A THOMISTIC ANALYSIS OF THE
GAIA HYPOTHESIS: HOW NEW IS THIS
NEW LOOK AT LIFE ON EARTH?
LAURA LANDEN,

W:

0.P.

Providence College
Providence, Rhode Island

HA T IS THE Gaia hypothesis? A recent article in
Time magazine mentions the first major scientific conerence on Gaia, sponsored by the American Geophysical Union in 1988.1 The scientists ended their meeting by
giving James Lovelock an exuberant standing ovation. Lovelock' s book Gaia: A New Look at Life on Earth, first published
in 1979, is now in its second edition. 2
James E. Lovelock, British atmospheric chemist, introduced
the Gaia hypothesis in 1975. This hypothesis emerged from his
comparison of the chemical composition of Earth's atmosphere
with the atmospheres of Venus and Mars. He found the contrast
striking: Earth's atmosphere, hospitable to life, is markedly unlike the atmospheres of her two closest neighbors, Venus and
Mars, both considered lifeless. Unsatisfied with mere chance as
an explanation of this difference, Lovelock attributed a kind of
active influence on the atmosphere by the whole of living organisms (called the biosphere) to effect conditions favorable for
life. The following is taken from Lovelock's initial article on
Gaia in 1975 :
1 Eugene Linden, "How the Earth Maintains Life," Time, November 13,
1989, p. 114.
2 See James E. Lovelock, Gaia: A New Look at Life on Earth (New York:
Oxford University Press, 1987). Lovelock has published more recent work
on Gaia. See James E. Lovelock, The Ages of Gaia: A Biography of Our
Living Earth (New York: Bantam Books, 1990).

1

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LAURA LANDEN,

O.P.

It appeared to us that the Earth's biosphere is able to control at least
the temperature of the Earth's surface and the composition of the
atmosphere. Prima facie, the atmosphere looked like a contrivance
put together co-operatively by the totality of living systems to carry
out certain necessary control functions. This led to the formulation
of the proposition that living matter, the air, the oceans, the land
surface were parts of a giant system which was able to control temperature, the composition of the air and sea, the pH of the soil and so
on as to be optimum for survival of the biosphere. The system seemed
to exhibit the behaviour of a single organism, even a living creature.
One having such formidable powers deserved a name to match it;
William Golding, the novelist, suggested Gaia-the name given by
the ancient Greeks to their Earth goddess.•

In this paper I present some of the factual evidence for the
Gaia hypothesis and identify the underlying concepts of this
position. Next, I note some reasons the hypothesis has encountered objections within the scientific community. Finally, I look
to Aristotle and to Thomas Aquinas, as commentator, for insight as to how these apparent contrasts might find resolution.
The factual evidence for Lovelock's claim lies in known measurements about the atmospheres of Venus, Earth, and Mars. In
addition, he was able to construct a mathematical model of an
abiological Earth. The following comparisons are of interest :
GASES.

PLANETS
Venus

Lifeless
Earth

Mars

Actual
Earth

Carbon Dioxide

96.5%

98%

95%

0.03%

Nitrogen

3.5%

1.9%

2.7%

79%

Oxygen

trace

0.0%

0.13%

21%

Surface Temp °C

459

240to
340

-53

13

a James E. Lovelock and Sidney Epton, "The Quest for Gaia," New Scientist 65 (1975) : 304.
'Table taken from Lovelock, Ages, p. 9.

GAIA HYPOTHESIS:

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ANALYSIS

3

Carbon dioxide, one of the " greenhouse " gases, is related to
surface temperature. Nitrogen and oxygen, both highly reactive
gases, are essential to life as we know it.
When he first proposed the Gaia hypothesis, Lovelock himself
may not have been aware of the ancient roots of the concept of
earth, even the universe, as a living organism. J. Donald Hughes
has traced this ancient view among the Greeks and Romans,
noting the following progression :
First, the Earth is the oldest goddess, supporter and nurturer of her
children, human and non-human, and therefore entitled to respect
and worship ....
Second, the Earth is a living being of whom humans are only part.
Right relationship with the Earth means that the total organism is in
good health ....
Third, Earth is seen as responsive to human care or the lack of it,
giving rich returns to those who treat her well and punishing those
who are lazy or who weary her by trying to wrest from her what she
is not ready to give.... 5
This concept of a living Earth would understandably meet
some resistance among scientists-and among others, as well.
One major obstacle to the acceptance of Gaia by scientists is the
holistic nature of the hypothesis, 6 and even Lovelock has backed
away from this extreme.
The Gaia hypothesis implies that both the composition of all
the reactive gases as well as the temperature of the lower atmosphere have remained relatively constant over aeons in spite of
many external perturbations. 7 Such constancy suggests a controlling mechanism of some sort, which the Gaia hypothesis in its
early stages failed to describe. A feedback mechanism explaining
a]. Donald Hughes, "Gaia: An Ancient View of our Planet," Ecologist
13 (1983) : 60.
• " It is rather the holistic nature of the Gaia hypothesis, with the idea that
the planet is greater than the sum of its parts, that sticks in the throats of
mainstream scientists " (Omar Sattaur, " Cuckoo in the Nest," New Scientist, December 1987, p. 17).
1 See Dorion Sagan and Lynn Margulis, " The Gaian Perspective of Ecolou," Ecologist 13 (1983) :160.

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LAURA LANDEN,

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the interactions between the biosphere and the environment was
needed. Further study and some creative modeling filled in this
gap. Atmospheric composition is now better understood, and
Lovelock himself devised a mathematical model, called Daisy
World, to show how planetary surface temperature might be
modulated. Lynn Margulis, a microbiologist at the University of
Massachusetts, Amherst, and a major proponent of Gaia, writes:
Atmospheric regulation can be attributed to the combined metabolic
and growth activities of organisms, especially microorganisms with
their capabilities of transforming the nitrogen, sulphur and carboncontaining gases of the atmosphere. Prior to Lovelock's daisy model
it was suggested that whatever controlled atmospheric methane concentration would provide a mechanism by which the stability of
atmospheric temperature could be maintained. In addition ... [other
researchers] showed in a quantative [sic] model that evapotranspiration from forests determined the concentration of water vapour in
the atmosphere and thus certain corelated [sic] climatic features. 8
Lovelock proposed his Daisy World model as a cybernetic
model, a system that can control itself and maintain specified
variables constant in spite of perturbing influences. The model
consists of two colors of daisies, dark and light, together with
some herbivores. Life is possible within a range of 5 to 40°C,
with the optimum being 20°C. The dark daisies absorb solar
radiation, thus having a cooling effect on the atmosphere close to
the planet's surface, whereas the light daisies reflect radiation,
having a warming effect. Variations in temperature and in solar
energy output were shown to affect the relative abundance of the
various species of daisies. The net effect was a stabilizing of
Earth's surface temperature. As Margulis writes:
Daisy World is only a model. But even with its oversimplification the
Daisy World model shows quite clearly that thermal [stability] of
the biosphere is not something too mysterious to have a mechanism.
. . . The radical insight delivered by Daisy World is that global
[stability] is in principle possible without the introduction of any but
well known tenets of biology. The gaian system does not have to plan
in advance or be foresighted in any way in order to show [ stabilizs Sagan and Margulis, " Gaian Perspective," p. 161.

GAIA HYPOTHESIS:

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5

ing] tendencies. A biological system acting cybernetically gives the
impression of teleology; if only the results and not the feedback
processes were stated it would look as if the organisms had conspired to insure their own survival.9

This statement reflects indirectly some of the opposition to
Gaia raised by some scientists. How can organisms act harmoniously to achieve a common end? How can the biosphere be an
organism itself if it has no organic structure of its own and if it
does not reproduce? In the preface to the second edition of his
book, Lovelock notes his surprise at the reactions Gaia initially
faced.10
Apart from maintaining that Earth is alive, the Gaia hypothesis contrasts in other ways with some cherished scientific convictions. Let us examine these further.
Darwinian evolution maintains that conditions of even a fairly
stable environment affect a living organism. Pressure is on the
organism from the environment : adapt or die. Natural selection
as the mechanism of evolution rests on the assumption that species, even individuals, compete for limited resources; those individuals with the most suitable adaptations will be successful in
transmitting their genes to the next generation. Purposeful action, or teleolo_gy, is thought to be unnecessary. 11
Sagan and Margulis, "Gaian Perspective," p. 164.
have taken a strange turn in recent years ; almost the full circle
from Galileo's famous struggle with the theological establishment. It is the
scientific establishment that now forbids heresy. I had a faint hope that Gaia
might be denounced from the pulpit; instead I was asked to deliver a sermon
on Gaia at the Cathedral of St. John the Divine in New York. By contrast
Gaia was condemned as teleological by my peers and the journals, Nature and
Science, would not publish papers on the subject. No satisfactory reasons for
rejection were given; it was as if the establishment, like the theological establishment of Galileo's time, could no longer tolerate radical or eccentric notions. It would have made much more sense if Gaia had been rejected on the
grounds that there was no novelty in it; that it had all been said before"
(Lovelock, Gaia, pp. vii-viii).
For more recent sympathetic criticism of Lovelock's work within the scientific community, see Lawrence E. Joseph, Gaia: The Growth of an Idea
(New York : St. Martin's Press, 1990) .
11 Consider the following: " Adaptation, as measured by evolutionary success, consists of a greater ecological-physiological efficiency of an individual
9

1 0 " Things

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The Gaia hypothesis appears to contradict this viewpoint in
several ways. Gaia presents the biosphere as active and altruistic:
species act harmoniously to effect environmental conditions favorable for life. Lovelock claims Daisy World answers some of the
objections:
I made a model of a planet with a simple ecosystem of white and
black daisies and herbivores to graze them. This theoretical world
kept a constant comfortable climate over a wide range of heat fluxes
from the star that warmed it. No foresight or planning was needed,
only the unconscious growth and competition of the species leading
to their natural selection as Darwin described it.12
Lovelock presents natural selection as a mechanism that yields
the kind of apparently altruistic stability that Gaia speaks of.
Does this suffice to address some of the more profound conceptual
discrepancies between the Gaia hypothesis and Darwinian evolution? The answer will be clear later.
Ecologists and environmentalists might seem the most likely
group to be favorably disposed to the Gaia hypothesis. Yet a certain loss of interest soon follows upon realizing some of the
implications. Consider the following comments by Charles J.
Hughes:
Dr. Lovelock proposes that life on Earth is not only a response to
and controlled by physical conditions but also modifies and controls
its own environment! . . . Dr. Lovelock in collaboration with Dr.
Lynn Margulis defines Gaia as follows: " We have since defined Gaia
as a complex entity involving the Earth's biosphere, atmosphere,
oceans, and soil; the totality constituting a feedback or cybernetic
system which seeks an optimal physical and chemical environment
for life on this planet."
than is achieved by most other members of the population or at least by the
average. . . . There is a struggle for existence not only among individuals
of the same species, but sometimes also among individuals of different species.
If such competition leads to the extinction of one of the species, this process
is referred to as species selection" (Ernst Mayr, Toward a New Philosophy
of Biology: Observations of an Evolutionist [Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard
University Press, 1981], p. 146). Mayr is acknowledged as one of the foremost
experts on Darwinian evolution today.
11 Lovelock, Gaia, p. ix.

GAIA HYPOTHESIS:

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7

This notion I find hard to swallow. It is the expression of sentient
feedback as a mechanism that gives me difficulty. Can the great system really be dissected to reveal a causative or controlling agent?
Who is to presume to judge, given the known complexities of the
many equilibria involved? Is cybernetic the right term-communication between the biosphere and other spheres, yes, but control? Is
Dr. Lovelock making too extravagant a claim that can in turn lead
all too readily, as we shall see, to unwarranted complacency? 13
Hughes identifies three corollaries of the Gaia hypothesis, reacting as a scientist to each, and summarizes his own reaction to the
Gaia hypothesis as follows :
My conclusion is simply this. Given that Homo sapiens has somehow, very suddenly, arrived at such a position of dominance in numbers, intellect, consciousness, purposiveness, and technology on planet
Earth and has been granted some insight into Gaia (call Gaia God's
handiwork if you will), should we not do our utmost to preserve
Gaia as we are privileged to see Her and form a living and breathing
part of Her today? 14
To summarize, the Gaia hypothesis raises some questions : Is
Earth alive? Can the biosphere act as a whole? Might organisms act harmoniously? The name ' Gaia ' has ancient roots.
Some insight into these questions, as well as the possibility of a
self-regulating natural mechanism, may be found in other ancient
sources. I draw upon the Aristotelian tradition for help in answering three questions about Gaia: ( 1) Need we hold that Earth
is alive? (2) What sort of whole might the biosphere be, and
what constitutes its unity? ( 3) Can nature, especially among the
non-living, be a source of motion or activity? In other words, is
a self-regulating mechanism involving the nonliving a reasonable
concept?
In defining nature, Aristotle keeps two distinctions in mind.
First, natural things are distinct from artifacts, just as natural
motion is distinct from artificial, or violent, motion. Second, nature must be defined so as to include the nonliving as well as the
u Charles J. Hughes, "Gaia: A Natural Scientist's Ethic for the Future,"

Ecologist 15 (1985) :93.
u Charles Hughes, " Gaia," p. 94.

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LAURA LANDEN,

O.P.

living. Too broad a definition destroys the first distinction; too
narrow a definition destroys the second.
Artificial things and natural things differ in that the latter
have within themselves a principle of their own motion and rest,
whereas the former do not. Aristotle contrasts a bed as an artificial thing with the wood from which it is made as a natural
thing. The bed, if planted, will not generate another bed; a seed,
however, will generate a tree. As an artifact the bed is changed
from without by the carpenter who made it and thus lacks an intrinsic principle of change. An acorn, on the other hand, generates a sprout from within.
Despite this care to draw clear distinctions, other influences
have entered the Aristotelian tradition through commentators.
One such influence is the N eoplatonic concept of nature as an
absolute intrinsic force (vis insita rebus). This concept of nature
as a fixed power or force implanted in things (vis insita rebus),
is an' interpretation' neither justified nor necessary.15
The downward motion of a falling stone is natural, as natural,
in fact, as the growth of a plant or the sense perception of an
animal. The falling of a stone, however, is not the motion of a
living thing. In contrast with a nonliving thing, a living thing
has a soul, characterized by Aristotle as the source or origin of
self-movement. Even though the stone is nonliving, its downward motion is different from the motion it would have if thrown
i 5 The concept of nature as an absolute intrinsic force (vis insita rebus) is
a Neoplatonic one. One commentator who so interprets Aristotle's definition
of nature is John Philoponus. " Natura est quaedam vita sive vis quae per
corpora diffunditur, eorum formatrix et gubernatrix, principium motus et
quietis in eo cui inest per se primo et non secundum accidens" (John Philoponus, in Aristoteles: Physicorum libri quatuor, cum Ioannis Grammatici cognomento Philoponi commentarius [Venice: Hieronymus Scotus, 1558], p. 67,
col. b. The first translation of Philoponus's commentary into Latin was not
published until 1539. However, Avicenna's commentary on the Physics mentions an unnamed predecessor who emends Aristotle's definition of motion as
a power diffused through bodies. This predecessor could be Philoponus. For
this information concerning Philoponus the author is indebted to William A.
Wallace, Prelude to Galileo: Essays on Medieval and Sixteenth-Century
Sources of Galileo's Thought, Boston Studies in the Philosophy of Science, no.
6Z (Boston: D. Reidel Publishing Co., 1981).

GAIA HYPOTHESIS:

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upward. The di:fference lies in this : the stone, if free to fall, will
move downward by itself but must be thrown upward by some
extrinsic agent. The natural downward motion of the stone,
therefore, proceeds from an intrinsic principle, even though the
stone is clearly not alive.
Taking account of these distinctions, Aristotle defines nature
as follows:
Nature is a principle or cause of being moved or being at rest in
that to which it belongs primarily, per se, and not per accidens.16

In his commentary, Thomas Aquinas observes that nature is
called a ' principle ' to emphasize that it is something relative in
the thing and not some absolute or fixed factor. He illustrates
his point by noting that ' nature ' derives from the word for
" being born"; something which is born was first attached to its
generator, such as a plant or animal. Nature is thus relative to
each species. What is natural behavior for a bear, for instance,
is not natural for a human being, and vice versa. Because of this
relational characteristic, nature is not correctly thought to be
some absolute, intrinsic force or power within the natural thing.
As Aquinas notes :
Thus, they are to be laughed at who, wishing to correct Aristotle's
definition, tried to define nature by something absolute, saying that
nature is a force implanted in things [vis insita re-bus], or something
of the sort.17
Aquinas remarks that although the existence of nature is selfevident, since natural things are evident to sense, the nature of
any given thing is not nearly so apparent. Yet, because nature is
an intrinsic principle of natural things, it must correspond to the
intrinsic principles of matter and form. Matter can, indeed, be
1 s " hOs ouses tes phuseos arkhes tinos kai aitias tou kineisthai kai eremein
en hOi huparkhei protos kath' hayto kai me kata sumbebekos" (Aristotle,
Physics, in Opera, vol. 1, ed. Immanuel Bekker [Berlin: George Reimer, 1831],
2. 1. 192b21-23).
17 Thomas Aquinas, In octos libros Physicorum Aristotelis expositio, ed.
P. M. Maggiolo (Rome: Marietti, 1965), 2. 1. 148, henceforth referred to as
On the Physics. All translations are my own.

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LAURA LANDEN,

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considered part of the nature of a thing insofar as it enters into
the constitution of the substance of each natural thing.
The nature (ratio) of a thing is captured in its definition. Nature ( natura) can thus refer to this defining aspect of the thing,
its form, as Aquinas observes:
In another way nature is called the form or species, which is [said]
according to the defining notion, that is, from which the notion
[ratio] of the thing is constituted.18

A single substance, in the Aristotelian sense, can have a nature and properly so. A natural substance is a composite of matter and substantial form. But can a composite whole, such as the
biosphere, have a nature? To answer this requires some consideration of the sense in which the biosphere is a whole.
Thomas contrasts a natural whole, such as an animal, with an
accidental whole, ·such as a house. The form of a house, unlike
the soul, does not give being and species to both the whole and
its parts. Nor is it one simply, but only by aggregation. 19
This comparison of an animal with a house is instructive. An
animal is a natural whole, whereas a house is a composite whole.
An animal has but one intrinsic substantial form. In contrast, a
house has many forms, some of which are extrinsic, such as the
exemplar in the mind of the builder. The animal has unity per
se, the house only per accidens. The animal whole and its parts
receive their being and species from the one substantial form of
the soul. The whole of the house is found only in the whole; the
form of each part of the house, such as the foundation and walls,
is found only in that part. Therefore, in an artificial whole, the
whole and its parts do not receive their being and species from
one substantial form. Upon the death of an animal, the bodily
parts are such only equivocally. The eye, for example, is truly an
eye only in the living body. Should a house be razed, leaving the
foundation, that part of the house may be called a foundation in
1s Thomas Aquinas, On the Physics, 2. 2. 151. Emphasis in the original.

Thomas Aquinas, Quaestio disputata de anima, in Quaestiones disputatae, vol. 2, ed. P. M. Calacaterra, et al. (Rome: Marietti, 1965), 1. 10.
19 See

ad 16.

GAIA HYPOTHESIS:

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the same manner as when the house was standing. We understand that a new house could easJly be built upon the old foundation. The eye of a dead animal, however, cannot become a functional part of another animal's body.
Thomas provides an interesting breakdown of relationships of
whole to parts in his commentary on Aristotle's Metaphysics.
He first distinguishes two ways in which one thing may go to
make up another : as a part or as an essence, such as a whole,
composite, or species. (This is taken directly from Aristotle's
text. 20 ) When something is a substance, the corresponding form
is the species of the thing. This holds true of a simple whole,
such as an animal, which has a substantial form and can be alive.
When several things join to form one, a unity may be formed
in one of three ways: by order, by contact, or by mixture. When
the parts are joined by order only-as people in an army or
houses in a city-the form is the corresponding whole, to which
the name ' army ' or 'city ' is applied. (We might add that in
nature a forest is just such a whole.21 ) Sometimes there exists
not only order but also contact and joining of the parts, as with
a house. Then the composite serves as the form. In the case of
mixture an alteration of the components also obtains. The mixture itself, which is in some way a composition of species, has a
substantial form of its own. Unity in an integral whole comes
from one principle: the form, as in a mixed body; the composition, as in a house; or the order, as with speech (ordered syllables) or an army.
In sum, Aquinas considers a natural substance to be one
simply. The unity of such a substance comes from its substantial
form. A whole composed of several substances, such as the biosphere, has unity from the order which constitutes it as a whole,
as with an army or a city (or perhaps a forest). Here unity
:20 See Thomas Aquinas, In duodecim libros Metaphysicorum Aristotelis expositio, ed. M.-R. Cathala (Rome: Marietti, 1964), 5. 3. 779. For Aristotle,
see Metaphysics in Opera, vol. 2, 5. 3. 1013b21-23.
2 1 A forest is formed by the closing of the tree canopy. This affects the
growth patterns of the individual trees, the amount of light reaching the
ground, and hence the type of lower vegetation which can thrive.

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LAURA LANDEN,

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derives from order among the parts. Its form is the form of the
corresponding whole. What name for the biosphere as such a
whole? Perhaps-Gaia.
The Gaia hypothesis claims more than that the biosphere may
be considered as a whole. It claims that this biosphere acts as a
whole to effect conditions in the environment favorable to life.
In what sense might Aristotle and Aquinas view a natural but
nonliving thing as exercising efficient causality?
Thomas accepts Aristotle's four-fold division of causes: matter, form, agent, and end. He also agrees with Aristotle that an
efficient cause in the proper sense must be distinct from its effect.
Aristotle proves that the principle, " whatever is moved is
moved by something," is true in general. 22 Even though his discussion is of local motion, he establishes principles applicable to
all changes. Mover and moved are found in pairs, hence a division of one corresponds to a division of the other. Aristotle notes
three pairs of means by which things are moved : ( 1) per accidens
or per se, (2) by themselves or by another, and (3) naturally or
not naturally. Thomas observes that things moved per accidens
" are not so much moved as said to be moved when other things
are moved." 23
Self-movement and natural movement are examples of things
being moved per se. These two types are not mutually exclusive,
for anything moved naturally must have within itself the source
of its motion. (Anything moved unnaturally must have an external source of its motion.) We may not conclude from this that
things moved naturally correspond to the living. Aristotle is
careful to use ' source ' (ark he), not ' cause ' ( aitia), in describing things moved naturally.
The living and the nonliving, however, may be identified as
things moved by themselves and things moved by another. Aristotle then proves within each case that everything moved is in fact
moved by another. He easily disposes of things moved unnaturally, or by compulsion, since they are clearly moved by another.
22

See Aristotle, Physics, 7.

2s Thomas Aquinas, On the Physics 8. 4. 1024.

GAIA HYPOTHESIS:

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The living move themselves. Yet Aristotle claims in the
Physics that they also are unquestionably moved by another. This
is accomplished by an organic body in which one part, remaining unmoved, may move the whole.
The most serious difficulty arises in discovering the source of
motion in the nonliving, such as heavy bodies. Heavy bodies do
not move themselves, Aristotle claims, because they are nonliving
and they are homogeneous in composition.
I maintain that the biosphere, though a whole, is not living.
The biosphere derives its unity from order, but it is not a substance, that is, it does not have a substantial form, and hence it
has no soul. Does such a conclusion entail that this unique sort
of whole is incapable of a kind of self-regulatory motion? Further consideration of the way in which Aristotle approaches natural motion in the nonliving will be helpfttl in answering this
question.
Aristotle turns his attention to movers, that is, to the efficient
causes of motion. He attempts to ascertain the cause of the natural motion of the elements. He notes that fire and earth are
moved naturally when their proper potentialities are actualized.u
Aquinas enlarges Aristotle's remark as follows :
Therefore, since something in potency is naturally moved by another
in act, and nothing is in potency and in act in the same respect, it
follows that neither fire nor earth nor anything else is moved by
itself, but by another. Fire and earth are moved ... naturally when
they are moved to their proper acts, to which they are in potency according to their proper nature. 25
From this we conclude that natural motion in the elements proceeds from their proper natures.
Aristotle continues his search for the cause of natural motion
in the elements by saying that 'potency' may have many senses.
This multiplicity, he tells us, is the reason why the source of the
natural motion of the elements is not apparent. He proceeds to
give several examples of kinds of potency and to distinguish bePhysics 8. 4. 25Sa28-30.
Thomas Aquinas, On the Physics 8. 8. 1029.

24 See Aristotle,

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tween first and second potency, each of which relate to both first
and second act.
In one example Aristotle asks his reader to consider both someone who does not know a particular science and one who knows
it but is not exercising the knowledge. The one who is ignorant
of the science must be taught, and in the change from being
ignorant to knowing teacher and pupil must be in contact. But
one who knows the science but is not exercising it can come to
exercise it without a teacher. Still once brought from ignorance
to knowledge, the learner does not necessarily continue to exercise the knowledge acquired. Although one sort of potency has
been actualized, another may still remain.
Thomas applies the names ' first potency ' and ' second potency' to the two states of the learner: being ignorant, and knowing but not exercising the knowledge. He writes :
Something is reduced from first potency to second when an active
principle is in contact with its passive principle; then, by the presence
of the active principle, the passive is brought into some kind of act
which is still in potency in a way. In just this way the learner, by
the action of the teacher, is brought from potency into act, an act
to which another potency is adjoined. 26
Aristotle observes that the knower will immediately engage
knowledge unless something prevents him from doing so. In his
commentary, Thomas expands this observation and makes an important statement about the requirement for an efficient cause in
the actualization of this ' second potency ' :
But when he has acquired the habit of science, it is not necessary
that he be moved to second act by some agent ; rather, he will himself immediately exercise his knowledge unless something prevents
him, such as other occupations or sickness or his will. On the other
hand, if unimpeded he is not able to exercise his knowledge, then he
does not have the habit of science but its contrary-that is, ignorance.27
In sum, the move from first potency to first act requires an ac28

Thomas Aquinas, On the Physics 8. 8. 1031.
Aquinas, On the Physics 8. 8. 1031.

2 1 Thomas

GAIA HYPOTHESIS:

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tually existent external agent : the teacher in the case of the student, the generator in the case of the elements. The move from second potency to operation, on the other hand, occurs immediately
and without further need of an extrinsic agent, unless some additional factor impedes this natural action. The actualization of a
natural operation is spontaneous.
Aristotle next applies the principles of this example to the motion of the elements. He says that what is heavy is potentially
light. For example, air is generated from water. The newly
generated air will immediately rise, unless prevented from doing
so.28 Thomas phrases this slightly differently, but without misinterpretation :
At first this water is potentially light, but afterwards becomes actually light. It then immediately has its own operation, unless something
prevents it.29
Aristotle defines heaviness as a relationship to a certain place,
that is, to ' being down '. The complete actualization of a heavy
thing consists in its ' being down '. He is now prepared to give
his explanation of the cause of the motion of heavy bodies :
The question is: What causes the motion of the heavy and the light
to their proper places? The only answer is that they have a tendency
to those places. In this consists the essence of lightness and heaviness, the former being an upward tendency and the latter a downward.30
He explains this as follows. A thing may be potentially light
in more than one sense. Water is potentially light. After it becomes air, however, it may still be potentially light in the sense
that it is prevented from rising. Should the hindrance be removed, its actuality may be realized and it will rise. We recognize this difference as that between the potency to first act and
28 " touto gar dunamei proton, kai ede kouphon, kai energesei g' eythus, an
me ti koluei ... " (Aristotle, Physics 8. 4. 255b9-11).
2e " Haec ergo, scilicet aqua, primo est in potentia levis, et postmodum fit
levis in actu ; et tune statim habet operationem suam, nisi aliquid prohibeat "
(Thomas Aquinas, On the Physics 8. 8. 1033).
ao Aristotle, Physics 8. 4. 255b13-17.

16

LAURA LANDEN,

O.P.

the potency to second act. Water is in potency to air substantially, that is, at the level of first act. Once the water has become
air, it is potentially 'up' with regard to operation, or second act.
This potentiality to ' being up ' is precisely what is meant by
lightness. According to this doctrine, then, air will spontaneously
exercise its operation to move up by reason of lightness, unless
something prohibits this motion.
Thomas formulates the argument more strongly:
For although the act of a light thing is to be up, some still ask why
the heavy and the light are moved to their proper places. The reason
is that they have a natural aptitude to such places. For this is what
it is to be light: to have an aptitude to be up. It is the nature of
heaviness to have an aptitude to be down. Hence, to ask why the
heavy thing is moved down is nothing other than to ask why it is
heavy. And so the same thing that makes it heavy also makes it
move down.31
We may conclude that the generator of the heavy thing is also
its mover because the generator is precisely the agent that makes
it heavy by giving it its form, or nature.
Aristotle concludes his discussion of the cause of the natural
motion of the heavy and the light by saying that they do not move
themselves, but do contain within themselves the source, or arkhe,
of their motion. He writes :
And so, in all these instances, the thing does not move itself. However, it does have within it a[n active] principle of its motion-not
an active [potency], but a passive one.32
Aristotle and Aquinas provide some valuable analyses which
are of help in assessing the Gaia hypothesis. The sum of living
organisms may well act as a whole; Gaia seems to be a valid concept. This need not imply that earth is alive. Lovelock may have
BJ. Thomas Aquinas, On the Physics 8. 8. 1034.

hoti men toinum ouden touton ayto kinei heayto, delon, alla kineseos
arkhen ekhei, ou tou kinein oude tou poiein, alla tou paskhein " (Aristotle,
Physics 8. 4. 255b29-31). Aristotle uses 'principle' (arkhe) here rather than
' potency ', but the paraphrase provided is more faithful to the meaning of the
text.
i12 "

GAIA HYPOTHESIS:

A THOMIST

ANALYSIS

17

maintained this in his earlier work, but he has backed away from
this position after introducing Daisy World. Gaia as a self-regulating cybernetic machine is admittedly much more complex than
the simple world of black and white daisies, yet the Aristotelian
tradition is helpful even here. The fall of heavy bodies can be seen
as a natural motion of the nonliving, that is, as motion proceeding from an intrinsic principle. In light of this, it is entirely reasonable to maintain that the natural order has many nonliving,
but moving, systems (cybernetic machines?) in which motion
proceeds naturally, from an intrinsic principle. Acceptance of
Gaia by scientists is taken by some as an indication of a mature
science. Consider the following :
[David] Abram suggested that the Gaia hypothesis "may well signal
the emergence of just such a mature science. A science that seeks
not to control the world but to participate with the world, not to
operate upon nature, but to cooperate with nature." Gaia, he says,
" will never fit very neatly within the discourse of mechanism." 33
The seasons come and the seasons go, and there is nothing
new under the sun-but perhaps we now have a clearer understanding of how things under the sun operate. The scientific
community recently accorded the Gaia hypothesis a warm reception. Perhaps philosophers and theologians might find rich insight here as well: insight which is old, yet newly grasped; insight which is radical, yet compatible with solid philosophical traditions.

sa Sattaur, " Cuckoo," p. 18. Abram has investigated the implications of the
Gaia hypothesis as a way of looking at the natural order. See David Abram,
"The Perceptual Implications of Gaia," Ecologist 15 (1985) : 96-103.

AQUINAS AND THE PRESENCE OF
THE HUMAN RATIONAL SOUL
IN THE EARLY EMBRYO
STEPHEN

J. HEANEY

University of Saint Thomas
Saint Paul, Minnesota

F

IRST IN RELATION to evolution and more recently in
relation to abortion, there has been a recurrence of
Thomas Aquinas's arguments for the thesis that the
human rational soul is not present in the human body immediately upon conception. Since soul and body must be proportioned to
each other, it is argued, a rational soul cannot be present until
the human body is formed enough to support it, i.e., until there
are organs in place through which the rational soul can begin to
exercise its proper powers.
The question of this paper is : Given modern embryological
knowledge, would Aquinas be likely to come to the same conclusion? In regards to such a question Rudolph Gerber has made
the following observation:
Some scholastic philosophers and theologians insist that it is simply
impossible to determine exactly when rational animation occurs. This
belief, however, has deterred few prophets in either camp from stating their positions with dogmatic certainty.1
The authors whose interpretations we will be encountering in
this paper have generally been less than dogmatic, but they have
been insistent on the rectitude of their respective positions. I
will attempt to do likewise : I am in no position to be dogmatic
(after all, how will we test the thesis?), but I believe I have good
grounds for the conclusion I have reached.
1Rudolph Gerber, "When Is the Human Soul Infused?" Laval theologique
et philosophique 22 (1966) : 235.

19

20

STEPHEN

J.

HEANEY

We begin with certain positions which both sides in the debate
agree upon : the human intellectual soul is produced immediately
by God and not through another agency since, as immaterial, it
cannot come from a change in matter; 2 further, the human soul
is infused, that is, produced directly in a body as the body's
natural perfection. 8 As we shall see in the texts, Aquinas argues
that this latter position requires that, while the embryo is alive,
it is alive first through the power of a vegetative soul, then a
sensitive soul, and finally, when the body is organized enough to
be able to perform the functions demanded of it, by a rational
soul, this ultimate form replacing the previous one.
This theory of delayed animation--or, more to the point of
this paper, the view that Aquinas would today still hold such a
theory-has several contemporary proponents. The most prominent spokesman is Joseph Donceel, S.J. He has presented his
arguments in a pair of articles' which we will now review.
In the earlier article, Donceel blames a latent Cartesianism for
the proliferation of supporters of immediate hominization. If
you hold, with Descartes, that the soul and body are two separate
substances, that the soul is not the form of the body, then there
is " no longer any reason for rejecting the presence of a real
human soul in a virtual human body," 5 i.e., in matter that has
the potential to be a human body (with human shape) but is not
one yet. Thus, the soul could act as the efficient cause of the body,
molding the matter into the organs proper to human beings.
This, however, is not Aquinas's view, Donceel argues; "he did
not admit that an actual human sould could be coupled with a
virtual human body," 6 because "a substantial form can exist
only in and with a human body." 7 If we accept the Cartesian
2 S. Th. I, 90, 3, corp.
s S. Th. I, 90, 4, corp.
'Joseph Donceel, S.J ., "Abortion: Mediate v. Immediate Animation," Continuum 5 (1967): 167-71; "Immediate Animation and Delayed Hominization,"
Theological Studies 31 (1970) : 76-105.
B Donceel, "Abortion," p. 169.
e Ibid., p. 168.
T Ibid.

THE HUMAN SOUL IN THE EARLY EMBRYO

21

explanation, we would be equating the soul with the architect or
builders of a building. These, however, are not the building's
form; that exists only in the finished building. Rather, Donceel
says that the soul is related to the body as sphericity to a ball.
An embryo is like a deflated ball; it cannot contain the form of
ball until it is actually spherical. 8
For these reasons, Donceel approves of the arguments of Henri
de Dorlodot, who says the following:
One would have to be extremely ignorant of embryology not to know
that . . . a fertilised ovum, a morula, a fetus which has reached the
stage resembling a gastrula, and even an embryo in the first period
of its existence, do not possess the organisation of a specifically
human body. And the seat of the imagination and the vis cogitativa
does not exist so long as the brain itself does not exist, and indeed
as long as there are not present the first rudiments of the structure
of a human brain. We might perhaps add that it is very probable
that the organization necessary in order that the brain may be said
to be human is completed only during the third month after conception, and in fact nearer the end of the month than the beginning.9

It is in the later article that Donceel lines up some texts from
Aquinas and Aristotle in support of this position. We will consider all the relevant texts a little bit later. For now, let us quote
from Donceel this summary of his position.
To my mind, these statements of St. Thomas contain a mixture of
erroneous biological information and sound philosophy. If this philosophy were derived from the biology, we would have to drop it.
Likewise, if Thomas had reached his conclusions only by subsuming
his scientific mistakes under his sound philosophical principles, we
would have to question them. But it is my contention that these conclusions have been reached, or could have been reached, on the basis
of sound philosophical principles and of the common-sense-knowledge
which was available to Thomas and his contemporaries.
The main philosophical principles are as follows. The soul is the
substantial form of man. A substantial form can exist only in mat11 Ibid., p. 169.
11 Canon Henri de Dorlodot, "A Vindication of the Mediate Animation
Theory," in E. C. Messenger, ed., Theology and Evolution (London: Sands
and Co., Ltd., 1949), p. 260. Cf. Donceel, "Abortion," pp. 169-70.

22

STEPHEN

J. HEANEY

ter capable of receiving it. In the case of man's soul this means: the
human soul can exist only in a highly organized body. Now these
philosophical principles owe nothing to primitive medieval biology.
They represent Thomas' hylomorphic conception of man. This conception continues to make sense even today, at least for him who
understands it. Without it we are steadily in danger of slipping into
some kind of Platonic or Cartesian dualism.10
In Donceel's understanding of the situation, Aquinas's conclusion
of delayed animation is as sound today as it was in medieval
times, because a) the philosophical principle is sound, and b)
both medieval and modern embryology agree on " the following
undeniable fact, of which Aquinas was fully aware: at the start
of pregnancy there is not yet a fully organized human body." 11
What we have instead is "potentially, virtually, a human
body." 12 For ensoulment, for the presence of a human rational
soul, we must have the organs necessary for the activities proper
to human beings, i.e., we need a brain and sense organs. 18
If form and matter are strictly complementary, as hylomorphism
holds, there can be an actual human soul only in a body endowed
with the organs required for the spiritual activities of man. We
know that the brain, and especially the cortex, are the main organs
of those highest sense activities without which no spiritual activity
is possible.14

Quoting authors who suggest that the soul, in its role as form
of the body, shapes and organizes the body, Donceel argues that
such an understanding is erroneous. Such a formative principle
could not be a substantial form, for, as Aquinas says: " Every
substantial generation precedes and does not follow the substantial form." u

10 Donceel, " Immediate Animation," p.

79.

11 Ibid., p. 80.
12 Ibid.
1s Ibid.
H Ibid., p. 83.
u S. C. G. II, 89, in Donceel, "Immediate Animation," p. 94.

THE HUMAN SOUL IN THE EARLY EMBRYO

23

Difficulties in Donceel's Interpretation
Donceel makes a number of very good points here, but there
are also some difficulties in interpretation that need to be dealt
with. Obviously, the big questions will be whether Donceel is correct in his assertion that the human body must have such a high
degree of organization before the soul can be present and to what
extent Aquinas's conclusion was rooted in biology. But there
are a few lesser, but instructive, points to be raised first.
For one thing, it is begging the question to assert that the
" body at the moment of conception is obviously virtual." 16 To
say that immediate animation requires a rational soul to be joined
to a virtual or potential human body misses the fact that, when a
rational soul is joined to matter, you no longer have a potential
human body but rather an actual human body with potential, potential to develop in certain ways. Thus, Donceel's use of
Aquinas's statement, "Every substantial generation precedes and
does not follow the substantial form," is misplaced. Donceel
seems to think that, by joining a rational soul as form to a body
as yet unorganized (i.e., not having organs), we would have
generation (the corning-to-be of a substance) after the form is
in place. Obviously, however, when the substantial form is in
place, substantial generation is complete, and all further changes
would be developments of the substance. We can only say that
the embryo body is a potential human body once we have established that there is no rational soul present. This remains to be
seen.
A second point of interest is Donceel' s analogy of a building to
the human body. He suggests that the form of the building is
only present in the finished building and that the human soul is
similarly present in an organized human body. But this analogy
is somewhat off base. As Aquinas notes in De Anima, the
"form " of a house is artificial; a building does not have a sub16 Thomas

(1967) : 417.

Wassmer, S.J., "Questions About Questions," Commonweal 86

24

STEPHEN

J. HEANEY

stantial unity as a human body does.17 The body is one because
it is perfected by one form. 18 The building is an aggregate or
composite; it is, if you will, only analogically one. Donceel's
comparisons of the soul to the form of a ball or of a statue are
somewhat more apt. There is a sense in which the form of ball
is not present until it attains a spherical shape; a statue needs to
be molded in clay or chipped from the stone before it is a statue.
There is, on the other hand, still a basic artificiality to these
forms. Does the ball, for instance, have to be perfectly spherical
to be a ball? Can it not be a fair or poor ball rather than only a
potential ball? How many chips in the stone does it take to make
a statue?
The uniqueness of the forms of living things as compared
to man-made objects is an interesting topic in itself but takes us
away from our main point. The question remains to be answered:
Is it possible that there is a human intellectual soul in the embryo
from conception, or must there be time enough for the development of the body before God infuses such a soul? The only way
to answer such a question is to go directly to the texts of Aquinas
in which he lays out his theory of human generation and of the
proper proportionality of soul to body.

The Thomistic Texts
Donceel relies heavily for his interpretation of Aquinas on the
following definition of the soul, which is taken from Aristotle:
" The soul is the act of a physical organic body which has life potentially." 19 Since " organic " in this context means " having
organs," Donceel interprets this statement as saying that all the
organs necessary for the proper operations of the human soul
must be in place for a human rational soul to be infused in the
body. There are other texts throughout Aquinas's works to support this understanding.
In the De Anima, for instance, Aquinas says that
De Anima X, ad 16.
is De Anima X, corp.
1 9 S. Th. I, 76, 4, ad 1; cf. Aristotle, De Anima II, 1.

11

THE HUMAN

SOUL IN THE EARLY EMBRYO

25

form gives an act of existing and species to matter according as matter is disposed for the operations of the form, and because the body,
which is capable of being perfected by the soul, requires diversity in
its parts in order that it may be disposed for the different operations
of the soul.20
Similarly, in the Summa Contra Gentiles, Aquinas says the
following:
[S]ince the intellective soul is the most perfect of souls and its power
the highest, its proper perfectible [subject] is a body having great
diversity in its organs through which the multiplicity of its operations can be carried out.... 21
Clearly, however, the embryo is alive, even from conception.
But if the embryo is not informed by a human rational soul, what
sort of form does it have? Today's thinkers in favor of mediate
animation turn again to Aquinas's texts, where the answer is
available. Agreeing with Aristotle that the embryo is an animal
before it is a man, 22 Aquinas says: "The embryo has first of all
a soul which is merely sensitive, and when this is removed, it is
supplanted by a more perfect soul, which is both sensitive and
intellectual." 23 In order to stay with his understanding of the
higher soul as containing within it the operations of the lower
forms, 24 he explains further:
And therefore it is said that since the generation of one thing is the
corruption of another, it is necessary to say that, both in man and
in other animals, when the more perfect form comes, the prior is
corrupted, in such a way that the subsequent form has whatever the
first hand, and even more. And so through many generations and
corruptions it arrives at the ultimate substantial form, both in man
and in other animals. And this is apparent to the senses in animals
generated from putrefaction. Thus it is said that the intellectual soul,
which is simultaneously both sensitive and nutritive, is created by
God at the end of human generation, the preexisting forms being
corrupted. 25
20 De Anima X, ad 2.
21 S. C. G. II, 86, 4.

Aristotle, De Gen. Anim. II, 3.
zs S. Th. I, 76, 3, ad 3; cf. S. C. G. II, 89, 9; De Spir. Crea. III, ad 13.
24 S. Th. I, 76, 3, corp.; 4, corp.
25 S. Th. I, 118, 2, ad 2.

'22

26

STEPHEN

J. HEANEY

Clearly, then, Aquinas believes that there is a succession of souls,
nutritive and sensitive, before the body is finally in a position to
be informed by its ultimate form, the human rational soul. How
can this change take place?
Given that what comes into being is brought into being by
something already existing (reduction from potentiality to act by
what is already in act), we need to find the part or being that
does the moving or changing in this situation. There is a suggestion in the Summa Contra Gentiles that it is the soul which
is responsible for the change.
That which is configured to something is constituted from the action
of that to which it is configured: the wax which is configured by the
seal receives this configuration from the impression of the seal. Now
one sees the bodies of men and other animals to be configured to the
proper soul: for the disposition of the organs is such that it suits
the operations of the soul exercised through them. The body therefore is formed by the action of the soul ; and that is why Aristotle
says (De Anima II) that the soul is the efficient cause of the body.26
Aquinas concurs in this, 21 insofar as it makes sense to say that
a soul is responsible for the formation of the human body.
Could it be that each successive soul, in some way, manages to
transcend itself-that is, to produce by its own power a body
capable of receiving a higher form? In this scenario, the original
vegetative soul produces a body with the organs necessary for the
sensitive soul, which in turn produces a body capable of receiving an intellectual soul. No; such a production is impossible and
is not what is indicated by the argument of wax and seal. There
is a lack of due proportion of producer to what is produced; a
cause cannot be the cause of what is greater than itself. Thus a
lower soul, which itself is incapable of higher operations, could
not be responsible for the production of organs of higher operations. Nor could it be the case that a lower soul upon further
perfection becomes the higher soul, for this would mean : a) that
a substantial form is susceptible of degrees, and b) that a rational
26 S. C. G. II, 88, 11.

2r S. C. G. II, 89, 21.

THE HUMAN SOUL IN THE EARLY EMBRYO

27

soul is corruptible, since it would thus be founded in a vegetative
and sentient substance. 28
It would seem, then, that a rational soul must be responsible.
Granting for the sake of argument that a rational soul is the informing principle of the embryo, Aquinas goes through its powers
one by one. The power to organize the body cannot come from
the embryo's generative powers, for these are operative only in
adults and for the purpose of generating others. It cannot be the
embryo soul's nutritive power at work here, for in this process
nouishment is not assimilated but nutritive material in the mother
is brought together to form organs. The power of growth is not
responsible, Aquinas claims, because its function is to produce
change in quantity, not form. Obviously, the sensitive and intellective powers are inappropriate to such a formation. 29
What is Aquinas left with?
It remains therefore that the formation of the body, especially concerning its primary and principal parts, is not from the soul of the
thing generated, nor from a formative power acting by virtue of the
generated thing, but from [a formative power] acting by virtue of
the generative soul of the father, the work of which is to make something like the generating thing according to its species.30
It is thus apparent that, for Aquinas, it is the soul of a parent
that is responsible for the development of the embryo body until
it is capable of supporting a rational soul.
In Aristotelian physics, whenever we speak of change or movement, there is that which acts and that which is acted upon, i.e.,
something passive. The same holds true for Aristotelian biology,
which Aquinas accepted completely as authoritative. In the abstract, it would serve perfectly well if the active part were donated by the mother, and the passive part by the father. This is
not the case, however, according to this early theory of generation. Each parent donates a particular element: the female provides the menstrual blood, the father the semen. From a prac2s De Spir. Crea. III, ad 13; S. C. G. II, 89, 6 and 7.
29 S. C. G. II, 89, 8.
10 S. C. G. II,

89, 8; cf. 89, 21.

28

STEPHEN

J.

HEANEY

tical perspective, it makes some sense that the fetal matter be
provided by the female, simply in terms of mass. This is precisely what Aquinas says is the case : the female provides the passive
element. 31 If this is so, however, then the father provides the active element. This means it is the father's soul which is responsible for the development of a human body in the embryo. Yet this
seems to put us in the awkward position of saying either a) the
soul is transmitted in the semen, or b) the action of the father's
soul must take place at a distance.
Aquinas devotes a chapter in Summa Contra Gentiles to laying out arguments favoring the transmission of the soul in, or
the forming of the soul from, the semen; he spends the next
chapter showing how this is impossible. 32 We have already seen
how the soul cannot develop through its stages on its own account. It is equally impossible that the soul be transmitted in the
semen, for thus we would have the form before the generation. 33
It is possible, however, for the father's soul to act at a distance,
not directly, but through a medium. The generative power of the
soul is at work in the instrument of the semen,34 rather as the
power of the hunter would be in the arrow which strikes an
animal at a distance. 85 "This active force, which is in the semen,
and which is derived from the soul of the generator, is, as it were,
a certain movement of the generator's soul itself.... " 36 The
semen contains a " formative power " which is based " on the
vital spirit which the semen contains as a kind of froth." 37 The
semen contains an active " spirit," rather like an active gas or
heat or electrical charge, which explains the frothy whiteness of
the semen. When this comes in contact with the matter being
carried in the female, the menstrual blood, the semen goes to
work transmuting this blood, organizing it into a body. For the
animal, this transmutation by the semen takes place until the body
is disposed to activation by the sensitive soul.
a1 S. Th. I, 118, 1, ad 4.

s2 S. C. G. II, 88 and 89.
sa S. C. G. II, 89, 4 and 5.
34

S. Th. I, 118, 1, ad 4.

De An. II, ad 2.
ss S. Th. I, 118, 1, ad 3; cf. S. C. G. II, 89, 8.
ar S. C. G. II, 89, 8.

35

THE HUMAN SOUL IN THE EARLY EMBRYO

29

Afterwards, however, through the power of the active principle
which was in the semen, the sensitive soul was produced in the thing
generated in respect to some principal part, then already the very
sensitive soul of the offspring begins to work to the completion of its
own body through nutrition and augmentation.88
Only then does the semen, as the instrumental agent, dissipate.
This is an important point. Since the species of the subject
formed changes, passing from semen to pure blood and on further until it receives the ultimate form of a rational soul, it is
necessary that the formative power remain the same throughout
the process, from the beginning of the body's formation until the
end (when it can support a rational soul). Thus one power is at
work through many generations and corruptions. 89

Arguments against Mediate Animation
Donceel believes that, even in the context of contemporary
embryology, Aquinas would still today hold for some theory of
delayed hominization; the body would be seen to develop step by
step, through vegetative and sensitive stages, until it is developed
enough to have organs, or at least the beginnings of organs,
capable of performing the tasks demanded of the body by an intellectual soul. Donceel's claim is that Aquinas's conceptualization
of a succession of souls is valid regardless of the facts of generation. But this claim rests completely on an understanding of the
relationship between soul and body which prohibits the soul's
presence unless the body has reached a sufficient degree of organization.
We must take issue with Donceel's claim. Aquinas's acceptance of Aristotle's theory of a succession of souls is, in fact,
totally dependent on his acceptance of the corresponding theory
of generation. But what if generation does not take place in the
manner described? In order to explain the succession of souls,
which are not themselves responsible for the formation of the
body, there must be an active power, the semen, at work on the
passive matter, organizing the body throughout the succession of
u S. Th. I, 118, 1, ad 4.

ao S. C. G. II, 89, 9.

30

STEPHEN

J. HEANEY

souls. Without this organizing power, there is no way to explain
the formation of the body.
Clearly, the semen-or, in modern terms, the sperm-does not
perform such a task. It appears that the development of the organs is an activity internal to the embryo, not one being performed by an extrinsic power. At the very least, we can definitely say that the semen does not have an active power or spirit in
the sense that Aquinas understood the term. Such spirits, as I
said earlier, were "like hot, energetic gases (or even like our
idea of electricity)." 40 Thus the seminal spirit contained the
quality of heat necessary for the refinement of the menstrual
blood and the consequent proper disposition of a living body as
something with both natural heat and natural moisture. 41 Obviously, neither the semen nor the sperm have such properties as
this, nor do they continue to exist in themselves after conception.
The sperm that do not penetrate the ovum die shortly thereafter.
The semen that is not used as nutrient by the sperm is absorbed
or otherwise dissolved in the maternal body.
One might suggest that the genetic material carried by the
sperm (and, for that matter, by the ovum) performs this formative function, thus organizing a human being by the power of the
soul of the begetter rather than of the begotten. This seems implausible, however, given the apparent character of the embryo.
Genetic material from the sperm does not work independently,
any more than does that from the mother; it is only when they
come together that there is any development in the direction of
the maturity of the individual. Conversely, whenever they come
together, such a tendency toward a mature individual is the result. Genetic material, being essentially chemical, operates by the
40 Benedict Ashley, " A Critique of the Theory of Delayed Hominization "
in D. G. McCarthy and A. S. Moraczewski, ed., An Ethical Evaluation of
Fetal Experimentation: An Interdisciplinary Study (St. Louis: Pope John
XXIII Medical-Moral Research and Education Center, 1976), Appendix I, p.
119; cf. Generation of Animals, ed. A. L. Peck (Cambridge, Mass.: Loeb
Library, 1953) Appendix B, pp. 576-93, for a discussion of the semen and
pneuma.
u De An. IX, ad 16.

THE HUMAN

SOUL IN THE EARLY EMBRYO

31

same basic properties as any chemical compound: the parts may
have one set of characteristics, but, with their joining, they each
cease their former existence, and a new set of characteristics becomes manifest. (In Thomistic terms, a new form manifests itself.) Sodium and chlorine, for instance, are both poisonous to
human beings, but as the chemical compound sodium chloride
(NaCl) they become common table salt. Such, analogously, is the
case with human genetic material. The ovum carries twentythree chromosomes, bearing the generative power of the mother;
the sperm's twenty-three chromosomes bring the generative power
of the father. When they meet at fertilization, however, the combination takes on a new set of characteristics specific to this
embryo.
We are thus without a way for the soul of the parents to provide the power, either immediately or mediately, to organize the
body of the embryo. Without the power of the soul of the begetter, Aquinas clearly would have nowhere else to turn but to
the soul of the begotten to explain this development.
This seems to put us between a rock and a hard place. We are
forced to say that the power must be in the soul of the embryo,
since the soul of the parent has been ruled out. Aquinas, however,
has already said how it is not a power in the embryo. How do we
get around this difficulty? First of all, I think it would be fair to
say that Aquinas worked through his theory with such consistency, coming to the conclusions he did, because he was never
faced with the possibility that generation might take place in a
way he had never even considered. Aquinas was a philosopher
interested in metaphysical principles not so much in themselves
but rather as proper explanations of the facts of the world. The
" known facts " of his day included this primitive theory of generation and embryology. Faced with the facts as we know them,
however, he probably would have worked out a different theory
to explain human development.
Naturally, we do not want to abandon any metaphysical principles or ideas needlessly. Perhaps there is a way out of this
difficulty, based on principles drawn from within this philosophy.

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Arguments for Immediate Animation by the Rational Soul
The first thing that needs to be explained is how the soul of the
embryo can be responsible for the development of a human body
capable of exercising the operations proper to the intellectual
soul. We have ruled out the possibility of the vegetative or sensitive souls of themselves being responsible for such development.
Donceel offers a modified version of this idea. Borrowing from
Rabner and Teilhard de Chardin, he suggests that "God [as
primary cause] enables the secondary causes to transcend their
own virtualities, inserting, as it were, His divine causality within
their own causality, without becoming a constitutive element of
their being." ' 2 Such a theory, while interesting and arguable, is
not Aquinas. Since we are trying to sort out how Aquinas would
answer the question, it is best to leave this theory aside.
Given that neither a vegetative nor a sensitive soul is capable
of producing a human body, we are left with something of
Aquinas's answer but with an important difference: a human rational soul must be responsible, not the soul of the begetter, however, but the soul of the begotten, of the embryo. Of course, we
have yet to explain how it is possible to say that the matter of
the embryo is sufficiently disposed to receive such a form.
Let us return for a moment to the analogy of soul to body as
impress of seal to wax. Aquinas seems to have some feeling for
this analogy and for its implications, for he says the following in
another work: " a soul is said to be in a body through a definite
shape, not in the sense that the shape is the cause of its being in
the body, but rather the shape of the body results from the
soul. ... " ' 8 Thus, he is following closely Aristotle's explanation
of the soul as cause.
The soul is the cause or source of the living body. The terms cause
and source have many senses. But the soul is the cause of its body
alike in all three senses which we explicitly recognize. It is a) the
Donceel, " Immediate Animation," p. 85.
'a De Spir. Crea. IV, ad 9 (my emphasis).

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source or origin of movement, it is b) the end, and it is c) the essence
of the whole living body.44
We have already recognized the soul as the essence or ground of a
living thing's being, as the substantial form. For now, the point
of interest is the soul as end or final cause. Nature does what it
does, notes Aristotle, for the sake of something. All natural
bodies are organs of the soul and exist for the sake of the soul. 45
In other words, we need a soul even simply to have the organs
we do, and we need a rational soul. As we have seen, it cannot
be the rational soul of anyone but the embryo.
Lest it be said that I have been unfair to the text of Aquinas,
let us continue for a moment with a passage quoted above. In a
line which once again appears to support mediate animation, he
says the following: " ... and hence where there is no shape suited
to ' this soul ', ' this soul ' cannot actually be." 46 Now if this
is taken to mean that, the human soul cannot be if the complete
human organism is not present, with all the organs necessary for
the operations of the soul, then we must contest this statement.
For one thing, this conclusion not only does not follow from the
premises; it is, in fact, contrary to the premises. It also appears
to be empirically falsifiable. If I am missing my arms or my
eyes or if I have an artificial heart, am I less a person simply because I do not have the right shape? The real point here is that
we have a natural tendency toward certain limits of shape.
It seems to me that these natural tendencies are precisely how
it is that we define a thing and decide what sort of form it has.
Natural potentialities are due to the form, in this case, the soul.
Francis Wade talks about them in this way:
Between natural potentialities and their action there is nothing needed
except usable matter and this latter is from the side of the patient,
not the agent. The agent's constitution is ready and prepared to act
when conditions permit. This will, of itself, supposing usable matter, develop all that is needed to become what it will be.... However
«De Anima II, 4 ( 415b 9-10).
4.5 De Anima II, 4(415b15-20).

u De Spir. Crea. IV, ad 9.

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one accounts for this process, no one would say that the plants and
animals in fact do not do their own self-developing from resources
in their constitution ....
[To summarize.] The potentiality of the fetus to become an adult is
not a passive potency [like the ability to get a good suntan], which
is neutral to the future; nor a specifiable active potentiality [such as
the potential to learn geometry], which is a very " iffy " promise; but
is an active natural potentiality or tendency, which is a guarantee of
the future as far as the agent is concerned.47
Rudolph Gerber argues that the whole point of the term " organic " or the phrase " having organs " is to indicate " specifically human structure." The genotype is sufficient to give us this
structure; 48 through the DNA, the entity is determined to develop in a specifically human way, toward becoming an adult
human, with all the organs necessary to perform the operations
of a rational soul. Wade concurs :
Now, I would like to suggest ... that the natural tendency to think
and to choose is basic to the being of the fetus, and the biological
tendencies (the ones most clearly active in the genotype) are only
specifications of the radical tendency to become a thinking being.49
Some suggest, however, that while it may be true that the rational soul might be present, it is necessary for it to have an organ
by which it might perform the formation of the rest of the organs
necessary for its functions. Without a first primary organ, one
might argue, the whole will never even get started. Benedict
Ashley takes this objection particularly seriously and looks for
something that could be considered such a primary organ in the
one-celled conceptus. His answer is the nucleus of the cell. The
nucleus contains the specifying genetic material. Following this,
the nuclei of the daughter cells can be considered the primary
organs, until the appearance of the " primary organizer " and the
beginning of cell differentiation. Soon, there appears the primitive streak, the primordial central nervous system, which from its
47 Francis Wade, S.J., "Potentiality
in the Abortion Discussion," Review of
Metaphysics 29 (1975): 239-55.
48 Gerber, p. 245-6.
4 5 Wade, "Potentiality," p. 254.

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beginning exhibits a polarity indicating at which end the brain
will be formed. From this point on, we have the beginnings of
the primary organ in the human being. 50 Ashley argues that the
nucleus in the one-celled conceptus " is epigenetically and substantially identical with the primordial central nervous system manifested in the primitive streak." 51 He goes on to say that this
means that
an existential and dynamic continuity can be traced from the nucleus
of the zygote to the cortex of the human infant. There is at all times
a central organ maintaining life and producing development and differentiation, and this constitutes epigenetic identity.52
It could be argued, however, that a nucleus is not an organ in
the sense that Aquinas meant the term, and thus we are left without the properly disposed matter to move the rest of the matter
of the zygote into the proper human shape. There is an answer
to this objection available in Aquinas. In describing the whole
process of generation in question 118 of the First Part of the
Summa Theologiae, Aquinas makes these two statements.
[T]his active power in the semen, which is derived from the generating soul, is as it were a certain movement of the generating soul itself.... Therefore it is not necessary that this active power havesome organ in act. ... 53
[T]he fetal matter is provided by the female. In this matter there is
already from the beginning a vegetative soul, not according to second
act, but according to first act, like the sensitive soul in one who is
sleeping. When, however, it begins to take in nourishment, then it
already operates in act.54
The significance of these lines must not be lost. The first is
saying that the formative power does not need an organ to be
operative. If this is true of a power of a soul working at a distance, how much more must it be true of a soul immediately
present.
50 Ashley, pp. 123-4.

n Ibid., p. 125.

u S. Th. I, 118, 1, ad 3 (my emphasis).

12 Ibid.

HS. Th. I, 118, 1, ad 4.

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The second is saying that it is possible for a soul to be present
even though there are no actual organs present. When the organs
develop, then the soul begins to operate. Aquinas is saying this
of the nutritive soul, but a rational soul, which also contains
the powers of nutrition and sensation, is equally capable of informing such matter. Gerber makes this point forcefully.
In the first place, one might question the validity of the mediate
animists' attempt to interpret the Aristotelian-Thomistic definition
of the soul as the rigid requirement for the time of the soul's infusion. With the exception of the words actus primus, that definition is an operative account of the soul. The soul itself is the first
or vivifying, substantial act; its operations are second acts, and it
was from the diversity of these operations that Thomas concluded
that the subject of the soul needed a diversity of organs .... But the
soul itself is first act independently of its operations, which are second acts. In order to account for the required perfections of matter,
it does not seem necessary to posit additional substantial forms as
preparatives of the matter of the soul. Rather, it would suffice to
consider the soul as a causally complex form which itself prepares
matter for those operations. Since the human soul as substantial
form contains the vegetative and sentient faculties within its own
influence, it could by these functions progressively inform the embryo
to the operative intellectual stage. 55
Aquinas himself seems to be making this same point in the
following passage.
Aristotle does not say that the soul is merely the act of a body, but
the act of a physical organic body having life potentially ; and that this
potentiality does not reject the- soul. Thus it is manifest that in this
the soul is called the act such that the soul itself is included, in the
same way of speaking that we say that heat is the act of what is hot,
and light of what is lit; not that separately there be a lit thing without light, but because it is a lit thing through the light. And similarly we say that the soul is the ad of a body, etc., through which soul
it is both a body, and organic, and has potential life [i.e., is capable
of performing living operations]. But the first act is said to be in
potency in respect to the second act, which is operation; for such
potency is not rejecting-that is, not excluding-the souP 6
55 Gerber, " Soul Infused," p. 244.
&6

S. Th. I 76, 4, ad 1; cf. Aristotle, De Anima II, 1 ( 412b 25ff.).

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It is important not to rely too heavily on the phrase " organic "
or " having organs " in discussing the relationship of soul to
body and what constitutes a properly disposed body. The human
body must have a diversity of organs to be properly disposed for
the operations of the soul, that is, for second act. A one-celled
conceptus with the specific human genotype, on the other hand, is
matter well enough disposed to be the proper subject of the human
intellectual soul in regard to first act, to be the matter for which
such a soul is the substantial form.
In summation, I hope to have shown several things: a) that
Aquinas's theory of the succession of souls is dependent on his
theory of generation, based in an outmoded biology; b) as a result, there is no power other than the embryo's own soul which
can perform the formation of the organs necessary for the operations of the soul ; c) that soul must be a human intellectual
soul from the beginning of the embryo's being; and d) from the
time of fertilization the conceptus is matter properly disposed to
be the subject of such a form as the rational soul. Thus, it is reasonable to say that infusion of this soul by God takes place at conception and that we are from conception human persons.

Postscript: More Recent Opinions
Views similar to Donceel's are expressed in an article by William A. Wallace, 0.P., entitled "Nature and Human Nature as
the Norm in Medical Ethics." 57 This article contains some very
interesting attempts to cast substantial form and prime matter in
the light of contemporary physics, chemistry, and biology, but
with regard to our problem here Wallace presents the following
arguments:
Is the transient form that is becoming a chimpanzee really a chimpanzee from the first moment of formation of the zygote? Alternatively, is the radioactive neptunium that is breaking down into lead
really lead from the first moment of its radioactive decay? Invok&7 William A. Wallace, O.P., "Nature and Human Nature as the Norm in
Medical Ethics,'' in Catholic Perspectives on .Medical Morals, ed. Edmund D.
Pelligrino (Dordrecht, Netherlands: Kluwer, 1989), pp. 23-52.

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ing the agere sequitur esse axiom, one would think that, just as an
element with the properties of neptunium should be regarded as
neptunium and not as lead, even though it will eventually become
lead, so a transient nature that exhibits only vegetative activities
should be regarded as a plant and not as an animal, even though the
term of its growth is a stable animal nature. 58
The case is similar for humans. Wallace concludes that
a Thomistic natural philosophy, updated to incorporate the findings
of modern science, can influence the decision between the two alternatives, and would probably favor delayed over immediate hominization on the basis that the former is more consonant with nature's
other operations.59
For Wallace, the theory of immediate hominization "misconstrues how nature itself operates as a cause in the eduction of
forms, and would bring God into a natural process at a stage
where his action is not required." 60
Wallace's analysis in this area misses the mark on several key
points. 1) " Nature " is not something above and beyond the substantial forms that make it up. Each individual nature is what
it is because of its substantial form, i.e., the substantial form
gives the thing its nature. (In the material world, it must be
coupled with matter to be a complete nature.) 2) An effect cannot be greater than the cause. Demanding, however, that lower
forms be responsible for the shaping of the material, such that a
higher form is educed, in effect demands that a lower form produce what is greater than itself. The analogy between the movement from neptunium to lead and that from "transient-" or
"plant-chimpanzee" to" animal-chimpanzee" is not valid. A shift
in form on the same level might be possible due to the power inherent in the first forms. A " downgrading" of form-say, from
sensitive to vegetative-might also be possible, due to the fact
that a higher form contains within itself the powers of the lower
forms. An " upgrade," however, violates the principle of the
effect not being greater than the cause. 3) Aquinas escapes this
58

Ibid., p. 47.

59

Ibid., p. 48.

eo Ibid., p. 50.

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dilemma by saying that the soul (the substantial form) of the
parent has produced a body ready for infusion of a new soul by
God. As we have seen, this is not the case. Thus, we are left
with only one conclusion: there must be a human soul from fertilization to account for human development. The argument
Wallace notes regarding historical and functional identity 61 is
not a account of biology which demands infusion at fertilization
but rather an explanation of how such infusion-already demanded by causal concerns-is possible.
Norman M. Ford, S.D.B., (of the Catholic Theological College in Melbourne, Australia) has put together one of the most
thorough treatments of this topic in When Did I Begin'!. 62 This
book is impressive not only because it presents a depth of scientific
research and explanation but also because it takes so seriously the
argument for immediate animation and the Aristotelian-Thomistic principles involved, before deciding in favor of delayed animation. Indeed, once one reads the section on immediate animation, one is hard-pressed to figure how anyone could find fault
with such a position-and yet Ford does. Unfortunately, it seems
to this writer that he comes to his conclusion by misappropriating
the very principles he seemed to understand so clearly earlier on.
For Ford, it is true that the fertilized ovum has a "biological
human nature", 63 but this does not mean that a human person,
with a human soul as form of the body, is present. Rather, he
argues that a genetic human being is present but not an ontological human being. The latter does not seem to be present until the
primitive streak stage. 64 A person is "a distinct on-going ontological individual with a biological human nature." 65
Ford argues that the possibility of twinning and recombination indicates that such an on-going individual is not present. If,
for instance, one cell divides into two, neither is said to be the
original cell-neither of the two new individuals is the first in61 Ibid., p. 49.
62 Norman M. Ford, S.D.B., When Did I Begin? (New York: Cambridge
University Press, 1988).
t1a Ibid., p. 128.
&4 Ibid., pp. 168-77.
66 Ibid., p. 128.

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dividual. Similarly, recombining cells would destroy the identity
of the recombined cells, with a new entity-the combinationbeing a new individual. Ford is also concerned with the fact that
both the embryo and placenta come from the same cell mass at
differentiation, even though one is the individual and the other is
not. Since there is no guarantee prior to cell differentiation that
twinning or recombination will not occur nor that any particular
cell will differentiate into embryonic vs. non-embryonic cells,
Ford is unwilling to say that there is an ontological human individual (a person) prior to the appearance of the primitive streak.
Like Donceel, Ford waits until an actual organ (of sorts) appears before conceding that a human soul is present in this
matter.
There are several problems with Ford's analysis, despite the
care he takes. 1) In Thomistic terms, what would it mean to say
that something has a " biological human nature " without thereby having a human form? Ford claims to be fighting against
dualism, 66 but this is a very dualistic notion. 2) Just because it
is not this human individual person does not mean that it is not
a human individual person. Ford has not adequately dispelled the
argument that at least one individual could continue through
twinning or recombination-a position which he is careful to
spell out. 67 Even if it were true, however, that the coming to be
of two individuals from one, or of one from two, entails the
death of the prior individual ( s), it does not entail that there was
no ontological individual at all. In fact, Ford's own definition" a human person begins as a living individual with the inherent
active potential to develop towards adulthood without ceasing to
be the same ontological individual " 68-applies equally to the onecelled zygote as to the blastocyst. The conceptus has this inherent active potential; the fact that some might not realize this
potential does not argue against their being ontological individuals. The problem here seems to be a confusion of material with
formal causality. To say that one individual may give rise to two
sa Ibid., p. 130.

61 Ibid., pp. 112-16.

es Ibid., p. 85.

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is true but only materially. The form either ceases to be in this
matter or continues in one of the material bodies. It seems to me
that Ford ultimately makes the same mistake that Donceel and
many philosophers make in this area: he is searching for material conditions rather than looking to see what operations are
being performed that require the presenice of the human soul.
Two other articles which appeared recently seem to put the
same metaphysical cart before the horse. 69 The first article appeared in Theological Studies in December of 1990. Entitled
"Reflections on the Moral Status of the Pre-Embryo," it was
authored by Thomas Shannon and Allan B. Wolter, O.F.M. The
second piece, " Who or What is the Preembryo? " by Richard
McCormick, S.J., led off the inaugural issue of the Kennedy Institute of Ethics Journal in March, 1991.
Essentially, McCormick asks the question: What is necessary
for personhood? His answer is developmental individuality.
Even genetic individuality is not enough. In taking on the arguments of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith expressed in Donum vitae, McCormick says this document seems
unaware that in the preembryo's earliest stages the constituent
cells are only "loosely associated." 10 Thus:
For the CDF, if the preembryo is genetically individualized, it is individualized in the most radical sense. Thus it asks: " How could
a human individual not be a human person? " A possible, and in
my judgment sufficient, response to this question is: " by not yet
being a human individual (developmentally single)." 71
Ultimately, however, the question is rather: What is necessary
for development toward a physically discernable individual at the
primitive streak stage? I suggest Aquinas's answer (and mine)
would be that it is the presence of a human rational soul. McCormick's own observation seems to indicate this.
69 This may be due to the fact that they rely so heavily on some of these
same authors.
1o Richard McCormick, S.J ., "Who or What is the Preembryo? " Kennedy
Institute of Ethics Journal, March 1991, pp. 7-8.
'Tl Ibid., p. 8.

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Under favorable circumstances, the fertilized ovum will move through
developmental individuality then progressively through functional,
behavioral, psychic, and social individuality. In viewing the first
stage, one cannot afford to blot out subsequent stages.12
How is such development possible at all without the presence of
a human rational soul?
Shannon and Wolter's errors are similar. Concentrating on
the question of human individuality, they assert that "a determinate and irreversible individuality is a necessary, if not a sufficient, condition for it to be a human person." 73 Further, this
individuality, i.e., being properly speaking a "human individual,"
cannot eventuate until after the process of restriction and determination. 74 Until that time, the possibility of twinning and the
totipotentiality of cells in the zygote indicates that " the organism
is not necessarily single." 75 In other words, the zygote is more
correctly a loosely bound aggregation of individuals.
Again, though, the issue arises: while immediate animation
can explain the facts of twinning and totipotency, how can the
mediate animation theory explain the fact that most zygotes do
not divide-or, for that matter, that any do not divide? that the
totipotent cells are loosely bound in this particular way, and not
in a variety of ways? that they all develop according to the same
process? For Aquinas, if effect is not to be greater than cause,
a human soul must be responsible. Since for us the soul of one of
the parents cannot be the cause, the cause must be the human rational soul of the zygote, right from the moment genetic uniqueness is established.
Furthermore, one is struck by the somewhat dualistic characterization of the relationship between soul and body in this account of the human person. Dualism could be seen in Norman
Ford's explanation, but it is much more evident here. For in12 Ibid., p. 12.
73 Thomas Shannon and Allan B. Wolter, 0.F.M.,
"Reflections on the
Moral Status of the Pre-embryo," Theological Studies 51 (1990) : 613.
74 Ibid., p. 614.
1s Ibid., p. 613.

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stance, Shannon and Wolter opt for the terms " immaterial individuality" and "immaterial selfhood" instead of "soul." 16
This sounds more Platonic that Aristotelian/Thomistic.
For
Aquinas, there is no human immaterial individual or self apart
from the composite of body and soul. While the soul may survive death, it is incomplete in its nature, not fully a self or particular individual. 17 A second instance of this dualism occurs
where they examine the definition of personhood used in Catholic
moral theory: an individual substance of a rational nature. When
is such a rational nature present? they ask: at the primitive streak
stage, or the completion of simple neural circuits, or at the appearance of an integrated nervous system? 18 Of course, the
Thomistic answer to the question is : there is a rational nature
when the material being is informed by a rational soul. The soul
is the form of the body and so makes it to be, to be a body, and
to be this kind of body (living and rational). " Nature" is not
limited to material things. Angels and God are considered persons because they are complete individual substances of a rational
nature, yet they are non-bodily.
In the third instance of dualism, and using an argument much
like William Wallace's, Shannon and Wolter reach back to
Walter's own 1960 article, "Chemical Substance." 19
Philosophically speaking, we have every reason to believe that the
dynamic properties of the organic matter-the elements of the fully
formed zygote-owe their existence to their organizational form or
the system. Important to note is that " where there are only material powers-that is, the ability to form material systems-, there is
only a material nature or substance." Thus the material system or
form of the developing body can explain its own activity. We conclude that there is no cogent reason, either from a philosophical or
still less from a theological viewpoint, why we should assert, for inIbid., p. 615.
See S. Th. I, 75 art. 2 and 4.
18 Shannon and Wolter, p. 620.
79 Allan B. Wolter,
"Chemical Substance," in Philosophy of Science
(Jamaica, N.Y.: St. John's University, 1960), originally titled "The Problem
of Substance."
16

11

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HEANEY

stance, that the human soul is either necessary or directly responsible for the architectonic chemical behavior of nucleo-proteins in the
human body.80
The mistake here, it seems to me, is precisely the same as Wallace's: the argument fails to respect the utterly foundational
axiom that an effect cannot be greater than its cause. Yes, form
can be educed from the potency of matter, but only if there is a
sufficient cause, equal to or greater than the form educed, which
is responsible for bringing the matter to that potentiality.
Aquinas would hold that the human soul is directly responsible
for the behavior of proteins in the human body. Otherwise, we
must say there is more than one form, more than one soul, in the
human being, and this in turn would mean we are not one being,
but several-which Aquinas emphatically denies. 81
Finally, although the passage and footnote are fairly brief,
Shannon and Wolter seem particularly concerned about the problem of embryonic wastage. The fact that about SS% of fertilizations come to a quick end in miscarriage " intuitively argues
against the creation of a principle of immaterial individuality at
conception." 82 This is, indeed, a jarring statistic, and perhaps
one day we will have a full explanation of why this might be the
case. Still, our job as philosophers is to explain how all the facts
are possible. This the theory of immediate animation does; the
theory of mediate animation cannot. We should not be deterred
from accepting the explanation simply because the corollaries
make us uncomfortable. 83
There is one small item in Shannon and Walter's article which
Shannon and Wolter, pp. 620-621.
Theologiae I, Q. 76, art. 1, 3, and 4.
s2 Shannon and Wolter, p. 619.
83 I find it far more disturbing that the authors are willing to suggest that
the claim of immediate animation is " not only irrational but blasphemous" (p.
618). In footnote 60 (p. 618), they say, "To ascribe such bungling of the
conceptual process to an all-wise creator would seem almost sacriligeous." It
seems to this writer that our job is to discover and explain what is happening and not to set about blaming God for his apparent inefficiency. The blasphemy occurs when we try to hold God to our far from wise standards.
80

81 See Summa

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sent me searching for more information. In discussing the physiological status and development of the preembryo, they quoted an
article by Carlos A. Bedate and Robert C. Cefalo, entitled " The
Zygote: To Be or Not to Be a Person." 84 What was most significant there was the claim that, for the zygote to become an
embryo, " further essential and supplementary genetic information to what can be found in the zygote itself is required." 83 In
other words, the zygote appears not to be self-sufficient for further development. Could it be that Aristotle was right-that, at
least in the earliest stages, the body is still being formed by the
power of the parent? If so, it would not be necessary to posit the
existence of a human rational soul from the time of the combination of genetic material.
In their very short article, Bedate and Cefalo come at the personhood of the zygote from a completely different (and particularly challenging) angle. As their introductory paragraph states :
Many of the philosophical and moral-theological arguments against
very early abortion or manipulation of the pre-embryo presuppose
that the zygote contains all the information necessary to produce the
specific biological character of the future adult. . . . In such arguments the zygote is accorded a special status because of the claim
that the biological uniqueness of the future adult is determined at the
moment of conception. Such philosophical and theological positions
that depend on this empirical presupposition must be radically revised if that presupposition can be shown to be false.86
Bedate and Celafo's argument runs essentially as follows: 1)
The fact of differentiation cannot be explained simply by reference to genetic information already in the zygote ; for 2) a
hydaditiform mole can be produced from a healthy zygote; therefore 3) not all genetic information necessary for becoming an
embryo is present in the zygote, so 4) it must come from interaction with the mother.
8' Carlos A. Bedate and Robert C. Cefalo, "The Zygote: To Be or Not to
Be a Person," Journal of Medicine and Philosophy 14 (1966): 641-645.
H Shannon and Wolter, p. 608.
88 Bedate and Cefalo, p. 641.

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J. HEANEY

If the authors are correct about 2), this would indicate that
the personal soul is not present at this stage but would not prove
it. It would be still possible that this zygote was subject to a
genetic defect or other malady which killed it as a person. The
fact is, however, that Bedate and Cefalo's information has simply been superseded. An article by Donald DeMarco in the
January 1991 issue of Ethics an'<i Medics 87 cites Jerome Lejeune' s testimony in the Tennessee frozen embryo case from
August of 1989. Lejeune has proven that the hydaditiform mole
is formed not from a healthy zygote but from a " pseudo-zygote "
formed by two male gametes, two sets of male chromosomes. 88
In like manner, differentiation may indicate lack of sufficient
material in the zygote, but it does not prove it. As Bedate and
Cefalo argue :

It seems that extrazygotic information is not necessary during the
first division of the zygote.... However, at a certain moment this
information for producing more blastocysts is lost, since the division stops and another completely different process (differentiation)
begins. Where does the information necessary for this other process
come from? Some type of interaction between molecules of the
zygote and extra-zygotic molecules must occur, because a stage develops at which the blastocyst is established in the uterus with absolute physiological dependence on the mother. At this point the
process of embryonic differentiation begins.89
Since our knowledge of the coding and workings of genetic information is far from complete, it is certainly not necessary that
the information triggering differentiation be extra-zygotic. The
coincidental evidence, however, is striking. Let us grant, for the
87 Donald DeMarco, "Zygotes, Persons, and Genetics," Ethics and Medics,
January 1991, pp. 3-4. The Lejeune testimony is published in Child and Family
21 (1989/90) : 7-52.
ss Demarco, p. 4. Similarly, a dermoid cyst occurs from division of an unfertilized ovum.
89 Bedate and Cefalo, p. 643. It should be noted that the authors do not
seem intent on proving this conclusion beyond any doubt. The argument is
qualified at several key points with phrases such as " It is likely .•. " and "It
seems that .... "

THE HUMAN

SOUL IN THE EARLY EMBRYO

47

sake of argument, that interaction with molecules outside the
zygote provides the last piece of information which sets off the
differentiation process. What metaphysical significance does this
have? Does it mean that a human rational soul-hence, a person-is not present? Is a power of the parent still at work, forming the body of this individual?
The evidence suggests a more likely scenario. A parental
power may be at work, but its power is only instrumental, not
formative. Take this passage, for instance: " At most, the
zygote possesses the molecules that have the potential to acquire
informing capacity." 90 What seems to be going on here is that
the maternal molecules supplying the necessary bits for the beginning of differentiation simply enable the zygote to do its own
work of formation. The human soul of the zygote can do this
work alone, even though, for a while, certain necessary physical
conditions must be supplied from outside the zygote. The power
of differentiation at a certain stage is a power of the thing, hence
derived from its soul, but it is a passive power, requiring certain
triggering events. An analogy might serve as an illustration. We
have powers of sensation, but these powers do not act all by themselves. They require an external stimulus to begin their operation. Without a sound, the power of hearing is useless. This does
not mean sound is part of the power of hearing, but it is a necessary condition for it. Likewise, the power of formation into
the embryo stage is already present in the zygote, awaiting the
necessary conditions for beginning its operation.
Under this latter scenario, the better explanation of the personhood of the zygote and embryo would be that the same soul,
the human rational soul, is present in the zygote and embryo,
and it alone is properly responsible for the formation of the body
from the combination of male and female chromosomal material.
The power of the parents in the formation of the zygote and
embryo, necessary in Aristotle's and Aquinas's understanding of
fetal development-in fact, necessary to any theory of mediate
oo Bedate and Celafo, p. 642.

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HEANEY

animation under Thomistic metaphysical principles-is simply
not present.
Each of these authors under scrutiny has missed the mark by
approaching the issue from the perspective of material conditions
rather than what operations require the human soul. They suggest that we must have a human ontological individual before the
soul comes. But it is, in fact, the soul which makes this matter
to be a human ontological individual.

THE MODALITY OF BEING
ROBERT

c. BEISSEL

Phoenix, Arizona

S

" It must be of itself that the divine thought
thinks." Aristotle, Metaphysics, Bk. 12, c. 9.

T. THOMAS IS AS Neoplatonic as Plotinus in his
awareness that Being is not being and that being is not
Being. 1 Yet, like St. Augustine, St. Thomas knew that
being is closer to Being than to itself; he knew that beyond the
question " Why being rather than nothing? " lay another, a more
baffling one, namely, " Why being rather than only Being? "
That being is not Being is indisputable. The philosopher seeks
to understand how, in spite of that, being is and why. How to
understand being while really distinguishing it from Being without diminishing Being-such is the puzzle. The difficulty lies in
finding its answer without denying or changing the terms of the
question, no matter how hard those terms may be.
A problem is sometimes underestimated, even by one who
knows its answer, because its answer is not really understood. A
school child may not think the question "Why is the earth
round? " difficult, when by rote it knows that gravity causes all
earthly bodies to fall to a center. Only when the child perceives
that gravity may not be easy to understand does it appreciate the
difficulty of the question.
St. Thomas cannot be accused of underestimating the problem
1 Two notes : one on terminology and one on citations. First, " Being " here
signifies ens primum, the god, the creator; "being " signifies being composed
of potentiality and act, including both material and immaterial substance and
accidents, ens creatum. Second, citations are given below only for points of
Aristotelian-Thomistic sources which the specialist reader may want to verify
or into which that reader may wish to inquire further. For the rest, it has
been presumed the reader is familiar enough with the Aristotelian-Thomistic
philosophical tradition to recognize the common doctrine of the school.

49

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of being. He knew that, when Being is shown to be the cause of
being, a puzzling implication follows, namely, that Being is the
immediate analogical cause of being. The following pages detail
the problem this implication presents and the solution it finds in
the work of St. Thomas.

I
The philosophical ancient history of demiurges and intermediate intelligences supplied to keep Being decently removed from
being attests to the difficulty of understanding what it means to
say that Being is the immediate cause of being. Moderns deny
the existence of Being for much the same reason that ancient
philosophers placed intermediaries between Being and being: the
ancients thought being unworthy of Being; the moderns think
being so evidently imperfect that nothing like Being could be responsible for it.
Although it lacks similarly clear historical witness, the difficulty of understanding what it means to say that Being is an
analogical cause of being is no less striking. Univocal causes are
of the same species as their effects and, therefore, are distinct
from them numerically by reason of subject or matter. But, while
analogical causes are specifically different from the subjects in
which their effects are wrought, the perfections they cause in
them are not distinct from the perfections of those causes. Indeed, those perfections in cause and effect are identical, not just
in species but in number. 2
Examples may be helpful here. Agents of natural generation are univocal causes of their issue, not only in factum esse,
2 Summa Theol. 1-2, q. 20, a. 3, ad 3. St. Thomas refers to this distinction
in many places, e.g., 1, q. 4, aa. 2, 3c and ad 3; q. 13, a. Sc and ad 1; q. 104,
a.1; Contra Gentes, 2, c. 21; 3, c. 65; 4, c. 7; De Ver., q. 10, a. 12, ad 3; and
many other places in the works cited as well as in other works. (The interested reader is best advised to look at the Tabula Aurea for the distinction
under the entry Causa.) It goes without saying that all talk of "cause" here
presumes an Aristotelian notion of causality, not a Humean one. All causes
actually causing exist simultaneously with their effects for as long as the
causality is actual.

THE MODALITY

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51

but in fieri as well. Daisies beget daisies and men beget men;
local motions applied to intervening bodies cause specifically identical motions in those bodies, as the motion of a teacher's arm
causes the specifically identical local motion in the chalk he moves
across a blackboard. The perfections in cause and effect are really
distinguished by the matter in which each is realized.
Analogical agents are not unfamiliar. The will is an analogical
cause of a moral agent's external acts; the morality of the external
act is none other than the morality of the will which causes it.
The existence ( esse) of a substance is an analogical cause of the
existence of its accidents; while a substance is " such " by its accidental forms, these exist by its existence. Sunlight is the cause
of the moon's light; the light of the sun as reflected by the moon
is the sun's. A figure is the cause of its reflection in a mirror;
the figure is identical in both.
Sunlight and reflection are apt metaphors here. But they appear to break down in the obvious particular that the moon and
mirror are already there to receive the sun's light. Without, a
share in existence from Being, no other being would be " there "
to receive a share in anything.
Some, therefore, conclude that, before 3 other beings actually
exist, they are merely ideas in the mind of the god. In this metaphysical scenario, when existence is added to those ideas, they
become real in themselves. But if that is so and all there is to it,
after what has just been said of analogical causes, the distinction
between Being and being is obliterated. If what a being can be
(its essence) is a divine idea and its actual existence is the very
existence of Being (as the moon's light is the sun's light), nothing appears to distinguish being from Being.
What does it mean, then, to say that Being is an immediate
analogical cause of being?
Being is infinite. Since agents act as they exist, Being is capable of infinite efficiency, i.e., Being may make something of notha Words like "first", "then", "before", in contexts like the present one
refer, of course, not to time but to priority or posteriority in thought or
being.

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ing. But, as St. Thomas teaches, Being is not really related to
being; hence Being is not opposed to being. It follows, then, that
however much being is really distinct from Being, Being is not
really distinct from being. Being simply has no reference to being, whereas all that being is, is related to Being. 4
Additionally, as Aristotle says, Being is " thought thinking
thought" or, as St. Thomas phrases it, ipsum intelligere. The
to be of Being is to know : esse psychicum, as distinguished from
esse physicum in our categories. We say a form exists modo
physico in the known and modo psychico in the knower, i.e., the
form is one and the same in both, distinguished in the known and
knower according to modality alone. We recognize, too, that the
knower is really related to the known, while the known is only
rationally related to the knower. The expression " thought thinking thought " is not an empty sterility, denoting an idea without
content. Just the opposite, it is an idea that is and is all that can
be thought. Being's actuality makes possibility possible: whatever
can be is actually known to that knower, since it is all that can
be actually known to be.
Moreover, because Being is ipsum intelligere, not only does
Being act intelligently, its intelligere is its agere. Its agency is
exercised by its knowing.
Hence, Being does not first exist physically and then think
other things into existence. That conception demeans Being by
making its knowledge dependent upon objects distinct from itself. It also demeans being by making it not real in itself but a
thought in a physically pre-existing divine mind. Finally, it
mistakenly supposes that psychological existence is always dependent upon a causal object.
We conceive physical being before psychological being. " Substance knows" is the way we think of it, never "knowledge subsists." But in Being that is just the way it is. Accordingly, that
is just the way the relationship of Being to being as cause to
effect must be considered. What is Being psychologically is, by
'Summa Theol., 1, q. 45, a. 3; cf. q. 13, a. 7.

THE MODALITY

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53

Being's causality, physically being. In short, what Being thinks
of being is what being is in itself.
But more than that, since Being's intelligere is Being itself,
Being thinks of being, not as being, but as Being. All that is in
Being is Being. In Being's thought the possibility of being is actually Being, not being's possibility. In Being there is no distinction of thought and object of thought. Rather being's possibility
is Being's actuality.
At this point it might be interposed that being is an obediential
potency to existence, requiring something on the part of that potential being, namely, non-contradiction. This notion, more Cartesian than Thomistic, is based upon the misconception that being pre-exists itself in the mind of Being, as a non-contradictory
receptacle into which existence is received. But this conception
is mistaken, since it would imply that Being actually thinks being
rather than Being, which is just absurd.
An obediential potentiality to some form or perfection is attributed to a subject not by reason of any intrinsic capacity for
that perfection but by reason of some cause which can bring that
perfection to existence in that subject. (Hence, it may well be
said that every subject in which an analogical cause brings about
an effect has an obediential potency to that effect.) But what is
not can have no potency, not even an obediential potency. And
non-contradiction is nothing at all until it is thought. But Being
does not think non-contradiction; it thinks Being. 5
What is it then that Being knows of being that makes it being,
when all that Being knows is Being?
With this last question, the question Why being? has merely
been restated. But now, perhaps, it may be understood for its
5 In this regard, it is misleading to divide being initially into possible and
actual being. All being in relation to Being is possible, not in the sense of
non-contradiction but as able to be caused by Being. Properly speaking being
is not divided as possible and actual being but as contingent and necessary
(namely, as material and immaterial substance). Being's knowledge of these
make them to be, the necessary without ceasing to be, the contingent coming
to be and passing away. However they are known to be by Being, so they
are.

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difficulty, and this is no mean advantage if it prevents its answer
from being undervalued.

II
Since Being and its operations are identical, any question about
its operations is a question about Being itself. All that can be
known about Being is known through its effects in being.
Being [understand, being] is composed of essence really distinct from existence. These are not composed as matter and
form, as substance and accident, or in any similar manner. Essence terminates at existence, not th<Jt it might be what it is but
that it might be at all.
Therefore, essence is not first something possible (as a noncontradiction) which is then composed with existence to make it
not an idea but a real thing. Essence is nothing until it terminates
at existence. Until it exists, essence is not at all. Real essence is
and, unless it is, it is not really essence. Such at least is St.
Thomas's view of the matter. 6
In short, although essence and existence are really distinct in
being, they are not only inseparable but unthinkable without each
other.
Essence cannot be without existence, and being can have no
existence without an essence to be. The notion that Being has an
idea of being before being exists is just not true. If Being knows
being, being is. And if being is essence and existence, that is
just what Being knows of it.
But being is something slightly more than essence and existence. Since it is an effect, it bears a modality from its cause. St.
Thomas's articulation of the distinction between a thing and its
mode is instructive here. 7
A mode is the measure a cause places upon its effect. When a
cause actively measures its effect, that measure is received in the
6 E.g., Summa Theol., 1, q. 8, a. 1, where in a context closely related to
this discussion he points out that existence actualizes whatever being is.
T Summa Theol., 1, q. 5, a. 5; 1-2, q. 85, a. 4; De Ver. q. 21, a. 6, ad 5;
1 Sent., d. 3, q. 2, a. 2, and a. 3, ad 3.

THE MODALITY

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55

effect as its mode, i.e., a mode is a measure in the thing measured.
Every effect has a modality from its matter (e.g., a portrait is
modified according as it is drawn in crayon or charcoal) and from
its agent (e.g., the portrait is modified according as it is drawn
by an artist or a toddler). Inasmuch as a cause is the active
measure of its effect, as cause it is unmodified; but to the extent
that it is itself caused, to that extent even as cause it is modified.
Since Being is the first cause uncaused, Being is unmodified
and unmeasured (as beyond measure). Since no matter preexists being, being's material modality derives from nothingness:
it is of itself unmeasured (as lacking a principle of its own measure). Its efficient modality derives from Being.
Further, both the material and the efficient modalities constitute a single modification in the thing modified, since the agent
brings its effect out of the matter of its patient. 8 Thus, being's
modality is : to be out of nothing by Being.
Because every predicate of Being is predicated analogically,
Being is called an analogical cause only analogically. But, since
Being is an analogical cause of being, what may be said of analogical causes may be said of Being, albeit only analogically.
With that understood, it may be said that whatever perfection
is caused in being is the very perfection of Being (even as moonlight is the light of the sun). Therefore, essence, existence, and
the modality of being are caused in being by Being. And, whatever is a perfection of being in them is the very perfection of
Being.
Accordingly, Being's action causes in its effect an existing
essence and the modality according to which that effect is nothing of itself and all from Being. Although essence, existence, and
the modality of being are simultaneous and inseparable in being,
a rational order among them is discernible. Essence is prior as
that which receives existence; existence is prior as the perfection
which actualizes essence. The modality of being is intermediate, as
the ultimate termination of essence by which essence is completed
for existence.
s Summa Theol., 2-2, q. 27, a. 6.

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This modality of being in another context is called subsistentia,
the ultimate termination of essence which makes it a suppositum
or persona. And in yet another context it is called the transcendental relation of being to Being. Essence is rendered ultimately
disposed to existence by its ultimate termination, i.e., its formal
completion, precisely in view of existence. Whatever is to be by
existence must be so limited in order really to be essence. That
ultimate limitation is the ultimate termination called subsistence.
Essence is related to Being for all that it is, and this relation is
real at that metaphysical point in which Being causes it to be
really essence, i.e., when it is all that Being knows it to be.
Thus, the mode of being is of essence precisely as existence
" comes to " essence. That being may be being, it must be essence
modified for existence. This modality is, of course, not separable
from essence in being; this modality makes it the essence of being and not of Being. Without it, the essence of being would be
indistinguishable from Being, which thinks it to be. The essence
of being is necessarily so modified and cannot be really essence
without that modality. If Being thinks being, it must think it
with that modality, since essence cannot be without such a
modality.
Thus, then, is being the effect of Being. But how is it as an
effect related to Being, its cause?
In this regard it may be asked whether being adds to Being,
i.e., whether being increases the sum of reality beyond what it
would be if there were only Being?
That question is improper and, therefore, misleading. Since
being is anterior to quantity, any question of " how many " is
inappropriate when asked of being. One may ask, how many
chocolate eclairs are real? but should not ask, how many realities
are real? There is only one reality (but not "one" in the quantitative sense!). Ens primum is not called first as the principle
of number but as one which includes all the reality of the others.
It is first in the sense that all others have being and are being
posterior to it. In short, they are only because it is first. They
are not many because it is one, as would be the case in quantitative
series.

THE MODALITY

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57

This question about the quantum of being sometimes evokes a
response (which to this writer's knowledge appears nowhere in
the work of St. Thomas) that, although there is no more being,
there are more beings. But that is impossible. If there were
more beings-in any sense of " more beings "-there would be
more reality, more rationis et rationes entis. But because Being
is infinite, there can be no more rationes entis than already are in
Being. Since Being is infinite precisely in respect of being, no
being can be " added " to it.
On the contrary, because being shares the reality of Being itself, being is not added to Being. The sharing of its reality with
being does not diminish Being; neither does that sharing add to
the infinite perfection that is Being.
The analogical causes of our experience are apt analogues here.
The sun illumines the surface of the moon without in the least
diminishing its own light or increasing its illumination. (Notice
that the moon in the daylight is illuminated but does not illuminate.) Being causes being in the same way and with the same
lack of consequence.
Since univocal causes and effects are of the same nature, they
are really and reciprocally related (e.g., in the generation of individuals of a species or in the passions of transient actions).
But analogical causes are not of the same nature as their effects
(which is why they are called analogical causes). 9 Not surprisingly, then, the case is somewhat different with analogical causes
and their effects.
The effects of analogical causes are really related to them.
Thus, moonlight is really related to the sun as long as the moon
is reflecting its light. The mirror's reflection is really related to
the figure standing before the glass for as long as the reflection
is there. An accident is really related to its substance as long as the
substance shares its existence with it. The morality of an external action is really related to the morality of the will which
motivates it as long as it depends upon that will to be a human
action.
•Cf. e.g., Comm. in de Sensu et Sen.rato, 1.16., nn. 241-243.

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But, while their effects are really related to them, analogical
causes are not really related to those effects. Thus, although the
sun may be really related to the moon in order that its light be
reflected upon the earth, the sun is not really related to that reflected light precisely as moonlight. So, too, although a figure
reflected in the mirror is really related to the mirror spatially,
that figure is not really related to the mirror image as image of
itself. A substance may be really related to its accidents as these
are perfective of its potentialities, but it is not really related to
them as they share its own existence. The morality of the will is
not really related to the morality it causes in its external manifestation.10
An analogical cause, as causing, is not really related to its
effect because the perfection of the cause is identical in number
with the perfection being caused to exist in its effect. This is the
case because the perfection is not educed from the potentiality of
the subject acted upon by the analogical cause. The perfection
never composes with that subject. Rather the subject always
terminates at that perfection, never becoming one in nature
with it.
St. Thomas said clearly what was hinted at (if that) by Aristotle, namely, that Being is sui diffusivum _not only as the final
cause of being but as its agent cause as well. Not only is Being
attractive to being as the latter's good and perfect fulfillment,
Being also shares itself with being that being might be at all.
Yet it seems impossible that an effect in another be caused by
Being as agent, for predicamental (or transient) action brings
about an effect outside its agent and gives rise to a real relation
of the agent to its effect in the patient, but immanent actions like
knowing and willing remain in the one who performs them. Immanent operations do not produce effects in another; they are
10 These examples are apposite when taken formally, which is the only way
they can be applied, since Being has no matter out of which it is composed.
They are doubly apposite as analogues of Being's causality, since that cause's
power to cause and the operations by which it causes are not distinct from
itself.

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59

actualities of the agent itself. Whenever immanent actions produce actualities of the agent that are really opposed to other actualities of that agent (or to the agent itself) real relations arise
in the agent between them. But, as noted above, Being acts by
knowledge and will alone and, however much the effects of Being
may be related to it, Being is never really related to them.
How then can it be that Being's knowledge causes something
different from Being, something " outside " Being, called being? 11 Here we are in the midst of the second question alluded
to at the outset, Why not only Being?
Being's knowledge is supereminently immanent and speculative. Therefore, Being's thought is not of being but of Being,
even when that thought causes being. The object of Being's
knowledge is always Being.
What then does Being know of itself that causes the essence of
being? It can be nothing other than perfections of its own, willed
to be multiplied in being. This is not a different act nor is it of a
different object from the act and object in which Being knows
its infinite self. In knowing itself and what may be less than itself it knows only itself as it actually is, namely, as Being, which
is not different or distinct from Being as it is the first of beings.
This lesser object of Being's self-knowledge, the knowledge of
itself as imitated, is entirely free. Although it is necessary for
Being to think of itself, it is not necessary that Being think less
of itself than it is, which is precisely what occurs in that knowledge from which being proceeds.
Being thinks of naught but itself without some effect in that
other. Being, its thought, and the object of its thought are identical. Since Being is the cause of being, when its thought has an
effect in another, Being's thought is of itself as causing its own
perfection in that other. Even when its thought has an effect in
another, Being's thought is of itself. Being does not know others
11 Notice that here the interrogative, how?, does not ask in what way, or
mode, Being causes another. Being's action, like itself, is unmodified; hence
its causality is incomprehensibly intelligible. To ask how Being causes is to
ask how Being is. The question here is only, how is it possible?

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as objects of speculation: that ipsum intelligere should think of
another is absurd. A ratio cognitionis of another in Being is the
ratio entis of that other, i.e., any thought of another by Being is
productive of another. Being's thought of being cannot be without an effect in being, since Being does not know being except
to make it, i.e., to share its own perfection with being.12
What is it that Being knows of being? The only thing that it
can know of being as being (and not as Being) is that it is not
Being. The expression used above, namely, that Being thinks of
naught but itself without some effect in that other is literally
true: Being's thought of what it [Being] is not makes that to be
something. Being's knowledge of its own perfection as limited
to this or that and no more is being's active measure and what
imparts to essence its passive measure, or mode, as being.
In short, Being's thought is of itself. When it thinks of being
it thinks of it in itself and imparts to what it knows the modality
of being. This modality is the positive and final determination of
essence by which being is "defined". Apart from Being, nothing is. Whatever being is, it is in Being's knowledge of itself,
which is not other than Being.
To put it another way, all the perfections of Being are simply
Being; they are multiple only in our minds ; in Being they are
simply one and infinite. Being causes being by its knowledge;
therefore, Being must know less of itself in the knowledge by
which being is caused. Since Being is infinite, whatever of its
perfection it chooses to share with another, it may choose to
share more of that perfection with yet another. Therefore, if any
being is to be, Being must think only so much of itself and no
more. Just so much of Being is shared by that being, and Being's
12 Thus, Parmenides' saying " Whatever can be thought, is " is correct if
it refers to what really will be thought, rather than mere non-contradiction.
If it really will be or be thought by some being, that is the way Being freely
knows it to be. In this way such things as fictional characters or fantastic
beings are in our imaginations and have been made so by Being. In any case
being is not non-contradiction, but what Being thinks it to be. Being is not
bound by the principle of contradiction; rather, the principle of contradiction
depends upon Being for its intelligible existence.

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61

simple infinite perfection is multiplied in being, to each according
to its measure.
Indeed, this is precisely what being is, something less than the
infinite perfection of Being. This is the only sense in which it
makes sense to say that anything is other than Being, namely,
that it is less perfect than Being. Being is infinite perfection tota
simul. Being [understand, being] is its analogical effect. Therefore, being is the very same perfection as Being, but not all of it :
being is perfect by Being's perfection, but it is not as perfect or as
perfectly as Being. This is the mode of being, the " how " being
is distinct or different from Being. It is, therefore, how Being
thinks of being, since it is by Being's thought of itself that being
is caused to be.
Examples falter here, of course, since before existence essence
is not at all. But the case of reflective light is parallel. The moon
reflects the sun's light because of what it is, to be sure; if it were
transparent rather than opaque the sun's light would not be reflected by it. But, and this is the point of the analogy, it is precisely because the moon is not the sun that its light is modally
different from the sun's light. Their light is the same identical
light, sunlight : unmodified from the sun, modified in moonlight.
Moonlight is sunlight that is not sunlight, i.e., sunlight modified
by what is not the sun, namely, the moon.
So, too, as the metaphor properly understood allows, is it with
Being and being.
Being's knowledge in itself of "what is not all of itself" causes
being's essence, modified so as to be complete in itself and related
to Being. Being gets nothing from causing being, makes nothing
better for itself by making being. It does not even increase its
own glory, since what it makes is necessarily less than itself, nothing to glory about. What it makes is good for being only. Being
[understand, Being] makes nothing to be, naught for itself but all
for what is from nothing.
It may be said plainly. The essence of being is the very perfection of Being. The existence of being, too, is the very existence of Being.

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But, it may be asked, is not the analogy used here really misleading? Even though sun and moon bear the same light, they
are subjectively distinct light bearers. True, it is the material
modality of the moon which distinguishes its light from the sun's.
But at this point the analogy seems not merely to limp but to fall
because existence is involved here, not light. Must not some diversity in existence precede any such subjective distinction between Being and being, since existence makes the subject to be?
Existence makes being to be, but it does not make it being. The
subject of existence (essence in the proper sense of the term) is
being by reason of the modality caused in it efficiently by Being's
knowledge of essence; this modality is in being precisely in view
of its termination at Being's existence. Without that modality,
there would be no distinction of Being and being; there would
be only Being. That modality of being is what makes essence
really possible because it finalizes its receptivity to existence.
The conclusion is inescapable that the existence by which being
exists is not being's but Being's. First, since being is one, as we
have seen from our consideration of the quantum of being problem, so too is existence. Second, since Being is an analogical
cause of existence, existence in the cause and in the effect are identical. Being's existence is shared by being, even as the sunlight
shared by the moon is in the moon nothing other than the sunlight it has from the sun. Sunlight never composes with the moon
to be its illuminating light. Moonlight is ever the light of the sun,
received by the moon, which never possesses it but rather is possessed by it.
Paradoxically, the truth of the principle often used to argue
against creation, ex nihilo nihil fit, is turned upside down and
verified when the riddle of being is solved. Even after being is, it
remains nothing of itself. Were it not that Being's existence takes
it out of nothingness, even its modality from and relation to Being would not be.
Being's [understand, Being] existence makes being to be. In
Being that existence is unreceived and, therefore, unmodified. In
being that existence is received and, therefore, modified. Being's
existence is the act at which being's modified essence terminates.

THE MODALITY

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63

Beings are not first ideas in the mind of Being, which are then
willed to come to existence outside Being. Beings are as they are
willed and known to be in Being. Being [understand, being] is
distinct from Being as moonlight is distinct from sunlight; Being
is not distinct from being, even as sunlight is not distinct from
the light of the moon, which is itself reflected. Thus, to be a certain being, e.g., a man, i.e., of flesh and blood, is to be thought of
by Being in that way. That man, in the mind of Being, is Being
itself and it is the flesh and blood thing which is the man. To say
otherwise is to say that Being does not know the man immediately but through some idea. Being knows being better than that. 13
The answer to the puzzle of being presented in the work of St.
Thomas with scientific rigor is not different from the one St.
Augustine often gave somewhat more rhetorically but not less
logically, e.g., "we see the things that you [Being] have made.
But they only exist because you see them " ( C onf. Bk. 13, c. 38).
And St. Paul declared by authority in this truth something which
is otherwise available only by some very hard reasoning: " in
Him we live, and move, and have our being" (Acts, 17 :28).

III
Two objections should be anticipated and two theological postscripts added.
The first objection concerns what are known to scholastics as
the futurabilia, those things known by Being which may be but
shall never come to be. It seems impossible to reconcile Being's
knowledge of such things with what has been said above.
If the term " futurabilia " signifies mere non-contradictions
13 Admittedly, we speak of created essences in the divine mind, as does St.
Thomas at, e.g., Summa Theo!. 3, q. 4, a. 4. We need not be misled by our
way of speaking. What is in Being ab aeterno is being in time. Natural
univocal causes, for instance, thus conspire in time to educe from matter the
forms which make natural beings what they become (until they pass away).
Esse Per se convenit formae, as the axiom puts it. Being's knowledge of being
is all at once without beginning, middle, or end; in that eternal knowledge of
being, which is Being, the sequence of priority and posteriority in which being
will share its reality is also known-and so it comes to pass in time.

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that never shall exist in themselves or in the minds of other beings, then it cannot be that Being knows them since in fact they
will not be known even by being, since such " futurabilia " are
nothing. But, if the term means those beings that would be or be
thought if the complete potentialities of actual beings were played
out but will not in fact be or be thought because those potentialities are never fully actualized, then surely Being knows them as
really possible. In the latter case they have some ratio entis,
whereas in the former they have none at all.
The second anticipated objection is the accusation that what
has been set forth above is pantheism. The only practical reply
to that is to ask the reader to reread what has been said. The
truth about being is that while it is an infinity removed from
Being, it is so close to Being that it is difficult to distinguish them.
The history of metaphysics is strewn with testimony to that effect.
But then, so too are the writings of the mystics, religious as well
as philosophical.
It may seem that what has been said here makes being nothing
but divine thought. Understood to mean that being is the god
(thought thinking thought), such an assertion is ridiculous. But
no such understanding is intended, nor need it be drawn from
what has been said. Surely it has been said here that being is
thought by the god in the thought of itself, but that does not
imply that being is nothing at all. Indeed, it is to assert simply
that being is really what the god thinks it to be, i.e., something
essentially different and really distinct from itself.
Essence is thought of by Being and so it is: the divine thought
makes essence to be such. Existence is proper to the god and cannot be possessed by any other as its own. Hence, if anything
other than the god is to be, it must be by the god's existence.
What then to distinguish the creature from the god? It can only
be something which puts the creature " outside " the god, in the
sense of not-being-the-god. But whatever the god knows, i.e., the
object of the god's thought, is the god; hence it can be only what
the god knows not that can be and yet not be the god. The god's
knowledge of its pure actuality is necessary; its knowledge of that

THE MODALITY

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65

same actuality as it is repeated and multiplied in lesser actuality
is free and productive of being. Essence thus freely known and
caused to be by the god, eo ipso shares a measure of the god's
perfection. That measure without which being cannot be thought
even by the god (because it is the necessary modality of being)
distinguishes being from the god and allows it to be by the existence of the god without being the god. Nothing has less rationis
entis than the modality of being, but it makes all the difference.
Being is not being; but being is all it is in Being. 14
Finally, two theological postscripts: one concerning creation,
the other concerning the Incarnation.
God creates according to his wisdom. Hence, the universe of
beings is the one and final effect of its productive thought: in that
end it knows all things willed to that end. That universe of beings God wills unto himself as to its ultimate good, i.e. as good
for the universe and its parts. Thus is God sui diffusivum as
agent and end. The universe, then, is the end of all beings within
it as the whole is the end of all its parts. This end is itself then
directed to God as to its end, by the working of the Spirit,
through the Son, unto the Father that He may be " all in all "
(1 Cor. 15 :28).
But however best the common good of being, i.e., the universe
of material and immaterial nature and operation, may be in comparison to the goodness of God, it is infinitely less good than God.
Since good and being are convertible, the universe is ever less
than God's infinity of Being. Such considerations lead logicallyand virtuously-to the conclusion that being is nothing apart
from Being and to statements of many holy men and women that
God is and they are not.
Unfortunately, they have also led to the notion that God alienates himself in his creation or that something needs to interpose
between God and creation lest his majesty be soiled by proximity
14 Although we say, Being " is," this is the one case in which that predicate,
but for our way of thinking, is a tautology. In fact, " Being" says it all, since
Being's existence is itself. When speaking of being, on the other hand, that
predicate is always necessary since its being is not its own.

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with what is necessarily less than itself. In a world of N eoplatonic
emanations between God and his creatures, it was no wonder the
cross was folly to the Greeks.
Ironically the error of the Greeks was in part philosophical.
If they had seen creation (and conservation) aright, perhaps they
would not have been so quick to dismiss the Incarnation as unworthy of God. In a sense, creation itself is the proto-evangelion.
God is not ashamed to think of and therefore to make less than
himself; by self-effacement God shares his goodness with all being. The creation of God is ever less than God; nevertheless God
wills to be more intimate with it even than it can be with itself,
since God's thought of his creation is himself.
Again, this is not to say that God is his creation, since the
thought of creation is not commensurate with the infinity of
God's perfection. Neither is to say that his creation is divine,
since that creation is really distinct from God. Still, it is literally
true to say that the perfections of creatures are nothing other than
the very perfections of God. So says the scripture when it proclaims that the only one who is good (Mt. 19 :17) finds everything that He has made to be worthy of the same name (Gen.
1 :31).
What is of perfection in the creature is of God. St. Thomas
argues in the quarta via that degrees of greater perfection in being demand the existence of Being. Conversely, given a multitude
of being in the universe of creation, being is comprised of grades
of lesser perfection. Although ranged from the most perfect of
the angelic substances to the least accident of material substance,
even to the fere nihil of primary matter, all are perfections of
God. In God those perfections are not only immaterial but undivided in a perfection which exceeds all created perfection together by infinity. Created being is that perfection limited by
what is not that perfection in varying degrees. What is of imperfection in the creature is from nothingness, out of which it
has been brought by God.15
u De Pot., q. 3, a. 1, ad 14.

THE MODALITY

OF BEING

67

Accordingly, when one says that creatures are the perfection of
God, it would be a blasphemous exaggeration to assert that they
are the divine perfection as possessed by God, intelligere subsistens et in>finitum. That perfection in creatures is
by
them according to their modality of being, which limits all that
is received from God according to the limits of what God has
thought not of himself and thus made creatures so much of what
they are and no more. But this is not to say that, therefore, creatures are outside of God in any other meaning than that they are
less perfect than God. There simply is no metaphysical abyss between God and his creatures. Separation here bespeaks only relative imperfection, measured to each creature along with its perfections according to the infinite wisdom of God.
The second theological postscript concerns the Incarnation.
The Incarnation is accomplished in the assumption of a human
nature by a divine Person. Thomists have traditionally held that,
because the human nature is terminated by the Person of the
Word, Jes us has only the divine existence and not a human existence. Cajetan teaches that in Christ the human nature exists by
an "ecstacy of existence." Capreolus, too, and John of St.
Thomas can be called as witnesses to this tradition. 16
What has been said here is not opposed to that traditional
Thomism. Indeed, it has been intended to be no more than a
repetition of that teaching. The objection may be raised, however, that according to what has been said it is impossible to distinguish any creature from the incarnate Word.
Thomists say the human nature of the Word exists not by a
human existence but by its termination at the divine existence.
That does not seem different from what has been said here of
being. If all being terminates at the divine existence, everything
would seem to exist as the Thomists say Jesus' human nature
1s See Cajetan, In De Ente et Essentia, c. 5, q. 9; In Summa Theol., 1,
q. 3, a. 3; 3, q. 4, a. 2; Capreolus, In I Sent., d. 4, q. 2, a. 1; In III Sent.,
d. 5, q 3, a 3; d. 6, q. 1, a. 3; John of St. Thomas, Cursus Phil., I, Ars Logica,
II, q. 14, a. 1; q. 17, a. 2; q. 19, a. 1. See also Banez, In Summa Theo/., I., q.
45, a. 3. Cf. T. U. Mullaney, " Created Personality: The Unity of the Thomistic
Tradition,'' The New Scholasticism 29 (1955): 398ff.

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exists. The objection is forceful, since it turns the traditional
view against itself. At least a note on this is required.
As Cajetan teaches, personality is the ultimate termination of
a rational nature, i.e., it is the last ratio entis to precede the existence at which such an essence terminates. That termination of
essence which precedes existence is nothing other than the modality of created being mentioned above, which differentiates it from
its cause and which really opposes and, therefore, relates being
to Being.
The Word, the divine person, takes the place of such a termination and modality and relation in Christ. That person is not
the modality of being or a transcendental relation. That person
terminates the human nature of Christ with the infinity of Being
itself, so that it might exist by the unreceived existence of the
Godhead. That person is a divine and subsistent relation to the
Father, which relation is identical with the divine essence and the
divine existence. That person is the light which shines in the
darkness to make it be. That Person is Being, in which being
exists.
The existence that actualizes the human nature of Jesus is the
very same existence that actualizes every other essence and nature. Jesus' human nature is being, after all. But, since its
modality is the active and unmeasured measure proper to Being,
its existence is unmeasured; it is the infinite existence which is
Being. It is as though the moon were made an illuminative light
not by reflecting the sun's light but by being taken up to be the
sun itself.
Indeed, this is just what the Church declares and its members
know only by faith: that God (the sun of justice, ipsum esse,
Being) became man. It is also why the Word made flesh (except at the Transfiguration) was seen and known to be not different from other men. Every man, indeed every thing, exists by
the divine existence. This man, Jesus, too, exists by the divine
existence. In him that existence is not reflected, participated, or
caused ; therefore, in him it is unmeasured and unmeasurable. As
St. Thomas says, " the Son of God assumed a human nature that

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69

he [the Son] might be visible to men in it." 17 It is literally true
that those who saw the man Jesus looked upon the only begotten
(1John1 :1).
In brief, it is not because the divine existence makes Jesus'
human nature to be that Jesus is God; it is because Jesus is God
that his human nature exists. Further, as we have seen, every
perfection in being is from God in such wise that it does not cease
to be God. Essence and existence in being are God's own perf ection shared by being through God's knowledge, which knowledge
is God. All the creature is of itself (which it has also from God)
is that it is not God and is totally dependent upon God, its necessary modality and relation to God. Neither the essence nor the
existence of the creature is its own; they are God's. The creature
has them only in that creative knowledge which is God. The
words of St. John also are literally true, " the true light . . .
came into his own" (John 1 :9,10).
By creation God makes creatures to be. They cannot be God.
They are necessarily less than God. Such is the modality that distinguishes them from God. It does not distinguish God from them
but them from God. Creatures are known by God as less than
God and, therefore, must always be less than God. The only begotten Son alone is known to be God and, therefore, is not made.
That Word took unto itself a human nature by terminating it
with the measure rather than the mode of being. This Word,
made man, proclaimed the good news that God had crossed the
divide of imperfection separating his creation from himself
(though it never separates him from his creation) so that men
might by grace become God in the kingdom of heaven, where they
shall know even as they are known (1 Cor, 13 :12). Mysterium
tr emend um.

11

Summa Theol., 3, q. 4, a. 4.

RAHNER AND HIS CRITICS:
LINDBECK AND METZ

J. A. COLOMBO
University of San Diego
San Diego, California

HE "TRANSCENDENTAL MOMENT" has been
he hallmark of Rahner' s theology as well as the focus of
ontroversy and criticism. This essay treats the criticisms
of Rahner's theology by George Lindbeck and Johann Metz.
Though Lindbeck and Metz represent very different theological
positions, their critiques share a common focus : the transcendental moment in Rahner's theology. For Lindbeck, this aspect of
Rahner's theology is symptomatic of a theological reductionism:
the specificity of Christian faith is reduced to a cultural expression of some universal, prethematic experience. For Metz, the
transcendental moment immunizes the contents of Christian faith
against the challenges, dangers, and threats of history and society.
This essay is divided into two parts. The first part is an exposition of Rahner's understanding of the relation between nature and grace.1 Through this focus both the theological context
of the notion of transcendental revelation and Rahner's under'standing of the essence of Christianity as " the religion of imme1. References to Theological Investigations, 21 vols., various translators (New
York: The Seabury Press, 1%1-88) are abbreviated by Tl, followed by the
volume number. The major extended discussions of nature and grace can be
found in "Concerning the Relationship between Nature and Grace," Tl, I, pp.
297-317; "Some Implications of the Scholastic Concept of Uncreated Grace,"
TI, I, pp. 319-346; "Reflections on the Experience of Grace," TI, III, pp. 8690; "Nature and Grace,'' TI, IV, pp. 165-188; "Questions of Controversial
Theology of Justification," TI, IV, pp. 189-218; Nature and Grace. trans. Diane
Wharton (New York: Herder and Herder, 1961); and Foundations of Christian Faith, trans. William Dych (New York: Seabury Press, 1978), pp. 116-

137.

71

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diacy to God in his self-communication." 2 may be seen most
clearly. In the second part the criticisms of George Lindbeck and
Johann Metz are examined. After summarizing their criticisms,
I seek to argue two points : Lindbeck has ignored the specifically
Christian theological context of the transcendental turn in
Rahner's theology, and Metz has misdirected his criticism, for his
basic dispute with Rahner lies not with the transcendental turn
in theology per se but in their differing notions of the essence of
Christianity.
-ICharacteristic of Rahner's theology is the close correlation he
posits between Christology and anthropology. This correlation
has often evoked the criticism that Rabner simply accommodates
Christology to the demands of an anthropology which has a foundation independent of Christian revelation. 3 Yet from his earliest
essays on Christology, Rabner has insisted upon the mutual conditioning and qualifying of each theme by the other. 4 In the hermeneutical structure of " retrieval," which for Rabner constitutes
the essence of historical knowledge, 5 the nontheological preunderstanding (i.e., anthropology) which guides one's inquiry as an
anticipation of meaning is corrected in the process of confronting
and bringing to speech the theological subject matter (i.e., Chris2 Foundations, p. 125. As indicated at the close of the essay, I use the category " essence of Christianity" solely in Ernst Troeltsch's sense of the term:
as a way of naming the necessary synthetic moment by which the systematic
theologian heuristically construes the point or center of the Christian tradition:.
While Rahner himself never used the language of the " essence of Christianity," his reflections on the necessity of a contemporary Kurzformel in an age
characterized by " gnoseological concupiscence " in fact converge with Troeltsch's understanding of the function of the "essence of Christianity." See,
"The Need for a 'Short Formula' of Christian Faith," TI, XI, pp. 230-46,
and the "anthropological creed" in Foundations, pp. 456-7.
a See, e.g., Walter Kaspar, Jesus The Christ, trans. V. Green (New York:
Paulist Press, 1976), pp. 60£.
4" Current Problems in Christology," TI, I, pp. 158f.
5 Ibid., p. 150. The best description of the nature of "retrieval"
as distinct
from pure historical inquiry can be found in Spirit in the World, trans. William Dych (New York: Herder and Herder, 1968), pp. xlix-lv.

RABNER

AND HIS CRITICS

73

tology}. Preunderstanding and subject matter condition one another and must be thought together. This hermeneutical circle is
captured and specified in the formulation ". . . Christo logy may
be studied as self-transcending anthropology and anthropology as
deficient Christology." 6
Anthropology conditions Christology. If the Word became
flesh, then Christology must be reflected upon within the wider
context of the ontological relation between Creator and his creation. Unless one wishes to affirm that the Christ is a hybrid
somewhere between the human and the divine or the divine disguised in human form, one must think through-as distinct from
simply repeating-some crucial christological concepts. The
hypostatic union, for example, may be seen as the unique perfection of a relation between God and creature, but the relation has
an analogue in the experience of all men and women.
Christology conditions anthropology. Such an assertion can
only be denied on the basis of an a priori claim to have achieved
a self-contained, definitive understanding of human nature. Yet
precisely in a situation characterized by " gnoseological concupiscence" such claims are suspect. 7 Human existence is a
s " Current Problems," p. 164.
7 The description of "gnoseological concupiscence" and the way it (1) conditions the situation of contemporary theology, (2) " limits " the scope of the
magisterium in intervening in the work of theologians, ( 3) renders improbable
any further infallible declarations of dogma, and ( 4) has led to the decisive
shift from philosophy to the empirical sciences as the major dialogue partners
of theology, can be found in various essays in the later volumes of Tl. See
especially "The Historicity of Theology," Tl, IX, pp. 64-82; " Pluralism in
Theology and the Unity of the Creed in the Church" and "The Future of
Theology," TI, XI, pp. 3-23, 137-48; "The Teaching Office of the Church in
the Present-Day Crisis of Authority," TI, XII, pp. 3-30; " Possible Courses
for the Theology of the Future," " The Current Relationship of between
Theology and Philosophy," "Theology as Engaged in an Interdisciplinary
Dialogue with the Sciences," and " On the Relationship between Theology and
the Contemporary Sciences," TI, XIII, pp. 32-60, 61-79, 80-93, 94-104; and
the "Dispute Concerning the Church's Teaching Office," TI, XIV, pp. 86-97.
Given the nature of Lindbeck's criticisms of Rahner, it is particularly important
to note that the acknowledgement of gnoseological concupiscence in Rahner's
work is tantamount to the repudiation of " foundationalism " as a strategy for
the grounding of theology.

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J. A. COLOMBO

muddy affair whose roots extend far below the limits of self-conscious experience and reflection and whose mediocrity often belies
the self-transcendence common in day-to-day experience. By taking Christology as a clue to anthropology, Rahner seeks to unveil a dimension of human being as mystery-human being as
that creature whose self-transcending dynamism is not limited
to the world merely but whose ultimate term is a supernatural
one : the ineffable God as the abiding mystery. As the " clue " to
the meaning of all human existence and history, Christology conditions anthropology by disclosing that that which happened in
the Incarnation of the Logos in human history is also that which
God intends for all men and women : a sharing in his own selfcommunication. Thus a circle is completed: " Christology is the
end and beginning of anthropology. And this anthropology, when
most thoroughly realized in Christology, is eternally theology." 8
Again,
. . . anthropology and Christology mutually determine each other
within Christian dogmatics if they are both correctly understood.
Christian anthropology is only able to fulfill its whole purpose if it
understands man as the potentia obedientialis for the "Hypostatic
Union." And Christology can only be undertaken from the point of
view of this kind of transcendental anthropology.9
If this "placing" of Rahner's anthropological reflections is in
fact correct, the results, I believe, are considerable. Far from
being the case that Christology is accommodated to an a priori
(i.e., secular) anthropology, the latter is brought within the
sphere of the former as an essentially theological statement.
Rahner's anthropology is a Christian anthropology. It arises
from within and is conditioned by the Christian confession of
faith and hence is characterized by those formal characteristics
which Rahner explicates in conjunction with his discussion of the
nature of doctrinal/theological assertions. 10 Specifically, even the
assertions of his Christian anthropology are statements ex fide
"On the Theology of the Incarnation," Tl, IV, p. 117.
Tl, IX, p. 28.
10" What is a Dogmatic Statement," TI, V, pp. 42-66.
8

9" Theology and Anthropology,"

RAHNER

AND HIS CRITICS

75

ad fidem, which ultimately must be resolved in a reductio ad
mysterium. This is not to deny that such assertions may be
acknowledged as credible outside the specifically Christian circle
of believers and hence play an apologetic role in the theological
enterprise, but it is to assert that such assertions have their origin
from within the Christian community of faith and from within
a Christian systematic theology and are directly and primarily
addressed to that same community. As is suggested below, fundamental theology as transcendental anthropology is an abstract
moment in confessional or systematic theology, as reflection on
the categorical revelation of Christianity.
Given Rahner's emphasis on the hermeneutical structure of historical-theological understanding, his position on nature and
grace and on the nature of grace is itself contextualized by other
contemporaneous positions. Specifically, he sought to steer a
middle course between the positions of neo-scholasticism and the
nouvelle theologie. 11 For the former, the relation between nature
and grace is an extrinsic one : nature and grace appear " as two
layers so carefully placed that they penetrate each other as little
as possible." 12 As Diekamp expressed it: "A nature which is
complete in itself and has everything necessary for itself receives
the supernatural as something added on to it." 13 Such an affirmation is rooted in the neo-scholastic position that the concrete, experienced quiddity of a human being is to be identified with
"pure nature." Thus the supernatural, known only through verbal revelation, must lie beyond the present range of experience of
a human being, and apart from such revelation " what by himself
11 Rahner's characterization of the manualist theology can be found in "The
Prospects for Dogmatic Theology," TI, I, pp. 1-19. The specific description
of the neoscholastic position on grace can be found in "Nature and Grace," pp.
165f. A more " sociological " critique of that position can be found in Leonardo
Eoff, Liberating Grace, trans. John Drury (New York: Orbis Press, 1979),
pp. 18-25. For a characterization of the position of the nouvelle theologie, see
" Relation between Nature and Grace,'' pp. 302f.
12 "Nature and Grace,'' p. 167.
1s F. Diekamp, Katholische Dogmatik, 2 :47, quoted in Eoff Liberating Grace,
p.41.

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he experiences of himself here and now he could have on this view
also experienced in an order of pure nature." 14 Apart from the
witness of Christian revelation, God's binding ordination of men
and women to a supernatural end consists only in a juridical or
moral decree which is external to human experience. Similarly,
from the side of nature, there is no indication of an intrinsic
ordination of men and women to grace, for nature as a potentia
obedientialis is defined in a purely negative manner: as having a
mere " non-repugnance " to supernautral grace.
In Rahner's estimation, the position of the nouvelle theologie,
censured in the encyclical H umani generis, fails to affirm the utter
gratuity, the sheer giftedness of grace as God's self-communication in love. In this view, there is posited for concrete human
nature an intrinsic and unconditional reference to grace and the
beatific vision, "a natural desire for God." Grace may still be
spoken of as gratuitous, yet such gratuitousness does not seem to
differ qualitatively from the gratuitousness of creation itself. The
problem is
[t]his reference to the beatific vision was regarded in this recent
view as on the one hand an intrinsic, inadmissable constituent of
man's nature, and on the other hand so conceived that the withholding of the end of this directedness was expounded as being incompatible with God's wisdom and goodness and in this sense unconditional (provided of course that the creature does not fall short of the
end by its own fault). We hold that with these presuppositions grace
and beatific vision can no longer be said to be unexacted.15
This being the case, it is not clear whether there is any significant
difference left between nature and grace at all.
I will now summarize Rahner's position, and, for the sake of
both brevity and clarity, I will restrict myself to a quasi-thesis
format.
First, the distinction between nature and grace is a distinction
within the concrete created order of reality. Creation in and for
itself may be spoken of as " grace" only in an improper sense, i.e.,
u " Relation between Nature and Grace," p. 300.
15 Ibid., p. 304.

RABNER AND HIS CRITICS

77

as witnessing the freedom of God to bring forth an " other than
itself" by efficient causality. 16 Thus the distinction between nature and grace applies to both prelapsarian and infralapsarian
existence.
Second, the ultimate basis of this distinction lies in the acknowledgement that (pure) nature, in principle, is intelligible in itself: it could conceivably " stand forth on its own." Grace as the
self-communication of God to men and women in love is not constitutive of and hence not demanded by (pure) human nature for
the fulfillment of its own proper exigencies and ends. Grace remains the freely given, gratuitous gift of God.
Third, (pure) nature may be spoken of as possessing a potentia
obedientialis for the supernatural order and this not merely in the
negative sense of a " freedom from contradiction " or " nonrepugnance" of nature for grace. As potentia obedientialis,
(pure) nature may be spoken of as having a radical expandability
or openness for grace. Yet such openness does not include a
natural desire for God in the sense of unconditional ordination
toward the supernatural and thus negate th.e quality of grace as
gratuitous.
Fourth, in fact human beings (concrete nature) always and
everywhere exist within the order of grace. Concrete human nature is always already qualified by a supernatural finality and by
God's offer of himself, which is freely given to all as disclosed in
His universal salvific will through Christ. The supernatural is
not the unnatural, and to designate God's grace in its temporal
modality as universal does not denigrate its essence as a supernatural, gratuitous self-communication of God.
Fifth, the concept of " pure nature " is an abstraction and not
a concrete existing entity. Pure nature does not actually occur in
a pure state in the world and history. It is a hypothetical entity,
what is " left over " when the supernatural is " subtracted " from
concrete human existence. It thus functions as a Restbegriff, a
is To anticipate, ultimately the difference in principle between "creation"
and "grace" is one between efficient and (quasi-) formal causality.

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J. A. COLOMBO

" remainder concept," intelligible in itself, which points to the
graced graciousness of concrete human existence.
Sixth, for Rahner then, the mistake of the neo-scholastics was
to confuse and exchange an abstraction (pure nature) for what
concretely exists (concrete human nature as always already
graced) and what was concrete (the supernatural as a de facto
existential of human existence) for what is abstract (the supernatural as tangential to concrete human existence). The mistake
of the nouvelle thiologie was to eliminate the concept of pure nature by simply identifying it with concrete human existence and
endowing this latter with a natural and unconditional orientation
to grace and glory.
Seventh, analogous to the relations between concrete nature,
grace, and pure nature and on the basis of the a posteriori experience of Christian salvation history, creation in and for itself must
also be seen as an abstraction. In the single divine decree of God,
while creation must be seen as the conditfon of the possibility of
" covenant " (the self-communication of God to spirit and history), it must also be said that the actuality of creation inl fact
rests on God's decree for his self-communication to spirit and
history. 17 Thus the Incarnation as the unique and absolute, unsurpassable self-communication of God to humanity and the man
Jesus' unique and absolute self-transcending acceptance of God,
which all men and women participate in to various degrees
through grace and glory, may be spoken of as the apex, the goal
of creation and that in view of which it is called into being.18
11 "We shall say, therefore, that what we mean by the creation is that the
divine being freely ' exteriorises ' his own activity so as to produce non-divine
being, but does this solely in order to produce the necessary prior conditions
for his own divine self-bestowal in that free and unmerited love that is identical with himself; that he does this in order to raise up beings who can stand
in a personal relationship to himself and so receive his message, and on whom
he can bestow not only finite and created being distinct from himself, but himself as well." "Intellectual Honesty and Christian Faith," TI, VII, p. 62.
18 See "Christology within an Evolutionary View of the World," Tl, V, pp.
157-93; "The Unity of Spirit and Matter in the Christian Understanding of
Faith," TI, VI, pp. 153-77; and "Christology in the Setting of Modem Man's

RAHNER AND HIS CRITICS

79

This relation between creation and covenant is ultimately given
its quintessential formulation in the Christian doctrine of the
Trinity. 19
Eighth, in sum, the relations between "pure nature," "concrete nature," "the ordination, call and offer of a supernatural
finality," and the " fulfillment of such an ordination by an absolute self-communication of God in the Incarnation and glory "
appear as follows. Pure nature is " open " to a supernatural
finality and hence also to the consummation of the self-communication of God in glory. As spirit, concrete nature is always qualified by a supernatural finality which always assumes some " having" of its object, even in the mode of an offer and anticipation.
In principle, this offer does not demand for its integrity an actual
absolute self-communication of God or its consummation in the
immediate vision of God, while in fact such actualization is historical (Incarnatfon) and also universal (glory), given man's
acceptance of God's offer. Rahner posits such a distinction given
the integrity and intelligibility of a conception of man in freedom
before and towards God where his goal is only asymptotically
realized. 20
Understanding Himself and of His World," TI, XI pp. 215-29. For a critique
of contemporary forms of Scotist Christocentrism, see Eugene Teselle, Christ
in Context (Philadelphia: Fortress Press, 1975).
19 The doctrine of the Trinity plays a peculiar role in Rahner's theology.
On the one hand, in the ordo cognoscendi it is the last of all Christian doctrines and the conclusion of theology ; on the other hand, in the ordo essendi
it is the presupposition of Christian faith and, indeed, world, spirit, and history. The " operators " of such a movement are the a posteriori experience
of Christian salvation history and an analysis of the concept of a self-revelation of God. The result is Rahner's axiom of the identity between the economic and immanent Trinity. Yet it is precisely at this point that a danger
arises, for it appears that the speaker has taken up a position ab aeterno and
abandoned the historicity of his own starting point as well. Especially at this
point it is important to sort out the relation between fundamental and systematic theology as well as the relation between propositions regarding the ordo
essendi and the ordo cognoscendi. For Rahner's position, see The Trinity,
trans. Joseph Donceel (New York: Seabury Press, 1974), and "The Mystery
of the Trinity," TI, XVI pp. 255-9.
20" Nature and Grace," p. 186.

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J. A. COLOMBO

To be ordained to grace, and to be so constituted that there is an
exigency for grace which would render the whole ordination to grace
futile if grace were not actually imparted, are by no means the same
thing. Spirit, that is openness for God, freedom and self-conscious
possession, is essentially impossible without a transcendence whose
absolute fulfillment is grace. Still a fulfillment of this sort is not
owed to it, if we suppose that this self-conscious possession in freedom before God is meaningful in itself, and not just as a pure means
and a mere stage on the way to the beatific vision.
Again, Rahner refers to this same distinction within the one
de facto movement of grace by asserting " in grace the spirit
moves within its goal (because of God's self-communication)
toward its goal (the beatific vision)." 21 This distinction between, yet linking together of, the offer and the consummation
of God's self-communication becomes especially important in the
question of "uncreated grace."
Ninth, concrete human nature is a composite of pure nature
and grace. No precise delimitation may be made between the two
in human experience; we cannot assign some parts of experience
to the realm of pure nature and others to the realm of grace. 22
Further, grace ought best be conceived not as a static quality but
as a dynamic orientation given in human existence (an existential). It follows from the above that the self-transcending dynamism of man and its fulfillment is always already qualified by
grace and falls within a human being's consciousness and experience, though in any given individual it may not be self-consciously
adverted to or adequately expressed. 23
Tenth, this relation, whereby the human being is conditionally
yet constitutively oriented toward God and whereby a new formal
object forming man's horizon is given him, is what Rahner
p. 130.
to the relation between nature and grace is that between philosophy and theology. See "Philosophy and Theology," TI, VI, pp. 72f.
23" Nature and Grace," p. 183. See also, "Reflections on the Experience
of Grace," TI, III, pp. 86-90; "Reflections on the Unity of the Love of Neighbor and the Love of God," TI, VI, pp. 231-249; and "Religious Enthusiasm
and the Experience of Grace," TI, XVI, pp. 35-51.
21 Foundatfons,

2 2 Analogous

RAHNER

AND HIS CRITICS

81

terms the "transcendental relation between God and man." 24 As
formal object, God as the ultimate mystery is no mere object of
knowledge or ontic object to be decided for or against in freedom
but rather something implicit and prethematic. God is that horizon or background within which (and indeed on account of
which) all objects of cognition or acts of human freedom come to
pass and are acted upon. 25 This universal relation between God
and men and women defines the original relation between spirit
and God by which the experience of the self and the experience
of God are inextricably intertwined. 26
While, therefore, experience of God and experience of self are not
simply identical, still both of them exist within a unity of such a kind
that apart from this unity it is quite impossible for there to be any
such experiences at all.... This unity consists far more in the fact
that the original and ultimate experience of God constitutes the enabling condition of, and an intrinsic element in, the experience of
self in such a way that without this experience of God no experience of self is possible. . . . Of course the point could equally be
formulated the other way around. The experience of the self is the
condition which makes it possible to experience God. The reason is
that an orientation to being in the absolute, and so to God, can be
present only when the subject (precisely in the act of reaching out
towards being in the absolute) is made present to himself as something distinct from his own act and as the subject of that act. 27
This original, prethematic, yet real relation between God and
the self is truly transcendental, that is, the condition of the possibility for the intelligibility for all explicit religious assertions. In
a unique way, "the final a priori precondition for the subject's
theological knowledge, i.e., grace (ultimately the self-communicat24 Foundations, pp. 1-160; esp. pp. 153f.

pp. 135-46.
"The Experience of God Today," Tl, XI, pp. 149-65; "Experience
of Self and Experience of God," TI, XIII, pp. 122-31; "Theology and Anthropology," TI, IX, pp. 28-45 and "Reflections on Methodology in Theology,"
Tl, XI, pp. 84-101. A fine exposition of Rahner's use of the transcendental
method can be found in Anne Carr, The Theological Method of Karl Rahner
(Missoula, Mont.: Scholars Press, 1977).
27 " Experience of Self," p. 125.
25 Spirit,

26 See

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J. A.

COLOMBO

ing God, acting freely in history) is the real content, or rather,
the objective foundation of what is known and experienced a
posteriori in history." 28 As such, Rahner can call the explicit,
thematic, or categorical/predicamental history of religions the
history of the transcendental relationship between God and men. 29
From this position drawn within a Christian dogmatics, Rahner
posits the reality of an " anonymous Christian," based upon the
reality of a " universal salvific will of God " but distilled from the
confession of Jesus as the Christ (as the absolute self-communication of God to humanity), the identity of the immanent and economic Trinity, and hence the Christocentricity of creation. 30
Theology and Anthropology," p. 30.
Foundations, pp. 140-2.
30 The theorem of the " anonymous Christian " and " implicit theism " are
among the most controversial in Rahner's theology. The central texts may be
found in: " Membership of the Church According to the Teaching of Pius
XII's Encyclical 'Mystici Corporis Christi'," TI II, pp. 1-88; "History of
the World and Salvation History," "Christianity and the Non-Christian Religions," and "Christianity and the 'New Man'," Tl, V, pp. 97-114, 115-34,
135-43; "Anonymous Christians," Tl, VI, pp. 390-8; "Atheism and Implicit
Christianity," Tl, IX, pp. 145-64; "Church, Churches and Religions," Tl, X,
pp. 30-49; "Theological Considerations on Secularization and Atheism," Tl,
XI, pp. 166-84; "Anonymous Christianity and the Missionary Task of the
Church," Tl, XII, pp. 161-78; "Observations on the Problem of the 'Anonymous Christian'," Tl, XIV, pp. 280-94; and "The One Christ and the Universality of Salvation," Tl, XVI, pp. 199-224.
A common criticism of this theorem is the charge of theological imperalism:
a particular categorical event (the Christ) is described not only as manifesting
in an eschatological and definitive sense the self-communication of God to the
world but also as constituting that self-communication as an existential of
human existence. It would appear that it is precisely the gnoseological concupiscence about which Rahner speaks that renders any such identification
illicit. The scope of this essay prohibits any lengthy treatment of the theme,
and hence only three brief comments will be made. First, the anonymous
Christian is a theorem derived from a Christian systematic theology. Second,
if, given the situation of gnoseological concupiscence, the identification of Jesus
as the eschatological manifestation of God is a proleptic statement, then the assertion of the existence of " anonymous christians " is also a proleptic one.
Third, the theological basis of the possibility of an anonymous Christian is
to be found in the doctrine of the Trinity and not some pretheological transcendental anthropology. "Prior to any subjective attitude, man is really different from what he would be as a mere creature and mere sinner, because
2s "
29

RAHNER AND HIS CRITICS

83

Such a horizon or call of God to man may be either explicitly
or implicitly accepted or rejected by human freedom, though
never with definitiveness (apart from the privileged moment of
" death ") and never with an adequate self-certainty. 31 Yet even
if rejected, the concrete nature of human being remains such that
it is installed " in a supernatural order which man can never leave,
even as a sinnner and unbeliever." 82 Thus, the impossible possibility of an " absolute contradiction " remains open to men and
women. 33
Eleventh, in contradistinction to the scholastic theory wherein
God's self-bestowal of himself upon men and women (uncreated
grace) is made in virtue of and as a consequence of an absoredemption has taken place in Christ" ["Controversial Theology," p. 200J..
This "is", is the supernatural existential: " ... prior to any subjective appropriation of salvation, man is inwardly determined by a supernatural existential,
which consists in the fact that Christ in his death ' justified ' sinful man before
the all-holy God" [ibid.]. While such an affirmation might conceivably cover
all those contemporaneous to the Christ or those living after him, there is still
the problem of the justified " before Christ " and the status of the affirmation
that in the infralapsarian order all men and women concretely exist under the
supernatural existential. Given the identity of the economic and immanent
Trinity, one is permitted to say that creation as wrought by God's efficient
causality in this concrete order is founded upon the single eternal decree of
God to communicate his very self to human beings in grace and glory in the
manner of a (quasi-) formal causality. Therefore all infralapsarian grace
would be given to men and women " in view of the Incarnation," which is the
historical consummation and eschatological manifestation of the one single decree of God to communicate himself absolutely and be received irrevocably by
human beings. Yet precisely insofar as the theorem of the anonymous Christian has its foundation in the doctrine of the Trinity, the remarks noted above
(n. 19) apply here also.
s1 See "Guilt-Responsibility-Punishment
within the View of Catholic
Theology" and" Justified and Sinner at the Same Time," TI, VI, pp. 197-217,
218-30. On the priority of death, by which men and women dispose of the entirety of their existence as a "whole," see "Theological Considerations on the
Moment of Death," TI, XI, pp. 309-21 and "Ideas for a Theology of Death,"
TI, XIII, pp. 169-86. On the Christological parallel of the finality and decisiveness of the death of Jesus as a faithful exercise of his freedom, see Karl
Rahner and Wilhelm Thiising, A New Christology, trans. D. Smith and V.
Green (New York: Seabury Press, 1980), pp. 32-41.
s2" Nature and Grace," p. 180.
ss Foundations, pp. 97-106.

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J. A. COLOMBO

lute entitative modification and determination of human being
(created grace), Rahner reverses the relationship and asserts
that in a real sense uncreated grace must accompany and even
precede created grace.
Twelfth, the major principle operative in this affirmation is
the continuity that is posited between grace and glory. As
Cardinal Newman states it, grace is glory in exile and glory is
grace arrived at in its homeland. Grace and glory constitute the
two continuous stages of the single divinization of men and
women. Thus the nature of God's communication to men and
women in grace may be seen more clearly when the ontology of
the visio beatifica is applied to the question of grace.
Thirteenth, in the ontology of the beatific vision, there is an
isomorphism between the knower and the known by means of the
species in the created mind: knower and known are really the
" same thing " entitatively. Such a species cannot be a created
one, given the disparity between the nature of the species as
created and the being of God. Therefore, " the reality of the
mind in the beatific vision, so far as such a reality in itself is
due to a species as the means of knowledge, is the very being of
God. " 34 Hence, the nature of such a communication is not properly designated as one of efficient causality or production of another out of a cause; rather, it must be noted as a mode of formal
causality, "a taking up into the ground," where the cause becomes a real, intrinsic principle of the effect. In grace, the giver
himself is the gift. It is precisely this communication of grace
which ultimately empowers the self-transcendence of spirit in
knowledge and freedom and leads to that restlessness with all but
the holy mystery. 35
Rahner denotes the causality of God's self-communication as
one of quasi-formal causality so as to emphasize the analogical
nature of the concept used. It must be maintained, first, that such
a self-communication does not divide God from himself or subject
him to the difference posited therein : " the intrinsic constitutive
34" Uncreated Grace," p. 332.
a;;" Nature and Grace," p. 184.

RAH NER AND HIS CRITICS

85

cause retains in itself its own essence absolutely intact and in absolute freedom." 36 Second, it must be maintained that in such a
communication (and even when consummated in glory), God
remains the permanent and absolute mystery as such. " Grace is
the grace of the nearness of the abiding mystery : it makes God
accessible in the form of the holy mystery and presents him thus
as the incomprehensible." 37 Such a mystery is not merely the
term of an " unknowing " as " ignorance " but is an abiding with
the fullness of being itself where knowledge is surpassed, preserved, and transformed and passes over to the other in the immediacy of love.38
Lastly, because in uncreated grace there is a true self-communication of God and because such a God is confessed in Christian
salvation history to be essentially triune (the identity of the economic and essential Trinity), it must be maintained that the relations of men and women to each person of the Trinity are not
merely appropriated relations. Each of the divine persons is
present and operative in men and women according to its notional
properties: the Father as absolute mystery, 39 the Son as knowledge and truth, and the Spirit as love and union.
Rahner's reflections on nature and grace open up a Christian
vision of spirit in the world and its history wherein the world
in fact exists by, for, and within a graced graciousness. Men and
women truly do live in a divine milieu, for human existence occurs always and everywhere within a world suffused and permeated by grace. " God has always given himself, as himself with
his glory, to the world as power, origin and good in the mode
of an offer to the freedom of that world." 40 As an offer accepted
in freedom, it is God himself as Triune which is communicated
36 Foundations, p. 121.

The Concept of Mystery in Catholic Theology," TI, IV, p. 56.
s See " Concept of Mystery in Catholic Theology "; " Reflections on Methodology," TI XI, pp. 101-14; "The Hiddenness of God" and "An Investigation of the Incomprehensibility of God in St. Thomas Aquinas," TI, XVI, pp.
227-43, 244-54.
3 9 " Theos in the New Testament," TI, I pp. 79-148.
• 0 A New Christology, p. 25.
37 "
3

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COLOMBO

to incarnate spirit. Indeed, one may say that in the dialogue of
grace between God and creature, God becomes anthropomorphic,
while men and women become theomorphic. 41

-IIIn The Nature of Doctrine: Religion and Theology in a Postliberal Age/ 2 George Lindbeck argues for two positions: a " cultural-linguistic " model of religion against an " experiential-expressive" model; a " regulative theory of doctrine " against both
" propositionalist " and " symbolist " theories. While showing
some elective affinity for one another, Lindbeck's two positions
are nevertheless both distinct and separate from one another.
Since Lindbeck's cursory comments on Rahner largely concern
the first issue, I will not address the question of doctrine here.
Important questions regarding the precise explication of the two
models of religion and whether these models are mutually exclusive, as Lindbeck intimates, are also beyond the scope of
this essay. My interest here lies solely in Lindbeck's identification
of Rabner as a proponent of the " experiential-expressive " model.
Lindbeck identifies four affirmations which constitute the core
of the experiential-expressive understanding of religion:
( 1) Different religions are diverse expressions or objectifications of
a common core experience. It is this experience which identifies them
as religions. (2) The experience, while conscious, may be unknown
on the level of self-conscious reflection. ( 3) It is present in all
human beings. ( 4) In most religions, the experience is the source
and norm of objectifications: it is by reference to the experience that
their adequacy or lack of adequacy is to be judged. 43

Religion is modeled more on the understanding of art than science. It is seen simply as the "expressive and evocative objectification (i.e., nondiscursive symbols) of internal experience." u
41" Theology of the Incarnation,"

pp. 107-10.
Lindbeck, The N atitre of Doctrine: Religion and Theology in a
Postliberal Age (Philadelphia: Westminster Press, 1984).
o Ibid., p. 31.
u Ibid., p. 21.
42 George

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RAHNER AND HIS CRITICS

Lindbeck suggests that this " suspicious secular-looking model
of religion " 45 dominates in theological circles because it represents an accommodation to the sensibilities of modernity. This
model mirrors the modern understanding of the self as an abstract universal. It sees only an extrinsic connection between
public religious traditions and private religious experience. It
relativizes public religious traditions in relation to a specific form
of private experience and sees this as a universal characteristic of
human religious experience. The experiential-expressive model
represents, by consequence if not by intent, a leveling of the specific content of particular religious traditions in an implicit reductionism : individual religious traditions are nothing but an accidental cultural determination-expression of some identical, prethematic, core Sache which is accessible to a more basic phenomenological or ontological analysis.
Against this position, Lindbeck advances a " cultural-linguistic " model of religion in which a particular system of religion is
regarded as grounding a particular " form of life " : " a religion
can be viewed as a kind of cultural and/or linguistic framework
or medium that shapes the entirety of life and thought." 46 In this
model, the relation between internal experience and objectified
religious tradition is reversed-the latter is productive of and the
norm of the former. Particular religious traditions thus operate
like a Kantian a priori :
. . . while there are of course nonreflective experiences, there are no
uninterpreted or unschematized ones. On this view, the means of
communication or expression are a precondition, a kind of quasitranscendental (i.e., culturally formed) a priori for the possibility of
experience. We cannot identify, describe or recognize experience qua
experience without the use of signs or symbols.47
Here, " becoming religious " is less a matter of voluntary association by which the believer expresses an internal, private experience complete in itself through a particular system of religion; it
is more like becoming competent in a language, the acquisition of

's Ibid., p. 22.

•s Ibid., p. 33.

4 1 Ibid.,

p. 36.

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a set of skills by which one interprets the world and has any experience at all.
Within the " cultural-linguistic " model, a postliberal theology
is one that is antifoundational and narrative. It is antifoundational in that it repudiates the quest to ground particular systems of
religion in some " neutral, framework-independent language " 48
regarding human subjectivity and its private yet universally prethematic experience. It is narrative in that it sees the primary
task of theology as an explication of the intratextual meaning of
that religion's fundamental narratives: "intratextual theology redescribes reality within the scriptural framework rather than
translating Scripture into extrascriptural categories." 49
Lindbeck suggests-in an all too oblique manner-that Rahner's work, especially his use of the transcendental method (the
positing of a Vorgriff auf esse and a real, prethematic knowledge
of God) and the notion of implicit faith, falls clearly into the experiential-expressive model. To be sure, much of Rahner's language resonates with this model. Yet, is Lindbeck correct in this
identification of Rahner's work? I think not. As the exposition
of the position on nature and grace suggests, the relation between
transcendental and categorical revelation cannot be simply understood under the rubric, " the latter is nothing but the explicit expression of the former." Rahner himself asserts so much in
Foundations of Christian Faith:
. . . Christianity assumes that these presuppositions which it makes
are inescapably and necessarily present in the ultimate depths of
human existence, even when this existence is interpreted differently
in its reflexive self-interpretation, and that at the same time the
Christian message itself creates these presuppositions by its call....
The presuppositions which are to be considered here refer to man's
essential being. They refer to his essential being as something which
is always historically constituted, and thus as existing in confrontation with Christianity as grace and historical message.50

In positing a real, prethematic knowledge of God, Rahner's
transcendental anthropology is a theological anthropology, always
.a Ibid., p. 130.

•11 Ibid., p. 118.

110

Foundations,pp. 24-5.

RAH NER AND HIS CRITICS

89

already marked by the witness of categorical revelation, i.e., that
grace as the supernatural existential is given to human beings in
view of the Incarnation. Like the concept of pure nature, a
" pure " transcendental anthropology is a Restbegriff, an abstraction which does not actually occur in a pure state in the world.
Further, like the distinction between grace and nature, there can
be no final delimitation between a natural transcendental anthropology and a theological one. The former concept remains a
limit-axiom.
The notions of a " supernatural existential," " implicit faith,"
and " anonymous Christian " are thus not theorems derived from
the more " basic " propositions of a secular transcendental anthropology and hence a "foundational" theology in Lindbeck's
sense of the term. They are derived from the sphere of a Christian systematic theology as reflection on categorical revelation.
In this sense, Rahner's use of the transcendental method and his
understanding of transcendental revelation and implicit faith
differ qualitatively from that of Schubert Ogden whose position
more closely approximates the " implicit-explicit " rubric of the
experiential-expressive model. As Ogden asserts:
Although such revelation [categorical] cannot be necessary for the
constitution of human existence, it can very well be necessary to the
objectification of existence, in the sense of its full and adequate understanding at the level of explicit thought and speech.51
Rahner differs from Ogden in affirming that not only is categorical revelation the full, adequate, and decisive objectification
of the constitution of human existence, but also that concrete
human existence as graced is constituted by the categorical event
of the Christ, which is fully, adequately, and explicitly acknowledged in the Christian religion.
This leads to a peculiar interrelationship between fundamental
and systematic theology. Fundamental theology as transcendental
51 Schubert Ogden, "On Revelation," Our Common History as Christians:
Essays in Honor of Albert C. Outler, eds. J. Deschner, L. T. Howe, and
K. Penzel (New York: Oxford University Press, 1975), p. 284.

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anthropology is reflection on the condition of the possibility of
human being as a " hearer of the word." While propositions on
this matter are first in the ordo essendi, they are second in the
ordo cogn;oscendi. Systematic theology as reflection on the categorical specificity of the Christian tradition is the reverse: first
in the ordo cognoscendi, but second in the ordo essendi. In
Rahner's execution of the theological enterprise, as is visible in
his position on nature and grace, fundamental theology remains
an abstract moment of systematic theology, essentially bound in
its claims regarding the ordo essendi by its stance as always already acknowledging the claim of categorical revelation in the
ordo cognoscendi. In this manner, the historicity of the standpoint of the theologian and the reality of gnoseological concupiscence are preserved in the theological enterprise and condition
the status of propositions deriving from fundamental theology.
Propositions regarding the ordo essendi in Rahner's fundamental
theology are proleptic insofar as the content of such propositions
is founded in the doxological confession that " Jesus is the
Christ." Thus, Lindbeck's categorization of Rahner strikes me
as simply wrong and a diversion from what I suspect is the real
locus of disagreement: the description of the task and procedure
of systematic theology as intra textual. Yet it is here that the constructive aspect of Lindbeck's work breaks down. More precisely,
intratextuality has both a formal and material significance in
Lindbeck's text. Formally, it specifies the methodological exigency of systematic theology : to redescribe " reality within the
scriptural framework rather than translating Scripture into extrascriptural categories." Materially, it refers to Lindbeck's own
instantiation of this methodological exigency in the form of a
" Barthian realism." 52 Even if the formal exigency is acceptedand what this means remains elusive in the text-what has not
been proven is that the latter is the only or most appropriate
62 For a description and defense of "Barthian realism," see David F. Kelsey,
The Use of Scripture in Recent Theology (Philadelphia: Fortress Press,
1975), pp. 39-50, and Hans Frei, The Eclipse of Biblical Narrative (New
Haven: Yale University Press, 1974).

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91

formulation of the former. Lacking this, however, the weight of
Lindbeck' s criticism defaults to his characterization of Rahner as
an " experiential-expressivist." This is simply misguided.
Much like Lindbeck's, Metz's criticism of Rahner focuses on the
transcendental moment of Rahner's theology. Indeed, Metz contrasts Rahner's "transcendental-idealistic"
understanding of theology with his own understanding of theology as " narrativepractical." Using the fairy-tale of "the hedgehog and the
hare," 53 Metz charges that Rahner's theology secures the
historical identity of Christian faith ahistorically, through a
"transcendental omnipresence." As is most clearly seen in the
theorem of the " anonymous Christian " and the isomorphism
posited there between transcendental and categorical revelation,
the content of Christian faith is so construed as to be in principle immunized against the dangers and threats of the concrete
events of history and society. Further, the exigency for a socialhistorical mediation of Christian faith in the specific praxis of
solidarity with the suffering is attenuated. Grace (the self-communication of God) and hence the substance of Christianity itself
(the religion of immediacy to God in his self-communication) is
like the hedgehog: it is always already vindicated in the world in
the subjectivity of the subject, without having to "run the race"
and seek its vindication in the worldliness of the world, in history
and society.
The thrust of Metz's objection to Rahner is clearer: Rahner's
transcendental theology represents an anthropological reduction
of history and society, the occlusion of the historical suffering of
53 " One Sunday morning, the hedgehog is going for a walk in a ploughed
field and a hare teases him about his bandy legs. He challenges the hare to a
race in the furrows of the field. First, however, he goes home to breakfast
because, as he tells the hare, he cannot run on an empty stomach. He then returns with his wife, who is exactly the same in appearance as her husband, and
gets her to stand at the far end of the furrow. He himself stands at the other
end beside the hare in another furrow. The hare falls for this trick. He runs
and runs in his furrow, but the hedgehog is (in both positions) 'always already ' there. In the end, the hare falls dead from exhaustion on the field."
Johann Metz, Faith in History and Society, trans. David Smith (New York:
Seabury Press, 1980), p. 161.

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men and women, a symptom of the privatization of Christianity
and an immunization of its truth claims vis-a-vis secular history. 54 But the precise locus of his disagreement is not clear. Is
Metz's objection to the transcendental turn to the subject as such
or to a specific execution of this turn? If the latter, then what in
particular is being objected to in Rahner's theology? Clearly
Metz desires to distance himself from transcendental theology, if
by the term one means the theology of Rahner, but that Metz
repudiates the transcendental turn in general is questionable.
(The term can mean a reflection on the condition of the possibility of the intelligibility of (Christian) categorical revelation
through a turn to the subject.)
I believe that what Metz objects to in Rahner's theology is the
turn to the subject as the subject of knowledge, the subsequent
positing of a Vorgriff auf esse as the condition of the possibility
of knowledge and the intelligibility of religion, and the further
theological identification of this transcendental anticipation as
graced nature with the substance of categorical (Christian) revelation. Metz counters that the subject as the subject of knowledge
is an abstraction, for that subject is always already mediated by
history and society. Thus, in his starting point, Rahner's transcendental reflection circumvents the issue of whether " the conditions governing knowledge in a changing world also change
themselves, in other words, that they cannot simply be determined in a purely reflective way (as factors that are given or
present.)" 55 Metz's practical fundamental theology does not
negate the turn to the subject; rather, it extends this turn by
considering the subject not in its historicity, an abstract existential, but in its history, that is, as it is constituted by its specific
placement in a particular social totality. 56
H

Faith in History and Society, pp. 62-65.

55 Ibid., p. 81.
56 This aspect of Metz's polemic against Rahner resembles in both its form
and content an earlier philosophical one: Theodor Adorno's against Martin
Heidegger. See Theodor Adorno, The Jargon of Authenticity, trans. Knut
Tarnowski and Frederic Will (Evanston: Northwestern University Press
1973), and Negative Dialectics, trans. E. B. Ashton (New York: Seabury
Press, 1973), pp. 97-133.

RABNER

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93

Related to this, Metz disagrees with how Rahner construes
"anticipation," the condition of the possibility of human subjectivity in freedom. In positing a Vorgriff auf esse, "the transcendental pre-apprehension ( Vorgriff) of Being as a whole is concerned with what exists (Bestehendes) and not with what develops (Entstehendes) ." 57 By his construal of the anticipatory
character of subjectivity in terms of a metaphysics of esse, history, particularly the openness and indeterminateness of the future, is occluded in Rahner's theology. Metz is not denying the
anticipatory character of human subjectivity or claiming that this
is a matter of irrelevance to religion. Quite to the contrary, he
affirms that although
we theologians do not like to speak about the claim to universality
[of religion], there is apparently no ' discourse about God ' which is
not, at least tendentially and implicitly, an (anticipatory) discourse
about the whole of reality.58
His dispute is with how this anticipation is characterized. For
Metz, in positing a V orgriff auf esse Rahner miscontrues both
the manner in which this anticipation is mediated, as historical
and practical, and its Sache, as a vision of the process of becoming and history Further, Metz affirms that religion has a peculiar
relation to this anticipation : its subversive power to interrupt
hegemonous social totalities arises from its subject matter as an
anticipatory discourse about God and hence the whole of reality.
In a real sense, the elaboration of a practical fundamental theology
is itself an exercise in transcendental reflection : the description of
how the interest in freedom of the subject is itself historically,
socially, and practically mediated by " dangerous memories " in
narrative form. 59
57 Johann Metz, "Die Rede von 'Ende der M etaphysik' und die Theologies"
(unpublished manuscript, 1966), p. 17 cited in Roger Dick Johns, Man in the
World: The Theology of Johannes Baptist Metz, American Academy of Religion Dissertation Series, no. 16 (Missoula, Mont.: Scholars Press, 1976), p. 96.
58 Metz, "Zu einer interdizipliniir orientierten Theologie auf bikonf essioneller
Basis: Erste Orientierung anhand eines konkreten Projekts," in Die Theologie
in der interdizipliniir Forschung, eds. J. Metz and T. Rendtorff (Diisseldorf:
Bertelsmann Universitatsverlag, 1971), p. 21. Translation mine.
ou Faith i·n History and Society, pp. 184-237.

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The material theological disagreement becomes clear in Metz's
estimate of the essence of Christianity and his assertion of a
caesura between the interest in freedom of the subject and the
specificity of Christianity's dangerous memory as memoria
passionis et resurrectionis J esu. Christianity " intends the anticipation of a particular future of man as a future for the suffering,
the hopeless, the oppressed, the injured and the useless of the
earth." 60 Again, Christian faith is a
hope in solidarity in the God of Jes us as a God of the living and the
dead who calls all men to be subjects in his presence. Christians
justify themselves in this essentially apocalyptic praxis (of imitation)
in their historical struggle for their fellow men.61
The point of Christianity is here construed not as the religion of
the nearness of the Abiding Mystery but as the religion which
announces a promise to the world and calls men and women to
solidarity with those who suffer in the world.
Despite his often global and unguarded remarks about transcendental theology, Metz's fundamental disagreement with Rahner does not concern the transcendental turn in theology as such.
His objection is against a specific interpretation where the " essence of Christianity " as categorical revelation is posited as isomorphic with transcendental revelation. Rahner's position includes two steps. First, the interpretive determination of the
essence of Christianity and, second, the identification of Christian
revelation so construed with human beings' transcendental orientation as graced nature. This second step is clearly dependent
upon the first: the interpretation of Christianity as "the religion
of immediacy to God in his self-communication." Metz's disagreement with Rahner is fundamentally a difference in describing what is central in the Christian message, what the focus is
through which both the Christian tradition and the world are to
be interpreted. For Rahner, this focus is the Incarnation and the
hypostatic union, and it is through his understanding of these
so Ibid., p. 117.
Sl Ibid., p. 73.

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AND HIS CRITICS

95

mysteries that transcendental and categorical revelation are identified as isomorphic. For Metz, this focus is the memoria passionis et resurrectionis J esu, and it is through his understanding
of this that a caesura is preserved between the transcendental
orientation of subjectivity, its interest in freedom, and Christianity. It is the collapsing of this caesura which Metz objects to
through the fairy-tale of the hedgehog and the hare. To reduce
the root of their disagreement to their differing estimates of the
transcendental method is, in my judgement, misguided; it overlooks the fact that just as there is a hermeneutic circle between
Rahner's anthropology and Christology so also there is one operative in Metz's. In short, their disagreement is essentially a
theological one.
Who is "correct?" My hunch is that Lindbeck would side
with Metz against Rahner, claiming that the latter has strayed too
far from the exigency of intratextuality and the scriptural categories to a derivative dogmatic tradition. Is Metz then more
faithful to the specificity of categorical revelation than Rahner
or vice versa? The " answer " to this question is itself dependent
upon the answer to a prior question: How should one construe
the point of categorical revelation and thus interpret the " essence
of Christianity? "
In his essay "What Does ' Essence of Christianity' Mean?"
Ernst Troeltsch attempted to explicate the category " essence of
Christianity " as the mediating link between fundamental and
dogmatic theology and as naming the locus of the basic synthetic
activity of the theologian as he or she continues the traditio of
the Christian tradition in the present. 62 The positing of the essence of Christianity is not the abstraction of a " least common
denominator " from the past tradition. It is the determination,
comprised of a complex of critical judgments about the past tradition and the present intellectual, social, and pastoral situation
of men and women, of an interpretive center for dogmatic theu Ernst Troeltsch, " What Does ' Essence of Christianity ' Mean? " in
Ernst Troelstch: Writings on Theology and Religion, trans. and eds. Robert
Morgan and Michael Pye (Atlanta: John Knox Press, 1977), pp. 124-81.

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ology which functions simultaneously as a critical, developmental,
and ideal principle. As Troeltsch wrote
After a long and careful consideration of the past, present and future,
after extending one's view over as much detail as possible, after taking into account all available cases which might further understanding through comparison; there remains one final act, in which the
purely historical which belongs to the past and the normative which
belongs to the future are combined in the judgment of the present.
. . . To define the essence is to shape it afresh.63
As such, the category " essence of Christianity " denotes the
broad preunderstanding of the point of the Christian tradition as
a whole; it is a necessary condition for the more detailed explication of any of Christianity's dogmatic parts.
The disagreement between Metz and Rabner (and, perhaps,
Lindbeck and Rabner) lies not so much in the foreground disputes about transcendental method as in the background of their
respective judgments concerning the "essence of Christianity."
That this category was discredited as the epitome of theological
liberalism with the Barthian revolution was perhaps inevitable.
That this category came to be seen as a symptom of relativistic
historicism in Troeltsch's own work is perhaps appropriate.
That it needs to be retrieved to name accurately the locus of theological disagreement and the source of theological pluralism and
that it can be retrieved without the implications of relativistic
historicism is something to be pondered. 64 This remains, however, a task to be done.

es Ibid., p. 161-2.
64 To pursue this topic further would be to write another essay. That such
a suggestion, however, is not a blind one can be adumbrated in two recent
works: David Tracy, Plurality and Ambiguity (San Francisco: Harper and
Row, 1987), and Richard Bernstein, Beyond Objectivism and Relativism (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 1983). Particularly in its final
chapter, Tracy's book highlights the complexity and unavoidability of "interpretation" in the work of constructive (systematic) theology. Bernstein's
book articulates a hermeneutical understanding of rationality whereby both the
positions of objectivism and relativism, positions which haunted Troeltsch in
his later work, may be overcome.

LONERGAN'S "CRITICAL REALISM" AND
RELIGIOUS PLURALISM
TIMOTHY

R. STINNETT

University of Detroit Mercy
Detroit, Michigan

T

HE PHENOMENON of religious pluralism is raising
ome basic questions for philosophical thought that must
e faced not only by philosophies not linked to any particular religious tradition but also by the theologies or philosophies
of specific religious traditions. Christian theologians seem first
to have discovered the range of questions raised by religious
pluralism in the face of apparently conflicting truth claims. No
less important, however, are certain moral questions: how the
advocates of the various religious traditions should bear witness
to their respective traditions, and how they should go about
identifying and correcting the ideological biases that seem inevitably to occur as the result of the historical and cultural conditions in which their respective witnesses emerge and develop.
Thus, a philosophical treatment of religious pluralism will need
to make explicit the relevant conditions of truth by which religious claims must be assessed. It will also need to clarify how apparently conflicting truth claims may be examined to see whether
they are genuinely conflicting and then how genuinely conflicting
truth claims may be adjudicated.
Bernard Lonergan's philosophy of critical realism may be considered a valuable resource for addressing such questions insofar
as he undertakes to answer such fundamental questions as " What
am I doing when I am knowing? Why is doing that knowing?
What do I know when I do it? " 1 Attention to these questions

1 Bernard Lonergan, Method vn Theology (New York: The Seabury Press,
1979), p. 25. See also Bernard Lonergan, A Third Collection: Papers by
Bernard I. F. Lonergan, S.J., edited by Frederick E. Crowe, S.J. (New
York: Paulist Press, 1985), p. 210.

97

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R. STINNETT

promises clarification about how religious truth claims may be
shown to be true (and thus to count as " knowledge ") and how
genuinely conflicting truth claims may be adjudicated. It also
promises to clarify how one may recognize ideological bias and
correct for it in a fully reflective understanding of a particular
religious witness. For Lonergan, answers to the three questions
cited above provide respectively a cognitional theory, an epistemology, and a metaphysics, all three of which together constitute
his philosophy of critical realism. 2 In this essay I will explore the
relevance of his critical realism for philosophical treatment of
questions raised by religious pluralism. After an analysis of the
salient features of Lonergan's philosophy, I will consider the disadvantages and advantages it affords a philosophy of religious
pluralism. By attending to the disadvantages I will register an
immanent criticism of Lonergan's critical realism, and I will atexplain how it must be revised in order to become a useful resource for treating philosophical questions raised by religious
pluralism.
Lonergan's "Critical Realism"

The human capacity to know is for Lonergan what constitutes
human being as spirit. " Let us say," he writes,
that intelligibility that is not intelligent is material, and that intelligibility that is intelligent is spiritual. . . . But inasmuch as we are
spiritual, we are orientated towards the universe of being, know
ourselves as parts within that universe, and guide our living by that
knowledge.8
Knowing, then, is a process with distinguishable moments, and
it is completed in action consistent with what is known. Moreover, what can be known by a human subject determines the
parameters of "proportionate being." The coordination of all of
the departments of human knowledge is the object of metaphysics,
2 Method in Theology, pp. 25, 83, 261, 316. See also Bernard Lonergan,
Insight: A Study of Human Understanding, revised ed. (New York: Harper
& Row, 1978), pp. 322ff., p. 350.
a Insight, p. 516.

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which Lonergan defines as " the integral heuristic structure of
proportionate being." 4 Proportionate being is not, however, a
comprehensive term for everything that exists ; there is also
"transcendent being." Transcendent being is revealed as mystery,
and knowledge of it is obtained through the operation of grace
in religious conversion. 5 But I will postpone discussion of this
knowledge of transcendent being for the moment.
The orientation of the human spirit toward " the universe of
being" manifests itself in "the primordial drive" to know. "It
is prior to any insights, any concepts, any words, for insights,
concepts, words have to do with answers; and before we look for
answers, we want them; such wanting is the pure question." 6
The human spirit transcends itself and its immediate experience
by a process of accumulating knowledge in accord with the drive
of "the pure question." To the description of this process I now
turn.
Four different moments may be identified in the process of
knowing : experience, intelligence, reflection, and deliberation.
Lonergan identifies these distinctive moments in the process of
knowing by means of a "generalized empirical method," 7 which
concretely analyses the process of knowing first in the acquisition
of mathematical knowledge, then of natural scientific knowledge,
then of common sense knowledge, and finally of the knowledge of
oneself as a knowing subject. It is impossible to do justice in a
4 Ibid., p. 391.
5 Ibid., pp. 635-686. See also Method in Theology, pp. 242-43. Lonergan
adheres to Aquinas's view that some revealed truths are attainable by natural
reason, but for the knowledge of God (objective genitive) that brings a solution
to the human problem of sin an " absolutely supernatural solution " is necessary. "Then faith includes objects beyond the natural reach of any finite
understanding" (Insight, p. 725). On this view, "the act of faith will be an
assent of intellect to an object and because of a motive. As a belief within a
new and higher collaboration, the object of faith will be the truths transmitted
by the collaboration. Because it is a belief within a collaboration of man with
God as initiator and principal agent, the motive of faith will be the omniscience,
goodness, and omnipotence of God originating and preserving the collaboration "
(Ibid., p. 720).
a Insight, p. 9. See also pp. 74, 331, 348, 521-22, 638.
1 Ibid., pp. 70 ff. A Third Collection, pp. 140, 150, 177, 202.

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brief essay to the lengthy discussions by which Lonergan attempts
to warrant his account of the distinctive moments of knowledge.
But an analysis that abstracts his account of the distinctive moments from their larger context will serve my purposes.
First, then, experience provides the data for consciousness upon
which knowledge is based. The undifferentiated awareness of experience is named "empirical consciousness." It registers the
sensations of "outer experience," and it registers as "inner experience " a preconceptual awareness of oneself as sensing, perceiving, and imagining. 8 It does not, however, distinguish between inner and outer experience.9 Further, empirical consciousness is not yet knowledge, but it is the first condition of the emergence of knowledge. Although it is undifferentiated, because it has
not yet applied names to the data presented as the given, it is not
to be confused with "the unconscious." The latter intentionally
represses awareness of the given, while empirical consciousness
includes such awareness as a given. 10 Experience is not knowledge, then, but it supplies the materials for the posing of questions at higher, differentiated levels of consciousness.
When experience provides data for human consciousness
" questions for intelligence" result. Questions such as Why?
How? and What for? are put to the data of empirical consciousness. By such questions the data are named, and the laws of
their relations either with one another or with the human subject him/herself are described hypothetically. 11 Common sense
judgments concern the latter kinds of relations; theoretical scientific judgments, the former. 12 Through questions for intelligence the .process of human knowing " moves to accumulations
of related insights which are expressed or formulated in concepts,
suppositions, definifions, postulates, hypotheses, theories .... " 13
Consciousness differentiated by the questions and answers for intelligence is "intelligent consciousness." It is characterized by
s Insight, pp. 322; see also p. 274 and A Third Collection, p. 57.
Method in Theology, p. 84.
12 Insight, p. 281.
10 Insight, p. 321; see also pp. 192-203.
ls Ibid., p. 252.
11 Ibid., pp. 252, 272-278.

9

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its accumulated insights " not as a schoolboy repeating by rote a
definition, but as one that defines because he grasps why that
definition hits things." 14
The drive of " the pure question " is not satisfied by questions
for intelligence, however. Human knowing presses to a higher
level or moment in which " questions for reflection " are asked
about the answers given to questions for intelligence. The former
ask What is it?; the latter ask Whether it is? The former have
the peculiarity of never being answerable by Yes or No ; the latter
always "can be answered appropriately simply by saying either
Yes or No." Intelligence understands; reflection judges. " Generally,'' Lonergan explains, "the enunciation of every law can be
followed by the question for reflection that asks whether the law
is verified, and the definition of every term can be followed by
the question for reflection whether the defined exists." 15 To answer a question for reflection, then, is to exercise judgment about
the data of experience that are differentiated and understood by
intelligent consciousness.16
But precisely by what procedure are questions for reflection to
be answered? A judgment is reached when the conditions of the
answers of intelligence are known and these conditions are fulfilled. A judgment, then, is a grasping of what Lonergan calls
the " virtually unconditioned." He explains,
The function of reflective understanding is to meet the question for
reflection by transforming the prospective judgment from the status
of a conditioned to the status of a virtually unconditioned; and reflective understanding effects this transformation by grasping the
conditions of the conditioned and their fulfillment.17
The conditions that must be met by judgment are determined by
the data themselves, as differentiated in intelligent consciousness.
The relevant conditions to be met in judgment are dependent upon
the data to be judged, and so for data of logically distinct types
different conditions must be specified. Irrespective of the logicalu Ibid., p. 322.

1s Ibid., pp. 271-316.

10 Ibid., p. 83.

11

Ibid., p. 280.

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R. STINNETT

ly distinct type of data, however, judgment always occurs by linking the known conditions with their fulfillment. In other words,
while the conditions of judgment are " field-dependent " upon the
logically distinct type or " field " to which the data under consideration belong, the procedure for linking the conditions with
their fulfillment is " field-invariant." 18 In every exercise of
judgment the " virtually unconditioned " is attained by linking
the known conditions of the data with their fulfillment. Only by
such a procedure can judgment produce " knowledge" of what
is manifestly judged in the answer Yes or No.
It is a major characteristic of modern science that judgments
of empirical fact never attain the " virtually unconditioned " but
only approximate it to a greater or lesser degree. Lonergan remarks that
the probability of a judgment, like the certainty of a judgment, is a
property of its content. If that content coincides with what is grasped
as virtually unconditioned, then it is a certainty. But what is grasped
as virtually unconditioned may be that a given content heads towards
the virtually unconditioned, and then the content is a probability.19
Thus, modern scientists do not claim absolute knowledge of the
data they study but only probable knowledge. 20 Moreover, some
1 8 I have borrowed this terminology from Stephen Toulmin, The Uses of
Argument (New York and Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1958).
19 Insight, p. 550.
20 Accordingly, scientific theory is always subject to revision. This point
lies at the heart of Lonergan's central criticism of Aristotle's view of natural
science as expressed in the Posterior Analytics. Aristotle conceived genera and
species descriptively, and the particular natural sciences were to be inferred
from the more general science of metaphysics. Consequently, natural science
was unable to secure methodological independence from metaphysics. This
blocked the emergence of modern natural sciences as autonomous disciplines.
Lonergan, in contrast, develops an explanatory conception of genera and species
in a way, he holds, consistent with the canons of modern scientific inquiry
(Insight, pp. 166-67, 482-83; see also A Third Collection, pp. 41-47). Similarly, metaphysics is explanatory rather than descriptive. "Metaphysics has been
conceived as the integral heuristic structure of proportionate being. Proportionate being is what is to be known by experience, intelligent grasp, and reasonable affirmation. Integral heuristic structure is the anticipatory outline of
what would be known by affirming a complete explanation of experience"
(Insight, p. 483).

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103

judgments do not even approximate the virtually unconditioned
according to the classical laws of science. In other words the
classical laws are restricted in their relevance to only a partial
range of the data of experience. Another whole range of data is
known to diverge from the classical laws non-systematically.
This range of data, which Lonergan calls "the empirical residue,"
can be understood and known only through the development and
application of the science of statistics. Thus, Lonergan argues,
There does not exist a single ordered sequence that embraces the
totality of particular cases through which abstract system might be
applied to the concrete universe. In other words, though all events
are linked to one another by law, still the laws reveal only the abstract component in concrete relations ; the further concrete component, though mastered by insight into particular cases, is involved in
the empirical residue from which systematizing intelligence abstracts ;
it does not admit general treatment along classical lines; it is a residue, left over after classical method has been applied, and it calls for
the implementation of statistical method.21
Statistical science investigates what classical scientific laws cannot account for. But the field-invariant rules of judgment also
apply in statistical judgments. In this case the conditions of fulfillment are the limits of the data's non-systematic divergence
from classical laws, the random frequencies of the occurrence of
the data. 22
When knowledge is attained by the exercise of sound judgment, the human spirit presses on to yet another kind of question, "the question for deliberation." This question shapes the
choice to be exercised volitionally in the light of the judgment
about what is known. Questions for deliberation, then, emerge in
" moral consciousness." Know ledge is attained by experience,
understanding, and judgment; it is fulfilled in praxis. 23 Questions
for deliberation arise, therefore, as the demand for " self-consistency in knowing and doing." 24
87.
Ibid., pp. 46-69.
21 See A Third Collection, pp. 169-250; Insight, pp. 595-633.
24 Insight, p. 599.
21 [nsight, p.
22

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R. STINNETT

Lonergan's theory entails a rejection of any sort of unqualified
determinism. " For the concrete includes a non-systematic component, and so the concrete cannot be deduced in its full determinacy from any set of systematic premises." 25 Precisely what
can be known is not predetermined. The question remains open
and is only determined by the increasing accumulation of human
knowledge in all its distinctive departments. Furthermore, his
theory requires the differentiation of various fields of inquiry;
each bears the burden of identifying the relevant conditions of the
data they study that must be fulfilled by sound judgment. Thus,
Lonergan rejects "naive realism," which views knowledge as the
result of " taking a look " at the world of experience to see what
is already there, for knowledge is the result of experience, understanding, and judgment. He rejects that kind of "empiricism"
that denies cognitive meaning to statements that are not verifiable
in some way by sense perception, for sensible perceptions are only
a preliminary stage in the acquisition of knowledge of matters of
empirical fact. He rejects " idealism" that holds human "knowledge " to be of the ideal rather than the real, for knowledge is
based upon experience, and experience is always of what is real,
whether transcendent or proportionate being. Instead, Lonergan's theory of knowledge is a "critical realism ... that human
knowledge consists not in experiencing alone but in the three2 5 Insight, p. 99. But, given his view of the systematic and non-systematic
aspects of the data of experience, Lonergan conceives divine omniscience in a
surprising way. He claims that " God lmows exactly what every free will
would choose in each successive set of circumstances contained in each possible world order" (ibid., p. 662). And again, "from the viewpoint of unrestricted understanding the non-systematic vanishes to yield place to a fully
determinate and absolutely efficacious plan and intention" (ibid., p. 665). But
it is difficult to see how these claims about omniscience can be anything other
than merely verbal, for if divine lmowledge is perfect surely its perfection
would entail lmowledge of the non-systematic as non-systematic. But if that is
the case, then a knowing from which " the non-systematic vanishes" would be
imperfect. The inconsistency of his argument suggests that Lonergan has imposed upon his critical realism metaphysical categories not derivable from it.
For an argument to this point see Schubert M. Ogden, "Lonergan and the
Subjectivist Principle," The Journal of Religion 51 (July 1971): 155-172.

LONERGAN

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fold compound that embraces experiencing, understanding and
judging." 26
Strangely enough, the one department of "knowledge" that is
exceptional to Lonergan' s theory is the religious. It is exceptional because the conditions of fulfillment for the object of religious
knowledge, transcendent being, are not known before being linked
with the known conditions. Indeed, they cannot he known because, in contrast to every other kind of knowledge, the " unconditioned " of religious knowledge is formal, not virtual.2 7 In
judgments about select data of proportionate being, the data are
conditioned, and from them the conditions to be fulfilled in judgment may be derived and linked with them. But in the case of
transcendent being the datum is formally unconditioned; it yields
no conditions that may be linked with the unconditioned for affirmative judgment. Accordingly, arguments for the existence of
God, where God is conceived as transcendent being, arrive only
at the virtually unconditioned with regard to the truth of the
premises from which the existence of God may be inferred.
Now, Lonergan holds that "The immanent source of transcendence in man is his detached" disinterested, unrestricted desire to know." 28 But it is not possible for a human being to know
in unrestricted fashion; human abilities do not match human desires. This mismatch renders proportionate being not completely intelligible in itself. Therefore, the desire for unrestricted
knowledge becomes the premise for an inference to the existence
of transcendent being, and this inference completes the intelligibility of proportionate being. The general form of the
argument is as follows : " If the real is completely intelligible, God
exists. But the real is completely intelligible. Therefore, God
exists." 29 In this argument and in other theistic arguments he
employs, Lonergan holds that " what is grasped is not the unrestricted act but the extrapolation that proceeds from the prop26A

Third Collection, p. 240; Method in Theology, p. 76.

21 Insight, p.

672.

2s Ibid., p. 636.
29 Ibid., p. 672.

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erties of a restricted act to the properties of the unrestricted
act." 80 Thus, Lonergan maintains that "The most fundamental
of all questions . . . asks about existence yet neither empirical
science nor a methodically restricted philosophy can have an adequate answer." 31 Religious knowledge or, more precisely, what
is most important in the field of religious knowledge is not obtainable by the ordinary process of human knowing. Accordingly, Lonergan typically speaks of the knowledge of God ( objective genitive) as the exception to the adage nihil amatum nisi
praecognitum.32 He also typically speaks of the basic form of
Christian religious experience as having God's love "poured into
our hearts through the Holy Spirit " (Romans 5 :5). 88 The
knowledge of God, then, is obtained by conversion, brought about
by divine initiative. Even so, it is anticipated by human knowledge in the orientation of the human spirit to mystery, to the
transcendent being which always confronts human being as " a
' known unknown '." 3'

The Disadvantages and Advantages of " Critical Realism"
I must begin an evaluation of Lonergan's theory of knowledge
by calling attention to its central difficulty. It appears most clear3o

Ibid., p. 670.

a1 Ibid., p. 653.
32 A

Third Collection, pp. 31, 77.

33 Method in Theology, pp. 122.
34. Insight, p. 546. Lonergan's discussions of conversion typically interchange
" religious experience " and " being in love with God," just as he invariably
interchanges " God and "transcendent being." He is persuaded by Friedrich
Heiler's argument for seven common features of the world religions, all seven
of which may be summarized by " being in love with God " (Met hod in Theology, pp. 109 ff.; A Third Collection, pp. 217 ff.). But Heiler's argument
is difficult to defend, and I suspect it has little credibility except to those who
know little about the history of religions. For if it is dubious to suppose that
the world religions share a common concept of love, it is far more dubious to
suppose that they share a common concept of God. But both suppositions must
hold in order for Heiler's argument to succeed. One may note, furthermore,
that the abandonment of substantive definitions of religion by most historians
of religion is, in part, the consequence of the unsupportability of the secondmentioned supposition.

LONERGAN

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ly in the question about how to adjudicate conflicting truth
claims between the religions. And unless this difficulty is resolved, one may well wonder what use any of Lonergan's theory
may be for solving philosophical problems raised by religious
pluralism.
If the " absolutely supernatural solution " to the human condition is beyond the grasp of the human mind, then there appears
no way to adjudicate putative conflicts between religious claims
to truth. Further, it appears impossible even to judge affirmatively that a religious claim is true. If religious conversion is the
condition of the possibility of discriminating true from false versions of the solution to the human condition (or, in Lonergan's
language, " positions " from " counter-positions "), 85 then the
question arises about the criterion for discerning who is religiously converted. Lonergan's answer is unsatisfying. He argues
that "each theologian will judge the authenticity of the authors
of views, and he will do so by the touchstone of his own authenticity." 88 But the only sure sign of one's own authenticity is
adherence to the permanent meaning of dogma, and "The permanence of dogmas . . . results from the fact that they express revealed mysteries." 37 Further, adherence to the permanent meaning of dogma is the result of the transformation of the limits of
one's knowledge, i.e., of one's "horizon," by religious conversion.38 Thus, Lonergan holds that religious conversion is the condition of the possibility of discerning true from false solutions to
the human condition, but the criterion for discerning who is religiously converted is an adherence to the true solution.
Unless the circularity of Lonergan's argument can be broken,
there is little hope for use of his critical realism for the solution
of philosophical questions raised by religious pluralism. For example, non-Christians will be unable to enter into dialogue with
a& Insight, pp. 387-90.
sa Method in Theology, p. 331. See also pp. 270-71.
a1 Ibid., p. 326.
ss A "person's horizon is the boundary of what he !mows and values" (A
Third Collection, p. 234).

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Christians, even if their own religious traditions do not argue
religious conversion to be a condition of the possibility of discerning the true solution to the human condition. They will not
have attained the " Christian horizon," and they will be unable
to evaluate Christian formulations of the solution to the human
condition. But it is also conceivable that members of any nonChristian religion could hold their own tradition to be the bearer
of the true solution and to view Christians as advocates of a
counter-position because of the absence of genuine religious conversion. The difficulty under consideration calls into question
Lonergan's remark that in the light of the priority of divine love
" not only is the ancient problem of the salvation of non-Christians greatly reduced, but also the true nature of Christian apologetic is clarified." 39 It seems that the result of Lonergan's theory
of religious conversion is rather to exacerbate the problem of the
salvation of non-Christians, for if adherence to " the true solution " as visible in the Christian witness is a sign of authentic
conversion, then in no straightforward sense may non-Christians
be said to be authentically converted. Further, Lonergan's theory
appears to render a " Christian apologetic " that can appeal to
non-Christians all but impossible, insofar as conversion is the
prerequisite for obtaining the " absolutely supernatural " point of
view from which religious claims may be judged.
There is another difficulty with Lonergan's theory of religious
conversion, but to understand it we must be clear about the principal warrant of his argument for the necessity of religious conversion. The warrant is that transcendent being is thoroughly
transcendent. If it is real, it must be intelligible. But it exceeds
the apprehension of a finite mind by definition. Hence, knowledge
of transcendent being must be revealed, and such revelation is obtained only by religious conversion, in which God floods our
hearts with love and brings about the transformation of our horizon by the operation of grace (gratia operans). Thus transcendent being is not immanent in human experience at all, for, if it
39 Method

Theology, p. 123.

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were, human reason could attain knowledge of it solely by the
resources of experience, understanding, and judgment. 40 What is
immanent in human experience is only the incomplete intelligibility of proportionate being; given the data of experience, understanding and judgment may proceed from the known to the unknown. Transcendent being is always, however, "the 'known
unknown'." Even when it has revealed itself, Lonergan argues,
the most human reason can accomplish is an analogous and imperfect understanding of the revealed " mysteries." 41
This view of the relation of proportionate to transcendent being is vulnerable to the critique of what Antony Flew calls
" Stratonician atheism." The point of the critique is that "all
qualities observed in things are qualities belonging by natural
right to those things themselves; and hence that whatever characteristics we think ourselves able to discern in the universe as a
whole are the underivative characteristics of the universe itself." 42 Thus, if the data of experience do not support an understanding and affirmative judgment about transcendent being, or
if they do so only by "deficient analogy," 43 then the only proper
conclusion is that the existence of transcendent being cannot reasonably be affirmed. Further, if the data of experience lead by
understanding and judgment to the conclusion that proportionate
being is only incompletely intelligible in itself, then the proper
conclusion is only that we inhabit a universe that is not completely intelligible in itself. Accordingly, the rule of judgment
offered by the Stratonician atheist is " the presumption that the
universe is everything there is : and hence that everything which
can be explained must be explained by reference to what is in and
of the universe." 44
The Stratonician atheist, I contend, has provided the would-be
4'o The force of my argument is restricted to " the mystery " of transcendent
being. See Insight, pp. 672 ff.
41 Ibid., pp. 322-23.
42 Antony Flew, God: A Critical Enquiry, 2nd edition of God and Philosophy
(LaSalle, Illinois : Open Court, 1984), p. 63.
43 A Third Collection, p. 26.
H Flew, God, p. 187.

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TIMOTHY R. STINNETT

theist with the only rule of judgment which offers escape from
the circularity of Lonergan' s position (that religious conversion
is the condition of the possibility of saving knowledge about
transcendent being). It is necessary, then, to rethink the order of
nature to grace, for either what faith claims is what may be reasonably affirmed on the basis of the conditions of existence or the
content of faith (fides quae) fails to count as knowledge. The
consequence is an unreasonable faith. Further, as Bultmann puts
it,
if faith were belief in an incomprehensible X, then faith would be an
action dependent on a specific resolve; it would be a purely arbitrary
accidental occurrence. And it would be ... the beginning of justification by works.45
Moreover, the very " work" upon which one's justification
would be based would be the act of choosing to be unreasonable
rather than reasonable about what is most important in life. But
a view that implies that human beings achieve authentic existence in faith only by overcoming a proclivity to reasonableness is,
at best, a suspicious view of authentic existence. 46 I also suggest
that the " mystery" revealed in the New Testament is not the incomprehensibility of the concept of God but, rather, the incompenensibility of God's boundless and unqualified love for all his
creatures, especially the constant and free off er of the forgiveness
of sin and of the possibility of new and authentic life "in Christ."
What is needed to meet Flew's criticism is a thorough-going
empiricism that juxtaposes the orders of nature and grace, so that
transcendent being is not beyond the universe of proportionate
being but perfectly immanent in it. In my view transcendence
should be conceived as perfect immanence. An imperfect immanence is what one expects of individuals whose experience is
limited rather than inclusive of the entire range of proportionate
45 Rudolf Bultmann, Faith and Understanding, translated by Louise Pettibone Smith (Philadelphia: Fortress Press, 1987), p. 123.
46 To be fair, Lonergan does argue that "If God is a being, he is to be known
by intelligent grasp and reasonable affirmation" (Insight, p. 657). But I am
trying to show why I think his argument unsuccessful.

LONERGAN

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being. But a transcendent being would be transcendent precisely
insofar as no aspect of proportionate being is excluded from the
range of its experience. This view differs from pantheism, however, if the transcendent being is itself a self-transcending subject,
as Lonergan suggests. 47 Then, to illustrate my point in Christian
theological terms, transcendent being may be said to transcend
itself by a perfect love of the world which is expressed in God's
self-communication to all his creatures. Further, because God is
transcendent he experiences every event that occurs in proportionate being as an occasion for creative synthesis into the ever increasing novelty of divine experience itself.
Now Karl Rahner's theological anthropology suggests itself
as a viable alternative to Lonergan's thought, even if Rahner's
account of the nature of divine love does not successfully resolve
the very problems of the scholastic heritage common to himself
and Lonergan. 48 But as soon as one appeals to Rahner for help
in revising Lonergan' s view of the order of nature and grace yet
another difficulty appears, and this one most serious of all. For
Rahner' s distinction between the " thematic " and " unthematic "
knowledge of God (objective genitive) does not correspond to
Lonergan's distinction between differentiated and undifferentiated consciousness. Rahner argues that "the knowing subject
possesses itself in knowledge about itself and its knowledge."'°
Every concrete act of knowledge presupposes, then, a "transcendental experience" of the subject, knowing itself "unthematically" as a knowing subject and always returning to itself to
possess itself in its subjectivity. Unthematic knowledge for
Rahner is given, therefore, with and in the experience of being a
subject that transcends itself in acts of knowledge-and in every
act of freedom. 50 The unthematic knowledge of God, it follows,
is given to the human subject in its constitutive experience of
47 Method in Theology, p.

116.

s See Mark Lloyd Taylor, God Is Love: A Study in the Theology of Karl
Rahner (Atlanta, Georgia: Scholars Press, 1986).
4 9 Karl Rahner, Foundations of Christian Faith (New York: Seabury Press,
1978), pp. 17-18.
00 Ibid., p. 20.
4

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R. STINNETT

possessing itself in self-transcendence. To be more specific,
Rahner argues that God is the " Whither " or goal of self-transcendence and is characterized as " holy mystery." 51 The knowledge of God (objective genitive) becomes " thematic" when the
unthematic knowledge given in every experience of the selftranscending subject (hence, "transcendental experience") is
made explicit. Then the unthematic knowledge of God becomes
the thematic knowledge of God as God. Of course, for Rahner
grace is the precondition even of unthematic knowledge of God,
as indicated by his concept of the "supernatural existential." We
cannot pursue Rahner's thought further here, but what I have
said should make Lonergan's thought somewhat clearer.
For Lonergan, undifferentiated consciousness is the fully conscious awareness of " inner " and " outer " experience. Thus, the
only experience he admits as data for understanding and reflection is conscious experience. Even " the unconscious " is derived
from conscious experience, for what is repressed must first be
presented to empirical consciousness clearly and distinctly, even
if only preconceptually. As Lonergan puts it, " not wanting an
insight has the opposite effect of repressing from consciousness a
scheme that would suggest insight." 52 Moreover, in Lonergan's
view not only are the cognitive operations of which one is aware
in " inner experience" conscious, but it is not even possible to
have an experience of objects as objects unless they are already
the data of conscious awareness and are intended by cognitive
operations. Thus, Lonergan explains, " Just as operations by
their intentionality make objects present to the subject, so also
by consciousness they make the operating subject present to himself." 53
For Rahner, by contrast, the subject is present to himself in
cognitive operations because the transcendental experience of subjectivity is always manifested in them. Rahner's analysis of selftranscendence focuses upon transcendental experience as the cons1 Ibid., pp. 65-6.
52 [nsight, p. 192.

See also, pp. 199-206, 477.
Method in Theology, p. 8. For a more fully developed argument for this
point see Ogden, "Lonergan and the Subjectivist Principle," pp. 164-66.
5s

LONERGAN

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dition of the possibility of cognitive operation. Lonergan's analysis focuses upon concrete cognitive operations, thereby failing
to give a full account of the experience of the subject himself.
While Rahner holds that consciousness presupposes experience,
Lonergan seems to hold that experience presupposes consciousness. But if Lonergan fails to give a full account of the experience of self-transcendence, then the integral heuristic structure he
proposes for metaphysics will also fail fully to anticipate all that
can be explained about experience. 54 It follows that Lonergan's
undifferentiated or " empirical consciousness " attains neither the
transcendental comprehensiveness of Rahner's "transcendental
experience," which is presupposed by every concrete experience,
nor a full analysis of the self-transcendence of the knowing subject, upon which he claims to base his critical realism.
If my contrast between Rahner and Lonergan is not mistaken,
then the question should be, What precisely does Lonergan's incomplete metaphysical anticipation obscure? I believe it obscures
that range of experience that is not presented in the clear and
distinct impressions of the senses or of cognitive operations.
Rather, empirical consciousness abstracts from a larger domain
of experience, and only when that larger range of experience is
recovered can we give an account of our experience of God within proportionate being in a way that satisfies the rule of the
Stratonician atheist. It may be, as A. N. Whitehead writes, that
" The definition of the environment is exactly what is omitted
from special abstraction." 55 And until we have a complete account of " the environment " we shall not be able to demonstrate
that God or any other formulation of ultimate reality must be included in a full explanatory account of it.
Finally, what advantages does Lonergan's critical realism
offer? I believe the most significant contribution it makes is to
focus attention upon the logically distinct candidate each individual religion proposes as ultimate reality and to indicate that
Cf. Insight, pp. 541-42.
North Whitehead, Modes of Thought
Press, 1966), p. 55.
H

55 Alfred

<New York: The Free

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evidence for understanding and judgment about these claims to
ultimate reality must finally be discoverable in the basic experience of self-transcendence (the experience by which human beings
possess themselves as being oriented to a world of value beyond
themselves). That Lonergan' s critical realism fails to achieve
the complete analysis of self-transcendence that is required may
serve as an important lesson : this kind of analysis is exceedingly
difficult, and the temptation is ever to interpret traditional views
of ultimate reality in categories not derivable from an analysis of
self-transcendence.
But I believe Lonergan's theory offers a more specific and a
positive contribution as well. Granted that his account of experience is in need of revision, his general scheme of experience, understanding, judgment, and deliberation can provide a useful
heuristic guide for analysis; it can help one not only to give an
account of ultimate reality as understood in one's own religious
tradition but also to understand the accounts given in other traditions as well. Further, unless one takes seriously Lonergan's
analysis of the difference between theory and common sense, I
think it will be impossible to achieve an understanding of a religious tradition not one's own. All the world religions inevitably
express their basic insights first in the common sense language of
the people in which they emerge. Recognizing this is the first
insight needed to begin a project of "demythologizing" a religious tradition. For myth is "the product of an untutored desire
to understand,'' as Lonergan puts it. 58 In " the absence of selfknowledge "-or, at least, a critical philosophical self-knowledge
-myth expresses in the language of common-sense a basic selfunderstanding that may be translated into the theoretical language
of a fully critical realism. Such translation, it seems to me, is
what Bultmann intends in his account of demythologizing. 67
58 Insight, p. 543.
57 Lonergan makes remarks that can only be read as a basic misunderstanding of Bultmann's project of demythologizing. This only makes it all the more
remarkable, in my opinion, that Lonergan has provided us with the tools for
demythologizing (e.g., Insight, p. 585).

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Finally, it may be that the revisions of Lonergan's thought l
have suggested have been neither fully clarified nor completely
warranted by the argument of this paper. A full proposal for revision would entail a systematic argument as comprehensive in
scope as Lonergan's philosophy of critical realism. At this time
I am unable to undertake such a project, but I still think there is
a great deal to be learned from Lonergan, from his mistakes as
well as from his genuine insights.

GOD'S KNOWLEDGE OF FUTURE CONTINGENT
SINGULARS: A REPLY
THEODORE

J. KoNDOLEON

Villanova University
Villanova, Pennsylvania

I

N A RECENT article in The Thomist William Lane Craig
has discussed certain aspects of Saint Thomas's teaching on
God's knowledge of creatures. While for Craig Saint
Thomas's concept of God's knowledge of vision (scientia
visionis) is not fatalistic, his concept of God's knowledge of approbation (i.e., God's causal knowledge) is.1 Craig believes that
this latter type of divine knowledge implies fatalism since, on his
reading, its causality determines everything that takes place in
this universe. In developing his argument Craig makes a number
of statements (and arguments) which are not only at variance
with Saint Thomas's expressed thought but which, I believe, are
also clearly mistaken. Some of his errors are of a trivial sort and
may in part be due to the fact that he occasionally misspeaks himself. One can single out in this regard his statement, on page 78,
that "God's knowledge does not necessitate an effect because an
effect may be impeded by its secondary cause," and also his observation, on page 79, that "God's knowledge is the cause of
everything God knows." 2 However, there are a number of more
1 See William Lane Craig, "Aquinas on God's Knowledge of Future Contingents," The Thomist, 54 (January 1990): 33-79. For his discussion of
Thomas's teaching on God's knowledge of vision see particularly pp. 32-67; on
Aquinas's teaching on God's causal knowledge, pp. 68-79.
2 Contrary to Craig's way of stating this, Aquinas never speaks about an
effect being impeded by its secondary cause. Rather, a contingent cause may
be impeded from producing its effect by the intervention of another secondary
cause. Examples would be frost preventing the production or development of
the fruit of certain plants, or a drug preventing the development of a normal
embryo. For Aquinas's discussion of a contingent cause see De veritate, q.
2, a. 12, c. and also Summa contra Gentiles, Book I, chap. 67. Concerning

117

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J. KONDOLEON

serious errors to be found in his discussion of God's knowledge
of creatures, and it is to these that I would like to address this
reply.

I.
In discussing the topic of God's knowledge of future contingent
singulars, Craig considers Saint Thomas's explanation as to how
it is possible for God to know what is future and contingent (i.e.,
something which, from the standpoint of its proximate cause, can
either come to be or not come to be). As generally known, his
explanation points out that while what is future and contingent
with respect to its proximate cause(s)-and thus also from our
vantage point-is something indeterminate in being and therefore in truth and knowability, as falling within the scope of God's
eternal knowledge it is something already present (and thus determined to one of two opposites) and, consequently, can be
known with certitude. 3 In this Thomistic view, then, there is no
past or future in God's knowledge of created things; everything
is known at once and as present. At this point in his discussion,
when he has yet to consider Saint Thomas's position that God's
knowledge of things is also a causal knowledge (i.e., a knowledge
which involves God's will as First Cause of His creatures and
their actions), Craig claims that Saint Thomas employs the
Boethian notion of God's eternity, and thus of His timeless
knowledge, in order to " defuse the threat of fatalism." ' He
holds this view because, he argues, otherwise, i.e., if God's knowledge were something past with respect to a future contingent
singular (so that God could be said to " foreknow " it), that future would be something which would necessarily come to be-either that or else God could be mistaken-and therefore not truly
Craig's second observation, it is not true to say, even of God's causal knowledge, that God's knowledge is the cause of everything God knows since God
knows many things He will never cause and He also knows the moral evil
He permits to exist in His universe.
3 For Aquinas's discussion of this problem see Summa Theologiae, I, q. 14,
a. 13, c. Also see Summa contra Gentiles, Book I, chap. 67 and De veritate, q.
2, a.13, c.
' See Craig, p. 61.

GOD'S KNOWLEDGE:

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something contingent. However, Craig, I believe, is wrong in
maintaining that Aquinas resorts here to the Boethian notion of
God's timelessness, and thus to that of His timeless knowledge,
in order to avoid fatalism. In fact, as the texts themselves indicate, he has some other reason for doing so. Moreover, I also
believe that Craig's argument to show how a divine foreknowledge of future contingents would lead to fatalism is fallacious.
Let me now argue what I have just asserted against Craig's reading of Aquinas and against his argument.
To begin with, nowhere in any of the major texts in which
Saint Thomas treats the question, whether God can know future
contingent singulars?, does he himself maintain that a divine
foreknowledge of such would imply fatalism. 5 Nor can it logically be inferred from what he has to say. True, in one of the texts,
he presents the view of some who make the argument, one similar
to Craig's, that a divine foreknowledge does imply fatalism. 5 But
this is not Saint Thomas's argument. Moreover, certain objections to be found in these texts, objections which also resemble
Craig's argument, only aim to establish that God cannot fore.:
know what is future and contingent, not that there can be nothing future and contingent. 7 Thus, a close reading of the germane
n See the texts cited in footnote 3.
s The passage referred to reads as follows : " Some wishing to pronounce
upon divine knowledge from the viewpoint of our own way of knowing have
said that God does not know future contingents. This opinion cannot stand
since it would eliminate providence over human affairs, which are contingent.
Consequently, others have said that God has knowledge of all futures, but that
all takes place necessarily, otherwise His knowledge of them would be subject to error." De veritate, q. 2, a. 12, c. Quotations from Saint Thomas's
writings appearing in this reply will be from the familiar English translations.
(Summa Theologiae: English Dominican Fathers translation; Summa contra
Gentiles: translators Anton C. Pegis James F. Anderson, and Vernon Bourke;
and De veritate: translated by Robert W. Mulligan, S.J.).
1 One objection reads as follows: " That from which the impossible would
follow is impossible. But if God knew a singular future contingent, the impossible would follow, namely, that God's knowledge would be wrong. Hence,
it is impossible for Him to know a singular future contingent. Proof of the
minor follows. Let us suppose that God knows some singular event such as
that Socrates is not sitting or it is not possible. If it is not possible, then

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KONDOLEON

texts does not support Craig's claim. What it does reveal is that
Saint Thomas is intent on showing how an infallible God can
know what, from our standpoint and that of its proximate
cause ( s), is future and contingent, as His omniscience and providence truly require.
Moreover, as I have said, Craig's argument here is fallacious.
As he states it, "Thomas has appealed exclusively to the tradition of God's timelessness to defuse the threat of fatalism. This
threat arises, not from the fore-truth of future tense propositions,
which Aquinas grants but from foreknowledge of such propositions, since such knowledge is a fact of the past and hence cannot be changed. If God foreknew future contingent singular
propositions, then, since His knowledge is infallible, fatalism
would follow." 8 In response to what Craig has to say here, perhaps the first thing that should be said is that the object of God's
knowledge under discussion is not future contingent singular
propositions (whatever they may be, possibly propositions that
will exist in human minds) but, presumably, future contingent
singulars. Once again, however, Craig may simply have misspoken himself. Furthermore, no one, not even God, can foreknow future contingent singulars. Craig does not deny this point.
Earlier, however, when he had noted that Aquinas allowed for
one's acceptance of the truth of the proposition, "The anti-Christ
will be born," and thus seemed to allow for the truth of future
tense propositions about future contingent singulars, Craig neit is impossible for Socrates not to sit. Hence for Socrates to sit is necessary,
although what was granted was contingent. On the other hand, if it be possible not to sit, and granted he does not, nothing inconsistent follows from this.
It would follow, however, that the knowledge of God is erroneous, and hence
it would not be impossible for His knowledge to be false." Ibid., obj. 1. Yet
this argument is not one that Saint Thomas himself accepts. Indeed, it contains a fallacy. Given that God knows that Socrates is seated, then it is necessary (in a sense) that he be seated (since God's knowledge, as any knowledge, is certain). But this necessity is a conditional (the condition being that
God knows Socrates is seated) and not an absolute one. For Saint Thomas's
discussion of this fallacy using the same example see Summa contra Gentiles,
Book I, chap. 67 (10). For another formulation of this objection against God's
knowing future contingent singulars see ibid., chap. 63 ( 4).
s See Craig, p. 61.

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glected to point out that the truth of this proposition is accepted
on faith from the revelation of one who does know future contingent singulars, viz., God, and therefore does not imply a foreknowledge of something future and contingent. 9 Perhaps it is the
example of this proposition, " The anti-Christ will be born,"
which lies behind his distinction, drawn in the statement I quoted
above, between " the fore-truth of future tense propositions " and
"the foreknowledge of such propositions."
But to come to the fallacy in Craig's argument-the argument
that if God foreknew what is future and contingent, then, since
God cannot be mistaken, fatalism would follow-it clearly involves a non sequitur. Indeed, what would follow is just the opposite! If God could and did foreknow something future and
contingent as some actually hold He does, then that future would
come to be as God foreknew it would, viz., as the result of a contingent proximate cause (otherwise God would be mistaken) .10
Craig might want to revise his argument therefore to read, " If
God foreknew anything, then, since His knowledge is infallible,
what would be foreknown could not be something contingent
(else He could be mistaken) but must be something necessary
(and thus a divine foreknowledge implies fatalism, Q.E.D.). But
this revised argument would also involve a non sequitur, for
what it need only establish is not that there couldn't be future
contingent singulars (fatalism) but only that God couldn't foreknow them. (Nor need this revised argument require, for its
completeness, the additional premise that He would have to form
conjectures about them, in which case He could be fallible.)
Again, it can be said that if God fore knew anything then it would
9 See Craig, pp. 50-51.

was Augustine's argument in De diversis quaestionibus ad Simplicianum. Augustine wants to insist that since God is eternal and immutable He
knows what is future as present and thus, strictly speaking, does not " foreknow " it. Yet there are some recent writers who maintain that there is no
valid reason why God can't be said to " foreknow " the future, even future
contingent singulars. On this point see Alvin Plantinga, God, Freedom and
Evil (New York: Harper Torchbooks, 1974), pp. 42-43 and pp. 66-73. See
also Stephen Davis, " Divine Omniscience and Human Freedom," Religious
Studies 15 (September 1979) : 303-316.
10 This

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have to come to be as He fore knew it would, some things as the
effects of proximate contingent causes, other things as the effects
of proximate necessary causes. Thus it entails a contradiction to
hold that a foreknowledge of future contingent singulars implies
fatalism since, as Augustine argued long ago, one cannot maintain without contradiction that God foreknows, for example, our
future free choice acts but that, on the supposition of such a foreknowledge, they cannot be free. 11 Craig's argument, therefore,
fails to establish that a divine foreknowledge implies fatalism.
Craig may have mistaken this point of Aquinas's teaching because of the following consideration. Aquinas has argued in various texts that there cannot be a foreknowledge of future contingent singulars since that would imply that knowledge could
be about something uncertain, viz., what is future and contingent.
However knowledge to be certain must be about what cannot be
otherwise, and what God sees in His eternity-even those things
which are future and contingent from the standpoint of creatures
-are seen as present and, therefore, as certain (since, in this respect, viz., as present, they cannot be otherwise) .12 Thus, to
speak for Aquinas, while it is true that God cannot know what
is future and contingent as something future and contingent, it is
not because such a knowledge would imply fatalism, as Craig believes, but rather because such a knowledge is simply impossible.
One final word on this subject. Some recent writers see no
logical difficulty with the position that an omniscient and infallible
God can foreknow what is future and contingent and, indeed, have
actually held it. 13 They have argued, as I have, that a divine foreknowledge (or, for that matter, any foreknowledge) that something contingent will take place need not imply either fatalism or
that God could be mistaken. Thus, to use an example from
Plantinga, given that God foreknows at T that Jones will do X
11 See Augustine, On the Free Choice of the Will, Book III, 3, 8. See also
my article, "Augustine and the Problem of Divine Foreknowledge and Free
Will," Augustinian Studies 18 (1987): 168-169.
12 See particularly Summa Contra Gentiles, Book I Chap. 67 (2).
u Alvin Plantinga and Stephen Davis, to mention two.

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at T, and Jones refrains from doing X at T, what follows is not
that God was mistaken but only that a proposition that God did,
by supposition, hold to be true at Twas not true. In Plantinga's
words, "If Jones had refrained from X, then a proposition that
God did in fact believe (to be true) would have been false; but
if Jones had refrained from X at T, then God (since He is
omniscient) would not have believed at T that Jones will do X
at T-indeed, He would have held the true belief that Jones will
refrain from X at T." 14 In other words, Plantinga maintains
that what God foreknows is logically entailed by what actually
occurs. His position that God does foreknow future contingent
singulars is an important part of his version of the Free Will Defense, and it involves that Jesuit theory of God's " middle knowledge." 15 What can be said about that theory can also be said
about the view that God can foreknow future contingent singulars, viz., that it is false.16 As Aquinas has argued, and correctly
I believe, not even God can know what is future and contingent
as something future and contingent. 17

II.
Craig makes a number of other claims concerning Saint
Thomas's teaching that are also mistaken (or at least ambiguous). On page 59, for example, he asserts, " According to
Aquinas, in any true conditional the consequent must be necesPlantinga, p. 70.
Plantinga proposed his version of the Free Will Defense without any knowledge of the Jesuit teaching on God's "middle knowledge." For
his discussion of his Free \Viii Defense see Plantinga, pp. 29-64.
16 In a previous article in The Thomist I have argued that the Jesuit theory
of middle knowledge is false since God cannot know what is unknowable (and
the conditional future free choice acts of His possible-or actual-free creatures
are just that, viz., intrinsically unknowable). My argument can be traced to
Saint Thomas's view that what is future and contingent, precisely as such,
cannot be an object of certain knowledge. See my article, "The Free Will
Defense: New and Old," The Thomist 47 (January 1983): 1-42, particularly
1-24.
u See De veritat1, q. 2, a. 12, c. See also Summa Theologiat, I, q. 14, a. 13.
14

15 Actually,

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sary if the antecedent is necessary." 18 In one sense this statement is true, but, in another, false. It is true if it refers to the
necessity of the consequence; not so, however, if it refers to the
necessity of the consequent. 19 Craig had, earlier in his discussion,
acknowledged and seemingly approved this distinction and later
on will even observe, "Hence, the proposition ' If God wills something, it will be ' is necessarily true; but the consequent is not in
itself necessary." 20 Therefore, his statement here is at best ambiguous, if not actually in opposition to what he has stated elsewhere in his discussion.
Other things which Craig has to say throughout the course of
his discussion, are, in my opinion, also erroneous or, if not so,
do at least give evidence of some confusion on his part regarding
Aquinas's teaching. After quoting a passage in which Saint
Thomas clearly explains why the temporal things which God
knows cannot be the cause of His knowledge ("for things are
temporal and His knowledge is eternal, and what is temporal cannot be the cause of anything eternal "), Craig wonders why, if
things temporal exist eternally in God, they could not be the cause
of God's knowledge. 21 He goes on to say that Saint Thomas does
not explain this. To be sure, Aquinas does not explain this except, perhaps, in the sense that we can infer from his teaching
what his reply to Craig's objection here would be. It would be
this: that what exists in God's eternal knowledge is not really
distinct from God Himself since, in knowing His essence, He
knows all creatures possible or actual as possible or actual reflections of Himself. Yet on this point of Aquinas's teaching Craig
seems genuinely confused.
18 Craig, p. 59.
10 That

Craig takes Aquinas here to be referring to the necessity of the
consequent (in which case Craig is incorrect) can be inferred from what he
has to say immediately afterward: " In fact, unless he is speaking of strict implication, Thomas is incorrect in this; D q follows from D p only if D (p -> q) ."
Ibid., p. 59. But, surely, this is too narrow a view of Aquinas's concept of
what is required for a conditional proposition to be true.
20 Ibid., pp. 77-78.
21 See ibid., p. 72.

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At least in one of his readings of Aquinas, Craig indicates that
he is actually cognizant of the latter's position on God's knowledge of things other than Himself, viz., that He knows them as
possible or actual reflections of Himself in His intellect. 22 Consequently, I find it puzzling that he should entertain the objection that temporal things could be the cause of God's knowledge.
(Perhaps Craig would say, " not of His knowledge of approbation but of His knowledge of vision," but more on this subject
later.) Thus, by way of commenting on Saint Thomas's position here, he observes, " Hence by knowing His own essence He
knows the essence [ s] of all things and in knowing them He
knows all possible propositions that could be truly enunciated of
them." 23
Craig makes other statements relating to God's knowledge, to
which, again, exception must be taken. He seems to think that,
at least where it is a question of God's knowledge of vision (although his argument also seems to apply to God's knowledge of
approbation), the truth in the divine intellect concerning creatures
depends upon a conformity of that intellect to things outside it
rather than the other way around (viz., that their essential ontological truth comes from their necessary conformity to their
proper mental types in the divine mind). Thus he says, " Just
as the artist created the painting on the pattern of his exemplar
idea and yet knows the truth of the proposition, ' This painting
portrays an idyllic English countryside' (because this is in fact
what the painting portrays) so God creates the actual world
after His archetypal ideas and yet knows the truth of the proposition ' The universe contains n hydrogen atoms ' precisely because it does contain that quantity of hydrogen atoms." 24 This
argument is made within the context of his discussion of God's
knowledge of approbation and I will return to criticize it later
in this discussion.
Other observations of a similar vein but expressly relating to
God's knowledge of vision are the following: (A) " Indeed, on
22 See ibid., p. 68, p.

74.

28 Ibid., p. 74.

2• Ibid., p. 75.

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Aquinas's analysis there seem to be three moments in God's
knowledge: ( 1) scientia simplicis intelligentiae of all possibles,
(2) scientia approbationis of which possibles shall obtain, and
(3) scientia visionis or God's knowledge of the actual world
based (my italics) upon what obtains; " and also ( B) " Knowledge of vision is, it seems, conditioned by what actually exists.
In this sense God knows what will happen because it will in fact
happen." 25 (Yes, but does this latter statement indicate a logical or a causal dependency? Earlier, however, Craig had said
the same about God's causal knowledge when he answered his
question, " Is it not enough that He merely know Himself insofar as He is the cause of all particulars which do obtain ? ",
with this reply, " The answer would seem to be ' yes'; but He
knows Himself as the cause of particulars that do obtain precisely
because they do obtain. If they did not actually obtain, God could
not know Himself as their cause." 26 (As I shall argue later,
when I return to consider his analogy of the human artist, Craig's
last observation implies God's causal dependency upon things
for His knowledge of their actual existence.)
These last three passages seem to indicate that to Craig's mind
God's knowledge of vision must causally depend upon things and
that it is not merely a question of a logical dependency, i.e., that
God's knowing something will happen is logically entailed by its
actually happening. Indeed, Craig is fully aware of Aquinas's
answer to Origen's observation that "A thing will happen not
because God knows it as future; but because it is future it is on
that account known by God," and deems it important enough to
quote it in what appears to be his English translation:
His saying that God foreknows certain things because they are going
to happen, is to be understood of the causality of logical consequence,
not of the causality which produces existence. For it follows logically
that if certain things are going to happen, God foreknows them; but
the things themselves are not the cause of God's knowledge.27
21 Ibid.

2a Ibid., p. 70.
21 Ibid., p. 72. The passage which Craig quotes is from Summa Theologia1,
I, q. 14, a. 8, ad 1.

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Yet Craig apparently sides with Origen and opposes Aquinas's
benign reading of the latter when he says, " God knows what will
happen because it will in fact happen, and not vice versa." 28
Craig may be led to this view because he affords a separate status
to God's knowledge of vision apart from His causal or archetypal
knowledge. He apparently finds that warranted by certain statements which Saint Thomas himself makes about God's knowledge
of vision being a knowledge of things as they are in themselves.
Thus, Craig appears to think that if God knows future contingents according to the being which they have in themselves, He
knows them, not in Himself as actual reflections of Himself-in
which case His knowledge of vision would not depend upon the
things which God sees in this knowledge-but directly according
to the being they have in themselves, in much the manner that we
know when we actually see them (hence the expression " knowledge of vision "). 29
In developing this point Craig quotes a number of passages
from Saint Thomas's writings. One is from the Summa Theologiae, from a text where Saint Thomas maintains that God's
knowledge of vision extends to a knowledge of future contingents,
not only as they are in their proximate causes but also as each
one exists in itself.30 Aquinas says here that God's eternal knowledge is not merely of the intelligible natures of things present
within Him but one which has for its object all things (past,
present, and future) as they are in their very presentness. Craig
also quotes a passage from the Compendium Theologiae, which
2s Craig, p. 76.

See Summa Theologiae, I, q. 14, a. 9, c. Concerning the knowledge of
vision Aquinas observes here, " This is so called because the things we see
around us have distinct being outside the seer."
80 See ibid., I, q. 14, a. 13, c. For another perhaps clearer statement of this
point one can read the following : " In another way future events are known
in themselves. To know the future in this way belongs to God alone .•. for
God sees all things in His eternity, which being simple, is present to all time,
and embraces all time. And therefore God's one glance is cast over all things
which happen in all time as present before Him; and He beholds all things as
they are in themselves, as was said before when dealing with God's knowledge." Ibid., I, q. 57, a. 3, c.
-119

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reads in part, " Even before they come into being, He sees them
as they actually exist, and not merely as they will be in the future and as virtually present in their causes, in the way we are
able to know some future thing." 31 In other words, according to
Saint Thomas, apparently, God knows future contingents in their
real existence and not simply according to the existence which
they have in Him. On the strength of these passages, therefore,
Craig is able to say, "The point here seems to be that this presence is not internal to God, but a real external presence. Since
God knows contingents according to their actual existence, it
seems undeniable that for God future contingents actually
exist." 32 (Craig immediately goes on to say that this does not
mean that such contingents always exist but that the entire temporal series would seem to exist timelessly, on the analogy of a
spatial extension, and as such is known by God.)
However, later in his discussion Craig seems to withdraw the
above reading of Saint Thomas's position on God's knowledge
of future contingents by saying, " The picture I have presented
thus far of Aquinas's view of God's knowledge of future contingents would, however, be misleading if it were taken to imply
that for Thomas God has direct knowledge of the created order.
In fact God has no direct knowledge of anything other than Himself ... Hence the only immediate object of God's knowledge is
His essence." 33 Moreover further on he observes, "In knowing
Himself as First Cause of everything which exists, God knows
all His effects. Thus God knows Himself through Himself and
all created things through Himself." 34 Yet he seems perplexed by
this summary of Aquinas's teaching-and little wonder given
what he had previously said about God's knowledge of future
contingents-and expresses this perplexity as follows, "Now it is
perplexing how this understanding of God's knowledge is related
to God's knowledge of future contingents as explained by
Aquinas. We have seen that God's knowledge of vision seems
to entail the actual existence of the temporal series of events as
31 See Craig,

82 Ibid.

p. 65.

as Ibid., p. 67.
3 4 Ibid., p.

68.

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the proper object of God's knowledge. But in the context of the
doctrine of God's simplicity and pure actuality, it seems that the
eternal divine essence, not the temporal series of events, is the
proper object of God's knowledge." 35
Perhaps Craig's perplexity here may be traced to what
Aquinas has left unsaid about the divine scientia visionis, viz.,
that it presupposes God's causal knowledge, if it is not actually
logically identical with it. Still this does not excuse what must
strike any careful reader as conflicting presentations, on Craig's
part, of Saint Thomas's teaching on the divine knowledge. This
observation is confirmed by what Craig has to say soon after.
In an effort to choose between- what to him appear to be two
radically different positions in Saint Thomas's supposed teaching
here, Craig decides as follows: " One therefore is led to ask why
the presence of all things to God in His eternity might not be
construed to mean the presence to God of the divine ideas. In
this way Aquinas would not seem committed to the ontological
parity of the past, present, and future. The events themselves are
not present to God but only their exemplar ideas. In His eternity
God sees the ideal archetypal world and so timelessly understands
the truths about past, present, and future events in the temporal
series, which is in a state of genuine becoming. But while one
might wish to reinterpret the Thomistic doctrine in this way, one
cannot plausibly claim that this represents Aquinas's own view.
In his discussion of God's knowledge of future contingents, he always speaks of the things or events themselves, never of their
exemplar ideas. Indeed, this Augustinian doctrine seems to fit ill
with Thomas's view of God's immediate and simple knowledge
of Himself." 36
Why Craig maintains that this last-mentioned view is a " reinterpretation " of Saint Thomas that cannot plausibly claim to
represent Aquinas's own view is something I find perplexing.
Earlier he had presented it as representing it when he said, "The
picture I have presented thus far of Aquinas's view of God's
knowledge of future contingents would, however, be misleading
HJbid.

ae Ibid., p. 69.

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if it were taken to imply that for Thomas God has direct knowledge of the created order. In fact Aquinas believes that God has
no direct knowledge of anything other than Himself." 37 (Incidentally, contrary to the straw man Craig seems to have constructed in the passage above, Aquinas would not maintain that
the divine ideas are really anything other than the divine essence
itself as that essence is understood by God as imitable by creatures.) And shortly thereafter he also said, " In knowing Himself as First Cause of everything that exists God knows Himself
through Himself and all created things through Himself." 38
This last statement (as all Thomists know) implies for Saint
Thomas God's exemplary causality. Moreover, it is not true to
say, as Craig does, that " In his discussion of God's knowledge
of future contingents, he always speaks of the things or events
themselves, never of their exemplar ideas. Indeed this Augustinian doctrine seems to fit ill with Thomas's view of God's immediate and simple knowledge of Himself." 39 In the following
passage from the Summa contra Gentiles, Book I, in the context
of a discussion of God's knowledge of vision, Aquinas observes:
Nevertheless whatever being a thing has God knows through His
essence. For His essence can be represented by many things that are
not, nor will be, nor ever were. His essence is likewise the likeness of
the power of every cause, through which effects pre-exist in their
causes. And the being which each thing has in itself comes from the
divine essence as from its exemplary source.40

It is the last sentence of this passage which shows what Craig
has to say, in the quotation above, to be false.
But to address what I believe to be Craig's main difficulty
with Aquinas's teaching here, it should be noted that inasmuch
as God has created each creature's existence, He sees His creatures in Himself according to the existence which they have in
themselves (for their existence is modelled after His). Thus God
Ibid., p. 67.
ss Ibid., p. 68.
s9 Ibid., p. 69.

&7

<io Summa contra Gentiles, Book I, chap. 66 (9).

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knows His effects through their likenesses within Him. 41 He
knows them in Himself as in their efficient and exemplary cause.
Craig might want to argue that what I have just said above about
God seeing all His creatures in Himself yet according to the
existence which they have in themselves is contradictory. Admittedly, there is ambiguity in the words " according to " (for its
phrase could mean that God directly sees the being which creatures have in themselves) ; but I take its phrase to mean that He
truly knows the acts of existence which they (creatures) have in
themselves by their likenesses within Him. This is so clearly a
point of Saint Thomas's teaching that it is a mystery to me why
Craig, who demonstrates a certain familiarity with Thomas's
writings, would want to hold the position he criticizes above to
be " a reinterpretation that cannot plausibly claim to represent
Aquinas's own view."
Indeed, as Aquinas himself says in the Summa Theologiae,
"So we say that God sees Himself in Himself, because He sees
Himself through His essence; and He sees other things not in
themselves, but in Himself; inasmuch as His essence contains
the similitude of things other than Himself." 42 And elsewhere,
in an article in the De veritate addressing the question of God's
knowledge of future contingent singulars, he has this reply to one
of the objections: "It is true that God knows nothing outside
Himself if the word outside refers to that by which He knows.
However, God does know something outside Himself if this refers to what He knows." 43 In other words, by knowing their
likenesses within Him, their efficient and exemplary cause, God
knows the acts of existence which creatures have outside Him.
Perhaps Craig would respond to what I have just argued by
saying that, if it succeeds in anything, it succeeds in collapsing
Aquinas's understanding of God's knowledge of vision into his
notion of God's archetypal knowledge and, at least as Saint
41 See Summa Theologiae, I, q. 14, articles 5 & 6; Summa contra Gentiles,
Book I, chaps. 49-54; and De veritate, q. 2, articles 3, 4 & 5.
4.2 Summa Theologiae, I, q. 14, a. 5, c.
"De veritate, q. 2, a. 12, ad 11 ; see also q. 2, a. 3, ad 10 and a. 4, ad 2.

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Thomas treats them, they would seem to be logically different notions. Yes, but I think Saint Thomas would also insist that God's
scientia visionis logically presupposes His archetypal knowledge.
In other words, God could not know, in a knowledge of vision,
things past, present, and future if these things did not exist at
some time; but they would not exist unless He caused them (as
Creator and Unchanged Changer). In other words, God's knowledge of vision logically supposes a created universe, and the latter causally depends upon God's archetypal know ledge. (Nonetheless, Craig wants to maintain that God's knowledge of vision
depends, apparently causally, upon created things.)
But to return, at last, to Craig's comparison of God's creative
knowledge to that of a human artist, I think it can be justly said
to be an analogy which limps badly. Whether the proposition
" This painting portrays an idyllic English countryside " is true
depends, I would agree, on whether or not the painting does, in
fact, conform to what the artist had in mind in painting it. If it
does, then the proposition is true. Thus the truth of the proposition depends upon its conformity with what actually is. Moreover the artist's knowledge of the truth of this proposition depends upon his knowledge of the actual existence of this painting
and the fact that it actually does conform to what he had in mind.
Consequently, this knowledge is actually caused or measured by
what actually exists. But such is not the case with the divine
archetypal knowledge, which is not measured by things but which,
in truth, is their measure. 44 That things are and are the way they
are depends upon God's know ledge (understood as conjoined
with His will) and not vice versa. Thus God does not know the
truth of propositions-as Craig seems to think-by knowing their
conformity to what actually exists (with His intellect thus being
measured by the latter for His knowledge of the truth about
44 In Aquinas's words, "The knowledge of God is the measure of things,
not quantitatively, for the infinite is not subject to this kind of measure; but
it is the measure of the essence and truth of things. For everything has truth
of nature according to the degree to which it imitates the knowledge of God,
as the thing made by art agrees with the art." Summa Theologiae, I, q. 14,
a. 12, ad 3.

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things). 45 Rather, any truth about created things is known by
God in His comprehensive knowledge of His essence as imitable
by creatures and in His creative knowledge of approbation. 48
Consequently, the truth in the divine mind, which is identical
with the Truth which is God Himself, is the cause of the truth of
things. Whatever being and truth they have is known by God by
their likenesses within Him. Moreover they cannot but conform
to His knowledge of them since whatever being they have is from
Him as their First Cause. Their essential ontological truth is
therefore to be seen in their necessary conformity with their
proper mental types in the divine mind. Craig's confusion
throughout his discussion of the matters we have discussed in
this section may be due to the fact that he conceives God's knowledge after the manner of our own.

III.
At this point in our reply we might want to ask how God can
know what is future as already present since, it has been objected,
if God knows the future as present then He either misperceives
it or the future and past are one and the same.47 This objection
again looks at God's knowledge from the standpoint of human
knowledge. As we noted earlier, God does not know what is
4 5 See Craig, p. 73. Craig's discussion here seems to view the truth in the
divine intellect as though it were of the same nature as logical truth (or the
truth in the human mind). However, the truth in the divine intellect is not
other than the Divine Truth Itself, which is the perfect conformity of identity
of being and intellect (i.e. of God's being and intellect) . Thus, in knowing
the Truth which is Himself God knows all truth since all things are true by
virtue of imitating the divine art. See Summa Theologiae, I, q. 14, a. 12, ad
3; also see I, q. 16, a. 6 and De veritate, q. 1, a. 4.
46 To quote Saint Thomas on this matter: "But it is not on this account
necessary for us to say that God does not know enunciables. For His essence,
being one and simple, is the exemplar of all manifold and composite things.
And thus God knows through His essence all multitude and composition both
of nature and of reason." Summa contra Gentiles, Book I, chap. 58 (8)
(Translation by Anton C. Pegis)
47 See Peter Geach, Providence and Evil (London: Cambridge University
Press, 1977), p. 57. See also A. N. Prior, "The Formalities of Omniscience,"
Papers on Time and Tense (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1968), pp. 43-44.

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future (presumably to Him) as present since nothing is future to
God. Moreover, He is able to see as present what does not yet
exist in itself and which is future to us because He knows all
things in Himself, who is their Eternal Cause. Thus, while future things have yet to have their own existence, they do exist
in God's knowledge and in a manner quite different from the
way in which a human artifact pre-exists in the mind of its
maker. A human artist, evidently, cannot have a knowledge of
his work as actually existing before he brings it into existence
(what he knows beforehand is the idea of the work he has in
mind). Moreover, he is temporally prior to his work, a work,
incidentally, also caused by God (the universal cause of everything which is and which is not its own existence) and thus he
is a particular agent in the whole arrangement and sequence of
causes known to God. Finally, and perhaps the most important
point, he undergoes change with respect to acting (he is not always in act with respect to his causal action) and, therefore, we
find in the human artist a transition from the mere ability to act
to action itself.
Not so with God. In Him there is no transition from potency
to act, no actualization of a power to act, previously unactualized,
to produce a certain effect. Nor does the essence of efficiency require this since it simply pertains to the communication of existence (or some new form of existence if there be a preceding subject of change), and this can be without any change on the
agent's part. Indeed, an agent is agent only when it is in act (or
acting), not when it is in potency. Thus, an agent can be a being
which is always in act and by an act identical with its being, or
it can be a being which is sometimes in act and sometimes in
potency (in other words, an agent which is not always agent, a
being which is not Pure Act). The former would be a being who
is Pure Act and Pure Agency. (Indeed, the existence of such
an agent can be demonstrated, granted its existence has already
been arrived at as the Cause of existence, as the ultimate efficient
cause necessary to explain change in all beings which undergo
change or which are moved from potency to act.) It would be,

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in a word, God. As Pure Act of Existence, God is outside time.
His causality thus has a universal range, extending to all things
subject to change and which are moved from potency to act. This
last statement presupposes that this Unchanged Changer is to be
viewed, not simply as the ultimate efficient cause of change in
some particular series of changes (as chez Aristote) but as the
ultimate source of the existence of these beings, beings which
need not exist (since existence is not intrinsic to their essences or
natures) but which do, thanks to the infinite efficiency and goodness of God.
But while His creative knowledge is eternal, encompassing at
once all that He wills to exist, God wills certain of His effects
to come into being and to exist in time (or, as in the case of the
world's origin, with a temporal beginning) and according to the
temporal order He has established for them. Unlike human
agents, then, God cannot be temporally prior to His effects nor
can they be future to Him. Thus God can know future contingents as actually existing because He eternally causes them to be
but to be at and during the time He wills them to. Moreover, He
is truly said to be immanent in His effects inasmuch as He conserves them in existence and moves them, as Unmoved Mover,
to their actions. 48 As Infinite Cause He is present in and to all
His creatures, upholding them in being and causing them to act
as causes, for their own completion and also for the completion
of others. However, all this (His act of creating and conserving
His creatures in existence and moving them, as First Cause, to
their acts, these beings which are not always in act but which must
be moved from potency to act) God accomplishes in one eternal
fiat; and in one eternal " let it be done," in which He wills to put
into effect His plan for the universe, He sees (or knows) at once
all His creatures and all their actions He wills to exist.
Some might see this view of things to be fatalistic since it
means that, from God's standpoint, everything is already known,
even the future, and every created thing is seen as already at its
end. Creatures have only to enact what He has eternally decreed
•s See Summa Theologiae, I, q. 8, articles 1 & 3.

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or to play out His plan. Moreover, such a view of God as Pure
Act, one who is always complete, unchanging, and absolutely
simple, and who knows all at once and always, would seem an
unfriendly doctrine so far as winning Him converts. In other
words, it seems to portray a God so unlike the beings of this
world in which we live and move and have our being that one
finds it difficult in any way to relate to or to identify with Him.
However, while the universe of creatures is known, in God's
eternal knowledge, as already complete or at its end, what He in
His goodness has willed for us, to which His eternal providence
directs us, is still to be accomplished. Moreover, what He has
willed for us is to be gained in part by what we freely will to do
and do, in fact, do (all with His help, however) and in part by
what His providence has in store for us and which does not depend upon our free will. Again, that His unchanging being and
complete goodness should be an unending joy to Him, and His
unchanging knowledge of Himself an infinite thesaurus of things
intelligible, merely indicates how imperfectly like God we are. It
does not show, however that no likeness can be found between
God's infinite and eternal perfection and our finite or limited being, knowledge, and goodness (which are, in fact, derived from
Him). However, further discussion of such matters would seriously depart from the purpose of this reply.

IV.
In his concluding section Craig, as I mentioned at the outset,
charges Saint Thomas's theory of God's causal knowledge of
things with fatalism. 49 The charge is an old one and one well
known to those familiar with past controversies in the history of
Catholic theology. It actually concerns Saint Thomas's teaching
on the divine concurrence. This doctrine, as already indicated,
maintains that God not only is the First Cause of the finite being's act of existence but He is also the First cause of the finite
being's actions. This is so because no finite agent is always in
49 See Craig, pp.

76-79.

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act (or in act with respect to the same object) but must be moved
from potency to act, ultimately by God. The doctrine applies universally and includes, therefore, man's acts of free choice. Thus
Craig quotes Saint Thomas correctly on God's movement of the
will : " God is the cause not only of our will, but also of our willing ... every movement of the will must be caused by the first
will, which is the will of God." 50 However, Craig sees this teaching as destructive of human freedom. As he interprets it, the
secondary cause is causally determined by the divine causality, so
that if God moves the will to its act the will cannot be free. 51
The assumption here seems to be that if one agent is moved by
another then it cannot be a free agent (since its causality is determined by the other). Aquinas has already rejected this position by noting, " When something moves itself it is not thereby
prevented from being moved by that from which it has the power
of moving itself; thus it is not repugnant to liberty that God is
the cause of the act of free choice." 52
Contrary to Craig's way of viewing Saint Thomas's teaching
on the divine concurrence, then, Aquinas would insist that, in the
case of free agents, God's causality does not "squeeze out"
contingency from their free choice acts since God causes these
agents to determine for themselves their objects of choice. Acting on the level of being, what the divine causality does cause, as
its proper effect, is the actual existence of the free choice act. In
causing (as First Cause) the choice act to be actual, He moves
the free agent to its act in a manner consonant with the nature
of the agent, viz., freely. As Saint Thomas observes in this connection, "And just as in moving natural causes He does not prevent the action from being natural so in moving voluntary causes
He does not take from them their voluntary character, but rather
brings this about in them." 53 Thus, He causes our free choice
5 ° Craig, p. 77. The passage he quotes is from the Summa contra Gentiles,
Book III, chap. 89.
u See Craig, pp. 78-79.
62 De malo. q. 3, a. 2, ad 4. See also Summa Theologiae, I, q. 105, a. 4,
ad2.
u Ibid., I, q. 83, a. 1, ad 3.

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acts to come into existence as free choice acts on our part. He
concurs with our choice acts by moving us to make them, but in
the manner that He wills them to be made and for which His concurrence provides, viz., freely. Consequently, we are indeed the
causes of our free choice acts but not their First Cause. Nor does
the nature of the free choice act require that its finite agent be
the First Agent (i.e., One who is always in act and by an act
identical with its Being).
Thus, in response to Craig it can be said that the divine causality does, in fact, determine us to act as causes, whether natural
or free, whichever the case may be. It does not, however, determine the nature of the secondary causality; that is something
determined by the nature of the secondary cause. In the case of
a free choice act, it is the free agent which determines itself to
one particular good (real or apparent) as opposed to another,
and God moves it to this determination in accordance with His
eternal decree to give existence to this act. This theory, incidentally, provides the only rational explanation of how God can know
our free choice acts before they actually take place (since, before
the choice is made, the will is open to opposites). 54, According to
this explanation, He knows them by knowing what concurrence
H The theory of middle knowledge proposes another explanation.
I have
already indicated why I believe this theory to be false. Again, as Aquinas
has observed, almost by way of anticipating Molina's teaching on God's 'middle knowledge,' " In another way a contingent thing can be considered as it
is it is in its cause, and in this way it is considered as future, and as a contingent thing not yet determined to one ; forasmuch as a contingent cause has
relation to opposite things : and in this sense a contingent thing is not subject to any certain knowledge." Summa Theologiae, I, q. 14, a. 13, c. See
also De veritate, q. 2, a. 13, c. The Molinist explanation that God in His
comprehensive knowledge of the will of every possible free creature knows
what choice it would make if created and placed in a particular set of circumstances is, in my view, both irrational and deterministic. It is irrational
since not even God can know what is indeterminate in being (viz., the future
free choice act of possible or actual free creatures regarded as something future
and contingent). It is deterministic because if God did know, from knowing
the nature of any individual's will and the particular circumstances in which
it, the individual, could be placed, what choice it would make, then that choice
would be determined either by the nature of its will or by the circumstances
(or by the combination of both).

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He wills to give His creatures' actions in accord with His plan
for the universe (for the communication of His goodness).
(Again, it should be stressed that God's knowledge of vision presupposes that God is the cause of all finite beings and their actions). Admittedly, there is an apparent contradiction in saying
that God moves the free agent to its act of choice and yet it is a
free act on the agent's part. However, the divine concurrence
does not determine the agent to choose this good as opposed to
that, as though the finite agent were not itself responsible for its
choice; rather, in moving the agent to its choice act, it confers the
actuality of being upon it in accordance with the free determination of the secondary cause.55 Some claim that there is mystery
here rather than logic, but this ought not to be surprising since
it involves God's co-causality of His creatures' actions, including
those of His free creatures. Truly without Him we can do nothing (not even sin).

ss See Summa Theologiae, I-II, Q. 11, a. 4, c. To quote Saint Thomas
on this point: " Since, therefore, the will is an active principle, not determined
to one thing, but having an indifferent relation to many things, God so moves
it that He does not determine it of necessary to one thing, but its movement
remains contingent and not necessary, except in those things to which it is
moved naturally." If God can concur with the natural movement of the will,
there would seem to be no reason why He cannot concur with its free movement. His movement accords with the will's own free decision or determination with respect to its object of choice. Saint Thomas's teaching on God's
movement of the will is best described, then, not as fatalistic but rather as
compatibilistic.

BOOK REVIEWS
God Encountered: A Contemporary Catholic Systematic Theology. Vol.
I: Understanding the Christi.an Faith. By FRANS JOZEF VAN BEECK,
S.J. San Francisco: Harper and Row, 1989. Pp. xiii
338.
$27.95.

+

Frans Jozef van Beeck has written an excellent first volume of a
projected three-volume opus of systematic theology, a book at once
erudite and elegant, complicated in articulated structure yet simple in
synthetic viewpoint. The work's architectonic themes are: theology as
an objective interpretive understanding which occurs within and also
extends the "Great Tradition," and which has as its object a real God,
not simply theology itself and its practitioners (who increasingly see
themselves as merely meta-theologians) ; the explanatory category of
encounter/experience as denoting the locus of human contact with the
divine; the Greek theological motif of grace as divinization, and the
Eastern understanding of Christology's exchange principle, together
with the Western emphases on creation's exitus from God and reditus
to God, all of which van Beeck uses to illumine a catholic interpretation of what our encounter with the divine involves. In addition, pleasingly sprinkled throughout the book are lapidary phrases such as
"[theology's] pursuit of pi.a veritas amounts to vera pietas" (p. 26)
and " understanding is . . . more humane and peaceful than coin and
cannon" {p. 33).
One may grasp the central insights and concerns of the book by
comprehending how well its three titles synopsize and synthesize its
basic themes. Its main subtitle shows that it is a systematic theology
whose nourishing forms are catholicity and contemporaneity. Section
6 underlines just how systematic van Beeck wants his work to be; it
is divided into chapters, numbered sections, and lettered subsections
so that its arrangement supports " an internal reference system inde·
pendent of pagination" (p. 11). The work is unabashedly catholic in
the sense of a universal and ecumenical catholicity which is normative
for all theology, comprising as it does both an integrity with the past
and an openness to the present and future; it is also forthrightly Catholic in the more "positive " sense of advancing ideas peculiarly evident
in Catholicism. In both senses, van Beeck sees a Catholic systematics
as respecting the " Great Tradition " and desiring to understand it more
deeply and as stressing the organic unity of Christian theology, which

141

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current emphases on pluralism and specialization jeopardize. Sections
21-22 discuss the catholicity of theology as a pluriform, hierarchical
system of truths and briefly describe some of the current pluralism
within theology, concluding that "if systematic theology is to be catholic, it must be an exercise in dialogue, that is to say, in mutual trust"
(p. 82). Still, one must find footing somewhere in this age of pluralism,
and so section 23 displays the central convictions which will inform
the entire opus: worship as fundamental to doctrine; christology and
its "exchange principle" as the central focus of Christian theology;
the theological importance of fundamental theology as an interpretation of the Christian faith in terms of grace and nature; creation and
incarnation, together with the exitus/reditus theme, as determining the
shape of the system; Vatican II, especially in its attention to history,
as the single most important vantage point from which to offer a catholic and contemporary interpretation of the Christian Tradition; ecumenism as a crucial dimension of the system; Christian doctrine as
interpreted by the structural relatedness between worship, conduct, and
creed. There is no doubt as to the book's contemporaneity; it is evident on every page.
The book's main title is significant since it expresses God as the
work's unifying objective reference (section 5) and encounter/experience as the primary way of getting to know this God: " The central
reality of the Christian faith . . . is encounter in ecstatic immediacy "
(p. 161) . It is extremely difficult to explain, without falling into reductionistic subjectivism, how one can experience God in this life. Enlisting Otto and Rabner against just such a tendency in Schleiermacher,
van Beeck defends the objectivity and "otherness" of God within religious experience (section 35 and pp. 258-60) . He does not discuss in
any detail, however, how experience of God is related to faith and to
intrinsic interpretive schemes.
The three nouns of volume one's title may he apportioned among the
volume's three main parts: part one treats theology as a quest for
understanding, part two sees theology as rooted in the faith of Christianity as a positive religion, and part three gives us a phenomenological sketch of theology's Sitz im Leben-the lived, complex intertwining
of Christian cult, creed, and conduct. What we have in volume one,
·then, is a kind of contemporary redaction of some of the classical tasks
of a sapiential theology: ·to reflect on the nature of theology as such
and to discuss theology's moorings in the specific existential structures
of Christian faith and life.
In part one, van Beeck aligns himself with " the great ontologicalepistemological tradition of the West," for which "Aristotle provides
the basic attitude" (p. 22). He sees faith and understanding as com-

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143

plementary, and sin as weakening but not destroying human nature
(both very Catholic emphases). If systematic theology is a matter of
trying to understand the Mystery we believe in, and if the tools for
that understanding are culturally conditioned, then one can understand his contention that the central task of systematic theology " is
the search for new forms of unity between religion and culture " (p.
42). If theology does not serve understanding, however, but looks for
illegitimate certainty or assurance, then it tends to systematize excessively by losing its catholicity of breadth and depth, and it veers either
into the massive fixity of lntegralism or the nebulosity of Modernism.
lntegralism systematizes by excessive reduction and tries to tame culture, which "deserves a discriminating welcome" (p. 61). Modernism
systematizes by excessive selection and tends to reduce the Christian
faith, "in principle, to cultural concerns" (p. 66). A truly catholic
systematics, intent on understanding, will avoid both extremes.
The second part sets out to defend Christianity as a positive religion, as a valid and independent reality different from and not reducible to any natural religion, either based on reason in a deistic fashion
or on human subjectivity in a transcendental manner. Just as grace
presupposes nature but also perfects and exceeds it, so the Christian
faith as a positive religion presupposes certain elements of natural religion but is also " accorded theological superiority over natural religion" (p. 109). Today, we can gain access to the essence of human
religiosity either by transcendental reflection on human experience or
by a phenomenological study of positive religion. Since van Beeck
holds that Christianity as a positive religion is superior to humanity's
transcendental orientation to God, and since especially today theology
needs to regain its contact with worship as the core-experience of the
Christian faith, he chooses to begin his systematics proper with a
phenomenological analysis of the positive elements of the Christian religion rather than, pace Aquinas and Rahner, with an analysis of natural
religious knowledge.
The third part delivers this phenomenological analysis. Christian
faith and religion are essentially a matter of worship, which takes
place in the name of the risen Lord and grants us intimate immediacy
with God through Jesus Christ. Since the one whom worship identifies
as the risen Lord possessed a historical space and time, and since the
Resurrection is Christ's vindication in the Spirit, Christianity's doxological essence subsists in soteriological structures whose primary element is the christological narrative of the gospels. Moreover, the christological narrative " became not only the shape of the tradition of worship and the mandate for the tradition of conduct but also the core of
the tradition of teaching" (p. 202). Van Beeck has some fine pages on

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how the soteriological narrative arises from the eschatological truth,
acknowledged in doxology, that Christ is risen, and on how the Christian narrative is related to myth, committed conduct, and the rule of
faith. The three integral elements of the Christian faith-experience are
worship, conduct, and creed; worship is the matrix within which conduct and creed are born and nourished so that they can reach out to
the world in Christian witness. Retrieving the Hegelian idea of the
dialectical interplay of " moments " within a unitary " system," van
Beeck sees the system of the Christian faith and religion as a mutual
interrelationship between the moments of worship, conduct, and teach·
ing based on creed: for the call to Christian holiness of life is rooted
in worship as related to conduct, and the theological principle of lex
orandi lex credendi is true because worship is intrinsically related to
Christian teaching; moreover, the whole of Christian life is a spiritual
and sacrificial worship offered to God because conduct appertains to
worship, and the moral law is grounded in the close connection between conduct and teaching; finally, because teaching is inherently as·
sociated with conduct, there is need to balance fidelity to the Christian
community's past doctrinal commitments with responsiveness to its
present concerns, while the creeds of the Church show in their develop·
ment and purpose that teaching is linked with worship.
The foregoing cannot begin to suggest the richness of a book that
will amply reward the time taken to read it, especially in the third part
where the author offers a profound and synthetic phenomenology of the
Christian religion. I conclude with a few criticisms of a minor sort.
First, it seems the author may have fallen a few times under the sway
of the Systematician's Bane, that urge to give an overly neat and hermetically airtight division of reality when the reality itself is more com·
plicated and refractory than we suppose and resists being so neatly
parceled out amongst our conceptual cubicles. For example, the division of theology into fundamental, constructive, and dogmatic (section
14) remains obscure to me since the categories really seem to overlap.
Worship, conduct, and teaching are described as distinctively oriented,
respectively, to the future and to the whole world, to the present and
to the neighbor, and to the past as well as to the established order (pp.
249-50), but it seems to me that worship is just as much related to
the present as conduct is. I am also unconvinced by the division of
Christians, according to their developmental stages, into pistics, charis·
matics, and mystics and their correlation, respectively, with Christian
teaching and the affirmative way to God, with Christian conduct and
the negative way to God, and with Christian worship and the eminen·
tial way to God (sections 53-54)-too many long-limbed Christian
realities must be lopped off short on the bed of Procrustes in order to

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sustain such a view. Second, there are a couple of peccadillos concerning the chronology of Aquinas's writings: the " young Aquinas " of the
third book of the Commentary on the Sentences (p. 24, note h) is distinguished from the "mature Aquinas " of question 22 of the De veritate (p. 26), though only four years actually sear ate them ( 1255 and
1259 approximately) ; there is mention of " Aquinas' constant teaching, from his Commentary on Aristotle's Peri hermeneias to the Summa
theologica " (p. 296, n. 12) , though the former is dated to 1269-71 and
the latter to 1266-73. Third, I have some stylistic cavils about the excessive use of cross-referencing, which tends to clutter the text, and
the lavish use of italics, which distracts rather than aids the reader;
it almost seems as if the author lacks confidence in the reader's wit and
memory. Even with these minor failings, this is a book which has
much to recommend it.
GREGORY RoccA, O.P.
Dominican School of Philosophy and Theology
Berkeley, California

The Eyes of Faith. By PIERRE RoussELOT, S.J. New York: Fordham
University Press, 1990. Pp. 117. $27.50 (cloth).
Although small in size, this long-awaited English version of The
Eyes of Faith will make an important contribution to our knowledge
of Thomism. In addition to Joseph Donceel's translation of Rousselot's
famous articles, the volume contains Avery Dulles's translation of his
reply to the objections raised against them by Hippolyte Ligeard and
Stephane Harent and the summary of Rousselot's theology of faith
made by the General of the Society of Jesus, Wlodimir Ledochowski.
Although Rousselot was without question one of the outstanding
Thomists of this century, his teaching career was very short. Appointed to the faculty of the lnstitut Catholique de Paris in 1909, the
year after he received his doctorate from the Sorbonne, Rousselot was
mobilized in 1914 and killed in battle in 1915; that early death prevented him from taking part in the remarkable flowering of NeoThomism after the First World War.
Of Rousselot's major publications only one, The Intellectualism of
Saint Thomas, has been translated into English. The companion work,
The Problem of Love in the Middle Ages, published with The Intellectualism in 1908, has been available to English-speaking readers only
through secondary sources; it has never been translated. The same
has been true both of " The Eyes of Faith," the pair of ground-break-

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ing articles on the theology of faith which Rousselot published in 1910,
and the set of companion articles which were published in the same
year to justify the philosophical foundations on which that theology
was built. Scattered rather widely through a number of French reviews, this important set of articles has never been easy for Englishspeaking Thomists to find and, as a result, their knowledge of Rousselot's theology-and, to some extent, of his philosophy-has had to
come to them at second hand.
For Thomists this has, of course, been regrettable because of Rousselot's importance in the history of Neo-Thomism. Years after his death,
even in the middle of this century, his influence on the teaching of
philosophy and theology in the Society of Jesus remained quite strong,
despite the cautions expressed about it by the Order's General. One
sign of that influence, perhaps indirect, can be seen in the later work
of Bernard Lonergan. Lonergan's cognitional theory and the theological method which he built upon it were justified by the distinction
between ratio and intellectus which Lonergan saw in Saint Thomas's
philosophy of knowledge. Rousselot had begun the study of that distinction and decades later-in the interval between the appearance of
Lonergan's "Verbum" articles and his history-making InsightPegaire was to carry it further in his historical study " lntellectus "
et "ratio" selon saint Thomas d' Aquin.
In the early years of this century, Rousselot and his Belgian confrere
Joseph Marechal attached themselves to the movement in the Society
of Jesus away from Suarezianism, a trend which earlier Jesuit Thomists
like Giovanni Cornaldi and Louis Billot had started. But unlike these
earlier Jesuit Thomists and in opposition to the brilliant team of Dominicans who were renewing French Thomism at Le Saulchoir and creating the form of Thomism which Maritain would make his own, Rousselot and Marechal took a welcoming attitude toward German idealism.
They believed that, if it were cleansed of its immanentist prejudices,
idealism could be brought into harmony with the philosophy of Saint
Thomas. Once that was done, Rousselot was convinced, contributions
from idealism could be incorporated into modern Thomism to form
a contemporary philosophy more faithful to the spirit of Saint Thomas.
Rousselot's first attempt to explore that possibility was made in The
Intellectualism of Saint Thomas, his study of the philosophy of knowledge contained implicitly in Thomas's theology. Reacting against
nineteenth century rationalism, Rousselot called attention to the important role played by intellectus or immediate, non-conceptual knowledge in Saint Thomas's epistemology. In The Intellectualism and in
his philosophical articles a number of the distinctive features of Rousselot's Thomism can be found. Among the most important features

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were: the dynamic relation of the mind to God as the ground and guarantee of its ability to grasp truth in the judgment; the importance of
intellectus (which Lonergan would later call "insight") in Thomas's
epistemology; and the vital function performed by " sympathetic
knowledge," based on the connatural likeness of knower to known, in
the "apperceptive synthesis" of the judgment. As the reader of The
Eyes of Faith will find, all of these elements are essential to Rousselot's
theology of faith, and their fruitfulness is shown in Rousselot's original account of the reasonableness and freedom of the act of faith. Unlike Gilson, Maritain, or his confrere
Rousselot did his
philosophizing in the context of his speculative theology, and the problem of the act of faith was perhaps the greatest challenge which he had
to meet in his brief career.
Thomists will be grateful to Joseph Donceel, editor and translator
of A Marechal Reader, for his clear and readable version of The Eyes
of Faith. Avery Dulles is also to be thanked for his translation of
Rousselot's reply to the criticisms of Ligeard and Harent and for his
illuminating introduction to this section. Dulles's introduction and
John Michael McDermott's introduction to the Eyes of Faith place
Rousselot's theology of faith in its historical context. Among contemporary Thomists, knowledge of that background can no longer be presupposed, and without some acquaintance with it neither the originality
of Rousselot's work nor its significance in the evolution of NeoThomism can be properly appreciated.
Rousselot created his theology of faith at the height of the Modernist
crisis. As McDermott shows, Rousselot hoped to free Catholic theology
from the fideism and rationalism of the nineteenth century and to meet
the needs of the age without yielding too much, as the Modernists
seemed to do, to the pragmatist current in philosophy or to the tradition of Schleiermacher in theology. Apologetics, the reasonableness and
freedom of the act of faith, and the possibility of stable and abidingly
informative dogmatic statements were the issues which Catholic theologians had to face and, as Dulles shows in his introduction, two outstanding Thomists had set out to deal with them. One of them was
Ambroise Gardeil, the brilliant founder of the Dominican House of
Studies at Le Saulchoir, and the other was Pierre Rousselot. As Dulles
points out with admirable clarity, the theology on the basis of which
Ligeard objected to The Eyes of Faith was that of Ambroise Gardeil.
Gardeil and Rousselot were the real opponents in the controversy and
underneath their opposed theologies of faith were their diverse Thomistic epistemologies and metaphysics.
The issue between the two was clear enough. According to Gardeil,
the act of faith was both free and reasonable because of the series of

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judgments involved in the process which led up to it. Faith was reasonable because natural reason, presented with convincing evidence
that God had revealed it, could judge that revelation itself was credible. Nevertheless, the supernatural act of faith remained free because
between it and the natural judgment of credibility a third judgment
must intervene. This was the "judgment of credentity" in which the
mind, moved and enlightened by grace, affirmed the moral necessity
of believing. In the light of that judgment, the will could command
the intellect to make the free act of faith. Not so, Rousselot replied.
Only one judgment entered into the process of faith's commitment.
This was the supernatural act of faith itself into which the evidence of
credibility (required for its reasonableness) entered as an intrinsic
moment. How could that be? Because, Rousselot explained, the " light
of faith" was not a new "object seen"; it was a new "power of seeing," a new "eye," conferred upon the mind by elevating grace. Already connatural to Infinite Being through its natural dynamism, the
elevated mind was made connatural or " sympathetic " to the supernatural order and thus acquired the ability to grasp the intrinsic reasonableness of faith, which an unelevated mind lacked the power to
see. For Rousselot the act of faith was an " apperceptive synthesis "
made by the supernaturally elevated mind. It resulted from an act of
intellectus or " insight " in which, at one and the same instant, the mind
was able both to grasp the significance of a natural fact as a sign
which pointed to the truth of Revelation and to assent to the truth to
which the sign pointed. Sign, truth, and their interrelation manifested
themselves simultaneously in a " single flash of insight." Therefore,
the act of faith was not subsequent to a natural judgment of credibility,
as Gardeil thought. Depending, as it did, on an act of insight of which
the elevated mind alone was capable, the act of faith was reasonable
precisely because it was supernatural.
Which of the two was right? Thomists argued about that in 1910,
and, since the tradition of Rousselot and the tradition of Gardeil are
still alive, they will argue about it still. The English version of The
Eyes of Faith will make it possible for more of them to examine this
important item in the dossier for themselves. It would be desirable to
have as well an equally good translation of Rousselot's philosophical
articles, to say nothing of The Problem of Love in the Middle Ages.
And would it be too much to hope that some dedicated Thomist-perhaps a son or daughter of Saint Dominic-would do for Ambroise
Gardeil, that brilliant and unjustly neglected Thomist pioneer, what
Joseph Donceel did for his Jesuit mentor Joseph Marechal? A Gardeil
Reader, drawn from the apologetics, the theology of faith, the mystical
theology, and the epistemology of Rousselot's great Dominican con-

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149

temporary, might he an eyeopener to young Thomists who know so
little about his work. In the meantime, however, in this English version of The Eyes of Faith a primary source of first importance has
come our way. Catholic libraries should definitely have it on hand for
philosophers and theologians to consult.
GERALD A. McCooL, S.J.
Fordham University
Bronx, New York

The Phuosophy of Thomas Aquinas: Introductory Readings. Edited
by CHRISTOPHER MARTIN. New York: Routledge, Chapman &
Hall, 1988. Pp. 202. $57.50 (cloth); $18.95 (paper).
One has a difficult time finding a wholly satisfactory collection of
writings from Thomas Aquinas in a single volume. In different ways,
the well-known collections of Mary Clark, Robert Goodwin, Thomas
Gilby, Vernon Bourke, and Anton Pegis have their merits, hut they
have their defects too-one of which is that they all came out twenty
to forty years ago. Christopher Martin has recently produced a new
collection of readings, and his selection is much different. Add to this
that many of the texts in his work are rare or nonexistent in translation, and one begins to see why it is delightful to see this work appear.
Christopher Martin has gathered a number of philosophical texts
from Aquinas for those who have already cut their teeth in philosophy.
(Hence, the uninitiated to philosophy will find things here hard going.)
Texts were selected principally with an eye to interesting those students
who are most familiar with philosophy in the analytic tradition. They
are often unacquainted with theology and at a loss as to how to sort
out Thomas's philosophical claims from his theological claims. The
aim was to produce a volume which would help such students read
Thomas fruitfully and show them that Thomas has many genuine
philosophical insights. To this end, texts were chosen that presupposed
no, or a minimal, understanding of theology. Not every side of
Thomas's philosophical thought is reflected in this work, hut a number
of important sides of it are, and an idea of the breadth of it comes
through.
The format of this work is something like that of Ralph Mclnerny's
recent A First Glance at St. Thomas Aquinas. Each chapter begins with
an essay that is closely tied to a Thomistic text or two given at the end
of the chapter. In Martin's work, however, the emphasis lies more on
the itexts than on the expository essays. Apart from the introduction, the

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book is divided into five chapters: Aquinas on Logic; Aquinas on
Metaphysics; Aquinas on God; Aquinas on Truth, Knowledge and the
Mind; and Aquinas on Ethics. The chapters by design follow the
major divisions and order of Anthony Kenny's Aquinas: A Collection
of Critical Essays.
The essays which begin each chapter and introduce the texts that follow are solid pieces. They make many references to Thomas's depend·
ence on Aristotle and to parallels between Thomas's handling of a
problem and recent discussions of the same. They also give guidance
in reading the Thomistic texts and explain what is difficult in the doctrine found in the texts. Throughout these essays, the influence of Peter
Geach's writings is evident (especially God and the Soul and Three
Philosophers) . At times it is just an example or the choice of a term,
and at other times it is something more substantial.
Though Martin's essays are quite accurate and helpful, a reader can
find things to quibble with. Thomas's distinction, for example, between
id a quo nomen imponitur ad significandum and id ad quod nomen
imponitur ad significandum does not seem, as Martin suggests, to be
Frege's distinction between sense and reference or Kripke's distinction
between the reference of a name and the fixing of a reference. Rather,
Thomas seems to be distinguishing more the etymology of a name from
its meaning. Again, it will not do to say that the principle of individuation for individuals of the same kind is " distinct lumps of matter " and
that the lumpiness of matter in turn is responsible for the individuation of forms. The " lumpiness " of matter is itself a formal feature.
Thomas's teaching on individuation takes this into account and ends
up being a good deal more complicated than Martin indicates.
In this volume, there are twelve readings from Thomas in all, and
each is a self-contained whole. If a reading is from one of the commentaries on Aristotle, an entire lectio is given; if from a disputed
question, then a full artcile. One thereby comes closer to seeing the
man at full stretch. For the chapter on logic, there are five lectiones
from the Commentary on the Peri hermeneias (lect. 4-5 and 13-15).
They amount to about a third of the whole commentary. For the
chapter on metaphysics, there are four lectiones from the Commentary
on the Metaphysics (V, lect. 9-10 and VII, lect. 1-2). The passage for
the chapter on God is chapter 13 of Book One of the Summa contra
gentiles. The passages for the chapter on the philosophy of mind come
from the disputed questions De veritate (q.l, a.1-3 and q.10, a.4-6)
and De anima (a.14). Finally, question 6 from De malo and two lectiones from the Commentary on the Ethics (I, lect. 9-10) are provided
for the chapter on ethics.
Martin's translations are very readable and reliable. Martin is a

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highly conscientious translator, and a sign of this are the Latin-English
and English-Latin glossaries that are appended at the end of the work.
The glossaries show how he has tried to remain consistent in his choice
of terms and how he decided to render difficult terms like ratio and
esse, which cause every translator of Aquinas problems. One could
complain, however, that these nine pages of glossary are not quite complete enough. A few missing entries, for example, are ' individual '
(which is used to translate concretum, suppositum, individuatum, and
particufuris), ' subiectum ' (translated " substance " and " subject "),
and' modus'.
The briefest of bibliographical notes and an index complete the
work. Here one might want to register a more serious complaint. The
bibliographical note is much too brief to he especially helpful. The
beginner could use some more suggestions about what to read as a
follow-up to Martin's hook.
All in all, this is a collection of readings from Thomas Aquinas one
would like to see stay in print for a long time to come. Many who
teach the thought of Aquinas in the round will want to make use of
this work. And, by reading this work, philosophy students to whom
Aquinas is an unknown will make a good beginning in becoming di·
rectly familiar with one of the greatest of minds.
ROBERT

D. ANDERSON

Saint Anselm College
Manchester, New Hampshire

Being and Order: The Metaphysics of Thomas Aquinas in Historical
Perspective. By ANDREW N. WOZNICKI. Catholic Thought from
Lublin. New York: Peter Lang, 1990. Pp. 309
xiv.

+

This first volume bodes well for the new series Catholic Thought
from Lublin, because the author of the hook is also the general editor
of the series. Father Woznicki has here produced a welcome addition
to those worthwhile hooks exploring the philosophical vision of St.
Thomas in depth and comparing and contrasting that vision with other
philosophical outlooks. Such studies are important not just for Thomists
hut for all who are interested in the thought of the Angelic Doctor.
On the first page of his Foreword, Woznicki announces that being
and order are so inextricably interrelated that it is absolutely impos·
sihle to understand one without the other. With thorough scholarship
and impressive depth, Woznicki hacks up his claim. The Foreword
also includes Etienne Gilson's marvelous statement: "Metaphysics al-

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ways buries its undertakers." Not only does Woznicki probe profoundly into St. Thomas's metaphysics but he shows with an enviable clarity
what is metaphysically lacking in philosophies as diverse as those of
Duns Scotus, William of Ockham, Descartes, Kant, and Whitehead.
Woznicki's goal in this well documented study is to discover the
order present in the very structure of being as being. In examining
the concept of being itself, he claims that being can reveal itself in its
inner disposition of both essential and existential characteristics only as
something in which essence and existence are related to each other
reciprocally and mutually. The Lublin Thomist distinguishes the predicamental and the transcendental modes of predication. While in the
predicamental mode of predication a predicate is added to a being as
its determining principle, in the transcendental mode of predication
nothing can be added to a being as an extraneous nature, in the way
that an accident is added to a substance or that a difference is added
to a genus. (These additions cannot take place because every nature
is essentially being.) The distinction between the two modes of predication permit the formulation of two kinds of concepts, namely, the
predicamental and the transcendental. The former describe various
grades of being which match different modes of being and so reveal
.the various genera of being; the latter in depicting being in its universality express more clearly what is contained in the nature of being
as such. A predicamental order of being is established through the
predicamental concepts' description of being by its essential characteristics; a transcendental order of being is established through the
transcendental concepts' description of being as expressed by the existential characteristics of esse. While in the predicamental order the
emphasis on the essential aspects reveals being as it is expressed in
terms of the ten categories, the stress in the transcendental order on
the existential aspect of being illuminates being as surpassing all individual aspects of things. In analyzing the transcendental order of
being, Woznicki points out that the ratio of the transcendental order
of being consists in the very notion of being itself. This is an extremely important point. Since being as conceived by the human mind
speaks about essence with relation to existence, and since esse signifies the existential act, it can be said that the ratio of transcendental
order of being can be thought of in its ordo ad esse. Woznicki succinctly states
In a word, the ratio of the transcendental characteristics of being is described in its relation to esse, since they follow upon existential act
whether expressing the very nature of being per essentiam or per participationem. The ratio of the transcendental order of being so considered
can be attained by our intellect in a judgment on the basis of which
being is conceived in its general modes c>f existing as unum, verum and
bonum. (pp. 234-235)

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Woznicki argues convincingly that order is an attribute of being and
can be found in the very structure of esse. The ultimate foundation of
the order of being is essence and existence. The unity and plurality
of beings, even the diversity and community of beings, are ultimately
due to the meaning and structure of esse. The various relations of
potency to act according to a mutual and reciprocal proportion of ac·
tuality and potentiality are due to the various ways esse is, and the
ways that esse is account for order.
As I was reading Father Woznicki's brilliant analysis of order in
the thought of Saint Thomas, I thought of Sartre's rejection of the
intelligibility of being. The atheistic existentialist refused to accept
that being makes ultimate sense. For him there is no metaphysical
marriage between being and the human mind; though the mind might
think in an ordered fashion, there is unfortunately no intelligible order
to reality. What Sartre's rejection of the intelligibility of being underlines for me is that while the principle of contradiction is self-evident
and undeniable, the principle of sufficient reason is not. An individual
in choosing to reject the principle of sufficient reason opts for absurdity. For such an individual, like Sartre, all reflection on order is
literally pointless because all reflection on order is tied either to acceptance of the principle of sufficient reason or to what might he called
a philosophical act of faith in the principle of sufficient reason. Woznicki's detailed and dazzling exploration of order calls attention not
only to the mystery of being but also to the magnificent marriage between being and the human mind that makes metaphysics meaningful.
For me, Woznicki's insights into Thomas's metaphysics underline the
poverty of Sartre's view and indeed all versions of the absurdist view.
Noting that God has established all created beings according to a
rational plan, Woznicki points out that this rational plan can be conceived of as an integrated whole or as an arranged plurality. Conceiving the rational plan as an integrated whole depicts the harmonious
constitution of each individual being; conceiving the rational plan as
an arranged plurality depicts reality as a hierarchical descent from the
highest to the lowest beings. In a summary statement that could serve
as a model of clarity and succinctness, Woznicki writes:
In the universe then, there is a plurality of things which are instituted
on different levels of being. At the top of all beings is God, and at the
bottom is prime matter. Between God and prime matter there are several
degrees of perfection which can he reduced to either intellectual or
material beings. In the order of the intellectual beings there is a composition of essence and existence, of substance and accidents, and of
act and potency. In the order of material beings there is, moreover,
a composition of prime matter and substantial form. In a word, the
order of the universe is a unity of diversity, instituted by God in a
harmony and hierarchy of all created beings. (p. 35)

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Woznicki highlights his own interpretation of St. Thomas's view of
being and order by comparing and contrasting it with the views of
other thinkers, such as Duns Scotus and Ockham. Woznicki points
out that Duns Scotus's insistance on the primacy of essence over exist·
ence led to a metaphysics quite different from that of Saint Thomas,
in which existence had priority over essence, Woznicki emphasizes
that Ockham's denial of the validity of analogy has bequeathed to us
an instrumentalistic understanding of being as being; the real unity
of being is replaced by a unity that is the product of our minds. What
actually happens in Ockham is that metaphysics is subordinated to the
demands of logic. Ockham's metaphysics also resembles the Heraclitean
philosophy of becoming, and Woznicki points to Nietzsche as evidence
that such a philosophy of becoming necessarily leads to nihilism. In
his criticism of Ockham as well as in his criticism of Descartes, Kant,
and Whitehead, Woznicki not only makes Thomas seem more attrac·
tive but also, at least implicitly, reveals the deleterious effect that influential false philosophies can have on the human adventure. Woznicki's explanation of Thomas's doctrine of esse does involve abstract
thinking, but the result, the rooting of order in esse, is anything but
irrelevant. Metaphysics does bury its undertakers; bad metaphysics
creates victims.
Father Woznicki has produced a fine work as the author of this
first volume in the series Catholic Thought from Lublin. I hope that
in his role as editor he will be able to present in the near future other
volumes as good as Being and Order.
ROBERT

E. LAUDER

Saint John's University
Jamaica, New York

An Introduction to Metaphysics of Knowledge. By YVES R. SIMON.
Translated by Vukan Kuic and Richard J. Thompson. New York:
Fordham University Press, 1990. Pp. xii
180.

+

Almost sixty years have passed between the first appearance of Jn.
troduction a l'ontologie du connaitre and its English translation. But
even though we have had to wait so long, we now have this treasure
in hand. An Introduction to Metaphysics of Knowledge leaves no doubt
that here is a thinker of the first water. Simon's writings never fail
to exemplify the medieval fusion of the concepts " teacher " and
" master " in the Latin " magister." As I observed when reviewing one
of his posthumously published books, Work, Society, and Culture,

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155

Simon had the knack for using concrete words and vivid imagery
drawn from everyday life to carry the reader to the very heart of pro·
found thoughts. That testifies to more than just a good prose style;
the freedom from reliance on jargon and formalized academic language
shows that Simon was neither a " scholastic" (in the pejorative sense
of the word) nor a pedant or mere academician. His ready access to
everyday language is simply one more indication that he was an independent philosophical thinker for whom reflective personal experience,
not the text, was the ultimate court of appeal for arriving at the truth.
A case in point is the book's structure. Flipping through its pages,
one notices the frequent extended discussions in the footnotes and the
abundant citation of classical texts, often leaving room for no more
than three or four lines of Simon's own prose on a given page. This
may well remind the reader of the musty pedantry of so many doctoral dissertations. But although Simon frequently cites the texts of
Aristotle, St. Thomas, Cajetan, and John of St. Thomas, the arguments
he advances clearly do not depend on any appeal to the authority of
these authors. Although a Thomist, he assumes complete responsibility
for his critique of knowledge; he is a thinker whose arguments stand
on their own merit. All the references to the aforementioned authorities are truly footnotes; they are never an essential part of Simon's
own text. (This bears mention for the benefit of the august members
of "The Guardianship of the Undefiled Text of St. Thomas Aquinas,"
who can be counted upon to insist that commentators, such as John of
St. Thomas, are unreliable interpreters of the master's texts.) The book
sparkles as a splendid example of a philosopher who understands the
philosophia perennis. He successfully blends the tradition of Aristotelian-Thomistic realism with his own philosophical integrity.
As the title indicates, Simon's aim in the book is to inquire into the
metaphysical foundation of knowledge. But to understand what Simon
is about, the reader must keep in mind the essentials of Simon's critical realism: we know, what we know are things, and we know that we
know. It is a realism because it starts with the certitudes delivered to
us by our experiential knowledge, a knowledge that is prephilosophical.
Simon asserts more than once that an analysis of knowledge will not
be constructive unless it presupposes that our knowledge of things is a
fact: " the fact of cognition represents its [epistemology's] experimental
starting point" (6). Regarding our knowledge of the sensible world,
he writes: " The most subtle psychology of the senses relying on the
most elaborate data is still not capable of demonstrating the objective
value of sensible knowledge-unless this value has previously been
established by a priori reasoning. Furthermore, if one were to put
aside all questions concerning the value of knowledge until we have

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completed a full-fledged theory of knowledge, would we know what we
are talking about when we use words such as ' sense ' and ' intelligence ' ? " (38) .
Thus, in answer to his opening question, " What is knowledge ? ,"
Simon appeals to our personal experience to validate the claim that
knowing is a way of being, a becoming the other as other. Since the
knower cannot become the known in the latter's physical nature, the
rationally defensible alternative is that the known enjoys intentional
being within the knower. That knowing is a way of being within the
knower cannot be demonstrated because it is logically prior to all
demonstration and is known by intuition. Because this " intuitive
W esenschau " is the very starting point for a valid metaphysics of
knowledge, Simon makes it clear at the outset that he will not waste
time jousting with critics of it; instead his primary concern will be to
produce a formula for arriving at that intuition (1-10).
The intentional being of knowledge is the basis of the entire book.
Clearly, we do not know things by some intermediary; we know that
we know things because the object of our knowledge is directly accessible to us. Since we do not become the physical tree when we know it,
the intentional being of the tree known must be our object of knowledge. The idea sheds light on this.
The fact of cognition tells us that to be and to know are quite different from each other. This difference becomes all the clearer the
moment we grasp the kind of existence that the thing known enjoys
in the soul. The difference between to be and to know is the difference
between physical and intentional existence. This, in turn, bespeaks the
difference between thing and idea, a difference in the order of nature
and not merely in the mind. The possibility of the thing having an intentional existence in the mind, despite the fact that it has its own
existence in nature, springs from the idea. It allows the mind to be
the object of knowledge. Insofar as it is real, the idea possesses its own
being which is united to the soul as an accident related to a substance.
In its own natural being, the idea is distinct from the thing it expresses.
But its intentional existence allows the idea to fulfill its primary function, which is to become the object of knowledge. "In fact, the idea
is the object itself existing intentionally" (16-17).
Two particularly illuminating passages in the book are the discussion of sensation and the defense of the immateriality of the concept
against idealism.
To reduce sensation to a purely physical action would be to deprive
it of its realistic moorings as well as to call into question its obj ectivity ( 95) . If sensation were just the physical impression on the sense
faculty, there would be no guarantee of objectivity. (Presumably,

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157

Simon is thinking here of situations like the inability of an impression
made on wax to be identical to the impressed design.)
But how transport the identical form in the sensible object to the
sense faculty? Efficient causality must he involved: the sensible ohj ect must act on the senses. Pure passivity in the sense faculty can
mean only a physical or material union. Passive reception of a sensible form would amount to no more than a material perception, which
could never count as an act of knowledge. Sensation, like cognition, is
a form of knowing and this involves an intentional action. But an
intentional action cannot occur without a reaction. The only way
around this obstacle is to distinguish two aspects of an idea, its physical
or subjective aspect and its intentional or objective aspect (107 ff.).
The causality exerted by the sensible object on the sense faculty cannot be reduced to ordinary causality. It is more than a physical action; it is also an intentional action because, by its very nature, it is
ordered to an intentional union: it results in sensory cognition. The
sensible object acts on the sense faculty to produce an image containing
the object itself in a dormant state; its object-ness is awakened when
the soul bestows its own vital activity on it (108-109).
Despite the book's focus on the intentional and thus immaterial being of the object of knowledge, Simon's understanding of realism's
dictum, "We know, and what we know are things," saves him from a
tumble into the idealist pit: " What we must insist upon . . . is that
the intentional transitive action, which is all that goes on in the preparatory phase of sensation, and in which the sense faculty is totally
passive, does not cease when the faculty, stirred into initial act, joins
with the intentionally present object in the full act of cognition"
(112). Otherwise, if the sensible object stops its determining exertions
on the sense faculty, an essential requirement for our knowledge of
extramental reality-the bridge between thought and thing-would
disappear. In the intellect's graps of the universal, the form once impressed on the soul, remains forever. But in sensation the singular
sensible thing, residing as it does outside the soul, can he united with
it only by exerting efficient causality on it. For this reason, thought is
a more genuinely immanent activity than sensation (112).
This affirmation of the pure immanence of thought suggests a further challenge to realism, this time from the quarter of idealism. This
challenge is the topic of the book's last section. Apparently paraphrasing Aristotle's observation that " the intellect in act is the intelligible in
act," Simon acknowledges that "The thing thought is, in a certain
sense, the work of thought " ( 132) . Thought is immaterial, as intellect
is immaterial; the intellect can have as an object only what is like itself, only what is immaterial. Does this mean that " ... the intellect is

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a kind of divine ego open only unto itself? " (132). How can trans·
cendental idealism be avoided? Simon credits idealism because it sees
the problems generated by admitting the spiritual nature of the object
of thought, but he rebukes it for failing to proceed further with its inquiry.
It is the grasp of the object of thought as an intentional form that
furnishes the correct interpretation. Because existent things lack immateriality, they cannot be embraced in an act of knowledge. For the
latter to take place, the thing must be represented to the knower by
means of an idea, which expresses the thing in an immaterial state
without changing its essence. Against the idealists, Simon thus concludes: "Thought does not produce the content of thought, what it
produces is the state (the existential modality) in which what is
thought is delivered to it " ( 132-33) . The error of the idealists is to
have confused thought with the production of concepts: " Thought is
being, not production; it is pure quality not a movement" (134). To
suppose that thought is nothing more than the production of a concept is to treat it as a transitive rather than immanent activity. The
need for a transitive activity to deliver the datum to be known to the
knower is indisputable. But the expression of what is thought cannot
be an action really distinct from thought itself. The immateriality of
the object of thought in act can occur only with the exercise of thought;
thought nevertheless can be in act only with an object raised to that
immaterial state. The absurdity of an act of thinking that is not associated with the act of expressing what is thought evinces itself in the
realization that this implies the possibility of thought without an object of thought. Thought and the expression of what is thought comprise a single act, and this act, although both immanent and productive [transitive], is primarily immanent, for the goal of the concept's
production is thought. In other words, immanence and productivity
are distinct only in the sense that they are two modalities of that single
act ( 134-35) .
The book offers a nice demonstration of Simon's ability to critique
other philosophical positions. His response to skepticism is crisp and
trenchant. The skeptic claims that it is impossible to tell if there is a
thing residing behind the phenomenon, which is the object of knowledge; since all we ever know are phenomena, they encircle us as a
blind, and we cannot compare the object of knowledge with the putative thing. Simon points out that the skeptic fails to carry his analysis
of the phenomenal object far enough. Had he done so, he would have
seen that two objects of thought that are necessarily identical-as in
"Socrates is a man "-imply the presence of a transobjective thing.
"Socrates" and "man," although necessarily identical in the judg-

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159

ment, cannot he identical within the realm of phenomena, otherwise
the two objects of thought would be one, which they clearly are not.
The only other possibility is the transohj ectivity of the thing: the ohj ect (of knowledge) and the thing are one (146-48).
This example of the critical component of Simon's realism must be
understood as no more than a dialectical gambit. It shows, by rational
analysis, skepticism's fallacious separation of the object (of knowledge)
and the thing (known). But for the realist, critique presupposes reality; the real must enjoy primacy over the critical. Simon would never
have supposed that the inference from the object of knowledge (phenomenon) to the transobjective thing justifies, in turn, the inference that
extramental things exist. It is impossible to proceed from thought to
thing; the proper direction is from thing to thought. And the thing is
known, directly and certainly, by a prephilosophical intuition embedded
in our experiential knowledge.
The genre in which Simon writes is notable for its scant attention
to empiricist epistemology, hut that is quite understandable. The period
in which An Introduction to Metaphysics of Knowledge was written
has much to do with it. The early decades of this century witnessed an
intense controversy among Thomistic philosophers in France over the
use of critique in epistemology. Its proponents, Noel and the Louvain
School of epistemology, not to mention Marechal, argued that the
Kantian critique had undermined the credibility of the objective
knowledge of things and that henceforth epistemological realism must
defend itself by taking the knowing subject and the object of knowledge as its starting point. Its opponents, notably Gilson, argued that
the concept of critique was incompatible with realism and that to endorse it was to fall into the trap of idealism.
What explains Simon's neglect of empiricist epistemology more than
anything else, however, is the clear distinction between cognitive and
noncognitive beings that he argues for in the opening pages of the
hook. He bases his claims for the uniquely privileged nature of cognitive beings on an appeal to our own experiential knowledge of what
it means to know. Given this orientation, it is quite understandable
that Simon would not find much merit in an inquiry into the materialized concept of mind defended by empiricism.
All in all, this is a must-have hook for any student of epistemology
and the foundations of knowledge. Vukan Kuic and Richard J. Thompson deserve our thanks for their painstaking e:fforts in bringing this
philosophical treasure to the English-reading public.
RAYMOND DENNEHY

Universityof San Francisco
San Francisco,Califomia

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Theology and the Dialectics of History. By ROBERT M.
Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1990. Pp. xvi
Can. $95.00 (hardcover) ; Can. $45.00 (paper).

DORAN.

+ 732.

This work aims to explain, extend, complement, and employ the
philosophical and theological writings of Bernard Lonergan. The University of Toronto Press has recently begun publishing Lonergan's
Collected Works, a series projected to 22 volumes; Doran's book is the
first in a related series of monographs planned by the same publisher.
The book consists of an introduction plus 21 chapters, with the chapters
grouped into five main sections: (1) Basic Terms and Relations; (2)
Personal Values and the Dialectic of the Subject; (3) Social Values
and the Dialectic of Community; (4) Cultural Values and the Dialectic
of Culture; and (5) Hermeneutics and the Ontology of Meaning.
Doran's fundamental argument is that careful phenomenological
analysis brings to light a series of utterly basic and pre-voluntary structural tensions in the concrete life processes of human individuals in
community. These tensions may be characterized generically as the
resultants of two contrasting human tendencies, the tendency toward
limitation and the tendency toward transcendence. At the level of the
individual person as such, at the level of the culture, and at the level
of the society, these structural tensions constitute occasions of lifeshaping decision for human agents, occasions of unavoidable choice
among what in fact are alternative basic personal, cultural, and social
values. For at each level there is the " dialectical option" of living in
such a way as to do justice to both poles of the tension, or of reinforcing only the tendency toward limitation, or of reinforcing only the
tendency toward transcendence.
Drawing upon Lonergan's studies of personal conversion in the intellectual, moral, and religious realms, and complementing them with
his own extensive study of personal conversion in the psychic realm,
Doran goes on to argue that the constructive option at every level is
that of reinforcing both the tendency toward limitation and the tendency toward transcendence. To favor either tendency alone is ultimately at odds with individual, cultural, and/or social well-being.
This conclusion, in turn, provides the basis from which Doran proceeds in elaborating anticipatory or " heuristic " categories for a normative theory of history-general categories for discriminating between progress and decline in the reciprocal relations among individual
lives, cultural ideals, and social structures. Because at its most fundamental level it expressly addresses the issue of religious conversion,
this heuristic theory of history is a heuristic theology of history. More-

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over, because academic inquiry is one of the human activities it anticipates, this heuristic theology of history stands as the potential framework of fully integrated interdisciplinary studies, a foundational framework clearly distinguishing and relating theological studies, human scientific and scholarly studies, and the natural sciences.
I see four main reasons why this hook is noteworthy. First, the
significance of thoroughly and accurately explaining someone else's
work is proportionate to the significance of that other person's work in
the first place. But Lonergan's studies of human knowing, deciding,
and loving, of bias and conversion, and of social progress, decline, and
healing are coming to be widely recognized as the work of a seminal
thinker. Doran's account of this work is lucid, detailed, and nuanced.
Second, Doran extends Lonergan's work itself, making explicit certain important points that Lonergan merely implies and completing certain fundamental analyses that Lonergan does not bring fully to term.
Especially significant in this regard are Doran's treatments of such
themes as " the situation" as a theological source; the notion of dialectic; the apprehension of value; the fivefold scale of values; understanding religious doctrines in terms of understanding historical process; and the notion of cosmopolis.
Third, the hook goes beyond Lonergan's own studies in many important respects, complementing Lonergan's findings with brilliant,
profound, and far-reaching conclusions by Doran himself. Among the
most notable of these original conclusions are those regarding the relationship of feelings, symbols, and values (a topic on which Doran's
previous writings have already earned him an extensive following) ;
psychic conversion; a:ffectivity, meaning, and praxis; the dialectic of
culture; and the Church as servant of God in the world.
Fourth, Doran does not elaborate the stances of Lonergan and himself at a level of utter generality and in isolation from the work of
others. On the contrary, a further important and original feature of
his hook is the way that it elucidates those stances by relating them to
certain particular issues and in dialogue with the work of certain other
thinkers. In the most extensive of these instructive clarifications by
contrast, Doran engages Jung on depth psychology; Marx on social,
economic, and political theory; and Segundo on liberation theology.
In its style, as in its other features, this book is easily the best of
Doran's writings to date. It is measured and deliberate in tone, smooth
and sometimes even elegant in phrasing; and it exhibits the mastery
and confidence that are the fruit of Doran's many years of reading,
thinking, and writing about the matters he treats here. I recommend
it warmly.
MICHAEL VERTIN

Saint Michael's College
University of Toronto

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L'un et l'autre sacerdoce: Essai sur la structure sacramentelle de
l'Eglise. By DANIEL BOURGEOIS.
Desclee, 1991. Pp. 243.
89F (Paper).
This essay in sacramental theology forms part of the prestigious
Desclee collection Essai, which includes works by such celebrated
authors as Jean Danielou and Hans Urs von Balthasar. The present
author belongs to a recently-formed monastic community, the Fra·
ternite des Moines apostoliques, which claims among its principal
ministerial priorities the proper celebration of the Church's foll liturgy.
The Fraternity staffs the parish church of Saint Jean de Malte, which
enjoys a well-earned reputation in the French
region as a
center of liturgical and ecclesial renewal.
The present book actually contains two essays. The first essai comprises the book's principal divisions where the author presents his main
proposal. Developed during a series of conferences that the author
delivered to a group of French bishops, these seven chapters unfold
Bourgeois's fundamental thesis concerning the sacramentality of the
Church. Unlike a great deal of contemporary ecclesiology, which tends
to focus on structural analyses of the institutional Church, the author
retrieves a significant theme of the Second Vatican Council's Lumen
gentium on the sacramental nature of the Church. In particular, his
thesis holds that the sacramentality of the ministerial priesthood forms
a living center of the Church's visible presence in the world. While
the transcendence of Christ's saving action guarantees the validity of
the Church's commission to sanctify, to teach, and to govern, this three·
fold mission operates efficaciously only to the extent that the whole
Church, priests and Christian faithful together, sacramentally form a
catholic Body throughout the world. At the same time, the author
strongly insists that one cannot reduce the sacramental dimension of
the Church to a number of £unctions which either priests or the Christian faithful discharge. Instead, Bourgeois envisions a complementarity
of charisms which, by reason of their common derivation from divine
grace, manifest an unambiguous manifestation of the true Church of
Christ, in which excessive clericalism finds no quarter.
But there is another essay in this book, and it is found in the
"Notes" attached to each of the seven chapters and to the appendix
significantly entitled, " On a certain ambiguity in post-conciliar
ecclesiology." These eight sections of "notes," it is true, contain the
ordinary references and bibliographical information which serve to
document and support the author's main argument, but there is much
more to be found in these 46 pages of fine print text. Here the author

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sets forth in a trenchant style his incisive analysis of a wide range of
theological issues, from the influence of Heidegger on modern university-centered theology to certain interventions made by a Swiss bishop during the synodal debates over the Apostolic Exhortation Christifideles laici. In reading these notes, one is reminded a hit of the
genius of Nietzsche, for instance, in Beyond Good and Evil, who brilliantly exposes the core of critical questions in epigrammatic style and
still leaves the reader with something to think about. In fact, the substantial notes are so well constructed that they can he read with profit,
even independently of the main text. The author is to he congratulated
for sharing his theological culture with us and for contributing such a
fine essay on this important contemporary question, the distinctive
character of the ministerial priesthood.
ROMANUS CESSARIO,

Dominican House of Studies
Washington, D.C.

O.P.