsisting within the essence: of the agent, but
that all His different acts ... are all of them carried out by means
of His essence, and not,. as we have made clear, by means of a
superadded notion."

We must now examine these two claims: first,. why, since actions are carried out by means of the essence of God, statements empfoying them do not ,become tautologies or definitions which are mere explanations of terms, and secondly, why
Maimonides thinks that actions do not violate the unity of
God.
Maimonides' opponents, the Mutakallimun, claimed that
the essential attributes, generally thought . o& as ' living,'
'powerful,' 'knowing,' and 'willing,' are distinct notions essential ito the Deity. Maimonides considers that there are no
essentiai attributes and takes these words to refer to actions
which are " carried out hy means of the essence of God." 37
He oomplains that some of the attributists attempt to hide
rbheir helief hy using .phrases m.rch as God is living because of
or by his essence. 38 He insists that God's living is identical
with his essence. 39 But he has p11eviousiy told us that if the
attribute were the essence of the thing of which it is predicated
it would be either a tautology or the mere e:z;planation of a
term. 40 How is it that Thfaimonides considers actional attributes pcredicable of God?
An actional attribute is neither tautologous nor the mere
explanation of a term because it is binary in form. Clearly,
" God crea:ted the ·world " is not a tautology like " God is
1

s1 Later, he will argue that these particular attributes are predicated purely equivocally of God and other beings (I. 56) .
as I. 53.
39 I. 57 and III. 20.
40 I. 51.

fl38

NEIL A. STUBBENS

God." Neither oould " God created the world " be considered
the mere explanation of 1a term as might " God is the creator
of the world." 41 Actiona;l 'attributes .are " remote :from the
essence" in that ·they are not ihabits; they 11."efer to acts which
are done, they are perfective, ,and they !have no accumulative
features as do ha.hits, .whioh 1are aequired through practise.
Rath.eT, they are ,31cts "carried out hy means of the essence"
hecause they are not done hy something ·superaidded to it.
Actions, therefore, are identical with the essence.
Maimonides makes his 'second point by means of a simple
example:
Though an agent is one, diverse actions may proceed from him,
even if he does not possess will and all the more if he acts through
will. An instance of this is fire: it melts some things, makes others
hard, cooks and burns, bleaches and blackens. Thus if some men
would predicate of fire that it is that which bleaches and blackens,
which burns and cooks, which makes hard and which melts, he
would say the truth. Accordingly he who does not know the nature of fire thinks that there subsist in it six diverse notions . . .
all of these actions being opposed to one another, for the meaning
of any one of them is different from that of any other. However,
he who knows the nature of fire, knows that it performs all these
actions by
of one active quality, namely, heat. 42

Maimonides argues that if tihis is the case for ,something which
acts by its nature, it will he even more so for things which act
by their will, 'and even more so for God. If from human knowledge ,a person can do such diverse things as soiw, ca:rpente:r,
weave, build, understand geometry, or g10.vern a city, indeed,
almost an infinirtude of ·a.ctions, is it not intelligible how God
can perform many actions from one simple essence " in which
no multiplicity is posited and no notion superadded? "
Maimonides says tha1t we ascribe to God the a;tt;ributefrom
which the ·action proceeds and the name from rbhe action, e.g.,
God is merciful (the .attribute) and pities (the name) his
41 Cf. I. 51 and 52.

42 I. 53.

MAIMONIDES

AND AQUINAS

ohildren. 43 God is not himself affected nor does he have compassion, hut:
An action similar to that which proceeds from a father in respect
to his child and that is attached to compassion ... proceeds from
Him ... in reference to His Holy ones.44
This explains why numerous emotions are attributed to God
in the scriptures. Maimonides treats of the thirteen characteristics in Exodus 34: 6-7 to show that the attributes ascr1bed
to God are attributes of his actions and do not mean that he
possesses qualities. 45
It should now be clear why Maimonides thinks that actions
are the only affirmative attributes predicable of God. The
binary form of these attributes has allowed :Maimonides to
make non-tautological statements about God without introducing plurality into his essence.
This concludes our exposition of Maimonides' fifth division
of affirmative attributes. The e:z;position has been long because
this division is central fo Maimonides' understanding of divine
predicaition and it has so often been misunderstood. What then
of Aquinas's criticisms?
In response to Aquinas's criticism of Maimonides on this
pal'lticular point, Feldman reminds us that Maimonides does
say that certain attributes are inappropriately predicated of
God, i.e., those implying that he is corporeal or subject to
change. 46 Maimonides also says that anything that leads to
privation or similarity must also be negated in reference to
God. 47 Elsewhere, however, he says that all five senses are a
deficiency from ,tJhe standpoint of apprehension because they
43 I. 54; note I. 61: ".All the names of God in Scripture derive from his
actions except one, the Tetragra1nmaton."
44 I. 54.
45 Ibid.
46 Feldman, p. 70; cf. De potentia, q.7, a.5, c where Aquinas says that the
saints and prophets have denied that Goel is a body or subject to passions.
47 Guide, I. 55.

NEIL A. STUBBENS

are passive, but since taste and touch rely on bodily contact
and the others do not, sight, hearing, and smell have been attributed to God in the scriptures. 48 He also holds that it is
permissible to say that God is merciful, because, as we ha,ve
seen, even though at a first glance this seems to imply that he
is subject to passions, it really means that an action similar to
a human action proceeding foom a passion proceeds from God.
This hint that God is the subject of passions and the similitude
J\faimonides employs to deny that there are such passions in
God 49 do not seem to violate the rules about which attributes
are inappropriate. If they do, then Maimonides is simply
self-contradictory; if not, then Aquinas's criticism is valid. If
the only ·affirmative attributes predicated of God are predicated to indicate a likeness of effect, then
is no reason
why 1some things should be affirmed and others denied of God
as long as they are understood as actional attributes. Maimonides' use of this similitude must, however, violate his
denial made elsewhere that there is a:ny similarity between God
and creatures. 50 J\::foreover, Maimonides also employs a comparison between things which act by their nature, things
which aet by their will, and God to establish that actional
p!redicates do not deny the unity
God. Elsewhere he argues
that comparisons rely on similarity. 51
Aquina,s's second criticism is clear enough: before creatures
existed God did nothing as regards his effects, so it is not possible to speak of him as he was after the likeness of his effects.
Offering a way out for Maimonides, Aquinas suggests that perhaps God would have been called wise because he could have
acted as being wise. That, howevcer, would be to admit that
Genesis 6: 5, Numbers 11: 1, and Genesis 8 :21; see I. 47.
the quotation 9,bove from I. 54 about an action similar to that
which proceeds from a father.
50 I. 53; see BOG, I, c. 33, 5 and 6 where .Aquinas says that if nothing was
said of Goel and creatures except by pure equivocation, no reasoning proceeding from creatures to Goel could take place.
51 I. 56.
48 E.g.,
49 I.e.,

MAIMONIDES

AND AQUINAS

241

wisdom denoted a disposition in God, and Maimonides would
not have been prepaTed to do that. 52

2.2 Relation
Aquinas was right to say that Maimonides denied any relation between God and creatures. Maimonides thought a relation to time or space entailed oorporeality. But did he consider the relation of action and passion, especially the mixed
relation that Aquinas was interested in?
In his discussion of relations, Maimonides e:mmines three
types of relation, the first of which is fmther subdivided into
relations to another being, to space, and to time:
as for instance when you predicate of Zayd that he is the father
of a certain individual or the partner of a certain individual or an
inhabitant of a certain place or one who was at a certain time. 53

He comments that relations do not necessarily imply either
multiplicirty or change in the essence of something, neither are
they the essence of that thing, nor .are they 'SO intimately connected as qualities, so it appears that at least some types of
relational .attributes might be predicaJted of God. Clearly,
those of space and time are inappropriate because hoth .are
connected with bodies. The hope of predicating relational attributes must He in a " true relation of some kind," either what
Maimonides calls ' correlrution ' or ' some rela:tion.' 54 The relation of correlation is reciprocal, implying dependence of both
correlates on each other, eJg., that rwJ:J:i'ch can heat and that
which can he heated, father and son. These ,are correlative because they fail to convey their meaning to the mind unless refated and compared wirbh something else.55 This cannot be the
case between God and other beings because only his existence
1

52 De potentia, q.7, a.5, c; cf. De veritate, q.2, a.I, c where Aquinas describes .the view that knowledge is some sort of disposition added to God's
essence as "quite absurd and erroneous."
53 Guide, I. 52.
54 Cf . .Aristotle's distinction between the relation of "agent and patient"
and" numerical relation" (Metaphysics, V, XV, 1020b26-102lbl2).
55 Treatise, 11; cf. Categories, VII, 6b 29-Sa 13.

NEIL A. STUBBENS

is necessary, all others' existence is contingent. 56 Maimonides
then, like Aquinas, does consider and reject this type of relation, of :which father and son is an ex;ample.57
Maimonides also denies that .thel"e is ' some ·relation ' between God and other rthings, because thel"e is no notion common to both. Aristotle argued that this type of relation existed
when two things share the same substance or quality in equal
or unequal proportions. 58 Since Maimonides thinks thrut even
the term 'existence ' is predicaited of God and other heings by
way of 'perfect homony:mity,' there can he " no relation in
any rrespect." 59 If 1grreen and red (two species in the genus
color) cannot be mmpared, and .a hundred cubits and pepper
(from two genera) cannot be compa11ed, how can God ·and
anything else be compared?
It ·is in the De potentia that Aquinas discusses a relation of
action and passion in which " there is not alwa.ys order of
movement on hobh sides." 00 In ithe Summa theologiae
Aquinas talks of a mixed relation: in one of the related objects
the relation is 'natural' (res naturae) and in the other 'in
the mind ' (res rationis) . This has usurully heen expressed :by
saying thart the relation is ' real ' on one side and ' not real ' on
the other. 61 Geach has offered an •analysis of propositions of
efficient causality and shows what it means to say "in creating there is no 'real' relation of God to creatures." 62 Elsewihere, however, he is critical of this 'real' 1and 'not real'
terminology, and offers an explana:tion of what Aquinas is sa.y56 Guide, I. 52.
57 Cf. ST, I, q.13, a.7, c.
5BMetaphysios, V, XV, 102lal0-12; examples of this relation are double
and half, greater and lesser.
59 Guide, I. 52.
60 De potentia, q.7, a.10, c.
01 E.g., "one side of the pillar is said to be on the right because it is at
somebody's right hand; the relation of being on the right of is real in the
man but not in the pillar" (ST, I, q.13, a.7, c; .see De potentia, q.7, a.10, c
for a similar exam pie) .
e2 P. Geach, God and the Soul (London, 1969), pp. 82-84.

MAIMONIDES

AND AQUINAS

illg.63 (I believe Geach's expfanation rwould help elimina;te
some of the misunderstandings of Aquinas held by process
theologians.)
This form of the relation of action and pa;ssion is of great
importance to Aquinas, but is he correct to claim that Maimonides does not consider it? I think tha;t Maimonides does
make a passing reference to this type of relation when he says
that it is
that indulgen!ce should he exerreised
rwith those who p11edicate 11elations of God. This is because
do not entail the positing of a multiplicity of eternal
things or a,1teration in God's essence as a consequence of an
alteration of things related to him. 64 But, despite Maimonides'
great admiration for Aristotle, he did not thoroughly discuss
this, the third type of relation enumerated in the Metaphymcs.65 Feldman thinks that this was because he considered
all relations to be accidents and therefore not predicable of
God. 66 This was p11ohahly the genesis of Maimonides' new
five-fold classification of the affirmative attributes in which
actions were removed from the ca1tegory of reltions. 67 It was
also the nub of the dispute between Aquinas and Maimonides.
Bince Maimonides denies any rrelation between God and creatures, it fo11ows that divine predication must occur by means
of pure equivocation.
1

2.3 Pure Equivocation or Perfect Homonymity
In his study "St. Thomas on Divine Attributes," Wolfson
makes a bold claim: Maimonides was the first and only theodivine attributes in a purely
fogian knowingly to
equivocal sense. As we have seen, M.aimonides claimed that
there is no relation between God and anything else. Similarity,
ss P. Geach, "God's Relation to the World," Sophia, 7/2 ( 1969) : 1-9; cf.
D. Burrell, Aquinas: God and Aotion (London, 1979), pp. 84-87.
64 Guide, I. 52; cf. Aquinas's example of the pillar.
65 Metaphysics,
V, XV, 1020b26-102lhll
(especially l02la29-l02lhll).
ss Feldman, p. 72.
67 See figure l.

244

NEIL A. STUBBENS

therefore, must also he denied, because where rtiheve is !llo refation there can be no s!hnilacity.68 Aquinas: claims that, if terms
axe used purely equivooru1ly, it 1is entirely accidental which
terms are used of God and that we can know nothing rubout God
thmugh our use of them. 69 (We oould, for example, say" God
is ignoxant.") 1·0 Would M'aimonides agree with this? On the
surface it would seem that he musit. He al'gues that, since
there is no notion common to .both God and other beings, such
terms .as ' existence,' ' life,' 'power,' ' wisdom,' and 'will ' " ,are
not ascribed to Him and to us in the same sense.'' 71 Likewise,
it cannot be affirmed that his existence is more stable or his
life more pe11manerntthan OUT'S because comparatives ,also rely
on similarity. Plainly stated, Maimonides' view is this:
Those who are familiar with the meaning of similarity will certainly understand that the term existence when applied to God and
other beings, is perfectly homonymous. In like manner, the terms
Wisdom, Power, Will, and Life are applied to God and to other
beings by way of perfect homonymity, admitting of no comparison
whatever. 72

Maimonides ensures that he is not misunderstood by adding,
"do not deem 'that they are used amphibolously." Amphibolous terms are inappropriately used of God because, according to Maimonides, " they are predicated of two things between which rthere is likeness in respect to some notion." 73
The only thing homonymous terms have in common when
a;scribed to God and otheT beings is their spelling. This feature
of homonyms is explained in the Treatise. Maimonides says
ss Guide, I. 56.
69 80G, I, c. 33, 5 and 6; 8T I, q.13, a.5, c; De potentia, q.7, a.7, c; De
veritate, q.2, all, c.
10The Jew Gersonides (1288-1344) came to this conclusion (The Wars of
the Lord, III, 3) .
n Guide, I. 56.
12 Ibid.
73 Ibid.; cf. Treatise, 13; for a brief discussion of Maimonides'
treatment
of these terms see my Metaphor and Analogy, pp. 39-41.

MAIMONIDES

AND AQUINAS

that words are necessarily divided into three classes; distinct,
synonyms, and homonyms. Different wo11ds having different
meanings are distinct, several words having the same meaning
are synonyms, and one word having several meanings is a
homonym. Homonyms, however, are further divided into six
classes; absolute homonyms, univocafa, amphibolous terms,
terms used in general and particular, metaphors, and extended
terms. We need to 1ook only at Maimonides' definition of the
absolute homonyms:
One applied to two things, between which there is nothing in common to account for their common name,. like: the name ' ain signifying an eye and a spring of water, and like the name keleb
(dog) applied to the star and to the animal. 74

The difference between God and other beings is expressed by
the manner in which attributes are predicated. When terms
such as 'existence,' 'unity,' and ':firstness' are predicated of
beings which have a cause, they are aecidents and denote
something superadded to their essence. 75 In the case of God,
however, his existence, for example, is "identical with His
essence and His true reality, and His essence is His existence."
This is encapsulated hy the phrase, "God exists without the
'attribute of existence." This also applies to terms like 'life,'
'power,' 'knowledge,' and ' will' which earlier in the Guide
Maimonides interprets as aJCtions. When we 'ascribe unity to
God, Maimonides says, we do not say that he is one through
oneness. It is just a;s absurd to ascribe unity as it is multipilicity because such terms can only be used of subjects to
which 'discrete quantity ' is appropriate, quantity being an
accident is inappropriate to God. The problem is that the
bounds of expression are very narrow, so we have to employ
a certain looseness of ex<pression.
74 Treatise, 13; Efros adds, "that is to the barking dog, to the shark, and
to Sirius" (p. 16).
75 Guide, I. 57; "firstness" is the biblical term for "eternal."

NEIL A. STUBBENS

Maimonides thinks that this pmblem of inadequate language is best overcome hy two expressions taking the form,
" God exists without possessing the attribute of existence"
and " God's existence is identical with His essence and His
essence is His existence." 76 But is Maimonides saying anything more than the tautology" God is God"? 'Iihis question
can only he answered after we examine Maimonides' treatment
of the negative interpretation of affirmative attributes in the
next section.
I think Wolfson is right when he suggests that Maimonides'
restrictions on terms predicated 0£ God include those used
purely equivocally as well as those used in an actional sense. 77
According to Wolfson, Maimonides would refuse to predicate
' ignorant ' of God because " by its mere sound and irrespectiv;e of its meaning" it carries the
0£ an imperfection.78 But this cannot be correct because there is nothing in
common between words used purely equivocally to account
for their common name. 79 It is rather like a chi1d who, having
learnt some sporting }angua,ge, objects to using the word ' bat'
of the furry mammal which flies. But words are not mere
sounds: spoken words are sounds plus meanings and written
words are shapes plus meanings. An .alternative analysis to
that of Wolfson's might he offered by the teacher 0£ such a
child. No doubt the child might have difficulties understanding how one sound with different meanings can be used to refer to such totally different objects, hut that it is is something
which has to he mastered. If, as in the example I have used,
a term is used purely equivocally then, on these grounds alone,
1s Ibid.

77 See I. 47 where Maimonides observes that nothing which the multitude
imagine to be a deficiency has been ascribed to God in the scriptures, even
metaphorically (cf. I. 26 and 46) .
78 H. Wolfson, "Maimonides on Negative Attributes," in Studies in the
History of Philosophy and Religion, ed. I. Twersky and G. Williams, (Cambridge, Mass., 1973), I, p. 224 (my emphasis).
79 Treatise, 13 and Guide, I. 56.

MAIMONIDES

AND AQUINAS

theve can he no reason for objecting to the use of any term
whether privative or perfective. Nevertheless, I have already
suggested that these are not the only grounds on which to
make a judgment. But we need to examine Maimonides' negative interpretation of purely equivocal affirmative attributes
before we can come to a verdict. In the next section I will
show why Maimonides would not aUow any but perfection
terms to be predicated of God and creatures.
Maimonides' interpretation of the affirmative predicates as
purely equivoca,l is due to his refusal to allow ·any causal relationship between God and cl'eatures. And this is why Aquinas
objects to it. According to Aquinas, there is indeed such a relationship, and because " the effect must in some way be like
its cause," terms are not predicated purely equivncally of God
and creatures. 80 Since this is the central point of dispute
between Aquinas and Maimondides, we shaU also discuss
Aquinas's justification of analogical predicwtion.
Aquinas's last objection to the purely equivcoca.l inteTpretation of attributes is rather more complicated than it looks at
first; it also takes us into the area of the negative interpretation of affirma:tivceattributes.
1

1

1

2.4 The Negative Attributes
Acco11ding to Maimonides the negative attributes of God
givce the true description exduding incorTect notions and any
·deficiencies. They share with affimative attributes the ability
to particularize, although negativces do this by the exclusion
of certain things. Affirmative attributes necessarily indicate
part of an object, either substance or accident, hut negatives
(e:xicept indirectly) do not. 81 Sometimes when rwe are given
sufficient negative statements about an object, there is only
one possibility remaining as to what it might he, e.g., given
80 De potentia, q.7, a.7, c: "nothing is predicated equivocally of cause and
effect."
s1 Guide, I. 58.

248

NEIL A. STUBBENS

twenty questions to find a number between 1 and 10,000,
someone might be given twenty negative replies but still estabHsh what it is. Maimonides suggests this is not true of God:
All men ... affirm clearly that God .. , cannot be apprehended
by the intellect ... and that apprehension of Him consists in the
inability to attain the ultimate term in apprehending Him.82
Thrice in the last section I suggested that a proper understanding of Maimonides' negative interpretation of the affirmative ·attributes .is essential. I shall now offer an exposition of
this interpretwtion. In his treatment of ' firstness ' as a perfect
homonym, Maimonides hints at the negative inter:pretation of
affirmative attributes: "We say firstness in order to indicate
that He has not come inrto· being .in time." 88 He was certainly
not the fast theologian to state that affirmative attributes are
to he understood in .a negative way. In the Christian tradition
the Psewdo-Dionysius (c. 500) is often thought of as the father
of the via nega.tiva hut there aire earlier representatives in
Gregory of Nyssa (c. 330-c. 395), Clement of Alexandria (c.
150-c. 215), Plotinus (c. 205-270) , and Albinus, •a MiddlePlatonist of the second century.
Maimonides employs eight affirmative attributes, all in
trinary form, ito illustrate what he means by affirmatives
signifying negations. To say that God is existing (or is found)
means that his nonexistence is impossible; rthis is the first difference between God and other beings. But the order of the
other attributes is not coincidental: existing things are either
sublunar (dead), celestial (living hut corporeal), or the intelligences (incorporeal but created); things which act are
either incapable of P'roducing certain things (weak) whereas
God brings all things into existence, blind forces acting of
821, 59; cf. I. 58 and J. Guttmann, Maimonides:
The Guide of the Perplexed: an Abridged Edition with Introduction and Commentary (London,
1952)' p. 211.
83 I. 58; i.e., he is not created.
I have used "firstness" instead of
"eternal" since it is affirmative in form and introduces the way that Maimonides understands affirmative attributes as negations.

MAIMONIDES

AND AQUINAS

necessity (foolish or ignorant) whereas God apprehends
·everything, or act without purpose (hasty or negligent) whereas God governs all things according to his purpose and will; in
fine, God is unique. Hence the ·£ollowing tab1e can be compiled:
Affirmative predicate
Meaning
existing (literally: found)
not missed
living
not dead
not corporeal
incorporeal (pure form)
not created
first
not we;ak
powerful
not foolish
knowing
not hasty
willing
not many
one
Having given this list, Mruimonides claims to have shown
that every afHrmative attribute predicated of God must he
either an actional attribute or, if intended to convey some
idea of his essence, it signifies " the negation of the privation
of the attribute in question." 84 This ·cla1im needs some
tion.
It is most important to .emphasize that the purely equivocal
affirmative attributes signify the negation of their privations.
Habit and privation is one of the four- types of 'opposite '
Maimonides describes in his Treatise. The term 'opposite '
can refer to contraries, some of which haive intermediate states
(e.g., hot and cold, .and lukewarm) , others of which do not
(e.g., odd a.nd even) , to habit and .privation (e.g., sight and
blindness) , to correlaition (e.g., long and short) , or, when two
propositions have identicail subjects and predicates, to negative and affi.rmative (e.g., "Zayid is wise" and "Zayd is not
wise ") .85 Contraries ,and
and privation .differ in thait the
former equally partaike of existence whereas the latter, being
the eristen:ce or •rubsen1ce-of-1existenceof something, do not, 86
1

84 Ibid.

(my emphasis).
11 and 4; cf. Categories, X, llbl5-13b35

85 Treatise,

13a37).
86 Treatise,

11

(particularly

12a26-

NEIL A. STUBBENS

e.g., a number migiht equally bl!! odd or even, but since it is in
the nature of a person to have sight, sight and blindness do not
equally partake of existence.
Maimonides deals directly only with privations ,expressed in
form, e.g., dead and weak, but makes a logical distinction between these and privations expressed in negative
form, e.g., lifeless and powerless. But in Treatise 11, Efros uses
" toothless " to translate a privative in positive form. Cooke,
in his translation of the Categories, also uses "toothless" to
translate the
1Wdos.87 Woilfson!b.a:s shown that 1t!here is a
distinction between these two types of privative in Maimonides, Acistortle, and the Arabic phhlosophers hut ihas not
dealt with the problem in the Categories passage. 88 The probJem a'.l'i1ses heca:use nodos is compounded of ne (a negative
prefu:) and odous (tooth), which seems fo defeat the argument. AI'listotle, il:wwever, says in Metaphysics XI, XI, 1068a7
that the word 1Wdos is ,a P'rivation ,exp1.1essed in a positive
form and in the Parts of the Animals III, XIV, 674h20, and
Fragments
uses the word anodon, which is compounded of
an-(a neg;rutiveprefix) and odous. 89
It is also important fo understand what Maimonides means
by the sentence which follows his statement that affirmatives
signify the negation of ,their privation:
1

1

1

Moreover, even those negations are not used with reference to or
applied to Him ... except from the following point of view which
you know: one sometimes denies with reference to a thing something that cannot fittingly exist in it. 90

We ha'V'e seen that for Maimonides " God is x " signifies " God
is not not-x," where 'x' and 'not-x' are habit and privation
respectivdy. Now "God is not not-x" logically implies thrut
either "' not-x' is inapp:mpriately predicated of 'God'" (an
s1 Oategories,

translated by H. Cooke (London, 1938), X, 12a26-34.
on Negative .Attributes," pp. 213-215.
89 H. Liddell and R. Scott, A Greek-EngUsh Lemioon, ninth edition
ford, 1961), say that ne- is "a negative prefix used in poetic words."
90 Guide, I. 58.
88" Maimonides

(Ox-

MAIMONIDEiS AND AQUINAS

9l51

,absolute or universal negation) or "God is x" ('a particular
negation) . But, ,aooording to t:he sentence quoted above, when
the negation orf the privation refers to God it implies the absolute negation. And this is what we should have expected,
since Maimonides has already denied that habits are appTopriately predicated of God.
This merits more detailed explanation. Note the examples
commonly employed hy Aristotle and his commentators. We
,can say of an object that it is blind only if we muld say of it
that it sees, e.g., we can say of a man that he is blind, because
we could say of ,a man that he sees. In more general terms:
Nothing can be described in terms of a privation unless it is its
nature to possess that habit which is the opposite of that abse,nce.91

Thus we cannot say of a w:all ,that it is blind, nor can we say
that it sees. Nevertheless, we can say that the wall is not seeing to indicate ,that the term " seeing " is inapproprirute to the
wall. In the latter case the negative belongs to the copula, not
to the logical predicate. If the pil'edicate is ohanged into a
privation rather than a habity the same applies: "the wall is
not blind " indicates that the term " blind " is inappropriate
to the wall. Conversely, when we say that a woman is not
seeing we mean that at this time (or possibly for the rest of
her life) she is deficient wirbh respect to sight (a particular
negartion) , and when we say that she is not blind we mean
tiha:t she iis functioning 1aJs her nature impl1ies :with respect ;to
sight. Whether a negative proposition implies an absolute or
particular negation depends on the subject, not the predicate.
The consequence of all this for Maimonides' theory of divine
attributes is the following: saying, for instance, " God is living " signifies " God is not dead," and this in turn implies that
the term " dead " is inappropriately predicated of God. We
have already learned that the term "living" (in its ordinary
sense) is inappropriate and is therefore ascribed to God and
other beings perfectly homonymously. Both terms are inap1

1

01

Treatise, 11.

NEIL A. STUBBENS

propriate " just .as crooked or straight are of sweetness, or
salty or insipid of sound." 92
Negations of pi['ivations, however, are not the only way in
which Maimonides thinks we can speak of God by negative
'attributes. We can .also make a negative pmposition by affirming a term with ·a, negative prefix or affix, e.ig., "the man is
unseeing" or "the man is sightless," and these are equivalent
to "the man is blind." These negative statements, however,
can also be used of objects in which :the habit and privation do
not naturally occur, e.g., "the wall is unseeing." Hence, according to Maimonides, we can say either " God is not mortal "
or "God is immortal." 93
Another way of using negative attributes is by the ' indefinite term ' which is " a noun composed of the word ' not '
:and the habit, e.g., not-seeing, not-wise, and not-speaking." 94
This 'not-x ' form is the one I used in my attempt to explain
the significance of " God is x " and the implications of " God is
not not-x." This was deliber:ate, because the ' indefinite term,'
like the privative in affirmative form, can only be predicated of
subjects in which the habit naturally occurs, e.g., we can say
" the man is not-seeing " hut not " the wall is not-seeing."
Above I used the expression 'not-x' to represent the privation, hut here the expression 'not-x' is used to represent the
indefinite term. In the former case ' not-x ' would stand in
for words 'such as " blind,'' " weak," or " foolish," whereas in
the latter case it would stand in for words such as " not-seeing," "not-strong," O!r "not-wise." We can infer .with Wolfson, therefore, that Maimonides would not allow propositions
such as " God is not-mortal." 95
02 Guide, I. 57.

9BWolfson, "Maimonides on Negative Attributes," pp. 213-214; see pp.
214-215 for a discussion of this distinction in Aristotle (which Wolfson
thinks has not generally been noticed) and the Arabic philosophers.
94 Treatise, 13; cf. On Interpretation,
II, 16a32 and X, 19b5-20bl4; again,
see Wolfson (loc. cit.) for an account of this term and its use in Aristotle
and the Arabic philosophers.
95 Wolfson, op. cit., p. 221; at the risk of overstating the case, "God is
not mortal " is not the same as " God is not-mortal," in the former the negative belongs to the copula, in the latter to· the predicate.

MAIMONIDES

AND AQUINAS

fl"om having only one negative 1way, Maimonides has
three: first, we can speak affirmatively, e.g., "God is pure
dlorm "ll 6 (to signify "God is not a body," which implies that
" hody " is inappropriately predicated of God, as also is " pure
forrm." because :it :is used perfectly homonymo:usly) ; secondly,
negatively, e,g., "God is not a body;" thirdly, affirmatively of
a negative term, e.g.," God is inoorporeal." This I would offer
as an account of Maimonides' verision of the via nega,tiva.
But does it save him :from having to admit that perfectly
homonymous affirmations, such as " God is living "-which
he interprets, " God is living without the attribute of life "
and " His life is His essence and His essence is His life "-a1re
tautologous? The second 1and third ways do not p1resent:a problem; the second says in effect " A is not x " and the third " A
is x' ," which are logically equivalent and not tautologous. Our
concern is with the first way which does arppear tautologous,
because " A is x " becomes " A is A." Maimonides, however,
has insisted that " A is A " signifies a.n absolute negation,
which suggests that we need to stress the copula, i.e. " A is
A"; in other words "A is A" .answers "Is A B?" or as Wolfson puts it:
It serves the useful purpose of the negation of something which
otherwise might be considered as admissble of God. A tautology
ceases to be a tautology, Maimonides seems to say, when its affirmation is in answer to a challenge which implies a negation of the
opposite. 97

Maimonides heliev;es that understanding the divine attributes
·as negations does give us significant knowledge.
It is evident from Maimonides' own writing, !however, that
he did not consider this conclusion obvious. Since we cannot
know the true reality oi God's essence nor wscribe to him
affirmative arttributes other than 'actions, he suggests there
may be some who ask whether there is any difference between
96" Pure form," although not in common usage, is the affirmative form of
the negative " incorporeal."
01 Ibid., p. 204.

NEIL A. STUBBENS

the knowledge of a Moses or a Solomon and rthat otf the lowest
class of philosopher. Maimonides' argument is that since one
is molle kno,wledgable of an ob3ect the more attributes one
specifies, one is more knowledgable of God the more negative
a:ttributes one specifies. These attributes, as we might expect,
ar1e ito he demonstra.ted to he inappropriate in their affirmative
form not simply sa:id " by mere words " to be so; consequently:
In every case in which the demonstration that a certain thing
should be negated with reference to Him becomes clear to you, you
become more perfect. 98

The object of investigation and research is to discover "the
impossibility of everything that is impossible with ref erenee
to Him." In view of this, the most appropriate response to
God is silence: "Silence is praise ito You." 99 Any wo11ds intended to magnify and exalt God are hut" derogatory expressions," as when the king was praised for having millions of
silver coins when in fact he had millions of go1d coins.100 Maimonides accordingly encourages his readers never to use any of
the affirmaitive attributes other than those in the prayers and
blessings of the Synagogue (i.e., great, valiant, and terrible)
which in themselv;es a;re more than sufficient. The ocbher attibutes in the prophets signify either an action or the negation
of their privation. This latter conoession in the use of affirmative attributes is made only to the elite who understand what
they signify; the multitude should adhere to the former advice 1since rthey are led astray without being aware of it. 101 In
the form of a parable, Maimonides shows the propriety of
forming as many negative attributes as possible by offering a
description of a ship. Each negative excludes further candi98

Guide, I. 59.

99 Psalm

65 :2.

100 Guide, I. 59.
101 I. 60; this is, I think, a more accurate interpretation
than that of
Wolfson, who implies that even those who understand the actional attributes
aright should not use them more than has been sanctioned by scripture and
liturgy (op. cit., p. 224).

MAIMONIDElS

AND AQUINAS

dates as the subject of the description; first, it is known to
exist; then, it is not an accident, it is not a mineral, nor a living being, nor a plant in ,the earth, norr a naturally continuous
body; it is nort :flat, neither is it spherical, nor conical, nor
round, nor equifateral, nor solid. According_ to Maimonides,
with this whole list someone has nearly achieved, by means of
negative attributes, the representation of a ship as it is. As
Davies observes, this clearly will not do; Maimonides' reader
could equally rwell be thinking of a wardrobe or a coffin! 102
But if this "will nort do," Maimonides has made his point: he
has shown the propriety of £orming as many negative attributes as possible. We should also remember that Maimonides
thinks that apprehension of God consists in the inability to attain the" ultimate term in apprehending him." 103
What thren of Aquinas's criticisms? As I noted at the end of
the previous section, Aquinas's last objection to the purely
equivocal interpretation of attributes is mther more complicated than it looks at first. If interpreted negatively, he s:ays,
' !Jiving' said of God and creatures must ,a;t least agree in the
deniail of the >lifeless.104 But as we have seen, Maimonides
argued 'bhat an affirmative aittribute predicated purely equivocally signifies the negation of its privation and that this negais ' absolute,' i.e., it implies that the privation is inappropriately predicated of God. Therefore, ' living ' said of
God and creaitures does not agree in the denial of the ' lifeless ': in the former it denies that 'dead' is .appropriately
predicated since' living' is likewise inaippropriate; in the latter
it denies that the creature is dead, i.e., it affirms that it is living. If Maimonides had not insisted on this seoond point, then
Aquinas's ,argument would have been correct; a 'particular'
negaition of a privation implies that the habit is correctly
predicated of the subject. We have already learned that Maimonides considered habits ina.dmissihle of God because, being
1

1

102 B. Davies, Introducing
God (London, 1985), p. 129.
1oa Guid.e, I. 59.
104 BOG, I, c. 33, 7.

Catholic Theology, Volume 5: Thinking

about

NEIL A. STUBBENS

qualities, they are accidents. I hruve deliberately been detailed
in this exposition of the negative interpretation of affirmative
attributes in order to point out this difference of understandmg.
Aquinas also misinrterpvets Maimonides' thought in the De
potentia and Swmma theologiae. In the first, he thinks that
Maimonides uses the negative interpretation" for the purpose
of exclusion," so thrut " God is living " means " God has not
that mode of existence which is in rthings inanimate," 10 " and
in the second, Aquinas thinks that affirmatives are used to
deny something of God so that "God is living " means " God
is not like an inanimate thing." 106 That Aquinas has misunderstood Maimonides is demonstrated by his use of the negative
corporibus inanimatis in iboth the rpassa;gesjust cited; he should
have used the privative rin positive forni mortuus. Aquinas's
is an accurate reading of Maimonides' general comments on
the negative way 1-0 7 but not or the negative interpretation of
affirmative attributes. Maimonides does use iatt:ribuites " for
the purpose of ex!Clusion" hut these ·ave, so to ·speak, 'straigiht '
negations, not ' indirect ' negations signified by affirmative
attributes.
But even if Aquinas had appreciated this distrinction, what
of his complaint that there would .be no reason to use some
words about God r::i;ther than others? The terms Maimonides
predicates or God purely equivocally rure ones such as, 'living,'
'powerful,' 'knowing,' and 'willing.' When
the
meaning of these terms, he refers to the thi11d type of opposite
enumerated hy Arisitotle in Categories X where the terms
called opposites ·are hexis and steresis. Hexis denortes being in
a permanent condition •as pmduoed 1by p['ructice, and steresis a
deprivation or loss of a thing, a negation or privation. 108 Is
the11e no reason why we should use some words purely equivocally of God and crea1tures:rather than others? There is a very
1

105 De potentia,

q.7, a.5, c.
1-06 ST, I, q.13, a.2, c.
rn7 See Guide, I. 58.
the latter term Liddell and Scott direct their readers to this pass·
age in the Categories, X, 12a26, Metaphysics, IV, II 1004b27 and The "Art"
of Rhetoric, III, VI, 1408a7 (Liddell and Scott, A Greek-Flnglish Lemicon).
1-08 For

MAIMONIDES

AND AQUINAS

257

good reason implicit in the logic or grammar of the way that
Maimonides
interprets those attributes negatively:
the principle iwhich determines which words can be predicated
of God is that such words must denote habits; we can call
them perfection terms.
We ihave now
why Mruimonides can 1say that some
of the attributes ascribed to God hy rthe prophets are " attributes indicative of a per:.fection likened to what we consider
as perfections in us." 109 Such perfections are ascribed to God,
not because there is any similarity between what is predicated
rthe grammar orf how to
of him and creatures, ibut
deny that ,similarity entails using perfection terms. Wolfson
has said that Maimonides would refuse to p:vedicarteprivatives
purely equivocally of God because, by their mere sounds and
irrespective of their meanings, they carry the implication of
comimperfection. It is no·w dear how Wolfson's
pletely misses the point.

2.5 Summary
To sum up: Aquinas did not appreciate some of Maimonides' thinking and at times either failed to represent him
accu:mtely or positively misrepresented ihim; thus Aquinas
failed to understand fully Maimonides' thinking on pure
equivocation and the negative interpretation of affirmative attributes. On the other hand, Aquinas ha;s pointed out inconsistencies in Maimonides' position: first, if expressions are used
<to indicate likeness of effect there is, contrary to what Feldman
says on Maimonides' beha!lf, no :reason why some things should
be affirmed of God and others denied; secondly, although this
point is not b:rought out explicitly by Aquinas, Maimonides
contradicts ihimsdf in that he first denies any similarity between God and creatures and then employs such a similarity
rto establish the .suitability of the actional predicates and to
.argue that, though an ag:ent is one, diverse actions may proceed f:rom it.
Having established the s,trengths and weaknesses of Aquinas's
109 Guide, I. 53.

NEIL A. STUBBENS

critique of Maimonides, we must finally discuss Aquina;s's own
view of the relation which exists ,between God and creatures,
since, a;s we have observed throughout this study, this is the
nub of the disagreement between the Doctor Angelicus and the
Doctor Perplexorum.

3. .Aquinas's Justifioation of Analogical Predication
Aquinas considered that we a;re justified in using words such
as' good,'' wise,' and the like analogicaHy of God and creatures
because we a11e jus,tified in saying that God is the creator of
the universe:
Whatever is said both of God and creatures is. said in virtue of the
order that creatures have to God as to their source. and cause in
which all the perfections of things pre-exist transcendently. 110

Wicker suggests that such ,analogical language is concerned
with a system of reliable signs; the relation which offers the
reliable sign is ,that of cause and e:ffect.111 It is the
of
cause and effect which, though dependent on an analog10us use
of the word ' cause,' saves analogical predication from being
the " merely symbolic" theory of a Maimonides or a, Tillich. 112
Burrell aidmits that this argument is circular but points out
that it is not unique to theology thrut circularity arises when
we seek fo justify such usage.113 Wicker supports this argument of Burrell's by showing that it is part of the structure of
our language (as a medium forr saying anything) that we employ notions which resist analy,sis;114 His a11gument is par110 ST, I, q.13, a.5, c; De po tentia, q.7, a.7, ad 7 m; De 'Veritate, q.2, a.I,
c; SOG, I, c. 34.
111 B. Wicker, The Story-sha;ped World: Fiction and M etaphysios:
Some
Variations on a Theme (London, 1975), p. 16.
112 Burrell, p. 132; cf. P. Ricoeur, The Rule of Metaphor: Inter-disciplinary
Studies of the Creation of Meaning in Language, trans. R. Czerny, K.
McLaughlin, and J. Costello (London, 1978), p. 227: " even causality has
to be thought as analogical."
113 Burrell, p. 133; cf. L. Wittgenstein,
Philosophiaal Investigations, trans.
G. E. M. Anscombe, 3rd ed. (Oxford, 1968), par. 217 and
:;i.14 Wicker, P· 107,
1

MAIMONIDES ANb

ticularly relevant to our subject: dra:wing out the distinction
between metaphor and analogy as a parallel to that between
metaJphor and metonymy, he suggests that all genuine metonymies !have a causal basis.115 '.Dhis appears eminently reasonable, since the relation between, s·ay, Whitehall and the Prime
Minister is explicable in causal historical terms. Indeed, without the causal historical relation, we could not rely on the fact
that what Whitehall " announces" ha;s the authority of the
Prime MiniB'ter; we would not have a reliable sign. Thus, although government leaks oan be said to come out of Whitehall, they cannot be said to be " announced " hy Whitehall.
Without such a reliable sign we would have " an arbitary
juxtaposition of dispa:Ilate elements." A mebonymy or analogy without a causal explanation would constitute a breach of
the grammar of the language. It is just such an arbitary juxtaposition of disparate elements which Maimonides thinks exists
when terms are used of both God and creatures; such terms,
he says, are used purely equivncally. What then is the causal
relation which Aquinas needs if he is not to breach the grammar of the langua;ge?
Sherry complains that in discussions of the underlying
maxim of Aquinas's justificaition of analogical predication,
omne agens agit sibi simile--every a;gent produces something
Jike :itsel.f,116 '.Dhomists tend to ignore Hume's txeartment of
causa1ity. 117 He may well be rright :in his observation, but he
fai:ls to make rthe mo["e important point that Aquinas's and
Hume's accounts of caiusality 1are fundamentally difforent, and
rthat there .are those who rbhink that there is no doUJbt that the
Humean conception of causaJlity must be wrong,118 ·a;s ithere are
tbose ,who think bhe same orf Aquinas's conception.
1

115 Ibid.,

pp. 15-17.
I, q.4, a.3, c and q.12, a.12, c; De potentia, q.7, a.5, c.
111 P. Sherry, Religion, Truth and L(JIY/,guage Games (London, 1977), p. 163.
11s E.g., R. Harre and E. Madden, Causal Powers: a Theory of Natural
Causality (Oxford, 1975), p. l; cf . .Anscombe's essays on causality in general and Hume in particular in The Collected Philosophical Papers of G. Fl.
M. Anscombe, 3 volumes (Oxford, 1981).
116 ST,

NEIL A. STUBBENS

For Hume, a ' cause ' is an object precedent and contiguous
to another which has been observed to be constantly conjoined
to it in the past 119 and is so united with it that the idea of the
one determines the mind to form the idea of the other and
the impression of the fir.st to form a more lively idea of the
second. Hume is saying that, after experiencing constant conjunction, it is not merely that experience of one object is always followed by another hut that we feel compelled to expect
the ,second.12° For Aquinas ' oaiuses' are things exerting them8elves, having an influence or imposing their characters on the
,world.121 Hume's is an ' intransitive ' view of causality, while
Aquinas's lis a 'transitive ' one: 122 so while Hume ilooks for
a 'necessary connexion' rbetween two or more things, 123
Aquinas searehes for "·something whose nature it is to have
•such and such effects." 124 The form of Hume's causal proposition is " A is the cause of B " or " ev.ents of type A are correlated with events of type B." (This proposition needs to be
put into the ·form "ip because q " or " because q, p " for the
of e1amty.)125 The Torm of Aquinas's causa;l rp110position,
however, is " x oa:uses y rto be •an A " or " x b110ught it about
that p." 126 Geach declares himself very uncertain about the
119 D. Hume, A Treatise of Human Nature, ed L. Selby-Bigge, 2nd ed.
(Oxford, 1978), I, III, XIV; Hume's first definition of a cause says that
causal connexion as a philosophical relation is nothing more than uniformity
of sequence.
woA. Cavendish, David Hume (New York, 1968), pp. 72-78; see Hume,
Treatise, II.III, I and cf. Hume's later, An Enquiry <Joncerning Human
Understanding, ed. L. Selby-Bigge, 3rd ed. (Oxford, 1975), VII.
121 See H. McCabe, "Causes,"
in Summa Theologiae, Volume 3: Knowing
and Naming G-od (la.12-13), ed. and trans. Herbert McCabe (London, 1964),
p. 102.
122 Wicker, pp. 50-61; Geach, G-od and the Soul, p. 80.
1:23 Treatise, I, III, II.
iu McCabe, loc. cit.
125 Geach, op. cit., pp. 81-82; cf. pp. 75-76; Geach's criticism of the first
form is that '.A' and ' B ' tend to go proxy for abstract noun-phrases which
are systematically misleading because they have no principle of individuation. In the second form 'p' and 'q ' go proxy for clauses.
126 Ibid., p. 82, where 'x' and ' y ' go proxy for singular designations
of
individuals, 'A' goes proxy for some predicate and 'p ' for a proposition.

MAIMONIDES

AND AQUINAS

261

relationship between these two forms of causal pI'oposition,
hut he is sure that a sound account of the second type is necessary for a logical analysis of causal proofs of God's existence.
In order to undel'.stand why Aquinas claims that effects resemble their causes we will look at the example McOa1beiaHudes
to in. his discussfon of 1cruusality.
1

The fiwrne brings it about that a sharp rise in temperature is in
ic€i.127

It is important to notice that the form is "a sharp rise in
tempeT1a,ture" and nQt " a melting," because a sharp rise in
temperature :shows itself differently in different material
causes, e.g., in petrol it would bring ·about combustion. The
form is closely related to ·the naiture of the efficient cause. It
is not the case, :as Kenny crudely suggests, that Aquinas thinks
that "only whait is actually F will make something else F ." 128
As Kenny rightly
it is not necessary for one king to
crown another, nor is it possible tha.t a corpse could be a
murderer. Alcohol does not make a drinker inebriated because
it is inebriated! Only when :aloohol has heen analysed as a
particular chemical •substance and the cent:ml nervous system
a;s a :particular physiological structur-:e can the scientist say,
" or course, that's just the sort of chemical which tends to
bring about that effect in the physiology of a human being,
which in turn tends to result in this so·rt of behaviour." In
other words, when we know both the form associated with the
efficient cause and the material cause we can s1ay how the effect
is similar to the cause. On the £a.oe of it, it is difficult to see
how the melting of ice resembles a flame (though the combustion of petrol is easier) , but once one places the observation
into the form of Aquinas's typical causal proposition the difficulty is eased.
121 "Causes,"

p. 101.
Kenny, The Five Ways: St. Thomas Aqumas's Proofs of God's
Jj]xistenoe (London, 1969), pp. 21-22 and 40; cf. ST, I, q.13, a.5, ad 1; P.
Geach, "A Review of A. Kenny's The Five Ways," Philosophical Quarterly
20 (1970): 311-312.
12s A.

NEIL A. STUBBENS

This way of understanding causality is obviously very different from Hume's. Wicker thinks that it involves "a metaphysical notion of Nature." 129 Geach considers that this view
of ' tendencies ' in natural agents makes for far better science
than Hume's 'unbroken uniformities.' 130 The point of difference is tha:t for Hume a cause is a relationship which is established f11om observing the invariable succession of two events,
which has nothing to do with the objects in themselves, but
for Aquina;s a cause is a thing: each thing has a certain nature
and behaves in a certain determinate way; it has a 'natural
tendency' which is speci:fi.ahleonly by describing what happens if it is fulfilled, and there is no guarantee that it will be.131
For example, medioal research indicates that there is a tendency for the intake of nicotine to cause lung cancer: whilst
thel'e is no necessary connexion between the two, we ,share the
exasperation of the doctor who hears that a patient, ha,ving a
friend who has smoked twenty cigarettes a day without suf:fering lung cancer, persists in his habit of smoking. The pat:ient is, probably unconsciously, working with a Humean view
of causation. Each cause will exert itself in a. situation and,
given all the tendencies, we know what will ha;ppen. If something else happens we have to look for another cause, or
causes, having tendencies which, if fulfilled, ,would help to
bring about the observed effect.
One of the most important features of a cause for Aquinas
is that there is nothing added to the thing to make it a cause.
Causation itself is not an act but depends on the agent being
in act; once something capiaible of being changed (in the way
that a particular agent can change jt) is within range the
effect will occur, e.g., a flame does no more than be a flame to
129 Wicker,

p. 20.
Geach, "Aquinas,'' in Three Philosophers, G. E. M. Anscombe and
P. Geach (Oxford, 1961), pp. 101-103.
1s1 Ibid., p. 103; Geach insists that a tendency is not equivalent
to potentiality (p. 104); cf. Harre and Madden who point out that the physicists'
use of "potential" is a tendency or power concept, not a mere potentiality
(p. 99).
130 P.

MAIMONIDES

AQUINAS

burn a piece of paper brought into proximity with it. 132 This
discovery of being as aot is what Ricoeur calls "the ontological k!eystone of the theory of analogy." 133 Wicker, in a similar
vein, claims that it is this order of natural tendencies of agents
which underlies all those commonsense inferences which exemplify the rprinciples of analogical reasoning. 134 A healthy
complexion is a reliable sign, or analogue, of a healthy person
because of the underlying order which we believe exists. J£
suddenly we learn that someone we saw a little time before is
seriously ill, we might well respond iin surprise, "She looked
very healthy to me." Such statements are not thought irrelevant OT stupid because we believe that healthy people tend to
have healthy complexions.
1Aquinas thinks of causation involving a " formal content
hetween cause and effect." Although employing different
terminology, this is the same as the Aristotelian analy;sis which
says causation is " simply the relation of dependence in the
,effect with respect to the cause." 135 This allows Aquinas, like
Aristotle, to speal' of both ' moved move:vs ' and ' unmoved
movers.' This should account for the importance to Aquinas
of what we earlier called the ' mixed • relation.
The effects of a cause will resemble the cause, either perfectly or imperfectly. Each efficient cause seeks to bring about its
own form in that upon which it acts, hut other causes, efficient
or material, may prevent this from happening. Hence, a fully
alert surgeon may perform an e:xccellentoperation on an otherwise healthy person and show the characteristic effect of her
skills as a surgeon. After a weekend on duty, or if the patient
has other complications, the operation is unlikely to show the
chamcteristic effect of her skill. In the former oase-what
1s2 See Burrell, pp. 117 and 132-133; B. Lonergan, Grace and Freedom:
Operative Grace in the Thought of St. Thomas Aquinas, ed. J. Burns
(London, 1970), pp. 63-91 (particularly
pp. 64-69 and 88); Geach,
"Aquinas," p. 104.
·
1s3 Ricoeur, p. 275.
134 Wicker, p. 20.
135 Lonergan, pp. 65-69 and 88; cf. Burrell, p. 134.

NEIL A. STUBBENS

Aquinas called a univ:ocal cause-lmowledge of the effect leads
,to kno,wledge of the cause. In the latter case-'what Aquinas
called an analogical cause-knowledge of the e:ffect leads to
imperfeot knowledge of the ca.use; we would probably he doing
the surgeon a, great injustice if we used the second operation
to evaluate her skill. Aquinas considered that creatures are
less than typical of the power of their cause, which entails that
we cannot know what God is but only that he is.136 As
McCabe puts it:
It would in fact be impossible for God to display his infinite: power
in a mere work of creation, and hence it is impossible that there
should be a world from which we could come to understand what
God is.... what we know of him does not serve to explain the
world, all that we know of him is that he: must exist if the world
is to have an explanation. 137

Hence, in his discussion of divine aUributes, Aquinas explains
1that although we do not know what it is for God :to be good,
we can say " God is good," because God is the cause of the
goodness in his creatures; this is an etymological point telling
us why the word comes to be used of God. " God is good "
does not mean " God is the cause of the goodness in his creatures " but, " what we caU goodness in creatures pre-exists in
God in a higher way." 138 Ricoeur can conclude:
It is creative causality, therefore, that establishes between beings
and God the participation that makes the relation by analogy
ontologically possible .... It is this structure of the re:al that prevents language in the final analysis from being completely dislocated.139

Evidently the important distinction between etymology and
meaning has escaped Wolfson at this point. He asks how
136 ST, I, q.12, a.12, c;

cf. ST, I, q.13, a.6, ad 2.

137 "Causes,'' p. 102.
138 ST, I, q.13, a.2, c; see ad 2: " Sometimes the reason why a, word comes
to he used is quite different from the meaning of the word," e.g., hydrogen
(see McCabe's adapted translation of this passage and his note on ST, Volume 3, p. xvii).
139 Ricoeur, pp. 276-277; cf. Wicker's "arbitrary
juxtaposition of disparate
elements."

MAIMONIDES

AND AQUINAS

Aquinais oould reject the causa1 interpretation of attributes
when analogy implies a causal relation. 140 His answer states
thait Aquinas would say that there is a di:fference between the
causal and analogical interp11etations because the latter expresses, .and the former does noty " that right conception orf
God in terms so appropriate ais not to lead the unwary into
.any kind of misapprehension." But this is only ha.If an answer;
the sort of thinking that ho1ds that God is good because he
causes goodness can only he seen to he a misappreihension because Aquinas has insisted that etymology is sometimes a
poor guide to meaning: " God is not good becaiuse he causes
goodness, hut rather goodness flows from him because he is
good."141

4. Causality and Naming God
Maimonides and Aquinas both believed that God created the
world.142 Mruimonides and Aqirnina;s both thought of God as the
efficient, final, and formal, hut not material cause of the
world.143 Neither thought of God as the soul of the world in
the sense of being a form endowed with martter, despite Maimonides' r:a,ther disconcerting suggestion that God is to the
world .as a captain is to his ship (an unmistaikable reference to
Aristotle's anafogue for the relaition of the soul to the body) .144
Why then does Maimonides deny the appropriateness of the
relationail attributes? When we explained M aimonides' rejection of bhe attributes of relation we saw how he discussed the
relations of 'time,' 'space,' ' correlation,' and ' some relation.'
In
response to Maimonides we made reference to the
' mixed ' relation which Aquinas uses as a model for creation.
This mix!ed relation is better understood if we treat relational
pmpositions :as making predications about two related things,
A and B. Thus a mixed relaition is one in which, when we take
1

1

140" St. Thomas on Divine Attributes," pp. 26-27.
1.41 ST, I, q.13, a.2, c.
142 Guide,

I. 53, 71, and II.I; ST, I, q.45.

143 Guid.e, I. 69; ST, I, q.105, a.5.
144 Guide, I. 58; see On the Soul, II, I, 413a8-9; cf. Guide, I. 69; ST,
I, q.3, a.8.

NEIL A. STUBBENS

the proposition as a predication about A, there is some actuality in A answering to the predication, but when we take the
same, or logically equivalent, proposition as a predication
about B, there is no actuality answering to the predicaition; 145
e.g., if John grows to become taller than his father, then there
is some actua.Iity in John answering to the change in their relative heights, for John has grown up; there is, however, no actuality in his father answering to the same change, for it would
he very
to
of his father's constant height as an actual change, even
is now shorter than John.
Aquinas and Maimonides both follow Aristotle and speak of
God as the unmoved mover. 146 Maimonides, however, did not
recognize the mixed relation .as a suita,ble description of the
relation between God
even though it does not
suggest that being
to creatures has any actuality in
God. Indeed, as we have ·seen,
hints that it is because of
this that indulgence
exercised with those who do
attributes of
in this way and are thereby misled
into predicating relations of God. 147 He holds that creation is
an ' action '
God,
to the
category of affirmative attributes. Silberman,
l'\1aimonides' rejection
of the relational attributes as novel, emphasizes that for
Th'.faimonidesGod is not evcen related to the substances created
him, 148 and Ibn Shern_ Tob, a 15th century commentator on
the Guide,. says 1that
thinks that God, as cause, is
independent of his e:ffeets.149 Jl:faimonides argues that any relation between God
creatures would entail that the acciattached to God, " even if it is not
dent of relation nrnst
an accident with regard to His essence ... nevertheless it is,
generally speaking, some sol't of accident." 150 Maimonides,
1

145 Geach,"

God's Relation to the World,'' pp. 1-4.
ST, I, q.2, a.3, c; Guide, II.l; cf. M etaphysios, XII, VI, 107lb3-VII,
1073al4.
147 Guide, I. 52.
148 L. Silberman,
"God: Attributes of God," in Encyclopedia Judaica, ed.
Cecil Roth and Geoffrey Wigode1· (Jerusalem, Hl72), VII, 644-670.
149 Cited by Wolfson, "The Aristotelian Predicables," p. 182.
1so Guide, I. 52.
146

MAIMONIDES

AND AQUINAS

then, thinks of God',s causality as purely equivocal and hence
the effect is not like its a,gent.151 He co:ndudes that the most
appropriate response to God is .silence. But it is not simply a
matter of what is appropriate, because, as Riooeur argues,
without s:uch a likeness we a[l'e forced to ultimate s:Hence.152
It is this disagreement on the nature of causality which is
the impasse between Aquinas and Maimonides. Aquinas's
argument with Maimonides is, in brief, that s'inoe we use
terms such as 'good' of a thousand-and..-one things in the
world in distinct and yet related. ways, and that .since .although
we cannot say how they are all related theiie 'appears to be no
breaking point in such uses, we can use them of the first cause
of all these things. Aquinas's is not a ' merely symbolic ' theory
of divine predication. N everthe1ess Aquinas is not, as so many
have supposed him to be, offering a doctrine of God; he is
commenting on our use of certain words. He is explaining that
we are able to use certain words of the creator because of what
we know about creatures: we are led from them to some knowledge of the divine essence-that it exists and that it is has
whatever must belong to the first cause of
things-hut we
153
never reach it.
'When we say "God is good " we do not mean
"God is the cause of goodness in things." Indeed, we do not
know what we mean. All that we know is that we are justified
in saying " God is good " because God is the cause of goodness
in things. Even thmugh the disclosure of grace we do not
know what God is in this life but are brought into union with
him as it were with something unknown. 154 Perhaps, for some,
Aquinas's form of agnosticism is no more aUmctive than a Maimonidean symbolic theory of divine predication-though in
certain quarters the latter obviously does have an 'appeail-but
at least a proper discussion of it would be more fruitful than
many of the disoussions which purport to explain his doctrine
of God.
1

1

1.51 Cf. De potentia,
152 Ricoeur,

q.'I', a.'1', c.

p. 277 (my emphasis).
153 ST, I, q.12, a.12, c.
154 ST, I, q.12, a.13, ad l.

KNOWLEDGE OF THE SOUL
YVES

R. SIMON

Translated by Ralph Nelson
University of Windsor
Windsor, Ontario

Translator's Forword

I

N THE RECENTLY published The Definition of Moral
Virtue, based on 1leotures Yves Simon gave a:t the University of Chicago in 1957, there is a passage which helps
us understand 1the place this essay has in Simon's work as 'a

philosopher.
Let us admit that psychology is a very poorly organized discipline
and one whose disorderliness does not seem to be diminishing.
Were I a little young·er, I would consider dedicating my life to improving the situation, because the science of the soul is so important for morality. But sometimes I wonder if it is not already
too late. 1

This essay on the epistemological nature of psychology,
which appeared in Gants du Ciel in 1944, pmvides an intmdiuction to that project envisaged hy Simon hut never compJeted. It is a starting point. It is not a constitutive epistemology rin cthe Kantian sense ibut ,a i!.'eftective one, that is, it
surveys the state of the discipline in order to clarify the pl'oblems, eliminate false leads, identify the areas requiring further
development, and, finally, point out the interconnections.
Simon's essay is timely in the ahsence of an undisputed and
unified science of psychology commanding the support of competent persons. lit is not dated, ,because he sticks to tihe issues
and does not dwell on personalities. There are no references to
1

1

1

1

1

1

1 Yves R. Simon, The Definition
of Morai Virtue, ed. Vukan Kuic (New
York: Fordham University Press, 1989), p. 94.

270

YVES R. SIMON

twentieth century psychologists. However, it is easy to supply
topical references to illustrate a point, whether it be Sigmund
Freud, Jean Piaget, or B. F. Skinner. Take, for instance, the
attack on philosophical psychology. In Freud's case, there was
a constant effort completely to divorce ps;)"chology from philosophy, which he distrusted, even though some would say that
there is an implicit or disguised Freudian philosophy. In
Piaget's case, there is a vehement polemic against philosophicaJ psychology in his hook Sagesse et illusions de la philosophie
(1965). It seems quite clear that Piaget would not acknowledge any positive contribution to psychology in the writings
of Maine de Biran, Bergson, Sartre, or Th1erleau-Ponty, to mention just the better known. Philosophy might be "wisdom"
in Piaget's sense, but that is far from being a compliment
since" wisdom" is not" science." In the case of B. F. Skinner
and his efforts to go beyond freedom .and dignity, there is a
perfect exemplification of that technology extended to man so
aptly described by Simon. Yet in spite of scientistic confipsychology persists.
dence, the identity crisis
If one is neither to reject philosophical psychology out of
hand nor to dismiss the claims of positive psychology, it is
necessary to rmak:e appropria,te distinctions, such as the distinction between theoretical and practical psychology and between applied psychology and moml psychology. Yet, having
done that, Simon shows rbhat an analysis of individual cases reveals that applied and moral psychology a:re complementary,
Simon's contribution to the task of "improving the situation,,. ·did not end with the epistemological essay. It is important to note his treatment of moral psychology. I recall years
ago reading St. Thomas' s examination of human acts in the
Summa Theologica. and thinking tha:t this was a kind of moral
ps;)"ohology. However, that was not then, nor is it now, a.
·Common term. In Rarwls's A Theory of Justice, there is a section on moi'al psychology which seems to be about moral
learning. A recent study by an English philosopher, N. J. H.
Dent, The Moral Psychology of the Vi1·tues (1984) , seems
1

1

1

1

KNOWLEDGE

OF THE SOUL

move to the point; following G. E. M. Anseombe and analytic
phifosophy, it examines psycho1ogical concepts particularly
relevrant to ethics. Now Simon had not only talked about
morial psychology but also developed a number of concepts
which are characteristic of it, such as the notion of practical
reasoning, free ohoice, knowledge by inolination, and virtue
(based on the important distinction between habit and
habitus). A1gain, The Definition of JJ!Ioral Virtue hrmgs out
the significance of Simon's contribution from the viewpoint of
both method and content.
Much has been done, through the efforts of scholars like
¥ukian Kuic and others, to puMicize the politicaJ philosophy of
done in developing a
Yves R. Simon. Much vemains to
inspiration. In the project
moral psychology with a
of developing such a systematized approach, Simon's writings
could well furnish the basis and starting-point. Let us hope
that the growing availability of Simon's philosophical works
will encourage younger scholars to take up the task which
Simon did so much to promote. 2
1

RALPH NELSON

Knowledge of the Soul
No one denies that the study of psychology presents us with
a scene of awful disorder. The evil is an old one, has been
pointed out innumerable times, and has continued to get worse.
Among the most apparent symptoms and factors of this dis011der are the 1ack of a strictly determined language, the lack
of general ag1'eement about a.llocating the subject matter and
problems, and the disconcerting proliferation 0£ theories. But
one must go heynnd Hlese well-known facts in order to find the
most radical symptom and the most effective factor of a confusion which has strangely persisted. What is most bothersome
in the state o.f psychologieal resear:ch is a general uncertainty
2 This article is one of a series of continuing
Yves R. Simon publications
sponsored by the Yves R. Simon Institute ( 508 Travers Circle, Mishawaka,
IN 46545) under the general editorship of Anthony 0. Simon.

YVES R. SIMON

about the
nature of rpsychology. The practitioner of this science has a hard time knowing the kind of science he praotices.. From one p11ofessor to another, from one
book to another, rthe point of view, rprincipies, methods, and
affiliations change, and yet the course or hook title indicates
that it always concerns psychology. It does happen that a
psychology course might be especially devoted to theories with
a metaphysical aspect on the self and the non-self, the subject
and the object, the a priori and the empirical, and so forth. It
ailso happens that in the course one speaks especially about the
salivation response in the dog and the croaking reflex in the
frog. Sometimes the ::vtmosphere
the course is industrial,
commercial and medical; it concerns adaptation and performance. Sometimes, though rather mrely, the atmosphere is
ethicail and 1itera:ry; the sentences are more polished, and novelists, playwrights, and essayists provide a contribution of the
first importance. It also happens that all these types of psychological ,investigation are combined in the same course or the
same hook.
The theoretieal and practical ,Jrawhacks of this confusion
are obvious. We will grasp their seriousness better if we manage to identify each of the forms of knowledge arbitrarily eonfused under the name of psychology. An author whose name
eludes me had prnposed 1some years aigo that we speak of
psychology in the pluraI. Generally this suggestion has heen
taken as an ironic exaggeration; we take it v;ery seriously. It
is perfectly dear that the knowledge of the soul is capable of
different forms. It is by no means obvious that this :diversity
can be reduced to the unity of a, single science. Mayhe there
are several sciences of the soul which ii:t would he wrong to
designate, without being much more p11ecise, :with the common
name of psychology. It is worthwhile testing this hypothesis.
'The word " psychology " iin ordinary usage is most often related to a kind of knowledge 1seldom taught in
and it
is possible to possess it in an eminent degree without having
ever read a hook in psychology .. Here are two doctors equally
1

1

1

KNOWLEDGE

OF THE SOUL

273

eompetent in their art. I prefer one of them because in addition to his art he has an ability that the other lacks. l£ he feels
obliged to acquaint me with a disquieting diagnosis and to
pl'escribe a painful treatment for me, he will know how to
choose the right words and attitudes to inspire confidence and
courage in me, and at the very moment in which he passes
on the bad news, he will help me find the strength to put up
with it. The other doctor is not a had man, but he has a way
of presenting things that saps the morale of his patients. He
does all he can to comfort them; he only succeeds in depressing them. We say that the first ,is a good psychologist and that
the second lacks psychology. In the same sense we speak of the
psycho'1ogicwlqualities of a capbin of industry, a businessman,
or a statesman. Again it is
the same sense that we attribute
an enormous psychological insight to certain novdists, historians, playwrights, and to all the great moralists. When the
man of action wants to improve his knowledge of men by
Teading, it would hardly occur to him to read a treatise in
psychology designed for college courses. Nor wm he read Aristotle's Treatise on the Soid, nor any of the treatrises on the
soul written hy philosophers following the Aristotelian model.
He reads Shakesperure, Bwlzac, Dostoevsky, Saint Augustine,
and Pascal.
The man of action hy the very fact that his profession requires him to carry out numerous intense relationships with
his colleagues finds himself at the forefront of the k:ind of
knowledge we al'e frying to describe. The writer, the moralist
maintains a certain distance from men; solitude constitutes
pa.rt of his vncation. Because of bhis disbance and ,,solitude, it
is likely that the psychology e:l0pressed in his writings lends
itself to a mixture of epistemological types. Therefore it is
convenient to observe in the fir1st instance the char:acteristics
of this psychology in the ordinary sense, this everyday psychology of 1which little is
in the schools of psychology, in
the mind of the man of 1action.
1. The psychology of the man of action is a practical dis1

1

1

!t74

YVES R. SIMON

cipl1ine. Behind diffel'ent and changilllg disguises, it helps him to
reoognize !11eal
temperamental data, haibits, and
motivational priorities. It allows him to predict the reactions
of a man in particular circumstanoes. It allOiws the determination of the means to employ in order to ascertain that another's
conduct seTves my purposes. The choice of a partner presents
great psychologica1l difficulties for the head of ·a business. A
young man comes to offer his services; his previous employers,
people whom one can trust, attest to his honesty. We are reasonably assured that he has never istolen anything. But for
that matter he has never had the oppo:vtunity to steal an important amount of money. The question then is to know if
his will, strong enough to resist the temptation to steal small
sums, is strong enough :to fond off the temptation to steal a
lot of money. Let us suppose that observation uncovers the
signs of a weak :will. Is it a hopeless case? Maybe not. In the
candidate's oonvers,ation and in his past history we detect a
lively ,sense of honor. Moreover, if his qualifications are 'satisfactory, it is woirth while :running a risk; let's trust him. By a
generous iact of trust, let us rintensely 1stimufate the sense of
honor whioh can sti'H protect him against the weakness or his
w:ill. Events oonfirm our expectations. Under the influence
of a sense of honor stimulated hy trust, the y;oung man is
stl'engthened in his habits of honesty. If the head of the business has to his credit a certain number of these kinds of success, it will be said. that he is a good :psychologist.
No doubt it is necessary to have many kinds of knowledge
in order to obtain frequent good results in dealing with such
problems. It is necessary to have 01bserved a fot, retained a
Jot, compared a lot, assembled and maintained hy irepeating
successful interpretations a flexible and complex system of interpretive associations. But of all these kinds of knowledge,
none has its end in itseH; each has as its end an action to ·he
directed.
2. The psychology employed hy the man of adion sticks to
considerations of the ,whole more than to an analysis of iso1

KNOWLEDGE

OF THE SOUL

fated ·factors. It is not a matter of knowing what a man's
ima:gination or memory or intellect will do iin such and such
circumstances, .but ra:ther of knowing what the 1conduct of the
man will be if he behaves as friend or foe, as •a submissive fellow or as a rebel, if he will :take the initatives at an opportune
moment or will be content fo how to events. We la:ck ·an adequate term to characterize a knowledge which not only does
not seek but even avnids the isolation of f.ructors; we ·Will only
understand the nature orf this' knowledge well 1when we have
designated it with an adequrute term. In spite orf seveml precedents, let us not speak of a total knowledge; this expression
suggests the idea. 0£ ·an exhaustive kind of knowledge. Nor do
we speak of synthetic knowledge; a synthesis is the act of constructing a ·whole by reuniting its elements. Now it is not a
question of constructing a whole but of grasping it. For want
of a better, we propose the expression totalistic knowledge.
A practical psy:chology in the sense which has just been described is forced to adopt a totalistic viewpoint. And conversely, any totailistic psychology is forced to remain a pmctical psychology. In order to ·account for this, it is sufficient
to consider that any theoretical science, by the very fact that
it proposes the per.fection orf knowledge as 1sueh, seeks an exp1anation, for perfect knowledge is explanatory knowledge.
Now there is no explanation without a preliminary analysis
which takes apart contingent connections and sorts out relations of essential causrulity which alone are explanatory. Ill
the example mentioned earlier, theoretic.al knowledge would
reco-gnize rut least three factors, eaich of which constitutes an
intelligible tendency to .produce certruin effects: haibits orf
honesty, tendency to produce honest acts; weakness of will,
tendency to make dishonest acts possible; a sense of honor,
tending to mruke honesty prevail every time its opposite would
involve ,a feeling of dishonor. These isolated ca1Usal relations
·are intelligible and explanatory; there is no way in which they
aJlfow us to .foresee rthe 1acturul conduct of the person heiing considered. In order to foresee conduct which iwill he the result
1

YVES R. SIMON

of a contingent-therefore
of a
plurality of factors, one must consider these factors all together, to see how they fit together in the concreteness of their
contingent associabion; but then one gives up on explanation,
and the viewpoint adopted is only justified by the requirements of action.
3. The knowledge of man can ·abstract from free choice provided that it proceeds analyticaUy. Under this mndition it is
concerned with determined natures, with possibilities defined
hy the na;ture of things, with natuml determinisms such as the
·faw of sensation, of inteHect, and of the w]ll itself. But once
the knowledge of man adopts the totalistic viewpoint, free
choice takes it place •at the very center of these considerations.
No doubt there are :a great number of actions in the daHy conduct of all men which are not immediately regulated by free
ehoice; but the least that one can say is the most of them depend on free decisions in the :fiTIJal analysis. 8 My schedule shows
that I must teach •a eomse on Monday at eight o'clock in the
morning; it is possible that I act in a determined way when I
set the dial of my ala.rm dock a;t 6: 45, Sunday evening; that
at the sound of the alarm I get out of bed without delibemtion
and freedom; tha1t all the movements that fake me to the bus
and the classroom
governed by quasi-instinctive judgments
from which freedom is absent. But I have performed an act
of freedom when I decided to he a pcrofessor rather than a
lawyer or a doctor; I performed an act of .foeedom when I
decided to follow an honest profession rather than to live a
life of laziness and catch as catch can. Leaving aside these
abnormal cases, free causality is what is deepest, most dectsive,
and most formal
the causal system from which human conduct results. 'Eo ignore the qualifications of this free will
which, in the final analysis, makes the oonduct of a man what
it is, is to oblige oneself not to know what contributes more
:mdically than any other factor to make this conduct be what
1

a See Yves R. Simon, Freedom
Fordham University Press, 1987).

of Choice, ed. Peter Wolff (New York:

KNOWLEDGE

OF THE SOUL

£77

it is. Practical and totalistic psychology is moral psychology;
that is its correct name. In order rbo foresee the reactions of a
man in particular circumstances, it is no doubt relevant to
know if he has good vision or if he is myopic, if he is attentive
or distracted, if he has a memory for proper names or if he
lacks this form of memory, if he is sensitive or cold, subject or
not to irr,ational fears, if he has a quick or slow mind, if he is
very intelligent or only middling. But it is 1stm more important
to know if the deepest intentions of rbhis man are good or evil,
if he is inclined to tell lies or the truth, if he has a sense of
duty, of keeping his word, of justice, the respect of each person's dignity, if he is open to gratitude and compassion. For
ultimately, whatever may
the ·sharpness of his intellect and
the trustworthiness of his memory, ·the steadiness of his atten:tion and the healthiness of his emotional life, what is important
for me to know above everything else to foresee his actual
conduct is the use he makes of his powers. From these very
elementary :remarks it follows that practical and totalistic
psychology cannot abstract from moral good and evil in any
way.
In order to recognize the distinctivce characteristics of moral
psychology, 1we have to consider this discipline in the state in
which it is most clearly distinguished from other forms of
psychological knowledge, that is, in the state it assumes with
the man of ,aiction, in the immediate grip of ·action. In this
state it is a knowing power completely directed toward the individual case. All that the man of action has in view is to
know this or that particular man. Once he steps hack and begins to express his .thoughts on man and on different kinds of
n1en that he has come to know, he no 'longer speaks as .a man
of ·action and his knowledge of moral man assumes a new 'state
characterized by the search for univers:al types.
What we appreciate above all else in the novelists, poets,
and playiwrights whom we call gveat psychologists is the ability
to embody a universal type in an individual existence, in whom
all
individuaEzed-tmits
cause the universal

278

YVES R. SIMON

type to shine forth. Hamlet and R.astignac are concrete universals.
With ·the moralist, moral psychology is extracted from the
pa·rticular features of individual ·existence and attains the state
of ahstraot universality. Fm instance, let us mention the celebrated passage of Pascal on diversion; there it concerns a trait
of the physiognomy of universal man described in universal
terms. On the other ihand, one ·should note that the psychology
of moralists is often stated in the iol'IIn of disconnected jottings.
The daily record which £olfows the divisions of the calendar,
isolated thoughts, and fragments are its favorite forms of expression. When the psychology of moralists is organized, its
principles of organization .are generally rhetorical, esthetic, and
literary, •rather than scientific. Tihis is an occasion to wonder
if moral psychology, in addition to the state it :assumes in the
man of •action (knowledge of the singular), in the creator of
moral types (knowledge of the universal involved in a single
existence, real or fictitious), in the moralist (a non-systematic
knowledge of the abstract universal), is capable of a state of
scientific systematization. In ·a word, would it be possible to
compose a treatise in moral psychology? We see no reason to
believe that the difficulties in such an endeavor cannot be
overoo•me.
Moreover, we could mention many attempts at .a .scientific
systematization of facts pertaining to moral psychology. Most
bear the name of the discipline called the science of character,
characteroilogy. It is appropriate here to a.sk oneself about the
rrelations between moral psycho1o,gyand characterology. These
disciplines do not coincide as far ais content is concerned, for
moral psychology encompasses :a large number of facts foreign
to the object of the science of character. Perhaps we should
rulso ·say that they do not coincide £orma!1ly insofar as chara;ctemfogy prefer s ·to fasten on wihat is determined in the constitution of characters and teITds to abst:r:act from free causality. But it is by no means certain that this ·abstraction is legitimate. If one had seen in this .abstraction only the effect of a
1

KNOWLEDGE

OF THE SOUL

279

deterministic epistemology, characterology should be conceived
as a part and function of moral psycho1ogy.
There is nothing astonishing about the fact that the man of
action generrully shows no interest in the problems studied in
the psychology of the traditional school; they are theoretical
prob1ems, not his problems.
Any theoretical psychology, to the extent to which it shares
the 'ideal of theoretical science, has characteristics opposite
from those of moral psychology. It seeks explana;tory laws
rather than formulations of foresight. In its search for explanation, it boldly practfoes the breaking down of wholes presented
hy experience; it only considers free choice as a property necessarily resulting from a certain natural constitution; it abstracts completely from Hie way in which man makes use of
his powers. Should one say that it is useless? Like any theoretical science it is essentially constructed in order to procure
an advantage higher than any utility, the knowledge of truth.
Moreover :it furnishes much information of great practical
value. But, according to the univ:ersal <law of theoretical
thought, the information of prnctical interest is characteristically the effect of superabundance, and 'surely the best way
to ohtruin this informrutj,on is not to seek it.
The terminology of scholastic pTograms and textbooks appears extremely uncertain in regard to the scientific unity of
theoretical psy;chology. Generally it is admitted that there are
two theoretical sciences of the soul. One of them is akin to
philosophy and the other to positive science. To teach the
first we prefer a man of philosophica l hackgmund who has read
Plato, Aristotle, Lucretius, Saint Thoma.is, Descartes, Leibniz,
Kant, J. S. Mill, and Reno:uv:ier. To teach the second, 'We prefer :a, man who has spent some time in laboratories and psychi,atric hospitals. Curl'ent ideas hardly admit of a more precise
division. The terminology is changing and confused.. Metaphysics, metaphy;sical psychology, rational psychofogy, speculative psychology, philosophy of mind are the expressions most
often used to designate this so hrudly defined science of the soul,
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YVES R •. SIMON

regarding which there is a vague a:greement to acknnwledge it
as especirully a matter for !plhilosophers. Psychology (without
a modifier), experimental psycholngy, positive psyohology, scientific psychology are so many expressions serving to designate
this science of the soul to which we attribute the honorific title
of positive soience in a confused wa.y, without bothering too
much as to what this last expression exructly means.
Concerning the theoretical form of the knowledge of the
sorul, the problem of psycho-logy is only :a, particular case, but a
particularly diffioult one, of the relationship between positive
science and the philosophy of nature. Recent transformations
occurring in the !Structure o[ physics have reminded us that the
oldest established positive sciences have not yet succeeded in
achieving rthe conquest of their ·autonomy. A positive psychology exists; it is recently established. Nume:mms researchers
have enthusirustically pursued the ideal of ·a fully positive
psychology, as independent of philosophy as are chemistry and
biology; some of them hav:e become discouraged. During the
last fifty years, many psychologists have come to admit, with
or without sadness, th.at a state of confused association with
philosophy could well be the permanent condition of so-called
positive psychology.
'Dhis resignation 'appears to us to he an unhewlthy thing, as
is every attitude destined to perpetuate disorder in the system
of our knowledge. No doubt there is no essential reason which
prohibits the science of the soul foom putting on an entirely
positive form, but different accidental rea;sons ,abundantly explain the failures suffered by positive psychologies in their
endeavors at autonomous system-building, without implying
that ·these ifailures are definitive. Let us briefly indicate some
of these reasons.
1. Unlike what occurs in physics, chemistry, rund biology,
psychofogical rf,acits 1arre for the most part familiar to common
sense. Now common sense, when it does not become absorbed
in practical p11eoccupationsor deceived by the :figments of the
imagination, is much more inclined toward :a philosophical

KNOWLEDGE

OF THE SOUL

Q81

than a positive interpretation. It follows that the elahoration
of 'a positive concept in psy;chology often consists in the recasting of a, philosophical concept. Such a recasting requires
an extremely vigilant critical sense and is only effected through
trial and error. In the case of protracted failure, the autonomy
of the positive synthesis becomes compromised by the violent
and, moreover, generially unconscious incorpo:mtion of a philosophical concept.
2. It has often been remarked that positive science is the
work of a :sagaoious reason, capable of controlling the ardor of
its natural penchant for the being of things. This remark is
iparticulady relevant for the knowledge of the soul. The ratio:nal appetite for the being of things makes itself felt with ia
particular vehemence when the thing to he known is the very
principle of our life and the subject of our destiny. Unless he
,is a pure empiricist gone astray in theoretical science, the positive psychologist must fight without ,letup against the ontological enthusiasm 1which threatens at :any moment to change the
nature of his interpretations.
3. In the investigation of sub-human nature, few facts lend
themselves to an ontological interpretation. The frequent and
evident failures of attempts at a philosophical explanation effectively protect positive reason against the interventions of
philosophy. In things of the soul, on the contrnry, especially
when higher functions are at issue, a considerable proportion
of facts entail an ontologica.l interpretation. The philosophical
mind has more occasions to
conscious of its possibilities and fewer occasions to recognize its limitations.
4. Finally, it is appropriate to remark that the success of a
scientific systematization is conditioned by the possibility of
exploring the set of facts whose systematic expression is at
issue in an ongoing way. If the positive datum presents numerous gaps, it is very difficult, and maybe impossible, to achieve
a satisfactory systematization by the use of positive principles
alone. In case of failure, it is necessary either to give up the
,advantages of the ,systematic form or to borrow the principles
of systematization from philosophy.
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YVES R. SIMON

Positive psychology often borrows its principles of systematization for the simple reason that the positive datum with
which it deals presents important gaps. The :familiar objections
of Auguste Comte against the very possibility of a positive science of psychic facts are far from being groundless; they are
only exaggerated. They do not demonstrate that a positive
psychology is impossible, but they are a, timely reminder that
the organization of this science poses exceptional difficulties.
More than in any other science, observation in psychology
runs the risk of self-destruction 1by altering the process under
observation. As soon as I begin to observe my emotions, they
stop being what they would have been had I not observed
them. If I question a sick person suffering from an anxiety
neurosis, what his statements make known to me is less the
consciousness of an anxious person than the consciousness of
an anxious person who knows that he is being observed by a
psychologist and adapts to this particular situation. In a large
number of cases, moral feelings set up a lively resistance to
stating t:he truth. In regard to certain very important aspects
of the emotional life, this resistance of moral feeling is only
actually overcome :by the patient in whom the desire to he
cured overwhelms the inhibitions of modesty and pride. The
observation of a man in good health is missing from the file.
The cleverness of experimentalists has p'lloduced countless
techniques aimed at getting around all these difficulties and
many others; the 'l.'esults of their research iare still far from
presenting the picture of a continuous and easily arranged
whale. Yet, whatever may he the data of expe11iencewhich are
still missing, there is room for thinking that a better interpretation of the epistemological situation would allow the realiza·tion of great p:r"ogress in the 011ganizationof positive psychology. As an effect of mentaJ. habits generated rhy specialization,
different :research techniques become hardened and isolated to
the point thrut many minds give up seeing them integrated in
an organic whole. Introspective psychology, physiological psychology, animail psychology, and abnormal psychology are

KNOWLEDGE

OF THE SOUL

28S

spoken of as if they were quite distinct 'sciences. There is a
consensus that they only maintain occasional relations with
each other and pursue their development in a dispersed state.
If we knew hetter what we were talking about when we talk
about
science, we wou1d understand without any difficulty that these different " psychologies " are in reality only
different paths 0£ research contained within the unity of positive knowledge and aimed at realizing in a rough way the continuous exploration 0£ psychic facts by the contribution of
complementmy findings. The discontinuity of positive data
that ·we described just no.w is only partially due to the intrinsic
difficulties 0£ psychological observation; to a large extent it results from the inadequacy 0£ our epistemological ideas.
Thus, far from wishing that psychology forego constituting
itself as .an aiutonomous positive science and wgree to let itself
he organized by philosophy, as many :philosophers .are inclined
to do, ·we wish that a growth in epistemological awareness
would maike the too little known possibilities of positive SJ"iStematization apparent .to the eyes 0£ psychologists, ·along with
·an objective unity annoyingly disguised by the diversity of
methods.
This progress in epistemological consciousness could be facilitated by a reform of vocabulary; it will have little chance 0£
being produced as long as we use aU kinds of arbitra.ry expressions to designate the :two great forms of theoretical psychology.
ln regard to that science of the soul which [s part 0£ philosophy, or more precisely a part 0£ the philosophy of nature, the
simplest expression is also the most adequate: we shall call it
philosophica1 psychology. The expression "metaphy;sical psychology" not only is ineX!act, it is contradictory, for the soul,
psyche, is not 1beyond nature ibut in nature; !it ,berlongs not
fo tihe metaiphysical hut to the phys.ica.il world. lt is unquestionably possible to carry on a metaphysical study 0£
knowledge, .aprpetit:ion, ii.nteMect,and will, but to take this metaphysica.il study for a ps;}"ohologicalstudy is 'Simply to ignore
1

YVES R. SIMON

the peculiarities which affect the perfections of being when
they are inv;olved in the world of mobility; it is to ignore the
animating role of the soul. The express1on " rational psychology " is equivocal and disturbing; it suggests a bad sort of
apriorism. The expression "speculative psychology " only has
a definite meaning by contrast with the eXjpression " practical
psycho1ogy "; hence it implies that any non-philosophical scien1ce of the souf is a praeticrul science, and that :is fa1se. The expression " phi1osophy of mind " ireduces the realm of philosophical psychology in 'an arbitrary way by suggesting that it
is only the rational ipart of the soul which is susceptible to
phi1osophical analysis.
Concerning the positive science of psy;ohic facts, the only
correct expression is that of positive psychology. The expression "experimental psychology" is too narrow and str ictly
speaking only designates research carried out by means of experiments, e.xduding research carried out by observing noninduced phenomena. The expression " general psychology " is
devoid of any e:xia:ct meaning; the expression "scientific psycho1ogy" inconveniently suggests that philosophical psychology has nothing scientific about it and ,belongs to literature, a
fanbastic conception that many positive psychologists are only
too willing to accept.
Most of the positive sciences generate a technology. Let us
call applied psychology the technique or set of techniques
which derive from positive psychology. So, in addition to theoretical psychologies, two pmctical psychologies exist: moral
psychology and applied psychology. The big question is to
understand l'ightly in what way they are to be distinguished,
under the same heading of pra.ctiml sciences.
Each of them sets out to know man in order to act upon him,
to foresee his conduct in order to direct it. Now two causal
systems exist in the human soul: the system of determined
causality and the system of free causality. Each of these systems provides a distinctive mode of interpretation, foresight,
and influence. It is
to understand a man's free acts
1

KNOWLEDGE

OF THE SOUL

hy relating them to the dispositions of his free will; it is pos1sible to predict his free reaictions with varying degrees of probability; it is possible to affect his free behavior by modifying
the dispositions of his freedom. It is possible to understand
ibis determined !reactions by relating them to their determining
causes, to foresee them >SOiinetimes with 1a high degree of confidence, and to modify them by tr:ansforming their determining
causes. The fir:st mode of interpretation, foresight, .and influence is that of mor:a.l psychology; the 1second is that of applied
psychology.
If we deny the existence of free choice, we find ourselves
obliged to transfer the functions of moral psychology to applied psychology, and man is surrendered to a technique whose
primary task is to :aichieve the suppression of freedom by any
means whether crude or subtle. In fact, oo fong 1as freedom refuses to he suppressed, the techn:icaJlknowledge of human action wiU suffer numerous setbacks in its imperiw1isti:cendeavoil's.
Countless minds are obsessed by the wmbition of a technical
knowledge extended to all the spheres of human action and
1a.bsorbing the kno wledge of moral man for its own benefit.
This constitutes an exceptionailly serious threat. It is 1a threat
,all the more iormida,ble since it is often hard to draw a line of
demarcation between the realm of determined causality and
that of free causality, between the possibilities of technical
knowledge and those of moral knowledge. We will try :to show
by seV'eral clewr examples, how it is possible to draw distinctions .between these two realms in typical caises. A distinction
based on the certitude of typical cases may still guide thought
in the obscurity of confusing situations.
I. A witness states before ·a court that ihe has seen a woman
wearing ·a red dress in an unlighted alley at 6 o'clock at night.
It is sufficient to apply 1a, simple law of pos itive psychology to
know that the testimony is substantiaHy false; the human eye
cannot distinguish red from hfack in the dark. But the judge
needs to know something else. It is necessary that he know
whether the witness is an honest person fooled .by his imagina1

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YVES R. SIMON

tion or if he is trying to fool the courl. To verify the sincerity
of 1a witness is a problem in moml psychology.
2. A public transportation company is involved in hiring
drivers to serve ia, partioolarly dangerous route. The first thing
to do in examining the candidates is fo test the state of their
sensory and sensori-motor functions, which al'e determined
functions. Several rules of applied psychology will allow one
to recognize the candidates who should he considered unfit
rega11dlessoif their good 1wiU: the color-hlind, the myopic, subjects ,whose readion time varies greatly or who show themselves incapable of sustained attention will he eliminated without 1any more ado. As to the subjects considered fit, one will
not entrust them with the driving of a bus without ibeing assured that they possess certain dispositions such as temperance, discipline, habits of regularity, and a sense of respon1sibility. This second part of the investigation is a matter of
moral psyohology.
3. In the preceding examples, the respective roles of applied
psychology ·and moraJ psychology are so slmrply distinct that
they can he conveniently separated. It is not necessary that
the technician assigned to measure reaction time he a psychologist in the ordina:ry ·sense of the word, an expert in the
human heart. It is enough that he knows horw to opemte an
1appar:atus·and make :a calculation. On the contrary, sometimes
the p:mblems of applied psychology and those of moral psychology are so mi:imd together that their borders are practically indiscernible: it is ,what occurs in the exercise of psychotherapy in ·all its forms, in pedagogical activities, in research on
the most favorable conditions for industrial work output.
A psy,chologist in the factory will discover, for example, that
1
,a certain change in the lighting arnangement is accompanied
by an increase in output. The interpretation of this fact may
he the province either of applied psyiohology or of moral psych01logyor of bo,tJhdisciplines. lt is possible that the new
system operates hy way of determined causality, by making
perception easier and lessening fatigue; it is equally possible
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KNOWLEDGE

OF THE SOUL

287

that it operates by way of morwl causafay, rhy indicating to
the worker that he is the object of attentive consideration and
thus stimulating his self-esteem and igood will. No doubt it is
very interesting to recognize the role which is due to each
causal system in the production of an observed result. But
what is ,quite certain is that if one is preoccupied with actual
performance, it cannot 1he a question of treating separately the
determined factors, attributable to applied psychology, and the
influences which apply to free will.
The progress achieved by applied .psychology in recent generations has oonfeTred a new attraction to the most daring of
scientistic ambitions: thanks to the positive science of the
human soul-or if one 1prefers, of human behavior-the utopia
of mankind exercising a control over itself analogous to that
which 1it exeroises w1t'h an ever-increasing success over irrational nature. This utopia, requires the suppression of free
choice; tha;t does not mean that it is completely unrealizable.
To the extent to which it is possible to suppress man's inner
freedom,. applied psychology pvomises potentates a power that
no industrial science would have given them; souls themselves
are placed at their mercy.
In fact tha,t is what the tragic experiences of our time hav;e
taught us: psychological techniques, which can only be exercised on determined causes, have the power to create the subject on which they want to practice. In fact the tyrannies of
the past only had physical means as instruments of constraint;
today's tyrannies ha,ve psychic; constraint at their disposal.
The concept of constraint is usually associated with the idea
of physical fol'ce, and so the expression psychic constraint
may seem to be a contradiction. Yet hypnotic and post-hypnotic suggestion provide well known instances of psychic influences which are not at an processes of persuasion but, indeed, processes of constraint. 'V'lhat should we say about propaganda.? A moderate kind of propaganda is a persuasive p11ocess; it is a moral influence tending to generate certain dispositions in the person's free will. An intensive kind of pl'Op1

YVES R. SIMON

aganda, especially if it not checked by any counter-propa;ganda, is a process of psychic oonstraint, comparahle to hypnotism but capable of gaining the submission of countless wills
in widely different fields of activity. Totalitarian states have
used armies of psychologists to achieve this breakdown of
inner defenses without ,which their social 1and military endeavorn would have been impossible.
By considering what has been accomplished by totalitarian
,states, we can form .a rather exad idea of what mankind claiming to assure cont:ml over its destiny by means of 'a technology
of human phenomena would he like. In order to insure the
triumph of this techrw:fogy extended to man, one would have
to have an absolute and irresistible power, capable of supp'l'essing any dissenting opinion. In the silence of an unbounded
despotism, a gigantic scientific mechanism of psychic constraint would oomplete the annihilation of inner freedoms and
would endeavnr to remake human desires a;ccording to a model
dictated to psychologists hy their employers. Let us be aware
that this utopia has already received important initiatives towards its realization.
We beg the reader not to see in these reflections the sign
any ill feeling whatever in regard to ·applied psychology. We
are not among those moralists who believe that nervous disorders are healed with edifying discourses. We are in no way
inclined to think that preaching virtue makes the bask of procuring the great benefits of mental health and a successful
adaptation to the natural and technical environment for men
superfluous. On the contrary, we believe that the healthiness
of psychic functions ;should he 'Clounted among the number of
conditions whioh most effectively promote the dev:elopment of
the virtues, 1and that whoev;er is interested in real morality
must wish that the possibilities of applied psychology in all
its fo['ms he thoroughly exploited. 4 It ris just a matter of re1

of Moral Virtue, ed. Vukan Kuic
4 See: Yves R. Simon, The Definition
(New York: Fordham University Press, 1989).

KNOWLEDGE

!289

OF THE SOUL

specting real differences whose distinction concerns the salvation of persons and societies in a direct way.
It is easy to lay .all the responsihility for the evil on wicked
praigmatists 1and mater:iw1ists who 1try, with some success, to
utiliz e the positive science of the soul and its applications for
the victory of their conception of human destiny. But these
sinister attempts gain 1a vaJuable advantage from the confusion
of ideaJS concerning the knowledge of the :soul. And so tJhere is
a need to return to principles !in ordffl' to introduce clarity in
the epistemological 1situation of the psyichologiical,sciences aind
go 1heyond doictrinal choos.
In ending, we would like to call attention to the role of
sc:lholasticprogmms in this indispensahle work of clarification.
Most students 1spontaneously believe that the pedagogical division of educational subject matter ieoincides with the real
division of the sciences. In :fa.ct, it would he natural and de:siraihlewere it so and if the order of scholastic programs helped
to spread :exact ideas on the 011der of our knowledge. In regard
to the science of the :soul-and perhaps certain other sciences.school p!rograms unfortunately feel the effects of contingent
factors which have marked the development of discoveries,
doctrines, and puhlications. No doubt it was inevitable. But
the time has come to :oonceptuaJize :a reo:riganization of the
teaching of the psychological sciences according to the data otf
epistemologicailreflection.
1. First of all, we should especially convince ourselves that
questions of ,words are important. Wo11ds are the signs of ideas
and ll"eact upon ideas. Inaidequate wo11ds, itf they are in current usage, have the privilege of mruking false ideas invulnerable. Let us avoid using the wo11d psychology [n the singular
and in a non-qua:lified way. Let us avoid the use of vague or
a'.11b[trarymodifiers ,accidentaillyporpufarized hy tihe 'Successof a
hook or a professor (generaJ psychology, dynamic psychology ... ) . To the ,greatest extent possible, and at least in regard to the principal divisions of education, let us require the
use of terms des1gnating precisely defined epistemological
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YVES R. SIMON

essences. Moral psychology, philosophical psychology, applied
psychology are expressions whose widespread use wou1d contribute a lot to making the situiation less confusing.
2. In rega;rd to the relations betw:een positive psychology
and philosophical psychology in the organization of instruction, two tendencies ,a;re constantly :appa11ent 1since positive
psychology has heoome awa11e of its possibilities: the tendency
to maintain the two disciplines united and the tendency to
separate them. In spite of the daims £or autonomy often
uttered by positive psychologists, the first tendency rather generally continues to prevail. In a Ta11ge number of universities
.and colleges, the teaching of positive psychology Cf.1emains more
or less closely connected with the teaching of philosophy. It is
quite unreasonable to let things go on at the mercy of prejudices and fashions. It is indispensable to take a stand in favor
of either of these t,wo tendencies.
The epistemological principles that we have set out favor
the tendency towa11d separation. But the issue is complicated
by a far-reaching historical accident; it is !a £a:et that positive
psychology as it is cuIT'ently taught has an annoying propensity to turn itself into an instrument of different philosophies,
acknowledged or not, generalily stupid and harmfuJ, hut very
attractiv;e because of the prestige conferred upon them by their
:association with positive science. As it is beyond the power
of 'anyune to bring these insidious philosophical influences to
an end, conscientious educators are inclined to think that it is
convenient to keep the teaching of positive psychology under
:the contml of philosophers, and that a good way to assure this
control is to treat institutes of positive psychology as append,ages to departments of phifosophy.
It is not certain that this is ra, good method. The uniting of
the teaching of positiv;e psychology with philosophy perpetuates the oonfusion which constitutes all the strength of philosophies hidden behind the appearances of positive knowledge.
:Bositive psychology and applied psychology wi11 be much less
tempted rbo pass themselves off as philosophies, ethical
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:KNOWLEDGE OF TllE SOUL

Q91

and forms of wisdom, as the organization of instruction will
more dearly reveal their true nature by making them take
their place among other pos·itive !and applied sciences.
3. Finally, we express the wish that moral psychology he
recognized hy the programs a:s a distinct discipline and that it
be taught in the departments of philosophy. The systematization of moral psychology hy itself would constitute a. great
scientific advance. This progress would be particufarly timely
in ian era in which the knowledge of moral man is so seriously
threatened hy the technocratic imperialism of different neopositivist gvoups. As an indication of this, 1let us Tefer to an
encouraging e}ljperience. During the academic year 1940-1941,
I had the occasion to pursue a series of inquiries on the problem of moral psychology with ·a group of graduate students at
Notre Dame. Hel)e is the list of questions that we had adopted.
1. Man and
Man at Work; 3. Property; 4. Play; 5.
Authority; 6. Love and Family Life; 7. Man in the Face of
Death.
As most of the questions were dewlt witih in ithe form of student p:resentations 1and discussions in which the rprofessorplayed
1a SU!bdued 11ole, I ma.y be ·a:Howed to say that these inquiries
>were pursued w:ith e:x!tra;ovdinrnryinterest. By observing the
ll'ea1ctionsof my young companions, I understood that our stud!i.es in moral rpsy;chologygave them the rare satrsfa:ction of instilling new life :into t!heir phr1osophicwlthinking hy nourishing
them with what was most v:i!taJ [n their human experience.

A RHETORIC OF MOTIVES: THOMAS ON
OBLIGATION AS RATIONAL PERSUASION
THOMAS

s. HIBBS

Thomas Aquinas College
Santa Paula, California

'TI

HE PROMINENCE of moral obligation in modern
hies is l'ooted in an early modern claim, which reached
uition in Kant, concerning the primacy of the right
ov;er the good.1 Although Kant was not the first to make such
a claim, his texts have had the most palpable influence on
modern moral discourse. 2 Many contemporary moral philosophers, however, have !attempted to discredit the Kantian
p11oject.3 In so doing, they often advance wlternative views

1 In his highly influential
work, John Rawls comments on the importance
of the g-0od and the right in contemporary moral philosophy, "The two main
concepts of ethics are those of the right and the good. . . . The structure Df
an ethical theory is . . . largely determined by how it defines and connects
these two basic notions," A Theory of Justice (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1971), p. 24.
of Kant, both in the nascent rationalism
2 There are numerous precursors
of early modern science and -0£ late scholasticism and in the project of the
"rationalization" of human life characteristic of classical Protestant moral
thought. It was Nietzsche, of course, who saw Kant as a most heinous example of secularized Christianity.
On the "rationalization"
of the moral
life in Protestantism, see Max Weber, Die protestantisohe Ethik und der
Geist des Kapitalismus,
in Gesammelte Aufsatze zur Religionssoziologie,
Volume l (TU.bingen: Mohr, 1920), pp. 17-206. Given the convergence of
these discursive fields in early modern thought and society, one might be
inclined to see Kant as providing the theoretical foundations for the common moral consciousness.
a I am thinking -0f Philippa Foot, "Virtues and Vices," and "Morality as
a System of Hypothetical Imperatives," in Virtues and Vices and Other
Essays in Moral Philosophy (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1978),
pp. 1-18, 157-173; Bernard Williams, Ethics and the Limits of Philosophy
(Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1983) and " Ought and Moral
Obligation," in Moral Luck (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1981),

293

THOMAS S. HIBBS

characteristic of pre-modern moral philosophy, particularly of
rthe writings of Aristotle and Aquill!as. While consensus appears to have exnnerated Aristotle of the taint of Kantianism,
the status of Tihomas's moral philosophy is still uncertain in
the minds of many. 4
Thomas's1 moral iphilosophy is, I believe, pre-modern.
Throughout his writings he maintains the primaicy of the good
ovier rthe right, the exact inverse of the Kantian position. By
modern standards, Thomas's conception of obligation ,seems
impov;erished, almost naive. He devotes no independent
treatise, or .for that matter no single quaestio, to the question
of mom1l obligation. Francisco Suarez, one of Thomas's early
modern oommenta.tors, found the latter's view to be muddled
and unworkable. While Sua11ez criticizes Thomas's view, he
fails to note that he 1and Thomas do not sha11e the same universe of discourse. What Suarez is after-a " theory of obligation" --is not extant in Thomas's texts. In fact, Suarez contributes to the deontological turn in the history of ethics. He
1

pp. 114-123; Peter Geach, "Good and Evil," in Theories of Ethics, edited by
Philippa Foot (New York: Oxford University Press, 1980), pp. 64-73; Elizabeth Anscombe, "Modern Moral Philosophy" in her Oolleoted Philosophical
Papers. Volume 3, l!Jthios, Religion and Politios (Minneapolis: University
of Minnesota Press, 1981), pp. 26-42; Alasdair Macintyre, "Hume on 'Is'
and 'Ought'," in Against the Self-Images of the Age (Notre Dame: University of Notre Dame Press, 1978), pp. 109·129. While all are critical of Kant,
none of these writers advocates a straightforward return to Aristotle or
Thomas. Williams, in fact, is sceptical about the viability of Aristotelianism.
This litany, moreover, of Kantian critics is not intended to give the impression that there is a consensus on the failure of Kant's project. There are
formidable contemporary representatives of the Kantian school. See, for instance, William Frankena, Thinking About Morality (Ann Arbor: University
of Michigan Press, 1980); Thomas Nagel, The Possibility of Altruism (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1970); and Alan Donagan, The Theory of Morality
(Chicago: The University of Chicago Press, 1977).
4 J. B. Schneewind and Alan Donagan think that Aquinas anticipates Kant,
but these commentators import a modern, and therefore alien, conceptual
scheme into their selective reading of Thomas. See J. B. Schneewind "The
Divine Corporation and the History in Ethics," in Philosophy and History,
eel. Rorty, Schneewind, and Skinner (New York: Cambridge University Press,
1984), pp. 173-191, and Alan Donagan, The Theory of Morality, .pp. 57-66.

AQUINAS ON OBUGA'tION

295

is piv;otal in the transition from Aquinas to Kant. A consideration, then, of Suarez's theory will help elucidate t:he differences between Thomas ·and the modern discussion. 5 Having
oonside11edSuarez's position, I will argue that Thomas has an
alternative view of obligation, one which is rbest understood in
terms of moral persuasion.

A Logic of Obligation: Suarez on the Right and
the Good
Francisco Suarez is often asrsociated with the so-crulled late
medieval tradition or vo1untarism. While the dhnine will does
play a decisive role in his theory of obligation, such a hasty
classification does little to darify the complexities of Suarez's
thought. In Natural Law and Natural Rights, John Finnis
.attributes to Suarez a voluntarist view of obligation, a view
which construes obligation in temns of "bonds created by acts
of will!' 6 Finn:is dismisses voluntarism by saying that it leaves
unanswered the question as to why we should obey God's
will. While Finnis's laconic iargument may successfully undermine the proponents of a radical voluntarism, his critique does
not provide a sufficient refutation of every attempt to link
obligation with divine commands or wishes. An adherent of
the divine 0ommand theory of obligation could, for e:xiample,
put forth convincing arguments concerning the nature of the
div;ine attributes in an effort to circumvent the deleterious conseqruences of a crude and arbitrary voJuntacism.7 Clearly,
theologians like Scotus and Suarez, who are usrually associated
to one degree or ,another with voluntarism, would be .at one
with Thomas in their emphasis on the primacy of the divine
1

1

5 For a general comparison of Suarez and Thomas, see Walter Farrell, The
Natural Law According to St. Thomas and Suarez (Sussex: St. Damian's
Press, 1930) .
6John Finnis, Natural Law and Natural Rights (New York: Oxford University Press, 1980), pp. 45-49, pp. 337-343.
1 For a defense of the internal coherence of a divine command theory of
morality, see Phillip Quinn's Divime Oommands and Moral Requirements
(Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1978).

296

THOMAS S. HIBBS

goodness.8 Though I will not elaborate on this point here, it
certa:inly seems plausible that, if God is necessarily good, one
has sufficient reason to obey his commands. This is hut one
possible rejoinder to the criticism Finnis has leveled against
Suarez.
One might wonder whether this approach does not commit
Suarez to abandoning natural law altogether. That is, if div:ine commands are the source of moral obligation, is not all
other moral knoiwledge spurious? Suarez does not think that
the goodness or badness of an :action is derived entirely or directly from God's wil.l. His position is not so jejune. Our
knowledge of God's goodness presupposes a previous grasp of
natural, human goodness. Suarez argues that only the obligation to obey the precepts is derived £rom God's will. The precepts themselves can be known without any reference to revelation and this sahnagies the naturalness of the natural law .
.Aicco:ridingly,Suarez makes a distinction between the knowledge of the precepts and the source of obligation. He writes,
1

1

This divine will, as either prohibitive or injunctive, is not the entire source of the goodness or evil which exists in the observation
or transgression of the natural law, but necessarily presupposes in
the acts themselves a certain fittingness or turpitude and adjoins
to these the special obligation of divine law. 9

What, then, does the divine volition .add to the natural law?

It clearly .adds nothing to our knowledge of the content and
the reasonableness of the naturial laiw. Suarez says only that
it adds a " special obligation." What does he mean by this?
The divii.ne volition introduces the authoritative fo11ce of sanctions which will follow the transgression of the natural law.
s In fact, Scotus's voluntarism seems to have been motivated precisely by a
desire to accentuate the divine goodness. For a clear articulation of Scotus's
teaching on the divine will and the influence of this doctrine on other aspects
of his thought, see Bernardo Bonansea, " The Divine Will in the Teaching
of Duns Scotus," Antonianum 56 ( 1981) : ·PP· 296-335. Also of interest is
G. Budzick's De conoeptu legis ad mentem Joannes Duns Sooti (Burlington:
Pontificium Athenaeum Antonianum,. 1954).
o I translate from the De legibus ao Deo legislatwe, in Corpus Hispanorum
De Pace (Madrid: Instituto Francisco de Vitoria, 1971), 11, VI, 11.

AQUINAS ON OBLIGATION

But this, ironically, returns us to the initial criticism raised by
John Finnis. Let me ex:pLain. In response to Finnis's ohjection, the divine command theorist has recourse to an argument
for the goodness of God's commands. It turns out, however,
that the reasonableness of the natural la,w is not derived kom
the reasonableness of divine intentions. Hence, the argument
for God's goodness .adds nothing substantive to the position of
the divine command theorist regarding natural law.
Perhaps we should look elsewhere for the motivation behind
Suarez's association of natural law with divine oommands.
Suarez's ·difficulty with the Thomist position does not have to
do with the metaphysical relation of natural and divine law;
nor does it have to do ·with how men come to know the precepts; neither is it a dispute over the primacy of intellect or
will in God. Instead, the focus of contention concerns the nature of obligation itself. Suarez holds that the judgment of
reason regarding what is 1good or fitting does not in itself impose .an obligation:
Law is that sort of authority which can impose an obligation.
That judgement [of reason], however, imposes no obligation, but
indicates what [obligation] should be supposed. Therefore, the
judgement, that it might have the form of law, should indicate a
certain authority, from which such an obligation arises.10

When Suarez l'efers to the judgment of reason (imperium rati.onis), he has Thomas's view in mind. For Aquinas held that
this judgment was a ,sufficient basis for the imposition of ,an
obligation. 11 Suarez thinks it insufficient. His criticism is this:
To judge that an action is good may well invulve commending
the ,action, but commending is not commanding. Law, according to Suarez, is truly ohliga.tory only if there is an explicit con10 De legibus,

11, VI, 6.
a criticism of Suarez's action theory and a defense of the rational
necessity of moral and legal obligations, see Finnis, Natural Law and Natural
Rights, pp. 297-343. Aristotle's remark that we may call something necessary because without it a certain good could not be realized or some evil
avoided (Metaphysics 1015a22-26) helps clarify the sort of necessity operative here.
11 For

298

THOMAS S. HIBBS

nection between it and its origin in the will of a superior: " Law
in the rigorous sense . . . is said to he a general precept of a
superior." 12 Thus, Suarez attempts to articulate a logic of
commands or of obligations. The notion of a "command " involves the concepts of "superior" and "inferior."
This conceptual analysis of the notion of a " command " is
coupled with his supposition that an obligation has some sort
of efficacious force 1attached to it. Suarez regularly refers to
ihuman action as the effect of .a push or 1a. force. This is the
'root of his so-called vnhmtariism. Following Aquina.s, Suarez
asserts the reciprocity of intellect and will in human action,
yet he fails to apply this teaching in his discussion of obligation. Instead, he distinguishes two elements of law as corresponding to the distinction between intellect and will.
1

If one attends to the power of moving in the law, then law is said
to be that which in the ruler moves and obliges to action, and in
this sense law is an act of the will. If, however,. one focuses on
and considers in the law the power of directing to that which is
good and necessary, then law pertains to the intellect.13

There is perhaps an inchoate doctrine of the autonomy of the
wi11 latent in this passage, but, more importantly, Suarez's
doctrine is a precursor of the Kantian bifurcation of the right
and the good, the moral and the natmal.
Suarez does indeed think that the goodness of an action is
a precondition to ·its being obligatory, hut his distinction between the judgment concerning the good and the fact of command foreshadows Kant's distinction between hypothetical
and categorical imperatives. 14 Suacrez's view seems to be a
22 De legibus,

11, Vl, 7.

1, V, 21.
14 As Alasdair Macintyre
puts it, " The philosopher who has obscured the
issue here is Kant, whose classification of imperatives into categorical and
hypothetical removes at one blow any link between what is good and right
and what we need and desire," "Hume on 'Is' and 'Ought'," p. 120. Suarez
does not go so far as Kant; he thinks that the two categories converge but
that there is a modal diffm-ence between them. For a response to the accusation that Thomas commits the naturalistic fallacy, see Peter Simpson, "St.
Thomas and the Naturalistic Fallacy," Thomist 51 (1987) : 51-69.
13 De legibus,

AQUINAS

ON OBLIGATION

299

hybrid of the Aristotelian and the Kantian. In tihe 'end, Suarez
must intmduce the divine will as .a sort of deus ex ma,china to
insure that the ca.tegories of the good and the right oveTlap.
But, then, the distinction betw·een natural and divine law is
concludes, " natural law is
tenuous indeed. As Suarez
true and proper divine laJw, whose legislator God." 15
The fortuitous convergence of the right and the good enfails no intrinsic link between the two. It is precisely the absence of such .a link that makes Kant possible. When one considers what one must do, 1and not merely what it would be
good to do, one rad¥erts to the bare fact of command or to the
fear of 11eprisal.16 But the fact of oommand giv;es one no reason for action, while sanetfons su:pply only the crudest reason. And this 11eturns us to our initial dilemma.

As Rational Persuasion: The Thomistic
Alternative
The Suiarezian disjunction of the right and the good is not
operative in Thomas's writings. On the eontrary, the intrinsic
link between the good and the obligatory permeates his discussion of law. In 011der to appreciate the difference between
Aquinas a;nd Suarez, it is necessary to consider the metaphysical and anthropological foundations of Thomas's position.
Thoma.s's famous remark that the" natural law is a participation of the eternal la.w" has an Augustinian origin. 17 This
is clear from Thomas' frequent allusion to the De libero arbitrio voluntatis. 18 In this text, Augustine argues that the
15 De legibus,

11, Vl, 13.
are the two modern alternatives; the former can be had in Kant
and the latter in the tradition of legal positivism.
17 Summa theologiae, I-II, q.19, a.2.
Hereafter I will refer to the Siimma
theologiae as ST.
1s See, for example, ST, I-II, q.91, articles 1, 3, and 6, and q.92, articles 1,
2, 3, and 6. This is not to say that Augustine is the sole or even the principal authority for the entirety of Thomas's teaching on law. Indeed, the
question of sources is complicted by the presence of Isidore, Ulpian, and a
16 These

800

THOMAS S. HIBBS

eternal law is the rational pattern in the divine mind of all
created things. The eternal law is the source of the natural
law; as such, it is the ultimate ontological ground for the intelligibility of the natural law. The eternal law, according to
'I'homas, is the locus of divine p11ovidence and this rationail
governance of the universe has the character of law: "Gmnted
that the ·world is ruled by divine providence, ... it is evident
that the entire oommunity of the universe is governed by divine reason. Thus, the pattern itself of things, which exists in
the divine mind as in the source of the univeTse, has the nature of lruw."19
Thomas describes God's legislative
in this way:
" The pattern of divine wisdom, as moving all things to their
appropriate ends, has the nature of law." 20 But divine causality does not emse or supplant secondary causality. God movesC:I'leaturesby creating them with :natural inclinations-to which
correspond natural ends. This1 is ho.w Thomas understands the
origin of the naturail law and its ontological dependency on the
eternal faw: " All things participate somewhat in the eternal
laiw, insofar a:s from its impression they receive inclinations to
appropriate acts or ends." 21 Thomas moves freely and with
confidence from .a ViO.carbulary of faws to one of natures and
inclinations. Indeed, he employs the latter to de.fine the former.
Laiw, then, is not constmed in its initial or normative sense
pmpositional or deontological. Thomas eschews rany Kantian
bifurcation of the natura;l and the rational. The natural law is
see Odon Lattin,

Le droit

naturel chez Saint Thomas d'Aquin et ses prerUcesseurs (Bruges:

Beyaert,

host of medieval

canonists.

On the sources,

1931).
!19 ST, I-II, q.91, a.l.
I translate from the Summa theologiae (Ottawa:
Garden City Press, 1941).
20 ST, I-II, q.93, a.I. The serious metaphysical
claim involved in the notion of God's legislative providence marks a departure from .Aristotle. What
enables Thomas to avoid a direct contravention of .Aristotle is the commonplace distinction between the ontological order and the epistemological order:
the metaphysical primacy of divine commands does not entail their epistemological primacy.
211 ST, I-II, q.91, a.2.

AQUINAS

ON OBLIGATION

301

an internal disposition toward what is good for (and perfective
of) the agent .
.According to Thomas, the metaphysical foundations of
moral obligation are not connected with divine commands in a
Suarezian sense, that is, with an explicit revelation of moral
precepts. Rather, God "commands " by inscribing tendencies
within the na.tures ·of created beings. Creation itself involves
22
the promulgation of the natuml
The basis of divine
commands is
creative act whereby God gives principles of
intrinsic actions to natures: " God impresses the principles of
proper acts upon the whole of nature, and in this way God is
said to command or to instruct (praecipere) the entire order
of nature." 23 Law, as :a, directive principle of human acts, is
orientation of human nature.
wov;en into the
Contrary to Suarez, who envisions God as moving creatures
by means of explicit commands, Thomas sees God as moving
cJ:9eatures through
avenue of creation,
inscribing within
them natuml tendencies and desil,es toward certain ends. Obligation perta:ins primarily to what is mtional and natural, and
not to the oommands of .a superior. Or rather, it is connected
with the commands of a superior, hut the construal of the
mode of commanding is radicaHy different from what it is 1in
the Suarezian account.
vVhile Suarez does distinguish between God as first cause
'and God as the source of revelation, he associates moral obligation with only the second avenue of divine communication.24 Thomas, on the contrary, grounds the obligatory force
of God's explicit revelations in
natural and :rationa1l impulses of his original cl'eation. RaHonal nature is, accordingly, the proximate sou11ce of obligation, while the pattern of
God's creation, which Thomas identifies with the eternal la,w,
22 ST,

I-II, q.93, a.5, ad l and q.90, a.4, ad l.
I-II, q.93, a.5.
24 "Aliud vero est hanc legem naturalem
esse a Deo effective tanquam a
prima causa; aliud esse a Deo ut a legislatore praecipiente et obligante,"
De legibus, 11, VI, 2.
23 ST,

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THOMAS S. HIBBS

is the ultimate source or g:mund of moral obligation. Thus, the
primary sense in which God is said to comma.nd or to instruct
(praecipere) creatures to fo11ow certain patterns. of behavior is
through the act of creation. The duality of the verb praecipio
is crucia;l
its me1aning .both "command" and
"teach." Praceptum, furthermore, should be translated not
just as " command " 'but also as "maxim " or " lesson." The
superior is thus seen as simultaneously ordering and instructing.25 God's commands
the nature of the good and ti.he
means to the attiainment of it. Thus, Thomas's conception of
moral injunctions is
teleological and has little in
common with modern deontological theories of obligation.
That Thomas has an ailternative understanding in mind,
one which is better understood as rational persuasion, is evident at the very outset of the treatise on law, where he defines
law etymoJogicaHy. The definition mns thus:
1

Law is a certain rule and measure of human acts on account of
which someone is led (inducitur) to action or is held back from
action. Law is so named from ligare because it obliges to action.
The rule and measure, moreover, of human acts is reason, which
is the first principle: of human acts. 26

Thomas highlights the intelligibility of la1w, which he associates
with the rational apprehension of g1oods or ends. It is not
merely that laws do in fact correspond to what is good and
reasonable, hut that this correspondence, or rather identity, fa precisely what makes faw normati¥e and obligatory.
Thomas stresses not only rthe rational ohamcter of law but
also the essential role of exhortation or persuasion: law is an
inducement (inducere) to action.
Thomas'.s theory of oib1igation involves the naturail inclinations and the judgment of reason. Both are operativ;e in his
1

25 One might object that this construal of praeoipio and praeoeptum is not
peculiar to Aquinas. After, all Suraez employs the same vocabulary. But, as is
clear from the contexts where these terms figure prominently, the element of
instruction or persuasion is notably absent from Suarez's writings.
26 ST, I-II, q.90, a.l.

AQUINAS ON OBLIGATION

803

discussion of the command (imperiwm) of priacticail reason.
Given the close correlation of intellect and will in Thomas's
philosophy, we should eJq>ect the command of practical reason to '.l)eflect :this reciprocity. Thomas says, "to command is
an :act of the reason, p11eS1Upposingan aiot of ,the will, by whose
power reason moves through the command to the exercise of
the act." 21 In 'an illuminating essay on Thomas's ruction theory,
Alan Donagan has this to say ahorut intellect and rwi11 in practical reasoning: " It is natural to identify the act of command
with the judgment that terminates deliberation; and to identify the mediating act of will, as a result of which the commanded act happened, with the 1act of choioe." 28 Thomas is
uninterested ·in .the hrute fact o.f command. He focuses instead
on t!he fact that to command is always to command " something " and that this " something" is made known by an intimation or declamtion of reason. 29 One basis .for his claim is
grammatical: in expressing obligations, serrtences ·in the imperative form are pa.rasitic upon those in the indicative form. 30
It is at this point that detractors usually accuse Thomas of
a nruiv;e intellectualism, of overlooking the often egregious gap
between deliberation and iruction. But he does not divorce reason from volition; he is acutely :aware :that the course of deliberation can ·be derruiled in many ways. That passions and
habits influence the entirety of the morial life is an important
impliootion of Thomas's ,account of moral knowledge. W,ere it
not for man's natural inclination toward what is good, moral
judgment itself woruld lose its hold on human action. "The
.21 ST, I-II,

q.7, a.I.
Donagan, " Thomas .Aquinas on Human Action," in Cambridge
History of Later Medievai Phiiosophy, ed. Kretzmann, Kenny and Pinborg
(New York: Cambridge University Press, 1982), pp. 642-654.
20 ST, I-II, q.17, a.I. John Finnis offers this explication:
"This representation, the imperium, is to be attributed to one's reason rather than one's
will, because it is representational (of a series of relationships between particular ends and particular means) and because it in turn enables intelligible
(because intelligent) order to be brought into physical and psychosomatic
experience," Naturai Law and Natu.rai Rights, p. 339.
so ST, I-II, q.17, a.I.
28 Alan

304

THOMAS S. HIBBS

1g:ood causes in the appetitive power a certain inclination or
aptitude or connaturality toward the
" 31 This passage
illustrates the anthropological basis of the binding force and
motivational pull of the morally good. 32 This is
a corollary
of Thomas's metaphysics of t'he natural law, where he argues
that God commands by implanting in man tendencies toward
natural ends or goods.
,This brief summary of the anthropological underpinnings of
obligation enables one to put the contrast ,between Thomas and
Suarez in yet another way. Suarez explicates the moving force
of moml obligation in terms of efficient
while
Thomas places it under the
of
Thomistiic
runs
a) man
at least an inchoate
desire for the end, b) the laws provide further instruction
concerning the end, and c) submissfon to them facilitates the
'achievement of the end.
This attempt to ilink obligation, inclination, and practical
reason will not result in anything like a categorical imperativce.33 Perhaps it would be helpful to
a distinction between the fanguage of "ought" and
of categorica1l imperaHves. Stanley Hauerwas suggests, "ought, in contrast to
t:he agent has
characte1·istics
eommands, assumes
that will secure his obedience." 34 Thomas's vcocabulary cuts
across and is at variance
the Kantian categories. He associates the rlogic of
with a rhetoric of actions or
pursuits necessary for, appropriate to, and perfective of human
s1 ST, I-II, q.23, a.4. Elsewhere Thomas argues that good is the sole cause
of love: ST, I-II, q.27, a.I.
s2 Joseph Owens has explored the relation in Aristotle's
ethics of the
terms "kalon" and "dei," of the beatiful or the seemly and the morally obligatory. See "The Grounds of Ethical Universality in .Aristotle," in Man
and World, 2 ( 1969) : 17 4-193, and "The KALON in the Aristotelian Ethics,"
in Studies in AristoUe, ed. Dominic J. O'Meara (vVashington, D.0.: Catholic
University Press, 1981), pp. 261-277.
as See Phillipa Foot, " Morality as a System of Hypothetical Imperatives."
34 Stanley Hauerwas,
Truthfiilne88 and Traged.y (Notre Dame: University
of Notre Dame Press, Hl77), p. 78.

AQUINAS

ON OBLIGATION

305

nature. 35 This is hut another way of saying that Thomas's
oonception of obligation is teleo1ogioal, not deonto1ogical.
" Oughts " are intelligible only contextually, in light of concrete pl'ojects, desires, and wishes. Univel'sal moral precepts
enter into ethical discourse as necessary for the sustenance of
'oommunal Iiving .and as securing or underscoring the fundamental needs of human nature if it is to atfain its end. 36 Outside of such contexts, "oughts " .and commands are unintelligible and ineffectuaL 37
While a deontological theory of moral obligation could perhaps judge violat}ons of :the mora.l law in more severe tones
of Dame Duty) , such an
(by invoking the august
approach overlooks the resources of oommon
language
to 1app:i;aise actions. Why is another sense of obligation nee35 In his study of the sources of Thomistic
natural law, Odon Lottin concludes that the distinctiveness of Thomas's view is the emphasis on the intrinsic character of the law. He writes, "La loi natuxelle n'est autre que
la nature humaine s'exprimant rationellement.
C'est le dynamisme aristotelicien applique a l'ordre moral: l'homme se perfectionne en realistant dans
sa conduite sa condition d'homme, mais au prealable en l'exprimant par les
dictees de sa raison naturelle," Le droit naturel chez Saint Thoma8 d'Aguin
et 8e8 predeces8eurs, p. 103. This is the key to one of the differences between
Thomas and Suarez. Whereas Suarez nearly collapses the distinction between natural and divine law, Thomas refuses to do so.
36 These precepts
are at once necessary and empirical. Now that philosophers no longer adhere so rigidly to the incommensurahility of the empirical
and the necessary, Thomas's view may appear more plausible. For a sample
of contemporary attempts to revive something like Aristotelian essentialism,
see the essays in Naming, Necessity and Natural I\jnds, edited by Stephen
P. Schwartz (Ithaca.: Cornell University Press, 1977). These essays are useful, especially since the persistence of Kantian metaphysical and epistemological categories is as much an obstacle to understanding Thomas's
ethics as are the properly ethical doctrines of Kant.
21 Louis Raeymaker's
"Le sens et le fondement de l'obligation morale,"
in Thomistica jlforum 1 ( Officium libri Catholici: Rome, 1960), pp. 8-23,
contains an interpretation of 'Thomistic obligation along Kantian lines, although the author does stress the derivation of obligations from nature. If
this latter emphasis is more Thomistic than Kantian, it is nevertheless in
need of serious epistemological qualifications. J. Tonneau, on the other hand,
suggests alternative interpretations and villifies myriad misinterpretations.
Unfortunately, his work rarely transcends the hortatory. See, for instance,
" The Teaching of the Thomist Tract on Law," Thomist 34 ( 1970) : 13-83.

306

THOMAS S. HIBBS

essary beyond the :recognition that one must ruct and that
natural faw precepts are reasonable guides to action? Is obligation necessarily extrinsic to the recognition of what is good
or best in a particular set of circumstances? Such a dichotomy
is alien to our common manner of moral deliiberation.38 What
is the dif:forence between saying that an action is in aII cases
unreasonable or unjust and saying that the action ought not
to ,be performed? Would it make any sense, moreover, to say
that a
ioourse of action is the right one, but that another course of 1action is a better or the beat one? 89 Moral
philosophers who create a chasm between the good and the
right are bereft of the resources nieeded to make commands
intelligible to moral agents. 40 They are unable to pmvide a
link between commands and the desires and interests of the
agent. Thomas would concur with Bernard Williams's statement that "there are no external reasons for action." 41
H, in contrast to the quasi-scientific characterizations of
obligation in modernity, Thomas's remarks should appear
primitive, this is because his view presupposes a moml anthropology that had fallen into desuetude by the time of
Suarez. 42 While a detai>led investigation of Aquinas's theory of
as As Peter Geach puts it, "Now what a man cannot fail to be choosing
is his manner of acting; so to call a manner of acting good or bad cannot
but serve to guide action . . . any man has to choose how to act, so calling
an action good or bad does not depend for its effect as a suasion on any
peculiarities of desire." See " Good and Evil," p. 71.
39 It might make sense to say that an action is a good one, but that it is
not the right one, even if the converse is false.
40 In " Modern Moral Philosophy,"
Elizabeth Anscombe contends that notions of law and obligation are otiose in a society that has abandoned the
framework within which morality as law makes sense, a framework which
had as its central tenet a belief in a divine lawgiver. But the difficulties
with moral theories that focus principally on commands are deeper than
Anscombe notes. Thomas's treatment of obligation as rational persuasion is a
healthy corrective to what ails deontological ethics.
41 Bernard
Williams, "Ought and Moral Obligation," in Moral Luok
(Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1981), p. 123.
,42 In the late middle ages, moral language comes gradually to be uprooted
from the discourse of natural appetites and natural finality. Instead, moral

AQUINAS

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human nature is beyond the scope of this 1essay, a brief consideration of the inter:dependency of virtue and obligation may
heip illustrate what is at stake in Thomas':s alternative understanding of moral obligation.
The consonance of obligation and virtue can be seen in
Thomas's account of the way good is a moving force, something which obliges to action. This lies behind the fundamental precept of the natrural 1a,w: good is to he done and
pursued, while evil is to be avoided. But even the good does
not determine human action to one course rather than another; human nature is indeterminata ad multa. Thus, Thomas
introduces the virtues as habits that shape the genera1l structme of one's ructions and give determinacy to the innate impulse toward the good. The virtues thems,elves al'e action1guiding pl'inciples; they determine the orientation of the self.
The discussfon, moreover, of the " contextual" intelligibility
of moiral obligations has, the following consequence: The l'ational necessity of the precepts of the natural law is put in
terms of the practices and virtues befitting a mature human
being. The good man, as Aristotle says, is the measure of all
things.
Thomas's depiction of prudence gives content to the seemingly elusive image of the good man. Prudence is not only an
ability to discern and apply the germane principle in concrete
and variaible circumstances. It also enables one to act as one
ought: " Not only the consideration of reason pertains to
prudence, but also the application to .an action, which is the
goal of pmctieal reasono" 43 The prudential 1link between perterminology is seen as representative of the deep and timeless structure of
human grammar and is thus subject to a logical or conceptualist analysis.
On the history of this transformation, see John Trentman "Bad Names: A
Linguistic Argument in Late Medieval Natural Law Theories," Nous 12
(1978): 29-39. On the alterations in the nature of discourse during the
sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, see the first three chapters of Michel
Foucault's Les mots et les choses; une archeologie des sciences humaines
(Paris: Gallimard, 1966).
43 ST, II-II, q.47, a.3.

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THOMAS S. HIBBS

ception and action presupposes rectified appetite, which insures that practical reason will issue not in an option or even
in a decision but in an action. Thomas says rthat the chief
act of prudence (principalis actus prudentiae) is to issue commands 1and to· instruct (praecipere) .44 The dual meaning of
the term praeeipw surfaces once again. In one sense, prudence
is prescriptive because its. judgments are authoritative. But
this authority is not due to some sort of calculative excellence.
Rather, its authority is t 1ied to its pedagogical power. Prudence is the mark of the morally educated human being; its concrete embodiment in human charructer presents an instructive
example of practical wisdom.
The intertwining of the language of obligation with that
of the virtues reveals the distance that separates Thomas from
his modern inte111locrntors.45 Whereas for Suarez a voluntarist
theory of obligation explains the transition from perception to
action, Thomas holds thart virtue secures the link between the
two. The moral precepts, according to Thomas, are impotent
aipart from some notion of human perfection and o[ the virtues constitutive of tJhe human good. 46 This line of rea;soning
is apt to have a vertiginous effect on those who fear that relativism is its logical term. This is not Thomas's intent. Nor is
!his alternative position simply a middle ground between ethical rational:i:sm and mora1 anarchy. Instead, he wants to turn
our iattention f:mm ·the enervating lf:opic of obligiat:iron to the
more interesting .and more l'ewarding question of the good life
forman.47
44 ST, II-II,

q.47, a.8.
Hauerwas ohserves that "the language of co=ands tends to
be inherently occasionalistic with a correlative understanding of the self as
passive and atomistic." Thus, a moral theory that gives preeminence to
the language of commands is apt to diminish the role of character and
virtue. See Oharaater and the Christian Life (San Antonio: Trinity University Press, 1975), p. 43.
46 On the relation between law and virtue in Aquinas, see Thomas Hibbs,
" Principles and Prudence : The Aristotelianism of Thomas' Account of Moral
Knowledge," forthcoming in New Sahola8tiaism.
,47 On this issue, Thomas agrees not only with Aristotle but with Plato as
45 Stanley

AQUINAS ON OBLIGATION

809

What Thomas offers us, then, is a rhetoric of the good, not
morally obligatory. He realizes that obligations
must persuade moral agents and that moral strategies are efficacious only when :they operate within pre-established practices. If we wish. to know how we ought to live, we should begin by asking, not what obligations we have, hut what the
good is for human beings. Only from this vantage point can
one appreciate the force of the Thomistic altemative. 48

ia, logic of the

well . .As Phillipa Foot puts it, "In the Repubiia it is assumed that if justice
is not a good to the just man, moralists who recommend it as a virtue are
perpetrating a fraud," "Moral Beliefs," in Theories of Ethics, pp. 83-100.
48 I am grateful to Mark Jordan for his comments on a previous version
of this essay.

SACRAMENTAL THEOLOGY:
A METHODOLOGICAL PROPOSAL
KEVIN

w. IRWIN

The Catholic University of America
Washington, D.O.

HE PAST DEOADE has witnessed the publication of
number of English language works on sacraments
ealing with general theories of sacramental theology as
well as specialized studies of individual sacraments. In the
postoonciliar church there is not yet a uniform or universally
agreed upon method for the study of sacraments. Still most
vecerrt 'Wo11ks indicate significant shifts in method from the
post-Tr:identine !legacy o:f treating sacraments priimarily in dogmatic tracts and canon law studies. 1 At the s1ame time there
has been an increased interest by liturgists and theologians
alike in liturgical theology. This includes not only the theologicrul dimensions of what occurs in the liturgy hut 1also (more
recently) how the liturgy can serve as a source for theology
in geneml as well 1as for the theology of the sacraments. 2
Despite this recent writing and evolving thought on the relaTheology: A Review Discus·
1 See, Kevin W. Irwin, "Recent Sacramental
sion," The Thomist 47 (1983) : 592-608; "Recent Sacramental Theology
[Review Discussion II]" The Thomist 52 ( 1988) : 124-147; "Recent Sacramental Theology III," The Thomist 53 ( 1989) : 281-313.
2 Among the English language works that have sparked interest in liturgical theology and have shaped part of the contemporary deb-ate about what
it includes are those of Aidan Kavanagh, On Liturgical Theology (New
York: Pueblo, 1984) and Geoffrey Wainwright, Doxology: The Praise of
God in Worship, Doctrine and Life (New York: Oxford University Press,
1980). For an assessment of these works and other recent writing on liturgical theology see Teresa Berger, "'Doxology,' 'Jubilate,' 'Liturgical Theology': Zurn Verhaltnis von Liturgie und Theologie: Publikationen aus
dem englischsprachen Raum,'' Arohiv fur Liturgiewissensohaft
28 ( 1986) :
247-255.

311

KEVIN W. IRWIN

tionship of liturgy and sacramental theology, what is still lacking is some method for developing a contemporary theology
of the sacraments with the liturgy as its foundation. There are
many reasons for this lack: shifts in contemporary theological
method in general, the nature of the reformed liturgy which
invites flexibility and option, and :finally questions of wha;t
ought to be factol'ed into a systemat1c study of the sacramental theology and of sacramental life in the postconciliar
church.
It is the purpose of this article to propose 1a, method for
sacramental theology which uses liturgy as its essentia1l foundation and which delineates aspects of sacriamental theology
1that can be based on the liturgy. The article will be divided
into ctwo unequal parts, with the :first laying the foundation for
the second. The first deals with the general notion of a liturgical theology of the sacraments, with particular 1attention to
the postconciliar context for this discussion. 3 This foundation
leads to the seoond pa:rt which proposes aspects of sacramental
theology that are first drnwn from the liturgy and then can he
used to understand 1both individual sacraments and sacraments
in general hy continual reference to the liturgy. In delineating
these aspects of a liturgically grounded sacramental theology,
the categories of classical sacramental theology will be respected, in the sense that, despite their deficiencies, systematic
treatises on 'Sacraments from the medieval and post-Tr,identine
s This is not to suggest that the seminal works of such authors as Cipriano
Vagaggini, Theological Dimensions of the Liturgy, trans. Leonard J. Doyle
and W. A. Jurgens from the fourth Italian edition (Collegeville: The Litur·
gical Press, 1976) and Alexander Schmemann, Introduction to Liturgical
Theology, trans. Ashleigh Moorhouse (London: The F'aith Press, 1966),
will be ignored. It is to suggest, however, that the recent work on liturgical
theology has had to consider the flexibility of postconciliar liturgy as opposed to the fixity of the preconciliar rites. On this as an important factor
in the method of doing liturgical theology see P. DeC!erck, "Lex orandi,
lex oredendi, sens original et avatars historiq'ues d'un adage equivoque,"
Questions Liturgiques 59 ( 1978) : 193-212, and Gerarcl Lukken, "La liturgic
comme lieu theologique irremplacable,"
Questions Liturgiques 56 ( 1975) :
104-109.

SACRAM:ENTAL THEOLOGY

313

periods have left a v:aluable legacy of sacramental theory and
prractice.4 The following six aspects of the liturgical experience
of sacraments should he factored into a contemporary sacramental theology: sacraments are Word events, symbolic r<ealities, experiences of life in the Trinity, ·experiences of ecclesia:l
solidarity, eschatological realities, and signs of conversion.
These aspects have been ordered in such :a way as to move
from 1what occurs in the liturgy itself (1word and symbol) to
comprehending how and for whom the liturgy effects an act
of God (Trinity and church) to appreciating the implications
of what srucramental engagement means (eschatology and conversion) . Word and symbol have been plruced first since they
derive immediately from the liturgy and articulate much of
what is mntained in the four other aspects.

I. Liturgical Theology and the Sacraments
The phrase legem credendi lex statua,t supplfoandi (the law
of prayer est1ablishes the law of helief) 1attributed to Prosper
of Aquitruine 5 or the more succinct lex orandi, lex credendi is
a theme many 'contemporary liturgists use to a11gue that the
liturgy should be the foundation for sacramental theology.
4 This is to suggest,
for example, that despite a kind of sacramental
minimalism that often resulted from speaking of sacraments in terms of
"matter and form," the Roman Catholic insistence on the retention of both
matter in the sense of symbol and form in the sense of prayer texts to accompany the use of symbols in sacraments demonstrated a respect for these
two constitutive elements of sacrament. Hence while one can legitimately
decry minimalism in sacramental practice and sacramental law, nevertheless
one ought not caricature a tradition which did sustain essential aspects of
sacramental theology.
5 On the original meaning of this term see: Karl Federer, Liturgie und
Glaube: "Legem oredendi lem statuat suppUoand.i," eine theologiegesohiohtUche Untersuohung. Paradosis IV. (Fribourg: Paulusverlag, 195(}), P. De
Olerck "Lex orandi," and La "priere universelle" dans les liturgiques latines anoiennes: Temoinages patristiques et temtes liturgiques. Liturgiewissenschaftliche Quellen und Forschungen, no. 62 (Miinster: Aschendorff,
1977) 88-89, as well as I. H. Dalmais, " La liturgie et le dep6t de la foi,"
in A. G. Martimort, ed., L J!Jglise en priere. I, Principes de la liturgie
(Paris: Desclee, 1984, ed. nouvelle), pp. 286-288.

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KEVIN W. IRWIN

This argument is based on the traditional role which the celebration of the sacraments played in developing an understanding of what occurred in sacraments. In the patristic era, liturgical rites (texts .and symbols) functioned <as the basis for
sacramental catechesis and for an understanding of what occurred in sacmments. 6 While ,liturgical terl.s became less central in medieval and scholastic treatises on sacraments, nevertheless when and how sacraments were celebrated did influence
such treatises. (Ror example, the practice of deathbed extreme
unction influenced medieval theologians to emphasize this
anorinting .as last rites over against the sacrament of the sick.) 7
Hence one can assert that while the celebration of tJhe liturgy
of sacraments has tr21ditionally ibeen one of the bases for understanding sacmments, the contemporary appeal is that
liturgy in all its beets should be restored 1as the central foundation ,for a systematic understanding of sacraments. This is
to suggest that both the liturgy of the sacraments (texts and
rites, plus praenotanda) as well as the actual praxis of sacramental celebration (including preparation and follo:w through)
need to be reestablished as bases for ·sacramental theology.
The evidence from classical teaching on srucraments suggests
that in the contemporary church the best .approach to sacramental theology is one that is derived .from the liturgy as the
church's " rule of prayer," which is also its "rule of belief."
What makes the postconciliar task particularly challenging
6 See, for example, the catecheses of St. Cyril of Jerusalem or St. Ambrose
on the sacraments of initiation. For an indication of the variety inherent
in such catecheses and the neo-platonism which influenced much of the reflection on fourth and fifth century initiation rites, see Hugh M. Riley,
Christian Initiatioii: A Comparative Study of the Interpretation of the
Baptismal Liturgy in the Mystagogioal Writings of Cyril of Jerusafom, John
Chrysostom, Theodore of M opsuestia and Ambrose of Milan (Washington:
The Catholic University of America Press, 1974) and Edward Yarnold, The
Awe Inspiring Rites of Initiation: Baptismal Homilies of the Fourth Century (Slough: St. Paul Publications, 1971).
7 See, Claude Ortemann, Le sacrement des malades: Histoire et signification (Lyon: Editions du chalet, 1971), especially "L'onction des malades
apres le XIe siecle," pp. 51-70.

SACRAM:ENTAL THEOLOGY

315

is the phenomenon of a viaried and fl.erible liturgy combined
with ongoing liturgical indigenization. Because of this, any
kind of litu11gicailfundamentalism suggesting that the present
litwgical texts and rites are inviolruble should be avoided.8
That there should be a reciprocity .between liturgy and theology is especially important at 1bhis juncture of liturgical reform .and renewal in order that developing liturgical forms and
texts are based on a sound yet contemporary theofogy.9 Thus,
·as various aspects of theology develop (especially Ohristology,
soteriology, pneumatology, ;and the theology of grace) the insights gained can readily he inoorpomted into the variable
parts of the litu11gy, eventually into the prayer texts of the
liturigy, and conoomitantly into sacmmental theology. This is
to suggest that while tJhe postoonciliar liturgical structures of
the sacraments 1are now in place, which structures are largely
based on traditional sources that .allo•w for participation and
comprehension, a litmgical theology of the sacraments must
also expand and dev;elop beyond these revised rites, even as
the postconciliar liturgy continues to evolve and change.
This approach to sacramental theology requires an analysis
of how liturgical texts :are interpreted. While the liturgy is not
limited to texts, nonetheless there is much that is enshrined
in the :prayer texts of the liturgy that relates to the church's
belief ::1Jbout sacraments. Blessing prayers 1and collects are
s This is at the heart of the debate between Kavanagh and Wainwright:
the former would argue for an extreme reverence to be paid to liturgical
rites, and the latter argues that historical precedent shows us where and
why liturgical rites and texts were changed, sometimes in light of prevailing
theology and sometimes to restore worship to "gospel purity." In addition
to the books of each author, for an indication of this debate see Aidan
Kavanagh, "Primary Theology and Liturgical Act," Worship 57 (July,
1983) : 321-324, and G. Wainwright's review of Kavanagh's On Liturgical
Theology in Worship 61 (March, 1987): 183-186. See, T. Berger, "' Doxology,' 'Jubilate,'" 249-250.
I> Dietrich Ritschl uses the phrase " strange reciprocity" to refer to the
combination of the language of theology and the language(s) of liturgy when
developing sacramental theology: See Memory and. Hope (New York: Macmillan, 1966) . See also Marianne Micks, The Future Present: The Phenomenon of Christian Worship (New York: Seabury, 1970), pp. 93-95.

316

KEVIN W. IRWIN

among the most important litur:gical sources £or sacramental
theology. When used to develop notions about sacramental
activity, the literary 1gen:re of hlessing prayers as thankful
acknowledgments of God's deeds done in the past, experienced
in the present, and still :to he fulfilled needs to be respected.
The intrinsic relationship between confession and anamnem in
these prayers discloses that a key moment in every sacramental action links verbal dmwlogy with the experience of
God ructing here and now. Thus the liturgy of sacraments is
understood as a composite of :texts, rites, 1and symbols experienced ·in ritual actions of ·ecclesial assemblies. This is to suggest that we are deailing with a. theological source that is by
nature oriented to enactment and which necessarily implies attention to praxis, since the chureh experiences specific acts of
worship, not the compendium of [',it.es in printed form.10 In
other words, the ructual perfo:r:mance of sacramental rites and
not merely their descriptions and printed prayer texts needs to
be seen as 1a, pivotal source for sacramental theology.
In reviewing liturgical texts, •the importance of the historical
method in liturgiology ·should be emphasized. This method
deals with the evolution of ·such texts and seeks to determine
the meaning of texts through that evolution to the present.
The use of the historicaJ method often leads to important insight 1about the original .and successive versions of a text. An
analysis of the evolution of •a given text can show how it has
.been revised in light of contemporary theology, prevalent
spirituality, or .a given cultural climate, and vice versa. A particularly important aspect of this method points out how the
1

10 Most postconciliar
works on liturgical theology emphasize this action
dimension to greater or lesser degrees. Among others see .Albert Houssiau,
"La redecouverte de la liturgie par la theologie sacramentaire," La Maison
Dieu 149 ( 1982) : 28-40, as well as Mary Collins, "Critical Questions for
Liturgical Theology," Worship 53 (July, 1979): 302-317, "Liturgical Methodology and the Cultural Evolution of Worship in the United States,"
Worship 49 (February, 1975): 85-102, and "The Public Language of Ministry," in Official Ministry in a New Age, ed. James H. Provost (Washington: Canon Law Sooiety of .America Permanent Studies No. 3, 1981), pp. 740.

THEOLOGY

317

liturgy and corn.tempo11arytheology expressed the same beliefs
or how liturgical texts and theofogy were (or are) at variance.
However, liturgical texts are not intended to serve primarily
as doctrinal formulations; they describe the present community's experience of the paschal mystery and are framed in
language that is mythical, metaphorical, aind poetic. Hence,
more is involved here :than •amassing and comparing texts.
What is also involved is the use of
tools for interpretation to determine what a text says and means. Here
liturgists could well use the same tools that systematic theologians currently employ to interpret religious texts, as well as
hermeneutical tools proper to liturgical study. 11 Key insights
from contempomry hermeneutics about the impossibility of
developing a neutral interpretation of texts, that the medium
of language can distort as well as clarify, and that the setting
in which one experiences a text influences to a large extent the
way that text is understood, need to .be borne in mind. The
work of Lonergan, Haberm-as, ·and Ricoeur, among others, can
help in this discovery. 12 Such an e:X!ercise remains faithful to
·the adage aibout the l.a:w of prayer .and belief, but it sets it in
a new context and gives it direction hoth for historical and contempomry study. Faithfulness to this method requires that
liturgical texts 1are understood 1as normative for what the
church believes about sa:craments. However, because of the
way they .are used and in light of the other ways the liturgy
oommunicates, prayer texts alone cannot be understood to be
determinative of what the church experiences through the
liturgy or of what she helieves .about the meaning of sacraments.
1

1

11 See, for example, M. Auge, " Principi di interpretazione
dei testi Iiturgici," Anamnesis 1. La. Liturgia: Momento neUa storia deUa salvezza
(Torino: Marietti, 1974), pp. 159-179.
1.2 Such tools are used throughout
David Power's Unsearchable Riches:
The Symbolic Nature of the Liturgy (New York: Pueblo, 1984). Whether or
not Ricoeur's studies are entirely helpful in this regard is debated; see, for
example, Stephen Happel, "Worship as a Grammar of Social Transformation," Proceedings of the Annual Convention [Catholic Thoological Society of
America] 42 (1987): 60-87.

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KEVIN W. IRWIN

Liturgical texts take flesh in the acl of liturgical celebr:ation.
He!tl!ce other aspects of :the liturgy need to be taken into consideration. In studying both the history of sacramental liturgy
and our present experience of it, this requires first inquiry
about whether communities .actually heard the texts prayed,
or actuailly understood them as they were ·spokcen, in o:rider then
to determine how influential the texts really were, both for the
1appropriation of the liturgy and for theological understanding
of what occurs in sacraments. Comparing liturgical texts with
the itexts of contempo:mry hymns m:l!d homilies also discloses
how influential such texts actually were on the total liturgical
act and on the interpretation of what occurred. What may he
stated clearly in a liturgical teXJt may not be sustained in
or preaching. The setting of the 1litmgy and ministries exercised reveal to ·What extent the communitarian as·sumptions of liturgy (as ·eXipressed in liturgical texts) were
.actually experienced. Investigation into what postures the
community assumed and what gestures they engaged in during the litmgy !helps to determine !how the community's activ;e participation was ex;pressed in 1gesture as well as in text.
For example such a ·study would help to determine whether
fundamental iattitudes of praise and thanksgiving clearly 1articulated in the text of the eucharistic prayer were carried
through by a standing posture or whether their impact was
ilimited because of a .kneeling posture indicative of petition
.and penance. Similarly a study of the way the eucharist was
distributed .oould disclose how well the meal symbolism of the
eucharist .was sustained. Also, a review of devotional material
used by people during the liturgy would help to determine
whether what w:as spoken at liturgy influenced their devotional
and popular piety .13
1a On the relationship between popular piety and the liturgy see Robert
Taft, "Response to the Berakah Award: Anamnesis," Worshiip 59 (July,
1985) : 305-325, esp. 314, where he states: "First, we need to integrate into
our work the methods of the relatively recent pieta popola;re or annales
schools of Christian history in Europe. . . . Historians of mentaliMs like

SACRAMENTAL

THEOLOGY

319

In the contemporary

eontext another issue that emerges
iooncerns the role of liturgical texts themselves, given the fact
that variation on and an1plification of printed texts is encouraged in the reformed liturgy. Rubrics often offer the use
of "these or similar words" as introductions to parts of the
liturgy. 14 Also there is the prevalent phenomenon that liturgical texts are not always spoken as printed. Such improvisation
can both alter and enhance a Hturgical text. Since the !revised
liturgy offers ample opportunity for comments during the
liturgy, fosters creativity in composing the general intercessions, and encourages regular preaching at sacramental celebrations, these forms of verbal expression need to be acknowledged and assessed for how they conespond to the images and
theology of the pcrayer texts of a given ritual.
In addition the present revision of the liturgy assumes a.
stage of restoration and of ongoing indigenization. 15 In the
present context one would expect helpful critiques of the present rites from both a
and a theological perspective.
This would help guard against antiquarianism, where the
church uses ancient yet inappropriate liturgical texts, and
against a tyranny of the liturgy, whereby it is only what is
found in liturgical texts and not wihat is discovered in eonDelaruelle speak of deux christianismes, the official one of the clergy, refined, esoteric, expressed in a language inaccessible to the masses, and that
of the people, naive, doctrinally ignorant, marginal in its emphases, and
rooted in practices and piety not always under official control." See, among
others, the seminal work of R. Pannet, Le catholicisme popula.ire (Paris:
:Editions du Centurion, 19'74) as ·well as those of Jacques Duquesne, "Un
debat actuel: 'La religion populaire,"' La Ma,ison Dieii 122 (1975): 7-19,
and Raymonde Courtas and Francois Isambert, " Ethnologues et Sociologues
aux prises avec la notion de' populaire,'" La .Maison Dieu 122 ( ID75): 20-42.
14 The text "these or similar words " is in the rubric at the introduction
to the liturgy of the eucharist and at the introductions to such major celebrations such as Passion (Palm) Sunday and the Easter Vigil.
15 See, Kevin W. Irwin,
"The Constitution on the Sacred Liturgy," in
Vatican II and I ts Documents·: An American Rea,ppraisal, ed. Timothy
O'Connell (Wilmington: Glazier, 1986) pp. 12-15. See also Anscar J. Chupungco, Cultural Adaptatfon of the Liturgy (New York/Ramsey: Paulist
Press, 1982), and Liturgies of the Future (New York/Mahwah: Paulist Press,
1989).

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KEVIN W. IRWIN

temporary theology that matters. 16 That litmgy and theology
should intersect and how they can he mutually ,enriching is an
appropriate understanding of the notion of lex orandi, lex
credendi.

II. Aspects of Sacramental Theology
The aspects of sacramental theology delineated here are
drawn .foom theological reflection on the liturgical rites of
sacraments. E!l!ch aspect is found in all of the sacrament:al
rituals; hence continual recourse to the r1tes themselves would
help to illuminate what is argued here. While not exhaustive,
these SL'{ components are intended to be taken together and
seen in relationship to each other when artioulating a theology
of individual sacraments or sacraments in general.
as ':Vord Events.

1. Sacraments

It was noted above that there is an intrinsic connection between confession and anmnnesis in the blessing prayers of the
litmgy and that a liturgical theology of sacraments needs to
ibe developed from a perspective that respects these two factors
as foundational. This is to suggest that sacraments are essentially 1acts of memory and that this is demonstrated in the
complementarity of the liturgy of the 'word and the liturgy of
a particular sacrament.
As early as
writings ,of St. Augustine, Latin theology
came to understand sacraments as "visible words." 17 This
derives from an understanding of t:he ministry of Jesus as involving words and deeds and seeing the deeds done as extensions of the word he preached and embodied. This intrinsic
connectedness of word and deed is evidenced in the liturgy of
1

1

1s See, for example, Mary Collins, " The Public Language of Ministry,"
regarding the texts in the Tevised rite of ordination.
11 St . .Augustine
states: "The Word comes to the element; and so there
is a sacrament, that is, a sort of visible word" (In Johannem 80, 3). For
an approach to sacraments that uses this as a basis and which is ecumenically
sensitive, see Robert W. Jenson, Visible Wordg: The Interpretation and
Practice of Christian Sacraments (Philadelphia: Fortress Press, 1978).

SACRAM:ENTAL THEOLOGY

sacraments, particularly tlwough the proclamation of the
scriptures and through the use of narrative in the texts of
hlessmg prayers.
From a liturgical perspective this notion of sacraments as
visible words is evidenced in the recent revived emphasis on
ithe liturgy of the word 1a:s constitutive of sacramental celebration.18 Theologically the understanding !here is that the
proclamation of the word in a liturgical event continues in and
through the celebration of a sacrament. Word and sacrament
entities. Rather, th:vough the liturgy they
are not two
•are brought together into one whole, word being specified by
sacrament and sacrament extending the pmclamation of the
word. Tlhe Introduction to the !I'ev.ised Lec.tionary for Mass
states:
The Church is nourished spiritually at the table of God's word
and at the table of the eucharist: from one it grows in wisdom and
from the other it grows in holiness. In the word of God the.
divine covenant is announced; in the eucharist the new and everlasting covenant is renewed. 19

One of the functions of the blessing prayers is to bridge these
two separ:able parts of sacramental liturgy and to dra.w on
images, metaphors, .and symbols derived from the scriptures.
From a theological point of view, the intrinsic connection
ihebween word and sacrament requires that the word be understood as that which links contempor:ary participants in
sacraments with the Word Incarnate, through whom they worship the Father in and through the Spirit. St. Thomas Aquinas
indicates this intrinsic relationship between the sacraments and
the Incarnate Word wihen he introduces his trreatment of sacra:rs For an indication of this importance in the present reform and an assessment of its implementation, see K. Irwin, " The Constitution on the
Sacred Liturgy," pp. 14, 26-27.
19Lectionary for Mass, Introduction, no. 10 (revised edition) taken from
Liturgy Documentary Series, 1 (Washington: USCC, 1982). It is significant
that the expansion in this revised edition of the Lectionary introduction deals
largely with the theology of the word as operative in the act of liturgy, not
with rubrical details.

KEVIN W. IRWIN

ments in the Summa by :stating: " Norw that we have completed our 1consideration of the mysteries of the Incarnate
Word, our nert field of im7;estigation is the saCTaments of the
Church, seeing that it is :from this same Incarnate Woro that
these derive their <efficacy."20 That s1acraments are essentially
wocd events, ,with the adjecti¥es " perfornnative " or " exhibitive" often used to indicate the power of the word to effect
what it announces, has been effectively argued by Karl
RaJhner,21 B. R. Brinkmann, 22 William Shea, 23 and Peter Fink, 24
among others; some of these deriv;e their insights from :Paiul
Riooeur's work on interpretation. 25 Rahner argues tha.t the
theology of the word can serve ·as a new point of departure for
understanding the institution and existence of sacraments in
the chureh. He :states:
If we develop the basic character of the word spoken in and
through the church as grace-event, as a basically manifestive word
[exhibitives Wort], that is, as present in the church as eschatological presence in the world of God's redemption, and if we allow for
this word of and in the church the general existential and social
variability of the human word, then we can arrive at a conception
of " sacrament " in which it can be understood within a theology
JW Summa theologfoe, III, q. 60, preface; translation from Summa theologiae.
Vol. 56, The Sacraments ed. David Bourke (New York/London: McGrawHill, 1975), p. 3.
21 Karl Rahner,
"What is a Sacrament?"
Theologiool Investigations.
Vol. XIV. Trans. David Bourke (New York: Seabury, 1976), pp. 135-148.
22 B. R. Brinkmann,
"On Sacramental Man," The Heythrop Journal 13
(October, 1972): 371-401; 14 (January, 1973): 5-34; 14 (.April, 197.3): 162·
189; 14 (July, 1973): 280-306; 14 (October, 1973): 396-416 . .Also see .A..
Martinich, "Sacraments and .Speech .Acts," The Heythrop Journal 16 ( 1975):
289-303, 405-417.
and Meaning," Amerioa,n liloolesiastical Re:23 William Shea, " Sacraments
view 169 (1975): 403-416.
24 Peter Fink, "Three Languages
of Christian Sacraments," Worship 52
(November, 1978): 561-575.
25 .See, among other works, Paul Ricoeur, " The Hermeneutics
of Symbol
and Philosophical
Reflection," International
Philosophiool Quarterly 2
(1962): 191-218, and Freud and Philosophy: An Essay on Interpretation,
trans. Dennis Savage (N!lW lI!1-ven:
Universit;r Press 1 1970) pp. 3-56,

SAcRAM:ENTAL THEOLOGY

of the word as a quite specific word-event, yet in which sacrament
is not reduced, in its distinctive character, to the level of every
other word legitimately spoken in the church. 26

In this mnnection it is essential to explore the liturgical
understanding of the word and more precisely the relationship
between the scripture texts proclaimed and prea:ched on during a sacramental celebration and the act taking place in the
sacrament. 'I1his is to suggest that the intrinsic connection
between wo11d and sacrament can be uncovered when the
sa:cramental act itself influences the preaching during the
liturgy of the word. If in fact sacraments complement the word
proclaimed, then one can argue that the sacramental context
itself s:hapes how one understands the word shared at that celebration. Thus pad of the hermeneutic needed to interpret the
scriptures proclaimed is, hy necessity, the very act of celebrating a sacrament, which sacramental act depends on the word
as its foundation.
This means that the homily preached iat a swcrament is
pivotail for specifying how the proclaimed word is to affect the
community and how the e:ffect of the word is evidenced in the
sacramental act to follow. Prea.ching also serves 1as a transition that links mo11d and sacrament so that each is seen to require and complement the other. The ev·ent of preaching itself becomes "sacramental" in ,the ·sense that the community
rgathered for the sacuament sees itself addressed by God
through the scriptures proclaimed and challenged by that word
to be ever more faithful to their communal conversion to the
gospel. This pll'eaching event is thus central, for it then leads
the participants to experience God in " gestura l speech and
symbolic action" 21 through the sac:mmental act. What hinds
the community together is the 'read word, a common conversion to that mord in the act of liturgy, and a ratification of that
1

1

26 K. Rahner,"

What is a Sacrament?" p. 276.
.particularly insightful phrase is from Edward J. Kilmartin,
turgical Theology II," Worship 50 (July, 1976) : 313.
21 This

"Li·

KEVIN W. IRWIN

oonversion in the sacramental act itself. Sa,craments thus become extensions of rthis word and specifications of the word.
'This ev:aingelical understanding of ,sacraments suggests a
more pmmising way to deal with eoumenical dialogues about
sacraments. Participants in such dia1ogues might well direct
their energies beyond comparing and examining each other's
s;acramental doctrines and practices to examining their respective understandings of sacraments as incarnating and expressing the Word of God.
2. Sacraments as Symbolic Realities.
Among the hases on whiroh classical Catholic sacramentwl
teaching has been based are an incarnational approach to
sacramental activity (or sacraments as continuations of the
life and work of the Incarnate Word) and an understanding of
causality that is essentially symbolic and significative. The
seminwl works of SchiUebeeckx and Raihner tin the 1950s have
influenced succeeding decades of Catholic sacramental writing
in both these areas. The term significando causant, understood
as including emphasis on symbol and on sacraments as essentially symbolic realities, has been restored to a position of
prominence. 28 In addition, the mor:e recent writings of both
Schillebeeckx and Rahner 29 have deepened and developed their
own understanding of sacraments as Christian worship, even
though their ,writings on worship and sacraments form a comparatively small part of their legacy to contemporary systematic theology. Both of these aiuthms sought to overcome any
dualism in Christian life 'and worship that would separate the
1

2s See, J. A. Appleyard, "How Does a Sacrament Gause by Signifying?"
Science et Esprit 23 (May-Sept., 1971) : 167-200.
29 See, Karl Rabner, " Considerations
on the Active Role of the Person in
the Sacramental Event," in Theological Investigations. Vol. XIV, pp. 161184 and, for some important nuances added to the thesis argued here, "On
the Theology of Worship," Theological Investigations.
Vol. XIX, trans.
Edward Quinn (New York: Seabury, 1983) pp. 141-149; as well as Edward
Schillebeeckx, Christ: 'I'he Experience of Jesus as Lord, trans. John Bowen
(New York: Crossroad, 1980), pp. 274-290, 840-852.

SACRAMENTAL

THEOLOGY

sacred from the secular. They argued that we live in one
graced world and that acts of worship are strong moments of
God's self-disdos:ure to human persons who, throughout their
lives inside ·the cult and outside it experience the presence of
God in their lives. This intersection of the sacred and the
secular is possible because of the communion of the human
and the divine in Jesus. Thus from an incamational perspective, sacraments become moments of privileged encounter with
God th11ough Christ that orient the believer to a deeper comprehension of the sacredness of all creation and of all of life
precisely becaiuse creation and life ·as we11 as sacraments and
liturgy are ·discilosive of the revealed God. Just as •worrds and
gestures are the language of human communication, so it is app11opriate, not to say essential, that the language of communication in s;acraments involves words and gestuves. We live as
enfieshed human persons whose very humanity has been forever graced and redeemed by the God we encounter in sacraments. In :worship the language is word and gesture; the
medium for this communication is our human bodies. 30 What
we receive from this medium is the gift of salvation, through
and in Christ. Hence to speak of sacrament!al gestmes is to
speak of what is essential in sacraments: human communication through touch (anointing, imposing hands, embracing),
through gestures (standing, bowing, .sitting, kneeling) , and
through words (pmclaimed and listened to, spoken and responded to) . These means of human communication are the
means used in the divine self communication in the Christian
life but especia.lly th11ough liturgy and sacraments.
Part of a sacramental approach to the Christian life involves the use of creation in worship. A chief hallmark of
Roman Oatholicism has been its preservation, however minimally at times, of the use of creation in sacraments through
symbol. For example, reference to light and darkness at mornso The meaning and implications for worship of Tertullian's adage that
the flesh is the instrument of salvation is discussed in Cipriano Vagaggini,
Caro saiutis est cardo (Rome: Desclee, 1966).

326

KEVIN W. IRWIN

ing prayer, evening prayer, vigils and the Easter Vigil, along
'With the use of water and fire on Holy Saturday night, orchestrate how Christians view the world and understand themselves in the world, as created .and redeemed by the God, who
separated light from darkness, .water from dry land, and creation from chaos. These images are used repea.tedly in worship
(through scriptures, hlessing prayers, and other liturgical terts,
a;s weill 1as through the use of 11ights,etc.) to sustain oUir renewal
and reconversion to God, tihe author of all life.
In addition to creation and to things !Tom creation used in
worship, a sacramental approach to life emphasizes the use of
things that ar:e rthe result of human productiwty, for example
food. The production of ibread ·and wine !l'equires farming,
ihru:r:vesting,and bafilng or pres1sing. The result of this human
labor is the staples of life that can he eaten and drunk by
others in order to preserve fife. It is not iooincidentalthat these
same products of human lrubor are used in the eucharistic liturgy, wh!i.ch usage i1s meant to articu1}atemany levels of meaning and
understanding, in addition to tihe meaning
which sharing bread and wine have 1in the scriptu!l'es. This
wealth of meaning
assumed and hrought into tihe sacramental event ito disclose the goodness of creation and the
unique Christian perspective rthrut, through these very ordinary
means, helievel'lsare strengthened in faith and in the 1lirfe orf God
of worship.
·That symbols such 1as light .and darkness a.:s well as bread
and wine are open to a multiplicity of understandings is underscored in the liturgy hy means of blessing prayers ,which indicate hut do not limit some of the polyvalent meanings inherent in symbolic usaige. 'Tihrough the use of symbol and text
(1wihichte:rls .are often mythical and metaphorical in ii.mage and
content, as we11 as scriptural in their explicit reference to salvation history) , ,a variety of meanings of the sacramenta;l event
is disclosed. Hence a
correspondence ,should not
ibe isought for nor should definitions orf sacrament ibe derived
from symbo,ls and texts. This is to suggest that 1Jhere .is a va.ri1

1

1

827

SACRA:MENTAL THEOLOGY

ety of meanings attached to the use of bread .and wine in the
euchar.ist, rincluding ibeing sustained hy food, the hospitality
of Christ 1as table fellow and host, strength £or the life of faith
etc., along with the declamtion that .this breaid and cup are the
very presence o[ Christ. Blessing prayers function to make
eXJpJicit many of these meanings, at the ,game time that the
very use of these ·symbols discloses in a nonverbal way the impor:tance of acknowledging the many levels of me1aning inherent in the use of a symbol itself.
FTom t:his incarnational understanding of sacraments as
symbolic realities, one can say that ·sacraments :are those
unique hut not exclusive, privileged but not isolated moments
in time when believers shoiw reverence for one another, for
creation, and £or the friuit of human productivity. Sacraments
cannot take place without the use of symbols and without an
understanding that 1symbo ls aire not !incidentaJ to sacraments.
They are essential to them and to appreciating how God graces
us thr0111gh Christ in all of iife. The restoration of symbols and
of actions involving symbols to a central place in the reformed
liturgy is by no means tangential to the iVeform. Rather, this
maximizing of symbolic expression (immersion over infusion
at baptism, sharing both forms of eucharistic bread and wine)
'articulates the Christian understanding of life.
Wlhen used liturgically these elements of created life and
human productivity are best called symbols, not .signs (understanding that " sign" most often implies a one-to-one correspondence of meanings). Symbols 1a;re also best interpreted
in their native liturgical context as rbhings used in srucramental
acts and not as elements to be objectified. Hence sacramental
,language should concern the a.ct of bathing, not jrust hlessed
water, the act of dining, not just bread and wine, the act of
,anointing, not just oil or chrism. The sacramentail context
preserves symbols from becoming objectified and the sacramental ·event avoids a materialism that isofates elements from
their proper liturgical usaige, which usage includes movement
1and gesture. Tlhe action of the liturgy also I»"events a mechan1

1

3Q8

KEVIN W. IRWIN

istic or physicalist understanding of sacraments that locates
the " sacred " in objects only. The sacred is disdosed through
symbolic actions when performed in faith. Sacramental symbols necessarily include rational and non-rational levels of inv;olvement and interprefa:bion.
Hence, a proper approach to sacramental theology capitalizes on the use of symbol, which usage can help preserve (or
move) theologizing about sacraments from objectification of
sacred realities to the meaning of life in light of the incarnation
and from the usefulness of sacraments to the way saicraments
celebrate and articulate core Christian values. Chief :among
these va1ues are an inca:rnational approach to understanding
the Christian life, the inseparability of the sacred and the
secular in the Christian life, and the central importance of the
human body and of syrn:bols in siacramental worship. The
very use of symbols articrnlates the sense of who1leness and integration which is centraJl to a sacramenta1l vision of life.
3. Sacraiments as Experiences of Life in the Trinity.

Edward Schilleheeckx provided a major turning point in the
'oontemporary study of sacraments when he argued that sacramentality ought to he grounded in the notion of encounter
with God through Christ 1as the Ur8akrament, 31 and such an
understanding pervades much recent writing on sacraments.
This highly Christological approach to sacraments is very traditiona1l in Western sacramental writing, as is evident from
Thomas Aquinas, who grounds all sacramental activity in
Christ's incarnation and paschal mystery. 32 According 1to
Aquinas
a sacrament is the sign of the Incarnate Word, his Passion and
Re,surrection,. as sanctifying man, a sign which actually causes
what it signifies by an efficient causality flowing from God through
:n See Ohrist, the Sacrament of the Encounter With God (New York:
Sheed and Ward, 1963).
32 See " Introduction " to Summa theologiae.
Vol. 56, The Sacraments, p.

xiv.

SACRAJMENTAL THEOLOGY

the humanity of Christ and present intrinsically in the sign itself,
the essential structure of which corresponds to that of the Word
made flesh.33

This notion of causality and sanctification derives from the
Judaeo-Chrisbian notion of God as a God who acts and who
continues to 'act for the church in
through sacraments.
Hence the importance of the legacy
praying the psalms at
worship and the importance of the siwraments themselves, in
which God is continually disclosed as a God whose saving acts
are experienced anew in the liturgy.
Unfortunately Thomas's careful understanding of a Christo1ogical approach to sacramentality was too often neglected
in the post-Tridentine era.
this
the liturgical
celebration of sacraments was
a decided minimalism, noting the importance only of "matter and form," the
theology of sacraments emphasized notions of causality and
grace that were very often misunderstood in quantified ways,
and the canon law on sacraments
the (unfortun!ate) distinction between validity
in short, a minimalism in sacramental practice
prevailed. The
work in this century hy both Odo Casel
Schilleheeckx
(with Casel influencing Schillebeeckx
this regard) retrieved
Thomas's careful and dynamic Christological appcroach to
sacmments, but they did so in
ways. Casel's central
theme of the "mystery presence " of Christ in the liturgy 34
provided a way for him to incorporate what today would be
called a litmgical theology into a treatment of sacraments;
this nuanced and deepened the neothomist understanding of
as Ibid.,

p. xviii.
0. Casel, Das christliohe Hiiltrnysterium
(Regensburg:
Pustet,
1935), as well as the expanded fourth edition edited by J. Hild and A.
Liefooghe, J,e mystere du culte dans le christianisme: Riohesse du mystere
du Christ (Paris: Cerf, 1964; Lex Orandi no. 38). It should be noted that
some significant critiques of easel's work have been offered by theologians
such as Louis Bouyer" Le mystere du culte du Dom Casel," La lliciison Dieu
80 ( 1964) : 242-43, and T. Filthaut, La theolo,gie des mysteres, expose de la
controverse (Tournai: Desclee, 1954).
34 See,

330

KEVIN W. IRWIN

sacraments, which did not reflect the deprth of Aquinas's comprehensive work. }:or Casel the "mystery presence " of Christ
in t he liturgy, that is, the experience now of the paschal
mystery in all its reality and fullness, restored an appropriate
dynamism to the theology of the sacraments. Schillebeeckx
also linked sacraments with the paschal mystery, and he
termed these salv ation events "transhistorical"
He explains
that the pascha1l mystery is transhistorical because the events
that comprise it occurred at one time in history, yet these
rsame events (as opposed to their" effects")
and are
experienced folly each time the liturgy is celehrated. 35 Hence
we can argue that Schillebeeckx's insight about Christ ns
1has been significant in
sacrament is traditional and its
helping us
the sac.ramerrts as our present experience of Christ's paschal mystery, which includes his life, passion, death, resurrection, and ascension.
This important theological development also has a ,basis in
the liturgy
tihe sacraments. The liturgy always describes
our condition as being in need and describes God as one who
acts to redeem, save, reconcile, heal, strengthen, etc., through
Christ. The Christologica1l images in the liturgy are largely
soteriologicaI:
link is almost always made between our
need and God's doing something to save us. A study of the
classical names for God enunciated in the liturgy demonstrates
this thesis and guides the deve1opment of additional names for
God in the liturgy which will link our need !and God's salvation.36
1

1

35 E. Schillebeeckx, Ghrist the Sacrament,
p. 56: "But if in the sacraments
there is nevertheless a certain presence in mystery, this is possible only if,
in Christ's historical redemptive acts, there already was an element which
now becomes sacramentalized in an earthy event of our own time in a visible
act of the Church. And indeed, in keeping with sound Christology, we must
hold that this trans-historical element is unquestionably present in the acts
of Christ's life."
36 This is to raise the important issue of God-language
in the liturgy and
the relative adequacy of our conventionally used names for God. See the
insightful work by Gail Ramshaw-Schmidt, Ghrist in Sacred Speech: The
Meaning of Liturgical Language (Philadelphia: Fortress Press, 1986).

SACRAMENTAL

THEOLOGY

331

While one can say that this ChTisto1ogical shift has been
central in the renewal of contemporary sacramental theology,
nonetheless there is an inherent danger with the revival of this
notion. While Western liturgy and sacramental theology can
be termed Christologically rich, they are pneumatologically
poor, that is, by comparison little empiha;sis is given to the
Spirit in either sacramental liturgy or theology. 37 The central
empha;sis giv;en to the Spirit in Eastern liturgy and theology
pmvides an important critique of the prevalent notion of
Christ as sacrament. The Eastern appToach clearly offers a
complement :and ,corrective to the Western emphasis on
Christ's .act of salvation. In the East, the notions of anthropology and the divine economy a.re linked, and salvation is
often imaged ias consisting in a restoration of the primordial
harmony of our first parents. An emphasis on the role of the
Spirit as sanctifying and unifying, classically stated in both
Eastern and Western liturgy, would mark an important shift
here. Thus notions of gr:we that stress uncrea.ted grace and
the nortion of sanctification a;s deification (as opposed to
remedies for sin) would become operative. But this leaids to
other important issues: in what way should sacramental
theology describe how the Trinity acts in sacraments and how
participants in s.acraments are drawn into the very '1ife of God?
Tiwo avenues suggest themselves for £urther study. The first
is the liturgy itself. The historical method proper to liturgical
study (as noted in section one above) offers insight from a
review of Eastern liturgical sources. In addition,. a study of
propedy Eastern theories of sa;cm:mentdiscloses the important
role of the Trinity in 'gene:cal and of the Spirit specifically in
liturgy and srucraments. Here both the liturgy and the work of
Eastern theologians are brought to bear on Western sacramental theology and on evolving liturgical texts and rites. A
seoond approach empha.sizes the indwelling of the divine per37 This is unfortunately
still the case in the revised liturgy, despite im·
portant advances in calling on the Spirit, particularly in the eucharistic
epioleses.

KEVIN W. IRWIN

sons through liturgy as a traditional and app.mpriate wa.y to
describe grace. The divine indwelling as a result of the experience of liturgy can be a key to unlock how contemporary
theologians deal with issues of grace in general and of sacramental grace in particular. This approach would necessarily
emphasize the '.I'ole and indwelling of ,the Spirit. Just as a certain emphasis on the active role of the Spirit is cleacrly evident
the revised liturgy, so too a decided emphasis on the Spirit's
indwening could result from a liturgical theology of sacraments.38 In this way, an imbalance in 'Sacramental theology
and in the theology of grace in favor of Christ would be balanced by an emphasis on the Trinity as experienced in liturgy
and as reflected both in sacramental theology and in the theology of grace.
would also enhance discussions of sacramental efficacy by placing them within the context of sacraments as acts of the church, through which she experiences
God.
4. Sacraments as Experiences of Ecelesial Solidarity.

In the contemporary renewa,,l of sacramental theology the
notion of Christ as sacrament was closely parallelled with that
of the church as sacrament. While Schillebeeckx explored some
aspects of this idea, 39 Otto Semmelroth and Karl Rahn er are
credited wiith elaborating on this notion in their seminal works
Church and Sacrament (Semmelroth) and The Churoh and
the Sacraments (Rahner) .40 To link Ghrist and the church as
as According to classical liturgical method, liturgical study is a comparative discipline involving a study of Eastern as well as Western liturgical
sources. See the interweaving of ·western and Eastern material in the important work by Hermann Wegman, translated and edited by Gordon Lathrop,
Christian Worship in l!Jast and West (New York: Pueblo, 1985). In addition, the work of .Alexander Schmemann, Introduction to Liturgical Theology,
is also useful in this regard.
39 See, Schillebeeckx, Ghrist the Sacrament, pp. 47-80.
40 Otto Semmelroth,
Church and Sacrament, trans. Emily Schossberger
(Notre Dame: Fides Publishers, 1963) from the German original of 1960;
Karl Rahner, The Church and the Sacraments, trans. W. J. O'Hara (New

SACRAM:ENTAL THEOLOGY

333

sacrament is to understand the paschal mystery as more than
a metahistorical event. It is to suggest that the paschal mystery itself is oriented toward the believers' appropriation of
redemption in the community of believ:ers, the church. Hence
the paschal mystery, while complete and total rin what it has
accompHshed, can also he understood fo require the active response of believers and their full appropriation of and assimilation into this event. Thus, the church as sacrament is that
body which is drawn into the paschal mystery, which is transformed by Chr1ist's act of redemption, and which is the visible
means through which
in every age are drawn into God's
redeeming love through Christ in the power of the Spirit.
The phenomenon
oommunities that share deeply
each other's lives or
communities that share faith,
prayer, and service clearly calls for new approaches to ecclesiology. These communities are more engaging and intimate
than ithe parish conventionally understood as a territorial entity to which all within its boundaries belong. But this ad
intrai notion of the 1ocal (or universa:l) chmch mises the important issue of the self-transcending mission of the church, its
ad extra dynamism. The diffioulty
small and intimate
church communities is that they can often become self-contained and run the risk of losing the sense of what a church
ought to be, a community of many kinds and types brought
together because of their common conversion to Christ and
to the values of the gospel. It is
that should
sustain their bonding
one another as fellow members of
the church. Reliance on an intimacy notion of community
leads ·to an intimacy notion of sacrament, which can turn
church communi1ties into cliques rather than groups engaged
in personal self-transcendence and mission. 41
York: Herder and Herder, HHl3). See one of the earliest critiques on this
work by William van Roo, "Reflections on Karl Rahner's Kirche und Sakramente," Gregorianum 44 ( 1963) : 465-500.
41 See, Philip J. l\IIurnion, "A Sacramental
Church in the Modern World,"
Origins 14 (June 21, 1984): 81-90 and "The Community Called Parish,"
Ohureh 1 ( vVinter, 1985) : 8-14.

334

KEVIN W. IRWIN

One way to address this issue derives from the notions of
liturgy and Trinity already argued. When the liturgy is studied as a source of theology, it re¥ea1s images and notions aibout
the church that require members to ilook beyond their own
immediate needs to those of others, to those of the
throughout the world, and to the world itself. That the
liturgy implies mission is exemplified in the following examples
fmm the eucharistic liturgy: the general intercessions, the
epiclesis and intercessions of the euoharistic prayer, the prayers
after communion, and the dismissal rite. 42
In addition, one could review classical approaches to the
Holy Spirit. The event of Pentecost is often cited as a unique
and privileged experience of the coming of the Spirit to the
variety of cultures and nations of the world. The contemporary concern for an understanding of " world church" is evidence for a self-understanding of church that in¥olves a wide
vadety of peoples, pfaces, and cultures in our day. 43 This
penumatologieal approaoh to ecclesiofogy can help local
churches see themselves as one of a number of local churches
joined in faith and love.
Thus emphasis on liturgy and the Holy Spirit can lead to
an approach to ecclesiology that emphasizes the universal
church as a communion of local churches, 'as opposed to individual local churches 1inked to Rome and then to each other
secondarily. The retrieval of the notion of focal churches
united to each other and with Rome is helpful in this i!.'egard.
Terms which can be useful here are the church as communio
and church membership as an experience of ecclesial solidarity .44 The self-undersitanding of church as communio empha1

42 The essentially communal dimension of liturgy is stressed in the General
Instruction on the Roman Missal when describing these parts of the eucharistic liturgy.
43 For an American appreciation
and reflection on this phrase, see the Proceedings of the Thirty-Ninth Annual Convention of the Catholic Theological
Society of America, 1984.
,44 This
is adapted from Murnion's article, "The Community Called
Parish," 12.

SACRAN[ENTAL THEOLOGY

335

sizes that chmch rela:tiionships and relatedness are based on
commitment to the gospel in a community, which community
sees itself as part of a wider phenomenon of local churches,
together oomprising the church universal. The notion of
ecclesia1l solidarity is intended 1to move away from bonds
forged through 1int1imacy to bonds forged twough Christ to
one another. The wo11d " solidarity " is taken from Roberto
Unger's understanding that solidarity is "oommunity moving
beyond the circle of intimacy." 45 Such a community is inclusive 1and sees faith as a basis for action.
This notion of chmch is a most fruitful starting point for a
theology of ministry, both ordained and non-ordained. It also
guards against any notion of ministry that is culitic only, in
that it understands liturgy and sacraments to be moments of
communal and self-transcendence for the life of the world.
This notion would also help to redirect emphasis from the presider dispensing sacred realities to a communal engagement in
the sacred mysteries, ce1ehrated in communion with one ordained to preside. Such a community sees liturgy and sacraments as constitutive of its very life. In fact, liturgy and
sacraments are the means whereby common tradition, theology,
and commitments are experienced. The ohurch .at liturgy sees
itself primarily in terms of discipleship rather than in relatedness to one another.
5. Sa:cmments as Eschatological Realities.

An eschato1ogical approach to sacriaments can best be understood as a complement to and in relationship with an in45 Ibid.
See "A Sacramental Church," 87, where Murnion states: " The
church in its best expression refuses to restrict the understanding of revelation to earlier periods of history, which would be fundamentalism;
refuses
to reduce Christianity to private piety or community to intimacy, which is
sectarianism; refuses to reduce faith to an exercise of the will with out an
exercise of the intellect, which is fideism. Its sacramentality depends on the
universality of its community, the corporateness of its truth, the intelligence
of its teaching, the transformative intent of its evangelization, on its being
able to acknowledge ideals and admit sinfulness, on its belief that God's
initiative precedes our response."

336

KEVIN W. IRWIN

camationail approa1ch to worship. This prevents eschatology
from becoming teleology only or other-worldly; it also provides
a most useful setting for efaborating on the justice and mission
demands of sacraments. The mission and ministry of Jesus
was to incarnate God's rule and kiingdom. But the kingdom
thus inauguraited has yet to be fulfilled; j,ts inoompleteness ri.s
frequenUy considered " an esc:hato1ogica1 edge." Hence the
plea of early liturgical texts
the plea for the Lord
Jesus to return ,at the end of time to draw believers to experience ,the fullness of the kingdom . This is a traditional hallmark
of Christian worship and sacraments, especially when liturgy
is understood as an act of ananinesis. Hence liturgical theoremembering of
logians frequerrUy stress the
of the fotrnre, when Christ
Christ's past deeds and
will come in
g1ory or when we are called to our everlasting futme in God.
Cla:Ssical sacmmental theology o£ten ,acknowledged the
eschato1ogical face of sacraments by 1repeating Aquinas's division among the functions of sacr:aments as signs. He states:
"[a sacrament] is at once commemorat,ive of that which has
Christ, and demonstrative
gone before,. namely the passion
of that which is brought
in us
the passion of
Christ, namely grace, and prognostic, i.e. a foretelling of future glory." 46 Viewed in
way, the sacramentis 1become
both an anticipation and a present experience
the eschato1ogical event that is Christ and the kingdom irraugurated
through him. To
in the
event is to
signify one''s membership in the church as
community
which shmres in w:hat is essenfo·Jly ,an eischatologieal event. In
this way the church itself becomes an eschatological community, a. sign of the kingdom. The pilgrim nature of the church
is implied here, and such
are cleaT'1y provisional,
in light of the fullness yet to be revealed.
Sacmments are intense moments of the kingdom in a world
1

1

4G F:lumma

theologiae, III, q. 60, a.3, c.

SACRAM:ENTAL THEOLOGY

337

that has
its inauguration in the incarnation. Thus
worship is not an esoaipe from the worild; rit is a ,reminder of
what the world leads to. The classic baptismal text of Rom. 6
reminds the initiated that they ,a:re fully identified with Christ
in that they have died with him; hut it 1also emphasizes that
they have not yet been raised with him to glory. Hence the
eschatofogical edge requires ethical behavior that witnesses to
the values of the kingdom.
A temporal understanding of eschatology leruds rpariticipants
to a sense of anticipation and of waiting for the kingdom to
(Jome; it also leads to a ten:tll!tivceattitude when evaluating the
meaning of the world and one's place in it. Yet eschatology
also implies that helievell"s who e:x:perience God's sustaining
presence in sacraments also expel'lience his absence. Alexander
Schmemann treats this important notion by describing how
early Christian worship was thoroughly eschatofogical and that
a spirituality derived from the liturgy was appropriately
eseha.tological.47
An esohatological undeirstanding of sacraments prevents
them from becoming focused only on present results (grace)
or on individual sanctification (removrul of original or actual
sin), because sacraments ,a;re moments when the community
of the redeemed realizes that what they now commemorate
will only be fulfilled in the kingdom of the elect.
At the same time this unders.tanding of sacmments prevents
them from becoming so otheir-'Worldly that the exegencies of
the present are unimportant. 48 T:his connection can be approached in a variety of ways. For ex;ample J. G. Davies
argues for the intrinsic connection between worship and mis1

1

47 See, Alexander

Schmemann, Introduction to Liturgical Theology.
is the critique offered by some contemporary authors about Schmemann's approach to worship. It is also found in a critique of Casel's work
on the presence of mystery in Catholic worship. See, Raymond Didier, Les
sacrements de la foi: La Paque dans ses signes (Paris: Editions du Centurion, 1975), pp. 12, 14. The issue here concerns Casel's emphasis on the
objective character of a sacrament that could be understood as not requiring
the participation and appropriation by the church.
48 This

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KEVIN W. IRWIN

sion, 49 Ma.rk Searle and others emphasize the relationship between liturgy and social justice, 50 liberation theologians
demonstrate how eucharist iis a sign and source of human liberation,51 •and addresses at recent international eucharistic
congresses emphasize the life relation of what is celebrated at
eucha:rist. 52 An additional way of viewing this ·relation is to
understand the celebration of sacrament as an eschatological
statement which has implications for viewing and liwng the
Christian life. Fundamental gospel values such a:s the unity of
aH in Christ are p[1odaimed and enacted in sacraments but certaiinly clash with many of the oontemporary world's values,
partiou1arly its individualism and seif-assertion. 53 To speak of
the centmlity of the gathered community in sacraments is to
clash with a culture where individualism and independence are
prized.
It is precisely the celebration of the sacraments that prevents the ideals of gospel equality from becoming mere ideol:logical principles. Sacraments enact these values and challenge wol'shiping communities to Eve what is celebrated. An
appreciation of the ways in which sacramenta:l rites do this
helps 1to prevent this important notion of eschatology from
49 J. G. Davies,
Worship and Mission (New York: Association Press,
1967).
5o Mark Searle, ed., Liturgy and Social Justice
(Collegeville: The Liturgical Press, 1981).
51 Tissa Balasuriya, The Eucharist and Human Liberation (Maryknoll:
Orbis, 1979).
52 Sean Swayne, ed., Eucharist For a New World. Select Addresses,
Homilies and Conferences from the 42nd International Eucharistic Congress,
Lourdes, 1981 (Carlow: Institute of Pastoral Liturgy, 1981).
53 A particularly insightful work on contemporary American society that
does just this is Robert Bellah, ed., Habits of the Heart: Individualism and
Oommitment in American Life (Berkeley/Los Angeles: University of California Press, 1985). It has been used by pastoral ministers and liturgists
as a useful sta.rting point fo.r assessing what lies behind some of the problems with how Christians connect or do not connect what is celebrated with
how they live. See, Carol Doran and Thomas H. Traeger, "Reclaiming the
Corporate Self: Meaning and Ministry of ·worship in a Privatistic Culture,"
Worship 60 (1986) : 200-210.

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SACRAMENTAL THEOLOGY

being subject to manipulation which would iimbalanC'e either
the ilitmgy or ,witness components of this equation. lf placed
in ,an eschatologrical framewoll"k, this emphasis on sacraments
iaS :related to the Christi.an me wm remain theofogically
grounded. Most importantly it will find its source in the livmg God, who ads on OUJl" behalf in liturigy.
1

6. Sacraments .as Signs of Conversion.
Traditional aippll'oaches to sacr:aimental theology often desacraments in terms of these coTrelatives:
continual offer of salvation and the community's required response to deepen and girow in the life of faith. Much postconciliar writing on the pastoral .aspects of sacraments has
tended to emphasize the second of these, that is, the necessity
of faith for saicraments to be experienced and realized in their
fuJlness.54 Part of the reason for this reemphasis on the expression of requisite faith rprioll' to celebrating sacraments was that
much post-Tridentine Roman Catholic
pll'aicticeassumed, rather than attempted to determine, the quality of
faith profession and religious conversion on the part of those
requesting sacraments.
In the postconciliar chureh, this discussion often centell's on
requirements £or admission to the sacraments of initiation and
to marriage. It concerns initiation becruuse the Rite of Christian Initiation for Adults has restored the catoohumenate; the
catechumenaJl process is pivotal for the conversion orf adults
and can be adapted in pll"ograms for parents presenting children for haptism. 55 With regard to marria1ge, the issue of faith
54 Representative
of this postconciliar literature is the work of Henri
Denis, Des saorements et des hommes. Di1JJ ans apr:es Vatican II (Lyon:
Chalet, 1975) and Saorements, sources de vie. Etudes de tMologie sacramentaire (Paris: Editions du Cerf, 1982).
55 Aidan Kavanagh,
in The Shape of Baptism (New York: Pueblo Publishing Co., 1978), pp. 102-105, argues that adult initiation is the norm for
initiation. This thesis influenced discussions about pastoral practices for
initiation in the United States, from strategies to the issue of the value of
infant baptism itself. See my critique of his position, "Christian Initiation:
Some Important Questions," The (Jhioago (Jateohumenate 3 ( 1981) : 4-24.

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KEVIN W. IRWIN

and sacrament often concerns whetherr couples presenting
themselv;es have the sufficient maturity in faith to know what
they are undertaking and whether the marriage has minimal
assurances of being a permanent union. Theologians have even
,argued that a mar.riiage entered into by couples with little discernible faith (o.r with no practice of the faith) may not be
sacramental beoause of this lack. 56 Hence the pastoral question ahout the need for at least minimal faith for sa;craments
has raised a host of issues; some even doubt the validity of
sacraments celebrated under such conditions.
'I1his discuss ion 1remains problematic, however, and what
were appreciated to be certain gains pastorally and theologically (the determination of certain minimal requirements before
the celebration of sacraments) have more recently been called
into question. One di:ffieulty is to determine ihow preparation
and foHow-up to sacraments ,js related to the actual celebra:bion of the sacrament. If programs so emphasize catechumenate and mystagogia (or adaptations of them for other sacraments) than one can legitimately ask about the meaning of
the celebration of the sacrament itself. Theologicaily this asks
the question of sacramental e:fficacy.57 Sociologically it raises
the issue about the e:ffect which an event can have for a group
that may not he totaHy prepared for it. This is not to suggest
that pastoral programs on the sacraments are unimportant, but
it is to suggest that the meaning of the actual sacramental ac1

56 See, Richard J. Malone and John R. Connery, eels., Contemporary
Perspectives on Christian JJfarriage: Propositions and Papers from the International Theological Commission (Chicago: Loyola Univernity Press, 1984).
In addition see Joseph Moignt, "La transmission de la foi," Etudes 342
(1975): 107-129, 749-775; Jean Marie Aubert, "Foi et Sacrement clans de
marriage," La JJfaisou Dieu 104 (1970): 116-143; James A. Schmeiser,
"Marriage in Contemporary Society," Eglise et Theologie 5 (1974): 98-111;
William Marrevee, " Is a Marriage ' in the Church' a Marriage ' in the
Lord'?" J!Jglise et Theologie 8 ( 1977): 91-109; Susan Wood, "The Marriage
of Baptized Non believers:
Faith, Contract and Sacrament," Theological
Studies 48 (June, 1987): 279-301.
57 See, Mark Searle, "Issues in Christian Initiation:
Uses and Abuses of
the RCIA," The Living Light 22 (March, 1986) : 206-210.

SACRAMENTAL

THEOLOGY

841

ti.on must be central to any such discussion of pastoral 1sacramental practice.
A seoond difficulty with some pastoral strategies that deal
with the issue of lack of discernible faith is that the p!rocess
can become self-oontained: persons inquiring about initiation
or marriage can become absorbed in the mechanics of these
strategies and not be grasped by the ¥ery reason for these pro1grams, deeper con¥ersion to the gospel. This is to suggest that
while sacraments demand faith and presuppose approprfate
Chrisrtian living, it is the sacrament itself which causes, disposes, .and fosters deerp conversion. Pastoral programs that become too administrative and legalistic cut at what should be
the1ir rationale in the first place, that is to foster a conversion
to Christ that is always initiated, sustained, and brought to
fulfillment in God. The emphasis in the catechumenate and
the rite of 1adult initiation should always be on conversion to
Christ and to a gospel way of living.
A third difficulty concerns how policies and guidelines are
interpreted. Diocesan structures for initia.ition and marriage
a.re meant to se1rve deepened conversion signified in sacraments by their very nature. However, should they become too
precise about ways to determine whether sufficient faith is
present, then they can be
A clear distinction must be maintained here between non-faith and non-practice, where practi.ce is undeirstood as part of the life of faith
but not its sole criterion. Furthermore, programs that a.ittempt
to speH out criteria according to which pastoral ministers can
determine levels of !aith commitment and conversion must always be interpveted in the light of given circumstances, especially of those who cannot articulate their faith. To require
anything that border:s on moral perfection or completion of
Christian conversion is to require what the Christian can never
achieve in this life. '.Dhus sacraments of initiation require faith
1and commitment, ibut the act of initiation is what its name
implies, the beginning of leading the Christian life. Eucharist
is thus understood a;s food for the journey of groiwing in fait:h.

KEVIN W. IRWIN

Penance is the means whereby the Lord forgi¥es the sins of all
who know that they are siinners, and the church is the instrument of God's reconciling love. Sacraments can thus he
term:ned "signs of conversion " in that they presume a level of
commitment without which sacraments make no sense.
Burt they are equally signs of a conversion that needs to be
deepened and which one day will reach its perfection in God
:in eternity.
It was noted 2.bove that developments in sacramental theology in the postconciliar church have yet to yield a coherent
method for the systematic 1situdy of sacraments. Our purposes
will have been served if what has been argued herre fosters
further reflection on issues of method and heJps to redirect the
attention of sacramentail theofogians to the liturgy as a central
sour:ce and foundation for sacramental theology.
1

1

MACINTYRE'S

REPUBLIC

J. K. SWINDLER
Westminster College
Fulton, Missouri

C

ONTRARY TO HIS own evident intentions and perceptions, in After Virtue A'lasdair Macinty!l.·eis much
more of a Ptlatonist 1than the Aristotelian he aims to
be. I hase this judgment both on the positive evidence that
Macintyre and Plato (in the Republic) m1gue for and against
the same crucial theses and on the negative evidence that
Plato has read answers to the very issues which Macintyre
finds intractable from an AristoteHan point of viiew.
My thesis can be made out in terms of a half dozen issues
which Maclntyire takes as crucial to his case: (1) Can there
he a science of government? (2) Is there an answer to the
sophist's chaillenge to morality? (3) How oan the fragmentation of the modern self he theoretically overcome? (4) What
are the hi1stocical and social determinants of morality? (5) Is
there a unity of virtue in addition to individual virtues? (6)
Can we reconcile ourselves to teleofogy, the absence of the
polis, and the tragedy of human 1:ife? I will consider each of
these in turn.
I. Wisdom
1

1

Plato defines wisdom as knowledge of how to rule, and Aristotle (in the Nichomachean Ethics) distinguishes between
theoretical and practical wisdom, 1suggesting thereby an interesting ambiguity in Plato's view, an ambiguity of which
Macintyre makes a great deal. One may rule eithecr hy law
or by judgment. In his attack on the Enlightenment, MacIntyre showis quite clearly tha;t the idea of a social science
that would p11ovide laws of human behavior, which could in
343

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J. K. SWINDLER

turn be used by il"ulers and managers to predict and therefore
manipulate !human action, was an invention of the eighteenth
century. He offers an extensive 1oritique o.f this conception of
socirul science, grounded primarily in the claim that human .behavior is essentially unlawful, at least if we judge it by the
standards of the physical sciences. There is in human affairs a
farge 1and uneliminwble element of fortiuna which makes it impossrible rto .formulate laws of human nature or behavior that
would he exceptionless and therefore underwrite predictions
of behavior. For there is nothing to be done about the unpredictability of innovations or, from one's own point of view,
of one's own future actions; nor can the uncertainties of gametheoretie decisions and 1the general contingency of the outcomes of ruction ,be remedied. There is therefore no possibility
of a social science in the sense in which Hume tried to imitate
Newton. So much for Marx and Weber and the horde of
modern .social scientists. This is not to say that life is completely uncertain; on the contrary, there are genuine and general regularities in society, some natural, some social, ·some
statistical, some causal, wihich make life bearable. But these
provide a ,ground for the Aristotelian idea, endorsed by MacIntyre, that the principles of conduct, such as they might be,
hold only for the most part and not universa1ly.
There is therefore in Maclntyre's view no justification for
1a mora;l oode in the modern sense, nor ev;en of moral principles
of the kind we are used to from Kant ·and Mill, Rawls and
Nozick, which purport to istand as a sufficient criterion of
right in all cases. But, importantly, we do not find any such
rules or codes in Pla.to either. For Plato, too, insists on the
mixed reign of chaos and logos in the materia;l world and in
our Jives and concludes that judgment is essential to· determining right conduct. He tellrs us that wise rule comes only
&om good oharructer and good institutions, that legislating in
such detaii1 as to eliminate judgment is "cut:ting off the heads
of a hy:dra." One cannot help hut think that tMs (essentially
Hemclitean) point is something Aristotle
at his

MACINTYRE'S

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345

master's knee. And both aspects of Plato's :point
ipresent
in Aristotle, viz., that
the:ve is chance in nature, there is
luck (good 'and had) in life, and since no rule can capture the
particularity of conorete situations right conduct must depend
on judgment tutocred by mornl education.
But though all concerned so far agree, this tells us precious
little about judgment. And herre I think the approprfate quest1ion is, What about Plato's stern rationalism? Is he not after
all in sympathy with something like a Kantian ideal of the
perfect judgment flowing from
law? The phHosophe!rking is supposed to have infallible judgment, essentially playsociety that the categorical
ing the same role ,in Plato's
imperative
fo:r
moral agents. In
cases what
is at stake is
application of a principle to a concrete case.
Indeed, this is exactly what Kant defines judgment to be in
the third Critique.
judgment is not any sort of
mechanical
the categorical 5.mperarbive,since that
is, in any case, impossible; rather, judgment is guided by the
good will. And in Kant the good
plays the exact role that
the intuition of
of
good
for Plato: with it
judgment is infalilible; without it judgment is impossible. But
this is, of course, from an ideal point of view. In actual concrete Iife, JV1adntyre is quite
I could universalize any
maxim, and I could always frame the questions I put to the
moral law so as to make an exception for myself. And Kant's
only reply can be to
it up to the
will to judge how
But norto apply the moral
body's will is
faulty. Indeed, necessarily so since, as Kant too insists
of the
Metaphysics of
, there is no
prediction of con1sequenees of action (hence
rejection of Epicurean ethics).
Plato's moral judge is competent because
hais understood
the good, but there is no
understanding of the material
realm. So his competence extends only to the ideal ,and therefore inteHigible aspects of cases
he must judge. The
di:fference between the 1mtionalists on the one side of this issue,

846

J. K. SWINDLER

and here I am persuaded to include Aristotle, and Macintyre
on the other side is that the latter seems to suggest that competent moral judgment can be made without iit being informed
hy principle; good character developed from sound habits is
enough. But, of course, thi1s is not right even for Aristotle. For
Aristotle's men of
wisdom have " the oapaoity of seeing what [s good for themselves and for mankind," exactly
Plato'·s metaphor £or instantiating the giood. Indeed, the concept of judgment that Macintyre apperurs to champion is unintelligible, for without principle there is nothing for judgment to
to the concrete case, much less any way of
knowing whether what is right has .been done.

II. Objeotivism or Sophistry?
Pfato spent half his life arguing against sophistry. For him,
1as for his maister Socrates, the charm, the passion, and the
misology of 1sophistry were a rerul ·and present threat to the very
enteripr:ise of philosophy. Not so for Aristotle. In Aristotle's
works, sophistry shows up only occasionrully and then only as
the expression of ,a bizarre and outrageous position; it hardly
hrus a pface in the Nichomachean Ethics or the Politics at all.
One can imagine that Aristotle believed his master to have put
an end to that fomn of madness; he seems to think that moral
sophistry merits and requires no refutation and he offers none.
But now comes M,a:clntyre to declare that tJhe only fundamental moral choice iis between Aristotle and Nietzsche. But
Nietzsche is, in Maclntyre's reading (and I agree) , the greatest of .sophists, a Latter day Thrasymachus or, perhaps better,
Callieles; and these 1are, as M a:clntyre ·agreeably has it, throwibrucks :to the Homeric hero .aiming at 1success at any price,
succ.ess conceived relative to 'a given individual and a given
society. Socrates and Plato evidently felt it necessary to argue
against rtJhe vestiges of the heroic pa;st, as Aristotle did not.
Sophisitry '.Vepresents for Macintyre rtJhe paradigmatic expression of indiv:iduaJl .autonomy, essentially the 'Same autonomy expressed in tlhe a;ctions ·and ,belieifsof countless na:scent as
1

MACINTYRE'S

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847

weH as sophisticated emotivist:s who oonstitute the eontemporrury social world. The individualism that Macintyre rejects is
to be found equa:Hy, he argues, in Kantians, utilitarians, Mar:irists, consetrvat:ives and l1iiberals, contemporary sociology, psychology, and economics, not to mention more than a hint that
Protestants suffer the same ill. What all these share is the bethat the value o,f the
is paramount, all other
values being dependent on and derivative from that of the
individual. When individual values clash, as they do in the
political arena, there is no other court in which to adjudicate
the conflict, so we 'reach impasse. :Thforal and political debates
are therefore interminable; social relations (as in the cases of
the therapist or H1e manager) aire merely manipulwtive; individuals ar e freed of social restraint. As Nietzsche says (in The
Genealogy of Morals), cla1ims of objective mmal values are
only assertions of subjective will.
llhe oontrast that Macintyre is trying to get at is between
autonomy and the co-relativity of individual to collective values. It would be a mistake to think that Macintyre
holds there to be some value in oolleotive orr sooial good per se
ri.n {Jontrast to the value of individual good; for in his view the
two fondamentailly coincide. This is the lesson he wants us
rto take from Aristotle, the lesson only inadequately appropriated by Marx. Man is a sooial and political beast; hi:s individual good is !l'ealizable only within and through a reasonably
harmonious social order, bound together by ties of mutual
foiendship and respect for the good of others. The virtues,
properly understood, are expressions of such ties.
But just as would he a grave error to accuse Macintyre
of some gross oolleotivist fantasy, 'it ,was no less a mistake for
Aristotle (in the Politics) 1to criticize Plato for chamrpioning
too muoh unity in the Republia. Despite Aristotle's unaccountahle misreading of the text, the two are in essential agreement. Clearly, as Socrates repeats at least twice in the Republic, the idea1 state aims at the greatest good of each citizen;
he 1restricts the powers and benefits of the guardians and rulers
for just that reason. Tihe state has no whsolute priority over
1

348

J. K. SWINDLER

rbhe individual, any more than the individual has over the state,
£or their good is necessarily only mutually definable.
Moreover, Macintyre's avowed
for refoting the
sophist or any individualist is essentially the same as Plato's.
Both aim to elicit a concept of what it is to live a human life
in a human society that undeocrpins the
claims as well
as those of objectivists, and to
that these cannot even be
coherently stated, much less
in heroic independence
fmm the fahric
society. The
must resort to distorting the language of mora1s, of aims, delibera:tions, act[ons,
virtues, choices, desires, happiness, responsibilities, and so on,
,in order to state
case at aH. Hence, Thrasymachus's
"justice is the interest of the stronger," Cailides' virtue of
lawless self-will, and Nietzsche's master
slave moralities.
This much Macintyre :sees clearly. But what he does not see
is that fundamental to the sop:h1sit's position is denial of the
unity of the virtues. The
claims to be able to grasp
own ends by means of the
power over others and to secure
development and free reign of one or just a few of his desires,
his desi1re for pleasure or power or
But he will have to
ad and speak intelligently and consequently nurture his sense
of truth and cohel'ence; he will
to have allies and consequently practice sociability. Nothing remotely resembling a
satisfactory
is possible without both
self-regarding
vfrtues of practical wisdom and se1f-control and the other-regarding virtues of justice and courage. Honesty, humility,
charity, and the like are
contained in these.
What is peculiar is that
fails bo see essentialJy
this point lurking in his own admirable de:finit•ion of virtue,
and he thinks Aristotle mistaken insofar as he aocepts the
dootrine of the unity of the virtues. A virtue, he says, is " an
acquired human qua1ity the posses sion and exercise o.f which
tends to ena:bJe us to achieve those goods which a.re internal
to practices," 1 and a practice is " a cooperative human activity
1

1 Alasdair Macintyre,
Aft0r Virtue, 2nd ed. (Notre Dame: University
Notre Dame Press, 1984), p. 191.

of

MACINTYRE'S

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through which goods internal to that form of activity are
realized in the course of trying to realize those standards of
excellence which are aprpropciate to, and partially definitive
of, that form. of activity," 2 resulting in the development of the
ll"elevant virtues. Clearly there ]s a sense in which, according
to this definition, .a Viirtue is self-referentiaJl: it makes possible
.those ,goods at which the activity out of which it develops
aims. But the seM-referenceof the virtues is equivalent to their
unity. F1or if a practice is complex enough to amount to a form
of life, say the soiphist's form of life, then exactly those virtues
mentioned above, with none left out, will both develop from
·and 1be reqlllired by that praictice. (Macintyre emphasizes the
iimportance of honesty, justice, and oourrage.) Moreover, anyone failing to develop .such a unity of virtue will develop in!Stea;d that fraigmented and .alienated self which Macintyre so
thoroughly documents ·as the type of the modern world.

III. Characters and History
Plato has a fair better sense of socia:l history than Aristotle,
and in his conception of moral history Macintyre could find
no stvongeir ally. First, both Hato and Macintyre understand
cultural epochs as dominated by characteristic types of personaJlities;they even .agree that epochs take on the qualities of
the mor.al
of character which dominate them. Second,
both believe there to be a certain inevitahiJity in at lerust the
geneml line of the transformation from one epoch to another.
Compare Plato's description of the decline of the ideal state
through timocracy, oligarchy, democracy, to tyranny, with
each social form dominated by .a morrul type which colors the
age, and M·aclntyre's :account of the decline and faH of the
ancient and medieval Aristotelian tradition from the Protestant imputation of ociginal sin to individuals (rendering reason
merely cailculative .and unable to provide salvation) , to the
Enlightenment's democratic rejection of external authority in
2 Ibid., p. 187.

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J. K. SWINDLER

Hobbes, Locke, and Hume, Diderot, Kant, and Kierkegaard,
rto the development of manipulative and amoral socia1l sciences
!i.n the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, with eiwh period
again dominated by a character type. Once the fall from graiee
has begun, the only stopping rpJace is the radical individualism
and emotivism of the tyrannical state or the modern bureaucracy. Reject objectivism ,and Nietzsche waits with open amis.
Since the practices (in Maclntyre's sense) of an age determine its virtues and 'therefOTeits dominant character ty;pes, it
is clear that the decline foam objecbiviism entails the progres1sive £ragmentation of the self dominant in each successive age.
And, as the self disso,lves under this corms1ive influence, it loses
two fundamentwlly important abilities, the rubility to see itself
1wiithin a coherent
and social (as Macintyre says, a,
narrative) framework, and the ability to speak eoherently. As
Macintyre and Plato see, these capruoities are not unrelated.
Fo'I." nowheTe in all of literature can we see Maiclntyre's point
rbhat "conversation ... is the form of human transactions " 3
more olea.rly than in the Pfatonic dialogue. Here action and
speech-act ooincide .. The form of the narrativ:e is the form of
'the argument, and, just as !individual and society are correlative, the conversation of the dialogue is the essential backdrop
for the intelligibility of the arguments it contains, yet the
whole would rbe empty and pointless without them. (In the
Poetics, Aristotle makes a similar point about plot in tragedy:
it supplies the context that injects meaning into the other
:aspects of the play) . Both actions 'and wo!l'ds speak, for both
express beliefs; our lives are therefore narratives, part expEcit,
prurt not. And just as an ,argument O'I." stlory that fru1ls into incoherence fails to :reail!ize its aim, so 1a, life whose narrative of
1action and speech becomes fragmented and inooheCJ.1ent must
fail to achieve its good, however conceiv:ed. Hence Plato oharaicterizes the unjust man in unjust society essentially as Maiea Ibid., p. 211.

MACINTYRE'S

351

REPUBLIC

Intyre characterizes the modern fragmented self in modern
a;tomis:ticsoiciety. If Ma;clntyre is right, we have reached one
end of Plato's historica;l cycle: "What matters at tJhis· stage !is
the construction of locail· forms of community within which
civility and the inteHectual and moml life can he sustained
through the new dark a:ges which are already upon us." 4 Of
roorurse, there is nothing of this kind in Aristotle.

IV. PT,a,toniv Answers to M<rolntyre's Aristotelian Puzzles
In a:ddition to the positive arguments just given for my
thesis that M·oolntyire is inte1leictually closer to Pfato than to
Aristortle-'a claim that may seem unsurprising since, of course,
lit couM just he that Macintyre agrees with Aristotle exactly
where Arriistotleagrees with Plato, a very large and fertile field
indeed-there are the aTea;s in Wlhioh Macintyre thinks Aristotle mistaken. And it is here tJhat I can confirm my thesis.
For in these areas Plato provides answers which should satisfy
Maclntyre's doubts about Aristotle.
He poses three problems :for the modern Aristotelian. (I
here leave to one side ATistotle's category of the natural
slave, agll"ecing with Macintyre that no modern can accept it,
hut hastening to note that Aristotle couild
C'laim as an
empirica;l fact that rbhere are none, a;nd that Plato makes no
Ftirst, how can we pre!l."OO\Ill for them in his ideal society).
serve such teleology as is needed to make sense of practices and
vIDtues1and still dispense with Ari:storl:Jle'smetaphysical biology,
as indeed we must? Second, how can we make sense of Aristotelian ethics outside of its natura;l home in the polis, wihich
we moderns must see as a merely temporacy socia!l form?
Third, 'and !I :think most interesting from a Pilatonic point of
view, how can an .A!l'listotehlanaccount £or the essenrtfallytragic
nature of human life, inV1olving as it does inevita:ble and irreconci1wbleconflicts of goods? An AristorteiJfanper se cannot, I
rthink, answer any of these. But a Platonist can.
1

1

4 Ibid., p. 263.

J. K. SWINDLER

imbedded in the world at all, as
is not for
lit is :foll' .Artistotle. Instead, the teleology that concerns moral
choice is conceptual. This is the difference between Book I
od: tihe Republic, with its argument that, since a virtue enables
a thing to perform its function w.ell, and living is the function
of the soul and justice its viritue, only a just soul can live well,
and the middJe books ;which make it clear that some concept
of the good is required in 011der to have the proper aim. (The
philosopher-king of course shoulders the burden of conceiving
the 1aim of those unable to get clea.r rubout it .themselves). Republic I on its own, taking advantage of the common meaning
of the Greek arete, presents therefore an essen:tiaHyAristoteliian
view, embedding man in a teleological order on a par with
other Living substances. And as I ihave suggested, Aristotle intends to picture deliberation and choice as at least partly
guided .by a form of wisdom, phroneais. Still there is, for Aristotle, no deliberating about ends; a:N action is naturally dill'ected toiwa11d eudaimonia. But that is precisely what Platonic
wisdom, sophia 1 enrublesone to do. For it is up to this intellecturul virtue to 1steer .around the shoals of sophistry, which presents itseltf as an -attractive, ·alternative ·set of ends rto those of
the jmt life. Thris 1is what makes it aippeall' such an inverted
·and incoherent view. Indeed, it is not an exaggeration to read
the Republic; as eX!aotly that, an extended deliberation about
the highest ends of human life, witJh the implicit assumption
that it is possible to choose between the alternatives in accordance with reason. H Macintyre 1is se11ious a1bout our present
choice being between Aristo.Ueand Nietzsche, a choice between
alternative highest ends, only thi:s Platonic position in which
ends must be conceived and not merely e:x:pressedin action, can
offer hope of resolvinrg the dilemma.
Something a:long these lines can be said of the (Athenian)
polis as welt
despite its great ·attll'actions, ii.ts limited size
and oon:sequent unity, its open an:d free discourse, its hospitality to, and assimilation of foreign ideas ·and practices, despite
tbhese, its distractions and discord, its hos.tility oo change, its

MACINTYRE'S

REPUBLIC

358

members' .insistence on being both unique and part of the
crowd, aJlJ. these features make it less than ti.deal. Not to mention the fact that its life is historically finished. So here too it
is necessary to deli:beraite about ends, in the f01m of those
those insti:tution:s, which w:ill nurture the virtues.
And this is, of course, exactly the first task that Plato sets his
new: ruler after he :reenters the cave. He must relearn the
ways of the wortld, !but .from the perspective ga.ined through
the conception 0£ the good. Having done that, he is in a position to frame a constitution which w:ill define the practices of
hls people and their virtues, leaving ample room, oi course,
1& judgment. He plays the role that Macintyre ascribes to
the new St. Benedict for whom we wait.
Finally, Aristotle i:s unable to grasp the tragedy at the heart
of human life. Macintyre is on the side 0£ Sophocles. Tragedy
i:s not just an inherent failing or :flaw, lilre color blindness; that
mmght Jead us to :suspect only that a bit of thempy was in
order (that is, i[ we believed in theirapy). But moral tragedy
lies mruch deeper. Lile presents us with confi!icting goods and,
as Mrucintyre correctly says, it is essentia;lly dishonest to reject the good of either alternative. So we weigh defense against
welfare; the akrates (a businessman) [eels the prospect of both
short and long term ga.ins; the intelligent sophist (a politician)
grasps the good both of appearing and orf 1being virtuous. For
Plato, mora;l dilemmas arise out of unavoidable ignorance.
Even if virtue is knowledge and the wise man simply does
what is rigiht, Oit.dinary mortails always fall short of the ideal.
(Even .ideal WJis;dom is insufficient to control the chaos that
threaitens to disintegrate the ideail state) . The appearance of
good is often inherently a part of what we peirceive. So we
often perceive conflicting goods, and ideal
eludes
us. Our only alternative is to prioritize the gioods we perceive
'iio be possible. Honesty :vequires that we not simply cover up
our ignorance with the imposition of a foimrul rule that will not
countenance conflicting du-ties, as in
insistence against
lyring promises no matteir what, or
dilemma over the

354

J. K. SWINDLER

sa:crificeof the innocent. So I agree with Madnty11e's critique
of ATisbotile on tragedy. But I think bhat Plato's il1uleless objectivism, ineluding his s:k,epticism rubout instanbiating the
ideal in human action, o:ffers an interesting solution.
My oonclusion should perhaps be that Madntyre should be
def ending the Platonic tradition rwther than the Aristotelian
and that he should see A:Nstot1e as a, vecy wise and earthy Platonist. But, of course, the fact is as Maicin:tyre has it: Aristotle's influence is second to none, not even to his master's. So
perhaps wisdom requires simply :reinforcing these few Platonic
pillars in order to rebuild the Aristotelian edifice.

BOOK REVIEWS
American Catholic Biblical Scholarship: A History from the Early
Republic to Vatican II. By GERALD P. FOGARTY, S.J. Society of
Biblical Literature Confessional Perspectives Series. San Fran·
cisco: Harper & Row, 1989. Pp. xviii
424. $34.95 (cloth).

+

Gerald Fogarty has produced a book long needed by American
Catholics, especially by the community of biblical and theological scholars. For too long, the impression has perdured that American scholarship has no particular shape or character but largely mirrors the works
of the great European theologians, while remaining a docile handmaid
to Roman guidance. By producing an excellently researched and carefully documented history of Biblical scholarship, the author has shown
that this generalization does not hold true. Rather, the Church in the
United States, at least since the founding of the Constitution, has always had a number of dynamic scholars who pursued the goal of making the Bible alive to the special spirit of inquiry and the characteristic
openness of American culture. These qualities have shaped the directions of theological and biblical study and are now finding expression
among a wealth of leading church scholars writing and teaching in
this country today.
Fogarty treats a two hundred year development of biblical scholarship in four large blocks. The first hundred years (1784-1885) were
largely concerned with getting a useful translation of the Bible into
the hands of the people in a new country. This primarily pastoral con·
cern was chiefly the initiative of bishops. The focal issue was the adequacy of the Douay-Rheims English translation and its possible revi·
sion. This first century revealed the docile, very Roman outlook of
the American hierarchy and seminary faculties, but also produced the
almost charismatic brillance and foresight of Bishop Francis P. Kenrick of Baltimore. His ideas on inspiration, revelation, and translation
theory foreshadow many contemporary views, although he was unable
to win over his own generation. There is no doubt, however, that his
was a distinctly American contribution that provided solid roots for
later developments.
The second period in this history coincides with the founding of the
Catholic University of America and the issue of Americanism as a
heresy (1889-1903). It was an era of mixed signals. A whole range
of young Catholic scholars, such as Joseph Bruneau, S.S., and Henry

855

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BOOK REVIEWS

Poels, experimented with the new biblical criticism that was sweeping
Europe. However, they ran into a strong reaction in the theological
community in men such as Anthony J. Maas (and the new journal
The American Ecclesiastical Review), who feared all inductive ap·proaches to the questions of revelation and inspiration. At the same
time, Pope Leo XIII encouraged study of the Bible in his encyclical
Providentissimus Deus (1893) but sided strongly against its current
directions in Testem Benevolentiae (1899). The latter condemned
"Americanism," which emphasized the guidance of the Holy Spirit
upon the individual interpreter of the Scriptures.
All of this tension was only a prelude to the even greater turmoil of
the Church's battle against modernism, which dominated the third
period of Fogarty's history, from 1903 to 1938. Many Catholic biblical'
scholars in Europe and the United States had readily accepted the conclusions drawn by the liberal critical movement, fostered primarily by
German Protestant scholars in the nineteenth century. Modernism
was moving toward a less literalistic understanding of biblical texts
and toward more of an historical interpretation of their development
and meaning. This generated a new wave of fierce opposition within
the Church in Europe from conservative theologians concerned by a
doctrine of divine revlation that threatened biblical inerrancy. With
the ascent of Pius X to the papacy, the war began in ernest. The popewas determined to root out all who questioned the traditional primacy
of a literalistic reading of the text, or doubted the total inerrancy of
Scripture, or challenged the idea of Tradition as an independent source
of revelation. Poels was fired from Catholic University, Francis Gigot,
S.S., was forced out of the Sulpicians, and all further discussion of new
directions in biblical research came to a halt. It seemed as though theChurch would stand still forever at the level of the Council of Trent.
Two events signalling a revival marked the opening of the fourth
period, from 1938 to the Second Vatican Council: the founding of the
Catholic Biblical Association in 1937-38 and the publication of Pius.
XII's encyclical Divina Afflante Spiritu in 1943. The existence of a.
professional organization for biblical scholars was at first tied to the
task of producing a new translation of the Bible for the national CCD
office. After many vicissitudes, this resulted in what is now known as
the New American Bible. More importantly, however, the C.B.A. pro·
vided a forum for discussion of biblical issues, encouragement to·
scholarship, and a sense of being part of a professional field with its
own integrity and purpose. After a slow start in the 1940's, the C.B.A.
and its journal, The Catholic Biblical Quarterly, have become a major
force for scholarship and a prestigious institution. The founding of
the C.B.A. came at a fortuitous moment, for soon afterwards PiusXII's encyclical ended the era of modernist repression by calling on.

BOOK REVIEWS

857

biblicists to study and understand the Scriptures in its own context and
not merely as part of the doctrinal formulations of the Church.
Finally, the work of the Second Vatican Council gives witness
to this new collaboration between biblical studies and dogmatic theology that emerged in the intervening twenty years. But it was not
without a cost. The fifties and sixties witnessed a resurgence of op·
position to modern biblical studies on the parts of Joseph Fenton and
The American Ecclesiastical Review, along with certain curial congregations in Rome. Their efforts were only thwarted when the Council
formulated its Decree on Divine Revelation in 1965.
Fogarty has written an important hook because it puts flesh on the
struggle of American Catholic scholarship to develop its own maturity,
as the author puts it. There was always the tension between being a
Church which takes its cues from Rome and one which developed its
own dynamic and character. The story of biblical studies is only one
part of that development, but it is a significant one in that ihe main
issues from the beginning were centered on inspiration and revelation
and inerrancy-questions
that focussed the antagonism between the
traditional deductive theology of the Church and the newer critical
theology derived from an inductive historical consciousness. At the
present, the two have reached a creative balance, which has ushered in
a productive age of theological growth.
Fogarty writes with enthusiasm and a great deal of narrative skill.
He could easily have been a writer of detective novels. He presents
his history around key struggles and relies largely on institutional hap·
penings: episcopal moves, official condemnations, key church state·
ments, conventions, and official decisions of the C.B.A., etc. These give
a dramatic framework to his story, and he intently fills in the colorful
characters, events, and contextual details of each decade as he progresses. We also owe him a very real debt of gratitude for the careful
documentation and notes he provides to support his study.
This is not the only way a history could have been written, of course.
By concentrating on the institutional and the official, the book loses the
ability to show the flowering of ideas and discoveries made from within
the academic community itself on the poetry of psalms, the sociological
backgrounds of the prophets, parables research, and a host of other
insights that shape the way we read and understand the word of God
differently from our predecessors. That hook remains to be written.
But Fogarty has laid the foundations for its appearance some day soon.
LAWRENCE BOADT,

Washington Theological Union,
Silver Spring, Maryland

C.S.P.

358

BOOK REVIEWS

New Perspectives on Old-Time Religion. By GEORGE N. SCHLESINGER.
Oxford: Clarendon Press; New York: Oxford University Press,
1988. Pp. 196.
George Schlesinger ends one of the chapters of his hook by saying:
In the last two hundred years or so, theism has mostly been on the defensive and in retreat. It is important to show that the believer can offer
a rational justification for his position that is at least as respectable as
his opponent's. And it is also important to show that he can do this
without having to reinterpret radically, demythologize, or dilute traditional religious doctrines; without having to take shelter in impenetrably
opaque metaphors and mystifications; and without claiming immunity
from the testimonies of empirical evidence and logical argument by in·
voking the special, ineffable status of his beliefs (148) .

That is precisely what Schlesinger attempts to do in this hook. What
we have, as a result, is a philosophically original, vigorously argued,
literate, and even at times entertaining defense of religious belief cov·
ering a wide range of topics which are seen to he interrelated in deep
and sometimes surprising ways.
After a brief introduction offering an over-view of what is to come,
Schlesinger addresses in his first chapter the crucial topic of the concept of God. In it he argues the superiority of St. Anselm's conception of God as a greatest possible, or absolutely perfect, being. With
the single idea of divine perfection as the governing constraint on any
detailed elaboration of distinct divine attributes, Schlesinger suggests
that many well known arguments against the coherence of theism can
he answered very simply. In this intriguing chapter, he even goes so
far as to suggest that " upon gaining a basic understanding of the nature of Divine attributes all problems disappear " ( 14) . He illustrates
his approach by examining difficulties that have been alleged to attend
the theistic claim that God is both omniscient and immutable and the
claim that God is omnipotent. Along the way, all sorts of interesting
problems are touched upon, from the proper understanding of time to
the nature of petitionary prayer.
Chapter two tackles what is considered by many people to he the
major obstacle to theism, the problem of evil. Schlesinger begins by
arguing that it is an inadequate response for theists to suggest that God
is justified in allowing the evils of our world because they are necessary, or their allowance is necessary, for the existence of a great good,
namely, morally significant free will along God's creatures. Schlesinger
contends that a simple free will theodicy has no way of explaining why
God does not act in subtle ways so as to curtail the scope of wicked-

BOOK REVIEWS

359

ness in the world. If we agree that it would be morally incumbent upon
any person capable of restraining a Hitler to attempt to do so in fact,
we find it hard to see on what grounds God might diverge from our
judgment. Does He view each of Hitler's acts of free will to be of such
value as exercises of freedom that it is better to allow them than to
prevent the \more horrendous of them?
After his discussion of the free will solution, Schlesinger goes on to
develop a line of thought that he has pursued in other writings, but
which here is given most detailed elaboration. He begins by sketching
the main lines of what is often called the virtuous response theodicy, or
the soul-making theodicy. This is fundamentally the claims that (l)
there are certain virtues which could not be had in a world bereft of
suffering, (2) a world containing creatures with these virtues is superior
to one devoid of suffering and thus of these virtues as well, and that
(3) God is justified in choosing to create and sustain a world which allows of such virtues, that is to say, a world containing suffering. Of
the many objections raised against standard explications of this sort
of theodicy, one is especially difficult to overcome, an objection often
known as the absurd morality complaint. It goes like this: It is an
absurd morality which allows us to inflict intense suffering for the possibility that a virtuous response may be forthcoming. We would condemn immediately a man or a woman who tortured others solely in the
hope that the victims might develop fortitude and forgiveness. A mor·
ality which approved this would be absurd. But the soul-making
theodicy is stuck with either endorsing such an absurd general view or
else with the tricky task of showing how God alone is exempt from the
generally recognized prohibition against such conduct. The critic usually concludes that it is unreasonable to think that the theist can grasp
either horn of this unpleasant dilemma and emerge unscathed with a
rational defense of his belief in God.
It is here that Schlesinger introduces a highly original move of his
own which he has developed over the past couple of decades amidst a
great deal of controversy. Schlesinger argues that the most fundamental moral imperative concerning the sentient state of others is not
a presupposition for enhancing happiness or for reducing suffering, hut
that it is rather a complex injunctive to raise the degree of the desirability of the overall state of others (DDS) by as much as possible,
where DDS is a function of (l) the kind of being one is, that is, the
capacities one has, and (2) the degree to which the capacities ingredient in that kind are exercised and fulfilled in a positive or negative
way. Claiming that the DDS scale is theoretically infinite, Schlesinger
is able to argue that an omnipotent being could not have as a duty the
obligation to raise the DDS of others as much as possible, and thus he

860

BOOK REVIEWS

is able to claim just the sort of exception for God that the soul-making
theodicy requires in order to evade the absurdity charge. Whether his
suggestion is acceptable, or whether it can be used to build a plausible
response to the problem of evil, is an issue that is certain to be argued
by readers of this provocative chapter. (Thomas V. Morris gives more
details of Schlesinger's argument and many of the attempts to refute
it in "A Response to the Problems of Evil" in Philosophia 14 (1984):
173-185).
In chapter three, "Religious and Secular Morality," Schlesinger defends traditional theism against the charge that it inevitably eliminates
the necessary moral autonomy of human agents by claiming that there
is a divine issuer of commands whom we ought to worship and obey
unconditionally. Some critics have even used this charge to construct
an argument that theism cannot be true. Schlesinger first points out
that many critics fail to understand the subtlety of the relationship between the worship of God and the doing of good. He contends that love
of God enhances one's reasons for doing good and comes nowhere near
to eliminating any sort of valuable human autonomy. He goes on to
argue that certain religious concepts may be more basic and more accessible than the concepts of morality and can be such as to give otherwise perplexed individuals a purchase on and introduction into the
moral way of life. Schlesinger finally suggests that, rather than diminishing the value of this life and action in this life, theism actually enhances the value of this worldly choices.
In chapters four, five, and six, Schlesinger applies numerous insights
from contemporary theory to some standard topics in philosophy of
religion. In a chapter on miracles, he suggests that one can give Hume
his due and nevertheless still arrive at a position whereby miracle reports enhance the probability of theism. In this discussion. Schlesinger
offers a number of novel and intriguing new twists, along with some
distinctions concerning judgments of improbability which may prove
to he of enduring worth.
In a discussion of design arguments, Schlesinger insists on the importance of this type of evidential argumentation for theism. After
briefly tracing the historical background of arguments from design to
a designer, he draws our attention to the new forms of the ancient style
of argument which are now becoming available from the results of recent work in asthophysics. As a version of design argument immune to
standard objections from evolutionary theory, this new form of argument merits a good deal of scrutiny. After showing how it is that not
all improbable events cry out for explanation, Schlesinger seeks to persuade us that certain improbable events having to do with the origination of our current universe are genuinely of such a surprising char·

861

BOOK REVIEWS

acter as to demand and thus warrant the sort of special explanation
proposed by the theist. Along the way, we are treated to illuminating
discussions of many fascinating and controversial issues, such as the
need for a priori probability assignments in science and metaphysics.
Chapter six offers a novel defense of Pascal's Wager arising out of
the Anselmian concept of God endorsed at the beginning of the hook.
Thus a bond is forged between one of the most purely theoretical and
one of the most pragmatic ideas in the history of philosophical reflection
on religious belief. Schlesinger's defenses of the Wager against numer·
ous criticisms are, characteristically, original, engaging, and philosoph·
ically stimulating.
The final chapter of this hook grapples with the issue of whether a
world such as ours, in which individuals seem to he far from equal in
religious insight and ability to respond to the divine, can he com·
patible with God's being perfectly fair and just. Drawing on some
elementary aspects of epistemic logic, Schlesinger first seeks to under·
mine the position of the agnostic who claims to he well-informed, well·
disposed to fair judgment, and to he in a state of rationally refraining
to endorse either theism or atheism. In the course of the argument, he
attempts to show how merely understanding theism can increase one's
inclination to endorse it, and he traces out various entailments of the
traditional idea of God for the issue of how clear evidence of God's
existence must he in this world to one who is truly well-disposed toward
seeing it.
All in all, this is a highly original, provocative hook which should
he read and grappled with by all who work in the field of its concern, the philosophy of religion. It should spark debate and enhance
the level of reflection about its chosen topics for years to come. It will
surely not command agreement at every point, hut it will inevitably
stimulate further thought.
THOMAS

v. MORRIS

The University of Notre Dame
Notre Dame, Indiana

God in History: Shapes of Freedom. By PETER C. HODGSON. Nashville:
Abingdon Press, 1989. Pp. 287. $21.95 {cloth).
Is it still possible in our postmodern age to speak intelligibly about
God's presence and action in human history? Peter Hodgson's discus·
sion of this " most difficult of modern theological questions " leads us
over the " labyrinthine abyss " of Derrida's deconstructionism, through
the " cognitive purgatory " of the postmodern crisis, to the affirmation

BOOK REVIEWS

that " God and history are conjoined at the point of . . . free, liberating, emancipatory, transfigurative praxis ... " (147, 162-3, 191).
After explaining the inadequacy of the classical model of salvation
history (Chapter I), Hodgson develops his approach to the problem
around the three central ideas of God (Chapter II), history (Chapter
III), and freedom (Chapter IV). A concluding epilogue brings together Hodgson's understanding of the presence of God in history and
of the eschatological presence of history in God.
Throughout the hook there is a dialogue with and a critique of
various postmodern thinkers who question the very notions of God,
history, and freedom (162). In postmodern thought, history is a series
of mere human constructions-figments
of human imagination which
need to he "deconstructed."
Descriptions of God's action in history
dissolve into a "self-referential interplay of signs-an endless milieu
of significations that refers to nothing other than itself" {37). In response to postmodernism, Hodgson follows neither the way of " absolutism " by seeking to return to " orthodox doctrine and confessional tradition " nor the way of relativism by pretending that nothing can he
" known, believed, or acted upon." He rather points the way to " revision," to "retrieving and rethinking the deconstructed tradition"
(29).
The thought of G. W. F. Hegel and Ernst Troeltsch are his consistent
tools in this work of revision, and the many years he has spent in preparing a critical edition and translation of Hegel's Lectures on the
Philosophy of Religion provide him with an admirable expertise in
using these tools (8, 147). The revision involves a reconstruction or
sublation (Aufhebung) of the traditional understanding of God's presence in salvation history and the introduction of a way of thinking that
is " noninterventionist, nonmiraculous, and noncausal in its understanding of divine providence, nonlinear in its teleology, and nonsuprahistorical in its eschatology" (42-3). "My thesis is that God is efficaciously present in the world, not as an individual agent performing observable acts, nor as a uniform inspiration or lure, nor as an abstract
ideal, nor in the metaphorical role of companion or friend. Rather
God is present in specific shapes or patterns of praxis that have a configuring, transformative power within historical process ... " (205).
In keeping with his attempt to find a mediating position between
relativism and absolutism, Hodgson begins his chapter on God by inviting readers who find the God-concept itself problematic "to keep
an open mind " and by inviting readers who view the reality of a transcendent supernatural God as a conviction of faith " to suspend belief
for a while in order to consider new ways of thinking about God" (512). Th<;>se who accept his invitation are introduced to a" process view"

BOOK REVIEWS

363

of God which sees human history as an "essential moment of the divine life " (44) . Here, Hodgson draws upon such process philosophers
as J. Cobb, L. Gilkey, L. Ford, and S. Ogden, hut his basic position remains more in the tradition of Hegel than of Whitehead. " God " is
understood as a more primal category than "process" or "creativity,"
and history is seen as depending on God in a way that God does not
depend on history (44-5). While invoking Hegel's dictum that " without the world God is not God," Hodgson goes beyond Hegel in emphasizing the real difference between God and the world and affirming
the radically unfinished character of history " in which the divine as
well as the human destiny is being worked out" (45, 71).
The correlative or even " co-constitutive " (44) character of God and
history enters into Hodgson's account of the Trinity. The Trinity, when
properly understood, " introduces process and historicality into God "
(52). Again, there are certain parallels with process philosophy, but
Hodgson's conclusion is that process thought "is not especially helpful
if one's agenda is to retrieve and rethink the trinitarian symbols" (79).
In his discussion of the Trinity, Hodgson avoids the term "person" as
conceptually inadequate and replaces it with the category of " figure "
and " figuration " adopted from Paul Ricoeur and Hayden White (45,
55). There are three divine figures: the One, Love, and Freedom.
"The One" designates that eternal, self-constituting, dialectical "process of identity and difference known by the tradition as the immanent
trinity and designated by the symbol 'Father'" (46). "Love" indicates God as constituting a world different from godself. God needs this
world in order to " encompass genuine otherness " and so become " con·
crete and spiritual " ( 103) . The world is the shape of God in the mo·
ment of difference and so is "God's body" (106). "Freedom" indicates God as both preserving and overcoming that difference. This is
God as Spirit, as " presence-to-self in, through, and with otherness "
(46). God is thus One, Love, and Freedom, or in Barth's phrase, the
"One who loves in freedom." This is the Trinity of praxis known in
the tradition as the economic Trinity. God is the absolute spirit, the
" dynamic, self-manifesting shape or figure that empowers the creative,
synthesizing, emancipatory configurations of human life and culture,
which are at the same time the self-shaping of God" (145).
After presenting a masterful account of the nature of history and its
postmodern critique (Chap. 3), Hodgson turns to the praxis of free·
dom as the locus of God's presence in history (Chap. 4). History is not
an objectively given, inevitable linear progress toward some end, but
neither is it a totally subjective fictional construct having no reference
to reality (38, 170). There is an objectivity in the traces of past hap·
penings that are found in artifacts and documents and in the rules of

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evidence by which these traces are interpreted, hut the interpretation it·
self is always " an imaginative construct, made in accord with ideological convictions which must always he renewed, reenacted, and re·
thought " ( 170) .
God's empowering and liberating presence or shape in history is dis·
covered at the moment of human freedom when actual condition is
woven together with new possibility (161, 191-4). At the moment when
one is most profoundly aware of one's limitations, one finds oneself empowered by a " transfiguring practical idea, a gestalt of freedom, the
image of a communion of solidarity, love, mutuality of recognition and
undistorted communication. The gestalt that lures and empowers history
is the gestalt of God" (193-4). If history is to he more than mere
purposelessness, it must he shaped by a reality that trascends it, and
that reality must itself he actualized in and through the historical proc·
ess if it is to he more than an abstraction (191, 194-5). The "redemp·
tive divine presence " and " transfigurative human praxis ... generate
historical process as a history of freedom" (194). The goal of history,
itself never guaranteed or ever fully achieved, is to build up the many
shapes of divinely empowered human freedom " into a nexus of com·
municative freedom" (7, 127-8, 197).
Despite the breadth and depth of Hodgson's scholarship, some aspects
of his analysis remain problematic. Methodologically, one wonders
whether one is still doing theology at all if one has to " suspend belief "
in order to consider this "new way of thinking about God " (52). The
new way of thinking itself, in its Hegelian orientation and its accom·
modation to postmodern conclusions, adopts positions which are foreign
to traditional Christian theology. Examples can he given in the areas of
trinitarian theology and eschatology.
While the distinction between immanent Trinity and economic Trinity
is maintained, the immanent Trinity is soon found to he not a Trinity
at all, hut a moment in the economic Trinity. In itself the immanent
trinity, which may he designated by the name " God" or " Father," is
"locked into a self-enclosed unity as the abstract isolated One" (103,
96, 46). God as "Son" is identified with "world." This identifica·
tion is considered to he both an appropriate response to such post·
modern issues as religious pluralism and feminist consciousness and a
corrective to Christian theology's "often powerful tendency toward
christocentrism" (94, 106). As spirit, God is dependent on the world:
" God becomes truly and fully God, God as Spirit, only through the
world" (96, 110).
Eschatologically, one may question the logic of a "goal of history"
that is by definition never achieved. While a line that is infnitely approached hut never attained may he a consistent mathematical notion,

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an unattainable historical goal seems to offer not hope but only frustration for those who pursue it. Hodgson's suggestion that humans find
momentary satisfaction in the partial attainment of the goal (128) can
only be reminiscent of the consolation a Sisyphus might find in the
partial achievement of his ultimately hopeless task. In effect, Hodgson's
eschatology is hardly a human affair at all. Human action in history
has no connection with or effect upon its realization (197). Whether
personal human identity is preserved in " the ultimate consummation
of all things in God " remains at best an ambiguous question in Hodg·
son's thought (129, 250-1). The consummation itself concerns God
rather than humanity: "The final comedy is the divine comedy, not a
human comedy " ( 129) .
Hodgson presents a meticulously researched and carefully written
argument. He is to be congratulated for so clearly and forcefully formulating the challenge that faces theology in these last years of the twen·
tieth century. Yet the very clarity with which his conclusions-themselves so foreign to the Christian tradition-proceed from his premises
invites the reader to question whether the philosophy of Hegel can ac·
tually provide an adequate or appropriate starting point for the work
of Christian theology.
MICHAEL J. DODDS,

0.P.

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

Patience and Power: Grace for the First World. By JEAN-MARC
297.
LAPORTE, S.J. New York: Paulist Press, 1988. Pp. iv
$14.95.

+

Jean-Marc Laporte, professor of systematic theology at Regis College
in the Toronto School of Theology has previously published Les strztctures dynamiques de la grace: grace medicinale et grace elevante d' apres
Thomas d'Aquin (Montreal: Editions Bellarmin, 1974), a work based
on his doctoral dissertation at the University of Strasbourg. Patience
and Power draws on his earlier study of Aquinas but ranges more widely in the theological tradition and in contemporary analyses of modern
society to provide a thought-provoking interpretation of the doctrine
of grace for 20th century Western culture. The book is replete with
diagrams, designed to demonstrate structural affinities among various
factors relevant to theological reflection on grace.

BOOK REVIEWS

Opening chapters offer an initial account of the current separation
of the human race into First (Western European; North American),
Second (Eastern European), and Third (Southern) Worlds and suggest
a structural affinity between these contemporary cultural and economic
divisions and the historical development of Western, Eastern, and
Southern Churches. With an eye toward constructing a theology of
grace attuned to the problems and needs of the First World, especially
Canada and the United States, Laporte then provides a capsule analysis
of the history of Christian thought on grace. A line of thought running
from Paul through Augustine stresses the healing function of grace as
forgiveness of sin and accents the incompleteness of the gift already received. In contrast to this approach, which became typical of Western
theology, a trajectory extending from John through the Eastern Fathers
emphasized the elevating function of grace as conferral, even in this
world, of participation in the life of God. Thomas Aquinas, more familiar with Aristotle and more adept systematically than his predecessors, sought with considerable success to integrate Eastern and Western perspective on grace into a comprehensive theological vision.
Underappreciated in its own day, the Thomistic synthesis proved
short-lived. In the late Middle Ages, movements in the direction of
voluntarism and nominalism reified and quantified the understanding
of grace and thus unwittingly paved the way for the 16th breakdown
in the unity of Western Christendom and for the sterile debates on
grace characteristic of the following centuries. Only in our own time
has the rich heritage of the authentic Western tradition begun to he
retrieved, as historical spadework has prepared the ground for new and
deeper theological conceptions. Recognition of Christianity's need for
personal categories, for concepts drawn from specifically human existence, is essential if this undertaking is to hear fruit; the anthropocentric
(as .distinguished from cosmocentric) thought-form which Johann Baptist Metz has rightly identified in Aquinas must become a more explicit
element of contemporary Western Christian thought.
This analysis of the history of the doctrine of grace determines the
content of subsequent chapters. In keeping with the goal of developing
a contemporary theology of grace for the First World, Laporte selects
for detailed treatment the three authors whose work he identifies as
high points in the Western doctrinal tradition on that subject: Paul,
Augustine, and Aquinas. One chapter is devoted to each theologian.
The study of Paul, guided by recent exegetical literature hut also
searching for parallel modern analyses of the human condition, accents
the apocalyptic underpinnings of the apostle's thought. After investigating the dialectical tension between the residue of the past and the
newness of God's (incomplete) fulfillment of his promises in Christ,

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867

Laporte examines the sequence of j ustification-sanctification-salvation, in which Paul envisions the life of the Christian. This three-stage
process is then related to the triads of faith-love-hope and pneumapyche-soma and studied through pursuit of the theological argu·
ments of Galatians, 1 Corinthians, Romans, and Philippians. To con·
nect Pauline insights into the dynamics of grace to a modern framework, Laporte compares Paul's treatment of conflict (between Jew and
Greek, strong and weak) with the analysis of the relationship between
oppressor and oppressed in Paulo Friere's Pedagogy of the Oppressed
(New York: Herder and Herder, 1971). While Friere's political-eco·
nomic interests in the humanization of oppressor and oppressed and in
the continual struggle for the reconciliation of both in a new, transformed humanity are found to parallel Paul's religious notions of justi·
fication and sanctification, a key difference is detected in Friere's lack of
anything comparable to Paul's proclamation of the parousia as the time
of ultimate salvation. Concluding reflections on the bipolarity of Paul's
thought invite comparison with three contemporary bipolar themes:
scarcity /abundance, adult/child, and militant/mystic. Overall, Laporte
judges that Paul's legacy to modern thought is an insistence that a
proper theology of grace must be apocalyptic, social, cruciform, and
dialectical.
The succeeding chapter is devoted to Augustine, whose consciousness
of living in a dying age evokes comparison with some modern critiques
of contemporary culture. Augustine is credited with exploring the link
between grace and personal experience and with accenting grace's pre·
venient and internal character. Yet Laporte also criticizes Augustine
for hardening his theology in later, anti-Pelagian writings and for creating the impression that grace, in order to be God's free gift, must be
scarce. In developing these themes, Laporte first examines Augustine's
thought in the Confessions and The Spirit and the Letter. He then pursues the City of God to balance the more personal reflections of the earlier works with the more public perspective Augustine developed in relation to the collapse of the world he knew. While alert to one-sidedness
in Augustine's thought, Laporte classifies as eminently worthy of contemporary retrieval Augustine's awareness of grace as inner transformation, total prevenience, and kenotic freedom.
The last historical chapter concerns Aquinas and proceeds primarily
by a structural reading of the pertinent texts. A detailed opening treatment of human activity and the affective and conative passions is fol·
lowed by an informative account of Aquinas's analysis of habit and
virtue; all of these elements are key factors in a theological anthropology which accentuates the temporal, incarnate character of the exercise of human freedom. Against this backdrop, a further section con·

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siders Aquinas's transposition of the foundational Pauline triad of
justification-sanctification-salvation
into systematic reflection on the
various functions and modalities of the one grace. Lastly, to complete
his retrieval of Thomas, Laporte outlines how the bipolarities of nature/ grace, actual grace/habitual grace, healing grace/elevating grace,
and operating grace/cooperating grace might he recast into more explicitly anthropocentric categories which conceive of grace more as re·
lation than as quality.
The hook concludes with a comparatively brief synthetic recapitulation of the major themes underscored in the historical studies. Insisting on the need for apocalyptic mooring, personal thought-form, attention to multi-dimensional structures, and dynamic orientation, Laporte
identifies a bipolar pattern of patience and power as an essential component of grace's basic rhythms. The work concludes with an urgent
reaffirmation that a First-World theology of grace must heed the voices
of other Worlds in common fidelity to " God's apocalyptic promise of a
total Christ in which there is no Jew or Greek, slave or free, male or
female, East or West, North or South, oppressor or oppressed " (p.
280).
Patience and Power is an intriguing and instructive effort to mine
the writings of major theologians of the past for thought-patterns and
content useful in constructing a contemporary theology of grace. Questions might he raised about the self-imposed limitations of the project:
restriction of biblical considerations to Paul; the abstraction, on the
whole, from the Eastern Fathers; the absence of Luther and the Council
of Trent; the decision to prescind from examination of the work of most
20th century theologians. Furthermore, are the structural modes of investigation sufficient to the task? The high estimation of the integrative power of the Thomistic synthesis will not be shared by all. The
effort to find structural similarities seems at times forced, and leads to
such dubious statements as the assertion that "justification is God's
act in me; sanctification my response; salvation the fruition beyond all
my efforts of those responses " (p. 236) . Yet Laporte is careful to avoid
simplistic equations between past and present, and his work provides
attentive readers with much food for further thought.
One misleading misprint: on p. 231 (line 5 from below), read" apart
from grace" for " apart from sin."
JOHN

The Catholic University of America
Washing ton, D.C.

P. GALVIN

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369

On Divine Foreknowledge. (Part IV of the Concordia). By Lms DE
MOLINA. Trans. Alfred J. Freddoso. Ithaca: Cornell University
Press, 1988. Pp. xii
286. $34.95.

+

The contents of the sixteenth century Jesuit theologian Luis de
Molina's famous work are specified in its title: Liberi arbitrii cum
gratiae donis, divina praescientia, providentia, praedestinatione et reprobatione concordia-" The Agreement of Free Choice with the Gifts
of Grace, Divine Foreknowledge, Providence, Predestination, and Reprobation." Part IV, which particularly concerns the Divine Fore·
knowledge, is divided into seven " Disputations," 4 7-53 inclusive. These
deal with contingency, the presence of all things to God in eternity,
God's knowledge of future contingents (including the role of the Divine
Ideas), and especially the reconciliation of freedom and contingency
with absolutely certain Divine Foreknowledge and Predeterminations.
It is Part IV, especially Disputation 52, which contains Molina's well
known teaching about the scientia media, God's "middle knowledge,"
i.e., eternally between the natural knowledge He has of all things possible and the free or post-volitional (according to our way of conceiving it) knowledge He has of all things actual. More precisely, by middle knowledge God knows, before any exercise of His will, what a
created free agent would do in various circumstances, both those which
actually will obtain and those which, although possible, will never in
fact exist. The objects of such knowledge are situated between what is
merely possible and what will simply he at some moment of time.
They are possible with a certain hypothetical (ex hypothesi) dependence on both Divine and human free causation. Thus, in comprehending them as they are, God's absolutely necessary and prior knowledge
would seem in some way dependent upon what is contingent and even
created. Molina's doctrine attempts to overcome the paradox in this.
A competent admirer of Molina's position, University of Notre Dame
Professor Freddoso is not just a master of the Jesuit's baroque Latin,
with its sesquipedalian sentences bristling with spiny technical terms.
He also shows himself to be a fine logician (earlier he translated portions of Ockham's Summa Logicae), with an excellent understanding of
scholastic theology (in areas such as the Trinity, Christology, and the
Eucharist), metaphysics, epistemology, and philosophy of human nature. To make the translated work even more accessible, he has in his
introduction briefly treated prior parts of the Concordia as preparing
the stage for Part IV, has related Molina's concerns to those of present
day philosophers of religion, and has made clear the agreement as well

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as the main difference between Molina and his " Banezian " opponents,
whose position he summarizes from the 20th century theologian-philosopher, Reginald Garrigou-Lagrange, O.P. In addition, he has graced
the translation with helpful footnotes. At times these identify persons
mentioned by Molina, some of whom (e.g. Richard of Middleton, William Durandus, Gregory of Rimini, or Didacus de Deza [Hispalensis])
would be less than household names today for a non·medievalist. At
other times, Freddoso's notes clearly and succinctly explain items of
Catholic doctrine which Molina presupposes or to which he refers.
Still again, they reproduce important texts of St. Thomas connected
with points Molina is making. And something which I welcomed,
Freddoso uses his notes frequently to recall and clarify premises of
earlier arguments to which Molina later simply alludes without restatement.
The translation itself is from the modern critical edition of the Concordia by Johannes Rabeneck, S.J. (Oniae et Matriti, 1953), which I
would like to have seen reproduced on facing pages. Freddoso's version is accurate to the point of being literal. Despite that, however, it
is amazingly readable. He does on occasion have difficulty with terms
like complexio (which he specially notes on page 10) and ratio:
whether to understand them subjectively or objectively-but then,
doesn't everyone have the same problem? Again, while one might
wonder about sentences as long as nineteen lines (e.g. page 178) , they
are in fact the legacy of Molina himself (cf. Disp. 52, n. 19, Rabeneck,
p. 346, where the Latin runs 14 lines). Freddoso speaks of Molina's
" lumbering " prose. But at the same time, he tells us, "I have resisted
the strong temptation to divide these sentences into shorter ones. The
reason is that, after several attempts at it, I became convinced that I
could not do this without altering the sense of the original" (p. x).
The present reviewer (who occasionally has tried his own hand at
translating-with mixed success) had the same ·temptation; he attempted a few times to break up Molina's sentences but was also unable either to divide them (leaving their sense intact) or to better
Freddoso's results.
The sole demurral I have is very mild and very minor. On page 151,
note 9, Freddoso has himself corrected Rabeneck by interpolating " the
Latin word for ' contradiction ' ... since it has been omitted from the
text through a rather obvious oversight." The Latin reads: " Implicat
namque esse ita cognita a Deo et re ipsa aliter evenire; ... " Disp. 51,
n. 9 (Rabeneck, p. 329). True enough, in other places Molina does
complete implicare with contradictionem; cf. e.g. Disp. 51, nn. 15 (3
times), 18, 19, and 24 (pp. 331-337). However, such does not seem
to be universal usage. Whatever might be said about Molina, among

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his contemporaries one can find implicare or implicatio used to mean
contradiction without a complementary " contradictionem " or " contradictionis." For example, cf. Suarez: Disputationes metaphysicae,
disp. 30, sect. 17, nn. 12, 14, 17 (?), 19, and 20 (ed. Vives: Vol. 26,
pp. 209-213); in the last of these places Suarez even uses the expression: "implicatio in adjecto." For the same usage, cf. G. Reeb, SJ.,
Thesaurus philosophorum seu distinctiones et axiomata philosophica,
Brixinae, 1871 (original edition at Ingolstadt in 1629), pp. 306-307;
" ... implicare idem est, quod involvere et importare contradictionem;
adeoque idem simul esse et non esse, esse tale et non esse tale: et sic
dicimus, id quod implicat, nee divina virtute fieri posse." But once
again, my demurral is very mild. Freddoso is much more familiar with
Molina's style than I am, and his interpolation may well be on target.
Summing up, I think Professor Freddoso's accurate and readable
volume, which is completed by a moderately good bibliography, an index of names, and a subject index, is a fine addition to an ever growing body of medieval texts in translation. I would like to see it read in
numerous graduate courses, as well as in upper-division undergraduate
courses, populated by students eager to know something of the exquisitely deep and subtle thoughts of later Catholic scholastics such as Luis
de Molina.
JOHN

P. DOYLE

St. Louis University
St. Louis, Missouri

Thomistic Papers IV. Ed. by LEONARD A. KENNEDY. Houston: Center
for Thomistic Studies, 1988. Pp. 207.
Polemic against a polemic: that is the way Henry Veatch, in the
opening essay, characterizes Thomistic Papers IV. And too often the
volume has precisely that unwelcome flavor. However, tone aside, the
seven contributors to the volume have two converging agendas. One
is to show that Alvin Planting a and Nicholas W olterstor:ff, in their
Faith and Rationality (Notre Dame, 1983), have badly misunderstood
and misinterpreted Thomas Aquinas. The other is to show that these
authors' project of Reformed epistemology is either inadequate or
mistaken.
The first theme recurs frequently in the volume. Several of the authors (Veatch, Henri DuLac, Thomas Russman) contend that Planting a
and Wolterstorff have misinterpreted Thomas's view of the relation of
faith and reason, and that this has led to their (mistaken) charge that

BOOK REVIEWS

Thomas is an evidentialist (though to my knowledge Plantinga never
claims and Wolterstorff expressly denies that Thomas is an evidentialist) or a narrow foundationalist [one who holds that" all (non-foundational) knowledge must be derivable from ... foundational knowledge
by strictly logical operations" (189) ]. For Thomas, since faith is a
way of knowing, it is rational to believe things on faith, and even
though external evidence is relevant to showing that the sources of
faith-knowledge (revelation) are reliable, the evidence is not used
demonstratively.
A second contention is that, though Thomas, like Plantinga and
Wolterstorff, admits that there are self-evident truths, his concept of
per se nota truths is much broader than mere analyticity (Veatch,
Joseph Boyle). Per se nota truths are informative about the world
and hence can provide a richer base for evidencing other truths. A
third contention is that the Thomistic relation between basic beliefs
and derived beliefs is not narrowly or strictly deductive, but inductive
and often probabilistic (Veatch, Russman), often accompanied by a
logically irreducible component (what Russman calls insight). Plantinga has (wrongly) taken Aristotle's Posterior Analytics as the sole
model of scientia.
The upshot of all this is that Plantinga might have better followed
Wolterstorff's lead and left Thomas out of the foundationalist discussion, concentrating instead on Locke and the Enlightenment view of
reason. This would not have altered Plantinga's thesis but might have
given Thomists less occasion to take such a defensive posture.
The second theme-that Plantinga and Wolterstorff's own project of
Reformed epistemology is either inadequate or mistaken-is broached
in several ways. Veatch and Boyle contend that both of Plantinga's
two arguments against classical foundationalism founder. Plantinga's
first argument-that foundationalism cannot account for much of what
we hold it is reasonable to helieve-is unsuccessful for several reasons.
For one thing, it fails to recognize that many per se nota propositions,
contrary to the common post-Kantian view, are not uninformative analytic truths about the world; they, like our other knowledge, arise in
and from experience. Further, Plantinga has an inadequate, Chisholmian view ("I am appeared to redly") of what it is to be evident
to the senses. Finally, deduction is not the only logical relation that
holds between self-evident truths and derived truths. Consequently, the
classical foundationalist is not in the predicament described by Plantinga; per se nota truths and truths evident to the senses provide the
ground for many beliefs about the world.
In response to Plantinga's second argument-that the foundationalist
principle is self-referentially incoherent-Veatch claims that it is based

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373

on a faulty understanding of the foundationalist principle. Veatch supplies an alternative which, he claims, as self-evident meets it own criterion. Boyle employs a different tack, attempting to remedy the classical foundationalist's alleged deficiency by supplying an argument from
properly basic propositions for the foundationalist criterion of proper
basicality. Boyle's argument hinges on the thesis that basic propositions must be evident. Plantinga does not disagree. V&ere they differ
is in what counts as being evident. Plantinga's criteria for allowability
have to do with the health of the individual person's noetic structure,
whereas Boyle wants a more restrictive notion of evidence in terms of
the relation of the knower to that which is known.
Boyle's and Veatch's major assault is on Plantinga's and Wolterstorff's notion of basic beliefs. Boyle questions Plantinga's claim that
propositions, such as Plantinga's belief that he had lunch at noon, are
basic propositions because they are not inferentially derived. The fact
that we are not aware of the relevant inferences neither means that the
belief is not inferentially derived (we simply might be unaware of the
inferring) nor establishes the propositions' basicality.
Veatch and Russman specifically critique Plantinga's claim that the
existence of God is a basic belief. Plantinga holds that God has put
into every person the tendency or inclination to believe in God, so that
one who fails to believe is in an epistemically substandard position.
Belief in God for a person, then, is rational when there is no evidence
of cognitive malfunction. Russman takes this to mean that Plantinga
and Calvin have adopted the Platonic view that the idea of God's exist·
ence is innate, needing only to be properly triggered. This view, he
argues, has less credibility because the " connection between ' triggering circumstance ' and ' triggered innate idea ' seems far more tenuous-and damagingly so-than that between 'evidence' and 'evidenced'. .. " (196). But contrary to Russman, Plantinga (despite
quoting Calvin here) does not seem to be a Platonist. Plantinga does
say that the disposition to believe in God is innate but not that the idea
of God is innate.
Veatch, on the other hand, queries whether Plantinga's view con·
fuses the cause of the belief with the reason for its being true. Not even
the appeal to a reliabilist epistemology, he argues, can rescue the case,
for establishing a belief's reliability is independent of establishing its
truth.
Several problems lurk here. First, Veatch contends that it cannot be
rational for someone to hold a belief unless there is a reason for it;
mere causes will not do. Plantinga, however, denies the first part: one
might employ grounds but need not have evidence or reasons in order
rationally to hold a belief. As to the second part about causes, the

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issue is less clear. Plantinga does not seem to be claiming that it is the
cause which renders a belief rational, yet he does hold that there is
something about the epistemic conditions under which the belief is
formed or held which makes it rational for that person. Second, Veatch
does not seem to realize that Plantinga and Wolterstor:ff are not asking
whether a basic belief is true, but whether it is reasonable for a given
person to hold it. Plantinga admits that what someone takes to be,
and rationally holds as, a basic belief might he false. Thus, whereas
reliability of cognitive apparatus might not be identical to truth-establishing conditions, Veatch has not shown that it is not relevant to establishing that someone is rational in holding a belief.
This whole issue of the relation between evidence, rationality, and
assent is raised in Thomas Sullivan's very provocative contribution.
Sullivan grants the anti-evidentialist thesis that unqualified religious
assent is disproportionate to the evidence, for though for some people
theistic arguments, miracles, prophecy, and the like provide sufficient
(though not unqualified) evidence, for many who give unqualified assent these are neither available nor compelling. The thesis he wishes
to explore is the one rejected by Plantinga and W olterstor:ff, namely,
that it is always wrong not to proportion one's assent to the total evidence (called the Proportionality Principle) . Sullivan agrees that for
some it is rational to believe without evidence but wonders whether this
is adequate for the more philosophically sophisticated who know the
evidence claims for both sides. True, Plantinga and Wolterstor:ff are
not naive; they too hold that there are grounds which, though they do
not function as evidence, provide justification for belief. And they too
want to advance arguments to defeat those who argue against the
central theistic theses. But what the distinction is between grounds and
evidence soon becomes murky. " Unless ' grounds ' are cognitive
grounds, i.e. unless ' grounds ' supply reason with information, having
' grounds ' says nothing for the rationality of one's beliefs. If, however, 'grounds' are cognitively grasped data, they would seem to he
the very stuff most people call ' evidence ' " ( 84) .
Sullivan, taking a clue from Newman, wishes to confront the Proportionality Principle in another way. We do not proportion the propriety of the belief to the degree of evidence, but we measure the
propriety of the act of believing to the evidence. That is, " evidence
and reason should be sufficient to warrant the judgment that one ought
to believe " (89) . What is required, then, is not sufficient evidence for
the belief, but sufficient evidence to warrant an act of believing, i.e. a
decision to believe. Thus, a person has an obligation to believe where
the evidence or reason warrants or obliges him to believe. And reason
can oblige someone to act without being demonstrative. For example,

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375

the religious believer might be able to show that there is enough evidence to decide that without religious belief certain obligatory ends
cannot be achieved.
Perhaps Plantinga might reply that what warrants an act of believing is not evidence so much as certain experiences had by a person with
a healthy cognitive apparatus. In any case, this seems to be the direction taken by William Alston. Alston argues that there is a fundamental analogy between religious (more narrowly for him, Christian)
experience and ordinary perceptual experience. We have no reason to
think that perceptual experience is not rational; similarly we have no
reason to think that Christian or religious experience is not rational.
Hence, since our perceptual experience can be used to show that our
beliefs about the perceived world are rational, our Christian experience
contributes to the justification of our Christian beliefs.
In his contribution to the volume, Dennis Mcinerny questions the
presumed analogy. There are, Mclnerny contends, significant differences which are overlooked by Alston. For one thing, in Christian experience, in contrast to ordinary perceptual experience, the belief constitutes the practice. By this he means that "[o]ne must have Christian belief in the first instance, before one can have Christian experience; so, one cannot engage in Christian practice without Christian
belief" (107), without a given ideological stance. But one can engage
in perceptual practices without have any given set of, or even any par·
ticular, epistemic beliefs. This means, he thinks, that whereas perceptual experience can establish beliefs, religious experience can only confirm beliefs already held.
I cannot speak for Alston on this point, but I would think he would
simply deny that this constitutes a difference. Perceptual experience
both establishes and confirms beliefs, as does Christian experience. Is
it the case that one must have a Christian belief before having a Christian experience? How then could one explain the religious experiences
of Hildegard of Bingen before the age of five? But even were this
true, is it true, as Mclnerny thinks, that ordinary perception consists
of "brute sensation," whereas Christian experience is interpreted sensation? Is perceptual experience belief free or belief neutral? Or, if
one wants to hold that all experience is interpreted, is it true that ordinary perception is "epistemologically interpreted sensation," whereas
Christian experience is " ideologically interpreted sensation "? It is
true that the interpretative categories differ in the two types of cases,
but Alston might reply that in both cases interpretation invokes ideology-utilization of a certain set of ideas to understand the experience. In short, it is not clear that Mclnerny has succeeded in undermining Alston's analogy, and this, I think, because Mcinerny has a
seemingly simplistic view of sense perception.

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As should be evident by now, the volume contains a mixture of misunderstandings of Plantinga and W olterstorff (for example, Veatch
fails to see that Plantinga is a foundationalist, though of a consciously different stripe from Thomas and Locke), with some legitimate and
telling challenges to Reformed epistemology (what is the relation between grounds and evidence, and precisely what justifies someone in
taking a belief as basic). Separating the two is not always easy, hut
where it can he done, there will be value in the resulting dialogue for
both Reformed thinkers and Thomists.
BRUCE R. REICHENBACH
Augsburg College
Minneapolis, Minnesota

Thomas von Aquin: Werk and Wirkung im Licht neuerer Forschung.
Ed. by ALBERT ZIMMERMANN AND CLEMENS KOPP. Miscellanea
mediaevelia, 19. New York and Berlin: Walter De Gruyter, 1988.
Pp. xi
507. DM 252.

+

The hienniel Koelner Mediaevistentagung sponsored hy the ThomasInstitut in Cologne has focused in the past on themes as diverse as
metaphysics or ontology, the fate of Judaism and the Moslem presence
in Western mediaeval thought, or controversies at the University of
Paris and stages in the development of the University of Cologne. In
1986 the symposium was devoted to the discussion of Thomas Aquinas.
The lectures which were then read and discussed, so diverse in theme
and methodology, have been supplemented by studies submitted in
written form only, in order to form the volume now presented in the
series Miscellaneous mediaevalia.
In one of the few truly theological contributions, the Dominican
Paulus Engelhardt (Bottrop) attempts to discover in Thomas's writings
a basic structure characteristic of both thought and belief. " The incarnation of the Word and Human Desire for Truth" (l-12) denote
the two converging movements. The productive discontent and selfdissatisfaction of the desiderium naturale visionis Dei, as illustrated hy
Thomas' s reflections on the pre-theological forms of angustia (e.g. at
SCG, III, 4,3), point toward that essential tension between hope and
despair, where the gospel itself can first be heard. A somewhat different, perhaps even contradictory, position is presented by the accomplished mediaeval scholar, Ludwig Hoedl (Bochum): "Philosophical
Ethics and Moral Theology in Thomas' Summa" (23-42). Aquinas's
main contribution is defined as a synthesis of teachings on virtue, law,

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377

and grace which grants significant autonomy to philosophical ethics.
The sense of insufficiency does not seem quite as present, the need for
grace not quite as pressing as in Engelhardt's interpretation. The editor
of the volume, Albert Zimmermann, summarizes the results of a dissertation by one of his assistants at the Thomas-Institut, Ivana Znidar:
"Thomas' Thoughts on Defectus Naturalis and Timor" (43-52) points
to structures and experiences of self-deficiency, which are not simply
the result of sin but underlie the possibility of sin, virtue, grace, and
even glory, e.g. in the permanence of timor filialis in patria. Without
the same far-reaching systematic intention shown by Engelhardt, the
material presented here does seem to confirm the interpretation offered
in the earlier article.
With an impressive sense of the current problematic and the controversies of Aristotelian scholarship, Ralph Mclnerny (Notre Dame)
seeks points of agreement between two alternative models of " Action
Theory in St. Thomas Aquinas" (13-22). Practical reason is viewed
both as the search for means to ends (ST, I-II, q. 1-17) and as the
quasi-syllogistic mediation of principles (the rule, natural law, or precept) to derivative conclusions and consequences (an instance, an example, or some other way of applying the general rule to particular
action), seen e.g. at ST, I-II, q. 90-108. The variety of possible means
and the transcendence of the final goal correspond to the merely general character of the principles, which are strictly definitive for. a concrete action only in the negative case of a prohibition. The theme
common to the first contributions resurfaces here: the constitutive imperfection of earthly existence, even in its successful, virtuous form,
as a basic motif of Thomas's thought in comparison to Aristotle.
David E. Luscombe (Sheffield) discusses the diverse influence of
Pseudo-Dionysius in "St. Thomas and Conceptions of Hierarchy in the
Thirteenth Century" (261-277). The political and ecclesiological disputes of the times are viewed above all in light of the mendicant controversy, which put into question older hierarchical models. Carola L.
Gottzmann (Heidelberg) searches for possible influences of Thomistic
political theory in late medieval, German variations of the King Arthur
epic and its view of the ideal ruler (286-303). Jeannine Quillet (Paris)
supplements these two political lectures with a written contribution on
the art of politics in Thomas (278-285), which attempts to qualify,
hut not to destroy, the Aristotelian concept of the autonomy and supremacy of political activity.
With his paper on " Metalanguage and the Concept of ens secundae
intentionis " ( 53-70) , I van Boh (Columbus) introduces the logical and
epistemological themes of the volume, here with a view to later conceptualistic and nominalistic controversies. Jan A. Aertsen distinguishes
Aristotle, Dionysius, and Albertus Magnus from " Thomas' Doctrine of

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the Transcendentals in Its Historical Background and Philosophical
Motivation" (82-102), stressing the unique foundation of the Thomistic
synthesis in an unified anthropology. Horst Seidl (Nijmegen) discusses
the knowledge of the first principles (103-116), William J. Hoye
(Muenster) the final earthly limits of knowledge in light of the ontological difference (117-129). Barbara Faes De Mottoni's (Rome) paper
on the Thomistic treatment of the question of a language of the angels
(140-155), which can he conceived only by analogy and difference to
human communication, sheds light on the latter as well. A special feature of Thomas's own language gifts is the topic of the Leonine Commission's Louis J. Bataillon (Grottaferrata), who discusses the criteria
and current results of the attempt to decide the authenticity of sermons
ascribed to St. Thomas (325-331).
It is as much a sign of our own times that three contributions to a
rather minor thematic of Thomistic writing are included. Christian
Huenemoerder (Hamburg) looks at the content and limits of Thomas's
zoological knowledge ( 192-210), whereas Hans-Joachim Werner (Karlsruhe) investigates the Thomistic view of the intrinsic value of animals
and the ethical consequences for their human treatment (211-232).
Klaus Bernath's (Bonn) paper on Thomas and the earth (175-191)
tries to demonstrate a loss of the theological problematic of the earth
at the end of the early scholastic era.
Several articles focus on the relationship of Thomistic thought to
non-Christian traditions and movements. Ludwig B. Hagemann (Kohlenz) discusses Thomas's work De rationibus fidei and its principles of
mission theology (459-483) . While at the symposium Georges Anawati
(Cairo) discussed the Latin reception of Averroes, Thomas's position
between Averroes and Avicenna is here the theme of the paper (156160) by Zeynah El Khodeiry (Cairo). Albert N. Nader (Broummana,
Lebanon) also looks for traces of medieval Islamic philosophy in
Thomas's thought (161-174). Dieter Berg (Bochum) examines the
concept of Servitus !udaeorum in order to clarify the relationship of
Thomas and his Order to the European Jews of their day (439-458) .
A number of papers are devoted to the later discussion of Thomistic
thought. Silvia Donati of Pisa (377-396) and Zdzislaw Kuksewicz of
Warsaw (403-412) have included contributions on the mediation by
Aegidius Romanus of Thomistic views on form and matter. The highly accomplished editor of Aegidius's Apologia (Opera omnia III.I.
Florence, 1985), Robert Wielockx (Bonn), summarizes the results of
his investigations on the intended target of the condemnation at Paris
in 1277. He confirms the view argued by Roland Hissette of the
Thomas-Institut that Thomas was criticized only indirectly by the condemnation, although the evidence of Wielockx's own examination of
Aegidius's sources as well as other researches (especially by Ludwig

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379

Hoedl) would warrant a less minimalistic interpretation of Thomas's
prominence in the theological controversies of the 70s and 80s of the
thirteenth century.
This volume claims to examine Thomas's work and influence in light
of the newest research. This is very true of Wielockx's article, but not
every contribution equally justifies this claim. Still, this collection is a
welcome addition to the ongoing investigation of Thomas's thought. It
is all the more regrettable, then, that the publishers have decided upon
such an exhorbitant price, apparently resigning themselves to the belief
that there is no market for the book outside libraries which have already ordered the series. The editors and contributors deserve a wider
audience.
RICHARD SCHENK, O.P.
Bayerische Akademie der Wissenschaften
Munich

Edith Stein: Scholar, Feminist, Saint. By FREDA MARY 0BEN. New
York: Alba House, 1988. Pp. 80. $5.95 (paper).
Essays on Woman. By EDITH STEIN. Edited by Dr. L. Gelber and
Romaeus Leuven, O.C.D. Translated by Freda Mary Oben. The
Collected Works of Edith Stein, Teresa Benedicta of the Cross, Discalced Carmelite, 1891-1942, vol. 2. Washington, DC: ICS Publications, 1987. Pp. ix
290. $7.95 (paper).

+

Whether as an ample introduction for one unfamiliar with Edith
Stein or as a further education for one who already appreciates her
legacy, these two books will serve the reader well. The saintly philosopher and educator became a Carmelite nun and eventually a victim
of the Holocaust; she was beatified in 1987. Doctor Freda Mary Oben
is well qualified to interpret Stein's writings as she, like Edith Stein,
is a convert from Judaism to Catholicism and a scholar as well. She
began to study Edith Stein after her conversion but }lad to learn German to do it. Essays on Woman is a testimonial to Oben's nearly 30year enterprise. This work is a translation of Die Frau, Ihre Aufgabe
nach Natur und Gnade, which contains Edith Stein's lectures and writings on woman, compiled and edited by Dr. L. Gelber and Romaeus
Leuven, O.C.D., of the Archivum Carmelitanum Edith Stein in Brussels.
These two works can be read in either order, as each supports and
elucidates the other, but for an introduction, Edith Stein: Scholar,
Feminist, Saint should be read first. Since Oben refers to Stein as Edith
in this work, this reviewer will do the same.

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The Edith Stein work consists of three chapters. Chapter One is a
37-page, well-documented biography supported by quotations from
Edith's writings. Oben's straightforward, lucid style enhances this compact account of the variety of interesting, inspiring, and gripping details of Edith's life. Oben recounts her own tour of the significant
places in Edith's life: Breslau, Gottingen, Bergzabern, Speyer, Miinster,
Cologne, Echt, Auschwitz. The narrative is supplemented with eight
pages of Stein family photographs in the middle of the book.
Throughout her life, Edith Stein maintained a strong love for her
family and her own Jewish people. Integrated with this is the develop·
ment and growth of her intellectual life: from an ambivalence toward
school to her being among the first women to enter a university to her
becoming a university professor, all the while struggling from being
at first unable to pray to later working among scholars who were deep·
ly spiritual. Several of these scholars were converts from Judaism to
Christianity and even to Catholicism. Oben shows how Edith followed
this same route, relating her scholarly insights in psychology and philosophy to her spiritual ones and finally turning to Catholicism after a
casual encounter with a biography of St. Teresa of Avila.
Oben shows how, once a Catholic, Edith used her intellectual ability
to study the link between woman's nature and religious education. By
1932 Edith was recognized as the intellectual leader of Catholic feminism in Europe. Oben tells of Edith's entrance into the Carmelite Convent in Cologne in 1933, her life there as Sister Teresa Benedicta of
the Cross, and her decision, foreseeing the Holocaust, to hear the Cross
for the Jewish people. In a brief but captivating account, Oben tells
of Edith's hasty transfer from Cologne to the Carmel at Echt to escape
the Nazis' continuation of Kristallnacht, of her subsequent arrest by the
Nazis at Echt, and of her death at Auschwitz on August 9, 1942.
Chapter Two is an account of Oben's insights into "Edith Stein on
Mary and Today's Woman." In this 20-page chapter, Oben draws from
Edith's own works, particularly from Die Frau, Endliches und ewiges
Sein (Finite and Eternal Being), and Welt und Person (World and
Person), as well as from a variety of other scholarly sources. After
summarizing Edith's ideas on woman, Oben presents Edith's theology
of Our Lady as Virgin, as Mother, and as Co-Redemptrix and relates
this understanding of Mary to Edith's ideas on contemporary woman.
The reader will find this application particularly relevant today.
Edith thinks of woman as " mother and spouse, mother and companion," regardless of her state-single, married, or religious (43) . She
explains the role of the married woman and the vocation of the unmarried woman, particularly the single woman whose heart, consecrated
to Christ in virginity, "overflows with a love for humanity" (44). She
addresses the role of the woman in professional life, stressing her need

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for an intimate relationship to God. Woman's mission "is to allow herself to become a flexible instrument in God's hand ... to combat evil
. . . in a sick society " (p. 45) . Edith calls for woman to stand with
Mary and the Church under the Cross by becoming involved in the
crucial contemporary issues ( 46).
According to Edith, Mary as Virgin constitutes the feminine form of
the Christian image; she is the " first and perfect follower of Christ "
(48) ; she surrendered her entire being to Him. Edith understood her
own conversion to be such a surrender. Discerning such holiness to be
the primary Christian vocation, Edith shows how chasteness of mind
and soul enables woman to fulfill her nature, whether she is married or
single.
Mary as Mother embraces the Mystical Body of Christ with her maternal love, thus leading all humanity to Christ. In imitation of Mary's
spiritual motherhood, woman is called " to advance human development and grace in every walk of life" (51). This genuine motherhood
is spiritual; it nurtures children in the Mystical Body of Christ, winning them for heaven. Edith stresses the importance of spiritual
motherhood in marriage, especially in the early years; she relates the
mother caring for her children at home to Mary caring for Jes us.
Spiritual motherhood requires a magnanimous soul, effected by a
healthy sexuality and personhood in marriage, professional life, and
religious life. Oben notes that Die Frau contains ideas on sexual ethics
and moral theology which are only now beginning to be discussed.
In these areas Edith Stein was perhaps one hundred years ahead of
her time.
As an ardent feminist, Edith cautioned that an authentic feminist
movement must adhere to the eternal truths of faith. Being " the handmaid of the Lord " means for the contemporary woman not only being
a co-sufferer as Mary was at the Cross but actively confronting evil with
a share in the responsibility for the entire nation ( 55) .
Edith saw Mary as Co-Redemptrix, contemplating Christ's passion and
participating in His redemptive action. Edith saw herself imitating
Mary in choosing to enter Carmel, where she could joyously participate
in that action. There she was participating as a Jew, sharing her people's sufferings, which she considered a continuation of Christ's crucifixion. Again, she was " God's instrument of love fighting evil " ( 58) ,
for she thought that, like Mary as mediatrix, women can change the
history of the Church and the world by praying for grace and salvation for others. She believed that in willingly suffering for the sins of
the Nazis, God would grant the movement of grace and contrition in
their hearts. Ohen notes, " This is the answer of a saint for the problem of forgiveness concerning the Holocaust " ( 60) .
The third chapter, which Oben deftly entitles "Spring of the Bitter

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Valley: Edith Stein and The Holocaust," relates" Edith Stein's ideas on
evil and vicarious atonement " to the " terrible mystery " of the Holocaust ( 65). Here Ohen exhibits her own insight into what thoughts
must have been developing in Edith's mind as her personal involvement
in the Holocaust changed from possibility into reality. Edith perceived
evil as a " driving, living entity, an actual spirit and power, ... a
perverted being going in a negative direction, away from God " ( 65) .
She perceived herself as a proxy to atone for the sins of the Nazis, just
as Christ atoned for sin. Here, following Aquinas, Oben explains what
a proxy is. In imitation of Christ, all such persons share the guilt for
every sin and thus are able to atone for all the sins of humankind.
Christ in His own redemptive act made our atonement possible. Thus,
any human person can not only pray that the sinner turn away from
sin hut also volunteer to be a proxy and receive the suffering due the
sinner. Edith saw this role of proxy as the essence of the Church as
Community. She saw the self-giving of creatures as a reflection of the
self-giving of the three divine Persons. One's power to influence others,
to confront the world and evil, is in proportion to one's life of prayer,
one's entering into oneself to find God and eternal life. Thus, to confront evil in the world, to make the Bitter Valley a place of springs
(Psalm 84), Edith wrote: the Church "needs human arms and human
hearts, maternal arms and maternal hearts" (73).
In conclusion, Oben sees Edith Stein as a true Jewish heroine (as
well as a saintly Christian and a highly successful professional philosopher) who can help women find the true way towards their mission
"as God's special instruments to fight evil" (79). This little book can
inspire both men and women to ponder the impressive legacy of Edith
Stein which Freda Mary Ohen has succinctly presented.
Essays on Women or Die Frau is a primary source to which the
editors have added notes and a detailed index. By translating Die Frau,
Freda Mary Oben has given the English-speaking world direct insight
into Edith Stein's thoughts on woman. The chapters of this book are
eight self-contained essays or lectures which Edith wrote or gave as a
Catholic philosopher-psychologist-educator to a variety of educational
groups, particularly Catholic women's organizations, in various European cities between 1928 and 1932.
In the 40-page editor's introduction, Dr. Lucy Gelber gives a brief
account of Edith Stein as an educator and of her concern that the
Catholic School Movement in Germany, particularly the education of
young girls, be founded on firm Christian principles. Gelber gives the
background of these essays and lectures, including Edith Stein's own
summaries and outlines of them. This scholarly approach introduces
Edith Stein as a highly professional educator and prepares the reader
to " listen " with respectful openness and attentiveness to each essay.

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883

Dr. Stein's approach is to consider woman according to nature and
grace, to discern the roles and the professions for which she is most
suited, and then to structure an educational program which will adequately prepare her to fulfill her special vocation. Stein considers
woman's situation in secular society and in the Church; her role as
married, as single, and as a religious; as a mother in the home and as
a working mother; as engaged in the social vocations, in academic life,
and in political life. She calls for woman to be a whole person by forming her feminine soul and making her feminine nature fruitful. Only
when woman does this can she begin to fulfill her feminine vocation. To
understand woman, Edith Stein presents a brief but scholarly theological anthropology as basic to her considerations. In these essays, one
finds the foundation for Oben's own book.
One would hope that these essays will be read widely and carefully
by both women and men, as they offer serious, basic thoughts and insights which everyone concerned with present-day feminism should consider. Not only do they provide a sorely needed foundation for the
contemporary understanding of woman, they also show the value of
developing educational programs to fulfill woman as mater-virgo, which
Stein sees as the proto-type of pure womanhood. All women, she states,
have the vocation of maternity, the essence of which is "ministering
love" (194) and all women need virginity of soul to do this.
Edith Stein integrated her thoughts about women to apply them to
contemporary issues. Her particular concern was young girls. She
called for women to be involved with youth . She observed in 1931:
Millions of children today are homeless and orphaned, even though they
do have a home and a mother. They hunger for love and eagerly await
a guiding hand to draw them out of dirt and misery into purity and
light. • • . Youth work and particularly work among girls in the name
of the Church is perhaps the greatest task to be solved at the present
time (245).

The " present time " could well be 1990.
Those who are looking for an introduction to Edith Stein or for a
basic understanding of Christian holiness and spiritual maternity (with
practical applications) will find a wellspring of profound thought and
inspiration in these two books from Freda Mary Oben. Oben's endeavor
has been more than a scholarly enterprise, it is a labor of love. In
translating Die Frau into English, she makes Edith Stein more accessible so that we too may perceive her as the " needed catalyst in our
society's confusion concerning the role of woman" (vii).
SISTER MARIAN BRADY, S.P.

The Catholic University of America
Washington, D.C.